New Accession / Old Friend: Barbara Grier

Barbara Grier and Helen Bennett, 1958
(Barbara Grier--Naiad Press Collection)

As we close out the year, I thought it would be fun to share some photos from a recent accession. In July Donna McBride, Barbara Grier's life partner, mailed 16 cartons of additions to the Barbara Grier--Naiad Press Collection. Grier was a lesbian publisher, author, and one of the founders of Naiad Press. To be honest, opening the boxes felt a lot like Christmas morning.

Barbara Grier, December, 1962
(Barbara Grier--Naiad Press Collection)

The additional material includes correspondence, photographs, publicity, books and periodicals, and some manuscripts written by others. The correspondence with Jane Rule from 1964 through 1978 is probably the single-most significant part of this accession. Their letters discuss Jane's writing, the writing of other authors, mutual friends, family, and their personal relationships.

The photos captured my attention, too. What made me smile most are the snapshots and scrapbook pages that document Grier's two committed relationships: with Helen Bennett (1952-1972) and with Donna McBride (1972-2011). These are touching because they show a slice of life that we can all relate to: vacations, new clothes, new cars, Christmas celebrations, birthdays, family, and pets. As we flip through these images, we (re)discover the life of an old and dear friend.

Barbara Grier, January 27, 1963
(Barbara Grier--Naiad Press Collection)

Descriptions of these newly added materials are being incorporated in the existing finding aid for the Barbara Grier-Naiad Press Collection (GLC 30). The collection is available through the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library.

The Quest for Sobriety

The coming of the New Year has long been a cause for celebration. This year once again the lighted ball will descend in Times Square, 2009 will go out as an old man and 2010 will come in as a baby. The other tradition connected with Auld Lang Syne has been a problematic for some. The fact is that alcohol consumption and gay culture have been intimately connected since before the days that Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud downed their first absinthe cocktails.

In today's selection, "The History of Gay People in Alcoholics Anonymous: From the Beginning," Audrey Borden traces the role queers have played in helping construct the twelve-step program, a system utilized by groups as diverse as narcotic abusers, sex addicts and compulsive gamblers to name a few. The book is written in the personal, down-home style typical of these meetings. Borden lets her subjects tell their own stories while providing background information highlighting the specific obstacles LGBT folks faced in both their struggle to stay clean and sober as well as their struggle for acceptance withing the Alcoholics Anonymous Community.

Here is an online chronology of gays in AA. And here are more resources for Gay and Lesbian Recovering Alcoholics. Have a Safe and Happy New Year!

Unspeakable and Illegal

In many of the countries of the Middle East to be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered is to risk life and limb, and in some countries even the death penalty. But learning to navigate turbulent waters has always been a survival skill of LGBT folks, and Brian Whitaker, a scholar and a journalist, chronicles some of these strategies in his book, Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East. Although he tends to underestimate the role that sexism plays in these cultures, his insight into religious and secular bias is well worth the journey.

For more of an anecdotal and personal approach, check out Illegal Citizens: Queer Lives in the Muslim World by Somali writer and film-maker, Afdhere Jama. The style here is more informal consisting of individual interviews laced with commentary that includes more voices of women and transgendered folks forging an every day path of resistance in spite of many obstacles.

Alone or in combination these books provide an opening glance into the lives of LGBT Muslims and other Middle Eastern members of our community.