New Queer Media

Wow- Gay Pride turned out a lot different than I expected it to. A series of assaults and harrassment seemed to just blow through the community like a kamikaze wind or something. You can hear personal accounts from the incident at Blow Pony here and listen to New Queer Media collaborator, Audrey Lawson, who was assaulted on the day of the Pride Parade here. Indymedia and QPDX covered the events as well.

A lot of anger and frustration bubbled up in response to the commotion, but fortunately a lot of people decided that they wanted to get to the roots of the problem and start looking for solutions and ways to heal the community. So in response there are at least two events that I know of and they certainly can’t be missed.

PDX QUEER TOWN HALL

7/7 at 7pm- that’s Tuesday

Q Center 4115 N Mississippi Ave

I don’t see how they could have made it any easier to remember. 7/7/7 no excuses!
After introductions people will break into groups where different topics on protecting ourselves and all variety of legal issues will be discussed.  I’m hard pressed to think of anyone in the  community who wouldn’t benefit from learning more on these topics.

QUEER/TRANS SELF DEFENSE

7/25 from 2pm - 5pm

Q Center 4115 N Mississippi Ave

I’m really proud of Audrey for initiating this series of self-defense classes for the Queer and Trans communities. Classes are by donation and will be amazing. I spoke with Audrey briefly about some basic self-defense techniques like raising your voice and positioning yourself so that your attacker can’t pin up against a wall. The next night I was at Crown Room and a drunk guy with blood running down his forehead was intimidating people. I noticed how I felt much more empowered to handle the situation for myself and others just from the brief discussion I had with Audrey. So please, go to this workshop and spread the word to your friends, it could save someone’s life, maybe your own.

Okay, you know that QDoc is this weekend. So go already!

I’m going to keep this short, but if you need more convincing here’s a link to the QDoc Teaser Trailer.

Opening night features the very promising City of Borders a documentary that delves into the queer underworld of Israel/Palestine. While the politicians, ideologues, nut jobs and whoever else are battling it out over the “Promised Land” these people are trying to get laid already! It looks less depressing than the documentary I saw Paper Dolls about queer (mostly trans) Filipinas trying to catch a break in Israel. Most of those girls had to flee to the UK after their visas expired and the snotty fags of Tel Aviv failed to recognize how totally amazing they were. It also looks much less academic than Trembling Before G*d which while boring did take us into the often impenetrable (wink, wink) Orthodox communities of Brooklyn and Israel. So what I’m trying to say is that City of Borders actually looks like it will be fun to watch and not just educational. Also it’s not just about Queer Jews or just about Queer Arabs, but about their interplay amidst the tension of the endlessly frustrating occupation. City of Borders

U People features a lot of hot women and transmen of color from Brooklyn. It’s more fun than a weekend out on the patio at Cattyshack. Seriously, these women and transmen are hot and they’re political, but mostly it’s because they’re getting together, being themselves and creating their own stories that makes them so hot and so relevant. Bear witness to U People.

I promised I’d make it short, I’m cutting myself off here. Just GO to QDoc, tickets are $8, it’s at the Clinton Street Theater, it’s this weekend and you go to http://queerdocfest.org/ for more information.

To be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered is simple, it requires no effort and makes a person no more interesting than anyone else (including straight people). Yet some allow that sexuality to define every aspect of their being, thus their entire existence becomes the means to advertise their sexual preference.
These people are not queer.
The queer holds a vast array of interests that span different topics and mediums. It forms a tapestry of knowledge and potential that defines the queer in a way that something as primal as sex never could.
Queers exist within the world as individuals, they haven’t ever fit in and never really wanted to. They realize that while the path ahead will most likely be more lonely, it is also personally fulfilling, and they like that. To the queer a sense of self is valued above all else.
Experience is highly regarded and “queer-friendly” is never used as a qualifier for anything new. Having never really fit in with the traditional “LGBT” ready-made community, queers set out to explore various sub-sets with the knowledge that they may not find their niche, but they will almost certainly find a story.
Their values are important, but they prefer to let their actions speak for them. They are the quiet ones, existing in the world as one character in an ensemble cast with equal importance to all others.
These are the queers, and with that kind of manifesto, it could easily be argued that queers exist beyond the “LGBT” community to include humanity at large, and that is exactly the point. Queers are human first - they demand to be known, respected and loved for that reason and that reason alone.

If you had asked me to define Queer six months ago when I came out you would have gotten a rather basic answer.  Until recently, the Q word seemed to me a shortened, less cumbersome substitute for the ever-expanding LGBTQI (and is there a second I?  I can’t keep up).  While this isn’t wholly incorrect, my experiences over the last half year have certainly shown it to be incomplete.  Queer is a concept not easily defined because it purposefully eludes limitation.  Perhaps, for a person such as myself who is inherently wary of labels and their baggage, this is the greatest attraction to the term.  It is a bold statement and a burst of expressive energy with very few boundaries or defining characteristics.  It is an identity, fresh and forceful, constantly in flux and dispute, and wholly molded by subjective interpretation.  Ultimately, Queer is what you want it to be!

I’ve crossed a lot of borders in the last twelve months – a great number of them physical, a good many mental, at least one spiritual, and all of them foreign.  One year ago in April I was somewhere along the southern coast of Mexico just getting started on what was to be a seven-month road trip through Latin America with my girlfriend, Thai.  After seven years of sharing an amazing love together we were finally ready to part ways.  We had both known for some time that I preferred men and after several years of waning honesty and depressive episodes it was time to make the difficult but healthy decision to separate.  But what we had shared was not something to be mourned; it deserved to be celebrated – it deserved to be set ablaze, danced about, and pushed into the ocean with the greatest manic-jig kick in the ass we could manage!  And so we decided to drive to Machu Picchu.

We laughed and kissed and danced through unfamiliar scenes until the money ran out, then we walked resolutely onto a return flight and into new lives.  I remember saying goodbye to her at LAX as she went home with friends and I stepped into my brother’s car.  For all the time I spent sensationalizing in my mind what that final moment would be like it went by so quickly, so lightly.  It makes me smile to think that we were really ready for it.

The next morning, my first day Out, I awoke in the conservative suburbs of southern California four days before Prop 8 came down – a sign on every lawn and a picket on every corner.  Stories of fights between strangers in supermarkets.  It was a rather blinding introduction.  It was also a great impetus to stand up quickly and to find the strength within oneself that cannot be stripped in the face of ignorance or opposition.  It is no exaggeration to say that every day since that first week in November has been a lesson, a blessing, and an immense step forward.

So what does this all have to do with defining Queer?  Well, frankly, everything.  To me, the reasons I identify as Queer have just as much to do with where I have come from as where I am going and how I wish to represent myself today.  It is an ambiguous term because, in many ways, it is a catchall for anyone who feels set apart from the illusive normal regardless of the reasoning.  Yes, it includes members of the LGBTQI(I) rubric, but it also fills all of the nook and cranny vagaries in between and expands far outward from there – ex-trans, hetero gender benders, or those who simply identify philosophically to name a few.  It is in no way exclusive, eliminative, or closed to anyone who feels a sense of comfort or belonging within it (and why should it be?).  For this reason, I feel it is a much more fruitful and reasonable question to ask ‘What does Queer mean to you in your life?’ rather than seeking an inevitably incomplete objective definition.

I am Queer because I wish to live with the most expansive mindset possible in my time here and that, in large part, means recognizing the fluidity of gender and identity and the limiting nature of the status quo.  I am Queer because I love people and stories more than I love bodies.  I am Queer because it scares and thrills me to meditate on the ill-defined, because in the end, that is what we find ourselves inundated with.  I am Queer because there is no single piece of evidence that points to the conclusion that this life is meant to be taken seriously.  I am Queer because I am connected with everything around me but ultimately walk alone.  I am Queer because I was born this way and because I choose to be.

I am Queer because it gets old having the 90/10 talk with anyone who asks me if I am ‘all the way gay’ because I ‘act straight’ a lot of the time.  Really, Queer in many ways is the same as saying ‘I am me – I am Andy – no more no less.’  Many people I talk with seem uneasy with the hazy boundaries of the word, but is this not, perhaps, it’s greatest virtue?  The ever-expanding LGBTQI(I) acronym, exhaustive though it tries to be, suffers the same level of constraint as the term straight.  In seeking to classify and catalog so many individual points it misses the reality that people identify, exist, and interact on a multidimensional field, not in a given number of boxes.

I am Queer because it is a reclamation of my right to happiness and the pursuit of subjective truth.  I am Queer because it is a battle cry in the hard-fought struggle that I waged with myself for far too long over boundaries that didn’t even exist.  I like to think that this is one of the few threads that connects our disparate community.  We have all had to climb a rather jagged slope to some degree to get above our own gray clouds and find ourselves.  Some have had a rougher time than others.  And it would be naïve to say that we all are not still climbing.  At some point, however, our hands toughen, we find a rhythm, and we begin to enjoy the view and the exercise.  For me, that is the moment one becomes consciously Queer.

Today, half a year since November, it knocks the wind out of me to look back at how much I have learned from the simple (at times not so simple) act of living in this city and especially in this  community.  I have met so many beautiful souls from such incredible places and histories.  I have paraded through downtown in drag – blonde, bearded, and beautiful – learning to operate heels for the first time on street pavement.  I have found work and friends at a gay bar.  I have also begun to reconnect with my past, or perhaps I should say to connect with it for the first time in a real way.  I am getting in touch with people I haven’t seen in years, rebuilding friendships that I let go for no greater reason than an irrational paranoia that anyone I let get too close would inevitably learn more about me than I wanted them to know.  Before coming out I was sure that I would feel more at peace with myself once the dust settled.  But to hell with letting it settle!  I’ve learned to love the energy in the storm.

From one April to the next, twelve months and several times over the horizon, the people I have met, the places I have visited, and the newly discovered pieces of myself altogether seem unreal.  The walls that seem insurmountable until they are seen from the other side.  The love and support that was there all along as well as those new wells of strength to be found when you open yourself to them.  The journey from there to Queer – a time of realizing that one does not have to discard who and where they’ve been to grow in new directions.  A time, too, of realizing just how many directions there are to explore.  What has Queer meant to me in my life?  It has meant all the Difference.

The other day someone asked me to summarize “What is Queer?”  I would be fibbing if I said I had a direct answer at the time and for those of you that are wondering my research is on-going.  How can one really answer that question?  Regardless of one’s personal opinion who could really speak for all of us?  Every queer in any city in any beauty salon, corporate office, trendy nightclub, or radical fairy coffee shop would have a different account.  There will always be someone with an estimation of whether someone is worthy of being a part of their queer circle due to some deluded de facto homo stratification.

With every effort of not seeming to be bitter, I truly believe that the existential understanding of varied queer cultures within our community should make it even stronger.  There will always be your token black guy that can always be spotted at your random Emo dance party.  Let us not forget about the really hot and muscle-bound bartender. You know, the boys with the smooth olive skin who bartend in a pair of poignantly tight Speedos and work out at 24-Hour Fitness not only because they respect their bodies, but because of the simple fact that it’s a job requirement.  Honestly, I admire the tenacity of those guys and would love to look like that so far be it from me to rustle someone’s feathers.  My point is that a queer shouldn’t have to don Diesel just to feel welcome when hanging out with the trendy queers. Some full-figured “girls” (like yours truly) can’t always fit into that ensemble let alone afford it.  No one has the right to turn their nose up at your typical East Portland queer that attends naked boy parties to acquire new hand-me-down clothing and could honestly care less about next quarter’s issue of GQ.  Who decides that you’re too fat to be at the twink party or way too anorexic to be at the bear parties?  Who sets these standards – the LOGO channel, Gay.com, or is there a Queer God out there somewhere that someone forgot to tell us about?  If so, then please save us Queer God - the thrift stores are receiving new arrivals and I don’t know if I can fight the buyer’s lust!

The unfortunate truth of the matter is the simple fact that people will always have their differences.  A good friend of mine was badly assaulted by a couple of lesbians just days ago.  They were intoxicated and recklessly tailgating a Pedi Cab, and when my friend decided to say something about it they decided to attack him.  The even more pitiful part about the situation is the fact that no one decided to help him.  How is our community supposed to become stronger when there are queers beating on each other while other queers bear witness?  How are queer teens supposed to establish any sense of their identity and self-worth when there are PNP bottom feeders shoving glass pipes in their faces and “showing them the ropes” when their parents kick them out for being gay and they have nowhere else to go?  With any determination and time we can get Proposition 8 overturned with the help and support of our queer community and our straight supporters.  The possibilities are so scary at times especially when you think about the significant number of the married heterosexuals in our country who have obviously tarnished the biblical “sanctity of marriage” not only by being unfaithful but also having a same-sex hookup at some bath house in the Castro during that business trip ever so convenient scheduled during Gay Pride.   I am quite comfortable with my sexual preference so far be it from me to judge them, but it would be quite interesting to know your voting choices and opinions on Proposition 8.  How about we make a deal?  You help the queers with Proposition 8 and we will continue to keep things “on the down-low” as you put it.  Now personally, I think that’s pretty fair!

For many of us being queer is a multifaceted, beautiful thing especially here in Portland.  Being a transplant myself, I meet so many welcoming native Portlanders ranting about all of the transplants.  Guess you can’t blame them – Portland is an awesome city where you can be as conservative or colorful as you want.  Why wouldn’t we want to live here?  There is room for so many more things to come in our queer community across the states and here in Portland.  We can either slowly degrade it individually or make prolific accomplishments as a whole and I believe that to be an affable concept.  Try to volunteer if you can find the time.  Support your local fundraisers when the cute go-go dancers and the drag queens come around with raffle tickets.  Save up some money and buy a ticket to the Red Dress Parties, and if you can’t find a way to show some support – then spread the word to someone that can.

What is queer?  Queer is what we have been fighting for since we first came out.  It is about loving yourself more than anyone else can. It is embracing each other for who we are and can be; no matter what the world thinks of us.  Queer is opening our eyes and minds to the people around that support us on the front line and behind the scenes and offering that support back.  On so many levels, being queer involves love, acceptance, and understanding and most importantly it’s our lifestyle.

James Dixon

Support SMYRC- The Sexual Minorities Resource Center
As they celebrate the Night of Noise at the Jupiter Hotel

Please visit www.dayofsilence.org to educate yourself! Portland’s queer community is blessed with social liberties that our queer family in other parts of the country are not.

Featured will be a full-length show from some of your favorite SinnSavvy performers: the River City Riders, Burlesquire, Angelique DeVil, and your Rose City Sirens!
Immediately following the show, DJs Automaton and Linoelum will keep the party sweating until 1am.
This party welcomes folks of all ages, and there will be liquor available for those 21+ who wish to partake.
” Please visit www.smyrc.org to learn more!
GET YOUR TICKETS AT TICKETMASTER OR AT THE DOOR!

ALSO

Join Aurora Chorus at Portland’s Hollywood Theatre on Friday, April 17, 2009 for LUNAFEST, a fundraising film festival dedicated to promoting awareness about women’s issues.

Ten short films by women filmmakers highlight the role of women as leaders in society, covering topics such as women’s health, motherhood, body image, sexuality, cultural diversity, and breaking barriers.

Proceeds from LUNAFEST will benefit Aurora Chorus and the Breast Cancer Fund.

WHEN: Friday, April 17, 2009
6:30 p.m. VIP Reception with “Grappling Girls” Filmmaker Lisa Blackstone
7:30 p.m. Showing of LUNAFEST Films

WHERE: Hollywood Theatre
4122 NE Sandy Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97212

TICKETS: VIP tickets (advance sales only) or $18/15 at the door

photo by Lucas Balzar

Preview:

Holcombe Waller plays a rare solo show at Mississippi Studios Thursday Night (April 16), breaking out dirty-pleasure covers (Helio Sequence, George Michael, Simon and Garfunkle, Tori Amos and more), old favorites, and new experiments. As the Mercury calendar says this week, “It’s easy to fall in love with Holcombe Waller and his sweet, heartbreaking music.” It’s easy to fall in love AT a Holcombe Waller concert, too, cuz of the cool mix of queers, hipsters, old foagies and artists that come together for the quiet spectacle.

Be there!

The week the Sam Adams scandal broke out we started asking people if there was enough energy and interest in the local queer community to support a new media outlet for queer news and culture. Ever since Just Out called for Mayor Sam Adams’ resignation in January there’s been a lot of anger in the Portland queer community focused at Just Out and Marty Davis, but pursuing this idea of New Queer Media has more to do with what my middle school science teacher told me in the seventh grade than anything to do with any of the recent controversy. “If you don’t like what you read in the school paper then you should either write for the paper or start your own paper. I don’t want to hear any complaining when your schoolmates worked really hard to put out this paper.” His words still ring clearly in my head whenever I don’t like a news media source.

I’m not saying the mayoral scandal was irrelevant in the decision making process, but ultimately I find that most journalism targeted at the local and national queer community has been falling short for at least the past decade, if not longer. For starters it’s hard to find a magazine or newspaper that embraces a standard of beauty different than what I would find in Vogue or GQ. Where are the bears, dykes (and I don’t mean lesbians), genderqueers, trannies, proud bisexuals and queers of size? Butt and Curve do a lot better than Out or New York City’s HX, but I’m still not really satisfied. I don’t prescribe to the prevailing wisdom that in order for a queer publication to appeal to a large audience it has to water down it’s content and replicate something that the mainstream has already given us. Queers have been the driving force behind culture for eons, but more often than not we just package the heteronormative myths and sell them back to the straight world. Why do our own publications have to do that same old bull?

Mainstream GBLT publications haven’t really done a lot of justice to the transgender and transsexual communities. Bisexuals and people who have a more fluid definition of their sexuality are often ignored or their perspectives glossed over. This just doesn’t work for me and my experience and the more I talk to my fellow queers I find they are thinking the same thing.

Portland is a unique place with a unique culture and from time to time you will see stories in our local media about what is going on here, but for the most part I don’t see a lot of news stories about our community that couldn’t be replicated in San Diego, Cleveland or Topeka. It’s a real shame when journalists in New York, San Francisco and Seattle who visit here for a couple days have more to say about the local queer culture than anything you will read in the local rags.

In the spirit of less bitching and more action I’m going to stop there with my lists of grievances and talk more about what we at New Queer Media intend to do about it. It isn’t totally original or mind blowing, but some of the best ideas don’t involve reinventing the wheel.

Journalism That Matters
I’ve been speaking with a friend of mine who’s one of the founders of Journalism That Matters about the current state of journalism. Papers that maintain their business model from a decade ago are going out of business, websites apparently can’t charge the same rates for advertising, readers won’t pay for content on the internet, no one is making money and journalism is dying. That’s the prevailing sentiment of the day when it comes to the state of journalism.

Talking with this friend of mine he showed me some flow charts about how journalism has been working in a very linear and static way. The new model is so new that even the people who are using it don’t always have words for what it is they are working with. This new model (they’re calling it “The New News Ecology”) is interactive and it flows in a cyclical manner where audiences and reporters are working with one another on a story enriching and developing a greater perspective and level of knowledge on topics that are of interest and importance to them.

So in a nutshell we’re envisioning New Queer Media to be more than just a web magazine, but a place where readers and reporters will exchange ideas and interact with one another in a meaningful and productive way. The traditional journalism values of transparency, accuracy and truth-seeking are values that will remain while we embrace the emerging news ecology.

A Bit About What To Expect

We’re still in our planning stages, but we do know that we’re going to start out as a web magazine. So you’ll find events, reviews, columns, regular features, and blogs like you would with any other web magazine. On the business side we’re looking to structure the business as a cooperative where those who work for the site will also be owners. Readers will be engaged in the story making process and have plenty of different ways to interact with us and shape the content of the site. The interaction could be as simple as something as Facebook’s “like” feature to a forum where readers can have their chance to not only comment, but shape the stories and features that we cover. We will involve the queer business community and provide ways for the business community to interact and engage with our readers through advertising, events, and community projects.

Ultimately New Queer Media is about celebrating and strengthening the queer community in all its permutations. We’re putting a lot of thought into supporting and creating events, community resources and entertainment that reinforces our strengths and empowers the community. A tall order, but why settle for mediocre? Our community is strong, creative, and powerful and if we’re going to serve you we only want to provide you the best.

Geoff Watland

What is Queer? Cool, Unfortunately
by Nick Mattos

In Portland and many other urban centers, the young and hip set of homosexuals are the ones who self-identify as queer. I’ve heard many justifications for the term “queer” over “gay” or “lesbian” or
“homosexual” - people praise its inclusivity in applying to all genders, its subversive reclamation of language, its ambiguity. While each of those are legitimate and important reasons to use the term “queer,” the problematic aspect in the larger community is that “queer” is a cool term.

I recently had an epiphany that shattered a mythology I had embraced for most of my adult life while reading the marvelous book How To Stop Time: Heroin from A-Z by Ann Marlowe.  I realized that the things and people that could be described as “cool” were being described as such from exterior viewpoints, and that the very state that defined them as being “cool” registers as singularity and loneliness from the inside.
This explained to me the celebrated cool of jazz musicians, tortured artists, and junkies. The most problematic aspect, though, is that once one is alienated enough from one’s own feelings to be able to identify with the exterior viewpoint, one decides they themselves are cool. In that regard, it’s not an aesthetic term at all.

Gay culture in its current permutation has expressions of insecurity and loneliness woven into its fabric. This is why we as a people have to suffer the cognitive dissonance of having both overwhelming pressures to conform to the social mores of homosexual cultural identity and a homosexual culture that asserts that our being engaged in it is to be expressing our true inner self. The “queer” subculture within the larger homosexual culture started as a reaction to this effect. It was an attempt to assuage this cognitive dissonance by affirming that mainstream gay culture - with its assimilationist views and the first groanings of what could be termed the Gay Industrial Complex - didn’t say anything meaningful about the lives of many of its members. The trouble, however, is that the very thing that made people hungry for an alternative to mainstream gay culture - their sense of loneliness and alienation within it - led to the alternative being cool.

Coolness and complacency inform each other; they share an underlying banality of blank affect. Any excitement about discovering a subculture that even comes close to reflecting an inner truth quickly
turns to jadedness and then bitchiness, fragmenting community and prohibiting any real evolution. When queerness means that one rides a fixed-gear bike, has a beard, doesn’t engage in monogamous
relationships, or looks down upon mainstream gay society, queerness fails in providing a real alternative subculture and becomes equally as oppressive as what it was constructed to oppose.

The question stands: how can we dismantle the isolation and loneliness that make “queer” cool? I will be quite honest - I don’t know. I believe that if it were one single answer, one credo that would enable queer people to be a revolutionary subculture, it likely would have been proposed and shot down already. However, the important aspect is to keep this vital conversation going, to keep both an analytical and a compassionate eye upon the queer community. It is for this reason that New Queer Media Portland is vitally important and unique, and why it is vital that queers with something to say do so bravely via media such as this.

What does it mean to me to be a member of the Queer community?
Being Queer means being home.
Being Queer means that no matter what I’m facing as an individual, I have people around me.
Loving people; my peers.
Going though similar life experiences and bringing us all closer together.

Being Queer means the struggles I face in society will be beneficial for many other people going through similar challenges.
Being Queer means I have a voice among equals.
Being Queer means I am never alone.
Being Queer means I live my promise to see the world as an amazing place where I understand my actions and the actions of others place emphasis on the universal human family and the act of being a limitless, loving family member.
Being Queer is not only a lifestyle or a choice.
Being Queer means finding peace and comfortability in my own skin.
Being Queer means being free to live through a loving intent and seeing people for more than just a label or within a political emphasis.
Being Queer is being alive.
Being Queer is being loved for who you are.
Being Queer is being more than just a demographic.

Nikki Jauron 03/18/09