Gay City News

Unanimous — America’s Leading LGBT Newspapers Choose Hillary Clinton

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Love’s Second Chance

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© GAY CITY NEWS 2016 | NYC COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

FREE | VOLUME FIFTEEN, ISSUE TWENTY ONE | OCTOBER 13 - 26, 2016

UNANIMOUS — AMERICA’S LEADING LGBT NEWSPAPERS CHOOSE HILLARY CLINTON In an unprecedented move, all 12 of the country’s longest-serving and most award-winning LGBT newspapers have each separately endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president of the United States.

The 12 publications are members of the National Gay Media Association, a trade group for the nation’s major-market legacy LGBT newspapers. NGMA members have a combined circulation in print and online of more than one million readers per week.

The members of NGMA endorsing Clinton in their pages are Gay City News, the Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco, Bay Windows in Boston, Between the Lines in Detroit, the Dallas Voice, the Georgia Voice, the Philadelphia Gay News, the Pride LA, SFGN in Fort Lauderdale, Watermark in Orlando, the Washington Blade, and the Windy City Times in Chicago.

“This race for president is showing this country a clear choice of moving backward or moving forward on LGBTQ and other human rights," said NGMA spokesperson Tracy Baim, who is the publisher of the Windy City Times. “We know that the LGBTQ community is made up of diverse political voices. But the homophobia, transphobia, racism, anti-immigrant, and sexist nature of Republican candidate Donald Trump means that we can’t sit on the sidelines this election season.”

Baim continued, “Hillary Clinton has spent her career fighting for social justice. While she came late to some LGBTQ issues, so did most mainstream politicians. In this presidential race, there is a clear choice to keep this country moving forward in the footsteps of President Barack Obama, the most pro-LGBTQ president in US history. That choice is Hillary Clinton.”

Gay City News published its endorsement in its September 29-October 12 issue. It can be read at gaycitynews.nyc/hillary-letsmake-sure-swing-states.

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Love’s Second Chance

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

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lived with a spectacular woman for 40 years, and now I live with another one. It didn’t occur to me that I would find another person in my life. It didn’t occur to me that I would have another such love in my life.”

That was Edie Windsor last week, talking about something “wonderful” she “never imagined” would happen, as she sat in the living room of the Lower Fifth Avenue apartment she shares with her new spouse, Judith Kasen.

The couple married on September 26 in a City Hall ceremony that caught nearly everyone close to them off guard — at least for its timing. Their friends, Kasen explained, were not at all surprised the women decided to tie the knot — “because they knew it was coming.”

The other spectacular woman, with whom Windsor had earlier spent 40 years, was Thea Spyer. It was Spyer’s marriage to Windsor in Toronto in 2007 and her death two years later that in short order would bring Windsor to the world’s attention — as well as enduring iconic status in the LGBT community.

Windsor and Spyer were 30-something New Yorkers when they began dating in 1965. They got engaged two years later, but as for marriage, at the time they “never thought it would happen,” Windsor said. Then, almost exactly 40 years after their engagement, Canada legalizing same-sex marriage finally enabled the couple to wed.

Less than two years later, Spyer who had long suffered from progressive multiple sclerosis and more recently a heart condition, passed away. It was the feder al government’s discriminatory $360,000-plus estate tax levy against longtime marriage equality activist Windsor that thrust her onto a much larger stage as a pioneering and victorious advocate.

With her attor ney, Roberta Kaplan, Windsor, in 2010, filed suit against the Defense of Marriage

Judith Kasen kisses Edie Windsor’s cheek at the September 18 AIDS Ride welcoming home party at the LGBT Community Center — barely a week before their wedding at City Hall.

Act. Though she was not the first plaintiff to prevail against DOMA, she did win at both the district court and before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 2012. It was the Republican House of Representatives’ appeal of her appellate victory that the Supreme Court chose to hear and it was her challenge that, in June 2013, effectively gutted the 1996 law, finding the ban on federal recognition of legal same-sex marriages unconstitutional.

Though the high court at that time made clear it was not deciding the underlying question of a constitutional right to marriage by same-sex couples, the ruling was cited over and over again by federal courts in a blizzard of pro-equality rulings that quickly brought the issue back to the Supreme Court for its final resolution in June 2015.

When Windsor decided to mount a federal case against DOMA, she was no stranger to activism. In addition to years of working alongside the community’s earliest marriage advocates, she was, by 2010, already the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from SAGE, Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders, and had long been involved as well with the LGBT Community Center and the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center.

Still, in the wake of her DOMA win — which unleashed a euphoric

LGBT response from coast to coast — Windsor’s vigor at the age of 84 in using her new-found fame to advance the community’s agenda was nothing short of astonishing. Whether it was the Center’s annual Women’s Event, a roll-out of a national senior housing initiative by SAGE, a rally for homeless LGBT youth in Union Square, or innumerable other gatherings, she seemed to be everywhere.

“Because of my name, because I am Edie Windsor, I have a certain amount of pull,” she said last week. “And I feel an obligation when somebody asks me to please come speak or even to put my name on their ad — ‘Yes, yes, and I promise I’ll be there.’”

Seeing a vibrant woman in her mid 80s always engaged, always smiling, and — yes — always looking great in photos, it can be hard to imagine the other side of the coin — the loss of Thea at her side.

Recalling the years between Spyer’s death and meeting Kasen — years we all recall as being full of Edie Windsor — she said her life was “very full with the community, but that’s not the same. And when Judith came into my life, I had just admitted to my best friend, ‘You know, I’m really lonely.’”

During those same years, Kasen was taking note of Windsor, with even greater avidity than the count-

less other LGBT fans drawn to her after her high court win.

“My first recollection of Edie Windsor was when she got the SAGE Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010,” said Kasen, a 51-year-old vice president with Wells Fargo Advisors. “My crush started then, way before she became Edie Windsor.”

To be sure, Kasen flirted, but her recounting of that suggests she employed a light touch, perhaps conscious of not embarrassing either Windsor or herself.

“One of these days, Edie Windsor, you are going to go out with me,” Kasen said at one event last year, to which Windsor replied, “Stop teasing me.”

Asked last week whether she really thought she was being put on, Windsor, without skipping a beat, replied, “Yeah, of course!”

But Kasen was serious and kept at it, even at the cost of a bit of sting.

“It was the Center Women’s Dinner,” she recalled of an event last November, “and I saw her at the cocktail hour, and as then as they were walking out — this is a rough story for me — as they were walking out, whoever it was walking her out, I said to Edie, you know, ‘Go out with me, Edie Windsor,’ and whoever was walking her out tur ned to me and added, ‘You know, you’re not her type,’ and I was like, ‘Ouch!’”

At that anecdote, the couple shared a hearty laugh, then Kasen added, “We can’t figure out who it is” that tried to warn her off.

Whatever wound her pride suffered didn’t last long. Within weeks, Kasen would walk Windsor home to Fifth Avenue from the Center’s holiday party on West 13th Street.

“And we talked for, like, hours,” Kasen recalled. “We sat and talked for hours, and then in the hallway, by her door, she kissed me.

Then I called her during the week, and she asked me to go to Robbie [Kaplan’s] Hanukkah party that following Friday.”

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EDIE, continued on p.14

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

REMEMBRANCE

Jay Kallio, Model Activist to the End, Dead at 61 A stalwart lesbian leader became a fierce transgender voice at age 50

BY ANDY HUMM

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Jay Kallio, 1955-2016.

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GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

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ay Kallio, who died September 30 at age 61 in New York, was an activist’s activist on the front lines of the grassroots LGBT movement and other social justice causes for more than 40 years.

Kallio came to New York as a homeless lesbian — Joy Kallio — who quickly found herself at the center of Lesbian Feminist Liberation (LFL) in the early post-Stonewall movement of the 1970s.

Kallio finished life after a titanic battle with multiple cancers as Jay Kallio, a transgender man who put himself at the barricades wherever there was injustice against almost anyone. Within the past couple of months, despite excruciating pain, Kallio went to Washington to march with Gays Against Guns, to Pennsylvania to canvas for Hillary Clinton, and to Syracuse to table for Compassion & Choices — a group that advocates for terminally ill people — drumming up support for the Medical Aid in Dying Act in Albany.

He was only stopped by a tumor on his spine that paralyzed him from the waist down and, ultimately, ended his life. He was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, but that diagnosis was withheld from him at first, a situation compounded by a transphobic surgeon who wanted to send him to a psychiatrist instead of healing him, something he spoke about on HuffPost Live.

Joy transitioned to Jay at age 50 in 2006, getting hormone treatments but never seeking gender confirmation surgery.

“I accept my body as I was born,” he told ABC News.

Coming to New York City in the early ‘70s after being fired from a job with Outward Bound upstate for being lesbian, Kallio met Eleanor Cooper at the Firehouse at 99 Wooster Street in Soho, the city’s first gay and lesbian community center. Cooper was a leader in LFL and later of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights that passed New York City’s gay rights bill in 1986.

Kallio became LFL’s program coordinator. The couple were together for almost 36 years, including Cooper’s many later years in a nursing home. They were married in Cooper’s hospital room in 2008 by the Reverend Pat Bumgardner, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, because Cooper was unable to travel outside New York State to legally marry.

Veteran gay activist Tom Smith, Kallio’s longtime friend, said, “After Eleanor died, Jay was very involved in Physicians for Single Payer and the right-to-die movement. Jay was really good at deciding what issues and goals he wanted to work on and they were realistic” — including organizing a demonstration to get access to immunotherapy

Jay Kallio with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

that brought Jay back from the brink of death earlier this year. “He worked on doable things — usually on someone else’s behalf.”

Breast cancer was not the only cancer Kallio was forced to confront.

“This damn lung cancer that is now killing me is because of that toxic smoke we first responders breathed for so many months” after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, Kallio posted on Facebook this past September 11.

Kallio was a die-hard Hillary Clinton supporter, first against Barack Obama in 2008 and then against Bernie Sanders this year. His activism included a stint as a board member of the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City.

Kallio was born in Rahway, New Jersey, on August 17, 1955 and was abandoned by his biological father at age two. His mother then married Bob Kallio of Edison, New Jersey, and Joy was given his name though the biological father never consented to Bob adopting Joy as he wanted to.

Bob Kallio remembers Joy coming out while still at J.P. Stevens High School in Edison and said Joy “was brilliant, with a photographic memory.” Half-brother Bill Kallio said Joy “had perfect SAT scores.”

Joy’s early jobs included work as a lighting designer Off-Off-Broadway and in a printing business for six years. Joy trained in teaching Shiatsu massage but had her back broken in a demonstration where too much pressure was applied, Bob Kallio said — one of many health problems that would plague Jay’s life.

Bob Kallio said he, Joy, and her brothers “all worked in the Edison first aid squad,” a commitment that Joy carried over to working in the Emergency Medical Services in New York and as an auxiliary police officer for a time.

“I want people to remember how caring Jay was, how devoted” to his causes, Bob said.

Kallio produced a concert with Sweet Honey in the Rock and Holly Near in the early 1970s, “when women’s music was in great need of support, as a benefit concert for Lesbian Feminist Liberation,” Jay wrote. “I am proud to have be a small part of the support for women’s culture with the many programs and concerts I produced in our efforts to create community at a time when lesbian feminists were stigmatized and reviled, and there was no safe place for us to congregate, except for mafia bars.”

Kallio is survived by Bob and Bill Kallio, as well as half-brother Bob, and a legion of friends and comrades.

Bertis Shankle-Reyes, the manager of volunteers and outreach at SAGE, which Jay belonged to, posted on Facebook, “Jay’s spirit should be at SAGE today. The [death] notice is posted on the wall and everyone who walks by has something nice to say about him. He will be so missed.”

In August, Kallio posted a quote from youth advocate Josh Shipp: “You either get bitter or you get better. You either take what has been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person or you allow it to tear you down. The choice does not belong to fate, it belongs to you.”

To that quote, Jay added, “The choice I always make is very clear to me! I’m very lucky because it seems to come easy for me, no problems!”

May we all have such optimism in our final days.

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KALLIO, continued on p.19

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CIVIL LIBERTIES

Rentboy.com Owner Pleads Guilty Year After Fed Raid

Admission of promoting prostitution winds up case that began with showy Homeland Security sweep

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

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Hurant was eventually indicted on one count of violating the federal Travel Act and two counts of violating a federal money laundering statute. The Travel Act, which was enacted in 1961, makes certain state crimes a violation of federal law when they are committed across state lines or by using a phone, email, snail mail, or other forms interstate commerce. The underlying state charges in this case were promoting prostitution and facilitating a crime by a person under 16.

The raid and arrests sparked protests in four cities, including New York, and condemnations from LGBT groups. The New York Times editorial page called it “somewhat baffling… that taking down a website that operated in plain sight for nearly two decades suddenly became an investiga-

FACEBOOK.COM

ffectively bringing an end to a controversial criminal case that sparked protests and charges the federal government was wasting taxpayer money on prosecuting a victimless crime, the chief executive of rentboy.com pleaded guilty to one count of promoting prostitution and, on behalf of the business, one count of money laundering during an October 7 appearance in Brooklyn federal court.

Jef frey Hurant, 51, said he accepted money from “advertisers and promoted their exchange of sexual conduct for a fee in violation of New York state law” and “I agreed with others to accept payments from multiple advertisers” during the court appearance.

The government recommended

a prison term in the range of 15 to 21 months. Any fines could be as low as $250,000 or range into the millions of dollars. He will be sentenced on February 2 next year by Judge Margo Brodie. The judge is not bound by the government’s recommendations.

Hurant, who is the website’s sole shareholder, founded rentboy. com in 2001. The site linked men who were selling sexual and other private services to customers, but it did not broker the transactions or participate in any exchanges between buyers and sellers on the site. Ostensibly, the men selling sex were paying for advertising.

The site’s Manhattan offices were raided in August 2015 and Hurant and six employees were arrested. Charges against the six employees were dropped earlier this year.

Jeffrey Hurant, the CEO of Rentboy.com, to pleaded guilty on federal charges on October 7.

tive priority for the Department of Homeland Security and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.”

The Office of the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York,

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HEALTH

City Council Ready to Move on Safe Injecting Facilities Speaker Mark-Viverito, Councilmember Johnson cite health benefits of “safe, clean haven”

BY NATHAN RILEY

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ew York City’s public health campaign against HIV infection and accidental heroin overdoses took a significant step forward last week.

Safe Injection Facilities are now officially being explored as part of the city’s push to lower the rates of HIV transmission and reduce overdose deaths. A $100,000 study to examine the science and practices involved in SIFs will be included in the City Council’s budget with the support of Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

At such harm reduction facilities, a user brings drugs purchased from a dealer and is provided with sterile supplies, including needles, and given a safe place to inject. A health professional is on the premises and able to immediately intercede at the first signs of an overdose.

These programs are most beneficial to drug users who are homeless or can’t inject where they live — a population that gathers under bridges, in vacant lots, or any place that offers a modicum of privacy like stairwells. Often, they lack sterile needles and will share them. Injections under these conditions can spread HIV, hepatitis, and other infectious diseases.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Health Committee Chair Corey Johnson at a 2014 World AIDS Day event at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Mark-Viverito said SIFs would provide “a safe, clean haven to high-risk, vulnerable New Yorkers.”

Many users among this vulnerable population also deal with mental health issues, so safe injection facilities can serve as a bridge between the public health community and the user population. While common in Europe and Australia, with a limited number in Canada, as well, SIFs have not yet emerged in the US. The city’s prospective embrace of SIFs won

strong support from Gay Men’s Health Crisis, which in a written release termed the approach “a smart, effective health care policy that has been proven to work.” Kelsey Louie, the agency’s CEO, said in the statement, “For too long, local governments have rejected supervised injection facilities because of our collective discomfort with the painful challenges of drug addiction.”

Equally enthusiastic is VOCAL-NY, a grass-root

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October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

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RENTBOY, from p.7

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group that advocates for housing as well as drug law and criminal justice reform. The group described SIFs as “incredibly important,” but Matt Curtis, its policy director, warned against business as usual.

“We just can’t wait,” he said. “People are dying every day.”

Politico broke the news on September 28, quoting Mark-Viverito and featuring a photo of Corey Johnson, the out gay Chelsea city councilmember who chairs the Health Committee. Johnson has long been a supporter of the concept and is exploring what legal framework would need to be in place to implement SIFs in the city.

The proposed Council study will examine available epidemiological data on SIFs and consider whether they should be rolled out in a stand-alone program or integrated into other health programs. The feasibility of employing a mobile facility to house a SIF will also be explored. The study will gather input from city health officials as well as from experts on those communities affected by heroin use.

Groups running needle exchange GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

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which was then headed by Loretta L ynch, currently the attorney general and head of the US Department of Justice, justified its jurisdiction by saying that some rentboy.com advertisers were in Brooklyn. An unanswered question is why Preet Bharara, who heads the US attorney’s office in Manhattan, with oversight of the Southern District of New York, did not prosecute the case.

Cy Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, was initially credited with helping the rentboy.com investigation in a press release issued by the Eastern District. Vance’s office asked that its name be removed from that release, saying it had not helped, and very pointedly brought this request to the attention of Gay City News.

Following the October 7 hearing, Michael Tremonte, Hurant’s attorney, declined to make any comment.

William Dobbs, a gay civil libertarian who has closely followed the

Unanswered is how this matter became a federal case — especially in Brooklyn’s Eastern District of New York.

rentboy.com prosecution, attended the proceeding and condemned the government’s continuing effort to imprison Hurant, calling it a “completely sketchy, outrageous prosecution from a US attorney’s office that has done nothing on the chokehold death of Eric Garner… This whole thing is a black eye on this district and on Loretta Lynch too.”

programs in New York have been eager to start SIFs, often voicing impatience as they waited for official action while the number of overdose deaths has grown markedly. Political backlash, however, is widely expected, with some critics likely to characterize SIFs as government-run and -funded shooting galleries. That kind of attack may have lost its sting with a greater awareness of harm reduction as a public health strategy. Still, it’s unclear at this point whether the city’s support for SIFs could survive a major controversy along those lines.

Not surprisingly, with the Council only committing to study the issue, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is publicly reserving judging, saying, “There are no plans for implementing a SIF in New York City at this time.”

The Council’s announcement follows a major heroin bust — led by State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — in which state police seized 33 kilograms of the contraband from a nationwide drug gang alleged to have brought it in from

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SIFS, continued on p.20

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RELIGION

Phil Donahue Seeks Inclusiveness, Pope Sticks to Doctrine Manhattan “Pilgrims” press Church as Francis condemns “ideological colonization”

GAY CITY NEWS

Michael De Leon and Greg Bourke, married since 2004, active in their Louisville Catholic parish for decades, and plaintiffs in the federal marriage lawsuit that went before the Supreme Court last year, joined the October 2 march.

BY ANDY HUMM

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week in a referendum was attributed to conservative protest against the country’s now former education minister, Gina Parody, an out lesbian, and a draft teacher’s handbook she had proposed that included the sentence, “One isn’t born a man or a woman, but rather learns to be one according to the society and age in which they grew up.” That passage inflamed the traditional values crowd against Parody, who stepped down to run the Yes vote campaign on the peace agreement.

Francis DeBernardo, the leader of the New Ways Ministry, said in a written release that Francis “does not see the real problems harming marriage are social, economic, religious, and personal ones.” DeBernardo emphasized that calling transgender identity “a moral problem” ignores the fact that the “true moral solution is to allow such persons the freedom to choose whatever avenues they determine will be the ones that will integrate themselves psychologically, relationally, and spiritually, as God would want.”

In Manhattan, the 20 or so Pilgrims — who didn’t focus on any Catholic institutional locations on their march or at their rally — included representatives of the Notre Dame LGBT alumni group of which Donahue is a member;

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CATHOLICS, continued on p.21

GAY CITY NEWS

n a week when Pope Francis cloaked his Church’s continued condemnation of homosexuality and transgenderism with supposed pastoral concern, a small and unusual — but potent — mix of LGBT Catholics and their allies marched through Central Park on Sunday, October 2 led by Phil Donahue, who has arguably done more than anyone to educate Americans about the truth of LGBT lives. The procession went from outside his Manhattan home on Fifth Avenue — with wife Marlo Thomas waving from their balcony — to a rally in Columbus Circle on their way to a Mass at St. Paul the Apostle, a Catholic Church with an LGBT group.

The march was billed as a Pilgrimage of Mercy by people shut out of any serious dialogue with Catholic hierarchs on LGBT issues who are seeking mercy in their Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy.

The assemblage simultaneously offered mercy to homophobic bishops despite the fact that none of them are seeking forgiveness for what Donahue used to refer to on his talk show as “the sin of homophobia.”

Just the day before, the pope, speaking to priests in Tbilisi in the republic of Georgia, declared, “Today, there is a global war on

marriage” — that despite gay people devoting considerable resources to augmenting the ranks of the married, not to destroying the institution.

On his way home, Francis renewed his comments on LGBT people by telling reporters, “I have accompanied people with homosexual tendencies and also with homosexual practices. I have accompanied them, helped them get closer to the Lord. Some could not, but I accompanied them and never abandoned anyone. People must be accompanied, as Jesus accompanied. When a person who has this situation comes before Jesus, Jesus will surely not say: ‘Go away because you’re homosexual.’”

But all this “accompaniment” is, for the pope, an opportunity to bring gay people around to his Church’s rigid doctrine on sexuality that holds it is intended and justified only for procreation within marriage.

In a similar vein, Francis told the press of his meeting with a transgender man from Spain.

“She is a young woman who suffered much because she felt like a young man,” the pope said. “She felt like a young man, but she was physically a young woman. He wrote me a letter saying that, for him, it would be a consolation to come [see me] with his wife. He that

was her but is he.”

Francis said the transgender man was told by his new young pastor, “You will go to Hell,” but that his 80-year-old former pastor would ask him, “Come and confess so you can have Communion.”

“Do you understand?” the pope told the press on his plane. “Life is life and you must take things as they come. We must be attentive, not saying all are the same. Every case: Welcome it, accompany it, study it, discerning and integrating.”

However kindly Francis was trying to sound, he was then said to “joke,” “Please don’t write that the pope will sanctify transsexuals!”

Francis said that he had counseled a French father of a 10-yearold boy transitioning to female.

“In their schoolbooks gender theory was being taught,” the pope said. “This is against natural things. It is one thing for a person who has this tendency... and also changes their sex. It is another thing to teach in schools along this line. Changing the mentality: I call this ideological colonization” — something his Church was famous for in the Crusades and the Inquisition, not to mention its modern missionary work.

The pope’s war on “gender ideology” may gain traction in places like Catholic Colombia, where part of the rejection of the government’s peace treaty with the rebels last

Phil Donahue (center) leading a march of LGBT Catholics through Central Park that included Father Warren Hall (at left), an out gay priest recently suspended by the Archdiocese of Newark.

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

CIVIL RIGHTS

Trans Man’s Complaint of NYPD Hostility Rejected US court says officers had discretion to ignore harassment claims

BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

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n a decision notable for its lack of empathy for transgender people and the slights and humiliations they suffer on a regular basis, US District Judge Gregory H. Woods granted New York City’s motion to dismiss a complaint from a man of transgender experience that his 14th Amendment rights were violated when police declined to take action despite ongoing transphobic verbal harassment of the man.

According to the court’s September 12 opinion, Marlow White complained to police in May 2015 that Napoleon Monroe, a man who frequented the Harlem neighborhood where White lives, subjected the trans man to continued verbal harassment and made a variety of threats. White, in his lawsuit against the NYPD and the city, alleged that the police who responded were blatantly transphobic, treating him as somebody unworthy of respect, and suggested they would not lift a finger to help until somebody was seriously injured.

Woods’ opinion concluded that in the absence of a ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals — under whose jurisdiction he serves — holding that gender identity is a form of sex discrimination subject to heightened scrutiny review, as the US 11th Circuit has found, the police officers’ refusal to do anything to stop Monroe’s harassment of him need only be justified on a “rational basis.” Applying that standard, the judge found that the officers’ discretionary decision not to arrest somebody who had yet to commit a violent crime was not so arbitrary that it subjected them to liability for violating White’s constitutional rights.

Under the US Constitution’s Due Process clause, Woods found, the police officers had no obligation to prevent one citizen from subjecting another to verbal harassment and threats as long as they were not enabling or encouraging harm to White.

White’s allegations of past incidents involving the police and their dealings with transgender people GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

were not sufficient to demonstrate an official NYPD policy of disparate treatment of transgender people, Woods concluded.

Transgender rights organizations could doubtless supply a panoply of evidence about police disrespect for the human rights and dignity of transgender people, but unfortunately the evidence presented here seems to have been minimal.

“White’s conclusory allegations regarding the City’s alleged failure to train its police officers fail to state a claim,” wrote the judge. “He states that ‘adequate training regarding issues peculiar to persons of trans experience will make it substantially less likely that the rights of persons of trans experience will be violated.’” White’s complaint, however, did not provide facts supporting “a pattern of similar constitutional violations, such that the City was on notice that different, or additional, training was needed.”

White is represented by Donald Robert Dunn, Jr., of the Bronx.

Since the complaint was dismissed “without prejudice,” White could come back with a new complaint, supported by a more complete factual record of the NYPD’s failure to provide non-discriminatory law enforcement protection to trans citizens, to allege that the city has liability in this matter.

Woods’ summary of White’s allegations, however, should put the NYPD’s leadership, the City Law Department, and the de Blasio administration on notice that it must provide appropriate training at the precinct level for cops in dealing with transgender citizens — something the NYPD voiced a commitment to dating back to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s time in office.

Not only is this, of course, the right thing to do, but it is also possible that the Second Circuit will eventually decide that gender identity discrimination is a form of “sex discrimination,” as the 11th Circuit, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and other federal agencies have. If the Second Circuit or the Supreme Court does that, the NYPD’s actions on such matters will be held to heightened judicial scrutiny — and so could be difficult to justify in a courtroom.

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LEGAL

Gay and Trans Plaintiffs Advance on Title VII Claims Federal courts in Nevada, Alabama accept sex stereotyping theory in employment bias cases

BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

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wo federal trial courts have allowed Title VII employment discrimination claims by law enforcement officers, one gay and the other transgender, to proceed over the protests of the government agencies where they worked.

On October 4, US District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey granted summary judgment to Bradley Roberts, a transgender man employed as a police officer by the Clark County School District in Nevada, on his claim of gender discrimination in violation of both Title VII and the Nevada Equal Rights Law. Dorsey referred other claims, involving harassment and retaliation, to a magistrate judge for trial.

On October 7, Chief US Magistrate Judge John E. Ott of the Norther n District of Alabama denied the City of Pleasant Grove’s motion to dismiss a Title VII claim by an openly gay man, Lance Smith, who had been discharged from the city’s police department.

In both cases, the judges referred to the Supreme Court’s 1989 decision, Price Waterhouse v.

Hopkins, which endorsed the view that employees who suffer adverse consequences because of their failure to comply with the employer’s sex-stereotypical views can sue for sex discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces Title VII, issued an administrative decision finding that the statute forbids gender identity discrimination, and the EEOC issued a similar ruling regarding sexual orientation discrimination in 2015.

The EEOC rulings relied on and extended the sex-stereotyping theory from the Price Waterhouse case. The agency’s rulings are not binding on the federal courts, but trial judges have begun over the past year to acknowledge them and, in some cases, to follow their reasoning.

The Clark County School Dis-

10

trict first hired Bradley Roberts as a campus monitor in 1992, when he was known by a female name and hoped to become a police officer. Roberts graduated from a law enforcement academy in 1994 and was upgraded to a police officer position, which he held without incident for 17 years until he began to transition.

the men’s bathrooms and told he would not be referred to as a man or allowed to use the men’s bathrooms until he could provide official documentation of a name and sex change. Two days later, officials relented somewhat, saying he could use the name Bradley Roberts informally but not on any “official and formal documents.”

Smith told Fredrick that he is gay and has a same-sex partner. Fredrick’s demeanor immediately changed, Smith said, and she advised him to “reconsider” his desire to work in the department.

In 2011, Roberts began identifying himself as a man and dressing and grooming accordingly. When he began using the men’s bathroom at work, other officers complained, and when his commanding officers confronted him for an explanation, he explained he was transgender and in the process of transitioning. He said he wanted to be known as Bradley Roberts and to use the men’s bathrooms.

Officials told him he could not do so, but that because he now appeared as a man he should also refrain from using the women’s bathrooms. He was instructed to use gender-neutral bathrooms in the district’s schools “to avoid any future complaints.”

Roberts then sent a letter to his superiors summarizing what he had told them and again expressing his desire to be called Bradley Roberts and for co-workers to use male pronouns in referring to him. He pledged to comply with the men’s grooming code for the district’s police force.

That letter prompted another meeting with his superiors and his union representative, where he was again denied access to

Roberts’ supervisors then sent him a proposed memo summarizing these arrangements and included his concern that co-workers and commanding officers be cautioned that asking “below the belt” questions about his anatomy “may constitute sexual harassment.” Roberts was “blindsided” when that memo was emailed to everyone in the department — rather than just managers — and generated questions and what he considered harassment from some co-workers.

In December 2011, Roberts submitted paperwork to the district showing he had legally changed his name and his driver’s license, which resulted in another email to the entire department explaining that. In spite of that high visibility attention, the new health insurance card he received in 2012 still listed him as “female.”

At that point, Roberts filed a discrimination complaint with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission, alleging gender identity discrimination in violation of state law. He cited the bathroom ban as discriminatory, and described several incidents, including the meetings with

supervisors, as harassment.

The district refused to participate in mediation with the Commission, but did issue a new policy allowing Roberts to use the men’s bathrooms. The Commission then closed the case as “moot,” but he filed a second complaint, again citing the bathroom ban as well as offensive comments from co-workers and the department-wide emails that had essentially “outed” him. He also alleged retaliation for filing the earlier charges. The federal EEOC ultimately issued him a “right-to-sue” letter and he brought his case against the district in federal court.

Judge Dorsey undertook a thorough historical review of the treatment of gender identity under Title VII, emphasizing how the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Nevada federal courts, has embraced a broad understanding of sex discrimination under Title VII and other federal laws, such as the Violence Against Women Act. She also pointed to the growing body of post-Price Waterhouse decisions nationwide allowing gender identity claims under Title VII using a sex stereotyping theory, as well the EEOC’s 2012 and 2015 decisions.

“I join the weight of authority and hold that discrimination against a person based on transgender status is discrimination ‘because of sex’ under Title VII,” she wrote, concluding that Roberts was entitled to summary judgment on his sex discrimination claims because it was clear he had suffered discrimination on that basis.

“Direct evidence established the department’s discriminatory intent here,” Dorsey wrote. “It banned Roberts from the women’s bathroom because he no longer behaved like a woman. This alone shows that the school district discriminated against Roberts based on his gender and sex stereotypes.

And the department also admits that it banned Roberts from the men’s bathroom because he is

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October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

SAGE’S BRONX SENIOR HOUSING WINS STATE SENATE SUPPORT

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TITLE VII, from p.10

biologically female. Although [the district] contends that it discriminated against Roberts based on his genitalia, not his status as a transgender person, this is a distinction without a difference here.”

The district, the judge concluded, failed to articulate a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for restricting his bathroom use.

On Roberts’ harassment and retaliation claims, Dorsey concluded that factual disputes about the severity and impact of those incidents required further proceedings in front of a magistrate.

The Smith case in Alabama involves straightforward sexual orientation discrimination by a local police department. Lance Smith interviewed with Lieutenant Jennifer Fredrick for a position in the Pleasant Grove Police Department in 2014. After she told him he would be offered a position at a specific salary, Smith told Fredrick that he is gay and has a same-sex partner. Fredrick’s demeanor immediately changed, Smith said, and she advised him to “reconsider” his desire to work in the department.

Subsequently, however, Smith GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

COURTESY: SAGE

In an event marking National Coming Out Day on October 11, SAGE, or Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders, welcomed State Senator Jeffrey Klein and City Councilmember Ritchie Torres, to its Bronx Center on East 188th Street. Klein was on hand to present the group with a check for $150,000 in state funding for the 82-unit Crotona North Apartments being developed in the borough’s Crotona section to provide LGBT-supportive housing opportunities — including social services and an on-site SAGE Center — for seniors.

Crotona North has a $38 million price tag and is being developed in partnership with HELP USA, a nationwide leader in homelessness prevention and permanent supportive housing, the city’s Housing Development Corporation, and New York State Homes and Community Renewal. The project had earlier received $1.2 million in support from Torres, who is the out gay chair of the Council’s Public Housing Committee, and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. The development is due to begin construction next year and open by 2019. Eligibility requirements for tenants are that they are 60 or older and have incomes of no more than 50 percent of the area median income, or $36,250 for a couple and $31,750 for a single person.

State Senator Jeffrey Klein is greeted by SAGE Bronx Center manager José Collazo.

“It’s so important that our LGBT seniors spend their golden years with friends and receive the support they need,” Klein said.

“SAGE truly meets the needs of our LBGT senior population.”

“LGBT elders in the Bronx are fortunate to have an amazing champion in Senator Jeff Klein,” said Michael Adams, SAGE’s CEO. “LGBT elders face a number of issues that they must confront, oftentimes alone and without resources,” Torres said. “SAGE’s work and advocacy efforts ensure that this population confront their older years with dignity and respect, and Senator Klein’s leadership in securing $150,000 for SAGE is crucial to make sure this work moves forward.”

— Paul Schindler

received an email from Fredrick informing him that “his homosexuality would not be an issue,” wrote Judge Ott. Subsequent events, however, showed this was untrue.

After Smith completed the required physical exam, he was directed to meet with the police chief, Robert Knight, who told him he would receive a lower salary than he had been promised — and $5,000 less than other new recruits. Smith claims he received only two weeks of field training instead of the three normally provided to new recruits, and then was assigned to a night shift patrol on his own rather than the usual assignment for new officers to patrol with a partner.

Smith also claims he was informed by the night shift sergeant that “Lt. Fredrick had instructed the sergeant to write down everything Smith did wrong so Lt. Fredrick could fire him.” Smith says another officer warned him to be “careful” because a police corporal was a “homophobe.”

After a few months, Fredrick told Smith he was “not going to work out” and needed to resign, but

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11

CULTURE

What’s the Harm?

Sarah Schulman explores feelings, claims of abuse in an overdetermined world

BY CHRISTOPHER MURRAY

12

CHRISTOPHER MURRAY: What sparked your writing the new book?

SARAH SCHULMAN: Looking back, I guess I’ve been writing it my whole life. Even my first book, a detective one, is all about who’s got the power. Grace Paley said writers pick their themes when they are young and develop them all their lives.

I honed in on some of the themes when I wrote “Ties That Bind.” In that book I even had to coin the phrase “familial homophobia,” because there was no word for it.

And when I was writing it, I realized the homophobic family is a negative group relationship and that they depict the gay person as the problem, as a threat or as someone who is harming them, but actually they are the problem. Understanding that reversal was an important door that opened for me.

When I wrote the book on Palestine, the whole book was an exercise in self-criticism. It was my first time writing from a supremacy position. It was informative for me to take that on and begin the pro-

DREW STEVENS

A

t 58, the indefatigable lesbian writer, academic, and activist Sarah Schulman is producing a set of works astonishing for their diversity of thought and form as well as for their depth of feeling and content. What all these works have in common is that they speak directly to some of the most important issues of our time, especially for the the LGBT community. In an interview with London’s Guardian last March she was quoted saying, “I don’t do the one long slow idea. I do a hundred ideas.”

A year ago last June, she starred, alongside Jack Waters, in indie director Stephen Winter’s “Jason and Shirley,” his version of Shirley Clarke’s 1967 documentary “Portrait of Jason,” which the New Yorker called “one of this year’s finest offerings” when shown at BAMcinemaFest.

This past spring, her novel about queer friendship in Greenwich Village in the 1950s, “The Cosmopolitans,” earned starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.

And now, this month Arsenal Pulp Press is publishing her new non-fiction book, “Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair.”

Schulman operates as a queer public intellectual, a position that seems to come naturally to her and that she has carved out for herself from within academia, while still retaining her bona fides as an artist and an activist.

Her new work is a provocative rethinking of intimate and civil discourse for a rapidly shrinking world.

As globalism raises the tensions threatening longstanding geopolitical balances, the everyday impacts cause stress and spikes in anxiety in individual lives and relationships. Schulman’s new work is a rallying cry for civil engagement and engaged civility.

The major premise of the book is that our society has developed the habit of overstating harm. In both intimate relationships and even between governments, those in positions of power will often claim that they are being hurt, when in fact, the opposite is so. This has become so pervasive that we are now in a state of confusion in which we confuse, sometimes honestly, sometimes cynically, any experience of conflict as an abuse scenario.

Themes in her new book particularly echo two earlier works by Schulman: 2009’s “Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences,” which shows how families scapegoat gay members, and “Israel/ Palestine and the Queer International,” from 2012.

Schulman spoke recently with Gay City News about the new book and her unique position in queer public life.

Writer, artist, academic, and activist Sarah Schulman.

cess of undoing that. Throughout this book, I am constantly showing myself as wrong and making mistakes, and that’s something that I learned in the Palestine book.

I observe the dynamic of overstating harm in every level of human relationship. There is an abdication of responsibility to change our self-concept, and instead there is an escalation of accusation toward the other party. This creates a reinforcement of negative groups, not necessarily people doing it consciously, but we’re part of groups that encourage us not to be self-critical.

CM: How is it that this plays out in both micro and macro relations?

How is family shunning mirrored in global relations?

SS: Because society is created by people. I explain it step by step through the book. It starts out with cliques — someone is identified as the scapegoat and we ban and shun them. Families are often a construction in which loyalty is defined by hurting other people.

I look at the larger social systems and I can see that race is a family system. Class, nation, they are literally based on family, so it’s not much of a leap to when a family scapegoats one member — or unites by scapegoating an outsider — to then show that the national group that that family belongs to does the same thing.

CM: Why do you place such stress on talking together in person as such an important part of the solution?

SS: To speak, in person, has become a radical expectation and can even sometimes be considered abuse or harassment. But it’s

CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE

OVERSTATING HARM, COMMUNITY RESPONSIBILITY AND THE DUTY OF REPAIR

By Sarah Schulman Arsenal Pulp Press $19.95; 288 pages in person that people change. So, if you refuse to be in person you refuse change.

CM: Is that kind of refusal of engagement based on immaturity or trauma, or is it merely cynical?

SS: People are scapegoated by others acting from a place of supremacy and ideology or [those scapegoating] are traumatized. Both have a refusal to accept opposition, even though it’s for different reasons. The supremacist feels entitled to refuse other peoples’ perspective, and, interestingly, traumatized people who are not in recovery often find other people unbearable because they themselves are so fragile. When you are on the receiving end, it feels the same whether it comes from someone acting out of supremacy or from a traumatized person shutting down conversation.

CM: Does it make a difference to know that the shunning is coming from a place of defensiveness due to someone’s trauma history?

SS: First of all, they would have to be aware of the trauma history. If that’s on the table, you’re in a good spot, but usually when you are being blamed for raising some-

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SCHULMAN, continued on p.13

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

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SCHULMAN, from p.12

one’s anxiety based on their previous experience, neither side is necessarily aware that that’s what is going on. That’s when good friends and families and healthy societies can help people to go and question themselves.

CM: What impact do you hope the book will have?

SS: I don’t know, this is just starting. I don’t know how it will be received and what will be retained. I do say in the beginning of the book, this is not about proof and me being right, it’s not evidence. All I’m trying to do is stimulate new knowledge in the future. I am very clear that I am not an academician or practitioner, I’m an artist.

CM: Where did you get your identity as an artist?

SS: I have no idea. I have a calling or something. I’m a natural. People ask me every day how do you do all this? I have a freakish out-

ARSENAL PULP PRESS

CM: You have an almost Good Samaritan model of the need in these conflicts for a third party interventions. You think it’s helpful?

SS: It’s more than that, it’s necessary. I think it should be the status quo, it shouldn’t be exceptional. It take courage to intervene. There is a loss involved. Intervening when someone is being scapegoated, you risk losing cultural currency. And that can be with a clique or with a nation. If you look at people who support Palestine, there’s been a lot of disenfranchising. That’s why we need more of us who understand that one of our primary responsibilities as human beings is to interrupt injustice.

put. I’ve talked to some other people about this — like [gay science fiction author] Samuel R. Delany, but it’s easy for us and there has to be some kind of biological reason.

I do think I make medicine out of poison. I think that’s what artists do. My job is to try to see the invisible structure of the apparatus of enforcement. If we can articulate how we see this abandonment of the vulnerable, then the structure becomes obvious. It’s only when it is mysterious that it is so frightening

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CM: What give you the most hope?

SS: I’m a very optimistic person.

I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought it was a waste of time. I always think positive change is possible, and I’m surprised when there are problems. You know, I’m a teacher.

Over time for you to walk into that classroom, you’ve got to believe they can get it right.

CM: What nourishes and sustains you?

SS: Like, everything. I don’t do anything that I don’t enjoy.

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COURTESY: JUDITH KASEN

City Clerk Michael McSweeney congratulates newlyweds Edie Windsor and Judith Kasen at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau on September 26.

c

couple “a chance to know if, in fact, it’s for real.” Windsor was ready to be patient, though she did enough reconnaissance to establish that Kasen “always wanted to get married but there had never been the right person.”

Events, however, outran Windsor’s patience.

“I got sick during the summer and was afraid I was dying, and I asked if she wanted to get married,”

EDIE, from p.4

Picking up the story, Windsor said, “And very quickly, very quickly, it really caught quick, it really caught. We began dating seriously, almost right away.”

Windsor recalled that Spyer, likely mindful of the old joke that lesbians tend to rent a U-Haul for their second date, always said “all seasons twice” — two years — give a

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she said. “Her quote — what was your quote?”

“Any time, any place, anywhere,” Kasen shot back immediately.

“That was my response.”

“And I said I think we should do it right away,” Windsor continued.

“My sense was that if I’m going to die on her, it would be unfair — we were clearly in love, we were practically living together, and that I shouldn’t cheat her” by leaving her unmarried.

“I think that that’s what started it, but then we were both intrigued by the idea,” Windsor added. “Once we decided to do it, we were out of our minds. We were like little kids.”

And so, with Kasen’s best friend, Danielle Reda, visiting from France, the couple traveled to Manhattan’s Marriage Bureau on Worth Street on a late September Monday to pledge their vows. When their officiant, Angel Lopez, learned from Kasen who the other bride was, he briefly excused himself, saying, “Let me get my boss,” City Clerk Michael McSweeney.

Now that Windsor is, in Margo Channing’s famous formulation from “All About Eve,” once again “a four-square, upright, downright, forthright married lady,” will she take the chance to ease back from her activism to enjoy some quiet domestic bliss?

“Not at all!,” was her instantaneous reply.

In fact, Kasen is introducing Windsor to advocacy groups she’d never before had an affiliation with.

Though Windsor in recent years had pitched in with the Ali Forney Center and other groups serving homeless LGBT youth, she was unfamiliar with the Hetrick-Martin Institute, where Kasen has long been active. After Kasen made the introductions, however, Windsor was soon collaborating with HMI’s chief operating officer, Darra Gordon, in planning a gathering of a wide range of LGBT youth advocacy groups focused on different aspects of the issue.

“It was a wonderful conference,” Kasen said.

Asked whether she’s ever overwhelmed by the attention showered on Windsor when they’re at a public event together, Kasen replied, “I don’t think about it as being a celebrity spouse. She is just Edie to me.”

And Windsor was equally quick to dismiss that concern.

“First of all, she’s got a lot of personhood,” she said. “What’s the word I use?”

“Gravitas?,” Kasen offered.

“Yes, gravitas,” Windsor said.

“So she’s perfect for me. She’s very much her own person, and she’s very much my person.”

Then, after a moment, she added, “She’s more sweetly social than I am so I had to teach her, when we’re leaving you hold your head straight forward, we don’t look right or left. We don’t want to know that somebody wants to take more pictures, because I’ve already done 90 pictures.”

Which led around to the question about how Windsor herself sustains her energy in the face of so much public attention.

Referring to her activism, especially over the past several years, she responded, “If I had to survive Thea, okay, and didn’t know I was going to meet Judith, I can’t think of a better way to live. It’s all joy and love.”

Then, focusing on all she’s gotten out of her public engagement, Windsor recalled a recent speech, after which “everybody kept thanking me. And I said, ‘Thank you.’ I’m somebody who was really a dumb, ignorant middle class woman, who said, ‘I’m not in trouble about being gay but I do have trouble identifying with those queens,’ and then a queen overturned that police car and changed my life. Okay, so that was the beginning of my sense of unity. And then during the AIDS crisis, when the lesbians poured in to help, what had then been a split really between the males and the females was deeply changed and my sense of community grew.

And then when people were pouring into, looking to get into the Supreme Court, that made it even wider, that meant that we were out more — and the more of us that got out the more of us got out. It was suddenly wonderful not to be left behind in the closest. And it keeps happening. But it also happens with the straight world. Mothers discovered that their kids were gay.

Everybody discovered that their neighbor was, that their friend was.

And a lot of the stigma for us disappeared.”

And then, Edie Windsor got to the very heart of what her activism has meant to her: “So I’m grateful to live in this great world.”

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

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PERSPECTIVE: The Stakes This Year

On LGBT Rights, HIV/ AIDS, the Battles Aren’t Over

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Gay City News, The Newspaper Serving Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender NYC, is published by NYC Community Media, LLC. Send all inquiries to: Gay City News, One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Phone: 212.229.1890 Written permission of the publisher must be obtained before any of the contents of this paper, in part or whole, can be reproduced or redistributed. All contents © 2016 Gay City News.

Gay City News is a registered trademark of NYC Community Media, LLC. Jennifer Goodstein, CEO Fax: 212.229.2790; E-mail: jgoodstein@cnglocal.com

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All rights reserved.

FOUNDING MEMBER

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FOUNDING MEMBER

DONNA ACETO

Seth J. Bookey, Anthony M.Brown, Kelly Jean Cogswell, Andres Duque, Michael Ehrhardt, Steve Erickson, Andy Humm, Eli Jacobson, David Kennerley, Gary M. Kramer, Arthur S. Leonard, Michael T. Luongo, Lawrence D. Mass, Winnie McCroy, Eileen McDermott, Mick Meenan, Tim Miller, Donna Minkowitz, Gregory Montreuil, Christopher Murray, David Noh, Sam Oglesby, Nathan Riley, David Shengold, Ed Sikov, Yoav Sivan, Gus Solomons Jr., Tim Teeman, Kathleen Warnock, Benjamin Weinthal, Dean P. Wrzeszcz

Hillary Clinton on April 19 after winning New York’s Democratic primary.

BY HILLARY CLINTON

M

ore than half a century ago, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, participants at the first Annual Reminder march picketed, chanted, and sang. They did this to show their fellow Americans that the LGBT community lacked fundamental civil rights. Four years later, the Stonewall Rebellion took place in Greenwich Village in response to a police raid on a Christopher Street bar.

In the decades since those protests, our country has come a long way. Marriage equality is the law of the land. This year, the last state law prohibiting same-sex couples from adopting children was finally struck down. And President Barack Obama signed an executive order protecting federal workers from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. We should celebrate that progress.

But the simple truth is that even now, in 2016, there are still too many states in America where LGBT people can be fired or evicted from their home because of who they are or who they love. You can get married on Sunday and fired on Monday, just for being gay or transgender.

That goes against everything we stand for as a country.

We need to act on the federal level to take on discrimination in all its forms. That’s what I’ll do as president — with your help.

But first, we have to win this election. Donald Trump must not be elected president. He would rip away so much of the progress we’ve made.

He would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn mar riage equality and rescind many of President Obama’s executive orders — including those protecting LGBT people.

It’s not just Trump’s policies that reveal the kind of president he would be. So does his choice of running mate. Mike Pence is one of the most anti-LGBT public officials in America.

As governor of Indiana, Pence supported a bill that legalized discrimination against LGBT people. As a member of Congress, he voted against expanding the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, saying that doing so would be “social experimentation.” And he’s said that homosexuality would bring about “societal collapse.”

That’s why the stakes in this election are so high.

If I’m fortunate enough to be elected president, I’ll protect the progress we’ve fought so hard to achieve — and I’ll keep fighting until every American can live free from discrimination and prejudice.

That means working to pass the Equality Act. It would finally provide LGBT people full federal nondiscrimination protections in housing, employment, and so much more. I know that differences of opinion on LGBT equality still exist in the hearts of some Americans, but they should not exist under our laws. As president, I’ll be your partner in bringing about the vision of the inclusive nation that advocates, activists, and allies have been seeking for decades.

I also believe we must address the ongoing issue of violence against the LGBT community. LGBT people are now more likely than any other group to be the target of a hate crime. America saw the effects of hate in Orlando, with the attack on the Pulse nightclub — the deadliest mass shooting by a single person in our history. The danger is compounded for LGBT people of color, who face intersectional pressures and dangers, particularly

transgender people of color. Last year, more than 20 transgender women were killed in America.

We need to stop the violence and save LGBT lives. We need to collect more data around gender identity and sexual orientation in hate crimes, so we can stop them in a smarter, more effective way. And we need to finally pass common sense reforms to address the gun violence epidemic.

Along with the vast majority of Americans, I believe that we can protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners while still making sure that guns don’t fall into the wrong hands.

Finally, we need to continue our fight to achieve our goal of an AIDSfree generation. HIV and AIDS still disproportionately impact gay and bisexual men, communities of color, transgender people, and young people. We need to increase research, expand the use of effective prevention medications like PrEP, cap out-ofpocket drug costs, and reform outdated HIV-criminalization laws.

Like many, I’ve lost friends and loved ones to AIDS. We owe it to them — the people we love and miss, and the people whose names we’ll never know — to continue this fight.

As first lady and senator, I fought to significantly expand funding for AIDS research. As secretary of state, I changed the rules so that State Department employees in same-sex relationships were treated the same as their colleagues and so that transgender Americans could obtain passports that reflected their true gender identity. So these fights aren’t new to me.

And as president, I’ll keep fighting for LGBT rights, because — as I told the world in one of the most important speeches I gave as secretary of state — they are human rights. And I won’t quit until all our laws reflect that basic reality.

This perspective piece is running in member publications of the National Gay Media Association — a trade association of leading LGBT publications across the US — following an invitation from the Philadelphia Gay News to both major party candidates.

Donald Trump’s campaign chose not to submit such an op ed.

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

PERSPECTIVE: A Dyke Abroad

Our America

I

TWITTER.COM

was following my Twitter feed and channel surfing during the “debate” the other night when I heard a news anchor announce the police were looking for a serial groper. When I glanced up I really did expect to see Donald Trump’s pink butthole of a mouth and flabby sulking face, but it was a photo of a normal-looking white guy with ear buds in and a greenish gray T-shirt hanging over his skinny chest. Which is what most sexual predators look like. As ordinary as anything.

There is nothing particularly impressive about dictators either. In photos, Pinochet smiles like somebody’s affable grandfather.

Hitler only looks peculiar to us because of his mustache. Evil doesn’t leave a trace. Even Putin looks ordinary with his slightly balding pate, though, like with Pinochet, the journalists, activists, or politicians who oppose him have a way of spending years in prison, meeting untimely ends, disappearing.

All day, I’d hoped Clinton would simply refuse to go, quit normalizing Trump’s candidacy as all of America has done for the last year, imagining that this rapist, this tyrant, and Putin-loving demagogue would just go away. I’d add racist or bigot to the list, but the words seem too mild to describe how he intentionally enrages the rabble, attacking people of color, immigrants, women, Jews, Muslims. Words like nigger and kike are coming back into fashion as Trump and his anti-gay running mate Pence not only reveal America’s latent hatreds but fatten them every time they open their mouths.

And yet, when nine o’clock struck, Clinton took the stage with Trump, and both smiled for the cameras, as if it were business as

usual. Republicans versus Democrats. Later on, I even saw a few tweets by folks complaining that nobody was talking about the issues.

Why wasn’t there a mention this time of police brutality? As if we could even hear what Clinton said while Trump furiously grabbed his chair, lurked behind her like a psycho killer.

As if Trump would say something rational, not respond to questions with lies and obfuscations, offering a bizarre dismissal of his taped sexual assault brags as “just words... locker room talk, and it’s one of those things. I will knock the hell out of ISIS.” Sniff!

Given the circus-like atmosphere of the election, I’m not sure that we have seriously considered the implications of Trump’s threat to unleash his Justice Department on Clinton if he is elected president, to send her to jail. It was the most naked assertion to date of his aspirations to rule without the rule of law, binning the basic protections every citizen is assured by our Constitution.

The response was enthusiastic applause from the back of the room. Because what so many Americans want is a strongman to take the cunt down. Take all the pussies down. Commenters across the board found this disturbing, chilling even, though this has been commonplace at Trump’s rallies for the eternity of this election season.

I can’t stand any of it. His red-faced lying, rapey hate. Everybody’s perpetual surprise. The GOP’s attempt to distance itself from the monster it created. The Democratic silence about its own treatment of Clinton for decades. The dykes who have repeatedly announced their hatred of her voice, her thighs, her hair. All those gay men feeling absolved by their gayness who call all women cunts and bitches every

TWITTER.COM

BY KELLY COGSWELL

chance they get. Who exclude women from leadership positions. Fuck you. Then there are the lefties who will get behind every mediocre man of any color who promises the populist moon. No wonder Trump was applauding Sanders, Sanders, Sanders.

Through it all, Clinton remained pleasant and composed, even smiling as Trump did his best to intimidate her. And I watched as guys tweeted things like, “I don’t know how she does it.” “I’d be pulling my hair out.” “She should knee him in the nuts.” All the women were like, “Every female on earth has had to learn how to deal with this.”

Because we have. With strangers in the street, or bosses, but more often from classmates, men at church, cousins, brothers, and fathers. All of them threatening us with their dicks, and asking, Just who do you think you are?

As @meganamram tweeted, “With this election we’re simultaneously breaking through the glass ceiling and the rock bottom. We got a really big room now.” And it’s not even over yet.

Kelly Cogswell is the author of “Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger,” from the University of Minnesota Press.

PERSPECTIVE: Snide Lines

The Mad Activist Refrains From Offing Donald Trump

BY SUSIE DAY

Dear Peace Diary, Time to vote for our next president! Time to choose just the right person to lead our world’s most militarily advanced superpower.

That’s why presidential elections should be nonviolent and fulfilling on a deep personal level! O whom, shall I choose? Let’s see…

GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

• Hillary Rodham Clinton: Democrat and fellow feminist. Speechifies against poverty, then talks privately to Wall Street about “open trade and open borders.” Almost never met a US military venture she didn’t like. On her website: “We should maintain the best-trained, best-equipped, and strongest military the world has ever known.”

Feminism has never been bossier.

• Gary Johnson: Libertarian Party.

Nyet.

• Donald Trump: Republican. Paralyzingly horrific to imagine this xenophobic, lunatic gasbag in the Oval Office. Interestingly, Trump’s promise to “make our Military so big, powerful, and strong that nobody will mess with us” resembles the armed-and-dangerous feminism of Clinton.

But is Trump self-destructing?

Note how his leaked, private 2005 remarks on “pussy-grabbing” damage Trump’s image far more than his recent, public declaration that Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists.

Would his campaign be intact now if T rump had only been overheard talking about grabbing immigrant snatches?

• Jill Stein: Green Party. Only people-over-profits candidate. Supports reparations for slavery, college loan forgiveness, would end military intervention, fight

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SNIDE LINES, continued on p.19

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PERSPECTIVE: Media Circus

Trump Tape Changes the Times

BY ED SIKOV

T

he big media news of the week is that the New York Times actually printed the word fuck in a front page story — above the fold! The subject, of course, was Donald Trump, about whom nothing more needs to be said. According to Politico, the Times has printed a variation of the word before (which surprised me). But that earlier fuck, or more accurately fucking, was in the paper’s so-called style magazine, T, not the newspaper proper.

This time, the paper of record really had no choice but to print the word, because its news value so greatly outweighed editorial squeamishness. The Republican candidate for president, boasting of his sexual predations, used it.

That in itself is newsworthy.

“‘We internally categorize these as involuntary terminations due to misalignment with InterVarsity ministry principles, which is a category we use for people who leave for theological and philosophy of ministry disagreements,” Greg Jao, an InterVarsity vice president and director of campus engagement, told Time in an email. ‘Our goal is not to go, “Oh we want you to do the dirty work of firing yourself.” I think our thing is, if you are in disagreement, then we are going to ask you, with integrity, to identify that and leave,’ he added in an interview.”

“With integrity.” What a lovely way to describe forcing employees into religious lockstep with management. The paragraph above comes from Time.com, and the subject of the piece is summed up by its title: “Top Evangelical College Group to Dismiss Employees Who Support Gay Marriage.” Well, that’s one way of convincing people that the boss knows best: fire them when they disagree. Curious that “dirty work” means firing yourself, whereas getting fired by management is somehow a cleaner option.

The article goes on to describe certain, shall we say, problems with the new policy.

“Bianca Louie, 26, led the InterVarsity campus fellowship at Mills College, a women’s liberal-arts school in Oakland and her alma mater.

When it became clear several months ago that the policy would go into effect, Louie realized she had to leave, after four years of working with the group. She is not sure what will happen to the outreach she and others worked to create at Mills. ‘I don’t know how InterVarsity can do ministry on campus with integrity anymore,’ she says. ‘Mills is a women’s college with inclusive trans policies, and higher ed is overall making more efforts to be inclusive and safe for LGBTQ students… I could see us getting kicked off campus because of this.’ Louie and about 10 other InterVarsity staff formed an anonymous queer

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collective earlier this year to organize on behalf of staff, students and alumni who felt unsafe under the new policy. They compiled dozens of stories of individuals in InterVarsity programs and presented them to national leadership. ‘I think one of the hardest parts has been feeling really dismissed by InterVarsity,’ she says. ‘The queer collective went through a very biblical, very spiritual process, with the Holy Spirit, to get to where we are. I think a lot of people think those who are affirming [same-sex marriage] reject the Bible, but we have landed where we have because of Scripture, which is what InterVarsity taught us to do.’”

“The problem, former AfterEllen editor [Karman] Kregloe told Quartz, is that brands do not know how to market to lesbians and queer women because they don’t see us as women.”

There’s more: “For Ginny Prince, 32, the consequences of the new policy are very difficult to discuss. Until last week, she was an assistant area director near Oakland and had worked for InterVarsity for seven years. She is an LGBTQ ally — and she has a transgender child. Already, she says, her husband has walked away from the faith largely because of how the church has dealt with the LGBTQ community. She knew she had to tell her supervisor she did not support the new policy. ‘This was very painful for everybody,’ Prince says. ‘I got fired… I sent an email and said, I cannot align, and I think that this policy is discriminatory, and I cannot align.

That was it. We cried, we cried really hard my last day.’ Prince does not know what she will do next. But she knows two things. One: ‘I want the church to be a safe place for my child to grow up,’ she says. And two, she will miss InterVarsity. ‘They have a unique understanding of and willingness to engage in hard issues like racial justice and women in ministry and things of that nature,’ she explains. ‘I thought that they would be more able to contain difference in this area as well, difference of opinion. I think what they do is very important, and I am very sad to go.’”

This Time.com story is both fair and balanced, to use the mock-worthy self-description of the extraordinarily biased Fox News. Both sides get their say, despite the fact that only one side is morally defensible. The national trend is so obviously pro-LGBTQ — the article cites the

fact that 60 percent of Roman Catholics now support gay marriage — that groups like InterVarsity are working toward their own obsolescence.

Then again, maybe not.

“In 2014, the US branch of World Vision, an evangelical humanitarian organization, announced it would permit the hiring of married gay individuals, but the board reversed its decision after it lost more than 10,000 child sponsorships in 48 hours,” Time.com reported.

It’s as though we’re living on different planets.

After AfterEllen. Killing time on the internet Working diligently on my column the other day, I came across a piece called “Lesbian Culture Is Being Erased Because Investors Think Only Gay Men (and Straight People) Have Money.” I read it, frankly, because I thought it would be over the top — a gal bemoaning lesbian invisibility from her perch at a popular website.

I was wrong.

The author, Marcie Bianco, and the website Quartz (qz.com) deserve our admiration and thanks. It’s a long article, and I can do no more than summarize Bianco’s findings here, but her point centers on the demise of a website called AfterEllen, which is, rather was, aimed at lesbians. Despite a readership of about 1.25 million every month and traffic that grew 48 percent in a year and revenue by over 100 percent, the website’s owner, Evolve Media, shut it down.

Bianco theorizes why, and she’s right — it makes no sense.

“Within the umbrella community,” she writes, “the 2015 buying power of LGBT Americans was estimated at $917 billion. Nearly three quarters of that community is considered brand loyal and a major source of ‘word-of-mouth marketing’ — just ask Subaru, whose creative director of the brand’s ad agency once said of lesbians: ‘These women were practically commercials for Subaru.’” (There’s a joke just itching to be made here, but you’re going to have to make it yourself.)

“The problem, former AfterEllen editor [Karman] Kregloe told Quartz, is that brands do not know how to market to lesbians and queer women because they don’t see us as women.

Kregloe continues, ‘If they did, they would try to sell us all the products that are marketed to (presumably) heterosexual women. Lesbians buy tampons, face lotion, shampoo. Maybe it’s most accurate to say that they just don’t think of us at all.’”

As Bianco puts it, Evolve claims “that the site will keep publishing freelance pieces occasionally and keep its archives online and available. Yet they appear blissfully ignorant of how journalism in the digital age works. If you kill the editor, the rest of the site wanders aimlessly.”

This is not to be taken as a threat, Mr. Schindler, sir.

Follow @edsikov on Twitter and Facebook.

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

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KALLIO, from p.5

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SNIDE LINES, from p.17

climate change. Jill urges us not to endorse “the politics of fear,” i.e., voting for the lesser evil. So I’ll vote JILL! Take THAT, politics of fear! Thank you, Peace Diary.

Fuck you, Peace Diary, Also fuck those politically correct progressive “realists” who yell at me for supporting Jill Stein.

“Stein’s politics are cleaner, greener,” they say, “but not meaner. The Green Party is pathetic, Jill’s sure to lose, and you’ll end up voting for Trump.” These are people, Peace Diary, who once thought Ber nie Sanders was too bougie. Now they’re afraid every state is a swing state and we can’t take chances. I hate them.

I especially hate the POLITICALLY CORRECT A-HOLE who called me “self-involved” on Facebook in answer to my post, “I could never vote for Hillary.”

Self-involved? So all the years I’ve demonstrated against US military bombings and invasions mean no more to me than my Facebook status? That the rending grief I feel for the millions of innocent lives obliterated in Iraq and Afghanistan and you-name-it by the USA makes me GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

a narcissist? How politics-of-fear can you get?

Actually, I think we’re all probably right to be afraid. Not so much of Trump — it’s more the Americans supporting Trump who are the guys to fear. My guys; my people: Mostly working-to-lower-middle-class Caucasians who sense that the one ace-in-the-hole they ever held for a noble self-image — their whiteness — has been taken away from them by eight years of a black presidency.

To be honest, Peace Diary, the person I hate most is myself; I hate my powerlessness. So what if Stein talks a good line: If Trump remains viable, there may be wisdom in voting HRC. Yes, HRC: she whose vowels shall not be spoken. She whose strongest argument is that she’s not Donald Trump.

Dear Peace Diary, More comparisons of Trump to Adolph Hitler; more pressure to vote Clinton. I get it; I’m afraid.

The Nation magazine, which spent months supporting Bernie, just threw down for Hillary. And a NY Times review of a new Hitler bio outlines Hitler’s salient personality traits — devastatingly similar to Donald Trump’s:

FACEBOOK.COM

Poet and theater artist Bonnie Rose Marcus met Jay in July of 2015 “in my role as ‘death doula,’ a friendly visitor who would accompany Jay through to his death,” she wrote in an email.

“As we spent time together, we became very close and grew to love each other deeply. Jay was one of the most generous people I’ve known, always concerned about everyone else — a kind word for everyone… Jay loved life and he loved people, and his greatest wish was to help in any way he could to make people feel worthy and loved. I had the great honor to be with Jay at his dying, and as challenging as that was, he was not alone as he died… Jay was a great Warrior Bodhisattva and I’m sure he will continue his work on behalf of others, as his grand journey continues.”

Gwynne Reese, who met Jay in the early ‘90s, wrote, “We recognized each other as family. We came together to host group meetings designed for individuals to share about what had ‘worked’ in their challenging lives, what had got people thru the traumas, where they found meaning that inspired them to continue their lives.”

Reese wrote she was “honored” by their friendship and that in addition to what others have said in praise of Jay, “I would add his tender caring and love for all forms of life from his precious

cats Minou and then Mia, to little squirrels and birds and insects and plants… Jay saw all of us as beings of light doing our best here on earth for a limited term. He was the bravest and most courageous person I know and would not have hesitated to put his life on the line to prevent harm to another.”

Kevin Hertzog, a founder of Gays Against Guns, wrote on Facebook that Kallio rode with him to Washington for the group’s August demonstration.

“I’d only ever met him once before… so I started asking him questions which he seemed happy to answer,” Hertzog recalled. “He told us about being chased out of the home he was raised in, in Edison, New Jersey, by the KKK who had burned a cross on his parents’ lawn because he’d become friends with some black kids at the High School. And he told us about how he’d been so severely beaten because he was presenting as a butch lesbian (at the time) that he almost didn’t recover from his injuries and, in fact, could never drive a car because his sight was damaged during the beatings. He told us that he’d started the lesbian political organization that was responsible for getting the ‘L’ put before the ‘G’ in ‘LGBT.’ And he told us about an entire lifetime of getting fired from jobs because his activism would get discovered at his work-

Jay Kallio in this year’s LGBT Pride March, as he suffered from the cancer to which he succumbed on September 30.

place. But he never expressed what I could construe as anger or remorse: only gratitude and what seemed to me like astonishment that he was still alive, in spite of his health challenges.

I’ve rarely met someone who has inspired me so much. He was a treasure.”

• often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself”; • known for a “bottomless mendacity”; • f omented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments; • promised “to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness”; and • Hitler’s rise was not inevitable.

I get why this election matters. But I still can’t get how people who’ve spent a lifetime calling themselves progressives can think the answer is voting for Hillary.

These are people who’ve wanted to “fight the power” and “overthrow the state.” If “revolutionary” Germans in the 1930s had known what was coming, don’t you think at least one of them would have talked about assassinating Hitler?

Dear Peace Diary, Why am I so afraid to talk about assassinating Donald T rump?

Although it’s not a good idea to raise on Facebook, it definitely has its charms. I mean, it’s way more effective than voting for Hillary.

If I did the deed, surely there’d be some Nuremburg-type statute that would allow me to spend no more than 85 years in prison for this. Then, instead of Che Guevara on their T-shirts, those smug, PC

thugs would have to wear me. HA HA! “Who are you calling self-involved now?,” I’d ask them.

Dear Peace Diary, On second thought, I’ve decided not to assassinate Donald Trump.

I hope, instead, to see the Donald and his crotch go down in flames.

But whether I vote — or for whom — Clinton will still love corporations and the military more than she’ll ever love me, and the people who love Trump will still exist. I now fully ascribe to the politics of fear. And so should you.

But fear turns us into competitors, mudslingers, and sad, sad people. So here’s what I know for sure: • We’re all screwed; • We’re taking it out on each other; and • However this election turns out, we had better stop.

Because, for all our vast, mutually disgusting differences, we on the Left are all we’ve got left.

Because ultimately, the survival plan we need goes way beyond this fucking election.

Susie Day is the author of “Snidelines: Talking Trash to Power,” published by Abingdon Square Publishing.

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Supplier Diversity

How to Grow an LGBT-owned Business Enterprise co-hosted by The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce and The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC)

If you’re like many LGBT owned businesses or corporate buyers, you may never have heard of supplier diversity for LGBT businesses. Major corporations in America have procurement programs in place for LGBT businesses, similar to the well-known programs for minority and women-owned businesses.

Please join us for this free educational and networking event. You will learn about emerging procurement initiatives for LGBT businesses during a panel discussion with representatives of NGLCC, an LGBT certified business enterprise (LGBTBE) owner, and two corporate procurement professionals. You will also have a chance to ask questions and then network over food and wine with panelists and guests.

Presentation by Jeremy Youett, Senior Events Marketing Manager and Microsoft GLEAM New York Board Lead (GLBT+ Advisory Committee) on Microsoft’s LGBT diversity initiatives.

Wednesday, October 26, 6pm - 8pm Microsoft Conference Room Central Park West 6501 11 Times Square 6th Floor (8th Ave. between 42nd and 41st Sts.)

WALK RIGHT IN AT GMHC Gay Men’s Health Crisis is offering free testing for hepatitis C, by appointment or via simple walk-in service. Testing, carried out in Chelsea at the David Geffen Center for HIV Prevention and Health Education on the ground floor at 224 West 29th Street, is also available for HIV and other STDs. GMHC can help clients get health insurance and, if they are HIV-negative, go on PrEP to prevent infection.

The testing center is open Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays, 9 a.m.-6:30 p.m.

(12:30-3:30 p.m. on the second Friday of each month); Wednesdays, 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and

2:30-6:30 p.m.; and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. On Thursdays, testing is by appointment only at 212-367-1100.

According to the agency, its “new rapidtesting program promotes early and effortless detection.” Anyone who tests positive for HIV is offered an immediate walk over to the Mt. Sinai medical services facility at 309 West 23rd Street or at 325 West 15th Street.

GMHC boasts that 90 percent of its positive population has successfully suppressed the virus, keeping them healthy and essentially eliminating the risk they could pose an infection risk to others.

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virus. In other words, someone who is poz and sticking to their regimen of meds is not passing the infection on to others.

The emerging public under standing of that science could help overturn laws around the nation that impose criminal penalties on positive people for having sex under certain circumstances.

Recent surveillance data about New York City shows continued improvement in viral suppression among those who are HIV-positive, with 72 percent of that population estimated to have undetectable viral loads. The push to get HIV-positive people into treatment has been accompanied by public health campaigns to get at-risk negative people into pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, treatment to prevent their becoming infected.

SIFS, from p.7

Mexico and then cut it with fentanyl, a potent painkiller often implicated in drug overdoses, roach killer, and other products dangerous to the health of users. At a news conference, Schneiderman railed against the gang’s “callousness” and made clear that adulterating heroin is this manner would bring longer prison sentences.

In other developments in the city’s fight against HIV, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the health department’s assistant commissioner for the Bureau of HIV/ AIDS, has endorsed a consensus statement saying health professionals and activists agree that HIV-positive people with “consistently undetectable viral load for six months and beyond” pose a negligible risk for transmitting the

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212 473 7875 • manhattancc.org/lgbt 20

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

AMAZEBALLS

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About this year’s Comic Con, Levine had only praise.

“This year has been amazeballs,” he said, boasting, “This is our very first New York Comic Con booth for LGBTHQ.info, and it has been nothing short of amazing. The vendor response to us being here has been amazingly supportive.”

In addition to its work on facilitating queer visibility at conventions, LGBT HQ also hosts queer-themed events throughout the city. Its next event, “Skin Tight USA: Spooktacular,” takes place on Friday, October 21 at Boxers Sports Bar in Hell’s Kitchen at 742 Ninth Avenue at 50th Street. For more details and a preview of other upcoming events, visit lgbthq.info. — Michael Shirey

TITLE VII, from p.11

refused to tell him what he had done wrong.

In fact, he claims, she told him he was a good officer and would find another department that would be a better “fit.” Fredrick gave him a prepared resignation letter and told him he would be fired if he did not sign it. Smith signed the letter, but when he attempted to find police work elsewhere in the county, he learned that Knight and Fredrick, contrary to the assurances he received, had “falsely reported that he was an unsatisfactory employee.”

Smith filed a sex discrimination charge with the EEOC, which issued him a “right-to-sue” letter, and he filed his case, alleging violation of Title VII and his equal protection rights, on March 1 of this year. The city moved to dismiss on grounds including the claim that Title VII does not apply.

Acknowledging that the 11th Circuit “traditionally” does not recognize Title VII remedies for sexual orientation discrimination, Ott pointed to the EEOC conclusion on sexual orientation discrimination from 2015 and the fact

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CATHOLICS, from p.8

New Ways Ministry, which has long advocated for acceptance of LGBT people in the Church; the Kentucky Fairness Campaign, which held its fifth such pilgrimage in March in Louisville, which has a particularly anti-LGBT archbishop, Joseph Kurtz; Fortunate Families, which celebrates LGBT children in Catholic families; and Father Warren Hall, an out out Catholic priest recently suspended by Newark Archbishop John Myers for standing up for LGBT people.

Donahue recalled that when he started having gay people on GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

RYAN KERR

A sold out crowd of fans swarmed the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center this past weekend for New York City Comic Con, one of the biggest conventions of its kind.

Comic Cons have a reputation of celebrating diversity, and there was a strong LGBT presence among both the panels and the exhibitors — including LGBT HQ. “What exactly is LGBT HQ?” you may ask.

Matthew Levine, the organization’s director whom Gay City News caught up with, was at the ready with an answer.

The group, he explained, is “a hub for all things gay at Comic Con.” The group works to ensure queer-themed programing and representation at conventions both big and small throughout the northeast.

LGBT HQ director Matthew Levine (left) manning the booth at this year’s New York Comic Con.

that “at least one court in this circuit, noting that the question is an ‘open one,’” had agreed.

More importantly, wrote Ott, “Smith has also alleged discrimination based on his failure to conform to sex and gender stereotypes.” Ott rejected Smith’s argument that discrimination based on his association with his male partner is prohibited sex discrimination, but found that the 11th Circuit had accepted a broad view of sex discrimination in a 2011 case involving a transgender state employee asserting an equal protection claim.

Ott specifically cited Smith’s allegation that he was told on the job that “‘men should be men,’ which led him to conclude that other members of the department did not feel that he was ‘manly’ enough to be a police officer.

He also alleges that other officers made jokes about his attire and mannerisms.”

Ott also refused to dismiss Smith’s claim against Chief Knight and Lieutenant Fredrick in their individual capacities for “interference with a contractual or business relationship” in filing false official paperwork that Smith was “an unsatisfactory employee.” The judge, how-

his talk show in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, “Mothers thought their children could catch it.” He recalled, “The real lesson for me that I got much too late was that I began to see how brave these [gay] people were. They challenged me to see what I was so anxious about.”

Donahue said he was warned that people would think he was gay because he was sympathetic and “there was no hope for my career.”

Donahue favorably quoted the pope’s cryptic, “Who am I to judge?” statement on gay people and called on “our own schools and our alumni to get on board here.

Anti-gay feelings can be lethal…

ever, found that Smith had not made sufficient factual allegations to support his claim that the city should be held liable for an “official custom or policy” of discrimination.

Bradley Roberts is represented by Jason Maier of Las Vegas, with amicus assistance from Lambda Legal staff attorneys. Lance Smith is represented by Cynthia Wilkinson of Birmingham, Alabama.

Dorsey was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama. Ott was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

In a related development, the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals this week agreed to an en banc rehearing by all of the circuit’s judges of a July three-judge panel ruling that rejected a sexual orientation discrimination claim under Title VII raised by Kimberly Hively, a community college instructor in South Bend, Indiana. The panel deferred to existing circuit precedent that holds that such claims are not recognized under Title VII, but two of the three judges stated their view that the circuit precedent should be reexamined. Lambda Legal is representing Hively.

We are too late in welcoming all of you.”

Michael De Leon and Gr eg Bourke, married in Ontario in 2004, successfully sued Kentucky to recognize their marriage in 2014 — one of the cases that were combined before the Supreme Court the following year and resulted in the end of all state bans on samesex marriage. The couple are also active members of Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Louisville, despite Archbishop Kurtz barring Bourke from being a scout leader for his son’s troop that is sponsored by the parish. Though the men feel embraced by their congre-

gation, they did not even consider asking for their wedding to be performed there.

“We ask our Church to eliminate all barriers for LGBT Catholics,” Bourke said.

“If we leave, they win,” De Leon said.

New York gay Catholic activist Brendan Fay noted that at this time of year, Catholic churches celebrate the October 4 Feast of St. Francis of Assisi and “welcome all to the blessing of animals. I work for the day when Catholic par ishes will post notices of welcome for LGBT persons and offer equal blessings for same-sex couples.”

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Actual ATRIPLA patients. ‡ ATRIPLA has been chosen by more than 500,000 people with HIV and their doctors. § In the US, ATRIPLA is the #1 prescribed one-pill, once-daily HIV treatment.

TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR OR VISIT ATRIPLA.COM TO FIND OUT MORE. What is ATRIPLA? ATRIPLA® (efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) is a prescription medication used alone as a complete regimen, or with other antiHIV-1 medicines, to treat HIV-1 infection in adults and children at least 12 years old who weigh at least 40 kg (88 lbs).

ATRIPLA does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS and you may continue to experience illnesses associated with HIV-1 infection, including opportunistic infections.

See your healthcare provider regularly while taking ATRIPLA. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION What is the most important information I should know about ATRIPLA? ATRIPLA can cause serious side effects: n Some people who have taken medicines like ATRIPLA (which contains nucleoside analogs) have developed lactic acidosis (build up of an acid in the blood). Lactic acidosis can be a serious medical emergency that can lead to death.

Call your healthcare provider right away if you get the following signs or symptoms of lactic acidosis: – feel very weak or tired – have unusual (not normal) muscle pain – have trouble breathing – have stomach pain with nausea and vomiting – feel cold, especially in your arms and legs – feel dizzy or lightheaded – have a fast or irregular heartbeat n Some people who have taken medicines like ATRIPLA have developed serious liver problems (hepatotoxicity), with liver enlargement (hepatomegaly) and fat in the liver (steatosis). In some cases, these liver problems can lead to death.

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Call your healthcare provider right away if you get the following signs or symptoms of liver problems: – skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice) – urine turns dark – bowel movements (stools) turn light in color – don’t feel like eating food for several days or longer – feel sick to your stomach (nausea) – have lower stomach area (abdominal) pain n You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or liver problems if you are female, very overweight (obese), or have been taking nucleoside analog-containing medicines, like ATRIPLA (efavirenz/emtricitabine/ tenofovir disoproxil fumarate), for a long time. n If you also have hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and you stop taking ATRIPLA, you may get a “flare-up” of your hepatitis. A “flare-up” is when the disease suddenly returns in a worse way than before. Patients with HBV who stop taking ATRIPLA need close medical follow-up for several months to check for hepatitis that could be getting worse. ATRIPLA is not approved for the treatment of HBV, so you need to discuss your HBV therapy with your healthcare provider.

Who should not take ATRIPLA? You and your healthcare provider should decide if ATRIPLA is right for you. Do not take ATRIPLA if you are allergic to ATRIPLA or any of its ingredients.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking ATRIPLA? Tell your healthcare provider if you: n Are pregnant or planning to become pregnant: You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

TAKING CARE OF

For adults with HIV-1,

WITH THE STRENGTH OF

Undetectable viral load is a goal, and ATRIPLA has the power to help get you there.

In a clinical trial: • ATRIPLA has been proven to LOWER VIRAL LOAD to undetectable* in approximately 8 out of 10 adult patients new to therapy through 48 weeks compared with approximately 7 out of 10 adult patients in the comparator group† • ATRIPLA has been proven to LOWER VIRAL LOAD to undetectable* through 3 years in approximately 7 out of 10 adult patients new to therapy compared with approximately 6 out of 10 adult patients in the comparator group†

SELECTED IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION n Some people who have taken medicines like ATRIPLA have developed build up of lactic acid in the blood, which can be a serious medical emergency that can lead to death. n Some people who have taken medicines like ATRIPLA have developed serious liver problems, with liver enlargement and fat in the liver, which can lead to death. n If you also have hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and you stop taking ATRIPLA, your hepatitis may suddenly get worse. ATRIPLA is not approved for the treatment of HBV. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION (continued) Women should not become pregnant while taking ATRIPLA and for 12 weeks after stopping ATRIPLA. Serious birth defects have been seen in children of women treated during pregnancy with efavirenz, one of the medicines in ATRIPLA. Women must use a reliable form of barrier contraception, such as a condom or diaphragm, even if they also use other methods of birth control, while on ATRIPLA and for 12 weeks after stopping ATRIPLA. Women should not rely only on hormone-based birth control, such as pills, injections, or implants, because ATRIPLA may make these contraceptives ineffective. n Are breastfeeding: Women with HIV should not breastfeed because they can pass HIV and some of the medicines in ATRIPLA through their milk to the baby. It is not known if ATRIPLA could harm your baby. n Have kidney problems or are undergoing kidney dialysis treatment. n Have bone problems. n Have liver problems, including hepatitis B or C virus infection. Your healthcare provider may want to do tests to check your liver while you take ATRIPLA or may switch you to another medicine. n Have ever had mental illness or are using drugs or alcohol n Have ever had seizures or are taking medicine for seizures. Seizures have occurred in patients taking efavirenz, a component of ATRIPLA, generally in those with a history of seizures. If you have ever had seizures, or take medicine for seizures, your healthcare provider may want to switch you to another medicine or monitor you.

What important information should I know about taking other medicines with ATRIPLA? ATRIPLA may change the effect of other medicines, including the ones for HIV-1, and may cause serious side effects. Your healthcare provider may change your other medicines or change their doses.

MEDICINES YOU SHOULD NOT TAKE WITH ATRIPLA n ATRIPLA should not be taken with: Combivir® (lamivudine/zidovudine), COMPLERA® (emtricitabine/rilpivirine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate), EMTRIVA® (emtricitabine), Epivir® or Epivir-HBV® (lamivudine), Epzicom® (abacavir sulfate/lamivudine), STRIBILD® (elvitegravir/cobicistat/emtricitabine/tenofovir DF), Trizivir® (abacavir sulfate/lamivudine/zidovudine), TRUVADA® (emtricitabine/tenofovir DF), or VIREAD® (tenofovir DF), because they contain the same or similar active ingredients as ATRIPLA. ATRIPLA should not be used with SUSTIVA® (efavirenz) unless recommended by your healthcare provider. n Vfend® (voriconazole) should not be taken with ATRIPLA since it may lose its effect or may increase the chance of having side effects from ATRIPLA. n ATRIPLA should not be used with HEPSERA® (adefovir dipivoxil).

Please see Important Safety Information continued on the following pages.

*Undetectable was defined as a viral load of fewer than 400 copies/mL. † In this study, 511 adult patients new to therapy received either the meds in ATRIPLA each taken once daily or Combivir® (lamivudine/zidovudine) twice daily + SUSTIVA® (efavirenz) once daily. ‡ Symphony Health Solutions, PatientSource APLD and Source® PHAST Prescription Monthly, counts are cumulative and equivalized. January 2007–February 2015. § Symphony Health Solutions, Source® PHAST Prescription Monthly, equivalized counts, July 2006–May 2015.

GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

23

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION (continued) Patient PatientInformation Information These are not all the medicines that may cause problems if you take ATRIPLA. ® ® (uhTRIP TRIPluh) luh)Tablets Tablets ATRIPLA (uh ATRIPLA Tell your healthcare provider about all prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, or herbal supplements you are taking or plan to take.

ALERT: ALERT: Find Find out out about about medicines medicines that that should should NOT NOT be be taken taken with with ATRIPLA ATRIPLA(efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovir (efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovirdisoproxil disoproxilfumarate). fumarate).

What are the possible side effects of ATRIPLA? Please Please also also read read the the section section “MEDICINES “MEDICINES YOU YOU SHOULD SHOULD NOT NOT TAKE TAKE ATRIPLA may cause the following additional serious side effects: WITHATRIPLA.” ATRIPLA.” n Serious psychiatric problems. Severe depression, strange thoughts, or angry WITH behavior have been reported by a small number of patients. Some patients Generic Generic name: name: efavirenz, efavirenz, emtricitabine emtricitabine and and tenofovir tenofovir disoproxil disoproxil fumarate fumarate (eh (eh FAH FAH vih vih have had thoughts of suicide, and a few have actually committed suicide. renz, renz,em emtritriSIT SITuh uhbean beanand andteteNOE’ NOE’fofoveer veerdye dyesoe soePROX PROXililFYOU FYOUmar marate) ate) These problems may occur more often in patients who have had mental illness.

Read Read the the Patient Patient Information Information that that comes comes with withATRIPLA ATRIPLAbefore before you you start start taking taking itit and and n Kidney problems (including decline or failure of kidney function). If you have each time time you you get get aa refill refill since since there there may may be be new new information. information. This This information information does does had kidney problems, or take other medicines that may cause kidney problems, each not take take the the place place ofof talking talking toto your your healthcare healthcare provider provider about about your your medical medical condition condition your healthcare provider should do regular blood tests. Symptoms that may be not or or treatment. treatment.

You You should should stay stay under under a a healthcare healthcare provider’s provider’s care care when when taking taking related to kidney problems include a high volume of urine, thirst, muscle pain, ATRIPLA. ATRIPLA. Do Do not not change change or or stop stop your your medicine medicine without without first first talking talking with with your your and muscle weakness. healthcare healthcare provider. provider.

Talk Talk to to your your healthcare healthcare provider provider or or pharmacist pharmacist if if you you have have any any n Other serious liver problems. Some patients have experienced serious liver questions questionsabout aboutATRIPLA. ATRIPLA. problems, including liver failure resulting in transplantation or death. Most of these serious side effects occurred in patients with a chronic liver disease such What Whatisisthe themost mostimportant importantinformation informationIIshould shouldknow knowabout aboutATRIPLA? ATRIPLA? as hepatitis infection, but there have also been a few reports in patients without ■■ Some Some people people who who have have taken taken medicine medicine like like ATRIPLA ATRIPLA (which (which contains contains any existing liver disease. nucleoside nucleosideanalogs) analogs)have havedeveloped developedaaserious seriouscondition conditioncalled calledlactic lacticacidosis acidosis n Changes in bone mineral density (thinning bones). Lab tests show changes (build (buildup upofofan anacid acidininthe theblood). blood).Lactic Lacticacidosis acidosiscan canbe beaamedical medicalemergency emergencyand and in the bones of patients treated with tenofovir DF, a component of ATRIPLA. may mayneed needtotobe betreated treatedininthe thehospital. hospital.Call Callyour yourhealthcare healthcareprovider providerright rightaway awayifif Some HIV patients treated with tenofovir DF developed thinning of the bones you youget getthe thefollowing followingsigns signsor orsymptoms symptomsof oflactic lacticacidosis: acidosis: (osteopenia), which could lead to fractures. Also, bone pain and softening of Youfeel feelvery veryweak weakor ortired. tired. the bone (which may lead to fractures) may occur as a consequence of kidney ■■ You problems. If you have had bone problems in the past, your healthcare provider ■■ You Youhave haveunusual unusual(not (notnormal) normal)muscle musclepain. pain. may want to do tests to check your bones or may prescribe medicines to help Youhave havetrouble troublebreathing. breathing.

■■ You your bones.

Youhave havestomach stomachpain painwith withnausea nauseaand andvomiting. vomiting.

■■ You Common side effects: n Patients may have dizziness, headache, trouble sleeping, drowsiness, trouble ■■ You Youfeel feelcold, cold,especially especiallyininyour yourarms armsand andlegs. legs. concentrating, and/or unusual dreams during treatment with ATRIPLA Youfeel feeldizzy dizzyor orlightheaded. lightheaded. (efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate). These side effects may ■■ You be reduced if you take ATRIPLA at bedtime on an empty stomach; they tend to ■■ You Youhave haveaafast fastor orirregular irregularheartbeat. heartbeat. go away after taking ATRIPLA for a few weeks. Tell your healthcare provider Somepeople peoplewho whohave havetaken takenmedicines medicineslike likeATRIPLA ATRIPLAhave havedeveloped developedserious serious ■■ Some right away if any of these side effects continue or if they bother you. These liver liver problems problems called called hepatotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, with with liver liver enlargement enlargement (hepatomegaly) (hepatomegaly) and and symptoms may be more severe if ATRIPLA is used with alcohol and/or moodfat fat in in the the liver liver (steatosis). (steatosis).

Call Call your your healthcare healthcare provider provider right right away away if if you you get get the the altering (street) drugs. following followingsigns signsor orsymptoms symptomsof ofliver liverproblems: problems: n If you are dizzy, have trouble concentrating, and/or are drowsy, avoid activities Yourskin skinor orthe thewhite whitepart partofofyour youreyes eyesturns turnsyellow yellow(jaundice). (jaundice).

■■ Your that may be dangerous, such as driving or operating machinery. n Rash is a common side effect with ATRIPLA that usually goes away without Yoururine urineturns turnsdark. dark.

■■ Your any change in treatment. Rash may be serious in a small number of patients.

Yourbowel bowelmovements movements(stools) (stools)turn turnlight lightinincolor. color.

Rash occurs more commonly in children and may be a serious problem. If a ■■ Your rash develops, call your healthcare provider right away.

Youdon’t don’tfeel feellike likeeating eatingfood foodfor forseveral severaldays daysor orlonger. longer.

■■ You n Other common side effects include: tiredness, upset stomach, vomiting, gas, ■■ You Youfeel feelsick sicktotoyour yourstomach stomach(nausea). (nausea). and diarrhea.

Youhave havelower lowerstomach stomacharea area(abdominal) (abdominal)pain. pain.

■■ You Other possible side effects: You You may may be be more more likely likely to to get get lactic lactic acidosis acidosis or or liver liver problems problems ifif you you are are ■ ■ n Changes in body fat have been seen in some people taking anti-HIV-1 female,very veryoverweight overweight(obese), (obese),or orhave havebeen beentaking takingnucleoside nucleosideanalog-containing analog-containing medicines. Increase of fat in the upper back and neck, breasts, and around the female, medicines, medicines,like likeATRIPLA, ATRIPLA,for foraalong longtime. time. trunk may happen. Loss of fat from the legs, arms, and face may also happen.

The cause and long-term health effects of these changes in body fat are If If you you also also have have hepatitis hepatitis B B virus virus (HBV) (HBV) infection infection and and you you stop stop taking taking ■■ not known.

ATRIPLA, ATRIPLA, you you may may get get aa “flare-up” “flare-up” of of your your hepatitis. hepatitis. AA “flare-up” “flare-up” isis when when n Skin discoloration (small spots or freckles) may also happen. the the disease disease suddenly suddenly returns returns in in aa worse worse way way than than before. before. Patients Patients with with HBV HBV n In some patients with advanced HIV infection (AIDS), signs and symptoms of who whostop stoptaking takingATRIPLA ATRIPLAneed needclose closemedical medicalfollow-up follow-upfor forseveral severalmonths, months,including including medical exams exams and and blood blood tests tests toto check check for for hepatitis hepatitis that that could could be be getting getting worse. worse. inflammation from previous infections may occur soon after anti-HIV treatment medical ATRIPLA ATRIPLAisis not not approved approved for for the the treatment treatment ofof HBV, HBV, so so you you must must discuss discuss your your HBV HBV is started. If you notice any symptoms of infection, contact your healthcare therapy therapywith withyour yourhealthcare healthcareprovider. provider. provider right away. n Additional side effects are inflammation of the pancreas, allergic reaction What WhatisisATRIPLA? ATRIPLA? (including swelling of the face, lips, tongue, or throat), shortness of breath, (efavirenz),EMTRIVA EMTRIVA®®(emtricitabine) (emtricitabine)and and ATRIPLA ATRIPLAcontains contains33medicines, medicines,SUSTIVA SUSTIVA®®(efavirenz), pain, stomach pain, weakness, and indigestion. (tenofovirdisoproxil disoproxilfumarate fumaratealso alsocalled calledtenofovir tenofovirDF) DF)combined combinedininone onepill. pill.

VIREAD VIREAD®®(tenofovir This is not a complete list of side effects. Tell your healthcare provider or EMTRIVA EMTRIVAand andVIREAD VIREADare areHIV-1 HIV-1(human (humanimmunodeficiency immunodeficiencyvirus) virus)nucleoside nucleosideanalog analog pharmacist if you notice any side effects while taking ATRIPLA. reverse reverse transcriptase transcriptase inhibitors inhibitors (NRTIs) (NRTIs) and and SUSTIVA SUSTIVA isis an an HIV-1 HIV-1 non-nucleoside non-nucleoside You should take ATRIPLA once daily on an empty stomach. Taking ATRIPLA at analog analog reverse reverse transcriptase transcriptase inhibitor inhibitor (NNRTI).

(NNRTI). VIREAD VIREAD and and EMTRIVA EMTRIVA are are the the bedtime may make some side effects less bothersome.

ATRIPLAcan can be be used used alone alone as as aa complete complete regimen, regimen, or or components components ofof TRUVADA TRUVADA®®..ATRIPLA inin combination combination with with other other anti-HIV-1 anti-HIV-1 medicines medicines toto treat treat people people with with HIV-1 HIV-1 infection. infection.

Please see the following Patient Information for more information about these ATRIPLA ATRIPLA isis for for adults adults and and children children 12 12 years years ofof age age and and older older who who weigh weigh atat least least warnings, including signs and symptoms, and other Important 40 40 kg kg (at (at least least 88 88 lbs). lbs). ATRIPLA ATRIPLA isis not not recommended recommended for for children children younger younger than than Safety Information.

12 12years yearsofofage. age.ATRIPLA ATRIPLAhas hasnot notbeen beenstudied studiedininadults adultsover over65 65years yearsofofage. age.

ATRIPLA is a registered trademark of Bristol-Myers Squibb & Gilead Sciences, LLC. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2016 Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. 697US1601747-02-01 04/16

24

HIV HIV infection infection destroys destroys CD4+ CD4+ TT cells, cells, which which are are important important toto the the immune immune system. system.

The Theimmune immunesystem systemhelps helpsfight fightinfection. infection.After Afteraalarge largenumber numberofofTTcells cellsare aredestroyed, destroyed, acquiredimmune immunedeficiency deficiencysyndrome syndrome(AIDS) (AIDS)develops. develops. acquired ATRIPLAhelps helpsblock blockHIV-1 HIV-1reverse reversetranscriptase, transcriptase,aaviral viralchemical chemicalininyour yourbody body(enzyme) (enzyme) ATRIPLA that isis needed needed for for HIV-1 HIV-1 toto multiply. multiply.ATRIPLA ATRIPLAlowers lowers the the amount amount ofof HIV-1 HIV-1 inin the the blood blood that (viral load). load). ATRIPLA ATRIPLA may may also also help help toto increase increase the the number number ofof TT cells cells (CD4+ (CD4+ cells), cells), (viral October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

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ATRIPLA ATRIPLA®®(efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovir (efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovirdisoproxil disoproxilfumarate) fumarate)

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allowing your your immune immune system system toto improve. improve. Lowering Lowering the the amount amount ofof HIV-1 HIV-1 inin the the blood blood ■ Reyataz (atazanavir sulfate), Prezista (darunavir) with Norvir (ritonavir), allowing lowersthe thechance chanceofofdeath deathor orinfections infectionsthat thathappen happenwhen whenyour yourimmune immunesystem systemisisweak weak lowers Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir), or Harvoni (ledipasvir/sofosbuvir); these medicines (opportunisticinfections). infections). (opportunistic may increase the amount of tenofovir DF (a component of ATRIPLA) in your blood, which could result in more side effects. Reyataz is not recommended with ATRIPLA. DoesATRIPLA ATRIPLAcure cureHIV-1 HIV-1or orAIDS? AIDS? Does You may need to be monitored more carefully if you are taking ATRIPLA, ATRIPLA does does not not cure cure HIV-1 HIV-1 infection infection or or AIDS AIDS and and you you may may continue continue toto ATRIPLA Prezista, and Norvir together, or if you are taking ATRIPLA and Kaletra together. experience illnesses illnesses associated associated with with HIV-1 HIV-1 infection, infection, including including opportunistic opportunistic experience The dose of Kaletra should be increased when taken with efavirenz. infections.You Youshould shouldremain remainunder underthe thecare careofofaadoctor doctorwhen whenusing usingATRIPLA. ATRIPLA. infections.

■ Medicine for seizures [for example, Dilantin (phenytoin), Tegretol (carbamazepine), or phenobarbital]; your healthcare provider may want to switch you to another Whoshould shouldnot nottake takeATRIPLA? ATRIPLA? Who medicine or check drug levels in your blood from time to time.

Together with with your your healthcare healthcare provider, provider, you you need need toto decide decide whether whether ATRIPLA ATRIPLA isis Together rightfor foryou. you. right These are not all the medicines that may cause problems if you take ATRIPLA. Do not not take take ATRIPLA ATRIPLA ifif you you are are allergic allergic toto ATRIPLA ATRIPLA or or any any ofof its its ingredients. ingredients. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider about all medicines that you take.

Do The active active ingredients ingredients ofof ATRIPLA ATRIPLA are are efavirenz, efavirenz, emtricitabine, emtricitabine, and and tenofovir tenofovir DF. DF. Keep a complete list of all the prescription and nonprescription medicines as well as The Seethe theend endofofthis thisleaflet leafletfor foraacomplete completelist listofofingredients. ingredients.

See any herbal remedies that you are taking, how much you take, and how often you take them. Make a new list when medicines or herbal remedies are added or stopped, Whatshould shouldIItell tellmy myhealthcare healthcareprovider providerbefore beforetaking takingATRIPLA? ATRIPLA? What or if the dose changes. Give copies of this list to all of your healthcare providers Tellyour yourhealthcare healthcareprovider providerififyou: you: Tell and pharmacists every time you visit your healthcare provider or fill a prescription.

Are pregnant pregnant or or planning planning to to become become pregnant pregnant (see (see “What “What should should II avoid avoid while while This will give your healthcare provider a complete picture of the medicines you use.

■■ Are Then he or she can decide the best approach for your situation. takingATRIPLA?”).

ATRIPLA?”). taking How should I take ATRIPLA? Arebreastfeeding breastfeeding(see (see“What “Whatshould shouldIIavoid avoidwhile whiletaking takingATRIPLA?”).

ATRIPLA?”).

■■ Are ■ Take the exact amount of ATRIPLA your healthcare provider prescribes. Never Havekidney kidneyproblems problemsor orare areundergoing undergoingkidney kidneydialysis dialysistreatment. treatment.

■■ Have change the dose on your own. Do not stop this medicine unless your healthcare provider tells you to stop.

Have bone problems.

Have bone problems.

■■ Have liver liver problems, problems, including including hepatitis hepatitis BB virus virus infection. infection. Your Your healthcare healthcare ■ You should take ATRIPLA on an empty stomach.

■■ Have provider may may want want toto do do tests tests toto check check your your liver liver while while you you take takeATRIPLA ATRIPLAor or may may ■ Swallow ATRIPLA with water. provider switchyou youtotoanother anothermedicine. medicine. switch ■ Taking ATRIPLA at bedtime may make some side effects less bothersome.

Haveever everhad hadmental mentalillness illnessor orare areusing usingdrugs drugsor oralcohol. alcohol.

■■ Have ■ Do not miss a dose of ATRIPLA. If you forget to take ATRIPLA, take the missed dose Haveever everhad hadseizures seizuresor orare aretaking takingmedicine medicinefor forseizures. seizures.

■■ Have

right away, unless it is almost time for your next dose. Do not double the next dose.

Carry on with your regular dosing schedule. If you need help in planning the best times to take your medicine, ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist.

What important important information information should should II know know about about taking taking other other medicines medicines with with What ATRIPLA? ATRIPLA? ■ If you believe you took more than the prescribed amount of ATRIPLA, contact your ATRIPLAmay maychange changethe theeffect effectof ofother othermedicines, medicines,including includingthe theones onesfor forHIV-1, HIV-1, ATRIPLA local poison control center or emergency room right away. and may may cause cause serious serious side side effects. effects. Your Your healthcare healthcare provider provider may may change change your your and other medicines medicines or or change change their their doses. doses. Other Other medicines, medicines, including including herbal herbal products, products, ■ Tell your healthcare provider if you start any new medicine or change how you take other old ones. Your doses may need adjustment. may affect affectATRIPLA. ATRIPLA. For For this this reason, reason, itit isis very very important important to to let let all all your your healthcare healthcare may providers and and pharmacists pharmacists know know what what medications, medications, herbal herbal supplements, supplements, or or vitamins vitamins ■ When your ATRIPLA supply starts to run low, get more from your healthcare provider providers youare aretaking. taking. you or pharmacy. This is very important because the amount of virus in your blood may increase if the medicine is stopped for even a short time. The virus may develop MEDICINESYOU YOUSHOULD SHOULDNOT NOTTAKE TAKEWITH WITHATRIPLA ATRIPLA MEDICINES resistance to ATRIPLA and become harder to treat.

ATRIPLA also also should should not not be be used used with with Combivir Combivir (lamivudine/zidovudine), (lamivudine/zidovudine), ■■ ATRIPLA EMTRIVA, Epivir, Epivir, Epivir-HBV Epivir-HBV (lamivudine), (lamivudine), Epzicom Epzicom (abacavir (abacavir ■ Your healthcare provider may want to do blood tests to check for certain side effects COMPLERA®®,, EMTRIVA, COMPLERA while you take ATRIPLA. Trizivir (abacavir (abacavir sulfate/lamivudine/zidovudine), sulfate/lamivudine/zidovudine), sulfate/lamivudine), sulfate/lamivudine), STRIBILD STRIBILD®®,, Trizivir TRUVADA, TRUVADA, or or VIREAD. VIREAD. ATRIPLA ATRIPLA also also should should not not be be used used with with SUSTIVA SUSTIVA unless unless What should I avoid while taking ATRIPLA? recommended recommendedby byyour yourhealthcare healthcareprovider. provider.

■ Women should not become pregnant while taking ATRIPLA and for 12 weeks after stopping it. Serious birth defects have been seen in the babies of animals Vfend(voriconazole) (voriconazole)should shouldnot notbe betaken takenwith withATRIPLA ATRIPLAsince sinceititmay maylose loseits itseffect effector or ■■ Vfend and women treated with efavirenz (a component of ATRIPLA) during pregnancy. It is may mayincrease increasethe thechance chanceofofhaving havingside sideeffects effectsfrom fromATRIPLA. ATRIPLA. not known whether efavirenz caused these defects. Tell your healthcare provider (adefovirdipivoxil). dipivoxil).

ATRIPLAshould shouldnot notbe beused usedwith withHEPSERA HEPSERA®®(adefovir ■■ ATRIPLA right away if you are pregnant. Also talk with your healthcare provider if you want to become pregnant.

ItItisisalso alsoimportant importanttototell tellyour yourhealthcare healthcareprovider providerififyou youare aretaking takingany anyofofthe thefollowing: following:

Fortovase, Invirase Invirase (saquinavir), (saquinavir), Biaxin Biaxin (clarithromycin), (clarithromycin), Noxafil Noxafil (posaconazole), (posaconazole), ■ Women should not rely only on hormone-based birth control, such as pills, injections, ■■ Fortovase, or implants, because ATRIPLA may make these contraceptives ineffective. Women Sporanox Sporanox (itraconazole), (itraconazole), Victrelis Victrelis (boceprevir), (boceprevir), or or Olysio Olysio (simeprevir); (simeprevir); these these must use a reliable form of barrier contraception, such as a condom or diaphragm, medicines medicines may may need need to to be be replaced replaced with with another another medicine medicine when when taken taken even if they also use other methods of birth control. Efavirenz, a component of with withATRIPLA. ATRIPLA. ATRIPLA, may remain in your blood for a time after therapy is stopped. Therefore, Calcium channel channel blockers blockers such such as as Cardizem Cardizem or or Tiazac Tiazac (diltiazem), (diltiazem), Covera Covera HS HS or or ■■ Calcium you should continue to use contraceptive measures for 12 weeks after you stop Isoptin Isoptin (verapamil) (verapamil) and and others; others; Crixivan Crixivan (indinavir), (indinavir), Selzentry Selzentry (maraviroc); (maraviroc); the the taking ATRIPLA. immunosuppressant immunosuppressant medicines medicines cyclosporine cyclosporine (Gengraf, (Gengraf, Neoral, Neoral, Sandimmune, Sandimmune, and and others), others), Prograf Prograf (tacrolimus), (tacrolimus), or or Rapamune Rapamune (sirolimus); (sirolimus); Methadone; Methadone; ■ Do not breastfeed if you are taking ATRIPLA. Some of the medicines in ATRIPLA can be passed to your baby in your breast milk. We do not know whether Mycobutin Mycobutin (rifabutin); (rifabutin); Rifampin; Rifampin; cholesterol-lowering cholesterol-lowering medicines medicines such such as as it could harm your baby. Also, mothers with HIV-1 should not breastfeed because Lipitor Lipitor (atorvastatin), (atorvastatin), Pravachol Pravachol (pravastatin (pravastatin sodium), sodium), and and Zocor Zocor (simvastatin); (simvastatin); HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in the breast milk. Talk with your healthcare or or the the anti-depressant anti-depressant medications medications bupropion bupropion (Wellbutrin, (Wellbutrin, Wellbutrin Wellbutrin SR, SR, provider if you are breastfeeding. You should stop breastfeeding or may need to use Wellbutrin Wellbutrin XL, XL, and and Zyban) Zyban) or or Zoloft Zoloft (sertraline); (sertraline); dose dose changes changes may may be be needed needed a different medicine. when whenthese thesedrugs drugsare aretaken takenwith withATRIPLA. ATRIPLA. ■ Taking ATRIPLA with alcohol or other medicines causing similar side effects as Videx,Videx VidexEC EC(didanosine); (didanosine);tenofovir tenofovirDF DF(a (acomponent componentofofATRIPLA) ATRIPLA)may mayincrease increase ■■ Videx, ATRIPLA, such as drowsiness, may increase those side effects. the the amount amount ofof didanosine didanosine inin your your blood, blood, which which could could result result inin more more side side effects. effects.

You You may may need need to to be be monitored monitored more more carefully carefully ifif you you are are taking taking ATRIPLA ATRIPLA and and ■ Do not take any other medicines, including prescription and nonprescription medicines and herbal products, without checking with your healthcare provider. didanosine didanosinetogether. together.Also, Also,the thedose doseofofdidanosine didanosinemay mayneed needtotobe bechanged. changed.

GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

25

ATRIPLA® (efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate)

ATRIPLA® (efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate)

■ Avoid doing things that can spread HIV-1 to others.

Other common side effects include tiredness, upset stomach, vomiting, gas, and diarrhea.

■ Do not share needles or other injection equipment.

■ Do not share personal items that can have blood or body fluids on them, like toothbrushes and razor blades.

■ Do not have any kind of sex without protection. Always practice safe sex by using a latex or polyurethane condom to lower the chance of sexual contact with semen, vaginal secretions, or blood.

What are the possible side effects of ATRIPLA? ATRIPLA may cause the following serious side effects: ■ Lactic acidosis (buildup of an acid in the blood). Lactic acidosis can be a medical emergency and may need to be treated in the hospital. Call your healthcare provider right away if you get signs of lactic acidosis. (See “What is the most important information I should know about ATRIPLA?”) ■ Serious liver problems (hepatotoxicity), with liver enlargement (hepatomegaly) and fat in the liver (steatosis). Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any signs of liver problems. (See “What is the most important information I should know about ATRIPLA?”) ■ “Flare-ups” of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, in which the disease suddenly returns in a worse way than before, can occur if you have HBV and you stop taking ATRIPLA. Your healthcare provider will monitor your condition for several months after stopping ATRIPLA if you have both HIV-1 and HBV infection and may recommend treatment for your HBV. ATRIPLA is not approved for the treatment of hepatitis B virus infection. If you have advanced liver disease and stop treatment with ATRIPLA, the “flare-up” of hepatitis B may cause your liver function to decline.

■ Serious psychiatric problems. A small number of patients may experience severe depression, strange thoughts, or angry behavior while taking ATRIPLA. Some patients have thoughts of suicide and a few have actually committed suicide. These problems may occur more often in patients who have had mental illness. Contact your healthcare provider right away if you think you are having these psychiatric symptoms, so your healthcare provider can decide if you should continue to take ATRIPLA. ■ Kidney problems (including decline or failure of kidney function). If you have had kidney problems in the past or take other medicines that can cause kidney problems, your healthcare provider should do regular blood tests to check your kidneys.

Symptoms that may be related to kidney problems include a high volume of urine, thirst, muscle pain, and muscle weakness.

■ Other serious liver problems. Some patients have experienced serious liver problems including liver failure resulting in transplantation or death. Most of these serious side effects occurred in patients with a chronic liver disease such as hepatitis infection, but there have also been a few reports in patients without any existing liver disease.

■ Changes in bone mineral density (thinning bones). Laboratory tests show changes in the bones of patients treated with tenofovir DF, a component of ATRIPLA. Some HIV patients treated with tenofovir DF developed thinning of the bones (osteopenia) which could lead to fractures. If you have had bone problems in the past, your healthcare provider may need to do tests to check your bone mineral density or may prescribe medicines to help your bone mineral density. Additionally, bone pain and softening of the bone (which may contribute to fractures) may occur as a consequence of kidney problems.

Other possible side effects with ATRIPLA: ■ Changes in body fat. Changes in body fat develop in some patients taking anti HIV-1 medicine. These changes may include an increased amount of fat in the upper back and neck (“buffalo hump”), in the breasts, and around the trunk. Loss of fat from the legs, arms, and face may also happen. The cause and long-term health effects of these fat changes are not known.

■ Skin discoloration (small spots or freckles) may also happen with ATRIPLA. ■ In some patients with advanced HIV infection (AIDS), signs and symptoms of inflammation from previous infections may occur soon after anti-HIV treatment is started. It is believed that these symptoms are due to an improvement in the body’s immune response, enabling the body to fight infections that may have been present with no obvious symptoms. If you notice any symptoms of infection, please inform your doctor immediately.

■ Additional side effects are inflammation of the pancreas, allergic reaction (including swelling of the face, lips, tongue, or throat), shortness of breath, pain, stomach pain, weakness and indigestion.

Tell your healthcare provider or pharmacist if you notice any side effects while taking ATRIPLA. Contact your healthcare provider before stopping ATRIPLA because of side effects or for any other reason.

This is not a complete list of side effects possible with ATRIPLA. Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for a more complete list of side effects of ATRIPLA and all the medicines you will take.

How do I store ATRIPLA? ■ Keep ATRIPLA and all other medicines out of reach of children.

■ Store ATRIPLA at room temperature 77°F (25°C).

■ Keep ATRIPLA in its original container and keep the container tightly closed.

■ Do not keep medicine that is out of date or that you no longer need. If you throw any medicines away make sure that children will not find them.

General information about ATRIPLA: Medicines are sometimes prescribed for conditions that are not mentioned in patient information leaflets. Do not use ATRIPLA for a condition for which it was not prescribed. Do not give ATRIPLA to other people, even if they have the same symptoms you have. It may harm them.

This leaflet summarizes the most important information about ATRIPLA. If you would like more information, talk with your healthcare provider. You can ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for information about ATRIPLA that is written for health professionals.

Do not use ATRIPLA if the seal over bottle opening is broken or missing.

What are the ingredients of ATRIPLA? Active Ingredients: efavirenz, emtricitabine, and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate Inactive Ingredients: croscarmellose sodium, hydroxypropyl cellulose, microcrystalline cellulose, magnesium stearate, sodium lauryl sulfate. The film coating contains black iron oxide, polyethylene glycol, polyvinyl alcohol, red iron oxide, talc, and titanium dioxide.

Common side effects: Patients may have dizziness, headache, trouble sleeping, drowsiness, trouble concentrating, and/or unusual dreams during treatment with ATRIPLA. These side effects may be reduced if you take ATRIPLA at bedtime on an empty stomach.

They also tend to go away after you have taken the medicine for a few weeks.

If you have these common side effects, such as dizziness, it does not mean that you will also have serious psychiatric problems, such as severe depression, strange thoughts, or angry behavior. Tell your healthcare provider right away if any of these side effects continue or if they bother you. It is possible that these symptoms may be more severe if ATRIPLA is used with alcohol or mood altering (street) drugs.

Revised: February 2016

If you are dizzy, have trouble concentrating, or are drowsy, avoid activities that may be dangerous, such as driving or operating machinery.

ATRC0106

ATRIPLA is a trademark of Bristol-Myers Squibb & Gilead Sciences, LLC. COMPLERA, EMTRIVA, HARVONI, HEPSERA, SOVALDI, STRIBILD, TRUVADA, and VIREAD are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies.

SUSTIVA is a trademark of Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Company. Reyataz and Videx are trademarks of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Pravachol is a trademark of ER Squibb & Sons, LLC. Other brands listed are the trademarks of their respective owners.

21-937-GS-016 697US1601052-08-01

Rash may be common. Rashes usually go away without any change in treatment.

In a small number of patients, rash may be serious. If you develop a rash, call your healthcare provider right away. Rash may be a serious problem in some children.

Tell your child’s healthcare provider right away if you notice rash or any other side effects while your child is taking ATRIPLA.

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October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

Desire, Power & Greed The extremes men went to in chasing Brent Corrigan’s allure

BY GARY M. KRAMER

K

“

KING COBRA

Directed by Justin Kelly IFC Films Opens Oct. 21 IFC Center 323 Sixth Ave. at W. Third St. ifccenter.com

Clayton and director Justin Kelly sat down with Gay City News to discuss “King Cobra,” a story that goes much more than skin deep.

GARY M. KRAMER: Justin, how did Garrett convince you he was Sean?

JUSTIN KELLY: I think the way he approached the character — we were on the same page. I thought it would be fun because it’s scandalous and gay porn and a break away from his Disney past. He was exactly what I was looking for.

GMK: Garrett, How did you find or develop Sean’s seductive mix of charm, sincerity, and insouciance?

GARRET CLAYON: We were dealing with someone who grew up in a crazy situation. He had this innocence about him because he was 17. But I think he was driven and knew what he wanted out of people. He may not be telling everyone on the surface what he wants, but he knows the end game.

IFC FILMS

ing Cobra” is a juicy true crime story — set in the gay porn world — about murder and money, lawsuits and scandals. Sean Paul Lockhart (Garrett Clayton) is first seen auditioning for producer Stephen (Christian Slater) on a casting couch. He’s sexy and adorable, and it’s clear Sean knows what Stephen wants — because he gives it to him. Stephen, in return, sets Sean up in his house, lavishing gifts on this young man, renamed Brent Corrigan, whom he desires — and hopes to make the whole world desire.

Before long, the two men achieve just that. Stephen’s videos of Sean sell like hot cakes, and rival porn producer Joe (James Franco) and his lover, Viper Video star Harlow (Keegan Allen), want in on Brent’s value, seizing a chance when a scandal derails Brent’s career.

FILM

Garrett Clayton as Sean Paul Lockhart, aka Brent Corrigan, in Justin Kelly’s “King Cobra.”

JK: It was important for us to show [Sean] being naive and innocent and at other times being calculating. When you see him asking Stephen, “How was I?,” obviously he is being manipulative to see what he can get out of the situation. When Stephen leaves the room, he rolls his eyes. It establishes his duality.

GMK: I like that “King Cobra” does not judge the men — though it

certainly creates empathy for all of the leads. The film is more focused on identity, and less on sex. Justin, can you talk about creating that balance?

JK: It’s hard for me to not judge a character who makes decisions that I don’t agree with at all. It was a big challenge, but I wanted to tell the story as it happened and allow the characters to be sympathetic. What

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KING COBRA, continued on p.41

The Man He Becomes Barry Jenkins explores black gay masculinity, sexuality in coming of age tale

BY GARY M. KRAMER

M

“

oonlight” is Barry Jenkins’ extraordinary film adaptation of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” which takes its title from a nighttime scene of teenage sexual experimentation on a Miami beach.

Before the film gets there, Jenkins introduces the main character, Chiron, as a nine-year-old boy (Alex Hibbert). Nicknamed Little, he is escaping from bullies from school, who threaten to “kick his GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

faggot ass,” by hiding out in a dope hole when he is discovered by Juan (Mahershala Ali), a local drug dealer. After Juan takes him home to his girlfriend, Teresa (Janelle Monáe), Little doesn’t speak much but he does eat. When Juan returns Little to his mother, Paula (Naomie Harris), she makes clear she doesn’t want Juan involved in her son’s life.

Paula, it is soon revealed, is one of Juan’s customers.

Juan, however, becomes a kind of father figure to the young boy. A very tender scene has Juan teaching Little how to swim in the ocean, “baptizing” him. He later tells Little,

“At some point, you have to decide for yourself who you are going to be. You can’t have anyone else make that decision for you.” These words resonate throughout the film as Chiron grows into adulthood, repeatedly forced to face his true nature.

What is also particularly compelling about “Moonlight” is how much we learn about the characters through their internalized — rather than expressed — emotions.

Jenkins deftly captures unspoken empathy between characters, allowing viewers to appreciate why they matter to each other.

MOONLIGHT

Directed by Barry Jenkins A24 Opens Oct. 21 Angelika Film Center 18 W. Houston St. at Mercer St. angelikafilmcenter.com/nyc Lincoln Plaza Cinema 1886 Broadway at W. 62nd St lincolnplazacinema.com

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MOONLIGHT, continued on p.38

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FILM

Tovey’s Always Shirtless & the Paris Sex Is Real Bigger than ever, NewFest offers variety to suit diverse tastes

BY GARY M. KRAMER

T

28

NEWFEST

Another film about two guys together is “Paris 5:59: Theo and Hugo” (SVA, Oct. 21, 9 p.m.) by gay filmmakers Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau. This remarkable French romance opens with an astonishing, explicit, nearly wordless 18-minute sequence set in an after-hours Parisian sex club.

Theo (Geoffrey Couët) sees Hugo (François Nambot) and is smitten. They have an erotic encounter that segues into their spending the remainder of the film, which takes place in real time, together — and perhaps falling in love. This enchanting romance — with serious moments involving Hugo being HIV-positive — follows the two men biking through the streets, sharing

Arinze Kene and Russell Tovey in Ben A. Williams’ “The Pass.”

a meal, and staring at each another, lovingly, on the metro. Couët and Nambot are magnetic together, and they are especially sexy sans clothes.

Tom E. Brown’s “Pushing Dead” (SVA, Oct. 21, 8:15 p.m.; LGBT Center, Oct. 22, 8 p.m.) is billed as an “AIDS comedy,” but there are hardly any smiles in this lame film about Dan (James Roday) who is HIV-positive and broke. While he can’t afford the meds he needs, Dan takes care of others, including his needy boss, Bob (Danny Glover), and an injured drag queen.

Dan even buys his roommate Paula (Robin Weigert) a stuffed monkey she becomes obsessed with in the film’s stupidest subplot. Dan does get a chance for romance with Mike (Tom Riley), a handsome Brit he encounters, but most of “Pushing Dead” revels in Dan’s being down on his luck, making this comedy about as much fun as a kidney stone. Unfortunately, it seems to pass no more quickly.

The quirk in the quirky American indie “I Love You Both” (Cinépolis, Oct. 23, 3 p.m.) is that twin co-writers and stars Kristin (Krystal) and

NEWFEST October 20-25

Cinépolis Chelsea Cinemas 260 W. 23rd St. SVA Theatre 333 W. 23rd St. Screening Room, LGBT Community Center 208 W. 13th St. NEWFEST

his year’s NewFest, New York City’s LGBT film festival, boasts its largest program to date, with more than 100 features, documentaries, and shorts. If the entries are a bit of a mixed bag, at least there is an effort to screen something for everyone.

The festival opens October 20 with “The Pass” (SVA, 7 p.m.), director Ben A. Williams’ riveting adaptation of John Donnelly’s play about British footballers Jason (Russell Tovey) and Ade (Arinze Kene). The young men are sharing a hotel room in Romania the night before they compete for a position on a pro team. The guys’ horseplay that night involves some homoerotic wrestling that culminates with a kiss — a moment they rehash when they reunite in a different hotel room in the third act 10 years later.

Tovey, who is onscreen — and mostly shirtless — for the film’s entire 90 minutes, gets deep inside the insecure, troubled head of Jason. He makes viewers understand — if not sympathize with — this not particularly nice guy whose sexuality conflicts with his image as an athlete. It is Tovey’s intense, spellbinding performance — informing the film’s astute observations about identity and masculinity — that makes “The Pass” worthwhile.

Geoffrey Couët and François Nambot in Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s “Paris 5:59: Theo and Hugo.”

Doug (Donny) Archibald — she’s straight; he’s gay — are both attracted to the bisexual Andy (Lucas Neff).

This deadpan comedy mines its humor from this offbeat love triangle, but wisely the film is less about whom Andy will choose and more about how his decision will impact the twins’ relationship. If viewers can appreciate Krystal and Donny’s co-dependency, this film, directed

by Doug, will charm them; otherwise, the twee “I Love You Both” will annoy. Regardless, the twins’ fabulous, scene-stealing mom, Charlene Archibald, will amuse.

Tickets are $16; $60 opening night; $50 closing night newfest.org

Also more deadpan than screwball is “Women Who Kill” (LGBT Center, Oct. 21, 8 p.m.; Cinépolis, Oct. 24, 2:30 p.m.), a comedy thriller about exes Morgan (writer/ director Ingrid Jungermann) and Jean (Ann Carr) who produce a podcast about female serial killers. What starts out in a amiable low-key mode shifts gears when it introduces Simone (Sheila Vand), a mysterious beauty who becomes Morgan’s new girlfriend. But Jungermann never generates enough

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NEWFEST, continued on p.31

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

29

FILM

Married to Jesus in Brooklyn

Zach Clark investigates family dynamics upended at the dawn of Obama

BY STEVE ERICKSON

Z

FORAGER FILMS

ach Clark’s “Little Sister” doesn’t offer much grand spectacle. It’s comic, but more often weird than laugh-out-loud funny. (My view may be colored by the fact that only one other person turned up to the screening I attended.) Mumblecore pioneer Joe Swanberg is an executive producer, and his company Forager Films is distributing “Little Sister.”

But if Clark’s film has roots in mumblecore, it ventures beyond the “young people talking about relationships” template of that movement’s early films. It takes religion and politics seriously.

Simultaneously, it gestures toward horror movies: most of its dramatic climax takes place at a Halloween party.

In October 2008, novitiate nun Colleen (Addison Timlin) lives in a convent in Brooklyn. She only has intermittent Internet access and generally ignores the emails from her mother Joani (Ally Sheedy) that address her as “Sweet Pea.” One day, she learns that her brother Jacob (Keith Poulson) has just returned from fighting in the Iraq War after almost being burned alive. He’s maimed beyond recognition. Borrowing a car from her Mother Superior, she drives down to her

Addison Timlin in Zach Clark’s “Little Sister.”

parents’ house in Asheville, North Carolina. Her bedroom remains untouched from her Goth days.

She discovers that Jacob has become a recluse and endures a passive-aggressive relationship with her parents.

Clark takes a long time introducing Jacob to us. He’s heard and talked about long before he’s seen, much like Harry Lime in “The Third Man.” He plays heavy metal beats on a drum kit incessantly, seemingly too bored to do anything else

False Equivalencies Gianfranco Rosi fails in juxtaposing Lampedusa locals, isle’s desperate refugees

BY STEVE ERICKSON

I

magine a film about the Hiroshima bombing that spent two thirds of its running time depicting the son of the American pilot who destroyed that city. Sounds like a strange decision, huh? I felt much the same way about Italian documentarian Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fire At Sea,” which is set on the now-notorious island of Lampedusa.

The opening credits inform us that 200,000 migrants have landed there. “Fire At Sea” isn’t the first film about the isle to play New York theaters; the superior “Lampedusa in Winter” played a weekend at Anthology Film Archives last summer. The two films have numerous points of contact, including an absence of narration and interviews, as well as scenes of a radio DJ on the island.

30

However, “Lampedusa in Winter” seems a lot more sure about what it’s doing.

A person identified only as the Celluloid Liberation Front attacked “Fire At Sea” in Cinema Scope magazine when it played the Berlin Film Festival last winter for avoiding Western countries’ complicity in the crises that brought the refugees to Lampedusa in the first place. It’s true that the film’s depiction of the Italian Coast Guard shows them in a fairly benevolent light. Even their comments about the migrants’ foul smell turn out to be a fairly simple factual observation; they’ve been soaking in diesel fuel as they rode across the sea. A doctor is similarly portrayed kindly, although he requests the services of a “cultural mediator.” But I never got the feeling Rosi set out to sing the praises of the Italian government and its policy

and too ashamed to go outside. He’s scared of intimacy with his fiancée — both partners satisfy themselves with Internet porn or explicit chat sessions. When we finally get to see Jacob’s burned face, one can understand why — the makeup job on Poulson is extremely convincing. A young boy asks “Are you a monster?”; at a pharmacy, a woman tells him that he’s a hero and he should

toward migrants.

The problem is that he’s more interested in the daily lives of white Italians on Lampedusa while history is being made elsewhere on the island. Some of this is revealing, even politically astute: for instance, he shows the complete segregation between Italians and migrants. The world of the average Roman is probably more multicultural than that of Samuele, the young boy “Fire At Sea” focuses on. Some of Rosi’s footage of Samuele is quite compelling, particularly a creepy scene where he and a friend cut faces in cacti like Halloween pumpkins, then blow and burn holes into the plants with slingshots and small firecrackers. However, the film gains nothing from depicting Samuele’s English class at school. The boy’s problem with a lazy eye is treated as though it were on a dramatic par with an underwater search for corpses.

I loved Rosi’s 2010 film “El Sicario, Room 164,” which consists of a feature-length monologue by a retired Mexican drug cartel hitman.

Although difficult to watch due to the brutal nature of the criminal’s memories, it ranks with the most

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LITTLE SISTER, continued on p.38

compelling filmed interviews.

“Fire At Sea” opens the frame quite a bit. It captures the pretty but harsh Lampedusan landscape: although not a desert, this is an island where cacti thrive. The underwater scenes are quite expressive as well. Beautiful cinematography seems somewhat beside the point, though. The minimalism of “El Sicario, Room 164” was more potent.

When “Fire At Sea” settles on migrants, it’s often grimly fascinating. A scene where drastically dehydrated black men are pulled

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FIRE, continued on p.38

FIRE AT SEA Directed by Gianfranco Rosi Kino Lorber In Italian with English subtitles Opens Oct. 21 IFC Center 323 Sixth Ave. at W. Third St. ifccenter.com Lincoln Plaza Cinema 1886 Broadway at W. 62nd St. lincolnplazacinema.com

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

c

NEWFEST, from p.28

dramatic tension to sustain its central question: Is Simone a murderer? Which means that the film boxes itself into a corner from which it never escapes. “Women Who Kill” ultimately lacks the spiritedness to be truly thrilling.

The hate crime rate for LGBT youth in Washington DC is alarmingly high, so a gang called Check It was created to combat bullying — by fighting back. Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer’s inspiring documentary “Check It” (LGBT Center, Oct. 23, 11 a.m.) introduces

several engaging queer youth of color including Trey, who is more comfortable living as a woman than as a man, and Skittles, a talented and wiry young guy who could have success on the boxing circuit. Though the group’s members face problems — as victims of rape and other violence and in the sex work some are involved in — what comes across is the resilience of these kids who literally fight for everything they have, passionately and with style.

The Brazilian import “The Nest” (Cinépolis, Oct. 23, 9 p.m.) is a four -part TV miniseries. Bruno (Nicolas Vargas), on leave from the army, is searching for his brother Leo, who ran away from home years ago. He quickly falls in with a motley crew of LGBT youth in Porto Alegre, and even shares a few kisses with them. Where Bruno’s story goes remains to be seen — only the first episode was available for preview — but “The Nest” is compelling enough to warrant a look.

Also from Brazil, “The Cult” (Cinépolis, Oct. 22, 10 p.m.) feels

AC 2

NEWFEST

“Blush” (Cinépolis, Oct. 23, 3:30 p.m.), from Israeli writer/ director Michal Vinik, is an engrossing drama about Naama (Sivan Noam Shimon), a teenager who is intrigued by Dana (Hadas Jade Sakori), a new girl at school.

They cut class and do drugs, and their fast friendship soon leads to kissing in the park and going to a lesbian club in Tel Aviv. Naama’s bliss, however, is interrupted by her parents’ worries about Liora (Bar Ben Vakil), her sister who has disappeared from the ar my. “Blush” juxtaposes the two sisters’ lives as it captures all the thrills of Naama’s first love. If the film ends in a not unexpected fashion, Shimon’s strong central performance elevates this familiar tale.

Maura Anderson’s modest lesbian feature “Heartland” (Cinépolis, Oct. 22, 2 p.m.), set in Oklahoma, has Lauren (co-writer Velinda Godfrey) losing her girlfriend, her home, and her job in the first five minutes. With nowhere to go, she moves in with her barely tolerant mother (Beth Grant), just as her brother Justin (Aaron Leddick) and his girlfriend Carrie (Laura Spencer) arrive with plans to open a local winery. Lauren’s bonding with Carrie over drinks soon leads to them kissing — and more — when the young women share a bathtub during a tornado warning (it’s an Oklahoma thing). Major family drama ensues, but none of it is particularly novel or interesting. Godfrey’s acting is better than her writing, which is what makes “Heartland” passable.

Skittles in Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer’s documentary “Check It.”

more like a TV episode than a feature film. In 2040, a nameless young man has moved back to Recife from a space colony. He spends his days drinking tea, reading, wandering around abandoned buildings, and cruising — which leads to him lying in bed with other naked young men. There is not much to do in Recife, 2040, apparently, and not much happens in this film — that is until the protagonist discovers the title cult. Alas, the payoff of this stylish but empty production is really more of a letdown.

AN INTIMATE EVENING WITH

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ANDY

COOPER COHEN DEEP TALK AND SHALLOW TALES Join Cohen and Cooper for an unscripted, uncensored and unforgettable night of conversation

FRIDAY JANUARY 27

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE BEACON THEATRE BOX OFFICE • 868-858-0008 • TICKETMASTER.COM • AC2LIVE.COM GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

31

Out for a Ramble THEATER

Two sprawling, unfocused plays fall flat

BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE

I

JOAN MARCUS

32

Rowan Vickers and Phillip James Brannon in Nathan Alan Davis’ “Nat Turner in Jerusalem” at New York Theatre Workshop through October 16.

ALL THE WAYS TO SAY I LOVE YOU

MCC at the Lucille Lortel Theatre 121 Christopher St. Btwn. Bedford & Bleecker Sts. Through Oct. 23 Tue.-Wed., Sun. at 7 p.m.

Thu.-Sat. at 8 p.m.

Sat. at 2 p.m.; Sun. at 3 p.m. $69-$125; ovationtix.com or 866-811-411 One hr., no intermission

“Nat Turner in Jerusalem” has a different set of problems. The story takes place in the jail cell of Nat Turner, the night before he is to be hung for his role in the 1831 slave rebellion. He is visited by a man named Thomas Gray, who wrote the original “Confessions of Nat Turner,” and also by a guard with whom Tuner tries to develop some sort of camaraderie. Gray, a struggling lawyer, wants Turner to give him intelligence about other slave rebellions planned. Turner maintains he doesn’t know and is prepared to go to his death a martyr, repeating multiple times the religious experience that provoked him to lead the uprising.

Davis aims to draw parallels between the slave rebellion and today’s Black Lives Matter movement, but he never really develops the argument here. The attitudes you bring into the theater are the ones you’ll leave with. Nothing happens in this play to force you to see things differently. The only moment of visceral power comes

JOAN MARCUS

ntellectual sloppiness in the service of theatricality, unfortunately, is nothing new in on stage. Playing into the emotional biases, real or presumed, of an audience can be effective in political theater or agitprop, but in realistic, narrative-based plays, goading them with triggers rather than moving them with character and situation is the easy — and often unsatisfying — way out.

That’s the problem with two new plays, “All the Ways To Say I Love You” from MCC and “Nat Turner in Jerusalem” at New York Theater Workshop. The playwrights in both cases, Neil LaBute and Nathan Alan Davis, respectively, have seized on hot button issues but sadly done little with them.

The LaBute piece is a monologue in which a high school teacher, Mrs. Johnson, confesses she had an affair with a student and discusses the consequences she has suffered for that choice. The play feels like a series of character sketches strung together. At one point, Mrs. Johnson is reveling in the passion she felt for the first time in a long time.

Later, she goes off on a lengthy tangential rant about being part of a mixed race couple. There are also reflections on what one person does for another in a relationship and on the selfish frustration someone feels when they don’t get their way.

LaBute has made a career of being a provocateur, playing with incendiary issues in such pieces as “Fat Pig” and “Reasons to Be Pretty.”

Those plays were more Shavian in their polemics, even with their gritty subject matter. In each, the audience was drawn into the world of the play and its arguments. “All the Ways to Say I Love You,” instead, is a confrontational assault, another way to challenge an audience, to be sure, but here ineffective because Mrs. Johnson never emerges as a believable human character. She is a device for LaBute to go off on a variety of topics.

The central question Mrs. Johnson asks at the outset, “What is the weight of a lie?” has a quasi-philosophical bent, but the answer she ultimately gives is cute and facile. In fact, the denouement seems to make a joke out of the question itself, rending what preceded trivial.

Still, if you’re going to have a character be a mere device, you could have no one better to bring it off than Judith Light. She is in this, as in everything, the consummate actor. What life Mrs. Johnson has and whatever we feel for her result from Light’s ability to animate her.

She is a fearless actress who commands the stage, whether boldly proclaiming the character’ sexuality or dripping with resentment over the choices she has made. Some of the transitions between the stories are rough, motivated by nothing other than the script, but Light does the best she can with them, and that almost compensates for the ragged nature of the play.

Judith Light in Neil LaBute’s “All the Ways to Say I Love You,” at the Lucille Lortel through October 23.

when Turner tells Gray that while he doesn’t know when or where, the uprisings will keep happening until the sin of slavery is resolved.

There is a lot of talking, but it’s mostly meditative meandering. At one point Turner says, “I am weary of talking in circles.” That’s the other true moment in the piece, and, in fact, a lot of the time it’s virtually impossible to know what Turner is talking about.

The piece’s haziness isn’t helped

by Megan Sandberg-Zakian’s plodding direction. Phillip James Brannon gives a muted performance as Turner, working with a limited emotional range that is an apparent choice. Turner is quietly accepting of his fate at the beginning and the

NAT TURNER IN JERUSALEM

New York Theatre Workshop 79 E. Fourth St. Btwn Bowery & Second Ave. Oct. 13-14 at 8 p.m.

Oct. 16 at 2 & 8 p.m.

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end of the play. His long speeches exist for their own sake, and while slouching toward poetry, they take us nowhere. Rowan Vickers plays Gray and the guard, and does well enough with the meager material he’s given to work with.

Theater can be powerful and provocative. It can challenge beliefs and perceptions, but if it’s going to be viable the playwright, not the audience, must do the work.

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

THEATER

Classy and Sassy Golden Oldies A zany romp down memory lane with Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia, this time as puppets

BY DAVID KENNERLEY

W

RUSS ROWLAND

hat is it about “The Golden Girls” and gays? From the moment the sassy sitcom premiered on NBC in 1985, it enjoyed a massive following among gay viewers (confirmed by a Simmons Market Research study) and still resonates today. During its seven-year run, it was not uncommon to venture into a gay bar on a Saturday night and find the Madonna or porn videos replaced with a live “Golden Girls” episode.

You may recall that the show’s theme song, “Thank You For Being a Friend,” closed out the first season of HBO’s “Looking” a couple of years ago, after Jonathan Groff’s character sought solace watching an episode on his laptop. It was such an unexpected, genius moment in a thoughtful series that was unjustly cut down in its prime.

But I digress (as Sophia liked to say).

Was it the snappy comebacks?

The over-the-top outfits? The drag queenesque melodrama? Or perhaps it was simply because, like many in the LGBT community, the gals cobbled together their own non-traditional family, living life on their own terms. They shared and squabbled, using humor either as a weapon or a balm.

The boisterous housemates were shamelessly obsessed with finding Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now, and fighting back advancing age. They were fiercely loyal about friendships and embraced diversity. Rare for a mainstream TV show of the era, the topic of homosexuality cropped up now and then in a smart, non-deprecating way. Even AIDS was handled with compassion. Remember, this was light years before we would have our own series like “Looking.”

Well, if you need a break from watching reruns on the Hallmark

Michael LaMasa and the rest of the familiar cast of “That Golden Girls Show!: A Puppet Parody,” from Jonathan Rockefeller, at the DR2 Theatre through December 11.

Channel, sashay on over to the DR2 Theatre in Union Square and check out “That Golden Girls Show!,” where you can relive the funniest iconic moments from the series. This laugh-out-loud

parody, created by the obsessive and possibly demented Jonathan Rockefeller (playwright, director, producer), traffics heavily in nos-

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Eclectic Piano Man, Ebullient Tony-Winner Simon Ghraichy pounds the ivories at Carnegie; Christine Ebersole sings of her empty nest

BY DAVID NOH

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JEAN-FRANÇOIS MELER

lassical pianist Simon Ghraichy returns to Carnegie Hall on October 14 with a concert entitled “My Hispanic Heritage.” The gay, toweringly tall, lean, multi-ethnic musician with a tumbleweed of hair made quite a visual impression when I interviewed him, but it was nothing compared to the impact when he sat down at the piano and, just for me, played Arturo Márquez’s brilliantly spirited “Danzón No.2.” As the French say, quel rush!

“I feel so blessed,” he told me.

“Last year at this time, I was invited to play at Carnegie Hall’s smaller Kurt Weill space, and, right after the concert, I got the invitation to come back, this time to the larger Zankel Hall. It’s everybody’s dream to play Carnegie even once, so this is already a big deal thing for me.

“It’s now all about my Mexican roots. I’m a mix of little things and minorities: Lebanese, a little Jewish, very much French. This concert is all part of National Hispanic Heritage Month. I love this music, and I think it’s my duty to play this music because it’s not very often played.

“I’m based in Paris, but with my diverse cultural background and diverse music I play, I feel at home everywhere in the world, like here in New York, which is such a melting pot.”

Ghraichy began piano when he was four: “We had a piano at home — not a grand but an old upright which had been in the family for generations. I would go and babble on it without knowing what I was doing, trying in an awkward way with two or three fingers, trying to recapture songs I had learned in school. So my parents thought, ‘This kid has a special gift for music.’ They were not musicians at all, my father is a lawyer and my mother is a psychiatrist.

“Although they pushed me to the piano, they never thought this would be a career to which I would dedicate my life. Eventually, when I decided to become a musician at age 17, it was a tough time for them because every parent, no matter how open-minded, wants their

Classical pianist Simon Ghraichy.

child to be on the right track. It took me some time to convince them but now they are very proud of me and follow me all over the world.

“I did the Conservatory in Paris, then a two-year master’s program in Helsinki because I met an exciting teacher who taught me both how to be pianist and also how to be a philosopher and poet of the music. She was like a guide throughout my whole life, not just one hour’s practice. I then started my career by touring, which led to Carnegie Hall. I think curiosity is a big part of the career. It does not fall from the sky, and it’s not luck. You have to be curious and look for opportunity and I never refused a job in my entire career, no matter how tiny or senseless it looked, especially in the beginning.

And that’s how I met very important people, in some of the smallest opportunities. Actually, one of my best supporters here in the States I met in a small opportunity in France 12 years ago and the relationship developed, and it is through him that I signed with Universal Music, am playing Carnegie, and recording for Deutsche Grammophon. So I think curiosity and humbleness are most important for the career. [Without supportive people,] it’s a lonely career so it’s important to have a mainstay.

You’re sitting alone at your piano practicing, sitting on the stage

alone, and traveling alone.

Ghraichy loves Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Debussy, and Beethoven, “but Liszt is my favorite and I already did two records dedicated to him. With Liszt I think it was love at first sight. One has an almost human relationship with various composers. You need some time with some composers to get acquainted, but some choose you and Liszt chose me from age 12. I was totally in love with other composers — Chopin, Schubert, Beethoven, there was something higher. This composer’s music was very virtuosic and coincided with my gaining more virtuosity, and it fit me well. It’s very virtuosic but it’s not circus music, with a lot of death and love and communicating such a great range of feeling and emotion.

“My curiosity drives me to look for new repertoire like these Spanish and Latin American composers.

There are real jewels that need to be brought to the table for the public.

Arturo Márquez, whom I’m playing at the very end of the concert, wrote just an amazing piece by classical rules at the same time using Mexican popular inspiration which gives it something intellectual but at the same time you feel you’re on the streets of Mexico City with all the percussion and dancing. It’s very accessible, which I feel all music should be like.”

I told Ghraichy that if I did what he does for a living, I know I would be absolutely paranoid about anything happening to my hands: “[Laughs] They are insured and very expensive. It also stands to reason that all the money in the world couldn’t give me back my talent if I lost it. Insurance is a pragmatic way of saying that if something happens, I would still be able to have a living.

“But everything I do, like even preparing this coffee for you today, I have to be extra careful. If you notice I have a little bruise here on the little finger. I was practicing so much and wildly for Carnegie and I hit my finger on the piano. It’s hurting a bit now; that’s the cheapest finger by the way in terms of being insured. The thumb is the most expensive because if you lose your thumb, you lose the balance of your hand because the four fingers go out to the same place.

“When I was studying in Finland, I fell down on the ice and I wasn’t insured, at 21. I was wearing a steel watch and my left hand got a shock, which hurt me a lot, a trauma, but I luckily recovered. Watches, by the way, are now forbidden by insurance companies, as are rings. So if I get married one day, I will still look single forever.”

Ghraichy’s favorite pianist is

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October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

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IN THE NOH, from p.34

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Vladimir Horowitz, whom I used to see gawking at the boys at Studio 54, happy as a clam: “He lived a long time through different things from Communist Russia to the most liberal America. He died in 1989 — not long ago, but still a different era. I think he was very modern in his approach to music and life, and had a little something of the dandy or rock star about him.

I think we need that these days.

Musicians need to live with modernity even though we play old music.

We shouldn’t live in a different era, and we have to use what we have, which is social media, the modern way to communicate. He didn’t have all this media, but he still had this kind of star fever more than anyone, which was unusual at the time.”

About the question of Horowitz being gay, Ghraichy remarked, “He was once asked if he was gay, and he said, ‘There are Jewish musicians. There are gay musicians.

And there are bad musicians.’ I think it was a very appropriate answer.”

Ghraichy, asked what’s next given his success and the fact he’s reached his 30s, said, “Now my ambition is transition. I’ve been concentrating on myself, so now that I’m fulfilling my own wishes, it is time to give a hand to the younger generation. I was lucky when I was young to be surrounded by the right people, and now that I’ve achieved what I’d always dreamed of, I think it’s my turn to pull younger generations to where I am, giving master classes and helping to educate them.

“We live in such an exciting time.

Such incredible advancements for social equality and tolerance. There are so many fabulous attributes in the mix that make me the man and artist that I am. Of course, all of these attributes feed into my music. I am Mexican, French, Lebanese, Jewish, gay, and 6’6” when my coif is at full-fluff. It’s 2016, and the world seems to be embracing diversity in new and exciting ways. This is why I love New York so much. This city has always been so far ahead of the curve. New York has always celebrated diversity and understood that the fabulous things that make us different are the fabulous things that bring us together.”

Tony-winner Christine Ebersole.

The incandescently ebullient Christine Ebersole has returned to the Cafe Carlyle (35 E. 76th St., through Oct. 22; goo.gl/vpmesn) with a new show she describes as “radically different from the last one I did at 54 Below, which was more rock-oriented. This one has material that is more classical, lots of standards like ‘After the Ball’ and ‘When I Grow Too Old to Dream.’

Its theme is the ‘Empty Nest Syndrome,’ as I have three kids who are now all in college. So, I’ve gotta work! [Laughs.]”

One thing you can always be sure of with an Ebersole gig is the impeccable song selection, not to mention her glorious, wide-ranging, and silver bell-like voice.

“Marc Shaiman was my accompanist for my very first cabaret show, and I have always relied on [his partner] Scott Wittman to help me with the act, as he’s great with song selection and just knows everything. He’s been so increasingly busy over the years, with everything, that he’s less able to help me, but I always make the effort to run over what I have with him.”

Mama may say she’s gone back to work, but the truth is she never stopped from the day she quit her job waitressing at the Lion’s Rock Restaurant when she first arrived in New York to take the role of Nancy, the surly Cockney maid in “Angel Street,” in the 1975 revival starring Dina Merrill. Ironically, her last Broadway appearance was in 2009’s “Blithe Spirit,” co-starring Angela Lansbury — who, with her magnificently multi-varied char-

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OPERA

Love Boat, Death Boat Stark “Tristan ” from Mariusz Treliński marshals top flight cast in break from Wagner’s passion

BY ELI JACOBSON

T

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KEN HOWARD

he Metropolitan Opera opened its 50th season at Lincoln Center on September 26th with a musically powerful new production of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” Mariusz Treliński’s bleakly pessimistic production premiered earlier this year in Baden-Baden to mixed reviews.

However, the Met has assembled a musical dream team of Wagnerian heavy hitters: Nina Stemme as Isolde, Stuart Skelton as Tristan, Ekaterina Gubanova as Brangäne, Evgeny Nikitin as Kurwenal, and René Pape’s still-definitive King Marke — all led by Sir Simon Rattle.

Treliński’s production is set in a dystopian military-industrial society sometime in the last century.

As in his nightmarish production of “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” two seasons ago, surreal dream imagery breaks into the brutal world of everyday existence — the inner “night” world of the psyche invades the “day” world of cruel reality. For Treliński, both worlds are dark and fixated on death.

Treliński was trained as a filmmaker and uses cinematic effects like crosscutting to different locations, flashback, and montage in a theatrical setting. Video projections

by Bartek Macias are screened on the show curtain and on partial scrims that break up the massive three-tiered battleship set. The projections show abstract images of sonar screens and the ocean, flashbacks from Tristan’s tragic childhood, and close-ups of Isolde’s face.

The Act I curtain comes up on the multi-level interior of a battleship (designed with impressive scale and detail by Boris Kudlička). Costume designer Marek Adamski dresses the women in drab dark clothes while the Tristan and Kurwenal are officers in naval uniforms. The ship is a floating prison of metal and glass patrolled by armed black-clad soldiers who physically intimidate and harass Isolde and Brangäne.

Violence seems to be a fact of life –

Nina Stemme and Stuart Skelton in Mariusz Treliński’s production of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” at the Metropolitan Opera.

Isolde shoves Brangäne about and later threatens Tristan with a handgun. Tristan, who obviously has a death wish, gives Isolde his gun and helpfully guides the muzzle to his temple during their confrontation before drinking the love potion.

Act II, usually set outdoors in a castle garden evoked by rustling strings, now takes place on the fog-bound pilothouse of the same ship. Nature and beauty are totally absent from Treliński’s production concept. Images of an Aurora Borealis are projected on the black show curtain during Brangäne’s warning, and the set changes into the lower cargo hold of the ship.

False notes intrude — the fuel barrels and fans hardly evoke nocturnal passion and sensuality.

Floodlights aimed at the audience are substituted for Isolde’s torch signal, turning on and off in defiance of the libretto and inducing headaches. A gate in the back opens by itself, sabotaging a potentially thrilling coup de théâtre when Marke and Melot later enter through it, surprising the lovers.

Other touches are intellectually provocative: Tristan’s final plea to Isolde in Act II is played as a hallucinatory monologue addressed

to a dream Isolde. Self-destructive Tristan “accidentally” shoots himself in a struggle with Melot and Marke’s guards.

Act III is set in what looks like the sick bay of the same ship, with Tristan lying on a hospital gurney.

During Act III’s static 45-minute internal monologue/ endurance test for the tenor, Tristan mentally travels back to his childhood home, Kareol, occasioning another set change. Isolde, after finding Tristan dead, slashes her wrists. During the Liebestod, the dying Isolde seems to join Tristan in his dark inner world. The late entry of Marke and Brangäne onto the scene and Kurwenal’s death are confusing — we don’t see Kurwenal die and can’t tell if these people are real or hallucinations in Isolde’s fading consciousness. Treliński’s staging is anything but static (unlike the Dieter Dorn “Son of Wieland Wagner” production it replaces) but is visually grim and alienating.

Suitably, since Treliński’s production emphasizes the antiheroic flawed aspects of these characters, most of the voices are human-sized.

Nina Stemme’s dark soprano fulfills all of Wagner’s basic requirements.

The dark central core of her soprano

holds firm against Wagner’s orchestra. But the top register (including firm high C’s) doesn’t soar and the middle register doesn’t envelop the listener with beauty and warmth.

Stemme’s volume is adequate but not overpowering, and her vibrato can widen under pressure — not enough however to obscure line and pitch. Vocally, she has everything under control and her vast experience in the role is reflected in expert pacing and textual delivery.

In Acts II and III, Stemme aims for lyricism and, with less pressure, her soprano blooms — hardworking efficiency gives way to silvery radiance. Above all, Stemme is supremely musical and leaves no detail untouched by her artistry.

Treliński emphasizes Isolde’s anger over feminine vulnerability and sensuality — her costumes are dark and shapeless, her hair straggly.

Stemme’s acting therefore comes off more earnest and charmless than necessary.

After an unfocused and unsteady opening night, Australian heldentenor Stuart Skelton gained stamina and control by the third performance on October 3 — he

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37

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be grateful about Obama’s upcoming election.

Both responses seem understandable and dehumanizing in equal measure; at least the woman is old enough to know she’s being condescending At the beginning of “Little Sister,” Colleen has never had sex, drunk alcohol, or used drugs. By contrast, her parents smoke pot heavily, and her mom mixes it with a wide variety of prescription antidepressants. In such a household, Colleen’s idea of teen rebellion was limited to flirting with the occult, which she eventually flipped on its head by embracing Catholicism. (Clark finds a nice visual analogue for this: visiting her old room for the first time, Colleen turns an upside-down cross on her wall back to the right side up.)

“Little Sister” isn’t the ‘80s sitcom “Family Ties,” but there’s something similar in its vision of youth rebelling against post-hippie parents by flushing

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38

Alex Hibbert and Mahershala Ali in Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight,” based on a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney.

sensitively investigates what it means to be black and gay amidst a world that revolves around the sale and use of drugs. We understand the characters from quiet moments — such as Little preparing a bath for himself or teenaged Chiron getting a lesson on how to make a bed from Teresa, or when Kevin and Black sit across from each other in a diner. Juan may be a tough drug

their stash down the toilet. It shares Colleen’s view that Joani is just numbing herself against the inevitable responsibilities and disappointments of life. When Joani stores her psychedelic mushrooms in the refrigerator, it almost ends in tragedy.

The promise of “hope” and “change” that Obama campaigned on seems a long way off, but it’s constantly evoked through “Little Sister.” Rather than making the personal political, it makes the political personal. Obama/ Biden ’08 stickers are everywhere. The family goes to a debate party. No one has any real political discussions, seemingly because it’s assumed that everyone sides with Obama. Colleen gets freaked out by a performance art piece protesting the Bush administration she watches in a Brooklyn nightclub. The only hope and change that really matters to the characters, despite their interest in politics and the damage the Iraq War has done to

with obvious historical or political significance, everyone experiences the minutiae of their daily lives as important, and there shouldn’t be any shame in that. But unless they have some larger point to make, artists should have a wider perspective. “Fire At Sea” suggests that a white family’s spaghetti dinner and a black man’s desperate journey across the Sahara deserve space side by side as comparable experiences. Master directors like Frederick Wiseman or Dziga Vertov could find the balance between the two or find some resonance in their juxtaposition. Rosi isn’t one of them.

dealer, but he practically melts when nine-year-old Little looks up at him and begins a series of tough questions by asking, “What’s a faggot?”

Jenkins is not afraid to explore what makes Chiron cry, but he also shows us a shocking act of violence that proves a catalyst in Chiron maturing. Seeing the shy, confused child and later the haunted teen transform into the adult Black, who still grapples with his sexuality and who he is, is remarkable. The three actors who play this one character are all indelible in the role.

If Jenkins’ film has a drawback, it is that Teresa and Paula are presented as mother/ saint and crack whore stereotypes, respectively. The lack of nuance here detracts from the film’s overall impact. But in a moving, empowering, even necessary “Moonlight,” this is a minor complaint.

LITTLE SISTER

Directed by Zach Clark Forager Films Opens Oct. 14 Metrograph 7 Ludlow St., btwn. Hester & Canal Sts. Metrograph.com

Jacob’s body, lies within the family.

“Little Sister” finds the weirdness in normalcy.

It suggests that these days becoming a nun might be more daring than smoking pot, but only if you hang onto your love of Goth and heavy metal music. (This is epitomized by a bizarre set piece between Colleen and Jacob, set to a song by the theatrical metal band Gwar.) It’s conservative in a way that could only stem from rebellious roots.

KINO LORBER

off a packed boat makes one wonder what images of slave ships we might have if cinema existed in the 18th or early 19th century. A Nigerian man tells an unforgettable tale of being forced to drink his urine in the Sahara.

The Dutch post-punk band the Ex titled one of their albums “History’s What’s Happening Now.” I’m sure that’s the same point Rosi intended to make, but something got lost in translation. Perhaps he even planned to indict the self-absorption of white Italians. Apart from events

A24

Little also forges a strong relationship with Kevin (Jaden Piner). Helping Little prove he isn’t “soft,” Kevin wrestles with him in the grass, and the sexual tension between the two — which plays out over the course of the film — is already palpable.

The second act of “Moonlight” focuses on Chiron (Ashton Sanders), now a teenager, seemingly living in constant fear. His mother’s drug habit has escalated out of control, and in a particularly uncomfortable scene she demands money from him. Chiron is also still being bullied at school. His erotic dreams about Kevin (Jharrel Jerome) become reality in the scene on the beach that involves the boys kissing and more.

What transpires after this romantic encounter moves “Moonlight” into its third and most compelling

act. Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) has now assumed Kevin’s nickname for him, Black. When he gets a call out of the blue from Kevin (André Holland), Black meets his old friend in a diner where Kevin works. As the men reconnect, “Moonlight” becomes transcendent.

It would spoil the pleasures of this intimate, deeply affecting film to discuss too many details — in part because so much of the story happens inside each character or off screen. One character disappears without explanation, leaving audiences to draw their own conclusions about their fate. Some scenes, such as Paula yelling at her son, are presented twice, to emphasize, even magnify their importance.

Jenkins seems less interested in plot than he is in creating a raw space where the film’s potent themes about power and masculinity can be explored. “Moonlight”

Samuele Pucillo, a young Italian boy, in Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fire at Sea.”

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

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daydreaming

Many people will admit to daydreaming behind the wheel or looking at a person or object outside of the car for too long. Per-

GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

haps they’re checking out a house in a new neighborhood or thought they saw someone they knew on the street corner. It can be easy to veer into the direction your eyes are focused, causing an accident. In addition to trying to stay focused on the road, some drivers prefer the help of lane departure warning systems.

eating

Those who haven’t quite mastered walking and

chewing gum at the same time may want to avoid eating while driving. The majority of foods require a person’s hands to be taken off of the wheel and their eyes to be diverted from the road. Reaching in the back seat to share some French fries with the kids is also distracting.

Try to eat meals before getting in the car. For those who must snack while en route, take a moment to pull over at

a rest area and spend 10 minutes snacking there before resuming the trip.

reading

Glancing at an advertisement, updating a Facebook status or reading a book are all activities that should be avoided when driving. Even pouring over a traffic map or consulting the digital display of a GPS system can be distracting.

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THEATER

Nostalgia Nirvana

HOLIDAY INN

“New” Irving Berlin tuner feels comfy like those bunny slippers Grandma gave you for Christmas

JOAN MARCUS

Corbin Bleu, Lora Lee Gayer, and Bryce Pinkham in Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge’s “new” Irving Berlin musical “White Christmas.”

BY DAVID KENNERLEY

T

he concept is so smart and obvious, it’s a wonder nobody has executed it until now. Find an old Hollywood movie bursting with Irving Berlin tunes, freshen up the book, pack in even more Irving Berlin tunes, rework the choreography, cast a spirited ensemble full of triple-threats, and stage it as a fizzy jukebox musical on Broadway.

The result is “Holiday Inn,” inspired by the

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GOLDEN GIRLS, from p.33

talgia and sentimentality, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But there’s a twist. These golden girls are now in puppet form, à la “Avenue Q.” Which means the nearly life-sized puppets (created

by Joel Gennari) are handled by fully visible companion puppeteers.

Even though the actors wear black, they are clearly meant to be seen, with their mannerisms and facial expressions expertly mimicking those of the puppets.

While all of the actors are talented, it comes down to impersonations, and some are more convincing than others. Perhaps the strongest is Cat Greenfield, who perfectly captures Blanche’s syrupy Southern accent, whether she’s being coquettish or caustic. Her Blanche wears the nickname “human mattress” as a badge of honor.

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popular 1942 film starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.

This delightful “new” musical feels comfortably familiar, boasting nearly two dozen beloved tunes from the Irving Berlin catalogue such as “Blue Skies,” “Steppin’ Out With My Baby,” “Easter Parade,” and the treasured “White Christmas” (Bing Crosby’s 1947 version is still the best-selling holiday single of all time in the US).

As with any jukebox musical, the challenge is to craft a logical, captivating book that isn’t overwhelmed by the classic songs. For the most

Also dead-on is Michael LaMasa as Dorothy, delivering wise life lessons with a dry, measured cadence worthy of Bea Arthur herself. Which is especially admirable considering LaMasa was originally the understudy and stepped into the role at the last minute.

Likewise, Emmanuelle Zeesman nails it as Dorothy’s octogenarian mother, Sophia, delivering clipped zingers with wild abandon. She gets some of the best lines. After Blanche proclaims she’s going to take a long, hot, steamy bath with just enough water to cover her bosom, Sophia deadpans, “You’re only going to sit in an inch of water?”

Less convincing is Arlee Chadwick, who, while a skilled puppeteer, only occasionally channels Betty White’s ditzy Rose. It doesn’t help that Rose is saddled with a shtick about her hometown, St.

Roundabout Theatre Company Studio 54 Theatre 254 W. 54th St. Through Jan. 1 Tue.-Sat. at 8 p.m.

Wed., Sat.-Sun. at 2 p.m. $47-$152; roundabouttheatre.org Two hrs., 15 mins., with intermission

part, Gordon Greenberg (who also directs) and Chad Hodge succeed. They even manage to generate some authentically touching moments centering on finding and losing love, the fleeting nature of fame, and grabbing happiness before it’s too late.

The story retains its 1940s screwball roots, centering on Jim, an entertainer who escapes the New York rat race to run a farm in Connecticut and marry his dance partner, Lila (Megan Sikora, in full-on vamp mode). But his dream unravels when she runs off with Ted, a fellow performer who’s also his best friend, and he discovers that running a farm takes a helluva lot more sweat and cash than he realized.

Enter Linda, a fresh-faced local teacher, and Louise (Megan Lawrence), a capable, snappy caretaker, both ready and willing to help out. To raise funds, Jim transforms the farm into Holiday Inn, which stages shows on the holidays when his theater pals have time off from their regular gigs. It’s not long before Linda steals Jim’s heart. But will Ted return and steal Linda off to Hollywood before the romance takes hold?

Throughout the seasons, the inn serves up

Olaf, that is as annoying to the audience as it is to her housemates.

Adding a dose of testosterone is Zach Kononov, who plays Dorothy’s pesky, toupee-wearing ex-husband Stanley to smarmy perfection.

It’s no surprise that the muzzy plot, which I’ve already forgotten, takes a back seat to the gags and nostalgia. Rockefeller crams in as many trademark catch phrases and cherished plot points from the series, and like any parody, it helps if you’re a devoted fan (I confess I am not). I suspect that sometimes audience members burst out laughing at jokes that were more familiar than funny.

The meticulous set, by David Goldstein, is a faithful replica of the Miami home from the series, a mélange of rattan, pastels, palm tree prints, and collectable plates.

Truth be told, my favorite part

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HOLIDAY INN, continued on p.41

THAT GOLDEN GIRLS SHOW! A PUPPET PARODY

DR2 Theatre 103 E. 15th St. Btwn. Union Sq. E. & Irving Pl. Through Dec. 11: Mon.-Tue., Thu. at 7:30 p.m.

Fri. at 7:30 &10 p.m.

Sat. at 3 p.m. & 8 p.m.

Sun. at 3 p.m. $69-$99; thatgoldengirlsshow.com Ninety mins., no intermission

was at the top of the show, when the beloved theme song began and the audience proceeded to sing along, spontaneously, in complete darkness. To my chagrin, I joined in as well, swept up in the communal affection for happy days gone by.

Somehow, I knew all the lyrics.

October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

c

KING COBRA, from p.27

if Stephen always dreamed of being a gay porn producer, who cares? Let him do it! Everyone harshly judges people who are in porn, yet everyone watches it. If people do want to do it and they do like it — and I know there is porn where people are abused, but in Sean’s case he really did want to do it.

GMK: Garrett, what research did you do to prepare to play the role?

GC: I did as much research as possible. I read up on his life and on the case. I watched his first video. I tried to watch some interviews.

GMK: Your performance doesn’t mimic him, you just re-present him.

GC: That was specific, too. Initially, when I got it, I called Justin and said, “I’m gonna Meryl this shit!” But he was like, “No.”… Justin told me to make the character separate from him. Tell the story. It is his story.

JK: We didn’t want his mannerisms and voice exactly like [Sean’s] because this wasn’t “Milk” or “JFK” or “Malcolm X.” For a story like this, that was not necessary.

GMK: There is a power struggle between Stephen and Sean. Can you talk about that aspect of their relationship?

GC: That’s the manipulation we were showing. This young, smart boy doesn’t have power, but he used what he had — his sexuality and young nature. He knows [Stephen] is attracted to him, so he can

be in control in his own way, but when he wants to leave and actually have control of his own life, that’s when he doesn’t want to be with Stephen. We talked about every scene, even a small moment sitting on the bed, contemplating leaving, and how it furthered the story and does it feel natural?

GMK: Ego and jealousy are essential to the parallel story of Harlow and Joe. Justin, can you talk about that aspect of the film and the importance of this story?

JK: I wanted to understand the characters and why they do what they do. There wasn’t an agenda to show people the porn industry. It’s more to talk about the extremes people will go to get what they want or become who they are. They all want this thing, and they are going to fight to the death or murder or lie about being underage to get what they want.

GMK: How do you get into the mindset of playing someone like Sean?

GC: There were a few times when I kind of freaked out, such as the montage of him becoming a porn star. It got overwhelming. I got back to my hotel that night and called my mom. I was like, “I don’t know if I can do this.” She told me, “If you believe in it, I support you.” She taught me not to judge. And said, “Now you know what it feels like to be wanted for nothing more than your body. Now you are better prepared for this character.”

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HOLIDAY INN, from p.40

fabulous holiday-themed musical extravaganzas (choreographed with flair by Denis Jones) animated with artful, eye-popping costumes by Alejo Vietti. Nearly every major holiday is represented (they wisely cut the movie’s dated Lincoln’s Birthday number depicting a blackface minstrel show).

There’s a lot of talent on display here. Bryce Pinkham, Tony-nominated for “Gentleman’s Guide To Love and Murder,” lends a winsome touch to the role of Jim, even during Jim’s most stubborn moments. Lora Lee Gayer brings an earnest insecurity to the role of Linda, as she discovers the life she’s been longing for is right GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

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c

under her nose. As the fame-hungry Ted, Corbin Bleu (of “High School Musical” fame) tempers selfishness with an easy charm, putting his devilish grin to good use.

The singing and dancing at this “Holiday Inn” is everything you’d expect from an old-fashioned, splashy musical on the Great White Way. The showstopper features the entire company frenetically decking the halls for Christmas while tap dancing, jumping rope garlands, and crooning “Shaking the Blues Away.”

Even for curmudgeons who find this reboot too musty and corny, surely, at least for a few minutes, that rafter-rattling number succeeds in doing just that.

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October 13 - 26, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc

SOUR GRAPES OVER VINEGAR HILL GAY CLUB Slope and there aren’t enough places where they can let their hair down.

“These spaces are very politically and socially important for the LGBTQ community,” said Magalhães,, who lives in Fort Greene. “It’s one of the few spaces where the queer community can actually feel safe and be who they are.”

The pair also provided a comparison of noise-complaint data from other gay dance parties in Brooklyn with standard club nights, which they said shows their crowd will be far better behaved. Locals responded that party people are equal-opportunity ruckus raisers.

“This is an insult to partygoers everywhere who are not known to discriminate,” said Steven Barker, a longtime Vinegar Hill resident.

“Quiet and respect are not the first qualities known to be brought out by alcohol.”

Loud revelry that does occur will lower the value of residents’ historic row houses, another resident said. “We came for the peace and quiet, and the value of our real estate is in the peace and quiet,” said Bashar Azzouz.

After listening to the neighbors’ gripes for a full hour, the committee members recommended Smith and Magalhães reduce the club’s capacity to 200 people and return to the board again.

Magalhães said they will run the numbers to see if the venue could earn enough money to survive with half the guests, but if not, they will start looking for spaces in other neighborhoods. The pair, however, don’t actually need the panel’s approval to secure a booze slinging permit — its vote is just a recommendation to the State Liquor Authority, which may or may not take the commnity board’s advice it into consideration. — Lauren Gill

c

IN THE NOH, from p.35

acter work in film and stage, from “Mame” to “Gypsy” to “Sweeney Todd,” is the greatest living actress.

Ironic because Lansbury’s very first film role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination at 18, was as Nancy in “Gaslight,” George Cukor’s classic screen adaptation of “Angel Street.”

Asked what working with Lans-

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TRISTAN, from p.36

was the revelation of the evening.

Skelton’s baritonal middle range opens up into a sweetly lyrical if occasionally pressed upper register. He even summoned phrases of Schubert-lied-delicacy in Act III after passages of agitated declamation. Despite one or two momentary lapses into strain or shouting, Skelton’s voice held up to the last floated “Isolde” of Act III. Evgeny Nikitin’s high bass was tested by Kurwenal’s baritone high GayCityNews.nyc | October 13 - 26, 2016

AMERICAN RED CROSS IN GREATER NEW YORK

A plan to open a gay nightclub in Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill would bring hordes of rowdy revelers to the area’s otherwise sleepy cobblestoned streets and lead to more serious vices, the leader of a local civic group told Community Board 2’s liquor license committee on October 5.

“We all know when people come to dance, they drink, there’s illicit drugs,” said Vinegar Hill Association president Aldona Vaiciunas, one of many locals who packed the meeting to rail against the plan. “They’re not gonna follow any type of map — they’ll go all over the neighborhood, they’ll be vomiting, yelling, singing, whatever. This is not a suitable way of life for us.”

Nightclub designer Guy Smith and disc jockey Tadeu Magalhães, arguing there is in fact a time to dance, urged approval of a 400-person venue called 84 Kings on the second floor of a warehouse at Gold and Plymouth Streets. But they failed to win over a majority of CB2 members, who instead deadlocked 3–3 on the plan.

This is second time the pair have presented their club to the community board, having pitched it to the panel’s executive committee over the summer. That time, the idea was shot down in a 7–3 vote.

When the duo returned last week, they offered a more fleshed-out proposal — an artfully designed 42-page presentation stating their weekend dance parties lasting until 5 a.m. would only be open to invited members, who could bring two guests, and that on weekdays they would offer the space as a queer community center closing at midnight. Vinegar Hill is the perfect place for a queer venue, the men argued, because many gay and trans people are moving into nearby DUMBO, Fort Greene, and Park

Pulse Nightclub hero Neema Bahrami and Josh Lockwood, CEO of American Red Cross of Greater New York.

HEALING HEARTS, HELPING HANDS The American Red Cross in Greater New York, at its annual Heroes Among Us gala last week, honored three employees of Orlando’s LGBT Pulse Nightclub who “demonstrated extraordinary courage and selflessness” in helping patrons escape harm as a gunman killed 49 and wounded more than 50 others in an early morning rampage on June 12.

Neema Bahrami, Brian Reagan, and Neal Whittleton were among those recognized at the group’s October 5 event at the American Museum of Natural History.

“While witnessing unspeakable horrors, all three men demonstrated strength and clear thinking in the most frightening of circumstances,” the Red Cross said in a written statement. “In the weeks following the massacre, these heroes’ resiliency and determination have provided inspiration to others as they, their coworkers, and the Orlando community work to heal and keep Pulse alive.”

Since the tragedy, Bahrami has created a charity with his young neighbors called Hang Your

Heart, which encourages tolerance and acceptance to school age children. Regan has worked on creating programming across Orlando as well as mentoring and shepherding Pulse employees on their road to recovery from the trauma. Whittleton, who was instrumental in guiding patrons out of the building and leading the police to the shooter, Omar Mateen, continues his work in guarding the empty nightclub building and the nearby memorial.

The three men, earlier in the day on October 5, visited the Red Cross’ New York headquarters on West 49th Street, where they were joined by Josh Lockwood, the CEO of American Red Cross in Greater New York, in a panel discussion about bringing hope to a community in tragedy’s wake.

Lockwood, who traveled to Orlando immediately after the deadly shootings, said, “I felt a personal connection to the Orlando community and join them in their efforts to rebuild. Our honorees have showed incredible leadership and determination to inspire hope and healing not just through their own tragedy, but to the nation.”

bury was like, Ebersole enthused, “Wonder ful, and the consummate professional who set the bar very high for the rest of the cast, She never missed a single per formance, so, even if I was feeling sick, I would still go on, because Angela surely would.”

Ebersole recently finished a Chicago run of the musical “War Paint,” which was about the highly competitive relationship

between two redoubtable cosmetics queens, Elizabeth Arden (Ebersole) and Helena Rubinstein (Patti LuPone). Although praise was heaped on the two formidable divas, the play got decidedly mixed reviews and may or may not reach Broadway.

Ebersole thor oughly enjoyed working with LuPone “and my ‘Grey Gardens’ musical team Scott Frankel and Michael Korie.

And my Catherine Zuber costumes were fabulous!”

Ebersole may well be reunited with Korie in the upcoming “Flying Over Sunset,” along with writer/ director James Lapine. The premise is a particularly intriguing one, involving Clare Booth Luce, Aldous Huxley, and Cary Grant during their highly publicized psychological experimentation with LSD in the 1950s.

notes in Act III — but a little roughness is appropriate for the character and he is an arresting voice and stage presence. Ekaterina Gubanova’s rich mezzo-soprano communicated Brangäne’s sympathetic anguish at Isolde’s plight with steady legato phrasing. René Pape has delved further into King Marke’s anguish — this strong man has not one ounce of self-pity, just shock and disillusion at Tristan’s dishonorable betrayal. Pape still rolls out a velvet carpet of enveloping bass tone — and won ovations for it.

Sir Simon Rattle’s conducting is forward moving with a transparency of detail that does not preclude force or depth. The Met Orchestra seemed inspired by him, playing with flawless ensemble and balance, never overwhelming the soloists. Rattle favors a cool cerebral reading with much in common with Pierre Boulez’s “Tristan” interpretation. There is constant agitation and tension but little sensuality or Dionysian ecstasy in his interpretation — very in tune with Treliński’s production.

Treliński’s dark vision of “Tristan”

is dark, aesthetically bleak, and passionless — the lovers escape into alternate realities to avoid the ugly one they live in. Love leads to death with little pleasure in the journey. This production concept reflects the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who influenced Wagner’s libretto for “Tristan.” But old Richard was also very much a sensualist, and Treliński’s interpretation, though provocative, shortchanges aspects of the work. This “Tristan” aims to disturb and challenge, not seduce the audience.

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