Video Interview, Kelly Clark, April 15, 2013

  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So first thing, I
  • need you to give me the correct spelling
  • of your first and last name and how you
  • want it to appear on screen.
  • KELLY CLARK: OK, just Kelly Clark.
  • K-E-L-L-Y. C-L-A-R-K.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Kelly, if we were to put a title under you,
  • what would you like us to put?
  • KELLY CLARK: Well it's currently Intergenerational Programs
  • Director.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's start, actually,
  • let's start there then.
  • One thing want to get a sense of, when you're
  • looking at a social organization like the GAGV
  • and any given programs within it,
  • when it comes to the LGBT community,
  • we're such a diverse community.
  • So we can't just apply some sort of cookie cutter outreach
  • to these people across the board.
  • Can you talk to me a little bit, from your own experience
  • of that diversity within our community
  • and how there are so many different ways
  • of trying to reach out to them.
  • KELLY CLARK: So are you interested more
  • in that outreach or the engaging?
  • Because I see them as kind of two different things so.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: To me, it's the same thing.
  • You reach out to them to engage them.
  • KELLY CLARK: Right.
  • Because the outreach, I mean--
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: How do you reach the LGBT community?
  • Let's put it that way.
  • KELLY CLARK: OK.
  • So I mean I can tell you how we outreach to the LGBT community.
  • I can also tell you how we probably
  • should be outreaching to the LGBT community
  • if we really have the resources.
  • So that's where some of this gets a little touchy for me,
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, I don't think we even need to go there.
  • KELLY CLARK: So just in general--
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: What I really want
  • to do is just kind of get a picture of who
  • is the LGBT community of Rochester?
  • KELLY CLARK: Right.
  • OK.
  • I can talk about that.
  • Because what I don't want to do is to give people a false
  • impression that these are all the things that we're doing
  • to outreach to the community, which are things that we should
  • be doing but just really can't.
  • OK so that's fine.
  • So Rochester's LGBT community is extremely diverse.
  • I've had several jobs here at the Gay Alliance, which
  • have helped me to really actually touch
  • lots of different parts of the community.
  • So I've moved from the Anti-Violence Project Director
  • into my new role as Intergenerational Programs
  • Director.
  • And so what I'm doing currently is really
  • working with both our teen program, which
  • is ages thirteen to twenty and our senior program, which
  • is fifty plus.
  • And so reaching out to them and connecting means you know,
  • getting out there and talking to the high schools,
  • going into some of the colleges.
  • We have students who regularly contact us
  • from very suburban and rural areas of Western New York.
  • We have a number of inner city kids
  • who are coming to our programming.
  • We have youth who have been out since they
  • were twelve or thirteen.
  • We have some who are trying to find their way at seventeen
  • or eighteen.
  • We've got a really growing group of young folks who
  • identify as transgender.
  • And our Transgender Identity Support Group
  • has a number of youth who recently, this
  • is very new for us, so recently are identifying
  • along the masculine continuum, so mostly
  • female to male transition.
  • And it's just been amazing to watch them find each other.
  • Because typically they're the only one in their high school.
  • They're the only person they know.
  • Their families aren't familiar.
  • And so being able to create a space where
  • those students can come together has been really awesome.
  • Equally as much fun is working with our older LGBT adults.
  • And most of the people that we're currently working with
  • are in the retirement age, so they're really
  • in their mid-sixties and up.
  • And again the same levels of diversity.
  • We have folks who come from quite prominent backgrounds,
  • people who've had professional careers, people of means.
  • We also have people who are using Social Services
  • and Social Security to get by who
  • are living in some of the Rochester housing authority
  • properties around town.
  • We have folks who are coming in and kind
  • of sharing their experiences, which
  • is really great because then they
  • get a nice cross-pollination.
  • We have people who have lived in Rochester
  • for their entire lives or in one of the surrounding farming
  • communities.
  • And we have folks who have just come to Rochester
  • because perhaps other family members are here
  • and they're starting to age and need more support.
  • And so they're moving in with relatives,
  • they're moving in with children.
  • There's a lot of diversity across race and ethnicity
  • and even nationality.
  • We have a wonderful older adult who
  • comes here whose parents escaped from the Holocaust.
  • And she remembers coming over as a little girl
  • and telling stories about what it
  • was like back in her old homeland
  • and what it was like when she came here.
  • It's really great for the other folks to hear.
  • When I was working in the anti-violence program
  • it really got I think myself as well as the entire agency
  • in touch with another level of LGBT folks in town.
  • Those are people really of low means, low SES.
  • They're living in again public housing.
  • They don't have the power that having a middle class
  • background kind of gives them.
  • And so they're the ones in our community
  • who are really facing a lot of violence.
  • And just getting to understand that not
  • everyone in the gay community is doing well.
  • There are people who really need significant levels of support.
  • That job also put me in touch with people
  • who, for one reason or another, are
  • kind of not doing well in terms of their own mental health
  • issues or maybe issues of addiction.
  • They've never been in a position to learn or gain
  • any kind of resiliency.
  • They've been fighting their identity issues
  • for their whole lives and have been bullied and picked on.
  • And so there are a number of people
  • across the spectrum who need real serious mental health
  • support.
  • So our community is hugely diverse.
  • I like Rochester because we have a great history
  • of social justice.
  • Our big three, Kodak, Bausch & Lomb,
  • and Xerox provided a great kind of training ground for the some
  • of the very first employee resource groups in the country
  • where professionals were really helping corporations
  • to figure out how to have LGBT professionals
  • and how to support them.
  • And so that is a real strength for our community.
  • And I think that the rest of the community, even those people
  • who are not doing well benefit from having
  • had such a strong history of the employee
  • resource groups at the various companies here.
  • So it's yeah.
  • I'm just talking.
  • Sure.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's focus just on the youth program
  • for a moment.
  • KELLY CLARK: OK.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about how significant
  • it is that a city like Rochester could have a gay youth program,
  • a successful gay youth program.
  • And tie into that really, the benefits thereof.
  • KELLY CLARK: Well, it's important for us
  • to offer youth services.
  • And it's changed significantly over time
  • based on the needs of the youth that we're
  • serving at that time.
  • So I've been working with our youth for just about a year.
  • And I can tell you what I see in the importance of connecting
  • with these youth currently.
  • They're all out.
  • And that was, that's not our generation's experience.
  • It's not even the generation one or two levels ahead of them.
  • Typically people waited until they left the house
  • and got a job, went into the service, went to college,
  • and then you might come out.
  • But you didn't have to deal with the immediate repercussions
  • of family.
  • You at least had your own space.
  • Not anymore.
  • Most of the youth that we're working with have been out.
  • They're out to families, almost come hell or high water.
  • They're out when they know the repercussions.
  • I've had at least one teen whose brother
  • came out the year before and so parents hit the roof.
  • Was not a good scene.
  • So she knew exactly what was going
  • to happen when she came out and she decided to do it anyway.
  • So they have internalized the messages
  • that I think the older LGBT population has given
  • them, which is you're good.
  • You're OK.
  • Be yourself.
  • So what I think they need, the importance of our program,
  • is really supporting them in that.
  • They no longer need a safe hideaway
  • where they can meet other people like themselves
  • because you know we can never find each other.
  • The internet I think has a lot to do with opening space.
  • There is a gay person on every TV show.
  • I mean the president thinks it's great for us to get married.
  • So we are in a completely different world from just even
  • five years ago.
  • So they're out.
  • They identify individually as LGBT.
  • What we find that they don't have
  • or that they're still lacking is any sense of community.
  • They don't know what it means to be part of the LGBT community.
  • They don't know the LGBT history.
  • They don't know the heroes.
  • They think you know, the rainbow flag
  • is our symbol because rainbows are cool.
  • You know, they don't understand the history
  • behind even the colors on the flag.
  • And so part of the reason why it's still important for us
  • to have a youth service is really
  • to bring them together and help them to learn and to gain power
  • and resilience from understanding themselves
  • to be part of a community that's connected.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: But as you said, it's
  • kind of evolved from what I've seen over the past years
  • that, whenever you spoke about the GAGV,
  • when you've spoken to anybody about the GAGV, you know,
  • and the work that they're doing, first thing that anybody
  • would ever bring up is the youth program.
  • I understand that.
  • I understand why.
  • Because there tends to be more funding available when you're
  • talking about educating youth.
  • But yet now it's kind of evolving a little bit.
  • It's no longer just the youth program.
  • It's this intergenerational program and trying
  • to bring it all together.
  • Can you talk to me a little about the thinking behind that,
  • and how, really how things are evolving.
  • KELLY CLARK: Well, including seniors in our programming
  • has been very important because there
  • have been some national studies that have been done 2010, 2011,
  • that really kind of peeled the Bandaid off of this problem
  • that had very few people recognized.
  • And that is our stonewall generation
  • is now facing the next level of kind of entering into systems.
  • They've been through work.
  • Now they're retiring.
  • And so working through retirement systems,
  • working themselves into maybe, you know, senior living
  • communities, for those people who are needing assisted care
  • or even nursing facility care, we're
  • starting to find that things aren't so great.
  • And this pioneering generation is having to be the pioneer.
  • They're always at the front of the wave
  • and so they're pioneering into retirement
  • and the needs of retirement.
  • And so what I find fascinating however working
  • with the seniors is that we're still in 2013.
  • We're still here today.
  • So they're dealing with the same society
  • that the youth are dealing with.
  • Things are opening up in a different way.
  • We have our Rainbow Sage Program existed before merging
  • with the Gay Alliance.
  • So they're about eleven years old.
  • And again, back when they started,
  • they needed a secret hideaway where
  • they could come together find each other
  • and kind of be of some support.
  • And now what we're finding is the same thing
  • that we're finding with the youth.
  • Society is open.
  • They're volunteering at their churches.
  • They're going to community centers in their neighborhoods.
  • They're really getting out and experiencing life
  • with their straight peers and LGBT peers alike.
  • And so, what we're doing with our senior programming
  • is to help maintain some sense of community.
  • So there is still an opportunity for people to come together,
  • identify as LGBT in an LGBT space during the times
  • that they would like to do that, but to also have an opportunity
  • to support them in some of their needs
  • when they are bumping up against systems that don't quite
  • understand, when these systems aren't
  • used to having open, proud, activist LGBT
  • folks as part of them.
  • And so it's been a struggle for some nursing homes.
  • It's a struggle for some assisted living facilities.
  • It's a struggle for some senior centers in the area.
  • And so as they're moving into those, rightfully so, when they
  • bump up against something then we're
  • here to support working through that.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I need you to speak to some of the things
  • that you're doing with the Intergenerational Program,
  • getting the youth in contact with the seniors
  • and engaging them in dialogue about what's
  • going on with them.
  • KELLY CLARK: Right, right, right.
  • So our Intergenerational Program has had some opportunities
  • to bring both the seniors and the youth together a couple
  • of times this year actually.
  • We started back in the summer when we did our first youth
  • leadership summer camp.
  • And so we brought kids through day camp for one week
  • and we taught them all the things that I just
  • talked about.
  • What does it really mean to have an LGBT identity?
  • They don't necessarily know the difference
  • between sexual orientation and gender identity.
  • So we taught them these things.
  • History was an important part of the week.
  • And during our history time, we actually
  • had an opportunity for the youth to interview some of the folks
  • from our Rainbow Sage Program.
  • And it actually was one of the favorite parts
  • of the week for the youth.
  • We broke them down into small groups
  • and we had several of our seniors come in.
  • And they just sat and had questions
  • and just talked about lives and some of the differences
  • and some of that.
  • You know, whenever you talk to an older person,
  • you just can't quite imagine yourself in that time
  • or in that era or having to deal with some of the things
  • that they dealt with.
  • And I think the youth really learned a lot.
  • It helped to take some of the I guess
  • more dry, historic material that we had talked
  • about during the week and put it in some context for people
  • who actually lived through those things.
  • You know, some of our seniors didn't come out
  • until they were forty, fifty years old.
  • And our youth who are out at fourteen, just
  • could not imagine living a life you
  • know until your parents passed away,
  • was the time that you came out.
  • So it was great to see them come together.
  • We also do an annual intergenerational panel.
  • And this year we had the kind of similar format
  • but this was open to the community.
  • And we paired one youth with one senior or older member
  • of the community and had them come together and do
  • a little kind of public conversation
  • I guess you would call it.
  • And that actually was really fascinating.
  • What I loved most about that is because we
  • had it open to an audience, there were forty or fifty
  • people here who could learn from the exchange
  • that the pairs were having.
  • And so talking about some of the parallels, the similarities
  • and the differences in their lives based on their generation
  • really gave a lot of insight to some
  • of the people in the audience.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Again, I know you
  • haven't been with the program until recently.
  • But I wanted to maybe get a sense of some
  • of the challenges of having to be a program
  • director for these groups.
  • And I'm thinking more in terms of the community's reaction
  • to it.
  • I just think nowadays, things have
  • gotten to be a little bit more open and more accepting.
  • People are more willing to be engaged in conversation.
  • It wasn't always like that.
  • I want to kind of get a sense of how you break down barriers
  • from this group of kids or this group of seniors
  • that you have with the rest of the community.
  • KELLY CLARK: The Gay Alliance plays a really important part
  • in helping people to negotiate parts of the community that
  • are still closed.
  • And the first thing that comes to mind
  • is our rural surrounding areas.
  • We've got lots of people who have lots of resources.
  • We have many open and welcoming churches
  • within the city and surrounding suburbs.
  • We have lots of adults who are resources in and of themselves.
  • So at any given school there are a number of LGBT teachers
  • and other folks that students can rely on
  • within hospital settings.
  • Within some of the nursing home settings
  • there are some folks that the older folks can rely on.
  • What we find though, is when you go out into the rural settings,
  • people are very much alone.
  • Times have not necessarily changed.
  • It's not the same sentiment with regard to LGBT identity.
  • So one of our important, still important roles,
  • in terms of battling you know anything
  • from school bullying to workplace discrimination
  • or even neighborhood harassment.
  • Neighbor harassment is a big thing in our community.
  • We don't have a lot of physical bashing
  • but we have a lot of neighbor harassment.
  • People call us from the surrounding areas
  • and they're alone.
  • They have very little transportation.
  • They can't get in to see us.
  • They can't get in to see a lawyer here in town.
  • So part of what we have to do is to really help
  • to bridge the gap, the gap in miles, the further you get
  • outside of the city's core, also represents
  • a gap almost in time.
  • So you're kind of going back to maybe where some of us
  • here in the city were five or ten years ago.
  • The understanding just isn't there.
  • And so we're excited to be able to go out
  • and to support people.
  • You know we've done trainings in rural schools.
  • We've come to the support of parents
  • who are needing to have important conversations
  • with school districts or principals.
  • We've had an opportunity to get engaged in people
  • as they're seeking important levels of health care
  • that perhaps their providers in more rural areas
  • need to learn or update some information and some skills.
  • And we can provide that level of service for people.
  • So everybody says they live in interesting times.
  • Right?
  • But I think we are really in an interesting time.
  • We're right in the middle of this interesting kind of shift.
  • So I kind of liken it to you know,
  • what was happening within the Civil Rights
  • Movement of the sixties.
  • It's like we're moving from that segregated to the integrated
  • time.
  • And I think it's really important for an agency
  • like ours to be at the center of helping that shift.
  • Because what we don't want to do is to have society
  • open up so far and for everyone to just
  • be so happy and integrated that we actually
  • lose the sense of identity and a sense of community.
  • I think that that would be very easy for us to do.
  • Part of what I think our job is in the way in which our work is
  • shifting is that we're needing to move from this survival
  • mode, which I think we've been in for our last forty year
  • history, into this thriving mode.
  • So now that we're able to kind of leave
  • some of the more basic and kind of serious issues behind us
  • because we're getting into a different time, now
  • it's time for us to figure out how do we
  • use this open space to actually thrive as a community
  • and not to disappear into the woodwork.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to just touch base on something you
  • just said a little more about.
  • Being more visible, being more integrated into society,
  • being more accepted, or some people would say tolerated.
  • But--
  • KELLY CLARK: If you stuff a little newspaper into it,
  • it'll stop.
  • Yeah, that's what we typically do.
  • Sorry.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: It's OK.
  • I didn't know if, like, someone was trying to get in.
  • KELLY CLARK: No, it's just, it's not tight.
  • It probably needs some weatherstripping or something
  • to kind of keep it from doing that.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Becoming integrated
  • without losing a call for identity,
  • can you kind of maybe just touch base
  • on that just a little bit more?
  • You did.
  • It's just something I want to make sure I get.
  • KELLY CLARK: Well, and I--
  • sorry, I want to set it up.
  • I think here in Rochester, it's actually
  • especially important for us to think
  • about how we move into an open society,
  • while keeping our sense of community.
  • Rochester has this very long history
  • of being open and welcoming to LGBT folks.
  • I think we're a unique mid-size or small city,
  • I'm not sure which we are, in that respect.
  • And again, I think it goes back to the leadership
  • of the employee resource groups in some
  • of our big corporations.
  • Such that we don't have a gayborhood.
  • You know there's no defined place
  • in within the City of Rochester or even
  • in the county that is the place where
  • you'll find a concentration of LGBT people in community.
  • And I think that's wonderful.
  • That's a marker of people feeling comfortable enough
  • to live in neighborhoods around the community
  • where they'd like to live there.
  • They're not facing issues that kind of ghettoize them
  • in any way.
  • But at the same time, as the rest of society
  • continues to open up, I think it's
  • going to be even more tempting for us to be spread so thin
  • that we don't necessarily have that sense of identity.
  • So I think Rochester is unique in that way,
  • unlike some other places where you're
  • going to find a gayborhood that really is the center of life
  • and that the community is really going
  • to keep going no matter what.
  • Couple that with the fact that as I said,
  • our teens are identifying earlier and earlier as LGBT,
  • but they have no idea what that means.
  • To them, it's an individual identity marker.
  • It's who I am, it's not the community I belong to.
  • So I think with those two things are
  • kind are kind of threatening our ability to create strong LGBT
  • identity here in the Rochester area
  • and to create that community.
  • So again, I think the role of the Gay Alliance
  • really is to figure out how we move
  • from into that thriving space, while creating the synergy that
  • keeps our community together in some way.
  • We're never going to have a gayborhood in Rochester.
  • I don't think that that's--
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, we'll have to take you back on that.
  • KELLY CLARK: OK.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: How long have you been in Rochester?
  • Born and raised here?
  • KELLY CLARK: No.
  • I've been here for--
  • well, I went to school here and left and came back
  • and so I've been here now for about seventeen, eighteen
  • years.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Because I would say to you,
  • early on, you know, Corn Hill was a gayborhood.
  • And to a certain extent, it sort of still is.
  • It's for the more affluent gay men and women.
  • You know, when I was coming out, Park Avenue
  • was the place for all the gays.
  • KELLY CLARK: Right.
  • The eighties.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I think we did have that, but somehow
  • we kind of evolved out of that.
  • KELLY CLARK: And I think, again, you know, the Employee Resource
  • Group started in that time in that late seventies,
  • early eighties piece.
  • And I think people just began to just feel
  • more comfortable being in whatever parts of the city.
  • And they were not facially, as I said, we don't have,
  • in the four years that I did anti-violence work here,
  • there was one really horrific gay bashing before I started.
  • People get into fights, but they're not,
  • I mean what every call that I took for four years
  • was, my neighbors are being nasty to me.
  • You know, they blocked out the windows
  • on our side of the house so we can't look at them
  • and they can't look at us.
  • Or you know my neighbors accidentally
  • drove over my flowers.
  • You know, that kind of thing.
  • And I think that when people are experiencing even if it's
  • a level of tolerance, that they really are emboldened
  • to kind of move into places in society
  • where maybe they hadn't been before and establish roots.
  • And I know that there are little LGBT enclaves
  • all over the place.
  • I can talk to many folks that I talk
  • to know the person down the street and the one
  • around the corner and say, you know
  • there's like five or ten gay couples in our area.
  • And it's like that kind of all over the city,
  • depending on where you talk to people and where they're from.
  • And all my friends have that experience.
  • I have that experience as well where I live.
  • So you know, maybe I should never say never,
  • but I don't think that we're going to all come and coalesce
  • around one place any longer.
  • And so I think it's the role of the Gay Alliance
  • to give us a reason to come together
  • and to be in community with each other,
  • and to make sure that we don't lose those roots.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: When was it, I don't
  • know if you can conjure up a specific moment
  • or memory, whether it was your work
  • with the anti-violence program or the youth program,
  • or now the intergenerational, at what point or moment did
  • you realize, and say to yourself, yeah,
  • we're doing some really necessary work here,
  • that the work that we're doing here is needed?
  • And it's also a little special.
  • KELLY CLARK: I have the experience
  • of feeling like we're doing important work probably
  • every day.
  • And I think I have since I started working here.
  • There's always something that is happening
  • that we can get involved in that is going to make a difference.
  • And it could be assisting somebody
  • because they're being harassed.
  • It could be assisting someone who is transitioning gender
  • at work and needing our support in terms
  • of training their coworkers and their supervisors.
  • It could be the young person who comes in and is just
  • completely lost and and doesn't know where to go or what to do.
  • We take phone calls from people all the time.
  • I'll tell you my best phone call ever was an eighty-six-year-old
  • man, we regularly get phone calls here from people who are
  • kind of questioning their sexuality.
  • And I pick up the phone, and this
  • was a gentleman whose wife had died probably six months prior.
  • And he said, "You know, I'm having these feelings for one
  • of my best friends.
  • And I'm not sure, I kind of thought
  • I always could have been gay.
  • But you know I got married and my wife just died
  • and now I think up ready to explore this."
  • This man is eighty-six years old.
  • You know, so even if they're just, our work is so vital.
  • You know it's important to have a place for someone to call.
  • I just got an email before coming down here
  • from a mom whose son is seventeen
  • and questioning his sexuality and she
  • wanted to know what she should do and what we can help with.
  • And we get those kind of calls all the time.
  • So, yeah, it's all of the work.
  • It's the good pieces and the negative pieces
  • that we can support.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: What does it say about how far we've
  • come when, in today's society, a mother emailing you, asking
  • you what she can do to help her son come out,
  • or help to understand that process--
  • KELLY CLARK: Yes.
  • Exactly.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: --where is--
  • (unintelligible).
  • KELLY CLARK: Our parental involvement actually shocked
  • me a bit when I first started working with our teen program
  • last year.
  • You know, I had a parent say to me,
  • "I drop my daughter off behind those metal doors
  • and I'm just trusting that what you guys are doing with her.
  • And it seems to be working."
  • And it dawned on me, yeah, that's been our policy.
  • We've had this complete confidentiality zone, again,
  • this hideaway that had to be confidential,
  • where youth could find each other.
  • And it was like the secret place, you know the bat cave,
  • where everybody could come together.
  • And this was a mom who wanted to be involved.
  • And we hadn't evolved.
  • We hadn't evolved to the point of parents being involved.
  • I mean, we were still working under the premise
  • that parents didn't understand and weren't involved
  • and kids were needing a secret place
  • to explore these areas without having their parents involved
  • until they were ready to bring their parents in.
  • And so actually, it's a great question
  • because this year we've opened up space for parents.
  • We have a new parents booster club.
  • They act just like any other booster club at the high school
  • level.
  • They are raising money for a big gay prom,
  • just like the football booster club is raising money
  • for you know the football team.
  • And we have several parents who come pretty regularly.
  • They're excited to be a part of it.
  • I have parents all the time who are just
  • saying, "I love my kid.
  • I want them to be happy.
  • Tell me what to do.
  • I'm on their team."
  • They may not know exactly what it is that they need to do next
  • or can do next or how best to support,
  • but they're on the team.
  • And that is very different, as you say,
  • it's very different from the experiences
  • that we've even had probably a short four or five years ago.
  • So I love opening space for parents.
  • It's great having them here.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm going to combine
  • a couple of these questions that I sent to you on paper.
  • When, as I got the history books back, at the Gay Alliance youth
  • program, the Intergenerational program,
  • the anti-violence program, all of that,
  • and I don't want to say that the next generation community,
  • there's not going to have a need for a Gay Alliance,
  • because there probably will be.
  • But when you look back at what we're doing now
  • and what we've done over the past forty years, what
  • do you want them to know most about and the impact
  • that these programs have had in the Rochester community?
  • KELLY CLARK: That's a hard one.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Essentially, what
  • are you most proud of in the work
  • that you've done with these programs?
  • KELLY CLARK: I think I'm most proud of, you know,
  • the contemporary work that the Gay Alliance is doing really
  • around our education, honestly in creation of allies.
  • We're doing great work touching LGBT people,
  • helping them to gain identity, helping them
  • to have a sense of community.
  • But I think the work that is really probably making
  • the biggest difference in people's lives
  • that they don't realize that we do
  • is the amount of education in the rest of the community
  • that we're doing.
  • We are out two, three, four times
  • a week, sometimes doing educational programs
  • from high schools to churches to hospitals, in nursing homes.
  • We're going into other social service agencies.
  • So the places that people go to seek
  • services, just in an ordinary day
  • or an ordinary week in their lives,
  • chances are somebody that they're
  • interacting with has had some type of education from the Gay
  • Alliance that is actually making a difference
  • in the type of service that they're receiving.
  • Going to the hospital emergency room
  • or having a meeting with your child's teacher.
  • You are two moms and you're going
  • to meet with your child's teacher.
  • We've probably been there.
  • We've probably talked with those teachers
  • about working with LGBT people.
  • So I think that that's maybe the well-kept secret around here.
  • Is that, and it's hard to appreciate,
  • when you can't see it.
  • It's hard to prove a negative.
  • We can't say that your experience at the dentist's
  • office was better because you know,
  • that person hadn't been involved in some of our training.
  • But I think that, I'd like to believe that it certainly was.
  • So I think that that's--
  • in these last probably six to eight years
  • of the Gay Alliance, just the strength of our education
  • programs and the number of people,
  • thousands of people that were touching each year
  • is something that like for people
  • to look back on and understand.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Just want to take a look at my notes here.
  • We covered a lot of it.
  • Do you have a sense from this vantage point
  • of present day of what the challenges might
  • be for the next generation?
  • KELLY CLARK: For the next generation just of LGBT folks?
  • Or for the next generation of leaders at the agency?
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: For LGBT.
  • KELLY CLARK: People in general?
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Community, yeah.
  • I think I'm thinking more in terms of the younger people
  • that are coming through.
  • It's a tough question.
  • It's a very abstract question.
  • KELLY CLARK: I mean, it's hard when
  • we think about challenges that might be coming up
  • or things that we might face in the next generation
  • or in future generations, I think
  • it's really hard to project.
  • The way in which I've been looking at where the LGBT
  • community is right now in history
  • has been to actually look back across the Civil Rights
  • Movement of the sixties, which is really
  • open space for black people, African-Americans,
  • in our society.
  • And what constantly comes to mind
  • and I've had several conversations about this
  • recently, is the conversation that
  • in particular the black community
  • had around the fortieth anniversary of Brown
  • versus Board of Education.
  • And of course that was a historic moment.
  • And it changed everything in terms of our country
  • in thinking about how we educate our children
  • and even just how we understand each other.
  • Some of those, so the underlying social taboos
  • that kept segregation in place have all been shattered.
  • And I think that that was a pivotal moment.
  • But the conversation that the black community
  • had around that time, which is this now fifteen years ago
  • probably, was, did it help our community?
  • And there were a lot of intellectuals who said,
  • this probably wasn't the best thing that
  • could have happened for us.
  • They talked about losing a sense of identity.
  • You know, we had black lawyers and black teachers
  • and black doctors and our communities were segregated.
  • So we had to have all those things.
  • There were stores.
  • We supported each other.
  • There was a sense of community.
  • And so when folks look at those intellectuals who
  • are looking at this from today's point of view,
  • the number of black doctors the number of you know,
  • the community sense that people had.
  • The fact that people just kind of scattered and left
  • communities because they could.
  • I mean society is now open, so we can do what we want
  • and we can have the houses and live in the neighborhoods
  • that we want to live in.
  • And there was serious conversation
  • within the black community about whether or not
  • integration was or was really a good thing for us.
  • If we had to do it over again, might
  • we have sought a different solution.
  • Or what might we have looked at it differently
  • in order to keep the sense of the black community
  • better than probably it had has been kept?
  • And so at this crux of the LGBT civil rights experience,
  • I look at it from that vantage point.
  • And as I've talked about already the sense of community,
  • I think is going to be our next challenge.
  • Because laws are opening up.
  • Society is opening up.
  • Our social systems, mores, the taboos are shattering.
  • And we're going to have an opportunity
  • to be just out and integrated more fully into society.
  • And something that the black community
  • didn't have to really deal with is the notion
  • of passing, which is something that LGBT community has always
  • had to face, right for the most part.
  • So when you talk about having a much more integrated society
  • that's open for LGBT people and the notion
  • that we could really pass or not if we want when we choose to,
  • I think that maintaining that sense of community
  • and really thinking about whether, I mean,
  • it's great that this is happening for us.
  • But having the vantage point, learning from the last movement
  • and maybe being able to say, what could we
  • do differently so that the same thing doesn't happen to us.
  • And again, so I continue to harp on, how do we build a sense,
  • maintain a sense of community identity
  • and it not just be individual identity?
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I think that covers it.
  • KELLY CLARK: OK.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I was thinking, like, OK, did I miss anything?
  • Brian usually has an extra question.
  • (pause in recording)
  • KELLY CLARK: A parent who's six or seven-year-old
  • was transitioning in a school someplace between here
  • and Buffalo, closer to Buffalo than here.
  • And the school needed help, you know, we get in our car
  • and drive where people ask us to come.
  • I know my colleagues just did something outside of Watertown
  • last--
  • over the summer.
  • You know, so we're always out.
  • We've got commitments, several workshop commitments out
  • in Geneva and you know we are where we need to be.
  • But it would be great.
  • Those are the service resources that we offer.
  • What we're not able to do is to offer the community center
  • or at least the central location where
  • people could find each other in those small areas.
  • So we need somebody to leave us a whole boat load of money
  • and allow us to be able to do that.
  • Because it would be great to have-- could
  • you just imagine, we could have like one kind of mini center
  • in all the surrounding counties, so at least people
  • in the county could you know, come together
  • in whatever central place.
  • One of the biggest problems that the people in the rural areas
  • have is that they don't have transportation.
  • I'm constantly talking to people, so well,
  • can you get here?
  • No.
  • They just--
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: If it wasn't for the internet,
  • they wouldn't even know.
  • KELLY CLARK: Right.
  • Exactly.
  • So.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Great.
  • Well, thank you very much.
  • KELLY CLARK: Well, you're welcome.