-: Okay, so I was saying, you know if you see
where our country is right now, where this
professional basketball player comes out
and you know, Chelsea Clinton sends him a tweet
and President Obama calls him or something like that
everybody's real proud of him.
You know and same-sex marriage is being legalized
in more and more places and there's just been a sea change.
And I, you know it was really instigated by,
originally, by some of us who came out in the late 60s,
the 70s and got real comfortable with ourselves
as gay men and lesbians and bisexual men.
That was before the term "transgender" was used.
But drag queens, the people that really instigated the
Stonewall riots, um...
(paper rustling)
and, just lived lives
as visible gay and lesbian, bisexual people.
I know I always did.
And I'm not, you know, it wasn't as overtly political
although we did participate in the Dyke March, you know,
as part of Pride.
Things like that.
But, really what's changed society's mind, you know,
and especially younger people, is you know
anybody that knows a gay or lesbian or bisexual
or transgender person, is much more likely to be in favor
of equal rights for us.
Because they know that we're not, we don't fit those
horrible stereotypes and we're not all pedophiles
and blah-blah-blah, all the things they
used to say.
"Communist pedophiles" or something.
I don't know.
You know, it's always gotten me that we
got lumped together with
Communists since the Communist party in Russia
was very anti-gay itself.
-: I know!
(laughter)
Cuba, you know they persecuted gays.
-: I know!
-: They're very straight-laced in many ways.
-: Yeah!
-: It was a bourgeois corruption or whatever.
-: Yeah, like we've gentrified
all these neighborhoods.
-: Mm-hmm
(laughter)
-: But, you know I just think you know you see a lot of the
legacy in the lives, like I said, of those of us who are
still politically active or who went on to have
careers or jobs that still had to do with social change
and LGBT issues or equal rights period
or social justice period and who lived pretty out lives and
certainly all of my family, you know, knew about me.
-: Did you have any, umm going backwards
for a minute, did you have any trouble coming out,
family issues, as some people do?
-: Well, by the time I came out to my mother
she had had a brain tumor and she had surgery,
it was a benign brain tumor and they were able to
remove it, but it left her with brain damage.
And knowing how liberal she was, always, I think
she probably would have been okay with it.
But she kind of lost her short-term memory
and all she had was her long-term memory
and all the things she had learned growing up.
And so she constantly told me she was praying for me to
change.
But I just would say, you know, well
we're just gonna have to agree to disagree about that.
One time I think she said I was going to hell
and I said well that's okay Jane will be there
'cause Jane's Jewish.
(laughter)
She's doubly damned.
Anyway, but my sisters and brothers no, I mean.
-: No problem.
-: No, they were pretty matter-of-fact about it.
Yeah, I mean, it's never really been an issue.
-: Let's go back to Alpha just a bit since I've got
-: Okay!
-: a chance to ask you.
So you were involved uh what particular Alpha
things where you involved with?
-: Well I was in one of the rap groups, dinner co-ops,
I lived in a communal household, Hummingbird Heights.
-: Rap group, uh, dinner.
-: Yeah, I was always in one of the dinner co-ops.
I played softball, I was in woman's song theater.
-: That was the second incarnation woman's song.
-: Yeah, the second incarnation of woman's song theater.
-: Yeah I saw one of the performances in
Piedmont Park that ya'll did.
-: Oh, really?
-: And I was coming over here to visit Dorothy, yeah.
-: I don't even remember that.
-: Maybe it wasn't Piedmont Park but it was somewhere
you did, you did a reading from Monique Boutique
-: Yeah, that's right
-: While wearing some kind of tunic.
-: I remember that.
(laughs)
Yeah.
-: And Elizabeth and Margaret did this skit that I had read
earlier in Reader's Digest or somewhere, or maybe not
Reader's Digest because they were so conservative,
this person it was supposed to be a Kinsey researcher
-: Oh, yeah.
-: was interviewing a Lesbian asking her what body parts
she like the best that kind of thing.
(laughing)
-: Yes.
-: So I saw that one.
And Hummingbird House, where was that?
-: Hummingbird Heights.
-: It was on Euclid Terrance, Sue Berres bought that house
and still lives there.
Yeah Euclid Terrace between, it just runs between
McLindon and Euclid right as you get up to Little
South Points to that V you, you know the point of the V.
-: Mm-hmm, yeah.
So, how many houses were there?
-: I think there were like five or six at the height of,
you know and each one would have five or six women.
-: Mm-hmm.
-: So, and there were like 30 or more women living in one
of these households, at the height of all of this, I think.
And you know eventually I got involved with somebody
and moved out to live with her,
-: Mm-hmm
-: Cynthia.
And I think other people did the same thing over the years.
Kind of settle down or tried to.
(laughs)
-: Or tried to mm-hmm.
-: And you know, Cynthia and I, the other thing you know
is the whole thing about non-monogamous relationships.
-: Okay.
-: You weren't supposed to have a monogamous relationship.
That was kind of imitating heterosexual relationships and
marriage and was based on men's ownership of women and
so Cynthia and I had an open relationship but it was,
and it was just chaotic because we were such a, we all
knew each other, you know, so I remember one softball
game somebody hit somebody else from the bench before the
game and then during the game you know people were out
in the outfield crying and you know it was like , it was
just this drama.
So, it just didn't work out very well it was like we,
politically we believed in it but personally
it just didn't work.
(laughs)
-: Yeah, I've never lived that way even
though I theoretically
believed in it for awhile.
-: Right!
-: But it seemed as though it would be a lot of trouble.
-: Oh, God. I know you had your primary relationship you know
and then you could have others, but...
-: I remember Ellen and Barbara were saying, and
they were most, they held on to it until they finally
broke up, but you couldn't tell because they still lived
together.
-: Right.
-: And everything was very uh, very uh cerebral, you know.
-: Mm-hmm.
-: And they explained that you didn't have a primary
relationship or a secondary one, that they were all just
relationships. But, that didn't seem quite accurate.
-: Yeah, well we called 'em, we said we had a primary
relationship and I mean like I was living with Cynthia
of course that was my primary relationship.
And I didn't like it when she had her other relationships
and she didn't like it when I had mine.
-: Did you all have set rules like I remember that Ellen
and Barbara well we had set rules of behavior.
-: No.
-: No, okay.
-: That probably would have been a good idea.
-: Okay. Yeah, so what about the dinner co-ops, a little
more about that.
Were they always Vegetarian?
-: No. No.
-: Okay.
-: That wasn't a requirement. I was not a Vegetarian
back then.
-: So they weren't, it wasn't as somebody once said,
"those lesbians are always trying to make people
eat tofu."
-: No. I mean we all used the Moosewood Cookbook and things
like that but...
-: I think that was a good one.
-: And I'm sure some people were Vegetarian but most people
were not.
I mean back then I think people in the 70's people in
general were kind of more into healthy eating and now we
are again.
-: Right, right, we are.
-: It's kind of come back around.
-: Yeah, now it's Vegan is the thing.
-: Yeah.
-: The big thing now.
-: Yeah, or I consider myself a flexitarian, that's what
Michael Pollack is or somebody I read in New York Times.
Huh?
-: You eat whatever's available?
-: No, I mostly don't eat meat, but you know, I don't go
crazy if I'm somewhere and somebody serves meat, I don't
eat red meat at all but I occasionally will eat meat.
-: I don't cook red meat.
Yeah. So the dinner co-ops were people they always met
once a week at that time?
-: Mm-hmm. You'd just take turns cooking and the rest
of the people would come to your house when it was your
turn and you would serve them dinner.
-: That's the way the one is now, I guess it's the last one.
-: Yeah, yeah they were just like those.
-: Yeah and also and can you remember and particular stories
or anything in particular that stands out in your
memory from the Alpha days?
You've already told a couple, but.
-: Oh I was in a poetry writing group, too
-: Yes I meant to get the that!
-: and we sometimes would have our poetry, I had a poem
published in the Alpha news letter, I don't remember
whether it was the Atlanta by then or not, but ...
-: Uh huh.
-: Um.. well you know most of the things I remember were
the kind of outrageous things like all the drama around
the non-monogamous relationships, the um, I don't know if
I told you this but I once had sex with three different
women in one twenty four hour period.
(laughs)
-: Oh my goodness.
(laughs)
-: The other thing was we would sometimes have just like
friendly sex, like you were friends with somebody and one
of us would say well why don't we you know have sex
and just see what it feels like.
So, I was living with Margaret the woman I had come out
with but we were just roommates we were friends here in
Atlanta over near Emory and we hung out with a woman named
Kitty who was also on the softball team and she was a
student at Emory, she was still in school.
And I think it was a Friday night and Margaret and Kitty
wanted to go out and I was tired or something so I said
I'd just stay home and so they went out, they came back,
and Kitty came and got in bed with me and said, you know,
why don't we have sex and I said oh okay.
So we did and then she slept in my bed I guess and she had
to get up early Saturday morning and go to work so then
when Margaret got up she said, I told her that Kitty and I'd
had sex, and so Margaret and I decided to have sex, just
kind of for old times sakes, so we had sex
Saturday morning.
And then I had a date with somebody Saturday night.
-: Oh
(laughs)
Oh no.
-: I mean it was not wildly erotic it was more like
friendly, you know, let's just see what this is like
you know, I remember I did that with another woman in our
communal household when she first moved into the house.
She just, you know, said why don't we, you know, just
have sex.
-: And it was kind of political, too, because you were
pushing boundaries.
-: Yeah, I mean, but I, yeah, yeah.
-: Not....
-: But you know like there's just some idea that lesbian
feminists were not very sexual I mean we
were in our twenties of course we were.
(laughs)
And we hadn't gotten to, I think part of this was you know,
we never got to date other women coming up like in
High School like you would date men, or college
-: Right.
-: So ya know, we wanted to just, I wanted to just play
around and ya know.
-: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Just to do the kind of experimenting that heterosexual
kids often did,
-: Yeah.
-: not all, but many.
Yeah, and that's, I know, I guess people had that story
about not being very sexual.
It seemed to come along after S & M and the more extreme
butch femme stuff came back into vogue.
Or became ...
-: Yeah.
-: permissible.
-: And I think feminist rhetoric downplayed sexuality
because the stereotype at the time was you know
lesbians were somehow like sex crazed,
remember all those pulp novels
-: Oh yeah.
-: they always had unhappy endings you know and ...
-: So this was a reaction in a way to those steamy
erotic stories in which somebody always ended up being
rejected and committing suicide or something.
-: Yeah, right and one of the women would go back to men
and - Right - then the other would either become
an alcoholic and commit suicide or whatever,
-: Exactly - they were always unhappy.
-: But the whole focus was lesbians are about sex, - Yeah
-: lesbians are sexual that's what it is.
-: Right so this was kind of redefining it no being a
lesbian is political and it really did de-emphasize
the sexual aspect, but that doesn't mean that ...
I think the rhetoric got confused with the reality
of people's lives.
-: Okay, yeah. Rhetoric got confused with reality.
That seems very true to me because most of the lesbians
I knew, I mean I was the one who wasn't having sex
and I was in a long term relationship.
Or not very much anyway and seemed like everyone else
I knew was always breaking up with somebody or having an
affair with somebody.
-: Yeah.
-: Or something.
So, it didn't seem like the stereotype was true.
-: No, but if you read an essay like that Woman-Identified
Woman, that kind of talked about what a lesbian...
What is it starts out like a woman is the rage of all
men
-: A lesbian is the rage of all women
-: Condensed to the boiling point or something
-: Condensed to the ....yeah
-: Yeah so it, you know, it made it, it didn't say the
sexual desire of all women condensed.
-: No, no it was about hating men really or being
angry at men.
-: Yeah, or the patriarchy.
-: And the patriarchy, yeah. That's what it was about,
it was about overcoming oppression.
-: Yeah.
-: Not, not desiring women.
-: Yeah, and making our own rules hence the non-monogamy
and the communal households and the whole emphasis
on giving your energy to women, your sexual....and you
know I think there were women who were just political
lesbians and later went back to men.
-: Mm-hmm.
-: But then there were others of us, I did not come out for
political reasons, I came out because I fell in
love with Barbara.
-: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
-: You know, despite my best intentions.
(laughs)
-: Yep.
Yeah I think..well women came into lesbian feminism
for a lot of different reasons seems like, yeah.
-: Yeah.
-: Uh, okay, um ....
(turning pages)
Let's see if there is anything that I want to add.
-: Yeah, were you involved in abortion rights activities,
ERA or ...
-: Yeah Georgians for Equal Rights Amendment and oh yeah
I remember we all went the feminist women's health clinic
or center, we
(laughs)
we all got like speculums and mirrors and
looked at ourselves you know, remember Our Bodies Ourselves.
-: Oh yes.
-: It was all into, you know getting to know
your body and you know...
-: So those were workshops they had at feminist groups and...
-: Yeah, well no I remember just doing that with some
people and there was a woman who used to live here who had
a sex workshop or something no that's another example
of how we weren't anti sex.
-: Right, right, yeah.
-: No. We were very much into getting to know our bodies and
taking responsibility for the health of our bodies and again
kind of defining ourselves for ourselves.
-: Like our bodies ourselves.
-: Mm-hmm.
-: So woman (murmurs)
-: Yeah.
-: And also that book Our Right to Love was put out by the
National, it was still the National Gay Task Force I think,
it's got a picture of the Alpha softball team in it
and it's, you know if you look at it that's a lot of the
lesbian feminist rhetoric right there.
-: Mm - hmm.
-: And then some publications I think Sinister Williamston
was around then and Feminary.
-: Yeah, did you publish in any of them?
-: No. I didn't. Vicky Gabriner published an article about
softball, about how you know she was, she threw like a girl
quote unquote and she'd never played softball and she was
not confident about it at all but she, because we had that
philosophy anybody can play that wants to she played and
she loved it and so that was her, I think that aricle
was Come Out Swinging or something like that you know.
-: One thing I didn't ask the others that um and I don't know
if 'cause nobody, Loraine brought it up a little bit,
was the women's spirituality thing was there much of that?
-: Oh yeah we went out to Saffa's Quarry every now and then.
-: I wasn't ever really, because of my
Southern Baptist upbringing I pretty against
even spirituality much less religion.
But I remember we would go out early in the morning
to Saffa, we called it Saffa's Quarry and do these kind of
rituals, I don't even remember what they were.
But, other than that, I didn't, there were other women
I think that were more into that than I was.
-: Yeah I should have asked them more about that but
Elinor came from you know the Mennonite background and
she was in Crimea Community for awhile down in South Georgia
and it's just that I know that people did more around
women's spirituality but nobody has talked
very much about it.
-: Well you know Charis was opened as a religious book store
-: Right I knew that.
-: it was part of an urban ministry and so they had a lot of
books on theology and ...
-: I remember I went first time I went into Charis I
saw books by Charles Williams and thought
oh this is a Priested bookstore
because I'd heard him referred to by Dorothy Sayers
it was one of the (murmur)people.
So anyway, back Saffa, where was Saffa's Query?
-: Quarry. It was a quarry I'm sure it's somewhere out
on I-20, Lorraine might remember more about it.
-: I'll ask Lorraine.
-: I remember, you know it was so early in the morning, we'd
go out there and then I remember once Cynthia and I got
back home we just went back to bed we were so tired.
(laughs)
-: Enough of this morning time stuff.
-: Yeah.
(laughs)
-: Well okay well I've got a lot more stuff here now.
-: Good.
-: Uh, yeah. So, we'll add a lot more to it.
-: I love talking about it of course.
-: Yeah I know, I have a feeling the others if I
interviewed them again they'd have much more to say.
I gotta have something, any how.
So, you want to add something more before I turn this off?
-: No, I just, you know I think for me the lasting legacy
of Alpha and the lesbian feminist community was just
having a real positive identity as a lesbian and you know
went from totally being afraid because I was a lesbian being
afraid to tell anybody to being really proud and you know
just the very air I breathed everything I did was about
being a lesbian for awhile there.
Except my job. But even there, you know I worked at a mental
hospital and I remember
one time somebody brought like a teenager
or something in there to be admitted because they were gay
and I remember saying, I mean it was still classified as
a mental disorder at that time I think,
but I remember saying that's not a mental illness.
(laughs)
-: Hmm wonder what happened to them.
-: Yeah.
-: Okay, well how do I turn this thing off?
(Click)