TRINA PORTE:

Trina Porte was born in Brooklyn, New York to parents Al and Renee (born Schlissel), youngest sister of Steven, Jamie (deceased at 2 ½ months), and Ariel. Her collected documents began with journals written almost daily from ages 8 to 23, and contain her political writings and hundreds of poems. She grew up in Ossining, New York, then Jonathan, Minnesota, where her parents and Ariel moved in 1972. Al and Renee divorced in 1969, reunited in 1970, and split again in 1974 when Trina moved to St. Paul, Minnesota with Renee. Trina attended St. Paul Open School for high school, and got a B.F.A. in Art and an M. Ed. in Curriculum from the University of Minnesota. Trina’s first career, begun in middle school, was in technical theater, working at Chimera, Theater in the Round, Great Northern Theater, Minnesota Dance Theater, The Guthrie, and off-off Broadway at La Mama, St. Clement’s, Perry Street and in Summer Stock, prior to college. While attending the University of Minnesota, Trina came out as a lesbian, became a feminist activist, spray painted the Twin Cities as a member of W.E.E.D.S. (Women’s Erotic Energy Delights the Spirit) and a survivor of sexual assault, and worked on the ordinance declaring pornography a potential violation of women’s civil rights, which grew out of the University of Minnesota Law School class “Pornography and the Law,” co-taught by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine A. MacKinnon. This changed her life, and Andrea Dworkin became a vital mentor in Trina’s life-long work against discrimination and violence in all forms. Trina met her future wife Kristine Cottom initially in 1975 when their mothers worked in community theater together, then met again in 1990, becoming first Domestic Partners in Minneapolis, then getting married legally in Massachusetts. They moved to a small town in upstate New York in 2004, where Trina publishes poetry and anthologies with the small press she created in 2000, and is very active in local politics and writers’ community. Trina has also shown artwork and/or read poetry in New York, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Grand Marais, Iowa City, Iowa, Northampton, Massachusetts, Housatonic, Massachusetts, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, New Lebanon, New York, Chatham, New York, Woodstock, New York, and Tiberius, Israel.

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The three largest components of the collection are Porte's diaries; her correspondence with family, friends, and lovers; and her poetry. Additional correspondence includes her letters to editors and government officials. Other materials document her volunteer and professional work as a stagehand in Twin Cities and New York theaters, her work as a staff member with the GLBT literary journal Evergreen chronicles, her leadership in protests against the Miss Minnesota beauty pageants, and her arrest for disorderly conduct (literally, for "tumultuous behavior") as part of a protest against pornographic booksellers. The collection is especially notable as it chronicles the experiences and emotions of a young girl who comes of age and struggles with her sexual identity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In addition, the collection's documentation of direct actions against pornography and rape provide a look at the radical feminist challenge to American cultural norms, particularly misogyny.

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Restrictions:

Access: One folder of materials related to the National Rampage Against Penthouse will not be made available to researchers under the age of 18 years. Consult the reference staff for more information.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item here]. Trina Porte Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 15,666; 15,936; 15,989; 16,252; 16,948; 17,310

Processing Information:

Processed by: Monica Manny Ralston, November 2000 and October 2007; Meagan Kellom and Alex Kent, July 2011; addition by David B. Peterson, December 2014; and Leif Kopietz, August 2019.

Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Catalog ID number: 990017368640104294

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Porte was a core committee member (1988-1990) of the collective that supported A Woman's Coffeehouse, a chemically free meeting place for women, girls, and boys. Her involvement with this collective at the time of its dissolution is more fully reflected in the records of the Coffeehouse Collective available in the Minnesota Historical Society manuscripts collections.

Additional information and organizational records regarding passage of the Minneapolis pornography ordinance are available in the organizational records of Organizing Against Pornography available in the manuscripts collections of the Minnesota Historical Society.

The Minnesota Historical Society also holds the organizational records of Twin Cities Women for Take Back the Night.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Lesbian feminism -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Mothers and daughters.

Women -- Sexual behavior.

Man-woman relationships.

Lesbians.

Coming out (Sexual orientation).

Protest movements -- Minnesota.

Beauty contests -- Social aspects -- Minnesota.

Pornography -- Social aspects -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Anti-rape movement -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Disorderly conduct -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Graffiti.

Theater.

Theaters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Employees.

Teachers -- Minnesota.

Persons:

Porte, Ariel, author.

Porte, Al, author.

Porte, Renee, author.

Dworkin, Andrea, author.

Craft, Nikki, author.

Dyer, Peg, author.

Kennedy, Shannon, author.

Cottom, Kris, author.

Thorne, Erika, author.

Organizations:

Guthrie Theater.

St. Paul Open School (Saint Paul, Minn.).

Woman's Coffeehouse (Minneapolis, Minn.).

Miss Minnesota Pageant.

National Rampage Against Penthouse.

World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women (1985 : Nairobi, Kenya).

Types of Documents:

Diaries.

Personals.

Poetry.

Letters to editors.

Occupations:

Women radicals -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Lesbian activists -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Titles:

Evergreen chronicles.

Twice in a blue moon.

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