Lucy Gluck
Lucy Gluck is an activist in Burlington who has worked on a range of issues from the environment to women’s rights.
I think somebody must have in one of those gatherings of women said, '“you know, wouldn't this be great for us to have our own parade or march?” And off we went and we did, I mean, the one thing that I really do remember, and I'm sure that Leah talked about this, too, is that it was mostly women that organized it that first time. As the years went by, it became more more balanced. But I think we tried to draw in. But I didn't really know very many gay men, if any. I mean, I think I was pretty much into, like, just hanging out with women. So I don't, I don't know if we had good contacts to reach out to. You know, there were a few a few guys who helped out a little bit. Yeah.
At the time I came out, there was a there was a really strong lesbian community and a lot going on at that point, late 70s, early 80s was pretty hot in Vermont. It was a time when women were gathering and having lots of events and doing political work together. And I had actually met my, my partner, my first partner in Vermont. And she had been connected to—to some, even though she wasn't from Vermont, she was here to go to school. She'd been connected to some different women's organizing and yeah, the exciting thing was that there was there was a lot of, a lot of passion about working on women's issues and lesbian rights and women's rights, and so that was, it was a—it was an exciting time to come out. Definitely. Yeah.
Not that I remember, I was a part of groups that were—that were looking at how to have social events. We did some organizing around that. And then there was a group for a little while that was focused on what it meant to be a white woman in the lesbian community. So we did some discussion groups around that. That was interesting because there was sort of a dichotomy between, "yay, we're all in this together and isn't this exciting?" And, you know, dancing with each other and celebrating with each other, but also a lot of divisions as well with women who are more on the separatist end, which I was not, but was connected to through—through various events and things. And even in this discussion that happened around race and diversity, we ended up really dividing ourselves, unfortunately, in some really, really negative ways.