Sally Gearhart speaking at a No on 6 demonstration; photo by Steve Savage, used with permission.
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Sally Gearhart (1931–2021) was an American teacher, feminist, science-fiction writer, and political activist who passed away in July. In 1973, she became the first out lesbian to obtain a tenure-track faculty position when she was hired by San Francisco State University, where she helped establish one of the first women’s and gender studies programs in the country. Among her contributions to the struggle for LGBTQ rights was her fight against Proposition 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative, a 1978 California ballot measure that would have prevented LGBTQ people from teaching in the state’s public schools.
This panel discussion and celebration of Gearhart’s life brings together four women who worked closely with Gearhart. They will explore topics including Gearhart’s contributions to feminism and gay rights; her academic work; her literary and creative output, including the 1978 work The Wanderground; her interventions on the subject of religion and communications; and how her background in theater and communications shaped her activism, with an overall emphasis on capturing Gearhart’s delightfully quirky and humorous personality. Tickets are free, but donations will be earmarked to support a documentary currently in progress about Gearhart’s life.
SPEAKERS
Deborah Craig (moderator, she/her/hers) is an award-winning documentary director and producer whose films use compelling personal stories to raise awareness about the challenges and strengths of underrepresented communities. Her work has played at LGBTQ, women’s and documentary film festivals in the U.S. and internationally. Craig’s credits include The Verde Garden: Growing a Healthy Community (producer/director, 2007); Living Positive (producer/director, 2008); One Sister at a Time: Positive Women’s Stories (producer/director, 2009); I’m Gonna Be Here (director, 2010); Still Around, a virtual classroom (producer, 2016); and Surviving Voices: Women and AIDS (producer, 2017). Craig met Sally Gearhart in 2014 while making her latest short, A Great Ride (2018), a 33-minute documentary about several lesbians aging with humor and zest for life. The film premiered at the Frameline Festival in 2018 and since then has screened at over 50 film festivals around the globe and won multiple audience and jury awards.
Dorothy Haecker (she/her/hers) is a native Texan with a decades-long teaching career in women’s studies and feminist philosophy. A veteran of the civil rights and women’s liberation movements, Dr. Haecker participated in the founding of multicultural women’s studies programs in California and Missouri. She first met Sally Gearhart in 1961 and together they learned to love their lesbian selves and reimagine the world. Haecker retired from full-time teaching in 2014 and has continued to revel in feminist philosophy classes since then. She is a lifelong science-fiction and fantasy reader and especially loves the works of Gearhart, LeGuin, and Russ. She is a very blue dot in a blue city and county in a very red state, but she has found that she cannot do without mesquite trees and a Texas crescent moon.
Ruth Mahaney (she/her/hers) moved to San Francisco in 1971, when she was 26 years old and had just come out as a lesbian. She taught women’s studies at Santa Rosa Junior College, Sonoma State University, San Francisco State University (SFSU) and now teaches LGBTQ American History at the City College of San Francisco. Mahaney was a member of the collective that ran Modern Times Bookstore for 35 years, and served on the board of directors of the GLBT Historical Society for 20 years. She was a colleague of Sally Gearhart’s at SFSU, and both were part of a group called the Lesbian Caucus which formed after the 1978 assassination of Harvey Milk to lobby the city to promote lesbian rights. Other members included Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Pat Norman, Roma Guy and Donna Hitchens.
Cherríe Moraga (she/her/hers) is an internationally recognized poet, playwright, and essayist who is best known as the co-editor of the avant-garde feminist work, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. As an essayist and poet, Moraga has published several collections of writings, including: A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness and Loving in The War Years. In 2019, Farrar, Straus and Giroux released her latest work, Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir. She is the recipient of the United States Artist Rockefeller Fellowship for Literature, the American Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Lambda Foundation’s Pioneer Award, among other honors. In 2017, she joined the faculty in the Department of English at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she also serves as the co-director of the Las Maestras Center for Xicana and Indigenous Thought, Art and Social Practice. Most recently, Moraga completed a commissioned screenplay entitled “Senora de los Blues” on the life of the genderbending Mexican ranchera singer, Chavela Vargas. From 1978 to 1980, Sally Gearhart served as Cherríe’s graduate advisor and mentor in feminist studies at San Francisco State University.
Ondine Rarey (she/her/hers) is a filmmaker, writer and editor. Her mockumentary A Portrait of Female Desperation was the recipient of six film festival awards. Her documentary Fools and Heroes was a Grimme-Preis nominee (the German equivalent of an Emmy) and aired on ARTE in France as well as stateside on PBS. She has edited over a dozen documentary features and shorts, including Who Will Tell Our History, Now en Español (for PBS) and, most recently, Rebel Hearts, directed by Pedro Kos and produced by Anchor Entertainment and Level 4. She has edited for multiple TV series, including Alien Encounters and Keeping Up With the Kardashians. She is also co-producer and editor on Sally, a feature documentary-in-progress. Ondine received a BA from the University of California Berkeley in history and a BFA in documentary and journalism from the Munich University for Television and Film in Germany. She currently resides in Los Angeles, where she teaches documentary editing at Chapman University.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
This event will take place online. After you register, you will receive a confirmation email with a link and instructions on how to join.
ADMISSION
Free | $5 suggested donation
Tickets are available online here: https://bit.ly/3k7MhWT
ASL INTERPRETATION
ASL interpretation provided upon request. Please write at least three days in advance of event to leigh@glbthistory.org.
JOIN THE GLBT HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Become a member of the GLBT Historical Society for free museum and program admission, discounts in the museum shop and other perks: http://www.glbthistory.org/memberships.