GLAPN as a community resource

When McMenamins bought the downtown Portland block containing the Belvedere Hotel, they got a bunch of history in the bargain.

The Belvedere had once housed a prominent gay bar, and an equally notorious men's bathhouse.

McMenamins' historian Tim Hills contacted GLAPN for help researching the property's history. The result was a pleasant collaboration over a couple of years, AND a generous gift from McMenamins to GLAPN as an acknowledgement of our assistance. Click on the logo at right to read about it.

NWGA Turns 30!

GLAPN was delighted to be invited to the 30th birthday party of the Northwest Gender Alliance in the autumn of 2009.

For 30 years NWGA been providing information, services, and support to the Northwest's transsexual community, and staying pretty much under everybody's radar while they did it.

GLAPN showed up with recorders and videocams to talk with the members who wanted to share their stories, and frankly, almost two years later, we're still evaluating our transcriptions and videos to determine what to do with the wealth of information we gathered there.

PFLAG – the leading edge

Very few people are as close to the leading edge of social change as are the queer kids and their parents who make up Parents of Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

When the schools won't let your kids use a safe bathroom, when same-sex couples are barred from the prom, when a school district torpedos all of its high school clubs rather than accept a Gay-Straight Alliance – PFLAG and their kids are there.

In June, 2011, PFLAG Portland Chapter hosted two speakers from GLAPN, to find out more about their community's history, and to learn how to preserve their own organizational history so that others may benefit from it.