Section 3 2015 PRIDE

Issue 25, Volume 43, June 19, 2015
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With liberty and justice for all:
Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu
by Shaun Knittel
SGN Associate Editor
There are few people in this world that
put you completely at ease; whose presence
makes you feel that somehow the world is a
little brighter because they are in it. For me,
Washington Supreme Court Justice Mary
Yu is one of them.
Yu made history when Washington
State Governor Jay Inslee (D) appointed
her to the Washington Supreme Court effective May 16, 2014, making her the first
Asian, the first Latina, the first woman of
color, and the first member of the LGBT
community to serve on the Supreme Court.
And although Yu is not the first woman to
ever serve the court
she is the 6th woman
currently serving
and the 11th women
ever to serve on the
state’s
Supreme
Court.
In order to reach
the echelons of success that Yu has you
certainly can’t deny
the fact that there are
going to be things
in this life you must
face; things you simply cannot run away
from. What I find to
be most admirable
about Yu is her sense
of self and selfworth. And although
I was nervous and
had just spent nearly
two hours traveling from Seattle to
Olympia at 8 a.m. to
meet with her inside
the Temple of Justice
on the same grounds
as the Capitol Building, within minutes
of interviewing her for a documentary
about the life and times of some of Seattle’s
most notable or trailblazing LGBTQ elders
in Washington state that I am producing for
Social Outreach Seattle called The Legacy
Project, Justice Yu made it clear that she,
without being self-righteous and free of all
martyrdom, would not shy away from talking about her ethnicity, sexual orientation
and gender. In fact, because she believes so
strongly in people always telling the truth
no matter what, and the importance of
people living their truth, she welcomes the
questions just like she welcomes her guests
– with open arms.
Yu was born in Chicago, Illinois to immigrant parents. Her father came to the
U.S. from Mexico and her mother, from
China. She credits her upbringing, which
included attending Catholic Church and
school (she graduated from St. Mary’s High
School in 1975), for her devotion to social
justice. She told me that she believes most
people have a good sense of what is right
and what is wrong in terms of how to treat
others and how one conducts oneself on a
basic social level but what she has always
been drawn to is the righteousness of why
that is.
She became the first of her family to
graduate from college when, in 1979, she
received her degree in theology from Do-
“my experience with the Church would’ve
greatly changed.”
“At the time, that was not what I wanted,” she said. “I did not lie about who I am,
I just didn’t talk about it.”
The irony of the vast difference in which
she now lives her life as a well-known out
Lesbian who has made history as a justice
of the Supreme Court is not lost on her.
However, Yu pointed out the fact that when
people only look at the way things are now
for LGBTQ people they must also have the
empathy to recognize the way that things
were back then or one could easily get the
wrong idea. When you do this, you realize that “hiding” in the closet is the wrong
word to describe life for LGBTQ people
Mary Yu – photo by Janelle Rekta
minican University, just outside of Chicago
in River Forest, Illinois.
“Even in college I wasn’t out to everyone about being Lesbian,” she said. “I felt
it just wasn’t the time or place to do that.
And in many ways the need to tell everyone about that part of me just wasn’t really
there. I knew who I was and that was the
most important thing to me, that I remain,
always, honest with myself.”
Like many others who are Catholic and
LGBTQ, although there were many things
she enjoyed and loved about the Catholic Church, it was made clear to Yu that if
she were to one day come out as Lesbian,
when the modern LGBTQ equality movement was just one decade old; surviving
would be closer to the truth because, you
see, when Mary Yu entered the institution
of higher learning in the mid-1970s LGBTQ people didn’t have basic protections
against discrimination in all areas of education, employment and safety. Then add
to that the fact that she was also a biracial
woman of color and suddenly the hill of
life becomes a mountain. Luckily for us all,
Yu turned out to be one hell of a mountain
climber.
After completing her undergraduate
education, Yu went to work for the Roman
Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, which
serves more than 2.3 million Catholics in
Cook and Lake Counties in Northeastern
Illinois. She was initially hired by Rev.
Francis J. Kane as a secretary for the Office
of Peace and Justice for the Archdiocese of
Chicago. In 1989, Yu earned a graduate degree in theology from Mundelein of Loyola
University and rose to become director of
the Office of Peace and Justice for the Chicago Archdiocese.
When asked about the internal struggle
that someone must feel as they work for
what is largely considered an anti-LGBTQ
religion, Yu said that while there were
some bad days along with the good, as is
in all areas of life, the social justice work
of the Church as a
whole allowed her
to take solace in the
fact that the Chicago
Archdiocese presided over a great
deal of that work.
Catholic Charities of
the Archdiocese of
Chicago is the largest in a nationwide
network of faithbased social service
providers that form
Catholic Charities.
Together they form
the largest private
network of social
service providers in
the United States,
which provides services to nearly 10
million people in
need each year regardless of religious,
social, or economic
backgrounds and
the Chicago Office
of Catholic Schools
is the largest private school system
in the United States serving various ethnic
groups, including Irish, Germans, Poles,
Czechs and Bohemians, French, Slovaks,
Lithuanians, African Americans, Italians,
and Mexicans.
“In those days you essentially had two
lives. There was your work or professional
life and then there was your personal life,”
she said, adding, “Of course, it was like that
for most people, not just LGBTQs. People
did not share the details of their private life
as freely as they do now.”
Yu explained that fact as being important because it is necessary for people to
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How Seattle Area Support Groups and
Seattle Counseling Service saved my life
by Steven Griffith
Program Manager
Seattle Area Support
Groups
Following is the testimonial
speech given by Steven Griffith
at Seattle Counseling Service’s
ICON XI: a celebration of drag,
art & life! hosted by Aleksa Manila on May 17, 2015 at the W
Hotel. The event raised $70,000
for the organization.
Good evening everyone. Tonight I am going to tell you a story about a man that has struggled
through addiction his entire life.
Struggled with his sexuality, and
his place in the world. This person is me, Steven Griffith.
When I was 12 years old I
started smoking pot. By the age
of 14 I was drinking every weekend. This was a way for me to socialize and try to find my place
in the world. Unfortunately, it
quickly got out of hand. I started
to go deeper and deeper into my
addiction. When I turned 18, I
started to snort cocaine and was
thrown out of my house by my
mother.
From there I was off and running. I found meth, and fell in
love immediately. I got high everyday regardless of what was
going on in my life. Stopping
for nothing, or no one. I stole,
lied, and did what I had to do to
make sure that I was going to get
high. After living in my car for
a few months, I was looking and
feeling awful. I had dropped almost 50 lbs., and was strung out
on meth. My life was going nowhere and I didn’t care. I started
to break into cars and finding
ways to get money.
I used to mask my sexuality
and this led me deeper and deeper
into my addiction to drugs and alcohol. I
would have sex with women and tried my
hardest to fuck the gay away. I ended up
with a kid with one of them. I thought for
sure this would change me. I did everything
with my son. My son was my world – he
was everything to me. Unfortunately, that
only kept me sober for a very short period
of time. I would go out and get high and
sleep with men. One day, his mother had
enough and she left me and took my son.
I went from having my son every day, to
never seeing him. Shortly thereafter I was
homeless again. Off and running, I started
to prostitute myself for money to get more
drugs. From time to time I would do what
was called in the drug world “dirt.” This
consisted of robbing drug dealers, people’s
homes, or stealing from stores. Nothing
was going to get in the way from me getting
high.
When I was 25 I was diagnosed with
HIV – my world changed once again. I
started to use heroin, and did it with dirty
needles. I would shoot up heroin and meth
and if I didn’t have a needle, I would bust
open sharps containers and use whatever
was in there. Reckless was my life’s mantra, and getting high was my goal. At the
age of 26 I was really sick from the HIV.
My viral load was in the 100,000 and my
CD4 was 262. I was set up with a caseworker at the Madison Clinic that later got
me on a program called HEET. It was for
people that had been to jail and were HIV
positive. They gave me an apartment where
Steven Griffith – photo courtesy of Daniel Jeffrey Photography
I had made the decision to do drugs till I
died. Day in and day out I would get high.
My doctor wouldn’t put me on antiretroviral medication because there was no way to
know if I would take them. I drank Carlo
Rossi in the shower because the thought of
the bottle being that far away from me was
frightening.
After a few failed suicide attempts that
landed me in the hospital I finally came
out to my family in 2012. I decided to try
and get sober again. I had already been to
seven treatment centers and wanted to give
up hope. It didn’t last more than a day. One
day when I was really drunk, I started a
fight with a random guy on the street. He
ran away and called the police. The police
picked me up a few blocks from there, but
didn’t take me to jail. They waited for an
ambulance to come and get me. The ambulance drivers strapped me to a bed where I
was unable to move my arms and then took
me to the psych ward at Harborview. There,
I was evaluated when the alcohol wore off.
They determined that I was not doing well,
but couldn’t keep me because I didn’t tell
them enough. I was given a pamphlet for a
treatment center that was a lock down facility. I finally contacted the people at the
lock down facility, which was called PCN.
I had to go in front of a judge that would
later commit me so I would be able to go to
PCN.
I went to this treatment center, but only
lasted about two weeks before I was kicked
out for fighting. I went to another treatment
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center and completed it, but only stayed
sober for a month after. When I started
to go to meetings to get sober, I found a
place called Seattle Area Support Groups
(SASG). People there told me how they got
sober. They got sober because they found a
place called Seattle Counseling Services. I
contacted SCS, and asked them what they
had. I remember this like it was yesterday.
From the very first phone call, I was treated like an actual human. They wanted me
to come in and talk with a specialist right
away. I went in and felt welcomed right
away. I was evaluated, and because I was
really serious about staying sober they got
me into their outpatient class that was three
days a week. There we talked about PostAcute Withdraw Syndrome, how to live a
sober life, and how to stay sober no matter
what. They helped me change my perspective on what it meant to be part of the LGBTQIA community, and that it wasn’t all
about drugs. They gave me more resources
throughout the community to help me when
I wasn’t there the other four days. I had
meetings one-on-one with some one that
would listen to what I had to say. That, in
and of itself was amazing. To be able to talk
with someone about anything and not feel
judged was amazing. SCS gave me piece of
mind when I went home. There were days,
during the beginning that felt terrible. I
didn’t want to come in all the time, but even
on those days I felt better just by going in
and listening to others that knew exactly
what I was going through. Alex, was the
June 19, 2015
facilitator of phase one for me.
He listened, helped me to realize
who I am, and didn’t judge me at
all. I would argue, and fight often, but no matter what, he, and
the rest of the staff were there for
me.
As I moved onto phase
two, Kate was the facilitator.
I started to really understand
my addiction and to cope with
certain situations. We dove
deeper into issues that I never
even thought about, and worked
through them in a group setting with people that were going
through the same issues I had.
Life was getting better day-byday. During this time, I was still
fighting and struggling to stay
sober. It wasn’t all glitter and
rainbows, but some of my worst
days I had at SCS, were still better than some of my best days out
using.
I finally stepped into
phase three and I was a year sober. My family was talking to
me again, and I wasn’t suicidal
anymore. SCS was helping every
step of the way. I started to facilitate groups like Strength Over
Speed at Seattle Area Support
Groups, and going to numerous
AA meetings throughout the
hill. Only going once a week to
SCS, it became the highlight of
my week. Going in and seeing
the front desk staff welcoming
me with a smile and checking
me in, made my week. It was
like I was recharging my batteries at SCS. Don’t get me wrong,
there were times that I thought
“Do I really need to keep coming
here?” The answer was yes. I still
needed my one on ones, and my
weekly meetings. I still needed
to sit in the waiting room with
everyone else and catch up on what
was going on in their lives, I needed to refill
my water bottle at their cooler, use the bathroom, and get condoms. These were little
things, but they were what I looked forward
to.
When the day came that I had to say
goodbye to the outpatient program, I was
given my last certificate. I was so happy and
so sad all at the same time. I said my goodbyes and left. I went home and hung up the
certificate. I cried because I was so happy
for myself. I went from living on the streets
prostituting myself for drugs and money, to
near death from suicide numerous times, to
shooting up in some of the worst places on
earth, going to the furthest depths of hell to
being the man that sits in front of you today.
Today I have a relationship with my family, I have true friends, people that honestly
care about me, my own apartment, a career
as a program manager at Seattle Area Support Groups where I get to give back to my
community and I owe it all to Seattle Counseling Services. I will always be grateful
for SCS and for their services.
Thank you everyone for listening to me
tell you how this organization brought life
back into this hopeless, strung out, lonely
dope fiend, to the person that is speaking to
you today.
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Seattle’s Police – from the inside “OUT”
by Jim Ritter
SPD LGBTQ
Community Liaison Officer
Special to the SGN
The views expressed in this article are
not the official opinions or policies of the
Seattle Police Department, but belong
solely to the author. Jim Ritter has been a
Seattle Police Officer for over 30 years. He
is an out Gay man and currently serves the
department as its LGBTQ Community Liaison Officer.
For some under the age of forty and
living in Seattle, publically acknowledging the fact that you’re LGBTQ is a nuance
that’s equivalent to revealing your favorite
restaurant, color of clothing or preferred
vacation destination. When you come out
to your friends, acquaintances or family
it’s not a big deal. And if it is – you simply
move on with your life hoping their acceptance will come with time. Your knowledge
of systemic oppression and discrimination
is something you only read about and it
isn’t necessarily even something you would
recognize.
Gone are the days of Stonewall-type rioting, systemic police shakedowns of LGBTQ businesses, the mystery behind the
AIDS epidemic, and society’s entrenched
resistance to LGBTQ equality.
For decades, generations of Seattleites
blazed a trail of social awareness that few
jurisdictions dare to follow. Seattle is a tolerant and compassionate city. But, it hasn’t
always been that way.
In the early 1980s I was a twenty-oneyear-old closeted Seattle cop. This may
sound odd to you but I was fortunate at
the time because I was able to transition
through a time in history where society and
policing were changing exponentially. As
an Eastside kid my exposure to Gay people
was limited. This was long before the Internet. My only information was the television news, which depicted drag queens parading around in a circus-like atmosphere
and religious leaders condemning Gays and
Lesbians to Hell. As a cop, my first rookie
enough to join him.
There were plenty of
suspected Lesbian officers who, for generations, were long
considered the rule
and not the exception.
Those of us recently
assigned to “the Hill”
were hand-selected to
replace a squad of officers whose interaction with the Gay community was less than
desirable. This new
squad was made up of
rookie and veteran officers, all of whom enjoyed their profession
and were not opposed
to diversity.
The first shift with
my new squad will be ingrained in my
mind for the rest of my life. This busy summer night included watching two very tall,
large Lesbian bouncers at Sappho’s hurling a drunken man out onto the sidewalk
after he began harassing customers. This
event was followed by multiple fight calls
at Neighbours Nightclub in which I was
forced to walk the “gauntlet” through an
enormous crowd of Gay men, all of whom
I just knew could see through my thinly
veiled façade of being a straight cop.
Later that month my work partner (who
was a member of the Mormon Church) and
I began talking with the owner and manager of the Brass Connection and eventually
started eating our dinners there on a nightly
basis. I must admit that the customers and
the other cops driving by were all very curious with the novelty of seeing some of
Seattle’s finest eating in a Gay restaurant.
Within the month we were soon joined
by our squad mates, often having ten of
us seated at one table conversing with the
other customers and staff. The criminals in
the area also began noticing this fascinating dynamic and watched with curiosity as
they slowly began moving their drug dealing and pimping operations out of the area.
Officer Jim Ritter lines up members of the Fabulous Hammers
on the hood of a 1970 police car – photo by Steven H. Robinson
assignment was the night shift at the then
“new” Capitol Hill Precinct, the epicenter
of Seattle’s Gay scene. This was the first
time I got to experience being around people who were comfortable with their sexuality and were not afraid to show it.
It’s important to remember that I’m
talking about an era on Capitol Hill where
unbridled drug and alcohol use and sexual
promiscuity reigned supreme. And the public’s perception of which was intolerant, at
best.
In 1983 the Seattle Police Department had only one openly Gay male officer, who stood alone under the watchful
eyes of those of us who were not confident
One of my most memorable nights was
when we invited a fellow squad member to
join us for dinner at “The Brass.“ He had
been on the force for thirty years and his
gruff, 350-pound frame was an intimidating sight by any standard. He was nervous
at first but within the hour I saw him laughing and joking with a 6’4” drag queen sitting on his knee. That’s when I knew things
were changing for the better.
Although it would take me another ten
years to “come out” to some of my coworkers on the SPD, it was the beginning
of an interesting series of unconventional
interactions with the public that would soon
begin changing the attitudes of the LGBTQ
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Seattle Police Officer Jim Ritter – www.keepingabluelighton.com
community with “their” police in a way
that actually brought them together. This
was in stark contrast to the contentious interaction and memories of the past.
By the end of the 1980s, Capitol Hill
was beginning to change, as was the City
and its police. Seattle began slowly transforming from a large blue-collar town into
a rapidly growing metropolis.
The “Hill” also began morphing from a
collection of century-old abandoned buildings, violent crime and blight into a more
vibrant, re-gentrified area that began attracting “outsiders” who began frequenting the clubs, bars and restaurants. With
the increased level of growth came heavier
traffic, higher rents and economic displacement for some. Many residents who had
chosen to live on Capitol Hill for its Bohemian charm grew increasingly uncomfortable with the changes and felt that the
Broadway District was losing its cultural
appeal and identity.
Fast forward to 2015 where the same
concerns are now arising. As we all get
older and our youthful idealism begins to
wane we eventually begin to realize that
change is cyclical, inevitable and that how
we view change often diminishes our level
of fear.
I am proud to say that the police department has also experienced a great deal of
positive change over the years as well. We
now have more training, better equipment
and are more progressive than any other
major city police force in the nation. SPD
now has 50-60 openly LGBTQ officers that
serve in all ranks and assignments. The
police department has transformed from
being systemically oppressive towards LGBTQ residents and businesses in the 1960s
to having Seattle’s police chief, commanders and officers marching in the Pride Parade for the past twenty years.
Yes, change came to us, too.
As a police officer I’m the first to admit
that most cops don’t like change simply because it is a constant factor in our profession and leaves us very little time to savor
stability. All police officers recognize that
citizens want to feel safe in their neighborhoods and we want to reinforce that feeling and attempt to prevent as much crime
as our staffing allows. Sometimes public
frustration grows for a variety of reasons
and results in a series of misunderstandings based on misinformation and a lack
of communication between police and the
public they serve. This dynamic allows
criminals to exploit this lack of trust and
communication to continue their activities
unabated by knowing these distractions
take the attention off of them. None of us
want that.
Seattle is fortunate to have an openly
Gay mayor, Ed Murray, who doesn’t have
to politically empathize with the concerns
of the LGBTQ community because he’s
lived it. Mayor Murray, combined with
Seattle’s Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole,
share the concerns of the LGBTQ community and continue to enhance our police department’s image and mission to meet the
needs of the future. One of those needs is
safety and the LGBTQ community’s concerns regarding the increase in bias crimes
over the past year and the police department’s response to it.
On May 21, 2015 Mayor Murray and
Police Chief O’Toole addressed many
of these concerns by launching the SPD
SAFE PLACE Initiative, a concept that
encourages the increased collaboration between the Seattle Police Department and
the City’s businesses community and social
service organizations. Designed to assist
the victim’s of anti-LGBTQ crimes and
reduce LGBTQ student bullying, this program is accomplished by placing colorful
SPD SAFE PLACE decals on participating
businesses and other premises that identifies them as being safe places for crime victims to enter and remain until police arrive.
Businesses owners are trained to instruct
their employees to assist these victims and
call 911 so that police resources can respond immediately.
These decals and signage also direct
citizens to the SPDSAFEPLACE.com website where a variety of LGBTQ resources
can be found and business decals and posters can be ordered. In addition, this website contains an LGBTQ Community Input
Form for use by victims and/or LGBTQ
community members to contact the SPD’s
liaison officer directly (and anonymously,
if desired) to report community crime concerns, suggestions or compliments. This
form is not to be used in lieu of calling 911,
and the information will be directed to the
appropriate SPD resources so that the issues may be addressed expeditiously. For
this program to work it requires the cooperation and commitment of business owners,
citizens and the police to work collectively
to reduce crime and make the community
safer.
After thirty-five years of working as a
police officer in a variety of specialty units,
the LGBTQ liaison position is the most
fascinating and challenging position of my
career. It not only benefits the police department and the community, but it helps
me more clearly understand and empathize
with the challenges that other people have
experienced just to be accepted as equals
and live in peace. We’ve all come a long
way and my sincere hope is that everyone
can continue to keep their passions directed into positive actions and collective
solutions so that homophobia, racism and
discrimination will eventually be nothing
more than a distant memory to us all.
June 19, 2015
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What being a GSBA Scholar has meant to me
by Laramie Smith
Special to the SGN
Following is the keynote speech given
by Laramie Smith at the Greater Seattle
Business Association’s Scholarship Awards
Dinner on May 15, 2015 at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront. Laramie Smith was the recipient of a four-year scholarship and has
gone on to complete her doctorate. The rapt
crowd in attendance gave her a 10-minute
standing ovation at the end of her speech.
$350,000 in scholarships were given to 48
LGBTQ and allied students that evening
and $200,000 was raised for the Scholarship Fund at the event. The evening marked
the 25th anniversary of the GSBA Scholarship Fund.
Good evening.
It is with an enormous sense of pride and
privilege that I stand before you here tonight.
Not as Dr. Laramie Smith, not as an Assistant Professor of Global Public Health,
and not as a scientist and activist committed to improving the health and well-being
of communities, like ours, who are affected
by HIV and AIDS.
While it feels simply amazing to rejoin
you with these accomplishments and blessings in hand, I stand here tonight much as
I did 16 years earlier, as a scholar who was
given an incredible opportunity to embody
these achievements. An opportunity given
to me by YOU, my community.
Tonight, I’d like to take you through a
brief journey on how my four years of scholarship from the GSBA Scholars Program
came to be, and the impact it continues to
have on my life.
After coming out to my parents at the
age of 16, I faced what we might call, “a year
and a half of difficulty at home” that had a
lot to do with my persistence in wanting to
go to college (meaning that I would not be
at home to help out the family financially),
and my parents trouble comprehending how
I could possibly even envision a successful
future for myself if I insisted on being gay.
These tensions were punctuated with
periods where I would be kicked out for a
week or two at a time. I still managed to
pull A’s in my Honors and Advanced Placement courses, held a part-time job, and volunteered regularly during this time. This is
what I was told I needed to do to get into
college, and I had a blind determination
to go. What college would look like, how
18 Seattle Gay News
Laramie Smith – courtesy of GSBA
I would get there, and what doors it would
open for me in the end were mysteries I
couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I just
knew that I could and wanted to do better
for myself.
At the beginning of my senior year of
high school, I found myself face to face with
a new challenge I never anticipated. One
night, my parents had told me that in the
morning I was to leave my keys with them –
and to learn what it meant to support myself,
in my life choices, without the help of family.
This time it was different, they were
calm, there was no yelling or degrading remarks about my sexuality or selfishness for
wanting to go to college. Neither one would
look me in the eye. In the morning my mom
stood at the front door with her hand out
for my key. I left their home for good with
my school bag and the clothes on my back.
There were no words, just the sound of the
door – locking behind me.
It turns out; I was one of the lucky ones.
My best friend’s conservative Republican
Catholic parents took me in with open arms
and supported my decision to go to college.
Despite their support, “going to college”
was anything but easy. With no ID, no social security card, no birth certificate, and
parents who refused to acknowledge me –
I had no legal guardian to sign my college
applications or financial aid forms. I had no
grounds to technically
even apply for college.
Working to address
each of these barriers meant having to
tell and retell perfect
strangers over and over
again why I needed
their help: my parents
kicked me out because
I was gay – No, not because I was bad – but
because I was gay. It
meant having to call
back until I got someone at the vital statistics
department who didn’t
agree with my parent’s
decision - and wouldn’t
hang up on me. It meant
having to go to each
school I applied to and
sit in front of a panel of
administrators, telling
them my story, just to
get permission to sub-
June 19, 2015
mit my application forms without signed
parental consent. Ultimately, it meant having to listen to myself repeatedly say that
my own family didn’t think I was worthy of
this endeavor. It was humiliating and heart
breaking.
Of course, amidst these issues I still had
to figure out how I was going to pay for college. I felt joining the military was not an
option. I told the recruiters that if I wasn’t
going to stay in a closet for my parents, I
sure as hell wasn’t going to stay in one for
Uncle Sam!
Then different mentors and allies, who
knew I was struggling to find a way to go
to college, started alerting me to this GSBA
Scholarship Program, “It’s for the gay kids”
they said. In one of these instances I was
given an actual printed application for this
same scholarship program sealed in a manila envelope. I recall just staring at that
envelope for a while. OK. Here we go, Laramie, tell your story – humiliate yourself and
cry in the face of strangers – one more time.
I needed options, so I applied.
As the school year progressed things
started to fall into place. I stopped trying
to reach out to my parents and focused on
caring for myself. I had enough money to
apply to two in-state colleges, and was formally accepted to both – but this progress
hinged on whether or not I was able to pay
for my unmet financial need. Thankfully, I
had been selected for scholarship interviews
with the GSBA – but during the interview
process, it was clear there were WAY more
of us than there were scholarships that could
be awarded.
Then there was a letter. I had been
awarded enough in scholarships to cover
my unmet financial need! This – my dream
– was actually going to happen. The letter also said a guest and I were invited to
an awards dinner. To be honest I was a bit
hesitant to go. Would I have to tell my story
one more time, and risk crying in the face of
strangers?
Despite this concern, I didn’t have a hard
time choosing who to take with me. After all, I needed a ride, and my best friend
drove us from Olympia to Seattle. I held the
map… and my breath for what felt like the
entire way. We arrived at some school auditorium, walked through a back door, down a
dimly lit staircase, and turned the corner.
There I told someone who I was, and – at
that moment everything changed. His face
lit up. He embraced me in a hug that was so
hard and so sudden I started to panic, until his words finally registered in my head.
“We are so PROUD of you, Laramie – and
we are so HONORED to have you here tonight.”
This same scenario played out with everyone I was introduced to, all night long.
And it finally began to dawn on me that
maybe this was the real payoff – more than
the monetary assistance – this is what unconditional love and support looked like –
this is what it feels like to have someone, a
community – no longer strangers, genuinely
value who you are in your entirety and believe in your ability to succeed.
That awards dinner helped to change the
way I viewed myself as a freshman entering
Western Washington University. I wasn’t
just going to college because I believed I
deserved better, I was going because the
LGBT community believed I deserved this
opportunity.
Because of this personal connection to
the Scholars program, I pushed my selfexpectations and definitions of success further than I had ever dared imagine as an applicant in 1999. I pushed myself out of my
comfort zone and into volunteer work, and
then leadership positions as an undergraduate; and ultimately through graduate school
and into a career that I feel allows me to
give back to my community in a meaningful
way.
And tonight, I hope to convey my deepest gratitude for your support of me as a
Scholar, and the invaluable STRENGTH it
has lent me in this journey.
Laramie Smith – courtesy of GSBA
Celebrating 41 Years!
Visit us online www.sgn.org
June 19, 2015
Seattle Gay News 19
20 Seattle Gay News
June 19, 2015
Celebrating 41 Years!
SGN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW:
Ruth Coppinger, member of Irish
parliament
by Mike Andrew
SGN Staff Writer
The stunning victory of Ireland’s marriage equality referendum may herald a new
era in Irish politics, a member of the country’s parliament, or Dail, tells SGN.
Ruth Coppinger, TD (member of the
Dail) for Dublin West constituency, was
in Seattle to support City Council member
Kshama Sawant, whose Socialist Alternative party is allied with Coppinger’s Socialist Party.
Coppinger told SGN that while Americans may still view Ireland as a traditionally
Catholic country, Irish politics have undergone sweeping changes, and more change is
on the horizon.
“Ireland has changed significantly in the
last 20 years,” Coppinger said. “Americans
may have an old fashioned view. The Catholic Church doesn’t hold sway as it used to.
Politically it’s largely impotent.
“The church has been very badly damaged by the abuse scandals. You’ve had that
in the States, and we have as well in Ireland.
“And it’s not just sexual abuse,” she added.
Coppinger explained that for decades
the Catholic Church ran so-called “Magdalene laundries,” in which unmarried girls
who had gotten pregnant or whose families
found them hard to manage were compelled
to live and work in prison-like conditions
under the supervision of nuns.
Living in isolation, working long hours
with no rest breaks, subject to corporal punishment and short rations, many died and
were secretly buried by the Church. The
Irish government never intervened.
“There is a host of stories about underground graves,” Coppinger said, some of
which were confirmed in 1993 when a mass
grave containing 155 corpses was discovered at an abandoned convent in Dublin.
“There are a whole variety of ways in
which the church and state have been complicit,” Coppinger told SGN, “and working
people realize this.”
In fact, Coppinger continued, with both
church and state discredited by the oppres-
Ruth Coppinger – photo by Aiden Crawley
sive practices of the past, many Irish people
are searching for new politics based on social equality.
“One of the important features of the
referendum was that the working class areas
had the highest Yes vote,” Coppinger said,
“up to 89% in some constituencies, and 71%
in my constituency.”
The overall vote for the marriage referendum was just over 62%.
“Liberals say that the middle class is the
most reliably for equality, but that has proven not to be the case,” Coppinger continued.
“There’s more of a tolerance in the working class areas. There are different kinds of
family forms in the working class districts,
a higher number of lone-parent families –
and 90% of those are women.
“The old idea of a family with the mother and the father and the dog – that does not
reflect reality.”
Coppinger added that “the brave LGBT
people who came out and campaigned for
this” mobilized a wave of popular support
and isolated social conservatives.
“Even parties that are quite conservative
– Fine Gael, the government party – they
wanted to be seen as inclusive,” she explained. “Even Reuna, which is a right-wing
party, took no position. They were afraid to
advocate for a No vote.”
Now, after the referendum, more change
is on the horizon, Coppinger says.
“The first thing would be to repeal
Amendment 8, banning abortion. Within 24
hours of the referendum the media were saying this is on the table,” she noted.
“In the 1980s the church wanted to put a
ban on abortion into the constitution. Women have to travel out of the county – mainly
to Britain – to access abortion.
“I’ve been demanding and campaigning
on this for years – and not me alone. People
see a need to separate church and state in
Ireland.”
Coppinger is also campaigning for additional protections for Ireland’s LGBT community.
“I put in a bill calling for an amendment
to the Employment Equality Act – right
now a Gay person could get sacked,” she
Visit us online www.sgn.org
explained. “Text books should reflect the
reality that people are Gay and now can get
married.
“Government is way out of touch with
the people, with changing attitudes to Gay
people, and abortion,” she continued.
Coppinger also looks forward to taking
on the Irish government’s austerity policies.
Like Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, Ireland was particularly hard-hit by the 2008
financial crisis, and it was also forced into a
program of drastic budget cuts and privatization.
“In 2008 Ireland saw the biggest bank
bailout in Europe,” Coppinger explained.
“$16,000 was taken from every person in
Ireland. $64 billion was given to the banks.
“Employers used the recession to drive
down wages. All the jobs that were created
were low-pay, casual labor. People don’t
have money to spend in the real economy.
“Eighteen percent of our young people
emigrated. Homelessness doubled. There’s
no public housing being built.
“In fact, the slogan our [Socialist] party
has adopted is: 2015: Vote for equality.
2016: Vote against austerity.”
While Americans may find the victory
of Ireland’s marriage referendum inspiring,
the Irish are inspired by political developments in the U.S., Coppinger said.
“We’ve had Black Lives Matter meetings even in Dublin,” she said, “and there
is also a Trayvon Martin project in Dublin.
My own daughter is 9 years old, and she was
asking me about Baltimore.”
Irish socialists were also delighted by
Kshama Sawant’s 2013 election to the Seattle City Council.
“Kshama’s election was hugely inspirational” for the Irish, Coppinger said. “People think of America as the bastion of capitalism, and here an outspoken socialist was
elected. It was really, really inspirational to
people in Europe who have been fighting for
socialism.”
June 19, 2015
Seattle Gay News 21
22 Seattle Gay News
June 19, 2015
Celebrating 41 Years!
mary yu
continued from cover
understand the context in which LGBTQ
people had to live within the confines of
how society operated back then. The hetero
white male dominated society was more
prevalent and while the feminist movement had made some advances in educating Americans that women weren’t just
objects of desire and that they didn’t belong barefoot and dumb in the kitchen, the
expectation of what being a women in the
workplace meant was certainly different in
1979 than it was in 1989 or even 2009 for
that matter. Showing a remarkable ability to
look at things from a more macro lens than a
micro one, Yu says she understood that one
of the ways she could make a difference in
people’s lives was through the court system
so she enrolled at Notre Dame Law School
in 1990 and graduated with her law degree in 1993. Even then, she says she never
thought she’d one day reach the Supreme
Court and preside over cases in the Temple
of Justice in Olympia, Washington. However, when chatter began that she might be appointed to the bench, she says she thought,
“Well, why not?”
“I worked hard as a lawyer and judge,”
she said. “I felt that I had earned this and so
did a lot of my friends and colleagues and
that was great.”
Yu’s record speaks for itself. In 1999,
King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm
Maleng named Yu as his deputy chief of
staff. In 2000, then-Washington Governor
Gary Locke appointed Yu to replace retiring judge Janice Niemi on the King County
Superior Court. As an accomplished King
County trial court judge for over 14 years,
she presided over a wide variety of criminal, civil, and juvenile cases, and hundreds
of adoptions and other family law matters.
Yu became known for treating everyone
with respect and fairness.
Because of that, I think, we spent a good
amount of time talking about the need for
the whole of society to practice what is most
commonly known as the Golden Rule, “Do
unto others as you would have them do unto
you,” which is a biblical principle. Luke 6:31
records Jesus saying, “Do to others as you
would have them do to you.” We agreed that
the reasons why this works, whether you believe in the so-called teachings of Jesus and
other religious dogma or maybe just karma
and “What goes around comes around,” the
Golden Rule, if applied more often than
not, is the best blueprint on how to live life
without ever needing to hurt or takeaway
from any one person or group of people in
this world. These days it would seem that
we live in a world that is increasingly “Do
as I say, not as I do” and the results of this
flawed way of living can be found all around
us.
“The most important values for me as a
trial judge were to treat everyone with respect and fairness, to approach each case
with an open mind, to decide cases impartially and to understand that every decision I
made impacted the lives of real people,” she
said.
Yu was considered a leading contender
to replace Justice Bobbe Bridge on the
Washington Supreme Court when Bridge
retired in December 2007. Ultimately, Governor Christine Gregoire appointed Debra
L. Stephens to fill the vacancy. On May 1,
2014, it was announced that Judge Yu was
appointed by Washington Governor Jay Inslee to the Washington Supreme Court and
she was sworn in on May 20, as an Associate Justice of the Washington Supreme
Court.
As a Supreme Court Justice, Yu continues to hold those same values of fairness
and respect, allowing people their dignity
and remaining thoughtful in all areas that
her job as a Supreme Court justice demands.
And she’s as popular as ever with speaking
engagements and personal appearances
booked around the clock. In fact, after the the Supreme Court level and that an LGannouncement to her appointment to the Su- BTQ viewpoint be represented their, too.
preme Court, Justice Yu ran unopposed to
Time changes all things. Yu, a woman
complete the term and was the highest “vote who once worked for a Catholic Archdiogetter” in the state.
cese while remaining in the closet but now
Yu has a strong commitment to all is an out Lesbian role model who made it all
youth, but she has a particular soft spot for the way to the Supreme Court of WashingLGBTQ youth, girls and youth of color. In ton is proof of that.
fact, something she told me she is proud of
On December 9, 2012, at midnight,
was that prior to being sworn in by Chief Mary Yu officiated the first same-sex marJustice Barbara Madsen, a symposium on riages in Washington state. Aside from the
juvenile justice was presented at the Temple fact that she is Lesbian, many pointed out
of Justice by
that her name,
the Washington
Mary Yu, is
State Minorpronounced as
ity & Justice
“marry you.”
C o m m i s si o n ,
of which Yu is
Some of the
a co-chairwomthings though,
an. She noted
that have not
that she felt it
changed, are
was a good exwhat concerns
perience for the
Justice Yu when
young attendees
it comes to the
at the sympoLGBTQ comsium to witness
munity.
her taking her
“While
oath.
we have made
“It meant evsignificant aderything,” she
vances in our
said. “My apfight for equalpointment to the
ity there are
Supreme Court
some
areas
is a symbol for
that I think we
those young
should still be
people on the
looking at,” she
panel. They can
said. “In parAleksa Manila, Ed Murray, and Mary Yu –
come here too,
ticular violence
facebook.com
and they could be
towards members
a justice some day on this court.”
of our community.”
There’s a lot of work to do she says in
Yu told me she was concerned about the
terms of making sure youth are protected. bias crimes that are happening in the CapiHaving positive role models to look up to tol Hill neighborhood of Seattle – largely
and mentor programs are things she men- known as the city’s Gay neighborhood. “It’s
tioned as being important for the develop- troubling to hear about and I don’t really
ment of healthy kids, both mind and body.
think that people are safe,” she said. “This is
“It’s a different world out there for these a problem that needs a lot of resources and
kids from when I went to school. Threats attention in order to fix.”
to their safety come from a much differ She mentioned that she also shared an
ent place,” she said referencing the Inter- equal concern for the “many LGBTQ youth
net and social media versus the playground that die by suicide” each year.
bully of yesterday; reaffirming her focus as
“You hear about them too often,” she
a Supreme Court Justice and some of the said. “I wonder what is going on with these
population that she believes are in need of a kids. On the one hand things have improved
strong advocate.
overall for the community, and yet, on the
Justice Yu has a deep record of service other we see that despite projects like the It
both on and off the bench, mentoring young Gets Better program and other anti-bullying
attorneys, law clerks and students, co- messages and laws, LGBTQ youth are still
chairing the Court’s Minority and Justice taking their own lives. I think it is someCommission, teaching at Seattle University thing we need to work on as a community.”
School of
Lastly,
Law and
Justice
serving
Yu said it
as Jurist
is imporin Resitant for
dence,
people to
co-chairknow that
ing the
so-called
Washreparaington
tive therState Bar
apy (the
Associawhacky
tion/Uniex- G ay
versity
torture
of Wash–
my
Mary Yu – facebook.com
ington
words,
Law School
not hers) is
Leadership Institute, serving on the board still legal in Washington state. Yu says that
of FareStart and the advisory board for the most people don’t even know that such a
University of Washington School of Law’s thing could happen in our state. Like most
Gates Public Service Program. She is per- things, she’s right.
sonally devoted to the Civility Project of the
The state House of Representatives
Robert’s Fund Foundation and to the Seattle passed a bill in April to ban therapy intendGirls’ School Mock Trials, serving as their ed to convert LGBTQ teenagers to heterojudge for the last eleven years.
sexuality in a 60-37 vote supported by all
Obviously, it was big news for LGBTQ House Democrats and a handful of Repubpeople around the nation when Yu got ap- licans. The House amended a unanimouslypointed to the Supreme Court. Yu has no passed Senate bill that bans aversion theradelusions as to why that is. She not only ac- py on minors to cover therapy that tries to
cepts the responsibility that goes along with alter sexual orientation. The amendment,
being a role model or hero, but also stressed opponents said, eventually kept the origito me her understanding of why it is so im- nal bill from passing and blocking harmful
portant that an LGBTQ voice be heard at therapies like electroshock and ice baths on
Visit us online www.sgn.org
June 19, 2015
young patients, when the revised bill moved
back to the Senate for reconsideration. One
of the main issues was that nobody really
knew that this bill existed. Word of it being
drafted and then stalling was virtually nonexistent from LGBTQ leadership.
Yet for all of the dark that can sometimes
creep into society, Justice Mary Yu asks
that people remain in search of the light; the
things that make the world and ourselves
better.
“I can say that I’ve never allowed the fact
that I am a woman stop me from achieving
goals that I set for myself,” she said. “The
same could be said for being a Lesbian or
person of color. While it is true that sometimes there were circumstances that meant I
had to deal with an extra hurdle or two or ignorance, I remained focused and dealt with
it and moved forward. That is what you’ve
got to do.”
She said she wants young people to understand that they are in charge of their
own destiny. “Only you have the power to
achieve or fail,” she said, adding, “It is all up
to you. Do you stop or do you keep working
for what you want. The best thing you can
do is keep going. Don’t let anyone set the bar
for you. Set and reach your own goals. I am
proof of that.”
I left the Temple of Justice and Mary
Yu after our interview filled with hope and
proud that someone who has done so much
for others, worked so hard for justice and
upholding what is right in this world, represents our community. She was present in
all accounts during the interview, which is
a rare thing with elected officials or people appointed to any position. She is more
than a talking head, or “just” a Lesbian or
woman, although she is a Lesbian woman.
And she is more than her ethnicity or race,
although she is Asian and Latina. She is also
more than her religion or profession, but she
is most certainly Catholic and a Supreme
Court Justice. Justice Mary Yu is the sum
of the intersections of her life; true. But she
is also kind, thoughtful, and articulate and
a good soul and those things belong to humans – not the parts of us that so many have
been able to use to divide us. She represents
power; but not in any corrupt sense of the
word. She represents power recovered because it is one hell of a powerful thing for
a woman of color born in 1957 to immigrant parents, who is Lesbian and not from
“money” to grow up to become a Supreme
Court Justice, inspire those around her, and
dedicate her life to doing her best to make
our lives better and more safe and with the
most amount of justice than before. She is,
quite frankly, one of the single most amazing and extraordinary people I’ve ever had
the pleasure of interviewing in my decades
as a writer.
If you’ve not yet had the pleasure of
hearing Justice Mary Yu speak in public or
would like the chance to possibly meet her,
she has agreed to be the keynote speaker at
the fourth annual Pride ASIA at Hing Hey
Park in Seattle’s China Town/International
District on Saturday, June 20 at noon. The
event lasts from noon to 4 p.m., however, Yu
is scheduled to speak close to the start of the
event so get there early. Pride ASIA’s mission is to celebrate, empower and nurture
the multi-cultural diversity of the LGBTQ
communities through the Asian Pacific Islander lens. Pride ASIA is a proud member
of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander
Alliance (NQAPIA) and Social Outreach
Seattle (SOSea). Yu joins keynote speakers from the past (2012) Michael Shiosaki,
(2013) Ro Yoon and (2014) Norma Timbang
as an influential local A/PI role model to address the crowd at the event on the importance of being A/PI and LGBTQ and how to
overcome some of the struggles that might
accompany being a part of the A/PI and
Queer A/PI communities.
Seattle Gay News 23
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June 19, 2015
Celebrating 41 Years!
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Celebrating 41 Years!
Visit us online www.sgn.org
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Celebrating 41 Years!
Visit us online www.sgn.org
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Celebrating 41 Years!
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32 Seattle Gay News
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Celebrating 41 Years!