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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE OCTOBER 27, 1995

ON THE AIR OFF THE PRESS

Star Trek does another near-miss of same-sex relationship

by John Graves

Jadzia Dax, the female Trill on Star Trek: Deep Space 9, will have a romantic moment with another female Trill on an upcoming episode entitled "Rejoined." As scripted, the episode will have Dax, played by Terry Ferrell, kiss her former lover Lenara, played by Susanna Thompson.

But don't get your hopes up: neither is lesbian. Paramount, the show's producer, has long been loath to even mention gays and lesbians in any of the Star Trek series, even though the show is supposed to take place in an enlightened, diverse future. Under pressure from lesbian and gay Trekkers-and gay characters in other TV shows including Trek's sci-fi competition Babylon 5—they have winked at gays in past episodes, but stayed safely heterosexual.

The dual nature of Dax's Trill species, while it allows some exploration of gender identity, also allows Paramount to avoid the 'G' and 'L' words again. Trills are small, centuries-old, genderless beings who live inside a humanoid "host." Although Dax's current host Jadzia is female, Dax was combined with a male host when "he" had the relationship with Lenara. Now Lenara, who still loves Dax, appears on Jadzia's space station inside another female host.

...

Terry Ferrell said that the kiss "was difficult because I do not find myself attracted to my own sex. I had to get past that, because the story was important enough [but] it was uncomfortable." Ferrell went on to say that when she was first asked about the kiss last summer she "made some sort of wisecrack, but then I seriously thought about it and realized that this is the kind of brave stuff I always dreamed our show would do. We've got all the adventure and fighting and the computer technobabble, but there's not a lot of opportunity to find out what really, really touches our characters. This episode is worth all those shows where I only had one line."

Aware: Positive Health Talk Radio, a new weekly 30-minute radio talk show focusing on people living with HIV and AIDS and their issues, will soon air in Cleveland on WNWV 107.3 FM, and in nine other cities. Aware was started three years ago by Chris DeChant, an HIV-positive Chicago native who gave up his public relations career to do the show. WNWV has yet to determine what time the show will air.

According to a report in Entertainment Weekly, All My Children's Michael (Chris Bruno) may soon come out of the closet.

Toby's Lie is a new, gay coming-of-age story by Daniel Vilmure published by Simon and Schuster. Told in the first person, it is the story of Toby Sligh, a 17-year-old senior at the all-male Sacred Heart High School who must deal with the separation of his parents, the teachings of the Catholic Church and the realization of his gay sexual orientation.

Xena: Warrior Princess, a lone woman warrior who fights evil, seems to spend all of

SUPPORTING AND UNDERSTANDING CLEVELAND'S GAY

her efforts rescuing other women from danger. Check out this new action series, airing on Cleveland's Channel 43 Saturdays at 5 pm, and repeating on cable's WGN the following Friday at 9 pm.

Last spring, My So-Called Life, the excellent series about teenagers featuring Ricki, a gay character played by openly gay actor Wilson Cruz, was cancelled by ABC just as Ricki was coming out of the closet. Fans of My So-Called Life will be glad to hear that MTV has begun to rerun the series once again. Check your TV schedules for air times.

The popular, and openly lesbian, singing duo The Indigo Girls perform their biggest hits on Indigo Girls in London now playing on cable's Disney Channel.

The October edition of Freestyles, a new video magazine show for lesbian and gay audiences, can be seen on VH-1 Mondays at 3:30 am each week through the month. Hosted by Amanda Bearse, the openly lesbian costar of the TV sitcom Married With Children, Freestyles covers such topics as lesbian and gay news, investments, health, entertainment, sports and fashion. Freestyles produces one new show each month, which VH-1 airs weekly.

Favorite segments from the first five years of the adult magazine series Real Sex are compiled in The Best of Real Sex, now airing on HBO. Look for Ru Paul before he became a superstar in the segment on drag queens.

Lesbian singing star k.d. lang appears to be available. In an interview in USA Today, lang indicated that although she feels liberated by coming out of the closet, fame has been isolating. "I'm at an unfair advantage in that people have a concept of what I'm like and I don't know them from Adam," lang said. "I'm not interested in dating celebrities or dating people who date celebrities. I'd love to be totally tied up, but I want it to be with the right person."

R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe comes out about his "omnisexuality" in the November issue of Out magazine. Said Stipe, "I presume that a lot of people just thought that I was 100 percent homosexual. That's not really the case. Nor am I 100 percent heterosexual." Stipe went on to say that he, “doesn't appreciate the label 'bisexual'."

Demi Moore portrays a first woman trainee in the Navy Seals in the upcoming movie G.I. Jane. In the movie, Moore's character is accused of being a lesbian by another woman and has an openly lesbian ensign come to her aid.

The right-wing, anti-gay group Concerned Women for America took out a half-page ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (and seven other papers across the country) the day after National Coming Out Day. The ad attacked the National Education Association for its gay-supportive resolution on fair treatment of lesbian and gay issues and recognition of October as Lesbian and Gay History Month in schools.

The ad called the NEA and the resolution,

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"a blatant attack on our children and schools," "a mockery of higher education" and "a threat to morality and decency" that "must be stopped." It went on to say that "our children will be celebrating the history of a group of people who historically prey on the innocence of minors" Readers were advised to call 800-955-2120 to receive an "information packet" (and make a donation, no doubt) to help parents fight the fair treatment of gay people and their issues in the schools.

After my rage over the ad had become more controlled, I thought about what should be done to counter this ignorant and homophobic attack. At first I thought we should call them and give them a piece of our mind but, after discussing the matter with my friend Linda Malicki at the Cleveland Lesbian-Gay Center, I realized that our calls would not change their minds.

While reflecting on the reasons we observe National Coming Out Day, I suddenly realized that homophobia is a mental disease infecting, primarily, the heterosexual community. I say "primarily" because homophobia is virulent enough to infect our own people with self-hate. An example is the gay son of the founder of Concerned Women for America, Phyllis Schlafly.

Schlafly's son, after coming out of the closet, said that he still supports his mother's homophobic positions on gay issues. However, just as racism, sexism, and other bigotry in our community must be corrected by

members of our own community, homophobic attacks such as the Concerned Women for America's must be countered by family and friends in the straight community who say they love us.

It is vitally important that we come out to those close to us to counter the lies and ignorance of the bigots. Once out, we should not settle for token acceptance. We must, instead, make it clear that, if our straight family and friends really meant it when they say they accept and love us for who we are, they must challenge these attacks which seek to institutionalize the homophobe's agenda of a "special right" to exercise their bigotry.

Talk to your families and friends about the need to protect lesbian, gay bisexual and transgendered children from harrassment and discrimination and ask them to fight the institutionalization of denial and homophobic bigotry in the schools. Have your families and friends demand that our schools address the special needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered children so that they these children grow up to become healthy lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered adults.

Ask them to watch out for hidden anti-gay agendas in school board candidates, to object to efforts to remove fair and positive gay reading materials from schools and libraries, to ask for gay-inclusive antidiscrimination and anti-harrassment policies and to get in touch with P-FLAG to find out how they can help us on a national level.

Spada on Barbra

Continued from previous page

she says, 'A lot of gay people are interested in Barbra, does that include yourself?' I'd say, 'Certainly.'

In chapter 36 of Streisand you discuss the 1991 outing of Barbra's 28-year-old son, Jason Gould, by the Star and the Globe. How did Jason's homosexuality affect his relationship with his mother? Had he come out to Barbra prior to his outing?

I don't know. Neither of them has really talked about this at all. I would really be speculating. The only thing I do know is that Barbra was cool about it when she found out-whenever that was which doesn't surprise anyone. I think you would expect that.

You devote less than a page in the book to Jason's being gay. There's not much public information on the subject, is there?

No, there isn't. I could have spent months trying to find high school classmates and old boyfriends, but I just felt that this wasn't a biography of Jason Gould. What was fairly public knowledge was fair game, but I didn't want to pry into Jason's life because he is very private, and has not really come out. He's only openly gay because he was outed. There's a feeling that Barbra's response to AIDS was slow in coming-especially in light of her status within the gay community.

Yes. Yes. The reason might be that Barbra just takes a very long time to commit herself to things. She should not have taken as long as she did with this. But once she decided to make the commitment, she made it one hundred percent.

What's the latest word on her bringing Larry Kramer's AIDS play, The Normal Heart, to the screen?

The latest word is that she's going to do The Mirror Has Two Faces first. [Mirror is a love story directed by and starring Steisand with Jeff Bridges and Lauren Bacall, currently shooting in New York City.] What path do you see Streisand's career taking in the next decade?

She will obviously continue to record. But I think she will probably be doing more directing. And I think she will start directing films in which she doesn't appear.

Has Barbra read Streisand: Her Life? Have you sent her the galleys?

No. She's probably read the Vanity Fair excerpt. But, no, I didn't send her a galley. What do you hope she'll think of the book?

I hope she thinks it's fair and as accurate as it can be, and written with a certain amount of affection. I think there are probably things in there she would rather I didn't write, but I think it's a biographer's responsibility to tell the truth, and to tell the whole story. But I think what's important is how you tell it. If you tell it in a one-sided, negative way, I don't think you're doing the subject or the reader a service. I think you need to be objective, and you need to present both sides of it and just try to make the reader understand the subject. I mean, Barbra has a very bad reputation for certain things that she docs. That's Barbra! [Laughs.] And it's the truth. And she's always talking about how important the truth is. For me to ignore [the truth] would have set me up for a lot of ridicule from the mainstream critics.

Is there anything you don't know about Barbra?

I don't think there's anything major that I don't know and that the readers of my book wouldn't know at this point. I mean, we didn't know she had had the affair with Elvis. I think there are probably a few people she's had affairs with whom we don't know about. And maybe she'll reveal them when she writes her autobiography. [Laughs.]

A Streisand autobiography! Well, she says she wants to. I mean, that was her main reason for not authorizing this book, actually. That was the reason she gave me. She said she wanted to do a book of her own some day, and so, wanted to keep things to herself.

Is there a gay or lesbian celebrity whose biography you would like to write?

Gore Vidal. But unfortunately, my publisher doesn't want me to because they don't think it will have enough commercial appeal, which really bothers me because I think he's a fascinating man.

Does Streisand: Her Life bring closure to Spada on Barbra, or can you foresee writing yet a fourth book about her in a few years?

[Laughs.] Well, my very quick, initial response would be, 'No.' But that's what I said after my last one, so, you never know. Never say never. But I think it'll be a while.