GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE DECEMBER 9, 1994

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A community of heroes

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by Judith Rainbrook

I just returned from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Creating Change Conference in Dallas. It is difficult to convey just what it feels like to attend a conference composed of 1,300 heroes and heroines of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender liberation movement across the country.

Imagine finding oneself sitting in the same room with the men and women from Oregon and Idaho whose courageous efforts and cross-cultural coalition-building resulted in the solid defeat of antigay initiatives in these states. Imagine how empowering it

Center and the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland were doing a really great job this year and they wanted to throw a holiday party for our staffs. We said yes, of course.

And, in response to an earlier wish list article in the Chronicle, we received a month's supply of coffee from the owners of Among Friends, a "Gathering of Ohio Artists and Craftsmen" located in Peninsula, just south

LESBIAN GAY

Community Service Center

is to hear Glenn Maxey, the openly gay state legislator from Texas who just won re-election with a 69 percent majority in his district, speak about the courage and support of others like Texas governor Ann Richards? Defeated in this election, Richards nonetheless left a lasting legacy for the gay-lesbian community by appointing hundreds of openly gay or lesbian people to state commissions, utility boards, judgeships, and other offices from which they will continue to influence Texas over the coming years.

Here, speaking in workshops on classism or how the gay and lesbian community “eats" its leaders are the same people that are negotiating with the federal government to intervene in the Mississippi murder case that is combining homophobia, racism and AIDS hysteria in a particularly vicious manner.

And here are the angry and triumphant architects of the cross-cultural coalition that succeeded in moving the Olympics out of Cobb County, Georgia, by promising to close down Atlanta with thousands of defiant gays and lesbians and their allies if the Olympics Committee didn't take a stand on Cobb County bigotry.

Here too, I discover that we in Cleveland are also considered heros and heroines to other lesbians and gays across the country because:

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We are one of still only a very few cities where we are protected from discrimination based on sexual orientation;

We continue to pursue the sometimes bumpy road to developing a multicultural agenda for programming and decision-making at the Lesbian-Gay Community Center of Cleveland;

We have harnessed computer technology to help us provide services more effectively and efficiently. E-mail was the hot topic of this conference.

זיזיזי:]:

The New York Lesbian-Gay Community Center, with its meeting space used by 400 groups a week and more than 100 staff, is an inspiration to gays and lesbians in Cleveland. But Cleveland's community center, with its $200,000 budget and established success providing diversity training to police and EMS workers and working in coalition with other health and social service agencies to provide HIV and youth services, is an inspiration to the other communities that may have only a hotline in place.

OF GREATER CLEVELAND

of Cleveland. Thanks! We all know that any social change movement runs primarily

on coffee. Now the Center is fueled up

for the month. Other good news: a member of Center's youth

the

PRYSM

group was assaulted

by another student at his high school, and the principal did the right thing. He had the hostile student arrested and told the PRYSM youth that he didn't have to put up with that kind of behavior. The Center sent the principal a thank you.

For the technologically-minded, the Center has now gone on-line. Our e-mail address is clevlgcsc@aol.com. The Center is already getting regular information nationally from the Gay Lesbian Straight Teachers Network.

The NGLTF Creating Change Conference is an event that both inspires and challenges. But mostly it is an event where gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community organizers can go to talk strategy, share hardship, laugh and cry with each other and come home again with a clearer sense of being valued, of being part of something bigger and awe-inspiring. Next year's conference will be in Detroit, second week in November. Put it on your calendars now. Go and you will never be the same.

Center happenings

The last several weeks have been extra rewarding. The Cleveland Lesbian-Gay Center received a call from the staff at Snicker's Restaurant, saying that they felt that the

We are also part of a new national association of gay-lesbian community centers that is forming and that will be using e-mail as a major communication tool. Now we just need to get an Ohio network going. To this end, the Center has free packets of software to access America Online that will be made available on a first-come, first serve basis to any Ohio gay-lesbian organization. We also have a notebook-How to Start a Community Center-that is the first project of the national association. Copies can be made available for the price of the duplication.

Thinking of starting a new group? Need a place to meet where the rent is cheap and you can get there by bus? The Center has added another storefront to its available community meeting space. At the present moment, we have space on the following nights: Monday from 6-8 and 8-10 pm; Tuesdays from 6:00 to 7:30 pm; Wednesday and Thursday from 6:00 to 8:00 and 8:00 to 10:00 pm; Friday from 6:00 to 8:00 pm;

Saturday from 4:00 to 10:00 pm; Sunday from 1:00 to 7:00 pm.

The Center asks all groups that use its space to provide attendance figures, and requests a voluntary "rent" payment of $1.00 per attendee-more if you can, less if you can't. Meeting space is also available during the day. For information or to make a reservation, call Linda at the Center, 216-522-1999. Dates to remember:

Friday, January 13-The Center's "Thank God the Holidays Are Over Party" at U4ia. Starting with slow music, golden oldies, mixing in a little salsa, country-western, and rap, pausing for entertainment by PRYSM youth, and heading into the late evening with "heavier" dance music, with a little food and sober support space added. $5-$7-$10 at the door. (Everybody will be carded.)

Saturday, January 28--A joint fundraising for the Center and OutVoice, with a little political education on the side. A variety of videos will be available, including one of the plenary speakers from Creating Change, and touches of Special Rights, Gay Rights; Ballot 9 (Oregon); and Straight From the Heart, an interview with parents of gays and lesbians. Food and music, too. Call for location.

Remember, the Center can offer as many programs as we have volunteers interested in putting them on. Whether you want to start a fashion revue or a youth revolution, an art appreciation group or an auto mechanics class, the Center has the space if you have the energy. Call us.

Judith Rainbrook is executive director of the Lesbian-Gay Community Service Center of Cleveland.