Unsung heroes

Six gays and lesbians marching to the beat of their own drum

by Thayer T. Dietrick

Each year on the third Saturday of June, we celebrate our lives with a march through the streets of the city. In 22 years, the annual Pride Parade has grown from a few dozen marchers to thousands. The gay community survives and thrives because of individuals who refuse to cave in to injustice, hate, hardship, and ignorance. This story is about a handful of those individuals -- six people who have made a difference, six people we are so lucky to count among us.

EDWIN J. HINSPETER

For 11 long years, Edwin Hinspeter worked on Oldsmobiles on an automobile assembly line at a GM plant in Lansing, Michigan. The homophobic and often hostile environment of the automotive industry made life for an openly gay man extremely difficult. Withstanding almost daily harassment in one form or another became a way of life for Edwin.

His locker at General Motors was constantly vandalized and covered with crude and hateful graffiti. What's more, "so many cars came down that assembly line to my station with the word `FAG' written on them that I began to think that maybe this was an option on the Oldsmobile!" he jokes.

To cope with these insufferable working conditions, Edwin immersed himself in the gay community of Lansing. He volunteered at both the Michigan Organization for Human Rights and the Lansing Association for Human Rights, to which he was eventually elected president.

When his lover David and many of their friends became ill with AIDS, Edwin also became keenly aware of the many issues surrounding HIV. And after helplessly watching David and so many others grow sicker and eventually die, Edwin knew he had to make a change. Both his private life and his working life had become unbearable.

"I hated my life. I hated it!" he says. Deeply depressed, Edwin decided to start over. In a move that must have taken a lot of courage, he uprooted himself halfway across the country to Providence and enrolled in the Johnson & Wales School of Culinary Arts.

With images of his friends in his mind -- friends who had literally wasted away before his eyes -- Edwin wondered how he could use the nutritional and culinary skills he was learning at Johnson & Wales to help people with HIV and AIDS (PWAs). He decided to approach the regional director of Operation Frontline, an organization devoted to providing low-income urban areas with nutritional, low-cost meals.

Operation Frontline works through community centers, churches, food banks, and other grass-roots organizations with direct contact to their neighborhoods. It is one of several groups that falls under the umbrella of the multi-million-dollar nonprofit SHARE OUR STRENGTH, or S.O.S.

When approached by Edwin, S.O.S.' director said that although his organization sponsored hundreds of food programs across the nation, they had never dealt with issues relating to AIDS. But if Edwin could come up with an acceptable program, the director said, S.O.S. would back it.

Working closely with PWAs and a dietician, Edwin developed an HIV nutrition program that not only addressed many PWAs' special dietary needs but took into account a variety of medical scenarios that might arise in the course of the illness. Ultimately, S.O.S. was so impressed with Edwin's curriculum, it decided to use Providence as a pilot program for the rest of the country, and Edwin's idea was eventually adopted by other branches of S.O.S. and Operation Frontline.

Later this year, Edwin's HIV nutrition program will receive further national recognition when it is published in the magazine Frontiers. Edwin also authored a paper titled "Food in the Gay & Lesbian Culture" that was chosen by Johnson & Wales for publication in its Student Writer Series and for inclusion in the J&W Archives.

Edwin's accomplishments are all the more remarkable when you consider that he achieved them while attending school full-time and working evenings at a local restaurant, often late into the night, to support himself.

CHERYL KIRAS

This past November, November 10 to be exact, Cheryl Kiras celebrated her fifth year of sobriety in a room full of friends. The sound of applause, words of praise, and warm embraces filled the meeting hall of a local alcohol recovery program for gays and lesbians.

The road to this point of triumph had been a hard one for Cheryl. In fact, she had tried to quit once before, back in 1988. But at the time, she says, she didn't really know enough about alcoholism to succeed.

"I thought an alcoholic was a man in a trench coat with a brown paper bag and a bottle, drunk on the street," she says.

Even so, deep down Cheryl did have an uneasy feeling all those years ago that something was wrong. "I did attend a couple of meetings back in '88, but I kept telling myself that I didn't really have a problem, that I wasn't one of them," she says. "Besides, because I never drank at home in my parent's house, because I would only go out to drink in a bar, I rationalized that I had it under control."

When Cheryl graduated from high school, she had no idea who she was or what she wanted to become. At the Community College of Rhode Island, she enrolled in classes on a whim and inevitably dropped them. She couldn't finish anything she started. Her drinking got worse. A lot worse. She sank into a depression and wrote damning notes to herself on scraps of paper: I messed up . . . I'm a failure . . . I'm nothing but a loser.

"Don't give up Cheryl!" her mother would say over and over. But what her mother didn't know was that in addition to her drinking, Cheryl was trying to come to terms with her own gayness. And she was scared to death. "One of the reasons I drank was because I didn't want to know who I was," says Cheryl.

The turning point came five years ago, when Cheryl moved out of her parents' house and into her own apartment in East Providence. Her roommate was a gay man, although neither of them was out at the time.

Cheryl was still drinking heavily. And when her roommate began to notice, she began hiding her addiction. One night, when he walked into the bar she was in, Cheryl remembers putting her glass under the table.

Then, on November 10, 1991, Cheryl was invited to a birthday party. She showed up with a basket full of beer and wine. Her roommate opened the door. Out of embarrassment and defiance, she told him she was going to drink Pearl Harbors all night long. She started to mix herself a drink. He tried to stop her.

"If you make that drink and drink it, you will lose me as a friend," he said. Cheryl looked at the drink she was making and thought, "Will I pick this drink over a friend?" It seemed so important to him. She poured the drink down the sink.

That following Tuesday, Cheryl went to her first meeting for gays in recovery, and eventually she began attending several meetings a week. She was finally connecting with people, finally identifying with them.

"I started to feel safe. I felt it was a good thing,"she says. "It's funny. Once I was alcohol-free, I had to deal with being gay sober. I couldn't drink away my feelings anymore."

In the process of finding herself, Cheryl started volunteering. She found that by helping others, she was helping herself. She went through the Buddy training program for PWAs, made a quilt for the Names Project, got involved with the passage of the state's gay civil rights bill, and even found time to work in a soup kitchen.

"I now realized that there was another side to being gay than just the bars," she says. "Doing volunteer work made me feel so good about myself. It opened up a whole new world for me. I now saw many positive gay role models."

When she took a course for addiction counseling training, Cheryl discovered that she loved the field of mental health, so she enrolled in Rhode Island College's School of Social Work. Today, she works full-time at the Veterans Administration Medical Center and goes to school at night. She has just completed her third year of college.

Cheryl lives with her partner Deb Shaw, and the pair will celebrate their fourth year together on June 19. "My life is so different now. I am not the Cheryl that walked into the halls of the recovery program that evening so many years ago. I have a good life," she says. " I am so lucky to have Deb. If I wasn't sober, I would not have found her. I would have nothing. I might not even be alive today. Now, I no longer fear the future, I look forward to it!"

JESSICA CRANE & DANA PATERSON

When Jessica Crane and Dana Paterson began taking courses in social work on the Lincoln campus of the Community College of Rhode Island, they were dismayed to learn that topics involving gays were almost never discussed. References to the subject were virtually nonexistent

in most of their textbooks, and when they did appear, they were badly outdated. What's more, there were precious few resources on campus for gay students -- certainly no place for them to drop in for support or just hang out.

Sophomores majoring in mental health studies, Dana and Jessica decided that rather than complain about the situation, they would do something constructive -- they approached the dean of students and asked for permission to start a gay club on campus.

The dean was supportive but told them that like any new club, they'd need a faculty advisor. Well, it sounded easy enough. Unfortunately, it proved to be more difficult than either woman imagined. "One teacher refused to even discuss the idea," says Jessica.

Not to be deterred, the women continued to look. In the end, the CCRI Triangle Alliance had not one advisor but two. Bill Pellicio and William Walsh, two gentlemen well-known in our community for their good works, came to the rescue. "Mr. Pellicio and Mr. Walsh are fantastic!" says Dana. "They could not have been more supportive and upbeat about the whole thing."

Today, Jessica and Dana are working on several goals for the Triangle Alliance, the first being an informal peer support group, a safe haven on campus where gay and lesbian students can meet, share ideas and resources, and plan social activities. Looking at the bigger picture, the two young women hope the club will eventually help educate the rest of the school and make it more open to diversity. They also hope that one day the Triangle Alliance will have an impact on some of the curriculum taught at their school.

Of particular interest to Jessica is the curriculum for nursing students. "There are so many issues that are not addressed, that are never taught to the nursing students regarding the special health concerns of gays and lesbians," she says.

Jessica and Dana are both new members of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee. Look for them at the beginning of the Pride Parade this Saturday, where they will be carrying the rainbow arch!

RICHARD MUTO & DAVID LIMA

Richard Muto is a Renaissance man. He is a musician, a singer, an actor, and a director. He designs and knits sweaters and is skilled at calligraphy, mask making, sewing, and set construction. But Richard is no jack-of- all-trades. He truly excels at nearly everything he takes an interest in. And his interests are many.

If you ask his friends to describe him, you will inevitably hear "gifted" and "multi-talented." You will also hear "a giver" and "a survivor."

Richard Muto is a survivor. He has survived rejection by family members, including a twin brother, who have barely spoken to him for 17 years because he is gay. Richard has survived two bouts of cancer, one in his childhood and one again as an adult. When several of his closest friends succumbed to AIDS, he also survived depression and great personal loss.

Throughout all of this, however, Richard has never stopped giving his time and his talents to the gay community, a community that he considers his real family.

Among Richard's many projects is a unique support group called Stitch And Bitch. "The group is a safe place where friends come together for mutual support. We discuss our problems, get feedback, and share ideas," he says.

The group is also a unique venue through which members learn and develop a variety of artistic skills. They knit, sew, spin cloth, weave, and create some fascinating examples of fiber art. "At some meetings, we do more art than talking, but there are meetings when we do a whole lot more bitching than stitching," says Richard, laughing.

Richard also volunteers his time as choirmaster for the Bell Street Chapel, a Unitarian church with many gay and lesbian members. An accomplished pianist and arranger, he frequently performs at NewGate Theatre, which both he and his partner David Lima are very involved with.

Although David Lima works at WGBH in Boston, he is very committed to the theater scene here in Providence. "We have a community here that is culturally rich and incredibly vibrant," he says.

As literary manager of NewGate Theatre, David reads dozens of plays a year, and he is committed to bringing works by gay and lesbian playwrights to the stage. "I am looking to bring work to the stage that can speak to a very diverse community, including the gay, lesbian, transgendered, and bisexual community," he says. "We have an eclectic community, and our theater should reflect that."

This past year alone, David has been instrumental in bringing three plays with gay themes to Providence: Unidentified Human Remains and True Meaning Of Love by Brad Fraser, Why We Have A Body by Claire Chafee, and Family Men by Chris Widney. (A reading of Family Men, directed by Richard Muto, was presented at NewGate in honor of Pride Week, and proceeds from a performance of Why We Have A Body were donated to the Pride Committee.)

"Working in the theater is both exhilarating and exhausting. You really have to believe in what you are doing to survive. It is so hard to keep a theater -- any theater -- afloat," says David.

Sometimes he does get discouraged. On a recent train ride back from Boston, however, David sat next to a student who talked about the injustice in the world and how she would like to make a difference. David found her idealism refreshing. It reminded him why he does what he does -- because there just isn't room for hate or intolerance in this life.

The last lines of Claire Chafee's play Why We Have A Body sum up this sentiment best. Mary, a lesbian in prison, is on the phone with her sister Lili. She is asking her sister to send her a string of lights so she can hang them on her cell ceiling.

MARY: That way I'll have some stars. That's what I need in here, some stars. You won't forget to send them, will you?

LILI: No, I won't.

MARY: I like a bonfire. I like a good bonfire . . . You know that . . . .

LILI: I know you do.

MARY: But I think I'd like those little lights. You know?

'Cause small fires everywhere are harder to put out . . . .