Get Used to It: Ep. 105, "Voices of Our Lives: Jean O'Leary"

(typewriter clunking) (upbeat dramatic music) - Hi, welcome to "Get Used To It." I'm Sheila Kuehl, your hostess of the month, and always, I guess. And today we've got a real treat for you. If you watch the show regularly, you know we do a series called "Voices of our Lives," where we talk to a really, truly wonderful person, just one person for a whole hour, and talk about their work in the movement, or their life, or whatever has gone on with them. And today Jean O'Leary is joining us. And I think of Jean as, I said this, I hope it was okay with her if I said this, kind of the Forrest Gump of our movement. When anything started, you name it, Jean was there, Jean the ideator, Jean the activist. So really, really happy to share Jean with you today. Welcome Jean O'Leary. - Oh, Sheila, thank you, I'm really happy to be here, very happy to be here. - Good, well, I want to, I'm kind of a linear thinker, so I think about people's lives kind of how each building block kind of builds, so start at the beginning, where did you grow up? - Well, I was born in New York in Kingston, New York. I lived in the New England states for the first part of my life, I'd say for the first six, seven years of my life in almost all the New England states. I basically, my roots, I would say would be in the Midwest in Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. - [Sheila] Because. - My dad moved around a lot. He was sales manager and he was transferred, and so he just sort of followed his path, and it was always very exciting for me to move. It was uprooting, yes, but it was always a challenge, and I welcomed it. I think I'd moved about 11 times before I finally wound up again in Pennsylvania at that time, I think in the convent we were jumping a bit. - Yes, well, let's talk about getting to that 'cause I think one of the interesting things I remember there was a book published not many, many years ago about lesbians who had been nuns. - Yes, it was called, "Lesbian Nuns Breaking the Silence." - [Sheila] Aha! - Yes. - So how did you come after all of this change, and moving, and kind of uprooting, as you said, how did you come to decide that you wanted to go in the convent? - Well, I think it happened on a number of levels as everything does. And in retrospect I can look back and probably put it into its place more readily than I did then. But at the time I think I had a calling. I was a pretty wild teenager. I somewhat reformed in my senior year. I remember doing the valedictorian speech to the Magnificat, which was my high school, and talking about the chances that I had to reform myself. I had been expelled a couple of times, you know the whole thing. And I basically did a whole turnaround and decided to go into the convent. But on another level there was something else happening, and that was I had the fantasy of being on an island of all women. I knew that I was a lesbian on a very subconscious level, and I wanted to be with women. But I also thought at the same time that if I went into the convent, all my feelings would go away and that I could take care of 'em that way. So it was a big contradictory bunch of things that was happening when I went into the convent, but on a personal level- - And you were very young, right, just outta high school? - Just outta high school, right. I had just graduated from my senior year at Magnificat. - And what was it like in the convent? Did it turn out to be a fantasy island of women? - [Jean] Yes. - Not in the way they expected, I imagine. - Well, I don't know what they expected, but it was, I'm not gonna say, and try to give the impression that it was a hot bed of lesbianism because it wasn't, that would be to denigrate something that is so sacred, and I think that those were years of my life that I would never trade for anything. But I did come out in the convent, and I did have several relationships in the convent, including a relationship with my postulant mistress which kind of set the tone for the rest of the place. - [Sheila] Right. - And we... Vatican too was happening at that time, which was a whole sort of a revolution of the Catholic hierarchy in the Catholic church, and everything was being examined. We had things like sensitivity groups running every week. We had, and in that closed environment, can you imagine every week and then intenseness building up in the self examination. And things were very different than let's say the secular, almost secular way that the convents are now where they go out and, you were pretty much in the novitiate shit and closed in. We were on a farm, we lived on a farm. And actually it was very idyllic, and it was almost a fantasy, it was. And I developed some very, very strong relationships then, relationships that have touched me and influenced me for the rest of my life. And there was a spirituality involved in it too, very much so. It was all connected, even though maybe I wasn't doing all the right things at the right time, it was all for the right purposes, and to me, it all flowed together. - But you did make the decision to leave. Was that a painful one? - Yes. It was very painful because the most painful thing was was knowing and coming to grips with the fact that I was a lesbian, and that I could no longer stay in the convent and be true to myself, this would be an escape then. This was fine while it lasted while I could justify it, while I wasn't sure, but when I really came to grips with the fact that I am, I didn't say lesbian 'cause I didn't know the word then, but I am gay. Then I took steps to really try to do something about that. And I read an article in Cosmopolitan (all laughing) by an anonymous lesbian who turns out to be Liz Smith, years later. And she said that all the lesbians gather in Greenwich Village, in New York someplace. And so, I decided that my course of academic persual was organizational development. And the only two universities in the country that really had a doctoral program in that was Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, which I wasn't about to go back to, and Yeshiva University. (both laughing) - Right from the convent to Yeshiva University. - One institution to another. - This is good. - Yes, and I was at Yeshiva for four, five years while I pursued my doctoral studies there. And- - Now, what year are we talking about, Jean, just to put this in historic? - Well, let's see, 66, 70, probably 70 I arrived in New York, which was right after the Stonewall riots. And I was there for all the beginnings of the gay activist lions. - Was it an exciting time? - It was very exciting, very, oh, I thought I'd just died and gone to heaven. I'd come home, I remember going on my first date and feeling validated. I mean, I was out in a restaurant with two people and two people, a double date. And just being on it was just like in the movies where we actually had our roles we were playing and things like that that we did in those days. And it was, I felt I'd gone home. And I made a vow to myself at that point and somewhere along the weeks there, but in that time period that I would never want anybody to experience all the years that I had experienced stifling, and pushing this down, these feelings, and that I was coming out, that's all, I'm out now bring it on, and I'm gonna try to make the world safe for lesbians, again, I didn't know the right words, but sure I was on my path. - Now, a lot of people experience the sort of freedom of coming out more and more, of course, as it became safer and safer, and well talk about National Coming Out Day a little later, but, not everyone, very few people actually who experience this go on to want to work so that other people can experience it. I mean, not everyone turns into an activist. What do you think led you, let's say in the very first instance, here you are, you're in your graduate program, you're experiencing maybe some of the development of consciousness around you, what leads you to the next step where you wanna do something about it? - There were no half measures in those days. You were in the closet, or you were out of the closet, or you were fooling around at the bars maybe. There was a lot of that, of course always, but you didn't work in a movement halfway. And once I had signed on with the Gay Activist Alliance and I was head of the Lesbian Liberation Committee, and we did a lot of things there for women, I also got all caught up in it. It was something that I didn't want to look at the other side and say, "Gee, I could go back to that world and run for Congress." Yes I could, I mean, I had my degrees, A, B D, but I had the background, I had everything that I could use to go into politics, but I didn't wanna take that route, I didn't wanna be closeted anymore. And so, what happened was, is I came out and I wound up being the first everything that was out there, the first one to go to the White House, the first one to be appointed to a presidential committee, the first, I mean, you name it, there I was, maybe in the right place at the right time, but I was kind of leading the pack, I was setting the agenda, there's no question about it. - Now, that's a kind of a leap from the alliance and the lesbian, heading up this first lesbian committee to the issue of politics. I mean, many people in those days saw them as very, very different things. So we're talking Jimmy Carter, his election, right? And how then do you get from the kid in New York who's an activist in the middle of what's a very radical work, one would think? - Well, I was always reaching for something more, and I was always working on every single different level. And I remember my first foray into that was with Ethan Geto, who is a very prominent consultant back on the East Coast. And we got together and we decided that I would run as a delegate. And I would run on the Birch by slate, which is a long story, and he failed in Massachusetts. Bella Abzug had her own slate, Mo Udall had his slate. We collapsed those three slates of 18 people into six people, which was a very ingeniousian warfare with me and Bella on both sides of the door, she's not letting me into those smoke filled back rooms, and I'm saying I'm raising money and we can do it here with the gay and lesbian community for the first time. And I ran into the auspices of someone special 'cause we couldn't say the word. - [Sheila] Right. - So I went to the convention, the 1976 convention, as a delegate. I did get onto the slate, and we campaigned up and down the streets with our little hay wagon and our, what do you call those things that you talk through? - Bullhorns. - Bullhorn in Manhattan. And I got more votes than Bella in Chelsea, which I love. So, but I went there and I voted for Carter at that convention. And the Mo Udall people wanted me to be a purist because the slates had collapsed, this might be getting into too much detail here. - No, no, it's fine, I think, although it is interesting because there's a difference between the way people see activism and the way people see democratic politics. And I think it's interesting that you made, or very early on in the movement when we were kind of an embarrassment in many places where you made that to transition. - Crossover. - Yeah. - Oh, it was so hard, I can't begin to tell you. I was running in this camp, and then trying to run back to the street activist and the separatist to explain what I was doing. We were still working on things like lesbian separatism and what that meant to the feminist, and the lesbian feminist community. And then there was the gay community who had us on the back burner of everything because they were the men and we were just little adjunct surrogate, lovers, mothers, sisters, whatever. And then we had the feminist movement who didn't wanna see hiding her hair of us, but there we were the stalwarts in the background pushing the movement forward and providing all that energy, and having to come back and explain to these people then my party politics and why I was making these particular choices, and people, very few people could understand the permutations and the complications, and the complexity of the life that I led because there was only one of me, very few of us, very few and very few peers I could talk to about this. I could talk to a peer here, a peer here, a peer here, but each one had their specialty and I was like, had to be everywhere maybe. - But it is interesting, Jean, and that I think is one of the things that has really distinguished you. And as we'll see, and as we go on and talk about all the other organizations that you started participated in is that you really would not pigeonhole yourself, but you were there, I think in a very central way, in so many places where the others around you were pigeonholed, and I think didn't want to be over there, I mean, that was very different yet you're doing street activism, you're doing democratic politics, and bringing something certainly into those democratic politics that had never been there before. What was the appointment that President Carter made? - That was the appointment to the International Women's Year. - [Sheila] Oh yeah. - That was an outstanding accomplishment in two years of my life, that's probably two of the most important years of my life. That's when we actually made The Lesbian Agenda, which also brought along The Gay and Lesbian Agenda, and made that part officially for the first time of The Feminist Agenda. And it was not easy, I had to, I worked on a level where I was one of 42 commissioners, I was the only openly lesbian person there, that was all women, of course, I had no support at all, except from Eleanor Smeal, who is President of NOW at that time, and a fundraiser from New York, I can't remember her name, but Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, all my friends through the years, and I hate to say this because at some points it just got too rocky that we couldn't be political friends. They were not promoting my agenda, which was to get lesbianism included into the 26 point agenda at the conference. And that 26 point agenda was in alphabetical order. So for the first time they didn't wanna talk about lesbianism with an L, they wanted to talk about sexual orientation, sexual, they said sexual orientation. And that was to get it down to the end of the alphabet so that maybe we wouldn't be heard. So we made these big buttons and they said, "Keep the agenda moving, let every issue be heard." And we passed them out to a lot of other minorities who found themselves down at the end of the agenda for one reason or another. And I'll never forget when that resolution came up for passage, and the people from, I believe it was South Carolina or North Carolina, got up, turned their backs, a delegation, I forget which one it was walked out. We were blackballed from the history of that convention. We have one paragraph in it like this, but the lesbians sat on the aisles and had big those baskets of yellow balloons and sent up 100s of yellow balloons when the resolution passed, and we said, "Thank you, sisters." And it was just a, it was a time that "Ms. Magazine" marked it officially the month afterwards saying that now lesbianism was an official part of The Feminist Agenda. - Interesting. - And I had to go through 38 states, a majority of the states, on a statewide level, I hired two people just to have to be at those conventions so that our resolution would get passed on each state because my resolution failed on the commission level. - Hmm. But it was exciting, I mean- - [Jean] Oh yeah. - It's funny because people say, "Oh, that sounds like such a struggle." Or they don't wanna hear because it sounds like it was such a hard thing, and yet, I don't know that it's possible sometimes to also talk about the joy of the struggle, even when it's hard. - It was incredible. And when it was successful, it was the highs and lows were incredible. - [Sheila] Right. - When it was low, it was low. I cried at most of those commission meetings, but I rejoiced and celebrated so at the culmination of it, and so did everybody else, and it was a national victory. And when you have something like that and you know that you just worked so hard for it, and you've made it go from here to here, you've had many of those Sheila, you know what it is to take it- - The highs and the lows, absolutely. - And it takes something from the beginning to end. Even when you have a lot of people that are helping you and you know they're your support people, but you know that you've orchestrated it and it's happened that way. - Now what ever possessed you to think that a group of gay and lesbian people could, or was it just lesbians, to visit the White House? - Oh, it was gays and lesbians. Well because mainly I had done the work to prep for it at the convention. We knew Midge Costanza- - Who was appointed by Carter. - Carter an assistant to the President, which was cabinet level, not a special assistant, but assistant. Her office was right next to the White House, I mean, to the Oval Office. And we had a great relationship. So as soon as he got in there and took his shoes off for a minute, I guess. - Put on his sweater. - He said, "It's time," which was the name of our newsletter at that time, "It's Time," it was always it's time, it's time now, past time, let's go. And so I called Midge and I said, "Let's have this meeting." And she said, "Okay, go ahead set it up." So I picked 13 issues from that could be orchestrated on a federal level. And I picked with Bruce Voeller, who was my co-executive director at that time, we picked 13 people to represent those issues, and people who were expert in their fields, Immigration and Naturalization, the Civil Rights Commission, the Prison Commission, just to name a few. And we had the White House meeting. And then the best part of it was we had subsequent meetings with all the heads of all these departments, not their surrogates, not there all St. Sally Joe did represent them, but because it was the White House calling, we met with Carlson, Bureau of Prisons, I can't remember their names now but we met with all the top people. And we got a lot of things done, we got heard for the first time, the issues of that were brought to that national forefront on that level. - And you said your co-executive director, what was your work at the time? - At that time I was working with the National Gay Rights Advocate, no, the National Gay Taskforce. - Aha! Now, when did the task force start 'cause you were with them early on, I think? - It started right before I arrived there. It started in 76, I think, maybe 75. - So they were in Washington, so you had.- - No, they were in New York. - [Sheila] They were in New York, aha! - They were in New York. And Bruce was the head of the Gay Activist Alliance. When I had split from the Gay Activist Alliance and formed Lesbian Liberation Committee because our little committee started out as a subcommittee of the Human Rights Committee of the Gay Activist Alliance, that was the women, that's where we were. And we became Lesbian Liberation Committee. And then we split and formed our own separate disorganization called LFL, Lesbian Feminist Liberation. And Bruce was instrumental in making that split happen by saying he was the president and wanted to be at our meeting when we elected our officers, and that was something we felt that that was just, that was for one- - Needed a man to oversee all, which is what the girls were doing. - Exactly. And of course it was according to bylaws, but he didn't have to push it. And because he did, we said, "Okay, bye bye, enough is enough." So we formed our own separatist organization, but I could only go with that for so far. What are you gonna do with a separatist organization? I was never into it for that long. I tried to read the books, I was never a theorist, I read Jill Johnson, I read, who else did I read? All those people. I love Charlotte Bunch, now that was a really good head, she was my theoretician, I was always the activist, But I tried to figure out where we were going with this, I couldn't figure it out. So I went and I started lobbying in Albany and I brought a few people up there just to. I got tired of that, so I went back to Bruce who is now at the Gay Activist Alliance, or the Gay Task Force, and I said, "Bruce, let's bury the hatchet, there's too much to be done here, let's get it back together and work." And he was such a man, he was the greatest guy, he is now dead but he's... So anyway, I was the Legislative Director for about three months, and then I became the Co-executive Director with Bruce. And that was as a result of a number of meetings we went to where things were forming, and that was becoming the thing to do, and we were of course promoting it, and I looked at him and I said, "How can we promote this when I'm not there? We can co with you." So we made a great team from that time on. - And it was a national task force, were you organizing across the country? - Yes, we were, yes, all over the country. We had, we were like a clearing house and we had places across the country in different cities that were organizing civil rights bills. And I remember that one thing we wanted to do more than anything else was to bring this, again, to national attention on the "Today Show" or something, anything that would have us, and try to show them that this wasn't happening just in Boston, just in San Francisco, just in LA, but that this was a movement that was taking place, it was a social movement, it was a political movement, it was a cultural movement, and that all these things were connected, and watch out because there's something happening here. And I did get to go on the "Today Show" and say that for about a minute and a half. - Hey, that's not bad, it's a big audience. - That's right. And in those days it was a first again, first, but, again, we just put the word out there. - So what came next for you? 'Cause you stayed, you left the task force was it still the 70s or... I lose track too, of course, but I just, I like to ask because there's a certain sort of context that people give to these decades in the 70s everything was kind of raw, people were making it up as we went along, who knew? - Right. When did I leave? Towards the end of the 70s, the end of the 70s. And I had just about, I was ready to take a break, and I moved to the West Coast. And I thought I would go into real estate or do some insurance. - You just wanted to leave the Gay Movement for a while, or were you just sick and tired? - I was sick and tired. - Yeah, talk about that, I mean- - Well I was burned out, I was... We were at the task force, Bruce and myself for about six years, and it was time to do something different. And I'd met all these lesbians and gay people here on the West Coast who were working against the Briggs Initiative, was it Briggs at that time or was Know 164, I think the first one. And they impressed me so as being professional people, and oh, by the way, I'm a lesbian, oh, by the way I'm... And so they had me come out and they had me talk to the SCWU, Southern California Women for Understanding. And then I got involved with Gail Wilson and a few people here, and David Mixner, and Peter Scott, and Sheldon Adelson, and Sheldon wanted me to run the center and tried to convince me to please take that position. And I was like, "Nope, I'm going to make money now. I'm going to go into real estate and do that." So I did that for about three years, and it was a little of this, a little of that, but it really wasn't making me happy. And I never gave up politics, but I did make a real honest attempt to try to make some money and do something different. And then a group asked me to join the board of the Gay Rights Advocates, National Gay Rights Advocates. - And it was a legal. - It was a legal organization. And I thought, "Well, I don't really need this in my life, but what the heck, I'll just see about this." So I did, and my mom had died, which was very interesting to me, sad, of course, and in March of that year. And it was kind of like this thing 'cause I was floundering, I really wasn't happy. And then this board opened up, and I went to the board meeting, and at the board meeting they were having all sorts of problems, you couldn't even imagine. And I didn't even know any of these people, but there was West Coast, and I had really come basically from Los Angeles and this was San Francisco. And they asked me, Fred Ponder, and Dan Knutson, and Richie Rouilard if I would consider being the executive director and pulling the organization out. And I thought, what a challenge. - It certainly was. - I'd love to do that. And so I did and I said, but the stipulation is, is that I really wanna keep my home base in Los Angeles, no, San Francisco and Los Angeles- - Oil and water. - That would start a trouble right away. - [Sheila] Right. - But I got that, and I said that I would do it, and I did. I made that organization the largest membership organization, the largest financial organization of its time. And we did it through direct mail and through telemarketing and all those things that I love to do, I was a fundraiser and I knew how to put the pieces together, and I was also very political. - [Sheila] Right. - And they were very legal. And so, it was oil and water from the very beginning. It was a long eight year relationship, but it was rocky. - That's a long time though to be the executive director of any 501(c)(3), I mean- - It's too long, anybody should know if you're thinking about doing it. Five years. - Five years and out. - Five years and out. - But you did build that organization amazingly and brought a lot of people into, I think, awareness of what I saw as kind of the next step, which is you can do organizing, you can identify the issues, you can even work sort of on politics. But the reason you work on politics really is to make the law, I mean, otherwise what's the point, it's all funding and the budget or the law. And I think drawing the attention of the community to the fact that we needed to fight for our rights through the law as a next necessary step was a very important one. - Well, we did a lot of precedent setting cases and they really took hold, Pac Bell case, many cases we had seven or eight that were precedent setting with AIDS, we just did so much for that at that time. And it's right, you're right, once it's implemented into the law, there it is, you have to do something else to change it. I always tempered that with the cultural and the media, and basically where I came from I was trying to lead an organization that did just what we were discussing before, but I wanted to do National Coming Out Day, for instance. - Now, how did that idea get started? - That was, it started on the March on Washington, well, actually it's an idea that everybody's had since the beginning of time. And the idea is, is that, well, if there was ever one day where everybody could turn lavender tomorrow, this is the way it used to be, gee, wouldn't our oppression be over because everybody would know where we were. Now looking back, I have a whole different opinion of that because now they know where we were and there'd be no place to hide, and we'd have all sorts of different oppressions that other minority groups face. And actually we've been, protected is not the right word, but we've been sheltered in a way because we have been hidden and we've been able to move further, faster than any other minority group because we've been in positions of power and been able to move through the channels without necessarily being discovered or. And that's how we made a lot of our progress and we have gone so far so fast. But it started current time with March on Washington, the 1987 March on Washington, it was one of the things that was called for. And then we had a war conference where in 1988 we had a conference on the East Coast about 200 people there. And we took four or five ideas that came out of the March on Washington and that we just also called from groups, and as you do on conferences and you get together, you say, "Let's do this, let's do this, let's do this." And National Coming Out Day was put up on the table, and I was like, "Oh God, this is gonna be the straw that broke the camel's back if I do this, I just, but I wanna do it, I really, really wanna do it." So I ran over to my two lawyers and I said, "I'm going to do this, got any objections? 'No.'" And so then I ran over to Robbie Eichberg and I said, "Robbie, this is perfect for us. We need to do this, we need to do it together. With where you're coming from and where I'm coming from, the political and the personal, this will make just a beautiful thing, and let's do it." And he said, "You're in." And that's when we formed National Coming Out Day. And we took it under the auspices of the Gay Rights Advocates, National Gay Rights Advocates for the first year. We spent probably $100,000. It was very controversial if you can believe that, people saying that we were spending money marketing, trying to force people out of the closet. - [Sheila] Oh sure. - When really our message was take your next step. Wherever you are, please just take your next step, whether it's your family, whether your job, talking to somebody on an airplane you don't wanna talk to and you're stuck there, but yeah, that's what I did. That was above and beyond the call, by the way. - I would think how the other guy felt. He was stuck there too. - I imagine. - Next to a lesbian, oh my goodness. - [Jean] Yeah. - Well, I remember Kate Clinton did a very funny routine about National Coming Out Day, and I think it was actually early on when it had first started, where she was talking about what counted and what didn't count. You couldn't go to the cemetery and come out to your grandmother who was in the ground, that was no good. If a bus was going by, it couldn't be flying by you and you go, "I'm gay," and that was, that didn't count. She had a very funny routine. But it really caught people's imaginations. And I think of all of the things that the movement has thought to do, that one seems to me to be the most important because from the notion of it, whether it's that exact age year, or the notion of coming out per se, it was a thing that people could do if they didn't wanna go any further than that step, which is a big step for many people. But it seemed to really reveal after a number of years, not only we are here, we're here, we're queer get used to it, but we're here and we have families, we're here and we're your daughter. So much stemmed from it. - Yes. Well, it's always been the core of my belief, always it's been the essence of everything that's driven me in terms of everything I've done in this movement, it's coming out and coming out to the degree that you can because the more people who know that you're out on whatever levels, that's gonna change the attitude, smooth the way, make everything else happen. And I'm so glad it's been institutionalized, it's our national holiday now. And it's under the auspices of the human rights campaign. And they're taking it again now to other levels, which is wonderful. - Well, and I think when you look at young people who take for granted that there ought to be a place to do this, or that one can do it in a way that we never did, and I don't fault them, I'm not saying like, "Oh, they don't know how hard it was," but sort of it's a logical culmination. But the other thing though, Jean, that, I mean, here you are with the sort of gay and lesbian movement, pushing it into sort of that next step. You're still active with the party, right, at this point. So deeply in democratic politics. - [Jean] Deeply. - And still then also thinking, though you weren't a separatist, about the women. And I don't know whether the chronology is quite right, but the first Women's Night, which was not a part of the Gay and Lesbian Center when you started it. - [Jean] No. - It seems to me it was about the same time, am I right? - As what. - As we're talking about here with National Coming Out Day. - Yes, it was, it was exactly, I think 1984, it's about four years earlier, 1988 was the first National Coming Out Day, but- - Right. Well, talk about this women's thing too. - Oh, this was very special. - Very special, I agree. - I knew that there had to be a place, I wanted a place for women to come together and just have everything be magic and be special. I love music, I love dressing up, I love celebrities, stars, the whole thing, and I wanted it for lesbians, we never got that. We got to go to things that would give an awards that would go on for 14 hours until you're falling asleep and you turn like this. And it was all very nice 'cause we got to pat ourselves on the back, but there was nothing special about it. And I wanted people to have a place where they could go and just, it would just be so titillatingly wonderful. And at the time I think that the bars were having things like, Caroline Clone had, I forget what they called it. Some similar thing was taking place for younger people, for the bar crowd, but this was something different. I wanted to have it before, people who were older, people who were established. People had a hard time coming to this first of all. - Really? - Yes. I remember some very good friends of mine that I wish I could mention, but I'm sure I can't, that they probably wouldn't matter if I asked them now but, I remember talking to them saying, "Well, are you coming? 'No, sorry, Jean, somebody might see us there, it's a hotel, its a public forum.'" - So just going to this thing was a way of coming out, I mean, or you would be assumed obviously. - Right, because it was the talk of the hotel for one thing. - Of course. You had to come into that lobby, get into the elevator, go up to the roof, I mean- - And there's all these women's dressed to the nines, some in tuxs, some in gowns, some, just all mixed up all over the place, it wasn't necessarily all roles or anything, but it was definitely, there was no men there. - [Sheila] Right. - And people really got, I mean they did, it was, they'd never seen anything like this before, and neither had we. We looked at each other and went, "Wow, isn't this special." - It was very exciting, it was exciting, and it was, well, I mean, it was exciting because there were all these gorgeous people. I mean, they were, we weren't all gorgeous- - We were gorgeous then though. - But we felt pretty gorgeous. - Those days we were. - Yeah, we were pretty gorgeous, well, we were younger in those days, so I guess we were gorgeous as well. Now do I remember right that Jane Fonda was at one of these earlier? - Oh yes, yes, Jane Fonda was there and she was fabulous. She went to every single table and said hello to every single person there. She knew how special this was. And we had communicated it to her, she wasn't just fast in and out, here, I'll do my speech and you're lucky to have me, everybody. She spent hours there. She danced with Midge Costanza, I'll never forget that out there. But that was only after she had gone to each and every table, let everybody take snapshots forever, and just did a real personal approach. There were very few people supporting us in those days though, even that late in the 80s. - Very few. And again, especially lesbians, I mean, you had places, venues where you could get people to come out for AIDS, that was easy. That wasn't easy in the very beginning- - [Sheila] No. - But in the late 80s, that was the thing to do. And then it sort of brushed over into MECLA and our- - MECLA was to support candidates. - Right. Right. - And our major national organizations were able to reap some of those benefits too because they realized that, "Oh, this group is very political, there's a lot of money here, this is not to be ignored," and that just automatically happened. But it was much harder for lesbians to command the attention, to command the power, to command the, we were always an adjunct of the women, and adjunct of the men, but to come out there and be the lesbians ourselves and command power just for that, and now there's much more of it of course. - Well, it's interesting, you're right because in the feminist movement, we were an embarrassment and then an afterthought, and in the gay movement, we were just an afterthought, I mean, we weren't even present enough to be an embarrassment at first. - I remember going on zaps, we call 'em zap center or things, and on the picket line going, "Ah, for this film," and they said, "This is a gay film, what are you doing here? 'I am gay, but actually I'm a lesbian, do you know that word lesbian?'" And that's I think all the semantics got to be around that. We couldn't say we were gay anymore because when they said gay, they just thought gay men, we had to come up with lesbian so there'd be a distinction, and they'd know that there were women somewhere around. - Well, the sign at the center, the Gay Community Services Center, and the day that someone went and put in a little carrot that said, "And lesbian," on their front door sign. - [Jean] Uh-huh, exactly. - Talk about graffiti but that it was difficult to find that inclusion. And I think this gathering of women, you're right, it was fun, but there was something more to it as well. I mean, when you walk into a room and you say, "Here's 200 people all open about being lesbians," it must be more okay than I thought. I mean, it gave everybody, I think, a lot of courage, it was very important work. - [Jean] Yes. - Now then the Gay and Lesbian Center acquired the idea- - Yes (indistinct) actually came and asked me if I would move it over to the center and do that, and I said, I'd be happy to, I'd love to. - And it's still there. - And it's still there. - We have Women's Night. - Yes. - And it's a big deal. - It's the 20th anniversary this year. - That's right. It's quite an accomplishment, Jean, quite an accomplishment. So, National Coming Out Day, the women's event, where'd you go from there? - Well, I've spent a lot of time with the Democratic National Committee. I was appointed to the committee because I came out with the caucus in 1988, and worked real hard for him. I think I was the only appointment that ever came out of that whole race. And then subsequently, I created a house party program for Diane Feinstein and for the Clinton Gore campaign in 1992. And I raised $2 million in $25 donations. - [Sheila] Wow. Wow. - In this little formula that, big formula that I put together where we would have 1,000 parties on one night all happening at the same time. And the formula is $40 times 25, each party would raise $1,000 or whatever other formula they could put in. And it actually worked, I mean, we raised over $2 million between those two campaigns. And so then I was appointed to the Executive Committee of the DNC, and I worked on that for 12 years and just recently resigned from that in last January. - [Sheila] Ah-huh, wow. - Yeah. I was also the Chair of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus of that committee for eight years, and also the Chair of the Convention Caucus for two years, I forget which two, two conventions there were, for two full conventions I led the Gay and Lesbian Caucus on the floor. - Well, it's, I mean, yours is a very rare story actually. I mean, I know there may be six or seven other people who have been active as long as you've been active, and without question from the very beginning devoted to this movement. What is it about gay and lesbian liberation, or the gay and lesbian movement that kept you, keeps you going in terms of this work? I mean, what is it that I wouldn't say drives you, but calls you, you talked about a calling when you went into the convent, yet the calling of your life has been this movement. - Well, it's the freedom to be who you are, to be yourself with no closets, with no strings, no. Everybody's got their own baggage that they bring to their lives and they create that along the way, but shouldn't have to be created for us and we don't have to buy into it. And again, it comes back to that coming out thing, it's always comes back to coming out, and being yourself, and being the most honest person that you can. And then of course, that's on the real nitty gritty level. There's a lot of perks that come along the way, I mean, all the work in politics, all the little successes that you have, all the people that you meet, it's wonderful. I mean, obviously you're one of my favorite people, I would never have a chance to be working with you if I wasn't doing this. It's a combination of all that good people and good cause, and try never to lose sight of it. You make mistakes along the way, everybody does, but basically you try to keep your eye on the ball. - Do you feel that it's changed much from what you see now? - Sure. - In what ways do you think? - Well, like any movement we've become assimilated, thank God. I know that are people who take the opposite viewpoint, but it's like term limits, I mean, if you don't have somebody in there that's gonna be holding the ford and knowing what they're doing, it's like all those gains that we made during the Carter years when we met with all those departments, well, they sure were wiped out when he lost the election the next time around 'cause all the top guys left, and we had nobody even in staff positions that we could go back to and say, "Remember when we were here and we spent three years working on these issues?" So now we've been assimilated, people have been appointed to positions in power in the administration all over the place. We are, again, everywhere and we should be, that's what's changed. And some things are inevitable. You say you don't wanna lose sight of the ball, you don't wanna lose sight of the drive, you don't wanna lose sight of the purpose, which is always more and more freedom and equality, we're moving now we're talking about marriage rights, we're talking about civil unions, whatever. I mean, full equality in this society, nothing less 'cause we deserve nothing less. But at the same time, the whole process is the compromise process, and assimilate a little, give back a little, move in further a little bit, bring some more people around with you, move in deeper, get it here, get it there, you understand what I'm saying? - [Sheila] Sure. - And then you come back and whoops, you got a whole new regrouping to do, and we've moved to another level just like that. I never thought, I thought the last bastions would be the army, Hollywood, and marriage. And we're cracking right into each one of 'em, I mean, we have problems with each one obviously, we could go into each one of those in depth, but to even think that those would be touched in my lifetime. See for me, the glass is just always half full. And when people say we're not moving fast enough, good, I like to hear that too, because somebody's gotta, as they say, break the eggs and somebody's gotta make the omelets, and if the troops weren't out there, and the grassroots weren't out there crying about how fast we're not going, then we wouldn't be moved, we wouldn't be pushed, it's all balances. - So for you, is it a life well spent? - Oh yes, I don't regret one second of it. - Well, I don't want you to regret one second of it because it leads to so much, I mean, that's the interesting thing is that sometimes, and I'm kind of reminded of that Charlie Chaplin movie where he was just walking down the street and before you know it he's at the head of a parade, but he didn't know it till he looked and saw people were behind him. It's kind of like that, isn't it? I mean, you don't think about bringing the whole country with you when you jump into something new like that, it's really more a matter of justice, I guess. - I think it's a little half and half for me because I was there with so many of the first. I did jump in, I mean, when I made a lavender dinosaur to take down to the Museum of Natural History to protest sexism against women, I never thought it would have the ramifications that did, tugging this thing along 5th Avenue and bringing it to the museum, 75 feet long, things like that. But on the other hand, we knew we were doing something special that this didn't just begin here, we took every single exhibit and showed how this was sexist to women. Yeah, we were leading, we were leading. - And are there people who have been working in the movement as long as you with whom you're still working, still in contact, still encouraging. - Not on a day to day basis, they've pretty much scattered but they're there, they're still out there. - Well, our friend Ginny Foat was just elected to the City Council in Palm Springs. - Yes, and she is my business partner also. - She is, what's the business? - We have O'Leary and Associates, and we do phones, and we do automated messaging for politicians and for fundraisers. - So when I get a call from Bill Clinton, that says, "Hi, this is Bill Clinton." - We did Bill Clinton in the last election cycle, yes we did. We did Hillary Clinton also, Barbara Boxer, yes, we did all those calls, a lot of them. - I actually like those calls, I saved them. "It's kind of like, "Hey, come over listen to this Bill Clinton called me." - I'm not surprised, yeah. - A lot of people do, I know people probably think they're annoying or whatever, but I really, I don't know, do you think they're effective as well? - I absolutely think they're effective, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't do anything I didn't think was effective, and I think that that's for, especially for your last minute get out to vote and for other things that we're experimenting with even more now, they're very, very effective. - So Jean, do you worry about the country now? Worry about the movement? How do you think we're doing? - I'm not really worried, I think we're moving just along like lightning. Just hope we keep our eye in the ball and just keep moving, and we got a lot of good, good, good people out there. - It's true, although it feels as though the right wing has made so many sort of gains, had so many victories, I mean, we look at Washington for instance, it must be very difficult for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, for HRC, for our lobbying arms. - Well, look at our new administration, I'm sure that doesn't make things easy with Bush in there, and it makes us all very unhappy, but it's that pendulum swing, I can't help it if I'm the happy optimist, and I don't mean to sound Pollyannaish, but- - No, I've never heard you be Pollyannaish, Jean. - I've been around so long to see that pendulum swing back and forth and back and forth and the changes and every time you take one step forward, you don't take two steps backward, it's just the opposite, you take, we're moving. And I can't see that we've been decimated or set back in any major way, it's just another obstacle to overcome. It's when Anita Bryant came out and provided us with the Orange Juice Boycott and a way to really bring this to the national forefront. Everything is, look at marriage, look at DOMA, look at, I mean, did we ever expect to get anything on the federal level? We were going after ENDA, and well, we didn't get everything we wanted, but I mean, who would know that that would've been, the issue would've been raised to that level then of marriage? No, we're talking about civil rights, all of a sudden, whoops, hey. I think all the leaders had to run to catch up out there, it's marriage now, something happened overnight. - So what's the thing you're proudest of? - I think National Coming Out Day, yeah, and International Women's Year also. National Coming Out Day because it lives on, International Women's Year does too, it's just that more in the past, but those are two of my biggest accomplishments. The White House meeting, that was also very, very important. - It's actually been a lot of accomplishments. - Yeah. - Well, you're not gonna believe this, but the time's up. - [Jean] You're kidding. - No, I told you it would go fast. We talked for a whole hour and I just, I loved it. I'm so happy you were on the show. - Oh, me too, Sheila. - And I know that you were happy that Jean was on the show too because this is a story I think very unusual, not totally unique, but unusual of a life devoted to movement, to politics, to action, to the philosophy of action. And I think if there were a lot more of us, we'd get used to it. (bright upbeat music)