HIGH GEAR/AUGUST 1977

A LESBIAN MOTHER'S STRUGGLE

TO KEEP HER SON

by Matt Phillips

PAGE 22

At one time Mary Jo Risher, her two sons Jimmy and Richard, and Ann Foreman, along with her daughter Judie Ann were a family unit living in a suburb of Dallas, Texas. For almost two years this family has been prevented from living together by a Dallas Domestic Relations Court jury's decision in a case initiated by Ms. Risher's former husband which awarded custody of Richard to Mr. Rish-

er.

When Ms. Risher and Ms. Foreman were in Cleveland recently, they discussed their court case on Radio Free Lambda. The following is an excerpt from that interview which will be aired again this fall.

RFL: You have the strange combination of having had to fight for your children twice in court, having first gone through a divorce with your husband and obtaining custody of your children and now having to go back and fight for their custody again. How did all of this come about?

MJR: Well, of course, as far as the divorce, I did get custody of the two children. At that time their ages were three and twelve. Today their ages are 10 and 19. Actually, the youngest boy, Richard, is the only one in question in this custody suit. December 23, 1975, I lost Richard in a courtroom battle where homosexuality was actually on trial. At no time in that court room did they ever prove that I was an unfit mother. There was a psychologist, a psychiatrist, educators, ministers, friends and relatives who went on the stand to testify to my character as an individual, and to my being a mother. All reports from these people were very positive on both standards. Since homosexuality was on trial, the subject itself, we figured inflamed the jury. It's our understanding that they probably had the verdict before they heard the first word from any of us.

RFL: But there was a four and a half year stretch between when you first were divorced and when this other trial happened. Why was there that long period of time?

MJR: As far as why I had custody of the children for that length of time, Mr. Risher did not know of my homosexuality.

RFL: Both you and Ann were married previously and you both have children. You said in your book that you felt you were gay from a very early age. Why did you get married in the first place?

AF: I think it's the path of least resistance. I can remember very early in junior high and maybe even before that, having an attraction toward girls and women, crushes on school

teachers or girls my own age. I tried to totally ignore it; it scared me! In high school I had a traumatic experience because I had found another woman who felt similarly. We had similar feelings and beliefs for each other. We were to the letter writing stage, and her mother found the letters and immediately told us how unnatural that was and we had to give up our friendship completely. So after that, I had a good friend, my ex-husband, whom I cared a great deal for anyway, in the beginning. We got closer and started doing the typical dance thing, prom, and different activities at school. We decided to get married and have a child. So, you do what society says you should do. At that point in time you're so afraid of coming out as you really are, you feel more comfortable doing whatever you have to do to make society happy with you as a person.

MJR: Well, the same as Ann, I realized my sexual desires, but not really knowing another homosexual, on the face of the earth. I thought I was the only one. Not being able to identify with anyone else having these same sexual desires, and then to come from a very traditional family, a very close-knit family of seventy people. Then too, so-

MARY JO RISHER, Judie Ann, Richard and Ann Foreman, Ms. Risher and Ms. Foreman are subjects of the book, By Her Own Admission, A Lesbian Mother's Fight to Keep Her Son.

ciety molds you like they want to. It's very unfortunate that society has such a strong hold on individual's lives. There was also an incident. I was in nurses' training and at eleven o'clock one night I observed a girl being thrown out of nurses' school. She was discovered as being homosexual. Realizing that, not literally was I standing there, but in my desires it was me. I realized what society could do to me should they know my tendencies too. It was a very frightening experience. So, very quickly you go into the mold and conform with what society wants.. Of course I married and was married for fourteen years. I loved the person when I married him.

AF: I think when you're younger too and have that old excuse "Well, it happens when you're a child, everybody's curious. That's perfectly normal & natural. So you use that as an excuse and as you start to grow older you realize that it didn't go away.

RFL: When you finally did decide to go against the mold that society was forcing you into, Mary Jo, you seemed to be more open about it than you knew you could be. With your family you didn't try to hide your social relationships with other women

who were obviously lesbians.. Why the change?

MJR: I don't think that I was trying to force anything onto my family. I do come from a very close family where we could tell each other just about everything. At the time, I was 37 years old and I thought that my family trusted my judgement and I didn't completely try to hide from them, although I didn't try to completely force it on them. It was something that they observed and came to a conclusion about.

RFL: As you have been going around the country and during the trial, what are some of the biggest misconceptions that you had to fight and counteract?

MJR: I think one of the biggest fears and myths is that if Richard had remained with me he would have become a homo: sexual. Of course we know that 99.9% of all homosexuals come from heterosexual families. Also there is no scientific research as to why a homosexual is a homosexual. And there has been no scientific research to tell a heterosexual why they are heterosexual. We do know that Richard was evaluated by two

expert witnesses and, psychologists, who went on the stand identifying Richard as that of male identification. I believe

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that that was one of the biggest fears that that jury had, that if Richard stayed with me he would be a homosexual.

AF: I think another thing is that people can't seem to believe that we raised him morally. For some reason homosexuals just aren't capable of morals and ethics. We ran into more severe problems. too, since we were women. They thought that women weren't really capable of raising children by themselves. You had to have a male image in the home. Somehow we are confronted with both sides. It's not just the gay myths, it's the feminist myths. By the time they finished the trial no single par.ent, male or female, qualified in raising the family. I guess the child would have to be moved back and forth continually between parents as they divorce and remarry.

AF: Another thing that they tried to imply throughout the trial was that Mary Jo and I were going to show our homosexuality in front of the children. Somehow they just didn't realize that gay people are just like heterosexuals, they usually like their privacy too.

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