Breast Cancer Awareness • AIDS Awareness • GLBT History Month
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The Su»an G. Komen |
Breaxt Cancer Fnundatinn |
Sefit. 29
Greenville SC
Oct. 5
Charlotte NC
Oct. 12
Lenoir NC
Oct. 27
Charleston SC
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columna nueva
“Saliendo del doset*’
‘‘jDade a sah/o!” *
Dan Kirsch is first exec .
director of The Center 4
HRC supports ^-
candidates ll
Metrolina AiDS Project
gets money for meais 1 • ,
South Carolina 25
sc GLPM elects board
and new officers
Cy
Quetzal:
high-
energy
band
opens
Davidson
concert
series
Oct 1
Q-POLL
www.q-notes.com
Your music:
Rap . Hip-Hop . Rock
. Latin . Easy / Folk
Country. Jazz
Classical
OutCharlotte Festival takes center stage
CHARLOTTE — The OutCharlotte Cultural
Festival again brings fabulous talent to our
community. The Festival which runs October
2-6, celebrates the LGBT community —
providing great entertainment, workshops
and exhibits. There is also a
featured marketplace
for organizations,
businesses.
merchants and more. Come on out and enjoy.
A full schedule is in the Out & About section
on page 38.
Skott Freedman
Skott Freedman is one of the most out
and exciting sjnger/songwriters/pianists to
emerge on the contemporary music scene.
His work has been both nationally and
internationally recognized as devoted fans
are becoming increasingly aware of this 22-
year-old rising star each year.
Rich in tone and pungent with emotion,
Freedman uses his voice as a true instrument,
varying the expression and intensity with
every note. The final product sends the
listener on an emotional rollercoaster ride.
Aside from performing, Skott Freedman is
currently the nation’s youngest, touring
bisexual activist, traveling the country with
his powerful lecture, “Battling Biphobia and
Bringing Bisexuals Back to the LGBT
Community.” He has appeared on national
radio programs and is a regular guest speaker
at universities and colleges as part of campus
events. He has participated in fundraisers
organized by the Human Rights Campaign,
donating free performances in auctions to
raise money for the LGBT cause. Freedman
has appeared in Billboard Magazine, on NBC
News, ABC’s Daybreak, been profiled on
international LGBT NPR news radio
commentary This Way Out, a featured artist
twice on lNDlE-MUSIC.com, and has
appeared in concert with other artists such as
Sophie B. Hawkins, Jill Sobule, Judy Tenuta,
Sister Sledge, CeCe Peniston, Ultra Nate,
SONiA from Disappear Fear, Peter Mulvey
and Chastity Bono.
Kirk Read
Kirk Read is the author of How I Learned to
Snap, a memoir about being openly gay in a
small southern high school during the late
1980s. He grew up in Lexington, Virginia, the
birthplace of Pat
' Robertson - and ^
home to Virginia
Military Institute,
which schooled
three generations
of his family.
He began
writing at age 13
and had his first
play staged at 16.
Three of his plays
were professionally produced while he was in
high school, and he was an apprentice and
later a playwright-in-residcncc at the
Shenandoah International Playwrights
Retreat.
In 1998, he moved to San Francisco to
pursue writing, activism, and adventure. He
spent a year washing dishes at a Castro
homeless shelter and worked as an intake
counselor at the St. James Infirmary, a free
heath care clinic for sex workers. He was part
of the collective that produced the 1999 and
2000 Gay Men's Health Summits in Boulder,
CO, a conference which has given birth to
over a dozen regional health conferences
around the country.
As a freelance writer, his work has appeared
in Out, Genre, Chnstopher Street, QSF, and a host
of alt-weeklies, web sites and LGBT
newspapers. He currently lives in San Francisco,
where he is working on a second book.
CC Carter
• CC Carter earned her MA in Creative
Writing from
Queens College
in New York. She
received her BA
in English Lit
erature from
Spelman College
in Atlanta. In
addition to her
recent release
Body Language
(Kings Crossing
see OUTCHARLOTTE
Coming out is a journey, not a destination
by Candace Gingrich
National Coming Out Project Manager
The National
Coming Out Project
promotes honesty
and openness
about being gay,
lesbian, bisexual or
transgender (GLBT)
on campus, in the
workplace, in the
community and at
home. It is an
extension of Na
tional Coming Out Day — founded by
activists who believed that GLBT people
needed to be visible and that equality could
not be achieved from the closet.
I have met and spoken with thousands of
GLBT people across the country — many of
them feel that their own coming out
processes would have been easier if they had
somewhere to go for accurate, supportive
information. The coming out process is just
that — a process. Coming out to yourself is
obviously the key event in this process, but
for the majority of GLBT people, coming out
doesn't stop there. Every day holds the
possibility of a new opportunity to share our
lives with others. Whether we're filling out a
credit application, striking up a conversation
on the bus, or being asked what we did over
the weekend — there are opportunities
almost daily to come out. We also cannot
forget that our straight allies have their own
coming out journeys as they decide to be
open and honest about their support of GBLT
people.
If you are going through the coming out
process yourself, remember that you are not
alone. The National Coming Out Project's
resources will hopefully provide direction on
this incredible journey. Coming out is still the
single most important thing you can do to
turn ignorance into understanding. Not only
are you empowering yourself but you are
helping to educate those around you and
enable them to become "straight but not
narrow."
If you visit our web site’s resources as a
counselor, friend, parent, advisor, clergy.
teacher, social worker — a big thank you for
realizing the importance of helping others
through the coming out process. There are
numbers I could cite here with which you are
probably all too familiar — GLBT youth
suicides, drop outs, runaways. There are also
parents and grandparents who don't realize
or accept that they are gay, lesbian, bisexual
or transgender until much later in life, and it
is important to make sure that they have the
support and resources that they need. As an
ally, you are one of our most important
resources and a lifeline to those you are
assisting.
1 am grateful to those pioneers who had
the vision to create a yearly celebration of
coming out and those who continue to assist
us on that journey. I hope that you will join
me. National Coming Out Project and the
Human Rights Campaign in making America
a place where coming out can be celebrated
every day.
info: coming out guide English & Espohol
www.hrc.org
see Religious Outreach Groups on page: 14