|___JULY 1980 HIGH GEAR PAGES
Gay News Agency starts second year
SAN FRANCISCO (IGNA) Feeling that there was a need for a speedier, more accurate service for gay news, a group of individuals in San Francisco. started the International Gay -News Agency (IGNA) in May of 1979. The purpose of the organization, which was founded by Thomas Rolfsen, was and continues to be to provide low-cost news, reviews, interviews, and cartoons for any papers who wish to run news stories and related material on gay people or events that affect gay people.
• IGNA gathers its news from various sources: clippings from newspapers around the world. correspondents in foreign countries, and occasional translations from foreign publications.
"The cartoons by Joe Kirby that. IGNA distributes have been one of the highlights of IGNA's first year. The cartoons are notable for their hard-hitting humor. making fun of foibles in both the gay and straight worlds.
According to Director Daniel Curzon, the main problem has been to attract non-gay papers to subscribe. "There is still a strong falsely macho attitude prevalent in the newspaper world that makes it hard to get non-gays to want to publish news about homosexuality, however objec tively presented," said Curzon
The second major problem has been to rewrite blatantly and sub tly anti-gay news items so that they are free of bias. "It's amazing how slanted the news can be when a homophobe or simply a ́person ignorant of gay life wi.tes it Curzon added.
But maybe the greatest probem is the blackout of gay news altogether," he said.
GNA has devoted much of its energy to covering the attitudes. laws, and events in countries other than the United States. The directors have discovered that
Gay deputies
hired.
SAN FRANCISCO (The Advocate) The San Francisco Sheriff's office is welcoming applications from lesbians and gay men for temporary positions as deputies, according to Les Morgan, coordinator of the Gay . Outreach Program.
As a result of gay outreach, a privately funded community effort, about 12 per cent of San Francisco police officers now in training are lesbians and gay men, according to Morgan.
Sheriff Mike Hennessey has confirmed that he intends to continue the department's nondiscriminatory hiring policies first established by former sheriff Richard Hongisto in 1976.
There are no special hiring procedures for gay applicants, who need not reveal their sexual orientation. To place your name on the list of prospective applicants, call the department at
ignorance remains one of the biggest difficulties that gay men and lesbians suffer from, all over the world. Both right-wing and left-wing nations, as well as Christian, Islamic, and atheist ones, continue to hold strong taboos on homosexuality-often
in the face of staggering overpopulation problems, as in India and China.
IGNA does not see itself as a political vehicle, but among its staff there is a committment to honesty in the presentationof gay news. "It's very difficult to
Bobbie at the Crown
Bobbie Callicoatte with Crown Cafe owners Vince and Donn
By Bill Suhay
Bobbie Callicoatte. billed as the foremost female impersonator in the U.S. and Canada, did two shows at the Crown Cafe on June 5.
A dinner show at 7 p.m. gave the crowd a chance to sample the Crown's Hungarian cuisine while eriying Callicoatte's impersonations of such favorites as Della Reese. Barbra Streisand. and Liza Minelli.
An entirely different show at 11
Timeless
San Francisco, CA. (San Diego Updatë) finis little book should see the light of day after its 100 year entombment. I should like the readers to know that the author was a lover of her own sex, and devoted the best years of her life in struggling for the
Photo by Bill Gerard
p.m. was received warmly by the mixed crowd of gays and straights.
Because of the positive response. Crown owners Vince and Donn plan to have Callicoatte back as soon as he completes his engagements on the East Coast.
The Crown Cafe, is located at 4153 Lorain Ave., Cleveland and features a "gay breakfast" every Friday and Saturday night from 1 dm to 5 a.m.
words
police squarry and social and n.oral elevation of women." wrote Laura De Force Gordon orr the outside of a guide to California's geysers, found recently in a time capsule in San Francisco. The capsule had been sealed in 1879.
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generalize about homosexuals when one knows just how varied we are," said Curzon.
subscribers (including HIGH At present IGNA has some 20 GEAR) in many states of the U.S. and several counties abroad. It has had as many as 25 subscrib-
ers, but gay papers are often beset with financial problems and are unable to pay or cease publishing entirely. IGNA says it plans to continue to send out material as long as there is a newspaper or magazine that feels it needs its copy.
Dinahmight
CINCINNATI Women in the Cincinnati Lesbian Community are assembling an anthology on the theme "Voices of Strong Wimmin." The purpose of the project is to provide opportunity for "closet artists/writers" and to raise money for the Dinah newsletter.
Those interested should send
their short prose writing, poetry, journal entries, song lyrics and
puzzles to DINAH MIGHT C/o. LAB, P.O. Box 1485, Cincinnati, Ohio 54201. A pen and ink illus tration (5x7) for the cover is also needed.
Deadline for submissions is August 15, 1980 and the anthol-. ogy will be available in November. No submissions will. by a stamped, self-addressed be returned unless accompanied
envelope.
Sexual fantasies
WALLA WALLA, WA. (IGNA) Dr. William M. Masters, cofounder of the Masters and Johnson Institute, has revealed some findings of the couple's latest project. which concerns sexual fantasies, although the full report won't be available until 1983.
According to Masters, groups of homosexual and heterosexual males and females were found to share two frequent fantasiescross-preference and forced sex
Homosexuals fantasized about. heterosexual encounters, and heterosexuals, perhaps surprisingly, did the opposite. Both groups share the rape fantasy. Masters told an audience here.
The results make a mockery of the "latent homosexual" diagnosis that some therapists have used to justify treating some people in the past. "If we have a latent homosexual, we must have a latent heterosexual." Masters said.
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