GETTING ORGANIZED
/ he priorities of Portland’s sexual minorities community can be
J tracked by the strength of its organizations.
Queer Portland turns to its groups—Q Center, Basic Rights
Oregon, In Other Words bookstore, Love Makes a Family, Unity
Project of Oregon, Cascade AIDS Project, the Sexual Minority Youth
Resource Center and many others—to fight its battles, support its vulner
able and provide community.
Many groups have collapsed because of tapped-out volunteers and wal
lets and changing needs in a more accepting city. Others have evolved into
their own entities such as Basic Rights Oregon from the Portland Town
Council and Right to Privacy Political Action Committee and SMYRC
from Phoenix Rising. SMYRC celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.
In 2007, two lesbian organizations collapsed.
Carol Brownlow explained the 2007 closure of Hambleton Project:
“Hie organization provided wonderful services, but it seemed as if the com
munity’s needs are changing, so those services may not be needed as they
were 10 years ago.”
Hambleton Project was founded in 1997 to support lesbians with cancer
and their partners by providing referrals, resources, advocacy and support
groups. In October 2005, its board witnessed declining numbers of members
and clients. The board, with guidance from founding members, unanimous
ly decided to close Hambleton Project.
Portland also lost the Lesbian Community Project, although its softball
tournament continues.
LCP began in 1986 as a place where lesbians could meet and social
ize outside the bars. It offered services including seminars on homophobia
HOLLYWOOD VINTAGE
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Continued from Page 29
and self-defense, sign language classes, Spanish classes and New Year’s Eve
dances. According to Kristan Aspen, a longtime member of the organiza
tion and interim executive director, one of its main purposes was to lend
visibility to lesbians.
In 1989, the group sponsored a float in Portland’s Starlight Parade. It was
the first time a group of gay men and lesbians rode in a rainbow-flag-decorated
float during the Rose Festival. The float won the Queen’s Trophy.
Phoenix Rising, a vital organization from 1979 to 2000, provided gay
specific counseling, workshops for substance abuse and incest survival, and
a variety of other services.
In 1987, Amani Jabari spoke for People of Color United Against AIDS,
a group that looked at a slate of issues affecting gay communities of color. He
knew the value of looking after his own community and building up social
services for people of color. He advocated for racial and sexual minorities to be
visible and take positions of power.
Thirty years after its creation, the Portland Gay & Lesbian Bowling As
sociation is still rolling.
Founder Tom Geil said: “At the time, all I was after was a way for
the men and women of our community to come together for some fun
and communication. There were no other sports programs, no softball,
and gay men and lesbian women just kept their distance from one an
other. That needed to change to put the unity in our community.”
Initially, the group met at Grand Central Bowl on Southeast Mor
rison Street. The group now meets at Hollywood Bowl. For more infor
mation visit www.pdxbowl.com.
—Jaymee R. Cuti
courtesy of the Portland Police Bureau. They in
stalled it in her living room, summer of 1992. If
the neo-Nazi skinheads returned and threatened
her life again, she was to press the button, which
sent a direct signal to Portland police that she was
in trouble and needed their help.
- This was at the height of the violent Mea
sure 9 anti-gay backlash—a shocking series of
bias-motivated crimes that shook the very moral
fabric of Oregon. A gay man and lesbian in their
20s were burned to death at their rental home in
Salem. Queer-allied churches were defaced with
anti-Semitic graffiti. Just Out’s offices were bro
ken into and vandalized. Redwing, a soft-spoken
pacifist and director of the Lesbian Community
Project, kept a loaded gun under her bed.
Things are much more quiet for Redwing
these days. Splitting her time between Washing
ton, D.C., and her mountaintop home in lush Ev
ergreen, Colo. (she left Portland permanently in
1999 but visits every few months), she is a senior
adviser to the president of the Interfaith Alliance,
which works to protect religious and democratic
freedoms. She was assistant sergeant at arms for
the 2008 Democratic National Convention and
a part of President-elect Barack Obama’s informal
“gay kitchen cabinet,” acting as a sounding board
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