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Reflections on Gay Academic Union—St. Louis from the memoirs of Jim Andris

There were a couple of other interesting adventures that year of a longer-lasting nature. I was asked to be president of the Gay Academic Union. Now this was not the honor that it may seem. GAU St. Louis had been formed a few years previously, but it was anything but a copy of its Los Angeles role model. There were never more than a few credentialed "academics" associated with this organization. What I mean is that most of the hardest working members of this organization did not hold a university post and quite a few did not even have a college degree. Except for a few interesting meetings, like the time Masters and Johnson came to speak to us in a private home on Hortense Place, the GAU had been a tax-exempt front for the operation of a much needed and valuable Gay Hotline in St. Louis.

I had always had mixed feelings about this organization. Most of the leaders were dedicated, sometimes self-educated, nearly always well-informed homosexuals. These people had been "in the trenches" for many years, speaking to college and high school classes, extending helping hands to homosexual brothers and sisters in trouble, and generally exercising a leadership role in the gay and lesbian community in St. Louis. Also, remember that this was the late '70s and the scent of student activism was still strong. More than one academic had been shown to be politically ignorant or reactionary by more than one student activist. Furthermore, being virtually the only "out" gay academic in the area, as far as I could determine, I was plenty pissed off at my homosexual colleagues who were seemingly in the closet with the door nailed shut. Not that I didn't empathize with them. It was just that I had never let job insecurity stop me from saying what I believed.

On the other hand, I was not without my academic pretentiousness. I could see that nationally, the leaders of GAU really were gay and lesbian academics, people like Barbara Gittings and Frankin Kameny. Part of me believed that professionalism and standards required more legitimate academics in the organization. And some of the people in this local organization could be plenty strong-willed and irritating to work with. Still, I hung in there with Sagittarian esprit de corps and tried to judge everybody's ideas on their own merit.

Now the reason that I was asked to do this job was that the local GAU was in a state of extreme embarrassment, not to mention danger. It was revealed that one Ken D., the elected president of GAU St. Louis for the previous year had been running a call-boy service out of his own home. Not only that, but the police had gotten wise and had raided his home and confiscated the records of the organization. Now everyone who had contributed to that organization, and we are talking about well over a hundred people, had their names somewhere in the St. Louis police flIes. Ken was ultimately tried and sent to jail for pandering.

All of a sudden, the "academic respectability" of the organization became an issue, and partly because the people who were committed to the hotline did not want to loose their tax exempt status, but also for other completely obvious reasons. They were humiliated by Ken's operation, and fearful that the confidential mailing list would be used for retribution by the police. They wanted me, not because of any legitimate need, but because I was the only gay academic who was bold (or stupid) enough to step into such a quagmire. But I did it. I even went out to Ken's house, where a couple of young prostitutes were still lurking around—Ken noticed one of them eyeing me and said “Now be good, boys.” I recovered the records, which had been returned by the police. For a year after that, I called the meetings and tried to arrange informative programs for the organization. And, in a tale for the '80s, I was ousted by younger activists who didn't approve of my attempt to focus the Gay Academic Union towards more academic homosexual matters. They wanted a nearly exclusive focus on fund-raising for the hotline.

A Crisis at the Gay Academic Union

While this little melodrama was being played out, another one (which I have already described in the last chapter) was also unfolding. That was the direction of the Gay Academic Union. In March of 1980 I became the chairperson of GAU. I was working hand in hand with a crew of seasoned gay rights activists: Bill Cordes, Lisa Wagaman and Ray Lake, all of whom had helped to start the Gay Hotline several years before. There were very few academicians in this organization. There were a few, though, who shall remain nameless, since their jobs in education are at stake. You may recall that I was put in place of Ken Dayringer, convicted of pandering and arguably responsible for a list of names of GAU members falling into the hands of local police.

I supported the Hotline, but I was not active in it. That was an operation onto itself. Classes of new volunteers went through training on how to deal with confidential calls and crisis situations, such as impending suicides. This was just the kind of thing that attracted some of the younger members of the community. Working on the Hotline was doing something specific to help someone, by contrast to a bunch of academics sitting around and talking about gay rights. As I explained before, the GAU in St. Louis, unlike some of its east and west coast counterparts, had been mainly a front for the Hotline in order to gain tax-exempt, not-for-profit status. From my point of view at the time, however, there was precious little academic about the Gay Academic Union in St. Louis.

I set about to arrange to have more topic-oriented meetings. In fact, many of the successful ideas that we had that year—an open picnic in Tower Grove and a talk by Masters and Johnson at the Central West End home of one of the members— were the brainchildren of Wayne Huber, a local person well know in art and educational circles. As the year wore on, the Hotline crew, mainly under the leadership of one Donn Kleinschmidt, became very displeased with this academic focus. What I got was that they wanted the GAU to become almost a service organization dedicated to supporting the hotline. There was even some not so subtle ageism in some of the criticisms that came our way, "the older crowd" was an epitaph that was hurled more than once. Ultimately, this state of antagonism lead to my resigning from the chair.

While time has dimmed my recall of the precise exchanges that took place between the two sides vying for control of GAU, there is a part of one event that stands out in my mind. My friend and former student, Kathy Vinehout had warned me that Donn was set to try to move control of GAU to people who were more specifically focused on the needs of the Hotline. I found out later that Donn had impressed Kathy with his arguments, and that she was herself of divided opinion about the proper direction and balance of GAU St. Louis.

A meeting was scheduled, I think, at MCC at its then location of 5108 Waterman. About 15 people were present, but the real confrontation came down to Donn and me. He had come quite fully prepared for a knockdown, drag-out argument over the direction of the organization. However, after listening and discussing for a short time, I simply said something to this effect: “Well, look, I was drafted to do this job because no other “out” academic was willing to do it. I have done my best, brought the organization through one crisis (with Ken Dayringer), and I do have a certain vision for the organization. But if someone else (meaning Donn) thinks they can do a better job, by all means, have at it!” I clearly remember that shortly after I had made this statement, Donn, said, in effect, “Why am I always made out to be the villain?” And he threw a coke can across the room in anger. But whatever, the leadership transferred hands, and I was glad to have less to worry about.

There really was so much happening in my life at that time, and the memories of it are precious to me. I was involved in so many communities that I wonder now how I ever found the energy to do it. I had a full calendar of events scheduled that spring and early summer in addition to the three organizations I have described above. I regularly stayed in touch by phone or had dinner with at least 20 people.