Susan McGreivy is a lesbian activist and former civil rights attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California. In the 1980s, McGreivy played a leading role in the ACLU's challenges in a wide range of gay and lesbian civil rights issues, including a discrimination case against the Boy Scouts of America, a defense of the Gay Games against the United States Olympics Committee, and a defense of the women known as the Norton Sound Eight.

Born in 1939, Susan Douglas McGreivy attended high school in Washington, D.C., while participating on the United States Olympic swim team, and received her bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 1961. In the 1960s, McGreivy was a volunteer for the Peace Corps, worked as a teacher in California, and was married, eventually giving birth to two children. In the 1970s, McGreivy attended law school, received her degree in 1977, and began practicing law in the state of California. In the early part of her career, she worked as a law clerk for private practice firms. She became an attorney for the Gay Community Services Center in Hollywood in 1978, and then went on to become a civil rights attorney for the ACLU of Southern California with a focus on gay and lesbian rights. Throughout this time, she was also an activist in the lesbian feminist movement, participating in organizations and events, such as the National Organization for Women and the West Coast Lesbian Conference.

Source:

Box 1, Folder 1, Susan McGreivy Papers, Coll2012-138, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, USC Libraries, University of Southern California.