Moving From Fringes to the Center in 25 Years

Bob Phibbs is still haunted by the advice he gave a confused young boy nearly 20 years ago.

Gay, young and in the middle of an Irvine High School student-teaching stint, Phibbs said he panicked when approached by a senior who wanted to talk about being different from other boys.

“I immediately opened the classroom door and got very scared,” Phibbs said. “It was awful that I couldn’t be honest. He obviously felt there was a kinship there. My recommendation was that talking to a school counselor would be better. I have always regretted that day.”

Phibbs, then only 22 years old, has spent nearly two decades coming to terms with his own homosexuality and working to help others do the same.

Now nearly 40, Phibbs said he would give that boy completely different advice. He would feel free to talk with the boy and would refer him to the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Orange County. “It was 1981 and I didn’t even know there was a gay and lesbian center,” said Phibbs, who now is director of the South Coast Chorale, a gay men’s and women’s singing group. “Things are different now.”

Remarkably different, thanks in large part, Phibbs said, to the gay services center, an agency launched 25 years ago to offer support and counseling to the county’s gay men and lesbians. As one of the first agencies of its kind in the nation, the Center will celebrate its silver anniversary tonight with a gala at the Disneyland Hotel.

The 500 people gathering to publicly revel tonight stand in sharp contrast to the closeted gay community of 25 years ago. The Center, as it now calls itself, was launched just three years after the memorable police raid at New York’s Stonewall Inn lit the fuse of the gay rights movement.

In 1972 Orange County, a small group of gay men and women had found a new sense of pride that they decided not to hide any longer, said Pat Callahan, a leader in the gay community. “They decided there were ways to find each other, other than the bars,” she said.

The Center, launched as an outreach program of Christ Church, Metropolitan Community Church, started as a hotline with one phone in a member’s Costa Mesa garage. Twenty-five years later, the nonprofit agency is housed in a 5,000-square-foot office, has 21 full- and part-time employees, more than 100 volunteers and an annual operating budget of about $750,000.

It also is recognized as the springboard for the more than 35 agencies in the county now devoted to supporting the needs of gays and lesbians. A federation of these groups has also been formed, devoted to training future leaders of the community.

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As a significant financial supporter of the Center for all of its 25 years, Dr. Max Schneider, 74, said the services provided by the agency have had a significant impact on the health--both physical and emotional--of those in the gay community.

“The Center sees literally hundreds of people who are in the coming-out process and who are struggling with it,” Schneider said. “Young people, middle-aged people, older people, married people, single people.”

The Center provides more than 20 programs for gay men and women, bisexuals, cross-dressers and transsexuals. In addition to testing and counseling for HIV and AIDS, it offers teen outreach, women’s groups, and groups for Asians and Spanish-speaking men and women.

Scott Dickerson, Center operations manager, estimates that more than 100,000 people have passed through the Center’s doors over the past 25 years.

Remembering back to the early days, Schneider said there was a huge need for the Center in the early 1970s.

“This was a very conservative county with no place to go, and no contacts except in a few bars,” he said. “There was oppression from our churches, our families and a denial of legitimacy of the orientation. In 1972, you couldn’t find people to talk to.”

In 1981, a mysterious fire destroyed the Center’s original home. While the fire department never determined the cause of the blaze, many in the gay and lesbian community are convinced it was arson.

Brad Brafford, 67, one of the original founders of the Center, said early rap sessions drew anywhere from 35 to 50 people. What came out of those initial discussions was the realization that the gay community was as diverse as the general population--different ages, different ethnic and educational backgrounds, politically conservative and liberal.

“There is some understanding that gays and lesbians are just like everyone else--they are doctors, lawyers, janitors and everyday citizens,” Callahan said. “That’s news to some people.”