Audri, 65 and Karen, 70 , Cottonwood, AL
What is it like living in Cottonwood, AL?
Karen: Cottonwood just feels very comfortable for us here. It's a small community. People have been very accepting of us as people. And so our sexuality or any of that has never come into question. So people just accept us as who we are. We had our adoptive father here. So we came here because of him. He called us here after we came off our Walk saying he wanted us to relax after having been through what we were going through; it was a nice kind of respite for us. When we got here, he kind of sort of talked us into living here, which was a good thing. Because once we got here, it was very comfortable.
Audri : He made sure the community knew we were his daughters. The [Cottonwood] community pretty much refers to us as sisters... When travelling around the world especially in communities where we could have been killed for our relationship, like when we were in Morocco. Oh, and the women would say, your sisters, right? That was their way of saying to us that's how you show up…So coming here, it was interesting they know we live together, they know we're partners; we've been in every newspaper. So it's not like it's any mystery to anybody, but they still refer to us as sisters.
Do you believe it’s safer being out now?
The more you have to lose, the less likely you are to be seen in certain places. I've seen that just within my generation. Those who were in positions of leadership or had certain kinds of jobs, they led very secret lives, you know, they didn't come out. I think your generation and generation coming up behind you, feels to be different to me and it could be because there is more open dialogue. You know, back in my generation, it wasn't even something I talked about. Even my uncle, as flaming as he was, there was no conversation about it.
When I growing up in the islands, there was no reference to gay and straight, everybody just was. I didn't even know what gay was until I left the island [Puerto Rico] and went to college. And I was like, what's everyone getting upset about, it's just people, you know. It was a whole different culture. But definitely a lot of closeted folk because it was too risky. We'd like to think that it wasn't at risk if everybody came out, but it probably wouldn’t have been okay. I think we're coming out now because we can. The safest place I know I feel in Alabama is at The Spiritual Enrichment Center of Dothan because all of us have been embraced...
After one of our Walks, someone asked me, “Why does it have to be such a big deal?” I remember saying to them when you have someone that you're even dating, how do you show up? You know, how do you walk down the street? What do you do, and since you can tell, you can hold hands, you can put your arms around each other, you can even kiss each other. That's it. But when we show up, we have to always be conscious of how we are together. Where we are. And we're not there so much that now, but you still have to put a similar thought when you're in a public setting. We've been together so long now we don't think about it. But you do have to think... there's a pause button that gets hit. Even if it's subconsciously, I think that in many ways it is a security thing. You know, you think about it, am I safe? You know, am I accepted? Acceptance doesn't matter that, you know, to me, it's more just am I safe, is Karen safe?