Gay Lib Promoter Sees Priority for Movement

girl.

By Jane Scott

She's as perky and peppy as a go-go

She's 5 feet 2, with eyes of blue, smooth skin and blonde hair.

Lambda

Greek letter for gays

In fact she was a gogo girl. And she is gay.

SHE IS DIVORCEE Gail Pertz, forthright founder of the Kent Gay Liberation Front (KGLF) and spokesman for the new spirit. "We're the 'Noushe Queer!"

veau

quipped.

"The war in Vietnam is almost over. Black power is old. Women's Lib is becoming passe. Now we're it."

Gay Pride Week is set in Ohio May 15 to 20. A state-wide conference will be in Columbus May 18 to 21 with a march on the State Capitol May 20.

"We're really serious. We're the new gay generation. We've come out of the closet. We're organized and we've got goals to go," Gail said.

She is making plans to teach a course on gay studies being considered at KSU's experimental college this September. This would be the first such course at any area university.

The KGLF plans to reinstate its 24-hour hot line, discontinued temporarily when it moved KGLF has headquarters now at No. 15 Student Activities Office Building, KSU a tie-in with the college's counseling service, a doctor on call, a defense fund and a law firm.

CLEVELAND'S

TWO-MONTH-OLD

Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) has a legal counsel, Anthony A. Walsh, Wednesday evening meetings, a chapter chartered at Cuyahoga Community College's Metropolitan campus and a $50.000 contribution to a center of its own.

The two gay organizations share a speakers' bureau and a chaplain, the Rev. Robert E. Hamilton, a recent Yale Divinity School graduate.

Both chapters are coed.

"The old-line gay was sexist. The men really hated women, and women hated men. That's sick. We want open friendliness, love anyone you want to," said Gail, a full-time psychology student at KSU.

One goal they share is to have a chapter on every campus in northern Ohio. They expect 5,000 to 10,000 at the state meeting in May.

GAIL WAS THE only gay girl at the first meeting of the GAA in a Euclid apartment. (Since then they have moved to an apartment on E. 115th Street.)

Overhead was a mobile with six arrows pointing in different directions. They represent transexuals, bi-sexuals, hermaphrodites, utights, undecided and curious.

"Sort of a multiple choice mobile," joked a blue-jeaned boy on the floor.

But their objective was no joke. And they may no longer have a choice.

“CONSIDER WHAT IT would be like to feel different from all other people and not have anyone to talk to about it. If it is possible to prevent one suicide .. we will have served our purpose," read a white paper given to each as he entered.

There was no signature on the paper just Post Office Box 91343, Cleveland 44101.

Fifteen young men sat on the floor, most of them with long hair. A few wore earrings, one had a T-shirt with the words "All Ohio Boy's. Band." One came in late and brought his mother and his boy friend. "Cleveland has a rather large gay community," said Tony Rogers, the cochairman of GAA, with the dark cury hair, Sinall mustache and soft voice. There are 3,000 in gay bars here alone.”

་ ་

GAIL GAVE THEM the word on how to make money. Have a dance. They give one at The Exit in Kent every Monday night.

"We got 700 out in the deep snow on two days' notice on an exam night. Then be a luncheon celebrity. I get $100 a talk. Put all your money in a defense fund until you get $5,000. That's what it will take you to bring a case to the Supreme Court."

The Kent chapter has three gay goals. • To help increase gay awareness and

zi pride.

• To provide an open social organization for gays.

To help reduce social, legal and employment discrimination.

"For awareness you need three things... visibility, honesty and openness,' Gail stressed.

But legal power is where they want to put the emphasis.

"We will file for an Akron man who has lost his job. We'll fight the Army on undesirable discharges. We're ready to put up bail for anyone arrested on a gay-related charge. And we're going to fight for repeal of Ohio's sodomy law. We feel that 70% of Ohio housewives are breaking that law, but that it's just used to harass us,” she said.

COCHAIRMAN OF KGLF is Bill Hoover, Kent State graduate student and instructor in the sociology department. Annė Weld-Harrington is cochairman of the Cleveland GAA.

"All we ask is the right of any other citizen. The right to our own bodies and the right to love whom we wish as we wish,” added Rogers.

Do they want to be called homosexuals or gays?

Gays, they said.

Changes in laws would be brought about by setting up a legal aid fund for gays. canvassing political leaders to change anti-homosexual laws, instructing gays on their rights and forming a gay voting block.

The Cleveland gays have almost 100 at their meetings. plan to move soon to a downtown area church.

"DO YOU WANT to know what it feels like to find out that your son is a homosexual?" asked the mother sitting in the corner at the meeting.

There is shock, disbelief, numbness. Then if you are lucky, the beginning of an understanding, said the Shaker Heights divorcee.

"I got the word in a seven-page, singlespaced letter," she said. "I was stunned. Then slowly I began to be glad that he cared enough about me to want me to understand." she said.

She had a word of advice for other parents in such a predicament. Don't panic. Call your clergyman and doctor. Above all, keep the lines of communication open.

"My son has many problems ahead, but he has faced himself and the world. He's going to go back for high school credits. He's on his way," she said.