UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1283
RIGHTMIRE, MATT 

RIGHTMIRE, MATT 
organized Eau Claire Pride 2003-2007

Interviewed: 	2012
Interviewer: 	Tiffany Schroeder
Index by: 	Kara Bissen
Length: 	2 hour, 16 minutes (total)
Series:		Eau Claire's LGBT Community, 1960s to present

Abstract: Matt Rightmire speaks of his experience of being gay in the Eau Claire area. He was raised in a small, rural town outside of Eau Claire and although there was a "rural mentality," he says the area is more open-minded than it is given credit.  He moved to Eau Claire in 1998 to go to UW-Eau Claire. After  coming to Eau Claire, he came out to his parents and he speaks of balancing his sexuality with an conservative family. He also speaks of the supports at UW-Eau Claire.  From 2003-2005, Rightmire organized Pride in Eau Claire.  He speaks of the events offered and of the struggles of maintaining the event.  The LGBTQ Community Center in Eau Claire is struggling to stay afloat and Rightmire speaks of that struggle.  As a married gay man with insurance benefits, Rightmire speaks of the movement towards gay acceptance in mainstream society. 

Key Words: Medford, Eau Claire, Rural, coming-out, UW-Eau Claire, Eau Claire Pride, Eau Claire Community Center, Gay Marriage, Unitarian Universalist Church, Gay-Straight Allyship, Drag Queens, Gay Bars, Scooters, acceptance, visibility

Interview Session 1 (June 17, 2009): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction. 

00:00:32	Question: Have you grown up primary in Eau Claire? Answer: Rightmire grew up in Medford, Wi, a town of 4,000 people. He had a graduating class of 220, so statistically, he figures there was less than 20 of "us."

00:01:21	Question: When did you move to Eau Claire Answer: Rightmire moved when he was 18 to go to UW-Eau Claire 

00:01:30	Question: How does Eau Claire compare to Medford? Answer: Eau Claire was one of the big cities that people from Medford would go to for shopping and entertainment. Rightmire came to Eau Claire in high school to participate in theater. He chose to attend UW- Eau Claire because of his familiarity and majors offered. Rightmire graduated in 2002. It was a cultural adjustment from rural Medford to Eau Claire. Gay people were more obvious and were not afraid of being gay. and it took time from Rightmire to adjust.

00:05:08	Question: Why did you describe the visibility of the gay community as "weird"?  Answer: Weird might not be the right word. He spoke of his lack of visual examples of Gayness in high school and it was hard to identify himself when he had nothing to compare himself. He thinks that it is common for rural youth to have a disconnect between hearing what "gay" is but not connecting that to their own attraction to men.  Since he did not come out in high school, he was not bullied for his sexuality but was bullied for being "odd."

00:09:20	Question: Did you have any bullying experiences? Answer: Rightmire was picked on and regularly targeted by one classmate in particular;  Rightmire describes this individual as being of bad character.  When seeing this individual later in life, the two shook hands and Rightmire believes that it is because the individual realized that there are a lot of people different from he and he had to adjust. 

00:11:36	Question: How would you describe Medford's attitude to the Gay community? Answer: Medford is described as being a manufacturing town.  His parents moved there because they heard it had good schools and good people.  Rightmire said that Medford will always be home and many of his classmates stayed in the area.  When asked why a person would leave Medford and experience the world but return to the town, Rightmire says that it is for the same reasons as their parents: it is a good place to raise a family.  Medford offers a lot of services to the community. Other than the industrial  labors, the rest are farmers.  There is a strong rural influence and with that sometimes comes the "rural mentality."

00:16:58	Question: Would you describe Medford as open to the Gay community. Answer: No but some community members are open. Medford is more open than it is given credit.  There is no venues for having conversations about sexuality other than the limited conversations in school. 

00:13:28	Question: It sounds like it was not very open.  Where there Gay Straight Alliances? Answer: No.  Rightmire thinks it will be difficult to have a Gay Straight Alliance in a small, rural school.  Theater was a place for refuge for members of the LGBTQ. community.  In a small town, if a person does not draw attention to their identity, it is not an issue. The relationship is more symbiotic than it is given credit.  

00:15:26	Question: How was your coming out experience? Answer: His father was suspicious when he met his "roommate" (who was actually his boyfriend.) His mother found out later: she was worried for his well-being and worried that they were neglectful in their parenting. She is actively working to support her son and the LGBTQ community. He is supportive but is not open--he doesn't openly talk about his son's sexuality.  His father is a Republican outdoorsman and Rightmire says that although he knows he will not change his father's mentality, Rightmire also knows that his father has an open-mind and believes in equal opportunity.

00:19:01	Question:Do you have any siblings?  Answer:No, and that made it difficult to come out to his parents because he did not want his parents to feel like a failure. He knew he could not continue lying to himself so he decided to come out. He came out in 2003 to his parents and he only came out to his parents.  He was asked by his mother to not tell his grandmother.  Rightmire's cousin was gay and came out to his grandparents and this caused his grandmother emotional distress.  All Rightmire asked of his parents was that they do not lie about it. When Rightmire changed his Relationship Status on Facebook, he warned his mother because he is Facebook Friends with his Conservative aunt. Over all, he does not have troubles with his extended family. 

00:34:00	Question: What was the order you "Came Out?" Answer: Rightmire came out to his friends first.  Most of his friend's already new about his sexuality because he was at a gay bar with his boyfriend. He slowly adapted to telling more people and found ways to work into conversation that he had a boyfriend. 

00:35:36	 Question: Where there any issues coming out to your friends? Answer: He lived in Chippewa Falls after college and that was stifling.  Chippewa Falls is smaller than Eau Claire has the "rural mentality." The popular supper club owner is gay but the town does not have an issue with the gay staff because he does not have the mentality "I'm Gay--deal with it." Rightmire says there are more gay people in the area than it is known.

00:39:40	Question: Have you seen your relationships change? Answer: He doesn't know coming out has changed his relationship.  Although some people from the LGBTQ community may like to educate others, Rightmire does not like to take the time to educate people unless he thinks they are blatantly wrong. 

00:42:08	Question: When did you know you "were Gay"? Answer: In middle school,  he knew "he was different and that he knew he should be quiet about it."  He felt like he wanted to do different things with his boy friends than his girl friends. 

00:34:16	Question: Why did you feel like you should be quiet about your sexuality? Answer: In general, sexuality was not talked about.  When conservations began about sex, he felt different when his boy friends started talking about girls.  

00:45:54	Question:How was the transition moving to Eau Claire? Answer: First, I was able to visably see Gay people. Then he saw that it was okay to be Gay.  He notes that maybe it was not okay to some people that he was Gay, he did find support. Later on in college he did find support beyond his friends and at the campus center and in counseling.  The center had resources and a library. He went to group session regarding his sexuality and it helped him "identify himself as normal."

00:48:12	Question: How would you describe Eau Claire's attitude toward the LGBTQ community? Answer: The town is small and naturally segregates itself into cliques. There are certain places that he knows that he will or will not feel comfortable there.  There is a bar near his house that although he likes he will not go because it attracts a large minority crowd.  He does not have a problem being at the bar but the bar has a large Hispanic and Hmong crowd and feels "weird" there. The town tries to be progressive.  There is a divide between the town and the campus. The LGBTQ community is also divided into different cliques.  This division makes it difficult to maintain the resource center. 

00:52:40	[no question] The Resource Center close its doors this year.  It moved from one "okay" location to another location with less traffic.  Rent could not longer be paid. There was a demand for the Center but because there was a lack of infastructure, support and people power  cause the termination. There was a demand for a space for the high school GSA to meet. The library of 4,000 titles was also in demand. The community center was around for 12-13 years. It started as a group meeting in the Unitarian Church.  Movie night, men's night, women's night, drop-in night, guest speaker of the month, legal counseling, the library, shuttles to the AIDS walk in Milwaukee. There is still a Facebook page. It will be a long time before it reestablishes itself.  Everything was disseminated,including the library. 

00:56:38	Question: Did you see support from the straight community for the community center? Answer: The majority of the time of the community center rented at the office building of Christ Church Cathedral, an Episcapal Church. The church was always supportive. The Dean's of the church during their renting time was very supportive and would go to PRIDE.  There was changes of church, with a less supportive dean and an increase in rent. It was a good location because it was downtown.  

00:59:32	Question: Were you active in the community center? Answer: For three years after graduating from college Rightmire organized the PRIDE picnic. He was working to install a new catalog system for the library at the center. There were four to five people working on the project but gradually, people became less dedicated. 

01:02:25	Question: Can you expand on your involvement in PRIDE ? Answer:He organized PRIDE for three years. In the summer of 2003, his first year organizing PRIDE, Rightmire organized PRIDE mostly by himself. He wanted to have everyone at PRIDE to show the community how healthy the LGBTQ community in Eau Claire is. The second year of his involvement, PRIDE expanded and money was raised. His third year he had more support. He thought the third year was going to be strongest but faced obstacles while organizing.  The price for the park picnic and a license for liquor quadrupled. After his third year, he left. Now the local gay bar and other

01:09:02	Question: What all was offered during PRIDE?  Answer:It was a three to four day affair with activities coordinated with other organizations.  The gay bar, Scooters, would have drag and dancing.  There was a formal dinner as a fundraiser. Sunday morning the Unitarian Church would have a LGBT oriented service.  The community center would be open all weekend with guest speakers and movie night.  The community center would provide entertainment for those under the age of 21. Saturday was the actual picnic with vendor, exhibitors and games.  Sunday afternoon there was a tube float. Two years prior to his organizing, there was a golf tournament. The tournament raised money for the breast cancer support group in Eau Claire because it is connected with the lesbian community in the area. The was an ice cream social on a boat on the river. A prominent organizer for PRIDE was diagnosed with adult, late-onset leukemia.  He passed last year and left a whole in the community. 

01:15:53	Question: You have mentioned Scooter's a few times--can you tell us about it and other hang-out locations?  Answer: When coming to Eau Claire in 1998, there were two gay bars in Eau Claire: Scooter's and the Wolf's Den. The Wolf's Den was not a gay bar until the 1970s-1980s when the owner came out. The owner of the Wolf's Den passed away in 2005 and the bar no longer exists. Scooter has been around for almost twenty years. The current owners have had it for several years. The bar is not the owners' primary focus but is seen as a cash cow.  The LGBTQ community is not the owners' number one focus either so it deters some community members from patronizing Scooters. The bar is well attended but it is not a foundation for the community.  It is a large bar with a dance floor.The cultural magazine in Eau Claire, Volume One, often votes Scooters the best dance floor in Eau Claire.  Rightmire compares the generational gap in bar attendance between the current generation and twenty years ago.  Due to social networking, LGBTQ individuals no longer need to go to the bar to socialize and find a date.  He says that in towns that do not have a "community center," they have a bar. 

01:25:10	Question: You mentioned that Scooter's had drag shows, can you talk more about it? Answer:There is a group,The Chippewa Vally Drag Queen Performers. Drag is always around in Eau Claire and there is a strong drag community.  It fluctuates the regularity of the performances but there is always a show around Valentine's Day, the Holidays and PRIDE weekend.  The bar does not push the performers to have more shows but the performers are "go-getters" and the performers keeps the drag community vibrant. It is consistent.  Every few years, there is a new performer. 

01:28:50	Question:What is the trans* community like in Eau Claire? Answer: Rightmire is well acquainted with two trans people in Eau Claire, both Male-to-Female. Both are attracted to women. One woman is older and her family was supportive with the transition.  The other woman began transitioning in college and has since had gender reassignment surgery.  Rightmire doesn't know if there is a trans* community beyond these three individuals. Outside of Eau Claire, there is a man who cross dresses regularly. He donates the grand prize for the raffle at PRIDE.

01:33:27	Question: What resources did UW-Eau Claire offer? Answer: There is a full counseling department. There has always been a gay-straight alliance on campus.  

01:35:27	Question: We read that there was a coming out day at UW-Eau Claire? Answer: October 11th would have National Coming Out Day. There were speakers and visuals.  

01:36:41	Question: Have you experienced anti- LGBTQ incidents? Answer: No, but Rightmire was told that many years before there was a church group that protested PRIDE. Two years ago, a friend who was a bartender was assaulted.  Some members of the LGBTQ community wanted to charged the assaulter with a hate crime but it is thought that the bartender was attacked because he kicked the assaulter out of the bar and not because the bartender was gay. 

01:38:23	Question: What is the relationship between the LGTQ community and Answer: The Unitarian Church is the strongest connection.  The former pastor is a Lesbian. Her partner helps the counseling department at UW-Eau Claire with LGBTQ issues. A local former priest and his wife of the Episcopal Church are involved with PFLAG. In 2011, Plymouth Congregational Church in Eau Claire changed policy to be more inclusive, specifically for the LGBTQ community. 

01:42:14	Question: I've heard you address your partner as your husband, are you married? Answer: Rightmire was married on May 7th, 2012 in Iowa.

01:42:34	Question: How has the experience been for you? Answer: It was frustrating because Rightmire could not include everyone because the wedding was in Iowa. On the other hand, the wedding was able to be kept simple. Marriage has not changed the relationship a lot. They were together for four years before marriage and lived together for three years.  Rightmire notes that he and his partner are working on communicating. 

01:48:10	Question: Do you plan on having children? Answer: Rightmire is not planning on having children. Rightmire works with children currently and thinks he can better help the next generation through teaching than raising a child. 

01:50:13	Question:How is Wisconsin in terms of LGBTQ families? Answer: The state of Wisconsin now recognizes domestic partnership of public employees.  Rightmire speaks of being a public employee and being able to share insurance with his husband. The same rights are not extended to the private sector and Rightmire comments on this discord. He does not want to make his sexuality a political issue. He knows Log Cabin Republicans.  He thinks equal rights is a bi-partisan issue.  He compares current LGBTQ struggles with past struggles for equality, such as mice

01:55:42	Question: What is Eau Claire's reaction to LGBTQ marriage?  Answer: There is a wide-spread disinterest. Rightmire comments that he thinks neutrality is the most effective politically.  He does not like the charged arguments but would like to have more common sense about the issue because it "really doesn't matter."

01:58:05	Question: In your lifetime, how have you seen the change in awareness? Answer: Rightmire says that awareness has increased due to visibility, especially cable T.V. He mentions that shows such as "Queer Eye for the Straight Eye" increase awareness. It was not pushing a political agenda and increased visibility. Rightmire will be moving to Lincoln, Nebraska.  He is not concerned with being a gay man there.  He is not worried about the "rural kids" and thinks there is a strong community center there. 

02:03:55	Question: What would you like to see change? Answer: Rightmire would like to have the issue of sexuality not cause attention. He speaks of a recent JC Penny ad featuring two gay fathers.  He would like there to be less attention on something like less.  He notes that it will take more protests and rallies. He hopes to be able to co-exist. Rightmire speaks of how some heterosexual parents are concerned about their children being raised by a LGBTQ teacher. He thinks that children should be raised with diversity.  In order to learn, students need to see outside their "bubble."

02:12:30	Question: Is there anything else you would like to add? Answer: Rightmire says that people ask him why he stays in Eau Claire and it is because he has support and networks. He has a sense of place.  He thinks of Eau Claire as home.

02:15:31	End of Interview Session

End of Oral History #1002