Dutch Industry: Still Much Discrimination against Gays

AMSTERDAM. Because of the relatively macho athmosphere in in-
dustrial companies when compared to companies in the service-
sector many gays working in industry are being discriminated
against, as a result of which a quarter of gay men are still in
the closet at work. Nearly half feel intimidated by collegues
and some 15 % believe they have less career opportunities than
their straight collegues. Other findings from an investigation
into the situation of gay men working in industrial companies,
commisioned by the FNV labour union, are that many suffer from
verbal and physical threats and that some 10 % call in sick
from time to time because of the situation at work. The report
-its findings were published last week in XL, the monthly COC-
magazine- also found that many companies discriminiate against
their gay employees by not recognising the partner in a same-
sex relationship and instead granting pension and other bene-
fits only to a (heterosexual) spouse.

Gay Men Fall Prey to Extortionist

DELFT. In last week's Dutch version of "crimewatch" Delft poli-
ce appealed to the public to help solve a number of extortions
of gay men that took place in june and july of this year. The
30-35 year old suspect, of whom police have good quality secu-
rity camera pictures, called himself "Rick" or "Dick" and met
his victims through contact ads from gay men in local papers.
After a few visits to his victim's house he threatened the men
with a (toy-?) gun and demanded their bank-cards with which he
withdrew money from his victim's bank account. In one case this
amounted to several thousand guilders. Until now police know of
only two men, one in The Hague and one in Delft, whom the wan-
ted man has robbed, but believe these may not have been his
only victims. When police go public with a case it usually
means the investigation is at a dead end.

Amsterdam Square named after Gay Folk Singer

AMSTERDAM/JORDAAN. A small piece of his beloved Jordaan-area
last week was officially named after Johnny Jordaan, the Am-
sterdam folk singer who became famous in Holland after appea-
ring on Dutch tv in 1956. Johnny Jordaan, whose songs include
"Amsterdam", "de parel van de Jordaan"(Pearl of the Jordaan),
"Geef mij maar Amsterdam" (Amsterdam for me) lived in the Jor-
daan until in the early seventies he divorced his wife and
moved in with his male lover Mr. van Slierendrecht after which
his popularity quickly waned. Although pleased that at last
Johnny, who died in 1989, has his own square  named after him
there was critisism from supporters on alderman Guusje ter
Horst, who had decided, against the advice of the Amsterdam
advisory board on street-names and against the wishes of a
group of fans lead by Mr. Pastor, to give Johnny a square des-
cribed as "three parking spaces and a public lavatory" on which
no-one lives. Mr. van Slierendrecht, Johnny's lover for 17
years, in an interview for Mokum-tv critisised mr. Pastor whom
he accused of stealing Johnny Jordaan memorabilia. The "Johnny
Jordaanplein" is at the crossing of the Prinsengracht and the
Elandsgracht.



Dutch Gay News is a non-commercial, volunteer activity aimed at spreading 
information concerning all aspects of the Dutch gay community. 
DGN can be reached c/o: 
Bert Schuur, John Franklinstraat 71-iii, NL-1056 TA  Amsterdam, 
The Netherlands, tel/fax int-31-20-6837486, email: berts@xs4all.nl 

DGN digests can be found at http://www.xs4all.nl/~berts, on the Gaynet, 
Euroqueer and Queerplanet mailinglists, in the Queer Resources Directory, 
www.qrd.org, Holland section under News and on a number of gay bulletinboards. 

Love from Holland,

Bert Schuur