Oral history interview with Esther S. Katzman

Esther Katzman, founder of Senior Health Resources and former Board Member of Gay Women’s Alternative, discusses her work starting Senior Health Resources, an organization for aging LGBTQ+ people. She also discusses coming out to her family, moving to DC, her involvement in the DC LGBTQ+ community, how being a lesbian has impacted her professional career, and her past and current relationships.

Esther Katzman moved to Washington, DC in 1979 with her girlfriend at the time, whom she met in college. In DC, Katzman became involved in her synagogue and Gay Women’s Alternative, which was an educational and social women’s organization. It was the first organization of its kind in DC. Katzman also discusses other clubs, especially gay clubs, that she went to in DC. She also shares some thoughts about presenting as a more ‘feminine’ lesbian and lessons she learned while in an interracial relationship. Katzman discusses her experience as a lesbian throughout her professional career in psychotherapy, sharing that she was out at most jobs but purposefully did not come out at several for a number of reasons. Katzman founded Senior Health Resources, an organization for aging LGBTQ+ people and their family and friends. She discusses the motivations behind starting the organization – namely that she was appalled by the lack of care for older people in the healthcare system – and the processes of starting it. She also shares about her partner at the time and the new lessons and boundaries she implemented in that relationship after coming out of a 10-year relationship. Katzman discusses coming from a family in which several of her sisters are also lesbian and her coming out process. While her mother initially took her coming out poorly, she has since become accepting. Katzman learned through that experience that just as it takes time for LGBTQ+ people to come to terms with their own identities, it sometimes takes family/friends time to process when a loved one comes out. Finally, Katzman discusses how Pride has changed over the years, sharing that she preferred the Pride events that were not as commercialized.

1979-00s

Lesbian social groups, Gay Women's Alternative, Senior Health Resources

No, not yet transcribed

Yes, recording available (47:26)