Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Headcase: LGBTQ Writers and Artists on Mental Health and Wellness

Headcase: LGBTQ Writers and Artists on Mental Health and Wellness

Editors: Stephanie Schroeder and Teresa Theophano

I know little about the subject of mental health and would have been unlikely to be aware of this remarkable book if I hadn’t already been familiar with the ground-breaking work of one of the co-editors, Stephanie Schroeder, who produced this anthology with co-editor Teresa Theophano for Oxford University Press.

It is a rare collection in which each piece meets, in its own unique way, an extraordinarily high standard. The first sentence of the Foreword by Kai Cheng Thom draws the reader straight into real life: “I am several months behind deadline on writing this foreword: first, there were the implications of a mental health crisis of my own, then...”

Each contributor has an intimacy with the issues of mental health that has turned them into self-aware experts on their own conditions. And each has something illuminating to say about what the co-editors call “the evolution of queer identity as it interfaces with mental health.” Because the complications of being queer and needing help are so “downright crazymaking,” they say, they have reclaimed the word Headcase – a term as strong as the writing and the fight for health we go on to read about.

Through personal essays, professional approaches, graphic illustrations, photos, and poetry, we gain an insight into their worlds, not the least the inadequacies of the healthcare system and the often extended but life-saving search for the right medicines. Stephanie Schroeder discusses these both in her essay “Crowdsourcing my Antipsychotic” – a tale that gallops along like a fast-paced thriller, as she fights past a nauseating array of obstacles in her attempt to find and to fund the drug that can save her, despite the indifference of Big Pharma. Such difficulties in getting what is necessary turn up in many of the book’s pieces. J. R. Sullivan Voss’s emotional graphic story “Sisyphus (Or: Rocks Fall and Everyone Dies)” takes us into mental hospitals where torturous over-medication is the rule.

This is not a collection of dense academics nor is it dripping with jargon. It is a showcase of talented, gripping work. Eliza Gauger’s six complex “Problem Glyphs” are personalized illustrations called sigils that play the role, she says, of “a sort of occult advice column.” Some pieces are written by lovers, friends, and relatives of those struggling to gain their mental health. In “Erasure,” Gabriella M. Belfiglio briefly but potently narrates the experience of visiting her precious sister in what sounds like a high security mental hospital. She tells us: “Cell by cell, I’ve been watching her die for more than two-thirds of my life.” Juan Antonio Trujillo in a half a page describes his own mental acrobatics as he talks with delicacy to a fragile friend, in “Border / Lines.”

For many of the contributors, gaining control of their mental health leads to valuable achievements. I was transfixed by an amazing story of intertwined feminist and lesbian self-discovery by a mother and daughter in “Not Our Fault” by Chana Wilson. Co-editor Teresa Theophano speaks with full candor in a section called Stories of Survival. She tells us in “The Family Legacy Ends Here” that “surviving trauma has freed me.” Later she writes, “Emerging from those years of darkness has enabled me to participate more fully and with much more confidence in the organizing and community-building work that is my passion – especially now…”

Against my initial expectations, Headcase is an energizing read, full of pain and wit and joy. I have kept it by my bed and dipped in every evening, to learn, to be awed, and to be grateful. I have asked my local public library to order it and I suggest you do the same. I have one warning however – and it is a problem I see in many books put out by University presses. To save on the expense (i.e. number of pages), the font is miniscule and demanded my strongest reading glasses. The rewards, though, are humongous.

Sharing My Dad’s Feet

I had a sweet dad and a dreadful mother. Saul didn’t protect me from her, but he stood up for me in other ways. He drove me to my black boyfriend’s house and then drove us around when Pittsburgh was too segregated for us, at 15 or so, to be open about being together, and he let us kiss in the backseat. Unlike my mother, he accepted my girl lover the next year and my lesbianism the rest of his life. In fact, we used to armchair cruise the passing women when we were hanging out together somewhere public. He was a brilliant dancer and in later years we used to lead the women at the elders’ tea dances side by side.

I used to look just like my dad – I have his beautiful eyes – and I loved that. But as I age, I look more and more like my nasty mother and that freaks me out. I see my hands and arms turning into hers – despite how much I loved my dad’s muscular forearms and veined hands.

For the last year I have been having terrible trouble with my feet and ankles. The result is that I can walk less and less and in fact at this point even a block or two does me in. I can’t stand in one place for more than a couple of minutes, which generally prevents me from attending dance lessons. I’ve seen six medical people, received six diagnoses, and been subjected to six failed treatments. Only one of these people has ever followed up to see how I’m doing after their failures. Combine that with a knee they say needs replacing, but which I can’t replace until a solution to my feet problem works, and you can understand why I am now the owner of two canes and one disability parking placard for my car. I am learning how to stay in the game of my beloved West Coast Swing, by perfecting a way to lead without really dancing, without really moving.

My dad died in 2004 and my mother three years later. I had three days in Pittsburgh to clear out their apartment and I took big garbage bags and emptied their file cabinets into the bags and threw them out. I had a charity come get all the other stuff. I made up two boxes of papers I noticed while dumping the rest that I thought I’d want and I sent those boxes home to Boston, where they have remained unopened.

This week I opened one of the boxes. First, I found a folder of interesting papers from my dad’s service during WWII. Underneath that was a manila envelope full of funeral stuff and obits. And then an astonishing two-page official-looking letter from 1996 turned up. It was from a vascular specialist physician to another physician, apparently my dad’s primary care person. It is titled “Saul Katz” and it describes him as a 78-year-old dancer with mysterious feet and ankle problems (the doctor calls them “interesting symptoms”) that the original doctor couldn’t figure out. The Dr. describes Saul as “overweight, awake, alert, and oriented” – which fits me too.

The vascular specialist did a complicated work-up on my dad but could not figure out the problem. He observes that the pain comes from walking or standing but that Saul, like me, is pretty much without pain while sitting. He writes: “I don’t have a perfect handle on this,” and goes on to make multiple speculations. In the end he says, “I’m sorry that I can’t give a definitive answer.” Nor have any of the six medical people I’ve seen. What a disappointment that medicine does not seem to have progressed around feet since the 90s.

I always thought that my love of dance was a reflection of my dad’s influence – and my commitment to leading exclusively as well. I am freaked that I have inherited this mystery disability as part of the genetic package. I am my father in so many ways, but at least I haven’t gone bald. Yet.

I write this at night, just as Father’s Day is ending.

Review: Legal Tender: Women & The Secret Life of Money by Christian McEwen

I fell in love with this book the first moment I held it in my hand. It’s petite – just 4 1/2” x 6” and has just 142 little pages. It fits into the back pocket of my jeans. And it is filled with the most riveting “confessions” by all sorts of women about money.

I found myself dipping into this pearl of a book, reluctant to finish it. Each woman speaks with the kind of candor that it is rare to hear on this subject. I remember my own mother’s fierce sense of privacy about money – a subject she thought it was rude to bring up. Even when I was applying for college scholarships, she wouldn’t let me see the financial forms she filled in. “It’s none of your business.” My only hint came when my brother, after they had put him through a few college degrees, got his first job. “He pays more in taxes than I make in a year,” my dad said, half with pride, half with resentment.

Money. I was happy to hear other women own up to hiding $5 in every coat pocket, every backpack, every drawer – I do this. I call it my Holocaust syndrome – my “just in case” stash.

Some women talk about how growing up poor impacted their attitude towards money. But remarkably, McEwen even gets people to talk about inherited wealth. Lydia Richardson Pratt, a millionaire from an old money family, complained (boo hoo) that “coming out as lesbian was way easier than coming out as rich.” She brags about how much she adores being affluent.

I liked the bartender who tossed all her change into a big container. “But when I’m really panicky, I’ll sit down and roll my change… You know, I’ve paid my taxes through change I’ve rolled by hand!

A gambler introduces her comments this way: “Most people would rather tell you about blow-jobs they gave to strangers on the highway than talk about money honestly.” She admits that, because of her addiction, “Every day was like torture. I woke up every day and was completely freaked out.”

A freelancer speaks for all of us who write or act or draw or drive for our living: “I think that anyone who works in the freelance world has an inner bag lady who is ready to haunt her.”

Christian McEwen is a writer I have admired since her days in the UK when she was producing very early lesbian anthologies, including Naming the Waves and, with Sue O'Sullivan, Out the Other Side, a book I nearly wore out reading. This little volume Legal Tender from Bauhan Publishing is an utter delight, condensed from 50 interviews, and presented like a gift. Order it here http://www.christianmcewen.com/shop/.

 

An Interview with author Stephanie Schroeder, co-editor of Headcase: LGBTQ Writers & Artists on Mental Health and Wellness

Stephanie Schroeder – writer and peer advocate – and her co-editor Teresa Theophano – writer and social worker – have brought together 38 important pieces of writing on the topic of LGBTQ mental health today in their anthology Headcase: LGBTQ Writers & Artists on Mental Health and Wellness. Stephanie is known for her hard-hitting socially-aware journalism and one other book, her moving memoir.

The enthusiastic reception of Headcase is reflected in its reviews where comments call it “ground-breaking,” “poignant,” “terrific and essential,” and “a diverse democracy of voices.” I spoke to Stephanie Schroeder about the process of putting together such a pioneering work.

 

Question: How did you and your co-editor meet and decide to work together on this project?

Stephanie Schroeder: When Teresa read my memoir Beautiful Wreck: Sex, Lies & Suicide, it resonated with her. She had originated the idea of Headcase and then reached out to me. We hadn’t met before. We’ve been working on Headcase since 2014 and it has been a dream collaboration. We agreed on everything, from the vision to the submission guidelines to the final choices out of hundreds of submissions.

 

Question: Now that the book is out and you have just finished a national book tour, are you still friends?

Stephanie Schroeder (on left in black shirt): Yes! Not only have we stayed friends, we also plan to co-write another book focusing on LGBTQ suicide.

 

Question: How did you decide what to include in Headcase?

Stephanie Schroeder: We chose selections on the strength of their writing and content. We ensured a broad demographic around age, race & ethnicity, sexual orientation & gender identity, socio-economic status, geography, and diverse viewpoints. Some are grounded in an anti-psychiatry position while others are from a more conventional treatment viewpoint. We included essays, poetry, fiction, visual artwork, and a 13-panel comic written by a young transperson who documented their days in the hospital for mental health issues.

 

Question: Why is this anthology necessary?

Stephanie Schroeder: Because LGBTQ peers and consumers of mental health services are under-represented in the literature. Most books are written by professionals for professionals or clinicians for clinicians. We believe that LGBTQ peers are experts about our own care. And in fact nothing like this book has ever existed before. It is truly a vanguard work in the field of mental health literature.

 

To learn more, check out the Headcase anthology online and on Facebook:

www.headcaseanthology.com

Facebook: Headcaseanthology

"Alleged Lesbian Activities" - a review

The New Orleans-based ensemble Last Call brought Alleged Lesbian Activities to Boston thanks to our incomparable The Theatre Offensive. This production asks: What happened to all the lesbian bars? And examines what our lives were like back when the underground bars – sleazy, criminal, and too often raided – were the only venues where we could gather.

Alleged Lesbian Activities drew sell-out crowds for five performances at Jacques Cabaret, a dive bar in what used to be known as Boston’s Combat Zone when it was surrounded by other queer bars, topless joints, and the sex trade in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I remember it well because I ‘grew up’ as a baby dyke in Jacques from the late ‘60s. At age 22, I met one of the great loves of my life in that bar, after secretly slipping her a copy of Lavender Vision, one of the first gay liberation publications of the new movement, put out by my collective. I haven’t been back there since the 1970s.

For the show, the place is renamed as Franki’s. We are introduced to a cast of seven lesbians – from the bartender for whom the bar is named (played brilliantly by co-director/creator indee mitchell) to the brash cabaret MC Privacy (played by Hannah Pepper-Cunningham who dramatically greeted audience members as we found our seats) to the predatory teacher Karen who brings her young students to the bar (played lustfully by Rebecca Elizabeth Hollingsworth) to the suave keyboard musician Slim (played by the talented Kei Slaughter.) Together they all try to navigate the reality of being squeezed into this one oasis. As there are no other options in town, they must sort out their issues around race, class, butch and femme. The economic realities of running a lesbian bar (while paying off the cops) is underpinned by the cluelessness of some of the white women, the threat of a raid at any moment, and the complicated inter-personals.

With talent galore, the members of Last Call sing, act, and invite in the recorded voices of old New Orleans dykes who talk about life in those bars. “The bars saved me. The clubs let you be who you were, not like the outside,” says one. “The bar was my safe haven,” says another. Says one black lesbian about the bar she frequented, “I never went there by myself: it just wasn’t comfortable. I didn’t want to be the only one.” Says another, “It not just about keeping the bar open: it’s about keeping it black.”

Last Call clearly listened to the women they interviewed, as they seamlessly touch on confusions about butch/femme identity in the days when it was illegal not to wear three pieces of “appropriate” gendered clothing; as they talk about exclusions from churches and the need to find a substitute community in the bars; and as Franki tries to impress on her patrons the proper codes of conduct when cruising in the bar.

I was amazed to read on the inside cover of the program the story of the first Gay Pride March in Boston in June of 1971 (lesbian liberation marched in Boston the year before), including the list of demands to Jacques that my friends and I constructed back then. These included a women-only space upstairs, unlocked fire escapes, and cleaner bathrooms (for after all, we made the acquaintance of many of our girlfriends in the line to the toilets).

Kudos to The Theatre Offensive for bringing us Last Call’s Alleged Lesbian Activities – for me it was an unexpected stroll down memory lane and for the friend I went with who is in her 20s, it was a peek into the life of generations past.

Film Review (brief) Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Well god-damn: Melissa McCarthy’s acting chops are something to behold in Can You Ever Forgive Me? For writers and readers, this film will charm the pants off of you. Based on the memoir of Lee Israel, a biographer of celebrities, we meet the exasperated agent (played by Jane Curtin, once of SNL fame), the publishing world that thrives on showy white men, and Lee’s one human friend, Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant at his best), an aging gay man who joins her in her desperation. Add two facts: one, she is a lesbian whose ex (played by Anna Deavere Smith of West Wing, The Practice, and Nurse Jackie fame) is sick and tired of her bullshit, and two, her best friend is the obligatory ill cat. Lee turns to crime and booze when her literary career is as moribund as the job she is fired from when she tells her boss to fuck off. Follow her life of forgery and fall in love.

The trailer:

The Miseducation of Cameron Post – Collaborative Film Review

This review is a total collaboration between Stephanie Schroeder and Sue Katz.

Pretty blond Cameron Post (Chloë Grace Moretz) is caught on prom night with her panties down in the back seat of a car with her girlfriend. Her parents are dead and her guardians are convinced that the best thing they can do for her is to ship her to a super-Christian center (“God’s Promise”) that purports to “convert” young people (“disciples”) afflicted with the sin of SSA (that is, same-sex attraction, in the lingo of the converters).

Their methods are strict, ridiculous, and dubious, led by two experts. The slimebaggy, Disney-villianesque, Dr. Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle) moves easily between manipulation and vicious cruelty. Rev. Rick (John Gallagher Jr.) claims to be a successfully converted ex-gay and, employing his dimpled smile, he pushes the whole narrative of Christian sin.

Their center is no place for youngsters. But when Cameron spies two other residents sneaking a joint, she makes friends with them. Adam Red Eagle (Forrest Goodluck) is a captivating character who identifies as Two-Spirit. Jane (Sasha Lane) is a witty and irreverent rebel whose role in the film could have been much more developed. The three of them form a dissident posse, and face daunting developments together.

With the constant drum beat of a nebulous religiosity pounding, the disciples are led through such earnest activities as Christian karaoke, jazzer-size for God, and drawings to diagram past trauma leading to SSA (too much competitive athleticism for girls, over-identification with female family members for boys, smothering parental love or, conversely, not enough parental affection for everyone).

With these young people in uniforms (girls in skirts; boys in pants) as pawns, the adults at “God’s Promise” play out every fascist’s and closet homo’s fantasy. By creating a dictatorship in a real-life setting (a religious compound far from civilization, cut off from reality and communication with the outside world, and without any oversight) these adult despots are free to enact whatever sick program they want with impunity. Even when an outside authority gets involved, he caveats his investigation with "despite the mission of this place," meaning there is no hope, there is no help to stop the abuse of these teens.

The film, which won Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury prize, is based on a novel set in 1993 by Emily M. Danforth. The director Desiree Akhavan (“Appropriate Behavior”) does a pointed job of nailing the hypocrisy and dangers of these “conversion” therapies, which were debunked decades ago. The film has an unusual number of behind-the-camera women, from cinematography to music supervision.

The film is receiving only limited release in the U.S. despite the top prize at Sundance, and as has been written about elsewhere, may soon be overshadowed by another "conversion therapy" film by a male director, focused on a male protagonist, and with enormous star power. This is another example of the way films by and about women (especially queer women) are often diminished by the film establishment. See "The Miseducation of Cameron Post." See other movies by and about women. And, read more about the dismissal state of queer female sexuality in film in this interview with Akhavan.

TRAILER

 

From Pioneer to Elder – Squeezing it all into one speech

Last year I was in my exquisite local Robbins Library where a staff member had put up historical information about Pride. I found that person, whose name is Rob, and introduced myself. I told him that I lived in Arlington and that I had been in on the ground floor of the women’s and gay liberation movements. Perhaps our library should consult its own members about the history they made and participated in. Moreover, perhaps the library should stock my books.

Rob agreed. So this year I wrapped up Robbins Library’s Pride month events with a presentation on June 28 called From Pioneer to Elder. The problem was located in the subtitle: “One Arlington Woman's Journey from the Birth of Boston's Gay Liberation to LGBTQ Elder Activism Today.” How could I possibly fit in the birth of the movement, the present concerns of us aging pioneers, and my writing all in about 75 minutes?

Accompanying the public speaking of most writers is a desire to read from their work and to sell books. Combined with the demands of a double-sided topic, I found myself raveling and unraveling the complex threads for two weeks in an attempt to construct a presentation that met the plethora of promises in that subtitle. I did it by cutting out almost entirely the history of the establishment of Boston’s women’s liberation movement – which had prepared us for all things gender and sexuality related – and which was by far the most earthshaking revelation of my life.

Since it was a Pride event, I stuck to the founding of gay liberation – actually mostly lesbian liberation about which I can speak with authority – and jumped to the particular needs and issues of LGBTQ elders. I read relevant paragraphs from both Lillian’s Last Affair and Lillian in Love and sold a lot of books. I even snuck in a couple of my funnier 100-word stories.

But to begin, I had to thank the rainbow assortment of attendees. Rob had told me that these events usually drew between 6 and 15 people. That seemed miniscule to me so I did my own publicity and the folks I know really responded – 49 of them arrived! Here are the broad categories of what was a very mixed crowd – from ages 21 to 82, from life-long activists to people for whom this was their first political talk:

• Good friends, a few of whom have heard me speak and talk repeatedly, turned up nonetheless, one driving from across the State.
• A half-dozen dancers from my West Coast Swing community – which is mostly young and straight and white – came as well. The WCS scene is doggedly apolitical. There are no consequences, for example, for the dickhead who turns up in tRump t-shirts – people seem to dance with him quite contentedly. And I’m sure he’s not alone in his right-wing stance – although he is the most demonstrative. The dancers who came to my event, though, are the sweetest and most generous on the scene.
• Several members of the queer country and ballroom dance community arrived, some of whom I’ve known since the early 90s.
• People from my chiropractor’s office, Chirocare, were there, which was a treat. They are the folks who keep me dancing.
• Lots of other lesbian and gay elder activists cheered me on, even though a number of them have heard me speak and read before. They get my jokes and react with good-natured empathy to my take on aging.
• Several other pioneers represented, including Mark Heumann, from the group of Radical Faeries that joined with my Stick-it-in-the-Wall Collective in 1970 to put out one of the very first gay publications – Lavender Vision; and Marsha Gerstein, a self-defense student of mine back in the 60s. Both of them are active today in the LGBTQ elder community, running the Rainbow Lifelong Learning Institute.
• And there were a number strangers who came because they support events at Robbins Library. Funny enough, I randomly sat next to one of them on the subway two days later on the way back from the downtown demonstration against tRump’s immigration policy.

Because it was such a talk-heavy event, I decided to do a PowerPoint showing my changing hairstyles (not changed very much) and fashion (not changed very much) over the decades. I’ve included some of those images here. And I learned something after about 25 years away from PowerPoint: PowerPoint today is a gazillion times easier than it was when it first came out.

It was exhilarating to have a break from the news, from the growing fascism, from the cesspool that our country has become. It was only part of one evening, but I felt surrounded by “fellow travelers” and that was a balm. I had warned the audience at the very beginning that I do “a shitload of swearing,” and now that Pride Month is over and soon our democracy will be as well, I can only mourn and organize.

Parsimonious Corporations at Pride

The last couple of years I have hung out the windows of the Pride trolley provided for LGBTQ elders, waving at all those lining the streets of the Pride route. But this year my heroic friend, Bren, schlepped two luxurious beach chairs and we set ourselves up in front of the Arlington Street Church with a gang of friends, a bag of bagels and cream cheese, and two plums, and watched the March go by. Yes, yes, I know it is now called a Parade, but indulge me and my memories of hard-fought, dangerous streets.

In the early years – and I was marching from the start – these were protest marches, in-your-face declarations of “out”ness that had never been seen. The contingents were political, mostly based on identity politics or group projects, but all the marchers were brave queers, with perhaps an ally here and there.

Now the bulk of groups seem to be contingents of employees of big and little corporations and of houses of worship. I know this has been going on for long time, but at least in past years we got a bit of branded swag out of their presence – whether it was chapstick or packets of sunscreen or post-its or funny hats or socks or something, for gawd’s sake. Now the swag has dried up. Should there not be a requirement that if you’re advertising at my March, I get something sweet in exchange?

Watching this capitalist cavalcade tossing out, at the most, cheap Mardi Gras beads, (but the majority only passed out steaming heaps of nothing), moved me to exercise my vocal chords from the comfort of my beach chair.

• When Staples went by, I screamed: Throw me a ream of paper!
• When Comcast rolled by, I screamed: Send me lower bills!
• When some Jewish group carrying Israeli flags went by, I yelled: Give me some justice for Palestinians!
• When a church group went by, I cried: Toss me a piece of heaven!
• When Citizen’s Bank came by, I hollered: Donate $1,000!
• When Delta went by, I screamed: Give me more leg room!

But when TJX passed me, I yelled: Thanks for the lovely shopping bag!

Activist at Any Age: A Cross-Generational Discussion on Politics, Gender, and Feminism

On Sunday I moderated a cross-generational panel of five speakers representing lesbians in their 80s, 70s, 40s, 30s, and 20s. This was one of the monthly events put on by our Boston OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). The audience too covered this age range, as we had advertised it in Meet-Up groups of all sorts. This is a departure from our usual events, for and about old lesbians.

I was surprised by how similar our experiences were. Some of us faced nasty resistance when we came out and some managed to escape brutal reactions – regardless of age. Both of the youngest women felt most comfortable with themselves after meeting and bonding with older – or old – women. All of us were hot to trot over increased contact among the generations.

Evolving language was interesting. We ascribed varied meanings to the word “queer,” and each of us used different self-descriptors. Dyke, butch, lesbian, queer. Whereas in the early days we used to identify as “working class socialist feminist dyke” or “anti-patriarchy radical feminist lesbian.” Today there’s a different range which involves identifying one’s preferred pronouns and sexuality: pansexual, demisexual, celibate, gender non-conforming queer woman. Our conversation about dating habits (serial monogamy/non-monogamy) was fascinating.

And then there’s the issue of sex toys. Some of us reminisced about the bad ole days of hard hollow plastic dildos in “harnesses” like wonky elastic sanitary pad belts bought in sleazy porn shops. The younger women didn’t know a time before Good Vibrations and Eve’s Garden that featured women-produced equipment.

We talked about being lesbian in the vile age of tRump and expressed various levels of optimism that we’d build a strong, wide movement. Several of us talked about how important it was to overcome age barriers and to stick together. Young and old agreed. I have personal knowledge of how essential that can be. If it weren’t for my young friend Bren, it might have been another five years before I found someone to flip my mattress.