The title of this recording is "Jan and Ruth profile". It is described as: In this podcast Jan and Ruth talk about their backgrounds, careers and ageing together. It was recorded in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand on the 16th March 2013. This is an interview with Jan Wilson and Ruth Busch. The interviewer is Gareth Watkins. Their names are spelt correctly, but may appear incorrectly spelt later in the document. The duration of the recording is 2 hours and 2 minutes. A list of correctly spelt content keywords and tags can be found at the end of this document. A brief description of the recording is: In this podcast Jan and Ruth talk about their backgrounds, careers and ageing together. Sadly, Jan passed away on 2 November 2022. The content in the recording covers the decades 1960s through to the 2010s. A brief summary of the recording is: In this podcast recording titled "Jan and Ruth profile," Jan Wilson and Ruth Busch engage in an in-depth conversation with interviewer Gareth Watkins, touching on their personal backgrounds, careers, experiences with aging, and their life together over the past decade. The recording spans a conversation from the 1960s through the 2010s and captures Jan's reflection on their upbringing in New Zealand, their trajectory from being a teacher to becoming a counsellor, and the development of their identity and relationships. Jan recalls a long marriage that ended in 2000, after which they openly embraced their ability to love irrespective of gender, leading to their relationship with Ruth. Ruth, on the other hand, shares experiences of coming out as a lesbian later in life after a previous marriage and discusses the complexities of navigating societal expectations, career, and motherhood while being true to oneself. They recount struggles related to being out, like facing challenges with family and the broader community, as well as gender-specific expectations in education and the workplace during earlier years. The couple reflects on the concept of aging as a lesbian couple, emphasizing the ongoing significance of companionship and support, the contemplation of mortality, and the consideration of arrangements for the future such as wills and powers of attorney. They also discuss the notion that older lesbians may be perceived as non-sexual by society, allowing them a unique kind of freedom in public displays of affection compared to younger individuals. The podcast also touches on intergenerational relationships within the LGBTQ+ community, subtle persistences of homophobia, and the evolution of societal norms and laws related to same-sex relationships, including the right to marry and have children. They both appreciate the greater equality in their current partnership compared to their previous relationships. The recording concludes with acknowledgment of the privileges they enjoy as a couple, despite the challenges they and others in the LGBTQ+ community may face with access to resources and recognition by family members. The full transcription of the recording begins:  I'm Jan. I'm because this is about ageing. I guess that's where I decided to start. I'm 68. I'll be 69 in June and I'm a Kiwi of many, many generations. But a, um, and my other roots go back to Yorkshire and Scotland. Um, but not. But for over 100 years and at times, for 200 years, my family have been here in New Zealand, and that's a whole other issue about how comfortable I feel about being a colonial in a in a country that doesn't belong. But I am of the generation, I guess, of women where when I started out from school, when I finished in the Seventh Form, having started with 100 and 20 equally boys and girls at a school, we finished up with 2018 of those were boys. And so a place where women were not expected to stay and I went to university, which was also relatively unusual, though my mother had also done that and became a teacher. Um, that's evolved over the years into my being a counsellor, and now, at 68 I'm still working in that area, training new counsellors. I've spent most of my life in, um, heterosexual relationships. Uh, and my long lasting marriage ended in 2000, and I had known throughout all that time that I could equally have fallen in love with men or women. But I hadn't actually had any same sex relationship, any relationship with a woman. When my marriage ended in 2000, I had kind of made a decision that if I ever did get into another relationship, and that was in my late fifties, and I guess that's part of the ageing thing. I wasn't really expecting that that would happen. Then it would probably be with a woman. And two or three years later I met Ruth and that, um, we've been together now for 10 years this weekend and so that's been quite dramatic and wonderful and lovely part of my growing older. So I guess that when I think about growing older, um, I've got three lovely kids. I've got grandkids. I've had a lovely A very happy childhood, and I've had a very fulfilling sort of working career. But for me, the fact that I moved into the lesbian world in an open and part of it way got into a relationship with Ruth and having the last three years got a job. That's probably the ideal job in my life. Has made growing older also growing more exciting and quite different for me. So that tinges my whole feeling about growing older. There's a whole new and, uh, yeah, whole new about it. So I guess, Yeah. Over to you. Well, um, so I'm 69. I just turned 69 in February, and, um, I still think I'm 70 years old, so I'm gonna have to psychologically bring myself into some, uh uh, kind of I don't know, cheer view of that ageing. Um, I'm I'm sort of semi retired. Um, in that. Yeah, I just wasn't a an aunt. I was too much of a grasshopper. You know, in my whole life, I didn't save enough money. I didn't put a wet things. And so I think for me, as opposed to Jan, I probably would like to stop, but I just can't because I've got a million things I want to still do lots of trips. And, uh, I don't know if there'll be lots, but certainly two big trips overseas and uh, that I'd like to do And just, you know, we have a lifestyle that involves going to the theatre or going to the opera, and we say, But I need a certain amount of cash in my life. And so, yes, I'm I work still and but I think that's coming to an end. I'll do it this year. Um, because, um, it's a funny thing has happened to me like I. I don't like to be in charge anymore. I don't like to lead the charge anymore. At one point, I was more than happy to do that, and I kind of pulled back. And then I think it's part of my ageing about five years ago or so I had a temporary A TI A They call it a stroke, a kind of minor stroke, and I think it really eroded some of my confidence. I used to travel overseas all the time and by myself, and I thought, Oh, jeez, what would happen if I got stuck in L, a airport unable to speak? Um, you know, like, it would be terrible. So I think ever since then I've I've, um I've been creating new boundaries for myself and in terms of, like, not travelling very much, I don't I mean, overseas by myself and things like that, which that was a part of my life. So just changing. So I, I think more than Jay. And I probably feel older, you know, like, I'm ageing, but, um But I've had, like, I ruptured my Achilles tendon trying to get fit this year, and I had to have an operation and that really too, You know, um, like I did couldn't use crutches. I don't have the upper body strength. And so it all worked out, but it it's I'm much more aware of, um, ageing, you know, And then my body is kind of parts are falling off as I watch it. You know, like so um, yeah, I'm just not as but I think, I. I still have a lot of enthusiasm and go getter. So probably compared to other people. I do more. Anyway. Were you like Jan in terms of kind of coming out later in life or Oh, Well, yeah, but I, um I came out in my I came out twice. I came out when I was I didn't come out. Then I had a, uh, an affair with a young woman when I was 16 at university. But, um, the penalties were so high, I was at a university on a scholarship. Um, we saw people kicked out of school unless their scholarships taken away. And so and, uh uh, you know, I went looking for other lesbians at 16. But of course, all of my stereotypes about what a lesbian was all I could see at the most in Greenwich Village where, you know, moustachioed diesel dykes, you know, with the tattoos. I didn't know who to look for, and I had no kind of concept, and I just thought my family would murder me. So I I went back into the closet for another 17 years, and during that time, I married and had three Children, um, and, um, and then came out again, Um, after my youngest son, Jeremy was about three or four. And so I came out in the in Vancouver in event in 1978. And, uh, which was, um, you know, a time of tremendous optimism and coming out. Everybody I knew was coming out. And we were all parts of the women's movement, the feminist movement. And, uh, it was just a very idealistic time. Um, and, uh, to tell you how idealistic it was, all we ever talked about in my home were lesbian, lesbian, lesbian, lesbian. And so one time, my mother came out from Florida to Vancouver and she asked Jeremy, who was about four then what he wanted to be when he grow up. And, uh, he said he wanted to be a lesbian. You know, it was just everything that was being said, but, like lesbians were, you know, it was just like the New world. You know what the top twins sang about paradise. You know, it's so it was a very idealistic time for me, and, um hm. And, uh and, uh, you know, I went through kind of serially monogamously. Yeah, as several relationships until I finally found about a decade ago, Jan. And so here we are, Jan, just looking at your kind of earlier relationships. And I'm just wondering, can you describe for me what it was like knowing that you could have a relationship with a man or a woman, but not having had one with a woman? Um what that was like, How How How did that affect you? Uh, I was curious. I was a very loyal, monogamous person. So once I was in a relationship, I stayed in that relationship and I didn't, um, have affairs with anybody else I've had. I know this sounds sort of cliche, but it's actually true. They've been, um, lesbian people in my life since I was very small, Like my first babysitter and our neighbour, um, back in the forties was, uh, Margaret Scott, who is a known lesbian who wrote plays for New Zealand Radio, and I've got her book now, and, um, she was a very a bit like Rosie describes the people in Greenwich Village like she wore suits, and this is in the late forties and she wore a hat, and she had a very, uh, male voice and way of being. And she had a woman friend who used to come over and stay with her from time to time. And I've I never put language to it, but I've talked to my parents since then and said Peg was there wasn't in my dad, you know? But she babysat for us, and she was part of our life. And likewise, there was, um, two women who lived up the hill from us that were close friends of my mothers that lived together for even. They never claimed to be lesbians, but they clearly were Phoebe and, um so there was that kind of acceptance. And then I had friends throughout this this is the cliche. But who I had friends who were both gay and lesbian. So sometimes I looked at some of the women and thought, Hm, if I wasn't involved with, I could really enjoy being in a relationship with you. Um, so how did it feel? I sometimes envied them that, but for me, my kids were really important. And I was in a relationship that, at least for the first, my lengthy relationship for the first few years was OK. There were good things about the friendship and the relationship. The sexual part of the relationship was never good, and I think it wasn't. Yes, that's been an issue forever in a way, and maybe if I look back, there would have been I would have had a better sexual life throughout my life. Had I been with women earlier, But I didn't. I wasn't aware, and I didn't think about that at the time. It's interesting what you say about not putting language to particular things like lesbianism. And I'm wondering, Can you describe what your experience of kind of, um, New Zealand was like in the in the fifties and sixties? You know, in terms of kind of lesbians and gays? I mean, were they out? I wasn't No, we didn't ever use those words. Uh, I left when I was 19 and went to Australia, married very young, went to Australia and then on to Britain and didn't come back till 1977. So a huge amount of things changed between 1964 and 1977. But in those years, till I was 19. Um, the I'm sure, Yeah, I guess the most important thing is that the people that I'm really aware now were in lesbian relationships, particularly because they're the people I remember more and are more aware of, um, were had to be secretive. Toes, I mean were in were secretive about it wasn't talked about it was covered up as a flatmates or fiance died in the war kind of thing and that involved the teachers at the school. I was at, um so very not spoken. Absolutely. That was in Auckland. I lived on the North Shore, um, before the bridge went over, so it was still a bit rural. Um, I had never heard the words gay and lesbian. I don't believe till I went to Australia and then I heard a bit more. But we're talking about the sort of mid sixties, and I think there was a lot more talk everywhere. And I was reading James Baldwin and I was reading other things that really probably through literature was when I first, uh, was aware so no. In New Zealand, when I think back and reframe my memories, there were lots of particularly lesbian women that I knew and couples that were part of our world, Um that my parents did know but never talked about and accepted into this sort of circle. But the words were never spoken. And yeah, So you both got married and I'm wondering, was marriage at that time? You know, just the dumb thing. It was the expectation that you would get married or or was it marriage for love or what? Why did you both get married? Well, um, so I finished university in 64. And at least, um, in my group, I don't know what it was like here in New Zealand, but, you know, here we'd all lived in dorms and and, uh, kind of on our own. But there was a sense that in in my family's, uh, belief system that if you weren't married, you had to go home. You know, you had to move back with your parents. And, like, uh, young women didn't live in apartments in the city, as in New York City, as as far as I knew, you know? So, um, in some ways, you had to get married because that was the only way you could avoid moving home. You know, I'm sure I didn't see it quite that utilitarianly at the time. But it was like that because I just wouldn't have been able like to live in an apartment with other young women. My parents would have forbidden me. And so, um, there was a lot of, uh and also, like, I was a scholarship kid at this very fancy university. And, um uh, I didn't have the kind of money or the man, uh, to exist there. But, um, this guy that I was dating, who eventually became my husband was a Harvard man, you know? And he gave me a lot of kudos. Uh, I mean, you can't know how how he equilibrated my existence at this flash place by going to Harvard and, you know, kind of wearing cru neck sweaters and recording his hair on the side. It was just the image that you had of this kind of, uh and so I held on to him for dear mind. He was he and he was He was my ticket into a lot of things. Even though the marriage itself, you know, my kids would say, you know how we fought all the time, But he he introduced me into a world of a kind of intellectual world that I would never have been a part of because he had an access to that. And he was up around Harvard Square, and I we were up there together, and so I There was something I really wanted. And, uh, so the sexuality thing, it was just too dangerous for me. I couldn't And II. I came from a home where there was a lot of, um, physical abuse and, um, it to get thrown out of university for being a lesbian. I mean, I don't know, literally. If I would have survived it, I just they would. I mean, there were terrible things going on at my house as it was. So, um, I always look for a ticket out and Peter was a ticket out. And even though II I think at the time I certainly thought I loved him, he he always bored me a bit. He was very pedantic, and I was always much more of a juvenile delinquent than he was, so that all of that was a problem. I mean, I. I had trouble staying within the traces of what was respectable even then. I, on the other hand, was very respectable, and I guess that's how I came to get married. It was different. It was different because I never left home to go to university. Most people either went to Dunedin or they stayed at home and commuted to university. The vast number of people in Auckland that I knew stayed living at home um and I am sure that I got married because that was a mark of success as a girl, and right through, um, high school, I've been, uh, much more interested in playing cricket and captaining the cricket team and, um, being a tomboy all the way through, but and hadn't had boyfriends all the way through school. But it was clear to me that to be successful socially, I needed to have a boyfriend. And so when I did get a boyfriend and he wanted to get married, it was probably what would have been a student romance years later. But he got a scholarship to do a doctorate in Sydney, And the only way that I could go with him like you're saying the only way you could leave home was to get married. I couldn't have gone as his. Well, I couldn't have gone on my own to Sydney, both within myself. I don't think I felt I could either. So I've done a lot more independent things than that since. So, yeah, it was that sort of feeling and and it was We didn't have Children. We were together for seven years. It was what would have been a student romance, but it moved me out of home and gave me that status of being in a relationship which I felt was important at the time. I don't know what it was like here, but to give you an example of how important it was to have a guy or a date at least, like, um, so I was in the dorms for three years. And if you didn't have a date on Saturday night, you know, it wasn't like you went out with your friends. Like you were ashamed that nobody had asked you. Actually, they had to ask you by Wednesday. You know, if somebody asked you on Friday, What are you doing tomorrow? It was like you were a third choice. And, you know, you know, there was all of this. I would say, Misha, craziness, uh, about being selected, you know, you had to be selected by a man who invited you out, and it just there wasn't a sense that say that all the young women in in my dorm who didn't have a date would go to the movie together. No, you had to hide out because you were you you had to. Somehow you weren't chosen for that week. And you, you know, it was all a very kind of because I can remember boys asking me out and they'd say, You want to go to the movie? And I'd say, What's playing? And now that seems like a very harsh comment to make, you know. But it girls just couldn't go out. Uh, they needed a guy to take them out. I don't know, at least in the in the Bronx, Like I still have this funny thing on New Year's Eve, but especially New Year's Eve. Like if you didn't have a date on New Year's Eve, you know you might as well have slit your wrist for the rest of the year. It was just, you know, impossible. It was like, you know, bigger than shame. It was like you were just a zero. And so, uh, now you know, a lot of people don't like to go out on New Year's Eve, but I have to, right, because even though I have Jan and she's my date and she's going to be around for the whole year, it's like I'm a total failure unless I've got a date and something can plan for New Year's Eve. So I bother all of my friends to organise these stupid New Year's Eve things, which none of them like, But they do it for me. So So the kind of time we're talking about this is in the mid sixties, early sixties. Can you recall around that time kind of women that were kind of independent or didn't kind of go along with that kind of? Well, at my university, we had an art teacher. Um, needless to say, they didn't last very long, but And one time, uh, she was necking with one of the students on in at the library, like on the kind of front steps of the library, and it was like, Oh, you know, incredible. But I mean, they hung them out to drive immediately, you know, And another time I can recall walking in on two women. I was going to get something from their door. I knocked on the door and I went in. I knocked and I went in and they were in bed, and I think they must have been terrible that I was gonna tell, and then they would have this. I mean, you know, the amazing thing to me is how people came out despite how hard they set the penalties. You know, like, uh, they were tremendous penalties, and you always knew what you were going to lose long before you could even know what you would gain. You know, you'd long before you'd made love with a woman. You'd know that your your reputation was going to be, you know, shredded. And you would just be some dirty dike, you know? So, uh, I, I think that those things were and they certainly forced me not to come out as a teenager. And I used to be jealous because in Vancouver, they were these women, and they said they had special kind of triangles on their lifeline, and it meant they were virgin dykes, which meant that they never slept with a man. And I wasn't a virgin. I and so that group of women really were suspicious of me. And, you know, we had all of that garbage then when we first came out because I have two sons. And, uh so there was that whole thing about whether boys, uh, could be acceptable within our community. And that was, uh but that was a little later. That was in the seventies, but there were real issues. If you on the one hand, there were lots of dykes who thought that, um, you had heterosexual privilege, and that was certainly a view in New Zealand and that magazine circle and all, you know, a lot of condemning of heterosexual women who who were now in the community for having such privilege, you know? But on the other hand, there was really a, uh it it was we were cobbling together, uh, a way to be mothers and and and lesbians and for me, uh, like a sexually, you know, alive, lesbian. At the same time, I was raising three Children, and it doesn't feel to me that there were any role models for us. I mean, those women were there, but they were secret, and, uh, we didn't know about them. And I think for a lot of women still, um, there had been a generation of women who'd been intellectuals, uh, or gone to university, and they hadn't had Children. You know, the kind of jane or kind of, uh, you know, women unmarried who'd given up. And that isn't what I wanted either. You know, I wanted it all, and now it seems that you can have it. But for us, we were cobbling together, and I think a lot of women made choices. For instance, when I was really coming out in 78 a therapist that I went to and spent money on, uh, said to me I couldn't possibly be a lesbian because I cared for my Children too much. I mean, like, that was seen as a, you know, I chose to go to somebody who had that belief. Subsequently, when she came out, I never went back. You know, herself. I never went back and said, Well, you are you still loving your Children? Have you given it up? You know, like but they were, like, truth. That didn't make any sense, but, uh, that made our lives really complicated, I think. And then when I found out my Children were being teased sometimes at school, I felt very guilty because I hadn't expected that they would get, uh, caught up. I really was so naive. I didn't think that the consequences of my choice to come out would be meted out on my Children. But on some level they were. I was thinking with the independent women when in my second year at university, when I had got engaged and he had gone to Australia. So I had a year when I was in a relationship, but I didn't have to live with the relationship because he was in Melbourne and in Sydney and I was in Auckland and I, but because I was of the world and a timid and, uh, not very confident. In some ways I didn't get into a relationship with anyone else. Um, but I became part of a group of women at the university, most of whom were a year ahead of me, and we met around the table about twice as long as this in a thing called the Women's Common Room, which was in the old stone Arts building and which was half the size of this room. So the the men had a huge common room downstairs, where they played 500. We weren't allowed in it, but there was a women's common room upstairs wedged between the cafeteria and the women's toilet, and there was a bunch of us who used to meet there most days and sit around and talk about arty things and philosophical things and eat violence, actually, and people brought little Bunches of violence, and I don't know what the eating violence was about, I must ask someone. But when I think back to those women amongst those women were Charmaine Pountney and Jill Brave and that they were women who I think very early on. Although we didn't discuss being lesbian or having relationships with women around that table, they may well have discussed those things after I went home to Milford on the bus. But I was part of that group, and I loved being part of that group at the university, and maybe they had other social things they did later, which I wasn't part of, um, but they were independent women and went on to be independent women and never so I Yeah, they were different, and they were a very attractive and interesting group of women that I didn't dare to be more than just partly part of. And then I went off at the end of the year and got married and went to Australia. I have a similar story. I was already married and I was in Uh uh, Peter was at Yale doing his PhD. And this was 1968. And there was the first, um, this was 63 by the way. So mine's five years later. And I was I was I was in New Haven and there were these women's live evenings, let's say, on a Wednesday night and, uh and there was a group. They call themselves lesbians at this women's live meeting. So I'd be liberated from the Children. He would babysit for the Children and I would go like from 7 to 10, you know, to out to into this world of women. And I would stand as close to these five women who called themselves lesbians as I possibly could without, But I didn't talk to them, and I'm sure that they had a whole spot that I bet going out on me. You know, I didn't know anything about that, and I would stand really close to them and try to listen to what they said and and just really I was totally enamoured of them. And then I'd go home and Peter would say you know, I mean, I. I hated him for a lot of reasons, but really, this was so unfair, you'd say, Oh, do you have a good time? You know, And I'd say, Shut up, you fucking prick. You know, and I'd go on and on. I was so angry to have to move from that world, that really I found. So just like you were saying attractive, those women were so attractive to me, Um, and so exciting. And then I go back to my life. And of course, he was the way all he was trying to do was be friendly. He allowed me to go, allowed me to go and, uh, you know, I just to to fit back in that box after I'd seen them. It was really hard. And I think that sometimes now, with the heterosexual women of our age, like 69 I look at them and I think you look so washed out. I mean, and, uh so you know, when's the last time you went to a dance? You know? Never, right? Not for whatever use words. We still do that we still dance. We still it just feels so much freer a life. And I think all along I was drawn to that freedom in a sense. And I think back to my the people I had crushes on when I was in school were the were the single women teachers who, um, probably also were close and lesbians. I mean, I know. Yeah, I don't know. I could. They were wonderful women. I had major crushes at university. I gave all my books away to one woman. I you know, I mean, I had whole major crushes and even spoke to a friend of mine who was the only one I trusted and asked her whether she thought I was a lesbian. But I just It was so improbable. Um, in terms of the baggage that it carried, it just was I hadn't even thought that far in 63. I didn't have a name any of that. But the independent women a lot of women here talk about how, um you know, those the Christchurch murders, whatever you know, that they were that was the first time that they ever heard lesbian was when you know, heavenly creatures the an Perry stuff That that that that the first time they ever heard lesbian was during that trial. And, uh, and it was associated, you know, with killing the mother and things like that. I don't remember it at all. I don't actually know whether When was it In the fifties, and we must have been protected from it. I think Certainly a lot of women of our age talk about. And that time is the first time they heard about the word lesbian heard the word, and it was a negative context. Well, sure they were killers, which would so right know. So, Jen, did you have a similar experience to Ruth in terms of how the, uh, lesbian community here in New Zealand, uh, reacted to to someone with Children? Uh, by the time I became an out lesbian, my kids were all overseas. They were in their thirties. And actually, the people that I was had been friendly with within the lesbian community for many years through my work and through mostly had Children themselves. So I think I came into the community past the time when that was so, um, such a strong feeling. I No, I never experienced that. And I didn't experience that from my own family. I had a cousin who had been an out lesbian since the late seventies, and my parents had her and her female partner to stay in to dinner and things. It was, um yeah, it's just No, I didn't have any of that. And And sometimes I felt when I did come out in in the early part of the century that I didn't deserve to be part of the community because I hadn't gone through the hard times because it was a really positive, fine thing to be in many ways, Uh, amongst my own kids, Um, my parents, my my dad, my mom had died by then. Um, yeah, it was it it I didn't have any of that negativity and at work. I actually worked in a team of councillors where there were well, actually, in the end, that it's the greatest. There were, um, five counsellors. There were two lesbians, two gay men and a Maori woman. It was never designed to be that way. It was supposed to be a general counselling service at a university, but that's how it was. So I felt reasonably, um, part of the in group in some ways, you you're both in quite a privileged position in terms of, um, you've you've seen life kind of both sides in terms of, you know, heterosexual privilege and then also kind of like, It's great, but I'm wondering, can you comment on that? Can you comment on on what it's like seeing things from kind of both sides? I still feel that I came in at a time when I didn't experience so much of the negativity of being lesbian. So I haven't seen the part of it that Ruthie and many others lived through in the seventies and eighties because that they had done the work to make things more possible and more acceptable by the time I joined the community in the in the last 10 years. So I I've probably had the better part of both worlds in some ways. Like I can sit on the gay pride float at the, um, hero parade a couple of weekends ago and and feel very happy and meet up with some of my students and be feel very fortunate to be in that position. I, I had, um II. I think there's a lot you know I don't know why, but like my sense of being a lesbian, they were. When I first came out, it was just a joy, you know? I mean, I didn't I don't think we all were. Certainly. Vancouver was a different place. There was so many lesbians and so many gay guys. They used to say that 40% of Vancouver was gay and lesbian, so it was a very ideal place to come out into. And there was there were lots of dances, lots of fun. And, you know, even though I think later on I could certainly point to a million things like I had, I ran a custody case in my head about keeping my Children almost every day and with the gay guy that I, Richard Brill, that I practised law with we we decide who we would call as witnesses and how we would handle it. So, yeah, I had that fear. And then I heard that the kids are being teased and I was really furious. But on the other hand, like the lesbian community I came out to was a lot of fun. I, I think, to emphasise when people did about the struggle. Maybe there was a struggle. Most So we just had a lot of fun, you know? And we said outrageous things, you know, like, I went to sex, you know, conferences on sex and, uh, just things that were really aroy that people, you know, um, it just was a wonderful place to come out to, and it was part of that whole lesbian feminist thing. So we thought we were changing the world and, uh, you know, and we we were very earnest and, uh, very sometimes politically correct, but I I never had a sense of that femine Nazi stuff that people talked about. I think the only thing I felt like I thought it was, You know, half of the people I knew in the late seventies were named Feather, you know, like I mean, there were these strange names and, uh, you know, people that feather, you know, And in fact, they did that there was once a musical. They put together a lesbian musical and they they sang feather. I once met a woman named and you know, and suddenly my that name will never be the same. You know, all everybody had really weirdo names And, uh, you know, like, I remember having a friend who, uh, she decided she could only wear white cotton. That was, you know, And so she gave away everything, including her dog, who wasn't white, like she gave away. And And at the beginning, we watched her do this, and eventually we realised she was giving away some good stuff, and if she was giving it away, we should take it, too. You know, there was a lot of that kind of really thing. And I think the only problem I really had was this whole idea could could, you know, did six month old boys really sad lesbian energy? If these babies attended our meetings, you know, like I had a hard time with, You know, I thought that they were I guess you can't be a Jew and believe in biological determinism. I just could never see um, all men or, you know, or somehow these little babies have, you know, they had to change your diapers. It wasn't such a big thing that they were there at meetings. They certainly didn't sap lesbian energy, But yeah, there was a whole We were inventing ourselves and that was really fun, you know? And the the only sad thing is, people who were just coming out had real commitments to your relationships continuing. You know, everybody wanted there to be these, uh, you know, and we didn't really know those people who now, subsequently, they found out a little bit about them. But you know, who'd gone on for 50 years, Like in in when I first came out. If we were together for two years, it was an enormous amount of time, right? And so, uh, I think we tried to coddle together ways to have relationships, and it was all quite creative. It was fun. Whereas I think when I came out, one of the things I missed and that sort of moves us into the older people was that there wasn't part of the the flip side of being there and being acceptable as being part. You know, my my dad kind of saying, Yeah, that's fine. Cool. Look forward to meeting with, you know, um was that there wasn't a community to come into in a way that you couldn't. There wasn't the dance, there wasn't something happening. And so that's in a way how I got involved, first of all, in a lesbian cooking group, which was interesting and didn't last very long. Um, but in the lesbian elders village thing, because I thought here is a group that I that of lesbians, that I can be part of because by that time there was not a particularly distinctive lesbian culture. There was so many people. And so in in Auckland, um, there wasn't a meeting place, like we went to Wellington at one stage, and we there was still Friday afternoon drinks weren't there every week, or and there was a lesbian radio station. So there were those things in Wellington. But there was nothing here that you could that you could kind of rock up to if you were a lesbian. Want to meet people before I met Ruth? You know, where did you go to go and meet people? There wasn't anywhere particularly. And so Yeah, that whole sense of excitement and sisterhood and things which I've had some of just by being a feminist in the, um, seventies, had just wasn't there, That was Yeah. And I don't you know, to some extent, you can find out but much more. It's a case that you used to say that if there was at least been having a party, everyone knew about it and went well. That's not the case anymore. You know, there weren't like cliques of people like it was a very especially in Hamilton. You can imagine, you know, like, there we we we all needed each other and hung on to each other. And, uh, and that that was also Hamilton. And when I got there and the, um, late in the beginning of the eighties, I guess, um was a very exciting place because there were very few progressive people there. So there there was a real connection between, um, Maori women and women. Um, and Maori women were just beginning to say they were lesbians, and that whole thing was very exciting. Um, you know, and they were getting a lot of garbage, especially if their parents were J dubs and stuff like that. You know, jobs witnesses, a lot of the Maori women that I knew because we worked on violence against women together. So as a as a group, and they'd be wonderful parties. Uh, everyone would sing the whole and smoke a lot of dope, you know? And the whole, uh, the whole night away till 23 in the morning, you know, And, uh, that was a part of my life. That was very exciting. Uh, because I've never had that involvement, like with certainly with Maori, but even really working up an NGO together stuff like that Because and I don't think it was exactly that way here because there were enough Maori who, uh, and like, the communities were somewhat distinct. I mean, there was, you know, I don't know. You'd have to find out really from Maori, right. But, uh, but Hamilton was a place where we all needed each other, and we and we had a job to do, like work on violence. And in fact, there was a whole lot of socialising that went on to that was lesbian socialising. And we had a group called Lesbians inside the system lists. And, uh, we tried to figure out in the because by the mid eighties, we had with the late eighties, I guess we had reasonable jobs When I first come to New Zealand. Almost all the dogs I knew were on the D PB or they or they were studying, right? And so by the late eighties, people had careers. There were more there were more dies at the university, for instance, clearly and things. And so we used to have this group that met, I don't know, a couple of weeks to talk about. How do you survive inside the system? And it was really AAA great group, because, like, what do you wear? I mean, there were all of those questions. What do you wear to be a dog? What do you had you discuss what you did on the weekend, all of those things Because you were confronting this, uh, this kind of implicitly homophobic environment and you had to survive within that that world. So we were lesbians inside the system. My funniest thing was, uh, when my son Mark got married and I was teaching women studies at the time, uh, women in the law or something at university in my class. Uh, the problem I set for them was, you know, what does the well dressed I wear to be the mother of the groom like this was, you know, he was getting married, and you know, how do you keep your integrity and, uh, you know, as a person and still pull off being the mother of the groom. And so that was something I said for the students. She actually wore an identical outfit. That was the second one, because I was gonna say we finished up with me as a heterosexual woman and Ruthie as a lesbian woman on her in the States and me here as mothers of the room. That was my second wedding. The first wedding was tidy silk, as I recall it, but But they all want to see the photograph. So it was. I guess it was exciting for them, too. I mean, nobody had ever thought about being the mother of the group. There was, you know, like, what is a lesbian way to be that? And and I think that was some of what was fun about it, because there were all of these kinds of real, uh, you know, kind of lager heads that you had to tread traverse, you know, like, uh my, uh, mother was terrified about what I would turn up wear because she'd always see Diesel dies herself. She didn't know what to look for. And when I turned up and I'd had my hair cut and I, you know, kind of had to dress with high heels, she just She probably never loved me more than that day. So but yeah. Anyway, so they were the issues which I guess had somewhat Ellen had already kissed that woman by the time you came out. And that was a big difference. I think that those things Well, I've had a gay boss for the previous 10 years. My closest friends were a lesbian couple that I used to hang out with in their house every two or three times a week. Um, was it It was a very easy place to be looking back at your previous, uh, heterosexual relationships and then looking at your relationship. Now, what are the differences between, uh, a heterosexual and homosexual relationship? I'm a lot more honest in this relationship, but it's very hard to disentangle. What? Um, that this goodness of it and what's the rootedness of it? You know, um, and the meanness of it, I You know, I, um we can swap clothes. Um, but in fact, there are some things that you might expect. I hope you don't mind by saying this, but you know all my other relationships. I've been with a partner who was who cooked as much as I did. But Ruthie's not a cook, so I do more of the cooking than I ever did in a relationship. I do all the driving because he doesn't drive. So in some ways there are things that you might expect that would be different in in the practical kind of way of doing things. I can be my butchie self and be the one that hammers nails. And but I've always been that way, actually, Um, but it's it's more about, um yeah, I don't know. What do you think, I? I just think it's more about our loving of one another in a way that's open. And maybe I've just learned for many long years of more secretive relationships. Um, no. What do you think? Well, I think that there are different times of your life, so when you have young Children, they just take over your life and really like I mean, that was one of the hardest things I tried to do, which was to, uh, be very kind of still looking for lovers and kind of whatever and being a good mother at the same time that there's a lot to and also a career woman in a career where there had been very few women, you know, uh, like, Jane was mentioning something, um, about your men's common room at Auckland University. But we had something similar, which was, uh, at the law school. I went to, um there was a like, a student room with a and everything, and only the men were allowed to sit in it. The women had what they called easements to the coffee urn. You were allowed to walk in, get your coffee and walk out. You know, you weren't allowed to sit there. Uh, Peter went to this place Lamont library at Harvard. Um, and I would walk over with him, and women weren't even allowed into the foyer. It'd be fucking freezing, and I would have to wait outside while he would. And some of those books were only at Lemont Library, and no woman could go into it. I, I jokingly said, but not so jokingly. Even now, we just burned down the place. But then we just It was, like, cap in hand that they let us in there. You know, like we were, uh, you know, grateful. I don't know how grateful we were even at the moment, but somewhat grateful, Like it was just so atypical. You know, I had eight now more than 50% of law women in my law school graduate because there were eight women out of 200 you know, 50 some odd guys. Uh, it it made it very hard. And there were no day care centres. So there was a whole thing about your life. Just got taken over with, kind of if you had, like, you had three kids, I had three kids. It takes a lot of time, you know. And so and I think for the Children, there's no question that my kids would have preferred if I'd been, um, asexuals and just kind of geared around them, you know? Of course, because I had X amount of time and and I had a lot more to shove in. And I had time for which is really how I lived my married life. Mostly as and for the Children. Yeah, so but I lived it sexually and wanted to go to dances and wanted to have relationships and fell in love. And so there was a lot to juggle. And so as you get older and the kids got older, less of that they just took less time and freed up a bit of time. You know, our relationship is the relationship of grandparenting. Grandparent. Yeah, we're grandparents and and that's different. We don't have that, you know, everyday grind of it. I mean, there's a lot of wonderful things about having Children, but it's also a tremendous grind on a daily basis. Just it's like at my sense is you can feel very differently about this. But you know, there are holidays and birthdays. You can look back and say, Oh, yeah, it's been great, but a lot of it is just juggle. I mean, somebody I knew wrote a book about how women juggle I. I juggled a lot and lots of times I dropped the ball. No I. I loved being a mother, and, um, it was easier because I worked as a um I've worked in secondary schools and universities, so I always had more holidays. I had my own mom and dad who were great support. Um, yeah, I did a lot of studying, and I do. I guess I prioritised job, study, parenting over relationship. And that's what's different from and I Yeah. So as Ruth was saying, how how kind of relationships change depending on the kind of age of people, What does a relationship mean to you both now and in your late sixties? It feels very precious. I used to have these sort of dreams of walking hand in hand as an old person along the beach with a lover, and Ruthie and I do a lot of walking hand in hand along the beach, and it's very nice, Um, amongst other things. So I think we can definitely look. This is the poly in me, which I am, but we can definitely look ahead. And we've done some wonderful walking over the Tasman and the Queen Charlotte and and I hope we do a lot more of that. So, having companionship rather than loneliness, moving into years where our health is less steady. Um, I have been very lucky with my health throughout our relationship. Really, I haven't been unwell at all I had my phrase with health in my thirties. Um, so it's it. It involves, um, mutual caring, which is in a way, like, I guess, because Ruthie did her Achilles tendon and because she had her stroke. I've been very aware that it's really great. We have a friend at the moment who's just had an accident and is living on her own to be to have someone loving it and and together. So to look ahead and to be able to make some plans together for what we want to do over the next 20 years, we talk about, um, that feels really good. I think for me it's a It's a really interesting thing for me to be my most aware of being a sexual being in my sixties, and that's, um, unexpected and different and sometimes challenging because it's a whole new way of being And, um, it's lovely to be looking at having more time to do like I never did any overseas travel till I met. I lived overseas, but I didn't travel overseas. I never did any travel till I met Ruthie, and we've done quite a bit and planned to do some more so I think we look we can plan together to some extent what we would do when we're not both earning our professional incomes or part a fraction of them. Um, we're lucky to have a lovely place to live. We've had to look at what we'll do when we can't live in that setting anymore. Being part of this being the oldest village group has helped us to focus our discussions about what we want as in community. And I've certainly pulled away from that idea of a purpose built lesbian village to wanting something much more like a a virtual community of close people, many, but not all of whom would be lesbian. Um, and that idea of how one can support other people when you have health crises or where you become disabled to do things. And that feels like a very companionable and collaborative thing that we're doing together to look ahead. Well, yeah, I think I think like, um, the nice thing really is like it's taken us years to get to this place because we're totally different people. And, uh, I think that, um, I, you know, like we had similar friends for a long time, and not one of them thought of introducing us to each other like they never dreamt of us being together. And in fact, when Jane first got together with me, her friends warned her off me. You know, So she's a lovely person, but she's not your sort of, you know, and and they sort of tried to come up with a kind of a date for her. And, you know, they were so uninteresting. The women they came up with, the G didn't notice, right? You know, they've been they've been pushing, but they saw you as much more respectable, I think, and much more kind of traditional. And so, yeah, but I've been able to The good thing that Dr Jan I think has in a wonderful way, like my life is, uh is just much more together than it ever was. And, uh, and and kind of fun, you know, like on a you know, I. I used to have, you know, giant love and then depression and, you know, never thought, you know, I was always the kind of person who stayed too long. And that's a mistake in relationships, because by the time I would leave. I'd really hate the person. You know where I left? Uh, you know, like, two or three years earlier. I, I you know, it didn't have to go on that sort of empty, empty, empty thing, which just makes you really dislike people. So I, uh um II I see Jane me as being much more friends and, uh, you know, and I mean as well as lovers, right? Like and And we kind of have worked out a way of living together, so we're both comfortable, but we're still really different. Like I'm still the kind of dancer or something. And you've come along with dancing. But it wasn't something that was a part of your life, for I'm not a party girl. Like he is a party girl. Yeah, but I and I've realised I'm not as much of a party girl as I once thought right. I mean, maybe the and I and I like those like, this is the first relationship. I think in my life that I didn't have to keep going out like I it was like I I never trusted. Sometimes we stay in even in the home. I grew up in as a kid. It was too dangerous to stay at home. You never knew what was gonna happen, right? And And that kind of continued in my life where there could be these things. And so I'm much more trusting that life just goes along and is OK. And yeah, and and And that's perfect. I mean, I can't tell you how wonderful it is, and we have some wonderful moments. Dan criticises herself of being a Polly Po Po Po. You know, we had totally different things about, though. I have to say, the kids grew up similarly. I mean, the yoga read stories, right? Just different ones. And I mean, uh, you know, we had very six quite successful Children. Uh, so they all got that kind of class thing, uh, privilege to, um but yeah, I think I think we were not a likely couple. And it took us a while to to be able to smooth out some of those, uh, sort of pricks. And, uh and I think we're both satisfied with their lives now, So if you look at growing old to get them, I know you don't want to, because next time. But Devora says to me, My daughter, she says, Yeah, but look at the look at the alternative. You don't get to be 70 you die, right? So But I don't want to, because I'm afraid of that too, anyway. Yeah, I. I see us as kind of, um, always keeping a really vital like I like our los I like our lives. I like where we live. I like, uh, but if we have to move out of here, we'll be We manage. The reason would be for the steps of whether we could manage up the steps. Because when I had my operation, you know, I had to push myself up 14 steps. I knew exactly how many steps there were, and it was a It's worked out fine. But I, I wouldn't want to have to go back to that If it was a permanent thing of having to always go up the stairs on your knees and down on your bottom, it wouldn't work. We'd have to move a lot of wheelchair. And I guess I realised now, too, that I don't have to live in a lesbian community. There was something that made we'd always joked about a kind of a lesbian friends, uh, old age home and people had always talked about that and things. But it, um, you know, having worked with, um, kind of on looking at it, we just don't have the money like we don't. There's just no way to get together that money. Lesbians don't have a lot of money and and the money that we have or in our already existing houses And so how do you raise money? You know, we're too old to you'd have to have a group. I think this idea that some of the gay men in town have of getting an apartment building that kind of can have a critical mass of gays is a very good idea, you know, because because you would have that money and you would be selling and moving in. But what what love was about. And I think because we had an architect as the prime mover and and that was a way to begin, was always about building a sustainable community. And, you know, we're talking millions and millions and millions of dollars, and there's no excess money. So it came down to people needing a fairy godmother. Well, it's hard to believe in one, you know, like somebody having all that money. Then we had to realise that even if we had all that money, we might not live. Might not be the first thing on our list anyway, because I, I think it's, I think it's really different to live with a critical mass rather than everybody being. I think you need to have enough people to make it a legitimate option and one that you can, you know, that's just accepted, you know. And that doesn't mean everyone. And and it certainly doesn't exclude men either, like gay men or even potentially straight men. Well, certainly in straight women. I mean, I'm just thinking, like yesterday we visited a friend of ours who's been in hospital and took books and food and brought her washing in and things. Now I'd be perfectly happy for her to, as a straight woman, to be part of a community that we were living in as we grew older. I don't think it is only about a great believer in Adrian Rich is lesbian continuum. I think that, uh, you know, we're we're it's not like we're either lesbian or not lesbian or and now I've been criticised by somebody who says, I have to say transsexual and everything, too. I mean, can't even that binary is certainly being thrown away, too. But But in in general, I think that what Adrian Rich said is that a lot of women's lives in general are along the lesbian community. Like for most women, their best friend will be a woman, not a man, not their husband. Some women, yes, but they'll often have women friends who are their major. I absolutely did. Right through my heterosexual living relationships have best friends who were women. Yeah, and so you know, there so you could see those women along a lesbian continuum. I think I think the hardest thing for being a lesbian, uh, sometimes is that your best friend is often your lover. And so when the relationship breaks, that's, uh, you really lose a tremendous amount. Whereas if you have separate friends from you, you it's not all your eggs in one basket or something like that. You know, I don't I don't know what it's like for gay men and, you know, like, uh, Yeah, like I think Jan is my best friend, you know? And I think as well as my lover, well, that invests a tremendous amount in her, Um, much more than I ever had When I was in a relationship with a man. My husband was never my best friend, even when we were good together. He was never my best friend. And I was thinking, though, about the living in community, like we've been away on holiday with a lesbian couple who are friends of ours and just the ease of living in the same household with people where you don't even have to think twice about kissing or sitting with your arm around each other. Or, um, it's just very, very easy. And that's partly because they're the people they are, and partly because they they I think, you know, I think it's been there would be it would be different if we were away on holiday with a straight couple. And I think the same about living in close proximity and sharing bathrooms and, um so if you were to live in a community with shared communal things, which is not my ideal at all, I want the independence of a separate dwelling. I don't know how it would be. I've thought about Earth Song, Um, as a community where there are some lesbian couples but certainly heterosexual couples and families. It's out west. It's a, um, eco village. Yeah. Um, yeah. I don't know. As we look ahead when you become independent and I'm involved a bit in some research around, um, care for lesbian and gay people in In in, um aged care facilities and I if we ever had to move into a place where we needed that kind of level of care, I would want to have sussed out well before places where it was acceptable and OK for the staff and for the other residents and for everyone to be part of a same sex relationship. Um, and I believe there are one or two places where that might be OK. Um, but mostly I think it would be quite difficult. But then the whole issue of people being in a sexual relationship in aged care is a whole major issue. Anyway, that guy was really annoyed at at this lesbian play in the in the thing just from not at the play. The play was great, but we stayed for what I thought would be the really fun thing, which was to discuss it. And the woman who was the author of the play said, Well, really, I don't see it as a lesbian play. I see it as a play about human beings, and it's like the woman next to me that we went with, you know, she just she just had to take a deep breath because the only reason any of this happened was because they were lesbian. They were kissing in the supermarket, you know? I mean, sure, they were human beings, but it do We have to really take it out to human beings as if it has no kind of, you know, none of the issues that they raised would have mattered unless these women were certainly gay, at least if not lesbian. And so you know, that whole desire to put it to you know, it's all about human beings. I. I find that tedious. Um, because it isn't, you know, like we don't have to make everybody feel comfortable as the flip side to them, making us feel uncomfortable, you know, like, well, I said something recently that people didn't like, but I like I have, and a lot of my friends have worked on lots of heterosexual women's issues. I mean, I spent my life working around violence against women, even though I know some lesbians are in abusive relationships. No question. Uh, the vast majority of women in this country are in abusive relationships or abusive relationships with their their partners sexual men. And, uh, you know, I I've worked a lot abortion rights. I've worked a lot on abortion rights and keeping women's choices to control their sexuality at times that I would never become pregnant because I was already a lesbian. You know, uh, I would like to see some of that reciprocation from straight women. Uh, I. I don't see it as much as I would like to the support for lesbian issues, Uh, like, um, this Whatever people think about marriage, a marriage equality, uh, thing I think is a clear cut example of, uh, you know, I get disappointed. That's one. That's the only reason I sometimes, you know, um, I've heard women say, Oh, you all You're so lucky. Straight women. You're so lucky to be lesbian. You know, I wish I could be attracted to a woman, but of course I can't. You know, like this kind of, uh, you know, and you just want to put your fingers down your throat and throw up, you know, because it's like a a total lack of vision on their part rather than anything else. You know, like I And this is really different, I think for gay men to like maybe we talked about this like I had a I had a PhD student, Nigel Christie, and he believed that he was born gay and that he, his coming out was his acceptance of his gayness in his like adult life or his teenage life. Like that acceptance of what he was. I never thought I was born a lesbian. III. I just you know, the sky was the limit, that's all. And I could get into II. I could see, you know, but I knew that I could be involved with women. I could be involved with guys, but I and I preferred being involved with women sexually, and I prefer being involved with them because because I already had three Children and then a lot of men you take care of. You know, like, uh, Joanna. Russ has a very funny thing When she writes about a woman, she says the object of a woman when her husband comes home from work is to hit about on the topic that he wants to discuss for the evening. And then you don't have to say anything or he'll just talk, you know, like so you know, in doing that now, whether or not you believe that I had known a lot of men like that, you know where and certainly sexually, I've known a lot of men who just went into overdrive by themselves and for God, You were even there. It just could have been an inflatable dog, you know? And so, uh, you know, at some point they just went into their own places. So, uh, one of the things I like best about being a lesbian is I think there is more talking. There is more caring. And three Children was enough. I didn't need another kid. And even if he was a breadwinner, you know, like and so, yeah, I've, uh I mean, I think that's it wasn't that I was born a lesbian. But just the way people are socialised and what they expect and what male privilege is often I just really didn't want to keep doing that in my life. I'm really interested in in in the the whole kind of aged care area. And one of the comments I've heard from people in the past is that it's not so much the staff who are not, you know, um, same sex supportive. But it's the other. That's what we heard out in. You know, if you're gonna subsidise church groups to run, um, aged care homes, Anglican social services or what do we expect? The whole institution is homophobic. How can we expect that having that that's the problem, right? That they the kind of, uh, you know, like, I don't think that I mean, that may be a problem, but that's not what you're talking about. You're talking about the people that come in from the world where they've been, um, and and a lot of the aged care places now are run by, um, big business. Not by church. I mean, sure, it's run by big Anglican, but increasingly they're run by big. Uh, insurance companies and big businesses. But the issue seems to be about the people that come from the world, our peers and don't expect us to be in relationship with the same sex. It's not so much the caregivers or the management as the other residents in the home. You see, I don't I don't know how anyone knows that, I. I don't even believe that, Um I. I think there's a preselected thing that comes especially in these church dominated things, where you're likely to get people who've come out of those environments who have some connection with those institutions I don't know. And so I'm not saying everyone, but, you know, I, I don't think, you know, um, a Catholic service thing is going to produce a non homophobic environment. It's just not part of the era. I mean, I find that really sad with some of the guys. I play bridge with some of these men who really want to stay in the church, you know, any way that they can stay in, and I can see why it's part of their background and something that gave them a lot of energy. But I, I I mean They have a really long road to hoe, don't they? Because I mean, the actual church doesn't many of the people within that church and the church institutional doesn't want them. And so it's It's kind of, you know, it's almost like a nostalgia, I guess, because the I don't know, I think it's it's really hard I. I you know, we've always thought that younger dogs would take care of older dogs and then we'd have employment for them and, uh, and stuff like that, whether that will happen. And I think lesbians are overrepresented in caring professions. Anyway. So, uh, you yes. So you know, there there are those people who would be And that's why we wanted something that would be like a lesbian space within within them, which I think. But we just don't have the money, you know, like I think if the money were there, it would It would be, uh and you know, like I wanted to apply for government grants. Well, it's very hard to get government grants. Even when what was her name? Marian. You know Marian Street? When she was the Housing Minister, we went and talked to her. We thought. OK, lesbian housing minister. But there's there's very little money available and very, um, so we're gonna have to do it some other way. And so that's why I think Jane's idea of a virtual community where we like, for instance, this community where we live. Um um Lisa Prager, who owns Garnett Station, which is, uh, up on Garnett Road. So she did a party to the one K Club, which was, and all the lesbians from one K around Garnet Station. It was the resilience of women, you know, like we're really there and so so we could work out ways that we We're aware that in this little tiny street there are just off the top of my head. There are three lesbian couples and two gay couples in, you know, a street of 30 houses, and there's probably more that we don't know about so we could work out something where we live separately. But we kind of like, you know, called each other and make sure we've woken up or, you know, stuff there. There's stuff that that that's gonna have to be organised, and I think it will happen, Don't you think? Because hardly anybody goes into those age care. They're over 80 you know, and things like that. So But I think they have. They must have had to change because Viagra has changed a lot of those men straight men. I don't know gay men in these places where they become very much more sexually active than, uh than they had been before, you know? So I think that that whole thing of see you know, like, there's a I went to look at, um, a model, um of a house here in Auckland where you rented. You didn't own your apartment, but and it was purpose built, but it was always single rooms. Like there was not the ability for a couple to live in that. Yeah, same sex or opposite sex? It was No, it it it's that you're not supposed to be coupled when you're old. So we are. But I mean, coupling means more than but it can mean that too. So you might want to have some some walls that might kind of protect you from the neighbours. Don't you think from, uh, you know them hearing you? You're hearing them. I mean, it can mean that. Of course. I mean, even lesbians. You know, the big joke in the eighties was always about what they called LBD, you know, lesbian bed death. That was the the big thing that everyone worried about and worried if they suffered from LBD. You know, and, uh and certainly I knew a lot of couples who were never sexual with each other. Uh, but very loving of each other, Very caring and massaging of each other and lots of touching lots of everything. And it was, you know, they simply weren't genital to genital. And even now we know several women who they tell the relationship is over, But they continue to live together. They continue to take care of each other, travel together, you know, Incredible. So there are We're gonna I mean, that's one of the things we're going to have to do, just like when we came out. For those of us who came out in the late and those of us who came out in the sixties, like, oh McLeod or something in her book that's even different. But those, like I came out in the late seventies. Well, we had to kind of make up our there were no role models. And I don't think there are role models for getting old in our in the lesbian world, either. I mean, we have some women getting old, but we don't have any sense of how it's done as a community because the community probably less than the gay community but has always been on youth. You know, young women in bars, you know, or or Or then there's the upper middle class lesbians, like we are who have house parties or dinners or something like that and don't go to the bars. And, you know, like some of the really good things, all the pride things where different ages come together in a way, uh, one of the things they've been having at the Charlotte Museum, which is the Lesbian Museum in Auckland. Are these what they're calling intergenerational discussions? And I think that that's really important because I really now believe that that group of us who came out as lesbian feminist, uh, and we thought we were part of the revolution, and that's the way it was going, like we are really a vestigial group, and the a lot of women aren't really, uh, don't regard that group that we were as a liberating. They even see it as too politically correct. And like, that's not how I saw. Well, we encountered that a lot down at the human rights conference. Mhm. Yeah, like, there was a real objection to there being just a lesbian caucus. You know, like, um, a lot of queer women didn't identify as lesbian. Didn't want to go to. So they spent the whole lesbian caucus arguing about why there were other caucuses. You know, like, uh, and poor Alison Lary looking totally dismayed, you know, like, uh because it hadn't been an issue when she organised it that she'd even thought about. And we're seeing a lot more women in transition than you ever saw before. I mean, that wasn't you know, like in the seventies, people talked about roles and things, but they they didn't talk about transitioning. They talked about whether Yeah, but your family, I mean, there were people like, what's her name? Leslie. You know, Stone. But blues, um, you know, who were writing about having had a mastectomy and things for, uh, you know, as part of a sex change kind of thing, but it really wasn't much. S and M was a much harder discussion than that certainly was a big discussion in Vancouver. There was a, uh, a collective called the Sam Collective from San Francisco, and they used to do proselytising missions, you know, and they came up to Vancouver once and went right through the community. You saw all kinds of people with bruises discussing different forms of sex, you know, like they've always been things right. You've mentioned a couple of times about kind of finances. And I'm just wondering the disparity in kind of, uh, pay between men and women. How does that affect you? Kind of later in life and especially as as as a lesbian couple, Mhm. I think it's more that Children still take money and you give it to them. I mean, I don't have Yeah. I mean, I I'm still not in a way that once I did, but I certainly I mean, my kids still need money, and, uh and, uh, and I have some discretionary cash. So, um, I think I was quite lucky in terms of my job. Well, no, There was a guy who was just a chuck at the law school, and he never published anything. And subsequently I heard he got paid a lot more than me. But we didn't know those things, right? But I was lucky. I. I seemed to have a good job. And, uh, I I didn't experience the, uh even though I probably did get paid less. I didn't really experience much of that. But, uh, like, for instance, I never even bought into a superannuation plan until my youngest child finished university because they went to school from here into Canada. And so that's expensive, you know? And so, uh, to me, it's not so much the wage disparity between men and women as my ongoing role as a supportive mother. I'd say that for me, too. But I'm really aware that from our generation there would be a lot of women who hadn't earned in the same way that, um, men had earned. And um, yeah, because I've been in teaching and education and there's been equal pay for quite a long time. Although there hasn't been the opportunity to advance as quickly through different careers as then, it's been OK, but it's I. I totally agree with Ruth. It's like if I've made decisions and given, uh, yeah, to to support my kids in various ways. Um, and also in the early days that it wasn't didn't seem like a sensible It didn't seem like a possibility to join a superannuation fund until I was in my forties. So what I get now is from half a career, not a whole career. Even though I've worked, Um, all my life I've never not worked. And me, too. I couldn't buy until the fifties till June finished. So you know, they were those things. That and you know, if they moved my son moved from a little place in Canada to Washington DC. If they needed a house, well, you know they need a down payment. They were There were things you just kind of pay towards you and it's it's funny. Sometimes it's funny and it still comes up. I have a friend who has a lot of money. She's a dike, and she has a lot of money. She never had any Children. Uh, she never married, and she had a very good career as an academic throughout her whole time and one time, we were at somebody else's house in island and she's I said, Oh, I hear you've retired blah, blah, blah And you know and yeah, I wish I could retire. But a I think I'm, you know, handcuffed to my computer for the rest of that. And, uh, she said, Oh, she said, Well, I made choices in my life, you know? And by that she meant she made choices not to have Children and not to marry. And they said, I just looked at it and I said, You know, I can't remember ever making choices in my life. That's not how I I mean. One just had those Children, you know? I mean, in some ways, you I don't know that was something that one did you know, or I did. And, uh, I certainly, you know, I wasn't begrudging her the money, but there was no question if you didn't kind of keep giving your income, you know, to help support a family, and I was a single mother for a very long time. Then you, um you you didn't You just couldn't accumulate very much cash because kids, three kids, you know, I had a a son one time I left him at a restaurant. I was so angry at him. And I was, uh I was making hardly anything. And he wanted these hockey skates. He played hockey, you know, wet hockey for in Canada, and and they were going to be. His feet were still growing, you know. And then there was to be a really great hockey player. You needed these technologically low skates, you know? And they were, I don't know, $600 a skate. I don't know, you know? And how long would they live? I was so furious, you know, I just couldn't believe it. I mean, like, this is what he wanted. This was his bottom line. This is, you know, it's like, get alive. You know, I just don't have that kind of money. And I think that was the problem that my kids, uh, also grew up thinking they were really upper middle class kids. And I was the one bankrolling that, and, um, and it got quite expensive sometimes. You know, my son Mark, especially he always liked brand names. And he liked this and that. And at some point, you just go. No, I'm not gonna spend money on fancies technological skate, and you'll grow out of it. Eight months and I'm not doing it. And it was like you were a bitch, you know, because that's what everybody had. You know, speaking of families, what about things like, um, wills and powers of attorney? I mean, as you age, What? What are your thoughts on those kind of things? I should have done a lot more than I've done. I haven't actually even gone through with getting a divorce, so I'm feeling very, um, guilty. I feel there's a lot of things I should have done that I haven't done. Ideally, I think that I should have a divorce, That we should have some kind of a legal contract, if not a and maybe a marriage and the time that will come. Um, I do have a will, Um, but I haven't updated it for some time. Um, I think those things are really important, and I haven't done them. I believe that my I. I don't think that would be a problem with my family in recognising Ruthie as my partner and the one that would decide all the things if I were to deny, and we got a verbal agreement about what we had. But it would be better if it was in writing. Yeah, we don't really, um a lot of people are getting agreements and things we haven't done that, um, we know what would be in it if we had it. I think pretty well, we talked about it, but we just haven't done it. It's just not been a top priority. And maybe that's avoiding the growing old thing. I think the living will stuff and everything is is really important. We recently had someone quite close within my family who's deteriorating quite badly with Alzheimer's, and we were just We had a long discussion about this the other night about power of attorney and living wills and choice to die. And that's yeah, something that we need to work on our finances because we own. I mean, that's the problem with lesbian elders Village, too. Everybody wants to pass money on to their Children, you know? And so if you have you have Children, you don't. Yeah, but if you have Children like you, you just don't want to put all of it into Let's say, uh a property because you actually realise your kids need money over lifetimes. So, um, I think that was the whole issue of your Children. Like one of the things we we've had to do, which we'll have to put into things, is how long does the other one get to stay? Uh, like, neither of us could buy the other one out, and legally, we own half of a mortgage house each. So that's parts legal. I mean, we have other debts, but that's that. Yeah. So neither of us could afford to buy the other one share out bread. So that means in some ways, uh, because we're leaving, let's say our half share to the Children that there has to be some agreement about how long the the the non half sharing owner survivor one, gets to stay in the house. And clearly to me, that changes over time. Um, like, the older you are, the more you might need to or might need to be, at least rehoused some place that So the whole issue of how much of the kids get up front. How long will they wait? All of those are things I think that have been too hard for us to work out. Really? So we haven't done it. You know, like, interesting. Hm. And I think that's partly because we've come together in in our fifties, and we each have a completely separate family. Um, and we've made at least we agree over that, that we will leave to our Children, not to one another. Ultimately, Um, but it's Yeah, that gap. So there's a lot of agreement in this. Yeah, And I think that, you know, lots of couples broke up over these agreements. I didn't know a lot of gay men must have, too, when the Property Relationships Act came in and they had I mean, I think they're good things. You have to talk about these things, but it's like we both juggle. We're still juggling, trying to keep up with work and family responsibility. So we don't This is never a priority for us, but it's gonna have to be. I guess it reminds me very much of that, um, cloudburst film where you've got the two older women and some of the family members don't recognise or don't know, to the extent the relationship between the two women. And so they just think, Oh, they were just like my friends or or whatever. So I mean, does that concern you that that actually your family, some of your family members might not know the extent of your relationship that doesn't extend? I mean, they all know that we're together. Um, I think my sons have been, uh, who don't live here. My daughter is wonderful. I mean, she loves Jay, and she's, but my sons are are not. So it's not clear to me that my I I feel very close to to my grandson and granddaughter, my son Mark. He's got four kids, but the two younger ones, I don't really know, but the two older ones and, um like I Facebook with them. And I've got a photo of me on Facebook at pride with a kind of Afro and things. But I don't Nobody's ever said to them I'm a lesbian. I mean, it's very strange, and I don't know what's going on, so but I But you see now I'm going to Skype with him on his own so we can talk about anything, you know? I mean, you parents straight parents can be real gatekeepers for the kinds of conversations you can have. They may be anyway. Certainly, I think with the kids that are here in New Zealand, which in essence, is my three kids and your daughter. I mean, we have stayed with them all in the double bed they've given us. They've stayed with us in our house. They we are the grannies. That's our identity for the grandchildren, for all of them. And, um, we're a couple and and there's no question about that in any of their minds. It seems to me that one of the potential safeguards of making sure that you know family members don't come in and say, Oh, that was not so much of a relationship is that kind of demonstrative? Uh, you know, both kind of physically and verbally and And what have you in terms of, like holding your hands or kissing and stuff like that? Can you talk to me about, um being demonstrative? Because I think for a lot of people in New Zealand, a lot of, um, certainly gay men, it's very hard to like hold hands walking down the street. We're just so old that people don't see us a sexual being. So if I hold Jan's hand in the street, they probably think I'm limping and she needs to keep me up. You know, we get to a certain age where, um, we're just the whole idea of that. You might be sexual is so far beyond their kin. You know that we can do anything in the street, They'll they'll come up with some other app. If they can't deal with that. Look how and old that person is. It has to be carried down the street by this woman holding her hand. You know, like and I. I think that that's how it is. What do you think? I think because of who Ruth is, I think I'm more demonstrative in public in this relationship than I've been in any other relationship. And that's about me being a reticent person more than about and Ruth not there. Um, so I can remember very early in our relationship when we were in Sydney and Ruthie wanted us to dance together in front of the, um in in in front of a basket down on the W for, and I resisted that, and I've thought about it since. And but I think I would have resisted it, whether we were a sames couple or a a heterosexual couple, because I don't dance in public, you know, not when nobody else is doing it. And so there are all sorts of things around that about my being demonstrative. I think around all our family here that we interact with on a reasonable we have. Don't even think about sitting with our arms around each other or kissing each other in front of them or having a hug or II. I don't think there's a issue, do you? No, no. But I think you know it's the same old garbage. I mean, homophobia is still alive and well, So, um, I mean, one of the worst things about having Children is to warn them and not to get hurt by other people, so to warn them what they can say and what they can't say. And, um so that happened to my grandson, Jacob, which, uh, somebody in class when he was in Room two or something or other, said boys marry girls and girls marry boys, and that's the way life is. And he said, No, that's not true. My Granny Jam is married to my Granny Ruth. And and And so, of course, Then he became a fag and somebody that they could laugh at. So, uh, you know, So you set kids up, right? I mean, that's always the the balance is. So do we really let him know that the rest of the world isn't going to accept that? Uh, do you, uh, you know, what do you tell them? I have a friend who has a kid with autism, and she I've heard him say, Oh, those are boys and clothes. They're so immature. One day they'll grow up too, You know, that's his comfort when they get him, right. So I don't know what What do we offer as comfort? You know, those people are just idiots, you know, that's what you offer. But you realise that Yeah, like you make a decision for yourself to be a dyke, right? And you you don't realise that your Children's Children, by just being spontaneous, may just step into shit that they're gonna take it for for no reason whatsoever. And the same can be true. You just don't know. Finn can go and say something. He's for right, and he could say something and get it. So then you have to. You have to be ready to cuddle them and and help them. Do you know it's It's It's It's not accepted. And there were kids. Like, uh, Jacob tells me that one of the kids he's playing with at school is this really Christian kid. I mean, uh, you know, very religious. I think that would be a problem. I really do. I mean, how will they he accept our relationship? He can't, you know, like, uh, I I may have told you I once used to have when I lived in Hamilton. I used to have this wonderful, uh, poster. And it was It had all these words ConEd lot more everything. And then it said we are the women men have warned us about, you know, And, uh and, uh, Jeremy had this friend and the father dropped him off, you know, and, uh, and the you know how you have these poses. You don't even remember They're on your wall, right? And he said, Is that true? He said to me, which I don't know. I said, I guess so I don't know. I never saw that kid again. Never. He was never allowed to come to my house again. So, you know, I, I have more of a feeling of that as a Jew, I think than you know, because I have. I mean, those things happen in that environment, too. So you just can't. So I'm I'm more sensitive. My mother was very sensitive about things like that. People calling people dirty Jews. I mean, she told me I should never marry anyone, not Jewish, because someone would turn around and call me a dirty Jew. Otherwise So, uh, I, I have those feelings, but I think it's a shame if you think about this. You know, seven year old with this bright face. Who says and my granny was married to my granny? Jim, you don't really want to close them down and say, Well, actually, Jacob, if you say that, man, they're gonna call you a fag. You know, like you know, and all of that stuff. Because that's what they did to Jeremy. When he wore his helmet, I forced him to wear a helmet before it was against the law not to wear a helmet on his bike and some kid knew that I was a lesbian at his school and he was wearing his helmet, and that's what they did. They just really took him out in terms of all of these things, just because he was wearing a helmet when, you know. I mean, and that meant he was somehow less than them, you know, like I could have murdered them all for doing that. You know, I've never shot a weapon, So that's good. I don't know how to. Yeah, no, your your kids were older. It was really different, I mean, and by the time Jane's kids came into this, it was groovy. To have a lesbian for a mother like that was the only thing they were missing, you know, in their lives. And we went and, um stayed in London last January for six for a month, looking after my youngest grandchild, who was six months old at the time, And me and I mean there was no, it's no repercussions because they're too little in the way from the Jacob thing. But we were introduced at the daycare where we had to drop them off and pick them up. Um, this is, um, Finn's granny. Jan and her partner, Ruth. Just kind of wrapping up. Now what? What? What do you think are the biggest concerns, um, around ageing as you age specifically about being a lesbian couple. I mean, the biggest concerns are to stay healthy and one's own mind. Right? Mind? Um, I think, yeah, Yeah, just stay healthy. And but as far as being lesbians growing old, we want money. We have to win the Lotto, and then we could go around the world. Yeah, I guess. I guess as we raise all of those little things, I realise we need to do this. I'm really weird, you know? So I couldn't come back and, like, that's where my I stopped on this conversation, you know, because I mean, I don't know what if I fell out with one of your kids for some reason, uh, you know, it just gives them too much power. Um, I guess I'm thinking back about the thing. Like when Ruthie was in hospital. Um, and I was there supporting her a lot of the time. Public hospital last year. I mean, there was no issue, really with any of the hospital staff that I was her partner. Um, when I when we were getting home to go home and I said, Well, I'm gonna have to do the bath thing. Um, as her partner, you know, they still thank goodness for that and took me into the bathroom and taught me. I mean, nobody turned to here honestly, did they? Nobody, they were. What did she say? We're only too delighted to have someone who's here physically and able to do the caring. It's it's It's just It just wasn't an issue. I didn't and I was allowed to go into the room and hold your hand and you had the anaesthetic took on, and we just assumed we could do that and nobody raised an eyebrow at any point. Yeah, I think it was fine. We just assume you know that it will be a certain way. So I it it might. It would possibly be different and probably in in residential care. Um, but certainly as far as the public hospital system, we've been very open about when we've had to about being a couple, and we've been treated with respect except that one woman when she was doing the past on your leg, Do you remember? And you and you say, Oh, the whole issue about, um, marriage came up and she was Yeah, and she was really against us, and we weren't sure with us. At least she was totally against, you know, gays being able to adopt, you know? So she thought I was just a good friend. I mean, look at you of a certain age, they don't even think of you as a couple, but the doctors and nurses, When I learned to bath you, they knew we were a couple. Yeah, but they also you could just as well be Elizabeth and Jerry and they, you know, it's a It's a funny thing. I think you get to an age where you're seen as AEX, regardless of whether you are or not. But that must be really, um Well, I'm I'm kind of bristling because you're in such a vulnerable position in a hospital. Like, you know, if your legs being blasted and and you're getting that kind of conversation and you think I don't need this right now, you know I really don't need this. Well, I She was, um, a black woman from Africa. And I said to her, I guess you don't know. But in 1968 blacks couldn't marry. Until then, they couldn't. Blacks couldn't marry whites in America. I guess. What? And they used all those arguments about God, you know, the same exact arguments. So she shut up. You know, like I mean, you know, you can't. I mean, but she certainly did feel that. And they all agreed with her and the other women standing around. There's no, you know, so it would be much harder, right? I mean, I had much more stuff with ageism in that operation than I had with that. Like they told me that, uh, you know, like, at one point the guy said, Well, if you were 25 years old, I'd tell you what you can't do, but, you know, you're not gonna do anything anyway, right? And it was just like, you know, or I had to beg for the operation at a certain point because it was, like, all you're going to do is sit on a couch, right? You You know, like I walked in last year, you know, and It was just that appealing on that very requesting to a doctor and obviously just been to Italy, too. He went, OK, that's the operation. We're doing it, you know, like, and it was simply that ability because it was like, you know Oh, well, you're just a kind of old woman. You don't know what it Why would you be, uh, needing this? You know, uh, work Anyway, they did it and everything, but it it was the ages that was there was really a lot, you know? Yeah, like it's funny. You just don't expect it. And if you couldn't advocate for yourself or you didn't have a friend or a partner there, then you'd really wouldn't get most of the things that you could you would deserve because they wouldn't. They just think you give around the neighbourhood and that's it. You know, it would. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think that our lesbians things are we're We're very privileged couple. We have money, we have health. We have support of family support of family. It's hard to, you know, I mean, it's really come a long way. Really? Since, uh, I first came out, You know, like I mean, really, For any of us who came out in the seventies, I think we would find it hard to believe that marriage was a possibility, you know? And, uh, and it is. I mean, I found it really interesting that the top what's her name? You know, Linda got attacked for, uh, you know, by or, you know, was told that therefore, she was proving none of us needed marriage. I mean, I didn't know why they'd had a civil union then, but, you know, I I I think it shows how far that Christian right has come that they're not even questioning, uh, that her right to have some sort of civil union. But really, to me, I never wanted a civil union because I never wanted to collude with my own, uh, oppression. You know, I just I just felt separate, but equal was an oppressive position, and it wasn't equal anyway because we knew about adoption and things like that. But I you know the way gay men, especially now, are creatively making their own Children in India and things and then bringing them back. The whole thing of international surrogacy has become a giant issue in this country, and it really And I think it's, um you know, I mean, like, just recently, you may know them. This gay couple, he seems to be a psychiatrist through Waikato Hospital. And they had a surrogate from the states, a friend of theirs. But, uh, the woman carried twins, and they were each the biological. Each of the men was the biological parent of one of the twins. And, uh so, like, they the they were born twins. And the whole idea of, um, of adopting them, uh, you know, and and And we have a friend that they've used the gay brothers sperm of the non biological mother. So two women. And and so there's been total buy in from the grandparents and everything because, of course, it's there. If they want to see it that way, they the child is biologically related to. I think similarly, we're fine. Look, we found there with AIDS, didn't we? A more a different way to grieve, like with the quilt and with the there was the need. And then we grieved differently. And now, uh, there are rules of our Children and and our community wants to have Children so lesbians don't have to go through that. But gay men do, and they are. And they're finding amazingly creative ways to make Children, you know, like, uh uh, you know, within the law. So I think it's it's really, really interesting. It's like it like as a an academic lawyer. The law has stayed so far behind. It's really the The community has forced these changes they would never have been given, you know, like we've taken them. And in the end, it just so much has happened that there was no way to stop it. Don't you think so? I mean, the whole recognition of our families because so much of the coverage, you know, there'd be these, Really? I remember a guy who, uh he was this closeted gay guy, and he would write things about cohabiting contracts and this and that, and, you know, and never once said who he was and then would go cruise places at night. You know, it was just lives aren't like that as much anymore, are they? I mean, those those lives of total secrecy are, you know, much less. I mean, it can be just as hard to come out in any given family, I'm sure. Just finally, what do you think are some of the benefits of ageing? Well, my super card that lets me go to you for free and on the bus. Yeah. Yeah, that's a benefit. So I never thought I'd say Winston Peters as a benefit, But he has, I think, um, the possibility and actually the reality of, um because I've always worked full time and a half really very long hours, um, to have the possibility of more leisure time, like I now have trouble thinking today is Saturday because my weekends start on a Friday and, um, that's that's nice. That's different from how it's ever been. So the the possibility of more leisure time is a real advantage, I think, um, not feeling so pressured to actually do things out in the world, but being able to actually just mooch around a bit, it feels good. Yeah, um and I think I didn't want to say too much about this, but there's something that I I think that as I grow older, I'm more reflective, and I'm more really to kind of think about how my life fits into the world, and, um and that's good to be a bit more contemplative and a bit more mindful, I guess about, um, What sort of meaning my life has and has had. Well, this has been a journey I've been on for now a while of making meaning. Um, at the same time, I'm cutting back on work and wanting to do that, and yet at the same time, being afraid, because work structures my like and I have a certain number of groupies that are quite, uh, fun to have. And, uh uh, it's going to, um it it has already changed in terms of my, uh and uh So what am I looking forward to? I'm looking to Yeah, to do. I hope I do. Then I mean, one of the troubles for me with working The way I'm working is I haven't freed myself from that to do those things that I say I'm gonna do if I ever get there, You know, so But then, uh, yeah, I like the idea of not being responsible so much anymore. I, I just really given that away. Not on a day to day level of course responsible for dinner or something. But I don't feel like I no longer feel It's my fault if we don't get the revolution. You know, I used to feel that I had to do more, you know, or just keep going. So those limitations can be freeing, you know, not feeling that I have to lead the church. I really, you know, like I'll tell you one thing I've done and I've done it, which is if somebody proposes that I do something and my initial sense is dread, I say no years ago, I used to say, of course, and then steal myself and work up to it, you know, to have a whole battle to deal with it, you know, channel all of my resources. You know that I just couldn't say no. I had to rise to it and do it. Now it It's like why, you know, because like, we've lived long enough to realise that virtually any given thing isn't gonna make any bit of difference, you know, like so why do I have to suffer with it, you know, So I if I feel dread, that's it finished? No. What is the answer? I think it's been good for me. Actually. Give it away. Give some of that away, but you have to make sure you're not left with nothing. Mhm. I think what we have is now at this time in our lives is the possibility of an equal relationship. I've I. I have to say, I never had that before and that was always the dream I had of a lesbian feminist future. And I think that that that's really here. It takes work and everything, but it's worth it. I I never had that kind of equality of relationship before, and it's a joy. The full transcription of the recording ends. A list of keywords/tags describing the recording follow. These tags contain the correct spellings of names and places which may have been incorrectly spelt earlier in the document. 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The original recording can be heard at this website https://www.pridenz.com/jan_and_ruth_profile.html. The master recording is also archived at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand.  For more details visit their website https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1089529. Please note that this document may contain errors or omissions - you should always refer back to the original recording to confirm content.