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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

An Independent Chronicle of the Northern Ohio Lesbian and Gay Community

Volume 8, Issue 9 March 19, 1993

Turnover at the Center Robertson to resign; Wertheim trims duties

by Kevin Beaney

At the March 2 board meeting of the Lesbian-Gay Community Service Center, executive director Leigh Robertson formally announced her resignation, effective "in July or earlier."

Robertson took over the position in January 1991, moving to Cleveland from Michigan where she had been president of the Michigan Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She is leaving the executive director's post to pursue a master's degree in social work.

In a brief announcement she praised the board and her role, where she "got to know both local and national gay and lesbian figures," but felt that it was "time to move on." She also issued an open letter to the community which is printed in this issue.

Board president Dolores Noll expressed thanks for the work that "we've done in a short time" and the impact Robertson has had in the community. Noll stated that she would miss the executive director and expressed her appreciation that Robertson would be working with us during the transition."

Robertson has plans to go to school in Cleveland, allowing her to continue to take part in the Center's activities and in the community.

Also during the meeting it was revealed that Robertson had chosen Aubrey Wertheim for the new staff position of youth services coordinator. He will transfer from his duties as director of services, which he has held since November 1988, when his replacement is hired. The director of services is responsible for the Center's 11 programs. Wertheim had been campaigning for sev-

eral months to scale down his responsibilities, due to burnout and increased focus on his other career as a playwright.

The new 20-hour per week youth services coordinator position was funded for a year by a grant from the Cleveland Foundation. As coordinator, Wertheim is responsible for PRYSM's weekly support group and outreach presentations, workshops and conferences throughout the area to educate adults and young people about the need to accept gay youth.

He will expand the agenda to attract and meet the needs of those young gays, lesbians and bisexuals in special populations such as people of color, HIV-positive, and physically or mentally challenged. The outreach to city young people will be expanded as will working with local and state agencies that deal with youth. A further Continued on Page 8

Mayor

Lesbian-gay films at festival

aid Today, the short films in the International Film Festival.

White endorses March on Washington

by Martha Pontoni

Despite some miscommunication with the Cleveland March on Washington committee, Cleveland mayor Michael White has endorsed the National March saying, "We are all in the same boat, rowing in the same direction."

The mix-up occurred when committee representatives visited Mayor White on his March 2 Mayor's Night In," asking him for the endorsement. Sue Schnur, Kim Taylor, Mike Boyle, Gary Buck and Mary Kay Quinn spoke with the mayor to ask him to endorse the March and join other notables,

Lesbians have including the National Chapter of the

1 in 3 risk of breast cancer

Lesbians have a one-in-three lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, two to three times that of heterosexual women, according to a study by a National Cancer Institute researcher.

Suzanne G. Haynes, an epidemiologist, examines all available studies of the known risk factors that increase a woman's chances of having breast cancer. All of the risk factors she looked at were more common in lesbians than in heterosexual women.

The National Cancer Institute estimates that about one in eight U.S. women will develop breast cancer.

Among the risks that Haynes looked at Continued on Page 10

Out Voice, a statenew, wide group, gears up to fight the religious right

NAACP and the United Church of Christ. The mayor, breaking with the five-minute time limit for his "Night In" meetings with citizens, met with the group for over 15

minutes.

Initially the mayor declined to endorse the March, believing it was only a pressure tactic for the gays-in-the-military issue. He said it would put too much pressure on President Clinton to remove the ban, and was bad timing for the cause of gay rights.

"We were very disappointed and mad," said spokeswomen Schnur. "We felt the mayor was our friend." Schnur added that Mayor White did not believe that lesbian and gay rights was just a civil rights issue, but a human rights issue.

When contacted to confirm his opinions, Mayor White indicated that his reasons for not supporting the March was .. a question of tactics." After being informed that the March had been planned long before Clinton was elected, the mayor indicated that he was not aware of the length of

Rev. Justo Gonzalez widens EMCC into a community that embraces all

time the March had been planned or that is was not just a "gays in the military march." He went on the say that pressure on the president "would hurt the cause in the end," and he thought the president has shown "extraordinary courage making gays in the military the first issue out of the box." When asked if he would now endorse the March with the new information he had just received, the mayor did not hesitate to say

that he would. "Everyone is entitled to the pursuit of their dreams and aspirations, and the peaceful petitioning of government to assist in removing the roadblocks to those goals is a legitimate part of that process."

He did confirm that he believes that lesbian and gay rights are "not strictly a civil rights issue as we know it, and I believe the vast majority of Americans believe that too."

AHC staff must 'pound the streets' to find housing

by William Harris

The AIDS Housing Council (AHC), frequently commended for providing Kamana Place as an assisted living facility for PWAs, also offers a communitybased program to assist HIV-positive people in determining their housing needs and providing shelter referrals. Several gay men have recently complained about the housing location service, alleging that the agency does not screen living situations or determine whether the prospective landlord or roommate is accepting of a person in the HIV spectrum and possibly gay.

One story is of a gay man, identified in this article as John, who learned he was HIV-positive. John contacted the AIDS

INSIDE

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Housing Council, an organization he knew of when he was donating clothing to charity, to find residency in a safe housing situation. He was given two possible leads--the first of which he took, placing him in what would soon prove to

be a stressful situation.

His referred roommate lived in the Detroit-Shoreway area and was only askwife had left him and taken their two ing $105 a month. He was straight; his children with her. In no time at all the

truth of the situation started to manifest itself. The roommate took sick--he was HIV-positive as well--and was in and out of the hospital. He almost immediately raised John's rent $45, then went home to Continued on Page 9

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