Overview

"This book examines Kay Kershaw's tremendous influence on conservation efforts in the Pacific Northwest and on LGBTQ+ rights in the United States. Except for a short stint during WWII, Kay Kershaw spent nearly her entire life in Washington State's Yakima County. As a young woman, Kay pursued lesbian relationships as she gained local renown in sport and aviation; after the war, she established a world-famous dude ranch at Goose Prairie with her first partner, Pat Kane. This proved a fraught undertaking in a region closely associated with the John Birch Society. Operating the ranch under the guise of two ""spinsters,"" Kershaw and her later life-partner Isabelle Lynn guarded their privacy closely, but local encroachment by the US Forest Service and the timber industry forced them into the public arena as environmentalists. In partnership with Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Kershaw and Lynn spearheaded a decades-long campaign to save the ancient forests and ecosystem of Washington's Cascade Range. In the process, Kay and Isabelle's devoted relationship proved a marked contrast to Justice Douglas' own turbulent love life and, perhaps, affected his perception of the law and his precedent-setting judicial opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). Douglas's right to privacy argument in Griswold provided the basis for major LGBTQ+ Supreme Court decisions in the twenty-first century as well as Roe v. Wade in 1973."

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9781476693927

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Reviews

"""Quite an engaging work. ...a most fascinating deeply engaging exploration of homosexuality/lesbianism--not to mention far deeper understandings and tales about Yakima/East-side sociology/politics than I've ever seen before--which cause it, the whole book in my opinion--to be one of the most absorbing pieces of writing on the subject(s) I've ever seen. ...a wonderfully detailed mental journey into not only some pretty remarkable ecowarriors' hearts and souls, but also--just as impressive--one of the best, in-depth and so thoroughly researched, sociodemographic explorations into the political dimensions of being a conservationist in one of the most conservative parts of the whole Northwest.""--Brock Evans, director of the Sierra Club Washington, DC office, 1973-1981"

“Quite an engaging work. ...a most fascinating deeply engaging exploration of homosexuality/lesbianism--not to mention far deeper understandings and tales about Yakima/East-side sociology/politics than I've ever seen before--which cause it, the whole book in my opinion--to be one of the most absorbing pieces of writing on the subject(s) I've ever seen. ...a wonderfully detailed mental journey into not only some pretty remarkable ecowarriors' hearts and souls, but also--just as impressive--one of the best, in-depth and so thoroughly researched, sociodemographic explorations into the political dimensions of being a conservationist in one of the most conservative parts of the whole Northwest.” - Brock Evans, director of the Sierra Club Washington, DC office, 1973-1981

Author Information

William D. Frank is the author of two international award-winning books on Russian and Soviet sports history. His articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, The Journal of Sport History, Ski History Magazine, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, and Finland's Sport History Yearbook, Suomen Urheiluhistoriallisen Seuran Vuosikirja.

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