CPC Report

I consider myself a lesbian, but I'm a bisexual lesbian.

Everyone is their own kind of lesbian. To think there's a certain way to dress or present yourself in the world is just one more stereotype we have to fit into.

I didn't choose the fact that I was gay, but I did choose whether to live my life as a gay woman-that was the terrifying thing for me. Especially being a gay actress.

I had a hell of a time convincing people I was gay - which was so annoying!

I've had so many interviews where the last question is, Are you gay? I had to find very creative ways to say that I was gay, but that I wasn't going to talk about it.

If I was 14 and knew some gay people, I wouldn't nearly have had the struggle I had. Our world is definitely changing.

In high school I had sex with girls quite a few times. They were straight women who I convinced to jump in the sack with me.

I have to be asked, I guess, but I love the idea of marriage. I think it's beautiful. I'm such a romantic, and I always have been.

I justified it in so many ways. I had a very, very long and difficult struggle with my sexuality.

My sexuality is a part of me that I really like. But it's not the totality of me.

I knew that I was gay, I knew it. I just couldn't see myself as a gay woman, even though that's where my heart was.

When I watched Ellen come out in '97, my jaw was on the floor. I thought, There are some people who break the doors down, hold them open, and some people who walk right through.

I ran into Ellen at a photo shoot. She took my breath away. That had never happened to me in my life.

I really never stopped thinking about Ellen, because I just haven't felt that kind of energy with anyone in my life.

I saw Ellen and my knees were weak. It was amazing. And it was very hard for me to get her out of my mind after that. Then when I saw her that night, we started talking, and that's that.

My feelings for Ellen (DeGeneres) overrode all of my fear about being out as a lesbian. I had to be with her, and I just figured I'd deal with the other stuff later.

~ Portia de Rossi, Actress

The most important political step that any gay man or
 lesbian can take is to come out of the closet. It's been
 proven that it is easier to hate us and to fear us if you can't see us.
~Amanda Bearse, Actress

Please
 Come back to me, Gongyla, here tonight,
You, my rose, with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired.
Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess,
Whom I now beseech
Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see.
--Translated by Paul Roche
~Sappho

My private life is private. But at the same time, I have nothing to hide. So what I will say is that I am very happy.
Cynthia Nixon, Actress

. . . . . . . . . . . .

I never thought to myself, I'm going to grow up and fall in love with a man or I'm going to fall in love with a woman because my mother is a lesbian.
~Ally Sheedy, Actress

. . . . . . . . . . . .

It's a cosmic joke that I'm a lesbian, because I understand men so well but women are a complete mystery to me.

As a standup, I try to change the world. As an entertainer, I try to entertain. And as a lesbian, I try to pick up the prettiest girl in the room.
~Lea DeLaria, Comedian 


All I Want by Afurbie
All I want is to love you, for the rest of my life.
I want you to be the one; I'll wake up every morning with you by my side.
Knowing at no matter what happens, I'll be able to come to your loving arms.
All I want is to share everything with you.
To be able to talk about our ideas, our dreams and little every day things.
Things that make us laugh, and the not so little things that we can't help worrying about.
All I want is to give you is my love.

As a place you, can always come to for acceptance.
The simple comfort that silence brings, when things left unspoken, can still be understood.
All I want is to grow old with you, to watch our life unfold.
All I want is to love you forever.


I became a lesbian because of women, because women are beautiful, strong, and compassionate.

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.

No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love.  The only queer people are those who don't love anybody.

My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity. All those women out there praying for a man, and I'm giving them my share.
~Rita Mae Brown, Author

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Gay and lesbian people fall in love. We settle down. We commit our lives to one another. We raise our children. We protect them. We try to be good citizens.
~California State Senator Sheila Kuehl

. . . . . . . . . . . .

He (Newt Gingrich) is definitely on the wrong side of history when it comes to those (gay) issues.
~Candace Gingrich-Jones, Lesbian Activist & Half sister of Newt Gingrich 
. . . . . . . . . . . .
 I hate the word lesbian; it tells you nothing; its only purpose is to inflame.

I am a writer who happens to love women. I am not a lesbian who happens to write.
~Jeanette Winterson, Author


 To Atthis 

Love -- bittersweet, irrepressible -- loosens my limbs and I tremble.

Though in Sardis now,
she things of us constantly
and of the life we shared.
She saw you as a goddess
and above all your dancing gave her deep joy.
Now she shines among Lydian women like 
the rose-fingered moon
rising after sundown, erasing all
stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea
and over densely flowered fields
lucent under dew. Her light spreads
on roses and tender thyme
and the blooming honey-lotus.
Often while she wanders she remembers you,
 gentle Atthis,
and desire eats away at her heart
for us to come.
--Translated by Willis Barnstone
~Sappho


I have met many feminists who were not Lesbians but I have never met a Lesbian who was not a feminist.
~Martha Shelley, Lesbian activist and poet.


Twinkle twinkle little star 
Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are?
Up above the world so high , like a diamond in the sky
When the blazing sun is gone, when he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light, twinkle, twinkle all the night.
Then the traveller in the dark, thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go, if you did not twinkle so.
In the dark blue sky you keep, and often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye, 'till the sun is in the sky.
As your bright and tiny spark lights the traveller in the dark,
Though I know not what you are - twinkle, twinkle little star.
We all need a little light so we can see our way through the darkness of our times and are able to travel safely through it to wherever we are going.

To me, celebrity doesn't mean a whole lot unless you're willing to use it. So I wanted to use it in a different way, with my AIDS work, the human rights stuff for the gay and lesbian community and the speaking I do.

You know, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender - people are people.
~Judith Light, Actress 



Now Rachel gets the last word.

I have a file of letters and bits of ephemera from friends who have died. I have had lots of friends who died of AIDS.

 

 Glynn Braman