“Ivy Bottini’s passing on Thursday morning came as no real surprise to her scores of friends who quietly shared that the 94-year old lesbian activist/artist icon had been moved into hospice care at her daughter’s home in Florida.
Nonetheless, the finality of her death seemed sudden, like a surprise punch to the solar plexus. It was as if Ivy’s death marked the end of an era in which the debate over assimilation versus fitting into the mainstream majority culture spilled out into the streets; where the courage to come out, to stand up and identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual came with a huge price tag. In fact, it could cost you your life…”