A 71-year-old Wichita lesbian happy for new generation

Susanna Hutcheson, 71, said she feels more free to be out and open about being gay than ever before because of the Supreme Court ruling.

But the real benefit of Friday’s ruling, she said, will be that the next generation will not have to suffer like she did.

As a teenager in the 1960s, she said, the police used to hassle her when she went to the gay club Idle Hour on West Douglas. If the police came in, she would switch partners to dance with a man, but usually they would be back two days later and sometimes would take her in to the police station.

She met a life partner in her 30s. But her partner died in 1977 after complications from a surgery. Hutcheson hasn’t had that kind of relationship since.

Her mom called her “queer” and her dad never accepted her.

“He just didn’t like who I was or what I was,” Hutcheson said. “These things always hurt, and that continues on with the rest of my family, now just cousins, who won’t have anything to do with me.”

She adapted to life in Kansas but said having to hold it all in was hard.

“Being a conservative state, you just kind of shut your mouth and go about your business and don’t say anything,” Hutcheson said. “I wanted to run for office several times, but my dad said, ‘You better not because your past may come out.’ You feel like a criminal when people found out that you’re gay. I guess you were, in the past.”

This story was originally published June 27, 2015 at 6:04 PM with the headline "A 71-year-old Wichita lesbian happy for new generation."