WILB To
QUAR
HQ75 /
.0971

G LBT Expo:
The Good, The Bad, & The Fab  

"Does purchasing power represent political power‘
_or is consumption the uitimate distraction?
Last month Ric Kasini Kadour cruised through a

Volume XIX, Number 4

   
  
   

place where these concepts ciash.

accept you.

ment.”

I one time in America, your iden-
tity was shaped largely by what
you did. America has changed,
however. It is no longer what you do, but
what you buy that is important. Access to
social enfranchisement comes not from
producing but from consuming. As such,
be you an immigrant or a queer person,
driving the right car, vacationing at the
right destination, buying the right food, or
wearing the right clothes signals that you
are an American and tells other people to

“Advertising to gay men and les-
bians has often promised that full inclu-
sion in the national community of
Americans is available through personal
consumption,” observes Alexandra Chasin
in Selling Out.‘ The Gay and Lesbian
Movement Goes to Market. “In other
words, consumption has been held out as a
route to political and social enfranchise-

V The nexus of this cultural, politi-
cal, social phenomenon is the 11th
Original Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,

VOICE FOR THE LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY

Transgender Business and Entertainment
Expo held this past March at the Jacob

J avits Convention Center in New York
City. Over -the course of a weekend, the
Expo put 21,000 “affluent, brand-loyal,
well-educated, and business-minded” con-
sumers in front of 500 vendors hungry for
the “perfect market niche.”

 
   
   

At its heart, the Expo is like any

event where you wander around checking
out vendor booths. Think really gay Home
Show.

I was in heaven at the Expo — and
a little aroused by the promises of the
rainbow-draped booths and other assorted
pretty, gay stuff. As I descended the esca-
lators and passed through the enormous
rainbow-balloon arch, nostalgia for the
time I lived in Seattle’s gay ghetto over-
whelmed me. Having been back in
Vermont for three years now — where the
worlds of queer and commerce rarely

meet — I crave that place where sexuality

and pocketbook blend together like two
colors in a painting,
where one can pur-

cont’d on p. 9

 

Har

B_v EUAN BEAR I

n a case characterized by"

Vermont attorney Beth

Robinson as “a huge step for-
ward for transgender rights,” the
Hardwick Selectboard voted to
accept a sett1ement_on a transgen-
der discrimination claim investi-
gated by the state Attorney
General’s office. As required by
Vermont law, former Hardwick
patrolman Tony Barreto-Neto, a
female-to-male transsexual, filed
with the A.G.’s office his com-
plaint of harassment so severe that
he was forced to quit.

The settlement agreed to

    

Cuddy s activism moved
from global to local.

 

by the town specifies that it will
pay $90,000 to Barreto-Neto,
adopt a formal policy of nondis-
crimination against transgender
persons, and train its employees on
transgender issues.

The details of the case
began to surface in February, when
news of the complaint, an investi-

gation by the state Attorney

Gen_eral’s office, and avpotential
settlement broke in local
newspapers. A '
According to news

reports, the complaint alleged that
Hardwick Town Manager Dan Hill
urged newly hired police chief
Gregory Rambo to make Barreto-
Neto so uncomfortable that he

 Sets Precedent

would quit. Hill allegedly had dis-
covered that the officer is a
female-to-male transgender person,
and therefore would not accept him
on the police force, regardless of
his performance. Rambo left after
only two weeks, but the harass-
ment went on. Hill was quoted in
one news story as declaring that if
he was found to have done any-
thing wrong, he would offer his
resignation. Barreto-Neto said in a
brief comment when the news
broke, “I’m offering to buy him a
pen.”

GLAD attorney Jennifer
Levi described the discrimination
as taking several forms: a ranking
member of the Hardwick Police

Groundbraking Ruling Recogizes 1'rans Rights,

 

directed that Barreto-Neto not be

given necessary information, offi-

cers were slow to respond or did

Tony Barreto-Neto I

45%

not respond to Barreto—Neto’s calls
for backup, and
he was not

cont’d on p. 2

News 1-3
Editorial 4

‘ 5
F. . i ,

.,_.-.:~9-»- -w 2-