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Out lesbians Sheila Kuehl, Carole Migden and Jackie Goldberg are “Political Animals”

In a world where men usually rule, it probably comes as a surprise to many to learn that the first four openly gay elected California state politicians were women. Perhaps just as surprising is the fact that in a state generally considered to be progressive, it took until 1994 for the first of these four to be elected. And just who are these four? They’re political powerhouses Sheila Kuehl, Carole Migden, Jackie Goldberg and Christine Kehoe, and they’re the subjects of a new documentary called Political Animals.

We recently caught up with Sheila, Carole and Jackie, who were together again to promote the film. We asked about their thoughts on the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide, how their lesbian identities gave them an upper hand in politics, what they think about the current political climate in America and more.

Jackie Goldberg, Carole Migden, Sheila Kuehl and Christine Kehoephotos courtesy Afterword Pictures and IdiotSavant Pictures

AfterEllen.com: I want to know from each of you, after everything you’ve lived through both professionally and personally, how did you experience the news of the legalization of same-sex marriage across the nation?

Sheila Kuehl: I think we all just jumped up and down for joy because when we were in the state legislature in California, we couldn’t even imagine it. We would talk about it and say, “Well we can’t certainly go for that. Let’s try to get some rights for the kids, or let’s try to get domestic partners.”

Carole Migden: The fact that attitudes have changed in America in 15 years is astounding. I think we feel like we did pave the way and create a model, but that young people have proven to be increasingly favorable to gay issues, and they’ve even introduced gender identity issues. So I think we’re witnessing a changing culture that’s more accepting of those that are left behind.

Jackie Goldberg: My immediate reaction was to be overjoyed. I really didn’t think the court was going to go quite as far as it did and I was really quite thrilled. But then I had a secondary reaction, and that was, “Okay, so you can get married on Sunday and get fired from your job on Monday in many states and be kicked out of your housing on Tuesday.” Once that happened it was legitimizing, really, that we are people. I know that sounds like a funny thing to say, but there were a lot of people who weren’t so sure we were really people. So once you legitimize that, then it does open the path to saying, “Well now that’s not the only issue.” And I think that it has done that.

SK: It legitimized us as human beings in one way, but as you’ll see if you see the movie, any way in which they discriminate against someone lowers your status. That’s what it’s for. And so if you can still be fired, you’re not fully human.

CM: When the United States Supreme Court made that herculean decision, I expected riots in America. And maybe this county clerk didn’t like it, and now we’re working out issues with the state of Georgia, and clearly there’s more work to be done. But truly, people accepted it. The work’s not done, but certainly, as Jackie has said, a plateau was reached where our families and our children are accepted.

AE: It’s more than interesting that all four of you are lesbians. What do you think you brought to California politics that four gay men couldn’t?

SK: It wasn’t really that. Interestingly enough, in all the years that we were in the movement, it was clear to me that people were less threatened by lesbians. Maybe because it was understandable that they wanted to be, quote, “More like men.” They were more threatened by gay men, who, for some reason, wanted to, quote, “Be more like women.” So it was easier in a way, though not easy, for us to be elected. And not only that. In many ways, it was the lesbians who were fighting earlier than the gay men for rights: in the civil rights movement, in the women’s movement. We had a lot of experience with fighting for rights. During the AIDS pandemic, the guys were kind of catching up and getting more political. So I think it wasn’t too unusual that in our respective cities and areas we had already built enough of a resume to be elected.

CM: Women were always involved in social justice issues. Lesbians. But the truth is, is that we lost a lot of our guys, our boys. And women rose up—the opportunities were there. And it’s true: lesbians are less threatening because we’re not taken as seriously in that way. They’d almost forget we were [gay].

JG: Let me add just one other piece to this less threatening part. I think for many men in this society, they have had at some point in their lives the horrifying thought that they could be bisexual. Having gay men around is a reminder of that horrifying thought, in quotes. Whereas having a lesbian around doesn’t threaten any of that. You don’t have to think about. You don’t have to worry about who you are or what you are.

CM: I remember when the gays in the military issue was being discussed, and a lot of our caucus members and people were nervous, and I started to look at them and said, “Look at you. You look lousy. Don’t worry about being assaulted by gay men. I’m sorry your wife’s got to get in bed with you.”

SK: The other thing I think we found, although it was pretty serious times for us, is that we were in our own way kind of funny. We could just say anything. You’ll see in the movie. Anything that came into our mind we would say. And frankly, I don’t remember being that eloquent as the movie shows.

I think the big thing though was when Carole and then Jackie did the work on domestic partners. That really was such a major move toward our equality.

CM: Yeah, it was a step making the case and, if you recall, the Obama administration filed an amicus brief in favor of California and our quest for same-sex marriage because we had a legislative history that revealed that the state supported it. So all of that action being done on a state level really bolsters national issues and particularly those that go to the highest court.

Christine Kehoe and Jackie Goldberg

AE: Now obviously your constituents had faith that you could all get the job done, but was there ever really a point in your political careers where you didn’t worry the “gay thing” would stop you from being re-elected?

SK: It stopped being a concern almost right away for me because my constituents—well, first of all, I had been on television in my youth and most of my constituents really liked my television character [Note: she played Zelda on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis] and they couldn’t figure out how they were going to hate me for being gay. So that was an advantage right away. But you start to build what you do. None of the four of us, including Chris Kehoe, were limited to gay issues. I’d say 95 percent of everything we did was for straight families and children and water policy and insurance and transportation—everything. And we were allowed, I think, to build up a pretty strong record. You really discover that people think you’re kind of brave and courageous and frankly, even more important, truthful when you run, and you’re out. And that’s all they’re asking for from politicians. “Just be courageous and truthful.” And we already had the reputation.

CM: In San Francisco, you get a demerit if you’re not gay.

JG: I was not out in my first two elections, which were for the Los Angeles school board in ’83 and then again in ’87, because my son was still in public school and Sharon, my partner, and I had decided that we were not going to be public unless we were asked. In those days, nobody asked. It was impolite to ask. But we had told him we would never lie, but we weren’t going to say anything because he was, like, captive. He was in a school with other kids who were not so gay-friendly. So for me, the first time I ran out was for the city council, and that was in ’93. I was going to wait until my son graduated from high school in June, but a gay man outed me who was also in the race. Interestingly enough, they outed me before a big basketball game—my son was a basketball star in his high school days. And I said to my son, “Is this going to really be a problem? Tomorrow night’s your big game against your big crosstown rivals.” He says, “Oh mom, athletes never read the newspapers.” So we were all right there.

I also represent a part of Los Angeles in which I get cheered for having the most progressive views that there are possible in politics today. While maybe they weren’t all happy about gay and lesbian issues and they weren’t all into that, they supported me, as Sheila said, for all the other issues I took on. Being gay or lesbian was not a big issue one way or the other for them.

SK: I would add for your audience, there are a lot of people still who want to run for office who are struggling with the question, even today, of whether to come out yet. And we understand that. It’s not like we’re trying to make light of it, or say, “Oh it’s nothing.” Because it’s a lot. It’s important for people to feel free enough to be fully who they are in order to run for office. And I would say to people thinking of running for office, “Come out, come out, come out.” Because your constituents are going to feel much more comfortable with you if you’re comfortable with yourself and you’ve been honest with them. If they find out later you lied to them, then they’ll think you lied about everything else. It actually is the best thing for us that we got to run when we were out.

JG: I always won the majority of Republican women in my district, which always just surprised me enormously. But I think part of that was that I held a lot of meetings in neighborhoods and addressed their specific concerns. They weren’t really concerned that I was gay. I also worked really well with fundamentalist Christians on issues dealing with poverty in my district. They were the most active people helping people who were poor. And they were completely homophobic. They didn’t care because they knew that when I was helping them, we could make the scarce resources for low-income people go much further. That’s what they cared about, really, and we could do that. Being out is really helpful because they didn’t worry about it. We didn’t talk about it. It never came up.

SK: They knew.

CM: But they changed, and they liked you more. And I have to believe that made an impression and softened their antipathy towards gay people.

SK: Well the other thing we said is, “Nobody on this floor can any longer say, ‘Gee, I never met one.'”

AE: I wanted to ask, do you think the comments made by several of your Republican colleagues and shown in this film can still be considered shocking in the age of Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and others?

CM: We did have the most rightwing Republican Party, and it was way before the Tea Party as a concept was founded. And that’s why it resonates: because it reminds people of what the United States Congress is like now.

SK: Some of them are the same people.

CM: Many of our colleagues are there. And it didn’t mean they weren’t necessarily nice people. It didn’t mean that they were uncordial.

SK: Some of them were not nice. Some were uncordial. Some of them were really mean and nasty.

CM: A minority view here.

SK: Well you were chair of appropriations—everybody was nice to you.

But you know, Daniela, it was interesting to me—many of them came in on the Newt Gingrich wave in ’94 when I was elected. And they would bring their Bibles to the floor, and they would quote from the Bible. They would inevitably say, “You’re all spawn of the devil. Oh, not you Sheila.” Or, “Nothing personal.” One of the most powerful speeches is Jackie’s in the film where she says, “Nothing could be more personal.” It’s very much like today. A lot of hate speech. A lot of feeling of privilege, of saying “anything I damn please because you’re not human, and I am.” And I think people can learn a lot from this by looking and seeing this is exactly what we’re going through today. It’s not new, but it’s just as horrible, and it’s all for the same reason. The reason is: “If I put you down, it lets me win more easily.” That’s all discrimination was ever for.

CM: And we pulverized them, and that’s the point. So we also hope that this film energizes young people to become social activists the way we were when we were younger, involving a myriad of issues. To understand that change can be made when applied one’s conviction and hard work.

Carole Migden and Sheila Kuehl

AE: Finally, how important did having one another end up being, both on a political and personal level?

JG: Enormously important. I don’t know if I would’ve made it through the first year there. I had come from 16 years of local politics that were non-partisan. Nothing in those 16 years, including people who were very homophobic—they would never publicly say any of the things that were said in the first week I was in the legislature. After the first week, I told Sheila, “I’m ready to go home. What did you get me into?” Because it was Sheila who talked me into running. And I’m not a big crier, but I was crying a lot those first weeks, and Sheila would run over and put her arm around me, which was very lovely, and hold me together because I had never experienced people who were willing to stand up and say such hateful, awful things in public. It was very personal. They were talking about me. They weren’t talking about a hypothetical person. They were talking about me and all of the rest of the people here. So I would say for me it was just quite an incredible necessity to have other people. And I had no idea how you did it by yourself, Sheila, or how the two of you managed. But as we got more people it got easier because we had each other to support each other.

SK: It was very different in a couple of ways. When I was first elected, there was no out gay person, and there never had been one in the assembly or the senate. And immediately on my walking into the Democratic caucus, five of my colleagues came over to me and said, “We don’t want you to eat lunch by yourself so we’re the honorary gay and lesbian caucus.” They were very, very welcoming, and I felt very comfortable. We had shared a lot in terms of things we had done in LA and across the state. But when Carole was elected, I realized there’s a difference. It’s not a language. It’s not—I can’t explain it. It’s like a life experience that someone has that nobody else in the assembly or the senate had. And we understood what it was like to have that life experience. When we would have dinner together, the four of us women, it was a comfort. We were safe in our caucus, we were safe on our floor, but there was such comfort and ease. It meant a lot. They are my friends for life.

CM: It was very fortifying. You have to understand the situation in Sacramento. People fly there from all over the state, and you’re roomed together. For a week. And there are a lot of votes, and there are lunches and dinners. You can’t escape each other. So we would check back, or have phone calls, or debrief—get involved together. For one, to be able to vent, and, for two, to be able to bolster ourselves up in general. And to strategize.

SK: We also-when we would have these discussions, arguments, fights, emotional time on the floor, we found so many of our colleagues mostly in our caucus who felt called upon—the way many of us have felt called upon in the civil rights movement regarding African Americans—to for the first time stand up and tell our story. People were called upon to be their best selves.

JG: And they rose to the occasion. There were people in districts where they knew the vote on my bill, on domestic partners, was going to hurt them in their election. They knew that, and they took the vote anyway. It was inspiring.

CM: It was inspiring because they remembered what they were there for and that is to make laws, to protect people, to make the world better, to open your heart to equity. And I think also, the four of us gained an enormous amount of respect among our colleagues in our stick-to-it-iveness. I remember Republican members who had never voted for us said, “I want to hand it to you. You’re back this year with the bill again. Good for you. I’m not voting for it…” You begin to know each other as people.

SK: They also knew we weren’t going to go away. I brought the gay student bill back three different sessions and each session is two years long. And finally, finally—I was elected in ’94—at the end of ’99, we finally got it through, got the 41st vote on the very last week. And it was amazing, but as we all told them each year that we came in, “All you’re going to hear from us is, ‘I’m back!'”

Political Animals plays at the Provincetown International Film Festival on June 16 and 17, at Frameline in San Francisco on June 19 and 20, and at the CinemaQ Film Festival in Denver on July 24. Visit the movie’s Facebook page for news on future screenings.

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