In the Life: Ep. 1706, "Voices of Sisterhood"

[Michael Billy:] On this month's "In the Life": I was doing something very unusual. [Billy:] Lesbian pulp hits the stage. Activism in Puerto Rico. Pioneers in literature. [Lisa Moore:] Okay, there's got to be a book of like coming-out stories for Black lesbians. [Billy:] Fighting for change in the Philippines. And daredevil dance. I wish gravity would double in its power. [Billy:] All this and more stories about the gay experience. [Announcer:] "In the Life" is funded in part by the H. Van Ameringen Foundation. Additional support provided by: the Ford Foundation; and by the Arcus Foundation; and by the annual support of In the Life members, like you. ["In the Life" theme music] Welcome to "In the Life". I'm Michael Billy. Over the years we've documented the lives and experiences of women. And this month we present some of our favorite stories from our archive, in celebration of women's history month. We proudly honor the struggles, triumphs and art of women from the LGBT community in the U.S. and abroad. Back in the 1950s and '60s, Ann Bannon wrote a series of lesbian pulp novels. Provocative and daring, the books thrust this housewife into literary history, earning her the much deserved title, "The Queen of Lesbian Pulp". In 2003, we first profiled Ann Bannon. Now, her work has come to the stage through the production of a play titled "The Beebo Brinker Chronicles". ["Perfidia" by The Ventures] I was doing something very unusual. I looked like everybody else, but I always felt like a spy among all the other young housewives. I just was indistinguishable and I kind of wanted it that way. I didn't want them peeking over my back fence. ["Perfidia" by The Ventures] [Bannon:] There I was, hunched over the typewriter while my kids were taking naps writing these lesbian pulp paperbacks. ["Perfidia" by The Ventures] The character that I think is probably the most autobiographical is Beth Cullison. She is the beautiful senior in the sorority house in the original book "Odd Girl Out" with whom Laura falls in love. And many books later, having been married and had children, Beth finds the courage to break away from a handsome, successful young husband and come to New York, where she knows Laura is, and look for Laura and try to reconnect and rekindle that relationship. It doesn't turn out as she thinks it will but, it turns out even better because she connects with Beebo Brinker. [laughs] [Bannon:] Okay, I'm going to read you a little bit of the first big love scene between two sorority sisters, Beth and Laura. These two young women share a room and they have discovered that they are REALLY good friends. [laughs] "Mmmm," Beth murmured as Laura's hands began to trace the curves of her back. Her breath so light on Laura's ear, the wonderful softness of her breasts, the strong length of her thighs against Laura's. With the care of love aborning, Laura pressed her back toward her, trying to feel her even closer as if that might make them inseparable. [Linda Chapman:] We'd both read "The Beebo Brinker Chronicles". I think Kate said, "Well, what about that?" and I said, "Of course, that makes so much sense." [Kate Moira Ryan:] In a play, everything has to be dramatized and you know, and the dialogue has to move the action. [Chapman:] That's right, so we pulled out - well we looked for the good dialogue. That was sort of the first thing that we did. [Ryan:] We didn't have far to look. [Woman on stage:] I hope not. [Woman #2:] We should go. Maybe we can leave Burt here and he can organize night school for the ladies. [Man:] They aren't ladies. They're lezzies. [Woman:] Do you have to talk about them like they were exhibits in a zoo? [Bannon:] I guess the first time I saw the read-through, and heard my words coming out of these wonderful young actors, I was more - I was - I felt kind of... emotional enough to be sort of weepy about it, but I managed to control that. The cellar was quite dark. The only lights were hanging over the bar, faintly glowing pinkish-orange. There were candles on the tables and a lot of people crowded together at the bar. There were checkered tablecloths and fishing nets on the wall. The jukebox was going. It was very touching to think that things I was writing in such isolation so many years ago, should be coming to life in the hands of people who loved and respected the stories and who wanted to do justice to them, wanted to do honor to them. I felt like it was important to include actual text of Ann's, certainly to supplement what Lin and Kate did, because for me, those passages give us context. They say, "this has come from somewhere." [Bannon:] And one of the difficult things was to be honest about the, the culture of that era, when a lot of the prejudice against the gay community was inevitably internalized by gay people themselves. And it's hard sometimes to see that onstage and think, "well, what's the matter with them?" Beebo. [Beebo:] Jack. [Jack:] I'm a tourist in the Village tonight. You don't know me, I don't know you. [Beebo:] Bringing in fresh meat. [Jack:] You can look, but you can't touch. [Jack:] Buy yourself a round. [Beebo:] Thanks Jack. [Beebo:] Let the floor show begin. [Jack whistles] [Bannon:] I kind of came up with Beebo because I wanted in my second book, I wanted to bring Laura to New York. And I thought, I've gotta have a buccaneering young butch in that role. [Ryan:] She's just a genius at storytelling. And that's why it transcends the time period. And also, that's why it, it lends itself to stage, because she does have such ear for dialogue. She does have such ear for dramatic situations. [Chapman:] And these women are crossing the continent back and forth to find each other, and you know, and going through... [Ryan:] It's a love story. [Chapman:] It's good. It's good. And then they all end up with Beebo. [Ryan:] Yeah. [Chapman:] Which is just like the lesbian community. [Ryan:] You know, that happens, you know. [Chapman:] That's what I'm saying. Yeah! [Man:] Any girl that doesn't like men, is either a virgin or else some bastard's scared the hell out of her. She needs gentling. [Woman:] You talk about us as if we were horses? [Man:] Us? [Autumn Dornfeld:] What does it mean? Why do we call ourselves the things that we call ourselves and that's definitely the struggle that my character goes through, is "Is she, or isn't she?" And what does that mean? And that fact that she has loved a man and she does love a woman, and will she always? And can she be happy in a traditional life? She has already experienced being in love with a woman, and she honors that, you know. So, it's not a situation where it's the first time she's having these feelings. That happened already, you know? So she's actually - so for me it was trying to figure out what her specific relationship was. Like, is she ashamed because of the stigma attached to being gay, or is it actually that broke her heart? And so she's terrified to open up to anybody. [Bannon:] As soon as I began to get the hang of it and could use that, that specialized lexicon the books themselves became a kind of a lesbian's guide, even the gay men bought them, to the Greenwich Village scene. You couldn't pick up a Frommer's gay New York, or anything like that. Those books have become available in the years since. But, they, they kind of told you where to go, they told you what clothes people were wearing and they told you a little bit how to talk. So, I think in that regard, they served a purpose that they were never written to serve, but that was a lucky accident. In addition to letting people know that they weren't isolated entirely and that there were other people in the world who felt this way. [applause and cheering] I thought it was really sophisticated, regarding the relationships gay and straight and how to work it out and how to not work it out. One of the differences is we now get to sit with each other and have something like this happen, where before we were just in it. It was very universal. I didn't - I know it's a period piece, but it still speaks to the yearning for family, the yearning to belong, to be loved, to find whatever your identity is. I think it really transcends the period piece. The civil rights movement, the women's movement, the Stonewall Rebellion, were all 15 years - 10 to 15 years ahead of us. [Bannon:] The miraculous thing is we still had fun. [laughs] We still had a good time. We still - we made wonderful use of the bars. That was really all we had. We had the bars and the lesbian pulp novels. [Harriet Leve:] "Beebo Brinker Chronicles" had a showcase production and had a tremendous success. And I went to the final performance and was just blown away by it. It was sassy and smart and funny and touching... and steamy. And I thought, this is a phenomenal piece of theatre and from that performance decided I would like to move it Off-Broadway for an even more extended run. In this next story from 2000, we travel to the island of Puerto Rico. This U.S. Commonwealth is considered one of the most gay friendly destinations in the Carribbean. But Puerto Rico had a law on the books, making sex between members of the same gender a crime. But one extraordinary woman took the system on. Meet Margarita Sanchez. [Latin music] [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] I am Margarita Sanchez de Leon. I belong to the Universal Fraternity of the Metropolitan Community Church. This church was founded 30 years ago in the United States and it's the first American church to be open to the gay and lesbian community. [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] I've had a companion for the last 10 years. We have a great relationship. We support each other. We complement each other in many ways. I've been blessed to have her. [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Michael Adams:] Margarita has been a leader in the civil rights community and human rights community in Puerto Rico for many years, working, not just on lesbian and gay rights issues but on all kinds of social justice issues, on, on peace issues, economic equality. [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] In 1997, the House of Representatives was presented with a project that became known as the Project Against Gay Marriage. Margarita was testifying before the, the Legislature in Puerto Rico. She was testifying in opposition to a bill that would prohibit gays and lesbians from marrying. [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] When it was time for me to testify along with other religious leaders against the project, I was the only person who was asked about her sexual orientation. [Sanchez, in Spanish] She was basically, you know, verbally attacked by a legislator who accused her of being a lesbian and said that, she was in violation of Puerto Rico's sodomy statute and as a result, she could be arrested. I think many people would have been scared and intimidated and silenced by that. And her reaction was exactly the opposite, which was to decide to take on that law, and to do everything she could to remove that law so that people could no longer use it against her and other gays and lesbians. [Sanchez, translated:] In November of 1997, we went to the Department of Justice to openly confess that we were in violation of Article 103, to see what the state would do. We were ready to go to jail for those violations, because even though we understood it was a law, it was an unfair law. [Sanchez, in Spanish] Article 103, which is Puerto Rico's sodomy statute uses very antiquated language. It makes it a crime for anybody in Puerto Rico to engage in what the law calls "the crime against nature," which legally we understand to mean anal sex. In addition, it prohibits gays and lesbians from engaging in any kind of sexual intimacy, whatsoever. It's a felony and the punishment is up to 10 years in prison. [Sanchez, translated:] This lawsuit hasn't upset me very much personally. It has however, affected my partner, particularly because of the public exposure associated with the lawsuit. Even though her name doesn't appear on the lawsuit, obviously she's been exposed. She has been put in a difficult position, because her family, contrary to mine, has not been open to her sexual orientation, nor to our relationship. [latin music] [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] Last year, we started a demonstration called "Expression at Five." We started it on the 29th of January, 1999, which is the International Day of Non-Violence and Peace. That day is also the anniversary of the death of Mahatma K. Gandhi. In this context of non-violence and peace, we have this activity every Friday in front of the capitol building. In these demonstrations, we condemn homophobia in Puerto Rico and our society and within its structures, whether social or cultural. [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] Even though we concentrate on homophobia, we understand that all social exclusions have the same roots. [Maria Fidalgo Cordova, translated:] We are a group that has suffered a lot of invisibility, this is a way to tell society, especially to those who rule our country, that we exist, that we are citizens, that we have rights, and that we should be heard. [Fidalgo Cordova, in Spanish] [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] As a woman, as a Black woman, and as a lesbian, I have been discriminated against quite a bit in our society. Once, for instance, I was denied the rental of an apartment, because of the color of my skin. [Sanchez, in Spanish] [church singing] [Sanchez, translated:] My faith has led me to believe that it's very important to get involved and to work on social issues. But my faith did come first. [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] As a strong follower of Jesus, I believe that Jesus stood for, and fought for, the welfare of people. Jesus didn't only preach for people to repent, he would feed people, he would heal people, and he would denounce situations in this social context. [Adams:] In 1960, every state in this country had a sodomy statute on the books. Today of course, only 17 states have sodomy statutes on the books. And those laws - those laws that have been eliminated, have been eliminated by legislatures which have repealed them, and some of them have been eliminated by lawsuits like this one. [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] Basically, Article 103 impacts the gay community in the following manner: it makes our conduct and our lives a crime. And making the gay and lesbian segment of the population illegal, has very serious consequences. [Sanchez, in Spanish] There was a case that was decided last year by the Court of Appeals in Puerto Rico. The case involved two gay men who were a couple. One of the men assaulted the other man and the District Attorney's office went to prosecute the man who was guilty of engaging in domestic violence, and the court ruled that the laws that prohibit domestic violence in Puerto Rico can't be used to protect gay people in relationships. [Adams:] Those relationships aren't entitled to protection because under Puerto Rico's sodomy statute the sexual intimacy that those relationships involved is illegal. [Sanchez, in Spanish] [Sanchez, translated:] As gays and lesbians, you've felt the impact of these views on our personal lives. This is perhaps what informs our decision to take on these social issues and our political actions. It's that we can personally identify with oppression. I guess we can say that it's in light of the discrimination against us that we forge our ideals. Margarita's a very energetic, inspired and inspiring person. She just has tremendous vision, is very warm, very personable. [Sanchez, translated:] I always believe that personal contact, whether it's a smile, a shake of hands, or a simple conversation will breach any gap that may be between us. There is space for all of us in our society. Hi, I'm Kate Clinton, and you're watching "In the Life". [theme music] [harmonizing voices] [Judy Dlugacz:] We started Olivia in 1973, and it was a group of 10 lesbian feminists. First goal of Olivia Records is to get the music out. Second goal of Olivia Records... [another woman:] The music. What music? [woman on screen:] Women's music. High quality women's music. Women's that speak - music that speaks honestly and realistically to women's - about women's lives - to women's lives. By the end of 1975, and the beginning of 1976, well the concerts went from 50 and a 100 people, to thousands of people all across the country. [live music] In the Fall of 1975, we released our second album which was our best selling album ever, which was "The Changer and the Changed". ["Sweet Woman" by Cris Williamson] [Dlugacz:] "Changer and the Changed" charted on the Billboard Charts. There was a, a response to the music that was unheard of in independent music. [live music] [Dlugacz:] When we started Olivia, we used the term "women's music" very - quite on purpose. Because, number one, it was too scary a time to just start out with something that said "lesbian". ["Sweet Woman" by Cris Williamson] What we were saying when we made "Lesbian Concentrate" was that we were also a political entity. And it was the first time that many of these women had come out and said, "I am a lesbian." And this was in 1977. ["Sweet Woman" by Cris Williamson] We developed an independent industry where we created the producers to produce concerts. We created the distributers to get the records into the stores and grew an audience, so that when the industry was really interested there was already a market ready for the music. You know, you go to a Melissa Etheridge concert and the percentage of women is overwhelming. And the Lilith event is now seen as a major event of women performing on the same stage. [Katherine Linton:] While Olivia Records, as of 1990, has been transformed into Olivia cruises, the history has been recorded and the music continues to be distributed. [Dlugacz:] You throw the pebble in the water, and you see it drop in, and then you see the ripple effects but you may never know where that pebble, where the original pebble started, but all of a sudden it grows and it grows. [music] Combining a night club with a community outreach program, L.A.'s Catch One club offers a free medical clinic. Founded in 1972, the Catch One club became an instant hit for the lesbian community, particularly for women of color. As the music plays on, the Catch One continues to serve as a beacon for the community. [music] [Jewel Thais-Williams:] I started the club in 1972. The dream first came to me when I was working across the street at a supermarket as a checker, back in the late '60s. And, it was known to all the African-Americans that they weren't welcome, you know, at the - what was then called the Diana Club. So I just kind of said to myself, "One of these days I'll own that club and everybody will be welcome." You know, back in the '70s when she started the disco thing, and I was doing my disco thing, I didn't know Jewel personally then so I, I had no idea of the vision that she had for our community. [Thais-Williams:] Catch One means a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, it's, like, my being able to contribute to the community. I think it's been very instrumental as far as being a place where people could gather, to get information about what was going on. [Stephanie Farrington-Domingue:] This was always a place for us to come and to, to organize. Usually in the African American community, the church is the cornerstone. And the Catch One, was kinda like the church to our gay and lesbian community, because there was a space here, there was a freedom for us to come and meet and organize. And a lot of the political organizing that came out of our community happened here. In the early days of Unity Fellowship, we had services here. We had our church services here. I stood on this stage with Jesse Jackson when he was running for President. I've been here for AA meetings, for CA meetings. I have taken meals to the homeless from the kitchen downstairs. So we partied here but we did good work here as well. [Linton:] For most people, that would be work enough. But in 1989, Rue and Jewel used profits from the Catch One disco to open Rue's House, a shelter for women and children with AIDS. [Rue Thais-Williams:] We basically wanted to do something to help the, the children and the mothers, in terms of keeping them under one roof. No one was doing that. They were separating them and the children were going to foster care and women were going into adult shelters. And we felt that it's just about impossible to keep someone clean and sober, to encourage them to go on living, and snatch their child from them. [Rue T.-W.:] I've had women to come and stay as long as three years. We have women that will come here and clean up and then get back out on the streets. And they will use again, and they'll come back. They'll call me and ask if they can come back. And when they come back, they're just a little bit sicker, just a little worse off and we help 'em again. And I've had them come in and out. And as long as they don't give me any real problems when they're here, this is their home. They can always come back here. It makes us feel good because we know that we're doing something right. You know, that we are providing a, a home, for them to want to come back to. [music] [Thais-Williams:] Rue and I met at Unity Fellowship. I invited her to dinner and she never went home after that. [laughs] [Rue T.-W.:] In our community, people simply don't - they generally don't take vows. And when they do, they don't have ceremony. So, we don't take ourselves seriously, and if we don't take ourselves seriously with our relationships, we can't expect society to do so. [Thais-Williams:] Fortunately, we're not youngsters, and, and so, I trust her implicitly to, you know, to, to, to be an okay person and, and I believe she trusts me too. [Rue T.-W.:] That's definite. You know, you get to a certain age, you only have enough energy to do so much. [laughs] And [laughs] and ours is generally spent in the community, trying to make a difference. The written word has long expressed the struggles, joy, and pure beauty of the lives of LGBT people around the world. Lisa Moore understands this and took it upon herself to give voice to the lives of African American gay men and lesbians. As the founder and editor of Red Bone Press, and winner of several Lambda Literary Awards, Lisa Moore gives unheard voices a home. I would call my approach grass-roots. I would also call my approach DIY, do-it-yourself. [Lesley Gore:] D.C. based Lisa Moore helms Red Bone Press, one of the only Black lesbian publishing houses around. Lisa Moore's passion is connecting people with information. So when she recognized the limited amount of books available to young Black lesbians, Red Bone Press was born. [Moore:] It was like 1995 that a friend of my younger sister - she had come out to herself, but she didn't know anybody else. So she came and she's seeing all the books on my bookshelf and she says, "Do you have anything about Black lesbians?" And I thought, "Well, I've got 'Home Girls'." And she said, "Oh, I've seen that." And then I'm looking and thinking, okay there's got to be a book of like, coming-out stories for Black lesbians. But I discovered that there was none. So I kind of put it in my head that, "Well, I could at least put them together and shop it around." And what ended up happening was that I published the book myself. [Gore:] 1997 yielded Red Bone's first effort, the anthology "does your mama know?", a two-time Lambda Literary Award winner. [Moore:] There are 49 stories by 41 writers. And they basically are poems, letters, essays, and they are the stories of people coming out to neighbors, mothers, friends, sisters, lovers. And, you know, people being okay with that. The title "does your mama know?" is very germane to what the book is about. I mean, if your mama knows, everything's okay. I had women who were grandmothers that said, "Where was this book when I was coming out? You know, I got married, had kids, divorced my husband. I've got grandkids and I wish that this book was there." I've had women come up to me in the past year and say, "I love your book, I just got it last week. You know, it helped me come out to my Mom." You know, and I'm just happy to have been able to help facilitate that. [reader:] and bull-jean Lovve her/ go git she aunty... [Gore:] After unveiling the coming-out stories of "mama", Red Bone's focus shifted to "the bull-jean stories", an out-and-proud Southern celebration from Sharon Bridgeforth. Put sweets out myself. Sweet ain't got me nothin' but left. [Moore:] "the bull-jean stories" was about the character Bulldog Jean and her life and loves. But within the stories, she's very ensconced in her community. She's not ostracized at all. She's walking down the street, they say, "Hey, how you doing?" You know, everybody knows who she is, and she knows who they are. It's not like she lives on the edge of town, you know, and nobody talks about her, people whisper about her, it's not that at all. [Gore:] In her ongoing reclamation of history, Moore is venturing into new personal territory, the documentary film. [Moore:] It's called "sassy b. gonn: searching for black lesbian elders". [Interviewee:] I don't want you to think there was no homophobia. That it was easy being, you know - no, and as I say, in the church there - you could know, you know, choir director or the musician or the organ player, or whatever whatever was a gay guy, but where were the lesbians? My mother would be saying things like, "Don't y'all be making fun of her." And I'd be thinking, "Making fun of her? Lord, if you only knew what was going through my head." I want to run out there and hold her hand, walk up the street with her. I was interviewing older Black lesbians in their 60s, 70s and 80s and asking them about what being a Black lesbian was like. during Segregation and after Segregation. [Interviewee #2:] It wasn't our time to be outspoken, but it's your time to be outspoken. So do it. You know, we did what we could when we was coming up. We got away with, as much as we could. We would be scared to walk down the street, holding hands. But, you know, I see it all the time. People really really respond to it, especially young people. Because they want to know what it's gonna be like being old. They don't know that there's people that have lived through some things that they could tell them about. [Gore:] Inundated with questions from fellow writers looking to publish, Moore and her colleagues organized Fire and Ink, a writer's conference that aims to provide support to LGBT writers of color. [Moore:] We had people that wanted to publish. We had self-publishers there. We had performance artists there. We had poets there. We had playwrights there. We had screenwriters there. And they all came together to talk about writing; talk about getting your work out there; talk about the actual writing process as well as the business of it; talk about how to network, talk about how to get our work into academia because getting work into academia ensures its longevity. People came out of workshops crying because they had to write things and they had never been in such an affirming place before where they could be all of themselves and be Black and gay and lesbian or trans or bi. You know, and write about what they wanted to write about. And have people support that. [Gore:] And now Red Bone faces perhaps its biggest challenge to date: "Spirited: a collection of essays on religion and spirituality" is Moore's latest project, and it promises to attract attention. [Moore:] And there's so many Black gay and lesbian people that go to church week after week and have it pounded into their heads that the Bible hates this. The Bible says, the Bible says. If you come out as a gay or lesbian person in a Black community, you risk being ostracized from that community. And if community is what gives you strength, and you risk being shut out, a lot of gay and lesbian people will just not come out. And it's just kind of blowing my mind in the past few days of editing this book that, "Oh my God!" [laughs] You know? I am a one-woman, in a one-bedroom apartment taking on the Black church. I think that the work that I do connects people with information that is so necessary. It's necessary for people's survival, if you will, for them to know that it's okay to be all of who they are, and be Black and be gay, and be lesbian. Lisa Moore helps writers get their stories out to a broader audience. We'd like to share some of your stories with our audience. Here's your chance to be heard. If you have a camera, grab it, and start documenting your story. Tell us about coming out, the community you live in, or the issues that are important to you. We want to hear your story. For more information, go to our website at www.inthelifetv.org. This next story takes place in the Philippines, where homosexuality is not against the law, but positive portrayals of lesbianism in the media are often threatened with censorship. In 1998, we traveled to the Philippines to meet some brave women who've stepped forward to demand visibility and change. [music] [Vangie Castronuevo, translated from Filipino:] I come from a family of farmers in the North. [Jean Enriquez:] My family is middle class. [Beth Lim:] My mother was just a cook so we belonged in the lower income bracket. [Linton:] We spoke to women from different social classes to illustrate the struggles and successes of the emerging lesbian movement in the Philippines. [Anna Leah Sarabia:] My mother's mother was the first woman lawyer to practice in this country. My father was, I think, he was the fourth son of the first Filipino optometrist. So they were kind of like pioneers on both sides. [Linton:] A pioneer in her own right, today Anna Leah Sarabia is one of the most outspoken lesbian activists in the Philippines. [Sarabia:] When did you hear of the lesbian and gay movement was celebrated? [Linton:] Founder and executive director of Women's Media Circle, Anna Leah produces feminist media. [Sarabia:] We produce TV programs, radio programs. We publish books. We have right now a campaign for women's empowerment - young women's empowerment - through the media. [Enriquez:] I think being middle class, it's still less heavier, less harder for me compared to lesbian workers, or... [Linton:] Jean Enriquez is a single mother and feminist who only three years ago came out as a lesbian. In late 1996, she helped organize The First National Lesbian Rights Conference in the Philippines. We learned this from the consultation that we had during The First National Lesbian Rights Conference. [Enriquez, interview:] So I'm on the professionals, so what was striking for me was [Linton:] Today, Jean works as an advocate for women's rights at a local NGO, or Non-Governmental Organization. [Enriquez:] Well, it's kind of easy for me to be out in my work, 'cause I'm working within the NGO circle, you know. [...] some men in the movement would still be shocked [Linton:] Jean and Anna Leah may have some access to power, but women from the lower classes have fewer options. [JJ Josef:] The fact that you're a lesbian, that already limits your employment opportunities. For instance, in the lower class, either security guard, faculty worker, vendor. [Polen Hafalla, translated from Filipino:] Of course when you apply for a corporate job, you have to be in total makeup. So when I was having a hard time, I just applied for a factory job here. And they took me. Up till now, I still work there. [Mel Macalood, translated from Filipino:] Our general manager likes to hire lesbians, because she says we don't need to take maternity leave. So the factory saves money. But in my opinion, lesbians can have kids if they wanted to. [laughs] [Linton:] While lesbians in the Philippines may have different experiences according to their class, there are two things that unite them: the struggle against conservative church values and the struggle for equality under the law. [Evalyn Ursua:] I think one of the primary problems of lesbians and gays in the Philippines is that there is no specific protection given to them. Since there is no law that specifically mandates people, organizations, institutions, to respect sexual preference, or sexual orientation of people, then discrimination happens. [Linton:] Perhaps the most famous case of discrimination based on sexual orientation in the Philippines is the case of Beth Lim and Vangie Castronuevo. In 1994, they were fired from their jobs at a human rights organization for having a lesbian relationship. [Beth Lim, translated from Filipino:] We were recommended to the Women's Legal Bureau. So, they took our case on. We talked to the lawyer. We saw that we had a case. We knew that it was wrong, that the termination was illegal. [Ursua:] The case of Beth and Vangie is the first case ever filed in the Philippines by lesbians that challenges dismissal on the ground of lesbianism. [Linton:] For Vangie, the cost of fighting back was high. Her teaching job at a local university was put in jeopardy. [Castronuevo, translated from Filipino:] I was demoted from being full-time and almost regular back to part-time. So I became demoralized because I had worked there almost five years. I talked to the university president and he asked me, "How are you going to face your students now?", given that my sexual identity had been made public. I defended myself saying that, "my students were okay with it." That some already knew what had happened and I explained it to them. But it was useless. It was like I was forced to resign, because why else would they be doing this. [Josef:] Lesbians grow up thinking that they're sinful, that they're doing something amoral [Linton:] JJ Josef is a sociology professor at the University of the Philippines, whose masters thesis "Sexual Identities and Self-Images of Women-Loving Women" is the first study of its kind on lesbians in the Philippines. [Linton:] Whatever their personal struggle, lesbians of all backgrounds are coming together to organize for equal rights across this country of more than 7,000 islands. [Castronuevo, translated:] If the outcome of the case is favorable, it's not just a victory for us, really. I guess, especially for the lesbian movement in the Philippines. I think it'll help in advancing the gay rights movement, the emerging gay rights movement in the Philippines. [Macalood, translated:] The way society looks at us, they disregard us. You know, they call us the third sex. They say we're bad. They say a lot of things. Of course we want to defend ourselves. We want to change how they look at us. We want to stand up for our rights as lesbians. ["We Are Family" by Sister Sledge] Dancer and choreographer, Elizabeth Streb, boldly challenges our perception of dance. Once dubbed the "Evel Knieval" of dance, Streb's choreography, which she calls "Pop Action", combines acrobatics, science and art in the pursuit of pure movement. [symphonic music] [applause and cheering] Hi, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Elizabeth Streb and I'd like to welcome you to Slam Show Number Seven. And we are just so excited you're here. [symphonic music] [Streb:] I am an action architect. And that means, you design a condition that is physical. Then you work with a designer and figure out a contraption. It could be a flying machine. Something that allows you to get to a place in space that you don't have access to as a normal human. [Streb, off-camera:] And even if you have to be in a crouch, go ahead. You know, we'll figure out what position you have to be in. Just try to think of your, your traverses. [Woman:] Should I pick someone up? [Streb:] Yeah, should've picked someone up there. Kevin. [Man:] Oh my God! [Another man:] Hold up. [Streb:] My dancers develop the vocabulary. They're called action engineers. They develop the moves that are possible in that place. Down here for one. Then it's up. Tip this way for two. [Man:] You come back, center. Wait, you go down low, you come up high. [Streb:] Then the question is, how do you put it together? How do you construct it? And that's where me as an action architect comes in. [Streb:] Getting off is a whole time. That's, that's like F. So you're A, B, C, D, E... and then F is off. If you kind of just run off really fast, you're gonna... leave it too high for the I think where it's gonna be, is right... right here. [Streb:] You're gonna be up here. You'll be able to grab there. [Man:] Yeah, I was trying to grab there while I had that. [Streb:] You'd be able to grab that. [Man:] Okay. I choose the dancers at Streb, through an audition process. [Streb:] And I look first - you have to have a very impervious body. You can't have any weak, you know, joint, or any problem with the structure of your physicality. After that, I see how they respond to impact. So that's probably the one determining factor on whether they can handle this. So if they smile when they hit, that's good. Also, I want them to have a fire in the belly. I want them to have a transformative experience when they take their first step. And that happens only to certain performers. When they start to move, something happens to them. And by virtue of something happening to them, that is about alchemy or chemistry or something besides what's just happening rotely. Something happens to me when I watch them. It's an electric attraction. [recorded screams and yells] [Streb:] Why the dancers slam themselves on the floor, is simply that they've executed a move above the ground. And they - the move ended - let's say the move ends 20 feet above the ground. Or the move ends seven feet above the ground. Then they're not doing anything after that. But they're letting something happen, which is gravity will yank your body down at 32 feet per second squared. And then, true, if the ground weren't there they would continue to free fall and perhaps reach terminal velocity which is about 130 miles per hour. But the ground is there and it will interrupt them and it will create an explosion, otherwise known as an impact. And we crash, and we only do it because of the force of gravity on Earth. [body thud and music] I love gravity. I covet gravity. I wish gravity would double in its power, if you could figure out how to make it do that. Which would mean that we would hit harder. So, for me, gravity is the essence of what we do. It allows us to impact, create angular momentum, get down and dirty, get bloody and bruised. [impact noises and echoes] [Streb:] My background was a working-class background. My father was a brick-layer. And I'd see him come home every day from work, working by the hour, for an hourly pay. I saw what stone did to body. [echoing noises] My sister and I were adopted, so they were 40 already when they adopted us. And I was moved by - I didn't like him even, but I was extremely moved and interested in how hard his day was. And, you know, he was pretty mad about it as well. But I, I, I absorbed the lifestyle of my parents and gained great respect for the nobility of labor. My mother was spectacular. She was - I saw her as my savior. She and I were soul partners. From the very beginning, I remember sitting down and having a conversation. I would say to her, "Well now, what do you think I should do with my life?" And she'd go, "Well, let's figure it out." I went to a parochial school. She believed, you know, in her words, "I was college material and I was going to college." My parents were high school educated. That's it. I feel like my childhood was quite happy. I didn't get along with my father. He was gruff, rough, more or less a rage-aholic. But then I learned so much from him. You know, I learned how to hunt and fish. And I don't just mean hunt, but I mean, get a gun, learn how to shoot it, and go hunting with him for like eight hours a day at age nine... through the snow. You know, and it wasn't like he's a - I'm nine. "Can I go to the bathroom?" or something. "No." "You're hunting, that's it." You know. And so I feel like I received a brutal basic training from my father physically. [impact noises and echoes] I, oddly enough, learned more from him than my mother, 'cause I felt being gentle, it doesn't get you very far in life. [impact noises and echoes] In terms of the difficulty in my field, vis-a-vis being a woman or being a man, I have not focused on that. I often think, well that's maybe because I'm half man, half woman, like I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm a morphed being. If I cannot contend with an issue, it's not something I'll spend a whole lot of my energy on, because I have so many other things that I want to accomplish. And I just sail on by. [Streb, off-screen:] Terry, Terry, Terry! [noise] Don't ever stand there! I believe danger is necessary. You know, I think that danger... there are certain people protected from the possibility of danger. And I think it - there's a complete one-to-one correspondence with their economic situation in life. And the poorer you get, the smaller your yard is, the lower your fences are, and actually, literally, the more scars, you are not able to keep away from your body. Whether it's from labor on a daily basis, or just, you know, getting attacked on the street. [Woman:] Out of the hole! [Man:] Out of the hole. [Streb:] I, I, obviously choose to construct a condition and a situation that includes danger. [Woman yelling] If I wanted, I could stay away from danger. I have access to protection. But I want to eliminate access to protection, because I don't believe in it. I've always been gay. You know, what they might call a gold-star lesbian. I've only slept with guys a couple times accidentally, which is another story. But I've never fallen in love with a guy, it was always women. I didn't face it, you know really, until college, 'cause I just, you know, and probably ran away from it a little bit. I really thought the only thing I'm interested in is my work, dancing. I didn't know really what type of movement I was pursuing. I just knew that was my life. I didn't really start living with a woman, till Laura Flanders, till I was 41, 42. I really didn't live with anyone. I had affairs. I had serious relationships with one woman for 10 years, but she was bisexual, you know, so I was still experiencing and exercising homophobia on a certain level. Even though I truly loved her, I was, you know, not really gay because of course, I'm with straight women, and so I had a very, very, not rocky, but mixed up journey towards actually the moment or the period where I felt comfortable coming out. [impact noises] I think this is the best time in my career. But - had you asked me that at any point, I probably would have answered the same. [impact noises] I just think of myself as loving what I do, so I'm lucky because I'm still doing it. I'm still able, day to day, to do it. Seems like an impossible dream to me. [impact noises] Thank you for watching "In the Life". To sign up for monthly airdate alerts, or to download past episodes 24/7, please go to our website at inthelifetv.org. Or call 1-800-627-ONTV. We'd love to hear from you. I'm Michael Billy. Thanks for tuning in, and please join us next month. ["Number 1" by Goldfrapp] [Announcer:] "In the Life" is funded in part by the H. Van Ameringen Foundation. Additional support provided by: the Ford Foundation; and by the Arcus Foundation; and by the annual support of In the Life members, like you. [logo music] [logo music]