ju s t o u t
steppin
since 1 9 8 3
Renée LaChance
contents
EDITOR
VOL 10 NO. 2 DEC. 1,1992
PUBLISHER
Ariel Waterwoman
CALENDAR EDITOR
Garland Terry
FEATURES
REPORTERS
Real victories
Irene K. Hislop
Jim Hunger
Lawyers, championing lesbian
and gay civil liberties, are
constitutionally dismantling
the right wing’s platform by
successfully overturning
1988’s Ballot Measure 8
along with a similar law in
Concord, Calif.
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Linda Carter
Linda Kliewer
ADVERTISING
Amanda Colorado
Meg Grace
E. Ann Hinds
(pp. 16-17)
Paying tribute to a
courageous leader
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
E. Ann Hinds
PROOFREADER
Mary Catherine Lamb
TYPESETTER
Amanda Colorado
FORMATTER
Meg Grace
The Lesbian Avengers erected a shrine honoring arson murder victims Brain Mock and Hattie Mae Cohens as
part o f a vigil held in New York City in October. Thanks to filmmaker Su Freidrich fo r the photo.
DEPARTMENTS
DISTRIBUTION
Up Front Distribution
CONTRIBUTORS
editorial
Rex Wockner
David Batterson
Marilyn Davis
Matthew Nelson
Norm Dixon
Kurt Johnson
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6 1992. No part of Just Out may be
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Hearts a rt touched by the
passing o f Audre Lorde,
whose words are still
lighting our way.
(pp. 12-13)
World briefs
AIDS crisis looms over
South Africa
(p. 6)
Lorde’s words s till transform
National news
(pp. 7-9)
To honor the passing ofA udre Lorde, we chose an excerpt from one o f her essays, written in
1977, entitled “The Transformation o f Silence into Language and Action" as our
Local news
editorial. We hope it inspires you as Lorde’s work continues to inspire us.
(pp. 13-15)
Profiles
I
have come to believe over and over again that what is
most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and
shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunder
stood. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other
effect. I am standing here as a Black lesbian poet, and
the meaning of all that waits upon the fact that I am still
and might not have been. Less than two months ago I was told
by two doctors, one female and one male, that I would have to
have breast surgery, and that there was a 60 to 80 percent chance
that the tumor was malignant. Between that telling and the
actual surgery, there was a three-week period of the agony of an
involuntary reorganization o f my entire life. The surgery was
completed, and the growth was benign.
But within those three weeks, I was forced to look upon
myself and my living with a harsh and urgent clarity that has left
me still shaken but much stronger. This is a situation faced by
many women, by some o f you here today. Some of what I
experienced during that time has helped elucidate for me much
o f what I feel concerning the transformation of silence into
language and action.
In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality,
and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it
might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a
merciless light, and what 1 most regretted were my silences. Of
what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I
believed could have meant pain, or death. But as we all hurt in
so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change
or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that
might becoming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had
ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself
into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited
for someone else’s words. And I began to recognize a source
of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that
while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear
into a perspective gave me great strength.
I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I
had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me.
Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word
alive,
spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths
for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other
women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we
all believed, bridging our differences. And it was the concern
and canng of all those women which gave me the strength and
enabled me to scrutinize the essentials of my living.
The women who sustained me through that period were
Black and white, old and young, lesbian, bisexual, and hetero
sexual, and we all shared a war against the tyrannies of silence.
They all gave me a strength and concern without which I could
not have survived intact. Within those weeks of acute fear came
the knowledge-with in the war we are all waging with the forces
of death, subtle and otherwise, conscious or not-I am not only
a casualty, I am also a warrior.
What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need
to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and
attempt to make your own, until you win sicken and die of them,
sull in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the
face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am
Black, because I am lesbian, because I am m yself-a Black
woman warrior past doing my work-come to ask you. are you
doing yours?
Audre Lorde
"The Transformation o f Silence into
,
c.
_
Language and Action," 1977,
from Sister Outsider, published by The Crossing Press
Terry Bean talks about being
part o f President-elect Bill
Clinton s transition team.
(p. 24)
Marvin Liebman talks about
his Republican ties and his
love o f groups like Queer
Nation and ACT UP.
(P- 25)
COLUMNS
Relgion
(P - ID
ARTS
Music
Dr. Tantalus examines the
bad girls o f music-Mado n no
and Sinead O'Connor.
(p. 23)