February, 1990

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Page 5

The Twelve Steps

Continued from Page 2

Watching womyn in the United States, I see some very sad things happening. Lesbian Separatists have decided that S/M womyn do not belong at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and use warlike tactics to persecute them to a degree that the S/M womyn do not feel safe without their own security force. When some womyn are put in the position of having to defend ourselves against factions of other womyn, we no longer have community. Other womyn have attempted to annihilate Dianne Davidson for singing about her relationship with her black caretaker, as if Dianne's avoidance of acknowledging her love for her caretaker would somehow rewrite herstory. Womyn writing into recent issues of the Lesbian Connection enumerate kinds of womyn they would prefer to exclude from lesbian events and from the definition of the word lesvery bian.

It is common practice for the patriarchy, through vehicles such as the CIA, to infiltrate womyn's groups they perceive as threatening. It is both pathetic and dangerous that we have so disempowered ourselves that it is likely that we are no longer threatening to the patriarchy. Taking a look at community, we have little left to infiltrate and destroy. We are doing these things to ourselves.

One of the most popular ways we are disempowering ourselves, both nationally and locally, is through our participation in the cult of 12-step programs. 12-step programs teach us that we are the victims of our own uncontrollable

behaviors. They teach us that we are congenitally sick and diseased because of our own behaviors and that we can never be well, but only ever-vigilant against relapse. We learn that we are "powerless," and that we must rely on a structure outside of ourselves and ou regular attendance at meetings of 12-step programs to help keep us from a substance or a behavior we make larger than

we are.

Womyn do not need our roles as victims reinforced like this; we have already learned these roles all too well in our participation in the patriarchy. Rather than relying on an external structure such as the 12 steps, we need to relearn how to listen to our intuition. We need to learn the positive power of our wills and to reinforce our ability to make healthy, empowered, and empowering changes in our lives. We need to learn how to replace what we do not like in our lives with what we do like. And then we need to give ourselves credit for making those changes instead of giving the credit to an external structure.

We have replaced much of our lesbian-feminist community with a 12-step pseudo-community which relies on conformity as requisite for belonging in the same way that the patriarchy or the lesbian separatists at Michigan demand conformity. Furthermore, we have given up our responsibility to help the planet, her inhabitants, and other womyn because we have learned that relations with others outside the structure of the 12 steps are "codependent." This is yet

another deterrent to responsible action. While we are immersed in pseudo-healing from iatrogenic “diseases”, our planet and her creatures are in danger and without our help.

Further evidence of the trends herein described exist in our own community. Our womyn's building has closed and our political activities are virtually nonexistent. Our social activities are thriving but, wonderful as they are, they are not always safe spaces for womyn either. In the January issue of the Chronicle, the Coffeehouse Collective advertised that we are opening a coffeehouse to men and, if it is "successful," we may make it an "annual event." It is bizarre to me that we would sabotage our own safe space by inviting men. Womyn-only space exists very rarely and men do not contribute to its creation. We contribute to our oppression, disempowerment, and lack of safety by inviting men into what are no longer our safe spaces.

Womyn cooking for men and entertaining men are not new ideas. They are, however, ideas which contribute to our subordination. We will be doing just those things when we open our coffeehouse to men. Calling the invitation of men into our space an "annual event" if "successful" is dangerous language. Making the presence of men an “annual event" implies that their presence makes the event more special than a womynonly event, which it certainly is not. Is an event more or less successful because of the presence of men? This event will be less than successful if only because we

'One hell of a good time':

Victor Karp on his 70th birthday

by Fern Levy

"Why is it good to be old?" May Sarton, the lesbian writer and poet, was asked at the time of her seventieth birthday. "Because I am more myself than I have ever been," was her reply.

Ask the same question of Victor Karp, the recent septuagenarian of our community, and his first response is “Oy, vey!" But then he goes on to tell the story of his 70 yearshis commitment to a Jewish life, his evolution as a gay man spanning over two generations, and the successful blending of these two important aspects of his life during the last few years. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that his "Oy, vey!" (translated literally as "Origod" from the Yiddish) is really the same as Sarton's.

Victor's life began here in Cleveland on July 24, 1919. Some of the parts don't seem, at first to fit together-like the jigsaw puzzle that initially appears to have too many blue pieces or too few green ones. But with the perspective that time brings, and along with it, the ability to look back and see the connections, we come to a new understanding of where Victor has been, how he got where he is now, and why he is going wherever he

wants to.

A life time member of Fairmount Temple in Beachwood where he has read from the Torah (the scroll in Hebrew of the first five books of the Scriptures) since 1934, when Fairmount Temple was in what is now the inner city, Victor joined Chevrei Tikva (Friends of Hope), Cleveland's lesbian and gay Jewish group, in 1984, just before his sixty-fifth birthday. Angered by a series of homophobic letters in the Cleveland Jewish News, he called Chevrei Tikva's answering machine out of a sense of solidarity and a highly piqued curiosity. The young man who returned his call assured Victor that there were indeed, older people in the group. "We have a few members in their thirties," Victor remembers him saying.

He was 65 and everyone else in the gay world seemed to be 25. Acutely aware of the ageism he was about to confront, Victor nevertheless attended a Sabbath serv A3he Wal the room, he

couldn't help but notice that people were looking at him "with raised eyebrows." A small man, with a dignified air about him along with a voice big enough for a Browns fullback, demanding your attention, Victor could not be ignored. And since that moment, he committed himself to proving that age should not be the measure of a man. Not this man, anyway.

After studying psychology at Ohio State University, Victor found himself in the Army Air Corps right after Pearl Harbor in 1941. "I didn't know what being gay meant at that time," he recalls, "but I did have my first sexual experience with a man when I was in the service."

As a deputy lead bombardier, he flew 40 missions over Eastern Europe. During his second mission over Germany, the hydraulic lines of his B-17 bomber were shot out by the Germans. "I remember how concerned they were about the plane after we made the emergency landing but no one asked about how the crew was." After completing his service in Texas as a bombardier instructor, he began graduate studies in industrial psychology at Western Reserve University.

At the age of 30, Victor began to pay attention to "something that had been roaming around in my head for a long time." Dissatisfied in his job as a personnel manager for Mt. Sinai Hospital, he was encouraged to become a rabbi by a childhood friend who had recently finished his own rabbinical training. “So why don't you apply?” Victor remembers him saying. So he did and started studies toward the rabbinate at the age of 32, ten years older than most of his classmates.

During the second year Victor was politely but firmly asked to leave when the fact he was gay became known. He explains, "My parents were disappointed. So was I. And even though we were a family of modest circumstances, we were very proud."

Very close to his mother, who was a "wonderful woman and very intelligent", Victor had come out to her when he was in his 20's. "I like boys," is what he remembers telling her. "We cried," he recalls, "but she told me that she still loved me and I was still her son." But when his father found out, they never

communicated again. "I felt that he despised me underneath all of the polite conversation. While my mother was a very loving person, my father had a hard time getting along with people." At one time a successful real estate developer, his father's business collapsed just before the Depression. For his older brother, younger sister and for Victor, life was a lesson in survival while they were growing up.

A few months ago, Victor was honored on the occasion of his seventieth birthday by Chevrei Tikva. The eyebrows that were raised five years ago had turned into voices and hearts raised in appreciation and recognition of Victor's dedication to the group. His brother and sister were there. And so were over 30 other friends who came to not only celebrate the birthday but also the man. For Victor was not only a force to contend with pertaining to the age issue in the group, but was also the one who could be counted on to set up and clean up before and after services. In addition to this, he leads services when needed. And if this is not enough, Victor has been editor of the newsletter and on the board of trustees for the last two years. He also picks up the mail at the post office and personally delivers it to the right person if it needs immediate attention. All this and two part time jobs, too.

"Sometimes I think I was born 30 years too early, because through the years, I

have chosen to eliminate our own safe space.

I have hope. I know that the lesbian community does not have to deteriorate into a war zone or a party, and that it is more than a personal support network. While some womyn may never grow past the fear in which they find an oppressed safety, I trust there will be many, many womyn out here exploring the void. Only after we reclaim our personal power can we reclaim our collective power. When we are strong as a community, we can create for ourselves to meet our own needs. I have experienced the love inherent in womyn risking. As we move through our changes, I hope we have the strength, the courage, and power to continue to risk.

Shana Blessing is a past director of the GEAR Foundation (now the LesbianGay Community Service Center) and a member of the Cleveland women's community for many years.

The Chronicle invites you to express your opinion. You may write on any issue that affects the lesbian and gay community. Submissions should be at least 500 words, not exceeding 1,500 words, typewritten or on an IBM-compatible computer diskette. Please include your name and phone number so we may contact you. Send submissions to P.O. Box 5426, Cleveland, Ohio 44101.

haven't known how to handle my gayness. But Chevrei Tikva helped me realize who I am," Victor reflects. "I know now that of all the people I've met in my life, most of them will have nice things to say about me."

But Chevrei Tikva is not the only passion in Victor's life. As an actor since junior high school, he has appeared in about 100 plays, many of them at Karamu House and the Jewish Community Center. And as a new member of the North Coast Men's Chorus, Victor says, “I'm not a great singer, but I love being part of the Chorus." Victor also does the East Side delivery of the Chronicle and has been involved with fundraising for the Lesbian-Gay Community Service Cen-

ter.

Victor's plans for the future include visiting relatives in South Africa. “And if I hit the lottery, I will buy a concert grand piano and make my debut as a concert pianist at the age of 74," Victor fantasizes. He also hopes to get to Israel. But his most important immediate plan is to march in a Gay Pride Day march, something he would not have even considered a short time ago.

"Sometimes the gay life is not so gay," Victor says as he mentally runs though around 50 years of his life, "but I'm having one hell of a good time now."

And, Victor, as you would say in Yiddish, "May your strength be increased."

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