June 24, 2021 edition of the Bay Area Reporter, America's highest circulation LGBTQ newspaper

Judge recounts outing

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Vol. 51 • No. 25 • June 24-30, 2021

No parade, but SF gears up for post-reopening Pride weekend Alex U. Inn, left, at podium, welcomed attendees to last year’s People’s March and Rally at Civic Center Plaza.

by John Ferrannini

F

or the second year in a row, there won’t be an official Pride parade up Market Street this year. But there is by no means a dearth of activities for revelers and activists alike in San Francisco this weekend to commemorate the annual anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots.

The urban global village stage powered by

Soul of Pride will be setting up on 18th Street, between Collingwood and Castro streets, Saturday, June 26, at 12:30 p.m., according to Joshua Smith, the co-producer of the stage.

This event is independent of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, though the stage is usually at the Civic Center celebration that occurred in pre-pandemic times.

The stage will be in front of the GLBT His-

torical Society Museum, Smith said, and there will be DJs, masters of ceremonies, community speakers, and “a number of community villages and stages from SF Pride” including people from the women’s stage and Club Papi.

“We encourage people to be aware of mask mandates that may be there,” Smith said. “We encourage people to mask if they can’t socially distance to protect our community’s most marginalized members.”

Smith said that things will wrap up by 6:30 p.m., when that stretch of 18th Street reopens to traffic. He stressed that “this is a Black and Brown-led stage and the global stage has always been about holding space for Black and Brown folks in the Castro who have been ‘othered,’ which is one of the reasons we’ve brought this stage on Pride weekend.”

See page 34 >> John Ferrannini

The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives in West Hollywood is currently open only to researchers.

LGBTQ CA archives reopen their doors

Courtesy Mazer Archives

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

hould the COVID-19 pandemic remain in retreat through the summer then the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives in West Hollywood should be welcoming a female researcher from France this September who is coming across the pond to conduct research among its holdings. It is also eying a fall opening for a new exhibit about lesbian magazine Curve.

The publication’s founder, Frances “Franco” Stevens, had donated the magazine’s archival material in 2010 when she sold it to Avalon Media in Sydney, Australia. (She recently bought it back.) Her wife Jen Rainin, the CEO of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation named after her father, granted the Mazer $10,000 to process the Curve Collection.

It allowed for the 40-year-old Southern California archival center, initially founded in OakSee page 28 >>

San Francisco sex club Eros is now open every day.

Gay sex venues return

Matthew S. Bajko

by John Ferrannini

P

atrons showing up to take a dip in the hot tub or sweat in the saunas of Steamworks Baths in Berkeley last weekend may have seen something they haven’t witnessed in a while – long lines of men stretching out the door.

“I know for sure on Thursday [June 17] we had one for over 12 hours,” Curtis Jensen, Steamworks’ marketing and graphics coordinator, told the Bay Area Reporter June 21.

“We had a really good weekend.”

Reach the largest audience of San Francisco consumers with just one phone call.

See page 45 for more info, or call 415.829.8937.

Steamworks and San Francisco’s Eros are the last gay sex venues that were left to reopen when California Governor Gavin Newsom gave the all-clear last week; San Francisco’s Blow Buddies and San Jose’s the Watergarden were forced to shutter permanently due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But something that gay bathhouses and sex clubs offer that apps like Grindr lack is the in-person experience, Jensen said, a difference that mirrors how much of society has lived for the past year and their reentry into physical interaction now.

See page 12 >>

<< Pride 2021

2 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

t

San Francisco LGBTQs flock to Palm Springs

by Sari Staver

W

ith an hour-plus commute to his executive assistant job at a tech company on the Peninsula, Chuck Gutro was longing to eliminate the time on the road.

But when the city shut down in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gutro (known to many by his drag name, Mutha Chucka) realized he really didn’t want to stay cooped up in his San Francisco walkup, where he’d already spent a year recovering from a bout of cardiomyopathy.

The 59-year-old gay man, who had a regular gig at the Midnight Sun, realized that with funds from stock options, he could afford a home in either the Palm Springs area or Sacramento.

He spent time in both and, last year, chose the former.

“I decided it was time to cut bait,” he said, and leave his home of several decades.

Gutro found a single family home with a pool in nearby Cathedral City with a mortgage payment “that is less than my rent for a 700 square foot apartment,” he said in a phone interview earlier this month.

“I love it down here,” he said. “I’ve lost 50 pounds and my blood pressure dropped.” He adopted a rescue dog,

which he was unable to do at his San Francisco rental.

“Yes, I miss my friends,” he said, “but I’ll be back for Pride” this year.

“And [longtime friend and fellow drag performer] Heklina is practically my neighbor. It feels like home.

“I usually work outside in the morning until it gets too hot – my days start very early here – the dog gets me up at 5 and we go for a walk and I’m usually in front of the laptop by 7 a.m., working on my day job or digital drag content,” he added. When it was cooler outside, he said, “I could be out there through lunch and into the afternoon.”

Gutro doesn’t miss the city other than his friends and the nightlife: “The magic of living in San Francisco,” he lamented, has disappeared.

Others made the decision to move long before the pandemic hit.

David Wichman, a gay man, had lived in San Francisco “most of the time between 1987 to 2012” when he moved to Palm Springs. In the city, Wichman was a sex worker and dog walker as well as a prolific writer, he said.

Priced out of the housing market in San Francisco, Wichman, 52, moved to Palm Springs after two boyfriends encouraged him to rent a room in their house. Finding that he “loved the weather” and wanted to stay, Wich-

When he returns to the city now, he said, “each time, I realize I miss it less and less.”

“I used to think San Francisco would be my home forever,” he said. “I came to Palm Springs on a whim and a chance and didn’t know if it would last two months – or maybe two years at most – but I feel so at home here now.”

Women moving South too

Courtesy Chuck Gutro

Chuck Gutro, seen as his drag persona, Mutha Chucka, moved to Palm Springs last year.

man bought a home and continued his writing, publishing “Every Grain of Sand” in 2020. He’s now working on a self-help book on men’s sexuality.

In Palm Springs, Wichman works as a massage therapist and, now that travel is possible, is returning to his previous work doing international adventure trips with gay men.

He owns three dogs, has a swimming pool, and “finds I’m happy with what I have, not always striving for more,” like he did as a tenant in San Francisco.

Queer women are moving too, although apparently not at the same rate as gay men.

Jeanne Jennings, 60, who identifies as gender-fluid, packed her bags four years ago after living at San Francisco’s Integral Yoga Institute, where she also taught yoga.

Jennings, a registered nurse who worked in hospice care for decades, made a career change to a less stressful job, doing medical pedicures at home for elderly people.

One of the first to establish such a business in San Francisco, Jennings observed many seniors – including her mom – who had difficulty keeping up their foot care.

After a rigorous study program she designed with the help of medical professionals, Jennings’ business, Lotus Foot Care, grew as she networked with health professionals and regularly updated her online presence.

Happy Pride from the employee owners of Recology

Sari Staver

David Wichman relocated to Palm Springs.

When she decided to make the move to Palm Springs, Jennings opted to return to the city monthly to care for her clients, while her practice down south grew. The plan “has worked really well,” said Jennings, who says her phone “is ringing seven days a week” with people seeking appointments.

“I like the pace in Palm Springs,” said Jennings, who rents a room in a friend’s condo. “In San Francisco, I always felt like I was unable to do enough. I realize I work best in second gear.”

She’s still in love, Jennings added, with “San Francisco’s 55- to 75-degree climate,” as Palm Springs has “100 days over 100 degrees.” Despite the heat, “there’s a feeling of relaxation” in Palm Springs, said Jennings, who enjoys the local LGBTQ entertainment and recently began an informal yoga class in a park near her home.

Arlen Lasater, the longtime owner of Daddy’s Barbershop at 19th and Castro streets in San Francisco, said the pandemic forced his business to close, as the B.A.R. recently reported.

Once the shop was able to reopen, customers came back slowly, he said.

But as demand increased, Lasater found he was unable to find barbers who wanted to work. The shop that had three-hour waits on weekends, prior to the pandemic, was practically empty.

Three years ago, Lasater, a gay man, opened a Daddy’s in downtown Palm Springs, visiting once a month.

When Lasater couldn’t find employees for the Castro shop, he decided it was time to close up and move permanently to Palm Springs, where his shop has eight chairs that are “busy seven days a week,” he said.

When Lasater announced the closure of the San Francisco Daddy’s on Facebook, the response was “overwhelming,” he said. “It brings tears to my eyes. I got over 200 messages from people from all over the world who had visited us.

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll be back in San Francisco someday in another shop,” he added. “But I was really glad I was able to come down here permanently because for me, San Francisco became impossible.”

Until recently, Lasater said Palm Springs was “dead after Memorial Day” when the heat became unbearable for part-time residents. But during the pandemic, gay men from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix came to Palm Springs, and many, like Lasater, have become yearround residents.

“There’s a gigantic gay community” in Palm Springs, he said. “Once I get back on track, my plan is to get involved with the community to do volunteer work. Right now I have a lot of work ahead of me, clearing out the shop and moving equipment down here.”

William (Bill) Vastardis, 65, who worked in financial services and invested in restaurants in San Francisco, wanted to retire in 2016.

“But my phone kept ringing with consulting jobs,” he said.

Vastardis, who is gay, had purchased a vacation home in Palm Springs, See page 35 >>

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<< Pride 2021

4 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

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Gay man brings fresh approach to perfumery

by John Ferrannini

A

Serving the Bay Area

Assemblymember Phil Ting Assemblymember asmdc.org/ting Phil Ting asmdc.org/ting

Assemblymember Assemblymember David Chiu David Chiu asmdc.org/chiu asmdc.org/chiu

As we mark the 50th anniversary of Pride, we are reminded that the fight for equality We are all in this together we reopen continues, and we areasproud toCalifornia be allies and continue to fight for justice and equality in the pursuit of justice. and against hate in all its forms.

It is an honor represent in Sacramento.

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gay Black man seeks to “slash gender norms” in the perfume industry with his fragrance brand as he works to expand online sales.

Nick Yeast II founded the Nick Ricardo Collection – a genderneutral fragrance brand that also seeks to “elevate the narrative of the POC, nonbinary, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individual,” he said.

Speaking to the Bay Area Reporter, the 28-year-old flight attendant said that, for years, he never thought he’d go into making fragrances.

“Fragrances have always been a mood-enhancer for me,” said Yeast, who has a place with his husband in San Francisco. “I’d get compliments for the fragrances that I wore in high school, and that made me feel good, but I never thought I’d get into fragrances until I went to South Korea on a solo trip.”

It was there that the budding scent maker took a fragrance-making class in October 2017.

“I fell in love with the ladies in the shop,” Yeast said. “I made my first bottle at the workshop and wore that fragrance; [and] people complimented me.”

For much of the next year, Yeast then undertook learning the art of perfumery.

“I was so new to all this,” Yeast said. “If you don’t really know, you get the right people in your circle who do know. I had no idea there was such a fragrance community out there.”

As he got into the “nitty-gritty” of developing the right scents for his brand, Yeast learned that “some people make them at home, some studied and some learned the game like I did.”

“Eventually we ended up in the lab with the experts,” Yeast said.

In 2019, the Nick Ricardo Collection was finally released to the public.

“We were in a couple boutiques. I did a launch party in New York and I was at the Taylor Jay Collection in Oakland,” Yeast said. “With the pandemic, and more and more business heading to e-commerce, it made sense to move online because we work with online retailers as well.”

Since the move to sell exclusively online, Yeast said business has not necessarily been better, “but it’s a good, steady presence we have in the fragrance community.”

There are four fragrances in the collection as of now: Onyx, Turbulent, Desire, and Mention. Each costs $64 for a 50ML/1.7oz bottle, and a $1 from every online purchase is donated to the Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project.

“On our website we have our Be You sample collection – a ‘try before you buy’ type thing,” Yeast said.

“It comes with a 15% off discount when you get samples.”

The collection is named after his father, Nick Ricardo Yeast I, who he described as “a baby boomer parent who’s hella supportive of their kid.”

The younger Yeast said that he came out to his father as a teenager in Kentucky and was supported.

“The Yeast family in the sports world is a household name,” the younger Yeast said. “I definitely didn’t beat to that drum.”

The elder Yeast told the B.A.R. that he played college football for Eastern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1982, at the same time the team won championships. He said he shares knowledge of his son’s fra-

Courtesy Nick Yeast II

Nick Yeast II has started his own fragrance line.

grances “everywhere I go and with everyone,” and that he wears them frequently.

“I like the Turbulent,” the elder Yeast said. “But I like every single one of them. I use all of them. I’m happy and I get good comments on all of them.”

The elder Yeast said he’s very proud of his son.

“I’m just proud of Nick,” he said.

“He’s a hardworking young man.

He got his goal set and now he’s doing his thing. Daddy ain’t got no complaints at all. As they say back here, I’m a happy camper.”

The younger Yeast said that he normally lives in San Francisco but, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he went back to Kentucky to help take care of his parents. He said that he is going to come back “now that California is a bit more open.”

Yeast helped start his business with capital from Working Solutions, a community development financial institution, or CDFI. Working Solutions provides financial services, such as lending and coaching to people in marginalized communities, such as the LGBTQ community, who might have a tougher time accessing the needed capital to start a business.

Sara Razavi, a lesbian who is the CEO of Working Solutions, told the B.A.R. that Yeast spoke to the team there to find out about marketing and sales.

“We’re a nonprofit financial institution serving the nine Bay Area counties – people left out of the mainstream,” Razavi said. “Nick came to us looking for some startup capital and he sits in the demographic that we seek to be serving, so it made a lot of sense for us to support Nick.”

Working Solutions hooked Yeast up with Small Business Administration funds in the amount of $6,500.

Wells Fargo Bank works with Working Solutions and made a $500,000 investment in the nonprofit.

“It’s an honor to serve business owners like Nick through our relationship with impactful organizations such as Working Solutions,” said Judith Goldkrand, a national women and Asian segments leader with Wells Fargo. “Wells Fargo has a longstanding history of supporting the LGBTQ+ community. We have always felt that we stand stronger together.”

Yeast said he hopes that having fragrances, as opposed to cologne on the one hand or perfume on the other, will help “break the barriers down with gender norms.”

“We have perfume and we have cologne, but it should all be about just being you,” Yeast said. “Our whole life we have people telling us who we are supposed to be, and then we have to find out who we are. At the end of the day, we’re definitely more of a movement than a brand.” t

t

Community News>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

SF aims to collect LGBTQ data of its employees

by Matthew S. Bajko

He added that he was “grateful for Mayor Lonan Francisco has been a don Breed’s leadership municipal leader when and partnership on this it comes to collecting sexnew legislation that will ual orientation and gender help San Francisco more identity demographic data effectively identify, meaamong its residents. Now, sure, and address the city leaders want to do the needs of our city’s LGsame with employees and BTQ employees and apJane Philomen Cleland those who apply for jobs plicants.”

San Francisco with the city in a voluntary Mayor London The supervisors will and anonymous way. likely take up the proBreed In order to do so, howposed code change in late ever, city officials need to July or early August. The jettison a restriction in the board’s government audit city’s municipal code that forbids it and oversight committee will likely from inquiring into the “sexual orifirst hold a hearing on it and vote entation, practices, or habits” of city on whether all 11 supervisors should employees. Known as Chapter 12E, adopt the proposal. the City Employee’s Sexual Privacy In October 2018 Breed ordered all Ordinance of the Administrative city agencies and departments that Code, it was enacted in 1985 during collect demographic data to update the height of the AIDS epidemic as a their forms, both paper and elecway to protect LGBTQ applicants and tronic, so that they include the option city employees from being discrimiof nonbinary in addition to male and nated against. female when asking about gender Despite local laws banning LGidentity. As part of her directive, Breed BTQ-based discrimination that had ordered the city’s human resources been adopted in the late 1970s, there department and the Office of Transwas widespread concern among the gender Initiatives to provide gender general public about LGBTQ people identity trainings to city employees transmitting the then-little-underas part of their required trainings on stood virus. Those fears led to city harassment prevention, implicit bias, leaders wanting to strengthen protecand cross-cultural communications. tions for LGBTQ people seeking emMost city agencies have been reployment with City Hall or various quired to collect the SOGI informacity departments and their drafting of tion of the people they are serving Chapter 12E. since the summer of 2017. While Thirty-six years later that provision there have been issues in instituting in the code is now hampering efforts to the data collection efforts, all but the ensure LGBTQ people are adequately city’s Department of Public Health represented among city staff. Thus, have made great strides over the last Mayor London Breed and gay District four years in gathering the LGBTQ 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman indemographic information so it is usetroduced new legislation Tuesday durful in reviewing how they are serving ing the Board of Supervisors meeting the needs of the LGBTQ community. that repeals 12E of the Administrative As the B.A.R. reported in April, the Code. They want to direct the Departhealth department’s SOGI data colment of Human Resources, now led lection efforts have been hampered by out director Carol Isen, to collect by its switching to a new recordsvoluntary and anonymous sexual orikeeping system called Epic during the entation demographic data from city 2018-2019 fiscal year. Just as it was employees and applicants. ramping up work on converting tens “This important policy change of thousands of records and retrainwill provide the city with invaluable ing thousands of clinical and nonvoluntary information about our clinical staff on how to use Epic, the LGBTQ+ workforce that will help us COVID-19 pandemic hit, leading to a identify any potential barriers to city large portion of DPH’s IT and analyst employment and promotions,” stated resources being directed to focus on Isen. “We are building upon our efthe health crisis. forts to support more pathways into According to its SOGI data report city employment and creating a more for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, the diverse workforce. We look forward health department expects a process to implementing this change and exfor data migration and validation panding upon our efforts to create a will be possible perhaps as soon as workplace that is equitable, inclusive later this year. In the meantime, DPH and welcoming to all.” said it has arranged for an audit of its The city and county employs apSOGI data collection to be undertakproximately 37,000 people, making it en by a researcher at UCSF. the largest employer in San Francisco.

Now that the city’s special comWhile it collects such information as mand center it established to address to the gender and race of its employthe local response to the COVID ees, the city currently has no way of pandemic, which drew city staff away knowing how many LGBTQ people from their regular work, has been work for it. closed down and those employees reIn a statement to the Bay Area Reassigned to their normal duties, Manporter, Breed said doing so would assist delman also called Tuesday for the the city’s “commitment to equity across supervisors to hold a hearing on the our workforce and continue to advance SOGI data reports for the 2019-2020 LGBTQ+ rights across our city.” fiscal year that the city departments Noting it is Pride Month in San submitted at the end of 2020.

Francisco, Breed added, “We are takIt also will likely be held by the ing continued action to be a leader in board’s government audit and overhiring and retaining a diverse worksight committee, which last held a force that reflects our community that hearing regarding the city agencies’ includes our LGBTQ+ community.”

SOGI data collection efforts in NoMandelman told the B.A.R. in a vember 2019. Mandelman also called statement that, “LGBTQ city employfor the departments to provide an upees work hard every day to support the date on their SOGI data for the first people of San Francisco. This legislation half of the 2020-2021 fiscal year. will allow the Department of Human Therefore, the hearing on the SOGI Resources to better track our citywide data efforts would cover the period diversity, equity, and inclusion goals spanning from July 1, 2019, through and identify strategies to recruit LGBTQ See page 38 >> employees into public service.”

S

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<< Open Forum

8 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

Volume 51, Number 25 June 24-30, 2021 www.ebar.com

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LGBTQ visibility is power

I

t was a like bolt of lightning to mark the beginning of Pride week: a professional football defensive end came out as gay while still an active player, a first. For years there had been rumors of professional athletes who were going to come out, as our sportswriter Roger Brigham noted, yet none ever did until Carl Nassib, 28, who plays for the Las Vegas Raiders, made his announcement June 21 on his Instagram page.

Talk about refreshing: there was no media rollout, no huddling with GLAAD, and, especially, no immediate effort to monetize his news, like reality TV star Colton Underwood did when he tied his April “I’m gay” announcement to a Netflix special, complete with his friend, gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy, at his side. No, Nassib did it his way with a simple video in the backyard of his West Chester, Pennsylvania home. He began his written post with “Hi everyone, happy Pride Month.” He noted that he had agonized over his decision for 15 years, which is more than half of his life. What’s also different about Nassib’s statement, which accompanied his video, was that he acknowledged that he doesn’t know “all the history behind our courageous LGBTQ community, but I am eager to learn and help continue the fight for equality and acceptance.” There are many LGBTQ community leaders who can help him learn about our history when he is ready; and he’ll have the support of out LGBTQ athletes as role models.

Nassib is already giving back by announcing that he’s partnered with the Trevor Project, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that provides suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth. As he noted, young queer kids are five times more likely than their straight friends to consider suicide. “For someone like me, who has been so lucky and cherishes every day, it brings me incredible sadness to think that our LGBTQ youth are at such a elevated risk for suicide,” he wrote.

Courtesy Instagram

Las Vegas Raiders player Carl Nassib came out June 21 on Instagram.

“Studies have shown that all it takes is one accepting adult to decrease the risk of an LGBTQ kid attempting suicide by 40%. Whether you’re a friend, a parent, a coach, or a teammate, you can be that person.” To that end, Nassib said that he is making a $100,000 donation to the Trevor Project, a gift that will save lives.

Nassib was also realistic and humble in his message.

“Lastly, I hope everyone can understand that I am just one person,” he wrote. “I am a lanky walk-on who is living his dream.” He added that he has a small window in which to play professionally, and asked the media to give him some space.

Fair enough.

But we look forward to seeing lots of video messages like Nassib’s. He is the first – but certainly should not be the last – gay man in professional sports to come out while still an active player. Famously, several pro players came out of the closet in their retirement, starting with David

t

Kopay in 1975, who played for the San Francisco 49ers. Yet, homophobia remains so ingrained in culture that it’s easy to succumb to the belief that full acceptance of and equality for LGBTQ people will mean that we will no longer need to talk about our coming out and lived experiences – we should never be silent about this. In his video, Nassib says that “representation and visibility are so important,” yet subtly undermined his comments a second later when he said, “I actually hope that one day videos like these and the whole coming out process are just not necessary.”

Actually, we want to live in a world where we talk about being LGBTQ – and celebrate people’s coming out journeys. That’s one of the reasons why we ask people in interviews whether they identify as LGBTQ (to the consternation of some readers, who would rather we not) so that people, young and old alike, know they are reading about out LGBTQ people. San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk didn’t lose his life to spare people from coming out of the closet. We don’t elect out LGBTQ political leaders because we want them to de-emphasize their identity and act like straight folks. It’s exactly the opposite. Milk wanted to throw open every closet door. He wanted out politicians to be victorious so our issues would be front and center. While we appreciate and support our straight allies, it’s just not the same thing as seeing ourselves represented in society, whether they be out entrepreneurs, parents, celebrities, physicians, nurses, teachers, workers, artists, or like this week, professional athletes.

Nassib came out in a classy way, yet by coming close to undercutting his message, risked diminishing the very powerful example he sets, particularly for budding athletes. He admittedly has more to learn and unlearn, as we all do. But the goal can never be a world in which we don’t talk about our identities and lives. This Pride Month – and every month – be proud of who you are and say it out loud. LGBTQ visibility is power. t

SF budget invests in LGBTQs

by Matt Haney and Rafael Mandelman

T

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his Pride week the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has been busy finalizing our city’s budget with big investments in our LGBTQ+ community.

A budget is a statement of values, and coming out of the pandemic, San Francisco has a responsibility to use our budget to lift up the most vulnerable and support an equity-first recovery in San Francisco.

The queer community has been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. LGBTQ+ people have been shown to be at greater risk of developing health complications from COVID-19 infection. LGBTQ+ people are also reporting that the pandemic has had a negative impact on their mental health at significantly higher rates than their non-LGBTQ+ peers.

Many of the city’s most cherished LGBTQ+ small businesses, nightlife venues, and institutions have found themselves in deep debt or on the brink of closure. LGBTQ+ workers are more likely to have experienced loss of income due to the pandemic, as they are more likely to work in highly impacted industries such as the service industry, retail, and K-12 education.

Even before the pandemic, LGBTQ+ people experienced significant disparities, which were exacerbated over the last year. LGBTQ+ Americans are more likely to live in poverty than their straight and cisgender counterparts, with Black and Latinx transgender adults being the most heavily affected. LGBTQ+ youth are 120% more likely to experience homelessness, and here in San Francisco, fully half of the unhoused youth who live in our city identify as LGBTQ+.

In this year’s budget, we have the opportunity to invest in supporting the recovery of our LGBTQ+ residents and small businesses, closing these disparities and making San Francisco a more equitable place for queer and trans people.

For that reason, we are hugely supportive of the historic investments in the LGBTQ+ community proposed by Mayor London Breed in her budget, including the world’s first basic income pilot for trans people, housing subsidies for trans and HIV-

Rick Gerharter

Then-supervisor candidate Matt Haney, left, rode in the 2018 San Francisco Pride parade with then-Supervisor-elect Rafael Mandelman.

positive San Franciscans and $12 million for the acquisition of a home for the country’s first LGBTQ+ museum. The proposed budget also enhances funding for arts and culture, leadership development, on-site school initiatives for queer youth, and new services for LGBTQ+ seniors experiencing mental health and isolation issues during the pandemic. We thank Mayor Breed for her leadership on these critical efforts, and we will continue to champion these investments through the budget process.

Even with these much needed investments, there are still further unmet and urgent needs for the LGBTQ+ community. As the budget chair and the sole LGBTQ+ member of the Board of Supervisors, respectively, we are committed to deepening this investment by an additional $2 million: $750,000 in culturally competent health care services for queer and trans folks; $500,000 in expanding rental subsidies for the trans community; $250,000 in new trans-focused economic development and recovery initiatives; $250,000

to increase access to mental health services for long-term survivors of HIV; $150,000 in support for LGBTQ+ community building through arts and culture; and $100,000 in capacity building efforts to establish a new world class LGBTQ museum.

We are excited to make these additions to San Francisco’s budget toward LGBTQ+ housing, healthcare, mental health services, economic development, and arts and culture with the hope that we may be able to build on these commitments as the city’s budget process plays out.

Approving a city budget with such bold and robust investments in the LGBTQ+ community is a proud moment for all of us. t

Supervisor Matt Haney, the budget chair, represents District 6, which includes the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the only LGBTQ member on the board, represents District 8, which includes the Castro, Noe Valley, and surrounding neighborhoods.

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Politics >>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

1st lesbian Native American Congresswoman Davids’ book aims to inspire children

by Matthew S. Bajko

C

ongresswoman Sharice Davids (D-Kansas) made history in 2018 by becoming the first out member from Kansas and one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress. The lesbian lawmaker flipped her 3rd Congressional District blue, helping Democrats retake control of the House.

Her shattering of the dual political glass ceilings has drawn national attention to Davids both in Democratic circles and the LGBTQ community. And over her two and half years serving in the House, Davids has won praise from her Democratic colleagues.

“She’s worked tirelessly to make health care more affordable and accessible, and curb the influence of special interests in Washington. (Oh, and she’s one of the best hitters we’ve got on the Congressional Women’s Softball Team),” gushed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) in an emailed invite for her Pride Month Celebration and fundraiser earlier this month that featured Davids and Congressman Mondaire Jones (DNew York), the first openly gay, Black member of Congress.

The LGBTQ Victory Fund recently named Davids one of its Game Changer Incumbent Candidate endorsees for next year. Ahead of her seeking reelection to a third term during the 2022 midterm elections, Davids, 41, has now turned her life story into a children’s book titled “Sharice’s Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman” (HarperCollins, $17.99).

Published June 1 with illustrations

by Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley, an Ojibwe woodland artist and member of Wasauksing, First Nation, the book includes a history of the HoChunk Nation, to which Davids’ family belongs as part of its warrior clan, written by former Ho-Chunk president Jon Greendeer. There is also a personal note from Davids, who worked with author Nancy K. Mays, an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Kansas, to write the book.

In it Davids conveys how important it is to make choices in life that are “true to your own journey.”

The Political Notebook spoke to the lawmaker and lawyer via Zoom in late May about her book and the current landscape for LGBTQ rights across the country. In February, Davids was part of the bipartisan 224-206 vote in the House that passed the Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to extend protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

Despite pleas from President Joe Biden for congressional leaders to send him the bill to sign within his first 100 days in office, the legislation remains stuck in the U.S. Senate. Most political observers believe it is unlikely to be passed since Democrats are well short of the 60 votes they need to overcome a Republican filibuster of the bill.

Asked about the impasse, and a recent headline in the Washington Blade LGBTQ newspaper that said the Equality Act is basically dead this year, Davids expressed optimism that a path to passage could still be found for the bill.

“One of the things I would say is I am an optimistic person. I wouldn’t have run for Congress if I weren’t,” said Davids. “I don’t walk around with rose-colored glasses on; I feel I try to be realistic with my optimism.”

What is keeping her hopeful about the Equality Act, she explained, is the support it attracted from three of her Republican colleagues in the House and the continued focus on the need to enact the legislation by community groups.

“We know folks said the negotiations continue. I think now that we

Barry Schneider Attorney at Law

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Congresswoman Sharice Davids co-wrote a children’s book, “Sharice’s Big Voice.”

have majorities in both the House and Senate, I think, I think we should keep our minds open about what is possible,” she said. “I think there is certainly room for bipartisanship on this bill.

The fact we have seen it in the House, to me, is something to make my optimism feel more realistic.”

A theme of possibility imbues her autobiographical illustrated book that takes readers on a journey through her childhood, moving across continents due to her mother’s Army career, becoming a martial arts fighter, graduating law school, and being elected to Congress. Davids had nothing but praise for how Pawis-Steckley illustrated her in the book, saying her biggest concern was how he depicted her mother.

“The only thing I will say is the first time I saw any of the illustrations he sent over, I loved them immediately.

It wasn’t, ‘Oh, can you change me this way or that?’ The only thing was I wanted to make sure we had a good reflection of my mom,” said Davids.

“And the way we did that was we just sent him pictures of when I was a kid with my mom and we sent some images from my election night so he had something to work off of.”

While the book includes references to her being lesbian, there is no panel about her coming out of the closet.

The omission was purposeful since Davids didn’t have a traumatic coming out story to tell due to her mother’s acceptance of her sexual orientation.

“I never felt like I was at risk or in danger of having my mom treat me differently or not accept me because I am a lesbian,” said Davids. “I know a lot of people don’t have that experience, and I didn’t ... I feel like I want this book to be as authentic as possible and also I could only include so many stories.”

Outside of the context of her book, Davids said she has prioritized mental health and behavioral health access and trauma care on Capitol Hill largely due to the high rates of suicidal ideation among LGBTQ youth and Native American children, as both groups of young people continue to face stigma and discrimination.

This year alone state legislatures have passed numerous bills attacking the rights of LGBTQ youth, she noted.

“Everybody should be thinking about and talking about it so there’s not a stigma there and so people are getting the mental and emotional health support that they need in addition to their physical health needs,” said Davids. “In my mind this is something all of us should be thinking about.”

If anything comes from her publishing her book, Davids said she hopes it is that an LGBTQ or Native American child feels a sense of visibility and/or validation from reading about her own experiences growing up.

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Courtesy Congresswoman Davids’ office

Congresswoman Sharice Davids

“In big and small ways we can help our young people see that their experience is valid, that their voices deserve to be heard, that they deserve to be seen and feel seen,” she said. “Hopefully that’s at least maybe a little part of what people take away from this book.”

Until fairly recently there weren’t any children’s books featuring the Ho Chunk Nation; Davids couldn’t recall seeing or reading any when she was a child. Only recently did she learn that 1% of books for kids have any Native American representation, a fact she found to be “pretty staggering.”

“It makes me maybe realize that’s probably part of why I don’t ... why, one, I didn’t see them because they didn’t exist to a large extent when I was a kid.

It was staggering to me in a way,” said Davids. “My hope is that when people see this book, they will be able to see – I don’t know if I want to use the word representative, I usually say reflective – I think a lot of us, probably all of us, know what it is like to feel invisible, or not seen or not heard.”

During her childhood Davids said she “definitely felt” unseen at different points.

“Some of it might be when you don’t see stories that either aren’t reflective or are not accurate, that sort of thing, that can add to that feeling of invisibility and not being heard,” she said. “I think that my experience is actually not an uncommon experience.”

Thus, Davids said she is especially proud of being able to include the special section about the Ho-Chunk Nation in her book. Few people know of its history or much about its culture and how it differs from other Native American tribes.

“I feel like there is a lot of, we will call it misunderstanding or misconception maybe about tribes and tribal history and that sort of thing,” she said. “Tribes across the U.S. are very diverse in experience and traditions and culture. I think it is important for folks to recognize that each tribe has its own history and language.”

Stressing that her book shouldn’t be seen as a “how-to guide” for seeking a seat in Congress, Davids said it is meant to illustrate that each person has their own path to walk in life and will be confronted along the way with countless choices to make. And as she points out in the book, it is those choices that will change one’s life.

“The book really highlights every single one of our journeys is different,” said Davids. t

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<< Community News

10 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

Gay man joins SF environmental panel

by Cynthia Laird

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he San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently approved Mayor London Breed’s nomination of a gay man for a seat on the city’s environmental commission.

Austin Hunter, a longtime member of the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club, told the Bay Area Reporter that he’s eager to begin work on the panel, particularly around the city’s climate action plan, or CAP. And he said that the plan, which shapes how the city thinks about climate change through 2050, focuses on equity and access issues on a range of programs, including affordable housing.

“What affordable housing looks like is one of the things CAP calls for,” Hunter, 28, said in a June 22 phone interview.

Breed nominated Hunter May 27, and the supervisors approved his nomination to the Commission on the Environment June 15.

According to the mayor’s office Breed has now appointed or reappointed over 48 LGBTQ commissioners, making up 15% of all her appointments to city oversight bodies, since her inauguration in 2018.

Courtesy Mayor’s Office

Austin Hunter, Mayor London Breed’s nominee, was approved by the Board of Supervisors for a seat on the San Francisco Commission on the Environment.

Hunter’s term ends in March 2023, according to the Department of the Environment’s website.

“Tackling the threat of climate change is essential for protecting the future of our city and our entire planet,” he said in a statement from the mayor’s office. “I am looking forward to being part of the city’s ongoing work to reduce emissions and make our city more resilient and healthier for all.”

For example, Hunter stated that the effects of climate change are felt most by vulnerable residents. He added that he’s committed to “upholding the mayor’s focus on equity and ensuring our climate actions support vulnerable residents and communities across San Francisco.”

“For 100% renewable energy, [CAP] makes sure that subsidies go to people who need them,” he said in the interview.

Hunter currently serves on the San Francisco League of Conservation Voters board. That group works on promoting environmental protection through participation in the local political system.

Previous to being appointed to his new position, Hunter served on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s advisory committee.

He said that he originally applied to the mayor’s office to serve on a commission when he was selected for the SFPUC panel. When an opening on the environmental commission became available, he applied for that.

In his professional capacity, Hunter said that he is employed at Facebook, where he works in innovation and ethics review for products, including their impact on human rights.

His interest in human rights will also serve him as he begins his tenure on the commission, he noted.

“If we’re supposed to implement CAP, I want to make sure we think of the environment from a human rights perspective,” he said. “That’s important in planning for climate change.”

Hunter also said that it’s im-

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portant that the Department on the Environment is adequately funded by the city. According to the San Francisco Department of the Environment’s draft budget plan, the agency, which does not receive money from the general fund, proposed an operating budget of about $25 million for Fiscal Year 2021-22. Most of the department’s revenue is generated from impound fees, according to the draft budget figures.

Hunter said that he expects to attend his first meeting as a commissioner in late July. He met this week with Department of the Environment director Debbie Raphael.

“It’s very exciting,” he said of his appointment.

Hunter is an alumni of the Equality California Institute’s Leadership Academy. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from King’s College of London, a bachelor’s degree in international relations and political science from San Francisco State University, and an associate degree in social behavioral sciences. He currently attends Golden Gate University of Law, where he has been awarded a full scholarship.t

Letters >> Mandelman needs to seize opportunity

California has “reopened,” but it’s lost on the Castro, where boarded up windows dominate, and many storefronts are now vacant [“CA has reopened at last,” Editorial, June 17]. The decimation of the Castro commercial district had started before COVID-19 and accelerated in the past 15 months.

In all of this, where is our gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman?

When he was running for office, he gathered property owners, would-be business operators, and the neighborhood to try to revive Church Street.

But, now that he’s in office, there’s no sign of him showing similar attention to the broader Castro.

The Castro has been a vital commercial district and the center of San Francisco LGBTQ life for 50plus years, and a public trust. Gay former supervisor Scott Wiener focused on keeping the Castro thriving, and Wiener, though now a state senator, remains active in the neighborhood. Our supervisor needs to do the same.

We can’t go back to how things were before the pandemic because things were bad then, and getting worse. As we emerge from the pandemic, this is an excellent opportunity to reverse the deterioration and boldly re-envision and revive our neighborhood, to attract new businesses, help them cut red tape to open, and help existing business operators to recover and thrive.

There are many obstacles to reviving the neighborhood, including many landlords – such as Les Natali, who owns numerous storefronts that are either vacant or boarded up, with some vacant for 15-plus years – who are a blight on the neighborhood as they leave their properties vacant rather than to accept a reasonable rent, and nearby neighborhood associations, whose obstructionist policies have long kept businesses out.

But the challenges can be met.

Please, Supervisor Mandelman, seize this opportunity to take a leadership role for the sake of our community and neighborhood.

John Tighe San Francisco

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HIV alone didn’t cause the clogged artery in my neck.

Smoking with HIV did.

Brian, age 45, California

<< Pride 2021

12 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

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Trans woman heads HIV program at SF Latino agency

by John Ferrannini

with IFR and Sí a la Vida in 2001 when she came from Guatemala to the United States.

After beginning her transition in her home country, Cabrera began to experience discrimination and abuse, prompting her to come north of the border.

“I came with a lot of traumas from my country because of my gender identity,” Cabrera said. “I was escaping from a lot of discrimination and violence in my home country.”

Cabrera “came to live with people from Guatemala” stateside, but “was kicked out because of my gender identity.”

“I came to Los Angeles first and didn’t know about San Francisco until I came here as a homeless person in 2001,” Cabrera recalled. “Here was the place I felt safest: around the Bay

Area. But it was painful, and traumatizing, too, because the first day I was in a shelter.”

It was at the shelter, on Howard Street, that Cabrera “cried because I knew I had a home I left behind, but now, looking to those days, I can say also that even though it was really painful, it was the first day I was able to be myself, to express who I am where people didn’t say ‘dress like this’ or ‘don’t do this.’”

Cabrera participated in some HIV prevention workshops as she settled into the Mission neighborhood. She participated in Miss and Mr. Safe Latino, which Sí a la Vida hosts, in 2002 and began working for IFR. “They were looking for someone transgender to work with the trans community to do outreach,” Cabrera recalled.

Esperanza Macias, a lesbian who is IFR’s policy and communications director, told the B.A.R. that Cabrera’s presence will help guide the institute in a way that it can better serve its clients.

“One of IFR’s philosophical pillars is ‘tu Rees mi otro yo,’” Macias wrote in an email to the B.A.R. “The direct translation is ‘you are the other me,’ but is intended to convey that we are one community. Claudia’s life experiences carries many of the life experiences of our communities. It is one way that IFR strives to reflect/ mirror our community.”

Macias added that Cabrera bucks negative and untrue stereotypes.

“At a time when immigrants are labeled as a drain on our economy, Claudia showed her commitment,

perseverance, and natural leadership to serve our community,” Macias stated. “As a result, our LGBTQ Latinx community is healthier because of her contributions.”

Macias said in a phone interview that she’s known Cabrera “for about 11 years.”

“She was here before I got here,” Macias said. “I think she represents the true diversity of the Latino LGBTQ community. As a transgender woman, as an immigrant, as a lesbian, as an HIV educator, she is who we want to reach.”

Before her official appointment this spring, Cabrera had been acting program director for a year and a half before being appointed interim director in February. Cabrera replaces Rafael “Rafa” Velazquez in the role.

The goals of Sí a la Vida now are “to reduce the number of new cases of HIV in the San Francisco Latino community; increase access to health and social services for both HIV-negative and -positive clients; reduce the stigma associated with HIV status, sexual orientation, and gender identity; and increase the wellness and quality of life of LGBTQ Latinos in San Francisco,” according to its website, which also states that the program did COVID-19 outreach and education, as well as contact tracing, during this most recent pandemic.

Cabrera said that Sí a la Vida serves 850 unique clients per year.

According to the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s most recent HIV epidemiology annual report, which covers 2019 and was

published in September 2020, 20% of San Franciscans living with HIV that year were Latinx, and Latinx people accounted for 33% of newly diagnosed cases citywide. Latinos had the most cases per 100,000 throughout the 2010s of any ethnic group except for Black/African American people (in 2019 that rate was 61 per 100,000).

In a statement, IFR Executive Director Gloria Romero wrote that Cabrera brings her whole self to the job.

“We speak a lot about mind, body, and spirit at IFR, and Claudia brings all of these to her work,” Romero stated.

Cabrera said her goal as the new program director is “to continue working and serving the LGBTQ community – focused on the Latino community, but we also help people of other ethnicities and races – and to continue to fight to provide services that they need in that community.”

Cabrera also said that HIV prevention and care has to be a holistic exercise.

“HIV prevention is not just teaching people to use condoms or take medicine. There are so many needs that need to be addressed,” Cabrera said. “My plan is to continue looking for resources to build up the community and continue providing services.”

Cabrera declined to disclose her salary. Velazquez’s salary is not listed on IFR’s IRS Form 990 for Fiscal Year 2017-2018 (the most recent publicly available on ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer). The agency’s budget is about $10 million, according to the filing. t

man being, face-to-face.”

Jensen said he is happy that patrons haven’t permanently changed their habits during Steamworks’ temporary closure due to the lockdown.

“I’m excited that our men were excited to have us back,” Jensen

said. “We were a little nervous because we’d been closed for a year and a half, but we are relieved people are coming back.”

The bathhouse will only be open Thursdays at 8 a.m. through Mondays at 8 a.m.; a lack of suf-

ficient staff is preventing it from returning to its previous 24/7/365 schedule. Because of that, the corporate office is also working part-time, Jensen said.

Steamworks will be asking for proof of vaccination on a patron’s

first visit back as a requirement for receiving a membership. The normal membership fee is being waived “for the time being,” Jensen said, assuring that the

I

n the past two decades, Claudia Cabrera has gone from a client of Instituto Familiar de la Raza – new to the city and indeed to the country – to director of the institute’s HIV prevention, education, and support program.

“I was named director of Sí a la Vida in April of this year,” Cabrera, who is a 57-year-old lesbian transgender woman, told the Bay Area Reporter. “I’ll have been working here for 19 years in September. I first came as a client, then I became an outreach worker in 2002, and from there I’ve been a health educator.”

Instituto Familiar de la Raza, or IFR, is a nonprofit that for four decades has aimed “to promote and enhance the health and well-being of the Chicano/Latino/Indigena community of San Francisco,” according to its mission statement. Sí a la Vida, which translates as Yes to Life (the first two and final two letters of the program spell SIDA, the Spanish language acronym for AIDS), was first established at IFR in 1985 as “the first Chicano/Latino-specific HIV program in San Francisco,” according to its website.

“It was the answer of IFR to the HIV epidemic,” Cabrera said. “There were not services in Spanish for the Latino community, but the Latino community was severely impacted: mostly gay and trans folks dying in great numbers because there was very little information or not at all for that specific community.”

Cabrera first came into contact

<<

Gay sex venues

From page 1

“Apps may seem convenient, but they’re not terribly human,” Jensen said. “There’s nothing like a real hu-

Courtesy IFR

Claudia Cabrera is the new director of Instituto Familiar de la Raza’s HIV program, Sí a la Vida.

See page 28 >>

<< Pride 2021

14 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

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SF judge talks about her painful coming out

by Cynthia Laird

S

an Francisco Superior Court Judge Angela Bradstreet has spoken before about her terrible coming out four decades ago when she lived with her parents in London. Ten years ago, she made an It Gets Better video in which she shared some of the story about when she was a young lesbian.

But her mother’s harshness, and the details of that awful day, she has largely kept to herself or only talked about it privately with her wife and friends.

That is, until now.

Speaking with the Bay Area Reporter recently, Bradstreet, 66, said that she wanted to share her story in print for the first time. She’s doing so, she said, in hopes that she can help other young LGBTQ people, some of whom also go through agonizing coming out journeys with their families – even today and even in the Bay Area.

“I still remember it like yesterday,” Bradstreet said in a Zoom interview, recalling that day when she was 21. “I was the apple of my parents’ eye.”

Bradstreet said that she brought her first girlfriend home for the weekend – as a friend.

“I was very much in the closet,” she recalled.

She described how her bedroom had two separate single beds.

“At 3 a.m. my mother decided to walk into my bedroom,” Bradstreet said. “I’ll just never forget her standing in the doorway, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. She was standing there – for what seemed an eternity.”

Then, her mother could see inside the bedroom.

“She could see we were in bed together in one single bed,” Bradstreet recalled. “What ensued was a terrible scene. My mother basically said ‘if you ever do that again, I’ll kill myself.’”

What followed was about a year of intensive therapy, the outcome of

Courtesy Cherie Larson and Angela Bradstreet

Cherie Larson, left, and San Francisco Superior Court Judge Angela Bradstreet were all smiles on their wedding day in 2014.

which was that Bradstreet was sure of her sexual orientation and that she needed to get far away from her parents, Gwynne and Norman Bradstreet, for her own mental health.

So she did just that, applying for the master’s program at Berkeley Law and then getting accepted.

“Two months later I was on a plane with my backpack and $1,000,” Bradstreet said.

At the time she didn’t know anyone in Berkeley and thought that housing would be provided as part of the graduate program, she said, laughing at her naïveté. Someone at the desk pointed to a bulletin board on a wall full of names and phone numbers with people crowded around it, searching for housing. This was long before the internet and social media. Bradstreet said she could afford very little.

“I shared an apartment with a straight couple,” she said.

Bradstreet said that her father died many years ago. Her mother passed away four years ago at the age of 93.

“She really missed out,” Bradstreet said, adding that the two did have some contact after that terrible night. “I did

go and see her right before she died.

She never, ever said she was sorry.”

In fact, Gwynne Bradstreet hired a private investigator to keep tabs on her daughter before she left London, Bradstreet said. “I continued to live this double life for another year,” Bradstreet said of that time.

Bradstreet said that her younger sister, Jill, was also traumatized by what happened to her older sister, especially when Bradstreet left England.

“She felt I was leaving her,” Bradstreet said. “But she and I are close and we talked through all of that.”

While Bradstreet asked that the paper not contact her sister, Bradstreet’s wife, Cherie Larson, told the B.A.R. that the revelations about Bradstreet’s coming out hit her hard.

“When Angie told me about her coming out experience with her mom, I felt bad for her for having to go through something so traumatic,” Larson stated in an email. “I remember thinking, wow, what an incredible woman for having the courage to pick up and move to a foreign country where she didn’t know a soul or even have a place to live. Who does that?

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She has such a strength of character and not only did she survive, she thrived. I was also thinking how tragic that her mom gave up any future relationship with her eldest daughter and missed out on so many of Angie’s accomplishments and personal events, including our marriage.”

Larson, 57, met Bradstreet in March 2010, several months before then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, appointed Bradstreet, a Democrat, to the bench that September. They were married April 25, 2014, at the San Francisco home of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), who officiated the ceremony.

Larson, who works as a vice president of human resources in the edtech field, said her own coming out was not nearly as eventful as her spouse’s.

“I was 15 years old and curious when I had my first relationship with a woman,” she recalled. “When my mother found out several years later, she could not have been more supportive.”

Life in the U.S.

Once Bradstreet got her master’s in law she clerked for a year in San Mateo County Superior Court. In 1981, she joined the law firm that was then Carroll Burdick and McDonough.

(Long after Bradstreet left, the firm merged with Squire Patton Boggs.)

She worked there for 25 years and became the first woman managing partner, and the first LGBTQ managing partner in the Bay Area, she said. She was a litigator in civil cases.

In 2007, Bradstreet was tapped by Schwarzenegger to become California labor commissioner, a post she held for three years before becoming a judge.

“There were 21 offices all over the state,” she said. “I enforced minimum wage laws. I went to the garment factories in Los Angeles and the agricultural fields in the Central Valley.”

Once she became a judge, Bradstreet handled a variety of assignments. Currently, she does settlement cases in the civil division.

A friend and former colleague talked about Bradstreet’s impact on her own judicial career.

Justice Tracie Brown sits on the California Court of Appeal, First District, based in San Francisco.

Prior to that post, she served with Bradstreet as a judge in San Francisco Superior Court. Brown, a straight ally, said Bradstreet shared her coming out story after Brown asked what brought Bradstreet to the U.S. “It was quite self-revelatory and I was honored she shared it with me,” Brown, 50, said in a phone interview. “It speaks to who she is and how much she cares for the women’s community and the LGBT community.

“Maybe there’s someone out there who can benefit from this,” Brown added.

Brown said that Bradstreet is committed to all people. In fact, Bradstreet spearheaded an initiative at the Superior Court for women jurors to have a dedicated space if they’re nursing moms. Even though Bradstreet doesn’t have children of her own, Brown said, the issue resonated with her.

Bradstreet’s other friends were equally moved by her story.

One of her best friends, David Bowlby, actually came out as gay to Bradstreet, he told the B.A.R. in a phone interview. Married for many years to a woman and the father of two adult sons, Bowlby said that after his separation and divorce he decided to date men. He also turned to a therapist, who helped him learn more about himself.

But he was frightened and scared, he said. He ran his own consulting

business and was active in the political world. He, Bradstreet, and others in their circle were also dealing with the declining health of their good friend, former East Bay Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, who was battling cancer. (Tauscher died in 2019.)

“I had not told anybody,” Bowlby, 58, said of the period in 2009, a year after he saw his therapist.

Then, he and Bradstreet met in San Francisco for dinner.

“I’m looking at her – I trust her with my life – and I told her – the first human being I told outside my therapist,” he recalled. “She was beyond supportive. Angela stood tall with me and gave me the courage to be myself.”

Bradstreet later officiated at the wedding of Bowlby and his husband, Manny Bowlby.

Barbara Schraeger is another of Bradstreet’s close friends. A straight ally and retired labor management official for the city of San Francisco, she first met Bradstreet years ago when both worked on Feinstein’s gubernatorial bid. While Feinstein lost that race, she successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1992.

“She’s one of my favorite people,” Schraeger, 75, told the B.A.R. in a phone interview.

Noting that Bradstreet can’t do anything political now since she’s a judge, Schraeger said that she was a great public speaker at the time.

“Her story about her mother, I think it gave her, in an odd way, confidence,” she said. “She was devastated by her mother’s behavior.”

In spite of Bradstreet’s experience, Schraeger said that she thinks it helped Bradstreet be an understanding, compassionate judge.

“I think it comes out of the background,” she added. “She has great mediation skills.”

Schraeger said that after Bradstreet was appointed to the bench, there was a big reception in San Francisco City Hall. “The whole world knew she’s a lesbian,” she said.

Helping others

Schraeger said that Bradstreet has served as a mentor to young people, including LGBTQs. “She’s a terrific role model,” she said.

Bradstreet said that she’s glad she made the decisions she did.

“It’s so lonely being in the closet,” she noted. “Being true to one’s self is really hard, but ultimately the only way to live. It was the best decision I ever made. It made me a more empathetic person to others who may be in similar circumstances.”

Bradstreet pointed out that even in the liberal Bay Area, it’s not always easy for queers to come out.

“There are still young people who have issues with their family,” she said. “If my experience is helpful to only one person, it’s worth it.

“We want to please our parents,” she added. “But the most important thing is to be true to yourself – and not let life pass you by.”

Bowlby said that Bradstreet’s coming out story is an important message for young people to hear.

“Actually, for everyone to hear,” he said. “Accepting who you are – LGBT or straight. The ability to give yourself grace and embrace yourself and move yourself forward. It does give us all home in what could be the most difficult and dire times in one’s life.

“From my perspective, her story and her friendship was a beacon of hope and a beam of light,” he added.t To watch Judge Angela Bradstreet’s It Gets Better video, go to https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=dQX-dBNkUZo

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<< National News

16 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

t

Understanding Fulton: The decision dodged a bullet analysis by Lisa Keen

S

ome legal observers viewed the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia as a “significant” victory for LGBTQs while others saw it as another sign of “death by a thousand cuts” for queer equal rights. Others debated whether it was an “important win for religious liberty” or a “failure.”

Reaction to the court’s June 17 decision – allowing a Roman Catholic foster care agency to refuse to obey a city non-discrimination ordinance – elicited an unusually wide range of often-contradictory assessments.

One LGBTQ legal activist called it a “significant victory for LGBTQ people;” another called it “troubling.” One conservative commentator called it a “resounding victory for religious freedom,” while another lamented Fulton was a “failure by the high court to definitely end the ongoing governmental targeting of faith-based organizations.”

The unanimous Fulton decision did not deliver a straightforward message as Obergefell v. Hodges did in 2015, when the court said, “same-sex couples may now exercise the fundamental right to marry in all states.” It did not spell out clearly, as it did in Bostock v. Clayton County last year, that, “An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”

Instead, Fulton carried a nuanced message, akin to that of the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado decision in 2018. In Masterpiece, the court ruled: “the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect [LGBTQ people] in the exercise of their civil rights. ... At the same time, the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.”

In Fulton, it said: “We do not doubt that [the city’s] interest [in the equal treatment of prospective foster parents] is a weighty one, for [quoting from Masterpiece] ‘our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth.’

On the facts of this case, however, this interest cannot justify denying [Catholic Social Services, or CSS] an exception for its religious exercise.”

“CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. “It does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else.” Joining Roberts in the opinion were the three more liberal members of the court – Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan – and two of the court’s newest conservatives – Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

The remaining three conservative justices – Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch – concurred in the judgment (that Philadelphia owed CSS an exception to its non-discrimination policy protecting LGBTQ people). But Alito and Gorsuch wrote their own concurring opinions, indicating they would have gone much further in ruling for CSS. And Thomas joined both.

The facts of the Fulton case are these: The city of Philadelphia has an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and its contracts with outside organizations include similar language. City officials discovered that one of the private agencies to which it refers children in need of foster homes – CSS – had a policy of denying such placements to same-sex couples. When CSS’s contract with the city came up for

Courtesy U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the city of Philadelphia violated the First Amendment when it did not renew a contract with Catholic Social Services.

renewal, the city declined to renew it, saying CSS was in violation of the city ordinance and the contract’s language. CSS sued, saying the city’s refusal to renew its contract violated its First Amendment free exercise right.

Besides, said CSS, it never violated the law because no same-sex couples had ever come to the agency and, if they had, CSS would have gladly referred them to some other foster care agency.

Finding escape clauses

Writing for the court, Roberts accepted CSS’ contention that, by certifying a family for potential foster care placements, it was making an “endorsement of their relationships.”

“CSS does not object to certifying gay or lesbian individuals as single foster parents or to placing gay and lesbian children,” wrote Roberts, noting that no same-sex couple had ever gone to CSS seeking to be certified.

And he reiterated CSS’ contention that, if a same-sex couple had gone to CSS, the Catholic agency would have directed the couple to an agency that does certify same-sex couples.

Jennifer Pizer, senior counsel and director of law and policy for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, could not buy into that line of logic.

“Think about this in another area of law, like health care,” Pizer said in a phone interview. “If a doctor announces prospectively that they intend to discriminate – that they will treat only people of this one race and not another race – that’s a discrimination problem. And maybe people hear that doctor’s message and don’t go to that doctor. But that doesn’t absolve that medical office. You wouldn’t have a decision saying that, ‘Lots of doctors in town are willing to treat Black people so Black people can just go somewhere elsewhere.’ There has never been that kind of understanding of how civil rights laws are supposed to operate.”

Pizer said the Fulton decision is “a lot like Masterpiece.”

“In both cases, it seems there was a search through the record to find reasons to allow the religious claim to win,” Pizer said.

In Masterpiece, that reason was a statement made by a member of the Colorado human rights commission during a hearing on a gay couple’s complaint against a baker who refused to make them a wedding cake.

The 7-2 Supreme Court majority said the commissioner’s statement constituted “official expressions of hostility to religion” and that this hostility was “inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion.” Because the baker’s religious beliefs did not receive a neutral hearing, the Supreme Court invalidated the claims against the baker.

In Fulton, Roberts relied on a statement in the city’s contract that allowed the city’s commissioner of health to grant an “exemption” of non-discrimination policies if it was in the best interest of a child.

“It’s not standard analysis,” said Pizer. “The evidence in Fulton was

that Philadelphia enforced the law in a religiously neutral way, and the fact that there was a theoretical possibility of allowing an exception doesn’t usually defeat the whole process.”

Roberts made two other arguments for his decision, too. One focused on the way Philadelphia’s foster care system was set up: The city had custody of children in need of homes and asked its various foster care contractors to “certify” couples who could provide suitable homes. CSS said certification was tantamount to endorsement and claimed its religious beliefs were opposed to endorsing same-sex marriages. So, the city’s insistence that CSS certify qualified same-sex couples “forced” CSS to choose between its religious beliefs and serving foster care children in Philadelphia. (The city had argued that CSS received $26 million per year for its services, “which is hardly something demonstrating religious hostility.”)

Roberts’ second argument was that foster care placement is not a “public accommodation.” A public accommodation, he said, is one that provides a benefit to the “general public.”

“Certification as a foster parent, by contrast, is not readily accessible to the public,” wrote Roberts. “It involves a customized and selective assessment that bears little resemblance to staying in a hotel, eating at a restaurant, or riding a bus.”

Paths of least resistance

What Roberts did not do was tackle a 1990 Supreme Court decision (Employment Division v. Smith) that conservatives, like Alito, hoped the court would overturn.

In Smith, the Supreme Court ruled that a state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for using illegal drugs as part of a religious ceremony. It said a state law denying benefits to employees fired for “misconduct” (illegal drug use) was generally applicable to all persons.

As then-Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote Smith, put it, society would be “courting anarchy” to allow “constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind – ranging from compulsory military service to the payment of taxes, to health and safety regulation such as manslaughter and child neglect laws, compulsory vaccination laws, drug laws ... and laws providing for equality of opportunity for the races.”

Roberts wrote in Fulton that, “This case falls outside Smith because the city has burdened the religious exercise of CSS through policies that do not meet the requirement of being neutral and generally applicable.”

Philadelphia’s non-discrimination policies were not generally applicable, he said, because they included the possibility of gaining an exemption, and the city denied an exemption to CSS for its religious hostility to samesex couples.

Arguing that Smith should be overturned, Alito said there was “confusion about the meaning of Smith’s

holding on exemptions from generally applicable laws.” He said Smith was “wrongly decided,” that Scalia’s concern about “anarchy” was “not well founded,” and that CSS’ policy simply “expresses the idea that same-sex couples should not be foster parents. ...”

“Many people today find this idea not only objectionable but hurtful,” wrote Alito. “Nevertheless, protecting against this form of harm is not an interest that can justify the abridgment of First Amendment rights ...”

“Many core religious beliefs are perceived as hateful by members of other religions or nonbelievers,” wrote Alito.

“Proclaiming that there is only one God is offensive to polytheists, and saying that there are many gods is anathema to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.”

“While CSS’ ideas about marriage are likely to be objectionable to samesex couples,” wrote Alito, “lumping those who hold traditional beliefs about marriage together with racial bigots is insulting to those who retain such beliefs.” He then cited the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (striking down state bans on marriage for same-sex couples) and the Masterpiece decision. He wrote that the majority in Obergefell “refused to equate traditional beliefs about marriage ... with racism” and “promised” that religions could “continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.”

“An open society,” wrote Alito, “can keep that promise while still respecting the ‘dignity,’ ‘worth,’ and fundamental equality of all members of the community.”

Dodging bullets

James Essex, director of the national American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, wrote in his analysis of the decision it’s very important in Fulton that “the court did not rule (as the agency asked) that there is a constitutional right for government contractors such as the foster care agency to discriminate in their work for the city based on religious beliefs.”

Fulton, he wrote, “means that governments can and should continue to enforce their non-discrimination laws in all contexts.”

Essex noted that, since the Masterpiece decision, anti-LGBTQ activists have “tried to get courts to rule that businesses, health care providers, employers, and government contractors all have a constitutional right to discriminate because of their religious objection to LGBTQ people.”

The ruling in Fulton, he wrote, represents the “second time that the [Supreme Court] has refused to do so ...”

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, stated in an email; exchange that one might even consider it the third time, noting that, in 2010, the Supreme Court, in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, upheld a California college’s policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in campus group membership. A Christian student group at a public law school in San Francisco had claimed a free exercise right to exclude LGBTQ students.

“Anti-LGBTQ groups have tried twice now (really three times, going back to the Christian Legal Society case of 2010) to get the Supreme Court to recognize a constitutionally compelled exemption to antidiscrimination law,” stated Minter, “and the court has declined both (or all three) times. That is a significant victory for LGBTQ people.”

“I am amazed we dodged this bullet again,” Minter stated. “I am not sure how long we can keep dodging it, but for now, we live to fight again another day.”

See page 35 >>

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<< Community News

t ‘Queer Visions’ exhibit opens at Haight art center 18 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

compiled by Cynthia Laird

For more information, go to https://haightstreetart.org/.

T

he Haight Street Art Center is now showing “Queer Visions,” an exhibition that brings together LGBTQ+ artists and institutions to explore the role of nightlife in the creation of the queer community in San Francisco.

Anchored by a display of pinbacks from the Stud Archive, the exhibition looks at iconic taverns and gathering places in the city that have provided haven and joy for the queer community since the 1960s, a news release stated. The exhibit also includes work by young queer artists considering the role of their queer families and role models in their sense of self.

“HSAC is honored to collaborate with the Stud Pin Archives, the Queer Ancestors Project, Todd Trexler Posters, Katie Gilmartin, Amir Khadar, Gayface, Eye Zen, Dark Entries, and Openhouse to bring you ‘Queer Visions,’ celebrating the visual experiences that connect LGBTQ+ folks in community,” stated Kelly Harris, a queer-identified woman who is executive director of the center.

Harris stated that the exhibition showcases celebration, organizing, and social change through time.

The Stud Collective added that it’s happy to participate in the exhibit.

B.A.R.’s Bajko wins in CNPA contest

Courtesy HSAC

One of the many pins from the Stud Archive celebrates 1987.

“The Stud bar opened on Folsom Street in 1966, and survived a move to Harrison Street in 1997. While we were forced to close that location due to COVID, the Stud Collective is actively looking for a new space and hopes to reopen by the end of the year,” the collective stated.

The exhibition runs through August 15, and is free to all visitors at 215 Haight Street (near Muni line 7).

It will be open from noon to 8 p.m.

Thursdays and noon to 6 p.m. Fridays through Sundays. COVID protocols will still be followed, including mandatory masking and regulated entry.

The center and outdoor garden is fully wheelchair accessible by ramp.

Bay Area Reporter assistant editor Matthew S. Bajko took honors in several categories in the recent California News Publishers Association contest.

In the weeklies category for circulation of 11,001 to 25,000, Bajko took second place in COVID-19 reporting for his article on LGBTQs living with disabilities.

He took third place in the coverage of local government category for his article last year about cities in Contra Costa and San Mateo counties flying the Pride flag.

Two of Bajko’s Political Notebook columns were recognized. He received fourth place for his column on Sacramento losing gay elected leaders, and fifth place for a column about then-Assembly candidate Alex Lee, who went on to win and become the first out bisexual Assemblyman in the Legislature.

“I’m proud of Matthew for being recognized in achieving four awards,” said B.A.R. publisher Michael Yamashita, who’s also on the CNPA board (but did not vote in

the contest). “He’s an asset to the Bay Area Reporter and the LGBTQ community, so it’s nice to see his work being recognized. And I’m grateful that CNPA is recognizing the unique work of LGBTQ journalists.”

In honor of Pride Month the association highlighted the quartet of winning entries via its Twitter account @CNPAservices

Bay Area labor groups to honor Baird

The San Francisco Labor Council will recognize Allan Baird on Friday, June 25.

People should meet at noon at Market and Castro streets near the rainbow flag. From there, participants will march to Baird’s Castro home and wave signs and banners to let him know his work is recognized and meaningful. The event is supposed to be a surprise for Baird, organizers stated in a news release.

Baird, 89, is a straight ally who was a Teamster leader when he worked with the late gay supervisor Harvey Milk to lead the Coors boycott that began an era of collab-

oration between the organized labor and the LGBTQ communities.

It began in 1977 in part as a response to the Coors company’s 178-question employment application form, as Nancy Wohlforth explained in 2017 on the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ website.

“One question demanded: ‘Are you a homosexual?’ If you answered ‘yes,’ that terminated your application,” she stated. “Another demanded ‘Are you pro-union?’ If you answered ‘yes,’ that terminated you, too.”

“Baird, then-president of Teamsters Local 921, along with local organizers like the late Howard Wallace, an openly gay Teamster truck driver, understood the power of the LGBT community in the Bay Area,” the Teamsters site states. “Organizers approached a gay distributor who in turn approached colleagues and political activists” such as Milk.

The result was a gay bar beer boycott of Coors organized by a new labor-LGBT alliance, the website noted. And it worked, said Wohlforth: “The gay bartenders marched out with the bottles of beer and dumped them in the sewers. Coors was antigay, and racist and anti-Latino. And to this day, you can’t find Coors in a gay bar in San Francisco.”

Milk, of course, was assassinated November 27, 1978, 11 months into his term, by disgruntled ex-supervisor Dan White.

In a recent phone call with the B.A.R. to talk about the paper’s 50th anniversary, Baird fondly recalled the time when then-publisher Bob Ross let him run an ad in the paper on the boycott and only charged him $5. (Milk was a onetime political columnist for the paper.)

“Harvey had me go meet with Bob Ross one day,” Baird said, adding that he gave Ross a leaflet about the boycott.

Gay activist Cleve Jones, a confidant to Milk and a longtime labor organizer who’s now with UNITE HERE, is organizing the event. People are encouraged to bring union banners and signs.

Rainbow World Fund to celebrate Pride

Rainbow World Fund, the LGBTQ humanitarian nonprofit, will celebrate Pride in San Francisco this weekend, even though there will not be the big parade due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an email sent to supporters, Jeff Cotter, a gay man who founded and leads the all-volunteer organization, said that the agency’s rainbow bus will be parked in the Castro on Sunday, June 27, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The bus has a lounge interior and will be open for visitors. RWF will be raising funds for the many programs it supports that help LGBTQ refugees.

Volunteers are needed to be hosts in the lounge and at RWF’s information table. Shifts run from 90-minutes to two hours. To sign up, send a message via the group’s contact page at https://www.rainbowfund.org/contact-us/.

LGBTQ group gets gift from philanthropist

Funders for LGBTQ Issues, a national organization based in New York City, announced that it is among the many groups that received grants from MacKenzie Scott in her recent round of awards. Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has given away hundreds of millions of dollars to nonprofits.

Funders for LGBTQ Issues stated on its website that it received $3 million and was one of 286 high-impact See page 36 >>

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Pride 2021>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 19

Half Moon Bay welcomes LGBTQ center

by Matthew S. Bajko

H

alf Moon Bay is now home to the newest LGBTQ community center in the Bay Area, fostering connections for coastal San Mateo County residents from Pacifica to Pescadero. The CoastPride Community Center officially opened its doors in a two-story building on the city’s main corridor June 1 at the start of Pride Month.

It joins the San Mateo County Pride Center in providing services to LGBTQ residents on the Peninsula. And it means the county is now one of two in the Bay Area with multiple LGBTQ centers, as there are also two operating CoastPride Center across the bay in Alameda County.

Local young adults who hang out at the CoastPride Community Having the CoastPride cenCenter include, from left, Novak Chernesky, Joe Torrey, Emily ter now in operation will make it Cooke, Corwin Jones, Jessie Hedger-Walter, Maggie Stack, Gwina easier for coastal LGBTQ San MaPutz, and Bella Forth. teo County residents to gather for activities and access certain social of the new center has been immediate, For Espiridion Lopez, 45, walking and health services, contend its supsaid Cameron Zeller, 29, a resident of through the doors of the CoastPride porters. It can be a trek to visit the nearby El Granada who has been volcenter, with a Progress Pride flag flutSan Mateo center “over the hills,” unteering with the CoastPride group tering in the wind from its front porch, as locals refer to the northern most for about six months. has enabled him to connect with other section of the Santa Cruz Moun“It is definitely increasing visibilLGBTQ people in the area he has tain range they have to drive over to ity for queer people in this area,” said called home for close to a quarter cenreach the county’s bayside cities.

Zeller, who is queer, transgender, and tury. Originally from Nayarit, Mexico, “That location on Main Street is nonbinary. “They did a great job decLopez is not fluent in English but has insane. I saw it and thought ‘how did orating the space. The main thing is I already met several people through the we get here?’” recalled Half Moon hope it enables queer people to find center who are Spanish speakers.

Bay resident Isabella “Bella” Forth, 18, the community they need and the Speaking with the Bay Area Reporter who identifies as queer and helps run support they need.” through a translator, Lopez said he bea Dungeons and Dragons game that Zeller, a Napa native, has lived in came a member of CoastPride because attracts other queer local youth and the area since last July. They and their “every time he went there, he felt very young adults. “I know a lot of people partner, Demi Pacifuentes, a queer comfortable and had a lot of fun over ISO 12647-7 Digital Control Strip 2009 have been working for this for a long woman,70 recently couple 70 there. he identified 100 60 100 30 met 100a 60 gay 100 40 40 100 40 100 70 40 100 70 30 100 60 30 The 100moment 40 himA time. It was just super meaningful to who live a few doors from them beself as gay, he felt very comfortable.” the community and my friend group. cause one of the men noticed the

A lot of my friends’ moms were inFeels like home CoastPride sweatshirt Pacifuentes volved, and I heard them talking The center now feels like home, said was wearing while out on a walk and about it for a long time.”

100 100 60 100 100 70 70 30 30 100 100 60 100struck 100 70 30 30 100 100 60 100 100 70 70 30 30 who 100 40 100 in 40 the 40local 100 10 40 40 Lopez, works restauup70a conversation.

The center’s location at 711 Main rant industry. He said he was “feeling “I hope to meet a lot more queer Street is easily walkable from most very lonely before” while now he has people through the CoastPride cenanywhere in Half Moon Bay and is friends and he “feels part of CoastPride ter,” said Zeller. “Already, by volunteeraccessible by car or public transit for so he feels it is like he is at home.” ing there, I have met other folks.”

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Because of the center Lopez said has been opening up more about his sexual orientation. Prior to becoming a member Lopez said he was “feeling a little bit ashamed” and now he truly “feels more comfortable saying he is openly gay. He feels very open about it, and the moment he goes to CoastPride and he sees the flag, he feels at home.”

It is what the founding members of CoastPride have been striving for since they first came together in 2019 to form a group that could host its own events in the area so LGBTQ residents didn’t need to travel over the hill to San Mateo, San Jose, or San Francisco to find community. They quickly were able to not just start offering activities but also rally the local community to celebrate its LGBTQ residents.

That year, their library raised the rainbow flag in June and the local school district observed October as LGBTQ History Month. Since last June Half Moon Bay officials have flown a Pride flag in front of their City Hall, with its neighboring cities following suit this Pride Month in response to the county’s LGBTQ commission asking all of the cities and towns in the jurisdiction to raise a pride flag this month.

When Jenny Walter, 61, who is bisexual, and her wife, Deb Hedger, 60, first moved to Half Moon Bay 20 years ago, it was inconceivable to the couple that there would be an LGBTQ center in their new hometown, where they raised their daughter, Jessie, who is now 18.

70 40 40 40 70 40 40 70 40 70 40 40 3 10 “Not without a lot of work,” said Walter, who would go on to co-chair the county’s LGBTQ commission.

It was a needs assessment that the county was conducting to3.1better serve 20 70 70 70 70 40 70 40 40 0000 2.2 2.2 10.2 7.4 7.4 LGBTQ coastal residents that led to the formation of CoastPride. Early on its leaders focused their attention to opening a dedicated space to hold its meetings and offer services.

They were able to negotiate a threeyear lease at a discounted rent with an option to renew with the owner of the 13,700 square foot two-story building. Built in 1933 it includes a small kitchen area and a second floor room big enough to act as a conference room. Several smaller rooms are being rented out to a married female couple who provide counseling services to both adults and youth.

CoastPride is operating with a $55,000 yearly budget but has set a goal of raising $75,000 this year.

According to its website it has surpassed the 50% mark and raised more than $42,500 so far, with the city of Half Moon Bay allocating $5,000 toward the center.

It is now seeking financial support from San Mateo County. Supervisor Don Horsley, whose District 3 includes the coastal area, has pledged his support to secure funding for the CoastPride center. It hopes to see the Board of Supervisors sign off on $35,000 for it in the fiscal year 2021-2022 budget; Horsley could not be reached for comment.

Real estate agent David Oliphant, 58, has lived in Half Moon Bay for more than a decade with his husband, choreographer Christopher Childers, 56, who is opening up a costume shop on Main Street this weekend with a launch party to raise funds for the new center. It is important that there be services easily reachable, said Oliphant, for the county’s coastal LGBTQ community.

25 50 75 90 100 “While there are great resources in San Francisco and San Mateo, we just didn’t have that on the coast,” said Oliphant, one of the founding members of CoastPride. “Many of 25 19 19 50 40 40 75 66 66 100 100 100 80 70 70 100 the people who will use this building can’t drive over the hills or maybe won’t.”

See page 38 >>

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<< Pride 2021

20 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

Queer comics talk COVID pandemic, Pride

by David-Elijah Nahmod

C

aleb Hearon, Shelby Wolstein, and Julia Scotti have a lot in common. All are pursuing careers in comedy and all are out. Hearon, a gay man, and Wolstein, a queer woman, are the co-hosts of “Keeping Records,” a lighthearted podcast in which they ask their guests what they would send into space to paint a portrait of humanity and the world.

Scotti is a transgender woman who’s an acclaimed stand-up comic.

She transitioned in middle age, made a splash on “America’s Got Talent,” and is the subject of “Julia Scotti: Funny That Way,” a 2020 documentary about her transition and her life.

The Bay Area Reporter spoke to all three about their work, how they find humor amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and what Pride means to them.

“Funny That Way” is an entertaining film in which Scotti talks about her life-altering transition, her comedy, her relationship with her children and with her ex-wives, and her more recent quadruple bypass surgery.

For many years she was known and performed as Rick Scotti, taking a break from comedy to undergo her transition. Unlike many transgender people, Scotti is very open about her pre-transition name and identity, and in fact, the film includes footage of her performing in her male persona.

“I get that,” she said of other trans people who prefer not to reveal who they were in their previous lives. “I get that they don’t want to do that, I totally, totally get that, but, having said that, I’m in a very public job, so there’s really no way that I can hide who I was. You don’t have to dig too deep in the Google machine to find out who I was before. So I felt, what’s the point in hiding it, it made me who I am today, and the person I am today I kind of like.”

Scotti, who’s in her early 60s, gave high marks to director Susan Sandler.

“It’s hard to be objective,” Scotti said of the film. “But I think Sandler did a wonderful, wonderful job. It’s scary to put your life in someone’s hands like that, there’s a lot of trust involved that they’re not going to screw it up. She’s a very talented writer, she’s a professor, she teaches screenwriting, so she has a real good sense of the narrative of film.” (Sandler is a professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.)

Scotti doesn’t know if her ex-wives have seen the film, as she doesn’t talk to them. She’s not sure if her children

Courtesy 1091 Pictures

Caleb Hearon

Shelby Wolstein

Julia Scotti performed on “America’s Got Talent.”

Comedian and podcaster Caleb Hearon

Comedian and podcaster Shelby Wolstein

have seen it, though her kids are in the film. Scotti was estranged from her children for many years after her transition, but they have since reconciled with her. It was a reconciliation that touched her deeply.

“I never thought it would happen,” she said. “They grew up, and they got out in the world a little bit, and they saw that not everyone’s the same. I give them so much credit for being the mature, wonderful human beings that they are.”

At one point during the pandemic, with all her gigs canceled, she found herself doing deliveries for DoorDash just to make a little money. Now that things are reopening, she’s getting work again, and she’s also teaching a comedy class online.

“I spoke to a number of colleagues,” she said. “We all said the same thing, our brains got petrified. We need that constant stimulus, we couldn’t write about stuff. I wrote a play, I just took the time and wrote a play. It’s only now that I’m starting to write material again now that I’m out in civilization.”

Her play is about an Italian American family and their gay daughter in New Jersey in 1969. She said that she was very happy with the play and is now looking to get it produced.

Scotti recalled that after her 2016 appearance on “America’s Got Talent,” she was “bombarded” with positive messages from within the trans community, many of whom were very happy to see someone like themselves on TV. Though her being out is a political statement of sorts, Scotti prefers not to get too political, though she did briefly address the deluge of antitrans laws now being introduced and passed by conservative lawmakers in states across the country.

“I don’t understand it,” she said.

“I don’t get involved in their private

lives and they shouldn’t get involved in mine. I have every right to be here, as does every other trans person, as does every lesbian, gay, bisexual person. We’re all human beings, we’re all American citizens, leave us alone.”

She often performs at Pride festivals, and noted that Pride means a great deal to her.

“I love seeing the celebrations,” she said. “I love the assertion that we’re here, and more and more people accepting us and just letting us be. I love it all. I haven’t been to a Pride Month in San Francisco, but I sure would like to. It would be a wonderful place to go.”

recordings that space agency NASA sent on Voyager in 1977 as a record and portrait of life on Earth.

“I thought it was ridiculous, I had never heard of it before,” said Hearon.

“And I had never heard of it either, which is surprising, because my sister is big into space,” added Wolstein.

And so they came up with the idea of asking guests about what they think are the most important things in culture and on earth. So far they’ve done 27 episodes.

“Our audience right now are young, queer people that are extremely online,” Hearon said.

Their guests have offered a wide range of humorous things that they wanted to send into space, such as one guest who wanted to preserve their dad’s shrimp curry crepe recipe, and another who wanted to send the entire Beatles discography. Still another wanted to send a Swiffer mop.

“Some guests send 20 things, some send three, we aim for at least five,” said Hearon. “Then we just get into it with them and talk about why they love this music.”

“Or why they would include it,” said Wolstein, “because sometimes it’s not that they love it. The person who put on Disney was putting it on because she thinks it says a lot about humanity.”

“People have very different approaches to the records,” added Hearon. “People approach it from their favorite things on earth, some people approach it from what aliens need to like us, because the idea is that aliens will find all these records we’re making and understand what humans are all about.”

They also talk about what Hearon called “cool things,” like sex and drugs.

Wolstein noted that they get many private messages through their Insta-

The podcast life

“Keeping Records,” the podcast co-hosted by Hearon and Wolstein, is also an entertaining work. The two are best friends and roommates, and often finish each other’s sentences.

Their personas are lighthearted and upbeat as they kibbitz with each other like morning drive-time radio hosts – albeit with four letter words! They met in Chicago where they were both doing comedy. They are now in Los Angeles.

“We are both queer, but if we could be straight for each other, God, we would do it,” said Hearon.

“In a heartbeat,” added Wolstein.

Hearon, 26, added that he prefers the word gay in reference to himself, but that Wolstein, 27, goes by queer.

“I have to say queer or it gets confusing,” she said, “because I’ll date anyone.”

It was important to them that the podcast they started be an idea, and not just the two of them talking about whatever came up. Then Hearon had a phone conversation with a friend in North Carolina who was reading about the Golden Record, which were

gram and Twitter accounts, and that they do engage with listeners.

“I think we’ll be doing this for 75 years,” said Hearon.

“Unless we do make contact with aliens and then we’ll have to stop the pod,” quipped Wolstein.

Like everyone, Hearon and Wolstein had to deal with the pandemic.

The pair had a busy year in spite of COVID, moving as they did from Chicago to Los Angeles, then moving within Los Angeles.

“We’re sort of like exploring a new city in a post-apocalyptic way,” said Wolstein. “Now we’re getting to see it in its more normal way, but for awhile it was driving the 101 and you’re the only car there, which is just like really disorienting, and there’s humor in that. There’s humor in sitting at home with one person for six months.

There’s humor in all of it, there’s obviously the tragedy of it all.”

Hearon pointed out that there’s always something happening to make doing comedy difficult.

“And you just choose to do it anyway,” he said. “And that’s what we did during the pandemic.”

Both are now fully vaccinated. Both spoke a bit about Pride Month.

“I’m a late life queer,” said Wolstein.

“I came out when I already had an entire queer group of friends, and I’ve been very, very fortunate.”

“You let the rest of us do the work,” said Hearon as they both laughed.

Hearon added that he thinks Pride should be a political protest against racism, transphobia, and the police.

“When I think about Pride I often think about it as a juxtaposition,” said Hearon. “I grew up in rural Missouri in the closet and I didn’t know a single out gay adult at all, period. So when I think about that part of my life, and this part of my life, where all of my friends are queer to some extent, so Pride to me is the ability to have a community where you feel like you are just truly able to be yourself.

“It doesn’t even feel like a question anymore, when I was growing up I never imagined that I would get to live like that,” he added. “And now I’m shocked if I ever have to explain something about my sexuality because it feels so understood, and that to me is very much the feeling of Pride.” t “Julia Scotti: Funny That Way” is streaming at Google Play, Vudu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and YouTube. For “Keeping Records,” go to https://headgum.com/keepingrecords.

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Queer Reading>>

t Novel tells gay man’s traumatic journey to freedom

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 23

by Heather Cassell

S

itting in the Denver home that he shares with his husband, gay firsttime novelist Luai Qubain is free, living his dream, and heading into his future. His freedom was not without a price, however, and it was painfully hard won.

The 35-year-old former oil and gas engineer’s pain and struggle for his liberty is detailed in his first Englishlanguage autobiographical novel, “The Kingdom Sandcastle,” which was published in April.

Qubain’s life in Jordan was made for fiction, he said, stating that 95% of the Courtesy Luai Qubain book was drawn directly from his life.

There was no need to make up draAuthor Luai Qubain matic plots, betrayals, or Earth-shattering discoveries; the story was already traumatic stress disorders. It didn’t embedded in his own experience. make excavating his memories for the His life was so unbelievable that book any easier, he said. when friends and people heard his “It was very traumatic for me to story, they encouraged him to tell it. relive a lot of the memories, espe“Everyone I told the story to was cially since a lot of the memories are super-amazed by everything,” Qubain blocked from my mind, I guess to said during a Zoom interview with protect me from them,” he said. “I bethe Bay Area Reporter. came traumatized again.”

He said that it was painful sitting His PTSD flared up and he ended down to write his story; it took effort up developing an eating disorder after to unlock the memories he put away he finished writing the book, he said. deep within his mind, he said, and to

put to words to his experience.

The book For 13 years, he denied seeking help Qubain draws readers directly into for himself after a therapist in Jordan behis story through fast-paced dialogue trayed him by disclosing conversations and without 12647-7 Strip 2009 elucidating long drawnfrom100his60therapyISO sessions to hisDigital aunt. Control 100 70 30 100 60 100 70 30 100 60 100 70 A out descriptions.

“I was traumatized from therapy “I want[ed] to write the book in a for a very long time,” Qubain said. way where if I was sitting in front of “I did not go back to therapy ... until you and talking to you,” Qubain said. mid-2018.”

“I want to leave room for the reader’s A landed 100 suicide 100 60 100attempt 100 70 70 30 30him 100in 100 60 100 100 70 70 30 30 100 100 60 100 100 70 70 imagination to do some work.” the emergency room and back in a He purposefully wanted to provide therapist’s office. “just enough details” to “build an im“I knew that I needed therapy,” he age” in the reader’s mind,” he explained. said. “I needed therapy to survive.”

People’s names in the book were Qubain said that he now has the changed to protect their privacy. The tools he needs to manage his anxiety, end was fictionalized, he said. depression, and bipolar and postB

Courtesy Amazon

“The Kingdom’s Sandcastle”

The novel has already received acclaim, and Qubain has been fielding messages from LGBTQ people around the world thanking him for sharing his story, he said.

“I wanted to inspire other people who are still in societies that just do not accept them for who they are,” said Qubain. “I want them to know that there is a better way for them in the world. They have to fight for it, but it is possible to get there.”

His story

Qubain grew up Catholic in Amman, the capital of Jordan. In 2004, he got his first taste of freedom in the 40 100 40 30 100 40at UC 100 40 70 United States Santa40Barbara.

But two months later his father, due to false rumors spread by family members, quickly snatched that away from him.

“My dad made me [return to Jor30 30 100 40 100 40 40 100 10 40 40 dan],” Qubain said, recalling the phone conversation a world away. “He said, ‘If you’re going to be in the U.S. I am not supporting you.’

“I’m like OK, I have never worked in my whole life before, so I have no choice but to go back home,” he said, T:9.75" explaining he was unaware of finan3%

cial aid options that could have helped him stay in the U.S. at the time.

Qubain returned to Jordan, where it is legal to be gay but socially taboo.

“The Middle East is not a very good place for gays or LGBTQ [people],” he said. “If you’re not Muslim, if you’re not a man and straight ... it is not a place for you.”

Middle Eastern people “look at you as if you are not human if you’re gay,” he said.

“You are a sin that’s walking around,” he continued, and that sin, “needs to be cleansed by either committing an honor crime, being sent to conversion therapy, [being disowned], ... or something else.

“You’re constantly living in fear because you’re hated simply because you’re gay,” Qubain said. “LGBTQ people are scared of being exposed.”

Qubain said there are many LGBTQs in the region. “The LGBTQ community in the Middle East is huge,” he said. “Everybody’s closeted.”

He talked about how men hook up through masked profiles on dating apps, which makes them easy targets for entrapment by antigay men and police where they can be blackmailed, assaulted, or both.

“You’re constantly living in fear because you’re hated simply3because 70 40 40 40 70 40 40 70 40 70 40 40 10 you’re gay,” Qubain said. “LGBTQ people are scared of being exposed.”

Fear ruled his life, holding him prisoner in an unhealthy relationship and70family environment.

His former 10.2 7.4 7.4 20 70 70 70 40 70 40 40 0000 3.1 2.2 2.2 lover raped him daily for 18 months, he told the B.A.R. “I couldn’t do anything about it,” said Qubain. “I knew if I told my family, A) I would be coming out, then B) I’m a rape victim. What’s going to happen? A plus B equals I’m going to

get either killed, disowned, or something else.”

This is one of the many reasons why Qubain does not blame LGBTQ people in the Middle East and the diaspora for not coming out. He knows they will be disowned, tortured in conversion therapy, or become victims in honor killings. He also understands their financial and social dependency on their families.

It does not matter where in the world they live. The familial bond is strong and any good or bad news about a family member travels fast in gossipy family circles, he said.

For three years after returning to Jordan, he savored the freedom that California and the U.S. left in his memory. It helped him through his mother’s death and his own ordeals before he returned to the states permanently.

“I’ve always wanted to become an American,” said Qubain, who became a citizen in 2015.

“I love Jordan as a country,” he said, reminiscing about the food, especially his grandmother’s cooking; the summer nights; and the Dead Sea and Petra, two of the country’s famous sites.

“Jordan is so rich in history and culture, I just wish it was a gay-friendly place,”50he said.75 25 90 100

Life or death

Qubain finally came to a breaking point.

“There was75no 25 19 19 50 40 40 66 66other 100 100way 100 80than 70 70 100literally killing myself to relieve myself from this torture or start over again from somewhere far away where [his former lover] could not reach me,” Qubain said.

“I promised my mom the last See page 36 >>

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<< Queer Reading

24 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

t

Book makes the case for LGBTQ reparations

by Brian Bromberger

F

or Omar G. Encarnación, Ph.D., it started with a New York Times oped he wrote two years ago, making the case for a “robust embrace of gay reparations in the United States, along the lines of Spain, Britain, and Germany.”

Encarnación, a gay man, argued that LGBTQ reparations, whether in the form of an apology, a pardon, or financial restitution, were a moral obligation intended to restore dignity to the victims of anti-gay discrimination and violence. He also tied gay reparations to “the broader struggle

by LGBTQ people for full citizenship, understood not only as rights and responsibilities, but also respect, recognition, and the sense of belonging to a national community.” Queer citizens in the U.S. would join other marginalized groups from women to African Americans to immigrants, for full acceptance into American society.

The op-ed engendered vigorous discussions, as well as hate mail. Encarnación, a professor of political studies at Bard College in New York, sent the essay to his editor at Oxford University Press and she thought it would make a terrific subject for a book.

“Not only did I want to make a more expansive case for gay reparations, but I was also eager to tackle some of the comparative questions raised by the politics of gay reparations – such as what explained the rise of gay reparations as a new front in the struggle for LGBTQ equality; how gay reparations intersect with other forms of reparations, especially those intended to make amends for the legacy of racial discrimination; and why the United States fell behind other democratic peers in embracing gay reparations,” he wrote in an email interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

The focus of his new book, “The

Courtesy Bard College

Omar G. Encarnación

“The Case for Gay Reparations” was published June 1.

Case for Gay Reparations” (Oxford University Press, $24.95), was not what Encarnación, 57, had initially been writing about.

“In June, 2019, while I was in the midst of writing a book about the ‘gay rights backlash,’ which aims to explain why this backlash, going back to the 1970s, has been more intense in the U.S. than in other liberal democracies, the story broke out that the [New York City Police Department] had issued an apology for the Stonewall raid.”

The 1969 riots, of which the 50th anniversary was in 2019, marked the birth of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

“As a student of the international gay rights movement, I knew the broader implications of the apology, which was the onset of ‘gay reparations’ in the U.S., or the attempt to make amends for a history of systemic anti-gay discrimination and violence,” he wrote. “Until that apology, the U.S. had been something of an outlier among Western democracies with significant histories of homosexual repression in not having embraced any kind of reparation toward gay

people.”

Encarnación discussed how he defines reparations and the most common forms they can take.

“By reparations, I mean policies intended to make amends for a history of systemic anti-gay discrimination and violence,” he stated. “It can take a variety of forms, from an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and the promise to do better in the future (Britain is the best example of this); to rehabilitation, which involves expunging prior convictions of a crime stemming from the criminalization of homosexuality (this was done in Spain); to financial compensation for time spent in prison or a mental institution due to the persecution of homosexuality (this was done in Spain, Canada, and Germany); to a monument to honor the memory of the victims of systemic anti-gay discrimination and violence (Germany).

Finally, there’s truth-telling, or the organization of a truth commission tasked with the responsibility of creating a state-sanctioned history of systemic anti-gay discrimination.”

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press reparations was a suggestion by James Driscoll in a July 2019 op-ed article in the Washington Blade entitled, “It’s Time for Reparations for LGBT Americans.”

“What would those reparations look like?” Driscoll asked. “We do not seek a big financial giveaway. Pride is what our people want, and respect is what they need. Full recognition of the immense contributions and enormous wrongs born by LGBT people in America is in order. As a starter, let’s have a museum on the [National] Mall to honor LGBT Americans, no politician has yet ventured to suggest it. ... There is no dearth of great LGBT Americans and achievements to commemorate and celebrate. We are best known for letters and arts that define the spirit and character of a nation. We have given our nation a disproportionate number of its greatest writers, composers and artists including Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg; composers Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, Billy Strayhorn; painters John Singer Sargent, Georgia O’Keefe, Thomas Eakins, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring.”

When asked why now is the best time to discuss this controversial topic, Encarnación replied, “There’s never a bad time to try to right past wrongs; so yes, this moment is as good as any. It is also important to note that there’s no universal approach to gay reparations. Every country is within its right to choose the approach that best suits its needs and history.

“The broader point is to acknowledge the injustices of the past in the hopes that they will not be repeated in the future,” he added. “Beyond that, reparations, of any kind, are always a work in progress; it need not be limited to ‘gays’ as in homosexual males; in Spain, for instance, gay reparations have been extended to anyone who has been harmed because of the state’s repression based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Encarnación sees LGBTQ reparations as a moral obligation to address America’s shameful history of systemic anti-gay discrimination. Any reparations couldn’t erase this history, but they could have positive benefits.

“First, it would restore dignity to its many victims,” he stated. “Understood, not only as respect but the notion that ‘all human beings are imbued with value and worth,’ dignity is part and parcel of the struggle for full citizenship. Dignity rests at the core of the meaning of human rights as defined by the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Secondly, gay reparations are necessary in order to put an unambiguous end to America’s long history of anti-gay animus and simultaneously usher in a new era of gay acceptance,” he continued. “Regrettably, the advent of gay rights has not meant the end of hostilities toward the LGBT community, including anti-gay violence.

“Third, gay reparations are needed to familiarize the American public with, and sensitize them to, historical gay injustices – and, more broadly, to inform them about the history of the gay community – in the hopes these injustices are not repeated. Gay reparations hold the promise of enabling American society to close painful chapters of homosexual repression and violence while deepening the notion of American citizenship and reminding future generations of the sacrifices of the past,” he wrote.

Critiques

When his op-ed was published in 2019, Encarnación received

many critiques, which he distilled into five distinct arguments against LGBTQ reparations.

“The first one is that it is wrong for gay rights activists to apply today’s values to acts of discrimination against the gay community that took place a long time ago,” he wrote. “Aside from reflecting the values of the period, these acts of anti-gay discrimination also happen to have been legal at the time. Second, gay reparations are little more than an exercise in virtue signaling (the conspicuous expression of moral rectitude), with the risk of becoming a slippery slope that could open the floodgates to reparations for just about anyone who has faced hardship or discrimination in life.

“Third, gay reparations are divisive and likely to generate a new class of American victims, taking identity politics and ‘victimhood’ to a new level,” he continued.“Fourth, gay reparations lack justification because, unlike the case of racial discrimination, there is no intergenerational damage linked to anti-gay discrimination. Fifth, gay reparations are redundant because of the economic success of the gay community.”

In his book, Encarnación answers each of these criticisms, but he stated that all these arguments rely on stereotypes and old tropes about LGBTQ people; flawed comparisons between queer people and other groups victimized by repression, especially African Americans; and a lack of empathy toward the LGBTQ community.

In particular he noted, “the argument about the lack of ‘intergenerational suffering’ within the LGBTQ community ignores the fact that there are many direct victims of anti-gay discrimination still alive in the United States, such as the thousands of gays and lesbians dismissed from the military under [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’], as it is the individuals themselves who suffered the consequences of anti-gay discrimination, not their relatives or descendants.”

Encarnación also pointed to studies such as the 2013 report by the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ think tank at UCLA School of Law, which found that LGBTQ Americans are poorer than the population at large, with 35% of LGBTQ Americans having incomes of less than $24,000 versus 24% for the general population. He also writes that while it is fair to argue that it may be wrong to apply today’s moral values to the past, much anti-gay discrimination remained in place in the U.S. well after it was known that this type of discrimination was wrong and that it was “inflicting extraordinary pain and harm on the gay community.”

Encarnación observed that no LGBTQ rights activist has ever argued that the struggle for gay civil rights is the same as the struggle for civil rights

by African Americans.

“Rather, the argument is that the denial of Constitutionally-guaranteed rights is an experience shared by gay people and African Americans,” he wrote. “The civil rights movement really pioneered the concept of minority rights and made it easier for gays to begin to depict themselves as a minority who deserved the same civil rights that other Americans and other minorities did. Addressing slavery and the injustices committed against the gay community need not be mutually exclusive. They can be part of the same struggle.

“In the book I endorse an acknowledgment and an apology for the gay community; both have already been extended to the African American community, the Japanese American community (for the World War II internment camps); so gay people would not be getting anything that has not already been given to other See page 36 >>

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<< Pride 2021

26 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

t

SF LGBTQ historic sites now official city landmarks

by Matthew S. Bajko

T

wo historic sites in San Francisco tied to LGBTQ history are now officially city landmarks. The newest to the list, landmark No. 292, is the Lyon-Martin House.

The Noe Valley home of pioneering lesbian couple Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin was added Monday, June 21. Their two-story cottage at 651 Duncan Street is the first local LGBTQ historical property protected solely for its ties to lesbian history.

It is also the first private residence owned by lesbians to receive landmark status in the Western United States, according to local historians.

In San Francisco, it is the fifth site to receive city landmark status specifically for its importance to LGBTQ history.

Altogether there are now seven city landmarks that are historically significant to the LGBTQ community. In late May the Japanese YWCA/ Issei Women’s Building in Japantown became landmark No. 291.

The Julia Morgan-designed wood frame structure at 1830 Sutter Street was where the pioneering gay rights group the Mattachine Society hosted its first convention in May 1954.

Bayard Rustin, the late gay African American civil rights leader, also taught a course at the site.

Its current owner, the Nihonmachi Little Friends, had pushed for the property to become a local landmark. It is the first property tied to the city’s Japanese American community to receive city, state, and national landmark designations.

Morgan had worked pro bono on behalf of a group of Issei, or first generation, Japanese American women in the United States who were barred from using the YWCA’s other facilities. The building was constructed in 1932 and sports an eclectic Japanese-inspired

style. (An addition also designed in a Japanese-inspired style was built in 2017.)

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents Noe Valley, had instigated the landmarking of the Lyon-Martin House last year at the urging of historic preservationists and LGBTQ community leaders after the property was bought by a straight couple with intentions to build a home for their family at the site. In exchange of their pledging to protect the women’s cottage, Mandelman did not include in the landmark request the vacant garden area of the property where Paul McKeown and his wife, Meredith Jones-McKeown, plan to build their new house.

What is to become of the LyonMartin House remains to be seen.

Due to it being located in a residential area on a steep hill, it is likely unsuitable to be opened as a museum accessible to the public. One idea that has been floated is to use it for an artist-in-residence type program.

Journalists who first met in Seattle in 1952, Lyon and Martin helped launch the influential Daughters of Bilitis, the first political and social organization for lesbians in the United States. They purchased the San Francisco property in 1955 and used it as a gathering place for the city’s lesbian community and the site of various meetings and events.

Lyon died last April at the age of 95. Martin died in 2008 at the age of 87 weeks after the women were the first same-sex couple to legally marry in California that June.

Their home now joins the late gay supervisor Harvey Milk’s residence and former Castro Camera shop at 573 Castro Street as a city landmark.

The others related to LGBTQ history include the former home to the AIDS Memorial Quilt at 2362 Mar-

Courtesy California Department of Parks and Recreation

The Japanese YWCA/Issei Women’s Building is located in San Francisco’s Japantown.

ket Street; the Twin Peaks bar at the corner of Market, Castro and 17th streets, and the now-defunct Paper Doll restaurant and bar site at 524 Union Street in North Beach, where the late Bay Area Reporter founding publisher Bob Ross once operated an eatery.

The seventh city landmark with ties to LGBTQ history is the Women’s Building at 3543 18th Street in the Mission. A group of women that included a number of lesbian leaders founded it in 1971 and moved into the current location in 1979, where numerous meetings of LGBTQ groups and conferences have taken place over the years.

When the building was deemed a city landmark in 1985, its LGBTQ history went unmentioned. It was added later when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

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The kitchen of the Lyon-Martin House is shown through a window; the site officially became a city landmark June 21.

Also listed on the federal register partly due to its LGBTQ historical ties, but not a city landmark, is the Federal Building at 50 UN Plaza. It was where the longest known AIDS protest took place in the mid-1980s into the 1990s.

The eighth LGBTQ historic site to become a city landmark is expected to be 396-398 12th Street. The South of Market property is home to the gay-owned Eagle bar and will be the first local landmark recognized for its ties to leather history.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to approve granting it local landmark status in July. It would be the second leather Eagle bar in the country to be deemed a city landmark, as Atlanta officials granted such status to their Eagle bar in December. t

To see the entire list of San Francisco city landmarks, visit https:// codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/ san_francisco/latest/sf_planning/0-0-0-28058.

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Krishnia Parker, Assembly Democratic Caucus

CA Capitol shows its Pride

T

he California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, an affinity group for out lawmakers, illuminated the state Capitol dome in rainbow colors Monday, June 21, to kick off a weeklong recognition of Pride Month. Out legislators attended the ceremony, including

Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), the caucus chair, and state Senators Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), and Senate President pro tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). Also on hand were Tony Hoang, executivedesignate of Equal-

ity California; EQCA legislative director Tami Martin, who is also external affairs director for the Capitol LGBTQ Association; Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg; and Alexis Sanchez, director of advocacy for the Sacramento LGBTQ Community Center.

Equity.

Respect.

Pride.

San Francisco Police Officers in solidarity with our LGBTQ community.

Congratulations on the 51st San Francisco LGBTQ Pride celebration.

SAN FRANCISCO

POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION

<< Pride 2021

28 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

<<

CA archives

From page 1

land, to hire an archivist who worked throughout the pandemic last year to ready the magazine’s materials for use by researchers and others. It was some of the only work the archive was able to do, having closed to the public last March.

“During COVID some of that was slowed down, but we did not stop processing it,” said Angela Brinskele, a selfdescribed lifelong lesbian who is the Mazer’s director of communications.

Located in the city-owned Werle Building at 626 N. Robertson Boulevard, the Mazer has yet to open to the public. In May, it began allowing researchers back in on an appointment-only basis.

“We are letting researchers in by appointment only with really strict COVID guidelines. We take everybody’s temperature and we wear gloves,” explained Brinskele in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter in early June. “The archivists who work with us haven’t been comfortable until the last few weeks having more than one person per room in the archive or one person at a time.”

Roughly $6,000 in funding it received from the city of West Hollywood this year allowed the Mazer to mount an online exhibit for Pride Month about women in music utilizing materials in its Betsy York Collection. The Mazer, named after the late lesbian activist and historic preservationist June L. Mazer, who died of cancer in 1987, has never been able to hire a full-time archivist.

Yet because of the grant funding it received over the last year, the Mazer had “the most productive year we’ve ever had in probably 10 years,” said Brinskele.

“A lot of organizations like us have gone under in the last year because they could not survive the pandemic.”

Like its LGBTQ archival counterparts across California, the Mazer had to vastly curtail its accessibility and move online any programming it wanted to continue to provide when the COVID pandemic starting raging across the Golden State last March, leading health officials to order nonessential businesses and facilities to temporarily close their doors. With nearly all of those operating restrictions lifted as of June 15, the archival centers are beginning to return to normal operating procedures.

Seeking state funding

They are also looking to state lawmakers for funding assistance since the health crisis upended their revenue streams, which in a normal year are already minimal for most LGBTQ archives when compared to their larg-

Gooch

Terry Beswick, center, shows elected officials a fragment of Gilbert Baker’s original rainbow flag at the GLBT Historical Society Museum.

er, more mainstream counterparts.

The Mazer, for instance, has a yearly budget of $50,000.

It is hopeful that a $750,000 allocation it and a coalition of LGBTQ archives from across California had requested earlier this year, and that state legislators included in their budget proposal, will survive the ongoing budget negotiations between the Legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom. The state’s new fiscal year begins July 1.

“It is extremely important,” Brinskele, who works part-time for the archives, said of the state funding, “because we rely on the community for donations otherwise. If we don’t get grants, we really have no paid staff generally without grant money. That makes everything harder.”

The GLBT Historical Society based in San Francisco coordinated the joint ask from the eight LGBTQ archival groups, which includes the ONE Archives housed at the USC Libraries in Los Angeles, San Diego’s Lambda Archives, and the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center at the San Francisco Public Library. A request they made last year to maintain the $500,000 granted to them via the California State Library in the fiscal year budget that began July 1, 2019, was denied.

“This is not a lot of money, but for queer archives in California, it goes a long way, especially for us as we try to recover from the pandemic just like everyone else,” said GLBT Historical Society Executive Director Terry Beswick, a gay man. “For our archives, we have had stacks of things mailed to us we haven’t even opened yet to be accessioned into the archives. That is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Their funding ask this year, as the B.A.R. first reported online June 1, was a top priority for the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, the affinity group for out legislators. And as the archives explained in a letter sent earlier this year to the caucus leaders, it is vitally

needed to help them recover from their being forced closed due to the COVID pandemic.

“Over the last year, while we have faced daunting funding challenges, we have largely been unable to access our physical collections, stalling new acquisitions, and slowing processing and digitization efforts. This year, as we hope to return to normal working conditions, we have much work ahead of us,” wrote the LGBTQ archive leaders.

The San Francisco LGBTQ archival group’s staff was forced to work from home throughout the pandemic and only recently was allowed access to their offices and the archives housed in the basement of a building on central Market Street. Since last spring, the staff had focused on adding archival material already digitized into the appropriate online collections.

“They have not been able to digitize anything for the last year or been processing the existing collections, so they will need to spend some time to catch up here,” said Beswick.

The COVID pandemic also led the archival group to inform people who wanted to make donations they needed to wait until the archives reopened.

Sadly, noted Beswick, some prospective donors died during the last year.

“There is a risk of things being lost,” he said, “so that is the backlog we have to deal with.”

It began scheduling in-person research appointments on a limited basis at its downtown archives center June 1. It reopened its GLBT Historical Society Museum in the Castro district June 4 with the public unveiling of a segment from one of the first rainbow flags that flew in front of San Francisco City Hall during the 1978 Pride parade.

The late gay supervisor Harvey Milk had urged gay artist Gilbert Baker to design a symbol for the occasion. With the help of his friends Lynn Segerblom, who now lives in Southern California, and James McNamara, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1999,

Baker came up with a rainbow flag design that had eight colored stripes, with one version also sporting a corner section of stars to mimic the design of the American flag.

Baker would go on to reduce the number of colored stripes to just six and turned the rainbow flag into an international symbol of LGBTQ rights.

He died unexpectedly in 2017, and the foundation created in his name recently discovered the until-now thought to be lost flag fragment and donated it to the GLBT Historical Society, which also maintains Baker’s papers.

The San Francisco museum hopes the new exhibit will drive visitors to it as it has seen its city funding significantly reduced this year. It was turned down for a $150,000 arts commission grant it had applied for and was also not granted the $250,000 in funding it had applied for from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.

Instead, it was awarded $50,000, which is a steep drop from the $400,000 in city funding it had received last year.

Thus, the nonprofit is unsure of how much longer it can continue to operate its museum in the Castro, where its current lease expires in January.

There is a chance the Board of Supervisors will add back some operating funds for the historic preservation group as it takes up the city’s fiscal year 2021-2022 budget in the coming weeks. In a Guest Opinion in the B.A.R. this week, Supervisors Matt Haney, the budget chair, and Rafael Mandelman, the board’s only LGBTQ member, propose adding $100,000 in capacity building efforts for the historical society. Mayor London Breed did allocate $10 million toward the purchase of a site for it to build a larger LGBTQ museum in the city, with another $2 million to help cover related expenses.

“Our budget from the city is up in the air right now,” Beswick noted in an interview with the B.A.R. in late May.

Queer religious archive plans its return

The Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley has also begun to slowly reopen. Founded in 2000, with a yearly budget now of $400,000 and a staff of six, it will celebrate its 21st anniversary this September.

Bernard Schlager, a gay man who is an associate professor of historical and cultural studies at the East Bay religious school, has worked at the center for two decades and was named its executive director 11 years ago. Among its archival collections are the papers of the late Jesuit priest John McNeill, an important early Roman Catholic gay writer, and Andrew Ramer, a gay man and Jewish poet in his early 70s who lives in Oakland.

It also has the papers of lesbian evangelical writer Virginia Mollenkott, who would later identify as omnigender and died in 2019 at the age of 88. In addition to its archives it maintains, the center also runs a certificate program for 300 graduate students studying sexuality and religion.

“The archives is important but a small piece of what we do,” said Schlager. “It has been largely closed, but we are opening up now slowly. We

<<

50 years in 50 weeks: 1982 Pride parade death

T

he 1982 San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Day parade took a tragic turn when 19-year-old Darryl Anderson was killed when he fell under the wheels of a float. It marked the first time there was a fatality in a San Francisco Pride parade. Sadly, a man died in Florida last weekend after he was struck by a truck during the Fort

Courtesy B.A.R. Archive

Lauderdale Pride parade, in what authorities are calling an accident. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s 1982 parade was full of diversity and fun, despite the unfortunate turn of events. To view the issue, go to https://archive. org/details/BAR_19820701/mode/2up

Gay sex venues

From page 12

bathhouse will not be keeping a record of anyone’s vaccination information once a patron obtains the membership for which it is required.

“You can bring a card, a photo of it on the phone, or a photocopy,” Jensen said.

Other prices have not gone up: a locker is $18 until Friday night, when the price increases to $23. Similarly, a standard room is $31 until the same time, when it rises to $36.

SF sex club fully reopened too In San Francisco, Market Street’s

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are a center for education, research, advocacy, and community building.”

Its campus is partially opening July 1 and planning to be fully open by August 15 ahead of the fall semester. Since last March, the archival center has conducted all of its programming online.

“We hope this fall they will allow us to let people in. Right now we are completely closed,” Schlager told the B.A.R. in early June. “People will need to have proof of vaccination.”

It houses more than 15 collections related to the LGBTQ and religious movements and individuals. In the summer of 2019 it received the archival collection for the LGBTQ-focused Metropolitan Community Churches denomination.

It is eager to begin stabilizing some audio and visual parts of the archival materials as well as some physical objects that are part of the collection, in addition to making it entirely accessible to the public. The stabilization work is being funded by an $18,000 grant from California Revealed, a California State Library initiative that helps public libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other heritage groups digitize, preserve, and provide online access to materials documenting the state’s history, art, and cultures.

“Because of COVID we’ve not spent it. We are not allowed to get our specialist into the stacks,” explained Schlager.

He expressed optimism that the state funding allocation for the group of LGBTQ archives would survive the legislative budget talks. He pointed to the grant funding and other financial assistance his center and others have received over the years as evidence that state leaders understand their importance.

“I think it is great the state is showing its support for preserving the archival record and history of LGBTQ people, families and communities,” said Schlager. “I expect the governor to sign it. He has been a strong supporter of LGBTQ organizations as far as I understand it.”

He added, “I am also aware the state has quite the surplus this year, one maybe once in a lifetime or a century, so I say share the largesse.”

The other signatories of the funding request were the Archives and Special Collections at UCSF, whose holdings include the AIDS History Project, and the OUTWORDS archive in Los Angeles focused on LGBTQ elders.

Brinskele with the Mazer archives told the B.A.R. she wishes the state would be as supportive of the LGBTQ archives as West Hollywood, its home since 1985, has been of it with city funding and support over the years.

Researchers from across the globe now utilize its holdings, she noted.

“We are a one-of-a-kind valuable resource to the community,” she said. “If more people, more cities and the state of California thought that more often, we would be in really good shape.” t

For more information about the religious archives, visit its website at https://www.clgs.org/ The Mazer’s online collections can be found at https://www.mazerlesbianarchives.org/ The GLBT Historical Society’s website is at https://www.glbthistory.org/

Eros has been open since May 20, as the B.A.R. reported earlier this month. Co-owner Ken Rowe told the B.A.R. June 21 that the restrictions that remained then – such as a mask requirement in the play space, and a 25% capacity limit – went by the wayside on June 16, one day after the great California reopening.

“We are at full capacity and no longer limit how many guests are in here,” Rowe said. “The steamroom and sauna have no limits, and one of our rooms that we closed to work on while we got up and running reopened, too.”

Eros used to allow people to use a negative COVID-19 test result within See page 36 >>

<< Pride 2021

30 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

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Visit www.sfmohcd.org for program information.

Tenderloin marks Pride

T

rans drag performer Pearl Teese, center, performed at the Tenderloin Pride Festival Saturday, June 19. The Tenderloin Merchants Association and the San Francisco Community Health Center produced the festival, the first

Christopher Robledo

during June’s Pride Month. It also marked the first federal recognition of the Juneteenth holiday, which observes the end of slavery in the U.S. In addition to drag performances, there were vendor booths, food, and other entertainment.

SF leather, bear fairs look to return in-person

by John Ferrannini

A

Professional headshots / profile pics Weddings / Events

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SFLogCabin.org LGBTQ Organization Established 1977

s the Bay Area and the state reopens after more than a year of COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions, LGBTQ street fairs are among those events that are back on.

The Up Your Alley and Folsom Street leather- and kink-focused fairs in the city’s South of Market neighborhood will be proceeding with inperson gatherings, but in rebranded formats intended to help the neighborhood’s LGBTQ businesses recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic.

“Our July event is going to be rebranded to Folsom Street Market, and will be vendor focused, but in the same footprint [as the Up Your Alley street fair],” Angel Adeyoha, the queer and nonbinary executive director of Folsom Street Events told the Bay Area Reporter. “We plan to bring back Up Your Alley, in all its sticky glory, next year.”

Adeyoha said that Folsom Street Events hopes to partner with the city on providing COVID-19 testing and vaccines for the Folsom Street Market event, which will be Sunday, July 25.

There will be no alcohol or food “because we want to support the bars and venues that have had an awful year,” Adeyoha said.

On Sunday, September 26, Megahood 2021 will be held in lieu of the Folsom Street Fair. Megahood harkens back to the original name of SOMA’s internationally-renowned kink and leather festival when it began in 1984.

Adeyoha said that Folsom Street Events has been receiving feedback from community members, some of whom expressed their concern that the fair had become too disconnected from the SOMA community. “Focusing on the grassroots” will be the theme of Megahood, Adeyoha said.

“We are trying to center – based on feedback in the last several years – those community roots,” Adeyoha said. “We will be specially prioritizing marginalized members of our community, both in vendors and entertainment.”

Folsom Street Events will also be partnering with Lava Mae to provide “on site showers and hospitality areas for houseless neighbors, because one thing our fair does that isn’t great is it makes people feel pushed out of their neighborhoods.”

The nonprofit will also be provid-

Rick Gerharter

The weather was warm, and attire was minimal, at the 2019 Folsom Street Fair.

ing snacks and shade to the homeless.

Megahood 2021 will be bigger than the Folsom Street Market, just as the Folsom Street Fair is larger than Up Your Alley. There will be “more vendors” and “more booths,” but alcohol and food will also not be served so that people can patronize SOMA establishments.

“Don’t expect 2019 yet,” Adeyoha said. “We’re ramping up; it’ll be a party, but not like pre-pandemic.”

In the meantime, a series of smaller outdoor events called SOMA Second Saturdays launched in May. “It’s a way to start getting back to in-person events,” Adeyoha said.

SOMA Second Saturdays, which is being put on in coordination between Folsom Street Events, the SOMA West CBD and the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District, is a vendor, art and artisan fair. COVID-19 protocols will be enforced. The leather district touts “a safe, fun afternoon with Queer Art, Kinky Crafts, Local Artisans, Fun Vendors, Clubs and Organizations” on its website.

New bear fair in October

Just a few blocks south, the inaugural Bearrison Street Fair is slated to take place Saturday, October 23, from noon to 6 p.m.

The Bearrison Street Fair, on Harrison Street, is a collaborative effort between the Bears of San Francisco and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

“There actually used to be a bear street fair on Harrison Street over a decade ago,” said Erik Greenfrost, a genderqueer gay person who is the chair of Bears of San Francisco and the co-chair of the Bearrison Street Fair, referring to the Hairrison Street

Fair that took place in the 2000s, as the B.A.R. contemporaneously reported.

Prior to the pandemic, Greenfrost and Desi Juana DeWitt, now a co-chair as well, thought of resurrecting the idea in coordination with the Sisters.

“We have so much talent, so much energy and so many events that the Sisters have done that have gone away – from Pink Saturday to Halloween in the Castro,” Greenfrost said. “We had our initial meeting on the back patio of the Eagle to see who’d be interested, and we had a good turnout.”

Throughout the pandemic, the idea for the fair marinated on the back burner. It was one of the first inperson events to be announced when COVID-19 restrictions began easing in early 2021.

“We are working closely with the city and are feeling optimistically hopeful,” Greenfrost said. “COVIDrelated, flu-related, we want to take cues from the city, but this far we have not been asked to take any specific precautions.

Greenfrost told the B.A.R. the fair will be “a mask-friendly event” but shouldn’t have a mandatory mask policy.

“We want to make sure everyone feels welcome and we will have opportunities for masking and social distancing, but ideally we won’t have to require anything and folks can approach the street fair however they feel comfortable,” Greenfrost said.

The epicenter of the fair is going to be Harrison and 11th streets, going one block in each direction, Greenfrost said. Heading toward Eagle Plaza, at 12th and Harrison, there See page 38 >>

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Pride 2021>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 31

South Bay queer activism focus of new exhibit

by Heather Cassell

S

ilicon Valley’s LGBTQ community and others will be able to take a trip back in time this Pride weekend with a new historical exhibit about the region’s history.

“Coming Out: 50 Years of Queer Resistance and Resilience in Silicon Valley” opens free to the public Saturday, June 26, at the Arbuckle Gallery on the ground floor of the Pacific Hotel in San Jose’s History Park.

The opening weekend coincides with the sixth anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide and with Pride celebrations globally that commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.

Ken Yeager, 68, who spearheaded the exhibit and is its director, hopes “Coming Out” will memorialize the work for the generation of LGBTQ activists who were a part of the movement.

“There isn’t really a place that an older LGBTQ person can go to see their history or see something that they were part of making,” said the gay former Santa Clara County supervisor about the South Bay. “I hope that people can come and share those stories and those emotions.”

Yeager, who also served on the San Jose City Council, hopes to teach younger generations about the South Bay’s LGBTQ past.

“Here they get to see 50 years worth of fighting,” Yeager said.

“It’s important that people know there’s a gay history, that there are stories that need to be told and appreciated,” he said, adding that there is “so much more we have to do ... here in Silicon Valley.”

Contracted curator Amy Cohen, executive director of Exhibit Envoy, an exhibition company for small and traveling exhibits, said she was honored to work on the project.

Heather Cassell

BAYMEC Foundation Executive Director and former Santa Clara County supervisor Ken Yeager stands near a T-shirt from the 1984 Santa Clara County AIDS Walk.

The 32-year-old ally believes people will be surprised to learn about the “impact that the Santa Clara Valley actually had in LGBTQ history.”

Cohen noted the activism is masked by the valley’s urban sprawl and lack of centralization, unlike San Francisco’s Castro LGBTQ district that attracts a majority of the historical attention.

“What I learned through this exhibit is how forward thinking a lot of LGBTQ activists are in the valley,” she said.

The Bay Area Reporter got a sneak peek at “Coming Out” during its June 18 installation.

The small gallery captures a diverse array of Silicon Valley’s LGBTQ community, from Digital Queers to LGBTQ elected officials to political campaigns to HIV/AIDS battles, LGBTQs serving in the military, marriage equality, and transgender rights.

Cohen was moved by Bruce Schuyler’s DD214 form that is displayed on loan and the story about how he struggled following being given a “blue discharge” from the military in 1962. (The discharge, neither honorable nor dishonorable, was disproportionately given to gays and African Americans.)

The exhibit also showcases the valley’s colorful queer culture from the Imperial Courts of San Jose and Santa Clara County to Mexican LGBTQ folk dance group Ensamble Folclórico Colibrí’s genderqueer costume to a block of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

One of Ensamble Folclórico Colibrí’s dance costumes is among the first displays upon entering the gallery. The performance outfit, a mix of what women traditionally wear on the bottom and what men traditionally wear on top, struck Cohen.

“Seeing in one costume that duality of male and female together, kind of breaking through stereotypes, is very powerful,” Cohen said.

The exhibit was scheduled to open in 2020, but the global COVID-19 pandemic delayed it for a year.

The unexpected delay became a boon for Yeager, executive director of the BAYMEC Community Foundation, who is overseeing the exhibit as a project of the foundation.

He also added material to the live exhibit working with Cohen.

The exhibit is supported and overseen by the BAYMEC foundation with an initial $60,000 grant from the Santa Clara County’s Historic Grant Program, and donations from community foundations, and donations by city officials and individuals, Yeager told the B.A.R.

A life retrospective

A longtime political activist and politician, Yeager termed out of office in 2018 after a storied 26-year career establishing and being involved with many of the South Bay’s LGBTQ institutions.

Up to now the only documented history of Silicon Valley’s LGBTQ community was in Ted Sahl’s 2002 book, “From Closet to Community: A Quest for Gay & Lesbian Liberation in San Jose and Santa Clara County,” Yeager said.

“It’s wonderful that we have that,” he added, but “I’ve lived so much of it.”

Additionally, he noted the book ended with the beginning of the 21st century. There are two decades worth of activism and progress to account for in the new century.

“I was able to make it all come together,” said Yeager, who donated nearly 40 of the 50 years of the exhibit’s materials directly from his collection in addition to gathering community members’ stories and receiving historical personal items on loan.

The fact that his life story is being encased and put on display in a museum has not hit him yet due to putting the exhibit together.

“I’ve always been political,” said Yeager, who earned a degree in political science from San Jose State University. “I get it from my mother, like a good gay son.”

However, Yeager wasn’t involved in gay politics during the early years of his career.

It was the 1980s, “70% of the people didn’t think that gays deserved any rights at all,” Yeager said.

The decade kicked off in the valley with bitter battles over anti-discrimination, HIV/AIDS, and more.

Many people continued to live deeply in the closet. HIV/AIDS was ravaging the gay and bisexual male community, and the community was continuously under attack by conservatives.

It was that political fear-mongering that brought Yeager into the South Bay’s queer political movement in 1984.

“I didn’t realize until they were going after ‘me,’ that I had to turn that energy outward,” said Yeager, who was “just doing mainstream politics” until then-California Governor George Deukmejian was debating signing Assembly Bill 1, which would have prohibited employment discrimination against homosexuals in California.

Deukmejian vetoed the bill.

It galvanized Yeager to use his political skills to advocate for the valley’s LGBTQ community and his own rights.

By 1986, Yeager was deeply involved in the South Bay’s LGBTQ politics with lesbian political activists Wiggsy Sivertsen and gay Peninsula political activist Rich Gordon, who later served on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and in the state Assembly. The dream team spearheaded the successful “No on 64” campaign and co-founded the Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee, simply known as BAYMEC, the South Bay’s LGBTQ political organization.

California Proposition 64 in 1986 would have mandated HIV testing, imposed a registry for anyone who tested positive, and discriminated against HIV-positive people. Voters rejected it.

Those battles were the “nadir,” for the LGBTQ organizations that “rose from the ashes,” recalled Yeager, and created the cultural activities that gave “us a sense of purpose and pride after being told how sinful we all were.”

That pride, that “sense of worth,” he said, is “really reflected in the exhibit.”

The exhibit will be up for a year, but Yeager hopes to grow the collection and find a permanent home for it, as well as send it on a tour to city halls and libraries after it closes.

The exhibit is free to the public with reserved timed tickets, due to the pandemic, Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m., through June 26, 2022.

Visitors will be required to register for a timed ticket and to wear masks while viewing the exhibit in the gallery and relaxing in the Fox Den, a room across from the gallery where people will be able to talk and contribute their own memories and stories of Silicon Valley queer history. t For more information and to reserve a ticket, visit https://tinyurl. com/SV-Coming-Out-Exhibit.

<< Election 2021

32 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

East Bay Assembly candidates lay out LGBTQ plans

by Matthew S. Bajko

V

oters in Alameda, San Leandro, and a portion of Oakland head to the polls Tuesday, June 29, or have until then to mail in their ballots, to elect a new Assembly member to represent them in Sacramento. Eight candidates are running in the special election for the 18th Assembly District seat in Alameda County.

It has been vacant since Rob Bonta (D) resigned earlier this year following Governor Gavin Newsom naming him to be the state’s attorney general. His wife, Mia Bonta, currently the Alameda Unified School Board president, is seen as the frontrunner in the race, with a host of the state’s top Democratic officials backing her campaign.

Outside groups, meanwhile, are funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars toward supporting her candidacy.

Statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization Equality California earlier this month endorsed both Bonta, 49, a Black Latina who grew up on the East Coast, and social justice attorney Janani Ramachandran, an Oakland resident who is queer and lesbian. A relative political unknown before jumping into the race, Ramachandran, 29, would be California’s first South Asian assemblywoman, as she is of South Indian ancestry.

She would also be the first legislator who identifies as queer and first out API female state legislator. In late May the East Bay Times solely endorsed Ramachandran, who would also be the first LGBTQ state legislator from the East Bay, as did the Bay Area Reporter this month.

She has staked out a position of claiming to be the most progressive candidate in the race, with a host of progressive leaders backing her candidacy. One of her signature policies would be to raise the state minimum wage to $22 by 2022.

“People realizing they need two or three jobs to make ends meet is not sustainable economically. Rais-

ing the minimum wage will build a greater middle class and save the state on its rate of spending on social services and safety net programs,” said Ramachandran. “Lifting people out of poverty benefits everybody, including small businesses. Data on those cities that raised their minimum wage to $15 showed they suffered net zero job loss.”

With the ability for a candidate to win the seat outright and avoid a runoff election by garnering more than 50% of the vote next week, Ramachandran is hopeful of drawing enough support to deny Bonta being able to claim victory. She hopes to advance to the August 31 contest as one of the top two votegetters in the June 29 election.

Also mounting a strong bid is Alameda Vice Mayor Malia Vella, 36, who is the first Filipina elected to her City Council. She could also thwart Bonta’s winning the seat outright, as happened in several special elections this year for open Southern California legislative seats, and land in the runoff election later this summer.

Two out Democratic male elected officials are also seeking the Assembly seat but are considered underdogs in the race. Gay San Leandro Unified School District Board of Education member James Aguilar, who turns 22 in November, would be the youngest person serving in the Legislature if elected, eclipsing bisexual Assemblyman Alex Lee (D-San Jose) by several years.

Elected in November at the age of 25, Lee became the youngest state lawmaker since 1938. Lee has dual endorsed Ramachandran and Vella in the special election.

Gay San Leandro City Councilman Victor Aguilar Jr. (no relation to James Aguilar), 42, is also running. Should either Aguilar win the seat, they would return gay Latino leadership to the Legislature, as currently there are only two lesbian Latina lawmakers in the eight-person Legislative LGBTQ Caucus.

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Courtesy the candidate

Mia Bonta

Courtesy the candidate

Janani Ramachandran

t

Courtesy the candidate

James Aguilar

LGBTQ priorities

The five candidates all responded to the questionnaire the B.A.R. sent to the contenders in the race.

In particular, they were asked to detail what their LGBTQ legislative priorities would be should they be elected.

Bonta, pointing to her addressing LGBTQ issues with her local public schools as a school board member, said she would carry forward that work to the state level and be a “vocal supporter” of funding for health and support services targeted to LGBTQ youth.

“LGBTQ youth experience bullying, rejection, isolation, and report much higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide,” noted Bonta.

“I will work to make sure that the nearly 50% of the state budget that goes towards education will be used to ensure that our schools are recognized as the essential hubs of support for children.”

Ramachandran told the B.A.R. that her LGBTQ legislative priorities would include addressing domestic violence in the community, an issue she focused on while in law school and during her postcollege employment with a network of community health clinics as a home visiting case manager.

“I believe that violence against LGBTQ individuals must be recognized as a public health crisis in California, and given far greater attention and resources on a state-wide basis,” contended Ramachandran.

She also would call for greater services to address California’s houseless LGBTQ population and any discrimination the community faces in the housing and rental industry. Strengthening workplace protections for LGBTQ individuals, especially people of color and transgender individuals, and programs to address food insecurity in the community, which the COVID pandemic brought to the fore, especially among youth and seniors, would also be priorities of hers.

“I would plan to support legislation on many intersectional issues that impact members of the LGBTQ+ community including nondiscrimination in the workplace and education, transgender and intersex rights, single payer healthcare and HIV/AIDS programs, criminal justice reform, immigration reform, and more,” pledged Ramachandran.

Also pointing to the work he has been doing as an elected school board member in San Leandro, James Aguilar said education issues would be front and center for him if he were to serve in the Assembly. At the top of the list is providing professional development on LGBTQ+ issues to the state’s educators, he said, fostering better connections between schools and community groups, and height-

Courtesy the candidate

Victor Aguilar Jr.

ened mental health services for students.

“We are the fifth largest economy in the world yet the 41st in the nation for per-pupil spending, alongside our underfunded public colleges and universities,” he noted.

Tackling the state’s housing crisis would also be among his main priorities, said Aguilar, with homelessness spiking in the district in recent years and home prices escalating during the pandemic. Correlated to the issue for Aguilar is building more transitoriented housing while also improving the state’s public transportation systems.

“We need to do better, especially when national surveys show that our LGBTQ+ youth are 120% more likely to become homeless than straight individuals,” he said.

“We need to create more supportive services, enact strong and bold tenant protections, and deliver affordable transit-oriented housing.”

Victor Aguilar Jr. listed increasing services for transgender and gender-nonconforming state residents, addressing quality of life issues LGBTQ elders are facing, ensuring public schools are implementing “competent LGBTQIA+ education,” and enacting statewide bans on conversion therapy and unnecessary medical procedures on intersex youth as part of his legislative priorities.

He also zeroed in on the housing crisis as one of his main issues he wants to address in the Legislature. Among the proposals he supports is ending exclusionary and racist zoning policies that prioritize single-family homes over multi-unit buildings, repealing the state’s Costa-Hawkins law that impedes cities’ ability to strengthen eviction protections for renters, and creating a rent forgiveness program for those residents and businesses unable to pay.

“We need safe and affordable housing for all – including strong

Courtesy the candidate

Malia Vella

statewide protections for renters and permanent housing for persons experiencing homelessness,” he wrote. “Housing is a human right. East Bay and all California residents should not have to fight for their homes.”

Vella, a professor at Mills College, pointed to education issues and health care concerns as the main LGBTQ initiatives she would pursue. In particular she said she supports the bill Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) is carrying this legislative session to ensure the state’s public colleges and universities don’t deadname transgender, nonbinary and other students on their academic records.

And without referring to the University of California by name, Vella sided with LGBTQ advocates and lawmakers who want to ensure the state’s university system is not limiting the health care services it is providing via the contracts it has with faith-based medical centers. Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) ended up tabling his bill addressing the issue until next year’s legislative session due to a lack of support, while LGBTQ advocates and others took their demands directly to the UC Board of Regents at its meeting Wednesday.

“I support pro-equality legislation, including affirming records including marriage licenses and college records so that transgender and nonbinary people are not deadnamed, ensuring health systems and healthcare facilities provide a full range of service including reproductive and genderaffirming care, ensuring we adequately fund in-school support for our LGBTQ students, and that we move to a universal healthcare system,” Vella told the B.A.R. Whoever ends up serving out Bonta’s term through December of 2022 will need to seek a full two-year term in next year’s election, first by surviving the June primary then the November general election.t

tSports>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 33

International soccer’s baby steps

by Roger Brigham

T

he little story is that the international governing body for soccer has decided that the Mexico national men’s team must play two home games without its fans in the stands because those spectators appear incapable of watching a match without screaming homophobic slurs at the opposing goalkeeper.

The bigger story is why it has taken so long for FIFA to act.

Ostensibly the trigger for FIFA’s glacially quick action was fan behavior three months ago when Mexico played a couple of matches against the United States and the Dominican Republic in Guadalajara. The spectators, as is their wont, repeatedly badgered the opposing goalkeeper with taunts of “puto,” a derogatory slang term referring to male prostitutes and carrying the connotation of weakness.

“The FIFA Disciplinary Committee has sanctioned the Mexican Federation with a fine of 60,000 Swiss francs (about $66,000 USD) and the condition that they play their next two official home games behind closed doors as a consequence of the anti-gay chants heard in the matches,” FIFA announced Friday, June 18. “Additionally, the committee has opened a second disciplinary dossier in relation to the anti-gay chants heard from Mexican fans in a friendly played against Iceland in Arlington, Texas on May 29.”

Mexico’s next two home matches are World Cup qualifiers against Jamaica, September 2, and Canada, October 7.

Two years ago FIFA announced revised disciplinary codes it said would help it more effectively counter the homophobic, sexist, and racist behavior and speech that inundated it.

FIFA rules empowered game officials to suspend play if homophobic chants

Courtesy Facebook Courtesy Yahoo Sports

A clip from the Mexico Soccer Federation’s public service announcement warns against fans uttering the anti-gay chant.

Micah Porter is the education coordinator for the Sports Equality Foundation.

occurred, send the players off to the locker rooms if the behavior persisted, and forfeit the game if the behavior did not cease.

At the time of the rules revision, I wrote in my sports column, “Match officials have long had the power to suspend play or halt a match if the crowd is spewing homophobic venom. None has ever done so. Is it even realistic or desirable to expect them to do so?”

Apparently not. The officials did not stop play in the matches with the Dominican Republic and the United States, as the policy would have indicated. They did not shut down the friendly with Iceland last month. They did shut down play for a few minutes in matches this month against Costa Rica and the United States, but only after a barrage of other misbehavior, including objects thrown on the field and at players.

FIFA restated it would not tolerate future discriminatory fan behavior, and Mexican soccer officials urged spectators to stop the chants because of the possible consequences and

of bullying, or the triggering of suicidal thoughts? What about what those hostile attitudes create for the individuals they debase?

“The Mexican Federation should also acknowledge that beyond the obvious ramifications imposed on the Mexican soccer team, is the damaging impact that hearing such slurs has on members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as those who are in situations that are unsafe to express their authentic self, particularly youth,” said Micah Porter, education coordinator for the Sports Equality Foundation.

“Publicly condemning such slurs and language, for reasons beyond the scoreboard, would be a significant step forward to ending such hateful language in sport.”

In our late pandemic times, playing without fans in the stands may not seem like such a big deal. (Here’s a thought: just as arenas filled seats

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ramifications that could be triggered.

“I want to call on our fans to reflect on what these attitudes create for us,” Mexico manager Gerardo “Tata” Martino said. “It pulls our team away from its fans. It means we play in empty stadiums and even that we could miss out on an international competition. We’re very worried. We’re worried about what’s coming, about the sanctions that could possibly be next, and because we don’t want to be pulled away from our fans. Any national team that wants to accomplish important things depends on its players and its fans.”

Sanctions? They’re worried about sanctions? They are afraid there might be consequences and ramifications handed out by FIFA? They’re worried about what homophobic attitudes create for them?

What about the consequences and ramifications of the homophobic slurs themselves, shouted out passionately in a unified roar with no countercry to rebut and refute?

What about the tacit endorsement

with cardboard cutouts of people during the pandemic to represent missing fans, Mexico could fill the seats with cutouts of contestants from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”) But in its campaign to project an image of being concerned about eradicating racism from its ranks, soccer’s previous obligatory remarks on sexism and homophobia have had their messages muffled like a COVID cough into the crook of an elbow.

These sanctions, belated though they may be, could be a turning point. And if FIFA’s sanctions actually get the attention of those who are inundating arenas with their homophobic slurs, may be it will get those fans thinking and talking about the consequences of their actions.

That is a hope expressed by the San Francisco Spikes in a reaction statement made to the Bay Area Reporter.

“The Spikes mission statement is more relevant now in 2021 than ever,” the organization stated. “The Spikes serves as a vehicle and resource for folks at the intersection of soccer in the LGBTQIA+ community. While we do not normally comment on world football issues, we are a part of the world football family and follow the news of the day. FIFA’s is an opportunity to create dialogue for LGBTQIA+ inclusion within sport.

As part of the global football community, we aim to encourage and inspire conversations surrounding language, unity and hope when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community within sport.”

For information about the San Francisco Spikes, visit https://www. sfspikes.com/.t

<< Sports

34 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

t

Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Nassib comes out as gay

by Roger Brigham

T

he moment David Kopay waited 46 years for finally came this week, when Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib announced Monday, June 21, that he was gay, becoming the first NFL player to come out of the closet while still active on a team roster.

“I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I am gay,” Nassib said in a brief video on Instagram. “I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile now. I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest. I’m a pretty private person, I’m not doing this for attention. I just think representation and visibility are so important.”

Former 49ers player Kopay broke down in tears when he heard the news. In 1975, Kopay became the first NFL player to declare publicly he was gay, but his announcement came years after his retirement. Many activists hoped his announcement would be a

<<

Pride weekend

Courtesy NFL.com

Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib came out as gay June 21.

trigger for numerous active players to come out, but in the subsequent years only a trickle of players, all retired, and demonstrators from other parts of the city showed up in the LGBTQ neighborhood. Some individuals, whose identities were in various stages of concealment, graffitied buildings in the neighborhood, such as the Bank of America and the Walgreens at 18th and Castro streets, the adjacent bus stop, the CitiBank on Castro Street between Market and 18th streets, and several storefronts that are now vacant on that same block. The Starbucks on 18th Street between Castro and Hartford streets had two windows smashed.

“The cultural district started using language associating the People’s March with the damage of last year, asking if we were going to have safety crews,” Inn said in a phone interview. “When the damage happened last year, it had nothing to do with Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, but they treated us like it was us, so I said ‘enough.’”

have done so. Every other year for the past decade, it seemed, a rumor would float around during the preseason that half a dozen players were about to come out. But nobody did.

Until now.

“I can’t believe how fucking happy I am,” Kopay told the Bay Area Reporter, his voice breaking with emotion. “I always thought someone would come out. I never thought it would take this long. It’s been almost 50 years! This news today was the most exciting I’ve ever heard in my life.”

In his statement, Nassib, 28, said he was donating $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization that works to help prevent suicide among LGBTQ+ youth. He said he had “agonized” over his announcement for 15 years.

In the years between Kopay’s and Nassib’s announcements, a handful of former players had come out, including Ray McDonald, Roy Simmons, Jeff

Inn said that the original plan was to occupy the Castro – which, to echo Smith, has long faced concerns about how inclusive it is to people who This being San Francisco, however, aren’t white, gay, cisgender men – to the weekend doesn’t come without show the neighborhood the diversity controversy. of the LGBTQ community.

The second annual People’s March “Seldom do you have Black, and Rally has scrapped plans to come Brown, and Indigenous bodies in the to the Castro neighborhood as the Bay Castro, and we wanted to take over Area Reporter originally reported, acthe Castro once a year so we can be cording to organizer Alex U. Inn, after seen, so the merchants can see us, and Inn said people associated with the what we can bring to the Castro,” Inn Castro LGBTQ Cultural District linked said. “We’re just not going to boost the the march with people who vandalized Castro that day.” the neighborhood last year.

Inn said that Tina Valentin Aguirre, As the B.A.R. reported last June, a genderqueer Latinx person who is the inaugural People’s March began at the manager of the cultural district, Sacramento and Polk Streets (where had asked Inn about safety plans. the first Pride parade in San Francisco, When reached for comment, Agu50 years earlier, also started) and made irre stated in an email: “The staff a stop at Civic Center before heading and advisory board members of the up Market Street to the Castro.

Castro LGBTQ Cultural District had At the same time, groups of revelers questions about plans for safety because we want to make sure that residents, businesses, and visitors are safe in the Castro. We celebrate that Pride is a protest and continue to share the values of promoting LGBTQ culture in all its diversity in terms of racial, gender, and queer equity.”

Nevertheless, the rest of the People’s March will go on as originally intended, beginning at 11 a.m. Sunday, June 27, at Sacramento and Polk streets and making its way down to Civic Center for a noontime rally.

“We will show up in droves with amplified voices to advocate for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, denounce and condemn police violence against our communities, and raise awareness for the need to defund police departments, which will allow When you plan your life celebration and lasting remembrance in for funds to be reallocated to social advance, you can design every detail of your own unique memorial services, mental healthcare providers, and provide your loved ones with true peace of mind. Planning ahead When your celebration lasting and social justice organizations,” a protectsyou your plan loved ones fromlife unnecessary stress and and financial burden, news release states.

When you remembrance plan your celebration and lasting remembrance in allowing themlife to focus on what will matter most at that time—you. in advance, you can design every George Floyd Justice in Policing advance, you canofdesign every detail of your ownand unique memorial Act,Theintroduced detail own memorial provide Contact usyour today about theunique beautiful ways to create a lasting legacy

by Congresswoman atyour theloved San Francisco Columbarium. and provide loved ones with true peace mind.

Planning ahead Karen Bass (D-California), passed the your ones with true peace ofof mind.

Planning House of Representatives March 3 but protects your loved onesProudly from unnecessary stressunnecessary and financial burden, ahead protects yourserving loved onesCommunity. from the LGBT has yet to be taken up in the Senate. allowing them focus on whatburden, will matter most them at thattotime—you. stresstoand financial allowing “We want to take Pride back to our roots,” Inn said. “We don’t need our focus on what will matter most at that time—you.

Contact us today about the beautiful ways to create a lasting legacy trans and undocumented people to be afraid to come to a Pride event. We at the San Contact FranciscousColumbarium. today about the beautiful ways to create want our community well-represented on this day of celebration.” a lasting legacy at the San Francisco Columbarium.

The rally will feature Inn; fellow One Loraine Ct. | San Francisco | 415-771-0717 Proudly serving our Community.

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FD 1306 / COA 660 tor of gender justice leadership programs at the Trans Law Center and GSA Network; trans soprano opera singer Breanna Sinclairé; Ariel, an up and coming young artist; and awardwinning DJ Black.

“There’s more folks who are going to speak and perform but because they haven’t officially confirmed I didn’t want to embellish,” Inn said. “We have a One Loraine Ct. | San Francisco | 415-771-0717 full lineup of speakers and performers.”

Inn wanted to thank the LGBTQ SanFranciscoColumbarium.com community for their offers to support the People’s March.

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From page 1

PlanningAhead Ahead isisSimple Planning Simple The benefits are immense.

Planning Ahead is Simple The benefits are immense.

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Rohrer, Esera Tuaolo, Kwame Harris, Ryan O’Callaghan, and Ryan Russell.

A few others attended training camps or played in preseason games.

“This is absolutely amazing,” Tuaolo said in a Facebook video after hearing of Nassib’s announcement. “I am so happy it’s not even funny. Congratulations, Carl – welcome to the party! This is huge.”

When defensive standout Michael Sam announced before an NFL draft that he was gay, several naysayers began predicting he would be a distraction for any team that picked him up, laying the groundwork for Sam’s ultimate failure to land a regular season roster spot.

“Stay focused and do what you need to do,” Tuaolo advised Nassib.

“We need you to play next year.”

The Raiders accompanied Nassib’s message with a tweet saying, “Proud of you, Carl.” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote that the “NFL fam-

ily is proud of Carl for courageously sharing his truth today. Representation matters. We share his hope that someday soon statements like his will no longer be newsworthy as we march toward full equality for the LGBTQ+ community. We wish Carl the best of luck this coming season.”

Nassib was a walk-on with Penn State and did not play his first two years but became Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year his senior year. He was taken in the second round of the 2016 NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns and played for the Browns and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before signing with the Raiders in March 2020.

In non-football news, Outsports reported that six elite French athletes in a variety of sports all came out in a documentary just about as Nassib was making his video. Half a dozen, just like in the old NFL rumors. Who knows? Maybe the floodgate is a coming. t

John Ferrannini

Participants carried the banner during last year’s inaugural People’s March and Rally.

“I’m so happy to see people are out asking ‘can this happen again?’” Inn said. “It’s been massive. Our community steps up, and it’s such a treasure.”

The People’s March is raising money to cover costs through GoFundMe. As of press time, the fundraiser has raised $1,165 of a $5,000 goal.

Oakland

Across the Bay, Black Oakland Pride has a whole weekend of events scheduled, as the B.A.R. reported last week. The group is seeking volunteers.

“Volunteers are needed on June 25, 26, and 27 to help with a pub crawl, queer expos, a kickball tournament, evening parties, and even a Slayers Ball,” SF Pride’s volunteer team stated in an email it sent on behalf of organizers of the East Bay event. “Please consider volunteering to support the legacy of Blackness and queerness in the Bay Area!”

To sign up, go to https://bit. ly/3gNArkv.

Castro welcomes visitors after pandemic year

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, told the B.A.R. that the city is well aware LGBTQs far and wide are itching to flock to the neighborhood this weekend.

“I think the city is trying to be prepared for any and all eventualities,” Mandelman said, stressing how rapidly different plans are being bandied about, starting, or being scrapped.

“We are trying to set up Porta Potties in the Castro and at [Mission] Dolores Park.”

Mandelman said it is his understanding that the San Francisco Dyke March (usually the Saturday of Pride weekend in the late afternoon/early evening) was not scheduled to occur as of the time of the interview, but that a spontaneous march may occur.

The Dyke March did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

As the B.A.R. previously reported, the Trans March is set for Friday, June

25 (without a planned in-person march), with both online programming and in-person events, including a brunch at 10 a.m. at 726 Jones Street presented by Openhouse, Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and the San Francisco Community Health Center, and a resource fair from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Dolores Street between 18th and 19th streets, according to the Trans March Facebook page. It will return as a march in 2022.

Tom Temprano, a gay man and aide to Mandelman, said June 21 that it is expected “that even if there isn’t a formal trans march, [a spontaneous physical march from the resource fair] is possible, if not likely.”

Trans March organizers did not respond to a request for comment regarding this possibility.

Rachel Moran, the captain of the San Francisco Police Department’s Mission Station, told the B.A.R. June 21 that the department plans to “beef up patrols in the Castro and Dolores Park” this weekend and “definitely increase staffing.”

Nik Blanchet, the community liaison for the Castro Merchants Association, stated to the B.A.R. in a June 22 email that the group is glad for the economic support its members are receiving as they try to recover from the downturn in business due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. The state, of course, and many Castro businesses fully reopened June 15.

“Castro Merchants shares in and welcomes Pride and is looking forward to a full recovery from the pandemic,” Blanchet stated. “We appreciate support from LGBTQ+ and allied communities for our small, momand-mom-style businesses during the celebratory and politically relevant Pride season.”

The bars and nightclubs in particular, more impacted than many other businesses, are glad to be back.

See page 38 >>

tPride 2021>> <<

Palm Springs

<<

Realtors confirmed the boom in Palm Springs.

Carl Borey, 56, has been selling real estate in Palm Springs for six years,

after living in Massachusetts and Florida. He estimates that 90% of his clients are LGBTQ. “We don’t have predominantly gay neighborhoods,” Borey, a gay man, said, “It feels like almost every neighborhood has many gays living there.”

He’s sold properties to former San Franciscans. “I check back with clients from time to time and those from San Francisco still love it here,” he said.

“Actually, I’ve only met one person who said they hated it here – but it had to do with his love life.” The man moved to Austin, Texas, he said.

At the beginning of COVID, Borey and his partner opened a new real estate brokerage firm, Platinum Star Properties. “People thought we were crazy but we wanted to create a brickand-mortar business with a mission of giving back to the communities we serve,” he said. “We now have 11 agents on our team and our business continues to grow. We are very happy with our decision.”

In Palm Springs, “the people are friendly, the weather is great most of the year, and there is a real sense of community here that is welcoming, unlike other places I have lived,” he stated in an email to the B.A.R. “The median price for a detached home in [Riverside] County is $580,000 and you can get a really great home with a pool and a yard,” Borey stated. “It can take a little longer to

find the perfect home because inventory is very low. On June 1, there were less than 700 properties for sale, compared to the prior year when there were almost 2,800.”

Palm Springs is in Riverside County, along with other areas frequented by LGBTQs such as Cathedral City and Rancho Mirage.

San Francisco real estate agent Joe Marko, 55, with Compass Properties, confirmed the trend.

“Nobody I know who has moved there has come back,” he wrote.

“I think Palm Springs has built a pretty active [gay] community and the people I know that moved there from SF love it more than they even thought,” Marko, a gay man, added. “I think they found a ‘scene’ not centered around the 20-30 crowd, a place for older people to be social without being reminded how freaking old we are.

“I have to say the first time I went there I was pessimistic on what I would think about it; I hate hot weather and I think the dessert is just a pile of unattractive dirt, but I actually liked it,” Marko stated. “Not sure if I see myself ever living there, but as more and more friends call it home, I guess it’s more of an option than I ever thought. Prices however have gone up significantly. Maybe the influx of cash-heavy SF people had an effect on values or it’s just becoming a year-round destination.” t

reduced by the Fulton decision.

While Philadelphia City Solicitor Diana Cortes said the city would work with the CSS, as the Supreme Court decision requires, she added, “The city will not waver from our commitment to ensuring equality for all Americans, including LGBTQ families.” Some legal observers expect the city to eliminate the “exception” that the Supreme Court relied upon in ruling for CSS. That could potentially send the same case back to the Supreme Court again.

The Masterpiece Cakeshop could end up back at the Supreme Court again, too. On June 15, a Colorado

district court judge in Denver ruled, in Scardina v. Masterpiece, that Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips violated the state human rights law when he refused to bake a “gender reveal” cake for a transgender customer’s birthday, saying he had strong religious beliefs that a person cannot be transgender.

While Phillips is a “man of good faith religious convictions,” ruled Judge A. Bruce Jones (appointed by thenGovernor Bill Ritter, a Democrat), the state law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation is a “neutral law of general applicability” that requires the baker not refuse service to

a potential customer based on the customer’s sexual orientation.”

“The anti-discrimination laws,” wrote Jones, “are intended to ensure that members of our society who have historically been treated unfairly ... are no longer treated as ‘others.’”

From page 2

where he visited occasionally and, in 2017, he and his partner bought a bar, Chill, which he still owns. Now about to open another business, a supper club with entertainment, Vastardis said he “would not even consider” moving back to San Francisco.

“I used to think it was the most beautiful city in the world but now I see it as second rate. The politicians ran it into the ground,” apparently unwilling to come up with solutions to the problem of homelessness, Vastardis said.

“It’s as hot as hell – 115 degrees today – but you get used to it. It’s also beautiful in the winter,” he said of Palm Springs. “The economy is booming here. Housing prices are starting to climb. So much for my idea about retirement. I’m busier than ever now.”

Travis Ginnett, 67, grew up on Santa Catalina Island and lived in San Francisco for 30 years, where he worked in training in the hospitality and travel business. He “seriously considered” leaving San Francisco for several years but he “just didn’t know where” he wanted to go.

Ginnett, a gay man, visited Palm Springs, which he liked, and decided to move there. “It was one of the best decisions I’d ever made,” he wrote in an email to the B.A.R. Immediately, Ginnett upgraded his living situation from “a small one-

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 35

Fulton

From page 16

But Essex wrote, “any loss – even this narrow one – will be painful to the LGBTQ community, particularly in the wake of a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills moving in state legislatures this year.”

The Human Rights Campaign recently stated that 2021 has become the worst year for anti-LGBTQ legislation in states, with 17 laws being enacted so far. The new laws range from anti-trans sports bans to religious refusal to anti-LGBTQ education to anti-trans medical care.

Courtesy Jeanne Jennings

Jeanne Jennings splits her time between San Francisco and Palm Springs.

bedroom” to a mid-century modern single family home.

“I’d never move back to San Francisco and only a remote chance I’d move anywhere. Palm Springs is my home now,” he said.

There’s much he likes about the area. “The weather, the desert environment, the cool mid-century architecture, the openness and freedom of the ‘gay lifestyle’ here, the city’s progressive politics, and the close proximity to nearby cities,” he said.

While Ginnett had loved San Francisco “and all the things that came with city living,” he missed “having “The legal fight about whether, and in what context, the Constitution gives some people a right to discriminate is one of the most important legal issues for the LGBTQ community,” wrote Essex. “It has consequences for how every single non-discrimination law and regulation operates and could allow all of the civil rights laws that our community struggled for decades to establish to be undermined and side-stepped and ultimately rendered close to irrelevant.”

The conflict between religious-based hostility to LGBTQ people and laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people was neither resolved nor

Sari Staver

Alan Lasater closed up Daddy’s Barbershop in San Francisco and is focusing on the Daddy’s he opened a few years ago in Palm Springs.

summers,” and was fed up with “the high cost of living, the overcrowding and homelessness, and the sad reality that over the years, the whole feeling of the city changed for me with the influx of high-tech workers, the fact that neighborhoods such as the Castro lost their uniqueness.”

Hot real estate market

Other cases

Numerous other cases around the country are also testing the issue of religious exercise versus non-discrimination laws. Many are challenging Trump administration regulations that sought to enable various health See page 36 >>

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<< Community News

36 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

<<

Fulton

From page 35

agencies, including foster care ser-

<<

News Briefs

From page 18

organizations that received grants.

The gift, the agency stated, “will have a profound impact on our ability to increase the scale and impact of philan-

<<

Novel

From page 23

time I hugged her ... I’m always going to be great. I’m going to do good in life. As long as I’m alive, you are going to be living through me,” he said, “So, suicide was not an option.”

Qubain chose to go far away. In

<<

Reparations

From page 24

repressed minorities,” he wrote in the interview. “Beyond that, many countries, like Canada, have undertaken reparations for Native Americans and gay Canadians simultaneously.”

Encarnación also documents that LGBTQ reparations have received criticism from some quarters of the queer community, especially because they cannot make up for the harm of the original offense or make it go away.

“Part of the problem is that homophobia is not only embedded or manifested in state laws, institutions, and practices but also deeply entrenched in society,” he wrote.

Others commented that accepting a pardon for homosexual offenses could imply an acknowledgment of guilt or wrongdoing.

One example of LGBTQ rejection of reparations is by Jonathan Alexander in a July 2019 essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books, entitled, “The Problem of the Reparative in the Shadow of Stonewall,” in which he writes, “How would we ever figure out who has suffered most from homophobia or transphobia and how they would be compensated for that suffering? What could be provided in order to make good on these struggles, especially given that reparations are largely imagined as

<<

Gay sex venues

From page 28

the last 72 hours to enter. Now, Rowe said it has aligned its policy with its sister business across the bay.

“If you show us your vaccination records – on your phone or digitally

t

vices, to claim religious beliefs to deny equal treatment to LGBTQ people.

Some are challenging other Catholic foster care agencies. In Texas, for

instance, a lesbian couple seeking to adopt unaccompanied refugee children applied to Catholic Charities in Fort Worth but were told they did

not qualify because the couple did not “mirror the Holy Family.”

As Gorsuch wrote at the end of his concurring opinion, disappointed

that the majority had not struck down Smith, “These cases will keep coming until the court musters the fortitude to supply an answer.” t

thropic resources aimed at enhancing the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities, promote equity, and advance racial, economic, and gender justice.”

“This award serves as a powerful validation of the relevance of the mis-

sion and work of Funders for LGBTQ Issues, and the persistent need for increased philanthropic investment in LGBTQ communities,” stated Rebecca Wisotsky, national director of philanthropic outreach at the organization. “It comes with a clear mandate

to bring bold approaches to the way we invite philanthropy to be more accountable to the LGBTQ community over the next decade.”

Funders for LGBTQ Issues is a network of more than 85 foundations, corporations, and funding institu-

tions working to increase the scale and impact of philanthropic resources aimed at the LGBTQ communities.

For more information visit its website at https://lgbtfunders.org/. t

2007, he got on a plane to Oklahoma City to meet a man, named Adam in the book, whom he met through a close friend.

“He literally saved my life,” said Qubain, who boarded the plane in Jordan and did not look back.

Qubain and his husband, Misha Belfer, a hairdresser, are still friends with Adam today, he said. Qubain and Belfer started dating in 2014 and mar-

ried in 2017.

Qubain appreciates the U.S.’s return to championing LGBTQ rights globally.

The freedom to be “yourself in public and to express yourself without worrying [about being] rejected, discriminated against, or even being killed ... that’s a huge thing,” he said.

He also expressed the importance of U.S. embassies raising the rainbow flag during Pride Month. The State Department approved that earlier this year, scrapping a Trump-era policy of not flying Pride flags at U.S. missions.

“Can you imagine Islamic countries seeing that big, huge rainbow flag ... that makes a statement. That tells the world that the U.S. is going to protect LGBTQ [rights],” he added.

“The administration is going to work hard to make these rights available not just for Americans but everyone in the world.”

Qubain, who is working on his second novel, a sequel, hopes that readers will walk away from his first book sensing, “Don’t take your freedom for granted. It’s very special.” t

monetary and material? Indeed, the argument for reparations has been about systematic disenfranchisement in material concerns: housing, access to employment, access to credit, and so forth.

“Our history is uneven in its documentation of such experiences for queer people; we have suffered, but not always in ways that are parallel to the systematic treatment of Black folk in the shadow of slavery, so specific material reparations would be difficult to imagine on a large scale,” Alexander continued. “And when we consider how homophobic legacies are enmeshed with pervasive cultural sexism, the abuse of children, and reproductive rights – the difficulties for imagining a comprehensive and satisfactory approach to reparations becomes more complicated still. My imagination fails in trying to grapple with how a culture might make amends to those identities, citizens, and fellow human beings it has harmed in the past. The problem is too big, its everydayness making it hard to assess in any systemic way or redress in any equitable manner.”

Despite such criticism, Encarnación believes most LGBTQ rights activists support the idea of reparations, “especially an apology from the government and compensation

for those whose livelihoods were upended by anti-gay discrimination, such as having been fired from a government job,” he wrote. “That said, some have questioned whether the effort that is being put on gay reparations could be better spent fighting discrimination at the present moment, especially violence against transgender people, or promoting the decriminalization of homosexuality in many parts of the developing world.

“Still, it behooves gay reparation activists to build a movement that is as concerned with historical injustices as it is with contemporary injustices, and that it is inclusive with respect to the narratives of anti-gay repression that it chooses to highlight, especially with regards to a lengthy history of LGBT communities of color being treated as peripheral by the gay rights movement, what has been labeled as ‘secondary marginalization,’ as the contemporary gay rights movement has faced allegation of discrimination against anyone who is not white, male, and upper-middle class,” he added.

Finally, Encarnación believes that the rise of the LGBTQ reparations movement in the West can only boost the global struggle for gay rights “by putting the West in a better position from which to confront rising homophobia across the nonWestern world, as by acknowledging

its own mistreatment of gay people and making amends for that mistreatment will give the West a stronger moral footing from to demand better treatment for gay people in every corner of the world.”

Encarnación, having studied gay reparations in other countries, has concluded that a hybrid model would work best for the U.S. This would include an official acknowledgment and apology from the Congress, inspired by the pardon issued by the British Parliament in 2016 for those convicted of “gross indecency.” He also feels an apology should be supplemented by the establishment of a truth commission “tasked with chronicling the systemic discrimination and violence that the gay community has endured over the course of American history, as was done in Brazil and Canada.”

Encarnación affirmed that the biggest obstacle from realizing these goals “is the absence of a human rights tradition in this country. Our social movements have yet to embrace human rights language and strategies, and primarily because human rights do not have much resonance in American culture.”

Still, Encarnación remains optimistic about the future of LGBTQ reparations in the U.S. because apologies to the queer community are becoming commonplace, such

as in August 2019 when San Francisco Police Chief William Scott expressed regrets for any harm his department had caused gay people.

Also, many private associations, such as Exodus International and the American Psychoanalytic Association, which played a role in either creating or abetting the repression of gay people, have apologized. In February 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom granted a posthumous pardon to civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, after his 1953 arrest in California on a charge of “lewd vagrancy.”

In 2013, then-President Barack Obama posthumously honored Rustin with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Encarnación applauded the LGBTQ rights advances of recent years, especially the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage and the extension in 2020 of protections against anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination protections under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, saying they are events the American queer community should celebrate and for society as a whole to take pride in.

“But these advances cannot remove the stain that the history of anti-gay discrimination, repression, and violence has left on American democracy,” he wrote. “Only a formal reckoning with the past can remove this stain and usher in a new era of respect for human rights.” t

– we give you a free, six-month membership,” Rowe said.

Eros, too, is operating for fewer hours than it used to.

“We are just open until 9 p.m., but this weekend we’ll be open till 10 p.m.,” Rowe said, referencing Pride weekend. “We hope after the Fourth

of July to be closer to our old hours.”

Rowe said that the reason for this is because “BART closes at 9 p.m. and we have to find staff in the city [of San Francisco] that can work later.”

But Eros has expanded from Wednesday-Sunday to, now, being open all seven days.

“There was also a weird period where CAL-OSHA [the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health] said staff had to wear masks even if fully vaccinated,” Rowe said. “That was rescinded Thursday [June 17].”

Rowe said that last weekend was not as busy as the one preceding it

(which also immediately preceded the June 15 reopening date that allowed Steamworks to come back).

“This weekend was good, but the previous weekend was better,” Rowe said. t

Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ARON AHLAM is requesting that the name ARON AHLAM be changed to ARON ARGUELLO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103 on the 27th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

names on 04/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/22/21.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039346400

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556352

Author sees broad support

Freedom

Legals>> ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556357

In the matter of the application of WING KEUNG IP & SHUK MEI KOON, 100 WALLER ST #235, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner WING KEUNG IP & SHUK MEI KOON is requesting that the name WING HEI IP AKA WING HEI JEANINE IP be changed to JEANNIE WING HEI IP. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103 on the 22th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556343

In the matter of the application of YINGJUN HE, 150 NIAGARA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner YINGJUN HE is requesting that the name YINGJUN HE be changed to YUKO YINGJUN HE. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 27th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039346900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LIVE TAHOE REAL ESTATE, 891 BEACH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHRIS HERNANDEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/21/21.

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039332800

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as AARON HANSEN DESIGN, 584 CASTRO ST #105, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by AARON HANSEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/31/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/07/21.

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556353

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039352300

In the matter of the application of ARON AHLAM, 1115 TENNESSEE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107, for change of name having been filed in Superior

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LATIN AMERICAN BARBERSHOP, 3194 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EINSTEIN PAREDES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039350300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as HI-FI D.I.Y. PRODUCTIONS, 944 TREAT AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LAUREN TABAK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/02/05. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/22/21.

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039354400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SANDRA FIZ NUTRITION, 825 SILLIMAN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARIA SANDRA FIZ ELIAS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/26/21.

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039345900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as BISCUIT BENDER, 328 GUERRERO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BISCUIT BENDER INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/06/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/20/21.

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FERRY PLAZA FARMERS MARKET, ONE FERRY BUILDING #50, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CENTER FOR URBAN EDUCATION ABOUT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/23/06. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/20/21.

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039352400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FORESIGHT RISK AND INSURANCE SERVICES, 785 MARKET ST #600, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed INSURTECH INC. (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/22/21.

JUNE 03, 10, 17, 24, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556354

In the matter of the application of DAVID EDWARD BRAGINSKY, 147 29TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110 for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner DAVID EDWARD BRAGINSKY is requesting that the name DAVID EDWARD BRAGINSKY, AKA DAVID BRAGINSKY be changed to DAVID BRAGINSKY BLOOMIN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 8th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021

In the matter of the application of SHAHRZAD ROSE BROOME, 147 29TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110 for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner SHAHRZAD ROSE BROOME is requesting that the name SHAHRZAD ROSE BROOME, AKA ROSE BROOME, AKA S. ROSE BROOME be changed to ROSE BROOME BLOOMIN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 8th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556375

In the matter of the application of ANGEL ALEXANDER SOSA JIMENEZ, 161-A LELAND AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134 for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ANGEL ALEXANDER SOSA JIMENEZ is requesting that the name ANGEL ALEXANDER SOSA JIMENEZ be changed to ANGEL ALEXANDER DELAPAZ JIMENEZ. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 20th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021

See page 37 >>

t

Classifieds>>

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039355300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as STEVEN SATYRICON, 88 WALTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed STEVEN JAMES BENDER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/03/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/27/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039335300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SEA TEA MUSIC CO., 3042 PINE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHARLES THOMAS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/05/11.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/13/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039346700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as EVERY 6 WEEKS; SIX; ARTIFICIAL; 491 CASTRO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RICHARD TITUS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/21/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039360100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PLUR EVENTS, 238 11TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANDRE KORR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/09/21.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039360000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as KANDI LOVE; BLURR EVENTS; 238 11TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GABRIEL RENOUF. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/19/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039354300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PHO VIETNAM SAN FRANCISCO, 1406 POLK ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed VIETNAM FOOD CORPORATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/01/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/26/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039351900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SAN FRANCISCO HEALTH CARE, 1477 GROVE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a corporation and is signed SAN FRANCISCO HEALTH CARE AND REHAB, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/23/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/22/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039282900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as BANANA HOME, 321 KEARNY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PARAGON 168 CORP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/03/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039360400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LA ROCCAS CORNER, 957 COLUMBUS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PURGATORY INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/95. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039335700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SOCIAL DATA LAB; SOCIAL DATA REVOLUTION, 4150 17TH ST #12, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed WEIGEND ASSOCIATES LLC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/30/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/13/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039350500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE PEN AND THE PANGOLIN, 95 CENTRAL AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed THE PEN AND THE PANGOLIN (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/29/20.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/22/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039358300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as PERSONA, 685 SUTTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed 685 SUTTER LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/04/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039359900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CANDLESTICK PARK, 747 3RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BOTTOM OF THE NINTH (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/21.

JUNE 10, 17, 24, JULY 01, 2021

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 37

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556378

In the matter of the application of LIZBETH MALMSTEAD, PO BOX 410772, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94141, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner LIZBETH MALMSTEAD is requesting that the name LIZBETH MALMSTEAD be changed to LIZBETH PERALTA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 20th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556390

In the matter of the application of TALEEN QUIRREH, 233 VALLEY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner TALEEN QUIRREH is requesting that the name TALEEN QUIRREH be changed to TALEEN QIRREH. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 27th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556394

In the matter of the application of GUOQIANG ZHANG & BEI XU, 227 BAY ST #211, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner GUOQIANG ZHANG & BEI XU is requesting that the name BOHAN ZHANG be changed to ANDREW BOHAN ZHANG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 10th of AUG 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556382

In the matter of the application of MUZAFFAR IMAMOV & ZEBOKHON IMAMOVA, 333 12TH ST #719, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner MUZAFFAR IMAMOV & ZEBOKHON IMAMOVA is requesting that the name MUKXAMMADSODIKOV MUKHAMMADYUSUF be changed to MUHAMMAD YUSUF and the name MUKXAMMADSODIKOV MUKHAMMADUMAR be changed to MUHAMMAD UMAR. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 29th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039362600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as PATISSERIE ON CALIFORNIA, 6833 CALIFORNIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PHILIPPE DELARUE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/23/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/09/21.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039362700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LUCKY NAILS, 17 DRUMM ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed NAILS FOR ME INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/09/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/09/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021

The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE BITE, 996 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SAHIN INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/21.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039373700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as ONLY IN CHINATOWN, 864 GRANT AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SF FASHION HOUSE INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/21.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039363100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LA BARBERHOOD, 2275-A MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed LA BARBERHOOD LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/09/21.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039361300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as MESTIZO, 750 VAN NESS AVE #203, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed EL MESTIZO LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/21.

In the matter of the application of NAJABAT MURAD ALESKERZADE, 1770 POST ST #340, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner NAJABAT MURAD ALESKERZADE is requesting that the name NAJABAT MURAD ALESKERZADE be changed to ALIX JOY ALDER ASKER. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103 on the 5th of AUGUST 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as IRIS + EMERSON, 790 ARGUELLO BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed TANYA S. ODISHO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/15/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/15/21.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039366000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PARKSIDE CRYSTAL, 367 IVY ST #5, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RALPH L. ANDERSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/18/05. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/14/21.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039354600

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039371000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as KQ CONNECTION COURIER COMPANY, 2093 THOMAS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed QUANG NGO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/16/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/16/21.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039360900

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039372900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CALIFORNIA CATERERS; EUROPINK; BLONDI’S; 537 JONES ST #2166, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed VITA CAMPISI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/18/21.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039368400

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039364200

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LAUREL PROPERTIES, 3543 SACRAMENTO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed LAUREL REALTY INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/15/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/15/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039370800

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039362000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LA ENTERPRISE, 1517 NORTH POINT ST #444, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LIYA ANOSOVA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/15/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039368800

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FREE & CLEAR AUTOMOTIVE WHOLESALE, 480 GUERRERO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHAEL JOSEPH WHITE JR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/24/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/21.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SPIRITUAL AWAKENING PSYCHIC CENTER, 533 BALBOA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KELLY STANLEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/21/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/21/21.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556410

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039368600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SF BAY AREA JANITORIAL SERVICES, 1912 FOLSOM ST #A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CESAR R. MEJIA PEREZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/16/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/27/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039375300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as COMPASS DEVELOPMENT MARKETING GROUP; COMPASS DEVELOPMENT; 891 BEACH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed COMPASS CALIFORNIA II INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/16/21.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/16/21.

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

The following person(s) is/are doing business as EMILIO ORLANDI, 2282 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EMILIO GIRAUDBIT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/27/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/21.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as DAVID JAMES’S GPS, 1050B FLORIDA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAVID JAMES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/18/21.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MONARCH, 101 6TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ELECTRIC RESISTANCE SOCIETY LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/14/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/27/21.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039362300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as CRYSTAL MANA, 33 8TH ST #331, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ARES KPAKA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/08/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/21.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as VENTRILOQUENT, 3966 FOLSOM ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ASHWIN SODHI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/19/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/15/21.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039361400

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039355700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MAYAN MOVING, 906 HOWARD ST #201, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed EDWIN EDUARDO CAAMAL QUIJADA & WISMAR ERNESTO CAAMAL QUIJADA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/21.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MANISHA FASHION COLLECTION, 910 STOCKTON ST #14 & #15, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MANISHA GURUNG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/29/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/17/21.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039369100

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556384

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039372100

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039360200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as KJW FABRICATIONS, 908 POST ST #24, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KELLY JAMES WATERMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/21.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039359500

JUNE 17, 24, JULY 01, 08, 2021

In the matter of the application of STEFANI YOANITA, 1658 31ST AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner STEFANI YOANITA is requesting that the name STEFANI YOANITA be changed to STEFANI YOANITA IRWAN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 29th of JULY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039358600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as ONELUV SKIN STUDIO, 660 MARKET ST. #219, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BETH SCHATZMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/09/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/10/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039371700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as EAST WEST ADMINISTRATORS, 1352 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PODIATRY PLAN INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/17/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039371600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as BENEFIT BROKERAGE SOLUTIONS/SILICON VALLEY HEALTH PLAN, 1352 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DC RISK SOLUTIONS LTD (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/17/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039374200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as KHOB KHUN THAI CUISINE & BREAKFAST, 3741 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed KHOB KHON LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/18/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039374400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as AGUILAR TOW SERVICES, 2810 OAKDALE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed AGUILAR TOW SERVICES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/21.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/18/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039374300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as AGUILAR AUTO SERVICES & BODY SHOP LLC, 2810 OAKDALE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed AGUILAR AUTO SERVICES & BODY SHOP LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/03/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/18/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039371900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as TOM’S HARDWOOD FLOOR, 2055 TARAVAL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed TOM’S HARDWOOD FLOOR (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/17/21.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/17/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039376200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SOCIAL REALTOR DIGITAL, 1801 22ND AVE #4, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed OTIO. DEV LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/22/21.

JUNE 24, JULY 01, 08, 15, 2021

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<< Community News

38 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

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Leather, bear fairs

From page 30

will be a D.J.-dance area. Toward the east, there will be live acts. Toward the north, wrestling – both professional and collegiate levels – is planned.

“We look forward to working with the city in producing a large outdoor event that is safe and follows whatever public health guidelines are in place come October,” DeWitt stated in a news release. “We hope that by October the pandemic will be under control and this can be an opportunity for folks to rekindle community as well as

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LGBTQ data

From page 5

December 31, 2020. Mandelman also requested that the city departments report on any LGBTQ data they gathered related to COVID, including cases, deaths, vaccinations and testing among LGBTQ residents and workers in the city.

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Pride weekend

From page 34

Chris Hastings, the owner of the Lookout at the intersection of Noe and Market streets, stated in an email to the B.A.R. that “the energy has been fantastic” since June 15.

“It’s been really wonderful to see all of our regulars again and to have people back inside Lookout,” Hastings stated June 21. “People are ready to be out and see their friends.

Everyone has been in such a good mood since Tuesday’s re-opening. … We are expecting a very busy Pride weekend and welcome being able to celebrate with everyone.”

Hastings wants people in the nightlife industry to be aware of the

San Francisco Pride’s usual parade up Market Street and Civic Center celebration will not be occurring this year, as the B.A.R. previously reported.

Oakland Pride, however, told the B.A.R. that it is planning an in-person event September 12.

“So far we have the tentative OK to have an in-person festival,” said Carlos Uribe, Oakland Pride’s co-chair. “We

are planning, coordinating and setting up the gears for an in-person festival.

We are also going to be programming a digital component for Oakland Pride as well, for those for whom it’s not safe to go to large gatherings, who are not vaccinated or who have an accessibility issue.”

Uribe said that Oakland Pride expects more clarity “in the next coming weeks” about what specifically will be allowed in person come September.

Once Oakland Pride is able to have the necessary discussions with Oakland and Alameda County officials, it will make an official announcement.

“We are excited to come back this year for our community,” Uribe said.

The Castro Street Fair, which usually takes place the first Sunday of October (one week after the Folsom Street Fair), did not take place either in-person or virtually last year Jenn Meyer, president of the Castro Street Fair board of directors, told the B.A.R. in a statement that she is “hopeful” about the prospects for an in-person gathering this fall.

“Castro Street Fair continues to monitor San Francisco health directives, and at this time does not have any event plans to announce,” Meyer

stated. “Limits imposed by the directives will determine any plans for a 2021 event. Organizers remain hopeful to produce a gathering in October that embodies the spirit of the nearly half-century tradition of the Castro Street Fair while ensuring public health guidelines are met.”

Officials with Silicon Valley Pride, which usually takes place in late August, declined to comment for this story. Its website currently states that the annual parade and festival is planned for August 28 and 29, with a message for people to “save the date!

Please stay tuned.”t

As the B.A.R. has extensively documented since the start of the health crisis last March, COVID SOGI data on cases and testing was not initially collected by the city, or the state of California, until late in 2020. It is unclear what data there is on vaccinations, as earlier this year the B.A.R. reported that the state’s public health department was not tracking vaccina-

tions among LGBTQ Californians.

Asked about that omission in the vaccine data during an LGBTQ virtual town hall in April by the B.A.R., state public health officer and director at the California Department of Public Health Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, formerly with San Francisco’s health department, pledged to improve the SOGI data collection for the inocula-

tions but did not give specifics.

The city’s Department of Disability and Aging Services did help conduct a survey into COVID’s impact on the LGBTQ community. But the results of the survey have yet to be publicly released.

“It is important that we know as much as possible about the impacts of COVID in the queer community.

We are hoping that DPH and other city departments will be able to provide COVID SOGI data beyond what is currently available on the DataSF portal, such as vaccination and testing rates,” Mandelman told the B.A.R. “If we have not been collecting that data, it is important to find out why.”t

Pride Recovery party, which starts at 2 p.m. June 28.

“The one thing I’d like to call out specifically over the weekend is our Pride Recovery Party, that we throw on Monday afternoon,” Hastings stated. “It caters to the industry people who worked all weekend to make Pride happen, the DJ’s, performers, promoters, and hospitality/nightlife employees. ... Phil B will be DJing and Pollo Del Mar will be hosting. There is no cover charge for this event.”

Pride festivities has been restored.

Promoters are capitalizing on the loosening of restrictions with the first large dance parties since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic last year.

Cecil Russell, a gay man who is the head of Cecil Russell Presents and Gloss magazine, told the B.A.R. June 21 that he has four dance parties scheduled at the Great Northern in Potrero Hill, 620 Jones downtown, and 316 11th Street South of Market.

Russell said that these were planned with fingers crossed.

“The deal with the venues was that everyone would be vaccinated and we’d get the mayor’s clearance,” Russell said. “So, there was a chance

it wouldn’t happen, but we got the vaccines out quickly enough and are close to herd immunity here [in San Francisco].”

Russell added he is pleased he can sell tickets up to 100% capacity; there’d been concerns that perhaps dance venues would have to be open with fewer attendees, until the city laid those to rest early this month.

“San Francisco has done so well,” Russell said. “It feels great. Everyone needed this – to come together, to have fun, and then return to normal. We all did our part.”

Longtime San Francisco DJ Steve Fabus said he will be spinning at the Monarch nightclub South of Market for a Pride party Saturday night.

He, too, was initially uncertain what

kind of festivities would be allowed by the end of June.

“It just so happened that by Pride we actually have our nightlife back,” Fabus told the B.A.R. June 21. “Even though we were thinking it could happen that way, at first it was like ‘is this happening?’”

Fabus said that “at this point it’s about as ‘back to normal’ as you can get.”

“Almost all the promoters in the scene are producing parties for Pride,” he said. “A lot of us in the gay community felt we’ve done a pretty good job with masking and following the rules for over a year. We don’t have a parade, but we’re going to have a great Pride.”t

bring some business back to the city – especially to the historic Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District.”

Oakland Pride gets tentative OK

Dance floors open at full capacity

Since June 15, dance floors around the city have been open at full capacity, and so a crucial part of

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6/16/21 12:40 PM

LGBTQ center

From page 19

The center is already attracting local LGBTQ residents looking for services or just a place to hang out.

In its main room on the first floor is a seating area where people can play board games, read a book, or just relax. In the adjoining room is a table for people to play table tennis or air hockey.

And for those yet to come out of the closet or uncomfortable walking through the front door, there is a rear entrance off the small parking lot in the back of the building.

Zeller is working to provide more engagement for area youth at the CoastPride center. The aim is to provide intergenerational leadership at the facility.

“The long-term goal is to have a group of five or so young people who would help lead the effort to make sure CoastPride has relevant and effective programming for young queer people on the coast,” they said.

“What people have said is it definitely helps to have a space where teens want to come hang out at.”

A youth group for people under the age of 18 meets from 3:30 to 5 p.m. the first and third Thursdays of the month. Another group for coastside parents and caregivers of LGBTQ+ youth and adults meets from 6 to 7 p.m. on the fourth Wednesday of the month.

The center is also bringing in a mobile van to provide HIV testing and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases. It provides referrals for other services and will be ramping up its on-site offerings in the coming months.

“The main thing is I hope it enables queer people to find the community they need and the support they need,” said Zeller. “It helps queer people, particularly in this rural area, find resources more easily, whether health care and mental health care, so that they don’t feel like they are alone

Matthew S. Bajko

A vase of flowers and a hat welcome visitors to the CoastPride Community Center.

in finding those things.”

CoastPride organizers also recognize there is a need to translate their materials into Spanish to be more inclusive and reach nonEnglish speaking members of the local LGBTQ community. Lopez seconded that need for translated materials so more Spanishspeakers will know not only what CoastPride has to offer but that it is welcoming to them.

Of course, things can get lost in translation, as Lopez said happened to him last weekend when he attended a virtual movie night CoastPride held not realizing attendees were to come in their cars.

Instead, he said he “came walking” to the film screening because he had “missed the part” he was supposed to be in his vehicle. He was still able to stay and enjoy the movie, but Lopez said it is important for the center to translate its pamphlets and other informational guides “so everyone can know about these activities.”

The center is currently open from 2 to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and from noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays. To learn more about CoastPride, and the activities and services it is offering at its community center, visit https://coastpride.org/ t

All for

L VE

for All

Celebrating a community created from hope, strengthened by diversity, and united in pride

kp.org

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Juanita MORE!’s Pride party returns

by David-Elijah Nahmod

O

ne of the more exciting pieces of news regarding the state’s reopening is the return of Empress Juanita MORE!’s annual Pride Party at 620 Jones on June 27, Pride Sunday. MORE! has designated the San Francisco Queer Nightlife Fund (QNF) as a beneficiary of her party.

“It’s always been a time that brings people together,” MORE! said when asked what Pride means to her. “And that’s been something that I think I’ve celebrated so much of my drag career with. I’m someone who brings people together, I’m a community organizer. That’s really what Pride means to me, celebrating our

Gooch

Juanita MORE! (center) with her ‘pony boys’ at her 2016 Pride party at Jones.

history of course, and creating a new future, a better and stronger future.”

The San Francisco Queer Nightlife Fund is offering one last round of grants just as the state fully reopens from the COVID-19 lockdowns. This is the eighth round of grants for the fund, which has provided critical financial support to bartenders, barbacks, doormen, performers and others who work in the nightlife industry and saw their incomes disappear during the lockdowns.

So far, QNF has provided 418 grants totaling $316,351. Fund recipients could use the money to catch up on rent, buy food, or whatever other emergencies they might be facing.

For this last round of grants, two new supporters are contributing to the fund, Dirty Habit

Restaurant at 12 4th Street is donating a portion of their proceeds each night in June, and Sonoma Hills Farm, a cannabis farm and culinary garden in Sonoma County, is donating proceeds from sales of their newest offering, Double Rainbow.

Along her ongoing philanthropic events, MORE! added that it felt great to be elected San Francisco Empress.

“It’s part of San Francisco history,” she said.

“I’m super proud to carry this crown, and help the court move forward.”

MORE! noted that this is the 18th year of her Pride party. At first she wasn’t sure if the party was going to happen this year, but then she became comfortable with the rules from the city and state, and about a month ago, she started planning the big bash.

“It feels like we’re coming home,” she said.

“We’ve had the party at 620 Jones since 2015, and it feels to a lot of people that that’s what we’re doing. I created a safe space that is a great gathering place on Pride Sunday.”

MORE! is very excited about the performance she’s planned for 3pm with more than 30 of her friends who are performers. There will be drag kings, drag queens, and other types of performers from San Francisco and the East Bay. “It’s going to be pretty spectacular,” she promises, though she declined to say what they’d be doing.

“I don’t want that printed,” she said. “That’s a surprise.”

See page 43 >>

by Brian Bromberger

Udo Kier in Swan Song

F

Frameline45, part 2: folks, fame and fate BREAKING NEWS • EXCLUSIVE CONTENT • ONLINE EXTRAS • SPECIAL OFFERS & DISCOUNTS • GIVEAWAYS

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rameline announced that after the state published their new Covid guidelines on June 15, capacities for the Castro and Roxie Theaters have been boosted up to 50% instead of 30%. Masks are still required. Later this year, Frameline will feature its first-ever Fall Showcase, so we can expect more LGBTQ movies to usher in the holiday season One idiosyncrasy of Frameline45 is that the international films are superior to the US/English language movies, especially because of their daring content. In fact the bulk of the latter titles are musicals (In the Heights, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Summertime) and while well executed, the content isn’t exactly cutting edge, though Summertime’s use of slam poetry is inventive, even if it starts to wear out its welcome by the film’s conclusion.

International queer films have come a long way in the last decade. Previously they tended to be gloomy, where the protagonist committed suicide, was killed, or suffered a dreary closeted life in silence. There seems to be a creative explosion in subject matter. So we have an all-female cast re-envisioning Shakespeare’s As You Like It, not afraid to explore genderbending in Taiwan’s whimsical and satirical As We Like It. Agnieszka Holland brings to life the still controversial Czech closeted gay herbalist and healer Jan Mikolasek whom some see as a precursor to modern-day holistic medicine See page 44 >>

t

Pride>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 43

SHOW YOUR PRIDE NEW CONSERVATORY THEATRE CENTER PRESENTS S E AS O N

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Juanita MORE! at her 2017 Pride party at Jones.

<<

Juanita MORE!

From page 41

MORE!’s party has traditionally been a fundraiser for various causes. In 2005 she donated to the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center, and she also helped to fund the bust of Harvey Milk at San Francisco City Hall. The Transgender Law Center and Bay Positives are also among her beneficiaries.

“This year we’re benefiting two things,” she said. “The Imperial Court of San Francisco, which I am Empress of, and the second part of it is the Queer Nightlife Fund.

I was on the steering committee when it started at the beginning of the pandemic, and we’ve given out over 300 grants to Bay Area nightlife artists and workers, bartenders, drag queens, to help them stay afloat.”

MORE! is happy that things are opening up and that people are getting ready to go back to work but added that she still has friends who

didn’t pay rent all of last year.

“There are still people who are struggling,” MORE! said. “So I’m super-excited that we’re also supporting them.”

Women, trans people, gender non-conforming people, nonbinary people, queer Black indigenous people of color will be prioritized in the grant giving process, according to MORE! “That’s the family that I support in my life, and want to continue to support,” she said. “Our community is diverse, even more so now.”

To that end, MORE! created Juanita’s List, a housing group on Facebook which now has over 10,000 members. She created the group because she would hear people say that they were losing their housing, while others would be looking for a roommate.

She’s also working with Alex U. Inn to hold this year’s People’s March and Rally: Unite to Fight, to be held June 27 (see previous article at https://www.ebar.com/news/

news//305815).

Though the city and state are reopening, MORE! said that certain health guidelines would remain in effect during her party. People will be asked to show that they’ve been vaccinated or that they tested negative for the Coronavirus.

“So I’m confident that I’m creating a safe space for people to be in that have been vaccinated and can be mask free,” she said. “But I still have people that are nervous about that, so it’s fine to still wear a mask if you need to and want to attend. I have people who are nervous about being around other people because they haven’t been around other people. Those are all concerns, but I feel like by the time we get to the 27th things are going to be really open, and we’re going to have a big celebration for sure.”t

e t a r o c e d h t i w f l yourse pride

https://juanitamore.com/tickets https://sfqueernightlifefund.org/

s bauble , c i r b fa hers to e everthing t a e f From e hav f out. w l , e t s s r a u o to bo deck y o t d e you ne

Shot in the City

Dancing cuties at Juanita MORE!’s 2018 Pride party at Jones.

479 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA 94114

www.cliffsvariety.com

<< Film

44 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

<<

From Above to Below: Nico, Lola, Milkwater, Walking With Shadows

Frameline45

From page 41

while others claimed he was a fraud.

He was later brought to trial by the Communists in the 1950s, but Holland leaves it up to the viewers to decide if he was genuine or not. Lola is no trans Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and can be as unpleasant and stubborn as her bigoted father, not afraid to shoplift to get what she needs.

Ha-neul in Made on the Rooftop is an over-emotional, self-centered malingerer, downright nasty to his boyfriend who is supporting him.

Nico is willing to use karote violence to prevent another vicious attack by xenophobic hooligans. David in Francois Ozon’s Summer of 85 has no boundaries in satisfying his own pleasures and getting what he wants, no matter whom he hurts. And Adrian must defy his family, church, employer, and hometown just to be true to himself, not always noble in his dealings with those he loves in Walking with Shadows.

Milkwater, the title derived from an Anne Sexton poem, concerns Milo (Molly Bernard), a lonely unattached straight woman with a lesbian roommate and gay best friend (the fabulous Robin de Jesus, Boys in the Band), meets an older gay man Roger (Patrick Breen) in a bar.

On a whim she decides to act as a surrogate so Roger can become the dad he has always wanted to be.

Bernard marvelously balances sassy pluck and neediness, but her character isn’t likable, an almost borderline personality who alienates everyone around her. Roger makes clear from the get-go that this is a business partnership and he wants to raise the baby alone, despite Milo wanting Roger more as a friend and potential co-parent.

Funny in spots especially with witty dialogue (though few in real-life talk this cleverly) it’s predictable as Milo struggles to maturity. Periodically insightful on the complex messiness of modern families, Milkwater doesn’t quite hit the mark.

Nico is a film I’m glad was made because it shows the corrosive effects of xenophobia, a condition the U.S. suffers from vis-à-vis undocumented aliens. However, it’s a German movie involving a Berlin lesbian of German-Persian ancestry working as a home health caregiver for elderly patients.

The carefree compassionate Nico is savagely attacked by four German thugs, lands in a hospital, begins a long journey of recovery, leading to emotional problems, especially with her best friend Rosa.

Realizing she isn’t as accepted as she once thought and feeling unsafe, she opts for self-empowerment through a karate course and draws strength from a budding relationship with a mysterious carnival worker, a Macedonian refugee illegally living in Germany.

Sara Fazilat is amazing as Nico, as she circumnavigates a wide spectrum of emotions. Nico’s solution to violence is bound to engender vigorous post-movie discussion.

At 73 minutes, this engrossing film takes on an issue of increasing importance as record numbers of refugees attempt to find homes in foreign countries.

Lola is the best trans film at the festival, a Belgian-French movie about a volatile 18-year-old transgender girl ready to undergo sex reassignment surgery, yet interrupted by the sudden death of her mother. Her mother wanted her ashes scattered along the Belgian coast, so Lola must reunite with the father who disowned her years ago, throwing her out into the streets.

Reluctantly, they travel together, so Lola becomes a road movie in which predictably both characters are transformed by their journey.

Trans newcomer Mya Bollaers

t

scores a home run in her debut, quite capable of keeping up with veteran actor Benoit Magimel, splendid as her father. A meditation on grief and loss, Lola offers insights on how to incorporate a painful past on the way to learning how to live authentically.

Swan Song is another must see, mainly for the tour de force performance of Udo Kier who finally has a lead role worthy of his talent. Kier plays retired hairdresser/make-up artist Pat Pitsenberger. Wasting away in a nursing home, he’s offered $25,000 to fix up the corpse of a rich estranged friend Rita (Linda Evans), who posthumously tries to make amends for past transgressions. At first refusing, Pat reconsiders by escaping and hitchhiking to his old hometown of Sandusky, Ohio where he once ran a beauty salon that catered to a rich clientele.

He must face old demons, such as his dead partner, a former hairdressing assistant (played by a sassy conniving Jennifer Coolidge) who stole Pat’s top clients to start her own salon. The drag bar now closing where he once headlined in his heyday, he confronts Rita’s gay grandson (Michael Urie), and the self-realization of how Pat contributed to his own decline.

The openly gay 76-year-old Kier, was once the teenage lover of German director Rainier Werner Fassbinder, appeared in low budget horror movies, Andy Warhol’s Dracula, and acted in all Lars von Trier’s films since 1987. His Pat is the type of role an actor waits an entire career to embrace. He pour a lifetime of experience into this golden opportunity offered to him by director Todd Stephens (the classic Edge of Seventeen).

Quite simply, Kier’s Pat is one of the greatest queer performances ever, alternating between hilarious and heartbreaking, especially in the final scenes, where Kleenex is mandatory. This is why we adore film festivals, to discover gems like Swan Song.

Another unexpected jewel is the queer Nigerian drama Walking with Shadows based on the Jude Dibia novel. Adrian (Ozzy Agu) and Ada (Zainab Balogun) seem to have the perfect marriage in conservative Lagos, until an anonymous phone call to Ada alleges that Adrian is gay, forcing him to admit he is attracted to men. Ada questions everything about her life and throws Adrian out of their home.

Gossip begins to unravel Adrian’s job, church life, resurrect dysfunctional family dynamics, such that he becomes a virtual outcast.

This is a very familiar story and the movie seems to be heading to a disastrous conclusion, but surprises you and goes in a different direction. This is Irish director Aoife O’Kelly’s feature debut. She provides a fascinating window on the harsh realities of dangerous contemporary queer Nigeria, which we’ve rarely ever seen depicted.

Agu and Balogun are both marvelous, as we view their lives from their differing sensitive portrayals.

Walking is appointment film at its finest.

Introverted, droll 17-year-old AJ (Nell Barlow) is dragged to a summer seaside family holiday against her will by her mother (the wonderful Jo Hartley). Prepared to have a horrible vacation, instead AJ meets Isla (Ella-Rae Smith), a lifeguard, and a romance begins to blossom, allowing AJ to explore her sexual and perhaps gender identity in Sweetheart, an English film.

We’ve seen this story many times and this is no Edge of Seventeen, Call Me By Your Name, or even Booksmart. AJ is an awkward free spirit trying to re-invent herself, resulting in a buoyant spirit which seems to match the carefree location, aided by a perfect teen pop soundtrack.

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Film>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 45

Refreshingly, the mother –who starts out almost villainous– becomes more likeable; we discover more about her history as the film progresses. The movie with its effervescent snarky charms is perfectly timed for summer and is enjoyable as long as you don’t expect too much from it.

Ma Belle, My Beauty is one of these films whose premise delivers more than its execution. Polyamory is becoming a more popular theme in movies and here there is a stress on the lesbian side of the triangle. Bertie (Idella Johnson) from New Orleans has recently married long-time beau Fred (Lucien Guignard) and they have moved to the Cevennes region in the south of France.

Fred is a jazz musician with a band and Bertie is their singer.

She’s in a funk, feeling isolated in foreign surroundings and isn’t sure she wants to continue performing.

Concerned, Fred secretly arranges a visit from Lane (Hannah PepperCunningham), a former girlfriend with whom Bertie had a relationship the same time as the one with Fred.

Fred hopes the two women will reconnect which might inspire Bertie’s creativity in other areas, namely to return singing in his band. Of course complications ensue, especially when Lane meets an Israeli ex-soldier Noa (Sivan Noa Shimon) at a party and they sleep together.

This movie rarely works because the audience isn’t privy to what the characters are thinking or their inner conflicts. It’s too understated.

Also, I’m not sure Pepper-Cunningham is right for her role, as there is no magnetism between her and Johnson, even in their inevitable big bedroom scene which seems rote. Still, Johnson is a delight and a lovely heartfelt singer (her song in the party scene is the film’s peak). There’s the stunning sunny

country cinematography and the jazzy rhythmic music, but in what could’ve been captivating or daring, instead just disappointingly fizzles to a nebulous conclusion.

Korea gets a melodramatic makeover in the cool comedy Made on the Rooftop, which will appeal to millennials. Ha-neul, a jobless slacker in Seoul, breaks up with his three-year closeted boyfriend Jeong-min leaving behind his beloved cat Ari. The jaded Haneul moves into the apartment of his best friend BongBong, a rising online celebrity who has a flippant opinion on every topic. He’s pursued by a fan who wants to have a relationship but BongBong doesn’t seem interested.

Jeong-min is seriously injured in a car accident for which Ha-neul feels guilty. Both he and BongBong have to face major life challenges, mainly through eating and dancing on the rooftop of the building in which they live. Made could easily have been a musical. This is one of those films that shouldn’t work, yet succeeds because of its hipster energy and its ability to laugh at itself despite dealing with serious issues.

Similar to Sweetheart in that Made is also ideal summer fare, you get to fall in love with Ari, as much a star as the two male lead actors.

In summary, these are multidimensional complex flawed characters, not LGBTQ paragons and it is precisely in their foibles and weaknesses that makes them not only relatable but also fascinating if occasionally questionable role models. The directors in all these films are not afraid to push boundaries and challenge their audiences to stretch their understanding of queer identity and what constitutes socially acceptable behavior. Queer global cinema is hotter, quirkier, and more exciting than we could ever have imagined.t

Above: Ma Belle, My Beauty Below: Made on the Rooftop

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<< Film

46 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

t

Ailey

stories shine, Frameline45 documentaries Cinematic sometimes stall

by Brian Bromberger

W

hile most of the documentaries in Frameline45 are very good, none are great. In a rare occurrence, the narrative features this year are stronger entries than the documentaries.

Another surprise is that 2021 is the 40th anniversary of the onset of the AIDS epidemic, yet none of the documentaries allude to this milestone or are AIDS-related. This isn’t a criticism of Frameline, as so far none of the LGBTQ film festivals have featured movies on this topic.

Perhaps some documentaries might emerge next year in commemoration of this landmark anniversary.

If one were to pick a theme for the documentaries chosen by Frameline45, it would be a focus on sex positivity, which plays a role in at least six films (Ailey, Baloney, Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters, Raw! Uncut!

Video!, Rebel Dykes, and A Sexplanation).

Baloney

This might not be unusual in a year when many queer people had to refigure their sexuality in lockdown, unable to express themselves in personal connections with other folks for fear of contracting COVID. All these documentaries ratify the importance of sexuality as helping to form and solidify queer identities, an affirmation we can appreciate as the community comes together in person to celebrate Pride in a few selected events.

Ailey is a long overdue profile of the brilliant, demanding, enigmatic choreographer Alvin Ailey who searched for truth in movement (and a salute to the human body) by centering on African American experiences. Ailey was a pivotal figure in contemporary modern dance, second only to Martha Graham.

During his lifetime, his dance company was lauded as one of the most innovative in the world.

The film is largely told in his own words through the creation of a new commission work inspired by

his life, aided by insights given by contemporaries such as Ailey’s successor Judith Jamison and disciples such as Bill T. Jones. There is stunning footage from his iconic dances (Revelations, Blues Suit), as well as analysis on how his poverty-stricken childhood in Depression-era Texas and never knowing his father influenced his work.

Any civil rights-era protesting Ailey did was on stage rather than in demonstrations. For Ailey, choreography was catharsis, a vehicle for him to tell his truth. However, his truth didn’t include coming out as gay, which must have been very oppressive for him, just by the fact when he died of AIDS in 1989, his cause of death was announced not as HIV but as terminal blood dyscrasia.

Ailey is an excellent portrayal of a visionary artist, but is handicapped by only marginal, tangential references to his sexuality and private life. While his blackness rightfully is center stage as a primary motivator on his creativity, his gayness and

the impact of being closeted should have been discussed/debated more prominently. Ailey will premiere on PBS’s American Masters series later this year.

Baloney is billed as gay all-male revue burlesque and audiences will likely delight in the fun-filled naughty antics of this live theatre troupe, often performing in the Oasis nightclub in San Francisco.

Michael Phillis (absolutely adorable), the co-creator and director, defines the 15-year-old group as “a live show that uses theater, dance, striptease to explore and celebrate the gay sexual and life experience.”

Baloney explores the power in the vulnerability of exposing oneself not just in the flesh but also one’s inner values and conflicts. Baloney’s skits are part spoof, confession, and social commentary often involving music and dance (Phillis’s partner Rory Davis is the choreographer).

They are often enacted fantasies with no embarrassment, shame, or guilt with the performers representing solicited audience’s wish-fulfillments. They provide a safe space forum where everyone can be comfortable with their sexuality and not be afraid for men to explore their femininity.

Clearly the troupe (which includes a woman and a straight guy) all like each other as they take off their clothes to reveal bodies of all sizes and shapes and express mutual affection. The way the revue raised money during the pandemic is both

A Sexplanation

inventive and riotous, not to be spoiled here. Often enthralling and hilarious, except in certain scenes where the film feels like an infomercial for the group (a minor quibble), this now beloved SF gay tradition deserves exposure –in all senses of the word– and as a result new audiences will discover them.

In tandem with Baloney, A Sexplanation is also titillating entertainment, but more for educative purposes. 36-year-old gay San Franciscan Alex Liu (a cutie pie who declares, “I love dick”) is on a mission to strip away his sexual shame and find out the naked truths about sexuality.

Sexplanation is a documentary road picture as Liu travels throughout the country asking researchers about intimacy, overcoming sexual hang-ups, our fear of pleasure, silence in talking about sexuality, and what elements compose good sexual education for schools (i.e. being nonjudgmental, medically accurate information).

To quote Mary Poppins, a spoonful of sugar does make the medicine go down, as Liu covers controversial topics (i.e. porn, fetishes) with a smiling, charming disposition and a breezy unassuming style even in potentially cringeworthy scenes, such as questioning his own parents about their sexuality.

One amusing sequence is Liu asking experts at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver how they define sex and they’re all

t

Film>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 47

“Spin the bottle, ride the Rolodex,

and fasten your seatbelt a sweet roller coaster ride.”

– Marc

for

Huestis, film director, author

Prognosis: Notes on Living

tongue-tied. Audiences will fall in love with Liu and his campaign to end the silence that keeps sexual shame alive with the notion sex is dirty or wrong.

Although there is some gay content, the film deals with a broader view of sexuality so it will appeal to straight as well as queer viewers.

Sexplanation should be required viewing for parents and with the editing of a few explicit scenes, could be ideal for high school sex education courses, the film you wished you had seen when you were an adolescent.

On the other end of the spectrum is the harrowing Prognosis: Notes on Living, with Oscar-winning San Francisco lesbian documentary trailblazer, Debra Chasnoff (It’s Elementary, Deadly Deception) turning the camera on herself after she received a diagnosis of stage-4 breast cancer.

The film examines how she dealt with her devastating illness. Her bravery, candor, humor, and tremendous vulnerability area are a tribute to her filmmaking skills.

This documentary is not for the faint-hearted, especially because we know Chasnoff died in 2017 at age 60. Her final unnerving deathbed moments feature prominently in the movie.

If you have journeyed with anyone facing a fatal illness or are taking on that challenge now, Prognosis may or may not be helpful emotionally. However it is honest, unsentimental in its unsparing look at dying and the letting go process, though we feel like voyeurs as Chasnoff, at times, emotionally unravels.

Ultimately the film serves as a capstone on Chasnoff ’s professional legacy, but also a window into how people cope with life-changing di-

agnoses. This is not the type of film one ‘likes’ but it is one we’re grateful was made, in spite of how gutwrenching it is to watch.

Haunting is the word to describe the almost undefinable North By Current, shot by trans filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax. Originally Minax meant his doc to be an exposé on a corrupt criminal justice system following the death of his two-year-old niece Kalla, with his sister Jesse charged with child abuse and her husband convicted of murder (ultimately acquitted).

Instead, North focuses more on the pain of family and grief, but not just related to death but the family coming to terms with Minax’s transition. He uses a first person cinema verité style that is experimental, raw, non-linear, and disjointed to convey the idea time has no meaning.

Minax returns to the barren landscape of his rural northern Michigan family, following them over a five-year period as they cope with Kalla’s death, prison, opioid addiction, spousal abuse, economic stagnation, depression, Mormon fanaticism, with Jesse blaming him for her addiction and his mother saying he is God’s punishment for having past abortions.

Minax employs home movies, photos, and narration by an ethereal ghost child spouting platitudinous wisdom (questionable), to create this impressionistic visual essay to show how far the family has come since the loss of Kalla and their tentatively closer relationship to him.

Courageous and moving at times, it is also brutal and there is so much tragedy happening it can overwhelm the viewer, though ultimately it is life-affirming.

Order Now! Also available at Dog Eared Books Castro, 489 Castro St.

jimprovenzano.com CELEBRATE PRIDE WITH A PAGE-TURNER

See page 48 >>

FROM ACCLAIMED AUTHOR

MICHAEL NAVA

LIES WITH MAN A NEW HENRY RIOS MYSTERY

Above: North By Current Below: No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics

“Michael Nava is a master of the genre.”

–THE WASHINGTON POST

<< Film

48 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

NICK’S FOODS 1659 MARKET STREET, SAN FRANCISCO

Fanny

<<

Frameline45 Docs

In short snippets we experience and biological family. Alexander young up-and-coming queer artists, and Mari realize their survival NEARBY THE CIVIC CENTER PRIDE such as Ivan Velez Jr. Breena Nunez, CELEBRATION (Mari’s relatives want her killed) and Gaia WXYZ appreciate how depends on their leaving Georgia.

Minax’s relationship and interthese trailblazers influenced their Desperate, Mari agrees to become views with Jesse provide the key FIND US ON YELP! own work and help them find their a surrogate for $12,000, money they mostly uplifting moments in the distinctive voices. The film is profican use to escape and start a new life film. North won’t appeal to everyCIGARETTES • SNACKS • CANDY cient at showing how comics espein Belgium. one, but if you persevere through cially in the 80s•and 90s helped form Both Alexander and Mari grow the pain, you will be amply rewardGATORADE SANDWICHES the identity of the queer community attached to the unborn child. While ed, as its unflinching honesty will BEER WINE •pain, LIQUOR as they• experienced loss, and • more coverage about the politilinger in your memory for days. fought for visibility and relevance. cal background of queer Georgian Inspired by Justin Hall’s awardThe presentation here is pericitizens might have been useful, winning anthology of queer comics odically disjointed, expecting the Ugrekhelidze’s guerilla-like cinema covering the period from the underaudience to fill in chronological verité creates suspense, but its most ground late 1960s to the late 2000s, gaps, but ultimately any lapses are enduring element is the love bond No Straight Lines: The Rise of forgiven because we get to see so between Alexander and Mari deQueer Comics traces the influence many enlightening and entertaining spite their lack of money and hatred of this art form and how it overcomic strips, as we realize how revoshown them. They will become your came homophobia and commercial lutionary they were for their time. new queer heroes in this sensitive, unfeasibility to become a popular If you are in need for some uplift, compassionate plea for humanizing mode of contemporary LGBTQ stoyou can do no better than watch rytelling. the plight of queer migrants seeking Yana Ugrekhelidze searing docuWe hear about Mary Wings’s creasylum just to live ordinary lives. mentary, Instructions for Suration of Come Out Comics, the first Fanny continues the recent trend vival, on the plight of Alexander, lesbian comic made by an out lesin documentaries of filling in the a transgender man in Georgia (the bian and Rupert Kinnard’s Brown gaps of rock and roll history by rescountry, not the U.S. state). Listed Bomber, the first black queer comic urrecting groups that were ignored as female on his passport that precharacter. or overlooked such as Big Star vents him from legally finding work, However, the pivotal figure is the (Nothing Can Hurt Me) and 60s Alexander, after googling the correct late Howard Cruse, whose 1980s anback-up singers (Twenty Feet From medical information must secure thology Gay Comix opened doors for Stardom). his necessary hormonal therapy out gay and lesbian cartoonists, but Fanny originated in 1960s Sacfrom black market suppliers, forcis beloved for his Wendel comic strip ramento when two Filipina sisters, ing him to lead a life of secrecy, even that ran in The Advocate. It dealt with June and Jean Millington, along from his neighbors.

AIDS, gay rights, gay-bashing, closwith their friends, transformed eted celebrities, among other comLike Russia, Georgia is oppressive themselves from a garage band to munal topics using the right balance for LGBTQ people, with the docubecome the first all-women hard STREET, SANvidFRANCISCO between humor and1659 anger. MARKET mentary’s opening highlighting rock group to release an LP with a Alison Bechdel1659 shines MARKET in her eo clipsSTREET, showing crowdsSAN attackingFRANCISCO a major record label (Warner/Reprise, segment into how she created her bus with pro-queer activists and a 1970) long before The Go-Gos or 1659 MARKET STREET, SAN FRANCISCO award-winning best-selling Fun talk show host advocating death for The Bangles.

Home, a graphic memoir on her LGBTQ folk.

They released five critically-acgay father, which later became a hit Fortunately Alexander has a supclaimed albums in five years, toured NEARBY THE CIVIC PRIDE CELEBRATION Broadway musical. portive CENTER cis woman partner, Mari, with famed bands such as Chicago,

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6/21/19 12:35 PM

Above: Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation Below: Invisible

amassed a dedicated fan base, and were lauded by David Bowie. When they were disbanded in 1975 they were promptly forgotten, their landmark accomplishment written out of the history books, no doubt due to sexism, racism, and homophobia (some members were lesbian).

Fanny never produced a pop song hit, which prevented them from being aired on the crucial AM radio format, perhaps securing their anonymity. Using a traditional approach boasting incredible archival performance footage, Canadian director Bobbi Jo Hart interviews current and former band members, as they prepare to release a new reunion CD (Fanny Walked the Earth) in their sixties and begin a tour to promote it.

Bonnie Raitt, Cherie Currie (The Runaways), Kate Pierson (B-52s) sing the praises of these “bunch of hands-on chicks” and why they deserve to be remembered.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond their control, the triumphant conclusion the filmmakers were aiming for is thwarted leading to an anticlimactic conclusion. Still, Fanny reminds us of the unsung role played by queer musicians in establishing rock n roll that should be celebrated and not minimized.

Another overlooked group are lesbian singer-songwriters who have written some of the greatest songs in country music yet were forced to keep their private lives secret in a homophobic industry, but their story is finally being told in Invisible. As Bonnie Baker remarks, “Instead of writing songs for others telling their stories, I finally get to tell my story.”

In addition to Baker, Cidney Bullens, Dianne Davidson, Kye Fleming, Mary Gauthier, Jess Leary, Cheryl Wheeler, Pam Rose among others are profiled. These women wrote hits for Barbara Mandrell, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw to list a few stars.

Many of these women attempted careers of their own, but were petrified of being outed which would have led to certain rejection from their conservative audiences and a ban on crucial radio play by country western stations, ending their musical dreams.

Chely Wright’s story is especially tragic, as she planned a big promotional coming out event on The Today Show, along with a documentary (Wish Me Away) on being lesbian, yet was flatly rejected by everyone, such that she had to resort to a GoFundMe campaign with her fans so her next album could be released.

The problem is that all these sto-

ries repeat the same grim circumstances and conclusions over and over again, resulting in a documentary that is overlong and tedious at times. Still, audiences can’t help but admire these persevering women some of them trying to kickstart a singing career in their 60s and 70s.

And lots of sensational songs will keep you humming long after the last credit disappears.

Nostalgia is also in the air in Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s (superb docs on Diana Vreeland, Cecil Beaton, and Peggy Guggenheim) evocative Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation, in which she skillfully recreates the tumultuous friendship of these two gay literary stars of the 1950s and 1960s. She’s cleverly assembled a dialogue between them (without talking heads) by using their writings, clips from screen adaptations of their works (A Streetcar Named Desire, Breakfast at Tiffany’s) as well as their appearances (not always flattering) on television talk shows such as Dick Cavett and David Frost.

Their words are read by out actors Zachary Quinto voicing Williams and Jim Parson breathing life into Capote. They wrote letters to each other when they weren’t competitive rivals or frenemies. Besides breathtaking talent, they shared similar self-destructive demons such as lonely childhoods filled with abuse, alcoholism and substance abuse, homophobia, and a long period of decline in the 1970s.

Both died of addiction issues within 18 months of each other.

All these problems fueled their greatest works as well as contributed to their downfalls. Both were witty wordsmiths, born raconteurs, and had outsized personalities ideal for television when writers were honored guests on talk shows. Immordino uses their own words to disclose how they both felt about being gay during a repressive time and the difficulties of finding lasting love.

Probably most revealing are their discussions about the creative process and their compelling need to write. Yet truthfully there is little insightful or original we haven’t encountered elsewhere, but what the documentary establishes is how they constructed personas that prevented other people from getting to know their real selves. They wanted to remain elusive and so they do in this heartbreaking yet intriguing look into two of the greatest gay writers of the 20th century.t www.frameline.org

t

Film>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 49

Friedman/Epstein films on TCM

Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman

by Brian Bromberger

T

urner Classic Movies (TCM) will be celebrating Pride Month with a special night of programming films of Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein on Monday, June 28, 8pm, hosted by Dave Karger. The LGBTQ-centric documentaries made by the duo include The Times of Harvey Milk (1984), a biography of the slain San Francisco Supervisor as well as the emergence of the LGBTQ community in 1970s San Francisco; and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989, a TCM premiere), the story of the AIDS Quilt and the Names Project which administered it. Both of these films won the Oscar as Best Documentary, with Milk the first gay film to win that honor.

Two other of their queer documentaries will be screened. The Celluloid Closet (1995) is a hundred-year history of queer images in Hollywood movies, based on the late gay film historian Vito Russo’s book, that featured interviews with Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Shirley MacLaine, Tony Curtis, Gore Vidal, Paul Rudnick, and many others. The film won a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award for Directing. It was released by Sony Pictures Classics and premiered on HBO. And Paragraph 175 (2000) told the hidden history of Nazi persecution of homosexuals. It premiered at Sundance, where it won the Jury Prize for Directing, and the Berlin Film Festival, where it received the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film from the International Federation of Film Critics. All four documentaries are now considered classic LGBTQ documentaries.

In 1987, Friedman and Epstein started Telling Pictures, a San Francisco-based production company. Their recent projects include the Oscar-nominated short documentary End Game (2018) about end-of-life care (now streaming on Netflix). In 2019 they finished two films, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, a profile of the pop/rock singer and State of Pride, which looked at LGBTQ Pride in three diverse communities: Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, now available on YouTube.

In recent years they have branched out into narrative features, including Howl (2010), concerning Allen

Ginsberg’s prophetic poem and the controversy it engendered, starring James Franco as Ginsberg.

Lovelace (2013) recreated the making of the first porn mega-hit Deep Throat and the first porn superstar played by Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard as her abusive husband/manager. They have also co-authored The Art of Nonfiction Movie Making with Sharon Wood (Praeger Press, 2012).

During a limited press access period, Friedman and Epstein agreed to take a few questions from the Bay Area Reporter.

When queried how their professional partnership (they’ve never been romantically involved) began, Friedman responded, “We first met when I came to San Francisco. I had seen Word Is Out, Rob’s first film, a 1977 documentary that interviewed 26 gay and women about their personal lives and the challenges of being gay. I felt closeted in a homophobic industry.

“We became friends and we started collaborating. I helped a bit when he was making the Harvey Milk film. Epstein added, “Our first film as co-directors was Common Threads, which we were inspired to make after seeing the AIDS Quilt in its inaugural display in Washington, D.C. in 1987. Soon after, we met Cleve Jones who originated the idea of the quilt as a memorial to PWAs who had died.”

haven’t heard and we hear those voices through trans filmmakers.”

Both directors replied ‘No’ if they had the chance to remake some of their documentaries based on new knowledge that wasn’t available when they originally created them.

Epstein responded, “They are historical films and are historical artifacts, that is why they were made.”

Friedmann suggested, “Any of them would be different if we made them today because we would have a different perspective on them. They are very much of the moment when we made them. There is an integrity we wouldn’t want to mess with, nor would they be considered classics if they had to be updated.”

Finally, the pandemic hasn’t stopped them from making new documentaries. They are almost finished with a film on young Cuban musicians. Their next project is a film on the gay photographer Peter Hujar, who produced an incredible catalog of photos in the 1960s and 1970s.

He died of AIDS in 1987.

He was a contemporary of Robert Mapplethorpe and Diane Arbus though was less well-known at the time, but Epstein and Friedman feel should be better appreciated today.t

Some of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s films

www.tellingpictures.com

Bay Area vision

San Francisco and the LGBTQ community have been essential to their filmmaking. Epstein noted, “Both have played an enormous role as our films are infused with the community. When we get going on a project we research it here, using local young people as researchers and crew members are from the Bay Area. San Francisco is our foundation and touchstone.”

Friedman commented, “Many of our stories are San Francisco-based: Harvey Milk, Common Threads in terms of subject matter. Rob’s original film studio was in the Dogpatch area before it was developed. Word Is Out started there.

When asked how queer documentaries today are different than when they started making their documentaries, Robert commented, “There are more trans-themed film today because more trans people are out, so we’re hearing voices we

DowntownSF.org

<< Music

50 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

Country Pride singer-songwriter Ty Herndon

by Gregg Shapiro

followed, and the success of it?

I hear “you’ve got to stay relevant in the business” so much!

Reba (McEntire) told me one time, “You’re constantly reinventing yourself, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s always moving, always evolving.” I always credit my Concert For Love & Acceptance for keeping me kind of relevant [laughs], in a great way, because I get to meet and talk and work with all these affirming hearts, whether they’re on our red carpet or whether they’re on the show or whether it’s a friend like Terri Clark who’s been around with me forever. Or Kathy Mattea! A lot of these generations of kids will be watching the show because of Brothers Osborne and some of these amazing new acts that are on the radio today. But they don’t know who Kathy Mattea is, so we’re going to tell them!

T

y Herndon knows a thing or two about love and acceptance.

Initially embraced by country music fans in the mid-to-late 1990s, a series of unfortunate events, including some related to his sexuality, sidelined his career. After proudly coming out as a gay man in 2014, and finding personal and public acceptance, Herndon has performed at Pride festivals and released albums in which he sings songs with samegender pronouns.

One of his greatest accomplishments is the formation of The Foundation for Love & Acceptance and its annual music event, the Concert of Love & Acceptance. The all-star 2021 Concert for Love & Acceptance takes place on June 30 at 8pm ET (5pm Pacific) and is going to be live-streamed exclusively on CMT’s Facebook and YouTube channels, and at F4LA.org/concert.

Performers will include Herndon, Kristin Chenoweth, Kathy Mattea, and the Brothers Osborne, to name a few. This year’s event beneficiaries include GLAAD, MusiCares, and Nashville’s Oasis Center.

Gregg Shapiro: Ty, would you please say a few words about the genesis of the Concert for Love & Acceptance?

Ty Herndon: At the beginning of creating Love & Acceptance, I’m so happy I trusted my heart. I’ve said this many times, but I stand by this. I wanted to do something for that 14-year-old kid that’s at home watching the CMA Awards. For me, it was Hee Haw [laughs]! (Thinking to myself) “Oh my God, I want to sing with Tammy Wynette one day.”

But now it’s that kid, who wants to sing with Maren Morris and feels like they’re broken, and they don’t fit in. I don’t know one actor, singer

Ty Herndon

[laughs], anybody in entertainment that has ever felt like they fit in. It’s a nomadic job. I said from the beginning that I wanted to make that kid, who was also me, sitting out there, wherever they’re from, or their gender, think that they can do anything they want to in this world. It’s just

getting the right messaging.

On June 30, the latest Concert for Love & Acceptance, is being presented with an all-star cast. Did you ever imagine when you first came up with the concept that you would still be involved with each one that

We’re ready to h t wi k c a b u o y e welcom

! s r e p p i l f n ope

Also among this year’s performers is longtime ally and icon Kristin Chenoweth. What does it mean to you to have her on the roster?

Well, she really didn’t have a choice because she’s one of my best friends [big laugh]. I was talking to her yesterday. I said, ‘Oh, you saw your picture on the announcement? Oh yeah, you’re doing the show!’ With a star of her magnitude, friend or not, I have to go through the proper channels.

She has a great team of people and they were so delighted. We’re closing out the show with Kristin and my performance this year. It’s gonna be…I can’t tell you, but make sure you stay tuned [laughs].

Has it gotten easier over the years to get performers to say yes, to agree to take part in the Concert for Love & Acceptance?

I’m gonna tell you something right now and I’m probably gonna get emotional. On press day, two days ago, the amount of stuff we used to have to fight for just to get noticed, it just was there. I work Midnight hard, yes, but I have a team of people that work so hard. We had a meeting yesterday and we were talking about

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I’m so glad that you mentioned Kathy and was happy to see her in the line-up. I remember how supportive she was during the early years of the AIDS crisis, performing at benefits, as well as contributing songs to the Red Hot + Country album. What does it mean to you to have her be part of the concert?

I was watching the CMA awards that evening when she was the only artist who had on a red ribbon. A lot of the artists were wearing the green ribbon for supporting the earth and environmental awareness. That red ribbon stood out like crazy! I remember thinking, “Wow, she’s really brave!”

There are soldiers out there who tell the truth, no matter what the cost. I love that! I try to stand for that today. Having the opportunity to be the word “authentic.”

I hear a lot of kids say, ‘What does that mean today?’ I’m like [laughs] … I can see the window for me to learn something, so I go, ‘I don’t know.

Why don’t you tell me?’ Back to Reba, ‘Constantly growing. Moving forward.’

t

this. It’s nice to have the phone ringing, for people to actually want to do the show. It’s mind-blowing and I get emotional about it.

That’s understandable. You mentioned the Brothers Osborne and the 2021 Concert for Love & Acceptance features some incredible out country acts including TJ Osborne of the Brothers Osborne, Brooke Eden and Chris Housman.

Since coming out, would you say you are encountering more LGBTQ+ folks in country music?

You know what it’s like to turn on (SiriusXM country music station) The Highway and hear (lesbian country artist) Lily Rose? I’d mean like, wow! Hold on a second, you got me all emotional again.

Sorry. I have that effect.

[Laughs] the fact that I am a big old strong cowboy and I cry about this; that’s the answer to your question. Things are changing and we’ve been able to see that.

It’s awesome.

Do you think that Cody Alan, being an out person on CMT, has helped the Nashville and country music-loving community become more accepting and open-minded?

I think everybody knows how luxurious and awesome and wonderful Cody Allen is.

The way he speaks into his confidence and his authenticity, and how he can stand next to people who agree and people who don’t agree and still matter and know that he matters. I’ve told him this to his face, “What you’re doing is probably the greatest work.”

Yes, it’s good to have him in the community. Because of the Concert for Love & Acceptance, and your involvement in various charitable events, you can proudly call yourself a philanthropist. What does it mean to you to be able to have such a distinction?

I’m going to say something, and I think all my LGBTQ brothers and sisters will laugh about this. I’ve often thought that that word sounds like the name of a drag queen. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage, Miss Phyl-Ann Thropist.’

But seriously, I just try, on a daily basis, to wake up and, you know I’m a sober guy, so as long as I follow my program and I do something for someone else, it saves my own ass. I feel like being who I am today keeps me alive.

Finally, Ty, is there are any chance that there is new music from you in the works?

I’m going to give you the scoop, my friend. The album is called Jacob. It’s a body of work that I have written with some of the most wideawake, sober, intelligent, life-changing people in the world. These lyrics mean a lot and we tracked nine songs yesterday. It was one of the most emotional days I’ve ever had because the album is so personal.t www.tyherndon.com Get Concert for Love & Acceptance info at www.f4la.org

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6/4/21 10:57 AM

<< Music

52 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

On the record with Lorant Duzgun what steady as far as underground clubs go. The one main change, and this may be because of the internet’s growth in the last 20 years or so, is that certain cities had their own musical vibe and style when it came to musical output. There was a New York sound, a Chicago sound, a Manchester sound, Lisbon, etc.

Some of that is missing these days.

DJ and music producer Lorant Duzgun

by Anthony T. Eaton

T

he heartbeat of the gay club scene is driven by the music, those that produce it, and those that play it, and nowhere does the pulse beat stronger than New York City. Although COVID has impacted the spin, the creative juices have not stopped. I had the chance to talk with Lorant Duzgun, producer, professional DJ and owner of Royal Advisor Records, about the impact of COVID, how he came to be a DJ, then a producer, and what he has been doing.

How did you get into making music?

I grew up by the George Washington Bridge in New Jersey, right on the outskirts of New York City, and so hearing underground club music on the radio late Saturday nights was very enticing. I started going to clubs as a teen, knowing that I wanted to learn how to DJ when it’s usually the other way around. People start going to clubs, and they decide to start DJing.

Soon after that, I started working for Twisted Records, which was the dance music hit factory of the time.

Being gay and going to the clubs is a rite of passage. Do you remember your first one?

I always like to tell people (and it’s true) that I had never even been to a gay bar before I went to my first gay club, Twilo, on 27th Street, where Junior Vasquez had his DJ residency at the time. If you know anything about New York nightlife history, you know that that was the hot ticket. It was a truly magical albeit intimidating experience for an 18-year-old.

And so that is how it all started for you, going to the clubs?

That was still very early on- a lot’s happened since. I started DJing in my early twenties but stopped to learn music production, and when I started my label 11 years ago, I combined all those experiences. Still, none of the experiences have been as much a mentor as the label itself.

How has club music changed and evolved over the years regarding sound and its production?

Regarding house and techno music, I’d say besides the technological advances; the sound stays some-

What’s it like being queer and working in the clubs/business? Is it any different being gay in the business versus being straight? Is it more challenging in any way?

In New York, it feels like a community or an extended family. I wouldn’t trade that aspect of it for anything and since that’s my point of reference, it feels normal to me but that may be a naive answer in the grand scheme of things. Also, we’re talking about dance and house music which had a very queer inception so…

The live entertainment industry has faced an incredible challenge since last year, but artists are resilient by nature, and pushing against restraint is our duty. Nothing comes close to the beauty of human interaction, and human interaction is dance music’s primal function.

Are there any DJs and Producers that inspired you or that you admire?

Danny Tenaglia was one of my mentors. Carl Cox is a UK/Ibiza techno legend. Tale of Us, Loco Dice, my friends Brian Gately and Austin Downey, etc. Also, Junior Vasquez, who ruled the gay New York club scene in the 1990s. I was fortunate enough to do some editing work for him before I fully gave myself to learning how to produce. It was an invaluable experience. I take pride in the work I do with underground

artists. They are always inspiring me.

Is there anyone you want to work with that you haven’t?

Yes! I would love to do remix work for Miley Cyrus and Dua Lip. An original album production would be a dream, too.

I recently did a Miley Cyrus remix of her song “Angels Like You.” It wasn’t an officially commissioned mix but still a fun project to work on personally. The feedback has been great.

Many good artists are not known.

This has been the case since the beginning of time and will be so till the end. That’s part of the reason I started a record label, to help each other out.t www.royaladvisorrecords.com

Read the full interview on www.ebar.com

Where did the inspiration for this new album come from?

Exactly seven years ago, I released a compilation album called Our Music: Future Perfect, which was followed by Our Music: Instinxual a few months later. It dawned on me recently that as we slowly leave the pandemic behind, it may be a good idea to give RAR’s fans and friends something new to look forward to right before the summer. The third installment of the series will be called Our Music: Astral Bodies.

Now that you have a label and are producing music, do you still DJ as well?

Yes, of course. I consider myself a DJ first, but with everything still going on the pandemic, we have to be patient until bars and clubs start opening back up, and people feel confident enough to go out again.

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Lorant Duzgun in his natural habitat

Pride is celebrating 50 years.

a nostalgic snapshot of what the LGBTQ community was like at that moment in time.

r e t r o p e R a e r A y a g B n i e t h a t r b o t e l s e n c o i n t o a i l . t i s u t d n a e o r i l t g a a u r n b Con n e l a e h c t e 0 d 5 i r r u P e n u on yo J s ’ o c s i c n a r F San

The

www.ebar.com

BAYAREAREPORTER

Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971

Vol. 44 • No. 26 • June 26-July 2, 2014

SPECIAL PRIDE SECTION Vol. 40

. No. 25 . 24 June 2010

The

Pride 2011

The

Vol. 41 • No. 25 • June 23-29, 2011

www.ebar.com

Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971

Vol. 46 • No. 25 • June 23-29, 2016

Illustration by T. Scott King

ONS } { SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS

The

The

Fighting W for justice

www.ebar.com Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971

T H R E E

Vol. 45 • No. 26 • June 25-July 1, 2015

S E C T I O N S • • • Kenshi Westover

T

he LGBT community was born as a movement of self-empowerment. In these pages of the Bay Area Reporter’s Pride section, we feature stories of courage and survival. The personal stories of Pride parade grand marshals are portraits of empowerment, whether they are giving young people a voice, working for social change, or entertaining the masses. In the end, we all seek empowerment, and our stories must be told in order to inspire others.

Illustartion: TSK

P

OF THREE SECTIONS }

ride, viewed as a puzzle, lets all of our varied communities come together. We identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, black, white, Asian, Jewish, drag, leather, daddy, older, younger, and more. We are all pieces of society, and making those pieces fit into the puzzle that is life is our challenge – and oftentimes we have to confront those whose aim is to relegate us to second-class status or who support outdated ideologies that lead to discrimination.

The puzzle analogy is visualized in the cover art by gay local graphic artist Kenshi Westover.

Inside this special Pride section, you will find stories of success, perseverance, overcoming adversity, and challenging the status quo.

These themes are illustrated through articles on a gay social club, the Billys, and San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s groundbreaking policy to stop classifying transgender inmates who have not had surgery according to their birth sex, meaning that trans women would be housed with women in jail.

This year’s San Francisco Pride community grand marshals and other honorees are also profiled – they are a diverse group of people who have started their own businesses, fostered social change, and improved the lives of others.

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In the news section, you’ll find all that you need to know about Saturday’s new Pink Party and Sunday’s parade and festival, along with other local coverage.

The arts section includes a look at the Frameline film festival and other happenings.

Along with our coverage of multiple arts events, we have expanded nightlife listings in the BARtab section with information on every notable LGBTQ event this week, and an exclusive interview with Pride main stage headliner, Steve Grand.

No matter what the U.S. Supreme Court decides in the marriage case, the LGBT community still has much work ahead combating bias, hate violence, and workplace discrimination. Trans people are still unable to serve openly in the military. Even in a city as diverse as San Francisco, in one of the most liberal areas of the country, the Bay Area, there are those who abhor us. Just read our story about a gay Latino mural in the Mission district that’s been hit by graffiti vandals – three times this month.

So as you celebrate this Pride weekend, keep in mind that this is just the beginning of a renewed effort to achieve equality for all.

Happy Pride.

{ FIRST OF FOUR SECTIONS }

Kenshi Westover

A contingent carries the rainbow flag in the 2011 LGBT Pride Parade.

Rick Gerharter

F

or some 34 years now, the rainbow flag has been the most visible symbol of LGBT pride. Businesses use it to indicate they are gay-owned or gay-friendly, churches use the rainbow colors to indicate all are welcome at worship. The list goes on. In short, if you see a rainbow flag, you know that LGBTs are welcome.

That flag’s creator, Gilbert Baker, will be back in San Francisco this weekend to accept the inaugural Gilbert Baker Founders Award from the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee. You’ll find a story about him in this special Pride section.

This year’s Pride theme is “Global Equality” and we also take a look at LGBT

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

rights advances in Latin America, along with profiles of the community grand marshals.

Finally, lots of youth arrive in San Francisco and turn to the streets, and we examine that issue as well.

This Pride season promises to be big, brash, and political, as always. Enjoy.

{ FIRST OF FOUR SECTIONS }

in the SF Homeless Project.

In the news section, you’ll find all that you need to know about the Trans March, Vol. 47 • No. 25 • June 22-28, 2017 Dyke March, and of course, the Pride parade and festival.

The Arts and Culture section includes Frameline film festival coverage.

For nightlife and events, BARtab includes expanded listings of notable LGBTQ events.

Last year at this time, we were anticipating the U.S. Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision. This year, we’re grieving. But through good news and bad, the LGBT community is resilient. We will keep fighting for equality. We will keep working to overturn homophobic and transphobic laws. We will keep marching with Pride, even if we have to do it through tears.t Diego Gomez

Union

Chip Garcia-Coakley of Clovis, California, stands as a flagbearer during the “Meet in the Middle 4 Equality” rally in Fresno on May 30. GarciaCoakley and his partner of 14 years, Scott Coakley, were married on their 14th anniversary in their back yard last September.

Frustration with Obama builds to a crescendo

by Matthew S. Bajko

F

ive months in and the LGBT community’s swooning over President Barack Obama is officially over. Instead, bashing the White House for its lack of movement on LGBT rights is in full bloom from coast to coast.

Some are calling it the “Summer of Obummer.”

Steven Goldstein, the former chair of New Jersey’s statewide LGBT organization, Garden State Equality, went so far as to describe the president’s record on LGBT rights, thus far, as “a tyranny of timidity” in a release last week.

The president came into office pledging to be a “fierce advocate” for the LGBT community. But the courtship between the Obama White House and LGBT activists has proven to be rocky, with the administration having to do damage control even before Obama took the oath of office in January. The outrage back then was the selection of anti-gay California

BOB ROSS FOUNDATION THE

. No. 26 . 25 June 2009

Lansbury. His work has been used by Tweaker.org and can be seen in the comic books Glamazonia and The ALPHABET: LGBTQAI Anthology. He is currently writing and illustrating his civil rights comic EX-MEN ‘63: The Feminine Mystique.

The stories inside this special Pride section feature the various parade grand marshals and other honorees. They reflect the broad spectrum of our community and include groups working on racial and economic issues, HIV/AIDS awareness, and taking care of one’s self. Each is being recognized for their contributions to the LGBT community.

We also take a look at the city’s homeless crisis through its shelters and single-roomoccupancy hotels, in advance of our participation with over 60 media outlets next week

Perfect

Lydia Gonzales

EMPOWER!

Vol. 39

to form A More

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Pride • 2013

SPECIAL PRIDE SECTION

AY REA EPORTER

Pride • 2012

Vol. 42 • No. 25 • June 21-27, 2012

SYMBOL

Vol. 42 • No. 26 • June 27-July 3, 2013

{ SECOND

The

A GLOBAL

The

e commissioned this cover illustration long before the tragic events in Orlando, but it seems fitting that it shows our community fighting for its life. Whether breaking the bonds of incarceration, seeking accountability from law enforcement, or trying to raise a family in one of the most expensive regions in the country, our LGBT brothers and sisters have to do all that and mourn the recent loss of 49 lives in the Pulse nightclub shooting. It doesn’t seem fair that this happened during Pride Month, but life rarely is.

The drawing, by “hella queer” illustrator Diego Gomez, seeks to reflect this year’s San Francisco Pride theme, “For Racial and Economic Justice.” Gomez is a native San Franciscan who is also known as Trangela

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

pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the president’s inauguration.

Following that kerfuffle the gay community’s heartstrings were plucked by hints of Obama appointing the firstever openly gay President Barack Obama cabinet member. has not received high Instead, gay men marks from LGBT people. and lesbians were given lower posts, with the highest administration appointee that of John Berry as director of the Office of Personnel Management.

More sour notes were hit when the administration said it wanted to take a full year to

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O F

Coalition-building shaping up

by Seth Hemmelgarn

B

uoyed by the success of Meet in the Middle 4 Equality, where thousands of marriage equality supporters converged on the city of Fresno in California’s Central Valley in late May, activists, religious leaders, and others are launching an effort to build broad coalitions now, in advance of a possible 2010 ballot effort to repeal Proposition 8.

The unprecedented outreach has spawned more than two-dozen grassroots groups, and reinvigorated more established, larger organizations such as Marriage Equality USA, the progressive Courage Campaign, and Equality California.

Now, however, the hard work begins as LGBTs and allies work to remedy one of the main criticisms of the No on 8 campaign – that the leadership largely ignored people of color and voters in faith communities. Immediately after Prop 8 passed, same-sex marriage proponents pledged to build better relationships with

T H R E E

communities that weren’t necessarily white, LGBT, or secular.

Some feel that efforts to build coalitions are going well. But asked if he’s seen more coalition building happening, the Reverend Eric Lee, presi- The Reverend Eric Lee dent and CEO of urged support for the Southern marriage equality at the Christian Leader- Meet in the Middle 4 ship Conference- Equality rally in Fresno Los Angeles, said, May 30.

“Not really.”

“I’ve participated in numerous conference calls, and usually the participating organizations are your LGBT organizations, and you don’t find very

S EC T I O N S

Lydia Gonzales

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www.ebar.com

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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Theatre>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 55

Lovin’ Haight Out of Site’s groovy history tour

Robbie Sweeny

Tina D’Elia as Peggy Caserta in the Mnasidika storefront window in Out of Site: Haight-Ashbury.

by Jim Gladstone

“R

aise your hand if this is your first time taking LSD,” jokes Seth Eisen to a dozen curious theatergoers gathered at the corner of Ashbury and Page Streets on a bright June Saturday.

Eisen, clad in a sunshiny orange leisure suit this morning, is the impresario behind Eye Zen Presents (Can I get an “Oy vey?”), which since 2007 has been mounting multi-disciplinary theatrical adventures rooted in queer culture. His latest drop (I see your lousy puns and raise you several, sir!) is Out of Site: Haight-Ashbury, an acidfree preservation and celebration of hippie-era queerdom.

The production, the third in an ongoing Out of Site series, is a blend of walking tour, puppet show and playlets that introduce attendees to the life stories and lifestyles of two epically eccentric San Francisco figures: Peggy Caserta, a clothing designer, den mother and sometime lover of the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin whose Haight Street boutique, Mnasidika, served as an ad hoc HQ for the epoch; and Hibiscus (né George Edgerly Harris III), the glitter-bearded, floral-gowned founder of queer performance collective The Cockettes.

Both of these self-invented characters are not so much played as embodied by Tina D’Elia, who initially appears as Caserta outside the

first-floor storefront of the DoolanLarson Building where her shop was located for three years beginning in 1965.

In Caserta’s rambling anecdotes about her casual creativity and its ultimate exploitation by more business-minded forces, D’Elia strikes a skillful balance between toughness and tenderness, thick skin and bruised fruit. Women’s lib and free love were no easygoing couple, and as much as Caserta comes off as emblematic of her time, D’Elia and scriptwriter Michelle Carter also make it apparent that she was precariously ahead of it.

From Haight Street, Eisen and his motley band of collaborators continue our stroll through the neighborhood and to a sun-dappled little grove in Golden Gate Park where D’Elia re-emerges as Hibiscus with his freak flag flapping full force. A mutant descendent of East Coast WASPS, Hibiscus was a proto-Radical Faerie par excellence and D’Elia –whirling, twirling and nailing his weirdly singular unidentifiable accent– gives us all his glory, pulling together an ad hoc storytelling session with help from audience members who, at this particular performance, uninhibitedly giggled aloud.

When was the last time you were swept up enough to do that?

For the most part, D’Elia’s dynamo energy and Eisen’s ingeniously simple stagecraft (unscrolling storyboards, costume changes behind a dropcloth, a rod-manipulated puppet) carry this final portion of the show.

It’s a delightfully meta experience: We’re at a loosey-goosey be-in learning about loosey-goosey be-ins past; we’re being elbowed into an ad hoc spectacle just like Hibiscus’ Cockette colleagues once were. It feels good and silly and smart.

Go with the feeling. Because if you try to go with the storytelling, things also get meta, but in a muddled, befuddled, less satisfying way. As Caserta re-emerges, Carter’s script and Eisen’s direction begin a nonchronological wobble between the two characters’ stories and the show’s narrative thread gets a bit lost.

There’s insufficient detail to make sense of what’s going on unless you’ve done previous research on these characters. There are fleeting

glimmers of echo and recursion, but not enough to get a grip on. It’s like the less rewarding aspects of an overall happy acid trip.

But a passage of bummer amidst a barrage of bliss shouldn’t hold you back. It may even be intentional.

There’s a synesthetic quality to the entire production that I found wonderfully transporting; trippy even, Eisen’s opening joke foreshone.

During the walk between Haight Street and the park, audience members wear headphones and listen to a broadcast transmitted from a wagon pulled along by crew members.

There is period-appropriate music and snatches of interviews that Eisen conducted with people who lived and loved in the buildings that you’re passing. You’re walking the past. You’re waking the past. Time and sound and sunlight collapse into a unified whole. You’re living history. Can I get a “Bravo”?t Out of Site: Haight-Ashbury Saturdays and Sundays through July, 11am and 3pm. Meets at Ashbury and Page Streets Tickets: $15-$125, sliding scale. www.eyezen.org

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Tina D’Elia as Hibiscus in Golden Gate Park in Out of Site: Haight-Ashbury.

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<< Books

56 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

Queer tales of brilliance

by Jim Piechota

T

he eleven linked stories contained in Brandon Taylor’s second literary foray are, for the most part, dominated by the voice of Lionel, a gay Black graduate student in mathematics who is recovering from a recent suicide attempt and trying to sort out his life piece by piece in Wisconsin’s capital city.

In the opener, “Potluck,” he attends a party feeling distanced by the other grad students there and unable to enjoy the act of fraternal socialization the others seem to revel in. The very act of using the

telephone puts his life into an anxiety-ridden tailspin: “It was another of the things that seemed easy for other people, as if they were born knowing how to use the phone without having their throats close up and forgetting all their words.”

A sexually-charged overnight proposition is put on the table by a bisexual duo of dancers, Charles and Sophie, but it’s Charles who finds Lionel’s charms so addictive that he winds up on his doorstep unannounced one night. Their union is fiery and flush with desire and a creaky sense of trepidation and unease, which is the kind of combination that threatens to overwhelm the fragile Lionel.

As the stories progress, Lionel’s personality, rampant anxiety, and mixed emotions bubble to the surface. The story “Proctoring” takes readers deep inside Lionel’s job

as an exam proctor and how his workplace only serves to exacerbate the love triangle melodrama that dominates the stories.

Though these tales are set in the bleak environments of Midwest college campuses and dried out suburbs, the people and their situations are what bring the set pieces to gorgeous life. The folks populating Taylor’s swiftly spinning universe have been created purposefully as unique and extraordinary and this careful characterization seems to be the author’s forte.

Taylor’s debut novel, the Booker Prize-shortlisted Real Life, buzzed with the story of Wallace, who is much akin to Lionel in that both are graduate students coming of age as gay men at odds with their lives, careers, their existence as Black men, and the relationships which bind and also confuse them.

Throughout the collection, much of Taylor’s imagery is exquisitely vivid: Sylvia, the disillusioned female chef and babysitter in “Little

t

Beast,” has a moment of exasperation where she wants “to climb on top of the world and tear a hole in the sky. She wants to slip out of herself and all that is and all that was, to be divorced from everything it means to be a person in the world.”

In the closing story, “Meat,” Lionel does even more introspective musing about the “complicated sinuous patterns” of his relationships and his function within their serpentine depths. He finally just gives in and, lost in the arms of Charles, lets him cut his hair and then, inexplicably, burn it in the yard.

While not all the stories in the collection are of uniform excellence, the ones that are gel into a magnificent memorable reading experience saturated with all the high drama and the low-down pettiness of relationship dynamics.t Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor, Riverhead, $25.99 www.penguinrandomhouse.com

Author Brandon Taylor

Untitled-2 1

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Books>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 57

Gender, revealing

by Jim Piechota

B

rooklyn-based author Torrey Peters’s frothy debut novel, a brilliantly entertaining study in trans feminine culture, chronicles the fiery relationship between a trans woman and her ex-partner, who becomes infused back into her life in an unusual but not a completely unsurprising way.

Reese and Ames were a New Yorker couple extending back into the years when Ames was living as “Amy,” but who has now decided to “detransition” back to maleness as Ames.

But now, Ames has made the grave error of impregnating his secret lover Katrina, who, as his boss, isn’t wild about having a baby, and while the idea of being a father isn’t ideal, Ames calls Reese in a moment of weakness. Though they aren’t on speaking terms, he is desperate for her acceptance in a life-changing opportunity involving her becoming a second mother to his as yet unborn child. Can a relationship be salvaged and a blended family be christened?

Compounding this conundrum is Katrina’s reaction when Ames reveals to her that he used to live as a woman, which is as real and raw as it gets. Peters never sugarcoats this kind of material and consistently conjures a literary atmosphere that is both utterly engaging and unflinchingly intense.

Unlike Katrina, Reese doesn’t skewer Ames for his decision to detransition. She knows all too well how difficult gender transitioning is and how many of her friends have succumbed to the psychological pressure and the physical and emotional pain involved in the process. This is starkly illustrated when she attends the funerals of trans women acquaintances who took their own lives.

Author Torrey Peters

Though the novel’s narrative duties are sensibly split between Reese and Ames, it is sassy, self-destructive Reese who emerges as the most addictive with her jaded, unsubtle, razor-sharp observations and assessments of those around her. While Ames spins in place at the mercy of his predicament, it is Reese who takes charge, grabs the situation by the proverbial balls, and, though initially hesitant at the proposition laid out before her, ultimately gives in to the opportunity at motherhood while the age “odometer clicked up into her mid-thirties.”

The story’s ability to encompass a more contemporary readership will be through Reese’s evaluation of female aging using a universally-recognized television series. Her self-described “Sex and the City Problem” consists of women associating with each of the four characters headlining the program as either artsy (Carrie), motherly (Miranda), career-driven (Samantha), or marriage-minded (Charlotte) as female maturity replaces years of youthful bliss.

This is a first novel for author Peters, 39, who previously kept her work (mostly self-published novellas about trans women) confined to a personal website where browsers could purchase physical books or e-reader files. With this release through a major market publishing house, she breaks through the tough exterior surrounding publishers who had formerly remained stagnant about releasing books by and about the transgender community, fiction or otherwise.

With solid prose that is humorous, polished, painfully realistic, and seductively engrossing, this is a novel of transness, pregnancy, and a flawed group of folx coming back together to meet in the middle of what could potentially have morphed into a horrid mess, only to rescue the circumstance and remold it into something uniquely queer.

The heart of the story lies in the ever-evolving framework and configuration of what is accepted as family and the unconditional love and sense of belonging that keeps it in such high demand. Peters is a writer with imagination and talent to spare, and a queer artist to keep an eye on in the coming years.t Detransition, Baby

by Torrey Peters, One World/Random House, $27 www.penguinrandomhouse.com

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<< Books

58 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

Playing for laughs and love Gay writer Paul Rudnick

by Gregg Shapiro

L

et’s be honest, there are not many writers –gay or straight– of books, plays or screenplays, who are as hysterically funny as Paul Rudnick. In plays including Jeffrey and The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, movies such as Sister Act, Addams Family Values and In & Out, as well as the novels Social Disease and I’ll Take It (my personal favorite), Rudnick has kept us in stitches from start to finish.

Combining wit and wisdom, Rudnick also gives us much to think about while we are laughing. His new novel, Playing The Palace (Berkley/Jove, 2021), is no exception, and it couldn’t be Author and playwright more timely. Nice, gay, JewPaul Rudnick ish, New Jersey guy Carter has an unexpected encounter with nice, gay, British royal Prince Edgar and a regal love There is an abundance of “royaffair is launched, presented in true alty jokes,” as they are called on rom-com fashion. page 75. Are these the kinds of things you’ve been curating over Gregg Shapiro: The publication the years or were they written speof your new novel Playing The cifically for the book?

Palace is especially timely with all Here’s something I’ve always the recent increased interest in the wondered, which inspired Playing Royals due to Harry and Megan’s The Palace: if a commoner falls in departure. What do you think the love with a royal, what are the rules?

Royals would think of Playing The Wearing a crown and waving from Palace? a balcony can be both glorious and Paul Rudnick: I’d hope that bizarre: are royals allowed to talk Meghan and Harry would enjoy it, about this? A sense of humor is especially because the book celebrates essential for romance, so in Playa romance between an American and ing The Palace, NYC event planner a royal. No one knows for sure if the Carter Ogden and Prince Edgar love royals watch The Crown, but I’d like to exchange wisecracks, some of to picture copies of Playing The Palwhich I’ve hoarded over the years, ace on a few royal nightstands and but most of which popped up as I tucked into royal tote bags! wrote the book. I’ve always wanted

to know: if someone’s involved with a prince, is it okay to say, “It’s your turn to unload the dishwasher, Your Highness”?

A recurring theme in the book is the presence of Carter’s spirit guide, the late SCOTUS justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. How do you think she would feel about being a character in Playing the Palace?

I’d hope that Justice Ginsberg would have a great time with Playing The Palace, in which she appears as an icon of justice, hard work and equality. She had a great sense of humor and was a passionate fan of the arts (especially opera and the theater.) Carter Ogden reveres Ruth, as a down-to-earth hero, and he confides in a treasured photograph

of her. I picture Justice Ginsberg in heaven, laughing and passing around her copy of Playing The Palace!

Everyone is funny, especially James and Queen Catherine. How do you decide who gets the funniest lines when you are writing?

As a comic writer, I like all of my characters to be funny. James and Queen Catherine are both fiendishly smart, and use humor for joy and balance, while other characters, who take themselves a bit too seriously, become funny in their own ways.

Carter and Edgar share a sense of humor, which is a great basis for their love – Carter’s more extravagantly funny, while Edgar’s stealthy, so they make an ideal team.

In chapters 13 and 16 you demonstrate an admirably tasteful way of writing scenes of sexual intimacy. What are the challenges and rewards of writing sex scenes?

Writing sex scenes can be tricky and can easily turn clunky. I wanted the sex to be passionate and lighthearted, as an extension of Carter’s and Edgar’s feelings for each other. While leaving certain aspects to the reader’s imagination, I wanted to make sure that Carter and Edgar had a great time, whether in Carter’s tiny NYC apartment bedroom or onboard the royal jet.

t

Late in the book, there is a chapter (28) that turns serious and provides a kind of historical perspective. Please say something about your decision to include that.

There have been many wonderful books about coming out, but I wanted Playing The Palace to be a celebration of exuberantly open and empowered gay lives. On the other hand, I needed an awareness of how recently such lives have become possible. Throughout history, there have always been LGBTQ people, who’ve often faced overwhelming prejudice. There have also been valiant LGBTQ heroes, who’ve fought tirelessly for equality. Carter and Edgar recognize their privilege, and they honor their forebears.

On the whole, the tone of the novel is such that it could appeal to younger readers. What would it mean to you to reach that prized YA readership?

I welcome any and all readers. I especially love presenting the possibility of joyous queer romance to younger readers; I’ve written YA and found these readers to be open, curious and wildly smart, so I’d be thrilled if they shared Playing The Palace with every possible generation.

Do you foresee more books with Carter and Edgar?

In Playing The Palace Carter and Edgar are at the beginning of their life together, which promises to be an epic adventure. I’d love to chart their progress, so who knows?t www.paulrudnick.com

Read the full interview on www.ebar.com

Poetry Rx Collection celebrates lyric history, with some queer poets past and present

by Mark William Norby

T

he newly-released collection Poetry Rx of 50 inspiring poems, compiled with commentary and poetical analyses by psychiatrist Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D. (Gildan Media, May 2021), arrives in time for Pride Month with more than a third of the poets having either openly identified as queer, or skewed in favor of LGBTQ orientation.

Dr. Rosenthal is a pioneer in psychiatric care at the National Institute of Mental Health and is responsible for having identified Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and the light therapy used in treating the condition. A clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School, Rosenthal has researched innovative psychiatric treatments and is author of several books.

“In organizing the work,” says Rosenthal, “I was impressed by how many of the poets would have identified as members of the LGBTQ community were they alive today. In fact, more than one third of the poems were written by such poets, and considering the taboo against ‘the love that dare not speak its name,’ the number is probably larger.”

Elisabeth Bishop (1911-1979), who wrote the famous poem “One Art” was the first of the queer poets to set Rosenthal on the quest to search for poems particularly therapeutic and inspirational. Written to her lover Alice Methfessel in the wake of a breakup, Bishop saw the poem through seventeen drafts: The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.

Accept the fluster Of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster…

W.H. Auden is the most openly gay of the queer poets of Poetry Rx. The collection includes his “Lullaby,” written to his younger male lover after a night of sex, and one of the most acclaimed love poems of the last century. Auden:

Poetry Rx editor Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D

Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm; Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral: But in my arms till break of day Let the living creature lie, Mortal, guilty, but to me The entirely beautiful…

Rosenthal includes Auden’s “Funeral Blues,” written after the loss of his male partner, and “Musee Des Beaux Arts” among the many renowned works written during the poet’s lifetime.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (18921950) is celebrated for her famous sonnets written to men. Millay preferred to be called Vincent and reportedly had serial and simultaneous sexual relationships with

women at Vassar College where she studied. She won a Pulitzer Prize for her poetry in 1923. She wrote The Heart versus the Mind: Pity me not because the light of day At close of day no longer walks the sky; Pity me not for beauties passed away From field and thicket as the year goes by…

Rumors about the sexual orientation of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) have circulated ever since he first began his celebrated career as a playwright and poet.

Three sonnets in the collection were all written to a young man wherein one of the most quoted poems in history, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” Shakespeare first

declares his love for the young man and “promises him immortality by memorializing him,” says Rosenthal. “Shakespeare was in fact correct when he wrote”: So as long as men can breathe or eyes can see So long lives this, and this gives life to thee One of America’s best-known poets of the nineteenth century is Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). A near life-long recluse, her deepest relationship was channeled to her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert. Dickinson wrote hundreds of letters to Gilbert and in one asked “Susie, will you indeed come home next Saturday and be my own again, and kiss me… that the expectation once more to see your face again, makes me hot and feverish.”

“The idea of this book is that po-

etry can not only inspire and delight, but can actually make you feel better, soothe your pain, and heal psychological wounds… Poetry can act as a kind of medicine.” The chapters include essays on self-help and address the questions the poems raise, plus notes on a poem’s structure, whether villanelles, its tercets, stanzas, lines, meters, iambs, etc. Each chapter includes Takeaways suggested by the doctor.

The Egyptian Greek poet Constantine Cavafy (18631933) was born and lived most of his life in Alexandria, Egypt and indulged an open gay life in a city known for its cosmopolitan, liberal atmosphere. In “Waiting for the barbarians” Cavafy dramatizes “in an absurd operatic style how the citizens of an imaginary city have allowed their fear of outsiders” to define their lives. And in “Ithaka” the poet emphasizes the universality of the human experience.

Rosenthal claims Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) struggled with his “... gay identity and formed a close attachment with a fellow student at Oxford. An ascetic Jesuit monk, Hopkins extolled the diversity of the world.

The great value in Poetry Rx is its ability to illustrate life in its multitude dimensions, the oneness of experience. The collection does its work in providing a source of inspiration and renewal and reminds us that we have a source to turn to purely through the joy of reading a work of poetry.t www.normanrosenthal.com

Read the full review on www.ebar.com

t

50 in 50>>

50 Years in 50 Weeks:

1982

doubled the fun

by Jim Provenzano

1982

saw the Bay Area Reporter moving to a weekly format, which provided twice as much fascinating coverage. While big sports news included the Gay Olympics name-use lawsuit, post-Pride coverage included plenty of photos by Robert Pruzan, Rink and others.

The December 30 issue’s Entertainment section prominently featured several bests of the year, decades before we began our annual Besties awards! Among the highlights: an operatic adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Randall Krivonic’s dance concert Rites of Spring, Theatre Rhino’s production of C.D. Arnold’s Delivery, Edmund White’s acclaimed novel A Boy’s Own Story, retired baseball player Glenn Burke’s coming out in The New York Times, and Joe Gage’s epic porn feature Heatstroke; all complimented by a half-page ad for Siegfried & Roy’s Las Vegas spectacular at The Frontier. What a year 1982 was.

In a fun pair of fundraisers, let’s also offer a nod to the year’s very popular Dog Show, an outdoor event held Sunday June 13 along two blocks of Castro Street on a 70-foot stage, where contestants strutted for honorary titles before a massive crowd. The late Allen White’s article claimed 7,000 attendees at the benefit for the “KS Cancer Fund” (yet to be renamed as AIDS).

The judges for both the canine event –and the human Man Show contest, held the previous night at the California Hall– were a who’s who of the community: Mr. Marcus (Hernandez), Supervisor Harry Britt, Sylvester, Tom Waddell, with a guest appearance at the Dog Show by no less than Shirley MacLaine. Zoom in to see leather-clad hunk Paul Okando, whose Great Dane won Best Legs.

Also of interest, more proof of gay sports fans’ love of the San Francisco 49ers, as many gay bars around the Bay Area hosted Super Bowl viewing parties in January.t

For all this and more, dive in at https://archive.org/details/bayareareporter

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 59

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60 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

<< Fashion & Film

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Fashion icon Halston in the 1980s.

Halston: the Saint of Seventh Avenue

by Cornelius Washington

I

n honor of the recent passing of fashion editor and director extraordinaire Joel Schumaker, jewelry designer Elsa Peretti and photographer Peter Beard, I’ve been reminiscing of the period between the 1970s and ’80s and its sexy, wild nights, decadent glamour and true sensuality.

The buzz of the Netflix miniseries Halston, and subsequent interview of director Ryan Murphy (The P.T. Barnum of LGBTQ culture) and Tom Ford, Halston’s most devoted disciple, in American Vogue, there’s been a resurgence of interest in the man who became America’s first major haute couturier, A-list celebrity and brand.

Roy Halston Frowick, from the moment he hit New York City, catered to the “carriage trade,” a serious group of rich and privileged women who traveled the world firstclass, changing clothing at least four times a day with hats, gloves, purses and furs, color-coordinated and decadently expensive.

When that lifestyle fell out of fashion, Halston seamlessly moved into the world of luxury readyto-wear, transcending the typical New York City “garmento” business district piece goods mentality and its accompanying tacky culture.

He was a tall, attractive man from America’s Midwest who had handson experience and technique in the creating, selling and buying of luxury items heretofore unseen in The United States. Unlike most of Seventh Avenue, Halston sewed, draped and cut as well as sketched his designs.

His timing and embrace of his sexual identity coincided with huge cultural and political changes in America.

He abandoned the entire stereotype of ‘blending in’ to the upper crust, and created his own status amongst the truly cutting edge of artists, models, dancers, architects, textile manufacturers, magazines and photographers, coinciding with new forms of music, sensuality, sex and merchandising. He became the mononymous entity that we all came to know and love.

Not only was Olympic Tower Halston’s palace and Studio 54 his playground (and petri dish), it was also the place where class met ass, on every level. There had never been anything in America like the man and his entourage. His group of fabulous fashion posse, known as The Halstonettes, was the cream of the crop of the American fashion model industry. It celebrated diversity, attitude and glamour.

The list of Alva Chin, Pat Cleveland, Nancy Donahoe, Chris Royer, Billie Blair, Joe Spinelli, Martin Snaric and, of course, Joe McDonald, with honorable mention to Sterling

St. Jacques. Let’s face it, the man had America under his spell. Not only could you purchase Halston’s sewing patterns from McCall’s, you could also see his ubiquitous Joe Eula and Andy Warhol-painted ads. To see silent screen star Gloria Swanson in a fire engine red giraffeneck Halston gown, after draping upcoming supermodel Iman, braless in silk crepe de chine, during her first runway show, indicated that Halston really covered all of the bases.

Of course, this all came crashing down slowly, due to Halston’s democratic opinion that he could dress America, alienating the carriage trade and the culture that he created within it. His unfortunate business dealings with department store corporations and America’s general small-mindedness diluted and usurped his very name, literally. On the heels of that misfortune came the spectre of AIDS. As the world appreciates Halston, and America is continually looking for the next Halston (Good luck with that), let us appreciate his

contribution to American fashion, fine art and the LGBTQ community, which is as unique as his name; simply, Halston.

Notable quotes on Halston

“He was very intimidating, and I’ve shot all kinds of royalty and world leaders. I’ve photographed every President since Kennedy, but, Halston had class, and he knew it.

He was the king of New York City and he enjoyed being that. He was a representative of America to the world. He made New York City a major fashion capital. I photographed him quite a lot(Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily and People magazine). He made the business of fashion popular, sexy, stylish. He did that in the publishing world, too, something that no one before him had ever done.”-Harry Benson, photojournalist and author “I began designing for the house of Halston, and I remember that all of his people came back, every last

John Bright, courtesy Chris Royer

Above: Halston and some of his ‘Halstonette’ models Below: ‘Halstonette’ model Chris Royer, Halston and Alva Chin

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Fashion & Film>>

June 24-30, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 61

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Ewan McGregor as Halston and Krysta Rodriguez as Liza Minnelli in the Newflix miniseries Halston.

one of them. I would sketch something out for the workers, and they would make it 100 times better than what I had sketched. I had some difficulties getting buyers to come back and see the house, and I told Dawn Mellow(Bergdorf Goodman)to see one show. One. She did. She began buying and the rest followed suit.

It was an amazing time, working with those wonderfully dedicated people, not only to work, but, to continue his legacy, and that’s what it’s really all about; Halston’s legacy.”

-Kevan Hall, former Creative Director for Halston and fashion moderator “Halston. He knew the balance between sensuality, real style and glamour. Yes, it was sex, drugs and disco, but, he made a whole lot of women look even more beautiful, and that was work, but, people don’t

want to talk about that, from the middle-aged dowagers and movie stars, to all of those first ladies and divas who were married to coke dealers. He made a lot of money for himself and others, including Norton Simon, Revlon’s Ron Perelman and those Playtex people. Obviously, none of them knew what to do with Halston. He was interested in serious amounts of money. He got it wrong so that everyone else could get it right, and that’s not his fault. I miss him. I admire him.”

-Peter Beard, photographer, wildlife activist and socialite “I don’t remember the last conversation that I had with him, but, I remember telling him that we should just go away together when he lost his name. He said that he couldn’t; he had a responsibility to his house. He loved them and he didn’t want to leave them. To a great extent, we were each other’s best friends. He loved to see me dance in his clothes. He always felt that he was too tall to dance, so I would have to dance for him. I could see that he enjoyed that a lot. I love him.

I miss him. Those beautiful nights at Studio 54 were so romantic.”

- Pat Cleveland, supermodel, original Halstonette and author “One of the most important things that he said to me was that he loved the clothes that I made for his niece. Halston was my friend, and regarding “The Battle At Versailles”, what can I say? I met Josephine Baker. Yves Saint Laurent said that I make beautiful clothes. It really was the pinnacle of my career. I understand that Halston’s buried in The Bay Area. I’d like to visit him.

I miss him. I love him.” - Stephen Burrows, Coty award-winning fashion designer and cultural icon “Halston was America’s first fashion superstar. He used deceptively simple cuts and a basic color palette.

He mixed simple and minimalist silhouettes with new and luxurious fabrics; ultrasuede, silk crepe de chine, chiffon, satin, sequins.

Fabulous. His designs were made to move and shimmer on the dance floor.” - Scott Schiavone, fashion curator and YouTube sensation

A trio of gowns currently available from Halston.

“When I first met Halston, I had a very amusing one-on-one interview with him. Upon getting the job, I was quickly brought into his elite inner circle of fashion and glamour. As part of his creative group, I found the inspiration and design process fascinating, as to how Halston evolved and rose to stardom. Halston was a visionary creative force, but like all talented geniuses, he excelled in certain areas more than others. He recognized and worked with other “likeminded artists” such as Joe Eula, Elsa Peretti, and more. Some people really loved Halston, while others never knew who he really was. What

remains is the legacy of his iconic design. This is how he should be remembered.” - Christine Royer, Halston house model, muse and original Halstonette.t www.halston.com www.netflix.com/title/80245103

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<< Nightlife

62 • Bay Area Reporter • June 24-30, 2021

Gooch

Person to person, get ready to party in places, not shelter in place.

We’re collectively emerging from our mostly masked, cautious and creative collabs like Munchkins wooed out of hiding by Glinda.

We’re also back to listing events by date, with addresses! Here are a few new, favorite returning annual and ongoing LGBT gatherings that are back, and got back. SF Pride’s parade and Civic Center celebrations are not happening, but plenty of other events should keep you busy, bae.

(Note: in most indoorvenues, Proof of Vaccination or a Negative COVID Test from last 72 hours required for entry.)

Party? On.

June 30

Nightlife; it’s alive!

Pan Dulce @ Beaux

For full listings, visit www.ebar.com/events

June 25 Ghetto Disco @ The EndUp Deanne and Phil B and Hawthorne DJ the return of the popular dance music night. $10-$250. Doors 12am, bar open 6am. 401 6th St. at Harrison. www.theendupsf.com

Muévelo @ Que Rico, Oakland Valentino Presents’ new East Bay Latin club only opened last week, but is aleady a hit.

Enjoy the new nightclub’s weekly dance party with DJed grooves, drag divas, and gogo studs. $10 and up, 9:30pm-3am.

381 15th St., Oakland. www.quericonightclub.com

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June 26 Bearracuda @ Public Works Ursine dance party for the big and furry and their fans, with DJs David Harness and Paul Goodyear. $50.

9pm-3am. 161 Erie St. www.bearracuda.com

Hard French @ El Rio Carlos Souffront, Jeffrey Sfire, Brown Amy and Vin Sol spin R&B grooves on the patio at the historic Mission bar. $20. 2pm-7pm. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Kool Aid @ the Endup Whitney Mixter and MD’s afternoon to evening women’s event features DJs Lady Ryan, China G and Val G. $25. 2pm-7pm. 401 6th St. at Harrison. www.theendupsf.com

Princess @ Oasis The award-winning cabaret and drag nightclub is back! Enjoy the grand re-opening, and a new drag show cohosted by Kochina Rude and Lisa Frankenstein, with a dozenplus performers, dancing and celebrations. $20. 10pm-3am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

June 26

Kool Aid @ the Endup

Suavecito @ Space 550

Sanctuary @ 55 Natoma

Valentino Presents and Club Papi present a new weekly Latin dance night with DJs Mike, Mr. Bigggs, and Lola; Sonora Tropicana band, drag acts by Dorys, Ms.Lola, Delilah BeFierce and Betty Fresas; gogo guys galore, three dance rooms, outdoor lounge. $15-$25. 9:30pm3am. 550 Barneveld Ave. www.suavecitosf.com

Gus Presents returns with an eighthour Pride dance night, with DJs Micky Friedmann and Phil Romano, gogo studs, all in a new venue. $30$60. 10pm-6am. 55 Natoma St. www.guspresents.com

June 27 Big Gay Pride Car Wash @ Alkali Rye, Oakland The Baloney burlesque boys, gals and their pals provide a hilariously sexy in-car experiences, with food and drinks on sale. $30. 1pm-4pm. www.sipalkalirye.com

Disco Daddy @ SF Eagle

Twisted @ The EndUp Stay up late with DJ Paolo’s 2amsunrise set at the famed SoMa club. $45. Doors 2am; bar opens at 6am.

401 6th St. at Harrison. www.theendupsf.com

June 30 Pan Dulce @ Beaux The weekly Latin dance night returns, as have other events at the popular Castro nightclub. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.comt

DJ Bus Station John’s groovy retrodisco, Hi-Nrg and R&B dance party returns with a seven-hour Pride celebration at the historic leather bar! $10. 7pm-2am. 398 Harrison St. sfeagle.com facebook.com/ events/191965369397151

Juanita MORE!’s Pride Party @ Jones The always sold-out popular event returns, with our reigning Empress as host, with a special performance

by Kaleena Zanders. Proceeds benefit the SF Queer Nightlife Fund and SF’s Imperial Court (See our interview with MORE! in this section. $30-$60. 12pm-10:30pm.

620 Jones St. juanitamore.com

June 27 DJ Paolo at Twisted @ The EndUp

Pride @ Oasis The award-winning cabaret and drag nightclub is back, with DJ Ion, a redesigned rooftop lounge. $5.

12pm-6pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Project Rungay @ Dirty Habit Kaikai Bee MCs a drag fashion show, with judges Empress Juanita MORE! and Emperor David Glamamore; brunch and unlimited cocktails. $150 and up. 1pm-4pm.

12 4th St. www.eventbrite.com

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Muévelo @ Que Rico, Oakland

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Kaleena Zanders at Juanita MORE!’s Pride Party @ Jones

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