By Cindi Creager, Lambda Legal Chief Communications Officer
I came out at 29. It was 1998, and I was in grad school. It didn’t happen overnight. When I first arrived in New York City to attend Columbia Journalism School, I tried to convince myself that maybe I’d meet a man and get married. Clinging onto family expectations to live a “normal” life, and always wanting to please, I kept it as a possibility.
Deep inside, I knew better. I was exhilarated at the prospect of living in Manhattan, where I secretly hoped to meet a woman. I was also terrified to live my truth.
What has followed these past 25 years, fills my soul with wonderment and awe as I reflect on my most fortunate life with Rainie Cole.
How can I begin to fathom this journey with my soulmate? The woman who immediately accepted the truest parts of me. The one who took me to see Kate Clinton when I was afraid of my own lesbian shadow. The one who held my hand even when I pulled it away for fear of someone on the street recognizing me and “finding out”.
What forces of the universe placed me in the exact right piano bar among a perfect set of LGBTQ+ friends (who became my chosen family), and put me face to face with her to fulfill my destiny? How could I ever know those first moments would lead to decades of love and commitment?
Lesbian Visibility Week is the perfect time for me to reflect on my gratitude for Rainie, the one who carved a path, the one I admire, the one who unapologetically came out in the early ‘70s and never looked back.
“I couldn’t live any other way – there was no option,” she recently shared with me, adding, “To me, marriage to a man and having children and living in the suburbs was death. That was the end of life. That wasn’t who I was. I couldn’t do it. I could not be untrue to who I was.”
Courage. She had the courage to find her people in musical theater, mostly gay men, who she helped find their truth. Rainie would lose so many of these same people within the next two decades when AIDS decimated the community. She lost count of the friends who left this earth far too young. During one stretch, she was attending two or three memorial services a month.
Through it all she established herself as a cabaret standout and a piano bar favorite, and one-time off-Broadway performer. And while the dream of Broadway stardom never came, the loyal following of piano bar and cabaret fans most certainly did.
And when I came along, I got a taste of that life and instantly fell in love. We then forged a path. In those early days Rainie once told me, “You couldn’t find a better teacher.” She was right. Yes, she taught things about LGBTQ+ classics like Tales of the City. She also taught me so much more.
She taught me about art. She taught me about life. She showed me what it looks like to be comfortable in your skin. She loved and has continued to love me deeply and unconditionally.
Along the way, I got braver. She shared her interest in transgender issues. We worked on a documentary that attempted to dispel misconceptions about transgender people. We faced bias when we tried to get the film off the ground in the early 2000s. We even received pushback from some members of the gay and lesbian community who were judgmental and skeptical of trans lives. It was very discouraging at times, but we never gave up our commitment to be allies to the trans community.
Although our documentary is still “on the shelf” it paved the way for our years of work on transgender issues. In 2005, I found my way to GLAAD and spent five-and-a-half years serving as its Director of National News. Much of that work involved fighting against anti-trans defamation and amplifying trans lives.
All the work I had done on our film educated me and made me a much better activist at GLAAD. I never would have landed that job had I not spent those years working on the film.
Fighting to uplift LGBTQ+ people in the media at GLAAD made me strong and proud — so much so that I married Rainie in 2008, when it became legal to do so in Connecticut. We “eloped” to that state and seven friends tagged along for the ride.
The GLAAD path led me to the NYC LGBTQ Center for a time, and in 2012, Rainie and I joined forces once again as a working couple, when we launched CreagerCole Communications. For 11 years we amplified the work of organizations like the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth, transgender rights, attorney, Jillian Weiss, and supermodels, Hanne Gaby Odiele and Teddy Quinlivan, among many more clients.
Rainie’s guidance, love, and support are largely responsible for my career trajectory in the LGBTQ+ movement. I’m fortunate to use all those lessons and all that experience in my position with Lambda Legal today.
Through it all, I continue to stand on Rainie’s shoulders. Her energy and the energy of our bond uplifts me and propels me towards an even greater dedication to LGBTQ+ equality and support for all those living with HIV.
In 2018, Rainie nursed me through a challenging bout with breast cancer. She never left my side as I endured brutal days of treatment in my path to recovery. Her love and support sustained me and helped me to heal. During our years together, we also experienced the passing of three of our four parents, and we helped each other navigate the grief surrounding those losses.
25-plus years later, that once shy grad student who dreamt of so many possibilities, has carved out a beautiful and enriching existence, in the city that I love, with the woman of my dreams.
Thank you, Rainie Cole, my love, my wife, my life. Happy Lesbian Visibility Week!
