"Outliers and Outlaws: Stories From the Eugene Lesbian History Project" is an exhibit using materials gathered for "Outliers and Outlaws: The Eugene Lesbian History Project" digital exhibit. The museum show is at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, in Eugene.Kristi Turnquist/Staff
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"Outliers and Outlaws: Stories From the Eugene Lesbian History Project" is an exhibit using materials gathered for "Outliers and Outlaws: The Eugene Lesbian History Project" digital exhibit. The museum show is at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, in Eugene.Kristi Turnquist/Staff
At a time when the Department of Homeland Security has reported that attacks and threats against members of the LGBTQ community are on the rise, the existence of “Outliers and Outlaws: The Eugene Lesbian History Project,” seems all too timely.
The project, which includes a digital exhibit, videos, oral history interviews, an exhibit at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History and an in-the-works documentary, is intended to document the experiences and thoughts of people who were in Eugene during the decades when it had a reputation as a “lesbian mecca.”
Eugene attracted lesbians who were part of “the counterculture westward migration, identified as feminists, and had been involved in anti-war and civil rights protests,” the digital exhibit says. “Oregon’s reputation as a rural, forested state with cheap housing was a draw for those looking for communal living and collective work.”
The project directors are Judith Raiskin, University of Oregon associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, and Linda Long, University of Oregon curator of manuscripts.
The Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project collection consists of interviews with 83 people, conducted by Raiskin and Long at the University of Oregon starting in the summer of 2018, the website explains. The interviews were conducted with women who lived in Eugene between the late 1960s through the anti-gay Ballot Measure 9 in 1992.
“The theme of freedom is very strong in these histories,” Raiskin wrote in an email when asked about the “Outliers and Outlaws” project.
“These women were born before the women’s movement and grew up in a time when women did not have access to many social and economic opportunities. They grew up before Title IX, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, etc. Most of them left home in the late ‘60s during a time of great social change but in daily life sexism, racism, and homophobia remained strong.”
The women Raiskin and Long interviewed “wondered who they could be, what they could do, if they could get out from under the yoke of patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia,” Raiskin wrote. “How could they lead their most free life and fulfill their human potential?”
It was important to document these stories, Raiskin wrote, because “These women are part of the first generation of out LGBTQ people who lived their lives openly. If we don’t document their histories and their thoughts about their activities and activism, we lose a tremendously important history. There are many more archives and records of gay men’s experiences, so having this collection of interviews with lesbians is precious, as are the materials they have gifted to the University of Oregon Special Collections (photos, letters, diaries, business records, t-shirts, buttons, political papers etc.).”
Long also shared email responses to questions about why capturing oral histories was valuable. The histories, Long wrote, “form a significant primary source for future researchers to study. They are available now but also will be available hundreds of years from now when future scholars may want to use these sources. They will continue to be valuable sources because scholars will ask different questions. We just can’t imagine the kinds of different questions and viewpoints future researchers will bring.”
The recent instances of some lawmakers introducing legislation that appears aimed at reducing the visibility and the rights of members of the LGBTQ+ community have raised concerns that such rights are under attack.
In this climate, the Eugene Lesbian History Project seems particularly relevant, Long wrote. The oral histories will be a useful source of information for anyone “researching the topics of discrimination and hate, yet also the joys and solidarity of a longtime community. The stories of lesbians and gay men combatting discrimination in the form of Oregon ballot measures 8 and 9 are an indication of the strength of the community.”
Longtime Oregonians may remember that, in the late 1980s, a group called the Oregon Citizens Alliance sponsored Ballot Measure 8, which sought to overturn what had been an executive order that banned state agencies from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
Voters approved Ballot Measure 8, but Harriet Merrick, a University of Oregon employee who was a lesbian, became the plaintiff in a case that went to the Oregon Court of Appeals, which in 1992 overturned the law as unconstitutional as it restrained “the right of free expression.”
As the “Outliers and Outlaws” digital exhibit says, the Oregon Citizens Alliance efforts continued, and between 1992 and 2000, the group “initiated a series of state measures designed to both limit gay rights and tie up LGBT advocacy resources that would have been deployed elsewhere. Measure 9, the OCA’s 1992 initiative, asked voters to constitutionally enshrine ‘homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism, and masochism’ as equally ‘abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse.’ The OCA persuaded many voters that gays and lesbians were a sinister threat to children. The virulent language of the campaign and its claim that gay people demanded ‘special rights’ made Measure 9 a lightning rod in every town and city in Oregon and captured the nation’s attention.”
Though this period saw an increase in violence against gay men and lesbians, narrators interviewed for the Eugene Lesbian History Project recall the time as “both terrifying and politically galvanizing,” and “ironically credit the OCA with forcing lesbians and gay men to come out, learn political strategies, and build statewide organizations such as Basic Rights Oregon,” the digital exhibit says.
In addition to the extensive digital materials, those who want to learn more about how the lesbian community in Eugene in the formative years from the 1960s through the 1990s can visit “Outliers and Outlaws: Stories From the Eugene Lesbian History Project,” a related exhibit on display at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History through February 2024.
The exhibit brings to life many aspects of the that time, and of the lesbian community’s contributions to starting businesses, launching nonprofits, operating media enterprises, creating art, and engaging in activism.
Exhibits include pages from the publication Women’s Press, featuring an affecting letter from a mother to her lesbian daughter, and an ad for Zoo Zoo’s, a feminist collective restaurant; memories of such gathering places as Mother Kali’s Books (“Working at Mother Kali’s was the hot ticket. If you could get on there, you just made lesbian superstardom”); panels noting that “few lesbians of color were drawn to Eugene,” a reflection of how “the legacies of racism in Oregon helped shape who came to Eugene and stayed to make their lives here – and who did not”); and a board dotted with notes written in response to the question: “Having learned the history of the Eugene lesbian community, what actions will you take to strengthen your own communities and challenge discrimination?”
In addition to the digital and museum exhibits, Raiskin, along with Courtney Hermann and Kerribeth Elliott of Boxcar Assembly, a nonfiction film company in Portland, are working on an accompanying documentary. The film will, Raiskin wrote in an email, delve into “the full lives of nine of the 83 narrators who were interviewed for the oral history project. They have all led bold and creative lives and continue to contribute their wisdom and their skills to the communities they belong to. They all reflect on the ways their involvement in the unique history of lesbian Eugene shaped them and their continued creative work. The film reveals the particulars of this fascinating history by following their activities today and using the rich archive of the Eugene Lesbian History Collection.”
The film has received funding from the Oregon Cultural Trust, and the University of Oregon. Individuals can also made tax-deductible donations to the documentary, which is intended to be completed in 2024.
You can read more about “Outliers and Outlaws: The Eugene Lesbian History Project” at https://outliersoutlaws.uoregon.edu/
The museum exhibit, “Outlaws and Outliers: Stories From the Eugene Lesbian History Project” is on display through 2023 at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, 1680 E. 15th Ave., Eugene. Admission is $4-$12.
— Kristi Turnquist
503-221-8227; kturnquist@oregonian.com; @Kristiturnquist