www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

September 23, 2011

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Sunny times for this year's Ohio Lesbian Festival

by Patti Harris

Kirkersville, Ohio-Camping, music, workshops, Ohio State football, movies, merchants and more delighted attendees of the 22nd annual Ohio Lesbian Festival at the Frontier Ranch.

The festival, now three days long, welcomed women to camp with gates opening at 6 pm Friday, Sept. 9. With over 30 merchants, 40 diverse workshops and ten sets of musical performances and acts, the festival provided women with a variety of activities to enjoy throughout the weekend.

"We were very pleased with attendance this year although you can al-

ways have more," said festival producer Chris Cozad. "We had great weather and a great crowd. We were able to not only retire our debt from last year, but we took in a little bit of money to help start next year's festival."

The festival added an Ohio State University football tailgate party and brought in food locally grown by lesbians and women-owned and -operated farms and businesses.

The latter was a result of suggestions from previous years' attendees offering ideas to make the festival better. "We wanted to improve the food Continued on page 10

newsbriefs

PATTI HARRIS

Women gather at Saturday evening's Night Stage featuring Tory Trjujillo, Nervous But Excited, Reina Williams, Holly Near, Emma's Revolution and Robin Stone. The night ended with performances by the premier burlesque and drag troupe Viva! & the Velvet Hearts. RJ Cowdery, Early Girl, Anna Volgelzang, Tracy Walker, and Staceyann Chin rounded out the day acts.

Britain plans to have full marriage by 2015

London-Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron is personally pushing a plan by Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone to introduce full same-sex marriage in Britain by 2015.

Featherstone carried the brief of Equalities Minister in Cameron's cabinet, and said that a study will begin next March on allowing same-sex couples to marry, followed by a change in the law.

Couples in the United Kingdom currently can enter into civil partnerships, which, like many civil union constructs in the United States, carry all of the benefits of marriage but the name.

The plan would allow couples to marry in registry offices, but not in churches, despite the desire of some churches to perform marriages. The law was changed earlier this year to allow churches and other religious sites to solemnize civil partnerships, so the ban on church marriages would likely be temporary.

Featherstone announced the plan to her party, part of Cameron's governing coalition, on September 17. Her quest for equality is backed up by polls showing that twothirds of Britons support full same-sex marriage.

Gay pioneer Arthur Evans has died

San Francisco-Arthur Evans, a leading post-Stonewall New York City activist who became a scholar in history and philosophy in San Francisco, died on September 11 of cardiovascular disease. He was 68. Evans was a founder of the Gay Activists Alliance, growing up in rural York, Pennsylvania before moving to New York. He was in the vanguard of gay activists who were only too happy to be identified as gay, unlike the then-pseudonymous leaders of the Mattachine Society.

Moving first to Washington state, then to San Francisco, he and friend Hal Offen opened a garage specializing in Volkswagen Beetles, called the Buggery.

Evans wrote a book on the historical connection between gay men and mysticism, Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture, which became almost a manifesto for the Radical Faeries. At the same time, he became involved in queer political groups in San Francisco like Bay Area Gay Liberation and the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, which propelled Harvey Milk into office.

In more recent years, he worked on AIDS issues, a nine-year philosophical work entitled Critique of Patriarchal Reason, and championed San Francisco's civil-sidewalks initiative, which was criticized by progressive leaders for its efforts to clean up the streets from the after-effects of the city's homeless population.

NCAA adopts rules for TG players

Indianapolis-The National Collegiate Athletics Association adopted new rules to allow transgender athletes to compete in their sports.

The changes come after a 2010 think tank organized by the NCAA and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

According to the new rules, transgender males on testosterone may compete on a men's team, but competing on a women's team will change its status to a mixed team. Similarly, transgender women will be allowed to compete on women's teams, but only after having undergone hormone therapy to repress testosterone for at least a year.

Transgender Therapy Group

Saturdays 10am 11:30am

(Beginning July 16, 2011)

Facilitated by Sue Doerfer, MSW, LISW-S

at Antone Feo, PhD & Associates, Inc.

24500 Center Ridge Road, Suite 100

Westlake, OH 44145

Pre-Registration is Required

Insurance billing available, $35 per session for self-pay

For more information and to pre-register call 440-899-1300

Five years for McDonald's beating

Baltimore-The 19-year-old woman who pleaded guilty to kicking and punching a young transgender woman in McDonald's was sentenced to ten years on September 13.

Teonna Monae Brown pleaded guilty in August to first-degree assault in the assault, which occurred in April. Brown was sentenced to ten years, but five of them will be suspended, so she will serve five years in prison.

A 14-year-old who also pleaded guilty may stay in a juvenile facility until she turns

21.

The two teens attacked 22-year old

MASSAGE THERAPY

Chrissy Polis in the bathroom, then dragged her by the hair across the floor and kicked and beat her.

The attack was recorded by an employee of the restaurant, who was fired for not intervening. Another employee and an older woman ied to break up the fight but were unsuccessful.

Brown cried at the sentencing hearing and begged for another chance and to apologize to Polis, who did not attend the hearing.

N.C. will vote on a ban amendment

Raleigh, N.C.—The state senate has approved a measure to place a constitutional continued on page 10

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