Mapping Our Quandary

Conference shows promise and pitfalls as queer activists ask:
Which way from Wenatchee?

by Richard Jackman
Free Press contributor

We knew we weren't in Seattle anymore when the bright-eyed clerk at the Wenatchee Vagabond Motel asked my traveling companion why we were in town. "We're attending the Mapping Our Journey Conference," he said, testing the water. With our leather jackets, earrings and buzzed hair, we probably did not look like we were eager to see the apple museum. But the clerk looked blank. "At the Red Lion Inn," I added. "Oh, I know why you're here," she said, lowering her eyes, and handed us the key to our room with the double bed.

And indeed, a few blocks down the street the illuminated sign in front of the Red Lion discreetly blared, "WELCOME MAPPING OUR JOURNEY." There probably wasn't room for "The First Annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Political Planning Conference." But how about "Welcome Queer Troublemakers"? The contradictions lasted all weekend.
The weekend might have spawned the sort of spontaneous public education that happens when queers converge on a conservative town and just act like themselves. But at a reception Friday evening a small group of conservatively dressed men and women who all seemed to know each other chatted and sipped mixed drinks. It could have been the Rotary convention happening at the other end of town.
And for all Wenatchee knew, it was. No mention of the conference appeared in the local press, and word had not even spread very far on the local queer grapevine. Susan Freiberg, a local woman who did attend, said, "I think it's ironic that this conference was not very out in Wenatchee. A lot of people did not even know about it."

Mad Vow Disease
The conference was organized by Hands Off Washington, the Privacy Fund and several other organizations. Hands Off, a statewide grass-roots group formed to fight anti-gay initiatives, and the Privacy Fund, a lobbying group, have had long-standing disagreements over strategy and sharing power. This tension came to a head in the spring of 1995 when Hands Off unilaterally decided to launch a campaign for a state initiative to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. Some activists saw the idea as ill-conceived and poorly timed. Fur flew, and Hands Off backed down.

Recently Hands Off and the Privacy Fund announced a merger of the two groups. Keynote speaker Urvashi Vaid, after joking that the merger was part of a gay marriage fad she tagged "mad vow disease," hailed the arrangement as "pathbreaking and very wise."
While using different strategies, both groups focus on legislation and the politicians who pass legislation. Both are also closely associated with the Democratic Party. The agenda reflected this identification of queer politics with the mainstream political structure, with sessions like "Money in the Political Process," and "Get Out the Vote!" Traditional queer strategies such as public education, coming-out campaigns and community building activities were largely ignored. So were issues of long-standing concern, such as AIDS and anti-gay violence.
Janice Van Cleve, a co-organizer for the conference, explained that given the tight two-day schedule, the planning committee had decided to focus on "tools, not issues." But the "tools" seemed to presuppose what the issues were. And two sessions were devoted to legalizing same-sex marriage. Van Cleve conceded that the agenda was ultimately a matter of deciding which issues to emphasize, and the decisions were made by the organizers. Van Cleve is outreach director for the Legal Marriage Alliance.

Why Wenatchee?
Wenatchee, a town in central Washington, is not exactly known for its queer community. It has no gay bars, those traditional barometers of queer culture, and few political or social organizations. To the contrary, central Washington is known as a stronghold of conservative Republicanism and Christian Fundamentalism. So why hold a queer political conference there?

For Van Cleve, some of the apparent drawbacks are the very reason for meeting in central Washington. "We picked Wenatchee because it's central to the state, it was someplace that made a statement about being outside of Seattle... We can show that we are being attentive to urban and rural situations," Van Cleve said. "And the fact that it was the home district of [Dale] Forman and the state Speaker of the House of course had nothing to do with our decision," she added, laughing. But the idea of holding a queer political conference in Wenatchee to send a message to right-wing politicians seemed ineffective given the gathering's relative invisibility.
The conference did succeed in attracting people from all over the state. About half of the participants came from outside Seattle, with many from Olympia and Spokane, and others from Bellingham, Vancouver, and the rural counties. And the symbolism resonated among activists who have resented Seattle's domination of statewide politics. One workshop was bluntly named "We Don't Care How you Do It in Seattle."
But the difficulty of reaching Wenatchee for anyone without a car, and the cost of attending, probably made it hard for less affluent queers to attend. Perhaps that's why the conference was so white. During the first general session, in a crowd of almost 80 people, only a few people of color could be seen, including Kathleen Saadat, the session's main speaker. When Saadat asked how many people were under 30, only a few hands were raised The vast majority were in their 30s and the crowd was overwhelmingly college-educated.

Homeless Girlfriend
The keynote speech by Urvashi Vaid, the popular former director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and author of a book on queer politics, Virtual Equality, set an ambivalent tone for the conference. Though she still felt it was the only practical outlet for the pursuit of civil rights legislation, Vaid was strongly critical of the Democratic Party. "Those of us who dissent and disagree with [the right-wing agenda] find ourselves in many ways without a home," she said. "And I say this with the full awareness that I might be speaking to a room full of wonderfully active Democratic Party activists. And I respect you for your work.... But I take very little solace in the national Democratic Party right now.... I find myself homeless as a progressive person, because liberalism has proved an unreliable ally, willing to sell out gay people... [when it] is politically expedient to do so."

With almost 120 participants from around the state, the Mapping Our Journey conference demonstrated the potential power of the queer movement in Washington. Hands Off Washington has organized communities and encouraged people to come out. Will this enthusiasm continue to blossom and expand into many directions, such as third-party politics, education campaigns and building community organizations? Or will the leaders in groups like Hands Off and the Privacy Fund direct all of the activists' energy into electoral politics and the Democratic Party?
Legislation or Education?
At the closing session, Laurie Jenkins, president of Hands Off Washington, declared that the way for queers to gain civil rights is "to obtain some kind of anti-discrimination law covering employment, housing, public accommodations, credit and insurance." But Steve Johnson, public policy director of the Northwest AIDS Foundation, said, "It's really wrong for us to assume one specific strategy is the answer to our liberation."
Patrick Haggerty, who one day before had said the conference goers were "really opening up to the idea of independent politics," blasted queer leaders associated with the Democratic Party for ignoring the potential of third-party politics.
Julie Davis, former campaign manager for No On 13 in Oregon, said, "For 22 years you have gone to your legislature and tried to pass the [anti-discrimination] bill, and haven't had it happen... and I don't think that the political environment is in our favor for it to get any better... [and] even if we do pass a bill through the legislature, the public education hasn't happened. And that's what.... was flawed about our legislative strategy. It depended upon some people who really liked us giving us what we wanted, but it never would have changed any public sentiment, anybody's hearts and minds."
Faygele benMiriam, an anarchist and queer activist whose first name means "faggot" in Yiddish, reminded the audience that queer liberation is the true goal of activism. He said, "Gay politics is simply the means to get us there, not the end."

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Contents on this page were published in the July/August, 1996 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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