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Los Angeles
Times
Myra Riddell, 81;
psychotherapist was
an activist
for lesbian, gay
rights
By Elaine Woo,
latimes.com from the Web, February 4, 2008
Myra Riddell, a psychotherapist,
former president of the Los Angeles County Commission for Women and pioneering
activist for lesbian and gay rights, died Jan. 11 at her Studio City home.
She was 81.
Riddell had Alzheimer's disease, according to a longtime friend, Susan M.
Wolford.
A prominent figure in the gay community for several decades, Riddell was the
founding president of Southern California Women for Understanding, launched in
1976 to build a social and political network of gay career women.
In 1977 she was one of 14 gay and lesbian leaders invited to the White House to
brief Carter administration officials on discrimination against homosexuals by
government agencies. The meeting, which provoked intense criticism from
conservatives such as Anita Bryant, represented the first time openly gay
leaders had met in the White House.
Riddell later served on the Los Angeles County Commission for Women for 12
years, including two years as president, from 1992 to 1994. She stirred
controversy during her last few years on the commission when she helped form a
task force on satanic ritual abuse. She had developed an interest in the
subject after some of her psychotherapy patients described memories of satanic
abuse as children.
Born in San Diego on Nov. 23, 1926, Riddell grew up in a family in which
children were encouraged to speak their minds. Her father was a judge, and
her mother was a radical who edited a Jewish newspaper.
In the late 1940s and early '50s, Riddell studied at UCLA, where she earned a
bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in social work. She opened
a psychotherapy practice in 1959.
Married at 18, Riddell left her husband in the mid-'50s and, despite the
repressiveness of the era, came out as a lesbian. When the gay rights
movement emerged after the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969, she became
a political activist.
Through her work at what was then called the Los Angeles Gay Community Services
Center, she met psychotherapist Betty Berzon, who, in 1976, invited Riddell to
help her start a support group for lesbians. It began as an offshoot of
the Whitman-Radclyffe Foundation, a Northern California-based activist
organization. Finding little support for their interests in a group
dominated by gay men, the women soon broke away and formed Southern California
Women for Understanding.
Riddell and Berzon, who died in 2006, wanted to reach out to successful career
women like themselves. This focus was revolutionary, according to
historians Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons in their book "Gay L.A.," because
"a formally established social group made up exclusively of upper-middle-class
lesbians had ... never yet existed."
Most of the women who joined the group were not openly homosexual. Taking
their fears of exposure into account, Riddell and Berzon chose a name for the
organization that avoided gay connotations. They held high-toned events,
such as poolside champagne brunches and dance cruises, an approach that
attracted what Faderman and Timmons described as "the most careful and closeted
women" who were curious to meet other "A-list lesbians."
The group developed an elitist image, but by the early 1980s it had more than
1,000 members and chapters throughout Southern California.
"We knew there was a tremendous, untapped pool of energy and talent among
lesbians, particularly those who had achieved a level of success in their
careers," Riddell wrote in an article published in 1999. "These women
tended to be very isolated and closeted, and we realized our first goal would be
to provide a safe environment."
Southern California Women for Understanding also engaged in political action,
playing an important role in the defeat of the anti-gay Proposition 6, also
called the Briggs initiative, in 1978. The group invited politicians,
civic and religious leaders and journalists to the Century Plaza Hotel for a
series of cocktail parties called "Receptions for Understanding," where polished
and accomplished lesbians -- including two active Army officers -- discussed the
threats posed by the initiative, which called for banning gays and lesbians from
teaching in public schools.
The initiative lost by a large margin. Riddell said years later that one
of the most rewarding results of the anti-Briggs effort was earning the support
of a prominent Roman Catholic nun who took a visible role in the "No on 6"
campaign.
Riddell is survived by a niece, two nephews and a great-nephew. A memorial
service will be held April 20 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian
Center, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood.
elaine.woo@latimes.com
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