be cut off from the community that we were supposed to be working for. I forgot for a minute that EPL didn’t represent all of gay Lewistonians, or even most of them. Just the ones who had the money and the press lists.
In reality, the Avengers entered more deeply into the city, advised by local students, members of ACT UP Portland, and LGBT people too poor or queer to be poster children for EPL because they liked to hang out in bars, or were members of the Franco-American minority that maybe still had a French accent, or didn’t look freshly scrubbed. Many were pissed that the poor neighborhoods they dared live in had been totally ignored by EPL.
Looking now at the reports in the archive, I can’t believe how much the Avengers in Lewiston got done in the few weeks before the election. They helped churn out English–French literature, went door to door handing out pamphlets and registering voters, all as out queers. They hit low-income, high-crime areas that EPL had dismissed, and even their advisers warned against, shivered in front of literature tables, and found that the people who stopped to talk were surprisingly welcoming. Or maybe just surprised. Nobody ever went to their decaying neighborhoods, not liberals, not conservatives. Or fascists or commies. The Avengers were the first in decades to turn up and look them in the eyes.
Most important, they paid attention to local queers, taking voter registration forms to bars, persuading people to hold house parties where they showed the Avenger movie and talked about how Lewiston was part of something bigger, a national attack on LGBT people. They struck a chord, got kudos for standing up to EPL, which was widely resented. As one dyke told them, “You might be outsiders to Lewiston, but we’re all from Queer.” People from the community started getting involved, suggesting their own events, getting so excited they came out in front of TV cameras, even when they hadn’t meant to.
Though strictly speaking, queers were defeated at the polls, the Avenger strategy worked. The Lewiston Sun-Journal reported that wherever Avengers and out queers had hit the streets, the gap narrowed substantially. We almost won. On the other hand, the areas that EPL thought they had in the bag, based on their “professional” polling data, actually did the worst. Equal Protection Lewiston was furious, spreading it around that the loss was the Avengers’ fault, these New York dykes parachuting in and demanding to do things the way they did them in the big city. Know-it-alls. Outsiders. Egomaniacs. Irresponsible. Insensitive to local issues. Which locals? Which issues? Who gets to decide?
The Avengers came back to a hero’s welcome. They’d even made the national press. The Avengers had helped plan a small demo for the day after the election, but so many people were angry after their defeat that a hundred protesters came out on the Lewiston streets, and the small die-in they’d planned was converted into a spontaneous march. Six people were arrested, including two Avengers and a lesbian teacher who picked that day to come out. The cops were awful, but the demonstrators scored a photo in the New York Times. Local queers felt energized. So did the roving Avengers.
Their faces positively glowed as they talked about their work. Laconic Sara Pursley actually seemed ready to burst. They’d learned a lot. Toughened up. It’s easy enough to develop a stance against your enemies, but not against your “friends,” who seemed to hate loudmouthed queers in the street even more than the homophobes in the state house.
It was a lesson we’d all have to learn. When the New Orleans Avengers publicized a photo of a lesbian couple kissing, the queer establishment there denounced the “radical” Avengers for undoing all their slow, patient (semi-closeted) work. There were also conflicts in New York where activists and lobbyists were duking it out over how to celebrate the twenty-fifth
In reality, the Avengers entered more deeply into the city, advised by local students, members of ACT UP Portland, and LGBT people too poor or queer to be poster children for EPL because they liked to hang out in bars, or were members of the Franco-American minority that maybe still had a French accent, or didn’t look freshly scrubbed. Many were pissed that the poor neighborhoods they dared live in had been totally ignored by EPL.
Looking now at the reports in the archive, I can’t believe how much the Avengers in Lewiston got done in the few weeks before the election. They helped churn out English–French literature, went door to door handing out pamphlets and registering voters, all as out queers. They hit low-income, high-crime areas that EPL had dismissed, and even their advisers warned against, shivered in front of literature tables, and found that the people who stopped to talk were surprisingly welcoming. Or maybe just surprised. Nobody ever went to their decaying neighborhoods, not liberals, not conservatives. Or fascists or commies. The Avengers were the first in decades to turn up and look them in the eyes.
Most important, they paid attention to local queers, taking voter registration forms to bars, persuading people to hold house parties where they showed the Avenger movie and talked about how Lewiston was part of something bigger, a national attack on LGBT people. They struck a chord, got kudos for standing up to EPL, which was widely resented. As one dyke told them, “You might be outsiders to Lewiston, but we’re all from Queer.” People from the community started getting involved, suggesting their own events, getting so excited they came out in front of TV cameras, even when they hadn’t meant to.
Though strictly speaking, queers were defeated at the polls, the Avenger strategy worked. The Lewiston Sun-Journal reported that wherever Avengers and out queers had hit the streets, the gap narrowed substantially. We almost won. On the other hand, the areas that EPL thought they had in the bag, based on their “professional” polling data, actually did the worst. Equal Protection Lewiston was furious, spreading it around that the loss was the Avengers’ fault, these New York dykes parachuting in and demanding to do things the way they did them in the big city. Know-it-alls. Outsiders. Egomaniacs. Irresponsible. Insensitive to local issues. Which locals? Which issues? Who gets to decide?
The Avengers came back to a hero’s welcome. They’d even made the national press. The Avengers had helped plan a small demo for the day after the election, but so many people were angry after their defeat that a hundred protesters came out on the Lewiston streets, and the small die-in they’d planned was converted into a spontaneous march. Six people were arrested, including two Avengers and a lesbian teacher who picked that day to come out. The cops were awful, but the demonstrators scored a photo in the New York Times. Local queers felt energized. So did the roving Avengers.
Their faces positively glowed as they talked about their work. Laconic Sara Pursley actually seemed ready to burst. They’d learned a lot. Toughened up. It’s easy enough to develop a stance against your enemies, but not against your “friends,” who seemed to hate loudmouthed queers in the street even more than the homophobes in the state house.
It was a lesson we’d all have to learn. When the New Orleans Avengers publicized a photo of a lesbian couple kissing, the queer establishment there denounced the “radical” Avengers for undoing all their slow, patient (semi-closeted) work. There were also conflicts in New York where activists and lobbyists were duking it out over how to celebrate the twenty-fifth
Similar Books
