October 5, 2023 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

CA US Senator Dianne Feinstein dies at 90

by Cynthia Laird

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the oldest sitting member of the Senate and a trailblazer for women in politics, has died, multiple outlets reported Friday morning. She was 90.

Feinstein, a Democrat whose political career began in San Francisco and who was catapulted into the national spotlight after the assassinations of gay supervisor Harvey Milk and then-mayor George Moscone in 1978, had served in the Senate since 1992. She was the first woman elected to represent California in the Senate.

Her office issued a statement that Feinstein died September 29 at her home in Washington, D.C.

The memorial for Feinstein till take place Thursday outside San Francisco City Hall, beginning at 1 p.m. Her body lied in state in City Hall on Wednesday.

Feinstein, the longest-serving woman in the Senate, had been in poor health in recent months, and suffered a severe case of shingles earlier this year that caused her to miss months of work. Feinstein announced in February that she would not seek reelection next year, as the Bay Area Reporter previously reported.

Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler, a Black lesbian, to succeed Feinstein and she was sworn into office Tuesday. Her taking office brings Senate Democrats back to 51-50 control (three independents caucus with the Democrats.)

Last week, Newsom issued a statement praising Feinstein.

See page 12 >>

Cheer abounds at Castro fair

Cheer SF, the pep squad made up of LGBTQ and allied members, and the city’s official cheer team, performed at the intersection of 18th and Castro streets Sunday,

October 1, during the Castro Street Fair. The fair saw an enlarged footprint this year as well as entertainment, vendor booths, and more.

Senator Laphonza Butler takes the oath of office, which was administered by Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday, October 3.

Butler sworn in as US senator

by Cynthia Laird

Laphonza Butler was sworn in Tuesday as California’s new senator, succeeding Dianne Feinstein, who died last week. Butler, a lesbian, becomes the Senate’s first Black lesbian member and only the third Black woman to ever sit in the chamber.

Vice President Kamala Harris, for whom Butler once worked as a senior adviser, administered the oath of office. Harris herself had served as California’s junior senator before resigning to become vice president.

See page 12 >>

SFFD assistant chief loses discrimination trial

by John Ferrannini

The lesbian assistant fire chief who sued the City and County of San Francisco alleging retaliation, harassment, and discrimination lost her case September 29, with a jury deciding in favor of the city.

The verdict, which was unanimous except a 9-3 no vote on the question of whether Nicol Juratovac’s disclosure of unlawful acts in the department contributed to adverse employment actions against her, ended a 13-day civil jury trial in San Francisco Superior Court that brought both the current and immediate past fire chiefs in for testimony.

Only nine of 12 votes were necessary to reach a verdict. In her jury instructions September 28, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos confirmed that three-quarters of the jury had to find that the plaintiff’s case is more likely true than not true – a different standard from criminal proceedings, which requires a unanimous jury to find that facts are proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury appeared to consist of nine men and three women.

Following the verdict, Bolanos addressed Juratovac after the jury left her courtroom.

“I really hope you continue with your fabulous career,” she said. “It’s clear the jurors were impressed with you, so that’s very meaningful.”

Juratovac’s attorney, Therese Y. Cannata, of Cannata O’Toole and Olson, gave a brief statement to

John Ferrannini

the Bay Area Reporter.

“We’re disappointed, but I’d like to thank the jury for their service,” Cannata said.

Asked if Juratovac would like to speak to the B.A.R. Cannata said, “I think that speaks for her as well,” before the two went behind closed doors.

In a subsequent news release, Cannata stated, “Reflecting on these past few weeks, we remain proud to have had the opportunity to represent Chief Juratovac in this case and know that she will carry on as a great leader of the San Francisco Fire Department.”

Juratovac, one of six assistant chiefs, stated she’d be returning to duty.

“I have always wanted to be a firefighter and love the Department and my hometown, the City of San Francisco,” stated Juratovac. “Look forward to returning to work and dedicating myself to the mission of the San Francisco Fire Department, which includes protecting the lives and property of the people of San Francisco and providing a work environment that values health, wellness, cultural diversity, and equity.”

Deputy city attorneys Amy Frenzen and Adam Shapiro referred the B.A.R. to their office’s spokesperson, Jen Kwart, who said, “justice prevails” in a statement.

“This result demonstrates that the jury understood the facts and that neither discrimination, nor harassment or retaliation occurred in this instance,” stated Kwart, a spokesperson for City Attorney David Chiu. “The city is and has been committed to an inclusive workplace free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.”

Juror No. 9 agreed to speak to the B.A.R., but only wanted to be referred to by his number.

The juror said that it was clear there were interpersonal conflicts between Juratovac and her colleagues, but that it didn’t rise to the level of unlawful behavior.

See page 4 >>

Deputy City Attorney Amy Frenzen leaves San Francisco Superior Court September 28, accompanied by two San Francisco Fire Department officials.

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein died September 29.

Rick Gerharter

Screengrab

Rick Gerharter

Rustin stamp bakers hope film will bolster case

by Matthew S. Bajko

For nearly a decade LGBTQ advocates have been calling on the U.S. Postal Service to issue a stamp honoring the deceased gay Black civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. But just as a resolution in support of the effort has gone nowhere in Congress, the calls for a Rustin forever stamp have, so far, fallen on deaf ears among the advisory body that recommends ideas for new postage.

Now, with Netflix releasing a biopic this fall about Rustin, backers of the stamp campaign hope the movie will boost their efforts similar to how the 2008 film “Milk” supercharged the drumbeat for seeing a stamp be issued on behalf of its protagonist, the late gay San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk. Issued in 2014, the Milk stamp was the first to specifically honor a leader of the LGBTQ rights movement in America.

Bruce Cohen, a gay man who helped produce both films, recently signed on as an honorary co-chair of the national campaign behind the Rustin stamp. He told the Bay Area Reporter by phone September 29 that he and his counterparts will be using various upcoming screenings of “Rustin” to encourage audience members to get behind the stamp campaign and send in letters of support to the postal service’s Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee.

“We are super hopeful and excited that the impact of the movie is really going to help Bayard Rustin get his stamp,” said Cohen, who is in the process of sending in his own letter of support to the postage panel.

The new film has another connection to that of “Milk,” as its gay Oscar-winning screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black, shares a writing credit on “Rustin” with Julian Breece, who wrote the original screenplay for the film starring Colman Domingo in the title role. Both Breece and Domingo are gay Black men.

The two stamp efforts share a political connection. Among the executive producers of “Rustin,” being released in theaters November 3 and globally on Netflix November 17, are former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama. During Obama’s time in the Oval Office, the White House hosted the unveiling ceremony for the Milk stamp.

Present at it was Stuart Milk, the gay nephew of Harvey Milk who is among the honorary co-chairs of the Rustin stamp campaign. Another co-chair is Walter Naegle, the partner of Rustin, who died at the age of 75 on August 24, 1987.

Nine years ago the International Court System, the drag philanthropy organization founded in San Francisco, and the National LGBTQ Task Force launched the campaign calling for a commemorative U.S. postage stamp in honor of Rustin. Nicole Murray Ramirez, known as the Queen Mother I of the Americas and Nicole the Great within the Imperial Court System, was the initial instigator of the campaign and was put in touch with Cohen via the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the national group that works to elect out candidates to offices across the country.

Murray Ramirez plans to attend the San Francisco screening of “Rustin,” set to take place October 30, and speak at it about the stamp effort. Cohen will likewise also be promoting the stamp campaign at a screening of the movie, directed by gay Black playwright George C. Wolfe, that Monday at a film festival in Middleburg, Virginia.

“We deeply appreciate Bruce Cohen reaching out and being supportive of our Bayard Rustin stamp efforts and accepting being a national chair,” said Murray Ramirez, a gay San Diego resident and city human rights commissioner. “I also want to thank the Victory Fund for their strong support and connecting Bruce with us.”

CA leaders endorse effort

Over the years a number of California leaders have backed the Rustin stamp campaign, from members of the West Hollywood City Council to gay San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. Back in 2019 California state legislators passed a resolution written by Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (DLos Angeles) in support of the Rustin stamp effort and also called on the U.S. Postal Service to issue it.

In 2020, at the urging of thenassemblymember Shirley Weber (DSan Diego), now secretary of state, and gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), California Governor Gavin Newsom posthumously pardoned Rustin. In 1953 he had been arrested in Pasadena, California on vagrancy charges leading to Rustin spending 50 days in Los Angeles County Jail and being ordered to register as a sex offender.

Newsom’s doing so was aimed at removing a possible stumbling block for the issuance of a Rustin stamp. Now, with the movie coming out, Murray Ramirez told the B.A.R. he hopes it has the same positive impact as the film about Milk had in boosting that stamp effort.

“A postal worker I was talking to at the White House unveiling for the Milk stamp said, ‘We got even more letters after the movie came out.’ I believe the Rustin movie will do the same for our stamp campaign,” said Murray Ramirez.

Few people outside of the Bay Area knew about Milk prior to the release of the film starring Sean Penn as the gay civil rights leader, while even fewer people are aware of Rustin, said Cohen, or the role he played in the seminal 1963 March on Washington where the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his now iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. According to the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, (https://postalmuseum.si.edu/ exhibition/the-black-experience-thefight-for-civil-rights/martin-lutherking-jr) the first stamp honoring King was released in 1979.

Not only was Rustin a top adviser to King, he was instrumental in seeing that the protest march and rally took place, as is depicted in the new film, said Cohen.

“The entire history of the civil rights movement, and therefore our country, would be different if it hadn’t been for

Bayard Rustin,” said Cohen, adding, “when you realize it was his idea and he was the one who made it happen that speaks extremely loudly to his historical significance and why he is deserving of a stamp.”

Congressmember Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-Washington, D.C.) has made similar points in the resolution she has repeatedly introduced in the U.S. House on behalf of a Rustin stamp. She first announced her Bayard Rustin Stamp Act in 2019 and just reintroduced it in August, as it has yet to be adopted.

Once again gay Black Congressmember Ritchie Torres (D-New York) is a co-sponsor of it. Also sponsoring it are straight allies Shontel Brown (DOhio) and Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles). It is currently awaiting a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Outside of the U.S. Rustin is little known, said Cohen, adding that the new film hopefully will bring him the international recognition he deserves. As a result, Cohen hopes it will increase support for seeing a Rustin stamp be approved.

“The fact this movie will be available instantly all over the world on November 17 is super exciting, and we hope will be completely transformative for Bayard’s legacy,” Cohen told the B.A.R.

Other LGBTQs honored

Since the Milk stamp was released, a number of other LGBTQ luminaries have been honored on U.S. postage. A forever stamp honoring the late astronaut Sally Ride, who posthumously came out as a lesbian at the time of her death in 2012, was issued May 23, 2018.

Last year, the postal service on a Black Heritage Forever Stamp featured the late Edmonia Lewis. The first African American and Native American sculptor to earn international recognition in the Western art world, Lewis moved around lesbian art circles in Rome in the late 1860s.

The Gay and Lesbian History on Stamps website has compiled a list of all the stamps ever issued that feature people from the LGBTQ community. Included in its list are also stamps depicting the cartoon character Bugs Bunny in drag, believed to be the first time drag has been featured on U.S. postage.

After they came out in 2020, Murray Ramirez launched a campaign calling on the postal service to create postage featuring the late drag performers José Julio Sarria, Marsha P. Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera. He recently told the B.A.R. that there has been no word on whether the postage panel has considered doing so.

The committee, currently 11 members, meets confidentially four times a year and makes recommendations about new stamps to the U.S. postmaster general, who makes a final determination on which commemorative stamps will be issued. According to the committee’s website, ideas for stamp subjects should be received at least three or more years prior to the proposed issuance year.

Only deceased individuals are eligible to be featured on a stamp, and they can’t be honored in such a manner until three years following their death. The approval process for new stamps usually takes about three years.

If the committee decides not to recommend a subject for issuance as a stamp, the proposal can be submitted again for reconsideration following a three-year interval, according to its stamp selection process rules. As its website notes, “The Postal Service will honor extraordinary and enduring contributions to American society, history, culture, or environment.”

In an emailed reply to the B.A.R. September 28, postal service spokesperson James McKean said announcements on the stamps to be issued in 2024 should be made “later this calendar year.” He encouraged those in support of the Rustin stamp, or any other postage suggestions, to write to the stamp advisory panel.

“The Postal Service is always happy to hear about stamps subjects that the public would like to see. If you would like to suggest ideas for future stamps you must contact the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee,” wrote McKean. “The Postal Service’s Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee receives over 30,000 suggestions for stamp subjects each year. From those suggestions it makes recommendations to the Postmaster General on each year’s stamp program.”

For the address to submit letters, visit the advisory committee’s website at https://about.usps.com/who/ csac/#overview t

Castro gets new rainbow flag

Volunteers helped to raise the new, oversize rainbow flag in Harvey Milk Plaza at Castro and Market streets Friday, September 29, ahead of the Castro Street Fair. The Castro Merchants Association provided the new flag. Terry Asten Bennett, president of the merchants’ group and coowner of Cliff’s Variety, noted that the old flag was retired in memoriam of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), who had died earlier that day at the age of 90. “She

was a great woman who loved San Francisco passionately,” Bennett stated, noting that Feinstein was the first female president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors before becoming mayor following the assassination of thenmayor George Moscone in November 1978. Moscone was killed in City Hall by disgruntled ex-supervisor Dan White, who also fatally shot gay supervisor Harvey Milk, who represented the Castro and started the street fair.

Backers of a postage stamp honoring gay Black civil rights leader Bayard Rustin hope the release of a new film about him will jump-start their efforts.

Backers of a postage stamp honoring gay

Rick Gerharter

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In 1960s, drag found a home in SF’s Glen Park

by Matthew S. Bajko

During the 1960s most LGBTQ nightlife in San Francisco was centered in the northern neighborhoods of the city. Gay bars could be found along Polk Street, in the Tenderloin, and the South of Market neighborhood.

In the heart of the city, the late lesbian couple Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin hosted private gatherings for queer women in their Noe Valley home. They had been doing so ever since buying their Duncan Street cottage in 1955.

A short drive away in the city’s Glen Park neighborhood, albeit for a brief period of time, one could enjoy female impersonators performing at a restaurant location with a storied past dating back to the 1900s. An account of their opening night at the Blanca Lounge in an October 1964 edition of Citizens News, a defunct early LGBTQ newspaper, described it as “something that should have been seen.”

The writer noted, “The addition of tacos to female impersonators is welcome to the jaded appetites.” One of the performers, referred to only as Terry, was reported to have taken “so many curtain calls that he was embarrassed and when you can embarrass that one you have done something.”

An ad had appeared in one of the newspaper’s September issues touting that the eatery, located at 2972 Diamond Street, would be featuring “San Francisco’s Finest Impersonators” Wednesdays through Sundays starting on September 16. It highlighted the performers as being “Terry, Jay, Jamie & Chris” and noted that “Mexican Dinners” would be served.

The existence of what was essentially a precursor to today’s drag shows would likely have been lost to history were it not for a post on the website Nextdoor inquiring if there had been a bar in Glen Park that presented female impersonators. It had come to the attention of Paula Lichtenberg, a founding member of the San Francisco-based GLBT Historical Society.

In 2021, she reached out to Evelyn Rose, the founder in 2014 of the Glen Park Neighborhoods History Project, to inquire if she knew anything about such an establishment. The idea that there would be a venue for drag in the area came as a bit of a shock, Rose told the Bay Area Reporter during an interview at the Cup Cafe coffeehouse located near where Casa Blanca had once stood.

She has lived in the vicinity for 35 years and moved into her current Glen Park home with her wife 19 years ago. As she works in medical communications and had other history projects to finish, Rose told the B.A.R. it wasn’t until this past January that she was able to start looking into the history of Casa Blanca. It didn’t take long before she began unearthing archival evidence about the long forgotten LGBTQ gathering place.

“It was quite a surprise because I wasn’t expecting to find something like that,” said Rose, who in 2012 began writing about San Francisco history on her website www.TrampsofSanFrancisco. com.

SFFD trial

From page 1

“We did feel she was an exemplary firefighter, but we do feel as she rose through the ranks her personality – she butted heads, not that there weren’t tensions and microaggressions by some of the people the plaintiff pointed out, but it did not rise to the level of retaliation, harassment, or discrimination on the basis of her race, sexual orientation, or gender,” he said. (Juratovac is Asian American.)

The juror also said Juratovac was herself partly to blame. He said Juratovac acted wrongly by mentioning a probationary firefighter’s sexual orientation on an official form, which was part of the sixth of seven investigations into Juratovac – and the only one for which she

She also asked around to see if there was anyone still residing in her neighborhood who would have frequented the Casa Blanca or seen one of the female impersonator shows. Sadly, most residents from that time have since died, noted Rose, who so far has only been able to speak with one individual who recalled running into the restaurant to buy cigarettes when they were 15 years old.

“We’ve lost the generation with that legacy memory,” said Rose.

Online archives

She turned to various online archives to see what she could find about the Casa Blanca. It led her to discovering that there were historical ties between Glen Park and the Bohemian denizens across town in North Beach, famous for its role in the birth of the Beatniks.

An obituary she located in the January 28, 1954 edition of the San Francisco

was ultimately disciplined for.

“We all wanted to say she gave it as good as she got it,” he said.

That doesn’t mean the city handled the situation well; the juror had harsh words for the city’s Department of Human Resources, which never completed an investigation into Juratovac’s claims after the woman assigned to it abruptly resigned.

“We felt the HR department in particular did not process her claims in a timely manner,” he said. “We were hoping for a separate question about HR. The woman who resigned, Rebecca Sherman, failed to process the report but it seems she had some personal issues. Her supervisor ... should have processed that.”

The juror said he did not believe that former Assistant Chief Tom Siragusa led a campaign against Juratovac after she signed a declaration supporting a

Examiner for Angelo Pellegrino, the proprietor of an eponymously named restaurant that preceded Casa Blanca in the 1940s, described it as a gathering place for the city’s Bohemians.

“To learn there was a tavern or bar operating in Glen Park since the 1930s that was Bohemian or kind of avantgarde was surprising and exciting. It was surprising because I didn’t think people thought of Glen Park that way,” said Rose, explaining that the neighborhood was more known as “a bucolic backwater” near former farmland.

It began attracting more residential development following the 1906 earthquake and fire that devastated downtown San Francisco. Its remoteness became an advantage for saloon owners during the Prohibition era.

Over the decades a number of owners had operated bars and restaurants in Casa Blanca’s building, with the first

Black probationary firefighter who sued the city alleging he’d been bullied. Larry Jacobs had filed his own suit against the city back in 2013.  He had been forced to eat meals alone in his car and scrub the floor of the fire station with a toothbrush, Cannata said during the trial. He was also called a “house boy,” SF Gate reported in a 2013 article about the case settling for $175,000.

Juratovac: ‘Clubhouse’ torpedoed career

Frenzen gave a powerful ending to her closing arguments September 28, saying that it was Juratovac, and not the fire department, who needed to be held accountable.

“Chief Juratovac is in a significant position of power in the fire department,”

some of his family members.

“It is probably how they started serving Mexican food,” surmised Rose, as it had previously been known as a place for Italian food.

Unfortunately, Rose has not been able to learn anything about the female impersonators who appeared at Casa Blanca or discover any photos of them performing at the restaurant. Her archival research went cold after finding the last ad for the venue in a March 1965 edition of the Citizens News.

By 1966, it was no longer listed in the city’s phone directory, said Rose. The following year construction began on the station and trackway for the regional BART transit line. It necessitated the tearing down of Casa Blanca’s building.

reference Rose found of it being called Casa Blanca dated 1944. She suspects it took its name from the structure’s facade being painted white based on old photographs she was able to find.

‘A hip place’

By the 1950s “it was already a hip place. It seems it was known by folks in North Beach,” said Rose. “It was a place for the counterculture to get together basically.”

In 1959, brothers Andrew and John Tomasello had taken over ownership of the restaurant. Five years later, perhaps to drum up business, the siblings decided to feature female impersonators.

“I don’t know why they started it,” said Rose, though she noted seeing men dressed as women was a frequent aspect of pop culture back then. “In the 1960s, we were just overloaded with examples of cross-dressing on TV.”

According to the Citizens News there would be two shows a night at the Casa Blanca. It described the stage as being near a fireplace in the middle of the room perfect “for an indoor picnic.” It not only raved about the Mexican food being served as “delicious” but also “very reasonably priced,” with patrons able to order for $1.50 a combination plate with a taco, enchilada, Spanish rice, and Frijole refritos.

Due to its rather hidden away location, the paper also provided readers with directions for Casa Blanca whether they were coming by car or city bus.

“This is a new type bar for San Francisco, since it is not only off the beaten path, but is also offering an impersonator show almost every night of the week,” noted the paper.

Rose, using a clue from one of the write-ups that referred to the person running the shows as Charlie, was able to track down his niece, who informed her that her uncle had died in 2010. The niece said her uncle never discussed with her the Casa Blanca, but she did divulge he had emigrated from Mexico and had been somewhat estranged from

Frenzen told the jury. “I can’t believe we’re coming to a place where how we treat each other doesn’t matter. The fire department is not perfect but Chief Juratovac is not perfect either and I hope people hold her accountable and I hope those people are you.”

Earlier, Cannata said that Juratovac’s hopes and dreams were crushed by a “clubhouse” culture that couldn’t accept her as the first female to be a permanent assistant chief. The department has only had women since 1987 and, one year after that, a federal court mandated more women be hired.

“You work hard, you follow the rules – in the fire department, you learn the rules, you learn the tools,” Cannata said. “Her confidence, her belief it would all work out, her belief it would stop, it all started falling away. This was not just a

Digging through various archives Rose did locate a reference to an even older female impersonation performance offered in Glen Park. An advertisement in the December 11, 1899 edition of the San Francisco Call newspaper promoted female impersonations performed by Baby Troy at the zoo that had been located within Glen Canyon, which is now a city park.

“Cross-dressing and female impersonation dates back quite far in San Francisco and Glen Park,” noted Rose, adding that such performances have been “around for centuries if not millennia,” with men in early theatrical groups playing all the female roles.

In June, for Pride Month, Rose presented her research into the Casa Blanca, as well as the history of saloons in Glen Park and the neighborhood’s Bohemian connections, at the Glen Park Branch Library. She hopes as more people learn about the venue, someone will come forward with their personal recollections of watching the female impersonators perform there or someone may have ephemera for it left to them by a relative or friend.

“I would be surprised if the neighborhood didn’t have knowledge of what Casa Blanca was,” said Rose. “Maybe they didn’t talk about it, but they also didn’t talk down about it either, to my knowledge. That is my impression anyway.”

By unearthing the history about Casa Blanca and its presenting drag shows, Rose hopes it provides a counterbalance to the recent wave of legislation against, and protests of, drag shows and performers. After all, it is evidence that drag culture has long been a part of the American story.

“I just don’t get it, people who don’t want to open their minds or experience different ways of life and different ways of living,” said Rose. “I just don’t get it. Hopefully, we can galvanize and push back.”

To learn more about Rose’s work documenting Glen Park’s history, and for information on how to contact her, visit www.GlenParkHistory.org . t

This article is part of the LGBTQ Media History Month Project coordinated by Philadelphia Gay News.

miserable day at work – this was actually her job, and her career.”

For three hours, Cannata walked through the seven disciplinary actions Juratovac alleged constituted the department’s discrimination against her. These were, in chronological order, 1) about an argument ostensibly about a mask at a 2014 fire; 2) her order that a firefighter who’d been arrested for driving under the influence stop driving on duty in 2015;

3) and 4) two separate incidents at San Francisco International Airport in 2016;

5) a dispute over proper reporting of secondary employment in 2019; 6) a dispute about a ladder drill in 2019; and 7) and a dispute over a lost document in 2020.  “This was not for not showing up for work or drinking on the job,” Cannata

See page 13 >>

The old Pellegrino building in the Glen Park neighborhood of San Francisco preceded Casa Blanca, where female impersonators performed.

Courtesy Open SF History

The first ad for Casa Blanca, top right, appeared in the Police and Peace Officers’ Journal in February 1945.

Internet Archive

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Volume 53, Number 40

October 5-11, 2023

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

ARTS & NIGHTLIFE EDITOR

Jim Provenzano

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Matthew S. Bajko • John Ferrannini

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Christopher J. Beale • Robert Brokl

Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth

Philip Campbell • Heather Cassell

Michael Flanagan •Jim Gladstone

Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • Lisa Keen

Philip Mayard • Laura Moreno

David-Elijah Nahmod • Paul Parish • Tim Pfaff

Jim Piechota • Adam Sandel

Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro

Gwendolyn Smith • Charlie Wagner

Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood

ART DIRECTION

Max Leger

PRODUCTION/DESIGN

Ernesto Sopprani

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jane Philomen Cleland

Rick Gerharter • Gooch

Jose A. Guzman-Colon • Rudy K. Lawidjaja

Georg Lester • Rich Stadtmiller

Christopher Robledo • Fred Rowe

Shot in the City • Steven Underhill • Bill Wilson

ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS

Christine Smith

VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING

Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937

NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE

Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

LEGAL COUNSEL

Paul H. Melbostad, Esq.

Butler should seek full Senate term

Governor Gavin Newsom’s selection of Black lesbian Laphonza Butler to replace the late senator Dianne Feinstein in the U.S. Senate fulfilled his promise to pick a Black woman should he need to appoint someone. That Butler is the first LGBTQ woman of color in the Senate is a boost for the community, as queer people of color have long been underrepresented in politics in general, and Congress in particular. We think the best opportunity for a Black woman to remain in the Senate is for Butler to seek a full term in 2024. She will already be appearing on the primary ballot in March in a special election to complete Feinstein’s term; she should announce her candidacy soon, as the filing deadline to run for the full term is December 8.

Yes, it will be tough for Butler to start so late in the process and it would upend the current race for Feinstein’s seat as three current Democratic congressmembers – Barbara Lee of Oakland, Adam Schiff of Burbank, and Katie Porter of Irvine – are already deep into their own campaigns. (Feinstein had announced in February that she would not seek reelection next year.)

With Butler’s experience serving as president of Emily’s List, the powerhouse political organization that works to elect pro-choice Democratic women to public office, and her deep ties to organized labor, her positions on working class issues fit within the progressive wing of the Democratic Party despite stints as a consultant for Uber and Airbnb. Butler is also a former top adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris back when she was running for president. While Butler lives in Maryland, Newsom stated that she owns a home in California and has re-registered to vote in the Golden State, satisfying residency requirements.

Reality on the ground

With all due respect to Lee, the only Black woman in the Senate race – and we’ve supported her and admired her actions, courage, and steadfast support for the LGBTQ community for decades – her campaign does not appear to be gaining traction. Among all likely voters, Schiff garnered 20% of the vote, followed by Porter (17%) and Lee (7%), according to a recent L.A. Times-Berkeley IGS poll, though about one-third of voters hadn’t made up their minds.

Schiff is leading in fundraising and just reported raising $6.4 million in the third quarter of this year, ending the quarter with $32 million cash on hand, according to NBC News.

Porter has about $10.3 million cash on hand and Lee reported $1.4 million, according to July campaign finance reports.

Lee’s supporters have long said that she’s an underdog and not to count her out. But the reality is that she’s consistently been stuck in third place in this current campaign. Lee had hoped that Newsom would appoint her to Feinstein’s seat, but that didn’t happen.

Newsom’s process

Speaking of Newsom, the whole messy process of replacing Feinstein was of his own making when he started it two years ago by promising to name a Black woman should he ever get another Senate appointment. He had angered Black women when he picked his ally, former California secretary of state Alex Padilla, a Latino man, to replace Harris when she resigned from the Senate to become vice president. The whole exercise showed Newsom’s flaws, as San Francisco Chronicle columnist Emily Hoeven aptly noted.

Frankly, Newsom should have never promised a selection from a specific group. Padilla became the state’s first Latino senator, and that’s important in a state where Latinos account for 40% of the population, according to Pew Research Center. But after Harris’ departure there were no Black women in the chamber, so Newsom made his pledge.

Many Black progressives are upset that Newsom didn’t choose Lee for this Senate vacancy. But she’s already running and, while Newsom backtracked from a comment that he did not want someone who was not already in the race so as not to “tip” the balance, it was clear he was never going to select Lee. The two aren’t close politically, and she and her sup-

porters probably overplayed their hand with intense lobbying.

Newsom also had to walk back his statement that whomever he selected would serve on an interim basis and wouldn’t seek a full term. As Erika D. Smith wrote in her Los Angeles Times column, “Newsom is under the delusion that there’s a sizable pool of powerful Black women in California who are eager to put aside their own political ambitions and break ranks with the sisterhood to accept his offer to serve as an ‘interim appointment’ to the Senate. This caretaker would agree to merely finish out Feinstein’s term and not run again – and make it harder to ensure there’s a Black woman in the upper chamber at all.”

On Sunday afternoon, just hours before he named Butler, it was reported that there would be no preconditions on the appointment. In other words, whomever Newsom selected could run for the seat next year if she wanted to.

Still, Butler should run

No one said politics was easy – or neat and tidy. Given everything that’s transpired over the last several days, we still believe that Butler should seek a full term. A voice like hers is needed now more than ever in the Senate. As Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said on the Senate floor Tuesday after Butler’s swearing in, her appointment is a step toward making the body more representative of America. We’d like to see a powerful Black lesbian in the Senate, asking tough questions at hearings and fighting for everyday Americans and working families.

LGBTQ organizations have praised Butler’s selection. “Today she shatters a rainbow ceiling in becoming the first out Black LGBTQ+ U.S. senator,” stated the LGBTQ Victory Fund. “She will certainly be a champion for women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. Senate.”

Perhaps Butler herself said it best, in a statement released by Newsom’s office.

“No one will ever measure up to the legacy of Senator Dianne Feinstein, but I will do my best to honor her legacy and leadership by committing to work for women and girls, workers and unions, struggling parents, and all of California,” she stated. “I am ready to serve.”

If Butler’s good enough for Newsom to appoint her, she’s good enough to run for the seat. t

Feinstein was a trailblazer

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.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), who died last week at the age of 90, will be remembered for a lot of things, but to many older LGBTQ people, she is recalled as the steadfast leader who worked to heal San Francisco following a tragedy that propelled her into the national spotlight. It was November 27, 1978, when Feinstein, then president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, standing inside City Hall  announced to the world that then-mayor George Moscone and gay supervisor Harvey Milk had been shot and killed by disgruntled ex-supervisor Dan White. Watching that old TV footage, which was replayed in the hours after her death was announced, brought back a flood of memories for so many. We couldn’t believe that both city leaders had been assassinated. Moscone was a progressive leader and Milk, of course, made history when he was elected just a year earlier, becoming the first out LGBTQ person to win elected office in California. He only served for 11 short months.

As board president, Feinstein became mayor – the first woman to lead San Francisco – and went on to serve in that capacity for a decade, easily surviving a recall and winning reelection during that time. Her leadership occurred during the worst of the AIDS crisis, and Feinstein allocated millions of dollars to help stop the spread of the disease. As gay former KPIX-TV reporter Hank Plante noted in a social media post, Feinstein’s AIDS budget was more than then-President Ronald Reagan’s was for the entire United States. The “San Francisco Model” was born during her administration, as nonprofits sprang up to work with people living with AIDS and health officials in a partnership that endures today. She did face criticism for city health leaders’ decision to close the gay bathhouses, but relied in part on their expertise at a time when thousands of gay men were dying of a disease that had virtually no treatment.

As mayor, Feinstein appointed LGBTQ peo-

ple to city boards and commissions, and hosted the wedding of one of them, the late Jo Daly, the first lesbian to serve on the Police Commission, in her garden. She appointed Harry Britt, a gay man, to replace Milk on the Board of Supervisors. Her veto of Britt’s domestic partner legislation caused a rift in her support from the LGBTQ community and was one of the reasons for the 1983 recall. The city later passed a domestic partner ordinance, and of course, jump-started the marriage equality movement in 2004 when then-mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That exposed another split with the LGBTQ community, when Feinstein, then a U.S. senator, said Newsom’s actions were “too much, too fast, too soon.”

But Feinstein remained an ally to the community when she won election to the Senate in 1992. Most significantly, she was one of only a few senators who voted against the hid-

eous Defense of Marriage Act that for decades banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Even Joe Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, voted for DOMA at the time. Feinstein also voted against the homophobic “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. Both of those laws have since been repealed.

While Feinstein had a complicated relationship with LGBTQs over the years, we recognize her commitment to the community. Allies such as Feinstein are rarely perfect, yet, especially back in the 1990s, it often took some degree of courage for a mainstream political leader to stand with us. It was a different time. Feinstein’s actions in support of the community led to support from other political leaders over the years, as they evolved in their thinking. Ultimately, she served the city and state well and will be missed. t

Laphonza Butler is California’s new U.S. senator.

Via Governor Newsom’s office

Senator Dianne Feinstein spoke with reporters following a town hall in San Francisco in 2017.

Rick Gerharter

Vallejo leader Wilson vies to be 1st gay Solano supervisor

by Matthew S. Bajko

Michael Wilson, a gay former Vallejo city councilmember, is vying to become the first known LGBTQ member of the Solano County Board of Supervisors. He is seeking to succeed his boss, District 1 Supervisor Erin Hannigan, on the countywide governing body.

Hannigan, who served with Wilson on the Vallejo council in the late 2000s, announced earlier this year she would not seek reelection to a fourth four-year supervisorial term in 2024. She hired Wilson as her district representative at the start of her first term in 2013 and has endorsed his bid for her board seat.

“I could not be more pleased that my senior district representative, Michael Wilson, has answered the call to run for my seat. We served together on the Vallejo City Council, and he has worked alongside me as my chief of staff since I was elected to the county,” stated Hannigan in June when Wilson launched his campaign. “Michael has been at the forefront of our efforts to bring good-paying jobs, new business and industry, solutions to homelessness, and accessible, quality health care to the City of Vallejo and Solano County.”

Wilson, 54, is aiming to win the seat outright on the March 5 primary ballot by netting more than 50% percent of the vote. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters in the race will advance to a runoff on the November 5 general election ballot.

“I really love the services we are able to bring to our community, and I love working as her district representative and I want to continue that service as county supervisor,” Wilson told the Bay Area Reporter in an October 2 phone interview to discuss his candidacy. “I feel confident about being able to win the election in March, especially if only two people are in the race the odds are better someone will have greater than 50% of the vote.”

As of now, the only other candidate to officially launch a campaign for the supervisor seat is Vallejo Housing and Community Development Commissioner Cassandra James. She currently works as a senior community development specialist at the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development in San Francisco, where she grew up.

The mother of two, who moved to the North Bay city 13 years ago, lost a bid for a Vallejo City Council seat last year. She would be the second African American woman elected to the county board, as District 3 Supervisor Wanda Williams became the first with her election last November.

“Like so many of you, I have chosen to raise my children in Vallejo, and I want them to live in a community where everyone has a chance to pursue their dreams,” stated James, 36, in announcing her candidacy in June.

Wilson is one of a quintet of out supervisor candidates on March ballots around the Golden State. As with his contest, if no candidate secures more than 50% in those races then the top two vote-getters advance to fall runoff races.

In Alameda County gay nurse and former union leader Jennifer Esteen is running against District 4 Supervisor Nate Miley, who is seeking a seventh term. Should Esteen win, she would be the first out member of her county’s board and the only known Black LGBTQ supervisor in the state.

District 3 San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, who is nonbinary and pansexual, is running for reelection next year. The Democrat is facing a challenge from Republican former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer

Lesbian Tulare County Supervisor Amy Shuklian is seeking reelection in

March to her District 3 seat. First elected in 2016, she represents her hometown of Visalia on the county board.

Gay Skyforest resident Graham Smith is aiming to be the first gay supervisor in San Bernardino County. He is one of several candidates running against District 3 Supervisor Dawn Rowe in March.

There are currently eight known LGBTQ county supervisors in California; the other six are all gay men who won their 2022 elections. Martin Huberty serves in Calaveras County; Ken Carlson in Contra Costa County; Yxstian Gutierrez in Riverside County; and Rafael Mandelman Matt Dorsey and Joel Engardio all serve in San Francisco County.

Running on the November 2024 ballot for the open District 9 supervisor seat on the San Francisco board are gay civil rights advocate Trevor Chandler, who just married his husband, and queer progressive leader Jackie Fielder. Their race will be decided by ranked-choice voting, as a number of candidates are expected to seek to succeed the termed out incumbent, Supervisor Hillary Ronen

Strong ties to Vallejo

Wilson and his husband, Peter, are well known civic leaders in southern Solano County. Outside of his political work, Wilson lends his skills as an auctioneer for nonprofit galas, while his husband is executive director of the Florence Douglas Center, a Vallejobased nonprofit that provides services to seniors in the area.

Elected in 2007 to his council seat in Vallejo, Wilson lost a bid for a state Assembly seat on the primary ballot in 2010. The following year, he opted not to seek reelection to the City Council.

Despite his county being one of the more conservative in the Bay Area region, Wilson told the B.A.R. he doesn’t see his sexual orientation being an issue for most voters in the supervisorial district. He noted he is among the three out gay men who have won election to Vallejo’s council; the most recent being District

5 City Councilmember Peter Bregenzer elected last November. (Bregenzer is among the various elected officials in the county who have endorsed Wilson in the supervisor race.)

“In my previous campaigns I had the support of people from a broad spectrum, and they chose to support and endorse and vote for me because they think I can be a positive voice,” said Wilson. “And one aspect of that is I am married to a fantastic person and I am an openly gay man. People also think I give a hard look at the issues and bring a strong voice for our community and listen to their concerns.

“I am excited to bring that voice to the county level and represent everyone in Solano County,” he added.

The youngest of six children, Wilson grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona, and graduated from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Fluent in Spanish, he joined the Jesuit Order and spent time living in Central America and Mexico.

He left his role with the Catholic Church during graduate school when he came out as gay in 1997, having fallen in love with his now husband, known then as Peter Lepley. He took Wilson’s last name when they married, while Wilson took Lepley as his middle name.

The couple first wed in 2004 when San Francisco officials bucked state law and married same-sex couples during what became known as the “Winter of Love.” With that marriage annulled that summer by the state courts, the couple married a second time July 3, 2008 after the California Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples in the state had a right to marry. Of course, that November, a slim majority of voters passed Proposition 8 to define marriage as between a man and a woman in the California Constitution.

Even though the federal courts would later rule Prop 8 as being unconstitutional, its language remains embedded in the state’s governing document. Voters next November will be asked to adopt a proposition to repeal Prop 8’s language from the constitution.

Should he not win the supervisor seat outright in March, Wilson could find himself running for the elected position on the same fall ballot with the Prop 8 repeal measure. He told the B.A.R. he is hopeful of seeing the final remnants of the homophobic proposition be excised from the constitution.

“I think we should remove Prop 8 from our California Constitution forever. I am very hopeful,” he said.

On the matter of a proposal by tech billionaires to build a new city in his county, which has riveted local and state leaders for weeks, Wilson told the B.A.R. he has not made up his mind on if he would support such a development should he be tasked with voting on it as a supervisor. But he did raise questions about its impact on what is now a largely agricultural area, saying that rezoning all 55,000 acres owned by the proponents “is ridiculous.”

It will be the purview of the supervisors since the land is in an unincorporated area of Solano County.

“For me, it is not about one vote on where are we going to go on this. It is about having leaders work day in and day out to ensure whatever happens, it is going to enhance our entire community throughout the county,” said Wilson. “A new city is hard to imagine. But whatever steps they take, we need strong leaders at the board of supervisors to make sure any steps taken are to the benefit of all of our residents in Solano.”

To learn more about Wilson and his supervisorial bid, visit his campaign website at wilsonforsupervisor.com. t

Planning Ahead is Simple

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The benefits are immense.

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When you plan your life celebration and lasting remembrance in advance, you can design every detail of your own unique memorial and provide your loved ones with true peace of mind. Planning ahead protects your loved ones from unnecessary stress and financial burden, allowing them to focus on what will matter most at that time—you.

advance, you can design every detail of your own unique memorial and provide your loved ones with true peace of mind. Planning ahead protects your loved ones from unnecessary stress and

Solano County supervisor candidate Michael Wilson, left, joined his husband, Peter, and their dogs Raffie and Simon.

Courtesy Michael Wilson

Ghosts, specters, and very old bones

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

It’s frightfully common for antitransgender activists to rely on old tropes in place of actual arguments, and one of the favorites in their arsenal nowadays seems simple on the surface, but gets crueler the deeper you dig.

The question gets posed something like this: Sure, they’ll say, you might be seen as a woman, but what happens in a thousand years when future archeologists exhume your remains? Then they’ll call you a man based on your skeleton. There’s nothing you can do to change that biological fact, they’ll conclude. Gotcha!

This sure sounds like an open and shut case, does it not? We all have a basic understanding that the experts can look at a skeleton and tell if the person was male or female, likely based on the shape of one’s pelvic bones, or maybe even just the overall size of the remains.

Of course, the anti-trans activists conclude, those future scientists will simply collect a long-dormant DNA sample, and spot those pesky “X” and “Y” chromosomes, and then know the undisputed scientific truth.

It all certainly sounds plausible, no doubt, and fits with one’s general understanding of how sex differences work. At the same time, it is a very basic, surface response to a very complex question.

We already know that chromosomes are not the perfect indicator we would hope them to be.

As much as we’d like a simple answer, we know that chromosomes

themselves do not define gender. Aside from the fact that a person could have XX chromosomes and be a man – gender is different from sex, after all – this doesn’t account for scores of possibilities beyond the basics.

What about the bones, you say?

Even if the chromosomes aren’t the perfect indicator, surely the bones will tell the truth?

Once again, we find ourselves facing the same conundrum. Yes, it can give you some idea, but it’s not perfect. Not all bone structures are identical, and while we can point to probability – i.e., most male skeletons may be larger and more robust, or have less angular pelvises - it’s not an absolute, and is far less likely to be conclusive in younger skeletal remains.

What’s more, archeologists are not spending their time applying calipers to skulls when they look at such remains: they are looking at the burial as a whole. If they are finding, for example, burial items more typically associated with a male member of a group – even if skeletal evidence may indicate a female – they will conclude that the individual in question was treated as a man, if not as a third gender person or in some other category.

It’s much like how I might be treated if I were buried today. An exhumation of my body would reveal elements more in common with other women, rather than men, and any records of my life would make it clear

that I was considered a woman in my day-to-day life.

I invite you to take this question to a next level, however. When this query of what some mythological future archeologist will see when they view our bones, it’s not so much about a search for scientific truth, even if it feels like such.

No, it is about mocking transgender people.

It is a way of saying that trans women, no matter what they do, can never be “real” women, nor can a trans man be a “real” man. Further, a nonbinary person cannot exist, as “scientific truth” will always choose a binary option. This isn’t about the future, but the ghosts of our pasts.

It ignores the fact that we’re not living in that far-flung future, but are living right now. My name is a feminine one, and my legal paperwork displays an “F” on it. I am seen publicly as just another woman in this world, albeit one who does make it clear that she is transgender. My friends, my family, my workplace, and frankly, everyone from the guy I have nice chats with down the street to the woman who usually checks through my weekly groceries knows my genEven more to the point, I know my gender. I’ve known it since I had the words to understand, and have gone through great pains to understand myself, and present the person I am to the world. Never mind that I don’t think

my remains would ever merit study by future archeologists, and even if they did opt to examine them, I intend to be cremated, leaving a handful or two of gray ash studded with the occasional fleck of bone.

Yet, there’s still another layer.

In asking this, the questioner is also creating a future world where transgender people do not exist, and where their worldview is what matters. A world where there is but “man” and “woman,” and those are rigidly enforced. After all, why would it matter in the far future what the supposed sex of a pile of bones was?

What, then, do they expect caused

my bones to be so disposed, and what is this weird world they are envisioning? What specter are they raising in the asking of this simple question?

Ultimately, we don’t need some provocative thought experiment. We are living now, and I am in the world right now. I need my rights now, not in 1,000 years when I am but a pile of ashes. Who I am now matters, not what someone might think centuries into the future. t

Gwen Smith is more than the sum of her parts. You’ll find her at www.gwensmith.com

SF library panel discusses banned books

compiled by Cynthia Laird

This week is Banned Books Week, and the San Francisco Public Library and Litquake will host a panel of children’s and young adult authors who will discuss what it’s like to write as a creator whose work has been banned or censored.

The free event will take place Saturday, October 7, at 11 a.m. at the main library, 100 Larkin Street, in the Koret Auditorium, lower level.

Featured authors include MariNaomi (“Losing the Girl,” “Turning Japanese”), Sarah Hoffman (“Jacob’s New Dress,” “Jacob’s School Play: Starring He, She, and They!”), and Jasmine

A. Stirling (“Dare to Question: Carrie Chapman Catt’s Voice for the Vote”), in a discussion moderated by Ian Hoffman.

For information on other activities related to banned books, and a list of adult books on the list, go to sfpl.org

Horizons opens

grant applications

Horizons Foundation has announced that its flagship funding program, Community Issues, is now accepting applications. The 2023 Community Issues program aims to provide support for organizations and programs/projects serving the LGBTQ community in the San Francisco Bay Area, an email announcement stated.

The grant program is open to all LGBTQ non profits and fiscally sponsored LGBTQ organizations or programs that meet eligi bility criteria and are based within one or more of the nine Bay Area counties. Horizons will also consider applications from nonLGBTQ nonprofits that have LGBTQfocused programs that have annual program budgets of $1 million or less if the applicant can demonstrate that

the program serves a specific area in the nine-county Bay Area region where LGBTQ-primary organizations do not provide sufficient, comparable services or reach a specific LGBTQ population, the announcement stated.

In addition to agencies across the multiple demographics and identities within the LGBTQ community, Horizons stated that based on its 2020 strategy update, priority will be given to transgender-primary organizations, LGBTQ people of colorprimary organizations, and bisexualsprimary organizations; nonprofits that primarily serve LGBTQ youth or LGBTQ elders; and organizations that primarily serve LGBTQ refugees and asylees.

To find out more about eligibility requirements and the proposal process, go to https://tinyurl.com/ ybkzfp6z.

The deadline to apply is October 31.

Castro mural tagged during restoration

The Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association has reported that the restoration of a mural at upper Market and 18th streets is proceeding, but that the artwork was tagged with graffiti multiple times last week.

As the Bay Area Reporter noted in the News Briefs column in late August, EVNA is working to crowdfund for the restoration of “The Chant of the Earth, the Voice of the Land.” Acclaimed muralist Betsie Miller-Kusz painted the mural in 1981, and she has been restoring the mural with the help of assistants and volunteers.

As a result of the graffiti, volunteers are needed this week to help out and funds still need to be raised, EVNA

President Alex Lemberg wrote in the group’s newsletter.

Volunteers are welcome to drop by the project Thursday, October 5, between 5 and 7 p.m. and Friday, Octo-

ber 6, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The Castro Community Benefit District is serving as the fiscal sponsor. People can make tax-deductible donations at https://tinyurl. com/5brwnm8a.

Construction to temporarily derail F-Line streetcars

The popular F-Market and Wharves streetcars will be replaced by bus service from October 14-28 to accommodate phase 1 of the Better Market Street construction that will see Market Street itself shut down between Fifth and Eighth streets during that timeframe.

According to San Francisco Public Works and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, all aboveground transit, as well as bicycle traffic, will be rerouted off of Market Street between Third and 11th streets. Rerouting will be via Mission Street.

For the F-Market and Wharves, bus service will run to Mission from 10th to Third streets inbound, and to Mission from Fourth to Ninth streets outbound.

The route for the L Taraval bus, which has stops near the Church and Castro Muni stations, will be rerouted to Mission from 10th to Third Street inbound, and to Mission from Fourth to Ninth Street outbound.

For more information, go to the Better Market Street website at bettermarketstreet.org.

Berkeley bird fest returns

The third annual Berkeley Bird Festival will be held Sunday, October 15, and include a range of free, familyfriendly activities.

According to a news release, the festival will offer birding field trips throughout the city at sites such as Berkeley Aquatic Park, Cesar Chavez Park, Vollmer Peak, and more.

On the UC Berkeley campus, the local student-led Bears for Birds Club will run birding tours. There will also be two community chalk art sites –

one in front of Li Ka Shing Center and the other at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ), which will also host “behind the scenes” tours of its collection. The chalk art sites will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In downtown Berkeley, the David Brower Center will host arts and craft activities, bird-related information and action tables, and an in-person program, “Winged Wonderment,” an afternoon of bird-related stories, images, poems, songs, and demonstrations by writers, poets, birders, scientists, activists, artists, and bird lovers, the release stated. New programs this year include a bird stories corner for children and a “bird zine” workshop, in addition to returning favorites like decorating gourd bird houses and the folding of origami birds. The Brower Center is located at 2150 Allston Way and the programs there take place from noon to 5 p.m.

The bird festival is produced by the Golden Gate Bird Alliance and the California Institute for Community Art and Nature. Other entities, such as the City of Berkeley, UC Berkeley and the Brower Center, are providing financial support.

For more information and a schedule of activities, go to berkeleybirdfestival.org. t

From the book websites

Authors of children’s and young adult books that have been banned or censored will discuss the topic at a program at the San Francisco Public Library.

Christine Smith

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Maui readies to reopen to tourists <<

by Heather Cassell

Maui’s LGBTQ businesses – like many others – are sorting through the ash and rubble and struggling to balance the needs of their employees and the need to reopen to visitors.

Tourism is Maui’s leading industry, according to Maui County General Plan 2030.

However, emotions are still raw for many on the island, especially for LGBTQ business owners on Lahaina’s Front Street and their employees.

On September 8, Hawaii Governor Josh Green announced West Maui –Ka’anapali, Napili, Honokowai, and Kapalua – would reopen to tourism October 8.

The governor’s announcement has been met with push-back from the community, reported ABC News.

Looking ahead, gay Hawaiian Mexican Kawai Sellers, 47, who is a Hawaiian cultural performer at Feast of Lele and a volunteer at Aloha Maui Pride, and others expressed they didn’t know where the estimated 6,000 displaced Hawaiians were going to go during this recovery phase. The housing vouchers have run out and the hotels (which have housed more than 2,000 displaced families) are expected to welcome guests back in a few weeks.

He and others pointed out that Maui had a housing crisis before the fires, which ripped through Lahaina and other towns in August. Maui had few available homes and some of the highest rents in the U.S.

Locals explained that drought and how water systems were constructed during the island’s sugar plantation era compound the issue of finding suitable land for temporary homes.

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On September 25, Maui officials allowed some Lahaina residents back into their homes for the first time since the fires ravaged the historic town, reported the Associated Press.

Sensitive topic

Maui LGBTQ business owners are split between reopening.

Michael Moore, one of the gay partners of Na Hoaloha Ekolu LLC, said reopening is a conversation that is happening, but it is “a little bit sensitive.”

He said his business partners of nearly 40 years, Robert Aguiar, and his partner in business and life, Tim Moore, own several popular businesses on Lahaina’s Front Street, including Star Noodle, Old Lahaina Luau and Feast of Lele (he and his three business partners were 50% owners), along with Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop, located on the outskirts of Lahaina, and employed nearly 400 workers.

Moore said they are in a unique position. Some of the historic buildings that housed their businesses were leveled while some survived the fires but are damaged. He swallowed his emotions on the other end of the phone talking with the Bay Area Reporter.

He spoke about the damages and losses suffered by the businesses he and his partners built and the people they’ve worked with for nearly four decades.

ing able to open in the future, unlike so many that lost so much,” he said, “but that’s not something that’s going to happen in a few weeks at all. Our feeling is we need to talk about reopening when the community is ready to reopen.”

He explained, using Ha waiian words, how he felt about the company and its employees: ohana, which means family, and kuleana, which roughly translates to responsibility. “We feel there’s a responsibility in how we open and when we open,” Moore told the B.A.R.

Sellers doesn’t know what the future holds for himself, his family, or his job. The 47-year-old has worked in Lahaina since he was 18 years old.

“Those of us who’ve worked all of our lives in Lahaina ... still have to survive,” said Sellers, noting that tourism was very much down. “There’s nobody on Maui. I mean, there are people but not enough to sustain the economy.”

People are already leaving Maui, he said, stating he knew of eight people who left the island for California, Nevada, and North Carolina.

spectful. Maybe volunteer while you’re here. Mostly come to Maui because we really need them.”

He added, “Wailea is open; Kihei is open; Upcountry is open,” and those areas are waiting for vacationers to return.

Rebelo said weddings are starting to pick up.

“Slowly, we are starting to see people return,” he said. “They’re staying in the Wailea area and Kihei area.”

Echoing Doran, Rebelo said, “We’re open. We want people to come to Maui. It’s very important. It’s going to make a big difference that tourism comes back quickly [and] strongly.

“People will come and realize that this is the right thing to do and not to feel guilty about coming here and having a good time,” he added.

Rebelo told the B.A.R. that several of his clients have gotten married and volunteered to help Maui locals.

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Moore said the Feast of Lele, at 505 Front Street, along with lesbian-owned Betty’s Beach Cafe, along with two business offices and another companyowned property were destroyed by the fire in Lahaina. The historic buildings that are the home of Feast of Lele, Star Noodle, a production facility, and Leona’s, plus a new restaurant that was being built, are still standing but not operational due to damage from the fire.

“We are in a unique position of be-

Obituaries >>

William Lonon Smith

November 4, 1947 – September 23, 2023

Everyone seemed to know William Smith, a gay man who was a wellknown joyous presence attending cultural events for decades in the Bay Area. He passed away peacefully in the early morning hours of September 23, 2023, following a lengthy struggle with kidney disease and heart failure. He was 75.

Countless artists and patrons of performing arts institutions would recognize him from his ubiquitous attendance at live performances and film festivals, whether or not they engaged in conversation with him.

William had an encyclopedic knowledge of the visual arts, musicals, opera, classical and contemporary music, dance, and theater. He wrote his dissertation at the University of Utah on the work of Bob Fosse

Kevin Rebelo, a 60-year-old gay man who owns Gay Hawaii Wedding ,and has planned same-sex weddings since 1994, told the B.A.R. he saw about a 70% drop immediately in his business because of cancellations due to the fires. Additionally, Visit Maui, the tourism agency, initially urged travelers not to come to the island.

Jim Doran, president of Aloha Maui Pride, which postponed its Pride celebration scheduled for next month to June, agreed with Rebelo.

“Lahaina is closed, but the rest of Maui is open,” said Doran, who added a date for Maui Pride has not been set. “We want people to come here. Be re-

and wrote reviews in the early 1980s for the Advocate. But his incisive understanding of the arts never intruded on his sweet nature and the support he unsparingly offered to artists.

Friendships with Mark Thompson, Harry Hay, and the Radical Faeries for a time led to him appearing in the James Broughton/Joel Singer film “Devotions.” In 2014, Edward Guthmann wrote a delightful profile of William for the San Francisco Chronicle titled “For Nonstop Arts Fanatic, The Show Always Goes On.”

True to his individualistic, iconoclastic nature, William never acquired a cellphone or a computer. He always favored unmediated direct human contact.

William was predeceased by his parents Earl and Elizabeth (née Smith). His closest surviving family members are cousins Ramona Phillips and Lonon F. Smith. Like so many others in the LGBTQ+ community, William was closest to his chosen family, including friends Alan, Julie, Arthur, Larry, Paul, Cass,

“I’ve had several clients that have come, gotten married, and then gone and volunteered for organizations for a few days,” said Rebelo. “They include that as part of the trip just so that they can feel respectful and feel that they’re helping out as well.”

“Maui is a very special place for a lot of people,” he added, talking about one couple who changed their wedding plans to marry on the Big Island after the fires and then changed them back to tie the knot on Maui. “That’s where they want to get married.”

The B.A.R. reached out to several LGBTQ-owned businesses identified by Visit Maui – Asa Flowers, Betty’s Beach Cafe, and Cafe a la Plage – located on Lahaina’s Front Street, but did not receive a response. t

and many other “Sweet Peas.”

His enduring friendship over 43 years with Alan Oakley led many to erroneously assume they were “a couple.” Alan recounts, “When William joined me for one of my Hawaii tours, the gay male flight attendant on the flight to Honolulu assumed we were a couple and gave us a bottle of champagne. Very sweet.”

But, not only does William leave behind many, many grieving friends with whom he built decades-long relationships, but also many friends of a single night, who sat beside him at a play or concert, fell under his spell, and will long remember his kindness, his charm, and the brilliance of his smile.

His friend Larry Brinkin recalls, “I was always amused that anytime I was with him in public, especially at a film or performance, everyone seemed to know him.”

Plans for a celebration of William’s life have yet to be announced.

Before and after: The offices of Na Hoaloha Ekolu LLC, located in the historic Seaman’s Hospital building, are shown before, left, and after the August 8, 2023 fires that ripped through

Lahaina.

Courtesy Michael Moore

Gay photog, historical society butt heads

by John Ferrannini

Alongtime gay photographer said the GLBT Historical Society is not forthcoming with him about why it no longer wants to be his fiscal sponsor. He surmises it could be because a photo he made features two gay men of color wearing whiteface in a parody of a classic painting.

Mark Chester is currently in his third fiscal sponsorship agreement with the society, which ends December 31. He started it with money left over from his second project with the society, “Street Sex Photos.”

The fiscal sponsorship allowed Chester to make expenditures for his project regarding “queer men of color in photographic explorations about race,” but not to exceed $10,000, according to a copy of the contract dated June 6, 2022 provided to the Bay Area Reporter. Chester stated therein that he’d kept $2,000 from the previous project to use for this one.

To defray for the sponsor’s costs, 10% of funds paid to the project (or 13% of online proceeds) were to go to the historical society, the sponsorship agreement states. Chester told the B.A.R. getting another fiscal sponsor for the project would mean he’d have to give another chunk of change to whoever that sponsor is.

Chester said if he were to go to another fiscal sponsor they’d have to take his account from the historical society and they would take their own percentage off the top.

“It would be considered a new transfer for them, even though the money was already at the historical society,” Chester said. “Every institution gets their cut.”

Although the end date was written into the contract for legal purposes as December 2023, Chester said those then in charge at the society assured him it would get renewed for as long as it took to complete the project.

“They said ‘don’t worry; we understand, you’ll have till it’s completed,’” Chester said. “They said it would be au-

tomatically renewed – that the end date was just bookkeeping.”

With that understanding, Chester began his third project – “Racial Portraits.”

And in the interim, the society experienced a change of leadership, with Roberto Ordeñana, a gay man, becoming its new executive director in fall 2022.

In June, Chester wrote Ordeñana asking if the two could meet, which they did at a Castro-area coffee shop, Chester said.

“To everything the answer was no,” Chester said, saying that Ordeñana didn’t want to hold an event for his street sex book, citing COVID concerns. But things became even more tense when Ordeñana started flipping through the “Racial Portraits” compilation.

“I have a photo that’s kind of a take off ‘American Gothic,’” Chester said, referring to the famous 1930 painting by

Grant Wood. “When he [Ordeñana] got to that, it was obvious he was disgusted, and immediately afterward closed the book and said, ‘by the way we’re not going to renew your fiscal sponsorship.’”

The B.A.R. reached out to Ordeñana, a former member of the city’s arts commission, to ask about Chester’s allegations.

“We have served as the fiscal sponsor for Mark Chester’s project since July 2020 and have already extended our agreement to continue serving until 12/31/23,” Ordeñana stated in an email to the B.A.R. “Sponsored projects take varying degrees of resources to administer, and as already shared with Mark, due to limited staffing, we are unable to provide fiscal sponsorship to this project after our agreed-upon end date.”

An email from Ordeñana to Chester, who provided it to the B.A.R., shows that on June 9, Ordeñana asked Chester why

he wanted to end the sponsorship early. Chester told the B.A.R. October 3 he’d asked Ordeñana to stop accepting donations at their meeting.

“I never asked that the fiscal sponsorship be ended,” Chester asserts. “I still hope pressure from the community will change their minds.”

In a follow up email to Chester, sent in September after the B.A.R. contacted Ordeñana, he characterized Chester’s claims repeated to him by the B.A.R. as inaccurate.

“In [the B.A.R.] email, he lists some significant inaccuracies about why the Historical Society cannot renew our contract after its expiration on December 31, 2023,” Ordeñana wrote. “As we discussed in our meeting on June 8th and sent to you in a follow-up email on June 9th, the pandemic impacted our operational budget, necessitating us to make difficult decisions and realign resources. Unfortunately, we do not have the administrative bandwidth to service your fiscal sponsorship in the years ahead. As I told you then, we pride ourselves in our ability to offer efficient and reliable support to our partners and fully intend to serve the duration of your fiscal sponsorship agreement, should that remain your desired direction, until its conclusion at the end of the year.”

Controversial photo

Chester’s depiction of the Wood painting features two men – LaMont Ridgell, who is Black and gay, and Justin P. Lopez, who is multiracial Filipino and Chileno and gay – wearing whiteface. Ridgell is holding a broom instead of a pitchfork, as in the original.

Ridgell said he and Chester have worked together in the past.

“At face value, it’s a parody of ‘American Gothic.’ Almost anyone of a certain generational age is familiar with the original painting,” Ridgell said. “If you look a little deeper, it’s also reminiscent of back in the day people of color – Jus-

tin and myself – were hired to clean up after folks. We were the help, so to speak. We made it a tad more dangerous by putting on whiteface.”

Ridgell said, “the picture could have scared the historical society” because “it leads to the whole discussion about blackface, so maybe they were offended or afraid about that.”

Ordeñana did not address the content of the “American Gothic” parody when asked.

Lopez said, “I didn’t know how people would react” but that “a lot of people were impressed and liked the piece.”

Among those is Timothy Anglin Burgard, the curator-in-charge of American art for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The picture is being displayed at the de Young Museum until January.

“Mark Chester’s photograph is one of two artworks in the de Young Open exhibition that appropriate and reinterpret Grant Wood’s iconic painting ‘American Gothic’ (1930), which portrays a Midwestern farmer and his daughter,” Burgard stated in an email to the B.A.R. “Like Gordon Parks’ earlier photograph titled ‘American Gothic’ (1942), which depicts a cleaning woman holding a broom and a mop, Chester’s image also seeks to challenge historical conceptions of race, identity, representation, and art.”

Lopez told the B.A.R., “I’m surprised to be able to say I’m on a wall in the de Young,” adding that he “didn’t expect it to have the impact it has had now.”

Chester believes that it was this portrait that led to the historical society’s decision.

“[Ordeñana] might have been offended by someone who passes for white working on race and gender and sexuality,” Chester said, adding that his background is Jewish.

As of October 3, he has not received a formal explanation or written notice regarding his sponsorship renewal.  “It should have been him writing me a letter,” Chester said of Ordeñana.t

Castro bar break-in thwarted

by John Ferrannini

T wo suspects got away after allegedly breaking into the Lookout bar in San Francisco’s LGBTQ Castro neighborhood. But they “appeared to be unsuccessful” at actually robbing the business, police told the Bay Area Reporter.

The news comes as police are also looking into robberies at a South of Market LGBTQ bar and a donut shop just a few minutes’ drive from the Lookout.

San Francisco police responded to the alleged burglary at the Lookout at 3:26 a.m. September 29.

“Upon arrival, officers observed two unknown suspects exit the business and get into an SUV,” San Francisco Police Officer Gonee Sepulveda stated Monday. “Officers attempted to conduct a traffic stop

of the vehicle, but it fled the area. Officers conducted a walkthrough of the business and were able to determine that there were no victims or suspects inside of the business. A responsible party for the busi-

Correction

The September 21 article, “Folsom Street welcomes the world for 40th fair,” should have stated that San Francisco Public Works is expected to initiate the process of soliciting a steward for Eagle Plaza, not that the Eagle Tavern would become the steward, as a news release incorrectly stated. The online version has been corrected.

Gay photographer Mark Chester’s stands in front of his take on Grant Wood’s classic painting “American Gothic,” now on exhibit at the de Young Museum that features two gay men of color in whiteface.

Courtesy Mark Chester

See page 13 >>

San Francisco police are investigating an attempted break-in at the Lookout bar in the Castro neighborhood.

John Ferrannini

“Dianne Feinstein was many things –a powerful, trailblazing U.S. senator; an early voice for gun control; a leader in times of tragedy and chaos. But to me, she was a dear friend, a lifelong mentor, and a role model not only for me, but to my wife and daughters for what a powerful, effective leader looks like,” he stated.

“She was a political giant, whose tenacity was matched by her grace,” Newsom added. “She broke down barriers and glass ceilings, but never lost her belief in the spirit of political cooperation. And she was a fighter – for the city, the state, and the country she loved. Every race she won, she made history, but her story wasn’t just about being the first woman in a particular political office, it was what she did for California, and for America, with that power once she earned it. That’s what she should be remembered for.

“There is simply nobody who possessed the strength, gravitas, and fierceness of Dianne Feinstein. Jennifer and I are deeply saddened by her passing, and we will mourn with her family in this difficult time,” Newsom added, referring to his wife, first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

President Joe Biden, who once served with Feinstein in the Senate, also issued a statement.

“In San Francisco, she showed enormous poise and courage in the wake of tragedy, and became a powerful voice for American values,” Biden stated. “Serving in the Senate together for more than 15 years, I had a front row seat to what Dianne was able to accomplish. It’s why I recruited her to serve on the Judiciary Committee when I was Chairman – I knew what she was made of, and I wanted her on our team. There’s no better example of her skillful legislating and sheer force of will than when she turned passion into purpose, and led the fight to ban assault weapons.”

Butler

From page 1

“I will,” Butler replied after Harris read the oath of office. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) stood behind Butler as she was sworn in on the Senate floor.

After entering the Senate, Harris, who presides as president of the body, referenced the certificate of appointment for Butler due to the “unexpected ... unexpired and unexpected” passing of Feinstein.

Schumer made brief remarks after the swearing in, hailing Butler’s appointment. “I can’t help but think how proud senator Feinstein would be,” he said, “now that her seat is in good hands.”

Schumer also noted how Butler brings more diversity to the Senate.

“This is a proud moment for all of us,” he said. “We’re ready to work.”

In a post on X with a photo of himself and his new colleague inside the Capitol building, Padilla wrote, “Senator Butler has never backed down from a tough fight on behalf of working people. I’m honored to serve alongside my friend and champion for Californians.”

It’s been a whirlwind 48 hours for Butler, 44, who was appointed to the position Sunday night by Governor Gavin Newsom. Feinstein, California’s longestserving senator, died September 29 at her home in Washington, D.C. at the age of 90. She had been in poor health in recent months after suffering a severe case of shingles earlier this year.

Butler, who lives in Maryland but also owns a home in California, stepped down from leading Emily’s List, the organization that works to elect Democratic pro-choice women to public office. She’s a former labor leader and advocate for women and working people, according to a statement from Newsom’s office. Newsom said that Butler would re-register to vote in California before she was sworn in, satisfying residency requirements.

Butler joins lesbian Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) and bisexual

During her tenure in the Senate, Feinstein is perhaps best known for spearheading the assault weapons ban in 1994 and was law for a decade before expiring in 2004. Efforts to pass a news law have failed. While it did ban many types of firearms, modifications to guns over the years led to loopholes in the law that some said stymied its effectiveness.

Nevertheless, Feinstein stated on her website that the original ban was effective at reducing crime and getting some military-style weapons off the streets.

Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ rights organization, praised Feinstein in a statement.

“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Senator Dianne Feinstein, a trailblazer and tireless advocate for equality and justice. Senator Feinstein devoted her life to serving the people of California and our nation, championing LGBTQ+ civil rights, reproductive freedom, gun safety reform and democracy throughout her remarkable career,” stated Executive Director Tony Hoang, a gay man. “Senator Feinstein stood with our community back when few oth-

ers did, fighting for funding and action to combat the AIDS crisis when most elected officials chose to look away. Her work from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to the United States Senate transformed our state and our nation for the better.

“On the Board of Supervisors and then as mayor, she played a crucial role in uniting San Francisco after the horrific assassinations of supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone, demonstrating exceptional leadership and compassion at a time when our LGBTQ+ community needed it most,” Hoang added. “Now, as we mourn her loss, our community joins Senator Feinstein’s family, friends and loved ones in honoring her extraordinary legacy.”

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (DSan Francisco) said, “there will never be another Dianne Feinstein.”

“Dianne Feinstein was a true giant,” Wiener stated. “She helped save our city, becoming Mayor after horrific political assassinations & leading us during the worst of the HIV/AIDS health disaster. As our senator she led on gun safety & so many issues.”

Lesbian state Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) said Feinstein was “an incredible leader.”

“California – and our nation – has lost an incredible leader who dedicated her career and life to public service, and opened doors for women in politics,” Atkins stated. “We are fortunate to have benefitted from Senator Feinstein’s courage, strength, and governance for so many years – her legacy is one of a class few can hope to match.”

Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) mourned the passing of his colleague.

“It is with profound sadness that I bid farewell to my dear friend, colleague, and champion for the State of California, Senator Dianne Feinstein,” Padilla stated. “Dianne Feinstein was a towering figure not just in modern California politics, but in the history of our state and our nation.”

San Francisco City Hall, and a memorial service will be held outside the building at 1 p.m. Thursday.

Feinstein had announced in February that she would not seek reelection next year. Currently, three California Democratic congressmembers – Adam Schiff of Burbank, Katie Porter of Irvine, and Barbara Lee of Oakland – are the leading candidates in the race. Lee is the only Black candidate, and her supporters had lobbied Newsom to appoint her to Feinstein’s seat.

“Following her election to the Senate over three decades ago, Dianne’s commitment to bipartisan collaboration made her a deeply respected figure on both sides of the aisle,” Padilla added. “She understood the importance of working together to find common ground and get things done for California, for the country, and for the American people. Her ability to bridge divides and find consensus, especially on the thorniest of issues, was a testament to her dedication to the principles of democracy.”

Career forged in tragedy Feinstein, who’d been president of the Board of Supervisors and represented the Marina neighborhood at City Hall, became mayor on November 27, 1978 following the assassination of Moscone by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White inside City Hall. White then killed Milk, the first gay elected official in the Golden State, in his City Hall office.

Feinstein’s dramatic announcement of the political leaders’ deaths and the identity of the suspect were televised nationwide. She was subsequently elected mayor in her own right in 1979.

Earlier in that campaign she’d faced some opposition from members of the LGBTQ community after she made remarks to Ladies’ Home Journal perceived as homophobic, but later won community support after gay candidate David Scott endorsed her in a runoff against independent Quentin Kopp. Scott endorsed Feinstein after she committed to appoint a gay person to the police oversight panel, which Feinstein followed through on with her appointment of lesbian Jo Daly.

Feinstein’s veto of city employee benefits for domestic partners led to a recall effort in 1983, though she won 81% to 18%.

After departing the mayoralty in 1988, she made an unsuccessful run for California governor in 1990. Feinstein then ran for the U.S. Senate seat, win-

Congress at a time when our rights and freedoms are under attack across the country. We look forward to working with Laphonza as she steps into this new role and continues her lifelong fight for our shared values of equity, freedom and justice for all.”

The National Black Justice Coalition, an LGBTQ and same-gender-loving organization, also hailed the appointment.

ning in 1992’s Year of the Woman that saw a record number of female candidates elected. In the Senate she was one of the few Democratic members who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which had been supported by then-senator and current President Joe Biden (D), and was an outspoken advocate for gun control. The expiration of her assault weapons ban in 2004 has been blamed, in part, for the spate of America’s mass shootings.

The last vestiges of DOMA were formally repealed last December when Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act. DOMA had key provisions struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 (Section 3, U.S. v. Windsor) and 2015 (Section 2, Obergefell v. Hodges). Not only does it require federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages nationwide but also mandates states must recognize such unions performed in other states. The act includes protections for religious liberty.

Feinstein was never without controversy though, and in 2004 upset more progressive Democrats when she said then-mayor and now Governor Newsom’s decision to order San Francisco officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples was “too much, too fast, too soon.”

More recently, she was criticized in 2020 when she said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing was “one of the best” and hugged Senator Lindsay Graham (RSouth Carolina), then the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Barrett’s vote last June on the Supreme Court was key for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which had protected abortion as a constitutional right, a key issue for Feinstein.

Feinstein’s husband Richard C. Blum, a regent of the University of California, died in February 2022 at the age of 86. t

John Ferrannini contributed reporting.

choice to serve California in the U.S. Senate,” Atkins stated. “I am grateful to Laphonza – an incredible leader and friend – for stepping up and agreeing to take on this important role.”

Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona) as the three out members of the upper house of Congress.

“I have no doubt that Laphonza will carry on Senator Feinstein’s legacy, and as the first Black LGBTQ+ person to serve in the Senate, I am thrilled to welcome another LGBTQ+ woman to the Senate!” wrote Baldwin in an October 2 post on X. Newsom issued a statement about Butler Sunday.

“An advocate for women and girls, a second-generation fighter for working people, and a trusted adviser to Vice President Harris, Laphonza Butler represents the best of California, and she’ll represent us proudly in the United States Senate,” Newsom stated. “As we mourn the enormous loss of Senator Feinstein, the very freedoms she fought for – reproductive freedom, equal protection, and safety from gun violence – have never been under greater assault. Laphonza will carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings, and fight for all Californians in Washington D.C.”  Butler has not said whether she will run for a full six-year term and is not expected to do so this week amid the ceremonies being held in San Francisco to mourn the passing of Feinstein and honor her legacy. The public is invited Wednesday to view her lying in state at

Butler will appear on the March 2024 primary ballot as a special election to complete Feinstein’s term, with the top two vote-getters of that contest advancing to the November ballot where the winner will serve through the end of the year. She has until December 8 to decide if she wants to seek a full term and appear on the March primary ballot for that race with the trio of Democratic congressmembers. The top two votegetters of that race will also advance to the November ballot, with the winner elected to a term ending in 2030.

Prior to joining Emily’s List, Butler ran political campaigns and led strategy efforts for numerous companies, organizations, and elected leaders – including for Harris and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. For more than a decade, she served as the president of the largest labor union in California –Service Employees International Union Local 2015 – a union representing more than 325,000 nursing home and homecare workers throughout the state, according to Newsom’s announcement. Butler served on the UC Board of Regents from 2018 to 2021.

Reaction

Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization, praised the selection.

“Laphonza Butler is eminently qualified to represent California well in the United States Senate and we are thrilled to congratulate her,” stated Tony Hoang, a gay man. “This historic appointment by Governor Newsom will give our LGBTQ+ community another voice in

“We are elated to celebrate the groundbreaking appointment of Laphonza Butler to the United States Senate,” stated David Johns, NBJC’s executive director. “This historic decision not only shatters glass ceilings but also underscores the importance of continued progress in expanding representation for the Black and LGBTQ+/same-gender loving community in our nation’s capital.

“Butler’s appointment as California’s first openly LGBTQ+ United States senator is an extraordinary milestone,” Johns added.

Gay Congressmember Mark Takano (D-Riverside), the first out member of Congress from California and the first LGBTQ person of color elected to Congress, stated that he was excited by Butler’s appointment.

“For the first time in our nation’s history, queer people of color have representation in both chambers of Congress,” Takano stated. “As the first out person of color to serve in Congress, I am thrilled that Californians and all queer people of color have in Laphonza Butler a leader that can speak and legislate to the experiences of our community.

“Laphonza Butler’s appointment to complete the term of Senator Feinstein has cemented this seat for trailblazers and history makers,” he added. “I look forward to working with her to solve the challenges facing California and our country.”

Lesbian state Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) called Butler “an excellent choice.”

“As someone who has effectively fought for the rights of women and working people throughout her career, Laphonza Butler is an outstanding

Newsom had previously promised to appoint a Black woman to the Senate should a vacancy occur. After Harris stepped down in 2021 to become vice president, Newsom named Alex Padilla (D), a Latino man, to the seat.

Faced with questions this year about the possibility of filling Feinstein’s seat, Newsom said he would not appoint one of the candidates running to succeed her, saying he didn’t want to interfere in the Senate campaign and that he would appoint a caretaker if the need arose.

That angered Lee, who is Black, and many of her supporters, who felt that she should have been named to the Senate if a vacancy arose. After Feinstein’s death, that became a reality.

Lee currently trails Schiff and Porter in polls and in fundraising, according to recent reports.

On Sunday, just hours before he named Butler to the seat, it was reported that Newsom had backtracked from his caretaker comment and that there were no preconditions on the person committing not to run. (An appointee could run anyway, as there’s nothing to stop them from seeking election.)

Monday, Newsom told reporters he had not spoken to Butler about her running for the seat.

“I wouldn’t have appointed someone that I didn’t respect and admire and I couldn’t back up and vouch for,” he said, adding of the Golden State’s new senator, “In some ways I can’t even make all of this up if I had to literally design from the mind of imagination — put pen to paper — someone I would like, including the time of life. She’s just 44 years old.”

Butler received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Jackson State University. Butler is married to her wife, Neneki, and together they have a daughter, Nylah. t

Then-San Francisco supervisor Dianne Feinstein made the cover of the November 1, 1971 Bay Area Reporter. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor that year.

B.A.R. Archives

Senator Alex Padilla, left, greeted his new colleague, Senator Laphonza Butler, in the Capitol Tuesday.

From Padilla’s X account

Badlands bar reopens in SF Castro district

by John Ferrannini

At long last, Badlands announced it was reopening Wednesday for the first time since the COVID pandemic, the new co-manager confirmed to the Bay Area Reporter on October 4. The long popular LGBTQ nightclub in San Francisco’s Castro district has been closed for more than three years.

As the B.A.R. previously reported, TJ Bruce, a gay man who owns a number of nightclubs on the West Coast, such as Splash San Jose and Badlands Sacramento, was brought on this year as a co-manager of the nightclub at 4121 18th Street alongside longtime owner Les Natali.

Bruce had told the B.A.R. August 21 that it would be open within two months. On October 4, he said it’d be open at 5 p.m.

Hopes it would be open in time for the October 1 Castro Street Fair were dispelled by Bruce two weeks ago, as the B.A.R. reported September 21.

Bruce gave the B.A.R. a statement Wednesday on behalf of “the Badlands Team.”

SFFD trial

From page 4 said. “These were for minor things at work.”

Cannata alleged the investigations started because Juratovac signed a declaration in court on behalf of Jacobs, against Siragusa.

“You can see, in the events that followed, Chief Siragusa never forgot it,” Cannata said. “You can see it through the DUI [investigation No. 2], through Janet Oliver [who plaintiff alleged may have helped start investigation No. 5], he was intimately involved with what was going on with her and he got others to go along with it.”

Both Cannata and Frenzen quoted retired fire chief Joanne Hayes-White, who testified that Juratovac is a “role model,” but not a “victim.”

“She is a role model but she is not a victim,” Cannata agreed. “She has survived.” Cannata, through a timeline, tried to tie Siragusa and his friends and confidants to a number of investigations. She said that they could have stopped Juratovac from advancing if they’d been successful before her promotion by HayesWhite to assistant chief – and did stop Juratovac from advancing in current Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson’s administration. Nicholson, a lesbian who’s led the department since 2019, was directly

<< Castro bar

From page 11

ness was not available at that time to make a police report.”

Later that day, officers from SFPD’s Park Station followed up by returning to the business.

“The victim stated that the suspects attempted to steal items from inside the business but appeared to be unsuccessful,” Sepulveda stated. “Officers documented evidence at the scene and provided the victim with a police report.”

Lookout owner Chris Hastings told the B.A.R. that the burglary was the morning the bar was celebrating its 16th anniversary with a huge party.

Legals>>

“It is with immense excitement to announce the reopening today of Badlands San Francisco after seven weeks of nonstop preparations,” it reads. “We can’t wait to welcome the Castro community back on this very special Wednesday. We want to express our sincere gratitude to

accused of participating in retaliatory activities.

Cannata said during her closing that Juratovac was owed damages potentially up to $502,508 (assuming a scenario where she was lawfully not promoted to assistant deputy chief) or of up to $949,045, not counting the cost of emotional distress, for which the jury could have also awarded damages. The jury decided otherwise.

City: Juratovac case

‘conspiracy theories’

Frenzen’s closing was about one hour. It began with her accusing Cannata of “conspiracy theories, hyperbole, and assumptions.”

“This is actually a fairly straightforward case,” she said, going on to say that there’s no evidence that any of the actions taken against Juratovac – including her suspension after disciplinary investigation No. 6 – were the result of any animus against her due to her race, sex, or sexual orientation and that they could all be shown, through testimony, to have been the result of proper practice.

“The evidence shows Chief Juratovac has frequent conflict with her colleagues, subordinates, and commanding officers,” Frenzen alleged, reiterating that the assistant deputy chief position she didn’t get promoted to was at the pleasure of the chief, and Nicholson testified

our entire crew for their hard work and dedication. We hope to see you all soon. Cheers!”

Natali, an 81-year-old longtime Castro neighborhood property owner, told the B.A.R. that it will be “a very happy night.”

“It’s finally happening after a long time,” Natali said. “It’s finally happening after a long time. I’m happy, TJ’s happy. I hope everything goes well.”

Natali demurred when asked why Badlands, which Natali and Bruce touted as opening within weeks back in February, did not open at that time. Natali told the B.A.R. that he was going to call his attorney February 9 to finalize a deal with Bruce. However, after that, Natali wouldn’t pick up the phone, and Bruce said he couldn’t speak to the matter.

“I really don’t have a specific item –there wasn’t a specific item – but when lawyers get involved in things it can get complicated and take longer than expected,” Natali said. “It was just longer than expected but we’re here, it’s over, finally.”

It was only three years ago Natali announced the club would be closing permanently.

that Juratovac lacked the “soft skills” for the job.

Frenzen said the plaintiff couldn’t point to a specific promotional opportunity denied her.

“Despite Chief Juratovac’s claim she’s been denied an assistant deputy chief position, you haven’t heard any testimony about what specific position she was denied,” Frenzen said.

Frenzen also walked through a timeline of the disciplinary investigations. Regarding No. 6, the ladder drill incident that led to Juratovac’s suspension, she mentioned that Juratovac “further exacerbate[d] matters” by mentioning then-new firefighter Lauren Canning’s sexual orientation during a general report.

“What a way to make members feel welcome,” Frenzen remarked, attacking Juratovac’s earlier assertion during testimony that she did not single out Canning because she, too, is an LGBTQ woman.

“If that’s the case, we should all go home now, because Chief Nicholson is also an LGBTQ woman,” Frenzen said.

Ultimately, “there are a lot of people in the department who are afraid of” Juratovac, Frenzen said, accusing the assistant chief of putting at risk any work she’s done for women or minorities in the department.

“The only pattern of conduct here is

Hastings said he spoke to the police afterward; the burglars were “very effective,” used masks, hoodies, gloves, and “wasted no time –they went right for the safe.”

“We were very fortunate a Castro resident saw them outside and they called the police,” Hastings said. “It’s concerning that this is starting to become more common.”

Days later, on Monday, October 2, there was an armed robbery at a Happy Donuts in Noe Valley. Two alleged robbers stole $1,500 from the 24-hour shop, according to KRON-TV.

Police are still investigating.

“Badlands bar is closed. Later this fall a new bar, under new ownership, will open in the Badlands location,” a July 30, 2020 Facebook post stated. “The name of the new bar and other details will be announced later, closer to the opening date.”

In the heady summer of 2020 during protests over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police that led to demonstrations across the country, Natali and Badlands came under renewed criticism due to past allegations of racial discrimination.

A 2004 report by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission found that Badlands was discriminating against African Americans, but the findings were never official because the HRC executive director at the time did not sign off on the staff report. Natali and the complainants eventually reached a confidential settlement.

Natali later opened Toad Hall across the street from Badlands on the site of what had been the Pendulum, a bar that catered to Black LGBTQs.

In an email June 6, 2020, after the past allegations were brought up at a Black

Lives Matter protest in the Castro’s Jane Warner Plaza, Natali wrote that the allegations “were found without merit and were dropped.”

“We welcome people of all races and all colors and we probably have the largest, most diverse clientele of any bar in the Castro,” he added.

Badlands originally opened as a country western bar in 1974. Natali acquired it in 1999, when it became a video bar.

The Castro Merchants Association did not return a request for comment for this report by press time.

Q Bar

As for the nearby Q Bar at 456 Castro Street, its co-owner Cip Cipriano had told the B.A.R. in July that it would be open in September. When asked September 21 if he had an updated estimated date for the opening, Cipriano only responded “soon.”

He did not return a request for comment for this report by press time. t

and that it’s interesting that formal rules were put in place only the same year Siragusa retired.

“There’s a clubhouse – it’s run by Chief Siragusa and his friends,” Cannata said. “I get it, I’m married to a white male, I don’t want to make it harder for anyone to exist in this world, but … it’s a bad clubhouse that excludes.

“It’s like someone says ‘come play a chess game but I’m not going to give you any pieces to put on the board,’” Cannata continued. “It’s the fact that she’s a woman, the fact that she’s Asian American, the fact that she’s LGBTQ.”

Chief Juratovac’s conduct that led people to complain about her,” Frenzen said. As for being denied the opportunity to be a strike team leader trainee, “for the chief of the department to – even if she’d waive state guidelines – to let someone who’s never been to a wildland fire lead a team of 20 people, seems to present a significant risk.”

Cannata disagreed, saying that the fact Juratovac had not been presented with the opportunity to train in the first place was the result of a “clubhouse” –

Jennison, which shows pictures of emptied cash registers and rows of missing liquor bottles. Jennison told the San Francisco Standard that footage showed two men picked the bar’s lock and one entered.

When asked if the burglaries are believed to be related, Sepulveda told the B.A.R. October 3 that “part of any investigation is trying to determine if incidents are connected or part of a series. It is too early in the investigation(s) to determine what connections, if any, the robberies may have.”

Cannata told the B.A.R. September 29 that because this is an employment case, in the event of a loss the plaintiff pays the cost of the city’s depositions and exhibits but not its attorney’s fees. If Juratovac had prevailed, the city would have paid the plaintiff’s depositions, exhibits, and attorney’s fees.

The initial complaint included eight causes of action against the city: unlawful retaliation in violation of the labor code; unlawful retaliation in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act; discrimination based on sexual orientation; discrimination based on race; discrimination based on gender; unlawful harassment; failure to investigate and prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation; and violation of the California Public Records Act. t

passes both businesses, stated on X (formerly Twitter) regarding the robbery at the cash-only donut shop, “This is horrible news. The incident is under active investigation & our office is in close communication” with the SFPD’s Mission Station.

He stated to the B.A.R. that “both incidents are alarming, and all the more so because they are not uncommon.”

“Small businesses across San Francisco are experiencing such break-ins and attempted break-ins with troubling frequency,” he continued.

“We’ve had thefts before,” he said, but “this was definitely the most brazen” attempt.

Robbers struck the Lone Star Saloon, a bar in the SOMA neighborhood, on September 11, according to a Facebook post by co-owner Bruce

District 8’s public safety liaison Dave Burke said he was “not qualified” to answer if they are related.

“I really don’t know,” he said.

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, whose district encom -

Anyone with information about these crimes is asked to contact the SFPD at 415-575-4444, or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD. Tipsters may remain anonymous. t

San Francisco Fire Department Assistant Chief Nicol Juratovac lost her lawsuit against the city.

Courtesy Cannata O’Toole and Olson

The Lone Star Saloon was broken into last month.

From Bruce Jennison’s Facebook page

Castro bar Badlands, shown under renovation last month, was set to reopen Wednesday.

John Ferrannini

by Laura Moreno

The new groundbreaking poetry collection “The Delicacy of Embracing Spirals,”

Mimi Tempestt’s second book, is being released October 3 by City Lights Books. Since 2017, she has been an integral part of the Bay Area poetry scene and is known for her highly creative, exquisitely visceral performances.

“I try to break the status quo as much as possible.” Tempestt sees her poetry as nuanced, eccentric “but in a cool way.”

A Los Angeles native, Tempestt is a multidisciplinary artist and writer with an M.A. in literature from Mills College. She currently lives in Berkeley and is a doctoral candidate in Creative/Critical Literature at UC Santa Cruz.

Tempestt is a warrior poet who pulls no punches. She explores Black queer womanhood, the truth about relationships, our daily struggles, our histories as well as critiques on the wider society, always seeking to “transcend the spiral.” It is a survival guide of sorts for women of color, her own unique approach to writing her way out of the darkness and into the light. “the path of faith & love reaps greater reward than the method of brute force”

Highly Innovative Poetry

Writers in particular will love this book for its highly innovative poetry formats. For example, “i’ve been an addict much longer than i’ve been myself” omits all stanzas and punctuation. Yet reading it is a lot less challenging than you’d imagine.

“i adore the old people they know the secret to life i can’t even fathom...i know i was taught how to love myself mama loving is hard in a world who refuses to love me back the new song i wrote was about another girl that song wasn’t about me

Mimi Tempestt

Queer poet’s ‘The Delicacy of Embracing Spirals’

mama...mama just promise me the day i leave this place will be the day you know peace promise me that mama promise me to move on mama promise to forgive me mama promise promise me promise me mama promise me promise me mama promise me please please please”

Another innovation is Tempestt’s striking use of spacing on the page. She repeats the word “again” for nearly a full page and a half, and ends up going beyond the ordinary limitations of printed words on the page. I had no idea the creative use of spacing and symbols could be so elo-

Movies at Mill Valley

quent, so expressive as to even convey screams, tangled emotions, despair and anger.

And there is reason, humans being what they are, for the anger poetry, art and music have the power to transcend: “fish for compliments in a sea of sharks, dress finely only to let the wolves rip you to shreds.”

Excerpt from casting call #1 “Black (LA) woman”:

to discover you are a transcendental

by Brian Bromberger

For its 46th annual season, the Mill Valley Film Festival (October 5-15), presented by the California Film Institute, continues its tradition of programming the most anticipated high profile and prestigious awards season movies, sublime documentaries, irresistible indies, tributes, and panel discussions.

The festival is in-person this year at seven venues. Each year the festival welcomes more than 200 filmmakers, representing more than 50 countries. And, of course, every year there are a significant number of worthy LGBTQ-related films.

The first public topless dancer in the U.S. is profiled in the documentary “Carol Doda Topless at the Candor.” Her San Francisco career was propelled when she increased the size of her bust through silicone injections, such that her breasts were called “the new Twin Peaks of San Francisco.” In 1969 she started dancing bottomless (nude) at the Candor Club. She later ran a successful lingerie shop in San Francisco. She was a study in female empowerment who used male fascination with her body to her advantage. She became an early and steadfast ally to the LGBTQ community.

The hit (i.e. “The Swimming Pool,” “Peter von Kant”) or miss (quite a few) gay French director Francois Ozon is in top form with a breezy French farce, “The Crime is Mine,” based on the Georges Berr 1934 play “Mon Crime” that pays homage to Hollywood Golden Age screwball comedy.

Poor aspiring actress Madeleine is barely surviving in Paris, living with her best friend and lawyer Pauline. Offered a plum role by a legendary theatrical producer but at the price of being sexually abused, Madeleine flees. She is subsequently accused of his murder.

This “Chicago”-like movie (without the music) winds up condemning the French judicial system, is pro-women’s rights, satirizes sexual harassment, and is a scathing assault on the film and theater industries, using humor and campy performances to soften its virulence. Like Haynes, Ozon is a master of getting brilliant acting from actresses. It’s a triumph and one of Ozon’s very best.

Sex educator and feminist Shere Hite is the subject of the documentary “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” who in her bestselling 1976 book, “The Hite Report,” contained the bombshell

of what the soul’s been yearning for millennia is the hardest throat slicing pill to swallow

“The Delicacy of Embracing Spirals” ends with “the wanderer’s confession,” a riveting and innovative play in which every character is an aspect of the author herself. She prefaces it with a verse that makes clear we wrestle not with flesh and blood: “this ain’t about you. this ain’t about me.”

The play contains many insights, such as when Jesus Christ and Emmett Till commiserate about how exhausting it is to be constantly “Used. Ventriloquized. Idolized.” The scene is prefaced with wry humor:

“we so damn backwards as a society that niggas who are alive are dead & niggas who are dead are alive. we have more value being dead than alive. just look around you. how the fuck can a hologram of tupac cripwalk on stage with snoop dogg at coachella? ...the t-shirts read GEORGE FLOYD FOREVER. i still can’t tell if that’s better or worse than a t-shirt that reads WHITE LIVES MATTER.”

Intelligent, raw and radically honest, Tempestt’s poetry is above all intimately human.

“I’m not a fan of popular rhetorical redundancies. I loathe perfectionists,” Tempestt said in a recent interview with KQED. “I’m interested in nuances, complexities, contradictions, chaos, experiments, discomforts and ideological confrontations, art that makes you take a second glance or forces you to look away.”t

Mimi Tempestt launches her new collection at City Lights Bookstore with poet Truong Tran on Thursday, October 19, 6pm. 261 Columbus Ave. www.citylights.com

www.instagram.com/mimi.tempestt/ www.youtube.com/@MimiTempestt/

‘The Delicacy of Embracing Spirals’ by Mimi Tempestt, City Lights Books, $12.57

revelation that 70% of women achieved orgasm not through intercourse but via masturbation. Her methodology has been attacked as biased and her respondents were done anonymously via written surveys as opposed to phone or in-person interviews. Still, her findings set the stage for later public discussions on gender, sexuality, and female bodily autonomy. The film explores her life after she became notorious.

Early reviews for Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers” have been rapturous and a welcome restoration after his disastrous 2017 film “Downsizing.” This period movie follows curmudgeonly history teacher (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school in 1970, forced to remain on campus during the Christmas holiday to babysit marooned students with nowhere else to go, especially brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa), along with a grieving head cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who’s mourning the loss of her son in Vietnam. Already hailed as Payne’s warmest film, that is funny and touching without being sentimental. There’s already talk all three actors will be nominated for Oscars.

“May December” is a fictionalized version of the 1997 real life tabloid scandal of teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, who had sex with a 12-year old student, served six years in prison and then married the student when released. Julianne Moore plays the teacher, while Natalie Portman is the actress set to play her in a film, who travels to Georgia to meet and study her.

The great gay Todd Haynes directs and the film is filled with sharp-witted dialogue with some trademark campy humor, though reportedly the film allows the audience to draw its own conclusion. Haynes and Moore have worked together twice before, and he knows how to draw great performances from actresses, so both Moore and Portman are allegedly divine.

National Anthem” follows 21-year-old construction worker Dylan (Christopher Plummer) who lives in rural New Mexico. To support his younger brother and alcoholic mother, he joins a community of gay rodeo performers and ranchers. The cinematography heralding the expanse of the American Southwest is supposed to be stunning, even poetic.

The film explores the sociology of the queer rodeo subculture (complete with drag), but it’s an old-fashioned movie unafraid to proclaim the See page 16 >>

Salima Allen Lani DeSota

‘National Anthem’ ‘Nyad’ ‘Rustin’

Film fest faves for the 46th

<< Mill Valley Film

power of family and love, showcasing the virtues of meeting and accepting people where they are, with everyone trying to grab their small piece of the American dream.

Annette Bening is getting Oscar buzz for “Nyad,” as Diana Nyad, who at age 60, having once been a champion marathon swimmer and then left to become a sports journalist, decided at age 60 to make an epic 110 mile-swim in the shark- and jellyfish-infested waters from Cuba to Florida, aided by her best friend and coach Bonnie Stoll (played by Jodie Foster). Nyad is both a lesbian and an atheist. The film has already been heralded as an inspirational triumph of the human spirit and tenacious adversity over brutal setbacks.

A winner at this year’s Sundance, “The Persian Version” is a study of cultural clash with first generation and rebellious Leila (she wears a burkatini, burka on top, bikini on bottom). A film director/screenwriter, she lives and works in New York with aspirations to become the Iranian-American Scorsese. She has just broken up with her wife. At a Halloween party, she has sex with a drag queen. Her one-nighter leads to a pregnancy.

She has a complicated, stormy relationship with her mother Shirin who is furious with her lesbianism, even exiling Leila and partner from Thanksgiving dinner. Her ailing father needs a heart transplant. The film then takes an unexpected turn as we learn about Shirin’s past, being forced at age 13 to marry an older man, moving to the U.S. to escape scandal, but eventually becoming a successful realtor. This is a funny perky tribute to the perseverance and pluckiness of Iranian women. Lesbian writer/director Maryam Keshavarz is a major talent.

activist Bayard Rustin, who organized that epic event, will be shown. He challenged authority, never apologized for who he was and almost was fired from his position because of his sexuality (years earlier he had been arrested for lewd behavior in a men’s restroom) but Martin Luther King stood up for him.

Sadly, history has largely forgotten him, but he’s been rediscovered. Actor Colman Domingo is considered the early front runner to win the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Rustin, no doubt aided by the film’s director, the renowned theater director George C. Wolfe, who two years ago helmed “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” which landed the late Chadwick Boseman an Academy Award nomination.

Saltburn” is one of the most anticipated films of the year, the second film directed by Emerald Fennell after her stunning debut film “Promising Young Woman,” which earned her a Best Screenplay Oscar. The first half utilizes elements of “Brideshead Revisited” as socially aimless Oxford University student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) is drawn into the world of the charming, aristocratic, spoiled rich classmate Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi, the It Boy of 2023) who invites him to his family’s sprawling estate, Saltburn, for the summer.

In the second half, the film mirrors aspects of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and becomes a psychosexual thriller of obsession, privilege, and desire. Keoghan triumphs as both a sinister and captivating sociopath in this Gothic mordant expose on contemporary British class dynamics.

Summer Solstice” is a low-key, low budget narrative about trans man and budding actor Leo who reunites with his cisgender straight college friend photographer Eleanor as they embark on a weekend trip to upstate

must decide whether to be friends or something more. A noble miss, it’s still worth watching.

French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung (“The Scent of Green Papaya”) won Best Director at Cannes this year for “The Taste of Things” based on Rouffe’s 1924 novel “The Passionate Epicure.” It’s 1885 France and top chef Dodin Bouffant (Benoit Magime) has been living with his cook and lover Eugenie (Juliette Binoche) for 20 years,

with their unique exquisite dishes attracting diners from all over the world. He has offered to marry her several times but she has declined, prizing her independence.

This film joins other top tier gastronomical movies (i.e. “Like Water for Chocolate,” “Big Night,” and “Babette’s Feast”) and while somewhat predictable, still the incredible cuisine will win you over. Foodies will be in nirvana. You should plan to eat dinner

after watching this winsome movie.t The Mill Valley Film Festival, Oct. 5-15. $20 (single tickets) to $130 (full pass/special events) at the Smith Rafael Film Center (San Rafael), BAMPFA (Berkeley), Cinearts Sequoia, Outdoor Art Club and Sweetwater Music Hall (Mill Valley), Lark Theatre (Larkspur) and Roxie (San Francisco). www.mvff.com

“Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.”

—Fran Lebowitz

‘Strange Way of Life’

Almodóvar’s gay cowboy short film

doed any possibility of a permanent romance, yet lingers as a burning passion that’s dictated their lives ever since.

The film was shot in the Spanish town of Almería, where Sergio Leone filmed the spaghetti western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” with all the accompanying sumptuous cinematography evoking a classic Western, but remade to reflect our contemporary focus on same-sex desires. It’s reminiscent of Todd Haynes’ “Far From Heaven” a ’50s period piece reimagined with 2000s themes, asking what if that original film had actually dealt with issues that were present but ignored during that era. Almodóvar attempts a similar adaptation from his own quirky perspective.

by Brian Bromberger

The great gay Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar was in line to helm the neo-Western gay romance “Brokeback Mountain” (2005) which would have been his first Hollywood and English language movie, but ultimately passed because he wanted to make a sexier rendition and felt he wouldn’t have the full freedom in Tinseltown he was accustomed to in Spain.

While his new thirty-minute English language short “Strange Way of Life” (Sony Classics) is not his version of “Brokeback,” it’s clearly an inspiration in Almodóvar’s desire to create a queer revisionist Western.

The movie lacks Almodóvar’s zany humor and it reflects the restraint of his recent semi-autobiographical films (“Pain and Glory,” “Parallel Mothers”).

There are traditional Western elements (though we’re a long way from “Bonanza” or “Gunsmoke”), yet the mannered way the characters speak and subtle kitschy elements (Georgia O’Keefe prints on the wall) hint at a post-mod-

ern subversion on a gay western with lots of homoerotic overtones.

Genre-bending

Clearly, Almodóvar is bending the Western genre to his unique vision rather than the reverse, but again reflecting his most immediate past work, there’s a melancholy, a sense of loss, a grappling with a painful history that has repercussions for today. Ultimately “Strange” is a story about forbidden desire, how these male characters process these unsettling feelings with all their inherent contradictions in a vain attempt to recreate a vanished past anchored by two questions, “What if?” and “Why not?”

At the center of “Strange” is a reunion recalling a history that could’ve changed both men’s lives had they the courage to follow their feelings rather than the hostile dictates of society.

Sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawke) is trying to solve the murder of his sister-in-law, who was once his ex-lover. The chief suspect is the sister-in-law’s lover Joe, who happens to be the son of his old

flame Silva (Pedro Pascal). Not coincidentally, Silva rides into Bitter Creek (metaphor alert) with his apple green denim jacket (an allusion to Jimmy Stewart’s coat in the classic western “Bend in the River”), the first time in 25 years the ex-lovers have reunited.

Jake suspects Silva reappears to protect his outlaw son, even though he claims he wants to reconnect with Jake. There’s a seduction with Jake kissing Silva on the back of the neck followed by a fade to black, where the camera pans on rumpled up bed sheets and Silva’s butt, but no frontal nudity or kissing each other on the lips. Jake putting on his clothes suggests unbridled passion, but leaves the sex to the audience’s imagination, followed by both men picking out clean white designer underwear. Jake accuses Silva of “smelling of cum” in bed.

There’s an intense flashback when the two young hired guns (played by handsome models Jason Fernández and José Condessa) first met on a Mexican ranch, shooting bullet holes into wine barrels, then licking

the wine off each other’s bodies and giving each other sloppy kisses, such that the female Mexican prostitutes leave, recognizing a lost cause when they see one.

Then we discover their fling lasted for two months, with “the madness ending” perhaps unable to dream of a life together, they separated. Both men later married and produced children. Now Silva wants to pick up where they left off with the proviso his son be let off the hook as a favor, while a suspicious Jake resists any continuation, intent on bringing Joe to justice.

The good, the bad and the models

All the subordinate male roles are played by models, but the film narrowly avoids becoming a glorified fashion commercial because of the awesome performances of Hawke and Pascal, who though both straight, convey a sizzling chemistry together. You truly believe these two men had a love connection, tainted by turbulent emotions gurgling inside that ultimately torpe-

The heart of the film is the Jake/Silvio bond. We have two superb actors yearning to reveal more of their characters to viewers, since both appear heavily conflicted, yet are hampered by a script that tries to tie loose ends too hastily so the movie ends before it has actually begun.

“Strange Way of Life” (from the Brazilian Caetano Veloso song lipsynched over the opening credits) could easily have been a full feature film. We’re always glad to have Almodóvar back in the saddle in a rare non-female-centric yet somewhat exasperating film, as we want to spend more time with these two compelling, irksome cowboys and of course ask, “What’s next?”

Note: “Strange Way of Life” will be paired in theaters, locally at AMC’s Kabuki and Metreon, with Almodóvar’s excellent first half-hour Spanish short “The Human Voice” (2020) based on gay auteur Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play, starring Tilda Swinton as a woman having a breakdown on the telephone as she speaks to a lover who has just left her. t

www.sonyclassics.com

Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal in “Strange Way of Life”

Sony Pictures Classics Jason Fernández, Ethan Hawke, Pedro Almodóvar, Pedro Pascal and José Condessa in a publicity photo for “Strange Way of Life”

Sony Pictures Classics

Reunion

Celebrating queer history with the GLBT Historical Society

by David-Elijah Nahmod

On October 14 the GLBT Historical Society will pull out all stops when they present “Reunion,” the organization’s annual gala. The event, which takes place at the Marines Memorial Club and Hotel, promises to celebrate the community’s vast queer past, to honor the history makers who move the community forward, and to raise funds to keep LGBTQ history alive. In addition to maintaining a vast archive, the society also operates the GLBT Historical Society Museum at 4127 18th Street in the Castro.

The GLBT Historical Society was founded in 1985. According to An-

drew Shaffer, Director of Development and Communications at the GLBT Historical Society, the founders had been looking back to the 1970s, a time when the community had achieved a few victories, having won some local elections and securing non-discrimination ordinances in select places around the USA. But antiLGBT activists had quickly attempted to reverse those gains and push LGBTQ people back in the closet.

“The GLBT Historical Society was founded, in part, to ensure those activists would never succeed, by making sure we keep our history alive for each other,” Shaffer said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

Honorees

There are two 2023 History Makers Award recipients at this year’s gala. First to be honored will be the legendary drag artist Heklina, who passed away earlier this year. Also set to be honored is the Queer Ancestors Project. Shaffer explained why these two were chosen.

“The History Makers Awards are given to individuals and organizations for artistry and contributions to LGBTQ history and culture,” Shaffer said. “Both of this year’s honorees are incredible exemplars.”

The society was unable to notify Heklina of her award before she passed, but feels that the sheer amount

of love and tributes she received after her passing proves that the award is well deserved.

“The award is given not just to showcase her artistry and contributions to queer culture, but the incredible community she cultivated and the indelible impact she has had on San Francisco,” Shaffer noted.

Shaffer feels that the Queer Ancestors Project is just as deserving of the award as Heklina.

“The Queer Ancestors Project has brought numerous groups into our archives to connect young people with their history,” he said. “Their mission is perfectly in alignment with ours, and the prints they create are such beautiful tributes to queer family. We are delighted to be able to shine a light on their work, and to have a few alumni on hand to share their stories.”

Friends & festivity

The gala will have two equally illustrious co-hosts, community icons Sister Roma and Honey Mahogany. Shaffer is delighted to have them aboard.

“Honey Mahogany and Sister Roma are truly powerhouses, and they’ve done so much for our community,” Shaffer said. “We’re beyond thrilled that they’ve agreed to serve as hosts for the evening, and to bring their signature brand of wit and fun to the event.”

Shaffer added that the gala is meant to be a reunion of chosen family.

“The goal is to provide a space once a year where people from across the LGBTQ+ spectrum can gather to celebrate, learn, and enjoy each other’s

company,” he said. “Our gala includes an awards ceremony, as well as time for mixing and mingling with a wide range of queer history supporters and local dignitaries. We’ll have music by Bill Quist and Obsidienne Obsurd, tributes to our fabulous honorees, and an open bar and food stations active through the night.”

There will also be a silent auction. Items include pieces from artists such as Serge Gay, Jr., Joseph Abbati, and Our Fellow Mortals. People can also bid on experiences such as dinner and drinks to the Napa Valley Wine Train, and neighborhood packages designed to showcase what makes San Francisco such a vibrant place to live.

“Bidding will be open both online and in person, so even folks who aren’t able to join the event will have a chance to bid,” Shaffer said.

Shaffer hopes that gala attendees will feel proud of the impact their contributions are making.

“The last year has shown us how vital it is to stand up for our history and culture, when anti-LGBT activists have been working overtime to erase us from the landscape and push us back into the closet,” he said. “There are a lot of echoes between today and the world of the 1970s and 80s that first inspired the creation to the GLBT Historical Society. We need to preserve and share our history now more than ever.”t

Reunion: The GLBT Historical Society Gala, October 14, 6pm9pm, Marines’ Memorial Club and Hotel, 609 Sutter St. General admission $190, VIP admission $300 www.glbthistory.org

JuanitaMORE!, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman and Donna Persona at the 2022 GLBT Historical Society gala

Bradley Roberge

Andrew Shaffer, Director of Development and Communications at the GLBT Historical Society

The late Heklina

Jose A Guzman Colon

James Baldwin print by Joan Chen, from the Queer Ancestors Project

Music >>

by Gregg Shapiro

Can we all just agree the Ben Gibbard is a modern-day musical genius? Since the late 1990s, Gibbard’s band Death Cab For Cutie has been amassing a devoted following, releasing ten studio albums, including 2003’s acclaimed “Transatlanticism.”

With too much talent and energy for one band, Gibbard also launched a few side projects including The Postal Service. “Give Up,” The Postal Service’s debut (and lone studio) album, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Coinciding with the occasion, the live album “Everything Will Change” (Sub Pop), recorded during The Postal Service’s 2013 reunion concert, is now available in all physical formats.

Featuring original band members Gibbard, Jimmy Tamborello (of Dntel), Jenny Lewis (while we’re at it, can we all agree that Lewis is also a musical genius?), as well as Laura Burhenn. “Everything Will Change” is the kind of live album that proves studio-crafted electronic music (including irresistible dance numbers such as “Such Great Heights,” “We Will Become Silhouettes,” “Nothing Better,” “Clark Gable,” “Be Still My Heart,” “A Tattered Line of String,” “Brand New Colony,” as well as covers of songs by Beat Happening (“Our Secret”) and Dntel (“The Dream of Evan and Chan”), can transfer seamlessly to live performance. Need another reason to listen to The Postal Service? Gibbard has been a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community, due in large part to his sister, who is a lesbian.

Damon Albarn of Blur is another modern-day musical visionary (right?) with talent to burn. In addition to Blur, Albarn has led a few side projects, most notably the “virtual band” Gorillaz, which has more than half a dozen albums to its credit.

Blur’s “The Ballad of Darren” (Parlophone/Warner), its first new studio album in eight years, is dazzling and well worth the wait. No, there aren’t any queer-friendly club bangers like 1994’s classic “Girls & Boys,” but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You can still cut a rug to “Barbaric,” “The Narcissist,” and even “The Rabbi.”

What’s really notable about the album is the introspection (“The Ballad,” “St. Charles Square,” “Goodbye Albert”) and the beauty (“Russian Strings,” “The Everglades,” “Far Away Island”), resulting in the sound of a band embracing its maturation.

Talk about a sonic evolution. Like Blur, British shoegaze heroes Slowdive sound like they are settling into the next phase of their lives with dignity and grace. Some of the songs on the new “Everything is Alive,” including the instrumental “Shanty,” “The Slab,” and “Skin In the Game,” still have the grinding guitar edge we’ve come to expect. Along with that, we also hear an ethereal kind of beauty that plays out on the songs “Andalucia Plays,” “The Slab,” and “Chained to a Cloud.” In other words, Slowdive splashes down with something for almost everyone.

Readers of America’s longest continuously-published and highest circulation LGBTQ newspaper have made their opinions known in our annual readers’ poll selecting the BEST PEOPLE, PLACES, and THINGS TO DO in the San Francisco Bay Area.

ADVERTISE in our readers’ favorite edition of the year. Call Scott Wazlowski at (415) 829-8937 or email advertising@ebar.com Space reservations will be accepted until Friday, October 20.

The 20-track compilation “Part Time Job” (Yep Roc) by Full Time Men is the CD and digital (as well as limited edition vinyl) debut of the supergroup’s LPs and EP, mostly from

the 1980s. Led by the Fleshtones’ Keith Streng and featuring his Fleshtones bandmates, the distinguishing part is the guest performers. Among them, you’ll find R.E.M.’s

Boys) and Pat Dinizio (of The Smithereens). In addition to the previously released material, “Part Time Job” features four previously unreleased tunes, including “TOT (Toilet of Time).”t

t

Fright nights

by Victoria A. Brownworth

The air is redolent with the scent of all things pumpkin and in addition to auguring autumn, spicy October is all about Halloween, our national queer holiday.

American Horror Story: Delicate

The latest season of the FX “American Horror Story” franchise from the incredibly prolific doyenne of gay TV, Ryan Murphy and his “AHS” co-creator Brad Falchuk is “Delicate.” From “Glee” to “Pose” Murphy brings the queer and trans tales and also exposes the cracks in cis-het life.

“AHS” always has a coterie of queer and trans actors and storylines. “Delicate” has all that and more–the more being the addition of Kim Kardashian to the retinue, and she’s not terrible.

The twelfth season of the FX horror anthology series is based on Danielle Valentine’s book “Delicate Condition.”

FX explains, “In ‘American Horror Story: Delicate,’ after multiple failed attempts of IVF, actress Anna Victoria Alcott (Emma Roberts) wants nothing more than to start a family. As the buzz around her recent film grows, she

fears that something may be targeting her, and her pursuit of motherhood.”

That “something” is the locus of the horror and the sense of creeping dread is palpable as Anna gets more and more deeply into her hormones.

“American Horror Story: Delicate” debuts two new faces to the “AHS” franchise: celebrity entrepreneur Kardashian and out queer actor and model Cara Delevingne. Also in the series are Matt Czuchry, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, trans actress Michaela Jaé Rodriguez who is beloved from “Pose,” Odessa A’zion and out actor Zachary Quinto, who was in “AHS’s” very first season, “Murder House” in 2011.

Fear Fest

AMC and Shudder also has its annual “Fear Fest” of classic films and TV horror throughout the month. We found ourselves watching “The Exorcist” at 1 a.m. on AMC and it was just as good as it was the first time we saw it as a teenager. We followed that with Stephen King’s “The Shining,” which remains terrifying and iconic.

The schedule will have you shuddering throughout October with

80 films and 400 hours of programming. “Fear Fest” includes the iconic film franchises “Halloween,” “Friday the 13th,” “Scream,” “Leprechaun,” the lesbian fave “Alien,” and Stephen King classics like “The Shining,” “Firestarter,” “Christine” and “Misery.”

Also, perfect for this political season, is King’s prescient 1983 “The Dead Zone,” where a Trumpian presidential candidate, Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen) becomes the obsession of Johnny Smith (played with unerring creepiness by Christopher Walken), who has a vision of Stillson ordering a nuclear attack on the USSR (yes, it pre-dates the breakup of the Soviet Union). You’ll definitely want to catch that one.

Two of our personal favorite horror classics, “Rosemary’s Baby” and “An American Werewolf In London” are also on the schedule as are films from gayer-than-gay director Don Mancini’s “Chucky” franchise, like the stellar “Child’s Play” and the very gay “The Lost Boys.” www.halloweenmoviesontv.com

Creepshow

Based on George A. Romero’s iconic 1982 horror-comedy classic, “Creepshow” is still the most fun you’ll ever have being scared. A comic book comes to life in a series of vignettes, exploring terrors ranging from murder, creatures, monsters and delusions to the supernatural and unexplainable. “Creepshow” has also always delivered queer content (we will never forget the lesbians of “Lydia Layne’s Better Half” in the debut season).

“Creepshow” Season 4 premieres Friday, October 13th with a six-episode binge premiere on Shudder and AMC+ and new episodes airing weekly at 10/9c on AMC.

Love in Fairhope

There are few things scarier than relationships, but Hulu’s new “Love in Fairhope” bills itself as a “uniquely unscripted romantic series,” and it does seem to be that.

Executive-produced by Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon and the producers of “Vanderpump Rules,” “Love in Fairhope” follows five women –Mya Jo, 20; Olivia, 31; Abby, 32; Lashoundra. 41; and Claiborne, 73– at different stages in their lives as they experience re-imagined romance in the picturesque small town of Fairhope, Alabama, a tight-knit community where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Narrated by Heather Graham, the nine chapters cover everything in these women’s lives, from new beginnings and second chances to breakups and breakthroughs.

In the series, Olivia and Tori are navigating life and love as a lesbian couple in the Bible Belt. We found it surprisingly moving to see the two women in bed together with Tori’s hand on Olivia’s stomach as she asked her if she wanted kids.

“Love in Fairhope” isn’t as dramafilled as “Vanderpump Rules,” but it’s immensely watchable TV and the generational aspect makes for an intriguing layer of discourse and fantasy.

Becoming Frida Kahlo

It’s not just Halloween month. It’s also LGBTQ History Month. PBS is showing the three-episode documentary “Becoming Frida Kahlo,” about the Mexican artist, Socialist revolutionary and uncompromising bisexual.

This compelling portrait of Kahlo strips away the myths to reveal the real Frida – a passionate, radical artist living through extraordinary times. The documentary calls Kahlo “the most famous female artist of the 20th century,” but says “over the years, Frida Kahlo’s story has been distorted. This series sets the record straight on this extraordinary woman. It reveals how Mexican independence and politics shaped both Frida as an individual and as an artist. It explores the impact of her epic love affair with fellow artist Diego Rivera. And it shows how she ultimately strived to be independent – free from the control and influence of men.”

Queer X Awards

Revry, the first global LGBTQ streaming service, announces their annual Queer X Awards on October 11, 2023, to mark National Coming Out Day. Presented by Discover, the event recognizes and honors outstanding individuals and allies who have made an impact.

Since its inception in 2016, the Queer X Awards have strived to be

a symbol of inclusivity, spotlighting achievements of people who have helped shape the LGBTQ+ landscape.

“The annual Queer X Awards symbolizes a momentous celebration of extraordinary achievements within the LGBTQ+ community,” said Damian Pelliccione, co-founder, and CEO of Revry. “Happiness, pride, and celebration are essential to shift the focus from mere representation to actively cultivating joy and acknowledgment within the LGBTQ+ community and beyond.”

This year’s awards are hosted by Arisce Wanzer, a transgender model and actress who has walked in fashion weeks in Miami, New York City and L.A., and Dexter Mayfield, a dancer and plus-size model from CBS’s “Come Dance with Me.”

The Queer X Awards amplify diverse voices and stories that have historically been marginalized. Redken will also sponsor this year’s awards and will feature a unique show opening in a Redken salon celebrating a space for the entire spectrum of queer identity and experiences.

The 2023 Queer X Awards will be streamed on Revry’s streaming channel, available on Samsung TV Plus, Roku, VIZIO WatchFree+, Plex, Rakuten TV, Xumo, and more.t Read the full column on www.ebar.com.

Left: Kim Kardashian and Emma Roberts in ‘American Horror Story: Delicate’ Middle: ‘Creepshow season 4’

Right: ‘The Shining’ on Fear Fest

Eric Liebowitz/FX Shudder/AMC Warner Bros.

Above: Abby Mannich and Trevor Chunn in ‘Love in Fairhope’

Middle: ‘Becoming Frida Kahlo’

Below: Arisce Wanzer hosts Revry’s Queer X Awards

Dan Anderson/Hulu PBS IMDB

Lady’

by Jim Piechota

Iconic, award-winning playwright, actor, and screenwriter Charles Busch begins his new memoir with a story about Joan Rivers in 2013 where he waited outside of the Richard Rodgers Theatre for the comedian to scamper down the street in a fur coat flapping around her legs to meet him. He remarks that with her insane schedule, “Joan did most of her sleeping at the theater.”

This kind of candid (and often dishy) storytelling permeates “Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy” and creates the kind of reading experience theater fans, celebrity followers, performance buffs, LGBTQ readers, and everyone else in between, will relish.

Composed in short clips easily read in one sitting or enjoyed in several sessions, the book brims with anecdotes from Busch’s storied career and his effeminate childhood growing up in Westchester County, New York with his two older sisters. His early love of performance bloomed into a successful and encouraging theater degree from Northwestern University. While these fancifully entertaining snippets into Busch’s life and career aren’t laid out in a particularly linear

style (a zigzagging timeline is more accurate), they are effortlessly readable and wonderfully engaging.

The book is well balanced as well.

Darker moments include the death of the star’s mother when he was 7, which was devastating and life changing for Busch, especially since he nor his sisters ever truly connected with his opera-loving father.

His beloved, intellectual, wealthy, and widowed Aunt Lil (Busch’s true “leading lady”) picked up the pieces and raised him with her in Manhattan from that moment onward, taking

him to Broadway shows from an early age, but he would never truly recover from the loss. Instead of wallowing in grief, however, his aunt encouraged him to

enroll in the High School of Music and Art in New York City which “embraced the 1968 hippie aesthetic in every way” and to let his burgeoning stagestruck love of performance flourish naturally.

Busch also somberly reflects on the legions of friends lost to the AIDS epidemic, which encompasses years encased with social challenges and the sobering realities of tragic deaths.

Lighter, dishier reflections include insider details about the 1984 creation of his long-running Off-Broadway cult classic, “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom,” hanging out in Las Vegas in 1990 at a corporate video convention with MGM stars Ann Miller, Debbie Reynolds, June Allyson, and Esther Williams, and being acknowledged at the Rainbow Room in the sarcastic style of the one and only Elaine Stritch.

Meeting Kim Novak and Liza Minnelli, working with Rosie O’Donnell,

and running into “elegant, worldly” Claudette Colbert after a show of his own on Fire Island in the late 1980s run right up against his pseudo-stalking of Greta Garbo and the many stories of his time as a drag queen, which was radically different (in negative connotations) in 1985 than it is today.

Campy, candid, nostalgic, reminiscent, exuberantly breezy, and a book 14 years in the making (he completed the manuscript during the Covid-19 pandemic), Charles Busch unabashedly lays the nearly 70 years of his vivid, adventuresome life out on the page, with his storytelling chops in full delightful effect.t

‘Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy’ by Charles Busch; Smart Pop Books/PenguinRandom House, $27.95 www.penguinrandomhouse.com www.charlesbusch.com

Castro Street Fair

Photos by Steven Underhill

Sun was out, fun was in at the annual Castro Street Fair, held October 1. For upcoming nightlife and arts events, check out Going Out this week and every week on www.ebar.com. For more Steven Underhill event photos, visit www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife and www. stevenunderhill.com

Shows

In the heart of North

historic jewel box theatre hosts high-flying acrobats creating a thrilling and moving love letter to the City by the Bay. Enjoy drinks and cicchetti (small bites). Come with a date or friends, celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, book a corporate event. The perfect place for a party!

Charles Busch

Bearrison Street Fair

by David-Elijah Nahmod

Presented by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in conjunction with the Bears of San Francisco, the Bearrison Street Fair, which takes place on October 14 inside the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District in SoMa, is sometimes dubbed “a fair for every bear.” The fair is now in its third year and gets its name by combining the word bear with Harrison Street, the fair’s main thoroughfare.

Like its cousin the Folsom Street Fair, Bearrison celebrates sexual diversity but also has a specific focus on body positivity and making sure that everyone, regardless of shape, size, color or gender, feels sexy within their own skin.

“We are working towards building a more supportive, welcoming and inclusive bear scene by representing a diverse arena of cultures,” said Erik Greenfrost, co-chair of the Bearrison Street Fair, in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “Bearrison has been described as Folsom’s beerbellied father who does not shave very frequently, and we are living for it.”

Greenfrost reports that as a new fair, Bearrison is still growing, and that the response so far has been superpositive. Bearrison features all the traditional elements of a street fair; vendors, food and drink, music, dancing, performers, plus a few things that help to make Bearrison unique.

Up(dead)lifting experience

“People love our wrestling stage, and last year our Deadlift Competition,” Greenfrost said. “‘Barbells, Bears and Butts’ was incredibly popular. This year we are introducing a whole slew of other entertainment options that we think folks will really be into.”

Greenfrost, the Sisters and company are pulling out all stops to present a circus theme in keeping with the “Under the Big Top” title given to this year’s fair. There will be a Midway with carnival games like a Hi-Striker, a dildo toss and a cock ring toss. There will also be a traveling sideshow with acts that aren’t contained to a stage but instead will be throughout the fair interacting with guests.

“Especially as a fair in October we would love to see guests show up dressed in their best Center Ring Realness,” said Greenfrost.

The Barbells Bears and Butts Deadlift Competition will be represented by a variety of body types.

“This non-gendered contest has folks doing as many deadlift reps as they can within a set time limit,” Greenfrost said. “They are also encouraged, as they are comfortable, to wear whatever makes them feel sexy, be that a jockstrap, a singlet, a pup hood, or a rainbow feather boa. Afterward, for those willing to participate, the emcee spins a wheel of adjectives, and a bonus prize is awarded by audience award for a variety of butts, hungriest, poutiest, etc. It’s a great demonstration of strength athletics in a fun environment that is a huge crowd pleaser and a delight to watch. Like last year, we will have two rounds, from 1pm to 2pm and 3pm to 4pm.”

There will also be a variety of other contests at the fair, such as the Best in

Folsom’s ‘cousin’ celebrates body positivity

Show Pup Contest that will involve games like balancing treats on your nose and a Simon Says-like game called Handler Says.

Bouncing booties and gay grapplers

“And our breakaway hit from last year is the Bouncing Booties Twerkoff,” said Greenfrost. “All the contests are designed to be lighthearted, fun, and a celebration of sexy bodies in all their forms, with lots of audience participation and applause.”

There will also be a fun array or performers on hand. There will be two

DJs, Gregg S, and Dakota Pendant. Master violinist Kippy Marks will also be performing, as will the gay all-male revue Baloney. And if that isn’t enough, you can also rock out with Munecas, a queer Latinx punk band who made quite a splash at last year’s fair.

The Full Queer Wrestling Stage also promises to be a lot of fun.

“Wrestling had always seemed like a straight spectacle to me, but Full Queer demonstrates just how queer professional wrestling can be,” Greenfrost said. “This is full-on WWE bouts, complete with our award winning announcer A.J. Kirsch, aka Broseph Joe

Brody, egging our contestants on as they engage in what I’d describe as daytime soap opera meets Broadway fight scene meets mixed martial arts caged fight. Storytelling, physicality, and audience engagement are all in peak forms in this very unique art form. Like last year there will be three different rounds of wrestling.”

For all the fun it promises, the main goal of the fair is for attendees to feel positive about themselves and their bodies.

“The queer community, and even the bear community, can sometimes have really strict standards for what

is considered beautiful and sexy,” said Greenfrost. “Bearrison is about getting together and sharing an experience as a community. From our vendors, to our performers, to our volunteers to our attendees, we want everyone to leave feeling connected and sexy and valued. And it doesn’t hurt to throw a rocking party at the same time.”t

Bearrison Street Fair: Under the Big Top, October 14, 12pm-6 pm, 11th Street and Harrison. Free/donations, VIP Passes $20-30. www.bearrison.org

This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to

The Barbells Bears and Butts Deadlift Competition at last year’s Bearrison Street Fair

Gooch

Attendees at the 2022 Bearrison Street Fair

Gooch

Erik Greenfrost, co-chair of the Bearrison Street Fair

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John Cameron Mitchell and Amber Martin in Cassette Roulette

Tony Award-winning star of stage and screen John Cameron Mitchell (Joe vs. Carole, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), one of alt-culture’s boldest creators, joins forces with international cabaret star Amber Martin for a hair-raising, hilarious romp of songs, stories, and characters, all chosen by you and the hand of fate on the magical ‘cassette roulette.’ With a house band led by Grammy nominated music director of Hedwig on Broadway Justin Craig, very special surprise guests, and a new set list every night, it’s never the same show twice!

Kristin Chenoweth For the Girls

Musical comedy diva and winner of Emmy and Tony Awards for both her singing and acting, Kristin Chenoweth presents an evening of unforgettable songs made famous by great women singers who have inspired her, from Doris Day’s “When I Fall In Love” to Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were,” Peggy Lee’s “I’m a Woman,” and Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.”