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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1991)
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AA V V A,*Al 4 4 A 4A 4 * i A 44 i A AAi A * 1 4 V A*, A4U j, l A A* 4 4 4 IV j * , K |§ | ’ harles Campbell lives in a North- west Portland apartm ent sur- rounded by pieces o f all the world's cultures. Out one window, he can view the evergreen tufts o f the West Hills; on the walls, the tables, hanging fro m the ceiling, tucked in the cabinets, are mementos o f his trips to India, France, Portugal. The art m akes a pleasing sort o f clutter—giant impressionist oils hung next to carved wooden masks, waist-high statues standing by delicate, leggy tables. Amidst this colorful noise, Campbell is taci turn, a bit shy. He fingers his silvery hair while he speaks. He is neatly dressed, his eyes sharp behind black-rimmed glasses. He has seen a lot in 62 years. Traces o f an older world are visible in his manner, his speech; he still calls men and women "boys” and "girls.” From his seventh- floor perch over Portland, he watches quietly as the community shifts and tugs. “I went to Washington High School, then to the University o f Oregon my first year. A gay i l 4 * 4 fc 41 * 1 ¿1* group got together there. In high school, there 4 4 * 1 4 1 A4 A ^A was a lot of misinformation, like that homosexu 1 <A, *4 A1 4 11 4 « 1 4 11 4, A A AA, 1 4 i l 4 AA*4 V * *44 A* A als had sex glands in their throats. I remember « *14 1 4 A*. A* A V * > ,— - j ' - A 4 * 1 A l i i A j * looking down my throat to see if I had some. ** 41 A iv A i ^ A U 1 A 4 4 * -,* 1 4 4 * * 4 *> 4 , * 4 a * *4 * * 4 14 4 i k U i A >4 411 41 “O f course I had attractions [to men] but no PHOTOS BY CATHERINE STAUFFER activity. It was something you always thought you’d outgrow. a//y Cohn, 56, wears her slate-colored “There was a special feeling when I ’d go to hair cut close as a bathing cap and “I was at U. of O. for one semester. It was af- a Meg Christian concert. That solidarity. Lesbi drives a red Subaru with a vanity plate ans wall to wall. When some of my friends from that says "SC H LEP.’’ She dresses Brooklyn moved out here, their perception was, plainly in tan pants, a plaid smock with a ruffled ‘There’s a dyke on every com er.’ placket. She can whistle with her hands. “In the ’60s, there were bar raids. I saw cops Cohn grew up in Heppner, Oregon, then disappear with the bartenders into the back room traded west coast life fo r ten years in New York at the same time every night, and I knew money from 1962 to 1972. When she left, lesbian culture was changing hands. I came back [in 1972] to a meant bars. Period. When she returned to Port very dyke-friendly town. land in the early 1970s, new organizations were “I abandoned teaching when I came back starting to take root; movements fo r women’s here. I ’ve been working for 18 years in an alco rights, civil rights and gay rights fe d a busy sense hol clinic as a secretary. I ’ve been able to be out o f activism and possibility. at the clinic for years. “A lot of good people who made the lesbian “I fought [being a lesbian] from my senior community interesting have moved away. A lot year of high school up through college. I even of people are not so visible right now because transferred from Lewis and Clark to the Univer they’re raising families. Some people have gone sity of Oregon so I ’d have more dating experi on to jobs that paid more. I don’t know whether ences. The more I went out with guys, the less I the political infighting has intensified or not. enjoyed it. I nearly had a nervous breakdown, I There are fewer bars because a lot of the commu was so conflicted about it. nity has gotten clean and sober. “In college I even worked up the nerve to “ In the late ’50s and ’60s some o f the bar approach a few women who I thought were les dykes had kids. Some had their kids taken away ter W orld War II; there were a lot o f veterans bians. They freaked and ran the other way. I ’d by CSD. In the dyke novels of the ’50s you never there. You couldn’t take much art. I switched and been furtively reading Ann Bannon, all these heard about the kids. The difference now is that went to the Art Institute of Chicago, then got my 1950s dyke novels. a lot of lesbians are planning and wanting to have master’s in art at U. of O. “One time I double-dated and we went slum kids. “In art school I had some gay friends. You ming. We went to the Harbor Club [a gay bar]. “My whole life for the past 60 years has been could go to bars in Chicago at 18. At that time I noted what I saw there and a month later, in ‘future shock.’ I never thought I ’d see gay and they were still raiding the bars, so it was a little fear and trembling, I worked up the nerve to go lesbian psychiatrists. I never thought I ’d see down there. I did an awful lot of carousing, clos something like Pheonix Rising, the Metropolitan -* -* - ing bars at 2:30 in the morning. Other than the -* -* .4 -«■*-* ^ 4 Community Church. I ne,rer thought I’d be going 4 4 -,^ H I softball games, there wasn’t any way to connect. to Dignity Masses. "While I was still in Portland, somebody told “A thing that hasn’t changed is all this fuck me about the Daughters o f Bilitis and The Lad ing horizontal hostility— people who use their der [an early lesbian organization and its publi political agendas to oppress other people. It was cation]. Under a pseudonym, I published a few going on with different terminology back with stones for The Ladder. the Daughters of Bilitis. . .I’m afraid that if we J “* * - “I moved out to New York and got into a re don’t stop all this political infighting w e’re going > -« » -* -fc - lationship with a very closeted, paranoid woman. to kill our community. I had to sneak down to the Daughters of Bilitis “My partner and I have been together for 12 , ^ 7 4 - * f -» "* * 3 i " * office. While I lived in New York the Stonewall years. She’s 20 years younger than I am. On 1 ^7 * * riots happened. I was in graduate school on some things she tends to be a little more radical. 7 Staten Island. I was xeroxing things like crazy I tend to be more moderate, to give people the 4 -< . 4 . - . 4 ■* 4 -« -» I -* Jt J 4 from the newspaper and sending them to friends benefit of the doubt. * -» 4 4 4 in California. I always had to be somewhat clos “I ’m getting more broad-minded. I now think -* -* ■* -* -* 4 ■* -* 4 eted because I taught school. there’s room for multiple relationships. There “Back in Portland [in 1972] I noticed bulletin isn’t only one way. That wasn’t my thinking 25 years ago. I hope someday there will be a provi boards; there was a gay newspaper. I was still sion to register gay and lesbian relationships here with this very paranoid closeted person. She later went back to New York. I connected with the as there is in San Francisco. “I don’t feel I ’m locked into a lot of the cul • > V 4 few bars I knew about. I timidly started ventur * ■ *1 41 -#•* - tural expectations for women. It frees me to not j, 4 . ing out. There was a rap group. I tried to be very -» be a slave to all this advertising and media crap low profile. that’s thrown in our faces. It’s allowed me to be •#41 - t -• i - » 4 “What I came back to was a gay and lesbian more independent. community with activities in full swing. I was able to be out. I wasn’t just limited to bar types. “It’s been like a religious experience— this N -» j . -* -* Hi -4 -* - People were doing things and making things wonderful feeling of solidarity and oneness we happen. There were gay and lesbian institutions sometimes get at these huge concerts.. . It took * - ^ H 4 -« 4 '* h 3 h h, 4 4 me a long time to learn to like myself.” I could connect with. >■* 7 S “In San Francisco we had the Mattachine Society. One of my friends was president o f that. They developed a library of gay books. It was mostly educa tional, trying to educate themselves. They certainly didnyt have as many gay books as there are now. ¿V i risky. When I first went to college, I was waiting for the right man to come along. Later I found out they didn’t just ‘come along.’ You had to work at it. “In art school in Chicago, I started to tell my mother I was gay and she said, ‘Don’t present me with any problems I can’t do anything about.’ They knew, of course, but we just didn’t talk about it. “I taught art in Baker for a year. Then I went down to Venetia (near San Francisco) and taught. I worked in the art department for Pan American Airlines, stayed in San Francisco and in the commercial art field for ten years. I came back to Portland in 1966. “I remember they had a bar called the Paper Doll in North Beach. The first time I went there, I was introducing myself to someone, shaking his hand, and the bouncer came up and said, ‘We can’t touch in this bar.’ I was shocked. Things loosened up quite a bit after that. “ In San Francisco we had the M attachine Society. One of my friends was president of that. They developed a library of gay books. It was mostly educational, trying to educate themselves. They certainly didn’t have as many gay books as there are now. “Back in Portland, my idea was to paint on my own. I had friends from school days and from growing up. W e’d get out to the bars on the weekends. It w asn’t as heavy as it was in San Francisco. “Now the community certainly is bigger. I suppose it’s a lot more diverse. There’s not just the bar culture now. There are different groups, like ACT/UP, that are very political. “It’s all been for the best, I think. It’s so much more open now. There’s so much more informa tion. I would have found my direction a lot sooner if I had to do it over again. “ AIDS certainly changed me. A friend of mind died of AIDS and I thought, ‘Gee, I ’d re ally like to do something.’ They were just start ing the [Oregon AIDS] hotline then, so I got in at the beginning of it. I gave up sex five or six years ago because I didn’t think it was worth it. I think it’s toned down and scared off a lot of people. “I remember one young fellow called on the hotline. He was 20. He wanted to have sex but was afraid of AIDS. He said, ‘How do you handle it?’ and I told him I gave up sex. He said, T wish I was 62.’ I said, ‘No, you don’t.’ “I think you get a lot more freedom [as a gay man] than if you had a wife and children and all those responsibilities. I wouldn’t like all that. “Politics doesn’t make much difference to me anymore. I wouldn’t go campaign for [gay rights or domestic partnership legislation]. But if that’s what the younger people want, that’s fine.” \
