HIGH TECH GAYS (HTG)     

High Tech Gays received an extensive amount of publicity from a lawsuit against DISCO (Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office) regarding security clearances. Because gay rights was the issue, the results of the suit has some impact on all of us.

High Tech Gays (HTG) started primarily as a social LGBTQ group but quickly became an activist organization also, if you search "High Tech Gays" on the web, most of the results will refer to a federal class action suit called High Tech Gays vs DISCO (click "HTG v. DISCO" above for more details). That suit challenged the policy of the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office (DISCO), a unit of the U.S. Department of Defense, that routinely denied security clearances to applicants who were known or thought to be homosexual.  Rick Rudy: "Little did we know when twelve of us met in Denny's house in March of 1983 to write the By-laws and create HTG, how fast the tremendous growth would be in the next two and a half years".

The beginning was January 1983 in San Jose, California. Ben Sbarbaro sponsored a south bay meeting of the San Francisco group called LGAES (Lesbian and Gay Associated Engineers and Scientists). That meeting was held at the old San Jose Billy DeFrank LGBT  Community Center located on Keyes Street in San Jose. Ten people were in attendance including Ben Sbarbaro, Denny Carroll,  Rick Rudy, Eric Lipanovich, Patrick Mello and the president of San Francisco LGAES, Ed Sebesta.  Ed wanted us to form a south bay chapter of LGAES. After a couple of additional meetings at Denny's condo, on March 15, 1983, a South Bay chapter was created called "The Santa Clara Valley Chapter of Lesbian & Gay Associated Engineers and Scientist". At a later meeting in May we changed the chapter name to "High Tech Gays". Soon after those several meetings we decided to become an independent organization called High Tech Gays.  High Tech Gays, was shortened to HTG on our return addresses envelopes, etc., since, in those days, many people's jobs, especially those requiring a government security clearance, would be in jeoprady, if they were "outed". In 1985 LGAES was discontinued and their members became part of HTG.

HTG focused on the unique needs of gays in the high tech businesses which are heavily concentrated in the Santa Clara Valley. The newly adopted bylaws included lobbying, political action, public education, members' education, employment related services, and social mingling among Lesbians and gay men. Rick Rudy was elected the first President of HTG, Denny Carroll Secretary, and Eric Lipanovich Treasurer for a one year term. Little did we know how successful the organization would become and that even large houses would soon be too small to hold monthly meetings.

Some memories from that early meeting:  Rick and Eric suggested that Denny become president but Denny insisted that he would be better qualified as secretary, since that was the function he had been performing anyway - calling people, building the database, setting up the meeting locations, etc. Everyone agreed that Rick was his best on “center stage” so Rick would become the perfect spokesperson for the organization. How true that proved to be!  Eric, as treasurer, set up the financial processes of the newly formed organization that served us well over the years.

In all those early meetings we developed all of the processes that became a successful formula to grow the organization from a few in attendance at the monthly meetings to as many as 250 and the mailing list grew from 15 to over 1,000.

There would be a monthly newsletter: The newly adopted bylaws included lobbying, political action, public education, members' education, employment related services, and social mingling among lesbians and gay men. To attract new members and make HTG’s existence more generally known we would have booths at the San Jose Gay Freedom Day Rally and San Francisco Gay Pride.

Social Committee Formed July 1983 - One of the main reasons HTG became such a success is because a social committee carefully planned fun activities throughout the years. Richard Doitteau was the first chair of the HTG Social Committee. Denny Carroll, Eric Liponvich and Raven were early members. The committee planned camping trips, skiing trips, whale watching, theater bookings, etc. 

HTG got a big boost from the San Jose rally in 1983 as 80 people signed the mailing list and some of  those even became members on the spot. 

In October, 1983 HTG hosted its first guest speakers at a meeting, they were: Larry Ghilzai and his attorney Liz Shiveil, who were there to discuss a sexual orientation discrimination lawsuit filed against SEEQ, a local high tech employer. 

By the end of 1983 the HTG membership had tripled and 45 people attended the 1983 Christmas meeting. The early months of 1984 were very important politically for HTG. First of all, there was an extensive effort made by HTG to urge the passage and signing of AB1 (the gay rights employment bill veoted by Gov Deukmejian). Of course the signing of AB1 never happened but as an organization, HTG made a strong effort to urge the governor’s signature.

High Tech Gays was growing rapidly and it was generally felt that the time had come to let HTG be an independent organization and discontinue its affiliation with LGAES. This took a 2/3 majority vote of HTG paid members to amend the bylaws in January 1984. As mentioned above LGAES became part of HTG later that year.

In March 1984, HTG became a supporting member of NOGLSTP, National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical professionals. 

In June 1984, the new HTG logo created by Brad was unveiled. Our banner and T-shirts were prominent and drew much media attention at the San Jose Gay Pride Rally and San Francisco Parade. HTG became coplaintiffs in a suit against the Defense Investigative Security Clearance Organization (DISCO) for taking an excessive amount of time to grant security clearances to gays and lesbians. 

By the end of 1984, the paid membership was approaching 200 and more than 100 people were attending the monthly pot luck/business meetings. 

The Political And Business Action Committee (PABAC) was started in early 1985. A letter was sent to many employers in high tech based  in the valley. The focus of the letter was on non-discrimination against gays in the workplace. Subsequent mailings occurred throughout the year to keep the attention of the employers and to try to generate as much feedback as possible. Unfortunately some of the replies received were horrible.

High Tech Gays grew even more rapidly in 1985 and added over 100 new members thanks to good response at the booths at the San Jose Gay Pride Rally, and the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade in 1985. Our problem seemed to be finding places big enough to hold the meetings. It certainly was fun having a meeting at a different location each month never really knowing how many people would show up and if we could all fit. For many months we rented the Campbell, CA community center to hold our meetings. Finally after the San Jose LGBTQ Billy DeFrank Center moved to a larger location, we permanently rented the center's main room for our monthly meetings.
 
Another big accomplishment in 1985 was the formation of the Women's Caucus of HTG. A volunteer, Elizabeth, dedicated a lot of time and effort into building the Women's Caucus. 

Rick Rudy was elected to the Board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. This was a great opportunity for Rick and it also provided some positive results for HTG, such as increased awareness both locally and nationally as we had a sudden increase in contacts with the media requesting interviews, information, etc. 

 A few of the Social Activities:

Theatre:
  - An evening at La Cage Revue
  - Beach Blanket Babylon
  - Ballet Trocadero de Monte Carlo
  - Performances by San Jose Civic Light Opera,     Theatre Works, San Jose/Cleveland  Ballet,       Palo Alto Players and many others
  - Big Lil's Cabaret Melodrama & Pizza Party
  - Lily Tomlin's "Search for Intelligent Signs of      Life"

 Outdoors Activities:
  - San Francisco stairway hikes
  - Alpine and cross country ski trips
  - Camping
  - Whitewater rafting
  - Bike trips
  - Wine country touring
  - Horseback riding
  - Bay sailing
  - Picnics
  - Water skiing
  - Beach parties

  - Hiking

 

General Interest:

  - AIDS Bike-A-Thon fundraiser
  - Disneyland
  - Castro Street Fair
  - Dinner nights
  - Games nights
  - Halloween party
  - Robert Mapplethorpe Exhibit
  - Gay Games
  - Movie nights
  - Stanford Linear Accelerator
  - NASA Ames Research Center
  - Robert Mapplethorpe Exhibit