M O N D A Y
December 11, 2006
Q
Volume 15, Issue 17 www.stonewallnews.net
Now published every other week!
Serving the GLBTQA Community of the Pacific Northwest since 1992
ueer Sounds on the airwaves Broadcasting live from KYRS Thin Air Community Radio in Spokane WA, Queer Sounds features music written and performed by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender artists.
By Joyce Crosby Special to Stonewall News Northwest Queer Sounds radio show host Irey, 37, looks like somebody’s little brother, and after making an on-air quip about the Scissor Sisters sounding like Elton John, she giggles like a star-struck teenager. Then when Irey comments that cohost “Bob,” 30, doesn’t sound like a Bob, both women’s laughter carries across the airwaves into the night. Once the mike is turned off, Irey smiles at me and says, “We are crazy!” She’s right. They are…in an offbeat entertaining way. Queer Sounds is broadcast live from KYRS Thin Air Community Radio in Spokane WA and features music written and performed by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender artists. Irey was instrumental in getting the three-year-old show on the air. As a child, Irey dreamed of being a DJ. So when she heard that a low power FM community radio station was going to be built in Spokane, she developed a show that is of a progressive, liberal nature, with music and information of interest to the GLBTQA community. However, Irey, who volunteers her time and talents, is much more than a DJ. Her official title is Programmer because she’s the one who develops the play list, writes the scripts, schedules and conducts interviews and produces the show.
Irey and Bob hosting Queer Sounds
THIS ISSUE
Photo by Joyce Crosby
Local Gay-Lesbian History Project underway By Joyce Crosby Special to Stonewall News Northwest
Toilet Brush Christmas Tree | Page 15
Anything But Straight............................5 Arts & Entertainment.............................8 Business Directory . ................................9 Calendar....................................................14 Classifieds.................................................13 Distribution Locations.........................10 National / International ........................6 Resource Directory................................12 Reviews & Previews ...............................9 Spokane / Regional.................................3 Voices...........................................................3
Fly your Flags on Fridays!
Please see QUEER SOUNDS page 11
While working at Odyssey Youth Center as a Ready*Corps VISTA member of AmeriCorps, Maureen Nickerson envisioned a wall at the center covered with memorabilia of local GLBT groups, as well as individuals who have made contributions to the community. The mission of Nickerson’s project is to piece together accurate pictures of what it was like to be gay in the Inland Northwest in the 20th century. With the support of the GLBT community, the idea of an exhibit at Odyssey has progressed into a major historical project. While our GLBT youth have the opportunity to connect with one another and adult mentors through Odyssey, Nickerson wants to provide the youth who gather there a “much broader sense of history and identity.” She feels that if the GLBT community fails to record its history for future generations, its reality will be lost forever. All that will be saved is society’s somewhat distorted opinion of GLBT life. This is why, since her service as a VISTA volunteer ended in November, Nickerson has devoted most of her time and attention to the project. Each generation has the generation before it to thank for the progress that has been made with regard to inclusion and acceptance of LGBT persons. “It is important to know
whose shoulders you are standing on,” Nickerson states. “And the more information you have about them, the higher up you can start.” Nickerson has already identified individuals from the area’s past to include in the project. One was a Native American woman, a Kootenai, who took a wife and lived for a time at the Spokane House in the 1800s. Because she and her wife acted as guides for French and English trappers and explorers, several entries referencing her can be found in their journals. Maureen Nickerson Photo by Joyce Crosby Another historical draw the line somewhere in defining who figure was a doctor who was born a is considered an elder,” Nickerson says. woman, and in 1918, became a man. He Nickerson wants people to know practiced medicine in the Northwest and that “you don’t have to be totally out to lived in Spokane for about 18 months participate in this history project. We before he and his wife moved back East. realize it is still difficult for people to be Nickerson has interviewed about out, particularly in outlying areas. It is a dozen elders from the local GLBT possible to remain anonymous and still community. She has heard and recorded take part and help to round out the history many fascinating stories, but the of our queer community.” According historical accounts she has documented to Nickerson, there is a different set thus far are “just a handful of pieces in of criteria for GLBT elders from “way, what must be an enormous puzzle.” She is looking for people born before 1960 who Please see HISTORY page 3 would like to tell their stories. “We had to