Abstract
John Nosek (b. 1949) and Leon Stevens (b. 1948) are native Clevelanders who grew up on the east side. They discuss the Cleveland gay community in the 1970s and '80s, including managing the Gay Educational and Awareness Resource (GEAR) Foundation's High Gear newspaper in its early years and their gay activism in the mid- to late 1970s. Nosek and Stevens detail the early history of GEAR, its Gay Hotline, and its long struggle to establish what eventually became the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland. The interview explores uneasy interactions and divisions that slowed the realization of a unified LGBTQ+ community as well as the characteristics of various geographical concentrations of LGBTQ+ residency in the Cleveland area. They discuss the role of gay men in historic preservation and urban gentrification, notably in Ohio City, where Nosek and Stevens designed an official neighborhood flag in 1983.
Loading...
Interviewee
Nosek, John (interviewee); Stevens, Leon (interviewee)
Interviewer
Habyl, Riley (interviewer)
Project
LGBTQ+ Cleveland
Date
8-15-2023
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
125 minutes
Recommended Citation
"John Nosek and Leon Stevens Interview, 15 August 2023" (2023). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 701009.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1265
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
