In July 1989, Mary-Helen Mautner, battling breast cancer, thought of all the incredible assistance she luckily received from her partner, family, and friends during her illness. She wondered whether she could create an organization that could support lesbian women battling cancer with the same love she received. Unfortunately, just weeks later, Mary-Helen passed away at the age of 44. Her partner, Susan Hester, took up the mantle and with the help of friends and supporters, founded the Mary-Helen Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer in April 1990.
Within the first two years, hundred of volunteers provided numerous services for lesbian women battling cancer. Volunteers bought groceries, held social programs at local hospitals, drove women to medical appointments, assisted with insurance problems and even coordinated ways to care for patients’ pets while they were in the hospital. Soon, the work of DC based Maunter went national. The organization was one of the first to call for a national lesbian health agenda. The Maunter Project met with leaders such as President Bill Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala.
By 1999, a dozen or so similar groups formed across the country, inspired by the work at the Maunter Project. These groups proved especially important to women who felt excluded in traditional cancer support networks. One lesbian survivor of breast cancer remembers keeping her sexuality from her traditional cancer support group in the early 1990s. "Why I didn't say it, I can't even tell you. I don't know why. I knew I was the only lesbian in the group. Everybody else spoke about a boyfriend or a husband. I didn't mind being there as long as we stuck to the matter of cancer, but there were times when some of these women had to refer to their mates. I felt a kind of lack.”
Additionally, these groups represented numerous partners of cancer patients often denied the right to visit their spouses in the hospital. "We had a client who couldn't get into the intensive care unit to see her lover except by posing as her sister,” recalled one cancer support network leader. “When the woman's family came, they said 'That's not her sister,' and the hospital threw her out. That is the kind of thing people go through all the time."1
Today, the Mautner Project continues to serve DC's LGBT community under the Whitman-Walker Health center, aiding thousands of lesbian women facing illness.
Below, Mautner Project founder Susan Hester explains the importance of organization in relation to the gay rights movement.
1. Denise Grady, “Lesbians Find Cancer Support Without Excuses: Support With No Excuses in Cancer Groups for Lesbians Only,” Washington Post, November 23, 1999, F1. ↩
