Sally Gearhart is one of the most important figures in LGBTQ history that you’ve probably never heard of. She was a radical lesbian feminist whose fight for equality and change sparked movements that still continue today.
But unlike her friend and contemporary, Harvey Milk, there are no airport terminals or schools named after Sally. Instead, she has largely been erased from history.
Deborah Craig wanted to change that. Craig is a filmmaker and professor at San Francisco State University. Her latest film, Sally!, is all about the life and work of Sally Gearhart. The documentary debuted in San Francisco this summer and since then has won four audience awards, one jury award, and one best director award. Craig spoke about the film in an interview with The California Report Magazine’s Bianca Taylor.
Below are excerpts from their conversation. For the full interview on The California Report Magazine, listen to the audio at the top of this story.
Bianca Taylor: Who was Sally Gearhart?
Deborah Craig: To sum it up, Sally is complicated. Sally was this lesbian separatist [who] always had men in her life. She studied theater. She studied communication. She was a brilliant debater. She taught women’s studies and co-founded one of the first-ever women’s studies departments. She wrote fantasy novels. She moved full-time up to this women’s land community that she had co-created. She is extremely hard to pin down. The best way to say it is she’s really an amazing Renaissance woman who was always interested in everything and curious about everything and had very strong and radical opinions but also kept an open mind and was willing to change her mind.
Why make this film now?
I felt a sense of urgency because, by the time I met Sally, she was either 83 or 84. She was living alone. She had health issues, she had memory decline. And it felt like if we want to do this story, we need to do it now. But the other thing we felt [was] that [her] story is relevant now because we’re fighting those same battles. And it’s even more relevant after the election. There’s so much pushback in this country against women’s rights, against gay rights, against trans rights, etc. So this is not just a story about what happened in the past, and acknowledging the part that Sally played back then. It’s a story about how to fight for social justice. And Sally, as imperfect as she is, is such a beautiful role model of how to do that. And in fact, her imperfection makes her a role model in my mind, because there are no perfect heroes.
Sally Gearhart was instrumental in working with Harvey Milk to defeat Proposition 6, which would have banned gay people from working in public schools. But in the feature film, MILK, Sally is completely left out. What happened?
There are a lot of people who are incredibly angry that Sally was left out of the film. And I talked to a lot of them. And Sally, I think, was very hurt that she was left out of the film. What helps me understand it is this: The Milk film was made in 2008. Sally left San Francisco in 1991, and she was up in her little cabin in Willits. So, she was erased, and she removed herself from the spotlight. … I think both of those things are true.
Sally did — and said — controversial things that were included in the film. Was there a worry this would put people off of Sally, especially men?
I don’t think you make a film about Sally Gearhart and worry about offending somebody. So I just really made a practice of listening to people when they got offended and tried to learn from it. But you know what? I never heard anybody get their feathers ruffled about that one, interestingly enough. And more often, I found myself in scenes like doing the sound mix in the booth with two straight men who were laughing their asses off at Sally because she’s so funny and she’s so charming. And that made me so happy because it made me feel like she’s reaching … a lot of people because she’s so smart and charming and funny. And I think that was her superpower: her humor and her charm and being self-deprecating and funny. She could say something really outrageous and then say it with a smile and a twinkle in her eye.
What would Sally think of the current moment we’re living in?
It’s sort of like deja vu all over again. There are so many battles that were fought that we need to re-fight. And Sally, I guess depending on whether we channeled Sally in her 40s or 50s or 60s or 80s, would be either ready to step up on the podium and speak up or would want other people to step up and take the baton. I really hope that this film makes young people motivated to step up and get involved, and fight the kind of fights that we’re going to need to fight. And realize that fighting for social justice can be not just a slog but an adventure. It can be fun and exciting, and [we] can approach it with a spirit of kind of can-do-ness and curiosity. And so I hope that people can channel that sort of Sally vibe and spirit to help us move forward.