18 — OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS — AUGUST 1999

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BY ESTHER ROTHBLUM

iven the number and range
“of research projects about

lesbians in recent years, it is
easy to forget how challenging it
was to survey lesbians even a
decade ago.

But when Caitlin Ryan and
Judy Bradford conducted what
became the National Lesbian
Health Care Survey in the 1980s,
they were breaking new ground.
This study eventually brought in
1,925 completed questionnaires
from lesbians in all 50 US states.
It figured prominently in the
recent Institute of Medicine
Report of the National Academy
of Sciences. And even today, there
are lesbians (including me!) who
remember completing a question-
naire for this study 15 years ago.

Getting Started

In the late 1970s, Caitlin sug-
gested fonning a national organi-
zation that would be muIti-disci-
plinary, focus on lesbian and gay
health issues, and sponsor
research and education. At the
time, there was no available infor-
mation on how lesbians conceptu-
alize lesbian health or how stigma
afiected health, mental health,
self-care, and access to care. She
began to talk with other lesbians
about the need for a survey.

With a grant from the fledgling
National Lesbian and Gay Health
Foundation, she hired a research
consultant, sociologist and survey
researcher Dot Parkel, to help
design the study and develop
questionnaire drafts. Caitlin says,
“I remember talking with a
researcher who was herself a clos-
eted lesbian, who sat down with
me and basically told me that I
could not possibly do a study like
this. She just felt that it was not
feasible. And, of course, there
was no such thing as a representa-
tive sample. I saw this woman
recently and we laughed about her
earlier skepticism. She said, ‘I
told you that you couldn’t do and
you went out and did it.’”

Judy got involved by attending
the Intemational Lesbian and Gay
Health and AIDS Conference at
New York University with a male
friend from graduate school. They
were both interested in AIDS
research, which was just getting
started then. Everywhere Judy
looked - and she went to a lot of
sessions — there were mostly men.
Then she noticed a scheduled
women’s group, which turned out
to be an organizing meeting for
the National Lesbian Health Care
Survey. Caitlin was facilitating the
group; when Judy said she was a
graduate student and described
what she was doing, she suddenly
became co-investigator, responsi-
ble for data analysis and preparing
the survey report.

Getting It Out There
Caitlin had been very con-

cerned about inclusion. Many

early studies, and even those con-

ducted today, show highly educat-
ed samples of lesbians. She want-
ed to include women’ of color and
women of different economic
backgrounds without language
being a barrier. So she talked with
people about how to ask clinical
questions in a non-clinical way. “I
talked with women bus drivers,
day laborers, women who had
been recently diagnosed with can-
cer, about their experiences and
how we should ask these ques-
tions,” she says. “All of that
helped frame how we would
shape a questionnaire.”

She elicited suggestions about
language in focus groups in sever-
al different parts of the country.
They pretested the questionnaire
at several lesbian and gay confer-
ences and with individuals around

the country. They would ask the"

women in focus groups to fill out
the questionnaire; then they
would talk about it and hear what
people thought of it to make it
more accessible. Afier several
cycles of that process, they final-

ized the questionnaire.

Since Caitlin had done the
early lesbian and gay health orga-
nizing,_ she had a large address
base of people around the country
willing to help distribute ques-
tionnaires. Their distribution ‘plan
was kind of an unusual approach
to snowball sampling. The
methodology was intended to get
the questionnaires out as broadly
as possible to people all over the
country, including Alaska. As part
of the attempt to reach underrep-
resented, previously unsampled
populations, they made a commit-
ment to getting it to lesbians in
the military, on Indian reserva-
tions, and in prison. They also
tried reaching non-English speak-
ing women and lesbians of color
in a variety of ways, including
having lesbians of color give it
out to their networks around the
country. Groups as varied as the
National Coalition of Black
Lesbians and Gays, the Wisconsin
Govemor’s Task Force and the
National Organization of Women

sent out information about the
survey, and details appeared in a
variety of lesbian and gay
newsletters.

The survey went out in the fall
of I984; by early 1985, they had
received surveys back from 1,925
lesbians from every state. Hearing
from so many lesbians was not
only a wonderful experience, but
had the sense of a national move-
ment. There was an electric ener-
gy — everyone had a great sense of
how important the survey was.

Of course, the challenges did
not end there. Another major
issue was finding money and per-
sonnel for data entry and analysis.
The early 1980s was not a time
for funding lesbian projects. Once
they managed to put together a
shoestring budget, Judy sent the
questionnaires out to the Virginia
State Prison, where all the lab’s
data entry was done at that time.
She says, “The questionnaires did
not arrive back. When our project
manager called about this, he was
told they wouldn’t code the sur-

veys. I got another company to do
it, and the same thing happened.
Finally, when it came to the third
company I was told that the data
entry staff were afraid to touch
the questionnaires for fear of get-
ting AIDS!”

Eventually, the final hurdles
were overcome. and the landmark
study was completed and
released. Over the years, wherev-
er Judy and Caitlin are, they con-
tinue to run into lesbians who par-
ticipated in the survey, and who
want to talk about the impact that
it had on them. Many women
wrote pages of material in addi-
tion to the answers they gave to
the items on the questionnaire. V

Esther Rothblum is Professor
of Psychology at the University of
Vermont and Editor of the
Journal of Lesbian Studies. She
can be reached at John Dewey
Hall, University of Vermont,
Burlington, VT; email.‘ esther.
rothblum@uvm.edu.

More Letters

continued from page five

Not Only on the
Board, But a
Reader, Too

Editor:

It is often the case that we take
time to write papers to complain,
vent, accuse or criticize. I am
happy to report that this letter is
none of the above. I have wanted
to write for some time to express
my thanks to Charles Emond for
his monthly installment of
“Stonehenge To Stonewall or
Gay History In A Nutshell”.

This is one of my favorite
pieces in Out In The Mountains.
Not only do I learn something
each time I read it but it also
makes me smile. I find Mr.
Emond’s humorous approach to
presenting our history to be fun
and informative. History is

important to all people and com- '

munities, including our own and I
am glad that Mr. Emond is one of
my teachers. I haven’t had this
much fun with history since read-
ing “The Cartoon History of the
Universe”.

Please pass along my thanks to
Charles for his wonderful history
lessons each month, and I look
forward to his future installments.

Roland Palmer
Hinesburg, VT

Editors Note and shameless
columnist plug: Charles Emond
will be teaching Hidden History:
Homosexuality in Western
Civilization, the course upon
which Stonehenge to Stonewall
is based, at Community College
of Vermont in White River
Junction this fall.

 
More Pride Fireworks

Editor:

Rarely do I lower myself to
say “I told you so,” but after
reading Bob Bolyard’s weepy let-
ter to the editor in last month’s
issue of OITM, I felt it was my
duty to make everyone aware of
the truth about Pride.

Bob stated that for the second
year in a row Pride “failed to col-
lect enough money...to pay for
the expenses of the day.”
Surprise! Also, he stated that the
majority of the attendees “didn’t
do a darn thing to support it.”

Other" interesting quotes:
Samadhi Singers did a benefit for
Outright Vennont, not for Pride
(did Pride even bother to ask
them to do a benefit?); Kick-Off
Pride Week event with Yolanda
and Noel didn’t get a “kickback”
(he forgot to mention that each
performer only received $20 for
the night —- were they supposed
to give it right back, after having
to fight for it? Also, the band
members and Noel’s accompanist
had to be paid regardless);
Interfaith Pride Worship Service
and Pride Ball at City Hall gave
no ~money to Pride from their
events. Did any of these events
even state they would give
money to Pride?

Also, Bob stated that the Pride
guide ad revenue went to print
the guide. Why didn’t he bitch
about RBA giving money to
Pride?

What Bob purposely forgot to
mention is

1. About a year ago I searched
through thousands of pages of
grants to pick about a dozen
grants that would fund Pride. Not
one grant foundation was

approached. ‘ Their reasoning:
“We don’t know how to write a
grant.” Solution given: Contact
Volunteer Connections through
United Way to help. To the best
of my knowledge the phone call
was never made;

2. United Airlines donated two
airline tickets to raffle oil" to help
raise money to get the nationally
known a capella group Men Out
Loud here for pride. The commit-
tee never pursued it.

3. Various vendors wanted
tables at Pride, including a couple
of video retailers and a t-shirt
company as well as the Human
Rights Commission from
Washington and the Gay
Financial Network (GFN) from
Florida. To this day I don’t
believe any of them were even
contacted.

4. The committee turned down
trying to get Greg Louganis,
Chasity Bono, and the cast from
the NBC hit show “Will and
Grace” to appear. Note: No
money would have had to
changed hands for this to happen.
Instead, they decided against it.

5. The committee also
slammed Yolanda and Cherie
Tartt at the first meeting last sum-
mer then in the same breath said
they wanted to have them per-
form. Then they expected
because they were gay and
Vermonters that they should per-
fonn for free and were upset
when Yolanda turned them down
to go to Portland and get paid and
promote her new CD. Would any-
one of you turn down a paying
job?

Also, I’m curious (and I mean
no disrespect to him) to find out
how much they paid Craig to DJ.

Pride cries about being poor
yet they turned down free money.

I think most of the current mem-
bers should pay the debts (since
they are not a non-profit organi-
zation, the committee members
are solely responsible to pay for
any debts incur) and let another
group who will run the organiza-
tion as a business (not as a party,
like Bob likes to loudly state)
take over.

And isn’t it surprising (maybe
not) that after telling them to
have a theme this year (the 30th.
year of Stonewall), they refused
that, too.

Dean Pratt
Burlington

Another Voice on the
Same Subject

Editor:

I read the July letter to editor
regarding Pride by Bob Bolyard.

The Pride Vennont organiza-
tion should reevaluate how they
do business, and operate the
group as a business. Bob
appeared critical of the fact the
Rainbow Business Association
did not donate any proceeds from
advertising in the Pride Guide to
the Pride committee. But, he
should consider how many more
people may have attended Pride
Day because of the Pride Guide
being distributed prior to the
event. So it was an indirect con-
tribution from the RBA.

Maybe the Pride Vermont
organization should try cutting
some of the unnecessary expens-
es from their budget, and try get-
ting more bang for their bucks, as
pointed out in the July letter from
Dean Pratt.

Scott Brimblecombe