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Castro public safety walk
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SF Ballet
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The
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Trump outlines trans ban details
First rainbow flag co-creator tells her story
by Alex Madison
P
resident Donald Trump signed a memorandum Friday that serves as an implementation plan for his policy to ban transgender people from serving openly in the military. LGBTQ AP advocates are once again outraged as the President long-awaited policy Donald Trump comes as a follow up to Trump’s initial blanket transgender military ban, which he announced via Twitter last July. The implementation plan states, “transgender persons who require or have undergone gender transition” cannot serve, except under certain conditions. The revised ban also includes any person diagnosed with gender dysphoria – those who may require substantial medical treatment, including medical drugs or surgery, which most transgender people participate in during their transition. One of the documents released, a report titled, “Department of Defense Report on Recommendations on Military Service by Transgender Persons,” states that “nothing in this policy precludes service by transgender persons who do not have a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria and are willing to meet all standards that apply to their biological sex.” Most LGBTQ advocates call the report a categorical ban on trans people serving in the military. Lawsuits from LGBTQ groups on behalf of individuals and organizations, including Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and Equality California, continue against the Trump administration’s efforts. The ban was previously blocked by four federal courts, which granted preliminary injunctions barring it from being enforced. This currently allows transgender people to enlist and continue serving in the military. It is estimated between 4,000 and 10,000 U.S. active-duty and reserve service members are believed to be transgender. On Tuesday, Lambda Legal and OutServeSLDN, together with the state of Washington, appeared before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle urging the court to permanently block the ban. This was the first oral argument among the four lawsuits to ask a federal judge to make a final ruling to put an end to the ban. In the lawsuit, Lambda Legal and OutServeSLDN represent nine individual plaintiffs and three organizational plaintiffs: the Human Rights Campaign, Seattle-based Gender Justice League, and the American Military Partner Association, which joined the lawsuit on See page 12 >>
Gilbert Baker, left, and Lynn Segerblom hold one of the first two rainbow flags that were flown at the 1978 San Francisco Pride parade and celebration. James McNamara, courtesy Paul Langlotz
by Matthew S. Bajko
A
woman who helped create the first rainbow flags is coming forward to tell her story and ensure her involvement, and that of another artist, is not lost to history. The now iconic six-colored rainbow flag was first flown under a different design 40 years ago at the 1978 Pride parade and celebration in San Francisco. Over the decades
since, Gilbert Baker has been credited as the rainbow flag’s sole creator. Baker died a year ago this Saturday, March 31, at the age of 65. Many of his news obituaries, including that in the Bay Area Reporter, referred to him as “the gay Betsy Ross” for his connection to the rainbow flag. Lynn Segerblom doesn’t deny that it was Baker who was instrumental in turning the rainbow flag into a global symbol for LGBT people. But in a first person account
Vol. 48 • No. 13 • March 29-April 4, 2018 published in early March in the Los Angeles Blade LGBT newspaper and in a yet-to-bereleased documentary, Segerblom contends the first rainbow flags were collaboratively designed and made by herself, Baker, and their friend James McNamara, who died of AIDS in 1999. “It really is a three person, not a one person, flag making. Everybody played their part and then some,” Segerblom, 61, told the B.A.R. in a recent phone interview from her home in Torrance, southwest of Los Angeles. Segerblom was 18 and newly arrived in San Francisco when she befriended Baker and McNamara. It was the mid-1970s and Segerblom, who grew up in a military family that moved every two years, had taken on the name Faerie Argyle Rainbow. “The rainbow itself was something I just loved,” explained Segerblom. Into tie-dyeing fabrics in rainbow hues and making clothes and costumes with the material, Segerblom at one point shared an apartment with Baker and McNamara. She also rented space at the city’s first LGBT community center, which in the 1970s was located at 330 Grove Street, where she could make her fabrics. Also housed in the building, later torn down by the city to build a parking garage, was the committee that oversaw the city’s Pride parade. It had created a decorations committee for the 1978 parade co-chaired by Segerblom and Baker. See page 12 >>
Senate Dems block Grenell appointment by Heather Cassell
R
epublican efforts to approve President Donald Trump’s gay ambassador to Germany suffered yet another setback last week when Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley blocked the move. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) had sought a March 22 vote on Richard Grenell’s ambassadorship. But under Senate rules, any member can hold up a vote and that’s what Merkley (Oregon) did. Grenell, 51, was nominated by Trump last September and his confirmation process has dragged on since then. Unidentified Democrats who followed Merkley’s lead cited their concerns about Grenell’s tweets against women and the press. Merkley is an advocate for LGBT rights. His record supporting the LGBT community prompted Republicans to accuse him of supporting only Democratic LGBTs, not Republican ones. But Merkley defended himself, telling the Washington Blade, “I cannot in good faith support a nominee who has a lengthy track record of tweets attacking both prominent Democratic and prominent Republican women. “Since his nomination, these tweets have continued, showing a complete disregard for the Senate confirmation process and disregard for the seriousness of the position to which he is nominated,” he added. Merkley also raised concern about Grenell’s
Richard Drew/Associated Press
Richard Grenell, left, who is nominated to be ambassador to Germany, is President Donald Trump’s most prominent openly gay appointee.
open disregard about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “Mr. Grenell has been dismissive of the threat Russia poses to U.S. democracy, and we certainly need to have U.S. ambassadors who can work with our European allies and partners now more than ever to reinforce and strengthen the institutions we have built, to protect the rule of law and democracy, and to defend our Western democracies against Russian interference,” Merkley told the newspaper. Grenell is a foreign policy expert. He served in various diplomatic roles during George W. Bush’s administration. He served at the United Nations under four different ambassadors, including incoming national security adviser
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John Bolton. He’s also a commentator on Fox News and a public communications adviser. Last week, Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBT Republican organization, blasted the delay in confirming Grenell. In an email, the organization urged members to put pressure on Merkley and to thank McConnell for his effort to call for a vote. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced Grenell’s nomination at the end of October 2017, reported the New York Times. The newspaper also noted that it appeared Grenell had enough support to clear the full Senate. Key German leaders reportedly have also put pressure on the U.S. to go forward with the confirmation process. In February, gay German Consul General of the Pacific Northwest Hans-Ulrich Suedbeck, who is stationed in San Francisco, told the Bay Area Reporter, “You can’t just leave it empty. It would be in your and our interest to have an American ambassador in Berlin very soon.” Gregory Angelo, president of Log Cabin Republicans, was critical of the Democrats, commenting to the Blade, “I’d say I’m surprised, but the fact is I’m no longer taken aback by the depths to which Democrats descend in their attempt to smear a highly qualified openly gay Republican.” However, Democrats who opposed Grenell’s confirmation are not the only cause of the delay. McConnell failed to file cloture on the See page 12 >>