Fiery lesbian feminist activist/author/publisher Jeanne Cordova died peacefully at around 4:30am at her home in Los Angeles Sunday morning. Her spouse Lynn Ballen, and friends Jenny Pizer and Doreena Wong and Dina Evans from Arizona were with Jeanne when she passed. Jeanne was 67.
Three days ago, Lynn posted the photo above on Jeanne’s Facebook page:
#tbt found photo of my sweetie with full #moon rising… At the #gammagulch #cabin #pioneertown #desertrat #mojave #joshuatree — with Jeanne Cordova.
This morning, close friend Ivy Bottini posted this on her Facebook page:
Jeanne Cordova died this morning at 4:30 am. Our community has lost a guard at the gate of hatred and I have lost my Best Butch Bud of over 40 years. There will never be another Lesbian Activist like Jeanne. She was one of a kind. A true innovator. And a hell of a business woman. But right now I am grieving her lost presence, her laughter, her grit, and the love we both had for each other. Here’s to you, Jeanne, you will always live in my heart.
Close friend Robin Tyler posted this photo on her Facebook page, showing from left to right, Ivy Bottini, Jean O’Leary, Jeanne Cordova, Robin Tyler:
This picture was taken in the 1980’s. Jeanne Cordova (next to me) has just passed away. Next to her, Jean O’Leary, my other dear butch friend, passed away years ago. I am older then both of them. Loss is so hard and I am overwhelmed with sadness.
Jenny Pizer said:
“Jeanne left us gently early this morning, having stayed, as she promised, into this new year. The last while was hard work for her. And yet she continued to be the engaged, playful, brilliant friend whose absence many will feel for a very long time. A while ago, she named us siblings of choice, which was perfect. It was one of the countless ways she fashioned her life and relationships into good, new, enduring forms. Sometimes, before you know it, a person becomes part of you. I’m grateful for that. And for the time we had. And the laughter shared. And now we’ll hold her spirit close, with so much love.”
Last September, Jeanne sent me an open letter to post to the community about the fact that she was dying. I re-post that now, with the photos I found to accompanied her essay. Thanks to such outlets as Facebook and blogging on the Internet, we can now tell our own stories. But there is no substitute for telling a loved one or a friend or even an acquaintance with whom you enjoyed working on a project that you appreciate them. Thanks to her essay, Jeanne was able to hear from friends who loved and thought highly of her before she died.
As Jeanne said:
From the age of 18 to 21, I painfully looked everywhere for Lesbian Nation. On October 3, 1970, a day I celebrate as my political birthday, I found Her in a small DOB (Daughters of Bilitis) meeting. That’s when my life’s work became clear. Shortly thereafter I became a core organizer for two national lesbian conferences, one of which re-directed my path to create The Lesbian Tide newsmagazine, a national paper of record, as the historians say, for the lesbian feminist generation. And on it went for multiple decades of marches and later online organizing–this time intersectionally, to include all of me and my Latina identity.
Jeanne was known for being headstrong—but she was also spiritual, which enabled her to manage the dying process the way she wanted. “She was home with loved ones, and her close friend Dina Evans, who some people might remember here at Dina Bachelor Evans, was on the phone with her. She is a spiritual teacher and therapist and helped Jeanne during the dying process friend,” says Jenny Pizer.
Here’s the open letter from Jeanne last September:
(Editor’s note: I’ve known Jeanne Cordova for many years and wrote for her short-lived spiritual “transcendence” magazine. She is one brave and feisty lesbian feminist Latina, which she documents in When We Were Outlaws. Now she is dying, and while she may be weak, she is still feisty and brave as she talks about that taboo subject of death in this footnoted goodbye letter to her beloved LGBT community. And importantly, she is keeping a secret promise she made to herself to give half her estate to help others: she is bequeathing $2 million to the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. Sustaining Jeanne through this passage is radio talk show host Lynn Ballen, her partner of 25 years, with whom Jeanne has produced and curated LGBT community projects and shared her activism. As Jeanne says, this is a “thank you” letter to those who have loved and moved her. But it is the LGBT community that really must say thank you to Jeanne for all the courageous risks she took to advance the movement, especially refusing to accept lesbian invisibility. Thank you, Jeanne —Karen Ocamb)
A Letter About Dying, to My LGBT Communities
by Jeanne Cordova, September 23, 2015
This letter is meant as a notification and thank you to the thousands of members of the national lesbian community whose activism, lives, and Ioves have touched my own. Especially those dykes who have become family and siblings of choice over the last 40 years. Yes, the rumors are true, I have metastasized to-the-brain cancer. I am dying from it in my cerebellum.
I have had cancer since 2008. Colon cancer. For the first four years I brushed it off, as I’ve done many times with physical illness or difficulties. I continued my activism with the Lesbian Exploratory project and I finished my third book, When We Were Outlaws. The cancer came back in 2013. Metastasized first to my lungs and then to my cerebellum. Yes, my head. With brain and back-of-the-neck cancer it has been a downhill experience the last three years, with multiple operations, radiation and Chemo. This February I had Chemotherapy. Among a host of side-effects, it’s given me “chemo brain,” which amounts, basically, to “getting stupid.” Just saying. This month’s so-called side effect is peripheral neuropathy. That’s from Chemo, they say, and it makes your feet, fingers and hands feel tingling and numb like when you fall asleep on your leg or hands. Only, it doesn’t go away. I can’t stand up without holding onto a wall or background support. I can’t feel where my feet are. Yeek! I freak myself out talkin’ about it! How about you?
A guru once told me, “We die in increments, one piece at a time.” She meant one part of our body suddenly ceases to work, an elbow or a tongue. Seemingly for no reason, like a worn out knee. This came as a surprise. I thought we get old or die…suddenly, and all at once. Not so!
Many of us have gotten cancer and died. I write publicly to the women who have defined my life because I want to share this last journey, as I have shared so much of my activist life with you. You gave me a life’s cause. It is wonderful to have had a life’s cause: freedom and dignity for lesbians. I believe that’s what lesbian feminism is really about, sharing. We built a movement by telling each other our lives and thoughts about the way life should be. We cut against the grain and re-thought almost everything. With just enough left undone for our daughters to re-invent themselves. Death should be a part of life. Not hidden, not a secret, something we never said out loud.
Being an organizer and journalist in the lesbian, gay, feminist, and women of color communities—and loving it–has been the focal point, of my life. It has been a wild joyous ride. I feel more than adequately thanked by the many awards I have received from all the queer communities, and through all the descriptions and quotes in history books that have documented my role as an organizer, publisher, speaker, and author. Thanks to all of you who have given me a place in our history.
From the age of 18 to 21, I painfully looked everywhere for Lesbian Nation. On October 3, 1970, a day I celebrate as my political birthday, I found Her in a small DOB (Daughters of Bilitis) meeting. That’s when my life’s work became clear. Shortly thereafter I became a core organizer for two national lesbian conferences, one of which re-directed my path to create The Lesbian Tide newsmagazine, a national paper of record, as the historians say, for the lesbian feminist generation. And on it went for multiple decades of marches and later online organizing–this time intersectionally, to include all of me and my Latina identity.
Somewhere in the middle of all that I, somewhat accidentally, invented the Gay & Lesbian Community Yellow Pages, a first for our by-then national tribe. This Los Angeles 400-page guide that helped us still-half-hidden people to connect, politically I thought initially, with businesses and professionals that spoke to us within our own identities. That it did, but this directory and lucky timing in life-long real estate, also enabled me to fulfill an early personal vow to give back half of my estate to our movement. I do this with Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice (out of New York City) and other organizations. I believe it so critical to our transforming movements to leave our estates to our LBGTQ charities, not some errant heterosexual relation we hardly know! More on this political news and views to follow. (*1)
I believe that cancer or any terminal disease is the luck of the draw. As my mother used to say of my Aunt who was also a nun of 90 years, “At that age, you got to die of something.” I have read the obituaries in Lesbian Connection (*2) these last years as they chronicle the passage of my 2nd wave generation. The one message that rings out clearly is that so many, many in these pages were activists who articulated social justice in their local or regional spaces. Many dykes making change. So many of you or loved ones have gone through death rituals these last years. It makes me feel like one-of-the gang … again!
I really don’t know when or if I can write again. Mental competency and all that. The choice appears to be living with chemo forever off and on, or dying. I will make that choice soon enough. In the meantime, please write or speak your own truth in living with dying (*3) to your lesbian newspaper or my blog below(*4).
I want to say THANK YOU to all of you who have loved another woman-identified-woman, who have loved me, or have loved Lesbian Nation. I wish I could still write about this kind of love more eloquently. Lesbians do have a special love for one another. I have felt it many times when women are with each other. I am happy and content to have participated in it for most of my very full and happy life. Least you be too sad, know that I have this kind of love not only with my family of choice, but with a straight arrow spouse with whom I have journeyed these last 26 years.
Footnotes:
*1 Lesbian newspaper out of Ann Arbor, MI. Email; [email protected].
*2 See press release from Astraea.
*3 Cordova is in the process of a fourth book due out “maybe someday,” called Living With Dying.
*4 Cordova’s blog; thislesbianworld.blogspot.com
An excerpt from the Astraea press release reads:
The Jeanne R. Córdova Fund of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice will offer financial support to national and international organizations focusing on movement building and human rights; journalism; and promoting our culture. It will specifically go to Latina lesbians from South/Latin America and South African women; lesbians, feminists, lesbian feminists, butch and masculine gender nonconforming communities. Cordova is a Chicana-identified, feminist butch woman. She honors both her Irish mother and Mexican father’s heritage by sometimes calling herself a “Leprachicana.”
Córdova has continually witnessed her generation break free from heteronormative modes of thinking in every aspect of life. Lesbian feminists have “gone against the grain and rethought everything,” she said. “So I feel strongly that we should not think heterosexually [about wealth], like ‘I’ll give it to some random relative that I’ve never met,’” stated Córdova. “We need to think about giving to our gay or lesbian youth and institutions like Astraea or other lesbian organizations. They’re the ones who are nurturing our real daughters right now, around the world.”
Noting how much ‘the movement’ has changed since the early 70s, Córdova suggests lesbians and gays get ready for more vast changes to the face of women’s roles. She said, “None of us can do more than guess at the unique issues and challenges our community will face in the future. I am proud to be able to give to a LGBT charity now, and specifically a lesbian one. It’s important that we boomers look to sustaining ourselves, just like Bill Gates or David Geffen.”
Here’s a sampling of photos, most of which I took, but others are from Jeaane’s Facebook page:
Jeanne and Lynn and Judith Branzburg at the June 2014 rally in West Hollywood celebrating the Supreme Court victory striking down DOMA and Prop 8.
West Hollywood City Councilmember John Duran and Sue LaVaccare representing the City of West Hollywood present Jeanne with the Melissa Etheridge Award
and then Jeanne kicks off the Dyke March with: “Let’s MARCH!”
Jeanne and lesbian pioneer Lisa Ben, who published “Vice Versa” in the 1950s.
Lynn and Jeanne with longtime friend, artist/grassroots activist Ivy Bottini at the unveiling of an LGBT history mural at Wells Fargo Bank in WeHo.
Jeanne with longtime grassroots activist friend and comedienne Robin Tyler at then-LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa‘s Pride Reception at the Getty Mansion.
Jeanne and Lynn with close friends, lawyers Jenny Pizer of Lambda Legal and her wife Doreena Wong with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center at the LA Mayor’s Pride Reception.
Jeanne and longtime “legendary” checkbook activist and lawyer Diane Abbitt after Diane received the Rainbow Key Award from the City of West Hollywood in 2012.
Jeanne Cordova gets the last laugh.
Jeanne did things her way. Most often with Lynn.