Longtime Bay Area lesbian activist Pan Haskins died at her home in Oakland, CA, on October 20, 2021, where her heart finally gave out after a decade-long struggle with heart failure. She was well-loved and cared for—content with a life well lived. Pan was key to helping groundbreaking lesbian leader Phyllis Lyon, particularly during Lyon’s later years, and also aided many other LGBTQ community members through her accounting work, volunteering, and more.
Pan grew up working from an early age in the family printing and map publishing business—starting at age six and earning five cents an hour. Over her formative years, she worked every job in the business and eventually took over running the company at age 19, after her father’s death.
A few years later she moved to San Francisco, drawn here by the influences of her father’s love of the coast he grew up on, by her paternal grandmother’s presence, and by forces she could only dream of that would change her life. She continued to run the map publishing business on a bi-coastal basis for a few more years.
A year after coming to San Francisco, she enrolled in San Francisco State University (SFSU) (the second of six schools she would attend), and immersed herself in Women’s Studies. Two years of full-time course work allowed her to sort through her difficult childhood. She discovered her identity as a woman, the joy that comes with true self-worth, and she came out as a lesbian. Never one to be rushed, she spent the next fourteen years going to colleges, studying five different majors before she would arrive at a degree.
She was soon involved in the committee to create a Women’s Studies Department at SFSU; a connection there introduced her to the San Francisco Women’s Centers where she helped launch and sustain the Bay Area Federal Feminist Credit Union (sometimes taking deposits and dispensing money from her backpack).
Pan thrived in the San Francisco lesbian feminist community. She became involved with the Women’s Building and with Supervisor Harvey Milk on the No on 6 Campaign. November 27, 1978, on the night of the assassinations of Supervisor Milk and Mayor George Moscone, she helped organize a candlelight vigil; five percent of the city’s residents would attend.
Eventually she needed to take a break and ground herself, moving to Willits, CA, and for a few years she spent many hours in the soil, doing exactly that. She fell in love with, and moved to the Mendocino Coast, splitting her time between there and San Francisco for 18 years—the last three of which she lived there almost full-time, fostering her beloved godchildren—the best and hardest thing she ever did.
During some of those 18 years, she started a lesbian feminist accounting firm. She was also on the committee to transition the Lesbian Rights Project to the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) where she was on the founding board for several years.
Pan fought an establishment that didn’t want to let her in to become a CPA. She loved tax preparation, and in 1988, she got her Masters in Taxation from Golden Gate University, and her CPA. She specialized in estates and trusts, where she found her true work purpose. She brought her lesbian feminist sensibilities and life-long appreciation for dignity for the dying and the families they left behind, to a field dominated by men. She thrived in this work, with clients she loved, and who loved her back. She took on the challenge of understanding—and then leading—the tax field in same-sex taxation, first for unmarried partners, followed by Registered Domestic Partners, and then same sex married partners.
Pan enjoyed many things in life. Just the right food pairings—Equal Exchange Panama Extra Dark chocolate with Tate’s Bakehouse Ginger Zinger cookies. Dogs—the bigger the better, especially if they sat on her lap while their people shopped at the farmers’ market. And the perfect sparkled full dance skirt—black, of course.
Another of Pan’s big loves was traveling. Her last big trip was to spend a month in South and East Africa, which was a trip of a lifetime that touched her deeply. More recently, she had a short visit to the gray whales in their calving ground in Magdalena Bay, a dream she had held for many years as she watched them migrate each year she lived in Mendocino.
In her late forties, Pan found another love, and started to dance. At first she wanted to lead, but followed as an offering to her relationship. Through following, she discovered the joy of leaving her left brain and taking on the challenge of being totally present in her body. She loved West Coast Swing (which she did eventually learn to lead with great aplomb), and enjoyed Country Two-Step, Country Line Dancing, and Night Club Two-Step.
She spent some time dancing International Ballroom, and in 2002, competed in the Sydney Gay Games. And then she found Argentine Tango. She became devoted to Tango and danced as often as she could until Covid—and her energy—put a stop to that.
As much as she loved her work, her health began to fail long before she was ready to stop, when it became clear that she didn’t have energy for both work and dance, she stopped most of her paid work, and kept on dancing.
Her other favorite pastime was spending quality time with friends and dogs at the local Temescal Farmers’ Market on Sunday mornings. For over 15 years, she created a treasured community there, and was treasured in turn by those Sunday morning friends.
Pan cared deeply about healing an unjust world, and always strove to show up with compassionate and loving kindness. She cherished her friendships. She held many through their process of death and dying, both those met in friendships and others met through her work. Pan was very touched with how she was held by her chosen family at her end.
She will be deeply missed by all who loved her.
Published on November 18, 2021
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