Interviewer: So, when you’re a part of those groups, you feel a strong sense of community?

Pat: I think so, particularly in the women’s community, yep.

Interviewer: I wanted to know what made you want to be a part of the women groups.

Pat: Uhm...probably, uhm, all I know is it just, it felt right. I think I was just drawn to anything that had social justice, social issues. It was just something innate within me, and that certainly was something that I needed to learn for myself, y’know, getting away from a very destructive and violent relationship and raising kids and so on. So, there, there was safety and there was community within the feminist community.

Oh, the other thing I was, when I was still in Vernon, was, uhm, the BCFW. The BC Federation of Women. And that was a, a, province-wide sort of coalition of women’s groups who got together to discuss women’s issues, y’know fight for rights and stuff like that. And I, I was the North Okanagan rep for that, myself and somebody else. And that’s where I learned a lot. When I sought it out I still would consider myself straight, it was during that time that I came out as a lesbian. But it was the women in that group, some of them who were lesbians, that opened up my eyes ‘cause I saw… uh, they had started a lesbian caucus at every meeting that we had. And the reason was, was that a lot of the straight, middle class white women, they, they were, they got the support for all their issues. All women’s and children’s issues from the lesbians, but the lesbians weren’t getting support for their own issues. So that’s when the lesbians sort of separated, or pulled aside and said “hey, we’ve gotta meet and talk for ourselves.”