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Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971
Vol. 52 • No. 18 • May 5-11, 2022
Tax status leads to scrutiny of leather nonprofit by Eric Burkett
Justin is three years sober from G and meth. His photography, featured behind him, is on display at the Castro Country Club, a sober community gathering space in the heart of the Castro.
Meth without GHB is like ‘coffee without cream’ by Adam Echelman
J
ustin used to sell “Happy Meals” for $135: an ounce of G, an eighth of meth, and two to three Viagra. The meth pumps your brain with dopamine, the G makes you horny, and the Viagra allows you to stay erect. “It’s all the things that make you feel happy and loved and then also with the added boost so that you can perform,” said Justin, who asked that his last name not be published. For gay men in San Francisco, the “methamphetamine problem” is much more than a single drug. It’s about Gamma hydroxybutyrate, GHB or G, which is often used concurrently with meth, and it’s also about sexual and mental health. This trio — co-addiction, sex, and trauma — are fueling the demand for Happy Meals. “The majority of gay men I’ve worked with have also used G at least some point with the crystal [meth],” said Kevin Shone, the supervising substance use counselor with the UCSF Alliance Health Project. He has been working with meth users for over 20 years in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Because the high from meth is so extreme, he explained, many users experience a debilitating sense of depression that can last as long as a week. G then provides a brief respite during the comedown, distracting from the overwhelming side effects of meth. Sometimes, gay men will use both G and meth at the same time to heighten pleasure during sex. But G has a number of knock-offs like Gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4-Butanediol (BD/BDO), which can be more or less powerful and look the same. The science of dosing becomes especially precarious when the person using G is also high on meth. Shone recalled one patient who went home after a night of partying and started the water in his bathtub before taking a little more G. He passed out on the floor and woke up with an inch of water. “We, as a community, don’t recognize that this is almost a co-equal addiction,” said Justin, 41, who identifies as gay. After he was evicted from his longtime apartment in 2014, he felt directionless and began more regularly using drugs. G and meth became habitual
T
he San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance, serving as fiscal sponsor for the massively successful Queer Nightlife Fund that raised nearly $400,000 over 2020 and 2021 for LGBTQ folks thrown out of work by the COVID pandemic, may not have had its financial house in order when it told would-be donors their financial gifts were tax deductible. In March, 2020, following the collapse of the hospitality and nightlife industry because of the outbreak of COVID-19, several LGBTQ community leaders in San Francisco agreed to launch what would become the Queer Nightlight Fund, or QNF, in an effort to get money to hundreds of queer nightlife workers who were suddenly without jobs. The endeavor was incredibly successful, raising $399,641, which was dispersed in 511 grants through eight rounds of giving. Like COVID, the fundraising project went on much longer than originally anticipated. “When Phil Hammack [also known as Pup Turbo] first reached out to fellow community leaders in March 2020 concerned about
Rick Gerharter
The San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance is being scrutinized over its tax-exempt status.
the future of local queer nightlife workers, the steering committee and QNF nonprofit that resulted had no idea we’d still need to be around for so long,” according to QNF’s website. “QNF thought perhaps after a few months passed things would return to nor-
mal. But the pandemic had other plans, and QNF remained committed to sustaining local queer nightlife by supporting its workers for 17 months.” Initially, the money raised was collected by San Francisco-based Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research, or CLEAR, a nonprofit social welfare organization that assists LGBTQ households, organizations, and communities with financial education and services. A 501(c)4, CLEAR was in a position to accept the funds, which it then transferred to the QNF through a common practice called fiscal sponsorship. “CLEAR’s role in supporting the QNF using our systems was always meant to be temporary until a 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor could be identified,” Spencer Watson, president and executive director of CLEAR, wrote in an email to the Bay Area Reporter. The next group to align with QNF was Q Foundation, an organization that helps people with HIV/AIDS with housing, also served as an unofficial, temporary sponsor until the leather alliance took over. “They were very kind to be doing this for us but it was an overload for them,” said See page 10 >>
Matthew S. Bajko
Adam Echelman
At SF elementary school, LGBTQ pride is on the march Students at San Francisco’s George Peabody Elementary School marched in a Pride parade Friday, April 29.
by Matthew S. Bajko
D
ecked out in rainbow accessories roughly two-dozen George Peabody Elementary School students came together on the blacktop courtyard of their San Francisco public school for a flash mob performance to “LOVE” by Gianluca Vacchi and Sebastián Yatra. The 2018 song, sung partly in English and Spanish, includes the refrain, “We all need a / A little bit of love.”
Following the choreographed performance before the start of school Friday, the entire student body proceeded to march around the city block of its Inner Richmond neighborhood. Arranged by class, one first-grade teacher spelled out “l-o-v-e” with her students chanting back “spread love, spread love.” Greeting his pupils as they completed their loop back to the school was Principal Willem Vroegh wearing a rainbow sport coat and holding up a sign that read “Pea-
See page 16 >>
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body Pride.” He had decided to forgo the matching rainbow pants or else the entire ensemble would have been “too bright,” he joked with a colleague. “This is our first official Pride parade,” Vroegh, a straight ally who has overseen the school for 17 years, told the Bay Area Reporter. “During Pride Month we have talked about it in the classroom for many, many years, for as long as I could remember, but have never had something this big before.” See page 11 >>