Editor's note: The following is excerpted from the transcript of the Division 44 History Project interview with Kristen Hancock by Doug Kimmel and Richard Sprott on September 26, 2023; edits in brackets by KH.
Doug Kimmel:
What was your background before you became involved with ALGP or Division 44?
Kristin Hancock:
Well, initially, I have a degree in Slavic Languages and Literature from the University of California. I liked Dostoevsky a great deal, and his writing might be called “psychological” [in a sense]. Eventually, I found psychology itself, and I got my BS degree in that at Cal State, Hayward – now Cal State East Bay. I also got my master's degree there in counseling as well.
While I was a master’s student, I gave my very first paper [at APA]. My area was Women and Aging, initially, partly because the woman I was with at the time was interested in human development in aging. So we went to an APA [convention] in New Orleans. I believe that could have been 1974, but I'm not sure.
What you did in those days, if you were gay or lesbian, was to attend something with “homosexuality” in the title. Then you sat there in the audience, and you looked around, right? Sometimes you might have a conversation with those who attended, and sometimes not, but through that, we heard that there was some sort of social hour or party. And later, we went to that. We opened the door and sort of looked in on it. There seemed to be mainly gay men, and we didn’t stay.
That was my first introduction to the group that became or was AGP [Association of Gay Psychologists]. There was definitely no “L” in the name at that point.
Doug Kimmel:
Okay, so you went into that social meeting as AGP, and it was all men.
Kristin Hancock:
That was the impression – although later I discovered that a few women were involved.
After this convention – and the things I heard and saw there – my life took its course, and I decided I wanted to become a clinical psychologist.
So I attended CSPP [California School for Professional Psychology]. While there, Doug, I think I've mentioned this to you before, but that's where I ran into Steve Morin.
Steve Morin was teaching a community psychology class, and it was focused on lesbian and gay issues. And that was so exciting to me because I'd never seen anything like it offered anywhere.
Oh, I have to mention something else, Doug, and you probably don't remember this. But there was a San Francisco Convention at some point, and this might have been in the seventies, the late seventies. I don't know, we can check. But you were giving a talk. And I went to your talk. You had a textbook out on aging, which had been an interest of mine. In it, I think you mentioned gay people, and that, too, was amazing to me.
I didn't go up and talk to you or anything, but that was a very meaningful event [for me]. But while I was at CSPP, I met Steve and I began to work with him. ...
There was something else that happened, by the way, at that 1974 [convention] while I was still a master's student that changed my life and [dedication to] gay issues too. I went to the exhibits.
I saw a lot of people crowded around this exhibit. And they were showing slides – a slide show. And they had one of your nice, you know, “lazy-boy” chairs there. Basically, this was a behavioral therapy [exhibit] for changing sexual orientation.
I stood there amongst these people watching this. And it would show these glamorous women, all decked out. And then, every once in a while, it'd show a cowboy, a guy in cowboy drag, or a guy in construction drag. Apparently, whenever the guy came up, the subject [in the chair] got a shock.
As I watched this, it dawned on me. Oh God, they want me in that chair! They want me and my friends in that chair. And [for me] that was profound because at that point I could have either chosen to leave psychology because it was hostile and even dangerous. Or, maybe [I could] try and do something about it.
I think in the back of my head – the anger at seeing that, the outrage at seeing that – helped guide my choices. This was also a major motivation for taking Steve Morin's class at CSPP.
I did a couple of errands for him [helping with organizational work]. I think he was just in the formation stage of what he was doing with APA. This had to be about 1976 or '77, probably as I graduated in ’78 and got licensed in ’81.
That's when things really started picking up. Because I became a full member of APA and was no longer a student at a convention. It might have been Anaheim or Los Angeles convention.
Yes, it could have been the 1981 LA convention. There was another social hour. There were more women there [compared to 1974] and Steve was whispering with somebody. It was some woman on the board of AGP at the time. They didn't have many women…The next thing I know, I was encouraged to run for the AGP board. Okay, I think Steve was doing what we all eventually did for a while: picking out people who might [be willing to] work for the division at some point.
So I wound up on the board. And the next convention was – and I think it was my first real “I'm on an association board” experience – and that was in DC; '82 was District of Columbia, I think. Yeah, it was. That was my first AGP board meeting. On that board at the time, there’s Tony Russo, there was Alan Pinka. I cannot recall who the rest of them were. Maybe Alan Goodman…and then Beverly Goff – who didn't show up for that convention. Bronwyn Anthony maybe? But I don't know. Anyway, what my job was at that at that meeting was to get a women's party going. You know, a little party where women could come. There were a couple of graduate students there and one of them was Chris Browning. And she might have been either a graduate student or just out of [graduate school]. We worked hard to make it a success.
And who shows up to this party, but Laura Brown – who was a force to contend with even then. Her energies seemed to be more spent with the Association of Women in Psychology. ... And you know what – that it’s really kind of is interesting with Laura and I – because we kind of came up through two different systems in APA. One was sort of gay man-friendly, and the other one was not too gay man-friendly.
In those days, separatism was a thing. I don't actually know if Laura was a separatist or not; however, in those days, her energy was directed at advocating for women. The discussion with Laura was important, though. Chris and I did discuss it quite a bit afterwards.
We decided if AGP was gonna be a safe and welcoming place for women, we had to go out and recruit, basically, and to let them know it was nice for women. In my experience, AGP was very welcoming from the start. I was well supported and mentored. And it was fun!
In those days, you know, the term “angry lesbian” was a term thrown around quite a bit – even amongst gay men. At any rate, I kind of enjoyed the men I met in AGP. As you know, in 1984 AGP was going to be 10 years old. Right? I think it was formed back in '74.
One evening in the fall after the DC convention was over, Tony Russo (who was going to be the AGP Chair/President) invited me out to dinner. He was in San Francisco. He began to lobby me to be the next AGP Chair.
I was a little taken aback by that because I had so little experience with organizations.
But he said he wanted me to run for chair because that group had never had a woman lead it before.
Now, mind you, Doug, I was not that far from graduate school. I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about organizational administration. How organizations function, their connection with APA or not. Yeah, all those issues and mechanisms. Nevertheless, he kept at me and he said, “We will give you all the support you need, and then some.” Later on, Alan Pinka did the same thing. He took me out to lunch; wanted me to be chair.
Tony Russo was indeed a good feminist. He was; he really believed in that. So it happened. Fortunately, Chris Browning was also there to help, as was Robin Buhrke.
This kind of support was a theme that I experienced in a lot of my positions in APA. I always felt supported and cared about from the gay men I worked with. And lots of them were also hysterically funny. Alan Goodman was a riot. He was treasurer. Dan Downey – who, I believe, was the next chair – was a delight to work with.
During this period, there were basically two projects. The first was making the association more welcoming to women. The second was the effort to assist those who were already at work advocating for an APA division to be formed regarding our issues.
Chris Browning and I, together – I don't recall if Robin was there or not – went to AWP. We conducted a little group [about AGP] and recruited lesbians from AWP. That was bold, but we did it.
So the next thing we did was this: We went back to the board, and I said, “You know, if you're going to get women, you need to stick an 'L' in the title just for now. You need to, you need to put that in.”
So, I got the “L” put in. And sure enough, by the next year our membership of women was almost, if I recall correctly, 50%. It was almost 50%. And that was just stunning. And what we also did – this is the third thing – was to change leadership: to change the chair position. Instead of going years and years and years with men [only in leadership] and then put a woman in, a gender parity policy was adopted. That gender parity policy followed us into Division 44 for a long time. And it came from AGP.
Many of the policies – not all of them, but a lot of them – that were adopted by Division 44 came from the culture of AGP or ALGP. ALGP assisted in an ongoing way in the movement to establish an APA division.
Soon thereafter, there began the inevitable conversations between ALGP and Division 44 about “who does what.” The functions – especially social and programming – were often a subject of debate. It was hard, I think, for ALGP members (after being such a major force for gay and lesbian psychologists) to sort out duties and allegiances between the two. ALGP could do things that Division 44 was not able to do because of its association with APA. However, APA had its name and power as an organization behind it.
Richard Sprott:
It is really amazing to hear…But part of what we want also is to hear about how being involved in all of that changed your own sense of yourself. During all of this, was that ever in conflict with how you saw yourself as a professional in any kind of way? There was no issue about being out?
Kristin Hancock:
No, when I applied for a full-time teaching position at JFK in their doctorate program, I realized that if I gay-proofed my CV, there wouldn't be anything on it. Partly because a lot of what I did, even early after I got licensed, started to mainly involve the activities in ALGP. Then [as I moved] into Division 44 and CLGC [APA Committee on Lesbian & Gay Concerns], my efforts centered around this work.
I was doing a lot of things [back then] in about two or three years at the same time but in terms of how it affected me, it didn't affect whether I got a job. I was given a job with open arms. And I was free to pursue my interests.
And in terms of how it affected me personally? As I told you, when I first started this on this path. I was a mentee. I was an apprentice and a terrified one at that. I was scared and had very little in the way of self-confidence. But I got so much love and support from the guys that I worked with (mostly it was guys) that I was able to grow into the roles that came to me. You know, I actually evolved as a person and as a professional.
One thing I want to mention, though – and it really needs to be mentioned – is that, looming in the background of all of this was AIDS.
When I went to my first AGP meeting, I think it was in Washington, DC, Alan Pinka was talking with somebody else on the board about this disease or this illness that was affecting gay men out there. He was saying something about the fact that they needed to be more careful, etc. And, within a few years, I remember taking a walk with Alan Malyon in Washington [at a later APA convention]. He rarely opened up; he usually was quite professional most of the time; however, when he opened up, he really did.
And he said, “You know, Kris, I'm afraid of making friends.” And I said, “How come?” He said, “Because I'll lose them.”
Within a couple of years, he too was dead. Not from AIDS, though. But many others began to die.
The gay guys I knew – many of them friends – were dropping like flies from this terrible disease. And the way that that impacted [APA] governance – because a lot of them were starting to make their way into APA governance – was profound. It was devastating. I remember going to six funerals in six weeks. And most of them were guys I knew from, you know, Division 44. Or from ALGP. One guy even committed suicide [upon finding out he had AIDS].
So this loomed in the background and often in the foreground. And I think it impacted my work on the Guidelines [project] for a couple of years because after Alan died, I just couldn't work on this very well – as he and I started the project [Guidelines for Psychotherapy with Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients].
Eventually, after that, we picked ourselves up and did more of this work. But I don't want AIDS left unmentioned. [It took a tremendous toll upon LGBT issues in psychology – and certainly in our representation for these issues.]
I was on CLGC at the same time as I was on the Executive Board of Division 44. CLGC is where I originally met up with Alan Malyon. … Well, at first it was the Committee on Gay Concerns when I got there. Learning from experience, I said, “Let's put an 'L' in it.” And they did. There was no association-wide objection to this, you know. [APA] Council did that easily. It was no big deal.
But so, I got a phone call – just after I got onto CLGC – and he said, “I have a project, and I'd like you to help me with it.” He [Alan Malyon] was kind of like that, you know. I asked “Okay, what is it?”
“I want to write some therapy guidelines for working with gay men. I want you,” he said, “to do the ones for lesbians.”
I said, “Well, okay.” So, we met at CLGC. It was in Washington [DC]. And I remember sitting in the lobby of a hotel and we started talking about this again, because he really wanted to do it. I said, “Alan,” I said, “shouldn't we like ask somebody or do a study or something?” Because I still had this scientist practitioner deeply rooted in my soul, right?
And so from that – and thanks to CLGC –we developed the team to do [what is now referred to as] the “Bias Study.” We had some terrific people on that: I mean, there was Anne Peplau and Susan Cochran. We had Jackie Goodchilds and Linda Garnets. Alan, of course. Who were the guys? There were a couple of other guys on there. I can't remember their names. But these people were, you know real, you know, great scientists, social scientists.
So we conducted this [critical incident] study; however, in the middle of it, Alan got sick. He eventually had to step down from his role. And that was really difficult. But the results we got were phenomenal.
And from these results, we could start to develop [the guidelines]. We asked about horrible things that happened in psychotherapy and we asked about great things that happened. And from the great things that happened [as well as the horrible ones], we actually started being able to create guidelines.
However, it stalled out as I said because of Alan's illness. And Linda Garnets got together with Anne Peplau and they restarted the project and got the wheels in motion. They sort of nudged me out of my grief. A little bit. And we finished it.
But it was really something to be able to see the power of the American Psychological Association when it was supporting a project like that. And to get some good people, really good people, working on it. Was amazing to watch and to be a part of it.
Doug Kimmel:
These were the Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Lesbian and Gay Clients?
Kristin Hancock:
Yes. Although we had a very forceful individual named Ron Fox who really felt strongly that because bisexuality was a sexual orientation issue, it should be included in that.
He cornered me at a social hour and lobbied fiercely for bisexuality to be included. It was a bit of a challenge finding studies at the time focused on bisexuality. Much of the research supporting the guidelines involved gay men and there were studies involving lesbians; however, bisexual women and men were not separated out in these very often, if ever.
Doug Kimmel:
And this was based on your empirical study. So these were guidelines coming out of empirical science for the first time in the profession?
Kristin Hancock:
Yeah, if you want to put it that way, yes. Alan Malyon would have been just as happy to sit down and write them himself. I think they were stronger supported by research – without question.
You know, Alan was a very smart man and he wrote very well and I'm sure he would have done a snap-up job.
But I think it had more power. Because we had those vignettes from the Bias Study interviews we conducted.
Doug Kimmel:
And, of course, it had to be approved by APA Council to become guidelines. And so it really did need the empirical science behind it.
Kristin Hancock:
It did. And they [APACouncil] did [in 2000].
Doug Kimmel:
And you know, that was an enormous accomplishment that you all pulled off.
Kristin Hancock:
Yeah, it was quite a project and it took some years because when APA gets involved…
The other thing it did – I'm not sure you guys know that – but I found this out when I was on the [APA] Board of Professional Affairs – those guidelines actually were used as a template to construct the policy for how guidelines should be written. Did you know that? I was told that by the APA attorney.
The General Counsel, Natalie Guilfoyle, at APA was walking down the hall with me at a meeting of the Committee on Professional Practice and Standards and said, “I don't know if you know this or not, but those guidelines have changed the way APA does this.”
And so, we basically created a structure that we used for those guidelines and that structure turned out to be the template that was used by the Board of Professional Affairs and by the Committee on Professional Practice and Standards for practice guidelines. It was really cool. I had no idea until this whole thing was done.
Doug Kimmel:
Let me back up for a minute and talk about the founding of Division 44.
Kristin Hancock:
Okay, where was I when that happened? Well, I was obviously working with Steve a little bit. I'd see him now and then.
I got involved when I was Chair of ALGP. ... And what happened was they did this huge petition [part of the process for the formation for a division]. So I was writing a lot of letters and participating in the gathering of signatures. Writing letters to people saying “Please join us with this.” You know, I was doing a lot of that. I used a lot of time for that when I was in my part time private practice between clients.
Doug Kimmel:
Right, APA required a certain percentage of signatures in order to form a new division.
Kristin Hancock:
Yeah. It was a lot of it, that part was a lot of work on the part of psychologists from all over the country – Steve Morin, Alan Malyon, Hal Kooden, Marty Rochlin, Adrienne Smith, Bronwyn Anthony – just to name a few of them. Such wonderful, dedicated psychologists and marvelous mentors.
And we got a lot of good people supporting it. We started learning who our allies were.
And that was heart warming, you know. I remember when our new division got approved at that convention. Apparently, the psychoanalysts wanted to call it something else. It seems that they wanted to have some sort of analytic name and that was when Steve went up to the microphone. He was our [APA] Council rep. “No, we don't want that name!”
So it finally got passed. And Steve made me Chair of the Future Directions Committee because he was the president. And on that committee was Terry Gock. That's how I met Terry Gock.
So, after the division was approved, Steve said to me in the hallway: “Girl, I'm gonna have to stop wearing dresses and you're gonna have to start!”
I said, “Really?” But yes, in those days, yes, one had to sort of present yourself more conservatively when serving in governance. So when I did my presidential talk on the current status of research on lesbians, I remember wearing this blue outfit – yes “the dress.” And you know, Bev Greene was in the audience then, although I didn’t know it. I didn't know her at the time, but she actually remembered this. It really struck her. That was probably the last time I wore a dress at APA. But I did do that just because Steve told me to, and because I thought, “Well, maybe I need to because this is formal wear.” I considered it “drag.”
So that's how it sort of started. I helped in the letter writing and signature gathering.
You know, what's ironic is that I just read something online: early on in '74 when they formed AGP that they did this guerrilla presentation at APA. And Jesse Miller dressed up as a Navy Wave to give his part. And you know, I knew Jesse Miller. He and I were at that at the Martinez VA hospital in our internships. And you should have heard the staff psychologists at the VA talk about Jessie after he did this. There was a lot of eye-rolling. But he was a good student and he had the protection of none other than [well-known UC Berkeley psychologist] Barbara Singer.
Doug Kimmel:
Just to fill in a little bit around that vignette. Jesse, as I recall, had a beard. And he put on this Navy Wave outfit and went in for what we then called a “zap.” At that meeting, they were talking about conversion therapy using behavioral techniques.
Kristin Hancock:
Yep. Sort of in your face. “Deal with this.” And there was a bit of that going on; and he was just the kind of person who could do it, too.
Richard Sprott:
One question I have in the back of my head is while all of these things are happening if there was a particular challenge in trying to get all of this up and running – a particular challenge that that really took a lot of your time? 'Cause in some ways the way you tell the story it sounds like it was kind of easy.
Kristin Hancock:
(Laughing). No. Most of all it was time-consuming. Thankfully, my practice was part-time. You know, I was just getting it started in my career. It was part time so I did have some time to devote. So I did have time to do pursue the LGB issues in psychology.
It was fun. And if there is one theme that drove not just my participation, but how I tried to conduct any leadership activities that I did, is it had to be fun too, because you got so much out of people when they were having fun – they wanted to be there. You know, people would look forward to going to EC [Executive Committee] meetings. People would have a good time and catch up and do this really fine work, and keep a positive attitude. It felt like home to folks in those days.
I tried to create that kind of environment, as hard as I could. And sometimes that took a little time, but mostly it was work that involved getting together with one or another of the board members and, you know, what are we going to do with the budget? All this kind of stuff.
And it wasn't as big an organization as it is now. That's the other thing. I think they probably deal with a much bigger budget than we did and manage a larger membership. And the interest areas encompassed by the Division is larger. You know, back then we were pretty focused.
And then, as I said earlier, we had AIDS. And the AIDS issues took almost as much time sometimes as anything else. I remember we did a news conference once in LA at the Biltmore regarding the public response to AIDS. AIDS ate up a lot of our time – personally and professionally.
Did that answer your question, Richard? Partly it was fun and that made it look easy.
There was a lot of work, but you know, it was good and inspiring to work with these LGB collgeagues and fun to be with them. Yeah, to work with them.
Doug Kimmel:
You were the first elected president of Division 44. Do you remember anything about that in particular?
Kristin Hancock:
No. I was so afraid, though. As I took every one of these steps, Doug, I was scared. I was always, always anxious and scared. Because I knew Steve is such a capable man and a polished politician. He did such a fine job. He knew all about governance. But I was being helped and told what to do, if necessary, and this is how you do it – it’s how one can learn the job. But not in a mean or controlling way. Do you know what I mean?
It was like: I remember Bonnie Strickland, who was [APA] president at some point there back there. I didn't know she was gay until Steve and somebody else invited me to her party in her suite. I then found out she was gay. And I thought, “Wow!” I wondered how many psychologists were gay in governance and just not out because when I first joined the governance you didn't see any gay or lesbian people. And then within the next 5 years, LGB people were starting to pop up on committees and boards as “out”; it was cool.
Yeah, it was it was a real transitional time. Very transitional. But to answer your question: I was frightened when I became president. I was frightened. Less frightened the year after that, but I was frightened when I went on to CLGC: The Committee on Lesbian and Gay Concerns. Carolyn Payton was sitting on that committee. She had served under the Kennedy administration! I didn't think I deserved to sit at the same table as that woman.
You know, yeah, so here I am sitting right across the table from her on the same committee. It terrified me. I even remember talking to my therapist about how I shouldn't be there. Eventually it started to fade away as I started to get to the [APA] board level. But I’ll tell you, the people I have been able to meet through my activities in Division 44 and my connection with it, are people I would never have had an opportunity to meet otherwise, ever in my life; such intelligent and articulate psychologists – John Gonsiorek and Laura Brown, for instance. Chris Browning, Doug Haldeman, Armand [Cerbone], Beverly Greene, Alan Malyon, Allen Pinka, so many. All of them – even beginning with you – I mean, you wrote that wonderful aging text. That was so exciting to me. So. I couldn't have, I couldn't have done any of that any other way. That's the gift that [Division] 44 gave me. Actually, that's one of the big gifts. Also, I had the opportunity to grow professionally and to do some good work along the way.
I remember a thing happened when we gave our first version of the guidelines to BAPPI, [APA Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest]. And we had some friends on that board, right? They were generally people who were friendly towards the Guidelines. But the way that we wrote it – and Richard, this’ll probably be, I think this will be familiar in some ways, maybe. The way that we wrote it was so: “you have to do this and you have to do this;” and “you must do this with gay people.” And we fervently believed that. Okay, so we were going on and on. And one BAPPI member said, “Well, I think the guidelines...” (one of them, she was a straight woman; I don't remember who she was). She said, “You know, I think this is, it's good, but the tone.” I sort of sat there and I was, who was I with? I don't remember, maybe Laura was at that meeting too – Laura Brown. I don't remember, but I kept thinking tone, tone? What tone? We don't have a tone. It was strident. We were talking from within our own box.
And this was a lesson I got to learn. It was a real gift. And it followed me in other places too. The lesson I learned was that that's not going to be helpful to people. They're not going to want to listen to you. [If you speak to them in such a dictatorial manner.]
[So the question became:] How can you make these things help others and not pound them over the head? I'll tell you what, that was one of the best political lessons I ever learned in all my boards and committees that I worked on in APA – especially in working in the area of practice guidelines. Because what happened is we started to make the language [more respectful of the psychologists we wanted to help]. That's why the language of guidelines became such an important deal. I mean, how you write a sentence. Not just because of [what] lawyers [might do] but because of the people you are trying to serve and help.
And I've seen group after group after group [make this same mistake], because [when I was with] the Committee for Professional Practice and Standards, I helped review a number of guidelines. Every one of them were making the same kind of error. They all spoke from within their own box and initially did not provide the assistance guidelines were meant to provide. They were pounding people over the head. And [it’s likely that] people still do that, right? It's like [having to] go to Miss Nancy's Charm School for Guidelines, you know. I mean that's basically it and learning, having some emotional intelligence about those you are intending to help.
I'm laughing because I'm thinking of one thing that happened on CLGC [once that really broke ice with other governance members]. Somebody was visiting us from some other [APA] committee; it was either a board or some other something. And we were, you know, talking around, giggling and carrying on [at dinner], the way we liked to do, right?
Yes, I had just had my “colors done.” Right? And this was the era where Dynasty was that big [TV] program that all the gay men would go to the bars and watch. [Cast members on that TV show consulted with costumers who developed methods of dressing them in the colors that would best suit their shape and skin tones]. And I got my “colors done” [at the urging of a gay friend]. And we started talking about that at dinner. And this woman started wanting to be in this conversation very badly because, you know after all this was kind of a groovy thing. I think she was from New York and she was she was like, “Well, where do you go?” and like, “what does this do?” And by the end of that weekend, she was joining in these pranks and jokes at dinner with us.
I tell you about that because one of the ways that I learned to connect with people is to get them to know us; and to get to know them on a more personal level. To help them know us and have fun doing that. You know, it was kind of the same strategy I used with ALGP and initially, Division 44. It made these groups places you wanted to be and people you wanted to be with. 'Cause it's fun and it's welcoming. And individual people become committed. This is a place you want to be, ‘cause it's fun. And I don't just mean frivolous fun. I just mean people had a good time doing [the] work. So I used that politically. I think all my days until I, until it didn't work too much anymore.
But that's how I approached it – on a more personal level; and you make the guidelines more acceptable to people. You [also] work with them politically on their issues and they'll want to join you on yours. Right. So [I’d say that] it really was a very interpersonal approach to politics that I used.
I was not a big “theory person.” I would sit in the audience when John Gonsiorek and Laura Brown were talking about ethics and their ideas about all of that and really love that. [Their theoretical contributions were so important.] Or you know, the researchers up there talking about a scientific findings on conversion therapy or something. [I often took notes on their presentations.]
But [as for me], I learned my politics in a very personal way. In a very interpersonal way and that's, that's what I used while on [APA] Council. That's when Doug [Haldeman], Armand Cerbone, and I were a team; we got a lot done. We spread ourselves out all over Council [and got a lot done as we connected with other council members in the association.]
Doug Kimmel:
You're talking about APA Council when you are representative from Division 44?
Kristin Hancock:
Yes, we got the marriage resolution [Resolution on Marriage Equality for Same-Sex Couples] adopted by the APA Council of Representatives and the parenting resolution [APA Resolution on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity (SOGI), Parents and their Childrenopens in new window] passed. Both Doug and Armand are very personable people. We'd meet and we'd strategize and then we'd go out and do the interpersonal thing and it seemed to work. It really did seem to work pretty well.
Doug Kimmel:
Back to the Division. Were there any particular issues or struggles that you would engage with that you'd like to discuss when you were involved in leadership of Division 44?
Kristin Hancock:
I think, well, it's kind of existential and this is a little bit I think more personal, but for such a long time, you may recall when Doug Haldeman was president that there was an EC [Executive Committee] meeting on the West Coast. Might have been … Newport Beach. Linda Garnets came and did a workshop – as strategic planning thing. And she was quite good at it. And one of the things she asked was, yes, how we joined the Division. Right. And a lot of people talked about recruiting and the Ellen DeGeneres [American lesbian comedian] toaster-oven thing. You know, somebody would win a “Toaster Oven” for recruiting most people. [This referred to an episode in which DeGeneres made fun of the myth that gay and lesbian people had an agenda to “recruit” people to become gay or lesbian.]
But the other thing she [Garnets] asked was what do people liked best about Division 44. The EC was fairly large at that time. We went around the table. And do you know almost invariably, the word “home” came up. It felt like home. It felt like a safe place.
Even from the days when we had two membership lists – an unpublished list [to protect those who were afraid that their jobs might be threatened if others knew they were gay or lesbian] and the regular list. Right? People who want to be a member but didn't want their names broadcast [would be on the unpublished list]. Anyway, it felt like home to them. The social hours. Some of the meetings. The connections with people that they had [through Division 44].
The other divisions felt like business to those who responded to Linda’s question. Other divisions felt like where they took their professional lives. Depending on their interests. But Division 44 felt like “home.”
And some of that came from ALGP. I mean, it was a culture thing that we carried with us for a long time.
Now, to answer your question, I believe that that started to change. Now I'm not sure why it changed. It was slow, a slow change. I think as the Division got larger, it started really to change. And the interest areas broadened. And it started to feel it wasn't like a home so much anymore. Perhaps it was inevitable. To me. It felt like it was evolving and changing. And it was going to evolve to encompass the needs that were, you know, in front of them at the time.
There was a lot of people coming in to leadership from the counseling [Division 17] group. Very intelligent and capable people – but they didn't have the history and the enculturation that used to be had by people in [Division 44] leadership because they didn't receive the mentoring initially that Division 44 members received. There were some stunning people who stayed around and did some of that mentoring. You're one of them, Doug, and Terry Gock was another. But eventually it got too big for me.
I started feeling a little sad and a little bit like I didn't quite know what to do. And it like it wasn't as important in my life as it once was. I supported it but it wasn't that “home” anymore. And then there was some, you know, there was other things in my life that were happening and I just sort of went on to pursue those things. I went on to do a lot of the work on APA boards [Board of Professional Affairs, Board for the Advancement of the Public Interest, and Policy and Planning Board.] ...
Doug Kimmel:
One other dimension we've not touched on. Again, personally, did you have to deal with any internalized homophobia, you know, in order to actively work with ALGP or Division 44?
Kristin Hancock:
Well, I mean wearing that damn blue dress [at my Division 44 Presidential address] felt like drag! I mean, it was a nice dress. And I had sort of burnt orange shoes and earrings that were the same color. I mean I was put together! But I'll tell you what – it felt like drag. I mean, I really don't wear dresses. I don't do dresses well and I never did. [But at that time I felt I had to for that purpose.]
So that was a little piece of it. We wound up treating that with such humor though because we didn't take gender seriously. You know, we could flip into that [kind of humor easily]. I had a male part of me, too, just like these guys had female parts of who they were [Very Jungian]. ...
Kristin Hancock:
I think there are some things for which I'm really grateful to Division 44. I think I mentioned some of them. I think that I mentioned the opportunity to grow as a person and professionally as a psychologist. I learned many, many things.
I loved a lot of the gay men I worked with. They were kind to me, they were supportive – and some of the women as well; but mostly for me it was gay men. I was mentored by them. I was taught how to do this and that by them. And they were very bright and very capable and they came from different branches of psychology, not just clinical. Then they had to go through the AIDS thing and this was very hard. But I learned so, so much from them.
And I have friends that, you know, even though I never see them, they're still friends, you know, and we catch up when I see them or hear from them. Service in ALGP, CLGC, and Division 44 gave me so many opportunities and gifts both internally and also in my personal and professional life.
I don't think people who are looking at joining APA governance or being on a board or working on a division committee realize the gifts that they can receive. If I were mentoring, I would talk to the mentees about that because I don't think they see it or can really appreciate it fully. I think what they see right away, it could be the “bus stop phenomenon,” which I don't like because I think you wind up using the division and not serving it very well lots of times.
But it's an opportunity. For them to make friends. For them to participate in projects. For them to meet people they never would have gotten to meet otherwise and to have fun if they're able to have fun. And sometimes they don't see that. I don't think they quite see that in the beginning. They see it as a thing that is a good thing to have on your vita. And you know, “It's probably easier to get on that than on something else. And I'll probably be on council someday” – you know, that kind of stuff. They see that, but they don't see the rest of it. And the rest of it is what you take away from it. Seriously, that's been my experience.
Doug Kimmel:
Well, certainly Kris, we loved you and we just had so much fun over the years with you. In so many different ways. And your gifts to the division and ALGP and APA have been so important. And, so long lasting and you know, you were one of those people really hung in there and kept going. And the humor was delightful. Delightful.
Kristin Hancock:
Back at you, Doug! But thanks. I appreciate it. Those guidelines! Those guidelines were my big thing. And they hopefully helped people. By the way, they were actually used internationally, which I found out, by different countries as a model for some of theirs. Like Brazil and Australia and all over, you know, that was really incredible. That was just that was incredible to watch and you don't do that by yourself; you do that with really smart people who are committed to the project who you enjoy working with. And with an organization who is willing to support you financially to do it, because guidelines take resources, for sure.
Doug Kimmel:
Right. Did you receive any particular awards or things that you're especially proud of?
Kristin Hancock:
Yeah. Well, let's see. I'm looking at my vita here. There's a couple of them. One of them was actually the Distinguished Humanitarian Award from the California Psychological Association that I got. That's the big one. That's statewide…I got one also from the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology…Division 44 gave me – wow, The Distinguished Professional Contribution Award – that was a good one. And I got one for Education as well, and Distinguished Service. CLGBC gave me one as well. I mean, there were a few.
I think the one awarded to me by the National Multicultural folks was very big. They awarded me an Elder status designation. This was a special honor for me.
So I mean, there's been recognition. And I'm very, very grateful for that but I didn't do what I did for these awards at all. For me, it was about the work.
I'm so glad that those guidelines got wheels and, you know, got out. Then we revised them and they were even better and they got wheels as well. You know, making something and seeing it work for others was an amazing experience. You know, seeing it go out and do its thing. With APA's big old seal of approval was big.
That was what was the most gratifying for me, I think.
Like I said to both of you, I think that what students need to know or young professionals need to know when they go into Division 44 to do the work is what they will get back that they don't anticipate. And what kinds of interesting things can be put in their path. Other than “I can get on to the next committee or I can be on council or I can do that.” It's not just about the vita. Much, much more than that. …
But going back over this, it brought fun, wonderful memories, like the one where Steve Morin telling me he was going to stop wearing dresses and then I had to start! And Laura Brown going on about AWP at our party eating our cookies. [A few years after that, she herself became a president of Division 44.]. That was pretty funny.
But it also brought back memories of a lot of the people we lost to AIDS, you know. There was one time when Susan Cochran and I were talking and she told me of a young gay male professional [who] asked her once: “Why are there no gay men in [APA] governance?” And you know, Susan Cochran has a very deadpan look at times. She turned around and said, “They're dead.” And she's right, a lot of the potential superstars that were gay men, we lost. Alan [Malyon] was one of them, but there were others.
It was really something and Division 44 went through that. And they did what they could with the science and everything psychologists bring to bear to try and help with that situation. And I'm proud of this, too, because it was terrifying. And you remember, I'm sure.
So anyway, it brought back a lot of memories, guys, and it was a lovely afternoon of sitting here with all these notes and dates.
And I love that you have this list of dates of all the presidents because when I saw all the presidents [of Division 44], when I saw that, I thought, “Yes, now I can remember what year it was that we did this, and what year it was I did that.” That was very helpful. It really was.