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www.ebar.com
Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community
Vol. 48 • No. 52 • December 26, 2018-January 2, 2019
SF mayor reflects on first six months
Breed mulls changes to LGBT panel
Breed pushes LGBT priorities
by Alex Madison
by Matthew S. Bajko
M
ayor London Breed has some ideas for revamping the stagnant San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s LGBT Advisory Committee, but during an editorial board meeting with the Bay Area Reporter, she echoed the same reasoning that HRC staffers gave for the panel’s hiatus. The questions to the mayor came after the B.A.R. reported in November that the 12-member LGBT advisory panel has only met a handful of times in the last two years. The panel’s spokesman, David Carrington Miree, a gay man, explained that the committee hasn’t had enough members present at the meetings to satisfy the required quorum, or minimum number of people needed, preventing the committee from voting or conducting business. He said it was due to the growing
W During a walking tour of the Castro in August, Mayor London Breed, left, heard neighborhood concerns from Ken Jones, Sandra Zuniga from San Francisco’s Fix-It Team, and Andrea Aiello, executive director of the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District.
See page 5 >>
hen she ran in the spring to be elected mayor of San Francisco, London Breed listed a number of LGBT priorities that she planned to focus on should she be elected to Room 200 at City Hall. She called for building a homeless shelter dedicated to the needs of LGBTQ youth where they could access myriad services to assist them in moving off the streets and into permanent housing. Breed, at the time the board president and District 5 supervisor representing the Western Addition and the Haight, also pledged to improve unsafe conditions in single-roomoccupancy hotels. Many LGBT residents, in particular transgender individuals, call the buildings home. See page 5 >>
Rick Gerharter
Kendell confident in NCLR’s future by Heather Cassell
I CNN
President Donald Trump
Trump delivers rough year for LGBTs by Lisa Keen
G
ay Republican Richard Grenell was having trouble getting confirmed as ambassador to Germany last year; this year, his name was floated as a possible choice for White House chief of staff. In 2017, the LGBT community shuddered as President Donald Trump appointed Jeff See page 12 >>
t’s been nearly a year of celebration, heartfelt gratitude, and sadness as the National Center for Lesbian Right’s longtime leader Kate Kendell has been saying her goodbyes. On March 15, Kendell announced she was leaving the nonprofit after 22 years at the helm of the organization that has been advocating to LGBT legal rights for four decades. Her last day is December 31. “I will miss NCLR every single day and so much about this job,” said Kendell in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “I’m reconciled to the fact that I will miss this job and I’m resolute that it is the right time for me and for the organization. “I will be forever grateful to the San Francisco LGBT community for making it possible for me to have a life that I never could have imagined,” she added. Kendell, 58, first arrived at NCLR as its legal director in 1994 before stepping into her role as executive director two years later, serving a total of 24 years at the agency. For many, Kendell was a national leader and spokeswoman as NCLR shone a legal light on the most vulnerable in the LGBT community, particularly transgender individuals and people of color. Her departure announcement sent shockwaves through the LGBT community, where many questioned, “What would NCLR be
Rick Gerharter
Kate Kendell spoke at this year’s Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club Pride Breakfast, where she received the Jim Foster Lifetime Achievement Award.
without Kate?” “They said that about me,” said lesbian former San Francisco supervisor Roberta Achtenberg, who served as the organization’s second executive director and is Kendell’s predecessor. “The organization thrived, was healthy, and went into directions that none of us could have ever imagined. “I think that we are destined for the same kind of growth, improvement, and forward projectory that we enjoyed under Kate’s leadership. Our next leader will take us to the places that we need to go with a feminist leadership
style,” Achtenberg added. Kendell is the organization’s third leader since it’s founding in 1977 by Donna Hitchens, now a retired San Francisco Superior Court judge. Hitchens started NCLR as a project of Equal Rights Advocates, a San Francisco-based women’s rights legal advocacy organization. NCLR’s board launched the search for a new executive director April 1. Earlier this month, Kendell announced in an email to donors that the organization appointed Cindy Myers, a lesbian and seasoned nonprofit administration expert, as interim executive director. Myers, 61, said that taking this role was the “most significant thing I will have done in my professional life because of the impact NCLR has had on the world.” She noted Kendell’s accomplishments and called her one of the LGBT movement’s “most prominent queer women leaders.” “I’m honoring her legacy with a steady hand at the head of NCLR until we bring on NCLR’s next dynamic leader to change the world for our community,” Myers said.
In the spotlight
Kendell was at the forefront of the fight for same-sex marriage with then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and was one of his key advisers for the “Winter of Love,” which See page 11 >>
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