Audio Interview, Susan Jordan, October 25, 2012
- EVELYN BAILEY: Today is October 24?
- SUSAN JORDAN: I think it's the 25th but I'm not sure.
- Tuesday was the 23rd so today is the 25th.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And I'm here with Susan Jordan
- going back in time.
- Not to the very beginning of time but--
- SUSAN JORDAN: It just feels that way.
- EVELYN BAILEY: But back in time.
- And so you began on the EC in 1979?
- SUSAN JORDAN: No, I was hired in June 1989,
- twenty-three years ago.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Where were we then?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, we were in the Monroe Avenue Co-op,
- up in the sunken room.
- And then the little EC office was off the sunken room.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And when you began,
- what was the production like?
- I mean--
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, in those days, we used boards.
- We had things printed out.
- And we pasted everything in with paste.
- So when we did lay out, we had the boards
- and we would have printouts of the articles.
- Then we would paste them onto the boards
- and send that off to the printer.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Do you remember who the printer was?
- SUSAN JORDAN: No, we had several different printers
- over the years.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Off and on, we had AdNet but it's a long story.
- And at one point, they didn't want
- to print the gay paper anymore.
- We had another printer.
- And then we went back to them years later.
- And so forth and so on.
- And then we had several more printers years after that.
- But anyway, yeah it was 1989.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And you had a light table?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Yeah.
- We had light tables.
- So we had X-ACTO knives.
- And we had benzene because of course,
- if you wanted to salvage anything from last month's
- issue like headings or whatever, you'd have
- to scrape away the dead wax.
- And you have to squirt benzene on it, which
- of course was carcinogenic.
- And you would hack away with your X-ACTO knife.
- So around 1990, I thought it might be quite a good idea
- to do this newfangled thing called desktop publishing.
- And then much to my horror, I realized
- that I could make things that are
- just as homemade and sloppy with desktop publishing
- as with wax and an X-ACTO knife.
- So fortunately, I had some good volunteers.
- Joan Baccino and Helen Mahaffey were the two people
- that really knew how to do desktop publishing
- and got me started doing that.
- So that's been what we've been doing ever since.
- No more wax.
- No more X-ACTO knives.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So with that, the files were digitized?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, they became an electronic file basically
- that you would put your-- when I started,
- I had to do all the layout although I'm not
- a graphic designer, but that was part of the job.
- So I did lay out for the paper using an old program called
- PageMaker.
- And other people used Quark and so on.
- Then gradually back in 2003 or so, we finally
- hired a professional graphic designer
- to do our layout, Don Alpert And he
- started using InDesign, which is still
- the software that we use today.
- And our graphic designer is Jim Emerson who's really
- one of the top professionals.
- We're very fortunate that he's basically
- volunteering to work with us.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Over the course of the first ten years,
- from 1989 to 1999, we went from the Co-op to Atlantic Avenue.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Right.
- Elton and Atlantic.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And so then, you had your own office
- and you didn't have the light table--
- SUSAN JORDAN: I had, we still had the light table around
- that we didn't use it that much.
- And basically at first, I had two rooms.
- I had a two room office with like four windows, four or five
- windows or something.
- And then gradually my second office,
- which was our production room, got taken over
- as the office for our new executive director.
- So then I had a one room office.
- Then we move over here to the auditorium theater,
- I now have a cubicle.
- So I'm sort of downwardly mobile, I guess.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I know it's not--
- you have covered a lot of news.
- I mean, I can't even imagine thinking
- about ten years of news but--
- SUSAN JORDAN: Fortunately I've forgotten a lot of it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: In that time, is there one or two news stories
- about the gay community that really have grabbed your heart
- and soul and catapulted you into an editorial stance
- of whatever?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, there have been a lot.
- I mean every story does that in a sense.
- It's a story about a kid who's being harassed at school.
- The story about this, for instance,
- Lance Neve who was gay bashed in a bar in Spencerport.
- Every story can catapult you into a state
- of rage or political commitment or whatever it is.
- I think maybe the biggest stories we've covered,
- one of the biggest stories, has been the whole trek
- toward marriage equality.
- Another has been the whole trek to get
- SONDA of course the basic rights at all,
- followed by marriage equality.
- Another big issue has been bullying
- and how we've developed our youth groups so that
- hopefully we have prevented some kids from committing suicide.
- I'd say that's pretty major.
- But I wouldn't say there was one particular story that
- made me politically committed because I was politically
- committed long before I became editor of The Empty Closet.
- But I have to say one of the most challenging things
- was the first story I ever covered,
- the first month I was hired.
- And it was like, OK, my first issue is the August issue.
- Nothing much happens in the summer.
- I can kind of learn the ropes and just put out a basic thing.
- And all of a sudden, a big news story
- broke about Jackie Nudd and AIDS Rochester.
- And without going into all that, all I can say,
- it was a very heavy intense story.
- I didn't know her.
- I didn't know anyone involved.
- And this was what I had to deal with my first day on the job.
- At that point, I realized this wasn't going to be easy.
- (laughter)
- EVELYN BAILEY: Before you came to The Empty Closet,
- you were involved with the New Women's Times.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Yeah, I worked for the Feminist Review, which
- was a review supplement to the New Women's Times which
- is a women's newspaper published by grassroots women
- here in Rochester from around, I guess, '76 or '77
- till the whole thing collapsed around 1984.
- And I also have done other newspaper work during my life,
- but that was--
- EVELYN BAILEY: And when you were involved at the New Women's
- Times, Maxine Sobel
- SUSAN JORDAN: Yeah, it was founded by Maxine
- and also Martha Brown and Karen Hagberg.
- And I forget who else might have been in right at the beginning.
- But I know Maxine was one of the main people
- that actually started it, if not the main person.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Was Rosemary Cahill an editor of the--
- SUSAN JORDAN: I don't think she was.
- I don't remember her being around the new women's times
- that much when I was, but she was
- an editor of The Empty Closet.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Who were the photographers that
- took most of the pictures in the early days?
- Was that Ellen?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Oh Ellen Nahafi took a lot of excellent photos.
- And there were a lot of people, most of whom
- I'd forgotten their names long ago, you know.
- But I've also had a lot of help with lay out which
- to me is equally important.
- Ellen Nahafi and Joan Baccino That later in the '90s,
- we had this wonderful guy who was a grad student, I believe,
- or at least a student at RIT in newspaper production, Victor
- Cardoso who redesigned the paper in a professional manner.
- And he could not be an intern and get college credit for this
- because his department head was anti-gay.
- At least that's the impression I got then.
- So but he did all this because he just-- he
- wanted to contribute to the gay community.
- He loved redesigning newspapers.
- After that I had major help from Brad [Keyes?] who then moved
- to Arizona.
- But as far as photographers, the one
- who really stands out over the years
- is Doug Mesler He was a wonderful photographer
- and around the late '90s.
- I guess, he moved to New York City.
- He's now got an international career and so on.
- So it was good for him to move and to really
- get a big time career.
- He should not have stayed in little Rochester.
- But it was a big loss to the paper.
- But you know, there are a lot of excellent photographers around.
- And we get them to volunteer for us.
- But we've never had a paid staff, so it's not
- like I can say, oh you didn't do what
- you said you were going to do.
- Well, you're fired.
- No more paycheck.
- It was like, oh, OK.
- Don't call that volunteer again but, you know.
- So it's a whole different world from a world where
- you have a paid staff of reporters, photographers,
- editorial assistants, researchers, and so on.
- We've never had any of that of course.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- So, what's the major challenge in working with volunteers
- versus a paid staff in getting the newspaper out every month?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, sometimes volunteers are wonderful.
- They meet the deadlines.
- They do beautiful work.
- They give their time and energy for free.
- And then other times volunteers don't work out.
- I had some photographers who would say, yes,
- I'll do such and such an event.
- And then instead of calling me and saying, well,
- it turns out I can't do it, they just wouldn't do it.
- And then I would say, where are the photos?
- Well, we couldn't do it.
- We lost your phone number.
- Why didn't you call?
- Well, we lost your phone number.
- Well, the Gay Alliance is in the phone book.
- You know, so, but you can't really do anything
- because you can't fire them.
- You can't deprive them of their paycheck.
- You know, and if you say anything
- then you're the bad guy.
- And you get the attitude from them, you know.
- So it's difficult working with volunteers
- but I have to say, we've been blessed
- by so many wonderful volunteers, who have really
- done great work for us and who have been responsible
- and met their deadlines and you know,
- even though they didn't get a cent for it.
- But I do console myself that at least they got by-lines
- and they got a photo credit or something for their resume.
- Not that I guess you could show a gay credit on your resume
- to every company that you apply to or whatever.
- But hopefully it's been useful.
- And we've given a lot of young writers
- their first byline and so on.
- So how great that was for them, I don't know.
- But at least there was something in it for them.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Have you-- has news
- in The Empty Closet been picked up by a national news media?
- SUSAN JORDAN: You mean articles that people--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Articles or--
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well sometimes.
- And sometimes we get requests to reprint things.
- But then I just say whether it's a photo or a column
- or whatever, you need to contact the reporter
- or the photographer because upon publication, all rights revert
- to them.
- And I don't know if the board is aware of this,
- but we don't own the things that are published in the paper
- once it's published.
- I guess I own it between the time they turn it
- and the time the paper comes back from the printer
- but then as I've understood it all these years,
- rights revert to them.
- And I say, look here's the person's contact info.
- Ask them.
- But as far as getting stories picked up,
- sometimes that happens.
- You know it's happened occasionally over the years.
- And part of the reason that I'm doing tweets now--
- I'm putting stuff on Twitter--
- is that I was hoping that the local media, which
- I am following, would start getting some gay or at least
- local gay information from the paper
- and from the tweets and the web site and the Facebook page
- that we have.
- And that's not necessarily true.
- I think City, somebody at City might be doing it.
- There's a couple sort of, but the main-- the D&C
- and the main news stations, as far as I know,
- have no interest at all in monitoring our gay news.
- And if there is a story that comes up, then
- they will call the executive director
- or whoever happens to be our spokesperson at the time,
- will interview that person.
- But they are not following our tweets,
- not paying any attention to what we have to say.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Is that pretty much been the case forever?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, we've only been tweeting for a few months.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yes but I mean in terms of--
- SUSAN JORDAN: I don't know.
- I think-- I've talked to a few D&C reporters.
- And they say, oh I read the paper.
- And you're doing what we should be doing,
- because probably these reporters are gay and closeted
- or something.
- But no, it's been minimal I think.
- But I don't really know.
- I mean, maybe there's editors are
- on the TV stations or the D&C that pick it up and look at it.
- If so, I don't know because they don't contact me.
- I am not the spokesperson for the agency.
- But one time something did happen where I deliberately
- intervened.
- There was one year where we were going
- to have the day of silence, you know the youth protest
- essentially, Youth Day of Action.
- And the D&C ran an article like the week
- before saying something with the headline
- like, parents outraged over gay event.
- And you read the article and you find out
- that one school, a man and a wife, who are-- the man
- is a Greek Orthodox priest or I didn't
- know they could get married, but somehow he
- was some Greek Orthodox clergy person.
- He and his wife objected.
- But from the headline in the D&C was like,
- all the parents of the school are up in arms.
- So I called the editor.
- And I said politely and calmly, you know this is misleading.
- You read the article, you find out
- it was one couple that objected.
- And he was like a Greek Orthodox functionary of some kind.
- And yet your headline gives the impression
- that all the parents are so angry that these queers are
- gonna corrupt their children or something.
- So he apologized, what could he say.
- And he sent a reporter and a photographer
- to the day of silence.
- And that was the only time the D&C has ever
- covered the day of silence.
- You know, there were photos of kids with the bandages
- over their mouths.
- There were interviews with them.
- It was a serious full length article,
- which would never have run if I hadn't called the editor
- and objected to that initial misleading coverage.
- And it never has happened since.
- And in this past year, there was no coverage of the Pride Parade
- in the Democrat and Chronicle.
- They did a little perfunctory article about the picnic.
- Did not mention the pride parade nor have a photograph of it.
- Here we have like, you know, 10,000 gays
- and their supporters marching through town.
- The D&C did not cover it at all.
- So I'm thinking our local media is seriously
- lacking in competence.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So you would put the lack of coverage
- down to incompetence versus?
- SUSAN JORDAN: It could be incompetence.
- It could be homophobia.
- It could be a combination of the two.
- It could simply be just disinterest.
- But it's interesting, the D&C in 2009
- had an editorial that came out against gay marriage.
- And as I understand it, from what I've heard,
- opinion was divided within the local editors.
- You know, the local editor, whoever that was at the time,
- wanted to endorse gay marriage.
- But because there was this controversy about it,
- they asked the national publisher apparently.
- I don't really know for sure.
- But he said, no, of course you're not
- going to endorse gay marriage.
- So they came out against gay marriage in 2009.
- So who knows what motivates editors,
- what motivates publishers, what motivates reporters.
- You know, I suspect homophobia is a big ingredient,
- either whether it's active right wing evangelical homophobia,
- or whether it's just passive aggressive, I don't know
- and I don't care homophobia.
- Your guess is as good as mine.
- EVELYN BAILEY: The news channels?
- thirteen, ten?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well ten and thirteen
- have seemed to be a co-operative sometimes.
- They do cover things Norma Holland was helpful.
- You know, she apparently she had some gays on her morning show
- and she got death threats.
- And she was a celebrity spokesperson for Dine
- Out one year.
- Well this past year, and whether this
- is something that will ever make it into the videotape or not
- I don't know, but Scott Hetsko, the weather man
- from another station, I guess, was
- going to be our celebrity spokesperson.
- And in fact, we even had a million photos of him
- at Winfield Grill and everything else.
- And then his bosses apparently talked
- to Norma Holland's bosses.
- Oh, she got death threats for being pro-gay.
- And they forbade Scott Hetsko to have anything to do with us.
- That's why Sam [Biggo?] was our only celebrity spokesperson
- this year.
- So, I don't know what goes on and who the decision makers are
- or why they make their decisions in the local media.
- EVELYN BAILEY: YNN?
- Is that?--
- SUSAN JORDAN: I don't know.
- I think they seem reasonably friendly.
- It's like, are you talking about a reporter?
- Are you're talking about an editor?
- Are you talking about a publisher?
- There's many different people.
- In the D&C they have a high turnover.
- Local reporters are here for a couple of years
- and they go off to the Nebraska or something.
- New people come in who don't know anything
- about the community.
- So again, I think it's like you know the Gannett franchise does
- very poor journalism.
- Usually, not always.
- Sometimes they come out with brilliant stuff.
- But usually it looks pretty shoddy
- and not really interested in the local communities.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I do know like August 2
- when the Smithsonian came to that, YNN was there.
- SUSAN JORDAN: I'm not saying they
- don't cover important stories.
- And I think they covered that because of the name
- Smithsonian, not because of the name Gay Alliance,
- let's face it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- But the 40th anniversary of The Empty Closet it
- was covered by YNN and Channel 8.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Oh I didn't really see anything on TV.
- I know I did an interview and it was on their website.
- It wasn't on the TV show.
- EVELYN BAILEY: OK.
- SUSAN JORDAN: And I don't know.
- It doesn't matter to me.
- I wouldn't say that--
- I wouldn't say that they've censored all coverage of gays
- or anything like that.
- But it just leaves a lot to be desired.
- EVELYN BAILEY: The interest isn't there?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Yeah or they feel like well, we
- don't want to give aid and comfort to these, you know,
- radical militant political people
- or whatever, however they see us.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Do you consider yourself a radical militant?
- SUSAN JORDAN: I sure do.
- I consider myself a socialist feminist.
- And I wish Obama were a socialist.
- I'd be a lot happier voting for him,
- instead of feeling I'm voting for the lesser of two evils
- once again.
- But that's just me.
- That's not the Gay Alliance.
- That's not the Gay Alliance board.
- That's not even the other staff.
- EVELYN BAILEY: But you, Susan Jordan,
- have a history in this community of radicalism.
- SUSAN JORDAN: I guess I'm the bad girl.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And have stood for many, many, many years
- with those who move the agenda and are out front, primarily
- I think because of your reporting and your recording
- of those events and presenting them in The Empty Closet
- or in other forms.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Yeah, well, what I've tried to do
- is keep a space between news reporting and op-ed commentary.
- And it's not always easy to do.
- For one thing, most media, print media especially,
- have always said, we're objective.
- That's the hallmark of good journalism.
- And the whole thing about the liberal media is such a myth.
- I mean, you might have the occasional liberal editor
- or reporter or publisher, but the mainstream media
- is not there to be political.
- The mainstream media is there to make money.
- Period.
- End of story.
- So this whole liberal media myth is
- one of the many lies from the radical right.
- And they really are subjective media.
- Fox News, fair and balanced if you're
- to the right of that of Hitler maybe.
- But you know, it's the mouth piece for conservatism
- and for the Republican Party.
- Well, The Empty Closet is also the mouthpiece
- for those who say, gay is OK.
- And gay people should have equal rights.
- So we have never pretended to be objective mainstream media.
- My thing is, I don't think most of the mainstream media
- is objective either, because they'll go
- where the publisher says to go.
- Or this is going to make this more money.
- Or our publisher is going to fire us
- if we don't endorse the conservative or whatever.
- They're not really all that objective either, especially
- nowadays.
- The standards have really fallen.
- But The Empty Closet has always been out there
- in defense of gay rights.
- So we've never been a supposedly objective journalistic project.
- But on the other hand, I do try to keep news stories, news
- stories and op-ed, op-ed.
- And that doesn't always work out.
- I could definitely be accused of having crossed the borderline.
- But again, we're not here to give you the objective view.
- And if the right wing comes out and says,
- all gay men are child molesters, we
- don't report that as a serious story.
- You know, we say anti-gay forces have said this.
- And that makes us nonobjective.
- That makes us subjective.
- But you know, that's what we're here for.
- We're not here to supposedly, you know, give all sides.
- But it's interesting that the media,
- this so-called objective mainstream media
- doesn't really do that anyway.
- For instance, if there is an African-American event in town,
- they don't go out and get the KKK side of the story anymore.
- And to some extent, they're still
- doing that for gay people.
- That if there's a pride event, up until the last few years,
- well, we have to get the ultra right-wing evangelical
- condemnation of this as part of the story.
- They aren't doing that quite so much anymore, which I guess,
- is that progress?
- I don't know.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I'm not sure--
- at all.
- SUSAN JORDAN: I think it is.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well it seems to me
- that the opposition is one of the things that helps us
- as a community become cohesive and become
- unified in our opposition to that negative barrage.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Right, well see, the gay community
- is so diverse that it takes this kind of oppression
- to really make people like a black kid
- from the inner city and a rich white guy
- from Pittsford to realize they have something in common.
- They don't have equal civil rights.
- But by the same token, you know, oppression is not always good
- for the oppressed.
- Oppression is not good for the character.
- People who grow up in poverty and desperation and abuse
- are going to become criminals.
- Others are going to overcome that
- and will not become criminals, but I'm just
- saying oppression is not good for the character.
- And oddly enough, over the years the most serious, largest
- threats to the survival of the Gay Alliance
- have always come from other gay people,
- not from the people that send us occasional death threat once
- every ten years or something.
- It's gay people, personality conflicts, all the rest of it,
- that have been the threats to the Gay Alliance's survival.
- And that's because partly at least, in some cases,
- internalized homophobia.
- You know like Groucho Marx used to say,
- "I would never join any club that
- would have me as a member."
- Well you know, if you hate yourself enough,
- any organization that represents you has got to be bad
- and you've got to find out it's false.
- And say see, that gay organization
- that claims to represent me is actually full of it.
- And that's internalized self-hate, horizontal
- hostility.
- And it's very prevalent unfortunately.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Have you, as editor of The Empty Closet
- ever received any death threats?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, nobody has ever personally said
- they were going to kill me.
- We have received death threats.
- I remember-- I don't think we had any since we've been here,
- but I remember back at Elton's street,
- we would get a death threat or somebody was--
- came by and there was all this red paint
- all over the sidewalk.
- And apparently some anti-gay freaks
- had come by and thrown red paint at the building.
- And they must have thrown it from their car,
- as you remember, it was about five feet away
- from the wall of the building.
- And their aim was so poor that it all fell on the sidewalk
- instead of hitting the building, you know.
- And there was a troubled kid in that neighborhood that threw
- a rock through the window.
- You know, I've never felt seriously in danger,
- but it's also true if Norma Holland
- is getting death threats, may be the only reason we've avoided
- that is because we're not on TV every day.
- We're not visible.
- So that the haters would really have
- to go to a certain amount of trouble.
- But you know, there's little stuff that's
- like, a lot of places where we leave the paper every month,
- coffee shops, or whatever, as opposed to Outlandish or Equal
- Grounds, just general places.
- You go and all The Empty Closets are
- hidden under other newspapers.
- Or people have seen people just take the whole bunch
- out to the dumpster and so forth.
- So some freelance censorship going on there.
- So that kind of stuff still goes on.
- I have never personally had anybody
- say I'm going to kill you, bitch or anything like that.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Have you ever experienced being harassed?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Oh yeah.
- You know, I think every year in the pride parade
- we're all harassed by the men with bullhorns who say,
- we're fucking dogs and all the rest of it.
- But I've been harassed all my life,
- for one reason or another.
- So I can't say I've been more harassed for being
- a lesbian than for being a woman or for being fat or whatever.
- I've had it since childhood.
- I'm used to it, if you ever get used to it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Were you born in Rochester?
- SUSAN JORDAN: No.
- I'm from the Jersey Shore.
- But I've been here since around 1972.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Wow.
- And how did you come to Rochester?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, just I knew some people who lived here.
- And I went to college with some people
- whose home was in Rochester.
- And they were really the only interesting, sympathetic,
- simpatico kind of people that I even knew.
- So I ultimately ended up following them here
- to Rochester.
- And I don't see too many of them anymore
- because I've kind of created a life for myself.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- SUSAN JORDAN: But it was because I knew people.
- I don't know if you know Nancy Rosen.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.
- SUSAN JORDAN: She was two years ahead of me at school.
- And it was funny, when I first arrived
- at this horrible women's college in Pennsylvania, my roommate
- and I went down the hall from her.
- And there were these rumors, is Nancy Rosen really a lesbian?
- Oh no!
- Know It's true and real.
- We couldn't actually know a lesbian, which
- is pretty funny thinking back.
- You know, it's like oh, right.
- EVELYN BAILEY: What do you think has
- been the greatest change in the life of The Empty Closet?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, I would say the fact that we finally
- got a professional graphic designer to actually
- makes the paper look more credible and more professional.
- That's probably the biggest change we've had.
- And some people think the paper is boring and dreadful
- and have many plans to change it.
- But I don't think it's that bad.
- If you look at the other papers from around the country,
- it's not just a bar rag.
- It's not just made of national features
- that they got for free or something.
- I think our big flaw is that we don't
- do investigative journalism.
- And that's because we don't have professional level reporters
- who are willing to give us six weeks of their time and energy
- to do these projects.
- And I can't edit and be an investigative reporter
- and be a researcher and do the layout and do the mailings
- and do volunteer training.
- You know, that just that doesn't work.
- So I think if we could afford to pay reporters,
- we could hire someone who could do investigative journalism.
- As it is, I try to do my best.
- But this is not what I would do if I had the money.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- Has putting The Empty Closet on-line been successful?
- SUSAN JORDAN: I guess so.
- I mean, you have to do that these days.
- And I think what's successful is that we still
- have a print edition.
- And I think that's good, especially for people
- my age who don't really feel simpatico
- with all the technology and are not constantly texting
- all day and stuff.
- But I think it's also that people
- like to have something they hold in their hands
- and they don't have to have a battery
- or they don't have to have electric power in order
- to read whatever it is.
- But you know, these days you do have to do that.
- And I think it's fine, the wider audience
- we get, the further our message can spread the better.
- But I would be sad if there was no print version anymore.
- And it may come to that.
- It's just different because when we have a print version,
- we can charge a fair amount for our ads.
- But as I understand it, nobody gets
- a whole lot of money from online advertising,
- including big corporations, you know.
- That's why they have a lot of problems.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- SUSAN JORDAN: It's like they're putting out the money
- and nothing is coming in from advertising.
- But if The Empty Closet had even one ad sales person working
- on commission, we could double the amount of ad revenue
- that we're bringing in.
- But I can't find anyone.
- I put an ad in the paper.
- And then you get people coming in who have mental illness
- problems or are going to do it for a month
- and then decide it's too much trouble.
- I haven't had a good ad sales person
- since right in the early '90s when John Strand and I
- were working together.
- We had this wonderful woman.
- And then after six months or so, she moved to San Francisco.
- But at that point I realized, we needed
- to keep having other people than myself selling ads.
- And off and on, we've had some good people but then they
- move or they lose interest, or they just have never
- done much to start with.
- And it's just-- you know, we could be making a lot more.
- If I had some help in finding some ad sales people.
- We give them a generous commission,
- but we can't salary them in the way City Newspaper does.
- City Newspaper has had salaried employees
- right from the beginning, Mariana Tyler
- told me years ago.
- And it would be illegal for them to have
- volunteers working for them.
- Whereas we have never been able to salary anyone
- except the editor and the graphic designer.
- So it's just not that kind of publication.
- And unfortunately, I think people
- expect to see us doing all this stuff,
- not realizing we don't have money to pay people to do it.
- It's just is what it is.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Talk to me a little bit
- about the columnists.
- SUSAN JORDAN: We've had a lot of good columnists over the years.
- And a few that weren't that great.
- But again, they're volunteers.
- So they come and go.
- And some of them have stuck by us
- for years for their own personal reasons in no doubt.
- And others kind of come and go.
- Occasionally, we've had national columnists
- who were journalists or activists who've given me
- their columns for free.
- And these were people I met at maybe the National Gay
- and Lesbian Journalists Association Conference
- or that I met elsewhere.
- We had a guy Mubarak Bashir who did some excellent columns
- for a while.
- And new he's dropped out.
- I don't see his work anywhere in the gay media anymore.
- And I don't know what happened to him.
- Right now, we have Reverend Irene Monroe,
- Cambridge, Massachusetts who writes "Faith Matters."
- And she charges, but she doesn't charge me a cent.
- I get her column for free.
- And she's the only national columnist we have right now.
- In fact, I just downloaded another column from her today.
- But basically, it's local people who have
- something they want to say.
- And that's great, but they just have
- to say it in a sort of literate way
- so their column is readable.
- And I would like to have a transgender columnist now.
- Laura McSpadden was doing "Beyond the Binary."
- But she lost interest.
- I don't think we'll hear from her again, you know.
- And various people over the years--
- some of the columns have been pretty much
- all about eye make-up or something.
- A lot of transgender people find that offensive.
- I would just like to find a good transgender columnist.
- I'd like to find a bisexual columnist.
- In fact, I'm writing about that in my editorial this month.
- We would love to have a regular column
- by local bisexual activists to kind of dispel
- some of the stereotypes that exist
- in the gay community about bisexuals.
- But I haven't seen any real strong bisexual
- activism in Rochester since Michele SpringMore left town.
- And so I don't know if I'll get any responses
- from my little appeal in my editorial.
- I doubt it.
- But again, I wish we had people representing.
- But again, it can't just be, oh we
- have our politically correct little list of columnists.
- The columns have to be well-written.
- They have to be interesting.
- And not just about the person.
- You know, I mean Eric Bellmann writes about himself.
- But you know, he's an older gay man writing about his life
- as an older gay man.
- And the columns are interesting, usually, you know.
- Or even amusing or whatever.
- And that's why we love him.
- EVELYN BAILEY: He's the longest--
- SUSAN JORDAN: Yeah he started a year or so before I
- became editor.
- And he Michele didn't get along at all.
- But then he was still around.
- And over the years, he's kept writing.
- And I think it's a personal thing for him
- that he needs to do this.
- And I wouldn't be running it if I
- didn't think that it was well written and that men read it.
- I do hear from them.
- Not everybody likes it.
- But I think men do read that column.
- But he and Meredith Elizabeth Reiniger
- are the two that I want to run every month because one
- is an older gay man.
- One is an older lesbian.
- And I just wish I had a transgender and bisexual
- columnist of any age.
- But again, it's just getting somebody
- who's bi or trans to write something terrible, uh-uh.
- I'm looking for really good.
- And that's why it's hard to find somebody who can write,
- who can get it in by deadline, and not say anything offensive,
- and you know, and write something
- that people will actually read, as opposed to turning the page
- and say well, this is well-meaning but it's boring.
- And turn the page, you know.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- SUSAN JORDAN: We've had great columnists just like we've
- had great volunteers.
- We've been really fortunate.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Mm-hm.
- Talk to me a little bit about the controversy over sex ads.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well it's always--
- EVELYN BAILEY: In the EC
- SUSAN JORDAN: --always been our policy
- not to have ads showing genitalia
- for various reasons, one of them being that the US Postal
- Service probably wouldn't allow our publication to be mailed
- if we were full of genitalia.
- In fact, you don't find too many publications
- that run anything like that, whether they mail it out
- or not.
- Right now, an advertiser who has advertised for the last twenty
- plus years and is just, you know, a really wonderful
- person.
- His new ad shows a man who's naked except for one
- of those utility belts.
- You don't see genitalia.
- You don't see his butt.
- You know, you see his torso and part of his leg.
- And some people might object to that.
- But I hope we're beyond the point of censoring ourselves.
- I mean, I'm not going to run pictures of penises.
- But if you have a guy with his shirt off,
- I don't want to hear from offended feminists
- or offended gay men for that matter about how
- it's so terrible to have a semi-nude guy.
- You know, it's like, we're censoring gay sexuality
- and gay bodies are censored everywhere.
- We should not be censoring.
- We should not be in the business of censoring gay sexuality,
- up to a point.
- I mean obviously, we can't have photos of genitalia or sex acts
- in the paper.
- But up to that point, I don't want to feel like,
- oh I'm censoring it because it's not quite nice
- and some middle class heterosexuals might not
- approve of our gay sexuality.
- Well if they don't like it, tough.
- Don't read the paper.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I was trying to get at the NAMBLA issue.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Oh that's another issue
- that I don't think I've even heard anything from anybody
- like that for fifteen years, even
- wanting to be in the paper.
- And no, that's another thing.
- We don't want genitalia, we don't want sex acts,
- we don't want criminal conduct.
- Child abuse is criminal conduct.
- There's no way in the world that we can even
- condone that, much less publish photos of it
- or anything like that.
- I wouldn't publish an ad for NAMBLA really.
- But on the other hand, I don't like the censorship thing.
- It's just a difficult thing.
- It's like, at what point do gays start censoring other gays.
- And then the whole issue of child abuse
- is screwed up anyway.
- Because gay men are no more liable to be child
- abusers than heterosexual men or women for that matter.
- And a lot of gay men really dig seventeen
- and eighteen-year-old and sixteen-year-old guys who
- might be like six foot tall.
- They're physically mature.
- That doesn't mean their emotionally mature.
- And I don't approve of older men having
- affairs with some seventeen-year-old or even
- some eighteen-year-old.
- But to call that child abuse?
- No.
- A pedophile is someone who wants to
- a weak, helpless, pre-sexual, pre-puberty, sexually immature
- child's body.
- And they want to manipulate that weak, powerless, little person.
- Wanting to screw a six foot tall eighteen-year-old
- is not the same as child abuse.
- And yet, to heterosexuals it's like, oh
- gays are child abusers.
- See that gay man wants to date that seventeen-year-old kid
- even though--
- you know, it's like well, yeah.
- He shouldn't be doing that.
- But by the same token, it's not child abuse either.
- The seventeen-year-old is a six foot tall and sexually mature.
- This is inappropriate, but it's not pedophilia.
- And yet oh, all gay men are pedophiles.
- And of course, there's a lot of gay men
- who aren't particularly interested in, you know,
- teenagers although, I expect they
- like hunky twenty-year-olds or something like that.
- And I don't necessarily approve of older people being
- involved with younger people.
- I think there's still a power imbalance there
- that leaves the younger person vulnerable.
- But is it child abuse?
- No way.
- And yet, that's what it gets labeled as.
- So it's complicated.
- Let's put it that way.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, it's not simple.
- Certainly.
- SUSAN JORDAN: No it's this many layered and complex issue.
- And of course, the anti-gay media
- is not interested in unraveling complexities or doing anything
- except getting an anti-gay slogan out there.
- EVELYN BAILEY: They like simple, black and white, one word.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Hate the queers, hate the queers (laughs).
- And that's about it.
- That's the level of their analysis.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Share with me, if you would,
- your perceptions of gay visibility over the past twenty
- years.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, it's been pretty dramatic obviously.
- Anybody who watches TV or sees the media--
- well again, to quote myself in my editorial of the month.
- It's like gay love used to be the love that
- dare not speak its name.
- And now of course the joke is, it's
- the love that won't shut up.
- And that's meant to be a put down,
- but I think it's positive.
- Of course we shouldn't shut up.
- And we're visible.
- Gays are visible now all over the media,
- all over the internet, TV, and everything.
- Which doesn't mean we're accepted or whatever,
- but it's just night and day.
- When I became editor, it was the love
- that dare not speak its name.
- And if you said anything, you would
- be slapped down as a child molester or whatever.
- And now we're all over the media.
- We're all over TV.
- And it still leaves a lot to be desired,
- but it's just been dramatic, absolutely dramatic.
- And I think that accounts for a lot of, at least
- the increasing acceptance, especially
- among younger people.
- So it's like hey, we know this exists.
- Get over it.
- Gay people have always existed and always will exist,
- whether the bigots like it or not.
- It's just how much, to what extent
- are they going to be allowed to discriminate.
- That's the only question.
- It's not like we've suddenly arrived on earth
- or that we're going to disappear if the right wing tells
- us is to pray away the gay.
- We've always existed.
- We'll always exist.
- That's part of what human beings are.
- And it's good that we're much more visible
- than we were twenty years ago.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- Has the Gay Alliance helped move the visibility
- to another level?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well in Rochester, in our own little way,
- in our own little microcosm here in upstate New York,
- we've definitely been a force to increase visibility.
- And our story is repeated all over the country and, you know,
- all fifty states.
- Some are a little more successful
- than others at this point because some had more
- to work with.
- A more liberal population to work with to begin with.
- But the Gay Alliance has done a lot.
- And people know that there's Pride every year.
- They know that The Empty Closet comes out every month.
- What they don't know perhaps is all the presentations,
- the workshops, the trainings.
- All the stuff the Alliance does with colleges, schools,
- corporations, businesses, churches.
- You know, that doesn't get a whole lot of attention
- except in The Empty Closet.
- But I think that has helped to transform,
- in our own little way.
- We're not the only people locally
- that have been doing this stuff, but all
- over the country, little groups, little organizations in cities
- especially have contributed to the revolution
- of the last twenty years.
- EVELYN BAILEY: How significant was having an openly gay City
- Councilman in the early '80s.
- SUSAN JORDAN: That was pretty significant.
- That was back when, you know, we were the love
- that dare not speak its name.
- And talking about death threats, Tim Mains
- got plenty of death threats.
- And there was one guy who said he
- was going to be up on the roof of the Co-op on Monroe Avenue
- and pick us off with his rifle as we staged our first Pride
- parade or something.
- And of course never did.
- But that was the atmosphere then.
- So I think that made a big difference.
- And you know, that was a big deal for the '80s.
- And that was like thirty years ago
- and people have forgotten about it.
- And we've gone on to other stuff now.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Talk to me a little bit
- about the difference in political focus
- between women in the gay movement
- and men in the gay movement.
- Early on, at the GLF, women's groups separated--
- SUSAN JORDAN: Right well that was at a time
- when feminists-- what was the second wave or a third wave
- or whatever the hell it was back in the '70s and '80s--
- of feminism.
- And a lot of women were starting to think
- in terms of feminist analysis.
- And oh, why don't we get as much?
- I do the same job as the guy at the next desk.
- How come I get 20 percent less or 50 percent less
- pay for doing the same job or bigger job and doing it better?
- And I get paid less.
- And that was the economic side of it.
- And then there was the whole violence
- against women movement.
- Oh, how come it's amusing to show women being
- put through meat grinders.
- That's supposed to be a turn on.
- And we're supposed to say that's OK or else we're prudes.
- We're censors.
- And all of that had a lot of influence on women.
- But again, that was thirty or forty years ago.
- And a lot of that history has been erased.
- And talk about saving the Gay Alliance history.
- Let's save the history of feminism
- and feminist activism in the 1970s.
- That's been erased largely.
- And I think also, let's not forget
- that many women, many lesbians and bi-women are not
- necessarily feminist.
- And that they weren't then and they aren't now.
- There are some really sick women who
- claim to be women who love women and are adamantly
- opposed to reproductive choice.
- Because, you know, they've been brainwashed
- by the Catholic church or for whatever reason
- they're very anti-feminist.
- And then there's other women who have
- been completely apolitical, could not care less.
- And I can't speak for gay men.
- Obviously HIV was what really radicalized a lot of gay men.
- Martin Hiraga and Paul Scheib and others
- doing ACT-UP the whole ACT-UP movement
- radicalized a lot of gay men.
- And it took this terrible epidemic
- to get a lot of these men to realize that we're angry enough
- and there are enough of us that we can organize.
- And we can be visible.
- And we can make a difference.
- In the Reagan years, oh HIV doesn't exist.
- Who cares if a few queers and black people die.
- A lot of people still hold that view,
- but I wouldn't say it's the general view anymore.
- So I think a lot of gay men became very politically active.
- And those gay men were much more politically active
- than the passive apolitical feminists or women of the time.
- So you can't really say oh, the women were all so wonderful.
- Right on activists.
- And all the men were nothing until AIDS came along.
- It's not that simple.
- There have always been men who were strong activists.
- There have always been women who are anti-woman
- or at least totally apolitical.
- So it's again it's a little complicated.
- EVELYN BAILEY: But in the beginning,
- when the Gay Alliance began in 1970, '71, '72, '73,
- when I read the New Campus Times, when
- I read The Empty Closet early on,
- there is a distinct emphasis on women's issues not
- being the same as men's issues.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Yeah, because you know this is 1970s.
- Feminism was just getting started,
- that particular wave of feminism was just getting started.
- Women were just starting to analyze all of that,
- just starting to get politically organized.
- And men couldn't give a damn.
- You know, like a lot of men, they're interested in men.
- They're interested in male stuff.
- They could care less about women.
- Some may be actively hostile.
- Others have women friends that they like fine but would never
- occur to them.
- Oh, I need to support my women friend
- by coming out at the anti-violence against women.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- SUSAN JORDAN: But a lot of lesbians and bi women
- got very involved in supporting their gay male friends who
- had HIV and very supportive.
- I mean look at Sue Callow helping
- to found AIDS Rochester and all this stuff.
- And then I'd like to think that a lot of men
- have learned from that and have become more feminist
- as the years went by.
- But again, it was because of feminist women.
- And let's not forget all those other women
- who were totally uninterested or were anti-feminist.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I recall the Take Back The Night marches and--
- SUSAN JORDAN: And that's where I got into political activism.
- EVELYN BAILEY: --some of the other marches that occurred.
- And they were always predominantly women,
- but there were always men--
- SUSAN JORDAN: Always a few men--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Involved supporting the desire
- to be nonviolent, to not objectify,
- to not do all of the things that are--
- SUSAN JORDAN: They were probably a minority.
- But that's true today.
- It's probably a minority of gay men or minority of straight men
- that are really that interested, you know.
- They have to be especially political or especially
- attached to women in their own lives or both
- to really get active.
- As opposed to say, yeah, sure I support choice
- and leave it at that.
- But there is plenty of women who don't--
- but fortunately HIV is no longer quite
- the emergency it was twenty years ago or thirty years ago.
- So all that-- that was then.
- That was just women were just starting to get feminist
- and just starting to realize how oppressed
- we were, even by well-meaning men who didn't hate women.
- But also didn't have the slightest concern
- about anything to do with women.
- So we had to go through that period.
- And we did, thirty years ago.
- So where are we today?
- Well, I don't know.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Are we too assimilated?
- SUSAN JORDAN: Oh some people are, you know.
- But they always were.
- Some people want to just have the same rights
- as straight people.
- And it just depends what class you are.
- A middle class, sort of upper middle class white person,
- you know, will assimilate a lot more easily
- or will be satisfied with assimilation a lot more easily
- than working class lesbian or a black gay man
- or somebody who really knows what oppression is.
- And that it's connected.
- And it's not just, oh OK.
- Now I can get married legally, therefore
- I'm not being oppressed by society anymore.
- EVELYN BAILEY: How important is it
- for us to maintain our own identity?
- SUSAN JORDAN: What kind of identity?
- You mean like gay identity?
- Or identify as gay and lesbian?
- EVELYN BAILEY: Gay identity.
- SUSAN JORDAN: I don't know.
- People have to make that decision for themselves.
- I'm proud to be a lesbian.
- I never wanted to be male.
- It's hard for me to understand female to male transgender,
- gender variant people.
- But you know, it's much easier for me
- to understand male to female transgender people.
- And one of my closest friends is male to female transgender.
- So I can easily understand that or at least fairly easily.
- It's harder for me to understand why
- anybody would want to give up the wonderful status of being
- female.
- But that's their choice.
- And if they feel that they are male and they always have been
- and that's their identity, fine.
- Or like a lot of the gender queer people who
- seem to be the younger generation of trans people
- are saying, I am content to being in touch with both.
- Part of me is male.
- Part of me is female.
- I can access those things within myself.
- And I don't feel I have to have surgery.
- Or I don't have to specially use a male pronoun.
- But I can if I want to.
- They have to decide that for themselves.
- It's like, I don't feel like I'm here to say oh,
- well you should have surgery or you shouldn't.
- Or you should transition or you shouldn't transition, you know.
- That's their personal decisions to make.
- I would just like to see us accepting
- each other's decisions, as long as they're not
- some kind of rapist or criminal thing that people are choosing.
- But I would like to see lesbians be
- able to accept male to female transwomen
- and not bar them from the Michigan Music Festival.
- Because if feminism has taught me anything,
- it's that there's many ways to be a woman.
- Old, young, fat, thin, hairy, hairless, mother, childless,
- butch, femme.
- They're all women.
- And transgendered women is just another way to be a woman.
- And a lot of feminists, or a lot of women
- don't want to accept that.
- It's like oh, it's a male plot.
- Oh right, they're really going to lose
- their home and their job and their family,
- go through surgery just so they can have a male plot
- and infiltrate your women's group?
- I don't think so.
- This is like really, really oppressive.
- And I really part company with any so-called feminists
- who are anti-trans.
- But on the other hand, trans people
- have to take responsibility for accepting others.
- And it's just disturb me, it's like how about lesbian pride.
- How about young lesbians saying I'm
- proud to be a lesbian, whether I'm butch or femme or whatever.
- That's like oh no, I'm trans.
- I'm genderqueer.
- I reject being a lesbian.
- I reject being a woman.
- And some of these female to male transgender people
- go oh, I'm going to slap my bitch around.
- It's like they're becoming the oppressor.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- SUSAN JORDAN: And no, I'll never agree with that.
- I'll never accept that and if it makes me a bad guy,
- tough, you know.
- But it's like, and to get into the gay male side of things,
- I hear gay man talk all the time about how
- gay men are so prejudiced against effeminate men
- and queens.
- And I only want to date straight looking guys.
- And just putting down the queenie guys, it's like,
- if you don't want to date a queen, don't.
- But stop putting him down.
- What's with the scorn?
- And the contempt?
- What's with the horizontal hostility folks?
- That's what I want to avoid.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Mm-hm.
- There has always been in the gay community an aversion
- towards the queens.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Yeah and I don't think that's fair.
- I mean, I love the queens.
- The only kind of queen I don't like
- is the queen who has no sense of humor,
- takes herself so seriously, and is willing to put down women.
- Oh women are bitches.
- And I'm more of a woman than they'll ever be.
- Well, maybe you're more of a heterosexual male image
- of a woman dating to the 1950s than most women will ever be,
- but they don't want to be that, you know.
- It's like so yeah there's queens that have bad attitudes too.
- But that's a tiny minority.
- Most queens I know have got a sense of humor.
- They're politically aware.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- SUSAN JORDAN: I love them.
- EVELYN BAILEY: But they seem to be--
- SUSAN JORDAN: But they get put down by the clueless
- gay men who are anti-queen and anti-feminism
- or anti-effeminate men.
- And I don't know.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yes, and they seem
- to be the image that is conjured up in people's minds.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well that's the stereotype.
- And that's the whole--
- when we're talking about heterosexual stereotypes
- of gay people, and unfortunately a lot of queers
- internalize those stereotypes.
- They internalize the hatred and become self-hatred.
- And it's like, oh, I feel like I have
- to prove that I'm masculine.
- And I don't want to be associated
- with a screaming queen or anything.
- And it's like you've let that poison get into your system.
- That's not good for you any more than it is for the queens.
- It's screwed up.
- EVELYN BAILEY: But the straight world--
- SUSAN JORDAN: The straight world has always stereotyped.
- I think the root cause of homophobia,
- as far as hatred of gay men, goes back
- to heterosexual hatred of women, misogyny.
- It's like, you've given up your birthright
- as being a lord of the universe in favor
- of being this inferior subhuman female thing.
- It all goes back to hatred of women.
- As a feminist, I do believe that.
- And if straight people get their own heads together
- and stop being so obsessed with sex yet guilt ridden about it.
- And so obsessed with gender and proving that they're masculine,
- it's like oh, you have column A. You can be John Wayne.
- Or if you're a woman, you have to column
- A. You could be Marilyn Monroe.
- And there's no column B, you know.
- And that's if heterosexual people got over that and got
- over stereotyping based on gender
- and so forth, I think homophobia would disappear.
- It's all based on hatred of women.
- It's like being hunky macho gay men who can pass as straight.
- They're invisible.
- And the heterosexuals don't want to see them.
- It's all that nasty queens.
- And then that plays into gay men hating each other
- for being too queenie because they
- bought into that stereotype.
- Anything female is bad and if you're a guy,
- you've got to be John Wayne.
- And it's like, that's the straight stereotype.
- And it's sad to see gay men buy into the straight stereotype.
- But that's another thing that oppression does to you.
- It's not good for the character.
- And that's-- it's too bad that oppressed groups have to work
- twice as hard to prove that they're not all these
- stereotypes.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- SUSAN JORDAN: It's like, screw the stereotypes.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Two final questions, short.
- First is, what are you most proud
- as having been a feminist, a socialist feminist, editor
- of The Empty Closet for twenty-three years.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Well, I think the only thing
- I'm proud of personally is that the paper still
- comes out of every month.
- And the Gay Alliance still exists.
- And the thing that worries me is that it looks like that's
- coming to an end now.
- Because we're over $70,000 in debt.
- I don't see how much longer the Gay Alliance can go on.
- So this might be an interesting historical record.
- And people might say, gee, what a great documentary.
- Too bad about the Gay Alliance.
- They had to shut their doors in 2013
- because they had no more money.
- Gee, too bad about the youth that
- are out there committing suicide or getting
- into drugs on the streets because they don't
- have the youth group anymore.
- You know, I'm proudest that we've just
- managed to survive it all.
- And I question how long it's going to continue.
- EVELYN BAILEY: My other question,
- and maybe you've answered it already,
- is what's the greatest challenge that
- faces The Empty Closet or the--
- SUSAN JORDAN: That's financial.
- I don't see us being able to survive at all unless something
- changes.
- And I don't see anything changing.
- So I'm up for retirement in another three, four,
- or five years or so.
- I'm sixty-five already.
- I wonder if the Gay Alliance will
- last until I'm ready to retire.
- Of course, I'll never be able to retire financially,
- but I'm going to have to.
- And I think if we can continue to survive,
- that's the most important thing.
- Because it's not like there's no need for us.
- And I think your average forty-year-old gay middle class
- professional, especially white folks will say, well,
- you know the Gay Alliance doesn't do anything for me.
- Well, what do you need?
- You can get married legally now.
- The Gay Alliance is out talking to your corporate boss
- so they don't oppress you anymore.
- We have our Pride thing.
- We have this and that.
- What do you need?
- It's like well, all you ever do is
- work with the youth and the old people.
- Well guess what?
- They are the people that need help.
- We've got at-risk youth.
- We should just let them commit suicide?
- We've got eighty-year-old gay people.
- Are they going to go back into the closet in their nursing
- home or whatever?
- They don't have any family.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- SUSAN JORDAN: It's like the average forty-year-old gay
- person.
- I'm not going to give to Gay Alliance.
- They didn't do anything for me.
- And they might as well go on and say,
- I don't give a damn if the kids commit suicide
- or the old people die lonely.
- It's like hey, we still need the Gay Alliance.
- And I don't see it lasting much longer.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well thank you, Susan.
- SUSAN JORDAN: Now that I've cheered you up
- for the day (laughs).