The rise of the most important queer publication in Portland history.
By Melissa Delzio
"A measure by which historians and sociologists define a community is examining the extent to which a particular group has developed its own newspapers and community press," Tom Cook wrote on the pages Just Out, Portland's premiere queer paper in 1997. Then, it was a time for reflection, a celebration of the publication's survival, and a moment to honor the history of the little paper with big impact. Because of Just Out, Portland's queer community had collective strength, connectivity, and a voice through the turbulence of the 1980s, 1990s and beyond.
Started in October of 1983 as a monthly paper for the queer community devoted to intersectional ideas, Just Out went on to publish for 30 years! Just Out was one of the longest continually-operated woman-owned businesses in Portland, and one of the few LGBTQ+ publications that remained independent through most of its run.
The Queer Press in Portland
The need for a queer press in Portland arose because the mass media publications of the 1960s would acknowledge gay people existed only in regard to police crackdowns on gay bars. Yet, a 1972 study showed that Portland was home to 13 gay bars and 50,000 homosexuals (of whom 8,000 were said to be “out”). The community was there and hungry for a media source that reflected them.
Portland’s first underground paper, the Willamette Bridge, was an early supporter of the gay liberation movement, with queer writers like John Wilkinson and Holly Hart covering stories that reflected their respective communities. Later John was hired on as staff at The Bridge, in charge of layout. Portland readers of The Bridge learned about the Stonewall Rebellion in a feature story a year after it happened, when a gay activist traveled to Portland to speak and the paper reported on it.
Left: John Wilkinson's letter in February of 1970 published in the Willamette Bridge. Middle: John's follow up call in The Bridge for a meet up of gay men and and women at Ninth Street Exit Coffee House. Right: Just Out published their own look back at Oregon's queer press in 1997.
In 1970 a personal ad was submitted to The Bridge. It read, “Gay, longhair, young, lonely, seeks meaningful relationship with same.” The Bridge rejected the ad because it went against their policy against running personal ads. As a gay man, John Wilkinson saw pain and sadness in the ad and knew there was an unfulfilled need in his community.
He penned a response and proposed a meeting in March of 1970 to, “...discuss the formation of a political and social action group of homosexuals.” From this, the Portland Gay Liberation Front was formed, the first gay political group in Oregon.
While the counterculture movement of the 1970s faded away for many in the 1980s, for members of the queer community, their movement was just getting started.
Just Out Finds its Voice
Just Out was founded in 1983 by Renée LaChance and Jay Brown both who had editorial roles at Cascade Voice. Cascade Voice was a gay publication that had started up the previous year with broad hopes for intersectionality and diversity of perspectives (according to their mission statement).
But Renée and Jay became frustrated with the lack of follow through on this promise. Designer Rupert Kinnard was doing some illustration and production work for Cascade Voice and remembered a racist incident happening at Pride that,"... brought out racial divisions and racism within the queer community. Renée and Jay felt like the newspaper, Cascade Voice, wasn't being very responsive to that".
Renée felt she was prevented from writing articles challenging gay men to examine their own internalized sexism and racism. It was clear to Renée, Jay, and Rupert that Cascade Voice was not going to properly stand up for anyone but white, gay men. After one last, tense conversation, Renée declared she was launching her own paper and Jay and Rupert were ready and happy to help her build something new. Rupert describes doubting at first if they could pull it off. Cascade Voice was the big, queer paper in town, could Portland support another one?!
Their vision was simple: good writing, good design, inclusive perspectives, and integrity.
Together they started the paper with $300 made from selling Jay’s couch and a “go get’er gumption” according to Renée. The first issue announced their intentions to highlight every facet of the lesbian and gay community: “News about nuclear disarmament, lesbian and gay rights, discrimination cases, racism and oppression within our community and outside of it.” If you’re surprised nuclear disarmament made the top of that list, I was too! But the early 1980s was a period of renewed Cold War tension between the Soviet Union and the U.S.
Like other papers, Just Out encouraged article submissions by the community. They also highlighted in every issue, a big, full spread called the “Just Entertainment” section which would showcase events, “from theater to films, music to mime, workshops to rallies.”
The commitment to entertainment was clear from the very first cover featuring an exclusive interview with the Dyketones. The Dyketones were a spoof 1950s band that started in Portland and went on to national acclaim. They were made up of, in their words, “butch or femme” lesbian rock and rollers in poodle skirts or with slicked back hair who sang songs like “My Girlfriend’s Back” to the tune of “My Boyfriend’s Back”.
With this cover, and stunning interior layouts by Rupert, Just Out made waves from the start! One excited reader wrote in,
“It looks like Portland finally has the excellent paper its strong gay community has long deserved.”
Many early Just Out issues had arts and entertainment as their cover story. Top left to bottom right: Slide 1, Feb. 1984; Slide 2-3 Entertainment listings Feb. 1986; Slide 4, Jan. 1985; Slide 5, Entertainment listing Oct. 1993; Slide 6, Apr. 1988; Slide 7, Feb. 1987; Slide 8, Apr. 1987; Slide 9, Feb. 1987.
Like other alternative papers, Just Out was scrappy and resourceful. Unlike other papers they had to deal with many added struggles like having multiple printers refuse to print their work. Even Gresham Outlook, which was a major printer for much of the underground press, at one point gave them notice to find a new printer because of a staff member’s opposition to the content. Luckily they were able to rally a defense, a compromise was made, and the Outlook continued to print Just Out. This wouldn’t be the last vendor they would have to educate about their own homophobia.
Once printed, publications stacked around town were vulnerable to anti-gay crusaders who would throw away large stacks of the publication.
Many subscribed to Just Out by mail, but had to be careful receiving it if they were not out to their friends and family. Originally the papers were sent to subscribers in discreet envelopes. But starting in 1985, they announced “Just Out Comes Out” and informed subscribers they would be getting a folded paper in the mail, sans envelope! With this announcement, the paper encouraged trepidatious readers to look to the content within its pages, and find inner pride and strength to come out.
Another struggle Just Out faced was push back from companies like Alpenrose Dairy who saw their product in a grocery ad and demanded their brand never appear in an ad again. In response, Just Out organized a boycott of Alpenrose by small grocers and disgruntled customers. After three years of the boycott, the company apologized.
Despite these challenges, Just Out did find success securing advertisers who were happy to connect with queer audiences. They had to look for advertisers beyond the gay bars that funded the other papers (those bar owners were loyal to the Cascade Voice). For their paper to survive they had to seek non-gay businesses. To accomplish this, they hired a straight, white man who had experience selling ads for the Business Journal. He immediately saw the niche market as a huge selling point. He said, “Everybody should be advertising in this paper. The readers are loyal…the advertisers will get a good bang for their buck.” Other queer publications thought it was impossible to get mainstream advertisers, but Just Out proved otherwise.
Just Out leaned in to heavy topics like AIDS, masculinity, politics and homeless youth. Top left to bottom right: Slide 1-2, Apr. 1986, "The AIDS Game" headline article; Slide 3, Sept. 1985; Slide 4, Mar. 1985; Slide 5, Aug. 1986; Slide 6-7, Nov. 1983 "Married and Gay" headline article; Slide 8, Aug. 1985; Slide 9, Oct. 1985.
Hot Topics
With the publication in full swing, they were able to address tough issues like gender and masculinity with this March 1985 issue titled, “Men vs. Women, Why Aren’t More Men Feminists?”. A topic they revisited in May 1995 with,“The Great Divide”. A 1986 article, “Revamping Masculinity”, calls into question how much femininity gay people suppress in the name of passing as straight and how that harms them.
The editorial process was collaborative with Renée, Jay and other contributors taking a critical look at story proposals and asking, “Was it queer? Was it news? Did it represent marginalized communities within our community?”
Marriage and family were hot topics. November 1983’s article, “Married and Gay” relayed the stories of gay people trapped in heterosexual marriages with children who are fearful of coming out because it could mean losing their children. It showed the devastation wrought by the old idea that heterosexual marriage could be a cure for homosexuality.
Just Out made good on intersectional promises made from the start of the paper, writing features about “older gays, gays in prison, gays and alcoholism, physically-challenged gays and unlearning racism.”
Early on they decided to advocate for coming out. Renée said,
“The closet was a preferred place for many in the 80s, and we believed they needed to come so we could get our rights. Gay men and lesbians are everywhere, and everyone should come out, be visible, be proud of who they are.”
In May 1985 a straight reader wrote in with a letter of support. She said, "I hope that other straight people read this paper (sometimes I thing we're the ones who need to) and realize that when someone you love comes out, he's still the person you know and love —only more so. He can be himself more fully, because he can be true to himself."
Just Out also featured news blurbs from gay communities across the U.S., and ran many syndicated articles from national papers. Especially when it came to big, complicated matters of national health like the growing AIDS epidemic. A 1986 article describes AIDS as a plague worsened by, “a patchwork of neglect and panic” by the Reagan administration which was “scared to be seen as supporting homosexuality.” Another prominent Just Out illustrator and designer, Ann Hinds, illustrated an April 1986 cover featuring this topic shows the chessboard pieces of the "AIDS Game” represented as “Homophobia”, “Loss of Loved Ones”, “Medical Research” and “Missiles” indicating that the global/political forces had ripple effects through all public policy.
When Rupert was asked to reflect on content that was impactful, he said, "It was all of it!".The fact that they could cover issues like health care or religion or the arts or whatever and find the queer slant to it. With pride Rupert said, “Those first couple of issues of Just Out made it so clear what the commitment was to”.
Left to right: Oct. 1985; Dec. 1986; Jun.1987.
One of Just Out’s earliest journalistic successes was in 1986, when they aided in the takedown of a homophobic Multnomah County Commissioner, Gordon Shadburne.
Just Out discovered that Gordon was in fact having homosexual affairs in addition to misappropriating county funds.
Renée remembers how they orchestrated his takedown. “We were just a new paper, and we thought we couldn’t take that on. But we got all the information, all the names, all the documents. We did all of our research and got the whole story, and then gave it to Willamette Week who could take the pressure.” Willamette Week exposed Gordon Shadburne and ran him out of office.
All their hard work in the early years paid off when in 1988 they became the first gay paper to get press credentials at the Democratic National Convention!
Design Forward
Ann Hinds’s illustrative skills and Rupert Kinnard’s talent in page layout and art direction was one of the keys to the publication’s early success. Rupert had a vision from the beginning, he wanted this paper to be step above. “We knew it was supposed to be a community newspaper, but we wanted it to have a magazine format.” These early issues featured a fully illustrated or photographic cover in one color plus black. In their first year, Just Out won a gay-press award for best designed newspaper.
One very special issue of Just Out in 1984 featured Rupert’s own Cathartic Comic strip that he created years earlier for his college paper. As a young, Black comic book fan, Rupert noticed the absence of Black superheroes, so he decided to create his own character. The Brown Bomber emerged with the goal of being a different type of superhero, one that preached nonviolence and challenged readers about white privilege.
As Rupert was exiting college at the height of the comic strip’s campus popularity, the Brown Bomber came out as gay, mimicking Rupert’s own journey coming to acceptance and pride as a gay man.
Later the Brown Bomber was formalized as Cathartic Comics, and in Portland — on pages of Just Out — Rupert made space for a new character to be born, Diva Touché Flambé, a black, ageless, lesbian cosmic spirit.
Left: Diva Touché Flambé, a character Rupert created and introduced in Portland on the cover of Just Out posing as Portlandia in Nov. 1985. Middle and Right: Years later in Feb. 1992 Rupert, Brown Bomber and Diva Touché Flambé all pose on the cover for an article "Cathartic Chums" about the artist's published comic collection.
Through comic storytelling printed on the pages of Just Out and other queer publications across the U.S. (Rupert says the comic was somewhat-syndicated), he was able to express ideas big and small. From annoying microaggressions, to bigger intersectional themes, Diva and Brown Bomber educate through their own unique superpowers.
Rupert reflected, “I’m very intent on revealing to society at large some of the perspectives I have as a black man…. I find Cathartic Comics to be a place where I can shed these feelings of hopelessness and frustration. It comes out in the comic strip.”
From the rotated masthead of the early issues, to the late-1980s hero image with table of contents, to the early aughts covers which shared space with the start of an article, the paper underwent several redesigns before it turned sweet sixteen. Art Director responsibilities bounced from Rupert to Ann while Rupert lived in San Francisco for many years. However Rupert and Ann would still collaborate remotely by mailing cover art. He was listed as “graphic inspiration” through his San Francisco years.
Design shifts over the years. Left to right: Sept. 1986; Sept. 1988; May 1996; Dec. 2000 cover featuring Gus Van Sant.
Battles Fought
The AIDS epidemic first appeared in Oregon and nationally in 1981 and it hit the small community of Just Out hard. Renée remembers, “— every third gay man you knew was sick, and, or, and dying and during the first three or four years of that epidemic, [many] men were ostracized from their families, and so their friends would pick up the slack for care-giving.” Overall 4,613 people in Portland died from AIDS from 1981 – 2021.
Apr. 1990 cover and interior page honoring publication co-founder Jay Brown.
The staff of Just Out was affected by AIDS personally. Co-founder Jay Brown died of complications from AIDS at age 54 in April of 1990. Renée was left without the partner she had built up the paper with for seven years.
Just Out was a comfort to those experiencing deep grief and fear during the AIDS pandemic. Top left to bottom right: Slide 1, Jul. 1988 photo of the AIDS Memorial Quilt when it went on tour; Slide 2, Dec. 1988; Slide 3, Jan. 1995 remembrance of Just Out staff member Ariel Waterwoman; Slide 4, Sept. 1994; Slides 5-7, Mar. 1995 illustration by Ann Hinds; Slides 8-9, Aug. 1995 illustration by Rupert Kinnard.
Just Out started covering and instigating activism around AIDS awareness, including the work by the Portland Chapter of ACT UP. ACT UP was a group based in New York City that used disruptive and creative events (like die-ins or kiss-ins) and provocative advertising (like the Silence = Death posters and billboards) to bring the AIDS issue to the attention of the masses and demand action by the government.
Left to right: Slide 1, ACT UP Portland poster advertising a Feb. 27, 1989, protest. Poster courtesy of OHS Research Library, Coll 859. Photograph by Kayla Blackman; Slide 2, Aug. 1988 cover with Silence=Death poster; Slide 3, Jul. 1990 page dedicated to ACT UP newsletter; Slide 4, Mar. 1993 cover announcing Washington D.C civil rights demonstrations planned for Apr. of 1993; Slide 5, Jul. 1990 article lamenting a drop off in activism.
One of the underlying missions from the start of the paper was to get people to come out. In 1991, in one of Renée’s proudest reflections, is that together with partners, they made the bold move to take out a billboard on N. Broadway by the Memorial Coliseum during Pride. The billboard plainly said “Come out. Celebrate Lesbian and Gay Pride.”
This was a celebratory moment after years of struggle. The Just Out team didn’t know then that the bonds built through AIDS activism would prepare them for battles of another kind: Measures 8, 9, and 13 all brought about by a conservative group Oregon Citizens Alliance in 1988, 1992, and 1994 respectively. All measures were in service of banning civil rights protections to queer people.
Top right to bottom left: Slide 1: Anti-gay propaganda/fear mongering literature distributed to build support for Measure 9 in 1992. Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society's Spring of 2021 Oregon Historical Quarterly; Slide 2, Nov. 1992 cover discusses hate crimes in the wake of the Oregon Citizens Alliance Measure 9 campaign rhetoric; Slide 3, Oct 1992; Slide 4-5 Nov. 1992 issue that declares victory over Measure 9.
Measure 9 was a particularly brutal assault on the community. Oregon’s 1992 ballot measure 9 sought to declare homosexuality to be "abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse and that these behaviors are to be discouraged and avoided”. It was one of the most comprehensive — and harshest — anti-gay measures put to voters in American history.
Just Out’s campaign missions were two-fold: to keep the community informed and keep the community together. The paper was loaded with resources, announcements, opinions, and activist opportunities.
On Nov 15, 1992, Just Out proudly announced the resounding defeat of Measure 9 with 57% of Oregon voters denouncing it. According to Just Out’s “Victory Over 9” issue, part of the campaign’s success was due to people who had come out to their family and friends because of the threat faced by Measure 9.
As the Just Out team was reflecting back on 1992 for a January 1993 recap, the staff started to fall into a deep depression. They decided upon a different way to encapsulate the emotional roller coaster year: Rupert made a board game called “Strife” in the shape of the numbers “92”.
Jan. 1993 cover and spread showcasing the game Rupert Kinnard designed called, "Strife", to reflect the tumultuous previous year with biting satire. The introduction warns,"This game is not for the timid".
Renée, while proud of her work, was exhausted emotionally from running the paper for all those years, and by the deaths of colleagues to AIDS. She reflects, “I had lost three editors. I lost Jay in 1990, I lost Phillip in ’92—and I lost Ariel in ’95. And I just couldn’t do it again.”
In addition to fighting the plague, Renée had to stand strong against the constant political battles as well, “it takes a lot of your spirit to keep fighting the same battle over and over,” she said.
Renée's Tenure Comes to an End
A November 1997 14th anniversary issue featured the headline that summarized Renée’s exhaustion, “Mirroring the struggles of the queer community as a whole, Just Out has run an obstacle course around fear and hate in its 14-year history.”
In 1998, Renée made the decision to sell the paper to Marty Davis, who had started at the paper selling ads, and had gradually been taking on more responsibility. Marty, who came to be a divisive character, would run the paper for 14 years and steer the publication into the digital age (posting PDF issues online), before selling to a final owner who kept the paper alive just another year.
In addition to falling victim to digital replacing print, the paper was a victim of the success of the LGBTQ+ movement. Founder Jay Brown had jokingly predicted, “when The Oregonian starts printing our news there won’t be a need for Just Out.” Renée reflected, “Today we see gay stories in the mainstream press all the time now. Gay reporters telling those stories within that mainstream. It’s not unusual anymore.” But in the absence of Just Out, Renée and Rupert still feel something was lost.
When Just Out ceased operation in December of 2013, it was 30 years old. It was one of the longest-lived LGBTQ+ publications in the United States.
Despite all the heavy content the paper had to contend with, what strikes me most is how vibrant and joyful most issues were. There was such a strong commitment to the arts, to queer families, to the broad spectrum of community members itself that you really get a sense that the paper was a living being, full of complexity.
Later issues of Just Out celebrating pride, progress and the paper's very existence! Top left to bottom right: Slide 1, Nov. 1993; Slide 2, Jul. 1994; Slide 3. Jan. 1996; Slide 4, Sept. 1996; Slide 5, Jun. 1995; Slide 6, Jul. 2001.
In Renée’s sign off letter when she left the publication in 1998, she wrote of the paper’s impact:
“In 1983, Just Out joined a militant genre of journalism to free oppressed minorities and speak out against the powers that oppress. As basic human rights have been incrementally won and lost, national gay and lesbian leaders have welcomed assimilation …The warriors of the 1980s have softened and tired. A new generation must take their place.”
Thank you
PSU Special Collections
1987 & 1988 publication scans thanks to PSU Special Collections Library.
University of Oregon's Historic Oregon Newspapers
ALL Just Out issues are scanned in black and white here.
Rupert Kinnard & Renée LaChance
Rupert's collection makes up the majority of the scans shown here in color!
More Resources
Download the Nov. 2003 review of the first 20 years of Just Out.
No on 9 Remembered Project
Oregon Queer History Collective
(Formerly known as the Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest)
Have anything to add to this article?
We are always looking to round out our content with photos, documents, or additional interviews. Please reach out to Melissa Delzio melissa@portlanddesignhistory.com if you have something to contribute.
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