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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2014)
NEWS ACTIVIST LERT • City Club of Eugene will look at “Working Together on the BEST Outcomes for Kids” at its luncheon at noon Friday, Feb. 7, at the Downtown Athletic Club third floor ballroom, 999 Willamette. Speakers include Raquel Gwynn, Sharon Tabor and Randy Bernstein from School District 4J and Peter Chavannes of the city. $5 for nonmembers. • Bike sharing in Eugene? An open house to review and discuss a recent bike share feasibility study will be at 6 pm Wednesday, Feb. 12, at the LCC Downtown Center, Room 112. LTD and the city contracted the study by the Toole Design Group. See Eugene-or.gov/ bikeshare or call 682-5727 for more information. • The 13th annual Worst Day of the Year Ride will begin gathering at 8 am Sunday, Feb. 9, outside 915 SE Hawthorne in Portland. Thousands of cyclists are expected to show up, many in costume, for this zany ride through the streets of Portland. Eugene always sends a flock of riders to this event, but we don’t have anything quite like it at home — yet. See orbike. com to register. In related news, Cycle Oregon will be Sept. 6-13 this year and the “secret” route was to be announced just after we go to press this week. • The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the topic of a free Sierra Club forum at 7 pm Thursday, Feb. 13, at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 13th and Chambers. Main speaker will be Jesse Swanhuyser, chair of the national Sierra Club’s Committee on International Trade, Human Rights and the Environment. Also speaking will be Linda Peterson of the Oregon Fair Trade Coalition and AFSCME Local 3214. Contact Bill Rogers at 654-0405. • A free meeting on “Marijuana Re-Legalization” will be from 5:30 to 7 pm Thursday, Feb. 13, at the Eugene Public Library downtown. Facilitator will be Dan Koozer, director of Willamette Valley chapter of National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and co-founder of the Cannabis Liberation Front and the Emerald Empire HempFest. Sponsored by the Lane County ACLU. Email lanechapter@aclu-or.org for more information. >>> CONTINUED FROM P. 6 Cater says the Trans and Womyn’s Action Camps that start- ed in Oregon are a model worldwide for dismantling gender oppression and sexism in the radical environmental commu- nity. “It is a slap in the face of activists in the Northwest who have done this serious and difficult work to offer validation to Keith’s toxic views in our home and at our very own beloved environmental law conference,” she says. “I think it’s a scandal,” says local anarcho-primitivist John Zerzan. “It’s an ugly, transphobic thing.” Keith founded DGR with Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay in 2011. Among the group’s statement of principles to which all DGR members must agree is that “civilization, especially industrial civilization, is fundamentally destructive to life on earth” and that it is a radical feminist organization. The state- ment continues, “Gender is not natural, not a choice, and not a feeling: it is the structure of women’s oppression. Attempts to create more ‘choices’ within the sex-caste system only serve to reinforce the brutal realities of male power.” Zerzan, who is an anti-civilization theorist, says that in his experience DGR has a top-down structure that doesn’t allow for questioning by members. This isn’t the first time DGR’s trans-exclusive policy has generated controversy. McBay left the group in 2012 when Keith and Derrick Jensen canceled a trans-inclusive policy. “I find these transphobic attitudes to be disgusting and deeply troubling, and it bothers me a lot to have any past association with people promoting transphobia,” he wrote. The Portland chapter of DGR, now called Resistance Port- land, splintered from the original organization due to its trans- exclusive policy and has encouraged other DGR chapters to do the same. Earth First! stopped printing DGR-related material in its newsletter. PIELC organizers responded to questions via email, saying that the views of PIELC don’t align with every speaker. “We only invite speakers to present on public interest and environ- mental issues,” they write. “It has not been standard practice for the co-directors of PIELC to investigate the personal views of speakers. We invite speakers who will contribute to advancing the dialogue on environmentalism.” Cater alleges Keith’s supporters have a history of outing transgender youth publicly, have interfered with transgender people’s access to health care and posted their personal infor- mation, including home addresses, phone numbers and arrest records, to online “bully sites” to make them targets of attacks. “This effectively silences transgender people from protest of her public appearances in any form, as the potential for ar- rest or incarceration is far more dangerous for transgender people than for gender-conforming people,” Cater says. “Many transgender folks have said to me that they will not attend this year’s conference as they feel unwelcome and unsafe there.” — Shannon Finnell SEXY STORIES FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon (PPAO) will pro- vide a twist to the normal Valentine’s Day festivities with its third annual “It’s Not Me, It’s You: Stories From the Dark Side of Dating” event on Friday, Feb. 7. Jennifer Sparklebritches, a local stand-up comedian, will be hosting the event for the first time with a lineup of other stand- up comedians, writers and more who will be talking about their nightmarish dating experiences. “It’s a really lighthearted event that’s a fun way for folks to support our work,” says Jimmy Radosta, communications director for PPAO. The organization has advocated for women’s reproductive rights and for politicians to remain out of conversations that it believes should be between a woman and her doctor, and it wants to keep it that way. “We have been able to keep Oregon the leading state for reproductive freedom,” Radosta says. Sparklebritches says that it is important to keep in mind that Planned Parenthood provides care for men as well, includ- ing but not limited to vasectomies. “I have much love for Planned Parenthood and am happy to fundraise for such a great organization,” Sparklebritches says. The money raised at “It’s Not Me, It’s You” will go directly toward PPAO. Besides fundraising, the main goal of the event will be to relate to people and make them laugh. “And let’s be honest. Nobody over the age of 17 really likes Valentine’s Day,” Sparklebritches says. “This is for the rest of us.” Other storytellers include Joshua Isaac Finch, standup com- ic and editor of Exiled in Eugene, Shannon Rose, aka Gloria Slimem, “perpetual SLUG Queen runner-up and all-round nice girl” and many others. “It’s Not Me, It’s You: Stories From the Dark Side of Dat- ing,” will take place at Cozmic, 199 W. 8th Ave. on Friday, Feb. 7. Doors open at 6 pm, show is from 7 to 9 pm. $13 in advance from cozmicpizza.com or $15 at the door. — Kevin Sullivan 8 BY PAUL NEEVEL HAPPENING PEOPLE SHERRY WHITMORE February 6, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com Raised on a farm in southern Oregon, Sherry Whitmore graduated from Eagle Point High School and worked at a Sizzler restaurant in Medford. “I came up here for management training and met Brian Whitmore,” she says. “Three months later, I moved to Eugene.” She got married, spent summers as a forest firefighter, then had three kids, Shelby, Maddie and Trevor, and became a stay-at-home mom. “I coached volleyball for 13 years, at Kidsports and at South Eugene,” she notes. “I coached both girls through high school.” But the couple divorced in 2000 and she found work with friends at The Tin Woodsman pewter company. After Trevor finished high school, she sold the house, bought a truck and a travel trailer and headed south. “I moved around a couple years, from Big Sur to Seward, Alaska,” says Whitmore, who spent a summer as Trailbridge campground host on her return. Intrigued by small houses, she took a workshop in 2012 with the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. “I met women who had built tiny houses,” she says. “I left with confidence.” Rather than pay for plans, she designed her own tiny house, had a custom trailer built and found windows on Craigslist. She started building walls in May 2013 and is now finishing exterior trim. “It’s the first thing I’ve ever built,” she says. “I’d like to be done in six to eight months. It’s so empowering.”
