This Way Out; 91

Will you teach us that federal law overruled the rights of students and faculty to be free from discrimination? Or will you leave us with a strong message that the faculty, the teachers, feel that there is no justification on earth that makes discrimination acceptable? My job is to go out and be out in the big world because as far as I'm concerned, there's not a lot of people out there doing that. One of the kinds of stories that circulate are of the photographer showing up to photograph the person with AIDS and saying, you're not sick enough. Give us the name of someone who looks really sick. Welcome to This Way Out, the International Lesbian and Gay Radio Magazine. I'm Greg Gordon and I'm Sandy Dwyer. Not everything comes up roses on New Year's Day. More Frank talk from a lesbian entertainer. And university faculties run it up the flagpole hoping no one will salute. All that and more because you've discovered This Way Out.

I'm Anuanyu Nyes and I'm Sandy Dwyer. With News Rep, a summary of some of the news in and affecting the gay and lesbian community for the week ending January 7, 1990. The Irish Parliament has passed a law which makes it illegal to promote hatred against gay men and lesbians as well as against people because of their race, color, religion, ethnic or national origin or because they are a member of the gypsy community. Ray Burke, the new minister of justice, was instrumental in the passage of the law titled Insightment to Hatred Act. Gay men and lesbians have hopes that the Parliament will now abolish Ireland's Sodomy laws as they were ordered to do a year ago by the European Court of Human Rights. AIDS activists briefly halted the 101st Annual Tournament of Rose's Parade on January 1, as it was being televised to over 325 million viewers throughout the world. 14 activists dashed into the street in front of the

first symbols of America float. They unfurled three banners which stated, emergency, stop the parade, 70 ,000 dead from AIDS. The 9 men and 5 women from a group called Stop AIDS Now or Elts formed a triangle with the banners and then sat down in the street as police surrounded them. The activists who had chained themselves together in groups of 4 and 5 were quickly dragged from the street by police. One of the arrested women, Helene Schbach, said, quote, this has been a decade of shame when it comes to facing the AIDS epidemic. We wanted to start out the next decade on the right foot. But we hope that people understand that for 70 ,000 people with AIDS, the parade has ended for good. All of those arrested were charged with unlawful assembly and failed you to disperse and released 8 hours later on their own recognizance. People with AIDS have come up winners in a lawsuit against a city in the state of Illinois. Mary Van Clay has the story. Several people with AIDS in southern

Illinois have rung in the new year in a new home. Last month, they became the winners in the first AIDS discrimination suit filed under the Federal Fair Housing Act. The loser in the case is the city of Belleville, Illinois, a town of 41 ,000 people just east of St. Louis, Missouri. Belleville's mayor, Richard Brower, said the town was not being discriminatory when it tried to stop Charles Baxter from opening a home for people with AIDS. Brower says he and the city council just saw the issue as a simple zoning case. It's surrounded by a motel, a junior high school, two office buildings. If that's a right place for a AIDS shelter or whatever you want to call it, state highway that runs in front of it with over 10 ,000 cars a day going by, that was simply a zoning decision. But the city could not convince the ACLU or federal judge William Steele that fear wasn't the real factor behind their resistance. John Hamill is the director of the AIDS and Civil Liberties Project of the Illinois ACLU. Fear of HIV being

transmitted to whether it be to school, children across the street, to neighborhood residents or whatever. It was really, as the judge said in his opinion, hysteria about possible transmission of AIDS. Hamill says he thinks the case is the only one addressing AIDS under the Fair Housing Act and he hopes it will send a clear message. These sorts of cases, I think, are important to convey a message that people who might discriminate that not only can you not do that, but you have to pay for it and call the hard bucks if you continue to act out of ignorance or to act out of hysteria. The city of Belville has agreed to pay House Director Charles Baxter $29 ,000 plus his lawyers fees and court costs. In San Francisco, I'm Mary Van Clay. School counselors, teachers, and librarians of the St. Paul Minnesota Public School System who sympathize with the problems facing gay and lesbian students have formed a network to assist students to deal positively with their sexual orientation. A student survey revealed that by the 12th grade, 6 % identified themselves

as being lesbian or gay. Meanwhile in Des Moines, Iowa, a librarian was fired from the private Dowling Catholic High School when he refused to stop associating with gays and also refused to seek a cure for his homosexuality. As a result, librarian Mark Henderson has filed suit against the school. A lawsuit has also been filed against the San Francisco Store William Samona alleging racial and sexual orientation discrimination. The company, a kitchen merchandiser, had fired two Latina lesbians, Maria Elena, Mistaiet and Monika Hakis, with a stated reason of excessive tardiness. However, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represents the woman, said that evidence shows that other employees, Caucasian and heterosexual, had similar tardiness records and were not fired, but tolerated. The center's lawsuit alleges that William Samona decided to terminate the two women who are life partners after learning that the week before Mistaiet had filed a complaint of unfair wage practices against the company with the California Division

of Labor Standards and Enforcement. The National Center for Lesbian Rights staged an informational picket of the store two days before Christmas to inform potential customers of the suit. And finally, there were five nominees for a folk album of the year at the New Music Awards ceremonies in New York City. Those nominated were Michelle Schacht, Tracy Chapman, Nancy Griffith, The Indigo Girls and Frank. In accepting the award, the winner, Michelle Schacht commented, quote, this category should have been called Best Lesbian Vocalist. That's News Wrap for the Weekending January 7th, 1990, written by Sandy Dwyer of the News, serving the Greater Los Angeles Area with contributions from other gay and lesbian publications and broadcasts throughout the world. Remember, an informed community is a strong community. Find out what's happening in your area by monitoring your local gay and lesbian media. For this way out, I'm Sandy Dwyer and I'm Manuel Nunez.

There's a growing movement on college campuses across the United States to drop ROTC, the Reserve Officers Training Corps, which trains students for the U .S. Army, Navy and Air Force because of the U .S. military's discrimination against lesbians and gay men. Student government groups at Harvard and Yale have already approved resolutions opposing the ROTC programs on their campuses. And last month, the faculty at the University of Wisconsin voted to recommend expulsion of their ROTC program, marking the first time the school's entire 2400 -member faculty had voted on a policy statement since 1970 when they approved a resolution opposing the war in Vietnam. The debate at the University of Wisconsin illustrates the complex issues involved. Sharon Sibart at WORT in Madison reports. The recommendation passed at the faculty

meeting is advisory and asked that the University's contract with the Reserve Officer Training Corps be cancelled by 1993 if the discriminatory policy doesn't end. None of the faculty argued such discrimination is right, but they differed on whether or not the university should tolerate it while waiting for the federal policy to be changed through Congress. Jordan Marsh, with the campus student government, asked the faculty members what lesson their vote would teach. Will it be that unfair discrimination is acceptable if we can justify it with a financial gain of some? Will it be that temporary discrimination is okay while we wait for some other body to change their rules? Will you teach us that federal law over rules, the rights of students and faculty to be free from discrimination? Or will you leave us with a strong message that the faculty, the teachers at the University of Wisconsin, feel that there is no justification on Earth that makes discrimination acceptable? Several professors argued that the ROTC policy is an invasion of privacy and tolerating it promotes all prejudice, Professor Joe Elder represented the faculty against discrimination. By attaching the stigma of unworthiness to gay and

lesbian undergraduates on the Madison campus, the ROTC policy injures all gay and lesbian graduate students, faculty, and academic staff on our campus, publicly defining them too by extension as less fifth and less worthy than their fellow citizens and perpetuating ungrounded myths and stereotypes about homosexuals, myths, and stereotypes that should long ago have been relegated to the dustbin of history. But student Thomas Wycheck was typical of those at a pro ROTC rally. If ROTC was purged on this campus to deny students from a minority background and students who can't otherwise afford a chance to come to this university on an ROTC scholarship, you know, deny those students a chance to attend a progressive university in which they can receive an education, they can hear conflicting viewpoints, and they can be enlightened. I think that the military policy should change from the top going down

rather than having a bunch of students saying this is wrong and then throwing it off campus. My professor Gordon Baldwin and ROTC Layison says he believes the faculty vote may lead to the cancellation of the program before 1993 anyway, because enrollment will dwindle or because the Department of Defense may think the atmosphere is inhospitable. He complains that the faculty vote is just a political statement. I don't believe that the statement for this faculty will carry a great deal of weight and immediate weight in the Pentagon or in the halls of Congress. The problem is complex, it will take, it seems to me, not simply a change in the Department of Defense regulations, but a change in the law. The uniform quoted military justice forbids homosexual conduct. So too, to the laws of about 20, 25 of American states, these laws may change, but it's going to take a little bit of time, and I don't think the state of Georgia or the state of Alabama is going to be much influence by what we do here. ROTC supporters point out that if Madison does oust the program, there are other universities waiting

in line for the ROTC. But many at the faculty gathering, including the university chancellor, say, whatever happens, they see this as just the beginning of a national debate over military discrimination against gays and lesbians. For Pacifica, I'm Sharon Feibart in Madison, Wisconsin. Prior to the faculty vote, the University of Wisconsin's Board of Regents had gone on record opposing discrimination, but in favor of keeping ROTC on campus. They may reconsider the issue at their next meeting scheduled in February. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Student Association, the university's student government, voted to support the faculty recommendation. Elsewhere, the University of Iowa Law School faculty voted to bar ROTC recruitment on their campus. A faculty panel at California State University Northridge voted to abolish ROTC. Northwestern universities' student senate called for withdrawal of university support for their ROTC program, and the student faculty senate at the University of Minnesota voted to mount a lobbying

effort to change the U .S. military's anti -gain lesbian policies. The growing debate over ROTC puts the squeeze on the U .S. Defense Department, which relies on college campus recruitment for many of its officers. Whether or not the debate will lead to a change in the Pentagon's policy prohibiting gays and lesbians from serving in the armed forces remains to be seen. With Sharon Feibart in Madison, I'm Greg Gordon for this way out. Don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more,

no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more. You've tuned in to this way out the International Gay and Lesbian Radio Magazine with Greg Gordon I'm Sandy Dwyer. Next up Rosemary Welch brings us the conclusion of a two -part conversation with Frank. That's with a pH, the flat topped all -American Jewish lesbian I've

always been one of the dudes with my flat top and butt, come back boots Now I'm learning all the thrills, come with wearing extra drifts Gen Jenny, Tonipam and Debbie They're trying to keep me to shave my legs Gen Jenny, Tonipam and Debbie They're trying to keep me to shave my legs, no way I think it's a pretty keen feeling on the swim team I can stick out yet still fit in, feeling up along it from deep

within And I feel lucky to have these friends, and they feel lucky to know real life Let's be on Gen Jenny, Tonipam and Debbie Are some of the girls, Gen Jenny, Tonipam and Debbie Are some of the girls, Gen Jenny, Frank, Tonipam and Debbie Are some of the girls, Gen Jenny, Frank, Tonipam and Debbie Have

you ever thought about the fact that there is a young woman or young man out there that looks at you and realizes that not only are they not alone but there are people that are of a sexual persuasion that the United States in general may not necessarily lie Like, but they're out there making a living and being honest about who they are that gives hope to a lot of young people That I believe is the importance in being out as a gay or lesbian especially in the entertainment world where you know you get so much visibility When I was younger growing up I always felt that I was the only one And I had very few people to look up to, I had very few examples in the world of people that were successful and positive and felt good about themselves And the people that were there for me that were out there and stuck their necks out and were themselves were Jill Johnson and Alex Dobkin When I found out that I wasn't by myself, it changed

my life It gave me more than hope, it gave me inspiration And I encourage gay and lesbian to come out because I think that's the only way that we can raise consciousness and really educate, let people know that we're all people You obviously were aware of the women's music in that little label and people like Chris Williamson and all And yet you chose a very different way of bringing your music out Right, because I feel that my job, this is personally what I chose to do obviously and this is my personal opinion, my job is to go out and be out in the big world As far as I'm concerned, there's not a lot of people out there doing it that come out as a lesbian on stage every time I play Because there's a lot of people that are going to come, maybe to Rock Show, a lot of young people that are going to come to show And going to hear me and going to see me come out on stage and hear the word lesbian that maybe they'll never get to go

to a women's concert Maybe they don't know of a women's concert, they don't know that there's other places to go to hear it So I love playing for women's audiences and I love playing women's festivals But they already know what I'm talking about, that's a fairly educated crowd And I feel that my commitment is to go out there and go out there in that big world Have you ever been involved in any of the gay or lesbian marches or any of the rallies? I haven't gotten to play at any of the gay pride things because I've always been booked to play someplace else I've played stuff for ACT UP LA, I've done a lot of, you know, activist stuff as much as I can do when I'm in town I try to show up and be supportive of the gay and lesbian community Absolutely And the title of your album is I enjoy being a girl And that's true, that's true It's true today because when I was a little girl growing up, boy I hated it Because I couldn't do anything that I wanted to do I couldn't look the way I wanted to look, I couldn't have the hair cut I wanted to Have,

I had to wear a dress in school, I mean they had that dress code But today I can really enjoy being a girl I can be me and I can say the things that I want to say I can look, well I want to look I can wear my hair the way I want to wear my hair and I can have fun So I've reclaimed a word girl I'm a girl and by me that's only great I am proud that my silhouette is curvy That I walk with a sweet and girly scoot With my hips all swiveling and serving I adore being dressed in something thrilling When my date comes to get me at my place I'll tie go with my Joe or John or Billy Like a Philly who is ready for the race When I have a

brand new hairdo And my eyelashes all in curl I float as the clouds on hairdo I enjoy being a girl And finally this week we continue and now and again series by Mike Alkorey of AIDS and Focus Analyzing mainstream media coverage of the health crisis The thing is you see what you want to see and hear what you want to hear Our knowledge about the AIDS epidemic depends on information we get from the media Especially mainstream television, newspapers and radio Paula Trichler is a linguist at the University of Illinois Medical School at Champaign Urbana As a person who delves into our language and its uses and misuses Trichler has been studying how the media has been structuring our understanding of the AIDS epidemic There is a range of opinion in the media about AIDS There are many ways of running about it But over time a consensus kind of evolves

Among the media it's like they've kind of canceled each other out It should be part of a routine story I think To critique the kind of information which is being given But instead there is that boilerplate paragraph in stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, whatever And the boilerplate recapitulates the conventional wisdom about particular disease about AIDS And to challenge the boilerplate is like challenging the tablets of Moses Once it was decided that AIDS was going to be important that it should be covered That compassion was called for I mean some sort of basic good rules I suppose for media treatment Then the whole question of how AIDS was to be characterized came about And so very early on it came that it was incurable Equation with people dying mortality And it was almost as though that was the piece of it that was needed to make it an important story But now as

people are living for a long time possibly even indefinitely once they're infected with this disease And yet that contradicts the boilerplate And what it also contradicts is conventions of representation that have evolved in the course of AIDS And when you run a photograph of someone with AIDS they really have to look a particular way And when you talk to people with AIDS one of the things that one of the kinds of stories that circulate Are of the photographer showing up to photograph the person with AIDS and saying you're not sick enough You don't look sick, we can't photograph you Give us the name of someone who looks really sick And so that perpetuates the notion that if you look, that if you have AIDS you are very gaunt And lying in a bed and are alone and all that sort of stuff It makes it very difficult then to put the message out that this disease is not necessarily fatal And that it's more complicated than people are acting as though it is So

it's really very complicated The other thing that enters in here of course is a widely held view that science has a truth But there is truth in science And that's what the boilerplate in AIDS is about I mean once you've, this is what science has found and so what people accept it And to not accept it means that you have to come up with some really massive overhaul like a conspiracy theory or something to challenge it What to me is interesting is that if you go outside mainstream kind of accounts you do find different sorts of voices You do find people in terror I mean even something like Anne Landers you get a whole variety of opinion that you won't get in the New York Times One of the interesting things that the activist groups like ACT UP now which have a very slick media operation I mean they have media people who say in our lives before AIDS we were media people We knew how to do public relations, we worked in Hollywood And we

will mount a counter truth, a counter story about what AIDS is Not AIDS is an incurable disease but AIDS is a chronic manageable condition And so what they have done very skillfully I think is not just say don't do this, don't do this But they have provided the words, the language in succinct enough form that it can in fact be taken up and used They make things very usable by the media and I think it's very impressive to see the way that they've analyzed how the media works That's Paula Trichler, a linguist at the University of Illinois School of Medicine In San Francisco this is Mike Alkalade And loving is

believing in the ones you know Thanks for choosing this way out the International Lesbian and Gay Radio Magazine This week, Sandy Dwyer and Manuel Munez, Mary Van Clay, Sharon Seibart, Rosemary Welsh And Mike Alkalade contributed program material Buster Point Dexter, Frank, and Margi Adam performed some of the music you heard And Kim Wilson composed and performed our theme music Sudlight distribution of this way out is made possible through a grant from Christopher Street West Los Angeles We'd like to hear from you, with any comments, suggestions or questions you might have Address 2, this way out, post office box 38327, Los Angeles, California 90038 This way out is produced by Lucicapel And Greg Gordon, and we thank you for listening on WSUI AM Iowa City K -N

-O -N -F -M Dallas And Radio 2 -R -S -R Sydney Among others And for supporting this local community radio stations Stay tuned Thanks for watching