Jun 06, 2008  |  By: KATHERINE VOLIN  | COMMENTS     

MY FIRST WEEK as a reporter for the Blade started with a bang three years ago.

I was the editorial assistant then and the editors at the time decided to throw me a softball story as a warm-up. They assigned me what was intended to be an easy piece providing an update on the Millions More Movement, marking the 10-year anniversary of the Million Man March.

One of the first people to return my calls was Rev. Amina Binta, who was beside herself. She’d just discovered an audio recording of a homophobic sermon preached by Rev. Willie Wilson, one of the organizers of the march.

The story exploded into a front-page news article that drew national attention. News-wise, I never topped that first story, but my tenure at the Blade had just begun. Sadly, three years later, it’s now done, but I take with me plenty of memories and probably too much knowledge about the gay world.

During that hectic first week, longtime activist Phil Pannell quoted a line from the “Wizard of Oz” to me. I’m from Kansas, so I’d heard the line “We’re not in Kansas anymore” frequently, but the quotation has taken on much greater significance now.

I’m not sure I knew that week what “Friends of Dorothy” meant, because I’m straight. So I didn’t know what a circuit party was or the meaning of the phrase “scissor sistering” and I’d never met a transgender person. That all changed pretty quickly, but the learning curve was steep.

After I used the term “homosexual” in one of my first articles and got a lecture on its inappropriateness, I asked a range of questions, which made for some lively conversations on everything from the history of cruising to instructions for making a cranberry wreath a la Martha Stewart.

MY MOST COMMON source for information was the Blade’s then-arts reporter, Brian Moylan, to whom I would shout questions above the cubicles and await his reply. One day, I asked him what a tea party was. Long pause. I waited, bracing myself, as I heard Brian’s shrill voice uttering his favorite admonishment to me, “Oh, little straight girl,” he said as he marched over to my desk and told me it was a dance held at 5 p.m. during beach weekends. It was a pretty mild term and explanation, all things considered.

Over the years I’ve worked here, I’ve written news stories, obituaries, features and arts stories — everything except an opinion page piece, until now. So naturally, I’ve had my share of great and horrible interviews.

A nasty, poorly executed interview with a nationally recognized, but cold and condescending author left me feeling stupid for days. And then there were those people who questioned my sexual orientation, suggesting that I was a closeted lesbian or someone who was just working at the Blade for the anthropological exercise. Neither is true. A gay newspaper is not a strategic place to hide news of your sexual orientation from yourself or others. I was lucky that my parents pretty much took my employment in stride, as most people did.

IN TERMS OF memorable interviews, I enjoyed talking with Edward Cameron, the first elected South African official to be open about his HIV-positive status. The brilliant John Cameron Mitchell, director of “Shortbus” and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” made for a wonderful, open discussion on sex and cultures that restrict it. 

My favorite articles and interviews, however, were frequently about people outside of what now constitutes the gay “mainstream” — namely white gay men. Perhaps it was because they were the first people I interviewed, but some of my favorite interviews have always been with black activists like Binta, Pannell, Sheila Alexander-Reid, who has morphed from a party planner to a non-profit organizer during my tenure here, Ron Simmons, who invariably speaks with breathtaking honesty and brilliance and Carlene Cheatam, who surprised and delighted me just a few weeks ago by calling me “girlfriend.” I suddenly realized I’d made it. Being called girlfriend by a black lesbian is not a small feat.

But then, I’ve learned so much from the many gay people who’ve picked themselves up from a society and biological families that cast them aside and launched organizations that aid others, provided homes for children who desperately need it and created artistic projects that enlighten others.