MAY 14, 1993 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Dyke March numbers tell us we all count

by Patti Harris

If the U.S. Park Service officials' low estimate of our numbers at the March on Washington April 25 make you feel like less than one-third of a person, try getting a feel for how little we counted at the Dyke March (from Dupont Circle to the Washington Monument) the night

before.

Hard to believe, but I could find only passing coverage of the Dyke March in the Washington Post and no mention of it at home here in Cleveland. Just as the estimate of how many of us stood up to be counted at the March on Sunday is so very important, so is the estimate of how many lesbians were gathered for the Dyke March. So important that I came up with my own, unofficial estimate, proving that those story problems we dreaded in grade school actually can be applied in later life.

Ift

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Women's Caucus who pushed the Queen Dyke generator for the entire route!

Was there a single woman that didn't start her period at some point that weekend? It's a documented fact that when women get into close living situations, they start cycling together. You can forget your calendars. (Next march I'm financing my trip by marketing specially packaged tampons with cute little triangles and lambdas on the wrappers.)

We don't take as long to cruise the crowd as gay men do (a “so many women, so little nerve" attitude held true in my group). And we wear very practical footwear-no pinching high-heeled pumps for us! So if the man sitting on top of the pole counting us as we marched toward the White House is reading this, please give me a call.

I know that I "count." The women marched shoulder to shoulder with know that we count. The crowds of men koinen of every known

893 mch-

ers a minute The Dyked arc took clos to an ho

marched

lion-plus p

estimated and the Dy

may land closer to 200,000!

And, I noted that lesbians march faster than gay men, bisexual and transgender marchers. Yes, way! We do. Lesbians with a mission just move faster. And if we have an attitude, that speeds us up another few notches. Just look at the women from the ACT UP Philadelphia

put the Dyke March together; it started when women in San Francisco started thinking about how there could be more lesbian visibility during the Washington weekend. I talked to one of the organizers and she told me-are you ready for this?-that as soon as word got out about the Dyke March, she got more calls from women in Ohio than anyplace else! We know how to party and know how to organize. Way to go!

Harvey Milk said, "I broth asked my gay sisters and to make the commitment to fight for

or their

eir coun-

d not win

to bring that conviction that we their right by sitting etly on the back of the

own "March on Cleveland" Saturday, June 19 and stay for all the wonderfully affirming Pride festivities. Join in showing Cleveland that what we saw in Washington holds true here as well: we are your sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and co-workers, your mail carrier, your teacher, your waiter, your boss, your neighbor.

It was a coalition of women's groups that

PHOTO BY KEVIN BEANEY

ACT UP "Hands Around

the Capitol" draws 30,000

by Kevin Beaney

The enormity of the March on Washington weekend was quickly setting in. It was 11:45 am on Saturday, April 24, and thousands of people were swarming around the Capitol building. Michael Petrelis, queer activist who months earlier had flown to Japan to monitor the developments in the Allen Schindler murder trial, was now pleading with the crowd through a public address system to "move to the grassy area in front of the Capitol."

This was the beginning of "Hands Around the Capitol," a massive ACT UP political demonstration to demand that Congress take more action in the fight against AIDS. The plan was to group everyone in front of the Capitol and then have people carry 8,000 feet of red ribbon around the building to form a human chain. There were other instructions, too: "Please remember to keep your backs turned on Congress because Congress has turned its back on AIDS. ACT UP, fight back, fight AIDS!" yelled Petrelis.

It took quite a long time to get participants in the right area. Hundreds of people

crowded the top veranda on the Capitol's Mall side, looking down on the assembly below. Hundreds more poured across the terraces, heading down the wide staircases, frequently stopping to talk to friends they just ran into. All the while Petrelis begged the crowd to move into the designated protest area.

Many minutes later, ACT UP-DC was ready to begin. Disorganization was evident at times: not everyone followed the ribbon leaders; the ribbon broke at one point which halted the procession since no one thought to tie the ends together; ribbon leaders weren't sure which way to go.

But it eventually happened. There was red ribbon and people completely around the lower, outer walkway so that the Capitol grounds were surrounded. In many places the crowd was bunched up three and four deep. At 12:55 pm organizers declared it finished. ACT UP estimated more than 30,000 participated, making it the largest AIDS demonstration ever.

Now, Petrelis' voice repeated itself, asking everyone to return to the grassy area for

got off. We our rights by quietly in our closets. We are coming out. We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truth about gays. For I am tired of the conspiracy of silence."

You count. Yes, way!

a rally. Speakers were ready but the crowd was coming apart: some leaving, others meeting friends, hundreds "hanging out" on the Capitol steps, others just curious. It took many more minutes before some semblance of order was achieved.

Petrelis spoke first. He criticized President Clinton because, "He made 17, 17 AIDS promises. Hasn't kept a single promise. A lot of us either voted for or worked for Clinton's election. Where is he this weekend? He's not even here."

Other speakers included Bill Freeman, executive director of the National Association of People with AIDS; Cristopher Bates, director of the DC CARE Consortium; Vivian Torres, New Jersey Woman's AIDS Network; and Jennifer Chambers, ACT UP Lobby Corps coordinator.

Cornelius Baker, co-founder of Brother Help Thyself, a Washington gay and AIDS fundraising group, gave a powerful speech, saying, "Let the Congressional Black Caucus know, they will not be automatically sent back here by using our history for their own political pursuit." After criticizing gay Republicans for groveling and being too nice, he said, "As people with AIDS, we have our lives at stake. We don't have time for black and white, Latino, Asian. We don't have time for Democrat, Republican, Independent... Each and every single [member of Congress] is accountable for each and every single vote. And we better remind them of that. Because each and every single one of our votes in the next election will be dedicated to saving our lives."

Then came the principal speaker, Larry

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PHOTO BY KEVIN BEANEY

Kramer. Petrelis introduced him by saying "You know him as the founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, you know him as cofounder of ACT UP... he's been out there before a lot of us were even born."

Kramer-author, activist, gadfly-gave

a moving, rousing speech, in the process referring to the president as "Bill the Welsher" for saying all the right things but failing to live up to any of his campaign promises about fighting AIDS. People with AIDS "are being intentionally allowed to die... This is intentional genocide of gay people and of people of color... There is a new Holocaust museum that just opened down the street; this is our Holocaust."

It was a familiar cry; in fact, Kramer said that nothing has changed since he started making this speech 13 years ago, except the numbers. "Doctor Hazeltine of Harvard now predicts one billion people will be HIV infected by the new century. One billion. When I started yelling and talking to you, there were 41 cases. 41 cases to one billion infected people, and they are still not doing one fucking, goddamned thing."

Kramer strongly recommended that Clinton appoint Connecticut governor Lowell Weicker to be the administration's AIDS czar, calling Weicker "gutsy" and, "when he was the Republican senator from Connecticut in the early days of AIDS, the only friend in the Republican party, practically the only friend in Congress that AIDS ever had."

The rally was over at 2 pm, with ACT UP chants ringing in everyone's ears.

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