Sylvia Rhue (1947- )

September 26, 2012 
/ Contributed By: Tisa M. Anders

Sylvia Rhue at San Francisco Pride celebration

Sylvia Rhue at San Francisco Pride celebration

Photo by Pax Ahimsa Gethen (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sylvia Rhue is a writer, religious scholar, documentarian, and public speaker. She has engaged in significant work in religious communities around lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) rights and sexuality as well as co-produced an award-winning documentary. Rhue was born to Canadian immigrant parents in 1947 in Pasadena, California. She had one brother (deceased) and a half-sister. Her father worked on the railroad; her mother was a secretary.

Rhue earned her undergraduate degree in psychology/sociology at Oakwood College (now University), a historically Black Seventh-day Adventist college in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1969. She received her masterโ€™s of social work (MSW) at the University of California Los Angeles in 1971. Rhue became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality, graduating from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, California, in 1986. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the bonding strategies of Black lesbians.

After finishing her MSW, Rhue worked for the Regional Center for the Developmentally Disabled. She next received employment as a psychiatric social worker at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital in Los Angeles.ย  In this capacity, she trained as a sex therapist in 1973, eventually working within the African American community, establishing a sex therapy clinic as well as in her private practice.

Rhueโ€™s doctoral thesis led to the acclaimed documentary, โ€œAll Godโ€™s Children,โ€ co-produced with Dr. Dee Mosbacher and Frances Reid (1996). The film deals with African American family and religious values, gays, and lesbians in the civil rights movement, and African American responses to homophobia. The project won numerous awards: Best Documentary during the 1996 National Black Arts Film Festival; Best Film on Matters Relating to the โ€œBlack Experienceโ€ (a Black International Cinema Competition in 1996); and Liberty Award, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund (1997).

Her activism started during a 1964 high school meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rhue came out as a lesbian in the 1970s and became an activist. Co-founding the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum in 1988 further strengthened her activist commitment. She then worked as the Assistant Director of Counseling (1988-1992) and later as a Policy and Public Affairs Advocate for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center (2001-2002). Next, the California Freedom to Marry Coalition hired her as Manager to coordinate this state-wide project to gain same-sex marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples (2003-2005).

Rhue joined the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) in 2004 as a founding board member. In 2005, she accepted the position of Director of Religious Affairs, later becoming the Director of Research and Academic Initiatives. In 2012, she continued her writing as a Huffington Post contributor, working on her one-woman comedy show, โ€œCAKE: You Ainโ€™t Gettinโ€™ None,โ€ and a web campaign addressing homophobia in Black Hollywood.

About the Author

Author Profile

Tisa M. Anders is an independent scholar and Founder/CEO of Writing the World, LLC in Denver, Colorado. She received her Ph.D. in Religion and Social Change with history as her foundational discipline at the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology Joint Doctoral Program. Anders specializes in agricultural history and 19th-century US reform movements. She has authored numerous book reviews and encyclopedia entries on history and international relations along with chapters for anthologies on Mexico-US Migration with a focus on the Betabeleros (Mexican and Mexican-American beet field workers) and their contributions to the sugar industry in western Nebraska. She contributed significantly to Votaw Colony Museum, Inc.โ€™s Reconnection public history events (2006-11) which uplifted the former black colonies in Kansas, including Groves Center and Junius G. Groves (1859-1925). She is completing her relationship memoir on love and politics along with her book-length manuscript on 19th-century US activist/author Lydia Maria Child.

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Anders, T. (2012, September 26). Sylvia Rhue (1947- ). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/rhue-sylvia-1947/

Source of the Author's Information:

Monique Moultrie, โ€œOral History Interview: Sylvia Rhue,โ€ LGBT Religious Archives Network (February 4, 2011); Sylvia Rhue, โ€œThe Arc of the Moral Universe Bends Toward Marriage Equality,โ€ Huffington Post (May 31, 2012).

Further Reading