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Brenda Weathers

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Brenda Weathers
BornOctober 26, 1936
Smithfield, Texas
DiedMarch 20, 2005 (aged 68)
Long Beach, California
Occupation(s)Writer, activist, social worker

Brenda Kay Weathers (October 26, 1936 – March 20, 2005) was an American activist and writer. She founded the Alcoholism Center for Women in Los Angeles, and was active on behalf of LGBTQ rights, women's rights, and animal protection. She also wrote three novels with supernatural themes and lesbian main characters.

Early life and education

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Weathers was born in Smithfield, Texas, the daughter of Jones Will Weathers and Alida Irene Nabors Weathers. Her father was a Baptist minister, and her mother was a teacher. She attended Brownfield High School,[1] Baylor University, and Texas Woman's University, but was expelled from TWU in 1957, after her relationship with another female student became known.[2][3] She earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology at the California State University, Long Beach.[4]

Career

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Activism and service work

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Weathers was an activist for gay rights and women's rights in Los Angeles, and a social worker in Los Angeles County. "We lesbians had to march in the gay pride parade together with the guys who were dragging a twenty-foot papier-mâché penis down Hollywood Boulevard!" she later recalled about the 1971 Pride Parade.[5] Her younger sister Carolyn also moved to Los Angeles by 1970, and both sisters were involved in activism and writing.[3][6]

In 1974, Weathers, by then a recovering alcoholic, founded a rehabilitation program, the Alcoholism Center for Women (ACW) in Los Angeles, considered the first such facility primarily serving lesbian women.[7][8] It was at first based in the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center in Hollywood, but soon became a separate nonprofit and found its own space at a pair of historic houses in the city's Pico-Union neighborhood.[4][9] "I feel that two very important ingredients are love and helping to instill in the woman a feeling of self fulfillment," she said of the center's approach. "Sobriety gives one the opportunity to become the person you always thought you could be become."[10]

Weathers moved to San Francisco in 1977, and ran another recovery program there. She moved again in the 1980s, to Seattle, where she was director of the Gay and Lesbian Chemical Dependency Program until she resigned in 1987.[11] She lived in New Mexico in the 1990s, where she ran the Northern New Mexico Animal Protection Society,[12] and moved back to Southern California to run Actors and Others for Animals, a nonprofit organization. In her last job, she was executive director of WomenShelter in Long Beach, which offered emergency housing to women who were escaping domestic violence.[4]

Writing and publications

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Weathers was also a writer. "Nobody was telling me I couldn't do it," she said in a 1986 interview, "And lots of people were telling me I could."[13] Her mystery novels have supernatural themes and lesbian main characters.[14][15]

  • "Alcoholism and the Gay Woman" (1974)[16]
  • "Alcoholism and the Lesbian Community" (1980)[8]
  • The House at Pelham Falls (1986)[17][18]
  • Miss Pettibone and Miss McGraw (1996)[19]
  • Murder on the Mother Road (2005)[20]

Personal life and legacy

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Weathers met her longtime partner Vicki Lewis in Seattle. Weathers died from lung cancer in 2005, at the age of 68, at her home in Long Beach, California.[4] In 2012 she received a posthumous Rainbow Key Award from the Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board of the Los Angeles City Council.[21] The Alcoholism Center for Women still serves women in recovery, including a residential program,[10] and their buildings are recognized as historic sites by preservation organizations.[9]

References

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  1. ^ Brownfield High School, Cub (1953 yearbook): 45. via Ancestry
  2. ^ "Carolyn talks about herself and her sister, Brenda Weathers" (2011), video in the Mazer Lesbian Archives
  3. ^ a b "Carolyn Weathers Collection". ONE Archives. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  4. ^ a b c d Woo, Elaine (March 30, 2005). "Brenda Weathers, 68; Founded Center for Alcoholics". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 31, 2023.
  5. ^ Faderman, Lillian; Timmons, Stuart (2009-08-03). Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians. Univ of California Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-520-26061-0.
  6. ^ "Weathers (Carolyn) photographs and papers". ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at USC Libraries, via Online Archive of California. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  7. ^ Zigrang, Tricia A. (1982-08-03). "Who Should Be Doing What about the Gay Alcoholic?". Journal of Homosexuality. 7 (4): 27–35. doi:10.1300/J082v07n04_04. ISSN 0091-8369. PMID 7130685.
  8. ^ a b Weathers, Brenda. Alcoholism and the lesbian community. Gay Council on Drinking Behavior, 1980.
  9. ^ a b "Alcoholism Center for Women". Los Angeles Conservancy. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  10. ^ a b "Legacy". Alcoholism Center for Women. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  11. ^ Grant-Bourne, Katherine (1987-02-13). "Brenda Weathers resigns as director of Chemical Dependency Program". Seattle Gay News. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-06-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ Velasquez, Beth (1995-08-31). "Politics Stalling Negotiations, Animal Group Says". Rio Grande Sun. p. 19. Retrieved 2023-06-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ Michener, Marian (1986-10-03). "Interview with Brenda Weathers, author of 'The House at Pelham Falls'". Seattle Gay News. p. 21. Retrieved 2023-06-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ Haefele-Thomas, Ardel (2017), Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew (ed.), "Queer American Gothic", The Cambridge Companion to American Gothic, Cambridge Companions to Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 115–127, ISBN 978-1-107-11714-3, retrieved 2023-06-01
  15. ^ Michener, Marian (1986-09-19). "Review of Brenda Weathers' 'The House at Pelham Falls'". Seattle Gay News. p. 21. Retrieved 2023-06-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ Weathers, Brenda. "Alcoholism and the Gay Woman." In Abstract. Abstract of Speech Given the National Congress on Alcohol and Drug Problems. 1974.
  17. ^ Weathers, Brenda (1986). The House at Pelham Falls. Naiad. ISBN 978-0-930044-79-4.
  18. ^ Sullivan, Caitlin (1985-09-06). "Brenda Weathers Publishes first novel: 'The Palm of Her Hand'". Seattle Gay News. pp. 24, 25. Retrieved 2023-06-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ^ Weathers, Brenda (1995). Miss Pettibone and Miss McGraw. Naiad Press. ISBN 978-1-56280-151-9.
  20. ^ Weathers, Brenda (2005). Murder on the Mother Road. New Victoria Publishers. ISBN 978-1-892281-23-4.
  21. ^ Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board, Los Angeles City Council. "2012 Rainbow Key Awards" (agenda item, dated May 7, 2012).
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