The gay community's Wizard of Oz

By Kyle Crutchfield

The Dennis R. Neill Equality Center attracts many
            visitors to downtown Tulsa.

Olivia Cotter sits behind a glass screen in the seventh-largest LGBTQ resource center in the world, the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma.

While largely unseen, Cotter, and the work she does for the center, could not be more influential. She is the woman behind the rainbow curtain.

“It’s funny, because my first two initials are O.Z.,” she says, referring to the original man behind the curtain, the Wizard of Oz.

As the Office Manager for Oklahomans for Equality (OkEq), Cotter says in a lot of ways she performs the same behind-the-scenes magic as the ruler of Oz, but with far less flare and even fewer loyal subjects.

“I do a lot of answering the phones, making sure bills get paid, making sure that people who need to connect are connecting. Nothing super glamorous most of the time,” Cotter says.

While most of the attention stays off of her now, Cotter says her road to getting involved with the center and with the LGBTQ community began in the spotlight.

“I was bullied in high school,” she says.

“I went to Owasso, which at the time was mostly upper-middle class white kids. My friends and I were in the art club, and most of us didn’t have a lot of money. We were kind of the outcasts, and we were all labeled gay.”

Although Cotter does not identify as LGBTQ, she said simply being labeled gay was enough to be bullied.

“The label was all that mattered. So they came after us.

“I was chased in cars. I had guns pulled on me. The school said it was our fault for being different. My mom thought I was a drama queen and that I was making all of it up. We had nowhere to turn except for our friends,” Cotter says.

It was her experiences in high school that pushed Cotter to do more for LGBTQ youth.

“I didn’t want any other teenager to feel that alone and helpless, because it’s terrifying,” she says.

Cotter’s first step in becoming an LGBTQ ally began in January 2013 with an internship at OkEq.

“I came here for an internship with Tulsa Community College, and basically I just got hooked,” she says.

What reeled her in, she says, was the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade.

Cotter says she was surprised by how responsive Tulsa’s black community was to LGBTQ inclusion in the march.

“Traditionally, the black community is not always welcoming to LGBTQ,” Cotter says.

“To be marching in that parade with the rainbow flag that’s as wide as the street, with everyone along the mile route wanting to us give high-fives, it touches me.

“I heard so many people saying, ‘Thank you for being in the community.’ It’s things like that that always move me,” she says.

Cotter proudly waves the LGBTQ and pansexual flags.

Cotter’s experience at that parade launched her into a four-year-long career with OkEq. Over those last four years, Cotter says the response from the entire Tulsa community has been overwhelming.

Because the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center runs entirely on private donations, it is Tulsa’s citizens that keep the place alive and thriving.

“With this building, when [OkEq] was trying to buy it, no bank in Tulsa would loan the money,” Cotter says.

“We had 75 percent of the funds raised, and the banks still wouldn’t loan the other 25 percent. So our community raised the money, we bought the building outright, and we just recently did renovations on it.”

Among those renovations include a newly expanded event room, commercial kitchen, black box theater, and new HIV testing rooms.

All of these changes cost the center over $800,000.

“Those were paid for by the community before we even started,” Cotter says.

“They want these services and resources as much as we do. There’s a great need,” she says.

With her work for the center, Cotter says she tries to give that support back to the community.

One of the ways she is currently doing that is through the Fairy Tree.

Cotter holds a fairy from this year's Fairy Tree.

Every year around Christmas, OkEq partners with Tulsa CARES, or Center for AIDS Resources and Education Services, to help provide for Tulsa’s population living with HIV/AIDS.

“Tulsa CARES will send us recipients and their wishes,” Cotter says.

Once a recipient makes a request for a gift, that request is put on a card and placed on a Christmas tree in the front lobby of OkEq, where it waits for adoption.

“Our constituents and board members will come in and adopt one of the recipients. They go out, buy the gift, and then bring it back to us wrapped,” Cotter says.

Cotter’s job includes making the cards, keeping track of which cards get checked out and verifying that they are brought back with the correct gift.

“We decided to do the Fairy Tree to help people in our community have a Christmas when maybe they wouldn’t,” Cotter says.

Cotter’s commitment to her community, while often very quiet, has not gone unnoticed.

For OkEq volunteer Nina Ryan, Cotter has been a continuous positive influence throughout her time at the center.

Cotter sits with volunteer Nina Ryan at the front desk.

“I’ve learned so much, especially from Olivia. She’s a great person, a great friend. She does a lot around here, and she’s helped me understand that you can be a great ally and do a lot of good for the LGBT community without necessarily being LGBT,” Ryan says.

Although the work she’s doing right now for the LGBTQ community is largely unseen, Cotter hopes to soon be back in the spotlight at Oklahoma’s Capitol.

“I want to lobby for the center in Oklahoma City,” she says.

“I want to get into the legislation side of it, working with our state representatives and trying to get good legislation passed, so we’re not constantly having to fight bad legislation.”

One of her motivations for establishing legislative change for LGBTQ here in Oklahoma is her family.

“My oldest [child] is transgender and just came out this year. Since March I’ve been trying to take care of him, make sure that he has the resources that he needs,” Cotter says.

While Cotter says those resources may not come from the state for a while, she says OkEq will continue to provide and be a safe space for LGBTQ individuals.

She even predicts good things for OkEq in the future.

“I feel like it’s inevitable that we’re going to grow,” Cotter says.

“I don’t know exactly how it’s going to grow or what it’s going to look like, but I feel like it’s inevitable for us. There’s so many things going on. We’ve got such a great community here. 
“It’s just going to happen.”

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjFe8ZQbjoY