Trans photographer Loren Rex Cameron dies Obituaries>>

by Cynthia Laird

Loren Rex Cameron, a trans man whose seminal book of portraits and self-portraits of trans male bodies resonated deeply with many, died November 18, 2022 in Berkeley. He was 63.

Mr. Cameron, who went by Rex in later years, was perhaps best known for his first book, “Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits” (Cleis Press), which was published in 1996. It documents the process of transition and everyday lives of the author and other trans men. It was praised for its intimate yet respectful portrayal of trans men and was a double Lambda Literary Award winner that year.

Many people believe that it remains a milestone of the subject of FTM

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Jay Correia, a supervisor in the state office’s cultural resources pro grams, registration and project re view units, told the B.A.R. that since the Compton’s site is being nomi nated at the national level of signifi cance, rather than just the local or state level, it requires greater scrutiny in order to be approved. It is likely why the approval process is taking longer than the normal 45 days for most listings, he wrote in an emailed reply Monday.

“This is, in effect, stating that the history of this place is not significant to just San Francisco or California, but to the entire nation! National level of significance is a very high bar to achieve, and the nomination is go ing through several levels of review at the National Park Service in Wash ington, D.C.,” wrote Correia.

Dylan Weir, a bi man, worked on the LGBTQ protests project with Stein during his time in graduate school from January 2021 to Decem ber 2022, he wrote in an email. He helped Stein gather primary source documents from a variety of outlets, including many LGBTQ publica tions such as the B.A.R., the Advo cate, Daughters of Bilitis newsletters, and others.

“Finding these sources was fasci nating work, and it taught me a lot about San Francisco history as well as the dynamic of social movements,” Weir wrote. “I was especially interest ed in the constant debates within the movement over the efficacy of radi cal direct action versus more main stream political advocacy, debates that played out pretty dramatically in the pages of these publications postStonewall.”

Weir added that the most chal lenging aspect of the project was pro ducing data analytics on the list that would be included in the introduc tion. “This process involved collect ing data from the list of almost 650 actions and using that data to build an Excel spreadsheet table.”

Weir added that once that was completed, he also produced analyt ics that showed the activity during months/years – 1970 was busiest, he noted – and those with the highest participation numbers.

The report includes lists of the cit ies, states, and months that featured the largest number of LGBTQ di rect actions, along with the protests that featured the largest number of participants, the largest number of arrests, and the longest sustained ac tions during the period studied. The 20 largest actions involved more than 1,000 participants, the release stated.

Not surprisingly, San Francisco is at the top of the list, with 148 docu mented protests during the nine-year period, according to the study. It’s followed closely by New York City (142), Los Angeles (93), Washington, D.C. (43), and Chicago (40). Berke ley ranks seventh with 21. Other documentation.

“He was such an incredibly sweet guy, and I found that he valued genuine connections,” Gabriel Haaland, a trans man and former Bay Area resident, wrote in a Facebook message to the Bay Area Reporter. “You could see it so clearly in his eyes. It felt like there weren’t that many of us back in the early 1990s and it meant a lot to know him. I am so grateful for all that he did for our community.”

Haaland recalled a book signing that Mr. Cameron did at the old A Different Light Bookstore in San Francisco’s LGBTQ Castro neighborhood. He said that Mr. Cameron’s book helped him as a trans man.

“I literally stopped breathing for a minute when I saw his book,” Haaland wrote. “It brought such an intensely beautiful visibility that profoundly broke through so much internalized fear and insecurity within me.”

Matt Rice, another friend of Mr. Cameron’s, wrote in an email that they had not been in touch with him for a long time and only recently found out that he had passed away.

“I knew Loren as one of the guys who attended FTM support groups that eventually became FTM International,” wrote Rice, who identifies as a pan nonbinary trans guy. “He took photos of a bunch of us in that group that became the ‘Body Alchemy’ book. Those books, which included a photo of me, were truly transformative for so many gender-diverse people who did not otherwise have access to the peer group we had built in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Rice added that Mr. Cameron “loved his little dogs and made lots of friends in Berkeley walking them.”

An online obituary for Mr. Camer- on noted that as well as his published work, Mr. Cameron exhibited his art in galleries and lectured at universities. In addition to “Body Alchemy,” Mr. Cameron published an online book, “Man Tool: The Nuts and Bolts of Female-to-Male Surgery,” which also contained self-portraits and photos of other trans men.

The TransGuys.com Facebook page paid tribute to Mr. Cameron, noting his photos were an inspiration to many trans guys.

According to the Digital Transgender Archive, Mr. Cameron’s papers are held in the Cornell University Library.

Mr. Cameron was born March 13, 1959. The online obituary noted that Mr. Cameron was a solitary person. He is survived by three sisters. t

COVID enters its fourth year, and Aiello hopes that the campaign will help change that perception by showcasing the neighborhood as welcoming to new businesses.

The campaign’s page on the CBD website “provides a convenient onestop shop for anyone looking to open a business in the neighborhood,” the CBD stated. This includes a map of commercial, ground-floor vacancies, and information on the city departments that help entrepreneurs.

“The website has all the demographics about the neighborhood, why you’d want to be in the Castro and links to all the neighborhood associations,” Aiello said. That same website shows 66 vacant spaces, of which some have been occupied. A 2016 count by the B.A.R. had found at least 19 vacant ground floor spaces for lease and another 13 empty storefronts where businesses were trying to move in.

Aiello said the campaign spent $30,000 from a grant from the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

As for how long the posters will be up, “we have not determined that yet.” When asked if she’d call the project a success, Aiello said, “it’s just started” but added that she has had positive feedback from prospective renters.

The posters, which feature an anthropomorphic cartoon character of a building with a purse and black high-heeled boots, are being put up by Ralph Hibbs, a gay man who lives in the Castro and is a member of the CBD’s retail committee.

“I have the time,” Hibbs said, adding he spends it by doing “a lot of walking around the district, verifying the data that we have is correct. ... In a lot of places, a space is vacant and the previous tenant has the lease.”

Hibbs gets joy trying to make his community a better place.

“It’s exciting watching people walk by and seeing them interact with the

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From page 4

While every conversation may not end with a decision on coming out or not, the safe space and ability for callers to connect with LGBTQ peer posters, because the posters are kind of cute,” Hibbs said. “It’s a play on a dating app. It’s pink; it’s vibrant; it caters to people’s eye. There’s a QR code.”

Hibbs said if any property owner is interested in having the poster on site, “I can be there in 15 minutes to hang the posters.”

Masood Samereie, president of

Aria Properties in the Castro, is a straight ally who is a past president of the merchants association. He said of the new campaign, “it’s good to see, but it’s not the only thing.”

“I hope it’s successful but there are challenges – cleanliness, security, and safety of the business corridor, which the city has not been able to overcome and then, when someone signs a lease, there are so many hoops they have to go through of the city bureaucracy and red tape – and that’s after they have to negotiate a deal with some, not all, but some unreasonable landlords,” Samereie said.

Samereie added that despite many meetings with city officials over the years, “we haven’t been able to make volunteers is important, the release stated. that much of an impact.”

The hotline phone number is 1-888-OUT-LGBT (1-888-688-5428) and the dedicated website is www.lgbtcomingout.org.

“It’s better than not having done anything so hopefully it will be successful and hopefully we’ll see more progress,” he said.

Mayor’s office responds

Jones said that the neighborhood’s current woes are from a confluence of factors, and that Mayor London Breed should get directly involved.

“This is not something that can be solved by the [Castro] Merchants Association or by Supervisor Mandelman,” Jones said. “The buildings that house the businesses of the Castro are old. They’re very old and they’re deteriorating. When you take that and the need for upgrades and you add the corrupt incompetence of DBI [the Department of Building Inspection], and landlords who think they can still charge these enormous rents, what you have is this combination of an insane permit process, astronomical rent, deteriorating infrastructure, it’s created the perfect storm.”

DBI has been plagued by scandal

Oakland veterans call for city commission

A group of Oakland veterans is calling on the city to establish a commission that would represent and advocate for their needs on issues such as homelessness, mental health, housing, and employment.

Three veterans are behind the effort: Diane Williamson, CEO of the Veterans Community Media Network; Charles Blatcher III, chairman of the National Coalition of Black Veterans Organizations; and Jeff Sheibels, a member of the American Legion National Legislative Council. Sheibels, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard, said that LGBTQ veterans in Oakland are welcome to join the effort.

Thomas V. Halloran General Manager

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In a news release, the three pointed out that California is home to over 1.8 million former service members, which is the largest veteran population in the U.S. According to the U.S. census, 11,585 live in Oakland. Of these, an estimated 529 veterans are homeless and over 1,000 either suffer from chronic homelessness or are at risk of becoming homeless, the release stated.

The advocates also pointed out that the VA housing program can take six

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From page 6 for several years, with former employees accused of accepting inappropriate gifts and favoritism, as the San Francisco Chronicle has reported.

These three people seem highly qualified and deserve a fair hearing by the supervisors. They each bring a unique perspective to provide oversight to the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. This city department has a $600 million budget and, until voters passed Prop C, no formal oversight. Thankfully, that is about to change.

When asked for specifics, Jones said that “the permit process must be streamlined and made into something that can be navigated. You have to hire an expediter to get you through the process? That’s ridiculous. I don’t pretend to be an expert but I’ve heard this over and over and over from people who want to open businesses and it’s a nightmare.”

For its part, Jeff Cretan, a spokesperson for Breed, told the B.A.R. in response that “the mayor has implemented significant reforms around small business permitting in this city over the last two years,” including Prop H, the Small Business Recovery Act, and a new permit center “which has brought together all the permitting agencies under one roof (not just for small business but also for home construction and others) to improve the ease for small businesses seeking to open.” months or longer to place a veteran in housing or to provide rental assistance. “Many of the offices, which are run by the Veterans Administration, are in the Oakland Federal Building and very difficult to get into when you are in need of assistance,” the release noted. The Oakland Vet Center is near Oakland International Airport and is not easy to get to via public transit, while the Alameda County veterans service office is located in the old Eastmont Mall, which they said is in an unsafe neighborhood. Williamson, Blatcher, and Sheibels think a city commission would be able to advise the mayor and City Council, provide a plan for reducing veteran homelessness, and assist in having the county relocate its veterans center. They would also like a VA hospital in the county, as currently veterans must seek care at the San Francisco VA, which also takes a great deal of time to travel to, they noted.

There will be a call to action Thursday, March 9, at noon at Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, to raise awareness and ask Oaklanders for their support.

For more information and to sign a change.org petition, go to https://bit. ly/3Z1DuZU.

With all the qualified people in San Francisco, the mayor should have nominated someone without Aiyer’s baggage. While he has apologized, his previous attitude for the expense billing (that it was standard practice for officials at his level) is troubling and not accurate, according to reports. Additionally, investigators found that once his credit card was reactivated, Aiyer continued to charge impermissible expenses, the Chronicle reported.

Cretan and Kathy Tang, executive director of the San Francisco Office of Small Business, said that the new small business permit specialists (https://sf.gov/location/small-business-permitting-help) have replaced the need for hiring an expediter.

“They help small business entrepreneurs with everything from the initial exploration phase, to advancing permits that are in the queue but ‘stuck’ for some reason, to the last phase (e.g., coordinating inspections) to be able to open,” Tang stated. “In addition to helping businesses navigate the city’s permitting process, our small business permit specialists are constantly looking out for ways to make the process easier. The small business permitting service is something that we have been publicizing through multiple merchant walks each week, social media, newsletters, and other outreach efforts, and we would appreciate your assistance in helping us publicize this free service as well.”

A spokesperson for DBI did not respond to a request for comment for this report as of press time. The B.A.R. could not locate small business owners who’ve had trouble opening who wished to speak about their predicaments with the city on the record.

“I think it’s fantastic there’s a new permitting center that’s one-stop shopping,” Aiello said. “At the same time, we have had high-profile vacant storefronts at key locations leased for years and they’re still empty. Why is it taking so long?”

Jones, who first came to San Francisco as a 19-year-old Arizonan, said that there are at least a few reasons for hope, though.

“San Francisco remains an incredibly beautiful city, and despite the incredible cost of living in San Francisco, it still remains the home of an enormous number of extraordinarily creative and innovative people,” Jones said. “San Francisco goes through its cycles – we’re going through another one now – but it’s still one of the most beautiful cities on earth.” t

IRS extends tax deadline in Bay Area

The IRS has announced that a previous May deadline for disaster area taxpayers in California has been extended to October 16.

Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) tweeted February 27 that most of California is included in the disaster area, a result of the winter storms in late December and January, including all nine Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma.

According to an IRS news release, “The additional relief postpones until October 16, various tax filing and payment deadlines, including those for most calendar-year 2022 individual and business returns. This includes: Individual income tax returns, originally due on April 18; various business returns, normally due on March 15 and April 18; and returns of taxexempt organizations, normally due on May 15.”

The new deadline also includes disaster area taxpayers in Alabama and Georgia.

For more information, the IRS release is available at https://bit. ly/3SOQ5gZ. t

Aiyer’s nomination sends the wrong message to city residents, whose taxes in large part pay for the homelessness services the commission would provide oversight over, and to the unhoused in the city who rely on the department’s programs. The city should not be inaugurating a new commission – or any oversight panel, for that matter – with a member who has so carelessly disregarded the public’s trust and taxpayers’ dollars. t