LOOP Magazine October 2017

October 2017 ISSUE 71

BUFFALO’S MONTHLY PUBLICATION FOR THE LGBT COMMUNITY AND ITS ALLIES

LOOP IS PRESENTED WITH GRATITUDE FOR THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF OUR PARTNERS

Photo Credit: Kevin Kuhn

Editor’s Note:

“Take a knee, Donald. I’ve got a bag of delicious salted nuts for ya.”

On the cover: Vidalia May poses for Jason Yalowich Makeup by Katie Sharun PUBLISHERS

Whizzboom Media Buffalo Public Media

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

FOUNDED BY MICHAEL RIZZO

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(716) 510-4484

Christopher John Treacy

CONTRIBUTORS Michael Rizzo Ron Ehmke Adrienne C. Hill

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Visit embraceWNY.org for more information

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News briefs

by Michael Rizzo New leadership at GLYS

Gay and Lesbian Youth Services has a new executive director at the helm. Sophia McDaniel-Francis succeeds Marvin Henchbarger and brings more than 15 years experience in not-for-profit experience with her.

A New York City native, she attended SUNY College at Old Westbury and majored in American Studies with a focus on women and LGBTQ issues. McDaniel-Francis received bachelor’s degrees in business and human resource management from the University of Phoenix online and is currently pursuing master’s degrees in social administration and nonprofit administration.

Mayor Brown takes the democratic primary

Democratic voters gave last month’s mayoral primary victory to three-term incumbent Mayor Byron Brown (51 percent of the vote) over City Comptroller Mark Schroeder (35 percent) and County Legislator Betty Jean Grant (13 percent).

Schroeder still secured a spot on the November ballot, however, by winning the primary of the Reform Party. Brown will also face opposition in November from Conservative Anita Howard.

Stonewall Democrats of Western New York endorsed Brown in the primary, applauding him as “an active and proactive advocate for the dignity of all people.” Publicly, Brown has been a fairly consistent supporter of LGBTQ rights during his terms, but not all community members agree that his support has been of a proactive nature, and he’s received criticism for not being a more vocal proponent of the community, especially in years prior to the state passing marriage equality.

Republicans block amendment to protect trans military service members Despite bipartisan support, Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate has blocked the vote on an amendment proposed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that would have undermined President Trump’s ban on transgender military service.

Trump announced the ban on Twitter on July 26, and the official directive to the Department of Defense came on Aug. 25. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced Aug. 29 that transgender troops will be allowed to continue serving in the military pending recommendations from a panel of experts on how to best implement Trump’s newest directive to ban them from service.

Gillibrand’s amendment, co-sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), would have expressed the sense of Congress that qualified individuals should be able to serve in the armed forces; prohibited the military from discharging service members solely for being transgender; and codified the review that Mattis established in June to determine whether openly transgender people can enlist in the armed forces.

Although carefully crafted to garner support from Republicans, the amendment wouldn’t have eliminated every aspect of Trump’s transgender military ban, such as his ban on

U.S. military for gender reassignment surgery. Without unanimous consent of the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was unwilling to file cloture to force a vote.

McConnell insisted that the process Mattis set up at the pentagon is sufficient to address the issue.

Parties in lawsuit over discrimination at McKinley high school settle Parties in a federal lawsuit over alleged discrimination against LGBTQ students at McKinley High School settled outside of court on Sept. 5.

The suit against the Buffalo school district, filed in May, alleged that school officials wouldn’t let a student form a gay/straight alliance and that students were warned against bringing same-sex dates to the prom. It also alleged that McKinley Principal Crystal Boling-Baron was behind a pattern of discriminatory actions against LGBTQ students.

In the days after the suit was filed, the district reversed the principal’s position on the after-school club and same-sex prom dates, and placed Boling-Barton on administrative leave. Under the settlement, the district must also provide anti-discrimination training for staff and students, report LGBTQ discrimination and harassment complaints to New York Civil Liberties Union for two years, and prominently display around the school, the district’s anti-discrimination policy, including instructions on how to file a discrimination or harassment complain.

The suit was filed by Bishop Elliott, who is now a senior at McKinley.

Third-annual school supply drive a success

Imperial Court of Buffalo’s third-annual school supply drive raised more than $3,200 worth of office supplies, enough to fill 150 backpacks for local students in need. Half the back packs were donated to Pride Center of Western New York and the other half to Gay and Lesbian Youth Services and Youth Link (formerly Parents and Children Together).

Queers For Racial Justice launches protest campaign against county sheriff

After a months-long targeted campaign to have Carl Paladino removed from the Buffalo school board, Queers For Racial Justice set its sights on Sheriff Timothy Howard last month with a three-part action protesting his re-election due to a “serious policing and incarceration problem” during his tenure. At least 24 people have died in the holding center since Howard took office, and the sheriff headlined a rally in April attended by white supremacists.

On Sept. 7, members of Queers For Racial Justice and Stand Up For Racial Justice went door to door in local neighborhoods to discuss their discontent with Howard’s record as sheriff. On Sept. 9, members of the groups protested outside Milo’s Restaurant in Williamsville during a fundraiser for Howard. And on Sept. 26, a similar protest rally was held outside Deep South Taco in downtown Buffalo during another fundraiser for the sheriff.

Climate change: Grand old party-poopers

by Ron Ehmke Dear Every Single Republican I Know:

Pretty please, can you all try really, really hard to come up with some other line of defense when someone like me criticizes the current administration besides “Yeah, but Obama did the exact same thing and you didn’t have a problem with THAT” or “Yeah, but Hillary would have done the exact same thing and you wouldn’t have a problem with THAT”?

Here’s the deal: 1. I already know you’re going to say that, and you know I know, because you say it every damn time. It just gets boring after the twelfth go-round. Really puts the “jerk” in “kneejerk reaction.” I like a little spice every now and then in my racist/sexist/homophobic screeds! If you insist on sticking to such a tried-and-true formula, how about a slight variation on the theme, like “Yeah, but Grover Cleveland did that exact same thing in 1884 and you didn’t complain about THAT”? You could even toss in a total non sequitur, like “Yeah, but Cher left Sonny for that exact same reason and yet you still seem to find that ‘Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves’ holds up!” Doesn’t have to be Cher; we’ve got dozens of divas to choose from. Surprise me!

2. YOU SOUND LIKE A TEN-YEAR-OLD. Except ten-year-olds eventually grow out of it. Unless, apparently, they join the Republican Party.

3. I would absolutely love to share with you a very, VERY long list of Lefty friends of mine who did and still do have a gigantic problem with Obama and Hillary doing whatever it is you think they “got away with.” Here’s a fun

fact you clearly have not yet grasped about My People: The vast majority of Democrats, Progressives, and Pinko Fags of all stripes not only pride themselves on thinking for themselves, they LOVE to argue with each other and NOT hew to some p*l*t*c*lly c*rr*ct party line you think they all obey out of fear of being cast out from The Cabal.

You have us confused with Republicans on that front!

4. Scientists have established that the Universe does NOT, in fact, function according to some sort of Magic Pendulum Principle dictating that every single action produces an equal and opposite reaction. Oh wait, sorry, I guess technically it does. My bad, Sir Isaac Newton! But his rule only applies to matter and energy, not bizarre invented moral equivalencies like “There are exactly as many Evil Cake-Demanding Gay Guys Who Want to Humiliate Baptist Bakers as There are Misguided Christians Who Really Don’t Have a Problem with Their Pedophile Homosexual Neighbors,” or whatever crazy-ass notion you currently have in your head.

5. If your only defense of something is that you are positive somebody else would have done the exact same thing and “gotten away with it,” mmmmmaaaaaaayyyybe your heart is not really in this whole thing after all. Ever think of THAT? While you’re at it, Humpty Dumpty, you can also skip all that “evidence” you have gathered from various completely unsourced, American-flag-festooned websites that gay people, black folks, and women are the real bigots in our society; that Christians are the most oppressed religious group in America today; and that the men, women, and

all-others who have sacrificed their careers, if not their very lives, to fight for universal freedom of speech are all just hypocrites waiting to be exposed. I feel about that kind of stuff the same way you surely feel when I direct you to the fact checkers and meticulously documented Snopes.com pages that invariably establish that whatever you are worked up about this time is nonsense: I don’t give a shit. Forest/trees!

Look, it’s going to be a long four or (shudder) eight years, and I have a sinking feeling these arguments are only getting more and more heated as the rifts between us grow deeper and deeper. I feel like you’re running out of material.

Hell, your colleagues in Alabama want their state’s next senator to be the Ten Commandments Guy (the offline equivalent of Balloon Boy): a man who STILL uses that line about how homosexuality is the gateway to bestiality.

Just last night I heard a yahoo (in the pre-internet sense of the term) on TV trot out the golden oldie “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” If I were you, I would be deeply embarrassed to keep material that ancient in my act.

So do us both a favor: Hire new writers. Reboot the series.

Live a little!

Respectfully, Uncle Ron Ron Ehmke (ronehmke@roadrunner.com) is a writer, performer, and artsy-fartsy fellow who is followable on Facebook; he also tweets, tumbls, instagrams, and googleplusses (@RonEhmke), and does other enjoyable things you can find out about at everythingrondoes.com.

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little green monsters: Are car insurance companies running us off the road?

by Michael Rizzo If you’re a same-sex couple seeking auto insurance from Allstate Insurance Company in New York State, you’ll pay a premium that is on average $170 more per year than the premium an opposite-sex couple of the same age would pay — living at the same address and driving the same car with the same driving history.

Loop received an embargoed report of a new study to be published by Western New York Law Center, an advocacy group, revealing that the company’s quotes for otherwise identical limited liability insurance policies are an average of 8.9 percent higher for same-sex married couples than they are opposite-sex couples, and an average of 2.25 percent higher than they are for unmarried drivers.

“Though no evidence suggests that gay drivers pose a higher risk to insurance companies, Allstate appears to differentiate between same-sex and opposite-sex married couples in its auto insurance pricing,” according to the report.

The study examined quotes for auto insurance premiums in 75 zip codes across nine counties, thereby representing more than 1 million New Yorkers, to determine whether four of the state’s largest insurance providers — Geico, Allstate, Progressive and Liberty Mutual — rank and price consumers based on socioeconomic factors that have little-to-no statistical foundation, and if they do, how.

Using the insurers’ websites and following the same procedure that consumers do when they shop online for a new auto insurance policy, quotes were requested for an array of driver profiles across gender, marital status, education and occupation, and driving history. The results of the analysis showed that auto insurance costs are prohibitive for underprivileged communities and groups, particularly women, people of color, and lower-wage earners.

Allstate was the only insurer to differentiate between same-sex and opposite-sex married couples, and the resulting correlation in inflated pricing was an unexpected one for researchers. Among their other findings (assuming all other variables are the same): •

• •

If you live in a zip code where more than a quarter of the population is non-white, you’ll pay more for auto insurance from all four companies than someone who lives in a zip code where less than a quarter of the population is non-white.

If you’re a high school graduate, you’ll pay more for auto insurance than drivers with a Master’s degree through Geico, Liberty Mutual and Progressive.

If your job is similar in status to that of a bank teller, you’ll pay an average of more than 3 percent of your income for auto insurance through Geico and Progressive, versus someone with a job similar in status to a bank executive, who will pay less than 1 percent of their income.

“Four of the largest insurance providers in the state price consumers based on who they are and where they live rather than how they drive,” the report surmises. “Women, low-income workers, and drivers living in

underserved neighborhoods are trapped by a system that mandates they purchase auto insurance and then penalizes them for non-driving, socioeconomic factors that are not shown to be related to insurance risk.”

The study builds on two previously published by Western New York Law Center, which also revealed that drivers of lower socioeconomic status pay more for auto insurance than do drivers of higher socioeconomic status.

Similar results were posited in a 2010 study commissioned by the Conservation Law Foundation and the Environmental Insurance Agency and carried out by researchers at MIT. Like other research both inside and outside the industry, evidence suggested that driving factors such as driving history and mileage are significantly more accurate predictors of auto insurance risk than non-driving factors such as gender, education, occupation or marital status. Yet, “the majority of drivers with lower-risk driving behavior and subsidizing a smaller number of drivers with higherrisk behavior,” according to the study.

A January 2017 U.S. Treasury report signaled that nearly one-infive residents in the Buffalo-Niagara area live in zip codes where auto insurance is deemed “prohibitively expensive,” or accounting for 2 percent or more of the zip code’s median household income. Most of these zip codes fell into urban areas, resulting in unaffordable insurance rates disproportionately impacting impacting communities of color and lower wage-earners.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed regulation through New York State’s Department of Financial Services that would restrict the use of education and occupation as rating factors unless the insurer can demonstrate a clear relationship between educational attainment and occupational stats and risk. But the Law Center’s most recent report may reveal further inequities and calls for tougher regulations on industry transparency, and legislation for greater consumer protections.

the disconnect:

Getting out when you never went in

by Michael Rizzo It was cramped, cold and dark. I couldn’t move: trapped. The walls — they were everywhere, all around me, closing in. My only thought: Get out.

I searched, scoured, scratched. Nothing. No one. This place, whatever it was — it was a vacuum, and I was lost. How do you get out when you don’t even remember how you got in? No door. No handle. I was banging, praying, begging: “Let it stop. The emptiness. Just stop what it’s doing.

Stop suffocating me. Stop killing me. Just stop. Stop.”

They call this vacuum “the closet” — a place that cages people like me, people who are gay or transgender, and slowly eats away at us, making us hate ourselves for something we can’t change: who we are. You’d assume once I began telling others about my sexuality and looking for partners that I was far away from that place. But open is different than out. And I was still in. Deep in.

My parents had left me because they loved me, I still believed. It was the righteous abandonment of a prodigal son for the practice of abominable behaviors that could not be tolerated. The friends I’d grown up with who stopped talking to me: I believed they were better off that way. At least they’d get to see what God had in store, even if I wouldn’t. I knew full well what the Bible said about homosexuality. It was my choice to make, I believed, and by God’s hand, I would die for it at Armageddon.

Then, on a February evening 13 years ago, something happened that I can’t explain to you. I can only describe. It was like my mind took a breath, deep and long. I suddenly saw more, smelled more, felt more — more than I ever knew was there. My senses began soaking up everything around me, everything, bypassing the constructs of laborious mental processes, and my mind — it was free. I was free.

The world became a different place then. I became a part of nature rather than a victim of it. There was balance. There was order, simplicity and 4

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purpose. And on that day, I figured out the trap behind the closet.

Its walls are padded with age-old belief systems, stereotypes and ideals penned by a more primitive race of men but still clung to by our contemporaries, the powerful and ignorant. They go up around you, those walls, surrounding you with all the fears and insecurities of people too self-righteous to look nature in the face and deal.

My mind woke up that day and realized where it was, where it still was.

And I knew, then, why there was no door, no handle — because there was no closet. It wasn’t real. I stopped believing in all the mental garbage that other people were glued to about what was right and what was wrong because some magical slice of wind told them so. I started accepting my place in nature beside all of the other colorful variations of life around me. They were my new teachers. I kept searching, kept scouring, kept scratching, and on that day, it was my mind that willed the closet to tumble.

There’s something about the memory of that place, though, the hateful aura that permeates it. It clings to you, I think, like a leech out of water, dying slowly but still sucking for every last drop it can get. I get angry sometimes, angry when I hear testaments to prejudice and hate, and watch more walls being built around more people, people like me, people who are gay or transgender. I hear echoes of those words I remember screaming for years into dead silence: “Just stop. Stop.”

But then I remember that the people building those walls, they were taught to hate. They’re in their own closet: a dark place, cold and cramped.

If they ever wake up, they’ll feel scared, empty, guilty. I pity them, I think, for they know not what they do. And if I were still a praying man, I’d ask, “Forgive them, Father, just as I have forgiven you.”

National Coming Out Day is Oct. 11.

Hunting for the healing:

Paranormal Investigator Ryan Buell is back from the brink

by Christopher John Treacy my vulnerability. I had a counselor at one point who ended up telling me she thought I had PTSD from my experiences through work, and then when you add in the issues around my sexuality, there was just so much of myself I hadn’t worked on.

“Initially I wouldn’t talk about any of that,” he continued. “I didn’t even want the people I met in rehab to know who I was, though they eventually figured it out. But there are parallels between paranormal energy and addiction — think of it like a virus invading the host; it infects the soul. I definitely fell into a very dark state of mind, I was looking into occult practices, the rampant gay sex with drugs…

I was embracing this dark side, free falling into this pit. I don’t deny it, but it’s hard to talk to people about it. Folks looking in have described me as falling down, having been spiritually hacked, chemically possessed. This thing unlocked doors for me in my head, it became a fascination, like I was hypnotized.

Most people I’ve seen that begin using this drug end up surrounded by that same evil energy. It’s an enslavement.”

The resulting spiral took its toll. But Buell’s pushing himself forward, taking his sobriety seriously and getting back in the saddle just in time for Halloween — a holiday that, as you might imagine, is near to his heart.

Most folks will recognize Ryan Buell as the star of A&E’s hit reality series, Paranormal State, which documented his paranormally-themed investigations into other people’s lives. Now he’s working on an altogether new kind of investigation: his own recovery.

In the six year interim since Paranormal State ended its five season run, the 35 year-old South Carolina native veered off into a nasty destructive pocket, going down a dark path of drug abuse that rocked his sanity. After a while, it could no longer be contained, and Buell’s erratic behavior became fodder for gossipy speculation — especially when he cancelled a series of speaking engagements for questionable health problems. Fans were left worried and scratching their heads while nay-saying trolls that had always debated his credibility gained fuel for their skepticism. It got ugly.

Despite numerous accomplishments as an author and producer, Buell found himself faced with legal woes and a sense of spiritual bankruptcy. Eventually he checked himself into rehab. Now five months sober, feeling genuinely hopeful for the first time in years and more comfortable in his own skin than ever before, he spoke to us about putting the pieces of his life back together.

“I lost everything,” he said over the phone from San Antonio where he was invited to speak at a convention – incidentally, the first time he’s gotten up in front of a big crowd in a while. “To be honest, I was wanting to run away from that life I had anyway. The fame had put me in a bubble, it isolated me. Things led me to that dark place… you’re not just a happy person who suddenly finds themselves drinking and doing drugs like I was. Admittedly, I’ve tried getting clean before, but something feels different this time.”

One major difference is an increased openness about his sexuality. Buell’s 2010 memoir, Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown, addressed the topic of his bisexuality and struggle to negotiate that aspect of himself with his catholic upbringing. But now he’s speaking of a past and a future that leans heavily toward relationships with men.

“I’ve never really been in the gay community, so to speak,” he said. “I was involved in a long-assed relationship with a dude. When I found myself exiting that scenario and being on my own, my self esteem was pretty low and got caught up in circles where drug use and sex went hand-in-hand. I fell into another relationship stemming from that… having drugs as an active participant made for a really bad three-way. But this is the first time I’m looking at the community at large and figuring out who I am, where and how I fit in...”

Buell’s candor is refreshing, coming from someone who might choose to guard his privacy for fear of negatively impacting his career, which he’s actively looking at new ways to sustain. But it seems as if the truth has set him free, and while he’s not necessarily dropping his bisexual status, he admits that his vision for a long term union is with a man.

“There are times I wonder if maybe I’m just horny more than anything else,” he joked, referring to his bisexuality. “But while trying to find love with another male is harder, it’s also more rewarding for me when it works.”

At the same time, he’s trying to maintain a focus on 12-step recovery, which traditionally suggests an avoidance of any dating for the first year. Casual sex might be alright, but it can be challenging to assess what’s a wise choice in that regard, particularly in a community where the PNP scene is usually only a few screen-swipes away.

In fact, Buell says it was through social media that this last round of drug use began — an invite to do crystal meth through his fan page that eventually took him into a gritty sexual underworld that you might’ve occasionally glimpsed in some dark corners on the internet. Now an advocate for PrEP, which he also uses (“my man-whore pills”) he knows he needs to tread lightly as he moves forward. Looking back, he’s drawn some revealing conclusions that’ll hopefully inform his decisions from here on out.

“Every week, going into peoples’ homes, into their situations… it was very turbulent, always very intense. We’d have a case with the police involved, then another with the church involved, then there was the actual mechanics of the show itself to deal with — when did I ground myself ? How could I get centered? Just looking at the lifestyle I was leading then, I can see how it lent itself to

“Before the paranormal investigating, before it became who I was, as the editor of my school newspaper, Halloween was the one time of year I could write about ghosts and it would Image Courtesy of Ryan Buell be okay,” he explained. “People are willing to have dialogues about paranormal stuff during this season, so I could let my hair down, so to speak.. Once the show came out, I was speaking at colleges every day unless I requested time off, so I would be working during this season, telling spooky-but-real stories on stage. And being on stage was fun, but it’s not the same experience as just being able to participate in Halloween like everyone else. And of course, I haven’t been able to enjoy it for the past few years given how I was spending my time. Life was horrific, but in a much different way from Halloween.”

Buell says he began feeling a shift in attitudes about paranormal curiosity (and the parallel growth of interest in Halloween, zombies, vampires, etc) when he started speaking regularly in lecture halls.

Surprised by the rock concert enthusiasm of attendees, which he initially attributed to just being a recognizable TV personality, he began to see how the language he was speaking eclipsed the particulars of individual faiths; his fear of being judged passed on, parallel with that of his audience.

“Religion can segregate, but the paranormal realm encompasses all belief systems,” he said. “A ghost is a ghost – there’s a universal definition. It transcends. But Halloween is much more that just ghost talk. It’s an opportunity for all of us to express our interest in life beyond death, albeit in a playful way.”

Despite his dark-side foray, (or maybe as a result), Buell’s interest in spirituality is as keen as ever.

Perhaps surprising, he still thinks of himself as catholic. And while that’s not always a popular choice in LGBTQ circles, it will make his 12-step journey — which relies on faith in some sort of higher power — a little easier. Professionally, he’s begun receiving invitations for speaking engagements again, and he’s got a new element he can add to his talks as a result of his recent ups and downs. There’s also a new TV show possibility being developed which would blend paranormal investigations with themes of atonement as it relates to his experiences as an addict.

But Buell also knows he must proceed with caution if he’s to stay healthy. In a lucky turnaround, his legal worries have largely been resolved: he took a misdemeanor plea for one and the rest of the charges have all been dropped. He sees symbolism in the outcome, since despite being put on probation for a spell, he’s been granted permission to travel for work. It’s a en exercise in trustbuilding. “I’m being given a chance to prove myself,” he said. “If I screw up, I have harsher penalties to pay.”

He admits to downloading the Grindr app a month ago, but felt anxiety about turning it on — as it should be, since the biggest challenge he faces may well be how to reconcile the sexuality of where he’s been with the spirituality of where he’s attempting to go. Many gay men who’ve become addicted to crystal meth have struggled to regain interest in chem-free sex, but Buell sounds as if he’s pointed in the right direction.

“Sex is a very powerful thing,” he said. “And it can be very confusing. When you put two men together, sex is very clearly on the brain. Even guys that try to walk the straight and narrow about hooking up still have the same sexual instincts as the rest of us. I used drugs to make myself feel okay about the bigger connection that was missing between me and my partners. But that missing piece — that emptiness — was never properly fed to the point of any real contentedness. Which tells me that what I’m really looking for is a deeper connection. Just laying beside someone and knowing they care is a huge turn on. When I think about my sexual past, I think about how poorly I was treated, how sad and lonely I became… And I lost so much. No sexual experience is worth all that. And the drugs make it all false: you think it’s going to give you all these great things… maybe it does a few times, but it all gets taken away in the end.

“If you feel bad about something you’re doing, then it is actually bad by definition, because you’re obviously not comfortable with it,” he continued. “I was using sex in the wrong way, so now I have to ask myself what my motivations are when I’m thinking about hooking up: am I just using them?

How will it feel walking away afterwards? But reckoning my spirituality with sex doesn’t mean it needs to be lame. I still enjoy some aggression. My sexual personality remains. It doesn’t mean we need scented candles and Yanni playing in the background. I mean, Jesus was a little bit of a freak, wasn’t he?”

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Archives: The ongoing battle for queer space

by Adrienne C. Hill

(Left) L to R: Emily Terrana, Bridge Rauch, Tinamarie McDade-Sweet, Denise D. Sweet (Right) L to R: Seth Girod, Reggie Griggs Photos courtesy of Ana Grujic

When Denise Sweet first tried to register her new business in November of 2013, the City of Buffalo denied her permit. “I described my business as a lesbian bar,” she explained, “And City Hall said I couldn’t call it a lesbian bar because that was discrimination.”

Eventually, the city approved Sweet’s permit, and Sweets Restaurant and Lounge — currently the only LGBTQ bar on Buffalo’s East Side — opened on the corner of Olympic and Schreck Avenues. The business permit may no longer include the word ‘lesbian,’ but Sweet has covered the outside of the establishment in rainbow signs, so that its cultural affiliation is not in doubt. As it turns out, however, obtaining a business permit was only the beginning of Sweet’s struggle.

Sweet says from the moment her business opened, a steady stream of police came to Sweets to harass both her and her clientele. Citing noise complaints that Sweet alleges were spurious, Buffalo police forced her to remove a jukebox from the bar and repeatedly shut the restaurant down. Sweet believes that the police harassed her largely because she’s a lesbian, and she says that whenever the police arrived, they refused to speak to her directly because of her butch appearance. They would only speak to Tinamarie Sweet, her femme-presenting wife.

Tinamarie Sweet corroborates this story. “I was the clean-up person for D, because they look at me as human, but not her,” she said.

Denise Sweet’s conflicts with the police came to a head over Pride weekend this year, when 15 police officers descended upon Sweets Restaurant and Lounge to shut it down—again, alleging a noise complaint. Frustrated, Sweet threatened to sue the city, and complained to the Internal Affairs Division of the BPD. There, she met a woman who, she says, “helped me get situated,” and there have been no instances of police harassment at Sweets since.

But repeated police raids on the bar have had a chilling effect on the venue’s clientele, resulting in an ongoing strruggle to attract the crowds it once did.

Sweet’s story, while dramatic, is not an isolated incident. On Saturday, September 30, a group of six panelists met at Grindhaus Café on Allen Street to lead a community discussion, sponsored by the Buffalo-Niagara LGBTQ History Project, about race, class, gentrification, and LGBTQ spaces in Buffalo. Collectively, the panelists painted a bleak picture of Buffalo’s purported resurgence. It’s a picture in which emergent spaces — particularly those geared toward people of color and transgender people — have struggled to remain open. It’s a picture in which community institutions are trying to capitalize on the resurgence by alienating their younger, poorer base. As was repeatedly made clear, we’ve entered a time of shrinking resources for LGBTQ people on the social and economic fringes. “I can’t say anything good,” summarized Bridge Rauch, panelist and founding member-owner of No Labels Clothing Cooperative. “We’re losing queer space in Buffalo… and the ‘new Buffalo’ isn’t doing anything to preserve or create spaces.”

Perhaps the most intense iterations of gentrification in Buffalo’s LGBTQ community have to do with the harassment and red tape foisted on social and artistic spaces—particularly those that do not cater to a white, well-to-do, or cisgender clientele. Seth Girod, President of the Board at Dreamland, commented on the parallels between Sweet’s story and that of the beloved Allentown art space. The City of Buffalo issued a Cease and Desist to Dreamland on June 15, 2017, allegedly because it lacked the requisite permits to operate as an artistic venue—but Girod pointed out that Dreamland had been functioning for three years at that point without ever running afoul of the city.

Girod believes that bureaucratic requirements such as permits are selectively mobilized by the city and other gentrifying forces in order to shut down DIY spaces that cater to queer, trans, and other marginalized people… and that this problem will likely get more acute 6

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as gentrification continues. While Dreamland is currently in talks with the city about reopening, and while Girod is cautiously optimistic about the venue’s future, they warn LGBTQ Buffalonians not to mistake the resolution of a single case for the resolution of a systemic problem.

Outright harassment, however, is not the only means by which LGBTQ-oriented spaces disappear in a gentrifying city. Multiple panelists cited Club Marcella’s recent attempts to rebrand itself as something other than a gay club as a subtler example of this trend.

Capitalizing on Buffalo’s economic revival and the increasing mainstream popularity of drag, Club Marcella has released a series of radio ads that downplay its status as a drag bar—“trying to attract the Chippewa crowd,” Girod observed. Several of the younger panelists, who felt sustained by Club Marcella in their early coming-out years, experience this rebranding as a betrayal. “It hurts my little queer heart,” said Emily Terrana, a community organizer at PUSH Buffalo.

Another panelist, HIV activist Reginald Griggs, cautioned against an unquestioning nostalgia for LGBTQ social spaces. Many of those spaces have never been welcome and available to community members—particularly African American men like him.

“Marcella’s used to have a huge room that played techno music, and a tiny hip-hop room,” he observed. “That let me know how welcome I was.” Griggs recalled that most of the gay bars available to him when he first came out either didn’t welcome black LGBTQ people, or only let them in “because they were seen as sex objects.”

For Griggs, it was homes and individuals, rather than bars, that sustained him in his coming-out process. For that reason, broader gentrification trends, such as raising housing prices, can also be understood as LGBTQ issues. In the East Side, where Griggs lives, “out-of-town developers are occupying buildings, making it impossible to find sustainable housing.” This is exacerbated by the fact that across the state, “money has been cut for communities of color,” particularly those who belong in the LGBTQ community.

Emily Terrana drew on her own experiences to explain the broad effects of gentrification on LGBTQ youth in Buffalo’s West Side. Terrana left home as soon as she turned 18, and rented a cheap studio apartment that she called “the hotel for homeless homos,” after the steady stream of queer youth who crashed on her floor after being kicked out of their homes. As housing prices have soared in the West Side, these kinds of unique arrangements become increasingly inaccessible to homeless queer youth—and local social services have yet to pick up the slack.

Gentrification also causes participants in underground economies, such as sex workers, to face intensified criminalization, and to have their livelihood driven further underground.

Although this is usually considered a victory by new neighborhood residents, it often puts workers in fringe economies at risk for further abuse. A former sex worker herself, Terrana says she considers the near-disappearance of her old coworkers from Grant Street to be an ominous sign: “If we’re not seeing these girls—really, really bad things can and do happen.”

The panel did not formulate a solution to the wide scope of problems it outlined. It was, rather, an exercise in making connections: between community builders east and west of Main Street; between the problems that beset social spaces such as bars and other places LGBTQ Buffalonians inhabit. As Bridge Rauch suggested, seeing the connections between the various struggles may be the point. “Queer activism isn’t just dealing with ‘gay’ issues,” Rauch declared. “It’s economics, racial justice.” Perhaps obtaining an extended view of the problem is the first step to formulating a solution—in the form of a more holistic LGBTQ rights movement.

Dining out for life: It’s really about nutrition

by Christopher Treacy When Dining Out for Life (DOFL) began over thirty years ago, a national date was set for the event in April. But as time moved on it became too complicated. With AIDS Walk in May and Pride traditionally celebrated in June, April became an event-planning conundrum for LGBTQ folks.

So, it came as a relief when the policy was changed to accommodate cities that still wanted to host the fundraiser but weren’t able to give it the focus it deserves when planned earlier in the year – and that might just be a big part of DOFL’s continuing longevity.

Getting large-scale sponsors like those to donate services is invaluable, but it’s only a small part of the picture. Baird says that shifting the event to the fall season makes DOFL the final financial “ask” of the fiscal year for more localized sponsors, which means the ball needs to get rolling right as the year begins — when annual budgetary decisions have not yet been finalized.

This year’s Buffalo event, which raises money for AIDS services at Evergreen Health and is now in its 15th consecutive year, will happen on Tuesday, October 10; eat at a participating restaurant and know that a percentage of your bill is going to a good cause.

With so many well intentioned organizations holding out their hands these days, and a prevailing sense that HIV and AIDS are “under control,” however, DOFL might seem like a secondary concern. But as Evergreen Event Planner Rob Baird points out, the event exists not just to raise money for folks coping with illness, but also as a force for awareness — something that still needs a lot of work, hard as that can be to fathom.

“It’s a significantly larger conversation than just Dining Out for Life, but it’s certainly true that we’re no longer dealing with an epidemic,” Baird said over the phone. “HIV can now be managed like any other chronic illness, and folks can live long healthy lives despite it. But we still have a situation in WNY wherein there are 3000 people who have HIV and only half of them know their status. That’s 1500 people, just in our region, walking around with HIV that don’t know they have it. And that’s something that needs to be on the forefront of awareness not just for the LGBTQ community, but for everyone. Yes, there’s a lot of life saving medication available now and new ways to protect yourself…. And for those of us in the community, working at a place like Evergreen, we understand these developments. But once we get into communities even just on the outskirts of the city, many of those folks don’t understand they have options and don’t know that HIV has become so manageable. And some of them don’t even know their status.”

One tool that organizers have found to increase the event’s visibility is that of online promotion.

This year, the San Francisco-based Yelp is helping out with DOFL-related push notifications (on handheld devices) through its mobile app, and Lyft, also based in the Bay Area, is offering 20% off coupons for two rides.

“I feel like the life of an event planner is always running one year ahead of time, so we’re already looking at next year,” he said. “We’re really trying to beef up our sponsorship asks, and we’re always trying to get new restaurants on board, which is one of the things I love about doing this the most, since there are always a bunch of new venues serving delicious food to get familair with. Buffalo has amazing food and amazing restaurants, and overall, there’s

just a great spirit of generosity here.”

One in a handful of new participants for 2017, Ru’s Pierogi (295 Niagara St., near the corner of Carolina) expressed enthusiasm for a culture of food that celebrates ‘all walks of life.’

“We’re coming up on our first anniversary as a restaurant, and it’s always been important for us to give back to the community whenever possible,” said Zach Schneider, one of Ru’s owners. “Our founder, Andy Ruszczyk, started making pierogi with his grandma for their Christmas eve dinner when he was a kid. We’ve taken that sense of family and fellowship and incorporated it into how we do business. Everyone is welcome at our table, so participating in Dining Out for Life was a no-brainer.”

Baird acknowledged that a lot of AIDS services across the country have had to diversify what they offer and just generally branch out in order to stay solvent. Evergreen’s AIDS outreach is no exception. But one of the mainstays — the food pantry — is where the money from DOFL goes.

And it’s more necessary than you might think.

“All of the money raised from this event stays right here in Western New York,” Baird said. “It doesn’t go to a national agency of get spent of administrative costs, it goes right here to clients of EHS. Mostly, it goes to stocking the food pantry. People don’t realize, but a lot of HIV positive folks have very specific nutritional needs that must be met in order to keep themselves healthy. Our pantry really focuses on that.”

For a list of participating restaurants, visit: https://www.diningoutforlife.com/wny/restaurants/

silver lining: Summoning strength, patience

by Rod Hensel As August ended it was easy to tune out any news from Washington D.C. After all another summer was ending, and eight months of headlines about Trump, Russia, neo-Nazis, health plans and North Korea had become overwhelming for most of us.

But there were two local D.C. stories of interest. It is easy to forget that Washington is also a city in its own right, and one having the nation’s highest percentage of adults who identify as LGBTQ. The first news item, in Curbed, a web site dealing with real estate development, announced that Washington was planning to open its first LGBTQ Senior Housing facility in 2020...contingent on finding a funding source and developer, which seem to be rather large contingencies.

The second item, a piece in the Washington Blade, the LGBTQ newspaper, was by contributor Brock Thompson lamenting how little Washington does in terms of providing services for LGBTQ seniors. Not only does the district’s senior services department fail to recognize LGBTQ seniors and their needs, so too does the area’s LGBTQ community center.

LGBTQ seniors are twice as likely to live alone compared to other seniors. And those living alone are -- half of them in fact -- living at or below the poverty line. They have no children to help them, they feel alienated from church groups and religion, they are less likely to have a life partner because they have had to live and work in the closet, and many of their closest friends were lost in the AIDS epidemic. They are called “solo seniors” or perhaps even more descriptively, “elder orphans.”

The situation in Buffalo isn’t nearly as forlorn as it is D.C., but it is nowhere near having the robust programs and facilities for LGBTQ seniors found in places like Chicago or Philadelphia.

Over the last four years, the Silver Pride Project of the Pride Center of Western New York has steadily grown to more than 100 participants. Through coffee hours, luncheons, picnics, and tours they have provided seniors with an opportunity to claw out of isolation to renew old friendships and make new ones. There’s something going on at least once a week and sometimes more than a few things in single week. It has been done on pretty much of a shoestring budget, letting the seniors direct what they want to do with the Pride Center giving staff support.

Silver Pride has also partnered with Erie County Senior Services to provide information and access to programs that assist seniors, and the Center for Elder Justice has partnered to give legal assistance and provide information on scams and elder abuse. Even the AARP (Association for the Advancement of Retired People) has taken an interest in the Silver Pride Project.

But the time has come when there needs to be a greater dedication of funds and expertise if we are to serve this population, the generation that began the fight for gay rights and suffered for it, often with the loss of employment, housing, friends and family.

Housing is a huge need. An affordable housing complex marketed to LGBTQ seniors can create an instant neighborhood of friends who understand each other’s needs and backgrounds. Coupled with space for regular healthy lunch programs and activities open to the LGBTQ senior community as a whole, it can be an important and identifiable beacon of hope to those living in isolation. No it can’t house everyone, but it does tell everyone there is a place to go where people understand and care.

Health care is another area where the LGBTQ seniors have special needs. A recent survey showed nearly one-half of LGBTQ seniors haven’t dven told their primary care doctor they are gay. Persons living with HIV are aging and starting to face new and unknown challenges. Over half the new HIV cases are now being found in people over age 50. And transgender people of all ages need understanding, expert medical care.

Where is a safe and accepting affordable place for LGBTQ seniors to live? Where do they find doctors who will understand their medical history and past activities without judgement, and with the latest information on LGBTQ issues? Where do these seniors go for help -- not in 2020 or 2025 or later, but today?

These are big questions and challenges for a city like Buffalo. Serving this special population of our founding fathers and mothers is an obligation for the whole LGBTQ community and its supporters.

Social activities are great and necessary. The real work however, is still before us.

LOOP - SPOOKTOBER 2017

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the buffalo gay men’s chorus presents

allin’ f in LOVE

OCTOBER 20, 2017 8:00PM

Kenmore Presbyterian Church, 2771 Delaware Avenue

$20 • Tickets can be purchased at Spoiled Rotten / 831 Elmwood Avenue, online at www.buffalogaymenschorus.org, through a chorus member or at the door.

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LOOP - SPOOKTOBER 2017

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