Gay City News - March 28, 2019 by Schneps Media

Pride March Reverses Route This Year 10

Suddenly, Jussie Out of Jam 12

Another St. Pat’s Win 14

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SERVING

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RULED THE ART SCENE LINCOLN KIRSTEIN’S UNPARALLELED CULTURAL INFLUENCE Page 25

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/ WALKER EVANS ARCHIVE: GIFT OF THE ARTIST

Walker Evan’s photographic portrait of Lincoln Kirstein, c. 1931; gelatin silver print, 6 3/8 × 4 1/2 .

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March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

In This Issue COVER STORY When giants ruled the art scene 25

PERSPECTIVES Debate over surrogacy 18

EDUCATION City hit from all sides on bullying 04

FILM Jordan Peele examines our worse selves 24

HEALTH CDC shows wide treatment gaps 08

THEATER Ravishing new â&#x20AC;&#x153;Kiss Me Kateâ&#x20AC;? 26

CRIME Taj Patterson federal suit nixed 16

BOOKS Sleeping with a celebrity 32

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EDUCATION

City Hit from All Sides on School Bullying NYS comptroller audit, lawsuits fault anti-bullying enforcement BY ANDY HUMM

ullying in schools is chronically unreported despite state law requirements, according to a new audit by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli who cited “confusion” by local school officials over “what needs to be reported.” The full audit is at tinyurl.com/ yy3ojcqs. Under the Dignity for All Students Act, passed six years ago and since enhanced, complaints of “student-to-student bullying, discrimination, and harassment in NYC schools are supposed to be reported into the DOE’s [Department of Education’s] online database within 24 hours.” Incidents deemed “material” based on “gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity or other qualities, are to be reported annually to the State Department of Education (SED).” Despite all these requirements, in 2015-2016 “the DOE did not report any material incidents to SED for 670 of 1,600 schools and in 2016-2017, it did not report any material incidents for 570 schools.” Despite this lack of reported incidents, students, teachers, and parents responding to the anonymous annual DOE survey for grades six to 12 say there is “significant” numbers of harassment, bullying, and intimidation incidents “most of the time” or “some of the time” — including at schools with no officially reported incidents. DiNapoli said in his release, “Underreporting and late reporting of bullying put students at risk of further harassment.” He called on the DOE to do more as did a slew of other elected officials, including State Assemblymember Daniel O’Donnell, author of DASA, who said, “Bullying in schools is pervasive and damaging, but treatable with enough support.” The DOE responded to the report by emphasizing its commitment to combating bullying. “Our schools must be safe, welcoming environments for all stu-

OFFICE OF NYS COMPTROLLER

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

dents and we’ve already re-organized our safety office, added staff and a data tracker, and are now completing a daily review of all bullying incidents,” said Miranda Barbot, the DOE’s deputy press secretary. “We take bullying extremely seriously, and we’re investing $8 million in anti-bullying initiatives, and increasing trainings to school staff on how to report and address any allegation of bullying.” While the audit covered July 1, 2015 through June 28, 2018, the city stepped up its anti-bullying efforts after the September 2017 classroom fight in a Bronx high school that left Matthew McCree dead, Ariane Laboy slashed, and Abel Cedeno charged with manslaughter. Out gay City Councilmember Daniel Dromm, then chair of the Education Committee, held a daylong hearing on school bullying that October at which Carmen Fariña, who was then chancellor, announced the new initiatives. Last May, the DOE hired a Bullying Response Coordinator to manage the online Bullying Incident Form and 311 complaints and the DOE says that all of those complaints

are reported. The agency has also changed its definition of bullying to align with the state’s as of the beginning of this school year. At that hearing, Dr. Elizabethe C. Payne, director of the Queering Education Research Institute, testified, “Bullying behaviors are not anti-social but rather social acts that maintain the peer boundaries for normal and acceptable within a peer context.” She said that “proposed solutions have failed to consider how educational institutions assume and/ or expect heterosexuality and gender conformity of all students and thus limit possibilities for exploring why LGBTQ youth are so vulnerable. Consistent intervention is critical, but it is not enough.” Jared Fox was hired in 2016 as the DOE’s first LGBTQ liaison. The DOE says it now has 375 studentled groups such as Gender and Sexuality Alliances and Respect for All Clubs. The schools have an online training tool “available” to school staff to help them create safer and more inclusive learning environments. And the DOE claims that its Online Bullying Incident Form is sent to the complainant’s

school for an investigation within five days. Laboy and the family of McCree have filed suit against the DOE and Cedeno and are basing their claims on the lack of metal detectors in the school (Cedeno maintains he was using a knife to protect himself) and the schools’ failure to enforce DASA. In depositions early last year in those suits — obtained by Gay City News — Louna Dennis, McCree’s mother, told city lawyers that her son was not himself bullied and Laboy acknowledged that he himself was not as well. Cedeno’s defense is that he had been bullied for years — because he was perceived as gay — and snapped when it happened again in 2017. Out gay civil rights attorney Tom Shanahan filed a federal lawsuit in December 2017 on behalf of Cedeno against the DOE and school administrators for “their history of failing to protect him from antigay bullying since he was in sixth grade.” Shanahan is still working to get it assigned to a federal judge. In response to the comptroller’s audit, Shanahan said, “The problem when students report bullying as Abel and his mom did repeatedly is that it gets worse.” Cedeno, he said, was subject to retribution from other students “and he then cut out of school and ended up having to repeat a year.” He said Cedeno was denied reassignment to another school — a right every student has when the atmosphere for them becomes too toxic. Dromm, a former teacher, said in response to the audit, “Principals don’t want to report negative things about their schools” and that accounts for the lack of reporting. He has personally urged the new chancellor, Richard Carranza, to step up “culturally responsive education” and to “say the words” when it comes to teachers talking about LGBTQ people and issues. Shanahan said that schools should be rewarded for unearthing complaints of bullying instead of harboring fears about reporting the incidents. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

POLITICS

Just What Was Brandon Straka #WalkingAway From? Founder of Trumpian anti-Democratic Party group was an intermittent voter BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

he gay founder of the #WalkAway movement who posted a passionate video on YouTube in which he announced he was leaving the Democratic Party has only voted six times since 2004 and only one of those votes was cast in a primary race. “And worst of all, the Democratic Party and the liberal media have embraced, affirmed, aided, and abetted this cult ideology,” said Brandon Straka, 42, said in a June 29, 2018, video that he posted on YouTube. “In an effort to gain voters and maintain power, the Democratic Party that I once loved has joined forces with the extremist left. The six-minute statement mostly blames unnamed “social justice warriors” for his complaints, which are grab bag of general conservative complaints about the left. The complaint that the Democratic Party has embraced some of the sillier views of the far left would probably be rejected by most Democrats. His renunciation of the Democratic Party and his affiliation with the Republican Party have made him very popular in conservative circles. In 2018 and into 2019, he gave interviews to multiple mainstream and right wing news outlets. This month, Straka spoke at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which is produced by the America Conservative Union and features leading conservative voices. Straka organized the #WalkAway March in Washington, DC, in October 2018. The movement is meant to encourage more people to leave the Democratic Party. Straka’s professed love for the Democratic Party looks more like nominal interest in light of his voting record. He registered as a Democrat in 2004, according to city Board of Elections records. He voted in the 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2018 general elections and in the 2010 primary races. Straka told the CPAC audience that he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Board of Elections data show he did not vote in the primary contest that year between Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders nor in the primary eight years earlier between Clinton and then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Nor did he vote in the four mayoral contests in the years since 2004. Straka has not donated to any candidate or committee in any election cycle in any city race since 2001, according to the city’s Campaign Finance Board nor has he donated to any candidate or committee in any federal or state race since 2001, according to the state Board of Elections and the Federal Election Commission.

GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

YOUTUBE.COM

Brandon Straka in the YouTube video in which he launched his #WalkAway effort.

Straka changed his party affiliation to Republican in April 2018 and then again in September 2018. The second registration came after a left-leaning journalist contacted him and said that he was still registered as a Democrat, Straka told Gay City News. He declined to discuss his voting history or the two-month gap between his change in party affiliation and the video, saying, “I don’t like the direction this interview is going.” Straka gained higher notoriety in the LGBTQ community in New York City after his group organized a March 28 town hall that was to occur at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. The town hall was to feature Straka, Blaire White, Rob Smith, and Mike Harlow who were identified as writers and political commentators. White is transgender and Smith and Harlow are gay. When activist groups, such as Rise and Resist and ACT UP, learned of the town hall the week of March 18, they formed a coalition that sent an open letter to the Center on March 22 asking that the town hall be canceled and for greater transparency and accountability in its bookings process. The Center cancelled the town hall on March 22. “In recent days we have learned that certain of the panelists announced for this event have made repeated, well-documented past statements that violate our mission, values and the spirit of inclusiveness for all individuals and identities that is core to our work and who we are,” the Center said in a statement. “Our space

is a place of safety and refuge for those most vulnerable among us, and we will do everything in our power to protect that. Permitting this event to proceed would make many of our community members feel unsafe and, among other things, interfere with their ability to participate in other Center programming.” Straka told Gay City News that he learned of the cancellation in a tweet and that he had not heard from The Center. “We are going to actively pursue any legal action we can,” Straka said. “They have deprived the LGBT community of being able to engage in an open dialogue considering alternative points of view to the typical leftist progressive agenda, which has taken the LGBT community hostage. The behavior that we’re seeing right now is precisely the reason why our event was so very necessary. The gay movement has been hijacked by a mob of liberal, leftist fascists.” In 2011, the Center banned all groups that were organizing around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some of the banned groups had already been meeting at The Center. That led to two years of protests inside the Center by groups that oppose Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. The ban was lifted in 2013 only after author Sarah Schulman was barred because she proposed to read from her 2012 book “Israel/ Palestine and The Queer International.” That move prompted singularly loud and vigorous protests and led to an end to the ban. Straka said he has attended roughly two dozen events at the Center and was never told his behavior violated any policy. To his knowledge, none of the other panelists ever attended an event there and violated a Center policy. This latest ban appears to result solely from comments that Straka and his colleagues made at events outside the Center. “It had to be because we’ve never done an event at the Center,” Straka said. When it initially rented the space, Straka’s group would have been required to pledge that it follow all Center policies at the event. While the #WalkAway campaign has enjoyed a great deal of media attention, it is unclear if the movement has enjoyed financial success. Fundraising accounts on GoFundMe and classy.org have not hit their goals. On GoFundMe, at least, the money is not released unless the fundraiser makes the campaign’s goal. Separately, Straka solicits donations for the WalkAway Foundation, a 501(c)(3), or in checks payable to him on walkawaycampaign.com. Donors are instructed to send donations to an address on Lexington Avenue. That address is for a UPS store at Lexington Avenue and 116th Street.

MILITARY

Veterans Say Chaim Deutsch Vows LGBTQ Support After years of homophobia, has Brooklyn pol turned a corner? BY MATT TRACY

local veterans group is cautiously optimistic after their members said the chair of the City Council’s Veterans Committee fi nally started to express some level of support for LGBTQ vets during a meeting with them on March 27. Sam Molik, the organization’s director of policy and legislative advocacy, told Gay City News that Brooklyn Councilmember Chaim Deutsch told the group he wanted them to know he views all veterans equally and that he will “look into” the possibility of voting for a potential City Council resolution against President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service members. Deutsch also told the organization that he feels his record on LGBTQ issues has been misrepresented, but those present at the meeting said he did not elaborate on that claim. Deutsch did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that statement or other questions about the March 27 meeting.

EMIL COHEN/ NEW YORK CIT Y COUNCIL

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson did not directly address concerns raised by a veterans advocacy group about Veterans Committee Chair Chaim Deutsch’s handling of matters related to LGBTQ vets.

The latest development comes after Rouse had repeatedly asked Deutsch, a conservative Democrat who has repeatedly voted against LGBTQ rights legislation, to publicly state his support for LGBTQ veterans and to lead on issues facing the community. Molik also said Deutsch made no mention during the meeting of inappropriate homophobic comments he made to Rouse last year outside of City Council offices when he allegedly said he

and his constituents in southern Brooklyn do not support samesex marriage. But following the meeting, the NYC Veterans Alliance praised what they described as “progress of him being able to state and clarify support,” and the organization posted on Twitter thanking him for “clarification of your support for equality of ALL veterans including LGBTQ,” which the councilmember retweeted. Notably, Deutsch still has not

written any tweets or made any public statements explicitly supporting LGBTQ veterans. According to those at the meeting, Deutsch also warned that he typically refrains from voting on resolutions relating to national issues because “it becomes a nightmare.” The Council has yet to put forth the resolution, but it was discussed in meetings with the NYC Veterans Alliance on March 25. Still, Rouse said “we will as an organization hold him to his new statement of support for the equality of all veterans.” It is not clear whether Deutsch was prompted to change his tone after the NYC Veterans Alliance sent a letter earlier in the month to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson asking him to step in and address Deutsch’s neglect of LGBTQ veterans, his homophobic comments to Rouse, and the hostility he had shown toward the out lesbian commissioner of the Department of Veterans Services, Loree Sutton. As of March 25, Rouse had not received a response from the speaker.

NYC Veterans Protest Trans Ban, Budget Cuts Pentagon’s transphobia hits home; city, state action demanded BY MATT TRACY

eterans advocates and elected officials gathered on the steps of City Hall March 25 to protest looming budget cuts and remind the general public that President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service members is not some federal issue in a faraway land — it’s a very real problem in our own backyard. NYC Veterans Alliance president and founding director Kristen Rouse, who was joined by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans

MAT T TRACY

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, standing next to Kristen Rouse (right), president of tyhe NYC Veterans Alliance, ripped “the orange man” in the White House for his ban on transgender service members.

of America, Vietnam Veterans of America president John Rowan,

and several other members of the veterans community, sent a strong

message to elected officials that their causes are as important as any other ones — and they deserve attention now. “We need to hear from city and state leaders that all service members matter,” Rouse said. “We need to hear that echo in City Hall and around the country.” The advocates ripped proposed cuts to veterans-related programs at both the city and state levels. Mayor Bill de Blasio is seeking to trim $63,000 from the city’s Department of Veterans’ Services

➤ VETERANS’ PROTEST, continued on p.17 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

COMMUNITY

Sara Ramirez Pulls LGBT Center Donation “Grey’s Anatomy” star cites lack of promised bisexual training BY MATT TRACY

ut bisexual actress Sara Ramirez has withdrawn a donation she made to the LGBT Community Center in New York after she said the organization failed to follow through on its pledge to use the funds to implement bisexual-based training for its staff. “Just got a full refund from the NY LGBT Center because after a year & a half of promising my donation would create #bi+ assessments & training 4 their staff, it never happened,” Ramirez wrote in a tweet March 11. A spokesperson for the Center acknowledged that the organization did not incorporate the trainings. “We strive to meet donors’ expectations but unfortunately were not able to do so in this instance,” said Mary Steyer, the Center’s senior director of communications. “Given that, the most responsible course of action was to return the donor’s gift. The actress, who came out in 2016, instead opted to shift her funds to BiNet USA, a non-

DONNA ACETO

Actress Sara Ramirez, seen here at the 2017 Center Women’s Event, wants to make sure her donations are benefitting the bisexual community.

profit bisexual community organization, in order to train folks at Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors United, which addresses youth homelessness with a particular focus on LGBTQ kids. It is not clear how much money Ramirez originally donated or what kind of training will be carried out with the re-allocated funds. BiNet USA tweeted in response to Ramirez, thanking her “for this opportunity to educate and make the world a little but [sic] better.” Ramirez, who originally hails from Mexico, has a special connection the True Color Fund. She came out during the 2016 40 To None Summit, which was spearheaded by that organization, and she currently serves on its board of directors. The actress’ career has included multiple roles depicting bisexual characters. She has starred as Callie Torres in “Grey’s Anatomy” and Kat Sandoval on “Madam Secretary.” Prior to becoming known for her on-screen work, Ramirez nabbed a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress for her role in the Broadway musical comedy “Spamalot.” Ramirez received the Ally for Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign in 2015.

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works... “Over 10 years ago, NASA began to notice an unexpected result of space travel: Astronauts that left with back pain would come back without it. After investigated this now phenomenon here’s what they found: During the anti-gravity state of the mission there were decompressive forces on the intervertebral discs and back pain was relieved. How? When you travel through space, the effects of gravity are removed and you are in a weightless state. All the pressure is taken off your spine and discs. Even better — and this is the key — a negative pressure is created. This negative pressure actually sucks the herniated material back into the disc and allows it to heal. Thanks to the

DRX9000TM, disc herniation sufferers finally have a non-surgical solution.” The main conditions the DRX9000TM has documented success with are back pain, sciatica, herniated and/or bulging discs (single or multiple), degenerative disc disease, facet syndromes and a relapse or failure following back surgery. Anyone wishing to learn more about this new FDA approved solution to back pain or to set up an appointment for a free consultation call Dr. Keller’s office at 718 234-6212 or visit Brooklyn Spine Center, 5911 16th Ave., Brooklyn, New York 11204. Brooklynspinecenter.com.

LEGAL

Medicaid Ordered for Gender Surgery in Iowa State Supreme Court concludes exclusion violates Iowa Civil Rights Act clusions based on constitutional arguments or interpretations of the federal Affordable Care Act, but the Iowa ruling focused on the specific definition of public accommodation in a ruling with potentially wider impact on the state Civil Rights Act’s applicability to state and local government policies affecting LGBTQ people in Iowa. The state’s high court ruling combined two separate cases. The plaintiff in one, 29-year-old Eerieanna Good, is a Medicaid participant who has been living as a woman since 2010, was formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2013, and a year later began hormone therapy. Based on depression and anxiety she was experienc-

BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

he Iowa Medicaid program’s exclusion of coverage for sex reassignment procedures violates that state’s Civil Rights Act, the State Supreme Court ruled on March 8. Discrimination based on gender identity in public accommodations has been part of Iowa’s Civil Rights Act since 2007. Justice Susan Christensen, who wrote for the court, rejected the Department of Human Services’ argument that it is not a public accommodation and that the existing exclusion is not discriminatory because reassignment surgery is a subset of cosmetic surgery, which Medicaid does not cover regardless of gender identity. Other courts have struck down similar ex-

ACLU OF IOWA

EerieAnna Good.

➤ MEDICAID COVERAGE, continued on p.9

HEALTH

CDC Data Shows Wide HIV Treatment Gaps Many don’t know they are infected; others not taking medication BY MATT TRACY

oughly half of the people living with HIV in the United States were not virally suppressed and more than a third were not receiving treatment for the infection, according to new CDC data released this month stemming from 2015 and 2016. The model-based data, which highlights the gaps in HIV care nationwide, further noted that 14.5 percent of the 1.1 million people with HIV were undiagnosed. Folks without a suppressed viral load made up 49 percent of HIV-positive individuals, and 37 percent of all HIV-positive folks were not receiving care. The CDC’s estimated population breakdown of the HIV data indicated that 645,000 of the 1.1 million people with HIV in America during the timeframe of the study were men who had sex with men. The next largest group was straight women, who made up 194,200 of the total people infected. Straight men trailed behind at 87,500. When divided up by age, there was a clear pattern: HIV infections were most prevalent among adults above the age of 55, but decreased with every age demographic from that point on down. Those above the age of 55 constituted 405,500 of the people with HIV compared to 258,000 of people between 45 and 54. Meanwhile, 65,200 people between the ages of 13-24 were infected

— but that group also experienced the highest transmission rate. Despite the range of data about various demographics, the CDC notably did not provide any race or ethnicity-based statistics. In a separate report about PrEP, an HIV prevention medication taken daily, the CDC noted that black and Latino gay and bisexual men at high risk of acquiring HIV were 10 to 14 percent less likely to take the pill than high-risk white men. Black and Latino men also were less aware of PrEP than white men. The study provides no guidance on how much the numbers may have changed since the 20152016 data was obtained. The CDC’s most recent releases pertaining to HIV/ AIDS are focused on data that is between two and four years old. The lack of treatment among such a large swath of HIV-positive people in America could reinforce many of the concerns raised by experts in the field. Financial impediments have often been cited as major hurdles to HIV treatment. The price of PrEP has climbed significantly in recent years, prompting calls for a generic version of it in order to boost accessibility. And some of the people who are living with HIV have a difficult time affording their medication. The latest statistics from the CDC coincide with President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of a plan to end the HIV/ AIDS epidemic by 2030. The plan has been met with

wide skepticism among HIV/AIDS advocates, and Amida Care, a non-profit community health plan serving roughly 7,000 HIV-positive Medicaid recipients in New York City, blasted the administration even further on March 18. The organization noted that Trump’s proposed cuts in the areas of housing, Medicaid, and Medicare significantly undercut the effort to curtail the epidemic. “Actions speak louder than words: to end the epidemic, the administration must align its actions with its rhetoric,” the organization wrote in an email outlining major concerns about the president’s cuts. “To end the epidemic, the president must stop attempts to undermine access to health care.” Locally, the State of New York claims to remain on pace to end the epidemic by 2020, with data released in October 2018 indicating the number of people diagnosed with HIV dropped 39 percent from 2007 to 2017. However, Amida Care, among other experts, has noted that the rate at which new infections have dropped is slowing down. One cautionary note in New York State’s numbers is that 20 percent of people diagnosed with HIV statewide were also diagnosed simultaneously with AIDS, meaning that one fifth, at minimum, of people living with HIV are unaware of their status. That number is more than five percentage points higher than the nationwide rate of people who were undiagnosed. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

â&#x17E;¤ MEDICAID COVERAGE, from p.8 ing due to her gender dysphoria, her doctors determined that surgery is medically necessary. In January 2017, Good applied for Medicaid coverage of the recommended surgery. The other plaintiff, Carol Beal, is a 43-yearold transgender woman and Medicaid participant who began living as a female at age 10 and began hormone therapy in 1989. She, too, continues to experience depression and anxiety stemming from her gender dysphoria, and her doctors agreed that surgery is medically necessary. She sought Medicaid coverage in June 2017. Iowaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Medicaid program has refused to cover sex reassignment procedures for decades, even before it established formal rules on the matter. In 1980, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s informal policy of characterizing sex reassignment surgery as â&#x20AC;&#x153;cosmeticâ&#x20AC;? was â&#x20AC;&#x153;improper.â&#x20AC;? That ruling led, in time â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 1995 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to the state Department of Human Services adopting a formal rule that the Medicaid program would not cover â&#x20AC;&#x153;sex reassignment proceduresâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;gender identity disorders.â&#x20AC;? The question for the state high court was whether the 2007 amendment to the Iowa Civil Rights Act trumped the Medicaid regulation. When Good and Beal took the state to court, Polk County District Court Judge Arthur E. Gamble ruled in their favor on multiple grounds,

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ACLU OF IOWA

Carol Ann Beal.

concluding that the Department of Human Services is a public accommodation subject to the ban on gender identity discrimination, and that the Medicaid regulation violates the Civil Rights Act. Gamble also found that the regulation violates the State Constitutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Equal Protection Clause and that the coverage exclusion â&#x20AC;&#x153;had a grossly disproportionate negative impact on a private right and was arbitrary and capricious.â&#x20AC;? The state appealed, challenging Gambleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conclusion on the public accommodation question and arguing that the regulation is not discriminatory in any event.

The Supreme Court rejected both arguments. Public accommodation, as defined in the Civil Rights Act, Justice Christensen pointed out, â&#x20AC;&#x153;includes each state and local government unit or tax-supported district of whatever kind, nature, or class that offers services, facilities, benefits, grants, or goods to the public, gratuitously or otherwise.â&#x20AC;? Medicaid is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;benefit or grant,â&#x20AC;? she noted. On the question of the state excluding, in blanket fashion, â&#x20AC;&#x153;cosmetic, reconstructive, or plastic surgeryâ&#x20AC;Ś performed primarily for psychological purposes,â&#x20AC;? Christensen noted that the Medicaid program does provide coverage for â&#x20AC;&#x153;revision of disfiguring and extensive scars resulting from neoplastic surgeryâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;correction of a congenital anomaly.â&#x20AC;? The same procedures, however, are forbidden to transgender participants for what their doctors deem medically necessary treatments for their gender dysphoria. Having affirmed the Polk County courtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ruling on statutory grounds, the Supreme Court refrained from taking on the constitutional questions raised in District Court Judge Gambleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opinion. The decision is a big victory for transgender residents of Iowa. Good and Beal were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, the ACLU Foundation LGBT & HIV Project, and pro bono attorneys from Nixon Peabody in Chicago.

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GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

PRIDE

Pride March Reverses Direction This Year Last year’s new route ﬂipped, beginning in Flatiron, ending in Chelsea BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

fter saying as recently as January that this year’s Pride March would be staged in Chelsea and end at 29th Street and Fifth Avenue, the organization that produces the parade and related events has reversed course and will now stage the march in the blocks above 26th Street and Fifth Avenue and end the event at 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue. “Our intention originally was to go the exact same route as last year,” said James Fallarino, the spokesperson for Heritage of Pride (HOP), the group that produces the march and related events. “After we got the community feedback and we spoke with folks in the mayor’s office, Corey Johnson’s office, and the NYPD, all of us got together to figure out what made the most sense.” The 2019 march commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots, which mark the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. The first march took place in 1970 and it has taken various routes in the years

HERITAGE OF PRIDE

since. This year, the march will head south on Fifth Avenue, west on Eighth and Christopher Streets past the Stonewall Inn, then north on Seventh Avenue to the dispersal area. In 2018, the march was staged in Chelsea, which enraged some local residents, in part because they were only told of the plan very close to the date of the event. The march always occurs on the last Sunday in June. HOP promised Chelsea residents that contingents would only briefly test sound systems during the day and that discipline held in the morning, but collapsed by the afternoon. The last contingents, which were comprised of an estimated 50,000 marchers, left Chelsea at about 7 p.m. The last marchers arrived at the dispersal area at 9:14 pm. The march always begins at noon. This year, some Chelsea residents were angered because they first learned that HOP had applied for a city parade permit using last year’s route when Gay City News contacted them for comment. The March 19 press release that announced

The route announced on March 19 reverses the direction of the annual LGBTQ Pride March from what it was in 2018.

➤ REVERSING DIRECTION, continued on p.11

POLITICS

Bolsonaro: US, Brazil United For Hetero Norms Trump heaps praise on homophobic South American counterpart BY MATT TRACY

resident Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil stood alongside President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden at the White House on March 19 and said the two nations are aligned in promoting straight relationships and rejecting political correctness. “May I say that Brazil and the United States stand side by side in their efforts to ensure liberties in respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God, our creator against the gender ideology or politically correct attitudes and against fake news,” Bolsonaro said. Trump did not address Bolsonaro’s comments on LGBTQ rights, but later complimented him on using the term “fake news.” During a subsequent question and answer session with the press, reporters

THE WHITE HOUSE/ TIA DUFOUR

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil used his visit to the White House to promote “traditional family relationships,” denounce “political correctness” and “fake news,” and tighten his bond with President Donald Trump.

did not ask the two leaders about those comments or LGBTQ issues. Bolsonaro’s remarks, made during his highly anticipated visit to the US, represent the latest twist in his longstanding pattern of homophobia dating back to his time

in Brazil’s Congress. He once described himself as “homophobic — and very proud of it,” and upon taking office as president he immediately took action against LGBTQ rights by removing those issues from the Ministry of Women, Fam-

ily, and Human Rights. Just two weeks before his visit to the United States, Bolsonaro mocked gay men in a tweet featuring a sexually explicit video. “I don’t feel comfortable showing it, but we have to expose the truth to the population knowing and always taking their priorities,” Bolsonaro wrote in his tweet on March 5. “This is what has turned many street blocks in the Brazilian carnival.” Trump’s tendency to side with some of the world’s most extreme right-wing leaders was on full display during his meeting with Bolsonaro. The US president said the relationship between the two nations “has never been better” and added that he intends to designate Brazil as a “major non-NATO ally

➤ BOLSONARO & TRUMP, continued on p.11 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

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â&#x17E;¤ REVERSING DIRECTION, from p.10 the 2019 route quoted Julian Sanjivan and Chris Frederick, two senior HOP members, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and Corey Johnson, the out gay speaker of the City Council. Johnson represents Chelsea among several neighborhoods and has had to contend with the competing demands of residents there and the broader LGBTQ community. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As we commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, it is fitting that we will march down Fifth Avenue, past the Stonewall Inn and through the neighborhoods of Greenwich Village and Chelsea, cradles of the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement,â&#x20AC;? Johnson said in the press release. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I want to thank Mayor de Blasio, the NYPD, NYC Pride, and all their partners for their hard

â&#x17E;¤ BOLSONARO & TRUMP, from p.10 or even possibly, if you start thinking about it, a NATO ally.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have many views that are similar,â&#x20AC;? Trump added. The climate for LGBTQ folks in Brazil has appeared to deteriorate since Bolsonaro took office. The only out gay congressmember in Brazil, Jean Wyllys, was forced to resign his post and flee the country after he was the target of numerous threats in the last year. He was eventually replaced by out gay politician David Miranda, who is married to American journalist Glenn Greenwald. Trump has similarly taken diGayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

work in planning WorldPride NYC 2019, a tremendous logistical feat.â&#x20AC;? HOP, which also goes by the name NYC Pride, is expecting 150,000 marchers this year â&#x20AC;&#x201D; three times last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total, in large part because WorldPride is taking place simultaneously, the first time the global gathering will be held in the US. Since 2010, the city has required that all parades last no longer than five hours. The Pride March, which is one of the four largest public events in the city, has not come close to that target in years. The 2017 march was just under 10 hours long and the marches in 2016 and 2015 were each over eight hours long. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the big thing now is figuring out how to get this moving,â&#x20AC;? Fallarino said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We want everyone to be seen and we want them thinking about everybody else, as well.â&#x20AC;?

rect actions against the LGBTQ community since taking office. The president is working to implement his ban on transgender service members, has sought to cut HIVrelated funding (despite presenting a plan to eradicate the epidemic in the US by 2030), and launched an assault on LGBTQ families by allowing South Carolina adoption agencies to reject same-sex parents. In 2017, the Trump administration withdrew a pair of letters by the Obama administration directing schools receiving federal funding to allow transgender students and staff to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity.

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EMPIRE CHARGES

Charges Dropped Against Jussie Smollett â&#x20AC;&#x153;Empireâ&#x20AC;? star claims vindication; mayor, police chief say otherwise BY MATT TRACY

ore than a dozen felony charges levied against out gay â&#x20AC;&#x153;Empireâ&#x20AC;? actor Jussie Smollett for allegedly staging a fake homophobic and racist attack have been dropped, the Cook County Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Attorneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office announced on March 26. The sudden about-face came just weeks after Smollett was charged with 16 counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly lying about how he was attacked by a pair of men who he said called him homophobic and racial slurs, wrapped a noose around his neck, and poured a chemical substance on him. The attorneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office stressed that Smollett was not exonerated in the case, which was sealed, but admitted that the evidence â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

JUSSIE SMOLLET T/FACEBOOK

Jussie Smollett, seen here in 2016, has suddenly had all charges dropped after allegedly staging a racist and homophobic attack earlier this year.

his willingness to engage in community service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; drew them to conclude that dropping charges â&#x20AC;&#x153;is a just disposition and appropriate

resolution to this case.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The charges were dropped in return for Mr. Smollettâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s agreement to do community service and for-

feit his $10,000 bond to the City of Chicago,â&#x20AC;? the office added. Smollett was arrested in February after he was accused of enlisting the help of two men who were to â&#x20AC;&#x153;attackâ&#x20AC;? him before going on to lie about what happened. He pleaded not guilty to all of the charges after a grand jury indicted him. Prior to the alleged staged attack, Smollett also is accused of having sent a fake homophobic letter to himself in an effort to draw attention. Josh Margolin of ABC News reported that Smollett is still under investigation by the FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service over whether or not he sent a threatening letter to himself. But on the day the existing charges were dropped, Smollettâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attorneys claimed their client did nothing wrong, that he was a â&#x20AC;&#x153;vic-

â&#x17E;¤ JUSSIE OUT OF JAM, continued on p.13

POLITICS

Mud Flies in Windy City Mayoral Runoff Lesbian Lori Lightfoot carries on after phony ďŹ&#x201A;yers target her cago Police Board, narrowly edged out the two closest vote-getters in a crowded election on ori Lightfoot, an out lesbian candidate February 26, but fell well short of the majority for mayor in Chicago, has gained key needed to avoid a runoff. She garnered slightly endorsements from across the politi- more than 97,000 votes, or 17.54 percent, while cal spectrum and appears to have the Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle edge in the home stretch of the race despite get- trailed closely behind with 16.04 percent of the ting hit with a vicious last-minute wave of ho- vote. President Barack Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s former chief of mophobic flyers distributed outside of church- staff, Bill Daley â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whose father, Richard J. Daley, and brother, Richard M. Daley, previously es. Lightfoot, the former president of the Chi- served as mayors of Chicago â&#x20AC;&#x201D; wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t too far behind in third place, ! # & as he notched 14.78 4 & percent. The 56-year-old Lightfoot is vying to become the first black woman and $ / 1 , 5 first openly LGBTQ 0 SAVING0 . ! " S person to be elected # ) 1233 2 & , & 8 mayor of Chicago in $ 8 5: 9 * 8 9 $ %

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Lori Lightfoot hopes to become the first lesbian and first black woman to serve as mayor of Chicago.

topic in the final weeks. Misleading flyers about her LGBTQ positions were posted around the city in recent days â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and they were written as if Lightfoot wrote the words herself. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The GAY EQUALITY ACT!!! ITS [sic] OUR TURN,â&#x20AC;? the flyers stated, followed by a series

â&#x17E;¤ WINDY CITY, continued on p.13 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

➤ JUSSIE OUT OF JAM, from p.12 tim who was vilified and made to appear as a perpetrator,” and that his record record was finally “wiped clean.” The 36-year-old actor added that he had been “truthful” throughout the entire process and that the entire scandal was an “incredibly difficult time” for him. The dropping of charges drew the ire of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who both suggested that Smollett managed to get away with his crimes and that the state’s attorney is treating the actor with a special kind of privilege not afforded to everyday folks. “He used the laws of the hate crime legislation that all of us through the years have put on the books to stand up to be the values that embody what we believe in,”

➤ WINDY CITY, from p.12 of statements saying, “I promise to enforce the Gay Equality Act” and that all bathrooms will be “genderfree,” public schools will “teach Gay History by mandate,” and “All churches will abide by the gay marriage laws.” The flyers also boasted in all capital letters that all contracts, jobs, and employment opportunities would be “newly assigned exclusively to gay people!” According to the Sun-Times, the flyers were largely distributed around predominantly black churches on the city’s South Side, but also reached other areas. The Mount Vernon Baptist Church, located in on the far West Side, and the Salem Baptist Church, a South Side mega-church led by former State Senator James Meeks, were among the locations where the flyers were distributed on cars parked on nearby streets. Lightfoot responded to the flyers by saying, “Hate has no place in Chicago,” and Preckwinkle took to Twitter to condemn “in the strongest possible terms any rhetoric or actions from any person or group that suggests prejudice or discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community.” It marked the second time this month that Lightfoot’s sexual orientation became an issue in the race. When Preckwinkle, who is GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

Emanuel said in a press conference after the news broke. “This is a whitewash of justice. A grand jury could not have been clearer.” Emanuel added that Smollett “has been let off scot-free with no sense of accountability of the moral and ethical wrong of his actions.” Johnson expressed outrage over the sealing of the case, saying that he’d “never hide behind a brokered deal and secrecy.” At the end of the day, he said, “it was Smollett who committed this hoax.” Smollett said he plans on getting back to work and moving on with his life after being cleared of the charges following a months-long, highly-publicized case. “But make no mistake, I will always continue to fight for the justice, equality and betterment of marginalized people everywhere,” he claimed.

also African-American, was asked during a March 7 debate what she admired about Lightfoot, she said, “That she’s open and honest about her LGBTQ orientation. I think it’s important in this country that we be respectful of differences and understand that all of us matter.” Lightfoot later questioned whether Preckwinkle was employing dog whistle tactics in an attempt to damage Lightfoot’s chances in religious communities. Lightfoot noted that both candidates would have prepared for that very question and that the answer must have been thought out in advance, but Preckwinkle maintained that she did not anticipate it. Preckwinkle strongly denied using dog whistles, calling any such allegation “ridiculous.” “I’ve always been a strong supporter of the LBGTQ community,” she said. Any homophobia that does exist in the race does not appear to be hampering Lightfoot’s candidacy. She has earned the backing of a variety of progressive organizations, from Our Revolution Illinois to the Latino Victory Council Fund, as well as more than a dozen unions. She is also armed with the endorsements from both the leftleaning Chicago Sun-Times and the more conservative Chicago Tribune, capping off a growing number of nods Lightfoot has received in the campaign’s final weeks.

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COMMUNITY

Another St. Pat’s Win for Inclusivity LGBTQ group marches in Brooklyn; Brendan Fay opens Mayor’s Breakfast BY KATHLEEN WARNOCK

ew York’s St. Patrick’s Day season culiminated on March 17, the day after the traditional Manhattan parade was held on Fifth Avenue, with the Brooklyn St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which included an LGBTQ group for the first time. Every March, communities cross the New York area hold parades in honor of the Irish saint and to celebrate Ireland’s culture, and each year it seems at least one more becomes inclusive. In 2019, however, there remains one stubborn holdout — I’m looking at you, Staten Island. The Manhattan parade and traditional Mayor’s Breakfast were held Saturday, March 16, a day before the official holiday. It’s a sign of the times that Irish-American LGBTQ activist and filmmaker Brendan Fay was invited to introduce the morning’s program and Mayor Bill de Blasio at Gracie Mansion. Fay was a member of the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization that originally protested Manhattan’s exclusionary policies in the early 1990s, and he went on to found both the Lavender & Green Alliance, which now marches on Fifth Avenue, and the inclusive St. Pat’s for All Parade in Queens. “It was quite a difference to be preparing remarks to introduce the day and the mayor in contrast with preparing to be arrested,” Fay said, recalling the days when he and many other activists engaged in civil disobedience to protest exclusionary policies in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. Since joining the Manhattan parade three years ago, the Lavender & Green Alliance has become a welcome presence, and the parade’s grand marshal this year, Brian O’Dwyer, dropped by the March 1 St. Pat’s for All concert at the Irish Arts Center to address the crowd to warm applause. At Gracie Mansion, Fay welcomed the crowd, made up of Irish and Irish-American elected officials

DONNA ACETO

Carrying the banner of the Brooklyn Irish LGBTQ Organization, for the first trime in Park Slope, are Lambda Independent Democrats president Jared Arader, Democratic district leader Josh Skaller, Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, Congressmember Yvetter Clarke, Gay Officers Action League president Brian Downey, Jim Burke, BILO leader Lisa Fane, Borough President Eric Adams, BILO leader Matthew McMorrow, and Brendan Fay, founder of the Lavender & Green Alliance. nce.

DONNA ACETO

Lavender & Green grand marshal Randy Wicker, Malachy McCourt, Councilmember Daniel Dromm, and former State Senator Tom Duane in Manhattan.

and civilians, including the Rose of Tralee, Kirsten Mate Maher.

When Fay mentioned the previous day’s massacre in New Zea-

land, the crowd stopped buzzing and fell into a spontaneous moment of silence. Fay was joined by the following speakers, including de Blasio, O’Dwyer, and Charles Flanagan, Ireland’s minister for Justice and Equality, in emphasizing hope and inclusivity as well as the contributions immigrants have made to New York and the US, often times in the face of hardships and prejudice. De Blasio also honored Michael Dowling, a Limerick native, who immigrated to the US as a young man and now heads up Northwell Health — the city’s largest private employer, the mayor pointed out. Later, as the parade got underway, the Lavender & Green Alliance, numbering about 100, donning badges and sashes, and celebrating its 25th anniversary, waited its turn on 48th Street. Shortly after 4 p.m., the group stepped onto Fifth Avenue, led by this year’s contingent grand marshals, Lisa Fane and Randy Wicker. Fane, the general manager of the Irish rep, is an activist who played a lead role in winning inclusion in this year’s Brooklyn parade. Wicker, a longtime West Village business owner, has been active in LGBTQ rights since the 1950s. Holding the group’s banner were Wicker, Fane, de Blasio advisor Matthew McMorrow, Fane’s partner in founding the Brooklyn Irish LGBTQ Organization (BILO), Carol Bullock, executive director of the Pride Center of Staten Island, which was once again denied a spot in that borough’s parade, Fay, and Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy, Fay’s co-chair at Pat’s for All. City Councilmember Daniel Dromm marched with the Council contingent and then jumped back in to march with Lavender & Green, which was also joined by former State Senator Tom Duane. “There was a great cheer when we stopped onto Fifth Avenue with our banner,” said Fay. “It’s always an emotional and moving moment for us, as we remember the strug-

DONNA ACETO

The Lavender & Green Alliance marches past St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue on March 16.

➤ ANOTHER ST. PAT’S WIN, continued on p.15 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

SLUG

DONNA ACETO

Drummers in the Fifth Avenue parade.

DONNA ACETO

Brendan Fay in the Fifth Avenue parade.

â&#x17E;¤ ANOTHER ST. PATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WIN, from p.14 gle, the arrests, and the dedication of activists which led us to this day.â&#x20AC;? Many of the same marchers journeyed to Park Slope the following day to march with BILO in the Brooklyn St. Patrickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day parade. Fane, who had been arrested many times protesting the Brooklyn paradeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s former exclusionary policy, recalled the activism that led to this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s breakthrough. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Assemblymember Robert Carroll supported us in outreach to the members of the parade committee and of the Irish community in Brooklyn, then he arranged for me to meet with the parade committee chair Mary Hogan and Father Larry Ryan of Holy Name Church, which is a hub of parade activity,â&#x20AC;? she said. Though BILOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s subsequent application to march was initially denied, community support for the contingent led the GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

parade committee to relent. BILO was joined by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Congressmember Yvette Clarke, Assemblymembers Carroll and Jo Anne Simon, and Councilmember Brad Lander. The parade crowd cheered the LGBTQ contingent, and another St. Patrickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day Parade was suddenly inclusive. Bullock, from the Pride Center of Staten Island, said her group received more well wishes on its effort to join the parade there than ever before, with many elected officials, including the Republican borough president, James Oddo, boycotting in protest. The word from sources close to the parade organizers, however, say they remain recalcitrant despite the growing pressure on them to open up the event. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our work is ongoing, including to make sure our cultural celebrations in New York City are welcoming and inclusive,â&#x20AC;? Fay said, taking note of the work still to be done.

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CRIME

Taj Patterson’s Federal Lawsuit Nixed Victim in brutal Williamsburg attack can’t pursue city, private patrol BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit brought against New York City, the Williamsburg Safety Patrol (WSP), and members of that patrol over a 2013 assault on a black gay man that left him blind in one eye. Taj Patterson, now 28, was attacked by roughly 20 members of the WSP as he was walking home from a party on December 1, 2013. He sued the WSP, members of the patrol, and the city in the federal and state courts. His argument is that because the city funds the patrol and has given the patrol other benefits, the WSP is effectively an adjunct of the NYPD but its members have never been adequately trained. Given the political power of the Orthodox Jewish community, which established the patrol, the patrol is allowed to operate outside the law with impunity, Patterson has argued. A Brooklyn district court dismissed his case last year before the parties had proceeded to

discovery, saying that Patterson failed to state a claim under federal law and that the relationship between the city and the WSP did not permit Patterson to implicate the city in the patrol’s actions. Patterson appealed and argued before a federal appeals court on March 13. “Patterson also argues that he plausibly alleged a claim that the City, through the NYPD, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by giving preferential treatment to the Orthodox Jewish community and thereby creating the conditions that resulted in his assault,” the three-judge appeals panel wrote in a March 19 ruling. “In addition, Patterson argues in his reply brief that he plausibly alleged that the City violated the Fourth Amendment by deliberately failing to train the WSP Defendants. Because Patterson did not raise this argument in his opening brief, it is abandoned. Upon review of the record on appeal, we reject these arguments and affi rm the judgment substantially for reasons stated by the District Court in its

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Taj Patterson, after suffering an assault by a gang of men in Williamsburg in December 2013.

memoranda and orders of August 9, 2017 and February 14, 2018.” Two men — Pinchas Braver and Abraham Winkler — pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment in the attack and were sentenced to three years on probation and 150 hours of community service. Charges against another two — Aharon Hollender and Joseph Fried — were dismissed. A fifth man, Mayer Herskovic, went to trial and was convicted of second-degree assault, first-degree unlawful imprisonment, and menacing in 2016. He was sentenced to four years in prison and was remanded to begin serving his sentence, but a state appeals judge released him within hours.

In 2018, a state appeals court concluded that the evidence against Herskovic “was legally sufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” but chose to exercise “our independent factual review power.” The four-judge panel concluded “that the verdict of guilt was against the weight of the evidence.” Herskovic was convicted using DNA evidence. City Councilmember Steve Levin, who is a member of that body’s Progressive Caucus and an LGBTQ community supporter, has given at least $55,500 in Council discretionary funds to the WSP since 2016. He gave the WSP $9,000 in 2011. Levin represents Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and other Brooklyn neighborhoods. Levin has said that the WSP did not attack Patterson. Mayor Bill de Blasio has a longstanding relationship with the Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn. While the city’s Law Department wrote in federal court filings that Patterson was attacked by a “hate-filled mob,” it also wrote that the attackers “allegedly belonged” to “an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood safety patrol.” The state lawsuit, which is ongoing, names the WSP, Winkler, Herskovic, Braver, Hollender, and Fried. Two defendants in that lawsuit — Fried and Herskovic — have moved to have the default judgments against them vacated, after they did not appear in court. Argument on that matter is scheduled for April 19 in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

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March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

➤ VETERANS’ PRIDE, from p.6 (DVS), while Governor Andrew Cuomo is aiming to slash $3.6 million in veterans-related initiatives. The potential cuts raise concerns in light of a number of crises affecting veterans, including worsening homelessness and higher suicide rates than the average population. “When we talk about risk factors for suicide, LGBTQ veterans are at more risk than even all the other veterans at risk,” Rouse explained. Brooklyn City Councilmember Chaim Deutsch, who serves as chair of the City Council’s Veterans Committee and has been the subject of criticism for failing to lead on LGBTQ veterans issues, was glaringly absent, as were the rest of the members of that committee. Councilmembers Ben Kallos of Manhattan and Mark Gjonaj of the Bronx and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams were the only elected officials in attendance, and Williams, in particular tore into the transphobia that effects both active service members and veterans. The newly elected public advocate described the trans ban as “appalling” and that it “pisses me off” that “the orange man in the White House ” and others in this country have continued to mistreat and discriminate against veterans who have put their lives on the line for the country. Rouse stressed that the ban has a strong influence on the livelihoods of transgender service members because it also affects their loved ones. Transgender members of the military have also faced increased anxiety over their job security as the legality of the ban has been debated in federal courts and the Pentagon is poised to implement it even as lawsuits challenging it remain live. “That all definitely impacts service members here in New York City,” Rouse explained. “Their spouses and partners, family members, and kids — this has a detrimental effect on their well-being and their mental health.” Rouse attended meetings in City Council offices prior to the rally and said among the topics discussed included the possibility of city lawmakers introducing a resolution against the transgender ban. “We’re talking with councilmembers about that and asking for their support,” she said. “We’re encouraging them to on the front and leading on this.” Rouse and the NYC Veterans Alliance delivered a letter to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson earlier this month asking him to step in and take action on LGBTQ veterans issues after Deutsch — a conservative Democrat who has repeatedly voted against queer rights — has continued to neglect them. But Johnson did not directly respond to questions from Gay City News about how he would address the concerns surrounding Deutsch and his handling of issues facing LGBTQ veterans. More than a week later, Rouse said Johnson has yet to provide a response to the letter. GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

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Why I Chose to Become a Surrogate BY VICTORIA ASHTON

or me, it was an easy decision. Nearly 15 years ago, after my husband and I decided that we’d stop having children after our second was born, I still felt this nagging desire to bring more children into this world. I loved being pregnant and both of my pregnancies were easy and textbook. But since I thought the only way to be pregnant again was to have another child of my own, I tried to push it aside and move on, because at the time two children was the perfect fit for us. But that desire to be pregnant again carried with me, and a chance

meeting with a surrogate sparked that desire back into a hopeful existence. So after months and months of research to educate myself on the process, legality, finances, procedures, and terms associated with becoming a gestational surrogate, I made the decision alongside my supportive husband. There are people all over the world facing infertility, and many more without the biological ability to do so, so having the opportunity to play a small part in such a large problem facing our society was never a question in my mind. I would do everything I could to help people create the families that so many of us dream of, but for whatever the circumstances, aren’t able to do so on

their own. I understood the commitment, I understood the process, I understood the risk — but my overwhelming desire to help someone in need by giving them life is a reward that tops it all. Somewhere out in the world another family or couple deserves to be just as happy as I am. A man or woman deserves to be called Mommy and Daddy, if they wish. They deserve to experience firsts. They deserve unconditional love. It’s incomprehensible to me that a woman who wants to serve as a gestational surrogate and help a family bring a baby into the world, and who meets the rigorous screening process of a surrogacy agency to ensure suitability, would be prevented by state law from doing so. Whose interest is that serving? Certainly not that of prospective surrogates, nor of intended parents. Throughout the entire process,

➤ CHOOSING SURROGACY, continued on p.19

PERSPECTIVE: Counterpoint

Misusing “Gays Rights” to Harm Women BY NOREEN CONNELL

he international marketing of gestational surrogacy has played down the risks of invitro fertilization procedures in order to lure low-income women and wealthy intended parents. They’re told that advances in assisted reproduction make it simple to have a surrogate child. The eggs may be harvested from a student at Barnard College, the sperm may come from an intended parent or a student at Oxford. After the fertility clinic creates one or more embryos, they are inserted in the womb of a gestational surrogate mother. Nine months later, through the miracle of modern science, the affluent couple has their made-to-order baby. The reality is quite different. Assisted reproduction in Third World countries has been grim (see the posts on the Our Bodies Ourselves web site: BCog blog post, “Reproductive Technology and Genetic Engineering”; and Surrogacy360.org post, “Gestational Mothers”). Frequent incidents of trafficking, medical malpractice,

and the deaths of gestational surrogate mothers have caused India, Nepal and Thailand to close down their multi-million-dollar, crossborder surrogacy industries. The ill treatment and commodification of women and babies has resulted in making for-profit surrogacy illegal in Canada, England, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal. In some of these countries, this can also extend to denial of citizenship to the surrogate child. For-profit surrogacy in the United States has not been as grim as in the Third World, but it remains highly predatory towards low-income women and unregulated. Health risks remain substantial. It’s legal in 11 states, illegal in three, and legal with a variety of restrictions in the rest of the states. The New York Times reported in 2014 that the industry is highly profitable in California, where lawyers and clinics were getting between $90,000 and $150,000 to cover recruiting costs, medical procedures, and legal fees. The gestational surrogate mothers were paid any-

where from $10,000 to $30,000 for nine months of pregnancy (or $1.54 to $4.63 an hour). Half of the wealthy clientele came from abroad. Some of the common problems were intended parents changing their minds, the abandonment of babies born with a disability, and conflicts around aborting embryos to avoid twins or triplets (http://nyti.ms/1rAjFG8 ). For-profit surrogacy has not been legal in this state, but egg harvesting has been big business around New York’s exclusive colleges. Websites feature photographs of laughing white women, suggesting that egg donation is fun, glamorous, and for the racially privileged. The donors are selected for educational attainment, health, and — most importantly –– having good health coverage. The egg donors are required to sign contracts that limit their ability to sue. These women are then subjected to daily hormone injections for one to two weeks to produce as many eggs as possible and a procedure to extract eggs using a needle guided by ultrasound. Persistent pain and bloating are common side effects experienced by young women who have donated eggs as is ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome (OHSS). Potentially lifethreatening complications occur

➤ QUESTIONING SURROGACY, continued on p.21 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

Donna Aceto Jerry Allred Mohamed Q. Amin Robert Atterbury Roscoe Boyd II Marcy E. Carr, MSW Matthew Skinner Hon. Marcy Kahn Hon. Joanne Winslow Steven Garibell Omar Gonzalez-Pagan Cristina Herrera Dr. Ross Hewitt Regnarian Jenkins Jeremiah Johnson Charles King Anne Maquire Patricio Manuel

2019 Presented by

Andy Marra Kaz Mitchell Darnell L. Moore Michael Narain Hon. W. Franc Perry Chynna Pitlock Monica Prata Floyd Rumohr Lee Soulja-Simmons Harmonica Sunbeam Daniel Tietz Jeffrey S. Trachtman Robert Voorheis

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March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

LETTER FROM EDITOR PAUL SCHINDLER

What Impact Means

he word impact can have so many different meanings. It can be the feeling you have when you fi rst lay eyes on the person you fall in love with. Or it can be the jarring collision of one speeding car against another, or a fist against the face. At Gay City News’ annual gala, we honor impact as the positive energy members of our community and our allies bring to the well-being and happiness of New York’s LGBTQ community. It can come through political action and advocacy, or brilliant lawyering in the courtroom. Some folks have immeasurable impact by working on the inside; many others are on the outside, often in the streets. Caring for each other, providing service, and

GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

making certain that no one is left out is a calling that many good and dedicated people follow to change their community and this world. Art can also change the world, and we’ve all felt deep in our hearts and souls the impact that paintings, photographs, music, theater, fi lm, and books have in making life the best that it can be. In the troubled times we fi nd ourselves in today, all of these ways of having an impact can be a way of speaking truth to power. What are the ingredients that make it possible for so many among us to exert a positive impact? First, of course, is passion. Do we love justice? Are we drawn to help others? Is there something inside us that we feel a joy and need in expressing? All of these im-

pulses represent a fi rst step on the path to having an impact. But along with passion is commitment. Are we willing to follow through? Will we exercise the personal discipline to master the tools that make it possible for us to make an impact? And will we employ those tools, those skills, those gifts in a consistent manner to get where we hope to go? But two and a half years after Donald Trump was elected president, we surely must all recognize that along with passion and commitment, we need resilience. It was resilience that allowed activists in South Florida to stand up over and over again to Anita Bryant 40 years ago in Dade County. For Harvey Milk to challenge and defeat politicians looking to vilify and outlaw gay school

teachers. For ACT UP to demand that Ronald Reagan and Ed Koch do something about AIDS. For marriage equality activists to go over the heads of George W. Bush and Karl Rove and take their case directly to the American people. And for Gays Against Guns, Rise and Resist, health care activists, and transgender high school students to say NO, NO, NO to Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, Betsy DeVos, Mitch McConnell, and the list goes on and on… Which is why we need resilience now more than ever. So in celebrating and honoring the impact that community members and allies have contributed, we cherish their passion, we marvel at their commitment, and we damn well need their resilience.

Donna Aceto 06

Omar Gonzalez-Pagan 15

Michael Narain 23

Jerry Allred 06

Cristina Herrera 16

Hon. W. Franc Perry 24

Mohamed Q. Amin 08

Dr. Ross Hewitt 16

Chynna Pitlock 24

Robert Atterbury 08

Regnarian Jenkins 17

Monica Prata 25

Roscoe Boyd II 10

Jeremiah Johnson 18

Floyd Rumohr 26

Marcy E. Carr, MSW 10

Charles King 18

Lee Soulja-Simmons 26

Brian Downey 11

Anne Maquire 19

Harmonica Sunbeam 28

Matthew Skinner Hon. Marcy L. Kahn Hon. Joanne Winslow 12

Patricio Manuel 20

Daniel Tietz 29

Andy Marra 21

Jeffrey S. Trachtman 30

Steven Garibell 14

Kaz Mitchell 22

Robert Voorheis 31

Darnell L. Moore 22

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GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

Donna Aceto onna Aceto, who over three decades of photographic work for LGBTQ and AIDS groups and media has left an indelible documentary history of New York queer life, began her career as did many who came of age in the ‘80s — a part of the community but closeted on the job, in her case on Wall Street. Still, the gravity of the HIV crisis drew her early into the fray, shooting the earliest AIDS Walks produced by Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Aceto was quickly enlisted for The Volunteer, GMHC’s widely circulated monthly newsletter, where in center photo spreads she chronicled everything from agency programs to the earliest Dyke Marches. The AIDS Walk recognized her work with an Outstanding Volunteer Award in 1991, and in 2004 she was inducted into the AIDS Walk Hall of Fame.

tor at prestigious titles such as LIFE and TIME. Her work for The Volunteer at GMHC led her to its Lesbian AIDS Project, an early response to the epidemic’s spread among women. Recalling that work, Aceto said, “To this day, I remain touched by how those women allowed my camera into their lives.” In 1998, Aceto was honored with the Lesbian AIDS Project Appreciation Award.

SUSAN PORTNOY

At her day job, meanwhile, the hiding and the homophobia took their toll, and when she left she came out fully as a lesbian and entered the world of photojournalism, finding her true métier. In addition to her freelance work, she assumed posts as picture edi-

Her Eye on Our Community & A Record for Posterity

Aceto has also done special event photography for a host of other community organizations, including the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the New York Women’s Foundation, SAGE, Iris House, and Marriage Equality New York. She developed one of her proudest bonds with the late Edie Windsor. In the last year of Windsor’s life, Aceto presented her with a bound volume of gorgeous photos she shot of that extraordinary woman’s tireless activism. For well over a decade, Aceto has been Gay City News’ most prolific photo contributor, never turning down a chance to chronicle a community still pushing for our just place in society. Whether it’s the Center’s annual Women’s Event, the Trans Day of Action, the Dyke March, the Pride Parade, a Gays Against Guns demo, or a rally against Donald Trump, you will find Donna Aceto there, camera in hand and passion in her heart.

Jerry Allred native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, who attended college in North Carolina, Jerry Allred began his career managing a retail card and gift shop in Raleigh. After moving to New York to take on more responsibilities for the national retailer, he in time became the owner of his own retail shop on Manhattan’s East Side. When the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus was launched in the early 1980s, Allred was a charter member and served as treasurer, earning the nickname Treasurella. While in the chorus, he met a man who was his partner for 13 years until his death from AIDS. In his memory, Allred started an HIV/ AIDS support group at the Bay Ridge church where he was a member of the vestry, and he volunteered to help out patients with HIV/ AIDS at Lutheran Medical Center. He also rented out his garden apartment to people living with AIDS who experienced diffi-

culties finding landlords willing to consider them as tenants. In 1996, Allred co-chaired the inaugural Brooklyn Pride March and Festival, working with then-State Senator Marty Markowitz and a large crew of volunteers to stage 32 fundraisers needed to make the event possible. In 2010, he was honored for his long service to Brooklyn Pride by being named a grand marshal. The following year, Allred rejoined the

Finding Community & Joy in Volunteerism

event’s board as secretary, a post in which he led the effort to move the festival from Prospect Park to Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue and create two performance stages for the daylong street fair. When Markowitz became borough president in 2002, Allred joined his staff as deputy director

for the public events department, where he organized many popular annual heritage and holiday events while also serving as liaison to the LGBTQ community. In that role, Allred was active in the effort to create an LGBTQ community center in the borough, which today is known as the Brooklyn Community Pride Center and is located on Fulton Street in BedfordStuyvesant. Among Allred’s other contributions to the community is his role as vendor coordinator for the annual Brooklyn Book Festival, where he juggles 300 vendors and oversees ad sales for the event journal. Reflecting on his years of volunteerism, Allred said, “There are so many good people out there that you meet while volunteering and getting involved. Try it — you might like it!” March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

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Mohamed Q. Amin pioneering Indo-Caribbean Muslim gay rights activist, Mohamed Q. Amin was born in Guyana and currently lives in Richmond Hill, Queens. On the eve of the 2013 New York City Pride Parade, he and his siblings were viciously attacked for being members of the LGBTQ community in their Southeast Queens neighborhood. In response to the violence facing his community, in 2015 he founded the Caribbean Equality Project (CEP) a non-profit LGBTQ group based in Queens. Through CEP, Amin works to end gender-based and anti-LGBTQ hate violence — especially against transgender New Yorkers — to combat racism, and to dismantle systems of oppression. The organization does community outreach and engagement with allied organizations to uplift and empower Caribbean LGBTQ voices across the city. The group’s programs include a cultural-specific support group and intersectional services that

emphasize immigration, family acceptance, healthy relationships, education, faith, HIV/ AIDS prevention and care, visibility, and storytelling. To break the silence on Caribbean LGBTQ issues, Amin has organized educational community engagement forums at schools and civic organizations. To date, CEP is the only educational-based agency in New York serving the Caribbean-American LGBTQ community. Amin has been able to amplify his group’s mission and work

Pioneering LGBTQ Caribbean Community Builder

through profiles in Caribbean Life, the Times Ledger of Queens, The Advocate, The Village Voice, Voices of NY, mashable.com, and the West Indian Newspaper. Following the shooting of 49 people at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, Amin worked relentlessly to amplify queer Muslim voices at a time of finger-pointing against their community, and his work there was recognized by New York City Coun-

cil Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito at the Council’s 2016 Eid ul-Fitr Celebration. He has also been honored by Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, gay City Councilmembers Daniel Dromm and Jimmy Van Bramer, and State Senator James Sanders. In 2015, Amin became the first Indo-Caribbean LGBTQ activist to be featured on BRIC TV, the cable TV network based in Brooklyn. Last year, he co-organized “Breaking Silences,” the first International Caribbean LGBTQ conference, held in Toronto. Amin is a graduate of the New York City Anti-Violence Project’s Community Leadership Institute and Speaker’s Bureau, and received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Queens College. He has worked for more than 13 years in the retail banking industry, where he has managed customer relations and office operations and provided financial services. He is currently pursuing a master’s in mental health counseling at Queens College.

Robert Atterbury or more than a decade, Robert Atterbury has worked in government to strengthen the voice of the LGBTQ community in New York politics. He currently serves as a senior assistant to veteran West Side Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, responsible for LGBTQ concerns and community affairs. Atterbury is also the recent executive vice president of the Stonewall Democrats of New York City, where he has long been an actively contributing leader. Working in Nadler’s office, Atterbury spearheaded the campaign to designate the Stonewall National Monument in 2016, working to build support from local civic groups to the White House — including moving authorizing legislation through both the New York City Council and the New York State Legislature. On June 24 of that year, President Barack Obama, drawing on the 1906 Antiquities Act, designated Christo-

to State Senator Brad Hoylman, the only out LGBTQ member of the Senate. There, he launched the successful 2015 effort to nearly double state funding for runaway and homeless youth, the first increase in more than seven years. Other major victories included securing insurance coverage for transition-related care under both private insurance and Medicaid in 2014, and legislation to expand access to meningitis vaccines in the midst of an alarming outbreak

pher Park, across the street from the Stonewall, as a national monument, and three days later Nadler was joined by the secretary of the Interior, the National Park Service director, and top White House aide Valerie Jarrett in dedicating the site. Prior to joining Nadler’s office, Atterbury was deputy chief of staff

Working in Government to Improve LGBTQ Lives

of the disease among gay and bisexual men in 2013. Through his work with Stonewall Democrats of New York City, Atterbury has made it his priority to publicize candidates’ records on the community’s top issues through questionnaires published on the club’s website. He has also played a key role in putting together major candidate debates, including the historic 2013 event that brought together the Democratic mayoral field at Baruch College. Atterbury also helped organize community responses to major events, including the 13,000-person vigil for the victims of the Pulse massacre and the snap-vigil for Edie Windsor at the time of her death. Atterbury holds a bachelor of arts from New York University and a master’s degree in public administration from Baruch College. His passion for local empowerment extends to his work founding a community garden near his home in Brooklyn. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

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GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

Roscoe Boyd II oscoe Boyd has lived with HIV since 2001. “For many of those years,” he wrote in a 2017 essay in POZ magazine, “I felt insecurity, fear, helplessness… like death was near. I was so deep into drugs that they became a ‘safe place’ for me.” But since 2016, Boyd has been open about his HIV status — initially going public on social media platforms — and he works to help others living with the virus understand they can find hope and purpose in their lives, in part by educating them and the wider world that with treatment adherence their virus will become undetectable and so untransmissible to sexual partners. He pursued this advocacy as a founding steering committee member of U=U, a global

ral load means that an HIV-positive person is not at risk for passing on the virus. That is a central tenet of New York State’s push to eradicate HIV as an epidemic. For Boyd, his journey has been as much personal as public. In his POZ essay, he talked about ending up in a homeless shelter at age 30, working at a burger joint, and “not really knowing what to do with my life.” In a 2017 New York Times

Getting the push on the part of the Prevention Access Campaign to disseminate what was long viewed as a revolutionary notion. By 2017, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publicly acknowledged that achieving an undetectable vi-

Message & Sharing It

article, he credited a speech he heard the year before at a Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement event from another person facing a life-challenging illness with giving him insight that a traumatic experience can become empowering. “As a young black man with huge financial burdens and no job,” he wrote in POZ, he was relieved to find support from community-based organizations that were “affirming and ‘got me,’ without judgment.” In turn, he was eager to share that support — and the message that U=U is “empowering for me and for my ability to choose healthy outcomes for my life” — with other HIV-positive people, particularly black gay and bisexual men. “My journey has convinced me to keep my heart open to love, and to stand in the gap for those who cannot,” Boyd wrote. “Everyone living with HIV regardless of viral load is worthy of love. I am not ashamed. I am not afraid.”

Marcy Carr arcy Carr, MSW, is the operations director for the Pride Center of Staten Island, where she first began volunteering in 2014 and joined the staff the following year. As Carr likes to say, she has been an advocate for others since the age of four. Growing up with an exceptionally shy brother, she would introduce him and herself by saying, “Hi, I’m Marcy, and this is my brother Keith. He’s three, likes naps, and loves chocolate pudding.” Working at a Police Athletic League camp as a teenager, she taught arts and volunteered to be interpreter and liaison between camp staff and counselors from the Lexington School for the Deaf, helping everyone understand that with a bit of patience they can learn to speak the same language. Raising five children — she’s now the Bubbe, or grandmother,

to two — Carr was active with the PTA at several Staten Island public schools and headed a safety committee at one in raising that school’s concerns about its interactions with the NYPD. Having started her bachelor’s degree in 1982, Carr returned to get her degree after her children were grown, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the College of Staten Island in 2012 and a

An Advocate Born to the Role

master’s in social work from New York University in 2015. During her time at the College of Staten Island, she got involved with the Gay-Straight Alliance, in time serving on its executive committee, and became involved in social justice efforts there and with the Pride Center, as well.

While still a volunteer at the Pride Center, she co-chaired the 2014 5k Pride Run held as part of the PrideFest celebration that the Center produces each summer in the borough. The following year, she joined the planning committee for the PrideFest and was instrumental in putting together the year’s biggest fundraiser, “One Island, One Pride,” to support the event. Carr now chairs the PrideFest. Carr joined the Pride Center staff using her expertise as an MSW to work with its mental health program. In addition to her responsibilities as operations director there, she is also the Pride Center’s delegate to InterPride, the international association of Pride celebrations. In that capacity, Carr is the district vice president for the Northeast US region and chairs the InterPride Fund development committee. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

Brian Downey rian Downey has been president of the Gay Officers Action League of New York since January 2016. Committed to the group since his rookie days in 2008, he also served as recording secretary, treasurer, and vice president. Downeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s priority as GOALâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s president has been to re-establish ties with community advocacy groups, service providers, and activists to ensure LGBTQ New Yorkers have a voice inside the criminal justice system. He expanded GOALâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s training beyond new police recruits â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at both the New York Police Academy and the Jersey City Police Department â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to include executive staff and supervisors. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been training recruits for years,â&#x20AC;? Downey told Gay City News last year. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen reactions to that training improve.â&#x20AC;? He also talked about the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s upcoming appearance before NYPD senior brass later in 2018. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This October, GOAL is going to present to everyone ranked captain

and above with the police commissioner standing next to us,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s his conference.â&#x20AC;? An example of the ways GOAL serves as a bridge between the NYPD and the LGBTQ community came in June 2016, when Queer Nation called for a vigil outside the Stonewall Inn less than 48 hours after a gunman killed 49 people in Orlandoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pulse nightclub. Though organizers sought no permit and did not consult with police, the

Voice for LGBTQ New Yorkers Inside Law Enforcement

NYPD closed Christopher Street and several hundred participants gathered for more than two hours. Afterward, organizers â&#x20AC;&#x201D; veterans of ACT UP, Queer Nation, and other activist groups â&#x20AC;&#x201D; could be seen thanking police. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I quarterbacked that,â&#x20AC;? Downey said, explaining that in the wake of

Orlando, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The department leaned on GOAL more than any other time in history.â&#x20AC;? Downey began his criminal justice career in 2005 with the Hudson County Prosecutorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office in New Jersey, and since joining the NYPD has served in the Transit Bureau, the Special Victims Division, the Hate Crime Task Force, and the Office of the Chief of Department. He is currently assigned to the Office of the Police Commissioner. Downey was promoted to detective in 2015 and was elected a union delegate in the Police Benevolent Association. Downey earned his bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree from Ramapo College of New Jersey, is a founding board member of the Brooklyn Irish LGBTQ Organization, and was recognized by the Research Foundation to Cure AIDS. A resident of Bay Ridge, he is a lector at Saint Athanasius Catholic Church.

GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

The Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission on. Marcy L. Kahn and Hon. Joanne Winslow, both associate justices of the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, are co-chairs and Matthew Skinner is executive director of the Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission of the New York State Courts. The Failla Commission was established by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks in December 2016 “to raise awareness about LGBTQ issues and foster a more equitable, supportive environment for LGBTQ members within the justice system.” It has developed and presented extensive training and educational programs and materials for judges, non-judicial personnel, and court partners throughout the state and organized or participated in LGBTQ Pride Month events in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Central Islip, Ithaca, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, Batavia, Delhi, White Plains, and Kingston. On the policy front, the Failla Commission proposed amendments to the court system antidiscrimination rules and policies to expressly prohibit discrimination based on “gender identity” and “gender expression” — amendments approved by the Judicial Departments, the Administrative Board of the Courts, and the Court of Appeals in 2018. It has begun working to ensure full access by transgender and gender nonconforming employees, attorneys, and members of the public to court system facilities, including bathrooms. Justice Kahn sits on the Appellate Division’s First Department bench in Manhattan. She was elected to the Supreme Court in New York County in 1994, having been the first out lesbian appointed as a judge of the New York City Criminal

Hon. Marcy Kahn

Lesbian and Gay Judges and has served on the boards of Lambda Legal, the Hetrick-Martin Institute, and Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Among many honors, Kahn has been recognized by LeGaL, the LGBT Law Association and Foundation of Greater New York, and the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. Kahn received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and her J.D. from New York University School of Law. She and her spouse, Diane Churchill, are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary

RICK KOPSTEIN

Court in 1987. Prior to that, Kahn spent nearly a decade as a civil litigation attorney at major New York law firms, after serving as a special assistant attorney general investigating corruption in the city’s criminal justice system. The founding chair of the LGBT Community Center’s board, Kahn led the negotiations with the city to purchase the Center’s West 13th Street home in 1983. She was also a founding member of the International Association of

Hon. Joanne Winslow

Matthew Skinner

AMY MAYES PHOTOGRAPHY

in 2019. Justice Winslow sits on the Appellate Division’s Fourth Department bench in Rochester, to which she was named in 2017. She was elected to the State Supreme Court in 2008, after spending more than two decades as an assistant district attorney with Monroe County. In 1993, she was named deputy chief of the Local Courts Bureau, and later served as chief of the Elder Abuse Bureau, deputy chief of the Major Felony Bureau, and finally chief of

Working For Access & Fairness in New York State Courts the Major Felony Bureau. In some instances, she was the first woman to hold the position. Winslow is a graduate of Springfield College in Massachusetts and Albany Law School. Matthew Skinner became executive director of the Failla Commission this past fall after serving for four years as executive director of LeGaL, the LGBT Bar Association and Foundation of Greater New York. As leader of the Failla Commission, Skinner works closely with senior court system leadership in efforts to promote equal participation in and access to the courts and the legal profession by everyone regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. He earlier worked as a litigator at Proskauer Rose LLP, and clerked for the Honorable Richard K. Eaton at the US Court of International Trade. Skinner graduated magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame and Albany Law School. The late Richard C. Failla, a graduate of the University of Florida and Columbia Law School and a Navy veteran, was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan before Mayor Ed Koch named him as an administrative law judge in 1978. Seven years later, Koch appointed him as the first out gay judge in the city Criminal Court, and in 1988, Failla became the first gay person elected to the New York State Supreme Court. Failla, who served on the board at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, died in 1993 at the age of 53.

PATRICK LUKE

March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

CONGRATULATIONS to the 2019 Gay City News Impact Award Honorees

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GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

Steven Garibell teven Garibell is a TD Bank vice president who is the business development officer for its LGBTQ initiatives, with responsibilities not only for bringing the bank’s services to enterprises owned by members of the community but also working to ensure that TD is the top employer of LGBTQ professionals in the industry. He has spent 12 years fostering banking relationships with the LGBTQ community in New Jersey and New York, most recently as TD Bank’s small business relationship manager in the Bronx. Garibell, who attended Montclair State University in New Jersey, began his career in retail banking with Wachovia/ Wells Fargo, where he helped build its Pride Business Resource Group throughout the Garden State. When he joined TD Bank in 2012, he became a financial educator and involved himself

reach, Garibell continues his work as a financial educator through TD Bank’s Five Boro Chamber Alliance and in monthly classes he facilitates that are sponsored by the New York City Department of Small Business Services. He takes a particular interest in delivering business and community development into LGBTQ markets and neighborhoods, and leverages his skills and experience in professional networking through both Out Professionals and the National

with both its Volunteer and its Pride Business Resource Group Networks. Over time, Garibell joined the commercial banking group as a relationship manager, having completed the Risk Management Association’s credit training for commercial lenders program. As part of his community out-

Bringing Banking Resources to LGBTQ Businesses

LGBT Chamber of Commerce. At NGLCC, he is a member of the Certification Committee, headquartered in Washington, DC, that verifies that participating enterprises are LGBTQ-owned and operated. That certification, in turn, helps business owners gain access to vendor diversity initiatives at larger corporations looking to purchase the goods and services they offer. Animating Garibell’s career is the belief that everyone should have a chance to be successful, no matter what their background is. Based on that view, he works to drive positive change through working collaborations that enrich the lives of the LGBTQ community and its talented entrepreneurs and small business owners. A past board member of the YMCA, Garibell lent his insight and experience to that organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts. He has done volunteer work with Gay Men’s Health Crisis, SAGE, Destination Tomorrow, and Project Eats.

CALLEN-LORDE IS PROUD TO SUPPORT THE 2019 IMPACT AWARDS Congratulations to longtime supporter Kaz Mitchell and all of the Impact Award honorees!

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Omar Gonzalez-Pagan senior attorney in Lambda Legal’s national headquarters in Manhattan, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan’s work spans all aspects of the LGBTQ civil rights legal firm’s impact litigation, policy advocacy, and public education efforts. As a member of the legal team in the historic 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case, he was active in winning the final victory for marriage equality in the US. He earlier had been lead counsel in the successful challenge to Puerto Rico’s marriage ban and co-lead counsel in the winning fight against Louisiana’s ban. More recently, Gonzalez-Pagan was Lambda’s co-counsel in the first two appeals court victories holding that sexual orientation employment discrimination is covered by the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s Title VII. He was the lead counsel in the first court victory finding that the Federal Housing Act’s sex discrimination prohibition covers anti-LGBTQ discrimination and

in a court ruling holding that the US Constitution’s equal protection guarantee protects transgender students in schools, including access to bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. Gonzalez-Pagan also represents a transgender man denied a hysterectomy by a Catholic hospital. An emerging and passionate advocate for the LGBTQ civil rights, GonzalezPagan has spoken at many leading bar associations and law schools, including Columbia,

Passionate LGBTQ Legal Advocate on the Rise

Cornell, Penn, and Stanford. In 2018, the Hispanic National Bar Association recognized him as one of the Top Lawyers Under 40, and the National LGBT Bar Association named him one of 2016’s Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40. Gonzalez-Pagan was also recognized as a Public Interest Leader by the Boston Bar Association and with the Young Alumni Award from the

University of Pennsylvania Law School. Prior to joining Lambda Legal, Gonzalez-Pagan served as an assistant attorney general of Massachusetts, a special assistant district attorney, and an associate general counsel to the Massachusetts inspector general. As assistant attorney general, he was part of the team that successfully represented Massachusetts in its challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act before the First Circuit Court of Appeals, a preliminary win on the road to DOMA being struck down in 2013. Gonzalez-Pagan, who was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was an editor of the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, and also earned a master’s in environmental studies from Penn. His bachelor’s degree is in biology from Cornell University.

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Christina Herrera ristina Herrera, who identifies as a Translatina, immigrated to the US from El Salvador in 1980. By the mid-‘80s, she had come to New York to “find herself” and begin her gender transition. Earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Queens College, Herrera became deeply involved in New York’s transgender community and emerged as a leader among Translatinx folks. In an overview of her experience as an activist in New York, Herrera has written that she has “witnessed many good things that the transgender community has accomplished,” but also seen how her community “has been targeted, discriminated against, and abused.” And she has “witnessed firsthand” the fact that for many in her community “opportunities don’t come very easy.” In 2007, Herrera convened a group of friends and they established what is now known as the Translatinx Network. The group

aims to organize and empower the transgender immigrant community through leadership development and education. Transgender individuals engaged in the Network work locally as well as nationally to promote the healthy development of transgender Latinx communities. The Network delivers a wide range of information about services and events, educational outreach, and capacity building resources, and in that way supports individuals in maintaining personal wellness and developing

Sustaining a Voice for Translatinx New Yorkers

leadership skills. That work allows the Network to create safe and productive spaces for transgender women free of transphobia and other forms of discrimination. The Translatinx Network aims to be a collective voice for the concerns of Latina transgender women, focused on issues including the recognition of their rights and the advocacy for change through promoting a direct connection to

policy makers here and across the nation. Through active and consistent engagement, the Network aims to implement sustainable programs to serve the community for years to come. Over 11 years of work at the LGBT Community Center, from 2007 until 2018, Herrera also worked on behalf of New York’s transgender community. For the first nine years, she served as community prevention coordinator at the Gender Identity Project. From there, she went on to become the Transgender/ Gender Non-Conforming services coordinator, reponsible for the planning, implementation, and delivery of the Center’s full range of services to TGNC people. Among the programs she oversaw were ones focused on access to education, jobs, and housing, all focused on closing the socioeconomic gap that continues to hobble trans communities.

Dr. Ross Hewitt r. Ross G. Hewitt, associate medical director for Partnership In Care at MetroPlus Health Plan since June 2015, oversees the quality of care delivered to more than 7,000 HIV-positive MetroPlus members. Since joining MetroPlus, Hewitt has overseen the redesign of the organization’s HIV care coordination program, extending it into hospital and community clinics as well as directing its contribution to the State’s End the Epidemic campaign through peer outreach, creative arts workshops, and text reminders to improve medication adherence. MetroPlus Health Plan is a subsidiary of NYC Health + Hospitals that offers low to no-cost insurance to city residents eligible under Medicaid and Medicare programs. The mandate Hewitt had coming to MetroPlus was to take “a fresh look” at how the organization

is “limiting.” Some income-limited members don’t have phones or are on minute-based plans. More importantly, “HIV is a very private matter,” he said. Establishing initial rapport over the phone is difficult, and might even seem intrusive or intimidating. The approach, Hewitt explained, was to send MetroPlus “health and wellness advisors” into city clinics and hospitals where its HIV-positive members typically access care. “Traditionally, managed care is

served its HIV-positive members. “We were primarily a telephonebased care delivery service,” he explained to Gay City News. That approach enabled the organization to serve about 40 percent of its HIV-positive members, but left a majority unengaged. “We had to get out into the community,” Hewitt explained, noting that a telephone-based approach

Bringing Care to Where the Client Is

looked at by consumers as a way to avoid providing care. That’s not our philosophy,” Hewitt said. “We believe more contact means better health outcomes.” Hewitt arrived at MetroPlus with a strong background in HIV care. A Brooklyn native, raised in the Bronx, he was a 1983 graduate of NYU’s Medical School and, at Bellevue Hospital, worked with some of the city’s earliest AIDS patients. Later, in Buffalo, he spent nearly two decades running the AIDS Designated Center he created at Erie County Medical Center. There he was a principal investigator in AIDS clinical trial groups that studied the first 15 antiretrovirals that came to market. Hewitt moved back to the city in 2004 and has since worked in Harlem with the HIV programs at Heritage Health Care, North General Hospital, and the Institute for Family Health — Family Health Center of Harlem, where he still practices today. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

Regnarian Jenkins orn in North Carolina, raised in California, and a Navy veteran, Regnarian Jenkins is the community ambassador of growth and initiative at Amida Care, a non-profit health plan providing eomprehensive coordinated care to New York Medicaid members living with chronic conditions. Drawing on his experience living with HIV and considerable professional skills in health care interventions, Jenkins works to expand the capacity across the five boroughs for appropriate care for gay and bisexual men and transgender individuals. Coming from a military family, Jenkins joined the Navy and was stationed aboard the USS Kinkaid in San Diego. At 25, he was diagnosed with HIV and later moved to New York. Here, he enrolled in primary care through Housing Works and within six months achieved an undetectable viral load. Through a

played an instrumental role in developing and implementing data collection and engagement strategies for high risk young men of color sexually active with other men. Jenkins offered particular insight about men of color who had relocated to New York from Southern states, as he had. Jenkins quickly became known in the community as the go-to guy for people who felt lost and needed assistance with getting primary care, permanent housing place-

Housing Works job training program, Jenkins earned certificaiton in youth outreach services. Working at Many Men, Many Voices, Jenkins developed an inyour-face style of connecting with members of the community who seemed to get lost to care or had come to feel ostracized. He also

Offering Safe Harbor to Young Men of Color

ment, mental health assistance, dental care, and, for those in the transgender community, hormone therapy. He led retreats providing a safe space for those newly diagnosed to ask questions about proper insurance enrollment, potential side effects of HIV medications, and the phenomenon of pill fatigue. Jenkins has also been active politically in New York and Albany, consistently lobbying for key advances such as HASA for All — which provides anyone with an HIV diagnosis with the specialized services that were long only available to people with an AIDS diagnosis — and the 30 percent rent cap that limits the portion of income HIVpositive people eligible for public assistance are required to pay for housing. He was also an advocate for the Gender Expression NonDiscrimination Act, which became law this year. Jenkins has been recognized for his work by POZ magazine and EBONY.

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Jeremiah Johnson eremiah Johnson is HIV project director at the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and a founding member of Rise and Resist. Like so many working in HIV/ AIDS, Johnson’s advocacy has grown from his personal experiences with the virus. He was 25 when he was diagnosed with HIV — part of a young gay male demographic especially vulnerable to infection in the US. Serving as a Peace Corps volunteer at the time, Johnson immediately found himself dealing with discrimination when the agency dismissed him from service based solely on his HIV status. He took action, and with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union he soon had the Peace Corps’ policy overturned. The experience fueled his passion for advocacy and, ever since, he has been determined to combat other laws and policies

where the system failed him and continues to fail others regarding HIV prevention and treatment. His drive took him to Peru to work with an AIDS service organization; to rural Colorado, where he was a case manager and prevention specialist for two years; to an internship with the United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS; and to Columbia University to study public health. Along the way, he witnessed a great deal

Battling Barriers that discriminate against people living with HIV/ AIDS or those who are most at risk for it. Prior to joining TAG in 2013, first as HIV prevention research and policy coordinator, Johnson sought out experiences and education to better understand

to Effective HIV Prevention & Treatment

of confusion around HIV and encountered misconceptions about those living with the virus or those most at risk for it. As part of TAG, Johnson works to counteract this by promoting universal access to all existing treatment and HIV prevention options, better and more ethical research, and prevention strategies that take into account the true complexity of HIV in the US. In 2010, he was honored by POZ magazine as one of the top 100 HIV/ AIDS activists in the nation. In the wake of the 2016 election, Johnson was among five individuals who called for the first community convening of a group that eventually became known as Rise and Resist. For more than two years, he and hundreds of other fierce advocates have organized countless actions generating millions of social media hits and shutting down Trump Tower to call attention to every injustice perpetuated by the White House’s current occupant.

Charles King rowing out of his work in ACT UP, Charles King was one of the founders, in 1990, of Housing Works, a group that recognized early on the critical link between housing stability and survivability of people living with the virus. Today, Housing Works, where King serves as CEO, is a communitybased, not-for-profit providing the full range of services for people with HIV/ AIDS and other chronic conditions, including housing, health and mental health care, harm reduction and chemical dependency services, and legal, advocacy, job training, and employment services. Housing Works’ efforts are animated by the view that any effective plan to address AIDS requires shared commitment: the government’s political will, coordination between health agencies at all levels, and the energy and dedication of activists, doctors, researchers, service providers, and affected

communities. In 2014, King served as community co-chair of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Ending the HIV/ AIDS Epidemic Task Force and he currently co-chairs the State AIDS Advisory Council’s Ending the Epidemic Subcommittee. In the five years since Housing Works first convened community groups and providers to discuss a plan to end the epidemic, new HIV infections have decreased by 36 percent in New

Championing Housing as A Human Right & A Life-Saver

York City, but there has been less progress upstate and on Long Island due to lack of housing support for homeless and unstably housed people with HIV. King has been a vocal proponent of expanding HIV rental assistance statewide. Nationally, King currently cochairs the ACT Now: End AIDS Coalition aimed at ending the

epidemic by working alongside 16 states and localities to create plans to end their epidemics. He is also on the Visioning Committee of the National AIDS Housing Coalition, which has produced eight research and policy summits to demonstrate the efficacy of housing as an HIV intervention and to turn those findings into policy. King has also served on the governing body of UNAIDS. King, this past November, was appointed to the first-ever State Hepatitis C Elimination Task Force and he has been a vocal proponent of expanding access to its cure. He also served on the Value Based Payment Workgroup charged with reforming the state’s health care system to improve outcomes for patients and decrease avoidable emergency room visits. King holds both a law degree and a master of divinity from Yale University, and is an ordained Baptist minister. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

Anne Maguire nne Maguire, born and raised in Dublin, left Ireland for New York at age 25 in 1987, but was active in feminist and civil rights st r ug g les before leaving her home country. As a teenager during “The Troubles” that ripped apart Northern Ireland, Maguire worked on several election campaigns with Bernadette Devlin McAliskey — a member of the British Parliament from Northern Ireland and civil rights leader who survived an assassination attempt carried out by Ulstermen loyal to London. As a young woman, Maguire joined the push to defeat an Irish constitutional amendment — motivated by a pro-abortion court ruling — outlawing abortion. In 1982, Maguire’s pro-choice side was soundly defeated by a more than two to one margin. Only last year was that measure finally repealed in a vote nearly the reverse of the ’82 tally. Maguire also worked to curb abuses of women in prisons, especially the use of strip searches. Maguire says that part of her motivation for leaving Ireland was the “rampant homophobia” that existed 30 years ago, with samesex relationships still outlawed. Even though Ireland has changed dramatically in the decades since — with marriage equality approved by voters there overwhelmingly in 2015 — both of Maguire’s sisters also left, leaving only their brother in Dublin. In New York, Maguire was a founding member of the Irish Lesbian & Gay Organization, the first group to press for the inclusion of Irish LGBTQ contingents in Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The battle, marked by many arrests for civil disobedience, took a quarter century to win, and she

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Her Teen Years in Dublin chronicled its critical early years in her book “Rock the Sham!” Maguire was also a founding member in 1992 of the Lesbian Avengers, a direct action group founded to raise the visibility of lesbians and battle homophobic violence. The annual Dyke March, founded the following year, was one of the group’s signature creations. In the past several years, Maguire has helped lead another direct action group, Revolting Lesbians, which lobbies to remove Rebekah Mercer — whose family foundation has given tens of millions of dollars to leading climate change deniers, as well as Breitbart News — from the American Museum of Natural History’s board. The group has staged numerous actions at the museum dressed in black cloaks and carrying large cut-outs of Mercer’s face to dramatize the role a climate change denier enjoys at a leading scientific institution.

Patricio Manuel ransgender boxer Patricio Manuel was on the verge of making history when he stepped into the ring on a Saturday night this past December, and it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even faze him. The 33-year-old felt right at home when he made his debut as the USâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; fi rst trans male professional boxer, defeating Mexican super-featherweight Hugo Aguilar in Indio, California. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am both happy and relieved to fi nally start this next chapter in my life,â&#x20AC;? Manuel told Gay City News one day after his victory party. Manuel endured a mixed big of disappointment and joy during the time leading up to his monumental victory, which capped a six-year journey during which he transitioned to living as a man. He not only dealt with the macroand micro-aggressions faced by so many transgender people, but also had to navigate the sports worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wildly gendered expectations. Still, Manuelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dedication

to the sport he has enjoyed for 15 years remained as strong as it was when he turned to boxing to overcome gender dysphoria as a teenager. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Boxing has shown me the world and given me a sense of pride in my accomplishments,â&#x20AC;? he explained. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I knew I was far from done with my career once I decided to medically transition.â&#x20AC;? A five-time national amateur champion, Manuel is no stranger to

Pro Boxer Shows the Way to Our Dreams

TEX AS ISAIAH

success. After competing in the 2012 Olympic trials, however, he was sidelined by a shoulder injury â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and he used the time away to focus on his transition. His new challenge is how many boxers will be willing to face a transgender opponent. Aguilar

had no problem with it. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have struggled to remain active in boxing since medically transitioning, and I hope the days of not fi nding willing opponents is behind me,â&#x20AC;? Manuel said. His December win undoubtedly gives him a major boost in proving he can compete â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and beat cisgender opponents. He never doubted it, but said the victory felt â&#x20AC;&#x153;very satisfying to prove to those who claimed there was no chance Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d win.â&#x20AC;? Manuel is now back in training, and he hopes others can look to him and realize their dreams are possible. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I hope my story can serve as an example to all people, both cisgender and transgender, that we are not limited by the labels society assigns us,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We all have the ability to make our dreams a reality.â&#x20AC;?

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Andy Marra ndrea “Andy” Hong Marra became executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) in December after spending five years managing external communications for the Arcus Foundation and helping launch that group’s multimillion dollar Global Trans Initiative. A transgender KoreanAmerican woman, Marra has worked with LGBTQ and social justice organizations for 15 years — including at GLSEN, GLAAD, and Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, a New Yorkbased empowerment group. She is a board member at Freedom for All Americans, which seeks comprehensive nationwide LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections, and Just Detention International, which works to end sexual violence in prisons. Her work has won recognition from groups serving the community — such as the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and GLSEN — and beyond, including her being named one of the White House’s Next Generation of LGBT Leaders during the Obama administration and as one of 2017’s 100 Most Influential Asian Americans. TLDEF engages in impact legislation, in a lead capacity or by fi ling friend of the court briefs, to advance the rights of transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary Americans; provides public education and trainings; and created a highly regarded Name Change Project, which partners with leading law fi rms providing pro bono assistance to members of the community taking a critical step in their gender transition — securing foundational personal identification so they can navigate the world with dignity and in

GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

AUDREY GATER

Harnessing the Law to Enrich Transgender Lives safety. In taking on her new role, Marra pointed to several key challenges: the Trump administration’s reported plan to implement a definition of gender based on genital traits observed at birth, aimed essentially at erasing trans identity in federal policy and even law; the possibility of the Supreme Court taking up a case in the near future determining whether gender identity discrimination is covered by sex discrimination prohibitions already in federal law; and the ongoing epidemic of violence aimed at transgender people, especially women of color. “We live in a reality where our community faces increasing hostility and our very lives are being defi ned out of existence,” Marra told Gay City News. “We can’t do this work alone and I look forward to collaborating with our legal partners and movement allies to protect hard-fought gains and advance equality, especially for those who have faced the brunt of violence and discrimination.”

Kaz Mitchell ommunity activist Kaz Mitchell is co-executive director of Circle of Voices Inc., a Brooklyn non-profit arts organization that serves women of color by providing a creative environment where information, stories, knowledge, and skills can be shared through performances, workshops, music festivals, and seminars. The organization’s ethos aims at utilizing art to express community concerns on vital issues such HIV/ AIDS, cancer awareness, green environment initiatives, and more. For six years, Mitchell was on the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center’s Community Advisory Board, serving as chair in 2016 and 2017. That year, she was recognized by the agency — which provides sensitive, quality health care and related services to New York’s LGBTQ communities regardless of ability to pay —

Advisory Panel of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on health care issues related to lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women of color. She has worked with the LGBT Community Center’s Lesbian Cancer Initiative on care and prescreening opportunities and with SAGE USA on its plans for LGBTQ-friendly housing in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Circle of Voices hosts a bi-monthly meeting at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, “Lez Keep

with a Health Award. The following year, she joined Callen-Lorde as a patient advocate in meeting with state legislators in Albany about the importance of funding community health providers across the state. Mitchell has also testified before the City Council and the LGBTQ

Building Networks of Creativity for Women of Color

It Real,” a safe, non-judgmental space for lesbian, bisexual, queer, and questioning women to meet and network with activists from the community. Mitchell is currently planning activities geared to women of color from the LGBTQ community for the WorldPride celebration in June. In 2017, Mitchell served as campaign manager for Marc Fliedner, the out gay former chief of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Major Narcotics Investigation Unit who was seeking the Democratic nomination for district attorney in that September’s primary. She is also a member of the New York City Police Department’s LGBT Advisory Board. This year, Mitchell was the recipient of an UnSung Award from Ebony Pyramid Entertainment, a Washington-based production company that serves AfricanAmerican and LGBTQ communities and raises charitable funds for HIV/ AIDS, female health, and social welfare programs.

Darnell L. Moore arnell L. Moore, whose writing and advocacy center on marginal identity, youth development, and other social justice issues, is the author of “No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America.” The former editor-at-large at Cassius, an online platform focused on urban and Black culture enthusiasts, he now heads up strategy and programs at Breakthrough US, a unit of the global human rights organization that works to end genderbased violence and discrimination. Moore is also an editor at Mic, The Feminist Wire, and “The Feminist Wire Books” series, and a writerin-residence at Columbia University’s Center on African American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice. Moore participated in critical dialogues including the 58th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington

National Panel on Race, Discrimination and Poverty, and the 2012 Seminar on Debates on Religion and Sexuality at Harvard Divinity School, and he was part of the first US delegation of LGBTQ leaders to Palestine in 2012. A prolific writer, Moore has been published in The Guardian, Huffington Post, EBONY, The Root, The Advocate, Out Magazine, Gawker, Truth Out, VICE, Guernica, The Good Men Project, and numerous academic journals.

Shining A Light on Marginal Identity & Social Justice

Moore has been a visiting fellow and scholar at Yale Divinity School, NYU’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, and Columbia Univeristy’s Institute for Research in African American Studies, and has taught women and gender studies and public administration at Rutgers University, Fordham University, City College, and Vassar College. In 2012, Moore received the

American Conference on Diversity’ Humanitarian Award for his work as chair of the LGBTQ Concerns Advisory Commission in Newark. The same year, he was awarded the Rutgers LGBTQ and Diversity Resource Center’s Outstanding Academic Leadership Award for his work in developing the Queer Newark Oral History Project. Moore was a 2013 Angel Award recipient from Gay Men of African Descent, one of Planned Parenthood’s Top 99 Dream Keepers in 2015, and among EBONY Magazines’s 2015 Power 100, Time Out New York’s Eight LGBT Influencers, and The Root 100 in 2016 and 2018. Moore was an organizer of the Black Lives Matters Ride to Ferguson, Missouri, in the wake of Mike Brown’s tragic murder, and along with Alicia Garza, Patrisee Cullors, and Opal Tometti, #BlackLivesMatter co-founders, he helped develop the BLM Network’ infrastucture. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

Michael Narain ith a passion for aesthetics as well as a love for humanity, Michael Narain found his truest calling as founder, in 2013, of Out My Closet. The organization’s multi-pronged approach to helping displaced and underresourced youth includes delivering new and lightly-worn clothing to providers serving this population; offering counseling on topics ranging from art and music therapy to physical and mental health and educational, vocational, and career training; creating a safe social media platform for engaging and supporting LGBTQ youth; and helping educators foster LGBTQ groups in schools. Dignity is key to Out My Closet’s ethos, with the group’s website emphasizing, “We NEVER deliver items in garbage bags or boxes but rather create shopping-like experiences where clients may sample our selection and take as many articles that they desire.” Coming from an under-resourced immigrant family himself, Narain worked full-time while earning degrees in media and marketing communications at Hunter College and the Fashion Institute of Technology. For 10 years, he did cosmetics research and development for major fragrance houses creating high end products. Taking a break in 2009 to recover from shoulder surgery, Narain volunteered at Bellevue Hospital, where he got in touch with his love for working with people facing life-challenging illnesses and adversity. After earning professional credentials serving victims of sex assault and people with mental illness and substance abuse problems, he served as creative media director for a fashion philanthropy agency supporting youth orphaned by AIDS in Soweto, South Africa, and as program director

GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

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Come Back Once More So I Can Say Goodbye for a domestic violence program. He currently manages a homeless transitional site serving clients with severe mental illnesses. At Out My Closet, Narain works with most LGBTQ organizations in New York, and has since extended the group’s reach to South Florida, Los Angeles, and South America. The organization has donated more than 16,000 articles of clothing, shoes, accessories, and toiletries, and touches even more lives through social media campaigns such as “Heeling Words,” where Narain enlisted the support of renowned “RuPaul Drag Race” stars Bianca Del Rio, Bob The Drag Queen, and Ginger Minj to share encouraging messages with displaced youth. Kerry Washington, Perez Hilton, and Dascha Polanco have also pitched in. “As a gay youth, I didn’t have any mentors,” Narain said. I battled with issues of self-esteem, religious and cultural conflicts… This is why I am fueled today.”

Celebrating and Honoring Thirty Years of Love, Loss and Hope; Gay Life in NYC 1965-1995

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Hon. W. Franc Perry ranc Perry, a Brooklyn native raised in Ridgewood, Queens, was elected as a New York City Civil Court judge in 2011, the first out gay African American to earn that distinction. Six years later, he was appointed as an acting Supreme Court justice in New York City, and in November 2017 was elected to the city’s Supreme Court bench, again as the first out gay African American. A graduate of New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, and the George Washington University National Law Center in the nation’s capital, Perry began his career doing medical malpractice law. In 1990, he was appointed as a principal court attorney to the State Appellate Division’s First Department in Manhattan, and he later served as court attorney to Justice Peter Moulton. In 2001, Perry took a sabbatical from the law and earned his master’s of divinity from Union Theological Seminary. Ordained in the

Metropolitan Community Church, he worked alongside the Reverend Pat Bumgardner as associate pastor, helping to coordinate the opening of the Sylvia Rivera LGBTQ youth homeless shelter and food pantry. Perry has been a community activist throughout his life, appointed to the New York City Youth Board by Mayor David Dinkins. He served as vice chair of the National Board of Mothers’ Voices,

Trailblazer in the New York Court System

the country’s first organization dedicated to AIDS education and awareness among parents. With Judy Peabody and John Tatarakis, he was a co-facilitator of the Caregiver’s Support Group at Gay Men’s Health Crisis for six years. Perry, a former chair of Harlem’s

Community Board 10, is an executive board member of the NAACP’s Mid-Manhattan branch, where serves as co-chair of the LGBTQ committee. He is a member of LeGaL, the LGBT Bar Association of New York, and an inaugural member of the Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission within the state court system, and also a member of the Coalition of 100 Black Men, the Metropolitan Black Bar Association, and the New York State Supreme Court Board of Justices. A 2016 honorary doctorate recipient from New England College, Perry has also been honored by Harlem Pride, the Go Africa Network, the New York Borough Academies, and the Harlem Cultural Archives. Perry, a member of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, is a single dad and the proud father of Jackson and Ruby-Lee.

Chynna Pitlock native of Minnesota who grew up in Upstate New York, Chynna Pitlock has been director of the Queens Center for Gay Seniors since 2015, having joined the Center — part of the Queens Community House — the year before as assistant director. As director, she has been instrumental in expanding outreach, community awareness, and advocacy for LGBTQ older adults in the borough. The Queens Center for Gay Seniors provides a culturallyrich environment where LGBTQ older adults engage with peers, enjoy a hot meal, take classes, explore new interests, and give back through volunteer and advocacy opportunities. The same year she assumed leadership at the Center, Pitlock began work on her master’s degree at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work. Working full time and attending school full

center with a youth center in order to create a mentoring program. She completed her master’s, with honors, last year, with a concentration in aging and clinical work. Pitlock moved to New York City from upstate in 2010 and was recrutied to play goalkeeper on the women’s soccer team at SUNY College at Old Westbury. Joining the campus LGBTQ group PRIDE, she became president, supervising a four-member exeuc-

time at night, she also managed to find the time to complete a social work internship at Generation Q, Queens Community House’s LGBTQ youth drop-in center. In her thesis to complete her social work degree, Pitlock created an intergenerational LGBTQ program curriculum for integrating a senior

Building Uniﬁed Resources for LGBTQ Seniors & Youth

tive board serving a 50-member club. She led PRIDE in presenting educational forums on LGBTQ issues and rights for the Old Westbury undergraduate community and the college’s staff. When she graduated with high honors with a degree in psychology and a minor in social work, Pitlock was named Student Leader of the Year and one of the 50 most influential student leaders of the previous decade. In her first job out of Old Westbury, she served as a youth specialist working with LGBTQ incarcerated youth in Brooklyn, helping them adapt back into their communities and families upon their release. Pitlock is a member of the board of the Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club of Queens and also serves on the events committee for Queens Pride. Her leadership has been recognized with awards from the Queens borough president and gay City Councilmembers Daniel Dromm and Jimmy Van Bramer. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

Monica Prata onica Prata, a Chicago native w h o runs her Nouveau She business out of Greenwich Village, is an internationally recognized feminine image consultant for clients who are t r a n s g e n d e r, transitioning, or exploring gender fluidity. Her services include instruction in feminine comportment, wardrobe styling, feminizing makeup, and emotional coaching and support. Prata learned early about the unmet need for the services she now provides. In her late teens, she worked as a make-up artist at Nordstromâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and encountered men who said they were shopping for their wives but she came to learn were in fact beginning to live as women themselves. As she began her business, Prata had the opportunity to work under the tutelage of a San Francisco surgeon, from whom she learned about the differences between male and female bone structures â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and that what may seem like slight variations create significant changes in facial expression and body movement. Prata now works one-on-one with private clients teaching them how to professionally transition, while loving every bit about themselves. From her perspective, it boils down to the fact many trans women who transition later in life donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have decades of experience understanding the types of dress and appearance that are appropriate for different settings. Many of her clients are able to tell her everything about how they want to look, but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know the techniques for getting there. One of Prataâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best known clients is Kristen Browde, a former CBS journalist and attorney who ran for mayor of upstate Chappaqua and recently became the

GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

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Lending Fashion Know-How & Passion to Trans Women fi rst out transgender chair of LeGaL, the LGBT Bar of New York. Browde, in a testimonial about Prataâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work, wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;In addition to remarkable skill as a makeup artist and perfect pitch when it comes to fashion, Monica also brings to the table a genuine understanding of the fears that face all transgender women. It took just a few short hours for her to completely reconstruct my look. With that came an incredible elevation in confidence.â&#x20AC;? Browde took Prata as her middle name in tribute to her coach and friend. The â&#x20AC;&#x153;genuine understandingâ&#x20AC;? of the community that Prata â&#x20AC;&#x201D; cisgender herself â&#x20AC;&#x201D; serves has propelled her to becoming a transgender rights activist. In her advocacy and love for her transgender clients, she brings the message of their dignity and contributions to doctors, high schools and colleges, corporations, and the media.

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Floyd Rumohr oining the Brooklyn Pride Community Center as its CEO at the end of 2015 after more than two decades in nonprofit arts and HIV education management and consulting, Floyd Rumohr steered the Center’s move from its original MetroTech home downtown to a 3,100-square-foot space in Bedford-Stuyvesant. In August 2017, 20 months after he came on board, the Center was in its new home. “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re just getting started in Brooklyn,” he said in opening remarks at its dedication several months later. At the time the new facility was launched, an estimated 80 percent of the Center’s clients were people of color, with a comparable number coming from low-income backgrounds, making Central Brooklyn an ideal location for its permanent home. Rumohr has forged strategic

Health Project, which has an HIV program for 13- to 24-year-olds; Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE); and the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone. Some of these groups use space at the Center, giving them 24/ 7 access to quality facilities that would be difficult to duplicate elsewhere. The Center’s Pride Path program offers paid career training and internships to LGBTQ young people 18 to 24 who have lived with poverty and

partnerships with other service providers to expand the range of programming by tapping existing resources, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. “Collaboration comes naturally to me,” he said. “It’s a wonderful thing when it works.” Brooklyn Pride currently partners with CAMBA Young Men’s

Partnering to Serve Brooklyn’s LGBTQ Community

homelessness, offering experience in retail, media, arts and entertainment, health, and real estate in partnership with participating businesses. “When your basic needs aren’t being fulfilled, it’s very difficult to compete for and sustain a job,” Rumohr said of the program. Prior to joining the Center, Rumohr served as interim executive director at Love Heals: the Alison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education and at Apple Arts-NYC, for which he facilitated a merger with another nonprofit organization. From 1994 to 2010, he was the founding CEO of the citywide arts education organization Stages of Learning, which former Mayor Michael Bloomberg termed “one of the most effective arts education programs” in the city. Last year, Rumohr was awarded the Outstanding Leadership Excel Pride Award by the My True Colors Festival, an annual arts event that promotes social justice and cultural diversity.

Lee Soulja-Simmons native New Yorker, Lee Soulja-Simmons grew up in the Bronx. He first stepped onto the public scene in a big way in the 1990s as a popular visual performance artist and dancer, though already at the age of nine he had won a dance contest on the kid’s TV show “Wonderama.” As an adult, he quickly became active in producing and promoting nightlife events around the city. Soulja-Simmons has appeared in films and TV, including Damon Cardasis’ 2017 “Saturday Church,” about a young teen struggling with his gender identity who finds refuge in the ballroom scene, the soon-to-be-released “Werk,” and on FX’s “Pose.” He has also appeared at the Apollo Theater and Lincoln Center as well as in several Off-Broadway productions. SouljaSimmons was featured in the December 2018 edition of W magazine and is currently featured, as well, in the March edition of Vogue

Spain. He credits the late Willi Ninja, often dubbed the godfather of voguing, as his most important influence in developing his performance style and fashion sense. As a community activist, Soulja-Simmons, over the past 19 years, served on community advisory boards for Harlem United, Gay Men of African Descent, and Gay Men’s Health Crisis. He’s also worked as a mentor for

Creating & Preserving Black LGBTQ Culture

Black and Latino LGBTQ young adults coming out of high school and out of the foster care system. As executive director of the New York City Center for Black Pride, he is responsible for creating the annual NYC Black Pride celebration, which is the second largest LGBTQ event in the state. Work-

ing with the city and state departments of health, Soulja-Simmons oversees HIV/ AIDS prevention outreach during the Pride weekend. Other events he produces annually include a film festival, a community picnic, a Thanksgiving dinner, a World AIDS Day event, and a Youth Pride Social on Long Island. As a founding member of the New York City Black & Latino Coalition, Soulja-Simmons is currently working to launch Harlem’s first ever LGBTQ Center. In building support for the effort, he draws on his networking as a member of the LGBT Task Forces established by the Manhattan borough president and the city public advocate. Soulja-Simmons looks forward to the day when Harlem will host a much needed Black & Latino historical archives, including an archive to preserve the traditions of the House and Ball Community. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

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Harmonica Sunbeam he Queen of Comedy, Harmonica Sunbeam has delighted audiences at nightclubs, cabarets, fundraising events, and â&#x20AC;&#x201D; yes â&#x20AC;&#x201D; supermarket openings in the United States and abroad for more than 27 years. And sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got the cult following â&#x20AC;&#x201D; of all ages, races, and backgrounds â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to show for it. With a unique though classic style and razor-sharp wit, Harmonica brings everything she needs for mainstream stardom to the table and to the stage. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The skyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the limit!,â&#x20AC;? she has said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the entertainment field, if people feel you are marketable, they will use you in any capacity.â&#x20AC;? A member of the Screen Actors Guild, Harmonica has been featured on television shows from â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Deuceâ&#x20AC;? to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Law and Order SVU,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Third Watch,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Breaks,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Jack and Triumph Show,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Johnny Zero,â&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;100 Center Street. On Logo TV, she appeared in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dragtastic NYC : A Standup Comedy Event.â&#x20AC;? Her film credits

include â&#x20AC;&#x153;Honey,â&#x20AC;? which starred Jessica Alba, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Uptown Girls,â&#x20AC;? starring Brittany Murphy, Nicole Holofcenerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Please Give,â&#x20AC;? and the Oliver Stone drama â&#x20AC;&#x153;World Trade Center.â&#x20AC;? Musically, Harmonica has released three pumping club singles â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ready to Pump,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m Here To Work,â&#x20AC;? and her latest, â&#x20AC;&#x153;This Is The Beat,â&#x20AC;? and has sung back-up with the likes of BeyoncĂŠ, Mary J.Blige, Jennifer Holliday, and, in a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Saturday Night

A Wit, Style & Heart that Soar High

Liveâ&#x20AC;? season finale, Katy Perry. Harmonicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest project showcases her unique ability to uplift, encourage, and engage children. As part of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Drag Queen Story Hour,â&#x20AC;? she joins other queens at libraries, bookstores, festivals, and other events to read to kids of all

ages. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Drag Queen Story Hourâ&#x20AC;? audaciously encourages the creativity and boundless energy of childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s play, creating a safe space for gender neutrality and non-conformity while promoting positive LGTBQ role models. Since the programâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inception in the New York area, Harmonica has been featured in the New York Times and interviewed in a video on Buzzfeed that quickly went viral. Harmonica also finds time in her busy schedule to give back to the community. She has done work with Project LOL, an outreach organization helping LGBTQ youth in Hudson County, New Jersey; Gay Men of African Descent; Newarkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s African American Office of Gay Concerns; and Jersey City Pride. It can often be a selfish world. Harmonica Sunbeam brings the light of a positive role model everywhere she can.

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Daniel Tietz aniel W. Tietz, in October 2017, became CEO of Bailey House, a community-based organization with a 35-year history of providing housing and supportive services to individuals and families affected by HIV/ AIDS and other chronic conditions. The organization, with a $21 million annual operating budget, licensed mental health and substance use treatment programs, and supportive/ affordable housing services, serves 5,000 low-income New Yorkers with a proven record of improving the health and independent living outcomes for people struggling with homelessness, substance use, mental illness, and the health challenges accompanying chronic conditions such as HIV. Between 2017 and February of this year, when Tietz concluded his tenure, he negotiated the merger of Bailey House with Housing Works, creating a new supportive/ affordable housing enterprise retaining the Bailey House name and establishing new primary care at the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s East Harlem site operated under Housing Worksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Federally Qualified Health Center. Despite these significant organizational challenges, he obtained $3.2 million in new state capital funding to develop primary care and more than $1 million in existing and new government funding to expand behavioral health and HIV services. Prior to joining Bailey House, Tietz served as chief special services officer for the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Human Resources Administration (HRA) beginning in 2014, overseeing programs focused on the most vulnerable New Yorkers, including the HIV/ AIDS Services Administration, Adult Protective Services, emergency food assistance, domestic violence shelters and services, and the Home Care Services Program, among others. For his final 18 months with the city, Tietz

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New Yorkers oversaw shelter and intake operations for the Department of Homeless Services as it was merged with HRA to form the Department of Social Services. Tietz had previously served as executive director of ACRIA, a national HIV research, education, and advocacy organization. There, he more than doubled the budget, vastly expanding its research activities, as well as its training, capacity building, and consulting services. Following the 2006 release of its groundbreaking Research on Older Adults with HIV study, ACRIA collaborated with researchers globally to deliver muchneeded HIV prevention, education, and services to people over age 50, including training and capacity building to other providers. A registered nurse and an attorney, Tietz, a longtime Brooklynbased LGBTQ advocate, previously served as deputy executive director at the Coalition for the Homeless and deputy executive director for day treatment and residential services at Housing Works.

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Multi-Platform LGBT marketing packages: N Ad in digital edition appearing on GayCityNews.com N Digital box ad on GayCityNews.com for one month N Inclusion in wedding vendorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; group email blast to Gay City News digital subscribers and to newly engaged LGBT couples in NYC. Your ad will hyper link directly to your website N Standard listing on Wedding Pride Services Directory appearing once per month in Gay City News and on a ďŹ xed position on GayCityNews.com (6 months) Ad Reservation & Material Deadline: 4/18/2019 To reserve your space contact Julio Tumbaco at Ă&#x2C6;{Ă&#x2C6;Ă&#x160;{xĂ&#x201C;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x201C;{Â&#x2122;Ă¤Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;Ă&#x160;Â?Ă&#x2022;Â?Â&#x2C6;Â&#x153;J}>Ă&#x17E;VÂ&#x2C6;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x17E;Â&#x2DC;iĂ&#x153;Ă&#x192;Â°VÂ&#x153;Â&#x201C;Ă&#x160;

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GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

Jeffrey Trachtman effrey S. Trachtman, a partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, has been a prominent pro bono leader in the legal field for more than 30 years — much of that time immersing himself in work on behalf of the LGBTQ community. In the 1990s, he submitted amicus briefs in James Dale’s challenge to the Boy Scouts’ ban on gay members and adult leaders — this at a time when many leading law firms steered clear of LGBTQ advocacy. In the wake of 9/11, Trachtman represented a lesbian survivor in a lawsuit to ensure she won her fair share of the Victims’ Compensation Fund award made on behalf of her late partner. As the Lawrence v. Texas case — which struck down the nation’s remaining sodomy laws — made its way to the Supreme Court, he authored an amicus brief on behalf of public health organizations sup-

couples who married out of state — including Impact Awardees Michael Sabatino and Robert Voorheis — he led the effort that secured New York’s recognition of such unions by 2008, three years before couples were able to marry here. And Trachtman authored amicus briefs on behalf of religious groups and clergy supporting Edie Windsor’s 2013 challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act and the 2015 suit that secured marriage rights nationwide.

DAVIDBEYDA.COM

porting the plaintiff couple. In the marriage equality battle, Trachtman was co-counsel with Lambda Legal’s Susan Sommer in the suit that sought marriage rights under the New York Consitution — an effort that prevailed in Manhattan Supreme Court but was turned back by the Court of Appeals. Working with same-sex

A Pro Bono LGBTQ Legal Champion

Trachtman also authored amicus briefs in key cases involving co-parent rights in New York State, transgender students’ rights, and spurious claims of religious exemption from nondiscrimination laws. Beyond his courtroom work, Trachtman has supported LGBTQ non-profits in other ways — managing Kramer Levin’s pro bono relationships with Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the LGBT Community Center; fostering pro bono work for vulnerable clients at the Urban Justice Center’s Peter Cicchino Youth Project, the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Immigration Equality; and helping raise funds for numerous groups. Trachtman has written about LGBTQ issues in the Huffington Post and for Lambda Legal’s anthology chronicling the marriage equality fight, “Love Unites Us,” where among other matters he discussed his own coming out in 2013.

Robert Voorheis n interior designer by training, Robert Voorheis is a committed activist who played a critical role in New York’s fight for marriage equality and is now a public service employee working to ensure fair treatment of all in Yonkers, where he and his husband, Michael Sabatino, live. Voorheis and Sabatino, who will celebrate their 40th anniversary this coming December, joined the fight for equal marriage rights in the 1990s — years before leading LGBTQ groups embraced the idea. Married in Canada in 2003, their wedding announcement was published in The New York Times while their exile from the Catholic Church received worldwide attention. When Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano ordered that the county government recognize their marriage and those of other same-sex couples, a group of anti-gay Westchester taxpayers

filed a legal challenge. Voorheis and Sabatino got involved in the case, which in 2009 was resolved when the state’s highest bench, the Court of Appeals, upheld Spano’s action. The state’s recognition of legal out-ofstate marriage even before it adopted the Marriage Equality Act in 2011 was a critical factor in Edie Windsor’s 2013 victory over the Defense of Marriage Act. Windsor’s spouse, Thea Spyer, whose estate was at issue in the case, died DONNA DAVIS

An Activist Who Never Shies from the Hard Work

in 2009 but the Supreme Court recognized the marriage as valid in New York. Voorheis served as co-executive director and treasurer of Marriage Equality New York and later as a board member of Marriage Equality USA. Voorheis and his husband were featured in the 2010 documentary “March On — The

Movie,” which told the story of the marriage movement through the lives of five families. The couple coauthored “The People’s Victory; Stories from the Front Lines in the Fight for Marriage Equality.” The same year that marriage triumphed in New York, 2011, Voorheis served as campaign manager for Sabatino’s successful run for the Yonkers City Council. Sabatino is now the Council majority leader. Voorheis worked for five years as district office director for State Senator Shelley Mayer when she served in the Assembly, and he is now the equal employment opportunity and training administrator for the city of Yonkers. In that post, he is entrusted with protecting the civil rights of city residents. As liaison to Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Board, Voorheis worked to create Westchester County’s first Pride Street Festival in 2018. March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

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=[j oekh WZ _d Wbb \ekh Fh_Z[ ?iik[i Contact Julio Tumbaco\Ă&#x160;Â?Ă&#x2022;Â?Â&#x2C6;Â&#x153;J}>Ă&#x17E;VÂ&#x2C6;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x17E;Â&#x2DC;iĂ&#x153;Ă&#x192;Â°VÂ&#x153;Â&#x201C;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;Ă&#x2C6;{Ă&#x2C6;Â&#x2021;{xĂ&#x201C;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x201C;{Â&#x2122;Ă¤ GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

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PERSPECTIVE: Media Circus

While You Were Sweating the Mueller Report… BY ED SIKOV

hat with all the Mueller hoo-ha in recent weeks, you may have missed the Senate’s confirmation of an anti-gay bigot, Allison Rushing, to a lifetime appointment on a federal appeals court. Here’s how the Washington Post’s Eli Rosenberg and Deanna Paul deftly covered the story: “Rushing’s confirmation drew quick condemnation from Democrats and civil rights and LGBTQ groups. Many cited her internship with Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based conservative, Christian legal nonprofit, which played an integral role in recent Supreme Court cases, including Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in which it defended the Colorado baker who fought for the right not to bake a cake for a gay wedding. ADF was also successful in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, securing a ruling that allowed companies to opt out of covering contraceptives for employees because of the owners’ religious beliefs. In addition, Rushing defended

➤ CHOOSING SURROGACY, from p.18 I had full control over my body. I made decisions about my own body and my own health. I felt protected and secure. It was a partnership from day one. But I am lucky to live in a state that provides this level of protection. Laws vary state by state, and I am in full support of efforts to ensure that surrogacy is legal and provides a comprehensive set of protections for the surrogate, the intended parents, and the child. Had those not existed, it would have complicated my own decision. The New York State Child-Parent Security Act (CPSA) in my view, and the view of many of my fellow surrogates that I have come to know, goes above and beyond in providing the necessary protecGayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, and said she supported the four conservative justices who dissented when the Supreme Court struck down the ruling in 2015.” Rushing is only 37 years old, so the odds are pretty good that she will spend at least the next 40 years issuing contemptible rulings against us. By the way, if you don’t read the Washington Post and confine your news consumption to The New York Times, you probably don’t know about this judicial calamity since The Times apparently didn’t bother to cover it. Because The Times is demonstrably better at covering LGBTQ issues now than it was in the bad old days — I’m thinking of its murderously inept coverage of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, (most of which was incompetently penned by Lawrence K. Altman and Gina “Piña” Kolata), and its insane refusal to use the word gay long after it had become common usage — it’s easy to slip into blind complacency when evaluating the Times’ more recent performance on gay issues.

Sure, the Times now has an openly gay man, Frank Bruni, and more astonishingly, a trans woman, Jennifer Finney Boylan, on its op-ed staff. But that doesn’t mean that they always get it right. In the case of Allison Rushing, The Times seems not to have gotten it at all.

tions that create successful surrogacy partnerships. This legislation is grounded in the opinion of the 2017 New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, which declared that New Yorkers must “have the legally supported capacity to enter into compensated surrogacy arrangements in their home state with the most supportive legal protections that identify, secure, and protect the surrogate, the intended parents, and the child born through surrogacy.” As such, protections provided by the CPSA include that the surrogate and intended parents sign a detailed contract spelling out all aspects of the arrangement between the two parties, including decisions regarding her health and that of the fetus or embryo she is carrying; and that each

party be represented by their own legal counsels; among others. While the protections offered through my journey were critically important to creating a successful and rewarding experience, so too were the families that I partnered with. Both of my families were gay couples from New York, but due to the laws in their home state, they were forced to seek a surrogate elsewhere. I know that had surrogacy been legal in New York at the time, it would have meant that I would never have been matched with them. But they are my brothers and a true extension of my own family, and love means wishing more for them. And I wish they had not been forced to experience their pregnancy from thousands of miles away. While I did all I could to try and mitigate that distance,

Here’s a lede that certainly grabbed my attention: “Brunei is set to fast-track changes to its penal code that could see people from the LGBTQ community whipped or stoned to death for same-sex activity, human rights groups said on Monday, as they condemned the move.” The article in the South China Morning Post continues: “Brunei introduced Islamic criminal law in 2014 when it announced the first of three stages of legal changes that included fines or jail for offences like pregnancy outside marriage or failing to pray on Friday. Previously homosexuality was illegal in Brunei and punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment, but the changes would allow whipping and stoning to death for Muslims found guilty of adultery, sodomy, and rape, said rights groups.”

Brunei, not to be confused with the aforementioned Bruni, was formerly a British protectorate with a population of about 400,000; it sits on the island of Borneo between two Malaysian states and, according to the Morning Post, “is the first country in East Asia to adopt the criminal component of sharia at a national level.” Now there’s progress for you. I have just crossed “tour of Brunei” off my bucket list. A short article about Pete Buttigieg on nbcphiladelphia. com left a few things out. The piece ran under the title “Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg Talks Marriage, Millennials,” but the subject of millennials never came up. As for the marriage discussion, well, you’ll see: “Buttigieg referenced the landmark 2015 Supreme Court ruling that granted, in a 5-4 decision, same-sex couples a right to marry. He married his husband, Chasten Glezman, last year. Speaking in Columbia, South Carolina, Buttigieg recalled when his father was undergoing chemotherapy and his mother learned she needed a triple bypass as an example of what’s at stake in the 2020 presidential election. Buttigieg said Glezman was able to stay at the hospital with his mother while he went to tell his father because his husband ‘is a member of our family.’” Um, tell his father what?

there were inevitably things they missed and had to hear from me secondhand. There is nothing like the joy of seeing a first-time parent hold their child for the first time — especially one who was told it would never be possible. My experience of having the tremendous opportunity to be a surrogate was a true gift for me and for the parents I partnered with. My sincere hope is that the Child-Parent Security Act will become law so that more New Yorkers are able to create healthy, lasting, successful relationships that bring children into loving homes. Victoria Ashton is a two-time surrogate to New York families and mother of two children of her own, who resides in California.

CRIME

Homophobic Sign Posted at Queens Subway Station MTA agent described as â&#x20AC;&#x153;unbotheredâ&#x20AC;?; NYPD conďŹ rms hate crime inquiry underway NYPD Sergeant Jessica McRorie told Gay City News that a harassment complaint in relation to the sign was filed on March 15 at 6:50 p.m. and that the departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hate Crime Task Force is currently investigating the case as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;possible biased incident.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The investigation is ongoing,â&#x20AC;? said McRorie, who did not respond to further questions about details surrounding the harassment report. Gianaris said in a statement on March 16 that he had asked the NYPD to investigate the sign, which he said was â&#x20AC;&#x153;horrifying and unacceptable.â&#x20AC;? He noted that the LGBT Network, which is an association of non-profits geared toward LGBTQ people in Queens and Long Island, is launching the Queens LGBT Victim Support and Advocacy program for victims of hate crimes and intimate partner violence. â&#x20AC;&#x153;No one should live in fear because of who they areâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;especially not in New York City,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We stand with you and we will get to the bottom of this. Hate will not prevail.â&#x20AC;? Kadree could not be reached for comment on March 18.

BY MATT TRACY

threatening sign laced with a homophobic slur was seen at the Seneca Avenue subway station in Queens on March 15. The sign, which read â&#x20AC;&#x153;KILL ALL FAGGOTS,â&#x20AC;? was discovered at the M line station in Ridgewood by Twitter user Shijuade Kadree (@ShijuadeKadree), whose account identifies her as chief advocacy officer at the LGBT Community Center in Manhattan. â&#x20AC;&#x153;PSA: This sign was posted at an @MTA station in Queens this afternoon,â&#x20AC;? Kadree wrote in the March 15 tweet. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I reported it, and while the agent seemed initially concerned, she was also unbothered and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make efforts to remove it. Reminder about how â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;affirmingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and safe NYC is for #LGBTQ folx.â&#x20AC;? Queens State Senator Michael Gianaris responded to the initial tweet within a matter of minutes, saying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Absolutely horrible. Which station was this?â&#x20AC;? The New York City Transit (@NYCT)â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Twitter account also responded to the tweet, vow-

T WIT TER.COM/SHIJUADEK ADREE

A homophobic sign at the M line Seneca Avenue subway station spotted on March 15 by the LGBT Community Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Shijuade Kadree.

ing to take immediate action. Within the next three hours, @NYCT noted that the NYPD had removed the sign.

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March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

â&#x17E;¤ QUESTIONING SURROGACY, from p.18 about two percent of the time, and there is also a potential but slight risk of an ovary becoming twisted during the hormone treatment and having to be surgically removed. New York Times medical writer Jane E. Brody devoted a column on July 10, 2017 to the potential risks of the fertility drugs given to young women donating their eggs, including death from cancer. Egg donors are not fully informed of these risks. Gestational surrogacy entails even higher risk. Glossy websites give the impression that assisted reproduction has a high success rate. While an embryo can be inserted in a womb easily, it may not stick to the uterine wall. So more than one embryo will be inserted, and the gestational mother may have to be flooded with hormones. Then the placenta may not develop fully. Cesarean deliveries, preeclampsia, placenta previa, and abruptio placenta occur at higher rates with assisted reproduction (American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, ACOG report number 671, September 2016). Equality New York, Lambda Legal, and the Human Rights Campaign have signed onto the forprofit surrogacy industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s effort to make even more profit in New York State (A.1071/ S.2071). The legislation could have regulated the industry for the benefit of the gestational surrogate mothers and egg donors, so they would be fully informed of health risks. It could have prevented intended parents from being exploited by high legal and clinic fees. It could have required registry protocols on the outcomes of all assisted human

reproduction similar to those in place for cancer outcomes. Instead, this dense legislation is written by the for-profit surrogacy industry. There are two key provisions. The first makes it clear that cross-border surrogacy is the objective: The intended parent only has to prove that they have been a resident in the state for 90 days or that the child was born in the state. The second provision is the requirements of a contract with gestational surrogate mothers (called â&#x20AC;&#x153;carriersâ&#x20AC;? in the legislation). On the surface, it might appear that contracts protect these low-income women, but the bills spell out less than adequate safeguards. In the United States, longterm health problems (6 months postpartum) are reported by 31 percent of all women giving birth, with a higher incidence for women who have had cesarean deliveries (â&#x20AC;&#x153;After the afterbirth: a critical review of postpartum health relative to method of delivery,â&#x20AC;? Journal of Midwifery & Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Health, October 10, 2016). Yet this legislation limits post-delivery health insurance coverage to the gestational surrogate mother to 8 weeks. Nor is there a mention of disability insurance or life insurance. To require this additional insurance would better inform low-income women of potential risks. Not stated â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what lawyers are for â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is that these contracts will protect intended parents from litigation should problems develop. This legislation proports to be a â&#x20AC;&#x153;reform billâ&#x20AC;? because it does not allow intended parents to reject babies with disabilities. This is a fig leaf for a bill that will allow the surrogacy industry to remain predatory and unregulated.

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GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

FILM

The Body as Your Tool Kit Féliz Maritaud harnesses physicality to tell a hustler’s tale BY GARY M. KRAMER éliz Maritaud ignites the screen as Léo, an attractive 22-year-old gay male prostitute in writer/ director Camille Vidal-Naquet’s blistering drama “Sauvage/ Wild.” Léo is seen plying his trade with various customers when not taking drugs or sleeping wherever he can (often in the street itself). Léo is not well; he has a bad cough and he’s got it bad — that is, is in love with — Ahd (Eric Bernard), a sexy gay-for-pay hustler pal who looks out for him but doesn’t love Léo back. “Sauvage/Wild” is mostly plotless as it follows Léo over time, from an intense encounter with a couple of clients with a butt plug to a touching visit with a female doctor (Marie Seux), who tries to help him. Maritaud gives a tremendous performance, capturing Léo’s despair and inchoate desires with incredible body language. Vidal-Naquet shoots the cruising area scenes like a nature documentary, but “Sauvage/ Wild” is a raw and immersive experience. Via What’sApp from Paris, Maritaud talked about playing Léo, and making “Sauvage/ Wild.

STRAND RELEASING

Féliz Maritaud in Camille Vidal-Naquet’s “Sauvage/ Wild.”

GARY M. KRAMER: There is no mention of how Léo got into prostitution, or how long he’s done it, or why he enjoys it? Can you discuss your thoughts about the character and his backstory? FÉLIX MARITAUD: The idea was to provide

no information about the character but give tips about him. We wanted to stay with this strange feeling. You don’t know anything about him, but by the end you know him perfectly.

➤ WILD, continued on p.23

Terrors of the Body Claire Denis explores sex and death in all their grittiness “High Life” takes place on board a ship of inmates heading toward a black hole. Since they were sentenced to death anyway, they have been sent to space to research the possibility of harnessing energy from it. It begins with Monte repairing the ship as his infant daughter gurgles inside. The film then moves back in time to when the ship was more crowded, with Dr. Dibs (Juliette Binoche) conducting her own research by collecting sperm samples from all the men onboard. Pleading celibacy due to his misgivings about giving birth to a child who’s likely to face an early death, Monte refuses. “High Life” is serious about sex – and sexual violence. It never shows full frontal nudity, but it treats bodily fluids as a primal medium of exchange. When Dr. Dibs jumps on Monte as he sleeps to get a sample of his semen, he remains unaware of her violation. One of the men attempts rape in a sudden assault that

BY STEVE ERICKSON n space, no one can hear your existential terror. Sorry for the Dad joke, but French director Claire Denis’ “High Life” returns to a mode of arthouse sci-fi that flourished briefly in the wake of “2001: A Space Odyssey” but has been commercially marginal after “Star Wars” let the geeky boys take back the genre. Denis creates a more palatable version of the misanthropy expressed in her horror film “Trouble Every Day” and incest drama “Bastards.” As she has said, “ ‘High Life’ speaks only of desire and fluids.” Her approach goes down easier here because she balances it with formal elegance and allows her characters, particularly Monte (Robert Pattinson) and his daughter Willow (seen as an infant, child and teenager), moments of pleasure and respite in a garden with Biblical resonance. Nevertheless, this is a film whose title appears against corpses falling into the void.

A24

Robert Pattison in Claire Denis’ “High Life.”

➤ HIGH LIFE, continued on p.24 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

➤ WILD, from p.22 You get no info. I am not working through psychological things. I don’t have ideas about the background or future of Léo — he only exists in the movie. He’s the hero and living through the movie. We don’t need anything else. KRAMER: What is distinctive about your performance is how expressionless Léo can be at times. Can you talk about fi nding his mindset? MARITAUD: Léo is about sensitivity. His desires come to him and he does what he wants. I don’t think he cares about money. It’s about connecting with people and being social, to be with his friends. What upsets him when he’s not paid is that the [clients] were breaking the link — it’s honor. Léo has no designs on materialistic life. He doesn’t have a phone. He sleeps on the ground. He’s just passing through life looking for love wherever he can find it. KRAMER: How did you identify with the character? MARITAUD: I’m not looking for love. It was not research. I have a really bourgeois life. We are very different but have some common points. I wish I could be as strong as him, actually. What makes him strong is what makes me weak. I wish I was like him—where I could find strength in my vulnerability. KRAMER: You appear to be very comfortable with your body. Léo is used, bruised, and abused. His body is his only value and his weapon. Can you talk about how he uses his body, and how you use your body? MARITAUD: I like this idea of using your body to create things. This comes from my experience as an art student and how artists, through history, use their body as tools and use their control of the body in spaces — how that brings in ideas about society and art. I want to live my life as an experience, and my body is my way to get through this experience, so I want to stay open-minded. It’s body positivity, too. KRAMER: You recalibrate your performance with each man or couple Léo meets. What observaGayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

tions do you have about Léo’s sexual encounters? MARITAUD: We wanted to show what real hustlers and street life were like through prostitution. They approach their body in a very particular way — as a tool. So, everything from my character is from my body, there is no psychology. The sex scenes are done without judgment or eroticism. We wanted to stay raw and crude. KRAMER: Léo is very accommodating to his clients who want him to do certain things, like a butt plug or even his colleague who want him to inject his penis with a solution. What is the wildest thing you’ve been asked to do? MARITAUD: In my life? I’m pretty sure you don’t want to know. For “Sauvage/ Wild,” the injection was the most impressive thing. A friend thought I really did that. It was just water. “Sauvage/ Wild” was intense. But I’m stronger after this movie. This character is really, really strong. Nothing bad can happen to him. Even the worst thing, the butt plug scene, is funny. That was a strange day. The guys were nice, but I was really focused on the scene. Léo wants to honor the deal, but he’s also feeling like he’s not being treated as a human anymore. KRAMER: What are your thoughts about being objectified? MARITAUD: I don’t care about this. People always think that what other people think about them is something they can control. I have no solution for people loving or hating me. Sometimes it can be funny, and it’s not helping me fuck more men, but people who see “Sauvage/ Wild” are impressed — but they don’t’ know how to talk to me because they feel intimidated! People are attracted to me, but that is a part of life for a gay young guy. Now it’s changing because of all the gay roles. I’m inspiring for gay young people. I like it, but I just do my characters. The rest is myself. SAUVAGE/ WILD | Directed by Camille Vidal-Naquet’s | Strand Releasing | In French with English subtitles | Opens Apr. 10 | Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St. | filmforum.org

FILM

Our Worse Selves Jordan Peele offers psychological take on America’s discontent BY STEVE ERICKSON ordan Peele’s directorial debut, “Get Out,” is one of the most acclaimed American films of this decade. Needless to say, his second film “Us” arrives in theaters with a lot of baggage, particularly because the reception of “Get Out” felt like a political event as much as a cultural one. Coming one month after Trump’s inauguration, the massive commercial success of “Get Out” felt like a widespread acknowledgement of the persistence of white supremacy under new and more subtle guises. “Us” moves in a new direction, simultaneously artier and closer to conventional genre fare. The film starts out in 1986. A young girl named Adelaide goes to a beach in Santa Cruz with her family. The excursion turns creepy. Heading into a mirrored funhouse, she sees her doppelganger. “Us” then takes us to the present, where the adult Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), her husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and their children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) are driving to their summer house for a vacation. Their expectations of relaxation are shattered by a power outage and, an instant later, the arrival of four strangers who look exactly like them but are dressed in clothes that resemble prison jumpsuits. The doppelgangers, who call themselves “the Tethered,” force their way into the house, and seem to be staging an assault on the entire town. The family fights back. In some respects, the symbolism here is extremely heavy-handed. As a child in 1986, Adelaide visits a funhouse called Shaman’s Vision Quest. In the opening scene,

➤ HIGH LIFE, from p.22 ends in his death. Monte himself may be committing incest with his teenage daughter, although the fi lm remains ambiguous

CL AUDET TE BARIUS

Winston Duke and Lupita Nyong’o in Jordan Peele’s “Us.”

a Hands Across America commercial plays on a TV set. However, “Us” weaponizes ‘80s nostalgia and iconography in a way that’s closer to the micro-budget underground films of Damon Packard than last year’s “Transformers” spin-off “Bumblebee.” References to Michael Jackson and, less explicitly, Freddie Kruger bring up the grim underside of the decade. Anyone expecting an overtly political allegory from “Us” may be disappointed, though the film has something to say about class. But even though Red (Adelaide’s doppelganger, also played by Nyongo’o) spells out her life story, Peele’s script doesn’t connect all its dots the way “Get Out” did. It’s as concerned with psychology as politics, tying the two together. I could run down a list of interpretations for the film, but the final half hour takes Adelaide and Red back to the funhouse for a reckoning with

the ways Adelaide’s success in the world has come at Red’s expense. Their trip into its basement, which fleshes out some of the film’s narrative, feels like a descent into Hell. Nyong’o expertly acts against herself, convincingly playing both characters. Peele knows how to make a straightforward horror film. The middle section of “Us” uses jump scares and sudden stabs of music. But it’s closer to Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” — without the lectures to the audience — than “Jaws,” despite the T-shirt Jason wears, in its depiction of a family being terrorized with no idea what’s going on and its use of specific objects like golf clubs. Unlike Haneke, Peele is willing to give his audience pleasure, including satisfaction in violence. However, “Us” delights in its elliptical storytelling. It reminds me of the “args” — alternate reality games — that

about this. It says something about film critics’ nerdy puritanism that we’ve tended to giggle about the image of Monte’s seminal fluid and the scene where Dr. Dibs goes to

a room with mechanized sex toys and uses them to masturbate. The Guardian gave its rave review of “High Life” the very mature headline of “Orgasmic Brilliance in Deep Space.” But how many times

YouTubers construct out of fake found footage hinting at apocalyptic futures and vague but worldchanging conspiracies. The potency of the film’s allegory doesn’t stem so much from what it says as how it does so. Its camera movements are frequently elegant and graceful, but the editing is so quick that it’s clear “Us” was designed for multiple viewings. Peele showed his knack for combining images and music with his use of Childish Gambino’s paranoid ballad “Redbone” in “Get Out.” Here, Michael Abels’ score incorporates textures as different as a children’s choir, swooping strings inspired by Bernard Herrmann’s Hitchcock soundtracks, and African percussion. N.W.A.’s “Fuck Tha Police” is placed into a new context but retains its point as the accompaniment to two AfricanAmerican children fighting for their lives against murderous doppelgangers of their parents’ white friends. Dance is also deployed to show Adelaide’s rise to middleclass privilege and Red’s deliberately designed fall. Turning in a review shortly after seeing “Us” once isn’t the best way to write seriously about it, but that’s what critics, including myself, had to do. The 280-character hot takes that will eat up space on Twitter this weekend will be worse. Peele shows his strength at worldbuilding here. “Us” suggests middle-class life is built upon severe pain and hints that a violent return of the oppressed may be on the way. But that way of looking at it doesn’t exhaust its mystery. The film suggests that the uncanny and the unconscious are essential to any real examination of the rot in America. US | Directed by Jordan Peele | Universal Pictures | Open citywide

have we seen semen in cinema outside of porn and the hair gel gag in “There’s Something About Mary?” Denis’ vision of space is low on

➤ HIGH LIFE, continued on p.25 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

GALLERY

When Giants Ruled the Art Scene Lincoln Kirstein’s unparalleled role in New York cultural life BY CHRISTOPHER MURRAY mpresario is a word one doesn’t hear used too much in New York these days. It almost seems of an earlier epoch, when titans of the arts like Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, and George Balanchine strode through the city with creative electricity flying from their fi ngertips. They were part of a very small circle — almost exclusively white and Jewish, mostly men — who may have lived ostensibly straight lives, but both loved and made love to other men (Balanchine an exception, with his well-known pursuit of young ballerinas). They came of age in the 1930s and ‘40s and defi ned the arts and culture of the their times. “Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern,” the new art exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, which runs through June 15, celebrates one of these lions for whom the word impresario isn’t expansive or encompassing enough. It does so through the lens of more than 300 works from the museum’s collection by a range of artists, Paul Cadmus, George Platt Lynes, and Pavel Tchelitchew prominent among them. The exhibit is at once a portrait of a protean and hugely influential arts figure in the 20th century, a mapping of the professional and social circles through which cultural influence surged, and a lens into the arc of fi ne and performing arts during the enormously exciting and active Modern period. Kirstein, born in 1907 as the privileged son of an executive of Boston’s Filene’s Department Store, is perhaps best remembered as the co-founder with Balanchine of both the School of American Ballet and, in 1948, the New York City Ballet, for which he served as

➤ HIGH LIFE, from p.24 special effects and heavy on cinematography tinted a beautiful red or blue. The editing of “High Life” shatters its narrative. Only at the end — or after a second viewing — is its chronology clear. The film begins and ends with Monte and his daughter. Pattinson’s performance brings out his character’s delicacy, which does not cancel out his character’s darker side. (Pattinson even sings the song, written by Denis’ usual composer Stuart Staples, that plays over the closing credits.) The longer “High Life” goes on, the more we realize how much we GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/ GIFT OF RUSSELL LYNES @ ESTATE OF GEORGE PL AT T LYNES

George Platt Lynes’ photographic portrait of Lincoln Kirstein. c. 1948; gelatin silver print, 9 1/2 × 7 ¾ in.

general director for more than four decades. Starting out as one of the “Harvard lads” who stormed New York’s cultural scene before the start of World War II, Kirstein said of himself that he was “very happy to be brought up amid the relics and the legacy of the 19th century in England.” He has been called a polymath writer, art critic, and philanthropist, as well as a “fundraiser, troubleshooter, socialite tamer, and general advocate.” Most notably in

don’t know about Monte. The script, credited to Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau, is the weakest element of “High Life.” Although she knows English well and has made other films partially in the language, the dialogue suffers from clumsiness and awkward phrasing. (Two other writers are officially cited for some form of script collaboration, apart from the “written by” credit.) Binoche and Pattinson stand out in a large ensemble cast because Dr. Dibs, Monte, and his daughter are the only three characters that “High Life” seems to really care about. There’s a sense that the rest of the

terms of the current show, he was a collector who said of himself, “I have a live eye.” Dance historian Lynn Garafola describes him as “the closest thing to a Renaissance man of culture that 20th century America has produced.” Kirstein served during the war in a special unit charged with rescuing great works of European art from the Nazis, and, while on a art buying trip through South America for MoMA, Nelson Rockefeller, in addition to bankrolling the acquisitions, asked him to assess each country’s post-war loyalty to the United States. Kristen would go on to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984 and the National Medal of Arts a year later. He died in 1996 at 88. His life long championing of photography as an art form and of figurative work is well represented in the show, the fi rst room of which introduces the man through portraits by Lynes, Walker Evans, and Lucian Freud. As one walks deeper into the exhibition, the iris widens. The works begin functioning almost as totems of Kirstein’s “over-lapping professional and social circles, largely queer” according MoMA senior curator Jodi Hauptman, who organized the exhibition with associate curator Samantha Friedman. While it defi nitely seems like a show about a boy’s club, “Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern” is saved from a sexist parochialism by a generosity of spirit as well as the cross-cultural and boundless curiosity of a man who made no distinctions between art and friendship. LINCOLN KIRSTEIN’S MODERN | Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St. | Through Jun. 15: Daily, 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. | Admission is $25; $14 for students; $18 for seniors at moma.org

cast exists mostly to get killed off. But if “High Life” isn’t a masterpiece on the level of Denis’ best films, the fear of death that it describes is as untidy and blunt as the symbolism of a spaceship heading toward a black hole that will kill everyone onboard. Watching “High Life” is never as crude an experience as that sentence makes it sound. Andrei Tarkovsky, a big influence on Denis, brought together the material realm and a devoutly Christian spirituality. Instead, “High Life” lingers on a sensuality that keeps solace one degree from terror. Critic Adam Nayman praised “its mix of elu-

sive, fleeting sensations and fullfrontal, blunt force and trauma.” We might be able to travel to the stars, but our lives’ possibilities are always bound by our bodies. As pessimistic as the film proves to be, it shows why sex and parenthood feel like hedges against despair, even if they also lead its characters into dangerous territory. HIGH LIFE | Directed by Claire Denis | A24 | Opens Apr. 5 | Angelika Film Center, 18 W. Houston St. at Mercer St.; angelikafilmcenter.com/ nyc | BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave. at Ashland Pl.; bam.org

THEATER

Little Things You Do Together A ravishing “Kiss Me, Kate” revival and a traumatic but unsatisfying confessional BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE ake away the “battle of the sexes plot” and you get rid of a staggering percentage of storytelling both highbrow and low. From “Lysistrata” to the current movie “What Men Want” with many, many stops along the way, the tension between men and women, the ensuing power games are an endless source of drama and, very often, comedy. Shakespeare knew a crowd-pleasing trope when he saw it, and gender games appear in many of his plays, to a greater or lesser degree. Cleopatra, Portia, and even princess Catherine from “Henry V” are keenly aware of the power of their sex. In the more comedic vein, the iambic imbroglios of Beatrice and Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing,” or Kate and Petruchio in “The Taming of the Shrew” still manage to have a serious subtext regarding who will end up on top. None of this is surprising, given that Shakespeare was writing to please the Virgin Queen Elizabeth: questions about the patriarchy, succession, and the validity of a woman having power and agency were constants. In the cases of “Much Ado” and “Shrew,” the outcome is a kind of equality, even within the male-dominated society. Particularly in “Shrew,” Kate’s apparent submission, as the play is written, comes not from being “tamed” but rather having forged a truce with Petruchio. At least that’s one interpretation of a play that has been passionately argued and constantly reinterpreted for centuries against the backdrop of contemporaneous gender politics at the moment its production. These issues have not been lost on Roundabout in mounting a stunning new production of “Kiss Me, Kate,” Cole Porter’s musical interpretation of “Shrew.” The show has always been primarily a knockabout farce with a backstage battle royale raging between the stars Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi, divorced for a year after a tempest-tossed marriage even as they lock horns as Petruchio and Kate in a new musical based on “Shrew” onstage. At Roundabout, new material by Amanda Green deftly shifts the balance of power and tones down what might be deemed toxic today — Kate doesn’t get spanked, for instance, and any physical “violence” is over-the-top cartoonish from both characters. Ironically, it passes seemingly unnoticed that Kate calls Petruchio “bastard,” something that would have been shocking on a Broadway stage in 1948. As written in Sam and Bella Spewack’s original book, Fred and Lilli are stereotypical

JOAN MARCUS

Corbin Bleu in the Roundabout production of “Kiss Me, Kate.”

backstage types — another tired-and-true trope that never seems to get tired. No one seems to mind. Apart from sexual and political controversies, one can just sit back and enjoy Porter’s magnificent score and the convoluted story, which, in addition to the offstage/ onstage contretemps includes a subplot about gangsters trying to collect on a gambling debt falsely ascribed to Fred, a romance between Bianca, a nightclub singer with a checkered romantic history, and her devoted swain, Bill, a gambling addict, and the backstory of a production trying out in Baltimore. In other words, it’s a classic musical from the Golden Age that doesn’t make a lot of sense but is one heck of a lot of fun. That’s the point. Though the unreconstructed parts of the book may creak at times, this production helmed by Scott Ellis is pure musical comedy entertainment of the most classic style. As Petruchio says, in one of the best mixed metaphors ever, it’s written, “with my tongue in my cheek and my lips in a smile.” The fun is, naturally, the result of inspired casting. Will Chase is Fred/ Petruchio, and he is hilarious. He’s every bit a satire on the egocentric matinee idol, and he’s not afraid to be ridiculous, which has the additional benefit of blunting what might be seen as misogynistic

by a modern audience. Chase’s singing is solid, and when Fred drops the façade for the reprise of “So In Love,” there’s a vulnerability that’s quietly affecting and humanizing. Kelli O’Hara as Lilli/ Kate is simply perfect. She’s got that voice that is always thrilling and radiates star power, but she also gets to display her comic chops, which are substantial. In the secondary roles, Corbin Bleu is outstanding as Bill. He’s played more as a good guy with an edge rather than a heel, as is often the case, but Bleu’s magnetic presence, warm voice, and exceptional dancing make the part irresistibly his own. Stephanie Styles as Lois Lane is hilarious as a quintessential chorine, another familiar backstage character, particularly in her two big numbers, “Tom, Dick, or Harry” and “Always True to You in My Fashion.” James T. Lane plays Paul with suave confidence and exuberantly leads the show-stopping “Too Darn Hot” that opens the second act, while Adrienne Walker has a rich voice and a wry presence as Hattie, the dresser to Lilli. John Rockwell’s sets contrast more realistic backstage settings with the painted drops, very 1948, of the onstage show, and Jeff Mashie’s costumes are a masterful blend of luscious period streetwear and ironic takes on traditional

➤ KISS, ME KATE, continued on p.27 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

➤ KISS, ME KATE, from p.26 Shakespeare. The new orchestrations by Larry Hochman are lush and smart. Certainly, one of the highlights of the evening is Warren Carlyle’s choreography marvelously performed by the excellent ensemble. Carlyle marries the current athleticism of Broadway with the implied and sometimes overt sexuality that reminds one of Michael Kidd’s groundbreaking modern dance and Hanya Holm, the show’s original choreographer. With all the concern about gender politics, it might be easy to overlook how unabashedly sexual a lot of this show is in the book and Porter’s lyrics. This is decidedly a show for sophisticated adults and a production that’s not to be missed. Maddie Corman has gone through something awful and life-changing. When her husband, noted director and theater personality Jace Alexander, was arrested and convicted on child pornography charges, her world crumbled. It’s a terrible, traumatic thing to endure and worse given that both Corman and Alexander are somewhat public figures so the events were played out in the media, as well. It’s the classic tale of how what seems to be an outwardly perfect life can be shattered by addiction. Rather than trying to forget and move on, Corman has turned her story into a one-woman show, now at the DR2. She is an extraordinary actress and a strong writer, and her story — she hates the term “journey” — is harrowing and compelling. It’s also unresolved. She still deals with the effects of the

case, even as she tries to rebuild her life. Perhaps it’s therapeutic for her to tell her story in such a public way, but it’s weak theater. There is an “angel” who phones and texts to help her get through it. Corman says it’s someone we’d all know but refuses to name this woman. (From the self-help bromides dispensed, we can guess.) Other than an expository retelling of events and emotions, there is no apparent larger, more literate purpose to this piece. From the outset, Corman says there are limits on what she can or will reveal. That’s selfdefeating from a theatrical standpoint, as it leaves the audience wondering what parts of the story are being left out. Better to leave that unsaid. Corman is not the first woman to be victimized by addiction, and she won’t be the last. Nor, however, is this the first piece to dramatize the kind of “Eat, Pray, Love” events that upend a life. As tragic as this story is and as lovely an actress as Corman is, the piece suffers because while she brings us intimately into her life, she gives us little or nothing more than that. KISS ME, KATE | Roundabout Theatre at Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St. | Through Jun. 30: Tue.-Sat. at 8 p.m.; Wed., Sat. at 2 p.m.; Sun. at 3 p.m. | $59-$352 at roundabouttheatre.org or 212-719-1300 | Two hrs., 35 mins., with intermission ACCIDENTALLY BRAVE | DR2 Theatre, 105 E. 15th St. | Through Jul. 14: Mon., Wed.-Sat. at 7:30 p.m.; Wed., Sat.-Sun. at 3 p.m. | $55-$100 at ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000 | Ninety mins., no intermission

212 - 254 - 1109 | www.theaterforthenewcity.net | 155 First Ave. NY, NY 10003

Still At Risk Wr i t t e n by Ti m P i n ck n ey D i re c t e d by C a rl A n d re s s M a rch 2 6 - M a rch 3 1 T-W 7PM, TH-S 8PM, S-S 3PM Tickets: $25 Kevin, a surviving activist from the front lines of the AIDS crisis, finds himself struggling to find his place andJUMP, in continued on p.27 ➤ purpose contemporary gay culture.

GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

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Enduring Invincibility Lainie Kazan’s wildly varied long career is a master class in survival BY DAVID NOH ouTube is rife with delicious clips of Teflon songstress Lainie Kazan from the heyday of that now-lost TV genre, variety shows. I mentioned that to her as we sat down ahead of her appearances this week at Feinstein’s/ 54 Below, and asked whether the looseygoosey ribald comments she got from the likes of Dean Martin would fly today. “Aw,” she said, “we had so much fun flirting. He was a good friend, a great guy, and funny as all get out.” Martin happened to be the first celebrity Kazan mentioned in the course of our delightful, nostalgiadrenched conversation, and, although she demurred from saying that she knew everybody, she really did. Who alive today has worked with everyone from the Andrews Sisters to Jason Momoa? One evening, Ethel Merman sort of shared the spotlight with her and Martin: “Oh. My. God. She never let on that she knew anybody was singing with her: ‘Smile! When your heart is bah-reaking!’ Dean and I had so much fun, we fell on the floor. She was so hysterical! Every word was exactly where she put it, every belt. That’s why writers today consider modern singers a joke, who constantly improvise, singing all over the place.” Kazan was next-door neighbors with Merman at the Madison Hotel on Park and 50th Street: “She always covered herself up, wore an old coat, and everyone who worked in the building didn’t like her because she was a very poor tipper. Once, we were working some big charity benefit in Forest Hills and I forgot some lyrics in rehearsal. She just reamed me out: ‘How could you forget those words?’ I was so nervous, working with all these amazing stars, and I got upset and cried in the dressing room, but when the show started we had a good time.” Judy Garland loomed large in her life: “I talk about her in my show. I met her and went out with

FEINSTEIN’S/ 54 BELOW

Lainie Kazan performs at Feinstein’s/ 54 Below through March 29.

her to a couple of events. I was so shy, but she would call me on the phone and say, ‘I want you to come with me to this benefit,’ and I’d sit on the dais with her. Ohmigod… She was my idol. She and Sinatra taught me how to sing — not physically — but very influential in the way I look at life through music. I never wrote songs, so I would choose songs that were what I wanted to say throughout my career.” Pressed on everyone she knew, Kazan responded, “If I tell you everyone I worked with, you’re gonna know how old I am, but there was Eartha Kitt, Della Reese, and don’t forget, I had two nightclubs in partnership with Hugh Hefner. There were Lainie’s Rooms on both coasts and I hired all the great jazz artists: Sarah Vaughan, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Bill Evans. I did a movie with Sinatra, ‘Lady in Cement,’ playing that lady, with Raquel Welch. I only had a couple of scenes and then I dated him for a while, between [his wives] Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow. Just

a few times, we went out, and he was magnificent. There were a lot of people who thought he was not the nicest person in the world but he was great to me. He loved my singing, which he never heard until later. He would write me notes, always commenting on what I was doing, just a beautiful man.” Long before any name celebrities — apart from Marilyn Monroe — posed for Playboy, Kazan did, and she commented, “I thought of it as art, I swear to God! This guy, Larry Schiller, who had photographed Monroe… coaxed me into Playboy, saying, ‘It will be like a Rubens painting,’ although some of the shots I didn’t like at all. He said, ‘I want to take this Jewish woman and make her a Jewess, riding in the desert, and I thought it was such a romantic idea! So he took all these pictures, but he was not a nice man and later did an NBC special with me.” As far as her family’s reaction to her Playboy photos: “My mother was pretty outrageous, she was much more worried about her

neighbors’ opinion but she made me feel okay about it. She was crazy but fine with it, a beautiful woman, and when she died, I found a color photo of her without any clothes on, in a grass skirt and lei. I have it on my dresser.” Kazan’s Jason Momoa connection happened when she filmed “Tempted” in 2003, with Virginia Madsen in a Hawaii that was really Australia: “Ohmigod, I knew it was gonna happen for him! He was so gorgeous, he took my breath away, but he was so young, just a baby then.” Although only five years old than Bette Midler, she played that diva’s mother in “Beaches” in 1988. I remember the first New York screening of it, and I told her I never witnessed such an enthusiastically loving audience reception as when she entered, beaming on the boardwalk and zaftig: “Aww! I had such a good time. That was great, wasn’t it? I went in and auditioned for it, despite our small age difference, and Bette read with me. They hired me on the spot, she and her co-producer Bonnie Bruckheimer, who produced everything she did and is now one of my dearest friends. Bette, too, became really close with me. “That was so easy, the role was not a stretch. So then I was getting Jewish mothers, Italian, and, of course, ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding.’ I think I did a wonderful job in that, although I was the only non-Greek in the cast, apart from Andrea Martin.” The thing that Kazan is most proud of, however, is her work in “My Favorite Year.” “When I met Peter O’Toole it was like I died and went to Heaven. He was so fabulous and such an actor! Ohmigod, there was not a beat he missed, and he took such pleasure in what I was doing. He made me very happy, beyond happy. I was impressed with myself and with what we were doing. Richard Benjamin directed, such a great guy, there were amazing people in the

➤ LAINIE KAZAN, continued on p.30 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

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OPERA

The Ghost in the Machine Lepage’s “Ring Cycle” is what it is, but “Das Rheingold” offered compensation BY ELI JACOBSON he Metropolitan Opera is bringing the Robert Lepage “Ring” production back for three cycles this spring. This revival features a new cast of Wagnerian stars led by Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde. he press spin is that the Lepage production has been freshened up and redesigned. Things did not, however, begin all that promisingly at the second performance of “Das Rheingold” on March 14t During the prelude, the shimmering chords representing the waves of the Rhine competed with the creaking and banging of the grinding steel slats of “the Machine.” The horn section of the Met Orchestra added a few ill-tuned noises of their own. The three Rhinemaidens were attached by wire cables to the Machine. When it was upside down, they were suspended in the air looking like they were swimming underwater. However, when the Machine swung over into a flat upright position, the three mermaid-like figures were stranded like beached dolphins, pretty much immobilized by their costumes and rigging. Instead of the three water nymphs eluding Alberich’s lecherous pursuits, he had to run or fall down the sloping stage away from them. The playing spaces on the Machine are limited and awkward. Much of Lepage’s staging is concert style with the singers lined up in front of the machine or awkwardly perched on it. The magical transformation effects are workaday — several were handled with more flair in the old Schenk/ Schneider-Siemssen production. Then there is the fact that the machine designed by Carl Fillion is a visually utilitarian and unpoetic set of moving metal slats with computer video projected onto it. Computer video is something in the 21st century that we stare at all day on our smart phones, television, billboards, and computer screens at home and in the office. We’ve seen it before and done better. Though production-wise things are not improved, the Met presented a musically distinguished group of performers. One strong singer

➤ LAINIE KAZAN, from p.28 cast and it was always fun.” I asked her if she ever met a man who made her truly happy: “I think I was intimidating to men. I never chose a man — they always chose me. I was never a person to say, ‘Oh, I want him and am going to get him!’ I didn’t know how to

KEN HOWARD/ METROPOLITAN OPERA

Tomasz Konieczny in his met debut in “Das Rheingold.”

followed another, and after a while the problematic production didn’t matter all that much. Maestro Philippe Jordan conducted a lyrical, forward-moving conception of Wagner’s score that bodes well for the rest of the Cycle. The Met Orchestra mostly played very well for him — the horn section settled down by the final scenes. The cast contained two excellent debuts and a raft of well-loved Met regulars in house role debuts. Greer Grimsley returned to sing an authoritative Wotan with a rather craggy but imposing bass-baritone. As his wife Fricka, Jamie Barton’s tone was lush and expansive. Barton showed us that Fricka is forced into the role of the bad cop in her marriage rather than just being a shrew. (Wagner makes us sympathize with Wotan, who makes monumentally

do that. I grew up very polite, shy — I’d lift my eyes and flirt but could never follow through. I wasn’t that kind of girl. I grew up with a mother who was like a Jewish Blanche DuBois. “I wanted someone to take me away on a stallion, but I did do a lot of things that were quietly rebellious. I was one of the first persons who was pregnant and not married. Me, Vanessa

bad and immoral decisions. Meanwhile, Fricka is always right about everything yet we have no sympathy for her at all.) Baritone Tomasz Konieczny, in his Met debut, made a vocally deluxe Alberich with a tone and presence that commanded the stage — I’d like to hear him in a more heroic leading role like Jokanaan or the Dutchman. The other debutant, tenor Norbert Ernst, unfurled a bright, supple, and insinuating lyric tenor as Loge. Sashaying around the stage in a gold jumpsuit and space boots with a wild curly red wig, Ernst’s characterization of the mercurial trickster god had a decidedly gay vibe about it. The witty camp persona colored Loge’s role as a controversial outsider among the gods. Neither debutant possesses a character singer instrument and both brought great style to their characterizations. Karen Cargill’s Erda was sung with a warm, rich, and even mezzo tone that didn’t quite descend into true contralto eeriness. The giants were nicely contrasted with Günther Groissböck’s smoother warmer bass as the lovelorn Fasolt, while Dmitry Belosselskiy sounded darker and rougher as the greedy Fafner. Wendy Bryn Harmer unleashed a brightly thrusting soprano tone as Freia, making her character sound less passive and put upon than usual. As the Rhinemaidens, Amanda Woodbury, Samantha Hankey, and Tamara Mumford vocalized splendidly in their solo lines and blended perfectly in trio. Adam Diegel brought bright heroic tenor tones to Froh, but the very able lyric baritone Michael Todd Simpson was a little short of decibels in Donner’s anvil swinging invocation. As a preview of things to come, this “Rheingold” promises great musical enjoyment in the three upcoming operas. The Met Orchestra is sounding very good if not quite at the level of Ring Cycles past led by the now disgraced James Levine. The Lepage production is what it is and reveals clearly the limitations as much as the potential of technology. You need vision and a concept, and that is lacking here. Robert Lepage is a man of great imagination and should know that technology is not a replacement for artistic vision.

Redgrave, and Grace Slick, who shared that distinction. I sang at the Plaza like that — barefoot and pregnant. I think I was crazy.” LAINIE KAZAN | Feintstein’s/ 54 Below, 254 W. 54th St. | Mar. 27-29 at 7 p.m. | $65-$150 at 54below.com; plus $6 at the door; food & drink minimum of $25 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

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BOOKS

Sleeping With a Celebrity Frank Merlo, Tennessee ennesse Williams’ partner, gets his story told

GEORGE DE STEFANO

Christopher Castellani talks about “Leading Men” at Calandra Italian American Institute in Manhattan earlier this month.

BY GEORGE DE STEFANO eading Men,” the acclaimed new novel by Christopher Castellani, is the author’s fourth. But, as he told an audience at his March 7 reading at the Calandra Italian American Institute in Manhattan, he considers it his fi rst, or rather, “the fi rst that was fully imagined.” His previous books (“A Kiss from Maddalena,” “The Saint of Lost Things,” and “All this Talk of Love”) formed a trilogy inspired by the gay author’s Italian immigrant parents and their travels to their home village in south-central Italy. Castellani’s latest is a speculative fiction about the intertwined lives of playwright Tennessee Williams, his partner Frank Merlo, and a young Swedish woman, Anja Blomgren, whom Williams and Merlo befriend while on holiday in the Italian resort town of Portofi no. Of the book’s major characters, Anja is the only fictional creation; other real-life figures who play significant supporting roles include Truman Capote and his partner Jack Dunphy; the American author John Horne Burns; and two titans of Italian cinema, actress Anna Magnani and director Luchino Visconti. The narrative alternates between 1953, when Williams and Merlo are on holiday in Italy; 1963, as Merlo is dying from lung cancer in New York City; and the present, when an elderly Anja, who, as Anja Bloom, enjoyed a successful career as a fi lm actress, agrees to direct a production in Provincetown of “Call it Joy,” Williams’ unproduced fi nal play.

“L

The playwright bequeathed it to Anja shortly before he died, and she has not shown it to anyone in more than 30 years. The play is entirely Castellani’s invention, and it is meant to be bad, a failed “act of penance” by Williams to atone for his sins of neglect and cruelty toward the working-class, Sicilian-American truckdriver from New Jersey with whom he shared his life for 15 years. “Leading Men” gestated for 20 years, Castellani told me during an interview before his Calandra Institute appearance. In 1999, he wrote a short story about Williams and Merlo while working on his master of fi ne arts degree. “It was the best short story I wrote in my MFA program, which isn’t saying much because I wrote mostly terrible stories. I thought it worked well enough, but there was so much more about their relationship that I wanted to dive into. And I thought the only way that I could really tell that story was through a novel.” Even before he wrote the short story, Castellani was fascinated by the Williams-Merlo partnership and particularly drawn to Merlo. In a bookstore in his hometown, Wilmington, Delaware, Castellani came across “Tennessee: Cry of the Heart,” Dotson Rader’s 1985 memoir about his friendship with the playwright. Reading the book, Castellani “fell in love” with Merlo. “I really saw myself in him. I’m a workingclass Italian American gay guy from Delaware, and he was a working-class Italian American gay guy from Jersey. And I just really identified with his being in a world where he had

VIKING PRESS

Christopher Castellani’s new novel is “Leading Men,” out from Viking.

to try to fi nd his place. And I felt that way my whole life in academia. I always felt like the working-class dago, like I was this close to being called out for not being smart enough and not being elite enough to be there. “I wondered if Merlo felt the same way in that different world of famous actors and playwrights. How did he navigate his way through that world? And so, I fell in love with him in that way, in the sense that I identified with him, but I also fell in love with the kind of devotion that he had to Williams. And I do believe that he loved him. And I do believe in the alchemy that they had, and it thrilled me that it gave rise to so much great work.” Merlo inspired the character of Alvaro Mangiacavallo, the passionate Sicilian truckdriver who romances the widow Serafi na Delle Rose in Williams’ 1951 play (and its 1955 fi lm adaptation), “The Rose Tattoo.” (Mangiacavallo means “eat a horse,” and Williams’ nickname for his short and physically robust lover was Little Horse.) But other than that, he wasn’t Williams’ muse. Besides being the playwright’s partner, he was his secretary and general factotum, a salaried employee. (He also received a percentage of the royalties from “The Rose Tattoo” until his death.) “Frank was the one

➤ LEADING MEN, continued on p.33 March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

➤ LEADING MEN, from p.32 who ironed the shirts and Frank was the one who booked the tickets on their trips and Frank was the one who made sure they had a hotel room,” Castellani said. “Frank was the rock, the emotionally stable one, who would talk Williams down when he got a bad review, when he was on some hypochondriacal freak out, which was almost daily. When he didn’t have his pills, when he was drinking too much. As Williams described him, he ‘tied me down to earth.’ Of course, when Frank was gone, he floated away.” Williams, Castellani noted, wrote all his best plays while with Merlo; he never had another hit after Merlo’s death. There is a famous, factual anecdote about Merlo and his relationship with Williams that Castellani has included in “Leading Men.” When movie mogul Jack Warner asked Merlo what he did, he replied, “I sleep with Mr. Williams.” But Merlo aspired to something more than being the lover of a celebrated playwright.

Before he met Williams, he had played small parts in B-movies. “Frank did have his own dreams, his own aspirations,” Castellani observed. “He did want to have an acting career. But he couldn’t quite make it happen. It’s hard to know whether his own career didn’t happen because Williams was being vampiric and taking so much of him away from himself or whether he simply just didn’t have the talent and the drive. My interpretation was that he did want to have his own career, he wanted to be a successful artist, but he didn’t want it enough. He didn’t have the passion, the true passion for art that Williams did.” In one of the most inspired, and ultimately heartbreaking, of Castellani’s inventions, Williams tries to fulfi ll Merlo’s acting dreams — and demonstrate his love and gratitude—by getting him a small part in “Senso,” the 1954 Luchino Visconti fi lm for which Williams actually wrote dialogue. Merlo performs well, but his scene is cut from the film. A crushed Merlo blames not Vis-

conti but Williams, his anger and resentment further undermining their troubled relationship. “Leading Men” is an audacious novel; it invents characters and incidents, as well as Tennessee Williams’ fi nal play. Did its author ever feel some trepidation in doing so? “Actually, no. That’s not to say I wasn’t intimidated by the figures that I was trying to bring to life, but I never felt like I had no right to do it. I have a mentor, the novelist Thomas Mallon. So many of his novels have famous people as characters, and he always says that in the phrase ‘historical fiction,’ the noun always trumps the adjective. So, I’m writing fiction; I’m writing a novel. “Yes, they’re real people, but it’s my interpretation. So, I feel like I have as much of a right to interpret these characters as anyone else does. I’m not writing a biography. I hope that people will read the book and be inspired to read a biography of Williams to learn a more about the real Frank Merlo and Truman Capote and all these people.” (Besides Dotson Rader’s

book, Castellani also drew on “Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh,” the excellent biography by John Lahr.) “I was intimidated by things like dialogue, to try to capture the incredible wit and intelligence and sharpness of these characters, especially Capote and Williams. So, I was like, am I up to that? I did the best I could with that, but that’s the kind of thing that intimidated me, not the validity of the process in general.” Although “Leading Men” is fiction, Castellani said he “was very careful to make sure that everything in this book could have happened.” Williams and Merlo were in Portofi no in 1953 and Capote did invite them to a party while he and Dunphy were staying in the coastal town. There is no record, however, in Williams’ diary or letters, that they actually accepted the invitation. Castellani places them at the party, where they meet two vacationing Swedish women, Bitte Blomgren and her daughter Anja. They are both

➤ LEADING MEN, continued on p.35

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GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc

➤ LEADING MEN, from p.33 having sex with a roughtrade fisherman, which becomes hot gossip among the foreigners and the locals. (Castellani discovered this real-life scandal in Capote’s diaries.) Williams and Merlo befriend Anja, who travels with them to visit author Burns and his Italian lover, Sandro, in a coastal town north of Portofi no. There they are attacked by a gang of feral youths in a powerfully rendered and terrifying scene that, in the novel’s fictive world, will provide the inspiration for the ritualistic — and cannibalistic—murder of Sebastian Venable in Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer.” Anja later joins Williams and Merlo in Rome, where she meets Magnani and, in one of the novel’s most memorable episodes, enjoys a night on the town with her friends at a restaurant owned by one of Magnani’s ex-lovers. That night she also meets Martin Hovland, the Swedish fi lm director who will make her an international star. Castellani said that he originally didn’t plan to make Anja, a straight woman, a central character. “Before Anja was a character, the novel was just about four men” (Williams and Merlo; Burns and Sandro). “It was going to be told from Frank’s perspective in alternating chapters with Sandro’s perspective about his relationship [with Burns]. It was going to be like a compare and contrast. But that construction was just too neat and tidy and sort of claustrophobic. So, I needed something to shake it up, which is when Anja came into the picture.” In the present, Anja Bloom, in her 70s and retired from acting, lives alone in New York; her longtime partner, a university professor, has recently died. Lonely and friendless, she aimlessly walks the city GayCityNews.nyc | March 28 - April 10, 2019

streets at night. Anja was inspired by Liv Ullman, and her professional and personal relationship with Hovland recalls Ullman’s with her director and partner Ingmar Bergman. The key to Castellani’s portrayal of the older Anja came in a chance encounter with Ullman at a party in Boston, where Castellani lives. He approached her and they began to talk about writing. Ullman asked him what he was working on and he told her about “Leading Men.” She then “told me this great story about meeting Tennessee in the ‘70s. “I asked her about her life, and she said, ‘I divide my time between Boston and Palm Beach.’ And then she said, ‘when I’m in Boston, I don’t have many friends. And I just end up wandering the streets at night in the snow.’” In Italy, Merlo and the young Anja become intimate; there even is a frisson of sexual attraction in their relationship, although it is never acted on. Is Castellani saying something about relationships between gay men and straight women? “Defi nitely. I wanted to get at just how important straight women have been to gay men, but not like, ‘my bestie.’ I wanted to get at the complicated dynamic they have. But more than that, I wanted Anja to achieve the fame that Frank longed so much. If Frank had become famous, what would it have been like for him? And, so she’s kind of a foil for him in that way. “Because of that, I think she could see him the most clearly. She has her own story, but her sections of the book are really about Frank on some level and her wanting to bring him back into the light and wanting to resurrect or resuscitate him. Just to give him his due, I guess you could say.” LEADING MEN | By Christopher Castellani | Viking | 368 pages

March 28 - April 10, 2019 | GayCityNews.nyc