At the end of this month (8/95), the Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Council is having its semi-annual Membership meeting.  During this meeting they are considering extensive changes to their organization and bylaws: provisions for a salaried Executive, inclusion of "bisexual" and "transgender" in their language, provisions so that the AIDS Council of Northeast NY and other organizations can operate under their non-profit umbrella, and so forth. 

Normally this would be a good thing, especially considering that bisexuals and transgendered people have not been recognized until now. 

However, ask yourself these questions: 

Do you feel that your needs are being met by the present CDGLCC? 

Are you an active participant in the Community Center?  If not, why not? 

If you answered the above 2 q?s in the negative, do you feel comfortable being lumped in under this umbrella organization? 

Speaking personally, I have some SERIOUS questions about this strategy.  I have seen Bi-specific events sabotaged by the CC; I have seen lack of support for Bi political organizing offered by the Council; I have seen articles of interest to Bisexuals and Transgender folk selectively edited from the Community newsletter; I have also seen extensive political infighting amongst "Gay" and "Lesbian" chair-holders. 

In short, I see little service for the Bi or Trans Community in such a move.  Further, I see HARM for our community:  If the CDGLCC succeeds in becoming the area's #1 queer umbrella organization, it will make it VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for separate groups to fund-raise or apply for the numerous grants now available to the queer community for "grassroots organizing." 

A specific example?  The notoriously money- and power-hungry AIDS Council of Northeast New York {which now has an "outreach office" at the Center} claims to do AIDS outreach to the "gay/lesbian/bisexual" community, but they have approached NO ONE in the Bisexual community for information and produce NO information that reaches outside the same-sex community. 

We, as the "greater" queer community will be ILL SERVED by this thinly-disguised political power scheme unless we ORGANIZE NOW and raise our voices to present our concerns!  Unless we are invited to sit at the leadership table in meaningful numbers and are given time to attend to our concerns, Including "bisexual" and "transgender" in the bylaws of the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Council will be a MEANINGLESS LIE. 

Just watch... let them get away with this today, and tomorrow they will be telling us that bisexual rockers David Bowie and Freddy Mercury were GAY after all, and that murdered transgendered man Brandon Teena was really killed because "he" was a LESBIAN. 

Don't let the assimilationist bastards co-opt us again!