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5 Tips Getting Out of Your Cell
Publisher/Executive Editor: David Vandygriff dvandygriff@cityxtramagazine.com
By Dr. Harvey Carr
Why June Is Gay Pride Month
Editor In Chief: Harvey Carr editor@cityxtramagazine.com
By Debi Johnson
Creative Designer: Jason Smith designer@cityxtramagazine.com
Rainbow Flay History By James Smith
Sales Department: Adam Plante, Esq. aplante@cityxtramagazine.com
‘Cancer Profile’ Change With HIV By Randy Dotinga
Stonewall Where It All Began By David Vandygriff
Father’s Day Card 20 Years
cityXtra Magazine is published by cityXtra Inc . 2941 Plum Street Jacksonville, FL 32205 (904) 300-3320 www.cityxtramagazine.com Like us on Facebook/cityxtramag Twitter/cityxtra
By Joseph McCormick
Larry Kramer’s—’Faggots’ By Mark King
Unity In The LGBT Community By Jacob Raines
Contributing Writers Laura Riggs, Dr. Harvey Carr, Attorney Gordon Nicol, Meredith O’Malley Johnson, Tina Vaughn, Jake Moore, Tyler Curry Editor HIV Equal Online, Sebastian Fortino, David Vandygriff, Joey Amato Publisher Unite Magazine
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5 Tips Getting Out Of Your Cell By Dr. Harvey Carr affected. We are all struggling in some way and we all live in some type of prison. By acknowledging that we have a problem, we will better understand what we are facing. There is nothing wrong with crying, but eventually, we need get real and accept things we can't change. Go to God with your struggle and seek wisdom, learn to seek God in your angst. Lean on Your Faith: When my friend was in prison, he states he was concerned about keeping his head low and staying out of trouble. He truly learned had to lean on his faith as he had no choice. "Without a strong faith, I don't know how people can get through difficult times," he says. There is nothing worse than being held in a prison "With faith, you not only get through the tough cell against your own will whether it be a physical, times, but you learn the lessons life has for you an emotional or a mental cell. A college friend of and you come out victorious." No matter what mine encountered this after borrowing money on “prison” cell you are in today or staring at today, behalf of friends in real estate a few years after learn to lean on your faith and allow it to be your graduation from college. His actions, though rock and strength. well-intended proved fatal to friendships, relationships, his personal well-being, and the Learn to Trust God: Psalm 66:10-12 (NIV) federal government deemed it as illegal. He was states, “For You, O God, tested us. You refined us charged with “straw borrowing,” legally defined as like silver. You brought us into prison. You laid borrowing money for a third party when you know burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our they're unable to get a loan on their own. He was heads. We went through fire and water, but You sentenced to 11 months in prison even after the brought us to a place of abundance.” When trials judge approved putting him on probation. He and hit--we need to go through a process, so we his wife embarked on a mission that only God understand that God in control and so we can could get them through. They lost friends, finances persevere under that stress. Most of us want to and almost each other. They struggled, prayed retire early when we are going through matters. and learned to tell others how to be overcomers Sometimes we have no wiggle room and are and discover God’s peace and success. forced to trust. My friend found it in a physical prison. What is holding you hostage and keeping Prison cells come in all forms, and there is you from trusting God’s Providence for you? freedom from whatever is confining you. It may be your relationships, your marriage or the past might Make a Choice: You have a choice. You can be keeping you in bondage. We all must learn to rebel against God and His plans for your life or stop living behind the bars of our cages. surrender to Him and avoid your prison you build for yourself. During the heartbreaking news of the Learn to Accept: If you are living in some kind of prison sentence, my friend and his wife decided to prison in your life where you are trapped or beaten submit to God. This is not easy as they felt down it affect you and everyone around you, betrayed by the judicial system and abandoned by frequently leading to tears among everyone the God they trusted. We can admit that we are
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sometimes upset with God for not answering prayers or not taking the action we deem appropriate. Certainly, God could have stopped the judge from ruling the way he did against my friend and given him probation because of his exemplary. "But you can't kick and scream about it, or complain how painful it is," is my friend’s attitude. "You have to have hope in God." Harness God's Power: Sometimes we don’t have all the answers to life’s problems and when the answer is “no,” we distance ourselves further from the Creator. We need to depend on someone and other humans are not the ultimate answer. People do feel separated in the world, souls need to be mended. As humans, we are looking for answers, a thirst for something more sustainable. You already have the power within you if you follow God. "We've always had God's power and God's wisdom," said my friend’s wife. “We were in full-time Christian ministry. He had something for us to learn and we had that comfort in our lives." Tap into the power and the wisdom God gave you; you do not need to feel powerless. Find Peace: Tough times happen, whether it’s physical, mental or financial—trusting God is hard. What else do you have to lose? Nothing. My friends faced a prison together and deepened their love for God and for each other as they struggled together. They not only stayed together through the ordeal but were set free from the past. They share their life-changing story in a new ministry of healing of mind, body and spirit in churches, in schools, in print, anywhere anyone will listen. Be reminded today that you don't have live behind bars. Allow God to have the keys to your prison cell.
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Why June Is Gay Pride Month By Debi Johnson
The first of June marks LGBT Pride Month. The reasons that Pride Month is so important to the LGBT community are many. The fight to earn civil rights has been hard and those who worked so diligently deserve to be remembered. But why is June the chosen month? One incident, which occurred in 1969, is considered the official gay rights activism anniversary. It all started in New York City, in a gay bar without water or a liquor On a Saturday night in June 1969, the police license. raided the Inn. Instead of lining everyone up, the police decided to arrest everyone. While waiting During the 1960s, it was practically illegal to be for the wagons to arrive, more people arrived at openly homosexual in the United States. Gays the Inn and the scene exploded. Violence broke could be fired from jobs, and many were. The out, but the police were outnumbered. A riot legal system did not offer any protection. Most ensued. Those who were there believe that riot establishments did not welcome gay people. just occurred spontaneously. There was no Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York, was organization, but it was more like the last straw. home to a large population of homosexual men The gay community was not going to accept and women. There was a subculture in the oppression any longer. The rioting went on for community, but New York City had many laws many nights. Stonewall Inn was destroyed, prohibiting homosexuality in public and private. either by the police or the rioters, no one was Still, bars were about the safest place for really certain. The riots at Stonewall Inn mark a homosexual men to congregate without being change in the attitude of the LGBT community. harassed. Other groups across the country were led to peacefully and not-so-peacefully demonstrate for NYC Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. campaigned gay rights. to remove gay bars in the city. Liquor licenses were revoked. Homosexuals were targeted by The first anniversary of the riots marked the first the police, and many were arrested because Gay Pride marches. In 1970, marches were held they were entrapped. Because the legal system in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. The was anti-gay, most lawyers would not defend the following year, seven more major cities, men who were charged with crimes. When a including Boston, Dallas, London and Stockholm new mayor came into power, the police held Gay Pride parades. The Stonewall Riots entrapment campaign ended, but the bars had a were pivotal to the activism of the gay problem getting liquor licenses. Stonewall Inn, community. For years, gays had allowed police owned by the Genovese crime family, was treatment to go unchecked and unchallenged. converted into a gay club in which dancing was Those who stood up at the Stonewall Inn were allowed. There was no running water in the heroes to many in the community. The incident place, and the bar did not have a liquor license. has been compared to the Boston Tea Party or The family reportedly paid off the police, but to Rosa Parks’ refusal to move to the back of the raids still happened. During a typical raid, the bus. That Saturday night in June at the Stone police would line everyone up and check Inn made a lasting difference in the civil rights of identification. Men dressed in drag or without ID the LGBT community, and it should be would be arrested. Women had to wear at least remembered. three pieces of feminine clothing or face arrest.
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Rainbow Flag History By James Smith
The rainbow flag, commonly known as the gay pride flag or LGBT pride flag, is a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) pride and LGBT social movements. The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBT community, and the flag is often used as a symbol of gay pride during LGBT rights marches. While it originated in Northern California, the flag is now used worldwide. Originally devised by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker, the design has undergone several revisions since its debut in 1978, first to remove colors then restore them based on availability of fabrics. The most common variant consists of six stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The flag is typically flown horizontally, with the red stripe on top, as it would be in a natural rainbow.
Ginsberg. The flag originally comprised eight stripes; Baker assigned specific meaning to each of the colors. Thirty volunteers hand-dyed and stitched the first two flags for the parade.
After the assassination of gay San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978, demand for the rainbow flag greatly increased. To meet demand, the Paramount Flag Company began selling a version of the flag using stock rainbow fabric with seven stripes: red, orange, Gilbert Baker, an openly gay activist born in 1951, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, and violet. As grew up in Parsons, Kansas, and went on to serve Baker ramped up production of his version of the in the US army for about two years in 1970. After flag, he too dropped the hot pink stripe because of an honorable discharge, Gilbert taught himself to the unavailability of hot-pink fabric. Also, San sew. In 1974, Baker met Harvey Milk, an influenFrancisco-based Paramount Flag Co. began tial gay leader, who three years later challenged selling a surplus stock of Rainbow Girls flags from Baker to come up with a symbol of pride for the its retail store on the southwest corner of Polk and gay community. The original gay pride flag flew in Post, at which Gilbert Baker was an employee. the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978. It has also been suggested that In 1979 the flag was modified again. When hung Baker may have been inspired by Judy Garland's vertically from the lamp posts of San Francisco's singing "Over the Rainbow" and the Stonewall Market Street, the center stripe was obscured by riots that happened a few days after Garland's the post itself. Changing the flag design to one death (she was one of the first gay icons). Another with an even number of stripes was the easiest suggestion for how the rainbow flag originated is way to rectify this, so the turquoise stripe was that at college campuses during the 1960s, some dropped, which resulted in a six stripe version of people demonstrated for world peace by carrying the flag — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and a Flag of the Races (also called the Flag of the violet. Human Race) with five horizontal stripes (from top to bottom they were red, white, brown, yellow, and In 1989, the rainbow flag came to nationwide atblack). Gilbert Baker is said to have gotten the tention in the United States after John Stout sued idea for the rainbow flag from this flag in borrowing his landlords and won when they attempted to it from the Hippie movement of that time largely prohibit him from displaying the flag from his West influenced by pioneering gay activist Allen Hollywood, California, apartment balcony.
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'Cancer Profile' Change With HIV By Randy Dotinga
As HIV becomes a lifetime disease instead of a killer, researchers say these patients will likely start to mirror other Americans when it comes to the kinds of cancers they develop. By 2030, the total number of cancers in HIV-positive people is expected to decline dramatically, as fewer patients develop tumors linked to a ravaged immune system, the new report suggested.
expected to grow a bit, to almost 5,800 cases.
"The aging of the HIV-positive population will result in certain cancers occurring more Prostate, lung and liver cancer are predicted to frequently," Islam said. "For example, as more become the most common cancers in this group, HIV-positive men reach an age where prostate followed by anal cancer, which is linked to the cancer becomes more common, the number of sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV). cases diagnosed will rise in that population." "They're starting to look more like people without As for anal cancer, it should remain common in HIV in a lot of ways, but the cancer risk will still be HIV-positive people because it's linked to HPV, different," said Michael Silverberg, a research which can be sexually transmitted, Islam scientist with Kaiser Permanente Northern explained. Silverberg said the study findings California. He was not involved in the study. reflect what physicians and patients have noticed: In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, patients developed cancers such as Kaposi sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma as their immune systems deteriorated, the researchers explained. But medical advances over the past two decades have allowed people with HIV and AIDS to live much longer. In the new study, Jessica Islam, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues sought to understand how cancer might affect people with HIV through 2030. The researchers estimated that almost 8,000 cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2010 in people with HIV: 2,720 were immune-related cancers that are common in AIDS patients, and almost 5,200 were other types of cancer.
"They're seeing the typical HIV cancers on the decline, but more of the ones that you expect to see with older age."
Although anti-HIV drugs are effective, the cancers linked to HIV will not necessarily disappear, Silverberg said. That's because some HIV-positive people don't know they're infected, and their immune systems may deteriorate before they are diagnosed and treated, he added. Dr. Gita Suneja, an associate professor with Duke University who's studied HIV and cancer, cautioned that HIV-infected people face cancerrelated challenges, regardless of the changing statistics.
"Other studies have shown that people with HIV present with more advanced-stage cancer, are By 2030, the researchers predict, the number of less likely to receive appropriate cancer treatment, cancer cases overall will dip to about 6,500, with and have worse cancer survival compared to an especially large decrease (to 710 cases) in the uninfected patients," she said. "These important number of AIDS-related cancers. Cases of Kaposi disparities need to be recognized." sarcoma are expected to drop but still remain The study was scheduled for presentation higher than normal in HIV-positive people, Islam Wednesday at the American Association for said, while non-Hodgkin lymphoma and cervical cancer rates are expected to reach normal levels Cancer Research annual meeting, in Washington, D.C. Research released at conferences should be in some age groups. considered preliminary until published in a Meanwhile, cases of other types of cancer are peer-reviewed journal.
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Stonewall Where It All Began By David Vandygriff
go to, as most business owners turned them away from their legal establishments. Police routinely raided the few bars that accepted openly gay people back in the 1950s and 1960s, but tempers reached the boiling point during the 3:00 am raiding of the Stonewall Inn. Police began arresting Stonewall employees, before starting to escort patrons into paddy wagons. A crowd gathered outside, and as the police attempted to force three drag queens and a lesbian into a paddy wagon, the crowd became a riot, flinging bottles and fought back against the police. As the nation looks back on the most horrific attack towards LGBT people in history following the Orlando shootings, it is important to remember how far we, the LGBT community, have come. Through discrimination and hardships, from micro-aggressions to mass shootings, it can be easy to forget the many victories that LGBT activists have fought for and won. The progenitor to these victories in the courts, prisons, marriage, and soon bathrooms, happened June 28, only 48 years ago, at the Stonewall Inn.
It started on a warm Saturday morning, but the real heat came from the anger and frustration in the hearts of the LGBT community of Greenwich Village, New York. Oppression and discrimination had become routine, particularly for the most neglected members of the community: the drag queens, trans people, and homeless youth. Mafia-owned clubs and bars became some of the few havens the LGBT community could 16 www.cityxtramagazine.com
The #riots spilled into other neighborhoods. Protests and demonstrations sprung up over the following days. The beginning of a social movement for gay and trans justice and new lawmaking gave birth to the Gay Liberation Front and Street Transvestite Liberation Front. Founded by Stonewall veterans, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, these groups carved a path for countless more LGBT advocacy organizations to follow. Within only a few weeks, the trans and gay communities banded together to form safe spaces where people could be open about their genders and sexualities without fear of arrest. A sign reading,� We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village� hung in the window of Stonewall. One year later, June 28, 1970, the first Pride parades marched in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago, to commemorate the riots. President Obama
designated the Stonewall Inn as the first ever LGBT national monument, a reminder of where the fight for liberation and equality started. Still to this day, the fight isn’t over. Queer and trans people, especially those of color, are harassed and discriminated by the same institutions, such as police, legislature, and incarceration, that the Stonewall riots rebelled against. Today, even going to the bathroom means risking ridicule, harassment, rape and violence. Queer and trans people still face punishment for being homeless. Choosing to go to a gay nightclub, some might never leave. This month we remember our predecessors who took part in the Stonewall riots, and started a revolution that brought us a better, more accepting society. We remember the trans people, the drag queens, the lesbians, the bisexuals, the gays, and everyone else who took a stance and refused discrimination from the institutions that deemed hate to be lawful. Thanks to the brave people who first took charge in the Stonewall riots, we know it gets better. We know there is a light at the end of this tunnel, and that the fight is worth it.
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Father’s Day 20 Years By Joseph McCormick
This father has told the bittersweet story of how he received a Father’s Day card from his estranged gay son, more than 20 years after he died of AIDS-related illness. Back in 2015, Duane Schrock, who lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, told the heartbreaking story of how he got the surprise of his life when he received a card from his late son, Duane Schrock Jr.
his father has told the bittersweet story of how he received a Father’s Day card from his estranged gay son, more than 20 years after he died of AIDS-related illness. Back in 2015, Duane Schrock, who lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, told the heartbreaking story of how he got the surprise of his life when he received a card from his late son, Duane Schrock Jr. Six years later, Schrock Jr died of AIDS-related illness. As Schrock Sr. had moved home several times, the card spent over two decades lost in the postal service, before it finally made its way to
him just a few days after Father’s Day 2015. It reads: “Dear Dad, we haven’t been in touch for quite a while, I’m doing fine and am very happy in Richmond, I’d like to hear from you. Have a Happy Father’s Day, Love Duane.” The 87-year-old told ABC: “It was sure welcome, and it restores faith in the mail service. “Somebody picked up the ball and carried it and after all these years they must still have forwarded it. “I still kind of tear up when I think about it.”
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Larry Kramer’s - ‘Faggots’ By Mark King
In the 1970’s, Larry wrote his outrageous novel, Faggots, a searing indictment of the relentless sexual pursuits of gay men, as a way of coming to terms with losing the man of his dreams in real life. That man, named Dinky in the book, is portrayed as a hot number with an overbooked dance card, hardly able to step away from the sling long enough to pay much attention to the main character, Fred — based on Larry, of course. The book does not end with the two of them walking into the sunset together. There are far too many sweets in the gay candy store for Dinky to focus on one alone. Say what you will about Faggots – and plenty of people have, holding up the pitch-black sexual satire as evidence of Larry’s moralistic stance toward gay men that the coming onslaught of AIDS would only cement – but the writing about Dinky is affectionate, hilarious, brutal, and, at times, terribly sexy. Late in the book, as Fred makes his final plea to Dinky for a relationship,
out of my apartment?” he interrupted. “Go through my file cabinets? Punch me in the face?” David blurted this all out incredulously, but his grin was mischievous. “The man is crazy!” Larry smiled broadly at David’s feigned injury, as if hearing a favorite family story for the umpteenth time. “Faggots was my love letter to David,” Larry tells me, still beaming at his husband. “He’s crazy!” David repeated. I knew the scene was being played for my benefit but it was adorable nevertheless. Their affection for one another was palpable, whether in spite of, or because of, their complicated romantic history.
The time felt right for me to produce my copy of the novel and ask for a signature. Larry took the At any rate, Dinky is a real person and his name is book graciously and then asked, “What did you David Webster. And two decades after their star- think of it?” “I read it when it came out in 1978, crossed initial affair, Larry and David circled back when I was 17 years old,” I told him. “I was horrified.” to one another, fell in love and were married in 2013. Talk about a long tease.
David was nearby during my interview with Larry in their New York City apartment, finally settling in with us on the sofa as the afternoon progressed. He is a strikingly handsome man, witty and charming and flirtatious, if my radar for such things is still functional. He also dotes on Larry – a completely mutual trait – and offered occasional context or even defense of Larry’s views. The topic of Faggots eventually came up, of course and I couldn’t help but ask David how it felt to have the kinkiest details of his sex life in the center of the heralded, vilified novel. I had heard that David once considered the book a total invasion of his life. “So, David,” I asked, a bit sheepishly, “is it true what Larry says in Faggots? Did he actually—“
I was a baby gay who was shocked by the phantasmagoric sex in Faggots and the seeming impossibility of committed love. “I remember wondering, Is this me, is this what I am going to be? And then,” I admitted to Larry, “within a few years, that book was me…” Larry nodded knowingly. “But I read it again before meeting you today,” I added, “and the writing is hilarious. I couldn’t see that the first time.” I also could never have known I would be standing in the living room of the two main characters, together at last. Larry dutifully inscribed my copy and considered the gauntlet his character walked through in order to capture the man he loved. “This whole book,” Larry said, “was my way of saying to David, ‘This is how much I love you.’” And this time, David smiled back.
“Ransack my leather gear collection while I was
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STD & Oral HIV Testing Every Second Tuesday of Each Month By The AIDS Healthcare Foundation
Unity In The LGBT Community By Jacob Raines
seems that the more people who have others in their lives who identify as LGBT are prone to be more understanding. For example, after I came out as a gay man, our very close family friends were influenced by my discovered identity. Now, if they were to meet more people along the LGBT spectrum, it would not be a mind blowing issue to accept them. When people are comfortable, that’s when they are most prone toward accepting others. So when The people who identify with the acronym ‘LGBT,’ people are more surrounded by people in the and it’s other variations, are often misunderstood LGBT community, they seem to be more and categorized into a stereotype often understanding. accompanied with their identity. Moreover, not every letter of the acronym is understood equally That being said, before experiencing college, I even though the community attempts to live by was never surrounded by many people who equality. identified on the LGBT spectrum and for that reason, I was not as understanding of the other It seems people who outwardly identify as gay or letters in the acronym. Even as someone who is lesbian are more accepted by both the straight gay, it was difficult for me to accept others at first. community and the LGBT community than people Yet, after moving away from a small Cape Cod who identify as bisexual or transgender. That town, to the bustling city of Boston, it was clear being said, BuzzFeed recently posted a video of that I needed a new mindset. questions the gay community has for people who identify as bisexual. Not only was bisexuality something that was difficult to understand, but being transgender was “Is bisexuality even a real thing?” leaves no room very foreign and unknown. For most people, for the question of whether bisexual people are unless they are going through it themselves, it is understood. Clearly they are not if even the difficult to understand being transgender. Even so, community that is supposed to support them, and with time and education, one can learn to equality, doesn’t believe in them. understand someone who is transgender. A few years back, I was culprit of this. I would have conversations with my mother about the validity of people being bisexual. However, as time progresses, one can learn to understand what was once foreign to them. It is no longer difficult the reality that some people do not have a preference on gender but are attracted to both males and females.
A main reason for the inequality of the acronym LGBT is that some of the community is more commonly talked about and taught. While Lesbian and Gay are widely known about and talked about, Bisexual and Transgender are put not the back burner and there is less of a spread of information about them. It’s almost as if they are more of a foreign subject than Gays and Lesbians.
Part of the problem with people misunderstanding the LGBT is community is some may not be Because of this knowledge, it’s possible that surrounded by people who identify as such. It people choose to identify with one attraction
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because it is more commonly talked about than being bisexual or transgender. Either way, they seem to be less taught and talked about which is setting them up for being less accepted. The more humans know about something, the more they understand it. One way that people can influence future generations is by teaching the younger generations about the LGBT community. In this way, the education of the group could ultimately help them be more accepted. Such as the Civil Rights Movement being taught in schools and the history of Blacks, the LGBT community should be taught in schools as well. Keeping this in mind, hopefully equality can happen between the LGBT community as well as the straight community. Once the acronym can unite as one without discrimination within, then full equality is a possibility. Until then, we educate.