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.”