Skirting the Issue

Tempe activist terminates mayoral bid

Comments (0) By Amy Silverman Thursday, Apr 12 2001

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Some of those friends asked him to speak to the ASU class, Bank says.

"It was basically a request or a cajoling on the part of some friends of mine, all right, that thought that I should go and somehow help them relieve some of the discrimination that they feel is on them," he says, explaining there were concerns about hate crimes as well as the way cross-dressers were evaluated psychologically.

Stanley W. Shaw

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"I did something out of a courtesy," he adds, just like he's stood up at meetings on behalf of neighborhoods he doesn't live in, or on behalf of battered women.

But he hasn't pretended to be a battered woman.

"Well, I guess, in the help of my friends I attributed a lot of attributes that I knew from them. . . . I stretched the point, let's put it that way," Bank says.

He adds, "I'm not part of that community. They got me dressed one night and took me out on Halloween. And let me tell you something, I was totally frightened."

As for a strong recall candidate, LaFaro says one may still emerge. "We're looking at this very closely. We didn't do this as an exercise in futility," he says.

And if one doesn't?

"Don't go there yet."