NEWS HIGH GEAR, MARCH, 1977 PERSONAL GROWTH GROUP OFFERED

CLEVELAND The Fellowship Metropolitan Community

Church of Cleveland will soon be sponsoring a personal growth group for gay singles and couples of both sexes. Centering on the issues of relationships, the group will be designed both for those currently involved in some type of relationship as well as those contemplating such an involvement. The group will use fantasy, structured exercises, and the on-going interaction of the members to explore the issues involved in relationships. Focus will be on the actual interaction of the members in the group setting, using it as the data base to explore the larger issues involved in forming and maintaining a relationship. Group members will learn to help one another grow in their handling of interpersonal situations, from those which occur between group members to those of longer life significance. It is important to note that this group is in no way intended as a substitute for therapy. Rather, it will provide a forum for training

Page 6

ST. CLAIR LOSES PROSTITUTION CASE

CLEVELAND A common pleas judge has ruled against

and growth in enriching intranssexual prostitute Tracy St. terpersonal interaction. Clair in her suit asking the court to

The group is to be led by Steve Obert, a doctoral candidate at Case Western Reserve University, and Susan Kraber, a student at Cleveland State University. Both leaders have had extensive experience facilitating encounter groups, interpersonal communications groups, personal growth and assertiveness training laboratories, as well as experience in individual counselling.

The group will meet for six consecutive Tuesdays beginning March 29th at 7:00 p.m. Evening sessions will run two and one half hours. Additionally

un-

find that Ohio's and Cleveland's laws constitutionally favored her customers. St. Clair filed her suit two years ago as a class action arguing that prostitution laws violated women's constitutional rights to privacy, equal protection and due process.

In an attempt to prove discrimination, Deborah P. Goshien, lawyer for Ms. St. Clair, argued that the woman is punished while her male customer either through legal design or by discriminatory

police enforcement is not. Goshien indicated there was testimony that no women policemen are assigned permanently to Cleveland vice squads. She said, "This indicated to me that a clear policy of unequal enforcement of the prostitution laws existed and still exsits in the Cleveland Police Department."

During the three day hearing there was also testimony on the police practice of arresting suspected prostitutes, detaining them in City Jail for periods of time and releasing them without charging them. Said Ms. Goshien: "There is a clear denial of due process. This is

nothing more than harassment and subjects these female businesspersons to humiliation and ridicule."

But, despite these contentions, Judge David Matia ruled: "The laws in question have not been shown to be discriminatorily applied and the enforcement of these laws does not deprive the plaintiff of any constitutional rights." Judge Matia did not comment on a request by Ms. St. Clair to order Cleveland police to uniformly enforce prostitution laws by arresting men.

Ms. St. Clair said she will appeal the decision.

the group will meet all day CENTER VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED NOW!

Saturday, April 2nd. Members must be committed to attending all sessions full time. There will be a $10.00 registration fee to cover expenses. Unused portions of the fee will be donated to the church to help support its other religious and social activities within the Cleveland gay community. Interested persons should contact the church office at 631-8222.

WOOF TO START COLUMBUS CHAPTER

COLUMBUS WOOF International, a disco/travel club that originated in Washington, D.C. has announced plans to start its first chapter outside of the District in Columbus, Ohio. According to a report in The Howler, WOOF's newsletter, the group's D.C. members are arriving en masse in Columbus the weekend of April 29. Its purpose: to help kick off the WOOF Columbus Den.

WOOF which stands for the Wild Order of Outrageous Funseekers got its start in July of 1976 when "a crazy group of guys got together in Provincetown to celebrate the holiday and have some fun." The original idea for the group was a disco/travel club in which the members would travel from Washington, D.C. to other cities and "raid" the discos during

weekend excursions. Now it has evolved into a full activity club including cooking and bartending lessons and conversational language instruction for foreign travel.

The Washington D.C. club room sports a bar and a dance floor with rhythm lights, a strobe and soon more lighting to simulate one of the larger superbars. Parties are held there as well as outside at the local discos. Men and women are both welcome as members of the club and as guests of members, although members receive benefits not open to others.

Those interested in the grand opening of the Columbus Den and specifically the kick-off party may contact Roger Glaze and Gary Klug, P.O. Box 421, Reynoldsburg, Ohio 43068 or call (614) 861-0496.

HELP!! THREE DRAWER

PRINTING PRESS

P.O. Box 6177 Cleveland, Ohio

44101

By David Hollab & Don Skaggs, Counseling Service Co-ordinators

COMMUNITY CENTER VOLUNTEERS ARE NEED NOW!

Now that we have our own Gay Community Services Cen-. ter, we'll need your time and, energy to help us provide needed services. As with alli other G.E.A.R. Foundation activities, the center will primarily run on individual people volunteering for specific jobs. For those of you interested in helping at the center in some. capacity, this article is for you.. we'll train people for different No experience is needed, as: activities. WE NEED YOUR HELP NOW!

THE GAY SWITCHBOARD-

HOTLINE

The Hotline is a service that has been in operation over a year. The function of the Hotline is to give information about the Gay scene in Cleveland and Ohio, organizational activities, crisis intervention, individual problems (i.e. coming out), referrals for counseling or medical services, and as a message center for G.E.A.R. activities. The new Hotline hours

will be 4 pm. midnight everyday. There will be two four hour shifts each night. We need volunteers now, as our present staff is overworked and there are not enough people to cover all the shifts. With the Center opering now, it's especially important to have the Hotline operating efficiently.

We will be starting a new Hotline training program on Tuesday March 29 at 7:30 10

pm. at the center. Please call the Switchboard Hotline for more information if you are interested, and leave your name and number especially if you can't make this meeting. Women especially needed.

are

RECEPTIONISTOFFICE MANAGERS People are needed to manage (open up, close, and receive people at the center) during our hours of operation, which have yet to be determined, depending on the volunteers and activities. These people will be responsible for greeting people when they enter the center in order to answer any questions, answer the center phone, and to refer people to appropriate services. Training for "receptionists" begins Tuesday March 29 from 7:30-10 pm. Please call the Hotline for information if you're interested.

RAP GROUP FACILITATORS

Presently we have an "open rap" at the Free Clinic every Friday night at 8:30. We would like to start meeting at the Center the first Friday of April (April 1). More group facilitators are needed to help run the groups which normally meet from about 8:30-11 pm. The training program for Rap group facilitators begins Wednesday, March 23 at 7:30 pm. If you're interested in helping run the Rap groups (not necessarily every week) please call the Hotline for information and reservations. Our current group is mostly men any women who want to run a Lesbian Rap group please contact us immediately! We want to have a Gay Center, not a Gay Men's Center.

GAY SWITCHBOARD

321-6632

SPECIAL GROUP AND

PROGRAM LEADERS Due to the diversified interests in the Gay community and the numerous requests from past rap groups, we will be running special groups on particular topics of interest or problems. If you would be interested in helping facilitate these groups that would usually be 10 weeks long at a maximum, please call the Hotline for information and reservations, and leave your name and number. The training sessions will start Wednesday, March 23 at 7:30 p.m.

COUNSELORS AND OTHER SERVICES

If you have any skills in counseling, social work, psychology, etc., whether you have a degree or not, please contact us for possibilities of working at the center, being trained, or to be used by us as an outside referral, if you are already working in the mental health field. WE ALSO DESPERATELY NEED NAMES OF GAY PHYSICIANS FOR REFERRALS OR THOSE SYMPATHETIC TO OUR NEEDS. PLEASE CALL US IF YOU CAN HELP. For anyone else that we forgot, please call us if you can help out at the center. We need your help now! Please come to our Open House Sunday March 27, 1-5 pm.

FORAD GERD

Sun.-Thurs. 6 p.m. to

2 a.m.

Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m. to

3 a.m.