Category Archives: Lesbian Literary

wild woman sisterhood


Wild Woman Sisterhood – it’s never too late to join an organization whose mission is “to help you embody your authentic nature and live a truly fulfilling life.” Getting closer to my 78th. birthday in April, my thoughts turn to the women I once was – WWS suggests they deserve a little more kindness than I typically have for them.

Make peace with all the women you once were. Wait a second – you mean, all those women? The young woman in her early twenties whose nightly pilgrimage through the halls of her college dormitory ended in frustration when the soft knock on her beloved’s door woke a surly roommate instead of the woman of her dreams, a roommate who recognized she was, indeed, lost at two o’clock in the morning but on a much different level from her proffered confusion about room numbers.

Or are you asking me to make peace with the young woman in her late twenties who had crisscrossed the country 3,000 miles one way several times, eventually knocking on a door in a seminary dormitory that finally welcomed her with open arms only to discover the excitement of infidelity + way too much alcohol consumption = a detour in her journey that had no GPS in the 1960s. Make peace with that young woman on a quest to find authenticity before she understood the question – much less had a clue to an answer for herself? Sorry – no flowers for either of those young women in their twenties in the 60s.

As for the women in her thirties, forgiveness is at least a possibility because they began to openly acknowledge their own truths that belonged to each other; they were no longer two women on a journey plagued by internal battles but one survivor forged by the burning of incense and cooled by the sweetest honey. This woman understood that wandering in the wilderness had always been about her search for authenticity.

Forty years later the women in my twenties, thirties and decades after ask me to honor, forgive, listen, bless and let them be because they are the bones of the temple I sit in now, the rivers of wisdom leading me toward the sea. If it’s not too late, I’d like to lay flowers at their feet and join a sisterhood of wild women committed to living a truly fulfilling life at any age.

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Slava Ukraini. For the women and children of Ukraine who began their third year of resistance last month against enemies determined to wipe democracy from the face of the earth. I’d also like to lay flowers at their feet.

In Memoriam: Dianne Barrett


RECORD THE PAST, INSPIRE THE FUTURE

Two lesbians who believed in the power of oral history through the preservation of our stories, Dianne Barrett and her wife Marge Elfering, had a vision for a project which became the B-E Collection. In June, 2022 I participated in the first of three interviews with her for that project. I learned yesterday of Dianne’s passing on December 17, 2023 and wanted to celebrate her life well lived with a piece I originally published in the summer of 2022 following that first interview.

I recently had the privilege of being interviewed by Dianne Barrett who is a co-founder of the B-E Collection. As a personal historian who identifies as lesbian I am, of course, drawn to projects that celebrate oral histories of lesbians and our lives. This is the Mission Statement of the B-E Collection:

My spouse, Margaret Elfering, and myself, in conjunction with archives such as the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives and the Gerth Archives and Special Collection at California State University Dominguez Hills, will contribute an ongoing series of interviews of lesbians and their careers.  The collection will be known as the B-E Collection: Lesbians and Their Careers.

The “B-E” of the collection is a shorthand for our last names (Barrett – Elfering).  However, there is a second meaning to our collection’s name:   the verb “be” is also defined as “to exist” or “to occur or take place”.  Our collection is a means of bearing witness to the stories of lesbians of different generations, from different walks of life.

The mission of this collection is to dignify the accomplishments, pride, and effort lesbians put forth in their careers on their journey in life.  We make oral histories to document our existence then and now.  Many of us had the “don’t talk – say nothing – you are wrong” experience.  Now we are talking.

We would appreciate a referral of lesbians who might be interested in participating in our project.  We would be more than delighted to speak with anyone who you think would be interested in participating in the B-E Collection.

Your support is always a gift.

https://www.b-ecollection.org

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Dianne Barrett (December 13, 1941 – December 17, 2023)

Rest in peace, Dianne, but we will remain restless as a result of your inspiration.

Onward.

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the truth tellers


At a press conference following her loss in the finals at Wimbledon in 2019, Serena Williams was questioned about why she lost. Although she tried to say her opponent played a brilliant match, the members of the press wouldn’t let it go. They asked her if she thought her lack of match play during the year had hurt her, whether her role as a mother took too much time away from her tennis, and finally someone said they wondered if she spent too much time supporting equal rights or other political issues. Serena’s quick response to that question was “The day I stop supporting equality is the day I die.”

I can identify with her answer because I believe my actions to support equality and social justice are two of the dominant forces of my life, but alas, I lack the tennis skills that give Serena Williams a universally recognized platform. Writing has been my platform for supporting equal rights during the past seventeen years; it has been the curtain call for the third act of my life – my love affair with words: collecting, rearranging, caressing them to make sense of an ever-changing world. Flannery O’Connor said I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I write. I get that because I can start with a feeling, but sometimes my thoughts trail along behind my words that come from a mysterious place yet to be revealed.

This poster given to me by my friend Linda many years ago hangs in my office today with words from author Anne Lamott to writers about why they write. “It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside of them, and they just want to help them get out.” The true words I release, however, are not necessarily everyone’s truth. I have learned over the years that truth is not an absolute for every person but rather a fluid concept capable of manipulating minds at odds with what I believe truth to be. For example, remember Kelly Anne Conway’s remarkable explanation of “alternative facts.” Those two words took America on a roller coast ride of a reality show called Believe It or Not DC Style for the past eight years, and unbelievably created a deep wedge that pit family members, friends, co-workers, even institutions against each other with no sign of relief in next year’s political environment.

Truth telling may be a lost art, truth tellers may bend with the winds, but fundamental values of equality and social justice must not be either lost or warped. As Serena said, the day I stop supporting equality is the day I die.

And I ain’t ready to go yet. Onward.

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For the children.

what have you done today to make you feel proud?


writer Dottie Ashley did groundbreaking reporting

in The State newspaper on December 10, 1989

Four years later co-founders Freddie Mullis, Dan Burch, Jeff Plachta and I returned home from the March on Washington in April of 1993 with a vision shared by many members of the queer community that South Carolina deserved a seat at the table with our brothers and sisters on the west and east coasts who were motivated to make a collective economic impact that would effect positive changes for justice, inclusion, and prosperity for everyone. We were ready to organize, and the Guild was formed to focus on these economic issues, to work alongside the already functioning Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement, to create a safe space to gather socially outside the bars – a revolutionary concept in South Carolina at the time.

First business meeting of the Guild in September, 1993

The first Palmetto State Business newsletter published by the Guild featured a photo of co-founders Dan Burch (l) and Jeff Plachta (r) with James Carville at the annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Columbia.

Guild members marching in Pride Parade in Columbia

Growing yellow with age in a folder in my office was this typed note from a 40 year old woman in Florence, South Carolina who wrote to us in the first year we began our meetings:

I became aware of your organization via your Internet website…I would very much like to join your organization and look forward to meeting other members from the various businesses and professions represented in your organization. Would you please send me information as well as an application for membership so that I may join the Business Guild? I think it is wonderful that the Gay/Lesbian community of S. C. has a Business Guild. Thank you…

British soul singer Heather Small’s lyrical question what have you done today to make you feel “Proud” is one we must answer for ourselves not only in the queer community but also as a country. I feel proud of the Guild that touched the lives of so many people during its nearly thirty year history. The torch was passed to a new generation of Americans according to President John Kennedy in the early 1960s, but our generation probably wasn’t what he hoped we would be. With our last breaths, however, we have the opportunity to make ourselves feel proud again.

Onward.

one lesbian’s journey for a simple matter of justice (part 1)


30 years later we remain people you know and like

thanks to Pretty for taking these pictures

(we were there with different partners and friends – she saved pictures)

When I left Columbia, South Carolina in April of 1993 to drive to Washington, D. C. with my partner and two gay friends to participate in a weekend known as the 1993 March for Gay, Lesbian and Bi Equal Rights, I had no idea my life would be changed forever by the events I took part in. Change was in the air – I could feel a seismic shift from my personal shame and fear to a collective sense of pride as I walked with the South Carolina delegation in the middle of this mass of humanity that championed a cause I had needed since I was a child growing up in the piney woods of rural southeast Texas, thinking I was the only one with feelings I dared not express. At forty seven years of age I felt a sense of belonging, a feeling that this wave of a million people marching for a simple matter of justice had finally brought me home.

the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt on display that weekend –

next to the Washington Monument

Onward.