May 7th, 2020 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Cisneros talks taxes

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B.A.R. extends campaign

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Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971

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Courtney Brousseau

Bi transit advocate dies after shooting

SF LGBT history museum plans shelved amid virus outbreak The former Coldwell Banker office in the Castro, boarded up due to the coronavirus outbreak, was considered by the GLBT Historical Society as an interim site for its new LGBT museum.

by John Ferrannini

by Matthew S. Bajko

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bisexual man who co-founded a group for LGBT public transit enthusiasts has died at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital after being one of two people injured in a Friday night shooting in the city’s Mission district.

A hospital spokesperson confirmed to KPIX-TV that Courtney Brousseau, 22, died late Monday, May 4, after having been on life support.

Brousseau was one of two people injured by gunshots that rang out near the intersection of Guerrero and 14th streets around 8:22 p.m.

Friday, May 1. The other victim, an 18-yearold male, sustained less critical injuries.

A tweet sent by Brousseau just minutes earlier – in which he wrote that eating a burrito in Mission Dolores Park made everything feel OK for a brief moment – received numerous responses of people wishing well and expressing their condolences.

About 50 to 60 bullets were exchanged in what is suspected by police to have been a drive-by gunfight. Police said they are still investigating.

“We do not have any updates to provide at this time for this active and ongoing investigation,” a police spokesperson stated to the B.A.R. May 4. “We do not have an arrest directly tied to the shooting and are actively following up on leads, motives, and eyewitness statements.”

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman posted about the shootings on his Facebook page, before Brousseau’s identity was widely known.

“The details of last night’s shooting incident near Guerrero and 14th Streets are chilling and heartbreaking,” Mandelman wrote Saturday.

“More than fifty rounds were fired, and by the time it was over two people had been shot.

One of these was a bystander who is currently in critical condition at SF General. We have See page 10 >>

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n light of the global pandemic brought on by the novel coronavirus, a San Francisco nonprofit that was planning to build the first full-scale LGBT history museum in the U.S. has shelved its plans for the time being.

Instead, it is pivoting its efforts to creating a virtual museum and archival center using its vast holdings collected over the last three-anda-half decades.

It could now be five to 10 years or longer before the concept becomes a brick-and-mortar reality, GLBT Historical Society Executive Director Terry Beswick told the Bay Area Reporter in an exclusive interview May 4.

“We don’t see a virtual museum as being an adequate substitute for an in-person museum. Yet I have to recognize opening a museum of a larger scale is not within our reach in the short term,” said Beswick. “And I am not even sure our current small mu-

seum that we have boarded up right now – if we are going to be able to open that up this year.”

Beswick stressed that the nonprofit isn’t “going to give up” on its dream of building the larger museum, pegged to cost in the tens of millions of dollars. And he noted a drop in real estate prices in the city brought on by a recession due to the health crisis could change its plans and present an opportunity for moving forward.

See page 10 >>

Wiener bill would mandate SOGI data for COVID-19 in California

by John Ferrannini

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ay state Senator Scott Wiener introduced legislation May 5 requiring that the state of California collect the sexual orientation and gender identity data of novel coronavirus patients.

If it becomes law, Senate Bill 932 would track how many LGBT people are being infected, hospitalized and placed in intensive care, as well as how many have recovered versus died.

“We know that COVID-19 is harming the LGBTQ community, but because no data is being collected, we’re hamstrung in making the case to devote attention and resources,” Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, stated in a news release. “The history of the LGBTQ community is a history of fighting against invisibility.

Without data, we quickly become an invisible community and risk being erased. California must lead and collect this critical health data.”

Wiener has been an advocate for the state collecting this information so that researchers and others can learn how COVID-19 is affecting the LGBT community versus other populations.

Rick Gerharter

State Senator Scott Wiener

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, the National LGBT Cancer Network anticipates that LGBT people are more likely to die if they become infected with the novel coronavirus because of the higher presence of

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comorbidities in the communities.

These include higher instances of smoking, HIV-infection and cancer, as well as discrimination in the medical community.

While governments are keeping track of race and sex, most are not collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity – which makes identifying health disparities between LGBTs and the wider society more difficult.

California is not collecting data on sexual orientation or gender identity. The city of San Francisco is collecting gender identity data, according to an April 7 email from the Department of Emergency Management.

San Francisco Assemblyman David Chiu (D) has long been an advocate for collection of SOGI data. Chiu, a straight ally, introduced legislation that became law last year, increasing the number of state agencies required to ask SOGI data on their forms. Chiu was also instrumental in making sure agencies dealing with health services began collecting SOGI data in 2018.

“I have long believed that SOGI data is absolutely critical to reducing disparities in our See page 10 >>

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<< Community News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • May 7-13, 2020

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Gay SF treasurer helps lead city’s crisis response

by Matthew S. Bajko

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orking from his home since March due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, San Francisco Treasurer-Tax Collector José Cisneros is confronting the biggest economic crisis of his political and professional career.

Cisneros, a gay man, has overseen collection of the city’s taxes and financial investments since being appointed in 2004. After winning election in 2005, he has been uncontested for the position, which is not term limited, and was just re-elected to another fouryear term last November.

Having help lead the city through the economic turmoil brought on by the 2008 recession, Cisneros told the Bay Area Reporter in a recent phone interview that the challenges the city faced then pale in comparison to what it is contending with today.

“While many of us were impacted, the biggest pain was on a lot of big corporations and particularly the big banks. We even saw a huge investment bank, Lehman Brothers, go out of business; it totally collapsed and failed,” recalled Cisneros. “The bulk of the crisis there was in the financial system and that drove us crazy in a lot of ways. It didn’t have much immediate impact on smaller businesses and individuals the way this has just hit everybody really hard in a really fast way. Many businesses, large and small, suffered in 2008 and 2009, but it wasn’t like now with 26 million people on unemployment in the U.S. or losing their jobs.”

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Cynthia Laird

San Francisco Treasurer-Tax Collector José Cisneros

Because the investments he oversees are not in the stock market but in savings bonds, Cisneros said there is no impact to the principal invested but the amount of interest accrued has dipped slightly.

“I am here to guarantee you all our taxpayer money we invest is all safe,” he stressed. “We have them in the very safest investments we can have.”

Working in conjunction with Mayor London Breed and the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Cisneros has been trying to offer as much fiscal relief as he can to small business owners and homeowners in the city who have been severely impacted by the orders for nonessential businesses to shutter their doors and for most people to sequester themselves at home in order to slow the spread of the virus.

Those orders are currently in place through May 31, though some restrictions are slowly being lifted as the number of newly infected people begins to dip.

“We knew this crisis would hit small business hard and last at least a few weeks if not a few months,” said Cisneros. “Right now, everything is in turmoil. They are doing everything they can to pay their rent and to support their employees. But small businesses don’t have deep pockets. We wanted to do everything we could to make sure they were going to survive.”

With only a bare minimum of his 200 staff members continuing to work at their City Hall offices, Cisneros worked with the mayor and supervisors on delaying collection of property tax bills that were initially due April 10. They are now due May 15 and the treasurer’s office will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 13 and 14, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 15 for people who can’t pay their bill online or by mail.

People will need to wear a face mask, bring cash and their property tax bill stub, and enter City Hall from the Grove Street entrance. In announcing the new deadline for payment, board President Norman Yee stressed that those taxpayers unable to meet it because of the COVID-19 health emergency can apply for penalty waivers.

“We recognize property owners are struggling and we are working with the Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector to ensure that additional customer service and support are offered,” stated Yee, who See page 8 >>

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National News>>

May 7-13, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

LGBT electeds sound off on COVID-19 Health care discrimination

by John Ferrannini

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ix LGBT elected officials from across the nation came together in a Zoom town hall April 30 to discuss how the community should respond to the twin health and economic crises caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak.

“We know that COVID-19 has created problems for every community around the world, and we also know that our community, the LGBT community, is being impacted,” gay California state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said as he began the town hall.

Joining Wiener were Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D), the first openly gay man ever elected as a state governor; lesbian California state Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton); gay New York state Senator Brad Hoylman (D), who represents some of Manhattan’s queerest neighborhoods – Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen – in that state’s upper chamber and who said he was a former law school classmate of Wiener’s; Pennsylvania state Representative Malcolm Kenyatta (D), who is the first gay person of color elected to that state’s Legislature; and lesbian Texas state Representative Julie Johnson (D), one of Dallas County’s first LGBT lawmakers.

The state senators and Polis avoided clashing on the issue of whether states and the federal government should collect data on whether COVID-19 patients are LGBT, though it was clear they had different positions.

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, many municipalities ask patients for data on their sex and race but not on their sexual orientation and gender identity. Wiener has been an advocate for greater data col-

Screengrab via zoom.com

New York state Senator Brad Hoylman, upper left, participated in an online town hall April 30 with, clockwise, California state Senator Scott Wiener, Pennsylvania state Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, California Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, and Texas state Representative Julie Johnson.

lection, going so far as to introduce a bill requiring state collection of SOGI data on COVID-19 patients.

[See related story, Page 1.]

“We have higher rates of upper respiratory issues and higher rates of illness and immunosuppression,” Hoylman said. “And, in an economic crisis, it’s always LGBT people who are the hardest hurt.”

As per the B.A.R.’s most recent reporting, California is not collecting data on either question, but the city of San Francisco is collecting data on the gender identity of patients. The state of New York is not doing SOGI data collection, either, citing Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) in saying that the virus does not discriminate.

Polis, however, gave an explanation for the lack of data collection in the Centennial State.

“You run into the same issue here as anywhere,” Polis said. “There’s a lot of people (LGBT patients) in Colorado who don’t want that info out there; less maybe than in Hell’s Kitchen or Chelsea. While we love

data, we don’t want to ask people for data they are not comfortable sharing.”

Wiener and Hoylman pushed back.

“We want it to be voluntary for people,” Wiener said. “It’s a social issue – we see it in the federal government, we see it in every state.”

Kenyatta said that he intends to introduce a bill in Pennsylvania calling for SOGI data collection for COVID-19 patients.

“It’s a continuing pattern of erasure happening on all levels of government,” Kenyatta said. “In many cases, the worst thing that can happen to you is being completely ignored. ... When I introduce it, look it up on the Pennsylvania House website, steal it, and include it in your state.”

Polis had to leave the call early, saying he hoped the legislators would “visit Colorado soon, when all is well.” Wiener praised him as “a trailblazer to be a governor and a member of our community.”

The topic then turned to a recent report that President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services may soon change rules preventing discrimination against people in health care on the basis of their LGBT identities.

Johnson said that the issue is not new in her state: Texas Republicans have been trying to pass similar regulations to what Trump officials are proposing for the nation.

“There were a number of bills here by the Republicans that would allow people to refuse treatment,” Johnson said. “Thankfully, we were able to defeat that. But elections matter. We’re close to flipping the Texas House (of Representatives) and this state is dead-ass last in health care. There’s always a huge gap and the LGBT community is really affected by that.

We have a crisis here in Texas about health care affordability.”

Hoylman said that LGBT people are worried about a field hospital set up in Central Park by Samaritan’s Purse, a medical organization run

by Franklin Graham, the son of the late-Southern Baptist minister Billy Graham, who has said as recently as last year that homosexuality is a sin that should not be “flaunted.”

Volunteers at Graham’s field hospital have to agree with his teachings on homosexuality.

“It’s such a shame that because of the shortage of ventilators that we have to accept charity from a bigot like him,” Hoylman said, before adding that the people working at the field hospital have had to sign papers that they will uphold New York nondiscrimination policies.

Financial support

All of the legislators agreed on the need to support LGBT nonprofits.

Eggman said that lawmakers are going to have to make “tough decisions” with next year’s budget.

Hoylman, apparently referencing a surplus of $21 billion secured by former Governor Jerry Brown (D), asked “doesn’t California have a ‘rainy day’ fund?”

“It’s pouring outside,” Eggman said. “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring. We are lucky that we had that fund so that it’s (the deficit) not going to be worse.”

Johnson said that state support pushed by religious nonprofits in the state of Texas has had the unintended effect of supporting LGBT nonprofits, too.

“We need to make sure donors know that supporting LGBT nonprofits is more important now than ever,” Johnson said. “It’s so important that we step up and donate.”

Wiener warned that LGBT nonprofits are going to have a very tough time and that both public and private sector support is crucial to their survival. Indeed, in California, 137 LGBT nonprofit leaders signed a letter to Newsom asking that he use federal money made available by the CARES Act to help support them.

“We built these structures to take care of our own community,” Wiener said. “We built these ourselves, to support our community, and I’m worried we are going to see a huge number of LGBT nonprofits – who don’t have large endowments, who don’t have angel donors, who are reliant on events – close their doors.”

Wiener is known primarily by many Californians as a lawmaker focused on the state’s housing crisis.

Hoylman said he often takes bills that Wiener introduces in California and “steals” them for New York.

Kenyatta said that the housing

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<< Open Forum

4 • Bay Area Reporter • May 7-13, 2020

Volume 50, Number 19 May 7-13, 2020 www.ebar.com

PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird CULTURE EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • John Ferrannini CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Roger Brigham • Brian Bromberger Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Dan Renzi Michael Flanagan • Jim Gladstone David Guarino • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr • Lisa Keen Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger David-Elijah Nahmod • Paul Parish Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota Gregg Shapiro • Gwendolyn Smith Sari Staver • Charlie Wagner Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood

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We need SOGI data for COVID-19

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s researchers race to understand the effects of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, it’s clear that African Americans across the country are dying at higher rates than the general population. In San Francisco, Latinos are disproportionately affected, and the Mission district as well as the BayviewHunters Point neighborhood are seeing particularly high rates of infection.

In California, data about one risk group is not being collected – LGBTs. (San Francisco is collecting gender identity data, according to an email from the Department of Emergency Management, but it is not gathering information on sexual orientation.) We need data for sexual orientation and gender identity – called SOGI – not just in San Francisco but also throughout the state.

A bill authored by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) will attempt to close the gap in data gathering. As we reported online Monday night, Senate Bill 932 would expand COVID-19 data to include the LGBTQ community.

This new information will help government leaders, public health officials, and others understand the impact of the pandemic on queer people. It is the first legislation of its kind, Wiener noted in a news release, as neither the federal government nor any of the 50 states have passed one.

Since the outbreak began in this country earlier this year, we have reported on how LGBTQ people are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. The National LGBT Cancer Network, for instance, anticipates that LGBT people are more likely to die if they become infected with the coronavirus because of the higher presence of comorbidities in the communities.

These include higher instances of

smoking, HIV-infection and cancer, as well as discrimination in the medical community. The Affordable Care Act prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, but trans people still routinely encounter bias in the health care system, like refusal of care or being treated unfairly by medical personnel. Like many minority groups, a lot of trans people live in poverty, which makes accessing health care difficult. These factors increase the likelihood that we’ll be overlooked by medical professionals and government policy if we don’t have accurate data on how the pandemic affects us.

Wiener also noted that there are higher rates of homelessness and youth homelessness in the LGBTQ community, which is an additional risk factor for COVID-19, as unhoused people are less able to physically distance.

Several years ago, some state agencies began collecting SOGI data. Due to legislation authored

by Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) signed in 2015 by then-Governor Jerry Brown, California’s departments of health care services, public health, social services, and aging are now

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required to begin collecting demographic data on LGBT people. So, the framework for LGBTQ COVID-19 data collection should be in place. In its Fair Share for Equality report released in early 2016, the statewide LGBT advocacy group Equality California noted, “The collection of accurate, timely data about the LGBT community is vital to reducing disparities in health and well-being, simply because if we are not counted, we do not count.” According to Wiener’s release, EQCA is a sponsor of SB 932.

It’s important to note that privacy concerns will be addressed in the legislation. SB 932 calls for data to be anonymized, and self-reporting of sexual orientation and gender identity will be optional but encouraged.

During a recent virtual town hall, Wiener and gay Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) disagreed about the importance of SOGI data. Polis said his state’s LGBTQ residents may not want to share their personal information. But that shouldn’t matter if the data are anonymous.

The state Legislature is beginning to return to work after a lengthy recess forced by distancing and shelter-in-place orders. The Assembly was back in session Monday; the state Senate returns May 11. Given the grave economic fallout and health issues, the Legislature is expected to only hear matters dealing with the virus, like addressing shuttered businesses or the shortage of antibody tests. Wiener’s bill should be approved by both houses and signed

by Governor Gavin Newsom. It is only by gathering complete data on COVID-19 – including information on LGBTQs – that health officials will be able to develop a clearer profile of the disease and who is at most risk of being infected. This, in turn, will help guide the state’s response to the pandemic, which is likely to remain with us until a reliable vaccine is widely available. t

COVID-19 reminds us how AIDS made us resilient

by John-Manuel Andriote

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n my desk are three mementos of the AIDS pandemic. They remind me of what we lived through in the frightening early years of a plague that seemed hell-bent on killing gay men – and the high price we have paid for our resilience, as individuals and as a community.

Our resilience is once again being tested in the COVID-19 pandemic as we draw upon the lessons that our lives, and AIDS, forced us to learn under the duress of the earlier (and still ongoing) pandemic.

In the past decade we’ve heard about “Jersey strong” after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, “Boston strong” after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and “Houston strong” after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. It’s about having the grit, determination, and hope for the future to press onward even after a traumatic event has divided our lives into “before” and “after.”

I deliberately titled my latest book and Psychology Today blog “Stonewall Strong” to make the point that we gay men (and others in our LGBTQ end of the spectrum) know a lot about resilience – and have much to teach others about it.

From the first time anyone points out that we are “different” and suggests that it makes us bad, less than, or wrong, we’re forced to choose between telling our own story in our own voice – or letting our bullies tell it about us.

AIDS was the biggest bully ever. It brutalized our hearts, our chosen families, and our communities across the country and around the world.

Those already prone to condemn and hate us for being different gloated in what they considered “proof” that even Mother Nature supported their prejudice.

But that public health crisis also forced so many of us to come out of our closets, embrace our true selves, and step up to support our community’s heroic efforts to care for the sick and dying, prevent others from becoming infected, push in the streets and lobby in the corridors of power for the resources needed to address the pandemic’s massive challenges.

AIDS created a level of solidarity and visibility

Courtesy John-Manuel Andriote

John-Manuel Andriote

LGBTQ America had never known before. Our efforts to meet its massive challenges revealed to us, and to the world, our courage, resolve, and tremendous love for one another. The Names Project’s AIDS Memorial Quilt was our declaration to the world that we would tell the stories of our lives, our way. (The National AIDS Memorial Grove now oversees the quilt.)

The first gay men to go public about having AIDS understood this necessity to seize the narrative. They insisted in 1983 on being known as “people with AIDS” – not AIDS victims. They demanded that their personhood, not a medical diagnosis, define them. They understood the power of seizing authorship of their personal stories because it’s what they’d already done in coming out. They weren’t about to let stigmatizing attitudes about HIV/AIDS take away that power.

“Silence = Death” reads the black pin on my desk with an inverted pink triangle. It deliberately ties ACT UP’s in-your-face efforts to “fight back, fight AIDS,” as the group’s slogan put it, with the persecution of gay men forced to wear the pink triangle in the Nazis’ concentration camps 40 years earlier. The pin reminds me that information is power, that staying up-to-date with factual information matters and is an important way to tamp down anxiety and fear.

There’s the red AIDS ribbon, a symbol of all those affected by HIV/AIDS and a banner of solidarity representing all of humanity’s shared sorrow and determination to rid the world of that particular viral threat.

Finally there’s a blue and pink check-patterned Origami crane. One morning in September 2016, while I was in San Francisco to do interviews for “Stonewall Strong,” I was sitting in the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. A woman with whom I chatted, who identified herself as the artist who’d made a number of the cranes hanging on a nearby bush, plucked it off the bush and gave it to me.

The paper crane evokes for me the feeling of profound serenity I felt amid the grove’s flowers, shrubs, and trees. It reminds me of the three words carved in the slate pavers of the grove’s Circle of Friends: Healing. Hope. Remembrance.

They really are the cornerstones of resilience.

Healing happens when the story we tell ourselves about our suffering focuses on how we have managed to carry on, rather than how it has traumatized us.

Hope is what keeps us looking forward rather than at what’s behind – or even, at times, going on all around – us.

And remembrance is about not forgetting the tremendous price we have paid for our resilience, measured in buckets of tears and old address books full of the names of our dearly departed.

Not far from the Circle of Friends in the grove is Dogwood Dell, and another carved stone. Its simple message encapsulates everything the grove stands for. “L’Chaim – To Life!” it says.

The grove itself shows us that in spite of our losses from AIDS and, now, COVID-19, we know it’s possible – even necessary – to mourn and honor the memories of our fallen loved ones even as we celebrate and get on with life.

In learning to tell our stories as survivors, not victims, we find the resilience that will get us through another pandemic. t John-Manuel Andriote’s most recent book is “Stonewall Strong: Gay Men’s Heroic Fight for Resilience, Good Health, and a Strong Community.” He writes the Stonewall Strong blog on resilience for Psychology Today. Please visit www.jmandriote.com.

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Politics >>

May 7-13, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

SF leaders seek to allow immigrants to serve on city panels

by Matthew S. Bajko

Gay SF college leader to step down

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an Francisco political and community leaders will be asking voters this fall to change the city’s charter so that immigrants who are not U.S. citizens can serve on public oversight bodies that advise City Hall on a wide array of issues.

It follows a change in state law last year that allowed non-citizens to be appointed to statewide oversight and advisory bodies.

Locally, the move to amend the charter follows the passage of a ballot measure in 2016 that allowed non-citizen voting in San Francisco school board elections.

It will be implemented for the first time with this November’s race for four school board seats.

District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton and board President Norman Yee, who represents District 7, introduced what is known as the Aspiring Citizens’ Charter Amendment during Tuesday’s board meeting. It will be taken up in committee in June and is expected to be placed on the fall ballot as all of the 11 supervisors support the charter amendment.

The measure would replace the requirement that members of the city’s boards, commissions, and advisory bodies be United States citizens and registered voters.

Instead, the oversight body members would need to just be residents of the city and of legal voting age in municipal elections, currently set at 18. There is also expected to be a ballot measure in the fall seeking to lower that age limit to 16.

The change in policy, said Walton during a virtual news conference, is “something we should have done in San Francisco a long time ago.” He expressed confidence it would be passed by the voters; it needs a simple majority vote to be approved.

“In San Francisco we have always worked hard to ensure that no community is left behind,” he said. “For this reason, I am excited and honored to be a part of this historical ordinance.”

Yee noted that due to the policy, the city’s immigrants rights commission can’t have any immigrants serving on it unless they have become U.S. citizens. He said that makes as much sense as having a youth commission that bans youth from serving on it.

“The city has many entry points for civic participation and engagement. One of the most basic is serving on advisory committees or oversight bodies to advise the mayor and supervisors on important issues,” noted Yee, ranging from pedestrian safety and mental health to aging and health care services. “All San Francisco residents should have the ability to serve and provide meaningful input.”

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman is among the nine co-sponsors of the charter amendment. He told the Bay Area Reporter he backs the policy change because people investing in their community should be able to do so regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.

“I think it makes a lot of sense, particularly given the federal government has completely failed to enact meaningful immigration reform going on a decade now or create a path to citizenship for millions of people

Courtesy Hans How

Hans How is one of several LGBT leaders backing a San Francisco charter amendment that would allow immigrants to serve on city boards and commissions.

who should be treated as Americans,” he said.

A number of LGBT immigrants and advocates for asylum seekers and others are part of the Aspiring Citizens Empowerment Committee that is helping to lead the campaign this fall.

One, Hans How, 27, is a gay man who faced persecution in Malaysia, a country that carries a possible jail sentence of up to 20 years for LGBTQ citizens, and is now seeking asylum in the U.S. The volunteer vice president of Asylum Connect, a tech nonprofit that created a website and mobile app for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, How has lived in San Francisco for three years and has been awaiting an asylum interview for the past two and a half.

He would like to be appointed to a city advisory panel and is hopeful voters will grant him that chance come the November 3 election.

“I think in San Francisco, as a city that celebrates diversity and the people living in the city, our boards should reflect the city we serve,” said How during a phone interview with the B.A.R. During the news conference Klaus U. Ume, a gay asylum seeker from Nigeria who now lives in San Francisco, explained that being allowed to participate on civic panels would provide immigrants with a sense of belonging in their adopted city.

“Why this project and whole thing is very important to me is I need to know I belong and I am a part of something big, of something happening here, and that I contribute,” said Ume, who after 30 years in his home country found it impossible to be out and own a business.

District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safai is seeking to place on the fall ballot a measure that will impose term limits on those who are serving on city oversight panels and commissions. He is also backing the charter amendment to allow for immigrant commissioners.

“People who get up every day, pay their taxes, contribute to their society, and have children in city schools are such an integral part of the city. They should be allowed to serve,” said Safai.

Gay City College board member Alex Randolph will be leaving the oversight body at the end of the year, as he announced Monday he will not seek reelection to another four-year term on the November ballot. One of three out board members, Randolph was first appointed to a vacant seat in 2014 and served as its president last year.

He helped lead the fight to maintain the college’s accreditation, hire new leadership for the campus, and pass a $845 million bond measure in March to help upgrade the institution’s facilities and buildings. But his tenure on the board has also overlapped with crushing budget deficits, the cancellation of classes, and the recent removal of its chancellor following an outcry over his seeking raises for administrators.

In his May 4 Facebook post about his decision, Randolph wrote that he had time to reflect while his military husband, Trevor Randolph, is deployed overseas in Afghanistan while he is sequestered at home in light of the novel coronavirus outbreak. The couple would like to have children, leading Randolph to decide to take a break from elected office.

In a message to the B.A.R. he explained that he isn’t totally done with public service, as he could run for election in the future.

“I’ve never mapped out my entire life in advance but taken opportunities as they come up. If elected office in the future comes up as a way to continue my public See page 6 >>

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<< Commentary

6 • Bay Area Reporter • May 7-13, 2020

t

Trans care and COVID-19

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

I

DUGGAN’S FUNERAL SERVICE

DUGGAN WeLCh fAmiLy the

3434 – 17th StREEt SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110

Thomas V. Halloran General Manager A native San Franciscan with 40 years of professional experience assisting families in need.

A longtime resident of the Eureka Valley, Castro and Mission Districts; a member of the Castro Merchants Association and a 25 year member of the Freewheelers Car Club.

At Duggan’s Funeral Service, which sits in the heart of the Mission, we offer custom services that fit your personal wishes in honoring and celebrating a life.

We are committed to the ever-changing needs of the community and the diverse families we serve.

Please call for information 415-431-4900 or visit us at www.duggansfuneralservice.com FD44

’ll admit that as I write this, I am quite out of sorts. Last week, a friend of mine died due to complications of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

Another friend’s mom passed of the virus. Yet a third friend of mine is presumed to have it, and I am sincerely hoping that she will pull through.

This pandemic, as you can well imagine, is looming quite large in my psyche as I do my level best to keep both me and my partner safe, and worry about so many others that I interact with on a day-to-day basis.

At the same time, I find myself wondering what could happen – perish the thought – if I end up with COVID-19. How will the medical professionals I encounter treat me, and how will my treatment potentially differ because I am a trans woman?

It is quite common for transgender people to face discrimination in health care. While the Affordable Care Act specifically prohibits discrimination against transgender people’s right to health care, it can – and does – still happen. We are refused treatment, we are treated as less than our peers, and even in cases where our trans nature isn’t a factor, health care workers will often blame our transgender status for any health issue we face.

Add to this that most transgender people are living in poverty, making health care even more difficult to acquire. Further still, many face discrimination based on race, or over stigma toward sex workers.

Right now, we are seeing increased numbers of positive COVID-19 cases among communities of color. While I can hardly claim any special knowledge, I cannot help but presume that the virus isn’t specifically choosing people by race, so much that those who aren’t being treated fairly simply have fewer avenues toward adequate care.

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey: Report on Health and Health Care, released jointly in 2012 by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality, found that one in five transgender or gender-nonconforming people (out of 6,450 surveyed) were refused health care, and

MATCHING GIFTS

DOUBLE

28% of those surveyed faced harassment in medical settings.

Unsurprisingly, 28% also reported delaying health care if sick or injured to avoid discrimination and disrespect from health care workers.

I have a list of minor maladies I would love to have a doctor check out some day. Various aches and pains, a wart or two, some dental work, and even a fairly unpleasant case of psoriasis. Yet I’ve made no appointments for any of this for months, even years, preferring to just deal with it all rather than face discrimination and harassment.

It’s not healthy to put it off, especially as I get older and presumably require more care. Nevertheless, the expectation of poor treatment makes the alternative just a bit more appealing.

I’m clearly part of that 28% who is more than willing to delay matters – and yet, I know that this is not a good thing for me to do. All of this affects my quality of life, and may shorten it.

In the case of COVID-19, however, we, as a whole, need to be testing and caring for all who may be affected. Aside from it being the humane and just thing to do, caring for all allows us to treat those who may be affected by the virus quicker and better.

With that said, the Trump administration appears to disagree.

We all know that the executive branch has done just about everything wrong that it could regarding the pandemic. It delayed action for several critical weeks amid cries that the whole thing was a hoax that was “going to disappear” as soon as the weather warmed up. There were then weeks of press briefings that were more about an oversized presidential ego than actually helping.

Tests were often not provided by the government, many initially were defective, and valuable protective gear was reportedly held, seemingly at ransom, by a president expecting

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YOUR IMPACT

Thank you very much, it has been both humbling and encouraging receiving your generous support when so many are also in need of help. So far, we have raised just over $23,000 and are just 23% away from reaching our goal of $30,000.

We have extended the deadline thanks to an anonymous donor has pledged to pay for transaction fees if we achieve our goal and to match contributions beyond it until June 1.

The amount raised above $30,000 will be doubled to support journalism at San Francisco’s independently owned, legacy LGBTQ+ community news source.

Please consider a donation today.

igg.me/at/save-the-BAR Double-Your-Impact-3x5.75.indd 1

Christine Smith

5/6/20 11:46 AM

Political Notebook

From page 5

service in a positive and productive way I am open to it,” wrote Randolph.

Also leaving the college board this year will be Ivy Lee, who had announced last year that she would not run for reelection.

Both Shanell Williams, a bisexual woman who is the current board president, and Tom Temprano, a gay man who is vice president, will be seeking re-election this fall.

“My political energy this year will be focused on getting Shanell and Tom reelected and defeating [President Donald] Trump,” Randolph told the B.A.R.

Third airline moves into Milk SFO terminal

Next Tuesday, May 12, American Airlines will become the third airline to move its ticket counter and baggage claim locations into Harvey Milk Terminal 1 at

people to say nice things about him in order to receive it.

This would hardly be the sort of environment that transgender people could expect a fair shake, but, as the Bay Area Reporter previously noted, the story got worse in April, as the administration announced plans to roll back a vital regulation in the Health Care Rights Law – part of the aforementioned ACA. Yes, the very part I mentioned earlier, which protects transgender people from discrimination in health care and health insurance coverage.

It is part of the long-running attempt by Republicans to destroy the ACA, tinged with more than a little anti-LGBTQ sentiment. This all fits into a pattern of trying to remove transgender, gender-nonconforming, and general LGBTQ protections by the Trump administration.

Such a move would be abhorrent at any time, but to do this in the midst of a global pandemic simply adds to the insult: at a time when tens of thousands of Americans have died due to COVID-19, this administration moves to bar more vulnerable people from the care that they need.

That all this is happening as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to potentially gut anti-discrimination protections for transgender people only adds another layer to it all.

The whole thing is the work of monsters in ill-fitting human suits.

I find myself, in a time when death has become an altogether too common acquaintance, enraged at this. I suppose I should not be surprised by it all, but there’s just an extra level of cruelty here. There’s no attempt to hide this: the savagery of it all is front and center.

Amid a pandemic, we need to continue, ever still, to protect our rights from those who seek to destroy us. It is that stark. t Gwen Smith doesn’t even eat an apple a day. You can find her at www.gwensmith.com.

San Francisco International Airport. Both JetBlue and Southwest moved their operations into the terminal in late April.

The new nine-gate section used by the airlines is in what is known as South Harvey Milk Terminal 1. It is named after the city’s first gay supervisor who was killed 11 months after taking office in 1978.

American’s ticket counter area is closest to a permanent photographic exhibit that honors Milk located in what has been dubbed the Central Inglenook. It became accessible to the public last month when the new terminal section opened up to passengers after its March debut was delayed due to the health crisis.

The Milk terminal, the first airport facility to be named after an LGBT person, is undergoing a phased $2.4 billion remodel expected to finish in 2023. To see the Milk exhibit online, visit https:// www.sfomuseum.org/exhibitions/ harvey-milk-messenger-hope. t

STAY HOME. SAVE LIVES. CHECK IN. Use this Community Check-In Checklist, then share it with at least five people you know.

DO YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW NEED: GROCERIES OR MEALS? If YES, call 211 to connect to food banks and more.

MEDICINE OR MEDICAL ATTENTION? If YES, call your health plan or doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office for help. In an emergency call 911.

COMMUNITY SUPPORT? If YES, reach out to five people you can check-in with on a regular basis.

PROTECTION FROM ABUSE AND NEGLECT? If YES, call Adult Protective Services at 1-833-401-0832

For More Resources, visit EngageCA.org or call 1-800-510-2020 For more information on adults and aging services, call CA Aging & Adults Information Line at 1-800-510-2020 or go to www.aging.ca.gov

<< Community News

8 • Bay Area Reporter • May 7-13, 2020

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B.A.R. fundraiser extended compiled by Cynthia Laird

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represents District 7.

Miklos Ringbauer, a gay man and member of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants, told the B.A.R. that cities postponing the due dates for taxes does “significantly help” in the short term.

“Although, at this point, it is going to come back and be an issue because the city needs the revenue to keep their lights on,” said Ringbauer, whose Los Angeles-based firm works with clients throughout the state.

San Francisco leaders early on notified small businesses with up to $10 million in gross receipts that they could defer their first quarter businesses taxes until February 2021 without having to pay any interest, fees, or fines if they did so. By the end of April 8,000 businesses owed, on average, $5,000 to the city, said Cisneros, money he now doesn’t expect to collect until next year.

“One way to think about it is normally they would have had to pay that $5,000, and we turned around and gave them a loan of the same amount,” he said. “We said they could keep that money and pay that next year and not pay interest. It is similar to a 10-month interest-free loan on whatever their payment would have been.”

Another step his office spearheaded was delaying $49 million in business fees merchants normally would have had to pay the city in March. It was first pushed

Steven Underhill

Shawn Ryan hosted the Bay Area Reporter’s 2016 Besties awards celebration.

publication has given voice to the vulnerable and is a record of our history.

But only with your help can we continue to play this unique role.”

To donate, go to http://bit. ly/2V8ucLY.

Newsom allows video weddings

With county clerk offices closed around the state due to the stayat-home order, couples have not been able to wed. Last week, Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order allowing adults to obtain a marriage license via videoconferencing during the coronavirus pandemic.

back to July and then out to September.

“Again, we are taking all the steps we can do in partnership with the mayor done through her emergency powers,” said Cisneros.

“We are doing all we can to lighten the load during these difficult times to let businesses get back up on their feet before we hit them with these kinds of bills.”

City Hall also created a $10 million fund for local businesses to provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per employee and a $9 million Emergency Loan Fund to award up to $50,000 in zero interest loans to individual small businesses.

The city also issued a moratorium on commercial evictions for small and medium sized businesses that can’t afford to pay their rent due to being forced to close.

It also created a special website at www.oewd.org/covid19 where businesses can find various resources.

“What we saw when the coronavirus crisis hit was a lot of businesses were really impacted. Many businesses, many small businesses closed and were bringing in no revenues,” said Cisneros. “We wanted to see what we can do to relieve financial burdens on them while they were closed or their revenues were delayed or whatever.”

Task force

Cisneros is also co-chairing the city’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force along with Assessor-Recorder Carmen Chu, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce

See page 11 >> President and CEO Rodney Fong, and Rudy Gonzalez, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council. Chu’s office has also been working to provide relief to business owners, such as delaying their filing their business personal property taxes until June 1 since her City Hall offices are also currently closed to the public.

“I think the city does recognize many of the challenges people are facing,” Chu told merchants in the city’s LGBT Castro district during a virtual town hall last month.

“There is record pain being felt across San Francisco by workers and businesses, so we recognize that.”

She stressed that those business owners struggling to pay their rent need to reach out to their landlords and lenders to see if they can strike a deal on how to cover their costs going forward. At some point the ban on commercial evictions will lift and businesses will need to pay their rent they deferred.

“Eventually that rent is going to be due. The question is what do you do the whole time having no income from your business. Reach out to your landlord to see about any possibility to negotiate how it is you might be able to pay that back,” noted Chu. “It is better to begin now talking to your landlord to see what can be done to defer it or arrange some other type of payment. We hope it can be a win-win situation for the landlord and the business.”

The city’s task force has recruited more than 100 people to serve See page 11 >>

Obituaries >> Bradford Byron Potts October 3, 1951 – April 18, 2020

Call (415) 771-0717

Bradford Byron Potts died April 18, 2020 in West Hollywood, CA of a heart attack at the age of 68. Byron went to Menlo-Ather ton High and then San

One Loraine Court between Stanyan & Arguello

SF_Columbarium_2x7.625_033017.indd 1

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Platform Storage Beds • Closet Systems • Armoires • Home Office • Dressers

FD 1306

he Bay Area Reporter’s online fundraising appeal has been extended for another month, due to a matching offer from an anonymous donor.

The paper launched the Indiegogo campaign in early April because the coronavirus pandemic has caused grave economic losses for the LGBT publication, which saw a drastic drop off in advertising.

As of Wednesday, May 6, just over $24,000 of the paper’s $30,000 goal has been raised.

“We have extended the deadline because an anonymous donor has pledged to pay for transaction fees if we achieve our goal and to match contributions beyond it until June 1,” publisher Michael Yamashita wrote in an update. “So the amount raised above $30,000 will be doubled to support journalism at San Francisco’s independently owned, legacy LGBTQ+ community news source.”

Yamashita pointed out that over the years, the B.A.R. has focused on stories that mainstream media did not consider important: anti-gay discrimination in employment and housing; bias and fear of people with HIV/AIDS; victims of abuse and anti-gay violence; the plight of at-risk youth; and the unmet needs of LGBT elders.

“We’ve also supported thousands of LGBT artists through the years, with lively features, reviews, and nightlife coverage,” he wrote. “Our

Under the executive order, adults will be able to obtain a marriage license, at the discretion of their local county clerk, through videoconferencing, as long as both adults are located within the state of California, are present, and can present identification during the video conference.

The license can then be issued via email, according to a news release from Newsom’s office.

Additionally, adults who wish to be married can conduct a ceremony to solemnize the marriage via videoconference, as long as both parties are present, and have at least one witness who can join the live videoconference, the release states.

Newsom, of course, made history in 2004 when, as San Francisco’s mayor, he ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. While that action was later invalidated by the state Supreme Court, Newsom’s action jump-started the marriage equality movement that ultimately led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing samesex marriage nationwide.

Newsom’s executive order will be in effect for 60 days for those who wish to be married during that time.

The B.A.R. published an article April 30 about a gay San Francisco couple who were able to obtain their marriage li-

COA 660

8/11/17 12:30 PM

Jose State University.

He became the first chair of GLAAD/ SF Bay Area. In 1989 he became cochair when a female co-chair was added. A doggedly persistent, smart, funny, energetic activist, Byron helped steer GLAAD/SFBA until 1993, leaving it on sound financial footing. He then moved to Los Angeles, working at the gay and lesbian center there (now known as the Los Angeles LGBT Center). Later, he worked for Growing Generations.

Byron had recently celebrated his 10th anniversary of sobriety and was an inspiration and a huge support to all who knew him. His sudden death shocked and saddened his many friends, who will miss his kindness and “good energy” greatly. His ultimate act of generosity was being a tissue donor who helped many others.

He is survived by his brother, David, and loving nieces and nephews.

Community News>>

t Cannabis plants now available in San Francisco

May 7-13, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

by Sari Staver

Once you find out which strains the store has, you can read about them on the Dark Heart website at www. darkheartnursery.com.

California Street Cannabis Co. is located at 1398 California Street. It is open seven days a week, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (415) 800-7954. For more information, visit www.californiastreetcannabis.com.

T

hanks to a new Nob Hill dispensary, San Franciscans can legally buy starter cannabis plants, or clones, without leaving the city.

Shortly after their opening earlier this year, Drakari Donaldson and his business partners at the California Street Cannabis Co. decided that they’d become the first cannabis store in the city to stock a variety of cannabis strains. Previously, clones were available in Oakland and on the Peninsula, but by an unlucky coincidence, those of us in San Francisco were out of luck.

The clones at California Street Cannabis are from the well-known wholesale farm Dark Heart Nursery, the leading clone maker in the Bay Area.

“I’ve got one growing at home in the window of my studio apartment down the street,” said Donaldson when the Bay Area Reporter recently met him at the shop he owns with business partners Duncan Ley and Benjamin Bleiman, who is president of the San Francisco Entertainment Commission and founder of the SF Bar Owner Alliance.

All are allies.

Donaldson, 24, had worked with the men for several years at their bar and restaurant business and when recreational cannabis was legalized, the three spent two years pushing their application through the city regulatory process before they were able to open.

“So far, so good,” said Donaldson, who takes turns staffing the store with Ley and Bleiman.

When physical distancing was required by the city as part of the stay-athome order due to the novel coronavirus outbreak in mid-March, they quickly rearranged procedures, enabling only a few customers inside at a time.

Since California voters legalized the adult use of cannabis in 2016, it has been impossible to find clones for sale in the city. Dispensaries apparently decided that it was too time consuming to keep live plants in stock. The closest place to buy plants has been Harborside in Oakland, which also carries items supplied by Dark Heart.

I’d given up on finding them locally, until a friend said he saw a tray of “gorgeous plants” for sale at a store at California and Hyde streets. I stopped at Cliff’s Variety for soil and plastic pots and was ready to garden in less than an hour. Dispensaries, hardware stores, and garden shops are open because they are considered essential businesses under the public health order.

While Donaldson proudly showed me the picture of his healthy plant in his window, I’ve only had experience growing them outdoors, which I think will make your life much easier.

Mid-spring is the sweet spot for planting in the Bay Area, and with most people stuck at home, this is a perfect time to start a new project. All you need is a small space on a porch, deck, or yard that gets some sun each day, the more the better.

The dispensary will allow you to purchase up to six plants per day, the number the city says each resident over age 18 is legally allowed to grow.

Plants are priced between $16-$38, depending on the strain. California Street Cannabis also carries a $100 “auto-flowering teen” for beginners who want a jump-start with a plant that is ready to bloom.

Growing your plant is relatively straightforward. When you buy the clone it’s embedded in a square inch cube of rock wool, which can be placed in soil in a small plastic container. As it grows and becomes root bound, you can transplant it into a larger container or into the ground. Detailed instructions on growing can be found at the website of local pot guru, Ed Rosenthal

Webinar highlights COVID issues Sari Staver

Drakari Donaldson of California Street Cannabis shows some of the starter plants, or clones, that are available at the San Francisco store.

(www.edrosenthal.com). Plants are typically ready for harvest in October or November, and after drying the branches inside your house for several weeks, you’re ready to trim.

California Street Cannabis typically carries at least several different strains at most times, but it’s best to call before visiting to be sure they have stock on hand.

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) pointed out that the cannabis community is going through “really hard times” now. Ineligible for federal small business loans, owners of cannabis businesses are “really struggling,” he said.

When the Assembly goes back into session this week, the governing body will have a “limited policy agenda,” said Wiener. (The state Senate is due back in session next week.) With a re-

duction in the number of bills introduced, Wiener expressed skepticism that the Legislature will deal with the tax reductions many in the industry say will be necessary to keep them above water. t Bay Area Cannasseur runs the first Thursday of the month. To send column ideas or tips, email Sari Staver at sfsari@gmail.com.

People working in the cannabis industry, as well as those in the long line of applicants hoping to get a license to open a business, have been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic, according to an hourlong webinar May 1.

Sponsored by the city’s Office of Cannabis, which is open for business although some staffers have temporarily joined the city’s Department of Emergency Management, the webinar addressed questions submitted by people in the industry.

Federal stimulus funds are helping “most everyone, except the cannabis industry,” said state Treasurer Fiona Ma (D), a San Franciscan who previously served in the state Assembly as well as the Board of Supervisors.

Thank you, nurses.

You are our heroes.

This Nurses Week, we cannot say “thank you” enough to the brave women and men on the front line. Each day they go to work and put the needs of others first. Doing the job they were called to do in circumstances that no one could imagine. They never give up, no matter what. And once this is over, you’ll still find nurses in the same place — being the heroes they have always been.

<< Community News

10 • Bay Area Reporter • May 7-13, 2020

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LGBT history

Feasibility study

As the B.A.R. reported last October, the archival group had determined it made the most sense for it to construct a full-scale LGBTQ Museum and Research Center somewhere in the Castro neighborhood based on the recommendations of a feasibility study it had conducted. The consultants estimated that a combined facility would require a gross building size of 40,000 square feet, with around 20,000 square feet dedicated for the exhibit area, and draw upward of 106,000 attendees per year.

Local leaders from San Francisco Mayor London Breed to District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman and state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), both gay men who represent the Castro, have all embraced the concept of the larger facility and pledged their

<<

Shooting

From page 1

been in contact with SFPD’s Mission Station and an investigation into this incident is ongoing.”

Mandelman told the B.A.R. May 5 that Brousseau’s death is “just terribly sad.”

“He was clearly a young man with tremendous promise, deeply involved in his community and beloved by many,” Mandelman stated. “My heart breaks for his friends and family, and for all the life that he should have had ahead of him.”

High achiever

Brousseau graduated from Newbury Park High School in Ventura County, California in 2015. He was a valedictorian and the editor of the high school’s newspaper, according to the Ventura County Star. The year prior, he interned at the office of Democratic former presidential can-

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LGBT electeds

From page 3

crisis has been made exponentially worse by the outbreak not just in Manhattan and San Francisco but around the country.

“If we don’t figure out how to freeze rent, freeze mortgages, we’re going to have a lot more housing insecurity in

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storefront would be 10 times larger than the historical society’s current 1,600 square foot museum on 18th Street, where its lease runs through at least 2022. (It stores its vast collection of archival materials documenting the history of the LGBT community in a leased space downtown on Market Street.)

“It was a really good deal,” noted Beswick, adding that it would still have required a fiscal investment to upgrade the interior space into a museum setting.

To move forward with such an undertaking, Beswick was planning to negotiate with the building’s owner for a longer lease of at least 10 years. He had also planned to request there be an option for the nonprofit to buy the site for its larger stand-alone museum plans, as it is an ideal location a short walk from the entrance to the Castro Muni Station.

“I was very excited about it. It would have vastly expanded our exhibit space,” said Beswick.

But then came the city’s shelter-inplace order that took effect March 17 and shut down all nonessential businesses and cultural institutions in order to stem the transmission of the virus. The order has since been extended until at least May 31, and it remains unclear when museums will be able to reopen.

In the case of the historical society, Beswick told the B.A.R. this week that he had already determined it wouldn’t be able to open its doors again to the public anytime soon. He had informed his staff of 10, one of whom works part-time, not to plan to do so until later this year at the earliest.

He also quickly realized there would be little public funding to assist with opening a new museum from either the city or state due to the devastating impact the virus outbreak has had on

the local and state economy. Thus, he withdrew the nonprofit’s intent letter to sublease the brick facade storefront on upper Market Street.

“It would have required a significant amount of remodeling. And a few things to help cover the costs fell apart really quickly when the shelter in place went into effect. The city and state funding wasn’t a prospect, as any to come through over the next year is going to be for existing programs or COVID-related programs,” said Beswick. “I am still holding out hope cultural programs will be seen as a priority over the next year. But we couldn’t really pin our hopes around that, and I couldn’t sign a lease without that kind of public support.”

The historical society has an operating budget of $1.5 million for this calendar year. It applied for one of the grants the city is disbursing to cultural institutions but has yet to be awarded one, likely because it is so far not hurting financially, surmised Beswick. He has not had to fire or furlough anyone, though he did freeze hiring for several new positions he had budgeted for this year.

“We are not in a severe financial crush right now. Our concern is not about meeting payroll today like a lot of other organizations are,” he said.

“Our concern is around the end of the year. Most of our income comes from a membership drive in June, a gala in the fall, and an annual fundraising drive, so most of our income comes in at the end of the year. What I am concerned about is if we don’t do well at the end of the year then in 2021 we are looking at the possibility of layoffs.”

In terms of attendance at its current museum space, the historical society usually attracts 75% of its visitors from outside the Bay Area. Tour groups and school field trips also bring in a lot of visitors, which are unlikely to return

in significant numbers this year, noted Beswick.

“So shifting to a virtual setting is exciting for us actually,” he said. “In the short term we are taking our digital assets we have available and really weaponizing those and putting them online in a way that is really accessible. In the longer term we are working on a larger virtual museum really branded in a way that is new and exciting and shifts our organization to that focus.”

Already, the historical society has been hosting talks online that have been attracting larger audiences than those that can be accommodated at its 18th Street location. Each Wednesday, for instance, Beswick has been hosting talks on what was learned during the AIDS epidemic on various topics, from health care to housing, that can be applied to today’s pandemic response.

It is also mounting exhibits online that were initially set to open in its museum. Already accessible is one focused on late gay rights activist Gilbert Baker, while ones coming soon will focus on the city’s first Pride celebrations in honor of the 50th anniversary of the parade this June and AIDS activism on the West Coast in light of San Francisco and Oakland co-hosting the now virtual 2020 International AIDS Conference in early July. (Beswick was named one of this year’s community grand marshals for the San Francisco Pride parade, which will now be part of the online Global Pride event June 27.)

“We have stopped thinking in terms of the archive and museum are closed,” said Beswick. “We are open. We are able to do a lot of research support online through our website and through our research support staff we have available. We do have access to huge databases online.”

To learn more about the museum and archive’s virtual resources and programs, visit www.glbthistory.org.t

didate Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Brousseau went on to attend UC Berkeley, where he graduated in 2019 with degrees in economics and computer science, according to his website. He went on to work for Twitter, where he had been an associate project manager.

Brousseau was a co-organizer of Gay For Transit alongside Janice Li, a queer woman who is a member of the BART board of directors.

Gay For Transit is “a monthly SF meetup for queer folks who love public transit,” according to Brousseau’s website.

Jane Natoli, a trans woman who was nominated by Mayor London Breed last month to serve on the SFMTA Board of Directors, told the B.A.R. by phone May 4 that she was just getting to know Brousseau.

Natoli, who is on the San Francisco LGBT Community Center’s board, helped Brousseau find meetup space for Gay For Transit in January.

“I was helping him and Janice (Li)

find a location for the transit meetup,” Natoli said. “They’d been hosting these events at bars and wanted something more accessible, so I connected them with the (LGBT community) center.”

Natoli said that what happened was a “senseless tragedy.”

“I’m obviously deeply saddened by that news. It’s such a tragedy,” Natoli said. “He was such a bright person with so much in front of him and he really cared about community building.”

Brian Wiedenmeier, a gay man who is the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, also knew Brousseau.

“I do know Courtney, but given the seriousness of his condition and out of respect for his family and loved ones, I’m going to decline comment at this time,” Wiedenmeier wrote to the B.A.R. via email May 4 before Brousseau died.

Emmett Coleman, a pansexual nonbinary person who is a junior at UC Berkeley, told the B.A.R. in a May

4 phone call that he knew Brousseau.

Coleman met Brousseau while the former was working in student government. He called Brousseau “incredibly ahead of the game” and said he was “very involved on campus.”

“Courtney was one of the most politically involved people on campus – and that’s saying something, considering that Berkeley is one of the most politically active places in the world,” Coleman said. “He is a very multidimensional person: there’s his Twitter colleagues, his Cal colleagues, his high school friends. He was just incredibly involved.”

Still, Coleman said he only knew one facet of Brousseau’s life.

“I’d never want to reduce his existence to a sound bite,” Coleman said.

“He’s worth more than any of my words, and is worth more than all of our words.”

Li told the B.A.R. May 5, after Brousseau’s death became widely known, that she was not taking media interviews, but shared a statement she

emailed to Gay for Transit members on Tuesday morning.

“Many of you have asked what you can do to support Courtney and his family at this time. I don’t have an update for you right now. I know that Courtney, even at age 22, donated $50/month to 10 different organizations so if it is possible, I would encourage you to follow his generosity and donate,” the email states. “I can promise you that Gay for Transit will continue and that, with time, we will find ways to remember and celebrate Courtney.

“Lastly, more than ever and during these times, I would ask something of you that I know can be very difficult, but please, please be kind to yourself.

Love those around you and have compassion for those less privileged. It’s what Courtney would have wanted,” the email concludes. t

the near future,” Kenyatta said. “(A solution) requires that elusive local, state and federal cooperation.”

The legislators expressed sadness that many Pride festivities have been canceled or postponed.

Hoylman said he thinks people should take this time to reflect on the

deeper meaning of LGBT pride.

“I look at this Pride as a more introspective one,” he said. “One where we can think about the origins of pride. Less partying, more thoughtfulness.”

Kenyatta echoed this sentiment.

“I don’t think there’s any replacing the pride we know and love,” he said.

“But I think that Hoylman hit the

nail on the head. Pride started as a protest and after it’s going to be more important than ever that folks on the margins are not ignored.

“All of the things we are talking about are pre-COVID issues,” he added.

Johnson said that Pride Month this year should be used as a fundraising opportunity for nonprofits.

Hoylman, Kenyatta, and Johnson indicated that there were closeted LGBTs in their statehouses who were opposing equal rights.

“They’re not out but they’re there,” Kenyatta said. “They are not here with us on these issues. ... That’s the cowardice, frankly, of some of my colleagues.” t

the legislation – alongside gay Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego), lesbian Assemblywoman Susan Eggman (D-Stockton) and lesbian state Senator Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton).

Wiener said he has long been interested in the data collection issue, having passed legislation while a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors calling for its collection, and was surprised it wasn’t already being collected for COVID-19 patients.

“I thought the state was already collecting data on our community,”

Wiener said in a phone call with the B.A.R. May 6. “We’re also going to see if the state is complying with existing law.”

As the B.A.R. previously reported, Wiener sent a letter April 10 to Governor Gavin Newsom (D) asking that SOGI data be collected for people affected by COVID-19.

“We don’t have the data we need,” Wiener said at that time. “This pandemic is particularly harming communities with underlying health and economic inequalities. We know our community is likely to have underlying health challenges.

“That makes COVID-19 worse, and as California moves forward we need to make sure that is taken into account and we have the resources to survive and protect our communities. The last thing we need is to have LGBTs not represented,” he added.

Data already collected by governments has shown the disproportionate effects of the virus on minority communities. Nationwide, African Americans are dying at higher rates than the general population.

In San Francisco, Latinos are disproportionately affected, and the

Mission district as well as the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhoods are seeing particularly high rates of infection.

Wiener’s release addressed health disparities and drew comparisons between COVID-19 and the HIV epidemic, which also disproportionately affects minority groups such as LGBTs and people of color.

“There is also a long-standing history of government neglect for LGBTQ health, often with regards to a lack of data collection. The cen-

From page 1

“But we are going to have to wait and see what is going to happen with funding and the real estate market,” said Beswick.

It is worth being prudent, explained Beswick, rather than downscaling the vision for the future museum.

“I would really like to think of our eventual brick-and-mortar, full-scale museum as being what I think our history demands and our community deserves, rather than what we can get away with,” said Beswick. “I don’t know what that is going to look like.”

For years the archival group has been working on plans to expand its current jewel-box of a museum in the heart of the city’s LGBT Castro district into a full-fledged facility in order to showcase the numerous treasures it has collected from LGBT people, ranging from entertainers like the late disco legend Sylvester to political leaders like the late gay Supervisor Harvey Milk.

SOGI bill

From page 1

LGBTQ communities,” Chiu stated the morning of May 6. “Just as it is important for us to track and identify disproportionate COVID-19 case loads in our black, Latinx, and API communities, it’s important to track data from our LGBTQ communities, who have also historically experienced discrimination in health care settings.”

Later that day, Wiener said that Chiu was already a co-sponsor on

t

Rick Gerharter

GLBT Historical Society Executive Director Terry Beswick

support to bringing it to fruition. The historical society this year was planning to identify a location for the museum and launch a capital campaign to pay for its construction.

Mandelman told the B.A.R. that the decision to pull back from leasing the space is a disappointment but also a wise one during this uncertain time.

“Of course it is disappointing, but I think it is a reasonable decision by the historical society,” he said. “I think it was going to need significant city and state investments at a time it is becoming increasingly clear the city and state coffers are going to be stretched in a way we haven’t seen in a long time, if ever.”

Interim location was eyed

As an interim step toward achieving its larger museum, Beswick in early March had signed a letter of intent to sublease the former Castro location of real estate firm Coldwell Banker. The agency last September vacated its space at 2355 Market Street, near Castro and 17th streets, and had offered it to the historical society at a reduced rent for the remaining six years of its lease.

At roughly 10,800 square feet the

The meaning of LGBT pride

See page 11 >>

t <<

Community News>>

News Briefs

From page 8

cense prior to the clerk’s office closing, and were married last month.

Victory Fund virtual Bay Area meet and greet

The LGBTQ Victory Fund will have a virtual meet and greet for Bay Area residents Thursday, May 7, from 2 to 5 p.m. Pacific time.

Scheduled to appear will be gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco); Virginia Delegate Danica Roem, a trans woman; and Victory Fund President CEO Annise Parker, a lesbian who’s a former Houston mayor. There will be a time for questions.

<<

<<

participate, visit www.aging.ca.gov/ makeyourmark.

Governor Gavin Newsom on May 1 launched “Make Your Mark,” a program for older adults to share their stories about unique contributions,

sacrifice, and heroism amid the COVID-19 crisis.

According to a news release from the California Department of Aging, the agency will share these stories during May, which is Older Americans Month. Older residents have responded to the pandemic through tele-work, volunteerism, leadership, self-care practices, tutoring, and lending a virtual hand, the release noted.

“Older adults in California were the first to answer our call to stay at home, but your contributions go above and beyond physical isolation,” Newsom stated. “Your stories of service and sacrifice will inspire others to make their mark during this crisis, just as you have.”

For more information on how to

omy to come back.”

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman told the B.A.R. he has confidence in Cisneros and Chu

helping to craft a plan for how the city will climb out of the economic pit brought on by the health crisis. It is helpful, he noted, to have “confident, effective City Hall leaders” who are a bit removed from day-to-day politics helming the response.

The city is already looking at a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars in its current budget for this fiscal year, which ends June 30. And it is already projecting a deficit of upward of $1.7 billion over the next two fiscal years.

“The city’s budget numbers are just increasingly dire,” said Mandelman.

He supported the decision to

extend deadlines for business and property owners to pay certain taxes and fees. And he acknowledged “there will be some anxiety” about meeting the May 15 deadline to pay property taxes.

“There is still going to be a process for requesting waivers of late penalties where there are hardships. That is going to be a hardship for people who can’t pay their property taxes,” said Mandelman.

For those who can afford to pay their taxes, it is important for them to do so, noted Mandelman, as the city is required to send “a big chunk of it” to the state government in Sacramento, which is also grappling with mounting

budget woes.

“Our obligation for sending that money is regardless of if we are collecting it,” said Mandelman.

The task force expects to report back on its suggestions by the end of this month, Cisneros told the B.A.R. Having lived in the city for more than 25 years, he said he is confident its residents and businesses are up to meeting the challenges wrought by the health crisis.

“We are not going to bounce back to business as usual anytime soon,” he said. “But I have faith in this city. We can weather this crisis like any others we have faced.”t

ready passed away from the disease,” the release adds.

The release points out that SB 932 “will ensure that public health officials will understand the impacts of COVID-19 on the LGBTQ community, and will help LGBTQ people get the resources they need.”

When Wiener was discussing LGBT COVID-19 data collection in a virtual town hall last week (https://www.ebar.com/news/latest_ news/291602), it was clear he had a different position than gay Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on this issue.

The Centennial State is not collecting the SOGI data of COVID-19 patients.

“You run into the same issue here as anywhere,” Polis said. “There’s a lot of people (LGBT patients) in Colorado who don’t want that info out there; less maybe than in Hell’s Kitchen or Chelsea (heavily LGBT New York City neighborhoods).

While we love data, we don’t want to ask people for data they are not comfortable sharing.”

Wiener’s release Monday states that SB 932 will make self-reporting SOGI information optional “due to any privacy concerns this may bring up,” and states the “data will be anonymized.”

Wiener told the B.A.R. May 6 that Polis brought up a legitimate con-

cern and it was not a difference of opinion.

“I think he raised an issue that’s real,” Wiener said. “Some people don’t want to say their age or race.

We never make demographic information mandatory.”

Wiener said that the chances of SOGI data collection for COVID-19 patients happening is very high, though it may be by executive order and not by his legislation.

“The governor is personally aware of it,” Wiener said. “It’s on the radar.”

Assembly members returned to Sacramento Monday, May 4, after a recess caused by the pandemic. The

state Senate is expected to return May 11. Leaders in the state Senate and Assembly have asked that lawmakers only introduce coronavirusrelated and other essential legislation.

Newsom’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time. t

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039051900

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Light Bright Light, the “Boss Baby” JP Karliak, Rachel Mason and Karen Mason of the hit Netflix documentary “Circus of Books,” OneUp Duo, Malia Civetz, and PFLAG families.

PFLAG is a nonprofit for LGBTQ people, their parents and families, and allies.

While there is no cost to watch the online presentation, donations will be accepted.

The online event will be at www. pflag.org/mothersday.

The Victory Fund supports out candidates seeking elected office.

There is no cost to attend, but people are encouraged to purchase a virtual ticket to support the Victory Fund’s work.

For more information and to sign up, go to https://secure.everyaction. com/2UsxfdSsC0CeP_C9PemTew2.

PFLAG hosts virtual Mother’s Day brunch

PFLAG National will air a celebration of motherly love with a free virtual Mother’s Day brunch Sunday, May 10, beginning at 11 a.m. Pacific time.

Those scheduled to participate include Go-Gos lead singer Belinda Carlisle and her spouse, James Duke Mason, gay actor Alec Mapa, Bright

Newsom launches ‘Make Your Mark’ for seniors

Treasurer

From page 8

on it and is divided into committees with specific focuses, such as different industries or issues. It has been surveying business owners and others in the city about what their needs or and what ideas they have for how the city can offer assistance.

“It is really important for businesses to articulate what they need to get through this process,” said Chu. “We know that even though we are far from the end of the public health crisis, we really need to do work to put us in the best place possible for San Francisco’s econ-

May 7-13, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

SOGI bill

From page 10

sus – and many health forms – currently do not ask about sexual orientation and gender identity, which means that the LGBTQ community often suffers from a lack of resources and focus from public health infrastructure,” the release states.

“This neglect is most pointedly illustrated by the federal government ignoring the HIV/AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, an epidemic of which so many members of the LGBTQ community died. President Ronald Reagan did not say the word ‘AIDS’ until 1986, after thousands had al-

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CA Historical Society wants storytellers

In another effort to gather stories during the coronavirus pandemic, the California Historical Society is seeking people to share their experiences to help document the time.

In an email, the society stated that it is creating a collection to document life in the Golden State during the coronavirus outbreak. It wants stories from every corner of the state, including rural and urban areas, coastal communities, and desert towns.

For more information, visit www. californiahistoricalsociety.org. t

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Nicole Maines stars as Nia Nal/Dreamer, television’s first transgender superhero, in The CW’s Supergirl.

Nicole Maines

Supergirl’s newest superhero

he CW’s Supergirl has amassed quite a sizable following over the years. Most recently the super-heroine series has attracted some attention for presenting the first transgender super hero on prime time television. In an entertainment landscape where trans characters are all too often played by cisgender actors, Nia Nal, aka Dreamer, is being portrayed by twenty-two year old Nicole Maines, who is herself transgender.

Maines, assigned male at birth, knew she was female from as early as when she was three years old.

“I recognized at a very young age that something didn’t feel right with the body I was in,” Maines tells Bay Area Reporter. “I went to my parents at three or four years old and told them that I was a girl, and of course that did not make any sense to them.”

But Maines was persistent, and her parents slowly came around. It was in elementary school that she began her transition.

“We did a very gradual transition so as not to shock anybody,” she recalls.

One year she started wearing pink T-shirts, and the following year she grew her hair out.

“Each year with a new rung of the ladder,” she said.

By the time she was in the fifth grade she had totally transitioned. At first her classmates accepted her, but later in her school career she did experience some bullying.

“Bigotry is something that’s learned,” she said. “When kids are taught that something is wrong, that’s where bullies come from. They’re taught that difference is bad. I was different.

But the support far outweighed any bullies.

But that’s not to say that it didn’t have its effect on me. I was in counseling at a very young age.

It got to the point where I wasn’t able to ride the bus, but I had many more supporters than I did harassers.”

She began making history while still in her youth. Maines was referred to as Susan Doe in the landmark Maine Supreme Court case Doe vs. Regional School Unit 26, an anti-discrimination case in which Maines won the right to use the girl’s restroom in her school. It was the first case in which a state court ruled that denying a transgender student access to the See page 13 >>

Hollywood could, should

Cast members in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood.

Ryan Murphy’s new series, gay bakers, anchor dads and more

by Victoria A. Brownworth

W

e have come to expect the unexpected from Ryan Murphy, one of the most prolific gay show runners in all of television. Hollywood is stylish, soignée and a beautiful, sexy, wildly uneven mess. As Netflix describes their latest, “In postWorld War II Hollywood, an ambitious group of aspiring actors and filmmakers will do almost anything to make their showbiz dreams come true.”

Almost indeed.

The seven-episode series plays with the notion of a Hollywood that might have been if women, queers and people of color were given free rein. Mixing real denizens of 1940s Tinseltown with fictional characters, the storyline

arcs over a thirsting older actress turned mogul, a young black actress relegated to maid roles, a black gay screenwriter, a manipulative gay casting couch agent/manager, the hayseed Roy Fitzgerald who would become Rock Hudson and some very pretty young things trying to make it in a studio system that is selling straight white males only.

The highlights are the sets, which are extraordinary, the bodies, which are hot and toned and gleaming, and the acting, which is off-the-charts amazing.

Emmys will go to Tony-winning diva Patti LuPone, who plays Avis Amberg, an ambitious studio mogul-in-waiting (at 71 LuPone

does an amazing sex scene) and to Jim Parsons, who plays Henry Willson, the agent who made Rock Hudson a star, to bitchy perfection.

Dylan McDermott is terrific as a pastiche of Scotty Bowers, who ran a gas station brothel that serviced many a secret Hollywood desire.

Holland Taylor is wittily wonderful as casting coach Ellen Kincaid. Queen Latifah plays Hattie McDaniel, the first black actress to win an Oscar–who was made to wait in a segregated hotel prior to her award. Darren Criss, Jeremy Pope, Laura Harrier, Maude Apatow, Mira Sorvino, Jake Picking, David Corenswet and many more fill out the overlarge cast.

Come to Hollywood expecting glitz and glamour and a whole lot of vivid sex and you will enjoy the series immensely. (There is an EW Zoom online of a dozen of the actors talking about why so much sex that is worth a look.)

But there is a lot going on as Murphy and co-creator Ian Brennan try to tackle racism, sexism, homophobia and classism. Not all of it adds up to the sum of its parts. Janet Mock directs two episodes.

Cops, cakes, cribs and comedy

May is filled with new TV series, movies and specials, as well as season finales. PBS’s Frontline: Coronavirus Pandemic is the first documentary of Covid-19. It is available online as See page 13 >>

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Nicole Maines

From page 12

bathroom which matches their gender identity is unlawful.

“The school buckled,” she recalls.

“So they pulled me out and stuck me in the staff bathroom and gave me a bodyguard to make sure that I was using the right bathroom. They told me it was for my protection.”

Her family filed suit for unlawful discrimination against the school district. Since 2005 sexual orientation and gender identity have been a protected class under the Maine Human Rights Act, which means that the school did not have the right to do what they did.

“It went to the highest court in the state and we won,” she said. “It was a landmark case, it was the first time a state supreme court ruled in favor of a transgender family. It wasn’t the first time something like that had come up, but it was the first time that the court ruled on the family’s side. It was groundbreaking, not just for us, but for everyone.”

Maines recalls the experience as feeling “spectacular.” She acknowledges that issues remain with enforcing non-discrimination laws.

“To this day I hear about kids in middle school and high school whose principals will not let them use the right bathroom,” she said.

“Even after the Maine Human

Nicole Maines in Shape magazine

Bakeaway Camp with Martha Stewart

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From page 12

is the May 8 An American Portrait, which follows three people touched by the pandemic.

We find solace in both news about the science, like the PBS documentary, and cooking shows, which we watch to decompress and because they have so much reliable queer content. It is into that arena that the doyenne of all things domestic brings six bakers together to brave bees, rain and extreme heat and win a $25,000 prize. Yes, Bakeaway Camp with Martha Stewart, premieres on the Food Network May 11. You will love it.

Late night comedy has been a mixed bag sans audiences, but Full

Anderson Cooper and his new baby

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May 7-13, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 13

Frontal with Samantha Bee is always good. Check out Bee’s hilarious interview with Sen. Kamala Harris as they discuss Trump, the Veepstakes and the curses that Harris tries not to say in public.

It’s available on YouTube, if you don’t have Comedy Central.

Tommy was one of the surprises of this season. The always Emmy-worthy Edie Falco breathed nuanced life into the role of Abigail “Tommy” Thomas, the first woman police chief of Los Angeles–who is also a lesbian and the mother of a biracial daughter (she was previously married to a black man before she came out).

As the first season draws to a climactic finale on May 7, Tommy is fighting a firing for allegedly using her position to give her girlfriend, daughter and son-in-law various perks. Tommy being female and gay has rankled the rank and file.

Some in the L.A. political hierarchy want her annoying integrity gone yesterday. To that end, she’s been framed.

Rights Act, even after my family’s case had been settled and won, and all the press, there are still schools who refuse to let trans kids use the right bathroom.”

While Maines feels that it’s important for people to be out, she notes that it’s also important to do so safely.

“A lot of trans kids have to stay in the closet to protect themselves from their parents, from their families, from their communities,” she said. “So as important as it is to be out and proud, do it safely. And I think that’s why so many of these online communities have become such safe havens, because a lot of these kids aren’t in a position where they can do it safely yet.”

But, she points out, if a person isn’t in danger of being kicked out of the house, or of facing physical or verbal abuse, then by all means come out.

“In an environment where the administration is actively trying to erase our identities –they took queer people off the 2020 census– you fight against erasure with visibility,” she said. “And that’s why I’m so proud to be an actor and to have the platform that I do, to be on Supergirl, and to be in people’s living rooms on TV as a super hero, that visibility is radical. Visibility in any form is activism. We make them see us. We deny them the opportunity to erase us.”

Maines also spoke of the role she plays on Supergirl. Nia Nal, she explains, is a cub reporter. She’s just come from Washington D.C. where she was a speechwriter at the White House. It’s soon revealed that Nia is transgender.

“She has this courage to her and this drive to protect other people,” she explains. “Her character is so dedicated to truth and standing up for the little guy. It’s then revealed This CBS drama has kept us engaged throughout. The writers are half queer and people of color, giving the show a verisimilitude that police procedurals rarely get. The cast is diverse, the storylines very true to now and if you’ve missed the season, binge it on demand. Well worth watching for Falco alone, who is just stellar in a role we never see on the tube: the older yet still sexual lesbian.

It was a five-tissue event when Anderson Cooper signed off from his most recent CNN coronavirus town hall with surprising news.

“On Monday, I became a father,” Cooper said. “I never actually said that before out loud, and it still kind of astonishes me. I am a dad. I have a son, and I want you to meet him.”

The CNN anchor then told the story of his son’s birth as tearinducing video rolled of Cooper with his newborn.

“He is named Wyatt after my father Edie Falco [the writer Wyatt in Tommy Cooper], who died when I was ten,” Cooper said. “I hope I can be as good a dad as he was.”

Cooper told the audience, “As a gay kid, I never thought it would be possible to have a child, and I’m grateful for all those who have paved the way, and for the doctors and nurses and everyone involved in my son’s birth.”

Cooper added his thanks to “a remarkable surrogate who carried Wyatt, and watched over him lovingly, and tenderly, and gave birth to him. It is an extraordinary blessing-what she, and all surrogates give to families who can’t have children.”

Cue the full-on sobs.

The CNN anchor, who lost his mother, the heiress and author Gloria Vanderbilt last year to stomach cancer and his brother Carter

Nicole Maines in a Supergirl publicity photo

The real world trans community has embraced Maines and Nia. Maines noted that she hears from trans people all the time.

“It’s so amazing to get to see how many people are being validated by seeing a trans superhero on television,” she said. “I always try to make clear is that I’m in the exact same boat--I’ve never had a trans super hero before either. And so, for me getting to see the finished product on television, for me getting to see Dreamer, is just as affirming, just as important.”

Maines is now being told that she’s a role model. She modestly hopes that it’s true.

“I hope that I have been able to show young trans kids that that being trans is not an inhibitor, that it does not keep you from doing anything that you want to do in the world,” she said. “Being a superhero is where the bar is set. If you can be a superhero, everything else is within arms reach.

So if a trans person is able to be a superhero, we’re able to do anything.

And that’s what I want young trans kids to take away. That being trans does not keep them from any want, desire, dream that they may have.”

Supergirl has been renewed for a sixth season by the CW Network.t

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that she is half alien and that she is a descendant of the planet Naltor, a planet where people have the ability to see the future in their dreams.”

As Maines explains it, the dreaming powers are passed down to one woman per generation. Nia’s older sister, who was born as a biological female, was expected to inherit the powers, but the powers recognized that Nia’s destiny was to be a woman, and so the powers were bestowed upon her.

“She embraces these powers and she takes up the mantle of Dreamer and she joins Supergirl as a superhero protege,” Maines said. “And now, in season five, Dreamer has become this beacon for the trans community, and she’s just become a superhero all her own. It’s really been great to see her journey.” to suicide in 1988, said, “I do wish my mom and dad and my brother, Carter, were alive to meet Wyatt, but I like to believe they can see him.

I imagine them all together, arms around each other, smiling and laughing, happy to know that their love is alive in me and in Wyatt, and that our family continues.”

Stopping briefly to regain his composure and wipe away tears, Cooper said, “It is, I think, especially important in these times of trouble to try to hold onto moments of joy and moments of happiness.”

He said Wyatt “is sweet and soft and healthy. And I am beyond happy.”

We are beyond happy for Cooper.

Seek joy where you can. Stay safe and stay tuned.t

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<< Leather, Online Events & Covid Castro

Living in the grey Democratizing sex amid a crisis

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Both photos: BARtab

Left: Trax Bar, like all others, is closed.

Right: Remembering gender-blurred fun at the SF Eagle.

Rich Stadtmiller

A Folsom Street Fair smooch, altered to current times.

by Race Bannon

W

hat constitutes being a kinkster? In what way is being a leather person different from being kinky? With the ever-growing categories of emerging sex subcultures, how do we clearly demarcate someone’s sexual identity? Is that even important?

Younger folks increasingly adopt the catchall self-definition of queer, but queer means different things to different people. Does that make navigating communities that revolve around some sort of sexual commonality easier or more difficult? Perhaps both?

One of the men I have recently become closer to is trans. We have talked about going to sex parties together when the pandemic subsides.

It seems entirely unremarkable to me now compared to not that many years ago.

My last column was about how some folks play with gender erotically and it was an eye opener for me to realize how prevalent such play is across the entire LGBTQ spectrum. The liberation and freedom those I interviewed displayed was breathtaking.

Sexual techniques and insights abound on the web in easily consumable form. The same goes for information about the rethinking relationship norms. This has democratized sex and relationships in a way that would not have passed muster in most of the circles I ran in once upon a time.

This all relates to something I have been thinking about lately, how all this has brought about a less rigidly defined type of sexual being.

That lack of rigidity also trickles

into relationship options too with more choices in how we view partnering and love bonds.

It seems to me that as each day passes we live in a greyer sex and eros world, less confined by entrenched black and white thinking.

We live in an era where individuality reigns supreme even as we pledge allegiance to certain communities.

We might profess membership in a certain group or demographic but the options to easily cross camps at will gives us a type of freedom that cultural gatekeepers of the past would have quickly squelched.

Why does any of this matter? It matters because if we want to maintain a sense of community with our fellow erotic and relationship rebels, we need to accept that we will be socializing and playing amid many who walk varying paths. Uniformity is on the decline. Diversity is on the rise.

The current pandemic threatens our social and sexual venues.

The future of large events and gatherings at which many in the sexual communities connect is in question.

This places further pressure on an already limited set of resources in terms of bars, meeting locations, play spaces, and event venues. We are going to need to rally together in order to maintain community.

Getting creative

Yet another wrinkle of the pandemic is the financial devastation so many are experiencing. Whether it is one of our treasured bars or event venues, or the economic fragility with which many individuals now struggle, it spells the further tenuous nature of the cohesion and viability of our sexuality communi-

ties, at least for a while.

Those external factors make it even more important that we embrace each other’s differentness.

The subsets of sexual identities and relationship variations need to figure out how to get along and thrive in tandem. We are going to need to share our spaces. We are going to have to get comfortable that many of our events will now be populated with kinks, genders, fetishes and relationship configurations that do not match our own. They may not even exist in the same realm as our usual cast of characters. Coexisting is the solution, not the problem.

Do not misinterpret my position as one of total capitulation to homogeneity. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I think now more than ever is when we need to hold on to our uniqueness, individually and collectively, since that is the well from which those who march to the beat of a different drummer find strength.

Still, I think we all need to get more comfortable in the grey. We need to see someone else expressing their sexuality or connection needs in a way entirely counter to our usual comfort zone and celebrate it. By doing so that same acceptance will hopefully reflect in return and they will accept you for who you are and how you want to act.

The crux of my point here is that we are experiencing an unprecedented splintering into factions while at the same time having to deal with an international crisis that will make us rethink how we socialize and play together.

An overreaction perhaps, but my sense right now is that our world is forever changed. So are those elements of the world in which us erotic and relationship rebels commune.

We need to get creative. We need to

become more accepting. We need to figure out how to get our needs met optimally while stepping on others the least. We need to foster kindness.

I know kindness seems like an odd directive in a column that mostly talks about sex, but it’s only through kindness that we will get through this and have a solid community to step back into when the fog of the pandemic rolls back.

Okay, I am done rambling. I am going to back to isolation in my small Castro apartment. I will scan the sex and kink sites and dream of future connections. I will chat and cam with those I would rather be with physically. I will jump onto one of the many online Zoom or Twitch events to maintain a sense of camaraderie

with my friends and other kinksters.

I will read articles and blogs about sex and relationships and discuss them online because that is what is available. But I will dream of a better future, even though that future will probably look drastically different than my past.

Resources Guide The LGBTQ Leather, Kink and Sexuality Communities Resources Guide is a “living” document and will be updated ongoing as more information is made available. https://bit.ly/2Jpcxud t Race Bannon is a local author, blogger and activist. www.bannon.com

BenDeLaCreme (Queer Quarantine Radio), SF Opera, Fruit Fly (CAAMfest) and Persia (Selena).

Homing’s In: Arts, Nightlife and Community Events

Castro amid Covid Photos by Steven Underhill

Enjoy the wonderful array of arts, nightlife and community events online. Also, many of these events are accepting donations to help keep their venues afloat during the shutdown.

Check out the listings on www.ebar.com

On San Francisco’ Castro Street, many businesses are open for limited shopping, food and drinks take-out in makeshift window and doorway booths, amid a sparse open ambiance. Cliff ’s Variety, Hot Cookie, Lark, The Sausage Factory, Walgreen’s and Marcello’s Pizza are among many businesses that are open, within safety guidelines.

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Community & Music>>

May 7-13, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

Queer Nightlife Fund dispurses grants

Left: Juanita MORE! DJed the May 1 QNF Quaran-Tea Dance Above: Queer Nightlife Fund organizer Phil Hammack

by Jim Provenzano

G

rants in the first round of applications for the San Francisco Queer Nightlife Fund are now being disbursed to 176 applicants, according to the organization that has thus far collected $160,000 in donations. More than 250 nightlife workers applied for funds.

“We’re at a milestone moment,” said Phil Hammack in a phone interview. His concept in mid-March has quickly grown from one person’s idea to a diverse collective of nightlife workers with fundraising Quaran-Tea Dances and organizational talents.

“We’re in the process of sending out funds and wanted to announce Along with raising funds, the orthat.” ganization hosts events online, like With the San Francisco shelterthe new Friday Night Jam, whose in-place order extended through May 1 edition featured DJs Juanita May, bartenders, technicians and MORE! and guests. performers are all severely effected, The money will be sent by check in particular by the loss of revenue and through electronic deposit, acfrom now-closed upcoming Pride cording to their preference, Hamand street fairs.

mack noted.

Funds dispursals will range from $2750, with $500 for dependents, and the lower being $300 for those with less financial need. Grant amounts were based on need by the organizations’ steering committee.

“The range was based on needs of applicants,” said Hammack.

“The criteria was that nightlife work had to be a significant portion of your income. We weren’t targeting folks for nightlife work was a side gig, but a regular part of their income.”

A more detailed report of what kind of nightlife workers are receiving aid, and in which categories, will be released soon.

The QNF was formed by a quickly gathered group of DJs, performers, and longtime nightlife personalities, with the aid of Spencer Watson of the Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research.

Hammack’s nightlife connection is via the Fog City Pack, which he

Music of the ages Gregg Shapiro covers five singer-songwriters and groups with a familial frame, and Timothy Pfaff explores the tangled tale of romantic intrigue (off and onstage) in his review of a new CD of Jeanne-Baptiste Lully’s opera Isis. Check it out on www.ebar.com

founded. Their three annual parties, Alpha, Beta, and Omega, attract kink-fetish enthusiasts with a canine theme and an appreciation of electronic music.

Hammack recalled the start of the fund idea back in March 14, when some bars had announced their closures, and the depth of the COVID-19 outbreak led city officials to recommend, then demand the closure of many businesses.

“I woke up that morning with an impending sense of doom,” said Hammack. “I was really worried about the impact this might on the nightlife people who ‘make the magic happen.’ I thought, ‘We have to do something, quickly.’ So I reached out to community leaders.

I tried to find a diverse set of folks,

both in our community and those who have diverse skill sets.”

Partnering with Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research got the financial set-up going. “They helped us get the financial aspect off the ground,” said Hammack.

The gathered recruits had Zoom meetings on March 14 and 15.

Within days, the website was created, online announcements were sent out, events were scheduled, and people began to donate.

The first Sunday Quaran-Tea Dance kicked off March 22, and each week has more viewers and donors. “That event alone has been drawing thousands of people each week,” added Hammack, “who’ve donated thousands of dollars.” The goal is to reach $200,000.

If one can dare to see the positive side to a pandemic, the outpouring of support would serve as an example.

“Part of the excitement of these new virtual events, people can participate in different and new ways, and from all over the world,” said Hammack, adding that the hunky Jesus and Foxy Mary contests, hosted by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, “had people from all over the world. We had someone in a Twitch chat who said, ‘Can you please do this next year even if Dolores Park is open?’ There are many levels of participation.”

Queer Nightlife Fund events continue, including Sunday QuaranTea Dances, from 1pm to 6pm.t

Read the full article at www.ebar.com sfqueernightlifefund.org facebook.com/sfqueernightlifefund instagram.com/sfqueernightlifefund twitter.com/qnightlifefund twitch.tv/sfqueernightlifefund

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