JULY 5, 1996

GAY PEOPle's ChroNICLE 13

IN BOX

Tell your old teachers about being gay in high school

With Pride 1996 now behind us, but still fresh in our minds, the Cincinnati chapter of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Teachers Network has announced the start of their annual "Back to School" campaign. The purpose of this effort is to get gay, lesbian and bisexual adults to write their old high school teachers and principals, tell them what it was like to be gay there, and ask what is being done to make it better for the next generation of lesbigay students.

Educators often say that they don't think homophobia is a problem in their community. GLSTN hopes that once they receive a letter from a former student who tells them exactly what it is like to be gay at their school, they'll understand the issue in a new way.

Participating in the "Back to School" Campaign is easy. Simply choose a teacher or administrator from a school you attended, write him or her a detailed personal letter using your own experience to illustrate what homophobia does to young people, ask for a reply that specifies what they will do this year to end homophobia in their school or classroom, and then send a copy of the letter to GLSTN so they can use it to raise awareness among other educators.

Copies of letters should be sent to: GLSTN Greater Cincinnati, P.O. Box 19856, Cincinnati 45219. There is also a GLSTN chapter in the Cleveland area, at P.O. Box 433, Berea 44017, 216-748-3648.

Donor white cell trial

The AIDS Clinical Trials Unit of University Hospitals in Cleveland, under the direction of Dr. Michael Lederman, is recruiting participants for a study that will track donor cells in people with HIV.

Sponsored by the National Institutes of

Health, the study hopes to reproduce findings from the late 1980s that showed a rise in circulation T-cells in those who received donated white blood cells. The current study also seeks to locate the donor cells in the recipient's body and identify whose cells, the donor's or the recipient's, cause increased T-cell counts.

To participate, a person with HIV must have a CD4 count of 50-200. Also, a brother, sister, parent, or child of the person must be willing to undergo leukophoresis (extraction of white blood cells) once a month for three months. Not all donors will be eligible. Leukophoresis does not leave the patient fatigued, and the white blood cells are quickly replaced by the

body.

For the study, donor cells are labeled, infused into the recipient and tracked throughout the body. Viral load and CD4 count are then measured.

R

Editor

To inquire about particapating, call 216368-2437 or 216-844-8136, and ask for Margaret Cutler.

NIH phone numbers

In the last issue, this column noted that volunteers are needed for clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, but we left out a phone number. For CMV viral load evaluations, interleukin treatment, and a study of vaccines in people without HIV, call the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at 800-772-5464 ext. 301. For a complete list of NIAID trials call 800-243-7644. For studies involving antivi-

ral therapy, oral anti-HIV drugs and Kaposi's sarcoma treatment, call the National Cancer Institute at 301-496-8959.

Born-again lesbian to perform

For those who think “born again Christian" and "lesbian" are mutually exclusive terms, Marsha Stevens has a message. The contemporary Christian artist, who toured for nine years with the Christian folk group The Children of the Day, is the founder of

IN

BALM, Born Again Lesbian Ministries, a publishing company she operates with her lover Suzanne McKeag. Stevens will be performing at Emmanuel Christian Fellowship Church, 10034 Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, on Thursday and Friday, July 11 and 12, at 7 pm.

For five years after coming out as a bornagain lesbian in 1979, Stevens struggled with the new realities of her life. In 1984, she began writing and singing again, fighting to maintain her place in Christian music, this time as a ministry to the gay and lesbian Christian community. Though the copyrights to the nearly six albums of songs she wrote in her work with the Children are now administered by Sparrow Records/EMI, with the love and support of Suzanne and many faithful fans, the BALM label has produced five solo albums of Stevens's work, as well as a concert video.

Stevens and McKeag now tour full time, making 150 to 200 performances a year.

Gay research fellowship starts

A $7,500 fellowship has been established in honor of Martin Duberman, one of the pioneer figures in the field of lesbian and gay studies.

The first Duberman Fellowship will be awarded in the spring of 1997, with applications due on November 15, 1996. The fellowship is open to applicants from any country doing

scholarly research on the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender experience. Work relating

to areas of the world other than the United States

or Western Europe will

Martin Duberman

be given strong preference, as well as any work relating to indigenous people. An applicant need not have have a university affiliation, but will need to demonstrate a significant prior contribution to the field of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies.

Duberman is the author of About Time: Exploring the Gay Past; Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (with George Chauncey and Martha Vicinus); Cures; Stonewall; and most recently, Midlife Queer: Autobiography of a Decade, 1971-1981.

For additional information about submitting a proposal, contact Bernd Brecher, City University of New York Graduate School, 33 West 42nd St., Room 1701-B; or call 212-642-2021.

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