This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2021) |
Formation | 1985 |
---|---|
Dissolved | 1991 |
Type |
|
Headquarters | West Hollywood, California, United States |
Part of a series on |
Lesbian feminism |
---|
Feminismportal |
Connexxus Women's Center/Centro de Mujeres was a non-profit community organization established in January 1985 in West Hollywood, California. The organization was co-founded by Adel Martinez and Lauren Jardine [1] [2] [3] in 1984 as a women-run center in Los Angeles, and provided services that catered to women, particularly lesbians and a space in which lesbians could thrive professionally, personally, and socially. [4] In January 1988, it opened an additional facility in East Los Angeles named Connexxus East/Centro de Mujeres [4] [5] made for outreach to the Latina and Chicana communities. The new facility provided services primarily to lesbians in Los Angeles County, and facilitated information about and access to various human service agencies. It also provided counseling in developing and operating small businesses. The facility also sponsored and hosted cultural and educational activities. The 1,400 square-foot center contained space for a library, workshops, rap groups, counseling meetings, and social activities. [6]
Connexxus ran from May 1984 to June 1990. When it was open, the organization was led by members of the lesbian community, such as Jeanne Córdova, [7] [8] Jodi Curlee, Judy Doyle, [9] Lauren Jardine, Bunny MacCulloch, Del Martinez, June Mazer, Yolanda Retter, and Jane Wagner. In order to sustain the organization the board raised over $20,000 for its operations. It received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, Colling Higgins Foundation, and the Liberty Hill Foundation.[ citation needed ]
The Connexxus Women's Center/Centro de Mujeres was officially dissolved in 1991. In a letter to the community on January 18, 1990, they[ who? ] shared that as Connexxus expanded and their work surpassed their intended goals, more human service organizations followed their lead and expanded their services too. Due to the increasing number of specialized groups, services, and businesses, fewer lesbians accessed the center's services. Due to this fall in numbers and an imminent financial crisis, Connexxus closed its doors on June 30, 1990.
In May 1998, the then-President of the United States, Bill Clinton, issued Executive Order 13087, banning discrimination in federal civilian employment on the basis of sexual orientation. [10] Six years earlier in 1992, governor Pete Wilson signed AB 2601, which outlawed employment discrimination against gays and lesbians in California (he vetoed a similar bill, AB 101, the year before). [11] [12]
June Mazer and her partner Bunny MacCulloch started the West Coast Lesbian Collections in their home. The collection, a “Lesbian Herstory Collection”, contained archives about notable lesbian women, organizations like the Daughters of Bilitis, media materials such as the Lesbian Love Records (a radio show targeted towards the lesbian community), information on lesbian events, publications, organizations, and lesbian spaces in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County. It was later moved to Connexxus Women's Center as the June Mazer Collection. [13] [14]
After Connexxus dissolved, the collection traveled to various repositories until it was given a permanent home in the Werle Building, a property owned by the City of West Hollywood at 626 N. Robertson Boulevard. [15] The collection was rebranded as the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives. Through an equitable partnership with the UCLA Library Special Collections, the Mazer Archives retained rights to its collection while increasing public access through digitization.
Beginning January 1985, Connexxus published a newsletter by its Connexxus Business & Professional Women's Alliance. The newsletter ceased publication in June 1990. [16] [17]
Because the center was intended to be a community space, as well as social-based fundraisers, Connexxus hosted a variety of events. It hosted economic empowerment workshops to support women's skill development. Social groups based on identities, such as black lesbians, singles, Latinas, and mixers were common. The most popular one was All Around Town in 1988, which doubled as a fundraiser. Another popular event was a gallery show of long-time support Laura Aguilar, a Chicana lesbian photographer, called the Chicana Lesbians Series. [18]
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, but began in the late 1960s and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, sexism within the gay liberation movement, and homophobia within popular women's movements at the time. Many of the supporters of Lesbianism were actually women involved in gay liberation who were tired of the sexism and centering of gay men within the community and lesbian women in the mainstream women's movement who were tired of the homophobia involved in it.
Cherríe Moraga is a Chicana feminist, writer, activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English. Moraga is also a founding member of the social justice activist group La Red Chicana Indígena which is an organization of Chicanas fighting for education, culture rights, and Indigenous Rights.
One, Inc., or One Incorporated, was one of the first gay rights organizations in the United States, founded in 1952.
ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries is the oldest existing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) organization in the United States and one of the largest repositories of LGBT materials in the world. Located in Los Angeles, California, ONE Archives has been a part of the University of Southern California Libraries since 2010. ONE Archives' collections contain over two million items including periodicals; books; film, video and audio recordings; photographs; artworks; ephemera, such as clothing, costumes, and buttons; organizational records; and personal papers. ONE Archives also operates a small gallery and museum space devoted to LGBT art and history in West Hollywood, California. Use of the collections is free during regular business hours.
Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement, theory, and praxis that scrutinizes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections impacting Chicanas and the Chicana/o community in the United States. Chicana feminism empowers women to challenge institutionalized social norms and regards anyone a feminist who fights for the end of women's oppression in the community.
The Los Angeles LGBT Center is a provider of programs and services for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The organization's work spans four categories, including health, social services, housing, and leadership and advocacy. The center is the largest facility in the world providing services to LGBT people.
Alicia Gaspar de Alba is an American scholar, cultural critic, novelist, and poet whose works include historical novels and scholarly studies on Chicana/o art, culture and sexuality.
Jeanne Córdova was an American trailblazer of the lesbian and gay rights movement, founder of The Lesbian Tide, and a founder of the West Coast LGBT movement. Córdova was a second-wave feminist lesbian activist and proud butch.
Laura Aguilar was an American photographer. She was born with auditory dyslexia and attributed her start in photography to her brother, who showed her how to develop in dark rooms. She was mostly self-taught, although she took some photography courses at East Los Angeles College, where her second solo exhibition, Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, was held. Aguilar used visual art to bring forth marginalized identities, especially within the LA Queer scene and Latinx communities. Before the term Intersectionality was used commonly, Aguilar captured the largely invisible identities of large bodied, queer, working-class, brown people in the form of portraits. Often using her naked body as a subject, she used photography to empower herself and her inner struggles to reclaim her own identity as “Laura”- a lesbian, fat, disabled, and brown person. Although work on Chicana/os is limited, Aguilar has become an essential figure in Chicano art history and is often regarded as an early "pioneer of intersectional feminism” for her outright and uncensored work. Some of her most well-known works are Three Eagles Flying, The Plush Pony Series, and Nature Self Portraits. Aguilar has been noted for her collaboration with cultural scholars such as Yvonne Yarbo-Berjano and receiving inspiration from other artists like Judy Dater. She was well-known for her portraits, mostly of herself, and also focused upon people in marginalized communities, including LGBT and Latino subjects, self-love, and social stigma of obesity.
The David Bohnett Foundation is a private foundation that gives grants to organizations that focus on its core giving areas – primarily Los Angeles area programs and LGBT rights in the United States, as well as leadership initiatives and voter education, gun violence prevention, and animal language research. As of 2022, the foundation has donated $125 million to nonprofit organizations and initiatives.
The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives is a grass roots archive dedicated to collecting, protecting, and conserving lesbian and feminist women's history. The Archives was founded in 1981 as the West Coast Lesbian Collections (WCLC) by Lynn Fonfa and Cherrie Cox in Oakland, California.
Although often characterized as apolitical, “Los Angeles has provided the setting for many important chapters in the struggle for gay and lesbian community, visibility, and civil rights." Moreover, Los Angeles' LGBT community has historically played a significant role in the development of the entertainment industry.
Ronni Lebman Sanlo is the Director Emeritus of the UCLA Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center and an authority on matters relating to LGBT students, faculty and staff in higher education. She recognized at an early age that she was a lesbian, but was too afraid to tell anybody. Sanlo went to college then married and had two children. At the age of 31, Ronni came out and lost custody of her young children. The treatment toward the LBGT community and her rights as a mother are what gave Sanlo the drive to get involved in activism and LGBT politics.
Diane Francis Christine Felix, also known as Chili D, is an American disc jockey and LGBT activist. She is a third-generation Chicana from Stockton, California.
Henry M. Tavera was an AIDS activist, artistic director, and archivist based in the Mission District of San Francisco, California; his 1979 move to the region put him at the forefront of the AIDS epidemic via his involvement in various HIV/AIDS service organizations as well as AIDS theatre. He also did work around Chicano Gay Activism and teaching/advising. Tavera died on February 27, 2000, at 56 years old from kidney cancer.
Monica Palacios is a Chicana lesbian American playwright and performer, specialising in Chicana, queer, feminist, and lesbian themes. She has charted the intersection of queer and Latina identities in Latinx communities, with their mutually marginalising impact. A trailblazer stand-up comedian in the 1980s and 1990s, Palacios is now better known for her work as an award winning playwright and activist. Her works are taught in many schools and colleges, where she has served frequently as a director of student theatre.
Dolores Guerrero-Cruz is an American artist, she is known for her contemporary art through paintings, murals, and graphic art. Her art reflects her advocacy towards the feminist movement and empowerment movement for the Chicano and Latin community.