Letter from the Editor

When Girlfriends' marketing director...

Nikki Galvan got kicked out of West Point Military Academy three years ago, school officials cited Nikki's taste for "lesbian music" and her dorm-room posters of Ani DiFranco and Melissa Etheridge as evidence of Nikki's homosexuality. There is so much to Nikki's story. She is, most pointedly, one of the many victims of President Clinton's so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military. Nikki was never asked, and she never told. But West Point got suspicious, confiscated her diary, witch-hunted all her friends, and kicked her out of school.

But Nikki's story tells us something, albeit incidentally, about the importance of music to lesbian identity. Since the beginning, music has played a powerful role in forming our sense of self. When I came out, for example, Chris Williamson began to replace the Buzzcocks on top of my record player. By 1987, when I bought a homemade tape from newcomer Ani DiFranco as she sat on the edge of the stage at a little music festival in Taughannok, New York, I was as hard-core about my lesbianism as I was about k.d. and Melissa. It was pre-lesbian chic, and music was one of the few places I could hear my life and loves described, affirmed, joked about, or just plain assumed.

As our exclusive excerpt from Bonnie Morris' new book Eden Built by Eves shows, the dykes who put together the first few women's music festivals figured that out long before I did. For an update, this issue of Girlfriends also includes a feature investigation of the rise of lesbian "circuit parties." You may have heard rumors of the notorious Dinah Shore Weekend; you may have even danced poolside in your bikini. (The photo above is from Girlfriends official road trip to Palm Springs to do promotions at the 1999 Dinah Shore weekend. Fortunately, things picked up after the breakdown.) But only in Girlfriends can you read the story behind the rise of these glitzy gay gatherings where hotel ballrooms are replacing starlit Michigan fields, Absolut vodka balloons are replacing goddess statues, and the dance version of "My Heart Will Go On" is replacing Ferron's "Testimony" in the air. I hope you enjoy our feature stories and our coverage (in words and pictures) of the Grammys-of-our-own, this year's Gay and Lesbian American Music Awards.

It's a bit different when a lesbian magazine such as Girlfriends puts out a special music issue. We aren't just trying to court music-industry advertisers. We aren't just looking for an excuse to run sexy pictures of today's top chart busters. We are tracing a medium of expression of our community and trying to interpret it. Girlfriends' music issue is also unusual in that it offers a peek behind the stage (via Boo Price's and Robin Tyler's stories) to witness the fascinating story of crews who make the headliners sound so good...and sometimes sound at all.

So perhaps Nikki's taste in music was "telling." It's just that homophobia is tone deaf to the beauty of our music's message.

Heather Findlay, Editor In Chief