White Rabbit Books & Things, which served the gay and lesbian community in the Triangle, closed this month after almost two decades. That there ever was a White Rabbit store in Raleigh is a tribute to the drive and determination of John Neal, the original owner. John was running a mail-order calligraphy supply business in […]
Jim Baxter
Posted inNews
White Rabbit remembered
Editor’s note: White Rabbit Books & Things, which served the gay and lesbian community in the Triangle, closed this month after almost two decades in downtown Raleigh. Jim Baxter, a former manager of White Rabbit, collected the comments of many White Rabbit employees and customers, and here are some of the bestand funniestof them. Later […]
Posted inGuides
Is transgender pain a disorderor a symptom?
When the National Gay and Lesbian Task Forcea national advocacy group that’s been around since 1973issued a strongly worded statement in 1996 calling for the American Psychiatric Association to eliminate gender identity as a mental disorder in the diagnostic manual, it sparked vociferous protest. And much of it came from people and groups sympathetic to […]
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Jimmy Creech
Jimmy Creech is executive director of Faith in America, a new organization founded and funded by Mitchell Gold, CEO of the successful Taylorsville furniture company Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. “Last year, Jimmy Creech and I realized that an organization just didn’t exist that was focused on educating people about religion-based bigotry,” Gold said at […]
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Remembering the first PrideFest
This year’s PrideFest promises to be a mix of fun, parades, information and celebration. But it hasn’t always been that way. The first PrideFest was in Durham in 1986. But it had a forerunner five years earlier. “The ’81 march, ‘Our Day Out’ in downtown Durham, is the one that I identify as the first […]
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Making it legal
Eight states vote this November on whether to ban same-sex marriage, including nearby Tennessee, Virginia and South Carolina. Nineteen states already have such prohibitions. The battle for marriage equality–or “gay marriage,” if you like–is going to be long and drawn-out. The ultimate outcome is anybody’s guess, but in the meantime, same-sex couples have to do […]
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An LGBT community center: Has the moment passed?
One gap in the Triangle’s gay community is the lack of a community center. But it’s not for lack of trying. The Triangle Gay Alliance, probably the first gay activist organization in the Triangle, occupied a two-story, four-bedroom house in Raleigh’s Boylan Heights. The house acted as a kind of early community center from 1971 […]
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Before the ‘Net, there was The Front Page
Some years back, I was being defamed in triangle.soc.motss, a local newsgroup (remember newsgroups?). There were numerous charges made against me, but the one that rankled was a reference to me as “conservative.” For the record, I have been a registered Democrat since I came of voting age, and consider myself to be your basic […]
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A Guide to Gay and Lesbian Resources in the Triangle
Switchboard Gay & Lesbian Helpline 821-0055 www.tcworks.org/helpline.htm [email protected] Serves the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities of the Triangle, providing peer counseling services, education, information, resource referrals and documentation of bias crimes. Staffed Sunday-Thursday, 6:30-9:30 p.m. Triangle Community Works, which sponsors the helpline, will be holding its next helpline training the weekend of July 8-9. […]
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The gay life
Moving to the Triangle can be a difficult transition when you’re out of the closet and used to living in a major urban center. It certainly was for Gabe Lamazares, who moved to the area in 1999. “After more than five years in Seattle–and two years in New York before that–the first few years of […]