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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

July, 1990

Editorial

Bashing back

Gay-bashing is usually pictured as a gang of punk kids, working over a couple of men in a alley somewhere. At least, that is how it is portrayed on television, in the movies, and in books. All too often in reality this kind of violence leaves our people injured, maimed, even killed.

But that is not the only way to bash lesbians and gays. Bashing can be done not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually. Words and pictures can be used to tell us that we are not human, that our lives are a joke, and that we deserve a host of ills. We all know how we've had to free ourselves from the amount of this toxic material we've absorbed over a lifetime and how some of us have died from it, in suicide.

These words and pictures also tell nongays that we are less than human, and that it's okay to abuse us, and to commit physical gay-bashing.

Verbal bashing has recently been happening in Cleveland's newspapers, radio shows, and even a billboard. The Weekly Farce, a local "humor” sheet, ran a piece about a "bull dyke poll." WNCX 98.5 FM, on the Tuesday after Pride '90, spent the morning ridiculing us as a form of drive-time "humor." Joel Rose on WERE-AM routinely bashes us. And, of course, Sysack's sign even our dead are not respected.

This bashing can even take the form of misguided "sympathetic" press. The Plain Dealer, on Sunday, June 3, ran a story in their "Living" section titled "The agony of gays." It was enough to make you barf. The agony? The Center had worked with the PD for months on a feature story about the PRYSM youth group, and the wonderful work they are doing with gay and lesbian youth.

Instead what was printed was the same, tired, "how awful gay lives are and how miserable . . ." story, with the twist that we now know it at a younger age. The whole thi I could have been written ten years ago for all the positiveness that was included. They even ran a sidebar about religious groups which claim to “cure”

gays.

Instead of just taking it, instead of

being happy we got any press at all, what do we do?

We "bash" back. We as individuals and a community can tell the offenders how we feel. We can call them, we can write them. We can make the experience of being bashed more human and more real to the basher. We can tell them that it isn't okay, that it harms us both mentally and, indirectly, physically.

We can show these people that, unlike the gays and lesbians of old who had no choice but to "take it," we as a community are not going to take it anymore, and that we will respond to all of this verbal bashing. The Cleveland lesbian and gay community is bigger, stronger and more organized, and we are ready. We are bashing back.

Bashing back doesn't mean hitting or violence; it means standing up and not cowering. It definately does not mean paying the offender for the opportunity to respond, as the publisher of a local bar magazine is planning to do with Sysack. That is the same as paying protection to the Mob Sysack profits from bashing

us..

Bashing back means consequences for those who bash us and it means preserving our self-dignity and esteem from those who would destroy it. We need to take care of ourselves, and to protect our community – especially those too young or too closeted to know not to believe the insults and the lies. Meeting with the Plain Dealer

By Chronicle press time, an historic meeting will be set between the editors of the Plain Dealer and representatives of the Center, the Chronicle, and other members of the lesbian and gay media and community, including youth and people of color.

that we may not get all of this, but then again we may, there is no way of knowing. But the meeting will show how we stood up for ourselves, how we shouted out, "you cannot treat us this way and get away with it".

Also at press time another historic bashing-back will be taking place. Instead of just vandalizing Russell Sysack's sign, the community is standing up and bashing him back.

By the time you read this, we will have been there in numbers with the police and media and signs of our own that told this homophobic creep that isn't okay or cool to bash us anymore, and that what he wrote is deeply offensive. We have as much right to exist as anyone and we will not stand for anyone inciting violence against us, defaming us or printing in public false, negative remarks against us.

This lesbian and gay community has been abused so often we sometimes don't even recognize when we are being bashed. Some of our community even thought the Plain Dealer article was good and commendable. It is time to recondition ourselves. It is time to teach each other what is okay and what is not.

So, when you hear some homophobic trash on the radio, or read it in the paper, bash back. Don't get your bat out, but use more effective methods. Call the person or institution who is bashing you and all of us and tell them that they are hurting you, that they are hurting thousands. Then call a friend and tell them to call.

Tell the station, or paper, or whatever, that you are a person and it isn't okay to treat you or anyone else this way. Use those words. You'd be surprised what the reaction will be.

Bashers sometimes don't realize they are hurting a real person; quite often

they don't even think they're being offensive. Show them that you are real and what they are saying is hurtful. Write letters. Talk to them. Do it for the comdo it for yourself, for your own pride munity, do it for the bashers, but most of and sense of self-worth. Maybe that burning pit of hurt that rises in your stomach every time one of us gets bashed will someday go away.

This meeting is our way of fighting back. These community leaders and rep-all resentatives are going to demand lesbianand gay-sensitive articles from the PD, a sensitivity training for their staff people and a lesbian-gay liaison with the paper, among other things. Reality says

Guest Opinion

We have a lot to be proud

by Aubrey Wertheim

A year ago, radio talk show host Merle Pollis asked us why we were proud of being gay. "I have arthritis but it is nothing I'm proud of," he said.

It was a legitimate question couched in a derogatory analogy, but it is the nature of talk radio hosts to goad guests and dump on whole sectors of society from a great height. We pointed out the inapt-

ness of his comparison, then proceeded

to respond.

At the time we ticked off a litany of

famous gay people and accomplishments, but have come to realize this tactic alone cannot justify pride. Clearly, it's

impressive when roll-calling down the Homo Hall of Fame-start with

Michelangelo, march in Alexander the Great, toss a rose to Gertrude Stein, leap forward to Martina Navratilova, but the problem here is obvious. Besides the clear impression that even if these Big Gay Guns suddenly were placed in the same room and given a common language, it's highly questionable they'd have anything to say to one another.

There's the flipside: The fair amount of infamous (or at least discreditable) legendary individuals who've graced our side of the Kinsey scale-J. Edgar Hoover, Lizzie Borden, Nathan F. Leopold Jr. (of Leopold & Leob). Hardly points of pride.

But more importantly, this is an unfair tactic because most gays and lesbians will never be the father of modern computing like Alan Turing or the first woman to the North Pole, like Ann Bancroft.

of

an incredible phenomenon given our total isolation everyone around us was glaringly heterosexualand our complete ignorance as to what these feelings meant or what one did with them. Yet we have all the reasons in the Despite hearing derogatory terms from world to be proud. other children (queer, faggot, dyke,

each

What we celebrate year is our individual and community's triumph over hate and persecution.

What we demand is the return of our and every living person's birthright: to hold another being freely, to be held without fear.

Knowing at an early age

Gays and lesbians (in this article's context, these terms refer to anyone who acknowledges their orientation toward same-sex affections and relationshipseven if they haven't told anyone else) often acknowledge they first recognized their feelings at age nine or ten, often younger. (Research has concluded orientation is established in most people by age five.)

That we recognized these feelings is

sissy) before any of us knew what they even meant, and negative impressions from family members, neighbors and caregivers, the conviction remained that this different feeling was real, was decent, was true and whether we did anything with it or not (most of us didn't), these stirring emotions were held privately worthy and precious. We can be proud of this innate gay intuition that our hearts were in the right place.

gay people's

HRONICLE

Vol. 6, Issue 1.

Copyright July, 1990. All rights reserved.

Founded by Charles Callender

1928-1986

Published by KWIR Publications Co-Owners:

Robert Downing Martha J. Pontoni

Editor-in-Chief:

Martha J. Pontoni Associate Editors:

Brian DeWitt, Kevin Beaney, Cyndy Williams.

Copy Editor:

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Martha J. Pontoni, K.D. Mahnal, Dora Forbes, Don S., Faith Klasek, Robert Laycock, Douglas Braun, Lois Lane, Jessica Noble. Columnists:

Antone Feo, Russ Rosen, Shana Blessing. Art Director:

Christine Hahn

Artists:

Tom Zav, Dawn Fritz, Bob Boone, Nathan Gwirtz.

Distribution Chief:

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Steve VanGilder Editorial Board:

Martha J. Pontoni, Robert Downing, Brian DeWitt, Christine Hahn, Kevin Beaney, Cyndy Williams.

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Adolescence: Compulsory Camouflage.

As gay and lesbian adolescents, the pressures to conform to a heterosexual standard reaches almost critical mass. It permeates every aspect of teen culture: school, fashion, friendship, entertainment, and extracurricular activities.

Homophobia graduates to include not simply words and violent deeds, but gestures, innuendo, and an advanced social science of bias with litmus tests for every move, right down to the carrying of books.

The various forms of popular culture sweeping around lesbian-gay teens are embedded in heterosexist presumption and casually slam and defame us with little fear of repercussion. Realistic, dignified images of gays and lesbians remain few and far between and the predictable stereotypes persist.

While the world encourages young people to express themselves, develop relationships and mature emotionally, we quickly learn to censor our true feelContinued on Page 5