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Description
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ToC The Wrong Path (p18); Tomboi Style (p32); Our Generation (p38): Queer Youth in Focus (p55); Cover: A Lifetime of Love - What Love Looks Like (p58); Annie Lennox Waxes Nostalgic (p65); Cameron Esposito is Hot (p68).
See all items with this value
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issue
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1
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Date Issued
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Jan-Feb 2015
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Format
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PDF/A
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Publisher
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Frances Stevens
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Identifier
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Curve_Vol25_No1_January-February-2015_OCR_PDFa.pdf
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extracted text
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■
JAN/FEB
2015
FEATURES
18
THE WRONG PATH
Orange Is the New Black
portrays women behind bars,
but who are the real queer
incarcerated women? By
Victoria A. Brownworth
32
TOMBOI STYLE
A fashion spread inspired
by the beauty of masculine
women. By Diana Price
38
OUR GENERATION
Meet the 6 amazing achievers
who have inspired generations
of queer women. By Marcie
Bianco, Francesca Lewis,
Gillian Kendall, and Dave
Steinfeld.
55
QUEER YOUTH IN FOCUS
A photo essay depicting young
queer folks in their own words.
Photos by Rachelle Lee Smith
58
A LIFETIME OF LOVE
Photographer Barbara Proud
creates images of long-term
LGBT lovers that we can all be
proud of. By Merryn Johns
65
ANNIE LENNOX
WAXES NOSTALGIC
The Brit pop goddess stands
up for all our rights. By Kelly
McCartney
68
CAMERON
ESPOSITO IS HOT
The sassy standup comic talks
lesbian haircuts and more. By
Dana Piccoli
COVER
PHOTO
BY B. PROUD
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
1
JAN/FEB
2015
32
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
IN EVERYISSUE
4
EDITOR'S NOTE
6
CURVETTES
8
FEEDBACK
10
THE GAYDAR
80
STARS
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
TRENDS
9
BEAUTY
Lipsmacking winter goodies
for your pucker.
11 LES LOOKS LIKE
Meet Carolyn Gage, lesbianfeminist playwright
14 LESBOFILE
Our favorite celesbians
behaving very badly.
VIEWS
14 OUT IN FRONT
Meet our community leaders.
14 IN CASE YOU MISSED
IT ... LGBT news from across
the country. By Sassafras
Lowrey
16 POLITICS
What happens when lesbian
moms use donor sperm and
don't get the result they
expected? A battle of sex,
race, and class. By Victoria A.
Brown worth
20
LIPSTICK & DIPSTICK
Relationship advice from our
trusted butch-femme duo.
2
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
REVIEWS
26 MUSIC
Classical guitar has been
mastered and revived by out
musician Sharon lsbin, who
has released a box set of her 5
best CDs. Plus we review the
latest from Rachael Sage and
Natalia Zukerman. By Merryn
Johns & Kelly McCartney
28 FILM
Out filmmaker and woman of
color, Caryn Hayes discusses
the background to her popular
films, plus we review the
landmark feminist documentary She's beautiful When She's
Angry. By Lisa Tedesco &
Marcie Bianco
32 BOOKS
Bisexual hispanic author Daisy
Hernandez discusses bridging
two worlds in her new memoir,
A Cup of Water Under My Bed.
By Rosanna Rios Spicer
\\\\_~
\\\\t.~\\t\\'tt
"LESBIAN
HEAVEN!
Lov1~A~
AGREAT
READ,
ARTICLEiAl~~~~N~ASHION
LOADS
OFC
1ASTICI
PLUS
PLENT~~iE~T
ISSUES
LESBIAN
HEARTBR~:
GEO
US
...FAB!"
KERS
...
UelenB.
'
Bridging
Generations
H
alfway through my life and a
lesbian since 7, I know what
it feels like to be a younger
lesbian and an older lesbian.
As editor-in-chief of the world's best-known
lesbian publication, it's also my job to bring
those two sides of our community together.
But how-especially
when we have different
histories, experiences, identities? There are
plenty of young queer women who don't identify as lesbian-or
as women-even
though
they are not ostensibly altering their birth
gender. This issue, which we have called Our
Generation, gives voice to a number of queer
female generations-from
Edie Windsor to a
millennial riot grrrl fan.
If I have paid particular attention to the experiences of older gay women, it's not just out
of a sense of deference. To me, it's common
sense. In a world that seems unable to solve
its problems, could it be that we haven't been
listening to the wisest voices among us? The
repeal of DOMA put equal rights for LGBTs
squarely on this country's political agenda,
and it happened because of octogenarian Edie
Windsor, who graces our cover. Other lesbians of a certain age have been continuing her
fight. Take Madelynn"Lee"Taylor from Idaho,
a 74-year-old military veteran (she served in
the Navy from 1958 to 1964) who challenged
the Idaho state law prohibiting her from being
buried with her late wife, Jean Mixner.
"She [had] to grieve and fight, and that is
so typical [for LGBTs];' says NCLR Executive
Director Kate Kendall in a YouTube video
that I dare you to watch without being moved
to tears. After Mixner passed away, Taylor
went through a year of depression. "I miss her
so much, sometimes my arms ache;' says Taylor. "A.nd [Jean] promised to wait for me. She's
waitin' by the Eastern gate, up in Heaven:'
In 2013, when Taylor tried to arrange to
have her ashes interred along with those of
her wife at the Idaho State Veterans Cem-
etery, she was refused this right, which is
readily available to other veterans and their
spouses. Even though Mixner and Taylor were
married in California in 2008, Idaho law did
not recognize their marriage. On July 7, 2014,
the NCLR and Boise attorneys Deborah A.
Ferguson and Craig Durham filed a lawsuit
on behalf of Taylor. In May, four same-sex
couples had challenged the ban, and in October, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
that Idaho's ban on the freedom to marry for
same-sex couples violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. As a result of the decision, Idaho state officials agreed
to Taylor's request. Whatever your views on
marriage, this older lesbian helped enrich the
lives of thousands of lesbians-even
as she
anticipates the end of her own.
In Our Generation, you'll meet other women whose words, deeds, and dreams have or
will help achieve justice and dignity for lesbians of all ages. And isn't that a nice way to
begin 2015?
!z
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
merryn@curvemag.com
Curve's online selection of must-do, must-try, must-have extras.
REVIEWS
FILMS
WHEN LOVE FINDS YOU, RULES
AND ROLES DON'T APPLY
Feel like watching a lesbian film with a fresh
storyline? One that's evocative, compassionate
and contains actual depth? Well, Tru Love is the
film that you should dedicate an hour and a
half of your time to. Kate Johnston and Shauna
MacDonald's delightful film is the winner of
eleven LGBT awards and it's not hard to see
why. Read more on
G curvemag.com
1
EDITOR
SPICK
cuLTURE
LESBIAN-FEMINIST JOAN NESTLE CO-EDITS
LANDMARK JOURNAL SINISTERWISDOM
In an era of mainstreaming minority rights and mass social
media, would a lesbian journal from the 1970s still have
relevancy or much of topical interest to say? Damn straight
it would. Sinister Wisdom, founded in 1976,just two years
after Joan Nestle co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives,
and edited by lesbian-feminist luminaries including Michelle
Cliff and Adrienne Rich, is a lesbian literary and art journal
that is multicultural in scope, diverse in voice, and addresses
important issues that continue to divide us. Read more on
G curvemag.com.
LIFESTYLE
SPORT
OUT AND PROUD ON THE COURT
Did you know that there are 5 popular WNBA players who are also out and proud?
Over the summer, the WNBA started a Pride initiative campaign marketed directly
to the LGBT community. It was a bold move and also a very smart one, as the
WNBA's most supportive audience is largely made up of LGBT fans. Throughout
the campaign, players attended Pride parades and events, appeared in advertising
spots for the lesbian media, and participated in advocacy work for LGBT rights. And
even though it may have taken a few years, the WNBA is embracing star players like
Brittney Griner who are out, proud, and not afraid to be who they are. Read more on
G curvemag.com
CULTURE
HUMOR
THE 5 MAIN TYPES OF SCENE LESBIAN,
WHICH ONE ARE YOU?
Fun Fact: Lesbians don't grow on trees. Now once you're
finished imagining that tree (I can give you a minute if you'd
like?) my point is that (at least where I live) you can't just
wander down the road and bump in to lesbian ladies in
abundance. They just don't seem to exist "in the wild." But
r
•
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entering "The Scene" can be pretty daunting too, so what's
~
a girl to do? When I first came out I thought the hard part
~
was over, but I couldn't have been more wrong. And I was
so confused! Check out the 5 types of wonderful women
you can woo on
G curvemag.com
~
~
~
~
~
~
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~~
-
We have some of the leading voices in our community
sharing their thoughts on
love and romance, parenting and politics, and sex and
spirituality-not to mention
our huge collection of lesbian fandom.
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
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5
UP
RONT!CURVETTES
curve
THE BEST-SELLING
JAN/FEB
2015
LESBIAN
» VOLUME
MAGAZINE
25 NUMBER
1
PUBLISHER Silke Bader
FOUNDING PUBLISHER Frances Stevens
EDITORIAL
EDITORIN CHIEF Merryn Johns
SENIORCOPY EDITOR Katherine Wright
CONTRIBUTINGEDITORS Melanie Barker, Kathy Beige,
B. PROUD
JULIE B. COLWELL
As both a commercial and fine art photographer, B. Proud has exhibited her
award-winning work in solo and group
shows around the globe. Her First Comes
Love Project, featured this month as our
cover story, is a traveling exhibition of
photographs, stories, and video, and now
a hardbound book. It has received multiple
awards and grants including those from
the B. W. Bastian Foundation, the Puffin
Foundation, the Delaware State Arts
Council, and The University of the Arts,
Philadelphia where Proud is an adjunct
associate professor. B. Proud currently
resides in Wilmington, Delaware with her
spouse, Allison, and their yellow lab, Soleil.
Psychologist Julia B. Colwell, PhD, has spent
over three decades exploring relationship
dynamics with individuals, couples, and
groups. The author of The Relationship
Skills Workbook: A Do-It-Yourself Guide
to a Thriving Relationship (Sounds True,
October 2014), she is the founder of the
Boulder Center for Conscious Community.
Julie is proud to say she has kitchen-tested everything she teaches in her 25-year
relationship with her spouse Kathryn Kucsan
in Boulder, Colorado. This month she offers
her advice and experience on how to keep
the spark in your relationship long past
Valentine's Day. Learn more about her work
at juliacolwell.com.
Marcie Bianco, Victoria A. Brownworth, Gina Daggett,
Lyndsey D'Arcangelo, Sheryl Kay, Gillian Kendall, Dave
Steinfeld
PROOFREADERAmanda Keeling
EDITORIALASSISTANTSCaitlyn Byrne, LisaTedesco, Cora ShayePope, Erin Wilson
OPERATIONS
DIRECTOROF OPERATIONS Jeannie Sotheran
EVENTS& MEDIA RELATIONSCOORDINATOR Robin Perron
ADVERTISING
NATIONAL SALES
Rivendell Media (908) 232-2021, todd@curvemagazine.com
ART/PRODUCTION
ART DIRECTORSRicardo Calvi Vivian
SOCAL MEDIA
MANAGERBel Evans
INTERNLucy Doyle
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Melany Joy Beck, Jenny Block, Kelsy Chauvin, Jill Goldstein,
Kristin Flickinger, Adrienne Jordan, Gillian Kendall,
Kim Hoffman, Francesca Lewis, Charlene Lichtenstein,
Sassafras Lowrey, Kelly McCartney, Emelina Minero, Dana
Piccoli, Laurie K. Schenden, Stephanie Schroeder, Janelle
Sorenson, Rosanna Rios-Spicer, Stella & Lucy, Yana TallonHicks, Sarah Toce, Jocelyn Voo
CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS & PHOTOGRAPHERS
Steph Brusig, Meagan Cignoli, Syd London, Maggie
Parker, Diana Price, Robin Roemer, Leslie Van Stelten
CONTACT INFO
Curve Magazine
PO Box 467
New York, NY 10034
PHONE (415) 871-0569
FAX (510) 380-7487
SUBSCRIPTIONINQUIRIES(800) 705-0070
(toll-free in us only)
(818) 286-3102 (outside US)
ADVERTISINGEMAIL todd@curvemagazine.com
EDITORIALEMAIL editor@curvemag.com
LETTERSTO THE EDITOREMAIL letters@curvemagazine.com
FRANCESCA LEWIS
DIANA PRICE
Francesca Lewis is a queer feminist writer
from Yorkshire, UK who writes for Curve,
The Human Experience, and is working
on a novel. She was an oblivious ten-yearold when the original riot grrrl movement
was unfolding but like a time capsule of
beautiful-angry empowerment, the music
was waiting to be discovered when she
needed it most. As a fat, angsty, queer,
mixed-race literature student she didn't fit
in at university, but she cheered herself up
wailing along to Babes In Toyland's cover of
"All By Myself-a strategy that didn't make
her popular with her peers! Her penchant
for cooking with ground cloves makes
everything taste like Christmas.
Diana Price is a professional photographer
living in Tampa, Florida. A self-taught artist,
she started working with images 6 years
ago as a passion rather than as a way to
make money. She has been published in
several magazines, exhibited in galleries,
and donated her time and work to many
non-profit organizations that benefit the
LGBTcommunity. Her subjects vary widely,
from portraits of children, to families, to
couples. "Making people feel the beauty
within, no matter what they believe in or no
matter how they look, is what's most important to me." This issue, Diana captures the
beauty of masculine women for her project
on tombois. (boi-photography.com)
Volume 25 Issue 1 Curve (ISSN 1087-867X) is published 6 times
per year (January/February, March/April, May/June, July/August,
September/October,
November/December)
by Avalon Media,
LLC, PO Box 467, New York NY 10034. Subscription
price:
$39.90/year, $39.90 Canadian (U.S. funds only) and $69.90
international (U.S. funds only). Returned checks will be assessed
a $25 surcharge. Periodicals postage paid at San Francisco, CA
94114 and at additional mailing offices (USPS 0010-355). Contents
of Curve Magazine may not be reproduced in any manner, either
whole or in part, without written permission from the publisher.
Publication of the name or photograph
of any persons or
organizations appearing, advertising or listing in Curve may not be
taken as an indication of the sexual orientation of that individual or
group unless specifically stated. Curve welcomes letters, queries,
unsolicited manuscripts and artwork. Include SASE for response.
Lack of any representation only signifies insufficient materials.
Submissions cannot be returned unless a self-addressed stamped
envelope is included. No responsibility is assumed for loss or
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Subscription Inquiries: Please write to Curve, Avalon Media LLC.,
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Curve, PO Box 17138, N. Hollywood,
CA 91615-7138.Printed in the U.S.
curvemag.com
6
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
~ rm!Wllmi•
:,a.'l
1
-,,,
•· literal!x
have
imefor s<1les
t
UP RONT /
POST
ON
FACEBOOK!
FEEDBACK
The
best
comment
posted
each
month
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afree
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TASTYDOMESTIC VIOLENCE
AWARENESS
OtSTINATIONS
FROM
VIENNA
TO
SONOMA
TOPlESBIAN
CKEfSSHARE
DELICIOUS
SECRETS
~
WATERS
ISBACK
\\1UR
l[SBIAN
8[SJI
Posts from our Facebook fans
Do you think an article on
LGBT domestic violence
should be addressed for
awareness? Domestic violence
is not selective and rarely do
I see it addressed in LGBT
community.
-Linda Graham, Bowling
Green KY.
::::::::::,::::::::::::::::::::::,:::::,
facebook.com/curvemag
EDITORIAL INSPIRATION
I just wanted to say thank you
for being such an inspiration
to me. You showed me that I
could live happily as a lesbian
woman and I am doingjust
that. I am seeing a terrific
woman and never thought I
would be at this stage in my
life. Thank you so much!!
-Christina Castiglione, Bethany
Beach DE.
Melissa Etheridge ROCKSmy
world! -Cheree Ruff
Love Melissa Etheridge's new
CD!-Lisa Woodland Foxwell
I'm listening to Melissa 's new
CD and I just finished Sarah
Waters' new book. -Lisa
Shelton
Mine came today ...yiippee!!
-Vic Symonds
Melissa is looking absolutely
gorgeous -Donna Durkins
Editor's Note: We agree! "Is
Lesbian Violence as Real as
Str8 Violence?" ran in V.24#7
of Curve.
CONCEPTION QUERY
I am a childless lesbian but I
have many lesbian friends who
have children, some through
heterosexual union, some
through known donors, others
who have pursued the costly
process of artificial insemination. I would like you to do an
article on the lesbian couple
who sued the Ohio sperm
bank. I think there needs to be
more discussion around the
ethics of assisted reproduc-
:::::::::::::::,::::::::::::::,::::::::,
tive technologies and lesbian
motherhood.
-Name supplied.
Editor's Note: Victoria Brownworth addresses the issue this
month on page 16.
PREGNANCY DEBATE
As a pro-life LGBT person I
just wanted to say that the lesbian couple who went to Planned
Parenthood did not have an
abortion ("The Baby Bump;'
V.24#6]. The sac was empty
and no life form was inside. An
She can come to my window
any time! - Ydolem Yenknip
Always classy. Love M.E.!!
-Susan James Harris
abortion is when a live entity is
terminated, not an empty sac
devoid oflife. Why doesn't the
lesbian couple adopt one or
more LGBT foster kids? I'm
not sure how easy it is to adopt
kids in the foster care system
but LGBT couples adopting
those kids, already here, would
be way better than artificial
insemination and surrogacy.
Why create new life in order to
have babies when living kids in
need of a good home are already
here?
-Kathy Apker, Eugene OR.
•~~2m:i~!ii~~~1;;;;;:~;··························
:••
:••
•···1·1
15%
Weto
really
should
try
harder
bridge
the
generation gap.
~.~~i:~::~~~~~:
i:::::
•
;::_i::_
II
~~Ii~i'.i;;e'.~~'.~!'.:::
.. ....::•..
.I.I
WRITE
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letters@curvemagazine.com
LISI 510.380.7487
curvemag.com/letters
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Online:
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TRENDS/
Lip Service
VENTUREBEYONDTHE TRUSTYCHAPSTICKTHIS WINTERAND KEEPYOUR
PUCKERPERFECTBY MELANIE BARKER
BEAU
GlamGloss
Sarah McNamara's Miracle Skin Transformer Lip Rewind
looks like a Iipg loss wand but is much more. This tinted,
peptide-infused treatment repairs daily damage and
plumps your pucker with its antioxidant-rich butters,
while Vitamin E and SPF 20 protect your skin from
harsh UV rays. Available in Berry, Coral, Love,
Pink and Translucent, go from the slopes to
apres ski with one twist of this pen! ($24,
miracleskintransformer.com)
Chccli_Y<:lm1)slicli
Balm Chicky Balm Balm
presents a playful line of lip
balms featuring the unique
Friend End for sharing and
stylish '70s packaging. Allnatural, and with triple the
amount of balm as the typical
tube, choose from 5 delicious
flavors: Juicy Melons, Hot
Chocolate Love, Sweet Baby
Ginger, Huge Cucumber and
Wild Mountain Honey. Gift
packs of 3 (Menage trois) or
5 (Flavor Orgy) also available.
($8, balmchickky.com)
a
Hack to Basics
Bobbi Brown is a trusted name in
cosmetics, and her Illuminating
Nudes collection of clean, easyto-use lip gloss will give you a
fresh and no-fuss kisser for the
New Year. The trend this winter
is flawlessly fresh-made easy
with these soft shades that shine
in Almost Nude, Almost Pink,
Almost Peach, and White.
($25, bobbibrowncosmetics.com)
erl'ltlrg1nC
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Marula trees, indigenous to Southern Africa
and Madagascar, bear a fruit with nuts that are
hand harvested to produce Marula oil, used
for centuries to protect skin and hair in harsh
conditions. Instant Marula By John Paul Selects
can be rolled onto lips, cuticles, and the delicate
skin around the eyes. The fatty acids (Omega 6
and 9) improve skin elasticity immediately. Small
and slim, this product is a perfect way to hydrate
skin while traveling. ($15, marula.com)
For a super-arich ntioxidant lip balm that
protects, nourishes, and soothes, try
emerginC Scientific Organics' In Lips We
Trust. It's made with 100% natural plant
oils, waxes and butters, including sweet
almond oil, coconut oil, shea butter, and
organic beeswax. 70% organic, this balm
covers all bases and goes the extra mile
to prevent chapped lips from unforgiving
environments. ($24, emerginc.com)
lite Good Oil
The skin on the lips loses moisture up to ten
times faster than the rest of the body, so stay
hydrated with 100% plant-based lip oils by
(seed). The nourishing power of grape seed
extract goes into these light, delicious lip oils
that are pocket-friendly in both size and
price. Applied with a roller ball, the
non-synthetic, toxin-free oils come in
yummy flavors. Our faves are Mint and
Vanilla. ($5, seedbodycare.com)
Su1)c1•Sct•um
Skin research guru Jan Marini's C-Esta Lips is
serious lip therapy. Apply this tinted serum to the
lip area morning and night to make a long-term
investment in your pout. With DMAE and Vitamin
C, C-ESTA Lips delivers potent antioxidant
protection designed specifically for the lip
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delicate skin around your mouth.
($48, janmarini.com)
JAN/FEB
2015
1oig/UO!.
CURVE
9
NDS/
THE GAYDAR
p
~~ THEGAYDAR
Takes one to know one? Let our gaydar help
you decide who's hot, who's not, who's
~ shaking it and who's faking it in lesboland.
%
~
BY MELANIE BARKER
~
Lexington Club, "your
friendly neighborhood
dyke bar" and one
of the last remaining
lesbian bars in San
Francisco, will close due
to rising rents
Cate Blanchett won our
hearts when she signed
on for lesbian flick, Carol.
Now she dons drag
for watchmaker IWC's
Portofino ads. Le sigh!
Almost 85% of self-identified
Catholics between 18
and 29 believe gays and
lesbians should be accepted,
according to a 2014 survey
conducted by the Pew
Research Center
,~,.,.,.,.
There is life after
Sailor Moon!
Japan's Girls Love
Festival 12, a
comics convention
in Yokohama,
explores lesbianthemed anime and
comics
Florida's
twice-divorced
attorney
general Pam
Bondi denies a
lesbian couple
the right to
divorce
We can do
without Greta
Gerwig's
confused and
confusing lesbian
character in The
Humbling
f-
>w
I
0
z
~
I
~
0
z
:::;
w
"'
>w
0..
A hilarious Buzzfeed
video titled "Lesbians
Explain Sex to
Straight People" does
exactly that
NYC's the
Lesbian Herstory
Archives
celebrates 40
years. Here's to
40 more
Meghan Stabler
is named Working
Mother of the Year
by Working Mother
magazine, the first
time a transgender
woman receives the
award
Evan Rachel Wood and
Katherine Moennig's
Twitter flirtation blossoms
into a real thing. You go,
girls!
10
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
Kristen Stewart and
Alicia Cargile are NOT
dating. They just do
everything together,
all the time
Brooke Hemphill
spells out 'sexual
tourist' with her
not-very-memorable
memoir, lesbian For
a Year
Nost GOSSIP
p
~ LESBOFILE
~
Celebrity Sapphic attraction is
~ heating up.
~
BY JOCELYN VOO
THE BAD GIRL AND THE BRIT
It's a familiar storyline: Hollywood
bad girl plus British It girl, one gay, one
Caught on a YouTube video, DeLaria
can be heard getting her Big Boo on with
a subway preacher, whose rants about
sometimes-gay. We're calling it right now:
religion and "the sin of homosexuality" was
Michelle Rodriguez and Cara Delevingne
drowned out first by DeLaria's own rebuttal,
may just end up being the 2014 version of
and then by her leading the entire train in a
the ruckus that was Samantha Ronson and
rousing rendition of "99 Bottles of Beer on
Lindsay Lohan circa 2009. Except with less
the Wall."
Portia De Rossi
"I have a right to ride that subway
alleged substance abuse.
There was a collective queer cheer
peacefully," DeLaria told the New YorkDaily
"Slowly one morning, literally over sippy
when Hollywood bad girl Rodriguez got
News. "And I certainly have a right to ride
with the British supermodel, as, paparazzi
that subway without listening to somebody
I said, 'Where are the sippy cups?' She
be damned, they were completely and
spewing hatred."
said, 'Well, dear,' ... We were like a married
unapologetically into each other. Then
when they split, things got weird: Rodriguez
Just goes to show you, nobody messes
O'Connell.
couple without the benefits, so why not
with Big Boo.
have the benefits!?"
K.D.'SNEW FLAME
modern lesbian romance.
rebounded with Zac Efron (nope, not a typo)
and Delevingne was linked with actor Jack
cups, I'm running [around] making lunches,
Sex and sippy cups: sounds like the
Things are heating up in Canada! We're
And now Rodriguez wants her back. The
following whispers of of crooner k.d. lang
HOW TWEETIT IS
pair both attended the LACMA Art and Film
canoodling with Heather Edwards, the
Festival in Los Angeles this past November,
separated wife of an oil tycoon and Calgary
tor Jamie Bell, actress Evan Rachel Wood
where Rodriguez sent Delevingne a note via
Flames hockey team co-owner. Edwards
is now reportedly in a relationship with Ray
a waitress. However, a source told the Daily
and the Grammy-winning artist have
Donovanstar Katherine Moennig, and it all
Star, "Cara ignored it. She's still hurt about
been spotted out multiple times together,
started with a little 140-character flirting.
everything that happened. She was really
and PageSix notes their mutual draw to
Back in February, Wood fired the first
nervous about seeing Michelle and clung to
Buddhism. But is it more than spirituality
now-apparent love letter, despite still being
her pal Selena Gomez all night." Meanwhile,
and sushi? We're on the case.
married: "Just saw @katemoennig at a flea
"Michelle was telling her friends that seeing
Cara made her miss her, and she desperately wants to sort things out."
One guess as to whether we're salivating
for Round 2.
BADASSBOO
Nobody messes with Lea Delaria's character on Orange /s the New Black,and nobody
market. I turned to mush and ran. Love her!!"
LOVE IN TRAINING
Hollywood romances have a way of
And then Wood's tweet: "Haha. I would
so to have rocker Melissa Etheridge admit
have slurred my words. Next time. But yea,
to falling for now-wife Linda Wallem while
you are amazing. Helped me realize who i
doing something as normal as taking care
am. Big fan;) @katemoennig"
of the kids-well, that's just crazy.
The Grammy winner tells "Access
messes with Lea DeLaria in real life in New
Hollywood" that it just sort of hit her and
the NurseJackieproducer.
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
Moennig responded: "@evanrachelwood
you should have said hi. :)"
springing up in the oddest circumstances,
York City, either.
12
Just a month after her divorce from ac-
The L Wordhelped you realize who you
were? Yeah, we hear you, Evan.
Social media wooing-celebrities,
they're just like us!
TRENDS/
SHEs
"I don't know that I
am [comfortable talking about
being gay] now, to be honest with
you. The gay thing has always been
hard for me. When Heidi and I are out and
somebody older asks, 'Are you sisters?' I say,
'We're friends.' I guess it comes from thinking
that they will be shocked or disturbed. Look,
I wish I had some strapping football player
husband. It would be such a dream to
be 'normal' like that, but I'm just
not." -Jillian Michaels to
Health magazine
st
PROFILE
IN CASE
YOU
MISSED
Staging Activism
ZsaZsaGershickteachesfrom all platforms.
Being a gay person in the theatre, for the most part,
is a non-issue but being gender non-conforming is
I
more challenging, and getting a lesbian play produced
is a whole other thing. Enter Zsa Zsa Gershick, author,
director, teacher, and activist, who faced just that-and
beat it all.
"Paul Newman backed my first play after a major theatre told me that no one would pay to see a play about
lesbians," says Gershick. That play, Bluebonnet Court,
~~~!~r-~~l~s~!t~~~~PT~;as,
hasbecome
the first student at McKinney High School to win a
place on the homecoming court. Swartz-Larson's
friends took to Twitter to campaign for her as homecoming queen. Her father, Darrin Larson, spoke
about his surprise that his daughter was picked.
"Her whole kind of being doesn't say 'homecoming
queen,'" he said. "She's not one of the popular kids,
but kids seem to really like her."
went on to win awards from GLAAD and the NAACP.
With a solid background of gigs in the newsroom and
SWEET
CAKES
BYMELISSA,
other media outlets as well as stints in public relations
an Oregon bakery owned by a
Christian couple, has gone out of
business Aaron and Melissa Klein
became the focus of national
controversy when they refused to
bake a wedding cake for a lesbian
couple, a dec1s1onthat later was
ruled to violate the couple's c1v1I
rights Melissa Klein has taken to
Facebook to Justify her continued
homophobia, saying, "You don't
have to compromise conv1ct1ons
to be compassionate" At time of
press, the Sweet Cakes website 1s
still operational
and university level instruction, Gershick could have
chosen from a wide variety of topics to represent in her
theater productions, but she consistently goes back to
LGBT based themes.
"We write what we know," she says. "My mission is to
create thought-provoking work that uplifts, educates,
inspires and entertains, particularly illuminating the
lives of LGBTQ people who've largely been hidden from
history."
Gershick knows about invisibility, serving for several
years in the U.S. Military, before DADT was repealed. She
studied broadcast production and performance at the
Army's Defense Information School (DINFOS), among
THENATIONAL
GAY
the first females to be accepted in 1979.
"The command told us right away that we were not
and Lesbian Task Force, the
oldest national LGBT advocacy
organization 1nthe US, has
changed its name to The National
LGBTQ Task Force, 1norder to
better reflect the diversity of the
community 1trepresents
welcome," she says. "I was the only female in my class
to graduate. I have always been a fighter."
Now Gershick kicks it on stage. To celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives,
the largest repository of queer materials in the world,
she created and directed Dear ONE: Love & Longing
PHILIP
ZODHIATES,
in Mid-Century Queer America, which recounts the
lives of LGBTQ Americans as detailed in letters written
between 1953 and 1967 to ONE Magazine.
To those in marginalized communities who are still
finding their place, Gershick advises, "Be yourself.
Owning who you are gives others permission to be who
they are. That's the most basic form of activism there is."
By Sheryl Kay
14
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
I
~
the owner of a Christian marketing
business 1nV1rg1n1a,
has pleaded
not guilty to conspiracy and
1nternat1onalk1dnapp1ngcharges
for helping Lisa Miller flee the US to
~a;;gi
:)~~::~;~~:~::~bella,
1norder to avoid rel1nqu1sh1ng
custody of Isabella to her former
partner, Janet Jenkins Prosecutors
claim that Zodh1ates and Miller
traveled together from V1rg1niato
Canada Miller 1snow believed to
be 1nNicaragua with her daughter
Jenkins has been seeking the
return of Isabella since she was
taken from the country The
women shared custody after they
separated 1n2003, but Jenkins
was given full custody of Isabella
because Miller, who became
a conservative Christian and
renounced her lesbianism, kept the
child away from her former partner
If convicted, Zodh1ates could face
five years 1nJail
YASMINE
CASSINI,
29,SAYS
the Denver Area Council of the
Boy Scouts of America offered
her a Job as director of their new
Adventure Center, but when
the BSA learned that she was
openly lesbian, the Job offer was
withdrawn The BSA has been
quoted as saying "This 1nd1v1dual
brought 1tto our attention that she
did not meet the requirements for
employment." Cass1nisays she was
fully qual1f1edfor the Job, until the
:~~!::;:~
~~::~s
a lesbian
ALSO
FEATURING
PERFORMANCES
BY: IVYLEVANOLIVIA
SOMERLYN
CRYSTAL
WATERS
ROSE
ROYCE
COMEDYACTS
BY:SUZANNEWESTENHOEFER
DANAOOLDBERO
DINAH
LEFFERT
GLORIA
BIGELOW
CL R
WW
Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend
@DinchShore
I #OinahSh-oreI
88B-92dinah
POLITICS»
Motherhood in Black and White
A lesbian couple's lawsuit over receiving the wrong donor sperm reignites the race debate.
But are they racist for wanting the child they thought they'd ordered? ev v1cToR1A A. BRowNwoRTH
Payton Cramblett, 2, is adorable. Spar~
kly black eyes, curly black hair pulled back
into little puffy ponytails, a smile to melt
your heart, and beautiful skin the color of
coffee ice cream. She's the kind of gorgeous
child you'd expect to see in an ad for Tar~
get or Gerber's.
Payton is the daughter of Jennifer
Cramblett, 36, and Amanda Zinkon, 29.
The Ohio couple were married in New
York in 2011, and Cramblett gave birth
to Payton in August 2012. Cramblett had
been inseminated through donor sperm
she obtained from the Chicago~based
Midwest Sperm Bank, LLC.
The Midwest website courts all women,
saying in its mission statement, 'J\t Mid~
west Sperm Bank we work with hetero~
sexual couples, lesbian couples, and single
women of all races, religious and ethnic
backgrounds ... We are here to guide and
support you to help make your experience
positive and rewarding ... We want to help
you achieve your dream of giving birth to a
child of your very own:'
16
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
That was not Cramblett and Zinkon's
experience, however. Which is why at
the end of September 2014 they filed a
"wrongful birth'' lawsuit against Mid~
west. About five months into Cramblett's
pregnancy, she phoned the sperm bank
to reserve more of the same sperm she
had used for her own pregnancy, so that
if Zinkon decided to have a baby as well,
their children would be biological siblings.
That is when Cramblett and Zinkon dis~
covered that Midwest had made a mistake,
sending the wrong donor sperm to Cram~
blett's fertility clinic in Canton, Ohio.
In her lawsuit, Cramblett states that the
couple chose donor #380. But Midwest
sent them sperm from donor #330-clear~
ly mistaking an 8 for a 3 in the hand~writ~
ten order, which was apparently taken over
the telephone, not electronically. Donor
#380 is Caucasian-blond
and blue~eyed
like Cramblett and Zinkon. They chose
that donor specifically to ensure a homo~
geneous~looking family. Donor #330 is
African American.
Cramblett gave birth to a biracial child,
something that she asserts made her "de~
pressed and angry" and caused her "emo~
tional distress:' After Cramblett filed her
lawsuit, the story made national headlines.
The couple sought a minimum of $50,000
in damages, barely enough to cover the
costs of prenatal care and delivery. This
is not a lawsuit in the millions. Cramblett
says the lawsuit was meant solely to guar~
antee that Midwest would not make a sim~
ilar mistake again.
But the statements made within the
lawsuit raise a myriad of questions. Cram~
blett herself has been portrayed in the me~
dia as a racist for filing the suit at all.
Two comments with more than 500
likes on the original news story published
online by AOL, identified some of the is~
sues this lawsuit and the subsequent me~
dia attention has raised: "If she wanted the
sperm of a white male, she should have
taken the natural route and had sex with
a white male. Instead, she purchased the
car without seeing it first, and is now upset
v1Ews1POLI
with the color:' And, "She is GAY and she
thinks it will be a problem for her daughter because she is bi-racial. I would think it
would be harder having lesbian parents!!!
People in glass houses:'
Points well taken, if not well articulated.
In her lawsuit, Cramblett asserts that
she was not prepared to raise a biracial
child in her small, white, Ohio town. She
notes that some of her relatives are overtly
racist. (Racist but not homophobic? That's
odd. Usually those bigoted traits go hand
in hand. If the relatives accept her lesbianism, why can't they accept that her daughter is biracial?) Cramblett also notes that
she's not equipped to give her daughter the
kind of cultural heritage she should have
as a biracial child.
There are several issues here. Fundamentally, the lawsuit was filed over a
business deal gone wrong. The customer
paid for a white product and got a black
product. If you ordered a white dress from
a catalogue and paid for it, you would
want that dress, not the black dress you
were sent in error. But Cramblett didn't
know the sperm she ordered was from a
black donor, so she couldn't return it. And
she never considered aborting a perfectly
healthy 5-month-old fetus.
That's where the story ceases to be
about product malfeasance and becomes
about a human being.
Someone asked me if I thought this story was newsworthy because Cramblett is a
lesbian. I said yes, because that's true. There
have been insemination errors like this before, when the couples were heterosexual,
but I have never seen this kind of vitriolic
commentary. Cramblett is being vilified because she's a lesbian. The comments above
seem to declare: How can Cramblett complain that her child will face discrimination
as biracial when she's the daughter of a lesbian couple? There's a sense of outrage that
a lesbian thinks it's OK to have a baby with
her female partner, yet complains when it
doesn't look like her.
Then there is the racial component,
which is massive. It's bigger than the
botched business deal, and bigger even
than Cramblett and Zinkon's lesbianism.
This story goes to the heart of American
racism-especially
in the majority-white
Midwest, where the lesbian couple lives.
They don't know any black people, and
they have a daughter whose biological
father is black. They have racist relatives,
and their daughter is half black. They have
straight Caucasian hair that requires nothing more than washing and brushing, and
they have to drive to another part of town
to have their daughter's hair taken care
of. It's hard having a black child, and they
didn't ask for one-they asked for a blondhaired, blue-eyed child.
And that is why Cramblett filed a
lawsuit two years after Payton's birthbecause it took that long to cease being
enthralled with Payton's adorableness and
start being upset about having a child who
looks nothing like her two mommies, in a
town where no one else looks like Payton
either, and where people keep questioning
their familial connection. It took Cramblett two years to come to terms with the
fact that raising a black child in America
is far different from raising a white child.
When this story broke on Oct. 1, 2014,
I was revulsed. I was appalled, both by
Cramblett and by her lawsuit. I fell in love
with the photos of Payton, even as I was
horrified that Cramblett had made those
photos public.
Her lawsuit seemed so venal to me. Yet,
when you decide to buy a designer babybecause that's what anyone going to a
sperm bank is doing-you
want the design you bought and paid for. So, intellectually, I understood it. But then there was
Payton, the adorable toddler. How could
you let your child know that you considered her birth to be in any way "wrongful"?
I could write a whole column about how
sperm banks take advantage of lesbian
couples. (One couple I know spent thousands of dollars trying to get pregnant.)
But that's not the story here. The story
here is that Cramblett and Zinkon knew it
would be hard enough on their child to be
the daughter of lesbians. They didn't want
any other complications.
And race is a complication.
Yet, all over America, women-some in
relationships, some not-are having black
or biracial babies every day. Should they all
file "wrongful birth" lawsuits because their
children are going to face discrimination
every day of their lives? If they give birth to
sons, should they file lawsuits because those
boys will face a very high risk of being shot
to death-maybe by the police? If they give
birth to daughters, should they file lawsuits
because those girls might be sent home from
school because their hair is a "distraction" in
the classroom? This has happened to several
black girls in recent months.
What is the price of having a black
or half-black child in white America?
$50,000 hardly seems enough. What
Cramblett is seeking is reparations.
It took two years for Cramblett to file a
lawsuit about her sperm donor being black,
because it took two years for her to realize
that her whole life was going to be about
explaining to her daughter why she was being called n*gger or half-breed or any of the
other terrible names that will be hurled at
her, despite her adorableness. That's what
happens to black children in America.
It took two years for Cramblett to realize that being born half black in white
America would put her daughter at a constant disadvantage as well as a constant
risk, and that people would raise their eyebrows every time the family was together.
Because despite having a biracial president-who was raised by his white mother and his white grandparents and has a
sister who is half white and half Asian and
a stepfather who was Asian-we
are no
closer to being a postracial society than we
were a century ago.
Cramblett and Zinkon say they love
Payton as their daughter. But do they
love her as their own, or do they view her
blackness as foreign to everything in their
lives-hence the "wrongful birth" lawsuit?
Perhaps, for them, Payton is as foreign as
if they had adopted her from China or
Ecuador. Just the way straight people can
go through their lives in America without
knowing any LGBT people, white people can go through their lives in America
without knowing any black people.
Cramblett and Zinkon did not know
any until the day their daughter was born.
I'm pretty sure these two lesbians managed to find other lesbians to be friends
with, even in their small-town Ohio
world, because they wanted to. But they
never managed to find any black people to
be friends with, because they didn't need
to. The lawsuit says Payton's birth was an
error-a crime, actually.
The real crime here is the breadth of
American racism. Cramblett's lawsuit
paints that racism in broad black-and-white
strokes. Unfortunately, it also perpetuates it.
And a few years from now, Payton is going
to be asking her mothers why. •
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
17
THE
WRONG
PATH
It's easier to become a Piper Chapman or any of the
women from Orange Is the New Black than you think.
But what's being done to prevent the incarceration of
women and lesbians? ev v1cToR1A A. eRowNwoRTH
Women in prison. Even before Orange dykes to firsMime players, from daddy/
Is the New Black made it trendy, the idea girl duos to lipstick playmates. We want to
of women together behind bars spawned
pulp novels, B movies, the 1980s TV series
Prisoner:CellBlockH, and, of course, porn.
Last October, lesbian publisher Bella
Books sent out a call for submissions
for a new collection titled Desire Behind
Bars: Lesbian Prison Erotica.On the cov~
er is an image of heart~shaped handcuffs.
The editors suggest that prison might be
fun and sexy, noting, "The subject of pris~
on romance and sex is hotter" because of
OITNB, and they welcome depictions of
"risky tussles, secret trysts, and selrplea~
sure in a restrictive space with little to no
privacy:' The editors also reference "the
diversity of lesbian desire, from self~aware
18
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
see the rich desire and hot sex you bring
vividly to life among women behind bars:'
Right. Yet outside the realm of fiction and
fantasy, lesbian and bisexual womenespecially those under 35-can
often be
one romantic or highly unromantic mis~
step away from a prison sentence, just like
OITNB's Piper Chapman.
Piper Kerman, the author of the mem~
oir on which the hit series is based, grad~
uated from Smith College in 1992. A year
later, she got involved with Nora Jansen,
a woman who was a drug dealer, and in
1998 Kerman was indicted for money
laundering and drug trafficking. Starting
in 2004, she spent 13 months in Danbury,
a federal correctional institution 55 miles
from New York City-and
a far cry from
Smith College.
She's not alone.
More than half the women in U.S.
prisons are incarcerated for nonviolent
drug~related offenses. U.S. Bureau of
Justice statistics reveal that more than 40
percent of these women were under the
influence of alcohol or drugs when they
committed the crimes for which they were
convicted. Nearly two~thirds of the women
in prison also report having been victims of
child sexual abuse. A full 90 percent have
been victims of interpersonal violence.
Latino women are twice as likely to
be imprisoned as white women. African
American women are three times as likely
v1Ews1COMMU
to be imprisoned as white women.
Women represent 6 percent of the
American prison population, which is the
largest in the world. (Americans make up
only 5 percent of the global population, yet
constitute 25 percent of the incarcerated
population. That number is all the more
shocking when you consider that many
countries are dictatorships, with prisons
full of dissidents-China,
for instance, or
most African nations.)
The number of women in prison has
grown in the past decade, largely, their
advocates argue, because of drugs and
drug-related offenses like petty theft,
check kiting, and prostitution.
Advocacy groups such as the ACLU
also cite untreated mental illness as an
issue with women who end up in prison.
Substance abuse is a corresponding factor.
Abby Miller* ended up in prison because of this all-too-common confluence
of mental illness and substance abuse.
When Miller went to Vassar College, after finishing four years of high school in
three, she had her trajectory to a PhD all
mapped out. Unlike Piper Kerman, she
was neither blonde nor white nor middle class. The youngest of four children
of a very religious single mother, she was
primed to dazzle. The rarified atmosphere
of a Seven Sisters college introduced her
to a whole new life of possibilities-including her own lesbianism.
But by the end of her junior year, Miller
began having what she called "issues;' and
self-medicating became as common for
her as studying too much and not eating
enough. When the rest of her class was
graduating, she was beginning 18 months
in prison on a drug charge, coping with a
diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and recovering from an eating disorder.
Miller never returned to Vassar and
never got her life back on track. She would
drunk-dial old friends late at night until
most of us stopped taking her calls. Miller's
story is, unfortunately, a fairly typical one.
Had she been white and middle class, perhaps she would have found a way back to
Vassar, found decent therapy, and moved
forward with her life. But without those
essential supports-her
mother couldn't
cope with the butch lesbian who came
home from prison, and Miller went off her
meds regularly, preferring to self-medicate
with alcohol-she was mostly on her own.
Miller sometimes said she felt like she had
more family in prison than she had once
she got out.
According to ABC News, which has
recently done several in-depth reports on
women in prison, including two in which
former anchor Diane Sawyer put on an
orange jumpsuit and spent a full night
and day in a women's prison, 90 percent of
women in prison acknowledge having relationships-sexual
and romantic-with
other women. Unlike their male counterparts, women try to replicate familial
bonds in prison. Butch "studs" like Miller
are in demand.
YOU
WANT
TOBt
ABltTOPttWH[N
YOU
WANT
AND
SHOW[R
WH
tN
YOU
WANT
AND
US[
AR[AlKNl~t
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I
''
Luz Ortega* was also a "stud" behind
bars, but she had a far better experience than Miller's, once she got out. She
credits her success to familial and social
supports-and
a job-when
she was released. Like Miller, Ortega landed in prison because of substance abuse problems.
She had begun kiting checks to pay for
a prescription drug habit she developed
when her then-girlfriend introduced her
to Adderall.
Ortega said she was "three-quarters of
the way down the drain'' when she was arrested a third time for possession while she
was driving without a license. She contends
that she was pulled over in the first place as
harassment, because she's a butch lesbian of
color, but she says that it was probably the
best thing that could have happened to her.
"I had two choices: die, because that was
where I was headed, or live. I decided-and
believe me, it was a decision-to live. Prison
was not a place I ever want to go back to.
It is not all love and cupcakes. You want to
be able to pee when you want and shower
when you want and use a real knife at dinner? Don't go to prison:'
While she was doing her time, Ortega
helped other prisoners write letters to lawyers, to family, to former girlfriends. Most,
she said, were looking for 'Just a little love,
just a little kindness. Sometimes people
end up in prison just because no one's ever
been kind to them. Something snapscould be drugs, could be a weapon. You
never know. But something snaps:'
Years ago, I worked with prisoners who
were getting literacy training and were in
writing programs in prisons and halfway
houses. A significant percentage of women are in prison simply because they lack
the education to succeed. According to
the NAACP, almost half of incarcerated
women haven't finished high school-a
number that crosses racial lines, Piper
Kerman's Seven Sisters' education aside.
Many of the women I taught told me that
prison made them realize they'd been set
up to fail-there was so little waiting for
them when they were released.
During incarceration, lesbians and bisexual women are also at risk-from violence and rape and even murder. Human
Rights Watch and Amnesty International
assert that lesbians in particular are at
risk for sexual assault from male guards.
HRW contends that even those women
who are out lesbians or bisexuals prior to
prison might feel compelled to hide their
gay identity while they are incarcerated
because of threats of assault, both physical
and sexual.
According to Amnesty International,
throughout the world, lesbian and bisexual prisoners and those perceived to
be lesbian or bisexual are at risk of being
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
19
tortured, subjected to violence, even mur~
dered by other inmates as well as prison
officials. Luz Ortega wasn't assaulted while
she was in prison, but she has friends who
were. Now out of prison for more than
five years, she and her partner are running
a small business and are considering hav~
ing a baby. She works with a local organi~
zation in her city that helps women who
have been released from prison find work.
"It's so much easier to continue down
that bad path when you're already on it;'
she says. "You need help to get on a differ~
ent one, to make that change, to give your~
self that option. Women inside, they don't
see options for themselves, they don't see
a way our:'
While there are a plethora of groups
advocating for transgender prisoners and
myriad resources to help them, just as
there are resources for gay men in prison,
even providing them with condoms, lesbi~
ans in prison are an invisible demograph~
ic-though
they greatly outnumber other
queer prisoners in the prison population.
The popularity of OITNB has only
served to heighten the eroticism that at~
taches to women in prison-it
has done
20
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
nothing to create awareness of or expand
services for these women, who are at real
risk of recidivism-either
because of their
substance abuse or because of the illegal
acts that go with it. An Internet search
for resources for women in prison, and
even a search of the legal system, turns
up nothing specific to lesbians or bisexual
women. Except for the National Center
for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), which also
focuses heavily on trans issues, there is no
lesbian~centered program for prisoners.
The ACLU, which has chapters
throughout the country, has both a pris~
oner's project and an LGBT project, but
neither has any programs for lesbians.
Some states-notably
Massachusetts,
California, and New York-have generic
resources for LGBT prisoners, but again
these focus on transgender issues.
This lack of responsiveness to what
is arguably the largest demographic of
LGBT people behind bars is notable in
its absence on the LGBT community's
list of activist concerns, yet it is one that
highlights the insidious problem oflesbian
erasure and invisibility within the commu~
nity as a whole. If a significant percentage
of female prisoners are lesbian and bisex~
ual, how can we ignore their needs? How
can we fail to provide a safety net for them
when they leave the confines of prison, so
that they don't end up back behind bars,
or, like Miller, lost on the outside?
Lesbians in prison may make for a hot
trope on TV, in film, and in porn. But in
real life, women in our own communi~
ty-especially
poor women and women
of color-are at risk of heading down that
wrong path that Ortega refers to, and of
becoming a Piper Kerman or, more like~
ly, an Abby Miller. We owe these women
more than just a sexy portrayal in our col~
lective fantasies. We owe them a second
chance at life. •
RESOURCES
aclu.org/lgbt-rights
nclr.org/prisons
blacka nd pin k.org/resou rces-2
national-prisoner-resource-list
prisonactivist.org/resources
*Names have been changed to protect
the identities of the women in this story.
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Stone Butch Blues
One lezzy doesn't want it to be all about her.
Another does. evuPsT1cK
& 01PsT1cK
Dipstick: Dear Jumped, it seems you've
found yourself in a relationship with a
stone butch-or
at least a Stone Sadie.
Since you're newly out, you may not even
know about this subset of our community.
Lesbians who are "stone" are completely
Dear Lipstick & Dipstick: I had my first lesbian experience
two years ago. It was so wonderful to be free to explore who
I really am. Up until this point, I had always fantasized about
women and what we could do together in the bedroom. Finally
getting to experiment with that was amazing. Not long after
that short-lived relationship fizzled out, I met a woman who
knocked me off my feet. Sadie was everything I wanted. She'd
been out for 30 years and knew how to treat a woman right.
It was fun, in the beginning, because it was all about me. She
didn't allow me to touch her intimately. No going down on
her. No touching-not even body massages. Only kissing and
hugging. In the beginning, that was enough, but then it started
to bother me, and it still does. We got married last year and
now I'm totally regretting it. This is not the kind of relationship
I want to be in. She doesn't want to make it any better, and
it seems she only wants a live-in friend, not a real wife. I am
contemplating leaving and freeing myself once again to be me,
a happy and proud lesbian who loves to meet and appreciate
other women. So now for the question: How can someone call
herself a lesbian if she doesn't want or enjoy all the beautiful
sexy adventures-all the skin-to-skin contact and intimacy?Jumped the Gun
satisfied by pleasing their partners and
prefer not be to touched sexually. I guess
this is a conversation you should have had
before you married Sadie.
Lipstick: To answer your question, according to Merriam Webster, the word "lesbian"
is defined as "a woman who is sexually
attracted to other women," so Sadie has
every right to call herself a clit crusader
and fly that flag.
Dipstick: True that. Stone butch lesbians
are part of our LGBT history and culture.
For some perspective, I suggest you read
the iconic Stone Butch Blues by Leslie
Feinberg.
Lipstick: It sounds like Sadie simply isn't
the type of lezzy you want to sleep next to
each night. There are myriad reasons why
she's not into certain kinds of intimacy.
Perhaps she's a survivor of sexual abuse
and has put walls up for protection.
Dipstick: Actually, Lipstick, I think there is
a misconception in our community that all
stones must have some kind of trauma in
their past. In many cases that is just not so.
For a number of stones, it's just a sexual
preference to please. There is nothing
wrong with her-she is just different from
you.
Lipstick: I'm certainly not suggesting
there's anything wrong with Stone Sadie,
Dip-no
need to get your boxers in a
bunch. I'm just peering into my crystal
ball, colored and animated with 10 years of
giving lesbians advice. For some survivors,
this is their reality. With all due respect to
stones, I couldn't be in a relationship with
one. I need more-the
give and take is es-
sential to fan this femme's flame. Jumped,
have you ever asked Sadie why she doesn't
like to be touched? If not, then letting
some light into this dark room can give
much clarity. In fact, it will be essential
as the two of you figure out how to move
forward, with or without each other.
22
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JAN/FEB
2015
VIEWS/
Dipstick: Just because Sadie doesn't like to
better. The fact that you've kept it inside for
be touched, it doesn't mean she's not into
more than a year concerns me more than
sex, or she's not sexually attracted to you.
the issue at hand.
LIPSTICK+DI
PS
#ft
U1 BESPOKE
MATCHMAKING
EXECUTIVE
GAYMATCHMAKINGFIRM
It's just that she wants to run the showthat's what gives her pleasure. It's time you
Lipstick: I disagree, Dip. Worried Womb, I
and she figure out if and how this is going to
say you're overthinking all this right now. I
work for the both of you. But quit blaming
know Mom Fever is a fiery beast, but just try
her for being exactly the person you knew
to chill for a while. You're young-just
her to be when you tied the knot.
your life and each other, and try to live in
enjoy
the present moment. There's plenty of time
Dear Lipstick & Dipstick: About a year ago,
to deal with the specifics of starting a family
my girlfriend and I were out with friends
when it's actually time to conceive the baby.
and the conversation somehow turned to
At that point, you should sit down with a
having children. I mentioned that I didn't
professional to help you girls suss it out. All
want to get pregnant, but I wanted my
couples, in my opinion, should spend time
partner to carry my egg for our first baby.
on a therapist's couch before taking such a
That way, she could give birth to the child,
huge step. A little housecleaning is critical
but biologically it would also be a part of
prep before you have a child, so you can air
me. My girlfriend's response to that was,
all your fears, and laundry, before the first
"I want my baby first, though." The way
cry. With some work, you can get to a place
she said it made me feel like we weren't
where you feel as secure about the fruits of
in this together, like if she carried my egg
"her egg" as you do about your own.
it wouldn't be hers, and that her egg, her
baby, wouldn't be mine. All I said was we
Dipstick: Worried, I agree that she's being
still had plenty of time to talk about that
selfish in saying "my baby first," but frankly,
later on. I was slightly embarrassed that
aren't you also being selfish in saying you
she'd said anything in front of our friends,
want your egg up the fallopian first? Think
but I didn't want to discuss it further until
about it.
we were in private. I think she reacted that
way because she is an only child and has a
Lipstick: Maybe you should reconsider the
lot to learn about being in a partnership-
whole idea. I know a handful of couples
like how things are not always going to
who've gotten pregnant at the same time
be just about her. Recently, we've gone
with the same donor's sperm. How cool
through some other rough patches. We
is that!
try to talk about the things that aren't
working and find what we can do to fix
Dipstick: As for your fear of being a bad
them, or just compromise. So far, so good,
parent, I'd be more concerned if you were
except for that one little thing we haven't
overly confident about your child-rearing
discussed since that night. With each
abilities. Start on this parenting journey with
rough patch, that moment of her saying
an open heart and an open mind and I'm
"my baby" always pops into my head.
sure you'll do just fine. No parent is perfect.
When I replay it, fear stirs up inside me,
Every child needs a therapy fund, but before
because I'm terrified of being a bad mom.
you start that fund, put a few dollars away
I'm worried that if I don't have a biological
for yourself and make sure your partnership
connection with our first child, one day she
is solid-which
or he is going to throw it in my face: "You
hard conversations-before
are not my real mom." Is this something I
embryos to the petri dish.
DISCOVER
TRUELOVE
Do you have a burning
C0NTACTUST0DAYT0SCHEDULE
A COMPLIMENTARY
CONSULTATION
means being able to have
should discuss with her now, or can it wait
until we get closer to having kids, which
wouldn't be anytime soon, as we're only
in our early twenties?-Worried
NEW YORK
- TORONTO
LOS ANGELES
- SAN FRANCISCO
About the
you bring any
Womb and Whom
Dipstick: Are lesbians still having babies?
question for Lipstick
I thought that was a '90s fad. Worried, you
& Dipstick? Write to
must talk about this, and the sooner the
ask@lipstickdipstick.com
1-888-422-6464
Bespoke Matchmaking.com
Make It Valentine's Day
Every Day of the Year
These relationship skills last longer than chocolates and flowers.
BY JULIA B. COLWELL, PH.D
ave you heard this idea?
"Lesbians can't have real
relationships. They can
last 2 or 3 years tops,
then they move on to
the next person. Or else they settle down
and have a boring life:'
I have. In fact, a lesbian in her 30s told
me that a few weeks ago. My heart sankare women still carrying that around as
their picture of relationships?
OK, there's this one, too. I won't even
re~tell the old saw about lesbians and the
second date U ~ Haul. As far as I can see,
what women believe about our relation~
ships goes from "Wow! I'm out of the
closet! That was so worth it!" to "My rela~
tionships are second~rare:'
H
24
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JAN/FEB
2015
As we celebrate this season of love, let's
step up and own what's really possible here,
in our female~focused relationships. We
know what we want. We want passion and
connection and aliveness; to be seen and
known for our true selves; and to feel in love,
the way we did when we were first involved
with each other. It's time to put in the effort
to learn the skills that will take us there.
Coming out at 16 in the 1970s, I've car~
ried my share of internalized homophobia
into my relationships. In the 1980s, that
homophobia pervaded psychological think~
ing, with the prevailing notion that lesbians
"merge" in our relationships, creating an
unhealthy, mushed up version of connec~
tion. (I tested that theory out for my dis~
serration. Bottom line? No, lesbians don't
"merge'' more than gay men or straight peo~
ple. We do, however, have more ongoing,
deep emotional connection.)
I've spent my career unearthing the qual~
ities that go into creating great relation~
ships: they're full of passion and allow for
full self expression and are stable and long
lasting. Between our others~first socializa~
tion and all of those motherhood hormones
racing through our veins, it can be hard for
women to balance maintaining emotional
contact and saying what we really want. We
treasure connection and hate the discon~
nection of conflict. We tend to stuff what
we want and need until it all erupts to the
surface in a big fight. Or we don't fight at
all, seeking out the next person who seems
to understand us better without our even
VIEWS/
having to verbalize what we want.
My book, The Relationship Skills Work-
book, A Do-it-YourselfGuide to a Thriving
Relationshipaddresses this difficulty headon. It's my personal answer to the mysterious question that plagues relationships:
How can we each have self-expression and
still have a deep, ongoing connection?
I've discovered and devised powerful
tools that support this balancing act between self and other. I've found that lesbians are actually potential pros at forging
what really is an entirely new path of relationship, where each person gets to be as
big as she truly is while connection thrives.
We tend to be particularly motivated to
plumb the depths and intricacies of how
relationships work. And, as women in a
sexist culture, we're especially tuned into
the issues of power that can disrupt the
balance of self-expression.
Here's an excerpt from my book that
walks you through the number one skill
I believe allows people to express themselves while staying vulnerable and connected: Speaking the unarguabletruth.
Speaking the unarguable truth is the
most powerful of any of the skills I have to
teach you and, from my own experience,
the most challenging ... We've been raised
to think critically, to debate concepts, beliefs, and ideas. Then we get into relationships, where these skills take us straight
into escalation and disconnection. Shifting into speaking unarguably can feel like
trying to grow a new limb. But it will allow
you to walk through life in real partnership and intimacy.
Many of us have some notion that we
should bring feelings into our conversations and that other people don't get to tell
us how to feel. However, this basic idea
tends to run us aground, sounding something like this:
"I feel like you are attacking me:'
"I feel that this is going nowhere:'
"I am sad and hurt that you just don't
consider me:'
Can you argue with these statements?
Remember, if you can, they're arguable.
That's all it takes (and I can for sure argue
with each of these sentences). So let's take
this idea of unarguability further.
The goal of moving from arguable to
unarguable statements is to get away from
blaming and to shift into fully owning, and
actually having, one's experience. When
we say arguable things, we are projecting
our past experiences onto the other person. Occasionally we're accurate, but for
the most part, our projections are wildly
off the mark and apt to just pull the other
person into whatever old issue we haven't
worked out yet. When we can actually observe these projections for what they are,
we have a ticket into healing old wounds:
as we watch ourselves get triggered into
acting out the old scenarios from our
childhood with our partners, it actually
becomes possible to move them out of
our bodies. Unfortunately, we generally
believe our own projections, and then get
our partners to be our co-stars in the old
unconscious dramas.
Speaking the unarguable truth takes
us beyond all the projections to the only
provable truth there is: our own experience. While we can never be completely sure of what's going on outside of our
bodies (Is that person really mad at us?
Is the economy good or bad? Is that tone
rude or too loud or too sharpr), we know
that our stomach feels tight or that our jaw
is clenched. The skill here is to only speak
what we truly know.
So, what is unarguable? Truly, the only
thing that someone else can't argue about is
what we are sensing in our bodies, that is,
whether we have butterflies in our chest or a
headache or a dry mouth. I'm going to take
it a step further and add that no one gets to
argue with what we arefeeling or with what
we want. So that's our list of what is unarguable: sensations, emotions, and what we
want:' [Excerpt with permission from The
RelationshipSkills Workbook, published by
Sounds True, October 2014.]
Try it now. First, what are your sensations? Close your eyes and take an inner
tour. Is your stomach clenched? Your chest
heavy? Do you have a headache or a backache? Do you feel filled with zinging and/
or expansive energy?
Tuning into and describing those sensations (to yourself or the other person)
actually might be enough to move you out
of a conflict. Just realizing that your body
is triggered-and
giving it some loving attention-can
take you a long way towards
resolution. But let's go further. Link the
sensationsto emotions.
Our body tells us what we're feeling
ADVI
by the specific sensations it's generating.
Stomach aches, nausea, butterflies-those
are all indicators of fear. A heavy chest or
lump in the throat? Those are all sad signals. N eek, shoulder, head tension/ achiness? That's anger. Glad and sexual can
feel expansive, warm, pulsating, sizzling all
through the body (with, of course, particular focus on the erogenous zones).
Still with me? So sensations tell you
what your emotions are. Very simple.
(And-who
knew?) The next part of tuning into what's unarguable is to let yourself
FEEL what you're feeling. Don't skip over
this. It will just take you a few minutes to
breathe and let yourself feel how mad, sad,
glad, scared, or sexual you really are. And
that's the part that's really going to move
you out of the conflict. It's what you're not
feeling that's keepingyou stuck.
We've got sensations, which tie to emotions. And, once you've felt what you're
feeling, saying what you want or don't
want (which are also unarguable) is pretty
straightforward.
So, that time that one of you wanted
to have sex and the other wasn't "in the
mood?" Instead of the arguable "You never
want me" or "You're always pushing me" it
would sound like 'Tm tight all over. I'm
afraid you're not attracted to me. I want to
feel connected:' Or "My jaw is tight. I feel
angry. I want time to feel that:'
Do you see how the blame drops away?
If there's no attack, there's no need to defend, enabling connection, understanding,
and mutual support. And we get to really
be seen for the actual experience we're having. Right in the moment. Our vulnerability becomes our strength, as the other can
see us and hear us.
So, for this Valentine's Day, give each
other something priceless-a
commitment to learn to speak what's really going
on. Long after the chocolate has been eaten or the flowers have faded, this present
will keep your connection deep, your passion strong, and your love alive.•
The Relationship Skills Workbook: The Do-ItYourself Guide to a Thriving Relationship by
Julie B. Colwell is out now from Sounds True
(soundstrue.com).
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
25
Pulling All the Strings
Celebrating guitar master Sharon lsbin.
BY MERRYN JOHNS
t year was the year of Shaon Isbin, the out, Grammy
ward-winning musician,
rguably the world's greatst female classical guitarist.
And it's easy to see why with the release of
5 of her most popular albums in a new box
CD set. These include: the joyful compositions and Brazilian percussion of Journey to
the Amazon; Isbin's solo work, Dreams of
a World, with 20 tracks that prove she can
play anything; Vivaldi; Bach; Albinoni: Guitar Concertos, featuring Baroque favorites
with orchestral accompaniment by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra; Rodrigo; Villa-Lobos; Ponce: Guitar Concertos with the New
York Philharmonic Orchestra; and Tan
Dun; Rouse: Guitar Concertos with Muhai
Tang and the Gulbenkian Orchestra.
You may have caught Isbin on tour last
November demonstrating her incomparable techniques and interpretative skills in
a city near you. Or you might not know
anything about her and want to-and you
L
26
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
should. Isbin is the leader in her field, heading up the guitar department at New York's
prestigious Juilliard School and being invited to play at the Ground Zero Memorial,
Carnegie Hall, and the White House. She is
also the subject of a documentary six years
in the making. Sharon Isbin: Troubadour
explores Isbin's extraordinary career, with
guest appearances from Michelle Obama,
Joan Baez, Lesley Gore, and Martina Navratilova. Inspiring and often amusing, it tells
the story of a tomboy's journey from wouldbe rocket scientist to trailblazing, glamorous
performer and teacher. Isbin might not have
embarked on her childhood dream of space
travel but she broke barriers to reach the top
of the male-dominated guitar world.
Isbin's incredible musical journey began
when she was 9. "We happened to live in
Italy, my father's sabbatical from the University of Minnesota as a scientist;' she recalls.
"When my brother asked for lessons on
guitar and he discovered it was classical, he
declined immediately and I offered to take
his place. I began by default and it continued to be a hobby until I was 14. After we
came back to the States and I became very
involved in the rockets, my father used to
say,'You can't launch your rockets until you
put an hour in on guitar: So he bribed me to
keep at it. And then I ended up winning a
competition and the reward was to perform
in front of 10,000 people. That's when I decided it was even more exciting to be on a
concert stage than watching my worms and
grasshoppers go into space:'
But Isbin never really left her scientific
pursuits behind. At age 16 she would practice guitar with a mirror and a tape recorder.
"I had to basically figure it out for mysel£ I
would occasionally have lessons with other
guitarists but I really had to problem solve
and I think that the work I did in science,
whether it was dissecting a fish or building
rockets, really trained my process of thinking to be able to find a solution:'
One solution to becoming the best in
her field was to learn from the masters who
REVIEWS/MUSIC
paved the way such as Andres Segovia. She
also studied with Rosalyn T ureck, a harp~
sichordist whose forte was Bach, and al~
though not a guitarist, helped lsbin improve
her discipline and musical understanding.
"Mentorship is a very important com~
ponent in guiding the younger generation;'
says ls bin. "When I was asked to create the
guitar department of The Juilliard School,
I said yes because it would really give me
the opportunity to fashion it after my own
belief system and imagination. And I now
have students from more than 20 different
countries come and study with me. Men~
torship is an exciting way to share infor~
mation and knowledge. And we live in that
kind of age now:'
It's also the age of YouTube and overnight
stardom. But lsbin warns that a musical ca~
reer "really doesn't work that way if you want
quality and you have standards. You really
have to do an enormous amount of work:'
You also have to possess ambition, and that's
something still not encouraged in American
women. lsbin's female guitar graduates all
come from overseas, she notes, and it puz~
zles her that the situation hasn't changed in
over 20 years.
"I certainly remember what it felt like
when I was 15 years old and [out of] 50
students of guitar only two of us were girls.
That made me especially eager to work hard
and be my best so that I could eliminate any
sense of doubt based on gender. For me it
was a strong motivating factor:'
Along the way, lsbin has managed to find
some female guitar heroes, including Joan
Baez and Nancy Wilson. She also admires
Melissa Etheridge, Kaki King, and Orianthi.
"They're out there;' she says of female career
guitarists, "I think it's just going to take time
to break long~spanning traditions:'
In the meantime, lsbin is still the only
female guitarist to have won a classical
Grammy Award. "Expanding the horizons
of an instrument, and what goes into that;'
she says, is the subject of her documentary,
which is why she is so proud of it. It will
also bring lsbin to a wider audience when
it's broadcast on 200 public television sta~
tions, outing her on a mass scale. She came
out once before, in 1995 in OUT maga~
zinc, after she demonstrated to her man~
ager that "k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge
came out and they were selling platinum:'
When the mainstream press picked up
that lsbin was out, she felt some trepida~
tion, but a standing ovation at a perfor~
mance in Atlanta indicated that she was
the only one feeling that way.
"I think it's really important to be who
you are, and not hide anything;' says lbsin,
who has been in a relationship for 22 years.
"I have to set the example that I believe in
by doing it mysel£ It allowed me to go to
the next level. Everyone has already joined
me on the journey of the discovery of music.
Coming out is not the focus. It is just a part
of who I am:' (sharonisbin.com) •
/
Natalia
Zukerman
Come
Thief,
Come
Fire
(Pleoge
Music)
Thoughthe delicate sparsenessof "Courageto Change"might lull casual listeners into
thinking NataliaZukermanis just another folk slinger,long-timefans know that is anythingbut
the case. And, by the time everyonegets to the sinuousjazzinessof Come Thief. ComeFire's
second track and the bluesysaunter of the third, the virtual reality of Zukerman'sexpanded
repertoire comes into sharp relief. Knownin Americanacircles as both an accomplished
songwriter and a superlativeguitarist, Zukermanmeldsthose two strengths in fine fashion
here. "I Don't FeelIt Anymore,""What ComesAfter," and "Give"come off as heartfelt
companionpiecesto the mesmerizingopener,addingtheir own hushedbeautyto its musicaland emotionaltrain of thought, while tunes
like "Oneof Us," "The Light Is Gone,"and "Hero" cant the whole piece toward a livelier,more cinematiclean,and temper the woe just a
little andjust enough.
Rachael
Sage
Blue
Roses
(MPress
Recoros)
Evenfor people not familiar with RachaelSage'smusic, there's a lot that is familiar in
RachaelSage'smusic. The long-independentsinger/songwriter has been singing catchy,
piano-driven melodies since well before Ingrid Michaelsonstormed the charts, and she
has never stopped fine-tuning her craft, as evidenced nicely on Blue Roses. Sure, the
opening riff of "EnglishTea"winks at the RollingStones' "Sympathy for the Devil" and the
chorus of "Barbed Wire" nods to Jewel's "YouWere Meant for Me," but both veer off from
those starting points and traipse joyously into and through Sage-ville. Oneof the record's
most diverse tracks, "Wax," weaves in and out of various styles as the piano's lighthearted babbling in the verse runs into a dense
boulder of sound at the chorus before flowing back around and on from there. Later in the collection, lush strings add just the right
dose of sentimental ache to "Misery's Grace" and "Wishing Day."
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
27
aryn K. Hayes sure has
her hands full these days.
With
several successful
web series behind her, she
can now add an acclaimed
short film, Clean Hands, to her portfolio.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Hayes
became enthralled with writing fiction as
a youngster. After matriculating at Xavi~
er University of Louisiana she made the
haul to Los Angeles and started cranking
out heavily~followed web series, documen~
taries, and shorts. Her newest short film,
Clean Hands, takes us into the home of a
married lesbian couple, Anna and Kirsten,
who are at a standstill in their relationship.
Anna is torn between her wife and her ter~
minally ill father, who disapproves of their
"ungodly" union. Tensions flair and drama
ensues. I recently caught up with Hayes
to discuss the making and distribution of
this timely film.
C
What was the driving force behind
Clean Hands? How was it conceived?
The idea for Clean Hands came about
from a lot of different places. I wanted to
do a story about a couple who aren't ex~
actly on the same page-spiritually
and in
some other ways. That was the kernel of
28
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
the story and it bloomed from there. The
ladies have to deal with grief and forgive~
ness, and they deal with these emotions
differently. Each one is battling her own
demons. Anna is seeking a peace that she
can't find, and Kirsten doesn't know how
to help. They are becoming more and
more disconnected.
What can your audience take away
from your film? Why should they see it?
Love is thicker than water:' Sorry, I
make bad jokes (laughs). Honestly, ev~
eryone takes away something different.
There are so many themes in this short
piece that everyone should be able to
relate to something. Grief is universal,
but how we deal with it is so intrinsical~
ly personal. Some people relate to what
Anna goes through the most. On the
other hand, many people, not just in the
LGBT community, have conflicts with
their parents, or their spouse has conflicts
with their parents, and that's so difficult
to navigate. Not to mention the terminal
illness they're dealing with, and the fact
that they're living in close quarters. Clean
Hands is definitely something that makes
you think, and hopefully it will touch you.
It's a real~life drama.
How do you think online distribution
will work in favor of your production
company? Is there a goal?
Other than film festivals and public
screenings, Hardly Working Entertain~
ment has always operated online, so I
don't think there's much difference in the
promotional aspect. The true difference is
that we're asking the audience to help us by
paying to watch this production. That is a
harder pill to swallow. We kept the rental
price low, so that it wouldn't be a burden
to folks who just want a good movie, and
we chose Reelhouse to distribute because
the site gives buyers the option to help, if
they choose to, by paying more than the
asking price. The goal is to get away from
crowd funding. We've done a few cam~
paigns to shoot more of a web series, and
while we've been blessed to go back and
shoot more, it's not a sustainable business
plan. The hope is that we'll be able to take
what we make with Clean Hands and ere~
REVIEWS/
ate something new. Honestly, I would have
made more money doing a crowd funding
campaign, so hopefully things will pick up.
You've done so much already in your
career. Where did your passion for all
things creative begin?
I started off as a writer, and that's all
I wanted to do since I was 11 years old.
When I started college, I took a class in
mass communications because I loved
television and wanted to see what it was
like behind the camera. I fell in love with
producing-I
hated directing for yearsand switched majors at the end of that
semester.
There aren't too many out women
directors in Hollywood, especially
women of color. Knowing you're
getting your name out there, and your
popularity is growing, how does the
success make you feel?
This is a pretty tough question: one, be~
cause I prefer "Caryn" to "our;' as I'm not
interested in labeling mysel£ and two, be~
cause I won't feel successful until I'm able
to survive without a day job. That said, I
do feel a great sense of accomplishment for
the work I've done. I'm creating the indu~
sive, non~stereotypical content that I want
to see, and I'm happy to share it with the
world. I'm glad that people are enjoying it.
FlLM
If you could give an aspiring lesbian
filmmaker any advice at all, what
would it be?
Don't kill the lesbian-it
is never well
received, unless it's Jenny! Also, every~
one says that you should write what you
know. While I don't disagree-'cause, re~
ally, who likes to do research-I
would
suggest writing what you're passionate
about, something you won't get to the
middle of and be so weary of that you'll
never complete it. If you love it, it won't be
work. Filmmaking shouldn't be work. If it
is, you probably should've been a surgeon,
or a politician. There's so much less stress.
(hardlyworkingent.com) •
HOT
PICKS
))BYMARCIE
BIANCO
She's
Beautiful
When
She's
Angry
Oirecteo
oyMary
Dore
If you watched PBS's2013documentaryseries Makers: WomenWho Make
America but were left unsatisfiedwith how lesbianswere portrayed as less
than seminalfigures in the women'smovement,look no further than the new
documentary,She's Beautiful WhenShe'sAngry.
Producedand directed by filmmakerMary Dore,She's Beautiful WhenShe's
Angry fills the void in historicaldocumentariesabout women and the women's
liberationmovementof the 20th century by focusingon lesser-knownfigures of
the late 1960s.Fromthe foundingof the NationalOrganizationof Women(NOW)
throughthe 1970s,before the fall of the EqualRightsAmendment,the viewer
encountersthe street theatrics of WITCH(Women'sInternationalConspiracy
from Hell!)and meetsthe Bostonwomenwho wrote the paradigm-shifting1969
text Our Bodies, Ourselves.Doregoes beyondthe usualwhite and heterosexual
GloriaSteinemsof the movementto give us personalinterviewswith lesbian
activists Rita MaeBrown and KarlaJay,the latter of whom gave us the phrase
"LavenderMenace,"which cameto representthe critical angerof the lesbianfeminist movement.
Dorerealizesthat angerwas and continuesto be an essentialelementof all
civil rights movements.Speakingwith Curve, she explainedthat angerfunctions
as a multifariouscatalyst for change."It works on manylevels.As satire: 'You're
so cute when you're mad.'And as a provocation:What'sthe worst thing a
woman can be?Angry! Or an angry blackwoman,the worst thing on earth!"
Thedocumentarybeautifullyblendsarchivalfootage,includingphotographic
stills and film, with contemporaryinterviewswith Brown and Jay,and also with
an impressiveassortmentof other women includingChudePamelaAllen,Susan
Brownmiller,LindaBurnham,KateMillettand more.
"The early pioneers were amazinglybrave and foresighted," says Dore.
Indeed,this grassroots portrait of badass straight and gay women's
rights activists is anything but sentimental. It is a historical force that
breathes new life into the 21st century women's rights movement.
(shesbeautifulwhenshesangry.com)
JAN/FEB
2015
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29
n A Cup of Water Under My Bed, a memoir that follows
her journey through two different cultures, the author, editor, and former New York Times journalist Daisy Hernandez tells her story of growing up Cuban-Colombian in a
working-class family in NYC, coming out as bisexual, and
learning what it takes to become who you are.
I
You write a lot about religious and cultural rituals and
their significance in your childhood. Do you have any
writing rituals?
Navigating between cultures, languages, and sexualities
can make for a perilous journey. Any advice?
Proceed with caution! It's very important to have a chosen family.
By that I mean that we in the LGBTQ community might not be
able to continue having a relationship with our original family. It's
also true when you shift from one class to another. It's important to
have your tribe. Get your tribe together. It does take time at first, but
you will grow older. The best thing for women of color to know is
that you will grow older, and life will connect you to different people.
Cleaning my desk gives me a sense of accomplishment, but I've
been letting go of that ritual. Now, on the advice of Cristina Garcia,
the author of Dreaming in Cuban, I'm reading a lot of poetry. One of
my favorites is Adrienne Rich, a famous queer poet.
You write about feeling that you'd disappointed your parents, and while the context is cultural, I think it's definitely
something a lot of LGBTQ people can relate to. What was
your process of finding courage, and do those feelings still
come up for you?
You explore a lot of different identities in this book: being
Latina, being queer, being a child of immigrants. Who else
do you think is going to relate to this story?
My process had a lot to do with finding my tribe-and
people who were going to support me and had already led the way.
It was so powerful to meet women of color who were older and
were coming out. It showed me that it's possible to be out and be
happy in the world. It was important for me to read the work of
Audre Lorde, who spoke with such elegance about the idea that
silence will not protect us. Courage came literally through books.
I still get those feelings, but a lot less. It's not the initial feeling I
had when I was younger, which I thought was always going to be
the truth. Now I realize they are just feelings and they'll go away.
I have an amazing life, due in part to my parents raising me. But I
think having those feelings is just inherent in being a child.
Everyone! It's been really surprising. I definitely have connected
with other children of immigrants from many different cultures,
Asian, Latin, etc., anyone whose first language wasn't English,
anyone who has experienced clashes with the values and expectations of their parents. I've even received an email from a 72-yearold white man who really enjoyed the book! It reminded me that
our audiences aren't limited. I also often see parents buying A Cup
of Water for LGBTQ children, especially daughters-purposely
buying a book that deals with gender and sexuality.
30
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JAN/FEB
2015
REVIEWS/
Love is also a big theme in your book. You explore your
unconditional and sometimes complicated love for your
family, but you also talk of heartbreak, sex, relationships,
women. Any advice on love?
So many romantic disasters could have been avoided, but it would
not have made you who you are now. It's going to go down the way
it goes down, and you will feel better about it later! For queer peo~
ple, sometimes when you face a lot of harassment you hold on really
tight to those you've spent even a couple of months with, because
you know they understand you and what you're going through. For
women of color who are grappling with so many different identities,
BOOKS
the points of connection we have are so powerful, and when we meet
they are so special that we hold on, for better or for worse. Even
though we are up against so many forces, such as internal fears and
outright hatred, as long as we can keep compassion as our North
Star, we'll be fine.
What projects other than writing are you working on?
I'm currently a visiting writer at the University of North Car~
olina at Chapel Hill, teaching creative nonfiction. I'm also trying
to be a better tennis player and hanging out with my cat. Finding
food she will eat is definitely a project! (daisyhernandez.com) •
HOT
READS
))BYLAUREN
SHIRO
A Cup of Water
UnderMyB~d
Daisy
Hernadez
ACup
ofWater
Under
MyBed
(Beacon
Press)
Most people write their memoirs and autobiographies when they're
older and they have much to reflect upon. Some people, however, have
enough of a tale that they can write theirs at a younger age. Such is the
~'JI.U,uli:ithl,bi:.■ttltrfllriki1tg,li«f:!liit)'
u,,m,.~ . .. l-lr;:flU11r;k,.
Wfftctiw-h.11
kmr.,,t:,·,
case with Daisy Hernandez.
lhllcW~ti:nd.c:r.n~,
uu.tl l.,tiYt. I bo:uw
11
~lyinad111:ir1u.1rr1xu11f-,Uitilde.
Hernandez's book, A Cup of Water Under My Bed, is an open,
-~\!\lllU('.l.'1,f
IU)~.,u.Jh,w ...r
unabashed, captivating story. From the first page, she pulls you in with her
r/Jir/.tm.-nu.J/~.~hwJ
heartfelt, personal writing. It's as if you are sitting with her as she relates
her story. Her words are warm, honest, and genuine. It is a beautifully
executed book.
In her book, we learn about her world-what it's like to be a Latina child
growing up in a house where her parents wanted her to be more white than
Hispanic. We learn of her parents, her aunts, her friends and family friends,
and her extended family. They are not just names written on a page.
Rather, they are real people. We get to see them for who they are: flawed
and fine, human in every way. We see how their interactions with each
other, as well as with her, impact her life. We watch Daisy grow up, and her
family members grow old.
Her life story is pieced together in various vignettes: individual patches
all pieced together to make a greater story. She seamlessly weaves and
sews these patchworks together and creates a flawless quilt. As you go from piece to piece, you are curiously intrigued as to how
these different stories mesh. Not once does she fail to perfectly connect it all. Her storytelling is immaculate.
As a fellow Latina, there were so many parallels; I could relate to her easily. What I found, though, is that her story is one that
speaks to all races. Her words are so perfect and universal, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from: hers is a very
relevant story to all readers.
A Cup of Water Under My Bed is powerful and moving. We watch Hernandez grow. We watch her discover herself. We watch
her discover her family members. I have to be honest: it is so incredibly difficult to explain how much we learn of her and the
people around her without giving away some of the greatest gems in the book. I love her candidness and honesty. It's not brutal;
it's beautiful. It's deep and dark and rich. It is an incredible personal journey.
This book is an easy read: You fly through the book, and you don't even realize it. Her work flows and keeps your attention at all
times. If you are looking for a story of strength, a story chock-full of emotions, a story of tremendous wisdom and beauty, this is
the book for you. It is simply superb. It's a remarkable memoir, and you certainly gain something wonderful from it.
am~morr
JAN/FEB
2015
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31
A new photo project
refashions gender
beauty norms.
WORDS AND IMAGES
BY DIANA PRICE
Tomboi: The Beauty in Female Masculinity is a project show-
casing women who identify as women, but dress and look masculine. The mission is to allow others to see masculine women
as attractive, and as sex symbols, through a calendar, poster, or
some form of media. I wanted to find a clothing line or a large
department store to be the fashion designer in this project. After
talking to several small companies that made clothes for women
HAIR & MAKEUP
RAE SHANNON,
NINA MANGUAL,
that looked boyish, I decided it was better to push the envelope
with a large department store that had several brand name labels
BECKY STEINHARDT,
within their men's lines. I only needed to ask one company, and
WANDALIS SANCHEZ
that's Macy's. They have always been a proud supporter of the
WARDROBE
MACY'S PERSONAL
SHOPPER JOY
CAMACHO
LGBTcommunity, and with same-sex marriage occurring in many
states, I felt it was time for Macy's to be aware of a large group of
women that will shop in their stores if they are welcome there.
RACHEL
WEARS:
CALVIN KLEIN
JEANS SHIRT
AND JACKET,
LEVI'S DENIM
DANIELLE WEARS:
RALPH LAUREN DENIM & SUPPLY
SHORTS, CALVIN KLEIN TEE
34
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
I came up with a project name and presented it to Melisa Porobic, general manager of Macy's in Tampa. I received the green
light almost immediately. Melisa then connected me with Macy's
personal shopper Joy Camacho, who volunteered many hours
fitting the models and preparing them for the shoot. Melisa and
Joy, both heterosexual women, never once questioned our vision;
they supported and respected every model that came into their
store for fittings. In fact, many of the girls ended up buying the
outfits that Joy picked out for them.
Using Facebook, I handpicked models from the area where we
were shooting, and each model selected was very excited to be
a part of the project. It was important for me to find women that
identified as women but felt comfortable wearing men's clothing
and looking masculine. I have been involved with numerous LGBT
events all over Florida and other states, and I am well-known for
a certain style of photography, so it was not difficult to source
models, stylists, makeup artists, photography assistants, and others for the project.
I wanted to highlight that it's OK to be a woman but dress and
look masculine in today's society. We should all feel comfortable
to shop anywhere we choose and feel good doing it. I also wanted other women to find the models appealing as sex symbols, so
I made two sides to the calendar shoot: one about fashion, and
one about presenting masculine women as sexy.
JAN/FEB
2015
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35
MICHELLE
WEARS:
BAR Ill
36
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
As a self-taught photographer who pushes the boundaries
when it comes to doing things a bit risque or over the top, I find
the beauty in all people and try to capture that. I have found that
lesbian culture tends to view masculine women as unattractive.
I am trying to show lesbian culture that just because we look like
men doesn't mean that we want to be men or act like men in a
relationship. And I'm trying to show the sexy side of it, too.
There are all types of women in this world. Lesbian fashion can
be anything, from one end of the spectrum of femininity to the other end of masculinity. That is why I feel we need no labels-we just
need to be ourselves and be comfortable in any fashion we choose,
and to be able to shop in any store we want. Macy's supports the
LGBTcommunity and they're winners, in my opinion, for supporting
what's right. (boi-photography.com) •
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
37
When King was outed in 1981 in a palimony suit filed by her secretary, Marilyn
Barnett, with whom she'd had a lengthy
relationship, she lost all her endorsements.
Over time, she fought back, winning
more titles, overcoming her internalized
homophobia, and becoming a spokesperson for the community, famously saying,
"When gay rights becomes a non-issue, the
LGBT community can exhale:' Through
the Women's Sports Foundation and the
Elton John AIDS Foundation she has
helped many others, and in 2009 she was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
King, who is in a long-term relationship
with former tennis pro Ilana Kloss, is also
supportive of trans rights, particularly in
sports. "I played with and against [MTF]
Renee Richards and she remains a close
friend today. Renee made a choice and as
her friend I have always supported that
choice. I remember when Renee joined the
WTA Tour there were players who had
questions. All I did was get us together
and communicate:'
And communicate is something King
does regularly: She was a keynote speaker
at the 2014 Out & Equal Workplace Summit, which focuses on promoting equality
of all LGBTs in the workplace to Fortune
500 companies. Appointed by President
Obama to represent the United States
at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi,
Russia-while many LGBT activists were
calling for a boycott of the Games- King
had another view: Sochi was a chance to
understand the plight of LGBT people in
Russia and communicate a message.
"You can read about things all you want,
but having the chance to meet someone
who is living in those conditions is definitely educational and important;' says
King. "I was outed in 1981 and it was
not an easy time for me or for our society
when it came to LGBT issues. We have
made amazing progress in our country,
but when you look at the current conditions in other places around the world you
are reminded of how much work remains
to be done:'
King contributed to the documentary
To Russia With Love to help highlight how
much work needs to be done globally to
liberate LGBT people. "The film's producers worked through the American Embassy in Moscow to arrange for me to meet
[young Russian LGBT activist Vladislav
Slavskiy] and that meeting made its way
into the documentary. I was just happy to
meet him and hear his story;' says King.
Athletic competition is one way to reinforce human connection, and all games,
beyond Sochi, represent such opportunities. "Sports are a microcosm of society
and because athletes are so visible we have
an opportunity to use our voice and hopefully be part of changing the environment
so that it is more inclusive and more representative of the real world;' says King.
(@BillieJeanKing)
JAN/FEB
2015
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39
our
generafion
Did you ever worry that you might regret coming out, or feel that it would
compromise your career?
I have never regretted my decision to
publicly come out. It's made my life so much
better and I feel a freedom and lightness
that comes with being completely authentic. I am living the life I was meant to live.
The thought of the 'unknown' was a little bit
intimidating (i.e. before we left for Russiawhat would it actually be like, were we going
to be safe, how was I supposed to act around
Charlie, etc.) but I focused my energy on all
of the positives surrounding our team and
my task at hand: to be the best speed skater
that I possibly could be.
Do you feel that coming out impacted
your Olympic performance in any way?
If I hadn't come out ( to my parents,
family, and friends) I wouldn't still be
speed skating. I had so much anxiety when
I was in the closet-it completely robbed
me of all of the joy and happiness that I
usually felt while skating. The week after I
came out to my parents, I skated as though
the weight of the world was lifted off of
my shoulders. When I publicly came out,
knowing that I had hopefully helped or inspired a kid to do the same, it was incredibly fulfilling and it made me that much
more inspired to chase my dreams.
before the gun went off, and I didn't allow
that. I had so much fun, and was blessed
to have had the opportunity to represent
my country and hopefully inspire people
along the way to chase their dreams and
live authentically.
How did you become involved in the
documentary To Russia With Love?
My good friend (Olympic gold medalist
swimmer] Mark Tewksbury, asked me to
join in on the discussion. I can be a private
person, and so my initial reaction wasn't to
partake, as I didn't want to introduce any
outside distractions. I'm so glad that I listened to Mark; I am very proud of the film
and so grateful that this amazing time of
my life (and in my career) was captured in
film. When I was at the premiere, I actually could see my personal growth throughout the film.
What was your favorite moment
during filming To Russia With Love?
I have two: when connecting with other LG BT Russian teens and hearing their
heart-wrenching stories. It really reaffirmed that our similarities far outweigh
our differences. And my second: filming
in Calgary with my 92-year-old grandmother. She is the embodiment of love
and acceptance. I hope I grow up to be half
the woman that she is.
Were you happy with your placement
in Sochi in the 500 meters?
My time and placing in Sochi was incredibly bittersweet. My internal satisfaction
didn't match my external result, so for the
longest time I was actually a little confused.
My biggest lesson learnt that came out of
racing in Sochi was that my only true competition is mysel£ I had had a really bumpy
road to Sochi and there were a lot of roadblocks that made my preparation leading up
to the Olympics a tough one. Of course I believe I am better than 28th place, but I also
am so grateful for the struggles and journey
that shaped me along the way. There was
absolutely nothing that I could have done
better or that I would have changed on that
day; I raced with heart and was proud of
my journey. There were a number of factors
that could have allowed me to clefeat myself'
happen again if we truly want to believe in
the Olympic Spirit.
Do you think the presence of out LGBT
athletes at Sochi made a difference?
I hope so. Obviously there were more
LGBT athletes than the 5 out competitors
in Sochi. Gay athletes are a part of the sporting world; sport is simply the final frontier
of homophobia and we are actively working
towards eliminating this. The fact that we
are actively having these discussions and
promoting an inclusive environment that is
welcoming to all- I have to believe that this
will have a positive effect in the future.
Your partner, ice hockey player Charline Labonte is also out. Has being out
affected you as a couple?
I think simply knowing that we have inspired a kid to come out or to live authentically is the best gift that we could ever
give. Since I have come out, I'm comfortable in my own skin! And being comfortable in who you are and what you believe,
well, that's when a lot of the magic starts
to happen. We're both blessed to be a part
of sport and to hopefully inspire others to
get active and push their own limits. Since
Charlie has come out, I think I've gained
at least 500 hockey-obsessed Twitter followers. Sorry guys, my hockey knowledge
isn't all that sharp ... I'll stick to wearing
spandex and turning left. (@anastasure)
What did you think about calls for the
LGBT global community
to boycott Sochi?
I personally was against
any kind of Olympic Boycott simply because that
hurts the athletes. I had
trained my entire life for
the 77 seconds that I skated in Sochi, and so I believe that a boycott would
have hurt the wrong people. I do believe that a further discussion and clause
(which is presently unfolding) needs to be added to
the IOC's declaration of
host countries. What happened in Sochi can never
JAN/FEB
2015
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41
our
generafion
If women don't want to call themselves
"lesbian;' certainly it saddens me, (but] it's
an ahistorical position-it's
their historical position. Somehow, we have to find a
way to not turn off from listening to each
other [just] because they don't use the
noun that (you want them to]. The wisest
thing is to listen and to get to the deeper
part of the story. If the woman or the person in question doesn't want to be called a
lesbian, listen to their next sentence. And
then to those of us who do call ourselves
lesbians, it sort of means that we present
our ideas and our feelings and our body
in a way that they can find a touch in it,
as their voices touch me. There's a lot of
thinking to be done as to what is really
being said behind those statements. It's
almost a fear of disappearing, like being
butch isn't good enough. You really just
have to be honest to your own politic and
your own history and not bully anyone out
of or into anything.
Does feminism still have a place in
queer politics?
Articulating woman-ness is important, and so is articulating the feminism
of queerness. Because queerness without
feminism will never carry us through these
days. Feminism can't be erased. It's like the
oxygen we breathe. So, even the women
saying'Tm not a feminist"-they're
saying
that is a feminist act. They can announce
that they have control over their identity.
That's a feminist principle. I think we just
have to keep explaining; they can't take
territory from us that we don't give up, and
we must never be ashamed of saying 'Tm
a feminist:' There were women who tried
to run me out of the word "femme:' Life
is a chance to discover oneself and one's
connection to others. You lose your life if
you run out of fear of what others think
they see.
Has there been a resolution in terms of
how the community sees your identity?
It still fascinates me because it's always
shifting, but no: There are people who disagree with me, and I just have stood my
ground. I am who I am, and I've made a
life's work out of it. I'm a '50s femme. I'm
going to tell you a story. Di, who is 12
years younger than me, she was part of a
pioneering generation of Australian feminism ... ! meet her in 1998 and we become
lovers. She identifies as a Marxist lesbian-feminist and knows nothing about the
butch-femme stuff. I thought, How am I
going to make my desires have meaning
to her? She'd never used a dildo before;
she'd never worn a harness. I come home
from teaching and there she is, sitting on
the couch, wearing a pajama top, a harness,
and a huge dildo, and reading the paper.
So we start to make love and I'm on top
of her and I look down at her face and she
has this huge smile. Now, I've been with
butch women and what a dildo meant to
them was an extension of their bodies.
And in the midst of things I was curious
what it meant to her, so I said, "Honey,
what are you smiling about?" And she said,
'Tm so happy to be able to make love to
my '50s femme:' It was such an important
moment, because it told me somethingthat I'm a '50s femme no matter who I'm
with. It's an act of the imagination to enter
into all histories.
Do you think young queer women know
who you are-the
were a site of social history. So it's an activist site. And we took our banners into
the streets. The LHA banner was in the
streets for the anti-apartheid movement,
Reagan's invasion of Central America ...
We never had a constricted view of what
the Archives meant-a
living, sharing of
touch, of the mind, of the body. We had
a saying: "Send us something in the language you make love in:'
What do you think of marriage equality
being the focus of LGBT rights?
I don't want to get married. For me, it's
not on the top of my priority list. It's become the main focus, but what happens
to these other things:' We're going to create new exiles. So if you're a real lesbian,
you get married:' Then we've created our
own spinsters. Now I really am a spinster-a
lesbian who doesn't marry! All
this normalizing ... The real challenge is,
how do we give the things that marriage
gives to people to anybody? So, immigration rights-why
should you have to get
married to have them:' The issue is, you
either join with the haves or you try to
start movements, and movements take a
long time.
work you've done?
I never take for granted that anyone
should read my work or that it has any special truths in it. But when a young woman
does read it and says she has found some
truth in it-no, no, I would much prefer
to listen. I won't be here to see the fruition
of your lives. I want to listen to them. You
can't tell a young person, a person who's
entering history in their own time, who
they should be and what they should listen to. I do think intergenerationality is
crucial. That is a gift to ourselves.
Is 'queer' a viable politics? Can it
change the system?
I love "queer:' I see "queer" as meaning
that which deviates from the script. Political resistance is "queer:' You live the best
way you can, with the biggest awareness
that you can, and try to mitigate suffering,
if you can. That's what it means to be human. There's no purity to one position.
You're on Facebook and you blog. Is
social media making us compassionate
or cruel?
For you, it's important that lesbian history is seen as a living thing.
Yes, I was inspired to co-found the Archives by what came out of the generation
of women I met in the bars when I was in
my teens and they were already in their
40s and 50s, and I saw such incredible
undocumented courage. These were taxi
drivers, sex workers-all
kinds who never get included in history. So the Archives
All our creations are of the imagination-they
can go in either direction.
I have seen the efficacy of organizing
demonstrations through social media. But
social media is quick and it can lead to
hardened positions. It calls for great agility
of the mind. As a writer, I resist the short,
instant message. I write in paragraphs. I'm
sending out memos to the world.
(joannestle.com)
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
43
our
generafion
The influence of riot grrrl quickly spread
across the U.S., the UK, and beyond.
Renewed interest was stirred up by Sini
Anderson's portrait of the biggest icon of
the scene, Kathleen Hanna, in the film
The Punk Singer.It tells the story of Hanna's role in creating riot grrrl and reveals
aspects of her personal life, including her
struggle with Lyme Disease. We learn
that Hanna received some fateful advice
from the performance artist Kathy Acker,
which helped shape the riot grrrl movement. Encouraging Hanna to express hersel£ but acknowledging the limitations of
the spoken word, Acker pointed out that
there was "much more of a community
for music;' and Hanna, then a photography student at Evergreen State College in
Olympia, Wash., took heart. The college
had taken down an art exhibit of Hanna's in an act of censorship, she was reeling from the experience of a close friend's
sexual assault, and she was keen to find an
environment where her voice would not be
stifled. With Jigsaw creator Toby Vail she
formed Bikini Kill, a feminist punk band
characterized by didactic lyrics, an ironically girlish appearance, and a "girls to the
front" philosophy. Though the music was
certainly a draw, the most far-reaching influence of the movement was its DIY attitude. These were not idolized rock stars on
a pedestal, but girls like you and me.
The first riot grrrl meeting was held
before the music scene developed, but discussion groups began to multiply, thanks
to the spread of zines calling young women to action. The original movement may
have imploded over tensions and infighting, but riot grrrl made ideas previously
only known to feminist academics accessible to anyone who could read. For women
who grew up listening to riot grrrl bands,
attending their shows, and reading their
zines, the movement constituted not only
a revolution (girl style NOW, as Bikini
Kill would put it) but a revelation. Girls
were hearing from women they related to
and respected. The movement has since
been criticized for its straight, white, middle-class privilege, but many queer women
found acceptance in the lyrics and community that riot grrrl provided. Gina Ma-
mone, CEO of Riot Grrrl Ink (RGI), the
world's largest queer music label and the
chair of the White House's LGBTQIA
Arts Advisory Committee, cites a call to
action on the back of a Bikini Kill zine as
the inspiration for her company. "Everything that RGI has ever made or invested in goes back to Kathleen's Riot Grrrl
Manifesto;' says Mamone, who grew up
in rural Appalachia and remembers public school as an "everyday hell:' It wasn't
until Mamone's time at Marshall College
that she heard Ani DiFranco on the college radio station, which laid the foundation for Bikini Kill, L7, Team Dresch, and
Tribe 8 to come into her life, "like fucking
Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball:' Mamone
organized a Take Back the Night rally at
her school and the rest is history. "A $1
zine changed my life[ ... ]All I needed was
someone to wake me up and give me permission to take up space:'
While some queer women felt that
riot grrrl served as a feminist awakening,
others felt excluded by the movement.
Created partly in reaction to race riots, positioned to critique privilege and corrupt
systems of power, riot grrrl sometimes
forgot to examine the most important
white middle-class privilege of all: its own.
As Mimi Thi Nguyen wrote in her seminal essay "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival;'
the riot grrrls valued lived experience and
authenticity as key to ending oppression.
"But how then could experience yield revolutionary knowledge about race, where
the dominant experience was whiteness?"
Because of their willingness to engage
with politics, the riot grrrls saw themselves
as the authority on oppression. Within the
small world they inhabited, this was true,
but in wider, multicultural contexts, they
were ignorant. "What was cool about riot
grrrl is that many of them were learning
a lot of theoretical concepts and applying
them to the world and/ or teaching them
to one another;' says Michelle Gonzales of
Spitboy, a punk band often misidentified
as riot grrrl. "What wasn't cool was the
way that immaturity can cause someone
to jump to conclusions and make claims
before really examining all the facts:' Hanna said last year that she regrets the way
women of color were treated in the community, noting the intersectional failings
of some of her own work.
Apathy set in after riot grrrl fizzled and
the late '90s were dominated by "post-feminist" ideas. The focus shifted to individualism, to consumerism, until, due in part
to the connective qualities of the Internet,
feminist activism came back. Voices that
were not invited into the conversation
the first time around, including those of
women of color and of different gender
expressions, were now able to speak their
truths. Much of what we fight for todayreproductive rights, an end to rape culture,
marriage equality-is rooted in riot grrrl
ideas of empowerment, agency, and the
dismantling of patriarchal traditions. In
2014, from the grunge fashion prevalent
on Pinterest to the radical self-love postings on T umblr, the influence of riot grrrl can be seen everywhere in our culture.
Artists like Beth Ditto, Kate Nash, and
JD Samson (who with Kathleen Hanna
formed Le Tigre, a post-riot-grrrl band
that was a lot more queer) cite riot grrrl as
a formative influence.
''.Although the riot grrrl movement is
supposedly over;' says Suzanne Kamata,
the author of the riot grrrl-focused novel Screaming Divas, "I think its influence
has been widely felt. When I first came
to Japan, the teenage girls that I taught
mostly aspired to be wives and mothers.
Now, a lot of my girl students are in bands
like Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss
Her:' Feminist activist groups like Pussy
Riot and Panty Raiders are making music, films, and web content that challenge
systems of oppression, and zine culture is
alive on Etsy and in local queer/ feminist
communities. Feminist magazines like
Rookie, Bust, and Bitch keep the riot grrrl spirit alive, and parents can send their
kids to Girls Rock camps, which help girls
"build self-esteem and find their voices:'
Two decades after riot grrrl started, the
world is a different place: social media, gay
marriage, and pop stars declaring their
feminism. I am not black or white, gay or
straight, and in 2015 that's OK. We all
have our own identities, and truths-a
lesson I learned from riot grrrls.
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
45
our
generafion
it lesbian. "Without them, you may have
gotten some kind of direct action group,
but maybe not one that felt so free to mix
humor and anger and sexiness. And, for
that matter, gender expression-a
band
wearing plaid Catholic girls'skirts in one
action, shaved fire eaters in another:'
The Lesbian Avengers (lesbianavengers.
com) were born in New York City in 1992,
and by 1998 there were as many as 60
chapters worldwide, especially in Britain,
Australia, and Canada.
In Eating Fire, Cogswell traverses nearly two decades of lesbian activism, with
and without the Avengers. She explores
how her own coming of age as a 20-something in New York City was shaped by
the Avengers. The amount of infighting
may or may not be surprising to those of
us who have come to believe that "lesbians
eat their own:' Not just political ends but
the means to achieve them were hotly debated by the core constituents of the group
throughout the '90s. "We had serious disagreements over how to deal with questions of race and class;' Cogswell admits,
"in addition to having different projects
competing for funding and attention:'
When I asked if the demise of the Lesbian Avengers could be attributed to lesbian infighting and backbiting, Cogswell
responded, "Partly, but I don't think it's because we were lesbians. Almost all activist
groups have a shelf life. Either they institutionalize and start creating formal structures, or they combust in some way. There
are a lot of strong emotions in activism,
a lot of pressure. You're working insane
hours. And the things that unified you in
the beginning kind of crumble. Fights over
ideology and tactics, not to speak of where
to go after a meeting, can become bitter:'
Inclusiveness is the key to any political
movement, yes, but sometimes inclusiveness has a negative effect on a group's efficacy. The demand for a more welcoming
Lesbian Avengers was supported by all,
but the methods for achieving such an
endgame remained elusive, perhaps due
to clashing personalities within the group.
in the word "queer;' which 'erases' woman' alCogswell also believes that it is important
to examine the real intentions behind such
together:' Cogswell elaborates, "We live in a
a desire for diversity.
world in which women are still the lowest
of the low. And'lesbian' makes it clear you're
Arguably, political correctness can overshadow political effectiveness: "When it joining two women together. You're in the
ultimate ghetto:' While she sometimes uses
comes to diversity, you have to ask, Why?
the word 'queer;' Cogswell believes that usWhy is it important to be inclusive? Do
you want to have more black or Latino
ing the word "lesbian'' is a radical act. "1£as
faces in the room just so you can feel good
a mostly androgynous person, I keep stubabout yourself? Generous? So white peobornly calling myself a lesbian, or a dyke,
ple don't feel racist and people of color
it doesn't just highlight sexual identity-it
helps redefine what 'woman' means and
don't feel lonely? Or is it because you really
want to hear more voices, and make sure
helps show how artificial that category is,
that you represent all of the people you're
both in terms of sexual identity and gender
supposed to, and you really want to attack
roles. If I decide to just say queer; it may liberate me as an individual-and I can leave
their problems?"
The Lesbian Avengers frustratingly also
the stereotypes and associations behindencountered resistance from other sexual
but it can be a kind of abdication: I'm fleeing
identities, who criticized the group for its
the battlefield of gender. They win:'
lack of inclusiveness, "because apparently;'
As to whether she's an Avenger-for-life,
Cogswell writes in Eating Fire,"a group fo"Nobody quits being an Avenger;' Cogcused exclusively on lesbian issues had no
swell says. "There are lots of different ways
right to exist ...Lesbians have the right to
to be an activist. After doing direct action
organize around lesbian issues. Nobody
for years, I shifted into citizen journalism:'
would have gone to the Black Panthers
Cogswell and Ana Simo created The Gully,
"one of the first LGBT publications online,
and demanded that they suddenly focus
on Latino farmworkers, or issues of immiand the only one, ever, to offer 'queer views
gration-even
though it's clear that there
on everything: We'll always need activists to
is some overlap of issues:' Yet it is also
keep the community awake and paying atimportant to observe how "all this stuff
tention;' she says. (kellycogswell.com)
intersects ...We do need to understand how it intersects, but we
also need to think about things
separately:'
Decades of activism in the lesbian community have led Cogswell
to conclude that lesbian marginalization can be self-inflicted: "Lesbians often do it to themselves. It's
like we think our own issues aren't
important enough. OK, so we're
practically invisible in society, we
often can't get jobs, still face incredible violence. Young dykes get
kicked out and are homeless. We
SAT.OCT24
8 .. M..-AM
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t1e AVli D. an.i FUI
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Part of this misogyny is evident
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JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
47
our
generafion
That spirit of determination and resilience is in part what Triptych itself is
about. And like the artists in the film,
ceramicist Lana Wilson, writer Jeanne
DuPrau, and painter Nan Golub, Walton
herself has been developing her skills and
creativity for decades.
But unlike the other women in her film,
Walton had a stifling early life and a stifling
early career. "I was in the closet for the first
40 years of my life;' she reflects. In 1966, she
earned an MA in education from Stanford
and became a teacher. But after teaching
high school for 20 years, she says,"I was dying. Public high schools are hard to be in!"
In 1985, Walton resigned from teaching. At that time, she says, "I was out to
friends, but I wasn't out to students or
parents, and it was getting to be so wearing:' She changed direction, from teaching
to filmmaking, and in the course of a master's program in film and video production at Stanford, she decided to make a
film about lesbians. "So;' she says, "I took
a deep breath and went to my professors,
who were pretty open to ir:'
Walton's master's thesis was Out in Suburbia, which was simulcast in New York
and San Francisco with Marlon Riggs's
film Tongues Untied. Out in Suburbia got
plenty of attention, but not all of it was
positive. Walton says, "Some people said it
was too whitewashed, and it ignored too
many lesbians-women
on bikes, women into S&M. We had to deal with that
whole thing, but it was exciting because it
got lots of publicity. After that, I thought,
I'm going to make as many films about gay
and lesbian people as I can.
'J\nd I did. I did Gay Youth, and then
Family Values, about my father, who was a
right-wing nut, way beyond Jerry Falwell
and Pat Robertson, into the crazy end of
the right wing:' Her subsequent films include Call to Witness and Liberty: 3 Stories
of Life and Death, which Walton says is
about the importance of chosen families.
"My chosen, lesbian family was the family
who stood by me in my adult life, and I'm
thankful for that;' Walton says.
Pam Walton Productions-Walton
is
producer/ director and her life partner,
Ruth Carranza, is associate director-has
also made several films that weren't gaythemed. Now Walton says, "With gay
marriage coming to the front and being legalized in so many states, it feels like a major victory. From here, it feels like we're on
our way to full equality. So it hasn't made
me feel that urgency about making films
about gay and lesbian people. We included Nan [the only openly lesbian artist in
Triptych] and her lover, but sexuality isn't
the focus of the film.
When she conceived Triptych, Walton
says, "My interest was turning to aging,
because of course I'm aging. And I wanted
something that I could take my time with.
I didn't want some pressing issue like immigration or gay marriage that would have
a deadline, and I wanted to do something
that I really loved. We started working on
it in, I think, 2010.
"Lana Wilson, the ceramic artist, is
an old friend. I knew her in high school.
I reconnected with her about five years
ago and went to see her at Berkeley. She
showed me her studio and some of the
things she was making, and I thought, Oh
my God, this is wonderfully visual, to see
something take shape from a big blob of
clay. So we first thought we'd make a video together, and then as it got going, we
thought, Why limit this? We'll include
two other artists, and make it bigger:'
The hardest part of making the film for
Walton was portraying her friend Nan Golub, the New York painter. "She's very private;' says Walton,"and I've used her in some
of my other films. I've kind of worn her out,
I think. I had to go back several times and
talk to her. She was very reticent about doing the sit-down interview. She was afraid, I
think, that I was going to ask her too many
personal questions that she didn't want to
answer. It's interesting because she says, 'I
don't want to talk about my arr; yet she has
so many great things to say:'
The future of Pam Walton Productions
may depend in part on the reviews of Triptych. Regardless, though, Walton says, "My
wife and I are thinking of retiring in the
next few years and moving to a retirement
home for gay and lesbian seniors in Santa Rosa. It's just wonderful. It'd be a nice
way to end our lives. I think my next and
maybe my last film will be about this retirement center:'
Walton has given us a legacy of documentaries about coming out and living as a
creative, impassioned lesbian artist. If her
last film is in fact about retirement, it will
be a suitable finale.
(pamwaltonproductions.com/ triptych)
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
49
er
nderthe
ridge
The evolution of
music icon Ant
Difranco.
BY DAVE STEINFELD
our
generafion
to stay with Righteous Babe, release her
music independently, and nurture new
artists (mostly female). "Back in the day,
I was tempted to [sign with] anyone who
would help me pay my rent;' DiFranco
admits. "There [were] a lot of years of living hand to mouth, paying dues ... [But] I
think I determined early on that, for me,
being independent was not a means to an
end. As soon as I started selling that first
tape at my gigs, not only did I have my $50
gig money, I had another $50 from selling
tapes. And that paid for the next tape, and
I thought, Well, this is working out. When
I started to get interest from [other] indies, and also from majors, I already had
my own thing going. I looked at the fiveyear contracts, and whatever tiny percentage of my record sales I would actually see,
and I just thought, Fuck that. I have my
own little job that I've created for mysel£
I liked my job-even in obscurity. And it
was always growing, and getting easier in
terms of living and paying bills. So, eventually, I decided that the corporate world
is not for me:'
It's probably no coincidence that DiFranco's new album, Allergic to Water,
was released last year on Election Day
(November 4 ). She has, after all, been one
of the most politically active singer-songwriters of her generation. That said, Allergic to Water-DiFranco's first studio disc
since 2012-is
not especially politically
charged. Where 2012's Which Side Are
You On? was, in fact, a fairly topical album,
her latest release is more personal and understated-both
musically and thematically. DiFranco made Allergic to Water in
her adopted hometown of New Orleans
in two separate four-day stretches, one
year apart. She did much of the production work herself, assisted by her husband,
Mike Napolitano, during one of the sessions and by Andy Taub during the other.
Throughout the album, she was joined by
various guest artists, including her longtime bassist Todd Sickafoose, the violinist
Jenny Scheinman, and the legendary keyboardist Ivan Neville. As always, however,
Ani is front and center.
Between the two four-day stretches
during which Allergic was recorded, something life-changing happened to DiFranco: She gave birth to her second child and
first son, Dante. "Oh, wow;' says DiFranco
when I ask her how raising Dante is different from raising her first child, Petah.
"The difference has been fairly archetypically night and day. One of my feminist
friends sent me an article talking about
how gender identity is socialized. And so
much of it is. But I'll tell you-I just deleted that article. I didn't even read it! You
know, whatever. I guess I'm trying to say
[that now] I am definitely immersed in
the inherent gender differences, raising a
boy. [This is] a whole other creature than
my little girl. Much more aggressive, much
more willful-just
really high [maintenance] compared to my daughter. Many
of my friends who have raised both girls
and boys give me knowing looks now, like,
'Aha! Welcome to raising a son: But it's
pretty awesome. I think feminism rightfully tapped into the direction of 'Let's
be honest about how much of our gender
roles are socialized ... Hey, maybe girls can
play sports, people!' But it is also imperative that we ... acknowledge gender differences. They're fundamentally different
sides of our human nature at work. And a
resonant balance between the two is what
will heal our species and our world. That's
where my feminism is at, these days:'
DiFranco has always been a feminist,
and an individual, but like most true artists, she has evolved over the years-not
just musically but personally. Much of her
audience has evolved with her, and she
has picked up new fans along the way. But
there's no question that some old-school
fans have felt betrayed by some of her
choices-notably, the decision to marry a
man. It started even before that, though. "I
remember once, prior to getting married,
I walked out on stage in a dress;' says DiFranco. "I think I was in a little black dress
and fishnets. It was that phase [when I
was] 23 years old-I'm young, I'm sexual. And I remember hearing somebody
in the back of the room, some chick, say,
'Sellout!' I assume it was because of my attire, you know-because
of my feminine
appearance or something. And I remember thinking, Wow! Putting on a dress
means that I'm not who I am? And that
I'm not standing here doing exactly what
I was doing yesterday, in pants? What an
equation-a
dress equals weakness and
passivity and obedience:'
That said, many people care more about
her music than her personal life and will
support Ani DiFranco as long as she continues releasing good albums. And she
has clearly been a profound influence on
many of the female musicians who have
appeared in the past two decades. When
I ask her about some of the female musicians who have influenced her, DiFranco
does not hesitate to give me names. "In the
early days, I was very inspired by Joan Armatrading,'' she says. ''And then Suzanne
Vega, who became a friend to me as a
child. But my ultimate singing influence
became Betty Carter. I have also been very
inspired by Bonnie Raitt along the way,
and have had the pleasure of making her
acquaintance. Ferron is a great songwriter
in the folk realm who I find inspiring, [but
who I] think is somewhat unsung outside
of the dyke world:'
DiFranco did the first four-day stretch
of recordings for Allergic to Water while
she was six months pregnant with Dante.
During the second stretch, a year later, he
was several months old and she was nursing him. But when I ask her if the 12 songs
on the album are split chronologically into
those two four-day stretches, she replies,
"No. They're all mixed up. That seems to
be my process in general. Ever since I had a
kid, which is pushing eight years ago now,
I work in tiny little spurts in between a
lot of other shit! Which Side Are You On?
also took two and a half years to come to
a conclusion. But it was in these little fits
and spurts of coming back to it and going,
'What the fuck is this project again? Oh
shit! Baby's up!' It's a very fragmented existence in these early parenting years, [and]
there are good and bad results. I mean, to
work like I did on this record affords one
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
51
a lot of perspective. I think that's good.
I didn't have a lot of time to obsess over
these recordings-but
I had a lot of time
in between to go, 'Nah, let's try that one
again. We didn't nail it the first time:"
Lyrically, the theme of working through
adversity seems to run throughout Allergic to Water. It's there on the tide track, on
"Rainy Parade" ( the disc's closing song),
and on my personal favorite, "Happy All
the Time:'
I know trial bringswisdom
And greatnesshas a price
Just ask Abraham Lincoln
Ask Miles Davis' wives
And I have great admiration
For those that raise up mankind
But I'm afraid that greatgift
Is not meant to be mine
Cuz me I'm just happy all the time
Yeah me I'm just happy all the time
52
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
The more I listened to this song, the harder it became for me to determine whether
DiFranco was being ironic or sincere in her
lyrics. When I share this with her, she says,
"That's exactly right. I think the value that
I have has come through my trials in life,
such as they have been, and my over-feeling
nature as an artist. Many artists are people
who just tend to feel, even beyond themselves. I've always felt my oneness-certainly, in my experience-with
other women,
and beyond that, with other humans, you
know? I've always just been strongly aware
that there are things I'm going through that
so many (people] are going through, if we
could only help each other our:'
If there was a birth during the making
of Allergic to Water, there was also a death.
Pete Seeger, the legendary musician and
activist, and one of DiFranco's mentors,
passed away last January at the age of 94.
She says, "He was one of the rarest of people-1' ve met only a few in my life-who
are of kind of a Buddha nature. They sort
of move through the world in a place of mutual respect and compassion for all people.
Pete was somebody who, when he called
me up or wrote me a letter, my answer was
always yes. I'm at least that smart to know
that when Pete calls, you come! And you do
whatever benefit or this or that he's asking
(you to do]. I find it very inspirational to be
around people who have become able to inhabit that space of oneness and compassion.
Pete was a great model in that way:'
''Are you aware that you provide the same
thing for so many people?" I ask her.
"Well, yeah, I've been made aware of my
place in the continuum;' DiFranco replies
modestly. ''And it's wonderful to play a part
and to be a bridge for others. I feel very
aware of myself as a bridge ... There [have]
been so many writers, activists, artists who
have delivered me from one state of being
into another. So, to be able to take some of
that and pass it on through my work seems
like a natural thing to do:'
(righteousbabe.com) •
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~
hat does it feel like to be young and queer today:' A new
book of 65 color portraits, Speaking OUT: Queer Youth
in Focus presents portraits of the queer Millennial Gen~
eration. Award~winning Philadelphia~based photogra~
pher Rachelle Lee Smith gives LGBTQ youth an outlet
to speak for themselves through her in~your~face, funny,
warm, and powerful images of queer youth. The white
space of the color portraits are filled with first~person text,
giving self expression to a diverse group of young people,
aged fourteen to twenty~four, who identify along a range
of sexual orientations and gender expressions. "I have never
had a mullet, I am not a man hater, I don't listen to KD
Lang, I am not butch, I don't drive a truck, I am not a fem~
inist ... What kind of lesbian am It writes JoEllen, one of
the subjects featured in Speaking OUT. From GLSEN to
the It Gets Better Project, our community attempts to provide
resources for queer youth. But it's hard to address the inequities
created by race, class, sexual orientation and gender identification
without hearing from young people themselves and addressing
their spoken needs. Be inspired by these images, these words, and
the young people behind them. This is our youth.
( rachelleleesmith.com/ speakingout)
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
57
W
o wants to get older?
Who wants to even
hink about aging when
ociety values youth, and
studies show that time is not kind to LGBT
folk: Many of us (especially lesbians and
trans people) will experience ill health and
economic insecurity-if we don't alreadyespecially at the end of our lives.
But it doesn't have to be that way, and it
isn't that way for the 65 loving couples fea~
tured in Barbara Proud's new book, First
Comes Love. And love has everything to
do with it.
You can thank out lesbian photogra~
pher Proud for her heartening vision of
late~in~life LGBT harmony and happi~
ness. And thank Edith S. Windsor, too,
who wrote the heartfelt foreword to the
book. Edie Windsor has become the pub~
lie image ( the poster elder, if you will) of a
community tired of marginalization, and
rightly so: It was United States v. Windsor
that brought down DOMA on June 26,
2013, and made marriage equality a reality
in this country. In the foreword, Windsor
writes: "That day, something happened to
all of us, not just to the people who wanted
to get married. Something happened to all
of us, to the whole gay community, and to
the whole country:'
What happened was that we gained
an image of ourselves that we'd never had
before, an image of ourselves as a unique
community and yet welcome within the
institutions on which this country was
built. Windsor notes that in his brief,
Justice Anthony Kennedy uses the word
"dignity" 11 times."It's like we're in a differ~
ent place in this country and it's thrilling.
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
59
FEATURES/COVER
ST
I WANTED
TO
GIVE
HOPE
TOTHE
YOUNGER
GENERATIONS
THAT
THEY
TOO
CAN
HAVE
LONG
AND
LOVING
RELATIONSHIPS.
We're being recognized as c1t1zens, real
deserving citizens;' she writes. ''.Adolescent
kids can fall in love for the first time knowing there's a future. Maybe it's the beginning of the end of the suicides. We can all
be proud of who we are:'
Being able to love one another openly is
fundamental to being able to love ourselves.
Seeing images of this love is essential to
reinforcing it as valid, and to changing the
hearts and minds that might oppose it.
Historically, there have been very few images that portray our lives with the 'a.ignity"
Windsor describes. Barbara Proud's First
Comes Love Project is not just the book but
a traveling exhibition of photographs, love
stories, and video interviews documenting
long-term LGBT couples. The project has
been endorsed by Freedom to Marry and
the Human Rights Campaign.
"This project began when my partner
and I celebrated our 20th anniversary and
thereby became the longest surviving couple in our families;' says Proud. "When
Proposition 8 passed a month later, I decided that I needed to do something:'
That something, which was to create "a
different picture of our community than
what is normally portrayed in the media;'
had its roots in a history that began long
before the injustice of Prop. 8. Proud won
a camera in a local competition when she
was 9 years old, and majored in photography in college. Photography was very
much a means of artistic expression, but
the technological aspects also appealed to
her, and she taught herself advanced techniques in composition and lighting, as well
as digital photo processes. Influenced by
"all of the strong women photographers
from many generations-Mary
Ellen
Mark, Diane Arbus, Imogen Cunningham, Annie Leibovitz-but
also painters
such as Georgia O'Keeffe;' she went on
to become an adjunct associate professor
at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and now inspires her own students.
It's an added bonus that when she started
making artwork in earnest, she chose "B.
Proud" as her signature. "Barbara Proud is
my name from birth. Many people think
'B. Proud' is something that I made up. It's
quite convenient for a lesbian artist, and
now it's something that I have to live up to:'
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
61
Proud lives up to her name with First
Comes Love, and there is a lot of pride to be
had from this 148~page book-from
the
dignified black~and~white photography to
the stories shared. "Typically, we only see
rainbow flags and Gay Pride parades or
protests. I wanted to strip all of that away
and force the viewer to look deeper, to look
at the core of who these couples are:•
These couples, all of whom volunteered
for the project, include Houston mayor
Annise Parker and her wife Kathy Hub~
bard, civil rights pioneers Barbara Gittings
and Kay Tobin Lahusen (together for 46
years), lesbian activist Lilli Vincenz and
Nancy Davis, and of course, Edie Windsor
(and her dear departed Thea Speyer, who
is present in a framed snapshot). "Having
all of these people and their stories in one
volume is something that I am quite proud
of;' admits Proud.
The response to the book and the pro}
ect so far has been "tremendous!" she says.
"Many couples that I meet are already asb
ing me to do a second volume. The book
was launched in Philadelphia, where the
media were calling it the 'antidote to hate
crime; because a few weeks before, there
had been a terrible bashing of a young
gay couple. So when people ask me why
this book is still important, since the mar~
riage laws are changing, my response is
that changing laws do not change people's
minds. There is still hatred and bigotry
and violence, and that needs to change
through education:'
If a picture paints a thousand words,
there is no doubt that it can educate. And
Proud has watched straight and gay peo~
ple alike read the stories, watch the videos,
and weep. "In a restaurant the other night,
where I was celebrating my 26th anniver~
sary with my spouse, a woman approached
me who had purchased the book and told
me that she had really learned a lot from
reading the stories. So even our straight
allies still have much to learn:'
The project may help straight allies un~
derstand our cause, but it also seeks to bol~
ster our own community. "I wanted to give
hope to the younger generations that they,
too, can have long and loving relationships;'
says Proud. "Perhaps they can even use my
book to come out to their parents:'•
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
63
Older and wiser, our
favorite pop diva is
still our humanitarian
knight in shining armor.
BY KELLY MCCARTNEY
FEATURES/
THE L LIST
l'MSHOCKED
THAT
WECAN'T
COME
TOABETTER
PlACE
OFCOMPASSION
AND
UNDERSTANDING
THAT
WE'RE
SOllMITED
AND
WE'RE
SOBIGOTED.
in my voice, in my interpretation, in my
qualities as an interpretive artist. Obviously, one is in awe of the history and the
magnitude of the writers and the body of
work, the extraordinary artists and their
presence, the very resonant memory of
an artist like Billie Holliday or Nina Simone. But, really, if you're going to tackle a
work like this, it's not appropriate to be
too daunted by it. Yes, I'm humbled. Of
course. I am very respectful.
"But the thing that connects me, you
see, is my gender-and
that's the point;'
Lennox explains. "I feel a connection to
other artists, specifically female artists. I
think about their stories and what they've
been through, the tragedies of many of
these artists, the challenges they had to
face, very often being exploited and taken
advantage 0£ Or having personal issues or
demons that finally overcame them. And I
feel very connected to them, because I feel
like we would stand shoulder to shoulder
if we were together in a room:'
Lennox should indeed stand shoulder
to shoulder with the greats of the past,
for she is one of the greats of the present
day, carrying the same torch of strength
and resilience that so many before her
have carried. And that's the frustrating
thing for her-that
after so many years,
the torch that shines a light on hatred and
violence still needs to be picked up and
carried. "If you go back into the nostalgia
of America, for example, then you will go
into the cradle of the culture these songs
have been derived from, and you're right
back in the Deep South before the civil
rights movement;' Lennox says. "These
are the issues of violence and bigotry and
hatred and racism that everyone still faces
today, right across the globe. And I found
this thread that continues on-injustice,
lack of human rights. How interesting, the
theme of humanity-how
it evolves over
time, or doesn't:'
The weight of the ages, prophetic and
profound, is in Nostalgia's track list. With
so many African Americans still dying at
the hands of white cops, the message of
"Strange Fruit;' in particular, reverberates
across the decades. Lennox takes that as
her starting point and spins off from there:
"Of course, it's defined by racism-but
then I think about gender-based violence.
And I think about domestic violence. And
I think about warfare. And I think about
terrorism. And about the series of acts that
human beings carry out without boundaries upon each other-this
drama of violence that's played out continuously. And I
think this is what the song is now, for me:'
She notes, "I remember, even as a child,
when I understood how cruel the world
could be, I felt terribly outraged. And that
sense of outrage has never left me. I'm still
outraged. I'm shocked. I'm shocked at what
I see. I'm shocked at how things are not resolved, that we can't come to a better place
of compassion and understanding, that
we're so limited and we're so bigoted:'
Channeling that outrage into gender-bending, proudly feminist art and
HIV/ AIDS activism has long earned
Lennox the respect and support of the
LGBT community. Her simultaneous recognition and dismissal of the differences
between people, coupled with her deep
understanding of and unwavering commitment to justice, might well be the key.
"I have a problem with labels;' she laughs.
"I understand that people need to use the
labels. Because, when you're in a position
to say,'We're in the minority and we're being exploited and we're being abused and
our human rights are not being respected;
you need to put your label up on a pedestal and shout it out very, very loudly. I get
that. But at the end of the day, I find labels reductive. And, honestly, I don't want
people to see me as a 'heterosexual person'
before they see me. In a true evolution,
that just gets put away. It's irrelevant, what
your gender and sexual orientation are.
That would be the real arrival point, for
me:' (nostalgia.annielennox.com) •
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
67
VIEWS/
LAUGH TRA
Time, Carroll the Cloud Person.
ut comic Cameron Esposito has
and know her material-and then end up
been on fire lately. After her late-
with her- is really so awesome. Then also,
It was awesome! Someone I don't know
night debut on the Late Late Show
it's bizarre to have to compete with. We
who listens to my podcast, someone I have
with Craig Ferguson, she was chris-
really are both gay female stand up comics.
subsequently become Internet friends with,
tened "the future of comedy" by
Right now, it's not all the time, but we do go
wrote the episode, and she wanted me to
the one and only Jay Leno. She has
out for the same parts in acting. We do a set
come in and do the voice for one of the
spent much of the fall touring in support of
on the same show and people always end
characters. Actually, insider tip for Curve
her new comedy release, Same Sex Symbol,
up comparing you. So it's really strange to
magazine only, the character design had
and recording new episodes of her popular
be up against the person that you love. But
already been done before they offered me
podcast, Put Your Hands Together. Esposito
it's way more positive than it is negative.
the role and I accepted it. The two were kind
took a moment recently to chat with Curve
of done independently, but Cloud, like, abso-
about life on the road with her fiance, fellow
In your standup, you talk about your
comic Rhea Butler (she's opening all the
hair, which you refer to as a "side
lutely has my haircut.
shows on the tour and together they're the
mullet." What is it with lesbians and
Where do you do your best comedy
only out comic couple we know of) and,
their hair? I couldn't decide between a
brainstorming?
of course, lesbian hair. Same Sex Symbol
Tegan or a Sara, so I went for both.
Probably the shower, which is devastating,
was recently released on Kill Rock Stars and
I think it's honestly not fitting into a specific
right? I usually have to yell to Rhea like,
went to #1 on iTunes comedy were it stayed,
beauty paradigm. There are some really hot
"Write it down!"
beating out Sarah Silverman.
lesbians and none of them may look like the
hot straight girls, or the hot straight guys,
How do you get amped up for a show?
You've been in comedy for some time,
that we grew up seeing in magazines or on
At this point, I would say that I write out my
but the last year your star has risen.
television. It's kind of creating our own cul-
set list, even if I don't need it. I just like to
Well, it's great because we've been heading
ture, and I think that's just part of it-having
write down the words. Comics have that
the right way in terms of the things that I've
a haircut that doesn't say either way, or that
much like you do with a band-all of our
wanted for some time now-stability, just
is trending on the masculine, but is a sharp
jokes have names, like songs have names.
some money coming in, all the things that
look for a dude. Onstage, I outwardly talk
I can't sit down at all. I usually kind of pace
a job would usually give you. When your job
about how I think I'm hot. Not just because
around and shake out my shoulders. I don't
is comedy, you don't often get those things
I think I'm hot, but I think it's important for
have a song, or anything that I listen to or
for a long time. I worked day jobs for years
audience members to know that lesbians
anything. At this point, I'm too mobile! I have
to compensate for that, and then maybe five
find lesbians attractive.
to be everywhere. (cameronesposito.com) •
years ago I was able to get rid of that. Then it
was kind of tenuous and touch-and-go, and
In addition to being a comic, columnist,
I'm used to that, but also nice to think that
and podcast host, you've voiced a
there may be something ahead. It's a little
character on the cartoon Adventure
more comfy, I guess. It's an actual life, as
opposed to like, you know, one pair of pants.
You and your fiance, Rhea Butler, who
is also a comic as well, are touring
together. What's that been like?
I would say it's like the best and worst thing
that could possibly be happening in a
relationship. It's the best because she understands everything that I'm talking about.
She's the funniest person I know. We were
friends before we were dating, so I knew
her as a comic first. When you are a comic,
there is a special way that you look at
something when you know they've
been through it too. It's just such
a specific life experience. So, to
respect her and think she's funny
IT'SA BIRD?
IT'SA PLANE?
IT'S AQUAGIRL!
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i
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<{
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ouisiana. The Deep South.
Part of the country's Bible
Belt. Not exactly a place
where the LGBT commu~
nity looks to find welcoming
acceptance. And it sure doesn't seem like a
place where a fella and his fella or a gal and
her gal might vacation. But this Connecticut
Yankee was shown that within the South
there actually is a mecca for those looking
for a gay ol' time. NOLA, New Orleans, La.,
has to be up there at the top of the list of the
most liberal cities in the South.
L
After Katrina hit, the city was left in
a shambles. The once~vibrant landmark,
with its abundance of jazz and eclectic
Creoles, was devastated by Mother Na~
ture's fury. But even then, people knew
they would rebuild, and it would be that
city once again.
These days, you can find some sort of fes~
tival going on at least twice a month. Wheth~
er it's the Tales of the Cocktail spirits festival
or the Burlesque Festival, or the Gumbo
Cook~Off that tickles your fancy, you'll find
lots of ways to join in the fun with the locals.
For the LGBT community, NOLA is
an escape from the prevailing values in the
South. Here, you are free to be who you
are, and you'll have an incredible support
system, with various bars, clubs, commu~
nity centers, and themed events to show
you that you belong.
If you've ever thought about a trip to
New Orleans-but
maybe, like me, you've
never known when it would actually hap~
pen-there is no better time than the pres~
ent. Peak season starts in September and
runs through March, and though you may
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be paying higher prices for a hotel, the ac~
commodations in this city are nothing short
of extraordinary. If you're willing to dish out
the cash to stay in complete comfort, I im~
plore you to stay at the Ritz Carlton (ritz~
carlton.com), which is conveniently located
at the beginning of the French Quarter, two
blocks from Bourbon Street. Here, just
about everything is complimentary, espe~
cially in the Club level, which provides you
with free food, alcohol, and Wi~Fi.
The Hyatt Regency on Loyola Avenue
is very LGBT friendly (neworleans.hyatt.
com). The atmosphere is vibrant, and the
rooms are great and won't break the bank.
The Hyatt offers bespoke cocktails and
craft beers at Vitascope Hall, and one of
the city's best dining experiences at Bor~
gne, where the chefs create seafood dishes
with a modern feel.
You will never go thirsty or hungry here.
The Creoles who inhabit this great city
will make sure that you always have a TO
GO cup-a plastic container for booze
that you are able to carry on the street,
free from police prosecution-and
plen~
ty of food in front of you while they chat
your ear off about what makes NOLA so
amazing, in their equally charming and
amazing Southern twang.
A trip to New Awlins wouldn't be trip~
py at all without meeting Mr. Glenn Louis
De Villiers (glfdevilliers.com), a real NOLA
experience. He is the man you want to show
you around the sights of this enchanting city.
His tour de force is The Twirl, two parts gay
heritage and one part cocktail hour. You'll
hear the stories and learn the history of gay
life in old New Orleans, the Krewe of Rex,
and the origins of Mardi Gras. There is nev~
er a shortage of cocktails on this tour, so be
prepared for an adventure on foot.
I was the only lesbian on this trip and
72
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
wondered what kinds of things I would ex~
perience among such a gay~male~dominated
population. As it turns out, New Orleans
is rich in history when it comes to strong
women and literary legends.
There are bars that cater to lesbi~
an nights, such as the Bourbon Pub and
OZ, but there is also a place known for
its ladies of the night. Every Thursday
through Sunday, Bella Blue produces The
Blue Book at Lucky Pierre's on Bourbon
Street, where a slew of burlesque dancers
take the stage led by their mistress, to give
the audience a show of classy debauchery.
(thebellalounge.com)
"I started out in ballet and modern
dance;' says Bella Blue. "I've been doing it
for over eight years now. The name comes
from the Blue Book of New Orleans,
which was basically the Yellow Pages for
brothels and whorehouses. That's how
Bella Blue was born:'
Every year, NOLA hosts its Hallow~
een extravaganza, which benefits Project
Lazarus. The mission of this nonprofit is
to heal and empower men and women liv~
ing with HIV/ AIDS by providing hous~
ing, healthcare, and support services for the
residents. This long weekend event features
the kick~off Lazarus Ball; a casual dance
night; the main event, a costume contest
and parade; and a Sunday brunch and Sec~
ond Line at the House of Blues. Halloween
New Orleans brings in the masses, so book~
ing accommodations early is always advised.
(halloweenneworleans.com)
Whether you come for the food, music,
nightlife, art, literary favorites, Bourbon
Street, or any other kind of Cajun expe~
rience, be prepared to leave completely
satisfied. There is no lack of Southern
charm, and you'll love the feeling of being
welcome. (neworleanscvb.com) •
For 25 years,
the Women's
Traveller has
listed women's
clubs, resorts,
cruises, tours &
more, across the
US, Europe &
beyond.
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W
ine, women-even cheese:
Switzerland has it all!
And if you want to taste
Garanoir and Pinot Gris
on the Montreux Riviera, then dance the
night away in Zurich, it's easy to travel all
across this small country by train. You can
take in the majestic mountains, the Alpine
meadows, the dairy farms and quaint vil~
lages, as Swiss Rail transports you from
one region to the next in perfect comfort.
Maybe you'll decide to start out in
French~speaking Montreux. Situated in
the southwestern part of Switzerland on
Lake Geneva, the city enjoys a fresh Medi~
terranean climate and loves to show off its
charming Belle Epoque architecture. It is
home to the world~famous Montreux Jazz
Festival, which has been held each July since
1967 and has attracted all the legends, in~
eluding Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, and
Nina Simone. Claude Nobs, the founder of
the festival, was a gay man. There are over
200 wineries in the region, and the fami~
lies of some local vintners go back 17 gen~
74
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
erations. On the Swiss Riviera Wine Tour,
Blaise DuBois (of the winery Blaise Du~
Bois) pairs an education with a tasting as he
explains the terroir of the region (bedrock,
soil, depth of the roots), which impacts the
flavor and the quality of its wines.
A must~see in the Montreux region is
La Tour de Marsens, an 850~year~old cha~
teau decorated with chests from the Middle
Ages, armor, and other relics. This chateau
is not open to public, but you can visit it by
doing a wine tour with Swiss Riviera Wine
Tours (swissrivierawinetours.com). At the
folk market in nearby Vevey,you can sample
more local wines as you stroll along the lake~
side promenade and watch costumed men
playing the alphorn, a long tuba~like instru~
ment that was developed in the Swiss Alps.
Since the Middle Ages, dairy farmers have
used the alphorn to calm the cows at milk~
ing time and call them from the pasture.
They even use the alphorn to communicate
from one farm to another, because it can be
heard for miles. If you decide to book the
two~hour Sissi Tour, your guide will show
you the former Austrian princess's favorite
places in Montreux, including the Sentier de
Roses (rose path) and the Chateau Chillon,
a romantic symbol of Montreux and one of
Switzerland's most famous landmarks.
From Montreux, head to the capital
city of Bern for a night or two. Bern's
150~year~old arcaded shopping street is
the longest in Europe, spanning three and
a half miles. The Old Town, built in 1191,
is a UNESCO World Heritage site and
it is worth taking a stroll to admire the
historic Rathaus, the painted fountains,
and the 18th~century guildhalls. At the
entrance to the Old Town, you will find
the Zytglogge, a clock tower constructed
in 1218 to mark Bern's first western gate.
By private tour, you can view the medieval
mechanisms ( rope, iron, dials, and pulls)
behind the chiming clock. Paul Klee, the
world~famous painter who is from Bern,
has his work displayed at museum that
bears his name and is an architectural
beauty in its own right. At night, pay a
visit to one of Bern's three popular gay
:r:
C.)
ui
('.)
<i
~
FEATURES/
establishments (there are no exclusively
lesbian clubs in Bern), the Blue Cat Cafe,
the Comeback Bar, or the Belmondo Bar.
The next stop on your list could be Zu~
rich, founded by the Romans in 15 B.C.,
and the largest city in Switzerland, with
400,000 residents. Zurich shows that the
reputation of the Swiss for being efficient
and forward thinkers is true. Many of the
city's water fountains provide safe, clean,
mineralized drinking water, so you will not
get dehydrated while walking. Also, notable
in this big city is the lack of homeless pea~
ple. According to my tour guide, "You will
never see people begging, because the city
will take care of the homeless:' There are
businesses that employ homeless people or
those who have lost their jobs-you may
encounter them as workers at the free bike
service booths sprinkled around the city, or
as waiters at the Restaurant Schippe.
One place to check off your must~do list
in Zurich is the Beyer Clock and Watch
Museum, which showcases horological
pieces from 1400 B.C. to the present day,
including sundials, oil~lamp clocks, water
TRA
clocks, and wristwatches. Also, south of
the museum sits the Stadelhoferplatz, a
quiet square for relaxing and taking in the
view of Lake Zurich and the Alps beyond.
Be sure to visit the Burkiplatz-there's
a
flower and produce market every Tues~
day and Friday morning, as well as a flea
market every Saturday. For a well~rounded
look at the city, enjoy a boat tour, which
starts on the piers at the Lake and ends at
the Bahnhofstrasse, a high~end shopping
street, and Old Town.
Zurich West, the newest area of the
city, has been revitalized with the trans~
formation of old shipyards, factories, and
warehouses into trendy shops and swanky
hangouts. For example, there's the second~
hand clothing boutique Caritas Zurich,
and Freitag, which uses old truck tarps
to construct fashionable messenger bags,
handbags, and backpacks.
As for LGBT culture and history, Zu~
rich has plenty. The Circlemagazine, pro~
duced in Zurich from 1943 to 1967, was
the only gay publication during WWII
and was circulated worldwide, including
.,
the United States. Also, 2014 marks the
20th anniversary of Zurich Pride. For les~
bian tourist attractions, The Fraumunster
Church was established in the 9th century
as an abbey for aristocratic women. The
abbess started the trend of female rulers
in Zurich that lasted for 500 years. Today,
in her place resides the lesbian mayor of
Zurich, Corinne Mauch. For nightlife,
visit the Barfusser, which opened in 1956
and is known to be the oldest gay bar in
Europe. Barfusser is popular as a weekend
starting point, before the crowds move on
to the new Heaven nightclub next door.
"People come out more in the winter, be~
cause there is so much to do in the sum~
mer in Zurich;' says the attractive lesbian
co~manager, Jordis.
So, plan to taste some wine at vineyards
set against the rolling hills near the Riviera,
and visit world~class museums in Switzer~
land's largest cities: A fall tour of the coun~
try-or
a visit at any time of year-will
prove to be a memorable adventure.
76
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
ve over, Costa Rica!
Panama is the hot Cen~
ral American desti~
ation of the moment,
and EcoCircuitos, a lesbian travel com~
pany, is at your service. Panama, which
bridges North and South America, has
many delights for the lesbian traveler, and
EcoCircuitos is the only lesbian owned and
run full service tour operator in Panama. A
proud member of the International Gay
and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA),
EcoCircuitos was founded by Panamanian
Annie Young in 1999, and began by offer~
ing unique travel itineraries throughout
Panama with extension options in Central
America.
"My country offers a delightful combi~
nation of amazing history, diverse cultures,
biodiversity, stunning national parks and
modern cosmopolitan living;' says Annie
Young, whose partner is from Oregon and
loves exploring the country with her. If
Panama is not yet on your vacation radar,
Young can bring you up to speed. "Panama
has more than 960 bird species; we have
accessible natural parks, two coasts (Pacir
M}
78
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
ic and Caribbean) and distinct microcli~
mates. This country has tropical lowland
forest, dry forest and cloud forest where
the possibilities for outdoor activities are
unlimited. San Lorenzo National Park is
one of our natural jewels and an UNES~
CO World Heritage sire:'
With so much to choose from, the Eco~
Circuitos team will tailor an itinerary that
caters to your interests and showcases the
best of the country. Tour packages are expe~
riential, combining outdoor adventure such
as hiking, kayaking, and rock climbing with
ecological experiences and cultural exchang~
es. Luxury and romance are also on the
menu, even honeymoon packages! Imagine
visits to unspoiled white sand beaches, snor~
keling in the beautiful Bocas del Toro archi~
pelago, hikes through rainforest, and strolls
along Panama City's newly built boardwalk
to admire the amazing skyline.
And Panama is safe for the lesbian trav~
eler. "Panama City is known as the most
cosmopolitan city in Central America and
much more open in comparison with oth~
er Central American capitals;' says Young.
"In the tourism industry we have compa~
nies that are attracting the LGBT traveler
by becoming part of international orga~
nizations such as TAG and IGLTA. My
company has handled LGBT travelers for
many years and my only suggestion would
be to avoid areas that are marked as un~
safe, as in any other city around the world:'
Young emphasizes that the common
factor in all her tours is "to keep the en~
vironmental impact to a minimum while
maximizing the benefits to the local host
communities:' To help fulfill this prom~
ise, a percentage of company profits are
donated to different local organizations
that support conservation, education and
sustainable development. And Young has
rallied support for her cause: the private
sector, in partnership with local associa~
tions such as the Panamanian Association
for Sustainable Tourism (of which Young
is president), is working to promote best
practices in tourism through education. "I
truly feel that the most important tool is to
educate our communities, workers, guides
and business owners on how to preserve
our natural and cultural assets for future
generations:' (ecocircuitos.com)
LOCAL
LESBIAN:
ANNIE
YOUNG'S
PANAMA
PICKS
coastline, July through October in the
Pearl Archipelago or in the Azuero
Peninsula. Truly an amazing experience.
Armed with a degree in Social
Communication from the University
BIODIVERSITY MUSEUM
of Panama, a diploma in Business
Newly constructed by famous architect
Strategies for Environmental
Frank Gehry, and his only work in Latin
Sustainability from Stanford, and a
America, the museum is a must visit.
course on Environmental Management
of International Tourism Development
from Harvard, Young is a pioneer in
COASTAL BOARDWALK
(CINTA COSTERA)
ecotourism. Here are her personal
Take a stroll and visit Casco Antigua,
favorites:
the colonial quarters of the city. This
SUNSET KAYAK
jazz clubs, shops and great nightlife.
area offers fantastic restaurants, bars,
A unique way to admire the scenery,
tropical birds, interesting mammals
MIRAFLORES LOCKS
or ships crossing the Panama Canal
A fascinating lesson in the history of the
Watershed.
busy Panama Canal.
CAMINO REAL
LOS QUETZALES TRAIL
A trail in the Soberania National Park
In the highlands of Chiriqui province,
used by the Spanish conquistadors
this is considered one of the best hikes
to transfer their treasures during the
in Central America and it is located
colony. Hike through lush forest and
between la Amistad International
observe abundant flora and fauna.
Park, shared with Costa Rica, and the
HUMPBACK WHALES
mountainous landscape and great
Observe the migratory journey of these
weather make this long distance hike a
majestic mammals along Panama's
must in Panama!
Baru Volcano National Park. Beautiful
WOMEN'S
ONLY
OUTDOOR
ADVENTURE,
PANAMA,
JUNE
2015
7-day adventure includes beachcombing, cultural activities, and fun in the city.
Book in advance and ask for the CurveDiscount!
(ecocircuitos.com)
TLOOKtSTARS
Winter Wanderlust
Don't bother making New Year's resolutions. They'll be broken before
January as Mars enters romantic Pisces. By Charlene Lichtenstein
Shonda Rhimes, writer-producer of
How to Get Away With Murder turns
45 on January 13.
CAPRICORN~
%
Sapphic Caps come~
off as serious and%
conservative and look like~
they lack self-confidence. ~
In truth, she is immensely%
talented, driven, and can~
achieve anything she%
sets her mind to. The~
problem is that along the~
way, she questions her%
abilities, kicking herself~
with her mountain goat%
legs. (And what legs!) ~
%
(Dec 23-Jan 20)
AQUARIUS~
(Jan 21-Feb 19) %
More U.S.presidents are ~
Aquarians than any other%
sign, therefore, it's~
important that she keep~
company with those%
who will not ignore~
her gifts. Naysayers or%
homophobes will cause~
her to question her~
own judgment, sap her%
strength and take the fire~
out of her convictions. %
Do what you can to~
rescue her. A genius~
wasted hurts the%
entire planet.~
%
%
Charlene
Lichtenstein
istheauthor%
of HerScopes:
A Guide
to Astrology%
forLesbians
(Simon
& Schuster)-%
%
tinyurl.
com/HerScopes.
%
Nowavailable
asanebook.'.%
80
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
Aries (March 21-April 20)
Leo (July 24-Aug 23)
Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 22)
She is giving you secret sexy
glances across the conference
room and you find any excuse
to linger with her in the supply
room. But both of you are not as
discrete as you might think. Do
you really believe that you can
keep any illicit office romance
Your powers of concentration
will increase this winter. Use it
to tackle any onerous, detailed
and long procrastinated project
at work. Clear off your desk,
your "to do" list and your "in"
box. Take your "out" box to the
nearest g-spot hot spot. There
Now is the time to concentrate
on your finances. Resolve to
better manage your dough and
watch it rise through the year.
Yes, there will be many delicious
temptations but try to focus on
the bottom line. As you start to
make capital gains, Sagittarians
a secret this winter? Not likely,
Aries. So go for her, if you
cannot resist. But be prepared
for the shareholder revolt.
may be a lovely lady there who
can not only fill it up but also gift
wrap it. So just do it.
may find that they can eat their
cake and have it too. Or maybe
it is just the cherry?
Virgo (Aug 24-Sept 23)
Capricorn (Dec 23-Jan 20)
The holiday season may be over
but that doesn't mean that you
can't continue the festivities in
January and even February. Take
a few calculated risks, maybe
You are full of vim and vigor
and are ready to take on the
world. Make your best move
and let the movers and shakers
know that you too can shake,
rattle and roll. Check yourself
Taurus (April 21-May 21)
Traveling with a purely platonic
girlfriend will have added
benefits this winter. Not only
will you two get into exotic,
unexpected and ultimately
fun mischief, you will also
discover much more to like
(and lust) about each other. Is
it worth turning a gal pal into a
lovergrrl? Yes. Even with all the
possibly confusing aftermath
when you both get back home.
even some low level gambling.
You have lady luck blowing on
your dice ...if that turns you on.
Virgos are ready to party hearty
and join the bunny hop line.
Keep hopping until Easter and
share your eggs.
out in the mirror and look
your best as you meet some
of the most bodacious babes
in town. Some of them will
figure prominently in your life
through the year. Which figure
do you prefer?
Libra (Sept 24-Oct 23)
Gemini (May 22-June 21)
Geminis can be very flirtatious
and acrobatic. Put your best
moves to work as you mingle
and co-mingle with the
Ladies gravitate to your home
this winter so be ready with
enough provisions to keep
everyone warm and cozy. Plan
some intimate get togethers
Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)
You may be on the fence in
choosing a certain lover grrl.
But continued inaction will
hostess with the moistest skills.
Or enlist some gal pals to help
have its own costs this winter.
So take a risk and pass a secret
love note to someone you have
been eyeing for a while. It will
you launch some minor home
projects that spruce up your
crib. Make your home into a
palace where you can become
royalty. Oh, too late?
be a bold move that will spark
her imagination. Will you feel
comfortable revealing yourself
completely? Or maybe just in
cheekless chaps?
Put more focus and effort into
your relationships, Cancer.
Find new ones or concentrate
on refreshing current ones.
You may need to jumpstart the
passion, revive the excitement
and dispatch any long term
Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)
Pisces (Feb 20-March 20)
A new year, a new you. Shake
off the cobwebs, get into first
gear and see where you want to
go now, Pisces. Your personal
journey may involve a bevy of
issues. But it will be worth the
effort. The nights are too cold
to shiver in bed alone. Shiver
with a special you-know-who
or who-knows-who.
fallow now. Dip into your deep
well of oral talent and pump it up
to the max. You flow seamlessly
into the zeitgayst. And who
knows who can happen next?
powerful high and mighties
this winter. Once you have
them where you want them,
try to use their influence to
advance your personal agenda.
Today the office couch, lover,
tomorrow the throne.
where you can show off your
Cancer (June 22-July 23)
Have a great idea? See someone
who catches your eye? Have
a momentous cause to push
forward? Scorpios are innately
very persuading and seductive.
So don't let your best assets lie
good girlfriends who can guide
you and help you build on your
successes. Or they may just
conspire to get you into lovely
mischief. Hmm, just who is this
Miss Chief anyway?
TheFloridaKeys
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if that's not enough, our legendary
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■
JAN/FEB
2015
FEATURES
18
THE WRONG PATH
Orange Is the New Black
portrays women behind bars,
but who are the real queer
incarcerated women? By
Victoria A. Brownworth
32
TOMBOI STYLE
A fashion spread inspired
by the beauty of masculine
women. By Diana Price
38
OUR GENERATION
Meet the 6 amazing achievers
who have inspired generations
of queer women. By Marcie
Bianco, Francesca Lewis,
Gillian Kendall, and Dave
Steinfeld.
55
QUEER YOUTH IN FOCUS
A photo essay depicting young
queer folks in their own words.
Photos by Rachelle Lee Smith
58
A LIFETIME OF LOVE
Photographer Barbara Proud
creates images of long-term
LGBT lovers that we can all be
proud of. By Merryn Johns
65
ANNIE LENNOX
WAXES NOSTALGIC
The Brit pop goddess stands
up for all our rights. By Kelly
McCartney
68
CAMERON
ESPOSITO IS HOT
The sassy standup comic talks
lesbian haircuts and more. By
Dana Piccoli
COVER
PHOTO
BY B. PROUD
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
1
JAN/FEB
2015
32
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
IN EVERYISSUE
4
EDITOR'S NOTE
6
CURVETTES
8
FEEDBACK
10
THE GAYDAR
80
STARS
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
TRENDS
9
BEAUTY
Lipsmacking winter goodies
for your pucker.
11 LES LOOKS LIKE
Meet Carolyn Gage, lesbianfeminist playwright
14 LESBOFILE
Our favorite celesbians
behaving very badly.
VIEWS
14 OUT IN FRONT
Meet our community leaders.
14 IN CASE YOU MISSED
IT ... LGBT news from across
the country. By Sassafras
Lowrey
16 POLITICS
What happens when lesbian
moms use donor sperm and
don't get the result they
expected? A battle of sex,
race, and class. By Victoria A.
Brown worth
20
LIPSTICK & DIPSTICK
Relationship advice from our
trusted butch-femme duo.
2
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
REVIEWS
26 MUSIC
Classical guitar has been
mastered and revived by out
musician Sharon lsbin, who
has released a box set of her 5
best CDs. Plus we review the
latest from Rachael Sage and
Natalia Zukerman. By Merryn
Johns & Kelly McCartney
28 FILM
Out filmmaker and woman of
color, Caryn Hayes discusses
the background to her popular
films, plus we review the
landmark feminist documentary She's beautiful When She's
Angry. By Lisa Tedesco &
Marcie Bianco
32 BOOKS
Bisexual hispanic author Daisy
Hernandez discusses bridging
two worlds in her new memoir,
A Cup of Water Under My Bed.
By Rosanna Rios Spicer
\\\\_~
\\\\t.~\\t\\'tt
"LESBIAN
HEAVEN!
Lov1~A~
AGREAT
READ,
ARTICLEiAl~~~~N~ASHION
LOADS
OFC
1ASTICI
PLUS
PLENT~~iE~T
ISSUES
LESBIAN
HEARTBR~:
GEO
US
...FAB!"
KERS
...
UelenB.
'
Bridging
Generations
H
alfway through my life and a
lesbian since 7, I know what
it feels like to be a younger
lesbian and an older lesbian.
As editor-in-chief of the world's best-known
lesbian publication, it's also my job to bring
those two sides of our community together.
But how-especially
when we have different
histories, experiences, identities? There are
plenty of young queer women who don't identify as lesbian-or
as women-even
though
they are not ostensibly altering their birth
gender. This issue, which we have called Our
Generation, gives voice to a number of queer
female generations-from
Edie Windsor to a
millennial riot grrrl fan.
If I have paid particular attention to the experiences of older gay women, it's not just out
of a sense of deference. To me, it's common
sense. In a world that seems unable to solve
its problems, could it be that we haven't been
listening to the wisest voices among us? The
repeal of DOMA put equal rights for LGBTs
squarely on this country's political agenda,
and it happened because of octogenarian Edie
Windsor, who graces our cover. Other lesbians of a certain age have been continuing her
fight. Take Madelynn"Lee"Taylor from Idaho,
a 74-year-old military veteran (she served in
the Navy from 1958 to 1964) who challenged
the Idaho state law prohibiting her from being
buried with her late wife, Jean Mixner.
"She [had] to grieve and fight, and that is
so typical [for LGBTs];' says NCLR Executive
Director Kate Kendall in a YouTube video
that I dare you to watch without being moved
to tears. After Mixner passed away, Taylor
went through a year of depression. "I miss her
so much, sometimes my arms ache;' says Taylor. "A.nd [Jean] promised to wait for me. She's
waitin' by the Eastern gate, up in Heaven:'
In 2013, when Taylor tried to arrange to
have her ashes interred along with those of
her wife at the Idaho State Veterans Cem-
etery, she was refused this right, which is
readily available to other veterans and their
spouses. Even though Mixner and Taylor were
married in California in 2008, Idaho law did
not recognize their marriage. On July 7, 2014,
the NCLR and Boise attorneys Deborah A.
Ferguson and Craig Durham filed a lawsuit
on behalf of Taylor. In May, four same-sex
couples had challenged the ban, and in October, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
that Idaho's ban on the freedom to marry for
same-sex couples violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. As a result of the decision, Idaho state officials agreed
to Taylor's request. Whatever your views on
marriage, this older lesbian helped enrich the
lives of thousands of lesbians-even
as she
anticipates the end of her own.
In Our Generation, you'll meet other women whose words, deeds, and dreams have or
will help achieve justice and dignity for lesbians of all ages. And isn't that a nice way to
begin 2015?
!z
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
merryn@curvemag.com
Curve's online selection of must-do, must-try, must-have extras.
REVIEWS
FILMS
WHEN LOVE FINDS YOU, RULES
AND ROLES DON'T APPLY
Feel like watching a lesbian film with a fresh
storyline? One that's evocative, compassionate
and contains actual depth? Well, Tru Love is the
film that you should dedicate an hour and a
half of your time to. Kate Johnston and Shauna
MacDonald's delightful film is the winner of
eleven LGBT awards and it's not hard to see
why. Read more on
G curvemag.com
1
EDITOR
SPICK
cuLTURE
LESBIAN-FEMINIST JOAN NESTLE CO-EDITS
LANDMARK JOURNAL SINISTERWISDOM
In an era of mainstreaming minority rights and mass social
media, would a lesbian journal from the 1970s still have
relevancy or much of topical interest to say? Damn straight
it would. Sinister Wisdom, founded in 1976,just two years
after Joan Nestle co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives,
and edited by lesbian-feminist luminaries including Michelle
Cliff and Adrienne Rich, is a lesbian literary and art journal
that is multicultural in scope, diverse in voice, and addresses
important issues that continue to divide us. Read more on
G curvemag.com.
LIFESTYLE
SPORT
OUT AND PROUD ON THE COURT
Did you know that there are 5 popular WNBA players who are also out and proud?
Over the summer, the WNBA started a Pride initiative campaign marketed directly
to the LGBT community. It was a bold move and also a very smart one, as the
WNBA's most supportive audience is largely made up of LGBT fans. Throughout
the campaign, players attended Pride parades and events, appeared in advertising
spots for the lesbian media, and participated in advocacy work for LGBT rights. And
even though it may have taken a few years, the WNBA is embracing star players like
Brittney Griner who are out, proud, and not afraid to be who they are. Read more on
G curvemag.com
CULTURE
HUMOR
THE 5 MAIN TYPES OF SCENE LESBIAN,
WHICH ONE ARE YOU?
Fun Fact: Lesbians don't grow on trees. Now once you're
finished imagining that tree (I can give you a minute if you'd
like?) my point is that (at least where I live) you can't just
wander down the road and bump in to lesbian ladies in
abundance. They just don't seem to exist "in the wild." But
r
•
~
~
~
~~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
entering "The Scene" can be pretty daunting too, so what's
~
a girl to do? When I first came out I thought the hard part
~
was over, but I couldn't have been more wrong. And I was
so confused! Check out the 5 types of wonderful women
you can woo on
G curvemag.com
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~~
-
We have some of the leading voices in our community
sharing their thoughts on
love and romance, parenting and politics, and sex and
spirituality-not to mention
our huge collection of lesbian fandom.
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
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5
UP
RONT!CURVETTES
curve
THE BEST-SELLING
JAN/FEB
2015
LESBIAN
» VOLUME
MAGAZINE
25 NUMBER
1
PUBLISHER Silke Bader
FOUNDING PUBLISHER Frances Stevens
EDITORIAL
EDITORIN CHIEF Merryn Johns
SENIORCOPY EDITOR Katherine Wright
CONTRIBUTINGEDITORS Melanie Barker, Kathy Beige,
B. PROUD
JULIE B. COLWELL
As both a commercial and fine art photographer, B. Proud has exhibited her
award-winning work in solo and group
shows around the globe. Her First Comes
Love Project, featured this month as our
cover story, is a traveling exhibition of
photographs, stories, and video, and now
a hardbound book. It has received multiple
awards and grants including those from
the B. W. Bastian Foundation, the Puffin
Foundation, the Delaware State Arts
Council, and The University of the Arts,
Philadelphia where Proud is an adjunct
associate professor. B. Proud currently
resides in Wilmington, Delaware with her
spouse, Allison, and their yellow lab, Soleil.
Psychologist Julia B. Colwell, PhD, has spent
over three decades exploring relationship
dynamics with individuals, couples, and
groups. The author of The Relationship
Skills Workbook: A Do-It-Yourself Guide
to a Thriving Relationship (Sounds True,
October 2014), she is the founder of the
Boulder Center for Conscious Community.
Julie is proud to say she has kitchen-tested everything she teaches in her 25-year
relationship with her spouse Kathryn Kucsan
in Boulder, Colorado. This month she offers
her advice and experience on how to keep
the spark in your relationship long past
Valentine's Day. Learn more about her work
at juliacolwell.com.
Marcie Bianco, Victoria A. Brownworth, Gina Daggett,
Lyndsey D'Arcangelo, Sheryl Kay, Gillian Kendall, Dave
Steinfeld
PROOFREADERAmanda Keeling
EDITORIALASSISTANTSCaitlyn Byrne, LisaTedesco, Cora ShayePope, Erin Wilson
OPERATIONS
DIRECTOROF OPERATIONS Jeannie Sotheran
EVENTS& MEDIA RELATIONSCOORDINATOR Robin Perron
ADVERTISING
NATIONAL SALES
Rivendell Media (908) 232-2021, todd@curvemagazine.com
ART/PRODUCTION
ART DIRECTORSRicardo Calvi Vivian
SOCAL MEDIA
MANAGERBel Evans
INTERNLucy Doyle
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Melany Joy Beck, Jenny Block, Kelsy Chauvin, Jill Goldstein,
Kristin Flickinger, Adrienne Jordan, Gillian Kendall,
Kim Hoffman, Francesca Lewis, Charlene Lichtenstein,
Sassafras Lowrey, Kelly McCartney, Emelina Minero, Dana
Piccoli, Laurie K. Schenden, Stephanie Schroeder, Janelle
Sorenson, Rosanna Rios-Spicer, Stella & Lucy, Yana TallonHicks, Sarah Toce, Jocelyn Voo
CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS & PHOTOGRAPHERS
Steph Brusig, Meagan Cignoli, Syd London, Maggie
Parker, Diana Price, Robin Roemer, Leslie Van Stelten
CONTACT INFO
Curve Magazine
PO Box 467
New York, NY 10034
PHONE (415) 871-0569
FAX (510) 380-7487
SUBSCRIPTIONINQUIRIES(800) 705-0070
(toll-free in us only)
(818) 286-3102 (outside US)
ADVERTISINGEMAIL todd@curvemagazine.com
EDITORIALEMAIL editor@curvemag.com
LETTERSTO THE EDITOREMAIL letters@curvemagazine.com
FRANCESCA LEWIS
DIANA PRICE
Francesca Lewis is a queer feminist writer
from Yorkshire, UK who writes for Curve,
The Human Experience, and is working
on a novel. She was an oblivious ten-yearold when the original riot grrrl movement
was unfolding but like a time capsule of
beautiful-angry empowerment, the music
was waiting to be discovered when she
needed it most. As a fat, angsty, queer,
mixed-race literature student she didn't fit
in at university, but she cheered herself up
wailing along to Babes In Toyland's cover of
"All By Myself-a strategy that didn't make
her popular with her peers! Her penchant
for cooking with ground cloves makes
everything taste like Christmas.
Diana Price is a professional photographer
living in Tampa, Florida. A self-taught artist,
she started working with images 6 years
ago as a passion rather than as a way to
make money. She has been published in
several magazines, exhibited in galleries,
and donated her time and work to many
non-profit organizations that benefit the
LGBTcommunity. Her subjects vary widely,
from portraits of children, to families, to
couples. "Making people feel the beauty
within, no matter what they believe in or no
matter how they look, is what's most important to me." This issue, Diana captures the
beauty of masculine women for her project
on tombois. (boi-photography.com)
Volume 25 Issue 1 Curve (ISSN 1087-867X) is published 6 times
per year (January/February, March/April, May/June, July/August,
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by Avalon Media,
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VIENNA
TO
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DELICIOUS
SECRETS
~
WATERS
ISBACK
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8[SJI
Posts from our Facebook fans
Do you think an article on
LGBT domestic violence
should be addressed for
awareness? Domestic violence
is not selective and rarely do
I see it addressed in LGBT
community.
-Linda Graham, Bowling
Green KY.
::::::::::,::::::::::::::::::::::,:::::,
facebook.com/curvemag
EDITORIAL INSPIRATION
I just wanted to say thank you
for being such an inspiration
to me. You showed me that I
could live happily as a lesbian
woman and I am doingjust
that. I am seeing a terrific
woman and never thought I
would be at this stage in my
life. Thank you so much!!
-Christina Castiglione, Bethany
Beach DE.
Melissa Etheridge ROCKSmy
world! -Cheree Ruff
Love Melissa Etheridge's new
CD!-Lisa Woodland Foxwell
I'm listening to Melissa 's new
CD and I just finished Sarah
Waters' new book. -Lisa
Shelton
Mine came today ...yiippee!!
-Vic Symonds
Melissa is looking absolutely
gorgeous -Donna Durkins
Editor's Note: We agree! "Is
Lesbian Violence as Real as
Str8 Violence?" ran in V.24#7
of Curve.
CONCEPTION QUERY
I am a childless lesbian but I
have many lesbian friends who
have children, some through
heterosexual union, some
through known donors, others
who have pursued the costly
process of artificial insemination. I would like you to do an
article on the lesbian couple
who sued the Ohio sperm
bank. I think there needs to be
more discussion around the
ethics of assisted reproduc-
:::::::::::::::,::::::::::::::,::::::::,
tive technologies and lesbian
motherhood.
-Name supplied.
Editor's Note: Victoria Brownworth addresses the issue this
month on page 16.
PREGNANCY DEBATE
As a pro-life LGBT person I
just wanted to say that the lesbian couple who went to Planned
Parenthood did not have an
abortion ("The Baby Bump;'
V.24#6]. The sac was empty
and no life form was inside. An
She can come to my window
any time! - Ydolem Yenknip
Always classy. Love M.E.!!
-Susan James Harris
abortion is when a live entity is
terminated, not an empty sac
devoid oflife. Why doesn't the
lesbian couple adopt one or
more LGBT foster kids? I'm
not sure how easy it is to adopt
kids in the foster care system
but LGBT couples adopting
those kids, already here, would
be way better than artificial
insemination and surrogacy.
Why create new life in order to
have babies when living kids in
need of a good home are already
here?
-Kathy Apker, Eugene OR.
•~~2m:i~!ii~~~1;;;;;:~;··························
:••
:••
•···1·1
15%
Weto
really
should
try
harder
bridge
the
generation gap.
~.~~i:~::~~~~~:
i:::::
•
;::_i::_
II
~~Ii~i'.i;;e'.~~'.~!'.:::
.. ....::•..
.I.I
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TRENDS/
Lip Service
VENTUREBEYONDTHE TRUSTYCHAPSTICKTHIS WINTERAND KEEPYOUR
PUCKERPERFECTBY MELANIE BARKER
BEAU
GlamGloss
Sarah McNamara's Miracle Skin Transformer Lip Rewind
looks like a Iipg loss wand but is much more. This tinted,
peptide-infused treatment repairs daily damage and
plumps your pucker with its antioxidant-rich butters,
while Vitamin E and SPF 20 protect your skin from
harsh UV rays. Available in Berry, Coral, Love,
Pink and Translucent, go from the slopes to
apres ski with one twist of this pen! ($24,
miracleskintransformer.com)
Chccli_Y<:lm1)slicli
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presents a playful line of lip
balms featuring the unique
Friend End for sharing and
stylish '70s packaging. Allnatural, and with triple the
amount of balm as the typical
tube, choose from 5 delicious
flavors: Juicy Melons, Hot
Chocolate Love, Sweet Baby
Ginger, Huge Cucumber and
Wild Mountain Honey. Gift
packs of 3 (Menage trois) or
5 (Flavor Orgy) also available.
($8, balmchickky.com)
a
Hack to Basics
Bobbi Brown is a trusted name in
cosmetics, and her Illuminating
Nudes collection of clean, easyto-use lip gloss will give you a
fresh and no-fuss kisser for the
New Year. The trend this winter
is flawlessly fresh-made easy
with these soft shades that shine
in Almost Nude, Almost Pink,
Almost Peach, and White.
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Marula trees, indigenous to Southern Africa
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hand harvested to produce Marula oil, used
for centuries to protect skin and hair in harsh
conditions. Instant Marula By John Paul Selects
can be rolled onto lips, cuticles, and the delicate
skin around the eyes. The fatty acids (Omega 6
and 9) improve skin elasticity immediately. Small
and slim, this product is a perfect way to hydrate
skin while traveling. ($15, marula.com)
For a super-arich ntioxidant lip balm that
protects, nourishes, and soothes, try
emerginC Scientific Organics' In Lips We
Trust. It's made with 100% natural plant
oils, waxes and butters, including sweet
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organic beeswax. 70% organic, this balm
covers all bases and goes the extra mile
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lite Good Oil
The skin on the lips loses moisture up to ten
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hydrated with 100% plant-based lip oils by
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($48, janmarini.com)
JAN/FEB
2015
1oig/UO!.
CURVE
9
NDS/
THE GAYDAR
p
~~ THEGAYDAR
Takes one to know one? Let our gaydar help
you decide who's hot, who's not, who's
~ shaking it and who's faking it in lesboland.
%
~
BY MELANIE BARKER
~
Lexington Club, "your
friendly neighborhood
dyke bar" and one
of the last remaining
lesbian bars in San
Francisco, will close due
to rising rents
Cate Blanchett won our
hearts when she signed
on for lesbian flick, Carol.
Now she dons drag
for watchmaker IWC's
Portofino ads. Le sigh!
Almost 85% of self-identified
Catholics between 18
and 29 believe gays and
lesbians should be accepted,
according to a 2014 survey
conducted by the Pew
Research Center
,~,.,.,.,.
There is life after
Sailor Moon!
Japan's Girls Love
Festival 12, a
comics convention
in Yokohama,
explores lesbianthemed anime and
comics
Florida's
twice-divorced
attorney
general Pam
Bondi denies a
lesbian couple
the right to
divorce
We can do
without Greta
Gerwig's
confused and
confusing lesbian
character in The
Humbling
f-
>w
I
0
z
~
I
~
0
z
:::;
w
"'
>w
0..
A hilarious Buzzfeed
video titled "Lesbians
Explain Sex to
Straight People" does
exactly that
NYC's the
Lesbian Herstory
Archives
celebrates 40
years. Here's to
40 more
Meghan Stabler
is named Working
Mother of the Year
by Working Mother
magazine, the first
time a transgender
woman receives the
award
Evan Rachel Wood and
Katherine Moennig's
Twitter flirtation blossoms
into a real thing. You go,
girls!
10
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
Kristen Stewart and
Alicia Cargile are NOT
dating. They just do
everything together,
all the time
Brooke Hemphill
spells out 'sexual
tourist' with her
not-very-memorable
memoir, lesbian For
a Year
Nost GOSSIP
p
~ LESBOFILE
~
Celebrity Sapphic attraction is
~ heating up.
~
BY JOCELYN VOO
THE BAD GIRL AND THE BRIT
It's a familiar storyline: Hollywood
bad girl plus British It girl, one gay, one
Caught on a YouTube video, DeLaria
can be heard getting her Big Boo on with
a subway preacher, whose rants about
sometimes-gay. We're calling it right now:
religion and "the sin of homosexuality" was
Michelle Rodriguez and Cara Delevingne
drowned out first by DeLaria's own rebuttal,
may just end up being the 2014 version of
and then by her leading the entire train in a
the ruckus that was Samantha Ronson and
rousing rendition of "99 Bottles of Beer on
Lindsay Lohan circa 2009. Except with less
the Wall."
Portia De Rossi
"I have a right to ride that subway
alleged substance abuse.
There was a collective queer cheer
peacefully," DeLaria told the New YorkDaily
"Slowly one morning, literally over sippy
when Hollywood bad girl Rodriguez got
News. "And I certainly have a right to ride
with the British supermodel, as, paparazzi
that subway without listening to somebody
I said, 'Where are the sippy cups?' She
be damned, they were completely and
spewing hatred."
said, 'Well, dear,' ... We were like a married
unapologetically into each other. Then
when they split, things got weird: Rodriguez
Just goes to show you, nobody messes
O'Connell.
couple without the benefits, so why not
with Big Boo.
have the benefits!?"
K.D.'SNEW FLAME
modern lesbian romance.
rebounded with Zac Efron (nope, not a typo)
and Delevingne was linked with actor Jack
cups, I'm running [around] making lunches,
Sex and sippy cups: sounds like the
Things are heating up in Canada! We're
And now Rodriguez wants her back. The
following whispers of of crooner k.d. lang
HOW TWEETIT IS
pair both attended the LACMA Art and Film
canoodling with Heather Edwards, the
Festival in Los Angeles this past November,
separated wife of an oil tycoon and Calgary
tor Jamie Bell, actress Evan Rachel Wood
where Rodriguez sent Delevingne a note via
Flames hockey team co-owner. Edwards
is now reportedly in a relationship with Ray
a waitress. However, a source told the Daily
and the Grammy-winning artist have
Donovanstar Katherine Moennig, and it all
Star, "Cara ignored it. She's still hurt about
been spotted out multiple times together,
started with a little 140-character flirting.
everything that happened. She was really
and PageSix notes their mutual draw to
Back in February, Wood fired the first
nervous about seeing Michelle and clung to
Buddhism. But is it more than spirituality
now-apparent love letter, despite still being
her pal Selena Gomez all night." Meanwhile,
and sushi? We're on the case.
married: "Just saw @katemoennig at a flea
"Michelle was telling her friends that seeing
Cara made her miss her, and she desperately wants to sort things out."
One guess as to whether we're salivating
for Round 2.
BADASSBOO
Nobody messes with Lea Delaria's character on Orange /s the New Black,and nobody
market. I turned to mush and ran. Love her!!"
LOVE IN TRAINING
Hollywood romances have a way of
And then Wood's tweet: "Haha. I would
so to have rocker Melissa Etheridge admit
have slurred my words. Next time. But yea,
to falling for now-wife Linda Wallem while
you are amazing. Helped me realize who i
doing something as normal as taking care
am. Big fan;) @katemoennig"
of the kids-well, that's just crazy.
The Grammy winner tells "Access
messes with Lea DeLaria in real life in New
Hollywood" that it just sort of hit her and
the NurseJackieproducer.
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
Moennig responded: "@evanrachelwood
you should have said hi. :)"
springing up in the oddest circumstances,
York City, either.
12
Just a month after her divorce from ac-
The L Wordhelped you realize who you
were? Yeah, we hear you, Evan.
Social media wooing-celebrities,
they're just like us!
TRENDS/
SHEs
"I don't know that I
am [comfortable talking about
being gay] now, to be honest with
you. The gay thing has always been
hard for me. When Heidi and I are out and
somebody older asks, 'Are you sisters?' I say,
'We're friends.' I guess it comes from thinking
that they will be shocked or disturbed. Look,
I wish I had some strapping football player
husband. It would be such a dream to
be 'normal' like that, but I'm just
not." -Jillian Michaels to
Health magazine
st
PROFILE
IN CASE
YOU
MISSED
Staging Activism
ZsaZsaGershickteachesfrom all platforms.
Being a gay person in the theatre, for the most part,
is a non-issue but being gender non-conforming is
I
more challenging, and getting a lesbian play produced
is a whole other thing. Enter Zsa Zsa Gershick, author,
director, teacher, and activist, who faced just that-and
beat it all.
"Paul Newman backed my first play after a major theatre told me that no one would pay to see a play about
lesbians," says Gershick. That play, Bluebonnet Court,
~~~!~r-~~l~s~!t~~~~PT~;as,
hasbecome
the first student at McKinney High School to win a
place on the homecoming court. Swartz-Larson's
friends took to Twitter to campaign for her as homecoming queen. Her father, Darrin Larson, spoke
about his surprise that his daughter was picked.
"Her whole kind of being doesn't say 'homecoming
queen,'" he said. "She's not one of the popular kids,
but kids seem to really like her."
went on to win awards from GLAAD and the NAACP.
With a solid background of gigs in the newsroom and
SWEET
CAKES
BYMELISSA,
other media outlets as well as stints in public relations
an Oregon bakery owned by a
Christian couple, has gone out of
business Aaron and Melissa Klein
became the focus of national
controversy when they refused to
bake a wedding cake for a lesbian
couple, a dec1s1onthat later was
ruled to violate the couple's c1v1I
rights Melissa Klein has taken to
Facebook to Justify her continued
homophobia, saying, "You don't
have to compromise conv1ct1ons
to be compassionate" At time of
press, the Sweet Cakes website 1s
still operational
and university level instruction, Gershick could have
chosen from a wide variety of topics to represent in her
theater productions, but she consistently goes back to
LGBT based themes.
"We write what we know," she says. "My mission is to
create thought-provoking work that uplifts, educates,
inspires and entertains, particularly illuminating the
lives of LGBTQ people who've largely been hidden from
history."
Gershick knows about invisibility, serving for several
years in the U.S. Military, before DADT was repealed. She
studied broadcast production and performance at the
Army's Defense Information School (DINFOS), among
THENATIONAL
GAY
the first females to be accepted in 1979.
"The command told us right away that we were not
and Lesbian Task Force, the
oldest national LGBT advocacy
organization 1nthe US, has
changed its name to The National
LGBTQ Task Force, 1norder to
better reflect the diversity of the
community 1trepresents
welcome," she says. "I was the only female in my class
to graduate. I have always been a fighter."
Now Gershick kicks it on stage. To celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives,
the largest repository of queer materials in the world,
she created and directed Dear ONE: Love & Longing
PHILIP
ZODHIATES,
in Mid-Century Queer America, which recounts the
lives of LGBTQ Americans as detailed in letters written
between 1953 and 1967 to ONE Magazine.
To those in marginalized communities who are still
finding their place, Gershick advises, "Be yourself.
Owning who you are gives others permission to be who
they are. That's the most basic form of activism there is."
By Sheryl Kay
14
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
I
~
the owner of a Christian marketing
business 1nV1rg1n1a,
has pleaded
not guilty to conspiracy and
1nternat1onalk1dnapp1ngcharges
for helping Lisa Miller flee the US to
~a;;gi
:)~~::~;~~:~::~bella,
1norder to avoid rel1nqu1sh1ng
custody of Isabella to her former
partner, Janet Jenkins Prosecutors
claim that Zodh1ates and Miller
traveled together from V1rg1niato
Canada Miller 1snow believed to
be 1nNicaragua with her daughter
Jenkins has been seeking the
return of Isabella since she was
taken from the country The
women shared custody after they
separated 1n2003, but Jenkins
was given full custody of Isabella
because Miller, who became
a conservative Christian and
renounced her lesbianism, kept the
child away from her former partner
If convicted, Zodh1ates could face
five years 1nJail
YASMINE
CASSINI,
29,SAYS
the Denver Area Council of the
Boy Scouts of America offered
her a Job as director of their new
Adventure Center, but when
the BSA learned that she was
openly lesbian, the Job offer was
withdrawn The BSA has been
quoted as saying "This 1nd1v1dual
brought 1tto our attention that she
did not meet the requirements for
employment." Cass1nisays she was
fully qual1f1edfor the Job, until the
:~~!::;:~
~~::~s
a lesbian
ALSO
FEATURING
PERFORMANCES
BY: IVYLEVANOLIVIA
SOMERLYN
CRYSTAL
WATERS
ROSE
ROYCE
COMEDYACTS
BY:SUZANNEWESTENHOEFER
DANAOOLDBERO
DINAH
LEFFERT
GLORIA
BIGELOW
CL R
WW
Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend
@DinchShore
I #OinahSh-oreI
88B-92dinah
POLITICS»
Motherhood in Black and White
A lesbian couple's lawsuit over receiving the wrong donor sperm reignites the race debate.
But are they racist for wanting the child they thought they'd ordered? ev v1cToR1A A. BRowNwoRTH
Payton Cramblett, 2, is adorable. Spar~
kly black eyes, curly black hair pulled back
into little puffy ponytails, a smile to melt
your heart, and beautiful skin the color of
coffee ice cream. She's the kind of gorgeous
child you'd expect to see in an ad for Tar~
get or Gerber's.
Payton is the daughter of Jennifer
Cramblett, 36, and Amanda Zinkon, 29.
The Ohio couple were married in New
York in 2011, and Cramblett gave birth
to Payton in August 2012. Cramblett had
been inseminated through donor sperm
she obtained from the Chicago~based
Midwest Sperm Bank, LLC.
The Midwest website courts all women,
saying in its mission statement, 'J\t Mid~
west Sperm Bank we work with hetero~
sexual couples, lesbian couples, and single
women of all races, religious and ethnic
backgrounds ... We are here to guide and
support you to help make your experience
positive and rewarding ... We want to help
you achieve your dream of giving birth to a
child of your very own:'
16
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
That was not Cramblett and Zinkon's
experience, however. Which is why at
the end of September 2014 they filed a
"wrongful birth'' lawsuit against Mid~
west. About five months into Cramblett's
pregnancy, she phoned the sperm bank
to reserve more of the same sperm she
had used for her own pregnancy, so that
if Zinkon decided to have a baby as well,
their children would be biological siblings.
That is when Cramblett and Zinkon dis~
covered that Midwest had made a mistake,
sending the wrong donor sperm to Cram~
blett's fertility clinic in Canton, Ohio.
In her lawsuit, Cramblett states that the
couple chose donor #380. But Midwest
sent them sperm from donor #330-clear~
ly mistaking an 8 for a 3 in the hand~writ~
ten order, which was apparently taken over
the telephone, not electronically. Donor
#380 is Caucasian-blond
and blue~eyed
like Cramblett and Zinkon. They chose
that donor specifically to ensure a homo~
geneous~looking family. Donor #330 is
African American.
Cramblett gave birth to a biracial child,
something that she asserts made her "de~
pressed and angry" and caused her "emo~
tional distress:' After Cramblett filed her
lawsuit, the story made national headlines.
The couple sought a minimum of $50,000
in damages, barely enough to cover the
costs of prenatal care and delivery. This
is not a lawsuit in the millions. Cramblett
says the lawsuit was meant solely to guar~
antee that Midwest would not make a sim~
ilar mistake again.
But the statements made within the
lawsuit raise a myriad of questions. Cram~
blett herself has been portrayed in the me~
dia as a racist for filing the suit at all.
Two comments with more than 500
likes on the original news story published
online by AOL, identified some of the is~
sues this lawsuit and the subsequent me~
dia attention has raised: "If she wanted the
sperm of a white male, she should have
taken the natural route and had sex with
a white male. Instead, she purchased the
car without seeing it first, and is now upset
v1Ews1POLI
with the color:' And, "She is GAY and she
thinks it will be a problem for her daughter because she is bi-racial. I would think it
would be harder having lesbian parents!!!
People in glass houses:'
Points well taken, if not well articulated.
In her lawsuit, Cramblett asserts that
she was not prepared to raise a biracial
child in her small, white, Ohio town. She
notes that some of her relatives are overtly
racist. (Racist but not homophobic? That's
odd. Usually those bigoted traits go hand
in hand. If the relatives accept her lesbianism, why can't they accept that her daughter is biracial?) Cramblett also notes that
she's not equipped to give her daughter the
kind of cultural heritage she should have
as a biracial child.
There are several issues here. Fundamentally, the lawsuit was filed over a
business deal gone wrong. The customer
paid for a white product and got a black
product. If you ordered a white dress from
a catalogue and paid for it, you would
want that dress, not the black dress you
were sent in error. But Cramblett didn't
know the sperm she ordered was from a
black donor, so she couldn't return it. And
she never considered aborting a perfectly
healthy 5-month-old fetus.
That's where the story ceases to be
about product malfeasance and becomes
about a human being.
Someone asked me if I thought this story was newsworthy because Cramblett is a
lesbian. I said yes, because that's true. There
have been insemination errors like this before, when the couples were heterosexual,
but I have never seen this kind of vitriolic
commentary. Cramblett is being vilified because she's a lesbian. The comments above
seem to declare: How can Cramblett complain that her child will face discrimination
as biracial when she's the daughter of a lesbian couple? There's a sense of outrage that
a lesbian thinks it's OK to have a baby with
her female partner, yet complains when it
doesn't look like her.
Then there is the racial component,
which is massive. It's bigger than the
botched business deal, and bigger even
than Cramblett and Zinkon's lesbianism.
This story goes to the heart of American
racism-especially
in the majority-white
Midwest, where the lesbian couple lives.
They don't know any black people, and
they have a daughter whose biological
father is black. They have racist relatives,
and their daughter is half black. They have
straight Caucasian hair that requires nothing more than washing and brushing, and
they have to drive to another part of town
to have their daughter's hair taken care
of. It's hard having a black child, and they
didn't ask for one-they asked for a blondhaired, blue-eyed child.
And that is why Cramblett filed a
lawsuit two years after Payton's birthbecause it took that long to cease being
enthralled with Payton's adorableness and
start being upset about having a child who
looks nothing like her two mommies, in a
town where no one else looks like Payton
either, and where people keep questioning
their familial connection. It took Cramblett two years to come to terms with the
fact that raising a black child in America
is far different from raising a white child.
When this story broke on Oct. 1, 2014,
I was revulsed. I was appalled, both by
Cramblett and by her lawsuit. I fell in love
with the photos of Payton, even as I was
horrified that Cramblett had made those
photos public.
Her lawsuit seemed so venal to me. Yet,
when you decide to buy a designer babybecause that's what anyone going to a
sperm bank is doing-you
want the design you bought and paid for. So, intellectually, I understood it. But then there was
Payton, the adorable toddler. How could
you let your child know that you considered her birth to be in any way "wrongful"?
I could write a whole column about how
sperm banks take advantage of lesbian
couples. (One couple I know spent thousands of dollars trying to get pregnant.)
But that's not the story here. The story
here is that Cramblett and Zinkon knew it
would be hard enough on their child to be
the daughter of lesbians. They didn't want
any other complications.
And race is a complication.
Yet, all over America, women-some in
relationships, some not-are having black
or biracial babies every day. Should they all
file "wrongful birth" lawsuits because their
children are going to face discrimination
every day of their lives? If they give birth to
sons, should they file lawsuits because those
boys will face a very high risk of being shot
to death-maybe by the police? If they give
birth to daughters, should they file lawsuits
because those girls might be sent home from
school because their hair is a "distraction" in
the classroom? This has happened to several
black girls in recent months.
What is the price of having a black
or half-black child in white America?
$50,000 hardly seems enough. What
Cramblett is seeking is reparations.
It took two years for Cramblett to file a
lawsuit about her sperm donor being black,
because it took two years for her to realize
that her whole life was going to be about
explaining to her daughter why she was being called n*gger or half-breed or any of the
other terrible names that will be hurled at
her, despite her adorableness. That's what
happens to black children in America.
It took two years for Cramblett to realize that being born half black in white
America would put her daughter at a constant disadvantage as well as a constant
risk, and that people would raise their eyebrows every time the family was together.
Because despite having a biracial president-who was raised by his white mother and his white grandparents and has a
sister who is half white and half Asian and
a stepfather who was Asian-we
are no
closer to being a postracial society than we
were a century ago.
Cramblett and Zinkon say they love
Payton as their daughter. But do they
love her as their own, or do they view her
blackness as foreign to everything in their
lives-hence the "wrongful birth" lawsuit?
Perhaps, for them, Payton is as foreign as
if they had adopted her from China or
Ecuador. Just the way straight people can
go through their lives in America without
knowing any LGBT people, white people can go through their lives in America
without knowing any black people.
Cramblett and Zinkon did not know
any until the day their daughter was born.
I'm pretty sure these two lesbians managed to find other lesbians to be friends
with, even in their small-town Ohio
world, because they wanted to. But they
never managed to find any black people to
be friends with, because they didn't need
to. The lawsuit says Payton's birth was an
error-a crime, actually.
The real crime here is the breadth of
American racism. Cramblett's lawsuit
paints that racism in broad black-and-white
strokes. Unfortunately, it also perpetuates it.
And a few years from now, Payton is going
to be asking her mothers why. •
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
17
THE
WRONG
PATH
It's easier to become a Piper Chapman or any of the
women from Orange Is the New Black than you think.
But what's being done to prevent the incarceration of
women and lesbians? ev v1cToR1A A. eRowNwoRTH
Women in prison. Even before Orange dykes to firsMime players, from daddy/
Is the New Black made it trendy, the idea girl duos to lipstick playmates. We want to
of women together behind bars spawned
pulp novels, B movies, the 1980s TV series
Prisoner:CellBlockH, and, of course, porn.
Last October, lesbian publisher Bella
Books sent out a call for submissions
for a new collection titled Desire Behind
Bars: Lesbian Prison Erotica.On the cov~
er is an image of heart~shaped handcuffs.
The editors suggest that prison might be
fun and sexy, noting, "The subject of pris~
on romance and sex is hotter" because of
OITNB, and they welcome depictions of
"risky tussles, secret trysts, and selrplea~
sure in a restrictive space with little to no
privacy:' The editors also reference "the
diversity of lesbian desire, from self~aware
18
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
see the rich desire and hot sex you bring
vividly to life among women behind bars:'
Right. Yet outside the realm of fiction and
fantasy, lesbian and bisexual womenespecially those under 35-can
often be
one romantic or highly unromantic mis~
step away from a prison sentence, just like
OITNB's Piper Chapman.
Piper Kerman, the author of the mem~
oir on which the hit series is based, grad~
uated from Smith College in 1992. A year
later, she got involved with Nora Jansen,
a woman who was a drug dealer, and in
1998 Kerman was indicted for money
laundering and drug trafficking. Starting
in 2004, she spent 13 months in Danbury,
a federal correctional institution 55 miles
from New York City-and
a far cry from
Smith College.
She's not alone.
More than half the women in U.S.
prisons are incarcerated for nonviolent
drug~related offenses. U.S. Bureau of
Justice statistics reveal that more than 40
percent of these women were under the
influence of alcohol or drugs when they
committed the crimes for which they were
convicted. Nearly two~thirds of the women
in prison also report having been victims of
child sexual abuse. A full 90 percent have
been victims of interpersonal violence.
Latino women are twice as likely to
be imprisoned as white women. African
American women are three times as likely
v1Ews1COMMU
to be imprisoned as white women.
Women represent 6 percent of the
American prison population, which is the
largest in the world. (Americans make up
only 5 percent of the global population, yet
constitute 25 percent of the incarcerated
population. That number is all the more
shocking when you consider that many
countries are dictatorships, with prisons
full of dissidents-China,
for instance, or
most African nations.)
The number of women in prison has
grown in the past decade, largely, their
advocates argue, because of drugs and
drug-related offenses like petty theft,
check kiting, and prostitution.
Advocacy groups such as the ACLU
also cite untreated mental illness as an
issue with women who end up in prison.
Substance abuse is a corresponding factor.
Abby Miller* ended up in prison because of this all-too-common confluence
of mental illness and substance abuse.
When Miller went to Vassar College, after finishing four years of high school in
three, she had her trajectory to a PhD all
mapped out. Unlike Piper Kerman, she
was neither blonde nor white nor middle class. The youngest of four children
of a very religious single mother, she was
primed to dazzle. The rarified atmosphere
of a Seven Sisters college introduced her
to a whole new life of possibilities-including her own lesbianism.
But by the end of her junior year, Miller
began having what she called "issues;' and
self-medicating became as common for
her as studying too much and not eating
enough. When the rest of her class was
graduating, she was beginning 18 months
in prison on a drug charge, coping with a
diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and recovering from an eating disorder.
Miller never returned to Vassar and
never got her life back on track. She would
drunk-dial old friends late at night until
most of us stopped taking her calls. Miller's
story is, unfortunately, a fairly typical one.
Had she been white and middle class, perhaps she would have found a way back to
Vassar, found decent therapy, and moved
forward with her life. But without those
essential supports-her
mother couldn't
cope with the butch lesbian who came
home from prison, and Miller went off her
meds regularly, preferring to self-medicate
with alcohol-she was mostly on her own.
Miller sometimes said she felt like she had
more family in prison than she had once
she got out.
According to ABC News, which has
recently done several in-depth reports on
women in prison, including two in which
former anchor Diane Sawyer put on an
orange jumpsuit and spent a full night
and day in a women's prison, 90 percent of
women in prison acknowledge having relationships-sexual
and romantic-with
other women. Unlike their male counterparts, women try to replicate familial
bonds in prison. Butch "studs" like Miller
are in demand.
YOU
WANT
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YOU
WANT
AND
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tN
YOU
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AND
US[
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''
Luz Ortega* was also a "stud" behind
bars, but she had a far better experience than Miller's, once she got out. She
credits her success to familial and social
supports-and
a job-when
she was released. Like Miller, Ortega landed in prison because of substance abuse problems.
She had begun kiting checks to pay for
a prescription drug habit she developed
when her then-girlfriend introduced her
to Adderall.
Ortega said she was "three-quarters of
the way down the drain'' when she was arrested a third time for possession while she
was driving without a license. She contends
that she was pulled over in the first place as
harassment, because she's a butch lesbian of
color, but she says that it was probably the
best thing that could have happened to her.
"I had two choices: die, because that was
where I was headed, or live. I decided-and
believe me, it was a decision-to live. Prison
was not a place I ever want to go back to.
It is not all love and cupcakes. You want to
be able to pee when you want and shower
when you want and use a real knife at dinner? Don't go to prison:'
While she was doing her time, Ortega
helped other prisoners write letters to lawyers, to family, to former girlfriends. Most,
she said, were looking for 'Just a little love,
just a little kindness. Sometimes people
end up in prison just because no one's ever
been kind to them. Something snapscould be drugs, could be a weapon. You
never know. But something snaps:'
Years ago, I worked with prisoners who
were getting literacy training and were in
writing programs in prisons and halfway
houses. A significant percentage of women are in prison simply because they lack
the education to succeed. According to
the NAACP, almost half of incarcerated
women haven't finished high school-a
number that crosses racial lines, Piper
Kerman's Seven Sisters' education aside.
Many of the women I taught told me that
prison made them realize they'd been set
up to fail-there was so little waiting for
them when they were released.
During incarceration, lesbians and bisexual women are also at risk-from violence and rape and even murder. Human
Rights Watch and Amnesty International
assert that lesbians in particular are at
risk for sexual assault from male guards.
HRW contends that even those women
who are out lesbians or bisexuals prior to
prison might feel compelled to hide their
gay identity while they are incarcerated
because of threats of assault, both physical
and sexual.
According to Amnesty International,
throughout the world, lesbian and bisexual prisoners and those perceived to
be lesbian or bisexual are at risk of being
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
19
tortured, subjected to violence, even mur~
dered by other inmates as well as prison
officials. Luz Ortega wasn't assaulted while
she was in prison, but she has friends who
were. Now out of prison for more than
five years, she and her partner are running
a small business and are considering hav~
ing a baby. She works with a local organi~
zation in her city that helps women who
have been released from prison find work.
"It's so much easier to continue down
that bad path when you're already on it;'
she says. "You need help to get on a differ~
ent one, to make that change, to give your~
self that option. Women inside, they don't
see options for themselves, they don't see
a way our:'
While there are a plethora of groups
advocating for transgender prisoners and
myriad resources to help them, just as
there are resources for gay men in prison,
even providing them with condoms, lesbi~
ans in prison are an invisible demograph~
ic-though
they greatly outnumber other
queer prisoners in the prison population.
The popularity of OITNB has only
served to heighten the eroticism that at~
taches to women in prison-it
has done
20
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
nothing to create awareness of or expand
services for these women, who are at real
risk of recidivism-either
because of their
substance abuse or because of the illegal
acts that go with it. An Internet search
for resources for women in prison, and
even a search of the legal system, turns
up nothing specific to lesbians or bisexual
women. Except for the National Center
for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), which also
focuses heavily on trans issues, there is no
lesbian~centered program for prisoners.
The ACLU, which has chapters
throughout the country, has both a pris~
oner's project and an LGBT project, but
neither has any programs for lesbians.
Some states-notably
Massachusetts,
California, and New York-have generic
resources for LGBT prisoners, but again
these focus on transgender issues.
This lack of responsiveness to what
is arguably the largest demographic of
LGBT people behind bars is notable in
its absence on the LGBT community's
list of activist concerns, yet it is one that
highlights the insidious problem oflesbian
erasure and invisibility within the commu~
nity as a whole. If a significant percentage
of female prisoners are lesbian and bisex~
ual, how can we ignore their needs? How
can we fail to provide a safety net for them
when they leave the confines of prison, so
that they don't end up back behind bars,
or, like Miller, lost on the outside?
Lesbians in prison may make for a hot
trope on TV, in film, and in porn. But in
real life, women in our own communi~
ty-especially
poor women and women
of color-are at risk of heading down that
wrong path that Ortega refers to, and of
becoming a Piper Kerman or, more like~
ly, an Abby Miller. We owe these women
more than just a sexy portrayal in our col~
lective fantasies. We owe them a second
chance at life. •
RESOURCES
aclu.org/lgbt-rights
nclr.org/prisons
blacka nd pin k.org/resou rces-2
national-prisoner-resource-list
prisonactivist.org/resources
*Names have been changed to protect
the identities of the women in this story.
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Stone Butch Blues
One lezzy doesn't want it to be all about her.
Another does. evuPsT1cK
& 01PsT1cK
Dipstick: Dear Jumped, it seems you've
found yourself in a relationship with a
stone butch-or
at least a Stone Sadie.
Since you're newly out, you may not even
know about this subset of our community.
Lesbians who are "stone" are completely
Dear Lipstick & Dipstick: I had my first lesbian experience
two years ago. It was so wonderful to be free to explore who
I really am. Up until this point, I had always fantasized about
women and what we could do together in the bedroom. Finally
getting to experiment with that was amazing. Not long after
that short-lived relationship fizzled out, I met a woman who
knocked me off my feet. Sadie was everything I wanted. She'd
been out for 30 years and knew how to treat a woman right.
It was fun, in the beginning, because it was all about me. She
didn't allow me to touch her intimately. No going down on
her. No touching-not even body massages. Only kissing and
hugging. In the beginning, that was enough, but then it started
to bother me, and it still does. We got married last year and
now I'm totally regretting it. This is not the kind of relationship
I want to be in. She doesn't want to make it any better, and
it seems she only wants a live-in friend, not a real wife. I am
contemplating leaving and freeing myself once again to be me,
a happy and proud lesbian who loves to meet and appreciate
other women. So now for the question: How can someone call
herself a lesbian if she doesn't want or enjoy all the beautiful
sexy adventures-all the skin-to-skin contact and intimacy?Jumped the Gun
satisfied by pleasing their partners and
prefer not be to touched sexually. I guess
this is a conversation you should have had
before you married Sadie.
Lipstick: To answer your question, according to Merriam Webster, the word "lesbian"
is defined as "a woman who is sexually
attracted to other women," so Sadie has
every right to call herself a clit crusader
and fly that flag.
Dipstick: True that. Stone butch lesbians
are part of our LGBT history and culture.
For some perspective, I suggest you read
the iconic Stone Butch Blues by Leslie
Feinberg.
Lipstick: It sounds like Sadie simply isn't
the type of lezzy you want to sleep next to
each night. There are myriad reasons why
she's not into certain kinds of intimacy.
Perhaps she's a survivor of sexual abuse
and has put walls up for protection.
Dipstick: Actually, Lipstick, I think there is
a misconception in our community that all
stones must have some kind of trauma in
their past. In many cases that is just not so.
For a number of stones, it's just a sexual
preference to please. There is nothing
wrong with her-she is just different from
you.
Lipstick: I'm certainly not suggesting
there's anything wrong with Stone Sadie,
Dip-no
need to get your boxers in a
bunch. I'm just peering into my crystal
ball, colored and animated with 10 years of
giving lesbians advice. For some survivors,
this is their reality. With all due respect to
stones, I couldn't be in a relationship with
one. I need more-the
give and take is es-
sential to fan this femme's flame. Jumped,
have you ever asked Sadie why she doesn't
like to be touched? If not, then letting
some light into this dark room can give
much clarity. In fact, it will be essential
as the two of you figure out how to move
forward, with or without each other.
22
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
VIEWS/
Dipstick: Just because Sadie doesn't like to
better. The fact that you've kept it inside for
be touched, it doesn't mean she's not into
more than a year concerns me more than
sex, or she's not sexually attracted to you.
the issue at hand.
LIPSTICK+DI
PS
#ft
U1 BESPOKE
MATCHMAKING
EXECUTIVE
GAYMATCHMAKINGFIRM
It's just that she wants to run the showthat's what gives her pleasure. It's time you
Lipstick: I disagree, Dip. Worried Womb, I
and she figure out if and how this is going to
say you're overthinking all this right now. I
work for the both of you. But quit blaming
know Mom Fever is a fiery beast, but just try
her for being exactly the person you knew
to chill for a while. You're young-just
her to be when you tied the knot.
your life and each other, and try to live in
enjoy
the present moment. There's plenty of time
Dear Lipstick & Dipstick: About a year ago,
to deal with the specifics of starting a family
my girlfriend and I were out with friends
when it's actually time to conceive the baby.
and the conversation somehow turned to
At that point, you should sit down with a
having children. I mentioned that I didn't
professional to help you girls suss it out. All
want to get pregnant, but I wanted my
couples, in my opinion, should spend time
partner to carry my egg for our first baby.
on a therapist's couch before taking such a
That way, she could give birth to the child,
huge step. A little housecleaning is critical
but biologically it would also be a part of
prep before you have a child, so you can air
me. My girlfriend's response to that was,
all your fears, and laundry, before the first
"I want my baby first, though." The way
cry. With some work, you can get to a place
she said it made me feel like we weren't
where you feel as secure about the fruits of
in this together, like if she carried my egg
"her egg" as you do about your own.
it wouldn't be hers, and that her egg, her
baby, wouldn't be mine. All I said was we
Dipstick: Worried, I agree that she's being
still had plenty of time to talk about that
selfish in saying "my baby first," but frankly,
later on. I was slightly embarrassed that
aren't you also being selfish in saying you
she'd said anything in front of our friends,
want your egg up the fallopian first? Think
but I didn't want to discuss it further until
about it.
we were in private. I think she reacted that
way because she is an only child and has a
Lipstick: Maybe you should reconsider the
lot to learn about being in a partnership-
whole idea. I know a handful of couples
like how things are not always going to
who've gotten pregnant at the same time
be just about her. Recently, we've gone
with the same donor's sperm. How cool
through some other rough patches. We
is that!
try to talk about the things that aren't
working and find what we can do to fix
Dipstick: As for your fear of being a bad
them, or just compromise. So far, so good,
parent, I'd be more concerned if you were
except for that one little thing we haven't
overly confident about your child-rearing
discussed since that night. With each
abilities. Start on this parenting journey with
rough patch, that moment of her saying
an open heart and an open mind and I'm
"my baby" always pops into my head.
sure you'll do just fine. No parent is perfect.
When I replay it, fear stirs up inside me,
Every child needs a therapy fund, but before
because I'm terrified of being a bad mom.
you start that fund, put a few dollars away
I'm worried that if I don't have a biological
for yourself and make sure your partnership
connection with our first child, one day she
is solid-which
or he is going to throw it in my face: "You
hard conversations-before
are not my real mom." Is this something I
embryos to the petri dish.
DISCOVER
TRUELOVE
Do you have a burning
C0NTACTUST0DAYT0SCHEDULE
A COMPLIMENTARY
CONSULTATION
means being able to have
should discuss with her now, or can it wait
until we get closer to having kids, which
wouldn't be anytime soon, as we're only
in our early twenties?-Worried
NEW YORK
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LOS ANGELES
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About the
you bring any
Womb and Whom
Dipstick: Are lesbians still having babies?
question for Lipstick
I thought that was a '90s fad. Worried, you
& Dipstick? Write to
must talk about this, and the sooner the
ask@lipstickdipstick.com
1-888-422-6464
Bespoke Matchmaking.com
Make It Valentine's Day
Every Day of the Year
These relationship skills last longer than chocolates and flowers.
BY JULIA B. COLWELL, PH.D
ave you heard this idea?
"Lesbians can't have real
relationships. They can
last 2 or 3 years tops,
then they move on to
the next person. Or else they settle down
and have a boring life:'
I have. In fact, a lesbian in her 30s told
me that a few weeks ago. My heart sankare women still carrying that around as
their picture of relationships?
OK, there's this one, too. I won't even
re~tell the old saw about lesbians and the
second date U ~ Haul. As far as I can see,
what women believe about our relation~
ships goes from "Wow! I'm out of the
closet! That was so worth it!" to "My rela~
tionships are second~rare:'
H
24
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
As we celebrate this season of love, let's
step up and own what's really possible here,
in our female~focused relationships. We
know what we want. We want passion and
connection and aliveness; to be seen and
known for our true selves; and to feel in love,
the way we did when we were first involved
with each other. It's time to put in the effort
to learn the skills that will take us there.
Coming out at 16 in the 1970s, I've car~
ried my share of internalized homophobia
into my relationships. In the 1980s, that
homophobia pervaded psychological think~
ing, with the prevailing notion that lesbians
"merge" in our relationships, creating an
unhealthy, mushed up version of connec~
tion. (I tested that theory out for my dis~
serration. Bottom line? No, lesbians don't
"merge'' more than gay men or straight peo~
ple. We do, however, have more ongoing,
deep emotional connection.)
I've spent my career unearthing the qual~
ities that go into creating great relation~
ships: they're full of passion and allow for
full self expression and are stable and long
lasting. Between our others~first socializa~
tion and all of those motherhood hormones
racing through our veins, it can be hard for
women to balance maintaining emotional
contact and saying what we really want. We
treasure connection and hate the discon~
nection of conflict. We tend to stuff what
we want and need until it all erupts to the
surface in a big fight. Or we don't fight at
all, seeking out the next person who seems
to understand us better without our even
VIEWS/
having to verbalize what we want.
My book, The Relationship Skills Work-
book, A Do-it-YourselfGuide to a Thriving
Relationshipaddresses this difficulty headon. It's my personal answer to the mysterious question that plagues relationships:
How can we each have self-expression and
still have a deep, ongoing connection?
I've discovered and devised powerful
tools that support this balancing act between self and other. I've found that lesbians are actually potential pros at forging
what really is an entirely new path of relationship, where each person gets to be as
big as she truly is while connection thrives.
We tend to be particularly motivated to
plumb the depths and intricacies of how
relationships work. And, as women in a
sexist culture, we're especially tuned into
the issues of power that can disrupt the
balance of self-expression.
Here's an excerpt from my book that
walks you through the number one skill
I believe allows people to express themselves while staying vulnerable and connected: Speaking the unarguabletruth.
Speaking the unarguable truth is the
most powerful of any of the skills I have to
teach you and, from my own experience,
the most challenging ... We've been raised
to think critically, to debate concepts, beliefs, and ideas. Then we get into relationships, where these skills take us straight
into escalation and disconnection. Shifting into speaking unarguably can feel like
trying to grow a new limb. But it will allow
you to walk through life in real partnership and intimacy.
Many of us have some notion that we
should bring feelings into our conversations and that other people don't get to tell
us how to feel. However, this basic idea
tends to run us aground, sounding something like this:
"I feel like you are attacking me:'
"I feel that this is going nowhere:'
"I am sad and hurt that you just don't
consider me:'
Can you argue with these statements?
Remember, if you can, they're arguable.
That's all it takes (and I can for sure argue
with each of these sentences). So let's take
this idea of unarguability further.
The goal of moving from arguable to
unarguable statements is to get away from
blaming and to shift into fully owning, and
actually having, one's experience. When
we say arguable things, we are projecting
our past experiences onto the other person. Occasionally we're accurate, but for
the most part, our projections are wildly
off the mark and apt to just pull the other
person into whatever old issue we haven't
worked out yet. When we can actually observe these projections for what they are,
we have a ticket into healing old wounds:
as we watch ourselves get triggered into
acting out the old scenarios from our
childhood with our partners, it actually
becomes possible to move them out of
our bodies. Unfortunately, we generally
believe our own projections, and then get
our partners to be our co-stars in the old
unconscious dramas.
Speaking the unarguable truth takes
us beyond all the projections to the only
provable truth there is: our own experience. While we can never be completely sure of what's going on outside of our
bodies (Is that person really mad at us?
Is the economy good or bad? Is that tone
rude or too loud or too sharpr), we know
that our stomach feels tight or that our jaw
is clenched. The skill here is to only speak
what we truly know.
So, what is unarguable? Truly, the only
thing that someone else can't argue about is
what we are sensing in our bodies, that is,
whether we have butterflies in our chest or a
headache or a dry mouth. I'm going to take
it a step further and add that no one gets to
argue with what we arefeeling or with what
we want. So that's our list of what is unarguable: sensations, emotions, and what we
want:' [Excerpt with permission from The
RelationshipSkills Workbook, published by
Sounds True, October 2014.]
Try it now. First, what are your sensations? Close your eyes and take an inner
tour. Is your stomach clenched? Your chest
heavy? Do you have a headache or a backache? Do you feel filled with zinging and/
or expansive energy?
Tuning into and describing those sensations (to yourself or the other person)
actually might be enough to move you out
of a conflict. Just realizing that your body
is triggered-and
giving it some loving attention-can
take you a long way towards
resolution. But let's go further. Link the
sensationsto emotions.
Our body tells us what we're feeling
ADVI
by the specific sensations it's generating.
Stomach aches, nausea, butterflies-those
are all indicators of fear. A heavy chest or
lump in the throat? Those are all sad signals. N eek, shoulder, head tension/ achiness? That's anger. Glad and sexual can
feel expansive, warm, pulsating, sizzling all
through the body (with, of course, particular focus on the erogenous zones).
Still with me? So sensations tell you
what your emotions are. Very simple.
(And-who
knew?) The next part of tuning into what's unarguable is to let yourself
FEEL what you're feeling. Don't skip over
this. It will just take you a few minutes to
breathe and let yourself feel how mad, sad,
glad, scared, or sexual you really are. And
that's the part that's really going to move
you out of the conflict. It's what you're not
feeling that's keepingyou stuck.
We've got sensations, which tie to emotions. And, once you've felt what you're
feeling, saying what you want or don't
want (which are also unarguable) is pretty
straightforward.
So, that time that one of you wanted
to have sex and the other wasn't "in the
mood?" Instead of the arguable "You never
want me" or "You're always pushing me" it
would sound like 'Tm tight all over. I'm
afraid you're not attracted to me. I want to
feel connected:' Or "My jaw is tight. I feel
angry. I want time to feel that:'
Do you see how the blame drops away?
If there's no attack, there's no need to defend, enabling connection, understanding,
and mutual support. And we get to really
be seen for the actual experience we're having. Right in the moment. Our vulnerability becomes our strength, as the other can
see us and hear us.
So, for this Valentine's Day, give each
other something priceless-a
commitment to learn to speak what's really going
on. Long after the chocolate has been eaten or the flowers have faded, this present
will keep your connection deep, your passion strong, and your love alive.•
The Relationship Skills Workbook: The Do-ItYourself Guide to a Thriving Relationship by
Julie B. Colwell is out now from Sounds True
(soundstrue.com).
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
25
Pulling All the Strings
Celebrating guitar master Sharon lsbin.
BY MERRYN JOHNS
t year was the year of Shaon Isbin, the out, Grammy
ward-winning musician,
rguably the world's greatst female classical guitarist.
And it's easy to see why with the release of
5 of her most popular albums in a new box
CD set. These include: the joyful compositions and Brazilian percussion of Journey to
the Amazon; Isbin's solo work, Dreams of
a World, with 20 tracks that prove she can
play anything; Vivaldi; Bach; Albinoni: Guitar Concertos, featuring Baroque favorites
with orchestral accompaniment by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra; Rodrigo; Villa-Lobos; Ponce: Guitar Concertos with the New
York Philharmonic Orchestra; and Tan
Dun; Rouse: Guitar Concertos with Muhai
Tang and the Gulbenkian Orchestra.
You may have caught Isbin on tour last
November demonstrating her incomparable techniques and interpretative skills in
a city near you. Or you might not know
anything about her and want to-and you
L
26
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
should. Isbin is the leader in her field, heading up the guitar department at New York's
prestigious Juilliard School and being invited to play at the Ground Zero Memorial,
Carnegie Hall, and the White House. She is
also the subject of a documentary six years
in the making. Sharon Isbin: Troubadour
explores Isbin's extraordinary career, with
guest appearances from Michelle Obama,
Joan Baez, Lesley Gore, and Martina Navratilova. Inspiring and often amusing, it tells
the story of a tomboy's journey from wouldbe rocket scientist to trailblazing, glamorous
performer and teacher. Isbin might not have
embarked on her childhood dream of space
travel but she broke barriers to reach the top
of the male-dominated guitar world.
Isbin's incredible musical journey began
when she was 9. "We happened to live in
Italy, my father's sabbatical from the University of Minnesota as a scientist;' she recalls.
"When my brother asked for lessons on
guitar and he discovered it was classical, he
declined immediately and I offered to take
his place. I began by default and it continued to be a hobby until I was 14. After we
came back to the States and I became very
involved in the rockets, my father used to
say,'You can't launch your rockets until you
put an hour in on guitar: So he bribed me to
keep at it. And then I ended up winning a
competition and the reward was to perform
in front of 10,000 people. That's when I decided it was even more exciting to be on a
concert stage than watching my worms and
grasshoppers go into space:'
But Isbin never really left her scientific
pursuits behind. At age 16 she would practice guitar with a mirror and a tape recorder.
"I had to basically figure it out for mysel£ I
would occasionally have lessons with other
guitarists but I really had to problem solve
and I think that the work I did in science,
whether it was dissecting a fish or building
rockets, really trained my process of thinking to be able to find a solution:'
One solution to becoming the best in
her field was to learn from the masters who
REVIEWS/MUSIC
paved the way such as Andres Segovia. She
also studied with Rosalyn T ureck, a harp~
sichordist whose forte was Bach, and al~
though not a guitarist, helped lsbin improve
her discipline and musical understanding.
"Mentorship is a very important com~
ponent in guiding the younger generation;'
says ls bin. "When I was asked to create the
guitar department of The Juilliard School,
I said yes because it would really give me
the opportunity to fashion it after my own
belief system and imagination. And I now
have students from more than 20 different
countries come and study with me. Men~
torship is an exciting way to share infor~
mation and knowledge. And we live in that
kind of age now:'
It's also the age of YouTube and overnight
stardom. But lsbin warns that a musical ca~
reer "really doesn't work that way if you want
quality and you have standards. You really
have to do an enormous amount of work:'
You also have to possess ambition, and that's
something still not encouraged in American
women. lsbin's female guitar graduates all
come from overseas, she notes, and it puz~
zles her that the situation hasn't changed in
over 20 years.
"I certainly remember what it felt like
when I was 15 years old and [out of] 50
students of guitar only two of us were girls.
That made me especially eager to work hard
and be my best so that I could eliminate any
sense of doubt based on gender. For me it
was a strong motivating factor:'
Along the way, lsbin has managed to find
some female guitar heroes, including Joan
Baez and Nancy Wilson. She also admires
Melissa Etheridge, Kaki King, and Orianthi.
"They're out there;' she says of female career
guitarists, "I think it's just going to take time
to break long~spanning traditions:'
In the meantime, lsbin is still the only
female guitarist to have won a classical
Grammy Award. "Expanding the horizons
of an instrument, and what goes into that;'
she says, is the subject of her documentary,
which is why she is so proud of it. It will
also bring lsbin to a wider audience when
it's broadcast on 200 public television sta~
tions, outing her on a mass scale. She came
out once before, in 1995 in OUT maga~
zinc, after she demonstrated to her man~
ager that "k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge
came out and they were selling platinum:'
When the mainstream press picked up
that lsbin was out, she felt some trepida~
tion, but a standing ovation at a perfor~
mance in Atlanta indicated that she was
the only one feeling that way.
"I think it's really important to be who
you are, and not hide anything;' says lbsin,
who has been in a relationship for 22 years.
"I have to set the example that I believe in
by doing it mysel£ It allowed me to go to
the next level. Everyone has already joined
me on the journey of the discovery of music.
Coming out is not the focus. It is just a part
of who I am:' (sharonisbin.com) •
/
Natalia
Zukerman
Come
Thief,
Come
Fire
(Pleoge
Music)
Thoughthe delicate sparsenessof "Courageto Change"might lull casual listeners into
thinking NataliaZukermanis just another folk slinger,long-timefans know that is anythingbut
the case. And, by the time everyonegets to the sinuousjazzinessof Come Thief. ComeFire's
second track and the bluesysaunter of the third, the virtual reality of Zukerman'sexpanded
repertoire comes into sharp relief. Knownin Americanacircles as both an accomplished
songwriter and a superlativeguitarist, Zukermanmeldsthose two strengths in fine fashion
here. "I Don't FeelIt Anymore,""What ComesAfter," and "Give"come off as heartfelt
companionpiecesto the mesmerizingopener,addingtheir own hushedbeautyto its musicaland emotionaltrain of thought, while tunes
like "Oneof Us," "The Light Is Gone,"and "Hero" cant the whole piece toward a livelier,more cinematiclean,and temper the woe just a
little andjust enough.
Rachael
Sage
Blue
Roses
(MPress
Recoros)
Evenfor people not familiar with RachaelSage'smusic, there's a lot that is familiar in
RachaelSage'smusic. The long-independentsinger/songwriter has been singing catchy,
piano-driven melodies since well before Ingrid Michaelsonstormed the charts, and she
has never stopped fine-tuning her craft, as evidenced nicely on Blue Roses. Sure, the
opening riff of "EnglishTea"winks at the RollingStones' "Sympathy for the Devil" and the
chorus of "Barbed Wire" nods to Jewel's "YouWere Meant for Me," but both veer off from
those starting points and traipse joyously into and through Sage-ville. Oneof the record's
most diverse tracks, "Wax," weaves in and out of various styles as the piano's lighthearted babbling in the verse runs into a dense
boulder of sound at the chorus before flowing back around and on from there. Later in the collection, lush strings add just the right
dose of sentimental ache to "Misery's Grace" and "Wishing Day."
JAN/FEB
2015
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27
aryn K. Hayes sure has
her hands full these days.
With
several successful
web series behind her, she
can now add an acclaimed
short film, Clean Hands, to her portfolio.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Hayes
became enthralled with writing fiction as
a youngster. After matriculating at Xavi~
er University of Louisiana she made the
haul to Los Angeles and started cranking
out heavily~followed web series, documen~
taries, and shorts. Her newest short film,
Clean Hands, takes us into the home of a
married lesbian couple, Anna and Kirsten,
who are at a standstill in their relationship.
Anna is torn between her wife and her ter~
minally ill father, who disapproves of their
"ungodly" union. Tensions flair and drama
ensues. I recently caught up with Hayes
to discuss the making and distribution of
this timely film.
C
What was the driving force behind
Clean Hands? How was it conceived?
The idea for Clean Hands came about
from a lot of different places. I wanted to
do a story about a couple who aren't ex~
actly on the same page-spiritually
and in
some other ways. That was the kernel of
28
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
the story and it bloomed from there. The
ladies have to deal with grief and forgive~
ness, and they deal with these emotions
differently. Each one is battling her own
demons. Anna is seeking a peace that she
can't find, and Kirsten doesn't know how
to help. They are becoming more and
more disconnected.
What can your audience take away
from your film? Why should they see it?
Love is thicker than water:' Sorry, I
make bad jokes (laughs). Honestly, ev~
eryone takes away something different.
There are so many themes in this short
piece that everyone should be able to
relate to something. Grief is universal,
but how we deal with it is so intrinsical~
ly personal. Some people relate to what
Anna goes through the most. On the
other hand, many people, not just in the
LGBT community, have conflicts with
their parents, or their spouse has conflicts
with their parents, and that's so difficult
to navigate. Not to mention the terminal
illness they're dealing with, and the fact
that they're living in close quarters. Clean
Hands is definitely something that makes
you think, and hopefully it will touch you.
It's a real~life drama.
How do you think online distribution
will work in favor of your production
company? Is there a goal?
Other than film festivals and public
screenings, Hardly Working Entertain~
ment has always operated online, so I
don't think there's much difference in the
promotional aspect. The true difference is
that we're asking the audience to help us by
paying to watch this production. That is a
harder pill to swallow. We kept the rental
price low, so that it wouldn't be a burden
to folks who just want a good movie, and
we chose Reelhouse to distribute because
the site gives buyers the option to help, if
they choose to, by paying more than the
asking price. The goal is to get away from
crowd funding. We've done a few cam~
paigns to shoot more of a web series, and
while we've been blessed to go back and
shoot more, it's not a sustainable business
plan. The hope is that we'll be able to take
what we make with Clean Hands and ere~
REVIEWS/
ate something new. Honestly, I would have
made more money doing a crowd funding
campaign, so hopefully things will pick up.
You've done so much already in your
career. Where did your passion for all
things creative begin?
I started off as a writer, and that's all
I wanted to do since I was 11 years old.
When I started college, I took a class in
mass communications because I loved
television and wanted to see what it was
like behind the camera. I fell in love with
producing-I
hated directing for yearsand switched majors at the end of that
semester.
There aren't too many out women
directors in Hollywood, especially
women of color. Knowing you're
getting your name out there, and your
popularity is growing, how does the
success make you feel?
This is a pretty tough question: one, be~
cause I prefer "Caryn" to "our;' as I'm not
interested in labeling mysel£ and two, be~
cause I won't feel successful until I'm able
to survive without a day job. That said, I
do feel a great sense of accomplishment for
the work I've done. I'm creating the indu~
sive, non~stereotypical content that I want
to see, and I'm happy to share it with the
world. I'm glad that people are enjoying it.
FlLM
If you could give an aspiring lesbian
filmmaker any advice at all, what
would it be?
Don't kill the lesbian-it
is never well
received, unless it's Jenny! Also, every~
one says that you should write what you
know. While I don't disagree-'cause, re~
ally, who likes to do research-I
would
suggest writing what you're passionate
about, something you won't get to the
middle of and be so weary of that you'll
never complete it. If you love it, it won't be
work. Filmmaking shouldn't be work. If it
is, you probably should've been a surgeon,
or a politician. There's so much less stress.
(hardlyworkingent.com) •
HOT
PICKS
))BYMARCIE
BIANCO
She's
Beautiful
When
She's
Angry
Oirecteo
oyMary
Dore
If you watched PBS's2013documentaryseries Makers: WomenWho Make
America but were left unsatisfiedwith how lesbianswere portrayed as less
than seminalfigures in the women'smovement,look no further than the new
documentary,She's Beautiful WhenShe'sAngry.
Producedand directed by filmmakerMary Dore,She's Beautiful WhenShe's
Angry fills the void in historicaldocumentariesabout women and the women's
liberationmovementof the 20th century by focusingon lesser-knownfigures of
the late 1960s.Fromthe foundingof the NationalOrganizationof Women(NOW)
throughthe 1970s,before the fall of the EqualRightsAmendment,the viewer
encountersthe street theatrics of WITCH(Women'sInternationalConspiracy
from Hell!)and meetsthe Bostonwomenwho wrote the paradigm-shifting1969
text Our Bodies, Ourselves.Doregoes beyondthe usualwhite and heterosexual
GloriaSteinemsof the movementto give us personalinterviewswith lesbian
activists Rita MaeBrown and KarlaJay,the latter of whom gave us the phrase
"LavenderMenace,"which cameto representthe critical angerof the lesbianfeminist movement.
Dorerealizesthat angerwas and continuesto be an essentialelementof all
civil rights movements.Speakingwith Curve, she explainedthat angerfunctions
as a multifariouscatalyst for change."It works on manylevels.As satire: 'You're
so cute when you're mad.'And as a provocation:What'sthe worst thing a
woman can be?Angry! Or an angry blackwoman,the worst thing on earth!"
Thedocumentarybeautifullyblendsarchivalfootage,includingphotographic
stills and film, with contemporaryinterviewswith Brown and Jay,and also with
an impressiveassortmentof other women includingChudePamelaAllen,Susan
Brownmiller,LindaBurnham,KateMillettand more.
"The early pioneers were amazinglybrave and foresighted," says Dore.
Indeed,this grassroots portrait of badass straight and gay women's
rights activists is anything but sentimental. It is a historical force that
breathes new life into the 21st century women's rights movement.
(shesbeautifulwhenshesangry.com)
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
29
n A Cup of Water Under My Bed, a memoir that follows
her journey through two different cultures, the author, editor, and former New York Times journalist Daisy Hernandez tells her story of growing up Cuban-Colombian in a
working-class family in NYC, coming out as bisexual, and
learning what it takes to become who you are.
I
You write a lot about religious and cultural rituals and
their significance in your childhood. Do you have any
writing rituals?
Navigating between cultures, languages, and sexualities
can make for a perilous journey. Any advice?
Proceed with caution! It's very important to have a chosen family.
By that I mean that we in the LGBTQ community might not be
able to continue having a relationship with our original family. It's
also true when you shift from one class to another. It's important to
have your tribe. Get your tribe together. It does take time at first, but
you will grow older. The best thing for women of color to know is
that you will grow older, and life will connect you to different people.
Cleaning my desk gives me a sense of accomplishment, but I've
been letting go of that ritual. Now, on the advice of Cristina Garcia,
the author of Dreaming in Cuban, I'm reading a lot of poetry. One of
my favorites is Adrienne Rich, a famous queer poet.
You write about feeling that you'd disappointed your parents, and while the context is cultural, I think it's definitely
something a lot of LGBTQ people can relate to. What was
your process of finding courage, and do those feelings still
come up for you?
You explore a lot of different identities in this book: being
Latina, being queer, being a child of immigrants. Who else
do you think is going to relate to this story?
My process had a lot to do with finding my tribe-and
people who were going to support me and had already led the way.
It was so powerful to meet women of color who were older and
were coming out. It showed me that it's possible to be out and be
happy in the world. It was important for me to read the work of
Audre Lorde, who spoke with such elegance about the idea that
silence will not protect us. Courage came literally through books.
I still get those feelings, but a lot less. It's not the initial feeling I
had when I was younger, which I thought was always going to be
the truth. Now I realize they are just feelings and they'll go away.
I have an amazing life, due in part to my parents raising me. But I
think having those feelings is just inherent in being a child.
Everyone! It's been really surprising. I definitely have connected
with other children of immigrants from many different cultures,
Asian, Latin, etc., anyone whose first language wasn't English,
anyone who has experienced clashes with the values and expectations of their parents. I've even received an email from a 72-yearold white man who really enjoyed the book! It reminded me that
our audiences aren't limited. I also often see parents buying A Cup
of Water for LGBTQ children, especially daughters-purposely
buying a book that deals with gender and sexuality.
30
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
REVIEWS/
Love is also a big theme in your book. You explore your
unconditional and sometimes complicated love for your
family, but you also talk of heartbreak, sex, relationships,
women. Any advice on love?
So many romantic disasters could have been avoided, but it would
not have made you who you are now. It's going to go down the way
it goes down, and you will feel better about it later! For queer peo~
ple, sometimes when you face a lot of harassment you hold on really
tight to those you've spent even a couple of months with, because
you know they understand you and what you're going through. For
women of color who are grappling with so many different identities,
BOOKS
the points of connection we have are so powerful, and when we meet
they are so special that we hold on, for better or for worse. Even
though we are up against so many forces, such as internal fears and
outright hatred, as long as we can keep compassion as our North
Star, we'll be fine.
What projects other than writing are you working on?
I'm currently a visiting writer at the University of North Car~
olina at Chapel Hill, teaching creative nonfiction. I'm also trying
to be a better tennis player and hanging out with my cat. Finding
food she will eat is definitely a project! (daisyhernandez.com) •
HOT
READS
))BYLAUREN
SHIRO
A Cup of Water
UnderMyB~d
Daisy
Hernadez
ACup
ofWater
Under
MyBed
(Beacon
Press)
Most people write their memoirs and autobiographies when they're
older and they have much to reflect upon. Some people, however, have
enough of a tale that they can write theirs at a younger age. Such is the
~'JI.U,uli:ithl,bi:.■ttltrfllriki1tg,li«f:!liit)'
u,,m,.~ . .. l-lr;:flU11r;k,.
Wfftctiw-h.11
kmr.,,t:,·,
case with Daisy Hernandez.
lhllcW~ti:nd.c:r.n~,
uu.tl l.,tiYt. I bo:uw
11
~lyinad111:ir1u.1rr1xu11f-,Uitilde.
Hernandez's book, A Cup of Water Under My Bed, is an open,
-~\!\lllU('.l.'1,f
IU)~.,u.Jh,w ...r
unabashed, captivating story. From the first page, she pulls you in with her
r/Jir/.tm.-nu.J/~.~hwJ
heartfelt, personal writing. It's as if you are sitting with her as she relates
her story. Her words are warm, honest, and genuine. It is a beautifully
executed book.
In her book, we learn about her world-what it's like to be a Latina child
growing up in a house where her parents wanted her to be more white than
Hispanic. We learn of her parents, her aunts, her friends and family friends,
and her extended family. They are not just names written on a page.
Rather, they are real people. We get to see them for who they are: flawed
and fine, human in every way. We see how their interactions with each
other, as well as with her, impact her life. We watch Daisy grow up, and her
family members grow old.
Her life story is pieced together in various vignettes: individual patches
all pieced together to make a greater story. She seamlessly weaves and
sews these patchworks together and creates a flawless quilt. As you go from piece to piece, you are curiously intrigued as to how
these different stories mesh. Not once does she fail to perfectly connect it all. Her storytelling is immaculate.
As a fellow Latina, there were so many parallels; I could relate to her easily. What I found, though, is that her story is one that
speaks to all races. Her words are so perfect and universal, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from: hers is a very
relevant story to all readers.
A Cup of Water Under My Bed is powerful and moving. We watch Hernandez grow. We watch her discover herself. We watch
her discover her family members. I have to be honest: it is so incredibly difficult to explain how much we learn of her and the
people around her without giving away some of the greatest gems in the book. I love her candidness and honesty. It's not brutal;
it's beautiful. It's deep and dark and rich. It is an incredible personal journey.
This book is an easy read: You fly through the book, and you don't even realize it. Her work flows and keeps your attention at all
times. If you are looking for a story of strength, a story chock-full of emotions, a story of tremendous wisdom and beauty, this is
the book for you. It is simply superb. It's a remarkable memoir, and you certainly gain something wonderful from it.
am~morr
JAN/FEB
2015
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31
A new photo project
refashions gender
beauty norms.
WORDS AND IMAGES
BY DIANA PRICE
Tomboi: The Beauty in Female Masculinity is a project show-
casing women who identify as women, but dress and look masculine. The mission is to allow others to see masculine women
as attractive, and as sex symbols, through a calendar, poster, or
some form of media. I wanted to find a clothing line or a large
department store to be the fashion designer in this project. After
talking to several small companies that made clothes for women
HAIR & MAKEUP
RAE SHANNON,
NINA MANGUAL,
that looked boyish, I decided it was better to push the envelope
with a large department store that had several brand name labels
BECKY STEINHARDT,
within their men's lines. I only needed to ask one company, and
WANDALIS SANCHEZ
that's Macy's. They have always been a proud supporter of the
WARDROBE
MACY'S PERSONAL
SHOPPER JOY
CAMACHO
LGBTcommunity, and with same-sex marriage occurring in many
states, I felt it was time for Macy's to be aware of a large group of
women that will shop in their stores if they are welcome there.
RACHEL
WEARS:
CALVIN KLEIN
JEANS SHIRT
AND JACKET,
LEVI'S DENIM
DANIELLE WEARS:
RALPH LAUREN DENIM & SUPPLY
SHORTS, CALVIN KLEIN TEE
34
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JAN/FEB
2015
I came up with a project name and presented it to Melisa Porobic, general manager of Macy's in Tampa. I received the green
light almost immediately. Melisa then connected me with Macy's
personal shopper Joy Camacho, who volunteered many hours
fitting the models and preparing them for the shoot. Melisa and
Joy, both heterosexual women, never once questioned our vision;
they supported and respected every model that came into their
store for fittings. In fact, many of the girls ended up buying the
outfits that Joy picked out for them.
Using Facebook, I handpicked models from the area where we
were shooting, and each model selected was very excited to be
a part of the project. It was important for me to find women that
identified as women but felt comfortable wearing men's clothing
and looking masculine. I have been involved with numerous LGBT
events all over Florida and other states, and I am well-known for
a certain style of photography, so it was not difficult to source
models, stylists, makeup artists, photography assistants, and others for the project.
I wanted to highlight that it's OK to be a woman but dress and
look masculine in today's society. We should all feel comfortable
to shop anywhere we choose and feel good doing it. I also wanted other women to find the models appealing as sex symbols, so
I made two sides to the calendar shoot: one about fashion, and
one about presenting masculine women as sexy.
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MICHELLE
WEARS:
BAR Ill
36
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As a self-taught photographer who pushes the boundaries
when it comes to doing things a bit risque or over the top, I find
the beauty in all people and try to capture that. I have found that
lesbian culture tends to view masculine women as unattractive.
I am trying to show lesbian culture that just because we look like
men doesn't mean that we want to be men or act like men in a
relationship. And I'm trying to show the sexy side of it, too.
There are all types of women in this world. Lesbian fashion can
be anything, from one end of the spectrum of femininity to the other end of masculinity. That is why I feel we need no labels-we just
need to be ourselves and be comfortable in any fashion we choose,
and to be able to shop in any store we want. Macy's supports the
LGBTcommunity and they're winners, in my opinion, for supporting
what's right. (boi-photography.com) •
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When King was outed in 1981 in a palimony suit filed by her secretary, Marilyn
Barnett, with whom she'd had a lengthy
relationship, she lost all her endorsements.
Over time, she fought back, winning
more titles, overcoming her internalized
homophobia, and becoming a spokesperson for the community, famously saying,
"When gay rights becomes a non-issue, the
LGBT community can exhale:' Through
the Women's Sports Foundation and the
Elton John AIDS Foundation she has
helped many others, and in 2009 she was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
King, who is in a long-term relationship
with former tennis pro Ilana Kloss, is also
supportive of trans rights, particularly in
sports. "I played with and against [MTF]
Renee Richards and she remains a close
friend today. Renee made a choice and as
her friend I have always supported that
choice. I remember when Renee joined the
WTA Tour there were players who had
questions. All I did was get us together
and communicate:'
And communicate is something King
does regularly: She was a keynote speaker
at the 2014 Out & Equal Workplace Summit, which focuses on promoting equality
of all LGBTs in the workplace to Fortune
500 companies. Appointed by President
Obama to represent the United States
at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi,
Russia-while many LGBT activists were
calling for a boycott of the Games- King
had another view: Sochi was a chance to
understand the plight of LGBT people in
Russia and communicate a message.
"You can read about things all you want,
but having the chance to meet someone
who is living in those conditions is definitely educational and important;' says
King. "I was outed in 1981 and it was
not an easy time for me or for our society
when it came to LGBT issues. We have
made amazing progress in our country,
but when you look at the current conditions in other places around the world you
are reminded of how much work remains
to be done:'
King contributed to the documentary
To Russia With Love to help highlight how
much work needs to be done globally to
liberate LGBT people. "The film's producers worked through the American Embassy in Moscow to arrange for me to meet
[young Russian LGBT activist Vladislav
Slavskiy] and that meeting made its way
into the documentary. I was just happy to
meet him and hear his story;' says King.
Athletic competition is one way to reinforce human connection, and all games,
beyond Sochi, represent such opportunities. "Sports are a microcosm of society
and because athletes are so visible we have
an opportunity to use our voice and hopefully be part of changing the environment
so that it is more inclusive and more representative of the real world;' says King.
(@BillieJeanKing)
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our
generafion
Did you ever worry that you might regret coming out, or feel that it would
compromise your career?
I have never regretted my decision to
publicly come out. It's made my life so much
better and I feel a freedom and lightness
that comes with being completely authentic. I am living the life I was meant to live.
The thought of the 'unknown' was a little bit
intimidating (i.e. before we left for Russiawhat would it actually be like, were we going
to be safe, how was I supposed to act around
Charlie, etc.) but I focused my energy on all
of the positives surrounding our team and
my task at hand: to be the best speed skater
that I possibly could be.
Do you feel that coming out impacted
your Olympic performance in any way?
If I hadn't come out ( to my parents,
family, and friends) I wouldn't still be
speed skating. I had so much anxiety when
I was in the closet-it completely robbed
me of all of the joy and happiness that I
usually felt while skating. The week after I
came out to my parents, I skated as though
the weight of the world was lifted off of
my shoulders. When I publicly came out,
knowing that I had hopefully helped or inspired a kid to do the same, it was incredibly fulfilling and it made me that much
more inspired to chase my dreams.
before the gun went off, and I didn't allow
that. I had so much fun, and was blessed
to have had the opportunity to represent
my country and hopefully inspire people
along the way to chase their dreams and
live authentically.
How did you become involved in the
documentary To Russia With Love?
My good friend (Olympic gold medalist
swimmer] Mark Tewksbury, asked me to
join in on the discussion. I can be a private
person, and so my initial reaction wasn't to
partake, as I didn't want to introduce any
outside distractions. I'm so glad that I listened to Mark; I am very proud of the film
and so grateful that this amazing time of
my life (and in my career) was captured in
film. When I was at the premiere, I actually could see my personal growth throughout the film.
What was your favorite moment
during filming To Russia With Love?
I have two: when connecting with other LG BT Russian teens and hearing their
heart-wrenching stories. It really reaffirmed that our similarities far outweigh
our differences. And my second: filming
in Calgary with my 92-year-old grandmother. She is the embodiment of love
and acceptance. I hope I grow up to be half
the woman that she is.
Were you happy with your placement
in Sochi in the 500 meters?
My time and placing in Sochi was incredibly bittersweet. My internal satisfaction
didn't match my external result, so for the
longest time I was actually a little confused.
My biggest lesson learnt that came out of
racing in Sochi was that my only true competition is mysel£ I had had a really bumpy
road to Sochi and there were a lot of roadblocks that made my preparation leading up
to the Olympics a tough one. Of course I believe I am better than 28th place, but I also
am so grateful for the struggles and journey
that shaped me along the way. There was
absolutely nothing that I could have done
better or that I would have changed on that
day; I raced with heart and was proud of
my journey. There were a number of factors
that could have allowed me to clefeat myself'
happen again if we truly want to believe in
the Olympic Spirit.
Do you think the presence of out LGBT
athletes at Sochi made a difference?
I hope so. Obviously there were more
LGBT athletes than the 5 out competitors
in Sochi. Gay athletes are a part of the sporting world; sport is simply the final frontier
of homophobia and we are actively working
towards eliminating this. The fact that we
are actively having these discussions and
promoting an inclusive environment that is
welcoming to all- I have to believe that this
will have a positive effect in the future.
Your partner, ice hockey player Charline Labonte is also out. Has being out
affected you as a couple?
I think simply knowing that we have inspired a kid to come out or to live authentically is the best gift that we could ever
give. Since I have come out, I'm comfortable in my own skin! And being comfortable in who you are and what you believe,
well, that's when a lot of the magic starts
to happen. We're both blessed to be a part
of sport and to hopefully inspire others to
get active and push their own limits. Since
Charlie has come out, I think I've gained
at least 500 hockey-obsessed Twitter followers. Sorry guys, my hockey knowledge
isn't all that sharp ... I'll stick to wearing
spandex and turning left. (@anastasure)
What did you think about calls for the
LGBT global community
to boycott Sochi?
I personally was against
any kind of Olympic Boycott simply because that
hurts the athletes. I had
trained my entire life for
the 77 seconds that I skated in Sochi, and so I believe that a boycott would
have hurt the wrong people. I do believe that a further discussion and clause
(which is presently unfolding) needs to be added to
the IOC's declaration of
host countries. What happened in Sochi can never
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If women don't want to call themselves
"lesbian;' certainly it saddens me, (but] it's
an ahistorical position-it's
their historical position. Somehow, we have to find a
way to not turn off from listening to each
other [just] because they don't use the
noun that (you want them to]. The wisest
thing is to listen and to get to the deeper
part of the story. If the woman or the person in question doesn't want to be called a
lesbian, listen to their next sentence. And
then to those of us who do call ourselves
lesbians, it sort of means that we present
our ideas and our feelings and our body
in a way that they can find a touch in it,
as their voices touch me. There's a lot of
thinking to be done as to what is really
being said behind those statements. It's
almost a fear of disappearing, like being
butch isn't good enough. You really just
have to be honest to your own politic and
your own history and not bully anyone out
of or into anything.
Does feminism still have a place in
queer politics?
Articulating woman-ness is important, and so is articulating the feminism
of queerness. Because queerness without
feminism will never carry us through these
days. Feminism can't be erased. It's like the
oxygen we breathe. So, even the women
saying'Tm not a feminist"-they're
saying
that is a feminist act. They can announce
that they have control over their identity.
That's a feminist principle. I think we just
have to keep explaining; they can't take
territory from us that we don't give up, and
we must never be ashamed of saying 'Tm
a feminist:' There were women who tried
to run me out of the word "femme:' Life
is a chance to discover oneself and one's
connection to others. You lose your life if
you run out of fear of what others think
they see.
Has there been a resolution in terms of
how the community sees your identity?
It still fascinates me because it's always
shifting, but no: There are people who disagree with me, and I just have stood my
ground. I am who I am, and I've made a
life's work out of it. I'm a '50s femme. I'm
going to tell you a story. Di, who is 12
years younger than me, she was part of a
pioneering generation of Australian feminism ... ! meet her in 1998 and we become
lovers. She identifies as a Marxist lesbian-feminist and knows nothing about the
butch-femme stuff. I thought, How am I
going to make my desires have meaning
to her? She'd never used a dildo before;
she'd never worn a harness. I come home
from teaching and there she is, sitting on
the couch, wearing a pajama top, a harness,
and a huge dildo, and reading the paper.
So we start to make love and I'm on top
of her and I look down at her face and she
has this huge smile. Now, I've been with
butch women and what a dildo meant to
them was an extension of their bodies.
And in the midst of things I was curious
what it meant to her, so I said, "Honey,
what are you smiling about?" And she said,
'Tm so happy to be able to make love to
my '50s femme:' It was such an important
moment, because it told me somethingthat I'm a '50s femme no matter who I'm
with. It's an act of the imagination to enter
into all histories.
Do you think young queer women know
who you are-the
were a site of social history. So it's an activist site. And we took our banners into
the streets. The LHA banner was in the
streets for the anti-apartheid movement,
Reagan's invasion of Central America ...
We never had a constricted view of what
the Archives meant-a
living, sharing of
touch, of the mind, of the body. We had
a saying: "Send us something in the language you make love in:'
What do you think of marriage equality
being the focus of LGBT rights?
I don't want to get married. For me, it's
not on the top of my priority list. It's become the main focus, but what happens
to these other things:' We're going to create new exiles. So if you're a real lesbian,
you get married:' Then we've created our
own spinsters. Now I really am a spinster-a
lesbian who doesn't marry! All
this normalizing ... The real challenge is,
how do we give the things that marriage
gives to people to anybody? So, immigration rights-why
should you have to get
married to have them:' The issue is, you
either join with the haves or you try to
start movements, and movements take a
long time.
work you've done?
I never take for granted that anyone
should read my work or that it has any special truths in it. But when a young woman
does read it and says she has found some
truth in it-no, no, I would much prefer
to listen. I won't be here to see the fruition
of your lives. I want to listen to them. You
can't tell a young person, a person who's
entering history in their own time, who
they should be and what they should listen to. I do think intergenerationality is
crucial. That is a gift to ourselves.
Is 'queer' a viable politics? Can it
change the system?
I love "queer:' I see "queer" as meaning
that which deviates from the script. Political resistance is "queer:' You live the best
way you can, with the biggest awareness
that you can, and try to mitigate suffering,
if you can. That's what it means to be human. There's no purity to one position.
You're on Facebook and you blog. Is
social media making us compassionate
or cruel?
For you, it's important that lesbian history is seen as a living thing.
Yes, I was inspired to co-found the Archives by what came out of the generation
of women I met in the bars when I was in
my teens and they were already in their
40s and 50s, and I saw such incredible
undocumented courage. These were taxi
drivers, sex workers-all
kinds who never get included in history. So the Archives
All our creations are of the imagination-they
can go in either direction.
I have seen the efficacy of organizing
demonstrations through social media. But
social media is quick and it can lead to
hardened positions. It calls for great agility
of the mind. As a writer, I resist the short,
instant message. I write in paragraphs. I'm
sending out memos to the world.
(joannestle.com)
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The influence of riot grrrl quickly spread
across the U.S., the UK, and beyond.
Renewed interest was stirred up by Sini
Anderson's portrait of the biggest icon of
the scene, Kathleen Hanna, in the film
The Punk Singer.It tells the story of Hanna's role in creating riot grrrl and reveals
aspects of her personal life, including her
struggle with Lyme Disease. We learn
that Hanna received some fateful advice
from the performance artist Kathy Acker,
which helped shape the riot grrrl movement. Encouraging Hanna to express hersel£ but acknowledging the limitations of
the spoken word, Acker pointed out that
there was "much more of a community
for music;' and Hanna, then a photography student at Evergreen State College in
Olympia, Wash., took heart. The college
had taken down an art exhibit of Hanna's in an act of censorship, she was reeling from the experience of a close friend's
sexual assault, and she was keen to find an
environment where her voice would not be
stifled. With Jigsaw creator Toby Vail she
formed Bikini Kill, a feminist punk band
characterized by didactic lyrics, an ironically girlish appearance, and a "girls to the
front" philosophy. Though the music was
certainly a draw, the most far-reaching influence of the movement was its DIY attitude. These were not idolized rock stars on
a pedestal, but girls like you and me.
The first riot grrrl meeting was held
before the music scene developed, but discussion groups began to multiply, thanks
to the spread of zines calling young women to action. The original movement may
have imploded over tensions and infighting, but riot grrrl made ideas previously
only known to feminist academics accessible to anyone who could read. For women
who grew up listening to riot grrrl bands,
attending their shows, and reading their
zines, the movement constituted not only
a revolution (girl style NOW, as Bikini
Kill would put it) but a revelation. Girls
were hearing from women they related to
and respected. The movement has since
been criticized for its straight, white, middle-class privilege, but many queer women
found acceptance in the lyrics and community that riot grrrl provided. Gina Ma-
mone, CEO of Riot Grrrl Ink (RGI), the
world's largest queer music label and the
chair of the White House's LGBTQIA
Arts Advisory Committee, cites a call to
action on the back of a Bikini Kill zine as
the inspiration for her company. "Everything that RGI has ever made or invested in goes back to Kathleen's Riot Grrrl
Manifesto;' says Mamone, who grew up
in rural Appalachia and remembers public school as an "everyday hell:' It wasn't
until Mamone's time at Marshall College
that she heard Ani DiFranco on the college radio station, which laid the foundation for Bikini Kill, L7, Team Dresch, and
Tribe 8 to come into her life, "like fucking
Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball:' Mamone
organized a Take Back the Night rally at
her school and the rest is history. "A $1
zine changed my life[ ... ]All I needed was
someone to wake me up and give me permission to take up space:'
While some queer women felt that
riot grrrl served as a feminist awakening,
others felt excluded by the movement.
Created partly in reaction to race riots, positioned to critique privilege and corrupt
systems of power, riot grrrl sometimes
forgot to examine the most important
white middle-class privilege of all: its own.
As Mimi Thi Nguyen wrote in her seminal essay "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival;'
the riot grrrls valued lived experience and
authenticity as key to ending oppression.
"But how then could experience yield revolutionary knowledge about race, where
the dominant experience was whiteness?"
Because of their willingness to engage
with politics, the riot grrrls saw themselves
as the authority on oppression. Within the
small world they inhabited, this was true,
but in wider, multicultural contexts, they
were ignorant. "What was cool about riot
grrrl is that many of them were learning
a lot of theoretical concepts and applying
them to the world and/ or teaching them
to one another;' says Michelle Gonzales of
Spitboy, a punk band often misidentified
as riot grrrl. "What wasn't cool was the
way that immaturity can cause someone
to jump to conclusions and make claims
before really examining all the facts:' Hanna said last year that she regrets the way
women of color were treated in the community, noting the intersectional failings
of some of her own work.
Apathy set in after riot grrrl fizzled and
the late '90s were dominated by "post-feminist" ideas. The focus shifted to individualism, to consumerism, until, due in part
to the connective qualities of the Internet,
feminist activism came back. Voices that
were not invited into the conversation
the first time around, including those of
women of color and of different gender
expressions, were now able to speak their
truths. Much of what we fight for todayreproductive rights, an end to rape culture,
marriage equality-is rooted in riot grrrl
ideas of empowerment, agency, and the
dismantling of patriarchal traditions. In
2014, from the grunge fashion prevalent
on Pinterest to the radical self-love postings on T umblr, the influence of riot grrrl can be seen everywhere in our culture.
Artists like Beth Ditto, Kate Nash, and
JD Samson (who with Kathleen Hanna
formed Le Tigre, a post-riot-grrrl band
that was a lot more queer) cite riot grrrl as
a formative influence.
''.Although the riot grrrl movement is
supposedly over;' says Suzanne Kamata,
the author of the riot grrrl-focused novel Screaming Divas, "I think its influence
has been widely felt. When I first came
to Japan, the teenage girls that I taught
mostly aspired to be wives and mothers.
Now, a lot of my girl students are in bands
like Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss
Her:' Feminist activist groups like Pussy
Riot and Panty Raiders are making music, films, and web content that challenge
systems of oppression, and zine culture is
alive on Etsy and in local queer/ feminist
communities. Feminist magazines like
Rookie, Bust, and Bitch keep the riot grrrl spirit alive, and parents can send their
kids to Girls Rock camps, which help girls
"build self-esteem and find their voices:'
Two decades after riot grrrl started, the
world is a different place: social media, gay
marriage, and pop stars declaring their
feminism. I am not black or white, gay or
straight, and in 2015 that's OK. We all
have our own identities, and truths-a
lesson I learned from riot grrrls.
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our
generafion
it lesbian. "Without them, you may have
gotten some kind of direct action group,
but maybe not one that felt so free to mix
humor and anger and sexiness. And, for
that matter, gender expression-a
band
wearing plaid Catholic girls'skirts in one
action, shaved fire eaters in another:'
The Lesbian Avengers (lesbianavengers.
com) were born in New York City in 1992,
and by 1998 there were as many as 60
chapters worldwide, especially in Britain,
Australia, and Canada.
In Eating Fire, Cogswell traverses nearly two decades of lesbian activism, with
and without the Avengers. She explores
how her own coming of age as a 20-something in New York City was shaped by
the Avengers. The amount of infighting
may or may not be surprising to those of
us who have come to believe that "lesbians
eat their own:' Not just political ends but
the means to achieve them were hotly debated by the core constituents of the group
throughout the '90s. "We had serious disagreements over how to deal with questions of race and class;' Cogswell admits,
"in addition to having different projects
competing for funding and attention:'
When I asked if the demise of the Lesbian Avengers could be attributed to lesbian infighting and backbiting, Cogswell
responded, "Partly, but I don't think it's because we were lesbians. Almost all activist
groups have a shelf life. Either they institutionalize and start creating formal structures, or they combust in some way. There
are a lot of strong emotions in activism,
a lot of pressure. You're working insane
hours. And the things that unified you in
the beginning kind of crumble. Fights over
ideology and tactics, not to speak of where
to go after a meeting, can become bitter:'
Inclusiveness is the key to any political
movement, yes, but sometimes inclusiveness has a negative effect on a group's efficacy. The demand for a more welcoming
Lesbian Avengers was supported by all,
but the methods for achieving such an
endgame remained elusive, perhaps due
to clashing personalities within the group.
in the word "queer;' which 'erases' woman' alCogswell also believes that it is important
to examine the real intentions behind such
together:' Cogswell elaborates, "We live in a
a desire for diversity.
world in which women are still the lowest
of the low. And'lesbian' makes it clear you're
Arguably, political correctness can overshadow political effectiveness: "When it joining two women together. You're in the
ultimate ghetto:' While she sometimes uses
comes to diversity, you have to ask, Why?
the word 'queer;' Cogswell believes that usWhy is it important to be inclusive? Do
you want to have more black or Latino
ing the word "lesbian'' is a radical act. "1£as
faces in the room just so you can feel good
a mostly androgynous person, I keep stubabout yourself? Generous? So white peobornly calling myself a lesbian, or a dyke,
ple don't feel racist and people of color
it doesn't just highlight sexual identity-it
helps redefine what 'woman' means and
don't feel lonely? Or is it because you really
want to hear more voices, and make sure
helps show how artificial that category is,
that you represent all of the people you're
both in terms of sexual identity and gender
supposed to, and you really want to attack
roles. If I decide to just say queer; it may liberate me as an individual-and I can leave
their problems?"
The Lesbian Avengers frustratingly also
the stereotypes and associations behindencountered resistance from other sexual
but it can be a kind of abdication: I'm fleeing
identities, who criticized the group for its
the battlefield of gender. They win:'
lack of inclusiveness, "because apparently;'
As to whether she's an Avenger-for-life,
Cogswell writes in Eating Fire,"a group fo"Nobody quits being an Avenger;' Cogcused exclusively on lesbian issues had no
swell says. "There are lots of different ways
right to exist ...Lesbians have the right to
to be an activist. After doing direct action
organize around lesbian issues. Nobody
for years, I shifted into citizen journalism:'
would have gone to the Black Panthers
Cogswell and Ana Simo created The Gully,
"one of the first LGBT publications online,
and demanded that they suddenly focus
on Latino farmworkers, or issues of immiand the only one, ever, to offer 'queer views
gration-even
though it's clear that there
on everything: We'll always need activists to
is some overlap of issues:' Yet it is also
keep the community awake and paying atimportant to observe how "all this stuff
tention;' she says. (kellycogswell.com)
intersects ...We do need to understand how it intersects, but we
also need to think about things
separately:'
Decades of activism in the lesbian community have led Cogswell
to conclude that lesbian marginalization can be self-inflicted: "Lesbians often do it to themselves. It's
like we think our own issues aren't
important enough. OK, so we're
practically invisible in society, we
often can't get jobs, still face incredible violence. Young dykes get
kicked out and are homeless. We
SAT.OCT24
8 .. M..-AM
still lose our kids, but ... There's
t1e AVli D. an.i FUI
always a 'bur; always something
- AT l'Nli DOOII.......... "~:.
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more important. It's internalized
:EE:-:!.~
._...._Clt8)~1,--.
...
lesbophobia and misogyny:'
Part of this misogyny is evident
VVE
REC
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~
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That spirit of determination and resilience is in part what Triptych itself is
about. And like the artists in the film,
ceramicist Lana Wilson, writer Jeanne
DuPrau, and painter Nan Golub, Walton
herself has been developing her skills and
creativity for decades.
But unlike the other women in her film,
Walton had a stifling early life and a stifling
early career. "I was in the closet for the first
40 years of my life;' she reflects. In 1966, she
earned an MA in education from Stanford
and became a teacher. But after teaching
high school for 20 years, she says,"I was dying. Public high schools are hard to be in!"
In 1985, Walton resigned from teaching. At that time, she says, "I was out to
friends, but I wasn't out to students or
parents, and it was getting to be so wearing:' She changed direction, from teaching
to filmmaking, and in the course of a master's program in film and video production at Stanford, she decided to make a
film about lesbians. "So;' she says, "I took
a deep breath and went to my professors,
who were pretty open to ir:'
Walton's master's thesis was Out in Suburbia, which was simulcast in New York
and San Francisco with Marlon Riggs's
film Tongues Untied. Out in Suburbia got
plenty of attention, but not all of it was
positive. Walton says, "Some people said it
was too whitewashed, and it ignored too
many lesbians-women
on bikes, women into S&M. We had to deal with that
whole thing, but it was exciting because it
got lots of publicity. After that, I thought,
I'm going to make as many films about gay
and lesbian people as I can.
'J\nd I did. I did Gay Youth, and then
Family Values, about my father, who was a
right-wing nut, way beyond Jerry Falwell
and Pat Robertson, into the crazy end of
the right wing:' Her subsequent films include Call to Witness and Liberty: 3 Stories
of Life and Death, which Walton says is
about the importance of chosen families.
"My chosen, lesbian family was the family
who stood by me in my adult life, and I'm
thankful for that;' Walton says.
Pam Walton Productions-Walton
is
producer/ director and her life partner,
Ruth Carranza, is associate director-has
also made several films that weren't gaythemed. Now Walton says, "With gay
marriage coming to the front and being legalized in so many states, it feels like a major victory. From here, it feels like we're on
our way to full equality. So it hasn't made
me feel that urgency about making films
about gay and lesbian people. We included Nan [the only openly lesbian artist in
Triptych] and her lover, but sexuality isn't
the focus of the film.
When she conceived Triptych, Walton
says, "My interest was turning to aging,
because of course I'm aging. And I wanted
something that I could take my time with.
I didn't want some pressing issue like immigration or gay marriage that would have
a deadline, and I wanted to do something
that I really loved. We started working on
it in, I think, 2010.
"Lana Wilson, the ceramic artist, is
an old friend. I knew her in high school.
I reconnected with her about five years
ago and went to see her at Berkeley. She
showed me her studio and some of the
things she was making, and I thought, Oh
my God, this is wonderfully visual, to see
something take shape from a big blob of
clay. So we first thought we'd make a video together, and then as it got going, we
thought, Why limit this? We'll include
two other artists, and make it bigger:'
The hardest part of making the film for
Walton was portraying her friend Nan Golub, the New York painter. "She's very private;' says Walton,"and I've used her in some
of my other films. I've kind of worn her out,
I think. I had to go back several times and
talk to her. She was very reticent about doing the sit-down interview. She was afraid, I
think, that I was going to ask her too many
personal questions that she didn't want to
answer. It's interesting because she says, 'I
don't want to talk about my arr; yet she has
so many great things to say:'
The future of Pam Walton Productions
may depend in part on the reviews of Triptych. Regardless, though, Walton says, "My
wife and I are thinking of retiring in the
next few years and moving to a retirement
home for gay and lesbian seniors in Santa Rosa. It's just wonderful. It'd be a nice
way to end our lives. I think my next and
maybe my last film will be about this retirement center:'
Walton has given us a legacy of documentaries about coming out and living as a
creative, impassioned lesbian artist. If her
last film is in fact about retirement, it will
be a suitable finale.
(pamwaltonproductions.com/ triptych)
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
49
er
nderthe
ridge
The evolution of
music icon Ant
Difranco.
BY DAVE STEINFELD
our
generafion
to stay with Righteous Babe, release her
music independently, and nurture new
artists (mostly female). "Back in the day,
I was tempted to [sign with] anyone who
would help me pay my rent;' DiFranco
admits. "There [were] a lot of years of living hand to mouth, paying dues ... [But] I
think I determined early on that, for me,
being independent was not a means to an
end. As soon as I started selling that first
tape at my gigs, not only did I have my $50
gig money, I had another $50 from selling
tapes. And that paid for the next tape, and
I thought, Well, this is working out. When
I started to get interest from [other] indies, and also from majors, I already had
my own thing going. I looked at the fiveyear contracts, and whatever tiny percentage of my record sales I would actually see,
and I just thought, Fuck that. I have my
own little job that I've created for mysel£
I liked my job-even in obscurity. And it
was always growing, and getting easier in
terms of living and paying bills. So, eventually, I decided that the corporate world
is not for me:'
It's probably no coincidence that DiFranco's new album, Allergic to Water,
was released last year on Election Day
(November 4 ). She has, after all, been one
of the most politically active singer-songwriters of her generation. That said, Allergic to Water-DiFranco's first studio disc
since 2012-is
not especially politically
charged. Where 2012's Which Side Are
You On? was, in fact, a fairly topical album,
her latest release is more personal and understated-both
musically and thematically. DiFranco made Allergic to Water in
her adopted hometown of New Orleans
in two separate four-day stretches, one
year apart. She did much of the production work herself, assisted by her husband,
Mike Napolitano, during one of the sessions and by Andy Taub during the other.
Throughout the album, she was joined by
various guest artists, including her longtime bassist Todd Sickafoose, the violinist
Jenny Scheinman, and the legendary keyboardist Ivan Neville. As always, however,
Ani is front and center.
Between the two four-day stretches
during which Allergic was recorded, something life-changing happened to DiFranco: She gave birth to her second child and
first son, Dante. "Oh, wow;' says DiFranco
when I ask her how raising Dante is different from raising her first child, Petah.
"The difference has been fairly archetypically night and day. One of my feminist
friends sent me an article talking about
how gender identity is socialized. And so
much of it is. But I'll tell you-I just deleted that article. I didn't even read it! You
know, whatever. I guess I'm trying to say
[that now] I am definitely immersed in
the inherent gender differences, raising a
boy. [This is] a whole other creature than
my little girl. Much more aggressive, much
more willful-just
really high [maintenance] compared to my daughter. Many
of my friends who have raised both girls
and boys give me knowing looks now, like,
'Aha! Welcome to raising a son: But it's
pretty awesome. I think feminism rightfully tapped into the direction of 'Let's
be honest about how much of our gender
roles are socialized ... Hey, maybe girls can
play sports, people!' But it is also imperative that we ... acknowledge gender differences. They're fundamentally different
sides of our human nature at work. And a
resonant balance between the two is what
will heal our species and our world. That's
where my feminism is at, these days:'
DiFranco has always been a feminist,
and an individual, but like most true artists, she has evolved over the years-not
just musically but personally. Much of her
audience has evolved with her, and she
has picked up new fans along the way. But
there's no question that some old-school
fans have felt betrayed by some of her
choices-notably, the decision to marry a
man. It started even before that, though. "I
remember once, prior to getting married,
I walked out on stage in a dress;' says DiFranco. "I think I was in a little black dress
and fishnets. It was that phase [when I
was] 23 years old-I'm young, I'm sexual. And I remember hearing somebody
in the back of the room, some chick, say,
'Sellout!' I assume it was because of my attire, you know-because
of my feminine
appearance or something. And I remember thinking, Wow! Putting on a dress
means that I'm not who I am? And that
I'm not standing here doing exactly what
I was doing yesterday, in pants? What an
equation-a
dress equals weakness and
passivity and obedience:'
That said, many people care more about
her music than her personal life and will
support Ani DiFranco as long as she continues releasing good albums. And she
has clearly been a profound influence on
many of the female musicians who have
appeared in the past two decades. When
I ask her about some of the female musicians who have influenced her, DiFranco
does not hesitate to give me names. "In the
early days, I was very inspired by Joan Armatrading,'' she says. ''And then Suzanne
Vega, who became a friend to me as a
child. But my ultimate singing influence
became Betty Carter. I have also been very
inspired by Bonnie Raitt along the way,
and have had the pleasure of making her
acquaintance. Ferron is a great songwriter
in the folk realm who I find inspiring, [but
who I] think is somewhat unsung outside
of the dyke world:'
DiFranco did the first four-day stretch
of recordings for Allergic to Water while
she was six months pregnant with Dante.
During the second stretch, a year later, he
was several months old and she was nursing him. But when I ask her if the 12 songs
on the album are split chronologically into
those two four-day stretches, she replies,
"No. They're all mixed up. That seems to
be my process in general. Ever since I had a
kid, which is pushing eight years ago now,
I work in tiny little spurts in between a
lot of other shit! Which Side Are You On?
also took two and a half years to come to
a conclusion. But it was in these little fits
and spurts of coming back to it and going,
'What the fuck is this project again? Oh
shit! Baby's up!' It's a very fragmented existence in these early parenting years, [and]
there are good and bad results. I mean, to
work like I did on this record affords one
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
51
a lot of perspective. I think that's good.
I didn't have a lot of time to obsess over
these recordings-but
I had a lot of time
in between to go, 'Nah, let's try that one
again. We didn't nail it the first time:"
Lyrically, the theme of working through
adversity seems to run throughout Allergic to Water. It's there on the tide track, on
"Rainy Parade" ( the disc's closing song),
and on my personal favorite, "Happy All
the Time:'
I know trial bringswisdom
And greatnesshas a price
Just ask Abraham Lincoln
Ask Miles Davis' wives
And I have great admiration
For those that raise up mankind
But I'm afraid that greatgift
Is not meant to be mine
Cuz me I'm just happy all the time
Yeah me I'm just happy all the time
52
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
The more I listened to this song, the harder it became for me to determine whether
DiFranco was being ironic or sincere in her
lyrics. When I share this with her, she says,
"That's exactly right. I think the value that
I have has come through my trials in life,
such as they have been, and my over-feeling
nature as an artist. Many artists are people
who just tend to feel, even beyond themselves. I've always felt my oneness-certainly, in my experience-with
other women,
and beyond that, with other humans, you
know? I've always just been strongly aware
that there are things I'm going through that
so many (people] are going through, if we
could only help each other our:'
If there was a birth during the making
of Allergic to Water, there was also a death.
Pete Seeger, the legendary musician and
activist, and one of DiFranco's mentors,
passed away last January at the age of 94.
She says, "He was one of the rarest of people-1' ve met only a few in my life-who
are of kind of a Buddha nature. They sort
of move through the world in a place of mutual respect and compassion for all people.
Pete was somebody who, when he called
me up or wrote me a letter, my answer was
always yes. I'm at least that smart to know
that when Pete calls, you come! And you do
whatever benefit or this or that he's asking
(you to do]. I find it very inspirational to be
around people who have become able to inhabit that space of oneness and compassion.
Pete was a great model in that way:'
''Are you aware that you provide the same
thing for so many people?" I ask her.
"Well, yeah, I've been made aware of my
place in the continuum;' DiFranco replies
modestly. ''And it's wonderful to play a part
and to be a bridge for others. I feel very
aware of myself as a bridge ... There [have]
been so many writers, activists, artists who
have delivered me from one state of being
into another. So, to be able to take some of
that and pass it on through my work seems
like a natural thing to do:'
(righteousbabe.com) •
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11;)
~
hat does it feel like to be young and queer today:' A new
book of 65 color portraits, Speaking OUT: Queer Youth
in Focus presents portraits of the queer Millennial Gen~
eration. Award~winning Philadelphia~based photogra~
pher Rachelle Lee Smith gives LGBTQ youth an outlet
to speak for themselves through her in~your~face, funny,
warm, and powerful images of queer youth. The white
space of the color portraits are filled with first~person text,
giving self expression to a diverse group of young people,
aged fourteen to twenty~four, who identify along a range
of sexual orientations and gender expressions. "I have never
had a mullet, I am not a man hater, I don't listen to KD
Lang, I am not butch, I don't drive a truck, I am not a fem~
inist ... What kind of lesbian am It writes JoEllen, one of
the subjects featured in Speaking OUT. From GLSEN to
the It Gets Better Project, our community attempts to provide
resources for queer youth. But it's hard to address the inequities
created by race, class, sexual orientation and gender identification
without hearing from young people themselves and addressing
their spoken needs. Be inspired by these images, these words, and
the young people behind them. This is our youth.
( rachelleleesmith.com/ speakingout)
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
57
W
o wants to get older?
Who wants to even
hink about aging when
ociety values youth, and
studies show that time is not kind to LGBT
folk: Many of us (especially lesbians and
trans people) will experience ill health and
economic insecurity-if we don't alreadyespecially at the end of our lives.
But it doesn't have to be that way, and it
isn't that way for the 65 loving couples fea~
tured in Barbara Proud's new book, First
Comes Love. And love has everything to
do with it.
You can thank out lesbian photogra~
pher Proud for her heartening vision of
late~in~life LGBT harmony and happi~
ness. And thank Edith S. Windsor, too,
who wrote the heartfelt foreword to the
book. Edie Windsor has become the pub~
lie image ( the poster elder, if you will) of a
community tired of marginalization, and
rightly so: It was United States v. Windsor
that brought down DOMA on June 26,
2013, and made marriage equality a reality
in this country. In the foreword, Windsor
writes: "That day, something happened to
all of us, not just to the people who wanted
to get married. Something happened to all
of us, to the whole gay community, and to
the whole country:'
What happened was that we gained
an image of ourselves that we'd never had
before, an image of ourselves as a unique
community and yet welcome within the
institutions on which this country was
built. Windsor notes that in his brief,
Justice Anthony Kennedy uses the word
"dignity" 11 times."It's like we're in a differ~
ent place in this country and it's thrilling.
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
59
FEATURES/COVER
ST
I WANTED
TO
GIVE
HOPE
TOTHE
YOUNGER
GENERATIONS
THAT
THEY
TOO
CAN
HAVE
LONG
AND
LOVING
RELATIONSHIPS.
We're being recognized as c1t1zens, real
deserving citizens;' she writes. ''.Adolescent
kids can fall in love for the first time knowing there's a future. Maybe it's the beginning of the end of the suicides. We can all
be proud of who we are:'
Being able to love one another openly is
fundamental to being able to love ourselves.
Seeing images of this love is essential to
reinforcing it as valid, and to changing the
hearts and minds that might oppose it.
Historically, there have been very few images that portray our lives with the 'a.ignity"
Windsor describes. Barbara Proud's First
Comes Love Project is not just the book but
a traveling exhibition of photographs, love
stories, and video interviews documenting
long-term LGBT couples. The project has
been endorsed by Freedom to Marry and
the Human Rights Campaign.
"This project began when my partner
and I celebrated our 20th anniversary and
thereby became the longest surviving couple in our families;' says Proud. "When
Proposition 8 passed a month later, I decided that I needed to do something:'
That something, which was to create "a
different picture of our community than
what is normally portrayed in the media;'
had its roots in a history that began long
before the injustice of Prop. 8. Proud won
a camera in a local competition when she
was 9 years old, and majored in photography in college. Photography was very
much a means of artistic expression, but
the technological aspects also appealed to
her, and she taught herself advanced techniques in composition and lighting, as well
as digital photo processes. Influenced by
"all of the strong women photographers
from many generations-Mary
Ellen
Mark, Diane Arbus, Imogen Cunningham, Annie Leibovitz-but
also painters
such as Georgia O'Keeffe;' she went on
to become an adjunct associate professor
at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and now inspires her own students.
It's an added bonus that when she started
making artwork in earnest, she chose "B.
Proud" as her signature. "Barbara Proud is
my name from birth. Many people think
'B. Proud' is something that I made up. It's
quite convenient for a lesbian artist, and
now it's something that I have to live up to:'
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
61
Proud lives up to her name with First
Comes Love, and there is a lot of pride to be
had from this 148~page book-from
the
dignified black~and~white photography to
the stories shared. "Typically, we only see
rainbow flags and Gay Pride parades or
protests. I wanted to strip all of that away
and force the viewer to look deeper, to look
at the core of who these couples are:•
These couples, all of whom volunteered
for the project, include Houston mayor
Annise Parker and her wife Kathy Hub~
bard, civil rights pioneers Barbara Gittings
and Kay Tobin Lahusen (together for 46
years), lesbian activist Lilli Vincenz and
Nancy Davis, and of course, Edie Windsor
(and her dear departed Thea Speyer, who
is present in a framed snapshot). "Having
all of these people and their stories in one
volume is something that I am quite proud
of;' admits Proud.
The response to the book and the pro}
ect so far has been "tremendous!" she says.
"Many couples that I meet are already asb
ing me to do a second volume. The book
was launched in Philadelphia, where the
media were calling it the 'antidote to hate
crime; because a few weeks before, there
had been a terrible bashing of a young
gay couple. So when people ask me why
this book is still important, since the mar~
riage laws are changing, my response is
that changing laws do not change people's
minds. There is still hatred and bigotry
and violence, and that needs to change
through education:'
If a picture paints a thousand words,
there is no doubt that it can educate. And
Proud has watched straight and gay peo~
ple alike read the stories, watch the videos,
and weep. "In a restaurant the other night,
where I was celebrating my 26th anniver~
sary with my spouse, a woman approached
me who had purchased the book and told
me that she had really learned a lot from
reading the stories. So even our straight
allies still have much to learn:'
The project may help straight allies un~
derstand our cause, but it also seeks to bol~
ster our own community. "I wanted to give
hope to the younger generations that they,
too, can have long and loving relationships;'
says Proud. "Perhaps they can even use my
book to come out to their parents:'•
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
63
Older and wiser, our
favorite pop diva is
still our humanitarian
knight in shining armor.
BY KELLY MCCARTNEY
FEATURES/
THE L LIST
l'MSHOCKED
THAT
WECAN'T
COME
TOABETTER
PlACE
OFCOMPASSION
AND
UNDERSTANDING
THAT
WE'RE
SOllMITED
AND
WE'RE
SOBIGOTED.
in my voice, in my interpretation, in my
qualities as an interpretive artist. Obviously, one is in awe of the history and the
magnitude of the writers and the body of
work, the extraordinary artists and their
presence, the very resonant memory of
an artist like Billie Holliday or Nina Simone. But, really, if you're going to tackle a
work like this, it's not appropriate to be
too daunted by it. Yes, I'm humbled. Of
course. I am very respectful.
"But the thing that connects me, you
see, is my gender-and
that's the point;'
Lennox explains. "I feel a connection to
other artists, specifically female artists. I
think about their stories and what they've
been through, the tragedies of many of
these artists, the challenges they had to
face, very often being exploited and taken
advantage 0£ Or having personal issues or
demons that finally overcame them. And I
feel very connected to them, because I feel
like we would stand shoulder to shoulder
if we were together in a room:'
Lennox should indeed stand shoulder
to shoulder with the greats of the past,
for she is one of the greats of the present
day, carrying the same torch of strength
and resilience that so many before her
have carried. And that's the frustrating
thing for her-that
after so many years,
the torch that shines a light on hatred and
violence still needs to be picked up and
carried. "If you go back into the nostalgia
of America, for example, then you will go
into the cradle of the culture these songs
have been derived from, and you're right
back in the Deep South before the civil
rights movement;' Lennox says. "These
are the issues of violence and bigotry and
hatred and racism that everyone still faces
today, right across the globe. And I found
this thread that continues on-injustice,
lack of human rights. How interesting, the
theme of humanity-how
it evolves over
time, or doesn't:'
The weight of the ages, prophetic and
profound, is in Nostalgia's track list. With
so many African Americans still dying at
the hands of white cops, the message of
"Strange Fruit;' in particular, reverberates
across the decades. Lennox takes that as
her starting point and spins off from there:
"Of course, it's defined by racism-but
then I think about gender-based violence.
And I think about domestic violence. And
I think about warfare. And I think about
terrorism. And about the series of acts that
human beings carry out without boundaries upon each other-this
drama of violence that's played out continuously. And I
think this is what the song is now, for me:'
She notes, "I remember, even as a child,
when I understood how cruel the world
could be, I felt terribly outraged. And that
sense of outrage has never left me. I'm still
outraged. I'm shocked. I'm shocked at what
I see. I'm shocked at how things are not resolved, that we can't come to a better place
of compassion and understanding, that
we're so limited and we're so bigoted:'
Channeling that outrage into gender-bending, proudly feminist art and
HIV/ AIDS activism has long earned
Lennox the respect and support of the
LGBT community. Her simultaneous recognition and dismissal of the differences
between people, coupled with her deep
understanding of and unwavering commitment to justice, might well be the key.
"I have a problem with labels;' she laughs.
"I understand that people need to use the
labels. Because, when you're in a position
to say,'We're in the minority and we're being exploited and we're being abused and
our human rights are not being respected;
you need to put your label up on a pedestal and shout it out very, very loudly. I get
that. But at the end of the day, I find labels reductive. And, honestly, I don't want
people to see me as a 'heterosexual person'
before they see me. In a true evolution,
that just gets put away. It's irrelevant, what
your gender and sexual orientation are.
That would be the real arrival point, for
me:' (nostalgia.annielennox.com) •
JAN/FEB
2015
CURVE
67
VIEWS/
LAUGH TRA
Time, Carroll the Cloud Person.
ut comic Cameron Esposito has
and know her material-and then end up
been on fire lately. After her late-
with her- is really so awesome. Then also,
It was awesome! Someone I don't know
night debut on the Late Late Show
it's bizarre to have to compete with. We
who listens to my podcast, someone I have
with Craig Ferguson, she was chris-
really are both gay female stand up comics.
subsequently become Internet friends with,
tened "the future of comedy" by
Right now, it's not all the time, but we do go
wrote the episode, and she wanted me to
the one and only Jay Leno. She has
out for the same parts in acting. We do a set
come in and do the voice for one of the
spent much of the fall touring in support of
on the same show and people always end
characters. Actually, insider tip for Curve
her new comedy release, Same Sex Symbol,
up comparing you. So it's really strange to
magazine only, the character design had
and recording new episodes of her popular
be up against the person that you love. But
already been done before they offered me
podcast, Put Your Hands Together. Esposito
it's way more positive than it is negative.
the role and I accepted it. The two were kind
took a moment recently to chat with Curve
of done independently, but Cloud, like, abso-
about life on the road with her fiance, fellow
In your standup, you talk about your
comic Rhea Butler (she's opening all the
hair, which you refer to as a "side
lutely has my haircut.
shows on the tour and together they're the
mullet." What is it with lesbians and
Where do you do your best comedy
only out comic couple we know of) and,
their hair? I couldn't decide between a
brainstorming?
of course, lesbian hair. Same Sex Symbol
Tegan or a Sara, so I went for both.
Probably the shower, which is devastating,
was recently released on Kill Rock Stars and
I think it's honestly not fitting into a specific
right? I usually have to yell to Rhea like,
went to #1 on iTunes comedy were it stayed,
beauty paradigm. There are some really hot
"Write it down!"
beating out Sarah Silverman.
lesbians and none of them may look like the
hot straight girls, or the hot straight guys,
How do you get amped up for a show?
You've been in comedy for some time,
that we grew up seeing in magazines or on
At this point, I would say that I write out my
but the last year your star has risen.
television. It's kind of creating our own cul-
set list, even if I don't need it. I just like to
Well, it's great because we've been heading
ture, and I think that's just part of it-having
write down the words. Comics have that
the right way in terms of the things that I've
a haircut that doesn't say either way, or that
much like you do with a band-all of our
wanted for some time now-stability, just
is trending on the masculine, but is a sharp
jokes have names, like songs have names.
some money coming in, all the things that
look for a dude. Onstage, I outwardly talk
I can't sit down at all. I usually kind of pace
a job would usually give you. When your job
about how I think I'm hot. Not just because
around and shake out my shoulders. I don't
is comedy, you don't often get those things
I think I'm hot, but I think it's important for
have a song, or anything that I listen to or
for a long time. I worked day jobs for years
audience members to know that lesbians
anything. At this point, I'm too mobile! I have
to compensate for that, and then maybe five
find lesbians attractive.
to be everywhere. (cameronesposito.com) •
years ago I was able to get rid of that. Then it
was kind of tenuous and touch-and-go, and
In addition to being a comic, columnist,
I'm used to that, but also nice to think that
and podcast host, you've voiced a
there may be something ahead. It's a little
character on the cartoon Adventure
more comfy, I guess. It's an actual life, as
opposed to like, you know, one pair of pants.
You and your fiance, Rhea Butler, who
is also a comic as well, are touring
together. What's that been like?
I would say it's like the best and worst thing
that could possibly be happening in a
relationship. It's the best because she understands everything that I'm talking about.
She's the funniest person I know. We were
friends before we were dating, so I knew
her as a comic first. When you are a comic,
there is a special way that you look at
something when you know they've
been through it too. It's just such
a specific life experience. So, to
respect her and think she's funny
IT'SA BIRD?
IT'SA PLANE?
IT'S AQUAGIRL!
~
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EVENTIN THEWORLD
~ FORWOMENWHOLOVE
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~ MAY13-17,2015
SOUTHBEACH.FLORIDA
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ouisiana. The Deep South.
Part of the country's Bible
Belt. Not exactly a place
where the LGBT commu~
nity looks to find welcoming
acceptance. And it sure doesn't seem like a
place where a fella and his fella or a gal and
her gal might vacation. But this Connecticut
Yankee was shown that within the South
there actually is a mecca for those looking
for a gay ol' time. NOLA, New Orleans, La.,
has to be up there at the top of the list of the
most liberal cities in the South.
L
After Katrina hit, the city was left in
a shambles. The once~vibrant landmark,
with its abundance of jazz and eclectic
Creoles, was devastated by Mother Na~
ture's fury. But even then, people knew
they would rebuild, and it would be that
city once again.
These days, you can find some sort of fes~
tival going on at least twice a month. Wheth~
er it's the Tales of the Cocktail spirits festival
or the Burlesque Festival, or the Gumbo
Cook~Off that tickles your fancy, you'll find
lots of ways to join in the fun with the locals.
For the LGBT community, NOLA is
an escape from the prevailing values in the
South. Here, you are free to be who you
are, and you'll have an incredible support
system, with various bars, clubs, commu~
nity centers, and themed events to show
you that you belong.
If you've ever thought about a trip to
New Orleans-but
maybe, like me, you've
never known when it would actually hap~
pen-there is no better time than the pres~
ent. Peak season starts in September and
runs through March, and though you may
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be paying higher prices for a hotel, the ac~
commodations in this city are nothing short
of extraordinary. If you're willing to dish out
the cash to stay in complete comfort, I im~
plore you to stay at the Ritz Carlton (ritz~
carlton.com), which is conveniently located
at the beginning of the French Quarter, two
blocks from Bourbon Street. Here, just
about everything is complimentary, espe~
cially in the Club level, which provides you
with free food, alcohol, and Wi~Fi.
The Hyatt Regency on Loyola Avenue
is very LGBT friendly (neworleans.hyatt.
com). The atmosphere is vibrant, and the
rooms are great and won't break the bank.
The Hyatt offers bespoke cocktails and
craft beers at Vitascope Hall, and one of
the city's best dining experiences at Bor~
gne, where the chefs create seafood dishes
with a modern feel.
You will never go thirsty or hungry here.
The Creoles who inhabit this great city
will make sure that you always have a TO
GO cup-a plastic container for booze
that you are able to carry on the street,
free from police prosecution-and
plen~
ty of food in front of you while they chat
your ear off about what makes NOLA so
amazing, in their equally charming and
amazing Southern twang.
A trip to New Awlins wouldn't be trip~
py at all without meeting Mr. Glenn Louis
De Villiers (glfdevilliers.com), a real NOLA
experience. He is the man you want to show
you around the sights of this enchanting city.
His tour de force is The Twirl, two parts gay
heritage and one part cocktail hour. You'll
hear the stories and learn the history of gay
life in old New Orleans, the Krewe of Rex,
and the origins of Mardi Gras. There is nev~
er a shortage of cocktails on this tour, so be
prepared for an adventure on foot.
I was the only lesbian on this trip and
72
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
wondered what kinds of things I would ex~
perience among such a gay~male~dominated
population. As it turns out, New Orleans
is rich in history when it comes to strong
women and literary legends.
There are bars that cater to lesbi~
an nights, such as the Bourbon Pub and
OZ, but there is also a place known for
its ladies of the night. Every Thursday
through Sunday, Bella Blue produces The
Blue Book at Lucky Pierre's on Bourbon
Street, where a slew of burlesque dancers
take the stage led by their mistress, to give
the audience a show of classy debauchery.
(thebellalounge.com)
"I started out in ballet and modern
dance;' says Bella Blue. "I've been doing it
for over eight years now. The name comes
from the Blue Book of New Orleans,
which was basically the Yellow Pages for
brothels and whorehouses. That's how
Bella Blue was born:'
Every year, NOLA hosts its Hallow~
een extravaganza, which benefits Project
Lazarus. The mission of this nonprofit is
to heal and empower men and women liv~
ing with HIV/ AIDS by providing hous~
ing, healthcare, and support services for the
residents. This long weekend event features
the kick~off Lazarus Ball; a casual dance
night; the main event, a costume contest
and parade; and a Sunday brunch and Sec~
ond Line at the House of Blues. Halloween
New Orleans brings in the masses, so book~
ing accommodations early is always advised.
(halloweenneworleans.com)
Whether you come for the food, music,
nightlife, art, literary favorites, Bourbon
Street, or any other kind of Cajun expe~
rience, be prepared to leave completely
satisfied. There is no lack of Southern
charm, and you'll love the feeling of being
welcome. (neworleanscvb.com) •
For 25 years,
the Women's
Traveller has
listed women's
clubs, resorts,
cruises, tours &
more, across the
US, Europe &
beyond.
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W
ine, women-even cheese:
Switzerland has it all!
And if you want to taste
Garanoir and Pinot Gris
on the Montreux Riviera, then dance the
night away in Zurich, it's easy to travel all
across this small country by train. You can
take in the majestic mountains, the Alpine
meadows, the dairy farms and quaint vil~
lages, as Swiss Rail transports you from
one region to the next in perfect comfort.
Maybe you'll decide to start out in
French~speaking Montreux. Situated in
the southwestern part of Switzerland on
Lake Geneva, the city enjoys a fresh Medi~
terranean climate and loves to show off its
charming Belle Epoque architecture. It is
home to the world~famous Montreux Jazz
Festival, which has been held each July since
1967 and has attracted all the legends, in~
eluding Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, and
Nina Simone. Claude Nobs, the founder of
the festival, was a gay man. There are over
200 wineries in the region, and the fami~
lies of some local vintners go back 17 gen~
74
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
erations. On the Swiss Riviera Wine Tour,
Blaise DuBois (of the winery Blaise Du~
Bois) pairs an education with a tasting as he
explains the terroir of the region (bedrock,
soil, depth of the roots), which impacts the
flavor and the quality of its wines.
A must~see in the Montreux region is
La Tour de Marsens, an 850~year~old cha~
teau decorated with chests from the Middle
Ages, armor, and other relics. This chateau
is not open to public, but you can visit it by
doing a wine tour with Swiss Riviera Wine
Tours (swissrivierawinetours.com). At the
folk market in nearby Vevey,you can sample
more local wines as you stroll along the lake~
side promenade and watch costumed men
playing the alphorn, a long tuba~like instru~
ment that was developed in the Swiss Alps.
Since the Middle Ages, dairy farmers have
used the alphorn to calm the cows at milk~
ing time and call them from the pasture.
They even use the alphorn to communicate
from one farm to another, because it can be
heard for miles. If you decide to book the
two~hour Sissi Tour, your guide will show
you the former Austrian princess's favorite
places in Montreux, including the Sentier de
Roses (rose path) and the Chateau Chillon,
a romantic symbol of Montreux and one of
Switzerland's most famous landmarks.
From Montreux, head to the capital
city of Bern for a night or two. Bern's
150~year~old arcaded shopping street is
the longest in Europe, spanning three and
a half miles. The Old Town, built in 1191,
is a UNESCO World Heritage site and
it is worth taking a stroll to admire the
historic Rathaus, the painted fountains,
and the 18th~century guildhalls. At the
entrance to the Old Town, you will find
the Zytglogge, a clock tower constructed
in 1218 to mark Bern's first western gate.
By private tour, you can view the medieval
mechanisms ( rope, iron, dials, and pulls)
behind the chiming clock. Paul Klee, the
world~famous painter who is from Bern,
has his work displayed at museum that
bears his name and is an architectural
beauty in its own right. At night, pay a
visit to one of Bern's three popular gay
:r:
C.)
ui
('.)
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~
FEATURES/
establishments (there are no exclusively
lesbian clubs in Bern), the Blue Cat Cafe,
the Comeback Bar, or the Belmondo Bar.
The next stop on your list could be Zu~
rich, founded by the Romans in 15 B.C.,
and the largest city in Switzerland, with
400,000 residents. Zurich shows that the
reputation of the Swiss for being efficient
and forward thinkers is true. Many of the
city's water fountains provide safe, clean,
mineralized drinking water, so you will not
get dehydrated while walking. Also, notable
in this big city is the lack of homeless pea~
ple. According to my tour guide, "You will
never see people begging, because the city
will take care of the homeless:' There are
businesses that employ homeless people or
those who have lost their jobs-you may
encounter them as workers at the free bike
service booths sprinkled around the city, or
as waiters at the Restaurant Schippe.
One place to check off your must~do list
in Zurich is the Beyer Clock and Watch
Museum, which showcases horological
pieces from 1400 B.C. to the present day,
including sundials, oil~lamp clocks, water
TRA
clocks, and wristwatches. Also, south of
the museum sits the Stadelhoferplatz, a
quiet square for relaxing and taking in the
view of Lake Zurich and the Alps beyond.
Be sure to visit the Burkiplatz-there's
a
flower and produce market every Tues~
day and Friday morning, as well as a flea
market every Saturday. For a well~rounded
look at the city, enjoy a boat tour, which
starts on the piers at the Lake and ends at
the Bahnhofstrasse, a high~end shopping
street, and Old Town.
Zurich West, the newest area of the
city, has been revitalized with the trans~
formation of old shipyards, factories, and
warehouses into trendy shops and swanky
hangouts. For example, there's the second~
hand clothing boutique Caritas Zurich,
and Freitag, which uses old truck tarps
to construct fashionable messenger bags,
handbags, and backpacks.
As for LGBT culture and history, Zu~
rich has plenty. The Circlemagazine, pro~
duced in Zurich from 1943 to 1967, was
the only gay publication during WWII
and was circulated worldwide, including
.,
the United States. Also, 2014 marks the
20th anniversary of Zurich Pride. For les~
bian tourist attractions, The Fraumunster
Church was established in the 9th century
as an abbey for aristocratic women. The
abbess started the trend of female rulers
in Zurich that lasted for 500 years. Today,
in her place resides the lesbian mayor of
Zurich, Corinne Mauch. For nightlife,
visit the Barfusser, which opened in 1956
and is known to be the oldest gay bar in
Europe. Barfusser is popular as a weekend
starting point, before the crowds move on
to the new Heaven nightclub next door.
"People come out more in the winter, be~
cause there is so much to do in the sum~
mer in Zurich;' says the attractive lesbian
co~manager, Jordis.
So, plan to taste some wine at vineyards
set against the rolling hills near the Riviera,
and visit world~class museums in Switzer~
land's largest cities: A fall tour of the coun~
try-or
a visit at any time of year-will
prove to be a memorable adventure.
76
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
ve over, Costa Rica!
Panama is the hot Cen~
ral American desti~
ation of the moment,
and EcoCircuitos, a lesbian travel com~
pany, is at your service. Panama, which
bridges North and South America, has
many delights for the lesbian traveler, and
EcoCircuitos is the only lesbian owned and
run full service tour operator in Panama. A
proud member of the International Gay
and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA),
EcoCircuitos was founded by Panamanian
Annie Young in 1999, and began by offer~
ing unique travel itineraries throughout
Panama with extension options in Central
America.
"My country offers a delightful combi~
nation of amazing history, diverse cultures,
biodiversity, stunning national parks and
modern cosmopolitan living;' says Annie
Young, whose partner is from Oregon and
loves exploring the country with her. If
Panama is not yet on your vacation radar,
Young can bring you up to speed. "Panama
has more than 960 bird species; we have
accessible natural parks, two coasts (Pacir
M}
78
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
ic and Caribbean) and distinct microcli~
mates. This country has tropical lowland
forest, dry forest and cloud forest where
the possibilities for outdoor activities are
unlimited. San Lorenzo National Park is
one of our natural jewels and an UNES~
CO World Heritage sire:'
With so much to choose from, the Eco~
Circuitos team will tailor an itinerary that
caters to your interests and showcases the
best of the country. Tour packages are expe~
riential, combining outdoor adventure such
as hiking, kayaking, and rock climbing with
ecological experiences and cultural exchang~
es. Luxury and romance are also on the
menu, even honeymoon packages! Imagine
visits to unspoiled white sand beaches, snor~
keling in the beautiful Bocas del Toro archi~
pelago, hikes through rainforest, and strolls
along Panama City's newly built boardwalk
to admire the amazing skyline.
And Panama is safe for the lesbian trav~
eler. "Panama City is known as the most
cosmopolitan city in Central America and
much more open in comparison with oth~
er Central American capitals;' says Young.
"In the tourism industry we have compa~
nies that are attracting the LGBT traveler
by becoming part of international orga~
nizations such as TAG and IGLTA. My
company has handled LGBT travelers for
many years and my only suggestion would
be to avoid areas that are marked as un~
safe, as in any other city around the world:'
Young emphasizes that the common
factor in all her tours is "to keep the en~
vironmental impact to a minimum while
maximizing the benefits to the local host
communities:' To help fulfill this prom~
ise, a percentage of company profits are
donated to different local organizations
that support conservation, education and
sustainable development. And Young has
rallied support for her cause: the private
sector, in partnership with local associa~
tions such as the Panamanian Association
for Sustainable Tourism (of which Young
is president), is working to promote best
practices in tourism through education. "I
truly feel that the most important tool is to
educate our communities, workers, guides
and business owners on how to preserve
our natural and cultural assets for future
generations:' (ecocircuitos.com)
LOCAL
LESBIAN:
ANNIE
YOUNG'S
PANAMA
PICKS
coastline, July through October in the
Pearl Archipelago or in the Azuero
Peninsula. Truly an amazing experience.
Armed with a degree in Social
Communication from the University
BIODIVERSITY MUSEUM
of Panama, a diploma in Business
Newly constructed by famous architect
Strategies for Environmental
Frank Gehry, and his only work in Latin
Sustainability from Stanford, and a
America, the museum is a must visit.
course on Environmental Management
of International Tourism Development
from Harvard, Young is a pioneer in
COASTAL BOARDWALK
(CINTA COSTERA)
ecotourism. Here are her personal
Take a stroll and visit Casco Antigua,
favorites:
the colonial quarters of the city. This
SUNSET KAYAK
jazz clubs, shops and great nightlife.
area offers fantastic restaurants, bars,
A unique way to admire the scenery,
tropical birds, interesting mammals
MIRAFLORES LOCKS
or ships crossing the Panama Canal
A fascinating lesson in the history of the
Watershed.
busy Panama Canal.
CAMINO REAL
LOS QUETZALES TRAIL
A trail in the Soberania National Park
In the highlands of Chiriqui province,
used by the Spanish conquistadors
this is considered one of the best hikes
to transfer their treasures during the
in Central America and it is located
colony. Hike through lush forest and
between la Amistad International
observe abundant flora and fauna.
Park, shared with Costa Rica, and the
HUMPBACK WHALES
mountainous landscape and great
Observe the migratory journey of these
weather make this long distance hike a
majestic mammals along Panama's
must in Panama!
Baru Volcano National Park. Beautiful
WOMEN'S
ONLY
OUTDOOR
ADVENTURE,
PANAMA,
JUNE
2015
7-day adventure includes beachcombing, cultural activities, and fun in the city.
Book in advance and ask for the CurveDiscount!
(ecocircuitos.com)
TLOOKtSTARS
Winter Wanderlust
Don't bother making New Year's resolutions. They'll be broken before
January as Mars enters romantic Pisces. By Charlene Lichtenstein
Shonda Rhimes, writer-producer of
How to Get Away With Murder turns
45 on January 13.
CAPRICORN~
%
Sapphic Caps come~
off as serious and%
conservative and look like~
they lack self-confidence. ~
In truth, she is immensely%
talented, driven, and can~
achieve anything she%
sets her mind to. The~
problem is that along the~
way, she questions her%
abilities, kicking herself~
with her mountain goat%
legs. (And what legs!) ~
%
(Dec 23-Jan 20)
AQUARIUS~
(Jan 21-Feb 19) %
More U.S.presidents are ~
Aquarians than any other%
sign, therefore, it's~
important that she keep~
company with those%
who will not ignore~
her gifts. Naysayers or%
homophobes will cause~
her to question her~
own judgment, sap her%
strength and take the fire~
out of her convictions. %
Do what you can to~
rescue her. A genius~
wasted hurts the%
entire planet.~
%
%
Charlene
Lichtenstein
istheauthor%
of HerScopes:
A Guide
to Astrology%
forLesbians
(Simon
& Schuster)-%
%
tinyurl.
com/HerScopes.
%
Nowavailable
asanebook.'.%
80
CURVE
JAN/FEB
2015
Aries (March 21-April 20)
Leo (July 24-Aug 23)
Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 22)
She is giving you secret sexy
glances across the conference
room and you find any excuse
to linger with her in the supply
room. But both of you are not as
discrete as you might think. Do
you really believe that you can
keep any illicit office romance
Your powers of concentration
will increase this winter. Use it
to tackle any onerous, detailed
and long procrastinated project
at work. Clear off your desk,
your "to do" list and your "in"
box. Take your "out" box to the
nearest g-spot hot spot. There
Now is the time to concentrate
on your finances. Resolve to
better manage your dough and
watch it rise through the year.
Yes, there will be many delicious
temptations but try to focus on
the bottom line. As you start to
make capital gains, Sagittarians
a secret this winter? Not likely,
Aries. So go for her, if you
cannot resist. But be prepared
for the shareholder revolt.
may be a lovely lady there who
can not only fill it up but also gift
wrap it. So just do it.
may find that they can eat their
cake and have it too. Or maybe
it is just the cherry?
Virgo (Aug 24-Sept 23)
Capricorn (Dec 23-Jan 20)
The holiday season may be over
but that doesn't mean that you
can't continue the festivities in
January and even February. Take
a few calculated risks, maybe
You are full of vim and vigor
and are ready to take on the
world. Make your best move
and let the movers and shakers
know that you too can shake,
rattle and roll. Check yourself
Taurus (April 21-May 21)
Traveling with a purely platonic
girlfriend will have added
benefits this winter. Not only
will you two get into exotic,
unexpected and ultimately
fun mischief, you will also
discover much more to like
(and lust) about each other. Is
it worth turning a gal pal into a
lovergrrl? Yes. Even with all the
possibly confusing aftermath
when you both get back home.
even some low level gambling.
You have lady luck blowing on
your dice ...if that turns you on.
Virgos are ready to party hearty
and join the bunny hop line.
Keep hopping until Easter and
share your eggs.
out in the mirror and look
your best as you meet some
of the most bodacious babes
in town. Some of them will
figure prominently in your life
through the year. Which figure
do you prefer?
Libra (Sept 24-Oct 23)
Gemini (May 22-June 21)
Geminis can be very flirtatious
and acrobatic. Put your best
moves to work as you mingle
and co-mingle with the
Ladies gravitate to your home
this winter so be ready with
enough provisions to keep
everyone warm and cozy. Plan
some intimate get togethers
Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)
You may be on the fence in
choosing a certain lover grrl.
But continued inaction will
hostess with the moistest skills.
Or enlist some gal pals to help
have its own costs this winter.
So take a risk and pass a secret
love note to someone you have
been eyeing for a while. It will
you launch some minor home
projects that spruce up your
crib. Make your home into a
palace where you can become
royalty. Oh, too late?
be a bold move that will spark
her imagination. Will you feel
comfortable revealing yourself
completely? Or maybe just in
cheekless chaps?
Put more focus and effort into
your relationships, Cancer.
Find new ones or concentrate
on refreshing current ones.
You may need to jumpstart the
passion, revive the excitement
and dispatch any long term
Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)
Pisces (Feb 20-March 20)
A new year, a new you. Shake
off the cobwebs, get into first
gear and see where you want to
go now, Pisces. Your personal
journey may involve a bevy of
issues. But it will be worth the
effort. The nights are too cold
to shiver in bed alone. Shiver
with a special you-know-who
or who-knows-who.
fallow now. Dip into your deep
well of oral talent and pump it up
to the max. You flow seamlessly
into the zeitgayst. And who
knows who can happen next?
powerful high and mighties
this winter. Once you have
them where you want them,
try to use their influence to
advance your personal agenda.
Today the office couch, lover,
tomorrow the throne.
where you can show off your
Cancer (June 22-July 23)
Have a great idea? See someone
who catches your eye? Have
a momentous cause to push
forward? Scorpios are innately
very persuading and seductive.
So don't let your best assets lie
good girlfriends who can guide
you and help you build on your
successes. Or they may just
conspire to get you into lovely
mischief. Hmm, just who is this
Miss Chief anyway?
TheFloridaKeys
Key West has always been a haven for~rt,
music, great food and live theatre. And
if that's not enough, our legendary
sunsets play to sold out crowds
every night.
~
fla-keys.com/gaykeywest ....
-~
kfY WE
305 • 294 •4603
sr BIG PINE KEY& THE LOWERKEYS
A
.,._"~~
KeyWest
Close To Perfect - Far From Normal
~
✓
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