Amelie Zurn Interview Part 2, June 8, 2021

Which is actually quite different now. It's like there's much more, I think access to information, and groups, and community through the internet. But this was much more because it was pre-internet, it was really based on the media, which is network television, a couple of newspapers, lots and lots of newsletters and we literally sent out our calendar through snail mail every single month, our calendar of activities.

So it was a very different time and it really was a very in-person kind of meet up, kind of community, and I think the DC and the DC Metro area at that point it was known as it's not a New York and San Francisco but it was Mid-Atlantic people coming up from the South and down the Eastern Seaboard and in from the Midwest to be in Washington DC as one of the largest LGBT communities of that time.

So I think that that concept of giving back and being a part and belonging was absolutely what meant why we had 200 volunteers because they were finding home, they were finding community, they were finding connection and they were uniting. And I think it also helped whether people had died of AIDS, or died of cancer, or died of other illnesses or died of violence there was a sense that we are together and we can be together and create something out of these ashes of pain and hurt that has been happening.

And so that affirming to come into a welcoming environment and say, oh, I can set up and do the coffee in the morning and then go to four workshops that meet my needs. You do have a sense of belonging and connection and community and the woman's bookstore would come and have books. And you know, the sex toy store would come and have sex toys. And you know, the lawyers would come and have a table and say, hey do you need to work with me on fertility issues or adoption issues, or is there a legal issue you need? And again, this is pre-marriage, so we don't have a lot of rights. There's, you know, there are things happening where literally we're trying to also get the word out, like, if you go into the hospital, your lover can't go if your family swoops in and you're not out. So we were also trying to do that sort of end of life and emergency kind of checking in with each other and shoring up support.

Yeah the checking in with one another and offering one another support, I'm super interested in that and how that is a significant part of activism. Albeit probably a part that is sometimes overlooked and I'm curious if you could elaborate further on things that you did to like support your volunteers or just also support like the women coming in, things that you did to just care for one another, and make sure that people were taken care of when exhausted by some of their work or all of the other important services you were providing.

Well, I definitely think I have just a little bit of regret because I don't think we had so much insight about that that was needed. I think for me things that working within a large organization offered is, for example, one of our big services that we did was we had a mini-conference every month called the lesbian health day, and it was all day long workshops and information tables and hang out at the Whitman Walker space and we would provide a boxed lunch. We would provide coffee in the morning and we would try to create community and care that way.

But I actually feel like we probably could have done a much better job caring for our volunteers than we did and certainly caring for the key organizers. And so, I think we know much more about that need now, but I think the premise was you were with your people, isn't that enough? And I don't know if it is or not, you know, I just, I really don't because I'm sure that for all the people who came if it worked, you stayed and if it didn't, you didn't come back.

What you were saying about if you're working for your people, isn't that enough? I guess that kind of explains maybe why there wasn't that insight. I'm not sure if you have any further thoughts on that or if you have any thoughts on the impetus behind this kind of cultural shift and maybe being more aware of it now.

I guess this is a bit of a two-part question, so maybe we can tackle the first part, and then I have a second question. So yeah, if you have any further insights as to why there was this lack of awareness. Or alternatively, if you feel as though there has been more awareness about the toll of caregiving on both those giving and seeking care. And whether you feel like that's being centered more within activism work today.

Well, it's interesting as you're talking and I'm noticing that there's grief welling up in me because one of the backdrops of this is to recognize that the other organization that I was really involved in at this time was another freestanding organization that we work closely with called the Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer and the very premise of the Mautner Project was that it was founded by a woman named, Susan Hester whose lover had died of breast cancer.

When her lover was dying she basically said, Susan, do you have any idea all the people that contributed to my care? I want every lesbian in this town to be able to have that kind of network. And I know that because I as someone who organized, as a lawyer, as a Jewish lesbian, as a mother, that I found my people to organize with and to be with. And that was how I created my community. So, when I was diagnosed with cancer, Susan, you and I, and our daughter had a whole team of people around us to get through cancer together. And I know that there are lesbians out there who do not have partners, who do not have kids, who do not have that community around them, because of the harms of patriarchy and heteronormativity. So she said, I want an organization that's like that.

So Mautner Project was both an advocacy organization and educational organization and a service organization. And so for many years, I ran their lesbian cancer support group, which had lesbians living with all kinds of cancer. But so for me, it's like part of what was happening was I don't think that several years after your lover has died of cancer or your best friend has died of AIDS or there are no more gay men who are your age cohort, which was a truth for me as a woman in her late 20s early 30s, right?

It just was like, I don't think we could fully be embodied in what that meant and then we had such radical shift from the Republican administrations of the Reagan and Bush and then we had Clinton and there was like this breath of fresh air, like, we could have some rights and liberty. And then, that didn't last very long, right? And so I think how could we have been more grounded when we were very young people? Dealing with extraordinary, grief and loss?

Like I said, at that time, I kept a running list of all the people I know who died. And we all went to the quilt to see it, and it was true that our lesbian comrades were also falling from other illnesses. But so there was this sensation that our people were dying so I think to be just together and to be joyful was right. A struggle I always had as a health organizer is at lesbian Services I would do a health day and mentioning it is that in the lesbians considering parenthood, there would be 60 women in that workshop and there would be three women in the lesbians accessing early intervention around breast cancer. And I know why 60 lesbians were in the considering parenthood workshop and there were no lesbians in the cancer workshop because who wants to look at that? We are socialized to generate life. We are socialized to build community.

And so I think it's taken us a long time to claim our own bodies and our own lives and to figure out the suffering that we've endured. Right. So I think one of it is that the Survivor movement, the trauma Survivor movement has radically shifted our vision, the Black Lives Matter Movement has radically shifted our vision of how state-sanctioned violence has ravaged our communities. And a health care system that doesn't really care about our bodies has left us unresourced.

So I don't think it was so much that we were neglecting it as we were living in a world that was neglecting us and we were doing the best we could. Yeah, I think it's like the question comes up differently. So I think it's like, I think we've done a lot, meaning all of us have done a lot to get more clear like, I'm just one body and I want access to knowing that I can live safely and resourced and I can be in connection with other humans.

I am super appreciative of that distinction and also appreciative of the fact that you shared that story about, it was Susan Hester, correct? And her partner? I think it's super important and I think you kind of beautifully illuminated the need for care networks and how important that is. I'm curious then maybe to rephrase the question what support do you feel like would have been beneficial for you and your late 20s and early 30s? As you noted you were dealing with substantial grief, what would you have liked, in hindsight now, to have been in place to better support you then?

Boundaries. A sense of we're doing this, we're not doing that. We're doing things imperfectly, you know, I think my organizing at Whitman Walker was far more effective in terms of including and creating spaces for black lesbians, and women of color in our city than my organizing at OUT! was.

And you know, I have some sadness that OUT! was not as effective in dealing with racial justice issues that were super poignant. But on the other hand as a white, educated, young group predominantly could we have actually addressed some of the issues around the carceral state and the drug war that was happening all around us and the targeting of particularly black leadership and black politicians by the state. Could we have done better around that right?

So I think what would have helped me is to have said we can do this, we can't do that, and to be able to pass the baton more and say we're not doing this, but this organization is or we're not doing that but we're stepping aside so you all take leadership, right? I mean I think you know, we did disband, we did not formally disband, we just fizzled out and I think we fizzled out when the Clinton Administration came into power and the City of DC was feeling much more solid and much more able to take on many of these tasks.

So, in some ways, you know, I think both lesbian services and OUT! would have done well to have been called a task force. We did our job and now we're out, right? So, you know, I definitely said that, as someone who left in 1994, I had made a commitment around burnout to say if I'm saying no more than yes, I need to leave but I wish I had been clearer and said I need to set boundaries earlier because it would have allowed people to be more connected to me versus feeling like I was doing many things in incompletely or not as well as I'd like.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I'm curious on that note than how your ties and relationships with the Whitman Walker community have changed over time and if you're still connected with them, now, maybe not in an official capacity, but whether you still have connections with people, maybe that you worked with.

I mean, I think over the years I've had periods where I've done consulting or work with Whitman Walker. I mean the work that charges me now, is much more about the healing of long-term trauma, either interpersonal violence or systemic trauma. And also continuing to be excited about gender and sexuality issues. Like how are we being grounded as a movement that's telling our stories and creating open paths for all of us to make choices so we feel embodied and like we're getting our hearts desires? So definitely you know the connections I made there are still sort of vibrant to this day.

Yeah, I would love as we kind of get towards the end of the interview, to talk a little bit more about present-day and how your time at both OUT! and Whitman Walker informs your current occupation but to preface, would you mind telling us a little bit about your current work and how you might describe it to people who don't know what you do.

Okay. Can I pause for a second? So I realized that this picture that we have is all me on the side. Is it working out okay?

Yeah, it is. I also wanted to say that it's one hour. If you want we could also move to the front but I feel like it might be nice to have a side profile because all of our other interviews are like head-on. Also, your scarf and the orange background look awesome.

And I figured this could be kind of the last because it's my last two questions.

Do we want to have a shot of you both again or? Let me set that up very quickly.

And I before you ask those questions are there questions that you all want to make sure that we get to?

I think you kind of got into the issue of diversity. Maybe a more direct reflection on that issue? Especially at Whitman Walker. And then, I don't know this is a little prosaic, but going to the AIDS quilt. You know what that meant, I guess, you were talking about mourning. What else, what other ways could you mourn? I guess in groups? Like everyone knows about that experience but were there other ways of people you know? Because the mourning part of it is so key. I think. Anyway, those are just some questions I had. Just to describe a little bit more about those experiences because you were there and we weren't.

Is everyone sitting comfortably?

So I guess maybe then before we get into the present day, although I feel just from the little bit you shared about the kind of work you do of healing and dealing with trauma and whatnot, I assume that perhaps these experiences have informed the current work you do, it seems as though there's a clear connection there.

But maybe before we get into your present work and describing it for the viewers, you could talk a little bit about some of the ways that you've dealt with your own grief and trauma and specifically maybe reflecting on some of the ways in which you mourned either collectively or individually. But maybe like the AIDS quilt or other collective ways in which you've grieved or dealt with that overwhelming grief.

Well, I definitely feel like The AIDS Memorial Quilt and all of the places it's been in Washington DC is incredibly profound both as a work of cultural art and as a tool to understand what's happened. I definitely felt like a lot of the art and graphic imagery of remembering our people and seeing their faces or seeing things that were important to them from their loved ones was really powerful. And I feel like that is something that's really amazing about, for me, the Black Lives Matter Movement.

In particular, which is an individual story and murder by the state, allowing that story to be lifted up as a tool for moving us forward, is always, I think, what helps us move forward. And so I just told the story of Mary Helen Mautner. And I remember before I came out as a lesbian, remembering the story of Sharon Kowalski and her lover, Karen Thompson. And Sharon Kowalski was in a car accident and was left either a paraplegic or quadriplegic and her family took over all have her care and did not allow Karen, even though they had been domestic partners and living together for many years, did not allow Karen to have any access to Sharon.

And so Karen really challenged that kind of state upheld oppression and really made it clear that it is important for us to be out. It's important for us to name and claim who's important to us. And so, I think that moving grief into action is a really powerful way that I have moved through grief.

And so we did a number of Memorial actions that were for people who had died and then the action would be in their honor and we did an action by this, one of our members who died of AIDS and his name was Jerry green. And so that the chant of the day was, you know: "remember Jerry green, let the money be seen". It was when they weren't releasing funds to get more AIDS services in the city right. And so we're going throughout the halls of City Hall sort of talking about Jerry green. And for me bringing Jerry in that day who had gotten arrested in the council chambers was a way of, you know, morning him, but bringing him into the moment with me, right?

So the quilt is, is contemplative, and a Memorial action is, is agitating and angry and loud. And, you know, I think about Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson. That's bringing that into, we need to protect and create community and protect our loved ones and say who's important to us and who do we want around.

And I remember another one that happened while I was at lesbian Services was Sharon Bottoms was a lesbian living with her lover and her parents sued for custody of the children and so they took away this lesbians right to have children. And so for me talking about Sharon Bottoms case and talking about the sort of oppression of lesbian parents and allowing lesbian parents and queer parents to say, you need to be clear who your people are and what you're doing and what rights you're putting in place and you know these two cases happened in the state of Virginia. So it wasn't far away.

So for me memorial is what are we doing to change the Injustice that just happened? And to evoke those stories and to evoke the names was so much of how I dealt with my individual and collective grief.

Thank you. That was super Illuminating and I really appreciate you sharing all of that. I would love to learn more about the ways in which that has informed your current occupation as a social worker, but I would really appreciate if you would be able to maybe describe what you do, to people who don't know you. Yeah to describe to people who don't know what you do, what it is. Sorry, that just did not come out correctly. Essentially could you tell me a little bit about your work?

Okay. So now I do more micro-oriented work, I would call it micro versus micro. So I do micro work which is that I work with individuals, couples, and families around issues of trauma, healing, around recovery from oppression, around parenting around gender, around sexuality.

So the way that I work is people come to me, I have a word of mouth practice. I don't have a lot of advertising, but I have an amazing crew that keeps giving me enough people to do my work. And you know, it's kind of what's in the way of your healing. And so defining that with my clients, allows us to forge a path before word of what's in their way. And so it's what is your suffering? What are your symptoms? What do you want to do to make that go differently?

I also do some organizing with large groups of people around sexuality and desire, called mapping your desire. And that is really, what is your sex story up to this point? However you define that. How you're doing with your sexuality right now? You getting what you want? Are you getting what you need? And so that's an opportunity for people to do a dive into how are they are feeling in their sexuality and in their sexual expression and what's working and what's not. So I feel like it's sort of a parallel but one's very focused on sexuality and one's focused on a broader construct of healing.

That's incredible. Especially the latter, I feel a lot of people would benefit so greatly from those conversations but don't often have the opportunity to talk about it. So I really do think it's amazing that you get to foster those types of conversations with your clients. I'm really curious and how you became involved in this kind of work and how you made the transition from working at places like OUT! and Whitman Walker to doing what you described as more micro-oriented work?

Well, I started doing more micro work because I got tired at Whitman Walker and I really loved it there but I needed to do something different. So I got further training, I went and got a social work degree, a masters in social work. And part of that vocationally oriented training was really learning that I wasn't very in love with clinical work, which is that micro oriented work and that I had done a lot of policy and macro organizing and I wanted to take a little bit of a break from it.

Also, frankly, because I think people should talk about this more, which is to have a family and have children. It offered me having my own business, since 2002 has allowed me to have great flexibility in terms of being there for my kids, you know, whether their school schedule, changed every single, you know, every single summer or whatever, it just allowed me a great deal of flexibility to keep doing this work. And organizing work still is not so forgiving in terms of allowing folks, to do that kind of also I guess community-building work, that was important for me, community and family building work.

In terms of the mapping your desire, my co-creator, Jamie Grant who made that program credits lesbian services, lesbian sexuality day with the origins of mapping your desire. We started lesbian sex day, which was a day-long conference on all things about lesbian sexuality, all kinds of workshops. We started it with a panel of six people who bravely got up and told their sex stories. What was what was their sex stories, what did they like, what was working, what wasn't, how did they come to understand it.

And I think it created this kind of open atmosphere, their braveness created this open electric atmosphere where people felt like they could go into their workshops and say, hey, I love my partner, but I'm really unhappy with what we're doing in bed. Or hey, I've never had a sexual experience because of trauma or hey, I don't know what to do now I'm menopausal with the fact that my desire and my body have really changed, or I'm dealing with the fact that I live in a fat oppressive world, and they tell me that I can't have a sex life, right? So it just created this kind of openness that was electric and allowed gay people permission.

So, I love that mapping your desire has its origins in lesbian services and so basically Jamie Grant sort of, you know, sort of fostered that program, and now it's been done all over the world at conferences, all over the world.

Thank you for illuminating that connection. I wouldn't have known the origins were there but it makes sense and it's really fascinating. I'm curious if you have any final thoughts, as we like, wrap up the interview. Any maybe like further connections between your previous work and your current work or just how it continues to inform your life. Or any final musings, really anything you would like to spotlight.

Yeah. I mean I think my final musings are really about I am super curious as a parent to a 21-year-old, 19-year-old and an eight-year-old. You know, what's gonna keep us going and if I had such an amazing opportunity, as you know, I called my lesbian services job in that period of my life like my best job ever, it was my bestest job in my whole life, which is absolutely without a doubt true. And when I reflect upon it and think I also burned out from it, it's like how could that have gone better and I still haven't cracked that little tiny acorn to figure that out.

So I am super curious about what are people going to do? How can we keep getting grounded in what we're doing, and how it affects each other, and how it affects the earth? The ground that we walk upon because I definitely think for me this human pandemic, we are emerging out of, like those cicadas. What the heck are we going to do now? So that's I think my final musings is I'm just super excited and curious to see what happens next.

I completley agree. Thank you so much for everything that was really, really interesting and I appreciate you bearing with me through some of those questions. I'm also really curious as to what we're going to do about burnout, I feel like that's something that activists currently are grappling with and it's something very real and which I feel like this pandemic has brought to the forefront of a lot of people's minds. So it's certainly something that I'm I'm thinking about a lot and especially within my disability Justice course, it was something that we kind of frequently talked about.