Copyright Hartford Courant
In 1979, two feminist activists organized a march down Park Street in Hartford to protest a candidate for City Council who had been arrested after being accused of beating his wife. Protesting violence against women was new and controversial. By coincidence, national feminist leader Gloria Steinem was speaking that day at the Hartford YWCA. Carolyn Gabel, one of the two organizers of the little protest, said to the other organizer, Leslie Brett, “Let’s get Gloria Steinem to come to our rally.” Carolyn went straight to the Y, pulled Steinem aside and, of course, she came and spoke. There could be no mistaking the passion and political courage of our friend Carolyn Gabel-Brett, who died on September 25 at the age of 84. She was a local luminary of the feminist and LGBTQ communities in Hartford. That day in 1979 also marked the beginning of a 46-year love story and partnership. Carolyn and Leslie were a couple for 25 years before they were able to legally marry on Cape Cod in 2004, when same-sex marriage was first legalized in Massachusetts. Over the years, we worked with Carolyn as both friends and colleagues. You could be bowled over by her drive, and at the same time overwhelmed by her love and support. The comments on the Facebook notice of her passing were full of testimonials from friends and colleagues recalling how Carolyn was the inspiration for their work, their activism, their coming out, or their finding their place in the world. The Reader’s Feast on Farmington Avenue—the bookstore/cafe she founded with more than 20 community investors and ran with close friend Tollie Miller from 1983 to 1995—was an institution: a gathering place and a community resource. Carolyn was a lifelong champion for the empowerment of women and a leader in the fight for women’s reproductive rights. She established the Connecticut chapter of NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League, in 1975. From 1979 to 1983 Carolyn was on the faculty of the University of Connecticut School of Social Work, where she created a curriculum on violence against women. Anne: The UCONN School of Social Work is where Carolyn began to intersect with my life. My wife, Charlotte, was in her class and then worked with Carolyn and others to design the school’s first class on lesbian and gay issues. Carolyn served as the faculty advisor when a few of them wrote the first grant funded by the state of Connecticut to focus on training around lesbian and gay issues. From the day I met Charlotte, she talked about Carolyn as her mentor, as someone who had taken an unsophisticated kid from Waterbury under her wing and given her the lesbian feminist analysis that shaped the rest of her life. As the years went by, Carolyn became an even larger presence in my life. She mentored me when I led CT NARAL, the organization she founded. I recruited her to the board of CWEALF when I led that organization. We were both very active in the Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights in the ’80s and ’90s, and we later worked together with Love Makes a Family, fighting for marriage equality. She was an active board member of Latinos/as Contra SIDA for six years. She eventually became a consultant for the national Civil Marriage Collaborative, where she helped direct critically-needed grant dollars to states, including Connecticut. Working with Carolyn enriched my life and my life’s work in more ways than I can ever express. MILES: I’ll never forget a moment in 1992 when Bill Clinton came to UConn for a campaign speech. Carolyn planted herself in the front row with a T-shirt emblazoned “We’re Here, We’re Queer, Get Used to It.” She so captured Clinton’s attention that he came and talked to her for five minutes about LGBT rights. I was so impressed by her courage and determination that a few years later, I asked her to join me to found the nonprofit DemocracyWorks—dedicated to expanding voting rights in Connecticut. Working with her was a joy until she retired as executive director in 2003. Leslie Gabel-Brett, also our dear friend and colleague, had her own distinguished career. The former director of education at Lambda Legal and former executive director of Connecticut’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Women said of her partner and spouse, “No one could speak truth to power with as much integrity and fierceness, and no one could embrace family and friends with as much fierce and generous love as Carolyn. She made my life so rich and wonderful. Her light shines on in all of us.” As their son Peter said at a gathering after her death, Carolyn was a lover and a fighter. Over the course of her life, she and Leslie nurtured their beautiful family of children and their partners, grandchildren, and a wide community of friends and colleagues dedicated to social justice. They met to remember her in the yard lovingly tended by their son Bill. And when their daughter Katherine asked who among the guests at the gathering had stayed with Carolyn and Leslie during a hard time in their lives, more than a dozen people raised their hands. Carolyn was so proud of her children and grandchildren and lived a life of welcome and support. Carolyn had one last injustice to fight at the end of her life. She had been struggling with declining cognitive and physical health, and she wanted to end her life on her own terms, while she still felt like herself. Always an ardent and outspoken proponent of the right to choose—from reproductive freedom to the right to make other fundamental choices about the course of one’s life. She was angry that she could not die as she wished, safely and legally in her own home, surrounded by her family. She and Leslie traveled to Switzerland with a dear friend where she ended her life, peacefully and legally. It was her hope that future legislation throughout the U.S. will enable other people to end their lives on their own terms without having to leave the country. She died as she lived, with dignity and surrounded by love. Miles Rapoport, is executive director of 100% Democracy, former Connecticut Secretary of the State
