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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 17, 2005)
Continued from Page 37 nity for the same reasons anyone else chooses to live in a to the administration when he was harassed at school. rural community. The lifestyle is really different. The Thirteen years old and queer—there aren’t so many values of the rural community are closer to the values of resources for someone fitting this description in Myrtle my heart. It’s a double-edged thing, because as a gay per Creek. So Alexander kxiked in rhe phone hx>k and IMeitdiitg fems. Taking l son or lesbian, there might be a certain level of hostility found the number for the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard. toward you. But as a member of a niral community, Dancer Davis agreed to meet me after work in down He talked to a man named Bill Russo, a stalwart of the there is a certain amount of acceptance. If you’re an Roseburg queer community, and the two have been town Roseburg. She brought along 19-year-old Geoff independent person, and you take care of yourself, and friends since. He invited Alexander to potlucks, and Alexander, and we gathered in the office of Katie you watch out for your neighbors, and your neighbors even gave him a place to stay when things got rocky at Hankins. Hankins and Davis are both social workers, look out for you, and if the fence goes down you work and Alexander is a recent high school graduate from home. Both Davis and Alexander have been part of a queer together to put it up.” Myrtle Creek. youth outreach program that has recently come under Hankins moved to Roseburg eight years ago from Alexander has been out since he was 13. Eastern Oregon. She went to schixil, and eventually found fire from city commissioners. They host “Club Queer,” “People were really shocked. My parents were really a once-a-week drop-in evening with a place here. As a queer mother of a young child, though, shocked; they didn’t know what to d< pizza and soda, sponsored by the she had a difficult time meeting people who understood And word spread so fast,” he says. Coalition for Sexual Minority Myrtle Creek has a population of her experience and could support her as a parent. Youth. But “Club Queer” sounds approximately 3,500. “As difficult as it is, you can build a community menacing to the commissioners, around you. It is easier to break down stereotypes in a “Telling my parents and a couple friends was all it took, then every who have threatened to pull fund small community when you get to know people one on ing from some of the nonprofit one, and not as your sexuality, but just as a person. This body knew.” organizations involved. Was he scared? Did people pro is the first job I’ve been really out at, and 1 feel really voke him? “One of them made statements fortunate that I can break down stereotypes people have “I was in eighth grade. 1 had a about ‘closing of what a gay person is like.” down the friend named Amy who had a repu Alexander concurs. tation for beating people up. Anyone queer youth “For me, living in a small Katie Hankins works at her desk at the who flipped me any crap, she’d take sex club town, I have a lot of pride. Umpqua Community Action Network, a care of it. It was pretty convenient. that is Everyone around you is so bigot grassroots anti-poverty agency that “When I was first being run by serves Douglas County. ed and narrow-minded, and it coming out, people adults,’ ” Davis says. “I feels like you are up against a at school harassed mean, give me a break. brick wall. But I feel like with me, but it stopped All the negative pub me being here, and being out all of a sudden licity actually gave the and taking a role in activism, because I started coalition some momen I can push that wall just a little taking action tum, and because it was bit. I can make a little bit of against it. Like under attack, a lot of change. Maybe someone will Dan Craig (left), a fourth-generation Salemite, once some kids middle-class liberals come along after me and find lives there with his partner, Salem Rainbow squirted some fake came out of the closet that wall a little bit easier to Youth board member Ross Stout. blood on the back to support it. One of the push. of my pants and I commissioners actually suggested that instead “When I walk down the street and people yell at me, was really embar of a group that celebrated queer kids, we it just gives me more passion and more incentive to fight Intergenerational friendship has flourished rassed. 1 went and should have a group that taught kids how to these kinds of things and make things better in my area, between activists Dancer Davis (left) and told the office not act noticeable, so that they would not be to strengthen our gay community.” Geoff Alexander. what was going on harassed in the first place. That is so indicative and said, ‘I’m a human being, and I’m not going to take of the prevailing attitude here.” this kind of crap.’ So they searched the lockers and Davis has exasperation in her voice when describing found the people who did it, and the kid got suspended. the conservatism of her community, hut she is nonethe 1 got tripped once, and the kid got expelled. Besides less an unapologetic and active citizen whose hope is Across the riverfront park in Salem, I see that ubiq that, it’s just been comments. The administration has expressed through her commitment to the progressive uitous sign of homo celebration: the clutch of rainbow been really supportive. 1 mean, I just brush it oft if some causes she fights for. Raised by Christian fundamentalists balkxtns. About 30 people had gathered on blankets and one calls me fag or queer. I’m used to that. If I reported in Coos County, she came out at 18, spent 30 years in picnic benches. We were right on the edge of the that, I’d been in the office all day long.” Humbolt County working as a court investigator, then Willamette River, and as the sun was setting, legions of I was so moved by Alexander’s ability to not only moved to Roseburg with her partner. They have raised bugs ttx>k up over the river and glowed as huge, undulat identify his own feelings and identity as an eighth two boys, and live about a half-hour outside of town. ing clouds in the late aftemixtn light. grader, but to stand up for himself with righteous anger “I imagine that we choose to live in a rural commu 1 scanned the crowd for adults and picked out ROSEBURG: (J )A SALEM RAINBOW YOUTH Providing Specialized Pharmacy Services, Coordination of Benefits and Insurance Billing 1215 NW 23rd APEX V Pharmacy Avenue, Portland, OR Free Parking Community-Based Private one-on-one consultation (503)525-9094 Serving Medicaid, Providence and ADAP Programs for Oregon and Washington*
