Heroes and Villains. There are a lot of heroes in the gay/lesbian community. So many, in fact, that we're fortunate to be able to take for granted, most of the time, much of the work which these men and women do. We're able to take for granted that much of this work is done in an often indifferent or even openly hostile community of "bad guys". As with other soldiers on the front lines, it's only once in a while that we get to meet or actually work with the people who "make a difference".

On Saturday, April 3, a handful of men and women met in a church cafeteria in San Francisco to hear one such story. Speaking to the "GIA", a small social club of gay men and women in a greater Bay Area population of well over a million souls, we heard a lady from Britain, speaking for an organization called the Pacific Center, located in a land called Contra Costa County. Margaret V. Walker would be the first to pooh-pooh the idea that she is any sort of hero above and beyond the struggles and works of so many of the rest of us. I believe she'd prefer to think of herself as a "facilitator", a person who helps avail others of the means of helping themselves grow.

There's still something about this "hero" business which demands examination. Consider, for example, the greater community in which we live.

There are heroes in the "general" community too, a whole legion of them, in the schools, Red Cross, United Way, and we form various opinions of these folks too and we support them, or not, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, approval and occasional contributions. If a distinction exists at all, that thing which separates the heroes in the gay/lesbian community from those valiant organizers, charitable promoters and volunteers in the "general" community must be the nature and quality of the struggle, and the nature and quality of the reward.

It is not enough to say that "it" is the sense of urgency in the lesbian/gay community. There are kids all over the world starving to death or being blown to pieces by high explosives, right now. It is not enough to say that the work which we do is vital, that it is needed, that it is about growth, healing and nurturing. This is true elsewhere too.

Whenever there exists a cause, it is more than enough to say that it is ours. This still necessitates discovering who "we" are.

The Pacific Center For Human Growth: Some of us attend or volunteer at the "PC" more or less regularly. The "dry" description is of our Pacific Center as a community center for men and women of every sexual minority, offering counseling, peer group support, a Sexual Minority Switchboard, HIV advocacy, and much more.

You might not know that the "PC" is one of the few organizations of its kind in the United States. Travel to Phoenix, Boston, Baton Rouge or Bangor and flip through a gay travel guide. You'll just find two gathering places for gays and lesbians in many "enlightened" towns: bars, and night clubs. Phoenix, for example, has a Gay Switchboard (1-602-234-2753). It has some great gay bars and an active night life, but no community centers.

We don't normally look at it this way, but a community center like the "PC" is a great integrator. It is also a great healer, social gathering place, and reaffirmer of value , diversity and community. Yet, far from fostering the idea of "a place apart", the Pacific Center allows the identification of "our" values, "our" feelings in the far broader context of a general community. That's a lot of what growth is all about.

You might not know that many of the people volunteering at the "PC" in either Berkeley or Walnut Creek, California first walked through its doors themselves, scared and most alone, only a few short months or years ago.

Lady from Britain: five years ago, Margaret Walker started the Crisis Line at the Pacific Center in Berkeley. The Crisis Line is a telephone lifeline for many who desperately need support. Many callers are completely isolated by fear and lack of knowledge about themselves and others, culminating in a life-threatening crisis of choice between life as a gay person, or no life at all. Many people, many teens, never know about us, and never call. With two lines open, calls flooded in from all over the United States, Japan, New Zealand, France ... and Contra Costa County.

The unexpected frequency and urgency of the calls from Contra Costa County is politically unsurprising, but it indicated a need for a kind of services there which the Pacific Center Berkeley simply cannot provide.

A Different World: if you've lived in the Bay Area a long time, you're used to our well-deserved national reputation for openness, involvement, and a willingness to question and change. Most places, this reputation is anything but hallowed. It fairly reeks of a defiance of tradition, a willingness to be noticed and stand out from the crowd, and it invites criticism, challenge and open disagreement. It smacks of "controversy", of disrespect for our neighbor's safe space, and it smacks of everything "Berkeley" stands for when, for instance, you live in Iowa or in Contra Costa County.

Margaret started public forums for gays and lesbians in public libraries in Walnut Creek and Martinez. "It's not the same as any other county", she says. People came in furtively, quietly, asked some questions, perhaps checked out a book . She asked this question:

"What do you want?" The answer: a place to talk, gather, meet, learn about ourselves and others. They started meeting at a sympathetic local church (not without community resistance). What gays and lesbians wanted there was a community center with a back door so they could sneak in without being observed.

"The fear in their eyes". Margaret observed that people in Contra Costa County came to her meetings literally with fear in their eyes. They couldn't say what it was they came for. Being sure you weren't seen coming was important. It still is. In Contra Costa County, we aren't just talking about the embarrassment of confrontation, of being seen as "different". We're talking about the possibility of beatings, loss of employment, excommunication from family and church: a very different world indeed, where, in a environmentally and intellectually disarmed society, a difference of opinion or lifestyle still invites not only social but physical reprisal.

Contra Costa Outreach Project got started late in the fall of last year. Margaret and her volunteers, most of whom emerged from the library and church meeting groups, opened the Pacific Center Walnut Creek near BART, with wheelchair accessibility and an entrance leading to any one of a number of "normal" professional offices and facilities. Thus, the building is not identifiable purely a gay/lesbian/bisexual Pacific Center. You can't tell for sure why a visitor enters, unless he or she tells you. Next to the "12/20 Club", the oldest bar for sexual minorities in Walnut Creek, The Pacific Center is located at 1250 Pine Street, Suite 301. Gay Men's Rap is Tuesday nights at 7:00, so it is quite possible to catch the established Monday night event in Berkeley and then share an experience in Pioneer country. Drop in if you're in the area.

The struggle: It isn't a bed of roses. There was a severe beating the very first week. The sympathetic landlord received office tenant complaints that "we hope `they' are not going to use our rest rooms!" If you missed the GIA presentation, maybe you just had to be there. Margaret told of soliciting free office furniture from the local retailer, and an office copier "that's better than Scott's (at the Berkeley facility). Perhaps 300 - 400 people visited or inspected the Grand Opening, and as many leaflets disappeared back into that county that had no need of a community center for people like "them".

"What I want to tell you ... is that I'm gay." Young people (and people of all ages) found the courage there to say things which had NEVER been said before, and to discover that they are not alone, and, in fact, are very fine, very capable human beings. Some of these men and women stay on to become volunteers, themselves "giving back to the community". Margaret currently administers a volunteer staff of about 50 full and part-time volunteers. There are now six peer groups operating, and growing fast in Walnut Creek.

The peer group session is one of the very many things the Pacific Center is all about. For every one of us who has gone through the "coming out" process to emerge a healthier, happier, more complete human being, this is perhaps the first thing which comes to mind. And, without these contact services, none of the others can follow.

The success stories are too numerous to tell. Yes, you had to be there, and if you weren't able to be with us, you missed an evening, the unfolding of a drama, which will remain memorable to many of us for the rest of our lives.

"Go in with dignity". Margaret observed that the way to approach walls of fear and hostility is with self-assurance, dignity and professionality. She didn't mention her own indomitable cheerfulness, incisive thinking and speaking skills borne of long experience and practice, and firm resolution.

No, this isn't a testimonial just for Margaret, who is surely deserving of it. If we're looking for heroes, I'm sure I join Margaret in suggesting we quietly contemplate the nature of the struggle for Quality, for life itself, in those men and women who walk through the doors of the Pacific Center every week.

The struggle for equality, identity and growth in the quality of our lives goes largely unheralded, and is actively discouraged in some communities. Yet it is all around us, and it is within all of us, and it is never over. The continuity of growth is made possible by the willingness to share experience, and experience cannot be taught; it can only be observed and practiced. The thing which makes the sharing workable is the commonalty of experience, the ways in which we are the same. The thing which makes the sharing worthwhile is the diversity of experience, the ways in which we learn differently. That diversity, far from being something we learn tolerate and with which we must coexist, is the "glue" which keeps our community and the greater community together. You'll find a lot of it at the Pacific Center, and it is one of the great strengths of our community.

Given this understanding, who are the real heroes, after all? There are, we said, a lot of heroes in the gay/lesbian community. There are also a lot in the general community.

There is a fine line between heroism and doing the right thing. Margaret has done a lot to turn the tide of opinion in Walnut Creek. So have her volunteers. So have all the brave young and old who, turning their backs on the world, walked through those doors to finally grapple with the questions of identity and existence, only to discover they belonged in this world all along -- and just didn't know it.

Let us not forget the merchants, the community leaders, the local tenants who "turned around" into guarded Pacific Center boosters. It takes real guts to put your business or community standing on the line to do the "right thing" if you don't yet see that you have any personal stake in the outcome. Courage and integrity have no sexual or ethnic boundaries, and defy limitation that way. There are real heroes in the gay/lesbian community. There are real heroes in the general community. Whatever it is which divides these folks in popular opinion into "heroes" and just "good people", one doesn't properly talk of "gay heroes", any more than one talks of "straight heroes". Maybe that's the real message.

As to who, exactly, these folks really are: perhaps we can "armchair" this question in our old age, looking back on a time when the diversity of human sexuality and experience was actually still a social issue. In the meantime, when we hear expressions like, "I wish there were something I could do ...", or "What can one person do alone?", maybe we don't have to turn to our heroes for a solution. Maybe we can ask ourselves if we think Margaret V. Walker didn't ask herself all the very same questions. Before, that is, she and a lot of spirited volunteers started what Margaret calls "an oasis in Contra Costa County."

© Alex Forbes , La Parola May 1993

Note: Due to funding crisises, the Contra Costa branch of the Pacific Center for Human Growth ceased operations in the 1990's. The Berkeley parent organization continues serving the Northern California area as it has since 1973.