2019-20_GYS_OPT

8 The GUIDE to YELLOW SPRINGS 2019 – 20 YELLOW SPRINGS NEWS IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS Police Emergency 911 Police Non-Emergency & Utility Emergency 767-7206 General Information 767-3402 ext 0 Clerk of Council 767-9126 Utility Billing 767-7202 ext 221 Public Works 767-8649 Water & Wastewater Facility 767-7208 Parks & Recreation 767-7209 Gaunt Park Pool 767-9172 Mayor’s Office 767-3400 Village Mediation Program 605-8754 Public Access TV 767-7803 Village Manager 767-1279 Economic Development 767-1702 Zoning & Code Enforcement 767-1702 Bryan Center Room Scheduling 767-7209 TO REGISTER TO VOTE, CALL Greene County Board of Elections, 562-7470 WE URGE YOU TO VOTE The Village of YELLOW SPRINGS WelcomesYou POPULATION: 3,487 Denise Runyon & Tom Malcolm 937-53 2 -54 6 7 House of AUM 125 S. Walnut St., Yellow Springs www.house-of-aum.com HEART RHYTHM MEDITATION ¶ Weekly Meditation Group ¶ Hurqalya Heart-Energy Healing ¶ Individual Meditation Mentoring All Hearts Welcome Meditation for Living from the Heart PHOTO BY DIANE CHIDDISTER An enthusiastic group of villagers marched through downtown in the third annual Yellow Springs Pride parade in 2014. Melissa Heston led the parade that year as Wonder Woman. Village shows its pride colors This article was originally published in 2018. By CAROL S IMMONS E very June, downtown Yellow Springs is awash in rainbows. Villagers can’t help but notice that the number of rainbow flags displayed in shop windows and hanging beside busi- ness doorways increases steadily all month, offering a sign of support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer, or LGBTQ-plus, community. June is widely recognized as LGBTQ Pride Month, chosen in recognition of the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan that occurred in late June and launched the gay rights movement. The annual local celebration — YS Pride — has been celebrated in recent years with a community parade, a performance by the Rubi Girls drag performance troupe, films at the Little Art Theatre, a community picnic and more. The recent incarnation of the celebration started in 2012. Shep Anderson, co-owner of Yellow Springs Hardware, said hanging a rainbow flag in his store’s front window felt right. “It’s a great, visible way to support Yellow Springs Pride,” Anderson said. “One of the things that makes Yellow Springs so special is that it’s so diverse and inclusive and wel- coming, and we’re just proud to associate our business with those values.” Yellow Springs has a long-held repu- tation as being an “oasis” for LGBTQ people, Yellow Springs Mayor Pam Conine affirmed in a separate interview. “It’s why so many of us chose to live in the village,” she said. Data bears out the widely held impres- sion that the village has higher LGBTQ-plus numbers than most communities. According to a 2014 study by the Colum- bus-based Community Research Partners, Yellow Springs was identified as “the gayest village in Ohio.” Based on U.S. Census numbers, the 2014 analysis set the total number of same-sex couples living here at 56, more than any other village in the state, and even more than most small cities with populations of 5,000 to 49,999. Perhaps even more significantly, the local per capita of 35.18 same-sex couples per 1,000 households is the highest of any community, of any size, in the state. And that doesn’t include single individuals. The local numbers make the YS Pride celebration all the more important, Conine said. “Yellow Springs Pride is important not only for the LGBTQ villagers, but for those in surrounding communities, and dare I say, the southwest corner of the state,” she said. The motto for the local festivities is “Be Yourself Here,” and organizers stress the event as a welcoming space for all attend - ees. “We want people most of all to feel safe,” Ann Simonson, head of the 2018 organiz - ing committee, said. Although LGBTQ-plus people have begun to see widening cultural accep- tance, including marriage equality, which was federally mandated in 2015, bigotry, discrimination and even violence remain a fact of life. According to a recent report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, and reported in the “Moneyish” online publication, at least 52 LGBTQ indi - viduals were killed because of their sexual orientation or gender identity in 2017, an 86 percent increase from 2016. The report considered only single incidents, and did not consider events of mass violence, such as the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. Most targeted were transgender women,