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Kathy Tysinger
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Home (503) 654-2067
Member of Portland M illion Dollar Club
ju st new s
P/FLAG president advocates
for children's sake ____
“Were working to put ourselves
out of business”
BY A N N D E E H O C H M A N
he woman waiting in the lobby of the
Portland Inn peers kindly from behind
her glasses. A cap of soft gray curls frames
her face; she wears stockings with her
practical sandals. Her voice, slightly
accented, wraps around you like a summer
quilt. Maybe she reminds you of your best
friend’s mother.
Then you notice the button, pinned
conspicuously on the pink sweater vest; “We
love our gay and lesbian children.” Maybe
you’d like her to give your own parents some
pointers.
That is precisely what Paulette Goodman
does. Not for a living, because she is not paid
for her work as president of the Federation of
Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
Goodman’s job is more of a mission — one
that began nine years ago when she learned
her daughter was a lesbian and which urges
her forward with the hope of dissolving
homophobia in her lifetime.
“We feel we can be our children’s best
advocates,” she said during a visit to Portland
last month for the P/FLAG Pacific Northwest
regional conference. “We, together with our
children, are a powerful force. [Homophobia]
shouldn’t be an issue. We’re working towards
getting ourselves out of business.”
Goodman’s first hint that her daughter
might be a lesbian came from an ex-
boyfriend, a man her daughter had dated for
five-and-a-half years. “He wrote me that she
had a ‘special friend’ at college and he
thought it was more than a friendship,”
Goodman recalled. “It took me nine months
to even broach the subject with my husband.
His reaction was, ‘So what?’ ”
Goodman attended a support group for
parents of gay and lesbian children; during a
visit with her daughter in New York she heard
about P/FLAG. In 1983, she and several other
parents formed their own chapter in
T
Washington, IX?, a group that now boasts
more than 300 members.
And Goodman, who had never wanted to
be president of anything, found herself in the
role of a passionate and visible spokesperson,
quoted in the Washington Post, appearing on
the local news, negotiating with the bus
company to post 50 signs with the P/FLAG
phone number, testifying on Capitol Hill for
the repeal of sodomy laws.
Her mild manner and appearance belie a
fervor that drives Goodman to put in ten-hour
days, conduct endless speaking engagements
and envision a national advertising campaign
to change public myths about lesbians and gay
men.
“I would like to see P/FLAG become a
household word, like the Red Cross,” she said.
“We’re not going to get equal rights for our
children if we don’t create a movement.”
While the struggle against homophobia
may require legislation, national ads and a
mass popular movement, Goodman knows
that critical steps toward that goal also take
place in the*minds and the living rooms of
parents all over the country.
“It’s very difficult to come [to a P/FLAG
meeting] the first time. I know, because I
struggled with it,” she recalled. “But it’s
important for new parents to hear the stories
so they can hear the parallels with themselves,
realize that it’s not the end of the world, that
they’re not the only ones.”
As long as some parents have yet to realize
that, Goodman is committed to attending
groups and conferences, speaking out again
and again, correcting the myths of people like
the local woman who called a Portland radio
station wondering if a head injury in infancy
could cause homosexuality.
“It’s a matter of desensitizing the public,
educating the public,” she said. “It’s
important to put a human face on
homosexuality.”
_
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1 0 1 2 0 SUJ Hall, S u i t a 202
P ortland O ragon 97223
246-8328
just out ▼ 8
▼
June 1990
«
95590 Highway 101
6.2 Miles South Of
Yachats, Oregon 97498
(503) 547-3227
Reservations Recommended