Jill Lippard and Katie Hendrickson

00:05 My name is Jill Lippard and I am 34 years old. And today's date is May 10th, 2015. We're in Billings Montana and I am speaking to my wife Katie.

00:20 And I am Katie Hendrickson age 34 May 10th. 2015 is today's date in Billings Montana and I am here talking to my wife till the first question. I like to ask you to Jill is when you were growing up. What kind of superhero did you want to be all of them? I went through a Superman phase had Superman pajamas and ran around with cape. Wanted to be a Aquaman for a while. I like swimming. I guess he man. I don't know basically everything I wanted to be was probably a male but all the male superheroes.

01:07 What superhero did you want to be?

01:15 I didn't I think I mostly I wanted to be able to fly anyting allowing me to fly. It's pretty important.

01:25 So on a more serious note, I'd like to ask you.

01:33 When you imagined where you would be today when you were younger and how things have transpired? Can you tell me a little bit about how things are different today than what you expected.

01:48 Jump in there with it will definitely when I was younger growing up.

01:57 I've always been kind of a rule follower sis Society follower type person in just that things would generally go the way things go for people fall in love with somebody and get married and have kids and I wanted to be like a veterinarian or something like that. I guess. I just saw a pretty normal.

02:24 Usual, I mean whatever you want to call normal, but I guess society's main idea of what a normal life would be with a husband and wife and children and a normal job and really good 925 type that job. Yeah. So when I met you that definitely got offended and changed a lot.

02:54 Ended up a lot differently then. I guess I imagined it would have been when I was growing up.

03:02 Not necessarily in a bad way though. I mean ended up doing in a good way. And I think I've always ever since I was little I've always challenged the rules if my teacher told me not to go and play on the mud pile and grade school. I went up and I played on the mud pile and brought all my friends with me.

03:26 I think I'm

03:28 You know, I I guess I didn't have any.

03:35 I didn't know that things would be so different for me when I was an adult, but I knew that I didn't fit in like society's rules and I knew that I was out to be someone different I was supposed to do things differently and I think that really prepared me.

03:56 You know some of the challenges that we've had to face together.

04:01 Can you put into context by describing like your family and how you were raised? What what that meant or just describe how you grew up and what your family was like? Oh, yeah meet where you grew up. Yeah, I grew up in Minnesota. And we spent you every summer we are out on the lake water skiing and pretty much weird fish all the time and we were just in the water. My family was very dedicated to the church. We spent every Wednesday night. We went to church and every Sunday went to church and it was expected. You know that as we listen to God calling us that we would do missions work and go to different countries and it was just religion was

05:00 Not a part of our life. It was our life and

05:09 I think it provided really good structure for me to build a lot of like you no self-discipline and care for other people and some of the good attributes that have made me successful in my job successful in my community and successful my relationship with you the part that religion did not serve.

05:35 For me was telling me that being different was not okay.

05:44 Do you want to talk about how we met?

05:47 Oh sure. Yeah, it's trolls on the interviewer. So I didn't know really what I was doing. So I knew that I was going to go to college. That's what my older brother did so I followed him and I went to college in Orange City, Iowa and

06:10 He don't got busy trying to study and meeting new people and then there was this brown-haired.

06:21 Gal that always had her backpack and her hair in a bun and it was always going to classes, you know, well ahead of time and I thought oh my goodness. She is probably always in the books being responsible and here I was going to college and I was like, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to you know, break the mold and so for you know, the first first semester I didn't I kind of went my direction you went your direction, even though we shared some of the same classes.

06:55 And then that summer we for our major biology major we went out to Michigan and stayed at this place where we had a lot of field classes where you're out in the streams out in the lakes tromping around the woods and just that environment of seeing you.

07:20 In your own place doing your own thing and and the picnics we shared underneath the pine trees and looking at the stars or flipping you over on the on the canoe. I fell in love that summer.

07:35 It's interesting because I don't know. Yeah that summer we definitely develop such a close relationship. And I definitely at that point in time didn't look at it as falling in love not all that wasn't on my radar. Even I just knew that when I was with you. I wanted to be with you more and I wanted to know everything about you and as that summer went on by the end of the summer. I guess it wasn't really the end of the summer but the end of the classes we we went back home to hurt. You went to Minnesota. I went back to my home and Iowa and I just remember splitting my mom coming to pick me up and going our separate ways how watching you leave. That was just like

08:30 I realize there was something there at that point in time that that to me at that point in time. I just thought it was a really close relationship that you are going to be like my best friend for life or something. Yeah, I couldn't even finish my ice cream cone. I was so sad.

08:47 So and then after that summer going back to college we were both biology majors. And so we shared I think we we had almost all of our classes together. So we were just we spent a lot of time together a lot of time studying together and yeah just definitely a lot of time getting to know each other and growing even closer together, but being afraid of of like what people around us were thinking like Desiring to be so close, but being afraid of being too close for people to notice that there was something going on that point. I don't even that wasn't really on my radar yet. But when do you think you realized that it was becoming something more then then just over we're best friends and we love doing the same stuff. And when did when did you start to realize that or were you just

09:47 I was just I was denying that that was happen happening. You know, I'm kind of more of a heart on my sleeve type of person. So I think shortly after that summer in Michigan. I knew that I I didn't want to live my life without you. I wanted you to always be a part of my life and I think that just continue to grow stronger and stronger and I didn't know what that meant exactly. But I knew I knew that I wanted you.

10:18 I needed you to be part of my life. It was interesting because Northwestern College where we went to college is a Christian liberal arts college. I believe we had to find some sort of code of conduct right when we entered into this place and we were required to go to Chapel a couple times a week. So and even like professors would pray at the beginning of classes. So Christianity was very much foundational to the way that both of us grew up and also an intricate part of where we were going to school. So I think starting to realize that maybe my feelings for you were more than we're more than just friendship. That was a scary thing to start to realize because to me and my mind at that point in time. It was just that was not okay. So I think for a while I was just in denial and then

11:20 It was during our sophomore year you came to me with a confession going to tell me about about how that came about. Yeah, I think I think I knew that I felt so strongly about about you and I thought okay well.

11:40 I struggled with that because I had been taught that to feel so strongly about another woman in my life was was not okay. I knew it wouldn't be okay with my family, you know with my Christianity at that time and

11:59 So I had I went to a missions conference and there was a guest speaker from Exodus International and I just was drawn to that because for some reason I felt like I I needed I needed to know more information and I I trusted anything to do with Christianity. There was just an outright blind trust and so I went there and listen to a young man tell his story, you know being attracted to men but not allowing himself to be an environment where he would have the opportunity to develop relationships with them and I just remember like

12:44 It was it was like I don't know. It's a bit like watching kind of an animal at zoo caged like you can see the pain but he wanted to do right.

12:59 Yeah, and so at so after that conference you we were it was during Christmas break and we were talking together in your you said okay Joe. I have a confession to make to you. I think that I have same-sex attraction. That's probably the language of international which is like an ex-gay. It's like a conversion therapy type thing that no longer exist. Yeah. It's an existing other forms, but that particular organization does not

13:40 And you confess that to me. And so I think I think I told you it's like you know what I feel the same way. So from that point forward, it had been acknowledged that both of us had these feelings. So I know that after that point we felt like we needed to fight that and fighting together. We are together. We're going to get through this and pray about it and move on with our lives and restored. He or something. Yeah to our friendship sitting here with you today that obviously didn't happen.

14:24 I guess after college. I mean we spent all those years in college where we're kind of like leading this double life or we're denying our relationship. We didn't tell anybody there that we were like an item. I mean everybody knew we are friends, but we never talked to anybody about what we were going through. I don't know. I think we are both like kind of ashamed and we're afraid we might get kicked out of school. Yeah. I knew we were afraid if we told her parents that they would actually pull this out of school to keep us separated. Yeah or end of some sort of conversion therapy. It would have happening at the church something like that. We were afraid what's going to happen. So we just kind of kept that part of ourselves completely bottled up and so are out.

15:19 Life with people and I mean right into our classes. We did our thing, but then we had this own private just you and me time that that nobody else knew about it. Remember we'd go out to Big Oak State Park can walk by the river and go camping. We had to escape the campus so that I couldn't wait to get out of town so we could like they are so so, you know, cuz we always had always had a kind of act and put on this presentation that everybody in it and it just got exhausting it you needn't have energy to to keep on doing that and going Outdoors was our time to re-energize and

16:05 You know, it's interesting how the years is denying ourselves in that way in.

16:17 I don't know we shut so much out but I I don't regret that. I mean, I wonder sometimes how it would have been different had we been out but I really think at that point in our lives that we needed that quiet space you have our relationship to go and I think had other people been introduced to that at that time. We wouldn't it would have been too wouldn't be sitting here together because we didn't have the connections.

16:47 Two people who would have been able to help us in a healthy way. It would have been people who would want to do a change us and separate us and that would have been detrimental.

16:59 Yeah, so I think things happened just as they needed to painful as they were just as they needed to happen.

17:08 Do you want to talk about how we ended up in Montana on a backpacking trip back in high school and I'm up on Sundance pass at 11040 feet or so looking at the landscape all around me. I knew that this was home. This is where I belong.

17:34 And so after college You & I we went out and we were Park Rangers at Yellowstone National Park for summer and and then just kind of

17:50 Rekindled, you know all that interest in that geographical area, but the job was seasonal intended and then we kind of I start a Wildland firefighting you went back to school for a while and we kind of did our we did our own thing we come together and

18:11 You know support each other but also feeling that it was our responsibility to find a way to be independent from one another and I had I've moved down to Louisiana New Orleans Iowa. That was that was nearly impossible. I but just kind of trying to really to save you from me. I felt like, you know I had to

18:43 Remove myself from you think we both felt that way like just by being present with each other. We were leading each other into staying in.

18:55 Just the way we had been raised. That's that's what we knew in.

19:02 We at that point didn't want to question her face. It was interesting how I kind of Drew away from the church, but never I didn't ever at any point in that time felt like God had abandoned me. I was still have lots of faith in God. I just was starting to mistrust what the church had told me my whole life people from the church were saying didn't add up there was at wasn't adding adding up to how much how happy we were together and how much love was there? So I think that was about the time you begin further questioning things. I mean, I wasn't ready to fully Embrace like running off and marrying you yet, but we're definitely by that time we came to Montana I think

19:52 Well now is so cool. Because after I was in Louisiana, I got a firefighting job here in Billings Montana with a BLM and you that same spring and summer got a job at Glacier National Park, which is about 7 hours from billiards in the same state and we're finally Montana Italy same time both having jobs and

20:13 Yeah, that was I don't know it we never left you never did leave.

20:20 So that was a about 889 years ago. Now they've almost 9006. So yeah that we first came to Montana and

20:35 What do you think was kind of like a turning point where we started to?

20:42 More except who we were or begin to imagine a future of us actually being together.

20:51 Well, I think I really, you know, I'd like to ask you the same thing cuz I really keyed into.

20:58 Your experience and I think when you started to have a change of heart that is all right in some ways. I think you were always may be there and ready to go for it. Yes, and I was holding back a lot. I was still clinging to this. So we're going to get over this and

21:17 I don't know. I have a lot of Pride. I think we need to get through this and I will never have to tell anybody about it. And yeah, we'll be fine move on with her life, but I think that after being in Montana with you for a while. I just started to feel I don't know we weren't really able to develop close relationships with people because we still were in the closet cuz you're always putting on an act you are. Yeah, we were just on my closet and so that's just so isolating to be in the closet.

21:55 And I was just starting to get unhappy with that and unsettled and

22:02 Sick of walking a lion and I was like, okay, we need to you know, make a decision here. We need to either Embrace this and start telling people or we need to end it and I still having I prayed about it. I'd read the Bible light.

22:24 And you are the verses that told me that homosexuality was wrong.

22:29 But I still couldn't accept that because what my heart was telling me was it Katie and I were made for each other and we made each other better people and that God brought us together and with sustaining that keeping helping that grow. So it just wasn't lining up to me. But at the same time I knew that I needed.

22:53 I needed to figure out a way to embrace that and I needed to come out to my family. I need I needed those pieces of my life to be brought together cuz I was just I mean

23:11 Yeah, it is just getting too hard. I love I love how you you told me about how when we went down to Colorado to go to a Brandi Carlile concert. Yeah, so funny. I had started listening to this singer-songwriter artist Brandi Carlile, and I remember just loving the music but then thinking oh my gosh, I think she might be a lesbian and I didn't like that. I wanted to separate myself from things that might associate but

23:48 So is this pivotal time when I was wanting to come to terms with who I was and with my sexuality in my face and bringing that together and we went to Brandi Carlile concert in Boulder Colorado. And I think that was really the first time where I had been any space with lots of other people that I felt like these are people like me and then I felt comfortable being with Katie and like like I could maybe hold Katie and Harry wouldn't care if they're not going to like ask you out.

24:31 But I was kind of a turning point for me to be in that space to feel safe being with you and I think

24:39 So it was at that point in time. I think I decided that I needed to tell my parents and we still hadn't told anybody. It was seven years years into our relationship and I finally decided I was I'm telling my parents and that was such a hard thing for me to do. I remember going home for Thanksgiving and it's like I'm going to tell him I'm going to tell him I never told him and then on the way home from that Thanksgiving trip. I typed this huge along letter and

25:11 That's how I came out to my parents. I sent this letter to my mom and my mom gave me a call after she got the letter and she was she was crying on the phone and she just said she'll it's going to be okay and

25:32 I know so that was the first the first time that we told anybody here. I'm sure some people had figured it out by that point. But but that's the first time that we voluntarily open up open up about our relationship and from that point things just how freeing that was to start to tell people and I know that in 2009 when they legalized same-sex marriage in Iowa for the Iowa Supreme Court declared, it was unconstitutional to ban same-sex marriage. I think that was a huge turning point to me as well that I started actually imagining a future with you. Yeah. Yeah, it's grown-up and Iowa because the other places that have legalized It really used to call us like that was so foreign to me. I couldn't connect to that but when I will legalize did it was that was

26:32 Big deal. I remember just bawling and just really starting to be like things were just coming together that maybe we don't have to live this half life anymore where we're hiding everything from everybody and sneaking around like we're criminals when really what I'd come to realize was because I still consider myself a person of Faith. I'd come to realize that

26:58 Homosexuality was not a test and it was the hiding and sneaking around and trying to shut other people out of my life and keep this secret from people that was this end was the way in which I was going about doing that. So as I came out to my parents and then we started to come out to more and more people and with our background there is definitely some interesting reaction so that do you want to do you want to tell about some of your family's reaction?

27:34 It is kind of way is possible. I was really surprised about is I thought that they would ask more questions of me. But it really actually for my family. A lot of them actually started to talk about some things in their life and you know, they did Express.

28:02 Some of the things that they struggled with with me being gay and some of that Revelation was really painful. I did kind of have to step away from from some relationships for a little bit cuz I knew that that's what I needed. I knew that that type of I have been thinking all those negative things about myself for so long. I didn't need to hear it. Yeah, I'm someone else. Yeah, it's like you think I didn't think about this everyday. I remember my mom asking me about how like jail or are you really saved? Do you really understand and it's like out of this point and you don't know me did I change over night prayer with me when you were there and then you watched me get baptized when I was inside.

29:01 Grade of my own voluntary my own can I get baptized? I want to do this, you know, so it's like, how could you think that all of a sudden? I don't understand what that meant a number that I remember that being very hurtful. And I also remember some of our friends the responses of some of our friends and it's not actually about marriage cuz I remember when we got married it was almost like a second coming out because you know, a public marriage is a public thing and I remember a conversation with a college friend about how you know gay marriage is there shouldn't be called marriage. It should be called something like garrage and I just such demeaning things. You know, I'm talking about how

29:54 2 primates can can raise you know their offspring and kind of comparing that with you know, and I just like it just the way I remember him saying something like well, I can't imagine that you could possibly have anything like what my wife and I have yeah, that's just not even. Yeah, I just turned all the

30:23 All those arguments of people who grew up in the church, but I appreciate it that more than the people who just decided not to ever respond never acknowledged just cut off all ties. That's about rainbow. Yeah. Yeah one thing I do, you know, I'm talking about, you know, Montana and and things where they where they are at with us and how you know coming out and how our relationship has just completely changed and blossomed in I'm with our families how we're getting closer with them and things are healing and becoming better and you know more Mutual understanding to agree to disagree on things and that's okay. I think when we got married that was a big

31:13 Like I said

31:15 Turning point and how our families buta relationship because I think that are that our family is diet that maybe we just get over it or we weren't serious about this or so then no other language made sense yet about how to define us until we got married.

31:36 And visit our marriage. We just got married at City Hall. We didn't have a big and big wedding but

31:45 I think that that was important an important step for us, even though it wasn't legal in Montana at the time. It was important step for us to

31:57 To show people especially our families how committed we were to one another and that this isn't just going away guys were married. This is what it is. We are in this for the Long Haul and you either get used to that and embrace us and love us as we are or I mean that's where we're going to be there and join us in this or or not and it being kind of it almost like a weird awkward somber occasion when we got married but likely feel kind of like trying to show us apart, but it wasn't it wasn't like your wedding usually is yes, they were still definitely processing. We had an interesting.

32:49 Last year, we had an interesting development in art our city. They had proposed non-discrimination ordinance for LGBT and we got the opportunity to go to a number of the City Council meetings about the proposed ordinance. Would you like to talk a little bit about your experience and you think things are changing?

33:18 I don't I mean it in some ways. It is encouraging to get together with lots of other people and meet lots of people and the community here in Billings because we haven't really met a lot of people in our circle of friends or whatever so is need to get to meet a lot of people in the LGBT community and learn their stories and share our story as well. I'm cuz I could think that's healing to dust talking about it.

33:52 But yeah, those meetings I tell you I had that was just like all my childhood doubts or whatever thrown back at me all over again all the people who were speaking out against that non-discrimination ordinance and that hateful things that they were saying about people like me. Yeah, how it how do you feel, you know, there's a decorum that you have to have in the City Council meetings and sitting there and hearing the hate and the lies and you know with passion these people had extreme passion and what they were saying didn't you feel like wanting to respond in a very vocal way and say like to stand up for yourself did it sounds like you felt that way? I think it was just

34:52 I was discouraged because I had watched other cities passing the ordinance and I was sure Billings was going to follow suit and do the same thing and

35:03 When they when they chose it was like a 4-4 tie vote and then the mayor cast the the deciding vote that no, we're not going to pass this. There's no need for it. There's no discrimination is something like that was not the right time. Yeah. That's what he said ready for this. I don't know. I don't know.

35:30 It was just to the people who had come and rallied in the churches that had rallied and spoken against this discrimination ordinance to see them have this a victory with a very frustrating.

35:49 Yeah, well and I remember I have a very young young man, you know, a teenager being encouraged by his parents and having like his presents his personality just a wonderful young man, but then what he had been brainwashed to say and the passion that he against

36:12 You know, I hope that he has the opportunity to change his view on that. I was looking back to where you were at when you were in high school library. Usually titanium you yeah, I think seeing ourselves sing our family is seeing our church families in the things that those people are saying they were our family members and that's one of the things that I think been a blessing or one of the greatest things about our relationship or what we've learned from our relationship and maybe been able to help teach our families and maybe some of our friends about

36:56 Just about love and acceptance and

37:04 Just developing a humbleness that I have maybe wouldn't have had maybe like growing up. I don't know you've talked about before it like the self-righteous feelings that when you're raised in that church, and now I'm doing everything right? I'm doing this right that right. I got it all together. And you know, I'm God's on my side and I guess I could see that in in that young man you're talking about and I was like, yeah, that was me. So I think just having this experience of being a lesbian has been a huge blessing that way. Yeah. I imagine how different of people we would be not in a good way. It was just an eye-opening thing and just opening here is to be aware of all all different types of people. Not just not just other lesbians are you know, but I'm just making me more empathetic Maybe

38:06 Or more aware and more sensitive or I would I would hope I need me more sensitive to what other people are going through and trying to look at things from her walk in their shoes or whatever.

38:23 I think that takes it takes a time of of suffering. I mean, it's not like you're just born with the ability to say. Oh, you know that person has had a rough road feel for them. I you know, I'm going to give them Grace, you know, because I understand where you're coming from but suffering allows you to be forced to to look at things that way and that's where the blessing comes from.

38:58 Definitely helped me to develop a better understanding of

39:05 Just other people and yeah recognizing that you know, when my favoritest thing is that when we spend the weekend together we hang out. We have a good time camping or hiking or hanging out at the brewery with our friends when I go back to work. The one thing I think about is how much I miss you. I can't spend enough time with you.

39:36 Yep, it's the lady all the ways that we conspired to tear ourselves away from each other and break up our own relationship because there was a lot of that going on especially back in college just the fact that we are still together and still so much in love and still learning new things about each other in finding ways to fall in love all over again all the time.

40:14 It's pretty amazing and

40:18 Definitely not just coincidences happen for a reason and we were when we went that summer to Ausable in Michigan together those has meant to be and I'm very thankful in and glad and look forward to what's to come.