CASDLA_000036_A_PRSV

Interview with Jeri Dilno, part 1, 1990

 

1990-02-04

 

Interviewer: Nobiletti, Frank

(The sound begins at about 11 seconds.) This interview was described by The California Audiovisual Preservation Project as follows: "This is an interview with Jeri Dilno, particularly regarding her experiences in the military, and activism in the 1950s and 1970s. Jeri Dilno has been involved in the LGBT community since the 1950s. She joined the Air Force in 1958 and received an undesirable discharge in 1961 under suspicion of homosexuality (later changed to honorable after she fought the charge). She returned to San Diego in the 1970s and was heavily involved in many LGBT organizations and causes, both social and political. These include the San Diego LGBT Center, the LGBT Pride board, the San Diego Democratic Club, the LGBT State Democratic Caucus, and a campaign against the Briggs initiative."

Frank Nobiletti; Jeri Dilno; Oral histories; Interviews; Lesbians; LGBTQ politics; The San Diego LGBT Community Center; San Diego; Stonewall Rebellion; Stonewall Riots; Stonewall protests; Civil rights; Civil rights movements; Gay bars; Lesbian bars; Coming out; Gizmo's (bar); Mother's (bar); The Apartment (bar); The Club (bar); Diablo's (bar)

 

 

Rights are owned by Lambda Archives of San Diego (LASD)

 

 

English

 

Audiotape

00:46:55 minutes

Yes

CASDLA_000036_B_PRSV

This is a summary, not a transcript:
00:11 Audio begins with Frank Nobiletti saying the date and Jeri Dilno's name. The date is February 4th, 1990.
00:23 Frank asks Jeri about being in San Diego before 1969.
00:29 Jeri begins giving a rundown of when she was in San Diego and when she left and came back.
01:10 Frank asks Jeri what changed in San Diego.
01:42 She talks about what has changed in the gay and lesbian community in San Diego.
02:29 Jeri talks about being more out politically.
03:06 Jeri talks about the Gay Center in San Diego.
03:37 Franks asks Jeri what brought on the change.
03:42 Jeri talks about Stonewall and different things that she believed brought on the change.
04:55 Jeri talks about the change that was also taking place across the United States.
06:27 Jeri talks about when the gay community decided they didn't want to be the guinea pigs anymore.
06:54 Jeri talks about how the movement joined the other civil rights movements that were going on at that time.
07:45 Franks asks how does she believe San Diego reacted to what was going on in the rest of the country.
08:06 Jeri talks about how the media would cover different stories that were going on compared to the fifties when that wasn't available.
08:43 She also talks about how more gay and lesbian people were more willing to be out.
09:23 Franks asks does she perceive San Diego as being unusual because it is a conservative city.
09:35 Jeri talks about how she thinks the change was natural due to the history of San Diego and social service.
10:43 Talks about the women's center in San Diego.
11:17 Franks asks Jeri about the influence of Los Angeles.
11:30 Jeri talks about how she wasn't here for that time but she does know a little bit about the history of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.
12:19 Jeri talks about being active in the center and the movement.
13:19 Franks asks what the gay and lesbian community was like before she left.
13:35 Jeri talks about coming out in 1954 when she was 19 at her first year at State.
16:01 Talks about not being aware of the code words and other things in the gay community.
16:55 Talks about meeting people in the bars.
17:45 Talks about basically having to live a double life.
18:38 Talks about how she began to see positivity in the community once she got involved in the political side.
20:11 Talks about her lack of attraction to men.
20:44 Talks about the median age for women to come out as lesbian.
21:56 Jeri talks about how softball and sports was a place for her to connect to the lesbian community.
22:46 Talks about how she thought the stereotype stopped a lot of straight women from playing sports.
23:19 Jeri talks about the bar scene in the 1960s.
25:18 Jeri talks about how there wasn't many bars for just women to go to so they shared the spaces with men. She lists Gizmo's and Mother's as being the primary bars.
26:22 She talks about The Club and Diablos that were a thing after she came back to San Diego which made a distinction between the bars for men and women. She also mentions The Apartment as being one of the bars on the scene at that time.
28:13 Jeri talks about how early on gays and lesbians didn't dance in the bars at all.
28:46 Jeri talks about a bar she went to when she was stationed in Omaha.
29:58 Jeri talks about the relationship between gay men and lesbian women in the places she lived.
35:03 Jeri talks about the roles minorities played during this era.
36:49 Talks about San Diego being a pretty much segregated city.
37:46 Jeri talks about how the gay and lesbian people of color didn't really seek the services.
38:26 Jeri mentions how many African-American people probably chose to spend more of their time in an organization confronting racism opposed to gay rights.
40:07 Jeri talks about why she came back to San Diego and getting involved in politics and the center.
42:37 Jeri talks about running an agency. The agency she is talking about is the Gay Center.
43:40 Talks about learning from being around Gary and Jessop.
44:05 Talks about her first year of running the agency.
46:26 Audio ends abruptly.

 

Audio

WAV

1.57 GB