Audio Interview, Kitty Moran Wolfsong, January 28, 2013
- EVELYN BAILEY: Today is Monday, January 28th, 2013.
- And I'm sitting with Kitty Moran Wolfsong, who
- was, in the early '90s, the person who
- brought to life again the youth group of the Gay Alliance.
- So Kitty, were you born in Rochester?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yes.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And when--
- or how, I should say-- did you become involved with the youth
- group at the Alliance?
- What were the precipitating factors that
- catapulted you into that arena?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, I was in Social Work
- School from 1990 to 1992.
- And I was also in the early stages of coming out
- as a lesbian during that time.
- And in graduate school--
- youth have always been my primary interest.
- I've spent most of my adult working
- years in or around schools.
- My first masters was in education.
- So when I was doing a lot of my graduate school work,
- I was doing it on gay youth.
- Because what else would one do when
- one is coming out as a lesbian?
- And--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Makes sense.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: And as I did some of my projects
- in that area, I found out through research
- that there currently was no youth group in Rochester.
- I knew that there had been in previous years.
- I didn't know very much about it.
- But I knew that it had not been active for several years
- at that point.
- So I did some research in other cities.
- I went to Syracuse and talked to the folks
- that ran their youth group.
- I went to Buffalo and talked to their folks.
- And I had some ideas about what I wanted to do.
- But there was no money for anybody
- to be paying for it at that time.
- And Chuck Collins and Linda Nichols
- were interested in participating with me,
- but they had a different vision than I did.
- They didn't want gay to be in the title.
- They didn't want to call it a gay youth group.
- They wanted to call it Light House.
- And they didn't want to house it in the Gay Alliance,
- because they thought that would scare kids away.
- And I thought that housing it in a church would scare kids away.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Which is where they wanted to have it?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Right.
- So for that first year--
- that was in '93, basically, '92, '93, late '92, '93.
- They did run it out of the downtown United Presbyterian
- Church.
- And much as I predicted, they had very few kids finding them.
- So at the end of that first year,
- Linda Nichols chose to no longer participate.
- Sorry.
- My daughter is coming.
- I don't know if you want to stop that for a minute.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So let me stop for a minute.
- How did you connect with Chuck Cohns?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Chuck and I both went to the downtown United
- Presbyterian Church.
- And we had become quite good friends.
- And we both were interested in youth.
- And
- I really liked Chuck a lot because I
- felt that he was a really good role model for young people.
- He was very-- well, he was very handsome.
- But he was also just a man of integrity, and very--
- just the way he--
- everything about him, the way he carried himself--
- I just felt that he would really be a great role
- model for young people.
- And indeed, that first year that we worked together
- at the Gay Alliance, he was a great role model.
- The kids really connected with him and really liked him a lot.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So Linda left after the first year.
- And the second year comes along.
- And how did you convince Chuck to go to the Gay Alliance
- and move out of--
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, partly, circumstance convinced him,
- because we just weren't getting any kids out of the church.
- And so he realized that it wasn't working.
- And so he wanted something else to work.
- And I had been doing a little bit
- of leg work talking to Tanya.
- Because I wasn't super involved in the actual youth
- group that first year, I did a little bit of background work,
- and I talked to Tanya.
- And she was really interested in having us at the Gay Alliance.
- So it was really Linda that was more adamant about not having
- it out of the Gay Alliance and not calling it gay.
- And I think partly that was her internalized homophobia.
- And Chuck had a little bit less of that.
- Chuck had a little bit of that going on, but not at the level
- that Linda did.
- So it wasn't that hard of a sell,
- really, to convince him that this would be a better idea.
- And once we started talking with Tanya and coming up with a plan
- and deciding what we were going to do,
- he got really enthusiastic about it.
- He was very, very much on board by the time that we did it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And when did you have your meetings
- with the youth?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Sunday afternoons.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Has that--
- I assume you chose that time because it was probably
- the most optimal time of it working, of having kids come.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Our choice was basically
- evenings, which are hard for kids-- because Chuck
- and I were working full time.
- So we couldn't do right after school,
- which might have been a good time for kids
- but wasn't a good time for us.
- And I was concerned about safety, kids riding buses
- in the evening and whatnot.
- I just didn't think that that was a good idea.
- And Saturdays, kids usually have other fish to fry.
- And so we just thought that Sunday afternoon
- was a good time that would be most likely to attract kids.
- And it worked out pretty well.
- That first year, by the end of the year,
- we had a pretty solid core group of about eight kids.
- Some weeks we had six.
- Some weeks we had twelve.
- But generally, there were eight of them
- that came fairly regularly.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And so what did you do with them for two
- hours on a Sunday afternoon?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, the first hour was reconnecting.
- We'd go around the circle and ask them
- how their week had been.
- And I think the first meeting, we
- asked them what topics they were interested in.
- So we did have different topics that
- were somewhat youth-driven.
- There were times when something would be in the news,
- or something would be going on locally
- that we would talk about.
- And usually, the first hour was very formal and very much
- facilitated by the adults, and the second hour
- was more social where the kids would just hang out and maybe
- play games, talk with us, whatever.
- Sometimes the first hour would extend into the second hour
- by the kids' choice.
- If they wanted to stay in a formal, big group, we did.
- But if they wanted time to just play, that was fine, too.
- Because they didn't have a lot of opportunity
- to be with other gay youth at that time.
- At that time for most of the kids that were coming to group,
- being out in school was not safe.
- Very few of them had anybody that they
- talked about being gay with.
- One or two of the kids had some outside friends that knew they
- were gay, but most of them didn't.
- And so they really looked forward
- to that time of being with each other
- and talking about what it felt like to be
- so isolated in school and issues with parents.
- We had a couple of parents that were really
- supportive and lovely, and brought their kids to group,
- and would come and talk to me, and were really great.
- We had other parents that were pretty negative
- and made life pretty hard for the kids.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So the levels of acceptance within families
- varied a great deal?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Oh, absolutely.
- Absolutely.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And did the kids want
- to therefore not only come to the youth group,
- but did they feel safe in their own homes?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Not all of them did.
- We had one kid in particular that
- didn't feel safe in his home.
- And eventually, we did end up getting him into foster care
- eventually, because it just wasn't working.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And what ages are we talking about, Kitty?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, that first year,
- we did have a couple of college kids
- that came that ended up co-facilitating with us.
- But the majority of the kids were between fifteen
- and eighteen or nineteen.
- EVELYN BAILEY: In 1993--
- while AIDS was first identified in Rochester in 1981,
- AIDS Rochester came into existence in 1984
- with the hotline.
- And then CHN came into existence a couple of years later.
- So by the beginning of the '90s, money
- was beginning to come through the pipeline,
- and there were treatments.
- How much of a concern was AIDS to the young people
- you were meeting with?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, I don't think high school kids
- worry about that sort of thing very much.
- They're invincible when they're fifteen, don't you know?
- But we did address it with them a couple of times.
- We had one facilitator who worked for AIDS Rochester.
- So we rotated our facilitators.
- I was there almost every Sunday.
- Chuck and I were there almost every Sunday.
- But we had other facilitators that
- would sign on and come first, second, whatever.
- I can't remember.
- Honestly, I should have written all this stuff down,
- because I don't know.
- I don't think we met every Sunday.
- I think we met every other Sunday.
- But I'm not positive, because that
- was nearly twenty years ago.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Did you advertise in The Empty Closet?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yes, we did advertise in The Empty Closet.
- And we put signs up around the city in places
- that we thought kids would go to.
- There were a number of known hangouts,
- especially for kids that were a little alternative.
- And so those were the places that we would hang up signs.
- Because the kids-- some of the kids
- might have known about The Empty Closet, but a lot of our kids
- really didn't until they started coming to group.
- But they could read signs.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I can check the meeting times and the frequency
- through The Empty Closet.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yeah, do that, because I just can't remember
- exactly how often we met.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Now, in 2012, 2013, kids in the youth group
- usually have a day of silence, a gay prom.
- Were those events?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: I'm trying to remember
- the first day of silence.
- I was involved with the first day of silence.
- But I'm not sure if I was the facilitator or it
- that was after Patti started.
- It seems like-- gosh, I just remember that for sure.
- Do you remember, Debbie, whether the first day of silence
- was with us or with Patti?
- DEB MORAN: Oh, I think it might have
- been after Patti came over.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: I think it was, because I'm not
- sure I even knew about it.
- I think she's the one that made me aware of it.
- But I was there for that first one.
- It was a pretty exciting event the first time we did it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Gay prom?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: No.
- Well, the first gay prom that we did was also after Patti came.
- Yeah.
- Because she definitely was instrumental in creating that.
- But I'm not positive.
- See, those college students that I
- mentioned earlier that helped us facilitate,
- Patti was one of them.
- And so there were some things that she and Juliana
- helped to create that may have been
- before Patti was officially hired by the Gay Alliance.
- And that's what I'm trying to figure out.
- Because I helped out with those things, but I don't think
- I was the one that was really instrumental in creating them.
- I'm sure it was the two of them that created them.
- I just don't remember what the sequence was of when.
- I participated.
- I remember going to the first night out.
- Well, the first time, we all met Mother's and we had a youth
- night at Mother's.
- That was the very first outing.
- And that was after Patti was hired.
- That was before the gay prom.
- And I was there for that night.
- And so I think the prom was--
- and there was--
- I remember the youth prom was associated with the sweetheart
- ball the first time.
- Because what we did was we had a separate room for the kids
- on the night of the sweetheart ball.
- It was back when the sweetheart ball was held, I think,
- at the Radisson.
- And the kids were not allowed in the room where alcohol
- was being served, but they were allowed
- in the other part of the area.
- And that was the first time the youth were involved.
- And I don't remember what year that was, either.
- But that's something that you probably could find out
- in The Empty Closet.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Now, you were a volunteer?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yes, I was a volunteer.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And Chuck was a volunteer?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yes.
- We were both volunteers.
- EVELYN BAILEY: After that first year, how many
- other volunteers came on board?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: I think I had a total of about six volunteers
- that worked with us.
- Not all of them every week.
- There were one or two that were pretty committed
- and came to most meetings and then others that
- rotated through.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So what made you stick with it?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, I like kids.
- And I enjoyed doing it.
- I don't know.
- I guess I feel like--
- I guess I feel like it's part of my spirituality
- that there's a certain amount of time you need
- to give back to your community.
- I'm not big on giving money to things
- because I don't know where my money is going.
- But I figure if I volunteer a certain amount of time,
- then that's worth about the same thing as money.
- So that's-- that's sort of how I felt about it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: What is it about you?
- You could have devoted your time or committed your time
- to adults or to seniors or to--
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Because if you're--
- just about any other marginalized group--
- if you're black, your parents teach you
- how to survive in the white world
- and how to survive with the oppressive larger culture
- and so on and so forth.
- But if you're gay, you've got nobody.
- You've got no adults teaching you how to navigate the world.
- And so my feeling about it is that gay youth
- need positive role models.
- And when I started at Hillside, which was actually
- the year before we took the youth group to the Gay
- Alliance, I had a young boy who everybody except him
- knew he was gay.
- And he loved the girls because he liked to do their hair.
- And he was so flamboyant, and just
- a delightful, charismatic, wonderful young man.
- And I remember when he first started tentatively
- admitting to me that maybe he had sexual feelings for boys.
- His belief about that was that if he was gay,
- he was going to live his life in bars
- and die young because he would just live a life of depravity.
- Because that's the image in his community.
- He was of Hispanic descent, and that
- was the image that had been given
- to him by his family of origin.
- He had been told that that's what happened to gay men.
- And I'm pretty sure that he had been
- told that because from a very early age,
- they probably knew he was gay.
- You laid laid eyes on this kid, you'd know.
- But when I told him that it was possible for him
- to marry a man, and they could have
- a little house with a white picket fence
- and adopt kids if they wanted to,
- the idea was completely foreign to him.
- He just couldn't even imagine that maybe he
- could have that life.
- Because that's what he wanted.
- He wanted to have children.
- And he wanted to have a little house
- and live a little suburban life.
- And the fact that I was the first adult that
- told him that he could be himself and have that
- really meant--
- really touched me.
- What we tell kids they can be is what they become.
- And if we tell them that all they can be
- is second class citizens and alcoholics and depraved,
- then that's what they're going to be.
- But if we tell them that they can be whatever they want to be
- and that they have the ability to create whatever life they
- want to create, well, maybe they won't be a rocket scientist,
- but they'll create a whole lot better life
- than they would have if we told them that they
- were going to be nothing.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Did you--
- couple of questions.
- You talk about this young man who was Hispanic.
- What was the prevalent concept of homosexuals
- in the African-American community?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: It wasn't a whole lot better than his.
- There's a lot more homophobia even today
- in the African-American community
- than there is in the mainstream white community.
- It's getting better.
- In every community, it's getting better.
- It's 2013 as opposed to 1993.
- So that's 20 years difference in time.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Were these kids involved in churches?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Some of them were.
- Some of them were not.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Did that play--
- in your experience with these young men and women,
- was that a positive experience?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Rarely.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Being involved with formal religion?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: In most cases it was not.
- In most cases it was very, very negative.
- And the messages they got in church were that they would--
- that they were evil if they were gay, and that being gay
- was a choice, and that all they had to do was pray to God,
- and they'd be saved, and they wouldn't be gay anymore.
- I'm not saying every church is like that.
- That would be just ridiculous and highly stereotypical.
- But it is much more likely for churches
- in the minority communities to be like that than it is--
- and certainly, there's a lot of charismatic
- or very conventional churches in white society as well.
- But in minority communities, they're more prevalent.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Suicide?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: I was very, very lucky to not ever have that
- while I was running the youth group.
- We had a couple of kids that had a little bit
- of suicidal ideation, a little bit of--
- I don't think anybody ever attempted,
- but there would be talk about it sometimes.
- But after Patti took over, there was a young woman, a young girl
- that did kill herself about two years in to, I think,
- the time that Patti was--
- and I was very--
- at that point, I was still--
- I was kind of supervising Patti because there
- wasn't anybody at the Gay Alliance
- that could supervise her.
- So if she had an issue, if she had something
- that was social work-y that she needed to deal with,
- I was the one she came to.
- And there was a pretty devastating experience when
- that young lady killed herself.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Do you--
- and I don't remember.
- That's why I'm asking you if remember.
- Was that after Matthew Shepard or before?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: that's a really good question.
- I'm not sure.
- I think it was after, but I'm not positive.
- That young lady had some mental health issues
- aside from being gay, some depression issues.
- As it happens, I met her mother a few years later.
- And her mother was not unsupportive of her.
- So it was much more of a depression-related issue
- necessarily than totally a gay-related issue.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Do you recall, even
- in your work with youth in schools
- or at Threshold or at the Gay Alliance,
- were suicide rates up in the '90s?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yeah.
- The national numbers indicated yes,
- that suicide rates were definitely higher
- among gay kids.
- It was not something I had personally witnessed.
- But the kids that got to us had some support.
- They had friends.
- They had somewhere to go.
- And even the one kid who eventually ended up out
- of his home knew that there were people
- that cared about him that were going to find him a safe place
- to live.
- So in many ways, our kids were at much lower risk
- than kids who--
- the kids that are at the highest risk
- are kids that don't find a group, that
- don't have anybody to talk to.
- Maybe they haven't told anybody until their suicide note,
- and maybe not even then.
- So sometimes we don't even know how many
- kids that are completed suicides actually
- were gay, because they may or may not
- have ever told anybody that.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Were you involved with GSAs?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yes.
- After I stopped doing the youth group at the Gay Alliance,
- I was working at Franklin High School,
- and I started the GSA there.
- It took a couple of years bucking the administration
- to get that off the ground.
- But it happened.
- The first few GSA meetings that we had were under the radar.
- And gradually, we became more of an official group.
- EVELYN BAILEY: With the GSAs in mind,
- they weren't in any way organized.
- Within the school, the individual school,
- they may have been.
- But there was no GSA city meetings or--
- KITTY WOLFSONG: For a while there,
- we did try to organize a little bit.
- There were a couple of meetings of facilitators of area school
- GSAs.
- But people who work in schools are generally
- pretty busy people.
- And getting everybody to come together for a meeting
- wasn't always really easy.
- We did keep in touch by email, and we consulted each other
- and knew what was going on in other people's schools.
- Oftentimes, the day of silence was the one day that we would--
- the first year that we went to the day of silence,
- we all met at St. John Fisher College.
- And there were a lot of GSAs there that day.
- And that day, I connected with a lot of other facilitators,
- and we talked to each other and whatnot.
- But I think that might be the only one that we
- went to the central location.
- The other years--
- I think that year was the last year that the youth group was
- in the Atlantic Avenue site.
- Once we moved over, they moved over to the Main Street site.
- There was a big enough room to really hold
- a big Day of Silence Rally.
- So after that, we didn't go to St. John Fisher anymore.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Were you involved with GLSEN?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yes.
- EVELYN BAILEY: What is GLSEN?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Gay Lesbian Straight Educator's Network
- is what that stands for.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And do you remember when that
- might have come on the scene?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well I think it had been around
- before I got involved in it.
- I got involved in the late '90s.
- But I certainly was not--
- it had been there before I came on board
- and continued after I stopped being actively involved.
- I've not worked at a school for the last five years.
- So that takes me out of--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Were you involved with the training at--
- I don't know that it was GLSEN, but that Keith Powell
- negotiated with the Rochester City School District.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yes, I participated
- in doing some of that training.
- Yeah.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And that was for the entire city?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yes.
- And I did one of them.
- At least one, maybe two.
- I'm not sure.
- But I spoke.
- I wasn't in the audience.
- I was on the stage of at least one of them.
- It might have been more than one.
- I can't remember.
- I do a lot of public speaking, so I don't always
- remember everything that I've done.
- But I know that I've done it.
- And I did at least one GLSEN training, maybe more.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And the focus of that
- was not necessarily about homosexuality,
- but about violence or bullying.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yeah, bullying.
- It's about teaching respect.
- And I think that the big message of that
- was that regardless of what your personal beliefs, every child
- deserves to be treated with dignity.
- And if you are personally opposed to homosexuality,
- that's your right as a person to have an opinion.
- But it is not your right as a person to mistreat someone
- because you don't like what they're doing or who they are.
- Just like if you don't like--
- if you have something against Arabs,
- you don't get to mistreat an Arab kid.
- You just don't get to do that.
- As a teacher, it's your job to treat every child
- with dignity and respect.
- And you're there to teach them.
- You're not there to tell them how to live their lives.
- And that was our big message, was
- you teach respect, you get respect.
- And when you see kids mistreating each other,
- it is your job to interrupt that.
- A lot of times, teachers don't know what
- to do when they see things.
- They know they're wrong.
- They know it shouldn't be happening.
- But they don't know how to intervene.
- So part of what we did was talk to them about some ways
- to appropriately intervene.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Over the course of the years that you were
- involved with the youth group, with GSAs, with dealing
- with youth, is there one incident or one experience that
- really stands out in your mind as having some impact on you
- personally?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, there's a few.
- There's some positives and there's some more painful.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Take the positive.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: OK I think that--
- well, there's a couple, actually.
- One really super positive for me was a young girl
- that I started working with her when she was in seventh grade.
- And this was not part of the youth group per se.
- And she was kind of an awkward girl, didn't
- know what to do with herself, and lots of family issues.
- And gradually came out as a lesbian.
- And watching her embrace her sexuality
- and begin to feel good about herself
- over the course of working with her for five years,
- that was pretty positive and wonderful.
- And the other, actually, was a straight kid
- that came to the GSA.
- He came with his friends.
- And he had been in the Urban Suburban program
- as a little boy and didn't come to Franklin
- until he was in high school.
- And he was involved in the GSA for two years.
- And at the end of the second year, he graduated.
- And at our end of the year gathering,
- we were talking about our experience in the group
- and what we liked about it and everything.
- And he stood up instead of just sitting in his seat.
- And he came over, and he gave me a hug.
- And he said, I've been in a lot of different schools,
- and I've had a lot of different teachers.
- And you're the first person who ever taught me to think.
- And that was pretty powerful in terms
- of making me feel like I did do what I wanted to do.
- It wasn't about if you're gay or if you're straight.
- It's about using your mind and having healthy relationships
- and learning how to be the best citizen you
- can be with integrity.
- And that was the message that I wanted to send them.
- And he got it.
- That was cool.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Given that you've been out of education
- for four or five years, do you have
- a perspective on how life for a gay student has changed?
- Is it better?
- Has it really changed?
- Because the process of coming out
- is still laden with fear and trepidation
- and uncomfortableness and all of those things.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, even though I don't work in a school
- anymore, I'm mainly still working with youth.
- I work with youth in my private practice.
- I work with kids between twelve and twenty-six.
- And I think that things are definitely improving.
- It's easier to come out.
- Kids have role models on TV.
- They have The New Normal.
- They have Modern Family.
- They get to see things that kids twenty years ago didn't
- get to see.
- But it's still dependent somewhat
- on how religious is your family and how
- strongly does your family adhere to old-fashioned homophobic
- values.
- And if they're in a family that's
- very old fashioned and homophobic,
- then they're going to have a hard time.
- And if they're in a more open-minded family,
- it'll be easier.
- It also has a lot to do with individual personalities.
- Some kids fit in socially no matter what,
- and other kids just don't fit in socially.
- And the social media of Facebook and all of that
- is the good news and the bad news.
- Because on the one hand, they can find community online.
- They can find other gay kids.
- They can know they're not the only one.
- But also, the social media helps kids isolate and never come out
- of their room.
- They can only have online friends
- and never actually have a real, skin-to-skin person
- relationship.
- And so I think social media has seriously
- complicated growing up for any kid,
- whether they're gay or straight.
- And depending on the personality of the kid,
- it can be really, really damaging.
- EVELYN BAILEY: You brought us to the twenty-first century.
- There are certainly more laws on the books--
- Dignity for All, Students Act, SONDA,
- Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act.
- But my question is, given all of those legislative changes,
- given all the ways in which society
- has tried to do the right thing, what's the real impact on kids?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, I think it's
- like any other legislative change.
- It begins to make change.
- But the 1954 integration ruling didn't immediately
- integrate the schools.
- And so there are some schools that are really progressive,
- depending on who's the principal and how
- are the teachers organized.
- And some schools are really great,
- and other schools are really still pretty bad.
- When I left the city school district five years ago,
- there was still significant influence of religion.
- There was very little separation of church and state
- in the inner city school.
- And so when you have sentries calling kids faggots
- and telling girls that they're going
- to go to hell if they have an abortion,
- and nobody stops them because that's what God told them
- to do, that's not always a very welcoming environment
- for gay kids.
- But it's not a very welcoming environment for pregnant kids
- either, or whatever.
- It's not just about being gay.
- So it's very individual in terms of--
- there are some things that are clearly better.
- Just the fact that there are more kids, other kids that
- are accepting because of media and all of that,
- that's certainly better.
- Almost anywhere, a gay kid can find a few supportive people,
- no matter where--
- whether they're living in Hilton or they're
- living in Seneca Falls, or whether they're
- living in Rochester, they're going
- to be able to find a few people that they
- can tell are going to be supportive,
- which probably wasn't true twenty
- years ago in every school.
- And there are legal--
- they do have legal things that they can do now
- with Dignity for All.
- If there is a problem, a really big problem,
- they can seek legal action.
- So those things are certainly good.
- But any social change takes time and is
- going to be gradual and dependent
- on the individual players.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Two more questions.
- You've had this experience before.
- But if a young woman or man, sixteen, seventeen,
- were sitting in front of you, what would you tell them?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: About what?
- EVELYN BAILEY: About how to negotiate the life being gay.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, first, I'd find out
- a little bit about the kid's own individual situation.
- Do they have any supportive people in their lives,
- and is it safe to be out at home?
- Generally, I do tell kids that if you really
- feel like it's going to be unsafe to be
- out within your family, don't do that until you
- can support yourself.
- Because kids get thrown out.
- But even as I might tell them that,
- I would say this is temporary.
- It's not going to be the rest of your life.
- You don't have to hide forever.
- And you don't have to hide your light under a basket forever.
- If it's not safe for you to be out yet, it's OK not to be out.
- And then I would talk to them about where
- they could get support.
- Can they get support online?
- Can they get support going to the Gay Alliance?
- Where can they get some support safely?
- I think those are the main things--
- and that it gets better.
- And that once you're an adult and you
- can make your own choices, you can create whatever life
- you want to create.
- You can surround yourself with supportive people,
- and they don't all have to be gay in order to be supportive.
- You can find wonderful, eclectic, wonderful friends
- that will love you just the way you are.
- And the world is a friendly place
- once you get out into it if they don't
- know that from their families.
- And I would talk to them about career choices, too.
- What do you want to do as a career, something
- where you can be yourself and you don't
- have to worry about hiding?
- And I also think that--
- oh, I'm so sorry.
- He is crazy.
- You OK?
- For myself, what I have found is that if you go into a job
- situation without telling them ahead of time,
- then you're always worrying about
- are they going to find out.
- But if you just go into every job situation being yourself
- from the start, then you never have
- to worry about being outed.
- And that's how I feel about--
- once you're safely an adult and you're supporting yourself,
- don't walk around hiding anymore.
- Don't pretend to be something that you're not.
- Sometimes when you're a kid--
- even kids who aren't gay sometimes can't fully
- be themselves until they're adult and able to support
- themselves and live on their own.
- And I hate to have to give a kid that kind of advice,
- but it depends on who their parents are.
- Some parents are wonderful and supportive and would be great.
- But if they know Mom and Dad are seriously homophobic,
- I don't really want to counsel the kid
- to do something that's going to get him beat up or thrown out
- or whatever.
- EVELYN BAILEY: What are you most proud of in terms
- of your work with young people?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, that story I told you before.
- And I have a lot of young people that come back to me
- later for counseling as adults, or will find to me
- and talk to me.
- So the fact that I think I have had a positive influence
- on a fair number of kids, I guess
- that's the thing I'm most proud of.
- EVELYN BAILEY: One more question.
- What do you think needs to change in order for kids
- to feel more safe in the environments in which they
- live and go to school?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: You don't want to hear the answer to that one.
- I think what needs to change is the whole paradigm of power
- over and hierarchy.
- But that's a whole different thing.
- I think that a lot of kids don't feel safe, whether they're
- gay or straight.
- As long as we continue to live the old paradigm of power over,
- you still have a situation in which women, gay kids,
- straight kids, whatever can feel unsafe.
- When I started working at Franklin,
- I became very aware of the word "respect."
- Because it's thrown around at Franklin like a football.
- It's a constant.
- The word "respect," I must have heard it twenty times a day.
- And what I realized is that for many people,
- whether it's inner city gang kids or adults,
- or whoever it is, the word "respect"
- is synonymous with fear and obedience.
- And that's not what respect is.
- And respect is namaste, honoring the god within,
- honoring each other in our truest light.
- That's respect.
- Power over and obedience are not respect.
- And so until we get rid of the notion
- that respect and fear are synonymous,
- there's always going to be fear.
- There is always going to be kids that don't feel
- safe to be who they really are.
- You weren't looking for that answer, were you?
- EVELYN BAILEY: I wasn't looking for any answer
- (Wolfsong laughs).
- I was open to hear what you had to say.
- Because I find it a somewhat daunting
- question to answer, and an overwhelming question
- to have to go there and try to work with and do something
- about.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: I'm reading a book right now that is called
- While the World Watched.
- It's about a woman who--
- four of her best friends were killed in the Birmingham
- bombing of the church.
- So it's about the Civil Rights Movement, obviously.
- And she mentioned a Martin Luther King
- quote that says that the only way someone can ride your back
- is if you're bent over.
- And so although I am opposed to the notion
- of blaming the victim or requiring only those that
- are oppressed to have to make any change-- certainly
- the oppressor needs to make some changes as well.
- But as the oppressed, we need to stop allowing it.
- And when you are fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,
- you don't necessarily have the power to stop allowing it.
- But when you become an adult, you
- do have the power to stop allowing it.
- You have the power to no longer hide and to no longer allow
- internalized homophobia to control your life,
- and to basically live your life with pride and dignity.
- And when I say pride, I don't mean false pride.
- I mean a sense of integrity and being.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And goodness.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yes, exactly.
- And what I found when I was working
- at Franklin is that the first couple of years
- that I worked at Franklin--
- and I actually have told this story
- as part of the GLSEN training that I did in the city school
- district.
- The first couple of years that I worked at Franklin,
- I was out to my employer threshold.
- But I didn't feel that I needed to announce it
- to people at Franklin.
- When I was married to a man, I didn't walk up to people
- and say, hello, I'm Kitty, and I'm a heterosexual.
- So I don't walk up to people now and say, hi, I'm Kitty,
- and I'm a lesbian.
- But I realized that I was monitoring my gender words.
- And if I was talking about spending time with Debbie,
- I would call her my spouse and avoid using her
- or him, whatever.
- Because I didn't necessarily want
- to do coming out 101 with everyone.
- I don't have time for that.
- At least that's what I told myself.
- But I think there was still that fear.
- How are people going to react?
- And am I going to be able to be as effective,
- and blah, blah, blah?
- And Debbie Rider, who was an administrator at Franklin
- at the time and then later became the principal
- at Charlotte and it was at Charlotte
- that I was doing this training, and Debbie
- was sitting in the audience.
- So I was telling on her.
- And we were sitting there one day, and I was talking about--
- we were both talking about our children
- and our spouses and whatnot.
- And finally she said, can you just tell me her name
- and get it over with?
- And it was so freeing.
- It was so-- oh, she just knew, and she didn't care.
- And it was great.
- But it made me realize that you can play that game.
- You can do that-- oh, I don't need to be out people.
- And it just obscures things.
- It's false.
- And it's not living with integrity.
- EVELYN BAILEY: It's another mask.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yeah, exactly.
- And so that was the last time I ever did that.
- But if you realize that, and you realize that it just
- really serves no purpose at all to do that,
- it changes everything.
- And I guess that would be one of the things that I would tell
- that sixteen, seventeen-year-old,
- is that as you get older and have control over your own
- life, if you are just living honestly and with integrity--
- EVELYN BAILEY: And openly.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Yeah.
- The personal is political.
- That's what makes change.
- People that got to know me and know--
- I'm really good with kids.
- I don't mean to toot my own horn,
- but I can get through to 95 percent of the kids that I see,
- at least.
- And so the fact that I have that talent, people respected me,
- and they knew that I was really good at what I did.
- And so the fact that I was a lesbian
- became no more important than the fact that my eyes are blue.
- It doesn't matter.
- It's just one more piece of who I am.
- But if you're hiding it, it becomes this elephant
- in the living room as opposed to just one more piece
- of who you are.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Did you ever think marriage equality would
- happen in your lifetime?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: No, probably not.
- No.
- I didn't.
- Although because I came out so late in life,
- I had less time to really think about that.
- I don't know.
- I was almost forty when I came out.
- I was thirty-five, really.
- DEB MORAN: I'm turning thirty-five this year.
- Don't push me to forty.
- EVELYN BAILEY: All right, sweetie.
- DEB MORAN: I'm not almost forty.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Well, I was amending that.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So one final question.
- What do you want people to say about Kittie
- when you're no longer here?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Oh, jeez (laughs).
- What, are you writing my epitaph, or what?
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, what would you like your epitaph to read?
- KITTY WOLFSONG: She walked her talk.
- I guess that's what I--
- I hope that that's what people get
- from me, that I do as I say, not just give lip service to it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, I think over the years,
- I've observed that many, many times.
- And I'd like to thank you for sharing
- your history, your insights.
- And you have made tremendous contributions
- to this community.
- Many of them will be realized by those
- you've touched in years to come versus immediately.
- Because that's the way youth lives their life.
- In hindsight, in many ways, you see much more
- than you did in foresight.
- So thank you.
- KITTY WOLFSONG: Thanks.
- Thank you.
- That's nice.