Jill Ellen Lessing died peacefully on May 4, 2026, at the age of 83, from complications of heart failure and pneumonia.

A forty year Emeryville resident, Jill was a lesbian feminist, counselor, artist, writer, musician, and fierce disability justice advocate. She held deep roots in both Jewish and Quaker communities. She was known for her unwavering commitment to accessibility, belonging, and inclusion for disabled and LGBTQ+ people.

Jill was born on October 26, 1942, in Los Angeles. She contracted polio at just six weeks old, becoming one of the youngest infants to survive the disease. Her family fought fiercely to help her survive and heal from its lasting effects. Out of her own lived experiences, she grew to be a fierce warrior for disability rights and LGBTQ rights.

Every summer for many years, Jill had surgeries to straighten and expand her feet, prevent one of her legs from growing longer than the other, and help heal the other ravages polio had wrought. That meant beginning every school year on crutches. The other kids were cruel and bullied her as a “cripple.” Her lifelong friend Devorah Goldberg, whom she met when she was four years old, was a lifeline.

Jill knew she was a butch lesbian by early adolescence. Earlier than most, she recognized that she did not want to wear skirts or have her hair dolled up. Her family was not as able to recognize and support Jill’s coming out as they had been able to support her healing from polio. Jill found ways, though, to stay connected with her family and fight for recognition and acceptance for her lesbianism, rather than walk away. Over time, the deep well of love and support that they felt for her in her struggles with polio helped her family open to her sexual orientation.

Jill’s experiences within her family, and coping with her two early traumas, seem to have given her the trust that others could find love and acceptance from those who were at first alienated from them, whether because of sexual orientation or physical differences. Throughout her life, she used this confidence as a fire in her belly to help others learn to hang in and struggle in their close relationships — and with the world — to receive the dignity, acceptance, and rights that should be granted to everyone.

Jill grew up playing football with the boys. Later in life, she told hilarious stories about sneaking out and going to lesbian bars with her parents’ car, along with other escapades shared with her butch friend Joanie.

At age 21, Jill and her partner, Nancy, were hit by a hit-and-run driver. Jill broke both her legs, and Nancy was killed. This experience profoundly shaped her subsequent relationship to grief and to life.

Jill studied at the Chouinard Art Institute, the Los Angeles City College Art Institute, and UCLA. In Los Angeles, she formed lifelong friendships from those early years, including with her dear friend Barbara Temkin. Then she studied fine art at California State University, Stanislaus, where she trained in painting, sculpture, printmaking, and figure drawing, working in expansive studios that shaped her life as an artist. She became a multidisciplinary artist working in assemblage, incorporating found objects, bone, beads, and knotting. She was also a lifelong musician who studied classical piano and blues, played guitar and percussion, and sang.

Later, Jill earned a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from John F. Kennedy University. She trained in supportive interpersonal and psychodynamic modalities and had broad experience with Gestalt, psychosynthesis, visualization, art, dreamwork, and the meditation practices associated with Radical Psychiatry. As she wrote,

“I believe in the growing process, and that by risking and continually putting ourselves on our edge, astounding abilities, experiences, and unfoldings develop and reveal themselves about ourselves and the world we live in.”

While working at Stanford in 1976, Jill met Liz Krainer, and they began a 10-year relationship that ultimately took them to the East Bay. Jill generously took on co-parenting responsibilities for Liz’s three young children, Shelagh, Jan, and Peter, who remained in a relationship with Jill until her death. Co-parenting was not a given at that time, so this was a courageous decision.

Jill was part of a groundswell of disabled lesbian activism that helped transform how disabled people, particularly LGBTQ people, influenced cultural creation and access in the Bay Area and beyond. She was an early intersectional feminist before the word was coined, working on issues of social justice that spanned race, class, ageism, fat oppression, and disability.

Jill worked at Operation Concern (later, New Leaf), where she helped develop some of the earliest disability-informed support groups in the Bay Area, along with Ricki Boden, one of the pioneering facilitators of psychotherapy groups for disabled lesbians. An iconic photograph by photographer Cathy Cade of Jill, Nanci Stern, and Carrie Gagliardi crossing the street to attend Ricki Boden’s group demonstrated the group’s philosophy of interdependence. This photo later became the basis for a logo for the FABLED ASP project.

Jill maintained a private counseling practice. She also continued as a longtime facilitator of support groups for disabled lesbians, including her “Aging Gracefully Group with Limitations” group, which she led until shortly before her death. Hundreds of Bay Area women with disabilities or illnesses benefited from her compassionate and skillful facilitation.

A coveted guest speaker in college classes, her speaking and advocacy included appearances at the March on Washington, Butch Voices Conference, and many other disability justice gatherings. She wrote about inclusion, disability, and mental health.

In the 1980s, Jill and Laura Rifkin created and coordinated the Comprehensive Special Needs Model for the Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade, a groundbreaking framework for disability access. Then-Mayor Frank Jordan lauded them for changing how San Francisco creates access for large-scale events. For over 30 years, Jill and Laura collaborated on increasing access and understanding for feminist gatherings and small businesses, including the first Jewish Feminist Conference and the Dyke March.

In 2007, Jill and Laura created/co-directed a project called FABLED ASP (Fabulous Activist Bay Area Lesbians with Disabilities): A Storytelling Project to preserve forty years of disabled lesbian herstory in the region. FABLED ASP declared 2010 “The Year of Honoring Lesbians with Disabilities” and was awarded proclamations by the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, along with the California State Assembly and Senate. The project culminated in a two-floor exhibition at the San Francisco Public Library, where the archive is now housed.
Jill’s spiritual life was eclectic. Rooted in Jewish tradition, Quaker practice, Buddhist teachings, and Indigenous healing traditions, she sometimes jokingly described herself as “QuJewBu.” She was influenced by the teachings of Thích Nhất Hạnh and learned spiritual healing practices from Zelima Xochiquetzal, an Indigenous Nicaraguan curandera. She loved swimming as a mindful practice.

In the mid 1990s, Jill moved to the Watergate Condos in Emeryville often saying that her spirit was rejuvenated by living along the Bay, looking out on the water, and relishing the quiet beauty of our landscape.

In the early 1990s, Jill met Sherrin Loyd, and in 1998, they were the first same-gender couple to be married under the care of Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting. Their home became a gathering place for multiple generations of friends, activists, artists, and chosen family.

In 2000, they were founding members of the Threshold Singers of the East Bay (a bedside singing choir), and they continued with the choir as beloved members for 25 years. They loved to sing together and harmonize, often singing each other to sleep.

One of Jill’s greatest joys was being Bubbe (yiddish for “grandmother) to Nivi Asher. She and Sherrin became deeply devoted grandparents after they asked Kamala Asher, a longtime Berkeley resident, if they could be his West Coast grandmamas.

Jill is survived by her wife of 33 years, Sherrin Loyd; her brother Alan Michael Lessing; sister-in-law Jackie Peake Lessing; and two daughters, Sara Goldfarb and Miranda Goldfarb; her former partner Liz Krainer and Liz’s children Shelagh Krainer and Jan Krainer; her daughters-in-love Crystal Keeler and Kamala Asher and adopted grandson Nivi Asher; her adopted nieces Clio Rasler and Cynny and Bianca Travis-Moreno; her extended chosen family; and a wide circle of beloved friends, students, collaborators, and community members whose lives were shaped by knowing her.

Jill Lessing will be remembered for her courage, care, creativity, humor, intelligence, artistic vision, fierce insistence on authenticity, and lifelong work to make the community more accessible, honest, and just. May her memory be for a blessing.

An online memorial can be viewed or contributed to on kudoboard.com.

Donations in Jill’s memory may be made to Nivi Asher’s gap-year education fund via Venmo.

This story was contributed by Liz Krainer, Jan Thomas, Laura Rifkin, Judith Masur and Jessica Bucciarelli.