Maria Minicucci August 15, 1950—May 15, 2001 by Ann Walton Sieber

If Maria Minicucci upset an entire community by dying way too early, at age 50, she compensated for it in some part by living a life that was uncompromising and full-bore. Thoreau cautioned that we may come to the end of our lives and realize we haven’t lived: Maria came to what should have been the halfway point of her adult life and realized, I hope, that she’d been living very fully indeed.

Maria was a big woman–in her physical size, sure. But this extended to her impact in the community, the scope of her ideas, the breadth of her creativity, her sexuality, and her caring.

Maria was at the center of Houston’s GLBT community–rather remarkably, for she only moved here three and a half years ago–and when she was found dead of a heart attack on May 15 while visiting her mother in Niagara Falls, the ripples spread out through the community within minutes. It was a shock that jolted the center. Maria was such a familiar presence at queer gatherings: Walking into Baba Yega’s or the community center or any Pride event, it felt bizarre to know Maria would not be there, for she so often was.

Maria Elena Minicucci was born August 15, 1950, to Emily and Ernest Minicucci and grew up in a blue-collar Italian neighborhood in Niagara Falls, just minutes from the crashing water of the falls. Maria’s father was a policeman, her mother a housewife. Maria had a strong personality (and a penchant for ruffles and frills), and she felt a misfit in her fiercely Roman Catholic and conservative neighborhood. Her own struggles with being an outsider set her up for a life of helping other outsiders and underdogs. Maria’s calling came early: Already at age five, according to her partner Deb Murphy, Maria was teaching the other little girls in the neighborhood the joys of their own sexuality.

Maria defied her parents–who didn’t see any reason why she should go to college–and majored in social work and psychology at Buffalo State (only 15 minutes away from Niagara Falls). Starting her career of helping those outside the mainstream, she went to work for the welfare department in Buffalo.

While only 23, Maria married a man, but the union was not successful. She had an affair with a gay man, who introduced her to Buffalo’s gay bar scene. Before long, she figured out where her true desire lay and, around the time she was 25, started dating women (and obtained a divorce). In classic Maria style, she didn’t just assume a "sexual orientation"–a rather clinical term–she immersed herself in a totality of being. As she wrote years later in the Houston Voice, "I have, for 25 years, been completely captivated, enthralled, and ecstatic with my heart’s desire. . . . This Great Love in my life is–My Lesbianism."

In the next 15 years, Maria embarked on a life of expression, uninhibited living, intellectual pursuit, and giving of herself to others.

A few years after she’d immersed herself in her newfound lesbian life, she moved to Florida and opened a straight bar with a lover who was a former quarterback in women’s pro football, and who had created a scandal when she was discovered with a prostitute. Tiring of a life of pool lounging and peach daiquiris, and disgusted by the election of Ronald Reagan, Maria expatriated herself, moving to Toronto in 1982, where she earned two master’s degrees–in psychology and women’s studies–from Goddard College, an institution known for its innovative and even eccentric approach to education. Next, she left for Los Angeles in the late ’80s to earn a doctorate in psychology from Royokan University. Throughout this time, Maria had been dating many women, often simultaneously. Two of her lovers moved with her to California; once there, all three became addicted to heroin. At age 40, Maria wrote her dissertation on addiction, got clean, ditched the women, and returned to Toronto. She thrived there and became a central part of the gay community in Toronto, then in Buffalo, after she moved back to be close to her mother.

Throughout her many moves, Maria was always working with women, helping them empower themselves and overcome the oppressions and distresses of poverty, addiction, and abuse.

"She was looking for the underlying cause of addiction," Deb said. "She believed addiction is the result of spiritual and moral bankruptcy."

Never one to believe in the medical model, Maria started a collective of women notable for its openness and fluidity. Maria was a radical and an anarchist, applying these principles both to her dealings with government and authority, and to her interactions with those around her. She was a huge influence in many women’s lives in Toronto and Buffalo.

"Numerous women will say how much Maria changed their life," Deb said. "What Maria did is make them understand that they weren’t broken, they were okay. . . . When we tell people they’re sick, you disempower them," Deb continued, "and Maria was about empowering them."

First and foremost, Maria believed that the key to helping women reclaim their power was through their sexuality. "Be erotic, not neurotic" was one of her gleeful mantras. "Maria would get women to talk about what they felt about sex . . . thought, liked, wanted," said Deb. "Maria believed people stuffed their creativity all the time because they stuffed their sexuality."

Despite the good work she was doing, Maria was never able to get her practice established financially in Buffalo, and took the plunge of moving to Houston in December 1997. Once again, she set about building community. Once again she set out to empower women through releasing their sexuality and creativity. But something new happened to Maria in Houston. She found her life’s partner.

As Deb Murphy tells it, both of them had pretty much resigned themselves to the single life. "I had decided to stop dating," Deb says, "because no place in Texas was I going to find a working-class Italian femme who was intelligent and well-educated." As for Maria, "[she] was looking for a peer, an intellectual companion–someone who could put up with her s---, someone who could adore her as she expected to be adored."

Deb saw Maria’s personal ad, "Radical Femme Seeks Bold Butch"–though a typo made it "old butch." Undaunted, Deb answered it. "I knew from talking to Maria on the phone answering her personal ad that I was going to marry her."

At the time, Deb was housemates with her longtime friend, Deb Chwalek. Chwalek tells how she went out of town on a business trip, and came home to have Deb rather sheepishly tell her that Maria had moved in. Deb and Maria had been seeing each other three weeks.

Both came from working-class backgrounds. Both were interested in intellectual pursuits. Both were devoted to community. Both exalted in their butch-femme identities. "If you had written some dream order for a perfect girlfriend, I don’t know if you could have done any better," said Deb Chwalek of her friends’ union.

Deb and Maria brought their love of community home with them, creating an "intentional community" in their Montrose duplex with Deb Chwalek and her partner, Stan, sharing resources, cooking, and even plans for possibly adopting children.

Encouraged by Maria to pursue her dreams, Deb left a lucrative but unhappy job to pursue more meaningful work. Supported by Deb both financially and emotionally, Maria made the decision to devote herself to the full-time volunteer job of being president of the Houston Lesbian & Gay Community Center.

Already active as the program coordinator, Maria became president of the community center in November 1999 at a time of real duress and uncertainty. Indeed, at the first meeting Maria presided over, the topic of discussion was whether or not the center needed to close its doors.

"When Maria became president, the community center was at a very tenuous point," said Tim Brookover, current president of the community center, and who served on the board with Maria, "to some degree financially, but even more importantly regarding its standing in the community. For whatever reason, there were many people who held the community center in low regard–if they thought about it at all, which is even worse.

"When Maria became president," Brookover continued, "through her effort and just the sheer force of her will, she turned that around. By getting out in the community and talking to people . . . and even more by listening to people."

Even though Maria had only been in Houston for two years when she became president, she really put herself at the center of the community. Under Maria’s leadership, all the current programs at the center got started, from Lesbian Film Night, to Power Dating for Men, to the public forums on topics such as hate crimes and racism.

In addition to the expertise she brought in running an organization, Maria brought life to the center just by being there–attending the many center events, negotiating controversies and personality conflicts, coming over to open up when a volunteer didn’t show up with a key, welcoming the tentative newcomer, or listening to a member’s tale of duress or expectation.

By the time Maria stepped down, Deb said, "she was satisfied because the house was just rocking." At the time of handing over the reins, I asked Maria what was the high point of her year as president. "Just seeing and feeling all the community spirit," she told me, "which is why I volunteer there to begin with."

Maria was also going to make sure that the community center reached out to the community in all its diversity, and especially made sure the transgender community knew they were welcome. And, of all the programs she started, she described a standing-room-only forum on racism in the GLBT community and the subsequent ongoing discussion group as "my baby."

"What Maria taught people in our community is that there must be a place in our community for everyone," Deb Murphy said. "No one is beyond help, beyond redemption. She was all encompassing."

"From time to time the community center attracts a real cast of characters," said Brookover, ". . . which I treasure. But frankly that’s not everybody’s cup of tea. Maria’s response to [naysayers] is that this is what a community center is for–it’s for everybody. It’s not just for people who have resources or have social connections. These people are looking for a place to form connections and be a part of something bigger than themselves. Maria had a big heart and a very embracing view of the world."

Maria’s memorial was held at the community center, of course, to an overflowing house that stayed for a disco dance, a bounteous potluck, and stories and reminiscing into the evening. Tim told a story about a gay man showing up as a host of volunteers were getting the center ready the day before the memorial. The man had recently arrived from California to work in construction, but had just been dismissed from his job when his boss learned of his sexual orientation, and he had no place to go. In the midst of the chaos of preparation, everybody pitched in with ideas and effort, getting him something to eat and finding him a place at a youth hostel.

"I really feel like in some way Maria was responsible for that," Tim said. "Here’s this guy down on his luck–he didn’t have a place to stay, needed work–and everybody was very eager to try and help. Not just me, but Melanie and Rebecca and Stacey, and it was a real team effort. One of the great lessons that Maria gave me is that you accept people and welcome people where they are."

"Maria had a vision that nobody else had," said Deb Murphy. "A place at the table for everybody all the time."

Maria embraced the diversities of others, based on the real complexities and contradictions she encompassed in herself. She was an undaunted full-steam-ahead feminist who loved girly-girl clothes and shopping. She was an anarchist who eschewed details and bureaucracies, yet she was able to pull together organizations and run a meeting smoothly and gracefully. "She was very far over on the femme side of the gender continuum," said Deb Chwalek, "but at the same time a very formidable foe to anyone who crossed her. . . . You have to be very comfortable with yourself to be able to do that."

At the end that they didn’t know was the end, both Maria and Deb were telling friends how happy they were with each other and their lives. A prolific contributor to the Houston Voice, in Maria’s last published work there, she and Deb wrote companion pieces on the "Viewpoint" page, their photos mirroring each other as they discussed, each in her own way, their visions of a life they hoped to pursue down in Galveston, where they were restoring a Victorian cottage–together with each other and with their community. It seemed symbolic of how Maria resided in the centerfold of the community, both as an independent force, and in concert with her life partner. Maria took the community into her heart and, in turn, was taken into the heart of the community.

As Deb wrote in her eulogy, delivered at Maria’s services both in Niagara Falls and Houston:

"Maria taught me that to give of myself to help build communities that include everyone was to build for myself a life rich in purpose, meaning, and friendship.

"And Maria taught me to love without reserve. Without limits. Without judgment.

"This is how Maria lived her life; this is what we should each keep with us.

"Maria loved deeply, and was deeply loved in return. I hope you will all join me in remembering that love is really all there is."