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Copyright 1996 Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles Times
April 16, 1996, Tuesday, Home Edition
SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 4; Metro Desk
LENGTH: 354 words
HEADLINE: SOUTHEAST;
2 WOMEN BEATEN BY NEIGHBORS, POLICE SAY
BODY:
The bloody handprint is still on the sidewalk in
front of the home where the two women live on Temple Avenue in Long Beach.
There is a bloody footprint there as well, a grim
reminder to passersby of what happened in the early hours of Saturday
when the two were allegedly beaten by a dozen
of their neighbors with sticks that resembled police batons.
Their transgression, according to those who live nearby,
is that they parked a little too close to some neighbors--and that they
were lesbians.
The details of what happened are sketchy and the Long
Beach Police Department report was still unavailable late Monday afternoon.
But what those in the neighborhood say is that
the two women exchanged words with neighbors, possibly over where a car
was parked, and that the bloody incident ensued from there.
The initial police report was terse and apparently
erroneous: that two women were beaten with a baseball bat by just two
other women.
But residents said the beatings were much worse because
a large number of people were involved.
The incident occurred about 12:25 a.m. when 10 to
12 people from the next block attacked the women after an argument.
Long Beach Police spokeswoman Maria Mendez said that
during the attack derogatory remarks were made about the sexual orientation
of the two women.
"There were words exchanged to indicate that it was
a hate crime," she said.
When police arrived, all who were in the area of the
beatings scattered. No arrests have been made. The two women were both
badly beaten. One suffered a black eye and the
other was treated at St. Mary's Hospital for cuts to the scalp. She was
treated and released.
The 15-year-old son of one of the beaten women said
that his mother received 11 stitches in the head and that the other woman
needed seven stitches for similar wounds.
"I don't know where they came from, but they just
swarmed," he said.
Sharon Johnson, an advocate for the Los Angeles Gay
Center anti-violence project, said the Saturday morning incident was similar
to other attacks on gays and lesbians.
"It fits the general pattern," she said.
LANGUAGE: English
LOAD-DATE: April 16, 1996
Copyright 1997 Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles Times
View Related Topics
April 27, 1997, Sunday, Valley Edition
SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 1; Zones Desk
LENGTH: 2174 words
HEADLINE: OUT IN THE VALLEY;
LESBIANS HAVE BEEN DRAWN TO AREA'S SUBURBAN LIFESTYLE
SINCE LONG BEFORE 'ELLEN'
BYLINE: ROBIN RAUZI, TIMES STAFF WRITER
BODY:
Ah, the difference TV makes.
When the title character on "Ellen" proclaims that
she is a lesbian on the ABC sitcom Wednesday night, millions will be watching.
And lesbians around the country, gathered in
bars, churches and living rooms, will celebrate the debut of the first
gay lead character on network TV.
But when 48-year-old Jody Young came out eight years
ago, there was no TV show, no parties. As dramatically as her life changed,
she said, much of it stayed the same: the job,
the errands, the neighbors, the house in Northridge where she's lived
for 22 years.
It never occurred to her to move to a so-called gay
area like West Hollywood. The San Fernando Valley is home. "Being gay
doesn't change that," she said.
"I'm not going to run away from this place because
I'm out and other people might not approve."
What Young didn't know was that despite its Brady
Bunch image, the Valley has long been home to what some say may be the
largest--albeit diffuse--lesbian population
in Los Angeles. There are as many lesbian bars here as in Long Beach,
which also has a sizable lesbian community. At the same
time, the Valley is regarded as a place to live comfortably, anonymously
and safely. Indeed, a county hate crimes report released last week showed
only 17 such incidents against homosexuals in
North Hollywood, compared to 61 in Hollywood and 45 in West Hollywood.
Jeff Miller, a gay real estate agent who has sold
houses to and for lesbians all over the Valley, said those clients have
been just like everyone else buying houses here:
primarily professional, upwardly mobile, baby-boomer couples.
"They're moving out to the Valley to do what everyone
else does: have a quieter, less hectic life, and do the suburban thing."
Lesbians have been seeking that out since the postwar
years, led by two pioneering nightclub owners, Beverly Shaw and Joanie
Hannan.
The Rev. Flo Fleischman, 67, of North Hollywood still
remembers the clubs--Hannan's Joanie Presents and Shaw's Club Laurel--as
classy spots where she and her friends could
gather. They may have been living under the pressure of a secret life,
or gotten teased at work during the week, Fleischman said, "but on
Saturday night--that was date night--all that was forgotten."
*
The big concern at gay bars was police raids, recalled
Edie Brown, 61, who started frequenting that scene while still a student
at San Fernando High School.
Cross-dressed men or women were targeted. The police,
in fact, had a rule that everyone had to wear at least three articles
of gender-appropriate clothing.
"There were some women who passed as men," Brown said.
"But if they got caught and they didn't have those three pieces of clothing,
they were in jail."
Maybe because the Valley was still the sticks, the
police didn't seem to bother the bars in North Hollywood as frequently
as those in Hollywood, Silver Lake
and the beach cities. So more cropped up. By the late
'50s and early '60s, there were about a dozen softball teams sponsored
by bars, plus bowling leagues, private "key
clubs" and restaurants.
It wasn't just the social life that drew women over
the hill, though. There were jobs--in the studios, at General Motors and
Lockheed--that could support a woman living
on her own. Equally important were inexpensive houses--costing about $
15,000--and the sense of safety.
"It was suburbia," said Fleischman, who is on the
board of directors for the International Gay and Lesbian Archives. "And
here they could have something that they never
had before."
The same things are drawing--or keeping--lesbians
in the Valley today.
Young--who had been married to a man with whom she
had five children--found that she felt uncomfortable in the Westside scene
once she started dating two years ago.
"Most of them have more money than the people in the
Valley, but they're transient and their relationships seemed transient,"
she said. "I found I had more in common with
women in the Valley. A lot of them have homes, jobs they've worked at
for many years. . . . These were all things I was looking for."
Judy Chiasson, too, decided to remain in the Valley
after coming out at age 35.
"I was too afraid to leave," said Chiasson, 43, who
lives in Sherman Oaks. "I wondered if I would be accepted here. I liked
it here, but I wondered what it was going to
be like to be gay here. Did I have to move to West Hollywood?"
The needs of her children, ages 10 and 13, were most
important. Chiasson, herself a teacher, wanted to be in a place where
the schools were good and the neighborhood safe.
"I have one of those households where the door is
always open," she said. "That's how I grew up and that's how I wanted
it to be for my kids."
Chiasson, who just got engaged to her girlfriend,
Carolyn Berry, initially didn't think it would be easy for her neighbors
to understand the changes in her
family. But she discovered "that the other mothers
were just far more understanding than I expected. It's been a very positive
experience."
The Valley's lesbian bars--all of which are planning
"coming out" parties for the "Ellen" episode Wednesday--remain centered
in the North Hollywood-Van
Nuys area, but the women themselves have spread west
and north with the rest of the population. Still, there are scattered
neighborhoods to which, for whatever reason,
lesbians gravitate.
Real estate agent Kathy Barbier, for example, sold
three homes to lesbians in one Van Nuys neighborhood where several other
gay women already lived.
"There isn't necessarily a community there," she said.
"The prices fit their budgets."
Women are still, on average, paid less than men, Barbier
pointed out. Less than a mile away, Sheila O'Kane manages an apartment
building where lesbians live in 15 of the 20
units. One of the reasons, O'Kane said, is cheap rent: a one-bedroom apartment
is $ 495 a month.
*
The other thing lesbians repeatedly said they were
seeking in the Valley was safe neighborhoods, which they seem to have
found. The 1996 hate crimes report by the Los
Angeles County Commission on Human Rights did show an increase in the
number of hate crimes against lesbians, but officials attributed
that to more victims reporting incidents.
Still, the commission found only 40 sexual-orientation
hate crimes in the entire San Fernando Valley in 1996, compared to 146
in the rest of Los Angeles.
Long Beach, a city with one-third the population of
the Valley, had 33.
Gay men were the targets of the vast majority--around
75%--of all anti-gay hate crimes. That's because the men tend to be more
noticeable, said Lisa
Phillips, the LAPD's field liaison to the gay and
lesbian community.
There is a chance that the publicity generated by
the "Ellen" show could spark hostilities toward lesbians, said Sharen
Shaw Johnson, chief advocate for the Los Angeles
Gay & Lesbian Center's anti-violence project. Hate crimes against
gays last year peaked at times of greater media coverage: in May, when
the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Colorado's
Amendment 2, which would have barred the inclusion of gays in anti-discrimination
laws; and in June, when most gay pride parades
and celebrations were held.
"Nationally and in Los Angeles for years, we've seen
a very direct correlation between gay and lesbian visibility and attacks,"
Johnson said. "However, when we say that, it's
incumbent upon us . . . to understand that that in no way means we should
go back into the closet.
"It's a clear, clear call for the need for more visibility,
not less."
But it seems unlikely that the Valley will ever have
a conspicuous lesbian community, as much because of the nature of the
Valley as the nature of the women who live here.
The Valley is the place to settle down and live a more tranquil life.
Carol Newman, 47, an attorney who is local president
of the Log Cabin Club, a gay Republican group, said she'll go out to West
Hollywood, but prefers coming home to Encino.
She hates to generalize, Newman said, "but women who
are paired off want a quieter lifestyle. Guys want to be in the middle
of things and go out."
"The people who end up in the Valley are a little
more laid-back," said O'Kane, the Van Nuys apartment manager. "They've
gone through the cruising thing.
They've outgrown it. And now they're settled into
their job and their lifestyles. And the Valley lends itself more to that
kind of thing."
In a sense, lesbians here do feel like victims of
their own successful integration. They no longer have to go to a select
number of bars or restaurants--and thus don't
have the same sense of community that their predecessors did 30 to 40
years ago.
At the suggestion of a friend, Dennis Mancini started
an all-women's night on Sundays at the Canoga Park club that bears his
name. He had no idea so many lesbians live in
the area.
"When I called the LN--the Lesbian News--and told
them what I was planning, they said they get so many calls saying, please
tell us when there's something opening up in
the west end of the Valley because there's so many people in Thousand
Oaks and Simi Valley who don't want to drive all the way into
the city," Mancini said.
*
Many mourn the closure last year of one of the larger
bars, North Hollywood's Club 22, even if they hardly ever went there.
Younger women, in particular, say they have
to drive to West Hollywood to socialize.
"It's hard being a single lesbian," said Monica Watford,
32, who lives in Northridge. "I've been in the gay community since I was
a kid. It's so small that you're obviously going
to meet somebody who's been with somebody you know. . . . There's really
no place to go to meet new people."
Watford remembers that six or seven years ago, there
seemed to be other social outlets--football in Balboa Park or Frisbee
in Griffith Park on the weekends. Not any more.
All around her, it seems, the women are paired up.
"It's like the thing to do," she said, "get a little
house in the Valley."
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Danette Lindeman of Woodland Hills,
left, dances with a friend on all-women's night at Mancini's in Canoga
Park.
PHOTOGRAPHER: BRIAN VANDER BRUG / Los Angeles Times
PHOTO: Judy Chiasson gets a hug from Carolyn Berry as Chiasson's daughter
looks
on. PHOTOGRAPHER: GERARD BURKHART / Los Angeles Times
PHOTO: Danette Lindeman and West Hills resident Karen Jackson at Mancini's.
PHOTOGRAPHER: GERARD BURKHART / Los Angeles Times
PHOTOGRAPHER: 'I wondered if I would be accepted here. I liked it here,
but I
wondered what it was going to be like to be gay here.
Did I have to move to West Hollywood?'-- JUDY CHIASSON, Sherman Oaks mother
of two on her
coming out as a lesbian PHOTOGRAPHER: BRIAN VANDER
BRUG / Los Angeles Times
LANGUAGE: English
LOAD-DATE: December 21, 1998
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