What was missing from my "Milk" posts...
The women.
In the mid 70s in SF, I attended what turned out to be a large organizing meeting with people whose sexual orientation was varied, at the very least, LGB and allies, before the rest of the acronym was developed. While the goals of the meeting were the same, gay rights, the men and women didn't get along, could not come to agreement on anything. One would think that because the goals were the same that they could quickly come to agreement related to strategies. No way. Then I finally realized that while these were gay men, they were still men first, socialized as men, and women, who communicated differently. I had thought that issues of being gay would transcend issues of gender roles, but it didn't. And that was an interesting aha!
So the women were lobbying for gay and lesbian rights. A popular book at the time, "Sappho was a Right On Woman" (http://www.amazon.com/Sappho-Right-Woman-Sidney-Abbott/dp/0812824067). raised or exposed the issue of heterosexual woman's homophobia. Women involved in the women's movement were fearful of gay women becoming involved and of the issues being hijacked from Women's Issues to Lesbian Rights. Of course, not only were lesbians involved, but they were the one's who had time and energy, who often didn't have husbands or children who needed attention, and who were able to and who did provide much of the work and backbone for the women's rights movement.
In addition, I also knew and worked with Phyllis Lyons, ( who with her partner, Del Martin, wrote the Lesbian Bible, "Lesbian/Woman" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/091207891X/ref=sr_1_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229360791&sr=1-1) . Del, who recently passed away, and Phyllis, were able to marry, not once but twice under California law, the second time was June 15, 2008, before Proposition 8 was passed. They had been together for over 55 years.
Think of all the women for whom they served as role models, teachers, mothers, grandmothers, families, and think of all who were able to learn from their example, their talks, their book, their interviews, humor, love and their courage.
