Sally Miller Gearhart

Sally Miller Gearhart was born in Pearisburg, Virginia, in 1931 to Sarah Miller Gearhart and Kyle Montague Gearhart. Her mother was a secretary, and her father was a dentist. After the pair divorced early in her childhood, Gearhart moved to her maternal grandmother's boarding house. There, she experienced female camaraderie and developed an admiration for "the collective strength of women." Gearhart attended an all-women's institution, Sweet Briar College, near Lynchburg, Virginia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in drama and English in 1952. At Bowling Green State University, she obtained a master's degree in theater and public address in 1953. She continued on at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, getting her Ph.D. in theater in 1956, with the intent of pursuing a life of academia. ==Teaching==

Gearhart began teaching speech and theater at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, and later moved to Texas Lutheran College (now University) in Seguin, Texas. In both positions, Gearhart lived in the closet and hid her true sexual identity to fit with the culture of the schools. As a professor, she was incredibly popular and sought-after, but her personal life was full of the struggles of living in the closet. ==Activism==

After Gearhart received tenure from San Francisco State, she became politically active, fighting in particular for radical feminist causes. Gearhart famously debated John Briggs, attacking the initiative to ban homosexuals from academic positions in public schools. A clip of the debate appeared in the documentary film The Times of Harvey Milk, which also included Gearhart talking about working with Milk against Proposition 6, and reactions in San Francisco in the aftermath of Milk's assassination. In the mid-1970s, Gearhart was co-chair of The Council On Religion And The Homosexual. This organization offered a variety of speaking events and literature to educate followers on the Judeo-Christian tradition. It also educated legislators about the lifestyles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. and "Last Call at Maud's" released in 1993. She appeared briefly in Barbara Hammer's 1975 short film "Superdyke". Throughout her career, Gearhart fought for animal rights and became involved with ecologically based causes and the women's spirituality movement. ==Writing==

While living in San Francisco, Gearhart began writing feminist science-fiction novels and short stories that highlighted her utopian ideals for a wider lesbian audience. In 1978, her most famous novel, The Wanderground, was published, exploring themes of ecofeminism and lesbian separatism. Because of her collaboration with feminist presses like Persephone Press and engagement with themes of feminist separatism and lesbian feminism, Gearhart is associated with the women in print movement, an effort by second-wave feminists to establish autonomous communications networks of feminist periodicals, presses, and bookstores created by and for women. Gearhart's novel The Wanderground inspired the name of the Wanderground Lesbian Archive and Library in Cranston, Rhode Island, which collects New England lesbian works with a focus on the women in print movement. In 1976, Gearhart co-wrote A Feminist Tarot with Susan Rennie. It was published by Persephone Press and used conventional Rider–Waite–Smith imagery.She also co-wrote Daphne Patai in her book Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism summarizes Gearhart's essay as, "The future must be in female hands, women alone must control the reproduction of species; and only 10% of the population should be allowed to be male". Mary Daly supported Gearhart's proposals, stating: "I think it's not a bad idea at all. If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males." Works • Some Modern American Concepts of Tragic Drama as Revealed by the Critical Writings of Twentieth Century American Playwrights (1953) • Aristotle and Modern Theorists on the Elements of Tragedy. (1956) • The Lesbian and God-the-Father, or, All the Church Needs Is a Good Lay ... On Its Side (1972) • Loving Women/Loving Men: Gay Liberation and the Church (1974) • “Future Visions: Today’s Politics: Feminist Utopias in Review” (1994) • The Kanshou (2002) • The Magister (2003) ==Personal life==

Gearhart knew from the age of ten that she would have no children, and in college, she discovered that she was a lesbian. She read lesbian novels but destroyed them early in her career as she did not want her sexual identity revealed. Gearhart spent her later years in Willits, a small town situated in the heart of Mendocino County's "Redwood country" in northern California, before moving to a care home in nearby Ukiah. After a long illness, she died in Ukiah on July 14, 2021, at the age of 90. ==Legacy==

The Sally Miller Gearhart Fund for lesbian studies was established by Carla Blumberg, one of Gearhart's former students, in January 2008 at the University of Oregon.'''' It was created to promote research and teaching in lesbian studies through an annual lecture series and an endowed professorship at the university. The first lecture was given by Arlene Stein of Rutgers University on May 27, 2009, and it was titled The Incredibly Shrinking Lesbian World and Other Queer Conundra''. The Sally Miller Gearhart Papers (1956–1999) are held at the Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries. Gearhart was portrayed by Carrie Preston in the 2017 miniseries When We Rise, which dealt with the evolution of the LGBT community in San Francisco and advancement of LGBT civil rights in America. Sally!, a feature documentary about Gearhart directed by documentarian Deborah Craig premiered in June 2024. ==References==