Review

May, 1990

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE Page 9

Lesbian Lists

by Dell Richards

Alyson Publications

$8.95 trade paperback

by Lee Lynch

For those of us who have been wishing for a 'who's who' of lesbians in history, Dell Richards's Lesbian Lists is it.

"If you take what's written by most historians, taught in most schools and printed by the mainstream media, you'd think lesbianism came out of thin air a few years ago," said Richards when I interviewed her just before publication. She set herself the task of correcting that impression by researching lesbian precedents.

Her focus is on lesbians pre-1970, though she rounds out the book with contemporary women musicians and other well-known dykes. "I came to lesbianism through feminism, making a political choice to become gay. That passage made my own perspective broader."

As a consequence she's included, as well as women who had bedded one another, "women-identified women, whether they call themselves lesbians or not, whether they had sex or not.” She's refused to limit her vision to today's definitions and offers a glimpse of "homosocial worlds" rich with "romantic friends, spinsters and sworn virgins." She demonstrates our rich history by including multi-cultural references: Native American, Hispanic, black, Chinese, French, and others. A German term for

Money

Continued from Page 6

month), intermediate term (one to four years), and long term (five years or longer) goals.

Now comes the hard part: determining which are realistic goals and which are merely wishes. Go through each item you have written down and ask yourself several questions. Is the goal positive and specific? Don't just say, "I want a new job." What job do you want and how soon? Is this goal reasonable? If you want an expensive new home in one year but don't have a dime in savings, you may need to readjust that goal.

What is involved in achieving the goal? A career change could mean time-consuming and expensive education. The most important question is, are you willing to do whatever it takes legally, morally, and ethically to reach that goal? For instance, are you willing to work 12 hours Continued from Page 2

plained about the trial of Thomas and Kelly and how, if she had known it was going to trial, she would have stopped it. After that trial she put out a memo and held a meeting of all her prosecutors telling them how she would not stand for homophobic cases being prosecuted. As prosecutor, Blackmon couldn't control the police, who, having arrested the men, pushed for their trial; but she did warn her staff not to try any further cases of the

sort.

Blackmon is also the liaison the Chronicle had with the Forbes campaign when we were making endorsements in the mayoral race. At the time she was very helpful and truly wanted the Chronicle's endorsemen. It is our belief that Blackmon, like Weaver, will make a good, fair judge with no homophobia,

8 Lesbians on Television

Since the introduction of cable TV, numerous television shows have been made by, for, and about lesbians. But before this recent development, lesbians were either invisible or portrayed as losers and weirdos. Today, lesbians are appearing increasingly often on network television via documentaries about such themes as lesbians drummed out of the military (Sally Jesse Raphael) and lesbian couples who use artificial insemination to have children (20/20).

1. POLICE WOMAN. In 1974, this show featured three lesbians who kill the residents of a retirement home. Despite vociferous protests, it was aired. (ABC)

2. A QUESTION OF LOVE. Originally a made-for-TV movie about a lesbian fighting for the custody of her children, this 1978 drama is now on video. The story was based on an actual court case. (ABC)

3. THE WAR WIDOW. This 1976 little-known, made-for-TV movie by Harvey Perr featured a lesbian love affair.

4. MY TWO LOVES. Rita Mae Brown wrote the script for this made-for-TV movie featuring a tortured Lynn Redgrave who had to choose between a man and a woman.

5. GOLDEN GIRLS. In one episode, an older woman shocked the three man-hunting regulars by revealing her lesbi anism. (NBC)

6. HEARTBEAT. Aaron Spelling's beleaguered medical drama was one of the first TV series to feature a lesbian in a posttive light. Soon after its introduction, however, a protest campaign was launched by right-wing fundamentalists. Until the show was finally cancelled, allegedly for low ratings. Marilyn McGrathplayed by Gail Strickland was seen with her lover, Patty, once a week. (ABC)

7. TWO IN TWENTY. A soap opera which features seven lesbians. this Boston cable program by Laurel Chiten and Cheryl Qamar is now being shown in movie theaters. It includes lesbian parodies of commercials.

8. GAY CABLE NETWORK (GCN). Formed in New York in 1982. GCN produces a number of gay and lesbian shows: TV: Pride and Progress, a political program: The Right Stuff. gay entertainment; and Be My Guest, a gay and lesbian game show.

lesbian, for example, is madchen schmeker, or girl-taster.

Such tongue-in-cheek (so to speak) references abound. Like this list: "20 Turn-of-Century 'Ways to Tell' if a Girl Would Become Gay or if a Woman was a Lesbian-from Medical Journals of the Day." It includes: "an incapacity for needlework and other domestic occupations" and "a firmness to her walk, a long step, and a rather heavy timbre to her voice."

How about euphemisms for the word lesbianism from old newspapers? “A naughty word," "a monstrous sexual perversion," and "tormenting impulses."

Such sweet torment!

The lists of lesbians range from movie stars (Marlene Dietrich), to poets (Wu

a day, seven days a week to make enough money to buy your dream home? If not, you have a wish, not a goal.

Once you have separated your wishes from your realistic goals, you will need to balance them with those of your partner. Only then should you sit down with your financial planner to determine the financial requirements, what current resources you have, and what strategies you can use to achieve them. Once you have done that, you may need to adjust your goals again to reflect the financial require-

ments.

With the strategies and goals on paper you will be more likely to be part of the three percent who accomplish what they set out to do.▾

Russ Rosen is a certified financial planner and president of Rosen Financial Services.

who will be able to try cases involving lesbians and gay men with the same fairness she would any other case. Issue 2: Yes

So why is the Chronicle taking a stand on the Gateway Project? Because everyone else is? No, because there are lesbians on this staff who are really tired of going to Indians games in the Stadium. Also, being the voice of the lesbian and gay community, we are hot for Cleveland's progress in recent years. The better Cleveland gets, the more lesbians and gays move here, and that is good news for all of us.

Seriously, the Gateway Project is another in the long line of progressive moves that Cleveland has made recently. It is important to be supportive of our city and this is just one of the ways.

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Tsao, 1780 China), to fictional lesbians (TV's Police Woman, 1974), to "Spinsters Who Need to be Researched" (Rosa Manus, a Dutch feminist killed at Auschwitz).

The concept of lists is not a new one. Alyson also published Leigh Rutledge's The Gay Book of Lists which inspired Richards's work. "Because," says Richards, "the history of gay men is very different from that of lesbians,” and because she and Rutledge have such dissimilar interests, the books are only distant relations to each other. She believes that a third author would create a "completely different" set of lists.

Her own journey to lesbianism began in 1967 when she took the then-popular slogan "America-Love It Or Leave It" to heart, dropped out of U.C. Berkely, and moved to London to protest the Vietnam War. A transplanted Southern Californian, she stayed overseas for five years. Kate Millet's Sexual Politics turned her into a radical feminist in 1970 and two years later she put together another slogan, "Feminism is the theory; lesbianism is the practice," to the test.

In 1974 Richards published a book of poetry, the rape journal, and a series of her poems appear in Judy Grahn's True to Life Adventure Stories. She began writing journalism in 1980, from travel pieces to an advice-to-the-lovelorn column for truckers. Five years ago she wrote the first of a series of profiles of lesbians and gay men which appear in more than a dozen gay papers nationwide.

Richards' intimacy with gay culture grew from her contact with these women and men who are creating our spirituality, art, literature, social services, politics, and family structures.

"I believe we are creating a culture that is profoundly different from the

SPECTRUM

heterosexual society we know today, the likes of which we have not seen since the early Greeks." She considers her work an attempt to document this process.

6 Odd Brushes with the Law

1. AUGUSTA MAIN

in 1897 Miss Augusta Main, spinster farmer of Berlin, New York, was held on one thousand dollars bail for assaulting a male neighbor with intent to kill. Miss Main did all the farm work herself and allowed no men on the premises. When needing extra hands at harvest time, she hired "strapping young women."

In her defense, Miss Main said she "never sees men

or dogs but what she aches to kill them."

2. EVA LE GALLIENNE

An actress, Le Gallienne was named in a 1930 alienation of affection lawsuit filed by a New York socialite against his wife, Josephine Hutchinson. During the trial, the husband stated that Josephine preferred the company of Le Gallienne "morning, noon and night." 3. & 4. PATRICIA "MIZMOON" SOLTYSIK and CAMILLA HALL

When the Symbionese Liberation Army gained national attention by kidnapping Patty Hearst, the daughter of one of the wealthiest newspaper publishers in the U.S., these two lesbians made headlines as members of the group.

Hall and Soltysik had met prior to joining the SLA. and the San Francisco Chronicle published love poems from Hall to Mizmoon during the 1974 media blitz on the subject. They were killed that year when the Los Angeles house where they made a last stand was torched by a S.W.A.T. team.

5. Z BUDAPEST

An avowed lesbian witch, Z Budapest was arrested in 1975 for fortune-telling when she did a tarot reading for an undercover policewoman. At the time, Budapest claimed that not one law enforcement officer touched her during the arrest because she threatened to hex the first person who did with nightmares.

6. SISTER MARY KREGAR

In a 1988 judgment, Sister Mary Kregar, a Catholic nun, was ordered to pay one million dollars damages to Steve Woolverton of Brownsville, Texas, for seducing his wife and destroying his marriage. Woolverton argued that his wife's joining the Brownsville Catholic Diocese choir apparently led to the breach.

The Church was also directed to pay five hundred thousand dollars for negligence even though it had dismissed Kregar after learning of the affair. Kregar left the Franciscan order and became a social worker.

Certainly, Lesbian Lists is a part of that documentation, and an important part. There is nothing more validating than the listings of our peers. We gays have been naming screen idols and pops singers informally whenever we gather since we've come out. It hasn't been idle gossip, either.

Now, to have these lists in black and white, at our very fingertips, is a conciousness-raising experience. Not only do we exist, but we have accomplished so much. These listed gays are only the tip of the iceberg; there's that handsome couple next door, and the dyke who runs the video shop, too. Oh, and have you heard about Dell Richards? She's still making lists-the next one will be of lesbians from 1970 to 1990 and beyond.▼

Lee Lynch is the author of five books published by Naiad Press. Her book reviews, articles, and column, “The Amazon Trail," appear in periodicals across the country. Her newest book, Sue Slate, Private Eye, features a lesbian cat detective.

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