#CarolWatchler

[theavengingmusicjournalist]

A Profile of LGBTQIA+ Activist, Carol Watchler

Written by Lana Leonard

Carol at QSpot annual Community Awards Ceremony 

Photograph by Lana Leonard

The Watchler family moved from Cleveland, the birth place of their second child, Carol Watchler--March 4, 1942 at St. John’s Hospital. Nearby her grandparents house in Rocky River, OH, lived a toddler-aged Carol Watchler atop her tricycle.

Watchler must’ve been between the ages of two and three when she rode her tricycle, for she was newly three by the time the family drove their vehicle into the celebratory end of World War II, May 8, 1945. “We were all bundled in the car where the confetti poured. I remember buildings,” shared Watchler.

Glancing through the computer screen, Watchler nudges the camera to continue the interview. “Is that okay? Can you see me?” she inquired. Observing the brim of her royal blue fleece, Watchler sits beneath a painting in the home she has kept in lieu of the many gifts of artistry she and her late partner, Women’s Rights, Reproductive Rights, and LGBTQIA+ Rights activist, Ann Baker have been gifted over the years. Watchler, also known as the original camp fire kid form her girl scout years, lives in a deep collection of life, spirituality and love.

Watchler grew up in a household of three sisters and a younger brother, navigating the world as it be, full of outdoor life, music, and justice. Watchler’s parents invested in her future. From the time the activist was 12-years-old, she tested out of seventh into her final year of middle school. From this, the Watcher family gave their full support. This support would eventually grow even more bountiful.

Not always understanding their daughter’s sexuality, 1998 was the year Watchler’s father would stand on the lawn of her Roosevelt, NJ home to announce his support for his daughter’s 25-year partnership.

However, when the time came to begin college, Watchler decided she wanted to join a convent. Having already spoke to her mother about delaying college for ministry work, the young activist, would soon have to tell her father. 

“That was my first time coming out,” said Watchler. A moment in 1959 that would assert where she would aspire and inspire onward.

Watchler’s attention to ministry work surrounds the belief that we as conscious beings in the journey of evolution are continuously revolving toward the reality of a community of love. It was in that time that Watchler’s advocacy work would only grow and intersect.

In 1966 Watchler began to teaching math, science and religion in an all Catholic girl’s high school. Her extensive teaching career took the educator to all new insights of righteousness. Within Watchler’s 37 years of teaching she received the NEA Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights and the NJEA Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights Award, and eventually would leave ministry work to live with the love of her life.  

It was in 1973 that Baker and Watchler would move in together. Their move would ignite much of Watchler’s future in activism and advocacy. “I didn’t want to push you,” Watchler recalls Baker saying. “I knew that being with Ann was the right thing to do.” 

The pair moved into Trenton, NJ where Carol would work for Trenton State College (now known as The College of New Jersey).

A true dynamic pair, the fierce activists would work day after day. “I would have a call at 7pm, a call at 8pm, a call at 9pm, and a call from LA or San Francisco at 11pm,” reminisced Watchler. Today, she is still this active at taking calls and completing workshops for LGBTQIA+ equality for the future of education in America. This transition as an educator continued in Watchler’s position as Co-Chair of the Gay Straight Education Network of Central New Jersey brought her many organized opportunities.  

The annual GSA Forum began 17 years ago after a student and activist peer of Watchler would face discrimination from their school. The youth would introduce Watchler and HiTOPS LGBTQIA+ Coordinator and Health Educator of the time Corrine O’Hara. With the Trans youth forum manifesting over these years, hundreds upon hundreds of LGBTQIA+ students, educators, allies and parents from all over the state come together for change and community.

At 78-years-old, Watchler has since become the Community Outreach Coordinator of the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice in Princeton, NJ where she continues to influence, inspire the needs and rights of LGBTQIA+, black and brown lives, education, women, ministry, politics and all the intersections that take massive life tolls on worldwide disenfranchised communities.