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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2003)
Pfti'lout march 21.2003 • Continued from Page 5 have enough courage to say “forever” in these crazy times, whether they are gay or straight. For families defined by love, not sexual orien tation. Forget Married by America — I’ll he happy when any loving couple can he married IN America. the sex itself. Straights, bisexuals, gay men, les bians and even aging transsexuals like me are valued not for their usefulness as sexual objects but for the unique point of view they bring to a discussion of the lifestyle they’ve chosen. If you’ve ever desired to be part of the poly community, or just been curious about it, this is the time and place to put a toe (or whatever) in the water. R oey T horpe J essica C aine Basic Rights Oregon Executive Director Portland This is not your father's polyam ory Ju s t the facts, m a’am To the E ditor : To the i truly loved your article on Portland polyamorous relationships and groups in the Feb. 21 issue ["Three’s Company”). Had your writer attended a meeting other than the January one, she would have gotten an even better picture of how diverse our local groups really are. In addition to the expected straight males and bisexual females, she would have seen my partner, AenneA , and I there. We are both M2F transsexuals. And soon we will become an M2F threesome when we wel come Rachel into our home. 1 have to admit I was apprehensive about attending a group not specifically for transsex uals. But we were welcomed with open arms and have never had any reason to feel like out siders. And that’s saying a lot, since I’ve felt like an outsider my entire life. The people we’ve met in the poly commu nity are thoughtful, warm, loving people. Above all, they are accepting of those whose lifestyle differs from their own. Long ago, back when 1 was trying to be some sort of John Wayne clone and prove to society I was really a total he-man and all these feminine feelings inside me were just the result of a bad pizza 1 ate when I was 11,1 traveled a bit in the “swinger” or “wife-swapping" circles. It was a world with very rigid rules and little tolerance for anyone who didn’t fit exactly into the usual mold of “straight male, hi female” sex uality. Personal opinions and honest feelings were frowned upon, as they might get in the way of the sex. It was a world more straight-laced and less tolerant of diversity than the nonswinging world. I suspect many people out there have “been there, done that” and won’t be joining any more poly groups because they expect them to be that same straitjacketing, sterile experience that I went through with swinging in the 70s. I want to say to those people that the Portland poly community is nothing like that. A Portland poly meeting is more likely to focus on the dynamics of relationships than on E ditor : isa Bradshaw did an outstanding job in describing polyamory. N o innuendoes, no judgments, just giving us the facts as she sees them. It is obvious that traditional relationships don’t work. We need writers like Bradshaw who can write so intelligently and rationally to help us find the answers. Sex is such a powerful and ubiquitous drive that it takes all the intelligence we can muster just to have a sensible view of it. just got a friendly e-mail from our client who tells us her treatment is over. I consider her to now be a survivor, and I hope she won’t need HP again. I’ll call her volunteer team and spread the gixxJ news.” I smiled and shed a tear of gratitude, having met this independent, funny, determined, frightened woman six months ago. She made it! Hopping onto e-mail, 1 expected those Komen grant congratulations and found a few, but the last e-mail was titled “sad news.” What I read was a friendly, gentle story of the death of a client the previous day. There were far too many details for my tender heart, but the news was important, and I felt honored to be includ ed “in the loop.” I made the necessary phone calls and e-mails and mmmaged through our card collection. Another gcxxl day at the Ham bleton Project. Some days are so full. We offer a support group for women and their families; we cele brate the gtxxl news and we mourn the sad. The lesbian community of the Portland area is lucky to have such a group of generous, brave volunteers. Spring volunteer training takes place from 5 to 9 p.m. April 11 and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 12. Call me at 503-335-6591 for details. N estor P er ala N icki E ybel Portland Hambleton Project Volunteer Qxirdinator Volunteers w anted To the E ditor : i ike all of us at the Hambleton Project— a support, educational and advocacy group for lesbians with cancer and other life-threat ening situations— I have a life outside this organization. On that particularly frosty Febru ary morning, 1 soaked up my other life as a chil dren’s book author. I tidied my Kxikshelves and began writing a grant application. I reviewed my hard work from the previous day and amended my “to do” list. I understotxl my life and felt grateful and well tended. I called the Hambleton office from my home phone and groaned when I heard that seven messages were waiting for me. Too many to attend to from home, so I pedaled to the office. I was a bit high from the cozy morning at home, coupled with the excitement about the $39,000 Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foun dation grant that Hambleton had received the day before. 1 predicted the phone calls and the day’s e-mails would be congratulations. Instead, the majority of calls were about mundane frustrations about a volunteer-run nonprofit office. “Where are those mailing labels?” “My name is spelled wrong on my newsletter.” “Sign me up for the workshop." The bright morning bliss was beginning to fade, but the last message added some luster. “I Iff the shoe fits... To the E ditor : I am in the seventh grade at da Vinci Arts Middle School. I wrote this for my zinc: If the question “Are you gay or straight F arises and you answer “I don’t have a label” or “Labels are for food!” the average American will flip out because America relies on labels. Punk, goth, lesbian, prep, “Jane is trying to be like this famous person, you can sooooo tell,” says a Britney Spears look-alike and idolizer. This is all a part of our everyday lives. Here at Esidarap castle, we have created a solution. We refer to ourselves as “lovers”— people who love whomever their heart desires, disregarding gender or sexuality. Times have changed since, say, the ’50s, when homosexuality was a mental illness and the topic of (shhhhh) “sex” was strictly taboo. America has experienced what you might call a sexual revolution, with rainbow stickers on cars and The Rocky Horror Picture Show playing every Saturday at midnight at Clinton Street Theater. If you choose to label yourself, that’s great! It makes things easier for America to process, and you can rely on that being solid, and not be floating in nothingness. If you accept a label other people give you, before doing so, decide whether that label is true to you. If the shoe fits, wear it! If the shoe doesn’t fit, either go barefoot, keep on trying them until you find the right one, or get one custom made! Using this whole shoe analogy, I’ll say I admire other people’s gaudy, sexy, high-heeled shoes, and occasional ly try one on for a day or so, but I like my comfy shoes! T h at’s what’s great about being an actress— you can be whomever you want to be without the reputation of yourself hanging around! If the no-label path is the right one for you, know that you will be misunderstood and that people will label you in their own little black book, so you aren’t just a piece of loose-leaf binder paper wafting around. No matter what label you do or don’t have, always know that you are you; stay true to that and be proud!! I zzakate M c G owan Portland tran sition Jo h n Fryer, 1 9 3 7 -2 0 0 3 J ohn E. Fryer, a psychiatrist considered a trail- blazer in the gay rights movement for appear ing before his colleagues at a 1972 convention in a mask to announce his homosexuality, died of aspiration pneumonia Feb. 28. He was 65. Fryer appeared as Dr. H. Anonymous, clad in a full mask and wig and using a voice- distorting microphone, before the American Psychiatric Association meeting in Dallas at a time when homosexuality was designated a mental illness. “ I am a homosexual. I am a psy chiatrist,” he said. He then told the group that he had suffered discrimination and had to remain anonymous because being gay would cost him his job. At the time, he was an untenured professor at Temple University. The following year, the American Psychi atric Association’s board of trustees removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statis tical Manual of Mental Disorders, the profes sion’s bible. In a 1985 bulletin of the A ssocia tion of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists, Fryer wrote that the appearance was “something that had to be done." “I had been thrown out of a residency because I was gay. I lost a job because I was gay.... It had to be said, but I couldn’t do it as me.” REALTY, INC. 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