COUNSELING CENTER OF NORTHERN VERMONT PSYCHQTHERAPY FOR INDIVIDUALS, COUPLES, FAMILIES - Coming Out , amily Issues - Sexual Identity Separations - Life Transitions - Endings/Loss Bill McBroom ucsw 802.229.5220 Lynn Goyette LCMHC 802.860.6560 BURLINGTON MONTPELIER WHAT can THE: MAN no ro|zYOU?',/E» t Things he‘: done already: O Founded and ran an LGXT senior citizens center 0 Led a coalition to pass a Hate Crimes {aw in NY 0 Edited hundreds of books fior NY publishers 0 Raised over $200,000 to run for State Senate 0 caseworker. supervisor for home care program Ed Sedarbaum and his partner, cartoonist Howard Cruse, are looking to move to Vermont. Coutdrft you put Ed's skitls to work for you? esedarbaum@verlzon.net (41 3) 664-0735 Ed's resume: http:iIurysita.v¢rixon.n«Je:odarbaumIresuma] ‘Dr. Shoshanna S. Shelley LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST/DOCTORATE Short-tezrm therapy for long-term solutions Willi oifi-res h Hamid: and Good»: ll Beaver Meadow Rel resend. Street llonvich, Vermont Ouecbee, Vermont 649-! I23 295-2222 Mu! luuucu Accepted -v&__.eR-gwr.-:-:~._,¢;;:--ta.“ 4- 095'‘ go‘ ' 6, ‘9’°I7 ,/ _ . Q 0 , 9 «tot BLACKWOOD 92963 ’os,,0 9° ASS()‘§‘£1z€§;S,‘PC ‘€57? 9 blackwood.law@verizon.net fax? 8°?-'553'°252 » Concentrating in Employment, Special Education and Civil Rights Law. Also Wills, LGBT Issues, Estate Planning, Personal Injury, other uni medhfion. Roberts e%?”*5/iui Adv/‘sor as it “E 805 :3l0.6770 www.wésternfengshui. net 'V~n¢.\->2»,-n.»r.,veuA.~aza..n.«».x waua,»nxu.,v.»:.a.~.'sa Growing Up Gay in a One-Street Town I ort Trevorton, Pennsylvania has just ’ one street. The road wan- ders slowly off Route 15, going up one side of a hill overlooking the broad Susqueharma River, and back down again along the west side of the river. “Port,” as everyone calls it, is where I grew up until the end of fourth grade. I remember going once to Port’s old one-room school, tagging along with my older sis- ter on the day school photos were taken. I was in kinder- garten and proudly wore my striped, navy blue Reading Railroad train engineer’s outfit with a red kerchief around my neck. My own first-grade class attended a new, modern 19505 style school. It was so new that on the first day we sat on newspapers on the floor of Mrs. Wilson’s classroom, wait- ing for‘ our desks to arrive. These were the desks that would later “protect” us from the Russians during air raid drills. We lived in the parson- age, right next to Olive Church, a large old wooden edifice, one of the two churches on Port’s one street. My father was the minister for both churches. As the new pastor in town, it was ' his job to merge the Evangelicals with the United Brethren. Folks‘ couldn’t figure out how to worship together in either congregation’s building, so both churches were torn down and a new brick church was built. “Joey” lived next door, on the other side of the parson- age. He was an only child — a year or two older than me — whose parents ran the general store and hardware all rolled into one. Morn used to ask us to »“quick, run over to the store” to pick up a loaf of bread if we ran out on Sundays. You had to be quick. After all it was Sunday, the Sabbath, a day of rest. It was not a day for anyone in Port to see the minister’s family going shopping. In a one-street town, $$“ everyone knew the minister’s family. _ I haven’t seen or talked to Joey since we left Port in 1959, but I have always wanted to because somehow I thought he too must have turned out to be gay. I don’t know why exact- ly. Ijust had this feeling. Maybe it was his red hair and freckles, or a child’s version of “gaydar” even way back then. Once I tried to reach him by phone, just to re-con- nect, but mostly to see if he too had come out. It was after Civil Unions in Vermont in 2000, and my photo and name had been in newspapers all over the country. Maybe he had seen me? Maybe he had wondered if I could be the same Bill Lippert — “Skippy” to him back then — who had been Rev. Lippert’s son and had lived next door. How odd, if he is in fact gay, that we lived right next to each other in our one-street hometown. But not so odd, really. After all, my own youngest brother, Jonnie, three years younger than me, raised in the same small parsonage, shar- ing the same small bedroom with me and my middle brother, Tim, eventually came out too. (If you really want to ask some interesting questions: Why did Tim end up straight? What about the single woman who was a school teacher in town? What about “Bobbie” who never mar- .. ...........,.. ... . . . . . . . . . \h» 'n%‘JIv—.'vi 0K‘a‘¥3|lv.)"..“fi'.'3’*~'K‘)"‘-‘¢‘3V\»-tum‘V ,. ‘ — ,- , .-e-”¢ "couples they so vigorously pro- ried, and lived with his mother until she died?) We really are every- where, growing up all across America. This is the good news ' that will forever thwart the desires ofAmerica’s right wing religious groups for us to disap- pear. We, the gay men and les- bian women of America, are constantly being bred, born and E raised by the very heterosexual mote as the “traditional family." , We do not have to recruit. l Heterosexual traditional families constantly replenish America’s L future supply of gay men and lesbians. We may not have to recruit, but we do have a major Howirotdidl if Joey is; in fact gay.l that we lived} right next to, each other our one-streets hometownl responsibility. It is ourjob, as yesterday’s gay and lesbian youth, to make sure that today’S and tomorrow’s generations of queer youth survive the homo- phobia of their traditional fami- lies’ upbringing. It is our job to make sure that when today’s queer youth come out, it is into the arms of a gay-friendly world- ready and eager to welcome them warmly. Yes, the survival and thriving ofqueer/gay and lesbim youth = that is what first got me thinking about Port >7