Joanne Passet - Indomitable: The Barbara Grier Story

Table of Contents

Copyright 2016 by Joanne Passet

Bella Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 10543

Tallahassee, FL 32302

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Edition 2016

Cover Designer: Judith Fellows

Cover Photo: Barbara Grier, NWSA Conference, 1978.

Photo by Joan E. Biren

ISBN: 978-1-59493-471-1

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Prologue

Because of her promotion of the written word, Barbara Grier was one of the most important lesbians of the twentieth century. Those who worked closely with her viewed Barbara as an indomitable force: driven and focused. Yet she was not the woman some people in the LGBT movement wanted or expected her to be. Born in 1933, Barbara grew up in a world where lesbians and gays were virtually invisible, either discussed in coded language or dismissed as deviant and destructive. As a young lesbian, she discovered books held the power to alleviate her isolation and feed her dreams. As a result, lesbian literature became the axis around which her world revolvedits detection, acquisition, writing, editing, publishing and, most important of all, its promotion. Confident books held the key to changing the ways in which young women grow up and see themselves, she set out with single-minded determination to ensure lesbians like her teenaged self could find positive portrayals of themselves in print. In the process, she helped preserve lesbian literary and intellectual heritage.

A mistress of communication, whether by pen, typewriter, telephone or computer, Barbara led a life marked by three distinct phases, each of which remained grounded in her core mission: books. During the first phase of her coming out and active involvement with the homophile movement of the 1950s, Barbaras participation can be described as a virtual life. She possessed an instinctive ability to create a sense of intimacy on paper, one that invited highly personal confidences from hundreds of correspondents, many of them deeply closeted. Next, with life partner Donna J. McBride as her catalyst, Barbara embarked on the lesbian-feminist movement phase of her career in the 1970s. Though she shared movement goals of acceptance and equality, she found it difficult to comprehend fully feminist politics and its approach to life. By the mid-1980s, Barbara found herself in the awkward position of belonging to a movement whose goals may match ours but whose methods and restrictions do not at all

A lesbian Facebook in a pre-Facebook era, Barbara was a compulsive correspondent who interacted with many leading gays and lesbians during the second half of the twentieth century; therefore, her story offers a unique window into the history of that critical era, shedding light on its personalities, organizations, and issues. With a prescient sense of its historical value, she systematically archived her personal and business correspondence, and comprehensively collected books, magazines and newspapers documenting gay and lesbian stories. Correspondents included well-known activists, publishers and writers, among them Nancy Bereano, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Rita Mae Brown, Barbara Gittings, Karla Jay, Franklin Frank Kameny, Del Martin, Jane Rule and May Sarton. Barbara also preserved the voices of hundreds of lesser-known lesbians and gays.

Emboldened by a sense of mission, Barbara placed her faith in texts rather than in organizations. Standing on the shoulders of pioneering lesbian bibliographer Jeannette Howard Foster, she patiently and doggedly identified and recorded lesbian and gay characters in all kinds of novels, her results published in three editions of The Lesbian in Literature . After rising from contributor to editor and publisher of The Ladder, a monthly publication of the Daughters of Bilitis, Barbara later co-founded Naiad as a lesbian publishing company. Bold and willing to take risks, she refused to let lack of resources, staff and skills stay progress, and instead forged ahead with sheer force of will, learning as she went. With arrogance, confidence and conviction steeped in pragmatism and an old-fashioned work ethic, Barbara never wavered from her goal of increasing lesbian visibility on the printed page.

Several women played significant roles in the life and education of Barbara Grier. During a twenty-year relationship with an intensely private Helen Bennett, Barbara gained an appreciation for discipline, control and order. In a second, nearly forty-year personal relationship with Donna McBride, Barbara learned the importance of adventure, play and spontaneity, and their complementary business partnership ensured Naiad books found their way around the world. By a twist of fate, Jeannette Howard Foster moved from Indiana to Kansas City (where Barbara then lived) after leaving her position as librarian for noted sex researcher Alfred C. Kinsey. In Barbara, Foster found an eager protg who shared her passion for lesbian literature and history. Novelist Jane Rule, whose correspondence with Barbara spanned three decades, brought color to Barbaras black and white worldview by challenging her assumptions and beliefs and introducing her to other writers and poets. Rule also served as a vital sounding board as Barbara grew into her roles as editor and publisher.

As Rule discovered, Barbara was prone to action, not introspection. A complex individual, Barbara knew many people but had only a few close friends. During five decades of activism she wrote thousands of words, but most were constructed with a goal in mind, whether it was validating an isolated lesbians existence or persuading someone to do her a favor. Barbaras correspondence with Rule offers the most intimate glimpses of her daily life, aspirations and perspective on topics ranging from books to politics to relationships. Read in sequence, their letters reveal two obsessive compulsive correspondents: Rule a worldly author, and Barbara a romantic who experienced the wider world vicariously and lacked a grounded understanding of its complexity. Despite their differences, Rule appreciated Barbaras flamboyant delight in the marketplace, and recognized that when it came to the promotion of lesbian books, Barbara had no peers.

Barbara Grier was a conundrum. She wanted others to view her as a devil (hence her favorite pseudonym, Gene Damon, or Gene the devil), yet she devoted herself to affirming the lives of dozens of isolated correspondents. Upon meeting them, however, she often appeared rude and insensitive. Despite this lack of interpersonal skills, she developed into a consummate networker with contacts around the globe. She shared younger feminists goal of equality, but eschewed their politics and considered their cooperative approach to publishing inefficient. Speaking frankly, Barbara could at once be perceived by others as brusque and gracious, brutally honest and generous, biting and good-hearted.

Barbara never doubted books held the key to improving the lives of lesbians and gays. Because of her vast correspondence during the 1950s and 1960s with readers of The Ladder, she recognized the need to promote books to people beyond the reach of the lesbian and gay movement and its bookstores. Buoyed by her fanaticism, Barbaras commitment to preserving and nurturing lesbian writing prevailed, and with the books she left in her wake, lesbian invisibility became impossible.