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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 23, 1996

BOOKS

How the continuum of anti-gay violence leads to murder

Eight Bullets:

One Woman's Story of Surviving Anti-Gay Violence by Claudia Brenner and Hannah Ashley Firebrand, $12.95 trade paperback Reviewed by Andrea L.T. Peterson

When Claudia Brenner and her lover Rebecca Wight set out to meet in Pennsylvania's Appalachian Mountains almost eight years ago, she could not have imagined how irreversibly her life would be changed.

Story of Surviving Anti-Gay Violence

Brenner and Wight met at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., where both women were students. The two, separated when Brenner returned to her home in Rochester, N.Y., decided to spend a romantic weekend alone,

someplace midway between Blacksburg and Rochester. They met at Michaux State Forest, about 40 miles southwest of Harrisburg, Pa.

What Brenner and Wight could not have know was that Stephen Roy Carr, a man who would hate them simply because they were lesbians, was also in the same secluded part of the mountains. They could not have know that he would stalk them, gun them down, and leave them for dead after pelting eight bullets into them.

What Carr did not know was that his aim, was not as good as he thought. Nor could he have known the strength or courage Claudia Brenner could muster. In spite of having five bullets in her head and neck, Brenner retraced the four miles of their hike-in the pitch dark of night-flagged down a car, got help, and presented the police with a map showing them the exact location of her fatally wounded lover.

Eight Bullets is the story of Brenner's struggle to find help for her lover-who she did not know died just moments after being shot-to find the man who shot them, and to find justice in a legal system that is more often than not especially gay-friendly.

Not only did Brenner ultimately have to come out to police to enable them to do their job more effectively and to understand Carr's motive for his deadly assault on them, she also had to come out to Wight's family, who knew nothing of her lesbian relationship with Brenner.

Although Brenner had been out for some time to her family and her community, Wight had only recently decided she was not in fact bisexual, but lesbian.

Eight Bullets is not the best-written book to come off the presses lately, but the importance of Eight Bullets is not in its literary achievements. The importance of this book

is in its clear and concise telling of the story of one man's blind hatred and the price two women had to pay for it.

In Eight Bullets, Brenner recounts the incident, moment-by-moment, bullet-bybullet, and she follows the investigation which led to the arrest of Stephen Roy Carr and the trial that finally led to his conviction and lifewithout-parole sentence.

This is no easy task. It is difficult enough to live through traumatic experiences, but reliving them in the public eye, through the press during the trial and in the courtroom, and in print in a book such as this, is beyond the imagination.

But Brenner, who says her physical healing is pretty much complete, and whose emotional healing is nearing completion, is able to address crowds, retelling her story, beginning with Bullet Number One and going on to Bullet Number Eight, which missed, without even batting an eye.

Sucked into the world of activism, almost by accident, Brenner handles herself with grace, and she handles the crowd as though public speaking is second nature.

Clearly audiences are moved. Gasps can be heard as Brenner recounts where each bullet lodged, either in her own body or in Wight's. The look on listeners' faces betray the emotion that Brenner and her story evoke. Do hearers realizę tomorrow it could be them? Or is listening to Brenner as close as some will get to taking the threat of anti-gay violence both personally and seriously?

Eight Bullets is a warning and it is a call to arms: realize that gay bashing is not just gay jokes and name calling. Through her experience Brenner learned, and hopes to teach, that anti-gay violence only begins there. While not everyone who tells a queer joke or calls someone a fag or a dyke will murder gay people, Brenner makes clear her conviction

that some will.

Unchecked, subtle acts of harassment will eventually escalate. They will lead some to take clubs and pipes to gay and lesbian bars where they will physically bash patrons heading for home. They will lead to “rolling queers" on city streets, and leaving men believed to be queer for dead on city sidewalks.

If Brenner communicates nothing else, she is emphatic about making people aware of what she calls the "continuum of violence” against gay men and lesbians.

Awareness, however, could not have prevented Carr's assault on Brenner and Wight. These two women believed that they were alone in the mountains, where they could find all the privacy they could ever want to express their feelings for each other in whatever ways they desired.

Carr had a gun and plenty of ammunition-considerably more than the eight rounds he fired. Brenner and Wight were sitting ducks from the start. But they could not have known that.

Nor could gun laws have prevented this tragedy. The gun Carr used was stolen.

But, says Brenner, laws against anti-gay violence may help change the climate in this country that says its okay to bṛutalize gay men and lesbians, it is okay to discriminate against them, and it is okay to treat them as second class citizens.

Likewise, gun laws might mean there are fewer guns out there to be stolen by people like Carr who feel no compunction about stalking lesbians and shooting to kill.

Eight Bullets is a simple, but important book. It is an easy read, and should be read by everyone. It is a real eye opener, and it has been my experience that most people could stand to have their eyes opened a bit wider. ♡

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The aftermath of a murder

Continued from page 17

We have to keep taking risks, pushing ahead, realizing that the backlash has come along with the gains. The only thing that makes a difference is for people to be open, to organize,

to act.

The Cleveland Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual Pride Committee is sponsoring Brenner's

visit to Cleveland on Saturday, March 2 and Sunday March 3. On Saturday, Brenner will be signing copies of her book at Gifts of Athena, 2199 Lee Rd. in Cleveland Hts. On Sunday, she will be at Borders Books at LaPlace Mall, Cedar at Richmond in Beachwood; and will be the guest of honor at a Pride reception at 5:30 pm. followed by a discussion at CWRU's Hillel Center, 11291 Euclid near Mayfield at 7:00 pm, moderated by former Ohio Attorney General Lee Fisher.

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