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Guerneville dodges major flood
New dispensary, pot czar
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'Monet' opens
Telly Leung
The
www.ebar.com
Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Vol. 49 • No. 8 • February 21-27, 2019
Illustration: Ernesto Sopprani
Dr. Susan Philip
Rick Gerharter
As STDs continue to rise, SF clinic gets a refresh by Matthew S. Bajko
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s sexually transmitted diseases continue to rise in San Francisco, albeit at a slower rate than seen in past years, the health department is remodeling its City Clinic facility South of Market. The public health center has been at its location at 356 Seventh Street since 1982, but other than a refresh to its reception area, it had not upgraded its exam rooms over the last 37 years. To allow for the construction, the clinic closed Friday, February 15, and plans to reopen Friday, February 22. But it will not be able to perform physical exams of patients and is only offering limited services through Wednesday, February 27. The clinic expects to return to a normal operating schedule in early March. Once complete, the new clinical spaces will benefit the clinic’s employees, as they have been designed to improve the ergonomics of the exam rooms. And they are also being fitted with new equipment, such as larger monitors, that the clinic needs in order to transition this summer to a new electronic records system that the health department will be rolling out. The disruption to its operations, while a hindrance, “will be a benefit to our patients,” said City Clinic medical director Dr. Stephanie Cohen. “Our exam rooms have not been modernized and need to be given a facelift.” Deputy Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip, the director of the disease prevention and control branch in the health department’s Population Health Division, said the decision to close briefly was made so the disruption in the clinic’s ability to see patients was as short as possible. “We know City Clinic is hugely important as a resource for sexual health,” said Philip. “Therefore, we wanted to do this massive work in a short timeframe.”
STD rates continue to rise
A vanity plate reading “LTHR DDY” was rejected by the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
It comes as the STD branch strives to stem a rising tide in cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlaSee page 9 >>
SF health chief’s on the job Rick Gerharter
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n his first day as health director, Dr. Grant Colfax, second from left, joined San Francisco Mayor London Breed, center, on a tour of a health fair set up Tuesday, February 19, outside the city’s main public library. Joining them was Doniece Sandoval, right, from Lava Mae. Put on by the city’s health department and community agencies, including Lava Mae, it aimed to bring services, such as HIV testing and substance use treatment,
to homeless people on the streets. Breed and Colfax, a gay man who previously oversaw the city’s HIV prevention efforts, both voiced support for delivering services in such a manner. “We want a healthy city,” said Breed. “To do that we need to ensure people get the resources they need and that we are meeting them where they are.” A main focus of his, said Colfax, will be determining “how do we implement those systems for the people most in need.”
CA DMV rejects leather vanity plate by Matthew S. Bajko
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he leather lifestyle is apparently too sexual for officials with the state Department of Motor Vehicles. In rejecting a San Francisco resident’s request for a vanity license plate that would have been shorthand for “leather daddy,” the DMV noted the phrase’s “sexual connotation” and how it can be read “as a term of lust or depravity” in the letter it sent to Robert Haynes in January explaining its decision. Haynes, shocked by the agency’s reasoning, contacted the office of gay state Senator Scott See page 12 >>
South Bay’s first gender center officially opens in San Jose
by Heather Cassell
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ilicon Valley’s new Gender Health Center is now open in San Jose and providing services to transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse patients. The opening last week followed a soft opening late last year. It is the first and only such facility in the South Bay, officials pointed out during a recent tour. The gender center’s goal is to provide safe comprehensive care to the South Bay’s estimated 16,000 gender-variant residents. County officials based that estimate on national data, and included all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Previously, transgender patients had to create their own word-of-mouth network of service providers in Santa Clara County or travel to Planned Parenthood in Santa Cruz, TransVision at the TriCity Health Center in Fremont, or Lyon-Martin Health Services and other transgender-welcoming providers in San Francisco. “It just feels nice that there is a place close in my home area that I can actually go to for just simple care,” said Nekyua Valotea, a 24-year-old transgender man who has been receiving services at the health center where the clinic is located for about two years.
Jo-Lynn Otto
Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, left, joined trans patient Nekyua Valotea and former supervisor Ken Yeager at the official opening of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center’s Gender Health Center in San Jose.
Santa Clara County officials toured the facility last week. It was the first time that Ken Yeager, the gay former Santa Clara County supervisor, saw the center, he told the Bay Area Reporter. “I’ve been working on this particular issue for quite a while,” said Yeager during the February 11
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tour. “To finally come to the day that we can open it to the public is tremendously gratifying.” County-supported services for the South Bay’s LGBT community are Yeager’s legacy. During his tenure on the board he advocated for the clinic and other LGBT services following the first See page 12 >>