Gay City News - July 4, 2019

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PRIDE OF EVERY POSSIBLE STRIPE COMPLETE COVERAGE OF AN AMAZING JUNE Pages 04-24 MICHAEL LUONGO

The crowd that filled Christopher Street and Waverly Place outside the Stonewall Inn on Friday, June 28 for the WorldPride Rally commemorating the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.

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July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

In This Issue COVER STORY Pride of every possible stripe

The Pride Rally 18

The WorldPride March 04

GRAND MARSHALS Lady Phyll 16

The Queer Liberation March 10

The Gay Liberation Front 22

The Dyke March 12 Trans Day of Action 14

SPORTS Jason Collins, Gus Kenworthy talk about their journeys 20

Opening & Closing Ceremonies 06, 24

OPERA “Stonewall� the opera 44

Torche’s “Admission�

40

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STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

A Pride Parade Like No Other For more than 12 hours, 150,000 marchers offered rainbows, other visual innovations

MICHAEL LUONGO MICHAEL LUONGO

The Heritage of Pride banner in Sunday’s parade.

Author Mona Eltahawy honoring pioneering non-binary writer Kate Bornstein.

MICHAEL LUONGO

A blocks-long Rainbow Flag is carried down Fifth Avenue after sunset.

BY MICHAEL LUONGO

N

ew York was awash in rainbows as it is every June, but this time there was a special meaning: the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which ushered in the modern LGBTQ civil rights era. New York’s WorldPride is the first time the event, originating in Rome as a challenge to the Vatican’s power over LGBTQ rights issues in the year 2000, had ever been held in the US. According to the organizers, around 150,000 people participated in the main march, with about 7,000 each day at the Pride Island entertainment event.

While complete statistics were not fully available at press time, several million viewed the march, and it might have been the single largest one-day event in New York history. According to a Facebook post by Matthew McMorrow, an out gay top aide to Mayor Bill de Blasio, the march ran for 12 hours and 32 minutes, beating by nearly three hours its previous record.

The choice of grand marshals played homage to the history of the movement with Gay Liberation Front, one of the first gay rights groups, among them. Others included the Trevor Project, the cast of the transgender TV phenomenon “Pose,” UK Black Pride co-founder Phyllis Akua Opoku-Gyimah, better known as Lady Phyll, and Monica Helms, creator of the Transgender Pride Flag.

While in many ways a celebration of how far New York and the world have come on LGBTQ issues, many participating in the parade wanted to ensure that the need for further progress was not overlooked. And that included those symbolically leading it. At a press conference in the Empire State Building, one of New York’s most recognizable and visited landmarks, In-

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MICHAEL LUONGO

MICHAEL LUONGO

Caribbean contingents brought a feathered sense of Carnival to the parade.

“Pose” star Indya Moore offered bracing remarks at a pre-parade press conference.

dya Moore, who plays Angel in “Pose,” gave a moving speech about police brutality, the difficult bargain in corporate sponsorship, trans identity, and the LGBTQ movement’s disregard for issues affecting marginalized communities.

“When I see the police in the streets, I think about when I was in foster care, I was beaten and I had my hair ripped out of my head by a young cis girl, and I was arrested for it. Twice.

Because she told the police I was a man,” Moore said. “I remember crying in that room, very scared. And I remember thinking about what happened to Sandra Bland and thinking that would happen to me.”

Moore continued, “I am wondering: Why they are there? Are they there to protect us or are they there to police us? Maybe they are there to make sure we don’t riot again.” Asking that Heritage of Pride, the group that produces the parade, consider hiring an outside security

firm rather than police, she added, “So many of us don’t feel safe, even when there are rainbows painted on their cars. It feels like a mockery, when I think about my friend Layleen,” referring to Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, a transgender woman who died on Rikers Island while placed in “restrictive housing,” which involves 17 hours each day in isolation.

Moore was also critical of the largely white power structure in many LGBTQ organizations, reminding those in the audience that “our blackness and our brownness isn’t included in those voices to liberate,” particularly admonishing the Human Rights Campaign. They also called on T-Mobile, one of the main sponsors of Pride, to provide more help to grassroots organizations that help trans women, including those who are sex workers.

➤ HERITAGE OF PRIDE, continued on p.5 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

MICHAEL LUONGO

State Senator Brad Hoylman, who as Judiciary chair steered major LGBTQ rights advances this year, shares a kiss with husband David Sigal.

MICHAEL LUONGO

Out gay Speaker Corey Johnson dances his way in front of his City Council contingent.

MICHAEL LUONGO

Amit Paley (center), the head of the Trevor Project (one of the parade’s grand marshals), leads his contingent.

MICHAEL LUONGO

Bunnies of Pride.

➤ HERITAGE OF PRIDE,, from p.4 Later that evening, the Empire State Building would be awash with rainbows, along with many other New York City structures, including the World Trade Center and Madison Square Garden.

This year’s parade was also structured to mix activists marching in contingents woven through with corporate sponsors. In some ways, this seemed a response to arguments the parade had become too commercialized, which is why an alternative parade, Reclaim Pride’s Queer Liberation March, was held earlier in the day along the parade’s 1970 route.

Corporations did indeed make for a huge part of the parade, from Facebook to Disney and ABC, which was broadcasting the parade, to a variety of airlines and other travel companies, banks, and others.

In keeping with the theme of WorldPride, this year’s was one of the most international Prides ever held in New York, a city already known for its diversity. Previous and future WorldPride host cities and organizations were among the GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

first of the groups to set off during the march, from Italian groups like Circolo Di Cultura Mario Mieli, the event’s first hosts. Along with Rome, Madrid, Toronto, and London, all cities that previously hosted WorldPride, marched, in addition to Copenhagen Pride, where WorldPride will take place in 2021.

One foreign delight that pleased the crowd was fashion entrepreneur Donatella Versace, sister of slain gay designer Gianni Versace. She was part of a string of celebrities and other notables appearing on floats in addition to the “Pose” cast, from Vanessa Williams with radio station KTU, Felipe Rose, better known as the Indian from the Village People, with God’s Love We Deliver, and Judy Shepard, the mother of murdered gay college student Matthew Shepard. Barnes and Noble sought to honor famous LGBTQ writers and activists for other causes in its contingent, with writers like Sam Miller, Mona Eltahawy, and others carrying placards of their own or others’ works.

Following an apology from New York City Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill for his department’s role in the original Stonewall raid that led to the riots, WorldPride 2019 seemed to be one where the police perhaps exuded an especially tangible friendliness. Officers at times

MICHAEL LUONGO

A marcher from UTOPIA, the United Territories of Pacific Islander Alliance.

danced with parade-goers and adorned themselves in rainbows stickers and other paraphernalia, their uniforms coming to match the rainbow-swathed NYPD police cars launched for this year’s Pride season.

Gay Pride is arguably the most visually striking of all of New York’s parades. Caribbean contingents brought a feathered sense of Carnival to the parade, mesmerizing the crowd as usual.

Formed with the help of many contingents was a massive rainbow flag, which stretched for blocks along Fifth Avenue, stepping off long after nightfall, the art-deco crown of the Empire State Building shining above it in a complementary pattern.

Still, some of the most visually impressive also broke the rainbow mold. These contingents included the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, in partnership with Deutsche Bank and the drum band Fogo Azul, its participants carrying Renaissance-style banners honoring LGBTQ artists, alive and departed, as well as UTOPIA, whose members adorned themselves with clothing made from traditional Polynesian tapa cloth, some capes trailing many yards behind them along the pavement. Out Olympic swimmer Amini Fonua of New Zealander and Tongan descent was among those in the contingent.

The most striking aspect of the parade was how long it actually lasted, along its route from 26th Street and Fifth Avenue, where it passed the Flatiron Building, bending along into Greenwich Village to pass the Stonewall Inn, before returning uptown, past the new AIDS Memorial on Seventh Avenue. Though scheduled to end around 11:00 p.m. according to the organizers, floats and contingents were still stepping off around that time. Among the very last of the international groups was Taiwan, where same sex marriage just became the law of the land, hours off schedule. Still, diehard fans were along the route cheering the parade into the next morning.

This was, for sure, a Pride like no other.

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STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

WorldPride Kicks Off in Brooklyn Opening Ceremony at Barclays Center featured dazzling line-up of performers

BY KELSY CHAUVIN

W

orldPride NYC and the Stonewall 50 Anniversary Weekend officially kicked off Wednesday, June 26, drawing thousands of revelers to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.

The ticketed fundraising event brought LGBTQ community leaders and luminaries to the stage, led by host and native New Yorker Whoopi Goldberg, who welcomed about 8,000 attendees to the fi rstever WorldPride in the US. Goldberg launched the evening by introducing headliner Cyndi Lauper, who emerged from a larger-than-life-size globe singing “True Colors” with a team of dancers. Lauper was among a dazzling lineup of LGBTQ and ally singers, activists, actors, and drag performers — including headliners Chaka Khan, Ciara, Daya, Todrick Hall, Sara Ramirez, and queens famous from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

All performed in celebration, with continual reminders of the vital work ahead to secure international LGBTQ civil rights.

“Can you think of a better place for the first US WorldPride than New York City?,” Goldberg asked.

“Because this is where is Pride was born. And nobody does Pride better than we do. And remember: This isn’t just the fi rst US WorldPride. This is also the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.

For all you young-uns out there — that is the beginning of Pride.

It has been 50 years! Think about how much body glitter that is.

How many times have you heard ‘It’s Raining Men’ in 50 years?”

She continued “But we all know that Pride isn’t just about the party. We have Pride because so many strong and frustrated queer people got loud enough and brave enough to say Stop! Stop! Stop!”

Between acts, documentary videos recapped some of the LGBTQ community’s achievements, as well as background about the three non-profit groups ben-

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KELSY CHAUVIN

KELSY CHAUVIN

Alyssa Edwards performs at the Opening Ceremony at Barclays Center.

Whoopi Goldberg was the evening’s host.

efitting from the night’s net proceeds.

They include SAGE (sagenyc. org ), the country’s largest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ older adults; the Ali Forney Center (aliforneycenter.org ), the nation’s largest agency housing and helping LGBTQ homeless youths; and Immigration Equality (immigrationequality.org ), America’s leading LGBTQ immigrant rights organization, advocating for people from around the world fleeing violence, abuse, and persecution because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status.

Goldberg’s hosting embodied much of what New Yorkers and global citizens are feeling this month — a balance of unabashed pride, mixed with deep concerns about the future.

“The Stonewall Uprising led to five days of protest,” she said.

“And you know what? We are still protesting.”

Among many moments of remembrance, the Opening Ceremony brought to the stage members of the Gay Liberation Front, the group that established the annual June Pride March in 1970. Also honored were transgender activist and Transgender Pride Flag creator Monica Helms; as well as Phyll Opoku-Gyimah (aka Lady Phyll), who leads the UK Black

Pride celebration and protest.

Each of them were 2019 NYC Pride grand marshals, along with the cast of TV show “Pose,” represented by Billy Porter (Pray Tell), Dominique Jackson (Elektra), Indya Moore (Angel), and Mj Rodriguez (Blanca).

At the opening, performer Sara Ramirez sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as the crowd applauded two dozen LGBTQ community organizers and activists from New York and beyond.

Among them was Andrea Jenkins, the first out transgender African-American woman elected to public office in the United States, serving since January 2018 on the Minneapolis City Council.

Others who helped inaugurate WorldPride NYC included the first out gay NBA player Jason Collins; City Council Speaker Corey Johnson; SAGE volunteer Lujira Cooper; Ali Forney founder and executive director Carl Siciliano; NYC Pride executive director Chris Frederick; and representatives from Interpride, the parent organizer of WorldPride.

Deep into the evening, the stage was graced by actor and activist Laverne Cox, who declared, “As a proud, black transgender woman of color I stand before you, and in humble homage to my mothers and sisters who came before me.

I stand here because of Sylvia Ri-

KELSY CHAUVIN

Chaka Khan was among a dazzling line-up of performers.

vera. I stand here because of Marsha P. Johnson. And I also stand here for those who cannot.”

She continued, “I stand here for those whose lives were cut short by violence and discrimination.

I stand here so they know their lives are deeply valued. Can we invite their spirit to enter this space tonight? To permeate our beings and to fortify our souls, here and now. To continue to fight, to continue to love, and to continue to answer the very highest calling of our shared humanity. We are here to remember 50 years of Stonewall. We are here — and you know we ain’t going nowhere!”

The night’s sharpest performances came from the sequence of five drag queens, which Goldberg introduced as “my personal drag race fantasy.” The “RuPaul’s Drag Race” showstoppers were Alaska Thunderfuck, Yvie Oddly, Shangela, Alyssa Edwards, and Bob the Drag Queen.

Yet even as she spotlighted the dazzling entertainment, Goldberg kept returning to the political significance behind Pride.

“There have always been forces fighting against the LGBTQ community,” she said. “But you can’t stop Pride. The LGBTQ community has always been stronger than any hate that’s been thrown

➤ OPENING CEREMONY, continued on p.7 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

KELSY CHAUVIN

KELSY CHAUVIN

Laverne Cox (with mic) and Billy Porter (face hidden by his hat).

The scene at Barclays Center on June 26.

➤ OPENING CEREMONY, from p.6

keep us visible, make us stronger, and celebrate who we are. Just by being here tonight, you continue to help the community.”

Goldberg’s call to action went beyond Pride Season.

“The easiest thing we can do is at our fi ngertips: Get out and vote, because 2020 is nigh! Scream it

at them. So many of our brothers and sisters have been brave enough to fight for the right to be here, be proud, and be human. So don’t forget that you are standing on their shoulders.”

Goldberg continued, “Because

of this community, Pride has grown into the incredible worldwide phenomenon we know today.

But we have to keep it real. Pride doesn’t just happen on its own.

NYC Pride is an amazing 501(c)(3) non-profit that puts this together.

It’s more than just a parade and party — their true purpose is to

from the mountaintops, baby. You want change? Remember how you feel tonight. Get out and vote!”

Kelsy Chauvin is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn, specializing in travel, culture, and LGBTQ interests. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @kelsycc.

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GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

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July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

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9

STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

Queer Liberation March Draws Many Thousands Alternative, DIY gathering recalls LGBTQ movement’s radical roots

DONNA ACETO

The banner leading the Queer Liberation March.

DUNCAN OSBORNE

Marsha Goldberg from the Workers World Party.

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE/ PHOTOS BY DONNA ACETO

T

housands turned out for the Queer Liberation March and a rally that was held on the Great Lawn in Central Park in events that were explicitly linked to the LGBTQ community’s radical history and to its current far left politics.

“From early on, solidarity,” said Marsha Goldberg who was heading up Sixth Avenue to Central Park on June 30 with the Workers World Party contingent. “Right from the beginning.”

The WWP has marched in every march since 1971 and it was likely alone among Socialist or Marxist groups that embraced the new politics of what is now called the LGBTQ community.

The Gay Liberation Front (GLF), the first new group to form following the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn in the West Village, had members in groups allied with the WWP and other radical groups in the ‘60s. The annual marches in New York City and elsewhere around the US and the world commemorate the riots, which are seen as marking the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

Goldberg said that when the WWP initially created what was then called its “gay caucus,” it had straight members who were receptive, but still confused.

“They said, ‘We don’t understand, but we know oppression when we see it,’” Goldberg said.

“This movement is a liberation movement.”

The 2019 march closely mirrored the route taken by the 1970 march, the first commemoration of the riots. Both marches went up Sixth Avenue to Central Park, but their starting points differed by a block. The 1970 march ended on the Sheep Meadow with a “gay-in.” This year’s march also captured the radical spirit of the early marches.

Groups included people who marched in the 1970 march, including some former GLF members and members of the Gay Activists Alliance

10

DONNA ACETO

DUNCAN OSBORNE

Veterans of the Gay Activists Alliance.

(GAA), which also formed in late 1969, as well as Rise and Resist, Revolting Lesbians, Gays Against Guns, ACT UP, the HIV activist group, and a contingent from Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the LGBTQ synagogue.

There were also signs calling for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to be abolished, “Free Abortion on Demand,” supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that targets Israel, “We March Against Transphobia,” “No Trump/ Pence Must Go,” and other causes. As the march passed a Chick-fil-A outlet on Sixth Avenue, marchers chanted “Shame, shame, shame.”

This year’s march and rally were produced by the Reclaim Pride Coalition (RPC), which has many members with deep roots in the LGBTQ, anti-war, and other movements. The desire for a separate march was first expressed in 2017 when activists pressed Heritage of Pride, also known as NYC Pride, for a resistance contingent in that year’s Pride March that was meant as a response to the election of Donald Trump.

The decision to pursue a separate march was made last year when activists again pressed NYC Pride for a resistance contingent.

Activists also objected to the dominant presence of corporate sponsors in New York City’s annual Pride March. While most of the contingents in the parade are community groups and

The contingent from Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, including Senior Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum (under the umbrella) and her spouse Randi Weingarten (to the right), the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

non-profits, corporate sponsors are a dominant presence with large floats and contingents. Activists also wanted the policing of the parade reduced and that members of the Gay Officers Action League be required to march without uniforms.

With this year marking the 50th anniversary of the riots, the RPC members were unwilling to appear in a parade that many understood would be overrun with corporate floats and would resemble a party, not a political event.

“I would say that the message overall is ‘It’s not over,’” Ann Northrop, an RPC member, said during a June 25 call with reporters. “We are in the midst of a continuing fight for our freedom and justice for all… We are doing this march to inspire people to get involved. There is a lot going on that still needs to be addressed.”

The RPC march and rally were produced with a $200,000 budget while the NYC Pride budget was $12 million this year, which is about triple its usual budget. NYC Pride had the license for WorldPride and was required by that license, which is owned by InterPride, to produce some additional events, such as opening and closing ceremonies.

Prior to the RPC event, activists gave a range

➤ QUEER LIBERATION MARCH, continued on p.11 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

DONNA ACETO

Gays Against Guns marched in large numbers.

➤ QUEER LIBERATION MARCH, from p.10 DONNA ACETO

of estimates for the expected crowd in the “tens of thousands” and one speaker on the rally stage put the crowd size at 45,000. While that is likely inflated, the organizing did produce a substantial crowd and the march and rally were unquestionably successful.

The rally featured a mix of speakers whose messages ranged from uplifting to unrelentingly negative.

Larry Kramer, the longtime HIV activist, used a rhetorical device that he first employed in a speech in the Great Hall at Cooper Union in 2004 in which he expresses his love for the LGBTQ community and then is critical.

“I love being gay, I love my people, I think in many ways we’re better than other people,” he said while seated in a wheelchair with ACT UP members standing behind him. “Most gay people I see appear to have too much time on their hands. If you have time to get hooked on

DONNA ACETO

Antipathy to the corporate presence in the main march staged by Heritage of Pride was a common theme of the Queer Liberation March.

DONNA ACETO

Larry Kramer delivered a grim message to the crowd at Central Park.

GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

Longtime AIDS activists Drew de los Reyes and Lee Raines holding up a sign quoting the Daily News headline on the Stonewall Uprising.

DONNA ACETO

Advocates for sex work decriminalization marched.

drugs and do your endless rounds of sex-seeking cyber-surfing until dawn, you do have too much time on your hands… If we do not fight back against our enemies, we will continue to be murdered. But we have a population that is inept at organizing ourselves… We are not very good at fighting back.”

During Kramer’s speech, a young woman sitting near Gay City News kept saying, “Get him off the stage, enough. There are 45,000 people here. What is he saying?”

Other speakers were more upbeat and made comments that hewed closer to the day’s theme.

“We reclaim our movement from the police, we reclaim our movement from the corporations, we reclaim our movement from the cis white men who sit under privilege,” said Jason Walker, the HIV/ AIDS campaign coordinator at VOCAL-NY, an HIV activist and services group.

Cindy Wiesner, the national coordinator of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, had a similar message.

“Today we are reclaiming our revolutionary, historical figures known and unknown,” she said and listed Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Audre Lorde, and other noted figures.

“Those who rioted to make space for us to exist, to be, they did not protest, they did not organize so we could assimilate.”

DONNA ACETO

The direct action group Revolting Lesbians.

DONNA ACETO

Jackie Rudin and Ann Northrop were among the major organizers of the march and rally.

DONNA ACETO

Jason Walker, the HIV/ AIDS campaign coordinator at VOCAL-NY, was among the rally speakers.

11

STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

The Biggest Dyke March Ever Early showers did not dampen a wildly successful show of lesbian determination

DONNA ACETO

This year’s Dyke March was led by a large contingent of lesbians in wheelchairs.

PHOTO ESSAY BY DONNA ACETO DONNA ACETO

T

his year’s Dyke March, an non-permitted event held the afternoon before the Pride March, was the largest I’ve ever witnessed — about three times the typical size. Rain put a damper on things for about 20 minutes at the top, but then the sky improved and a spirited march from Bryant Park to Washington Square Park ensued. It all ended with a romp in the fountain in Washington Square.

DONNA ACETO

The message was: it’s not over.

The fountain at Washington Square Park always provides relief after a spirited march.

DONNA ACETO DONNA ACETO

Drummers are always a big presence.

This year’s Dyke March was led by a large contingent of lesbians in wheelchairs.

DONNA ACETO

NYPD Sergeant Arthur Smarsch, in plainclothes, has marched with the Dyke March for years.

DONNA ACETO

Historian Blanche Wiesen Cook and her spouse playwright and poet Clare Coss.

12

DONNA ACETO

Activist Maxine Wolfe, who has a long history of leadership on AIDS and at Park Slope’s Lesbian Herstory Archives.

DONNA ACETO

Leslie Cagan has long been a leading antiwar activist in New York.

July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

13

STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

Trans Day of Action Kicked Off Big Weekend Annual gathering, held June 28, demanded justice for transgender victims of violence

DONNA ACETO

DONNA ACETO

The rally focused on the violence against transgender women, not only from brutal attacks on the outside but also in the custody of local police and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

PHOTO ESSAY BY DONNA ACETO

T

he annual Trans Day of Action — a rally and march to raise the visibility of transgender and gender nonconforming folks and the challenges they face — took place on a sunny, summery Friday afternoon June 28.

The event, which drew many hundreds to Washington Square Park hours before the

DONNA ACETO

Kellen Gold and Laurie Cotter, longtime members of Rise and Resist.

Pride Rally opened near the Stonewall Inn, is organized by the Audre Lorde Project’s TransJustice initiative.

Particular attention this year was focused on the ongoing epidemic of lethal violence against transgender women, particularly women of color. According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 11 transgender women have been murdered in 2019, following a year in which 26 transgender people died violent deaths. There also been several recent deaths of transgender

Many activists emphasized that there must be justice to make pride meaningful.

immigrant women in the custody of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On June 7, Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, an inmate at Rikers Island, died while being held in “restrictive housing,” a confinement only marginally more dehumanizing than solitary confinement.

At least one sign in the crowd read, “No Justice, No Pride.”

➤ TRANS DAY OF ACTION, continued on p.15

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DONNA ACETO

A T-shirt recalls an historic episode of queer feminist visibilty.

DONNA ACETO DONNA ACETO

Longtime activist Jay O’Toole.

Carrying the message with the Transgender Flag colors.

DONNA ACETO

Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker, Mya Leilani Vazquez, and Melissa Sklarz have all played key leadership rols in the transgender community and beyond.

GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

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STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

Lady Phyll Puts the Global in WorldPride UK Black Pride founder takes on colonialism in fight for LGBTQ rights

BY MATT TRACY

A

s WorldPride bloomed in New York City, UK Black Pride co-founder Phyllis Akua OpokuGyimah, better known as Lady Phyll — an out lesbian grand marshal in the June 30 march — cast a bright light on international injustices and invoking historical figures outside her home country to illustrate the global struggle for racial equality in the LGBTQ community.

“In the words of Audre Lorde, ‘There is no such thing as a singleissue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives,’“ said Phyll of the late poet, writer, and activist from New York City who, in a speech at the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, said, “We cannot separate our oppressions, nor yet are they the same.”

Phyll has long played a role in pushing for civil rights in the UK, where she famously rejected an honorary Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire — or MBE — rank to make a bold statement about her country’s role in colonizing Africa and imposing laws there that continue to hold back LGBTQ rights to this day.

Perhaps her most impactful work as a queer activist came in 2005 when she was leading an organization known as Black Lesbians in the UK. That group embarked on a bus trip to Southend-on-Sea, a coastal town east of London, where they sought to briefly escape the racism, sexism, and homophobia they endured in their day-to-day lives. That trip led to the creation of UK Black Pride the following year, which planted the seed for others to launch Black Pride events around the world in following years.

“We haven’t looked back [since then],” Phyll told Gay City News in an email interview just days before WorldPride and Stonewall 50.

“It’s really a political movement because our lives are political.”

At its core, Phyll said, UK Black Pride represents a safe space

16

L ADY PHYLL / T WIT TER

Lady Phyll, a UK-based LGBTQ activist on the global stage, was one of the grand marshals in the LGBTQ WorldPride March.

where folks can celebrate diverse sexualities, gender identities and expressions, cultures, and backgrounds while also honoring black and LGBTQ culture through education, arts, cultural events, and advocacy.

“Importantly, UK Black Pride promotes unity and cooperation among LGBTQ people of diasporic communities in the UK, as well as their friends and families,” Phyll said.

Even as Black Pride celebrations spread to different parts of the world, Lady Phyll is mindful of the deep history of the intersection of race and LGBTQ justice — and how that history predates existing Black Pride events.

“It’s important that we’re always very clear that there were Black Prides before UK Black Pride,” she explained. “They may not have been called Black Pride, but they did the life-giving work of creating spaces and moments for our communities to feel safe, welcome, and wanted. The creation of UK Black Pride was in direct response to a lack of visibility and real meaningful inclusion in mainstream Pride organizations, which are often built using the same structures and hierarchies from which we’re

trying to escape.”

She continued, “In the Black communities, grassroots interventions have always had such far-reaching impact. I think UK Black Pride continues on in the spirit of all those who laid the foundations for us to build something as momentous as UK Black Pride. And to be frank, unless we dismantle patriarchy, we’re always going to have a need for Black Pride, for Trans Pride, for Disabled Pride, you name it.”

Phyll is continuing her work in the broader, global campaign for justice in the LGBTQ community through her new position as the executive director of the Kaleidoscope Trust, which she starts in August. The organization fights for LGBTQ rights in nations where those rights are nonexistent or folks continue to face discrimination for their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Some nations formerly occupied by the British have gradually started to roll back the centuriesold laws against LGBTQ rights, but those advancements represent only a fraction of the long list of nations still enforcing penalties today. And even in places where anti-LGBTQ laws have been scrapped, it will take time and effort to unravel the

homophobic and transphobic attitudes that built up during those eras. Lady Phyll wants to continue chipping away at the long-term effects of colonization through her new role.

“Kaleidoscope Trust empowers the on-the-ground activists and gives them the money and resources they tell Kaleidoscope they need to help shift the dynamic around a specific hurdle,” she said. “We then go move through the corridors of power, among funding bodies and in spaces Black and Brown activists are not often granted access to in order to secure those resources and get them to the people who need them,” she explained.

Lady Phyll’s engagement on LGBTQ rights on an international level gives her a special perspective of the meaning of WorldPride. She viewed the celebration in New York as a “momentous recognition” that the fight for queer rights is a global one that transcends borders and spans across oceans worldwide.

And although her work is centered on addressing the lingering injustices facing the intersectional queer community, she believes that it is equally important to appreciate living as out LGBTQ people.

In other words, Lady Phyll planned to have fun and make connections in New York at WorldPride.

She sought to meet as many people as she could, engage in conversations, connect with queer black sisters and brothers, and learn more about what’s happening with the local LGBTQ community here.

“So much of our lives as queer, transgender, and intersex people of color is in opposition to others or in defense of our humanity,” she said.

“It feels important to recognize that our lives are also about those celebratory moments, when we come together to embrace each other, to say, ‘I see you,’ and to share in that collective joy together. We will get where we need to go if we do this together, if we fight for each other, and if we remember the global community of LGBTQ people who are working hard for their freedoms.

There is so much to celebrated.”

July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

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STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

Rally Commemorates Half Century Since Stonewall Thousands jammed blocks surrounding historic bar in June 28 gathering

MICHAEL LUONGO

MICHAEL LUONGO

The crowd that filled Christopher Street and Waverly Place outside the Stonewall Inn on Friday, June 28 for the WorldPride rally commemorating the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.

Martha Shelley, an early activist first with the Daughters of Bilitis and later with the Gay Liberation Front, who witnessed the Stonewall Uprising.

MICHAEL LUONGO

Amit Paley, executive director of the Trevor Project, which is among the grand marshals on June 30.

PHOTO ESSAY BY MICHAEL LUONGO

I

n the early evening and well past the setting of the sun on June 28 — exactly 50 years after the Stonewall Uprising began following a police raid on the West Village bar — WorldPride hosted a commemorative rally at Christopher Street and Waverly Place outside the historic Stonewall Inn. Among several dozen speakers were grand marshals of the June 30 WorldPride March — Monica Helms, the creator of the Transgender Flag; Lady Phyll, a co-founder of UK Black Pride; and Amit Paley, representing the group he heads, the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention group.

Elected officials who spoke included out gay City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Mayor Bill de Blasio, West Side Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Darragh Dandurand, the rally director for NYC Pride, which produced the WorldPride activities in June, including Sunday’s march, explained that the rally aimed to “honor the diverse voices and diverse issues that have marked the remarkable progress of the LGBTQIA community over the past half century,” while recognizing “the critical importance of the need to continue our unrelenting fight for progress on so many fronts as we work toward full equality.”

18

MICHAEL LUONGO

MICHAEL LUONGO

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson.

Monica Helms, the creator of the Transgender Flag and a grand marshal at the WorldPride March on June 30.

MICHAEL LUONGO

Río Sofia, a trans woman speaking on behalf of Planned Parenthood, where she is a client.

MICHAEL LUONGO

Cathy Marino-Thomas, speaking on behalf of Gays Against Guns.

July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

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STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

Jason Collins, Gus Kenworthy on Gay Life in Sports Out athletes discuss their journeys, path forward for others

BY MATT TRACY

O

lympic skier Gus Kenworthy and former NBA player Jason Collins talked about their experiences as out gay athletes during a June 27 event in the days leading up to WorldPride.

The pair, sitting together on a couch at an Advocates for Youth WorldPride event in Manhattan, reflected on their coming out stories, dished on the current climate for LGBTQ athletes, and addressed the controversy over the corporatization of Pride.

Collins said he initially came out to some of his friends and family members in 2012 when he was playing with the Boston Celtics, but otherwise remained closeted.

“It was rumored that four NFL football players were going to come out and make a big group joint statement and I was waiting for that to happen,” said Collins, who played 13 seasons in the NBA before retiring in 2014.

Those players never did come out.

The notion of being the “first” to come out weighed on his mind — as he watched the film “Moneyball,” which was about how the Oakland Athletics revolutionized the art of building a baseball team in the early 2000s by utilizing analytics and sabermetrics to fi nd effective players on a small budget instead of splashing big money on mega contracts.

During that film, it was mentioned that any player who is the “first” at anything often gets bloody.

“I remember seeing that and thinking, ‘I don’t really want to be bloody,’” Collins said.

“I wanted somebody else to do it and then I’d come out and make my announcement and hopefully start a wave.”

Still, nobody came out — and Collins was subsequently traded from the Celtics to the Washington Wizards. A new team, of course, meant acquainting himself with a new group of players — and he said he would often lie to teammates about his personal life, telling them that he had a girlfriend.

Kenworthy, 27, endured the same kind of experience — in a completely different sport.

He said he was lying about his love life during TV interviews and that ultimately became one of the driving factors in prompting him to come out on ESPN in 2015.

Collins’ coming out two years earlier helped pave the way for Kenworthy. The now 40-yearold former NBA player had roughly a decade in the league before he came out, but waited until after the 2013 season concluded to make his announcement. The final straw that led him to do so was when the Defense of Mar-

20

Out gay athletes Jason Collins and Gus Kenworthy discuss life as a gay athlete at an Advocates for Youth WorldPride event in Manhattan on June 27, with Ashland Johnson moderating.

riage Act and Proposition 8 were both wiped out in June of that year.

“I came out to Sports Illustrated and my life just took off,” Collins said. “I didn’t know what the reaction was going to be because the playbook for that was to wait until after you retire.”

Meanwhile, Kenworthy described that he reached the “lowest of the lows” at a time when he was flourishing as an athlete and hitting the pinnacle of his sport on the Olympic stage.

He felt ashamed of who he was — and he had enough of it.

“I came out really publicly and it was the best decision of my life,” Kenworthy said of his decision to tell ESPN in October of 2015 that he is gay.

Both athletes agreed that the climate for LGBTQ athletes would improve if other athletes come out. Collins added that the support of allies is a necessary component in creating a safe atmosphere for LGBTQ athletes. He cited advances in recent years with the NBA participating in Pride celebrations. Among players to join the NBA at Pride festivities include Reggie Bullock, a straight ally who has been an advocate for queer rights since the death of his transgender sister, Mia Henderson, who

was murdered in 2014.

The audience had an opportunity to chime in and ask the athletes questions. During a Q&A session at the end of the event, one audience member asked the pair of athletes about the growing concerns surrounding corporations overshadowing the true meaning of Pride.

“It’s difficult because you need corporate support and you want corporate support,” Kenworthy answered. “And at all these corporations, they have LGBTQ employees and it’s important to let these employees know that they are safe and they are welcome. Also, it’s important to support LGBTQ Pride and support our communities. But I think that there are a lot of layers to that, and you have to see whether they’re continuing that support year round and how they are to their communities outside of Pride Month.”

Collins echoed Kenworthy’s sentiments on that issue, and both athletes recommended that folks research where corporations are spending their money. The former NBA player also noted that any anti-LGBTQ corporation should be mindful of the purchasing power of LGBTQ community.

➤ OUT ATHLETES, continued on p.21 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

➤ OUT ATHLETES, from p.20 “One thing I saw was that when I came back into the NBA, my jersey was the number one jersey, not LeBron, not Steph Curry,� Collins said. “That shows the power of the LGBTQ community and also our allies.�

An important theme of the discussion was the role queer women have played in leading the way for men. Collins emphasized the critical role of Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova as true trailblazers who helped make it easier for men to come out later on. Navratilova, who in recent years has become embroiled in controversy over her apparent uneasiness about trans athletes, came out in the 1981.

Billie Jean King, who also came out in 1981, is best known for beating Bobby Riggs in the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes� tennis match.

Collins and Kenworthy will both enjoy their respective places in history. Kenworthy is in the midst of a career during which he has already nabbed a Silver Medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and competed again in the Winter Olympics in 2018 in China, while Collins, a well-respected team player throughout his career in the NBA, will be remembered as the first out gay male professional athlete from one of the four major US sports — MLB, the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL — to come out while still playing.

Also in attendance in the crowd for the discussion was Billy Bean, the former MLB player who played for the Tigers, Dodgers, and Padres and came out in 1999 following his retirement. He went on to pen a book detailing his career and the hardships he endured as a closeted athlete in the big leagues. In recent years, Bean had served as Major League Baseball’s first ambassador of inclusion, but he has since been promoted to vice president and special assistant to the commissioner.

Bean was the second former MLB player to come out, after Glenn Burke, who played for the Dodgers and Athletics in the 1970s and was a trailblazer in more ways than one because he is widely believed to have invented the “high-five.� He made that phenomenon popular in the sports world and then he carried it with him to the gay world when, after retiring, he would give others the high-five outside of gay bars in the Castro in San Francisco during the ‘80s.

But Burke’s story took a tragic turn. Following his retirement, his life was derailed by health woes such as substance abuse and he became homeless on the streets of San Francisco. He died of AIDS complications in 1994, but not before he wrote a fascinating book about his experience navigating the hyper-masculine sports world as a gay man.

He acknowledged in his book that his teammates eventually realized he was gay and most of them did not care, though he faced homophobia from his manager, Billy Martin, who hurled homophobic slurs at him.

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STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

Gay Liberation Front Reunites at WorldPride Activists share memories, reflect on evolution of LGBTQ marches, rights

BY MATT TRACY

S

urviving members of the Gay Liberation Front gathered together at WorldPride on June 30 in the city where they seized the momentum of the Stonewall Uprising and pioneered the modern LGBTQ rights movement five decades ago.

Some members of that organization took part in the Reclaim Pride Coalition’s Queer Liberation March, while others participated in Heritage of Pride’s (HOP) march, where GLF served as a grand marshal. A select few planned on participating in both events on the same day.

“It’s been an amazing journey for 50 years that started basically in a rec room in a church where the Gay Liberation Front met,” said Perry Brass, who joined the organization in 1969 and played a key role in leading the organization’s newspaper, dubbed Come Out. “There were about 100 of us.”

GLF was known to advocate for LGBTQ rights with a strong emphasis on intersectionality and freedom of expression. They allied themselves with leftist groups of the time, from the Black Panthers to anti-war groups and feminists, under the common goal of advancing issues of social justice that still resonate to this day.

Multiple GLF members who were taking part in the WorldPride festivities noted the explosive difference between the first gay liberation march in 1970 and the WorldPride event of 2019, which was the largest in the world.

“To begin with, there was no Pride,” Brass said at Madison Square Park just moments before the GLF contingent stepped off at the HOP march. “It began with the Christopher Street Day Liberation March and it was gay liberation week in New York. We claimed this whole week and the march would be the culmination of it. All these young people came in. We fed them and found places for them to stay.

There was almost no press coverage of that week. The only press

22

MICHAEL LUONGO

Veterans of the Gay Liberation Front marching as grand marshals in Sunday’s WorldPride March.

MAT T TRACY

Kathleen Wakeham said joining the Gay Liberation Front was like “a breath of fresh air.”

coverage we had was from the international press.”

Kathleen Wakeham, a GLF alum who found out about the organization while she was attending Columbia University on a part-time basis, described it as a “breath of fresh air” and said “none of this would have happened” this year without the activism of that era.

“We were just a bunch of straggling kids who didn’t want our lives to be invaded or be fired at work,” said Wakeham, who also opted to attend the main HOP march. “We didn’t want to be assaulted when we walked down the street, which happened to me quite a few times.

To see all of this is really amazing, it’s wonderful.”

She added, “We felt we were on the verge of a revolution because we were all leftists and we felt either you do something or you stay at

home and cry. Some of our slogans were, ‘Get out of the closet and into the streets.’ Because if you stay in the closet, nothing happens.”

Some ideological differences among the GLF members emerged when they spoke about why they decided to march in either the HOP march or Reclaim Pride’s Queer Liberation March, which was organized by folks who grew frustrated with the growing corporate and police presence at an annual march that was originally sparked by police brutality at Stonewall.

Ellen Shumsky, who witnessed the events of Stonewall and subsequently joined GLF as a photographer, spent her day marching in the Queer Liberation March, which started at Sheridan Square at 9:30 a.m. and concluded with a 1 p.m. rally at Central Park. That march had a strong activist vibe and fea-

tured a cross-section of people who put the spotlight on marginalized groups like trans women of color and sex workers.

“For the last number of years, I have found the other march to be very unappealing,” said Shumsky, who delivered a speech at the afternoon rally about coming of age as a lesbian and her involvement in GLF and other groups. “I don’t like the commercialization of it and I feel like it’s become a big party. It’s just lost the political energy of the earlier movement. When I heard about Reclaim Pride, I said, ‘That’s for me.’”

Other GLF members offered different perspectives of the marches.

Wakeham and Jason Victor Serinus, who launched GLF’s chapter in New Haven, Connecticut, defended HOP even as they acknowledged the way things have changed over the years.

“The first march had no corporate floats and all that. As I’ve gotten older, I don’t see things in black and white,” Serinus said while pointing to examples of other ways he has straddled the fence on certain issues: At times, he has pushed back against police in demonstrations, but at other times he has supported police. “I begin to see nuanced arguments. I think the Reclaim march is fine. I don’t agree with it totally. I also know you can’t do this without corporate sponsorship.”

Wakeham, meanwhile, argued that large companies supporting Pride can lead to more support from allies.

“They say, ‘Oh, this is a corporate march.’ But if a corporation is sponsoring our march, they cannot fire us,” she said. “Straight people around here too can see that we don’t have horns and a tail.”

Regardless of some differences, GLF members still stood together and echoed each other’s sentiments when they reminisced about their activism. They expressed sadness as they invoked the GLF members who have since died saying those

➤ GLF VETS, continued on p.23 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

➤ GLF VETS , from p.22 folks would have been proud to see everyone together again. But they also seized the moment — a rare one in which they all could gather and remember the times they changed the world for the better.

Shumsky described it as “like a family reunion� and Wakeham said it especially felt good to catch up with the others because so much time passed. It also held special meaning for Serinus, now 74, after he missed previous reunions. “ It’s thrilling,� he said. “To see so many of us here is wonderful.�

Fifty years after Stonewall and 49 years after the first major LGBTQ rights march, multiple members admitted, however, that the work is far from over. Indeed, the legalization of same-sex marriage in recent years represented a step forward, but that was a step that they believe was incremental — especially considering that the nation still does not have federal LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections and numerous nations around the world still criminalize people for their sexual orientation

MAT T TRACY

Perry Brass said history will show that the Gay Liberation Front “created the gay revolution.�

MAT T TRACY

Jason Victor Serinus (left), is seen here with his husband, David.

or gender identity. “I would like to see a situation where all the LGBT people who are not in a middle class marriage are taken care of, too,� Brass said. “I want to see all of us are taken care of. This necessity is international.�

Wakeham emphasized employment and housing as two major queer issues in light of LGBTQ youth homelessness and broader housing discrimination against same-sex partners — especially

LGBTQ seniors — as well as employment discrimination. “I hope there’s a national gay rights movement not to be fired from your job or housing,� she said.

But for a brief moment this past Sunday, GLF members who participated in the HOP march huddled together at the northeast corner of Madison Square Park and acknowledged the progress

they made and the advancements that followed after they laid the groundwork for future activists. To this day, others are building on the backs of their work. “Stonewall was the spark that lit the torch that was the Gay Liberation Front, and from Gay Liberation Front other groups came out,�

Brass said. “I firmly believe — and history will show — that we created the gay revolution.�

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23

STONEWALL 50/ WORLDPRIDE

WorldPride’s Closing Note of Love In Times Square, Melissa Etheridge, Margaret Cho, Wilson Cruz embrace the vibe

BY KELSY CHAUVIN

H

ow about love?

That was the question that closed Stonewall 50/ WorldPride 2019 on Sunday, June 30, when the curtain fell on the month-long celebration and commemoration.

The official Closing Ceremony took over Duffy Square, a relatively small area of Times Square between 46th and 47th Streets, known best for its red glass stairs.

There, attendees gathered to hear a sparkling lineup of performers and speakers — and Broadway stars, of course.

Kicking off the evening was legendary singer and LGBTQ icon Melissa Etheridge, who sang a trio of hits, including her always-powerful “Come to My Window.” Between songs, she spoke from the heart to connect with an enthusiastic post-

24

KELSY CHAUVIN

WIlson Cruz and Margaret Cho on stage at the Closing Ceremony of World Pride.

parade audience.

“If you had told me 26 years ago when I came out that we’d be gathering in Times Square with rainbows everywhere, I would’ve said ‘Yeah!,’” said Etheridge. “Because we are fierce. And we will always be fierce. We are so fierce, we made

it to the center of it all!”

The free 7 to 10 p.m. concert was open to anyone who reserved for gate entry. Still, attendance was light compared to the millions of marchers and spectators at the Pride March still going on as the Closing Ceremony. In fact, many

in attendance, including Etheridge herself, had to depart the parade early to make it to Times Square.

Along with parties around the city, the closing concert also competed with the blowout (and sold out) Pride Island event on Pier 97 Sunday night, with Madonna headlining.

Yet the energy was appropriately high in Times Square, thanks in part to host Margaret Cho. Donning a rainbow-sequined bathing suit that showcased her colorful tattoos, Cho shared trademark levity and sincerity with the night’s revelers.

Cho introduced a festive lineup of queer stars and allies. Among them was an amped up Jake Shears (of Scissor Sisters fame); award-winning British pop and R&B star MNEK; singer and activ-

➤ CLOSING CEREMONY, continued on p.32

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July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

HEALTH

Financial Woes Face Black HIV Group Gay Men of African Descent on hiatus as its aims to shift funding model

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

A

Brooklyn organization that focuses on HIV prevention and sexual health among AfricanAmerican gay and bisexual men will go on hiatus for the summer while it reorganizes from its current grant-based funding scheme to a fee-for-service provider model under which it will deliver mental health, substance abuse, and other services to its clients.

“We have discussed needing to shift,” said Vaughn Taylor-Akutagawa, the executive director at Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD).

“Just being a grant recipient is not sustainable.” Founded in 1986, GMAD has not adapted to newer service models required by government funders that first emphasized expanded HIV testing. Given its smaller size, GMAD could not

DUNCAN OSBORNE

Vaughn Taylor-Akutagawa, executive director at Gay Men of African Descent, outside the agency’s Atlantic Avenue offices in Brooklyn.

produce the volume of testing that government agencies wanted. More recently, funders required organizations to swiftly move people who tested positive for HIV into treatment so that the virus is suppressed to the point that they cannot infect others. Funders also seek to move people who are HIV-negative but at risk for the virus on to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which is a pill-a-day regimen that

prevents HIV infection. These HIV prevention strategies require that funded agencies see large numbers of clients.

Over time, government grants became GMAD’s primary revenue source, but it could not produce the volume of results that government funders wanted and so that funding has steadily disappeared.

As an alternative, GMAD is seeking licenses from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and from the state Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) to deliver mental health and substance abuse services at its Atlantic Avenue office.

That will allow the agency to bill Medicaid and private insurance for services.

“The model we worked on just wasn’t working,” Taylor-Akutagawa said. “Our idea is to spend this time, since it’s quieter, getting ready

for the Article 31.”

An Article 31 license allows a provider to deliver “integrated outpatient services” for clients needing mental health or substance abuse assistance.

CheckBook NYC, a site that is administered by the city comptroller’s office, indicates that GMAD received its last check from the city health department in October 2016. That was for $30,000. The agency received $50,400 in three payments from the state health department in 2018 with the last check being cut in April 2018, according to Open Book New York, a site that is administered by the state comptroller’s office.

Taylor-Akutagawa told Gay City News that GMAD just sent out its last voucher for a city health department contract this month, but

➤ GMAD WOES, continued on p.51

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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

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CRIME

Bigots Attack Trans Women in Jackson Heights On the eve of WorldPride, two activists hit with pepper spray, slurs

BY MATT TRACY

T

wo transgender women were attacked with pepper spray and hit with anti-LGBTQ slurs in back-to-back assaults in Queens on the day before WorldPride and Stonewall 50 in New York City.

Bianey Garcia, a longtime trans activist who has recently played a role in the effort to decriminalize sex work in New York, and Norma Ureiro were first assaulted at Roosevelt Avenue and 82nd Street in Jackson Heights while they were working on a documentary in the early morning hours of June 29, Garcia told Gay City News this week. Shortly thereafter, they were attacked yet again.

In the first attack, Garcia said a pair of assailants approached them and started muttering hateful words, saying, “You are a fucking

faggot, you’re not a real woman.�

One attacker, a woman, then accused Garcia of being a sex worker and that she would call the police on her for engaging in prostitution.

Moments later, Garcia was pepper-sprayed twice. “I started feeling a burn in my back,� Garcia recalled. “I told her, ‘This is not nice. I’m not doing anything to you. Why are you using pepper spray on me?’�

Garcia and Ureiro were able to flag down police officers immediately. Cops placed the first alleged attacker, 24-year-old Paola Custodio, under arrest, but she was belligerent and started kicking windows while inside of the police car, Garcia said.

After cops took off with Custodio in tow, the other attacker — a man — returned and pounced on the duo yet again, spraying Garcia in the face with pepper spray.

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BIANEY GARCIA / T WIT TER

Trans activist Bianey Garcia recovering from a pepper spray attack in Elmhurst Hospital over the weekend.

“I literally was scared,� Garcia recalled. “I didn’t know if he was going to use a weapon or a knife.

I was spilling water in my eyes. I remember someone took my hand and put me on a bench. I sat down and called the police again.�

Garcia received medical treatment at Elmhurst Hospital following the attacks and tweeted a photo from there at around 5:30 a.m. that morning, writing, “Transphobia against our community exists in Queens and happens.�

Cops were ultimately unable to track down the second alleged perpetrator. Garcia wasn’t pleased with the way she was treated by police officers because she felt they carried themselves with certain assumptions about those who have been involved in sex work. “I told police I’m not a sex worker,� Garcia said. “They really don’t care.�

The NYPD confirmed the first arrest and a department spokesperson told Gay City News that Custodio was hit with two hate crime charges — one for assault and one for harassment. The other attacker was still on the loose as of July 2, and Garcia said Custodio had already been released from custody.

Garcia was thankful for the outpouring of support she received

from her friends and loved ones in the aftermath of the attacks. Local activists, advocacy groups, and politicians, including Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos and out queer Queens DA candidate Tiffany CabĂĄn, gathered at a July 1 rally in support of Garcia and Ureiro.

Several elected officials also reacted to the news on social media. Out gay City Council Speaker Corey Johnson wrote on Twitter that he was “appalled by this senseless attack,� while Queens Assemblymember Ron Kim tweeted, “This is not acceptable. @BianeyDlaO I’m so sorry this happened to you. We are here for you, let us know if you need anything.�

Garcia noted that she has since started feeling better despite dealing with lingering discomfort in her eyes due to the pepper spray.

The attack left her rattled, but she has no plans to back down from her community work — even in the face of danger. “This is not going to stop me,� she said.

She later stated on Facebook that the best way to raise awareness of violence against the transgender community is to support the eighth annual #TransLatinxMarch on July 8 at 4 p.m. at 92-10 Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights.

July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

SPEED CAMERAS ARE

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GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

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KELSY CHAUVIN

Deborah Cox performs.

â&#x17E;¤ CLOSING CEREMONY, from p.24 ist Melanie C (formerly nicknamed Sporty Spice); and the ever-elegant powerhouse singer Deborah Cox. Intermingled with the music came rally-style speeches, and the ceremonial passing of the baton from WorldPride NYC to Copenhagen (copenhagen2021.com/worldpride), which will host the event in 2021. That future event will mark several anniversaries in the Scandinavian city, including the 70th anniversary of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first successful genital reconstructive surgery, performed in Denmark in 1951 and a half-century since the Gay Liberation Frontâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Danish chapter was founded in 1971.

On the Times Square stage, Mayor Bill de Blasio broke from his 2020 presidential campaign to speak, following his day on the WorldPride parade route. The mayor started by thanking the countless organizers, volunteers, NYPD officers, first responders, and others who contributed to New Yorkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 30 blowout days of Pride. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am proud to be the mayor of the city with the largest LGBTQ community in United States of America,â&#x20AC;? said de Blasio. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And we are proud every day â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we are proud to be the city of Stonewall, where the rebellion began to give people the rights they deserved so long ago. But that spirit of Stonewall is not ancient history, is it? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something that we have to live today, because thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more work we have to do.

The mayor continued, â&#x20AC;&#x153;For a long time it felt like our nation was just moving forward â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with more respect, more inclusion. We were becoming a better community for everyone. But in recent years weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve

KELSY CHAUVIN

Comedian and actor Margaret Cho was the eveningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s emcee.

seen a lot more bigotry, havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t we?

In recent years weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen hatred start to take hold again. Is that the America you believe in? Do you believe we can do better than that?

We have seen hate crimes come back, and we will not stand for it!â&#x20AC;?

Calling out specific support for transgender members of the armed services, healthcare for the elderly, social services for veterans, and protections for the entire LGBTQ community, de Blasio declared sentiments that resonated deeply. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do you feel strong tonight? Do you feel powerful tonight?,â&#x20AC;? he asked. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We need to fight for each other, and we need to fight for a society that truly loves and embraces all. I hope in these last days that you have felt the love and you have felt the possibility. WorldPride is not just a celebration â&#x20AC;&#x201D; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an example of the world that we should live in and the world that we can all create together. But the authors of that better world are every single

â&#x17E;¤ CLOSING CEREMONY, continued on p.33 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

KELSY CHAUVIN

Broadway stars came on stage to sing “Seasons of Love” from “Rent.”

KELSY CHAUVIN

A blizzard of confetti brought the Closing Ceremony to an end.

➤ CLOSING CEREMONY, from p.32 one of you.”

Befitting the theater-district location, the Closing Ceremony brought a bevy of Broadway stars to the stage. Top among them were the stars of “The Prom,” the Tonynominated musical about a teenage lesbian couple determined to attend their high-school prom. Bringing some of the show’s fun and LGBTQ positivity to WorldPride, stars Caitlin Kinnunen (Emma) and Isabelle McCalla (Alyssa) sang and kissed in the dazzling open-air of Midtown, to wild, proud applause.

The event ended with Cho introducing Wilson Cruz, who rose to fame as the first out person of color on television in “My So-Called Life.”

“I have so much love for all of you,” said Cruz, who also starred as Angel in Broadway’s “Rent.” “I want you to take all the love that you’ve felt all week and all weekend and take it out into the world with you. Because this is what the world should look like.”

Cruz then joined singers from about two-dozen Broadway musicals in a grand finale of “Seasons of Love” from “Rent.” No matter how many times you may have heard GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

Call our confidential PrEP hotline

212-484-5813 Or visit www.ryanhealth.org KELSY CHAUVIN

Footwear in the crowd at the Closing Ceremony.

the “Rent” soundtrack, the lyrics reminding the crowd to “measure your life in love” never have felt more powerful.

More WorldPride and Stonewall 50 events will continue around the city and New York State throughout 2019. For the coming months’ events, exhibits, and LGBTQ travel tips, visit I LOVE NY’s iloveny. com/things-to-do/lgbt, as well as 2019-worldpride-stonewall50.nycpride.org/events and nycgo.com/ maps-guides/gay.

Kelsy Chauvin is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn, specializing in travel, culture, and LGBTQ interests. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @kelsycc.

33

POLITICS

Council Boosts LGBTQ Funding, With Asterisks A $9 million increase good for now, but not permanent in city budget

BY MATT TRACY

T

he City Council nearly doubled its funding of LGBTQ initiatives in the 2020 fiscal year budget, but only a small portion of that is permanent and out gay Queens Councilmember Daniel Dromm, the Finance Committee chair, is reminding folks that the funding fight for queer causes is far from over.

The Council, led by out gay Speaker Corey Johnson, is notably expanding the funding of LGBTQ initiatives from $10.9 million to $19 million this year. The largest chunk of the overall funding — $7.7 million — is steered toward ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic, while $2.3 million is dedicated to continuing the Trans Equity Program, which provides broad support to the transgender and gender nonconforming population.

The Council is also giving $1.5 million to LGBTQ senior services, $1.2 million to LGBTQ youth mental health programs, $1.1 million for HIV/ AIDS faith-based initiatives, and $800,000 for LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in

EMIL COHEN/ NEW YORK CIT Y COUNCIL

City Council Finance chair Daniel Dromm (left) and Speaker Corey Johnson pushed through a major boost in funds for LGBTQ initiatives in the 2020 budget adopted July 1.

city schools.

“Our local government must fund programs that support the LBGTQ community, particularly transgender people,” Johnson said in a written statement. “Violence against transgender women of color is on the rise, and they need our help.”

The de Blasio administration’s funding initiatives complement certain of the Council pro-

grams, such as $1 million in LGBTQ educationrelated support.

Most of the Council’s funding, however, is not baselined, meaning that it is not embedded into the city budget for future years and is subject to cuts. In fact, the only baselined Council funds for LGBTQ initiatives are $365,000 for gender equity liaisons and $390,000 for transgender healthcare training. Continuing this funding level will require negotiation with the mayor’s office in future budgets.

Dromm, who chairs the Finance Committee, heaped strong praise on city leaders, especially Johnson, for allocating more money towards the LGBTQ-related initiatives. But he also pointed out the sobering reality that it is simply not enough money.

“We’re proud of it, don’t get me wrong,” said Dromm, a former teacher. “But it’s a bit of a drop in the bucket in the sense of the overall budget.”

Among the LGBTQ education initiatives include direct instruction and the development of gender and sexuality alliances (GSAs), formerly

➤ COUNCIL FUNDING, continued on p.35

Torres Lands First Congressional Endorsement Bronx lawmaker vying to replace outgoing Representative José Serrano in 2020

BY MATT TRACY

T

he Equality PAC — the political branch of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus — has thrown its support behind out gay Bronx City Councilmember Ritchie Torres in his 2020 bid for Congress, giving the 31-year-old lawmaker his first endorsement of the race for the 15th district.

“As the first openly LGBT elected official from the Bronx and the only Afro-Latino elected official in New York State, New York City Councilmember Ritchie Torres is used to making history — and he’s poised to make history once more as the first LGBT Member of Congress from New York City and the first Afro-Latino LGBT Member of Congress,” Congressmember Mark Takano of California, who serves as the co-chair of Equality PAC, said in a written statement. “Equality PAC is proud to jump into this open Democratic seat race early — and to be the first LGBT and national organization to endorse Ritchie.”

The Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus

34

EMIL COHEN/ NEW YORK CIT Y COUNCIL

Out gay Bronx Councilmember Ritchie Torres has picked up his first endorsement in his bid to replace outgoing Congressmember Jose Serrano in 2020.

boasts more than 150 congressmembers and its PAC backs both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ candidates who run for office. The PAC is able to shell out up to $5,000 for primary races and an

additional $5,000 for general election contests.

Torres is among a handful of lawmakers seeking to replace longtime Congressmember José Serrano in the 15th Congressional District. Assemblymember Michael Blake and homophobic Councilmember Ruben Diaz, Sr., have officially declared their candidacies for the race, while State Senator Gustavo Rivera has opened a campaign committee.

In a phone interview, Torres welcomed the endorsement and praised the Equality PAC for its work in advancing LGBTQ causes.

“The Equality PAC is one of the most formidable PACs in Washington DC,” Torres said. “It is known to be an aggressive spender and the race is going to be a priority for the Equality PAC.” Torres said the PAC is eyeing his race for two reasons: First, they acknowledge the prospect of Torres becoming the first LGBTQ black or Latinx elected official and the first LGBTQ member of the New York City congressional delegation, and second, they see the danger in

➤ RITCHIE TORRES, continued on p.35 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

ä&#x2030;´

COUNCIL FUNDING, from p.34

known as gay-straight alliances.

But even the direct instruction is spotty because city schools are not required to implement LGBTQ curriculum. Rather, schools are able to opt into the curriculum.

That reality has created a ripple effect: Because many schools do not teach LGBTQ history, Dromm said, many teachers do not understand the communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history well enough to teach it to others.

To that end, Dromm said one of his objectives is to get an LGBTQ-related question on the New York State Regents exams, which are standardized tests administered by the state in major subjects and often drive teachers to shape their instruction around the questions.

There are some other areas of funding that will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the LGBTQ community. The Council is providing $1 million toward fighting the rise of hate crimes in the city, some of which will fund nonprofit groups working to fight hate crimes. The Council is also setting aside $710,000 to open a new Hate Crimes Unit.

In another related boost â&#x20AC;&#x201D; this time for LGBTQ youth and the wider student population â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Council is pumping more money into funding guidance counsel-

â&#x17E;¤ RITCHIE TORRES, from p.34 Diaz Sr., who Torres described as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;the most virulently anti-gay Democrat in the country.â&#x20AC;?

The political juxtaposition between Torres and his anti-gay counterpart is stark: A gay man who would be the first Latinx or black gay member of Congress is running against a 76-year-old homophobe who would bring staunchly conservative views to Washington while representing one of the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most Democratic congressional districts in a deeply blue city. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The cultural, generational, and ideological divide between Diaz and myself couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be more profound,â&#x20AC;? said Torres, who added that the race has the feel of a general election.

Torres laid out his campaign platform during a May interview with Gay City News when he exGayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

ors and social workers. Brooklyn Councilmember Mark Treyger, who chairs the Education Committee, played a significant role in pushing for those funds. â&#x20AC;&#x153;[Social workers] are not specifically for LGBT kids, but often times LGBT kids will exhibit negative behaviors because of bullying and poverty and homelessness, etc.,â&#x20AC;?

Dromm said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Having the social workers there will be a big plus for LGBT students.â&#x20AC;?

As Dromm welcomed those increases, he again highlighted glaring disparities: The Department of Education has far more school safety agents than they do guidance counselors. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What is their priority there?

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more the policing of the system than helping the system,â&#x20AC;? he said.

Dromm vows to continue pushing for more funding of LGBTQ programs in the future, but for now he is at least encouraged by the Councilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s success in funding initiatives that are in need of the money sooner rather than later. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Because of these substantial increases, our communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most at-risk members will have the resources they need to live happy and healthy lives,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As a longtime gay activist who has been fighting for our communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fair share of funding for many years, I am elated by how far we have come.â&#x20AC;?

plained that he would continue to make housing issues a key piece of his political agenda should he rise to Capitol Hill. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve come to recognize that the policies in housing and health care are largely set at the federal level,â&#x20AC;? said Torres, who is currently the chair of the Committee on Oversight and Investigations after chairing the Public Housing Committee during his first term. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a progressive problem solver who is on a mission to fight poverty in New York City, the impact can only be at the federal level. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m running for Congress.â&#x20AC;?

As the race heats up, Torres expressed confidence in his own ability to win the race, saying he believes he will raise the most money and receive the most institutional support on his way to the Democratic nomination. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Stay tuned,â&#x20AC;? he said.

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36

BY ED SIKOV

I

thought I would close off what was by any reasonable measure an enormously successful Pride Month with a veritable smorgasbord of wack-jobs — those perverted morons who looked at millions of joyous LGBTQ celebrants and saw nothing but a sea of sin. First up: Breitbart, the premiere go-to source for right-wing crankery: “Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Hoboken celebrated a special ‘Pride Mass’ on Sunday, highlighting a growing rift among the Catholic community over homosexuality,” the story begins. “Despite the Catholic Church’s condemnation of homosexual activity, local media reported, the Pride Mass signifies an acknowledgement of dramatically shifting views, not only within the Catholic community but Hoboken itself.”

So far so good, right? Ah, but as our dear departed Karen Carpenter sang, “We’ve only just begun.”

After some obligatory nods to liberal Catholics, the author of the piece, one Thomas D. Williams, PhD, moves on to quote the (literally) sainted Pope John Paul II: “Other Catholics recalled how Saint John Paul II reacted to the first gay pride parade organized in Rome in the year 2000. ‘In the name of the Church of Rome, I cannot refrain from expressing bitterness for the affront to the Grand Jubilee of the year 2000 and for the offense to the Christian values of a city that is so dear to the hearts of Catholics across the world,’ the pope told the faithful gathered in Saint Peter’s Square.

‘Homosexual acts go against natural law. The Church cannot silence the truth because it would not live up to its faith in God the creator and would not help discern what is good from what is evil,’ the pope said. The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual activity is intrinsically evil,” Williams adds, noting that “Sacred Scripture underscores the ‘grave depravity’ of homosexual acts.”

“Dr.” Williams is on a roll: “Saint Paul, who wrote of those whose ‘glory is in their shame,’ denounced the way people the people of his day abandoned themselves to their ‘shameful lusts’ in reference to homosexuality.

‘Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones,’

he said, while ‘the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.’”

Saint Paul, by far the crabbiest of the early church founders, was never known for his liberalism, and his condemnation of homosexuality stands in marked contrast to Jesus’ words on the subject, which is to say that Jesus had nothing to say about it at all. Oh, wait! There was that one little thing about throwing the first stone…

Moving right along, we head over to LifeSite News for this remarkable headline and story: “LGBT ‘pride’ parade advocates say children like to see ‘nakedness’ and ‘kink.’” Of course they do! Porky Pig wears no pants, Bugs Bunny is entirely naked, and Yosemite Sam is obviously a frustrated sadist with masochistic tendencies. (How many times does he attempt to shoot the Road Runner only to have his gun blow up in his face?

If he didn’t like it, he’d obviously stop doing it.)

LifeSites’ Martin M. Barillas begins his screed with a bang: “A sex therapist claims she cannot imagine ‘a safer place for families to bring children’ than an LGBTQ ‘pride’ celebration.

According to HuffPost Canada, Pega Ren brought her grandchildren to a homosexual ‘pride’ parade in British Columbia. When asked about the appropriateness of children participating in the LGBTQ event, she said, ‘I can’t imagine a safer place for families to bring children.’ Pride parades in Canada and around the world feature not only public nudity and sex acts, but also various other forms of perversion and deviance on display,” Barillas notes helpfully.

“While even within LGBTQ circles there has been debate over whether or not children should be exposed to displays of adult nudity and sexuality, HuffPost quoted a retired sexual diversity professor, David Rayside of the University of Toronto, who said, ‘Pride has always had a kind of outrageous edge to it. And should we alter that?

It is not the Santa Claus parade, and it never was. It shouldn’t be. It can’t be.’ Rayside said it is ‘important for parents to bring their kids’ to ‘pride’ celebrations, adding that he has never seen people ‘fuss about what they see there.’”

To be clear, not to mention accu-

rate, Rayside was in the Political Science Department, where he developed a sexual diversity curriculum.

“According to HuffPost Canada, sex therapist Ren believes that children somehow benefit from seeing ‘people loving one another, from seeing diversity and inclusion,’” Barillas wrote.

I love the “somehow.”

Barillas continued on his merry way, leading eventually to… well you’ll see: “In contrast, pediatrician and child welfare advocate Dr. Michelle Cretella responded to LifeSiteNews, noting via email: ‘We know from decades of research on the impact of all forms of media [books, radio, TV, internet etc etc [sic]] on children that they will act out what they see and hear.’ Dr. Cretella is the executive director of the American College of Pediatricians. Saying this is true of sex, violence, and substance abuse, Cretella wrote: ‘Parents should no more take their children to a Pride parade than they should sit them down to watch pornography...’ Cretella asserted that a ‘segment of the LGBQT [sic] movement has long wanted the normalization of pedophilia as an inborn sexual orientation. The National Man Boy Love Association still exists.’

According to NAMBLA’s website, the organization’s goal is ‘to end the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationships.’”

For the record, here’s Wikipedia’s assessment of the American College of Pediatricians: “The group’s primary focus is advocating against the right of gay or lesbian people to adopt children, and it also advocates conversion therapy.” The Southern Povertry Law Center describes it as “a fringe anti-LGBT hate group that masquerades as the premier US association of pediatricians to push antiLGBT junk science.” As for NAMBLA, here’s what Mike Pearl has to say about it on Vice.com: “Membership numbers and group activities are difficult to pin down, but based on online research and conversations with alleged former members as well as opponents of the group, both appear to have dwindled to nearly nothing.”

In other words, you know you’ve won the argument whenever anybody digs up good old dead NAMBLA. Follow @EdSikov on Facebook and Twitter.

July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

37

CRIME

Cedeno Trial Starts With Competing Stories Prosecution, defense offer divergent narratives on bullied gay youth

BY ANDY HUMM

O

pening statements June 28 in the trial of Abel Cedeno, charged with manslaughter and assault for stabbing one classmate to death and seriously wounding another on September 27, 2017, saw the prosecution painting the defendant as a cold-blooded killer bent on coming to school to slice up some students.

To the defense, Cedeno is a bullied teen who at 18 brought a newly-purchased knife to school for protection after six years of anti-gay bullying and only used it when attacked by two tormentors — Matthew McCree, 15, who died with one cut to his heart, and Ariane LaBoy, then 16, who was slashed multiple times but survived.

Assistant District Attorney Nancy Borko called Cedeno a student “who didn’t bother to come to school” — ignoring the reasons for his extended absences due to bullying — “but came prepared with a knife.” After Cedeno tried to confront the bully or bullies in his class who threw things at him that day, Borko said, “he wanted to show his stuff.” She described Mc-

ANDY HUMM

Defendant Abel Cedeno (second from left) with attorneys Christopher R. Lynn and Robert J. Feldman and (at the left) defense consultant Michael Sweeney.

Cree as “walking towards” Cedeno and “going at him” and “LaBoy trying to pull Matthew” away before getting slashed himself.

“He brought an illegal weapon to school and was looking for a chance to use it,” Borko said.

(While no student is supposed to carry a knife to school, the legality of the weapon has yet to be established.) “He wanted to stand his ground and meet punches with deadly force,” she said.

Christopher R. Lynn, co-counsel for Cedeno, painted a very different picture of the fight, saying McCree “left his seat to go fight” with Cede-

no as Cedeno angrily yelled at whoever was bullying him by throwing things at his head. “They drew first blood,” Lynn said. “Abel’s actions were purely defensive.” He described Cedeno’s “tortured history” as a student. “No wonder he didn’t want to go to school. I would not have gone either.”

Lynn described Cedeno as “the only gay kid in the school,” while Borko with a staff counselor witness from the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation, Shavon Evelyn, tried to paint it as a gay-friendly place where students got along even though it was closed shortly after the 2017 incident for having descended into chaos.

Lynn said that a friend of Cedeno’s had encouraged him to carry a knife by telling him, “That way they’ll leave you alone.” Lynn called the knife akin to a “box cutter” and said many students carry such knives. He said Cedeno believed that if there was a fight, “adults would stop it, but they did not” despite the presence of two teachers in the classroom of 25 students.

➤ ABEL CEDENO TRIAL, continued on p.39

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July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

ä&#x2030;´

ABEL CEDENO TRIAL, from p.38

Cedeno surrendered the knife to Evelyn in the principalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office.

She testified that a subdued Cedeno said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have done it.

I went too far.â&#x20AC;? Evelyn, who had counseled Cedeno for some time, said that she never filed a report to the Department of Education about the bullying he was subjected to, considering that the responsibility of the dean. (Indeed, many schools in New York report zero incidents of bullying each year.)

Borko introduced photos of the wounds suffered by LaBoy and the single three-inch slash of McCreeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chest that ended his life.

Louna Dennis, McCreeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mother, left the courtroom at that point, distraught. Her attorney in a civil suit for $25 million against the city, Sanford Rubenstein, reported that she said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;He filleted my son like a fish!â&#x20AC;?

The prosecution is trying to paint Cedeno as having a history of violence, reading into the record reports of various fights he has had with family members. His family, including his mother Luz Hernan-

dez, and sisters have been showing up for him at trial most every day.

The defense, notably attorney Robert J. Feldman, is trying to paint the victims as gang members that Cedeno feared â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not because of any previous encounter with them but because of their reputations and their allegedly having beaten up a friend of his.

A soft-spoken student witness, Aanaiya Santiago, 17, testified on July 1 that the things being tossed at Cedeno were aimed at the garbage can next to the door where Abel was standing and were not aimed at him. She testified, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Abel then shouted, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Who threw the fucking paperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? and said that McCree stood up and said he was sorry and that it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t meant for Abel who then, in her judgment, escalated the confrontation by calling them â&#x20AC;&#x153;pussiesâ&#x20AC;? and saying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Pull up. Pull up!â&#x20AC;? to start a fight.

Santiago was not aware of what Cedeno has repeatedly testified to, including a statement to an ADA on the day of the incident that was played in court on July 2: that pencils and other debris was being thrown at his head early

in the class causing him to leave the room twice before the fight. In another tape shown to the court, Cedeno showed police interrogators how he tried to defend himself from McCree and LaBoy â&#x20AC;&#x201D; holding up his right hand with the knife as a warning (he is left-handed) and when he used it he was just waving it back and forth to ward off the attack.

Another student witness, Frankie Santiago, was asked repeatedly about whether he was aware of alleged gang connections that McCree and LaBoy had. The defense is trying to establish that Cedeno had particular reason to fear them when they attacked. But Judge Michael A. Gross sustained every prosecution objection to this line of questioning.

When Feldman tried to ask teacher witness Nikolai Kennedy about repeated reports he had allegedly filed on violent or disruptive incidents involving the victims, Gross sustained objections to that evidence, as well. Kennedy was in the front of the classroom when the fight took place and a nine-second cell phone video of it shows him

no more than three feet away and then putting his hands on LaBoyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shoulders at one point. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wanted the fight to stop,â&#x20AC;? he said.

As the video played in the courtroom, Kennedy said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;It looked like Matthew punched himâ&#x20AC;? referring to Cedeno.

LaBoy testified on July 2, now 6â&#x20AC;?4â&#x20AC;? and 18 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; though 6â&#x20AC;?1â&#x20AC;? and 16 at the time of the incident. He had great difficulty being heard in the courtroom and his testimony had to be read back by the court reporter at the request of the defense.

He showed his multiple scars to the judge and that he was unable to raise his right arm above shoulder height. And when first asked to recount the incident, he put his head down and was unable to continue, leading the judge to call for a recess.

LaBoy said that when Cedeno first came into the class, Cedeno bumped his chair several times, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but I ignored it.â&#x20AC;? He said when Cedeno confronted the class about who was throwing things at him,

â&#x17E;¤ ABEL CEDENO TRIAL, continued on p.51

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GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

39

MUSIC

Doom Metal That’s Looking Up New from Torche, hard rock band with the rare out gay member

BY STEVE ERICKSON orche’s “Admission” is thick and syrupy as molasses. Although the band usually gets called metal (they’re not thrilled with genre tags), they push rhythm guitar and drums to the front and envelope their music in a layered, trebly wall of noise that comes closer to shoegaze. “Admission” dials Steve Brooks’ vocals down in the mix and floats down-tuned riffs on top of start-and-stop rhythms.

Torche’s music doesn’t emphasize solos, although on most songs, guitarist/ producer Jonathan Nuñez darts out to play brief melodies that are barely audible above the rest of the band. They play together as a unit. Instead of 16th-note shredding, Nuñez’s lead part on “Infierno” breaks into an abrasive clump of pedal-driven noise.

The roots of Torche’s sound lie in ‘80s bands like Kyuss and The Melvins. They formed in Miami in 2004, after Brooks’ band Floor broke up, releasing their first album the following year. For a band that’s been labeled doom metal, stoner rock, and sludge rock, their music is surprisingly upbeat. Much of the best recent American metal has come from the South, with an ambience evoking long, hot summers. Aseethe, told the download site Bandcamp, “Doom music is excruciating; it is slow, and can be rather painful.” Torche don’t live up to that description, nor does their music summon up a “hand of doom,” to lift Black Sabbath’s song title. Instead, most of “Admission” communicates a sense of triumph.

Torche have gone back and forth in their musical direction. After a fairly raw debut album, their next three albums “Meanderthal,” “Songs For Singles,” and “Harmonicraft” went in a more melodic vein. Some reviews described it as “stoner pop.” But their 2015 debut for their current label Relapse Records, “Restarter,” returned to a more abrasive sound. Torche’s recent music emphasizes rhythm over melody, which usually comes

T

40

REL APSE RECORDS

Torche’s newest album, “Admission,” drops July 12.

DAN ALMASY

Torche have been together as a band since 2004.

from the vocals. Of all the songs on “Admission,” “What Was” brings hard rock close to dance music.

“Infierno” is a dirge whose invocation of hell sets the stage for

the far more upbeat album closer, “Changes Come.”

Brooks’ lyrics rarely arrive at a direct point. Their subject matter is usually ambiguous and hard

to pin down, instead describing emotional states indirectly. His delivery and the words’ sound make more of an impact. “Times Missing” and the title track stand out because they seem to refer to the aftermath of a breakup. On the former, he sings “Lost in time/ Viewing through your magic eyes/ Reminded of times missing.” The chorus of “Admission” repeats, “Yes, I will pretend/ I don’t need to love again.”

Brooks came out in 1993, long before Torche formed. Hard rock/ heavy metal has an ugly history with homophobia and queer invisibility, despite Rob Halford embracing a leather daddy persona long before he was open about his gayness. Axl Rose felt comfortable writing the grotesquely homophobic (and racist) “One In a Million” in 1988; at the opposite side of “extremity,” Bard Eithun, drummer of the Norwegian black metal band Emperor, murdered a gay man in 1992. In an article by Hannah Ewens on Red Bull’s website, Brooks discusses his teenage years and difficulties accepting his sexuality in the metal scene: ““None of the bands I listened to were gay. I didn’t have anyone to look up to in the world of what I do or the type of music I admire. It would have been good… For those that are gay and alone and maybe in small towns and have heard of our band: we’re here.”

One could trace Torche’s DNA all the way back to the ‘70s, with a touch of Tony Iommi in their guitar sound. But they distinguish themselves from the many doom metal bands doing derivative cosplay.

Brooks and Nuñez’s guitar playing is both dissonant and bright.

Their music is heavy without being macho or aggressive. “Admission” requires repeated listens for its hooks to sink in, but they do exist.

Fifteen years into their existence, Torche are still expanding the potential of hard rock.

TORCHE | “Admission” | Relapse Records | Drops July 12 | relapse. com/torche-admission July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

41

“The Biggest Splash” of 2019’s Pride An indelible portrait of a gay artist; a town turned rainbow

BY DAVID NOH

H

ow did I live so long without seeing Jack Hazan’s documentary portrait of the artist David Hockney, “A Bigger Splash?” First released in 1973, it is a free-wheeling, richly rewarding and almost shockingly intimate portrait of the artist in his youthful heyday, proudly out at a time when being gay in the UK was a criminal offense and working on the painting “Portrait of an Artist” (Pool with Two Figures),” which broke the record for sales by a living artist when it sold for $90.3 million last fall at Christie’s. The film has been gorgeously restored — it actually looks like a Hockney, itself — and is enjoying a theatrical and DVD release through Metrograph.

When I met the affable, charmingly down to earth Hazan at the Ludlow Hotel, we quickly bonded over our shared opinion of another film, “Last Tango in Paris,” which I had seen the night before as part of a 100th anniversary tribute to critic Pauline Kael, whose legendary rave about it first put the controversial film on the map. Hazan said that he was making “A Bigger Splash” when the film came out, which he loved, and its improvisatory nature encouraged him in the similar work he was doing.

“I thought, ‘I’m really on to something,’” he recalled. “But then I saw it a few years ago and was disappointed by how terrible it was, all that Trotsky dogma and the Brando character was just an asshole — you don’t want to know him.

At the time, it seemed revealing, but now... I was really turned off and thought, ‘How could I have been so wrong?’”

If nothing else, “A Bigger Splash” is truly revealing, not only in the startling-for-its-timeand-even-now casual and copious use of male frontal nudity, but its exposure of the artist in most intimate moments, both working alone and in the company of his nearest and dearest. I told Hazan that he very well may have invented the concept of reality TV, and he replied, “It was 45 years ago, and it did not conform to any genre which people were not ready for. It was in the New York Film Festival, and I had all these interviews lined up, but every one of them got suddenly cancelled after they saw the film. Very shocking and disappointing to me.

The gay thing they didn’t want to know about and, during the Q&A after my screening, all I got was someone complaining about the car horns on the soundtrack!

“In 1981, a guy named Mike Kaplan distributed it in a very small way, one theater here in New York and another in LA. I think it was shown in the theater where they have the Acad-

42

METROGRAPH PICTURES

David Hockney in Jack Hazan’s “A Bigger Splash.”

emy Awards and five people showed up. It has to be presented properly, and I believe the print was fading. I supervised the restoration this time around. We pulled the negative from the National Film Registry, which was damaged here and there, and scanned every frame, four or five seconds per frame!”

Hazan lost touch with Hockney over the years but saw him at his retrospective at the Tate Gallery two years ago: “He jokingly said, ‘You should have told me you were breaking up with your wife, and I would have come to film it!’ At the time, he was very upset by the film because he had no idea there was a narrative to it and that was his breakup [with younger boyfriend, Peter Schlesinger, leaving him for another]. He was completely wiped out when he saw it. I had warned him, ‘You might be upset with this thing,’ and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah.’

He had no idea because when you make a film you film it out of sequence.

“As his relationship with Peter [the model in that $90 million painting] was collapsing, there were all these other couples around them, whose marriages were also collapsing. That was supposed to be the idea. He had no problem with the nudity, but the film just disappeared for a while and he had the negative. The turning point was when he sent Ossie Clark [Hockney intimate and renowned fashion designer] to see it. Ossie was never particularly nice to me, only

sometimes. He was a typical queen, but he said to me, ‘This film is truer than the truth. What more do you want?’

“Then David went to his artist friend, Shirley Goldfarb, the wife of painter Gregory Masurovsky… She told him, ‘It’s the greatest film on an artist ever made.’ So then his friend, who’s in my movie, Henry Geldzahler [Mayor Ed Koch’s Cultural Affairs commissioner] had a look and gave it his approval, so David had to accept the fact that the film should be released.

He realized that there was no way he could stop it, it was shown at Cannes, and was a huge success with the European press.”

Besides Hockney, the other star to emerge from the film is Celia Birtwell, his friend and muse, the subject of his famed portrait of her with Clark, her husband, with whom she collaborated, “Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy.” A side pleasure of his movie is footage he shot of their fashion show, rife with glorious rainbowhued garments and wonderfully louche-looking models moving to rock music who, then, led elegantly with their shoulders and swan necks rather than today’s horsey stomping legs and booty sashays.

Hazan said, “I saw her at David’s retrospective at the Tate Gallery two years ago. She looked at me and said, ‘Do I know you?’ And I said ‘You

➤ DAVID HOCKNEY, continued on p.43 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

䉴

DAVID HOCKNEY, from p.42

should.’ When she found out who I was, she wasn’t particularly nice to me. I think she feels I exploited her and made lots of money from the film. It wasn’t true because, if anything, it stopped my career. People thought, ‘This is really weird. Let’s see what else he’s gonna do, and I couldn’t get work as a mainstream director.”

I responded, “She should get down on her knees and thank you, because she comes across as the most delicious, beautifully preRaphaelite, creatively gifted Everywoman. I’m gay but I wanna fuck her!”

Hazan agreed, “I made her look fantastic. I should tell you, she doesn’t look as pretty now as she did then, but then we’re all older [chuckles].”

Clark (1942-1996) himself was equally if not more fascinating. Aside from his phoenix talent that represented the most timelessly fetching, feminine, and elegant side of counterculture fashion (much of Liza Minnelli’s “Cabaret” wardrobe was composed of Clark pieces she personally owned), he had a flamboyant personal life, being promiscuously bisexual and a notorious drug addict, a habit started in childhood when his mother would feed him speed so he could make the long trek to the schools that nurtured his talent. He married and divorced Birtwell, by whom he had two children, became far more wildly gay in his personal life, spun out professionally, and was eventually stabbed to death by a former lover, who only served six year’s jail time on the grounds of “diminished responsiblity.”

Hazan recalled, “Ossie was moody, but he did cooperate because I had filmed a show of his earlier for the BBC. He allowed me to come round and film him and Celia in his apartment, which we did over a period of the three years we shot the film. You see him sitting on the bed with her and their child.”

I asked if there are any survivors of the film today, besides Hockney and Birtwell.

“Most of them are gone like artist Patrick Procktor, the narrator, Mo McDermott, and David, the guy the at the beginning of the film. But I believe one of the boys diving in the pool scene is still alive, as is Peter Schlesinger. We tried to get Peter to come for the opening here, but he said he’s on Long Island for the summer and I may go and visit him tomorrow, as I haven’t seen him since 1982.

“He is doing ceramics, no longer painting like in the film. They’re amazing, very impressive, and he is still in the same relationship with Eric Boman for whom he left Hockney. Eric is a photographer, has shot for Vogue, and is very successful. I did try to get him here, but he didn’t want to play ball.”

Hazan followed “A Bigger Splash” with “Rude Boy” (1980), about the experiences of a punk

➤ DAVID HOCKNEY, continued on p.45 GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

Where culture is king

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OPERA

Song of Protest for the New Century Iain Bell’s “Stonewall” from NYCO is needed listening

BY ELI JACOBSON ain Bell’s “Stonewall” is New York City Opera’s 36th world premiere commission — and it’s a winner. This is not City Opera’s first foray into 20th century gay history — in 1995 it presented the New York premiere of “Harvey Milk” (music by Stewart Wallace, libretto by Michael Korie). Its good intentions met with respectful critical indifference and then faded away. A similar fate befell Anthony Davis’ “X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X” which depicted 20th century civil rights history.

“Stonewall,” composed to a taut theatrical libretto by Mark Campbell, is not mired in reverence or historical literalism but brims with theatrical and musical vitality. Mark Campbell’s libretto presents composite fictional characters (based on real people Campbell has known) that represent the full spectrum of the LGBTQ community. The first act introduces each protagonist with a monologue or short scene that reveals their background and history, including the indignities they have suffered or are suffering at the hands of society. On that hot Friday night of June 27, 1969, each one wants to forget their troubles and dance downtown with their community.

Their lives converge with each other’s and with history.

What is interesting about the Stonewall depicted here is that the gay male, lesbian, transvestite, and transgender communities of all ages and colors socialize together easily and joyously in the same space. Were there fewer racial and gender divisions back then in the community? Also, the Internet does not exist — so LGBTQ folks have to connect in safe spaces person to person. No anonymous cyber-cruising.

The fun and games abruptly end in the extended Act II, which depicts the NYPD bust of the Stonewall Inn. A defiant lesbian Maggie turns on the cops shouting, “No, just NO!” and is beaten. The crowd outside the Stonewall Inn reacts

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44

SARAH SHATZ

Lisa Chavez (center, facing forward) and the cast of Iain Bell’s “Stonewall,” commissioned and produced

by New York City Opera.

SARAH SHATZ

Jordan Weatherston Pitts (center) in “Stonewall.”

violently to police brutality. The patrons inside reach their breaking point and strike back against the cops. Soon the cops find themselves outnumbered as an angry mass protest takes over the West Village.

Act III is an epilogue depicting the morning after the riot, where all the characters greet an uncertain new morning with hope and a sense that there is “Much to be done” — a new future dawns for the LGBTQ community. All this accomplished in less than 90 minutes.

British composer Bell’s tonal music is an active, not passive, participant in the drama. It doesn’t pulsate in the background like a film score but gives specific emotional voice to the drama through the singers and orchestra. It is doesn’t describe or comment on the story — it embodies the story.

The Stonewall riot scene starts as

a series of disjointed individual confrontations while the orchestra builds up an atmosphere of unease and mounting anxiety. A pulsing beat is tossed back and forth by the oppressed Stonewall patrons and the crowd outside, which builds into a crescendo. Individual voices combine, becoming an ensemble of defiance and self-empowerment that leads to an explosive climax.

The epilogue has searching lyrical harmonies as each protagonist ponders what just happened and where they will go from here. Bell also manages to write two authentically catchy ‘60s Motown-style pop tunes, “Today’s the Day” and “Better Days Ahead” (recorded by the incomparable Darlene Love), which the cast dances and lip-synchs to in Act II. A vibrantly committed cast bring strong individual profiles to each

character while Leonard Foglia’s fluid and cinematic production never lets the action pause for a moment as the story hurtles toward its historical crisis. Maggie, whose defiance sparks the riot, is played warmly with dignity by mezzo-soprano Lisa Chavez. Andrew Bidlack’s bright keen tenor brings youth, vulnerability, and a hopeful quality to Andy, a homeless teenage hustler from Buffalo kicked out by his parents for being gay. Soulful tenor Jordan Weatherston Pitts introduces us to Renata, a glamorous drag queen by night, shy queer black youth Maynard by day. Trans mezzo Liz Bouk portrays trans woman Sarah, who is celebrating her first year living as a woman. Jessica Fishenfeld is bubbly lesbian Leah, who survived conversion therapy in a mental institution and isn’t going back into the closet. Brian James Myer sensitively portrays Carlos, a teacher in a Catholic school fired for being gay. Their antagonists are mob bar owner Sal (sung by gritty baritone Michael Corvino), muscular gayfor-pay blackmailer Troy (bassbaritone Joseph Charles Beutel), and NYPD deputy inspector Larry (powerfully sung by spinto tenor Marc Heller). Caught in between is closeted married man Edward (baritone Justin Ryan). Carolyn Kuan and her orchestra find life in the smallest detail and build the music to shattering climaxes.

The saying goes “If you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it.” Twenty-first century America has forgotten its history and seems eager to repeat past wrongs and inequalities. “Stonewall” depicts not a divided but a united queer community that don’t just complain about injustice after reading articles on their iPhone or online. They came together as a physical body in a spirit of united protest to speak truth to power in one combined voice. America today needs to hear the voices and the songs of that spirit of protest.

I hope “Stonewall” the opera keeps on singing that story for decades to come.

July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

â&#x17E;¤ DAVID HOCKNEY, from p.43 roadie for The Clash: â&#x20AC;&#x153;That was better accepted, their fans loved it but, again, it was confusing as people still didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand the genre. Is it a doc or a feature?

Which seems very important to people here in the states. My films were scripted, in a way, and everything was designed to make a point. I would set the dialogue the night before, maybe write a couple of lines for one of the actors â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or shall we say, performers. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d say, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Can you ask this question to Celia?,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; and that would maybe prompt something and vice-versa. As I was also the camera operator, I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have anything too complex, just something to trigger a reaction.â&#x20AC;?

I told Hazan that, along with being a splendidly intimate and rare portrait of a great artist, I sincerely think it is one of the best gay films ever made, and he replied, â&#x20AC;&#x153;What Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m quite happy about is that after the film came out, David would receive phone calls in the UK from boys whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d somehow gotten his number, crying and saying, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;So itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not wrong to be in love with another boy?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x153;â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Of course, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d say. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s totally normal.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; At that time, homophobia was considered normal, but we treated this as something normal. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how else to do it. And it certainly was normal in Hockneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s milieu. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t something I invented, I just reflected it.â&#x20AC;?

As I write this column on the eve of Pride Sunday, I am pallning to join the Reclaim Pride Queer Liberation March. I am both exhilarated and exhausted by the wondrous, seemingly endless celebrations of us that have been going on all month. Highlights included: the Saks Fifth Avenue affair at Edition Hotel (June 4), where Kesha fully expressed her love and support of the LGBTQ community with a mini-concert of her most beloved hits which further enflamed a totally lit crowd; Broadway Baresâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; annual strip extravaganza, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Take Offâ&#x20AC;? (June 16), one of their best and sexiest in its 27-year history, which made a point of having two older gays schooling two age-ist twinks on the importance of the Stonewall Uprising, raising a record $2,006,192 for Broadway Cares/ GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

Equity Fights AIDS; the New-York Historical Societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comprehensive gay history exhibit, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Stonewall 50â&#x20AC;? and uber-fun disco party (June 11), matched by the New York Public Libraryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s similarly themed â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Library After Hours: Prideâ&#x20AC;? show and fĂŞte (June 21), which I particularly loved as it was delightful to see so many queers awe-struck, many for the very first time, by this fecund marble expanse of gay lit we had totally taken over, with young â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;uns spiritedly performing trenchant excerpts from Baldwin, Capote, Woolf, and others in its holdings. Then there was Macyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free Pride + Joy soiree, which turned two floors of its menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s department into a saturnalia of cocktails, snocones, photo ops, vogueing, spirited concertizing by Big Freedia and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Drag Raceâ&#x20AC;? Season 10 winner Aquaria, and, of course, shopping, where seemingly every designer had magically transformed the Rainbow motif (which, frankly, I have oft found to be a tad cornball, not to mention busy) into garments with true style and elan.

On June 28, I threw myself for the first time into the gorgeously free-for-all ethos of the Drag March, starting in Tompkins Square, which immediately evoked fond old school memories of the thrilling, loosey-goosey days of Wigstock and the Pride March, itself, when there were less police and commercialism, and nobody had to fucking register to march, fâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Chrissakes. The biggest ever, two block-long peacock cortege wound up in front of the Stonewall Bar, of course, where Lady Gaga and Alicia Keys had earlier done their praise-filled bit for us and where tradition demanded the annual singing of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Somewhere Over the Rainbow.â&#x20AC;? With the incredible influx of an estimated millions of international tourists here, making not only my Christopher Street neighborhood, but all of New York magnificently looking tres, tres gay, I can only paraphrase the marveling words of our St. Judy in another of her cherished epics, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Meet Me in St. Louisâ&#x20AC;?: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe it. Right here where we live! Right here in New York City!â&#x20AC;?

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A BIGGER SPLASH | Directed by Jack Hazan | Metrograph, 7 Ludlow St., btwn. Canal & Hester Sts.; metrograph.com

45

FILM

Inside a Family’s Disintegration Richard Billingham revisits once again his troubled childhood

BY STEVE ERICKSON nsects crawl through Richard Billingham’s “Ray & Liz.” The British director films squalor lovingly. He returns to the concept of kitchen-sink realism with an eye toward restaging his own UK childhood in Birmingham.

Billingham had already explored this ground in his acclaimed photo series “Ray’s A Laugh.” Almost 25 years removed from it and much further from his actual youth, he recreated life with a pair of irresponsible parents. Terence Davies’ “Distant Voices, Still Lives” and “The Long Day Closes” are obvious inspirations, but unlike Davies, he finds no transcendence in art.

“Ray & Liz” balances three time frames. An elderly alcoholic, Ray (played at this age by Patrick Romer), lives in a tiny, squalid apartment, relying on occasional

I

KIMSTIM

Ella Smith, Jacob Tuton, Callum Slater, and Justin Salinger in Richard Billingham’s “Ray & Liz.”

visits from friends and his ex-wife.

In a flashback, the 10-year-old Richard (Jacob Tuton) lives with Ray (played in middle age by Justin Salinger) and the obese, heav-

ily tattooed Liz (Ella Smith.) They go out shopping, leaving Richard’s two-year-old brother Jason (Callum Slater) in the care of Lol (Tony Way.) Unfortunately, Will (Sam Git-

tins) drops by with large quantities of alcohol and taunts Lol into getting extremely drunk. He passes out and Ray and Liz return to find Jason walking around with a knife in his hand. In the second flashback, a slightly older Jason (Joshua Millard) wanders around on his own, looking for affection.

Billingham shot “Ray & Liz” in a boxy 1.33 frame. Daniel Landin’s 16mm cinematography creates a sense of claustrophobia. Everyone onscreen seems trapped by their lives. The elderly Ray suffers from agoraphobia as much as alcoholism, content to lie around getting drunk and listening to the radio.

When Jason goes outside for the first time, around the 65-minute mark, his ability to escape the confines of family life is startling.

Billingham revisits the zoo, the

➤ RAY & LIZ, continued on p.47

The Listless Road to Tyranny Argentina in the ‘70s is portrayed through character, not drama

BY STEVE ERICKSON aving seen two of Argentine director Benjamin Naishtat’s three films, it’s clear that his main preoccupation is the seductive nature of fascism. His 2015 film “El Movimiento” found the roots of Latin America’s corruption in the early 19th century, where an Argentine man named simply Señor drove his followers toward violent authoritarianism despite promising them peace and unity.

“Rojo” takes place in 1975, and its narrative skirts around the edges of overt politics. Naishtat evokes the period by decking his characters out in unflattering costumes and facial hair, even down to giving his protagonist Claudio (Darío Grandinetti) an ugly toupee in the final scene.

There’s no nostalgia here; if anything, “Rojo” goes to the other extreme. Naishtat was born in 1986, shortly after Argentina became a democracy, and has said, “Anyone who was born in Argentina in the ‘80s carries the weight of some sort of symbolic burden. Besides, in my case, there is a family history of persecution and exile

H

46

DISTRIB FILMS US

Darío Grandinetti (untied tie) in Benjamin Naishtat’s “Rojo.”

that precedes me and still resonates.”

A mysterious man (Diego Cremonesi) approaches Claudio while he’s sitting in a restaurant, demanding that he give up his table. He refuses, and they wind up going into the countryside for an argument. It comes to a bloody conclusion that leaves Claudio with an unacknowledged guilt. “Rojo” then picks up three months later, and it surprises the spectator by returning to a fairly banal drama of Claudio’s life as a lawyer and suburban husband and fa-

ther rather than turning into a film noir. We see Claudio’s teenage daughter (Laura Grandinetti) during a dance rehearsal and dating her boyfriend. The arrival of Chilean detective Sinclair (Alfredo Castro) halfway through “Rojo” finally brings chickens home to roost.

The color scheme of “Rojo” relies on red (of course), brown, and yellow. After its nocturnal first act, the film takes place in a provincial setting dominated by ochre furniture. “Rojo” evokes ‘70s cinema through its style, bringing back memories of the “boom of zoom lens” techniques (as well as using dissolves). Panavision lenses of the period were used, and with the film shot in black and white, its cinematography recalls the hard-won beauty of Brazilian director Glauber Rocha’s ‘60s films. The colors of “Rojo,” however, bring the desert into suburbia. Naishtat frequently films Claudio walking in slow motion, citing Sam Peckinpah as an inspiration. Many directors have used similar images to make their characters look like badasses, but Claudio has zero glamour. We can’t escape from the fact

➤ ROJO, continued on p.47 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

ä&#x2030;´

RAY & LIZ, from p.46

site of his second series of photos, with Jasonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey.

Billingham isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t interested in pretty images, but he does create striking ones, citing van Gogh and Degas as influences. He uses the confined space of apartments to create frames within frames. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ray & Lizâ&#x20AC;? frequently cuts from disorientingly extreme close-ups to establishing shots, in a reverse of classical film grammar.

When Billingham began taking photos of his family, his father had been unemployed for 14 years. He noted, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ray is a chronic alcoholic and has drunk for as long as I can remember. He has not worked since he was made redundant from his job as a machinist around 1980. Liz very rarely drinks but she does smoke a lot of cigarettes.

My younger brother still does not seem to know what he wants: he gets a job for or week or two and then leaves it.â&#x20AC;? Billingham got out of the dead-end existence that his photos and film depict. The dream of freedom depicted in the final third of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ray & Lizâ&#x20AC;? gives one some idea how, but here he gives that freedom to his brother. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ray & Lizâ&#x20AC;? seems acutely aware of its place in British film history and what it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to do. A strain of neo-neo-realism, exemplified by Ken Loachâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;I, Daniel Blake,â&#x20AC;? is mostly interested in working-class people as victims of capitalism and the world as their obstacle course. Billingham never

â&#x17E;¤ ROJO, from p.46 that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a schlubby middle-aged man, not a cool anti-hero. â&#x20AC;&#x153;El Movimientoâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rojoâ&#x20AC;? show Naishtatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talent for building tension through dialogue. But while the earlier film built toward violence in long, talky scenes, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rojoâ&#x20AC;? doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t offer that grim release.

Claudio spends most of the film moving in the direction of a confrontation, but it never happens the ways we might expect. There are few moments of innocent pleasure, which generally involve children or teenagers. The film cares more about character development than narrative buildup.

Naishtat cast actors much older than himself, who actually lived GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019

suggests any root causes for his charactersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; problems, although itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not hard to make a link between his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unemployment and drinking problem. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more interested in communicating the sensations of their lives. The scene where Lol gets drunk is made more grating by the fact that Jason is constantly hammering on a toy off-screen.

Throughout it, the film uses sound design to enhance the ugliness of its images, which include details like Lol puking while asleep and a dog then licking his vomit up. It dances the tango with miserabilism, but its world feels genuinely inhabited, rather than gazed at by a disinterested voyeur.

Billingham has been thinking about this material his entire working life. In 1998, he made a documentary, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fishtank,â&#x20AC;? about his father. It took five years to produce â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ray & Liz,â&#x20AC;? and its first third initially saw the light of day as a short in 2016. If his photos have moved on from his parents â&#x20AC;&#x201D; heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s now depicting his own partner and their children â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the desire to reenact childhood pain obviously never left him. But â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ray & Lizâ&#x20AC;? feels oddly mediated given its personal roots.

The film winds up in a place it may not have intended: itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s auto-fiction that relies on art, made both by Billingham and others, to find the keys to his familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life story.

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RAY & LIZ | Directed by Richard Billingham | KimStim | Opens Jul. 10 | Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St.; filmforum.org

through Chile and Argentinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dictatorships. Dario Gradinetti is 60, and his real-life daughter plays his on-screen daughter. In middle age, Castro has acted in five films for Chilean director Pablo LarraĂ­n, playing characters who are at once dangerous and pathetic, and brings that baggage to his role here. In an interview with JosĂŠ Teodoro for Film Comment last year, the actor said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;We experienced a military-civilian dictatorship, not a military dictatorshipâ&#x20AC;Ś you never see a single armed politician working on behalf of the dictatorship in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Tony Maneroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; [the LarraĂ­n film in which he starred] and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Rojo.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; In these films the malignancy is in

â&#x17E;¤ ROJO, continued on p.49

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47

OPERA

Dido in the Catacombs Opera in an iconic Brooklyn cemetery; unaffecting prison fare

BY DAVID SHENGOLD he music series “The Angel’s Share,” imaginatively and wittily curated by producer Andrew Ousley, uses an extraordinary venue: the mid-19th century Catacombs cut into Brooklyn’s iconic Green-Wood Cemetery, which affords extraordinary atmosphere plus terrific views of Manhattan. The Catacombs’ long space has a — sorry! — haunting acoustic, which imparted mystery to harpsichordist and conductor Elliot Figg’s five-piece string ensemble in Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” (seen June 5).

The iconic opera got an intelligent, visually inventive if slightly overbusy staging from tenor Alek Shrader. Talented dancer Liana Kleinman too often grabbed focus, as if channeling the Falcon in Richard Strauss’ “Frau ohne Schatten”. Shrader added in pertinent passages from Marlowe’s 1593 “Dido, Queen of Carthage” — not strictly necessary but not a bad idea either. This swelled the named cast members to include Iarbas, Dido’s local suitor, and Anna, her sister (who took Purcell’s Second Woman’s music). Despite resonant voices, neither performer spoke the verse easily, and giving the overlooked Anna an Elettra-style Mad Scene derailed the central tragedy’s pace.

I’ve now seen Daniela Mack — a real chameleon onstage — convincingly inhabit Handel’s Bradamante (“Alcina”) and Rosmira (“Partenope”), Siebel, Berlioz’s Beatrice, Carmen, and the murderous title role of Kevin Puts’ “Elizabeth Cree.” Her Dido was equally stylish from the musical point of view as well as thoughtfully and effectively performed from a dramatic perspective. She declaimed the Marlowe lines with more impact and nuance than her colleagues and sang Purcell’s remarkable music with tonal variety and beautiful phrasing. A striking figure in Fay Eva’s red dress and jewelry, she rightly dominated the proceedings.

So far, the Met has utilized her

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48

KEVIN CONDON

Brooke Larimer, Daniela Mack, and Molly Quinn in “The Angel’s Share” production of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” in the Catacombs in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.

manifest talents only as the Kitchen Boy in “Rusalka,” with Varvara in “Kat’a Kabanova” on deck next season. Luxury casting! Opera Philadelphia recognizes Mack’s artistic worth more fully, presenting her next season as Juno/ Ino (“Semele”) and in Verdi’s “Requiem.”

The two other female leads, gifts to strong performers, were strongly vocalized and acted in complementary fashion to Mack’s proud, impassioned Dido. Molly Quinn showed well-honed baroque style in Belinda’s coruscating music, and Vanessa Cariddi dug richly into the oft-caricatured music of the envious, destructive Sorceress. Aeneas has little music. Paul La Rosa looked suitably heroic and romantic; it’s a fine voice, but he tended to roar operatically in the confined space. Stylish, deft contributions came from Marc Molomot’s Sailor and Erin Moll’s Wayward Sister.

Keep your eyes open for news of “The Angel’s Share” future emanations: this “Dido” proved a memorable evening.

As part of music director’s Jaap van Zweden Beethoven-centered “Music of Conscience” mini-festival, the New York Philharmonic unveiled “prisoner of the state” by David Lang: his 13th stage work, and not his first effort to enter into dialogue with an existing canonical work. This well-intentioned co-commission retells “Fidelio” employing none of Beethoven’s music and omitting Marzelline, Jacquino,

and — perhaps most significantly — Don Fernando, the deus ex machina Justice Minister.

Elkhanah Pulitzer’s well-judged staging, effectively blocked and successfully employing video, took place around the orchestra. The male chorus (Donald Nally’s Concert Chorale of New York) was excellent in clarity and tone as the prisoners (on a platform behind and above the players). The equivalent of Beethoven’s “O welche Lust” proved the most compelling — indeed, the only moving — segment of Lang’s 70 minute-long score. His libretto is insistently “plain-spoken” to the point of mannerism.

The composition — more memorable for rhythm than for melody — is highly professional, tidily handling in Brittenesque fashion one musical motive in each segment.

Though van Zweden’s guidance of his players proved clear, the orchestration sometimes covered the vocal soloists. Also, Mark Grey’s sound design was over-resonant and the black-and-white video of lyric baritone Jarrett Ott’s Prisoner distractingly out of synch with the beautifully phrased legato sounds he produced, Jokanaan-like, from an understage trap door. (The hunky Ott and childlike Julie Mathevet seemed improbably young to be an established ‘prisoner of the state” and his long-term wife.)

As the Assistant — the Leonore figure — Mathevet was puzzlingly miscast: audibly not an Anglophone, she distorted vowels in

both dialogue and song. Plus, her tiny high soprano — she is a frequent Yniold — only carried atop ensembles. Elsewhere she sounded — when audible over Lang’s heavily percussive orchestration — like a flatting boy treble. His bass-baritone in good estate, Eric Owens’ strong presence and clear diction served him well as The Jailer. Alan Oke also evidenced effective stage presence as the sinister Pizarro figure, but his incisive tenor is now somewhat decayed tonally, suitable for Musorgsky’s Shuisky but not always firmly produced here.

An example of the piece’s Brechtian dramaturgy: when The Assistant fires her gun at The Governor, the lights fade, and he takes the gun, the moment has a lyrically cynical, cello-accompanied monologue about the futility of action (“What is one man?”) heavily evocative of Jimmy Mahoney’s preexecution reverie from “Mahagonny.” Lang’s final chorus, delivered by all the participants to the audience, suggests the same operatic source (and the same skepticism about rescue or amelioration).

Much must be said about the injustices of mass incarceration in the United States and elsewhere, but — whatever its beneficent intentions — this ultimately unaffecting piece did not express it either musically or dramatically.

One last chance to hear the superb Met Orchestra before the summer came June 14, when at Carnegie Hall Yannick NézetSéguin led the gorgeous-voiced mezzo Elina Garanca through Mahler’s five “Rueckert-Lieder” — not a cycle but a group of poems by the same writer. Mahler brilliantly orchestrated four; after his death, conductor Max Puttmann tackled the fifth, “Liebst du am Schoenheit,” a wedding gift/love token to the composer’s legendarily fickle bride Alma. Coping with a recent injury that caused her some canceled bookings, Garanca was brave to perform at all, and — taking a

➤ LAST MET CHANCE, continued on p.49 July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

➤ LAST MET CHANCE, from p.48 song to warm up — sang extremely well, with a wide dynamic palette, pillowy legato, and refreshingly accurate attack throughout a considerable range. Once again, the Latvian artist worked with a music stand, but was less visually wedded to it than at her October Carnegie recital. Some crisper consonants might have helped, but she sang with feeling in gratifyingly long phrases. There are deeper probing artists, but few more beautiful instruments around these days; and the instrumental solos — oboe, flute, bassoon — proved superb.

After a memorably mellow “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,”

➤ ROJO, from p.47 the background, in the air.”

Argentina’s dictatorship of the ‘70s and early ‘80s deprived political prisoners of their identities and lives by turning them into “the disappeared.” Claudio’s motivation is personal, but his actions turn out to be a premonition of the tyranny

On June 27 in the Upper East Side’s Church of the Heavenly Rest, Will Crutchfield’s Teatro Nuovo program concentrating on promulgating and investigating bel canto gave an impressive “calling card” performance out in front of their Bellini and Rossini opera offerings later this month at Purchase and in Lincoln Center’s Jazz Theater. Crutchfield led the fine period instrument band in Donizetti’s “Symphony in E Minor,” reconstructed by Gabriele Dotto with the fourth movement deftly scored

by Crutchfield. A very enjoyable piece, to my ear it suggested the influence of Donizetti’s Bavarianborn teacher Johann Simon Mayr, with its echoes of Weber and an adagio second movement evoking Beethoven in celestial mode.

Then the ensemble, under the highly organized conductor Jakob Lehmann, offered Rossini’s influential “Stabat mater,” deploying many of the program’s young artists to alternate the S/ M/ T/ B solo work. We heard five sopranos, five mezzos, four tenors, and five basses or bass-baritones. All evidenced vocal talent worth pursuing and some grasp of bel canto style — tough learning that takes time. For example, none of the

striking-timbred lower-voiced men showed full evenness of vocal production. There were very exciting contributions from the leads of the upcoming “La Straniera,” luminous soprano Christine Lyons and ringing tenor Derrek Stark. But the mezzos took the collective palm, all displaying memorable personal timbres and technical accomplishment. They were SarahAnn Duffy, Amanda Fink, Allison Gish, Maya Gour, and Hannah Ludwig, who takes the key role of Pippo in “La gazza ladra” where the rich-voiced Gish also appears.

to come. The banality of evil has become a cliché, but “Rojo” uses a familiar plot to show a country selling its soul in miniature. Its story isn’t told in grand gestures. Someone with little knowledge of Argentine politics might entirely miss the larger point, although if one knows ‘70s Latin American history, the presence of Chilean and North

American characters — cowboys, even — makes the context clear.

Unlike “El Movimiento,” however, the plot of “Rojo” has a meh quality even at its most dramatic. The film actually follows a three-act structure faithfully, but one of its achievements is making life as a “good German” feel pretty boring, even when it involves crime and

violence.

my guest and I fled, not wanting to endure, however well-played, Bruckner’s emptily bombastic Seventh.

David Shengold (shengold@yahoo. com) writes about opera for many venues.

ROJO | Directed by Benjamin Naishtat | Distrib Films US | In Spanish with English subtitles | Open Jul. 12 | Quad Cinema, 34 W. 13th St.; quadcinema.com | Film at Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 W. 65th St.; filmlinc.org ©2019 New York Lottery

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July 4 - July 17, 2019 | GayCityNews.com

➤ GMAD WOES, from p.29

➤ ABEL CEDENO TRIAL, from p.39 his friend McCree said, “I threw it but I didn’t mean to hit you.” He said that Cedeno said, “Get up! I want to fight!” Cedeno has said in interviews that McCree said, “I did it. What’s up?,” that last phrase code for wanting to fight.

LaBoy said he grabbed McCree’s arm, “but he pushed off me.” After McCree came from the back of the room to confront Cedeno, he saw McCree “holding his chest.”

LaBoy said he did not see a knife in Cedeno’s hand or McCree’s. The video shows LaBoy charging and punching Cedeno as well before getting stabbed himself.

Feldman in cross-examination embarked on an attempt to establish LaBoy’s gang connections, drug use, and poor school record — all questions that were objected to by the prosecution and sustained by Gross who — when LaBoy was out of the courtroom — severely admonished Feldman for the aggressiveness and “harassing” tone of his questions to the 18year old victim. The judge termed the question “inappropriate” and

“not an effective technique in order to develop evidence,” noting it especially wasn’t going to work with him in this bench trial where he is the sole arbiter of the facts. Gross will decide whether Cedeno, who faces up to 25 years on each count of manslaughter and assault, is guilty or not. It was a low point for the defense.

Subsequently, Lynn took over cross-examination.

Gross on July 1 barred the defense and prosecution from discussing the case with the press.

Defense had been holding regular press briefings. While the prosecutors never speak with the press, they regularly consult with Rubenstein who represents McCree’s mother in a civil suit and holds press conferences several times a day on the case. On July 2, out gay attorney Tom Shanahan, who represents Cedeno and his family in a suit against the city, began attending the trial and offering comments to the press corps.

Rubenstein said that the defense of “justification,” or self-defense, cannot be used in a case where non-lethal violence is met with le-

that the contract had ended at the start of June. The agency laid off six people at the close of that contract and now has a staff of five.

Taylor-Akutagawa said that GMAD is four months behind on its rent. During an interview in GMAD’s offices, the agency’s chief financial officer said that the audit of the 2018 books was not yet complete so he could not say if GMAD has other outstanding debts. Gay City News found a single 2018 lien filed in Brooklyn court against GMAD by an alarm company, but Taylor-Akutagawa said that unpaid bill resulted from a dispute over the quality of the work. That lien was for just over $9,600.

GMAD has struggled with funding since 2010. Roughly 88 percent of its $1.3 million in revenue that year was from government sources.

It lost an HIV testing contract with the city health department in 2011 because it was not testing enough people and other contracts were cut.

Its revenue fell significantly over time. GMAD’s Form 990 for 2016, the latest year available, shows that

its revenues went from $902,000 in 2012 to $419,000 in 2016. It ended 2016 with a $220,000 deficit.

While other agencies serve African-American gay and bisexual men, GMAD is the only agency with that singular focus though other activists, notably Gary English, who once headed People of Color in Crisis, have been trying to rebuild infrastructure to serve that demographic.

That capability is important because the Plan to End AIDS, which uses PrEP and treatment as prevention among other interventions, aims to reduce new HIV infections in New York to 750 annually by 2020. Since most of the new HIV infections in New York occur in New York City, the city has pledged to reduce new HIV infections in the five boroughs to 600 annually. While new HIV infections among many demographics, including white gay men, have been cut substantially, the rates among African-American and Latino gay and bisexual men remain stubbornly high. Neither the city nor the state will reach their goals if new HIV infections in those two groups are not reduced.

thal violence or retaliation.

But Shanahan said, “Abel was not the aggressor, Matthew and Ariane were. Abel will testify about their propensity for violence” and how that could lead “a reasonable person” to defend him or herself with a knife.

Both Shanahan and Rubenstein agree that the fact that this all happened in a school is “unacceptable” from the inability to maintain order to the lack of enforcement of the anti-bullying regulations and the lack of metal detectors (something most students object to as treating them all like criminals).

Rubenstein brought representatives from Black Lives Matter to

argue for metal detectors and “restorative justice” and “empathy” programs. Shanahan said he was for all those things, but “you can’t teach empathy to a gang member.”

Late last week, Dr. Eric Goldsmith, a psychiatrist who evaluated Cedeno for the defense, testified that “at the time of the incident, Abel was in a highly traumatized state” and dealing with a “fight or flight” syndrome governed by hormones leading to involuntary actions. As Feldman said, “If he didn’t fight, he might have been killed.”

More prosecution witnesses were slated for July 3. The defense says that Cedeno will be the last witness in the trial.

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