VERMONT'S NEWSPAPER FOR LESBIANS, GAY MEN, AND BISEXUALS Volume IX, Number 10 lmggsiw osuarmaiii i995 A New Paradigm; Creating Crawds II: I 1995 VT Heauh A Queer Town Meeting -’JAN 8 Department Launches HIV Prevention Policy Cleland E. Selby RANDOLPH -- Much has been written about HIV prevention, and 1994 marked an important moment for at-risk Vermonters. Last year, a committee of approximately 35 Vermont citizens created an HIV prevention policy that will be used this year to design what the committee hopes will be more effective ways to prevent the infection of HIV. One of the underlying assumptions held by the HIV Prevention Community Planning Process Committee is that prevention cannot occur when those at risk are not included in the prevention process. “We cannot do the same thing the same way and get different results,” William Lottero said on November 17th as he paraphrased Albert Einstein. Lottero, Director of the Advisory Consumer Board for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health ADDS Program, presented a workshop in Randolph for members of the prevention committee as well as other professionals working in the HIV/AJDS field. Continued on page 12. ermom Cm Paul Olsen MIDDLEBURY -- Over 500 Vermonters attended the Second Annual Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights (VCLGR) Statewide Conference and celebration held at Middlebury College on November 12, 1994. VCLGR’s “Queer Town Meeting” included a spirited keynote address by lesbian columnist Jorjet Harper, workshops, socializing, a lunchtime fashion show hosted by Cherie Tartt, and a New England style town meeting. In her keynote address, Chicago columnist and self-proclaimed “lesbomaniac” Jorjet Harper shared her unique humor with the crowd. In response to those who claim that homosexuality is unnatural, Harper exclaimed, “Anyone who works on a farm cannot think that homosexuality is unnatural.” Harper believes that as long as homophobia exists, we will never know how many of us there really are. Having rejected the option of lying, Harper described lesbians and gay men who are out of the closet as brave “truth tellers” with a Continued on page I 6. Lesbian?“ bar Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Middlebury College Shows Its Colors By Celebrating Queer Lives Michael Warner MIDDLEBURY -- While CBS television took us on our perennial joumey over the rainbow to Oz a wee bit earlier this year by airing the classic Judy Garland flick on Thanksgiving eve, here in Vermont we were treated to an even earlier head start to the place “above the chimney tops” when Middlebury College held a week—long celebration of gay and lesbian people entitled, “The Rainbow Festival: Expressions of Gay & Lesbian Lives”. Not simply accomplished by magic behind the curtain, this week of festivities was the culmination of more than a year of planning by administration, faculty, students, alumni, and staff. It began on Saturday, November Continued on page 20.