Hide treatment
Outliers and Outlaws reveals the history of an exceptional community but the featured participants are not locked in amber. They are represented on-screen as narrators of their own lives, persisting in living in accordance with their values and combating ageism and erasure. They offer viewers, old and young, a vision to be true to oneself.
Sally Sheklow (1950-2022) introduces us to Eugene as a “lesbian mecca.” In many ways, Sally is the face of the community. Whenever something important happens, such as when the local abortion clinic where she worked was firebombed, Sally is front and center, repping the cause with her hard-hitting intelligence, humor and self-awareness across a variety of hairstyles. Read about Sally’s life and memory in this beautiful obituary which highlights her social justice work that we profile in the film.
Sally’s portrait introduces the Starflower Cooperative – a natural food co-op that became a model for worker-owned, non-sexist, egalitarian practices. The women trained each other as truckers, warehouse workers, and office staff, creating a successful socialist business that anticipated the burgeoning popularity of natural foods. Consensus decision-making wasn’t always easy and infamous Tuesday night meetings could be grueling. But the truckers driving up and down the coast making runs to San Francisco enjoyed freedom and ideally a new bed to stay in on their trips, while the “warehousers” found empowerment in the strength of their own bodies.
Enid Lefton was married to Sally and bookends our film. Enid came from Ohio on a “dyke road trip,” decided to stay, and connected with the lesbian community as a disc jockey at radio station KLCC. Enid’s show “Women’s Music” ran for almost twenty years. Enid’s portrait includes stories of WYMPROV!, a decades long improv and comedy group that gave space for lesbian laughter–loud and proud.
Sally and Enid bring us back to the darkest days of the community when, in 1992, a conservative, homophobic group who called themselves the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA) led a ballot initiative to limit gay rights and tie up LGBT advocacy measures throughout Oregon. This was Ballot Measure 9.
The community’s counter efforts against this homophobic ballot measure is documented in archival news reports, songs and actions. This coalesced the power and legacy of the Eugene lesbians. Fighting this measure forced many lesbian and gay Oregonians to ‘come out’, and Eugene lesbians held space for those public transitions. They taught their comrades political strategies, building state-wide organizations such as Basic Rights Oregon in the process. The current generation of Oregon LGBTQ politics is built upon the work of Eugene lesbians.
Susie Grimes is an athletic, adventurous, revered member of the Eugene lesbian community, Susie was born into a conservative family in Dayton, Ohio. Concerned about Susie’s future, her mother forced her to see a psychiatrist. In response, Susie became a hippie and moved to Eugene. She joined Full Moon Rising, an all-women’s tree planting crew that spent months away in the forests of Oregon replanting clear cuts. In her work, Susie endured a dramatic life-threatening and paralyzing injury that led her, as a wheelchair user, toward disability justice and the Paralympics.
Linda McIntosh came to Eugene as a University of Oregon freshman in 1968 and joined the lesbian community. She started Crescent Construction, registering the first contractor’s license for a business collectively owned and run by women in Oregon. As a carpenter, Linda translated the idea of lesbian space into physical reality.
Janice Baker was raised in the conservative and homophobic Science of Mind religion and was pressured into marriage. After divorcing her husband, Janice traveled to the “lesbian lands” in southern Oregon for the Ovulars, a feminist photography workshop—the most “body positive” place she had ever been—and moved to the WomanShare lesbian commune.
Ginger Newman, a self-proclaimed “tomboy” from rural Florida, attended nursing school in Atlanta and moved to WomanShare in the 70’s where she met and later married Janice. Ginger relished the all-women’s space where she could join building and land improvement projects, saying with confidence, “I can do that.”
Janet Anderson and her partner Evelyn Anderton (1946-2023) met through Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament. They joined forces to co-direct Womenspace, changing the course of support for victims of domestic violence in the State of Oregon and successfully challenging ineffective police procedures for handling domestic violence cases. Janet and Evelyn share details of their marriage after decades of partnership, characterizing it as a celebration and a social statement. Their personal and intellectual vibrancy, their love story, strong sense of purpose, and passion for connecting with people to support those most marginalized, embodies the ethos of the Eugene lesbian community.
