On October 5th, 2001, a questionnaire from the Anatolian Bears of Turkey came to the Empire Bears' mailbox. I answered the questionnaire on October 9th and thought little of it thereafter -- until, sometime over the holidays, Mike P. came to one of our events with several copies of a curious little magazine called Pençe, which we later discovered is Turkish for "Paw".
Imagine our surprise when Gary J. and I leafed through this particular magazine to find our new Empire Bears logo on the corner of the page.
Click on either picture for a larger version.
What follows is the set of questions and answers (original English text before translation) that were actually translated into Turkish and appear in the article above. A couple of the questions we were asked did not make it into the article, and the last three paragraphs -- question, answer, and final summation -- seem to have been written afresh to incorporate some information that didn't fit one of the original questions, such as our Web page address. The final product was almost certainly edited to make it simpler to translate or to read in Turkish.
Enjoy!
PAW: How many members do you have?
Approximately 60 as of October 1st [2001]. Our membership tends to increase throughout the year and "reset" at the beginning of the year (as all memberships expire on January 1) until people renew.
PAW: Do you have a president-vice president for your club? If yes what kind of a voting system are you using?
We have a board consisting of President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and three Members-at-large. Board members are elected directly by the membership in staggered two-year terms (e.g. the President is elected in odd-numbered years, the Vice-President in even-numbered years, and so on), either by mail ballot of the entire membership, or in the event that no office remains opposed after nominations have been closed, by a single vote cast by the current Secretary.
PAW: What is the profile of your members? (age-occupation,etc.)
I think that given the number of members we have, a profile of each member would be too much information to be useful for your purposes. I will mention that we vary in age from 18 (the minimum age for membership according to our bylaws) to well over 60, and that many and varied walks of life are represented among our members.
PAW: How are you contacting with your members? (email,newsletter,brochures,etc.)
We use e-mail and a Web site (http://www.empirebears.org/) to communicate with our members. In the past we have had a printed newsletter, which has been published fairly irregularly as of late. We also operate a telephone line with a recorded message and voice mail for the benefit of members, and potential members and guests wishing to attend our events.
PAW: Do you have a publication of your club?
As far as the general public is concerned, our presence on the Web is our major publication. Our presence in the print media is limited to a monthly column and occasional news coverage in the Empty Closet, our local monthly gay newspaper.
PAW: Do you have connections with other Bear Clubs? If yes, can you give details?
We have had exchange events with the Buffalo Bears (about an hour's drive from Rochester) and some overlapping memberships with Bear Buddies Toronto (in Canada, three to five hour's drive depending on traffic and Customs inspections ;-) We also have several links to other Bear clubs and other sites from our Web site.
PAW: How is Gay life, gay rights in your country, in your area?
I think it's fair to say the U.S.A. (and, for that matter, Canada) is enormous from a non-North American perspective, and laws and customs with respect to gay rights do vary considerably from state to state, from city to city, and between urban and rural areas across the country. So I will only speak to New York state as a whole and Rochester in particular.
On the whole, New York is a relatively tolerant place for gay people. We have not had sodomy laws on the books for a number of years, and the state government has adopted a policy of no discrimination against gay employees. However, a law extending this protection to all employers and public accommodations in the state has repeatedly failed to pass in the state legislature.
Rochester in particular has a reputation as progressive, no doubt due in part to the number of high-technology jobs in the area and the high education level of the people here, and is, as a result, perceived as gay-friendly. This reputation has led to Rochester having the highest gay population in the state outside of New York City. Many businesses in the city (as well as the city itself) offer some form of domestic partner benefits.
PAW: What kind of activities are you organizing during a year?
Many of our events tend to revolve around food. ;-) We host a potluck supper and organize a trip to Sunday brunch at a local restaurant each month (except during the summer), and we also have a Bearnight at a local bar at which we provide snacks and mingle with the community. Also, many of our members enjoy camping and we have organized many camping events at three gay campgrounds around the region (New York and Pennsylvania). Twice a year we also make a trip to Toronto, Canada to meet the bears there.
PAW: Have you heard anything about Bear Movement in Turkey? If yes, how?
Of course, the publicity generated by the Bears of Turkey after organizing tours to the oil wrestling tournaments in 2000 has reached us here in the U.S.A., and I've taken a look at their web site to find out more. However,
PAW: Have you heard anything about our club 'Anatolian Bears'?
... I had not heard of your group until receiving this mesage. My partner (and co-Webmaster) and I did have the opportunity to take a look at your Website, and it looks like a good resource for bears in Turkey (although, being in Turkish mostly, we couldn't read much of it for ourselves -- but that's our problem, not yours ;-).
PAW: Is there any violence against Bear Movement in your country, in your area?
Against the Bear Movement in particular, none whatsoever.
Against gay people in general, we don't see much of an organized effort in this regard, in that there have been no gangs that prey on the gay community in recent years, nor any sort of police brutality -- in fact there is a police liaison person whose job it is to keep open communications between the police and the gay community.
That said, no place is immune from the occasional unbalanced person who commits a criminal act against a person because that person is gay. We've had a handful of murder cases as a result; one of the victims was the producer of our local gay men's chorus and a personal friend of mine.
I also gave them permission to use the History and What's A Bear pages as they saw fit, which they apparently chose not to use, perhaps for lack of space.
It is always good to see how much interest there is in our little club from another club halfway around the globe.
Mike McManus
Co-Webmaster, Empire Bears, Inc.