(This was written in 2005 after completing my internship at the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland.)
I have been involved in Cleveland’s lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) community in various ways since 1994. In 2002, I volunteered to work at the annual Cleveland Pride festival, which has been held annually since 1989. I wasn’t sure what to expect that windy June day, but I knew I wanted to do more for the community than just be a girl who hangs out in gay bars. My oldest friend, David, was on the Pride board of directors, and suggested that I help out. I was set to sell pop and candy at a little tent, and the money I raised would all go to Pride. I was doing my part, however small, but I knew that it was the start of something greater.
In the fall of that year, I went to a few Pride committee meetings, looking for some way to lend a hand. It seemed like they did a lot of talking, but not enough action. I was hoping there were events throughout the year where I could be involved, but all I heard was boring talk about the budget.
Early spring arrived, and David called. He said that Pride was looking for a new beer garden coordinator. Brynna, who has been with Pride since the beginning, was trying to find someone with bartending experience to take on this role. I went to bartending school, and had worked in a few bars. I was excited to be offered this position. Could this be the opportunity I was looking for?
At the next Pride meeting, I formally accepted the duty of running the beer garden, which, I was soon to find out, is the largest source of income the Pride organization has except for regular donations. I met with Brynna, and she showed me diagrams and figures and lists of past volunteers. This was looking like an enormous task–I would have to come up with about fifty volunteers to make this thing run properly.
Now, this would only be the second time I was at a Pride festival. The year before, I sat at a table under a small tent and sold pop and candy. I didn’t even know where the beer garden was! It was a little nerve-wracking to think about all the preparation I would need to do for this–but then, I have always thrived on stress. Music to my ears came when Brynna told me that the beer garden belonged to me, and that I had absolute power. Absolute power? That’s all I needed to know.
I was so into this job, I couldn’t believe how much fun I was having! I was calling bars and meeting people around town–not to mention the fact that I am pretty popular, so my friends were right there with me. Things were falling into place, and my list grew to over sixty beer garden helpers. I studied past schedules, looked at money pick-ups, and made my final schedule within a couple days. People were calling me the night before to offer their help.
I had never done anything on this scale before–I have been a manager at plenty of places, and was used to dealing with schedules and lateness and no-shows. It turned out that my very intricate schedule was more skeletal than functional, but that worked out. I had more than enough help, more than the rest of the festival, and the beer garden made more money that year than they had ever made.
I have been known since 2003 as “The Beer Wench”. I told everyone how much fun I had setting it all up, and watching everything fall into place. Pride wants me to do this forever–and I plan to! I am now in my second term as a board member of Cleveland Pride, and have had the opportunity to be a part of many great events over the last few years.
Which brings me to my internship at the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Greater Cleveland. I first worked with the Center in the summer of 2003, where, on the heels of my great success as The Beer Wench, was again recruited to coordinate a bar staff for an LGBT event. The Center has an annual Summer Garden Party, which is their biggest fundraiser of the year. We were to have three small bars, and I was to staff them all. No problem! I said. Just let me know how many you need, and we’ll be there.
Another rousing success, of course. But I still wanted to do more than help gay people get drunk.
I decided to come back to college after ten year of working at meaningless, low-paying jobs. I am a very passionate person, and I knew I had more to offer than just making a great cappuccino, or bussing tables faster than you could seat them. The Center was the first place I thought of when I was deciding where to do my internship. I have known Sue Doerfer, executive director of the Center, since my first Pride in 2002. I wrote her and explained my plans, and she was thrilled with my decision. She put me in contact with Tim Marshall, the Center’s communications director.
Tim sent me job descriptions for the two communications internships available. Since I had almost no computer experience, I did not choose the marketing generalist internship. The position I decided on was something new for the Center, and focused more on newsgathering, which was more interesting to me. When we met in person, I told him what I wanted to do beyond the description, and he was more than willing to give me extra assignments to fulfill my hours requirements.
On Monday, 12 September, Sirius Satellite Radio’s LGBT channel, Q, did a live, two-day broadcast from the Center. Local community leaders and artists were interviewed, and they took phone calls from listeners. I was an observer at this event, and was interested to see the host and his producer working, on-air and behind-the-scenes.
This was a major media event for the Center, and for the Cleveland LGBT community as a whole. When one thinks of Cleveland, one doesn’t normally associate it with being progressive or gay-friendly. We were excited to be in the spotlight for this show, which was part of a Midwestern tour by the Q channel. When Sue Doerfer was interviewed, she made it clear that our Center is one of the biggest in the country.
Established in 1975, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Greater Cleveland (known, until November 2005, as the Lesbian/Gay Community Service Center), is the oldest and most prominent LGBT organization in Ohio, and one of the best in the United States. In its thirty years, the Center has provided HIV testing and counseling, youth groups, addiction services, health seminars, book clubs, and other community services. In addition, the Center also houses a great collection of LGBT historical archives, and sponsors events and guest speakers/performers from all over the country. The Center is a leader among non-profits in fundraising.
My main task concerned the website ( http://lgcsc.org/ ), which gets 10,000 hits a day. With such a highly-regarded site, they are always improving and updating the information and features. One thing Tim told me they’ve wanted to do was to create their own news page, where there would be an article summary, and then a link to the original source. The site had a small section of news headlines, but they were from a newswire, and not written in-house. Therefore, clicking on the headline leads you directly to a different website, and people often don’t return to the Center’s site. Tim wanted to have a separate page on the Center’s site, where the story summary would provide the major points, and readers would be less likely to leave the site to read the full article. Of course, we provide that link, but people who just want a quick update can find everything they need on one convenient page.
Two days after the Sirius broadcast, I met with Tim to extensively discuss what my duties would be. Aside from the newsgathering, he suggested that I become involved in gay/straight alliance (GSA) outreach, another program the Center had always wanted to do, but had neither the staff nor the time to create and maintain. I was more than happy to accept this role, as I planned to become involved in the GSA at Lake Erie College, Spectrum.
The idea was to create a database of college GSAs from all over Northeast Ohio, and create a page for them on the Center’s site. We would put contact information, meeting times, events, and profiles of their members on this page, and it would be a great way to get the Center’s name out to these groups. As successful as the Center has been, there are still many younger people who don’t know about it, and this would be an excellent way to provide ourselves as a resource, and to offer our help in any other way.
I dug right in on that first day of actual work. I went online to seek out all the college GSA information I could. Most of it was easy to find, as almost every college has a GSA these days. Some schools even have a separate page for theirs!
Lake Erie, however, does not. When I first decided to go back, I looked on the school site, wondering if there was such a thing in Painesville, Ohio. I didn’t remember there being one during my first stint at LEC, but it was the mid-90s, and these things weren’t openly-discussed in those days.
When I finally read through all the descriptions of student groups, I came across Spectrum, and wrote to Hollie Chessman, director of student groups, to get more information. She gave me the email address of the Spectrum president, Danielle House, whom I wrote to immediately. It took about a week to hear back, and even longer to actually set up a Spectrum meeting, but, it finally happened, and there were only four of us there.
I didn’t expect a very large group, as I realize we are in Lake County, and it’s pretty difficult to be openly LGBT around here–it’s pretty difficult to be openly different in any way, really. But I knew it was my duty, as a Center representative, as well as an advocate in my every day life, to get this group to be more visible and active on campus, and, eventually, in the community at large.
I was allowed to speak first, introducing myself, and explaining what I was doing at the Center. Thankfully, the other Spectrum members knew what the Center was, and they had attended a poetry event there the previous school year. I was very excited to have Spectrum become involved in this GSA outreach, especially since it is such a new group at LEC. I told them that the Center was more than willing to help out with any events Spectrum would have throughout the year. Everyone seemed interested in what the group could accomplish, and I offered to do everything I could do get things moving.
But that was the only meeting we had. I emailed Danielle many times over the next month, inviting her and the group to attend the National Coming Out Day rally the Center was holding on Public Square in Cleveland, and asking what we would do to promote Coming Out day on campus. I never heard back.
This looks really bad, I thought, to be in charge of GSA outreach, and my own school won’t get involved! So I took it to Hollie Chessman again, and she directed me to Leslie Yetter, Spectrum’s faculty advisor. She told me she had not heard from Danielle since the beginning of the semester, so she was going to make me the de facto president of Spectrum.
Leslie and I met and talked about ideas I had for events. Again, I understand where we are, but we have to start somewhere. I talked about the Center, and all the opportunities there are to get involved with other GSAs and form a GSA community. She was happy to have me involved, but, as it was already late in the semester, there wasn’t much we could do.
I told her that I really want to know who is at LEC, how many LGBT students there are. I know there are many, but most are not out. I said I wanted to do a survey of the student body to find out who’s out there, and to get everyone’s take on LGBT issues on campus. I created a survey, which Leslie said would be put on http://www.surveymonkey.com/, with a link to the site on LEC’s site. At the start of the spring semester, I plan to analyze the findings, and start working on creating a more visible and active Spectrum. I am afraid that, once I graduate in May 2006, that Spectrum will wither away, and that would be a great disservice to LEC’s LGBT students and faculty.
Within a week, I had a complete list of GSA contact information. I began to compose a letter to send out to all the contacts, explaining what the Center was trying to do. I asked to be added to their mailing lists, and said I wanted to attend one of their meetings to meet with their groups and discuss the outreach program. The thing that I emphasized most was, I wanted to hear their concerns, their ideas, what they need from the Center.
A couple schools wrote back right away. Case Western Reserve University was the most excited about this program. Sabina Hossain, co-president of Spectrum at CWRU, was looking to become more personally involved with the Center. I contacted her right away, and she invited me to their next meeting.
In the meantime, I was working furiously on my newsblogs. We use a blog site, www.blogger.com, to post my summaries. I was apprehensive at first, given my limited computer skills, but Tim showed me how unbelievably easy it is to post stories and then link them to the main article. He had printed out some examples of what he was looking for. Before I posted anything, he asked me to look up some stories and send him samples of my work. It had been a while since I did any writing of consequence–for all these years since I had been in school, if I wrote at all, it was fiction, poetry, very personal, journal-type stuff. I hadn’t been a journalist for a long time!
The first story I found was from http://www.365gay.com/, and it was about a battleship that was to be docked in San Francisco, which was going to hold a museum dedicated to the military service of gays, lesbians, women, and minorities. I hadn’t heard this story before, so I thought this would be a good choice. I quickly decided that that would be the focus of this newsblog, stories that aren’t being reported in mainstream gay newspapers and magazines, things you wouldn’t find unless you really dug for them.
I sent Tim my sample, and he said it was exactly the style he wanted. His only suggestion was, for those early blogs, to tighten things up a bit, and not put quotes in unless they are extraordinary. After a few weeks of entries, he printed out what I had done, and we met to discuss my progress. Again, he was more than happy, and he only offered constructive criticism. He also gave me a copy of The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, the Center’s reference guide for all printed materials. It has become a bible for me.
It was up to me to find websites to gather stories, and I was careful to not get all my information from the same few sources. Luckily, there are many places to look. I wanted to focus on stories happening in small towns, as well as around the world. The majority of stories appear in non-LGBT publications, which lends credibility, I think. If everything is told from a supposedly LGBT point of view, that it can be viewed as slanted, and I am supposed to be objective.
Granted, there are stories I don’t necessarily want to do, sometimes based on the headline of the original article. For example, in September, there were many stories about the recently-passed hate crimes bill. But since it was tied to a law that pertained to child molesters, most of the headlines focused on that, and not the part about including sexual orientation in the hate crimes statute.
This is where it often becomes hard to stay unbiased. Of course, the bill is a good thing for all victims involved, but the fact that anti-LGBT activists often try to put gays and lesbians in the same category as child molesters makes me nervous as far as linking my summary to the larger piece. When it pops up, the first words you notice are “child molester”. I want to focus on LGBT issues, not ideas that anti-LGBT forces try to attach to the movement.
Most headlines, however, were not sensationalist, and I had little trouble finding appropriate articles. Sometimes what I came across was fairly amusing, so I threw things in just to lighten things up. So much of the news is negative or disappointing, and once in a while, something funny or ridiculous happens that you just need to hear.
One such story was about a “heterosexuality officer” at a school in Australia. Straight students who felt that LGBT students were getting special treatment decided to take matters in their own hands, and created a sort of “straight rights” group. Another story was about a Christian anti-gay group who were yelling at people and telling them they were going to hell because of their sexuality. I ended my summary with a simple, humorous quote from one of the condemned: “But I’m Jewish.”
An exciting part of reading these stories is finding out about LGBT rights organizations around the world, especially in places you would never think would have such groups. I found a great article about a lesbian support group in Nepal, and lots of articles about groups in Northern Ireland. It’s also refreshing to hear news about advances in LGBT right across the globe, like a mall in Bangkok that will offer a gay shopping area, the legalization of civil partnerships that will occur starting 21 December in the United Kingdom, and the Church of Sweden’s approval of civil unions.
Reading so much has made me more passionate about this cause, and more determined to fight for the rights of the LGBT community. My interest is personal, as these things usually are. I have had gay friends since I was 18, and they were the ones who really made me feel like I was something, like I was interesting and smart and funny and sexy. Gay men made me feel like a woman! I have a natural sense of justice, and I have made it my goal to see to it that my friends are treated equally and respectfully, and that all LGBT people can feel free to be out and proud of who they are–and who they love.
11 October is National Coming Out Day, and I was asked by Sue Doerfer to “come out” as an ally at the Center-sponsored rally. I was thrilled, but very nervous. I am not much for public speaking, which sounds strange for me to say, since I am happy to talk about anything with anybody at any time. But I get quite self-conscious in front of large crowds.
I took a speech class at Lakeland Community College many years ago, in an attempt to get over this stage fright. What I excelled at was extemporaneous speaking. We had to pick a topic and speak partially from a prepared speech, and partially off the cuff. My opening statement was, “Homosexuality is not a disease; homophobia is.” This was pretty bold for the early 1990s, but it was what I thought I’d be best at discussing. For the first half, I read funny quotes about how gays and lesbians were perceived in the past, and I detailed societies where it was accepted and encouraged–samurais were known to take young male lovers, and women in the Victorian age were expected to form close friendships with each other as “practice” for eventual marriage. The class sat, stunned at my openness and blatant promotion of homosexuality as normal and natural. It was great!
But where I really felt comfortable was when I talked freely about historical figures who were gay or lesbian, people the students sitting before me knew, but whose sexuality historians have long-glossed over or just plain fabricated. I went on and on about how great gay people are, and my speech went well over the required ten minutes. I was satisfied with my performance, and proud of myself for bringing this topic before a community college crowd in Lake County. I knew I was destined to be an activist for this issue.
I remembered this as I thought about what to say in my Coming Out Day speech. I was told I should speak for about two minutes. There was so much I wanted to do with these few moments in the spotlight, but I was terrified I would freeze up, or stumble over my words, or talk too fast no one would understand me. I knew that talking off the top of my head would be the best way as far as getting over my nervousness. But when I do that, I tend to go off on tangents–I say important things, but I often lose track of other good points I wanted to make. I didn’t want to have a perfectly-crafted phrase just waiting to see the light of day, and then I forget because I’m going in another direction. I thought that I should maybe write a skeletal speech, much like my first beer garden volunteer schedule–it’s useful, but not necessarily functional. At an event like this, it’s better to just go with what you feel at the moment.
Most of the people at the event were folks I knew already, from the Center and Pride, and others I just knew. I asked my friend James to come also, to lend me moral support. When the short program began, I realized that my moment was near, and I tried to not look at my speech too much. I wanted to sound fresh and casual and breezy. I was the third or fourth speaker. There’s no turning back now! I thought. These are your friends, don’t sweat it.
My opening statement was, “Hi. I’m Dana, and I’m an ally.” I got a huge round of applause! There were maybe 50 people watching, a lot of them passersby. I was pretty stunned by their reaction. I began talking about my first gay best friend, and how I helped him come out. I said that, ever since then, I had made it my mission to promote quality and understanding however I could, and that I take every opportunity to talk about LGBT issues. The best way to be an activist, I said, is to talk to people one on one, to advocate in your every day life. I got more applause and cheers for that. Most people don’t go to rallies or listen to speeches, so you need to talk to your coworkers, fellow students, friends and family members about your LGBT loved ones. Unless everyone left that event and talked about their concerns, nothing was going to change. I closed by saying that we all have to be open about who we are and who we love, gay, straight, allied, whatever your label is.
I did what I knew I would do–I started to read my speech, and then I went off and spoke from the heart. My friend James was making funny faces at me, which made me laugh and put me at ease. I was still a bit shaky, and I was beginning to get cottonmouth, but I survived. And I got another grand round of applause when I left the stage. If I had stayed up there for another thirty seconds, I would have been so comfortable and might have spoken for an hour!
A great thing happened after my speech: other speakers began quoting me. Whoa! The main thing they said was my line about advocating in your every day life. I was glad that people actually paid attention, and they honestly appreciated my words and my honesty.
I wrote an article about the event for the Gay People’s Chronicle, which was a front page story in the next issue.
I went CWRU’s Spectrum meeting on 17 October. I was allowed to speak first, so I gave my spiel about the Center, and how we want to link all local GSAs. This was a pretty sizable meeting, with at least a dozen people. The main topic was the upcoming Charity Drag Ball. Sabina Hossain and Kenny Long, the co-presidents, were explaining the areas that needed work, and when they asked who wanted to be in charge of the drinks, I quickly raised my hand. They were more than happy to give me the job. It was to be a juice bar, so I needed to come up with about twelve non-alcoholic drinks. I was looking forward to bartending again, even though it was all juice and pop.
Over the next few weeks, I worked on my menu, and sent out emails to everyone on my list to promote the event. I had no idea how many people would be there. They said that, the previous year (which was the first year), they had about 200 attendees. It was a lot of straight people who were making fun of drag, but it was still a decent-sized ball.
I told Sabina that she should take out an ad in the Charlie’s Calendar section of the Gay People’s Chronicle, and that she should also think about writing a short press release, and sending that out to the Chronicle, Scene, and the Free Times.
I also got Grid-n-Orbit, my favourite bar, to be one of the event sponsors. Their logo appeared on ads and the program, and I brought flyers advertising the Grid’s college ID night.
The evening of the Drag Ball, my friend and I arrived early to begin setting up the bar, but everything seemed so disorganized. My supplies didn’t arrive until about twenty-five minutes before the show began, so I rushed to put everything together, and give a quick lesson to my bartenders.
Despite the initial insanity, everything went off without a hitch. The event raised almost $600 for UNICEF and GLSEN, and 350 people attended.
I wrote another front page story for the Chronicle, and was happy to give Spectrum at Case the great publicity. It was an awesome event, and something smaller GSAs, like Spectrum at LEC, should aspire to.
My newsblog officially launched on 26 October. Tim and I wanted to have a substantial number of stories before we unveiled it to the public. He sent out notice to Center staff first, and then to the Center’s mailing list. I did my own publicity, emailing the link to everyone on my list. I got lots of praise from everyone, and was glad they could finally see what I had been working on for all that time. Most importantly, I was proud to bring this news service to the masses.
Towards the end of the same month, I started feeling more like a real reporter. Some stories I had done were now being followed up, like the Million Man March and the Polish presidential elections. Seeing things progress was fun, and I was eager to read more.
I was also eager to do more than what I had been doing. The GSA stuff was still not picking up. Case was the only school I had really been involved with, though I heard from Cleveland State University, and was on the Cuyahoga Community College GSA’s mailing list. The people I heard from from those groups seemed to be interested in being part of this outreach, but I still craved more work! Tim had a thought.
He had always wanted to put an interview page on the website, something like PDQ in the Plain Dealer. I was so excited to hear about this; when I was a kid, I used to carry a tape recorder around with me and interview my family and friends. Sometimes I would have them pretend to be celebrities, and sometimes I would be Barbara Walters. Something about interviews has always fascinated me.
Tim gave me a list of local celebrities and other interesting people who were doing cool things around Cleveland, and I was to come up with a list of questions. As with the newsblog, Tim told me this project was my baby, and I could approach it any way I wanted to.
Some of the people on the list were friends of mine, so I wouldn’t have any trouble getting in touch with them. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be, though, to come up with great questions. How gay should this be? Do I ask what their favourite colour is? Do I ask who their favourite 15th century monologist is? I wasn’t sure as to what the approach should be. I was leaning towards funky and cool, but I wanted some deep thoughts as well.
Tim and I decided that some of the questions should be geared specifically toward the respondent, and the rest should be general questions that are for everyone. Then I would use my magical editing skills and whittle it down to ten questions that we use on the site. A picture and a short biography, and a plug for an upcoming project or event, would be included.
I scoured the internet looking for interesting questionnaires to inspire me, but there really weren’t any that appealed to me. What I kept in the back of my head as an almost last resort was the Proust questionnaire. Vanity Fair does it in every issue, but I do love it. I believe that the Proust questionnaire is the inspiration for many interviewers throughout the years, so I gave in and borrowed some questions.
But I added some more modern questions as well, and made my questionnaire. We aren’t officially launching this until probably January 2006, when the Center’s website is updated and changed a bit to reflect their new name and logo. But I am really eager to get more interviews done. So far, I have done two. The first was with a local independent filmmaker. The second was with Christine Hahn, art director for the Chronicle, and host of a music show on CWRU’s radio station.
They were both intrigued by the Proust questions, and the director asked if I was trying to psychoanalyze him. But their responses were great, and I edited the first one and submitted it to Tim. He thought it was great.
In mid-November, Mika Major and I held a GSA summit at the Center. I had heard from three or four of the colleges on my list that they were planning to attend. This was to primarily be a brainstorming session, so we could listen to what these groups needed, what they were concerned about. There were lots of high school students, some of whom were looking to start a GSA at their school. It was inspiring to see so many young people interested in the cause.
It was a pretty casual affair, with pop and pizza, and everyone speaking their mind. I expressed concerns about Spectrum at LEC, and how I am hoping to leave a legacy to future LGBT students and their supporters. This seemed to be a common theme with the high school kids, that they wanted the groups to go on after they graduated. We listed ideas about how to accomplish this, and how to make our GSAs more visible, so we can increase membership.
Many of the things we came up with were ideas I have heard at Pride meetings, and it made me think of all the ways we can help each other out. Cross-promotion, co-sponsorships, things like this can be of benefit to the GSAs, Pride, and the Center–and this, of course, leads to benefiting the community as a whole.
I got some contact information from the high school student from Solon who is looking to start a group at his high school, and from Lorain County Community College, who have just a bit less trouble with membership than Spectrum at LEC. I am going to continue my outreach for these groups, beyond my internship. I feel like I have a lot of insight and energy to give to these groups.
Wild Plum Productions is the Center’s arts organization. They have regular gallery showings and performances, and use local artists to raise money for the Center. I promoted the event by placing flyers all over the LEC campus, and delivering them to bars around Cleveland. I also sent out an email flyer to people on my list.
And, of course, I was a volunteer bartender at the event. Wild Plum shows are open to the public, and feature paintings, jewelry, one-act plays and other artistic ventures. The events in November were held at the Asterisk Gallery in Tremont. We had quite a good turnout, and people were eating, drinking, and being merry. I would like to do more artsy things like this.
I am always amazed at the quality of the Center’s events. This is a non-profit, but everyone works so hard, and so passionately–but maybe that’s why. When you do something because you want to, and not because you are getting paid, I think there’s a much greater sense of joy and satisfaction. I first felt like that when I sold pop and candy at Pride in 2002. Every time I am involved in something as a volunteer, I enjoy myself more than I ever have at any paying job. That is how I know that these are things I should be doing with my life. If you would do it for free, if it makes you happy, then that is your destiny.
I had wanted to volunteer at the Center before I became an intern, I just never had the time because I was always working. These past few months have been a pleasure, and I am planning on staying on as a volunteer. I want to continue the work I started, and I want to become even more a part of the community.
The Center has many great programs that I could be a part of. Their Speaker’s Bureau provides experts on LGBT issues, and I know that is something I would excel at. I am still trying to get over my podium panic, but the more I give public speeches, however big or small, the better I will be, and the greater impact I can make.
One thing I really want to do at the Center is a series of lectures or classes called LBGT History 101. I have always loved history, and have, in the past few years, begun to read everything I can about LGBT history. I have met very few in the community, other than activist-types, who know much, if anything, about their history. My original idea came from the Q satellite broadcast back in September. Kathy Harvey, a transgendered performer, was talking about The Sissy Show, her performance group. I thought that a musical about LGBT history would be funny. There’s really nothing like that out there. It could be a short revue covering all the important events throughout history, and maybe feature music from icons like Judy Garland and Cher and Madonna. I’m not musical, per se, but I would love to see this come to fruition.
In the meantime, I would like to work on a program at the Center that teaches LGBT history. The Center has lots of youth groups, and I think this would be highly beneficial to them. Those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it.
I look forward to many years of working for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Greater Cleveland. I am impressed at what they have achieved in these thirty years, and I am proud to be affiliated with them. There has been so much progress on LGBT issues in recent times. I want to ensure that equality and respect will be afforded to all human beings in the future, regardless of whom they happen to love. As I said, I became interested in this cause because of gay friends who loved me unconditionally. What is more important than love? If I can make a life out of spreading love and acceptance, I will have had a life worth living.
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And you know, just like this election, the thing that really upsets me is the gay Republican. [The Human Rights Campaign] asked every candidate from the Democrats to the Republicans to speak on Logo, do you remember that?…
r head, you’re not the only one,” says Gemma Viets, one of OGB’s organizers. “I think that people are exhibitionists, and it’s one of the few outlets that allows them to express themselves the way they want to and not be judged. We want you to come away thinking, ‘Wow, I can really be myself, that was really a lot of fun.’”…
amp Sunrise, the Center for Integrated Therapies, and the Leather Archives and Museum, among many others. CLAW is a four-day, multi-venue leather event that draws thousands of people — and tens of thousands of dollars — from around the country and across the globe to Cleveland each spring. The entire Wyndham Hotel at Playhouse Square is reserved for CLAW guests and various features such as their unparalleled three-day auction, the largest leather vendor mart in Ohio (showcasing over 20 American and international vendors), a Sunday brunch and some spectacular parties. There’s also a juried BDSM art show (one of the few in the country) downstairs in the Halle Building, as well as field trips that will take attendees to the Rock Hall, the Christmas Story house, and a Tribe vs. Yankees game. It’ll be hard to miss 30 guys all dressed in leather at the Prog!…
