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Gay man seeks liver
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'Queer California'
OAKLASH rocks
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Vol. 49 • No. 16 • April 18-24, 2019
LGBT SF General staffers air grievances by Matthew S. Bajko Twitter
The SFPD’s Pride patch will benefit Larkin Street Youth Services.
SFPD unveils Pride patch by Alex Madison
T
he San Francisco Police Department says its officers will be the first in the nation to wear special patches during Pride Month in June. Initially announced via Twitter April 4, the Pride patches are lined in the colors of the rainbow flag with the city’s crest in the center. They will be optional for officers to purchase internally for $20 with proceeds being donated to Larkin Street Youth Services, a nonprofit that provides youth, including LGBTQs, with education, housing, and employment training. “We hope this will really build bridges for us, as well show that within the organization there are many of us,” Commander Teresa Ewins, a lesbian who sits on the board of the SFPD Pride Alliance, a group for LGBT officers, told the Bay Area Reporter last week. Ewins said the department is proud to support Larkin Street, particularly because many queer youth receive essential services from the agency. She wants the patches to show youth that, they too, can be police officers. “[They] can be anything they want to be in the police department. Hopefully, we show them that we are an example,” Ewins said. The department will also once again have a contingent in the San Francisco Pride parade Sunday, June 30. This year’s Pride theme is “Generations of Resistance.” It celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, an LGBT rebellion against police forces in 1969 in New York City that gave rise to the modern gay rights movement and was the event that spurred the nation’s first Pride parades. But it seems that not everyone is thrilled to have a police contingent in the parade. The department has marched in it for many years. In late March, graffiti on the sidewalk near Bank of America at 18th and Castro streets read “Police Out of Pride.” As well, some LGBT leaders say although the rumblings of anti-police messaging from the community might be quiet this year, that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. “I don’t think it’s been well publicized that it’s happening, but I’ve heard it around,” said Janetta Johnson, a trans woman of color who is the executive director of Transgender Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project, a nonprofit that works with trans and gender-nonconforming people inside and outside of prisons, jails, and See page 8 >>
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n recent months two out staffers at San Francisco’s public hospital have come forward to air their grievances with management of the Mission district facility. One has filed a whistleblower complaint alleging retaliation against them, while the other has complained about being placed on investigative leave after criticizing how his minority colleagues are treated. The staffers’ complaints come as they help lead a campaign to force city leaders to change the name of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. The hospitals’ registered nurses and their union, Service Employees International Union Local 1021, are trying to qualify a ballot measure for the fall election that would remove the name of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg from it. He and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, secured the naming rights for the hospital Rick Gerharter with a donation of $75.5 million to its founeviving a neighborhood tradition af- thousand eggs were filled with either toys or dation. The name change prompted crititer a lapse of several years, the Friends candy and distributed on the upper lawn of cism from the start and has only intensified of Duboce Park sponsored a Spring the park. The Easter Bunny also made an apThe Los Angeles Blade covers Los Angeles and California as the Silicon news, Valley firm has been embroiled Egg Hunt for children Sunday, April 14. A pearance. in one controversy after another. politics, opinion, arts and entertainment and features national and See page 11 >> international coverage from the Blade’s award-winning reporting
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Buttigieg formalizes Dem prez bid
by Lisa Keen
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or a guy who acknowledges that 20 years ago he would gladly have taken a pill to turn himself from gay to straight, Pete Buttigieg showed an extraordinary level of confidence and comfort Sunday as he announced his formal campaign bid to become president of the United States. Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, evoked the memory of his 17-year-old self Sunday afternoon as he explained to the world why he has the “audacity” to run for president now, as a 37-year-old Midwest millennial. Without saying the word “gay” in his 35-minute speech, he talked about being gay, included a gay icon’s song in his pre-speech warm-up music, echoed an LGBT “It Gets Better” mantra, and embraced his husband, Chasten, on stage at the end, before the couple walked off hand-in-hand. “Running for office is an act of hope,” said Buttigieg to several thousand people crammed into Studebaker Building 87 in South Bend, as thousands more stood outside in the rain, and millions more watched on the campaign’s livestream, numerous mainstream media livestreams, and on television at an estimated 400 watch parties around the country. “You don’t do it unless you think the pulleys and levers of our government can be used and, if necessary, redesigned to make the life of this nation better for us all,” he continued. “You
Courtesy Agence France Presse
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, left, was joined by his husband, Chasten, after giving his announcement speech Sunday in South Bend, Indiana.
don’t do it unless you believe in the power of a law, a decision, sometimes even just a speech to make the right kind of difference, to change our lives better, to call us to our higher values. Things get better if we make them better.” As the Bay Area Reporter noted in an online story Sunday, Buttigieg’s entry in the 2020 race won early attention for his being the first openly gay candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and additional attention for the apparent difficulty many television news
interviewers had with pronouncing his Maltese American last name (In his recently released memoir, Buttigieg offered “Buddha-judge” but his campaign now pushes “Boot-edge-edge.”) But within two months of launching his exploratory campaign in January, the relatively unknown candidate had capitalized on that early media to introduce his serious, compassionate, and faith-based self to a growing base of supporters far beyond his small Midwestern homeSee page 12 >>
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Marking the historic 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.
Celebrating World Pride 2019 Space reservations for our June 27, 2019 edition are now being accepted. Call 415-829-8937 or email advertising@ebar.com for more information or to reserve your space.