 |
|
by Joy D. Griffith
A 93-year-old Vermont woman was recently honored with a lifetime achievement award for her work in building a worldwide social network for older lesbians.
To the roar of a standing ovation, Golden Threads founder Christine Burton received the Seniors Active in a Gay Environment award at Merkin Hall in New York City in November.
Ms. Burton was in excellent company as an award winner. This year's other honorees were celebrated author, actor and wit Quentin Crisp; Virginia Apuzzo, Assistant to the President for Management and Administration and the highest ranking out lesbian in the US government; and Dr. James Dumpson, a distinguished academic and co-founder of the Minority Task Force on AIDS.
The ceremony included excerpts from Golden Threads, award-winning filmmaker Lucy Winer's ITVS documentary about Ms. Burton's life scheduled for PBS broadcast in June, 1999.
Born in 1905 and never retiring, Ms. Burton has been a horse farmer, self-employed businesswoman, teacher, writer, and public speaker. At age 74, she tried to use a lesbian connection service but was refused because of her age. Driven by that rejection, at age 80 she created Golden Threads. Aimed specifically at lesbians 50 and older, the connection service quickly grew globally, helping alleviate isolation and loneliness among older lesbians around the world.
Though a massive stroke in 1995 paralyzed her entire right side and speech processing capabilities, Burton has continued to work with the organization. In June of this year, she will be among those enjoying the 13th Annual Golden Threads Celebration.
From her Golden Threads office in Burlington, Burton wrote: "I believe we're all in this life together, although in amazing diversity...with all the varieties of perception possible to a worldwide population. Like threads in a fabric, we are woven inextricably into the human condition by common requirements for physical survival and self-realization. Each of us is unique, useful, and equally important. Lesbians are knit even closer by the commonality of our sexual orientation and our life-living, even though it is diverse. We are also more closely knit by the uniqueness of our vision as outsiders to patriarchal culture and by the glue of society's prejudice against us. Lesbians who are middle-aged and old are golden threads in the fabric of humanity."
