Michelle Brenard and Sarah Geis

00:04 My name is Sarah giese. I'm 28 years old. Today is March 18th, 2010. I am at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, California, and I might just met Michelle this afternoon.

00:19 I'm Michelle Bernard and I'm 62 and it's March 18th, and I'm in San Francisco and I just met Sarah Sarah today. So we just start off as I know so little about you tell me a little bit about yourself about yourself. Now. What what are you doing with your life? Where do you live? And then we'll just see where it goes from there. I'm kind of taking a break right now. I just got done with this very long project of setting something up for lesbians over 40 and its really drained me a lot. So I'm kind of recuperating and I'm actually

01:03 Not sure if I might have some health issue because I've been having a hard time bouncing back and I know I really stretch myself kind of beyond my capabilities to get that grounded. What can you talk a little bit more about what that project was. It's a group for lesbians over 40. It's called a dike ain't dead yet Kick-Ass events. And my vision for it is to eventually have it be a non-profit dad and eventually have it address, you know, a broader range of things right now. We have two monthly brunches and we periodically have other things that we have a listserv where the women post needs like somebody to go to the movie. We are there looking for a roommate away cuz there's a lot of isolation among older lesbians and it's a way to get them out of isolation and in touch with each other and it's worked really well for many of them. I frequently have to make him up and tell me they were all alone in this is basically saved their life. So can you tell me a little bit about how how you start to discover this need in the community?

02:03 It was a little bit of a surprise for me. It came from a need I had of my own. I just thought it'd be nice to maybe have some monthly brunches with some other older lesbians. It was really hard to find older lesbians when I go to advance so I might find lesbian sex with young women in it really seemed to me like they didn't want to know older people are in the army that you're really a good son has become a conversation my age and they would actually stopped mid-sentence. So just turn around and walk away. So I really almost felt Sean for being older and so I post it on a local lesbian list. Was anybody interested in a group for lesbians over a 40 and I had about two and a response within 48 hours and it just it just kind of snowballed there cuz over 1,500 members now.

02:50 And I'm and so I didn't really know I didn't wasn't really planning on taking gears out of my life and I'm pushing myself to the extent I did for for this photo.

03:03 I've been working on it for about four years in the beginning of between 60 and 80 hours a week the first couple years and then the last year usually

03:13 Minimum of 20 hours a week last four years at the minimum and then there was

03:21 A disruption in the Middle where some people tried to steal the idea and say it was theirs and I had to read it a time when I was going to step back and start taking care of myself. I I felt driven to make sure that the group survived and so I kind of had to start from scratch rebuilding from scratch. They stole the membership list and I never printed it out. So I had to start from zero in the middle.

03:46 So, how is your life personally different now that this this list that this group exists?

03:54 Well, I have a friendship Network. I'm I'm very likely wouldn't have had without the group I've benefited in that way. I am I enjoy the two branches each month myself. I I well I happened to be the person who does them but I would probably go and there's been times volunteers have done them and I still go.

04:15 I feel you know, it's it's it's I feel that it's a good thing but next to my children. It's probably one of most important accomplishments of my life.

04:25 So I'm

04:27 I feel good about having done it. I'm just wanting to recoup now. I get my strength back ticket to Terry go back go back into my own life and take care of myself. I feel like I've been kind of codependent taking care of other people all these years. I need to take care of me now and it feels very solid. Now that it can handle. It doesn't need to think the degree of nurturing and caretaking. It did for a long time. That must be a good feeling to be able to let go a little bit see that sound. Yeah. Yeah, like when your kids off to college or something you can you can go out of that Mommy Mode in and deal with what you want to do for the remainder of your life. So what are the branches like are they at your home? I had a couple at my home. I like our Valentine's brunch. I sometimes have had my home the brunch of meats in various locations one in the East Bay wanted San Francisco. The one in La Pena's in the East Bay has been at the same place the fourth Sunday of every month at noon for since the beginning of the group.

05:25 The one in San Francisco has moved a bit and it was at home for a long time across from Safeway. And now it's just recently moved to Chow which is right across the street and it's the second Saturdays in Montana. And when people show up there for the first time do they usually know anyone in the group or they they come in on their own if there is sometimes they come with somebody was already a member of the group Sometimes they come with a friend was curious about the group. Sometimes I come all alone. Sometimes they're all timers. Come every month to the brunch and I see them every month at the brunch and I've gotten to know them over the years.

05:57 Are there any friendships that have come through the group that are particularly meaningful to you right now?

06:04 I would say every single one of my close friends in this area that almost every single one of my close friends and this area has come about through the group at this point in time cuz it's been going on 5 years and been working on so much. I do have some friends that just you know, it didn't have an empty even though they're lesbians over 40. They just want motivated to get involved with the group but I'm an awful lot of them are connect with the group. You said that that you know, some people come up to this really changed my life. Are there any specific examples of that are stories that you might want to share, you know, when women come up to me and talk to me at these gatherings. I I don't have the energy to put into them as individuals. Sometimes I can see a look of disappointment on their face cuz I also moderate the list and I can be very friendly and chatty in that role until they get a vision of who I am, you know like his mama that takes for everybody so they really think I'll unveil I don't know what they think that I can somehow I sense a look of disappointment because I'm there for the

07:04 Call group and so I don't get into their individual stories a lot when I meet them at the branches. The they've just said they were really isolated and and some of them is sadder, but I just kind of stay there. Like I got them out of total isolation and number of them told me they met their life partner through the group.

07:21 So there's been some romances. Yes. There have been some romances and then some of them that seems and you don't really happy together.

07:30 Yeah, it is nice. But I mean all of it's nice just you know, just just getting out of isolation to always a good thing. It's always you know, it's it's a stepping-stone, you know, and then they can use the list to I try to get them to feel empowered to use what's there to make their life be what they want it to be, you know, like they can post on the list. I want to meet you know, every week to go hiking or I want and I want the other people to play baseball with or you know, whatever they're their desire is for their life. I try to get them to you know, visualize it and use what's there for them and a lot of them a lot of them never post of the 1500 members of the armoire there a lot of them never post on the list and then you'll see a lot of repeat posters, you know that I guess more extroverted or something but some of them that don't ever call Stacy somebody else post and that responded them off list, so they're still using it.

08:24 And I don't I don't really know about the ones that are more distant. We know if it in any way makes them feel better to know where they are.

08:33 Why was a house?

08:35 Where you had the skills and the ability to make this group happen to you been working with computers in this kind of thing before?

08:45 No, I mean that's kind of how it got stolen night. When I first started. I didn't even know how to do the most basic Simple Thing as creating a Yahoo group, which is one of the simplest things in the world to do I have now created several others. None of them have grown this big and it takes about 5 minutes of your time and I have somebody volunteer and set it up for me and that's how it got stolen from me because after I'd worked like 60 to 80 hours a week for two years and got the belt up to almost a thousand members. She deleted me from the list entirely and told everybody she was the co-founder and that's agricola's Dyke another group that we both exist in the area. We had about 50% overlapping membership Street and then to kind of cover-up the tracks of having done this sort of Yale deed. They they started a defaming me.

09:41 It was it was it or it was really hard.

09:45 But I couldn't stand the idea of the the group not not existing. I'm not existing is how I envisioned it cuz I didn't Envision to just be like a social Play Store place to meet people to date. I always wanted it to have a broader always wanted it to be very very accessible to tell anybody that had accessibility issues disabled women or women that had income problems and so are brunch as we try to have them at locations that are affordable and I always tell women if they don't know if they're not in the mood for in a branch just come have coffee with us. I try to make it, you know, you there safe and women that can't afford a cup of coffee that come and just sit with you know, when I try to make it cuz there's it's not that hard to meet other people when you have money it's much harder when when you're you know, isolated partially due to finances and that and that can easily happen as you get older and then the disabled issue one of the things that I've learned through doing the group and through aging myself. Is that even if you weren't disabled to start with by the time you're very old person the odds of you

10:45 Some type of disability are almost certain so that becomes more and more of an issue as you get older.

10:56 I feel like we could go in there but I think I can go get back to this station. I'd love to talk more more about your your identity and identity of the group and how this big project has changed your life. But you mentioned your kids as being what will go into. It will go into your more of your caretaking mothering and then we will talk about you on your own, but tell me about your kids while I have a daughter and a son and they're

11:23 36 and 42 and so they're good they're grown now but they're so you know, there's a way with other parent your kind of always available and they live up in Oregon where I raised them.

11:35 And my son now has a daughter. I have a 1 year old granddaughter and that's really wonderful.

11:44 I moved down here when they were grown and moved down to San Francisco when they were grown. I came out as a lesbian in Eugene Oregon around when I was around 27 and it's it's San Francisco's. I probably the easiest place to live as a queer person and I came down here to go to advance my education and then after having finished doing a upper-division work, I always thought I would go back to Oregon but I really couldn't go back to a place that I didn't feel very safe as a gay person in the my old friends would be like well today. Just have to be discreet and discrete. I don't want to go back into that lifestyle, you know, where you you don't ever touch your partner in public and you know, and you don't ever do or say anything that would indicate you're more than friends in public.

12:31 Even though I'd love that way for years having come out there and then going back into that. Once you have a greater Freedom. It's really hard to go back into something that feels like a straight jacket. Once you're used to not having it there my friends that live there. They don't quite understand what I'm talking about. And then I have friends down here that will be moving up there for retirement knuckle, you know, it's really different and the go have different. Could it be getting murdered her three different to get home?

13:00 And I got out of the Gods different now. It's not like that anymore and it is better. It is better. They're both, you know, like in racial issues and all kinds of diversity is better and and I emailed an old friend up there that I study martial arts with my own martial arts teacher and I go so can women like kiss on the street corner and Eugene now and shoot her response was they can do that. They're really wow. That's surprising to me because Eugene is known. I don't know Eugene while what's known as for the liberal college town, but no

13:36 Well the first year that I came out. I was beating up on the street twice or three times living in Eugene once was by the sheriff's.

13:44 Oh, wow. What?

13:47 Got that must have been hard and you wish you were in your mid-twenties. I was I was going 27 when I came out.

13:54 Yeah that have your children already. Yeah, I have two children. They were young Abrams about in third grade or second grade and Aiden was in preschool when it came out really young.

14:08 And I mean I actually

14:13 That was a real big concerned cuz when when you get beaten up with that by the police, they have to charge you with something cuz otherwise it is more clear that you were beating up. And so I was charged with the staff. And so I spent a year in court and my friends were beating up with me. We all spent that year in court with ourselves and each other and so is a big concern of mine that I might be separated from my children.

14:36 So if you would you mind talking about what would happen that time?

14:41 By the police how that occurred.

14:44 Apparently in this is not firsthand information, but there was an incident that happened at triangle Lake in that vicinity that that night where there was a big party of people and the police were accused police brutality and beating up people in one of the people that beating up was supposed to have been a pregnant woman in and so I don't have any first-hand experience of that but we were driving home about 5 in the morning and apparently they thought that we were some that Gathering anyway, we got pulled over and who are you with I was with three three other lesbian friends and we were pulled over in and immediately. The place was started manhandling the one friend who was driving the vehicle and so my other friend and I got out and we started trying to get him to stop.

15:30 NHS escalated and ended up out of that more. Please came and we all were beaten up.

15:39 Sounds terrifying. Yeah.

15:42 Yeah, I mean, you know the majority of the planet gay people are physically abused at any given moment, you know, like just for not being secretive about who they are. So it's really hard to leave San Francisco even in San Francisco. Like I live in the Castro and I had an old girlfriend and we used to walk to the mission all the time for produce and we would have noticed after a while anyway, but I was like all of each other's hand around Valencia and I noticed that all the gay people were letting go of each other's hand around lives here. You just don't work for the mission holding hands and you don't walk through Bayview Hunters Point all the Nyan so it's not like I mean gay people are still beat man killed in San Francisco. It's just that it's much less than other areas, right? So what was that? Like after that there was that one year that you you were beat up what you said three times and Eugene you were raising small kids did that?

16:34 Change the way you acted or how you were you did you start to think about leaving. What were those years? Like well leaving wasn't particularly an option for me. I didn't have the money to move very low income raising two kids.

16:51 I did start training in martial arts. I did think relatively defensively about you know.

17:00 Being in a rural area. That was pretty homophobic. And even though Eugene was probably the least homophobic of any place in, Oregon.

17:09 When I came out around

17:12 75 or so is a real different world what were reactions from friends and family when you came out?

17:22 I have gotten pregnant when I was a senior in high school and that's just never happened in my family to this a date never happened. I'm the only one ever to do anything like that in my family. So I was such a black sheep. But by the time I came out my family wasn't really shocked and intimidated already was no longer practicing Catholic which is probably the most upsetting thing to my family I had already

17:48 Then I was a hippie, you know, so I mean, I'd already gotten married a senior or gotten pregnant and married a senior in high school. I did already wasn't practicing Catholic and I already been hippie. So by the time I came out there really wasn't anything more I was going to do that was going to surprise them and then are they didn't ever reject me. I mean, they weren't happy about that stuff. But you know that I had a cousin who came out long before I did who had it was much higher status relative in the family. And so she kind of broke the ice for the rest of the family that came out so that she hadn't been rejected so they couldn't in my family is you know, they might and if they were ever going to say anything to me about not being a practicing Catholic if any of them if there was anything they've about that but there's never been anything about the other stuff that mean they weren't thrilled about it my mother call the police when when she found out I was lesbian of to report her daughter was living with a lesbian and the police actually came to our house and wanted to rest as they couldn't if we would have kissed in front of them. They could have arrested us and that they needed.

18:48 Who in the house that we owned? So what was the law been any thing like that. I think a crime in some states to cross-dress. Cross-dressing was a big deal, which I think is why Halloween is like the gay holiday because of the we could always crossdress on Halloween and I'm really angry. We don't still celebrate Halloween in the Castro. I feel like it's like it's like as if the Jewish temple got that have violence happen there on a high holy day and they start telling choose they could no longer celebrate their High holy day in the in the temple because there been this violent acts in the Castro is is our place it sits in a way. It's our holy place and in the end and Halloween is our holy hell it take and we can no longer celebrated in the only town in the world that that has those really fairly decent gay rights.

19:46 Right. Do you have any Halloween past that are especially memorable for you?

19:54 Know how long he's always been memorable for me if it's always been my favorite holiday long as I can remember.

20:01 Do you dress up almost always dress up as this year?

20:06 I was too exhausted from doing this group this year that the end night. That's when I kind of hit a wall and realized I announced to the group. I wasn't doing any of those bigger events for at least a year and I don't know if I'll ever go back to doing the bigger events. I just realized I'd done all I push myself as far as I could for this group, but I had to start taking care of myself. Yeah, sounds like you've done a lot and it's time to reboot. So what are you how are you planning on on rebooting? What is here? What do you want in your life to look like now? I spent almost the last month in bed and I'm starting to feel like an invalid and I don't know what's wrong with me. So I actually Friday some friends or take me to General Hospital and I'm going to try to find out like I'm having a lot of pains in my chest that I've had for years now, and I don't know what it is. Like it could be something like fibromyalgia or something like that.

20:59 I don't know if that that are what's the other thing of rheumatoid arthritis. It could be something like that, but it could be something with my heart and I want to find out what it is and started dressing in.

21:10 I kind of want to partially retire. I'm 62. I just turned 62 and I'd like to find part-time work that would be ideal for me. I don't know that I could I could definitely not handle the degree of work that I've done in the past the kinds of work. I've done in the past. I just don't feel unless they can figure out what's wrong with me and I can get back from my strength cuz right now coming here today was really really hard for me.

21:37 How is it? How's it affecting your your mental feelings to be to be in bed so much a sound system was really boring. Like am I depressed? Is this like a is this that this part of that or I might just depressed because I'm not able to do all the things I like to do if I sent a really active person and I like being really active person and it's very foreign to me in every day. I think like well 5 I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'll get up and I'll get dressed and I'll even feel sort of perky and I'll live in the edge of the Castro on our walk and do some Banking and go to the Post Office and then I have to go back to bed. I can barely get back home to go back to bed this crazy what it is and so I didn't think I could even handle I don't have Healthcare stock to the general and I didn't think a I can't even handle that. So I asked a couple friends and one said she'll take me another social pick me up. So I'm going to go and see if I can find out.

22:34 It sounds like you have good friends and good. Yeah, they sell resin. I know through the group will actually one of them I knew previous to the group, but I've got to know her better through the group.

22:45 So, what's your what's your little granddaughters name Madison the show of Madison Michelle. It sounds like she's named after you if she listens to this when she's 18. So in 17 years what and what do you want her to know about her grandma or what advice do you have for her waited for her for a very long time?

23:11 When I was a little girl and I would be making decisions. I would think what would be the better story to tell my grandchild. So I made almost every major decision of my life. And what would be a better story to tell my grandchild. So I've had very very adventurous life. Thanks to her and I didn't know if she was ever going to come because my children are a little bit old to finally be having any children. My daughter has endometriosis and is now divorced in solid. She may seem to have doctor something but right now and it's sheet Madison was just a complete surprise. It was she was not a planned a little girl, but I think she's brought a lot of magic and everybody's life that's close to her. She's very special and she's really unique when she was about a week old and I went up there to help cuz there was some health issues with her in the mom when they were born

24:00 Can you Parkland?

24:03 She would cling to the ship is swaddled as an infant and she would cling to the front of the blanket when I have taken pictures of her with my cell phone and I'd have her in my arm with my other arm. She would grab to the blanket and she would lift her chest and her head forward to stare at the cell phone when she was only a week old. I have never seen a child that young be noticing to the degree that she notices they were visiting and we took her to one of these branches and she is only about nine months old and usually a 9 month old at a restaurant with adults. You have to spend a lot of time taking care of them and you don't have to do anything with her. She is just looking around with such interested everything. It's like another adult at the table. She's just looking all around at the end of the three times at restaurants with her and every time she requires no attention. She just fascinated and at like the brunch with my group some of the women we're doing the peekaboo thing with their hands and it would be sort of like she'd look at them like, okay, you're real cute and you're real funny, but I have things to do here.

25:04 She was more interested in studying people than this like silly stuff they were doing so I didn't. Yeah, she's quite a fascinating child. Do you remember where you were when you first learn that you're going to have a granddaughter? I think I was at my home and my son called me on the phone to tell me that there was this little unexpected person coming.

25:29 You're excited. Yeah, I was excited. It was an adjustment, you know, cuz it was so unexpected. But and and I think it you know, it was the same for both he and I that it was an adjustment, you know, he's now we're both completely besotted with her now, but it wasn't it wasn't something that he or her mother had planned or that they had even planned a future together at that point in time. So

25:55 But now everybody that you know, she's kind of the most important thing in everybody's life now.

26:02 And so sounds like you know, you said that you've been taking these risks for stories to tell you tell your grandchild is how I would think like all this time your grandchild it. Really I really kind of was trying to get myself to accept that there wasn't going to be a grandchild. So what are some of the stories I really remember is being about 8, I'm trying to decide if I was going to do some crazy thing with my bike. I'm in a we didn't have dirt bikes then and I was going to like, you know, like jump from one Hill to another on my bike and and I decided that you to do it but it was just sort of like to be I think it was started maybe the beginning moment where I started making decisions to do the the Wilder thing, you know, cuz it would be more fun to tell my granddaughter.

26:49 Sounds like you've made a lot of Life child. I didn't know if your granddaughter. It sounds like you've made a lot of Life Choices that were not the easy route coming out living in a small town when it was a dangerous climate to do that. That was more ignorant than anything else in this hippie. I have no idea like to come, you know, I'd like most people that are not gay. I had no idea how dangerous it is to be gay. I mean, I think it's really easy in our culture to think it's it's not that bad. I mean, but that's why sometimes gay people that don't want to be out are very hesitant to tell they're more liberal friends cuz they're liberal friends are the ones who think it's no big deal and shoot off their mouth, you know, but like I mean my hippy friends are rejected me when I came out.

27:38 Yeah, do you hope that that your granddaughter takes risks also it was there any lessons from your life you'd like to pass on know she has her own path. She has to follow her own path. I mean, I think I think our path is inside of us and and that's what we have to do as individuals as listen to the path that's inside of us and stay tuned. I think there's a barometer inside of us and it kind of like a compass and it kind of tells us when we're off course or were on course, and and I think that's the thing we have to do as individuals cuz everybody has their own path.

28:15 I mean on the one hand is as a one of the caretakers in her life. I feel really protective and don't want anything to ever happen that hurts her but at the same time, I don't want her to lead such a safe cautious life that but she is not her fault self and whatever it is. She supposed to be

28:33 You wanted to be able to take that risk and I got the bike from Hill. I have already have a lot of trust and respect in her that you know and Emma and her parents are both really doing an excellent job with her and I should have done and still got information to and I hope I get to visit her a lot and you know dropped a little bit of inspiration, but she's more inspiring to us than I think any of us could ever be to her.

29:00 Set everything you hoped for being a grandma. It's much more than I ever hoped for being a grandma cuz I didn't expect her know. Nothing any of us could have been prepared for her or she just really is kind of mind-blowing and what's the story behind her name?

29:21 Her mother really wanted to name her madison, you know, and I actually I come from this really strong Irish Catholic Family. So I kept like sending emails of like list of Irish names and stuff like that, but I guess somewhere when she was young her name is Mindy and she must have thought Mindy and Madison sounded like a good Duo Middle School made up her mind that that was a name it was going to be and I also like really unusual unique names and there's a lot of children her age named Addison. Actually, I think the most popular girls name for a babies and my son's name is Aiden and my daughter's name is April and I when I was Michelle, even though it's a common name now and my generation, it's not at all. I just a fifth grade before I met another Michele.

30:02 But the middle name Michelle that was their idea. I didn't that was unexpected. I didn't know they were going to do that until they did it so sweet. It was really sweet. They're all really good my my daughter and my son and Mindy they're all very good people.

30:25 See yourself. What do you see your day today? Life being like in 5 years?

30:31 Well, my hope is that I will have found some kind of part-time work. I don't really see that they have a desire or see myself retiring don't really have funding for retiring. But I also think that you know.

30:46 That life is Fuller when you're making contributions of some sort. And so I want to always be contributing something. I just about just makes me feel better. I I do legal work and I would like to get back into legal work. I taking a break from it for this group and I would like to get back into it.

31:06 So the ideal for me would be to find an attorney that I could work for part-time and then I'm also the ideal for me would be to find a way that I can see a lot of Madison. She's not in Portland and it's hard for me to get up there to see her. So I'm really hoping to figure out ways so I can get up there frequently to see her.

31:23 Without having to move there. I thought about moving there when she was born cuz I was so excited about her existence, but it was it's the gay thing. I mean, that's the thing. I mean, I really would love to be in a rural setting but the more world the setting is the more dangerous it is a gay person and it's like not all gay people want to live in urban centers but Urban centers are the places. Where were safest in Portland. I mean, I've always really wanted to go to live like in the woods and a nature. That's really where I want to be but I don't feel safe in those places, right? Do you feel like the the group that you found it? And now that people have stronger social networks increases the feeling of safety or increases its members safety at all. Are they related?

32:09 Well, I think it increases the member safety and unless mean isolation. I

32:15 I mean, I do think that the the San Francisco is fairly safe. When you leave San Francisco even in the Bay Area. It's less safe. You will you will find less physical demonstrations, you know the affection happen by queers when she leaves San Francisco. I mean like if I'm in a shopping mall just you know, five miles out of San Francisco and I walk around holding my girlfriend's hands. You can't buy me to get stared at and maybe even some threatening dogs, you know, people don't realize that as soon as you leave the city limits. It's a whole nother Vibe, but it's still better than other parts of the world. The whole Bay Area is impacted by San Francisco and there is

32:50 I mean like I have an idea lot of temp work. I've I've worked just outside of town at a temp job and had one of the other workers find out that I was gay and have her say to me like oh, that's okay with me and it's like it just kind of in San Francisco. That's a dumb thing to say to somebody but also San Francisco that's like somebody being supportive of you respond to let you know I'd I knew she was trying to be supportive of it, but it was just sort of I had done a lot of temp work and I've been in San Francisco. It had been a long time since I've worked outside of San Francisco. So but I mean, I've also lost I mean I I lost a one-time job because I the day after I told the supervisor I was gay I was fired and you know, but there's really no nothing to do when you lose the temperature on Dulce.

33:41 Things getting better for queers living will living in San Francisco in the Bay Area or in general or are things stagnant. I'm a little nervous right now that we're going to start seeing a pendulum shift the other way. It seems like was gay marriage and stuff like that the people they coming out with animosity towards gays and that a stronger degree and I definitely feel like with this last election and the misogyny that I saw come up in the last election like towards us Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton and in the end it was just kind of down because if a person didn't like them it wasn't that hard to find intelligent criticisms to make I'm going to happen to a fan of big Hillary sound but I knew the criticisms that existed that a person could make about her and Sarah Palin, it's like really easy to find that ways to criticize her that where you're not criticizing the way she dresses and stuff and so the massage and he was really frightening to me in the last year. It really really impacted me a lot and scared me to death and then, you know, just like what the

34:41 I just found out recently that you can't get a side on this an immigrant in the United States because of like the non stuff right that's having in the Congo and stuff like that. You can get Asylum, you know, it was a queer or different kinds of things but you can't get us Asylum based on gender. It's not allowed and in turn right as being used as a tool of repression all over the planet, but the ramp Italy in some areas.

35:06 Best really disturbed by so I think that the hatred of women is is seems to be to be getting worse on the planet. Although I'm sure it's going to go back and forth and I'd like to think when he's pendulum swing swing back and forth that we do make progress.

35:20 It's kind of I find a Planet rather scary right now in a lot of levels. I mean that you know, there's there's all this pressure that the planet is under financially and when I worked a batter women for years and whenever whenever there's like a high unemployment rates, there's there's higher rates of battery. So crimes against violence happen more and they have him or against him are defenseless like women and children. Do you think there's anything for women to do about it? And he will educate themselves. I think sometimes out of fear women want to put their head in the sand that it's kind of frightening to look at the world and how much misogyny does really exist.

36:03 Cuz women that are not working in those fields.

36:07 They seem to not want to hear about it or talk about it or know about it Nonna and I understand that but I don't think it's helpful.

36:16 I think they can put themselves in more danger because of the refusal to acknowledge. It is a scary world and I don't think that they're helping, you know by Staind educated and aware so that they can make feedback when it's appropriate or vote in the right ways or will you know, whatever.

36:37 So we just have a minute or two left. Is there anything you want to make sure we get on tape?

36:48 Well, I have non visible disabilities.

36:51 And I'm

36:53 And I can't say that my disabilities are harder. I mean, I know I know there are people that have harder disabilities in mind but it is hard having on disability visible disabilities. I really never get support for my disability is even from my best friend's I don't get support. They don't really understand and and they're getting worse and my vision is getting a lot worse. I can I find myself walking into rooms are my roommates are cooking and going don't you need more light in and they always say no and I almost always seem to think they're doing something in the dark that I couldn't even cook in that amount of light through it feels like semi darkroom to me. So I have to go get my eyes checked I have issues with my eyes and I think they're getting rapidly worse, but

37:38 So having non visible disabilities, rrr have their own type of difficulty and and and I'm and I'm sure that even people with very visible disabilities. Don't get the support that they need and help that they need but

37:53 Even my best friends don't take it. Seriously that I that I am fit everyday life is a challenge for me.

38:03 Thank you so much Michelle. Thank you for coming in and telling us about your life. You're welcome. Thank you for doing the project.

38:14 Are we close?

38:16 It sounds like you've overcome a lot in your life and sounds like you're stronger for it, and I'm wondering

38:25 What do you think about that statement about overcoming some of the hurdles in your life while I think I'm Wiser for it. Certainly don't feel stronger for it when I get there like at my body down here so I can wiser.

38:40 And I'm in a more willing to have a to believe in myself and have faith in my own.

38:46 And what I see I don't doubt what I see and and when other people don't agree with me, I'd it doesn't bother me much doesn't make me doubt my opinions because other people don't agree with them if I think that's one of my more irritating qualities is is my is my belief in my own opinions.

39:10 Lesbians over 40 and do you think

39:14 Your experience is

39:17 Something that you find a sense of

39:23 A lot of other lesbians over 40 of had similar experiences with discrimination and and violence the way you have. I don't know about the violence part. I don't really know, you know, a lot of the women I know here have lived in the Bay Area but a lot of people the queers are there in the Bay Area have migrated here from rural places and and they definitely migrated from rural places for more safety, you know along with wanting to be in a bigger community in a more active community.

39:57 What was the rest of the question I guess just if you found some sort of?

40:03 Common experience commonality with being a lesbian over 40. I think most of us agree that that the younger lesbians.

40:15 Don't seem to

40:18 Appreciate us are enjoy us or want to accompany, you know in in ways that we feel that way. I mean a lot of us feel like we broke the ice and help make a world that's safer for them and and a lot of them seem to almost be hostile towards us there wasn't there's a dance that used to happen that you weren't allowed to attend when I forgive her 50 or older.

40:44 And there's a tie mean I got a lot of hatred towards me when I started this group the first it was just from bisexual women cuz it is for lesbians.

40:57 And then then after some time went by it also came from younger people saying that we were discriminated against these other groups were having a group for ourselves.

41:07 Like there's a lot of discrimination in Rift between

41:12 Between groups in the hood in the lesbian Community out here try to point out like a women of color want to gather together. You all understand. They need that that any oppressed group needs to have time and sales, but they couldn't see that we have our that we have a type of Oppression that we're living with do you think there any groups of younger lesbians who might be interested in having a partnership with with your group and doing some kind of trying to heal that one of the things I did to try to cope with a degree of of of of hatred I was getting for having this group was I started a Yahoo group call David Icke that and it has its own moderator and I started another group called a deck to which is for all Queer women over 40 so they both have their own moderators, but they're moderators haven't devoted themselves to developing those groups or those groups of State small, but it did help.

42:03 Made it to a lot of animosity towards me stopped when I started them. I kept saying you can start your own. Yahoo groups are free and they just never did. So I finally just started them and gave them to the other moderators to run and it helped.

42:16 It helped deflect some of the negativity that it was being addressed towards me good. Thank you so much. We're out of time. Unfortunately. Thank you.