Lesbians: Portrait of a Community

(Published in Newsweek, March 12, 1990)

In the past decade gay America has been preoccupied with the devastating effect of AIDS on male homosexuals. But now that the gay-rights movement is beginning to focus on couples' rights and family issues, more lesbians are moving to the center stage: gay women have traditionally been more likely than men to settle down with one partner, and an estimated one third of lesbians are mothers, either from heterosexual relationships or by artificial insemination. The developments are just as critical to homosexuals in Middle America as they are to those in the gay meccas on both coasts. Columbus, Ohio, a large university town and the capital of one of the nation's most populous states, has a thriving gay community. In Columbus, lesbians have taken on key gay-rights roles as community leaders, career women and mothers.

Many Columbus lesbians work relentlessly to advance the gay-rights cause. The city's homosexuals are the largest per capita contribu- tors to the Human Rights Campaign Fund in Washington, a gay and lesbian lobbying group. Just this past year a lesbian activist spearheaded Waging Peace, a multimedia public-relations campaign that stresses the positive contributions of the gay community. "We just want to be looked upon as ordinary citizens," a campaign spokesperson says.

One woman has been a key figure in the movement for many years: Rhonda Rivera, 52, a law professor at Ohio State University. Head of the Ohio Human Rights Bar Association, Rivera does pro bono work for people with AIDS and tries to draw attention to other problems that affect gays such as alcoholism, rape and physical abuse. For her human-rights advocacy, Rivera has received a number of awards from the general community, including a YWCA Women of Achievement Award.

Though lesbians are at low risk for AIDS, the disease mobilized many of them into activism. Lynn Greer was a pro golfer living in Ft. Myers, Fla., when her brother, Mike, 29, was diagnosed with AIDS. On New Year's Day 1986, doctors in Florida gave Mike two weeks to live at most. He phoned his father, who was in Aspen, to take him home. "He wanted to die in Columbus," says Lynn. "Dad said, `You can handle it. I'll see you in a week when I'm finished skiing'." Greer, who moved to Columbus, has not spoken to her father since Mike died. She lobbies for AIDS legislation at the statehouse and is working with her national sorority on an AIDS education program for colleges.

Some women in Columbus avoid the front lines, choosing to live open but quiet family lives. After several failed attempts at artifi- cial insemination, Linda Cahoon, 32, conceived a baby with a male co-worker, who legally forfeited paternal rights. Now Joel, 3, is being raised by Cahoon and her lover of 10 years, Cathy Carlisle, 31, in a middle-class suburb of Columbus, where they have foundsome acceptance among their neighbors. Carlisle works at a computer-software company. Cahoon, who has custody of a 14-year- old daughter from an earlier marriage, stays home. Despite their own experience, they hope Joel will be straight. "Because it's easier, but if he's not, that's fine," says Carlisle. "But we would like to have grandkids."

Losing customers: Homophobia also exists in Columbus. The city has had its share of violence against gays, but sometimes hostility takes other forms. Brenda Duncan and Alice Wing opened the Grapevine Cafe two years ago, attracting both straight and gay customers at first. Now the gay crowd mostly takes over at night. When straight customers find out the clientele is largely gay, some of them leave, explaining that they don't want to be mistaken for homosexuals. That the cafe exists unharassed shows how far gay America has come. But the reason that some straight customers give for staying away proves just how much further it has to go.

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