Anne Glazer

A native to Portland, Oregon, Anne Glazer displayed the kind of temperament in childhood that led the way to seemingly contrary career interests. She had an active imagination, an intensity of purpose, and a propensity for emotional outbursts—traits that she channeled into her early career in modern dance. But she also liked to get lost in the woods and figure her way out—a toughness that may have equipped her for her later career in law. As she found her path as an adult, Anne worked as an organizer in social change organizations as well. In moving from the dance floor to a high rise office building, Anne stayed grounded in the activist commitments of her youth. 

Born in 1961, Anne was the oldest of three children. Her parents, Andrew and Julie Wheeler, nurtured an ethic of civic responsibility in their children, as well as a spirit of independence and creativity. Julie Wheeler was a peace lover and a school teacher. Andrew Wheeler was a sculptor and an architect. “They both took civic involvement for granted,” Anne explains. “It was something that you just did as part of life.” She describes herself as having been “a terror as a child” and “a real handful for my mom.” But she also could pursue projects with intense focus. A loner in junior high school who struggled with painful shyness, Anne found her voice in high school. She spent much of her early adolescence playing the piano and reading writers such as Thoreau and Emerson. But her rebellious spirit found allies later in adolescence. “We went to the high school one morning before anyone was there and put up signs in the hallways,” Anne offers as an example. “The signs said things like ‘smash the bureacracy’ [sic] and ‘plant a tree.’” Anne credits a high school civics teacher—Mr. Pressley—with her awakening critical consciousness. “He taught us about propaganda and the Vietnam War and about the sides of U.S. history that you didn’t read about in the textbooks.” 

Anne left for Wesleyan University in 1979 where she studied music and dance for two years and also became radicalized. “I identified as a radical feminist,” Anne recalls, “and helped found a feminist paper we called Iahu, which was the name of a Sumerian goddess.” It was at Wesleyan that Anne also discovered modern dance and began to explore the convergences of feminism and movement. “We had this notion that we had to sweep away old structures,” Anne explains, “and to question all the old forms. … Modern dance was experimental from start to finish. … I wanted to find a way to communicate the big ideas of feminism and social change, and I wanted to do this through dance.” After leaving Wesleyan and returning to Portland in 1982, Anne took classes and worked as a dancer (“i.e., also waiting tables”), studying with Judith Catterall and David Harrington, who taught the technique of Mary Wigman, of the Bauhaus movement. Anne describes the process of reaching a plateau, however, and of reassessing her career options. “I gradually realized that modern dance has a small audience and that people who are successful, even to those small audiences, are fabulously obsessive personalities. I had to give it up.”

Prior to attending law school, Anne worked with Oregon Fair Share, and with a campaign to declare Portland a nuclear free zone. It was as a staff member at Oregon Fair Share that Anne met Mark Glazer—an activist and photographer—whom she later married. “Mark encouraged me to go back to school, and also put me through law school,” Anne explains. In completing a degree in International Studies with a focus on Chinese language and history, she recalls that “I still wanted to change the world." 

After graduating from the University of Washington Law School and passing the bar, Anne worked for the firm of Foster, Pepper and Shefelman in Seattle before joining the firm of Lane Powell in Portland. She became a partner in 2001, specializing in trademark and copyright law. Anne continues to contribute to social change through her work in the legal community, including in the area of building supportive forms of leadership. Anne is well-known for her keen intellect and analytical acuity, combined with tremendous warmth, generosity, and compassion. 

Anne Glazer is honored by Jan Haaken, who interviewed her in December 2007 in preparation for writing this biography. Haaken wishes to pay deep tribute to her colleague and friend Anne Glazer, who contributed countless hours of legal time to the Queens of Heart documentary, a film directed by Haaken that focuses on the life and work of the beloved Portland drag queen and activist, Darcelle XV. Haaken also thanks Glazer for giving her a feminist analysis of modern dance!