About Us

If We Don’t Tell Our Stories, Who Will?

This project will build an archive of documents and oral histories of Bay Area lesbian activists with disabilities from the 1970s to the present.

Disabled lesbians have accomplished an impressive amount in the span of 40 years. They spearheaded activism about issues of disability in the women’s community. They were founders of major disability organizations and were at the forefront of activism around federal access legislation.

They pioneered and / or maintained special needs services at Gay Pride Day, AXIS Dance Company, Wry Crips Reader’s Theater, and two local women’s wheelchair basketball teams.

It has been a remarkable cohort of women and lesbians with disabilities who all converged to create social change and promote creativity.

If our lives were about something it was to say -- we exist, we count, we love, we dance, we make love, we act, we play, we create, we are human! It is time to honor lesbians with disabilities  in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, heterosexual, and queer communities!

Why Honor Disabled Lesbian Culture?

Lesbian activists have offered a unique narrative of community to our entire society. Disabled activists have demanded inclusion and independence. What happens when these two identities come together? Lesbians with disabilities, along with their allies, have pioneered a concept of society based on interdependence.

Lesbians with disabilities provide a graphic example of how a community of support shapes a life positively, or conversely, how the lack of a supportive community adversely affects one’s ability to live. They challenge assumptions: heterosexuality in the disabled community and able-bodiedness in the queer community. All lesbians with disabilities carry additional identities (e.g. race, class, ethnicity, size, etc.) which add to the ongoing conversation and the richness of perspective that diversity provides.

Why Is This Important Now?

In the past 10 years, many disabled lesbian activists have died. It is particularly important to capture the stories of this historical group before the community experiences more losses, and while the community has the capacity to commemorate and articulate the extraordinary accomplishments of this cohort and the individuals who comprised it.

Judith Smith and Sonsheree’ Giles of AXIS Dance Company.  

Photo by Trib LaPrad.

Jill Lessing and Laura Rifkin

Gay Pride Day, 1986

Special Needs Services Coordinators