Kinheart Inc. was founded in 1982 by Phyllis Jean Atley and Mary Jo Osterman PhD. The pair met and fell in love at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary where Phyllis was a student and Mary Jo taught Christian Education. The couple held a Covenant Ceremony at Wheadon United Methodist Church in Evanston in August 1982 and both added Kinheart to their name. In the first issue of their publication The Kinheart Quarterly, they described Kinheart Inc. as a “feminist-liberationist agency… committed to creating womanspace and to engaging in and enabling social change.”[1] The agency had two main programs: North Shore Women’s Center and Program on Sexuality and Homophobia (POSH). The women’s center provided a wide range of services like “drop-in nights, counseling services, support groups and access to information and referral systems,” for all women, and POSH offered “workshops, seminars and consultation services related to issues of human sexuality…[aimed] to support personal growth and to reduce the level of homophobia in church and society.”[2]
Kinheart was quite an eclectic institution. There were many types of programming at the center that could be seen as contradictory. For starters, it was founded by two devoutly religious lesbians. It offered religious and spiritual guidance for people of all faiths including wiccans. It was an intellectual space, with Mary Jo, Phyllis, and center members writing philosophical and sociological articles in the Kinheart Quarterly. More than anything, Kinheart fostered community and created safe space for women. They hosted concerts, book discussions, talks, retreats, group therapy, crafting, dances, sports leagues, potlucks, and more. Their monthly newsletter, Kinheart Womyn’s News, provided a monthly calendar of events at the center, across Northern Chicago and the North Shore suburbs, with nearly every day having at least one event, which connected members with each other and women across Chicagoland. Additionally, each newsletter included a list of places, including bookstores, restaurants, healthcare options, bars, sport leagues, gay and lesbian organizations, and women’s centers that were safe and might be of interest to women.
Kinheart’s eclectic nature reflected the shifting politics within the women’s movement of the time. During the 1960s, Betty Friedan, then president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) called lesbians a “Lavender Menace,” believing that including them in the larger movement would distract from the larger goal of the women’s movement. While NOW did pass a resolution in 1971 acknowledging that the oppression of queer women was inseparable from that of straight women, many feminist lesbians were already disillusioned by the women’s movement and began building their own coalitions. Some queer women argued that lesbianism was the ultimate version of feminism through the rejection of romantic and sexual interactions with men. It was in this complex political climate that Kinheart emerged and tried to address the tensions within the women’s movement while providing a safe space for queer women.
Kinheart skillfully balanced their programming to support lesbians, address issues of homophobia, and bridge the gap between lesbians and the women’s movement. In this aim, many of Kinheart’s earliest publications included articles by Mary Jo and/or Phyllis about the spectrum of sexuality, compulsory heterosexuality, myths about homosexuality, homophobia, and their ties to patriarchal power. They sought to break down barriers between women, especially queer and straight women, by providing definitions about sexuality and questions to help women explore their own sexuality. They argued that patriarchal power grew out of fears of difference. Mary Jo wrote,
At the core… is a sliver of truth the patriarchy can’t quite bury: we “know” that we are not all that different from each other! It is most painful for us to acknoledge that truth, since to acknowledge it is to acknowledge that all those differences we label as sick, sinful, abnormal, unnatural, less than best… are really also part of who we are. And that is precisely where patriarchy moves into use its tools of sexism, racism, homophobia and aggression against us.[3]
In fact, Kinheart’s work not only aimed at breaking down barriers between queer and straight women, but also to highlight the struggles of women of color and women across the world. Kinheart showed films about the apartheid in South Africa, hosted discussions about the history the Klan in the United States, and published writings from Indigenous women. Kinheart members marched against U.S. intervention in South America. In many ways, Kinheart was a proto-intersectional institution.
Breaking down barriers—sexual, racial, class, ethnic, and religious—between women was a central goal for Kinheart. Phyllis and Mary Jo emphasized the importance of common space which “helps us learn to break down those false boundaries, provides us with space to name our fears to each other and gives us an arena for creating our visions and doing our justice work.”[4] All women dances were one way that Kinheart created this common space. The first one was held in April 1985, and they quickly became a regular event. The dance was beloved because “it brought together women of all ages and sexual orientations in an atmosphere of fun and excitement. We were all able to be playful with one another without feeling threatened.”[5] A dance held for the 5th Anniversary of Kinheart at the Anne Sather restaurant on Belmont in Chicago brought in over 300 women!
Providing a woman-only queer space, free from drugs or alcohol, was also a central part of Kinheart. At a time when bars and clubs were the main social spaces for queer people, Phyllis and Mary Jo wanted to create a new kind of queer safe space. Every Friday the center hosted “lesbian only” nights where queer women could gather and socialize by themselves. There was specific programming and listed events for lesbians at Kinheart Inc. This included lesbian sport leagues, coming-out groups, singles groups, over-40 singles groups, workshops on homophobia and heterosexism, and more. No matter where a woman was on her journey with her sexuality, Kinheart provided space, activities, social groups, and therapy. In fact, Kinheart also organized meal deliveries and transportation for lesbian elders in the community.
Phyllis’s death shocked and rattled the Kinheart community in May 1988. Though neither Mary Jo nor the Kinheart community were allowed to attend Phyllis’s funeral in her hometown, a separate ceremony was held at UMC. Mary Jo continued to work as Director of Kinheart for three years after Phyllis’s death before leaving. She moved to Colorado where she continued to fight against homophobia in the church and in society. She fought against local measures that sought to ban gay rights ordinances, and in 1997 she published a seven-week Bible study about the inclusion of queer people in the church. She traveled to churches across the country to lead discussions about her work and homophobia in the church. Around 2002 the name of the center was changed to Kindred Hearts. In 2004 the center moved to the St. James Presbyterian Church in West Rogers Park, and the center unfortunately closed its doors sometime after 2006.
By Sarah Barton for the Evanston Women’s History Project
[1] The Kinheart Quarterly (Kinheart Inc., Evanston IL) Vol. 1 No. 1 (February 1983). Archives of Sexuality and Gender, Northwestern University.
[2] The Kinheart Quarterly (Kinheart Inc., Evanston IL) Vol. 1 No. 1 (February 1983). Archives of Sexuality and Gender, Northwestern University.
[3] Mary Jo Osterman, “Hetero-phobia and the Patriarchal Ladder,” Kinheart Quarterly, vo.2, no.3, July 1984, . Archives of Sexuality and Gender, link.gale.com/apps/doc/JSPIID811130512/AHSI? u=northwestern&sid=bookmark-AHSI. Accessed 24 Apr. 2026.
[4] Phyllis Jean Athey and Mary Jo Osterman, “Women Together: The Tensions of Our Realities,” The Kinheart Quarterly, Vol. 2 No.1, January 1985.
[5] “All Women’s Dance Success” Kinheart Quarterly (Kinheart Inc.: Evanston, IL) Vol. 3 No. 3 (July 1985).