July 25, 2024 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Sunscreen

advised for Up

Your Alley fair

by John Ferrannini

The Up Your Alley Street Fair is returning to San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood Sunday, July 28.

The fair that caters to the leather and kink communities is run by the Folsom Street nonprofit, which also produces the much larger Folsom Street Fair slated for September 29 this year. Folsom Street Executive Director Angel Adeyoha, who is queer and nonbinary, said this year’s goal is to “build a safe and beautifully-raucous container so people can kick off their leather season with us.”

Up Your Alley will be from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., bound between Howard Street on the north, Harrison Street on the south, Ninth Street on the west and 11th Street on the east. There have been a few changes from prior years, Adeyoha said.

“Our clothing stuff [coat check] on 10th [Street] is moving to Dore [Alley], below Powerhouse, to give them a little more breathing room and safety,” Adeyoha said. “Also the bicycle parking has moved to the top of Dore.”

The fair originally started on Ringold Street in 1985 and moved to being centered at Dore in 1987, which had led to the small alleyway being used as the event’s colloquial nickname by kinksters and BDSM enthusiasts the world over.

Three bars will be serving alcohol outside during the event – Powerhouse, the Eagle and the Foundry. Allowing the local businesses to make the alcohol profits is part of the event’s neighborhood focus.

“We changed our model in 2021 to do a hybrid event permit with ABC [the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control] so we could hold some of the larger pieces like security, sobering, and medical, and the bars can serve under a catering license to give them a crucial boost that, especially post-COVID, has been the thing that has kept their doors open,” they said.

Adeyoha suggested people wear sunscreen. The forecast shows a partly sunny day.

“It’s probably going to be pretty warm – make sure you hydrate. If you didn’t put on sunscreen, a cute member of the Full Queer wrestling team or Fog Rugby can apply it,” Adeyoha said, referring to the San Francisco Fog Rugby Football Club.

Robert Goldfarb, a gay man who is executive director of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District, will be staffing a booth at the fair. Last week,

See page 9 >>

by Cynthia Laird

Within hours of President Joe Biden announcing he was bowing out of the 2024 race and backing Vice President Kamala Harris, the floodgates opened as Democratic officials across the country lined up to endorse her. Harris raised more than $81 million within 24 hours after Biden’s exit from the race.

Harris clears field for presidential bid

Biden, who’s in isolation at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, was unable to attend a White House event honoring the 2023-24 NCAA championship teams Monday. Harris appeared instead and, in her first remarks since Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her, praised his “unmatched legacy.”

“In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who served two terms in office,” Harris said.

Later, Harris visited the former Biden-Harris campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. Signs reading “Harris for President” had replaced most of the “Biden-Harris” signs, according to a pool reporter. The staff have Harris a boisterous reception and also heard from Biden, who phoned in with a message of support for the staff and Harris.

page 8 >>

Palestinians seek accountability, statehood

by John Ferrannini

When asked what he remembers about growing up in Gaza City, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib said that “there was so much beauty amid the death and destruction.”

“It was an incredibly complex place in terms of ideology, political violence, the rise of Hamas, but there was hope with the withdrawal of Israeli settlements,” Alkhatib, 34, told the Bay Area Reporter in a phone interview. “There were sprawling communities, parks and spaces. ... There were so many fond memories and so many awful memories.”

After an Israeli bombing led to deafness in his left ear when he was 11 years old – an attack in which two of his friends were killed – Alkhatib came to the U.S., which he eventually made his home. If that wasn’t enough, just about a week after the onset of fighting of the Israel-Hamas war last year, half his family was killed in an Israeli airstrike, he said.

“I struggle with the trauma of losing family members in this fucking war, yet this is bigger than myself and my family,” he said. “I want to use the trauma of my family members being killed in this war to break away from the cycle of violence, rinse, and repeat.”

Alkhatib was one of several Palestinians the B.A.R. spoke with after a recent press trip to Israel to gauge their thoughts on the war and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All agreed that they want

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to see an independent future for their people – and accountability for the Israeli government.

The June 23-27 trip in which the B.A.R. participated was paid for by the American Middle East Press Association, a nonprofit that states it seeks to serve as “a trusted resource for journalists looking for experts and spokespeople on the current conflict and beyond.” AMEPA brought two American

reporters on the press trip, “Wartime in Israel,” with its counterpart, the Europe Israel Press Association, which itself brought 22 journalists from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Neither organization is funded by the Israeli government, nor was there any preapproval of interview questions, article topics, or requests to view articles before publication.

Gaza war ‘inhumane,’

human rights lawyer says Rauda Morcos, a lesbian Palestinian citizen of Israel, was one of the founders of Aswat, a group for Palestinian lesbians. She’s now a human rights lawyer.

“Since this war started our work has been, of course, increased due to the increased violence toward Palestinians in the West Bank and also inside Israel,” she said in a Signal interview. Morcos added violence in the West Bank had been escalating before October 7.

Indeed, the United Nations reported that over 500 people had been killed in the West Bank since October 7 by Israeli security forces and settlers. In February, President Joe Biden imposed sanctions on “persons undermining peace, security and stability in the West Bank.”

See page 6 >>

Mama Cass tribute

A huge crowd enjoyed last year’s Up Your Alley street fair.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Then-U.S. senator Kamala Harris kicked off her 2020 presidential race in downtown Oakland in January 2019. See

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib grew up in Gaza City.

Courtesy Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib

Supes panel to hear Castro Pride flag landmarking

by John Ferrannini

An ordinance to landmark the late gay artist Gilbert Baker’s oversized rainbow flag installation in the Castro neighborhood without allowing variant or alternative flags at the site will be heard at a committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors next week.

The new ordinance was first introduced by gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman on June 25, just days before the city’s LGBTQ Pride parade.

That followed a meeting of the historic preservation commission in May where it was revealed that under the original ordinance other flags would be allowed to be flown on the flagpole.

“Gilbert Baker’s Rainbow Flag installation at Harvey Milk Plaza is a glorious physical representation of Pride, a political artwork, and an internationally-recognized symbol of queer liberation,” Mandelman stated to the B.A.R. July 23. “It is past time for the installation to win landmark status, and I am looking forward to presenting this landmarking ordinance to the land use committee and the full board.”

Once the matter is heard by the land use committee Monday, July 29, it will be referred to the full board. Mandelman said his goal is to have the supervisors take their first vote July 30. Because it’s an ordinance, it will need to come back to the supervisors for a second vote in early September, after the board’s summer recess.

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, the city’s historic preservation commission unanimously approved landmarking plans in May. But under its proposed ordinance, flags other than the rainbow banner could be flown. During a discussion at their May 15 meeting, the commissioners

A Board of Supervisors committee will hear a proposal to landmark the giant rainbow flag and flagpole that welcome people to the Castro

talked about what procedures would have to be followed for that to happen.

The installation is located inside Harvey Milk Plaza, seen as the front door to the LGBTQ neighborhood.

Mandelman stressed to the B.A.R. that his new ordinance does not allow for that. His intention is to landmark the six-stripe rainbow flag popularized by Baker.

Planning Department staff member Moses Corrette said back in May that some in the community wanted other flags flown from the flagpole from time to time, mentioning the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, and said the original proposed ordinance made a provision for a certificate of appropriateness to allow that to happen.

Cultural district director Tina Aguirre declined a request to comment on that matter in May, but stated they support the landmarking.

Aguirre reiterated to the B.A.R. July 23 that the district is supportive of the

landmarking effort with the change that Mandelman is proposing.

“Our work is to counter measures that erase queer and trans people, places, and culture, especially in the Castro,” Aguirre stated. “While we would have appreciated an opportunity to have the Progressive Pride flown, we acknowledge that Gilbert Baker’s flag plays a key role in the world and remains a powerful signal that San Francisco is a haven for us. We honor Gilbert Baker and the Pride flag.”

The Progress Pride flag refers to a variation of the rainbow flag that includes a chevron of black, brown, light blue, pink, and white stripes that specifically represent people of color and the trans community. It was designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018.

Baker, who died in 2017, had long insisted his flag represented everyone, saying, “what I liked about the rainbow is that it fits all of us. It’s all the colors. It represents all the genders. It represents all the races. It’s the rainbow of humanity.”

As the B.A.R. previously reported, Baker co-created the first rainbow flag with friends Lynn Segerblom, a straight ally who now lives in Southern California, and James McNamara, a gay man who died of AIDS-related complications in 1999. Baker and his friends came up with a rainbow flag design that had eight colored stripes, with one version also sporting a corner section of stars to mimic the design of the American flag. It debuted at the 1978 San Francisco Pride parade.

“It really is a three-person, not a one-person, flag making. Everybody played their part and then some,” Segerblom told the B.A.R. in a 2018 phone interview from her home in Torrance, southwest of Los Angeles.

Baker would go on to eliminate the stars and reduce the number of

colored stripes to six. Over the ensuing years, Baker turned that standard six-color banner into an international symbol of LGBTQ rights.

Baker died unexpectedly in 2017 at the age of 65, and the foundation created in his name donated a segment from one of the first rainbow flags that flew in front of San Francisco City Hall during the 1978 parade to the GLBT Historical Society Museum in the Castro, where it is now on public display.

In 2022, as the B.A.R. previously reported, the Gilbert Baker Foundation had hired architectural historian Shayne Watson, a lesbian who is an expert on the city’s LGBTQ history, to conduct research on how the flagpole came to be as a first step toward declaring it a city landmark.

The foundation’s president, Charley Beal, a gay man, told the B.A.R. July 23 that landmarking the flag is crucial –other municipalities have banned flying the flag on public property amid a backlash to the LGBTQ community in recent years. Two Sunol school board members were recalled this month, partly due to their banning the Pride flag being flown on the grounds of the East Bay school district, as the B.A.R. was first to report online July 18.

“In July alone, five towns across America have banned the rainbow flag,” Beal stated to the B.A.R. “That brings the total bans to over 50. Even worse, a proposed ban on flying the rainbow flag on federal property has been introduced in Congress.

“In the face of this mounting homophobia, it is imperative that the Board of Supervisors and mayor of San Francisco grant immediate landmark status to the Gilbert Baker Rainbow Flag Art Installation at Harvey Milk Plaza,” he added. “It is time to make sure that this beacon of lib-

eration and hope will always fly high above the city in which it was created.”

The Castro Merchants Association is the current custodian of the flag. Terry Asten Bennett, a straight ally who is president of the merchants group, said during the May hearing that it was a personal request made of her by the late Tom Taylor – who’d been the flag’s custodian until his 2020 death but who’d been assisted by the merchants in his final years – that the one six-color oversized rainbow flag be flown at the site 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Baker also intended that his giant banner be the only one flown.

Asten Bennett told the B.A.R. on July 22, “I am very happy to see this moving forward.”

“It is so important that this historic symbol of hope and belonging be preserved,” she stated. “I am proud to be a steward of Gilbert Baker’s rainbow flag. This amazing piece of artwork that Gilbert Baker created for the Castro, San Francisco and the world should be maintained as he intended, a six-color oversized Rainbow Flag flown at full mast 365 days a year.”

The merchants group started a program last year to donate retired oversized flags to nonprofit organizations that have a mission aligned with promoting LGBTQ+ rights and fostering diversity, equality, and inclusivity.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Land Use and Transportation Committee will hear the matter at its meeting Monday, July 29, at 1:30 p.m. at City Hall. That committee consists of District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, chair; District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, vice chair; and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who is District 3 supervisor and a candidate for mayor this year. t

In a 1st, SOMA park named for leatherwoman

by Matthew S. Bajko

With the naming of Rachele Sullivan Park, San Francisco is believed to be the first U.S. city to name a public park after a leather leader. Sullivan played instrumental roles in the establishment of the city’s district celebrating leather and LGBTQ culture and space for women at its leather street fairs.

A cis straight ally and native San Franciscan who was a traditional Filipino healer, Sullivan died in 2022 at the age of 54. On July 18, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission voted 4-0 to christen the planned greenspace at Natoma and 11th streets in her honor.

Having heard from Sullivan’s family and friends, Commissioner Vanita Louie told them she sounded like she was “a very beautiful person.”

Commissioner Joe Hallisy noted that Sullivan didn’t just play an important role in the South of Market community but had “touched so many other neighborhoods in this city” having lived and gone to school in various parts of San Francisco.

“She was a woman of the city,” he said.

While the SOMA park space falls outside the boundaries of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District, whose establishment in 2018 Sullivan had advocated for, it is a short walk away from a leatherthemed public parklet that Sullivan had also supported. Eagle Plaza on a stretch of 12th Street celebrates the local leather scene and is named after the adjacent gay-owned bar that caters to a leather and LGBTQ clientele.

Sullivan also served on the board of Folsom Street, the nonprofit entity that produces the city’s two leather and kink street fairs. She helped launch Venus’ Playground, the women’s space at the Folsom Street Fair held annually in late September, as the Bay Area Reporter had noted in her obituary.

Numerous leather community members, SOMA residents, and local leaders had called on park officials to name the new recreational facility set to be built in 2025 after Sullivan. As the B.A.R.’s Political Notebook reported this week, voters overwhelmingly favored naming the park after Sullivan in several surveys conducted this year.

Manager of policy and public affairs for rec and park Barbara Swan Chami, in her report to the city agency’s oversight body regarding the proposed name, had noted that Sullivan “worked at the intersection of the Disability, Leather, and Filipino communities in the SOMA district and beyond, so it is fitting that her communities have nominated her to be the namesake for the park.”

In urging the rec and park commissioners to adopt the park name at their July 18 meeting, Sullivan’s son, Sebastian, noted his mother dedicated her life to helping various communities, from the Indigenous and Filipino communities to the leather scene.

“She helped a lot of people and she touched the hearts of a lot of people,” he said.

Sullivan’s sister recalled how much their family loved parks and that Sullivan was a “tree hugger.” One of her nieces called Sullivan the “most loving godmother” she could ever have wanted.

Erica Waltemade, with the SOMA West Community Benefit District, led the naming committee for the park. She also noted the various roles Sullivan had played in advocating for SOMA’s various communities.

Due to the “deep community organizing ties and a history of activism” in the SOMA neighborhood, Waltemade pointed out it was clear from the start that the new park should be named after a community member and not, for example, a bird.

“It became pretty obvious she was the right choice for this community,” noted Waltemade to the commissioners.

Speaking to the B.A.R. last week, Bob Goldfarb, a gay man who is executive director of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District, had said the park naming would be “a fitting tribute and a definite honor” for Sullivan.

The district’s manager, Cal Callahan, a gay man who served on the park’s nam-

ing committee, urged the oversight body to affirm it carry Sullivan’s name.

“She knew how to move communities forward,” he said.

Other sites of significance to LGBTQs

The new park site will join more than a dozen public gathering spaces scattered across San Francisco that either memorialize the LGBTQ community or are named after individuals of significance to it. It is also now the third outdoor space with ties to the city’s leather scene.

In addition to the greenspace and nearby plaza there is also the San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley. Located on Ringold Alley between Eighth and Ninth streets parallel to Harrison Street, the roadway features a number of art installations and historical markers honoring leather leaders, nightlife venues and businesses that played a role in the creation of the leather, kink, and LGBTQ scenes in Western SOMA.

It also becomes the ninth public open space or park facility in the city to be named after someone of importance to the LGBTQ community. Three sites honor the late gay Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first out person to hold elected office in San Francisco and the state of California.

In Duboce Park is the Harvey Milk Recreational Arts Center at 50 Scott Street. The building also houses the Harvey Milk Photo Center, which is the oldest and largest community wet darkroom in the U.S., according to the rec and park department.

A short drive away is Harvey Milk Plaza, the public parklet above the Castro Muni Station at the corner of Castro and Market Streets. On the opposite side of the intersection is Jane Warner Plaza on a segment of 17th Street. It is named after a lesbian San Francisco patrol special police officer whose beat included the

historic LGBTQ neighborhood and lost her battle against ovarian cancer in 2010.

At the nearby Eureka Valley Recreation Center on Collingwood Street, the gymnasium is named in honor of Mark Bingham, the gay rugby player who lost his life fighting the hijackers on United Flight 93 during 9/11. The rec center’s outdoor baseball diamond at 19th and Collingwood streets is named in honor of Rikki Streicher, a lesbian who owned several bars catering to queer women in the city beginning in the 1960s.

Streicher also helped to launch the Gay Games. She, too, lost a battle to cancer and died in 1994.

At Corona Heights Park, which overlooks the Castro district, is the Bill Kraus Meadow and Pathway. A gay man and congressional aide, Kraus played an instrumental role in organizing the city’s LGBTQ community politically in the 1970s and 1980s until his death at age 38 in early 1986 after contracting meningitis.

In North Beach can be found Jack Kerouac Alley. The pedestrian walkway that runs between Grant and Columbus avenues honors the bisexual Beat Generation writer who was a frequent visitor to the bohemian neighborhood in the 1950s. Two other sites in the city memorialize LGBTQ people. Pink Triangle Park at Market and 17th streets in the Castro honors those individuals killed during the Holocaust of World War II.

In the city’s Golden Gate Park is the National AIDS Memorial Grove. The federally recognized glen commemorates those killed by the disease.

Construction of Rachelle Sullivan Park is scheduled to begin next summer. Among its features will be a garden area, active use area, play area, and small nature exploration area. Along its main entrance on 11th Street will be a multiuse court, adult fitness area, drinking fountain, dog relief station, and seating for park users. t

LGBTQ neighborhood.

Rick Gerharter

Rachele Sullivan, center, cut the ribbon outside the old Stud bar on June 12, 2018 to celebrate the designation of San Francisco’s Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District.

Liz Highleyman

Member of the Stanford Health Care LGBTQ+ community

At Stanford Health Care, we are pioneering care specifically for the LGBTQ+ community. From preventive wellness to gender-affirming care, including innovative specialized surgical techniques, our LGBTQ+ Health Program sets the standard. We are even home to the first large-scale, long-term national health research study of LGBTQ+ people in the U.S.

Learn more about our LGBTQ+ Health Program at stanfordhealthcare.org/lgbtq

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All in for Kamala Harris

Despite editorializing a few weeks ago about moving beyond President Joe Biden’s bad night at his debate last month with former President Donald Trump, it became clear to us that the changes Biden was making – national TV interviews, the NATO news conference – weren’t working. Democratic political leaders and donors grew increasingly concerned about his ability to seek reelection. Sure, his age had a lot to do with it. But recall that many ordinary voters have long thought Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, were both too old and they didn’t want a rematch of the 2020 election. Trump accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for a third time at its convention last week. Biden was stuck in isolation at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware with COVID. We speculate that the time away from the White House gave Biden time to consider the state of the presidential race.

What Biden did last Sunday – bowing out of his reelection campaign and endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the Democratic nominee – was utter selflessness that will go down in history. Biden has served with distinction. His commitment to the LGBTQ community has been steadfast – and the community has benefitted from it since he took office. But it was time to pass the torch. And he should be commended for recognizing that.

Harris quickly announced that she’s running for president and reportedly spent much of Sunday calling leaders asking for –and receiving – their support.

The sheer excitement generated by these developments has been breathtaking. We know the race will be tough – Harris’ favorability rating is on par with Biden’s – but Democrats across the country have suddenly been energized in a way that was missing previously. Harris has raised over $100 million dollars since Sunday, an extraordinary sum, big donors are back on board, and people are rallying to her side. Biden’s decision to endorse her squelched any possibility of a contested Democratic convention next month in Chicago, which could have gotten messy and divisive. The speed with which elected Democrats raced to support Harris quickly put that idea to rest. At 59, Harris also immediately makes Trump the oldest presidential nominee in history – and he doesn’t like that at all.

Chris Sununu was asked about it by reporter Eugene Daniels and denied it was a tactic – before deliberately mispronouncing her name again. (It’s “COMmah-la,” which sounds like comma-la, not “Camel-a,” “Kuh-MAHL-a,” or “Kuh-MEL-a,” all of which was heard at the GOP convention.)

Harris’ support for the LGBTQ community is real and deep. As state attorney general, she led the effort to restore marriage equality in California. She refused to defend Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban. After Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court (and that decision was upheld by the federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court), Harris officiated the first same-sex marriage in June 2013 at San Francisco City Hall of the Berkeley women who had been part of the historic case. She also had to make a phone call to the Los Angeles County Clerk’s office to tell the staff that they had to marry same-sex couples, the first being the male co-plaintiffs who were also part of the federal lawsuit.

As San Francisco district attorney Harris fought to end the gay/trans-panic defense in criminal trials. (That’s a defense employed when defendants “panic” after discovering someone they likely have been intimate with are gay or trans, freak out as a result because they think that makes them gay or trans, and assault or, more likely, kill them.) Four years ago, she commented on Facebook when New Jersey took a similar step.

would continue many of the policies that she and Biden implemented. Harris has collaborated with Biden to lay a strong foundation for trans Americans, the group noted, including reinforcing protections for transgender youth against discrimination. Lately, Harris has been at her best on the campaign trail when discussing reproductive rights. And since the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago overturned the federal right to abortion an earlier court had established in its Roe v. Wade decision, access to abortion services has been a winning issue for Democrats. Whether it’s state measures to codify that access, which have won, or those that seek to curtail it, which have lost, we know that the majority of Americans want safe access to reproductive services. MAGA men (and women) have worked to derail reproductive freedom with state abortion bans and other legal maneuvers. But when it comes to that issue being on the ballot, Democrats win. That’s what MAGA is afraid of.

It’s more than just LGBTQ issues, however, that compels us to back Harris. The threat of another Trump presidency is so dangerous that it cannot be overstated. It showed in his 90-minute speech at the convention, where he pivoted from the story of the assassination attempt on him July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania to his lies about the 2020 election and his laundry list of other grievances. It showed in his choice of Ohio Senator JD Vance to be his running mate. Vance is a vile character who will do or say anything to kiss up to Trump. Then, of course, there’s Project 2025, which we recently wrote about. The Heritage Foundation’s massive guide for a second Trump administration, Project 2025’s anti-LGBTQ language dehumanizes trans people as a proxy for all LGBTQ people. “Look at America under the ruling and cultural elite today: Inflation is ravaging family budgets, drug overdose deaths continue to escalate, and children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries,” it states.

The Republicans started attacking her during their convention, as they, too, had heard the complaints from Democrats about Biden. One of the most obvious – and racist – was deliberately mispronouncing her name. Republican New Hampshire Governor

We remain

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

If you are not a transgender or nonbinary person,

I want you to take a moment to consider the following: in all of my life, there has never been a time when being transgender has been seen as acceptable, and yet I am – and remain – a trans woman.

I first heard of the existence of trans people when I had a single digit in my age. The moment I first heard about it was on a radio talk show, and voiced by a distraught parent who had just learned their child was trans. The whole notion was that she was a victim, having to deal with the shame of their child taking such a drastic step with their life. At the same time, my parents – also listening to this tale – were experiencing their own fears, discussing how hard that would be on them.

Perhaps they sensed something even then.

In spite of everything, I think of that moment as when I realized there were words to describe how I felt; that being told I was a boy may not mean I always would have to be one.

As I grew older, I began to keep an eye out for any news about transgender people. I noticed that our lives were played out in my mother’s tabloids, portraying us as objects of scorn, or as freaks to be pitied. I saw us discussed on television, mocked on sitcoms, or portrayed as violent monsters in movies. I also noticed that we were an object of lust, portrayed in the tawdry movie houses or the back pages of the dirtier magazines. We were something to keep hidden – and while we could be loved, it was most certainly not romance.

I also watched the mockery of Renee Richards as she fought to be in the U.S. Open as a female tennis player in the 1970s. That’s a battle that we’re still fighting decades later, I might add.

When I started to seek out community, it could only be found in the meeting rooms of hotels where small support groups existed. It played out in clandestine visits to the homes and private stores of others. The notion of anything

“The ‘gay/trans panic’ defense has been used to justify horrific acts of violence against the LGBTQ+ community,” she wrote. “I was proud to help make California the first state to outlaw it when I was San Francisco’s district attorney and am happy to hear New Jersey is following suit.”

As Advocates for Trans Equality noted in its endorsement of Harris this week, her administration

mainstream about our existence was unheard of, as everyone lived in fear of discovery. Lives could be ruined in an instant, everyone made clear through word and deed. We were told not to be seen together in public, that our existence in multiples would only put us at risk.

In the 1990s, we started to press for change. We fought for acceptance among a small pool of allies, struggling to be seen as a part of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual movement, often with mixed success. We created community online, too, but even that often needed to be battled for, or was mostly hidden away behind safe euphemisms and discrete word of mouth.

You might think we’d have just gone away. It was clear that this was a world that did not want us, and all we could dream of was a semblance of a normal life where we might at least be tolerated. That perhaps we would be lucky, and could remain under the radar. Surely, one might think, we could just as easily opt to live in accordance with our supposed “biological reality,” and carve out a living that was far more “traditional” or, dare I say, “normal” in the eyes of those who were not transgender.

Yet in all this, through all the back rooms, all the fights, all the pain and mockery, and harassment, I – and so many

While Trump has tried very hard to distance himself from the document, he cannot. Harris must keep emphasizing it during the campaign. It is an authoritarian blueprint cooked up by Trump’s cronies that would negatively affect all Americans.

Two things the American people can count on in the next 15 weeks are racism and misogyny emanating from the right over Harris. We must not let either of those things detract from the big picture –seeing Harris elected president. t

other transgender people – continued to exist. With all the challenges we faced, we still chose to be ourselves in the only way we could – and the only way we could and still survive. Being transgender was –is – our normal.

I wrote recently about Dora Richter, a trans woman who survived Nazi Germany. I think, too, of those who came out in the decades after her, from Christine Jorgensen, Billy Tipton, and Alan Hart to Wendy Carlos, Michael Dillon, Jan Morris, Lou Sullivan, and countless more. There are even more now who, as we have found each other and built our community, are pushing back, living their lives, and thriving even in a world that can be so toxic to trans people.

Today, we live in a time where anti-transgender and anti-LGBTQ politics are dominating political discourse. A majority of states have passed laws against transgender and nonbinary people in one way or another, from sports bans to bathroom bills. Our stories – no, our very existence – is being written out of schools and libraries. Meanwhile, conservative politicians continue to screech about us as a faceless “ideology” that needs to be crushed out as a great ill of modern society.

These are the people who wish to run the United States after this November, and for some horrific reason actually have a shot at it. These times are bleak – maybe the bleakest.

These are times of great trouble and fear, and many of us may feel they cannot survive all of this. Regrettably, I really do understand. Recognize one thing, however: no matter what they cannot truly stop people from being transgender or nonbinary. We have faced decades of hardship. We faced centuries before that, too – and yet, we remain.

The reason we have carried on is a simple one: we cannot deny who we are, and no amount of hardship piled up on us can stop a trans soul from existing. We cannot all be extinguished, and we shall always live on.

Christine Smith

Kamala Harris addressed the California Democratic Convention in 2019 when she first ran for president.

Rick Gerharter

LGBTQ Californians to represent US at Paris Olympics

by Matthew S. Bajko

Two LGBTQ congressional caucus members from California and a gay Bay Area Olympian will be part of the presidential delegations for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The global athletic competition is to begin Friday with a celebration on and along the banks of the River Seine through the center of the French capital.

First lady Jill Biden will lead the American delegation to the opening ceremony. Among those joining her is figure skating Olympic gold medalist Brian Boitano, who grew up in the South Bay and has long called San Francisco home.

The three-time Olympian came out as gay in late 2013 when he was named to the U.S. delegation for the 2014 Winter Games held in Sochi, Russia. As he told the Associated Press, he did so after being named to it by then-President Barack Obama due to the Olympic host country’s homophobic laws.

“I am excited to share with Jill Biden and the rest of the delegation an event that’s been so important in my life. I feel honored to have been selected to represent two different administrations, Obama in Sochi 2014 and now Biden in Paris 2024,” stated Boitano in an emailed reply to the Bay Area Reporter.

lier this year for defending transgender athletes’ rights to play on sports teams in accordance with their gender identity. Her team won the NCAA women’s basketball championship this year, capping an undefeated season.

Also going is University of South Carolina women’s basketball team head coach Dawn Staley. The three-time Olympic gold medalist in women’s basketball made headlines ear-

Joining Boitano and Staley will be U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, whose city will host the Summer Games in 2028.

LA28 Olympic & Paralympic Games Chairperson Casey Wasserman is also among those making the trip as part of the presidential delegation.

The Golden State’s junior U.S. senator, Laphonza Butler, the first lesbian member of California’s congressional delegation, was named by President Joe Biden on July 22 to the U.S. delegation for the closing ceremonies taking place in Paris on August 11.

Gay Congressmember Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), whose city will host several aquatic sports competitions during the 2028 Olympic Games, also is part of the closing ceremony delegation.

Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff was tapped by Biden to lead it.

“I am honored to join the second gentleman in Paris on behalf of the president as we celebrate the world-class talent of our athletes from the United States,” stated Garcia. “During my time as mayor, we fought to bring the Olympics to Long Beach and Los Angeles in 2028. With multiple events in Long Beach, I’m excited to join the delegation to represent our community and to learn ahead of the next Olympics.”

Joining them will be gay two-time

Olympic gold medalist Briana Scurry She won those medals playing on the U.S. Women’s Soccer team at the 1996 and 2004 Summer Games, and also took home silver at the 2000 Olympics.

According to the LGBTQ sports news site Outsports there are at least 144 LGBTQ athletes competing in this year’s Summer Games.

There are 28 among the U.S. Olympic Team, including Rugby7s team member Stephanie Rovetti, the director of operations for the University of San Diego basketball team.

Others with ties to California include queer soccer player Tierna Davidson who played college soccer for Stanford, where she and her team won an NCAA title, and Nico Young, who grew up in the Ventura County city of Camarillo and is the first out gay man in track and field to represent the U.S. at the Olympics. He will compete in the 10,000-meter race.

They will be able to take advantage of the returning Olympic Pride House for LGBTQ athletes and others attending this year’s quadrennial Summer Games. It first debuted at the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010, and as the B.A.R. reported online last week, the Paris Pride House is the first one officially backed by the International Olympic Committee.

This year’s Pride House opened in mid-June and will be available through September 8, when the 2024 Paralympics in Paris will come to a close. Those competitions begin August 28, and Biden will soon announce the members of the delegations representing the U.S. at the Paralympics opening and closing ceremonies. t

Supe panel delays vote on gay transit board nominee

by Matthew S. Bajko

ASan Francisco supervisors panel

July 22 delayed voting on a gay mayoral nomination to the oversight body for the city’s transportation agency in order for Chinatown leaders to weigh in on the pick. The high-profile commission is currently without Chinese representation on it.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors has also been without an LGBTQ member since last fall. Mike Chen, who serves on and is a former chair of the SFMTA Citizens’ Advisory Council, would provide leadership from both communities.

The Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee at its July 22 meeting took up Chen’s nomination by Mayor London Breed to succeed Lydia So, whom Breed in the spring named to fill a vacancy on the city’s planning commission. No one spoke against Chen being seated on the SFMTA board, nor did the agenda packet include any letters in opposition.

Nonetheless, due to “radio silence” from Chinatown transit advocates on Chen’s nomination, Board President Aaron Peskin asked that the committee postpone voting on the matter in order to allow them to weigh in. In particular, Peskin wanted Chen to speak with the Chinatown Transportation Research and Improvement Project, known as Chinatown TRIP.

“I would like them to weigh in on this,” said Peskin, who as the District 3 supervisor represents the historic Chinese neighborhood in downtown San Francisco.

The Chinatown Community Development Center, which maintains the Chinatown Park and Ride program and provides technical assistance to Chinatown TRIP, did not immediately respond to the Bay Area Reporter’s request for comment Monday regarding Chen’s nomination.

At the hearing, Chen acknowledged that he has not been connected to any Chinatown groups. While raised in a household that spoke Korean and Mandarin, Chen said his language skills are limited, noting “my Cantonese is limited to ordering dim sum.”

And he said his connections are more to Asian groups not solely focused on Chinatown, such as the GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance. He also serves on the board of the Edwin M. Lee Asian Pacific Democratic Club.

See page 6 >>

Three-time Olympic figure skater Brian Boitano will be part of the president’s delegation to the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremonies.

Courtesy Brian Boitano

U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler will join the delegation for the closing ceremonies.

Rick Gerharter

Mike Chen Courtesy the subject

Over 38,000 Palestinians have been killed since the onset of the fighting in Gaza, in addition to between 10,000 and 21,000 missing, over 87,000 wounded, and 1.9 million (90% of the population) displaced. Over half the dead are reportedly women and children.

“It’s inhumane,” Morcos said. “What’s happening in Gaza is inhumane.”

“If I’m seeing what I’m seeing, I can’t think of anything else. I don’t know how the rest of the world can have a normal life,” she said. “It’s only getting worse.”

Morcos, 50, said that “everyone who is Palestinian is subject to violence and subject to genocide just because we are Palestinian, not for any other reason.”

“In such events, you start thinking of children, of women, of the weakest links of society: the most vulnerable ones. These days, I can’t find anyone more or less vulnerable,” Morcos said. “The more Palestinians are killed, the better for this country, and that’s sad.”

Morcos, who lives in Israel, is part of the 21% of the country’s citizens who are Palestinian. But, she said, a crackdown on freedom of speech means “I’m afraid to say what I think.”

“I don’t want to be arrested, because we are in a country with no freedom of expression for Palestinians,” she said.

Indeed, CBS News reported late last year that Israeli students were being suspended for social media posts about the conflict. Another Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, who wanted to remain anonymous, told CBS News she posted stories supporting international protests against the war on her private Instagram account. She was suspended pending a hearing and told she was suspected of supporting terrorism.

In March, police arrested a soccer fan flying a Palestinian flag, Haaretz reported.

When asked about LGBTQ life in the Occupied Territories, Morcos said that the Western LGBTQ community needs to think outside its paradigms and preconceptions.

Morcos said that phrases such as “coming out of the closet,” which came about in the U.S., don’t accurately describe the experience of LGBTQ people worldwide.

“This is a language that is basically agreed upon by a group of people. It doesn’t fit everybody but it’s the language used in your country,” she told the B.A.R.

“The LGBT movement and the revolution in the U.S. worked because it needed something like that,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it will work for everybody, and this is not the case everywhere in the world.”

Morcos also wanted to thank those around the world who’ve protested the war and the occupation of Palestinian land.

This year has seen the most widespread campus unrest in the U.S. in five decades. Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project reports there were 7,283 pro-Palestinian protests globally in just the first six weeks of the conflict.

“I salute student protesters all over the

Transit board

From page 5

“I have a lot of work to do to build trust with people in Chinatown,” said Chen. “I hope that my track record shows I am someone who is a strong listener and will be an advocate. I am willing to be somebody who spends a lot of time to build those relationships.”

District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, serving as rules chair, and District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, its vice chair, voted with Peskin to delay Chen’s nomination. It could be taken up by the committee next Monday, July 29, and heard by the full board at its July 30 meeting ahead of its summer recess. Otherwise, it will be heard in September.

After the hearing Chen told the B.A.R. he will be trying to address the issues raised by the supervisors. It remains to be seen if that can be done ahead of next week.

“I take the supervisors’ concerns very seriously and I am working to address

world and I think student movements have always been strongest around the world,” she said. “I really hope students will also continue to put this against Israel, and that the rest of the LGBT community in the U.S. will join them.”

Aram Ronaldo of the Queer Palestinian Empowerment Network is a queer Palestinian American born in the U.S. who splits time between the Bay Area and New York City. Ronaldo has been involved in pro-Palestinian protests for some time, and said the images of suffering out of Gaza and the increased public visibility of support for Palestinian independence represents a study in contrasts.

“I’ve been involved since I was a kid, but this, what, six months have been crazy,” Ronaldo said. “A giant wave of young people – Gen Z, Zoomers, students –demanding divestment from Israel has changed so much.”

(In addition to a permanent ceasefire in the conflict, protesters want universities and other entities to divest from Israel, which receives billions of dollars in aid from the U.S. government.)

Ronaldo said social media might be to thank for the visibility.

“I don’t know if social media amplified things, but a group of 300 people five to six years ago has now become 1,000 and spread over long distances,” Ronaldo said. “The sheer change of numbers, interest, retweets, has grown so much, but at the cost of a genocidal death toll.”

Ronaldo said one example of this was a rousing “Free Palestine!” chant at the drag show “Reparations” at the Oasis nightclub in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood.

“The all-Black cast, including some ‘RuPaul’ competitors, at the very beginning they were saying ‘Welcome, here’s our goals’ and at the same time ‘Free, free Palestine! Queer, queer Palestine! We’re all on the same page, right?’” Ronaldo recalled. “We weren’t expecting it to be so open.”

Ronaldo’s father was born in Iraq, and his father’s family was originally from Palestine. Due to war and expulsion, there are six million Palestinian refugees worldwide, NPR reported.

Still, Ronaldo has family in the West Bank and Israel, saying that “it’s very difficult to navigate every day and process every day with the news, information and updates from family … but we do what we can.” Visiting has become more difficult, Ronaldo said, as entrances to the West Bank are controlled by Israel.

Ronaldo had a similar sentiment as Morcos about LGBTQ identity and Western perceptions. When asked about assertions LGBTQ people shouldn’t support Palestinian causes or independence,

Ronaldo said, “I think someone who says that has never met a lot of us queer Muslims or been to a country in the Middle East where queer people live and are just used to the San Francisco Pride parade, with everything out of the closet.

“So many of us live without wearing rainbows all the time or being open to everyone we know. That doesn’t mean we should be killed in our communities,” Ronaldo added. “Some people say there’s

those concerns,” he said, “and show that beyond my subject matter expertise, I am able to be a bridge to diverse communities.”

A spokesperson for Breed has yet to respond to the B.A.R.’s request for comment.

In a post on X last Thursday, Breed had written that “Mike brings a deep understanding of our transit challenges & opportunities. I am confident he will work with @SFMTA_Muni to continue to build a safe, efficient & sustainable transit system that serves our neighborhood & helps drive our economy.”

Peskin was filling in as the third rules committee member due to the resignation last week of its former chair, District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen. She stepped down because of a fight with Peskin over his pushing forward a pair of local ballot measures regarding compensation for police officers and firefighters that she had raised fiscal concerns about in committee hearings she held. The supervisors are set to approve them at special meetings Tuesday morning.

no such thing as a queer Muslim, a queer Christian, or a queer Jewish person, but we know better.”

‘Not just a state, but a nation’

Alkhatib, while opposing the war, said that some narratives in the protest movement aren’t helpful.

“Intifada and war are not glorious things people chant on the streets of Western capitals,” he said. (Intifada, Arabic for uprising or to “be shaken,” is used to refer to two uprisings against Israel.)

“This is deadly business. My hearing loss happened during the Second Intifada. Israelis think of Intifada as suicide bombings and it enabled the rise of the rightwing that doesn’t want peace and a twostate solution.”

He said he wants more than a Palestinian state.

“Not just a state, but a nation. I want to build a nation,” he said. “The next war is one of development, evolution, creativity and prosperity to show the world the Palestinian people’s immense talent at creating. The Palestinian people are one of the most successful diaspora groups [and] … helped build large segments of Arab society – teachers, doctors, my dad included. I want us to move the Palestinian narrative of resistance. Resistance is not just armed resistance. Resistance is perseverance. Rejecting hate is resistance. Rejecting violence is a form of resistance.”

Alkhatib came to the U.S. in 2005 initially as part of a high school cultural exchange program. He said he wasn’t allowed back into Gaza when he tried to return, and subsequently applied for political asylum in the U.S.

When asked how his surviving family is doing, he said, “They are doing like shit.”

“They are struggling; they are still alive,” Alkhatib said. “My brother has been displaced a bajillion times. He works for a large medical NGO [nongovernmental organization]. I have two surviving uncles and two surviving aunts and they’ve been displaced; they’ve been wounded. I have cousins – one is paraplegic, one is badly wounded. From the airstrikes we’ve experienced there’s been a fuck ton of family members, extended family members, who’ve been wounded and displaced.”

Alkhatib said that “the killing of my family members is a war crime and I want accountability.”

Peskin and Safaí are both running against Breed in this year’s mayoral race. During Monday’s hearing, they both voiced frustration with the SFMTA, arguing it is lacking when it comes to having proper outreach to the public on its projects, such as ensuring there are Chinese speakers on staff who can converse with non-English speakers in Chinatown or other neighborhoods.

In the case of Chinatown, the community recently voiced anger over a bike lane project it was unaware was in the works. Peskin said he was also taken by surprise about it. Peskin called the bike lane incident an “affront and insult” to the Chinatown community. He added that he “honestly” didn’t know “how it evolved that way.”

Safaí pointed to how the SFMTA handled the installation of the bike lane in the middle of Valencia Street as another recent example of miscommunication between the transit agency and a neighborhood. The pilot project has been divisive from the start, and

When asked what accountability looks like, Alkhatib said that “accountability for Hamas and Israel is acknowledging there’s been unnecessary killing, death and destruction.”

“This has gone beyond going after Hamas, which I understand,” he said. “It’s intertwined with the population, which makes it hard. Still, destroying every fucking hospital and university and saying ‘there’s Hamas everywhere’ as an excuse for mass, wide-scale destruction for Gaza’s infrastructure and people – that’s fucking wrong.”

Alkhatib continued that “this to me wreaks of a war of revenge.”

“I want a detailed investigation of the systematic dehumanization of Palestinians, the deployment of overwhelming firepower, the use of intense munitions, the justifications for blocking people from moving, and restricting access to aid,” he said.

Alkhatib said that he hopes there will be a Palestinian nation alongside Israel with “contiguous sovereignty and control” and without “Iran and nonstate actors pushing regional aspirations.”

“I want an end to the war in Gaza, the release of hostages and a deal,” he said. “In the short term, we need an international peacekeeping force with a limited mandate to separate the Israelis and Palestinians and control the borders in Gaza and potentially in the West Bank down the road to protect against settler violence.”

As for opinion polls showing continued support for Hamas among Palestinians, Alkhatib said, “Don’t fucking for a second believe this trash.”

“Wartime surveys in an undemocratic society,” he scoffed. “Could you imagine being in Gaza and someone asks you what you think about Hamas or Israel for a survey? They’re going to tell you what you want to hear. Amongst themselves, people despise the group [Hamas] and deeply hate it.”

Queering the map

Lucas LaRochelle, a queer, nonbinary and trans digital designer and artist, started the Queering the Map platform in 2017 to collect recollections from anonymous queer people worldwide.

LaRochelle said that following October 7, posts began to circulate rapidly showing “the numerous stories that spoke to the experience and the existence of queer and trans people in Palestine.”

the transit agency is now in talks with area merchants, residents, and bike advocates on replacing it with a bike lane on the side of the roadway.

Chen was asked by both supervisors about improving outreach by the SFMTA.

“I hear many complaints about outreach,” Chen said in his capacity as a member of the agency’s community advisory panel. “I agree with you the agency can do a lot more on outreach.”

Should he be confirmed, Chen pledged it would be a priority for him.

“The process doesn’t seem to be working,” he acknowledged.

Chen, 33, is a data engineer at Coda Project Inc. He and his boyfriend live in a one-car household in Lower Pacific Heights along the Van Ness corridor.

A member of the SFMTA Citizens’ Advisory Council since January 2020, Chen highlighted his role as a transit advocate during his successful campaign for a seat on the Democratic County Central Committee on the March 5 primary ballot. He then was

Submissions from Gaza paint a picture of people living in the war zone.

One user dropped a pin and wrote “a place where I kissed my first crash [sic].”

“Being gay in Gaza is hard but somehow it was fun,” the writer continued. “I made out with a lot of boys in my neighborhood. I thought everyone is gay to some level.”

Anyone can post, but the posts are “moderated by a global network who screen the posts for breaches of anonymity,” LaRochelle said.

LaRochelle said that the stories function “differently in terms of what they reveal.”

“There are stories of love and connection,” LaRochelle said. “There are stories of desire and heartbreak, and there are stories of violence at the hands of the ongoing Israeli occupation and genocide, so rather than there being one story that can represent them all, I think what is important about the project is that it holds many stories that speak to myriad angles of experience.”

The stories express the human toll of the conflict.

“The place where you died, even though we were only pen pals,” one person wrote next to a pin they dropped on the map. “I love you to my core, 5 years of best friendship. Ahmad died of the airstrike, you died of heartbreak. Khalid, I love you, I loved the way you came out to me, how I came out to you, how you introduced Ahmad as your boyfriend, I wanted to share your hurts with me, but we’re seas apart, I’ll free Palestine just for your eyes. I hope you rest well in heaven, kiss Ahmad all you want, and be very happy, in this life or another I’ll follow you, and we can unite, I love you Icarus and beyond.”

Another wrote that they didn’t know “how long I will live so I just want this to be my memory here before I die.”

“I am not going to leave my home, come what may,” they wrote. “My biggest regret is not kissing this one guy. He died two days back. We had told how much we like each other and I was too shy to kiss last time. He died in the bombing. I think a big part of me died too. And soon I will be dead. To younus, i will kiss you in heaven.” t

[Editor’s note: This is the second of three articles from reporter John Ferrannini’s recent trip to Israel.]

elevated to the role of director of internal operations for the governing body of the San Francisco Democratic Party.

The DCCC members are set to vote on supporting Chen’s SFMTA board nomination at their July 24 meeting, as the B.A.R.’s online Political Notes column reported.

The Rules Committee members can choose to support seating Chen on the SFMTA board, vote to reject his nomination, or move it forward to the full board without a recommendation. He needs at least six votes from the 11 supervisors to be confirmed.

So’s term on the SFMTA was to end March 1, so Chen would need to be reappointed next year to a full four-year term should he join the transit board. So had endorsed Breed’s selection of Chen to succeed her on the board, noting she was “delighted” in seeing him continue “representation from the Chinese and AANHPI community,” using the acronym for the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander community.t

Aram Ronaldo is with the Queer Palestinian Empowerment Network.

Rauda Morcos is a lesbian Palestinian who lives in Israel.

Courtesy Aram Ronaldo

Courtesy Rauda Morcos

LGBTQ social media platforms center connection

by JL Odom

A gay man living in a rural area has recently come out of the closet and is looking for LGBTQ friends; a lesbian has moved to a new city where she hopes to find a local queer femme social group; a nonbinary person has started hormone replacement therapy and wants to share the changes they’re undergoing with others.

For these individuals, LGBTQcentered social media platforms can be a lifeline in terms of offering the types of community connections they’re seeking – particularly if they involve safe, supportive interactions with community members and allies.

“It is so important for folks to be able to connect with each other safely and to not be subjected to hate and harassment or suppression of our content,” noted Jenni Olson, GLAAD’s senior director of its Social Media Safety Program, in a Zoom video chat with the Bay Area Reporter.

Two queer-founded and -focused apps, Lex and TRACE, have LGBTQ users in mind when it comes to their platforms’ aims, features, and community guidelines.

“[Regarding] things that are coming from the community, it makes a lot of sense that that’s going to be, generally speaking, a safer place for us,” said Olson, a lesbian and longtime filmmaker who lives in the Bay Area.

“With Lex in particular, I think it’s just really exciting to try to have our own spaces where there’s the sense of safety and meeting everyone’s needs,” she added.

Lex, short for “lexicon,” launched in December 2019. It has been a goto, and growing, LGBTQ community hub ever since, reaching one million downloads as of the first week of July. It is free to download.

“Queer lexicon is so important, and the words that we use to describe ourselves are really important identifiers and really important for people to articulate themselves. So we just loved the focus on language, that more intentional connection,” said co-founder and CEO Jennifer Rhiannon Lewis in a phone interview with the B.A.R.

Lex was initially more of a datingand hookup-oriented app, with users writing and posting personal ads much like those in “On Our Backs,” the lesbian erotica magazine in circulation from 1984 to 2006.

Lewis, who is queer, said, “On the back page of these magazines, they had personal ads that people would write in who they were and what they’re looking for. And Kel [Rakowski], my co-founder, was really inspired by those.”

May 18, 1960 – July 6, 2024

Michael Wangeman passed away on July 6, 2024. He was preceded in death by his stepmother, Anne Wangeman; his nephew, George Vochatzer; and his great-nephew, Nick Verner. Michael leaves behind his father, Jim Wangeman; his mother and stepfather, Sharon and Ardell McCombs; and his four sisters and brothers-in-law: Lori Swehla (Lary), Carrie Reginato (Lance), Mary Becerra (Ray), and Heidi Halleran (Dave). He is also survived by many beloved nieces, nephews, and friends.

Michael had a unique gift for making everyone feel special, as if each person was his favorite.

He graduated from San Jose State University and began his career in the

In 2023, Lex raised $5.6 million in seed funding, as reported by TechCrunch.

The app has since undergone a design and features revamping, coupled with a transition into a more community-finding and -building space, including a “Group Explore” section, with categories such as “art,” “social impact, “sports & gym” and “outdoors.” Users can create posts and use the chat feature to connect with queer people and groups, with writing still being a key form of communication on the app.

On Lex’s website, it states, “Explore what’s happening in your local LGBTQ+ community. Join a queer trivia group, attend a T4T [trans for trans] tea party, or meet up with a new friend for a skate sesh. There’s a thriving queer community all around you, and now you know where to find it.”

“We talk about ourselves as being the social app for the LGBT community. … Helping other people find the community is really the number one [aim] that we’re trying to address,” said Lewis.

While the goal, Lewis said, is “to very much build a tech app that we really want,” she and the Lex team, remote but primarily based in New York City, seek for the app to have an effect that extends beyond smartphone and tablet screens.

“We believe in the idea of tech and social media to connect with the offline world. Our ideal user case is, someone goes on the app, they use it for less than 10 minutes, they find a connection, and they go out and meet someone in real life or they have a good, positive interaction. We don’t want to keep people hooked to a digital space,” she said. While local queer bars are a typi-

financial industry before transitioning to web design, where he was celebrated for his creativity and talent.

For nearly 40 years, Michael lived in San Francisco, actively contributing to various charitable organizations and efforts to clean up the Haight-Ashbury district. He raised significant funds for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation by participating in the AIDS/LifeCycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles five times.

Michael was a proud gay man who embraced his identity with courage and strength. His authenticity and kindness touched the lives of all who knew him, and his memory will forever live in their hearts.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (sfaf.org). Michael will be deeply missed by his family, friends, and all who had the privilege of knowing him.

Rest in peace, Michael. Your light will continue to shine brightly in our hearts forever.

cal meetup spot for the LGBTQ community, Lex supports its users’ scheduling of social events in nonqueer-specific locations, such as when getting together in-person for a sports game or practice.

“You could go to a basketball court and you could kind of queer that space just by showing up with members of the community. Our goal with Lex is to allow people to create those queer safe spaces wherever they are in the world through the power of community,” said Lewis.

For users, Lex offers an opportunity to expand their queer circles and feel a sense of belonging.

“This app has brought me so much: new friends, great experiences I wouldn’t have known about otherwise, even a bass player for my queer band!” wrote Lex user “Richelle.Gee” in an Apple App Store review of Lex.

“I like Lex because it makes me feel a little more connected to other LGBT people. I have never really felt at home in the gay community, so the app is a nice space where I can sort of begin to do so,” wrote Lex user “medialover1979” in another review.

TRACE

TRACE is another app geared toward the LGBTQ community – and specifically trans and nonbinary

people. Founder Aydian Dowling, a trans man, was looking to make a dent – a positive and inclusive one – in a landscape ripe with transphobia.

“We were mostly inspired by the fact that it just felt like every day you’d wake up, go straight to your phone, and all you saw was anti-trans rhetoric and people being transphobic, and it was like, ‘We need a place that doesn’t have all of those things,’” said Dowling, TRACE’s CEO, in a phone interview with the B.A.R.

The idea was to create an alternate social media platform where trans and nonbinary individuals could safely document their gender transition and share their experiences and milestones with a supportive community. Dowling and co-founders Elizabeth Rhodes, an ally, and Taylor Greene, a trans man, did just that, with the TRACE app officially launching in July 2022. Its investors include Gaingels, Hopelab, gener8tor, and a private angel funder.  TRACE is free to use. The new feature, TRACE+, costs $4.99 per month after a free two-week trial period.

“We’re a startup and we have gone back and forth over the last four years of being full-time doing TRACE and then running out of money and being like, ‘Okay, we have to go get jobs’ and then going

back, so I think just recognizing that this is something that’s made by trans people, for trans people. And when you support the app that’s supporting the community,” Dowling said.

Like Lex, TRACE is remotebased, though Madison, Wisconsin is “kind of where everything started,” explained Dowling. The app currently has somewhere around 12,000 users, many of whom are “Tracers,” meaning that they are using the app to share information about, as well as celebrate, their transition via images, videos, and written content. Other TRACE users are “allies” – individuals who follow and support Tracers’ transitions.

“When we made [the app], we really went back and forth, like, ‘Do we have trans and nonbinary and gender diverse people only? Do we allow allies? But at the end of the day, what we really wanted to do was allow our allies to join in this journey for their transitioning loved one,” said Dowling.

“If allies have a positive place to share and connect with each other about what they’re going through and take some of that burden off of the trans person, we really felt that is going to benefit trans and nonbinary people as well in their transition,” he added.

Dowling and the TRACE team released a new component in the app, TRACE+, in June. It offers voice and emotion tracking as well as incentives related to users’ HRT (and other transition-related) reminders.

“There’s some rewards after you have different streaks of completing reminders, as well as being able to document within each reminder,” explained Dowling. “So, if you take estrogen every day, you can gauge emotionally, ‘How do I feel today? Anything that I should keep track of for the day?’ and then be able to kind of look back and notice trends for yourself and for your body, if there are any.”

TRACE users – both Tracers and allies – are on board with the app’s intentions and offerings.

“Been on this app since beta and I love it. There’s dark times in the world and [in] America right now and we need community more than ever. I’m so glad I don’t have to scroll for hours through Instagram any-

Queer people of color lie on the ground in this promotional photo for the Lex app.

Em Gallagher

J. Michael Wangeman

Harris, 59, is a Bay Area native who grew up in Oakland. She got her start in elected office as San Francisco district attorney, later successfully running for state attorney general then for U.S. senator. Her own presidential bid in 2020 started off strong, but she ended up dropping out of the race before the Iowa caucuses. Biden then selected her to be his vice presidential running mate.

If elected, Harris would be the first woman president, the second Black president, and the first South Asian U.S. leader. Harris’ late mother was a Tamil Indian while her father is a Jamaican American.

Since Sunday, Harris has received endorsements from all of the politicians that have been mentioned in recent weeks as possible Democratic presidential candidates. The chatter among Democrats for Biden, 81, to withdraw started almost immediately after the president’s disastrous June 27 debate performance against former President Donald Trump, who last week was formally nominated for a third time as the GOP’s presidential candidate. In the debate, Biden appeared tired, gave unclear answers at times, and stared into space.

By Monday, she had received enough verbal commitments from Democratic delegates to clinch the nomination.

At 78, Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in history.

As the Bay Area Reporter noted online Sunday, Biden announced his decision to end his reelection bid with a statement on X posted at 10:46 a.m., with the seconds reflecting his being the country’s 46th president. He wrote, “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.”

A few minutes after that statement,

Social media

more to find all my transition info!” wrote TRACE user “adhdalex” under “Ratings & Reviews” in Apple’s App Store app.

“Joining this app has allowed me the opportunity to keep track of my friends’ transitions as well as connect to the beautiful community of trans and nonbinary folks. Connecting with others around transition has taught me so much about my own allyship and the real experiences of those who transition. Would highly recommend for anyone who is looking for better ways to support their friends and loved ones,” wrote TRACE user “erhodes87” in the App Store’s Ratings & Reviews.

Social media safety

Apps like TRACE and Lex exist as alternatives to major social media platforms where anti-LGBTQ content and other issues that negatively impact queer people are widespread, continual, and unregulated.

GLAAD’s Olson is all too familiar with the failures of the social media industry when it comes to LGBTQ safety and inclusion.

“It’s interesting,” said Olson. “With some of them, it’s like, ‘Do they have a prohibition against hate speech on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity?’ Yes, they do. They all have that; they all get full credit on that. That’s great. But then, do they have a policy against the targeted misgendering and deadnaming of trans folks or against conversion therapy content? Do they publicly state that they don’t target people with ads on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity?”

“These are best practices and policies that they should have,” Olson emphasized.

Olson oversees GLAAD’s Social Media Safety Index, or SMSI, a comprehensive annual report on the current climate in social media platforms for the LGBTQ community. The SMSI, the first of which was pub-

Biden posted on X that he’s endorsing Harris to replace him as the Democratic presidential nominee. “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he wrote. “Democrats – it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”

The party holds its convention beginning August 19 in Chicago. Biden has been isolating at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware since being diagnosed with COVID July 17.

Before Biden’s dramatic announcement, several Democrats had been mentioned as possible presidential candidates. They include Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, JB Pritzker of Illinois, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gavin Newsom of California, Wes Moore of Maryland, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. By Monday morning, all had endorsed Harris for president.

Newsom, thought to have his own presidential ambitions at some point, made it clear he was supporting his fellow Californian this time around.

“With our democracy at stake and our future on the line, no one is better to prosecute the case against Donald Trump’s dark vision and guide our country in a healthier direction than America’s Vice President, @kamalaharris,” the governor stated on X.

Gay Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who, along with Harris, ran for president in 2020, also endorsed the vice president.

Harris and Buttigieg had appeared together at a campaign fundraiser in Provincetown, Massachusetts last Saturday, just hours before Biden announced his decision. The event was attended by more than 800 people and raised over $2 million. Celebrities on hand included actors Jennifer Coolidge, Billy Porter, and Darren Criss.

lished in 2021, provides insight into aspects such as LGBTQ discrimination and harassment, restrictions on self-expression and privacy issues on six major social media outlets – TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, and X – and rates them using a “platform scorecard.” The aim of the SMSI is to assess the platforms’ policies and provide recommendations for improvement.

Olson noted that the SMSI examines the policies themselves – their existence or the lack thereof – and best practices, as opposed to the platforms’ own policy enforcement.

In the “2024 Social Media Safety Index,” released in March, five out of the six social media platforms evaluated received the platform scorecard rating of “F;” one fared better, but only slightly, with a D+ (TikTok). It’s a report card that no student would want to take home to show their parents.

Olson said that the platforms had made some improvements since last year’s report, but not enough to raise the low scores.

“I try to have some optimism that it is possible that they can be better. We just have to maintain the pressure on them. And it’s a very big job and it can seem very hopeless at times. But that is what we do, and it’s what GLAAD historically has done in all these other realms as well,” said Olson, noting the organization’s similar work in television and journalism.

Last month, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Ph.D., wrote an essay on the harmful effects of social media on youth, calling for a social media health warning label similar to those carried on tobacco products.

(Congress would have to pass legislation for any such label to be implemented, but Murthy’s statements have started a conversation. Citing the dangers of social media for children, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the country, recently adopted a policy banning cellphones on campuses, for example.) Olson said that

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) is backing Harris. In a post on X, he noted he was at her kickoff in 2019 for the 2020 race. “This time we’re sending her all the way. Let’s go,” he wrote.

Notably, Congressmember Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and former President Barack Obama initially praised Biden’s decision to leave the race but stopped short of backing Harris. Pelosi and Obama had been among those gently nudging Biden to withdraw. Monday morning, Pelosi endorsed Harris.

“I have full confidence she will lead us to victory in November,” Pelosi stated. Harris has also secured backing from hundreds of Democratic Congressmembers and senators. California’s two senators, Laphonza Butler and Alex Padilla, have endorsed her. Gay Congressmember Mark Takano (D-Riverside), announced his support, as did Congressmember Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who is running for the Senate seat currently held by Butler. (Newsom appointed Butler to the Senate after the death last year of Dianne Feinstein and Butler opted not to

while the warning label idea is “gesturing toward the problem” at hand, its framing as “for youth” is an issue. “There needs to be regulatory oversight of these companies to make their products safe for everyone, not just for young people. … You can’t overstate the importance of that, and there is absolutely no reason that that should not be what we’re trying to make happen,” she said.

She noted that the label could have negative consequences, in particular, for LGBTQ youth.

“The whole thing has this quality of a moral panic about it – that somehow we have to keep young people safe by restricting their access to things in ways that just don’t bode well for LGBTQ youth,” Olson said. “It’s just not the right tool for the problem. The tool, or the solution, should be things that make the platforms safer for everyone, like stronger data privacy. I share the frustration of the surgeon general and everyone that it should not be like this, but I don’t think that that’s the right approach.”

Guidelines are key

For Dowling and Lewis, having clear, accessible community guidelines in place for users is essential for LGBTQ safety.

5 points in Virginia, a state where Biden was ahead by only a razor-thin margin, the paper reported. There is also Harris’ failed 2020 presidential race. That campaign became chaotic as Harris delivered muddled messages. She was seen as progressive on some issues, but more progressive voters couldn’t get over that she was a former prosecutor.

seek a full term.) Congressmember Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), who lost to Schiff in the March primary for the Senate seat, endorsed Harris.

Tough race

While Democrats are quickly coalescing around Harris, polling suggests the November race will be tough. Five of the six battleground states – Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada – have had Trump leading, while it’s close in Wisconsin, where the GOP just had its convention. The New York Times reported in a TrumpHarris matchup, the former president leads by two points nationally, 48% to 46%. The paper reported it’s a one-point improvement over Biden versus Trump. But presidents are elected based on state Electoral Colleges, which is why state polling is more relevant.

In a swing state poll taken before the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump and before Biden dropped out, in a hypothetical matchup between Trump and Harris, she was down by only one point in Pennsylvania and led Trump by

“We try to call out our guidelines within the signup process, and then we have it repeated within the ‘About’ [section],” said Dowling. He said that the majority of TRACE users adhere to the guidelines.

“I think that the spirit of TRACE is, people know why they’re there. They’re looking to either document and share their milestones of their transition and/or connect with other trans or nonbinary folks or allies to get support throughout their personal journey. And we find that 99% of the time, people are doing exactly that,” Dowling commented.

Lewis explained that users of the Lex app are encouraged to read through its community guidelines to understand user expectations and help foster a sense of community wherein people are “able to express themselves.”

The guidelines are ever-evolving based on users’ self-submitted reports and the Lex team’s daily review of posts, content, and other data.

“The community guidelines are really important to us. [They’re] certainly something that we spend a lot of time and energy on to ensure that we can build a space where everyone can be supported,” said Lewis.

When they do come across an instance of a community guideline

One of her first acts as San Francisco district attorney, which is almost certain to be used against her by Republicans should she be the presidential nominee, is her decision not to seek the death penalty against David Hill, a gang member who gunned down San Francisco Police officer Isaac Espinoza in 2004. Hill was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Harris had campaigned on a platform against capital punishment, but Espinoza’s family was angered by her decision, as were some political leaders, such as the late senator Feinstein. At the same time, legal experts doubted a San Francisco jury would return a death sentence, as SF Gate reported.

In 2019, California instituted a moratorium on capital punishment that remains in place.

Bright spots

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Harris has been an outspoken advocate of reproductive fights, which has been a winning issue for Democrats at the ballot box. So far, four states have had initiatives on the ballot to protect access to the procedure and those have all passed, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Two other states had initiatives on the ballot to curtail access and those both failed. This November could see as many as 11 states have abortion-related measures on the ballot, KFF noted, t

breach, they directly reach out to the user and explain which guideline they’ve crossed, seeking to educate them and prevent further guideline breaches rather than outright ban the person. But, if the person continues to disregard the guidelines, the account is removed to “protect the safety of the whole community.”

“It can be very emotional work sometimes,” shared Lewis. “But we have a set language and guidelines of how we deal with them and a lot of set responses.”

“Our approach is that we do not want to just penalize people, but help create the community that we want to exist, and we believe that we do that by having a conversation,” she said.

For more information about Lex, go to lex.lgbt; for information about TRACE, go to thetrace.app. For information about GLAAD’s latest Social Media Safety Index, go to glaad.org/smsi/social-media-safety-index-2024/ t

This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris held a rally on the steps of San Francisco City Hall July 22 to support her bid for president.

Jack Persons

Lex co-founder and CEO Jennifer Rhiannon Lewis

Courtesy Jennifer Rhiannon

GLAAD’s Jenni Olson

Lauren Tabak TRACE co-founder Aydian Dowling

Elizabeth Rhodes

by David-Elijah Nahmod

Ahalf century after her tragic early death at age 32, Mama Cass Elliot remains a legendary figure in popular music. In the 1960s she rose to national and international prominence as one of the singers in the popular folk-rock group The Mamas and the Papas.

When that group disbanded, she bounced back with a successful solo career. Her bestknown solo number, “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” became a standard, assuring her place in music history. In 1998 Elliot was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her work with the Mamas and the Papas.

On July 29, the 50th anniversary of Elliot’s passing, Oasis will present a Mama Cass Tribute Cabaret, an evening of song hosted by Ruby Vixen and Leigh Crow. In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Vixen spoke of what Mama Cass means to her.

“To me she is both the possibilities and reality of living as an entertainer who happens to be a fat woman,” Vixen said. “When Cass was on stage, she was impossible to ignore, perfectly larger than life,

have made progress towards simply accepting the fact that talented, gorgeous, impossible to ignore fat women, and people of all genders, belong on stage. That is to say, sometimes it feels like we need her now more than ever.”

Vixen said that Cass’ music lives on because

Attendees of the Mama Cass

can expect to see and hear a really fun one-night

Los Angeles Blade covers Los Angeles and California news, politics, opinion, arts and entertainment and features

able and beautiful in the wildest outfits. I see her style as psychedelic drag.”

Guest talents

Tribute Cabaret

musical “Club Inferno.” Vixen and Crow also frequently perform in the Country band Velvetta. For the Cass show, Ben Prince will perform on the piano, backed up by a live band. Also performing in the show is rising star singer/songwriter Carly Ozard.

Leigh Crow and Ruby Vixen in a recent performance

Ruby Vixen & Leigh Crow host the cabaret night

Mama Cass tribute at Oasis

DJ David Mancuso

Gloria Gaynor in the 1970s

Sylvester performing

‘The Girl from the North Country’

by Jim Gladstone

I

f there’s one thing that’s kept people from appreciating the literary voice of Bob Dylan, it’s the literal voice of Bob Dylan. As expressive as it may be, the Nobel Laureate’s rusty hinge of an instrument has held the door shut on many potential admirers of his melodic poetry.

“The Girl from the North Country,” on a national tour that begins a threeweek run at the Golden Theatre on July 30, can help change that.

The Tony-nominated musical, with book and direction by Irish playwright Conor McPherson (“The Weir,” “Shining City”) is more jigsaw than jukebox, interlocking 28 Dylan songs with the stories of over a dozen characters assembled in a Minnesota boarding house amidst the great Depression.

McPherson connects Dylan’s songs to his narrative and dialogue in an unorthodox manner that’s simultaneously essential and ephemeral. Rather than conventionally advancing the story, the musical numbers illuminate it, as if projecting the rough-hewn characters’ unarticulated inner souls from within.

The lyrics’ link to the dialogue is oblique, but undeniably resonant. And the singing, more Broadway than hootenanny, is gorgeous. The cast’s vocal talent and the lushly textured arrangements by Simon usher audiences toward fresh admiration of Dylan’s songcraft.

Dream show

“This is a show for audiences that like to go to the theater and then go talk about it afterwards,” said cast member Ali Regan in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “It’s not about settling back and just being entertained. You need to lean in and pay attention.

“When I’ve been out and about in cities where we’re touring, I’ve met people who have already seen the show and the thing I’ve heard from them a lot –and which I love– is, ‘We weren’t sure what to think about the show when it was over. After we got home, we started talking about it. And

then we couldn’t stop talking about it.”

A fellow cast member, Aidan Wharton –whose older brother, Quinn, danced with the San Francisco Ballet from 2005 to 2012– said, “This is the kind of musical I always dreamed about doing. But given the way I look, I tend to get cast in more happy, shiny old-fashioned shows.”

(He’s a strapping 6’ 2” and had a featured role in the movie “Fire Island.”)

“I love things like ‘Cabaret,’ ‘Assassins,’ and ‘Floyd Collins’ that are deep and complex and kind of play-esque, so this is perfect for me. It’s a show for people who are ready to be surprised by a piece

<< Theater

A fresh listen of Bob Dylan’s songs

of theater. There are lots of mysteries within it, and that’s very intentional.”

Neither Wharton nor Regan, both queer Gen Zers, had much exposure to Bob Dylan’s music prior to auditioning for “The Girl from the North Country.”

“I grew up in a small town on the Big Island of Hawaii,” said Wharton. “My parents weren’t particularly into music, and I didn’t have much access to much other than what was on the radio. I was really a pop girl, into Gaga and Katy Perry. I think I was introduced to Dylan through ‘Battlestar Galactica’ on TV, which used ‘All Along the Watchtower.’ And I knew ‘The Times They are A-Changing from the original ‘Watchmen’ movie, which I was really into.”

Despite being an aspiring singersongwriter herself, Regan’s familiarity with Dylan was also negligible.

“I grew up with a lot of jazz in the house,” she said. “So, I remember listening to Sarah Vaugh and all the great female vocalists. I knew I wanted to do musical theater from a very young age,” she said, recalling singing endless renditions of “Tomorrow” from “Annie” accompanied by the karaoke machine in her family’s basement.

The first pop music performer Regan saw in concert was KT Tunstall who, coincidentally, has covered several Dylan songs including “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Simple Twist of Fate.”

Ari Shapiro

by Jim Gladstone

“The ability to cross boundaries of identity is something I value and that I’m grateful for,” says Ari Shapiro.

The shapeshifting Shapiro, best known as a co-host of National Public Radio’s flagship newscast “All Things Considered,” will vividly demonstrate both his values and the skills required to live up to them in upcoming appearances at the California Theatre in San Jose, on August 7, and the Curran in San Francisco, on August 8.

In a polymathic program titled “Thank You for Listening,” Shapiro, who complements his radio duties touring the world as a singer with eclectic Portland-based band Pink Martini, will perform musical numbers and tell stories inspired by his 2023 memoir, “The Best Strangers in the World.”

“I’ve always loved being able to walk between worlds and be out of my comfort zone,” said Shapiro in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

Spending his early childhood as one of the few Jews in Fargo, North Dakota and being the first out queer student in his Portland, Oregon high school primed the pump for Shapiro’s fluid movement through diverse professional and personal pursuits as an adult.

Dissolving divisions

As a journalist, Shapiro, 45, who began working at NPR as an intern in 2000 after graduating from Yale, is suspicious of what he considers artificial distinctions between “hard news” and “softer” feature stories.

He’s as passionate about interviewing writers and performers as he is about “covering Trump rallies, war zones, and presidential elections on the other side of the world.”

“I think the most important thing for a journalist is curiosity,” Shapiro said. “And that’s what informs my decisions to go places where I might not immediately feel comfortable, or like I belong. I’m curious about the people who are comfortable and do feel like they belong in those spaces. And maybe over the course of going there. I eventually find a greater sense of belonging, or at least commonality, than I expected to when I began.”

The same open-minded adventurousness that characterizes Shapiro’s

“But I can’t say I was really familiar with Dylan until I auditioned for this show,” she said. “I don’t think that’s what Conor was looking for, though. My sense is that he was looking for performers who could really feel a connection with the songs.

“It makes me giggle sometimes when a Dylan fan who comes to the show tells me that they were able understand lyrics they’d never really heard before.”t

‘The Girl from the North Country,’ through August 18. $49-$150. Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St. www.broadwaysf.com

shares memoirs and music

wide-ranging radio coverage and dedicated pursuit of his sideline singing career (A large proportion of his vacation time is spent on Pink Martini tours), also informs his participation in queer life.

In his memoir, Shapiro shares anecdotes that show him equally at home frolicking with Radical Faeries in rural Tennessee, volunteering as a board member for a queer youth organization, and spending weekends with Manhattan power gays on Fire Island. He paints a charming picture of domestic life with his husband and in Washington, D.C. along with recounting nights of dancing and drinking in locales as different as Orlando, Florida and the Greek Islands.

“I’m hardly the only person who can show up to work in a suit and tie and then hang out in shorts and a tank top on the weekend,” Shapiro said modestly. “But what is the LGBTQ community doing if we erect walls and barriers between those spaces? Part of what we’ve always fought for is inclusiveness.”

Morphing across media

While happy to ignore societal siloes that feel arbitrary or unnecessary, Shapiro savors the nuanced differences in crafting work for different media.

“So often, the notes I would get from my editor on drafts of my memoir

would amount to, ‘I want more of you in this.’ After more than 20 years writing stories where I was not the center of attention, I had to become comfortable with putting myself at the center.”

“The other big difference is that writing for the ear and writing for the eyes are different skills. When you’re writing for the eye, you know the reader can pause and linger and come back to reread a sentence. For radio, I write in short declarative sentences, without subordinate clauses.

Some of the same core content went through further alteration as Shapiro developed his new theater show.

“When I started working on ‘Thank You for Listening’, I thought of it as a stage adaptation of stories from my memoir,” he said. “A stage performance is a collective experience. Something that draws me to live theater and music is that they’re communal. Whatever emotions we’re feeling, we’re feeling them together, in the same room at the same time. I’ve always loved that as an audience member, and I love it as a performer.”t

Ari Shapiro’s ‘Thank You for Listening,’ August 7. $49-$155. California Theatre, 345 S. First St., San Jose. sanjosetheaters.org August 8. $46.50-$195. Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St. www.broadwaysf.com

Ari Shapiro

Joshua Going Photo

Aidan Wharton and the cast of ‘The Girl from the North Country’

Matt Murphy/MurphyMade

Actor Ali Regan

Kathya Alexander’s ‘Keep A’Livin’

by Laura Moreno

“Keep A’Livin’” is the story of 12-year-old Mandy Anderson and her mother Belle in the rural South during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Kathya Alexander’s insightful new novel was recently released by the feminist press Aunt Lute Books in San Francisco.

The opening pages brilliantly frame Belle’s story as that of a modern-day Job, faithful to God despite enormous suffering. The story is an incredible journey of healing that strives to transcend the trauma of their mixed-race ancestors as well.

Kathya Alexander served as Writer-in-Residence at Hedgebrook Writer’s Retreat and won the Fringe First Award for “Black to My Roots: African American Tales from the Head and the Heart” in Edinburgh, Scotland among other awards. Her previous book is “Angel in The Outhouse.”

The story in “Keep A’Livin’” begins on July 4, 1963, her mother’s birthday, in the small town of Uz, Arkansas.

Told through the eyes of Mandy, a queer Black student, the book is written in syncopated verse that transports the reader back in time to the sweltering, confusing world of the South in the 1960s. Her mother must make

the biscuits for her employer on a hot summer morning, raising the temperature of the house to unbearable levels, instead of enjoying the day off to celebrate, an irony not lost on the young girl.

A work of historical fiction, “Keep A’Livin’” is distinctive in that it can also be considered an oral history of sorts because it captures the local dialect and interpersonal relations within the family, church and community.

Kathya Alexander triumphs in bringing the complexities of the civil rights era to life, complete with its injustices, anger, grief and tragedies. This is a very important book for today, as the U.S. potentially again finds itself in the grip of the illusion that violence will ever lead to anything good.

Mandy is full of strength, intelligence and dreams of the future, even as she learns the complexities of her own social status in a world she must learn to navigate, like her father, a goodlooking man with a weakness for the ladies who found favor with his boss the governor:

“Gov. Orville Faubus he really like my daddy.

He take a picture every year with all the janitors. And he always give my daddy some money for Good News Gospel Temple every year at Christmas. This is the same man who everybody know stood on the doorsteps at Central High and wouldn’t let them nine little colored children in when they tried to integrate

the school that time.

But now Central High School is integrated, although it’s still only a few coloreds who even go there.

So Gov. Faubus hate coloreds but he love my daddy as long as my daddy stay in his place.”

Historical importance

The author does not shy away from presenting the real and raw re-

ality of the times, including the toll activism takes on the lives of those who strive for a better future. In fact, not everyone in Mandy’s family agrees that trying to upset the status quo by protesting and ending up in jail is the way to go.

“Keep A’Livin’” includes people like Bayard Rustin, the openly gay advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., who helped create the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and fought for gay rights.

To quote from the book directly, “‘That Bayard Rustin is one of them funny men, ain’t he?’” she whispers under her breath. Daddy say, ‘You sound just like that redneck Senator Strom Thurmond.’”

In explaining why she wrote this book, Kathya Alexander said her purpose is “to make people aware of all those ordinary men and women who worked at the local level to make the Civil Rights Movement a success. I want ‘Keep A’Livin’ to honor and acknowledge the local people, the grassroots activists that are often neglected in the history of that era.”t

Kathya Alexander’s ‘Keep A’Livin’ $20.95, paperback, Aunt Lute Books www.auntlute.com www.seattlestoryteller.com

a metaphor for some big huge thing that’s gonna happen. It might cause destruction, but here it comes.”

Vixen said that she loves working at Oasis.

“Oasis is certainly home to the best drag in the Bay,” she said. “As a live singing entertainer, it’s extra special. The sound there is always so good. I always feel like what I do is taken seriously and the venue supports its performers in putting on their very best shows. Not to mention the audiences at Oasis are always ready to party and have a great time. I’m just so excited for this show and honored to play hostess and get to spend a night performing with and for our friends.”t

Mama Cass Tribute Cabaret, $28$39, July 29, 7pm, Oasis, 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com <<

Mama Cass

From page 11

Mama Cass CBS

Singer Carly Ozard

Author Kathya Alexander

‘Fly Me to the Moon’

by Brian Bromberger

Growing up in the 1960s, anything seemed technologically possible for our country, that we could achieve the impossible. The entire NASA program inspired hope at a time of great political and cultural division and a war.

I wish “Fly Me to the Moon,” (Apple Films, now in theaters, will stream on Apple + TV next month) had conveyed more of the excitement, adventure, and idealism of that Apollo era and less of the cynicism and conspiracy that seems more indicative of our time. And while there are some virtues in “Fly” worth celebrating, beginning with a great blastoff, ultimately the final landing is rather bumpy and doesn’t quite stick.

Moon marketing

It’s late 1968 and shady duplicitous government operative Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson), under the newly elected President Nixon, taps wily New York ad agency creative director whiz and amoral huckster Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson), to commandeer the public relations and marketing campaign for NASA to drum up fading public interest and boost its popularity after being sidelined by the Vietnam War.

Jones has to convince dour NASA launch director and former Air Force fighter pilot Cole Davis (the reliably hunky yet wooden Channing Tatum) to give her the go ahead. At first turned off to her unsavory antics, such as falsifying scientist’s biographies and recruiting actors to impersonate NASA employees, she wins him over due to her successes of getting the astronauts huge publicity and branding with

product endorsements.

Jones tries to schmooze a visiting senator, so he will vote to provide more funding for NASA, leading to a hilarious cameo by “Saturday Night Live” news co-anchor Colin Jost, reallife husband of Johansson.

Then Berkus returns with a new order to Kelly that she must engineer a secret government contingency plan to stage a fake moon landing on a sound-

stage in an abandoned NASA hangar.

The government is paranoid that if the real Apollo Mission fails or ends disastrously, it would damage public morale and result in us potentially losing the space race with the Russians.

Lost in space

Jones brings in gay ad director Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash) to film it and must convince Berkus who’s there, into believing a fake transmission is occurring when it’s not, after Jones changes her mind about being complicit in this hare-brained scheme. The swishy Rash caricature provides humor in that era’s flamboyant style a la Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly, performers whom everyone knew was gay, but were never publicly acknowledged.

The first half hour of the film is delightfully reminiscent of late 1930s screwball romance comedies with sparkling, crackling dialogue. Then the ludicrous CIA plot unhinges the second half of the film.

This is one of those movies that’s trying to do too much. It’s nostalgia, a conspiracy caper, a cheeky rom-com, a slapstick comedy of errors, and suspense drama, but none of these descriptions are developed sufficiently

so the final product feels incomplete and lacks coherence.

The whole fake moon landing theme is not new, as there were theories in the 1970s that famed director Stanley Kubrick had filmed what we thought we saw on our televisions, that the entire Apollo program was a NASA hoax. The 1977 film “Capricorn One” faked the first manned mission to Mars.

Basically “Fly Me to the Moon” is an overlong, overwritten clunky screenplay (by Rose Gilroy) in an overproduced movie with too many subplots. The movie features a sterling aesthetic production design, so you feel as though you are genuinely living through the 1960s, breezily recreated by gay director Greg Berlanti (“Love, Simon”).

The optimistic, can-do attitude of NASA, in one of humankind’s greatest achievements, is replaced with today’s sardonic over-reliance on marketing and QAnon mentality. It runs out of fuel by the time it reaches the climax. While it won’t send you into orbit, it’s an intermittently charming diversion, a pleasant throwback flight, as long as you don’t start asking too many questions.t

www.flymetothemoon.movie

New PSA commemorates Disability Pride Month

by David-Elijah Nahmod

According to the CDC 25 percent, or more than 61 million people live with a disability. 23 percent of them live in California. Yet disabled people are often pushed aside and rendered invisible. Many Americans don’t know how to act around the disabled and often offer unwanted advice. This can make disabled people feel as though they aren’t part of society. Easterseals, an organization which provides advocacy and various services to the disabled, is seeking to change that with “D1$@B1L*tY Is Not a Dirty Word,” a new PSA airing on multiple networks in time for July, which is Disability Pride Month.

One of the people featured in the PSA is Andy Arias, a queer Latinx who uses a wheelchair due to having

“Never Can Say Goodbye” Gloria Gaynor says, “I think it’s because of all of the hardships that are going on in the world today. People need a place to go and relieve tension.”

1974 was the year that Gaynor began to make her mark. George McRae (famous for 1974’s hit “Rock Your Baby”) says of her, “When Gloria was doing her thing, I think she was the first lady of disco.”

Women rise

Interviews with Anita Ward, Candi Staton and Nona Hendryx show how disco music was both an economic opportunity and a chance for fame for women.

As Nona Hendryx put it regarding

been born with cerebral palsy. Arias works as an actor, a producer, and a motivational speaker who lectures on diversity, equity and inclusion from a queer and Latinx lens. He also teaches DEI strategies, as well as cultural and linguistic competence strategies to faculty and students at a prestigious East Coast university.

In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Arias said that when he’s out in public he’s often on the receiving end of unwanted advice, or is asked why he’s out by himself.

“People think they automatically have the right to tell people with disabilities how to live their lives because we’ve set up a system where people with disabilities are currently inferior to people without disabilities,” he said. “Hence, people think they have the right to judge and give

the difference between her ’60s group and the renamed 70s band, “Patti Labelle and the Bluebells were a girl group. Labelle was a girl band.” Labelle was the first Black women’s group to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone. They were wildly popular.

As Vince Aletti says in the documentary, “Black and white, straight and gay, they flocked to Labelle as if to a cause, a movement, or, perhaps, a mirror.”

Not all of the stories of Black women singers are quite so positive, however.

Candi Staton tells of how her ex-husband’s attempt on her life led to her song, “Young Hearts Run Free.” Regarding the music Staton says, “I was so glad that disco came in: good music, good lyrics, songs that had a meaning to them. Disco freed me. It saved me.”

It was also extra ordinarily lucrative. Joyce Bogart Trabulus, widow

advice to those less fortunate than themselves. People don’t think outside of their bubble, so this makes it

of Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart, says in the documentary that one year Donna Summer made over 26 million dollars.

“Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” also features a wonderful segment on Sylvester. Barry Walters, writer for Rolling Stone, Spin, The Advocate and the San Francisco Examiner says of Sylvester, “Just like Harvey Milk mirrored an element of San Francisco, so did Sylvester,” and “disco allowed Sylvester to be churchy and queer at the same time.”

Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters says of the song, “It’s a song that never gets old, it’s never going to get old, it’s one of the best songs ever recorded.”

Night fever

Episode 3 “Staying Alive” is perhaps the most familiar of the series, as it covers a lot of the same territory

hard for them to fathom the level of my independence.”

Arias added that there are a lot of

that the PBS American Experience program “The War on Disco” did.

The Bee Gees and “Saturday Night Fever” made disco music a commodity, eventually descending to parody, as in Rick Dees’ “Disco Duck.” As Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters puts it, “It became less about the music and more about the money.”

This does crystalize some of the reasons for the backlash against disco.

Before 1977, disco was easier to ignore as it didn’t threaten the hegemony or economics of rock. It wasn’t threatening when it was a subcultural phenomenon among people of color and LGBT fans. When it crossed over, it was.

The difference between the American Experience program and this series, however, is that “Soundtrack of a Revolution” goes into how disco

disabled people in the queer community but that it’s difficult for them to live as their authentic selves because of bigotry. He developed his sense of disability pride at an early age. He said he didn’t have a choice, what with people marginalizing or making fun of him due to his being queer and disabled. Arias hopes that other organizations will follow Easterseals’ example.

“We must all do this together to move the needle permanently,” he said. “If one group of us is not equal our equality is just an illusion. To have true equality we must all be equal, regardless of where we come from, who we are, or how we present.”t

‘D1$@B1L*tY is Not a Dirty Word’ is now airing. It can also be viewed on YouTube. www.disabilitypride.com

came back. It details the influence of disco on rock and talks extensively about The Warehouse in Chicago and the rise of house music and Frankie Knuckles in the mid-1980s.

Regarding dance music and its importance, musician and activist Honey Dijon puts it best. “Dance floors do what religions and governments do not. They bring people together from all walks of life. As a trans woman of color this is where I found home, this is where I found my community and I was celebrated for who I was.”

“Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution” is a celebration of this community. If you lived through any of this history, it will feel like coming home.t www.pbs.org

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ Apple Films

Andy Arias in the Disability Pride PSA

Left: Earl Young Middle Left: LaBelle Right: Donna Summer

All photos: PBS

Left: Thelma Houston Right: John Travolta in ‘Saturday Night Fever’ All photos: PBS

Hurdles ahead

by Victoria A. Brownworth

We are living through the most momentous time in U.S. political history since late July 1974 when the Republican party leadership gathered together to force President Richard Nixon to resign the presidency as impeachment and criminal indictments related to Watergate loomed.

For weeks Democrats had been pushing President Biden to drop out of the presidential race after his terrible debate performance as if he, too, were a criminal, instead of the same guy who won more votes than any other candidate in the history of the U.S. as well as the most successful president in decades. Oh, and who was running against an actual convicted criminal.

was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made.”

He added, “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats, it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”

Harris, who accepted the endorsement with characteristic grace and political acumen and savvy, said she will work to win the nomination.

Now Biden has withdrawn in a shocking decision and endorsed California’s own Kamala Harris, Biden’s history-making VP. Biden said in an email, “For my part: my very first decision as the party nominee in 2020

Harris now must face yet another test from America’s not-so-veiled racism and misogyny that women of color face to win the Democratic nomination next month in Chicago when she should rightly just be the nominee and be hitting the ground running, since she was on the ticket primary voters chose.

Harris has a long history of being a stalwart LGBTQ ally since decades before it was popular, like during the historic Prop 8 debates. She was marrying gay and lesbian couples and standing behind their rights to marriage equal-

ity as San Francisco District Attorney well before it was the law. As a senator, Harris pressured then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on whether Obergefell was landmark settled law “like Brown v. Topeka” and he refused to answer.

Harris also grilled Trump Attorney General Bill Barr on the Mueller Report in another epic takedown. Harris had previously almost brought Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions to tears, with Sessions saying she “made him nervous.”

Among the names being suggested for a possible Kamala Harris running mate is Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. On “Real Time” with Bill Maher Friday night, Secretary Pete was asked about Thiel and Vance gave a thoughtful, complex explanation of the sort we have come to love and expect from him.

Buttigieg talked about how he and Vance were from the same generation, and from the Midwest and Ivy League. And then he eviscerated Vance pointby-point with a stunning thrust at the end of his parry.

Bonjour, Paris

Sha’Carri Richardson is the world’s fastest woman. She’s also a lesbian. If that thought makes you as giddy as it does us, imagine her winning gold for Team USA at the Paris Olympics which begin Friday, July 26 and runs through August 11. The opening ceremony will take place on July 26 to mark the start of the Summer Games in Paris along the Seine River and should be breathtaking.

The Summer Olympics will see over 10,500 athletes compete from 206 countries. There are a record number of LGBTQ athletes participating this year. In addition to Richardson, at least 144 out LGBTQ athletes will be competing in the Summer Games, with a record number of out male Olympians participating. More than 120 of those are women. Lesbians and other queer women represent at least half of two teams: the U.S. women’s basketball team, where six of the 12 players are out, and the Australian women’s soccer team, where at least nine of the 18 players are out.

Among out women basketball stars are former Olympians and WNBA All-Stars Diana Taurisi, Brittney Griner, Breanna Stewart, Alyssa Thomas, Jewell Lloyd and Chelsea Gray.

Among the prominent out Olympians are British diver Tom Daley, Brazilian gymnast Arthur Nory and trans nonbinary athletes Quinn (Canada soccer) and Nikki Hiltz (USA track and field).

Publicly out women Olympians outnumber men by about an 8-1 margin, roughly the same ratio as at the 2021 Tokyo Games. The 18 out male Olympians top the 16 from Tokyo. Nico Young, a 10,000-meter runner, is the first out men’s U.S. track and field athlete and Timo Cavelius is the first out gay male judo athlete. Equestrian accounts for almost half of all the out men in the Summer Games.

Read the full list of athletes competing for Team USA at www.sportsdata. usatoday.com.

See the full Olympics schedule at www.olympics.com.

No longer hidden

It’s not ironic that in this moment iconic Black director Ava DuVernay is talking about the most powerful element in American society–caste–in her new special, “Our America: Hidden Stories with Ava DuVernay.”

The special dives deep into the themes of DuVernay’s critically acclaimed film, “Origin,” based on investigative journalist Isabelle Wilkerson’s book “Caste.” It explores the interconnected issues of caste, racism, sexism and more. “All of the ‘isms’ sit on top of caste,” she says.

DuVernay teamed up with journalists across the country to “take a deeper dive into this complex phenomenon of caste and how it affects everything –our families, our personal lives– and how learning can change the lives of many communities for the better.”

DuVernay explains that “when you ban stories, you may be falling into caste. What we think of as racism is the caste system.”

As always, DuVernay is provocative and forward-thinking and demands the same of her audience; available now on Hulu.

So, for the wild ride we are now on, you know you really must stay tuned t

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President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris

The White House

Left: Track athlete Sha’Carri Richardson Middle: Brazilian gymnast Arthur Nory Mariano is one of at least 18 out male Olympians competing in the Paris Olympics. Right: Germany’s Timo Cavelius will be first out gay man to compete in Olympic judo.