Comedian Robin Tyler has broken barriers for LGBTQ+ people. (photo courtesy of Robin Tyler)

She was at Stonewall. She and her late wife were the first lesbian couple to be married in the city of Los Angeles. She was the first gay comic to come out on American television. She was part of the first national march on Washington, D.C. for lesbian and gay rights. Robin Tyler has spent her life being a first. A new Netflix documentary, “Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution” is giving Tyler, and other trailblazing comedians, their due, exploring the history of LGBTQ+ stand-up comedy.

Tyler, now 82, was born and raised in Winnipeg, Canada, but moved to New York City in 1962.

“I came to the United States to break into show business,” she said. “I heard that people were out of the closet in the United States.”

Tyler got a job at Club 82, a Manhattan nightclub that largely employed female impersonators. With her impression of Judy Garland, she took drag to a different level – as a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman – decades before Julie Andrews attempted the same feat in “Victor/Victoria.”

“I was a lesbian being a female impersonator. All you have to do is be female and then just add something. Just one extra gesture,” Tyler said.

One night, the club was raided by police and Tyler was thrown in jail. She put in her one phone call to the New York Post to report the incident. The next day the headline read, “Cops Grab 44 Men and a Real Girl in Slacks.”

Tyler would pair up as a comedy duo with her then-partner Pat Harrison. Harrison and Tyler eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue their comedic career, but not before witnessing one of the most consequential events in LGBTQ+ rights history.

“One day, Patti and I heard that there was rioting in Greenwich Village, and so we went down there. And it was Stonewall,” Tyler said. “It was the second night I was there, but I couldn’t participate because I was from Canada, and I wasn’t a citizen yet. Had I participated and been arrested [again], they would’ve shown me out.”

At that time, Tyler said, immigrants had to sign a paper that said they were not a drug addict, a prostitute, a communist or a homosexual.

“I wasn’t a homosexual. I was a lesbian,” Tyler said.

After witnessing the Stonewall Riots, she told Harrison that she would never “stand back and just watch” again.

“I think that after that night … that’s when Robin Tyler the activist was born,” she said.

She would become a U.S. citizen so that she could tour Vietnam as part of the USO. After returning, she became an anti-war activist, as well.

Her comedy with Harrison was radical, pushing for equal rights for all and holding oppressive societies accountable. Their college tours made them a popular act, and they were even picked up by ABC to create a variety show, though the project never came to fruition. While on tour, they were what Tyler calls the “first and only lesbian, feminist comedy team,” the network wanted something different.

“We weren’t each other’s girlfriend on television, but they tried to develop us into Sonny and Cher … and it didn’t work out because we were radical,” she explained.

They did appear together on the Krofft Comedy Hour, activist demonstrations and self-produced comedy albums. But conforming to network norms was not in Tyler’s career plans.

“Closets are vertical coffins,” she said. “So, by not being on television, I was able to go out and finally be open. It wasn’t that I was closeted, it’s that I didn’t know how to make it funny.”

Robin Tyler toured with the USO in the 1970s. (photo courtesy of Robin Tyler)

Harrison suggested that Tyler talk about telling her mom she was a lesbian, and that led to “Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Groom,” Tyler’s first solo comedy album. She also became the first out lesbian to appear on U.S. national television in 1978, during a comedy special hosted by Phyllis Diller on Showtime.

“Little did I know that someday I’d be a groom, that I’d actually get married,” Tyler reflected.

Tyler married Diane Olson on June 16, 2008. They were the first-same sex couple to be married in Los Angeles County, and one of the first two same-sex couples to marry in the state. They had been the first plaintiffs, represented by attorney Gloria Allred, in the high-profile lawsuit that led to the California Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality. Olson was an activist in her own right and the granddaughter of California Gov. Culbert Olson, who served from 1939-43.

“You just do it because the wall is there, and you have to punch the wall down,” Tyler said of fighting the system.

One direction Tyler does not believe in punching, however, is down. In discussing comedy, she said that comedians who make fun of marginalized communities for humor are “punching down,” and said comedic activism only works when you’re “punching up.”

“If people are laughing at it, they believe it’s true,” she said. “When you dehumanize people in humor, right, then it gives people permission to attack.”

At 82, Tyler is doing comedy shows and participating in a documentary about her own life.

“What’s good about a comic is that … you can go on as long as you can go on. That’s the age limit,” she said.

And the activism part of her life shows no signs of slowly down, saying that turning out the vote for the November election is more important than it ever has been.

“If Trump gets in, he’ll never leave,” she warned. She also pointed out that both women and LGBTQ+ people still have not been granted equal protection under the law.

“Thank God we pushed the marriage stuff, we would never get it now,” she added, alluding to the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Both Tyler’s wife and comedy partner Harrison died five years ago. Even after their relationship ended, Tyler said Harrison remained “the most important person throughout my life.”

Robin Tyler

“The truth of the matter was she was my soulmate and without a license, we were married,” she said. “It was devastating to lose both Patti and Diane. I don’t know how gay men survived AIDS losing their partners and their friends and not having legal relationships … We have all been through so much. Nothing is stronger than love.”

To hear more about the life and stories of Tyler and other ceiling-shattering comedians like her, watch the documentary “Outstanding,” premiering on Netflix June 18.