Judy Nicole: What was it like growing up as a lesbian in the south in the 60s, 70s and 80s?
Jo: “I was a kid in the 60s, just to establish my age. I was only 12 when Woodstock happened, so that’s an important milestone reference point. I didn’t realize I was a lesbian until I was college aged. I look back now and it’s like “How did you not know when you were seven?”
I had a crush on a 6 year old girl that I hung out with, my family even has home movies of us at the pool for a combined birthday party for me and my brother and she was there. You can tell in the movie that I’m just staring at her and watching her do what I thought was cool things, but I look back at it and it’s like “You had a crush on her, just because you were 6, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a crush.”
When I was 8, living on base in Phoenix, I saw Mary Poppins in ‘64 and then I saw The Sound of Music in ‘65 when it came out. I fell deeply in love with Julie Andrews, but I didn’t know what that meant. I had no point of reference for how to use that information, you know? So, because I could, I would take my soundtrack album to The Sound of Music to school with me. There’s a beautiful picture of Julie Andrews on the back and I kissed the picture whenever I felt like it. I had a teacher belittle and ridicule me because I was kissing a picture on an album. I didn’t understand why that was a problem, but I was kissing a picture of a woman on this album.
That was the first time I ever felt any kind of pushback for any kind of different way of thinking. Why?
Well, it’s because I was a girl, and I was kissing a picture of a woman and that scared the teacher to death.
I didn’t move to the south until I was 14. That was 1972.
When did you first become aware of feminism and how did it shape your sense of self?
I’ve always wondered why women did not make the same money that men did. I remember asking my parents about it. It’s always been an issue for me, and there are things that I’ve always noticed, going back as far as I can remember at age 6 or 7. So, I guess I was a feminist early on. I mean, it’s just basic common sense. All humans are wonderful, and everyone deserves to make the same money if you’re working the same job.
Were there particular events or people that inspired you to embrace activism?
Both of my parents were very conservative, but they weren’t stupid. They were conservative in terms of tax structure but not hate. They voted Republican most of the time, but it wasn’t like it is now. I honestly don’t know if there’s a single person that encouraged me or made me feel like I should become an activist, but I’ve always felt that there was not equality, there was no equity when it came to pay. Equal and equitable treatment for all people. I have always questioned why there wasn’t equal treatment for all people.
My dad was on his second tour of the Pentagon, on the Joint Chiefs of Staff from ‘66 to ’68, so we lived in Northern Virginia when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. My dad came home early, and it was so shocking that he was home early. I vividly remember opening the door for my dad and saying, “Why are you home early?”
He said, “Someone has shot Dr. King and it’s all about to break loose. I wanted to come home and be with you.”
We started watching the television. It was all in black and white, but I saw it, as firsthand as you could without being in Memphis at the time. And then, what happened in DC, LA, and in Chicago that spun out of that assassination, we watched that as well. It was right there on the black and white TV for us to see. I guess seeing it made me want to get up and do something about it. I remember asking my dad,
“Could we go down there?” but he said
“No, it’s not safe, we’re going to stay here and watch it on the TV. We can’t do anything. You’re 11.” That’s the first time that I just really saw this bullshit level of injustice happening.
I had seen things in small towns in the south before that. I remember asking my parents “Why is there a fountain marked white and why is there one marked color?” They weren’t being used or enforced anymore, but they were still there at the movie theater in small-town Alabama in the 60s. My mom tried to explain it and I said, “Why does that make a difference?” - I was always challenging this stuff.
How did you navigate your identity in a time and place that often rejected both feminism and queerness?
No one ever questioned me when we were in San Diego from ‘68 to ‘72. No one challenged how I dressed or what activities I wanted to do. I was in college when I started to “navigate” that part of my life, but I didn’t find a lot of pushback; maybe I wasn’t out and loud enough to experience that. There’s this process where you are figuring it all out yourself and back then there was really no one for you to talk to, to ask those questions of. There was no google, you had to go to the library to find any of this stuff out.
I had not dated a lot of boys before that either, so maybe I was behind everybody else, but that’s okay, I was just doing my own thing. I love that all sorts of queer folks now have so much that they can learn from, and they have a place to ask questions and they’re gonna know an elder who has already come out as queer. That was not the case for folks my age.
I was a tomboy. That’s what it was considered to be. I didn’t know the word “dyke” and I’d never heard the word “dyke” or “lesbian.” It was a different time. I love the word “lesbian.” I love identifying as a lesbian and I also like identifying as “dyke”.
When I started figuring out that I was different, learning that I was other, that I was queer, learning about lesbians I remember thinking: “I wish I was that cool. I wish I could be that awesome.” I did not have this negative connotation of lesbian. I did not have that pre-taught hate or fear built in. I thought lesbians were so awesome and cool and I could never be that awesome and cool. Everyone else I’ve ever met says “I grew up thinking I was going to hell, and I’m terrible, and I’m a sinner.” I did not have a negative context, but I remember thinking “I’ll never be that awesome, I’m not that cool. I’ll never be strong like that.” but I figured out later that I was. I was that awesome. And I was strong, and I could wear a label like that and feel great about myself, and not feel ashamed to tell other people that I was that, even though other people seem to have issues. I guess I can thank my parents for that.
My grandmother, who lived on the beach in San Diego, had this group of men that she called her “bachelors”. They lived behind her house and down three units and they would come over and have cocktails and sit around on her patio. They were gay men, clearly, I figured that out, not when I was little, but I figured that out. Her “bachelors” were a gay couple who had a lot of gay friends. They would come over and they’d have the best time with my grandmother, and they’d all hang out and have cocktails and sandwiches. So, I don’t remember ever being told that is wrong or evil. It never came up.
When I was in high school, my dad (a career military man who fought in 2 giant wars and was on the Joint Chiefs of Staff), I remember asking him “Why is it that homosexuals cannot serve in the military?” He said, “That is a good question and there’s nothing wrong with them.” He made that clear, “there’s nothing wrong with them”, but they were considered a security risk because they had to hide their secret, and somebody could use that to leverage classified information out of them in a torture situation. I remember saying “Well, if they weren’t trying to hide it, then it would be not an issue.” And he said “Absolutely.”
What was your first experience with activism, and what issues were you fighting for at the time?
I was in college, my freshman year, Jimmy Carter was running for president, and it was my first vote for president. We went to Plains, Georgia for a rally and there are pictures of me holding a sign. It’s not so much activism, but community support.
When I was living in Birmingham in the early 80’s our bookstore was the core of our community, and that’s where so much activism spun out. That’s where we could go and see, hold, and buy (or just sit there and read) books about ourselves and learn about lesbianism and about our sexuality in a way that you couldn’t at the library. I realized, that’s really where I had a tithe at- looking back at my checkbook, that I would spend 10% to 20% of my salary every week at Lodestar, buying books to learn about myself and about my culture. From there we had dance parties, we had concerts, women music artists, we worked for candidates, we did demonstrations in different parts of Birmingham and different office buildings, depending on the issue.
We all went to Atlanta for Atlanta Pride. Even folks who were not out at home in Birmingham would go to Atlanta and be out and queer. Everybody went to Atlanta because it was safer than being out in your hometown, and that mattered to a lot of people. Pride originally came from the Stonewall riots. It was not a parade; it was a riot and it had to do with police overreach and oppression and so the Pride marches that came out of that were always that last week of June. Then we started realizing: Atlanta Pride is the last weekend of June, what if we did ours on the third weekend of June? We could do it here, make a difference in our hometown, and still go to Atlanta and have a big old time and show up as 1.2 million in Atlanta, because it’s important to make numbers big.
Everything I did early on came out of what happened at Lodestar, we had consciousness-raising groups, parties, concerts, and all sorts of goodness in terms of culture, but also activism that came out of our feminist bookstore. That was the center of the LGBTQ+ community in Birmingham back in the day.
Did you face pushback from feminist for being a lesbian? Or from LGBTQ spaces for being a feminist?
No pushback from queer folks about being a feminist. I do not remember feeling pushback from feminists about being queer. I know that existed and I remember reading about how in the early days they were trying to keep lesbians out because they didn’t want people making the assumption that everybody involved in the feminist movement was a lesbian.
“The lavender menace” is what they called it in the 60’s and early 70’s. We were “the lavender menace” who was going to somehow thwart their efforts for finding equal rights for women. Well, who’s more invested in women having equal rights than lesbians? We don’t have a man to fall back on. We don’t have all that societal shit that supports straight women.
But no, I never I never felt any of that personally.
What were some of the most dangerous or challenging moments in your activism? Did you ever feel threatened?
I didn’t. In fact, the March on Washington in ‘93, my partner at the time went with me, and we did our damndest to get arrested and couldn’t do it. The cops didn’t care, and they weren’t gonna arrest anybody. It was the smart move for them, but we were pushing it. We were trying so hard to get arrested. We were blocking traffic, laying down on the road, pretending to be dead from HIV, and kissing on the steps of the Supreme Court. I tried to get arrested, but they wouldn’t. I guess I’m really lucky that I never felt threatened. I know it’s not the case for everybody, but it feels to me like, if you are confident enough, people know not to fuck with you. I don’t know any better way to say that, but a lot of getting through life safely is just being confident about who you are. I was confident in who I was, and I was thrilled with my lesbianism and I was not beating myself up about it.
When I was in DC and we were trying to get arrested, there was this conversation amongst strangers. This guy said he got arrested in New York doing this, and they were all sharing this pen in the city jail. At first, they were scared, but then they started feeling more confident about it, like, “there’s plenty of us here and we were doing the right things, so I feel pretty good about this.” He said that somebody called him a “faggot” and he just he said, ”What came out of my mouth was, ‘If that’s the worst you can do, then I feel safe here.” - Something like that. That it’s just a word. Like, “They can’t come up with anything worse than that?” And I loved that- ”That’s the worst you can do? Hurl a word at me? It was just a word.”
That was told to me by the men around us doing the kissing thing also trying to get arrested.
How did you organize and connect with other activists before the Internet and social media? You mentioned The Lodestar bookstore?
That was really where everything was happening. I met people there because we all showed up every week. It was just where everybody went to find solace and compassion and people like us. Men had the bars. I never liked bars of any kind. At the bookstore we had poetry readings, and we had writers. Minnie Bruce Pratt came to read poetry and all sorts of Southern and non-Southern, but mostly Southern, writers and poets would come 2 or 3 nights a week.
When the Internet came about, it was such an opportunity for folks who were afraid to go to a bar or afraid to even go to a bookstore to ask for a book. The Internet was a great place to find out about yourself and about this community. The Internet really checked a lot of boxes for a lot of people, but it also closed down all those bookstores. Feminist bookstores were the center of most lesbian and gay communities in the 70s and 80s.
Were there any particular protests, marches, or movements that you participated in that had a lasting impact on you?
All of them did. Even just showing up to support a particular candidate who was receiving something. I found more people like myself. I got so much out of it. I met people. I got validation from it. I was empowered by it. Anytime you stand up for inequality, anytime you stand up for anything- it always made an impact on me. Women’s festivals came out of the fact that there was nobody hiring women to perform unless you were Janis Joplin, who died in ‘71, or you were Carole King. If you weren’t someone like that, there was not a place for you. That is where women’s festivals blew out of, because we couldn’t hear artists that we loved and nobody would hire these women. There was nowhere in the world for us to hear any of them. So Lisa Vogel, producer and founder of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival started throwing parties to raise money so she could have concerts and hire women that were lesbians to sing and play for her friends. Then thought “Why don’t we have like a three-day weekend thing, and we can even camp out.” and so women’s festivals came out of the invisibility of women singer-songwriters who had no place to perform.
It’s very clear to me that women’s culture and women’s festivals made me who I am. I had a good, solid foundation going in, but I started going to festivals in ‘86. Another one was called Rhythm Fest. I was finally able to have enough time to go to Michigan in ‘95 and I worked in Michigan Fest for 21 years, every year, straight through. That taught me the most tangible hands-on feminist culture, feminist politics, and feminist interaction that I could have learned anywhere. Women did everything. We didn’t just cook and tend to the babies. We hung the lights, we worked the soundboard, we put up giant circus tents, we drove school buses and tractors with shuttles attached behind them that we built. We built everything. We all lived in community and you sat down and had meals next to the folks who were working at the front gate to make sure that you stayed safe. And the women who also took care of the kids, and the women who tended the fires and the kitchens, the women who gave lectures on particular topics, and the producer. We all showered together, too. We all did everything together and we all shared, and it was very clear that women did everything and we all created this space. Most of us working would have happily just not even had a festival. Let’s just get ready for it. 400-800 women working to create this incredible, giant event that we did every summer, but it was also wonderful when we passed health inspection, and the gates opened and suddenly we grew from 800 to 1,200 to 8,000. It was amazing. That was where the strongest and most tangible of my feminist values came from.
What were the most pressing issues for Southern women and lesbians in the ‘80s and ‘90s?
I was involved in the pro-choice movement. I was in college when I realized that some of my friends were getting pregnant, and they didn’t necessarily want to keep their child because they were going to college and they were 19 years old. I was just gob smacked that I had to get in my car and drive them to Montgomery to get an abortion. I was happy to do it, it was just the fact that they HAD to go somewhere else. Even after Roe V. Wade happened, there were still anti-abortion protesters that would just as soon kill you, and sometimes did, before they’d speak to you. That was something that affected women, not necessarily a lesbian, but a lot of lesbians were raped, and I could tell you from working at an abortion clinic, somebody walks in, it’s like, “She’s a lesbian. Why is she here? Perhaps she was raped.” So, it affects every woman. If you are a lesbian and you don’t care about reproductive rights for straight women? Well, I just don’t even want to be around somebody that would be that ignorant. I’ve not met anyone that feels like that, but all that to say: yes, abortion affects all women.
How did you build community as a lesbian feminist in the south?
This goes back to Lodestar as the heart of our community. We tried really hard to make events that would draw folks in who weren’t aware that there was a bookstore. Maybe they would see a flyer- we would put flyers up at the Unitarian Church because they often allowed us to use their space, and maybe there was somebody at the Unitarian Church who was not aware that they were a lesbian or a feminist, and perhaps see our flyer for a concert that we put on, attend it, and find a community with us.
Were there any hidden or underground spaces where Southern LGBTQ gathered?
Lodestar for sure for us in the 80s, I began there in ‘81. There was a lesbian bar, but I never liked going there. There were lots of bars that men could go to. There were also softball leagues. Some were mixed men and women, but most of them were women and they would not play against men. That was another outlet we had. And I would say more so for lesbians, because a lot of us tended to be sporty, but gay men’s softball is one of the oldest things in our community. I still know men who play in gay softball leagues. In fact, I still have a bin full of queer softball league T shirts.
What role did literature, music, and art play in shaping your activism and identity?
I worked at a college radio and then I branched out to commercial radio stations. They were all in small towns around Auburn. That was an amazing time to be in radio. It was the kind of station that I could play what I wanted to, within limits. I played a lot of different records that other folks wouldn’t play, so that was really fun, and it felt like I was kind of educating other folks who had never heard that for whatever reason, exposing folks to new music. I read The Village Voice, an NYC weekly newspaper. It was like a lifeboat, or a rope of sanity thrown to me. I could learn about my culture and myself. I read The Voice voraciously. I just couldn’t read enough of it. I mean, I read all the restaurant reviews and reviews of off-off-off-Broadway shows, just soaking it all in. The culture of a big city like that in the 70’s. And then in the 80’s, and into the 90’s I was still reading The Voice. Had it sent to my house every week. I have always been a big reader but I don’t recall reading anything about Lesbians or queer culture until I found Lodestar and there were books about lesbians and about our culture that were written by lesbians and, oh my God, what a treasure trove, what a honey pot of life-giving goodness that was for me to find.
How do you feel about the way media has historically portrayed lesbians and feminists?
My first knowledge of lesbians was that they were smart, they were badass, they took care of themselves and their own and they wouldn’t take shit from a man. I just thought they were awesome, and I could never be that awesome. That was my first impression of Lesbians, that they were badass, and excellent, and strong, and every good word you can think of.
Who are the women, activists, writers, and musicians, who inspired you the most?
Billie Jean King was an early influence, and she didn’t even come out until, what, 20 years ago? But there was something about her. I was a tennis player, and I was good. I won all kinds of trophies. I was good back then. But I also couldn’t play in 100-degree heat with high humidity, so I gave that up when we moved to Alabama. But when I lived in a place where I could do all that stuff and it was available to me. When I moved to Montgomery, in high school, there was no such thing as any girls’ sports. I had to start a girl’s tennis team and then realized, by the time I fought so hard and started this whole thing, that I can’t get out and do it because it’s so hot and humid, I will die. So, I pretty much gave up all my sports that I did when we moved to Montgomery. So, Billie Jean King was an early influence. She was unlike any tennis star before. There were great women tennis players before her, but she kind of didn’t give a shit. She just did her thing, and she was her own person. I have her Autobiography. She was a champion. She was better than anyone before or after her. There were some other women that had made some headway before her, but they were treated as, “just girl players.” They were not given the credit I am sure they were due.
Billie Jean King was the best of the best of the best and she remains a unique and interesting woman. She was the first woman to achieve a Career Grand Slam, which is when someone wins all four of the Grand Slam tournaments of tennis: The Australian Open, The French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. All other tennis players after her were judged by her. In the early 70’s when there was a lot of talk about feminists and men giving women grief, there was an old, retired tennis player who decided that he was going to make a name for himself by badmouthing women tennis players I guess because he couldn’t play anymore. She challenged him or he challenged her- I forget which, but there was this big media event and it was shown on television. It was considered to be the tournament of the ages. It was this professional tennis player who was a woman playing this guy who was no longer a professional tennis player and he was like
“I’m gonna’ beat her and show all those feminists!”
And so it was televised and we all watched it live, and it was a big deal. Bobby Riggs was his name, and of course she beat him- and she beat him hard- and it was awesome.
Apparently they remained friends for a while after that but the lead up to it was really heated and ugly. That was about the time “I Am Woman” came out by Helen Reddy, so there was starting to be push back on feminism, and Bobby Riggs was a great example of that, with what he did with Billie Jean King, but of course she beat him big-time so that was awesome.
How did issues like race, class, and religion intersect with feminists in LGBTQ+ activism?
I have always been aware of racial stuff. We lived on base a lot and we had friends from all sorts of races and religions, and we all went to school together. People that my dad worked with- they hung out together and we would have people of all colors and faiths and races come over to our house and come to parties that my parents would throw. It was not an issue to me.
It’s never been an issue in my house because my parents welcomed everyone, regardless of what they look like or who they worshiped. Maybe that was a military thing, I don’t know. I don’t see that now, in terms of what I see of the military.
How did, or do, you handle sexism, homophobia, and misogyny in your personal and activist life?
I speak up. I speak out instantly. I tend to wear my sexuality and my tribal affiliation on my sleeve. You can’t hurl names at me because I own them all. I will speak up and I will stop people from saying something that they’re trying to say, or I will at least question it, because I have that confidence. And I’m comfortable in my own skin.
What challenges did you face as a woman standing up against patriarchal systems?
When I was working at radio stations, I was usually the only on-air talent that was female. I did bring some friends in from my college days, but that was hard. Even though I had a great number of listeners and my numbers were always really good, it was hard to get them to consider yet another woman on the air. It felt sometimes almost like I was the token, “We have one woman, that’s enough. We sure as hell don’t need anymore.” But I was also a music director at some of those stations where I was on the air as a DJ. And the record label people I came into contact with, be it Warner Brothers, or Arista or whatever record rep was from, most out of Atlanta or other big cities, would come visit and bring stuff but also we had to talk with them every week and tell them what we were playing and I also, as music director, had to write articles every week about what was playing and why and what was the response to it. But anyway- the reps from the labels didn’t seem to treat me differently than they treated the men who were music directors at different stations.
What do you consider your proudest moments as an activist?
I’m really proud of what we did every year at Michigan and I wasn’t even there for the first 19 years. We were able to create this culturally rich environment for women, for feminists, for lesbians- women - from all over the world - that would come to have this experience and feel safe and be able to walk half naked to the bathroom in the middle of the night, knowing that there were no men there. And sorry, but that’s reality.
Every woman that went to a festival like that can tell you what their moment was, the moment that you realize “I’ve never felt so safe in my life. I feel safer here than I do in my backyard. I feel safer here than I do with my best friend.”
Because it was an all-female environment. It was kind of the greatest show on earth.
The greatest, cultural support. It was both incredibly exhilarating and incredibly chill. We had three different stages of entertainment going on all the time. We played music during the day and showed movies at night. Music and poetry and dance parties late at night, and we also offered childcare. Folks who were worried about staying sober at an event like that didn’t have to worry because we had emotional support and 12 step support. A lot of women who were straight, or perhaps just coming out to themselves, would come to Michigan and see a world that was run by Lesbians for the most part and supportive of all women under every circumstance, and it was frightening for them to not be part of the ruling group. So really, everything about it was an education for everybody. I would say overall, I’m proudest of that in my life.
What advice would you give young southern lesbians and feminists fighting for change today?
Always be yourself unless you feel unsafe. I would also encourage them to love themselves and try to feel confident, trying to try to embrace what’s uniquely you.
What are the biggest battles still left to fight and where do you see the future of activism heading?
The biggest issues kind of shifted a bit when the felon got back into office, but still equality. They want to bring it down- they want to bring it all back to DEI so let’s go back there. Let’s reestablish how important diversity is and equity and inclusion. That’s so important and it’s no surprise that that’s what threatens them the most. Because that’s what empowers people and that’s what provides opportunities. So they made that a rallying cry? Great- let’s go for it.
Straight white guy over there that’s never thought about it, maybe all this talk about it will make some people think about it for the first time. Because they’re white and they’re male and they’re Christian and they’re straight and they’ve always had every possible advantage so why do we need DEI? Because of you. because you have quashed the idea of there being a goodness about diversity of different people and equity of paying everyone equally, and equitable workspaces and inclusion and that’s why it’s so important because it frightens so many people.
That makes it important. So its not a surprise they have made that a rallying cry.
Special thanks to Michelle Harris for help with editing