She was also chair of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and founding director of Bradley Angle, an emergency shelter program in Portland, Oregon.

[3] She attended Grinnell College[4] as a theatre major in the class of 1969,[5] but refused to take the examinations required to graduate.

[14] She hosted the "Love Makes a Family" radio show,[15] and was founder and director the organization of the same name.

[19] She protested the Iraq War with Seriously Pissed-Off Grannies, and was arrested several times over the years for her non-violent political activities.

Tinker married her longtime partner Sara Graham in 2004, during a brief window of legalized same-sex marriage that year in Oregon.

Tinker died in a traffic accident in 2009, at the age of 61, while riding her bicycle in Blacksburg, Virginia.

There is a large collection of her papers, recordings, and photographs in the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.