Lesbian Herstory Archives AudioVisual Collections

Browse Items (21 total)

  • STEPHANIE S RECORDING OF TRANS WOMAN.mp4

    Recording of a Zoom event "Life Passages" where Stephanie Singer speaks on her experience as a transwoman and a Lesbian and discussed her early life, her coming out, and her family dynamics. After Stephanie speaks, there is a Q&A with other people on the Zoom meeting who are part of the Rossmoor Lesbian Social Club.
  • SPW513_DJ.JPG

    DJ discusses her early experiences with women as a teenager, her feelings of being a tomboy, and her coming-out experience. She discusses her experiences in the bar scene in Buffalo in the 1950s, and describes ways in which women would interact with each other, but publicly and privately. DJ also discusses roles in relationships, particularly the butch and the femme.
  • barbara_sang.jpg

    Barbara Sang is interveiwed in 1989. She talks about how she went through psychotherapy and attempted to live as a heterosexual woman. She discusses her role in the New York chapter of DOB as the Education Chair and the programs and events she organized as well as finding as much information as she could about gays and lesbians. She also talks about DOB in the 1960s and the privacy it afforded its members, not insisting that they come out, which was criticized by more radical movements.
  • linda_lopez.jpg

    Linda Lopez is interviewed in 1988. She talks about growing up in the South and how she fared as a lesbian living in a conservative community. She discusses the Dallas DOB and how the membership consisted of a number of women who had been married, divorced and had kids (including herself). She talks about the custody battle she had with her parents over her son and how many women faced similar battles but with their spouses. She also talks about how she and a number of women lost their jobs when it was discovered that they were lesbians. She discusses the Dallas DOB's events.
  • pamela_oline.jpg

    Pamela Oline is interviewed. She is heterosexual and talks about her path to and experience of being a member of DOB and campaigning for gay and lesbian rights. She describes her childhood growing up in England, moving to America when she was 14 and changing career from a mathematician and to a psychotherapist. Recognizing the psychological issues of the time, she decided to understand the lesbian community from the inside. She talks about DOB meetings, lesbian and feminism issues, radical and conventional activism, marriage, and GAU (Gay Academic Union) meetings, panel discussions, etc.
  • SPW518_Lou + Jane.JPG

    The interviewee discusses the time she considered getting a sex change. She talks about religion. At the end she talks about getting respect. There is significant distortion at the end of the tape.

    Lou and Jane discuss their sexual relationship and further aspects of female sexuality.
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    Oral history interview of Mabel Hampton. Mabel discusses her relationships during her twenties, including how and why she chose her sexual partners and her relationships with married women. She relates a story about being caught with her partner's husband and hiding under the bed.
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    Oral history interview of Mabel Hampton. Side A: Mabel tells the story of her arrival in New Jersey, and how she found the people who first took her there. Side B: Mabel sings the American popular song, "My Buddy", and also explains how she left her uncle in New York and went to New Jersey. She talks in detail about the first couple days that she spent in a home in Jersey City, and her reticence to discuss details about her origins with the people that took her in. Additional discussion includes a description of the first time she was kissed by a woman, and why she didn't pursue relationships with married women.
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    Oral history interview with Mabel Hampton. Side A: Mabel discusses relationships she had with married women. She also discusses what she wore when she was in her early 20s and about her feelings about the openness of lesbians today. Side B: Mabel sings two songs- "My Buddy" and "Come to Me".
  • 2420_ca_object_representations_media_94_original.jpg

    Oral history interview of Mabel Hampton. Mabel discusses lesbian marriage in the 1930s and 1940s, including stories of women getting married and where the ceremonies were. She tells stories about women she knew who had husbands and families, jealousy among women, and passion. She talks about her own experiences with passion and jealousy, including her crushes and relationships. She discusses her first relationship with a white woman, women she had crushes on, women she felt threatened by, her relationship with Lillian, and an experience at a "party house" in Bedford Hills. At the end of the tape there is a discussion about Lillian's tombstone and what to put on it.
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    Mabel discusses her early life as a lesbian in the Village between the two world wars, including the rooming house where she lived and the parties she attended. She describes how women dressed, what they ate at the parties, what they did at the parties, including dancing, the records they listened to, and the general social life of these parties. She describes the interracial relations between white and black lesbians. She also discusses the language lesbians used to describe themselves at the time, including "bulldaggers", "lady lovers", and "butches". She also tells the story of a large lesbian marriage ceremony in Central Park West, officated by a gay minister named Rev. Monroe and how the couple managed to get an offical marriage certificate. She also discusses gay life in Harlem and the New York City drag balls.
  • 87466_ca_object_representations_media_106_original.jpg

    Side A: Mabel Hampton describes meeting other lesbians and associating with other women "in the life". Also discussed is her experience during the 1920s of being set up and sentenced to serve three years for a fabricated prostitution charge at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. Side B: Mabel's WWII era activities, including being an Air Raid Warden in Harlem, and meeting married women who ""came out"" during their husband's absence due to the war."
  • CaroleMortonFinal.jpg

    Carole Morton discusses her discovery of Daughters of Bilitis and her activism on behalf of lesbian mothers.
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    Side A: Mary discusses her experiences in the gay community in Buffalo in the 1950s. She discusses in detail the gay bar scene and describes the clientele at the Carousel, Bingo's, and the Chesterfield. The interviewee also describes the dynamic of the relationships she experienced and observed in terms of both race and gender identity. Mary also discusses prostitution in the Buffalo community during the 1950s. She describes some of her own sexual and relationship experiences.

    Side B: Continuing the conversation from Side A, Mary discusses in more detail the types of people she observed in the various bars in Buffalo, as well as her family. She explains that she got along with her family, but never came out to them, in spite of which her father never questioned her about her relationships or pressured her to get married. She also discusses the socio-economic status of various gay communities throughout Buffalo. Both the interviewer and the interviewee discuss butch and femme identities within the larger context of the lesbian community in Buffalo. Mary speaks in more detail about her social experiences.
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    Sonny Wainwright provides discourse about the privilege of marriage as it pertains to illness and becoming a parent. She explains her choice to "live straight" for several years so that she could have a child. It was not until she met Audre Lorde that she realized she had "choices", whom she called her teacher. Wainwright also discusses the need for lesbian illness support groups due to unjust experiences brought on by the illegality of same-sex marriage.
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    Side A: Paula describes various locations where gay men and women would meet each other, like Kleinman's Corner and bars such as Ralph Martin's. Often these locations also served as hubs for sex workers. She speaks about the rigidly defined roles of "butch" and "femme" provided for lesbians during the 1940s. Paula talks about her life as femme and being married to a man who introduced her to gay/lesbian life. She discusses her sexual life and the type of sex that women had with each other in the 1940s, specifically within the strict binary of butch and femme. Paula recalls the social life at bars, such as Ralph Martin's, which included dancing, drag shows, prostitution, and drugs.

    Side B: Paula speaks about her family life in relation to her sexual identity. She talks about her husband's fast lifestyle and her changing preferences eventually causing the dissolution of their marriage. Paula mentions the types of employment she has had, including working in department stores, as a waitress, as a desk clerk at the Genesee Hotel, and on the assembly line at Bell Aircraft. She speaks more about various bars that she went to: Pat's, Dugan's, the Carousel, and the Carlton Hotel. She talks about a long-term relationship that she had, after her divorce, that lasted ten years, as well as traveling out of the Buffalo area to places like Florida, California, and Utica, N.Y.

    The recording cuts off abruptly after 23 minutes.
  • mgPatBarbara copy.jpg

    Pat and Barbara continue to discuss their early lives in Iowa and relationships with their families. They elaborate on their early days in San Francisco, Pat’s previous marriage, political affiliations, jobs, dancing in gay bars, and why they ultimately left the DOB.
  • 020-02_gay-marriage_a_c.mp4

    This segment shows interviews with several members of the lesbian community, including a lesbian couple, a lesbian lawyer, and a mother of a lesbian, discussing the possibility of gay marriage. Themes discussed include the ways that legal marriage can or can not legitimize gay relationships; the presence or absence of gay people’s desire to get married; legal protections that marriage can provide; whether or not it would encourage parents to accept gay children; alternatives to gay marriage including domestic partnerships and second parent adoptions; and imaginings of what a lesbian wedding ceremony would look like. Also mentioned around 1:30 is the mass wedding of gay couples that took place as a demonstration on the lawn of the Lincoln Memorial on April 25,1993. This event was part of the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation.
  • LHA_image_020.JPG

    On February 21st, a protest was conducted in Times Square by Committee for Fair Divorce and Alimony Laws protesting the paying of alimony by husbands. A counter protest conducted by National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) in favor of alimony and increased regulations and child support. Martha Shelley conducted interviews with both organizations from individuals at the protests.
  • LC006.jpeg

    Discussion of domestic relations, and how a woman agrees to certain terms when she gets married. Women do not know what they are agreeing to. They know what it is, but they do not want the details. There is a discussion of how women are programmed to inherently undermine their own thoughts, and to label them as “feelings” as opposed to facts. Further discussion on how gender issues are defined.
  • 01 SPW 1867 - Bay Area Reporter - Deborah, Ruthie + Connie - 6_29_01.mp3

    In this interview with an unknown reporter, Ruth Berman and Connie Kurtz discuss their lives in context with the recent documentary about their life directed by Deborah Dickson, who is also interviewed.

    Ruth and Connie discuss how they met, their early activism within their communities, being married to men and having families, and their eventual falling in love with one another and coming out as Lesbians. They discuss their relationships with their families then and now, and the importance of coming out of the closet.

    Deborah talks about her process when working in this film, and how she tried to make the film for both gay and striaght audiences
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