Amelie Zurn Interview Part 1, June 8, 2021

If you wouldn't mind also, just letting us know around what month and year this occurred, but you gave a bunch of your organizing papers to American University to be held in our archive and the papers mainly talk about your time with Oppression Under Target, or more commonly known as OUT, as well as your time as director of Lesbian Health Services at Whitman Walker. Would you mind telling us when it was that you gave these papers to AU? If you can recollect roughly.

I gave my papers to American University in 2019 and after working with a bunch of really amazing students who were doing oral histories and really were interested in how can, particularly lesbians who were doing organizing an HIV/AIDS, what can our stories help us learn about doing work around illness, race, sexuality, gender and class oppression in the current day.

Yeah, thank you. So I'm really curious when you first became affiliated with these organizations respectively?

Well, my story of why I came to Washington DC was that I was working when I was in college in the Rape Crisis Hotline and so as someone who was doing early violence against women organizing particularly things like, Take Back the Night, I was excited to work as an intern and learn more about organizing and feminist and anti-violence organizing.

So I came to NOW because it was large enough to have an internship program that I thought would support me and the summer that I got here, which was June of 1986, was a really profound summer in early feminist and queer organizing. Because it was the summer where, in June, lots of Supreme Court decisions come down.

The Supreme Court decisions that came down were the Hardwick decision which basically said by law, that cops could go into private citizens' homes and basically drag them out of their beds for having a non-missionary position cis-gendered heterosexual sex. So, it was a prosecution of two gay men who had, were having anal sex and it said that's perfectly fine. And gays and lesbians all over the country said, hey no way, we're not down with this.

So the Hardwick decision was a huge place of organizing and really at that point began organizing again another National March that was in Fall of 1987, it was probably the second large gay, lesbian, bisexual, march, on DC. And at that point, I was at NOW, which did a lot of the coordinating of marches like that. So I did peacekeeping at that March, which basically meant you go along with the flow and you help people know about the traffic and you help people not get, you know, grabbed by the police and sort of help them deal with folks that are also doing anti-gay organizing on the sidelines and you sort of help people move along and find their friends if they've lost them, for example. So it was a great role and it was wonderful because I got to see the whole March.

So, at that point, I started volunteering with Whitman Walker, on the AIDS hotline. And I love that work and I felt like I was a hotline worker who had experience being on a hotline and I loved the combination of helping people make very important harm reduction decisions about their safety and their sexuality. I also helped people who were early tested for HIV/AIDS get medical care, get early intervention, so they could stay healthy. And at that point, there wasn't a lot of treatment out there for folks, living with HIV disease.

But one of the things that I loved about my volunteer work, and then I eventually became the coordinator, the paid coordinator of the AIDS hotline, is that we always had two people living with HIV working at the hotline, who could talk to other people living with HIV/AIDS. And it was so wonderful because it was a disability Justice chronic illness justice issue that people living with the disease would be talking to other people living with the disease and help them figure out their path. So that was early on in my organizing at Whitman Walker and I thought it was really an important part.

At the same time as being a volunteer at Whitmer Walker, I was really interested in and curious about what was happening with ACT UP, particularly ACT UP New York and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. And so in 1988, I got involved in OUT!, which had been about a year old, and the thing that was different from OUT! from other ACT UP's is that we were doing both gay and lesbian organizing as well as HIV/AIDS activism.

So we did that combined and after the '87 March, the ACT UP's all over the country, demanded that we start to do a national action around AIDS and HIV. And so our target at that point was the Food and Drug Administration, where lots of experimental treatments were being delayed by very slow, sort of research processes. So basically a bunch of people living with HIV disease, a bunch of queer activists, all stormed the FDA in the fall of 1988 and we demanded that they release the drugs, sooner for people living with HIV. And so it was a beautiful action. And so OUT! was one of the key, sort of core, Washington, DC groups organizing. So that's when I got involved with OUT! and then did I answer all of your questions?

Yeah, that was really helpful. Thank you. Yeah, I would love actually to learn more about some of the people you were working with because I know you mentioned how at the hotline there were always two people who you were working with, who were directly affected by HIV/AIDS. So I was wondering if you could describe to us, some of the people you worked with as well as how perhaps the people were similar and different between Whitman Walker and OUT!.

Well, for me, the reason to be involved with both Whitman Walker and OUT! was that Whitman Walker was a service organization and national, I mean, a local player, in the HIV-AIDS funding, sort of getting people, the care that they needed, whether it was housing, whether it was benefits, whether it was getting early intervention and medical treatment. So it really was a service organization that was all over the city.

And then OUT! was purely a zap-oriented quick action, get the money to the AIDS service organizations, stop the delay, stop the targeting of HIV/AIDS people all over the city. And so we were very much, a collective who came in each week we met and decided where we were going to target and what did we need to have changed, and how we were going to do that. So unlike Whitman Walker, that was like this large organization that was trying to respond to things over time. We were very clearly, a bunch of motley crew who came together and said, oh yeah, you are not hiring a director of AIDS, you know, AIDS activism or AIDS services in the city because you're trying to cut the budget, right? Because at the same time, DC was a very beleaguered city that was being very much sort of hamstrung by Congress. It still is that way since it doesn't have statehood, right?

So often times it was an easy way for conservative congresspeople to have an anti-abortion vote or anti-gay and lesbian vote. You could just sort of say, oh yeah, we'll cut off funds to DC because they have a much more radical stance and also a very much a Black and people of color-led city. So it was a really interesting time to be organizing in D.C. and so I think OUT! was really mindful of the race politics that were going on, we weren't always able to fully make it manifest in terms of having lots of folks of color in our membership. But I think we were always thinking about how did race and gender and class all fit together in terms of the way HIV was being addressed or not addressed in our city.

Would you say that a lot of the people who you were working with, I know you described it as a motley crew, were a lot of them, people who had moved to DC as adults, like you, or were you working with people who were local to the area? Or could you describe maybe why you would use the word motley crew?

Yeah, well I would definitely say that the views and ideas motley crew is that we did not have any leadership. We were a leader full organization which is I want to absolutely credit Black lives matter for using that term because we were a consensus-based leaderless organization. Every time it was someone else facilitating the meeting, someone else taking notes. And, you know, it just definitely was a different group of people, each time and we were very public about it. It was pre-internet, right? So we advertised our meetings every week in the Washington blade which was the gay and lesbian newspaper and in the city paper and anybody could come.

We met at a library, so anybody could come and once the library closed down because of gentrification, we started meeting at the Washington Peace Center. So we were always an open meeting, anybody could come. And what that meant was that actually there were undercover cops who came to infiltrate our meetings as well. So when I say motley crew, I really do mean like there were people there who were from law enforcement who were surveilling us, there were people who by day were attorneys, who said you can never use my name and any media release and then there were people who were out, not out in terms of their sexuality, and so that's what I mean.

But a lot of us who were doing the core organizing I think were people in our 20s who were predominantly white and educated, who had come to DC, and were interested in doing organizing, and who working for maybe other nonprofits or doing service industry work. Like, I came to OUT! as a person who was working in restaurants. Before I worked at Whitman Walker I was working in restaurants. So, you know, we had all kinds of jobs but that also meant beautiful things like we had attorneys who would help represent us if we got arrested.

So that's what I truly mean by a motley crew, is that we were an age range, I would say from probably our late teens to 50s and also we were the people living with HIV disease, who came could not necessarily come to every action or could not be there all the time.

And also we would often figure out when we were in a risk arrest situation who could afford right in all senses of the word to be incarcerated to be in a holding cell overnight. And if because of gender issues, or because of sexuality issues, or because of race issues, it wasn't going to be safe for you to be in a holding cell overnight, we would be like, we need you to do something different. Like, can you help us write the press release? Can you help us you know, get out to the media, can you be the spokesperson at the event but not the person going in the building to risk arrest, right? So we were always doing that kind of figuring out how to take care of our own.

Yeah and like how you could all fulfill different roles and be of the most use?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you for elaborating on that.

Yeah and then the other thing I want to say is you said, who are we working with, one of the things that were also beautiful and this was happening in the ACT UPs all over the country is similar to the Black Lives Matter movement, we were doing Memorial actions, right? So, we were often if someone were, because the death rate was quite high at that point, there was no, you know, sort of cocktail, most of the medications that were there oftentimes, caused such severe side effects, that caused death and disabling kind of conditions that many of our people died quite quickly at that point.

And this is the late 80s, early 90s, and it's also before the Ryan White care act, so a lot of people didn't have access to treatment. And it's definitely before the Affordable Care Act, so many of our people, even in our own ranks were uninsured and living with a lot of housing insecurity, job insecurity, and financial insecurity. So, I think we were always mindful of that, but what that meant is, when we did a memorial action, we really were saying, you know, the blood is on your hands. Your inaction has meant that this person didn't get the care they needed.

So, it was an interesting tactic, and I think, if I were to look back on it, it was hard to keep doing. To have our grief, go into activism like that because I think has a parallel to the incredible abolitionist organizing that's happening today, right? I don't want to have any more memorial actions. I can be clear about that. I want everyone to have this vibrant life but that wasn't what we were doing so.

Wow. I think that is a really important connection to make and I am curious, actually, if you could elaborate further on how you accounted for those members of OUT! who were financially insecure or who were battling this disabling disease, like how you accounted for those people and incorporated them within initiatives and meetings? Because I know you noted that was something that people were always mindful of but I'm curious how that affected your organizing.

I would say that I think my work at Whitman Walker was much more. I was able to slow down and make sure that if someone came to a volunteer meeting and wanted to do something, my imagining was that there was a reason that they were there and that being there created community for them and I wanted to make sure they had what they needed. So when I was at Lesbian Health Services, versus being on the street with OUT!, I felt like I had much more capacity to help people figure out what they needed.

I think at OUT!, it was sort of like if you speak up in a meeting, we can get you what you need. We didn't have any funding at OUT!, our funding came from, literally once a year, we sold t-shirts at pride, and we usually sold out of them. And usually, we made a little bit more money than it cost to make the t-shirts. And that went to art supplies and agitprop. And most of us donated bull horns and poster board, and markers. And, you know, honestly, organizations, let us meet at their places and let us use their copiers late at night to make flyers. So, you know, we would sort of it was a lot of in-kind donations but we weren't in any way a formal organization. So I would say that the best that I could do as a person who staffed the sort of phone number, right? That people called at OUT! is get them to other services in the city.

Yeah, I'm curious then were there people who, similar to you, we're also working at OUT! and also then at a more formal organization like Whitman Walker? And I'm curious how the two overlapped- like were you able to refer people in OUT! to the services at Whitman Walker?

Yeah well I definitely think there was, and I don't know the new language, at the time we called it the good cop, bad cop strategy, but I would say it's sort of the bad activist, good activist strategy. Which we actually used, which is, hey listen, if you want to have like, reasonable queers sit at your table and negotiate with you, then you'll give us what you want and you'll give us this meeting and then we usher in the queers who had the suits on, which sometimes was us just wearing suits.

But oftentimes, you know, there was a sense like, if you don't do this change, we will make a noise. We will make it hard for you to have your meeting because we'll you know, storm it outside and make it really loud so you can't talk. So we would use that strategy a little bit and I think that was really something that we were talking about together with other LGBT organizers in the city, which is, you know, what is gay lesbian activist alliance going to do versus the street activist at OUT!, you know, what is the strategy to get DC Council to move forward on this. So there definitely was a lot of collaboration and talking and I think that was really just kind of an amazing part of that moment in time.

Cool. Yeah, I definitely see how that collaboration would be really beneficial. I'm curious then if you could maybe elaborate further on some of the services that Whitman Walker offered, and how those services could be of benefit to people working within organizations like OUT!.

I'm not sure if I know how to answer that question. Let me think.

Or possibly some of the people who OUT! was trying to advocate on behalf of.

Well, it was us. I mean, like, that's the thing. I mean, I think for me that's it's not a distinction between there were some people it was for and some people it wasn't for, it was us. We were all fighting for our lives. Whether it was, you know, a baby Dyke, who was coming out who didn't want to be harassed on the street anymore, or a 50-year-old man who was living with HIV disease who was worried about his housing. It was us. Right and that's part of what was happening, was that in that organization those two people who never maybe would have met saw that it was us. Right? So for me it wasn't a distinction of who am I serving in OUT! it's like this is us.

Yeah, right. I see what you mean.

So, we were speaking up for our lives so that was very legitimate, right? Even in an action. For example, I remember an action that we did that was geared at the time in the early 90s and this is probably right before Clinton was elected, Bill Clinton was elected, you know, it was illegal for immigration and naturalization and services, INS, which is a federal agency to have, queer people come into the country and people with HIV disease. So, certainly, when we chained ourselves to the INS headquarters, let's be clear, we were all naturalized citizens. We were all citizens already, but we were advocating on the behalf of targeted people, trying to come to our country after we'd you know, our foreign policy had ravaged, their countries or they needed medical care or they needed Asylum, right?

This is before any of the Asylum programs for queers that now exist on an international level, right? So, you know what I'm saying? So it's like even in that moment, it's not like I was standing up there with my Dominican pal because of course, my Dominican pal, cannot afford to be standing there in front of INS and get arrested. I can as a white Dyke who has full citizenship, right? So, it's a similar tactic as is happening today in the Immigration Rights Movement, right? So folks that are standing up to abolish Ice are often times, not the people who are targeted, but they are, also, young people are being incredibly brave and sort of saying I am undocumented and I'm standing here to get my rights. Right. So some of it was that it was us but it was also we were representing a broader spectrum of queers and people living with HIV all over the world. So it wasn't us and them.

Yeah, thanks, I appreciate that clarification. I think it's a really important one and I do remember, being really struck, that was one of the documents I spent considerable time within your archive and in your collection of papers. The one that had a list of who was able to enter the country and who was not and like the requisites for someone who had an AIDS diagnosis.

And I also noted that within the handbook for the National Lesbian and Gay March on Washington, there were a few pages devoted, or maybe it was only two pages devoted, to gay people and Central America and that was something of particular interest to me. Just thinking about making connections between activist movements globally, and how there's the rhetoric within Central America of like this is our country, we want to run it ourselves and set our own priorities, and how that was also something, which was meaningful to people organizing for HIV and AIDS research and other things saying like this is something which directly affects us, and we want our voices to be prioritized within this research and activism.

I was curious if you could talk more about this kind of rhetoric or whether you felt this was like centered within a lot of conversations or if there are other instances or other connections you remember being made at this time. Or even if you could elaborate further on this particular connection.

So around self-determination and agency...

and making connections with other, like, political movements at the time. I don't know if you maybe have memories about this particular connection or whether there are other connections that were being made within OUT! or other like movements that centered on HIV/AIDS activism. Like what connections kind of you remember from that era?

I'm just thinking a little bit about how to answer it.

The two things I'll bring up is that I think when you're doing targeted organizing, you always have to figure out how to focus your message and figure out who you are, right? So I want to be clear that sometimes we would touch upon issues and do an action and know that we didn't have the chutzpa, person power energy to keep going on it. So we would often, for example, I think the INS actions came out of other organizations doing all over the country actions that were targeted at trying to change the specific discriminatory legislation that had just been passed around limiting travel of people living with HIV disease. So I think we sort of said we want to say something and we want to be a part of coordinated actions.

Another example I give is when Bill Clinton was first elected, there was a huge conversation like they're often is when the Democrat is elected of what are we going to do about our health insurance and our healthcare crisis. And so he appointed Hillary Clinton, the first lady to this commission, to actually look for the first time in a very long time at the construct of Universal Health Care, which we are one of the few countries in the world that does not have a universalized nationalized healthcare system. So we became a part of, as people living with HIV disease and LGBTQ people, as queer Folk, to say, what do we want to say about this debate about nationalized Healthcare?

So then we sort of would join in those actions around nationalized Healthcare. So I think that's another moment where we're building a coalition, and we're talking about it. And so then it's recognizing that we're doing an action or a zap that highlights it and augments it and it was a sort of a different era of organizing because your goal was you do a zap, you figure out your target audience, you come up with some demands of what you want to have changed, then you get some media attention there, you get some pictures, you get some articles, you get some TV coverage and then possibly, there's a meeting that then happens that pushes the agenda forward and we're not necessarily at the meeting, right? Other organizations and other types of policymakers are at the table, right? So we're opening the door for those policymakers. So there's a way that it's always about working in partnership and coalition with other organizations and sometimes those are very short term and very long term.

Do you remember any, like, specific connections with other organizations that you or other people at OUT! made?

Again, I'm not necessarily sure how to answer that well. I do think that, for example, one of a very good action that we did over a whole summer was, I referenced it before, but the DC government was trying to save some money, I think, by not rehiring a head of the office of AIDS activities when Reed Tuckson, who was running that office left. And so that office person stayed vacant for a number of months. So one time, we did a concerted action where first of all, we went to counsel and said hire a head of AIDS activity now. Hire an AIDS are now, hire an AIDS are now. And we did petitions and we worked with other organizations to do that.

Nothing was happening so a crew of about probably six of us went in and literally sat in the office which was vacant because nobody was working there. And we had our own office of AIDS activity meetings. So, we each had our different roles, and we did a mock meeting and we did a statement of what we thought their different policies should be and how we thought their office should run, and then we were arrested on disturbance of the peace and refusal to leave.

And so we were arrested, there were about five or six of us that were arrested, and then we continue to do that and then later in the summer they did hire a head of the office of AIDS activities. So I don't know if that answers your question, but I feel like that was something that all of the AIDS service organizations desperately needed, there to be leadership from the DC government, and they weren't getting it. So that action, that we did, was risk arrest to push it further, and make it quite unsightly for them that they didn't have this person in office. And so, then the ball started rolling, right?

Yeah. That is helpful in seeing the way in which OUT! was like a part of the solution and the ways in which you had to make these connections in order to propel effective change and solutions. I'm also curious in learning more about the ways in which Whitman Walker kind of figures into this puzzle and what kind of services they provide. And because it seems as though they weren't necessarily doing political organizing but more helping the psychosocial component of it all. So I was curious if you could speak more on that and the types of services they offered.

So I just want to clarify, do you want to know about their AIDS programs or their Lesbian and Gay health programs? Because they're a little bit separate and I was more involved in their Lesbian and Gay health part. I did run the AIDS hotline for a number of years, but I just want to get clear on what you're wanting to know about.

I appreciate you asking. I would like to learn more about what you specifically did and what services you're department of Whitman Walker offered.

Okay, great. So my history with Whitman Walker is as I said before I started as a volunteer in 1987 and I started out on the AIDS hotline because I had done hotline work before and then as a part of that, the AIDS hotline was run we were funded completely by the DC government. So basically what's kind of interesting about that that's similar even today is that community-based organizations which are funded by the government can create an opportunity for the government to create accountability to the people it's trying to serve, right? Because Whitman Walker running that program for the government meant that the people who were affected by the illness, were able to staff and answer the questions, right? That doesn't always work. Now, the AIDS hotline is run by the government, but I think it was a really interesting collaboration between community and government.

And so as I was working in the AIDS hotline and became the director of the hotline, what I started to be curious about is how was the clinic responding specifically to the HIV epidemic in women and how had this clinic that has started in 1978 as the gay and lesbian Health Clinic, how were they doing providing care to particularly female-bodied people and lesbians?

And so, in 1990, the clinic with a lot of pressure from the lesbian community, including some survey research started to say, hey, you know, you have now become the largest provider of AIDS service in the city which is fantastic but you haven't done very much for gay men who are not living with HIV or facing other health issues and you've absolutely completely lost sight of your mission to work with women and lesbians. So as a part of that, the clinic recommitted in 1992, its mission as a gay and lesbian health clinic and the largest provider of AIDS services in the city so that they reshaped their mission and they reoriented it.

At that point, they created the Lesbian Services Program, which is kind of an umbrella that had some new programs in it and some existing programs. So in becoming the first director of the Lesbian Services Program, I was able to work with a cadre of close to 200 volunteers and by the time I left, there was a staff of three of us, full-time staff.

And basically, our mission was twofold, one was to be a task force that was holding Whitman Walker accountable to serving lesbians and women throughout the clinic and to be a free-standing like, let's create lots of programs for lesbians, like a lending library, and a health care fund and healthcare clinic and a Black lesbian support group and a peer-based support group called, lesbian resource and counseling center and a lesbians choosing to have children program and do health days and health information. So we did all of that in the time that I was the director.

And so it was sort of a two-fold mission, both as a service organization and an advocacy organization. At the same time, there was, I think a reckoning in the LGBTQ movement that AIDS had so very much overtaken, the lesbian and gay movement that there was a neglect of other health issues and other mental health issues and other advocacy needs of the queer community.

And so, there were lesbian Health projects and programs that sprung up all over the country in the early 90s. And I think that that really was a tribute to the fact that lesbians had worked so hard with their brothers and brought their love and their expertise to the AIDS movement, to create all of these AIDS service organizations all over the country. They were predominantly, many of them were run by lesbians, and many of them were lesbian health care providers, and social service providers, and mental health providers, and advocacy and policy people who were making the AIDS service network run all over the country.

So that sort of outflowing for me back to lesbians who were surviving cancer, who were facing other chronic health issues, who were facing violence and mental health issues and choosing to make families and make home and make community it was like a kind of an amazing moment of organizing. And so my work at lesbian Services was kind of right in the middle of that, like many programs in DC, it was both local and had an impact nationally.

Yeah, I'm really glad you highlighted the kind of multitude of roles that lesbians played within HIV and AIDS activism and organizing. Yeah, I'm really curious kind of on that note, how you feel about the narrative constructed of lesbians' primary role within AIDS, or within AIDS activism, was as nurses and caregivers. I'm curious if you have any feelings about that narrative?

No, I think it's fine. I mean, I think it's part of what we do. I also think we, you know, for me, it's like in OUT! I can definitely speak to it is that we were a co-gender group. So there was sort of equal leadership from women and men and that was unusual in the ACT UP network across the country and we created a consensus-based organization versus a voting organization and I think that that was our lesbian feminist activism coming in.

I think we demanded a kind of attunement to this is us and we have a long history of being in the feminist health movement and our bodies have been maligned and neglected and abused by a legacy of the white patriarchy of the healthcare system and we want to subvert that and we can change it. So I think we brought that energy to it and I think ACT UP and OUT!, I think many people are really acknowledging how lesbians in the feminist health movement absolutely radically shifted how AIDS organizing and activism happened in the late 80s and early 90s. So I think there's been lots of credit due to the badassery of feminists and lesbian organizing.

Yeah, I'm fascinated by that connection. I would love if you could elaborate a little bit further on the way that feminist health practices were implemented within AIDS organizing and maybe within OUT! specifically what lesbians brought because you mentioned it was 50/50 male and female how that influenced some of the actions or initiatives that OUT! organized.

Well, one of the things that happened in the middle of ACT UPs heyday across the country is that there were some pretty bad anti-choice organizing that was happening at the same time, and particularly a Supreme Court decision that happened in the summer of, I think maybe eighty-nine ninety, but the Webster decision came down and it really blocked lower-income women's access to reproductive health and abortion and in that, because we have this strong anti-choice movement and the pro-choice movement happening which is part of why I came into feminist organizing, I was always aware that this was about our bodies, right? And this is about empowerment of our bodies and that AIDS organizing was grounded in that. It was people living with HIV disease saying I want this to be different and I want access to care now and I need your help and I don't want to sit by and just die.

So I feel like that was always present, but they did have this split in ACT UP organizing which is are we doing large-scale reproductive health issues and our reproductive health issues, AIDS organizing issues, and there were some fractures, right? And so, I feel really proud of OUT! in that we were like, yeah, no, we're doing choice issues and reproductive health issues, and we're doing HIV/AIDS organizing, and we're making sure that queers can have rights in the streets and in our homes. And so, we were like, we're not backing down, because this is all of us.

And I have this very distinct memory, which is how I ended up coming out to my father because I was on national TV because we were at the Webster decision and a reporter asked me, he said, you know, why are you at this Choice demo? Where you're a woman, you're a lesbian, you're probably not going to have an abortion, which of course is an assumption about my sexual practices, right? But what he said is you're not likely to have an abortion, why are you here? And I said, well as a lesbian, I believe that I have a right to my bodily autonomy and control of my body and reproductive rights are the way that this goes, it starts. I need to be able to have control of my own life and my own health and my own body, right? And so, I got a call later from that night on the answering machine because this is the answering machine era and my dad was like, hey how about you give me a call, I saw you on the TV. So yeah, way to come out to your dad.

Wow, that's quite a story. Thank you for sharing. So I'm assuming the reproductive rights were also a part of Lesbian Health Services at Whitman Walker. Would you tell us a little bit more about who most often benefited from your services or the types of like women who you were working with?

Well again, it's one of those things where it's not an us and a them. So it was all of us and I can talk about some of the feminist health practices. When we set up the lesbian Health Clinic, which we did in May of 1992, we basically very much modeled it on anybody can come, anybody who is female-bodied can come, no questions asked and you will have a feminist-Lesbian approach to this is your body, you get to control how this goes. We did a lot of training with all of our volunteers that included literally one of the health providers getting up on a table and taking their clothes off and saying this is all the parts of your body. And this is what happens with you know a pap smear and a pelvic exam. And we're going to be really mindful of that some people are going to want this, some people are not going to be comfortable with this, you get to call your parts what you want.

So one of the things that were beautiful about lesbian Health Services is we were starting to see some of the early trans-masculine and gender non-conforming folks coming to our doors. And so we were one of the first providers in this city, that provided Health Care to transmasculine folks all along the spectrum. And so, it was, we saw women who partnered with men, we saw women who partnered with women, we saw women who partnered with both. We saw women who didn't identify as women, right? And so then we kept expanding what it meant to be a health care service. That was predominantly working with female-bodied people. So it kept expanding and growing, which I think was a beautiful thing about it and was the premise of it, sort of, the philosophical premises, you serve who comes in the door.

Yeah, I think that's pretty incredible, and thank you for your work. I know you've made this distinction a few times now like there is no distinction between us and them and I would love if you could speak more about like the community then that formed within lesbian Health Services at Whitman Walker. And do you feel as though this your work there was kind of like the connection with which you're LGBTQ community and social scene revolved around? Like was this the way in which you met a lot of people or felt connected to like your community then?

So trying to sort out that question a little bit. I think that it is not, it is similar to the mutual aid work that happens now. There was a premise that and I think this was true across queer organizing, but particularly in lesbian services and in OUT!, there was a sense that this is you, this is your community, you can be anywhere on the spectrum of outness, you can be anywhere on the spectrum of gender identity, you can be doing anything you want to be doing sexually because we're interested in creating a world that's open to you.

So it was a little bit like dream it, be it. Which is like, you want to see a group for fill-in-the-blank women who've lived in Virginia, who were married to men and who are coming out of marriage and what's that process like when you're coming out and you're in your 40s, 50s, and 60s, right? You want to do that group? Great. Where do you want to meet? How often do you want to meet? Who's going to facilitate? Is it going to rotate facilitation? What can we do to help you? Do you need refreshments? Do you need us to advertise it? Do you not want us to advertise it? Because that might be scary to people, right? So, it's like that's really the philosophy which we were coming at is if you want to do that, come and there's space for you here, which was part of what was beautiful about being in such a large organization as Whitman Walker, which is that we were attractive to tons of groups to come and meet there because we had a large meeting space, right?

So we could have 200 people at a lesbian Health day and it could be the black lesbian support group, and women who've lost a child due to, you know, infertility. You know, transmasculine people who are trying to figure out what kind of community they want. So, we were able to have all kinds of organizations that were free-standing come and meet at our place, or who were within our group.

And like also then a space for support groups and were able to kind of foster community and that's like kind of what you're getting at, it was a space for all of those things. I'm also curious then what your relationship was with I think you noted, it was like around 200 volunteers or something, or was there like an intimacy among the people who worked at Whitman Walker or sense of community.

Yeah, I mean you brought up the issue of belonging and I think it was a time...