LGBT Centers Face Increased Needs

[William769]

In the immediate post-Stonewall years, starting a gay community center was fraught with problems — such as having spies infiltrate your organizing meetings or hearing from the IRS that your group is “neither benevolent nor charitable” because it serves gays.

But two LGBT centers that overcame those exact challenges have gone on to thrive and are observing their 40th anniversaries this year: the University of Michigan’s Spectrum Center and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.

In 1971 the Spectrum Center originated as the Human Sexuality Office, the first gay center with paid staff in any U.S. college or university. There were two quarter-time staffers: Cindy Gair and Jim Toy.

The office grew out of the activity of upstart gay groups, and initially the university administration was rather hostile, Toy recalls. At one meeting of the Gay Liberation Front, a university spy falsely reported back that the meeting was not well attended and that the group would likely disband quietly, notes Toy, who still wonders if the spy might have actually been sympathetic to the gay activists and was trying to divert administration attention away from the group’s activities.

http://www.advocate.com/Print_Issue/Advance/LGBT_Centers_Face_Increased_Needs/