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“Oh yeah, we mixed with lesbians. We always got along back then. All that division between the lesbian women and queens came after 1974 when Jane O'Leary and the radical lesbians came up. The radicals did not accept us or masculine-looking women who looked like men. And those lesbian women might not even have been trans. But we did get along famously in the early 60’s. I’ve been to many a dyke party… The lesbian community today has a lot to learn from the old ways of the lesbian community.”

Lesser Green Broadbill

STIGMA CLAWS IN YOUR NEST

"You survive this and in some terrible way, which I suppose no one can ever describe, you are compelled, you are corralled, you are bullwhipped into dealing with whatever it is that hurt you. And what is crucial here is that if it hurt you, that is not what’s important. Everybody’s hurt. What is important, what corrals you, what bullwhips you, what drives you, torments you, is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive. This is all you have to do it with. You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people’s pain; and insofar as you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it, and then hopefully it works the other way around too; insofar as I can tell you what it is to suffer, perhaps I can help you to suffer less."