Recently, you must have seen a cartoon picture of a person with Spectacles and a book in hand in the Google Doodle section. She is an author, feminist, and LGBTQ+ rights activist, Jeanne Córdova.
Jeanne Córdova was a primary gay rights movement activist who dedicated his life to the betterment of LGBTQ+ people.
With various accolades and awards under her wing, Jeanne was a former Catholic nun and a self-proclaimed butch.
Not associating herself with wealth, Jeanne Córdova led a simple life.
While not much information about her net worth is available, we can piece together her work and her contributions to literature to get a gist.
Jeanne Córdova’s life was dedicated to writing and advocacy rather than commercial success
Born on July 18, 1948, in Bremerhaven, America-occupied Germany, Jeanne Córdova was one of twelve children of mixed-race parents.
Her father was Mexican, while her mother was of Irish-American ethnicity.
She completed high school at Bishop Amat High School in California. She went to California State University, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to graduate in Social Welfare.
After interning in African-American and Latino communities, she again earned a degree in Social work in 1972.
Following her education, she joined Immaculate Heart of May, a religious teaching institute, to learn the ways of nuns.
But, after discovering her sexuality, she left the church and started journalism.
Eventually, after learning how America, at that time, was not a haven for lesbian and gay people, she started raising her voice for them.
She started US’s biggest LGBTQ+ directory, Community Yellow Pages, and Square Peg Magazine, a magazine dedicated to queer culture.
She later married her partner Lynn Harris Ballen in August 1995 and moved to Mexico in 1999.
In Mexico, she and her partner founded the first non-profit organization in their locality devoted to children’s literacy.
"Being an organizer & journalist in the lesbian, gay, feminist & women of color communities has been the focal point of my life … a wild joyous ride."
— Appalshop (@Appalshop) July 18, 2023
Jeanne Cordova changed whose story gets told—and who gets to tell it. Happy birthday, Jeanne. pic.twitter.com/IJLBYies2L
Working in various fields and departments, Córdova eventually went back to writing and journalism.
As Jeanne once said, “It’s the job of the young to push the societal envelope.” She was always vocal about the importance of people standing up for their rights regardless of gender, race, or other social factors.
Before she passed away, she wrote a ‘Letter About Dying’ to her community, saying, “It is wonderful to have had a life’s cause: freedom and dignity for lesbians. I believe that’s what lesbian feminism is really about, sharing. We built a movement by telling each other our lives and thoughts about the way life should be. We cut against the grain and re-thought almost everything. With just enough left undone for our daughters to re-invent themselves.“
As the current salary of journalists is $46,033 per year, the scenes may have been different 10-20 years ago.
Her salary might have been around $20,000 yearly about 10-20 years ago, so her net worth might be about $3-4 Million.
But, with various organizations and books under her wing, Jeanne Córdova might have made a considerable fortune.
However, an advocate of a simple life, Jeanne never showed her riches and always enjoyed among rags.
Additional Information
- Jeanne Córdova passed away on January 10, 2016, in LA, California, from metastatic brain cancer.
- Before her death, she donated a $2 million gift to the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice and created the Jeanne R. Cordova Fund.
- She wrote various books like ‘When We Were Outlaws; A Memoir of Love & Revolution’, ‘Kicking the Habit: A Lesbian Nun Story’, and ‘Sexism–it’s a Nasty Affair’.
