On the 45th Anniversary of Harvey Milk’s Death

By Honey Lee Cottrell

Story by Honey Lee Cottrell, on the anniversary of Harvey Milk’s death.

I associate Harvey Milk with "coming out."

The term made me think about how I revealed myself to others.

I did not consider myself closeted when I came to San Francisco from Michigan in 1969, but discretion was a way of life. Unless someone asked me point blank, I did not volunteer any information.

(C) HL Cottrell - prints of self portrait, right, and Amber Hollibaugh, left

My rule was “if they asked me, then I would tell ‘em.” Hardly anyone asked, though, and my parents did not get near the subject.

Harvey wanted us to tell everyone— with our parents at the top of our list. My mother did cry when I told her, and my father was honest in his judgment. He said he had lots of male friends whom he did not need to sleep with and I could do the same.

I met Harvey Milk in the early 70s on a quiet residential San Francisco street in the Sunset district— miles away from the Castro district, when he was running for Supervisor. I was walking with my lover, Tee Corinne. He came right up to us, with his big, bright face and floppy ears and told us he was gay, running for supervisor, and we should vote for him.

It was odd, because the two of us were doing a "blend-with-the-neighborhood" thing and he outed us as lesbians on the spot. We were speechless and could barely manage a “Well, alrighty then!" before he continued merrily down the street.

It was a spontaneous moment to be recognized by a total stranger within a positive gay context, in a foreign neighborhood. That moment had no history, and for a brief flash I could see its light project into the future.

I started my drive to “come out” by first telling my parents and working my way down to total strangers. I changed my rule from “Wait ‘til they ask" to “Tell'em before they even think to ask."

The results were unnerving. I expected people to unleash their vitriolic disgust, but instead they treated it like an adventure in a foreign land and seemed thrilled to meet such a rare bird as I.

The winter of 1978 was a hard one.

I broke up with Tee. I didn't have a strong network of friends and I needed to change many aspects of my life, from work and housing to friendship and psychological outlook.

On top of that, I had run into trouble with the law. I had a habit to regularly turn myself into the county jail to work off my parking tickets by spending the night in the pokey. I missed a critical deadline and a bench warrant was issued for my arrest.

The judge said I could go to jail or do therapy. Naturally, I chose therapy and began to scheme a plan that would turn the sentence into a positive experience. I chose a traditional Freudian shrink out of the phone book, thinking I would do battle with the devil himself, and shine my coming-out light.

The "devil" turned out to be a woman who looked the part of a proper Freudian shrink and was as quiet as a sphinx. She didn't blink an eye when I announced I was a lesbian and that I liked it that way. We sat in matching burgundy leather chairs that reached over our heads. I couldn't sit comfortably in my chair without my feet coming up off the floor which made me feel like an infant. —Not at all like the messenger I intended to be.

Things really went south in November. I caught a terrible flu that made me delirious and then— Jonestown happened. Nine hundred people, mostly from San Francisco, died in a mass suicide/killing in Guyana.

The news was surreal and caught me off guard. I was tipping off the edge of the merry-go-round, “a lost ball in the tall weeds,” as my grandmother would say.

Whatever messianic journey I was on, I abandoned— and started to pay attention to my basic survival.

A week later, Harvey Milk was assassinated.

That night, I recall a therapy session in which I was barely able to speak. The sphinx spoke to me with kindness. I couldn't understand what she said, but I recognized her compassion.

I remember afterward, searching for my parked car for an hour and a half, determined to find it, despite the raising panic that threatened to overrule me.

All around me, for miles down San Francisco’s broad Market Street, was a large, quiet crowd of people walking with candles. I can see myself looking down on many candles melting into the concrete.

Looking back at that time, the boundary between "them and us" was permanently altered— both at large and within my own system. I love to laugh at myself but some of it was not so funny. What an enormous effort it took to move things around a bit!

The mechanics of our current consciousness surrounding queerfolk is grounded in this coming-out process that Harvey Milk insisted upon. Person to person— and brick by brick— the whole wall has been altered. It's still there— but much easier to step over.

Honey Lee Cottrell, RIP, 1/16/46 - 9/21/15

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