Longtime lesbian couple Sheri Barden and Lois Johnson talk Daughters of Bilitis and “Gen Silent”

Today is Blogging for LGBT Elders Day and Logo TV is fittingly screening the documentary Gen Silent. The 2011 documentary is about six LGBT seniors facing isolation and the fear of discrimination in long-term and health care facilities. We spoke with two of the film’s subjects: trailblazers Sheri Barden and Lois Johnson.

Together for 51 years, Sheri, 81, and Lois, 84, were co-presidents of the Boston chapter of Daughters of Bilitis, the first organization for lesbian rights, for 20 years. Having met in Boston in the early ’60s, this couple has a half-century’s worth of wisdom to share and do so at conferences and the like focused on aging in the LGBT community. We chatted about their time with DOB, their thoughts on today’s youth, what they think of long-term care facilities and more.

AfterEllen.com: It’s rare these days for people to get anywhere near the kind of numbers you two have reached together. Do you have any advice for the rest of us on how to keep a good thing going for so long?

Sheri Barden: Sense of humor and talking. Communication more than anything else. Just really enjoying yourself as much as possible. And also not being just under yourself, but being in groups of people and causes—gay causes, in our cases.

AE: What is your history with the LGBT rights movement?

Lois Johnson: We were co-presidents of Daughters of Bilitis for 20 years in Boston. That was an organization which was an outreach organization to lesbian women at a time when there was absolutely nothing around. By the time we were really working with it for a long time we had probably two or three discussion groups per week. Some were targeted to people who were up to in their 40s. Others were for older women. Some were for women who were married and were just having one terrible time with it because they were trying to come out. There were women with children. And we also sponsored all kinds of social activities. We had a very large house in what’s called the South End of Boston. A brownstone. It had five stories. Just a huge house. And we always had loads and loads of parties, which were fundraising parties but for fun, too.

SB: We also invited transgender people.

LJ: Which was ahead of our time, which is something we’re really proud of. We had two or three transgender women who came to us—these are men to women—in the organization. At one point there was a great big discussion as to, “Who are these people?” Because this was early on. “Should they be women and members of the organization?” And we’re proud to say that we said, “Look, these people identify, they are women, and therefore they can be full members of Daughters of Bilitis.”

AE: Did you get any backlash for that?

LJ: Well there were some people who disagreed, but no, we accepted majority rule.

AE: So how did you two meet?

LJ: We knew a lot of gay men in our time. She had a friend and I had a friend who became a couple, and they introduced us to one another. One of them used to have many parties, and he invited her to come to a movie and she met me when we went to the movies. And then we went to a party.

SB: We did not go to a movie.

LJ: Oh, okay. We didn’t go to a movie then!

SB: We went to a party, you played the piano, and I said, “We’ll be together for the rest of our lives.”

AE: When you both decided to begin your work with Daughters of Bilitis, was that an effort as a couple right from the get-go?

LJ: It was very much both of us together. At that point, there was quite a bit of isolation in terms of you had to sort of tentatively search out, “Are these people gay? Are there any other gay women who we could possibly just socialize with, or maybe go to a movie with, or something?” And you couldn’t find anybody. So we said, when we heard about this, that this would be a great thing to do. And it proved certainly to be.

There were just, over the years, hundreds and hundreds of women who came through DOB. Became members, some of them. And some just came for some of the rap sessions. Some of these women were just so isolated. They were living in some suburbs where they didn’t dare open their mouth. And they were married and they felt these feelings. There are women who will come up to us that we haven’t seen maybe for 20 years or so, 25, and they’ll say, “The organization saved my life.”

AE: Given the history you just described, do you feel properly appreciated by younger generations? Or do you think they’re just completely oblivious to what you’ve done?

SB: They’re oblivious.

LJ: I think what Sheri is saying, if I may amend here a little bit, is that there is an invisibility to the elder population by a lot of the younger people, who sort of take it as a matter of, “Of course you can be out.” At least in Massachusetts. But they don’t seem to realize that even the ability to look as though you might be gay, or you might not want to get married but that you were interested in a woman or women, or men if you were a man, was cause for great anxiety in those days. You could lose your job. You could be in great trouble. In fact, at some point you could be in legal trouble.

So, I feel as though more education is necessary for the younger generation. They’re enjoying their young time and they should have their young time, but they have to appreciate that they have it because a lot of people really worked hard and went through hell to get them there.

AE: In the movie, you’re against the idea of LGBT seniors moving into long-term care facilities. Do you still feel the same way?

SB: We found a great place. They came after us and wanted us here.They’re very, very accepting, and they treat us like a couple. We’re just like family.

LJ: This is not, quote, a “nursing home.” Many times in a nursing home, where a person is much more disabled or maybe even unable to get out of bed or whatever, there’s just a sense that that person is much more vulnerable to opinions and attitudes. And that’s what the LGBT Aging Project along with so many other organizations is trying to change.

AE: So what do you hope audiences take away from watching Gen Silent?

LJ: I hope that they take away that the only way to break down these prejudices is to be out yourself, and to be yourself. And if you go with the expectation that you’ll be accepted as a human being, as the wonderful human being that you are, then you will be accepted. And you can’t let prejudice make you hide in the closet.

SB: We’re all human, and we’re all on this planet, and we should all get along. And we should all accept one another.

Gen Silent premieres on Logo TV tonight at 9pm/8c.