Dr. Marcy Adelman
If Marcy Adelman hadn’t grown up in an intergenerational household, she might never have had the epiphany outside the Castro Theater that shaped her life and work, nor become this year’s Norma Satten Community Service Awardee.
Born shortly after World War II, Marcy spent her early years in a Massachusetts apartment with her parents, brother, grandmother, and aunt. Her Orthodox Jewish Ukrainian grandmother, who fled Ukraine with her younger brother to escape conscription and persecution, was the fiercely protective matriarch, deeply committed to preserving their family story.
Marcy’s grandmother became the “keeper of history, religion, and tradition” in their family. “She was very important in so many ways, especially to me,” Marcy said. While Marcy isn’t an Orthodox or religious Jew, she believes that understanding her history is crucial to self-development. Her grandmother’s lessons helped Marcy discover who she was, even if the process was challenging.
As a teenager, Marcy realized she was a lesbian but found little information since LGBTQ topics were rarely discussed. The library kept books on the subject behind the librarian’s desk, requiring readers to sign them out. “And, I wasn’t as a teenager going to sign that I was interested in getting a book on homosexuality,” Marcy said. Instead, she turned to fiction by Gertrude Stein and French authors to understand her sexuality.
Marcy eventually told her father she was a lesbian, but since being gay was seen as a mental illness, he insisted she see a therapist. After several sessions, realizing therapy wouldn’t change her, she lied to her father, claiming she was “over it.” The experience was transformative; when her therapist dismissed being gay as “a phase,” Marcy’s heart knew otherwise, and she fully accepted her identity. She even began considering a future in therapy to help others embrace their authentic selves.
As an undergrad at Suffolk University, Marcy chose to identify as bisexual, thinking it would be more socially acceptable and attract other gay women. Surprisingly/not surprisingly, it made her more appealing to men. She immersed herself in leftist politics, focused on her English and History studies, and dreamed of escaping to Europe after graduation.
In Europe, Marcy traveled extensively, visited gay bars, dated women for the first time, and fell in love with a French woman she lived with for two years. After the Kent State Massacre, Marcy felt a renewed drive to return to the U.S. and get involved in politics, leading her and her partner to move to San Francisco in the 1970s.
Marcy recalled how she “just dropped into a little bit of heaven” when she joined the Gay Women’s Liberation Movement in San Francisco. “We would sit around in circles, talk about our lives, our difficulties, and most importantly, our dreams.” This support gave Marcy the courage to pursue a psychology degree at San Francisco State University.
At this time, there was finally a desire to do positive research on gay people. So Marcy decided she wanted to study lesbians and provide an accurate report on them, not just one that would compare them to heterosexual women and pathologize them. So she did some research, put it together, and presented it to her faculty advisor, Dr. Harvey Peskin (Aaron’s Dad). She told him she wanted to write her thesis on lesbians. After a brief pause, Dr. Peskin said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but we don’t require a thesis here.” Peskin, however, was intrigued and soon enlisted a colleague to help him review and guide Marcy’s project. Published in 1977, Marcy’s thesis was the second in the nation to look at lesbians in different stages of their lives: single, partnered, employed, etc. Marcy’s work with the LGBTQ community was just beginning, however.
Shortly after arriving in San Francisco, Marcy was in line at the Castro Theatre on a sunny summer’s day. The Castro was a place where gay and lesbian people could all be out in ways that they never could’ve been back in their hometowns. But something wasn’t right. ” I looked up and down the line and marveled at seeing so many of my fellow community members publicly expressing joy, affection, and pride- and it hit me like a ton of bricks. We were all about the same age. Where were our seniors? Why weren’t they here with us sharing in this moment?” Marcy asked.
Marcy didn’t know what to do with her thoughts until an opportunity presented itself. While reading the SF State newsletter, Marcy spotted an article reporting that Dr. Frederick Minnegerode of the University of San Francisco was coming to campus to conduct the first National Institute of Health aging study on gay aging. Specifically, gay male aging. Intrigued, Marcy went to a nearby pay phone, called up Dr. Minnegerode, identified herself as a Lesbian (The first time she’d done that to a total stranger), and asked the doctor, “Why didn’t you include lesbians in your study?” Dr. Minnegrode told her that if he had thought he could get enough lesbian participants, he would have included them. With little thought, Marcy volunteered to get such participants, and she soon became a vital part of the study.
After completing the main study, Marcy used some of its material for her graduate thesis. Then, after Dr. Minnegrode unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack, she inherited the research and eventually used it to help write “Long Time Passing: Lives of Older Lesbians.” The book, published in 1986, was the first anthology of stories about lesbians. It was also the first time each lesbian storyteller received author credit for their contributions. Of course, Marcy’s work continued further. She went on to serve as a psychotherapist for many in the LGBTQ and straight communities. She has also served on several committees, including:
- The San Francisco Advisory Committee to the Aging and Adult Service Commission
- The Alzheimer’s Association of Northern California and Northern Nevada’s Board of Directors
- The San Francisco LGBT Dementia Care Project
- The Dignity Fund Oversight and Advisory Board of Directors for the City and County of San Francisco.
- The California Commission on Aging and the Master Plan for Aging
- The San Francisco LGBTQ+ Aging Policy Task Force
In the late 1990s, Marcy did some of her most famous work. It was the height of the dot-com boom. Rents were sky-high, and San Francisco was getting more and more expensive. Marcy started to receive phone calls from older members of the LGBTQ community. “All these men and women were calling me, saying, ‘I have to leave. I can’t afford to stay here, but there’s nowhere to go where I can be out again.'” While walking with a friend, the two began discussing how someone needed to do something to provide housing to this forgotten group. Her friend turned to her and said, “Well, why don’t you do it?” With little thought, Marcy agreed.
Marcy and Jeanette
Convincing her wife, Jeanette Gurevitch, to help was the first challenge. Initially hesitant, Jeanette eventually saw the opportunity to support older gay men and lesbians and joined the effort. The next hurdle was convincing city officials, who mistakenly believed the LGBTQ community was too affluent to need affordable housing. Marcy and Jeanette led a group that surveyed over a thousand LGBTQ adults, proving the need for support. The survey shattered the myth of gay affluence and, in 2000, led to the first grant from the city of San Francisco for LGBTQ housing, which in turn afforded Marcy and her team, then known as Rainbow Adult Community Housing, much-needed credibility, and seed money to plan the housing and services program that is today known as Openhouse.
Marcy has dedicated her career to addressing the needs and elevating the quality of life of LGBTQ seniors. Since she was a little girl listening to her grandmother in their apartment, she has understood that our older adults can provide us with context and history to help us better understand ourselves. Now, as a senior herself, she is ready and willing to do just that.
Marcy says: ” The elders in my family and my community did that for me. They talked about who they were and their past, and they passed on, either through deed or word, their values, and their experiences. That shaped me and was important to me, so it’s my turn.”
For significant contributions to LGBTQ seniors in San Francisco, Marcy Adelman will receive Community Living Campaign’s Norma Satten Community Service Award at the UC School of Law Skydeck on Thursday, September 19th, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Please RSVP to attend.
More Pictures from Marcy’s Extraordinary Life
