Gay Games Athletes Heartened by Cleveland Welcome

[Evergrey]

Nice to see Northeast Ohio embrace the Gay community.

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireSto...eland-24986448

Gay Games Athletes Heartened by Cleveland Welcome


CLEVELAND — Aug 14, 2014, 5:44 PM ET
By MARK GILLISPIE Associated Press

Nick Gill says he was warned by a teammate on his indoor volleyball team about what Cleveland might be like before they left Portland, Maine, for the Gay Games this week.

"He was telling us horror stories about growing up here," Gill said Thursday while watching the beach volleyball tournament at a lakeside park just outside downtown Cleveland, which is staging the Games with nearby Akron.

Gill said his teammate, who was raised in Cleveland, has been "humbled" by the progress the city has made and by the warm reception Gay Games participants have received.

"People are just so thankful we're here," Gill said. "It's exceeded all of my expectations."

Other Games participants also praised Cleveland and Akron and called the host cities friendly and hospitable.

Cleveland, a former manufacturing center on the southern edge of Lake Erie, and Akron, about 35 miles south, were hardly the first choice of the international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community when they were chosen in September 2009 over gay friendly locations Boston and Washington. Some critics in the gay media predicted the Games in northeast Ohio would be a disaster.

Cleveland, home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has no identifiable gay neighborhoods, or gayborhoods, and its LGBT community generally keeps a low profile. But this week rainbow-hued gay pride flags are fluttering throughout downtown.

...

[isaidso]

My league (Toronto Gay Football League) sent a football team to Cleveland. Hope we whip your butts.

[OhioGuy]

I have numerous friends there right now. They're mostly competing in the swimming events and marathon which is occurring this morning in Akron. The weather is nearly perfect for the runners. It was in the low 50s with low humidity for the start of the race (rather impressive for mid August). They all seem to be having a good time in NE Ohio!

[dc_denizen]

Not to nitpick...but former manufacturing center? Cleveland does still have a working steel mill within the city limits FYI

Despite the staggering losses in the blue-collar ranks, manufacturing remains the largest contributor to the regional economy, accounting for 18 percent of gross regional product, or the value of goods and services produced here. Health care ranks second, at 11 percent.

"For our largest single sector to grow faster than the nation, that means our whole region is going to start to grow," Waltermire said. "There's a big multiplier in manufacturing. Manufacturers buy much more locally than service firms. They buy materials, power, trucking, logistics. There's much bigger ripple effects."

The data indicates that industry sectors that are regional specialties, like metal fabrication and chemical and machinery manufacturing, are entering growth eras.

With the good news comes a caveat. Bigger, busier factories will not employ more people. Gains in productivity are expected to cover most of the increased output.

Those are the same productivity gains, alas, that fueled the layoffs of the last two decades.

The region's manufacturing output peaked in 1999 before plunging into the recession of 2001 and never really recovered, Team NEO's analysis shows. In the first decade of this century, a manufacturing economy assumed to be shrinking was actually largely flat, producing roughly the same value of goods.

What changed was the employment picture, as factories modernized and automated. Between 1990 and 2010, manufacturing employment in the region plunged by 45 percent and 203,000 jobs vanished, Duritsky said.

As manufacturing grows more sophisticated, Team Neo expects employment to remain stable, at about 270,000 men and women.

link

Also, does the gay community in Cleveland need to keep a "low profile"?

[MayDay]

There used to be several steel mills in the city but the numbers they employed were substantially larger. For example, the current ArcelorMittal Cleveland Works plant employs around 1,500 - at its peak when it was LTV, it employed 15,000. Half of it was razed and converted into a retail power center called Steelyard Commons.

As far as keeping a low profile? I think it's more of a matter-of-fact approach (as opposed to "WE'RE HERE, WE'RE QUEER, GET USED TO IT!"), as well as being integrated in mainstream society. Most major employers include sexual orientation in their employment non-discrimination policies and offer same-sex/domestic partner benefits. I've been open everywhere I've worked (mostly in the finance world) and brought my partner to company events and never had an issue. There's a monthly roaming happy hour event catering to men (G2H2) and women (WH2), each draws around 400-500. On several occasions they've turned down an establishment's offer to host because they know they wouldn't be able to handle the crowd. During the Gay Games, the corporate community contributed a lot:



Cleveland's lack of an identifiable gayborhood has more to do with the redevelopment patterns established in the early 1980s. When the Warehouse District in downtown was rediscovered by artists (and whenever that's the case, the gays are usually right there), gentrification ensued and rather than collectively relocate to one specific, the community dispersed to other areas like Ohio City, Tremont, Detroit-Shoreway, etc., all of which could be considered gay-friendly.

[dc_denizen]

^ thought so. These articles tend to make a lot of incorrect assumptions about midwest cities.