Out Profile:
There’s something Bill Courson, a lifelong activist for the LGBTQ community, wants Out In Jersey readers to know.
“Whatever state of life you’re in, if you’re a young person, if you’re a very young person, if you’re in school and depending on your parents and family for sustenance, if you’re on your own and independent, if you’re elderly, if you’re elderly and have a health challenge (which I have several), there’s always something you can do. There’s always some realm of activity in which you can be an activist. And our continued success and our continued thriving is going to depend on that. So everyone can do something,” he said.
And Courson, who was born in 1952 in Neptune and grew up in nearby Avon-by-the-Sea, has done a lot to help advance LGBTQ civil rights since his days at Monmouth College in the 1970s through the present day.
Courson’s first Pride, which he experienced in the Village not long after Stonewall, was spectacular, he recalls, even though it came with adversity.
“As the parade was unfolding, a fire truck appeared,” he remembers. “They began yelling threats at us. I don’t recall the nature of the threats, but it was obvious they were homophobic slurs. They tried to be as scary as they possibly could, but we weren’t intimidated at all.”
Things have changed much since then. Police used to turn their backs on the parade, but now they’re marching in it. That progress came with a lot of work from people like Courson.
“If you go all the way back to the 1960s and 1970s, what we’ve accomplished is, I don’t even have a word to describe it. Let’s just say far, far more accelerated than my happiest hopes would have had it,” he said.
In his college days, there were no gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender groups on campus, and the acronym “LGBTQ” did not exist.
Courson was involved with “chat groups” on campus, where gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students could get together and talk and bond over issues important to them.
“There were about 10 to 15 students who got together for weekly chats in the student center,” he said.
On at least one occasion, the Gay Activist Alliance, which was based in New York City and is now defunct, paid members of the group a visit. In the ‘60s and early ‘70s, the alliance was the standard-bearer for activism in the New York area, Courson said.
In recent years, there have been many starts and stops when it comes to the progress of the LGBTQ civil rights movement. “It’s been a case of three steps forward, one step back,” Courson said. And the Trump administration could mean a major step back for the movement.
“it is quite likely that a lot of work that has been done will be undone, but we’re very strong, we’re very resilient, and I think we can handle it.”
“I’m very concerned about it,” Courson said. “I’m extremely concerned about it. I’ve had to hold a lot of hands and listen to a lot of crying among my friends.
“I think that it is quite likely that a lot of work that has been done will be undone, but we’re very strong, we’re very resilient, and I think we can handle it.” Courson hopes that none of the advancements that have been made are reversed, such as transgender people being forced out of the armed forces.
“At this stage the important thing to do is to attenuate whatever damage might be done to keep the states that are blue as blue as we can possibly keep them,” he said.
The Trump administration is far from the first challenge the LGBTQ community has had to face. Courson lived through the AIDS crisis during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, and it was devastating.
“By the time I was 55 years old, I had gone to exactly twice that number of AIDS funerals, 110 funerals. I lost too many friends, far too many. I will never forget a single moment. It was dreadful.”
Courson was blessed to have been raised by loving parents who were supportive of his sexual orientation. He also had two gay uncles, who were beloved in the family, which helped.
“Asbury Park was wonderful. It was paradise. It was a gritty paradise.”
What also helped him was having the city of Asbury Park so close by. It attracted LGBTQ people back then as well, and Courson remembers hanging out there.
“It was gritty, it was dirty, and it was wonderful,” Courson said about Asbury.
Near the center of town, there were three gay bars, he recalls. There was Paul’s M&K, which was Courson’s hangout. There was Chez L, which was largely lesbian but mixed. And there was the Blue Note, which was a huge gay bar with an enormous dance floor. The Blue Note was so big, Courson recalls, that the county district court rented room from the establishment to have their local court. Also, the Blue Note attracted an older clientele. A bar that attracted anyone over 50 was called a “wrinkle room” back then, Courson recounted.
“Asbury Park was wonderful. It was paradise. It was a gritty paradise,” he said.
Courson identifies as bisexual but principally gay. He married his best friend, who was a lesbian. In recent years, the two both battled cancer. He won his battle, but unfortunately, she lost hers in 2018. “Life does go on,” he said. Courson moved to Montclair in 1978. He still lives there, but he spends the winters in Florida now.
He is “90 percent” retired, having worked as a health educator. He said there is a thriving LGBTQ community in Sarasota, where he winters, despite the “political matrix,” as Florida is a red state with a Republican governor.
Courson now devotes a good bit of his time working with older LGBTQ people. He is a member of SAGE, an activist organization for elders in the community. SAGE provides a good amount of services. The organization performs weekly wellness calls and has a network of ambassadors who check in personally with elders to see if they are OK.
Courson explained that many older LGBTQ adults don’t have families because they were cut off from them due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Isolation and mental and physical health challenges are serious issues, especially for older members of the community, he said.
In New Jersey, to help combat discrimination LGBTQ elders might face in senior care establishments and independent and assisted living facilities there is a Bill of Rights codified into law for elder members of the community.
Courson noted that it is sometimes difficult to get elders to report infractions when they occur because they do not want to create problems, but it’s important to say something if one sees something wrong going on.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Well, it is.
Throughout his life, Courson has worked for the betterment of the LGBTQ community, and the work cannot stop.
He recalled the old saying, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Well, it is. You can’t really rest on what you’ve accomplished and assume that things are going to go on forever” because, faced with the Trump administration, “we really have to remain vigilant and remain on our guard.”
