Video Interview, Elizabeth Bell, August 16, 2012
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So, first of all, give me
- the correct spelling of your first and last name,
- as you want it listed on the screen.
- LIZ BELL: Liz-- L-I-Z Bell--
- B-E-L-L.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- I see.
- CREW: Liz, you can't have that, because I'll hear the paper
- moving (unintelligible).
- LIZ BELL: Can I just read it?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yes.
- CREW: (unintelligible)--
- LIZ BELL: I want to read this in the beginning
- and read this at the end-- read something else.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: (unintelligible) directly if I can.
- LIZ BELL: OK.
- CREW: OK.
- You want to do that first?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.
- CREW: OK.
- Let's do it.
- Hang on.
- (unintelligible).
- Camera is ready.
- LIZ BELL: Well, this is hot off the press.
- And my story sounds so incredulous,
- so I decided it needed a little preface.
- Back when I was just a girl, girls grew up to be girls--
- mothers, grandmothers, great great great great grandmothers.
- Girls, one and all.
- "Woman" remained a word unspoken, not a compliment
- in the closet, except for the likes of Eve such femme
- fatales.
- Though, it is true, then, as now, that
- to call a man "boy" was, and is, to insult,
- offend, and put down.
- Girls, we were ad infinitum.
- Age, maturity, responsibility all mattered not.
- Girls were girls, and boys were young men, period.
- We were given to know our place.
- In the ways of those old days, in beauty parlors,
- the girls gathered.
- Barbershops were for boys and men only.
- For I kid you not, my friends, a barber's license
- could be revoked for knowingly cutting a grown girl's hairs.
- Woe to any she desirous of a "he" haircut.
- Those were the ways in those old days.
- Good girls wore high heels, pert dresses, and pretty skirts
- to a proper fetching length--
- just below the knees.
- Culottes-- pants/shorts that looked like a skirt.
- Culottes, failed the dress code.
- Failed the dress code.
- Improper attire.
- No admittance, I was told.
- I kid you not.
- For boys and men wore the pants back then--
- both literally and figuratively.
- Boys were taught to lead and girls were led to follow--
- and not just on the dance floor.
- Girls played secretary to the he-man boss,
- nurse to the he-male doc, teacher to the gentleman
- principal, wife to the hubby, sister to the bro,
- et cetera, et cetero.
- And woe to those poor girls who got A's in those days.
- Old Maid was the game of cards and of life.
- So be forewarned Miss.
- Beware, Missy.
- The Old Maid was the real loser.
- Draw not her card.
- The mark of real success, MRS.
- In the ways of those old days, guys
- were given to ask the gals to date, to dine, to dance,
- and to marry or not.
- "Wallflowers" was the word spoken to describe
- girls-in-waiting--
- girls waiting to get a chance to dance with a guy.
- And then, along came Sadie--
- Sadie Hawkins-- born of a hillbilly comic strip.
- To the annual Sadie Hawkins Day dance,
- the girls-in-waiting all got to go.
- Because in that hillbilly way, that was the one big day
- that the girls got to do the inviting,
- as long as the one invited and danced with was a guy.
- Yes.
- Those were the ways in those old days, my friends.
- Muscles were considered most unfeminine.
- And therefore, girls' basketball rules ruled girls.
- Three dribbles max.
- One, two, three, stop.
- No more.
- And for a girl to run full court-- from basket to basket--
- foul.
- Good girls do not put one toe across the center line.
- Cross not.
- Trans not.
- Good girls did not run--
- neither too much, too fast, nor too far.
- And really good girls--
- the best back then--
- competed for cheerleading, leading
- good cheer for the boys.
- "Rah, rah, sis, boom, bah."
- Oh, and back then, really good dads went to the office
- and really good moms stayed home.
- And real men ate meat and potatoes, and never a cucumber
- and watercress sandwich.
- And if a real man did not want to eat his broccoli, so be it.
- But I digress.
- So many words in that closet--
- unuttered, unspeakable, unheard.
- Divorce back then, only whispers--
- until song "D-I-V-O-R-C-E."
- But divorced, and battered, abused, incest--
- words, actions, hushed, silenced.
- And unwed mothers-- people, girls, hidden, and cast out.
- For abortion was then unmentionable,
- unpardonable, illegal, deadly.
- Oh, such silence-- all the trans words and people.
- Oh, and that "L" word sounds like "thespian" and "has been."
- Lesbian.
- Nonexistent.
- The love that dare not speak its name.
- Oh, those were the days, my friends.
- And yes, we thought they'd never end.
- And so I begin by saying thank you.
- Thank you now, National Association
- of Women, born 1966.
- Thank you, Stonewall, born 1969.
- Thank you, Ms. Magazine, born 1971.
- Thank you, Title IX, born 1972.
- Thank you, Roe v Wade, born 1973.
- Thanks be to all on whose shoulders we may stand tall.
- And yet, still, may we never forget
- that big old closet still remains full of words,
- words yet unspoken and unheard, in so many languages,
- so many people.
- We offer you our shoulders, one and all,
- that someday you too may stand tall.
- There.
- Thank you.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I loved the part you put the little shoulders
- just standing in there.
- But, you know what?
- I'll make a little DVD copy of that just for you.
- LIZ BELL: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Send it to you.
- CREW: (unintelligible).
- LIZ BELL: I'm sorry.
- I'm sorry.
- I'm sorry.
- I get-- I could cry.
- I can't do that.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's talk about some of those early days.
- LIZ BELL: Yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Now, if I remember
- from our previous conversation, you
- were a student at the U of R.
- LIZ BELL: I was a student at the U of R.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- So let's just start there.
- Talk to me what it was like on the university campus coming
- to terms with your sexual identity
- and all that stuff that goes on in your nineteens
- and your twenties.
- LIZ BELL: Oh, those days.
- I was a student at the U of R. It was my junior year.
- It would have been 1969, '70.
- I was dating a guy.
- And he was a Med student.
- And he was an upperclassman.
- And I did what I was supposed to do.
- I dated him.
- I dated him.
- But I always used to go to this place
- that I knew this woman who just made my heart beat.
- I knew her class schedule.
- And every once in awhile when I saw her, I used to just watch.
- I didn't know what it was.
- Like I said, the word "lesbian" didn't exist in my vocabulary.
- So I dated a guy.
- That was all my junior year.
- And this woman lived on my hall.
- I was a resident advisor.
- And I thought she was a friend.
- And so too, in high school, I'd had those feelings
- of friends that started dating boys, and it didn't make sense.
- But still didn't have the language for it.
- Well, that year, as I was dating this boy-- and, I mean,
- this is where it sounds incredulous.
- But we practiced the rhythm method, this boy and I.
- And I became pregnant.
- And I had an illegal abortion.
- And that's a whole other story.
- But that was the depth of alone that I knew.
- And as it turned out, he didn't call for four days
- after the abortion.
- He was at a party.
- I had told my family that I was going to a party.
- So I got on a train and did it.
- And I won't go into that story, but that
- was before Roe versus Wade.
- And I came back to school and was kind of a mess.
- That was in the winter.
- And I was a mess that spring.
- And my friend was very supportive.
- And I was a mess the next year, and ready to kill myself.
- And my friend was very supportive.
- And my thought was that if I just got rid of everybody
- and made them dislike me, that I could do myself in,
- because nobody would miss me.
- But she wouldn't let go.
- There were several that wouldn't let go.
- And then one day, a secretary for somebody in the dorms
- was going out of town and she said, "You want to house-sit?"
- And I said, "Sure."
- And my friend and I went and house-sat.
- It was over on Parcells-- her house.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I've got to stop, but just for a second.
- I'll get the door.
- OK.
- If we can just pick it right up from when you're asked
- to house-sit.
- LIZ BELL: I was asked to house-sit.
- And the secretary knew that my friend and I were friends.
- Maybe she knew more than I did.
- But we went together-- my friend and I--
- to house-sit at her house--
- her house and her husband's house on Parcells.
- And it was wonderful getting off campus.
- As a student, I didn't get that too much those days.
- And it wasn't until we went to bed--
- and it was just one big double bed--
- that we fell into the bed and found each other.
- And it was bliss.
- It was unimaginable.
- It was a wonderful weekend.
- And then, we came back to campus.
- And it was oh, my god.
- What's this?
- What have-- what?
- So then they had to hide.
- And then it became underground and furtive.
- And that's when I knew I was this word, "lesbian."
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And so, from that point,
- you start hearing about something about a gay/lesbian
- group on campus.
- Right?
- LIZ BELL: Oh, it was, let's see, the GLF.
- Time's not really good-- my strength.
- But there was this guy named Marshall Goldman.
- Oh, Marshall.
- He made a movie of my first love and I. And Marshall was gay.
- Marshall lived on Gilbert--
- the dorm.
- He was a student also.
- And Marshall used to talk about how he was the one in the dorm.
- He is the gay guy who used to make the gay jokes,
- because then he could make everybody laugh.
- And everybody would know that he wasn't gay.
- Marshall was one of the people that
- was the core of starting this thing called GLF--
- Marshall, and Karen, and RJ, and a tranny person
- from the city that I loved.
- But that's another story.
- I'm not sure where the tranny person--
- some people you still don't know whether to name or not.
- But anyway, they were meeting in the room above the student
- union--
- Todd.
- But Marge and I were afraid to go.
- And those first meetings, we knew when they were happening.
- Oh, there was also Hope.
- There were several of us.
- And we knew when the meeting was happening.
- And we'd walk around the building
- and get our guts up and courage up to walk in.
- And eventually, we made it.
- And it was welcome home.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And, I want to pick it up there.
- That first experience of walking in,
- what was going on emotionally, mentally?
- As you said, it was kind of going home.
- But I want to expand on that.
- But I really want to get a sense of what
- it was like to walk into that room
- and almost get like a breath of fresh air.
- LIZ BELL: So we were walking around and around Todd Union
- and knowing that the meeting was going on.
- And sometimes, you'd catch glimpses
- of people coming and going.
- And you didn't know if they were or they weren't.
- And at that point in time, there were a lot of people from town,
- from the city that were going.
- And they were strangers.
- But the school was big.
- And so you didn't know.
- And you watched.
- And eventually, we got the courage to walk in.
- And it was just so happy.
- Most of the people in the room were men.
- It's home.
- It's me.
- It's seeing myself in all the faces,
- them seeing themselves in my face.
- The first meeting-- in the beginning
- the question was always, well tell us your story.
- Tell us your coming out story.
- How did you tell your parents?
- That was always the other big question.
- How did you tell your parents?
- Have you told your parents?
- Those questions had never been asked before by anybody.
- Those were questions that you wrestled with in your own mind.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm going to jump back just a little bit.
- LIZ BELL: Um-hm.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think one thing we didn't quite
- cover here is, what drove you and your friends to go
- seek that meeting out?
- What were you looking for?
- LIZ BELL: Why did we go to the first meeting?
- What got us in the door?
- What got us in the door?
- Trying to figure out--
- wanting to belong.
- Wanting to belong.
- Wanting to belong somewhere.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So then, let's kind of move it forward
- a little bit.
- How did the GLF help you come to terms with your own identity--
- to finally figure it all out for yourself?
- LIZ BELL: Well, then we started going regularly.
- I mean, we belonged.
- And I graduated.
- And I had a place off campus.
- And my lover had a room on campus.
- And was at that point in time, a head of the GLF.
- Wait.
- I got ahead of myself.
- There was a dance.
- I can't remember quite the timing of everything.
- But, OK.
- So you walk in the door and you belong.
- And it's like whoa.
- And then, after week, after week, you go
- and it's like whoa.
- And everybody knew everybody.
- And we were all really tight friends.
- We were family.
- We were really family.
- They were more my brothers than my brothers still.
- They were more my sisters than my sisters still.
- So there was this dance in the Frederick Douglass Center.
- It was the first dance on campus.
- And we decorated for the dance.
- And we danced.
- Oh, how we danced.
- I never got to dance in high school
- because you had to get asked to dance by one of the boys.
- And suddenly, you could just dance with whoever
- you wanted to dance with.
- You could dance with a girl.
- You could dance with a boy.
- You could dance by yourself.
- You could dance in a group.
- Oh, you could dance, and dance, and dance.
- I love to dance.
- Eventually, I became a professional dancer.
- I loved it so much--
- thanks to GLF.
- And then, there was the speaking.
- I never raised my hand in high school.
- I never spoke.
- It wasn't safe.
- I mean, speaking, when you don't belong to anybody,
- is like standing on the end of a limb
- and somebody's going to cut it off.
- And so then, Karen Hagberg started this thing
- called the Speakers Bureau.
- And well, I mean, we spoke.
- We went everywhere and spoke.
- We went to churches.
- We went to synagogues.
- We were on television.
- There was a whole bunch of us.
- And sometimes, after a while, we were
- doing speaking engagements two, even three times a day--
- daily.
- Anybody that would have us, we would speak.
- And you'd go to the speaking engagement.
- And usually, it was two men and two women.
- And they'd ask you questions.
- And there was oftentimes a heckler in the crowd.
- They'd go "Rawr, rawr, rawr.
- You're going to die.
- Rawr, rawr, rawr."
- And at first, that was scary, because that's
- the way the words, if you ever heard them, were spoken.
- And they would throw their words at you like darts.
- But eventually, after speaking enough--
- I mean, it was sort of like that was, I guess,
- my therapist-- was the audience.
- After speaking enough, we learned
- that the heckler was really a blessing,
- because they showed how much hate
- was out there in the world.
- And we didn't have to say, we're under the thumb, or oppressed,
- or any of that.
- We just let the heckler say it for us.
- And that was a huge step, to be able to find
- a blessing in the heckler.
- That was thanks to the Speakers Bureau.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to talk about one specific Speakers
- Bureau engagement that you had.
- Because you were with the one at the Tim Mains School, right--
- part of that?
- He described that day for us.
- I want you to kind of describe that day for us--
- what is was like and the experience.
- LIZ BELL: Oh, so the Speakers Bureau--
- you never knew where you were going to go.
- You never knew who was going to be there, except once.
- One time we got invited to a high school.
- It was the first time that we were ever
- invited to talk to quote, unquote, "minors"--
- kids.
- And every single one of us had been in high school
- and knew what it was like to be a kid in high school
- that didn't belong.
- So the teacher was Tim Mains.
- And we called him Timo.
- And he was a social studies teacher.
- And he had this class called The Sunshine--
- something.
- And we were invited to come and talk to his class.
- So we went.
- And we became the Pied Piper.
- I mean, everywhere we went, you'd go in
- and there were these kids following you through the hall.
- I mean, it was like me standing outside of the GLF.
- You know, what do they look like if they're gay and lesbian?
- And we just looked like people.
- Oh.
- They just look like people.
- And their questions were so heartfelt.
- They were the questions that, I guess,
- resonated in our own lives.
- They weren't adult questions.
- They weren't phrased properly.
- They weren't polite, necessarily.
- They were just heartfelt questions
- from kids that knew what it was like--
- I think knew what it was like to not belong.
- In each of their own ways they knew
- what it was like to not belong.
- And we came out of Tim's class.
- And to my memory, there was somebody else
- that wanted us to come speak.
- And so we went to another class.
- And we walked through the hall and there
- are all these kids following us down the hall
- and looking out the doors.
- And seems like there was some kind of a--
- we came up a staircase.
- And somehow, we blocked the staircase.
- It became unsafe because of fire hazards or something.
- It was just an amazing event.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- Hold that thought for a second.
- I have a door up there that flew open.
- (unintelligible).
- LIZ BELL: Good timing.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: (unintelligible) I
- knew that you were going to say something really
- profound (unintelligible).
- Can give you give me a sense of--
- I want to talk a little bit, just to the GLF as a whole--
- just kind of sense of what were the things
- that were being talked about.
- What was it like attending one of those meetings--
- the topics that were being discussed and eventually
- started moving people out into the community?
- LIZ BELL: In the early meetings in GLF,
- we talked about coming out.
- That was standard-- and telling our parents, or our sisters,
- or our brothers.
- There was always somebody that you were telling.
- And it was a support group.
- I remember the first time Timo came to a meeting.
- And we all thought he was the teacher,
- and he wasn't one of us.
- We found out.
- Nobody had ever come that wasn't one of us.
- But for some reason, we assumed he wasn't one of us.
- We spent a lot of time with each other, not in the meetings,
- eventually.
- I mean, it felt like you knew every gay or lesbian person
- in the city.
- I mean, we were just this core, this family.
- But the meetings kept going on because you never
- knew who was going to come.