long beach >> Mina Meyer and Sharon Raphael live by the motto, “We’re here, we’re queer and we’re not going away.”
In the mid 1990s — 20 years before gay marriage was legalized in California — the Long Beach lesbian couple not only rode in the Long Beach Pride Parade but also were prepared for the anti-gay protesters who showed up on the route with picket signs saying gay people will burn in hell.
Meyer and Raphael wore bold T-shirts with words “Dykes From Hell” written in flames and made sure the demonstrators saw their shirts.
As the convertible they were riding atop approached the protesters, the women pushed out their chests to make sure their message was heard loud and proud.
“We feel pretty bold about our lesbianism,” Raphael said during a recent interview in the couple’s East Long Beach home.
Meyer, 74, and Raphael, 72, — who have been together 42 years and married five years — have been on the frontlines of gay and lesbian rights activism for 42 years. The women advocated for lesbian health services in the early 1970s and AIDS hospices in the mid 1980s, among other issues.
Helping seniors
Meyer and Raphael, who are gerontologists, also fight for gay and lesbian seniors. Meyer was a part-time sociology instructor for 15 years at Cal State Dominguez Hills and Cal State Long Beach while Raphael was a sociology professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills for 40 years.
They’re on the seniors committee at the Long Beach Gay and Lesbian Center and want to expand the center’s services to this part of the LGBT community.
“It’s important for there to be social services for older gays and lesbians,” said Meyer, who in 1975 did some of the earliest social science research on senior lesbians. “The straight community has them, but would gays and lesbians feel comfortable being there? Would they have to be in the closet?”
The first thing the center will be offering are social gatherings for gay and lesbian seniors. The free events will start in March and take place monthly. Older lesbians will meet on the second Saturday, and older gay men will meet the third Saturday.
The center also will host quarterly mixers, but the details haven’t been finalized, said Porter Gilberg, the center’s administrative director.
Older members of the gay community face many challenges: more than half of LGBT older people have been diagnosed with depression, 39 percent have seriously contemplated suicide and 53 percent feel isolated from others, according to a 2011 study from SAGE (Services & Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders), the country’s largest and oldest organization of its kind.
LGBT elders feel isolated for a number of reasons: They are twice as likely to live alone, twice as likely to be single and many are estranged from their families compared to their heterosexual peers, according to SAGE.
“With these social events at the center, we’re trying to create a sense of family for people,” Meyer said. “Maybe they used to have a gay life, but now don’t. This will bring gayness to their life.”
Meyer and Raphael’s life experiences are assets to the senior committee, Gilberg said.
“Mina and Sharon have decades of experience being activists in the LGBT community. They know what works,” Gilberg said. “They were central voices in bringing the concerns of older lesbians to the table.
“Their idea of a lesbian social gathering seems so simple,” he said. “We just had to create a space for women where they felt comfortable.”
Childhood friends
Meyer was 5 years old when she met 4-year-old Raphael, who lived across the street from her in Cleveland.
They remained friends until seven years later when Meyer moved to another street, and they lost track of each other.
At the time, each was already planting her activist roots. Meyer’s parents were civic-minded and active in community affairs. Raphael was influenced by her aunt, Marie Prince.
“She made me aware of poverty, racism, the problems of the world,” Raphael said. “I also was a Martin Luther King Jr. groupie. I went to the March on Washington and went to see him in Chicago and Detroit.”
Meyer’s and Raphael’s paths crossed again 26 years later, in 1971. Unbeknownst to the other, the women were living in Hermosa Beach and bumped into each other during breakfast at a local restaurant.
Shortly thereafter, they started dating and became girlfriends. They moved to Long Beach in 1983.
In 1971, Meyer and Raphael also started their gay and lesbian activism by working in Los Angeles at the Gay Women’s Service Center, one of the earliest lesbian organizations in the United States.
The following year they began working at the Gay Community Services Center, the precursor to the LA Gay and Lesbian Center, where Meyer help found a lesbian health clinic.
Meyer left the Gay Community Services Center in 1973 and enrolled at Cal State Dominguez Hills, where, two years later, she produced her groundbreaking master’s thesis. It was a comprehensive look at the needs of 20 lesbians 50-73 years old and included such topics as friends and lovers, identity and community and preparing for aging.
Five years later, Meyer and Raphael formed the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Gerontology, which, in 1994, merged with the American Society on Aging.
In Long Beach, they were involved with the Long Beach Lambda Democratic Club, and Meyer, for nine years, was on the city’s Human Relations Commission.
In 2007, Meyer organized a Southern California Chapter of OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change).
“Mina and Sharon have always been fierce activists for LGBT rights,” said Angela Brinskele, communications director at the West Hollywood-based June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives. “They’re pioneers. There weren’t a lot of women in the very early history of the LGBT movement in Los Angeles, but they were out and very proud.”
And still are. After 42 years, Meyer said their passion for political activism isn’t diminishing.
“That’s how you change the world,” Meyer said. “You need to shake the tree to get things done.
“We’ve had fun for 42 years, but we can look at the world, Long Beach and the gay and lesbian community and see the problems,” she added. “We want to help solve these problems whereever we can.”
Contact Phillip Zonkel at 562-714-2098.