April 30, 2020 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

Sex during COVID-19

SF lags on census

Folsom fair goes virtual

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Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971

Vol. 50 • No. 18 • April 30-May 6, 2020

Forum looks at COVID-19 and people with HIV by Liz Highleyman

Courtesy Horizons Foundation

Horizons Foundation President Roger Doughty said that many Bay Area LGBT nonprofits are struggling amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Horizons gives over $400K in COVID-19 grants by John Ferrannini

orizons Foundation announced April 23 that it is giving almost half a million dollars in grants to 53 Bay Area LGBT groups, just as nonprofits sounded the alarm about the financial fallout from the novel coronavirus outbreak. As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported online, 137 LGBT-serving nonprofits co-signed a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom April 22 asking him to direct federal relief money made available by the CARES Act to them. Horizons’ grants are being provided by its COVID-19 Response Emergency Fund. The fund was started last month, and the $440,000 in grants announced Thursday was described as the “first round” in a news release. Some $200,000 came from the funds Horizons already had, and further donations totaling $150,000 came from outside contributors. The emergency fund is accepting donations for future grants. Roger Doughty, a gay man who is the longtime president of Horizons, spoke with the B.A.R. via phone April 23. He compared the effects of the coronavirus outbreak to having “a bomb dropped.” “It’s not just (dropped) on our community – it’s everywhere,” Doughty said. “We are all trying to do what we can do to deal with the new reality. “The community is going into the same crisis as the rest of society and in all my years in the movement – 30 years – I’ve never seen so much of an explosion of need, combined with economic damage. The velocity of the change has been absolutely astonishing and it’s hurting organizations very, very hard.” Doughty said that the genesis of the fund was in late March, when $200,000 was appropriated to it following a decision by Horizons’ board of directors. “We then used that to solicit funds from our other donors,” Doughty said. Horizons fielded over 80 applications beginning in early April, according to Doughty and the release, and the grants range from between See page 7 >>

eople living with HIV in San Francisco are not contracting the new coronavirus or developing severe COVID-19 more than HIV-negative people, speakers said at an April 23 virtual town hall hosted by the Getting to Zero Consortium and Ward 86, the HIV clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. “We haven’t seen people with HIV coming into the hospital more or having more severe disease at all,” said Ward 86 medical director Dr. Monica Gandhi. “But with the higher rates of poverty and marginal housing among our patients, there’s a real concern about transmission.” Gandhi said that at the time of her talk, approximately 12,600 coronavirus test results had been reported citywide, about 1,300 of which were positive, and 21 residents had died (now up to 23). Latinos comprise the most cases by far, at 29%, but Asians account for more than half of all deaths. Only one person under age 60 has died so far. These rates are low compared with harder-hit areas like Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York City. Experts think this is

Screengrab via Liz Highleyman

Ward 86 deputy clinic director Mary Lawrence-Hicks, left, and nurse manager Jon Oskarsson discussed coronavirus and HIV/AIDS during a virtual town hall.

largely thanks to the city’s early physical distancing efforts, but the low case number also reflects limited testing. Efforts are now underway to test more of

the city’s population regardless of symptoms, starting with part of the Mission district, which has many Latino residents. This will See page 7 >>

Released trans asylum seeker talks to B.A.R.

by John Ferrannini

trans asylum seeker who was released April 23 from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Texas is back in California and told the Bay Area Reporter that she’s experiencing a range of feelings. The San Francisco Public Defender’s office, which is representing Lexis Hernandez Avilez, announced April 24 that she had been released after posting a $10,000 bond. Avilez was suddenly moved to a facility in Texas from California on Christmas Day. Avilez, 41, is now at home in Monterey County, where she participated in a phone interview with the B.A.R. last Friday. She flew from Texas to California that day. “I’m happy, sad, all of the above right now,” Avilez said. “I’m happy that I am Lexis Hernandez Avilez, I’m transgender and I’m not scared no more. I want to share my story with all the transgender women and transgender men; all the LGBT people.” Avilez’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Hector Vega, filed a habeas petition on April 8. A judge ruled that while Avilez had been convicted in a gang-related assault in 2005, there wasn’t evidence to show this would be indicative of Avilez’s future behavior upon release. “The judge focused on the fact that it has

Courtesy SF Public Defender’s office

Lexis Hernandez Avilez held the Pride and trans flags after she was released from an ICE detention facility in Texas.

been 15 years since her last criminal action,” Vega told the B.A.R. last week. “The judge acknowledged everything that has changed since; she pointed to the completion of rehabilitative programs while in detention, and that her focus today is to stay well and healthy as she continues

her gender confirmation treatment.” “She acknowledged all the family support [Avilez] has and wished her good luck with the rest of her case,” Vega added. See page 7 >>

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2 • Bay Area Reporter • April 30-May 6, 2020

After weekslong delay, new Harvey Milk Terminal 1 section opens to the public by Matthew S. Bajko

due to the opening this week of another section of the under-renovation terminal named in his honor. Located in Harvey Milk Terminal 1’s Central Inglenook is an intimate space featuring 43 images from various stages of Milk’s life, includ-

an Francisco International Airport passengers and visitors finally have a chance to see the new permanent installation honoring the late gay supervisor Harvey Milk

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An overview of the Central Inglenook in Harvey Milk Terminal 1 at San Francisco International Airport features photos of Milk’s life, and a sitting area that is frequently cleaned.

Nonetheless, the inglenook space is now accessible to anyone traveling through the pre-security area of the Milk terminal, the first of three domestic terminals at SFO. Past the security zone remains a gigantic 400-foot wall running the length of the terminal that features nearly 100 images related to Milk’s life. It was unveiled last year and features most of the Milk photos used in the smaller, permanent exhibit. The wall installation is slated to come down sometime in early 2021, while the entire terminal renovation project should be completed in 2023. San Francisco officials opted to name the domestic terminal in honor of Milk, the first LGBT person elected to public office in the city and state only to be killed 11 months into his first term in November 1978, after a proposal to rename the entire airport on behalf of the gay icon was rejected. It is the first airport facility in the world

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coronavirus outbreak, but it has launched the auction that usually accompanies it online. In an email, Tanya M. Peterson, CEO and executive director of the San Francisco Zoo and Gardens, wrote that the auction will start with special, one-of-a-kind curated items that will be available for a limited time. The full auction will gradually launch over the next week. All proceeds support the animals. For more information, visit http://www.sfzoo.org.

Book on LGBT history wins preservation prize

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named after an LGBT leader. The new nine-gate section that opened to travelers this week is located in South Harvey Milk Terminal 1. The facade outside now sports signage denoting it as “Harvey Milk Terminal” in large black letters and as “Terminal 1” in slightly smaller letters below Milk’s name. In early March SFO Museum officials gave the B.A.R. a sneak peek of the Milk inglenook. Its design is reminiscent of a 1970s den or rec room in a private home, as it sports wood paneling, olive green and burnt orange swivel chairs, and a wavy carpet featuring a maroon, green, and red color palette. “It should be a wonderful amenity for everyone flying through here,” said Tim O’Brien, assistant director and curator of exhibitions for the SFO Museum, at the time. For more information about Harvey Milk Terminal 1, visit www. flysfo.com/T1.t

SF Zoo launches online auction

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ing his childhood in New York and his days as a pioneering politician in San Francisco during the 1970s. The exhibit, titled “Harvey Milk: Messenger of Hope,” utilizes photos submitted by the public and from the archives of the GLBT Historical Society and the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center at the San Francisco Public Library. It was to have a private dedication celebration in March ahead of its opening to the public March 24, but airport officials had to scrap those plans in light of the novel coronavirus outbreak and the issuance of orders requiring people to physically distance. The inglenook is a small, dead-end space in the terminal near the check-in area for passengers. While SFO has remained operational despite seeing a drastic decline in airline passengers due to the global pandemic, it pushed off opening the new Milk terminal section for six weeks. Because projects at the airport were deemed essential, construction crews have continued to work on the phased $2.4 billion remodel of Harvey Milk Terminal 1. Tuesday, April 28, JetBlue was the first airline to move to its new ticket counter and baggage claim locations in Harvey Milk Terminal 1. Southwest will do so Thursday, April 30, while it remains to be seen when American Airlines will also relocate. It is to take up the ticket counter area closest to the Milk exhibit. Airport spokesman Doug Yakel told the Bay Area Reporter that the airline will likely move its check-in operations there in May but an exact date has yet to be determined.

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The University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation has announced that this year’s Book Prize Winner is “Preservation and Place: Historic Preservation by and of LGBTQ Communities in the United States,” which includes a chapter on San Francisco written by local preservationists working on LGBT history and a chapter by a local queer public historian. Shayne Watson and Donna Graves were alerted to the prize by Megan Springate of the National Park Service, a coeditor of the book, along with Katherine Crawford-Lackey. Graves is a public historian based in Berkeley who co-wrote the historic context statements for both San Francisco’s Japantown and LGBTQ community. Watson, a lesbian, is an architectural historian based in San Francisco.

Courtesy SF Zoo

The San Francisco Zoo has moved its popular auction online.

A news release from the university noted that “Preservation and Place” is a groundbreaking volume that starts a new conversation within the historic preservation profession. “The editors and contributing authors explore various aspects of preservation of historic, cultural, and archaeological sites of LGBTQ communities across the United States,” the release stated. The jury for the Center for Historic Preservation Book Prize recently met over Zoom and selected this year’s winner, the release added. Gerard Koskovich wrote the chapter “The History of Queer History: One Hundred Years of the Search for Shared Heritage.” It is a survey of LGBTQ history as a cultural practice in the United States from the 1890s to the 1990s, he wrote in an email. See page 8 >>

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<< Open Forum

t Newsom must help LGBTQ nonprofits

4 • Bay Area Reporter • April 30-May 6, 2020

Volume 50, Number 18 April 30-May 6, 2020 www.ebar.com

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hile just about every sector of the economy is cratering under the coronavirus pandemic, we cannot forget that nonprofits are confronting financial ruin and need help too. Agencies that aid and serve the LGBTQ community need emergency financial assistance, which has been slow to arrive. These organizations often provide a safety net for vulnerable populations, and we know that LGBTQs and people living with HIV/AIDS are among those at higher risk for graver outcomes if they get COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, and are at risk of worse financial impacts due to sudden unemployment. We have reported on how some organizations, like Shanti Project’s Pets Are Wonderful Support and the AIDS Legal Referral Panel, continue to provide vital services to clients; others, like the GLBT Historical Society, provide valuable cultural programs. These are among the people and organizations that form the fabric of our community – and they are hurting. Last week, 137 Californiabased LGBTQ and allied nonprofits signed a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom from Equality California, pleading for targeted financial support. “The economic fallout from COVID-19 has upended our budgets by forcing us to cancel fundraising events and preventing us from completing reimbursement-based grant deliverables that require face-to-face interaction and outreach,” EQCA Executive Director Rick Chavez Zbur wrote. “Meanwhile, many of our generous sponsors and donors have been impacted by the crisis themselves and are no

longer in a position to support our work financially.” Most nonprofit organizations operate on razor-thin margins and the loss from spring fundraisers might be enough to shut their doors for good. Staff who have been furloughed or laid off could lose their health insurance, “a devastating decision to be forced to make during a public health crisis,” the letter states. Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) told us last week that he is extremely concerned about the matter. “LGBT nonprofits play a unique role in our community to address needs that have not been met,” he said, ticking off groups that serve people living with HIV, homeless youth, transgender people, and LGBT seniors. “It would be very damaging for these nonprofits to fail,” he added. “And we know that LGBTQ people are at heightened risk for serious COVID-19 symptoms, due to higher rates of HIV, cancer, smoking, and homelessness,” he said in a statement. “Yet, despite those facts, the Trump administration is proposing to make it legal for health care providers to refuse to treat LGBTQ people.” Wiener was referring to the administration’s latest attack on LGBT people. As we reported online, the Human Rights Campaign noted that according to a recent report in Politico, the Department of Health and Human Services is one step closer to finalizing a major change to the federal regulation implementing the civil rights provision, Section 1557, of the Affordable Care Act. If successful, the depart-

ment will remove from health care programs and activities explicit protections for LGBT people, who will also be prohibited from making a legal claim of discrimination based on sex stereotyping and gender identity. Additionally, while nonprofits were supposed to be eligible for the federal paycheck protection program, it is unclear if any received funds. As the letter to Newsom pointed out, “the Small Business Administration loan application process has been chaotic, the stimulus is insufficient, and for most of us, aid still has not arrived.” Wiener told us that he plans to advocate for nonprofit assistance as part of this year’s state budget, which will be focused on addressing the effects of COVID-19. The state Senate has set up a special committee to respond to the pandemic and he said that he wants to ensure the state does not forget overlooked communities, like LGBTQs, that need help with housing, worker protection, senior isolation, and homelessness. Newsom himself must address the dire situation facing LGBTQ nonprofits. He could direct some of the federal money the state receives through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act to LGBTQ nonprofits of all kinds. During his daily briefings, he could point out that the state’s queer community needs help, that we’re especially vulnerable to the virus, and need health care access just like everyone else. Newsom’s been doing a good job responding to the challenges presented by the pandemic. His early shutdown of the state has likely saved lives. But he needs to acknowledge that our community is in crisis – and we need help from state leaders.t

Sex in the time of COVID-19 by Alan Lessik

cameras is quite popular as we shelter in place. There are lots of horny folks out there and the intimacy of responding to a hot man or woman on the other side of the camera beats (so to speak) anything else.

ho could imagine that radical behavioral changes required due to the new coronavirus would make kissing dangerous and caressing forbidden? Sadly, health professionals have largely ignored sex and intimacy as they outline the dos and don’ts of our current lives. The implicit message is that we shouldn’t be talking about sex when people are dying. However, that is the wrong response to an urgent human need. Throughout the last century, LGBT men and women were forced to assess the risks of desire. Long before AIDS, we cruised and sought out sex partners in a hostile world. A wrong move or misplaced trust could bring beatings, arrest, and/ or blackmail, leading to the loss of livelihood and home. The right move brought us intimacy, pleasure, friendship and, sometimes, love. During the HIV/AIDS pandemic, we were forced to assess new risks. With better understanding of that virus, we identified safer sex methods. These changed over time with medical advances until today we have undetectable equals untransmittable, or U=U, and PrEP as an available prevention strategy. We have adapted to each of these changes. The New York City Health Department was the first to post guidelines for sex during the coronavirus outbreak. While it emphasizes physical distancing as well as intimacy with those already in one’s home, the guidelines also recognize that people will reach out to others. More recently, the San Francisco Department of Public Health issued more specific COVID-19 Sexual Health Tips. In a time of extreme isolation, sexual connection is an important component in maintaining our mental and physical health. Just as the history of the AIDS pandemic has shaped epidemiologists’ thinking about COVID-19, the previous development of HIV safer sex and harm reduction protocols give us a model now. Shaming was used as an early tactic but studies quickly showed that it only drove unsafe behaviors deeper underground. Harm reduction strategies attempt to understand why people have certain behaviors and propose changes that they can undertake. As we see today, significant numbers of people are unable to easily alter their behaviors due to a lack of financial resources, their living situation, other health issues, the need to work, marginalization by society, and/or addiction. Yet, sex and intimacy,

Low risk

Courtesy Alan Lessik

Alan Lessik

connection and support are desires shared by all. In the last month, most of us have modified the range of our activities to limit exposure to the coronavirus. Some are quarantining extremely tightly with minimal exposure to outsiders, home delivery of food and needed items, and continuous sanitation procedures. Others are following guidelines that permit food and other shopping along with outdoor exercise with physical distancing. To date, the bias in public health practice favors those who are living with their sex partners, leaving out up to 50% of the population. LGBTQ people are all adept at assessing risks, even if we do not always follow them. What we need is a harm reduction approach to attend to our sexual needs based on our life and environment as well as our assessment and openness to risk. So what is a guy or gal to do? It depends on your risk level.

No risk

Get out those toys stored in the bottom drawer of your dresser. It’s time to clean up your dildos, rev up the vibrators, swab down the sounds, put on your ball gag, and pump up your nips. Online venders, such as Mr. S Leathers and Good Vibrations, here in San Francisco, are still delivering if you want to expand your repertoire. Use your time so you are prepared next time you get to play in person. Make new friends internationally or locally online. Find out what is going on where they live, swap some pictures, and begin the fantasies. Most of the global LGBT community is horny right now and are ready to talk about it. Porn is always a standby but using video

If “50 Shades of Grey” taught us anything, we know the power dynamics of BDSM can be played out while adhering to physical distancing in the same room or even in different places. Gas masks and means to filter the air may change all sex play for the next years. Get creative. Move in with your primary play partner. Observing a 14-day quarantine with them until you both are sure you have no symptoms or exposure will allow you to go at it once the waiting period is up. Obviously, a deep and honest conversation needs to occur about expectations and needs during this period and afterward.

Low-medium risk

Observe the 14-day quarantine with a trusted sex partner who lives separately from you. As above, mutual honesty and trust are called for and optimally the two of you would commit to only having sex with each other during this time. Some folks have trusted circles, with several people that have committed to follow the physical distancing guidelines in their life outside these interactions. This option increases in risk with the addition of each member of the circle. As to the future, based on the HIV experience, antibody testing will change the risk equation as we gain additional information to make decisions. We will likely see distinctions being made between COVID-19-positive and -negative possible sex partners, just as we have seen in the past with HIV. At the end of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, “Love in the Time of Cholera,” his starcrossed lovers spend their last moments on a ship that raised the cholera flag solely to keep others away so that they could have their longsought privacy. While this might have described the queer community in the past, we won’t hide away in this pandemic. As we take strides to prevent the virus from spreading, let’s maintain intimacy in our lives in an open, honest, sex-positive, and caring manner. We can do both and live better for our decision.t Alan Lessik is a writer, Zen practitioner, amateur figure skater, LGBT activist, and former nonprofit leader. Follow him at http://www.alanlessik.com.

Politics >>

t SF census response rate trails other Bay Area counties

April 30-May 6, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

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by Matthew S. Bajko

mong the 2020 census self-response rates for the nine-county Bay Area region, San Francisco continues to be the laggard compared to its jurisdictional counterparts. It is also trailing behind the national selfresponse rate for the decennial count of the U.S. population. Based on a tracker routinely updated by the U.S. Census Bureau, the city and county of San Francisco had a self-response rate of 53.4% as of noon Wednesday, April 29. It put it in 23rd place among the state’s 58 counties and dead last in the Bay Area region. Six of the top 10 counties in the state are in the Bay Area. San Mateo County has the best rate of any in the state with 65.1%, and Santa Clara County is close behind in second place with 64.6%. In third statewide is Contra Costa County at 64.1%. Alameda County is in sixth place statewide with 62.1%, Marin is in seventh with 61.6%, and Solano County is tied with Yolo County for ninth place with 60.4%. Napa County’s 59.6% puts it 12th in the state, while Sonoma County is at 16th place with 57.6%. Among cities in the Golden State, San Francisco’s self-response rate puts it tied in 342nd place with Chowchilla, a small city in the Central Valley south of Merced. It is also below the national response rate of 54.3%. California had seen 55.7% of households fill out their census questionnaire as of the Bay Area Reporter’s press deadline Wednesday. Of those 48.8% had done so via the online form. In 2010, the state reached a total response rate of 68.2%. Anyone living in San Francisco, whether they are a U.S. citizen or an undocumented immigrant, who doesn’t fill out a census form will cost the city $2,000 per year for the next 10 years, according to city officials. Mayor London Breed and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) in January launched the city’s SF Counts campaign to push residents to take part in the census. But the city’s efforts around the 2020 census were upended in March by the novel coronavirus outbreak and

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the imposition of a shelter-in-place order that has since been extended to at least May 31. In response to the B.A.R’s questions about the city’s response rate, Breed spokesman Jeff Cretan noted one challenge local leaders face is that 25% of San Franciscans don’t have access to a computer or smartphone and can’t access online resources at libraries and other community institutions to fill out their census forms since those facilities are currently closed because of the health crisis. “We have until October and so we are continuing to adapt in this incredibly challenging environment. During 2010, a lot of our outreach was done face-to-face, which is obviously not an option this year,” wrote Cretan in an emailed reply. He added that, “We have a lot more work to do, and we’ve transitioned to phone banks, text banks, FAQs and one-pagers in meal kits for seniors and underserved communities. We will keep doing the outreach throughout this public health crisis.” The health crisis has also impacted the census count itself, which is used to apportion U.S. House seats to the states as well as distribute billions of dollars in federal funding for myriad services from food and housing to health care and other social support.

The census bureau had initially pushed back the date to finish this year’s count from July 31 to August 14. But it is now seeking congressional approval to extend the window for field data collection and selfresponse to October 31. The extra time has LGBT advocates and others hopeful that San Francisco and California in general will be able to hit a response rate higher than 70% by the fall. Doing so has taken on even greater importance amid the economic fallout from the global pandemic that is straining government resources at all levels. “LGBT people, people of color, and immigrants are under counted, so that is why we want to make sure the whole LGBTQ community, especially immigrants, are counted. It is critical for us to receive federal funding accordingly,” said Okan Sengun, executive director and co-founder of the LGBT Asylum Project. The agency, based in San Francisco’s LGBT Castro district, is one of a number working with the statewide LGBT rights advocacy organization Equality California to encourage LGBT Californians to fill out the census this year. It had planned to host a kiosk in its offices on Castro Street for people to come and complete their census online or get answers to their questions about the form, such as explaining to those who are undocumented that their

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<< Community News

6 • Bay Area Reporter • April 30-May 6, 2020

Folsom Street Fair will be virtual in 2020 by John Ferrannini

olsom Street Events – producers of the Folsom Street and Up Your Alley fairs in San Francisco’s South of Market district – announced April 27 that both events will be held virtually this year in light of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Folsom Street Events, which distributes proceeds from its events to other nonprofits, including those serving the LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS communities, explained its decision in a news release. Angel Adeyoha, the interim executive director of Folsom Street Events, had previously told the Bay Area Reporter that a decision as to the fate of the two leather and kink events would be decided by that date. “We feel it is the ethical and the responsible choice to make before fair planning and production proceeds any further. The safety and well-being of our attendees and community members are our top priority,” Adeyoha said in Monday’s release. “It was a hard decision to cancel our in-person events this year, but we hold ourselves and our events to the highest safety

Rick Gerharter

The weather was warm, and so attire minimal, at the 2019 Folsom Street Fair.

standards. Our team of staff and board members take their responsibility to our communities incredibly seriously.” The fairs bring over $200 mil-

lion in business to San Francisco, according to the release. This is the Folsom Street Fair’s 37th year, and the 35th for Up Your Alley (sometimes popularly referred to as Dore

Alley). It donates hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to other nonprofits. “I know the cancellation of inperson celebrations of the Folsom

Street Fair and Up Your Alley is disappointing, but it is best for the health and safety of everyone involved,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in the release. “I want to thank Folsom Street Events for their careful consideration of the current situation, and for making a decision that is in the best interest of public health but still allows people to celebrate virtually.” Governor Gavin Newsom said April 14 that it is highly unlikely that large gatherings can occur in the state of California before residents can either establish herd immunity to or can be vaccinated for the novel coronavirus, which in the span of weeks has now killed more Americans than died in the Vietnam War. That same day, San Francisco Pride announced it was moving online-only. Other prides, from Sacramento to New York City, followed suit. Silicon Valley Pride (in August) and Oakland Pride (in September) have not yet made decisions. Up Your Alley and the Folsom Street Fair will be held over the weekends of July 26 and September 27, respectively, the release stated.t

SF gay couple weds amid virus lockdown by John Ferrannini

s the city, nation, and world began to hunker down amid the novel coronavirus epidemic, gay San Francisco couple César Salza and Kyle Hill realized that it would be some time before their families would be able to travel from across the country and overseas to celebrate their wedding.

So they decided to get married as soon as they could, and the couple tied the knot April 18 in the backyard of one of Hill’s friends – featuring face masks and physical distancing. “We had planned on something in June but we realized quickly with COVID-19 that it wouldn’t be possible,” Hill said in an April 21 phone call with the Bay Area Reporter, re-

ferring to the illness caused by the coronavirus. The couple already had obtained a marriage license (the city is no longer issuing them, citing the pandemic) and posted a Facebook shout-out to see if anyone they knew could officiate a wedding. A mutual friend on Facebook connected the couple with Jared Scherer, a gay man who serves as a

San Francisco marriage commissioner. “They had a couple of witnesses sign and we kept our distance and had masks on,” Scherer told the B.A.R. in an April 22 phone call. Hill said that there were 10 attendees, including the couple and Scherer, and that they wanted people to be able to participate before they potentially left town. Salza, 34, was born in Caracas, Venezuela but is a Spanish national. He said he came to San Francisco two years ago and that he works as a technology journalist for CNET en Español, which is part of CBS Viacom. Hill, 36, hails from Ohio and moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles three years ago. He works as an interior designer and choreographer. “I decided I wanted a change of pace, a change of scenery,” Hill said. The couple first met because they swiped right on each other “at the same time” on Tinder. “The question is always who swiped right first,” Hill said. “We started chatting and I tend to be more shy on dating apps but we de-

cided to meet, and we met, and here we are.” After meeting about one year ago, the couple got engaged in December. “We took a trip to meet his family (in Spain) and we stopped in Portugal first, where I proposed,” Hill said. “That way, when we got to Spain we could share the good news with his family.” The couple resides in the South of Market neighborhood, which has attracted queer people for decades. When asked about honeymoon plans post-shelter-in-place, Hill said that they want to have a big party in Mexico. “We decided that next summer we’re going to Tulum and honeymoon there,” Hill said. “Since family and friends weren’t able to come to San Francisco with us, we’ll be having a big celebration there.” Scherer said that he has sent the marriage documents to the city in the mail, seeing as City Hall is closed to the public. “They were a really sweet and lovely couple,” he said. “It was an honor to perform this ceremony in a time of need.”t

Kauhi Hookano

César Salza, left, and Kyle Hill tied the knot at a friend’s home April 18, complete with physical distancing.

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From the Cover>>

COVID-19 & HIV

From page 1

help health officials get a better idea of how many people are currently infected and how many have antibodies, indicating past infection. Knowing how many people have had the coronavirus will reveal how deadly COVID-19 really is and how much of the population might have some immunity. Although existing tests are not highly accurate, recent studies suggest that the virus has been circulating longer than expected, more people have had it, and many have not had symptoms.

COVID-19 and HIV

Three hundred people with HIV have been tested for the coronavirus and 36 were positive, accounting for just under 3% of all cases in the city. Hardly anyone has developed severe illness and none have died, according to Gandhi. Low rates of severe illness among HIVpositive people with COVID-19 have also been reported in China, Spain, and New York City.

Asylum seeker

From page 1

San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju stated that he was “thrilled” that his office was able to secure Avilez’s release. “Transgender people who are incarcerated are often misgendered and detained in isolation or with the wrong gender population,” Raju stated. “This is a massive issue in federal immigration detention, as well as in our prison system. My office will continue to fight to protect the rights of incarcerated transgender people and fight for their release; detention centers are not safe places due to the transphobia that continues to permeate these institutions. “In this situation, Ms. Avilez had the double risk of worsening health services on the inside due to ICE’s unwillingness to respect her identity, as well the risk she faced with respect to contracting the coronavirus,” Raju added. Avilez’s release was not due to risks from the novel coronavirus, though Vega said that it was recently discovered that she has a condition that would make an adverse outcome more likely if she contracted COVID-19. As the B.A.R. previously reported, an immigration judge ordered her release upon payment of the $10,000 bond. Freedom for Immigrants, an Oakland-based nonprofit, paid the bond in conjunction with an online fundraiser and Avilez’s family, according to the public defender’s office.

Grants

From page 1

$2,500 and $20,000, according to Curtis Lahaie, the senior manager of communications for Horizons, in an April 23 email to the B.A.R. Doughty said there were two criteria Horizons used to determine which organizations should get a grant: nonprofits needed to be both in “immediate and severe financial need” and be “responding to needs generated by the COVID pandemic.” Beneficiaries include, but are not limited to, statewide LGBT rights group Equality California; Folsom Street Events, which puts on the eponymous street fair in September and the Up Your Alley fair in July; the San Francisco Community Health Center (referred to by its former name, the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center, in the release); the GLBT Historical Society; PRC; the Rainbow Community Center of Contra Costa County; the San Francisco LGBT Community Center; the Queer Nightlife Fund; the LGBT Asylum Project; the Spahr Center in

April 30-May 6, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

Although people with badly compromised immune systems are more likely to become seriously ill, experts say this doesn’t apply to HIV-positive people who have an undetectable viral load and a nearnormal CD4 T-cell count. (Nearly 80% of San Franciscans diagnosed with HIV have achieved viral suppression.) However, a quarter of people living with HIV are over age 60 and many have underlying health conditions associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The lower than expected occurrence of severe COVID-19 among people with HIV has led some to speculate that they might somehow be protected. Certain HIV medications, including Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir), have shown some activity against the new coronavirus, but results from clinical studies to date have largely been disappointing. Dozens of trials are currently testing antiretrovirals for COVID-19, including tenofovir, which is part of the widely used Truvada PrEP

pill. So far, however, there is no definitive evidence that any drugs used to prevent or treat HIV can also prevent or treat the coronavirus. It’s also possible that people with somewhat weaker immunity could have less severe COVID-19 lung damage, which is caused by the immune system’s response rather than by the virus itself. In the most severe cases, an immune overreaction known as a cytokine storm can trigger excessive inflammation that harms organs throughout the body. “Maybe if you’re a little bit immunosuppressed, your inflammatory response may not be as crazy and out of control,” Gandhi suggested. But there are potential drawbacks as well. “So far, it looks like anyone who has been exposed [to the coronavirus] probably is going to get antibodies, but it’s possible that people living with HIV may not get their antibodies for a while,” she added.

“Freedom for Immigrants is proud to support Lexis in her release by helping to pay a $10,000 bond through our National Bond Fund,” Christina Mansfield, the cofounder and co-executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, said in an April 24 release. “We believe no one should be imprisoned in abusive ICE jails and prisons. Lexis is a fierce advocate for not only herself, but for other transgender women incarcerated in our country’s inhumane immigrant detention system.” The B.A.R. and other news organizations first reported on Avilez in January, after the surprise Christmas move from the Yuba County Jail (near Sacramento) to an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas. Vega wasn’t notified before the move.

tions,” Avilez said. “I was scared and wanted to hide myself. But my brother knew; he said ‘I know you, I’m not stupid. You’re still hanging out with guys.’ ” She got married in 2000 and became a permanent resident of the U.S. (Federal law allows the spouses of U.S. citizens to become permanent residents. After three years they can apply for U.S. citizenship.) Avilez said she got married so she could give her mother grandchildren, and that while she wasn’t sexually attracted to her wife, she felt they were like best friends. Avilez was 26 when she was convicted of a gang-related assault. Until then she had a job in the medical field, and April 24 was her first day out of custody since then. “In prison and away from her brother’s grip, Ms. Avilez immediately began the process of disavowing her gang ties,” according to court documents. “For the first time, she began to explore and embrace her sexual attraction to men.” Avilez identified as a bisexual man, which Vega said was the result of a “lack of understanding and acceptance” of trans identities on the part of the wider culture. In 2019, Avilez began to openly identify as a transgender woman and started receiving treatment for depression. The same year her brother, Javier, died by suicide. “I didn’t know what I was: gay? Bisexual? It was confusing for me,” Avilez said. “But when I got to jail, after dropping out of the gangs, I met a lot of gay people. I felt safer in jail.

Long journey

Avilez is originally from Mexico but has resided in California since 1979, according to court documents. She presented gender-nonconformity from a young age, for which she was reprimanded by her brother, Javier. “I used to put on my mom’s clothes, jewelry,” Avilez said. “One day, when my brother turned 13, he realized what the word ‘gay’ was and he started calling me a faggot and asking why I loved all the feminine stuff. I said ‘this is me’ and he said ‘no, it’s not.’” Avilez’ brother choked and abused her, and while Avilez said he didn’t “force” her to join a gang, he made it clear it was what he expected. “He made me work out, get tough, started giving me medica-

Marin County; and the Transgender District in San Francisco (until last month known as the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District). The B.A.R. contacted these organizations and at press time has received responses from seven. Angel Adeyoha, a queer, nonbinary person who is the interim executive director of Folsom Street Events, said they found out from Horizons’ morning news release. “We applied for it after both the cancellation of How Weird (a South of Market street fair) and Pride, which are early-in-the-year revenue streams for us, so we wouldn’t be in hot water financially” Adeyoha said in an April 23 phone call with the B.A.R. “We are honored and grateful to be chosen, among other great organizations, and thankful for the help for Folsom Street Events.” Adeyoha said they don’t know yet how much Folsom Street Events received from the grant. According to Horizons’ figures released after Adeyoha spoke with the B.A.R., it received $5,000. On April 27, Folsom Street Events

Many resources available

The rest of the forum was devoted to meeting the needs of people liv-

announced that its 2020 street fairs and related events would take place virtually. Brett Andrews, a gay man who is president of PRC, stated in an email to the B.A.R. April 23 his organization received $15,000, which was confirmed by Horizons’ figures. “We are very grateful to Horizons Foundation for their commitment to LGBTQ-serving organizations during this time of great challenge for our vulnerable clients,” Andrews stated. “Their grant to us and to so many other organizations like ours will help greatly in providing community-wide critical services to those who are most affected by COVID-19.” PRC helps vulnerable adults, including HIV-positive people, with a variety of things such as residential services and workforce advocacy. Spencer Watson of the Queer Nightlife Fund said that the fund received $5,000, which was confirmed by Horizons’ figures. The fund is providing financial support See page 8 >>

ing with HIV during these difficult times. Many HIV-positive people, like others, are facing financial challenges related to the ongoing economic collapse, but many resources are available, speakers said. Andy Scheer, a social worker with the Department of Public Health’s City Clinic, discussed access to HIV care and health care coverage during the crisis. The city remains committed to ensuring a quick and easy entry into care for people with HIV, which now includes tourists who are stuck in the city because of travel restrictions, he said. People can still get services at City Clinic, Ward 86, and the SF AIDS Foundation’s Magnet program at Strut in the Castro. City Clinic is still seeing people who have symptoms of a sexually transmitted disease or who need post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), or emergency contraception, Scheer said. Check out the DPH’s website for tips on safer sex during the COVID-19 crisis. Scheer added that many clinics are deferring HIV viral load and

other tests unless they’re absolutely necessary, and many are turning to telehealth and other technology to connect with clients. As for insurance coverage, Covered California has extended its enrollment period and the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program and Office of AIDS Health Insurance Premium Payment program expiration dates have been extended. Reenrollments and new enrollments can be done by phone or email. The OA-HIPP can pay COBRA premiums for people who have lost their job, and ADAP will cover medications while waiting for Medi-Cal to be approved. Ward 86 nurse manager Jon Oskarsson emphasized that his clinic is ready to help people rapidly restart HIV care and treatment, or simply to provide support. “Although it may feel like everything in the city is closed, we are very much here,” he said. “If people are struggling and want to simply show up, that is very much an option. We want to help people because we know that this is difficult.”t

“As time went by, I met a friend who was bisexual and with the help of my friend I told myself ‘I’m transgender.’ I never really knew but it came back – what I did when I was little. They said I looked like a little girl when I was little.” She had her name legally changed. By that time, she had been transferred to Yuba County and charged with being a permanent resident who was removable from the U.S. While Yuba medical staff recommended hormone therapy, and ICE said the request had been approved, Avilez never received it, according to court documents. Only after she was sent to Texas did ICE allow Avilez to commiserate with female inmates. Until about two months ago, the choice was either total isolation or male inmates, her attorney said. Before she was sent to the Lone Star State last year, Avilez had been told she was going to be released and called her family to share the good news, according to court documents. After her move to Texas, Avilez had thoughts of suicide, according to court documents. Avilez “has a pending motion to reopen her case based on her coming out as transgender and the

harms she would face should she be removed to Mexico,” Vega said.

Taste of freedom

Avilez said that the first thing she did after landing at a California airport was to buy a pink shirt and put it on. “I saw people looking at me a little differently, and I didn’t care,” Avilez said. “I’ve been in prison for 15 years and it’s kind of hard to get justice. But I got to meet really good people. I’m alone in a room now, but I know I’m not alone. I have to take it one day at a time.” The immigration unit at the public defender’s office was established in 2017 to help defend undocumented people in court. It is one of three public defender’s offices that provide such services, the other two being in Alameda County and Manhattan in New York City. “Unlike in criminal court, noncitizens in immigration detention do not have the right to court-appointed counsel, and without the Immigration Unit, many would be forced to defend themselves against government trained prosecutors,” the public defender’s website states.t

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8 • Bay Area Reporter • April 30-May 6, 2020

Grants

From page 7

to nightlife workers who have lost income due to stay-at-home orders that shut down bars and nightclubs in mid-March. Terry Beswick, a gay man who is the executive director of the GLBT Historical Society, thanked Horizons for its support in a statement to the B.A.R. April 23. “With our museum and archives closed, we’re losing a lot of revenue on admissions and memberships, so this emergency grant from Horizons of $7,500 will help us engage with our audiences in creative ways,” Beswick stated. “Initially, this funding will support our popular new weekly Fighting Back series on Zoom, where we bring together intergenerational

News Briefs

From page 2

“San Francisco figures prominently from the 1950s onward, starting with a look at the ways the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis used history, followed by the creation of the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project in 1978 and the GLBT Historical Society in 1985,” he added. Koskovich wrote that his chapter and the one by Graves and Watson drew extensively on resources from the archives of the GLBT Historical Society, with which Koskovich has long been involved. To order a copy of “Preservation and Place,” go to https://www. berghahnbooks.com/title/Crawford-LackeyPreservation.

Wiener, Polis to hold virtual town hall

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener

Political Notebook

From page 5

personal information on their census forms is not shared with immigration officials. The kiosk was in place the week prior to the city issuing its first shelter-in-place directive March 16. It led the LGBT Asylum Project to close its offices for the time being and have its staff work from home. Depending on what health officials decide later this summer in terms of physical distancing rules for public spaces, Sengun said they might be able to utilize the kiosk. “We have all the flyers we made to hand out still in our office, and we had T-shirts to give to people,” Sengun told the B.A.R. this week. “Now we have pushed all our efforts to on-

panels of experts to talk about contemporary issues like COVID in an historical context. We’ve been getting great questions and comments from participants who are stuck at home and sick of Netflix. “So much funding is going to direct service organizations to tend to our physical health right now, and appropriately so, but I think cultural organizations like ours are helping to tend to people’s emotional and intellectual health, which is perhaps equally important,” Beswick continued. The $7,500 amount was confirmed by Horizons’ figures. The San Francisco LGBT Center received $15,000. “Like millions of people and organizations around the globe, the SF LGBT Center is facing a number of challenges in the face of COVID-19,”

Dani Siragusa, the center’s director of development, wrote in an emailed statement to the B.A.R. April 23. “In addition to an almost overnight transition to virtual services, we are losing a significant portion of our revenue, which is typically generated by our room rentals and our annual soiree. “This funding will enable us to continue to provide essential services to LGBTQ+ people in San Francisco and help move us towards our goal of keeping our dedicated staff members financially whole,” Siragusa continued. Lance Toma, a gay man who’s CEO of the San Francisco Community Health Center, leads an organization that is providing front-line medical care. “I think it’s incredible that Horizons Foundation is stepping up

during this unprecedented time to support organizations like ours and so many others, to ensure that LGBTQ individuals are cared for and supported,” Toma wrote to the B.A.R. April 23. “These funds will support our onsite efforts at San Francisco Community Health Center focused on providing care and support for trans and gender nonconforming communities and the HIV community of the Tenderloin.” The LGBT Asylum Project, the organization grand marshal for this year’s virtual Pride festivities, also thanked Horizons. It netted $10,000. “The LGBT Asylum Project is very grateful for Horizons Foundation’s ongoing support to help LGBTQ asylum seekers especially during this pandemic,” Rae Sweet, communications coordinator for the project,

stated in an April 27 email. Doughty said that Horizons is “hoping there will be a second round within the next few weeks.” “We are still actively soliciting contributions to the fund, which will go 100% to these organizations,” Doughty said. Doughty said that queer resilience will help see the community through the coronavirus outbreak. “Our community has resilience running through our blood,” Doughty said. “We are a famously compassionate community that knows how to care for one another, as we have had to do before. What I have seen so far makes me feel more strongly than ever.”t

(D-San Francisco) will be joined by gay Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) and other LGBTQ electeds during a virtual town hall Thursday, April 30, at 3 p.m. Pacific Time to discuss COVID-19 financial and physical impacts on the queer community. Gay New York state Senator Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) will cohost the call with Wiener. Other out leaders scheduled to speak include Texas state Representative Julie Johnson (D-Dallas), California Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), and Pennsylvania state Representative Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia). The town hall will highlight the specific challenges that COVID-19 poses to the LGBTQ community, and panelists will share relevant resources. The town hall will be streamed on Zoom. To register, go to https://bit. ly/3f2MY0j. It will also stream from

both Wiener and Holyman’s Facebook pages.

cording to the poem of the day, discussion, and space for sharing fears and dreams, according to the release. “Overall, we will be sharing in song, with the purpose of healing, building connection, and community,” Figueroa stated. To qualify, applicants need to send their bio and a written statement on why they want to participate in the workshop to lladia@somcan.org. There is no fee or age limit for the workshop. The deadline to apply is Thursday, April 30.

ics, or STEM, programs who are LGBTQ or an ally of the queer community. The organization pointed out in a news release that during the novel coronavirus pandemic, the need to support students is critical. According to the release, the scholarships are funded at a minimum of $5,000 each and will be awarded for the Fall 2020 academic year. Students at any U.S.-based college or university can apply, based on eligibility criteria. The scholarships are funded by an Innovation Generation grant from the Motorola Solutions Foundation and private donations. For eligibility requirements and more information on how to apply, go to https://www.noglstp.org/ programs-projects/scholarships/. The deadline for applications and supporting documentation is June 6. Recipients will be notified the first week of August.t

line campaigning.” The agency is using its Facebook and Instagram accounts to promote the census, and it is training volunteers via an online video they watch before they make calls to LGBT households in the area to remind them about the importance of taking part in this year’s count. “I am hoping we, as San Franciscans, are really sensitive people to this issue. I am hoping we will definitely surpass 68% this year,” said Sengun. To assist with the agency’s census efforts, email info@lgbtasylumproject.org and specify you want to be a census volunteer in the subject line. To fill out the census online, visit http://www.my2020census.gov. Those without internet access can fill out their census by calling (844) 330-2020.

Gay ex-Pinole councilman encourages Lambda prez to run this fall

SOMA group to hold poetry workshop

The South of Market Community Action Network, or SOMCAN, will hold a five-week poetry workshop and provide $500 stipends to participants. A news release from The Transgender District noted that the workshop, which starts May 2, will be limited to 10 people. It is intended to provide a safe space for the voices of the LGBTQA people of color immigrant community in the South of Market and Tenderloin. Poet Lourdes Figueroa will lead it. Titled Paru paru y Colibri (Butterflies and Hummingbirds), the workshop will meet on Saturdays from 12:30 to 3 p.m. through June 14. Each session is confidential and will consist of a writing prompt ac-

The first gay man to have served on the Pinole City Council told the B.A.R. this week that he is supportive of seeing newly elected Lambda Democratic Club of Contra Costa County President Devin Murphy seek a council seat this November. Murphy, 26, a campaign consultant, was elected April 11 as the first gay black man to lead the East Bay LGBT political group. He has lived in Pinole since graduating from UCLA with a degree in African American studies in 2015. As the Political Notebook reported last week, Murphy is expected to announce in May if he will run for one of the two seats on the Pinole City Council that are up for election this November. If he does, he would

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STEM scholarships for LGBT students

The National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals has opened its annual call to receive applications for its 2020 Out to Innovate Scholarships. The scholarships are for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematbe his city’s first out LGBTQ council candidate. Should he be elected to the council, Murphy would be the second LGBT person to serve on it. The first was Stephen Tilton, who moved to Pinole in 2006 with his partner and was elected that fall to a four-year council term only to be recalled in February 2008 by those upset that he joined with two other council members to oust a popular city manager. (Another council member was also recalled, while the third resigned prior to the vote after enlisting in the U.S. Army.) At the time Tilton’s being gay was not widely known outside of the town or reported on in the press. And he told the B.A.R. this week that he didn’t run as an out candidate, instead highlighting the fact he has worked for the San

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Francisco Sheriff ’s Department since 1996. Today, Tilton said he is the only openly gay male captain in the department and runs its jail in San Bruno. He said he would “definitely support” Murphy should he run and fundraise for his campaign.t Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. This week’s column dived into some of the political dish in gay politico Tom Ammiano’s new memoir. Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes. Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

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Hit and Mrs. America

hen Cate Blanchett told her mother she was going to portray Phyllis Schlafly, she replied, ‘Why would you want to play someone like that?’ And Cate said, ‘Because you just asked me that question. I want to find out who she is.’ Cate fulfilled her promise by profiling the strengths and flaws of this conservative author/ movement organizer, who led the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), in FX/ Hulu’s sprawling nine-episode limited series, Mrs. America, now available for streaming. Though Schlafly anchors the story, executive producer/star Blanchett wisely focuses on the 1970s feminist movement and the societal struggle over women’s rights. Each episode, featuring recurring ensemble historical figures, centers on one of the characters, whether it be Representative/firebrand political leader Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale), Ms. Magazine founder Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), Representative/first black woman to run for U.S. President, Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba), Feminist Mystique author Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman), and the G.O.P. proERA activist Jill Ruckelshaus (Elizabeth Banks). Created by former Mad Men writer Dahvi Waller, Mrs. America does for the optimistic, energetic ’70s what Don Draper and company accomplished for the ’60s, revealing how we inherited issues debated in these two pivotal decades. Schlafly, the wife of an Illinois lawyer (Mad Men’s John Slattery) and two-time unsuccessful Congressional candidate, is also a nuclear defense policy expert not taken seriously because she’s a woman.

Sabrina Lantos/FX

by Brian Bromberger

Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly in Mrs. America.

When her friend Alice MacCray (Sarah Paulson) worries that the ERA will subject women to the draft and denigrate housewives, Schlafly becomes its outspoken opponent and the godmother of the right wing culture wars with its tenets of anti-feminism, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, and pro-family values, which continues to this day. Prior to Schlafly, the ERA had bipartisan endorsement; even President Nixon supported it. In 1972, she founded the Eagle Forum, a reactionary political interest group, to prevent ten states still required from ratifying the ERA, battling the National Organization for Women (NOW) vying for its passage. Avoiding caricature, Schlafly is presented as a charismatic, shrewd, anti-hero, her genius for grassroots organizing acknowledged. She spearheaded the religious conservative revolution, culminating in her backing the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. One of the comical driving points of Mrs. America is that Schlafly, despite her claims to being just a devoted wife and mother of six children, is a feminist and according to Bella Abzug, ‘the most liberated woman in America,

but she doesn’t know it.” Schlafly’s brilliance was realizing women are not monolithic and recognized that feminism for many American women wasn’t the solution to all their problems. She understood the vast potential of these women’s discontent, who felt judged and marginalized by the ‘libbers,’ such she was able to mobilize an army of housewives and traditional church groups, ‘happy homemakers’ who baked their own bread loaves, delivered to representatives enticing them to support their causes. To Mrs. America’s credit, the liberated feminists aren’t presented as paragons. Their contradictions are noted, especially underestimating Schlafly’s threat, their infighting, and inability to agree on priorities and strategies. Friedan resented the influence and popularity of second-wave feminists like the attractive, idealistic Gloria Steinem. Steinhem emerges as a clever opportunist, not above abandoning support of presidential candidate/friend Chisholm for George McGovern to gain political advantage. Abzug was domineering, currying the power of men, and not hesitant to fire disloyal/disagreeing women.

One of the outstanding features of this thrilling, addictive series is how it shows two issues –racism and sexism– that overlapped both movements. On the left, women of color were tokens, showcased as inclusive figureheads especially to the media, with Steinem rejecting an openly black lesbian editor’s article on racial discrimination in the workplace. Notwithstanding Blanchett’s masterful, superlative, and probable Emmy-winning performance with her facial expressions conveying intense emotional depth, the ruthless, ambitious, at times hypocritical and devious Schlafly (who could invent fictional statistics and court cases) remains a remote, mystifying figure, simultaneously adored and hated, her lightning rod status preventing full access to the Republican establishment, notably no Cabinet position in the Reagan administration. All the A-list acting is sublime. It’s obvious the project was a labor of love, even when Mrs. America occasionally sacrifices depth to cover the breadth of the period.t

Kino Lorber), the full-length feature debut by co-directors/writer Mike Ahern, Will Forte Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, and Enda Loughman said to be inspired by the Coen in Extra Ordinary brothers’ comedic work, is a perfect example. While the comedy itself is completely irreverent (some of the jokes flirt with tastelessness), the references (including a few to The Exorcist and The Conjuring) are thoroughly reverent. The late paranormal specialist Vincent (Risteard Cooper) not only left behind two daughters – Rose (the wonderful Maeve Higgins) and Sailor (Terri Chandler) – but also a video series legacy in which he explored the unknown. Rose inherited Vincent’s “talent” but, feeling guilty for her father’s death (it must be seen to be appreciated), she’s left it all behind in favor of becoming a driving instructor. Nevertheless, she still gets countless voicemail messages from people desperately seeking her expertise in communing with ghosts. One such call comes from Martin Martin (Barry Ward) at the insistence of his daughter Sarah (Emma outlook and the dangerous politicians in Coleman) because he is being brutalized by power. The heyday of slasher flicks has come the ghost of his wife Bonnie. She leaves him and gone and a new breed of horror movies messages in the steam on the bathroom mirror – subtle, psychological and no less terrifying – and in his toast. She picks out his clothes. She has emerged. Comedy also has begun to play a yanks donuts away from him. lead role in the genre. Not far away, in the same Irish town, AmeriThe kooky Extra Ordinary (Cranked Up/

can one-hit-wonder Christian Winter (an over-the-top Will Forte) is a Satanist who will do anything to get the creative juices flowing. That includes abducting virgins to sacrifice to the dark lord so he can finish writing and recording his comeback album. When his ruthless wife Claudia (Claudia O’Doherty) kills the virgin he planned to sacrifice, he must use his virgin divination rod to find another. Rose meets with Martin, thinking he needs driving lessons, but when he reveals the truth, she cuts it short. However, Martin’s a handsome guy and Rose is a single woman, so she’s willing to make an exception. This is especially the case when, under a spell cast by Christian, an unconscious Sarah levitates above her bed in nightgown a la Regan MacNeil. In order to break the spell and save Sarah (and get with Martin), Rose must face her demons, so to speak. So begins the mission to collect the ectoplasm from seven ghosts. Along the way, Rose and Martin encounter an amusing series of folks and their haunted lives. It’s Martin whom the various ghosts must inhabit so that he can vomit their ectoplasm into a jar. To say that things get wackier after that is no exaggeration. The laughs far outweigh the scares and some of the scenes, including when Christian tries taking driving lessons from Rose as a way of figuring out her motives and deterring her from her undertaking, are laughout-loud funny. The final farcical showdown with the dark lord and the mix-up involving the virgins is also very funny. Extra Ordinary is available for viewing on the Kino Now VOD platform. Rating: Bt

Kooky horror comedy ‘Extra Ordinary’ by Gregg Shapiro

orror continues to rank among the most popular of cinematic genres. Perhaps it has to do with the current state of the world – the dire climate change

Cate Blanchett’s masterful, superlative performance as Phyllis Schlafly

Read the full article on www.ebar.com

<< TV/Books

10 • Bay Area Reporter • April 30-May 6, 2020

Taylor-made Holland Taylor in Ryan Murphy’s ‘Hollywood’ by Gregg Shapiro

ccording to Ryan Murphy, “Casting a television show is like casting a dinner party. It’s like, ‘Well, who do I want to sit next to for the next six months of my life?’” In the case of his new Netflix series Hollywood, premiering on the streaming network on May 1, 2020, Murphy set an amazing table, and seated his guests just so. One such guest is out actress Holland Taylor who plays no-nonsense 1940s movie studio executive Ellen Kincaid. Taylor was kind enough to answer a few questions ahead of Hollywood’s Netflix debut. Gregg Shapiro: What was it about the way that the character of Ellen Kincaid was written that appealed to you and made you want to portray her in the Netflix series Hollywood? Holland Taylor: Ryan told me that he was writing this character for me. Which is, right away, a very exciting opportunity, because Ryan has a special feel for actors that has proven itself over and over again. He has an idea of what they can do and what special thing they can bring to a character. If he particularly wanted me to play this character, I was very game to do it. I didn’t see a script before I accepted it. When I read the script, I got very excited because she’s an attractive character. You don’t always play people that you like. You can play a great character, but that doesn’t mean you would like the person at all. In fact, I’ve played plenty of characters that I wouldn’t like. But I love her. I would love to know someone like her. In those days, she’s the kind of woman who found herself in a man’s power world where her female qualities al-

Ellen Kincaid (Holland Taylor) with Jack Castello (David Corenswet) in Hollywood.

lowed her to be comfortable exercising her opinion and views. GS: Ellen, along with Avis (played by Patti LuPone), become powerful women in the movie industry. How different do you think the world of entertainment would have been if there had been more women in power all along? HT: There always were some women in certain areas. In the early days, women were great editors and costume designers. Who knows what power Edith Head had beyond costumes? She might have championed an actor or actress that we don’t know about. I’m sure she could get rid of an actor or actress that she didn’t care about. Irene Selznick was a great force. There were wives of studio heads who were powerful. Nothing like what there is today. But I think the world is always improved by having

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every group represented in humanity present at the table. We’re seeing it now in politics. We’re going to be a much better country when half the people in our government are women. We’re going to be a much better country when an appropriate proportion of people in our government are Hispanic and Black or immigrant. Our country is enriched by this. Humanity’s table is best served when everybody is at it. GS: What do you think of the way that Hollywood blends fictional characters with real ones? HT: I think that was a great idea. I think it was a great idea to do the revisionist history thing, too. I don’t think it was part of Ryan’s original concept, which he spoke of as a love letter to Hollywood glamour. It turned out to be much more than that.

When we see these revisionist history scenes, particularly as they involve the exclusion or inclusion of different kinds of people, it’s very moving to see the Rock Hudson (Jake Picking) character walking hand in hand with his boyfriend at the Oscars. That would have been the most unbelievably daring thing to do in the ’40s and nobody did it! You can’t help but wonder, what would have happened? When we see Camille (Laura Harrier) winning an Oscar and getting cast in a role she normally would not get. Or Eleanor Roosevelt (Harriet Sansom Harris) saying, “Do this for this girl! Hollywood can teach us!” Of course, Hollywood has taught us many things. Those bold lessons, when you see them and experience the sadness and loss of opportunity that those chances weren’t taken, I suppose it might inspire someone to perhaps be braver.

GS: Because of the post-World War II setting of the film, it made me think about Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino, women directors, from that period. Do you think you might someday want to direct? HT: I’ve often thought about Ida Lupino. She was such a favorite! She was a wonderful character actress. People don’t even know that she was a big director. She didn’t do major films, but she was a really smart woman. You could see this native intelligence in her. She had ambition and she saw how it could be done. They had the sense to let her do it. She obviously didn’t have some empty ambition of fame for fame’s sake. She was content to be a behind-the-scenes director. I don’t imagine she gave a fig whether or not she was promoted publicly in that role. She had work to do, with an intelligent roving mind. She wanted to be creative and she was. Now, the women directors who are around who are so gifted – (Kathryn) Bigelow and Ava Duvernay, there are just too many of them to even think of. There’s something about a director; I actually think it’s a very maternal role. It’s a nurturing role. There are directors who have had great success with actors by scaring the shit out of them and being monsters and being a dictator and brutalizing them. I suppose you can get things from people by that approach. But I think a nurturing approach is better. There are lots of women directors who will be the rival of any men directors. The world is better when everyone is represented.t

Read the full interview on www.ebar.com

Paradise in Provincetown

by Jim Piechota

cclaimed fiction writer and memoirist Paul Lisicky puts his heart on the page in a new memoir chronicling his searching youth in the 1990s while living at the very tip of eastern Massachusetts: the quaint, queer-centric seaside hamlet of Provincetown. He begins with a departure from the home he grew up in to embrace the new adventure of a post-grad seven-month writing residency fellowship in Provincetown. He tearfully leaves behind his mother, a beloved woman fearful of her gay son “living among my kind” in an era decades from PrEP therapy while still mourning and recoiling from the scourge of the AIDS epidemic. His queer youth in the 1990s is eloquently demarcated here in a memoir which openly shares anecdotes as passionately and intensively as a long-lost friend fills in the precious details of their missing years with the other. The memoir is also a tribute to the gorgeous resort community of Provincetown, Mass., where many of Lisicky’s books are set, its eternal allegiance to the whims of New England weather patterns, the steamy stifling summers, the men, the clubs, the allure and secrecy of the dunes, the ocean, the sun, and the brilliant artist community, of which Lisicky continues to be a vibrant part of. He writes his memoir with the delicate weight and meticulous care of a poet. The descriptions urge the reader to form pictures: the everyday ebb and flow of the Commercial Street thoroughfare where

Author Paul Lisicky’s Later

people’s voices “swell and boom and laugh in a way that is not just for the people in front of them but also for those outside that circle”; or the Provincetown summers that are oppressively humid day and night and “quiet only after 4 a.m. when I’ll see a lone guy walking home from the Boatyard.” Or his claustrophobic apartment or the nameless strangers under the midnight-black “Dick Dock” exchanging forbidden pleasures kneeling in the sand. But his prose also conjures memories of a darker time, the 1990s, when the shadow of HIV infection and its accompanying death sentence spread fear, paranoia, and a sense of physical scrutiny across a community already besieged by rampant homophobia. He writes about the gray, sullen “AIDSy” appearance of men in town and of the many greetings made to acquaintances, always careful not to be condescending or flinch when leaning in for hugs and kisses. Glancing back at those days

becomes easier with each passing decade, though some things are so ingrained; Lisicky comments that even now, through his twenty-first century lens, he is careful not to offend. “When I kiss a positive man in a friendly greeting, I make sure he doesn’t see me stiffen or hold back even a little, even though he’d probably read that as just another stance toward him,” the author writes. “The truth is, he’s probably quite used to it. He’s ten times tougher than any of us think.” Lisicky’s beautifully self-aware memoir is most striking for its heartfelt prose brimming with yearning, nostalgia, satisfaction, lust, sadness, and the unbreakable solidarity of a seaside resort’s yearround residents. There’s also a certain sense of heartbreak that lifts off the page and makes contact with the reader, both akin to a hot summer breeze slapping the cheeks or a frigid winter squall rendering one inescapably breathless.t

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April 30-May 6, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

The Forgotten Pandemic Echoes of AIDS History in COVID-19

Press secretary Larry Speakes’ snide remarks in 1982 at the first press mention of AIDS at a White House briefing.

by Michael Flanagan

including this from that first press briefing:

“T

his is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized, it’s going to be happening all over the country and I want America to understand that,” said Vice Admiral Jerome Adams, Surgeon General of the United States, on Fox News Sunday, April 5, 2020. Flurries of articles contrasting COVID-19 with HIV have been published in the past few months. None of them initially drew my attention, as the pandemics seem quite different from one another, with COVID-19 being a fast spreading respiratory disease and HIV being spread by bodily fluids and not through casual contact. But when the Surgeon General compared COVID-19 with the 9/11 and Pearl Harbor attacks, social media fairly lit up with people mentioning that HIV, as a disease, was a better comparison than a war metaphor. It seems like a good time for a brief review of some basic differences and similarities in the way both diseases have entered the public discourse. The most glaring difference between the pandemics has been the attention paid to COVID-19, with daily briefings from the White House. Even though the first reports of what would be called HIV appeared in MMWR on June 5, 1981, less than six months into the first term of Ronald Reagan, the disease would not be mentioned by the president until his second term. We would later learn AIDS had been mentioned in early press briefings. In his 2001 book Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine author Jon Cohen revealed transcripts as far back as Oct.15, 1982 where the disease had been mentioned in briefings with White House press secretary Larry Speakes. BuzzFeedNews has published portions of the transcripts,

“Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement—the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases? MR. SPEAKES: What’s AIDS? Q: Over a third of them have died. It’s known as “gay plague.” (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it? MR. SPEAKES: I don’t have it. Do you? (Laughter.)”

ter, through at least 1984 in the press conferences. By 1984 the number of dead in the U.S. was 4,251. One similarity between COVID-19 and AIDS is that the concern for the “general public” is something that draws attention to the epidemic. On April 15, 1985 Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler told the first International AIDS Conference: “We must conquer AIDS before it affects the heterosexual population and the general population.” Heckler was speaking before the conference one month after making an announcement of a test for HTLV-III (as HIV was then known). The test was developed nearly four years after the first reports of AIDS. The test for COVID-19 was announced within four months after the first reports of that virus. There has also been a difference in the public response to COVID-19 and AIDS.

(The chilling press conference can be heard on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=yAzDn7tE1lU ) References to the epidemic would continue at press briefings, together with homophobic jokes and laugh-

Both photos: Rink

Above: Paul Okando’s Great Dane won for Best Legs, at the June 13, 1982 the Dog Show, covered in the June 17, 1982 Bay Area Reporter Below: Protestors at the San Francisco Federal building in 1985, in a Bay Area Reporter article.

Homing’s In:

Arts, Nightlife and Community Events “What is a weekend?” We’re not so sure anymore, but you can enjoy the wonderful array of arts, nightlife and community events online, 24/7. Also, many of these events are accepting donations to help keep their venues afloat during the shutdown.

By 1981, Shanti was already providing support to people with what would later be called AIDS. In December 1981, nurse Bobbi Campbell, who had been diagnosed at the 16th person in San Francisco diagnosed with KS, posted pictures of his “gay cancer” in the window of Star Pharmacy at the corner of 18th and Castro. He also began writing a column in the San Francisco Sentinel that month. In April 1982, the Kaposi’s Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation (which would later become the San Francisco AIDS Foundation) was formed. There were a number of benefits early on. On June 13, 1982 the Dog Show, the first AIDS benefit in San Francisco, was held on Castro Street by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence with the help of the Tavern Guild and emcees Jane Dornacker and Shirley MacLaine, with benefits going to the KS Foundation. The Sisters also produced “Play Fair” pamphlet (the first safer sex pamphlet) in June, 1982. Other early benefits include those for San Francisco General Hospital’s ward 5B at places like the Roxy Roadhouse (601 Eddy) and Castro Station (456 Castro) and the Men Behind Bars benefits for Shanti, the AIDS Emergency Fund and others. COVID-19 has also prompted fundraisers from the public. Since we are sheltering in place the response has been on the internet, where a number of fundraises for bartenders, artists and businesses have appeared. The public response to both epidemics has included protest as well. The first AIDS vigil, “People Are Dying, Cut The Red Tape,” was held on October 8, 1983, sponsored by the AIDS/KS foundation (as it was then known). On October 28, 1985 a group of protesters chained themselves to the doors of an entrance to the Federal Building, beginning the ten-year AIDS/ARC vigil. On September 24, 1986 Citizens for Medical Justice held a protest at Gov. Deukmejian’s office in Sacramento to call for his signature on bills prohibiting discrimination and increasing funding, where they were arrested. Their protests would be followed by many others after ACT UP was formed in March, 1987. There have been protest rallies in response to COVID-19 this week in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and other states against stay at home orders and business closures. The British newspaper The Guardian describes the protesters taking part in these rallies as “far-right groups as well as more mainstream Republicans” and noted that the protests were “also supported by street-fighting rightwing groups like the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination group.” There are, unfortunately, some similarities between the groups that both viruses have affected. According to the CDC African-Americans and Latinos are disproportionately affected by HIV, with African-Americans representing 42% of HIV diagnoses and 13% of the population and Latinos representing 27% of HIV diagnoses and 18% of the population. A recent article in JAMA entitled COVID-19 and African Americans by Clyde W. Yancy, MD reports that African-Americans in Chicago represent 50% of COVID-19 cases and 70% of the deaths, while being 30% of the population. The same article notes that Latinos represent 34% of the deaths in New York City, while only being 29% of the population. Another unfortunate similarity between the epidemics is that news does not seem to have been taken

Author Jon Cohen’s Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine

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seriously, by the public. The New York Times reports that after the National LGBTQ Taskforce Winter Party Festival in Miami Beach 38 people tested positive for COVID-19 and that two had died. The response to COVID-19 has been considerably better in San Francisco, and this may be because of lessons well learned from the HIV epidemic. Appearing on All In With Chris Hayes on April 14 Mayor London Breed said, “This is not unfamiliar territory for San Francisco where we have had to lead the charge on our own…the AIDS crisis is a clear example in the 1980s when San Francisco was ignored by the federal government.” We are still in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are clear warning signs from AIDS. As of 2017 there were still 16,350 deaths annually from AIDS in the U.S. Our cumulative total deaths from HIV are now 703,413. There is still no vaccine against HIV. If the government forgets or ignores our experience with the AIDS and instead uses metaphors for war to analyze COVID-19 we may all live to regret it.t

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