Ruthie Berman: An Old-Fashioned Lesbian Love Story | LGBTQ+ Elders Project
LGBTQ&A
Jeffrey Masters
4.7 • 703 Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2022
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ruthie Berman shares her epic, decades-long love story with her wife, Connie Kurtz. She talks about how they fell in love in the 1970s, successfully sued the New York City Board of Education for domestic partner benefits in 1988, and reflects on how much has and hasn't changed for LGBTQ+ people since she came out 50 years ago.
"I deserve better in my golden years than what I have now. The world sucks. America is in the worst place in my history that it's ever been and I'm concerned about my community."
This is part of our new LGBTQ+ Elders Project. You can also listen to our recent interview with Harvey Fierstein here.
Ruthie Berman was born in 1934.
The full video of Ruthie and Connie's appearance on The Phil Donahue Show can be seen on our Instagram page here: @jeffmasters1
Ruthie And Conne: Every Room In The House is a fantastic documentary (streaming for free on Vudu) that you can watch.
LGBTQ&A is hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by The Advocate magazine, in partnership with GLAAD. A condensed transcript of each week's interview is posted on The Advocate's website in the afternoon. Follow us on Twitter: @lgbtqpod
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Advocate magazine, in partnership with Glad, this is LGBTQ and A. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Jeffrey Masters, and today, as part of our elders project, we're sharing a love story, one that begins in the 1970s. |
| 0:19.0 | At that time, Ruthie Berman was in her 40s, |
| 0:22.3 | when she suddenly realized that she was thoroughly, manly, |
| 0:26.3 | profoundly in love with her best friend, Connie Kurtz. |
| 0:30.7 | It was all-encompassing. |
| 0:32.6 | There were butterflies, fireworks, every delightful cliche. |
| 0:36.5 | There was just that one small issue of them already being married and having husbands and homophobia |
| 0:43.2 | in their small Jewish community and of course homophobia in the world in general. |
| 0:47.0 | But besides all that, they were in love and they were in it together. |
| 0:52.8 | You're going to hear Ruthie tell that story. You're going to hear her talk about how much has and hasn't changed for our community since she came out 50 years ago. |
| 1:00.0 | And you're also going to hear her explain how and why she and Connie became activists. |
| 1:06.0 | In 1988, they even sued the New York City Board of Education to allow domestic partners the |
| 1:12.9 | ability to access their partners' health insurance and other benefits. |
| 1:17.5 | This suit was successful, and these domestic partner benefits, it applied to all New York |
| 1:23.7 | City employees. |
| 1:25.3 | It was a huge victory agile here, so let's get to it. Without further ado, |
| 1:31.3 | this is the 87, almost 88-year-old Ruthie Berman. |
| 1:42.6 | So going back to the 1970s, you and your wife, Connie, you were originally friends and part of the same Jewish community in Brooklyn, and then that changed. |
| 1:53.6 | What was the moment when you realized that you wanted to be more than just friends? |
| 1:58.4 | Well, we were very good friends. |
| 2:03.3 | We babysat. We exchanged babysitting. |
... |
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