CSPM Plaque - Barbara Grier
"Whatever will we do with you?"
The counselors at Colorado Springs High School would wring their hands, unsure of how to handle someone like Barbara Grier: an out and proud lesbian at the age of 15 in 1948.
Before she would go on to become an acclaimed writer and publisher, Barbara Grier spent a brazen adolescence in Colorado Springs. Gifted with her philandering father's shamelessness and her mother's open-minded acceptance, Barbara had no reservations around sharing her lesbian identity with those around her.
I did sort of create temporary catatonic states in people occasionally. But I enjoyed that.
This openness did eventually land her in some hot water when a woman she met at the bus stop reported her as a lesbian to CSPD. The next day, officers picked the 15-year-old Barbara up from Colorado Springs High School and took her to the station for questioning.
Things like "What do you do with your girl friends?" in reference to genitals and so on, and even some things I hadn't heard of, and some suggestions that hadn't occurred to me, which l remember thinking about with curiosity.
CSPD eventually dropped her back off at school, with a warning to never go to the Peak Theater, where the woman who reported her worked.
Now I had no interest in this young woman, which is rather remarkable, because I was interested in so many young women, but I was really annoyed by the ban on the Peak Theater, because I enjoyed that theater a lot. I resented having to give up one out of the five available theaters in downtown Colorado Springs.
Barbara would go on to be the editor for the San Francisco Ladder and to found Naiad Press, one of the first ever lesbian publishing companies.
References
- Cruickshank, Margaret, ed. The Lesbian Path : 37 Lesbian Writers Share Their Personal Experiences, Viewpoints, Traumas and Joys. Monterey, Calif. : Angel Press, 1980. http://archive.org/details/lesbianpath37les0000unse.
- Passet, Joanne. INDOMITABLE: The Life of Barbara Grier. 1st ed., Bella Books, 2016.