evanbrechtel

June 11, 2019July 3, 2019

#QueerHeroes Day 11 – Edythe Eyde/Lisa Ben

When she began working as a secretary for RKO pictures in 1947, her boss warned her that there wouldn’t be much to do, but that she still had to look busy. Edythe Eyde used the time to secretly write an underground lesbian newsletter called Vice Versa.

She would build 12 copies of each issue, three of which she’d mail to friends, distributing the rest,telling each person to pass it on. She did this for nine issues.

She wrote under the pen name Lisa Ben [lesbian].

Not only did she become a formidable editor, writing for science fiction fanzines (her favorite genre) on the side, but she also wrote and performed queer folk songs which she would play at lesbian bars.

Among the lyrics:

“The girl that I marry will probably be
As butch as a hunk of machinery.

The girl I idolize
Will wear slacks with flat fronts
Tailored shirts and bowties.

She’ll walk with a swagger
And wear short hair.
And keep me impressed
With her tomboy air.

Instead of cruisin’
I’ll be usin’
Her shoulder to lean on while snoozin’

A fainthearted fairy
The girl I marry won’t be.”

and

“Scattered are we over land, over sea
How many we number will never be known
each one must learn from a star
she must put a mask on her heart
and live in a world set apart
a shy secret world of her own

Here’s to the days that we’re yearning for
to give up our hearts as we may
love’s always love and sincerity given
despite what the others may say

The world cannot dare to deny us
we’ve been here since centuries past
and you can be sure our ranks will endure
so long as this whole world may last”

Eyde died in 2015 at the age of 94. No obituary was published.

June 10, 2019July 3, 2019

#QueerHeroes Day 10 – Alok Vaid-Menon

Alok Vaid-Menon is a gender nonconforming performance artist, activist, and poet who regularly calls attention to the stratospheric amount of violence and prejudice against trans/GNC people of color.

In 2015, they partnered with Janani Balasubramanian to create the trans South Asian performance art group Dark Matter, which—in addition to poetry performance—mobilizes activists on the ground to work for various social justice causes.

“Trans people and gender nonconformity is biological, natural, anatomical and all of the words they gatekeep from us,” they told Out Magazine. “What is unnatural is their prejudice and transmisogyny. We should be able to look like whatever we want and not have our identities be up for debate.”

In keeping with that, Vaid-Menon has released a third fashion line for gender-nonconforming individuals.

June 9, 2019July 3, 2019

#QueerHeroes Day 9 – Anne Kronenberg

Practically everyone (rightfully) knows who Harvey Milk is, but many haven’t heard of his campaign manager, Anne Kronenberg.

Milk had lost three races before hiring the leather-wearing, motorbike riding, then-openly lesbian activist Kronenberg to his campaign for San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Many of the gay men on Milk’s campaign were skeptical of her, but Milk would win the race, making him the first openly gay elected official in no small part because of Kronenberg’s tireless work.

She would learn of Milk’s assassination while on a plane to Seattle. She got the first flight back to San Francisco when she arrived.

Kronenberg fell in love with a man in the 80s, whom she remains married to today. She’s served the queer community and the city of San Francisco for the past 40 years.

June 8, 2019June 9, 2019

#QueerHeroes Day 8 – Tourmaline

#QueerHeroes Day 8
Tourmaline

Tourmaline is a queer transgender filmmaker whose work examines the “the capacity of black queer/trans social life to impact the world while living what is simultaneously an invisible—and hypervisible—existence.”

Her films highlight the every day acts of creativity and rebellion that can build to make a movement.

One of her films, “Happy Birthday, Marsha!”, imagines the hours leading up to Marsha P. Johnson’s infamous night at Stonewall.

Set in 1855, “Salacia” tells the story of a trans woman named Mary Jones, who lives in the free black community of Seneca (which was torn down to build Central Park).

Tourmaline’s creativity combined with the tapestry of histories that inspire her work is a force of queer pride.

New Yorkers can catch her latest work—”Salacia”—at the High Line every day at dusk, running on a loop until July 3rd.

June 7, 2019June 9, 2019

#QueerHeroes Day 7 – Ernestine Eckstein

#QueerHeroes Day 7
Ernestine Eckstein

Eckstein moved to New York in the 60s after graduating from Indiana University, where she was a star student, with a degree in magazine journalism, government, and Russian.

She learned from a friend in Greenwich Village what the word “gay” meant. That’s when she came into her lesbian identity.

One of the most progressive activists of her time, Eckstein joined the early lesbian rights organization Daughters of Bilitis. Her experience with the civil rights movement made her an asset and she became Vice President of the NYC chapter. Nearly all gay and lesbian organizations at the time were founded by and catered to white people. She understood the importance of intersectionality before it was widely used in the social justice lexicon. In leading her majority-white chapter, she encouraged them to examine the intricacies of simultaneous identities.

The majority of gay and lesbian activists at the time focused on educating healthcare professionals, and would only occasionally picket or publicly proclaim their sexuality. Eckstein thought picketing was an education in itself. Three years before Stonewall, she called for bolder and more effective demonstrations:

“Picketing I regard as almost a conservative act now. The homosexual has to call attention to the fact that he’s been unjustly acted upon. This is what the Negro did.”

Eventually fed up with infighting in Daughters of Bilitis, Eckstein moved to the west coast where she joined the activist group Black Women Organized for Action.

Nothing conclusive is known of her life after her work with BWOA. Death records indicate that she died in 1992.