City College of San Francisco officially dedicated a building for the late gay supervisor Harry Britt during a ceremony Tuesday afternoon. Confidantes of the progressive leader and community college officials provided remarks prior to the official renaming of the school’s newly built Multi-Use Building.
The four-level, 102,000 square foot academic multi-use building on CCSF’s main campus will be called the Harry Britt Building. The community college’s oversight board had voted in 2020 to name a campus structure in honor of Britt, and as the Bay Area Reporter reported https://www. ebar.com/story/73153 in late 2023, it decided on the MUB located at 50 Frida Kahlo Way, which is named in honor of the late famed bisexual artist.
Coming as public schools at all levels are being threatened by the Trump administration for supporting LGBTQ students, college officials noted that having Britt’s name on one of their buildings not only honors his legacy, but is also a visible declaration that the 89-year-old community college will continue to stand up for the LGBTQ community.
“This renaming ceremony highlights the significance of the role Harry Britt played in shaping San Francisco. As a proud and visible member of the queer community, Harry Britt called attention to the needs of the LGBTQIA+ people and advocated for equality,” stated gay CCSF interim Chancellor Mitchell Bailey, one of four finalists up for the chancellor position. “Having his name on a City College building not only honors his legacy, it also sends a clear message to our queer students, employees and members of our community that they are welcomed, supported and celebrated at City College.”
Two years ago, college board members were unclear on how soon the new signage for the Britt building would be revealed due to the costs involved. College board member Alan Wong had told the B.A.R. that the cash-strapped school may need to find private funds to pay for it.
Gay former state legislator and San Francisco supervisor Tom Ammiano, a close friend and colleague of Britt’s, told the B.A.R. that he first saw the new signs last month. There is Harry Britt Building signage on all four sides of the building, he noted.
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Three long-term HIV survivors reflect on COVID five years on
by John Ferrannini
When much of the world was first introduced to physical distancing when COVID broke out in 2020, gay San Francisco resident Kevin Bradley already knew what it meant to isolate.
“When I got HIV, I got really sick,” Bradley said during a phone interview, referring to over two decades earlier, when he started experiencing opportunistic infections – Kaposi’s sarcoma and thrush – in the 1990s. “It was horrendous. I had four T-cells.”
At that time, Bradley also had wasting syndrome, “horrible, horrible diarrhea,” and frightening dreams, he said. Because his immune system was weakened, Bradley was advised at the time that he should keep to himself as much as he could.
“I went to doctor’s appointments, went home, would eat by myself,” he recalled.
Bradley, 70, had first moved to the city from the Ohio Valley in 1977 with a “buddy and a lover,” he said.
“I used to be very social when I was younger and hotter,” Bradley said. “But when I got sick with HIV and started isolating, I found comfort in that. … I learned how to live and function like that.”
Bradley started taking protease inhibitors in 1998, and his HIV-related symptoms improved greatly. But he didn’t forget how he’d learned to pass the time alone.
“When COVID started, not only was I prepared for it, but I found solace in that I knew the routine,” Bradley said. “I’m going to die
alone – and, not to be too morbid about it, I’m kind of OK with that.”
Jeff Taylor was among those who started the HIV+Aging Research Project-Palm Springs, of which he’s now the executive director, two decades ago. An HIV-positive gay man who said he first contracted the virus 42 years ago, Taylor was enrolled in one of the first clinical trials for azidothymidine, or AZT, a very early treatment for AIDS.
When COVID started, Taylor said members of the project “decided to use our contacts in the community to do monthly Zoom meetings.”
“We called it the COVID task force,” he said, and they met with service providers and the Riverside County Department of Public Health. Taylor was dismayed by what he saw as a similar phenomenon of politicization regarding HIV, COVID, and the mpox outbreak, which was in 2022.
“AIDS at the time was much more fatal than COVID ever was,” Taylor, who was 57 in 2020, said. “A lot of us got [post-traumatic stress disorder] by watching the same shitshow unfold, with the CDC dropping the ball. [President Donald] Trump first ignored the problem, then made light of it.”
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La Crema wine will sponsor SF Pride
by Cynthia Laird
Alocal wine company has returned to the fold as a sponsor of the San Francisco Pride parade and celebration. According to SF Pride, La Crema said March 19 that it would be a sponsor again this year; the company maintains it never withdrew.
The Bay Area Reporter noted in a previous story that La Crema was one of four companies that have dropped their sponsorships this year, and that was confirmed by SF Pride Executive Director Suzanne Ford. The others are Comcast, Anheuser-Busch, and Diageo, an alcoholic beverage company that makes popular brands such as Johnny Walker.
But that changed last Wednesday, Ford, a transgender woman, told the Bay Area Reporter in a brief phone call March 20. SF Pride also issued a statement attributed to Ford.
“About a month ago, we were initially informed that La Crema would not be participating in our event this year, which was disappointing.” Ford stated. “We called them to try to get them to reconsider and we were told that we could put in a request for donated wine.
“However, yesterday, La Crema indicated they would be returning as a sponsor,” Ford added. “We’re working with their team on details and hope to have something signed soon. We are incredibly grateful for their renewed support and their commitment to finding a meaningful way to partner with us!”
A La Crema spokesperson had a slightly different take and maintained the company had not withdrawn as a sponsor.
“La Crema has not withdrawn from San Francisco Pride and remains a proud partner,” stated Janel Lubanski, PR director for La Crema. “We will be present at the celebration in June and will continue to support this important organization.
La Crema has been a steadfast supporter of the LGBTQ+ community for decades and our values have not changed.”
The B.A.R. asked Lubanski about the fact that earlier this week, Ford had confirmed that La Crema would not be a sponsor. But Lubanski denied that.
Eddie Izzard's 'Hamlet'
Sharon Johnson spoke at the dedication of the Harry Britt Building at City College of San Francisco.
La Crema’s larger mobile wine tasting room has been a big hit at prior San Francisco Pride celebrations.
Courtesy La Crema
Kevin Bradley, who is living with HIV, adjusted pretty well to COVID isolations five years ago after spending time alone decades ago when he was severely ill.
Jane Philomen Cleland
Castro Nail Salon designated a legacy business
by Cynthia Laird
With the fate of its prime Castro Street location apparently in limbo due to it being housed in the building that contains the historic theater, the Castro Nail Salon was designated a legacy business Monday. The city’s Small Business Commission unanimously approved the addition.
Last week, the San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission unanimously recommended the nail salon be listed on the city’s Legacy Business Registry. The Small Business Commission’s approval was the final step in the process.
The nail salon, at 431 Castro Street, and the Castro Coffee Company, at 427 Castro Street, are in danger of losing their leases as Another Planet Entertainment moves ahead with its renovation of the theater, which it took over managing in 2022.
The Nasser family owns the building that houses all three businesses. The nail salon and coffee shop may have to leave by June, as the Bay Area Reporter previously noted.
APE has said it has nothing to do with the smaller businesses’ leases.
Mayor Daniel Lurie noted the importance of legacy businesses following the small business panel’s vote.
“Our legacy businesses have served our communities for decades, and we are committed to creating an environment where they can continue to thrive,” he stated in a news release.
Cynthia Huie, president of the
Small Business Commission, stated such businesses contribute to the cultural fabric of the city.
“As a small business owner myself, legacy businesses inspire me,” she stated.
At the March 19 historic preservation commission meeting, Riyad Khoury, owner of the nail salon, spoke
about the importance of his business.
“In many ways we help with fundraisers and nonprofits,” in the community, he said.
Khoury also noted the ongoing lease situation and said that “hopefully,” he can continue talks with the leaseholders.
“There is no other place for us to move,” he said.
While the Castro Coffee Company was not up for a legacy business designation, Khoury nonetheless put in a good word for his neighbor, saying that it, too, provides a lot of local support.
“We’d like to continue our work there and hope to come up with a good resolution,” he said. “We support APE coming in to the theater. I’m hoping we’ll continue to provide that service.”
Richard Kurylo, a gay man who’s the legacy business program manager for the city, told the preservation commissioners that while a business usually needs to be at least 30 years old for the status, there is an exception for businesses that are at least 20 years old and in danger of displacement. The Castro Nail Salon qualifies under that exception, he said.
Historic Preservation Commissioner Jason Wright, a gay man, asked Kurylo about assistance his office can provide to displaced businesses.
“The Office of Small Business has staff,” Kurylo said, adding that having a legacy business designation “can be helpful in a few different ways.”
Historic Preservation Commission Vice President Ruchira Nageswaran praised the nail salon.
“I hope you’re able to continue your work in the neighborhood,” she said.
Chris Foley, a member of the historic preservation commission, said that seeing it remain in the space is preferable.
“It’s really difficult to move,” he said. “The longer you can stay in the current location, the better.”
John Dacey, a staff member of the San Francisco Planning Department, noted in his report that the nail salon is a 21-year-old immigrant- and minority-owned business that has long served the LGBTQ community and others. It’s a member of the Castro Merchants Association, he pointed out.
SF spas face scrutiny on trans policies
by John Ferrannini
Two San Francisco spas have faced criticism for policies separating transgender and cisgender women. Though one of the spas changed its policies after a protest, the other has not returned the Bay Area Reporter’s inquiries as the city’s human rights commission investigates the matter.
Devi Zinzuvadia, the commission’s public information officer, confirmed to the B.A.R. via email that the commission had received complaints about Archimedes Banya, at 748 Innes Avenue, in the Hunters Point neighborhood.
“I do not yet have an update as to the inquiries received by the HRC’s civil rights division staff, but will provide any new information soonest,” Zinzuvadia stated.
Meanwhile, Honey Mahogany, a Black queer trans person who is the executive director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives, stated in an email to the B.A.R., “I cannot comment on ongoing investigations, but I can confirm that OTI is working closely with HRC on this issue.”
It was Gulia Erick Bkker and Gayle Roberts who’d alerted the HRC to the matter, the committed life partners told
Archimedes Banya in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood has special “women’s nights” that are now inclusive of trans women after complaints were made.
the B.A.R. in a March 14 phone interview. Bkker is genderqueer and Roberts is transgender.
They’d heard that Archimedes Banya, which they’d attended for years as loyal customers – it is a Russian-style bathhouse and Bkker is a Russian emigre –had instituted the policy for a religiousthemed women’s night.
Archimedes Banya didn’t return the B.A.R.’s request for comment for this report. Online posts saying the night is only for “BIOLOGICAL WOMEN” appear to have been deleted.
“I called right away and asked how they’d determine who is a ‘biological woman,’” Bkker said. “They said, ‘We hadn’t thought about it yet.’ I asked, ‘Are you going to inspect people?’ I said I needed to speak to a manager, and I got bumped to voicemail.”
Roberts concurred Archimedes Banya should have handled the matter differently.
“I want to acknowledge this is a challenging issue in many ways for some people,” Roberts said. “If the banya had managed it very differently, there might not be a conflict in the community, but frankly, this is an insult to many people.”
San Francisco District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton’s office also got involved, as the bathhouse is in his district. A spokesperson sent out an email March 18 to several people indicating the issue has been resolved.
“I just received an update that it looks like Banya has revised their policy so that they are inclusive of trans women on their women’s only nights,” a Walton aide wrote. “Per my understanding, they are now requiring all women on their ‘Special women’s’ night to wear bathing suits to meet the needs of religious women without banning trans women.
The same applies for their ‘Special men’s’ only night.”
Gender identity as a protected class in places of public accommodation is protected under the ban on sex discrimination the federal 1964 Civil Rights Act after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. California law also protects trans and gender-nonconforming people’s rights to access public accommodations in line with their gender identity.
Roberts said that she felt it unfair only women’s nights have this restriction, as far as she’s aware.
“I think if they had first talked to a lawyer then said, ‘The world is a challenging place and we want to respect everybody’s needs, so we have different nights for women and men that are religious but have options for people with certain religious beliefs’ – if everyone was treated equally – I think they’d approached it in that way there’d be more understanding,” she said.
The B.A.R. also reached out to the Department on the Status of Women, which did not answer an inquiry as to whether it is investigating the matter. But Commission on the Status of Women President Sophia Andary, who is queer,
stated to the B.A.R. that, “I stand firmly with our trans community.”
“Trans women are women,” Andary stated in an email. “It is unacceptable for any San Francisco business to deny them access. Discrimination has no place in our city, and we must hold the line on equity, inclusion and respect for all.”
Japantown spa changes policy
Meanwhile, staff at Imperial Day Spa, at 1875 Geary Boulevard, allegedly told a trans man he needed to leave, according to a video posted to YouTube..
By the time Sister Roma of the drag nun philanthropic group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence was among those to arrive for a March 10 protest, the spa near the Japantown neighborhood had already posted a change in policy to its door that guests “can use the facilities according to their gender.”
“Imperial Spa claimed to have an unwritten policy that guests must use the facilities based on their ‘genitals’ (their words), which I assume meant sex assigned at birth,” Roma stated in an email to the B.A.R. last week.
Imperial Spa also didn’t return the B.A.R.’s request for comment. t
From Archimedes Banya’s website
The Castro Nail Salon at 431 Castro Street saw its legacy business application approved by the Small Business Commission.
John Ferrannini
For local artist Marcel Pardo Ariza, representation matters
by JL Odom
It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in San Francisco’s Mission District – a welcomed reprieve from the more frequent chilly, overcast, windy and rainy conditions in the city this time of the year.
The warmer weather translates to people being out and about, stopping by popular local establishments such as BiRite Creamery and Market, Dog Eared Books, and Tartine Bakery, and basking in the warmth at Mission Dolores Park.
Another go-to spot, adjacent to the neighborhood’s bustling Mission and Valencia streets, is an alley, with its lure being multitudinous, diverse murals on buildings’ walls and residences’ garage doors.
It’s the Clarion Alley Mural Project, or CAMP, and it’s where Oakland-based visual artist Marcel Pardo Ariza’s call to action mural – “Hire Trans Folks” – resides.
“One of my favorite things about the Mission is the resistance movement behind it, and how murals can be so political,” Ariza said in a Google Meet video interview with the Bay Area Reporter.
Ariza’s mural, a nod to the samenamed campaign they launched with the city’s Transgender District, is located on the right-hand side when entering from Valencia. Its colors – hues of orange, yellow, and brown – are bold; its all-capital-letters statement, “HIRE TRANS FOLKS,” is centered and large; and its accompanying message (also in all caps) – “Create trans friendly workplaces, provide gender affirming healthcare, professional development, all gender restrooms, fair compensation, job security, use correct pronouns, prioritize Black and Brown folks” – is succinct.
“It’s really about, if people want to support trans people, hire trans people, right? Give us resources, a stable income, job security, health care – all of these things that make it so that trans people can exist and thrive,” Ariza said, adding, “[a]nd it doesn’t have an exclamation mark at the end – it’s not necessarily a demanding thing. It’s just kind of like, ‘Hey, you can just do this, too?’”
Ariza, who identifies as queer and trans, was one of 38 local artists and poets selected to contribute their work to “Manifest Differently,” a multi-site exhibition that “interrogate[s] the history of Manifest Destiny and its legacies of inherited and perpetuated violence, trauma, and addiction, and the outgrowth of resistance and resilience – giving fire to movements for social/culture change,” as described on CAMP’s website.
“They were like, ‘We want to have your voice here,’” Ariza said about CAMP’s interest in including them in the project and having their work fea-
tured on Clarion Alley.
The eight-month project wrapped up in April 2024, with the murals themselves, such as “Hire Trans Folks,” longerlasting, still viewable (albeit with some graffiti) on the small alley’s sides as of January.
Aware of the figurative murals throughout the alley, Ariza, 33, wasn’t sure what the public response to their calligraphy-leaning piece would be when they completed it in August 2023, thereafter on display for all to see and read.
“I didn’t know if it was going to be a good fit, but a lot of people have had really good things to say about it. I’ve had so many people take selfies in front of it,” they shared.
For the trans community, the mural is a visual affirmation of both community and necessities, while also pointing to ongoing issues.
“So many trans folks resonate with what it says, because we’ve all faced workplace discrimination in one way or another. So I feel like it just hits this place of realizing, ‘Oh, it’s not just me,’” they said.
Ariza, who’s represented by OCHI Gallery, gravitates toward constructed photography, site-specific installations, and public programming that center on telling the stories of impactful and often-underrepresented queer individuals deserving of the spotlight – and remembrance.
“To me, it’s important to make work that enters our history, because trans people of color have been left out of our history for so long. And I really feel like culture is where history happens, so if we’re not there, we’re kind of remaining invisible,” they explained.
An artist’s roots
For Ariza, life has involved learn
ing how to respond to environments in which they’ve found themself.
They spent their childhood in Botogá, Colombia “in a very Catholic environment;” in the 1990s, i.e. the heyday of their youth, the country was rife with political instability and violence.
“I mean, there’s still some [violence], but at that time, there was just a lot,” they recalled about the decade.
Their parents, whom they described as “more theater people and teachers,” used art as a means of resistance, imparting a way of being on young Ariza.
“I felt they kind of taught me this idea of ‘joy in the midst of a constant crisis,’” Ariza shared.
At age 16, Ariza left home for school in Costa Rica, taking their belongings and that life lesson with them. From there, it was onto North America, where they enrolled in undergraduate courses at Earlham College, a private liberal arts school with an underlying Quaker ethos in Richmond, Indiana. The city is home to over 35,000 residents, with about 79.9% identifying as white, according to the 2020 census.
For Ariza, those initial years in the United States brought awareness.
“I was like, ‘This is the U.S.? This is kind of wild.’ And I think it was one of the first times that I felt bothered in that way of being a Brown person, a queer person. I had a thicker accent back then, and so there were all these microaggressions of like, if I had to make a phone call, people would be like, ‘I can’t understand you,” and hang up the phone and
like building bridges with people who are different from me. And I felt kinship between me walking in an Indiana town with other queer people or other immigrants was so strong. I was like, ‘Oh, this is very special when you connect with other people who feel the way that you do.’”
About the latter individuals, they added, “When we think about those places [i.e., a small town in a conservative state], we forget about the people who are deciding to stay there or don’t have the luxury of moving out of there or creating resistance movements. And I thought that was so powerful, because all of the odds are really against them.”
Post-college graduation, Ariza moved to Brooklyn, New York, busying themself with gallery and art-handling work.
“I was just working under the table trying to get my [immigration] papers in order,” they explained.
During their time in New York City, a major portion of the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, in the United States v. Windsor case (2013), ruling that DOMA’s section three was unconstitutional – that the federal government cannot discriminate against gay couples to determine federal benefits and protections.
“It was the first time that same-sex couples from different nationalities got federal benefits. … I remember during that time, people were having conversations about whether or not same-sex marriage should even exist. It was also happening within the queer community. And so I always was like, ‘Oh, this is really interesting, because for an immigrant queer person, this is a really lifechanging policy,’” Ariza said.
“I’ve been kind of dealing with immigration for 14 years now, and you realize those small victories do have an impact on so many people,” they added.
Finding community in San Francisco
In 2014, Ariza made the trek from one coast to another to work on their master’s degree at San Francisco Art Institute, a private contemporary art college (it closed in 2022).
“When I came to San Francisco, it was the first time that I felt like I met so many queer people,” they said. They lived in the Mission, embracing and being embraced by the city’s
came such a good home for me. The community here is amazing. Everyone’s lifting each other up because it’s so hard to stay,” they said, referring to how expensive it is to live in the area.
During those initial years in the city, they found a supportive infrastructure in the form of other LGBTQ creatives, including Julie Tolentino, a queer Filipinx-Salvadoran interdisciplinary artist, and Tolentino’s partner, trans artist and performer Stosh Fila, also known as Pigpen.
“They kind of took me under their wing, and it was the first time that I had queer mentors. … I was with older queers who didn’t have kids, who were artists, and my mind was just sort of blown away. I didn’t know that existed,” shared Ariza.
Tolentino is currently a visiting associate professor of the Practice in the Brown Arts Institute at Brown University. She’s also the co-founder of Clit Club, the legendary queer and sex-positive Friday night party held in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District in the 1990s, and appears in erotic photographs in Madonna’s “Sex” book (1992).
In an email to the B.A.R., Tolentino and Fila described Ariza as “friend, family, future” with “contagious energy.”
“Through encounters with their art, the projects they organize, and the width of friends and community they are deeply invested in, you cannot help but feel pulled into their fold,” they wrote.
“As they do in all of their work and the queer/trans/gender-expansive beings who are their subjects and their inspiration, Marcel hones in on fierce poetics: visible and invisible sensual embodiments, the jagged lines of sex, labor, class, race, difference, alt worlds, and abilities. Their art highlights, processes, goes public. They reframe the notion of the document. They open themselves to another’s mark, imprint, scars – historicizing and transforming the collective,” Tolentino and Fila continued.
Making their mark as an artist
Since their move to the Bay Area, Ariza has had their work featured in art hubs such as the Institute of Contemporary Art San José; McEvoy Foundation for the Arts (closed in 2023); Palo Alto Art Center; San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries; and Yerba Buena
Artist Marcel Pardo Ariza poses in his studio in front of framed photographs depicting their friends and kin in different positions, some of them hugging.
Salimatu Amabebe
When mpox started spreading in 2022 among gay and bi men, Taylor said some public health authorities were “bending over backwards to be what we now call ‘woke;’” for example, having vaccinations in predominantly heterosexual areas “because they didn’t want to cause stigma with the gay community.”
“For anyone who lives with HIV it’s like, ‘Yeah, it can affect everyone, but it’s hitting us now and we want the response to reflect that,’” he said. “We saw really ugly and stupid politics unfold” in all three health crises, he added.
With regard of COVID, “the whole thing broke down on so many levels,” he said.
“Down here in Riverside [County] people think Palm Springs is a liberal bastion, but we live in a sea of red,” he said. “Our sheriff, who has policing responsibility for a lot of communities, refused to enforce any of the masking mandates the cities had put in place, and the governor had in place.”
(Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who was elected in 2018, in February announced he was running for California governor in 2026, the first major Republican to do so.)
There was some research at the time Taylor’s group did as to longterm HIV survivors and resiliency during the COVID pandemic, he said.
“We asked long-term HIV survivors questions around resiliency and we found out people had coping skills,” Taylor said. “They wouldn’t be survivors if they didn’t but they became more isolated, demoralized and depressed.”
Bradley and Taylor are some of the many LGBTQ elders whose previous life experiences turned out to be useful when the world seemed to shut down five years ago in spring 2020. Since then, contracting CO-
VID has largely receded as a day-today concern for many Americans, yet it has killed an estimated 1.224 million people in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics.
Reached for comment March 25, San Francisco AIDS Foundation
CEO Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D., a gay Black man living with HIV, touted his agency’s successes in addressing the COVID pandemic. Nonetheless, he noted, “Our communities are still recovering in many ways.”
“Although SFAF managed to keep our sexual health, HIV, and substance use care open throughout the pandemic, many people delayed or went without HIV/STI testing, counseling, and other types of care–which affected STI rates, new HIV diagnoses, substance use treatment, and HIV care,” TerMeer stated. “Care for other chronic illnesses suffered, people delayed surgeries, and many folks lost their housing. We are still seeing the ripple effects from these
issues years later.”
TerMeer also noted the effects, in particular, on seniors and HIV longterm survivors.
“There were impacts on mental health and substance use as well,” he continued. “Many of SFAF clients are people over age 50 and longterm HIV survivors - people who have lived through the worst days of the HIV epidemic. We heard that living through yet another pandemic brought back traumas from those early years of AIDS, and isolation made that trauma even worse.”
As time goes by, more people who use substances who relapsed during the pandemic are getting support, he stated.
“We saw that the COVID pandemic changed people’s substance use – people in recovery relapsed, people increased their substance use, or started to use in ways that were more problematic. Now we’re seeing that more people are seeking support for their substance use, have
<< From the Cover
emerged to reconnect with their communities, and are taking care of their mental health,” TerMeer stated.
COVID complicated other medical treatment
In March 2020, when COVID started spreading like wildfire across the country and in the Bay Area, doctors thought William Dean, then 72, had contracted the virus.
As it turned out, however, what was really going on was that Dean’s “white and red blood cells were very low, and it took them almost a month to find out how to treat me,” he said. When he came out of the hospital, Dean “was going back weekly to the infusion center at [UCSF Health] Saint Mary’s [Hospital] to receive the drug Mircera that would boost my red blood cells, because in the discovery of my treatment they found out that my body would not produce its own. … That’s what I was dealing with.”
And as the COVID death toll mounted – particularly for those who were elderly and/or had preexisting medical conditions – Dean’s condition made life all the more frightening.
“While I was in the hospital I was isolated,” he said. “I was transported to a room of my own, and it was on the floor with the COVID patients because I was treated just like that [as in] I was not allowed visitors. … It was traumatic, but I survived it.”
Dean, who like Bradley is living with HIV, came to San Francisco 36 years ago. He lives in the Fillmore neigh borhood, and COVID reminded him of the dark days of the AIDS epidemic.
“1991 is when my friends started dying one after another,” he recalled. “It was just rapid for me in terms of seeing them, and most were from HIV complications. I had one who was diagnosed with cancer, and I was diagnosed also in 1991, but I was not getting sick; they were,” Dean said.
Foundation, having a therapist, and a rather tight circle of friends. I knew so many people with HIV who’d not gone through the AIDS epidemic.”
Because he’s a volunteer with the AIDS foundation, Bradley pivoted an in-person Wednesday night dinner he helped put on to Zoom meetings. (Bradley started as a client in 1994 and became one of the original founding members of the 50-Plus group in 2011, he said.)
“It emboldened me and encouraged me,” he said. “It was one of the themes we talked about and unified together a lot.”
This allowed him to help others who’d not had to be so physically distanced in the past deal with the situation, he said.
“I talked to them and advised them, shared my experience,” Bradley said. “It seems like it was helpful to them. … It helped them to realize it wasn’t the end of the world and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Because of his earlier experience with his immune system, Bradley was very concerned about the consequences of contracting COVID.
“I was fearful and back at square one again,” Bradley said. “I was afraid of getting COVID on top of HIV. I was really careful. … I was frightened watching the news every night.”
But Dean did get sick in 2020 when he contracted pneumocystis pneumonia amid his low red blood cell condition.
“My medical team this time became reminiscent of how they were treated back then,” he said, continuing he was prescribed the drug pentamidine.
“I had to have seven treatments and they were each 36 hours and they were infused,” Dean said. “I went through that and I survived.”
Dean has to go in for dialysis treatments three times a week after he was diagnosed with kidney failure. He told the Bay Area Reporter that he is involved with the AIDS foundation’s HIV Advocacy Network, and that he has “been able to sustain … a group of men who get together and read gay literature.”
“We meet Wednesdays for two hours, and that’s been going well,” he said. “We shifted from in person to online.”
The shift to virtual meetings allowed the book club to gain members, he noted.
“During the pandemic it grew because people were able to be online and things were shut down, so that prompted them to join the book club,” Dean said. “After the shutdown was lifted, we went back to inperson. Some of those people came, and some still wanted to be online.”
Asked if more people come now to the meetings virtually or in-person, Dean said more people come in person.
Easier to isolate
For Bradley, isolating “was easier the second time than the first time,” he told the B.A.R.
“When COVID started, there was more stuff available to me,” he said, “thanks to the [San Francisco AIDS]
Asked how he avoided contracting COVID, Bradley said that “having those Zoom meetings really helped,” and that “I was able to get out and walk – I can distinctly remember some people were afraid to go out, even with a mask on. Fortunately, because of the neighborhood I’m in [Lower Nob Hill], I walked every morning and every evening. I would also go to the gym masked up. … I always made it a point to get outside and, when I was outside, the streets were empty, especially during my evening walks, which I kind of liked, by the way.”
It was, nonetheless, “a lonely time,” as Bradley described it.
“I had one friend – a good friend who’d come over and we’d have dinner,” he said. “That was about it.”
Eventually, Bradley said he was “one of the first” to be vaccinated against COVID.
Studies, such as a 2024 UCLA study titled “Not Going Out Is the ‘New Normal’ Post-Covid,” have found that outside-the-home activities have not rebounded to 2019 levels.
That particular study found that Americans spend an hour less per day outside their homes than before COVID.
TerMeer noted that there’s more social and physical isolation in the world after COVID.
“But there are still effects even years later, with people who are more hesitant to seek services in person and even avoid gathering in large groups,” he stated. “That’s why our work at San Francisco AIDS Foundation remains more critical than ever – because healing from the pandemic’s lasting impacts requires continued investment in traumainformed care, trusted community connection, and equitable access to the services people rely on to thrive.”
Asked if that particular impact of the pandemic has been a long-term one for him, Bradley said “that really does not describe me.”
“I get out as much and as often as I can,” he said. “Being 70 years old, I value and treasure the opportunity to just be able to go outside and walk. I do think that there was a part in the pandemic I almost kind of enjoyed because I didn’t get out that much anyway, but to answer your question, I try to get out even more. … I’m back to the same routine I was.” t
In 2020, William Dean was hospitalized with a serious medical issue that doctors at first thought was COVID.
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Lee for mayor, Wang for city council
Oakland voters have an opportunity to begin recovering from the city’s recent political scandals when they vote for a new mayor in the April 15 special election. Former congressmember Barbara Lee, who long represented the city in the House of Representatives, is our choice for mayor. She has considerable political connections that should serve the Town well, and is a solid ally to the LGBTQ community. Residents of Oakland’s District 2 will also elect a new city councilmember to complete the term of former councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas, who was elected last November to serve on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. In that race, we endorse Charlene Wang, a lesbian who ran for the council’s at-large seat last fall but came up short. Wang would be the third out woman on the council, and we believe her perspective on local issues fits well with the district that includes Chinatown, part of Lake Merritt, and the Jack London Square and San Antonio neighborhoods.
Lee After former mayor Sheng Thao was recalled by voters last November, the depth of the scandal became clear when she was criminally indicted by the federal government on bribery offences. (Thao has pleaded not guilty.) The U.S. Department of Justice essentially outlined a pay-to-play case involving Thao and her romantic partner, Andre Jones, who was also charged and has pleaded not guilty. Residents also became aware of the city’s daunting budget challenges and have continued to speak out on homelessness and public safety concerns.
With the city facing a $129 million structural budget deficit, Lee stated in her questionnaire that she has a track record of bringing billions of dollars in federal funding to Oakland, during both Democratic and Republican administrations. While President Donald Trump and Elon Musk seek to drastically cut federal funding, Lee stated that she will work with her successor, Congressmember Lateefah Simon (D) and
California’s two Democratic U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff “to ensure that Oakland can leverage all federal funding for important projects that impact our neighborhoods and quality of life.” She also stated that the city will need to work with Alameda County and state leaders. Lee indicated she will prioritize fiscal responsibility, bring in new resources, and ensure that city dollars are spent efficiently. “My plan to get Oakland back on track: 1) increase revenue without burdening residents; 2) control spending and ensure fiscal responsibility; 3) strengthen our long-term financial stability.”
Lee stated that she supports Oakland Police Chief Floyd Mitchell, whom Thao hired after she fired former chief LaRonne Armstrong in early 2023. “Public safety is a top priority for the city, and I understand that Oakland needs stable leadership on this issue as well as across the board,” Lee wrote. “Through his leadership to date, Chief Mitchell has demonstrated that he is a committed public servant.” She added that she would evaluate leadership roles in the city before making any decisions.
It is Lee’s record on LGBTQ issues, however, that sets her apart from the other candidates. Lee has, quite simply, always been there for the LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS communities. Most readers are aware of the leadership Lee took on establishing the bipartisan President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, during the George W. Bush presidency (an example of her working with Republicans), and for which funding was cut by Trump after he returned to the White House in January.
Lee is steadfast in her support for the transgender community in the face of Trump’s executive orders stripping rights from trans people. “As mayor, I would proudly support our transgender neighbors, especially transgender youth,” Lee stated. “I will do everything in my power to ensure that the trans community here in Oakland are not just welcome, but loved and celebrated.” She also stated that she wants to ensure the city can expand gender-affirming health care access and ensure that city services “are inclusive, strengthen workplace protections and provide job training for trans individuals, and improve data collection on trans-specific issues to develop targeted policy solutions.”
While Lee has not had local government experience, we believe her decades in state and federal office have prepared her well for this new role. Oakland is a city that needs a steady voice at the helm, and Lee is that person.
Wang Wang brings experience working for the Biden administration, advising on civil rights and environmental justice at the Environmental Protection Agency, where her duties included helping communities hold polluters accountable and supporting organizations that apply for grants. Like other employees impacted by the Trump administration’s moves to shrink the federal government, Wang is currently on administrative leave.
In her endorsement questionnaire, Wang stated that she supports the city hiring a fulltime grant writer to seek funds – the Thao administration famously missed out on the city receiving a share of a $267 million state retail theft prevention grant in 2023 – and she reviewed grants in the Biden administration. She would train her staff to be part-time grant writers and use her officeholder account to contract with a grant-writing technical assistance provider to help the city, she stated in her questionnaire.
Wang is realistic when it comes to supporting LGBTQ nonprofits and other agencies that work with queer youth. She stated that while the city does not have the capacity to provide direct grants right now, it can offer technical assistance for grant-writing. She also wants to strengthen partnerships between LGBTQ nonprofits and city government so that they can leverage assets like city-owned facilities for events and services.
The Lyon-Martin House is in danger: San Francisco must act now
by Shayne Watson
San Francisco leads the world in being a city that celebrates and safeguards its rich and colorful queer past. Yet today, the Lyon-Martin House, longtime home of the late trailblazing lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon – and one of San Francisco’s few LGBTQ landmarks – is in imminent danger of demolition by neglect.
Paul H. Melbostad, Esq. Bay area reporter 44 Gough Street, Suite 302
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Lyon and Martin purchased the modest 756 square foot cottage on a huge double lot (649-651 Duncan Street) – nestled in the Noe Valley hills overlooking the city – in 1955, the same year they co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the first lesbian civil rights organization in the United States. The Lyon-Martin House was the beating heart of the DOB, and it was there that Martin, Lyon, and an extraordinary number of internationally renowned figures laid a foundation for today’s LGBTQ rights movement.
Working with the American Psychiatric Association, Martin and Lyon helped to declassify homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder in 1973. In 1976, Martin published “Battered Wives” – one of the first books on domestic violence in the United States, still revered as a work of feminist literature. Martin and Lyon’s activism, underpinned by the feminist mantra “the personal is political,” culminated in their historic 2008 marriage – the first same-sex wedding officiated in the state following the California Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. Martin passed not long after her second wedding to her beloved wife. Lyon lived in the Lyon-Martin House until her passing in April 2020.
After learning that the Lyon-Martin House had been purchased and slated for redevelopment less than a year after Lyon’s death was announced, the Friends of LyonMartin House and the office of gay San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman (now the board president) mobilized to designate 651 Duncan Street (one half of the lot) a San Francisco Landmark in 2021. But the landmark designation alone does not ensure protection from demolition. A landmark left to deteriorate can reach
a point where demolition becomes inevitable. This could be the sad reality facing the Lyon-Martin House today unless swift action is taken to save this irreplaceable piece of San Francisco history.
San Francisco has a choice
The property owner received entitlements from the San Francisco Planning Department to build a four-story-over-garage-with-basement single-family home on the 649 side of the 649651 Duncan Street lot but has not requested a building permit to begin construction.
The Friends of Lyon-Martin House is holding out hope that the property owner will sell the entire double lot for the right price and walk away from the redevelopment plans. In the meantime, San Francisco has options. The city must hold the property owners accountable for maintaining the designated landmark and enforcing local, state, and federal preservation
laws. The mayor’s office and Board of Supervisors could lend a hand and protect the LyonMartin House through acquisition, financial incentives for restoration, and/or intervention by city agencies.
The Friends of Lyon-Martin House hope to see a community-based solution for the future of the house, such as creating affordable shortterm housing and a scholar-in-residence program for studying the papers of Lyon and Martin at the GLBT Historical Society.
The Lyon-Martin House is more than a historic site marked by a plaque – it is a cornerstone of LGBTQ rights movements. Lyon and Martin spent their lives fighting for our community; now’s the time we stand up for their legacy.
What you can do
The time to act is now! Call on city officials to take immediate action before it’s too late. Join the Friends of Lyon-Martin House by signing up at www.lyonmartinhouse.org. Follow us on Instagram for the latest news and updates at www. instagram.com/friendsoflyonmartinhouse.
As a fiscally-sponsored project of the GLBT Historical Society, the Friends of Lyon-Martin House is leading efforts to document its history and ensure the site serves as an enduring educational and cultural resource. To donate, please visit glbthistory.org/lyon-martin-house. t
Shayne Watson, a lesbian, is an architectural historian based in the San Francisco Bay Area and owner of Watson Heritage Consulting. For the past 16 years Watson has volunteered her time to the preservation of LGBTQ historic sites. She coauthored the Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco (2015), a report that provides guidance for the San Francisco Planning Department on how to identify, document, and preserve properties of LGBTQ significance throughout the city. Watson is co-founder of Friends of Lyon-Martin House and serves on the advisory board of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District.
Nature is retaking the kitchen corner nook at the house where Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, and many others met over dinner and changed the world; photographed in September 2021.
Courtesy Shayne Watson
Mayoral candidate Barbara Lee
Jane Philomen Cleland
District 2 candidate Charlene Wang
Courtesy the candidate
LPAC nod buoys out CA lt. gov candidate Kellman
by Matthew S. Bajko
Often overlooked by mainstream media outlets when covering the 2026 race for California lieutenant governor, gay candidate Janelle Kellman is feeling buoyed by her recent endorsement from LPAC. The support of the political action committee that helps elect LGBTQ women and nonbinary candidates to office across the U.S. provides her access to its national network of donors and statewide volunteers.
LPAC Executive Director Janelle Perez called Kellman “a force of nature” in endorsing her this month. It is the first major LGBTQ political group to do so.
“She puts leadership into practice, advocating for those who face multiple forms of discrimination,” stated Perez. “Janelle Kellman has done it all – loudly, proudly, and boldly. We could not be more excited to endorse her candidacy for Lt. Governor of California.”
In a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Kellman noted having LPAC’s support “is huge” for her campaign. She officially got into the race in 2023.
“LPAC is a national-level entity that is really out in the forefront of advancing representation of LGBTQ-plus women and nonbinary people. It provides us with tremendous momentum and has really extended our reach outside of California,” said Kellman, 51, an environmental attorney who is the founder and CEO of nonprofit Center for Sea Rise Solutions. “We are super excited to have this partnership.”
Kellman, a former elected member of the Sausalito City Council, is expected to face a crowded field in next year’s June primary to determine the two candidates regardless of party affiliation who will appear on the 2026 November ballot due to current Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis termlimited from running again. Kounalakis (D) is running for governor in a race that is expected to be upended should former vice president Kamala Harris a former San Francisco district attorney, enter the gubernatorial race later this summer, as Governor Gavin Newsom is also term-limited from running again.
Treasurer Fiona Ma, 59, a former San Francisco supervisor who is termed out next year.
Kellman reported raising $109,674.50 in 2024 and had $18,675.80 in her campaign account as of January 1. Ma raised $1,621,585.75 last year and reported having $4,282,846.02 to spend on her campaign, while Tubbs netted $679,167.85 in 2024 and had $230,362.59 in his campaign account at the start of 2025. Bradford raised $247,137.96 in 2024 and had $597,688.01 in his account.
Ma has been positioning herself as the frontrunner in the contest, announcing in February endorsements from a majority of Assembly Democrats, including gay Assemblymembers Mark Gonzalez (Los Angeles), José Luis Solache Jr. (Lynwood), Corey Jackson Ph.D. (Perris), and Chris Ward (San Diego). This month she was endorsed by 30 current and former mayors, such as former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, and current ceremonial El Cerrito Mayor Carolyn Wysinger, a lesbian elected city councilmember of the East Bay city.
Harris doing so could push some of the stated Democratic gubernatorial candidates to elect to run for lieutenant governor. Polling of late has favored Harris in the governor’s race, though already declared candidates like former congressmember Katie Porter, who lost her 2024 bid for a U.S. senate seat, lesbian former state senator Toni Atkins of San Diego, and former state controller Betty Yee have said they plan to remain gubernatorial candidates no matter Harris’ decision.
However the lieutenant governor race shapes up in the coming months, Kellman told the B.A.R. she intends to remain a candidate. She argues she is uniquely qualified for the position, which is not only second-in-line to run California but also comes with seats on the powerful California Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission, and the oversight bodies for the state’s community colleges, four-year colleges, and university system.
“I am not going anywhere,” said Kellman. “This is my race to run and run it as hard as I can.”
And, she noted, “I am a new Democrat for a new California” compared to the Democratic Party insiders in the race.
Other candidates
Josh Fryday, 44, California’s chief service officer in Newsom’s office, is the most recent person to jump into the lieutenant governor race. Also running are Democrat Michael Tubbs, 34, a former Newsom poverty adviser and Stockton mayor; state Senator Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), 65; and state
“She has consistently fought for investments in housing, infrastructure, and small businesses while making sure cities have the tools they need to succeed. She’s the kind of leader we need in the Lieutenant Governor’s office –someone who listens, engages, and delivers real results for local communities,” Wysinger stated of Ma.
Last week, Tubbs picked up the endorsement of bisexual Assemblymember Sade Elhawary (D-South Los Angeles). Lesbian former U.S. senator Laphonza Butler (D-California) had endorsed him in February.
“Michael Tubbs has always been about how to do the most good for the most people,” stated Butler. “He has blazed trails on innovative policies like universal basic income to expand opportunity and prevent people from falling into homelessness. I’m proud to endorse his campaign and support his positive vision for the future of California.”
In the coming weeks Kellman has a host of events in the Bay Area to boost her profile with voters in the region and attract more support and contributions to her campaign. She will be in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood March 29 for a garden party fundraiser and in San Rafael the next day at a pizza party fundraiser. April 17 she will take part in a town hall event in Mill Valley.
“We are up and down the state doing as much fundraising and meet and greets as we can,” said Kellman, who plans to take part in Los Angeles’ Pride celebration on Sunday, June 8.
Gay Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who is termed out in
2026, formed a lieutenant governor campaign account where he has banked $102,018.22 but hasn’t formally announced he will seek the position. He was the first LGBTQ person to win statewide office in California with his election to a first term in 2018.
The first LGBTQ person believed to have held statewide office was Tony Miller, a gay man and Democratic lawyer who was appointed to the vacant secretary of state position in 1994. Miller, however, lost his bid that year for a full term in the position, and in 1998, he again came up short in his bid for lieutenant governor.
A resident of Sausalito since 2001, Kellman earned a B.A. in history from Yale and a master’s in environmental management from Oxford. She graduated from Stanford Law and clerked for a judge in San Diego. She had her own private practice as a land use and environmental attorney then joined the Environmental Protection Agency working on water quality and species issues in its Region 9 office that includes California along with other western states.
Kellman also spent time at the Woodrow Wilson Center at the Smithsonian, focused on how issues like water scarcity and civil unrest impact national security. She has also worked in the private sector at firms focused on renewable energy.
She told the B.A.R. it is time Califor nia had “practical, common-sense gov erning,” and that is what she will bring to the role of lieutenant governor.
“It is time for a fresh face in California politics,” said Kellman.
To learn more about Kellman, and for information on how to RSVP to her upcoming campaign events, visit her website at janellekellman.com.
SF Dems head to Castro in June
In a rare instance of it conducting its business in a community setting, the San Francisco Democratic Party is heading to the Castro for its Pride Month meeting. The local party’s oversight body is set to meet June 25 at the LGBT Community Center.
The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the center located at 1800 Market Street. Plans call for there to also be accompanying service and social events, the details of which are still being worked out.
“Our meetings are typically held in a windowless basement in the State Building, so this is a welcome change,” DCCC fourth vice chair Emma Hare, who is bisexual, told the B.A.R.
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Janelle Kellman received the endorsement from LPAC in her 2026 bid for lieutenant governor.
Courtesy the candidate
Research confirms doxyPEP impact for STI prevention
by Liz Highleyman
Research continues to confirm that taking doxycycline after sex – an approach known as doxyPEP –reduces the risk of sexually transmitted infections. Two studies presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, which took place March 9-12 in San Francisco, looked at longer-term doxyPEP use in the city that rolled it out first.
In October 2022, the San Francisco Department of Public Health was the first to recommend doxyPEP, which involves taking a single dose of the antibiotic within 72 hours after sex.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends doxyPEP for cisgender gay and bisexual men and transgender women who have had an STI during the past year, but the DPH guidance is broader, including trans men and nonbinary people, as well as people with multiple sex partners who haven’t recently had an STI. At last year’s CROI, DPH researchers reported that preventive doxycycline contributed to a 50% decline in chlamydia and syphilis citywide, though there was little effect on gonorrhea.
At this year’s conference, San Francisco AIDS Foundation medical director Dr. Hyman Scott gave an update on the impact of doxyPEP after two years
Francisco AIDS Foundation’s doxyPEP team members Jorge Roman, RN, left, Jason Bena; Michael Barry, Ph.D., MPH; and Dr. Hyman Scott
at SFAF’s Magnet sexual health clinic, which primarily serves gay and bi men and gender-diverse people. Magnet, part of the foundation’s Strut health center in the Castro, began rolling out doxyPEP in late November 2022, offering it to all eligible clients who received HIV PrEP or other sexual health services. The reception was enthusiastic, and initial doxyPEP demand and uptake were high.
This analysis included 2,524 people who were prescribed doxyPEP through September 2024 along with 2,068 nonusers. About 90% were cisgender men,
about 10% were transgender or nonbinary, and the median age was 35. Before starting doxyPEP, users had nearly a fourfold higher risk of STIs compared with nonusers. In the pre-doxyPEP period, STIs were rising steeply among users but falling among nonusers. In the post-doxyPEP period, there was a substantial drop in STIs among doxyPEP users while nonusers saw an ongoing shallow decline, so the difference between the two groups diminished. Among doxyPEP users, syphilis declined by 89%, chlamydia by 81%,
and gonorrhea by 44%, all of which were statistically significant.
“This is similar to the efficacy that has been seen in clinical trials, and this is one of the first analyses that has shown a nearly 50% decline in gonorrhea incidence in a setting of clinical implementation of doxyPEP,” Scott said. These findings, he noted, indicate that those who could benefit most from doxyPEP are using it.
Asked why this study showed better efficacy against gonorrhea than others, Scott said that although doxyPEP guidelines say doxycycline can be taken up to 72 hours after sex, Magnet advises clients to take it within 24 hours – as the “last load of the night” – when it’s more likely to be effective.
In a second study, Michael Barry, Ph.D., MPH, and colleagues at SFAF looked at the doxyPEP continuum of care among Magnet clients who were eligible for doxycycline prophylaxis according to DPH guidelines and had at least two visits between December 2022 and December 2024.
Among the 7,436 clients with a doxyPEP indication, 59% received a prescription, according to their medical records. Of these, 61% (or 36% of the total eligible group) reported taking at least one dose of doxycycline. Of those, 61% (or 22% of the eligible group) reported high adherence, defined as consistent use within 72 hours after sex since their last visit.
The researchers saw some notable disparities based on age, gender identity, race/ethnicity, housing status, and HIV status. Transgender women were most likely to be prescribed doxyPEP (69%) and trans men the least likely (39%). Looking at the total population with a doxyPEP indication, high adherence was less likely among young people, Black people, unstably housed or homeless people, and people living with HIV versus HIV-negative people on PrEP.
Barry noted that the dramatic declines in STIs reported by Scott occurred despite low adherence to doxyPEP. “We’re seeing population-level impacts very likely due to doxyPEP uptake, but it could be even higher,” he said. “To ensure equitable populationlevel impacts of doxyPEP, we might consider giving these patients special consideration.”
It’s unclear how best to define good adherence to doxyPEP, as it might not be needed for all sexual encounters. For example, someone might use doxyPEP after a sex party but not after sex with a regular partner.
“I think our patients are very savvy at knowing which partners or which situations or which encounters will benefit from using this medication,” Barry told reporters at a conference news briefing. t
HIV conference hears news about cures
by Liz Highleyman
While the Trump administration’s threats to HIV research and services were an inescapable theme at the opening session of the recent Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, participants also heard plenty of science news. The conference, held in San Francisco March 9-12, also featured an accompanying rally in support of science.
Two more stem cell cures
Researchers from Chicago and Oslo, Norway reported that two more people appear to be free of HIV after stem cell transplants for cancer treatment. If the men remain in remission, they will be the ninth and 10th cases of a functional cure after the procedure.
The first such case, former San Francisco resident Timothy Ray Brown (known as the Berlin Patient), received stem cell transplants to treat leukemia from a donor with a rare mutation called CCR5-delta-32 that prevents HIV from entering T cells. Brown stopped antiretroviral treatment, but his viral load did not rebound and researchers could find no evidence of functional HIV anywhere in his body. At the time of his death from leukemia in September
2020, he had been free of HIV for more than 13 years.
Before CROI, seven other cases had been presented at HIV conferences over the years, including three people who appear to be cured after transplants from donors with only one or no copies of the CCR5-delta-32 mutation.
The Chicago Patient is a 67-year-old man who received a stem cell transplant for leukemia from a donor with a double CCR5-delta-32 mutation. This case is notable because the man stopped antiretroviral treatment 15 months after the transplant, experienced viral rebound,
restarted antiretrovirals, tried a second treatment interruption two years later, and has now been in HIV remission for 10 months.
This suggests that the resurgent virus came from a residual reservoir of cells infected before the transplant, but the new donor cells with the double mutation “truly were protected,” Dr. Paul Rubinstein of the University of Illinois Chicago Medical Center told reporters. “If virus rebounds, remission is still possible.”
The Oslo Patient is a 58-year-old man who received a stem cell transplant for myelodysplastic syndrome from a brother with the double CCR5-delta-32 mutation – the first known sibling case. He stopped antiretrovirals two years after the transplant, and his viral load remains undetectable and he shows no other signs of HIV two years later.
“I went over there at the end of February. It was very, very heartwarming to see the Harry Britt Building,” said Ammiano, who has helped coordinate this afternoon’s ceremony.
The ceremony began at 4:45 p.m. March 25, and among those speaking were Ammiano; Bailey; Anita Martinez, the president of the college’s board; gay former trustee Alex Randolph; and Sharon Johnson, a former aide to Britt and a former executive director on the Commission on the Status of Women.
“When we have our queer community under attack on the national level and in states across the country it’s important
Stem cell transplantations are too risky for people without advanced cancer, but each new case offers clues that could help scientists develop a more widely accessible functional cure. “Every case is important to build the knowledge about how cure can be achieved,” said Dr. Marius Trøseid of Oslo University Hospital.
Once-yearly PrEP
The highly anticipated approval of twice-yearly lenacapavir PrEP could come as soon as this June, but researchers at Foster City-based Gilead Sciences Inc. are working on once-yearly HIV prevention shots that could have an even bigger impact on the HIV epidemic.
As the Bay Area Reporter reported last year, the PURPOSE 1 trial showed that lenacapavir injections every six months were 100% effective for young cisgender women in Africa – significantly more so than daily Truvada pills (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine). Findings from PURPOSE 2 showed that lenacapavir injections every six months reduced the risk of HIV acquisition by 96% relative to background incidence and by 89% compared to Truvada for gay and bisexual men and gender-diverse people in the United States and six other countries.
At CROI, Renu Singh, Ph.D., Gilead’s senior director of clinical pharmacology, reported findings from a phase 1 study that enrolled healthy adults with a low likelihood of HIV acquisition. They received a single dose of one of two longer-
lasting formulations of lenacapavir administered as intramuscular injections in the buttocks.
Lenacapavir levels were even higher than those of twice-yearly lenacapavir, with plasma levels remaining above the 95% effective concentration for at least 56 weeks with both formulations. The most common side effect was mild injection site pain that was reduced by applying an ice pack before the shots.
Gilead plans to start a phase 3 trial of once-yearly lenacapavir PrEP in the second half of this year, bypassing intermediate phase 2 trials. Data from the trial might be ready for federal Food and Drug Administration review in 2027.
“Once-yearly lenacapavir, if approved, could become an important new HIV prevention option that could help address PrEP adherence and persistence challenges for individuals who need or want PrEP around the world,” Dr. Jared Baeten, Gilead’s senior vice president for clinical development and virology therapeutic area head, stated in a news release.
While these results are potentially groundbreaking, researchers, advocates, and global health officials stress that the promise of long-acting PrEP can only be realized if it is widely available and affordable to everyone who needs it. But access is a growing concern given President Donald Trump’s recent cuts to PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), the main distributor of PrEP worldwide. t
Liz Highleyman Dr. Marius Trøseid, left, and Dr. Paul Rubenstein presented stem
Liz Highleyman
The Harry Britt Building on the City College of San Francisco’s main campus was dedicated during a ceremony on Tuesday, March 25.
Bill Wilson
SF Sisters unveil new safety campaign
compiled by Cynthia Laird
Recent violent incidents in San Francisco’s LGBTQ Castro neighborhood have prompted the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Inc. to launch a new public safety campaign for the queer community. The drag nun philanthropic group has long been involved with such efforts.
“Safety First, Sexy Second” is a bold, cheeky, and essential initiative designed to help people navigate hookups safely –whether they meet at a bar, a party, cruising, or on dating apps like Grindr, Scruff, or Recon, according to a news release from the Sisters.
With a simple three-step process, “Safety First, Sexy Second” empowers individuals to protect themselves while keeping the fun alive, the release noted.
“Tragically, there has been a rise in hate crimes against gay men, queer, and trans people right here in San Francisco and around the country,” stated Sister Roma, who devised the campaign with Sister Shalita Corndog. “Our community has always looked out for one another, and this campaign is all about that tradition.”
Added Shalita, “The Sisters Care! We want everyone to have fun, explore freely, and feel sexy – but also make sure they’re taking steps to stay safe and be smart about their hookups.”
The Sisters’ new campaign is a threestep plan.
Buddy up: Choose a trusted friend to be your safety check-in; send screenshots of who you’re meeting and share your location.
Hookup: Be your sexy self and have fun.
Follow-up: Set a time to check in and let your buddy know that you’re safe or if you need help.
“Safety First, Sexy Second” will roll out through digital outreach, social media videos, and eye-catching outdoor ads at bus stops, bars, and community spaces, the release stated. A dedicated page is now live at thesisters.org/safetyfirst offering helpful tips and resources – and fun videos.
For over 45 years, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have used humor, activism, and community engagement to spread messages of love, safety, and radical inclusivity. “Safety First, Sexy Second” is a modern extension of this mission – reminding everyone that taking care of each other is always sexy, the release stated.
This campaign is produced in partnership with Liberty Lane Films, a San
we lift up and celebrate queer leaders,” said Bailey. “Let us not also forget there is a generation who isn’t with us here today because of inaction and denial and deceit and that the impact of that crisis [the AIDS epidemic] lasts with us today as well.”
Martinez acknowledged the members of the present board who were at the event as well as those who were on the original board that passed the resolution to rename the building in 2020.
Randolph said this was the first time he’s been back on campus since he left the board.
“I can’t think of a better occasion ... than to finally commemorate the Britt building at City College,” he said. “The reason it took so long is we wanted to make sure everybody was included.
... We are back at the fights that Harry Britt started and fought in the 1970s and 1980s: making sure our community is protected and keeps our rights.”
Johnson said at the event, “His [Britt’s] legacy lives through us in the fight for social and economic justice.”
“We had a community of love and the pain of the how and the why we were all there,” Johnson recalled. “Harry established a safe place where the ‘we’ were the empowered and all he wanted us to know was to be our best and do our best. ... First and foremost he never forgot Harvey Milk, he never forgot whose place he stepped into.”
Francisco-based LGBTQ+ owned film production company on a mission to redefine the boundaries of film, branding, and advertising through the power of impactful visual storytelling, according to the release. Learn more at libertylanefilms.com.
The videos were shot on location at The Academy, an LGBTQ social club in the Castro.
CCOP offers self-defense classes
In another nod to safety, Castro Community on Patrol, a volunteer organization, will offer its popular beginners self-defense class Saturday, April 5, from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, 100 Diamond Street in the LGBTQ neighborhood.
Greg Carey, a gay man who’s chief of patrol for the organization, wrote in an email to supporters that there have been several recent incidents.
“We have been made aware of four assaults on gay men in the past two weeks; three in the Castro and one in the leather (South of Market) district,” he wrote. “One of the Castro events is under police investigation while the others have been reported on social media and might not yet been formally reported. The news has raised concern by many.”
Carey noted that CCOP “trained hundreds of people with this class with great feedback from prior students. Having a plan and new tools can produce a better outcome if you are accosted by someone who seems to intend harm.”
Class size is limited because of the need for space for the physical portion of the learning. The cost is $30 per student (over 18 years of age) and requires advance reservations. To sign up, go to https://tinyurl. com/3vezsrmt.
SF installs new speed cameras
As the Bay Area Reporter has reported, a bar employee was beaten in front of the Castro Theatre on March 9.
On March 19, an alleged shoplifter and a Walgreens employee were both arrested after a physical altercation outside the store at Castro and 18th streets.
Mayor Daniel Lurie last week launched San Francisco’s automated speed camera enforcement program, making it the first city in California to implement this life-saving technology, the mayor’s office stated in a news release. Speeding is the number one cause of serious injuries and fatalities on city streets, and speed cameras are proven to improve safety, noted the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. “No matter how you get around our city, you should be able to do it without fearing for your life. That is why I am proud that San Francisco is now the first city in California to implement automated speed cameras,” Lurie stated. “Speeding is the number one cause of traffic injuries and fatalities in this city. It is my job as mayor to protect our residents and visitors, and that is what we are doing today.”
Cameras will operate at 33 locations across San Francisco in the city’s High Injury Network, the 12% of streets with
Johnson said Britt learned how to accept himself from his parents.
“That made all the difference in the world,” she said. “He never forgot where he came from.”
Johnson told the B.A.R. in a phone call before the event that she first met Britt in 1977 through Bill Kraus, the late gay and AIDS activist.
“He [Krauss] was going to do voter registration at the San Francisco Public Library and that’s when I first met Harry,” she said. “We worked together during that awful Proposition [6] and then Prop 13 as well.”
Prop 6 would have banned homosexuals from teaching in California. It was defeated by voters in 1978. Prop 13, on
the same ballot, limited property taxes by assessing properties at their 1976 value and was passed by voters.
It was shortly after Prop 6 failed that Britt became a member of the Board of Supervisors, Johnson recalled.
Tim Wolfred, a gay man who was on the City College board from 1981-1995, becoming its first LGBTQ member and first gay president, was originally expected to speak, but told the B.A.R. in a March 25 phone call that he couldn’t make it because he was feeling unwell. Nonetheless, Wolfred said he is “very appreciative the college did it.”
San Bernardino college to name center after Sarria
An LGBTQ student resource center at a San Bernardino community college will be named after the late San Francisco drag queen José Julio Sarria, a gay Latino veteran who left a lasting impact on politics and the queer community.
Victor Valley College in Victorville has announced the grand opening of its firstever LGBTQ+ Student Resource Center. The opening will take place Friday, April 4, from noon to 5 p.m. on campus in Building 30. (18422 Bear Valley Road, Victorville, CA.)
the highest concentration of severe injuries and fatal collisions, the mayor’s office noted. Once all the safety cameras are activated, there will be a 60-day no-fee warning period prior to citations being issued. Speed penalties are set by state law and will start at $50 for driving 11 to 15 miles per hour over the posted speed limit ($25 low-income fee).
There is a camera in the Castro/Eureka Valley neighborhood, which is located on Market Street, and encompasses Danvers to Douglass streets, according to SFMTA.
SFMTA leaders noted the importance of the program.
proven tool to San Francisco to shift driv ing behavior and make streets safer for all,” stated SFMTA Director of Transpor tation Julie Kirschbaum. “We are deeply grateful to our community partners who made this possible – not only because this program will help prevent serious injuries, but because safer streets are the foundation of the thriving, connected San Francisco we all want to see – where streets are inviting spaces for everyone, no matter how they travel.”
ule, and more information is at sfmta. com/projects/speed-safety-cameras.
According to an announcement on Facebook, the José Sarria Pride Center opening will be a celebration of inclusivity, community, and history. Attendees will enjoy a resource fair, live music, food, and beverages, alongside an opportunity to connect with key LGBTQ+ organizations.
In partnership with the Jose Sarria Foundation, the Imperial Court, WOW Clinic, St. John’s Wellness Center, the High Desert Pride Center, and Film Bliss Studios, the grand opening will provide essential resources for LGBTQ+ students and allies, the announcement stated.
The event also pays tribute to the legacy of Sarria, a trailblazing advocate and the first openly gay candidate to run for fully sought a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Sarria founded the Imperial Council of San Francisco, which nization and is the mother court of other
“This center represents a commitment to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for LGBTQ+ students at gomery, Ph.D., a faculty member in chemistry. “We are proud to be making history and providing a dedicated space
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have launched a new safety campaign.
Courtesy the Sisters
Mitchell Bailey, interim chancellor at City College of San Francisco, delivered remarks on the dedication of the Harry Britt Building March 25.
John Ferrannini
“At no point did we back out of participation at SF Pride,” Lubanski stated. “The change to our participation this year from last year is that we won’t have our larger mobile tasting room on site, as it will be on the East Coast for WorldPride D.C. and logistically we can’t get it back in time for SF, but La Crema will still be sampling wine for attendees and La Crema wines will be available for purchase at concessions.
“La Crema is also set to be the official wine sponsor of the Threads of Pride
To be considered for legacy status, a business needs to be nominated by the mayor or a member of the Board of Supervisors. Gay Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro, nominated the nail salon, according to the planning staff report.
The SECA Award gave Ariza the opportunity to exhibit their installation, “I Am Very Lucky, Very Lucky To Be Trans” (2022), in SFMOMA. It featured photographs that Ariza had taken of 33 Bay Area trans, intersex and gendernonconforming changemakers, creatives, and leaders, including Honey Mahogany, the executive director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives and the co-founder of the SF Transgender District.
In an email to the B.A.R., Mahogany, a Black trans person, reflected on her first time working with Ariza, which was for a photo shoot with legendary drag artist Juanita MORE! in front of San Francisco City Hall.
“The photo was taken at the end of [President Donald] Trump’s first term and is still one of my favorite photos of myself. It spoke to our pride, defiance, and strength as a community, as well as our hope for the future,” she wrote.
For Mahogany, Ariza’s art is an affecting tribute to marginalized communities.
“In many ways, Marcel’s work has been a much needed celebration of who we are as trans people, queer people, people of color, immigrants ... The work is beautiful and feels urgent and important at the same time. I am so very proud to be trans, and so very proud to be included in Marcel’s work,” she commented.
Mahogany and Ariza have connected for other happenings, such as the “Trans Leadership & Caring Futures” panel in 2023, with Ariza as the organizer and moderator and Mahogany as one of the featured participants.
Ariza has also worked with MORE! in the role of curator for “Juanita: 30 Years of MORE!” at San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries, which the B.A.R. had previously reported.
“It was an honor to be acknowledged by the San Francisco Arts Commission and my community for my 30 years in drag. It was also incredible to share my story while I am still here to tell it,” stated
Fashion Show on Tuesday, June 24, and the Pride Party at City Hall on Sunday, June 29,” Lubanski added.
La Crema wines are popular with the community. The company was founded in Sonoma County in 1979, according to its website, and showcases wines from California and Oregon. It is owned by Jackson Family Wines, which acquired the company in 1993.
La Crema’s participation in SF Pride is good news for Ford and the SF Pride board, which have been reeling from the exodus of several sponsors, some attributed to changes in their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in the wake
He previously told the B.A.R. that it was “unfortunate” that the leasing issues have materialized for the coffee shop and nail salon.
According to 2021 data published by the San Francisco Chronicle, the parcel containing the coffee company, the nail salon, and the theater is owned by Bay Properties Inc. and Steven R. Nasser. The three-unit property was assessed at a value of $4.9 million.
The Nasser family could not be
of President Donald Trump’s attacks on DEI that have rippled across corporate America, universities, and the federal government.
Prior to La Crema returning, Ford had said the dropped sponsorships were worth about $300,000 for SF Pride, which needs to raise about $1.2 million for the June 28-29 parade and festival. This year’s theme is “Queer Joy is Resistance.”
Admission to SF Pride is free, though Ford previously said that people are welcome to donate to the organization online at sfpride.org. (https://sfpride.org/) Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-
reached for comment. No one spoke against the nail salon’s legacy business application during public comment.
APE spokesperson David Perry, a gay man, previously disavowed what he phrased as a “rumor” that APE wanted to acquire the spaces housing the coffee shop and nail salon.
“We’re not going to comment on a hypothetical,” he stated. “At the moment we’re focused on getting the theater open for the community.”
MORE! in an email to the B.A.R.
She holds Ariza and their curating skills in high regard, noting that partnering with them for “Juanita: 30 Years of MORE!” was a positive experience.
“[It] was a joy because we love and respect each other. Marcel dove into the project with great enthusiasm. Over the years, I accumulated so much stuff that narrowing down what we would be showing was tough. Working with Marcel made that a lot easier. They possessed the ability to create something extraordinary by seeing my world through their own eyes and conveying it beautifully and uniquely. I’d be thrilled to work with Marcel anytime,” MORE! commented.
Paying tribute to the past in the present San Francisco isn’t considered the LGBTQ capital of the world without reason. With queer neighborhoods like the Castro; nightlife staples like El Rio, the Stud, Jolene’s, the Lookout, Oasis, and Mother; and organizations like the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, El/La Para TransLatinas (of which Ariza is an advisory committee member), and LYRIC Center for LGBTQQ+ Youth, it’s a city that has a lot to offer in
terms of socializing, inclusive spaces, and resources.
“What we have here is so special – that’s why so many queer and trans people come here. The fact that we go outside, that we can look at each other, we can flirt, we can be public – I feel like we sometimes forget how special it is and how many liberties we get to have here,” commented Ariza.
For them, the queer history of the city is an ever-important consideration, and their artwork, such as “All the Nights We Got to Dance,” intentionally shines a spotlight on it. The site-specific multimedia installation’s opening coincided with the GLBT Historical Society’s 39th anniversary, with both celebrated at “Living History,” (https://www.glbthistory.org/events/2024/4/3/anniversary) an event held in April 2024.
“I’ve loved working with the GLBT Historical Society, working with their archives, seeing how much of where history has happened in San Francisco,” they said.
“All the Nights We Got to Dance” appears in the ground floor window of a hotel in the Transgender District (in the Tenderloin). It features replicas of signs from iconic San Francisco LGBTQ+ ven-
San Francisco) has also come to the aid of SF Pride. In an email to constituents March 18, he encouraged people to donate to the organization.
“The parade and festival that unites nearly a million people each June – an event that is not just a cultural landmark, but a major economic driver for our city – is experiencing a big financial setback,” Wiener wrote.
“Why? Because a wave of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, fueled by the Trump administration’s relentless assault on LGBTQ people, is pushing corporations to abandon us. Major corporations have withdrawn from the San Francisco
As the B.A.R. reported last month, APE had initially announced a summer 2025 date for the opening of the theater but pushed it back due to ongoing electric connectivity issues with which APE has a disagreement with the Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
APE’s changes to the interior of the building had elicited opposition from community members, who contended the plans amounted to a wreck-ovation. Groups like the Castro Theatre
ues and bars, such as the Lexington Club, Finocchio’s, and Aunt Charlie’s Lounge.
In an email to the B.A.R., Roberto Ordeñana, executive director of the GLBT Historical Society, described Ariza’s installation as “a breathtaking celebration of queer and trans resilience and joy.”
“By honoring historic spaces that shaped San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ nightlife, Marcel has created a poignant tribute to community, memory, and the vital cultural legacies of these venues,” he wrote.
Ordeñana, a former San Francisco arts commissioner, also touched upon Ariza’s larger contributions as an artist.
“Through their art and activism, Marcel has profoundly impacted the LGBTQ+ community, elevating stories of intergenerational connection, collective care, and cultural resistance. Their work invites us to reflect on the past and inspires us to cherish and protect the spaces where our community and stories thrive,” he commented.
Culture maker
In 2023, Ariza was able to obtain a U.S. passport. It was a meaningful accomplishment for them and a source of inspiration for their art.
“Now that I finally have my passport, I feel this sense of relief, but I also feel like now I can say certain things or do certain work about trans migrants, when I feel like we’re just being a target all over again. So it just feels like crazy timing,” they explained.
Ariza’s currently working on a solo show that will open in August, during Transgender History Month, at Galería de la Raza’s 16th Street studio in the Mission.
“It’s really exciting, because Galería de la Raza is one of the most important art spaces for Latinx artists. So many amazing Latinx artists have shown there since the 1970s. So I’ve always wanted to do that, and it felt like the right time to reach out to Ani Rivera to do this project,” Ariza said.
Rivera did not respond to a request for comment.
Ariza’s show will center on uplifting
Pride Parade in response to Trump’s bullying,” he added.
The B.A.R. previously reported that Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, won’t be returning as a sponsor this year. Still uncertain are sponsorships from other tech companies, including Google, Amazon, and Apple, as well as retailer Target.
An Amazon spokesperson told the B.A.R. March 17 they are looking into the Pride sponsorship matter.
Google, Apple, Target, and Comcast did not return requests for comment. t
Conservancy and the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District lobbied to landmark the fixed, orchestra-style seating inside the theater in an attempt to prevent APE from replacing them with seating that can be retracted so that the venue could be used for concerts as well as for cinema.
These efforts failed, and the theater’s interior was landmarked by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, though not the seating. t
trans Latinx immigrants and creating culture with them.
“My goal for the show is to visualize a lot of people who I feel like are part of the trans community in San Francisco, that maybe are undocumented, monolingual, asylum seekers and to give them a place to know that they’re not struggling with all these things alone,” they shared.
But that’s not their only aim for the project.
“I want someone who is coming from Latin America,” Ariza said, “to see this show as a way of being like, ‘Oh shit. It’s possible to be here. It’s possible to cross the border to fight for who you are and to really become who you want to be without being afraid of losing your life.’”
Queer resilience
The new year brings new leadership, locally with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie replacing London Breed, and nationally with Trump returning to the Oval Office and former President Joe Biden ending his term. Inevitably, changes loom.
For Ariza, the past serves as evidence that the LGBTQ+ community will meet whatever’s to come headon.
“The day after the election, I went back to look at all my queer history books, and I was like, ‘We’ve gotten through different times before,’” Ariza said.
They continued, “It is an insane time; they do want us to be afraid. But I grew up in a place where we would have car bombs going off in the city all the time, and I just refuse to live in fear. I’m like, ‘F*ck no. We’re here. Let’s fight it off.’ So I feel hopeful.”
Pride is a protest after all. t
This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.
“Furthermore, I would actively advocate for policies that specifically protect LGBTQ individuals, with an emphasis on queer youth, LGBTQ elders, and queer people of color,” she stated. This includes implementing
<< Britt building
From page 9
“It’s a very appropriate place” to be named for Britt, Wolfred said, as the late supervisor’s first love was teaching. Britt taught at the former New College of California in the Mission district, which closed in 2008.
robust anti-discrimination laws and streamlining processes for LGBTQ organizations to secure city contracts or other forms of municipal support, Wang added.
The Jack London Square neighborhood has lost many businesses lately, the most recent being the closure of the Waterfront Hotel. The Port of Oakland manages real estate in the square, and Wang stated she would work with the port to reduce its commercial rents.
“The primary population there [at City College] are working class folks, people left behind,” Wolfred said. “Those populations were exactly the folks who Harry was focused on as a supervisor and as a leader in the community.”
In January 1979, the late mayor Dianne Feinstein appointed Britt to the Board of Supervisors following the No-
“I see Jack London Square as having the potential to become an Oakland center of nightlife and entertainment,” she wrote, adding she would work to cut red tape for licensing venues such as clubs, galleries, and arcades. She’d like to reduce parking fees in
vember 1978 assassination of Harvey Milk, the board’s first gay member. Britt won election four times to his seat and served as the board’s first gay president. He opted not to seek reelection in 1992 and stepped down in early January 1993.
He died in June 2020 at the age of 82 at Laguna Honda Hospital.
Recalling a response Britt had given
public garages and improve transit from downtown BART stations to the Amtrak station just off the square to encourage foot traffic. “I am proud that one of the projects the $4 billion infrastructure program I stood up is funding $2 million in improvements to the unsafe underpass between Jack London and downtown/Chinatown,” she wrote, referring to the Biden ad-
to the media when asked about apologizing for the rioting that occurred the night of May 21, 1979 following the lenient sentence given to Milk’s killer, Dan White, who had also assassinated thenmayor George Moscone, Ammiano remarked how relevant it is in today’s political climate.
ministration program she worked on.
Wang would be an asset on the City Council, joining queer colleagues Janani Ramachandran (District 4) and Rowena Brown (at-large). This is a critical time for Oakland’s future. Residents have a chance to put the city back on track by voting for Lee for mayor, and in District 2, Wang for City Council. t
“Harvey Milk’s people do not have to apologize. Now society is going to have to deal with us. Not as nice little fairies who have hair dressing salons, but as people capable of violence. We will not put up with Dan Whites anymore,” replied Britt, whose response was included in the Oscar-winning documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk,” noted Ammiano. t
<< Nail salon
Marcel Pardo Ariza’s “Hire Trans Folks” mural adjacent to Mission and Valencia streets, as it appeared when it was completed in August 2023.
JL Odom
Eddie Izzard
brings a solo ‘Hamlet’ to A.C.T.’s Strand Theater
by Adam Sandel
Tony Award-nominated Eddie Izzard will bring her acclaimed solo performance of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” to San Francisco. Following acclaimed runs in New
York, Chicago, and London, the production, adapted by her brother Mark Izzard and directed by Selina Cadell, will play from April 1 through April 20 at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater.
In a recent phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Izzard, 63, discussed coming out as trans and genderfluid, adding a new first
name, and memorizing the “thirteen-and-a-halfthousand” words in this solo adaptation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece.
A fluid identity
For the record, Izzard came out as transgender in 1985 and gender fluid in 2019, chose to exclu-
sively use she/her pronouns in 2020, and added Suzy to her name in 2023.
“I came out as transgender 40 years ago, but the language was very different then,” she said. “When I came out, they used the words ‘TV’
by Myron Caringal
San Francisco Ballet is about to step into uncharted territory this April in a production titled “Van Manen: Dutch Grandmaster,” bringing its first-ever full program dedicated to the works of Hans van Manen, a towering figure who stands at the intersection of classical dance and queer revolution.
The Dutch choreographer has spent decades redefining ballet’s relationship with gender, stripping away its rigid roles in favor of something more fluid, more electric. His work has long challenged the straightlaced archetypes baked into classical ballet, and for dancers like Joshua
Jack Price, that’s what makes it so exciting. Price, a soloist with SF Ballet, is rehearsing three of the four ballets in the program, “Grosse Fuge,” “Variations for Two Couples,” and “5 Tangos.” He first began working on van Manen’s choreography last June, rehearsing for three weeks before returning to it in March in preparation for the April 5 premiere.
For Price, van Manen’s choreography is simple yet nuanced, like learning a different dialect of classical ballet. What stands out most to Price isn’t just the physicality, but the way van Manen strips away expectation.
“A lot of classical ballet has very strict gender roles and has really pushed the straight male archetype,” Price said. “Van Manen has created
work that is more about tension and atmosphere rather than about sexuality or gender.”
Breaking traditions
For queer dancers, that shift is profound. Ballet, for all its grace, is still deeply entrenched in tradition: where men partner women, strength and softness are assigned, and where the narrative of dance has long been built around heterosexual relationships.
Van Manen’s work breaks that mold. His duets between men aren’t just about romance; they’re about energy and connection.
“There’s a male part in ‘5 Tangos’ that eventually includes two women,” Price explains. “The men are really intensely looking at each other and
moving around each other, but it’s not in a sexual way, which I think is where queer narratives can often be taken on stage. There’s so much more to us as queer people than just being queer.”
Van Manen’s influence extends beyond the movement itself. His work shifts how ballet frames identity. In an art form still grappling with its own traditions, van Manen’s choreography proves that dance is a language that can evolve.
Dance identities
Ballet has historically relied on rigid storytelling conventions, but van Manen’s approach invites interpretation, allowing the audience to
Eddie Izzard in ‘Hamlet’
San Francisco Ballet dancers in Hans van Manen’s ‘Grosse Fugue’
Dancer Joshua Jack Price on challenging the ballet binary
Chris Hardy
Max Mutchnick
‘Will
& Grace’ cocreator on his new gay sitcom,
by Gregg Shapiro
It’s been a long time – perhaps 25 years, when “Will & Grace” debuted – since there’s been so much excitement about a new, queer sitcom premiering. “Mid-Century Modern,”
teeth is because one of those old bitches sat across from me about 25 years ago at a diner and said, “Girl, your teeth are a disaster, and you need to get that fixed immediately.”
What did I know? I was just a kid from Chicago with two nickels in my
Wilton Manors, and I was wondering if that gay enclave was ever in consideration for the setting, or was it always going to be in Palm Springs?
You just asked a really incredible question! Because, during COVID,
We know what our cast is capable of, and we will absolutely exploit that if we’re lucky enough to have a second season. I have a funky relationship with the song “Long Ago (And Far Away).” It doesn’t float my boat, but everybody
“Mid-Century Modern” also utilizes a lot of Jewish humor. How important is it for you to include that at this time when there is a measurable rise in antisemitism?
I think it’s important, but I don’t
2017 Media Kit 0 a
Mission Statement
The Los Angeles Blade covers Los Angeles and California news, politics, opinion, arts and entertainment and features national and international coverage from the Blade’s award-winning reporting team. Be part of this exciting publication serving LGBT Los Angeles from the team behind the Washington Blade, the nation’s first LGBT newspaper. From the freeway to the Beltway we’ve got you covered.
Producers David Kohan and Max Mutchnick IMDB
The late Linda Lavin in ‘Mid-Century Modern’
Left and Right: Matt Bomer, Nathan Lane and Nathan Lee Graham in ‘Mid-Century Modern’ Both photos:
‘Art’ from another age
by Jim Gladstone
Astaple of stages worldwide since its 1994 Paris debut, and now being mounted by Shotgun Players at Ashby Stage in Berkeley through April 12, French playwright Yasmina Reza’s ‘Art,’ is a spiky, urbane comedy aimed precisely at audiences for whom theater attendance and gallery going are requisite signifiers of class at least as much as voluntary pleasures.
That’s the same demographic represented by the play’s trio of well-to-do characters, Marc (David Sinaiko), Serge (Benoit Monin), and Yvan (Woody Harper), who find their friendship of 15 years in crisis after Serge purchases a painting by a hot contemporary artist for more than $200,000.
The canvas in question is all white. So are the cantankerous fellows.
In light of Bay Area theater companies’ admirable efforts to represent diversity and reject white privilege on stage and in seats over the past few years, ‘Art’ feels archaic.
Seen through the lenses prescribed our grassroots spectacle makers, this is a play about three entitled, self-centered, tunnel-visioned assholes squabbling among themselves. The script contains not a single reference to any world wider than their rarified monochromatic milieu.
There’s little reason to get invested in the characters’ individual opinions. The men are more alike than different, more repugnant than relatable, and almost impossible to empathize with.
The cast’s delivery of Reza’s pungent, hostile dialogue is consistently funny. But we laugh at these characters easily and dismissively, without the prickles of self-recognition and complicity that once rippled through Broadway and West End audiences.
Of course, Reza didn’t write ‘Art’ for us. She wrote it for them.
Revealing the undercoat
Even at the time of the play’s debut, the characters’ intellectual arguments over Serge’s new painting were old hat. It was a full two decades since the publication of Tom Wolfe’s bestseller
“The Painted Word,” a pithy, acidic summing-up of the battle between figurative and abstract art which had raged since the early 20th century.
It’s hard to understand why Reza writes her otherwise worldly characters with no knowledge of “all-white” paintings by Albers, Rauschenberg, Ryman and many others.
Marc’s outright dismissal of Serge’s purchase on the basis of aesthetics is as ignorant as a parent’s suggestion that “My three-year-old could do that,” in reaction to a Jackson Pollock.
On the plus side, director Emilie Whelan explores the underpinnings of the characters’ aggression with more success than I’ve seen in other productions of “Art,” making it clear that the argument over the painting is essentially superficial.
The painting is not the real point of contention; it’s a catalyst for unarticulated jealousies, insecurities, other interpersonal conflicts to emerge.
Marc has been Serge’s mentor and role model for years. The fact that his protogée has independently begun to develop some opinions and aesthetics
<< Mid-Century Modern
From page 14
dled sensitively, including the humorous parts.
We knew we had a tall order. We suffered an incredible loss in the middle of making this comedy. One of the reasons why I think this show works is because we are surrounded by a lot of really talented people. Jim Burrows and Ryan Murphy, to name two. Ryan played a very big role in telling us that it was important that we address this, that we address it immediately. That we show the world and the show goes on.
That wasn’t my instinct because I was so inside the grief of losing a friend, because she really was. It wasn’t like one of those show bizzy-type relationships. And this is who she was,
by the way, to everybody at the show. It was the way that we decided to go. Let’s write this now. Let’s not put this at the end of the season. Let’s not “Darren Stevens” the character, which is something we would never do. Because for David and me, as writers, we said we just want to tell the truth. That’s what we want to do with this episode and that’s the way that this will probably go best for us. The way that we’ve dealt with grief in our lives is with humor. That is the way that we framed writing this episode. We wanted it to be a chapter from our lives, and how we experience this loss and how we recover and move on.t
Read the full interview on www.ebar.com.
www.hulu.com
that are truly his own elicits feelings of abandonment, disrespect, and loss of control.
Yvan, a compulsive people-pleaser and commitment-phobe, is too insecure to stick to any opinion and
enables both of his friends’ worst impulses. He’s long submitted to their manipulations, while leading himself to the brink of a nervous breakdown.
(Harper’s performance swings from fragile to feral).
Serge, struggling with isolation after a divorce, bonds to the painting as if it were a companion, and verbally undermines Marc’s relationship with his girlfriend and Yvan’s with his fiancé. He’s also in much better financial straits than either of his friends, a subject of previously unspoken tension.
Less successfully, Whelan embellishes Reza’s crisp, efficient script with a superfluous musical prelude and interlude, as well as some awkward moments of physical comedy involving Scotch tape (An invocation of banana/ duct tape artist Maurizio Cattelan?).
Throughout “Art,” I was intrigued by an item displayed on Serge’s apartment wall other than the white painting: A clock with no hands. I assumed it was intended to be another modern artwork, a functionless readymade à la Duchamp.
But toward the end of the show, one of the characters asked “What time is it?”; looked directly at the clock; then declared “It’s 8:15.”
Like this 30-year-old play, the clock was not timeless.t
‘Art’ through April 12. $23-$80. Shotgun Players’ Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. www.shotgunplayers.org
Join ODC/Dance for LGBTQIA+Night on Saturday April 12th with an after party at W San Francisco Hotel’s Living
David Sinaiko, Woody Harper and Benoît Monin in ‘Art’
David Boyll
Matt Bomer and Nathan Lane in ‘Mid-Century Modern’ Hulu
Arthur Dong films rereleased
by David-Elijah Nahmod
Oscar-nominated San Francisco
native Arthur Dong has dedicated his film career to making documentaries about LGBTQ and Asian American experiences. His queerthemed films in particular have told stories about some rough topics, yet he told them all with a meticulousness which makes each film riveting to watch. That’s not to say that his Asian films are less interesting. On the contrary, they are entertaining and fascinating and give a voice to a community that’s all too often been left in the background.
Kino Lorber, purveyors of classic and cult films on Blu-ray, has released the Arthur Dong Collection, an expansive three-disc box set that features every film Dong has ever made. The collection goes all the way back to an experimental film that he made
in 1970, and continues through to his most recent work.
Early works
Disc one, Asian American Stories, begins with “Sewing Woman” (1982), a short film about his mother that received his Oscar nomination. The disc continues with the highly entertaining “Forbidden City, USA” (1989), which might be of special interest to San Francisco audiences.
It’s a remembrance of a Chinese nightclub that operated in the city from the late 1930s until 1970. The club presented Chinese artists in razzle dazzle musical numbers, giving many performers a chance to work at a time when show business doors were closed to Asian American entertainers. The film includes interviews with many of those performers, and with club owner Charles Low.
The next film, “Hollywood Chi-
nese” (2007), is a fascinating look back at how Hollywood treated and portrayed the Chinese community across
from
the decades. There’s a plethora of film clips, and interviews with Chinese actors like Nancy Kwan, Joan Chen and B.D. Wong, who managed to make their mark on film history.
The film recalls a long-forgotten movie made by a Chinese filmmaker during the silent era, and also looks back upon white actors who performed in what was then known as “yellow face,” i.e. playing Chinese
and ‘TS’ for transvestite or transexual.
These words were from the Latin, and hadn’t been updated since the bloody Romans left in 400 A.D. Using ‘TV’ made it sound like you were a television, so it was all very confusing.”
Izzard admitted that the difference between being transgender and genderfluid may be confusing to cisgender people. “Some people do not feel that they are genderfluid if they’re
transgender, and some people do, so yes, there is a difference. I just know I didn’t choose being trans. I fancy women and if it’s genetics or whatever it is, it’s built into me, so I express myself as a trans woman.”
Having become famous as comedian and actor Eddie Izzard, she’s kept that name professionally, despite going by the name Suzy in her personal life since 2023.
“Eddie is sort of my brand name at the moment, but some people call me Suzy-Eddie like Jean-Marie. I’m trying
through the use of make-up. Two of those actors, Christopher Lee and Luise Rainer, a European actress who won an Oscar for playing a Chinese woman, were interviewed for the film.
The final story is “The Killing Fields of Haing S. Ngor” (2015), a riveting documentary about Ngor, a physician who survived the Cambodian genocide, going on to win an Oscar for starring in “The Killing Fields,” a 1984 film about that genocide. The documentary is a gut-wrenching tearjerker, and a horrifying look at the evils of war. It might just make you admire how truly brave Ngor was.
War and inequality
Disc two, LGBTQ Stories, features four films. In “Coming Out Under Fire” (1994), men and women who served in the armed forces during World War II recall their struggles to keep their sexuality a secret at a time when being queer in the military meant a dishonorable discharge, followed by jail time. Many veterans, now out and proud, shared their memories of having served during that difficult time.
to make it easy so that no one can trip up and feel like they said it wrong. No one can say it wrong unless they call me Arthur or Sabrina.”
Izzard starred as a cis male con man in the FX series “The Riches,” and recently played a trans role in the Netflix series “Kaos.” She’s most interested in playing both cis male and trans roles moving forward, but said, “The roles I’m most drawn to are just good ones, really.”
The play’s the thing
In this solo production, Izzard not only tackles the Mount Everest of acting roles as Hamlet, she plays most of the other characters as well.
“I’ve got two female roles, about five really interesting male roles, and some other supporting characters,” she explained.
She identifies with some of the characters more than others.
“I can understand Claudius,” she said. “I do identify with Hamlet. I can understand Ophelia as well, but Gertrude less so. I would hate to be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They must’ve sensed that they were brought in to be spies. I would’ve been ill that week and not been able to do it somehow.
“Part of me is Fortinbras, the fiery bastard Norwegian who wants to get his country back,” she says. “I’m not like Hamlet in the indecision thing. I’m much more of a ‘go at it’ person than Hamlet is. At the end of Act One, his father says, ‘Avenge me’ and he says, ‘Absolutely.’ Then he takes four more acts to it, and he doesn’t even choose to do it at the end.
But he’s not a hero,” says Izzard. “My director was saying he’s an antihero and I said, ‘I don’t think he’s an antihero, I think he’s an accidental hero.’ We just think of him as heroic since there’s a sword fight at the end.
“The biggest challenge is to get the thirteen-and-a-half-thousand words in your head before you can really get all the arcs of the characters,” she admitted. “I don’t ever ask for a line.
I don’t have anyone on book, so if I lose my way, I’m on my own. This is something I decided to do because it
just forces me to be inside the play and just live it.”t
‘Eddie Izzard Hamlet’ at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater, 1127 Market St. $78-$127. April 1-20. www.act-sf.org www.eddieizzardhamlet.com
<< Eddie Izzard From page 13
Eddie Izzard in ‘Hamlet’
Carol Rosegg
Filmmaker Arthur Dong
A photo of two gay soldiers in ‘Coming Out Under Fire’
A vintage poster
‘Forbidden City, USA’
‘Opus’ gets too close for comfort
by Gregg Shapiro
During these turbulent times, in movies including “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” and “Blink Twice,” filmmakers have been responding with flicks that feature unstable billionaire characters with cult followings such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as the current POTUS. Onscreen, some of these insidious white men get their comeuppance and others simply get away with their dastardly deeds.
In “Opus” (A24), writer/director Mark Anthony Green’s directorial debut feature, young and inquisitive journalist Ariel (out actor Ayo Edebiri) gets the shock of her life when she learns that she is among the chosen tastemakers invited to the secluded Utah compound of semi-retired music legend Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich at his most bizarre). The occasion is the release of Moretti’s first album of new material in 30 years.
In addition to Ariel, her pushy editor Stan (out actor Murray Bartlett), TV entertainment reporter Clara (Juliette Lewis), DJ Bill (Mark Sivertsen), photographer Bianca (Melissa Chambers), and influencer Emily (Stephanie Suganami), are also on the exclusive guest list. While the others, all of whom have a history with Moretti except Ariel, are honored and thrilled to be a part of the event, Ariel approaches the experience with trepidation.
From Moretti’s bizarre entrance to the unusual food served in the din-
<< Arthur Dong
From page 16
“Outrage ’69” (1995) is the first installment of a PBS series, “The Question of Equality.” This film recalls the constant police harassment that led up to the Stonewall Riots, after which the first Pride parades were held and when now defunct organizations like the Gay Activists Alliance were formed.
The film dares to talk about the deep divisions there were in the early days of what was then called the Gay and Lesbian Movement, when women and people of color felt that they were being excluded from white maledominated activism. Interviewees include the legendary drag and trans activist Sylvia Rivera. There’s a 1973 clip of Rivera screaming “Gay power!” from the podium of the Gay Freedom Day rally; an important history lesson.
“Licensed to Kill” (1997) is a disturbing series of interviews with men who murdered other men simply because they were gay. Not one of them shows any remorse in these prison-shot interviews, and two of them admit to having had gay sex. Dong made the film because he himself had managed to escape from a potential gay bashing in San Francisco in 1977. He wanted to understand what makes some people hate gay men so much.
The final film in the LGBT set is “Family Fundamentals” (2002), a sobering look at how conservative Christians try to come to terms with their gay and lesbian children, not always with success. It’s a sad film which shows how religion is often used to judge and reject people just for being who they are.
The third disc features four hours of bonus content. This includes several short films, such as “Public,” an experimental film that Dong made in 1970 when he was a teenager. There are also interviews with Dong.
The Arthur Dong Collection is a fitting tribute to a great filmmaker. His stories are our stories, and they need to be told.t
ing hall to the spooky staff and cultish atmosphere to the requirements placed on the guests (including a neat and trim pubic region), this is meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime event. But Ariel’s not sold on it, and her suspi-
cions continue to be aroused when the caretaker assigned to her tails her too closely while out on a run.
Then things get weirder. Bill disappears (we get to see some of what happened to him), although excuses
are made for his absence. Emily gets sick during the intimate presentation of Moretti’s new music (which involves some truly bizarre dancing on Malkovich’s part) and is whisked away. Meanwhile, Moretti alternately shares
things about himself and then clams up when interacting with Ariel.
Of course, the manipulative Moretti, a devotee of a religious cult called Level, has something special in store for his guests. “Opus” is ultimately a story of revenge, and as the body count mounts in an especially gruesome scene (involving a near-scalping, a brutal stabbing, and an internal choking), Ariel bravely makes her escape, thinking that Moretti staff member Rachel (Tamara Tomakili) is on her side.
Two years later, with Moretti safely behind bars, Ariel is on a book tour for her non-fiction account of what happened to her and the others. Under the impression that the Level cult members also died in a Jonestownesque manner, Ariel has a face-to-face prison meeting with Moretti who reveals the depraved depths of his shocking plan.
Depending on your level of appreciation for this kind of fare, you may leave the theater kind of horror-hungry. Mark Anthony Green is no Ari Aster, after all. However, Edebiri and Malkovich are fantastic, and Green has a knack for blending fright, tension, and humor, meaning that “Opus” is far from an atrocity. Rating: B-t
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Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich in ‘Opus’
A24 Films
‘The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I’d Known’
George M. Johnson’s ‘Flamboyants’ t << Books
by Laura Moreno
T
he exciting new groundbreak-
ing book by George M. Johnson, “Flamboyants: the Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I’d Known,” is an empowering book written specifically for high school students, but one that can be enjoyed by all. Johnson is also the author of the book “We are Not Broken,” and the best-selling author of the memoir “All the Boys Aren’t Blue.”
The author dedicated his new book to those “who choose to live their unapologetic truths despite a world that continues to try to dim their light.”
It’s been a century since the artistic experimentation of the Harlem Renaissance gave birth to jazz, the music art form, in the roaring 1920s and 1930s. Without a doubt it was “one of the queerest historical periods,” Johnson writes.
Johnson, who identifies as nonbinary, is one of the most banned authors in the U.S. today. In particular, he has been banned from school libraries.
“As a Black queer child, I had the right to know that Black queer people existed before me. They paved the road for me to walk on. Yet that road was hidden from me and so many others,” they write.
This non-fiction biographical book is divided into a dozen brilliant essays that fill in personal information about 12 of the most beloved artists of the Harlem Renaissance. It’s a candid
behind-the-scenes look at who these master artists were as individuals, and what they might think about today’s current junction in history.
“Flamboyants” also provides useful historical context within a truly outstanding creative format to help readers get a real sense of the historical period. Johnson does so through their own original poetry, and beautiful illustrations by Charly
Palmer. The colorful, kinetically flamboyant two-page paintings at the start of each essay make “Flamboyants” highly appealing to young people as well.
Artists featured in “Flamboyants” include performer Josephine Baker (on the book cover) who made her mark in France, writer Langston Hughes, writer Zora Neale Hurston, as well as a number of artists who
Readers gain a sense of who the artists are as people through a series of fictional conversations. To his credit, the author does not shy away from difficult truths, as when they write about Josephine Baker being homophobic against her own son, even as she was a symbol of sexual liberation, and similar revelations about the private lives of the artists.
Black culture and Black queer culture in particular are far more influential than most Americans realize. This is an important takeaway from this innovative book. The author documents the direct impact of the queer Harlem Renaissance on today’s queer culture, and Black queer culture today.
Indeed, Black culture is at the forefront of artistic innovation. It is Black culture, in many ways, that has made American culture so appealing on the world stage. From the early days of rock and roll, for example, Elvis Presley and Pat Boone built their extremely successful careers almost entirely on the music of Black and Black queer musicians, like Little Richard.
are not well-known today like Alain Locke, Ma Rainey, and Ethel Waters. It should be noted that although Zora Neale Hurston was admired at the height of her career, she died in poverty, her eight books long out-ofprint. Fortunately for us, her legacy was revived in 1975 by Alice Walker in an article for Ms. magazine. Fame is ephemeral and requires constant renewal.
In the end, perhaps the most amazing fact to emerge from “Flamboyants” is that individual artists and groups of artists can influence history even if they have been left out of it.t
‘Flamboyants: the Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I’d Known’ by George M. Johnson, McMillan Publishers, $18.99. www.us.macmillan.com www.iamgmjohnson.com
Castro Night Market
by Steven Underhill
The monthly Castro Night Market returned on Friday, March 21, with blocked off streets making room for visitors and vendors. Local shops offered samples and wares for sale, DJed music played, gogo dancers shook their groove things, and local officials like Mayor Daniel Lurie, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman and Manny Yuketiel stopped by.
The next event is April 18 (third Fridays). www.castronightmarket.com
For more photos, visit www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife, and www.stevenunderhill.com.
For upcoming nightlife and arts events, see Going Out each week, only on www.ebar.com.
Photos
Author George M. Johnson
Books >>
Michael Amherst’s debut novel
by Gregg Shapiro
W
hen I asked queer writer
Michael Amherst to describe his recently published first novel, “The Boyhood of Cain” (Riverhead Books), he said it “is about a young boy named Daniel, growing up in a rural town in England, who feels misunderstood by his family and his peers. Ultimately, the novel asks what it means to be in flight from yourself – if you both feel and are told there is something wrong with you, can you choose to be someone else? And if not, how do we reconcile ourselves with injustice?”
I don’t think I could have put it better myself. In just under 200 pages, Amherst takes us through Daniel’s “tender, brutal, and enthralling” journey like a seasoned guide.
Gregg Shapiro: Michael, what can you tell us about the inspiration for your debut novel?
Michael Amherst: I’ve always been fascinated by the story of Cain and Abel. That sense of arbitrary injustice and rage, mixed with envy, at being set apart and found wanting, spoke to me. It’s an idea I’ve returned to time and again over many years.
The story is set in the not-toodistant past, but the tone of the writing suggests an earlier time.
My writing has always been spare. I also respond to stories that embrace myth and that also felt relevant to the universal themes of Cain and Abel.
One of the things that stood out for me while reading the book is the way that you captured the adolescent mind: the self-consciousness, the discomfort, the confusion, the establishment of identity, and so on.
I’m drawn to protagonists and
stories that inhabit doubt because by nature, I’m wary of people who are extremely certain about anything. I think Dostoyevsky’s underground man was the first truly modern protagonist in that sense – a man wrestling for meaning and certainty in a world denuded of faith. In that way, the adolescent, or even mature child, who is always asking “why” speaks to that need for meaning and certainty while confronted with a reality which appears to offer little of either.
Early in the book, the tone is set for Daniel’s complicated relationship with his parents. What are the challenges of writing about a character’s parents without indicting your own?
<< SF Ballet
From page 13
witness something more open-ended. That freedom is what makes his work feel so relevant today, particularly in a city like San Francisco, where art has long been a vessel for social progress.
Price, who speaks openly about his own identity and relationship, has seen ballet’s slow but real evolution firsthand.
“San Francisco Ballet has made a lot of progress,” he said. “I just feel so comfortable expressing that in all areas of my life. But we as an entire art form have so much more work to do, especially when it comes to non-gender conforming people and how we look at gender roles, not just in our organization, but in our entire art form.”
That conversation is one van Manen was having long before ballet itself was ready. Created in the 1960s and ’70s, many of his works fearlessly played with gender dynamics, giving women as much weight and authority as men, and treating duets as intricate
negotiations rather than predefined roles.
Price points to “Grosse Fuge,” where no one entity dominates the other.
“Van Manen did a really great job throughout his work that there’s never
I’ve always been very clear that this is fiction, so while there may be correspondences to my own life and my own parents, this is not a portrait.
That being said, J.M. Coetzee said that all writing is, in a sense, autobiographical, even essays and reviews. We reveal something of ourselves and our preoccupations. We’ve all experienced growing up and growing pains in relation to our caregivers. That experience will inform your writing. But the fiction was inhabiting the perspective of a twelveyear-old boy and keeping it as close to that as possible. Any judgement of the parents, I hope, can be seen as the unreliable misunderstandings of a child attempting to make sense of the wider world.
a moment where the tension is uneven,” he said. “Even as early on as the 1960s, he was fearless in telling that narrative.”
That kind of fearlessness feels particularly relevant in today’s ballet world, where conversations about gender and queerness are finally gaining momentum.
“I really hope those conversations continue in a big way,” Price said. “Because I think they’re really necessary and very exciting. It actually opens up our art form to a whole other array of ideas.”
According to Price, Van Manen’s ballets may not offer a clear narrative, but they tell a powerful story of dance unbound by expectation. With this landmark program, SF Ballet is embracing that evolution, staging work that asks its dancers and its audience to see ballet through a different lens.t
San Francisco Ballet’s “Van Manen: Dutch Grandmaster,” $35-$510, April 5-19, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave. www.sfballet.org
Descriptions of Daniel include “he is soft,” that he is allied with “the life of the mind,” and “even cows have the measure of him.” Was it important for you to also depict him as resilient?
Yes, and I feel he is resilient. But I wanted to suggest that oftentimes, resilience can be a burden. Daniel is a boy who is bright and questioning and who uses reason as a means of protecting himself from a world that increasingly feels out of control and threatening. But I, the adult author, believe that to be a trap – that we can become stuck in reason, questioning and trying to make sense of things at the expense of feeling. We can grow lost in our skepticism. That was what I was attempting with Danny, to show a boy who has the means of overcoming the trials of childhood but becomes trapped by his means of doing so.
Daniel becomes “the difficult boy who has an argument with the church.” Did you have a similar religious struggle?
How much of Michael, if any, is in Daniel?
There is certainly some. I was also a very questioning child, but I’ve leant on many other inspirations. Coetzee has been a huge influence, and his character of Davíd in the Jesus trilogy epitomizes what I remember of a child asking – demanding – more of the world than can be answered.
Also, while Daniel’s sexuality is undefined, and deliberately so, I wanted to embrace that sense of perceived difference that is especially true of the queer child growing up. I remain intrigued, though, as to whether some of us become queer as a means of naming or making sense of that perceived difference, or whether it taps in at a very early age to something already there.
My family went to church every Sunday and, having taken it very seriously, I found I could no longer believe what I had been taught. That crisis had a deep impact; still does, in a way. I suppose I long for a faith while feeling my rational mind just cannot sustain or allow it. But I think that speaks to something broader in adolescence, when we begin to question what our parents and adults tell us, and that earlier sense of safety and certainty falls away. t
Read the full interview on www.ebar.com.
www.michaelamherst.com
Harrison James, Sasha De Sola and Joshua Jack Price rehearsing Tamara Rojo’s ‘Raymonda’
Lindsey Rallo
SF Ballet dancer Joshua Jack Price
Chris Hardy
Choreographer Hans van Manen
Author Michael Amherst
Patti LuPone
Joseph Thalken, piano
Songs from a Hat
The decorated Broadway star sings an intimate cabaretstyle evening of songs, with the titles randomly chosen from a hat—expect signature favorites from the musicals that made LuPone a household name, such as Evita, Gypsy, Company, and Les Misérables, woven together with stories from her remarkable life in the limelight.
Apr 5
ZELLERBACH HALL, BERKELEY
BAY AREA PREMIERE Grupo Corpo 21 and Gira
Co-led by brothers Paulo and Rodrigo Pederneiras, the riveting Brazilian company visits in its Cal Performances debut, with two works rooted in classical ballet but enriched by folk and popular dance, that explore the profound connections between music and movement.
Apr 25–26
ZELLERBACH HALL, BERKELEY
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
The company’s legendary dancers return to Berkeley with programs that feature the Bay Area premieres of four works by Jamar Roberts, Matthew Rushing, Hope Boykin, and Lar Lubovitch; two new productions by Ronald K. Brown and Elisa Monte, plus beloved Ailey classics including Revelations
Apr 8–13
ZELLERBACH HALL, BERKELEY
The English Concert
Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto Harry Bicket, conductor Cast to include: Christophe Dumaux, countertenor (Giulio Cesare) Louise Alder, soprano (Cleopatra)
The celebrated British ensemble returns with a concert performance of Handel’s blockbuster heroic opera, a story of love, betrayal, family drama, and political intrigue that recounts the historic meeting of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. It is hard to overstate the sublime performances director Harry Bicket coaxes from his brilliant soloists and his truly stellar ensemble.
