Pride across America.

A SPECIAL ADVOCATE REPORT

For most gays and lesbians, small-town America--whether it's a city of 100,000 or a country village of a few hundred--is where gay people come from, not where gay people live. Untold numbers of us have fled to the big cities to find ourselves, bringing with us stories of the toll a repressive environment can take. But gay life is beginning to take hold in the very places where so many have long felt they could never be open. In the following stories we examine small-town pride, from New England to Alaska, and find a new visibility that is changing the way America sees us.

Life outside the ghetto

A NEW WAVE OF ACTIVISM HITS SMALL TOWNS AS GAYS AND LESBIANS MAKE THEIR PRESENCE FELT BY CHRIS BULL

Before the same-sex marriage debate heated up in Vermont this year, only a few hardy souls in Orleans County showed up early on Monday mornings at the local diner for meetings with state legislators. But in January the dawn of each workweek saw the eatery overflowing with supporters of civil unions.

"People realized that if we were going to get this bill passed, they had to tell their personal stories," says Jane Dwinell, minister of a Unitarian Universalist Church parish in Derby Line, a small town near the Canadian border. "It brought gay people out of the woodwork. They started showing up to meetings. They would invite legislators over to dinner to see how they live. A year ago most of the gay people in my community would have been afraid."

From Derby Line to Detroit's far suburbs, from Sioux City to Cheyenne, small-town gay activism is changing the nation. Battlegrounds are gradually moving from major metropolitan areas, where gays have achieved large measures of visibility and political success, to villages, county seats, and minor cities that many urban gays and lesbians might once have written off as hopelessly backward.

"There is definitely a second wave of activism in the second-tier cities," says Sue Hyde, a field organizer for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "We are seeing the benefits of a generation of activists who came out in the 1980s and are now taking leadership positions in their communities as openly gay people. There is a feeling that you shouldn't have to move to achieve equal rights."

In these places off the beaten track of activism, campaigns for municipal and countywide domestic-partner benefits, hate-crimes legislation, and antidiscrimination protections may still be years away from passage. But many local activists are gaining surprisingly serious consideration for their proposals.

For years gays and lesbians have organized in small-town America, but now their agitation in America's heartland has reached a critical mass, expanding the gay rights debate into new territory and broadening the movement's influence beyond its traditional urban enclaves.

"The gay rights movement has been top-heavy, with most of its attention focused on the national level," says Craig Rimmerman, professor of political science at Hobarth and William Smith Colleges and coeditor of The Politics of Gay Rights. "It's clear there has been a shift to the local level, and the victory in Vermont is a clear example of that trend. The increase in local political organizing could end up paying major dividends by transforming the gay rights movement from a regional one to a truly national one."

Political and social groups, community centers, and loose-knit affinity groups, often facilitated by the Internet, are popping up in places where gays and lesbians were once invisible. Many gays and lesbians who live outside major metropolitan areas returned home from the Millennium March on Washington for Equality vowing to redouble their political efforts.

Already the drive for more pervasive, local recognition of gay rights has scored a number of points, and not just in Vermont, where Gov. Howard Dean signed a civil union bill granting gays and lesbians all the rights and responsibilities of married couples. Two years ago, for instance, voters in the small eastern Michigan city of Ypsilanti voted down a ballot measure that would have stripped sexual orientation from antidiscrimination protections. Henderson, Ky., passed a ban on sexual orientation-based discrimination last year.

Much of the success is spurred not just by gay activists but by straight allies. "We found that working through local chapters of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays is particularly effective outside the major metropolitan areas, where there aren't enough openly gay people to win many victories," says Maria Price, organizer of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, a gay rights group. "This movement has made enough progress that many parents of gay kids don't want their kids to feel like they have to move away to be accepted for who they are."

But there are still miles to travel. Many smaller communities lack the most basic organizing tools for pressing for gay rights: thriving political coalitions, sympathetic churches, and social networks of gay men and women. And small-town activism also puts gays and lesbians on a collision course with the religious right, which can often rely on larger numbers to turn back progressive measures.

In many ways, the decision to stay at home and fight is a reversal of the great gay migration of the latter half of the 20th century. For years gays and lesbians believed that moving to big cities was their only choice if they wanted to live openly, free of discrimination. Hyde, who grew up in Beardstown, a town of about 6,000 in central Illinois, has for years traveled the country organizing for gay rights. She says the changes outside major metropolitan areas are slower but more profound.

"Progress in smaller communities is much more complicated than in the more transient big cities," she says. "The intimacy and familiarity can create a more enduring respect for who you are. Once you earn the respect of your neighbors, it's not going to go away overnight."

For many, however, the choice to stay or flee to the city is still heart-wrenching. In 1991 Albert Toney III, an African-American from Worcester, Mass., and his boyfriend were just weeks away from moving to San Francisco in search of a larger, more diverse gay community. They were at a restaurant one night near their home when a gunman held up the restaurant. Toney, who was a police officer off-duty at the time of the incident, tried to intervene, but both he and his boyfriend were shot. Toney survived the ordeal; his partner did not. The incident led to a reconciliation with his father, a police officer who had rejected him because he is gay, and a new resolve to stay close to home.

"When you lose someone that close to you and you almost lose your own life, it makes you reassess what's important," says Toney, 33, now retired from the force. "It makes you want to make the most of your time on earth and to help other people as much as you can." The father of an 11-year-old girl from a previous marriage, Toney has launched an central Massachusetts organization called Safe Homes to provide gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered youths with supportive foster-care placement. (He is also a foster parent to eight children, including four gay youths who were formerly homeless.) In 1999 he ran for the Worcester city council; though he did not gain a seat, he was able to raise the issue of equal rights on the campaign trail. He is considering another bid next year.

Toney now says he will eventually leave his hometown--but not necessarily to the nearest gay ghetto. "I want to live in a place that's warm all year around," he says with a laugh. "My [new] boyfriend and I are talking about someplace like Arizona. But I'm going to wait until my daughter doesn't need her daddy so much and until we have made some progress here. First I want to make a difference at home."

Find more on life in small-town America and links to related Internet sites at www.advocate.com

Concord, N.H.

HISTORICAL CHARM AND A YANKEE ATTITUDE OF TOLERANCE MAKE THIS NEW ENGLAND CITY A PLEASANT HOME BY DAN WOOG

POPULATION: 37,000

NEAREST MAJOR CITY: BOSTON, MASS.

LESBIAN & GAY ACTIVITIES: GROUP OUTINGS, MONTHLY POTLUCKS, PRIVATE WOMEN'S PARTIES

For years New Hampshire has played yang to Vermont's yin. Geographically the White Mountain and Green Mountain states snuggle together, but politically they have seemed worlds apart. In April, Vermont became the first state to legalize gay civil unions; in 1996 its neighbor gave conservative commentator Pat Buchanan a big Republican primary win.

Like most stereotypes, New Hampshire's is unfair. Just ask gay residents of Concord, the pretty yet poky (population: 37,000) state capital. One of the town's biggest boosters is native Rick Trombly. Now in his first term as a state senator after serving 16 years in the New Hampshire house of representatives (including a stint as Democratic leader), Trombly calls Concord "small, walkable, residential, cultural, historic--and very open." Adding to the city's charms is a "mind your own business" attitude. As Trombly notes, "Yankees tend not to poke into other people's lives."

Those qualities helped attract Jeremy Winnick, who moved from Syracuse, N.Y., five years ago for a software job. "I didn't care about a gay mecca," he says. "I could have chosen Nashua [N.H.] or even closer to Boston, but I wanted a less expensive place. Concord was the perfect size, and there were no traffic or crime problems." Winnick and his partner at the time bought a home on a quiet street for $84,000 and put up a rainbow flag. "Either the neighbors don't know, don't care, or are fine," Winnick says.

After he and his partner broke up, Winnick joined the weekly support group Out and Proud. Under his leadership the organization has grown to 50 members, renamed itself Capital Gay Men, and increased its social activities. In addition to regular Friday night meetings and monthly potlucks, the group has attended such civic events as the Keene Pumpkin Festival last fall.

Winnick is not alone in his enthusiasm for Concord. Dawn Touzin knew nothing about the city nine years ago, when her partner was offered a job there. Today, she calls herself "a convert to this way of life." Her relationship did not last, but her love affair with Concord did. Touzin, who hosts parties for up to 75 women on her riverside property, describes the city's lesbian scene as "a community of wonderful women who interact socially."

Still, the town has its drawbacks, admits 24-year-old Karen Daniell, who lives in Concord with her girlfriend. "There's not much here," she says. "You'll see rainbow stickers on cars, but you don't know the people who put them there." Yet for four years Daniell made the drive 45 minutes each way to study at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, and she recently accepted a job there. "My family and a good circle of friends are here in Concord," she explains. "It doesn't matter to me that I'm not out at the supermarket. Some people need that, but I'm not one of them."

Even for people whose appearance marks them as different, the town can be surprisingly accepting. Mark Hopkins, a restoration consultant in his mid 40s, identifies as "gender-neutral." Hopkins, who is an election official and serves on a city board, calls Concord "very tolerant." "I've got the longest hair and least facial hair at meetings," he notes. "It's obvious what I'm up to, but no one cares."

Yet in times of trouble, gays and lesbians say that residents have been more than willing to reach out to them. For the past 14 years, the Rev. Robert Wood, a retired minister who wrote the groundbreaking Christ and the Homosexual in 1960, has lived in a retirement community with 750 residents. When Wood's lover of 27 years died in 1989, he received support from fellow retirees and staff members. In fact, he says, he has recently begun a new ministry: counseling other members of the retirement community, some of whom have come out to him. "What a rewarding experience!" he marvels.

One of the town's most famous residents is also a minister. The Rev. Leanne Tigert, a pastoral psychotherapist, says she feels "very safe and well-integrated into town." However, she cautions, "this is not at all like a large city. There are only a handful of out gays and lesbians. A much larger group of people is known only to those `in the know.'" She often fields calls from gay people in town who feel isolated.

Yet Tigert is a source of pride even for neighbors who might not agree with her on gay issues. After she appeared earlier this year on the cover of Newsweek's "Gay Today" issue, she walked into a flower store. The conservative owner hugged her. Tigert ascribed that reaction not to support for gay rights but to small-town pride. And that friendly feeling, she suggests, is one of the many things she and other gays and lesbians love about Concord.

Woog's latest book is Friends & Family: True Stories of Gay America's Straight Allies.

Find more on gays and lesbians in Concord, N.H,, at www.advocate.com

Cullman, Ala.

GAY IN THE BIBLE BELT MAY NOT ALWAYS BE LONELY, BUT IT REQUIRES DISCRETION AND A DOUBLE LIFE BY TONY JORDAN 

POPULATION: 20,000

NEAREST MAJOR CITY: BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

LESBIAN & GAY ACTIVITIES: PRIVATE GATHERINGS, ROAD TRIPS TO BIRMINGHAM OR HUNTSTVILLE

Jerry Paul has an almost militaristic mind-set when it comes to living as a gay man in Cullman, Ala. "They don't ask, and I don't tell," he says with a sly smile.

"They" are his colleagues, acquaintances, and old family friends he's known all his life in the town of 20,000. "They" are businesspeople he deals with every day as a civil servant. All of them come together in this community sandwiched between Huntsville and Birmingham. Many feel they know Jerry Paul but don't know much about him.

Paul lives in a stylish ranch house just off Interstate 65. Over a dinner of burgers and burnt hot dogs in his backyard one Sunday, as bugs flew into a bug zapper ("Redneck entertainment," Paul says, smiling), he talked about what life is like for a middle-aged, semicloseted gay man in a small central Alabama community. Surprisingly, he thinks it's not bad at all.

"We have a group of gay folks in Cullman," he says proudly. "This particular household is a gay household, they all know it, and it's open to everybody."

But, Paul admits, there are some rules you must follow if you're going to live in a conservative Bible Belt community where gay people have been known to have been nm out of town, in effect, when their orientation was discovered.

"As far as being `open'--you're not really comfortable being open," he says. "You just have to watch your P's and Q's, more or less--you have to watch what you do, who you do it with ... what you say around them."

That caution leads Paul to lead a kind of double life. "There's two of me," he admits. "Whenever I go to work, I don't consider myself a gay man, even though I am. I try to act a little different--say, put on airs--but when I get out of that truck [at the end of the day], I look for the pink slippers," he says, chuckling.

Paul came to being gay the long way--he married, fathered five children, divorced, and came out to himself but not many others. At this stage in his life, he says, he doesn't feel he needs to come out.

"Straight people sort of see us," he says carefully. "It just goes right over their heads, and they really don't know until somebody confirms it or they're confronted with it or somebody says, `Guess what he is.' And then they have this reaction of, `He couldn't be--he was married!'"

Living as a gay man in Cullman attracts less attention if you're single or live by yourself, Paul says. "It's a lot easier living alone because you know you definitely don't have that risk of people suspecting, but it also depends on your job and [you] as an individual."

Alabama has never had a reputation as the safest place to be gay. After all, this is the state that's home to the two young men who killed Billy Jack Gaither on the outskirts of Sylacauga, Ala, last year; they've admitted they killed Gaither because he was gay. But Paul thinks gay bashing is unlikely to happen in Cullman: "Most of your gay people in Cullman respect their living conditions, and they're not gonna put themselves in that particular situation to have that happen to them."

But Jerry's partner, Jason, doesn't see the issue of appearances in quite the same way. Younger and much more open about his sexuality than Paul, Jason says he's proud to be out and not alone in his workplace.

"I know about ten or 15 people on my shift who are gay," he says. "We talk and laugh, and everybody knows, and it's no big deal." Jason works in distribution for a national retail chain; Paul works for a local government agency.

Jason, who's also divorced (but doesn't have any children), is proud to live in Cullman and be as open and out as he is. He scoffs at the idea of ever leaving his small town and doesn't have much good to say about the men and women who flee small-town America for the gay ghettos of America's big cities.

"It pisses me off to see gay people come out of the closet and run to Hollywood or run to Atlanta or run to New York," he says disgustedly. "When they run from their small town, they're not facing the challenges of being gay--they're just going to be where it's openly accepted. But then they come back to their hometown, go back in the closet, close the door, visit their families, and say"--his voice deepens sarcastically--"`Hi, Bubba!' Or they go back to their Atlanta homes and their nelly ol' queens."

"They're several like that in Cullman," Paul agrees. "They come to Cullman to work, and you couldn't drag 'em out of the closet kicking and screaming. They got the door nailed from the inside."

Lamont, who asked that his real name not be used in this stow, is one of those Cullman commuters: a 25-year-old African-American native of Decatur, Ala., who is fairly open about his sexuality. A 6-foot-5 former football player, Lamont concedes that Cullman has come a long way when it comes to race and sexuality, but he says it still has a long road to travel. "In the `old days' they had a sign near the courthouse that said, NIGGER, DON'T LET THE SUN SET ON YOU IN CULLMAN." Lamont says the sign is gone but some of the attitudes remain. For the most part he's been able to navigate this tricky social terrain with ease.

"I don't give a shit what people think of me!" he says. "They don't pay my bills, they ain't my mama or my daddy, and hell, as they don't bother me, I don't bother them. End of story." But would Lamont ever live in Cullman full-time? "Hell, no," he says emphatically.

Paul and his partner, however, wouldn't think of living anywhere else. "Cullman's a good place to get away from and have a good time," Paul says, "but there's a certain security in your hometown--mentally, if nothing else."

Jordan is a television and radio reporter based in Huntsville, Ala.

Fairbanks, Alaska 

LIFE IN THE HARSH ARCTIC MAKES FOR STRONG TIES AMONG FAIRBANKS'S GAY AND LESBIAN COMMUNITY BY SUSAN McINNIS

POPULATION: 33,000

NEAREST MAJOR CITY: ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

LESBIAN & GAY ACTIVITIES: GAY THEATER GROUP, BAR WITH DRAG SHOWS, ANNUAL PRIDE PARADE

Fairbanks? What are you doing there?"

The question isn't unreasonable. Fairbanks, Alaska, is frigid and dark four months a year, separated from "the world" by 2,300 miles--mostly wilderness and ice fields. Once a boom-and-bust gold rush town, it is now a postboom oil town, supported by government, a university, two military bases, and tourism.

The factors that have lured or pushed people north make for unusual demographics. Fundamentalists, conspiracy theorists, and plain folk live alongside freethinkers, environmentalists, artists, and scientists.

You also can find gay men and lesbians everywhere. The gay theater group--KlonDykes, Queens, and Co.--does several original shows a year, and drag shows are standing room only at the Loon, one of Fairbanks's largest bars. Gay residents also publish a periodic newsletter, Pink Ink, and stay in touch through an E-mail "pride list."

Fairbanks native Dena Ivey says, "This kind of activity reflects Alaska's `If we need it, let's build it' attitude." It also reflects the "caliber of gays here," the university student and native Alaskan activist adds. These are people, she says, who "aren't afraid to test the straight community's tolerance."

Both closeted and out gay men and lesbians agree that tolerance for individuals doesn't always extend to public issues. A front-page gay pride day photo in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in 1994--of two young women almost kissing--and a 1995 Gay History Month exhibit at the public library brought out the religious right for protracted protests.

Their anger was in part a response to Fairbanks's gradual and collective coming-out. Gays and lesbians began creating a sense of community in Fairbanks more than 30 years ago. The first gay pride parade was held in 1988 on a dirt road five miles outside town. The whole neighborhood came. The parade was festive--with laughter, banners, and rainbow flags waving--but its audience consisted mostly of moose, rabbits, and scrub willow.

This year, more typically, the parade will be along a main street, with more than 100 people marching. Protesters, with their children in tow, picketed the event two years ago, yelling at the pride celebrants to "go home, get straight, and be saved."

But this opposition strengthens Fairbanks's gay men and lesbians, says local high school teacher Jeff Walters. "You come through it and realize you can," he says. "That moves everybody forward." Walters, who helped plan and later defend the library's gay history display, says gays and lesbians also learned a powerful lesson from the successful 1998 campaign for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Although the vote was a setback, it showed that "at least one voter in three supports us," he says.

An old Fairbanks T-shirt reads LIFE IN THE ARCTIC'S NO PICNIC. The saying still holds true. Fairbanks loses people annually to warmer climates. Those who stay wonder if their families will survive the cold. But family is one of the things most cherished by gay men and lesbians here. Those who stick around deal with ice fog and isolation, but they do so with roots growing deep.

Find more information on Fairbanks, Alaska, at www.advocate.com

McInnis is a freelance writer who has lived in Fairbanks since 1972.

Las Cruces, N.M.

A COLLEGE TOWN OFFERS A SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT AND LOTS OF EVENTS FOR ITS GAY AND LESBIAN RESIDENTS BY RICHARD TATE 

POPULATION: 80,000

NEAREST MAJOR CITY: EL PASO, TEX.

LESBIAN & GAY ACTIVITIES', ONE BAR, SEVERAL COFFEEHOUSES, CAMPUS AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS

"The physical setting is spectacular--desert and mountains and the Rio Grande River," says Melanie Martin, describing the small town of Las Cruces, N.M. After finishing a master's program in Eugene, Ore., Martin, 41, relocated to Las Cruces about six years ago and is pursuing her doctorate in computer science at New Mexico State University. She has no plans to leave any time soon. Not only does Martin appreciate the beauty of her new hometown, but also, as a lesbian, she says she feels safe in Las Cruces. "I am out everywhere," she explains, "and, actually, more comfortable in Las Cruces than I was in Eugene."

Smaller than Eugene, Las Cruces, situated 45 miles northwest of El Paso, Tex., is home to almost 80,000 people--including a diverse, thriving gay population. "There is definitely a [gay] community--sort of a network with many hubs, interconnected but not monolithic," says Martin. "There is a community around the university. There is a community of retired folks. There is a community of youth, including an active youth group. There are communities around sports, partying, politics, arts, religion, and so on. Some of these communities are more or less active or visible at any given time. Some of these communities intersect, and some don't, but the fabric is there."

"For a rural area, we are in good shape," says Gloria Valdez, a 28-year-old lesbian and native New Mexican who has lived in Las Cruces since 1992. "We have local [gay and lesbian] publications both in Las Cruces and El Paso. We have one local bar that caters to queers on Saturday nights." In addition, there are several local coffee shops, like Nabes and Spirit Winds. where gay men and lesbians hang out and feel comfortable, as well as gay-friendly religious congregations.

Like many small college towns, much of gay life in Las Cruces is centered on the local university. But, says Stephen Helmreich, a 51-year-old gay man who lived in the college town of Champaign, Ill., before moving to Las Cruces almost 12 years ago, this town is different in several ways.

"One is the Hispanic culture of the area," explains Helmreich, who works as a computational linguist. "Las Cruces is over 50% Hispanic, and the [U.S.-Mexico] border is about 25 miles away." The ethnic makeup of Las Cruces, says Helmreich, is an influential part of the gay and lesbian culture that exists in town. "There tends to be a different way of socializing homosexuality in Hispanic-Mexican culture," continues Helmreich. "People are less interested in institutions, formal groups, and political action [and] more focused on family and enjoyment of life."

Though organizations may not be the primary focus of gay life in Las Cruces, the town does have a surprising number of groups that coordinate gay-oriented events and activities throughout the year.

The Next Rainbow Generation, or NRG, is a local social and support group for gay and lesbian youth that sponsors "Border Is Burning," a drag talent show and dance, as well as "Not Your Mom's Prom," a gay-friendly alternative to traditional high school prom activities. The local PFLAG chapter, cofounded by Sue Brown, a 28-year resident of Las Cruces whose daughter is lesbian, has conducted training sessions on sexual orientation-related issues for school counselors and for new police cadets. The New Mexico State University gay student group, Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Friends, sponsors an annual awareness week and cosponsors the Las Cruces Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, which celebrated its fifth year in April.

"The film festival is attended by both students and people from outside the university," says Chris Andrade, a gay 21-year-old junior at NMSU and copresident of LGBF. "Even though Las Cruces and NMSU may be more conservative than bigger cities and colleges, many people are supportive."

And, as Andrade explains, becoming involved with gay and lesbian organizations in town is rewarding: "My copresidency has really given me more confidence to be who I am, and other gay men on campus have told me that seeing me as copresident made it easier for them to come out."

Not surprisingly, the issues that Las Cruces's gay and lesbian population deal with are not so different than those facing gays in other towns, small and large. "I think job discrimination is one of the biggest issues [facing gay men and lesbians in Las Cruces]," says Martin, whose partner feels forced to remain in the closet to keep her job as a schoolteacher in a nearby town. Helmreich has been crusading for domestic-partner benefits at New Mexico State University for the past three years.

Sadly, violence is also a concern. "I know of two, maybe three cases in the last ten years where gay men were beaten up," says Martin. But Helmreich says that there is relatively little overt violence against sexual minorities in Las Cruces because of what he describes as a "Let me do my thing, and I'll let you do your thing" ethic. Still, he admits, transgendered individuals have had a much harder time.

So what makes Las Cruces feel like home to gay men and lesbians there? "The bonds that can be formed among diverse people out of mutual need," says Martin. "It is relatively easy to meet people here, and they will generally take the time to get to know you or help you out. ! find this to be a very friendly place where people aren't always too busy."

Find more information on gay and lesbian life in Las Cruces, N.M., at www.advocate.com

Tate is a Los Angeles--based freelance writer and a regular contributor to RadioSpy.com.

Pocatello, Idaho 

RELIGIOUS PRESSURES MAKE IT DIFFICULT FOR MANY OF THE CITY'S GAY MEN AND LESBIANS TO COME OUT BY JANET HOUSE

POPULATION: 55,000

NEAREST MAJOR CITY: SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 

LESBIAN & GAY ACTIVITIES: ONE BAR, CAMPUS AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS, PRIVATE GATHERINGS

Casey Wynn sits back in his chair--a large man, more than 6 feet 5 inches tall, weighing over 200 pounds. He places the tips of his fingers together as he talks without hesitation about his life in Pocatello, Ida., a Mormon-dominated town of about 55,000. Wynn, 32, is a drag queen who performs once a month at Charley's, the town's only gay bar.

Although it is home to Idaho State University and is one of the largest cities in the state, Pocatello also can feel fairly small and isolated. (The closest cities, Salt Lake City and Boise, are 150 and 200 miles away, respectively.)

"The [gay] community is so small that you have to band together; you have to get along, as one family, in a way," says Wynn, who works at a department store in the city's largest shopping mall. "In a larger community you are going to have a lesbian bar, a cowboy bar, the leather bar ... the pretty-boy bar--all segregated. Here you have one bar, and you have to get along."

Pocatello's small gay and lesbian populace is part of what attracted geologist Shellie Settle to the city. While she feels isolated at times, she says, "We tend to get past all those minor disappointments just to be able to have a community." Part of that community for her is Integrity, a group affiliated with the Episcopal Church. Integrity provides a base for many Pocatello gays and lesbians, regardless of religious belief. Some, like Bill Wilcox, once served missions for the Mormon Church.

"I absolutely loved my time [on my mission] in Brazil, but ... I found a lot of things to be true for me that the religion itself kept me from exploring," Wilcox says. But Wilcox says that when he came out as a gay man, the message was, Conform to be like us, and those urges will go away.

This pressure to conform makes it difficult for many of the city's gay men and lesbians to be open about their sexuality. Haydie Le Corbeiller, an English composition teacher and graduate student at ISU, was out as an undergraduate but says she doesn't feel she can be as open now. Conservative students "already have their backs up because we mention horrible words like `affirmative action' and `black people,'" she says. They "already assume you are a communist when as a woman you speak with authority from any non-[Mormon] position."

There have been a few positive changes recently, though. A lesbian and a gay man, sponsored by the ISU student group Bisexuals, Gays, Lesbians, and Allies for Diversity, were elected homecoming royalty in 1999. BGLAD president Amy Jackson was just elected to the student senate and writes an advice column for the campus newspaper.

Matthew Shepard's murder also has helped to unite the city's gay residents, says Peter Davis, a member of the ISU Diversity Committee. This new cohesiveness shows up in small but powerful ways. "When I was in high school, I never would have walked through the mall holding hands with my boyfriend," he says. But when Davis did just that recently, he says, "this guy turned around and gave me the thumbs-up sign."

Find more information on Pocatello, Ida,, and Idaho State University at www.advocate.com

House is an associate professor of mass communications at Idaho State University.

Sioux City, Iowa 

GAY RESIDENTS SAY THEIR ENTHUSIASM MAY SOUND "CHEESY," BUT THIS CITY IS"A VERY EASY PLACE TO LIVE" BY LISA NEFF 

POPULATION: 83,800

NEAREST MAJOR CITY: OMAHA, NEB.

LESBIAN & GAY ACTIVITIES: PRIVATE SOCIAL CLUBS AND DINNER PARTIES, ONE BAR (UNMARKED)

To the college-bound kid who comes from the family farm outside Pleasantville, Sioux City is a cosmopolitan oasis. To the big-city lesbian who comes for a visit with friends and finds a John Deere tractor parked in the airport terminal, Sioux City is corn-fed country.

To Gail Dooley, a lesbian associate professor who teaches farmers' kids and welcomes big-city visitors, Sioux City is a bit country, a bit cosmo, and completely all-American.

"It's home," Dooley, 44, says. "The traditions that are treasured here are family, church, and friends."

Sioux City, home to 83,800, was built on the banks of the mighty Missouri River on steep loess hills, geographical features created by winds whipping fine, fertile heartland silt across the prairie.

About five years ago Dooley accepted a teaching job in the music department at Morningside College, a United Methodist-affiliated school with an enrollment of 1,200. She and partner Linda Wideman, 45, sold their home in Chattanooga, Tenn., and, with their two teenage sons, settled into a 100-year-old house in Sioux City. Life since then has pretty much been what Dooley was told to expect when she interviewed for the job: "When I asked my then dean, `Is Sioux City a very conservative town?' she said Mid-westerners tend to be polite, and if they don't like something, they just don't say anything."

Dooley found her arrival in Sioux City widely anticipated. "I was known as the new lesbian in town," she recalls. "It was funny. And it was convenient. People knew of me. People said, `Oh you're the one.'"

When Dooley and Wideman go out, they go to friends' homes for dinner and videos. Occasionally they go out to the movies. They look forward to breezy summers: Sunday nights, when the municipal band plays concerts in the park; the Fourth of July, when the blues festival rocks; and late June, when several dozen gays and lesbians gather in a state park on the north side of the city for a pride celebration--a potluck picnic, a balloon toss, a sack race, and a softball game.

"I know maybe it sounds cheesy," Dooley says. "But it's a very easy place to live.

"But I don't want to be Pollyanna-ish about this," she adds. "It's not perfect. I know there are negative voices out there ... and one of the most difficult things about living here is meeting other lesbians and gays, especially women."

Sioux City has no gay and lesbian community center or any formal established meeting place other than one gay bar, a joint called 3 Cheers that lacks even a sign.

"You have to know what you're looking for," says Bob Olson, 53, a professor at Briar Cliff College. "I was married for nearly 26 years," he says. "And when I decided to make a big change in my life and come out, I started looking for resources. Of course, they were not abundant."

One evening Olson read an advertisement in the Sioux City Journal for the Guild, a gay men's group. He sent a letter to the group, passed an interview (to make sure he wasn't a neo-Nazi), and joined. Soon Olson began meeting men from the greater Sioux City area. He also met Dooley and Wideman.

"I'm comfortable now," Olson says. "I think when you come out, you find that you can be who you are, wherever you are."

Find more information on Sioux City, Iowa, and Morningside College at www.advocate.com

Neff is managing editor of the Chicago Free Press.

Out in the country

LIFE IN RURAL AREAS CAN STILL BE DANGEROUS FOR GAY MEN AND LESBIANS, BUT IT'S NOT WITHOUT ITS REWARDS BY MUBARAK DAHIR

When Rick Flood gets the itch to go two-stepping, he and his lover drive to one of their favorite gay cowboy bars--either 3 1/2 hours to Tulsa, Okla., or 4 1/2 hours to Oklahoma City. Most of Flood's social life, however, centers around the rodeo rather than the bar. From March through November, Flood averages two rodeos per month, driving three to six hours each way from his central Kansas home.

Flood is just one of scores of Americans braving what may be the last frontier for gays and lesbians: living openly in even the most rural parts of the country. It's impossible to know how many gays and lesbians live in rural areas, but the Web site ruralgay.com logs 2,500 visitors per day and has more than 1,500 paid members.

"The fear is that rural America is backward, moralistic, right-wing, and dangerous," says the site's founder, David Knudsen, a former Seattle resident who lives with his lover on an organic farm in upstate New York five miles from the closest village, which has 400 residents. "But that's the view from gays in the city, where the central focus of identity is gayness. For those of us in the country, being gay is just one of several identity points."

One way Flood merges his rural and gay identities is through the International Gay Rodeo Association, which sponsors two thirds of the rodeos he attends; the remaining rodeos he goes to are straight. While the gay rodeo fills a dual need, the 41-year-old Flood is emphatic about his loyalties. "I'm a cowboy before I'm gay," he says matter-of-factly. "That's my roots."

For Flood--like for many gays and lesbians living in rural America--the pull of roots (or the lure of the outdoors) is a strong one. Flood spends a lot of time helping his parents run a grain farm that has been in his father's family for generations. The farm is 18 miles from Burlington, Kan., the rural town of 2,000 where Flood lives with his lover and the lover's 17-year-old daughter. The three plan to move to Flood's family farm as soon as they build a house there.

Flood grew up on his mother's family farm in Texas and moved to the state capital, Austin, during his coming-out days. But three years ago, after his grandmother's death, Flood yearned to be reunited with his elderly parents and moved to Kansas.

Being openly gay in Kansas initially earned him sidelong glances. "But in a small community you get your foot in the door by establishing yourself as a good neighbor, and in time [being gay] is no big deal." He concedes there have been awkward moments when "I've cringed at things people said, and God knows, I couldn't win public office." But overall he feels safer than he did in Austin, where he was once showered with rocks and broken beer bottles while exiting a gay bar.

Even for those without rural roots, the desire to flee city life is pushing many gays and lesbians to the countryside. Kathy Rieser moved from Manhattan in 1975, when at 29 she traded her job as a proofreader and the confines of a tiny apartment for a 63-acre farm in the foothills of New York's Catskill Mountains.

Rieser, who is now 53, says things are greatly improved for rural gays from when she first arrived nearly 25 years ago. Then, she and her partner at the time had a difficult time convincing the local bank to give them a home loan, and local residents "would make unbelievable excuses to drive here and gawk at us because they'd never seen real live lesbians."

It took Rieser a year before she met another lesbian, whereas now she comes in contact with a gay or lesbian person "anytime I want." The past few years have witnessed such a rush of gays and lesbians into the area that two years ago Rieser cofounded a gay and lesbian radio program, Out, Loud, and Queer. The weekly one-hour show airs Friday nights and can be heard for a 50-mile radius from its local broadcast station, WJFF, located in a nearby village of 600 people.

Knudsen, who lives three miles from Rieser and calls her a neighbor, believes there is an infusion of lesbians and gays to rural America as "a result of gay people's becoming more mainstreamed in the past five years. It's opened up the options of living wherever we want, just like straight people. I'd call that cutting-edge."

Rural residents, however, are the first to admit that gay and lesbian life is harder to maintain in such isolated areas.

"It takes a lot of effort," declares Nancy Low, a 63-year-old sheep farmer living in Bridport, Vt. Low, who is snowed in for much of the five-month winter, says dealing with the isolation from the lesbian community is a constant battle. Single for three years, she says that E-mail and the Internet help but confesses, "It's no substitute for real human contact. I really get lonely sometimes." She stays for the love of her job and the beauty of the nearby mountains.

But even the charms of breathtaking scenery, family ties, and the countryside's quiet are not enough to keep some gays and lesbians in rural areas, where they have faced prejudice and even violence.

Doug and Harvey, who asked that their last names not be used, moved four years ago to what they thought was their dream home: a three-bedroom cabin surrounded by miles of forest 8,200 feet high in Arizona's White Mountains. Alpine, the only nearby village, has a population of just 500.

Both Doug and Harvey were raised in rural settings and initially hoped that once villagers got to know them, their sexual orientation wouldn't matter. But when word spread that they're gay, residents "shut the door and never let us in."

At first the two men tried frequenting the village stores and waving to townspeople. "We'd say hello, and they'd turn their backs," Doug says. The ostracism became so severe that the men stopped going to local stores, opting instead to make a once-a-month trip for supplies into the only other town--an hour-and-a-halls drive away.

A few months ago the local librarian--one of the few people in town who befriended them--drove to their home with a warning. "She came to tell us we were in danger," Harvey remembers. A village man had been receiving antigay material through the library's fax and had started a petition to oust the couple from town, so the librarian feared for their physical safety.

The two men beefed up security around their home and decided to put the house up for sale; they are fleeing as soon as it sells. When prospective buyers come looking, one of the two men goes into the woods--they're fearful buyers will realize they're gay. "It is spectacular country," Harvey says. "But in hindsight, we'd never put ourselves in this situation again."

Karen Hayes, a 23-year-old preoperative male-to-female transsexual in Louisville, Ky., would have preferred to remain in her rural setting too. But her family twice attempted to force her into a psychiatric institution, consulted with county judges to prevent her from legally changing her name, and discussed plans to hold a coffin-and-burial funeral for "Kevin Hayes," the male name she was given at birth. In February, Karen decided she had to escape her family's dairy farm, 70 miles southwest of Louisville. "In a perfect world I'd love to stay there, to live in that area. It's my home," she says, her voice cracking. After a pause she adds: "But it's impractical. It's too inhospitable."

Despite his love for the Kansas farm, Flood acknowledges that the dangers for rural gay men and lesbians can be real. Though he doesn't consider his almost blissful experience particularly unusual, he admits it helps that he "doesn't pay attention to the whispers," and he knows "things would be different if I ran around in dresses." But while he says he misses the chance to go two-stepping any night of the week, he knows one thing: "I would be miserable if I ever had to leave here."

Find more on rural gay and lesbian life and links to related Internet sites at www.advocate.com

Dahir has contributed to Time, The Industry Standard, and Redbook.

Urban renewal

DYING TOWNS ARE BEING GIVEN THE BREATH OF LIFE BY GAYS AND LESBIANS LOOKING FOR BARGAINS AND A HOMETOWN ATMOSPHERE BY CHARLES YOO 

After taking New Jersey to court and winning a class action lawsuit that gave gay couples equal rights to joint adoption of children, Michael and Jon Galluccio faced another hill to climb: Finding a roomy, affordable house in the New York metropolitan area. For a family of five, that is.

They ended up in Paterson, a city of 150,000 in north Jersey with plenty of dilapidated public schools and crack dealers, only 19 miles away from Times Square. "It doesn't look any different from New York City" says Michael Galluccio. "You've got people of every size, every color and every shape."

Unknowingly, the couple and their three children have joined an influx of gay and lesbian homeowners across the country who are claiming depressed urban patches of America as their homes. Urban renaissance led by gay people is nothing new. When middle-class straight families fled troubled cities to seek suburban refuge a couple of decades ago, gays and lesbians saw opportunities to build communities, so they stayed. Take a look at the loud, vivid, and expensive neighborhoods of San Francisco's Castro district and Miami's South Beach, as well as the city of West Hollywood in Southern California.

But in recent years another phenomenon has taken place in tiny pockets of the nation: Gays and lesbians are taking on small, dying cities with severe urban problems. They are buying neglected homes and refurbishing them, boosting property values and changing the face of America at the same time.

Perhaps it's the determination to test tolerance in places where a thriving gay culture never existed that drives them to seek new frontiers, some urban studies experts speculate.

"It may be that gay people are feeling more confident and adamant about having the same opportunity to live an open life more freely in all parts of the country, not just in cities on either coast," said William Colburn, a historic-preservation consultant in Dearborn, Mich.

Another explanation? Bargains, of course. Price tags of apartments and single-family homes in large metropolitan cities have skyrocketed in the past decade, prompting urbanites to choose affordability over a trendy ZIP code.

Not too long ago Gary Cloutier was a San Franciscan. He then found his nest in Vallejo, a city of 110,000 that is less than an hour's drive north of San Francisco. In Vallejo, jobs almost dried up in the '70s and '80s, making downtown a haven for drug dealers, prostitutes, and other undesirables.

"I bought my house for $150,000," said Cloutier, a 37-year-old attorney. "You can't buy a garage in San Francisco with that."

In the late '90s Vallejo natives started to notice new neighbors, who bought run-down Victorians in the historic district, where prices had plummeted. They were repainted, repaired, and refurbished by gays who were squeezed out of San Francisco, where houses and condominiums easily top $500,000. Cloutier, a Vallejo councilman, was one of dozens of new denizens popping up in the diminutive, scenic city. He spent $200,000 to fix up his four-bedroom Victorian overlooking the water.

Of course, it is impossible to tell just how many gays and lesbians have bought homes in such down-at-the-heels towns: There has been no study assessing how a city's prosperity has resulted from gays' investments. Yet the anecdotal evidence is difficult to disregard.

Gay people "have always been revitalizing neighborhoods," said Randall Gross, an economic consultant based in Washington, D.C., and chairman of the gay and lesbian planning division of the American Planning Association. "The difference now is that we are more out, especially in small urban areas and rural areas." The traces of American city residential clusters created by gay men can be traced back to as early as the turn of the century, near red-light districts