June 13, 2024 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

AG absolves DA in Banko Brown case

by John Ferrannini

An investigation by the California Attorney General’s office found that San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins didn’t abuse her prosecutorial discretion in declining to file charges against the Walgreens security guard who killed an unarmed Black trans man last year.

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, the office of Attorney General Rob Bonta was investigating perhaps the most controversial decision of Jenkins’ tenure thus far – her decision not to pursue criminal charges against Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, the security guard employed by Kingdom Group Protective Services who worked at the 825 Market Street Walgreens drugstore.

balloting starts

by Cynthia Laird

The Bay Area Reporter has kicked off balloting for its annual LGBTQ Best of the Bay readers’ poll and the paper has a new mascot – the image of a Wild Parrot of Telegraph Hill, San Francisco’s official animal. It kind of has a rainbow likeness of its own.

As in previous years, now is the time for readers to cast their choices for their favorite people, places, and things in the Bay Area. There are multiple categories, and voting continues through midnight Sunday, June 30, but don’t wait until Pride Sunday – get those ballots in now.

Categories include Arts and Culture, Community, Dining, Nightlife, Nightlife Venues and

Newsom stumps for same-sex marriage initiative in SF

by John Ferrannini

The campaign to enshrine same-sex marriage in California’s constitution got a boost June 7, when Governor Gavin Newsom stopped in San Francisco to promote the November ballot initiative. Newsom told the Bay Area Reporter that he’ll do “whatever I can do” to help the Freedom to Marry initiative pass this fall.

“I’m pleased to see the bipartisan support in the Legislature, a good sign, this being on the November ballot,” Newsom said. “So I think there’ll be a big turnout and I’m encouraged by that. I’ll be out a lot trying to get people out to vote and, by definition, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe in it.”

The B.A.R. caught up with Newsom at the Northern California launch of the effort to pass Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5, which would strike the “zombie” language of the old Proposition 8 from the state Constitution. Also that day, Newsom officially declared the November 5 statewide election where the ballot will include the marriage equality measure along with other statewide propositions, the presidential race, the contest for one of California’s U.S. Senate seats, and myriad state legislative seats and local elected positions.

The same-sex marriage ballot measure has yet to receive its official number for the ballot. Dubbed for now the Freedom to Marry Ballot

Initiative, the Bay Area rollout of the effort to pass it was the third such event in recent months.

A virtual launch took place in February, as the B.A.R. reported, and an in-person kickoff was held in Southern California in May.

It stems from voters passing nearly 16 years ago Proposition 8, the homophobic statewide ballot measure that defined marriage as being solely between a man and a woman under California law.

Transgender artist’s murals

Prop 8 was declared unconstitutional following a 2010 federal trial. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling by then-federal judge Vaughan Walker, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the appellate decision in 2013, with same-sex marriages resuming in the Golden State that June. (Walker, who has since retired, publicly came out as gay after the trial.)

See page 11 >>

San

International Airport via its

Terminal

The psyche-

mélange of

grooviness fills the wall spaces of a three-story atrium lighted by a skylight. As people descend the escalators or staircase after leaving the terminal’s new automated security exit gates as of June 17 to retrieve their luggage and access ground transportation, they will be flanked by the

for the transgender and queer artist, who grew up in Bakersfield in California’s Central Valley.

Farrell hits the Castro

California Governor Gavin Newsom spoke at Manny’s in San Francisco Friday, June 7, to help kick off the campaign to repeal Proposition 8’s homophobic language from the state constitution.

Rick Gerharter

S. Bajko

The completed murals by artist Craig Calderwood are seen in Harvey Milk Terminal 1 at San Francisco International Airport.

Matthew S. Bajko See page 10 >>

Banko Brown

Help

find the Best of the Bay!

Thank you for taking the time to complete this reader survey by the Bay Area Reporter. Your opinions are important to us. For this twelfth annual readers’ poll we’re including nominees for each category, along with a write-in designation. This year’s nominees are a mix of previous winners, runners-up from last year, and new entries. The survey should only take 10-15 minutes. Your identity and answers are completely confidential and will be used to contact the winner of a random drawing for $500. You must complete at least 75 percent of the survey to qualify for the prize drawing. Entrants will be added to our newsletter recipients. One survey per person, per device, per day is allowed and must be submitted by midnight (Pacific Time) June 30. The results of our annual poll be announced in our August 1, 2024 edition, BESTIES 2024: The LGBTQ Best of the Bay. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact our office at (415) 861-5019.

Arts & Culture

Best Art Museum

 Asian Art Museum

 Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive

 Cartoon Art Museum

 Contemporary Jewish Museum

 de Young Museum

 GLBT History Museum

 Legion of Honor

 Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

 Museum of Craft and Design

 Museum of the African Diaspora

 Oakland Museum of California

 San Jose Museum of Art

 SF MOMA

 Walt Disney Family Museum

 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

✎

Best Nature or Science Museum

 California Academy of Sciences

 Exploratorium

 SF Botanical Gardens

 SF Conservatory of Flowers

✎

Best Small Art Gallery

 2358 MRKT

 Bob Mizer Foundation

 Catharine Clark Gallery

 Harvey Milk Photo Center

 Lost Art Salon

 Manna Gallery, Oakland

 Queer Arts Featured

 Rosebud Gallery

 Schlomer Haus Gallery

 Tenderloin Museum

✎

Best Ballet Company

 Alonzo King Lines Ballet

 Ballet22

 Ballet San Jose

 Diablo Ballet

 Oakland Ballet

 Post:ballet

 San Francisco Ballet

 Smuin Contemporary Ballet

✎

Best Modern Dance Company

 AXIS Dance Company

 David Herrera Performance Company

 Epiphany Dance Theatre

 Joe Goode Performance Group

 ODC Dance

 PUSH Dance Company

 RAWdance

 Robert Moses’ Kin

 Sean Dorsey Dance

 Zaccho Dance Theatre

✎

Best Ethnic/International Dance Company

 Abhinaya Dance Company

 Barangay Dance Company

 Chitresh Das Dance Company

 Likha-Pilipino Folk Ensemble

 Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu

 Ong Dance Company

 Theatre Flamenco of San Francisco

Best Classical Venue

 Davies Symphony Hall  Herbst Theatre

 Old First Church

 SF Conservatory of Music

 War Memorial Opera House  Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley

Best Live Music Venue

 The Chapel  The Fillmore

 Fox Theatre, Oakland  Great American Music Hall

 Greek Theatre, Berkeley

 The Masonic

 Paramount Theatre, Oakland

 Regency Center

 SF Jazz

 The Warfield ✎

Best Small Music Venue

 Café du Nord

 The Ivy Room, Albany

 The Lost Church

 The New Parish

 Thee Parkside

 Rickshaw Stop

 El Rio ✎

Best Theatre Company

 American Conservatory Theater

 Aurora Theatre

 Bay Area Theatre Company

 Berkeley Repertory Theatre

 Left Coast Theatre Company

 New Conservatory Theatre Center

 Ray of Light Theatre

 Shotgun Players

 Theatre Rhinoceros

✎

Best Choral Group

 Chanticleer

 East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus

 Lesbian/Gay Chorus of SF

 Rainbow Women’s Chorus (San Jose)

 SF Gay Men’s Chorus

✎

Community

Best LGBTQ Event

 Folsom Street Fair

 Imperial Court of SF Coronation

 Juanita MORE!’s Pride Party

 SF Pride Parade and Celebration

 SF Drag King Contest

 Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Easter Celebration

✎

Best LGBTQ Cultural District

 Castro LGBTQ Cultural District

 San Francisco Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District

 Transgender District

 Lakeshore LGBTQ Cultural District (Oakland)

Best LGBTQ Fundraiser

 AIDS Life/Cycle

 GAPA Banquet

 Horizons Foundation gala

 National Center for Lesbian Rights gala

 Reunion (GLBT Historical Society) ✎

Best LGBTQ Nonprofit

 AIDS Legal Referral Panel

 LYRIC

 Parivar Bay Area  Shanti

 Transgender Law Center

Best LGBTQ Community Center

 Billy DeFrank LGBTQ Center (San Jose)

 Coast Pride (Half Moon Bay)

 Oakland LGBTQ Community Center

 Pacific Center for Human Growth (Berkeley)

 Rainbow Community Center (Concord)

 SF LGBT Community Center

 San Mateo County Pride Center

 Solano Pride Center

Best LGBTQ Sports League

 SF Fog Rugby Club

FrontRunners

Gay Basketball Association

Gay Softball League

Best Pro Sports Team

Golden State Warriors

Oakland Roots (soccer)

San Francisco 49ers  San Francisco Giants  San Jose Earthquakes  San Jose Sharks

Nightlife

Best Comic

 Wonder Dave

 Lisa Geduldig

 Marga Gomez  Jesus U Betta Work  Justin Lucas  Sampson McCormick  Natasha Muse

Ronn Vigh

Best DJ  Carrie on Disco

Siobhan Aluvalot  Don Baird  Blackstone

Brown Amy

Bus Station John

Hawthorne

 Steve Fabus

 Sergio Fedasz

 Paul Goodyear

 David Harness

 Page Hodel

 Mohammad

 Olga T

 Russ Rich  Lady Ryan

 Brian Urmanita

Best Drag Queen

 Au Jus

 Ava LaShay

 Bebe Sweetbriar

 Black Betty Towers

 Carnie Asada

 D’Arcy Drollinger

 Donna Sachet

 Elsa Touche

 Evian

 Glamamore

 God’s Lil Princess

 Grace Towers

 Holotta Tymes

 Intensive Claire

 Joie de Vivre

 Juanita MORE!

 Jubilee

 Landa Lakes

 LOL McFiercen

 Mama Celeste

 Mercedez Munro

 Mutha Chucka

 Nicki Jizz

 Peaches Christ

 Rahni NothingMore

 Raya Light

 Rock M. Sakura

 Rosie Petals

 Sister Roma

 Sue Casa

 Sugah Betes

 Suppositori Spelling

 Trangela Lansbury

 U-Phoria

✎

Best Drag King

 Alex U. Inn

 Arty Fishal

 Chester Vanderbox

 Chico Suave

 Clammy Faye

 Dicky Love

 Fudgie Frottage

 Kegel Kater

 Kit Tapata

 Leigh Crow

 Madd Dogg 20/20

 Mason Dixon Jars

 Mickey Finn

 Pepe Pan

 Vegas Jake

✎

Best Faux Queen

 Alotta Boutté

 Black Benatar

 Bruja Palmiero

 Crème Fatale

 Fauxnique

 Miss Shugana

 Trixxie Carr

 Snaxx ✎

Best Bartender

 Andy Anderson, 440 Castro

 Michael Breshears, Lookout

 Robbie Cheah, Oasis

 Miguel Chavez, Hole in the Wall

 Steve Dalton, SF Eagle

 David Delgado, The Cinch

 Heather Dunham, Wild Side West

 Lauren Eggen, Beaux

 Charlie Evans, Lone Star Saloon

 Captain Ficcardi, White Horse

 Gage Fisher, SF Eagle

 Bernadette Fons, The Stud

 Jeffrey Green, Twin Peaks Tavern

 Kurtis Janitch, Beaux

 Erick Lopez, The Edge

 Johnnie Wartella, Pilsner Inn

✎

Best Live Nightlife/Cabaret Performer

 Jeovani Abenoja

 Connie Champagne

 Spencer Day

 Russell Deason

 Max Embers

 Marshall Forte

 Sony Holland

 Barry Lloyd

 Kippy Marks

 Kim Nalley

 Suzanne “Kitten on the Keys” Ramsey

 Katya Smirnoff-Skyy

 Paula West

Best Live Band

 Commando

 Gravy Train

 Homobiles

 The Klipptones

 Lipstick Conspiracy

 Lolly Gaggers

 Lonely Parrots

 Middle-Aged Queers

 Planet Booty

 Secret Emchy Society

 Velvetta

Best Gogo Dancer

 Jaden Cedillo

 Lucy Dorado

 Jella Gogo

 Jonez Garcia

 Connor Hochleutner

 James Kindle

 Miguel Landaeta

 Chloe Rainwater

 Emerson Silva

 Colin Stack-Troost

 Chad Stewart

 Koji Tare

 Paul William

✎

Best Nightlife Photographer

 Marques Daniels

 Gooch

 Kid With a Camera

 Darryl Pelletier

 Fred Rowe

 Darryl Pelletier

 Tom Schmidt/Dot

 Shot in the City

 Steven Underhill ✎

Nightlife Venues & Events

Best Cabaret Venue

 Bay Area Cabaret at the Venetian Room

 Feinstein’s at the Nikko

 Hotel Rex

 Martuni’s

 Oasis

Best Drag Show

 Big Top Sundays at Beaux

 Mascara at Eureka Valley Rec. center

 Monster Show at The Edge

 Princess at Oasis

 Reparations at Oasis

 Oaklash in Oakland

Best Nightlife Event

 Bearracuda at Public Works

 Beatpig at The Powerhouse

 Cubcake at Lone Star

 Disco Daddy at SF Eagle

 Daytime Realness at El Rio

 Frolic at Folsom Foundry

 Mango at El Rio

 Polyglamorous at Public Works

 Powerblouse at The Powerhouse

 ShangriLa at The EndUp

 Sundance Saloon at Space 550

 Uhaul at Jolene’s

Best New Venue

 Dacha

 Feelmore Social, Oakland

 Fluid510, Oakland

 Mother

 Town Bar & Lounge, Oakland

 The Stud

 Zhuzh

Best Castro Bar

440 Castro

The Café

The Edge

Lookout

Midnight Sun

Moby Dick

Pilsner Inn

Toad Hall

Twin Peaks

Best SoMa Bar

Driftwood

Hole in the Wall

Lone Star Saloon

Oasis

The Powerhouse

SF Eagle

Best Dance Club

Beaux

DNA Lounge

Folsom Foundry

Great Northern

Midway

Oasis

Public Works

Space 550

Best East Bay Bar

Club 1220

Feelmore Social

Fireside Lounge

Fluid510

Que Rico

Summer Bar & Lounge

Town Bar & Lounge

The Turf Club

The White Horse

Best Cocktails

Blackbird

Ginger’s (Reopening in June)

Martuni’s

Town Bar & Lounge, Oakland

Best Beer Selection

440 Castro

Moby Dick

Pilsner Inn

SF Eagle

Toronado

Best Wine Bar

Blush

Decant SF

Pause

Swirl

Best Leather Event  Folsom Street Fair  International Ms. Leather and International Ms. Bootblack Weekend, San Jose

Up Your Alley Street Fair

Mr SF Leather

Ms SF Leather

Dining

Best Castro Restaurant

Anchor Oyster Bar

Blind Butcher

Dumpling Kitchen

Fisch & Flore

L’Ardoise

Mama Ji’s

Poesia

Best Late Night Restaurant  La Frontera

Grubstake

Ler Ros

Nopa

Orphan Andy’s

Toyose

Best Brunch  Café Mystique

Cassava

Devil’s Teeth Bakery

Jones

Kantine

Starbelly

Wooden Spoon

Best Upscale Restaurant

7 Adams

Mister Jiu’s

Mourad

Rich Table

Routier

Spruce

Third Cousin

Best East Asian Restaurant

Basil

Farmhouse Kitchen

Gao Viet Kitchen

Kothai Republic

Palette Tea House

San Ho Wan

Sushi Sato

Best South Asian Restaurant

1601 Bar & Kitchen

Aslam’s Rasoi

Besharam

Dhamansara

Mandalay

Rooh

Best Italian Restaurant

Il Casaro

La Ciccia

Cotogna

Flour & Water

Lupa

A Mano

Ragazza

SPQR

Best Mexican Restaurant

Bonita

Elena’s

Matador

Nopalito

Papito

Puerto Alegre

Best Middle Eastern Restaurant

Beit Reima

Dalida

La Mediteranee

Noosh  Old Jerusalem

Best Soul Food Restaurant  Brenda’s, Oakland

Burdell

Everett & Jones BBQ

Hard Knox Cafe

Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement

Best Bar Menu

Fluid510

Lookout

Hi Tops

Jolene’s

Kezar Pub

Willows

Best Bakery

 Arizmendi

B. Patisserie

Bob’s Donuts

 Devil’s Teeth Baking Company

 Jane the Baker  Stella Pastry

 Tartine  Thorough Bread

Best Dessert  Bi-Rite  Castro Fountain

Mitchell’s

Humphry Slocombe  Milkbomb Ice Cream

Salt & Straw

Best Coffee Shop

 Café de Casa

Dento Piano Café

Flywheel

Haus

Manny’s

Spike’s  Verve

Services & Shopping

Best Bank/Credit Union

 BMO Bank

Chase

 Redwood Credit Union  SF Federal Credit Union  Tri-Counties Bank

Best Barber Shop

 Castro Barber Lounge

Glama-Rama

 Healing Cuts  Joe’s Barbershop  Louie’s Barber Shop

Best Bicycle Shop

 Market Street Cycles

Mike’s Bikes

Valencia Cyclery

Best Bookstore

 Books Inc. Opera Plaza  Dog Eared Books  Fabulosa Books

Green Apple

Best Place to Buy Furniture

IKEA

Maker & Moss

Norden Living

Room & Board

Stag & Manor

Best Grocery Store (chain or independent)

 Gus’s Market

Mollie Stone’s Markets  Rainbow Grocery

Safeway

Trader Joe’s

Best Health Care Provider

Kaiser Permanente  Stanford Healthcare

Sutter Health

UCSF

Best Gym

 24-Hour Fitness

Fitness-SF Castro

LiveFit Gym

MX3 Fitness

Soul Cycle

Best Cannabis Dispensary

Apothecarium

Eureka Sky

Flore Dispensary

Moe Greens

SPARC

Vapor Room

Best Thrift Store

Community Thrift  Goodwill

Out of the Closet (AIDS Healthcare Foundation)

Best Variety Shop

Cliff’s Variety

Just for Fun

Local Take

Best Vintage Clothing/ Consignment Shop

Buffalo Exchange

Crossroads Trading Co.

Sui Generis

Wasteland

Farrell brings SF mayoral campaign to Castro

by John Ferrannini

F

ormer San Francisco mayor

Mark Farrell – running against incumbent London Breed this year for his old job back – wants LGBTQ voters to know that when he’s talked about “family values,” he’s also talking about them.

That – and a strong critique of his successor’s public safety and business revitalization policies – was Farrell’s message while he conducted a merchant walk in the Castro neighborhood June 5. Farrell, a married father of three who represented District 2 (covering the Marina and Cow Hollow neighborhoods) from 2011 to 2018 on the Board of Supervisors, has used the “family values” term in the past. The Bay Area Reporter asked what he meant by it, considering its use by conservative Republicans as a homophobic dog whistle.

“The great part of San Francisco is families here come in all shapes and sizes, especially in the LGBTQ community,” Farrell said, adding that he “absolutely” did not mean it in a negative way.

Many LGBTQs have children or want to, he said, adding what he meant by the term was, “I want San Francisco to be the best place in the country to raise a family.”

To that end, Farrell discussed his proposal for universal child care. With children under 18 comprising 13% of the city’s population, San Francisco is the most childless big city in America, and the average family would have to pay upward of $20,000 for infant care annually, followed by upward of $20,000 for preschool care annually.

Farrell said he wants to use $400 million in Proposition C (the commercial rent tax for child care and early education from the June 2018 primary election) funds that he said Breed has not utilized over the past three years to help families pay for these child care costs.

“I’m unapologetically pro-family here in San Francisco,” he said. “I grew up here.”

Farrell was only mayor briefly, from January 23 to July 11, 2018. After mayor Ed Lee died in office in December 2017, Breed, as president of the Board of Supervisors, succeeded him as acting mayor. But in January 2018 the board’s progressives elevated Farrell, who was termlimited as supervisor, to deny Breed the advantages of incumbency in the June 5 special election that spring to serve out the remainder of Lee’s term.

Farrell opted not to run himself, and Breed won the special contest, taking office several weeks later. She easily won election to a four-year term in 2019. That was extended by one year when voters passed Prop H in 2022, so now the San Francisco mayor’s race is on this year’s November 5 ballot.

Gay former supe backs candidate

Farrell’s most prominent LGBTQ backer is Jeff Sheehy, a gay married father and longtime HIV advocate. He was appointed District 8 supervisor by Lee and served from 2017 to 2018, when he was defeated by current Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, a gay man, in the same special election when Breed first won the mayoralty.

Sheehy joined Farrell on the Castro walk, which began outside the temporarily shuttered Castro Theatre. The first openly HIV-positive supervisor, whose daughter is now a young adult, Sheehy cited those as reasons he’s supporting Farrell.

He pointed to Farrell’s commitment toward funding HIV services, even during tough budget years, which Farrell had recommitted to doing when asked about it by the

B.A.R. at his mayoral campaign launch in February.

As the B.A.R. reported in late May, , Breed committed in her budget proposal for the next two fiscal years to backfill some, but not all, federal HIV cuts the city is expecting this year.

“We had tough budgets before,” Sheehy said. “I met him [Farrell] as chair of the budget committee. Ryan White backfill funding, Getting to Zero – Mark was there 100%.”

The city’s Getting to Zero program aims to reduce new HIV transmissions and HIV deaths by 90% by 2025, in addition to reducing stigma.

Sheehy said he supported Farrell’s remarks on families; the two were both raised in Catholic households. Originally from Waco, Texas, Sheehy said he wishes he could have grown up in San Francisco.

“I raised a kid here,” he said. “There’s something about the atmosphere of fun in San Francisco. It’s an amazing place to be a kid – they all know everyone, the diversity of the kids, the freedom.”

Masood Samereie, a straight ally and former president of the Castro Merchants Association, also joined the walk.

“There are great candidates running at this election,” he said. “Question is: ‘Who is going to deliver and bring our city back to its vibrancy and glory?’”

Touring small businesses

Farrell visited several Castro mainstays over the course of two hours, including Cliff’s Variety, Local Take, Bottle Bacchanal, Spike’s, Queer Arts Featured, and the Sausage Factory. At Local Take he bought a shirt emblazoned with 415 – the city’s area code – for his daughter who is going to college in the fall, he said. It was there he met proprietor Jenn Meyer, a straight ally who is the vice president of the Castro Merchants Association.

“He’s actually the first candidate that’s visited me,” Meyer said. “I’m glad to have the candidates paying attention to the Castro and small businesses and coming by.”

The B.A.R. asked Farrell about his thoughts on business vibrancy. In the first quarter of this year, the city’s commercial vacancy rate was 36.7%.

“I believe we need to increase foot traffic and bring vibrancy back to the downtown core,” he said. “We should be proactive in every way to bring back employers, employees, and tourists, and opening Market Street is one part of a much larger puzzle to do exactly that.”

Farrell has said he’d want a new head at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to replace current director Jeffrey Tumlin, a gay man, and that he’d want to reopen the downtown section of Market Street to vehicle traffic, which it has been closed to since 2020.

Tumlin defended SFMTA’s poli -

cies in a recent San Francisco Standard article.

Farrell also sounded off on police staffing. When asked if the signs precipitating San Francisco’s postpandemic malaise started while he was a supervisor, and so why should people trust a longtime politician, he disagreed with the premise of the question.

“I reject the idea it started before the current administration,” he said. “When I became mayor, we had grown the police department to record staffing levels. This mayor has seen the police department decline 25%. Until this election year, public safety was not a priority.”

Indeed, a 2022 analysis found the city had 1,559 full-time officers. To be fully-staffed, the city would need 2,100 officers. In 2019, the first full year of Breed’s tenure, there were 1,800 officers. Breed’s recently released budget includes a major push to fund four police academy classes of 50 officers each over the next year “as a baseline,” as the B.A.R. reported.

Other candidates weigh in Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who represents District 3 and is the progressive standard bearer in the 2024 mayoral race, had voted for Farrell to serve as mayor during the tense January 2018 board meeting.

Now, he says Farrell is being hypocritical because he was opposed to Prop C back then, and supported a failed proposition, Prop D, that would have blocked the Prop C funding.

“When San Francisco kids needed Mark Farrell’s support to pass Prop C in 2018 – the funding source for his child care initiative – he turned his back on them and tried to kill it with a poison pill,” Peskin stated. “Why should our kids and families trust him now?”

Breed also supported Prop D at the time. Joe Arellano, a spokesperson for Breed’s campaign, stated, “Farrell’s child care announcement was lifted entirely from Mayor Breed’s child care and early education platform.”

Arellano continued that Breed “doubled the number of children receiving early care and child care subsidies, built or renovated more than 40 early care and education facilities, and increased salaries for over 2,500 educators.”

Arellano also compared Farrell to Jerry Falwell, the late homophobic evangelical pastor who founded the Moral Majority.

“In another throwback to the past, Mark Farrell is stumping across town promoting ‘family values,’ like he’s Jerry Falwell,” Arellano said.

Arellano said that reopening Market Street is “Mark Farrell’s one idea” on downtown revitalization. Doing so would “endanger pedestrians and cyclists, create more traffic, and delay Muni,” he said.

“What’s next, bringing the Central Freeway back to the Embarcadero?” asked Arellano, referring to the Embarcadero Freeway that brought traffic from the Bay Bridge to Broadway until it was torn down after being damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. “Mark Farrell seems to be running for mayor in 1974, not 2024.”

On police staffing, Arellano flipped the script, stating, “when Mark Farrell left office in 2018, he signed off on a horrible police contract that gutted the morale of the department. Mayor Breed has been cleaning up his mess ever since. Under her leadership, the department is on track to be fully staffed by 2026.

“Because of the successful passage of her public safety measure in

March, Prop E, police now have the policies and technology to make arrests and pursue criminals. The results speak for themselves – arrests are up and crime is down to the lowest level in over a decade,” he added.

Farrell is also running against Levi Strauss heir and former nonprofit executive Daniel Lurie and District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí.

When asked to respond for this report, Lurie campaign consultant Tyler Law stated, “Mark Farrell’s talking points as a mayoral candidate aren’t matching up with his long record in office. Under his watch tents crowded the sidewalks, openair drug dealing went unchecked, and overdoses spiked. No one is questioning that he had the best of intentions. The issue is that he wasn’t any good at delivering on them when he had the chance.”

On police staffing, a Lurie spokesperson stated, “London Breed and Mark Farrell are two sides of the same coin, their records on police staffing and public safety don’t match their rhetoric, and the lasting effects of their ineffective leadership are evident on our streets today. The people who got us into this mess are not equipped to get us out of it.”

The San Francisco Police Officers Association was equally critical of Farrell when he was mayor.

In 2018, a POA news release stated, with regard to the 2018 contract Arellano referred to, “all indications at this time reveal that Mayor Mark Farrell, DHR [Department of Human Resources] Director Micki Callahan, and some members of the Board of Supervisors believe that either our cops do not deserve or are entitled to comparable raises of our counterparts in Bay Area law enforcement agencies.”

Safaí’s campaign did not return a request for comment.  t

Brooke Anderson, Movement Photographer

Former Castro Merchants Association President Masood Samereie, left, talked with San Francisco mayoral candidate Mark Farrell during a June 5 walking tour of the Castro LGBTQ neighborhood.

John Ferrannini

San Francisco mayoral candidate Mark Farrell, left, talked with Local Take owner Jenn Meyer during a June 5 walking tour of the Castro LGBTQ neighborhood.

John Ferrannini

Supes confirm Walker for SF police panel Community News>>

by Cynthia Laird

Debra Walker, a lesbian who served on the San Francisco Police Commission for nearly two years before her term expired, won reappointment after being confirmed by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

The 7-3 vote to reappoint Walker, who was renominated to the police oversight panel by Mayor London Breed in April, saw her gain the vote of District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, who voted against Walker two years ago. Walker’s term is for four years, ending April 30. 2028.

“I’m excited to be going back to the commission and doing the work we need to do to be the best in the country,” Walker told the Bay Area Reporter in a brief phone interview after the vote.

She also thanked community members who supported her.

Breed swore in Walker and retired Judge C. Don Clay, whom the supervisors also approved, Wednesday morning.

“Debra Walker has been a leader supporting the SFPD and has been instrumental in implementing every single reform laid out by the Department of Justice,” Breed stated Tuesday, referring to the hundreds of reforms the federal agency recommended and the San Francisco Police Department has completed. “She has a proven track record both as a community advocate and delivering on critical public safety needs voiced by our community.”

In addition to Chan, voting to confirm Walker were all three gay Supervisors – Matt Dorsey, Rafael Mandelman, and Joel Engardio - along with straight allies Supervisors Myrna Melgar, Catherine Stefani, and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin. Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who voted against Walker in the June 3 rules committee meeting, was absent and excused. (Peskin and Safaí are both running for mayor against Breed.)

Voting against confirming Walker were Supervisors Shamann Walton, Dean Preston, and Hillary Ronen.

The board’s vote will return LGBTQ representation to the high-profile commission, which has been without an out member since Walker’s term ended in April.

Walker’s fate was uncertain going into the June 11 board meeting. At last week’s meeting of the rules committee, Walton and Safaí voted 2-0 to forward her name on to the full board with a negative recommendation.

As the B.A.R. noted, Safaí repeatedly questioned Walker about her support for Proposition E, which voters passed in March and that takes some power away from the police commission.

Walker had told the B.A.R. after the rules committee meeting that she was confident she had the votes for reappointment.

In 2022, the Board of Supervisors confirmed Walker on an 8-3 vote, as the B.A.R. reported.

At that time, Walton and Safaí voted for her. Supervisors Ronen, Preston, and Chan voted against.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Peskin suspended the rules to invite Walker to address the board. She had come

Funeral services for Michelle Henry announced

by John Ferrannini

Atransgender San Francisco woman who was killed last month will be mourned with funeral services and other events in the city later this week.

The family of the late Michelle Henry announced the schedule of events to mourn the 25-year-old, who’d been a participant in the San Francisco LGBT Community Center’s youth program.

The first will be a gathering for close friends and family Friday, June 14, from 2 to 6 p.m. at Driscoll’s Valencia Street Sierra Mortuary, at 1465 Valencia Street. Then, from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 15, will be a funeral at the Episcopal Church of Saint John the Evangelist at 1661 15th Street.

After the funeral a repast will be held at the TransThrive Community Center, a program of the San Francisco Community Health Center, at 1460 Pine Street, from 3 to 6 p.m. Finally, a 21-andolder celebration of life will be held at Savoy Tivoli, at 1434 Grant Avenue, from 7 to 10 p.m., hosted by Winston “Neo” Henry, her uncle.

The Henry family didn’t return a request for comment for this report by press time but did provide a statement.

“The family of Michelle Henry grieves her untimely death,” the statement begins. “Michelle’s passing shines a floodlight on the vulnerability of the trans community. Her family is committed to honoring her legacy of service in the LGBTQ+ community and in the trans community.”

The statement continued by recalling what friends said at a May 21 vigil in the Mission district.

“We resonate with the statement made by her friends at Mother Bar, who said, ‘The tapestry of who she was will continue to be woven through our words – written and spoken – for a lifetime.’ There is a memorial funding setup which you can donate to, so that Michelle’s generosity of spirit continues to bloom in the communities she served.”

The GoFundMe where people can donate to the memorial services has raised $2,508 of a $5,000 goal as of press time.

“I am deeply saddened by this situation but this universe has its own ideas and I can only think it’s for good reasoning,” Winston “Neo” Henry stated in the GoFundMe’s description. “With that being said, I am here and I will be laying this beautiful soul to rest.”

under criticism for comments at the rules committee meeting indicating she didn’t believe the police panel should set policy. On Tuesday, she said she sees a difference between setting policy and the “granular” detail of Department General Orders, which are the Police Department’s guidance.

“I’m really interested in working together not only on policing but on alternatives to policing,” she said.

Chan said that despite some LGBTQ leaders urging her to vote against Walker, she has changed her mind from the 2022 vote. “Commissioner Walker and I met and discussed what we can do to find common ground,” she said of her talking to Walker in the time since she’d served on the police commission.

Dorsey, who before joining the board had served as Police Chief William Scott’s communications director, said that Walker “is uniquely qualified to serve in this post.”

Melgar and Stefani brought up Walker’s work to help get SFPD to 30% female officers by 2030, a goal of Scott’s. Melgar said that statistics show that police departments with more women officers have better outcomes regarding reform and other issues.

“Commissioner Walker is the only

police commissioner who’s been interested in this and shown up,” Melgar said.

Mandelman said he’s known Walker for decades.

Opponents

Ronen, Preston, and Walton said they would not vote for Walker because of her comment at last week’s rules panel that non-police officers shouldn’t be making policy.

“I think the opposite,” Ronen said, adding the point of the police commission is civilian oversight.

Preston said he didn’t think Walker was the best fit for the police commission. (Walker had previously served on the building inspection and arts commissions.)

Walton said that he walked into the rules meeting intending to support Walker but changed his mind. “She also advocated to decrease the role of the police commission – the very body she wants to serve on,” he said.

Rules meeting

At the June 3 rules committee meeting, Walker at one point said, “there is way too much input from people who aren’t cops.” That comment stuck with Safaí, who repeatedly mentioned it.

He was also critical of Walker’s support for Prop E.

“Should we have a police commission?” Safaí asked Walker at one point.

“Yes,” Walker responded.

Walker said that she supports all of the reforms the SFPD is undertaking, including meeting many of the 272 recommendations made by the U.S. Department of Justice after the SFPD asked it to review the department following a series of officerinvolved shootings and high-profile misconduct cases in 2016, according to the department’s website.

Walker also said that she supports the technology reforms that were part of Prop E, which was championed by Breed and Safer San Francisco.

“It makes it easier for officers to follow the rules, and I think we’re going to be more effective,” she said.

But Safaí noted that Prop E “did a number of things that take things out of the police commission’s hands,” including SFPD’s pursuit policy. He said that prior to Prop E’s passage, San Francisco had one of the most reputable pursuit policies. It was his understanding, he said, that under that policy officers would need to call in and get a “green light” from a captain in order to engage in a pursuit.

“Prop E removes that,” he said.

In a phone interview June 4, Walker said it was ironic that her hearing came at the same time that Breed was raising the Pride flag at City Hall.

“As the flag was being raised, I was being attacked,” she said.

She also took issue with Safaí asking if she was sure she had the time to commit to the commission.

“I have the time,” she said at the meeting. t

Support.

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It’s not easy to accept that nearly two-thirds of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s are women. Or that some cases may be diagnosed as early as age 55. But we can learn about signs and reduce our risk by staying active and lowering blood pressure. Because we have what it takes to take on Alzheimer’s.

Learn about signs and screening at TakeOnALZ.com

Retired Judge C. Don Clay, left, and Debra Walker, right, were sworn in to the San Francisco Police Commission June 12 by Mayor London Breed.

Courtesy Mayor’s office

Funeral services for Michelle Henry will be held this weekend.

Courtesy the Henry family

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Holding Newsom to his pledge

We were pleased that Governor Gavin Newsom came to San Francisco last week to help launch the Northern California kick-off of the Freedom to Marry ballot initiative. It was important that Newsom expend some political capital to help get the message out that it’s critical for people to vote for this proposition on the November 5 ballot. The governor told us he would do “whatever I can do” to help pass the initiative, which is also heartening, as we urged him to do so in an editorial a few weeks ago.

The groups running the Freedom to Marry campaign need to hold Newsom to his pledge. The governor should be deployed in campaign materials – along with same-sex couples – in the coming months as people start paying attention to issues on the ballot. Most importantly, the governor can speak about why this initiative is so important.

Yes, same-sex marriage is legal in California, and has been since June 2013. But the old zombie language of 2008’s Proposition 8, that marriage is only between a man and a woman, remains in the California Constitution. The Freedom to Marry initiative, which does not yet have a proposition number, would remove that language. Prop 8 was declared unconstitutional following a 2010 federal trial, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision in 2013, with same-sex marriages resuming in the Golden State that June. (Same-sex marriage, of course, became legal nationwide with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

The issue of the Prop 8 language was raised in 2022 due to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion. In a concurring opinion in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested precedent on issues ranging from contraception to sodomy laws to same-sex marriage could be changed.

“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold [contraception], Lawrence [sexual relations between same-sex couples], and Obergefell [same-sex marriage],” Thomas wrote. “Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”

This alarmed LGBTQ rights advocates, and

last year state legislators passed Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5, now dubbed the Freedom to Marry initiative, to place a remedy on this year’s ballot.

Newsom is no stranger to the same-sex marriage movement because he jump-started it back in 2004 shortly after he became San Francisco’s mayor. We will never forget the day – February 12 – that Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples as the “Winter of Love” was born and lasted for a month.

“I have a little history, as you may know, on this issue, going back 20 years,” Newsom said during his June 7 appearance at Manny’s, the gay-owned cafe and event space in the Mission district. “Been a big part of my journey and the journey of millions and millions of others, and we want to see this to completion, we want to see this to fruition, and get this stain off our constitution and this Freedom to Marry initiative will do just that.”

Today, the divisiveness around marriage equality is mostly in the rear-view mirror, as gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) pointed out when he appeared with Newsom. “Marriage equality right now is a bit like momand-apple pie,” Wiener said. “We even have some Republicans who support it. That was not the case back then.”

In fact, when ACA 5 passed the Legislature last year, it won bipartisan votes. More recently, the California Republican Party opted not to take a position on the ballot measure and to remain neutral. That’s good news, because while some individual Republican candidates might be opposed, the state party won’t be directing opposition.

The Freedom to Marry campaign includes Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ rights organization; the national Human Rights Campaign; TransLatin@ Coalition; the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California; and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. These organizations have much to do between now and Election Day, chiefly to make sure that voters are not complacent and understand the importance of jettisoning the Prop 8 language once and for all. This is the same tactic that was successful in California in 2022 when voters passed Proposition 1, enshrining the right to abortion in the state’s governing document. We think that voters know – or soon will once they start paying attention – that rights can’t be left to the current Supreme Court. The conservative supermajority may well start examining precedents that have already been decided, just as Thomas wrote in that concurring opinion. And if Democrats lose control of the U.S. Senate and the White House, well, who knows how bad things may get, from an LGBTQ perspective. Earlier this week, recordings of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife came to light where she is alleged to have said she designed a flag to counter Pride month.

“It’s white and it has yellow and orange flames around it. And in the middle is the word vergogna. Vergogna in Italian means ‘shame.’ Vergogna. V-E-R-G-O-G-N-A. Vergogna. Shame, shame, shame on you,” Martha-Ann Alito is alleged to have said, according to media reports . Ashley Morris, organizing director of the ACLU of Northern California stated, “This ballot measure comes at a pivotal moment in time when the Supreme Court has made it clear it is willing to revoke hard-won rights, endangering the freedoms of millions of Californians.”

So, we appreciate Newsom for his vocal support in San Francisco last week. Now, he needs to amplify his message throughout the Golden State in advance of the election. t

Advice for queer women – run for office

by Emma Heiken

In the 1990s, queer women were having their moment in San Francisco. Mary Ellen Cunha and Peggy Forster had proudly opened the windows of Twin Peaks Tavern for all the world to see. The city was sprinkled with queer, women-owned bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and bookstores, as chronicled in Chloe Sherman’s “Renegades.” Within just a few years, San Franciscans elected lesbians Roberta Achtenberg, Susan Leal, Carole Migden, and Leslie Katz to the Board of Supervisors. (Christina Olague, a bisexual, was appointed to the board by the late mayor Ed Lee in 2012 but did not win election.)

But looking around, we don’t see this robust representation of queer women in San Francisco anymore. Businesses catering to queer men outnumber those catering to queer women many times over. We can count the elected queer women in San Francisco on one hand. That’s why this month at the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, I am introducing a resolution urging us to do better. We need to recruit, empower, and elect more queer women in San Francisco and make sure the voices of this resilient and underrepresented community are heard.

In the absence of electoral representation this Pride Month, we must turn to other resources to make sure queer women’s voices are heard. So, here I present you with the voices of three queer women in San Francisco on what Pride means to them:

Angelina Polselli, 24, Lower Haight

“What does Pride mean? It means to be in community. It means to hold each other through unimaginable pain. It means to recognize that for some of those we hold, each day is not promised.

“To be a queer woman in San Francisco means to exist at the margins of what society deems as normal, as acceptable. To be a queer woman in San Francisco is to be an active participant in building a new world, a world that values human life, a world that exists out of the binary, a world where humanity takes center stage.

“Each day our community is faced with grief, but what will never be taken from us is our boundless love and joy. To me, Pride in 2024 means freedom.”

Sophia Andary, 42, Richmond District

“Pride represents the vital celebration of identity, resilience, and community. Activism and protest are crucial in driving the fight for equality and justice for all.

“As a queer woman of color, war survivor, ref ugee, and first-generation Lebanese Ameri can, I was drawn to activism to champion human rights and amplify the voices of the most marginalized, especially women of color.

“While San Francisco is often seen as an LGBTQ+ haven, it is primarily shaped by and for white gay men. It’s frustrating that our current elected officials, including our gay male supervisors, don’t reflect the values of most queer women and don’t represent us. To create real change, we need to support, uplift, and elect queer and trans women and women of color.

“Human rights must be universal, not selective, to achieve liberation for all. Pride isn’t just a celebration; it’s a call to action for a world where everyone’s rights and dignity are upheld.”

Roberta Achtenberg, 73, Noe Valley

“Since 1990, I have served four times in positions of public trust at the federal, state, and local levels – first as San Francisco County supervisor, then as Fair Housing Assistant Secretary in the Clinton administration, as a trustee and board chair of the California State University Board of Trustees, and finally as a Barack Obama appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

“Each time I served I did so proudly and openly as a member of this LGBTQ+ community. This community has helped inform and ground my public service. This community defended me when I was subjected to hate-fueled right-wing attacks and celebrated my service when I needed support to ‘keep on keepin’ on.’

Most importantly, this community reminds me that I come from somewhere and that my words and actions reflect not only on me and my family, but on my community, as well. Having grown up in this community, I am accountable to this community.

“From our movement’s earliest days, we have mounted our efforts, not only on our own behalf, but in solidarity with all those treated as ‘other,’ ‘less than,’ ‘unworthy.’ That inclusive view of social justice and LGBTQ+ equality is what Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin taught us, and that is what must continue to guide the work of those, identified with this community, who chose a role in public life.” t

“There is no pride in white supremacy. There is no pride in misogyny. There is no pride in police brutality. There is no pride in imperialism. There is no pride in genocide.

“These beliefs are interconnected through human rights and intersectionality, recognizing that our struggles are linked and must be tackled together.

Emma Heiken is the vice chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party where she serves as the highest-ranking LGBTQ+ member and only queer woman. She has worked on policy from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. and currently serves as a legislative aide to District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar. Heiken lives in the Mission with her partner and their cat, Tuesday.

Emma Heiken Courtesy Emma Heiken

Governor Gavin Newsom spoke about the Freedom to Marry initiative in San Francisco June 7.

John Ferrannini

San Francisco declares itself a transgender sanctuary city

by Matthew S. Bajko

S an Francisco supervisors have officially designated the city as a sanctuary for transgender and other gender-nonconforming individuals.

A growing number of municipalities and states have taken a similar stance in reaction to the ongoing legislative assault against trans rights.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously voted 11-0 at its June 11 meeting to adopt a resolution authored by gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman declaring “San Francisco a sanctuary city and a place of safety for TGNCI2S people and providers of gender affirming care.” The acronym also includes people who are intersex or twospirit.

Gay District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio had early on joined Mandelman in being a sponsor of the resolution. District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, who represents the Tenderloin where the city’s Transgender Cultural District is located, and District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton also signed on as early co-sponsors. By the board’s vote Tuesday all 11 supervisors had done so.

Mandelman thanked his colleagues for their support at the meeting, as well as the community members who had helped craft the resolution.

As the Political Notebook first reported last week, Suzanne Ford, a transgender woman who is executive director of the city’s LGBT Pride committee, had approached Mandelman with the idea for the resolution after seeing Sacramento declare itself a transgender sanctuary city in March and learning West Hollywood had done so last year. Mandelman’s office also worked with the city’s Office of Transgender Initiatives and members of its advisory committee on the language of the resolution.

It notes the hundreds of anti-trans laws that have been enacted in Republican-controlled states in recent years, and how both San Francisco and California lawmakers have moved to protect the rights of trans youth and adults.

“A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that 1.6% of U.S. adults

From page 5

Henry was killed May 15. David Serrano Sewell, the executive director of the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, told the B.A.R. that the death was classified as a homicide.

According to a news release issued by SFPD spokesperson Allison Maxie, at 1:44 p.m. that day police responded to a residence on the 700 block of Post Street after receiving a report there was a physical altercation between two people.

“When officers arrived, they located an adult victim lying on the ground suffering from multiple stab wounds.

<< Besties

From page 1

Events, Services and Shopping, and Weddings and Destinations.

“In arts, we’ve got an expanded collection of events and venues to choose from as well as some new offerings,” said arts and nightlife editor Jim Provenzano. “In nightlife, we’ve kept track of all the closings and openings of several bars and nightclubs. And in dining, we’ve completely revamped the options

identify as transgender or nonbinary,” notes the resolution, adding that, “As a result of anti-transgender legislation, many individuals and families are relocating to states that are more accepting and offer inclusive services.”

Honey Mahogany, who is trans and became director of the mayoral trans office in May, noted at the board meeting during public comment that the trans community is “seeing unprecedented and targeted attacks” against it not only in the U.S. but in numerous countries around the world.

“San Francisco time and again has stood up for the trans community,” said Mahogany, who asked the supervisors not only to adopt the resolution but also to keep it “in mind as we continue to go through a difficult budget season.”

The resolution comes amid LGBTQ advocates’ concerns about what services and programs may be impacted in the city’s budget for the next two fiscal years as the supervisors and mayor work to address a deficit of $789 million. A balanced budget needs to be signed by Mayor London Breed by August 1.

Cherry Javier, a transfemme advocate who is the trans office’s manager of community engagement, noted to the supervisors how the need is growing for the services trans individuals can access in San Francisco due to an increase in people moving to the city to find a more supportive environment. Local nonprofits have reported seeing an uptick in Russian-speaking trans individuals accessing their services, said Javier, while housing needs have

been growing particularly among those who are Spanish speakers.

“We have seen that there has been a very large increase from people coming from other states and other countries to San Francisco,” said Javier.

Sandra Hall, a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in gender-affirming mental health and is a social work supervisor with social medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, had emailed the supervisors in support of the resolution.

“SF has been a long-standing leader in gender inclusion. This resolution provides needed protection for the community and those who serve them,” wrote Hall.

Kansas City, Missouri and New York City are among the other cities that are designated sanctuaries for transgender individuals.

SF fundraiser for out Nevada senator

Bay Area leaders are hosting a Pride Month fundraiser for Nevada state Senator Dallas Harris, a lesbian mom who is the Democratic chief majority whip in her legislative chamber. She didn’t draw an intraparty challenge so avoided a primary race on her state’s June 11 ballot and advanced automatically to the November 5 contest.

As of Wednesday morning, attorney and married mom Lori Rogich was leading in her Republican primary race to take on Harris in the fall for her state Senate District 11 seat that includes parts of Las Vegas. It was redrawn to include more GOP voters and is a top pick-up target this year for Silver State Republicans.

The Sister District Project San Francisco chapter has teamed with a number of groups, including the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club and the Bay Coalition, to co-host the fundraiser for Harris from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 22, at NEON, a co-working and events space located in the Marina district at 1974 Union Street.

Sliding scale donations are being asked of attendees. RSVPs can be made online at https://tinyurl. com/4kn8mj22. t

Officers rendered aid, including cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and summoned paramedics to the scene. Despite life-saving efforts by officers and paramedics, the victim was pronounced deceased at the scene,” the release stated.

“While on scene, officers detained a female suspect. Through the course of the investigation, officers developed probable cause to arrest 33-year-old Raymani Yuhashi from San Francisco.”

Yuhashi was initially booked into San Francisco County Jail on the charge of the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought, according to SFPD. Yuhashi was later

for restaurants and expanded those selections as well.

“I look forward to seeing our readers decide which are their favorites,” he added.

In the Community category, readers can choose their favorite Bay Area LGBTQ community center, LGBTQ nonprofits, and LGBTQ fundraiser. The cultural district category gained an entry with the Lakeshore LGBTQ Cultural District in Oakland, in addition to San Francisco’s three – the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, the Leather

released and no charges have been filed.

The DA’s office has not returned a request for an on-the-record statement. Previously, the DA’s office stated it was continuing to investigate the case.

Authorities are not investigating the case as a hate crime. Last month, SFPD Public Information Officer Robert Rueca stated, “At this time we do not have evidence that this incident is hate related.”

The community center declined to comment for this report. The San Francisco Community Health Center did not return a request for comment. t

& LGBTQ Cultural District, and the Transgender District.

The Besties issue will be published August 1. Everyone who casts a ballot – either online or mail-in (the ballot appears in the June 13 print edition) – is eligible to win $500 in a random drawing. (People must complete at least 75% of the survey to be eligible for the prize drawing.)

To complete the ballot online, go to https://tinyurl.com/a5pdw48m. The survey should take between 10-15 minutes. t

San Francisco is now a sanctuary city for transgender people.

Courtesy OTI

<< Michelle Henry

Frustrated by Biden’s Pride proclamation

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

To honor June as Pride Month, President Joe Biden released a statement that both touts his administration’s successes with LGBTQ rights, as well as highlights the challenges faced by all of us within the LGBTQ community in these homophobic and transphobic times.

Of note in the statement, titled “A Proclamation on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Pride Month, 2024,” was a strong condemnation about what transgender people are facing today.

“Families across the country face excruciating decisions to relocate to a different state to protect their children from dangerous and hateful anti-LGBTQI+ laws, which target transgender children, threaten families, and criminalize doctors and nurses,” reads the statement, which was issued May 31. “These bills and laws attack our most basic values and freedoms as Americans: the right to be yourself, the right to make your own medical decisions, and the right to raise your own children. Some things should never be put at risk: your life, your safety, and your dignity.”

It then continues, saying, “To the entire LGBTQI+ community – and es

ident, and yet I find myself frustrated just the same.

I want to go back to the 2012 Joe Biden, when he was Barack Obama’s vice president. During a campaign stop to support Obama’s reelection campaign, Biden spoke to a woman at a campaign office in Florida. That woman, Linda Carragher Bourne, has a daughter who was crowned Miss Trans New England. Bourne pressed Biden, and asked him to help her daughter and others like her.

In response, Vice President Biden declared that transgender rights are “the civil rights issue of our time.”

Democratic presidential hopeful Biden, posting to what was then Twitter back in January 2020, reiterated this message, saying, “Let’s be clear: Transgender

In October of that year, as Biden was deep in the race against Republican President Donald Trump, he made a bold promise. “I will make enactment of the Equality Act a top legislative priority during my first 100 days – a priority that Donald Trump opposes,” said Biden.

The Equality Act, long stalled in a hostile Congress, would have helped secure LGBTQ rights in this country. It would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity with respect to businesses, employment, housing, federally-funded programs, and other settings.

It remains no closer to passing, given GOP control of the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, LGBTQ rights have taken huge steps backward across the country, and would be all-but-lost should Trump win office again in 2024.

I also want to note Biden’s statement this year, and his stance that he has the back of transgender people. This is not the first time we have heard this from his administration.

For example, he said the same thing in 2022, as Florida pressed for its “Don’t Say Gay’’ bill, now a law that is echoed in many other statehouses across the country.

He said as much, again, during his 2022 State of the Union address, speaking about transgender youth, “I will always have your back as your president, so you can be yourself and reach your God-given potential,” he said.

Last year, at a Pride event at the White House, again Biden said, “your president and my entire administration has your back.”

Now, I don’t doubt that Biden does feel that these words are true but, much like he had to have known that the possibility of passing the Equality Act in a largely Republican Congress was a non-starter in 2020, he has to also understand that we need a lot more than assurances of support in these times.

This isn’t to say he’s done nothing. There has been work done by his administration to foster LGBTQ rights, and to push back on so many attempts to attack the same. Yet all of these feel like they are not enough against an onslaught of assaults on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and especially transgender people.

We need bolder action. We need a president who is using the full force of his admin

Heck, we need a president who is willing to tell us exactly how he has our back, and who is willing to go out and make it clear that attacks on trans youth, on drag culture, and the whole of the LGBTQ community are political red meat that is also being used to cause very real harm. We need a Biden who is going to make it clear that this malarkey – to borrow a term that may be familiar to the president – will not stand.

I’ll admit, however, that a president who seems unwilling to stand strongly against the humanitarian crises in Gaza – and who may be enacting harm of his own with a new asylum policy – may not be willing to do much more than provide cautious words.

Now sure, when it comes down to a choice between Biden and Trump, there is no question who I will mark my ballot for. I will vote for my own survival, and only one candidate may be able to provide that.

Until Biden is willing to do more than he is, however, I’m not sure how much better things can be. It’s hard to have my back when it is so firmly against the wall, after all. t

Gwen Smith expects more. You can find her at www.gwensmith.com

SF rally to recall 1973 Coors beer boycott

Today, however, the Teamsters are once again boycotting Coors, accusing Molson-Coors of not negotiating in good faith with Local 420 in Fort Worth, Texas. Interested people are welcome to attend the upcoming rally.

Well-being fair at SF LGBT center

Mukunda Studio and the Tendwell Collective will hold a summer wellbeing fair at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street, Saturday, June 22, from noon to 4 p.m. The event is free and open to all, a news release noted.

Mukunda Studio is a yoga and wellbeing space that is located in the western South of Market neighborhood and owned by Marc Morozumi, a gay Asian-mixed heritage yoga teacher originally from Cincinnati. The studio and Tendwell have seasonal well-being fairs. For the first time at this scale, the June Pride event will focus specifically on ways to connect with the body and mind as an alternative to the traditional dances, parties, and alcoholbased festivities, the release stated. The event is offering inspiration for sustainable practices, wellness services, and community building that promotes individual and collective well-being.

page 11 >>

Christine Smith

Teamsters leader Allan M. Baird, left, and gay rights leader Harvey Milk discuss the Coors boycott in 1976.

Richard Weiss (from a copy print originally at the Harvey Milk Archives now at the SF Public Library – Harvey Milk Scott Smith papers)

Castro Merchants gear up for SF Pride Community News>>

by John Ferrannini

As Pride Month gets into full swing, members of the Castro Merchants Association heard about upcoming events and safety matters at their June 6 meeting. The association won’t meet again till August.

Pride Month events

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, the merchants have been promoting a series of Pride Month events. A new offering is “Pride: A Family-Friendly Block Party,” presented by the association on Noe Street between Market and Beaver streets on Sunday, June 16, from 1 to 6 p.m.

Oscar Graves of CG Events said this celebration will be similar to the block party that has closed that section of Noe in the past, four times a year including the weekend of the San Francisco Pride parade. However, this event – which is being produced by CG Events – will replace the “Family Pride Block Party,” which happened in 2022 and 2023 under the leadership of Lauro Gonzalez, a gay man who is the CEO and founder of ArtyhoodSF.

When asked why there’s a new producer of the event, Graves said he didn’t know.

Gonzalez didn’t answer an email seeking comment.

Graves said there should be no substantive difference between the two events.

“Behind the scenes it’s still the same people,” Graves said. “We’re going to

A stilt-walker entertained the crowd at the 2022 Family Pride Block Party in the Castro.

have Drag Queen Story Hours, some dance-a-thons, and craft tables as well.”

The afternoon’s entertainment will be “curated by Juanita MORE! and the Lookout,” Graves said, referring to the LGBTQ bar adjacent to the event’s footprint. (MORE! and the Lookout did not return requests for comment.)

Graves also said that while the event will have a “passport” available that people can take to surrounding businesses for deals, organizers are

also looking for businesses who might be interested in selling their wares as vendors in the event footprint. The fee for a 10-foot-by-10-foot space is $75.

“We require our vendors to be fairly self-sufficient in terms of providing tables and canopies and those sorts of things,” Graves said.

Other events include the public showing of “Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero” on Castro Street to commemorate both the beginning of Frameline48: the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival and the Juneteenth holiday on Wednesday, June 19.

David Warczak, director of marketing and strategic partnerships for Frameline, said that the 400 block of Castro Street will close at 2 p.m. and will be open by 12:01 a.m. Thursday. A program at 7 p.m. will precede the film screening.

Warczak said that just a week before, June 12, the scaffolding on the Castro Theatre sign will come down, and the restored marquee will be officially relit June 19.

(Another Planet Entertainment, the theater’s managers and the leaders of the restoration effort, didn’t return a request for comment for this report.)

Also on June 12,  at 5 p.m. in Jane Warner Plaza, the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District is holding a memorial in the neighborhood to commemorate the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting. On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 others at the LGBTQ

nightclub in Orlando, Florida, reportedly in retaliation for the killing of an Islamic State leader by a United Statescoalition airstrike in Syria, according to multiple media reports. Mateen was killed in a shootout with police. Many of those killed or injured were LGBTQs of color.

Tina Aguirre, a genderqueer Latinx person who is director of the district, said that “the idea June is all celebration is good but it’s combined with grief.” It’s also a chance to link the month’s festivities with the fact that “Pride is a protest,” they added.

“It’s trite to say ‘now more than ever,’ but it’s definitely true we are under attack,” Aguirre said.

Pride Month safety

Captain Thomas Harvey, who oversees the San Francisco Police Department’s Mission Station, which includes part of the Castro, told the merchants that it will be ready for all coming Pride Month events – but particularly the big weekend of June 2930, which is when the San Francisco Pride celebration and parade take place. (https://sfpride.org/)

“Pride we’ll be at full staffing at our station and we’ll also have a lot of outside help,” Harvey said.

That includes two platoons of 50-60 police officers each night, he said.

“They’re really great,” Harvey said of his officers. “The amount of work and the calls of service they have to handle – being short-staffed and pulled in different directions – they really, really

do a great job. I’m not just saying that because I’m their boss.”

Greg Carey, a gay man who is chair of Castro Community on Patrol, brought two flyers for merchants to hang in their windows.

The first – “B Safe 4 Pride” – contains “common sense things to make sure you’re not a victim of some opportunist who comes along,” Carey said.

Advice on the flyer includes not to “get wasted,” “go with friends,” “don’t leave anything unattended,” and, if “hooking up,” “snap a picture of them and send it to a trusted friend.”

The second flyer – which designates a business as a safe space to report hate crimes – states, “This location is a safe place for victims of hate crimes and harassment to call 911 and wait for police to arrive.” Businesses would have to agree to actually have employees do that if they want to hang the sign up.

As the B.A.R. previously reported, the original signs – some of which are still up in the Castro – included the words “Safe Space” beneath a Pink Triangle, but this eventually became “Stop Hate,” which obscured the purpose of the signs. Carey designed the new signs, as part of his work with the SFPD LGBTQ+ Forum, to be self-explanatory, he said.

“Every place with one of these is a place of safety,” Carey said. “People who see these in the windows can see that the community really cares about safety.” t

11, 1943 – April 28, 2024

William “Bill” Aro Hill, of Fairfax, California, passed away on April 28, 2024, following a stroke he suffered on March 25. He was 80.

A gay man, Bill worked with early gay rights pioneers, including the late Harry Hay, according to an online obituary.

Born September 11, 1943 in Trumansberg, New York, Bill came from parents he said were “absolutely wonderful” and gave him the “freedom to be yourself,” the obituary noted.

Bill earned his bachelor’s degree at Cornell University. Bill then got a fellowship to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California. He attended there in the late 1960s and early 1970s, earning his master’s in biology.

The obituary stated that during his time at Caltech, while residing in a communal household called Columbia House, Bill developed a lot of inspiration for community living through the group’s various food coops, craft guilds, and other organizations they started.

When his Pasadena communal group wanted to expand outward and form in other places, Bill migrated north and planted himself in Fairfax, California. A house he bought there in 1972 developed into a very special legacy of his – a communal home known as the Butterfly House.

Another important legacy Bill leaves behind is his amassing of a great collection of literature, newspapers, weeklies, magazines and various publications put out by and for the gay community, which he gathered in his focus to document gay history, the obituary stated. Bill worked from the early days with activist groups and established a friendship with Hay, who stayed as Bill’s guest at the Butterfly House when traveling through. Hay’s Radical Faerie gatherings were a watershed event for Bill, and Bill collected its publications in his efforts to document gay history.

In 2004, Bill met his partner Ticor (Robert Fuller) at the home of a mutual friend, and the inseparable couple went on to share almost 18 happy years together, the obituary stated.

An in-person memorial service will be held at the Fairfax Community Church, 2398 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, Saturday, June 15, from 4 to 7 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the California Lichen Society at californialichens. org/donate.

James Edward Riffe

July 9, 1942 – May 1, 2024

James Riffe, known to many as Strange de Jim, passed away May 1, 2024 from complications of Alzheimer’s. This beloved San Francisco icon and truly unique individual was 81 years young.

An offbeat wit and gentle kindness were his most memorable hallmarks. Strange first became known to the San Francisco community in the 1970s through contributing numerous cheeky quips to Pulitzer Prize-winning Herb Caen’s daily column in the San Francisco Chronicle. As his notoriety grew to near cult-like status, his not-sopublic appearances involved wearing a pillowcase over his head to hide his identity from Caen and his adoring fans, which included local socialites, politicians, and Hollywood celebrities. An observer of life, Strange mastered the art of having coffee, and Cafe Flore was like a second home to him. His musings translated into several books that captured his unique take on the human condition and a sincere desire to improve it. His many years as a historian and raconteur of the countless tales of San Francisco garnered him four certificates of recognition from the state of California.

Born in Charleston, West Virginia, Jim is survived by his flatmate since 1989, Stephen Pullis of San Francisco; brother and sister-inlaw, John and Jane Riffe; his niece and nephew, Laurie and Robert

and a legion of long term and heartfelt friends. Like his semi-fictional alter ego, Jim is remembered as loving, witty, and fun, and always creative and surprising in his perspective. His charming chuckle is

sorely missed. Readers can still enjoy his humorous poignant writings at strangedejim.com. Plans are underway for a memorial service to be held this summer. Memorial donations honoring

Strange may be made to Meals on Wheels (mealsonwheels.org) and the Alzheimer’s Association (act. alz.org).

–

Lauro Gonzalez

He was initially arrested by San Francisco Police Department officers on suspicion of the homicide of Banko Brown, a 24-year-old unarmed and unhoused Black trans man, on April 27, 2023 but was released.

Bonta’s office had been investigating after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution asking the federal justice department and Bonta’s office to determine whether to press charges against Anthony. The feds deferred to Bonta’s office.

In a letter to the board dated June 4, Deputy Attorney General Peter E. Flores Jr. wrote that “Under California law, a District Attorney is given broad discretion to determine whether criminal charges are appropriate in a particular case because she is the official who has been elected by that County to act as its public prosecutor.”

“In making crime-charging decisions, prosecutors must believe that the admissible evidence is of such convincing force that it would warrant a conviction of the crime charged by an objective fact finder

An opportunity to create work that has a kind of queerness to it, that is highly visible, feels exciting to me. Also, it is just such an interesting space,” Calderwood had told the Bay Area Reporter shortly after being selected for the project.

This year, working three days a week beginning in March and wrapping up in mid-May, Calderwood and five other artists painted the artwork onto the walls, at times from scaffolding. Among them was gay muralist Richard Bolingbroke, who happens to live a block away from Calderwood and would commute with them on public transit to the airport.

“I can’t emphasize enough what a huge deal this mural is. To be part of the Milk terminal, which in itself is a major accomplishment, is enormous,” noted Bolingbroke. “For the SFAC to choose a nonbinary artist of Craig’s accomplishment was an act of bravery on their part. It’s an in-your-face piece of defiance of the cultural norms of the rest of the U.S., which are so threatened right now.”

Bolingbroke had been contacted to assist with the installation by Susan Kelk Cervantes, the founding director of Precita Eyes Muralists Association Inc. Calderwood had reached out about contracting with her organization to lend its expertise with their commission at SFO.

Cervantes noted to the B.A.R. that Calderwood “had never done anything as big as this project” and “wanted to do it really hands on.” After being asked if she was interested in helping out, Cervantes checked out Calderwood’s other work and their concept for the SFO murals and said, “it’s a great project, let’s do it.”

(Calderwood didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment for this article. Cervantes told the B.A.R. she believes they went on a vacation in the mountains.)

Also assisting on the installation was Eli Lippert, Jared Mar, and Ellen Silva. It marked the first time that Cervantes and Precita Eyes were involved in an art project at SFO.

“It is going to be monumental,” said Cervantes of Calderwood’s murals, with their “bold colors and images of people with very colorful costumes and flowers and fruits that make up their heads.”

Working with Calderwood was “very fun,” added Cervantes, who hopes SFO passengers have a similar feeling about the murals.

“If they go away just feeling happy and joyful being in their presence, I think that is the best thing to be expected,” she said. Bolingbroke pointed out to the B.A.R. that four different pink paints were used for different parts of the artwork, which he described as “outrageous” and “in your face.” It is clear from looking at it that it isn’t the work of a straight guy, he added.

“I don’t think there is any doubt about that,” said Bolingbroke. “Look at the long hands and fingernails of the figures. The imagery is magnificent and so decorative but also so poignant.”

beyond a reasonable doubt after hearing all of the evidence and considering the most reasonably foreseeable defenses such as self-defense,” the letter continued.

“In this case, the San Francisco County District Attorneys’ Office did not believe a prosecution would result in a conviction,” the letter stated.

After reviewing the materials, Flores wrote to the supervisors that the office could not definitively find that Jenkins abused her discretion.

“We have carefully reviewed the investigative materials regarding the shooting, the District Attorney’s Report on this fatal shooting, and your additional submissions. Based on that review and taking all of the circumstances into consideration, we cannot say that the San Francisco County District Attorney’s Office abused its discretion in declining to file criminal charges against security guard Michael Anthony,” the letter concluded. “Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.”

Jenkins issued a statement in response to the letter, defending her decision not to charge.

“Banko Brown’s death deeply impacted me and our city,” she stated. “While I

When he asked Calderwood why the figures’ faces are made out of flowers, the response he received was, “Well darling, what do you think?”

While Bolingbroke hopes it elicits smiles on the faces of those who see it, the artwork has a deeper meaning embedded into its fanciful depictions, he noted.

“It is not just a pretty piece of art. It is art with some depth to it,” said Bolingbroke.

Showing off the artwork to the B.A.R. in late May, SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel noted, “It is quite an amazing welcome.”

Terminal redo wraps up Calderwood’s murals are part of the final phase of the yearslong $2.4 billion makeover for the Milk terminal. Also completed are two new gates, five new concessions, a new common-use lounge, a new museum gallery, and a connecting walkway linking all four of SFO’s terminals post-security.

Still to be installed is another artwork inspired by Milk, the first out LGBTQ person to hold elected office in California after the gay rights leader won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 only to be assassinated a year later. As the B.A.R. reported in 2020, artist Andrea Bowers received a $1.1 million commission to reimagine the underpass in front of the arrivals area outside the Milk terminal.

Inspired by the marquee of the Castro Theatre in the city’s LGBTQ district, where Milk lived and owned a camera shop, Bowers’ piece is to feature disco balls and neon quotes from Milk. It was to be in place by now, but there was a manufacturing issue with some of the neon components Bowers, a straight ally, needs to have made, Yakel told the B.A.R. As of now, the installation is slated for some time in 2027, he said.

“When she can get that fabricated, she will be able to install it,” said Yakel.

It will further add to the “wow moments” that Milk terminal arriving passengers will encounter. It isn’t often that airport arrival areas receive such artistic treatments, noted Yakel.

“The fact we are getting something on that level is going to give someone arriving to the region one last moment of surprise and delight before they leave the airport,” he noted.

The new section of the Milk terminal officially opens to the public Monday. It was delayed by a week due to state inspectors needing time to check on its moving walkways.

Alaska Airlines is expected to make operational on June 19 its new ticketing area to the left of the Door 5 entrance into the terminal. Come the fall Delta is scheduled to also relocate its operations in Terminal 2 at SFO into the area to the right of that entrance way into the Milk terminal.

Passengers needing to check in or drop off luggage with either airline will use the security entrance at the southern end of the Milk terminal by Door 4 that has been in use since the revamped area of the airport reopened in the summer of 2019.

wish this tragedy would have never happened in the first place, my office and I carefully reviewed all of the facts and evidence available and followed the law in making our decision to not charge the suspect in this case. We take our prosecutorial responsibilities seriously and recognize how important it is that we make decisions on facts, law and our collective prosecutorial judgment, without being swayed by politics.”

She went on to state that the supervisors’ call to review her decision was “for political expedience” and gave “false hope to a grieving community.”

“Although nothing can be done to bring back Banko Brown, we must continue working together to ensure that vulnerable residents have access to meaningful opportunities and that the safety of the public is not compromised,” she concluded.

An identical letter was sent to John Burris, an attorney representing Brown’s family in a $25 million wrongful death suit against Walgreens, Kingdom Group, and Anthony in San Francisco Superior Court.

“I’m not surprised,” Burris told the B.A.R. “Disappointed but not surprised.

For those arriving by SFO’s AirTrain who already checked in online and don’t have to drop off luggage, they will be able to walk from the shuttle station into the Milk terminal and access a new mezzanine-level security checkpoint above the main departures area. Calderwood’s mural is visible to the left of that entryway.

“The travel hack for Harvey Milk Terminal 1 is you can stay on this level and go right to security,” said Yakel as he pointed out the new checkpoint.

In January, a B.A.R. reporter using the airport’s automated shuttle system that travels from its long-term parking structure to the four terminals noticed the voice-over didn’t refer to Harvey Milk Terminal 1. It merely called it Terminal 1.

Since then airport officials renamed the International Terminal in honor of the late U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein, who died last fall. Like the Milk terminal, its new name is not used for the AirTrain narration.

Asked about SFO updating the script so the names of Milk and Feinstein are used, Yakel told the B.A.R. airport officials have taken it under consideration.

“We are reviewing the AirTrain an-

This is bureaucrats protecting one another. This is a situation where the attorney general could have decided it was abuse of discretion not to file charges, but chose not to. For that reason, it’s disappointing but not surprising.”

Burris said discovery has started in the civil suit, which is going forward with all the parties and could go to trial “within one to two years.”

“Eighteen months is probably the shortest period of time,” he said.

Brown was killed after allegedly attempting to shoplift $15 worth of candy. Anthony, the security guard, was contracted by Walgreens through Kingdom Group.

A 5-minute, 58-second store surveillance video released by the DA’s office, taken from an overhead camera, shows that Brown, trying to leave the store, was pushed by Anthony, who punched Brown and subdued him as Brown tried to get away.

Other people can be seen nonchalantly going about their shopping.

Brown was subdued for about 50 seconds, at which time Anthony let him go. Then Brown grabbed his bag and left, backing out of the store and

pointing at Anthony. Brown then put his arms to his side and moved slightly, at which point Anthony shot him. Jenkins released the video following the public outcry after she declined to charge Anthony.

Announcing her decision in a May 1, 2023 statement, Jenkins explained that the evidence in the case at that time did “not meet the people’s burden to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury that the suspect is guilty of a crime. The evidence clearly shows that the suspect believed he was in mortal danger and acted in selfdefense.”

Last October, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance limiting security personnel from drawing their weapons. District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston cited Brown’s killing as the basis to amend the police code to prohibit armed security guards from drawing or exhibiting firearms to protect property. The weapons may be in a holster.

Walgreens cut ties with Kingdom Group in the weeks after the shooting. Neither returned requests for comment. t

nouncements to determine if we can accommodate named terminals in the audio. There is a time constraint in these that favors more condensed announcements,” explained Yakel.

Murals nod to Milk

After an initial request by gay former supervisor David Campos to name the entire airport after Milk was rejected, followed by a protracted fight over naming Terminal 1 for the civil rights leader, city officials finalized the aviation honor in 2018. It became the first airport facility in the world named after an LGBTQ leader.

Other legislative fights ensued over how the airport would handle the signage for the Harvey Milk Terminal 1 and how it would incorporate Milk’s life story into its design, resulting in the requirement for artwork inspired by him.

The SFO Museum created a photographic exhibit tracing Milk’s life from his childhood in New York to his days as a pioneering political operative in San Francisco during the 1970s. It is in an area dubbed the Central Inglenook near the American Airlines check-in coun-

ters at the Milk terminal.

In talking about the inspiration for their murals, Calderwood had told the B.A.R. they wanted to create a piece that didn’t necessarily represent Milk in a straightforward way.

“I was looking at Harvey Milk’s legacy and his wanting life for others to be nice and easy. Not just queer people, but labor unions and all kinds of marginalized people who deserved to have a nice life and an easy life,” said Calderwood.

The murals incorporate a 1960s motif that harkens to Milk’s growing up during that time period and derided for looking like a hippie with his long hair and way of dress. The inclusion of dogs into one mural scene nods to Milk’s sponsoring a local law to encourage dog owners to pick up their pooches’ poop. Milk famously planted a pile of dog excrement to step on following a news conference he held about the law.

“Dogs feel very San Francisco to me. A lot of people are trying to make a dog happen in their life in the city,” Calderwood had noted. t

Bill Wilson

Muralists Richard Bolingbroke, left, and Craig Calderwood took a break while working on the public art at Harvey Milk Terminal 1 at San Francisco International Airport.

Courtesy Richard Bolingbroke

Artist Craig Calderwood earlier this year worked on their mural in Harvey Milk Terminal 1 at San Francisco International Airport.

SFO Museum

by Michael Flanagan

When Gina LaDivina performed “Don’t Rain on My Parade” at the opening of the Stud on April 20 I had little idea it would be the last time I would see her perform. The longtime drag artist and one-time emcee of Aunt Charlie’s Hot Boxxx Girls died Tuesday June 4 at 5:15pm after a brief illness surrounded by friends.

Gina was a regular fixture in the drag and performance scene for well over 20 years (I recall first seeing her at Aunt Charlie’s in 1999). She was the host of performances by the Hot Boxxx Girls on Friday nights and was billed as the “$65,000 Silicone Wonder.”

Gina’s drag daughter Matt Cavalli, who performed with the Hot Boxxx Girls as Aurora Styles told me that “LaDivina” was a name bestowed on Gina by Cockatelia.

Gina LaDivina was the stage name and alter-ego of Regina Elizabeth McQuade, who was born in Williamsport, PA on December 19, 1949.

Gina didn’t often speak of her personal life publicly, but fortunately there is an oral history which Susan Stryker captured as part of a project for Joanne Meyerowitz’s book, “How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States.”

The oral history, which was taken by Stryker at Mad Magda’s Coffee House on July 17, 1997, is housed in the GLBT Historical Society archives (note that she gave her last name as McQueen for this oral history and it is filed under this name).

Early

life

Regarding her childhood she told Stryker, “All the way through school, my whole entire life, from first grade all the way up through high school, it was very apparent that I was very feminine, very nellie, and got punished for it. It was very rough. Hated school.”

Gina’s family moved from Pennsylvania to Ukiah and she moved to Santa Rosa in 1967 to attend beauty school, the same year she transitioned. She told Stryker, “I had always wanted to transition, from the earliest age I can remember I had a resentment that I was born at the wrong time, or in the wrong body.”

One incredible element of Gina’s story is her native intelligence. With a high school education (which she hated) she had the ability to research transgender mythology in 1967 Santa Rosa libraries.

“I talked to a librarian about some of this stuff, because I had been a librarian at my high school, and I said I need to find out some information on folklore, and on transgender times throughout history. Like in ancient temples to the goddesses.”

by Brian Bromberger

With the closure of the Castro Theatre for renovations, Frameline48, which will screen from June18-29, had to find new venues for their movies. The headlining and center films will appear at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre for most of the festival, then six movies will play at the Herbst Theatre during the final three days.

This year’s theme is “Intersections: Queer Stories in Film.” Our reviews will appear here and for the next two weeks.

A prolific playwright, songwriter and actor, Noël Coward is celebrated like the gaiety of a marvelous party in the documentary, “Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story.” Coward became the epitome of an upper class, witty, sophisticated English playboy despite being poor as a child. Oh, and he was as gay as a goose. His life was a performance, he was his own great invention, and keeping up the mask of respectability was exhausting, as he always felt like an outsider.

This absolutely terrific film, largely told through his own words (read by gay actor Rupert Everett) and narrated by bisexual actor Alan Cummings, as well as video clips, reminiscences by friends, and his own home movies, makes one realize how hard it was to be the genius he was and how much contemporary queer stage artists like Michael R. Jackson (“A Strange Loop”) owe him.

The word that comes to mind when discussing the Greek drama “The Summer with Carmen,” is frustrating. On one level, it’s another beach movie with sun-soaked nude bodies lying on cliff rocks leading down to the sea. Demosthenes (Yorgos Tsiantoulas) and his bestie Nikitas (Andreas Labropoulos), who met in acting school – though, Demosthenes now works as a public servant, while Nikitas focuses on directing – decide they want to write and make a film about their friendship, since a producer friend has agreed to finance the movie, as long as it’s “fun, sexy, Greek, and low budget.”

Tsiantoulas is riveting as the hunky, hairy, Greek Adonis Demosthenes, being both defensive and vulnerable showing us how stuck he is,

not sure what he wants out of life. Did I mention Tsiantoulas is naked for about three-quarters of the film and repeatedly shown having explicit sex with men? As shocking as that might seem, I promise you won’t mind.

“The Herricanes” is really a Pentecostal-type testimony to the greatness and power of Title IX. Title IX in 1972 decreed that no school could discriminate on the basis of sex thus making women’s sports teams possible. Director Olivia Kuan heard stories from her mother participating in the female football leagues of the seventies and that’s full tackle, 11-on-11 football. Kuan profiles that team in this documentary.

The Herricanes played from 1976 to 1979 in Houston. The team members came from all different backgrounds (i.e. lawyer, exotic dancer), races, and sexual orientations and what bound them together was their shared love of the sport, as they weren’t paid and they had to buy their own equipment.

The reunion of the teams towards the end is very touching, but the film is ruthlessly honest about the challenges in a male-dominated indus-

try and parity for women in any sport has yet to be achieved. “Herricanes” is one of the brightest lights at Frameline48, even if, like me, you could care less about football.

She’s about as far away from mainstream that any musician could be, which is one of the main attractions of the German documentary, “Teaches to Peaches,” about the career and anniversary tour of Peaches, a punk electroclash artist dating back to the ’90s. “Teaches to Peaches” was the name of her 2002 breakthrough second album with her “hit” song “F—K the Pain Away.”

Born in Canada as Merrill Nisker (she took the name Peaches from a phrase by Nina Simone) she started off doing folk music, but a health scare (thyroid cancer) compelled her only to do music she wanted: angry, edgy, defiant, explicit sexual lyrics. She embraced the title of a queer artist long before it became acceptable.

Through catharsis, she gave women permission to explore their bodies and their sexuality by playing with gender identity or mocking traditional notions of gender roles.

Gina LaDivina in 2016

Trailblazer, performer and local icon

‘Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story’

‘The Summer with Carmen’

Cinematic splices of

Queer Women of Color Film Festival turns 20

by Heather Cassell

The groundbreaking International Queer Women of Color Film Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary at the Presidio Theatre this weekend with a theme of “Joyful Reunion.” The theme is a celebration of coming together in its third year at its new home theater after COVID-19.

“This anniversary is such a privilege,” said Madeleine Lim, founder, executive, and artistic director  of the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project, which produces the annual film festival.

In 2022, QWOCMAP emerged from COVID-19 for its first in-person program at its new location, the recently renovated 600-seat historic Presidio Theatre, near the organization’s new office in the Presidio National Park. Like many other festivals in 2020, the QWOCMAP festival went digital for two years.

Despite outgrowing the Brava Theater, the festival returned to the theater

commodate its festivalgoers, but the organization sought more accessibility, Lim said.

“It had been really wonderful for so many years,” Lim said about the Brava Theater, but “The Presidio Theatre is our new home. It’s a beautiful theater.

continued. Lim is optimistic. The festival’s attendance doubled in 2023 from 2022, she said. “We’re very excited to be hosting our 20th anniversary” at the theater.

Milestone year

Lim is excited about the festival’s milestone anniversary and has big plans for its celebration, June 14-16. This year the festival is featuring nearly 45 films – a mix of features and shorts – exploring queer women of color’s experiences and transformations.

“There are some really amazing powerful films,” Lim said, noting that about a third of the films in the lineup are by queer Black filmmakers and another third of the films are by Asian filmmakers, several of which are by Pacific Islander filmmakers. About another third of the films explore Latinx and indigenous people’s experiences. She also estimated that about three films specifically look at the transgender and nonbinary experience.

“We’re super excited to really feature those films that exemplify the voices of Pacific Islanders,” she said about the Charting Home program, adding that it will “celebrate the range of what it is being a Black queer woman” with the lineup of shorts for Queer Black Currents.

Making its San Francisco premiere at the festival is the documentary, “Finding Her Beat.” The feature film is about a group of the best women taiko drummers in the world coming together to perform in St. Paul, Minnesota. The documentary explores “their joy and the challenges of coming together and putting on that particular performance” during the pandemic, Lim said.

QWOCMAP’s attendees will be treated to premiere taiko drummers: Tiffany Tamaribuchi, who is a taiko master featured in the film, “Finding Her Beat,” and Sascha Milina at the 20th anniversary reception, which closes out the weekend. The outdoor reception will also feature live performances by Nobody’s Girl with Rob Racine, DJ Love Ley, and food provided by Vegan Hood Chefs and Café Gabriela with wine poured by Scarlet Fox.

The vision

Lim knew that she wanted to be a filmmaker since she was 15 years old. Now 60, she can’t believe she made her dream come true and empowered hundreds of other queer women of color like herself to make films. At the age of 23, Lim escaped persecution by the Singapore government due to her activism and made it to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1987.

I very intentionally picked San Francisco,” Lim said. She was drawn to the city for three reasons: it was a gay mecca, an arts mecca, and a “beacon” for Asians.

Landing in San Francisco, she set out to pursue her “big dream,” she said in a previous interview with the B.A.R. The now award-winning filmmaker took night classes, worked at cable access as a crew member, and graduated from San Francisco State University’s film program before she began her film career.

Her next inspiration came when she found that she was one of a handful of women like herself at film festivals.

In 1997, Lim made her first groundbreaking film, “Sambal Belacan in San Francisco.” The film was banned in Singapore, but it traveled all over the world showing at film festivals for two years.

Focusing on the present, Lim said she’s delighted that her current documentary about Black lesbian author and playwright Jewelle Gomez, “Jewelle: A Just Vision,” has been traveling the film festival circuit since its release in 2022.

For nearly a quarter century, Lim trained 585 queer women of color filmmakers from the San Francisco Bay Area to around the United States and Spanish-language workshops in Mexico through its filmmaking programs.

Consulted with Mujeres Al Borde, a feminist and trans feminist artivist organization, to develop its filmmaking program in Colombia. Through the decades, QWOCMAP amassed a catalog of 484 films and launched film industry careers for almost 100 queer women of color, Lim estimated.

Opportunities

“It’s really wonderful that there are

these opportunities,” said Melinda James, 38, who is a QWOCMAP 2009 graduate and a panel speaker. “QWOCMAP was very instrumental in my filmmaking career.”

The organization launched the biracial, who is Black and Thai, queer woman into her career as a director of photography for commercial branded content.

Former international correspondent, Ashante “Ash” Ford, 25, a Black gender-queer pansexual person, agreed. “It’s super inspiring that this is still as accessible as it is,” she said.

Like James, Ford wanted to pursue a career in the film industry but had no film experience when she entered QWOCMAP’s program last fall. The program gave both women the skills and confidence to pursue filmmaking.

“It was a beautiful experience,” Ford said. “I’m very excited to see something I’ve created on the big screen.”

Ford’s film, “Line of Reverence,” about a Ghanaian woman communing with her ancestors during her day of devotional ritual, is screening at the festival. A still from the film was selected as the festival poster this year. Ford is also excited about seeing what her cohorts created.

“I’m anticipating that people are going to be blown away by the caliber of the films,” said Ford.

Lim wants people to come to the Presidio and enjoy films in the park. “We really want people to come and hang out with us,” Lim said. “We don’t often see masses of queer women of color taking up space in the Presidio.”t

International Queer Women of Color Film Festival June 14-16, Presidio Theatre, 99 Moraga Ave. Free, but reservations encouraged. www.qwocmap.org/festival www.presidiotheatre.org

Left: Dawn Mikkelson and Keri-Pickett’s ‘Finding Her Beat’ Right: Ashante Ford’s ‘Line of Reverence’

QWOCMAP

Lim

Millie Turner

Fresh Meat Festival A

by David-Elijah Nahmod

With unprecedented attacks on trans and gender non-conforming people continuing to escalate, events like the Fresh Meat Festival are more important than ever. This annual show, the brainchild of Fresh Meat artistic director Sean Dorsey, celebrates queer and trans performance through music, dance, hip hop, comedy, and much more.

The show features a diverse cast and will feature voguing, Salsa, trans-Americana music, taiko, South Asian contemporary dance, and deaf performers. It all happens June 21-23 at Z Space, Fresh Meat’s San Francisco home. All performances will be ASL interpreted.

The show includes several world premieres, commissioned especially for this, Fresh Meat’s 23rd show. In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Dorsey talked about the Festival and about reaching the 23 year milestone.

David-Elijah Nahmod: What exactly can the audience expect when they attend the Fresh Meat Festival?

Sean Dorsey: Audiences can expect to enjoy queer and trans excellence. This is truly the creme de la creme of local and national dance, music, performance and theater.

Who are some of the featured performers this year?

This year we’re presenting world premieres commissioned especially for the festival by our 2024 Fresh Works! commissioned artists: LBXX, Christopher Smith, Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi and Mark Travis Rivera. Plus there’s Batey Tambo, Ka’Lonji, Moschino Escada, Iman, Ishami Dance Company, Lottie Riot, In Lak’ech Dance Monarchs, Queer Taiko, Sean Dorsey Dance, Shawna Virago, all hosted by femmecee extraordinaire Churro Nomi of Clutch the Pearls and more.

23 years! When you began did you ever think it would last this long?

This festival is fresh! We’re super proud that 23 years in, every year is totally fresh and exquisite. Back when I organized the first festival in 2002, I thought it’d be a one time thing, but the sold out crowds and extraordinary community response demanded otherwise.

Given the anti-trans backlash currently going on, can you say something about the importance of visibility?

We all need and deserve to see ourselves reflected in arts and culture.

Right now, the alt-right is trying to shut trans and queer communities down, so the Fresh Meat Festival is doubling down on commissioning artists, presenting gorgeous world premieres, and creating a fabulous, fun unapologetic celebration for our communities.

You have so many varied types of performances in the show. How

did you go about deciding which performances to feature?

Something our audiences love about the Fresh Meat Festival is not just the incredible caliber of artistry, but how much variety there is. You literally have a world-class hip hop artist followed by uproarious trans comedy followed by soulful contemporary dance.

Is this a show that only queer people will enjoy, or does it have more general appeal?

These artists are incredible, period. So trans and queer folks love seeing ourselves, our culture, our aesthetics, and our lives reflected on stage, but anyone who loves outstanding performance will love the Fresh Meat Festival.

Last year you had performances all over the Z Space building, not just on the stage. Will that be the case again?

This year we’re thrilled to return to our usual format. We’ll be featuring all

artists on the gorgeous main stage at Z Space.

What do you like about performing at Z Space?

Z Space is our artistic home, both for the Fresh Meat Festival and for our resident company Sean Dorsey Dance.

Z Space is a stunning, gorgeous theater. Our community doesn’t often get to gather and perform in spaces like this.

Plus, the Z Space staff includes awesome queer and trans folks, their bathrooms

Three of the artist groups appearing in the 2024 Fresh Meat Festival include Left: Ishami Dance Company Middle: Batey Tambo Right: Sean Dorsey Dance

Kegan Marling

& Film

Rainbow network

The Lavender Tube on more Pride viewings

by Victoria A. Brownworth

As Pride month continues with events and parades and general flaunting in the face of the haters, there’s some Pride programming to watch when you just need a little down time from the non-stop parties.

Out bisexual San Francisco comedian Margaret Cho was interviewed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show on June 7. talking about the new Netflix documentary, “Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution.”

Cho told “Morning Joe” that she wanted to be part of the project because it’s been her life for 41 years. She says for years “queer comedy gave me solace.”

When asked if she will avoid anti-LGBTQ states in her stand-up touring, she says she wants to “go everywhere because queer comedy is most needed in places that are against us, like Florida.” That is, she says, where queer comedians can do the most good.

parades streaming in June, so be sure to check out their schedule. Among the highlights of Hulu’s Pride month celebration are the streaming premieres of “I Kissed a Boy,” the UK’s first-ever gay dating show in which the path to love is never straight. Pop goddess Dannii Minogue plays Cupid. No small talk, no swiping. It’s all about the first kiss.

“I want to go everywhere. Our message is so important: it’s about inclusion, it’s about love, it’s about equality.”

The documentary considers the importance of LGBTQ+ stand-up as a driver of social change over the past five decades, actively reflecting and challenging cultural norms and values. Ultimately, the film reveals that queer comedians – whether they intended to or not – helped change the world, one joke at a time.

“Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution,” combines interviews, memorable standup performances, archival materials, and verité footage featuring top LGBTQ+ comedians including Cho, Lily Tomlin, Sandra Bernhard, Wanda Sykes, Eddie Izzard, Hannah Gadsby, Tig Notaro, Rosie O’Donnell, Bob the Drag Queen, and Trixie Mattel, among others.

The documentary drops on Netflix on June 18.

Kisses

Hulu is feeling the Pride with LGBTQ shows, movies, and even Pride

The pains of first love are etched in the borderline schmaltzy Belgian drama, “Young Hearts.” 14-year-old Elias (Lou Goossens) has a girlfriend, but all bets are off when new neighbors move in and he meets 14-year-old Alexander (Maurius De Saeger) who reveals he’s into boys. He attempts to suppress feelings toward Alexander, scared of being ridiculed by others and rejected for being gay.

This is a coming out story with “Heartstopper” vibes all over it. It’s all so predictable, but this will be a crowd-pleaser because it is tender, convinced of the power of love, and everyone is so gay positive (like “Big Eden”), making “Young Hearts” close to irresistible.

Theirs was one of the longest partnerships in cinema history, from 1961-2007, making 43 films. So here’s the career of independent producer

There’s a dazzling and totally fun performance from pop superstar and LGBTQ ally Kylie Minogue in the U.S. premiere of “An Audience with Kylie,” which includes featured VIP audience guests Jonathan Bailey (“Fellow Travelers”), Nicola Coughlan (“Bridgerton”), Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”), comedian Alan Carr and Years & Years singer Olly Alexander.

Karl Hulu’s tale of the rise of a style icon in “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld” is pure queerness. A story told for the first time on screen and adapted from the bestselling book “Kaiser Karl” by Raphaëlle Bacqué, the Hulu original series brings together a star-studded cast and so much intrigue about the rise of the fashion icon.

The series focuses on the ten years leading up to Lagerfeld becoming,

well, Karl Lagerfeld. Lagerfeld, who died in 2019, was an iconic German fashion designer, who made a name for himself as he worked his way through several of the top fashion houses in Paris in the 1970s and ’80s, before becoming the creative director of Chanel until his death. Known best for his slicked-back ponytails and chic sunglasses, there was more than met the eye when it came to Lagerfeld, and that’s the story that the fashionable French series aims to explore.

While Lagerfeld was quite shrewd about his personal relationships in life, there is quite a bit known about his decade-spanning romance with noted socialite Jacques de Bascher.

“Becoming Karl Lagerfeld” is enmeshed in the turbulent ’70s and ’80s in Paris, Monaco and Rome and follows the formidable blossoming of this complex and iconic personality of Parisian couture, already driven by the ambition to become the Emperor of fashion. Between glamour and clashes of egos, grandiose parties and destructive passions, the series uncovers the story of Karl before Lagerfeld and that iconic white cat.

Canary

Longtime LGBTQ ally Cyndi Lauper was on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” June 6 and she was delightful and hip as al-

ways. She talked about being involved with professional wrestling, recording “We Are the World” and her jewelry causing a problem, her new documentary “Let the Canary Sing,” her friend Cher being at her hand and footprint ceremony at the Chinese Theatre, and announcing her “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” Farewell tour.

“Let the Canary Sing” chronicles Lauper’s meteoric ascent to stardom and her profound impact on generations through her music, ever-evolving punk style, unwavering feminism and tireless advocacy. The documentary takes the audience on an engaging exploration of a renowned and pioneering artist who has left a remarkable legacy with her art; now on Paramount+.

Collection

BET+ is amplifying LGBTQ+ stories for Pride that they note “reflect the richness of Black culture” with “A Spectrum of Black Love Collection,” now streaming on BET+. Here is a sampling of some of the titles currently streaming on BET+ that capture the vibrant spirit of liberated stories through original movies and series.

Among the highlights are “B-Boy Blues,” directed by Jussie Smollett. When clean-cut Mitchell finds love with B-boy Raheim, the two must find a way to bring their very different

Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory in “Merchant Ivory” an absorbing and revealing documentary. Dismissed by some critics as “Laura Ashley filmmaking,” some of their elegant costume period, brilliantly written dramas are now seen as Oscar-

winning masterpieces, including “A Room with A View,” “Maurice,” “Howard’s End,” and “Remains of the Day,” all profiled here. Merchant/Ivory were both gay and an open couple. Ivory discusses their gayness more than he has done pre-

worlds together in this adaptation of James Earl Hardy’s novel.

“Twenties,” created by Lena Waithe, is loosely based on Waithe, herself, a lesbian woman of color who fought to get her voice heard in the entertainment business. The show’s main character, Hattie (Jonica T. Gibbs) follows screenwriter Hattie and her best friends Marie and Nia as they pursue their L.A. dreams.

Lena Waithe’s series “Boomerang” with Lala Milan as Tia, is a sequel to the 1992 movie. “Boomerang” takes a comedic look at the challenges of work-life balance in modern times.

“Style Gods,” hosted by Billy Porter, highlights how style experts celebrate the cultural impact of Black fashion pioneers and activists, from Dapper Dan and Beverly Johnson to Beyoncé, Rihanna and Michelle Obama.

www.bet.com

The chores

On GMA3, queer comedian and YouTube star Matt Mathews dropped by to talk about his new comedy tour, “When That Thang Get Ta Thang’n” and he was hilarious.

“I’m married to a sexy lumberjack who thinks I am the best thing ever (which I mean, I kind of am). I start my mornings with coffee (always and forever) and barn chores. I’m not your average boudoir photographer, from my many tattoos to the farm I live on, but I could never see myself doing anything else.”

Ceremonies

The 77th Tony Awards will be held on June 16 to recognize achievement in Broadway productions during the 2023–24 season. The ceremony will be held at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater in New York City, and will air on CBS. Out queer Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award winner Ariana DeBose will host for the third year in a row, and no doubt lead another great opening number. So, for the fun, frolicsome and the occasional political reality check, you know you really must stay tuned.t

viously, since Merchant, who died in 2005, came from a conservative Muslim family where homosexuality was a taboo. Also, part of the Merchant/Ivory family was screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins, the latter had a long-term relationship with Merchant, much to the consternation of Ivory, who had his own dalliances, such as with travel writer Bruce Chatwin. Film lovers shouldn’t miss this gem. At first “I Don’t Understand You” appears to be a typical story of a gay couple, Dom (Nick Kroll) and Cole (Andrew Rannells) adopting a baby about to be birthed by surrogate Candice (Amanda Seyfried). They travel to Italy to celebrate their 10th anniversary. With the gay couple directors (David Craig/Brian Crano) basing parts of the film on their own experience, the movie is a love letter to adoptive LGBTQ parents and all the stress and struggle they must endure to make

their dream come true. This sincere, heartfelt film asks the question what lengths would you go to have a child and the answer to the delight of audiences is anything. Sexuality and trans identity are at the core of the hybrid documentary fiction film “Desire Lines,” in which Ahmad (Aden Hakimi), an older Iranian-American trans man, visits an LGBTQ archive in Chicago run by a younger flirty transmasculine man Kieran (Theo Germaine). Ahmad is researching how bathhouses dealt with the onset of AIDS, but also as a means to figure out his own sexual desires. Ahmad has never visited a bathhouse, so he fantasizes what it would have been like to cruise in one during the 1970s and early 1980s. Concurrently, we watch a contemporary video series of transmasculine men sharing their sexual experiences with cis gay men, how they are rejected, fetishized,

See page 19 >>

Frameline 48

‘The Herricanes’

Left: Marsha Warfield, Lily Tomlin, Sandra Bernhard and Wanda Sykes in ‘Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution’. Middle: The cast of ‘I Kissed a Boy’ Right: Daniel Brühl and Théodore Pellerin in ‘Becoming Karl Lagerfeld’

Courtesy of Netflix

Left: Cyndi Lauper in ‘Let the Canary Sing’ Middle: Lena Waithe’s ‘Twenties’ Right: Matt Mathews

t Theatre & Tribute >>

Costumes are key to ‘The Cher Show’

by Jim Gladstone

For John Beltre, packing light is not an option.

As wardrobe supervisor for the national touring company of “The Cher Show,” which opens a five-day engagement at the Curran Theatre on June 19, they oversee a wardrobe of more than 450 costumes composed of thousands of individual garments, accessories and pieces of jewelry.

Throughout each performance, every runaway bugle bead, escapee sequin, and bent feather must be carefully noted and attended to.

“We travel with a couple of sewing machines,” said Beltre in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “Besides myself, there’s a star dresser in the company, and between us we do whatever mending and repairs need to be done between shows.”

It’s during performances, though, that Beltre is at their busiest, overseeing the elaborate backstage choreography of nearly non-stop costume changes that whizzes the show’s cast of 23 through six decades of glad rags and glitz.

Unseen performances

“In every city,” Beltre said, “the theater hires ten local dressers who show up on the day of our first performance.

In just an hour or so, I walk them through our system and that night, they’re doing the show.

“Honestly, they’re incredible,” Beltre said, modestly ignoring the fact that they’re the engineer of this finetuned machine. “I’m so impressed that they’re able to learn this and get it down so quickly. I wish I had a film of some of the quick changes we do. It’s so carefully coordinated. There are moments when we have as many as four dressers working on one of the Chers simultaneously to get her out of one costume and into the next in a matter of seconds.” (Three actresses play the title role at different ages.)

New York-based Beltre, an established designer who has created costumes for productions of shows ranging from “The Addams Family” to Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” said that in addition to providing stable income over the duration of the tour, working as a wardrobe supervisor lets them exercise different skill sets in his more creative endeavors.

“As a designer, I’m very creative and in some sense, chaotic,” said Beltre. “I tend to let my mind go all over the place and go over the top. Wardrobe supervision rewards my brain in a whole other way. It’s refreshing to work with such discipline and organization and it helps me bring a bit of order back to my de-

by working with these costumes,” said Beltre. “As an audience member, you’re being dazzled and taken in by all the sparkles and glamor, but I’m fascinated by the insides of these costumes. They’re amazingly constructed, and they’re built to last. Inside of some of these pieces are all sorts of wires and big bulky metal pieces to create certain shapes.

her first ever professional role.

In a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Perez demonstrated a stunning ability to switch back and forth between her own chipper, upbeat voice and Cher’s deep, dusky vocal tones.

“I didn’t really know Cher’s music before I was cast,” Perez said. “I started studying how she enunciated each word and where she places her voice. A lot of her singing comes from the back of her mouth, and I have to keep my soft palate very raised. I paid attention to her vowel sounds and how she moves her mouth.

“Early on, I think I was slipping into a sort of Jennifer Coolidge sound, but after a few weeks, I felt like I had it down pat. I feel like now I can just slip into my Cher voice whenever I want. I think there are cast members who have no idea what my own natural singing voice sounds like.”

Despite her skill at vocal mimicry, Perez didn’t hesitate for a moment when asked what was most helpful to her in taking on the role of Cher.

After transitioning, she held two jobs, one at Merle Norman cosmetics studio and one as a bartender at the Monkey Pod (616 Mendocino, Santa Rosa).

“I went to work in a gay bar,” said Divina. “I held down two jobs the cosmetics studio and the bar for, god, maybe five years? One at day and one at night.”

Stryker asks, “So in the straight world you were a woman, but in the gay world you were a queen?” To which Gina replied, “Exactly. I was a freak.”

At the Monkey Pod she started doing drag shows.

“It was kind of mandatory. You know – you’re a queen, this is what queens do.”

Royalty

While working at the Monkey Pod in 1971 Gina became the first Empress of Sonoma County. Eventually she had enough and rebelled.

“I just said, ‘Oh Mary, the church don’t like me, the government don’t like me, society don’t like me, fags don’t like me, my own kind don’t like me-oh well, I like me. Kick ass. And I did. I kicked ass. I rode with bikers. I was a stripper. Whatever whim, I did it. Auntie Mame lived.”

In 1975 she moved to San Francisco, where she found a much divided city.

“Lesbians had their places. Drag queens had their places. Drag queens and transgenders were not allowed in certain bars. Period. It was a man’s bar. You had to be a man, and look like a man, to be there. And a woman’s barsame deal. But the places I went to were like Busby’s, Gold Street, places like that.”

The world of Polk Street was much to her liking.

“You could walk down Polk Street and the whole street would be full of prostitutes. One side would be men standing out there posing, luscious little creatures. Oh! And on the other side would be women dressed in eve-

sign work. There’s also so much to learn from working with costumes by a designer as great as Bob Mackie.”

Sheer engineering

Mackie, who designed Cher’s bestknown television and concert ensembles over the decades (along with memorable outfits for Carol Burnett, Liza Minelli, Bette Midler and many other A-listers), recreated and modified his original designs for “The Cher Show”’s Broadway debut in 2018.

That same wardrobe package is being used in the current touring productions, providing audiences with an unusually authentic sartorial extravaganza.

“There’s so much I’m able to learn just

ning gowns with feather boas and big hair and lots of make-up. And the next night, some of the boys would be on the other side of the street, in femme drag, and vice versa. It was colorful. It was fun. It was parties, house parties, all the time. Sausalito was happening. San Rafael was happening.”

Wonders

As regards being the $65,000 Silicone Wonder, she really meant it. Regarding plastic surgery she told Stryker she decided, “I might as well be a sex goddess. I was going to be pretty. I was going to give myself the best shot that I could give it. And I did it. And it was fun.”

I met Gina in 1999, when I started going to Aunt Charlie’s. We hit it off immediately as kindred spirits. I followed her career to her solo shows at the Oasis and finally to her performance at The Stud.

I would often see her out on the street in Hayes Valley. I went over to her apartment and was astounded at the huge walk-in closet with costumes. It was like visiting the Fort Knox of

“But on the outside, they just seem to flow and drape off the body. The actors make it look like they-re just floating across the stage, but a lot of these pieces – especially the beaded gowns – weigh 15 or 20 pounds. It requires a whole other kind of physical acting to move in these costumes and make them feel weightless. There’s engineering to the designs that helps though: counterbalances and structural elements on the inside of the outfits that help the actresses hold postures that will make it easier to carry the weight.”

Becoming Cher Ella Perez, a queer 23-year-old recent music theater graduate from SUNY Cortland, is playing Babe, the youngest version of Cher, on the national tour. It’s

drag! And she had massive wood furniture (she loved Arts and Crafts era furniture) and found it hilarious that men thought this was out of character for someone so feminine.

Gina was an incredible performer. She gave her all to her performances and yet was able to be bawdy and fun as an emcee. She had a great love of Shirley Bassey and regularly performed at benefits, like a 2004 benefit for Marriage Equality California headlined by Veronica Klaus, about which the B.A.R. said, “The show features the Tammy Hall Trio, along with drag icons Putanesca, Gina LaDivina, Riley, Monique Jenkinson, Glamamore, Vinsantos and more. Expect this to be the gay/lesbian marriage bash of the season!”

There was only one Gina LaDivina. Her loss leaves a great hole in many of our lives, but I think she would advise us to soldier on.

As she told Stryker when asked what advice she would give people coming out she said, “No matter who you are, it’s a difficult life. But you bet-

“It’s the outfits,” she said. “I’m a very casual person in my day-to-day life. It’s impossible for me to be Ella when I put that stuff on. My posture straightens, my chin lifts. I remember in tech when I put on those costumes for the first time. It changed everything for me. I found myself making different choices and actually sounding different when I put on those costumes.

“At first, it was a little surprising how heavy the beaded dresses are. I had to learn certain choreography where I would emulate the way the dress material moved! But I’m used to it now. They’re actually comfortable for me, like little weighted blankets.”t

‘The Cher Show,’ June 19-23. $46-$144. Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St. (888) 746-1799. www.broadwaysf.com

ter enjoy it, because it’s the only one you got, at least this time around. Be true to yourself and just be honest with yourself. You’re never going to please everybody – you’re rarely going to please anybody except yourself. I think that’s what I’d say. If you’re going to do it, just do it. Kick it.”

There is no question. She enjoyed life and she kicked it!t

At press time there are no firm plans for a celebration of Gina’s life, but planning is about to begin for one.

The author is indebted to Susan Stryker for her vision and hard work which bore fruit in her incredible interview with Gina LaDivina.

For the full version: docs.glbthistory.org/oh/McQueen_ ReginaElizabeth7-17-1997_web.pdf

www.instagram.com/ officialginaladivina www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Gina LaDivina

Catherine Ariale as Lady, Morgan Scott as Star, Ella Perez as Babe, and the cast of ‘The Cher Show’

Meredith Mashburn Photography

John Beltre, wardrobe supervisor for ‘The Cher Show’ on tour

Ella Perez as Babe and Lorenzo Pugliese as Sonny in ‘The Cher Show’

Meredith Mashburn Photography

Gina LaDivina in an early glamour shot

Left: Gina LaDivina in 2016

Middle: Gina LaDivina at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge in 2016

Right: Gina LaDivina as part of the David Glamamore fashion show at the de Young Museum in 2016.

Shot in the City

Pride Booksapalooza, part 2

by Jim Piechota

Here comes the second of our Pride 2024 books roundup, where we present almost a dozen nonfiction and memoir titles guaranteed to educate you on LGBTQ issues, trans identities, sluts, former military officers, lesbian spaces, and spotlight the journeys of queer individuals from all walks of life. Enjoy!

NON-FICTION/MEMOIR

‘Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling’ by Layla McCay

$24 (Bloomsbury Business)

This informative guidebook by the policy director at the NHS Confederation examines why and how LGBTQ professionals and their careers are harmed by bigotry and homophobia.

Whether being overlooked for hiring opportunities or promotions, or being ignored by management when it comes to gender expression or career advancement equality, the profiles McCay offers will be an enlightening and eye-opening experience particularly for readers who have personally witnessed this kind of discrimination against co-workers, bosses, members of upper management, or against themselves.

‘A Great Gay Book: Stories of Growth, Belonging, and other Queer Possibilities,’ Edited by Ryan Fitzgibbon, $50 (Abrams) Fitzgibbon is the founder of “Hello Mr.,” a 2013 queer magazine that enjoyed a 10-issue run until its final gasp in 2018. This book celebrates this smashing media sensation by highlighting the best of the articles that appeared within its pages.

Featured inside is a rainbow-hued goldmine of essays, photo journals, poems (“Good Dick is a Myth”), author interviews, profiles, art, and fiction from some of the most creative queer voices of the last decade, including a hilarious introductory essay from Fitzgibbon about his “alley afterlife” living situation in San Francisco’s SoMa and Castro neighborhoods.

‘Why Are People Into That?:

A Cultural Investigation of Kink’ by Tina Horn

$25 (Hatchette)

Sex educator Horn examines gender,

identity, and the wonderful world of fetishes in this provocative tour of some of our wildest kinks. With an approach that falls somewhere between piercing analysis and friendly conversation, the author probes the sexualization of feet, orgies, “sploshing” (wet, messy sex), spanking, fisting, cash-based sexual “findom” domination, and more.

Throughout this erotic and immensely educative carnal class, readers will fall down a “deviant rabbit hole” while gaining insight and knowledge on how kink communities thrive and support each other, the nature of their particular proclivities, and insider knowledge how, as a professional dominatrix, Horn gets herself and others off. Kinksters (who enjoy reading), unite!

‘A Place of Our Own’ by June Thomas, $30 (Seal Press)

In this informative study, podcaster Thomas beautifully spotlights the lesbian community’s struggle to find spaces and places to call their own. As ostracized as many other factions in queer culture have become, the author contends, lesbians have experienced particular difficulty establishing authentic locales to gather, exchange ideas, socialize, and support each other.

Her book profiles the many spaces that have risen above this conundrum to thrive and putting her personal history combined with experiences shared from LGBTQ leadership, entrepreneurs, business owners, and queer pioneers to impressive use, this report capitalizes on the importance of lesbian spaces, despite how queer culture seems to be moving away from its need for them.

‘The T in LGBT’ by Jamie Raines

$27 (SourceBooks/Vermilion)

Raines, a 29-year-old “trans guy from the UK,” chronicles his journey from first realizing he was transgender as a child, to actively acknowledging and vocalizing it at 16, to the many nuances of becoming the man he is today. His book will be an invaluable source of information, tips, advice, and anecdotes for any reader contemplating, questioning, or embarking on their own gender journey.

The book also includes stories and words of wisdom from other trans writers who generous share their process and how they overcame the many obstacles (both social and clinical) to realize and actualize their authentic identities.

‘Hiding For My Life: Being Gay in the Navy’ by Karen Solt

$17.95 (She Writes Press)

Solt’s intensive memoir captures the ordeal of her enlistment in the United States Navy for a four-year stint in 1984 while being queer and closeted. Her ascent from hesitant recruit to decorated official is honest and brazenly candid in detailing how damaging anti-gay military policies really are, particularly the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” years which were cloaked in bigotry, scandal, inequality, and human rights abuses. This is an illuminative eye-opening memoir about serving one’s country even while its policies counteract and decry one’s own identity.

‘Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle’ by Michael Andor Brodeur

$27.95 (Beacon)

In this dynamic, muscular debut from Brodeur, a Washington Post classical music critic since 2020, the history, culture, and many allures of bodybuilding are analyzed with great care and creative attention. The author adds personal quips to his assessment of muscle training which adds flavor and a somewhat humorous edge to stiff materials and historical details which could be considered overly academic.

He describes in detail his own training regimen and frequent “super-inflated” state after a rigorous workout, and his personal satisfaction at “being immediately assessed and addressed by strangers as a meathead.” Queer bodybuilders may want to crack the covers on this erudite report and feel the pump of information, wit, and history.

‘Sluts: An Anthology,’

Edited by Michelle Tea

$17.95 (Dopamine Books)

This provocative collection, the inaugural publication from newcomer Dopamine Press, contains a vast array of insightful essays, sexy fiction, nonfiction, seasoned opinion, and spicy perspective for and about promiscuous cultures.

A must-have for sexually aware sluts everywhere, the book is edited by veteran author and outspoken literary disruptor Michelle Tea, who cast a wide net searching for potential contributors who could dedicate their artistry to the “concept of SLUT.”

“I wanted it to be like a treasure box,” Tea writes, “a tome of surprise. I plan to assemble future anthologies similarly.” Grab this “slightly enormous” sexy book by its pages and dig in.

‘My Body is Paper: Stories and Poems’ by Gil Cuadros $17.95 (City Lights Books) Cuadros (1962-1996) published his debut collective of stories and poems, “City of God,” in 1994 and it was met with widespread acclaim as a classic examination of Los Angeles Latino communities from the perspectives of numerous narrators who ranged in age, queer experience, and mood. This new book collects the remainder of his archival writings that weren’t included in his debut and aptly commemorates a literary artist whose life was cut short at age 34 by the AIDS epidemic. This is an important work of art from a beloved writer and observer who died just as his best work emerged.

‘All About Yvie: Into the Oddity’ by Yvie Oddly, (Greenleaf) Certainly the dark horse memoir of the summer is “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 11 winner Yvie Oddly’s entertaining and endlessly alluring self-portrait. Dedicated to their cats, the book traces the genderqueer star’s early years when they were better known as Jovan Jordan Bridges, growing up in Denver, Colorado, their burgeoning interest in sexuality, gender, and drag performances, coming out, and their ascent to stardom on the 11th season of the drag competition.

“RPDR” superfans will gag over the amount of “tea” gossip and behind the scenes action they share in this candid look at a drag star, the experience of getting there, and how being authentic is the key to everything in between.

‘Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life’ by Michael Nott

$45 (Macmillan)

Nott, who co-edited “The Letters of Thom Gunn” in 2022, moves further into the life of the award-winning queer British poet Thom Gunn (19292004) in this distinguished, illuminating biography. Gunn was traumatized at the suicide of his beloved mother and turned to prose and poetry to sooth his broken heart.

Author Nott treads along the boundaries of Gunn’s life as his poetry took on as many iterations as his personal relationships did, including an indepth look at his open partnership with Mike Kitay with whom the poet lived with in the Haight in San Francisco for a good deal of his adult life where sex, drugs, and poetry dominated his every waking moment. This will definitely become a keepsake item for queer poets and any Thom Gunn fan.t

Read the full reviews on www.ebar.com.

Sean Patrick Murtagh

by David-Elijah Nahmod

On June 22 Bay Area native Sean Patrick Murtagh returns to San Francisco to perform his critically acclaimed show “Beautiful Girls: A Tribute to Sondheim’s Divas.” Murtagh has become a favorite of Bay Area cabaret audiences with his annual Christmas show at Martuni’s and his 2022 tribute to the late, great 1950s tenor Mario Lanza.

This time Murtagh brings his powerful pipes to Feinstein’s at the Nikko for an evening of stories and songs made famous by the divas who gave life to Stephen Sondheim’s beautiful lyrics. In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Murtagh offered his own unique take on exactly what a diva is.

“A diva is feminine energy spirit in human form,” Murtagh said. “The diva is electric and magnetic and draws us to her to fuel our passion and inspire us. Divas exist in all art forms and disciplines. They raise the bar on what greatness is and in doing so they push us to experience our own greatness.”

Murtagh shared that there are many divas which touch his soul, but the one that stands head and shoulders above all for him is the late Tina Turner. He recalls that Turner changed his life when he was a child, and he even did his first book report on her when he was in elementary school.

“And though you wouldn’t know it from my sound as a singer, she remains a major influence on me and my career,” he said.

Fabulous selves

Murtagh noted that many gay men feel a strong attachment to their divas. He feels that this is because gay men are often not allowed to be themselves.

He’s lucky to have had supportive parents, but if it’s not the parents then its society telling us who to be, how to be, and what not to be.

“Young gay and queer men are taught to repress their feminine side, to act a certain way, to draw attention by being different,” he said. “These divas represent everything we’re told to repress. It we cannot be our most authentic fierce and fabulous selves, we can at least experience vicariously through these magical women.”

He won’t be afraid to express his

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or commodified. “Desire Lines” is most effective showing how varied desires, proclivities, and sexuality is in the trans community and how we should be celebrating all freedoms of passionate expression.

With the legalization of same-gender marriages globally, it’s inevitable there will now be movies on divorce, which is the theme of the quirky Belgian/Canadian dramedy, “Turtles.” Henri (Olivier Gourmet) has just retired as a police officer and for 30 years has lived with his stay-at-home husband Thom (Dave Johns), a former drag star.

There are tears, screaming fits, and attempts to make each other jealous by using Grindr for hook-ups, which leads to a possible divorce. Will they or won’t they split? The English actor/ stand-up comedian Johns is an absolute delight, his sassiness animating the film, while Gourmet, a straight major star in Belgium, is okay, but I didn’t quite find him believable as gay.

This is a film that shows the challenges involved in maintaining relationships over the long haul, especially when faced with a major life change like retirement.

A Canadian jewel in the form of a nod to Bollywood is writer/director Fawzia Mirza’s debut “The Queen of My Dreams.” We begin in 1999 Toronto in a voice-over, “I used to worship my mother. I thought she was

perfect. I tried to be like my mother, but I wasn’t.”

Queer MFA student Azra (Amrit Kaur) is showing her girlfriend her favorite film, 1969’s “Aradhana,” starring Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore, introduced to her by her mother Mariam (Nimra Bucha) with whom she has a strained relationship. Despite this weakness, overall, this stylish, eye-popping film with superb performances by Kaur and Bucha bubbles with creative energy that will enchant viewers.

A hybrid documentary (with fictional elements) on queer bodies in sports informs, “Life Is Not a Competition, But I’m Winning.” The title comes from the hit song by the English band Kaiser Chiefs. While peak white male athletes like Michael Phelps are celebrated, an exceptional female, Black, or transgender competitor is viewed with suspicion.

The film looks at the Olympics through the decades pointing out egregious cases, by using archival footage and then like Forest Gump, inserting modern-day athletes into them to rewrite history in favor of the victims, ala Quentin Tarantino. There’s an AI-like voiceover that was a bit annoying, but overall compelling and visually inventive.t

Read the full reviews, with trailers, on www.ebar.com.

www.frameline.org

“I got tired of going out all the time,” he said. “So I started having people over for nachos and margaritas, which grew into full spreads and themed cocktails. I felt like a fabulous Susie Homemaker, so I began entertaining in heels, frilly aprons, and turbans. Before I knew it my closet became overrun with flowing dresses and caftans. My inner gay child was living his best life.”

Murtagh feels that this style of dress also pays tribute to his “abuelita” and “tias,” his grandmother and her sisters from El Salvador. They were always dressed to the nines, wearing lipstick and costume jewelry, and they loved getting together with family.

“Without a doubt those women were my first divas,” he recalled. “Fabulous women who helped shape me into the person I am today.”

feminine side when he graces the stage at Feinstein’s, as Murtagh will be dressed in what he calls his “soft drag.” He’ll be wearing a caftan, heels and a turban. This style of dress began at his home when he hosted parties.

Murtagh’s admiration for Sondheim runs deep, though he admits that it’s no easy task to express what the composer means to him.

“The man reinvented the way we look at and experience musical theater,” he said. “He allowed us to explore and

experience aspects of life and humanity you don’t usually get on stage. Uncomfortable topics, dark themes and uneasy truths we may try to avoid in self-reflection are presented to us in song and story that articulated perfectly for us to accept and comprehend.”

When he pays tribute to Sondheim’s divas on the 22nd, Murtagh will not be talking about which divas he’s paying tribute to.

“In the end it’s not who inspires us that matters,” he said. “Just that we are inspired is enough. We each have our own divas for our own reasons and that’s wonderful. I think, especially with this theme in particular, in celebrating one diva, I am celebrating them all. I sing songs, I share stories, and I hope to touch your heart sprinkled with a few laughs.”t

Sean Patrick Murtagh’s ‘Beautiful Girls: a Tribute to Sondheim’s Divas,’ June 22, 8pm, Feinstein’s at the Nikko, 222 Mason Street, $51. www.feinsteinssf.com www.seanpatrickmurtagh.com

Be proud and join the crowd for Pride Day at the Fair on July 5th! Sport your pride colors and join us for Pride programming throughout the day on the Community Stage from Drag Story Time, The Glam Show, DJ Cisco, and more. Ride the rides, explore the Barnyard, enjoy the fine art and photography exhibits, and stay for Brandy Clark on the Island Stage at 7:30pm followed by fireworks over the Lagoon.

EN VOGUE July 3

SPLASHBACK MUSIC FEST July 4

BRANDY CLARK July 5

ZIGGY MARLEY July 6

LOS LONELY BOYS July 7

3-7, 2024

Sean Patrick Murtagh

Conor Weiss

‘Teaches to Peaches’

Explore the curious connections of California. From towering redwood forests to vast deserts, breathtaking coasts to bustling cities, discover the surprising relationships among species, people, and places in our majestic state.