Opinion: Beginning in the late 1960s, Eugene became a bastion for lesbian culture and community building. These days, this rich history is mostly forgotten.
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“The lack of a publicly accessible history is a devastating form of oppression; lesbians face it constantly.” – Tee Corrine, lesbian photographer and author
Eugene today is mostly known as the home of University of Oregon, for its star athletics and the beautiful nature that surrounds it. In past decades, however, the town was a political hotbed for many progressive and leftist causes –– and in many ways still is. In the 1970s, Eugene was nicknamed the “Lesbian Mecca” for the large lesbian community that sprung up there.
After the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the Gay Rights Movement in the U.S. gained major traction. At a similar time, Second Wave Feminism rose in prominence nationwide, as women were unsatisfied with the repressive norms they had to live under. These two causes, along with growing civil rights, anti-war and environmentalist movements, created an intersection for lesbians to become more united that had never existed before.
Many lesbians grew more assertive with their identities going into the 1970s. They were exasperated with the lack of support for them in the wider feminist movement and the struggles of living under the patriarchy in general. Instead of staying in unaccepting communities, many lesbians wanted to find somewhere where they could truly be themselves and put their ideas about a freer society into action. Eugene soon became a prime West Coast destination.
“Gay men were moving to San Francisco during those years, and it just seemed like the lesbians were all moving to Eugene, so we just joined the crowd. It was the mass migration,” Basja Samuelson said in her 2018 Eugene Lesbian Oral History interview.
When this wave of women started settling in Eugene, they put down their roots. They started their own businesses, creative groups and communes. This included businesses that were typically male-dominated, such as trucking and printing presses. Women-centered spaces grew to be something incredibly special.
One hub of the community was Mother Kali’s bookstore, which was open for 33 years. There, people could find community groups and events, make friends and read literature from the burgeoning movement of women writers and thinkers, such as Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker.
“People didn’t just come there because they wanted to buy a book. What they wanted was human contact and advice,” Lorraine Ironplow said in her interview.
Often, women who had nowhere else to go would become part of the Eugene lesbian and feminist community, such as those coming from abusive situations or financial insecurity. They were given the support they needed, which was hard to find nearly anywhere else.
As the LGBTQ+ community strengthened in Eugene, they fought for a local ordinance that would ban sexuality-based discrimination in housing and employment. After it passed May 23 1978, one of the first of its kind in the entire country, another group began gathering signatures put a measure on the ballot to repeal it, allowing anti-gay discrimination to stand. This was called Measure 51. Gay men and women alike rallied to stop this rollback. For many of them, it was their first time stepping outside of the confines of the closet and networking specifically with other queer people.
“It was like herding cats,” Harriet Merrick said when describing the No on 51 campaign.
Despite the opposition campaign’s hard work, Measure 51 was voted into law, but opposition to it continued. About two decades later, after more tireless work, it was finally repealed by the city of Eugene and LGBTQ+ discrimination protections remain in place to this day. For those involved, it taught them important parts about activism and identity that they continued to carry with them.
The original lesbian-run businesses and groups in Eugene may not be active anymore, but their legacy still shines brightly. There is a gap in the collective consciousness of Eugene residents about the community built up together by lesbians here. Not only did they support each other as individuals, but also put their shared resources together to fight for broader gay rights protections and against harmful legislation and measures around the country.
Currently, the U.S. is going through an alarming wave of regressive anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, with many targeting the transgender community specifically. Much of this is the right wing’s reaction to the massive wins in LGBTQ+ rights in recent years. In 2022, the country saw the highest number of anti-trans bills ever in a single year. In Oregon as of January, the ACLU is tracking six anti-LGBTQ bills. This includes a bill requiring that students only play in sports that align with their biological sex and one that prohibits teachers from speaking about anything related to sexual orientation in the classroom.
The same kind of community-based activism in Eugene’s past is needed to work against the growing threats to LGBTQ+ safety in the present day. While large organizations like GLAAD and PFLAG are important, a lot of the effort will still rely on grassroots community building. The U.S. is reaching a critical tipping point with the far right, who seek to gain more and more control, often starting on the most local levels at school boards and city councils.
The Outliers and Outlaws Lesbian Oral History project, which extensively documents the lesbian history of Eugene, is available online and also has its own exhibit at the UO Natural History Museum as of Jan. 28. It will be there for the rest of 2023 and is free to all university students. To properly preserve and carry on this often-forgotten part of history, everyone in the community should see it for themselves. It is a tumultuous, scary time for LGBTQ+ rights and the past is one of the best resources to continue the fight.
