4 ▼ ju n e 2 0 , 1 9 9 7 ▼ ju s t o u t
just out
s in c e 1 9 8 3
PUBLISHER AND EDITOR
Renée LaChance
steppin’ out
contents
VOL 14 NO. 16 JUNE 20, 1997
COPY EDITOR
Kelly M. Bryan
REPORTERS
FEATURES
Inga Sorensen
Bob Roehr
Rex Wockner
Pride-o-rama
I t’s here! I t’s queer! Shake yer
booty and share your spirit
(P- 25)
CALENDAR EDITOR
Kristine Chatwood
These boats are
made for dragon
PHOTOGRAPHER
Linda Kliewer
Will O’Bryan
Amazon Dragons take up the
paddle again at Portland's Rose
Festival dragon boat races
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
(p 21)
OFFICE MANAGER
Meg Grace
DEPARTMENTS
ADVERTISING REP
Marty Davis
World news
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Polish church moves in on state;
men come forw ard to charge
Zimbabwean ex-president with
sexual harassment and assault
(PP 6-7)
E. Ann Hinds
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Rupert Kinnard
FORMATTER
Christopher D. Cintone
National news
TYPESETTER
Congress may like ENDA better
the second time around; Clinton
calls fo r hate crimes summit;
Screen Actors Guild will buy
antiviral drugs fo r members
without insurance
(PP- 9-13)
Christopher D. Cuttone
DISTRIBUTION
Kathy Bethel
Lynette Boatman
Rachel Ebora
Jim Galluzzo
Karyn Leek bee
Donald Rogers
CONTRIBUTORS
Michael Bride
Christopher D. Cuttone
Beren deMotier
Will O’Bryan
Gip Plaster
Flora Sussely
guest editorial
Fear is no excuse
Arson rocks Love joy Surgicenter;
invited AIDS speaker is ejected
from Chehalis classroom;
Fabric o f Life AIDS Benefit has
designs on your checkbook
(pp 14-19)
Homophobia is insufficient as a term to describe the roots of
discrimination and violence
COLUM NS
by Diana Courvant
Suicide statistics exaggerated?
Well, if it means more help...
(p. 46)
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Local news
’ ve noticed a lot of people stare at you,” my lover told me
over sushi.
She’s right, of course. Anyone different attracts
attention in our society. Our eyes have no time for the
familiar in a world of hyperstimulation, but there’s
always time to gawk. Most often, I think, it’s the bright purple
crutches I’ve been using for almost a year. Sometimes it’s the
wheelchair I occasionally use. At other times it’s simply for
being androgynous in a world of bipolar gender (or merely
being the tallest woman in the restroom).
The other day, I was getting off a Tri-Met bus just as two
kids were running up. “Fag!” yelled the older, laughing, to the
younger, who donned a confused, sad expression, seemingly
unaware of how to reply. Like that small child, I had no time
to form a proper response before the moment melted away
before my eyes.
Over the past few years I’ve slowly become inured to all
sorts of public slights directed at me, not the least of which are
the public stares from those for whom purple crutches or six-
foot-tall dykes are an oddity. Face it, that’s nearly everyone.
There simply isn’t time to address every incident that rein­
forces prejudice, much less every stare.
Just before The Episode, the Rev. Jerry Falwell took to
calling Ellen DeGeneres “Ellen Degenerate.” Though media
pundits often refer to such comments as evidence of homopho­
bia, I didn’t hear anyone suggesting the reverend would be
afraid to walk into the same room with our first lesbian sitcom
star. If homophobia is a fear of queer people, as its roots
suggest, it simply does not apply when that fear turns to
aggression or oppression. The civil rights movement has
gained more and more mainstream support, in part because its
leaders have consistently put forth well-reasoned arguments
against fear mongering. That strategy has been so successful
that it is almost universally accepted that the source of prejudice,
the justification of oppression, is fear. The term “homophobia”
is a symbol of that success.
It is also one of the failures of the fight for equal rights for gay
men, lesbians, trans people, intersexuals and bisexuals. It is
actually heterosexism—not homophobia— when one person or
group uses discrimination, intimidation, harassment or violence
against another to enforce society’s expectation that people
adhere to strict gender roles, including only dating people of the
opposite gender.
If a woman squirms and looks away when my lover and I kiss
before leaving a restaurant, her own homophobia is the issue,
her issue. When a bartender at a tavern kicks two women out for
holding hands, the problem isn’t his fear of lesbians, it’s his
oppression of them. If a man shivers as he walks past Darcelle’s,
it’s homophobia. If he bludgeons and strangles a drag queen
because she makes a pass at him, not only is it murder, it’s
heterosexism. And in naming such discrimination and violence
“fear,” or “homophobia,” our society has created an effective
legal defense against stiff sentences, sometimes even against
conviction.
Homophobia may be bom of fear, but by equating every­
thing from a case of the willies to discrimination to murder with
homophobia, we overburden our community and relieve bigots
of their responsibility. From now on I won’t waste time respond­
ing to stares if I can use that time to fight heterosexism, and I
won’t call heterosexism “homophobia.”
Diana Courvant is a researcher and author currently
sponsoring a survey o f the experiences o f sex- or gender-
variant survivors o f domestic violence.
I kid you not
ARTS
Cinema
All Over Me is a new breed o f
chick flick
(p. 37)
Music
Portland Gay Men's Chorus is
thriving; Naked Man sheds
masks, not clothes
(pp. 38-39)
Books
The Men from the Boys probes
long-term relationships; Daniel
Harris predicts the fall o f gay
culture; Word’s Out parses gay
men’s language
(pp. 41-43)
Entertainment
Urban League sponsors
Juneteenth in the Park;
Costa Rican singer-songwriter
Guadalupe Urbina leads
workshops at Miracle Theatre
(p 45)
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