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Emery school shocker
Jubilant Trans March
ARTS
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SFS season wraps
Cazwell
The
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Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Vol. 49 • No. 27 • July 4-10, 2019
SF Pride parade moves on after hitch Heather Cassell
Sylvia, center, raises their sign “Cops + Corporations Out of Pride” along Market Street during Sunday’s San Francisco’s Pride parade after other protesters halted the event for about an hour.
Protesters delay SF Pride parade
Dancers strut their stuff on a float in Sunday’s San Francisco Pride parade.
by Heather Cassell
P
rotesters demonstrating against police and corporate participation in the San Francisco Pride parade delayed the 49th annual march for about an hour Sunday. A half hour after the festivities started at 10:30 a.m., with Dykes on Bikes roaring up Market Street, a small group of protesters broke through the barriers along the parade route, stopping the motorcycle contingent at Market near Sixth Street. The protesters’ arms were interlocked, covered by rainbow painted pipes as they spread themselves across the street. Another group of protesters along the sidelines of the parade pushed and shoved a group of San Francisco police officers and threw water bottles at them as the surrounding crowd angrily jeered and shouted at the demonstrators, reported CBS News. Demonstrators said that the police were overly aggressive, reported ABC 7 News. A CBS News chopper flying over the incident where San Francisco police officers had gathered to monitor the demonstrators sitting in the street captured that scuffle. One police officer sustained non-life threatening injuries, according to a San Francisco Police Department statement issued Sunday afternoon. Khrissa Pascual, a parade spectator, said that the protesters were chanting, “We are the enemies of the police.” Some protesters were holding signs reading “cops kill,” she told the Bay Area Reporter. Pascual said that she watched as police and San Francisco Pride organizers negotiated with the protesters to get the parade started again. “At approximately 12:01 p.m. the protesters agreed to leave the street and reopen the parade route,” SFPD stated. Police said that two people were taken into custody. Taryn Saldivar, 21, of Oakland, and Kenneth Bilecki, 27, of Santa Rosa. Saldivar was charged with battery on a See page 5 >>
by Sam Moore
T
he 49th annual San Francisco Pride parade went off with a hitch Sunday, as a protest delayed the mammoth spectacle for about an hour. [See related story.] But other than that, the June 30 event
mostly proceeded as expected, with over 250 contingents taking part under the theme “Generations of Resistance.” The crowd was estimated at more than 100,000, according to San Francisco Pride’s website. It began, as it has for years, with the deep rumble of motorcycles.
“I’m hoping for a nice, safe ride,” Kate Brown, president of Dykes on Bikes, said shortly before the parade began. Dykes on Bike led the parade with its procession of hundreds of riders and their motorcycles. “It’s really important that we’re out here honoring and remembering the See page 8 >>
Harris rocks Alice breakfast
Rick Gerharter
by Cynthia Laird
S
enator Kamala Harris, fresh off her commanding performance in last week’s Democratic presidential primary debate, told a sold out Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club Pride breakfast audience Sunday that she will “prosecute the case against four more years of Donald Trump.” Wearing a rainbow-striped sequin jacket, Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and state attorney general, was mobbed by supporters who were taking selfies at the table where she was sitting even before she took the stage at the Hyatt Embarcadero. Then, she received a standing ovation. “There’s plenty of evidence, just look at his ‘rap sheet,’” the junior senator from California said, to laughter from the crowd. She recited a litany of what she and many others believe are the president’s harmful policies affecting the LGBTQ community, such as the ban on trans service members. The “tweeter-in-chief,” she added, also has been “silent” in the “deadliest year for trans people,” referring to the deaths so far of 11 black trans women in the U.S. “He’s nominated judges who have called trans children ‘proof of Satan’s plan,’” Harris said. Harris, who as state attorney general refused to defend Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban, in court, recalled the day the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out the ballot measure and she arrived at San Francisco City Hall to marry Sandra Stier and
Rick Gerharter
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris addresses the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club’s Pride breakfast Sunday, June 30.
Kris Perry, the lead plaintiffs in the case to overturn Prop 8. “We will fight to pass the Equality Act,” she said, referring to the federal legislation that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) saw passed in the House in May. It faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate. “I promise you Alice, as president I will fight every day for everything we’ve been fighting for
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for years,” Harris pledged. Aria Sa’id, a black trans woman who’s executive director of the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, was sitting next to Harris at the breakfast. “She’s really sweet,” Sa’id told the Bay Area Reporter in a brief interview afterward. “I am on a high from her keynote speech and the work she’s done to advance equity and equality.” See page 10 >>
Twelve Days of Pianos in the Garden