MariNaomi (they/them) is the award-winning banned-book author and illustrator of Kiss and Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22 (Harper Perennial, 2011), Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories (2dcloud/Uncivilized Books, 2014), Turning Japanese (2dcloud, 2016), I Thought YOU Hated ME (Retrofit Comics, 2016), the Life on Earth, trilogy(Graphic Universe, 2018-2020), Dirty Produce (Workman Publishing, 2021). Their work has appeared in over eighty print publications and has been featured on websites such as The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, The Washington Post, LA Times, The Rumpus, LA Review of Books, Midnight Breakfast and BuzzFeed.  Their comics have been translated into French (Devenir Japonaise, Editions IMHO, 2021) and Russian.

MariNaomi’s comics and paintings have been featured in the Smithsonian, the de Young Museum, the Cartoon Art Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Japanese American National Museum.

In 2011 and 2018, Mari toured with the literary roadshow Sister Spit. They are the founder and administrator of the Cartoonists of Color Database, the Queer Cartoonists Database, and the Disabled Cartoonists Database. They have taught classes for the California College of the Arts Comics MFA program, and was a guest editor for PEN Illustrated. They were cohost of the Ask Bi Grlz podcast with author Myriam Gurba. MariNaomi lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with their partner and a menagerie of beloved rescue animals.

Who are you?
I’m a half-Japanese, half-white pansexual genderfluid Gen-X writer, visual artist, and video game veteran who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I spent a decade in Los Angeles, and recently returned to the SF Bay. I’ve been making comics since 1997 and have published a bunch of memoirs and graphic novels over the years, including the banned young adult graphic novel, Losing the Girl. I’m also the founder and up-keeper of the Cartoonists of Color, Queer Cartoonists, and Disabled Cartoonists databases.

Lesbian.com: What is your new book about?
I Thought You Loved Me is a memoir about a long-term friendship that went wrong. My friend ghosted me when we were in our twenties. When I hadn’t gotten over it by the time I was in my forties, I thought it was time to write about it. Focusing on and explaining my experience was an attempt to exorcise my ghost, but then it turned into something else.

Lesbian.com: Why did you choose to share this with the public versus working it out on your own?
I have a therapist now, and I joke with her that if I’d started therapy earlier, I would’ve never written this book! But I wonder. I’ve talked about this experience a lot over the years, partly because it’s something that has shaped me, and still continues to do so. And partly because I think it’s an unusual but relatable experience. Lots of people have stories about close relationships mysteriously dissolving, or not getting over old broken friendships. I believe that reading about this could help those people process their own feelings. There’s also a voyeuristic element to it, because the mystery behind our separation turned out to be a lot more scandalous than I had thought they would be.

Also, it’s important that there be more books about friendship out there! This is my second graphic memoir specifically about long-term friendships, and I hope I inspire others to make their own. I want to read them! Friendships are an important part of life that feels under-examined in literature and the media.

Lesbian.com:  Why did you choose to use collage, prose, and comics?

I’ve always been drawn to collage and photography. When I started getting comfortable with creating art digitally (not long before I began making this book), collage became a lot more accessible. Like a lot of mid-career cartoonists, I have hand pain that makes analog collage a limited hobby. So now is the time!

In addition, I’m always looking for new ways to tell a story, as I get bored reusing the same methods and mediums again and again. That’s one reason graphic narrative is so appealing to me. There’s always something new to try, so it never gets stale! Of course, when you deviate from the norm, it’s a lot harder to sell a book, but I don’t mind some hardships if it makes it easier for others down the line. That’s my intention, at least.

Lesbian.com: What was the hardest part about making this book?
Because it was written as it was happening, for the first time ever, I didn’t know how it was going to end. I started it hoping to sort out my thoughts and bring back some memories, and figure out what really happened amidst so much deception. I wanted closure. As I kept going, although memories did seem to be coming back, it felt like I was opening up old wounds, not putting them to rest. Hundreds of pages in—after YEARS of working on this book—it felt like a story with no ending, but then something unexpected happened that changed everything. The ending was a surprise to even me, and how often does that happen to a writer?

Lesbian.com: What was the best part about making the book?
Taking and excavating the photos was really fun, as was laying out the collages and determining my visual metaphors. Making the art and knowing that anything goes was exciting. I got to revel in my nerdy process. I also love how it turned out. It usually takes awhile for me to love my books, but each time I reread it, I feel good about it. It’s a book that I’m proud of. That’s a rare and magical feeling for me.

Lesbian.com: Describe some of the visual metaphors and what they mean.
The woman who ghosted me is represented visually with loose, squiggly lines and verdant collage. I chose the plant because it felt like her: earthy, mysterious, lovely. The loose squiggles felt like her too–her curly hair, the way she wove in and out of my life and different times, and how I couldn’t get a grasp on who she was when I was making this book. I used rose collage to represent my faith in her. These roses are, at times, artificial, and at others natural, and they are sometimes inside me, sometimes outside me, and sometimes gone. I used a collage of lilacs to represent memory, as the flower’s scent triggers something inside me, a deja vu maybe, and that seemed appropriate. When, in the book, I have a faint memory, you might spot a wisp of translucent lilac. When memories come flooding back in, the lilac comes in strong. I use images like this throughout the book, some with very specific intention, some used more nebulously. I imagine as time goes by, the nebulous parts will solidify for me, and I’ll learn why I made some of the visual decisions I made. That happens with each work, in fact.

I don’t expect readers to fully understand all the visual metaphors, but I hope the images will help intuitively lead them through the emotions of the story. 

Lesbian.com:  Tell me about your databases and why you make them.
I started the Cartoonists of Color and Queer Cartoonists databases in 2014, frustrated by the lack of representation and diversity in the work being published. I mean, I was being published, but it felt like I was discouraged to write about anything that might be unrelatable to straight white cis-folk. It was frustrating. At first the databases were just a list of names and websites I’d gathered on my own. Over time, I enlisted the help of database engineer Cameron Decker, who helped make the databases searchable. A few years later, inspired by the work and experiences of my friends Rus Wooton and Patrick Dean, I started the Disabled Cartoonists database.

I do these for free (actually, they aren’t free to me, but they’re free to everyone else), as a way to bring work and READERS to underrepresented cartoonists, as well as to bring the communities together. I consider it my community service, a way to lift up folks the way I wish I could’ve been lifted up early in my career.

The creation of the databases was a lot of work and stress. Thousands of tedious hours, plus the predictable trolls. These days, though, it’s mostly just pockets of time here and there, as I approve (or not) new profiles, or reach out to folks who submitted their info incorrectly. Not the most glamorous work, but I’ve been told that a lot of creators get work through the databases, that editors, booksellers, librarians, educators, tradeshow organizers and READERS spend a lot of time scouring the databases. So that’s good enough for me.

Lesbian.com:  What and who are some of your inspirations?
I’m inspired by life events that make me laugh or give me trauma–especially when it’s both! I get a lot out of sharing those kinds of stories with others (particularly when those others reciprocate). I enjoy spreading emotion and compassion.

Artistically, I’ve been inspired by so many, but the most notable ones for my career were authors Cheryl Strayed and Armistead Maupin, and cartoonists Mary Fleener, Rob Kirby, and Ariel Bordeaux. These are folks whose work showed me what art and literature could be, which gave me permission to make my own. The best part is, each and every one of them are still making work that continues to inspire me. 

For this particular memoir, I was inspired by the collective consciousness of zine-making, The Vicious Red Relic, Love by Anna Joy Springer, the Griffin and Sabine books from the nineties, and House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. None of these books match the content or style of mine, but the mere fact that they were outside the norm yet managed to exist is encouraging. I love ambitious work that pushes boundaries, regardless of whether it necessarily lands, or if I personally relate to it. Unless we take risks, we’ll forever be stuck in a loop.

Lesbian.com: What are you doing next?
Later this year, Oni Press is going to re-release my graphic memoir Turning Japanese as an extended edition. Turning Japanese is about when I was in my twenties, working in hostess bars and trying to get in touch with my Japanese side. It’s been out of print for a number of years, so I’m excited that it’s coming back! 

I’m also in the process of writing a middle-grade graphic novel script that the amazing Trung Le Nguyen will illustrate. It’s coming out with Little Brown in 2026 and is about non-binary J-Pop superstars that help a half-Japanese tween come out of her artistic shell.

I also have a completed time-travel graphic novel that my agent is shopping around. 

As for future books, I have so many ideas, all of them involving friendships, neighbors, toil, trouble, and all that good stuff. But who knows! Anything traumatic and funny could happen.

For more information about MariNoami and her work: https://marinaomi.com.

The post I Thought You Loved Me by MariNaomi first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Although direct hiring through websites such as Indeed, LinkedIn Job Search, ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, SimplyHired, and Monster still garner a large percentage of the market, many employers are relying upon recruitment firms to better identify candidates. This is especially true if they’re looking for hires who can be motivated to leave their current employment for greener pastures.

Against this hothouse environment, O&H Consulting, a scrappy, Austin, Texas-based talent consultancy is disrupting the industry with an approach designed to deliver greater value to employers while creating an outstanding candidate experience and helping organizations meet diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) goals.

With decades of experience as a talent professional and certified guidance professional, Michele Olivier says her boutique firm is changing the “us against them” dynamic endemic to many recruiter and employer relationships.

“Let’s face it, contingency recruitment by its very nature winds up limiting the choice of candidates presented to the employer because recruiters are incentivized to focus only on candidates most likely to get the job,” Olivier says from her Austin, Texas office. “Not only does this result in the employer not finding the ideal candidate, but it stifles diversity by excluding women, people of color, LGBTQ, and others early in the process.”

The irony is that most employers remain strongly committed to meeting their DE&I goals, says Olivier. However, the need for expediency and the profit motivation within recruiters dictate the nature of the search from the get-go, she says, resulting in a smaller field of less diverse candidates.

“When recruiters are overwhelmed by the volume of assignments, they become myopic in which applicants they interact with simply to maximize the use of their time and to push for candidates which will be the most expensive, not necessarily the best fit,” she adds.

These trends are reflected in a poll of recruiters by Jobvite, an Indianapolis, Ind. firm specializing in recruitment software solutions. In their 2020 Recruiter Nation Survey, they found that while the shift toward diversity hiring was up 22% as compared to 13% in 2018, recruiters were often less able to put diversity and inclusion front and center due to the uptick in demand for their services.

“Recruiters are so bogged down right now, that while it is still important to them, it’s more of a luxury to think about that while being overwhelmed with open requisitions,” Amber Ferrari, marketing manager at Jobvite, told a reporter at SHRM Magazine, the official publication of the Society for Human Resource Management.

To ensure the job seeker field is as broad as possible for her clients, Olivier doesn’t use a contingency fee model. Instead, she says she bills her clients a reasonable monthly retainer and then a modest percentage of the successful candidate’s salary or hourly wage. Employers also don’t have to limit their job searches as Oliver and her team will work on multiple assignments at once at no additional charge.

By championing the interests of job seekers and employers evenhandedly with a balanced allegiance to both, Olivier says that O&H Consulting has “gained the trust of clients on both sides of the interview desk”.

“We work in a partnership with candidates and the employer which is a lot more fair for everyone and creates a positive experience for all parties involved.” Olivier states. “Looking for work sucks. It’s a daily gut punch of rejection, being ghosted, and a roller coaster of emotions. To make things worse the game is rigged. Talent Acquisition isn’t a picnic for employers either. Most of the tools available to them are at best poorly suited for the task and at worst perpetrators of institutionalized racism and inequality.”

Apparently the maverick approach of O&H Consulting is hitting a nerve. Olivier points out that among her clients are investors in startups who admire Olivier’s brash, take-no-prisoners style and delight in the flexibility she provides in serving their recruitment needs.

About O&H Consulting
O&H Consulting are the heroes you need in today’s job market. With customized toolkits for every career level, we provide hands-on coaching to candidates and expert recruitment services to employers. We take a no-nonsense approach when it comes to communicating with clients about the realities of the job market and how to stay competitive. Our success is based on a deep commitment to getting clients where they need to be.

Our list of clients includes Big 4, Big Tech, and FORTUNE 500 companies, Michele and her team have recruited at all levels, from entry retail through executive. Sample engagements include Microsoft, EA Games, Facebook, and the YMCA, Goldman Sachs, and the American Red Cross. Michele also shares her expertise as host of the weekly podcast ‘Hey! I Want Your Job’. Each week, she interviews top professionals on how they got to where they are, the state of the job market in multiple fields and secrets every job seeker should know.

For further information, visit www.oandhconsulting.com, call 737-222-9632, or email us at michele@oandhconsulting.com.

The post Michele Olivier is Disrupting the Staid Recruitment Business first appeared on Lesbian.com.

By Lisa Dordal
Special to Lesbian.com

Through deeply personal and culturally grounded narratives, Water Lessons explores the relationship between reality and imagination, faith and doubt, presence and absence, as the speaker grapples with multiple dimensions of grief arising from her mother’s alcoholism and eventual death; her father’s deepening dementia; and her own childlessness. Against the backdrop of these personal griefs, the speaker scrutinizes the patriarchal underpinnings of the world she grew up in as well as her complicity in systemic racism as a white girl growing up in the 70s and 80s. Woven throughout the book are the speaker’s meditations on a divine presence that, for her, is both keenly felt and necessarily elusive, mirroring the speaker’s ultimate celebration of her unborn daughter as a “lovely fiction” who is both here and not here.

I Love

I love how my wife says operators are standing by,
whenever I’m out of town and she wants to chat.

I love that birds can see stars and that even fruit flies need sleep.

I love that an African grey parrot learned how to use 100 words
and that his last words were: Be good and I love you.

I love how Jesus stopped a crowd of men from stoning a woman just by writing in the sand.

I love that an octopus has three hearts.

I love that Mother Theresa only heard from God one time, and it was enough.

I love that some birds mate for life—and that after one dies,
the survivor sings both parts of their song.

I love that our brains are mostly water.

I love that some people believe in heaven. And some don’t.

I love that an owl visited my wife in a dream and that my wife said hello and asked:
Are you the kind of owl that people refer to as a barred owl?

I love that what saves one person is not the same as what saves someone else.

I love how the word cranium sounds like the name of a flower.

I love that my mother keeps wanting to show me her garden.

I love that the owl answered back.

My Mother Is a Peaceful Ghost

In my dreams my mother keeps walking out of the kitchen singing
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

She never sings past the first verse.

Last night, I dreamed I was back at the house—
every light on when I arrived. My mother, forgetting

she was dead, smiled, said she was fine, everything
was fine. At family gatherings—weddings, baptisms—

my mother would look around, sort of stunned,
and say: There’re so many of you! As if

we’d arrived from some place other than her
own body, a country foreign to her. My mother

is no longer flesh or breath. She’s not a thing
anymore. Is she with God?

Some days I believe, some days I don’t.
Centuries ago, in a church in Europe,

someone carved God Help Us into a pew.
Plague years. Sometimes my god is so big,

I wonder what’s the use. Divinity
diluted into nothingness. My mother

tried to stop drinking. I stopped, she told me once.
Like you’d stop a dryer or a washing machine.

We were standing in the Blackwater Falls gift shop
looking at coffee mugs printed with maps.

West Virginia on one side, waterfalls on the other.
One mug had a gold star to mark the visitor center.

You Are Here, on a travel mug. Here and
not here. How do you name what isn’t here?

She tried to stop. And didn’t.

Lisa Dordal (M.Div., M.F.A.) teaches in the English Department at Vanderbilt University and is the author of Mosaic of the Dark, which was a finalist for the 2019 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry, and Water Lessons (April 2022), which was a finalist for the Poets Out Loud Prize from Fordham University Press. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best-of-the-Net nominee and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize (judged by Phillis Levin), the Robert Watson Poetry Prize (from the Greensboro Review), and the Betty Gabehart Poetry Prize from the Kentucky Women Writers Conference. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals including The Sun, Narrative, RHINO, New Ohio Review, The Greensboro Review, Best New Poets, Ninth Letter, CALYX, and Vinyl. For more information, please visit her website: lisadordal.com.

The post Celebrate National Poetry Month with Water Lessons by Lisa Dordal first appeared on Lesbian.com.

photo by Zoe Amos

BY ZOE AMOS
Lesbian.com

From AT&T to ZICO, businesses, non-profits, social clubs, local politicos, universities and more showed their LGBT support at the 40th Anniversary San Diego Pride Parade held on July 19, 2014, in the gay neighborhood of Hillcrest. Parade watchers were blessed with uncharacteristic cloudy skies as they celebrated each contingent as they walked, biked, danced, and performed their way along University Avenue and down Fifth toward the weekend Pride festival held in Balboa Park. LGBT organizations and their allies marched to cheers from the crowd, estimated at a record popping 400,000 plus attendees.

I stood at the corner where the parade began beneath the towering rainbow flag waving proudly at the aptly named Normal Street. Activities began with a roar as the San Diego Women’s Motorcycle Riders, fondly referred to as Dykes on Bikes, set the day in motion. The parade’s Grand Marshall featured Toni Atkins, newly-minted Speaker of the California State Assembly, the first out lesbian elected to this position. San Diego’s finest made an appearance as did members of the military, both active and retired.

Talk about good, clean fun, my favorite float was created by Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, which featured a plastic-lined room filled with scantily-clad foam-covered dancers who frolicked to the strains of “YMCA.” This conscientious locally-based company handed out samples of their certified fair trade organic lavender coconut scented lotion. To the crowd’s delight, the float spewed fountains of foam high into the air like a giant, white rooster tail.

For over two hours, parade sponsors entertained us with disco, live music, flag and rifle pageantry, hula hoops, and more. Beauty queens and inspirational couples waved politely as they passed in convertible BMWs, and a model perched in a martini glass gestured flamboyantly to the crowd. Banners announced social statements, a credit union handed out rainbow wristbands, and coupons were dispersed to the crowd. Rainbow colors adorned people, their pets, balloons, classic cars, clothing, jewelry, and any available surface, making this colorful display a treat for the eyes. The air was positively charged with a celebratory vibe that fueled smiles and cheers. I could go on and on, but the photos tell the rest of the story.

photo by Sharon Bohannon

photo by Zoe Amos

photo by Zoe Amos

photo by Zoe Amos

photo by Zoe Amos

Zoe Amos brings her lesbian point of view to articles and stories on diverse topics. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter. Read her stories on Kindle and Nook. Check out her other life at www.janetfwilliams.com.

The post From A to Zoe: Pride and joy first appeared on Lesbian.com.

The webinar registration can be accessed here:
https://ourfamily.z2systems.com/np/clients/ourfamily/event.jsp?event=105785

Our Family Coalition invites young queer adults seeking to build (or in the process of building)
intentional families, empty-nesters looking to see their generations’ stories told, and families
interested in empowering their queer and non-binary children. Panelists will be sharing the
stories of early LGBTQ parenting struggles, triumphs, and family values that led to the historic
shift in both the queer community and the American family.

“A generation ago, in the face of legal barriers and social invisibility, LGBTQ families raised
children by the power of love, imagination, and ingenuity,” said Lowey. “Our kids – now young
adults – have not only survived intact, they've thrived, not in spite of who their parents are, but
because of them.”

Panel topics will include: What does it mean to be a pioneering queer family; the superpower of
growing up in a queer family; and a roadmap of perspective and positivity for today's queer
families. A question and answer session will follow, along with a trivia game and prizes.

Featured Panelists:
In 1977, Donna Hitchens co-founded of The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) which
was then called the Lesbian Rights Project. In 1982, Hitchens wrote, published the litigation
manual for attorneys defending lesbian mothers in child custody cases nationwide. In the
1980s, Hitchens and her wife Nancy Davis adopted two baby girls. Hitchens and Davis were the
first couple to attain legal adoption as same-sex co-parents in 1986. Hitchens became the first
out elected lesbian judge elected in the US in 1990. Currently, the couple enjoys grandparenting
their daughter and her wife’s 16-month-old baby.

Crystal Jang became the first out lesbian in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1978, and the first out
Asian educator in the SFUSD (San Francisco Unified School District) in 1990. A community
bridge builder and activist, Jang co-founded Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and
Transgender Community. Jang and her wife Sydney Yeong adopted a baby girl from China in
1996. Jang’s parents greeted them in Hong Kong, starting the first generation of openly gay
APILGBT families.

Moderator:
Robin Lowey is a speaker, author, filmmaker, and historian, whose work elevates the discourse
about the role lesbian history plays in advancing LGBTQ civil rights and social equity. Lowey and
her ex-wife each gave birth to baby boys in 1990 and 1996, respectively. A pioneering queer
parent and activist, Lowey is the founder of Lesbian Game Changers, a project that shares the
stories of LGBTQ+ role models who empower today’s youth to realize their full potential and
value in their careers, communities, and families. Sponsored by Our Family Coalition, Lesbian
Game Changers provides resource books and films that fill the gap in education about LGBTQ
history. Lowey’s book Game Changers was awarded Best New LGBTQ Book at the New
Generation Indie Book Awards.

Sponsor
Our Family Coalition is a 501c3 nonprofit that advances equity for the full and expanding
spectrum of LGBTQ families and children through support, education, and advocacy. It seeks to
create an inclusive and just world where all LGBTQ families with children have visibility and
opportunities to thrive as valued participants in our schools, institutions, and communities. It is
located at 1385 Mission Street in San Francisco.

The webinar will be recorded and available at
https://ourfamily.z2systems.com/np/clients/ourfamily/event.jsp?event=105785
by June 15, 2021.

The post Queer parenting pioneers offer roadmap for queer families, May 15 first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Now that President Biden and Vice President Harris are in office, I’ve been able to have my first Covid 19 vaccine shot. It was no big deal. I went to our county fairgrounds expecting to be injected through my car window, the way I was tested. I thank my lucky stars the test was negative. I’m grateful to the medical profession that persisted in making tests and vaccines available despite the disinformation and profiteering of our former leaders.

Turned out, the vaccines were administered in the same exhibit building that’s used for our winter farmers’ market, a very familiar and reassuring space. The six-foot tables that usually serve to display crafts or local mushrooms and goat cheeses, were now place markers.

Two representatives of our Sheriff’s Mounted Posse, minus their mounts, stood at the door, masked and chatting with new arrivals. We weren’t exactly an unruly crowd—age seventy-five at the youngest—so there was little for them to do. Once inside, our temperatures were taken, we were sent along to show ID and turn in required paperwork. Some internet averse or disabled people filled out that paperwork on site, assisted by caretakers and community helpers.

One half hour was allotted for each group to be vaccinated. Firefighters led the way to makeshift corrals, maybe twelve foot by twelve foot, and to inadequately distanced folding chairs. No matter, it’s in the nature of groups to group, and people knew each other so there was never a chance some would voluntarily social distance, despite the fact that they were there to prevent dying in a pandemic.

The firefighters then deposited us, one at each end of the tables. I spotted non-gay neighbors in front of me and we cheerfully visited—at a distance. They’ve since invited me to ride with them for our second shots. That could have been fun and memorable, I thought later, especially if we gave one another the virus while enclosed in a car.

Which brought me back to the first inoculation I remember. I was in elementary school when American schoolchildren became guinea pigs for Dr. Salk’s vaccine. We waited on line outside the Flushing, Queens P.S. 20 gymnasium, in enforced quiet, dozens of solemn, worried kids. Personally, I was terrified of being shut inside an iron lung and welcomed the chance to avoid that fate.

The Covid 19 vaccines have emergency authorization; the polio shots were experimental. Some children received the actual inoculation, others a placebo. We filed into the gym and stopped at little stations staffed by who-knew-who. I asked this time, and confirmed that RNs were giving the Covid injections.

As Polio Pioneers, we received pins and certificates (which many of us still have, including me). Mothers of pupils volunteered to comfort us. I lucked out with a mom who put her arms around me and held me close during my ordeal. If I hadn’t already been a dyke, I would have become one from that experience alone—what pain?

The more recent injection was painless. For about two days afterward I couldn’t lift that arm without great discomfort, but as vulnerable elders, we accepted the necessity of inoculation with stoicism. There was a nurse for each row of recipients so those in the back were able to watch for horrendous reactions from the procedure. There were none.

The last corral was the observation room where we waited thirty minutes, in case we needed an epi pen or ambulance. The firefighters roamed among us, smiling and joking with people they knew, checking on us all. Eventually, we crammed together on line to schedule appointments for our second shots.

As a seasoned Polio Pioneer, sixty-odd years later, it strikes me as funny that I felt a little proud, just as I had in grade school, to be part of this mass health effort. There’s a bond now, between my neighbors and myself, that we went through the unknown together, that we believed in the science and the medicine and did our patriotic duty to keep America safe.

Before my observation period ended, I took a seat at one end of a long bench and exchanged greetings with a courageous man perhaps twenty-five years my senior. As I watched the clock, I considered myself lucky, way back when, to have received the real polio vaccine rather than the placebo. In the present, I know I’m lucky to have reached the current vaccine eligibility cutoff age. And lucky to have outlived the willful mismanagement of the Covid 19 pandemic.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2021 / February 2021

The post The Amazon Trail: COVID-19 Pioneer first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Oh, hell, what can I say at a time like this? Did we think they’d simply go away?

When angry white criminals occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon back on January 2, 2016, and the seven miscreants were charged with federal conspiracy and weapons violations only to go scot free;

When, in the 1980s and 1990s angry white Christians organized to legalize discrimination against their scapegoats-of-the-day, gays, in order to build a vast political machine;

When a woman was killed by a white supremacist at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia;

When people of color are daily, hourly, victims of “officers of the law”;

With Southern Poverty Law Conference workers putting their lives in jeopardy to identify and expose hate groups;

With the American Civil Liberties Union and its sister social justice organizations unendingly trying to bring equality to a country that can’t or won’t provide it for its citizens;

When sixty-four million voters choose a money-grubbing, power-grabbing, morally empty, strangely uneducated cheater to rule them, and make an American idol of him;

When you’re Jewish, or your skin isn’t white, or you’re female, or your affectional preference scares people enough to make you a threat and a target;

When Americans bomb their neighbors;

When it’s dangerous to represent the citizens who elected you—we need to pay attention. We need to acknowledge that anti-democratic power is quietly accruing and will lash out; will harm rather than protect this too-trusting nation.

These rightist protestors are angry that gays can marry, they’re angry about a woman, especially a woman of color, becoming our vice president. They’re angry because they can’t get ahead, can’t pay their medical bills, can’t put anything away for retirement. This anger is passed from generation to generation and as we become a more just and equal nation some of these Americans blame the newly enfranchised for taking away their jobs, or their right to be better than whoever is lowest on their totem poles. They’re striking back, but at the wrong people.

Right wing demonstrators apparently think wealthy Republicans represent them. Socially, they may. But it’s not affirmative action taking bread off their tables, it’s not gay marriage siphoning off the middle class. It’s not “satanic” Democrats lowering taxes on big business or cutting food stamps, gutting Medicaid, and threatening to weaken Medicare and Social Security. Democrats are not the ones passing laws to weaken unions nor are they making it easier to give U.S. jobs to countries guilty of child labor, sweatshops, and pitiful wages.

Republicans are for big business. There’s a mutually beneficial relationship there: corporations fund their political campaigns and elected officials do corporations’ bidding. Like voting to consider corporations equal to humans. The campaign donations are used, in part, to target voters who are told that Democrats, progressives, socialists, liberals, whatever trigger word works, are harming Americans. The demonization is passed through certain churches, through organizations like the N.R.A., through some charter schools, through media designed for the purpose of telling lies.

They spread lies that smeared intelligent and capable Hillary Clinton so thoroughly that an insecure, bankrupt-prone idiot who knows nothing about government, foreign affairs, economics—about anything necessary to the office of President of the United States—was elected. Now, because he pandered to the anger and frustration of a populace frightened of change, opposed to inclusiveness, looking for a miracle, they seem to believe an economic evangelist con man will lead the way to riches untold.

We should have expected it and done more to stop it. This is a capitalist nation. Nothing wrong with that. Except, when Republicans eased the restrictions on corporations, they unleashed a money-grubbing free-for-all.

Unfettered capitalism is greed, pure and simple. Greed for profit and greed for power. And that’s what we have today, universal greed. Instead of taking care of its citizens, our government feeds that greed, starving those it was supposed to serve and protect, telling them all the while who to blame. While destroying the economy for the average American, these shameless elected corporate automatons duped laid-off factory workers, ex-service people, unstable wanna-be rebel leaders. Duped them not into a revolution, but into murderous, cock-a-hoop self-sabotage.

The Republicans aren’t sitting in jails, the corporations aren’t sharing their riches. These dissenters, tools of a corporate, big brother world, aren’t going away. We, the people, cannot look away any more.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2021 / January 2021

Lee Lynch’s website is: http://www.leelynchwriter.com/

The post The Amazon Trail: All Along the Watchtower first appeared on Lesbian.com.

The year 2020 wasn’t a total bust except for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who should not have died or have been permanently harmed by Covid 19. In the U.S., many lay those deaths and disablements at the hands of the greedy, power hungry 2020 administration and its followers.

Personally, I’ve been taking inventory of the bad and the good with my sweetheart, and finding some surprises.

Yes, over seventy-four million Americans voted to keep the traitorous officials in office, but eighty-one million plus voted to restore our democracy.

There are arms-bearing fanatics at the gates, but they have served to expose long-entrenched enemies of this country: racism, misogyny, religious zealotry, fear of any kind of difference, from xenophobia to homophobia. I trust many Americans are finally acknowledging these defects in ourselves.

I couldn’t see my family this year, but I can call them without the long distance charges that accrued when I was a kid and my mother dialed her family once a week at low Friday night rates, if no one was on the party line.

To compound that loss, our much-loved niece is sick and in pain from cancer treatments, but the treatments will cure her and then she’s going to treat herself to Disneyland.

We lost our good and gorgeous gray cat Bolo, but we’ve adopted a shelter cat and a foster dog.

A long-term couple, old friends of ours, are no longer together, but are finding their ways.

Our perfect lesbian neighbors are moving away, but now are our fast friends and are trying to find a buyer compatible with us.

We endured colonoscopies, but have clean bills of health.

Covid isolation made me put on the pounds, but I’ve already lost more than I gained.

My sweetheart has a demanding job with long hours, but with her sacrifice, we can afford our goofy, loving cat and dog.

We had to give up feeding seed and suet to the birds when rodents discovered the food source—and our house—but our sugar water feeders were so swarmed by hummingbirds that everyone, from friends to delivery people, delighted in coming to our door. The hummers outnumbered humans enough to relax their shimmery bodies and let us watch them from inches away. Other neighbors provided for the birds we lost.

The roof needs replacing like, last summer, but by staying home we’ve saved enough money to get it done next spring.

Our neighborhood cancelled the monthly potlucks, but I’m no longer exposed to that ridiculous number of homemade desserts.

Speaking of food, the women’s lunch, the Mexican lunch, the men’s breakfast, and worst of all, Butches’ Night Out—all were cancelled in 2020, but have I mentioned my clothes suddenly stopped shrinking?

My county just entered the extreme risk category for COVID, but I know no one who has gotten sick and we tested negative, thanks to our ability to isolate.

A beloved old friend died, but we had one last joyous visit in the mountains around Crater Lake in Oregon before her last decline and her spouse is going to, slowly, be alright.

Top conferences like the Golden Crown Literary Society and Saints and Sinners went virtual. I missed getting together with friends, other readers, and writers, but the popularization of Zoom and Duo and Skype have strangely given us perhaps more in depth encounters than hurried lunches and large group dinners.

Shopping became an infrequent, rushed chore, but impulse buying, useless accumulation, and shopping as fun may help save the planet.

Between the plague and the threat of a Totalitarian state, I feared my time on earth had been shortened, and it still might be, but day to day I’ve had more time than ever to finish a book, start another, be with my sweetheart, and just be.

For me, the word “but” has become synonymous with the word “gratitude,” as in: the 2020 occupier of the White House severely damaged our country and my gratitude to everyone who helped oust him is strong—no buts about it.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2020

The post The Amazon Trail: But … first appeared on Lesbian.com.

I thought there could be no good news.

Not in the midst of a pandemic and the mass selfishness that hastens and continues its spread.

Not when the abiding depth of U.S. racism bubbles to the surface without shame or remedy.

Not when the vainglorious puppet of the far right “that struts and frets his hour upon the stage” continues to assault everything we’ve done right as a country and tout as successful every evil we continue to perpetrate.

Even as this circus of horrors rolls on, I have been able to privately celebrate two personal milestones. I have broken my record for a long-term relationship. Only by a week so far, but what a relief to get beyond the jinxed anniversaries of my past. My sweetheart and I have started our fourteenth year together and we’re okay. Really okay.

Earlier this year I hurtled over a second pitfall: I now have lived in the same home for over seven years. At age eighteen I was privileged enough to leave my parents’ apartment and attend college. In the span of the next fifty years, I moved twenty-three more times. Not a world-shattering amount, but enough to necessitate recreating home, and sometimes my life, far too often. A number of the moves came as a result of break-ups, or of trying to make a relationship work.

It’s true that I want to change the world, but there is much to be said for stability. I was always performing at top speed, always devising ways to use time more efficiently, keeping sleep to a minimum. Only now am I beginning to learn to do one thing at a time—multi-tasking was normal and necessary. My pace was an attempt to make up for the hours and energy I too frequently lost to moving out, moving in, breaking up, starting again.

Short-term relationships seemed to be the norm in lesbian life at the time. It would be decades before I met women who had been together since high school or college or since coming out. The first such couple I met said the secret to their success was simply, “Be kind and love each other.” I had already foresworn leaving relationships and I taught myself to do as the couple advised. But it wasn’t always up to me to pull the plug. So I moved, and moved, and moved on.

My heart longs for solutions to the various wrongheaded conflicts tearing our world apart. Who am I kidding? These frictions have always been our inheritance. Racism is not new, nor is income inequality or incompetent, power hungry leadership. All are plagues, as malignant as the current viral scourge.

I see our single friends suffering from lack of companionship, touch, and safety, to evade this illness. African Americans, Native Americans, and gays, among others in the U.S., have never been guaranteed safety at all. Neither have my sweetheart and I, but we, at least, have respite in each other.

More than ever, I am grateful to have at long last found unwavering love and a home where it can thrive. While constancy won’t slow the rise of fascism, or appease alt-right activists, or allow us to go without masks, we are stronger for it, and strength is what is needed to repel the advance of the recurring infamies we now -— and perhaps always -— face.

Copyright 2020 Lee Lynch / June 2020

The post The Amazon Trail: A Personal Silver Lining first appeared on Lesbian.com.

It’s that time again. I need to find a healthcare provider.

I live in a rural community where there is a large turnover of medical professionals and a constant shortage of qualified staff. The health organization that provides these services seems to have difficulty attracting talent. It’s common knowledge in the communities it covers that it’s a tough employer to work with.

Which isn’t to say there are not entirely competent professionals devoted to their patients and performing at least as well as their big city peers. I’m the one who’s chosen to live where the question, “Is there a doctor in the house?” may well go unanswered.

My primary provider is pursuing the next step in her career—a step at a deservedly higher altitude. She’s a Physician Assistant, but I couldn’t trust someone with a full medical degree more. She’s perfectly straight, yet never blanched when the issue of my queerness came up. Although she was not taking new patients at the time, she graciously made room for my sweetheart in her practice. How will we ever replace her?

Of course, I asked the same thing when my former doctor left. We all loved her. Once, I had to go into her office and the New York Times was up on her computer screen. Bonding moment! Another time, I answered my phone and it was a call from a liberal election phone tree. I recognized my doctor’s voice and she admitted to thinking she probably didn’t need to give me her spiel. Double bonding! Then she was gone.

This year, for the first time, I chose a Medicare Advantage Plan with the aforementioned difficult local health organization. The lure was partial coverage for dental, acupuncture, and vision, bless their hearts. Now I’m limited to the medical providers who are left on their roster after mine departed. Woe is me.

One of my major concerns is finding a gay-friendly person, preferably female. I’ve always taken my chances, but after the phone tree doctor left, I tried Dr. X. Oh my gosh, what a mistake that was both for me and, I later found out, for all her patients and the staff. It’s not difficult to intimidate me and Dr. X was a master at it. She was medical s&m and there I was, a homosexual beneath contempt—and this in the twenty-first century! I mean, you believe what your doctor says, you trust her, you follow her instructions. But Dr. X was just plain mean. She was expert at identifying vulnerabilities and using verbal ice picks to stab them.

So, I’m cautious now. I’m on tip toes. I’ll travel hours to see someone with whom I’ll be compatible.

My retreating PA had some suggestions, but not one of them is taking new patients in this time of COVID19 and rural staff shortages. I’m grateful she was able to rule out a few pairings she knew would be lethal, to either me or to the doc.

Friends recommended a good woman MD, but she’s employed by the Health District and thus, not covered by my plan. Two other recommendations looked excellent, but are not taking new patients.

Facebook can be helpful once in a while. I posted to a local lgbtq and straight page whose members were generous with suggestions. There was a well-recommended P.A., but the contacts, responding to my search for a female provider, expressed uncertainty that the recommended individual was identifying as female.

Meanwhile, our delightful new lesbian neighbors have also been looking for healthcare, and one actually scheduled an appointment with a woman MD in town, then cancelled when the plague hit, so no input there yet.

Do non-gays have this much trouble finding care? And how do other lesbians approach this headache? Should I simply call the clinics and ask if they employ a professional who is gay friendly, wait for the pregnant pause and assurance that everyone is treated equally, and the inevitable willy-nilly listing of doctors who can squeeze us in?

There’s a neat website, out2enroll.org , which has a search engine for gay-friendly doctors. I plugged in my zip code. The response: “No providers match your search. Try removing some search criteria.” Maybe it works in San Francisco, a ten-hour drive from here in good weather.

And then there’s https://www.outcarehealth.org/outlist/. Same response. HRC has a list, but it only includes hospitals for my state—

Our medical center is not listed. I actually noticed, when I signed up for the Advantage Plan, that sexual orientation is not included in its Equal Employment statement.

What’s a dyke to do? What I’ve always done. Make an appointment with an unknown quantity and hope for an open-minded practitioner who thinks gay patients are as valuable and deserving of respect as heterosexuals. She’s out there, it’s just a matter of enduring a Dr. X or two until I find her.

Copyright Lee Lynch May 2020

The post The Amazon Trail: Is there a doctor … first appeared on Lesbian.com.