June 22, 2017 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

The

www.ebar.com

Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community

Vol. 47 • No. 25 • June 22-28, 2017

Rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker marched down Market Street during the June 28, 2015 San Francisco LGBT Pride parade.

Rick Gerharter

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What is TRUVADA for PrEP? TRUVADA for PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is a prescription medicine that is used together with safer sex practices to help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 through sex. This use is only for HIV-negative adults who are at high risk of getting HIV-1. To help determine your risk of getting HIV-1, talk openly with your healthcare provider about your sexual health.

Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about how to prevent getting HIV. Always practice safer sex and use condoms to lower the chance of sexual contact with body fluids. Never reuse or share needles or other items that have body fluids on them.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION |What is the most important information I should

know about TRUVADA for PrEP?

Before taking TRUVADA for PrEP: u You must be HIV-negative before you start taking TRUVADA for PrEP. You must get tested to make sure that you do not already have HIV-1. Do not take TRUVADA to reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 unless you are confirmed to be HIV-negative. u Many HIV-1 tests can miss HIV-1 infection in a person who has recently become infected. If you have flu-like symptoms, you could have recently become infected with HIV-1. Tell your healthcare provider if you had a flu-like illness within the last month before starting or at any time while taking TRUVADA for PrEP. Symptoms of new HIV-1 infection include tiredness, fever, joint or muscle aches, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, night sweats, and/or enlarged lymph nodes in the neck or groin.

While taking TRUVADA for PrEP: u You must continue to use safer sex practices. Just taking TRUVADA for PrEP may not keep you from getting HIV-1. u You must stay HIV-negative to keep taking TRUVADA for PrEP: • Get tested for HIV-1 at least every 3 months.

• If you think you were exposed to HIV-1, tell your healthcare provider right away. u To further help reduce your risk of getting HIV-1: • Know your HIV status and the HIV status of your partners.

• Get tested for other sexually transmitted infections. Other infections make it easier for HIV to infect you.

• Get information and support to help reduce risky sexual behavior, such as having fewer sex partners.

• Do not miss any doses of TRUVADA. Missing doses may increase your risk of getting HIV-1 infection. u If you do become HIV-1 positive, you need more medicine than TRUVADA alone to treat HIV-1. TRUVADA by itself is not a complete treatment for HIV-1. If you have HIV-1 and take only TRUVADA, your HIV-1 may become harder to treat over time.

TRUVADA can cause serious side effects: u Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. TRUVADA is not approved to treat HBV. If you have HBV and stop taking TRUVADA, your HBV may suddenly get worse. Do not stop taking TRUVADA without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health.

|Who should not take TRUVADA for PrEP?

Do not take TRUVADA for PrEP if you: u Already have HIV-1 infection or if you do not know your HIV-1 status. If you are HIV-1 positive, you need to take other medicines with TRUVADA to treat HIV-1. TRUVADA by itself is not a complete treatment for HIV-1. If you have HIV-1 and take only TRUVADA, your HIV-1 may become harder to treat over time. u Also take certain medicines to treat hepatitis B infection. |What are the other possible side effects of

TRUVADA for PrEP?

Serious side effects of TRUVADA may also include: u Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider may do blood tests to check your kidneys before and during treatment with TRUVADA. If you develop kidney problems, your healthcare provider may tell you to stop taking TRUVADA. u Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat. u Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain. u Bone problems, including bone pain, softening, or thinning, which may lead to fractures. Your healthcare provider may do tests to check your bones.

Common side effects in people taking TRUVADA for PrEP are stomach-area (abdomen) pain, headache, and decreased weight. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or do not go away. |What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking

TRUVADA for PrEP?

u All your health problems. Be sure to tell your healthcare

provider if you have or have had any kidney, bone, or liver problems, including hepatitis. u If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if TRUVADA can harm your unborn baby. If you become pregnant while taking TRUVADA for PrEP, talk to your healthcare provider to decide if you should keep taking TRUVADA. u If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. If you become HIV-positive, HIV can be passed to the baby in breast milk. u All the medicines you take, including prescription and over-thecounter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. TRUVADA may interact with other medicines. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist when you get a new medicine. u If you take certain other medicines with TRUVADA, your healthcare provider may need to check you more often or change your dose. These medicines include certain medicines to treat hepatitis C (HCV) infection.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.FDA.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Please see Important Facts about TRUVADA for PrEP including important warnings on the following page.

Have you heard about

TRUVADA for PrEP™ ?

The once-daily prescription medicine that can help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 when used with safer sex practices.

• TRUVADA for PrEP is only for adults who are at high risk of getting HIV through sex.

• You must be HIV-negative before you start taking TRUVADA for PrEP. Ask your doctor about your risk of getting HIV-1 infection and if TRUVADA for PrEP may be right for you.

visit start.truvada.com

IMPORTANT FACTS

This is only a brief summary of important information about taking TRUVADA for PrEPTM (pre-exposure prophylaxis) to help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 infection. This does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your medicine.

(tru-VAH-dah) MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT TRUVADA FOR PrEP

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF TRUVADA FOR PrEP

Before starting TRUVADA for PrEP: • You must be HIV-1 negative. You must get tested to make sure that you do not already have HIV-1. Do not take TRUVADA for PrEP to reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 unless you are confirmed to be HIV-1 negative.

• Many HIV-1 tests can miss HIV-1 infection in a person who has recently become infected. Symptoms of new HIV-1 infection include flu-like symptoms, tiredness, fever, joint or muscle aches, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, night sweats, and/or enlarged lymph nodes in the neck or groin. Tell your healthcare provider if you have had a flu-like illness within the last month before starting TRUVADA for PrEP. While taking TRUVADA for PrEP: • You must continue to use safer sex practices. Just taking TRUVADA for PrEP may not keep you from getting HIV-1.

• You must stay HIV-negative to keep taking TRUVADA for PrEP. Get tested for HIV-1 at least every 3 months while taking TRUVADA for PrEP. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you think you were exposed to HIV-1 or have a flu-like illness while taking TRUVADA for PrEP. • If you do become HIV-1 positive, you need more medicine than TRUVADA alone to treat HIV-1. If you have HIV-1 and take only TRUVADA, your HIV-1 may become harder to treat over time.

• See the “How To Further Reduce Your Risk” section for more information.

TRUVADA may cause serious side effects, including: • Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. TRUVADA is not approved to treat HBV. If you have HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking TRUVADA. Do not stop taking TRUVADA without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months.

TRUVADA can cause serious side effects, including: • Those in the “Most Important Information About TRUVADA for PrEP” section.

• New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure.

• Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.

• Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

• Bone problems.

Common side effects in people taking TRUVADA for PrEP include stomach-area (abdomen) pain, headache, and decreased weight.

These are not all the possible side effects of TRUVADA. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking TRUVADA for PrEP. Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with TRUVADA for PrEP.

ABOUT TRUVADA FOR PrEP TRUVADA for PrEP is a prescription medicine used together with safer sex practices to help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 through sex. This use is only for HIV-negative adults who are at high risk of getting HIV-1.

• To help determine your risk of getting HIV-1, talk openly with your healthcare provider about your sexual health.

Do NOT take TRUVADA for PrEP if you: • Already have HIV-1 infection or if you do not know your HIV-1 status.

• Take certain medicines to treat hepatitis B infection.

HOW TO TAKE TRUVADA FOR PrEP • Take 1 tablet once a day, every day, not just when you think you have been exposed to HIV-1.

• Do not miss any doses. Missing doses may increase your risk of getting HIV-1 infection.

• Use TRUVADA for PrEP together with condoms and safer sex practices.

• Get tested for HIV-1 at least every 3 months. You must stay HIV-negative to keep taking TRUVADA for PrEP.

BEFORE TAKING TRUVADA FOR PrEP Tell your healthcare provider if you: • Have or have had any kidney, bone, or liver problems, including hepatitis.

• Have any other medical conditions.

• Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

• Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. If you become HIV-positive, HIV can pass to the baby in breast milk.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take: • Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

• Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist about medicines that should not be taken with TRUVADA for PrEP.

HOW TO FURTHER REDUCE YOUR RISK • Know your HIV status and the HIV status of your partners.

• Get tested for other sexually transmitted infections. Other infections make it easier for HIV to infect you.

• Get information and support to help reduce risky sexual behavior, such as having fewer sex partners.

• Do not share needles or personal items that can have blood or body fluids on them.

GET MORE INFORMATION • This is only a brief summary of important information about TRUVADA for PrEP. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more, including how to prevent HIV infection.

• Go to start.truvada.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5 • If you need help paying for your medicine, visit start.truvada.com for program information.

TRUVADA, the TRUVADA Logo, TRUVADA FOR PREP, GILEAD, and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. All other marks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

Version date: April 2017 © 2017 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. TVDC0095 05/17

Untitled-4 1 TVDC0095_D_9-75x16_BayAreaReporter_p1.indd 3

6/8/17 PM 6/5/17 12:24 4:16 PM

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Pride 2017>>

June 22-28, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

Gay mayor reshapes West Sacto

Kelly Sullivan

West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon stands on the Mill Street Pier.

by Matthew S. Bajko

H

eaded to the Bay Area one weekend in 1993, Christopher Cabaldon realized he needed to return to his Sacramento home to retrieve a forgotten item. Exiting off the Tower Bridge in West Sacramento, he found himself lost in the former industrial hub along the banks of the Sacramento River.

Driving around the small town, unable to figure out how to cross the waterway to get back to the state capital, Cabaldon discovered wellkept homes dating from the 1950s built on cul-de-sacs.

“At that time none of the roads connected. I was lost here thinking, ‘What is this place?’” recalled Cabaldon, employed then as a legislative staffer. “I had no idea this was on the other side of the tracks.”

Impressed with what he found, and the price of housing in downtown Sacramento out of reach, Cabaldon opted to purchase a home in the Westmore Oaks section of West Sacramento. Three years later he won a seat on the City Council, having fallen short during his first bid in 1994, and served four yearlong terms as mayor while a council member.

“When I bought my house here, I could see the potential,” said

Cabaldon, 51, who in 2004 was the first mayor to be directly elected by West Sacramento voters. He came out as gay during his State of the City address the following year and has won re-election ever since.

The possibilities Cabaldon envisioned two dozen years ago for his new hometown are now coming to fruition, drawing worldwide attention to West Sacramento for how it is reshaping itself into a regional hub with urban-style housing, locally-owned businesses, and new riverfront recreational access. In late May Cabaldon flew overseas to speak at conferences in Seoul, South Korea and Barcelona, Spain about his political philosophy as a smalltown mayor.

“Government should stop overregulating and overthinking and instead try to be a platform for people who want to do great things and let them happen,” said Cabaldon as he showed off the new developments reshaping his city a few days prior to his trip.

When a group that wanted to build an urban farm ran into zoning issues, the city revised the rules and now is seen as a leader in the farmto-table movement. It took the same action when a craft brewery’s plan to open in West Sacramento was

Change Makers

by Cynthia Laird

R

ainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker, who died ealier this year, was a changemaker.

A gay man, Baker came to San Francisco in the early 1970s, just as the gay liberation movement was getting underway in the city.

Teddy Witherington, the former executive director of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, told the Bay Area Reporter that Baker’s involvement with the parade usually involved the rainbow flag.

In 1998, Baker helped the Pride Committee find a donor to replace a number of the flags that line Market Street. In 2003, for the 25th anniversary of the flag’s creation, Baker and the Pride Committee worked closely to “both ease funding for, and the deployment of, the flags on the parade route and other locations, including the enormous one that was raised early in the morning at United Nations Plaza to coincide with the anniversary of the signing of the U.N. Charter,” Witherington wrote in an email.

Today, of course, the rainbow flag is a universal symbol of LGBT Pride.

We celebrate Mr. Baker’s life and know he’s watching us.

This special Pride section features other changemakers in our community. These LGBT people work in various professions and live their lives out and proud.

With President Donald Trump and his administration in charge, it’s vital that change continue.

We won’t be forced back into the closet, no matter what Betsy DeVos, Trump’s anti-gay education secretary, tries to do. We insist on equal access to restrooms for trans students, access to affordable health care for all, and a place at the table. Trump isn’t providing leadership for our community, but plenty of LGBT and allied elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels are.

And that’s where the resistance must focus its energy. Making change is not easy, but settling for the new status quo of being invisible is not acceptable.

Rise up and resist. t

stymied by zoning rules; now there are five breweries in town with more on the way.

“It is one of our most prominent sectors of our city,” said Cabaldon.

“Ten years ago the city wasn’t saying, ‘Let’s be the craft brew capital of the region,’ but it just happened.”

Verna Sulpizio, who last summer was hired as president and CEO of the West Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, credited Cabaldon for embracing entrepreneurs with a “crazy idea” and working to help them realize it.

“West Sacramento is where a crazy idea can come to life,” said Sulpizio, 35, who grew up in the city and moved back last year after living in Sacramento for the last decade. “Our goal as a city and a chamber is to give you the infrastructure and the ability to take your crazy idea and make it come to life.”

See page 20 >>

Now more than ever it’s time to celebrate our diversity. Wishing everyone a wonderful 2017 LGBT Pride Celebration!

DENNIS J. HERRERA San Francisco City Attorney

Paid for by Dennis Herrera for City Attorney 2015, Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER •

<< Pride 2017

June 22-28, 2017

Woods changes East Bay trans lives

by Seth Hemmelgarn

F

or almost 15 years, transgender activist Tiffany Woods has been working to strengthen the trans community in the East Bay. Even as trans visibility has grown in other parts of the Bay Area and across the country, no one working on trans issues in cities like Oakland and Fremont has been as visible as Woods.

Woods, who’s program coordinator and co-creator of TransVision at Tri-City Health Center in Fremont, has done everything from reaching out to sex workers on Oakland’s streets to helping train police officers so that they treat trans people fairly.

It hasn’t been easy. Woods, 53, who lives in San Leandro, has had to face challenges including an employee’s brutal murder and community members criticizing her for working with law enforcement agencies.

“You build community trust by building relationships,” she said. “... If you’re not open to those relationships, you’re not going to change anything.”

Woods began developing her relationship with the Oakland Police Department in 2012 after Brandy Martell, 37, who had worked at TransVision, was shot and killed that April as she sat with friends in her parked car at 13th and Franklin streets in downtown Oakland.

Malique Parrott, who police said murdered Martell, was himself killed about two months later. (Police finally identified Parrott as Martell’s killer in 2015.)

Photos of Martell show up on many of the walls in the offices and exam rooms of the small clinic space that TransVision occupies in Fremont.

“Brandy’s death changed a lot of officers’ perspective on trans people,” said Woods, stating that many officers had known trans women only as sex workers.

She recalled a client who was

Terry Washington

Tiffany Woods helps instruct recruits at the Oakland Police Academy in 2013.

sexually assaulted last year and said she was “glad” the police officer she talked to “knew what questions to ask.”

Woods called it a “clear benefit of working internally” with the department. She added that Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, who was sworn in this spring, is “very knowledgeable” about trans issues.

Officer Johnna Watson, an Oakland police spokeswoman, said, “Tiffany Woods has been a key partner with the Oakland Police Department and the transgender and gay community. She has assisted with awareness, education, and outreach during very challenging times with several critical incidents,” including Martell’s murder and the Ghost Ship fire, among other events.

The department continues to work with Woods, “who also has cotaught in the academy the diversity class and often provides valuable advice and guidance for the department,” including the agency’s professional staff. “The city of Oakland is a diverse community and we are constantly learning ... as we serve

our community,” Watson, who is a lesbian, added.

But some people have criticized Woods for her work.

“There are many community members that don’t want that interaction,” she said. Some people have even skipped Transgender Day of Remembrance events that Woods organized “because I’ve had police involvement.”

Woods added, “I’m not on anybody’s payroll” when it comes to her efforts with law enforcement. “... It’s just because it needs to get done.”

Another tragedy that included the trans community and got Woods more involved in working with law enforcement was Oakland’s Ghost Ship warehouse fire in December that killed 36 people, including at least three trans people.

Officials asked Woods to help ensure that victims’ names and gender identities were respected as information was shared publicly.

In the days immediately after the blaze, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, which includes the Coroner’s Bureau, “didn’t know where to start,” said Woods. “They were grateful I was

on the scene with them.”

“That was huge,” she said. “... They listened to my guidance and they implemented it.”

Some have overlooked Woods’ efforts, though.

On December 7, just days after the fire, after Woods had already been working with the sheriff’s department and other agencies, the LGBT groups Equality California, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Transgender Law Center, and others issued a news release criticizing local efforts.

“Local authorities and media have continued to disrespect transgender victims by not honoring their correct names and gender identities,” the groups stated.

Woods referred to the groups’ move as “a media stunt” and said, “I was so angry.” She added that EQCA and NCLR officials later apologized.

Woods said that among other benefits, her work after the Ghost Ship fire gave her an opportunity to do training with the sheriff’s department, an agency that Woods said had been the source of many clients’ complaints because of their encounters with deputies.

‘Clients ... from all over’

TransVision, which works to cut HIV infection rates among trans women in Alameda County, has 450 to 500 active clients. In recent years, the agency has started hearing from more homeless people, as well as younger people.

“Our clients come from all over,” said Woods. That includes cities as close as Berkeley and Oakland to locales out in the Central Valley like Fresno and Modesto.

Tamia Reed, 34, a transgender Oakland woman, has worked with TransVision since 2007.

Woods is “a big inspiration and a big help to the trans community,” said Reed.

Among other assistance, Woods

t

and others at TransVision have helped expunge her criminal record, which includes petty theft and “fighting,” so that Reed could gain employment.

They also helped her with getting her name changed, as well as access to food and hormones.

Reed said that Woods has shown her and others “there’s more out there than just being prostitutes and things like that. She opens up doors. ... She does a very good job at trying to help and be there for everybody.”

Like many others, Woods worries that the progress that’s been made is at risk.

With the bigotry that President Donald Trump’s administration has encouraged, “Visibility now is dangerous,” she said, and the biggest challenge “is not to be pushed backward.”

Trans people are “on the menu” with people like Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, “everywhere they think they can get a win targeting trans people,” she said.

The community always comes together “when we’re responding to tragedy,” said Woods. “... I’d love us to come together not because we’re being attacked and not because there’s a tragedy. I don’t know how that happens,” but there needs to be more “visibility and political leadership and seats at the political table across the country.”

Politics may be the next stage for Woods.

She was one of Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s (D-Oakland) appointed delegates to the California Democratic Party and she graduated this spring from Emerge California, which trains and encourages women to run for office. She is the new secretary of the state Democratic Party’s LGBT Caucus.

Woods, who lives in San Leandro with her wife, Bridgette Bodine, and their children, said that she’s “planning to run for something,” but she didn’t want to go into details.t

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<< Pride 2017

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 22-28, 2017

The ‘Cov’ opens doors for homeless youth

by Cynthia Laird

Staff provide workshops, yoga, and help with resumes.

Mental health services are also available.

“It’s successful because of our holistic approach,” Russell said.

S

ituated just a few blocks from Jack London Square, in Oakland’s Historic Waterfront Warehouse District, sits a large building that California Governor Jerry Brown lived in when he was mayor of the East Bay city.

While Brown is long gone, the space is now called home by 40 formerly homeless youth. They, and other young people who attend daytime programs, are provided holistic – and realistic – support as part of Covenant House California.

“They just embrace you and take you in,” Izhaunne Baker, a young gay man, said in a recent interview.

“Clothing, hygiene, meals, and housing. They make you feel safe.”

Baker, 21, arrived at the Oakland shelter about four months ago from New Jersey.

Deandre Harrison, 24, identifies as LGBT and is in Covenant House’s 90-day transitional housing program.

Originally from Louisiana, where he said that LGBT individuals are “not very well accepted,” he was homeless when he came to California and was doing odd jobs when he ended up in Oakland.

Since arriving at Covenant House, or the “Cov” as many of the youth and staff call it, Baker and Harrison have both been attending Berkeley City College and are interns at Berkeley Youth Alternatives, where Baker is a youth director and Harrison is assistant youth director.

“I think it’s wonderful here,” Harrison said. “I get along with most of my roommates.”

Array of services

Covenant House California is an affiliation of a national organization that was founded by a Franciscan priest in New York City in 1972. The California programs include the facility in Oakland, a campus in Los

LA gala

Cynthia Laird

Izhaunne Baker, left, and Deandre Harrison have both benefitted from the services at Covenant House’s Oakland shelter.

Angeles, and a shelter in Berkeley, which it took over in 2016. It is a 503(c)3 nonprofit and serves young people regardless of their religious backgrounds or affiliations, according to a fact sheet.

It works with homeless and trafficked youth.

“Covenant House California is dedicated to serving all God’s children, with absolute respect and unconditional love,” its mission statement reads, “to help youth experiencing homelessness, and to protect and safeguard all youth in need.”

Covenant House’s Oakland program started in 1998, said Noel Russell, who works as the development officer. The agency moved into its current building in 2005.

“We slowly expanded and house youth and a drop-in center,” Russell explained.

In Berkeley, Covenant House operates YEAH, or Youth Engagement Advocacy and Housing, which has 30 emergency beds.

Russell said that about 3,500 East Bay youth are homeless. Covenant

House has the most beds of any service provided in the area, she added.

Many homeless youth identify as LGBT, and Russell said Covenant House’s job is to make its spaces safe and affirming, while also providing life skills training and other services.

In mid-May the clients split 50-50 male and female, Russell said, adding that young women are often more intimidated by traditional shelter programs. Covenant House “feels like home” for them, Russell noted.

In addition to the two-year transitional housing program (called Rites of Passage), and the emergency 90day Safe Haven program, Covenant House’s Oakland facility offers a drop-in wellness center, where youth can receive case management services, legal aid, help with obtaining documents such as a birth certificate, and hang out. They can grab a snack and take a shower.

“We’re the only daytime drop-in center designated for young people in the East Bay,” Russell said.“They have access to computers,” which can be used for job searches or retrieving email.

In late April, hundreds of people attended “A Night Honoring Our Stars,” Covenant House California’s annual gala. Held at the Globe Theatre at Universal Studios Hollywood, guests mingled with TV stars and heard from southern Californian political leaders and agency officials.

While it has historically received significant support from Catholics, today Covenant House is very LGBTQ-friendly. There are out staff members like Krista Girty, MSW, a lesbian who’s senior vice president of northern California operations, and its Hollywood gala attracted several gay and straight celebrities who are big supporters.

One of those is Graham Patrick Martin, an ally who plays “Rusty Beck,” a gay formerly homeless youth, on the TNT crime procedural “Major Crimes.” In fact, most of the cast was on hand at the gala. James Duff, a TV writer and creator of the show, is a gay man and married to actor Phillip P. Keene, who also is a cast member.

“Some young people are in survival mode and many believe the streets is what they deserve,” Duff said during his gala remarks. “The door from the streets to the future is Covenant House.”

The benefit raised close to $550,000, said Amanda Sattler, chief development and communications officer who is based in LA. The agency’s annual budget for the LA and East Bay programs is a combined $10 million, Sattler explained.

Of that, the Bay Area programs have a budget of about $2.5 million, though Sattler said that is expected to increase

by $1 million next year.

Covenant House President and CEO Bill Bedrossian, MSW, had led the California programs for the past three years. At the gala, he announced a $10 million capital campaign, with half of that being dedicated to the East Bay programs.

“No young person in California deserves to be homeless,” Bedrossian said at the event. “What keeps me up at night is that for every one [person] that I work with, there are hundreds who are not housed.”

He said that 85 percent of the agency’s clients are using drugs when they enter the program. “Ninety percent are not when they leave.”

During the program, many in the audience were nearly brought to tears during “Cardboard Confessionals.”

Youth and alumni were shown in a video, holding up cardboard signs that said things like “Homeless and Depressed,” “Addicted in and out of hospitals,” “Sleeping on a park bench,” and “Kicked out because of my identity.” Then, the young people were shown again, as they flipped over the cardboard signs to reveal the progress they’ve made.

“Future RN, proud Filipino,” read the card of the young person who was formerly homeless and depressed.

Another now was working and attending a trade school. The young man who had been sleeping on a park bench held a sign that read, “Working, college student, moving forward.”

And the young woman who was kicked out due to her identity was now an “employed modeling queen.”

It was a powerful moment when, after the video, several young people appeared on stage holding cardboard signs that they then turned over, revealing their news lives thanks to the services they received at Covenant House. One said he was now an LGBT See page 20 >>

Moving people with

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<< Pride 2017

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 22-28, 2017

Trans pastor and police chaplain helps others

by David-Elijah Nahmod

T

here’s a trans pastor in San Francisco who has fostered change by ministering to a congregation in the Outer Sunset, an area of the city not known for its wealth of LGBTQ institutions.

The Reverend Megan Rohrer is the first out transgender person to lead a Lutheran congregation. Currently the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Rohrer has created an environment where all people – LGBT and otherwise – can worship together in a spirit of unity, harmony and joy.

Rohrer, 36, who prefers gender-neutral pronouns, was also sworn in earlier this year as a volunteer chaplain for the San Francisco Police Department and prays with the homeless as part of their work with the San Francisco Night Ministry.

The reverend is always ready to serve their community at a moment’s notice.

Within 24 hours of last December’s fire at Oakland’s Ghost Ship warehouse, which killed 36 people, Rohrer rushed to the East Bay to console survivors and to comfort the loved ones of those who perished. The following night Rohrer organized a memorial service at Harvey Milk Plaza for the transgender and gender non-conforming victims of the fire. (At least three people who died were transgender people.)

Courtesy Megan Rohrer

The Reverend Megan Rohrer is pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in San Francisco.

Rohrer recently spoke to the Bay Area Reporter about their own faith journey and their commitment to community service. It’s a story that began in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Rohrer came out in college, and recalls that they had to move off campus after the death of Matthew Shepard due to safety concerns.

Shepard was a gay Wyoming college student who was beaten and tied to a fence post in 1998. His murder made national headlines and brought attention to anti-gay hate crimes. A federal hate crime law, signed by President Barack Obama in 2009, bears his name, as well as the name of James Byrd Jr., an African-American man who was

dragged to death by three white men a few months before Shepard’s murder.

“I moved to Berkeley in 2001 to go to seminary and began working as the executive director of Welcome, serving the chronically homeless in the Polk Gulch that June,” Rohrer recalled.

“Eating with the homeless and sleeping out on the streets for a week each year, I fed the homeless for 12 years, before Welcome’s work transitioned to finding creative ways to patch holes in San Francisco’s continuum of care.

“Called by Grace Lutheran, in the Sunset district, the congregation sees my advocacy work with Welcome as the mission of our church,” Rohrer added.

When Rohrer’s homeless advocacy first began, they were not yet identifying as transgender.

“When I was ordained as a pastor, in 2006, I identified as genderqueer,” Rohrer said. “The idea of the transgender umbrella had not been named yet.

Back then the only medical options for transitioning were to choose to either look like Ken or Barbie. Neither of those options seemed like a good fit for me.”

Rohrer noted the changes brought about by the Obama administration – as well as lawsuits filed by private citizens – that made it possible for transgender people to “choose their own adventure,” as Rohrer refers to it.

During the Obama years, the

administration issued guidance directed at protecting trans students, which the Trump administration has since rescinded.

“As someone who always wanted to be a parent, many of my medical choices were also closely linked to my own fertility decisions,” Rohrer said. “Now that my wife, Laurel Rohrer, and I have two beautiful children that we are adopting, my future choices may look different than my current choices. The beauty of pastor robes is that my uniform does not change when I change my space on the gender spectrum.”

SFPD chaplain

The pastor addressed the significance of having an out trans person do the kind of spiritual work they do, including becoming a police chaplain.

Rohrer said that Captain Teresa Ewins, a lesbian who oversees the Tenderloin station, encouraged them to become a chaplain.

“Particularly so that the LGBTQ members of the SFPD would know for certain that they could utilize the chaplains for self-care and support,” Rohrer said. “In light of the guidelines released by the Trans March against being kind to police officers, the timing of my swearing in could not be more important.”

Last year, Mayor Ed Lee and gay officials then-state Senator Mark Leno and then-Supervisor Scott Wiener were

t

heckled and booed off the stage at the Trans March. This year, organizers said elected officials would not be speaking from the stage at the event.

Rohrer elaborated on the changes for this year’s Trans March, scheduled for Friday, June 25.

“This year’s Trans March guidelines go so far as forbidding trans people from saying kind things to the SFPD as they support marchers,” Rohrer said. “I know many LGBTQ officers who volunteer to work at the Trans March, Dyke March, and Pride parade, particularly so they can support their community.”

According to the Trans March’s guidelines, “Law enforcement is generally hostile towards trans people, particular [sic] those who are black and brown. From harassment and abuse to violence and outright murder, law enforcement has not be [sic] a friend to our communities and many of our allies. Do not talk to them. Do not take selfies with them. Do not high five them. Do not thank them,” the statement reads.

Trans March organizer Danielle Castro told the B.A.R. that the guideline was “for the safety of the community.”

Asked about the possibility of LGBT SFPD members wanting to be involved with the march, Castro said, “Everyone is welcome to come. We just don’t want an issue with our attendees being arrested.”

Rohrer said that no one from the Trans March has contacted her to participate. But she and her family will be marching in Sunday’s Pride parade.

“The kids, Laurel, and I will be marching in the Pride parade with the police contingent. I’ll be in police blues with my clergy collar,” Rohrer said.

Rohrer added that they want community members to know that they need not be afraid to ask for help.

“Beyond the care that I provide for members of the SFPD, I hope that the existence of a transgender SFPD chaplain can encourage at least one person to seek safety from domestic violence, to report a hate crime, or to learn more about the burden first responders carry on our behalf,” Rohrer said.

When speaking with Rohrer, many might notice that they always specify that they are “openly transgender.” The B.A.R. asked about the significance of the word “openly.”

“There have been countless transgender people throughout history, most we will never know about because they live authentically in the world without need of disclosing their genital history to strangers,” Rohrer said.

“Some individuals, like me, disclose their transgender status in order to educate and advocate. Instead of saying I’m the first transgender person to do something, I say the first ‘openly’ transgender, to honor those who live nondisclosing lives. Their contributions are just as valuable.”

Rohrer also addressed their preference for gender-neutral pronouns.

“For some, gender-neutral pronouns name a space of defiance, living intentionally in the middle or outside of the gender spectrum,” they said. “As a pastor, working a very public job, gender-neutral pronouns give me the space I need to make choices about my health and body privately. When and how I choose to identify as male, female or both, is less important to me than helping people live with hope, kindness and faith.”

Rohrer has indeed brought change to the LGBT community, and to the lives of transgender people themselves, many of whom are finding welcoming homes in faith communities for the first time.

“Part of the reason I’m so open about both my faith and my trans status is because I regularly get emails and social media messages from people who say that they decided not to kill themselves after they read about me,” Rohrer said. “These messages are humbling and far too much of a weight for one person to carry, perhaps this is why I work so hard to support and mentor others. Sometimes the greatest things we can do is be ourselves proudly and publicly.” t For information on Grace Lutheran Church, visit dailygrace.club.

LOVE IS THE ANSWER. FOREVER PROUD OF OUR COMMUNITY.

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<< Pride 2017

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 22-28, 2017

OFC provides a lifeline for LGBTQ families

by Alex Madison

A

s Renata Moreira, executive director of San Francisco-based Our Family Coalition said, empowering others and fighting against injustice is more than just her job, it’s her calling. A calling she hopes will pave a road for a more accepting and inclusive society for her 1-yearold daughter, Mayla.

Our Family Coalition, or OFC, advances equity for LGBTQ families with children through support, education, and advocacy. It was formed in 2002 through a merger of Our Family, based in the East Bay, and All Our Families Coalition in San Francisco. Today, the agency has a vibrant presence throughout the Bay Area.

It serves about 2,800 community members annually through a variety of programs and is well known for its Family Gardens at local Pride events, including San Francisco Pride this weekend. OFC’s annual budget was about $1.2 million in 2015, according to its annual report.

Moreira, 40, has dedicated almost half her life advancing equal opportunities for minority groups like women, immigrants, and LGBTQs. She herself is a member of all three.

Moreira’s story begins in Brazil, where she grew up in a Catholic, conservative household, one not accepting of the queer community.

“I grew up experiencing a lot of homophobia and witnessing trans and biphobia, which was always a painful experience for me,” she said. “At one time, I was voiceless, but once I found a voice I had to give that back and carve spaces for emerging leaders of the next generation to step into.”

Her challenging upbringing inspired a career working with educational and nonprofit organizations

Our Family Coalition

Renata Moreira helps hold a bullhorn for kids at the 2012 San Francisco Pride parade.

focused on uplifting individuals and encouraging communities to unite.

Moreira has many accomplishments. After earning her master’s degree in gender studies at City University of New York 20 years ago, Moreira has gone on to serve as a board member or director of many organizations supporting marginalized communities as well as teaching gender studies in universities throughout the nation.

After Moreira’s partner (who asked that her name not be published) accepted a job in San Francisco five years ago, Moreira has served as a member of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission LGBTQ Advisory Committee and co-chaired the statewide Breakthrough Conversations Project while currently serving on the advisory board of the California Immigrant Policy Institute.

Her time with OFC began as a volunteer, which evolved into what Moreira called “a moral obligation to be in the front lines working for

Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s isn’t easy.

Reaching us is.

and with my people to push for radically inclusive spaces for marginalized folks.”

As the executive director of OFC since January (she was previously interim executive director), Moreira has positively affected many lives.

One of those lives is that of Bob Hartnagel, a gay dad who worked for many years as chief of staff for gay former state Senator Mark Leno, now a San Francisco mayoral candidate. Hartnagel and Moreira met when she was the communications and policy director at OFC and he was spearheading an OFC event now known as “Egg Meets Sperm.”

“Working with Renata is an uplifting experience,” he said. “Her energy and charisma lights up the room and just draws you in.”

It is because of this networking event, which pairs gay men eager to become dads with women looking for a donor or vice versa, that Hartnagel now has a 2-year-old daughter.

Hartnagel elaborated on the importance of the resources OFC provides like parenting support groups and advocacy work. In some states, same-sex couples still are denied adoption rights and birth certificates

of their children, something that is at the forefront of Moreira’s mind.

“She’s an incredibly passionate activist working with community members on how to present in the capital and new ways that OFC can continue advocacy,” Hartnagel said. “She just does such important work that needs to be done. The coalition reflects where our community is going and is a critical and important organization in our community today.”

One of OFC’s significant accomplishments was seeing passage in 2015 of Assembly Bill 960, the Equal Protection for All Families Act, by Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco). The law updated California’s assisted reproduction laws to ensure that the law equally protects all families, including LGBT families. The coalition partnered with other organizations to cosponsor the bill and rallied significant community support.

Becoming a mom

Moreira’s own story of becoming a mother was also one influenced

by OFC. After difficulties becoming pregnant and not having the support of her biological family, Moreira relied on the OFC community for support.

“On my journey to form my family, I had to rely on Our Family Coalition and other folks who went through it. I am grateful that Our Family Coalition has been around for 20 years so I didn’t have to struggle in isolation,” she said.

During that time, Moreira reached out to another OFC mother and friend, Celestina Pearl, a nurse in San Francisco. Pearl met Moreira when they were both working toward policy changes in City Hall as volunteers for OFC. “The biggest thing I admire about Renata is her enthusiasm,” said Pearl, who is also a parent leader for the queer family group at OFC. “She is very loving and big-hearted and always so upbeat, smiling and ready to give someone a hug.”

W

Free 24/7 Helpline: 800.272.3900 LGBT Dementia Care Network: alz.org/norcal

Pearl said it is leaders like Moreira who motivate others to keep going.

“The momentum that she keeps going on behalf of all of us is vital.”

After Moreira had Mayla, the continuation to create a world where LGBT children are no longer bullied in school, and have more welcoming spaces for LGBT families, became even stronger.

Moreira talked about the desire for her daughter to be able to speak freely of her family without fear of discrimination, something that has improved in recent years due to the visibility of groups like OFC and greater acceptance of LGBT families by educators and straight allies. “[Our children] have conditions around them in which their families are recognized and dignified which allows them to be allies for other communities,” Moreira said about her daughter and other children of LGBT families.

Another OFC accomplishment Moreira spoke of was its role in the inception of the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful, or FAIR, Education Act, which requires social studies curricula in California public schools to include information about the contributions of LGBT people. Leno authored the bill in 2011 and it took effect in 2012.

The future for Moreira, who said, “We have a lot of work to do,” will focus on the building of political power in a time of need, deepening community building, and, of course, attending Pride events this weekend. To Moreira, Pride is a time to share stories; something she said is the most impactful thing of all.

“We must continue to tell stories.

National and global stories to open more hearts and minds to the LGBT community,” she said. “To counteract the viscous narratives that say we are less than. We are beautiful and loving people.”t For more information about Our Family Coalition, visit http:// www.ourfamily.org.

CEO leads the way on pot products

by Sari Staver

If you care for someone with Alzheimer’s disease, memory loss or dementia, you are not alone. We’re here day or night — whenever you need us — offering reliable information and support.

t

hen it comes to high quality medical marijuana, Erich Pearson keeps raising the bar.

Pearson, 40, the CEO of the sevenyear-old dispensary SPARC, was the first to introduce mandatory laboratory testing of all cannabis products.

Later this year, SPARC will be the first dispensary in San Francisco to grow and sell its own line of organic, biodynamically grown flowers.

“Erich Pearson is driven by a clear vision of the high standards patients should experience when they visit a dispensary,” said Terrance Alan, a gay man who’s chair of San Francisco’s Cannabis State Legalization Task Force.

“I’ve watched Erich refine every part of the patient experience at SPARC to give patients not just the feeling they are in good company, but to deliver the promise through great medicine, trained and dedicated staff, support services, education, and a focus on providing the best of what patients need,” Alan wrote in an email to the Bay Area Reporter.

“A person with a clear vision in the cannabis industry is not unique, but finding one who is ahead of the regulatory curve most certainly is,” Alan added.

Next year state regulations will require dispensaries to test all products but “Erich made sure that happened at SPARC long ago,” Alan noted.

Pearson, a gay man, has been growing pot in northern California since Proposition 215 passed in 1996, legalizing medical marijuana. He

Erich Pearson

SPARC CEO Erich Pearson walks among rows of cannabis plants at his farm in Sonoma County.

moved to the Bay Area from Greenwood, Indiana, with a degree in construction management from Purdue University. Since then, he’s not only been growing medical marijuana but he’s also been involved in the construction of greenhouses where SPARC grows much of its inventory.

“Patients need a knowledgeable and compassionate partner when they start using cannabis and Erich has always been known for having top notch patient advisers,” Alan wrote. “And most important is the medicine, the cannabis. To help achieve this Erich has built, with full city knowledge and approval, a sophisticated growing facility in the city where product quality is

overseen from seed to medicine.”

Pearson’s reputation soared after he founded SPARC, which has been featured in the New York Times and Wired magazine and was cited by Fast Company as “The Apple Store of Marijuana Shops.”

“People got the idea that we were expensive,” said Pearson, “but we always made sure we had the best prices.”

He said it was essential for the dispensary to be top-notch.

“It was always important to me that SPARC have a more professional approach” than many of the dispensaries had at the time, he said.

“We wanted to create a space and an environment where all San Franciscans would feel comfortable,” Pearson explained.

The next frontier

Still maintaining an apartment in the Castro, Pearson is now spending most of his time in Sonoma County, where he operates an organic farm and cultivates sun-grown cannabis using the latest technology and practices.

“I’d rather not say too much about the project right now,” Pearson said in a telephone interview with the B.A.R. “But one of the most exciting parts is that we’re going to be able to grow biodynamically grown flowers.”

Biodynamic farming tries to create a diversified, balanced farm ecosystem that generates health and fertility as much as possible See page 16 >>

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14 • BAY AREA REPORTER •

<< Pride 2017

June 22-28, 2017

t

Violinist breaks barriers with SF Symphony

by Bob Ristelhueber

for it, and how can you be something that there are no words for?” he asked.

“But over the years I just started having the freedom to examine who I am as a person, and as the journey continued that’s how I ended up here.”

S

an Francisco Symphony violinist Eliot Lev came out with a bang this year – and made a little history too.

He is the first out trans member of the venerable music organization.

After revealing his gender identity to the symphony’s musicians and staff in a series of emotional meetings in January, Lev then talked about being transgender in a video shown during the Symphony Pride concert at Davies Symphony Hall in April. The video, featuring several LGB members of the orchestra, showed Lev holding hands with his fiancee as they walked their dog in a park. It received a huge ovation from a sold-out hall that included Mayor Ed Lee and gay former state Senator Mark Leno.

That night at Davies “was incredibly moving,” Lev recalled. “Not just because of the positive reaction in the audience to what I had to say in the video, but rather how we are as a community and the support we have for each other. However unsettling current events are, it’s great to know you have your queer family with you here in San Francisco.”

It had been a long journey from St. Petersburg, Russia to the stage of Davies Hall. Like any musician making the passage from child star to worldclass professional, Lev put in arduous years of single-minded, dedicated work. But this same struggle also sidetracked him from another journey he needed to make, namely coming out as a transgender man.

Lev’s musical talent became apparent almost from the moment he first picked up a violin at age 4. His father was a cellist with the St. Petersburg Symphony. After Lev enrolled in the famous Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory he quickly became one of the most promising young musicians of Russia. At age 14, he won the prestigious Glazunov Violin Competition in Paris and later joined the Gustav

Decision to come out

Bob Ristelhueber

Eliot Lev takes a break during rehearsal with the San Francisco Symphony.

Mahler Youth Orchestra under the baton of the world-renowned conductor Claudio Abbado. In 2006, Lev came to the U.S. to study with noted violin soloist Vadim Gluzman at the Chicago College of Performing Arts.

Even after arriving in the U.S. at age 19, there was little opportunity for Lev to explore his emerging gender identity.

He was preoccupied with studying and then working his way up the career ladder in a fiercely competitive field to secure a green card that would allow him to stay in this country permanently.

“There is the pressure of survival,” he said. “As someone on a student visa you need to get a job, and the immigration issue meant always putting your career first because it’s a necessity in terms of having an opportunity to live here.”

Along the way, there were bumps in the road – his first application for a green card was rejected by immigration officials. But his successes – landing positions first with the Charlotte Symphony and Utah Symphony, and in 2014 as a second violinist with the San Francisco Symphony – gradually gave Lev the breathing room to begin coming to terms with his gender identity.

“Growing up there were no words

Lev, 30, met fiancee Stephanie MacAller, 30, who works for a biotechnology company, in March 2016, around the same time he finally got his green card. They met through an online dating app at an early stage in his coming-out process. Still using his birth name, Lev’s personal profile identified himself as genderqueer, and he had already adopted the shorter hair and more traditionally masculine clothing he wears today.

“That was right before he was calling himself Eliot, but he looked like a cute boy to me,” MacAller smiled.

“I liked him.” After what she calls a “whirlwind romance,” the couple got engaged this past January 6. “We were at home reading poetry to each other” when Lev dropped to one knee and proposed, he recalled. MacAller quickly accepted.

“Lucky for me,” Lev grinned.

That milestone in turn sparked Lev’s decision to come out as transgender to his symphony colleagues.

“I think our engagement had a lot to do with it, because here is a person who is supportive of me no matter what,” he said. “In a way, my transition did start before we met, and in a way it started after we got engaged, so as Steph pointed out it’s one big continuous thing. It’s not something you do overnight but something that takes several years to absorb and live with.”

But how does one come out to a hundred fellow musicians plus the many staff who make the symphony run? Lev chose to make an announcement at an all-staff meeting in January.

“If you don’t tell everybody at once it becomes almost a rumor, and that’s

what I wanted to avoid most,” he said.

The issues involved were very personal and fundamental: “It’s not somebody I’m dating, it’s what name do you call me, what pronoun do you use.

Those are very basic things,” he said.

Robin Freeman, who handles public relations for the symphony, was at that staff meeting.

“They said, ‘You have a special guest,’ and we didn’t know who it would be,” she recalled. “It was just so touching, and at the end we all stood up and gave him a standing ovation.”

Lev said the reaction from his colleagues was better than he expected.

“To come into a room with some familiar faces, but also a lot of strangers, and to make one of the most personal announcements in your life was a very interesting experience,” he said.

“Their reaction was so much warmer than I ever expected. I knew it would be one of tolerance and understanding but there’s a great gap between tolerance and overwhelming support.

So they more than bridged that gap.”

As the first openly trans musician at the symphony, Lev knew that addressing the musicians would be an intense experience, but he never doubted they would be supportive.

“It’s a very wonderful environment where it’s safe to be a human being,” he said.“Not just safe but encouraged as well.”

With gay longtime music director, Michael Tilson Thomas, there was never any question that there would be support from the top of the organization. Lev had performed under Thomas’ baton once before, when he played in the New World Symphony in Miami.

The Symphony Pride concert in April was especially important for Lev, since it was scheduled after the symphony canceled a series of concerts in North Carolina, his former home, in protest against that state’s “bathroom bill” that targeted transgender people.

(The bill, HB 2, was repealed in late March, but advocates said it was a

repeal in name only, as the state’s LGBT residents have no protection from discrimination.)

“As far as meaningful concerts go, that was probably right at the top of my list, one concert you don’t forget for the rest of your days,” Lev said of the Pride concert.

Lev believes he has an opportunity not given to many trans people.

“Visibility is very important, but it’s one thing to come out as trans in San Francisco, and a totally different experience in a lot of other places,” he said. “Yes, it does take courage to go public, but where your life won’t be threatened and your employment won’t be threatened that’s courage but it’s not insane risk. For those of us in a position of privilege here or anywhere, it’s crucial we’re as open as we can be about who we are.”t For more information, visit https://www.sfsymphony.org/.

Bob Ristelhueber

Eliot Lev, right, and his fiancée, Stephanie MacAller, relax with their dog, Penny.

Brown works to address tech equity

by Michael Nugent

C

edric Brown, a gay man of color, has found his calling innovatively addressing issues of equity in tech.

He works at the Kapor Center for Social Impact in Oakland, a different kind of technological organization that places marginalized groups at its center.

“At Kapor’s core, we’re a racial

justice organization,” said Brown, the chief of community engagement.

“We’re pushing inclusion with race as the central lens, which necessitates talking about all inclusion. So all things get put on the table. We weave intersectionality into that, including women, people of color, and LGBT.” Brown said that there is much work to do in the tech industry.

“While we’ve made enormous progress with LGBT visibility, there are still ways we’re marginalized in corporate environments – and tech is no exception. Queer tech workers can sometimes express themselves, but so much of tech is bro culture,” Brown said. “We work to make tech fully inclusive.

“It’s the same with race, especially people of African descent and Latinx,” he added. “Unfortunately, if you have a more inclusive policy, there’s a perception that you’re lowering the bar. Hate to mention it – it’s disempowering – but we have to look at barriers that still exist. We need to move from prioritizing a certain type of hoodied young 20-something, white male, assumed straight, as the type who’s in tech. This is one of the pillars of Kapor.”

Brown, 49, has had many stops on the path to Kapor. He grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and moved to the Bay Area for grad school.

“I thought, this is it! The sociopolitical environment was going to allow me to grow. There were fewer anti-gay and limiting views on race,” he said.

Originally working as a counselor with San Francisco United School District, Brown stumbled onto the San Francisco Education Fund and got his first job in philanthropy.

Brown then worked for the San Francisco Foundation, where he met Freada Kapor Klein and Mitch Kapor, who were looking to launch a black leadership panel at UC Berkeley.

Kapor had started a development corporation in the 1980s and was an early tech guru, developing the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet. His wife, Kapor Klein, focused on making the company the

most inclusive work environment in the nation.

After a stint with the Level Playing Field Institute, Brown wanted to return to philanthropy and, with Kapor Klein’s enthusiastic support, began working for the Kapor Family Foundation.

“I launched program areas in 200713, working on civil engagement, green access with low-income communities of color, and black college access,” he said.

Brown noticed that fewer black men were applying, and founded the College Bound Brotherhood, one of 15 organizations specializing in college readiness for African-American young men.

The Kapors then pivoted to tech inclusion.

“We want tech ecosystems and entrepreneurs to look more like the makeup of the U.S. to benefit people of color and marginalized communities – for people who have the passion for tech but need the pathways to break in and succeed,” Brown said.

The organization was based in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, but it felt removed from the communities it was serving.

Finding Oakland

Brown passed by a building at 2148 Broadway in Oakland on his way to and from work, and started thinking.

“I thought it would be a cool place with interesting activity in the neighborhood,” he said. “The Kapors wanted to jump on it right away and bought the building. I asked to have an auditorium space, so we could convene people to have conversations for action, an open, inclusive,

Michael Nugent

Cedric Brown, chief of community engagement at the Kapor Center for Social Impact, has worked to foster a more inclusive environment in the tech sector.

stimulating space. This is a huge asset.

We have events on the roof and in the Lotus Theater. We want people to see it as a destination: come here, learn, and understand social justice as part of tech-oriented work.”

The Kapor Center opened in 2016 and hosts multiple events per week, most of which are open to the public.

The center has assets of about $44 million, according to its Form 990.

Kapor Klein, co-chair of the center, praised Brown’s work.

“Cedric’s passion and energy have been the driving force of our work for more than 15 years,” Kapor Klein said in an email. “He’s the one who convinced us to move the Kapor Center to Oakland in the first place, and See page 20 >>

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<< Pride 2017

16 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 22-28, 2017

Turner works to open dialogue through games

by Brian Bromberger

rallies so that people of color can be aware of the treatment. A 2016 study uring these dark days of the imfrom the California HIV/AIDS Reploding Trump administration, search Programs found that many advocates say it has become imperablack and Latino men don’t know tive for groups with similar progresabout it or have access to it. sive goals to dialogue with each other, “Many African-Americans don’t to deal with differences so they can feel comfortable coming to the Castro better appreciate and work together and we want to let people know there is to foster similarities. space here for them,” Turner said. “The For LGBTQs, these conversations great thing about gaming is that it can often begin within the community bring people together, build commuso that people can better communinity. When you are gaming, barriers cate with outside groups of common come down more easily and it encourpurpose. And because politically, the ages conversation. It involves everyone, present seems so bleak to so many, there’s no right and wrong so people looking to future leadership that laugh more and have a great time.” can return to a vision realizing the Both BBE and DREAAM reach out full equality of all LGBTQ people is to the HIV-positive population but essential. also make sure that all attendees are One of those young leaders is Traye aware of the wellness services at Strut.

Turner, the program assistant of Black “I have read about alarming statisBrothers Esteem and DREAAM, tics, I think from the CDC, that if the which stands for Determined to Recurrent rate of seroconversion conspect and Encourage African-Amertinues, one out of every two Africanican Men. The San Francisco AIDS American men will be HIV-positive.

Foundation runs both programs.

If San Francisco is trying to get to At the end of March, Turner had zero, to meet these goals we need to organized the first black-oriented keep institutions accountable about Gaymer night held at Strut, which inthis very vulnerable population.” cluded cards, board games, and video He was referring to the Getting to games. Strut, SFAF’s men’s health cenZero initiative, which aims to make ter in the Castro, seemed the perfect San Francisco the first city to achieve place to meet Turner for an interview. the UNAIDS goals of eliminating Turner, 25, talked about what innew HIV infections, deaths due to spired him to organize the event.

HIV/AIDS, and stigma against people “I feel there are not a lot of Afroliving with HIV by 2020. It relies on American-centric events here in San a three-prong strategy of expanded Francisco, so I wanted to give someaccess to PrEP; rapid initiation of thing back, draw in new people and antiretroviral therapy, or ART; and excite them, letting them know that engaging and retaining HIV-positive we have programs for them through people in care. It also aims to reduce BBE and DREAAM, but most imporstigma around HIV. tantly that there is a space for them Travis Wise, program coordinahere in the Castro,” he said. tor at BBE, admires Turner’s passion Turner, an avid gamer himself, for innovation and drive to challenge thought that games would be a way creatively how the group looks at its for people to feel comfortable. own work.

“I love games and am attending “He provides a 2017 model for school, the American Academy of BBE increasing our outreach and Arts, for game design,” he said. “I’ve getting us on all the major forms of been to other gay games groups so social media, all of which has been I felt this was something I could instrumental in getting us back into contribute. This wasn’t easy to put the larger LGBTQ community,” Wise together since people weren’t sure if said. “The Black Gaymer night is just a gamer night, especially one focused one of many ideas he has suggested on black gamers, could even be sucand implemented. Where some peocessful. While we tried to find out ple play checkers, he plays chess ... he’s where black gamers might be located very tactical. That night showed folks in the city and designed posters to at the SFAF, which sponsors both BBE promote it, we wanted to welcome and DREAAM, that programming everyone, especially allies. But because can be targeted to black men but can we felt there aren’t enough events in also be available to other populations. the Castro that celebrate blackness, It builds community by having black we wanted to bring these two worlds and brown men talk to each other. together.”

If we had 70 at the first night, with Traye’s determination and sweet, Longtime groups warm-hearted nature, the next night BBE has been around for 20 years, only get bigger.”

BestwillWedding Photographer geared toward gay African-AmeriTony Bradfod, associate director of as voted by BAR readers cans, promoting wellness, spiritualcommunity engagement programs ity, and empowerment with drop-in for SFAF, said, “Traye has demongroups, social events, book readings, strated his ability to work hard and and outings. DREAAM has similar be creative, and he will be an asset to programs but is focused on the 18-toour African-American community.

30 demographic. They meet at Strut We look to mentor, encourage, and and encourage screening for sexually inform the next generation who will transmitted infections as well as other continue to make a difference in the sexual health services. fight against AIDS, and Traye is on his The groups have sponsored PrEP way to becoming a great leader.”

societal threat yet somehow the KKK is not. It’s so fucked up. The dilemma for people of color is not only do they have to deal with inequality but they have to make sure conversations about race are comfortable and don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.”

D

Celebrating blackness

Brian Bromberger

Traye Turner organized a successful Black Gaymer night earlier this year and hopes to have more such activities at Strut.

Outsider

Turner revealed that he has always felt like an outsider, which was the reason he sought out BBE. “I felt alone so I wanted to create a space for others so they wouldn’t feel the way I felt,” he said. “Racism manifests itself differently here in SF. When people think of racism they think it is something you do maliciously to someone. Yet it is often something inadvertent, by not including or overlooking groups, rather than deliberately excluding them.

“Gay people may be less racist than the larger population, but they don’t realize how much they are still affected by the ideas of the larger society and how many things they subconsciously subscribe to, which can be manifested in how they interact with other people. It is difficult to address racism with white gay men because they think, ‘since I’m gay, I can’t be racist or misogynistic because that is what bad people do,’ despite microaggressions, which everyone does and I experience all the time.”

Taylor said that he has encountered racism in the Castro.

“I’ve also encountered overt racism, such as when a black friend and I went to a bar in the Castro and one of the staff made an off-putting remark,” he said. “First, you have to process is this really happening. You have to second-guess yourself. It’s easy to excuse it, diminish it, or maybe you didn’t hear it correctly, almost like blaming the victim. You want to believe as gay men, since we’ve all experienced discrimination, we would avoid it ourselves. So that incident was disheartening and it took me awhile to feel comfortable coming back to the Castro, then talking to the manager of the bar and telling him what happened. I said I hope this doesn’t occur to anyone else in the future and since I’m in leadership roles I want to feel comfortable recommending this space to other people. It’s very painful because, since we are all gay and have felt excluded in the past, we want to feel we can fit in our community, but that is not always the case.”

Remarks on dating have also affected Turner.

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Pot products

From page 12

from within the farm itself, Pearson explained.

Last year, when SPARC sold another grower’s biodynamically grown flowers “we couldn’t keep the product on the shelves,” he said.

“So we think it is going to be in great demand.”

In the meantime, while overseeing operations at his new farm, Pearson continues his activism, serving on the board of the National Cannabis Industry Association since its founding in 2010.

As one of the nation’s strongest proponents of medical cannabis regulation, cultivation, and industry best practices, Pearson also served

“I’ve had guys say to me, ‘I never thought about dating a black guy. I just wanted something normal.’ Not only don’t they realize how such a remark impacts me, but they don’t recognize how deeply ingrained such thoughts are, unless it is brought to their attention,” Turner said.

But he said that negotiating life often means picking one’s battles.

“It’s case-by-case deciding if anything I say will make a difference,” Turner said. “At a party, do I want to be the guy who stops conversation?

I can’t do it all the time, as it gets exhausting. Do I really want to spend my whole life fighting? I’ve been told everyone is equal and everything is cool in our ‘post-racial’ society. Yet as I get older I see that disparity between what is taught or believed and what actually happens, living in a society that wants to celebrate this myth. If you challenge it, you are the bad guy.

It’s a mind-fuck in that you are being misrepresented but people don’t really want to talk about it.”

When asked how his generation differs from previous ones, he thinks most older men have accepted that they live in a racist society and that’s the way it is. For example, for some there was little surprise at Donald Trump’s victory last November, and to think it could have been different is foolish.

“I reject that mindset because there is still the hope that my generation can still change things,” Turner said. “And the older generation has said, now it’s up to you. Rather than being complacent and accepting the way things are or going at it full force and challenge everything, I’m looking for a middle ground so I can be effective in certain situations. For example, we define terrorism as people who use fear to dictate or control behavior, describing Muslims and Middle Easterners as terrorists. But this could also be the definition of racism or as justification to incite violence.

“So I don’t think the KKK should exist in any capacity. It’s not freedom of speech; it’s a hate group,” he added, referring to the Ku Klux Klan. “Many see the Black Lives Matter movement, one meant to promote equality, as a

on the San Francisco District Attorney’s Medical Marijuana Advisory Group. He was instrumental in the passage of San Francisco’s Medical Cannabis Dispensary Act and the relegation of marijuana offenses to law enforcement’s lowest priority.

In 2007, Pearson was appointed to sit on San Francisco’s Medical Cannabis Working Group and in 2015, with Prop 64 on the horizon, Erich became the dispensary representative to San Francisco’s State Cannabis Legalization Task Force, where he continues to serve.

Before he launched SPARC in 2010, Pearson co-founded the San Francisco Cannabis Collective to fill the needs of low-income patients whose doctors had prescribed medical marijuana to address serious

“Whenever I want to celebrate blackness, I’m seen as white-hating.

I’m not anti-white but I am anti-white establishment in that it puts the interest of white people and their security above everyone else,” Turner said.

“I’ve only recently gotten to a more racially aggressive mindset because of my leadership roles. White friends questioned when I sought out BBE because I was looking for a group that would understand my experience but they wondered why couldn’t I participate in a group open to everyone.

But in such a group I have to justify why I’m feeling after what happened to me and explain why that is the case.

If what happened to me becomes a teaching experience for everyone else, where is my healing in that situation?

Why do I have to let others know why I feel the way I do is justified?”

He said that’s how he got the inspiration for the gamer night.

“Ultimately, that is why I set up Black Gaymer night, so other people don’t have to justify who they are or why they feel the way they do, and won’t be the outsider, especially in the Castro,” Turner said. “As gay black men we also get criticism from hetero black society, as if being gay and black is the lowest of the low. They, and especially religious black folk, feel being gay is a choice. When my white gay friends ask what is harder, being gay or black, I say definitely being black because, for me, gayness is something I can turn off or be incognito, so if I want, no one knows I’m gay. But with being black, someone can see you a block away and already have a preconceived idea about you. You wear blackness everywhere you go.

“Anyhow, I want the black gamers to be celebrated and seen,” he added.

“Visibility is crucial and to let white people know that blackness is not one idea, but a whole array or spectrum.

There are many ways to be black.”

Turner is trying to juggle his career in game design with all the community work he does.

“Rather than taking one priority I’m trying to balance the two things together as they both build community,” he explained. “I have plans for future game nights, like having a professional panel like at conventions, with blacks in the gaming industry talking about their experiences. It would be nice if we could reach the point where it is only about the career and not just being black in that industry, but we’re not there yet.”t For more information, visit http:// www.sfaf.org or strutsf.org.

illnesses. SPARC also collaborates with local hospices, residential care facilities, and dispensaries to supply medical marijuana at no cost to seriously ill patients.

SPARC has a long history of donating to the community, Pearson said. For the past 10 years, SPARC has been donating flowers and edibles to patients at Maitri hospice as well as other patients who apply through the dispensary directly, he explained.

“That has been and always will be an important part of our work,” he said.t For more information, visit www. sparcsf.org.

THRIVE WITH PRIDE We all deserve to be healthy and happy When you embrace equality, it helps lead to a healthier, happier future for all—and we want everyone to live life to its fullest. That’s why we champion diversity and invest in the community.

Kaiser Permanente is proud to have a long history as a major sponsor of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade. And we’re always proud to be your partner in health. Look for our float in the parade lineup on June 25.

kp.org/sanfrancisco

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Pride 2017>>

June 22-28, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

Gay attorney realizes dream of helping refugees

by Charlie Wagner

P

eople seeking asylum in the United States usually face a difficult process, and it can be even more complicated for LGBTs trying to flee hostile homelands.

Immigration attorney Okan Sengun is working to change that with the Center for Immigrant Protection and its LGBT Asylum Project, which he co-founded in 2015 to offer probono legal representation to vulnerable immigrants escaping violence and persecution.

Between 75 and 80 nations have anti-LGBT laws and at least 10 countries currently have the death penalty for homosexuality. As a gay Turkish immigrant himself, Sengun knew something like the immigrant protection program was urgently needed.

Attorney Brooke Westling, 33, a straight ally, co-founded the LGBT Asylum Project with Sengun. While the organization is technically known as CIP, it’s commonly referred to as the LGBT Asylum Project, board member Adam Sandel said.

The LGBT Asylum Project is the only Bay Area nonprofit entity dedicated to offering pro-bono assistance to vulnerable LGBT immigrants fleeing persecution abroad and seeking protection in the United States.

Its first client was a man from Nigeria who was working for a closeted LGBTQ nonprofit, which is the only way an LGBT organization can operate in the African nation. Sengun said that the man had attended a gay conference in the U.S. and, when word of that conference got around after his return, he received death threats from close relatives and had to flee from his home. Like many LGBTQ refugees, he arrived in the U.S. without any financial support from his family.

Sengun’s own exit from Turkey was much less traumatic. He was born and raised in Ankara, a large and cosmopolitan city, and lived there for the first 24 years of his life. And he might be there today except, as he explained, “Growing up gay in a homophobic country is not easy.”

Though he received a law degree in Turkey, Sengun attended a school with American-style grading and classes conducted in English. After moving to the U.S. in 2007, he studied at UCLA and at UC Hastings College of the Law before starting preparation to take the bar exam, which he passed in August 2010.

After that hurdle, Sengun, 33, started volunteering to help LGBTQ refugees from the Middle East and quickly became more familiar with U.S. refugee and asylum laws.

“It immediately hit me that those areas were something I wanted to learn more about,” he said.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. At the time, Sengun was working for an immigration law firm.

That’s when “the light bulb went on,” he recalled.

“I always wanted to practice LGBT immigration law and suddenly it became possible. So I quit the law firm and started my own practice in the summer of 2013,” he explained.

But there was another, more personal aspect to his decision. Coming out to his father had not been easy, though his father eventually understood and accepted Sengun’s sexuality.

“My father is not very religious and that helped,” Sengun pointed out. “It was different with my mother, who is a little more religious.” He said that her lack of acceptance pushed him even more toward LGBT asylum work.

There are two parts to his current legal work: the LGBT Asylum Project and his private practice.

Charlie Wagner

Immigration attorney Okan Sengun started the Center for Immigration Protection, which includes the LGBT Asylum Project.

“In my private practice I also handle same-sex marriage-based green card cases, which first became possible after the strike-down of DOMA. Some people arrive with more resources and are able to pursue asylum without relying on pro-bono legal assistance,” he said.

For those who do need assistance, CIP estimates the cost of completing an asylum case is $4,000 minimum.

Asylum project clients often arrive in the United States with limited resources and asylum seekers are not authorized to work for at least six months after applying. Legal representation is essential as the project’s website notes that only 13 percent of unrepresented asylum applicants win their cases, versus about a 75 percent success rate for those who have legal help.

The LGBT Asylum Project screens clients to verify their eligibility before submitting their applications and has achieved an amazing 100 percent success rate so far. Sengun said asylum cases usually take about two years but revealed that CIP has won two asylum approvals just since last January.

In order to qualify for asylum an applicant must show that they face persecution or fear of future persecution due to membership in a group defined by race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Sexuality, gender, and gender identity are not identified specifically in current law but the U.S. government now recognizes that LGBTQ status qualifies because it falls under the category of “particular social group,” according to the LGBT Asylum Project.

Once approved, asylees are granted permission to stay indefinitely in the U.S. and one year later can apply for permanent residency, which allows them to work legally.

Sengun reflected on the early days of the project and said, “We started with a focus on Nigeria since LGBTQ people often arrive extremely traumatized due to severe persecution in their home country. Some cannot even hold a job due to psychological issues.”

The LGBT Asylum Project welcomes donations, volunteers, and legal interns, Sengun said.

“We rely mostly on fundraising to fund the LGBT Asylum Project,” he added. He described how the project has raised money with a series of community-based fundraisers, often with the help of San Francisco activist and drag queen Juanita More!

In fact, the LGBT Asylum Project is one of the beneficiaries for More!’s Pride party Sunday, June 25. Tickets are available at http://www.juanitamore.com/event-details.

The organization is made up of volunteers who help with multiple

tasks. Sandel, for example, serves on the board and also directs fundraising and events.

Sandel told the Bay Area Reporter that he decided to get involved after being approached by Sengun and Westling. At the time, he had just finished up his volunteer leadership activities with GLAAD, the national LGBT media accountability organization.

“I jumped at the chance,” Sandel said. “It’s something important.”

He added that since the project’s official launch about a year ago, interest has “spread like wildfire.”

“Particularly since the election and since January,” Sandel said, referring to Donald Trump’s taking office and announcing his first travel ban, which caused massive confusion at airports around the country until it was blocked by a federal judge.

“There’s a sense of urgency,” Sandel said.

Another board member is Desmond Adebayo, who’s director of client relations and a Nigerian immigrant himself. He helps clients with practical information such as how to get a Social Security number and driver’s license, Sengun explained.

Sengun spoke about changes under the Trump administration and said that the asylum process itself is still mostly the same. But it has become very difficult to get visas, especially for people in the countries on Trump’s second proposed travel ban (currently blocked by federal courts), where LGBTQ people are often treated badly.

“We cannot help people until they are physically in the U.S., so people are stuck in extremely homophobic countries,” Sengun said.

On the positive side, among the eight asylum offices in the U.S., Sengun believes the San Francisco office could be the best and observed that it has officers who understand issues that LGBT asylees face.

Looking ahead, Sengun’s biggest goal is to obtain office space in the Castro within the next five years.

“LGBT individuals have only one year after their arrival to apply for asylum,” he said, “and most people don’t know that LGBT status can be the basis of asylum. It can be intimidating to come to the Financial District but many tourists go to the Castro. If we had a walk-in office in the Castro, we could put up a sign like, ‘If you are afraid to return to your home country because you are LGBT, we can help you.’”t For more information, visit www. cipsf.org.

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER •

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<< Pride 2017

June 22-28, 2017

Gay mayor

From page 5

Baseball field catalyst for riverfront changes

The catalyst for the changes Cabaldon has promoted during his 20-year tenure as an elected leader of West Sacramento was Raley Field, the home of the Sacramento River Cats minor league baseball team situated near the riverbank with views of downtown Sacramento’s skyline. The ballpark for the Pacific Coast League team, which since 2015 has been an AAA affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, opened in May 2000.

The project, however, came close to being shelved when the town’s leaders rejected the baseball team owner’s request that they help finance the new $46.5 million stadium. The financial ask, Cabaldon remembered, totaled nearly half of the city’s $18 million budget.

Instead, the city agreed to issue government bonds to cover the construction costs. In order to do so, it teamed with Sacramento and Yolo counties to form a joint-powers agency that became the stadium financing authority.

“We got it done and the whole region was rooting for us. It was a big underdog story,” recalled Cabaldon.

“We pulled this big project off because other people were willing to help. It made it easier for me to say, ‘Let’s work on regional things.’ It was like an OK to believe again. We used the baseball field to say we can do anything else.

It worked and people’s thinking changed. It completely changed the social psychology of the town.”

The next project he and the City Council tackled was rebuilding the town’s governmental center featuring a refurbished City Hall, and across the street, a rebuilt and expanded main library. There is also a new satellite campus for Sacramento City College, part of the Los Rios Community College District, which fulfilled a campaign promise Cabaldon made when he first ran for public office.

Adjacent to the college building, which opened in 2010, is the city’s community center. At the urging of the mayor, it combined under one roof various amenities proposed by civic groups that had limited funding for their individual projects. It

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Tech equity

From page 14

now I can’t imagine doing our work anywhere else. He’s so deeply rooted in this community as a mentor, an activist, and a local leader in his own right, and his commitment to narrowing the gaps of opportunity and access for all underpins everything we do. I’ll forever be grateful to Cedric for infusing our work with a uniquely Oakland spirit.”

The center does a lot of organizing with partnerships and roundtables.

Some of Kapor’s programs include the Oakland Startup Network, with the city of Oakland; Tech Talent Pathways Partnership, which aligns different parties to get Oakland tech jobs;

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Homeless youth

From page 8

advocate, while another was now a case manager at the nonprofit.

“My heart is so full because I really did have a lot of those times,” said Alex Tellez, a gay formerly homeless Covenant House resident who received the Hollywood Alumni Award. “Being homeless is a very horrible thing.”

He said that he overcame a substance abuse issue.

During a recent tour of the Oakland shelter, Girty explained that youth in the transitional housing program work and the goal is to save 80 percent of their income for when they need to move out. Covenant House also works with the youth to obtain

Kelly Sullivan

West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon stands in a field set for redevelopment.

Kelly Sullivan

The Barn serves as a community space in West Sacramento.

houses a cafe, black box theater, art gallery, historical society exhibit, senior center, and a children’s preschool. Outside is a transit center for local bus routes and where a proposed trolley line that will connect the city to Sacramento should have a stop by 2021.

In May the city saw its first bike share pods installed – one is now part of the transit center – seven years after regional leaders first began working on the transportation amenity.

“This area is now our downtown,” noted Cabaldon. “There never was a downtown.”

A new hub is now forming in the city’s 188-acre Bridge District, which includes Raley Field and the Rivermark project by Bridge Housing, which offers 70 affordable apartments for families. Where concrete silos, a salmon cannery, and rice mill once sat are new housing developments, including the sold-out Park Moderns whose layout mirrors San Francisco’s South Park neighborhood with homes circling an oval-shaped park.

Cabaldon moved there in late 2014, allowing him to easily commute by bike to his City Hall office.

“I love this place. There was no urban housing of any kind when I got elected,” said Cabaldon, whose neighbors include millennials, empty nesters who have downsized from their suburban homes, and a state judge.

At the end of his block is a wood structure known as the Barn, which

abuts a walking and biking path that runs along the city’s riverfront. A joint project between the city and developer Mark Friedman, the unique structure serves as a community gathering space and hosts a weekly farmers market. The San Leandro-based Drakes Brewery Company has plans to open a beer hall and eatery inside the building.

The vacant fields surrounding the Barn are all slated for mixed-used developments, with housing above ground floor retail. When complete, the Bridge District will include five to seven million square feet of commercial office space, a hotel, new storefronts, and 4,500 residences.

“The whole Bridge District will be another regional waterfront downtown,” said Cabaldon.

One of his neighbors is Andrea Lepore, 47, a lesbian restaurateur who serves on the city’s planning commission. She was drawn to the development for its modern design features and its affordability compared to housing prices in the rest of the region.

“It is probably one of the best decisions I made in a long time,” said Lepore, a co-owner of pizza restaurant Hot Italian, which has a location in Emeryville. “When I told people I was moving there four years ago, because I bought pre-construction, people thought I was crazy. Now it is the hottest neighborhood in town.”

As the planning oversight panel and city officials review new projects, Lepore said they are guided by a desire

to see sustainable development that will result in not only resilient neighborhoods but also a resilient city.

“We are planning not just for tomorrow but 20, 30, 100 years from now,” said Lepore, noting that the city had moved in that direction long before she joined the planning commission. “That work doesn’t happen overnight. Now you are seeing the result of the work Christopher was involved in 20 years ago. He is amazing; I always thought he should be mayor of the region, if there was such a position.”

and the Tech Equity Collaborative, part community dialogue and manifesto, with tech workers mobilizing to resolve issues.

“The needs are so much greater than the resources,” Brown said. “I wish I could bring resources here from San Francisco and Silicon Valley. We are also trying not to displace people. We want to put resources in play to increase the people here who want to work in the sector. There are not enough people in Oakland to make capital investments to benefit Oakland.”

Brown said he’s glad the center relocated to the East Bay. “I am bullish on Oakland,” he said.

“There’s great energy and a confluence of people, ideas, and resources to create a tech ecosystem here that’s

the antithesis of the bad behavior in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

We’re super excited and determined to make something that will work for people here, all with great Oakland flair.”

He said that he was referring to the tech sector’s “reputation of being self-absorbed and indifferent to larger social dynamics, particularly where inequity is concerned, in addition to the unwelcoming work environments that are too often endemic to startup culture.”

For example, he pointed to a widely reported story from February 2016 where San Francisco startup entrepreneur Justin Keller wrote an open letter to Mayor Ed Lee and then-police Chief Greg Suhr bemoaning the homeless “riff raff” ruining the city.

And he noted that women are leaving the tech field due to diversity and harassment issues, like at Twitter and Uber.

Both Kapor and Kapor Klein were early investors in Uber, but publicly called on the company to change its culture in an open letter in February.

Brown, who married his husband, Ray Pifferrer, in 2008, feels deeply at home at the Kapor Center.

“I have terrific colleagues. I can always be my full self here,” he said.

“People know I’m an artist and I wrote a book, ‘Tar Heel Born.’ I focus on being a black gay male, it’s my lens for how I view the world. There’s a good number of LGBT and a representation of people of color here.

“We’re trying to develop an inclusive environment,” he added. “We

public benefits they’re eligible for.

“We’re trying to provide opportunities,” Girty said. “Homelessness is a circumstance. Eighty-five percent transition out into safe and stable housing.”

For Baker, one of the challenges has been working on his finances.

“I underestimated the whole process of budgeting,” he said, adding that he wants to be out of Covenant House in a year or so.

The youth get solid financial help from longtime volunteer Dan Selleck, who was recognized as the Oakland volunteer at the gala.

“He’s a wonderful resource,” Harrison said.

Selleck said in April that being a volunteer has meant a lot to him.“It comes back to you and is just unbelievable,”

he said. “These are our children.”

Covenant House will hold its inaugural golf classic fundraiser August 28 to raise funds for its Oakland and Berkeley programs. It will also hold a sleep-out November 17 where donors spend time getting to know the residents and “sleep on the street in their place.”

Covenant House has helped Baker and Harrison. In the interview last month, both said that they wanted to start an LGBTQ safe space at the Oakland shelter’s wellness center, where people can drop in. In a followup email, Russell said the LGBTQ safe space had its first meeting last week. Those who are interested are welcome to stop by or call the center for more information, she said. t

River trail development

All of the new development throughout the city has increased its population from 28,000 to 54,000. It is expected to double in size within a decade, said Cabaldon, who worked for lesbian former state lawmaker Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) as her chief of staff during her first term in the Assembly.

Fifteen years ago Cabaldon first focused on bringing high-density housing to the Washington neighborhood west of the Bridge District.

Longtime residents objected to the plans, however, arguing the city should instead focus on attracting businesses to the area, which also abuts the city’s River Walk Trail.

The mayor argued more customers were needed first and pushed forward with the development plans.

Today, a coffeehouse and a brewpub with jazz lounge in a renovated historic firehouse, which had been

t

slated for demolition, can be found at the entrance to the area. A vacant lot at the intersection, now used for parking, is slated for new housing and storefronts.

“There is a lot of excitingness, if that is even a word, coming from all the new river development,” said Sulpizio, who had been living in the Bridge District and is in the process of relocating to a different part of town.

Despite the fact West Sacramento is basically an island, protected by levees from the Sacramento River and the Yolo Bypass, a flood control plain, it has few places where the public can access its riverfront. Plans call for someday connecting the city’s riverfront trail with the Great California Delta Trail, a proposed continuous recreational corridor trail network through all five Delta counties that someday will link to the San Francisco Bay Trail system.

For now, the recreational path ends at the Mill Street Pier a few feet east of the Barn. The towering structure juts out over the river and reopened earlier this year after a $1 million rehab project overseen by the city.

“We’d given up most of our waterfront to industry. A big part of what I’ve been trying to do is take this back,” said Cabaldon as he took in the view from the pier.

Cabaldon, who is Filipino and grew up in southern California, is a principal co-owner of Sacramento-based education consulting firm Capitol Impact LLC. One of the state’s longest serving gay elected officials, he no longer harbors ambitions to seek higher office, having lost a bid for a state Assembly seat in 2008.

He will likely seek a seventh twoyear term as mayor next year. He just announced plans to offer universal pre-school and college accounts to his city’s youth and is overseeing a $1.5 billion levee improvement project.

Also on his agenda: building two new bridges, one of which will provide a new connection between West Sacramento and Sacramento.

“As mayor I am allowed to work on state and federal issues. I can help lead the national resistance and, at the same time, make sure there is a crosswalk so that kids are safe,” said Cabaldon.t

note biases and break down barriers, but are not off-putting like ‘I can’t make a mistake.’ That’s a pitfall of the left when people try to make inclusive events.”

Brown said the center allows employees the ability to be “visible.”

“With the freedom to be ourselves at work, we lead by being who we are, out and visible, representing where the voice needs to be heard,” Brown said. “I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had here. I hope I’ve been a positive force.” t For more information on the Kapor Center for Social Impact, visit http://www.kaporcenter.org/.

The Covenant House California Golf Classic will be held at the Crow Canyon Country Club, 711 Silver Lake Road in Danville.

The cost is $250 for an individual golfer or $50 for the dinner only.

For more information about that or the sleep-out, visit www.covenanthousecalifornia.org. Click on “Get Involved,” then “Events.”

Courtesy Covenant House California

Covenant House California President and CEO Bill Bedrossian and his wife, Jennifer Bedrossian, at the agency’s Los Angeles gala.

For information about the LGBTQ safe space, call (510) 379-1010 and ask for the wellness center.

Disclosure: Cynthia Laird’s wife, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Victoria Kolakowski, is a member of Covenant House California’s Bay Area Advisory Board.

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Vol. 47 • No. 25 • June 22-28, 2017

SF Pride to show resistance Rick Gerharter

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, right, and state Senator Ricardo Lara announced several immigration initiatives at a news conference at the LGBT Community Center.

CA may ban travel to Texas, other states

by Matthew S. Bajko

C

alifornia Attorney General Xavier Becerra is considering adding Texas and three other states to the travel ban list his office oversees after the governors in the quartet of states signed anti-LGBT legislation into law in recent months.

The Bay Area Reporter has learned that in addition to the Lone Star State, Becerra’s office is currently reviewing whether to also restrict state employees from using taxpayer money for non-essential travel to Alabama, Kentucky, and South Dakota. The restrictions would also cover faculty, administrators, and athletic teams and student groups at state-run colleges and universities.

It is unclear, however, how soon Becerra will make a decision on updating the list of banned states, which currently includes three Bible Belt states and Kansas.

“I am never looking to add more states to the travel ban list. I would be happy if no state needs to be added,” Becerra told the B.A.R. Friday, June 16 in a brief interview at the LGBT Community Center in San Francisco, where he was attending a news conference to announce several immigration initiatives.

But if a state decides to “violate the rights of Americans,” then California has “the right to make sure our taxpayer money is not being used to promote that,” added Becerra, who will be a keynote speaker this Sunday at the annual Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club’s breakfast prior to San Francisco’s Pride parade.

Becerra placed the blame for his having to take such an action on the leaders of the four states under review for their trampling on the rights of LGBT people and others. Last week Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law House Bill 3859, which allows child welfare organizations – including adoption and foster care agencies – to cite their religious beliefs as the basis for not working with LGBTQ couples and other individuals.

In March, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed into law Senate Bill 149, which See page 44 >>

Marchers from Apple waved rainbow flags in last year’s San Francisco Pride parade.

by Seth Hemmelgarn

T

his year’s San Francisco Pride parade and celebration theme, “A Celebration of Diversity,” could also be seen as a rebuttal to the administration of President Donald Trump, whose bigotry during his campaign drew the fervent support of anti-LGBT activists, white supremacists,

and others opposed to equality.

Since taking office in January, the resistance movement spawned by Trump’s November election has only grown in liberal enclaves like the Bay Area. Many people are expected to attend this year’s San Francisco Pride activities – the festival Saturday and Sunday, June 24-25 and Sunday’s mammoth parade – with a strong desire to

celebrate being with people from different places and backgrounds.

“Every year SF Pride is reflective of, and responsive to, the forces that are impacting our lives, and we expect this year to be no different,” George Ridgely, executive director of the San Francisco LGBT Pride See page 44 >>

SF Dyke March marks 25 years

Rick Gerharter

by Heather Cassell

T

housands of queer women will take over Mission Dolores Park – and the streets of San Francisco – June 24 for the San Francisco Dyke March’s 25th anniversary.

It’s a milestone for the volunteer-led organization that dared to claim dyke space in the Castro in 1993.

This year’s theme, “Calling All Dykes: Take Up Your Space,” harks back to the rally and march’s roots as well as a time when queer women – and women overall – were under attack by conservative and Republican forces, an echo being heard today.

When the Dyke March launched in the early 1990s, the Mission district was a working class, queer women and Latin neighborhood, not the techie hipster haven it is today.

Attitudes toward queer women in the Castro could be hostile, rather than cordial, a sentiment that has fluctuated during the past quarter of a century. This year is particularly pertinent because it appears that the political and cultural climate has come full-circle, which is evident to Dyke March organizers.

“We still have places where we can be discriminated against because of our perceived sexual orientation,” said Elizabeth Lanyon, 33, a high femme dyke who serves as the fundraising co-chair of the San Francisco Dyke March.

She talked about an incident she experienced in the Castro earlier this year where she was

Jane Philomen Cleland

Dyke March participants carry the banner at last year’s event.

verbally harassed by someone who assumed she was straight, telling her that she didn’t belong in the gayborhood. “[What] often happens is we think we are the only ones experiencing it, then we isolate, and then we turn around and we find out that other people are experiencing it too,” she said.

When she finally opened up to friends about what happened to her, others spoke up about their similar experiences.

Stand tall and wide

That’s why this year’s Dyke March theme is important, Lanyon said. It’s a reminder of the original reason the march came into existence.

The goal was, and continues to be, to bring queer women together to show their power in numbers and to serve as a space to talk about issues affecting them individually and community-wide, Lanyon and veteran marchers said.

See page 38 >>

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<< Community News

22 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

t

Queer homeless rate flat, but youth figures rise

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

t 30 percent, the portion of homeless people in San Francisco who identify as LGBTQ is almost unchanged from 2015, but almost half of the city’s homeless youth say they’re LGBTQ, marking an increase from two years ago, according to new reports from the city.

Asked about the lack of change in the overall LGBTQ homeless population, Sam Dodge, deputy director of San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said, “I think there’s the same issues that we’ve always had, where there’s lots of the country where it’s very hard to be LGBTQ-identified.

San Francisco is still a place that people find refuge.”

The figures come from the 2017 San Francisco Homeless Count and Survey and the city’s 2017 Homeless Unique Youth Count and Survey, which were collected earlier this year and released Friday, June 16.

Overall, the number of homeless people in the city is virtually flat: from 7,539 in 2015, when 29 percent identified as LGBT, to 7,499 people this year.

But the survey shows that a disproportionate number of San Francisco LGBTQ residents are homeless.

According to city estimates, 14 percent of homeless individuals identify as LGBTQ. The report says that 41 percent identify as bisexual, 25 percent are gay, 14 percent are lesbian, 11 percent are queer, and 9 percent are transgender.

“Our whole system needs to be LGBTQ-friendly,” said Dodge of the city’s network of shelters and other facilities designed to help homeless people.

“We’re making sure we’re doing training and education with all our providers to continue improvement about how to make spaces more welcoming and staff more competent when it comes to the myriad identities we work with,” he said.

Dodge also mentioned the 2015 opening of Jazzie’s Place, a 24-bed shelter designed to be welcoming especially for LGBTQ adults.

“I think there’s a lot of fronts we’re trying to move forward on,” he said.

Youth

In 2015, 43 percent of the city’s homeless population under the age of 25 identified as LGBTQ. This year, that number rose to 49 percent.

Told of the youth figure, Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a longtime queer activist who works with the city’s Housing Rights Committee, said, “I’m actually in shock.”

“I’ve been like Cassandra for years, saying, ‘We have a crisis, we have a crisis,’” said Avicolli Mecca, referring to the Greek mythological figure whose prophecies weren’t believed.

“The mainstream community has not been listening. I hope this will make them do something.”

He said he wants gay District 8 Supervisor Jeff Sheehy to push for the respite center that he had proposed for the Castro neighborhood.

“It’s obvious we need a place for LGBT youth to go where they feel safe” and where they can get food, help finding shelter, and “eventually permanent housing,” said Avicolli Mecca.

Asked about the youth-related data, Dodge said that he sees more ways for people to identify sexually “and more comfort in claiming some of these identities. ... That’s both a generational thing and also a

dynamic about who finds themselves drawn to San Francisco.”

Both the youth and general street counts took place January 26. The data specific to subgroups of homeless youth are based on surveys of 229 youth administered in February.

The margin of error for the extended youth survey is plus or minus 6 percentage points Overall, there was a 13 percent drop in the homeless youth population, from 1,569 in 2015 to 1,363 in 2017.

District 8

Asked about the percentage of homeless people who are LGBTQ being relatively flat, Sheehy said, “We are housing people, we’re just not housing them fast enough.”

Due to an error in processing data, it’s not clear how many homeless people are in District 8. But the new report shows that there were 342 people without any shelter at all in 2015, and 236 in 2017.

Sheehy said that the data on LGBTQ homeless youth “just confirms what I’ve been saying and validates the effort I’ve made to try to get more resources for that population.”

For months, Sheehy has criticized Mayor Ed Lee’s administration for not adequately funding services for the city’s homeless youth.

Lee responded recently by proposing $1.54 million in additional funding for services targeted at the city’s youth, particularly those who are homeless. Most of the money will go toward housing subsidies, but it will also be used to expand drop-in hours for the San Francisco LGBT Community Center’s youth program and the center’s meals program.

Sheehy said that “the next thing we need to do” is make the city’s

Jane Philomen Cleland

Jeff Kositsky, director, Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, speaks about the city’s latest homeless count figures at a June 16 news conference.

next Navigation Center targeted for young people. The city’s Navigation Centers offer homeless people a place to bring their belongings and pets and stay with their partners.

However, he said there’s no funding for the respite center that Avicolli Mecca mentioned and that Sheehy proposed in May.

HIV/AIDS

According to the new report, 11 percent of homeless respondents “reported having an AIDS or HIVrelated illness,” which is up from 7 percent in 2015.

Brian Basinger, who’s living with HIV, is co-founder of San Francisco’s Q Foundation, which provides housing and other services to many people living with HIV. “It is outrageous that we see a 50 percent increase in the rate of homelessness of HIV-positive homeless people,” said Basinger of the recently

released data.

He noted, “Those numbers are from people who are disclosing to a stranger their HIV status,” so the figures are likely an undercount.

One of the main factors behind the increase is “the seismic upheaval” in the market for single-room occupancy hotel units, said Basinger.

“The prices for SROs have doubled in the last two years, so whereas in the past a disabled person with HIV could find a room in an SRO with their disability check coupled with a little bit of help from Catholic Charities or some of the other subsidy providers, that doesn’t work anymore,” he said. “Even with the shallow rent subsidies and a disability check, people with HIV don’t have access to any kind of housing.”

Referring to the 2011 deal to coax the tech giant Twitter and other See page 46 >>

Congratulations on the 47th annual San Francisco LGBTQ Pride celelebration

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<< Community News

24 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Man claims ‘AIDS panic’ by SF prosecutors

by Seth Hemmelgarn

September 2014 incident he was charged gay San Francisco man in started because he’d says that prosecutors been feeling suicidal. recently tried unsuccess“I’d been fucked fully to use an “AIDS panic over by a bunch of defense” to convince jurors people,” he said. “... I that he had wanted to injust needed to get over fect a sheriff ’s deputy by it and lick my wounds.” biting him during a 2014 After he called a altercation. crisis line, said GuerChristian Guerrero Christian Guerrero, 38, rero, he was taken to was acquitted in May on psychiatric emergency charges including assault on an ofservices, or PES, at Zuckerberg San ficer with force likely to cause great Francisco General Hospital. While bodily injury. Some counts were he was there, he fell asleep, and after dismissed after the jury deadlocked. he woke up, a clinician tried to ask Guerrero, who’s living with him questions that he’d “already HIV, said in an interview that the been asked by other staff.”

A

“I got upset,” said Guerrero, and “from there, stuff escalated.”

Sheriff’s deputies, who provide security at the hospital, came and tried to seclude him in a separate room, but Guerrero refused. The deputies “pushed me, and they got me in a hold with my hands behind my back,” he said. “It was really painful.”

Guerrero said that as he was being handcuffed, he kicked at one of the deputies, who lost his balance.

“We all started going down,” and Deputy Noel Barrantes’ forearm came toward his mouth, said Guerrero.

“That’s when I bit him, but it wasn’t even so much ‘bit,’ it was like him scratching himself ” on

Guerrero’s “jagged” teeth, he said.

“Somebody at PES disclosed that I was HIV/[hepatitis C]-positive, and immediately after I bit him, I started apologizing. ... I told the deputy who stayed behind, ‘Tell your buddy I’m sorry’ and ‘I didn’t mean to bite him.’”

In an incident report, though, Deputy Sukhwant Mann, the other sheriff ’s deputy involved in the altercation with Guerrero, said that Guerrero had told him, “I have AIDS. I hope your friend catches it and dies.”

“I never said that at all,” Guerrero told the Bay Area Reporter.

A sheriff ’s department chronological report of an investigation

t

into the incident says that “while escorting Guerrero,” another deputy “overheard [him] say, ‘I’m sorry that I bit that deputy.’”

Deputy Public Defender Cris Lamb, who represented Guerrero, said that the only way to get to a charge of assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury was by using the false notion that Guerrero could have transmitted HIV to Barrantes through a bite. Lamb added that Barrantes’ wound “didn’t require stitches.”

“There’s no other way to get there,” she said of the charge. “It’s straight up AIDS panic.”

See page 46 >>

Bay Area company accused of anti-trans bias

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

transgender man is accusing a Bay Area educational technology company of firing him because he said online that it practiced discrimination.

In its employment discrimination complaint filed in May in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said that San Mateo-based IXL Learning Inc. violated federal law by retaliating against product analyst Adrian Scott Duane, 32.

The complaint, in which the EEOC is the plaintiff, said that IXL fired Duane just minutes after he was confronted about a negative review he’d posted to the job recruiting and rating site Glassdoor.com.

“If you’re not a family-oriented

white or Asian straight or mainstream gay person with 1.7 kids who really likes softball – then you’re likely to find yourself on the outside ... Most management do not know what the word ‘discrimination’ means, nor do they seem to think it matters,” Duane said on the site.

The EEOC’s court filing said that Duane, who started working for IXL in July 2013, told co-workers that the company was “unwelcoming to employees who are not white or Asian-American, and who are not able-bodied, and who do not fit into neat categories of gender identity, orientation, and expression.”

The complaint also said that other workers “probed Duane with inappropriate questions about his gender identity and orientation.”

For example, “On at least one occasion, after seeing scars on

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Duane’s chest, an employee asked another co-worker if Duane used to be a girl.”

Additionally, when Duane requested to telecommute because of his recovery from gender confirmation surgery, IXL treated the request differently than requests to work remotely that two straight co-workers had made.

Duane wrote his Glassdoor post because of the alleged dispute, and in a January 2015 meeting with his supervisor, he reported his concerns about workplace discrimination, the complaint stated.

Two days later, Duane outlined his worries to Paul Mishkin, IXL’s CEO, and “Mishkin confronted Duane about the Glassdoor.com post,” according to the complaint.

After he confirmed that Duane had written the anonymous post, Mishkin fired Duane.

“IXL admits that the reason for terminating Duane” was the Glassdoor post, the EEOC’s court filing stated.

EEOC trial attorney Ami Sanghvi stated in a news release, “While the platforms for employees to speak out against discrimination are evolving with technology, the laws against retaliation remain constant.

If an employee reasonably believes that illegal discrimination occurred, the EEOC will vigorously defend that worker’s right to raise the issue, whether they do so by filing a charge with our agency, notifying company management or posting in a public arena such as Glassdoor.com.”

Duane wasn’t available for comment.

Courtesy LinkedIn

Adrian Scott Duane

IXL hasn’t filed a response in court, but in an email to the Bay Area Reporter, Mishkin said, “I believe deeply in a fair, open work environment where employees feel safe and encouraged speaking up about any workplace issue.

Mr. Duane’s allegation of discrimination was not a factor in his termination.”

Mishkin added that “The EEOC has already determined that Mr. Duane did not face discrimination at IXL as a result of his gender identity, as did the National Labor Relations Board in a separate ruling after a full trial.”

In response, Sanghvi said, “The EEOC does not comment on investigations that it undertakes, but we did issue a letter of determination finding reasonable cause to believe IXL violated retaliation provisions”

of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act “and that we met all conditions necessary before filing the lawsuit.”

Mishkin provided an April 2016 NLRB decision signed

by Administrative Law Judge Gerald Etchingham that stated, “Duane’s angry and impulsive” Glassdoor post “is better characterized as childish ridicule in the nature of a personal attack on [IXL’s] ability to recruit new employees than as related to a legitimate labor dispute or ongoing grievances from a group of employees.”

The post “was so disloyal and recklessly disparaging of Respondent as to lose protection” under the National Labor Relations Act “and his discharge was lawful,” Etchingham added.

The judge also found that IXL had “reasonably hesitated in accepting” Duane’s remote work request due to his “prior low productivity working remotely,” but had ultimately accepted Duane’s proposal “in its entirety with no changes.”

In his email, Mishkin said, “The EEOC’s sole remaining area of inquiry relates to an unsupported claim about retaliation, not discrimination.”

The EEOC’s complaint seeks lost wages, damages, and injunctive relief aimed at preventing similar discrimination.

In its news release the EEOC said it had tried unsuccessfully “to reach a pre-litigation settlement through conciliation.”t

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H

ouse Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) waves to the crowd following the raising of the rainbow flag on City Hall Monday, June 19 to kick off a week of Pride activities. Joining her are former state

Rick Gerharter

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<< Open Forum

26 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Volume 47, Number 25 June 22-28, 2017 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR & EVENTS LISTINGS EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • Seth Hemmelgarn CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth Brent Calderwood • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Belo Cipriani Richard Dodds • Michael Flanagan Jim Gladstone • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • John F. Karr Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Michael Nugent • Paul Parish • Sean Piverger Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota Bob Roehr •Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Khaled Sayed • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Sari Staver • Jim Stewart Sean Timberlake • Andre Torrez • Ronn Vigh Charlie Wagner • Ed Walsh Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Max Leger PRODUCTION/DESIGN Ernesto Sopprani PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland • FBFE Rick Gerharter • Gareth Gooch Jose Guzman-Colon • Rudy K. Lawidjaja Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd • Jo-Lynn Otto Rich Stadtmiller • Steven Underhil Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small Bogitini VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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Resist, resist, resist W

hether you’re taking part in the San Francisco Pride parade or watching from the sidelines, one thing is clear: this is the year for resistance.

President Donald Trump is out of control, and his administration is in chaos, so now is the time for LGBTQs who are interested in public service to consider running for office next year or become actively involved in campaigns to elect people who are opposed to Trump’s agenda. And that agenda is lengthy. Trump has taken many executive actions, especially to curtail or undo programs that began under President Barack Obama. Actually, Trump and crew can’t stand anything that America’s first black president accomplished, so they’ve started chipping away at access to health care, protections for trans students, restoring relations with Cuba, and more.

While Congress is its typically dysfunctional self, Trump has taken executive orders to a new level, gutting regulations in sectors like energy (coal) and financial services.

Meanwhile, the Russia scandal is threatening Trump’s young presidency. He’s hired his own attorney, Vice President Mike Pence has lawyered up, and senior administration officials are getting nervous, according to various news accounts. While this is not (yet) the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, there certainly are eerie parallels of a president consumed with his own power and hell-bent on skirting (if not breaking) laws. Trump is one giant conflict of interest regarding his business dealings and the American people deserve better. They deserve to have a president who won’t make decisions on U.S. foreign policy because they benefit his portfolio. They deserve to have a president who can actually devote his attention to running the country.

The dangerous part is that while our attention is distracted by the Russia investigations and Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey, the president and his administration are busily working to dismantle existing programs on everything from health care to climate change to LGBT rights.

The latest example was last week, when the Commerce Department removed language

from its annual equal opportunity statement barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The Washington Post reported that after an uproar from LGBT activists, the department restored the language the next day.

But as much as change is needed at the federal level, it’s local and state politics where real progress for LGBTQ people can be achieved. California, for example, is leading the way by calling attention to anti-LGBT laws. This year a law went into effect that restricts state employees from using taxpayer money for nonessential travel to certain states.

Look for more states to be added as Attorney General Xavier Becerra reviews actions in Texas and elsewhere.

There’s no better place to be out and proud than the San Francisco Bay Area. We have allies and LGBT officials who are working to benefit all people. And while there are major issues like homelessness and the high cost of living here, leaders in the region are trying to tackle them too. The Bay Area welcomes everyone; LGBTs here understand the importance of joining with immigrant groups and other minorities, so that we can all benefit from shared experiences, and fight the oppressive Trump regime.

AIDS panel members quit

You know the situation in government is bad when people quit. Recently, six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/ AIDS angrily resigned, saying that Trump doesn’t care about HIV. Scott Schoettes, Lucy Bradley-Springer, Gina Brown, Ulysses Burley III, Michelle Ogle, and Grissel Granados publicly announced their resignation in a June 16 letter published in Newsweek.

“As advocates for people living with HIV, we have dedicated our lives to combating this disease and no longer feel we can do so effectively within the confines of an advisory body to a president who simply does not care,” Schoettes wrote.

“The Trump administration has no strategy to address the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate

t

HIV policy, and – most concerning – pushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease,” he added.

As Trump’s continuing efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act spark alarm among HIV/AIDS advocates, as we have reported, Schoettes wrote that the ACA has benefitted people living with AIDS. “And we know who the biggest losers will be if states are given the option of eliminating essential health benefits or allowing insurers to charge people with HIV substantially more than others,” Schoettes wrote in the open letter.

“It will be people – many of them people of color – across the South and in rural and underserved areas across the country, the regions and communities now at the epicenter of the U.S. HIV/AIDS epidemic,” he continued. “It will be young gay and bisexual men; it will be women of color; it will be transgender women; it will be low-income people.”

What Trump really wants to do is gut Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California), which would be devastating, not only for PWAs, but millions of low-income people, those with disabilities, families, and others.

These abrupt resignations send a chilling warning to the HIV/AIDS community.

Obama released the National HIV/AIDS Strategy in 2010 to strengthen the battle against the epidemic. Trump, through inaction, is relegating that blueprint to gather dust on a shelf. No wonder the PACHA members quit.

It’s unfortunate that the resignations occurred, because we fear that Trump will either 1) decline to replace them, leaving the panel without a half-dozen members, or 2) replace them with science skeptics who will try to decimate HIV/AIDS funding or reshuffle priorities, like not fighting for greater access to PrEP, especially in parts of the country where it is needed.

It’s clear that private donors will need to step in to fill the gap in the ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS. From funding research to expanding drug access, foundations have a key role to play. We are close to an AIDSfree generation, but that is now threatened by government inaction.

That is a cruel message for the administration to send during Pride Month.t

Proud, out, and in politics

by Jovanka Beckles

P

ride events are an opportunity to celebrate with queer people and allies but there is a somber reality that remains. The reality that homophobia and heterosexism are still very much alive in our society, and their negative impacts can be seen.

When I was elected to the Richmond City Council in 2010, I was happy, openly out, and proud, but being proud has not always been easy for LGBTQQI folks. Like many of my generation, I have experienced both blatant and subtle forms of homophobia in my life before, and since, entering the political arena.

As the first openly lesbian city councilmember elected in Richmond, I was harshly reminded that I was seen by some constituents as a threat and an abomination. My lesbianism was shamelessly and opportunistically used against me to further the political agenda of other elected officials. I was relentlessly, and publicly, attacked by constituents and colleagues whose hate speech was protected by the First Amendment. I was told that legally, their right to free speech was considered stronger than my right not to have to endure hate speech directed toward a protected class.

I co-created a workplace no-bullying policy in the city because no one should fear going to work because of their sexual orientation or gender identification.

What we now know as Pride Month throughout the country, and in many parts of the world, is an annual celebration of LGBTQQI lives and the gains we have made in the fight to simply be who we are. While many of us lived through the historical painful events that brought about the need for LGBTQQI awareness and Pride, still many others either never

Richmond City Councilwoman and state Assembly candidate Jovanka Beckles

knew or have forgotten how it came to be.

The Pride movement was born out of fighting back against rampant homophobia that frequently escalated into physical violence in which individuals were seriously injured and sometimes killed. A disproportionately high number of individuals took their own lives because they could not bear the suffering inflicted upon them.

The struggle continues today in spite of what many of us experience as the gains of a powerful “gay liberation” movement.

Our numbers have multiplied and our allies have grown and multiplied – families and parents have come to embrace their children and their siblings, employers realize that they need not fear us, and heterosexual families began to see that

our families in many ways are just like theirs.

We love our children, we respect our relationships, we value our commitments to one another, and we want what is best for our family just like they do.

I know from experience that running as an openly gay candidate in any election can be a daunting proposition. At every level LGBTQQI politicians have faced adversity and homophobic attacks. I also know that without LGBTQQI candidates we would have no LGBTQQI politicians, and it is LGBTQQI politicians that best protect and expand our rights – even though this is not their exclusive domain, nor should it be. Our greatest LGBTQQI fighters and s/heroes exemplify this truth through their actions and policy decisions.

Together, as voters, candidates, and elected officials, we can bring about true change and progress.

That is why I am running for Assembly District 15, to succeed Assemblyman Tony Thurmond (D-Richmond) as he campaigns for state superintendent of public instruction. I am running to give the LGBTQQI communities across California a seat at the table and an advocate fighting for our rights in the Capitol.

I am out and proud this year and every year. My personal and professional commitment to the LGBTQQI community is to fight against the myriad issues that threaten to oppress us and to render us invisible once again.

This Pride month I am gearing up to be your voice in Sacramento. t Jovanka Beckles is a member of the Richmond City Council, where she sits as vice mayor. She is a candidate for the open 15th Assembly District seat in next year’s election.

t

Politics>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 27

Santa Clara supes approve $1M for LGBT services

by Matthew S. Bajko

end of 2017,” noted Yeager. “We are a long ways away, but I believe we can get to zero deaths from HIV/AIDS, zero new infections, and zero stigma in Santa Clara County.”

T

he Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors has designated $1 million for LGBT programs in Fiscal Year 2017-2018, which starts July 1. The funding was included in the $3.4 billion general fund budget the board approved Friday, June 16.

Gay Supervisor Ken Yeager had sought the funding allocation, which includes money to hire a transgender community program manager and to offer a series of selfdefense classes for LGBT residents of the South Bay county. It is the second year in a row that Yeager, the board’s first and only gay supervisor, secured $1 million in tax dollars for LGBT services.

“I worked hard to ensure that it includes the proper level of funding for programs focused on the LGBTQ community,” wrote Yeager in a note to his constituents.

As the Bay Area Reporter’s online Political Notes column noted in May, the county is the second local government entity in the nation, after San Francisco, to have an employee focused exclusively on the transgender community and its issues. The person will be one of six new employees hired in the coming months to work for the county’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and with other agencies.

A portion of the funds will go toward the county’s LGBTQ Youth Wellness Initiative, which will conduct a countywide survey of LGBTQ youth.

There is also money for a new implicit bias training program for county employees to educate them about working with LGBT individuals.

The funding for the self-defense course is in response to the findings of the 2013 Santa Clara County LGBTQ Health Assessment that Yeager initiated and was conducted by the county’s Public Health Department. It found that 10 percent of the 1,175 adult respondents had

Milk club early-endorses Beckles for Assembly

Jo-Lynn Otto

Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager

been attacked or physically injured in the past 12 months because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The LGBTQ affairs office will work with an outside contractor to develop the classes.

“Despite the fact that Santa Clara County is a diverse, cosmopolitan, and politically liberal region, LGBTQ people remain at high risk of being harassed, assaulted, or worse,” wrote Yeager.

The budget also includes nearly $500,000 in additional resources for the county’s Getting to Zero program aimed at ending the transmission of HIV in Santa Clara, San Jose, and neighboring cities. The funds will pay for new lab equipment as well as three new staff positions, which are in addition to five other new public health jobs that are in the county’s fiscal 2018 budget.

“These new additions to the Public Health Department, when combined with the county-funded work of the nonprofit Health Trust, means that the Getting to Zero program will be fully underway by the

At its meeting Tuesday, June 20, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club early endorsed a black Latina lesbian running for an East Bay Assembly seat.

As expected, San Francisco’s progressive LGBT political group voted to support Richmond City Councilwoman Jovanka Beckles in her race for the open 15th Assembly District seat. The incumbent, Assemblyman Tony Thurmond (D-Richmond), is running to be the state’s superintendent of public instruction.

The district includes the cities of Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Emeryville, Hercules, Kensington, Piedmont, Pinole, Richmond, San Pablo, Tara Hills, and a portion of Oakland. And a number of candidates have already kicked off their campaigns for the seat, including Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb and former Obama campaign aide and White House staffer Buffy Wicks, who lives in Oakland.

Lesbian Berkeley school board member Judy Appel also plans to join the race but has yet to officially do so. Should an out candidate win the seat, they would be the first LGBT state legislator from the East Bay. And if Beckles is elected, she would be the state Legislature’s first out black LGBT member. t

Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion, will return Monday, July 31.

Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

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Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

Courtesy CA Leg LGBT Caucus

LGBT caucus celebrates Pride Month

T

he California Legislative LGBT Caucus honored 10 LGBT individuals and one group Monday, June 19 during a special ceremony declaring June as Pride Month. Above, trans San Francisco Police Officer Mikayla Connell, center, received a proclamation from Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), Assembly Speaker

Anthony Rendon (D-Los Angeles), and state Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens). Others who were honored included Robert Gleason, Roma Guy, Joel Flatow, Daniel Jimenez, Ken Jones, Michaela Mendelsohn, Russell Roybal, Brian Reagan, Rick Zbur, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.

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<< Community News

28 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

t

Fundraising Promotion for the National AIDS Memorial Grove

SF supervisors honor LGBTs

T

he San Francisco Board of Supervisors honored LGBT residents for Pride Month at its meeting Tuesday, June 20. Each supervisor selected a person or group to recognize. From left are: District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safai, art curator Melonie Green, San Francisco Cultural Affairs Director Tom DeCaigny, trans pastor Megan Rohrer, drag queen Juanita More!, community leader Rick Johnson, clerk of the board Angela

Purchase a print of this stunning painting (in various sizes) of the National AIDS Memorial Grove’s Redwood Grove.

20% of each sale will be donated by artist Kenny Cowan to the Grove!

To puchase a print of the Redwood Grove, visit the National AIDS Memorial Grove website at www.aidsmemorial.org

Jane Philomen Cleland

Calvillo, art curator Melorra Green, activist Jesus Barragan, District 8 Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, and District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen. Other honorees, not pictured, included API Equality Northern California, Josue Arguello, and the San Francisco Fire Department’s ResQ group, which was represented by Keith Baraka and Nicol Juratovac.

Race is on for SF District 8 supervisor seat

by Matthew S. Bajko

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ith less than a year to go before the first ballots are cast, the race for the District 8 seat on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is in full swing. The outcome will not only decide who will represent the gay Castro district and adjacent neighborhoods in the heart of the city, but could also be key if moderates are to maintain or grow their one-seat board majority at City Hall.

Progressive Rafael Mandelman, a gay man who led City College of San Francisco through its accreditation crisis as president of the community college’s board, officially kicked off his bid last Wednesday, June 14, outside a middle school in Noe Valley where he once taught summer school. More than 300 people turned out for the start of Mandelman’s second bid for the seat, having run unsuccessfully for it in 2010.

“We need an independent voice in City Hall who will go beyond the rhetoric and won’t be afraid to hold our elected officials accountable,” said Mandelman, 43, a land use attorney who grew up in San Francisco and has lived in District 8 the past 18 years.

It was a not-so-subtle swipe at Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, 60, a gay married father who was appointed to the vacant District 8 seat in January

by Mayor Ed Lee, becoming the first HIV-positive person on the board.

Sheehy and his husband, Bill Berry, have lived together in the district for 18 years, first in Noe Valley and then in Glen Park, where they bought a home in 2004. They have a 12-yearold daughter, Michelle Berry, who attends public school in the city.

A onetime progressive leader, having served as president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, as did Mandelman, Sheehy is now aligned with the six-person moderate bloc on the 11-member board.

Due to his appointment to serve out the last two years of a four-year term, Sheehy must first run in next June’s primary to remain on the board through 2018. He then needs to run again next November for a full term, likely both times against Mandelman, who is raising money to fund his own back-to-back campaigns next year.

Sheehy told the Bay Area Reporter he plans to hold his own campaign kickoff event at some point, but for now, is focused on being a supervisor.

Over the last few months he has been attending campaign fundraisers as he

Rick Gerharter

Rafael Mandelman kicked off his campaign for San Francisco District 8 supervisor last week.

tries to amass a sizeable war chest by the June 30 filing deadline in order to qualify for $100,000 in public campaign financing.

“I am focused on my job right now. I campaign, but it really has to be secondary,” he said.

At a fundraiser in Noe Valley the night after Mandelman’s event, Sheehy described himself as being more of a political “independent” on the board and sharply questioned the rationale behind Mandelman’s decision to run against him. He noted that having two gay men run for the same board seat does nothing to increase LGBT representation on the board, on which Sheehy is now the only LGBT member.

“Why is he running?” asked Sheehy of his opponent, answering it is mainly due to “ambition” and claiming that, “Rafael has never done anything for the community.”

Sheehy noted how he co-led the fight to secure domestic partner benefits in the 1990s and launched a national boycott against United Airlines when it sued the city over its policy.

He also pointed to his time serving former mayor Gavin Newsom as his unpaid HIV policy adviser and as a co-founder of the city’s Getting to Zero initiative aimed at reducing new HIV transmissions by 90 percent come 2020.

“Rafael goes to a lot of parties; I do policy work,” said Sheehy, also noting his being a member of the board overseeing California’s stem cell research institute.

Housing, housing, housing

His main focus as a supervisor, said Sheehy, is to be an advocate for parents with children in the city’s

Jane Philomen Cleland

Supervisor Jeff Sheehy

public schools and for homeless youth, especially those who are LGBT and account for a majority of those living on the city’s streets. He recently secured $1.5 million in the mayor’s proposed budget for addressing youth homelessness and is now pushing to see the city open a navigation center dedicated to homeless youth.

“It is a real problem and getting worse,” said Sheehy, promising that he “can move the needle for these kids.”

He is also a proponent of seeing more housing be built that is affordable for people making moderate incomes, such as teachers, firefighters, and police officers.

“We have to build housing for all levels,” Sheehy said at his fundraiser, later adding, “We are not going to be able to keep teachers if we don’t build housing.”

Noe Valley Democratic Club See page 45 >>

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<< Queer Reading

30 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

t

Book on marriage fight shares the long view

by Brian Bromberger

I

t doesn’t seem possible that yet another book has been written about marriage equality after an avalanche of titles in the last three years. But according to critics and historians, the best may have been saved for last, in that “Awakening: How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America” (Harvard University Press) might very well be the definitive book about the history of the struggle over same-sex marriage in the U.S. It is authored by Nathaniel Frank, 46, a historian and LGBTQ strategist, who is the director of the What We Know Project, a research think tank on public policy and social issues at Columbia Law School. Frank is best known for his previous book, “Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America,” now considered the definitive history of the former anti-gay policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“Awakening” begins in the 1950s when LGBT people could barely come out of the closet and covers the rise of the gay rights movement along with the increasing awareness of the equal dignity of same-sex love. A gaythemed magazine, One, which began in 1953, dared to suggest the idea of homophile marriage on its cover in 1963.

In 1970, gay couple Jack Baker and Michael McConnell applied for a marriage license in Minneapolis. In the 1980s, LGBTQ lawyers started to focus on legal recognition for samesex couples (aka, domestic partnership) long before the idea of marriage emerged, but once it did, a successful legal strategy to win in the courts spanned over two decades, enough time that a few dozen federal judges (and ultimately five Supreme Court justices) would change their minds on the issue.

Author Nathaniel Frank

Not only did this movement fight against virulent anti-gay opponents, it also had to convince the LGBTQ community to make marriage a priority. It’s all here: the Hawaii revolution, Vermont’s civil unions, the Defense of Marriage Act, Massachusetts weddings, California’s Proposition 8, Edie Windsor, President Barack Obama’s evolution and support, and same-sex marriage plaintiff Jim Obergefell.

In short, it’s the first full-scale, comprehensive history of the marriage equality movement in 441 pages, including interviews with participants in the movement as well as published and unpublished documents. The Bay Area Reporter spoke to Frank via an email exchange.

Frank was asked how his book differs from the others already published.

“There are many terrific books out on marriage equality, and I drew on several of them for my research,” he said. “But all of them address one piece of this remarkable story, often from a first-person perspective, or as part of an effort to advance a particular agenda, as in the 2014 book by Jo Becker [‘Forcing the Spring’], which

sought to cast the Proposition 8 lawsuit in a far more important light than the evidence allows.”

Frank said that he tried to focus on the “dramatic tensions between several different groups that all had a hand in advancing marriage: the push and pull between grassroots activist and professional movement groups, between heirs of the queer liberation movement and those who came to focus more on assimilation.”

Frank draws a convincing parallel between AIDS activism and marriage equality.

“AIDS transformed LGBT life and activism, often in unforeseen ways,” he said. “For years, activists and regular queer folks alike tended to focus on arguments around liberty and privacy, and wanted the government to simply leave them alone – after decades of persecution, often at the hands of government. AIDS made it imperative for activists to engage with the government in novel ways. It was no longer adequate to be left alone; gay people needed their government to recognize their suffering, their contributions and their relationships.

“Gay men often had the harrowing experience of seeing homophobic relatives swoop into town and bar them from the bedside or funeral of a dying or deceased lover – and they had no legal recourse to fight,” he added. “None of this meant that all queer activists suddenly embraced marriage as a priority, but the centrality of legal recognition and equal protection ultimately laid the groundwork for prioritizing marriage.”

Incremental litigation

Many have pointed out how

Americans did a U-turn in a decade, with a majority going from opposing marriage equality to supporting it.

“If you tuned into the marriage debate in 2004 or 2008 when high-profile developments unfolded (in presidential election years), it can seem that approval of marriage came in the flash of an eye,” Frank said. “These were crucial turning points, but the reality is that hearts and minds are won over through incremental change, and LGBT activists recognized this all the way back at mid-century when a few pioneering voices first began raising the question of what they called ‘homophile marriage.’ Other political and legal thinkers, including Andrew Sullivan and Evan Wolfson, took up the call in the 1980s and spoke and wrote about marriage equality relentlessly for decades – even when much of the LGBT movement itself did not view marriage as the right goal.”

Frank pointed out that the incremental litigation strategy employed by major LGBT legal groups was a key.

“Movement leaders recognized that a critical mass of states needed to win marriage equality before federal courts were likely to hand down positive rulings, and they also recognized that these lawsuits – especially when well-timed and thoughtfully constructed – would occasion millions of water cooler conversations and media coverage of what it meant to be gay or lesbian and what same-sex love was all about. Incremental strategies like these, along with perseverance and the courageous coming out of millions of queer people one by one, were what allowed a majority of Americans to finally embrace the freedom to marry around 2011.”

And yet, Frank shows how opposed many LGBT people were to the idea of marriage, rejecting the institution as sexist, racist, and with an emphasis on monogamy that seemed to oppose sexual liberation.

“Many LGBT activists were shaped by the counterculture of the 1960s and queer liberation of the 1970s, movements that sought to challenge existing norms and institutions and to create new ways of arranging relationships and even society,” said Frank.

“Many viewed institutions such as marriage and the family (along with the military) as outdated and oppressive sources of state control that were at odds with the forms of individual freedom that a new generation of activists was seeking.

Lesbians and other queer women often had their issues with the institution.

“For many women, marriage was dismissed as patriarchal and they wanted nothing to do with it,” Frank pointed out.

“There were also other pressing priorities in the early years of the LGBT rights movement. Violence, job discrimination, AIDS – all these took precedence for some people, who thought marriage was a luxury item or something so far away that it was not worth fighting for.

“Finally, there were strategic differences over when and how to fight for marriage, and in some cases, this meant that LGBT activists and organizations declined to support the push for marriage or at least specific efforts to legalize marriage in specific cases,” Frank said. “At times, it was simply a question of ensuring that the political groundwork was adequately laid so that legal challenges were winnable or durable against the threat of backlash and reversal.”

Frank noted that some LGBTs See page 45 >>

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International News>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 35

Danish brewery offers cheers to Pride

by Heather Cassell

D

anish brewery Mikkeller introduced Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy IPA with a label depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump embraced in an impassionate lip-lock.

The limited edition of 120 bottles is to support LGBT Chechens who have been under attack and imprisoned this year.

“Only four bottles will go on auction with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the Russian LGBT Network in support of Chechen gay rights – this is an IPA that makes an impact,” a Mikkeller representative wrote on Facebook, according to the Copenhagen Post.

“Stay gay (and thirsty)!” the post ended.

The IPA was created in collaboration with Chinese microbrewery Great Leap Brewing.

The brew has generated approval on the brewery’s Facebook page, but some naysayers registered their complaints.

“Hi Mikkeller HQ you’re probably brewing the best beers in the world but you should just brew beer and not do politics. Thanks,” wrote Gus Berthollier in a June 16 post.

A Mikkeller representative responded, “Duly noted – respectfully ignored.”

The beer sold out.

Firsts for LGBT elected officials

Pride month has rung in firsts for LGBT officials in Ireland, Serbia, and Nepal.

Ireland

In Ireland, Leo Varadkar formally became the country’s prime minister after a 57-50 vote June 14 in the Irish Parliament.

The opposition Fianna Fail party, led by Michael Martin, abstained its 47 votes to allow Varadkar to take over as Taoiseach, or prime minister, according to media reports.

Varadkar, 38, and leader of the Fine Gael party, is the Emerald Isle’s first gay and youngest person to serve in the high-ranking position.

Former Prime Minister Enda Kenny told parliament before the vote, “As the country’s youngest holder of this office, he speaks for a new generation of Irish women and Irish men, he represents a modern, diverse and inclusive Ireland and speaks for them like no other.”

Varadkar succeeded Kenny, who retired.

In his acceptance speech, Varadkar harnessed youthful energy and vision for Ireland, arguing that the politics of the past were no longer fit for the nation’s purpose.

“The government that I lead will not be one of left or right because those old divisions do not comprehend the political challenges of today,” he said, according to media reports.

Pulse, an Irish publication, reported that Varadkar is regarded as relatively liberal on social issues, but criticized by opposition parties for his “right-wing economic views.”

The new prime minister is the son of an Indian-born father and Irish mother. He was born in Dublin in 1979. In 2015, he came out publicly in the run-up to the public vote to legalize same-sex marriage throughout Ireland.

Before becoming prime minister, Varadkar was appointed or elected to many government positions. He initially followed in his father’s footsteps becoming a doctor, however, he returned to his original interest in politics that he took up as a teenager.

He was elected as councilor in 2004.

He later was appointed to minister for transport, tourism and sport; health minister; and minister of welfare. In 2007, he was elected to the Irish Parliament, representing West Dublin.

Courtesy Mikkeller

Danish brewery Mikkeller’s limited edition of Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy IPA, featuring Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump kissing, has sold out.

Serbia

Last week, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic nominated political newcomer Ana Brnabic, a gay woman, as the country’s prime minister-designate to lead the conservative southeast European nation.

Ultimately, it’s a watershed moment for the conservative Balkans as Brnabic, 41, could become the country’s first out and first female prime minister in Serbia’s history, according to media reports.

Next week parliament, which is led by Vucic’s populist Progressive Party, will meet to formally approve or decline Brnabic’s cabinet.

Brnabic, who has spent less than a year in Serbian politics, isn’t affiliated with any political party, but appears to be loyal to Vucic.

Last August, Brnabic was appointed as minister of public administration and local government, reported the Telegraph.

Prior to taking the government position, she spent a decade working for international organizations, foreign investors, local governments, and the public sector in Serbia, reported First Post.

“I would like to thank the president for placing enormous trust in my capabilities to lead the government,” said Brnabic, who has sought to slash Serbia’s stifling bureaucracy as minister for public administration, reported the Irish Times.

She vowed to work “honestly and with passion” for “citizens who expect to feel the results of the government’s work through better quality of life,” she added.

Brnabic doesn’t believe that her sexual orientation is of any importance and won’t interfere with her work, she told RTV. “I don’t like when being gay is used as an indicator of personality. Why is that important?” she said.

However, the decision to nominate Brnabic was difficult but “reached in the interest of Serbia and its citizens,” Vucic told reporters.

A former extremist-turned-reformist, Vucic, who won the presidency in a landslide election in April, has promised to boost LGBT rights as a part of efforts to move Serbia closer to European Union membership, reported ABC News.

“I believe Ana Brnabic has all the personal qualities and expertise,” Vucic told the media, according to the Times. “I am confident she will work hard, show respect to political parties and work for the benefit of Serbia with other ministers.”

The move has infuriated conservative factions, the Christian Orthodox Church, and ultranationalists who are pro-Russia, according to media reports.

“Is it possible that the ruling majority has no other candidate for the prime minister-designate but one imposed by the West, which dictates all moves by this government?” the opposition Dveri party asked, reported

the Times.

Dragan Markovic Palma, an outspoken nationalist whose small party is a member of the ruling coalition, declared, “Ana Brnabic is not my prime minister.”

His ideal Serbian prime minister is someone who “should be a family man who knows what children are,” the paper reported.

In Sputnik, a Russian media outlet, far-right conservative Vojislav Seselj blamed the West for placing strong pressure on Vucic to select Brnabic.

Born in Belgrade, Serbia, Brnabic, who is fluent in English and Russian, completed her undergraduate studies at Northwood University in the United States and received her MBA in marketing from Hull University in the United Kingdom in 2001. She returned to Serbia, working in the wind power industry and on multiple development projects funded by the United States Agency for International Development, according to media reports.

Brnabic has won multiple awards

recognizing her accomplishments in business.

Currently, Brnabic is a board member of PEXIM Foundation, a scholarship organization for Serbian and Macedonian students identified as talent to help accelerate development in economic and social spheres, according to media reports.

Nepal

Nepal has its first out transgender candidate, Aanik Rana Magar, running for local office.

Magar, who identifies as third gender, filed her nomination to run for ward eight of the Tilotama Municipality in Western Nepal as the Naya Shakti Nepal Party candidate in the second phase local election, reported Pahichan.

Nepal legally recognized the third gender in 2015.

The Naya Shakti Nepal Party was created by former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai to encourage and give a vehicle for political leaders to be publicly elected rather than by members of

parliament, reported Pink News.

Magar, a social worker and LGBT activist, perceives her bid for office as a victory, whether or not she wins her seat. She said that her campaign would bring visibility to gender and sexual minority communities in Nepal.

“In the elections, victory or defeat is a normal process, but I think my candidacy itself is a victory for me,” she said, noting that her candidacy would “provide a further boost for the members of the community” and “contribute” to bring changes for the LGBT community, reported Pahichan.

Nepal recently passed a new constitution, which included protections against discrimination of LGBT people. The constitution was hailed by the Washington, D.C.based Human Rights Campaign as a “historic first for a nation in Asia,” reported Pink News.

The election will be held June 28.t Got international LGBT news tips? Contact Heather Cassell at oitwnews@gmail.com

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<< Travel

36 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Palm Springs offers summer deals

t

by Ed Walsh

I

was eating lunch at the Hacienda at Warm Sands in Palm Springs last Tuesday in 92-degree heat and an hour later I was working off the meal on a hike in Mount San Jacinto State Park, where it was a very comfortable 60 degrees. While some may be reluctant to visit Palm Springs in the middle of the summer, there is still plenty to do – even outside – despite the average high temperature this time of year of 100-plus.

If you can get to the desert city over the summer, you will be greeted with cheap hotel and restaurant deals, less traffic and crowds at all the attractions, and you can enjoy a warm late night swim at one of the many gay boutique hotels where pools are kept open 24/7. The city’s LGBT businesses have banded together to entice you further with the Summer Splash program that offers discounts and hotel specials from now until mid-September. A full list of deals can be found at http:// palmspringssummersplash.com/.

Palm Springs has 17 gay resorts.

Most use misting systems that make sunbathing bearable even when it’s very hot. You can still hike, even at the lower elevations, but be sure to do so early in the morning before it gets too hot. Palm Springs gets bathed in shade more than an hour before sunset when the sun dips below the mountains to the west, effectively giving the city an extended twilight.

A visit to Mt. San Jacinto is a must-do for any visitor to Palm Springs in the summer. A 10-minute ride on the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway (https://www.pstramway. com/) whisks visitors to a cool

Ed Walsh

Owner Dean Lavine, center, opened Blackbook bar in Palm Springs last month. He’s joined here by bartenders Justin Boerman, left, and Michael Besser

mountainous wilderness. You can easily spend a day hiking around the summit in temperatures about 30 degrees cooler than Palm Springs.

Joshua Tree National Park also makes for a comfortable early morning hiking trek. It is about 45 minutes from Palm Springs. The temperatures there in the high desert are about 10 degrees cooler than in the city.

You may not think of rushing whitewater streams when you think of Palm Springs, but the Whitewater Preserve is less than a half hour outside the city and is worth checking out. The park includes picturesque holding ponds and whitewater streams that are abundant this year with the big rainfall we had during the winter. You can reward yourself after your morning hike by dipping

S p e c ta c u l a r sf Views

free

your feet in the cool water.

If you like to shop, be sure to check out the Cabazon Outlets, which are about 20 minutes north of Palm Springs and feature brand names at discounted prices. By the way, you will pass by the turnoff for the Whitewater Preserve on your way to the outlets so you could easily combine the two trips.

On the other end of the shopping spectrum are the Shops on El Paseo in Palm Desert, about 25 minutes south of Palm Springs. It is known as the Rodeo Drive of the desert. While you won’t find many bargains there, it is a nice place to window shop. The Gardens on El Paseo is a beautiful courtyard park surrounded by upscale shops.

The Palm Springs Art Museum is one of the world’s most underrated

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Ed Walsh

The Whitewater Preserve, about 25 minutes north of Palm Springs, has abundant streams this year due to the winter rain.

museums. For years, many tourists never knew it existed because it was tucked back on a street behind Palm Canyon Drive, the city’s main drag.

The museum is still a block behind Palm Canyon but a new development project is creating a pedestrian walkway that will be lined with shops leading from the street to the museum. The best time to check out the museum is on Thursday nights, when it is free. Thursday night is also the night for VillageFest, the city’s street fair, which gets underway at 7 p.m., about the time when the summer sun dips below the mountains (http://villagefest.org/).

Nightlife

The biggest concentration of gay nightlife in Palm Springs is on E. Arenas Road in downtown Palm Springs, a block south of S. Palm Canyon Drive, between S. Indian Canyon Road and S. Calle Encilia. The block is packed with gay bars, restaurants, and shops.

The newest gay bar and restaurant is Blackbook. It replaces Cafe Palette, which closed last year. Blackbook opened just last month and is already drawing a loyal clientele.

It takes traditional bar food up a notch while still keeping its prices reasonable and it serves food late into the evening. It has an expansive patio and its glass walls can be opened up when it’s not too hot or cold.

The other bars on the block include Hunters, with a big dance space that is open on weekends; the video bar SpurLine; the unabashedly dive bar, Score; the oldest bar in the desert and one of the most popular, StreetBar; the upscale Chill bar; and around the corner on S. Indian Canyon, Tryst, known for live music performances.

Toucans Tiki Lounge is a Tikithemed bar and nightclub on the north end of town along N. Palm Canyon Drive. While there are no full-time lesbian bars in Palm Springs, Hunters and Toucans tend to attract more gay women than some of the other gay bars in town.

Toucans also hosts a regular lesbian night called Velvet. For more information, check out its Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ VelvetPS/. It held a party last month and the next one will probably be in August.

The Palm Springs area has two Levi/leather bars, the Tool Shed is in the Warm Sands neighborhood and the other is the Barracks on E. Palm

Correction

The June 15 article “SOMA alley leather walk takes shape,” should have described in the list of people honored with bootprints Chuck Arnett as an iconic leather artist and Alexis Sorel as a co-founder of The 15. Also Folsom Street earned

Canyon Drive in Cathedral City. By the way, the Barracks is very difficult to find even with a good GPS because it is set behind E. Palm Canyon Drive behind the Arco station. The gas station is very well lit and it’s hard to see that there is even anything behind the station at night.

Up until the 1990s, all of the Palm Springs gay nightlife was in neighboring Cathedral City but now there are just three gay bars left there. Besides the Barracks, Studio One 11 is a friendly cocktail lounge in a strip mall on E. Palm Canyon Drive and Trunks, formerly Digs, is another very friendly bar with pool tables, sports playing on TVs, and square dancing nights. Trunks took over Digs in December and has the same owner as Trunks in West Hollywood.

Resorts

One of the most unique things about Palm Springs for gay travelers is the gay resorts. It boasts more gay resorts than any other place in the world. Sadly, with the sale of Casitas Laquita last year, there are no longer any lesbian resorts, but East Canyon Hotel and Spa changed ownership earlier this year and is marketing itself as gay, lesbian, and straight-friendly. It is also the only gay resort that is not clothing optional.

While not all the resorts are participating in the Summer Splash program, all have lower rates or offer some kind of deal for folks visiting in the slower summer months. One of the best gay men’s resorts, La Dolce Vita Resort and Spa (http://ladolcevitaresort.com), is offering discounts at its resort for up to 40 percent over the summer.

Its men’s spa is top-notch and is offering a 10 percent discount on massages on weekdays and $20 off facials every day.

The aforementioned Hacienda at Warm Sands (http://thehacienda. com/) deservedly has the distinction of being TripAdvisor’s #1 of 42 specialty hotels in Palm Springs. It is the place to be if you enjoy being pampered, and who doesn’t? Its rates include a gourmet lunch served in your room or poolside.

If you want to sample a gay resort, the Canyon Club Hotel in downtown Palm Springs and the All Worlds Resort in Warm Sands offer day passes. t For a complete list of LGBT hotels in Palm Springs, check out the city’s official website: http:// www.visitgaypalmsprings.com.

its nickname the “Miracle Mile” for the myriad leather bars and gay bathhouses that had operated on or near it starting in the 1960s; gay men began moving into the area in the late 1950s. The online version has been corrected.

Pride 2017>>

t Basinger provides a lifeline for HIVers and others

by David-Elijah Nahmod

B

rian Basinger has known what its like to live in fear. The longtime HIV survivor lost his apartment over a decade ago. He was one of the first casualties of San Francisco’s eviction crisis.

Basinger recalled his “gay dad,” Jack Hamm, one of the many people from 67 Pearl Street who have since died. Basinger had lived in the building for many years.

“Jack and I had a special bond,” Basinger said. “He was an electrician by trade and had fixed up the worn down Edwardian he bought for $70,000 back in the 1970s. He recognized the butch queen in me and saw I knew my way around a power tool. Over the years, he developed increased trust in me, finally giving me the key to his tool shed. Some of the people reading this will know what an honor that was.”

As the gentrification of the city escalated, 67 Pearl turned out to be in a prime location.

“After the LGBT Community Center got built, and the Central Freeway torn down, our little oasis got discovered,” Basinger recalled.

“Suddenly, we had all of these upper-income people coming in and evicting our little community. Those of us that survived that worst of the plague were suddenly contending a new threat: Ellis Act speculator evictions.”

The Ellis Act is a state law that allows landlords to get out of the rental business by evicting tenants.

“I watched as they began ‘mowing down’ the long-term residents of our little block,” Basinger added.

“They started toward the Duboce side of the block, and one-by-one started taking us out. In two short years, I was the 13th disabled gay man with AIDS evicted on just this

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 37

one little block. The fabric of our community was being decimated.

This time not by a virus, but by avarice.”

It was while watching the destruction of his neighborhood that Basinger came up with the idea for Q Foundation.

“On December 15, 2003 I had a dream where a booming voice commanded, ‘You must organize housing for people with AIDS!’” Basinger said. “I woke up with the response in my head. I was saying OK, but it can’t be five guys in a back room making policy. It has to stay connected to the people.”

That same morning Basinger received a life-changing phone call.

“I got a call from the property manager of my boyfriend James Nykolay’s building,” Basinger said.

“He said, ‘We have two units opening up in his building and we want to rent them to other disabled people with AIDS who have a Section 8 voucher. I figured if anybody in this town knows how to do that, it’s you.’”

Basinger, 50, added that he was amazed at how quickly things fell into place. His friend Tommi Avicolli Mecca offered the fledgling AIDS Housing Alliance/San Francisco, as the program was originally called, a desk inside the Housing Rights Committee’s office, where he worked. The AIDS Emergency Fund was the organization’s original fiscal sponsor – it took six weeks for the IRS to grant Basinger nonprofit status for the organization.

“We incorporated as Q Foundation, with a mission to address safety net services for the LGBTQ and HIV-positive communities,” Basinger said. “Our strategy was to launch as our first program, AIDS Housing Alliance/SF, since it was just me and James, a folding table

Courtesy Brian Basinger

Brian Basinger speaks at a rally outside San Francisco City Hall.

Tommi and I found on the back porch, and two used phones we bought on Craigslist. I knew there was a lot of need so chose to open the door just a crack at the beginning to help manage the demand for services.”

On the very first day in operation there was a line down the block, he said. More than a decade later and Q Foundation now works out of a suite of offices at 350 Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin. Basinger continues to expand the organization’s mission and services.

Avicolli Mecca, a queer activist who has long worked on housing issues, praised Basinger.

“After a young man came into my office and cried at my desk because he had been harassed and beaten for being gay at one of the city’s shelters the night before, I called Brian and said, ‘we have to do something.’ The shelters aren’t safe for our community,” Avicolli Mecca said in an email. “Jazzie’s Place was born. We also worked with the Community Land Trust to reopen Marty’s Place for

homeless and low-income people with AIDS.” Jazzie’s Place, which opened two years ago, is a 24-bed shelter for LGBT adults. Gay former Supervisor David Campos worked on the project, along with city departments, Basinger’s organization, and others.

Basinger formally changed the housing alliance’s name to the Q Foundation last year. The agency provides more than just housing.

“Ten years ago, we opened AHA Cafe, our job training and supported employment program located on campus at UC Hastings College of Law,” Basinger said. “About seven years ago, we merged with Simply Sandwiches to distribute about 10,000 mostly organic vegetarian brown bag lunches to people in need. One of the best tools to lower HIV transmission rates is to stabilize the housing of people at high risk for acquiring the virus. We developed a comprehensive suite of homelessness prevention tools.”

Eventually, Q Foundation

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services were expanded beyond the HIV community to encompass all disabilities covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. “We launched the first ongoing rent subsidy program targeting LGBTQ seniors and disabled folks, known as the SDS program,” Basinger said. “We made those subsidies available online to over 40 sister agencies serving diverse groups throughout the city.”

According to Basinger, Q Foundation has provided over 61,000 nights of stable housing at a cost of $23 per night. “We must stabilize people in the housing they already have, by any means necessary, while we wait the decades for the city and region to invest in new affordable housing production,” Basinger said.

Avicolli Mecca said that Basinger “gets it.”

“He gets that if we are truly to be a community, we have to take care of the homeless and poor and working-class among us, the folks who often get overlooked or ignored or even demonized by mainstream LGBT folks and organizations,” he said. “Brian has helped hundreds, maybe thousands, of people with AIDS. He is tireless.”

Basinger said he thinks the Q Foundation has been a positive change in the city.

“It has been amazing to watch the awareness in the community grow about housing as a human right,” he said. “The tenants’ rights movement is how I wish the LGBTQ movement felt. I’m surrounded by the smartest, most compassionate, committed, kickass, and supportive people that I can imagine. It feels good to be part of the leadership of a movement that is bringing so much positive change to people’s lives.” t

<< Pride 2017

38 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

t

Navarro offers message in sex-positive massage

by David-Elijah Nahmod

L

ance Navarro, a gay porn model and escort, doesn’t fit the stereotype of most in his field.

The health-conscious Navarro has been a vocal advocate of sex workers’ rights and has lived a life suffused with light and joy, unlike many in the profession who, after years of living the high life, sometimes find themselves ill-equipped for the “real world.”

Now studying to be a surrogate partner – someone hired by those with sexual dysfunction to provide direct sexual activity with the goal of improving the client’s future sexual experiences – Navarro said that he hopes to show other escorts that a life in the sex profession can, indeed, be uplifting.

As he prepares to celebrate Pride, Navarro spoke with the Bay Area Reporter about his journey.

“Twelve years ago I thought that I knew exactly where my life was

headed and where I would be today,” Navarro, 36, said. “I was working for a high-end fashion retailer and had received a promotion and relocation from Richmond, Virginia to the East Bay. Having grown up in Virginia I was more than ready to live somewhere else, and even though California was never even on my radar, I could not pass up the opportunity to live near San Francisco.”

But then the 2008 recession hit and Navarro found himself unemployed. It was during this period that he began to explore massage work through the Heartwalk Studio in Berkeley. He also became a porn model – his employers included Raging Stallion, HotHouse, Titan, and Kink.com.

“I briefly returned to retail but quickly realized that my heart was not in it,” he said. “I simply could not spend 40 hours a week doing something for which I lacked passion.”

So, he set about making changes.

“I went to school for massage therapy and began to build a massage practice, advertising to, and working mostly with, men. For the first year I kept my practice nonerotic, despite the frequent inquiries and requests.”

Navarro said that eventually he came to realize that there was a need for erotic massage, and that erotic work could be just as therapeutic as more traditional massage work.

He noted that even in the Bay Area, possibly the most liberal area of the country, stigma exists around sex work and sex workers.

“As I once heard on a Ted Talk, ‘the problem with stereotypes is not that they are inaccurate, but that they are incomplete,’” Navarro said.

“For many, sex work is a last option, or a short-term solution to a financial problem. For me, however, and so many others, this is not the case.

This is my passion, my career, and I feel that the work I do is sacred and beautiful. I feel blessed that I get to

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Massage therapist Lance Navarro

connect with people on the most vulnerable level and share with them the touch and loving energy that sadly, is too lacking in most of our lives and in the world at large.”

Navarro said that he is always honest about what he does.

“I feel that my truth will help to break down the walls of ignorance and judgment,” he said. “In the long term I hope to see the end of criminalizing adult, consensual sex work, as the government has no business in what two adults choose to do with their bodies and money.”

Navarro continues to break down one sex worker stereotype after another.

“While some in the sex industry find it difficult to maintain a primary, loving relationship, I find it invaluable,” he said. “I have been with my partner for six years and am incredibly blessed to share a life with someone that believes in the value of my work as much as I do.

Our relationship works because we are committed to one another in all the ways that are essential to a healthy relationship. While he is understanding that occasionally, I have to take last minute appointments, I always put us first.”

His day-to-day life, as he described it, is one that some might envy. Navarro said that he doesn’t go out to clubs, but is actually a homebody. He and his partner, Steve (he asked that his partner’s last name not be used), often invite friends over to their place for quiet dinners and a movie. He also does volunteer work at Magnet, the sexual health services program at Strut in the Castro.

“I appreciate the sex-positive environment,” he explained. “So two years ago I started volunteering there as a concierge. I love welcoming people into the space and being part of insuring their sexual health.”

Navarro continues to spread his sex-positive message mixed with a healthy dose of love. He is currently a surrogate partner intern.

“As a surrogate partner I will be working with clients who are already seeing a licensed therapist, but have issues around intimacy and sex that can’t be resolved through simple talk therapy,” he said. “This form of therapy was developed by Masters and Johnson in the early 1970s, initially just for heterosexual married couples, but has since, under the guidance and training of International Professional Surrogate Association, been expanded to include all.”

He credited a 2012 movie about surrogate partners for inspiring him.

“Seeing the movie ‘The Sessions,’ starring Helen Hunt, got me enthused at the idea of being a surrogate myself, and when I realized what a need there is for gay male surrogates, I knew it was something I had to do.”

Navarro has not lived a traditional life. Even within the self-contained world of the sex industry he has stood out as someone who walks to the beat of a different drum. He talked of how his choices bring about the positive changes he’d like to see in the community.

“I suppose that I am a changemaker, not because I’m trying to force change upon anyone, but rather hoping to encourage others to love more and to be their best and most authentic self,” he said. “I hope to encourage others to be less dualistic in their thinking and approach to the world. While it might be comfortable labeling things as good/bad, for me/against me, right/ wrong, gay/straight, this separation and division only gets in the way of compassion and understanding.” t

<<

cannot assimilate and get lost as a lesbian culture.

“We have to show the world that we don’t have to be ruled by the patriarchal structure, that we are the masters of our own destiny,” Kamieniecki continued. “We are loud, proud, and out.”

Lanyon pointed out that showing up means doing so at home, in the community, and at work, discussing the issues that are important to women and queer women.

“It is really, really important for us to keep showing up,” said Lanyon.

“We need to keep talking about the challenges that we are facing, both as individuals and as groups.”

Dyke March

From page 21

“We have someone in the White House who makes direct attacks on women’s bodies and who thinks that it is OK to be abusive verbally and physically toward women,” said Lanyon, referring to President Donald Trump. “That’s not OK. Being able to address that intersection: we are women [and] we are queer women.

These things affect us. “[There is] the need for us to continue to come together and talk about things that are challenging for us,” she added.

Lisa Kamieniecki, 60, has been attending the Dyke March with neighbors from her all-lesbian apartment building for 25 years.

“We are having a backlash right now,” said Kamieniecki, talking about how the rights that women and the LGBT movement have fought for are now threatened.

“We need to maintain a presence in the world,” she said, noting that visibility has always been important for dyke, butch lesbian women. “We

Rise up

Coming together, raising consciousness, and taking to the streets were how it all started. It was the height of the AIDS epidemic and women were under attack by conservative forces when queer women gathered for the first San Francisco Dyke March in June 1993, just a few months after the Lesbian Avengers See page 45 >>

Pride 2017>>

t Martinez advances visibility for South Bay LGBTQs

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 39

by Heather Cassell

S

an Jose native Maribel Martinez is paving the path for how counties across the nation can build comprehensive targeted programs and services to address the needs of LGBTQ residents.

Martinez, a 36-year-old queer woman of color, is the director of the Santa Clara County Office of LGBTQ Affairs. Based in San Jose, it’s the nation’s first countywide office dedicated to the LGBTQ community.

“I feel very fortunate that I get to go to work every day and my sole focus is to think about ways that I can improve the quality of life for the LGBTQ community,” said Martinez, who considers herself a “public servant ... working toward the needs of our community.”

If she has her way, the office will be a leader in Santa Clara County, and the nation, by not only being one of a few such governmentsupported offices, but also producing cutting edge and effective ways to support the LGBTQ community.

(Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia have similar offices in their cities.)

“We want to be that net root force, that convener, and that deep thinker,” she said about creating the most “innovative” and “effective” ways for government and community organizations to work together.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted to create the LGBTQ affairs office in June 2015 at the urging of gay Supervisor Ken Yeager.

Martinez is the office’s first director and was hired when it opened in January 2016.

“I marvel at her calmness and the fortitude to try to resolve the issues that are before her,” said Yeager. “There’s probably very high expectations for her, as you can imagine.”

Yeager said it wasn’t a slam dunk to establish the office.

“The county took a risk on approving my creation of the office,” he said, noting that not everyone might know the need for the office or what Martinez’s role is.

Martinez’s primary function is to craft LGBT culturally sensitive programs and training within the county’s government agencies and services, Yeager said, citing findings from the 2014 report “Status of LGBTQ Health: Santa Clara County, California 2013.”

“As we know from the health assessment, LGBTQ people in the county still feel a certain amount of discrimination [and] feel like they are not getting the services that they need,” for various reasons linked to their sexual orientation or gender identity, he said.

“It’s important that the office is successful. The more successful she is we hope that other jurisdictions will want to create a similar office,” said Yeager.

Jo-Lynn Otto

Maribel Martinez, left, wafts sage over the crowd at City Hall during a recent transgender youth rally, as Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager, right, looks on.

By the numbers

County officials estimate that LGBTQ people account for 4 percent of its population, which totals 1,894,605 people, based on 2014 U.S. Census numbers, the Bay Area Reporter noted last year. A Gallup survey released in March 2016 that looked at LGBT residents of the country’s top 50 metro areas found that the LGBT population in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area was 3.2 percent, or 3,368 residents age 18 and older.

“I don’t think people fully realize how forward-thinking Santa Clara County is,” said David Campos, 46, a gay man who formerly served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and is now a deputy county executive for the South Bay county.

“Santa Clara County is really at the forefront of a lot of these issues.”

The LGBT affairs office reports to Campos, he said.

The office currently operates on a $538,322 annual budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year, which includes salaries for Martinez and her three staff members, according to Christine M. Stavem, communications director in Yeager’s office. Martinez’s annual salary for the same fiscal year is $160,964 and includes her county benefits.

Stavem noted that the budget would change soon due to the county supervisors passing the 2017-18 fiscal budget, which takes effect July 1. Martinez also shares an administrative assistant with the Office of Immigrant Relations.

The office has a public allies fellow.

Last year, the office had an intern.

Martinez anticipates the office will bring on a new intern sometime this summer, she said.

Soon she hopes to have volunteer opportunities available in the office.

This year’s budget is nearly a $230,517 increase from its initial budget of $307,805 for the 20152016 fiscal year. The increase will accommodate the office’s growth as it brings on more staff, including a new public communications specialist and an expert on transgender issues, Martinez and Yeager said.

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Getting to know South Bay LGBTQs

Martinez, who is married to Lisa Wilmes, has spent the past year and a half since stepping into her role working to “unpack” Santa Clara County’s LGBTQ community to understand it better, she said.

“When we talk about the LGBT community really, really unpacking: Who is it that we are talking about? What do they look like?

What do they do? Where do they go? How do they access services?” she said, noting that getting to know the community was a way to be better informed about how to respond not only to LGBT individuals themselves, but also the community that surrounds them.

“We really took this year to really learn and to begin to engage [the] community,” said Martinez, who is turning the informative conversations she had into programs

for LGBTQs and their friends and families. “We were being very intentional to make sure that when we say Santa Clara County that we really mean ... talking with folks from Gilroy to Palo Alto, the whole breadth of our entire area.”

Since beginning operations, the office has launched a partnership with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is a multi-year initiative to create robust support systems for LGBTQ youth wellness.

The office is also working on the Safe Place to Learn, a policy approach for addressing inclusive and accountable schools developed by the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments.

The office has several different working groups and action sheets for health care providers to become more culturally sensitive to LGBTQ patients and create a safe environment to allow them to identify themselves to health care providers.

One of the discoveries of the health assessment report – and by Martinez talking to community members – is that LGBTQ individuals aren’t accessing services as much as they could. LGBTQ residents echoed the results of the report, telling her they were unaware of the services, were hesitant utilizing the programs, or were using services but not identifying themselves as LGBTQ. One of the things she learned during the past year was that South Bay transgender residents sought health services at Planned Parenthood in Santa Cruz, the TransVision program at Tri-City Health Center in Fremont, or in San Francisco.

“That is unacceptable. We should be having those resources available

and accessible to our community here in Santa Clara County,” said Martinez. “We are working on making sure that happens.”

Her office is working with the Pay Equity Initiative to make sure county services are culturally sensitive and to communicate the fact that such services are available, she said.

“It’s great to have policy. It’s even better when that policy is implemented and tracked and we can see those impacts,” said Martinez.

She hopes to have a report card by the end of the year so the LGBTQ community can see the impact and progress the county is making toward better serving them.

Visibility has been an issue for the South Bay’s queer community.

The county stretches 1,304 square miles and includes rural and urban areas. There isn’t a “gayborhood” or centralized place for the county’s LGBTQ community to gather, Martinez noted.

To help mitigate the spread-out nature of the county, Martinez has been working on creating visibility through the office, she said.

The office was instrumental in the county becoming the first in the nation to raise the transgender flag in 2016 for Transgender Day of Visibility. The office also was there to support people who were mourning the victims of last year’s massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Most of the 49 people gunned down by shooter Omar Mateen were young gay Latino men.

Martinez said that both instances allowed the office to increase its visibility.

See page 44 >>

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<< Pride 2017

40 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Doctor pioneers advances in trans health

by Sari Staver

F

or his entire career, Dr. Dan Karasic, a psychiatrist, has fought for equal rights for people marginalized by society.

From his stint as a trainee at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Los Angeles in the 1980s, where he advocated for equal care for people with AIDS, drawing blood when hospital staff wouldn’t, to recent times when he promoted a more modern view of transgender health within the psychiatric field, Karasic, a gay man, has gained the admiration of colleagues.

Chosen earlier this year to chair the 2017 inaugural World Professional Association for Transgender Healthsponsored conference aimed at U.S. membership, held in Los Angeles in February, Karasic has a long list of awards and accolades, including the 2012 UCSF Chancellor’s Leadership Award for LGBT Health.

A past president of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists, Karasic leads a peripatetic personal life, commuting on weekends to Los Angeles where his husband of seven years, Ryan Thomson, is a Hollywood talent manager.

Trans scholar Jamison Green, Ph.D., a past president of WPATH, said in a phone interview that Karasic was “one of the first psychiatrists to be active helping support human rights for the transgender community.”

“Dan really helped elevate us outside of city hall in our push to obtain services, rights, and protections,” said Green, a longtime consultant and policy adviser on trans issues. Within the LGBT community, Karasic “advanced the inclusiveness of the T,” he added.

“Not only did Dan step up, but he has always been very conscientious about not speaking for us, but letting transgender people speak for themselves,” Green said. “Dan clearly understood the traumas, pressures, and marginalization we have experienced and, without ever saying as much, always makes sure we know we are valued.”

Another colleague, Lin Fraser, a psychotherapist in private practice, added her perspective. In a telephone interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Fraser said, “Dan is not only a brilliant, pioneering and compassionate psychiatrist, but he’s also a strategist in the trenches, always thinking about how to change the environment to improve access to services for people who are transgender.”

Soft-spoken and reserved, Karasic does not like to talk about his accomplishments, but when pressed during an interview at his office at the UCSF Alliance Health Project, he acknowledged being proud of his efforts to “depathologize trans identity” by pushing for reform of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM) diagnosis from “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria.” The

Sari Staver

Dr. Dan Karasic

latter refers to the dysphoria (distress) a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth.

He also cited his work advocating for the right to correct legal identification documents without surgery or other onerous restrictions, and in fostering communication between trans health advocates and health professionals.

Currently a health sciences clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF, Karasic co-leads the gender team at AHP; is the psychiatrist for the Transgender Life Care Program and the Dimensions Clinic at the Castro-Mission Health Center; works with trans and HIV-positive people at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital; and trains

health care providers in trans health.

Karasic has helped educate other health professionals through his writing. He co-edited “Sexual and Gender Diagnoses of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM): A Reevaluation” and authored the chapter, “Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Patients” in the second edition of “Clinical Manual of Cultural Psychiatry.”

Karasic, 57, said that his early life was very privileged. In the 1960s, the Karasic family moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, where he rubbed shoulders with the children of celebrities at Beverly Hills High School, but after a family financial crisis and his parents’

t

divorce, he lived in his car for several months.

Things brightened when Karasic was accepted to Los Angeles’ Occidental College (where he met Barack Obama) and later, with loans and scholarships, to Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut.

As far as his ability to handle a full calendar of jobs and volunteer advocacy gigs, Karasic said, “Growing up, I had a very intellectual upbringing.

Having two very brilliant parents really helped me in terms of figuring out what it meant to study. I also learned to be independent, because, well, my parents really weren’t all that great at parenting.”

He said that his mother influenced him.

“My mom was a tremendously positive influence on me because she was a no-limits kind of woman in an era that set limits on what women could do,” Karasic said. “She moved to the U.S. to go to medical school but when she got here, at first was turned down by many schools who were then favoring men returning from the war. Also, later in her career, my mom developed her own line of skin products, which she sold on QVC. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. I try to remember that philosophy.”t For more information on the UCSF Alliance Health Project, visit https://ucsf-ahp.org/.

Supes reseat DeJesus on police panel

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esbian San Francisco Police Commissioner Petra DeJesus is set to rejoin the police oversight panel after the Board of Supervisors voted 8-1 Tuesday to approve her for another term.

DeJesus, who first joined the commission in 2005, had faced competition by labor leader Olga Miranda, but Miranda, who’s president of Service Employees International Union Local 87, withdrew her application after allegations emerged that she’d verbally and physically abused people. Many had also criticized her for only recently moving to the city.

Supervisor Ahsha Safai, who’d strongly backed Miranda, was the sole vote against DeJesus at the June 20 meeting. Supervisors Jane Kim and Mark Farrell were absent.

In a message to the Bay Area Reporter, DeJesus said she’s “honored” to be reappointed.

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has,” she said. of policing. To replace her In a phone interview with someone with less in May, when the superexperience is doing a disvisors’ rules committee service to [the] impacted was going to vote on the communities,” said Fewer, matter, DeJesus, who was whose husband is a retired supported by the Harpolice officer. vey Milk LGBT DemoGay District 8 Supercratic Club, among other visor Jeff Sheehy, who at Rick Gerharter groups, said she wanted Police first did not take a posito remain on the com- Commissioner tion, also came out in supmission in part because Petra DeJesus port of DeJesus in May, of all the effort she and effectively ensuring that others have put into reshe had the votes. forming the police department.

Her police commission seat has “I’d like to see it through,” she been empty since April 30, when her said. “I’ve done a lot of hard work most recent term expired. DeJesus’ on this commission.” supporters have said that her efSupervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, a forts are critical to reforming the member of the rules committee, city’s police department, which has told the B.A.R. last month that she been beset in recent years by racist backed DeJesus. and homophobic text messaging “Petra DeJesus has a proven track scandals and questions over officerrecord of holding the police departinvolved shootings. New Police ment to a higher standard of transChief William Scott took over in parency and accountability, asking late January. the hard questions and yet tempering DeJesus’ new term expires it with compassion and respect for April 30, 2021.t those who are doing the hard work

6/20/17 10:57 AM

H

ouse Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), center, planted a magnolia tree near the main entrance of the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park Saturday, June 17. Pelosi was honored for her three decades of leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The tree-planting is something

Rick Gerharter

Pelosi does every five years; she was assisted by her granddaughter, Bella Kaufman, and grove volunteers Tom Jensen, left, and K.C. Farrell. Officials noted that the grove has surpassed 200,000 hours given by community volunteers to create and maintain the 10-acre living memorial.

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Community News>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 41

Latino pageant promotes wellness compiled by Cynthia Laird

T

he 26th annual Miss and Mr. Safe Latino pageant will be held Thursday (June 22) from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter Street in San Francisco.

Sponsored by Instituto Familiar de la Raza, or IFR, the event celebrates the diverse culture, talents, and pride of the LGBTQ Latinx community and promotes health and wellness.

Contestants compete in one of three categories: Miss Transgender (TG) Safe Latina, Miss Safe Latina, or Mr. Safe Latina. Participants undergo auditions and rehearsals to prepare for the group performances, as well as individual talent, fantasy wear, and educational segments.

Selected by a group of community judges, winners represent IFR in the Latinx LGBTQ community for a year after receiving their title, often taking part in various street fairs, San Francisco Pride, and National Latino AIDS Awareness Day. The pageant is produced by Si a la Vida, a program of IFR focused on HIV education, prevention, and support, as well as LGBTQ health and wellness issues. It includes dance performances, music, fantasy presentations, artistic talent, and informational sessions on HIV and LGBTQ health.

“MMSL participants are generally not professional performers,” said Rafael Velazquez, Si a la Vida program manager. “That said, past performances have included incredible replicated reproductions of ‘The Lion King’ musical, and performances of Amy Winehouse, and Juan Gabriel. The talent in our community is truly breathtaking.”

Tickets to the event are $12, and can be purchased online via City Box Office at https://www.cityboxoffice.com/eventperformances. asp?evt=2332. Those attending the show are encouraged to arrive by 6 to participate in the highly popular red carpet entrance as community members and past contestants gather for photos.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health is a co-sponsor.

Courtesy CCOP

These placards are visible in supporting Castro businesses.

Merchants with Stop the Violence placards offer safe space in San Francisco

For out of town visitors coming to San Francisco for the Pride parade and other festivities, organizers of the Castro’s Stop the Violence program want them to know they can seek refuge if needed, and want to remind locals of this important service.

Those businesses that have a Stop the Violence placard posted in their window have agreed to three things,

Courtesy IFR

Antonio Ponce donned an elaborate costume at last year’s Miss and Mr. Safe Latino pageant.

said Greg Carey, chief of patrol for Castro Community on Patrol, a volunteer safety group. They will provide a place of safe haven to victims of crime, agree to call 911 on behalf of the victim, and provide comfort as needed until police or medical professionals arrive.

Carey said that CCOP, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and Community Patrol USA started the program in its current iteration in 2010.

“It’s the resurrection of the program Sister Roma created years earlier,” Carey said in an email.

Roma told the Bay Area Reporter in an email that she originally started Stop the Violence in response to a spike in hate crimes in the LGBT community in 1989. It also started as a window placard distribution program.

“Soon thereafter, we added whistles,” Roma said.

Today, the Sisters partner with the San Francisco Police Department and CCOP to provide whistles, self-defense training, and safety materials throughout the city.

“The project ran its course through the 1990s and was put on temporary hiatus until the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Stephen Powell at Pink Saturday in 2010,” Roma said, adding that following that incident, the program was revived. (No arrest has been announced in the Powell case.)

Roma said that the Sisters “want everyone visiting for Pride to feel welcome and safe.”

“If you feel threatened or are in need of help, just look for a merchant displaying one of our Stop the Violence posters and you will find an ally inside,” Roma said.

For more information on the Sisters, visit http://www.thesisters.org.

For more information on CCOP, visit http://www.castropatrol.org.

Pink triangle installation seeks volunteers

People who want a unique Pride experience can volunteer this weekend to help install the giant pink triangle atop Twin Peaks.

The pink triangle, now a symbol of LGBT pride, was once used by the Nazis in concentration camps to identify, shame, and persecute homosexual prisoners. Gays were forced to wear the pink triangle on their pockets in the camps as a way to set them apart from other prisoners.

This year marks the 22nd annual San Francisco installation, project co-founder Patrick Carney said.

See page 45 >>

Happy San Francisco Pride!

In the spirit of Harvey Milk, let us raise our voices to pass the Equality Act and finally give sexual orientation and gender identity full federal civil rights protections under our Constitution!

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<< Sports

42 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

A tale from the AIDS/LifeCycle

by Roger Brigham

I

’m not usually a betting man, but I’ll wager you this: My doctor is way cooler than your doctor.

Dr. Hussain Gilani, 34, has been the nephrologist overseeing my dialysis regimen for the last three years.

He’s always upbeat no matter how much of a downer my health issues

are at times; his April wedding to Adele White was a fabulous affair, with traditional and colorful Pakistani outfits and was covered in a big New York Times feature written by Emeryville’s Louise Rafkin; and he once participated in a 299-mile bike race in blazing Texas heat, all while going without food or water because he was fasting during Ramadan.

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But that’s not why he’s cool.

He’s cool because he was one of the 2,800 riders who participated this month in the seven-day, 545mile AIDS/LifeCycle to raise money for the HIV/AIDS-related work of the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

“Since moving to the Bay Area, I have been wanting to do this ride,” Gilani, 34, said. “I’ve had many patients throughout the years afflicted with HIV, and I have even worked in countries heavily affected by HIV (I’ve traveled to Haiti three times).

But I never really connected with how devastating HIV and AIDS were to the local community until a conversation I had with my property manager in my first apartment in San Francisco about four years ago. He sat me down and told me the horrors of being gay in the 1980s and 1990s – everyone basically dying, and because they are gay, no one really cared. It’s a reality I have trouble comprehending, and very much so sympathize with. Prior to my ride, one of my conversations with you reminded me of that. It’s very humbling thinking what the homosexual community that lived through the worst of HIV/AIDS had to go through and to see how it has shaped who they are today. I am so impressed by the advocacy that stems out of that.”

This was by far the longest trip he has ever ridden.

“I had started bicycling in medical school, but stopped riding so much last January when I tore my ACL. About a year ago this month was the first time I picked up my bicycle since tearing my knee.

I rode roughly three miles that day and I was so proud of myself, but setting this trip was a lofty goal that I knew would help force me to recover.”

Gilani said he started training more frequently in the fall but had trouble devoting himself to it then because of wet weather and wedding plans.

“After my wedding, I just started riding every day after work and increasing my mileage until two weeks before, I rode from my home to the top of Mount Diablo and back (93 miles and 8,500 feet of elevation),” he said. “After that, I didn’t really touch my bicycle until the ride, but I knew I was ready.”

His impressions of the ride?

“In my head, it’s the safest way to

t

Courtesy Hussain Gilani

Dr. Hussain Gilani takes a break during the AIDS/LifeCycle ride earlier this month.

do a long bicycle ride along some of the most beautiful land in California,” he said. “I honestly believe that every day I was on the ride was better than the day before, and the first day was amazing! Even though the second day was very difficult, and grueling (109 miles, and the temperature hit 97 degrees), I was having a blast. And the next day it was challenging and beautiful, and so on and so forth. Every day provided an experience that made me reflect on how lucky I was to experience what I was experiencing, and to help me think of ways to pay this forward.”

The people he met and the stories they told were as beautiful and moving as the dazzling coastal landscape he navigated.

“It was incredible,” Gilani said. “There were so many brave people with moving stories.

I was sitting with my wife, and she was admiring a man’s tattoo of an octopus (she has a love of octopi), and he told us how people who were HIV-positive would get biohazard tattoos to let people know they were positive. He felt like he was ‘deadly/ poisonous’ to others, but was also a beautiful being, so he instead tattooed deadly but beautiful animals on his arm. He had the octopus, a jellyfish, and, I believe, a snake. His openness with his diagnosis was

just incredible: we were strangers to him, but he just wanted us to know. Help eliminate stigma. The evenings were filled with moving and emotional stories. I had a friend who basically was moved to tears nearly every night.”

The one regret he had about his adventure was that he opened his fundraising page too late to raise more money.

“I raised $3,395,” he said. “I feel like I could have done better. I didn’t think to open my fundraising page until after my wedding, but I did reach my goal in two weeks.”

“My takeaway is that I’m inspired to do more,” Gilani continued. “I’ve always seen myself as a fierce advocate for the most vulnerable members of our society, and leaving this makes me want to get off my ass and do more. Unless we have a child before next year’s ride, I will be doing this ride next year and hopefully every year. My advice for someone that is thinking about doing it is: JUST DO IT! This is a once in a lifetime type of experience that we are so fortunate to be able to do. Do it.”t To learn more about AIDS/LifeCycle, visit http://www.aidslifecycle.org. Information is available online for the work of SFAF at http://www.sfaf.org and the LA LGBT Center at http://www.lalgbtcenter.org.

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olden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, right, was joined by his wife, Ayesha, as the two rode on the top of a double-decker bus during the June 15 parade celebrating the team’s second NBA championship in three seasons. The Oakland parade and victory

Jane Philomen Cleland

rally drew about 1.5 million people, city officials said.

The Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers four games to one. Curry’s teammate Kevin Durant was named the NBA Finals most valuable player.

t

Commentary>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 43

A Target for Pride

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

Better Care Starts With Robert’s Support.

I

t was 25 years ago this year that I began to come out in earnest as a trans woman. My wife and I both came out as bisexual around the same time. Depending on how you want to count things, she and I have been in a lesbian relationship for about as long.

As a result, I often look at Pride events as a bit passe; I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and I have strands of cheap, plastic rainbowcolored beads. What’s more, we’re an old, married couple, so the notion of running about and partying seems contrary to cracking open a pint of ice cream and watching Netflix.

Pride events themselves have changed. What were slightly more than spontaneous parades have given way to glitzy, corporatesponsored, multi-block street fairs. They’ve become a part of the mainstream, with all the good and ill that entails.

On the corporate-supporting side of this, fast food giant McDonald’s has opted to “rainbow-ize” its large French fry containers. It’s a first for the Golden Arches, but comes at the same time as allegations about ill treatment from a trans former employee.

In a lawsuit filed last month, La’Ray Reed, a crewmember in Redford, Michigan, claims “extreme sexual harassment” at the local franchise where she worked fulltime between April and August 2015. In the suit, Reed claims to have faced insults and sexual harassment, as well as being required to use a rear bathroom that doubled as a storage closet. After she complained to the franchise owner, she was terminated, according to the suit.

So much for pretty, cardboard French fry boxes.

At the other end of the spectrum is Target, the discount retailer. The company has, with some stumbles, shown itself to be largely LGBTQfriendly, insofar as it continues to assist the bottom line. Target’s biggest positive action has been standing tall on transgender restroom access, even as the religious right and others rail against the company for it.

This month, many Target locations have a specialty section focusing on Pride-themed merchandise, even including trans-themed goods. I’m pretty sure it’s the first major retailer to make such a move.

My feelings about this are a bit mixed. On one hand, I see it as pure capitalism, with Target making bank off the backs of our lives.

That stinks. As I mentioned, so much of what was Pride has given way to the big corporations looking to advertise their wares to yet another demographic. In this way, Target is just one more in a long line – and it didn’t even need to sponsor a booth at a local Pride festival to do it.

One could take a very cynical view of this, and see Pride sliding into a mockery of itself. Like St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, and even Independence Day, it may simply devolve into yet another excuse for people to wear goofy, themed goods and drink watereddown beer.

Yet I want to provide an alternate view: consider that I, who came out so long ago, still see a value in Pride. What’s more, I think that Target selling Pride goodies may be a very good thing for us.

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Consider how many young LGBTQ folks – who may otherwise be unable to get to a Pride event – may see a trans, bi, or good old rainbow flag in the very store they and their family shop in?

What might that mean to them?

How might it change the power of the narrative the religious right and others might use against us, to see Pride items a few aisles from the housewares and family staples?

We live in harrowing times. The Trump administration is whittling down our rights, while states as diverse as Washington and Texas face potential transgender restroom battles.

Transgender people are still being murdered at elevated rates. We face a tsunami, with many seeking to erase us, hold us down, and shame us into closets and dark alleys.

Square that against Target’s commitment to stock Pride gear in its stores. While it remains a consumer-focused, capitalist message – and I’m not going to suggest we throw in with anyone willing to slap rainbows on their products in June – it nevertheless pushes back against those who would rather see us simply go away.

That Target backs this up by being more progressive than many retailers is icing on the cake. It helps avoid being some form of LGBTQ-focused “pink washing” – that is, presenting a positive veneer on an otherwise problematic company or product – and instead enhances the company’s more forward-thinking policies.

I find myself thinking of a possible young and/or closeted person seeing those items and realizing, for the first time, that they need not live in shame. Or that same person going to their first Pride event, as I did two and a half decades ago, and feeling a belonging they may have never known.

I may be somewhat old and jaded when it comes to my own involvement, but at the same time I feel a sense of duty for those who may need that extra bit of encouragement, and a place where they can feel welcomed and encouraged.

This is why, even now, Pride matters. Indeed, it may be more relevant in this era of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence than it has been in years, providing an all-toofleeting moment of celebration in a pitched battle to secure what shreds of our rights that we can.

We need this – to keep the flame alive as we go back to the front lines.t

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Gwen Smith tries to feel a little Pride every day. You’ll find her at http://www.gwensmith.com.

Atlanta | Boston | Chicago | Dallas/ Ft Worth | Detroit | Los Angeles | Miami/ Ft Lauderdale | New York | Orlando/Tampa Bay | Philadelphia | San Francisco | Washington DC

Atlanta | Boston | Chicago | Dallas/ Ft Worth | Detroit | Los Angeles | Miami/ Ft Lauderdale | New York | Orlando/Tampa Bay | Philadelphia | San Francisco | Washington DC Untitled-3 1

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<< Community News

44 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

<<

SF Pride

From page 21

Celebration Committee, said in response to emailed questions. “We have seen this in times of celebration, times of mourning, and times of resistance. We expect the tone of this year’s parade/march to very much reflect the broader message of resistance around the country.”

Planned Parenthood and El/La Para TransLatinas will be among the more than 250 contingents that are expected in Sunday’s parade, according to Ridgely.

Many contingents likely will express opposition to the policies coming out of the Trump administration.

“In solidarity with the resist movement, our board of directors will lead this year’s parade with a marching contingent comprised of representatives from roughly 20 diverse organizations who focus on women’s rights, immigration, and the profiling persecution of AfricanAmericans,” Ridgely added.

The parade will also include a “We Fought Back” contingent comprised of organizers of the 1977-78 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day, Pride’s predecessor, who fought against the anti-gay Briggs initiative in California and legendary homophobe Anita Bryant, who led anti-gay efforts in her home state of Florida and beyond.

SF Pride organizers, who have long faced criticism that the parade and celebration have become too commercial, have also worked to make this year’s event seem more political. The SF Pride Committee’s website has branded the parade as a march and the celebration as a rally,

<<

Travel ban

From page 21

is similar to the Texas legislation.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey in May also signed into law similar legislation, House Bill 24, though it applies only to adoption agencies that do not receive state or federal funding.

Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin’s signing into law in March Senate Bill 17, which allows high school and college student-run groups to bar LGBT people from being members based on religious grounds, triggered the review of his state by Becerra’s office.

“It is not up to me to put this on California’s plate for determination.

It is up to those states,” said Becerra.

“They put it up to me to act on whether a state is added to the list.”

As for when he would make a decision, Becerra said “in due speed,” noting that his staff must first prepare an analysis laying out the rationale for why a state should be placed on the travel ban list.

“I don’t take this lightly,” said Becerra. “I look at it this way. California is not violating someone’s rights. We are trying to protect people’s rights.”

Gay state Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), who co-hosted last week’s news conference, told the B.A.R. it is “great” that Becerra’s office has the four states under review.

He said he would have the Legislative LGBT Caucus “send the AG office a letter to make sure we expedite the travel ban list process.”

<<

South Bay LGBTQs

From page 39

Continuing the conversation

Martinez and her staff plan to continue the dialogue they started during a recent “listening tour.” The meetings will allow community members to meet Martinez and the office’s staff as they continue delving deeper into discovering the people’s needs, especially for the most vulnerable within the South Bay’s LGBTQ community, she said.

similar to what Los Angeles Pride organizers did a couple of weeks ago in solidarity with the June 11 national Equality March for Unity and Pride that was held in Washington, D.C. “To simply call our event a parade or celebration is limiting and not truly reflective of what takes place at San Francisco Pride, and we wanted to address that,” said Ridgely. “Every year – in addition to well-crafted and creative floats – there are tens of thousands of people who march down Market Street, many with homemade signs carrying messages of empowerment, hope, and demands for equality and justice.

Simultaneously, the celebration is more than a dance party. We have a long tradition of including a speaker series on the main stage, with individuals and organizations addressing the issues that our communities are facing.”

Ridgely said the cast of the ABC TV miniseries “When We Rise” will march in the parade and appear on the main stage. The show, which aired earlier this year, was based in part on the memoir of local gay and AIDS activist Cleve Jones. It featured the stories of several San Francisco LGBT activists, including Ken Jones, Diane Jones and Roma Guy, and Cecilia Chung.

Safety screenings

Formal safety screenings were instituted at the SF Pride celebration last year, following the June 12 massacre at Orlando, Florida’s gay Pulse nightclub, where Omar Mateen fatally shot 49 people and wounded 53 others before he died in a shootout with police. Officials added metal detectors and other security measures.

Ridgely said everyone will be screened again at the entry gates this year. People’s bags will be checked, and bags larger than 18 inches by 18 inches won’t be permitted.

“Last year, wait times did not exceed 30 minutes, and we hope to achieve that again this year,” said Ridgely.

The Civic Center celebration runs from noon to 6 p.m., Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday.

The parade begins at 10:30 a.m.

Sunday at Market and Beale streets and ends at Market and Eighth streets.

The festival is free, but there’s a suggested donation of $1. Donations from the celebration have helped SF Pride contribute more than $2.7 million to community nonprofits since 1997.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ronnie Spector (“Be My Baby”) and hip-hop artist Cazwell (“Ice Cream Truck”) will be among the main stage headliners. Every year, Bay Area nonprofits work as community partners to provide volunteers for SF Pride. In exchange, the groups get a portion of the proceeds.

One of Pride’s community partners this year is the San Francisco Spikes soccer club. In response to emailed questions, Keith Thomas, a spokesman for the group, said, “Pride allows us to reach out to and provide even more people of the LGBTQ community with a healthy, affordable, and supportive environment to play soccer. We feel like this is especially important in team sports where often LGBTQ persons have not felt comfortable.” t

t

Rick Gerharter

People relaxed on the lawn in the Civic Center during last year’s LGBT Pride festival.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Members of the Dykes on Bikes appeared on the main stage at last year’s San Francisco Pride, when they celebrated the group’s 40th anniversary.

For more information on Pride events, visit www.sfpride.org.

The Pride parade and celebration aren’t the only events that will draw people to San Francisco’s streets this weekend.

The 2017 Trans March, set for

Friday, June 23, will start in Mission Dolores Park. Stage performers and speakers will begin at 3 p.m. The march starts at 6. At 7:30, there will be more speakers at Turk and Taylor streets. For more information, go to transmarch.org.

Slow to expand list

Since being confirmed in January as California’s attorney general, Becerra has yet to expand the number of states on the travel ban list, which includes Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee in addition to Kansas. Former attorney general Kamala Harris, now the state’s junior U.S. senator, had authorized the initial list of states last fall prior to the ban’s enactment January 1.

Under legislation authored by gay Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) and signed into law last year

by Governor Jerry Brown, any state that has enacted legislation that discriminates against LGBT people since June 26, 2015 is supposed to be placed on the travel ban list. In April Becerra’s office announced it would not remove North Carolina from the banned list of states after lawmakers in the Tar Heel State repealed the controversial HB 2 that had mandated transgender people use public bathrooms based on the gender they were assigned at birth.

He made that decision because local jurisdictions in North Carolina cannot enact ordinances to prohibit discrimination against LGBT individuals in public accommodations or private employment. That stipulation is expected to sunset in 2020.

“California’s law was enacted to ensure that, with limited exceptions, our taxpayer resources are not spent in states that authorize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. North Carolina’s new

law does not cure the infirmity of this type of discrimination,” Becerra stated at the time.

Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur told the B.A.R. last week that the statewide LGBT advocacy group has been working with Becerra’s office on its review of the four states under consideration for addition to the travel ban list.

EQCA had co-sponsored the law establishing it.

While he acknowledged the slow pace it has taken to reach a decision, Zbur stressed that the attorney general and his staff must follow the process outlined in the legislation.

He did note that Becerra’s office had expedited its review of Texas.

“It is a little bit slower than just having a single person take a look at the law, which is typical for government,” said Zbur. “The attorney general has been acting pretty expeditiously on these laws. He is one of our strongest allies and is close to making a determination on all four states.”

Zbur indicated he expects all four states will be added to the list.

“I am optimistic the attorney general will follow the law on these and, hopefully as they occur, states will understand the law is in place and will have an impact,” he said.

As of May 9 Santa Clara County had restricted its employees from traveling to nine states with discriminatory LGBT laws on their books. The South Bay jurisdiction’s policy now covers Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, South

Dakota, and Tennessee.

The Board of Supervisors in Santa Clara County enacted the ban in 2015 and gave the county executive power to approve travel to the restricted states on a case-by-case basis. The Office of the County Counsel reviews the banned list on a quarterly basis to determine if it needs to be updated.

Santa Cruz County also enacted its own non-essential travel ban policy and currently restricts its employees from going to North Carolina and Mississippi. It allows for the county counsel to recommend that the supervisors add more states to the list if they pass “discriminatory laws that deny equal protection to GLBT persons.”

Supervisor John Leopold, who co-sponsored the policy, told the B.A.R. that he intends to work with the county counsel later this summer on updating the list.

“We are about to start our budget hearings next week so we won’t have a regular board meeting until August. We will be discussing these states with our counsel and possibly bring something to our board when we return from our summer recess,” Leopold wrote in an emailed reply. “Our board has been fully committed to using our resources to not help states that do not honor the civil rights of all residents.”

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors enacted the toughest policy against states with anti-LGBT laws, as it not only restricts non-essential

travel to such states but also bans city agencies from contracting with businesses headquartered in those states. Its list of banned states as of March had included Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kansas, and South Dakota.

Asked last week if Texas, Kentucky, and Alabama would be added to the list, neither City Administrator Naomi Kelly, whose office oversees the banned list, nor her policy aide, Jack Gallagher, responded to the B.A.R.’s inquiry.

When asked by the B.A.R. about the anti-LGBT policies enacted by the trio of states at his annual Pride flag raising ceremony at City Hall Monday night, Mayor Ed Lee condemned the legislation. Of the adoption restrictions in particular, Lee noted, “children are growing up in wonderful lesbian and gay households” because “gay and lesbian parents are excellent.”

As for adding the three states to the city’s travel ban list, Lee said he would be conferring with his staff and members of the board and “whether we take action will come out of those discussions.” Pressed on how soon the city would act, Lee said a decision would come “in the next few weeks.”

Gay District 8 Supervisor Jeff Sheehy told the B.A.R. there is no question the city should ban travel to, and contracting with businesses in, Texas, Kentucky, and Alabama.

“Absolutely,” said Sheehy. “They should do it as soon as possible.”t

“We know that if we really want to hear from people we have to go to where they are,” said Martinez, adding that she wants to make sure the resources her team develops “are informed by the diverse perspective and that they are accessible and relevant to the people that use them.”

Campos and Yeager couldn’t be prouder of the job Martinez has done getting the office up and running.

“What impresses me about her is her level of maturity and her understanding and grasp of the issues

facing the LGBTQ community,” said Campos.

“I saw first-hand Maribel in action with a local school,” he explained, talking about an incident where LGBT students in a rural part of the county reached out to Martinez for her assistance with an ongoing harassment and visibility issue at the school. Campos said that he witnessed how Martinez brought the students, the school community, and the county together to help resolve the issue, not only at the school, but district-wide.

“It’s exciting to see and really gratifying to see Maribel ... working with those communities in a very constructive way to improve the treatment of LGBT students,” said Campos.

Campos also noted the progress Martinez has made dealing with the county bureaucracy.

“She, in a very short period of time, has made the issues around the LGBTQ community priorities for the county,” he said. “I really believe that as much as she’s done already that the best is yet to come.

“It’s a very exciting time,” he added. “There will be a lot more coming out this office.”

Yeager agreed, adding, “I’m just very proud of the office. I’m proud of her and looking forward to all the success that she’s going to have.” t For more information on the Santa Clara County Office of LGBTQ Affairs, visit sccgov.org/ sites/lgbtq/Pages/lgbtq.aspx.

t <<

Community News>>

Marriage fight

From page 30

sought different ways of recognizing relationships.

“In the LGBT community, there was always a vanguard of activists who hoped that their difference and, indeed, their persecution, could become the foundation of a new, almost utopian way of arranging social relationships, a vision that was born in the social tumult and creativity of the 1960s civil rights and other social movements,” he said. “To them, making marriage a priority was a palpable threat to the alternative vision they sought. I can understand how the eventual prioritization, and ultimate victory, of marriage could be experienced, in this vein, as a loss,

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News Briefs

From page 41

Pink tarps stretch nearly 200 feet across to form the triangle, which is visible from the East Bay and other areas if there’s no fog.

There are three opportunities for people to help. First is creating the outline of the triangle Friday, June 23 from 1:30 to 5 p.m.

On Saturday, June 24, the installation takes place from 7 to 10 a.m.

Coffee, pastries, and fashionable pink triangle T-shirts are provided for all volunteers, Carney said.

A commemoration ceremony will follow the installation at 10:30, which is expected to include Pride grand marshals, city officials, and other dignitaries. The San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band will perform, along with musical theater star Leann Borghesi.

Finally, people are needed to take

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District 8 race

From page 28

President Todd David, who hosted the fundraiser at his home that attracted 40 people, has known Sheehy for a decade, as they helped launch the political group for parents in the public schools.

“He is one of the most committed and hardworking people I know,” said David, executive director of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition.

“He is focused on issues I care about, like public education, recreation and parks, and housing.”

Mandelman has also made solving the city’s homelessness issue and lack of affordable housing key focuses of his campaign, saying the city can build more housing without sacrificing the character of its neighborhoods. It is one of the reasons why Jordan Davis, a transgender activist and advocate for single-room occupancy hotel residents, is backing Mandelman in the race.

“He is good on housing justice, which is a big thing for me,” said

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Dyke March

From page 38

staged a large Dyke March in Washington, D.C. that attracted 20,000 women. That first march coincided with the National March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, according to Wikipedia.

The AIDS crisis perpetuated lesbians being in the shadows of the gay liberation movement, though many were the caretakers of their gay male friends, San Francisco Dyke March founders told the Bay Area Reporter.

Leaders of three West Coast lesbian feminist organizations came together with New York City’s fire-eating Lesbian Avengers to plan a “spontaneous” march on Washington the night before the official march, April 25, 1993, founding members Leslie Mullin, 72, and Lisa Roth, 67, told the B.A.R. They named their gathering the

particularly a loss of the alternative vision that some queer activists sought.

“But I would argue that full legal equality can also provide fresh breathing room for those with an alternative vision of society to really build a queer space that has much to offer all kinds of people,” added Frank. “An alternative space can really only be countercultural and just if it is an option, not something that people are compelled to inhabit just because they happened to be born L,G,B, or T.”

Be pragmatic

Frank suggests that people should be pragmatic as future fights for LGBT equality unfold.

“Pragmatism is key,” he said.

“Outsiders are often the ones to put radical social change on the map, but down the triangle Sunday, June 25.

The work begins at 4:30 p.m. and continues until 8. Carney said that dinner at a Thai restaurant will be provided. Carney explained that this shift is the hardest to fill, and said that if people can pitch in for an hour it would be helpful.

Those planning to volunteer should bring a hammer and gloves.

They should wear closed-toe shoes, long pants, and sunscreen.

For more information, including directions to the site, visit www. thepinktriangle.com.

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 45

changing the system from the inside is often what’s necessary to get the job done. The very choice to – eventually – prioritize marriage, parenting, and military service – three traditional American institutions important to conservatives and the political center – was a strategic decision that reflected a pragmatic understanding that gaining access to the American mainstream was critical to achieving full equality.”

Frank pointed out that there is still no federal law protecting LGBT Americans from discrimination, which many states also lack.

“Religious conservatives are having some success creating carve-outs from all kinds of laws based on professions of religious faith or even moral beliefs, something that undercuts the very

rule of law,” he said. “Transgender people and LGBT people of color are disproportionately vulnerable to the attacks coming from Donald Trump and his rearguard agenda.”

Frank also suggested that people find ways to build coalitions and unite others across different lines of geography, race, class, and ideology, which was crucial at times for marriage equality.

And, he said, as the fight for trans rights intensifies, people should remember that the quest for LGB rights did not come quickly.

“The fight for gay, lesbian and bisexual rights, contrary to popular belief, was not won in one or two decades, but was the result of over half a century of courageous individuals and strategic organizations showing

their common humanity to the world.

Recognizing the incremental nature of change was key,” he said.

“This does not mean people don’t deserve full equality now, but is a recognition that the practical reality of achieving that equality relies on more and more people coming to know, understand, and accept a previously invisible minority,” he added. “Transgender identity is still very new to most people, and while transgender people absolutely deserve full equality now, the lessons of history are that we must share the stories and lift the voices of trans people over time in order to lead people to full acceptance. The marriage fight helped get the ball rolling, but our work is far from done.”

at their home, 233 Central Avenue (between Oak and Page streets) in the city’s Haight Ashbury neighborhood.

The event will feature live music, food and drinks, silent and live auctions, and raffles. McAllister and Crinnion are asking for a donation of $25 per person.

The party is open to the public.

Those with questions can email events@openhand.org.

nonprofit in December, quit for personal reasons effective June 6.

Musick led Maitri years ago during the agency’s capital campaign and construction of its Duboce facility. He will remain leader of the nonprofit while the board conducts a search for a permanent replacement, according to a news release.

Currently, Musick is a principal at Tower Hill Resources and a senior associate and project manager for Corridor, which provides guidance to non-acute health care providers.

“Maitri is an organization that is near to my heart, and being able to return as interim executive director is a real blessing for me personally,” Musick stated in the release.

designated as a National LGBT Historic Site.

Austen was one of America’s earliest and most prolific female photographers. She lived in the house, called Clear Comfort and now formally known as the Alice Austen House, with her mother when she was growing up, and later, with her longtime partner, Gertrude Tate.

The home is already on the National Register of Historic Places, as the Bay Area Reporter noted in an October 6, 2016 story. Last week, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the listing for 17th century home was updated to include Austen’s significance in LGBT history.

The museum held a public program Tuesday with a keynote speech

by Joan E. Biren, an award-winning photographer, known for chronicling the lives LGBT people, according to a story on DNAinfo. t

Maitri announces interim ED

t

Two top AIDS Walk San Francisco fundraisers, Richie McAllister and Marie Crinnion, will hold their 15th annual AIDS Walk BBQ Fundraiser for Project Open Hand Saturday, June 24 from noon to 10 p.m.

The popular event takes place

Maitri Compassionate Care, which operates a hospice for people with AIDS, announced that former Executive Director Bill Musick will take over on an interim basis, following the sudden resignation of Michael Sorensen.

As reported last week, the board announced that Sorensen, who started as executive director of the

Davis, who serves on the city’s SRO task force. “People who are working class or poor should not have to live in SROs. They are meant to be temporary housing.”

The issue hits close to home for Mandelman, as when he was 11 years old his mother, struggling with mental illness, ended up homeless. Mandelman had to fend for himself, and in high school, lived with Bernard Burke and his wife, Eleanor, in the city’s Richmond district.

“I’ve experienced first-hand how people can fall into homelessness and what it takes to get them off the streets,” said Mandelman, who as an adult secured guardianship over his mother in order to get her the care she needed. “We just can’t continue to spend this much money and have so little to show for it. But that means bold new leadership in City Hall that will demand better results – I’m ready to do that work.”

Mandelman is an urban development attorney who currently works in Oakland as a deputy city attorney.

Throughout his legal career he has

helped cities across the East Bay build housing, he noted.

“No one on the Board of Supervisors has my background in building housing and working to revitalize neighborhoods,” said Mandelman. “I want to bring that practical, real world experience to the board, cut through the ideology and pessimism, and get affordable housing built here in San Francisco.”

He also distanced himself from policies championed in the past several years by progressives, such as the moratorium on building new housing in the Mission district that gay former District 9 Supervisor David Campos had proposed but was rejected by voters.

“Bans, moratoriums, and boycotts are easy to come up with, and both sides of the aisle are guilty of doing it.

But when you go to these ‘politicians of no’ with a vision or a plan, too often you hear excuses like: ‘it’s complicated’ or ‘that’s not the way things are done’ – they like the status quo because, frankly, it’s easier,” said Mandelman on the steps of James Lick Middle

School with Campos standing behind him to his right. “Now I’m not saying these politicians are bad people. Creating change, especially around big entrenched issues, takes a lot of hard work, it takes leadership and a supervisor who’s willing to stand up for his constituents.”

Education is also part of Mandelman’s platform, as he has called for San Francisco to offer universal pre-school. And this fall City College will be free for residents of the city to attend, a policy he has backed as a college board member.

“Often we hear from supervisors that schools aren’t their problem.

They’ll tell you to call the Board of Education if you have any concerns about local schools,” said Mandelman. “I’ll tell you this: children and their families are every elected official’s responsibility, from dog-catcher to the president of the United States.”

A number of district residents at both candidates’ events remain undecided about the race and came out to hear what the candidates had to say.

Jim Maloney, a gay man who lives

on Liberty Hill between the Castro and Noe Valley, has known Mandelman “for years” and is leaning toward endorsing him in the race.

“I want to hear what his reasons for running are and what he is going to focus on,” said Maloney.

Standing with Maloney was journalist and drag queen Paul Pratt, who also has known Mandelman “a longtime.”

“I am leaning toward Rafael, I feel like it is his time,” said Pratt, noting that a key issue for him in the race is how the candidates will address homelessness “and the rampant tent cities we have.”

Noe Valley resident Brendon Kearney, a real estate agent and gay man who serves on the board of Project Open Hand, attended Sheehy’s event to learn more about the candidate.

“I am a big supporter of state Senator Scott Wiener and he has his endorsement. I am interested in hearing about his positions and what he is going to focus on,” said Kearny. t

Dyke March, taking back the slur used against lesbians.

The women gathered at Dupont Circle and took to the capital’s streets.

They projected a lesbian art show onto the Washington Monument, making front-page news in the Washington Post.

“There was something about this idea that really appealed to women,” Mullin said, noting that it spoke to women’s “fundamental desire” to have a voice, be visible, and have power.

“Women like to feel powerful and we don’t get to feel that powerful that much,” she said.

That energy and sense of power felt in Washington, D.C. spread to San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and other cities.

Through the past 25 years the San Francisco march has remained an allvolunteer grassroots operation with a core group of 12 this year. The march is supported by donations from local business owners, community

organizations, and individuals, who raised about $35,000 to produce the event. It is expected to attract 30,000 march and rallygoers, according to Lanyon.

Dyke March organizers hope more women will come out for the march and rally.

Sistah Boom, and DJs Muff, Ripley, and Slum B. Community leaders expected to speak include Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights; Kimberly Alvarenga and Carolina Morales, co-presidents of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club; Lanyon; water activist Kelly Love; and author and educator Carolyn Wysinger.

At 5 p.m. participants will gather at 18th and Dolores streets, where the dyke motor contingent and the disabled and senior trolley will kick off the march, leading the women winding through the Mission and the Castro. This year, the marchers will return to Dolores Park for a Trash Bingo cleanup party. Prizes will be awarded for the most unusual trash found.

“A milestone is more than about us continuing to show up,” said Lanyon, who hopes the Dyke March will bring a new wave of dyke activists. “We are not going to back down. We are still

here and we show up every year to make sure that there is space for us.

“Until [discrimination] doesn’t happen, we are going to continue turning out. We are going to continue showing up,” she added.

The San Francisco Dyke March Committee is still looking for volunteers for Saturday’s celebration and march.t

AIDS Walk fundraiser for Project Open Hand

Continuing the tradition

The rally and march will kick off in its historical fashion with remarks from community leaders and entertainment during the rally in Dolores Park beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday.

“We really want women to feel like this is their space and to occupy it in a manner that they see fit,” said Lanyon, who is in her fifth year organizing the march.

Marchgoers can expect to be entertained. Rally performances will be kicked off by Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits, followed by Aima The Dreamer, Red Hots Burlesque, Madame Ghandhi, Dianne Patterson,

Alice Austen House designated LGBT historic site

The Alice Austen House on New York’s Staten Island has been

For more information, contact info@thedykemarch.org or visit http://www.thedykemarch.org or http://www.facebook.com/sfdykemarch.

<< Community News

46 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Dykes on Bikes applauds high court trademark ruling

by Lisa Keen

Francisco-based Dykes on Bikes core one for the group applauded Dykes on Bikes. that decision.

The long-stand“Our argument ing organization of on freedom of lesbian motorcycle expression is very enthusiasts filed a much like that of brief recently with the Slants. The the U.S. Supreme USPTO should Jane Philomen Cleland Court supporting not be deciding The San Francisco Dykes on an effort by the Bikes Women’s Motorcycle what is derogatory Slants, an Asian- Contingent and what is not, American band and them doing that sought to so is the essence of trademark its name. In a decision isviewpoint expression,” said Brooke sued Monday, June 19, the Supreme Oliver, an attorney for Dykes on Court ruled 8-0 that the U.S. PatBikes. She noted that the group’s ent and Trademark Office violated brief also argued that the trademark the Asian-American group’s First office’s application of the so-called Amendment right to freedom of disparagement clause was arbitrary. speech when it denied it the right to The brief noted, for instance, that register a trademark on the name. while the office denied Dykes on The trademark office had argued Bikes a trademark for its logo bethat federal trademark law prohibcause of the wording, it granted a its registration of a trademark that trademark for the name and grantmay “disparage ... or bring ... into ed trademarks for “Queer as Folk.” contemp[t] or disrepute” any “perOliver and law professor Tobias sons ... institutions, beliefs, or naBarrington Wolff prepared the brief tional symbols ...” But a unanimous to the Supreme Court for the San court said it amounts to government Francisco Dykes on Bikes Women’s censorship.

Motorcycle Contingent, a CaliforAttorneys for the San nia 501(c)3 nonprofit that licenses

S

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Homeless rate

From page 22

companies to remain in the city, Basinger said, “It’s all because of the Twitter tax giveaway.”

He pointed to SROs being “gutted,” and converted into dorms for tech workers or Airbnb rooms for tourists.

“I think that this is a wake-up call to the leadership of every HIV organization in the city and every LGBT group that we need to organize, mobilize, and become more focused and louder in our demands that the LGBT and HIV communities in San Francisco get their fair share of housing resources,” said Basinger.

He added that he hopes people will contact the city’s supervisors to urge them to vote for rental subsidies for seniors and disabled people that they’re considering.

There was some improvement in the youth-related report, however.

The data show that while 13 percent said they were living with an AIDS or HIV-related condition in 2015, 9 percent reported that problem in 2017.

Sex work

Sex work continues to be an issue confronting young people who are homeless.

The youth survey says that 24 percent of homeless youth reported trading sex for a place to stay, compared to 20 percent in 2015.

Skylar, who’s bisexual, was leaning against a stack of crates outside the Walgreens at 18th and Castro streets last Friday holding a sign that said,

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’AIDS panic’

From page 24

The risk of transmission through a bite is “close to zero, even if there’s active bleeding in your mouth,” said Lamb, who’d brought in a medical doctor to testify during the case.

Lamb added that after Barrantes was bitten, Mann said, “I’m charging you with aggravated assault” because of Guerrero’s alleged statement about trying to give the deputy AIDS. Guerrero and Lamb said that the alleged comment was repeated during the trial when Mann testified and when Assistant District Attorney Kara Lacy gave her closing

Seth Hemmelgarn

Skylar, who declined to give his last name, holds a sign asking for money at 18th and Castro streets.

“Too ugly to prostitute, too honest to steal.”

The 25-year-old said, “The later it gets,” the more he gets approached by people who turn the sign into a pick-up line, eventually asking him, “Do you want me to pay you to prostitute?”

Skylar, who declined to share his last name, turns down their offers.

He said he became homeless three months ago after his ex-girlfriend stole his money and is staying in a friend’s RV. About half a block up Castro from Skylar, Joseph Roberts, 26, sat on the sidewalk with a guitar case to his left and a hat holding some change.

Roberts, who’s bisexual, said he supports himself by playing his guitar. Trading sex for money or a place

arguments.

According to a transcript of the preliminary hearing in the case, when Assistant District Attorney Austin Sanford explained the great bodily injury charge, he said that Guerrero had “admitted to the officers that he had AIDS so it’s reasonable to infer ... that there’s a possibility of that transmission to the deputy.”

Max Szabo, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, told the B.A.R., “The defense argued that Mr. Guerrero somehow accidentally bit the deputy while he was falling down.”

Guerrero’s alleged statement about hoping the deputy would get AIDS “however, seems to show the

chapters in other cities. Oliver said the group immediately submitted a request to the trademark office seeking approval of its previously suspended application for a trademark of its logo.

The decision, Matal v. Tam, also enables the Slants to trademark its name. The trademark office had rejected the group’s application, noting that “slants” is a disparaging term for people of Asian descent.

But the Slants said they adopted the name to “reclaim” the word and diminish its power as a derogatory term.

In its brief to the Supreme Court, Dykes on Bikes noted that its efforts to trademark the name “Dykes on Bikes” had been rejected several times “on the ground that the term ‘dyke’ is a disparaging term for lesbians. ...”

Like the Slants, Dykes on Bikes explained that its use of the word “dykes” was to “highlight and confront the controversial history of that term and dispel the notion that it is disparaging.”t Read the full article online at http://www.ebar.com

to stay is “something I’m not against, especially if it’s a mutual need,” he said, adding that female couples are among those who’ve approached him.

He said he comes to the Castro because “I believe what the Pride flag used to stand for ... equality, acceptance, and pride.” He said that’s still what the rainbow flag means to him, but he wishes more people would recognize that.

Like many of the young people who come to San Francisco, Roberts, who said he’s been “houseless” for six years, is passing through. He’s been in San Francisco for a month, and he just plans to stay a few more weeks.

Jason “Jay” Flanagan, 31, who was standing at the top of Castro with his Chihuahua, Mamas, and a suitcase, said he ran away when he was 17 “because my parents didn’t like me being gay.”

Flanagan, who’s living with HIV, has been homeless for three years, and for the last couple, he’s been staying in a park close to the Castro.

He said that he’s resorted to sex work before but now he makes money from cleaning houses, landscaping, and panhandling.

“There’s a lot of love here, even though there’s a lot of bullshit,” Flanagan said when asked why he comes to the Castro. He said that even though nobody’s asked him to leave the neighborhood, people have looked down on him.

“Remember, we’re all the same,” said Flanagan. “Just because someone’s homeless for a moment doesn’t mean we’re a piece of shit our whole life.”t

defendant intended to cause harm to the officer,” said Szabo.

“Allegations that the evidence was used for anything other than proof of the defendant’s state of mind boil down to a shameless ploy,” Szabo added.

Eileen Hirst, a sheriff ’s department spokeswoman, said that she was informed “the decision to seek felony assault charges were based on the severity of the injury and the nature of it. It was not a decision made based on Mr. Guerrero’s announcement to us that he was HIV-positive.”

Guerrero said, “I got the verdict I was searching for, and I’m not going to bite anybody anymore if I can help it.”t

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037612000

t

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037608200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AUNTIE AUBEE’S APOTHECARY AND SLOW JAMS, 75 VICKSBURG ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ELIZABETH SUMMERS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/24/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/25/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MCH DEVELOPMENT, 850 RANKIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MCH DEVELOPMENT, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/23/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037611300

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037604700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MAYA RICO BY LUCHO, 2071 20TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KELLY MARIA BARBIERI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/24/17.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/24/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BLACK SERUM, 310 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BLACK SERUM LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/19/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/19/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037610500

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037606400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BAYWORKS PLUMBING, 43 RANDOLPH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BORIS AUGUSTIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/24/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/24/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: A.G.D. GENERAL CONTRACTOR, 1509 DOLORES ST #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANTONIO DAVIS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/22/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/22/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037600700

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037598300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EYEBROW CARE, 3401 CESAR CHAVEZ ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed TARA THAPA & BISSU SAPKOTA CHHETRI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/17/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/17/17.

JUNE 01 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037615200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DOMAINPROPICKS.COM, 268 BUSH ST #2511, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALBERT CLARK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/30/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/30/17.

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037613500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SIMPLYSHE, 149 NEW MONTGOMERY ST 4TH FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MISSION PETS, INC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/26/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KARISSA BIESCHKE DESIGNS, 106 PARNASSUS AVE #9, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KARISSA NICOLE BIESCHKE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/25/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037607500

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037613100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KOJA KITCHEN SF, 865 MARKET ST #FE10, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SET KJ INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/22/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037608300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO BOOTBLACK & MS. SAN FRANCISCO BOOTBLACK, 10439 SW 42ND AVE, PORTLAND, OR 97219. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ELIZABETH SIBLEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/25/17.

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037611400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HERNANDEZ ENGINEERING, 850 RANKIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed M. HERNANDEZ CONSTRUCTION, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/08/09. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/23/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: J POWER ELECTRICAL, 742 KIRKWOOD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CARLOS JIMENEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/25/17.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/25/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037608900

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037620900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: POKE ORIGIN, 716 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TAKUYA INVESTMENT INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/23/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/23/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO SEGWAY TOURS, 2545 POWELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed EVLOGIA AP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/31/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037609000

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037623700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: POKE BOWL, 3251 20TH AVE #250A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed POKE STONE INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/23/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/23/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037603100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DESIGN THEORY HARDWARE, 336 HAYES ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CAN-AUSSIE INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/18/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037609300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SCOTT STREET PROPERTIES, 230 SCOTT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117.

This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed ANGUS WHYTE & THOMAS GREXA PHILLIPS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/05/07. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/24/17.

JUNE 01, 08, 15, 22, 2017

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HAYES CLEANERS, 68 EVERGLADE DR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed MANPING ZHOU & ZAITONG TANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/02. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/02/17.

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037616900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO ART BOOK FAIR LLC, 1150 25TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SAN FRANCISCO ART BOOK FAIR LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/24/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/30/17.

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-037415200 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: LUCKY CAT DESIGN CO.; LUCKY CAT DESIGN, 2411 CHESTNUT ST #304, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by SARAH WOHL. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/2017.

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017

t

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June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 47

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STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-037346600

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: LUCKY CAT DESIGN COMPANY, 2411 CHESTNUT ST #304, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by SARAH WOHL. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/2017.

JUNE 08, 15, 22, 29, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037630800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: L K HEALTHCARE, 551 FAXON AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YANG LI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/08/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/17.

JUNE 15, 22, 29, JULY 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037627500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TOES N PAWS SITTERS, 101A CLAY ST #316, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PHILIP RODGER ARCA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/23/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/06/17.

JUNE 15, 22, 29, JULY 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037629900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JIN POT, 5158 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BAY FOODIE CORPORATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/17.

JUNE 15, 22, 29, JULY 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037620800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PARC 55 SAN FRANCISCO A HILTON HOTEL, 55 CYRIL MAGNIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed PARC 55 LESSEE LLC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/04/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/31/17.

JUNE 15, 22, 29, JULY 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037620200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HOTEL TRITON, 342 GRANT AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed DCP JL TRITON SF, LLC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/11/17.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/31/17.

JUNE 15, 22, 29, JULY 06, 2017

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037632000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PETER GOWLAND PHOTOGRAPHY LLC, 3171 25TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed PETER GOWLAND PHOTOGRAPHY LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/07/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/17.

JUNE 15, 22, 29, JULY 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037637100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE SEA SCAPE INN, 4340 JUDAH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed RASAN INVESTMENTS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/13/17.

JUNE 15, 22, 29, JULY 06, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-553111

In the matter of the application of: IN HWAN HO, 880 43 RD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner IN HWAN HO, is requesting that the name IN HWAN HO, be changed to IN HWAN HEO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 10th of August 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037639900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ACRI DDC, 759 20TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAVID ACRI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/14/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/14/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037642200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KANNON GOODS, 1201 PACIFIC AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HOVIN WANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/16/17.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/16/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017

SUMMONS LOS ANGELES SUPERIOR COURT NOTICE TO DEFENDANT: COOMBS PROPERTIES, ET AL.” YOU ARE BEING SUED BY PLAINTIFF: ANGIE BAGDASARYAN AND ZARUI ADJIAN CASE NO. LC104582 Notice: You have been sued. The court may decide against you without your being heard unless you respond within 30 days. Read the information below.

You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this summons and legal papers are served on you to file a written response at this court and have a copy served on the plaintiff. A letter or phone call will not protect you. Your written response must be in proper legal form if you want the court to hear your case. There may be a court form that you can use for your response. You can find these court forms and more information at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo. ca.gov/selfhelp) your county law library, or the courthouse nearest you. If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the court clerk for a fee waiver form. If you do not file your response on time, you may lose the case by default, and your wages, money, and property may be taken without further warning from the court. There are other legal requirements.

You may want to call an attorney right away.

If you do not know an attorney, you may want to call an attorney referral service. If you cannot afford an attorney, you may be eligible for free legal services from a nonprofit legal services program. You can locate these nonprofit groups at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia. org), the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp), or by contacting your local court or county bar association. NOTE: The court has a statutory lien for waived fees and costs on any settlement or arbitration award of $10,000 or more in a civil case. The court’s lien must be paid before the court will dismiss the case.

The name and address of the court is: Los Angeles Superior Court 6230 Sylmar Avenue Van Nuys, CA 91401.

The name, address, and telephone number of the plaintiff’s attorney, or plaintiff without an attorney, is:

MARVIN LEVY, ESQ.; (SBN 101042) 12340 SANTA MONICA BLVD., STE. 234, LA, CA 90012 (310) 571-2320.

Date: 09/01/2016; Clerk, by Sherri R. Carter, Executive Office Clerk.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037645500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: A-TRACK CLEANERS, 5442 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LE HIEN THNG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/19/17.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/19/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037631000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PEREZ CONSTRUCTION, 551 44TH ST, RICHMOND, CA 94805. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EVERSON PEREZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/08/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LA CORONA WELLNESS CENTER, 3326 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BCOK, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/25/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/26/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037626400

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037639300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO ATM NETWORK; SF ATM NETWORK, 3473 17TH ST #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JACOB MALEKZADEH. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/05/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FLASH DRAFT, 239 DUNCAN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DRAFT PARTY INC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/14/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037629100

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037637700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PERFECT EDGE, 562 BANKS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALIREZA SABOURI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/07/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037639400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UNIVERSAL FLOW MONITORS (CHINA), 2211 YORBA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DAPRO CORPORATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/14/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/14/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037639200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO CIVIC MUSIC ASSOCIATION, 1243 28TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CIVIC SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION OF SAN FRANCISCO (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/04/17.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/14/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037634200

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PACIFIC UNION PROPERTY MANAGEMENT, 1699 VAN NESS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PACIFIC UNION INTERNATIONAL, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/05/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/13/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037639000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PERFECT PUFF, 1376 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed PERFECT PUFF, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/08/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/14/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037641900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MAXFIELD’S HOUSE OF CAFFEINE, 398 DOLORES ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MAXFIELD CAFE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/15/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BLACKWELL INC., 3173 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BLACKWELL INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/15/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/09/17.

JUNE 22, 29, JULY 06, 13, 2017

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St. Jude, worker of miracles, pray for us. St. Jude, helper of the hopeless, pray for us. Say prayer nine time a day for nine days. Thank you Jesus and St. Jude for prayers answered. Publication must be promised. B.K.

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Out &About

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O&A

52

Vol. 47 • No. 25 • June 22-28, 2017

www.ebar.com/arts

Rick Gerharter

April 1, 2009, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence arriving at the opening of their 30th anniversary exhibit at the Hormel Center in the San Francisco Main Public Library, by Rick Gerharter.

Coming together in LGBTQ Pride! “C

by Sura Wood

elebrate Community!,” an amorphous though undeniably wellintentioned LGBTQ Pride show that opened last weekend at the Harvey Milk Photo Center, aims to embrace humanity in its many permutations, a laudatory ambition that needed a clearly defined theme and a narrowing of the overly broad concept of community.

See page 68 >>

by David Lamble

I Andrew Cooper

77

t’s astonishing what the Frameline 41 programmers have packed into the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival’s final four days, June 22-25.

See page 68 >>

Frameline grand finales!

Scene from director Trudie Styler’s “Freak Show.”

{ THIRD OF FOUR SECTIONS }

<< Out There

50 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Our LGBTQ Pride cup runneth over

by Roberto Friedman

O

ut There goes to a lot of opening nights, but the opening festivities for Frameline 41, the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival, are always special.

Last Thursday night at the Castro Theatre, “The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin” was the perfect kick-off treat for the LGBTQ film fest. Director Jennifer Kroot, editor/co-director Bill Weber, actor Jonathan Groff, and the man himself, Army Maupin, with dashing husband Christopher Turner, were in the house. It was a truly made-in-San Francisco moment and a festive occasion.

“Untold Tales” is a delight, even if you know a lot of the Maupin saga already.

In telling his life story, Maupin is by turns wise, funny, knowing, open, wry, reflective, mischievous, mournful and open-hearted. The film charts his long and winding road from closeted conservative Southerner to poster-boy for the San Francisco gay community, and covers a lot of queer ground. Not mentioned: the story of ACT’s musical adaptation of “Tales of the City”; Maupin & Turner’s move from SF to Santa Fe, NM, which the Chronicle covered in slightly less detail than the D-Day invasion of Normandy; and a short time later, their move back to SF. Fun fact: Autocorrect on our computer believes that Armistead Maupin should be Farmstead Maupin. Naughty Autocorrect.

OT had so much fun at the gala afterparty following the film. The party was held at Terra Gallery, where we chatted with “Bi Candy” shorts program curators Allegra

t

and April Hirschman, caught up with former B.A.R. art director Jay Cribas, sampled victuals and spirits, and generally enjoyed the sultry evening. Yessir, Frameline 41 is certainly off & running!

Grand Hotel

The Hilton San Francisco Union Square is this year’s Premier Hotel for Frameline 41, the first time it’s taken on that sponsorship. This means that all filmmaker and other festival guest accommodations are centralized there, which ensures a lot of buzz and bonhomie at the hotel bar. The fest’s green room is also found at the hotel.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and its sister inn the Parc 55 San Francisco, also a Hilton Hotel, are offering special Pride Bed & Breakfast Packages through the end of the month that start at $209 a night, quite a bargain for San Francisco tourist season.

We enjoyed an intimate press feed at the Hilton’s Urban Tavern restaurant, open for dinner until 10 p.m. We tried house specialties Ahi-Salmon Hamachi Poke, Devil Fried Duck Eggs, Wild Mushrooms and Blackened Cauliflower, all bona fide yummy. A lively discussion ensued at our table re: What makes a deviled egg a devil? Damned if we know. For more info, go to hiltonsanfranciscohotel.com.

Milk & honey

Don’t miss this week’s cover story on the Harvey Milk Photo Center’s 2017 LGBTQ Pride exhibit, on view through July 23. This year’s exhibit is in collaboration with the wishes of Gilbert Baker, designer of the international symbol to the world

Steven Underhill

Christopher Turner and Armistead Maupin were the men of the hour at Frameline 41’s opening night film, “The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin.”

of gay pride, the iconic Rainbow flag. In addition to Baker’s choices, Harvey Milk Photo Center director/curator Dave Christensen invited artists, writers, and photographers from throughout the LGBTQ community to share their talents for the show. Contributing artists, in alphabetical order, are Trinity Adler, Sean Black, Jay Blakesberg, Saul Bromberger, Patrick Carney,

Jane Philomen-Cleland, Randy Coleman, Christopher Cordier, Rink Foto, Rick Gerharter, Gareth Gooch, Mick Hicks, Sandra Hoover, Michael Johnstone, Skot Jonz, CJ Lucero, Paula Lycan, Paul Margolis, Danny Nicoletta, Mark Rennie, Francesco Romano, Francis Seidl-Chodosh, Peter Thoshinsky, Hank Trout and Bill Wilson.

We’d say that’s quite a line-up, and we personally know half of them.

The Harvey Milk Photo Center is located at 50 Scott St., San Francisco. More info can be found at harveymilkphotocenter.org.

Outdoor symphony

The San Francisco Symphony performs two outdoor summer concerts in July, both free and open to the public. SFS Director of Summer Concerts Edwin Outwater leads performances at the Stern Grove Festival on July 9 at 2 p.m., and on an outdoor stage on the grassy plaza at Pier 27 on July 23 at 12 p.m. Noon.

The concert at Stern Grove presents a program including selections from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” featuring soprano Jana McIntyre and barihunk baritone Hadleigh Adams, as well as works by Bizet, Ravel, and a medley of songs from the late French chanteuse Edith Piaf, arranged by Outwater. This performance is part of the Stern Grove Festival, an admission-free performing arts series that has taken place every summer since 1938 in Sigmund Stern Grove, the outdoor amphitheater at 19th Ave. and Sloat Blvd. in San Francisco.

The July 23 concert at Pier 27 features a program including Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” and selections from Holst’s “The Planets,” as well as playful pieces by iconic American composers including Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland. The concert also features guest vocalist Julie Adams singing Dvorák’s “Song to the Moon” from “Rusalka.” The concert takes place in front of the James R. Herman Cruise Terminal at Pier 27, located on the Embarcadero at the foot of Lombard St. KDFC’s Rick Malone hosts the event, and there will be a selection of local food trucks on site. Audience members are also encouraged to bring blankets and picnics for the concert. Valet bike parking will be available. Pretty damned civilized, we’d say.

Editor’s notes

How is your Pride week going so far? Staying gay? Oh, us? Oh you know, we keep busy, we run around a lot. Last week we were at the opening night for “A Night with Janis Joplin,” and it was truly legendary: Janis’ sister Laura Joplin and her brother Michael Joplin were right there in the audience with us. It felt like a living link with rock-n-roll history.

Speaking of history, an appreciation of the legacy of Joan Crawford in these pages last week by arts writer Tavo Amador elicited a spirited response from a reader disputing La Crawford’s age at the time of her death. A quick check on IMDb.com elicited not one but two birth years, further muddying the waters. How could OT be confused on such a critical issue? Why, for years our very own personal server went by the redolent moniker Joan.

“How bizarre that a reader would take Joan Crawford’s birth year so seriously,” Amador commented when contacted. “She claimed to have been born in 1908, but 1906 is usually considered more likely.

Conveniently, there were no birth certificates kept in Texas at that time.” OT will entertain no further conjectures about the precise details of La Crawford’s reign. As they say, you can look it up.

Finally, what is up with all these Stepford Wives fixtures of the LGBTQ community going around wishing people, “Happy Pride!?”

We think it makes no sense to wish someone a “Happy Pride!” What does that even mean? Instead, we wish you a very “Happy [choose one:] Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Answering, Intersex, Asexual, Be sexual, Polyamorous, Polygamous, Polygonal, Married, Single-andLovin’-It, Married-yet-Single, Single-yet-Married, Gay-Parenting, Gay-Happily-without-Children, High-Profile, Low-life, SecretLife, Wet-n-Wild, Wash-n-Dry, Hot-n-Hunky, Sex Worker, Sex Player, Love-Child, Kink-Friendly, Men’s-Men, Messy, Messed-up, On-the-Down-low, On-the-Highup, Clean-n-Sober, Clean-n-High, Dirty-n-High, Giddily Amorphous Pride!” And we merrily mean it!t

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San Francisco Ballet in Thatcher’s Ghost in the Machine // © Erik Tomasson

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<< Theatre

52 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

aybe you have friends in town for Pride. Or maybe the rainbow spirit is spurring your own entertainment urges. If any of those needs or urges have a theatrical bent, here are seven suggestions for finding satisfaction from what is ever-so-loosely known as the legitimate stage.

Fruits of the loom

Their act is part Weird Al parody and part sexy burlesque, turning what could have been a one-joke gimmick into a long-running cabaret act that has earned the respect of critics from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the Advocate and Out magazines. Stage performers Nick Cearley and Lauren Molina have been performing as the Skivvies since 2012, quickly becoming regular headliners at Manhattan’s top cabarets, and luring a steady stream of Broadway notables to join them in their strange musical mashups while attired in their undies.

The Skivvies made their San Francisco debut last December in a holiday show at ACT’s Strand Theater, and they are returning there with a show titled “Pride Rocks” for three performances on June 23 and 24. Their special guest will be Matt Doyle, a young gay Broadway veteran with credits in “Spring Awakening,” “The Book of Mormon,” and “War Horse.”

Doyle has been a popular guest performer with the Skivvies at their Feinstein’s/54 Below in New York gigs, performing medleys built around such topics as break-ups, boy bands, and getting high.

The king as queen

When an underappreciated Elvis impersonator named Casey loses his gig at a faltering bar on the Florida panhandle, his nights in the spotlight seem to be over. But when a lip-syncing drag act hired as his replacement loses one its members due to overindulgence, the straight, married, fatherto-be is pressed into service – and into fishnet stockings, a mini-skirt, and a dime-store wig. In this case, Casey doesn’t strike out. But complications do ensue.

“The Legend of Georgia McBride” – Georgia McBride is Casey’s nom-de-drag – was a comic hit in New York in 2015, and it’s now at Marin Theatre Company through July 2, where Adam Magill, Kraig Swartz, and Jason Kapoor play, respectively, the repurposed Casey and his new stage partners.

Casey’s trial-by-fire is lip-syncing in French to an Edith Piaf song, despite the fact that he knows neither the language nor the song. But there is a trick-of-the-trade that helps him get by. All you have to do is keep mouthing the words “watermelon motherfucker.”

Tickets at (415) 388-5208, or go to marintheatre.org.

Marriage goes round

It’s a blessed day to be a member of the Sunnyside Baptist Church,

Kevin Berne

M

Tickets available at (415) 749-2228 or act-sf.org.

Megan Moura

by Richard Dodds

Katie Goffman

Summer sizzles on Bay Area stages

t

Above: Broadway performer Matt Doyle will be the Skivvies guest star when they perform “Pride Rocks” at the Strand Theater June 23 and 24. Left: John Bramhall and Karren Baker play church leaders scandalized when a lesbian couple insists on getting married in “What in Tarnation?” at Exit Theatre. Right: Adam Magill plays an Elvis impersonator dragooned into a drag act in the comedy “The Legend of Georgia McBride” at Marin Theatre Company.

where the congregation is celebrating the legal nullification of gay marriages past, present, and planned. The celebration turns

into calamity as two lesbians hellbent on tying the knot take over the church and wind up in a battle with the tiny police force of the town of Tarnation. “What in Tarnation?” is the title of Jeff Bedillion’s new farce having its final performances June 22-24 at the Exit Theatre.

A co-production of Footloose and Bedillion’s Entitled Theatre Company, “What in Tarnation?” starts out as a comedy built around the characters inspired by Bedillion’s Alabama childhood, then moves into an abstract spectacle of stylized choreography and surreal special effects, before ending with a shift into unsettling realism. An advisory warns that the play “contains sexual, obscene and loaded prejudicial language.”

Tickets at (800) 838-3006, or go to whatintarnationplay.com.

From Paris with consumption

When the Drag Experience opened its latest musical parody at PianoFight, its name was “Moulin Rouge.” For reasons perhaps legalistic, that name has disappeared, and the run has continued with the somewhat more challenging title “Tuberculosis: The Musical,” with final performances on June 23 and 30. “But don’t worry,” assures the company, “it’s the same great show and same great music.”

The inspiration, unofficially, was Baz Lurhmann’s 2001 movie “Moulin Rouge,” set in 1900 but with a score filled with familiar pop hits. A stage adaptation is said to be in the works, perhaps the reason for the quick name-change. But in the past, Drag Experience has lent its cross-dressing stylings to “Hamilton,” “Hairspray,” and “Chicago” without any radical changes in the names.

The Drag Experience is the creation of Cruzin d’Loo and Sugah Betes, who head the large cast of drag kings and queens in “Tuberculosis.” Tickets available at pianofight.com.

“Sex” still in the city

Extra performances for Pride have been added for “Sex in the City Live,” which began its run at Oasis earlier this month and will continue through July. The pre-Pride performances are on June 23-24, with adaptor-director D’Arcy Drollinger playing the Cosmo-swilling career gal Carrie Bradshaw, and featuring Sue Casa, Lady Bear, and Steven LeMay as her cohorts, with Leigh Crow as Carrie’s perpetual love interest Mr. Big. Tickets at sfoasis.com.

“Sordid” details

Even if you’ve seen the movie “Sordid Lives,” the play it’s based on offers a different perspective into the world of that small Texas town where everyone knows your name – and your business. Del Shores’ 1996 play is having its belated SF debut at New Conservatory Theatre Center, timed to Pride season, with final performances on June 22-24. All the characters in the movie are in the stage version, but they get their showcases in discrete “chapters” – in the movie, these scenes are intercut – holding onto the comedic moments but giving the play’s more serious looks at homophobia a chance to develop on their own. Tickets at (415) 861-8972 or go to nctcsf.org.

Desert flames

Theatre Rhino is making a rare foray into the world of big, splashy Broadway musicals with “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” giving audiences a jukebox filled with disco hits, drag performers who have a heart beneath the snark, rambunctious dancing, and costumes that transcend the outlandish. Director John Fisher’s production at the Eureka Theatre is finishing up its run with performances on June 22-24.

Tickets at (800) 838-3006, or go to therhino.org.t

Images: © AMNH/C. Chesek © AMNH 2014

A new, prehistoric exhibit | Now Open It’s amazing what a fossil can reveal. With massive, life-size models, an interactive flight simulator, real pterosaur fossils, and more—this new exhibit will leave a lasting impression.

Fossilized forever, but only here for a limited time.

Get tickets at calacademy.org Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York (amnh.org)

27714-CAS-Pterosaurs-Thalas-Bay Area Reporter-9.75x16-05.18.17-FA.indd 1

5/18/17 2:50 PM

<< Theatre

54 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Janis Joplin sings the blues before ignoring her unsuccessful struggle against heroin addiction. But since we already know all that, the instigators of “A Night with Janis Joplin” have chosen a different way to package her songs.

The primary instigators are Joplin’s siblings, Michael and Laura, who commissioned writer-director Randy Johnson, with credits for bio-plays about Mike Tyson and Patsy Cline, to spotlight their sister in a light apart from the wellknown bad times. The main conceit of the show is Joplin’s love of the blues. I mean, she really loved the blues. And if Kevin Berne I haven’t stressed it enough Kacee Clanton as Janis Joplin, and Ashley Tamar Davis as already, which the musical is Aretha Franklin, sing a duet in “A Night with Janis Joplin” now certainly not derelict about at ACT’s Geary Theater. doing, the blues were the closest thing to a Bible that Joplin her fellow students sucked away at

by Richard Dodds worshipped. her self-esteem. It shaped the needy The show’s cleverest device is to t’s probably not a destination in woman she became, but is a part of juxtapose songs that became part of need of revisiting, but without her life that has been redacted from Joplin’s repertoire with facsimiles of it, the journey feels incomplete. In this concert/musical now at ACT’s their original versions. A supportthe world according to “A Night Geary Theater. ing company of four accomplished with Janis Joplin,” perhaps the bigThe insatiable needs born of that singers variously play Aretha Frankgest drawback of growing up in time ultimately could not be satislin, Etta James, Nina Simone, Bessie Port Arthur, Texas, is that it didn’t fied by fame, adoring audiences, or Smith, and Odetta. As Tawny Dolley have an art museum. Biographies, romantic encounters. And we know in a lounge singer’s cocktail dress documentaries, and Janis herself how that turned out, although this sings “Tell Mama” her way, we see in TV interviews have talked about hybrid theater piece sneaks in a how Joplin put her own spin on her miserable teenage years, where single reference to a drug problem it dressed in her favored hippie-

I

flavored garb. This happens again with Nina Simone (Ashley Tamar Davis) on “Little Girl Blue,” Odetta (Sylvia Maccalla) on “Down on Me,” and a character identified only as Blues Woman (Davis again) who sings “Summertime” in a traditional hymn-like style as Joplin takes over with her soaring version of the “Porgy and Bess” classic.

The basic set-up for the show is that we are at a Joplin concert, and her between-song patter has her veering into different tangents that may or may not be related to the songs that immediately surround it. (And there is far too much of the “How ya doin’, San Francisco?” kind of pep-building imprecations.) We learn that chore day in the Joplin household was usually accompanied by one of her mother’s Broadway cast albums, with the kids acting out shows as they scrubbed, ironed, and vacuumed. When “West Side Story” was on the phonograph, her brother would play Tony, her sister was Maria, and Janis was Anita – and Bernardo and the Sharks and the Jets. These are small, fun, intimate, details.

But after the script has Joplin moving to San Francisco, the between-song conversations with the audience turn into jibber-jabber, a conflicting series of platitudes about life, audiences, and men (but not

t

women, as Joplin’s none-too-secret bisexuality is ignored). While Johnson had access to the archives that her siblings have amassed, it’s hard to believe that Janis ever spoke some of the words assigned to her here.

“People come up to me and ask, ‘Do you think you’ll die a young and unhappy death?’” she tells us. No! she proclaims, because she’s got a lot of living to do. Joplin’s death at age 27 is not part of this narrative.

Mainly, though, the purpose of the show is to give us the chance to have the Janis Joplin experience. Accompanied by an eight-piece band, Kacee Clanton approaches the combination of finesse and abandon of Joplin’s shredding vocals, if not quite taking us over the mountaintop, but that’s easier to buy into than an unconvincing spoken delivery. And it’s a bit awkward when, just after Clanton performs Joplin’s mega-hit “Piece of My Heart,” Sharon Catherine Brown as an anonymous blues singer tops it with an authentically scorching “Today I Sing the Blues” that finally takes the audience to a place that the rest of the show can’t quite deliver.t “A Night with Janis Joplin” will run at ACT’s Geary Theater through July 9. Tickets are $20-$130. Call (415) 7492228 or go to act-sf.org.

Beauty blender

by Jim Piechota

Hi Gorgeous! by Candis Cayne; Running Press, $22.99

T

hough beauty and personal styling books are a dime a dozen

these days, tomes about improving one’s self-image and looking your best by a noted transgender personality like Candis Cayne deserve attention. The difference in her book “Hi Gorgeous!” is that there are few, if any, “written by women whose

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journey to womanhood began after being born into a male body.”

Cayne’s just-released guidebook, a photograph-heavy, glossy endeavor rich with beauty tips, styling, and sartorial advice, is fun, colorful, and effortlessly informative, even for

readers only mildly interested in the life and transformative journey of Cayne herself.

It opens with a foreword by none other than media darling Caitlyn Jenner, who is perhaps a bit overly complimentary when gushing that “Candis is glamorous against all odds.” The author appeared in Jenner’s groundbreaking “I Am Cait” reality series, and the two became fast besties.

Jenner’s praise does provides a hearty pat on the back for the “Dirty Sexy Money” actress, but one that Cayne doesn’t need. Her style guide clearly speaks for itself.

While the main thrust of her book is to provide style and beauty guidance to women everywhere, and to be all-inclusive and “free from fear and shame and judgment,” there is also empowerment abound in these chapters, and spiritual coaching on how to channel and maximize your “inner radiance.”

Cayne shares her own personal history growing up in Hawaii, even as a child (born male) experiencing gender confusion and ambivalence.

She writes of leaving Maui behind as a teenager to head for Southern California to train as a dancer, then on to New York City, where the excitement and fearlessness of drag shows enticed her to don makeup and heels, perform, and eventually grow into her “authentic self.”

She writes of being inspired, from as early on as age six, by the images of Cyd Charisse, Grace Kelly, Liz Taylor, and Sophia Loren, and shares photographs of her first time ever in drag, and her evolution up the ladder of style, grace, and fashion.

Cayne writes encouragingly on how to attain symmetry in spirit, mind, and body, while keeping

the soul free of worry and fortified with pride and self-love. She reminds readers to cultivate the body you’re in, but also to nourish it with cleansing breaths, visualization exercises and physical training, and to try each day to tackle the constant challenges of diet and nutrition.

Her advice is timeless. For those living in larger (i.e., smoggy) urban areas teeming with “big-city nasties,” facial exfoliation is critical, as is hydration, lip care, and a lessis-more approach to cosmetics application. Some of her counsel may seem pedestrian to older readers (how to kiss, avoiding bad breath, nails, hair care, etc.), but it’s suited for younger women on the verge of their first date or larger social function.

Readers should brace themselves for an onslaught of author photographs, many in the same outfits with different poses. By the end of the book, this may verge on gratuitous for some. Yet for diehard Candis Cayne fans, the photographs of her many looks, moods, styles, and trends create a pictorial scrapbook of the diva at her very contemporary best.t

56 • Bay Area Reporter • Date 00-00, 2017

Prodigiously gifted, and influential

by Tavo Amador

He was born near Paris to a prominent family. His father, a successful attorney, committed suicide when Cocteau was nine. He studied at the prestigious Lycee Condorcet, and while there began a love affair with classmate Pierre Dargelos. At 15, he was a published poet. At 23, he and Leon Bakst collaborated on the Ballet Russe production of “Le Dieu bleu,” featuring Nijinsky in the lead male role. He drove a Red Cross ambulance during WWI. Serge Diaghilev commissioned him to write a ballet scenario, “Parade,” which premiered in 1917

<< Film

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with music by Satie. It would later become a cclaimed novelist, playwright, full-length opera, with screenwriter, film director, Maurice Ravel and opera and ballet librettist, poet, Francois Poulenc augdesigner. Friend of Marcel Proust, menting Satie’s score.

Andre Gide, Pablo Picasso, Jean His first film, “Blood Genet, Marlene Dietrich, Maria of a Poet” (1930), is a Felix, Gertrude Stein, Guillaume nightmarish story filled Apollinaire, Erik Satie. Lover of with imaginative, often handsome actor Jean Marais, astonishing special among others. Jean Cocteau (1889effects that explores 1963) was all of these. His artistic the psyche of the proinfluence between the two world tagonist. One sequence wars was significant. His legacy refeatures hermaphromains potent. dites. In 1937, he met Marais (1913-98), 24 years his junior. Marais had already made over a dozen films and appeared on the Paris stage. Their first cinematic collaboration was 1943’s “L’eternal retour” (“Love Eternal”), a retelling of “Tristan und Isolde” starring Marais, written and directed by Cocteau.

Three years later, Cocteau directed and wrote his most famous film, the magical “La Best Breakfast & Belle et la bete” (“Beauty and the Beast”), Best Late-Night Restaurant starring Marais and the lovely Josette Day. His “L’aigle a deux tetes” (“The Eagle Has Two Celebrating our Heads”), a political drama about a queen 40th year! mourning her assassinated husband and longing to die, starring the acclaimed Edwige Jean Cocteau with a drawing from his film “Testament of Orpheus” (1959).

Feuillere and Marais, was released in 1948.

(Tallulah Bankhead was dismissed during out-of-town “Les Parents Terrible” has also starred in the unsuccessful Broadtry-outs.) That same year Cocteau been revived frequently in France. way production, in which a young adapted Victor Hugo’s swashbuckTranslated into English, it has often Marlon Brando had appeared but ler “Ruy Blas” for Marais and Danibeen performed in the US and UK. A elle Darrieux, directed by Pierre 1995 Broadway production, retitled Billon. Also in 1948, he filmed his “Indiscretions,” starred Jude Law as stage success “Les Parents Terrible,” Michele, Kathleen Turner, Eileen Atcasting Marais and Day in the kins, Roger Rees, and Cynthia Nixon. leads. Marais played Michel, son Cocteau was as prolific as he was of a possessive mother, who falls in talented. He authored six novels, love with his father’s mistress. made a dozen films, published more “Orpheus” (1950) was Cocteau’s than 20 volumes of poetry, wrote retelling of the classical legend, over 20 plays, made many recordwith Marais as the doomed poet ings, and penned several journals. and Maria Casares as the Princess/ Many of his movies are available on Death. Marie Dea played Eurydice.

DVD and are frequently revived in The two last worked together on theatres. Their power remains undiscreen in 1959’s “Testament of Orminished.

Cocteau was openly gay. He and pheus,” which starred Cocteau as Marais were a well-known couple the Poet, and which he also wrote in France. The public did not seem and directed. Marais had a cameo to care, and Marais was among the as himself, as did Picasso, Yul most popular romantic leading Brynner, Brigitte Bardot, Casares, men, in films and on stage, of his Charles Aznavour, and Francois era in France. Nonetheless, their Sagan. Cocteau and Marais were candidness about the relationship no longer lovers, but remained no doubt prevented Marais from close. Cocteau was now involved getting opportunities in Hollywood. with actor Edouard Dermit, whom Marais identified as bisexual and he would formally adopt. was briefly married to a woman, but Among the most popular and his most significant relationships powerful of Cocteau’s works is his were with males, including a youth short, one-character play “La Voix whom he adopted. humaine” (“The Human Voice”), Although an artistic champion of first staged in 1930. In it, a woman the avant-garde, Cocteau was polititalks on the telephone with her forcally conservative and naive. In 1942, mer lover, who will soon be marhis friend, sculptor Arno Brecker, rying another. Her emotions soar convinced him that Adolph Hitler and crumble as she desperately “The world still has its was a great patron of the arts and had tries to convince him that she is all France’s best interests at heart. In his right. It’s a tour de force role. Anna challenges but things are diaries, Cocteau expressed admiraMagnani, directed by Roberto Rosgetting better. From the way tion for Hitler and wondered about sellini, triumphed in it in a segment we first met on line to marriage his sexuality. He was later accused of of “Amore” (1948). In 1966, Ingrid collaboration, but the charges were Bergman gave an acclaimed perequality to our daughter’s dismissed, and he used his influence formance in it for television. Both upcoming Quinceañera our life to help Nazi victims. are available in DVD. Sophia Loren In 1955, Cocteau was elected to starred in a 1994 television version together is more fulfilling every the prestigious Academie Francais. directed by her son, Carlo Ponti, day. We keep up with events He was also made a Commander of which erred in “opening up” and and entertainment on EDGE, the Legion of Honor, France’s highexpanding the story, thereby diest civilian honor. His death, which minishing its power. In 1958, with because that’s where we see followed that of his friend Edith music by Francis Poulenc, it was our future at its brightest.”

Piaf ’s by one day, was mourned in first performed as an opera in Paris, France and throughout the artistic and it’s staged regularly at major world.t houses throughout the world.

The people depicted here are models. Their image is being used for illustrative purposes only.

A

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<< Books

58 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Felice Picano, pioneering gay author

by Brian Bromberger

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expression. “I was being interviewed, t’s probably a fair stateand I was discussment that if you love gay ing how difficult it is literature, you owe Felice to get published in Picano a huge debt of gratithe mid-1980s. The tude. Yes, LGBT people were interviewer said, well, producing novels and plays David Leavitt has no prior to the early 1970s, problem getting pubbut they weren’t specifically lished. I said, there are written for gay and lesbian no dicks in his books, people or their concerns. As meaning no sex. one of the founding memMeanwhile I would bers of the Violet Quill, Pirun into him in East cano, 73, was instrumental in Hampton at what we promoting gay fiction by gay called Dick Dock and men, which is how he defines see him on his knees, gay literature. An American so it wasn’t like he writer, publisher, playwright, wasn’t sexually active. poet, and critic, he is one of I thought there was the elders of the gay writing some hypocrisy there.” community, best known for Picano was one of his novels “Eyes,” “The Lure,” the writers of “The “Late in the Season” and Joy of Gay Sex.” How “Like People in History,” as did he get involved well as his memoirs “Ambiwith that? “I got a dextrous,” “Men Who Loved call from the main Me,” and his latest, “Nights at author, psychologist Rizzoli,” about being a clerk Charles Silverstein. and manager at the famed He said he wanted to NYC bookstore in the early revise ‘Joy of Gay Sex,’ 70s, meeting famous clients which he had done Courtesy the subject such as Jackie Onassis, Mick with Edmund, but Jagger, and Salvador Dali. In Gay author Felice Picano: “Writers today don’t read, so Edmund didn’t want town last month for a reading they don’t know what has already been written.” to work on the new of “Nights,” a born raconteur, one. Charles wanted Picano met with the B.A.R. me to do it. He felt the group felt we had to produce to discuss his fabled career. shaky about his own writing, and a literature to reflect the kind of How did the Violet Quill, which wanted an accomplished pair of lives we were living and the people also included Edmund White and eyes to edit it. I reread the book, dearound us. My book ‘The Lure’ in Andrew Holleran, start? “In the ciding it was very 60s, with rubbing 1979 was the first gay-themed novel 1960s, two writers I admire wrote oils and lighting candles. I didn’t to be picked up by the Book of the books in the same year about gay know anybody that did that, even Month club. We were all breaking life, Christopher Isherwood’s ‘A in the 60s. We added history to the barriers, but another reason the Single Man’ and John Rechy’s ‘City psychology, so that 92% of the book group formed was that we all came of Night,’ yet they seemed like was rewritten. Edmund’s sections to New York from all over the councompletely different universes. So had all been written in the passive try thinking there was this literary voice, but since I’m a top, it was removement going on here, but there done in active prose. It’s published was nothing. People like [poet] in 17 languages, and we revised it for James Merrill said gay literature was the internet age in 2002. When I was pornography. When we found each in Europe and would pick up a guy, other, the first task was read our he would pull out every sex toy he work to each other and discuss it as owned, thinking I was the expert.” well as issues such as gender, asking, Because Picano was one of the What pronouns do you use when very few openly gay people in Holdescribing transgender people?” lywood in 1979, people who had Picano doesn’t see that much lived in Hollywood during the 30s difference in gay writers today. “But and 40s told him stories about gay in the 1970s we expressed many of life then. Years later, Picano traveled the major themes still being writwith a presentation called “Gay Holten about today, such as coming lywood in the Golden Age,” based on out, how to be gay, dealing with the gossip. He remembers meeting your birth family and your family Marlene Dietrich, who he claimed of choice, fidelity in gay life: did it was mostly lesbian. “I said to her, I count? Also, being gay as a young know you slept with one man who boy, which was Edmund’s theme was your husband since you had a and mine in some books. We daughter together, but were there pointed out you could be a sissy but any others? She replied that she did also a butch boy like my characters love the French actor Jean Gabin. and still be gay. We discussed build‘He was in the French Resistance, ing a gay society and all that meant. and I was very patriotic.’”

Oddly, it was easier back then to get Picano has just finished a novel published by major publishers, not based on a famous ancestor, an old true today. master sculptor, Giuseppe Picano “What I have noticed is that writ(1717-1801). “Pieces of his work ers today don’t read, so they don’t are all over Europe, as well as the know what has already been written.

Metropolitan Museum of Art and They are writing about the same Kimball Art Museum. He and his things we did decades ago, almost studio are considered founders of reinventing the wheel. I’m also a litthe Italian Rococo style. I decided to tle annoyed about the suffering gay write a novel as if I were he.” novel like Garth Greenwell’s ‘A Little What does Picano see as his legLife,’ which has been embraced by acy? “Well, I’m in the history books the heterosexual community beLORNA PAULA JOHN LLOYD now, as I helped create a genre. Sevcause they want to see our lives as eral of my books have never gone out terrible and that we are so unhappy LUFT WEST YOUNG of print, and I think they will last.” not to be heterosexual. In the 1970s June 23 – 24 July 6 – 29 August 10 – 12 Picano’s advice to young gay if gay men suffered, they did so writers starting out is to get a rich beautifully and charmingly. Also, in husband. “It’s really hard to make it our time we were concerned with today, not that it was ever easy. I’m sexual liberation, and I don’t see fortunate that I was able to have that now in writers. People want to a career, but it’s really sad that 50 get married, settle down, and have people have to go under the bus for babies, which is certainly different.”

For tickets: feinsteinsatthenikko.com one to make it. Survival of the fittest in this business has to do with being Feinstein’s | Hotel Nikko San Francisco Books without dicks creatively flexible, writing in all difPicano is also well-known for 222 Mason Street | 855-322-2738 ferent genres. It seems to be the only his phrase, “gay books without way to get out on the other side.”t dicks.” I asked how he invented this

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<< Music

60 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Best Wedding Photographer as voted by BAR readers

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Nurturing the opera stars of tomorrow

WINNER Best Wedding Photographer

Best Wedding Photographer as voted by BAR readers

Steven Underhill

PHOTOGRAPHY

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WEDDINGS, HEADSHOTS, PORTRAITS

stevenunderhill.com · stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com 2pub-BBB_BAR_062217.pdf

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5/23/17

6:44 PM

Drew Alitzer 6/20/17

Merola alumni soprano Deborah Voigt (left) and mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick opened the Merola 60th 10:59 AM anniversary gala concert with the Barcarolle from Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann.”

by Philip Campbell

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pera-lovers, loyal donors, current participants and nostalgic alumni packed Herbst Theatre recently for a Gala Concert celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Merola Opera Program. It was an evening of tribute and enthusiastic support that underscored the importance of the famously successful training system.

The late Kurt Herbert Adler made the San Francisco Opera one of the nation’s leading opera companies after the death of its founder Gaetano Merola. He expanded the budget and promoted innovative programs such as the San Francisco Opera Auditions (1954) and Brown Bag Opera (1974). Adler established full Merola Opera Program training in 1957. Ever-expanding and achieving international recognition over six decades of operation, the program continues to refute the notion that future generations are uninterested in the tradition of grand opera.

Without cost to participants, it trains and nurtures young singers with master classes, public performances, and career grants covering everything from coaching to travel costs for competitions and auditions. Many Merolini have made their mark internationally, including such stars as original barihunk Thomas Hampson, soprano “darling of the day” Joyce DiDonato,

lyric soprano Patricia Racette (the Madame Butterfly of a generation), Verdian veteran mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick and feisty enduring soprano Deborah Voigt.

La Zajick and La Voigt paired to open the Gala Concert with the Barcarolle from Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffman,” setting the mood for the entire show. The offstage voices of Merolini in the background added a magical wordless glow.

Video greetings from the storied roster of Merola teachers, coaches and graduates appeared at regular intervals throughout the night. Oldtimers and newbies lavished praise and thanks for the program that gave them their start.

Alumni from past and recent seasons were present to perform arias and duets live. Gleaming mezzo-soprano Zanda Svede (Merola 2013); promising tenor Issachah Savage (2013); fast-rising tenors Pene Pati (2013) and his brother Amitai (2016), both appearing in SFO’s current production of “Rigoletto,” along with sensational baritone Quinn Kelsey (2002) and soprano Amina Edris (Merola 2015, married to Pati 2016), joined together in a demonstration of their prodigious talents, all distinguished by intensive Merola training.

Some delightful standout appearances included current SFO go-to character mezzo Catherine Cook (1990) in a funny turn as the Old

Lady from Bernstein’s “Candide.”

A fabulous blast from the Merola past, coloratura soprano Tracy Dahl (1985!) is still enjoying an active career and continuing to hit her high C’s without batting an eyelash.

Voigt and Cook teamed for an amusing spin on Irving Berlin’s “Anything You Can Do” that illustrated the spirit of friendly Merola competition. The concert finale, “Make Our Garden Grow,” united past and current participants in a moving chorus of fellowship.

San Francisco has always been an opera town, and the Merola Opera Program provides heartening insurance of keeping it that way. Merola Opera Program continues the 60th Anniversary 2017 Summer Festival with July concerts in San Francisco and at Stanford University. There will also be a trio of short operas staged at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. A fully staged production of Rossini’s sparkling “La Cenerentola” fills the Conservatory stage in August. A grand finish follows with the Merola Grand Finale at the War Memorial Opera House. These events are always staged and performed with refreshing invention and professionalism. The thrill of spotting new talent only adds to the fun.t Tickets to public performances can be ordered through the SFO Box Office (415) 864-3330 or online at sfopera.com. For more info: merola.org.

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Left to right: Mark Morash (at piano), Issachah Savage, and Sarah Cambidge perform “Siegmund heiss’ich” at the Merola 60th anniversary gala concert.

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Film>>

Date 00-00, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 61

Failing to manifest

by Erin Blackwell

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feldt scatters Futurist, Situationist, Pop, Fluxus, Dada dictums higgledypiggledy through a dozen discordant set-ups without pay-off. Blanchett’s superficial versatility is no substitute for a script. Glossy production values do not a world make, beyond the inert simulacrum of a fashion photo shoot. The cinematography is blandly bright, evoking no moods.

If we needed a metaphor for the Julian Rosefeldt self-referencing art world’s failure to engage an audience beyond its ownT:7.75” Cate Blanchett appears in one of her manifestations in “Manifesto.” precious initiates, this is it.t

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manifesto is a proclamation, both a promise and a call to action, by someone who’s had it up to here with something, and wants something else to take its place.

In that narrow alley of grandiose delusions called the art world, the 20th century was a 100-years-war of manifestos. Traditional forms were out, new techniques were in.

It wasn’t enough to paint a painting, an artist had to dream up an art-world-changing concept, and the quickest way was propaganda.

German installation artist Julian Rosefeldt repurposes these esoteric exclamations in “Manifesto,” opening Friday at Opera Plaza.

This 90-minute film has been edited down from a dozen 11-minute loops from Rosefeldt’s installation at the New York Armory last winter, where they ran simultaneously on huge screens in a cavernous dark hall, with benches. Each loop features a different locale and a character performed by Cate Blanchett. These 12 vignettes, linked only by an actress and her aesthetic exhortations, now run end-to-end with visual pauses in-between. As a concept this may please some art students, but as entertainment it’s a dud. Exactly why boredom sets in early has something to do with the difference between visual and dramatic art.

Visual art can be static, it can hang on a wall or stand in a corner, it’s an object you move around to study and contemplate. Dramatic art is all about action: spiritual, emotional, verbal, and physical. Actors trace trajectories of love, heartbreak, vengeance, and remorse, while in the background empires rise and families fall. Characters are the subjects of their stories, throwing things, blowing up buildings, moving from stagecoach to saloon, in pursuit of a purpose they either do or do not achieve. Outcome matters to spectators held in suspense as long as is cinematically possible.

Both visual and dramatic art exploit the contradiction of appearance by reality, but ever since Duchamp’s “Fountain” (1917), an object’s appearance or façade has vomited up its traditional content so many times, it’s been irrevocably vacated. Theater and movies have a hard time approaching this level of cynicism. “Manifesto” settles into an ironic posture without bothering to finesse its insertion of manifesto into everyday life. As an anthology film, it’s basically starting over every seven minutes, and while change of scene refreshes the eye, transitions are nonexistent. No connections reward an audience’s continual reinvestment.

Soon after the start of “Manifesto,” the protocol clarifies: Cate Blanchett will change makeup, wig, costume for each vignette, adopting a different dialect and persona.

The nonstop, non sequitor verbiage she dutifully declaims pre-empts the expected funeral oration or mealtime prayer. The contemporary outfittings run from kitchen sink to high-end cocktail party, from widow’s black to Hazmat white. This is less interesting than it sounds. The characters have no weight, no history, no stakes for which to gamble.

Subsumed by Rosefeldt’s concept, they collapse into objects we stare at without interest. Meanwhile, the visual clichés distract from the text.

Except twice. Forty minutes in, the camera travels through a backstage area full of drugged-out punk rockers. Blanchett, all in black with tattoos and black pixie, suddenly breaks the frame and starts acting. She actually infuses her words with inner turmoil as she squirms and stumbles around the room. She never attains this level before or after. Seventy

minutes in, “Manifesto” suddenly bursts with subversive wit. In tidy navy blue suit, glamour makeup, and fluffy tresses, Blanchett deftly apes a newscaster’s delivery, then engages with a bedraggled field reporter (also Blanchett) under an umbrella in the rain. Their ritualized back-and-forth is a perfect fit, a very funny explainer of conceptual art.

The deeper problem is that “Manifesto” doesn’t believe in anything.

Having shredded the passionate proclamations of the past, Rosen-

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<< Books

62 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

LGBTQ Pride 2017: A reading list

by Gregg Shapiro

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mong the things that separate LGBTQ folks from our straight brothers and sisters is our love of literature. Many of us have been avid readers since we were young, when

we sought and found comfort from the problems of the outside world in the pages of books.

The following are new books by LGBTQ writers out just in time for Pride month and summer reading.

Fiction: In black-and-white, gay Japanese artist Gengoroh Tagame’s graphic novel My Brother’s Husband (Pantheon) lovingly depicts what happens when burly gay Canadian Mike arrives in Tokyo at the home of Yaicihi, his late husband’s straight identical twin brother’s house, meeting him and his daughter Kana for the first time.

How to Survive a Summer (Blue Rider Press), the debut novel by Nick White, follows graduate student Will as he compares the time he spent at ex-gay Camp Levi in his youth with the person he is today.

Dustin and Gauge, the main characters in Craig Moody’s debut novel The 49 Indian (Vivid Imagery), meet in South Florida in the

summer of 1983, and following a series of “dramatic and disturbing” events, head to California’s Pacific Coast.

Proof that gay men can write in a wide variety of literary genres, Wade Rouse, writing under his pseud-

onym Viola Shipman, presents The Hope Chest (Thomas Dunne Books/ St. Martin’s Press), the second in his series of “heirloom novels.”

The 14 short stories in The Dahlia Field (Chelsea Station Editions) by novelist Henry Alley were written over the course of the past two decades.

Poetry: Among the more than 70 poems in The Screwdriver’s Apprentice (Blue Light Press-1st World Publishing) by poet, playwright, fiction writer and educator Edmund Miller, author of the renowned The Go-Go Boy Sonnets, you will find “In the Porno Theater,” “The Beauty of a Male Model Fades” and “Learning from Lap Dancers.”

Manila-based poet and novelist R. Zamora Linmark returns with the new poetry collection Pop Vérité (Hanging Loose Press). Its poems feature poets (James Schuyler is a favorite) and other writers, dead divas (Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Donna Summer), film references (“Abecedarian for John

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Waters”) and other pop culture and literary figures.

Things are lost (weight, memories, causes) and found (a drag queen, and lots of birds) in awardwinning lesbian poet Cheryl Dumensil’s lustrous Showtime at the Ministry of Lost Causes (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press).

Y/A fiction: Honestly Ben (Arthur A. Levine Books-Scholastic) by award-winning gay novelist Bill Konigsberg is the eagerly awaited sequel to his 2013 novel Openly Straight, in which we were first introduced to Ben and Rafe, now exes who are still very important to each other.

A summer in Vancouver sounds like fun, but for anxiety-ridden teen Maeve, the main character of 10 Things I Can See From Here (Knopf) by Carrie Mac, it’s anything but. That is, until she meets carefree local girl Salix and embarks on a “bumbling courtship.”

See page 63 >>

Lambda Literary Award winners announced L

ambda Literary, the nation’s leading organization advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender literature, announced the winners of the 29th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”) at a ceremony on Monday, June 12, hosted by multi-genre artist Justin Vivian Bond at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. A list of the winners follows.

Lesbian Fiction

“Here Comes the Sun” by Nicole Dennis-Benn, Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Gay Fiction

“The Angel of History” by Rabih Alameddine, Atlantic Monthly Press.

Bisexual Fiction

“Marrow Island” by Alexis M. Smith, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Bisexual Nonfiction

“Black Dove: Mama, Mi’jo, and Me” by Ana Castillo, The Feminist Press.

Bisexual Poetry

“Mouth to Mouth” by Abigail Child, EOAGH.

Transgender Fiction

“Small Beauty” by jia qing wilsonyang, Metonymy Press.

LGBT Nonfiction

“How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and

Science Tamed AIDS” by David France, Knopf.

Transgender Nonfiction

“Life Beyond My Body: A Transgender Journey to Manhood in China” by Lei Ming and Lura Frazey, Transgress Press.

Lesbian Poetry (tie)

“play dead” by francine j. harris,

Alice James Books.

“The Complete Works of Pat Parker,” edited by Julie R. Enszer, Sinister Wisdom/A Midsummer Night’s Press.

Gay Poetry

“Thief in the Interior” by Phillip B. Williams, Alice James Books.

Transgender Poetry

“Reacquainted with Life” by KOKUMO, Topside Press.

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Lesbian Mystery

“Pathogen” by Jessica L. Webb, Bold Strokes Books.

Gay Mystery

“Speakers of the Dead: A Walt Whitman Mystery” by J. Aaron Sanders, Plume.

Lesbian Memoir/Biography

“The Wind is Spirit: The Life, Love and Legacy of Audre Lorde” by Dr. Gloria Joseph, Villarosa Media.

Gay Memoir/Biography

“When We Rise” by Cleve Jones, Hachette Books.

Lesbian Romance

“The Scorpion’s Empress” by Yoshiyuki Ly, Solstice Publishing.

Gay Romance

“Into the Blue” by Pene Henson, Interlude Press.

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“Soul to Keep” by Rebekah Weatherspoon, Bold Strokes Books.

LGBT Anthology

“The Remedy: Queer and Trans Voices on Health and Health Care”

by Zena Sharman, Arsenal Pulp Press.

LGBT Children’s/ Young Adult

“Girl Mans Up” by M.E. Girard, Harper Teen.

LGBT Drama

“Barbecue/Bootycandy” by Robert O’Hara, Theatre Communications Group.

LGBT Graphic Novels

“Wuvable Oaf: Blood & Metal” by Ed Luce, Fantagraphics Books.

LGBT SF/F/Horror

“The Devourers” by Indra Das, Del Rey.

LGBT Studies

“Sex Museums: The Politics and Performance of Display” by Jennifer Tyburczy, University of Chicago Press.

Editor’s note: We can speak with conviction when we say that the Lammy for Gay Fiction was well-chosen. “The Angel of History” by Rabih Alameddine is a marvel of imagination, a triumph of daring, a tour de force of fictive technique. “He was a big boy with a push-broom mustache and I couldn’t see the features of his face but the name on his tag was Walter Benjamin. I am your angel of history, I said, smiling weakly, but then I realized that I’d misread, his nametag read Walter Bartender. Please, sir, he repeated and his arm approached but I snapped at him. Noli me tangere!

You like that, don’t you? Walter Bartender must have thought me insane since in this world a symptom of losing one’s mind is a readiness to speak it.” – Roberto Friedmant

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Books>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 63

Pride Reading List

From page 62

For The Lotterys Plus One (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic), her first Y/A novel, Emma Donoghue, author of Room, tells a multicultural family story about two same-gender couples and their ever-expanding brood all living under one roof, with illustrations by Caroline Hadilaksono.

Memoirs: Like Maureen Seaton’s Sex Talks to Girls, James Allen Hall’s exquisite and devastating personal essay collection I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well (Cleveland State Univ. Poetry Center) is the kind of memoir that could only have been written by a gay poet.

Notes on a Banana: A Memoir of Food, Love, and Manic Depression (Dey Street) is the eagerly anticipated memoir by gay writer David Leite, founder of the James Beard Award-winning Leite’s Culinaria website. Nicknamed Banana by his mother, Leite writes of his 1960s childhood in Fall River, Massachusetts, his struggle with bipolar disorder, and how cooking saved his life.

With praise from lesbian memoirist Julie Marie Wade and gay poet Neil De La Flor, The Sunshine Chronicles (Jitney Books) is queer writer Jan Beck-

er’s “social media book,” a memoir consisting of Facebook posts in reverse chronological order, from October 2016 through January 2014.

“An outcast gay Mormon travels from his Washington, DC home to Antarctica – by bus” might sound like the setup for a joke, complete with punchline, but Andrew Evans’ travel memoir The Black Penguin (Univ. of Wisconsin Press) is anything but, as the author takes us on his personal journey, which also includes stops in Ohio and Utah.

Creative types: Originally published in 1992, Pasolini Requiem (Univ. of Chicago Press) by Barth David Schwartz, about the late gay filmmaker and poet Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-75), whose brutal murder cut short one of the most creative lives imaginable, has been updated and includes a new afterword in its eagerly anticipated second edition.

As the title says, The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built (Sarah Crichton Books) by Jack Viertel, the senior vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters (so he knows what he’s talking about!), is essentially the anatomy of how to craft a musical, broken down song-by-song.

With Kings & Queens in Their Castles (Damiani), photographer Tom Atwood expands on the concept of his 2005 book Kings in Their Castles: Photographs of Queer Men at Home, revisiting previous subjects (John Waters, Simon Doonan, Tommy Tune and the late Edward Albee) and going on to include several lesbians (Fun Home author Alison Bechdel, Houston Mayor Annise Parker, singer Mirah Zeitlyn, film producer Christine Vachon, and actresses Meredith Baxter and Heather Mattarazzo) and many new familiar faces, such as Rufus Wainwright, Don Lemon, Alan

Cumming, George Takei, Ari Shapiro, Leslie Jordan, Michael Urie, Barney Frank and Anthony Rapp.

Based on a series of almost 50 lectures given by gay Beat legend Allen Ginsberg from a course he taught at the Naropa Institute and Brooklyn College, The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats (Grove Press), edited by Beat historian Bill Morgan, with an introduction by poet Anne Waldman, is a compilation sure to please followers of the Beat Generation’s Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and others.

Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne: A Life in Several Acts (Univ. of Wisconsin Press) by theater critic and writer Robert Hofler is a biography of the bisexual celebrity crime reporter, novelist and notorious raconteur.

The writing and impact of gay classical scholar and poet A.E. Housman (1859-1936) are the focus of Peter Parker’s Housman Country: Into the Heart of England (Farrar, Straus, Giroux), which includes the complete text of Housman’s landmark work A Shropshire Lad. Relevant AIDS writing: Chronicling his life and experiences with PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis)

via pharmaceuticals such as Truvada in The PrEP Diaries (Lethe Press), gay writer Evan J. Peterson offers his distinctive and informative firsthand perspective.

Lesbian feminist journalist and AIDS activist Anne-Christine d’Adesky’s The Pox Lover: An Activist’s Decade in New York and Paris (Univ. of Wisconsin Press) is her riveting personal history of “the turbulent 1990s,” via her involvement in ACT UP and the Lesbian Avengers.t

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<< DVD

64 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

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Liz Taylor & Montgomery Clift, a Hollywood love story

by David-Elijah Nahmod

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t was love at first sight when they first met in the early 1950s. Many in Hollywood assumed they were a couple. Moviegoers wondered when they might marry. Though Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) and Montgomery Clift (1920-66) loved each other deeply, it was not the kind of love people thought it was.

Clift and Taylor loved each other as only sisters could.

Elizabeth Taylor was a straight woman. Montgomery Clift was a gay man. Both knew that he had to remain closeted or his career would be destroyed. Taylor was the only person with whom Clift could be himself.

When Taylor and Clift shot “A Place in the Sun” (1951), the first of three films they would make together, they were considered by the press to be the two most beautiful people alive. And indeed they were.

“A Place in the Sun” opens with a shot of George Eastman (Clift) on a California highway as he hitchhikes.

His back is facing the camera. When a truck driver stops to give him a ride, Clift turns around, faces the camera.

His sensuality is breathtaking.

Later in the film George, a poor young man from the wrong side of the tracks, enters into a forbidden love affair with the wealthy Angela (Taylor). George and Angela cannot fight the intensity of their attraction, which they each sense is going to get them into trouble. They dance together at a party. Their lips touch for a kiss that might very well be the tightest close-up in movie history.

The intimacy of this moment is almost embarrassing for viewers.

The camera abruptly cuts to a close-up of Taylor’s eyes as they dart back and forth, nervously looking around the room. “Are they watching us?” Angela asks as she grabs George’s hand and pulls him from the room. Every moment in this intense sequence is shot with the tightest possible close-up in order to underscore the deep connection, and terror, of these doomed lovers. In hindsight, it’s as though we’re peeking inside the

Left: Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in an undated studio publicity photo.

Right: Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor in “A Place in the Sun” (1951).

souls of Taylor and Clift as their intense but doomed friendship plays out before our eyes.

Five years later Clift and Taylor were cast in “Raintree County” (1956), a romantic drama set against the backdrop of the Civil War. The story begins in 1859, when Southern Belle Susanna Drake (Taylor) tricks “yankee” John Shawnessy (Clift) into marrying her. Though he is an abolitionist, John moves to the South to live with Susanna and her family. John soon learns that the Drakes have a history of mental illness. It becomes apparent that Susanna is showing signs of being ill.

“Raintree County” was a troubled production. Midway through filming, Clift ran his car into a tree.

He barely got out of his car alive, and required multiple surgeries on his face and jaw. Part of his face remained paralyzed for the rest of his life. Though he returned to finish “Raintree County,” Clift’s good looks were gone.

It’s a flawed film. The three-hour final cut features many subplots that have nothing to do with the main storyline. The film runs too long and requires a great deal of patience from viewers. In spite of all these problems, “Raintree County” offers a number of magical moments when Taylor and Clift share their scenes. Their intense love for each

other spills onto the screen, giving viewers another peek inside their souls. Clift, who was suffering from a great deal of physical pain in the aftermath of his accident, had begun to escalate his drinking, and to take a dangerous mix of pills, during the filming. Taylor was worried sick for her beloved friend.

What Taylor and Clift were going through as friends in real life may have mirrored the fictional anguish being experienced by John and Susanna as Susanna’s mental health issues began to manifest in “Raintree County.”

By the time Taylor and Clift filmed “Suddenly Last Summer” (1959) a few years later, Clift was caught up in a dangerous downward spiral. His excessive drinking and pill-popping had destroyed what was left of his looks. Still in his 30s, Clift looked as if he were closer to 60.

Written by the legendary gay playwright Tennessee Williams, “Suddenly Last Summer” was a dark, Gothic tale of madness and repressed homosexuality. Late-1950s audiences must have been shocked when Catherine Holly (Taylor) spoke openly of “procuring” for her late cousin Sebastian. She would walk along the beach in a one-piece bathing suit in order to attract the attention of the young men whom Sebastian wanted.

The film didn’t shy away from incest

themes, either. Catherine’s aunt, Mrs. Venable (Katharine Hepburn), recalls how she and Sebastian, who was her son, were never looked upon as mother and son. They were viewed as a couple.

Clift plays Dr. John Cukrowicz, the psychiatrist who must piece the mystery together. Mrs. Venable wants the doctor to perform a lobotomy on Catherine, claiming that her niece is insane. Catherine turns out to be quite sane, it’s Mrs. Venable who’s mad. She wants the lobotomy performed because she’s terrified of the truth.

Though Clift made several more films after “Suddenly Last Summer,” his career dwindled by the early 1960s. His excessive drinking and his torment regarding his sexuality destroyed him, and his career went down in flames along with his life.

He was abandoned by Hollywood and by most of his friends. Only Taylor stood by him.

In 1966, Taylor was offered the female lead in “Reflections in a Golden Eye,” a then-shocking tale of repressed homosexuality on an army base. She accepted the role, but requested that Clift be her costar. Clift was by that time considered an unemployable drunk, so Taylor’s request was denied. Forever her friend’s greatest champion, Taylor offered to insure Clift out of

her own pocket so that the studio wouldn’t lose their investment in case something went wrong. The astonished suits at Warner Brothers agreed. But the film as envisioned

by Taylor never came to pass. On July 23, 1966, Clift died of a heart attack at his home in New York City. He was 46 years old.

Taylor outlived her friend by 45 years. For the rest of her life she spoke of her deep love for Monty, as she called him, and of her respect for his talent and range as an actor. Two decades after Clift’s death, Taylor stepped up to the plate for gay men who were dying of AIDS. She spoke publicly and candidly of her disgust at how the Ronald Reagan administration had ignored the epidemic, and at how people with AIDS were being treated. Taylor raised public awareness and critical funds for AIDS research, ultimately becoming one of the greatest heroes of the plague years. Until her dying day she remained a vocal ally for people with AIDS, and for LGBT equality.

Clift, sadly, remains a case study of the harm that can be caused when society forces LGBT people to live in the closet. His life was one of great artistic achievement, but it was also filled with tragedy. During this Pride season, we at the B.A.R. remember Liz and Monty with love.t

with one spewing, “You know no one really likes you here, right?”

There’s also a ton of random boy-boy encounters with men named “MuscGuy,” “ChillAndLaidBackDude,” “ThatDude,” and “WhatsHisFace,” who meet up to get off. Yet most result in hurt feelings and cocky, arrogant dismissals.

Zomparelli also includes some surreal material, which manages to rise above some of the more banal, castaway yarns, and includes a monster

who laments the fact that his human skin suit has become ill-fitting.

A lot of the material here orbits on the mean-spirited, but it helps to remember that it’s fiction (fact-fiction, perhaps, Mr. Zomparelli?), even though that voice in the background certainly echoes the current state of dating and relationships in the gay community. It’s clear that the book’s cast is made up primarily of self-absorbed, Botox-shooting 20-year-olds whose consideration for each other flies out the window once they’ve either had their fun wasting your time, or had an orgasm and want you to leave their apartment – like, now, k?

Their theme casts a melancholy tone on the the later stories, which seem more fully realized but no sunnier than their predecessors. What readers are left with is that paranoid, sinking feeling that their closest friends may not really like them after all, that someone is talking shit about them behind their back, that even completely detached, anonymous sex has lasting emotional consequences. Then a message on a cell phone app seals the deal: “You have unread messages from a user who has blocked you.” The show must go on, right?t

Bits and pieces

by Jim Piechota Everything Is Awful and You’re a Terrible Person by Daniel Zomparelli; Arsenal Pulp Press, $15.95

T

hough the title of poet and Poetry Is Dead magazine founder

Daniel Zomparelli’s new collection of 32 stories Everything Is Awful and You’re a Terrible Person would suggest an angry tantrum is in store for readers, that’s just a tiny piece of the larger tapestry the prolific Canadian author paints over the course of his debut.

In press materials, the author reveals that the title came to him

during a particularly rough patch in his life, a gloomy time that he admits mirrors the nation’s current political climate.

Much of the entries in the book form astute meditations on the nature of happiness, misery, and “the different ways queers center themselves around happiness, and how heteronormative ideals of happiness can mess with that.” Relationships are simply not in the cards for these boys.

The collection is gloriously diverse in style, length, and content, with subject matter ranging from a pair of boyfriends commingling in an open relationship with the ghost of an ex, guys who choose to live-stream their relationship break-up in full Internet real-time realness, and a particularly resonant if pessimistic story equating pie and the challenge of dating in 2017, and how, like after a first date, “the pie is already a day old, the crust already soggy at the base.

Its flakiness turning to mush.”

Some entries amount to singlepage flash fiction comprised of a text message conversation between potential (and eventually crashand-burn) Grindr hook-ups who block each other after exchanging X-rated pics, and gay co-workers embroiled in the mean-girl kind of office cubicle melodrama that ends

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DVD>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 65

Queer double take

by Ernie Alderete

D

o you miss Queer as Folk as much as I do? It really doesn’t look like Showtime or Netflix is going to give the popular cable series a new lease on life. We’ve been waiting 10+ years since Showtime abruptly cancelled the series after only a short five-year run. But the 2015 movie Those People is as close to the series as we’re going to get. The dynamic among the three male characters is almost exactly that among the fictional Brian Kinney, Michael Novotny, and Justin “Sunshine” Taylor. If the Queer as Folk cast ever did a reunion movie, they could follow the Those People script virtually verbatim.

You’ll do a double take on the cast as well. Handsome, dark-haired, boyishly charming Jonathan Gordon as Charlie is a dead ringer for Hal Sparks as Michael Novotny, while Jason Ralph as Sebastian perfectly captures the essence of Gale Harold as sexy, self-absorbed Brian Kinney. The latter two actors even share first-name surnames, Ralph and Harold!

The movie’s setting is New York City, rather than Liberty Avenue in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, but the relationships and plot are virtually identical. Basically, a shiny new love interest threatens to destroy the old unconsummated bestfriends love affair.

There are women in the supporting cast of Those People, but they are not central to the storyline as are Mel and Lyns, the lesbian couple on Queer as Folk. There is no Debbie Novotny, the combination waitress/chief fag-hag and mother figure for comic relief. Those People is more drama, less comedy than Queer as Folk, but just as addictive.

Of course, Those People is enjoyable on its own merits, even if you never saw Queer Courtesy Netflix as Folk. But the comparison is inevitable. Now available on Jonathan Gordon (Charlie) and Jason Ralph (Sebastian) in Those People Netflix.t

Vidal signs: too much brilliance

by Ernie Alderete

G

ore Vidal was certainly one of the brightest gay men in history. One of the greatest minds, period. But such magnificent brilliance begs the question, Can you be too brilliant?

I can’t argue with his success in life. He created a wonderful life for himself. Gorgeous hillside villa in Italy, the best cuisine, impeccable designer wardrobe, museum-quality furnishings and decor, all the finest material possessions anyone could dream of. He had more art masterpieces in his bathroom than I have in my entire home. But he thought he was so superior to everyone else that it bred a contempt for humanity.

In Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, available on DVD, Vidal recaps the 1960 election.

He recounts how his hero John F. Kennedy won the presidency at the same time he himself, Gore Vidal, was crushed in his campaign for the House of Representatives from a Republican upstate New York district.

He goes on to reflect near the end of his life how much he loved JFK, but that his presidency was a complete failure. Camelot had achieved nothing. JFK risked everything with the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I have nowhere near the intellect of Vidal, but is clear for me to see his jealousy of the dead president. Kennedy succeeded, and he failed. Gore

could never excite the emotions of the populace. Gore saw himself as a messiah, a successor to JFK himself.

In the end such brilliance destroyed Gore, ate away at his self-worth.

Had Gore run for office in heavily Democratic New York City, perhaps Kennedy’s coattails would have been enough to sweep him along to

Washington and Camelot. Perhaps he would have wound up in the Senate like his grandfather.

Gore was so close to power he could touch it. As a young boy, he was a Congressional page to his blind grandfather, Senator Thomas Gore, Democrat of Oklahoma. Gore saw himself as the rightful heir to

that Senate seat, to the presidency, to greatness. He carved out for himself his own niche in American history, but that was not enough for his cynical and perhaps malignant mind. He saw what were to him lesser men and women lead the gay and lesbian movement to victory.

He became a spectator, while others

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achieved the glory. His brilliance was incredible, but his negativity was also gargantuan, and perhaps eclipsed the positive.t Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia and Best of Enemies: William F. Buckley vs. Gore Vidal are both available on Netflix.

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<< Music

66 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Just in the Nick of time

by Gregg Shapiro

F

or Duran Duran’s 2015 studio disc Paper Gods (WB), the band invited some friends along for the ride. That’s 21st-century dance diva Kiesza joining Simon Le Bon on lead vocals for “Last Night in the City.” “Pressure Off ” features Janelle Monáe and Nile Rodgers, and delivers on the funk. On “Danceophobia,” Lindsay Lohan appears as a doctor. She’s not that good of an actress to pull it off, but that doesn’t detract from the song’s charms.

Jonas Bjerre of Mew pipes in on “Change the Skyline,” diva Anna Ross helps “Butterfly Girl” take wing, and Mark Ronson and Nile Rodgers make “Only in Dreams” dreamy. I spoke with Duran Duran’s resident keyboard god Nick Rhodes earlier this year.

Gregg Shapiro: Almost 40 years since forming, with 15 albums to the band’s name, what’s the secret to Duran Duran’s longevity?

Nick Rhodes: I’m not quite sure that we have a secret. We never look back, we keep moving forward.

When people say to me, “Do you realize how long your band’s been together?”, I do if I really think about it. Otherwise, I feel like we’re a new band who’s wiped the slate entirely clean and we’re just starting out trying to figure out what we’re going to do with our sound.

Part of what’s special about Paper Gods is the number of guest artists, beginning with Kiesza.

How did that collaboration come about?

We had the song, which was in the EDM zone. We’d been talking about working with collaborators.

The first one on the album was John Frusciante, of Red Hot Chili Peppers. That was such a great success when we heard what he brought to our sound. On “Last Night in the City,” we knew we wanted a powerful female voice, someone with a lot of energy. When we listened to “Hideaway,” we thought Kiesza was perfect. We had such an uplifting day in the studio because when you collaborate with someone you also find out that they’re lovely human beings. She’s fabulous, and we all adore her.

Paper Gods has a number of dance-oriented songs, a musical style that has been a component of the band since the beginning, which has earned the band a large following among queer fans. What does that following mean to you?

It means every bit as much to us as anyone who follows the band. We’ve always had a big gay following, and we embrace it very much. Given the world that we’re living in now, it’s an amazing thing to lift people’s spirits in times of

t

darkness. Music has done that for me throughout my life. Often we look to the dance floor to help people elevate their spirits.

If you could put one Duran Duran album into a time capsule to be opened in 100 years, which one would it be?

I would just put them all into a melting pot and melt them all together. Then I’d scrape them out and make a new album out of the plastic and see what it sounded like.

Duran Duran dedicated “Save a Prayer” to George Michael at your Cancun concert in Dec. 2016. Can you please say a few words about George?

It was an enormous shock to everyone. People closer to him knew that he was suffering from addiction, but we had no idea. He had an amazing career and a beautiful voice. All of the times that we met him on Top of the Pops, when we were both starting out, he used to come backstage after our shows in the early 1980s when he came as a fan. We met many times when he became hugely successful; he was always funny, gracious and gentle.

That’s how I remember him.t Duran Duran performs at the Fox Theater in Oakland on 7/7, and at the Masonic in San Francisco on 7/8.

Nick Rhodes: “It’s an amazing thing to lift people’s spirits in times of darkness.”

Gay history comes alive

by Tim Pfaff

I

n calling his compelling new book “Jews Queers Germans” (Seven Stories Press) “a novel/ history,” Martin Duberman is not being ambiguous, but rather,

purposeful. The CUNY emeritus professor of history has long established his scholarly creds, but in his new book, about matters close to his heart, he’s expanding on what he knows – not forsaking history, adding imagination.

As he himself notes, the rise of LGBTQ history as a recognized academic endeavor has made several of his principal subjects – Magnus Hirschfeld and Count Harry Hessler, in particular – celebrated figures in the modern campaign for gay rights beginning in mid-19thcentury Germany, where queerness first acquired the name “homosexualitaet.” But even in books that have considered that enterprise in toto, the tendency to tell the history through individual story-lines has predominated. Duberman achieves his synthesis – a word I can’t imagine he’d mind – by letting their stories intertwine, weaving in with them the far less well-known figures of Prince Philipp von Eulenberg; Kaiser Wilhelm’s close friend, the deeply closeted politician and intellectual Walther Rathenau; and Ernst Roehm, the leader of the brownshirt SA, who was as cautious about the categorization of his sexuality as he was profligate in its notoriously open expression.

Shrewdly telling the story in the present tense – for “urgency,” he says – Duberman risks everything, probably including his reputation in some circles, by characterizing the men and dramatizing their encounters (when not expressly with each other, with history) by imagining their thoughts, feelings and conversations, boldly extrapolating from the historical record. It’s an approach I usually have scant use for; it often produces foolishness and the unintended diminishment of authors’ subjects.

Not so here. Duberman’s rocksteady authorial hand (and voice) and consistently fine judgment – fine both in the sense of exemplary and minutely considered – weave the individual threads together convincingly and with almost devastating cumulative power. He has the confidence to occasionally depart from his explicitly gay themes to provide substantive accounts of the “straight” history in which those themes find maximal meaning, and his characters their fullest realiza-

tion. The times reveal the players in sharper relief.

These men are granted their stature without recourse to sentimentalizing. Roehm in particular is at considerable remove from a gay hero, but Duberman’s treatment of him neither lionizes nor libels. One common assumption gratefully dispatched in the process is that the Nazis were, behind it all, some shadowy gay-male cult. Hitler may have tolerated Roehm, even held him close, admiring his ability to muster and inspire huge cadres of men, but when Roehm’s SA became a threat, Hitler’s cold-blooded revenge confirmed the simultaneous stigmatizing and eradication of Jews and gays that was to prevail.

The most fully rounded, and perhaps sympathetic, of the author’s portraits is of Hirschfeld, personally shy but intellectually bold, courageous in his challenge of the orthodoxies of the day, which held that same-sexuality and other-sexuality were chosen and perverse, yet wise enough to recognize that his testimony would only be blunted by literal martyrdom (not that we don’t hear about the lumps he took).

One of the book’s only lapses in tone comes when Duberman

observes, “For a man rapidly becoming the world’s most renowned sexologist, Magnus Hirschfield isn’t having a whole lot of sex.” “The going gets even tougher in Munich,” Duberman writes in a more characteristic later passage. “Despite warnings about threats to his safety, Hirschfeld again refuses to cancel his talk. There are noisy interruptions throughout his lecture, but he does manage to finish it. Yet in the immediate aftermath, he has reason to feel alarm.”

Count Harry Kessler, who lived his altogether remarkable life openly, may not have been out in the same way or to the same degree that Hirschfeld was, yet Duberman’s characterization of him is similarly warm. “Fortunately for his character,” the author writes, “Harry is homosexual – the one vantage point available to him for understanding what it’s like not to belong, to reside among the despised. And the glimmers of empathy he shows as a young man for the less fortunate will expand dramatically over the years – ultimately earning him the sobriquet of ‘The Red Count.’”

Tracing their stories through the larger events and currents that lead to WWI, Germany’s resounding and humiliating defeat and Hitler’s rise on the back of it, the book takes on the insistent drumbeat of progress into the light inevitably offset by lapses back into darkness. There’s a knowingness about Duberman’s narration of the rise of European, and particularly German, fascism in the mid-20th-century that signals the author’s awareness of its pertinence to our own troubled times. To his credit, Duberman is not crude about it, that is, exploitative of it for his own narrative purposes.

It’s a common enough claim – it was Einstein’s – that what history teaches us is that we don’t learn from history. But in “Jews Queers Germans,” Duberman asserts the corollary claim that history does have meaning, and that each historian has to tease it out.t

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DVD>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 67

Ingrid Bergman, up-close and personal

by Matthew Kennedy

“I

ngrid Bergman in Her Own Words,” a 2015 documentary recently released by Criterion, is true to its title. This is an unhesitatingly personal account of a major film star. We hear Bergman’s childhood diary entries read by fellow Swedish actress Alicia Vikander. Her own silky voice is heard in numerous film clips and interviews. Even her silence speaks to us in this rapturous but honest collage of her life and work.

Before the opening credits are concluded, “Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words” informs us of her mother and father’s deaths when she was a child, and her adoptive aunt’s death soon after. Though she received the loving attention of her extended family in her early years, Bergman was largely denied a parent-child relationship, something that would later inform her art and her response to motherhood.

This portrait paints Bergman as ambitious, restless, and determined.

Though her father wanted her to be an opera singer, she never doubted her plans to be an actress. She enrolled in Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theatre School, but soon began appearing in films. She favored film over the stage, entrancing audiences with her radiant youth and naturalism. No less than David O. Selznick was smitten as well, and starred her in “Intermezzo: A Love Story” in 1939, when she was 23.

Bergman in the 1940s is distinguished by a blessed refusal to be sheathed and lacquered in conventional Hollywood glamour. The camera loved her so passionately that it hardly mattered. Light shimmered off her translucent skin and luxuriant brown hair, and cast a distinctive shadow over her full upper lip.

Thanks to her breathtaking emotional clarity, close-ups amounted to making love to the camera.

“In Her Own Words” is not primarily concerned with Bergman’s career. Instead, it concentrates on her life as lover, wife, and mother.

Film writer and critic Stig Björkman directed with the cooperation of Bergman’s four children, who are candid in their on-screen reflections. We see slices of the many home movies she took through the years. They have an elegiac glow, and the vision of Bergman playing mother adds to the poignancy endemic to the genre. Though she delighted in making home movies, she never aspired to direct. Acting was her sole distraction, and she became the great muse to many directors of consequence, including Victor Fleming, Imgmar Bergman

(no relation), Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet, Jean Renoir, Stanley Donen, Michael Curtiz, Leo McCarey, and George Cukor.

Her life oscillated between public and private, and so does this film. Her early performance as a prostitute in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1941) is a fantastic example of a hungry young actress taking chances while daring her audience to look somewhere else. The following year she appeared in “Casablanca” (1942), and, well, here’s looking at you, kid. “Casablanca” rendered her a screen immortal, but it was no fluke, as she delivered one stunner after another through most of the 1940s: “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1943), “Gaslight” (1944), “Spellbound” (1945), “The Bells of St. Mary’s” (1945), “Notorious” (1946), and “Joan of Arc” (1948). By now she was married to dentist Petter Lindström, and mother to daughter Pia, but we learn she had an affair with the great photojournalist Robert Capa during the war.

There are curious omissions, probably accountable to copyright restrictions. There are no clips from her Oscar-winning turns in “Gaslight,” “Anastasia” (1956), and “Murder on the Orient Express” (1974), the latter more for Bergman adoration than for her dour, one-note performance as a dim-witted missionary. There is, however, generous treatment of her monumental work in “Autumn Sonata” (1978), her last big-screen appearance before her death in 1982 from breast cancer. “Autumn Sonata” strips her bare, as screen daughter Liv Ullmann lacerates her for choosing a career as concert pianist over raising her child. Her own children exhibit no such hate, but anyone who knew Ingrid Bergman would catch the unflattering parallelisms.

By her children’s accounts, she was more friend than mom. She was torn between a love for them and a yearning for adventure only satisfied by being a globetrotting movie star. Her children speak of the pain of lengthy separations, yet none of them exhibits rancor or visible psychological damage. They warmly note her humor and sense of fun, and her glittering life. They carry mature adult perspectives on the glories and burdens of being Ingrid Bergman’s children. They came to accept her dual nature, and even love her for it.

Front-and-center is the public hysteria surrounding Bergman’s affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini. In leaving Lindström and their daughter, she was effectively run out of Hollywood by the tar-and-feathers crowd. That might have destroyed someone less worldly, but Bergman spoke five languages and well knew that life didn’t begin and end in Hollywood.

She married Rossellini, moved to Italy, and delivered three more children. She and Rossellini made five films neatly classified as Italian neorealism, including “Stromboli” (1950) and “Europa 51” (1952), before divorcing in 1957. By then, Bergman’s sins were absolved by the American public, and she returned triumphantly to English-

EXPLORE THE GAY WORLD

speaking screens in “Anastasia,” snatching an Oscar along the way.

She would marry once more, and maneuver between films, television, and theater. She did some of her greatest work toward the end, free of vanity as the camera took in each line of her aging and eloquent face.

“Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words” makes clear that her life was messy and episodic, but she earned great love from her directors, costars, and family. Don’t wait for “Mommie Dearest”-style muckraking. Bergman would not be dictated by the expectations of others, be they husbands, studio executives, or the public. For all her drive and preternatural beauty, she never wanted to be some goddess from another world. Her chosen life’s work was inherently artificial, but she strove to be forever real. In summarizing the loop de loops in her life, Bergman wryly noted she went from saint to whore and back to saint, concluding she was both simpler and more complex than that. “I’m just a woman,” she said. “Another human being.”t

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<< Fine Art

68 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

<<

Fine Art

From page 49

That said, the idea allows for the coming together of nearly 30, mostly LGBTQ photographers, a few writers, and the inclusion of images of exuberant gatherings, parades, outbursts of joyful free expression, and some impressive individual works.

125 photographs and a smattering of poems ring the center’s recreation room, an informal setting that may not show off professional-level photography to optimum effect, but has the advantage of attracting people from the neighborhood and others who wouldn’t otherwise patronize a gallery.

The late Gilbert Baker, who in 1978 created the Rainbow flag, an emblem of gay pride that caught on around the world – he once called himself the “gay Betsy Ross” – is the show’s de facto patron saint, according to HMPC director-curator Dave Christensen. (Christensen is on San Francisco Rec & Parks staff, and Harvey Milk Photo Center is a SF Rec & Parks facility.) Shortly before his death in March, Baker helped formulate this exhibition, which Christensen hopes is infused with the artist’s spirit of inclusiveness and freedom. He’s a palpable presence, popping up in a 1994 picture from Danny Nicoletta, standing underneath his creation, beaming in an off-the-shoulder sequined gown, and in nine gorgeous color images

by San Francisco attorney Mark Rennie.

Rennie chronicles two turning points in Baker’s life: 1978-79, when he delivered various incarnations of his now-famous symbol of empowerment; and 2012, after he returned to San Francisco (he had

accented with hot pink moved to New York in shells. But what is one to 1994) to receive a lifetime make of the orange-faced achievement award from creature with three pairs the Pride Foundation. A of eyes? flamboyant soul with a A professional photogflair for the dramatic onrapher since the 1970s, stage and in life, a vintage Skot Jonz has contribBaker appears in Jesus uted several artistically mode, longhaired, bearded composed images, like a and in makeup; doffing a coming-out-of-the-clostop hat as he slides down et self-portrait where he’s the billowing flag with a seen peaking through the batch of rowdy clowns; crack of a partially open half-naked, brandishing a door. In another parsword on a rooftop like an ticularly dramatic piece, opera singer going mad in inspired by a friend going the final act; and taking a through a rough patch, bow in head-to-toe gold a naked man pushes an lame. enormous boulder up Among an array of a sheer cliffside like a noteworthy portraits is latter-day Sisyphus.

Rink Foto’s marvelous And then there’s 1978 shot of a charismatic, veteran B.A.R. photog30-something Armistead rapher Rick Gerharter, Maupin, looking cawhose fine images fresual and jaunty, smiling quently complement my broadly, hands in his reviews at this paper. A pockets, rightfully on top Michael Johnstone and David Faulk selection of well-crafted of the world at a bookstore photos he has taken over launch party for “Tales of Mrs. Vera’s Daybook Series: Dahlia Gardens, 2007, the last 20 years features the City.” Jay Blakesberg, by Michael Johnstone and David Faulk. a smooch at the cable who took a top-drawer, car turnaround during black & white portrait restrained John Waters; Cleve Jones; by the Cockettes’ example and the a Queer Nation kiss-in; Gilbert of a pensive, older Allen Ginsberg and filmmaker Dustin Lance Black, fun of dress-up, they created Mrs. Baker at the carousel in Pier 39 (1994), recalls that the poet began Vera, a campy, mutable figure who the screenwriter of “Milk” and the during a Queer Nation visibility a Buddhist chant before the sesdons multi-layered, garishly colored HBO series “Big Love.” action; a loaded, candid shot of the sion, and afterward, turned the ensembles Johnstone has characterSince 1994, photographer MiSisters of Perpetual Indulgence tables, snapping a few pictures of ized as “fragments of a drag memchael Johnstone has been docusqueezed into an elevator – oh, to the photographer in front of his ory tornado.” Ever a trendsetter, she menting his partner and muse, have overheard that conversation; studio. LA-based A&U magazine has been spotted at the SF Pride costumer David Faulk, aka Mrs. and a cutie-pie African American editor Sean Black, who describes Parade and other events sporting a Vera, decked out in zany costumes, guy, bare-chested in a white sailor himself as an “HIV+ artist and cardmetallic, emerald green headdress each more outrageous than the suit, saluting from a float in the carrying member of the LGBTQ with beam-me-up-Scottie Martian next. Back in the 1980s, the pair Gay Day parade. So, handsome, community,” offers up a series of antennae; swamped by a huge welcirculated among theatrical troupes, where are you now?t polished celebrity shots of activcoming basket on her head filled drag queens and club performers ists and leaders in the fight against with plastic cups and utensils and whose ranks dwindled by the early AIDS: Olympic diving champion Through July 23. covered in cellophane; and posing 90s because of the AIDS epidemic.

Greg Louganis; a dapper, unusually harveymilkphotocenter.org. as a geisha in a wild blue-haired wig As an antidote to loss, and inspired

Courtesy Frameline

Scene from director Tom Gustafson’s “Hello Again.”

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Frameline 41

From page 49

“Freak Show” What would it be like if your dearest dream was to be the most fabulous person possible in a small-town Southern, footballworshipping cauldron where the price of being a long-haired, crossdressing gay male freak is, at best, a severe butt-kicking, and at worst, waves of humiliation followed by a crucifixion-style death?

The film’s long suit is a toughminded script that takes bullying seriously, and an excellent core cast headed up by British-born Alex Lawther as the embattled Billy Bloom, a brave adolescent student who takes a stand in his genderpolarized high school by running for homecoming queen against a blonde girl who uses Trump-style bullying techniques to turn students against Billy. (Castro, 6/24) “Abu” (“Father”) “There’s nothing but shame when you fall in love in Pakistan. Nothing but shame.”

This is the first poignant takeaway from Arshad Khan’s gripping 95-minute saga of a sensitive boy’s

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coming-of-age, first in the brutally polarized climate of Islamabad, Pakistan, then in the sleepy suburbs of Toronto, Canada. Khan’s tale is marked by family upheaval and the always-difficult task of admitting your attraction to the teen boys around you. The story is conveyed in a sprightly mix of pop music, home-movie clips and original animation. (Castro, 6/22) “Hello Again” Tom Gustafson directs this carnal tale of sexcapades and romance across the 20th century, as inspired by the music of Michael John LaChiusa. With Cheyenne Jackson, Martha Plimpton and T.R. Knight. (Castro, 6/22) “Whitney. ‘Can I Be Me’” Biodocmaker Nick Bloomfield and music-video artist Rudi Dolezal draw on a treasure trove of archival concert footage to tell the fabulous rise and fall of East Orange, NJborn pop star Whitney Elizabeth Houston. The musical portion draws heavily on Houston’s “My Love Is Your Love” world tour, plus in-depth interviews with people close to the star. (Castro, 6/22) “Beach Rats” Eliza Hittman,

whose 2014 first feature “It Felt Like Love” played Frameline, returns with the tale of a confused Brooklyn teen, Frankie (handsome newcomer Harris Dickinson), caught between a public life of drugs, Coney Island beach romps, handball games with macho, misbehaving buddies, and the dark world of online chats with older men. The film raises the question of whether Frankie can ever admit to his same-sex desires and still retain a social place in his traditional Brooklyn neighborhood.

Hittman garnered a Best Director award at the 2017 Sundance Film Fest. (Roxie, 6/22) “The Book of Gabrielle” British director Lisa Gornick examines the erotic sparks generated when a young female artist is mentored by an older male novelist, the pair assigned to produce an illustrated sex manual. Saul (Allan Corduner) takes an interest in Gabrielle’s (Gornick) affair with a younger woman, and in her history of relationships with both men and women. (Roxie, 6/22) “A Million Happy Nows” Albert Alarr takes us in front of the cam-

eras and behind the scenes of a long-running TV soap opera as its legendary star Lainey Allen (Crystal Chappell) grapples with reasons why she can no longer remember her lines. Of particular appeal to fans of the now-canceled soap “The Guiding Light.” (Roxie, 6/23) “Snapshot” Director Shine Louise Houston creates a melodramatic thriller as an erotic photographer accidentally captures a murder in progress, a mistake that makes her the killer’s next target. Fans of obsessive-stalker tales “Rear Window,” “Strangers on a Train” and “Blow-Up” should not miss this one. (Victoria, 6/23) “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” David France examines the 1992 death under exceedingly suspicious circumstances of African American Stonewall-riots veteran and trans rights activist Marsha P. Johnson. (Piedmont, 6/22; Castro, 6/24) “After Louie” This year’s Frameline Award winner Alan Cumming (late of CBS’ “The Good Wife”) appears as a one-time visual artist still in mourning for a lover felled by AIDS. Sam’s life takes an unexpected upswing when he meets a young man, Braeden (Zachary Booth of “Keep the Lights On”). Directed

by Vincent Gagliostro, featuring David Drake (“The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me”), Justin Vivian Bond (“Shortbus”) and Wilson Cruz (“My So-Called Life”). (Castro Closing Night, 6/25) “No Dress Code Required” Director Christina Herrera Borquez follows a male couple, Victor and Fernando, through the long legal and emotional struggle it takes to win marriage equality in Mexico’s remote Baja California. (Castro, 6/24) “Santa & Andres” Set in 1983 Cuba, Carlos Lechuga’s tale imagines an improbable friendship between an anti-Castro gay writer and the female warden assigned to seeing that he doesn’t disrupt a Communist Party conference set for his small town. (Castro, 6/25) “Against the Law” Fergus O’Brien brings the formidable resources of BBC-TV to tell the story of 1950s UK gay activist Peter Wildeblood (Daniel Mays of “The Bank Job”), who stood up against a homophobic witch-hunt particularly painful since he was singled out for persecution by his own boyfriend. (Castro, 6/24)t More info: frameline.org.

Courtesy Frameline

Scene from director Lisa Gornick’s “The Book of Gabrielle.”

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Dynamic Duo

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Cazwell's Cali cool

Leather Pride Vol. 47 • No. 25 • June 22-28, 2017

www.ebar.com V www.bartabsf.com

rolled ts ramped up and on ur full-on Pride ge bowlicious and fullin ra s It’ k. ee w is th out proud, be loud. Listings begin on page 79 festive. Get out, be >>

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Sun 25

SF Pride Parade

On the Tab June 22-29

Rick Gerharter

Cover the Waterfront San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library. Copyright Moulin Studios.

Seafood, sailors, & San Francisco’s dockside secrets

by Michael Flanagan

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he start of the Pride Parade has a secret – and it’s hidden! The downtown assembly area on the waterfront is among the oldest LGBT neighborhoods in the city, and there is barely a trace of it left.

See page 74 >>

Sailors (foreground) on shore leave along the 500 block of Pacific Avenue in March 1946, also known as the ‘International Settlement.’

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{ FOURTH OF FOUR SECTIONS }

70 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

Dynamic Duo Nancy French & Jef Valentine are among Pride cohosts

by Jim Provenzano

each other,” added French. “The added factor is the audience, an estimated 70,000 to one million people.”

French, whom local theatre and nightlife fans know from her roles in Shit & Champagne, Above and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Showgirls, as drag king Clammy Faye, and in the title role for the upcoming Debbie Does Dallas musical at Oasis, has hosted the Sober Stage at Pride and other events. Along with Valentine, the two have performed at multiple local street fairs as well.

Valentine, who wowed audiences and critics as Frank N. Furter in Ray of Light’s 2008 production of The Rocky Horror Show, has starred and costarred in dozens of Bay Area dramas, comedies and musicals, from playing Norman Bates in Psycho: The Musical to an alien bimbo in a Star Trek parody.

The two performers met during the extended Thrillpeddlers production of Pearls Over Shanghai.

They’ll once again share a stage in

this summer’s Bitch Slap!, a parody of Dynasty-style soap hey’ve performed as numeroperas. ous hilarious characters in and Valentine noted the mulout of drag, even together in a few tiple anniversaries coinciding shows. But as masters of nightclub with this year’s Pride. and theatre disguise, you might not “The 50th anniversary of recognize Nancy French and Jef ValThe Summer of Love, the 51st entine as they team up to cohost the for the Compton’s Riots, which afternoon main stage Pride celebraI think is very important, and tions this Sunday June 25. we’ll be standing blocks from Along with Marga Gomez where it happened,” he said.

(11am-2pm) as well as Honey Ma“This is the year that we can hogany and Sister Roma (Saturday say we have the first trans11am-6pm), French and Valentine gendered district, named after will share the duties of introducing Compton’s.” dozens of performers and speakers, Valentine, a Sacramento nain between DJed music and segues, tive, noted that he’s been to segues, segues! nearly every SF Pride during Nancy French and Jef Valentine The two local performance favorhis 30 years in San Francisco. “I ites discussed their Pride gig, and its moved here at 18, with my tap “My friends started asking me, larger meaning. shoes and a dream,” he joked.

‘Can you be the young nun who “We’re playing ourselves,” said ValFrench had done spoken word and turns into a stripper in my drag entine. “It’ll be a dialogue between music performances before moving number?’ Fast-forward to Pearls the two of us, which is why I really from Rhode Island to San Francisco Over Shanghai, where Russell wanted to share it with Nancy.” in 1993, where her talents were soon Blackwood needed drag personas “I’m glad that we get to play off drafted via queer nightlife. and singers. That was when I started really getting into it.”

The initial eight-week commitment became a two-year run. With more than two dozen cast members, both French and Valentine developed friendships with other performers, many of whom would rush off after the show to later gigs at clubs.

When not onstage, Valentine works at American Conservatory Theatre’s costume shop, and French, who is married (to a man!) runs a home business.

Valentine mentioned Jenn Stokes, the Pride stage producer, as among those who helped grow the local performance and event scene.

“You see all stripes of people coming together to make things happen,” he said of Pride. “At times it kind of lost the thread and became a big noisy machine. It’s important for everyone to experience BEER • WINE • LIQUOR • it, and if they want to party, that’s GATORADE • SANDWICHES fine, but the three of us wanted to find what was important to us CIGARETTES • SNACKS • CANDY about Pride.”

“In this current political climate,” FIND US ON YELP! said French, “can this be a party, or is it more of a rally? Other cities have turned their parades into NEARBY THE CIVIC CENTER PRIDE CELEBRATION marches; we felt strongly about following suit.”

However, the SF Pride board voted to not turn the event over to protesting, and will limit a “Resistance” group to a contingent in the 1659 MARKET STREET, SAN FRANCISCO parade, along with corporate sponsors whose presence was critiqued by some activists.

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Valentine mentioned a political tone to the day, but “also keeping it upbeat, about things we can do, and what a beautiful thing it is that people are gathering to have the conversation.

“We’ll touch on the hot-button topics of today, added French, “but move it to, ‘Tomorrow, here’s what you can do.’” Actions items, text numbers and info will be projected on the mainstage screen in between performances.

Saturday’s stage, cohosted by Honey Mahogany and Sister Roma, will focus on local performers, DJs and drag acts, along with speakers. Sunday’s performers include Cazwell, Betty Who, Ronnie Spector, David Hernandez, Cheer SF and the SF Gay Men’s Chorus, plus DJ Duserock blending it all.

As MCs, the duo have had input into the format, but multiple others are also working to make all the details work, from the stage itself to safety and technical aspects.

Performing for a huge outdoor audience may be daunting for some, but French recalled the Castro Street Fair abridged performances of Ultra Showgirls, where their 40-minute music set met with great appreciation. “It was awesome. People are on their feet, they can move around and dance. It was like being a rock star. At Pride, the audience’s energy is right there.”

Asked if they hope to send a message to the largely younger crowd at Sunday’s Pride celebration, Valentine said, “I don’t have anything planned as a mission statement, except to be who we are. I’m truly proud to be in this city, having seen all of its changes. This day will fit neatly into my Bucket List of squeezing in every San Francisco experience that I can, this year in particular. This is the year of not taking anything for granted.

If I can communicate anything, it’s a sense of inclusion; here we are, in this together.”

French also hopes to focus on community and more than just the celebrations of the weekend.

“I hope they take this feeling into tomorrow. Go out and be fabulous in your day-to-day life.”t The 47th annual LGBTQ Pride events on Sunday, June 25, include the parade from Embarcadero along Market Street to 8th Street.

Civic Center’s celebration includes mainstage entertainment and speeches, multiple dance stages, booths, food and drinks; 11am-6pm. Also Saturday June 24, 12pm-6pm. www.sfpride.org

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Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

72 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Cazwell’s Cali cool

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The hip hop hunk’s at Pride and Oasis

Styling the lace, Cazwell (center) and dancers in his new song and music video “Loose Wrists.”

by Jim Provenzano

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Untitled-1 1

5/11/17

ith a fresh song that once again captures a fashion trend with witty flair, homo hip hop stud Cazwell returns to San Francisco for shows at Oasis on Saturday, June 24, and at Pride’s main stage on June 25. The creator of dozens of earworm-worthy songs discussed his creative inspirations, including those now-trending pastel lace outfits seen in the new music video for his song, “Loose Wrists.”

“I was inspired by a Versace picture from the ‘90s where they are all wearing pastels, and I love pastels,” said Cazwell in a phone interview from his new home in Los Angeles.

“I look cute in pastels. The song was obviously a gay anthem, so I wanted to make it look like a gay gang; me and four other guys, because there’s a lyric about five guys. But it was originally gonna be five pastel Velour jogging suits. We found them, but couldn’t find the matching ribbing. We were running out of time before the shoot, and I was really stressed out, so I took a nap, and then woke up and got the idea: ‘Let’s do lace.’ We added matching Speedos underneath and it all worked.”

Although he’s been making music and DJing since 1999, and before his Worchester/Boston days with Moplay, Cazwell was known as a favorite in New York clubs for years.

His big hit was 2011’s “Ice Cream 9:48 AM Truck,” whose sexy boxer-shortsclad dancers’ moves led to a YouTube age restriction, but still garnered –as of recently– five million views.

The singer-composer’s other notable songs include the feisty “Get My Money Back,” the fame-funny “I Saw Beyoncé at Burger King,” plus collaborations with Colton Ford, Peaches, Daisha, Big Dipper and his longtime friend Amanda Lepore.

Tie-in deals related to his songs have included frozen yogurt (for “Ice Cream Truck”) and the dating app Hornet (“The Bisquit”), proving the singer, who turns 45 on June 27, has more than clever rhymes up his sleeve.

While the new femme-positive song and video “Loose Wrists” still includes some trademark sexy moves and shots, the pioneering out gay rapper sees a bit of a stylistic shift.

“When we made all the outfits, I thought it very conservative compared to what I usually do, with dancers in jock straps objectifying themselves, showing their asses.

I thought, ‘Hey, I’m growing up.’

But as soon as we put it online, it became a meme within an hour.”

Blog articles touting men’s lace shorts and matching shirts sprouted up, and parody images with politicians’ or Disney princes’ faces Photoshopped over Cazwell and his dancers’ became the latest hashtag online trend.

“I thought, ‘Are people that desperate for something to talk about?”

Cazwell said. “But a lot of people passionately love it, and the orders are through the roof [for designer Hoza Rodriguez]. Some people compared it the romper look, other people think, ‘Oh, it’s too gay.’ I just think it’s fashion. Someone’s gotta wear lace, now that Prince is gone, so I’ll do it.”

While we can expect other looks from the fashion-forward rapper in his live show, Cazwell said he’ll continue to sport the new lace look for a while before breaking another trend.

“I didn’t think about it too much.

I was definitely surprised that it got that much attention, but if I get my face in the news, I’m all about it. It was nice and unexpected, because whenever you try to be strategic, it never really works. You just have to follow your heart, and do what you can afford. I was more worried it wasn’t gonna get attention, because the guys didn’t have their shorts off.”

But the sexy steams through the lace, particularly in a scene shot on a bed in the Los Angeles Tom of Finland Museum.

Yep, the downtown cool rapper whose witty lyrics include buying socks and “col-og-knee” on 14th Street has joined us here in California.

“On Christmas Day, I was like, ‘Fuck it’ and I flew out with two suitcases, my dog and a juicer.”

Cazwell likes the West Coast life.

“To be someplace where the weather

is perfect, where I don’t have to put a winter jacket on my dog, is great.

I don’t drive, but I happen to be in a part of the city where everything I need is at a nearby mini-mall.”

With new clubs and DJs gigs three nights a week, Cazwell said he’s getting into the California groove. “I’ve become a morning person. And I like being outside for a change.”

Asked what’s ahead for his music and style, Cazwell said he’ll keep on making music with his new label, Snowcone records. Among his new collaborators are RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Peppermint. “We have a few singles coming out soon.”

Sharing the spotlight with his colleagues is one of Cazwell’s consistent traits, and one he looks forward to at both Oasis and Pride Sunday.

“I don’t know anybody who did this before me,” he said. “I was doin’ it, and I’m still doin’ it. And I love all the kids who are dropping new beats and songs. They always tell me, ‘Oh my god, I was in sixth grade when I first heard you!’ and I’m like, ‘Shut. Up.’” Asked about the difference between performing in a nightclub and before thousands of people at Civic Center (his first time), Cazwell, said, “Pride is always a very loving crowd.

No one throws tomatoes at you. I really love that. Lady Gaga said how performing at SF Pride was like a big orgasm, so I’m looking forward to jizzing all over everyone.”t Cazwell performs at Mother at Oasis ($15, 10pm, 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com) and at SF Pride’s mainstage show on Sunday, June 25 (some time between 11am and 6pm); gate donations, Civic Center. www.sfpride.org) cazwell.com

Cazwell’s music video “No Selfie Control.”

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

74 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

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Left: Author, tattoo artist and sexual adventurer Samuel Steward. Right: Sailors pack the Oakland tattoo studio of Samuel Steward in the 1960s.

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Cover the Waterfront

From page 69

The waterfront was a rough working class neighborhood with a produce market that had both a lesbian bar (The Front, 600 Front) and a railroad (the San Francisco Belt Railroad). Queer connections ran deep there. Before Harry Hay formed The Mattachine Society, he and actor Will Geer came to town for the General Strike on the docks in 1934. And in 1937 (one year after the Bay Bridge opened) the first queer bar, The Sailor Boy Tavern, opened on 24 Howard Street (it would stay open till 1953).

A connection to sailors was natural because of the docks, and lasted till the 1960s. Along with The Sailor

Boy, there were other bars with nautical names like The Castaways (90 Market), The Ensign Café (1 Market Street), The Admiral Bar (first at 198, later 144 Embarcadero) and The Sea Cow (109 Steuart).

The connection between sailors and gay sex was well established in the U.S. early last century as well.

The Newport sex scandal connected homosexuality and the navy in 1919 and resulted in a trial in which 17 sailors were convicted of sodomy.

And painters like Charles Demuth (1883–1935) and Paul Cadmus (1904–1999) frequently depicted sailors in same-sex carousing. Cadmus’ career was established in a scandal in 1934 when, as a WPA painter, his work “The Fleet’s In!” was removed from an exhibition at

6/10/16 2:34 PM

the Corcoran Gallery. A similar controversy erupted in San Francisco in 1940 when Cadmus’ works “Sailors and Floozies” and “Seeing the New Year In” were first removed and then replaced in the Treasure Island Palace of Fine Arts in August 1940.

By the 1950s, the Embarcadero was drawing sex tourists to San Francisco. Justin Spring’s fascinating Secret Historian, The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Sexual Renegade gives us a glimpse of the world Steward arrived into in June 1953 to check out rumors about the YMCA. Steward kept detailed diaries and Spring gives the details: “A choice motorcyclist in [room] 633,” he noted in his diary. “Sailors everywhere! All branches [of the service!” and “Saw a fantastic thing down by the piers,” he noted one afternoon,” –two sailors standing watch for passersby while a third went down on a forth. Wanted to bust in, but [was] afraid.”

This amazing window into a past world also notes bars in the area, including Chilli’s (144 Embarcadero), a “queer low level joint on the Embarcadero.”

Performers spread word of the neighborhood nationwide. By the early ‘50s, the Embarcadero had become a bawdy punch line, indicating homosexuality by just its mention.

Historian and GLBT Historical Society founding member Gerard Koskovich recalled a recording by the drag comedian Rae Bourbon which he found in preparation for a talk on this neighborhood.

In the song “Give, Sister, Give” from Rae Bourbon- An Evening in

Copenhagen (probably 1953) in a parody of a revival singer Bourbon says, “This young man was running wild on the Embarcadero in San Francisco. You know what the Embarcadero is? (Laughs)” News had certainly spread in San Francisco.

On May 14, 1955 John “Bunny” Breckinridge, heir to the Comstock Lode fortune and future Ed Wood actor, was arrested in a police sweep for “vagrancy” at the Sea Cow Café.

The arrest was widely reported in San Francisco (and picked up by newspapers throughout the country) as Breckinridge had becoem media gold by announcing his intention to have sex reassignment surgery the previous year.

Bias was clear in both the arrest and the press, with the Examiner calling Breckinridge, “the millionaire who wants more than anything else to become a millionaires.” The arresting officer testified that he found Breckinridge in the rest room of the bar, “with his hair made up like a woman, wearing a beret, a “flowing shirt and sandals.”

Arrests were common in the neighborhood, as was police intimidation for protection money, which led to the “Gayola” scandal of 1960. In The Streets of San Francisco, Christopher Lowen Agee tells of how five bar owners from lower Market and the Embarcadero, including the Castaways and Jack’s Waterfront Hangout (111 Embarcadero), approached Mayor Christopher and Police Chief Cahill to report the protection money graft.

The city worked with the bar owners, providing marked bills in a sting operation which led to eight

officers being accused and five being indicted. Trials ran from July to August 1960. Only two of the five police were convicted in the case, but it led to early activism among gay bar owners.

The activism gave rise to the Tavern Guild and the formation of the League for Civil Education (which published the LCE News, the first LGBT newspaper in the country).

The League first met at 90 Market St. on March 21, 1961.

The trial also set off another wave of police action leading to arrests and gay bay closures, as the police could now claim to be clean. The resilience of the community in the face of this harassment was amazing, with people opening one after another gay bar in the same spot as fast as the police could close them.

Within three years, 90 Market

Ed Wood actor John “Bunny” Breckinridge.

OPEN 10AM-2AM FRI-SUN PRIDE Weekend 225 Church St @ Market PilsnerInn.com

Reef SF

The Daniels Hotel (right, background) in the film Bullitt, was previously the gay venues Jack’s Waterfront and The Edgewater Hotel.

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

Street was Castaways, The Talk of the Town, Eddie’s 90, The Last Resort and the Sail Away. The Sea Cow Café became the Cross Roads.

Along with the ability to open new bars, the community also stepped up to create a “war chest” which provided funds for legal fees of those arrested in the bars, and to file ‘friend of the court’ briefs.

What was also astounding about the waterfront bars was the cheerful persistence of both the bar owners and patrons. George Bauman, owner of Jack’s, faced closure of his business because of the development of the Golden Gateway and Embarcadero Center. He announced a “Demolition Party” on April 18, 1962 and a subsequent opening party at his new location at midnight on April 19. The LCE News reported, “Jack’s Waterfront will close its doors at 12:00 Midnight at 111 Embarcadero and will open its doors at 12:01 at 226 Embarcadero. We will all go from here to the new place. At 11:30 the drinks will be half-priced.”

Nor was the resistance celibate: in an oral history with the GLBT Historical Society, Bay Area Reporter cofounder Bob Ross said that when you visited The Ensign Café, “There would be a thousand bottles of beer and booze on the bar and nobody up there and you would go downstairs to the men’s room, and there was just an orgy every day.”

The second Jack’s was closed by police in January 1963. But it was replaced by Original Don’s, owned

by Don Cavello, which lasted till 1964. The LCE News ran an ad on January 7, 1963 suggesting a second “exodus” from the gay bars of the waterfront to the Tool Box, one of the first SoMa bars.

Cavello would go on to open the Fickle Fox (842 Valencia) in 1966.

Don Cavello was not the only waterfront bar owner to open subsequent bars for the community.

Courtesy Queer Music Heritage

Rae Bourbon’s album, An Evening in Copenhagen references the cruisy Embarcadero.

After the Front closed in 1962, Charlotte Coleman opened the Golden Cask (1725 Haight) in 1965 and The Mint (1942 Market Street) in 1968.

Lenny Mollet ran Lenny’s 36 (36 Embarcadero) from 1954 till its closure by police in 1959.

A letter to the Daughters of Bili-

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 75

tis in the GLBT Historical archives described Lenny’s 36 this way: “The habitués just give up all hope of maintaining any sense of decorum and flaunt around like a painted whore on VD Bridge.”

Mollet went on to run On The Levee (937 Embarcadero) from 1963 to 1971 and Off The Levee (527 Bryant), which he opened in 1966. On The Levee was one of the last two gay bars in the neighborhood, the other being The Waterfront (128 Embarcadero). Both bars were closed by 1972.

There is very little left of the neighborhood on the street from these days. However, if you visit the Reel SF site (reelsf.com) you can see what Jack’s Waterfront looked like in stills from D.O.A. and what 226 Embarcadero looked like in a still from the Steve McQueen film, Bullitt.

In the end, it was as much development as police action that caused the demise of the waterfront as a gay neighborhood. The Golden Gateway and Embarcadero Center development eliminated all bars north of Market by 1962.

The last remnant of the neighborhood was the rooms at the YMCA, which remained until 1989, when the building was split. The rooming house became the Harbor Court Hotel, where the ghost of the “YMCA Rooms” ad still haunts its southern wall.t The author would like to thank Justin Spring and Gerard Koskovich.

Top Left: An ad for The Waterfront from Vector magazine in 1970.

Right/Bottom: Ads for various gay bars in LCE News in 1961 and 1962.

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Out&About>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 77

Fri 23 Altar Boyz @ Center Repertory, Walnut Creek

Out &About

O&A

East Bay performance of the lighthearted musical about a faith-based boy band. $37-$72. Thru July 1. 1601 Civic Center Drive, Walnut Creek. www.centerrep.org

La Bohème @ War Memorial Opera House Puccini’s classic opera is performed by a stellar cast of singers, with Houston Grand Opera and Canadian Opera Company. $27-$400.

7:30pm. Also June 29 at 7:30pm. June 25 & July 2 at 2pm. 301 Van Ness Ave. www.sfopera.com

Crazy Famous @ The Marsh Berkeley Sharon Eberhart’s solo show about a young musician in search of a great song. $20-$100. Fridays 8pm thru July 14. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. themarsh.org

Fri 23

The Skivvies: Pride Rock @ Strand Theatre

Drag-a-ganza Film Fest @ Great American Music Hall Screenings of Torch Song Trilogy (6:30pm) a live drag contest (8:30pm) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (9pm). No cover! Food, popcorn, and drinks for sale.

859 O’Farrell St. www.slimspresents.com

Pridey fine

by Jim Provenzano

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ur 47th annual LGBT Pride celebrations make the biggest events this week, with the march and festival on Sunday (plus Saturday Civic Center stuff, too). But plenty of other events can entertain you this week. And yes, Out & About arts events are now here in BARtab. For nightlife events, see On the Tab listings, starting on page 79.

Thu 22

A Night With Janis Joplin @ Geary Theater

The 41st annual large-scale film festival continues, with screenings at multiple locations in San Francisco and the East Bay. Thru June 25. $15$18. www.frameline.org

American Conservatory Theatre presents the acclaimed musical about rock singer Janis Joplin, with classic hits from her era and visits by Bessie Smith, etta James and others. $20$120. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat, Sun 2pm. Thru July 2. 415 Geary St. www.act-sf.org

Joe Goode Performance Group @ YBCA

Rigoletto @ War Memorial Opera House

Frameline Film Festival @ Various Cinemas

30-year anniversary performances include the world premiere of Nobody Lives Here Now, with live accompaniment; plus a retrospective of choreographer Goode’s career. $25-$65. Thru June 24. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St. www.joegoode.org www.ybca.org

The Klipptones @ Top of the Mark The local jazz band performs weekly at the swanky hotel lounge bar. 7pm11pm. thru August. 999 California St. www.klipptones.com

Midsummer of Love @ Golden Gate Park We Players presents another sitespecific environmental play, this time an arboreal adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. $40-$80. June 22-25, July 6-9, 27-30. Strawberry Hill, 6:30pm. Also shows in El Sobrante July 15, 16, 22 & 23 ($30-$60). www.weplayers.org

The Mushroom Cure @ The Marsh Adam Strauss’ comic Off-Broadway hit solo show about his attempts to use hallucinogenic drugs for his OCD. $20$100. Wed & Fri 8pm, Sat 8:30pm.

Thru July 1. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

My Brother’s Shoes @ Online Gay-themed locally-shot independent comedy film about two brothers who switch lives; with costar Donna Sachet. Stream online at www.mybrothersshoes.com

Giuseppe Verdi’s romantic opera is performed in Italian (English supertitles). $27-$256. June 22 & 27.

Thru July 2. 301 Van Ness Ave. www.sfopera.com

The Roommate @ SF Playhouse Jen Silverman’s darkly comic play about two Iowa women’s clashing and different lives. $35-$65. Tue-Thu 7pm, Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm, Sun 2pm.

Thru July 1. 450 Post St. www.sfplayhouse.org

In the Heights @ Contra Costa Civic Theatre

East Bay production of the 2-Tony-winning musical

by Lin-Manuel Miranda ( Hamilton ) about three generations of a New York City Latino family. $17-$31.

Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm.

Thru July 16. 951 Pomona Ave, El Cerrito. www.ccct.org/in_the_heights

The Legend of Georgia McBride @ Marin Theatre Company

Monsoon Wedding @ Berkeley Repertory Mira Nair’s musical stage adaptation of her popular film about Indian-American and Indian fiancés and their families. $60-$120. Thru July 16. 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. www.berkeleyrep.org

An Octoroon @ Berkeley Repertory Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ acclaimed comic play combines 1800s melodrama with contemporary cultural politics. $29-$85. Thru July 23. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. http://www.berkeleyrep.org

Older and Out @ North Berkeley Senior Center Weekly group discussion about problems for elders in the LGBT community. 3:15pm. 1901 Hearst Ave., Berkeley. www.pacificcenter.org

Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs @ Contemporary Jewish Museum Exhibit of the wry cartoons by the award-winning artist and author; thru Sept. 3. Weekly poets lunch/ readings on Fridays, 12:30pm thru June. Also, exhibits about Jewish culture and by Jewish artists, including Carey Leibowitz: Museum Show (witty pop art with a queer edge, thru June 25). Lectures and gallery talks as well (Fridays 12:30pm). Free (members)-$12. Fri-Tue 11am-5pm, Thu 11am-8pm (closed Wed). 736 Mission St. 655-7800. thecjm.org

The Skivvies: Pride Rock @ Strand Theatre Undie-rock comedy pop duo Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley perform their trademark wacky covers, mash-ups and original songs. $30-$45. 7:30pm.

June 24 at 1pm (pastries, quiche and Bloody Marys on sale) and 7:30pm.

1127 Market St. www.act-sf.org

Warplay @ NCTC Playwright JC Lee’s modern version of the romance between Greek legends Achilles and Patroclus, based on The Iliad. $25-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm, thru July 2. “Drinks With the Artists” post-show on Fridays. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. nctcsf.org

What in Tarnation?

An American Farce @ Exit Theatre

Matthew Lopez’ comic play about an Elvis Presley imperonsator-turned drag queen star. $10-$37. Wed-Sat 7:30pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru July 9.

397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. www.marintheatre.org

Footloose and Entitled Theater Company’s production of Jeff Bedillion’s play about intolerance and a lesbian wedding at a Southern Baptist church. $20-$30. Thu-Sat 8pm, plus matinees. Thru June 24.

156 Eddy St. whatintarnationplay.com

Mark I. Chester @ Strut

You Mean To Do Me Harm @ Strand Theater

Racial Portraits & Other Provocations, a new exhibit of photos by the veteran gay photographer of kink and alternative subcultures. Thru July. 470 Castro St. www.markichester.com

Christopher Chen’s drama about two interracial Asian-White couples whose argument goes ballistic. $30. Wed & Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm, Sun 2pm. Thru July 2. 1127 Market St. www.sfplayhouse.org

Sat 24 Celebrate Community @ Harvey Milk Photo Center Group exhibit of LGBT communitythemed prints by prominent local photographers (Rick Gerharter, Gareth Gooch, Mick Hicks, Sandra Hoover, Dan Nicoletta, Bill Wilson and more), curated by Dave Christensen and Nicola BoscoAlvarez. Thru July 23. 50 Scott St. www.harveymilkphotocenter.org

Concert for America: Stand Up, Sing Out @ Curran Theater Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley cohost the sixth edition of the benefit concert series, with Alan Cumming, Jane Lynch, Paula West, Armistead Maupin, Hal Sparks, Sharon Gless, Kate Flannery, Kevin Chamberlin, Faith Prince, Marga Gomez, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. $20-$110. 7pm. 445 Geary St. (Also broadcast live on Facebook). www.concertsforamerica.com www.sfcurran.com

Flower Power @ Asian Art Museum Floral art and live plant installations celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and show how Buddhist art was an inspiration. Thru Oct. 1. Also, Saints and Kings: Arts, Culture and Legacy of the Sikhs, thru June 25. Reg. free-$25. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. 581-3500. www.asianart.org

Notes Against the Trump Travel Ban @ St. Cyprian’s Church Aswat Ensemble performs a concert of music from Libya, Yemen, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Iraq, with Basma Edrees, Salma Al Assal, Michael (Mohammed) Nejad, Jalal Takesh, Abolhassan Mokhtabad and others. $22 and up. 8pm. 2097 Turk St. www.sflivearts.org

Over the Top: Math Bass & the Imperial Court SF @ Oakland Museum Paired exhibit of works by the LA artist with archival items from the Bay Area Imperial Council royals; thru July 23. Also, Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing (thru Aug. 13), Of Dogs and Other People: The Art of Roy De Forest (thru Aug. 20), and Bees: Tiny Insect, Big Impact (thru June). Free/$15. Reg. hours Wed-Sat 11am-5pm (Fri til 9pm). 1000 Oak St., Oakland. (510) 318-8400. www.museumca.org

Pride Run @ Golden Gate Park SF FrontRunners 38th annual run, with 5K and 10K races. $30-$40 registration. 9am. Metson Lake, Middle Drive West. www.sffr.org

See page 78 >>

SF Danceworks @ ODC Theater Dances includes a world premiere by James Graham and a U.S. premiere

by Christopher Bruce; also works

by Jose Limon, Alejandro Cerrudo, Danielle Rowe and Penny Saunders. $20-$50. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sat 2pm.

3153 17th St. www.sfdanceworks.org

Sordid Lives @ New Conservatory Theatre Center Del Shores’ hit comedy, about three generations of an eccentric smalltown Texas family, gets a new local production. $20-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm.

Sun 2pm. Extended thru June 24. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. www.nctcsf.org

Uel Renteria @ Castro Country Club Paintography, the local photographer and visual artist’s new exhibit. 4058 18th St. www.castrocountryclub.org

Sat 24 Jane Lynch and Alan Cumming perform in the Concert for America: Stand Up, Sing Out @ Curran Theater

<< Out&About

78 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

Out & About

From page 77

Priscilla Queen of the Desert @ Eureka Theatre Theatre Rhinoceros’ production of the Broadway musical stage adaptation of the hit film about Australian drag queens on a road trip. $15-$40. WedSat 8pm. Sat & Sun 3pm. thru July 1.

215 Jackson St. www.TheRhino.org

Sun 25 Homopolis @ SF Public Library Photos from Gay San Francisco in 1981, a new exhibit curated by Ken Maley.

Thru Aug. 24. James Hormel Center, 3rd floor, 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

LGBTQ Histories from the WWII Home Front @ Rosie the Riveter Visitor Education Center, Richmond Park indoor exhibit that showcases the lives of historic LGBT people. Open daily 10am-5pm. 1414 Harbour Way South, Suite 3000, Richmond. www.roseitheriveter.org

Queer Tango @ Finnish Hall, Berkeley Same-sex partner tango dancing, including lessons for newbies, food and drinks. $5-$10. 3:30pm-6:30pm. 1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley. finnishhall.org

SF City Football Club @ Negoesco Stadium The local supporter-funded soccer team celebrates Pride with an unveiling and auction of athlete-worn rainbow jerseys. Proceeds benefit AIDS Legal Referral Panel. $10. 1pm. Parker Ave at Golden Gate, USF campus. Meet players at the team store, at The Yard at Mission Rock (across from AT&T Park) 3pm. www.SFCityFC.com

Mon 26 The Kinsey Sicks @ Oasis The dragapella quartet performs their saucy funny show, Things You Shouldn’t Say! $25-$35. 7:30pm.

Also June 27 & 28. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Professor Awesome @ Pianofight Weekly End of the World Good Time Revue, with Irene Tu, Syzygy, Baruch Porras-Hernandez, Vixi Vale, Joyce Lee, Chinese Ballroom and more. $10. 7:30pm. 144 Taylor St. awesometheatre.org

William Blake in Color @ William Blake Gallery Exhibit of classic plates in the new gallery of historic art by the 18th and 19th-century poet and illustrator.

Mon-Fri 10am-5pm. Sat 11am-5pm.

49 Geary St. #205. williamblakegallery.com

Tue 27 Daniel Arzola @ Strut

Lois Tema

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The gay Venezuelan artist and activist’s exhibit, whose bold visual works have been featured in installations and galleries around the world, including Madonna’s Art for Freedom project. 470 Castro St. www.strutsf.org

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Fri 23

Warplay @ New Conservatory Theatre Center

Dorian Katz @ Center for Sex & Culture The artist’s exhibit of multispecies erotic drawings. Thru Aug. 15. 1349 Mission St. www.sexandculture.org

Jason Mecier @ Pancho Villa Taqueria The gay bean & noodle collage artist’s exhibit of Real Housewives of Pancho Villa.

Thru June 30. 3071 16th St. www.sfpanchovilla.com

Picturing Kinship @ GLBT History Museum Picturing Kinship: Portraits of Our Community, an exhibit of Lenore Chinn’s portraits in painting and photography. $5. (thru Sept 18). Also, Lavender-Tinted Glasses, a queer Summer of Love look curated by Joey Cain; Beartoonist of San Francisco, art works by Fran Frisch, and the overview main exhibit.

4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Tiny Bubbles @ SFAC Gallery Group exhibition curated by Steven Wolf includes several works by the late Jerome Caja, and others with adult themes. Thru Aug. 19. SF Arts Commision Gallery, 401 Van Ness Ave. www.sfartscommission.org

Todd Grey @ Museum of the African Diaspora Todd Grey: My Life in the Bush With MJ & Iggy, an exhibit of art by Michael Jackson’s personal photographer through the 1980s, and his experience living and documenting the Los Angeles music industry. Also, The Ease of Fiction and Love or Confusion: Jimi Hendrix in 1967. Free/$10. Each thru Aug. 27. 685 Mission St. www.moadsf.org

Wed 28 Adam Strauss @ The Marsh Adam Strauss’ 90-Minute Psychedelic Comedy Hour (Time Is An Illusion) , the performer’s variety show. $10-$100.

8pm Wednesdays thru June 28. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

Cleve Jones & Race Bannon @ LGBT Center The veteran activist and author of When We Rise discusses LGBT rights and history with the Bay Area Reporter’s leather columnist. 7pm.

1800 Market St. Doors at 7pm, program at 7:30pm. www.sfldg.org

Pride Poetry Palooza @ Nomadic Press, Oakland Perfectly Queer hosts a night of LGBTQ poets: MK Chavez, Thea Matthews, Baruch Porras-Hernandez, David Welper, Arisa White, and Shelley Wong. 7pm. 2301 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. nomadicpress.org

Rex Ray @ Gallery 16 Retrospective exhibit of works by the late gay artist, whose visual designs were known worldwide; Monograph Rex Ray: We Are All Made Of Light on sale. Thru June 30. 501 3rd St. www.gallery16.com

Ugo Rondinone @ Berkeley Art Museum The World Just Makes Me Laugh, an exhibit of wistfully interpreted various-media works featuring clowns and childhood toys. Thru Aug. 27.

Also, Charles Howard: A Margin of Chaos, thru Aug. 27. 2155 Center St., Berkeley. bampfa.org

Thu 29 Queerest Library Ever @ SF Public Libraries Hormel at 20: Celebrating Our Past/ Creating Our Future, a dual exhibit of archival materials celebrating two decades of the LGBTQ collections.

Also, Council of Elders: Portraits of Older Gay Men (thru May 4). 100 Larkin St., 3rd floor, and at the Eureka Valley Branch, 1 Jose Sarria Court at 16th St. www.sfpl.org To submit event listings, email events@ebar.com Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

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On the Tab>> Fri 23

Bearracuda @ Folsom Street Foundry

Dusti Cunningham

On the Tab

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 79

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge

Black Friday @ The Stud

Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. $5. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Black Queer Magic night, with drag show and DJed dancing. $5-$10.

10pm-4am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Wine-Tasting @ Castro Village Wine Co.

Chubcake @ Lone Star Saloon

Benefit for LYRIC, with a quartet of California wines on the menu. $15.

6:30pm. 4121 19th St. www.castrowine.com

Pride edition of the big guys’ gathering. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Fri 23

Pride edition of the singles-friendly dance night. $10-$15. 10pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Club Lonely @ Club OMG

Adam Killian, Carlos Lindo @ Nob Hill Theatre Pride porn studs’ solo and duo shows with interactive sexy fun. $30. 8pm & 10pm. Also June 25 & 25. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Ain’t Mama’s Drag @ Balancoire

Thu 22 After Dark @ Exploratorium The hands-on science museum’s adult cocktail parties include drinks and music, a lovely Bay view. June 22 includes fireworks! $10-$15.

6:30-9:30pm. Embarcadero at Pier 15. www.exploratorium.edu

Bad Habits @ Bruno’s Women’s Pride dance and mingle event, with two floors of fun, gogo gals, DJs Val G, Alex D, Ms Jackson, Lady Ryan. Motice and Yo Yolie. $10-$35/ $100 VIP. 2pm-1am. 2389 Mission St. www.brunossf.com

Beautiful for Pride @ Elbo Room VivvyAnne ForeverMORE’s Pride party and new monthly drag show, with Abominatrix, Laundra Tyme and others; DJ Primo Pitino. 10pm-12am.

647 Valencia St. www.elbo.com

Beer Bust @ Lone Star Saloon Weeknight extra benefit, with DJs Krinsky and MetalBob playing hard rock, metal and more. 8pm-12am.

1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Brooke Michael Smith @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The Girl I Mean To Be, a night of stories and songs blending contemporary and classical musical theatre. $25-$40 $20 food/drink min.

8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Bulge @ Lone Star Saloon Grace Towers’ roving underwear bulge contest and party. Strip down! $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Circle Jerk @ Nob Hill Theatre Get down on it at the very interactive play party downstairs in the famed strip club, with live acts upstairs, too. $10. 9pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

College Night @ Port Bar, Oakland Campus capers and drink specials w/ college ID. 9pm-2am. 2023 Broadway.

(510) 823-2099. www.portbaroakland.com

Fuego @ The Watergarden, San Jose

Lulu and DJ Marco’s Latin night with sexy gogo guys. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Weekly drag queen and drag king show hosted by Cruzin d’Loo. 8pm10pm. No cover. 2565 Mission St. www.balancoiresf.com

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi

Dusty Lombardo, Kari Orvik, Vero Majano, DJ Brown Amy, Mariya Stangl, Lauren Tabak, Susie Smith, Jamie Thrower, Cody Williams and Jenn Wong; DJs Olga T, Ms. Jackson and Jamila Afrika. $5. 9pm-2am. 3152 Mission St.www.virgilssf.com

Picante @ The Cafe

Junk @ Powerhouse

KJ Dana hosts the weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol ; first Thursdays are Costume Karaoke; 3rd is Kinky Karaoke 8pm.

43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

MrPam and Dulce de Leche cohost the weekly underwear strip night and contest, with sexy prizes. $5. 10pm2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

The Klipptones @ Top of the Mark The local jazz band performs weekly at the swanky hotel lounge bar. 7pm11pm. thru August. 999 California St. www.klipptones.com

Man’s Best Friend @ The Stud Puppy play kink/leather Pride party with Fog City Pack, with DJs Fawks, Astro and Michael Romano. 10pm4am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Matt Alber @ Swedish American Hall The award-winning gay singersongwriter performs acoustic versions of new and favorite songs, with guest Anna Steele. $20-$45. 7:30pm and 9:30pm. 2174 Market St. at Sanchez. www.mattalber.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge The weekly drag show with host Sue Casa, DJ MC2, themed nights and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences June 22 is a special Pride Nightlife with DJ sets by Juanita MORE! and Hella Gay and Swagger Like Us collectives, plus Heklina and a Mother drag show, plus chats and Cockettes remembrances. Enjoy stimulating festive and fun parties at the earth sciences museum return, with 21+ music, drinks, demos and exhibits. $12-$15. Weekly 6pm-9pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.calacademy.org/nightlife

Rice Rockettes @ Lookout Local and visiting Asian drag queens’ weekly show. $5. 10:30pm show.

DJ Philip Grasso.

3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Rock Fag @ Hole in the Wall Enjoy hard rock and punk music from DJ Don Baird at the wonderfully divey SoMa bar. Also Fridays.

7pm-2am. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

The musical comedy revue celebrates its 43th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs, now with new ‘Summer of Love’ numbers. $25-$160. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. Wed-Fri 8pm. Sat 6pm & 9pm.

Sun 2pm & 5pm. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd. (Green St.). 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

Screenings of Torch Song Trilogy (6:30pm) a live drag contest (8:30pm) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (9pm). No cover! Food, popcorn and drinks for sale.

859 O’Farrell St. www.slimspresents.com

DTF Fridays @ Port Bar, Oakland Various DJs play house music, and a few hotties gogo dance at the new gay bar’s weekly event. 9pm-2am.

2023 Broadway. (510) 823-2099. www.portbaroakland.com

Thu 22

Matt Alber @ Swedish American Hall

Sex and the City Live @ Oasis D’Arcy Drollinger, Sue Casa and crew return for the sixth year of the drag parody version of the hit HBO series. $25-$35. Wed 7pm. Thu 8pm. Fri & Sat 7pm. Thru July 1. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Show Me Your Pride @ Finn Town The popular new Castro restaurant goes supergay with drag hostesses (Mercedez Munro, Sister Roma, Ruby Red Monro, Whitney Skye Paterson, Pride-themed meals, cocktails movies and music.

Cover charge. Nightly thru June 25.

10:30pm-2am. 2251 Market St. www.finntownsf.com

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle Music night with local and touring bands. $8. 9:30pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Bear Happy Hour @ Midnight Sun

Electroluxx @ Public Works

Hairy men and their pals enjoy 2-for-1 drinks and no cover. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Bearracuda @ Folsom Street Foundry Underwear Pride and Growlr party for bears and their pals, with DJs Paul Goodyear and Ryan Jones. $15. 9pm3am. 1425 Folsom St. www.bearracuda.com

Sat 24

La Bota Loca’s pre-Pride party @ Club 21, Oakland

Big dance party with multiple stages and DJs, including Juanita MORE!, Sergio Fedasz, Prince Wolf, John Major, Superinto.It, Alex Kane, and more; performers and art experiences, body and face painting, cuddle puddle, drag acts, etc. $15-$40.

161 Erie St. www.electroluxx.co

Every Body @ BaoDown GastroBar Glamamore and DJ Downey’s two-night dragstravaganza, with Fauxnique, Rahni, Katya SmirnoffSkky and many more. $15-$30.

9pm-1am. Also June 24. 648 Bush St. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/everybody-tickets-32905928518

Gogo Fridays @ Toad Hall Hot dancers grind it at the Castro bar with a dance floor and patio. 4146 18th St. www.toadhallbar.com

Happy Friday @ Midnight Sun The popular video bar ends each work week with hot gogo guys (starting at 9pm) and drink specials; also Saturday nights. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Gayface @ El Rio Queer weekly night out at the popular Mission bar. 9pm-2am. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Hard Fridays @ Qbar Rick Gerharter

Lexington Events presents a Pride kickoff party with local digital and photo artists Meg Allen, Katie Bush, Daniela Dee, Asia Hassan, Keep Drowning,

Queer Pride Friday women’s night with DJs Jenna Riot, Skylar Love, Yo Yolie Jazmine Vieria. $10-$12. 8pm2am. 3225 22nd St. www.makeoutroom.com

Drag-a-ganza Film Fest @ Great American Music Hall

Weekly DJed sex party with Latin videos and musics, free salsa bar, half-price lockers, at the famed South Bay bath house. 4pm-12am. 1010 The Alameda, San Jose. www.thewatergarden.com

Glamour Shots @ Virgil’s Sea Room

Deep Moan @ Make Out Room

DH Haute Toddy’s weekly electro-pop night with hotty gogos. $3. 9pm-2am (happy hour 4pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

See page 80 >>

<< On the Tab

80 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

On the Tab

From page 79

Hella Gay Comedy @ Club OMG Pride edition of the joke night, with host Nasty Ass Bitch. $15. 7pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Hellbound @ Danzhaus DJs Salazar and Franko Salvatore spin grooves at the sexy dance and sex party, with porn actors, gogos and play space. $30-$60. 9pm-4am.

1275 Connecticut St. www.xxxpartysf.com

iCandy @ The Cafe Gus Presents’ weekly dance night, with DJ Deft, cute gogos and $2 beer (before 10pm). RuPaul’s Drag Race viewings at 8pm. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Latin Explosion/Club Papi @ Club 21, Oakland Maria Jose performs live at the prePride party; the Latin dance night also includes drag acts hosted by Lola and Dorys, with half a dozen gogo studs. $10-$20. 9pm-3am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

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Love Rocks @ The Chapel The cool Mission nightclub’s Pride dance party, with DJ Rockaway. No cover. 9pm-2am. 777 Valencia St. www.thechapelsf.com Tobacco 1.pdf 1 6/6/2016 1:16:09 PM

Manimal @ Beaux Gogo-tastic dance night starts off your weekend. $5. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Steven Underhill

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Midnight Show @ Divas Weekly drag shows at the last transgender-friendly bar in the Polk; with hosts Victoria Secret, Alexis Miranda and several performers. Also Saturdays. $10. 11pm. 1081 Polk St. www.divassf.com

Midsummer Night’s Revel @ Flore

Sat 24

Fundraiser for Groundswell Institute, the NorCal queer retreat center; enjoy live music by Banda Sin Nombre, and DJed dancing. $20-$30. 8pm-11pm.

2298 Market St. groundswell.institute

Pride Brunch @ Hotel Whitcomb

Polyglamorous @ Club 6 The groovy cruisy Pride edition of the popular dance night features DJs Heather, Father Figure, Mark O’Brien, M*J*R and Beya. $30+. 10pm-3am.

60 6th St. www.clubsix1.com

Pound Puppy @ SF Eagle Cruisalicious grooves at the monthly party, this time with a New Orleans theme, guest DJs Bouffant Bouffant, plus residents Craw-Daddys, Taco Tuesday and Kevin O’Connor. $10.

9pm-2am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Red Hots Burlesque @ The Stud

Skate Night @ Church on 8 Wheels

The Soiled Dove @ The Point Alameda

The saucy women’s burlesque show hosted by Dottie Lux will titillate and tantalize. $10-$20. 8pm-9:30pm. 399 9th St. 144 Taylor St. www.redhotsburlesque.com

Groove on wheels at the former Sacred Heart Church-turned disco roller skate party space, hosted by John D. Miles, the “Godfather of Skate.” 7pm-11pm. Also Wed, Thu, 7pm-10pm. Sat afternoon sessions 1pm-2:30pm and 3pm-5:30pm. $10.

Kids 12 and under $5. Skate rentals $5. 554 Fillmore St. at Fell. www.churchof8wheels.com

New circus-themed dinner theatre experience from the Edwardian Ball, New Bohemia and other groups, with live music, aerial acts, all under a beautiful 12,000 square foot circus tent from Tortona, Italy. $50-$130. Fri & Sat 7:30pm. Thru July 1. 2001 Ferry Point, Alameda. www.thesoileddove.com

Shenanigans @ Oasis The monthly costume party hosts a masked ball, with three dance floors, including a rooftop silent disco. $10$15. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Steam @ Powerhouse The monthly bath house-style cruise night with toweled gogos and wet fun. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Trans March @ Mission Dolores Park Transgender empowermant march and park celebration. 19th & Dolores streets. 12pm-8pm, with related events. www.transmarch.org

Vibe Fridays @ Club BnB, Oakland House music and cocktails, with DJs Shareef Raheim-Jihad and Ellis Lindsey. 9pm-2am. 2120 Broadway.

(510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Sat 24 Afterglow @ Space 550 Comfort & Joy’s celebratory, glowy, sexy 13th annual Pride party features takes on a “Menagerie” theme, with DJs Trever Pearson, Jason Godfrey, Vicki Powell, Jim Hopkins, The Synthe Tigers and more. Performance by Haus of Towers. Chickpea’s glowing décor, full clothes check. Limited $60 tickets at the door. 10pm-6am. 550 Barneveld Ave. www.playajoy.org C

BLUF @ SF Eagle

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Breeches, Leather Uniform Fanclub monthly meetup, with Hot Boots and Bay Area Cigar Buddies. 9pm-2am.

398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

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La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland Pre-Pride dance night at the Latin, hip hop and Electro music night.

9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Bootie SF @ DNA Lounge Resident DJs and guests spin at the mash-up DJ dance party, with four rooms of different sounds and eight DJs. The Monster Drag Show hosted by Sue Casa. $10-$15 and up. 9:30pm3am. 375 11th St. bootiesf.com

Club Rimshot @ Club BNB, Oakland Hip hop and Latin dance club. $5-$15.

9pm to 4am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Dyke March @ Market Street/Castro Annual lesbian empowerment march.

5pm-8pm. 18th St. at Dolores. www.thedykemarch.org

Kool Aid @ The Endup Women’s party with DJs Lady Ryan, Miss Jackson and more. $10-$35.

1pm-9pm. 401 6th St. www.theendupsf.com T his advertis ement was made pos s ible by funds received from the C alifornia T obacco C ontrol P rogram, under C ontract No. 15-10244 TriCityHealth_BAR_062316.indd 1

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On the Tab>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 81

Beer Bust @ Lone Star Saloon

Hard French▼s Los Homos VII @ Mezzanine

Beer, bears, beats at the weekly fundraiser. June 11 benefits Bears of San Francisco. $15. 4pm-8pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Music icons Ronnie Spector and The Ronettes perform at the seventh annual popular big Pride party, with DJs from Creature, Club Lonely, Mango, Gays H8 Techno and more. $20-$60. 3pm-11pm. 444 Jessie St. www.hardfrench.com

Big Top @ Beaux Enjoy an extra weekend night at the fun Castro nightclub, plus hot local DJs and sexy gogo guys and gals. $8.

9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.

Beauxsf.com

Blessed @ Port Bar, Oakland Carnie Asada’s fun drag night with Carnie’s Angels – Mahlae Balenciaga and Au Jus, plus DJ Ion. 2023 Broadway. www.portbaroakland.com

Disco Daddy @ SF Eagle DJ Bus Station John’s special extra Pride edition of the retro-fabulous T-dance with a special Hi-NRgy ‘80s groove. $5-$7. 7pm-12am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

DJ Heather at Polyglamorous @ Club 6

Jungle: Pride @ The Armory

Reach @ Oasis

Singer Betty Who headlines Audrey Joseph and Brian Kent’s massive dance party in the drill court, with DJs Pagano, Danny Verde, Wayne G, Paul Goodyear and Seth Breezy; gogo dancers, drinks and a blazing light show; VIP rooms upstairs in the stylish Upper Room. $50$150. 9pm-4am. 333 14th St. www.prideatthearmory.com

Seventh annual Pride T-dance from the Real Bad folks. $30. 3pm-8pm.

298 11th St. www.realbad.org www.sfoasis.com

Locoya Hill’s late night Pride party, with DJs Russ Rich and Sex Shooters. $20. 3am-9am. 715 Harrison St. www.locoyahill.com

Lips and Lashes Brunch @ Lookout

Saturgay @ Qbar Stanley Frank spins house dance remixes at the intimate Castro dance bar. $3. 9pm-2am (weekly beer bust 2pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Shake It Up @ Port Bar, Oakland DJ Lady Char spins dance grooves; gogo studs, and drink specials, too.

9pm-2am. 2023 Broadway. (510) 8232099. www.portbaroakland.com

Pride T-dance edition of the queerinclusive East Bay party, with DJs Diva Danielle, NeonBunny, Tracer, Denise and others. $5-$10. 3pm9pm. 1743 San Pablo ave., Oakland. thenewparish.com/

Domingo De Escandal @ Club OMG Weekly Latin night with drag shows hosted by Vicky Jimenez and DJ Carlitos. (Comedy Open Mic 5:30pm).

7pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Femme Brunch @ Balancoire Weekly live music shows with various acts, along with brunch buffet, bottomless Mimosas, champagne and more, at the stylish nightclub and restaurant, with live entertainment and DJ Shawn P. $15-$20. 11am-3pm. After that, Femme T-Dance drag shows at 7pm, 10pm and 11pm. 2565 Mission St. at 21st. 920-0577. balancoiresf.com

Pride T-dance with disco grooves. $5. 3pm-9pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Sat 24

DJ Shiva at Pride Saturday @ The Stud

Heklina hosts the fun drag show with weekly themes. Pride Eve special guest is hunky hip hop singer Cazwell!

DJ MC2 spins dance grooves before and after the show. $15. 10pm-3am (11:30pm show). 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Pink Pop-up Pride Party @ St. Francis Lutheran Church

Sugar @ The Cafe

Pride celebration at the intimate nightclub. $7. 3pm-9pm, followed by Summertime Madness ($10-$20, 9pm2am). 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Pride Brunch @ Hotel Whitcomb Donna Sachet and Gary Virginia cohost their 19th annual brunch fundraiser, honoring SF Pride grand marshals; with delish food, drinks, live entertainment and silent auction items. Proceeds benefit Positive Resource Center. $75 and up. 11am. 1231 Market St. www.donnasachet.com DJ Shiva and Noncompliant get CMdYKe spin rainbow grooves. $10$20. 10pm-4am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

DJs Lucky, Paul, and Phengren Osward spin 60s soul 45s. $5-$10 ($5 off in semi-formal attire). 10pm-2am. 647 Valencia St. 552-7788. www.elbo.com Dance, drink, cruise at the Castro club, with DJs Gay Marvine, and Matthew XO. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Sundance Saloon @ Hotel Whitcomb

Pride Pool Party @ Oasis Flashback 1977 @ The Cinch Enjoy a Pride Day retro party, with 70s disco grooves, food, prizes, best dressed ‘77 contest, and more. 3pm8pm. 1723 Polk St. www.cinchsf.com

GlamaZone @ The Cafe Pollo del Mar’s weekly drag show takes on different themes with a comic edge. 8:30-11:30pm. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Recall the old Oasis pool days at a post-Pride party, with a baby pool on the deck. No cover. 1pm-6pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Queer Tango @ Finnish Hall, Berkeley Same-sex partner tango dancing, including lessons for newbies, food and drinks. $5-$10. 3:30pm-6:30pm.

1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley. www.finnishhall.org

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room The weekly fabulous brunch and drag show, now celebrating its tenth anniversary. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.starlightroomsf.com

Mon 26 Comedy Kiki @ The Stud Jesus U Bettawork and Justin Lucas cohosts the monthly (post-Pride) gay gigglefest. 8pm. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Epic Karaoke @ White Horse, Oakland Mondays and Tuesdays popular weekly sing-along night. No cover.

8:30pm-1am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Karaoke Night @ SF Eagle Sing along, with host Beth Bicoastal, prizes, local celeb judges, and $2 draft beer. 8pm-12am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

See page 82 >>

The Country-Western line-dancing twostepping dance events celebrates Pride with two nights of fun Free, including lessons for newbies. June 24 (7:30pm12am), June 25 at Civic Center, Golden Gate/Larkin (11am-6pm), June 25 at Hotel Whitcomb (6pm-10pm, $8). 1231 Market St. at 8th. sundancesaloon.org

Sun 25 Academy of Friends Pride Party @ Equinox Enjoy a great view above the Pride parade, an open bar, DJed music, sexy gogo hunks, gift bags and food and the luxury gym’s penthouse. $50 and up. 10:30am-4:30pm. 747 Market St. www.academyoffriends.org

Sat 24

Afterglow @ Space 550

PhotoByDot

Pride Saturday @ The Stud

No cover at the nearby nightclub; 11am-9pm, followed by Domingo de Escandalo ($5-$10, 9pm-2am). 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Suppositori Spelling and Paul Goodyear DJ an irreverent post-Pride shindig. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Soul Party @ Elbo Room

Pink Saturday @ Club OMG

Pride Daytime @ Club OMG

Pride Party @ Lone Star Saloon

Weekly dance night with nearly naked gogo guys & gals; DJs Chad Bays, Ms. Jackson, Becky Know and Jorge T. $4.

9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Enjoy food, refreshments, beer, wine open mic, eclectic art sale and live music. Free. 2:30pm-5:30pm. 152 Church St. at Market.

Ronnie Spector at Hard French ▼s Los Homos VII @ Mezzanine

Trixxie Carr hosts a night of drag and vogue fabulousness, with Honey Mahogany, Hollow Eve, Vinyl DeVille, Noveli, RoseGold, Conandrum. $10.

8pm-1am. 777 Valencia St. www.thechapelsf.com

Mother @ Oasis

Nitty Gritty @ Beaux

Sun 25

Pride! @ The Chapel

Weekly show with soul, funk and Motown grooves hosted by Carnie Asada, with DJs Becky Knox and Pumpkin Spice. The yummy brunch menu starts at 12pm, with the show at 1:30pm. 3600 16th St. lookoutsf.com

Love Hangover @ Lone Star Saloon

One of the most popular post-Pride events, with DJed grooves by Christy Love, Onehalf Nelson, John Fucking Cartwright and John Walker, drag acts Princess Diandra, Miss Rahni and Nicki Jizz as “Labelle,” all with a scenic outdoor patio; proceeds benefit The Q Foundation and the LGBT Asylum Project. $35 and up. 12pm-10pm. 620 Jones St. www.juanitamore.com

The 47th annual LGBTQ Priude events include the parade from Embarcadero along Market Street to 8th Street; Civic Center includes multiple dance stages, booths food and drinks (proof of age required for alcohol). Mainstage performers include Cazwell, Betty Who, Ronnie Spector, Boyfriend, Hym, David Hernandez, Amber Field and many others; cohosts Marga Gomez, Jef Valentine and Nancy French. Donations. 11am-6pm. Also Saturday June 24, with cohosts Honey Mahogany and Sister Roma, with Honey Soundsystem, Mvmnt, Cheer SF, Micahtron and others (12pm-6pm). www.sfpride.org

Disco Donutz @ The New Parish, Oakland

Fri 23

Locoya’s Circus @ City Nights

Juanita MORE!’s Pride Party @ Jones

SF Pride Celebration @ Market St. and Civic Center

<< On the Tab

82 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

<<

On the Tab

From page 81

The Kinsey Sicks @ Oasis The hilarious dragapella quartet performs their saucy funny show, Things You Shouldn’t Say! $25-$35.

7:30pm. Also June 27 & 28. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Mister Sister @ Midnight Sun

Musical Mondays @ The Edge

RuPaul’s Drag Race review night, with Honey Mahogany, Dulce de Leche and Carnie Asada. No cover.

10pm. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Sing along at the popular musical theatre night; also Wednesdays. 7pm2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing.

4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

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No No Bingo @ Virgil’s Sea Room Mica Sigourney and Tom Temprano cohost the wacky weekly game night at the cool Mission bar. 8pm. 3152 Mission St. www.virgilssf.com Weekly dance night, with Jocques, DJs Tori, Twistmix and Andre. 9pm-2am.

2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni’s

Steven Underhill

Opulence @ Beaux

Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht.

9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Spanglish @ Club OMG Spanish and English drag shows and dance music with DJ Carlitos. $5-$10.

9pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Underwear Night @ 440 Strip down to your skivvies at the popular men’s night. 9pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. www.the440.com

Sun 25

SF Pride Celebration: VIP City Hall Party

Tue 27 Bandit @ Lone Star Saloon Weekly queer event with resident DJ Justime; electro, soul, funk, house.

No cover. 9pm-1am. 1354 Harrison St. www.facebook.com/BanditPartySF www.lonestarsf.com

Cock Shot @ Beaux Shot specials and adult Bingo games, with DJs Chad Bays and Riley Patrick, at the new weekly night. No cover.

9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Game Night @ Midnight Sun Video game fun, Wheel O’ Cocktails, and board games. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Game Night @ SF Eagle Board games, card games and cheap beer. 4pm-2am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Hella Saucy @ Q Bar Queer dance party at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

High Fantasy @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Weekly drag and variety show, with live acts and lip-synching divas, plus DJed grooves. $5. Shows at 10:30pm & 12am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Hysteria Comedy @ Martuni’s Open mic for women and queer comics, with host Irene Tu, Tess Barry, Dom Gelin and Wonder Dave. 6pm8pm. 4 Valencia St.

Karaoke Night @ The Stud Sing Till It Hurts with hostess Sister Flora; 2 for 1 happy hour, no cover.

8pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Strip down with the strippers at the clothing-optional night. $20. 9pm.

729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Retro Night @ 440 Castro Jim Hopkins plays classic pop oldies, with vintage music videos. 9pm-2am.

44 Castro St. www.the440.com

Stag @ Powerhouse Cruisy night for single and couples looking for a third. $3 Jagermeister shots will get you in trouble, the fun kind. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Trivia Night @ Hi Tops Play the trivia game at the popular new sports bar. 9pm. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Trivia Night @ Port Bar, Oakland Cranny hosts a big gay trivia night at the new East Bay bar; drinks specials and prizes. 7:30pm. 2023 Broadway. www.portbaroakland.com

Una Noche @ Club BnB, Oakland Vicky Jimenez’ drag show and contest; Latin music all night. 9pm-2am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Underwear Night @ Club OMG Weekly underwear night includes free clothes check, and drink specials. $4.

10pm-2am. Preceded by Open Mic Comedy, 7pm, no cover. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Wed 28 Bondage-a-Gogo @ The Cat Club The weekly gay/straight/whatever fetish-themed kinky dance night. $7$10. 9:30pm-2:30am. 1190 Folsom St. www.bondage-a-go-go.com www.catclubsf.com

Bottoms Up Bingo @ Hi Tops Play board games and win offbeat prizes at the popular sports bar. 9pm.

2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

B.P.M. @ Club BnB, Oakland Olga T and Shugga Shay’s weekly queer women and men’s R&B hip hop and soul night, at the club’s new location. No cover. 8pm-2am. 2120 Broadway, Oakland. www.bench-and-bar.com

Comedy Showcase @ SF Eagle Kollin Holtz hosts the open mic comedy night. 5:30pm-8pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Girl Scout @ Port Bar, Oakland The weekly women’s happy hour and dance night with DJ Becky Knox. 6pm10pm. 2023 Broadway. www.portbaroakland.com

Juicy @ Club OMG New weekly women’s event at the intimate Mid-market nightclub, with DJ Micah Tron. 9pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Steven Underhill

Sun 25

SF Pride Celebration: Parade

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On the Tab>>

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 83

Hush Hush @ The Stud

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni’s

Nap’s Karaoke @ Virgil’s Sea Room

Weekly guided tour of bars. $10$18. Meet at Harvey Milk Plaza, 7:45pm. Also morning historic tours on Mon, Wed, & Sat. www. wildsftours.com

Second anniversary of the monthly reading series at the famed martini bar, with Baruch Porras-Hernandez, Joe Wadlington, Dawn Oberg, Jase Peeples, Christine No, Andrena Zawinski and host James J. Siegel. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Sing out loud at the weekly least judgmental karaoke in town, hosted by the former owner of the bar. No cover. 9pm. 3152 Mission St. 8292233. www.virgilssf.com

Miss Kitty’s Trivia Night @ Wild Side West

Mary Go-Round @ Lookout

Performance party; dress up, dance and melt down! With Silk worm and Brittany Smearz. 7pm-10pm.

399 9th St. www.studsf.com

LGBT Pub Crawl @ Castro

The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted

by Kitty Tapata. No cover. 7pm10pm. 424 Cortland St. 647-3099. www.wildsidewest.com

Pan Dulce @ Beaux

Sun 25

SF Pride Celebration: Faerie Freedom Village

Po Hoe @ Powerhouse Nikki Jizz offers cheap drinks and cheaper men. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Wrangler Wednesdays @ Rainbow Cattle Company, Guerneville Wear your jeans and meet new folks at the Russian River gay bar. 16220 Main St., Guerneville. www.queersteer.com

Thu 29 Gym Class @ Hi Tops Enjoy whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular sports bar.

10pm-2am. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Kick It @ DNA Lounge Kandi Love, Northcore Collective and Plus Alliance’s weekly EDM, flow arts dance night, with DJs; glow drag encouraged. $5-$10.

9pm-2am. 375 11th St. www.dnalounge.com

Steven Underhill

The hot weekly Latin dance night with sexy gogo guys, drag divas and more, returns to the Castro, with Club Papi’s Frisco Robbie and Fabian Torres. $5 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Mercedez Munro and Holotta Tymes present saucy and unusual drag acts. $5.

10pm-2am. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge The weekly drag show with host Sue Casa, DJ MC2, themed nights and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

My So-Called Night @ Beaux Carnie Asada hosts a weekly ‘90s-themed video, dancin’, drinkin’ night, with VJs Jorge Terez. Get down with your funky bunch, and enjoy 90cent drinks. ‘90s-themed attire and costume contest. No cover. 9pm-2am.

2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Throwback Thursdays @ Qbar Enjoy retro 80s soul, dance and pop classics with DJ Jorge Terez. No cover.

9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland Weekly electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm-2am.

6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle Music night with local and touring bands, usually fun, loud rock & roll. $8. 9:30pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com Want your nightlife event listed?

Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event.

Event photos welcome.

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

84 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

What is leather and kink pride?

Rich Stadtmiller

For the 22nd time the Leather Pride contingent will march in this year’s Pride Parade, as they did here in 2015.

by Race Bannon

P

ride is upon us. While some cities have already celebrated this year and some will celebrate after we do, this coming weekend is our big San Francisco set of events. Please everyone, have gobs of fun, be safe, and watch out for each other.

I’ve written about pride before, and leather pride specifically, but I think in the current national

climate, LGBTQ leatherfolk and kinksters are rightfully concerned.

Perhaps this year’s Pride holds a special significance for many of us.

But what is pride for us as kinky people?

The Macmillan Dictionary defines pride as: (1) a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction that you get when you, or someone connected with you, have achieved something special; (2) a feeling of respect for

Both photos: Daniel Samblanet

Top: The leather pride flag has become the banner representing the leather communities. Here, two participants in 2016’s Pride March hold a Leather flag.

Bottom: Within the leather communities there are subsets of kink pride. This flag held by a Leather Pride contingent marcher in last year’s Pride Parade symbolizes Rubber Pride.

yourself; (3) a feeling that you are better or more important than other people; or (4) a group of lions.

Which definition applies to us?

Let’s eliminate number 4 since, well, we’re not lions. Number 3 feels entirely arrogant and off-putting. A case could be made for number 1, but is it really all that noble to honor achieving something (well yes, sometimes)? So that leaves us with number 2.

Yes! That’s what resonates with me when we talk about leather and kink pride. A sense of respect for ourselves, including a respect for ourselves collectively, as LGBTQ and kinky. Fully embracing and respecting our sexual proclivities and erotic identities, both individually and as a set of tightly integrated kink communities, is what I think pride is for us kinky folks. At least that’s the definition that works for me.

Leather pride isn’t something I ever really thought much about when I entered the scene in the early 1970s.

The concept really didn’t come up much at all until the late, great Tony DeBlase presented his design for the leather pride flag at the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago in 1989. His design has stood the test of time and has been widely adopted as our scene’s ubiquitous banner.

(For more about the history of the Leather Pride flag, visit: www.leatherarchives.org/pride.html) From the moment DeBlase offered us the flag, leather pride as a communal experience has grown in prevalence and is now a solidified idea among our kind. But like so many things in life, just because something’s an accepted norm doesn’t mean everyone agrees on what it means. Ask 100 people what leather/kink pride means to them and you might get 100 different answers.

When I’ve asked people what leather or kink pride means to them, the answers varied. Freedom.

Family. Authenticity. Brother/sisterhood. Acceptance. Liberation.

However, pride as having a feeling of respect for yourself, and by extension for other kinksters, is likely something we can all agree on.

At least I hope so. I think having respect to some extent encapsulates all those other reasons.

For those who might wish to express their leather or kink pride by walking in the Pride Parade on Sun-

day, June 25, there is a Leather Pride contingent you can join.

If you’d like to march with them, they’re lining up at Mission and Spear Streets. Their parade lineup position is 50, which is close to the front of the parade, considering the parade’s size. Be there no later than 10:00 a.m. with a projected step-off o n to the Market Street parade route around 11:00 a.m.

This is the 22nd year that the San Francisco Leather Pride Contingent has walked in the parade. The contingent represents all leather, fetish, sex-positive and motorcycle groups in the Bay Area. They welcome the entire range of diversity within those groups. If you’re a leather or kink person visiting from another city, you’re also welcomed to walk with the contingent.

Another way to experience leather camaraderie during the Pride Festival itself is to visit Leather Alley. Leather Alley describes itself as envisioning community and education simultaneously. The Alley happens on the Sunday of the Pride Parade from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and it’s an entire block long, on

t

Hyde Street between Golden Gate and McAllister, within the Pride Festival grounds.

The Alley is for anyone from the leather or kink communities or anyone interested in or curious about leather, BDSM, kink or fetish. The space allows people to come together and spend time with experienced scene members to foster friendship and family in a safe and supportive environment, and to provide access and information for newcomers to the scene.

You can go to the Alley to hang out and relax during or after the San Francisco Pride Parade with others from the kink/leather/fetish community in a casual, bar-like setting.

Educational demonstrations take place there as well.

While expressing our pride at this time of year is awesome, the truest expression of pride might be regularly engaging with our leather/kink communities and showing up at our venues, events and gatherings. Pride events might punctuate our sense of pride, but nothing beats seeing each other face-to-face and socializing, bonding and playing. Let’s all try to do more of that.

Cleve and Race at LDG

Finally, regarding the national climate we now find ourselves in and the quite real threat it poses to our LGBTQ and sexuality rights, I’d like to do something I rarely do and promote an event at which I’ll be featured. I don’t think you can talk about pride without learning how to best foster a political environment in which our pride can thrive.

On Wednesday, June 28, I will be interviewing the remarkable human rights activist and leader Cleve Jones for this month’s San Francisco Leathermen’s Discussion Group (LDG). This month’s LDG gathering will be held at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center at 1800 Market Street at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7:00 p.m.

Many will remember Cleve Jones most recently as the author of his acclaimed When We Rise autobiography that also partly inspired the ABC miniseries of the same name in which Cleve’s life was featured as a main character. The LDG event is titled “First They Came for the Muslims and We Said ‘Not Today Motherfucker.’”

While it’s sometimes easy for us in the Bay Area to take for granted the freedoms we enjoy as leatherfolk and kinksters, as well as being LGBTQ, our freedom didn’t fall

Mr. Marcus

Leather trailblazer Tony DeBlase presented his design for a leather pride flag during the International Mr. Leather 1989 contest in Chicago.

t

Read more online at www.ebar.com

Famed human rights leader and activist Cleve Jones will be interviewed at this month’s San Francisco Leathermen’s Discussion Group event.

into our laps. It was fought for and those struggles continue today. We could easily lose many of the rights we’ve gained if we aren’t diligent and engaged in both local and national politics.

We have resisted many enemies to our LGBTQ, leather and kink cultures, but none quite like those represented by the occupants of the White House today and those who have put their own agenda before both their party and their country by propping them up.

During the interview, I will discuss with Cleve the issues facing us today and elicit from him stories about how the LGBTQ community has succeeded in standing up for itself and others, and how we can best galvanize and resist those enemy forces we face today.

I hope to see many of my readers there.

Have a great Pride! Be out.

Be proud. Be visible. And as Ellen DeGeneres is always fond of saying, “be kind to one another.”t

Race Bannon is a local author, blogger and activist.

You can reach him on his website, www.bannon.com.

Leather Events,

June 23 – July 7, 2017 Fri 23

Mon 26

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club

Ride Mondays @ Eros

Officially a CMA meeting, but open to all Anonymous 12-step Fellowship members, 4058 18th St., 9:30pm. www.castrocountryclub.org

A motorcycle rider and leathermen night at Eros, bring your helmet, AMA card, MC club card or club colors and get $3 off entry or massage. 2051 Market St. www.erossf.com

Gear Party @ 442 Natoma

Wed 28

Gear play party (leather, rubber, harnesses, etc.) for gay men.

442 Natoma St., $15 (requires $5 membership), 10pm. www.442parties.com

Sat 24 Clean & Sober Pride Munch @ Wicked Grounds Gathering for all local clean and sober kinksters and especially all folks visiting San Francisco for pride weekend. 289 8th St., 6-8pm. www.wickedgrounds.com

GearUp Weekend Pre-Pride Play Party @ SF Catalyst Black is the New Pink’ at the friendly erotic space where kinky men can socialize with, learn from and play with other men.

1060 Folsom St., $20, 8pm-12am. www.gearupweekend.com

Sun 25 Leather Pride Contingent @ SF Pride Parade

Leathermen’s Discussion Group @ SF LGBT Community Center Cleve Jones, with the timely release of his memoir When We Rise and the TV miniseries adapted from the book, talks with Race Bannon and inspires with conversation and stories about the gay community’s success standing up for itself and others. 1800 Market St. Doors at 7pm, program at 7:30pm. www.sfldg.org

Leather/Gear/Underwear Buddies @ Blow Buddies Erotic fun for leather, gear and underwear guys, $15, 933 Harrison St., 8pm. www.blowbuddies.com

Fri 30 Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club See Fri 23

Gear Party @ 442 Natoma See Fri 23

March with the contingent in the San Francisco Pride Parade.

Information is on the website. www.sfleather.org

Sun 2

Leather Alley @ SF Pride Festival

Help support the annual LeatherWalk. 398 12th St., 3-6pm. www.sf-eagle.com

Leather Alley envisions community and education simultaneously. Leather Alley is an entire block long – Hyde Street between Golden Gate and McAllister, just one block off the main plaza. 11am-6pm. www.leatheralliance.org/ education/leather-alley-at-pride

LeatherWalk Beer Bust @ SF Eagle

Mon 3 Ride Mondays @ Eros See Mon 26

Fri 7 Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club See Fri 23

Gear Party @ 442 Natoma See Fri 23

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 85

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

86 • Bay Area Reporter • June 22-28, 2017

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Porn Pride Adam Killian returns to sex up The Nob Hill Theatre

by Cornelius Washington

A

dam Killian is God’s greatest gift to pornography. Instead of my creating a long, drawn-out preamble, I’ve decided to operate in the bare, naked facts. I went to the owners of the iconic Nob Hill Theater, to get their official statement on why they continue such a fruitful relationship with the man with whom all of gay erotica wants to work.

“Adam Killian is once again our Gay Pride headliner,” said Nob Hill Theatre reps. “Not only is Adam one hot sexy man, he always brings new hot talent with him so that they can perform together at the 10PM shows. Adam thinks about his performances from the patrons’ point of view.

He has a sense about what a customer wants to see and develops a performance from their perspective. He thinks about the lighting, props and costumes, in addition to the performance itself. The result is one fantastic show that keeps our patrons wanting more. Gay Pride at the Nob Hill Theatre is Adam Killian! We always look forward to his return.”

Cornelius Washington: Welcome back to The Nob Hill Theatre! What will you bring to this engagement’s performances that will set the stage on fire?

Adam Killian: Carlos Lindo!

Please describe your most intense live performance.

That would have to be The Roseland Ballroom, when I did a full XXX man-on-man aerial sex show, fifty feet above the center of

you think that is?

How do you prepare yourBecause I slay! self to perform live?

I breathe. I stretch. I eat.

I can completely see you

directing a commercial for some How do you care for yourgay-specific underwear/active self after live performances? wear brand. Whose commercials I breathe. I stretch. I eat. would you like to direct?

(Laughs) My own. I plan on coming out

Where do you think live with an underwear line called erotic performances should Husbros. It’s in process.

go, in the 21st century?

What current gay male porn Multimedia. We are working star intrigues you? on broadcasting the shows this Carlos Lindo. We’ve been year live on Flirt4Free.com. shooting our own stuff for the

past month, and possibly work You were born and raised with other companies, too (to be outside of the Bay Area. What determined). do you miss about it?

The weather and the more relaxed attitudes of the West Coast.

The last time we talked, you had just moved to Harlem, New York, and were with Lucas Entertainment. Please give my readers an update.

I’m still in Harlem. I’m not working full-time for Lucas anymore, but I’ve Cornelius Washington just shot a couple of scenes for his company in Puerto Adam Killian at a recent Vallarta last week.

Nob Hill Theatre performance.

As one of the most virthe dance floor, during Black Party tuosic people in the porn NYC. I only had two weeks to learn industry, where do you see how to even do an aerial act. I had the future of porn, during the to learn the techniques needed Trump administration? to climb, wrap, unravel, etcetera.

I see Eastern European pissYou literally hold your life in your ing videos making a surge. hands, and with that stress, put on

a hot sex show, above thousands of No one balances eroticism half-naked horny men.

Adam Killian and Carlos Lindo and high-end costuming No pressure. (Laughs) better than you. Why do

What apps do you rock?

IG, Twitter, Scruff and Grindr.

Are you currently dating anyone?

Carlos basically moved in after the first night we met.

What current song makes you want to have sex?

“Breathe Heavy” will probably be one of the show songs this year, and definitely a few by Ariana Grande.

Your relationship with The Nob Hill Theatre is very unique.

What do you think that the owners get right, where so many others get it so wrong?

They moved in, and Gary started cracking the whip (or, maybe, that was Larry’s knee). They’ve made quality improvements, from upgrading the lighting, sound, stage props, play areas, performers, advertising and lots of sweat, tears and elbow grease (again, Larry on his knees).

The first picture that I have up on that wall is from 1998.... (about the same time you and I met in the hot, swampy, decadent air of New Orleans). I cherish my long-lived relationships with the history, rich perspective and friendships with which they’ve blessed me.t

Adam Killian & Carlos Lindo: the porn studs perform solo and duo shows with interactive sexy fun. $30. 8pm & 10pm. Also June 25 & 25. Nob Hill Theatre, 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

t

Read more online at www.ebar.com

June 22-28, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 87

Shining Stars Steven Underhill Photos by

Broadway Bares II @ DNA Lounge

A

packed nightclub and dozens of beautiful, sexy dancers and singers stripped down at the second San Francisco edition of Broadway Bares. Titled ManuStript, each number took on a literary theme, from Gone With the Wind to Games of Thrones, Harry Potter and Zorro. Steve Grand, Cassandra Cass, Mercedez Munro, and cast members from Hamilton were among the highlights, along with the ultra-sexy after-show cash tip session, where patrons added to the estimated $50,000 raised for the Richmond/Ermet Aid Foundation and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. www.reaf.org www.dnalounge.com More photo albums are on BARtab’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at www.StevenUnderhill.com.

Read more online at www.ebar.com

April 27-May 3, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 87

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For headshots, portraits or to arrange your wedding photos

call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com or email stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com