IMPORTANT FACTS FOR BIKTARVY®
This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment.
(bik-TAR-vee)
MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BIKTARVY
POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF BIKTARVY
BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including: Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. Your healthcare provider will test you for HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking BIKTARVY. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months, and may give you HBV medicine.
BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including: Those in the “Most Important Information About BIKTARVY” section. Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that may have been hidden in your body. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking BIKTARVY. Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys. If you develop new or worse kidney problems, they may tell you to stop taking BIKTARVY. Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat. Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain. The most common side effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (6%), and headache (5%). These are not all the possible side effects of BIKTARVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking BIKTARVY. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.FDA.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088. Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with BIKTARVY.
ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults and children who weigh at least 55 pounds. It can either be used in people who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. Do NOT take BIKTARVY if you also take a medicine that contains: dofetilide rifampin any other medicines to treat HIV-1
BEFORE TAKING BIKTARVY Tell your healthcare provider if you: Have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis infection. Have any other health problems. Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY. Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk. Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take: Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-counter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist. BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other. Ask your healthcare provider and pharmacist about medicines that interact with BIKTARVY, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all your other medicines.
HOW TO TAKE BIKTARVY Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or without food.
GET MORE INFORMATION This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more. Go to BIKTARVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5 If you need help paying for your medicine, visit BIKTARVY.com for program information.
BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, and LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. Version date: February 2021 © 2021 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. BVYC0369 04/21
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HUGO LIVING WITH HIV SINCE 1995 REAL BIKTARVY PATIENT
KEEP CONNECTING. Because HIV doesn’t change who you are.
BIKTARVY® is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in certain adults. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.
Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you. See Hugo’s story at BIKTARVY.com. Featured patient compensated by Gilead.
Please see Important Facts about BIKTARVY, including important warnings, on the previous page and visit BIKTARVY.com.
4/26/21 4:07 PM
voice
georgia VOL.12 • ISSUE 16
ABOUT THE COVER: Cover image courtesy of Pauli Murray documentary
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GUEST EDITORIAL
Community Preservation Calls for Innovative, Aggressive Measures Charlie Paine
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Editorial Contributors: Cliff Bostock, Victoria Brownworth, Melissa Carter, María Helena Dolan, Helmut Domagalski, Jim Farmer, Ryan Lee, Christiana Lilly, Charlie Paine, Fletcher Varnson
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FINE PRINT
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4 Editorial November 5, 2021
Imagine waking up to an Atlanta that has lost all connection to the LGBTQ community — an Atlanta where even notable centers of queer activity such as Ansley and 10th and Piedmont show no visible signs of queer life. Unfortunately, I am here to inform you all that we may very well be on that course. And for a community group, where this queer “sense of place” dually refers to our “sense of belonging” within a particular area, it is possible Atlanta’s LGBTQ community is in for a rude awakening. The Atlanta we enjoy today is the creation of queer community members that persevered through an era of discrimination. This discrimination played an important role in the development of explicitly LGBTQfriendly neighborhoods, but also led to a lack of resources within the community itself. This is a problem we now face. Nationally, the “American Dream” has begun shifting from the suburbs back to city centers where the queer community owns very little of the land on which its establishments are located. As a result, we are seeing LGBTQ spaces priced out due to the very location where they exist. As a general example of this, let’s consider San Francisco’s iconic bar, The Stud. It’s the first worker-owned cooperative nightlife venue in the United States. After new owners inherited the property, development potential encouraged the property owners to nearly triple rent for The Stud in 2016 from $3,800 to $9,500. In efforts to remain in place, the local queer landmark successfully became a San Francisco Legacy Business. However, the designation did not mitigate the development pressures threatening the business. Known across the United States as a symbol of queer perseverance in a gentrifying city, The Stud shut its doors in the spring of 2020. Similar things are happening in urban communities across the country. We must not believe we are immune to
Atlanta Eagle
COURTESY PHOTO
this trend. Demand for intown property in Atlanta has reached all-time highs, just like other cities across the U.S. At the same time, LGBTQ commercial districts have significantly weakened, and an astonishing number of queer institutions like Backstreet and Loretta’s have simply been leveled for new apartment buildings in Midtown in which many of us may reside today. Similarly, Cheshire Bridge Road — a historically prominent LGBTQ+ commercial corridor — fell victim to years of rezoning battles that ultimately led to significant up-zoning with little effort to retain queer businesses. And still, a large majority of what remains to serve the LGBTQ community sits atop parcels of land owned by individuals outside our community — the most striking being the swath of land along the BeltLine known as Ansley Mall and Ansley Square. Mitigating these impacts and preserving our “sense of place” in Atlanta is doable. Already, the Atlanta Rainbow Crosswalk, as small as this queer infrastructure project may be, has significantly uplifted the LGBTQ identity of Midtown and provided the community with a visible anchor within the urban landscape. This effort, like parklets and plazas created adjacent to queer establishments such as Eagle San Francisco, helps maintain a sense of queer pride and belonging as we grow. A more traditional tool that can be used to enhance community resilience is historic preservation designations. As an example, a partnered effort led by Historic Atlanta was
successful in documenting the building best known for housing the Atlanta Eagle. After providing the City of Atlanta with materials to legally protect the structure from demolition and eliminate development pressures, the city made the right call to initiate the process. Sadly, eight months of inaction by the city, during which the property owner neglected the building (forcing the Atlanta Eagle to close its money-making dancefloor while dealing with a pandemic) set up a lose-lose scenario for all. In the end, what is important is that the building is protected from demolition. The will was there; next time, we need only to work more swiftly. As we accept the situation at hand, it’s time to continue to use old tools to our advantage and explore what new ones may be on the table if we want to retain the queer community in Atlanta. I know Historic Atlanta will be doing its part to save historic LGBTQ landmarks, but as a community, we must work with city leaders to push more aggressively to create the Atlanta we want to live in. We need to take ownership of our own spaces and ensure our community is no longer ignored in the planning process. If we plan nothing, we will have nothing. Charlie Paine is the co-founder of Historic Atlanta, an organization supporting and advocating for the thoughtful reuse of Atlanta’s historic resources. Paine is Chair of the organization’s LGBTQ Historic Preservation Advisory Committee. TheGeorgiaVoice.com
PICTURING THE SOUTH: 25 YEARS
KAEL ALFORD • SHEILA PREE BRIGHT • DAWOUD BEY • DEBBIE FLEMING CAFFERY • JIM GOLDBERG • EMMET GOWIN • ALEX HARRIS • SHANE LAVALETTE AN-MY LÊ • SALLY MANN • RICHARD MISRACH • ABELARDO MORELL • MARTIN PARR • ALEC SOTH • MARK STEINMETZ • ALEX WEBB
See works from twenty-five years of the celebrated photography initiative, offering a complex and layered archive of the region. New commissions will debut alongside some of the most iconic photography projects of the last quarter century. H IG H MU SEU M OF ART, AT L AN TA | T HR O U G H F E BR UARY 6 , 2022 | H I GH . OR G This exhibition is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. MAJOR FUNDING IS PROVIDED BY
Henry Luce Foundation
THE FORWARD ARTS FOUNDATION
PREMIER EXHIBITION SERIES SPONSOR
PREMIER EXHIBITION SERIES SUPPORTERS Sarah and Jim Kennedy Louise Sams and Jerome Grilhot Dr. Joan H. Weens Estate
BENEFACTOR EXHIBITION SERIES SUPPORTERS Anne Cox Chambers Foundation Robin and Hilton Howell AMBASSADOR EXHIBITION SERIES SUPPORTERS The Antinori Foundation Corporate Environments Elizabeth and Chris Willett
CONTRIBUTING EXHIBITION SERIES SUPPORTERS Farideh and Al Azadi Sandra and Dan Baldwin Lucinda W. Bunnen Marcia and John Donnell Helen C. Griffith Mrs. Fay S. Howell/The Howell Fund Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones The Arthur R. and Ruth D. Lautz Charitable Foundation Joel Knox and Joan Marmo Dr. Joe B. Massey Margot and Danny McCaul The Ron and Lisa Brill Family Charitable Trust Wade Rakes and Nicholas Miller The Fred and Rita Richman Fund In Memory of Elizabeth B. Stephens USI Insurance Services Mrs. Harriet H. Warren
GENEROUS SUPPORT IS ALSO PROVIDED BY Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, Isobel Anne Fraser–Nancy Fraser Parker Exhibition Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, and the RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund
IMAGE Richard Misrach (American, born 1949), Norco Cumulus Cloud, Shell Oil Refinery, Norco, Louisiana, 1998, printed 2012, pigmented inkjet print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, commissioned with funds from the H. B. and Doris Massey Charitable Trust, Lucinda W. Bunnen, and High Museum of Art Enhancement Fund, 2012.6. © Richard Misrach 1998. Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, Pace/MacGill Gallery, and Marc Selwyn Fine Art.
NEWS BRIEFS Staff reports PALS Hosts Fur Ball Masquerade on November 12 Pets Are Loving Support (PALS) is holding its third annual Fur Ball Masquerade fundraiser on Friday, November 12, in the Egyptian Ballroom of the Fox Theatre. “We believe the timing is right to get back out and have some safe fun while supporting a great cause,” Steve Parker, PALS Board Chair, said. “We have a fun-filled event planned with great food, cool entertainment, and an open bar. The pandemic forced us to cancel the Fur Ball Masquerade last year and we did not have the chance to celebrate our thirtieth anniversary. We are going to do that this year and have even decided to keep tickets prices the same as they were in 2019. It’s a really good value.” General admission, which includes an open bar, heavy hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, live entertainment, a complimentary masquerade mask, swag bag, and beats by DJ Sed the Saint, is $75.00 per person and begins at 8:00 p.m. VIP admission, which includes an additional cocktail hour and all general admission benefits, is $100.00 per person and begins at 7:00 p.m. PALS and the venue are taking steps to ensure the safety of the guests, performers, volunteers, and staff. “We have created a safe event with vaccination or negative test result required for attendees, vendors, volunteers and staff,” Parker said. “The Fox just installed a new irradiation system that inactivates up to 99% of viruses in every HVAC air cycle.” PALS will be raising money with a wine pull as well as a silent action. “We have silent auction items ranging from the Shark and Ray Experience at the Georgia Aquarium to hotel packages at the Four Seasons and Hyatt,” Parker continued. “A ‘wine pull’ with $25.00 tickets can get you a good bottle of wine, including a 2010 Dom Perignon. Come on out and do some holiday shopping and support our mission at the same time. This being a masquerade ball, everyone will receive both a decorative venetian-style mask and a face mask that will add another level of safety.” Dress for the event ranges based on personal preferences and includes cocktail attire, black tie, club 6 News Briefs November 5, 2021
PAL hosts Fur Ball Masquerade on November 12 wear, and full costumes. Tickets can be purchased online at palsatlanta.org. 2021 Sees Increase in LGBTQ Candidates Running for Office, Report Finds LGBTQ Victory Fund’s new Out On the Trail report found an exponential increase in LGBTQ representation in electoral politics on the local, state, and federal levels this year. According to the report, at least 410 out candidates ran for office this year, a 7.3 percent increase from 2019. 237 or more will be on the ballot in November, an 18.5 percent increase from 2019. Along with an overall increase in LGBTQ representation, there was also an increase in specifically queer, nonbinary, and trans candidates. Queer candidates increased from 25 to 62, nonbinary from 5 to 18, trans men from 3 to 6, and trans women from 16 to 20. These LGBTQ candidates were also more
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racially diverse than in 2019. 36 percent of this year’s LGBTQ candidates identify as people of color, making this group more diverse than U.S. candidates overall. However, women of color remained underrepresented, making up only 10 percent of LGBTQ candidates and four percent of overall candidates despite making up 20 percent of the U.S. population. Despite this, there was still an increase in racial diversity from 2019, with the number of Black LGBTQ candidates increasing by 55 percent from 47 to 73, and LGBTQ Asian and Pacific Islander candidates increasing from 5 to 12. LGBTQ candidates ran in 39 states this year. Georgia produced the fourth most LGBTQ candidates this year with 23 candidates alongside Ohio, following New York with 50, Massachusetts with 39, and Pennsylvania with 26. To surpass the 169 LGBTQ candidates who were elected in 2019, 128 must win on Election Day, November 2. 42 LGBTQ candidates have already won their elections this year. TheGeorgiaVoice.com
NEWS
THRIVE SS Launches New App Supporting Black Gay Men with HIV “If you know anything about Black history, we were often taken away from our communities, our languages were changed. We view THRIVE 365 as a way of building our own communities in our own likenesses around our own specific culture. That’s an emboldening process.”
Katie Burkholder THRIVE SS started in 2015 as an online support group for Black men-loving-men (MLM) who were living with HIV in Atlanta, housed in private Facebook groups. In only six years, the group has exploded into a brick-and-mortar organization with more than 20 employees, 1,200 members, and a 5,600 square foot office in East Point. Since its inception, the organization has hosted hundreds of events, launched countless community initiatives, and provided crucial community services to Atlanta’s Black HIVpositive community.
— Larry Walker, the Executive Director and co-founder of THRIVE SS
Now, THRIVE SS is expanding even further and enacting more autonomy over how it provides support to its beneficiaries with its new social networking app, THRIVE 365. “Facebook is very helpful, but there’s a lot of potentially harmful information that is transmitted via Facebook,” Larry Walker, the Executive Director and co-founder of THRIVE SS, told Georgia Voice. “So, we wanted to create a social media app that addressed the things that we needed.” THRIVE 365 was designed to provide an online hub for Black gay men living with HIV to access help, support, conversation, and linkage to care. “If you know anything about Black history, we were often taken away from our communities, our languages were changed,” Walker said of the need for community the app fulfills. “We view THRIVE 365 as a way of building our own communities in our own likenesses around our own specific culture. That’s an emboldening process.” While the app will address the needs of this community, the focus extends beyond need to include socialization, solidarity, and intimacy. 8 News November 5, 2021
Larry Walker (l) and P.J. Moton-Poole “We endeavored to put support and community into your pocket,” Walker said. “You can go to this app and not only indicate that you want an appointment or need food or clothing or medication, you can also go to this app to say, ‘I had a hard day and need to see an affirmation that is specifically geared to me.’” More than anything, THRIVE 365 is designed to be a safe space — which is why access to the web-based app, which will be available through the organization’s website on November 15, will only be granted to users who are vetted by THRIVE SS. Walker says this will maintain the safety and trust necessary for those experiencing the unfortunate stigma of an HIV diagnosis: “It’s such a stigmatized ailment, so we wanted to make sure the app felt safe for people living with HIV.” While the app is designed for HIV-positive men, it will be open to all Black MLM. Users who are determined to be HIV-positive by
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the vetting process will have access to HIVspecific content and forums that others will not, but the app overall will be a statusneutral space. The current iteration will allow users to create posts within the app’s various forums, but for safety and anonymity, nothing will be able to be externally shared. As the app grows, Walker hopes to bolster more social networking aspects like photos, videos, and comments. THRIVE SS’s other work includes selflove and acceptance bolstering through content creation; the organization shot and produced two documentaries, “Outrun the Sky” and “Colors on the Wall,” both of which highlight Black HIV-positive people. Their work also includes Project Innovate, an initiative providing microgrants and leadership development to queer people of color under the age of 29 who are establishing businesses and initiatives centered around network building, stigma reduction, and health promotion. The project is funded by ViiV Healthcare, the only pharmaceutical
company focused entirely on HIV. P.J. Moton-Poole, the Senior Manager for External Affairs for North America at ViiV, told Georgia Voice that putting money behind young queer people of color — and THRIVE SS in general — is crucial toward addressing HIV. “There is an HIV epidemic within the Black queer community, particularly in Atlanta where the [HIV] rates are three times more than the national average,” he said. “Certain communities are burdened more by the epidemic than others, so it’s important for us to use that information to recognize where we need to focus our resources… [We want to be sure] these men are able to tell us what they need as opposed to us basing assistance on our assumptions. THRIVE SS is a pillar of life for that community, so what better place to invest our resources?” Through community building centered on acceptance and love, THRIVE SS is changing the landscape for Black HIVpositive and queer people, in Atlanta and beyond, to eliminate HIV stigma and build a better world for the community it serves. You can request access to THRIVE 365 starting November 15 at ThriveSS.org. TheGeorgiaVoice.com
LGBTQ HISTORY
The Historical is the Personal mainstream shift,” he said. “The business sector is more involved. Our politicians are more involved. The fight for equality and gay marriage and winning that turned LGBTQ in a really amazing direction, but it also stood it on its ear a bit. I personally love it, but it is a shift.”
LGBTQ history through the eyes of one gay Atlantan Katie Burkholder Tone Lane has spent his life having fun. The 64-year-old worked as a professional clown, touring with his own one-man show for 18 years. He now teaches theater at the Midtown International School, where the self-described “proud gay man” heads the Gay Straight Alliance.
In only a few years, Pride celebrations shifted from intentionally scandalous gestures of dissent to corporate-sponsored, family-friendly events — much to the dismay of the more radical older gay folks, Lane not included. “Our celebrations are much more dignified [now],” he said. “There was a time when people would walk down the street nude. Now, our parades are filled with children — and I love that.”
Since coming out 40 years ago, Lane has had what he calls the “blessing” of living through decades of ever-changing LGBTQ history. “I have been blessed enough to witness the many decades of gay life,” he told Georgia Voice. “I see how society and the gay life has morphed into a different kind of social and personal existence.” The world Lane grew up gay in was drastically different from the world we know today — but a harsher social climate never prevented him from finding a way to live his truth. A testament to the timelessness of self-acceptance and community Lane came out in the early ’80s, a significant time period for LGBTQ history. It was the peak of the HIV epidemic, which ripped through gay communities and publicized gay sexual life, opening the LGBTQ community up to even more stigma, scorn, and assumptions of depravity. Homosexuality was deemed “incompatible with military service” by the Army in 1982 (a finding that was revoked in 1989). Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, was assassinated only four years before, in 1978. Homosexuality wasn’t effectively legalized in Georgia until 1998 with Powell v. State of Georgia, which found that an individual’s right to privacy trumped antisodomy laws. However, mainstream homophobia never stopped Lane from accepting himself and
Tone Lane
OFFICIAL PHOTO
living his truth; thanks to “a strong circle of support through friendships,” Lane came out “freely and without any hesitation.” “There was nothing intrepid about me coming out,” he said. “I realized quickly that [being gay] was who I am.” Lane’s radical self-acceptance is a testament to the truth about the historical context upon which our current LGBTQ community is built: despite hardships, LGBTQ people have always looked out for themselves and each other. This was done not only through friendships and chosen family, but with community-building in gay-only social spaces. “[The gay bar life] was a safe haven, a go-to, where you knew everybody was going to be there and you could feel safe and have fun,” Lane recalled. “I always found my place in these establishments.”
10 LGBTQ History November 5, 2021
Lane said that, while bars are still a home and safe haven for LGBTQ people today, they are now “wide open in terms of how people come into the space and how they socialize — it isn’t exclusively LGBTQ anymore.” The transition into the mainstream Despite being a self-proclaimed “glass half full” kind of person, Lane never expected same-sex marriage to be legalized in his lifetime. The historic 2015 moment brought him to tears and significantly changed the trajectory for LGBTQ life. “I cried,” he recalled. “I was extremely emotional about it. It was amazing for me.” Lane believes the Obergefell v. Hodges decision was the impetus for the entrance of LGBTQ issues into the mainstream — something he is shocked but pleased by. “Life has changed dramatically, and it’s a
There’s always room for growth While society has changed drastically over the last 40 years, with LGBTQ acceptance becoming more in vogue than ever before, there are still significant disparities between cis-het and LGBTQ experiences. Lane, who lives in Pittsburgh — a neighborhood just south of downtown Atlanta — said he’s experienced considerable backlash to his sexuality from neighborhood associations. “There were many neighborhood association [meetings] where I had to stand up for myself [after being negatively called out for being gay],” he said. “I turned to City Hall for help, and I didn’t get it.” This struggle, which has lasted since last year, symbolizes to Lane the need for institutions that are interested in advocating for LGBTQ people. Mainstream acceptance was only a short time ago unimaginable, but there still remains an imbalance between LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ life that needs to be addressed. “It all starts with leadership: our government, our neighborhood associations,” Lane said. “These are the pillars of [achieving] what can come close to perfect[ion] — when diversity training is enacted within these spaces. It’s about looking out for human beings in a proper way, even if you don’t live that way.” TheGeorgiaVoice.com
LGBTQ HISTORY
Pauli Murray, Architect of History Victoria A. Brownworth
of support from sitting President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
This article uses she/her pronouns in keeping with Murray’s own writings, but Murray was a transmasculine and gender-nonconforming lesbian. Read the full article online at thegavoice.com.
Murray went on to earn a Master of Law degree from Berkeley in 1945, writing her thesis on employment rights. At various times in her early life, Murray identified as a man and dressed in androgynous clothing throughout most of her life. As the Pauli Murray Center details, “Murray actively used the phrase ‘he/she personality’ during the early years of their life. Later in journals, essays, letters and autobiographical works, Pauli employed ‘she/her/hers’ pronouns.”
Some say Pauli Murray is the most important American activist you’ve never heard of. An iconoclastic, socialist-leaning, genderfluid feminist and Black civil rights activist, Murray broke barriers in every aspect of her life. The barriers Murray broke and paths she created single-handedly, quite literally, changed history. Murray is, in many respects, the one-name answer to why we need LGBTQ History Month. Murray’s quest to find herself as someone who variously identified as a woman, a man and neither ran parallel to Murray’s quest for racial and gender parity in American society and law. Murray’s was a life of firsts; she was the first Black woman law school graduate at Howard University, the first Black person to earn a JSD (Doctor of the Science of Law) degree from Yale Law School, and the first Black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest. Murray’s legal writings were the predicate for Thurgood Marshall’s segregation-shattering 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Her name was also listed as co-author on the brief argued by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1971’s Reed v. Reed. Years later, Ginsburg said, “We knew when we wrote that brief that we were standing on her shoulders.” Murray’s associations were as disparate as they were intriguing. Murray was a lifelong friend and confidant (but not lover) of Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Murray met while working at a conservation camp. She was a friend of James Baldwin, with whom she shared space at the MacDowell writers’ colony the first year that Black writers were admitted. Murray also co-founded the TheGeorgiaVoice.com
Pauli Murray
Murray wrote that she was attracted to “extremely feminine and heterosexual women,” and her decades-long relationship with Irene “Renee” Barlow was the most sustaining of her life. Yet that partnership was also a source of conflict for her. She destroyed most of their correspondence and wrote of their relationship in third-person narrative in her memoirs. PHOTO VIA PAULIMURRAYCENTER.COM
National Organization for Women with Betty Friedan. Born in 1910 in Baltimore as Anna Pauline Murray, she was orphaned early in life. Her mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage when she was only three and her father was soon committed to a local asylum where he was beaten to death by a white guard when Murray was 12. Raised in the Deep South by her maternal grandparents and maternal aunt Pauline, Murray aspired to go to college and set her sights on Columbia. At 16, she moved to New York City, where she lived with another aunt. But that aunt and her family lived in a white neighborhood and were passing as white. Murray’s presence as a Black teen in their home was a source of conflict with the neighbors, so she was soon on her own. Murray’s life was, in many respects, defined by who she wasn’t: not white, not male, not wealthy. She was easily pulled into a fight
against injustices. In 1940, while traveling with then-girlfriend Adelene McBean in Petersburg, Virginia, the couple refused to take broken seats at the back of the bus — 15 years before Rosa Parks’ historic refusal. Both Murray and McBean were arrested and charged. Yet Murray was already deeply invested in civil rights actions. She had applied to Columbia and was told they did not admit women. She tried to fight it but attended Hunter College instead. After her graduation, Murray applied to the Ph.D. program in sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, but was informed the school did not accept Negro students. It was while attending Howard University law school as the only female student that Murray authored her defining treatise on “Jane Crow.” In 1944 she graduated first in her class but was denied the Julius Rosenwald Fellowships for postgraduate work at Harvard University, despite a letter
One could write pages on Pauli Murray and still barely scratch the surface of her remarkable life. The complicated nature of her personal struggles has deep resonance now, highlighting the perils of discrimination against women, people of color and LGBTQ people. Perhaps this quote of Murray’s is in the end the most significant: “If anyone should ask a Negro woman in America what has been her greatest achievement, her honest answer would be, ‘I survived!’” Read more about Murray at the Pauli Murray Center archive: PauliMurrayCenter.com. “My Name is Pauli Murray,” a documentary following Murray’s life, is now available for streaming on Amazon Prime. Victoria A. Brownworth is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated, award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, DAME, The Advocate, Bay Area Reporter and Curve. November 5, 2021 LGBTQ History 11
LGBTQ HISTORY
Reclaiming 41: The Journey to Heal a Notorious Past Trauma for LGBTQ Mexicans Christiana Lilly
models of different backgrounds, gender identities, sexualities, and ages. The youngest was just 12 years old, and the oldest was 82.
Until recently, Alberto B. Mendoza hated 41. He cringed if his dinner bill or hotel room number had the number in it, and with the countdown to his 41st birthday, he dreaded the year to come.
Over the years, South Floridians have been included in the list, including Herb Sosa, Arianna Lint, Maria Mejia, Jose Luis Dieppa, Ricardo Negrón Almodóvar, Morgan Mayfaire, Pablo Sanchez, Cary Tabares, and more.
His hatred of the number started when he was a kid. Growing up on the San DiegoTijuana border, he was excited when some friends nicknamed him 41. That is, until his father told him what it meant.
“On a daily basis I look through different media outlets and I share articles that are at the intersectionality of gay Latino, social justice, health and share those stories on social media,” Mendoza said. “I am truly trying to make sure it’s a balanced list.”
“When he heard them, he called me into the garage and said, ‘Why did they call you that? They’re calling you a faggot, are you a faggot?’” Mendoza recalled. “I just remember wanting to disappear and crawl into a hole.” Mendoza, who is gay, was not ready to be outed. He came out when he was 19, and for decades more he hated the number. When he was set to turn 41, he told a friend over dinner how much he was dreading the milestone. That’s when he learned the story of how the slur came to be. The Dance of the 41 The origin story of “41” as an anti-gay slur dates back to 1901 in Mexico, when a secret society of gay men would meet to indulge in drinking, dancing, sex and other merriment. It was during these gatherings that they could be themselves — talk how they wanted, dress how they wanted, and be openly affectionate with their friends and lovers. The group hosted an annual ball, with half dressing in women’s clothing while the others dressed in tuxedos. It was during the group’s ball in 1901 that police raided the party and arrested 42 men. However, the record mysteriously changed from 42 arrests to just 41 — there is no concrete proof, but it’s long been believed that one of the men at the party was Ignacio de la Torre y Mier, the closeted son-in-law of
For the class of 2021, which will be released this month, Mendoza will also include LGBTQ people who have passed away to honor their legacies. Alberto B. Mendoza
PHOTO VIA TWITTER
Mexican President Porfirio Díaz. To avoid a political uproar and save face, the story goes that Díaz had his son-in-law taken out of jail and his arrest hidden. The remaining 41 men were not so lucky, and newspapers referred to them as the “41 maricones,” the Spanish equivalent of “faggot.” Those wearing dresses were forced to sweep the streets, unprotected from an angry homophobic public, and many of the men were sent to work camps in the Yucatan supporting Mexican solders fighting the Mayans. Homosexuality and men dressing in women’s clothing were not illegal, but the government felt it had to make a statement against the men’s immorality. 41 in Popular Culture The number was later used as a slur against gay people. It became such an unlucky and unwanted number that throughout parts of Mexico, they have skipped the number
12 LGBTQ History November 5, 2021
for hotel rooms, house numbers, building floors, and even battalion numbers. But with the rise of the equality movement around the world, the story of the 41 has come to light and is seen from a different perspective. Reclaiming 41 Once Mendoza understood where the number came from, it became not a slur, but an homage to the 41 men who were assaulted for their sexuality. He decided that for his 41st birthday he would not hide but instead lift up the number with a new organization: Honor 41, an annual recognition of 41 LGBTQ Latinos. “I felt that I wanted to do something to really celebrate how far we’ve come by reclaiming the number and taking its power away, its negative power,” Mendoza said. In the spring of 2013, Mendoza announced the first class of Honor 41, a range of role
Honor 41 creates a video for each person to tell their story. Many have similar themes of being bullied, abused, and misunderstood, but everyone has found a way to surround themselves with love. “It isn’t just about 41,” Mendoza said. “It’s really about how we’re connected as LGBTQ Latinos. At the core of our challenge is still mostly culture that is homophobic, religion that is homophobic, and family that can be homophobic. I think we’re all much more empowered when we can take things that are negative and finally reclaim them.” To learn more about the Honor 41 project or to nominate an LGTBQ+ Latino who has made a difference, visit honor41.org. Christiana Lilly is a freelance journalist from South Florida whose reporting has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists Florida chapter, Florida Magazine Association, and Florida Press Club. TheGeorgiaVoice.com
LGBTQ HISTORY
“A Night at the Sweet Gum Head” Paints Personal Picture of Queer Atlanta History Fletcher Varnson Read the full article online at thegavoice.com. In his book, “A Night at the Sweet Gum Head,” journalist and writer Martin Padgett shares the story of LGBTQ Atlanta during the ’70s and ’80s. The book pulsates with the excitement and energy of the gay nightclub it’s named after as Padgett looks at Atlanta’s past through its disco and political scenes. By blending these two elements together, Padgett has weaved together an intriguing tapestry of Atlanta made up of both government officials and drag queens. “A Night at the Sweet Gum Head” follows many figures in Atlanta’s extensive LGBTQ history, but the two individuals Padgett highlights the most are John Greenwell and Bill Smith. Greenwell was a regular at the Sweet Gum Head, where he would rise to fame as the drag star Rachel Wells. Smith was a journalist and political activist who led the Georgia Gay Liberation Front, became city commissioner, and wrote for the gay newspaper the Barb. These two very different people tell much of Atlanta’s LGBTQ community’s story during the disco era.
Drag star Rachel Wells (John Greenwell) expectation, the goals that Martin Luther King left behind?’”
While the story is focused on Greenwell and Smith, it is also personal for Padgett. Like Greenwell, Padgett lived part of his youth in Alabama and saw Atlanta as an escape from heteronormativity; and like Smith, Padgett took his passion for telling and redefining the story of the LGBTQ community to journalism. He even lived on Cheshire Bridge Road, the very same road where the Sweet Gum Head used to be.
“I started looking on Cheshire Bridge Road for stories I could get close to because I had lived there when I first came to Atlanta,” he continued. “This bar’s name kept cropping up, and I had no idea. I thought, ‘Well, I’m decently well-traveled on bars — at least when I first moved to Atlanta.’ So, when I didn’t know the name and I didn’t realize I lived next door to where it was, I thought I should spend a couple of afternoons looking around for stuff. And then I saw John Greenwell’s memoir about being Rachel Wells. And from then on I realized this was it, and within the first couple of days of poking around I knew it — this was a book.”
When asked about his inspiration for the book, Padgett said, “I started writing about Cheshire Bridge Road because I thought the book was going to be something like Atlanta’s history since the late ’60s — really after the day Martin Luther King was shot. I thought, ‘Has Atlanta really lived up to the
When asked about his own experience living in Alabama as Greenwell did, Padgett said, “Alabama was a place I felt very comfortable as long as I was living a very code-switched life. I actually really liked Birmingham, but it wasn’t very gay at all, or at least I thought — it was a small community. Everyone I knew who was
TheGeorgiaVoice.com
PUBLICITY PHOTO
gay, the handful of people, were always going to Atlanta. ‘You have to go to this place, do this, do that.’ I kept on coming every weekend and kept loving it. And when I decided I didn’t want PR for a career, I moved to Atlanta. And not long after I moved I decided to buy a place and ended up on Cheshire Bridge Road just because I thought it was the epicenter of what gay night culture was and knew it would be a comforting place to come out.” Padgett’s personal connection to the history in “A Night at the Sweet Gum Head” becomes clear when looking at the intricate way he tells the story of Atlanta. Padgett bounces between the personal stories of the numerous individuals who make up Atlanta’s history instead of hyperfocusing on major events. “When you find as many fascinating people as you find at a nightclub, it’s hard to want to turn any of them away,” Padgett said. “In fact, you cannot write a book about a nightclub focusing on one or two people only. People are going to wonder who else is there, or why is Liberace in the corner?”
The effect of Padgett’s decision to the tell the stories of individuals — and to base these stories around a nightclub — is one that humanizes the people involved in creating Atlanta’s LGBTQ history and embraces queer culture for what it is. As Padgett writes in the preface of “A Night at the Sweet Gum Head,” “While samesex marriage has normalized aspects of our queer lives to a degree, assimilation is one of the many things that have eroded our sense of community. We’re losing a distinct dimension of the queer experience. We’re being straightwashed, even as an unashamed army of bigots wants to turn back the clock.” Padgett and “A Night at the Sweet Gum Head” fight against this “straightwashing” and gives the narrative back to LGBTQ people by placing it in the safe spaces that have allowed the community to blossom into what it has become. “A Night at the Sweet Gum Head” is available for purchase online and at Charis Books and More. November 5, 2021 LGBTQ History 13
HELMUT DOMAGALSKI THE GAYLY DOSE
History, Herstory, Theirstory Helmut Domagalski, Founder, The Gayly Dose It’s been a fantastic inaugural year at The Gayly Dose. We have produced 75 podcast episodes since we launched in November 2020. It’s been fierce. We’ve shed tears. We’ve sweated beads. We’ve escaped a studio brawl, but the drama parade never stopped. Regardless, we are incredibly proud, and we have our Atlanta and Georgia Voice audience and supporters to thank. Each episode was an opportunity for our community to share their story and their perspective regardless of gender, preferred sexual position or pronoun.
of the queer community that so desperately needs it. I want to make something very clear. The Gayly Dose is not one gay man’s show. To the moon and back, I love, adore, and respect my fellow cast members Dante and Bennett. They are incredible gay men. We have supported each other this past year, on and off the podcast. I have fallen madly in love.
Would we repeat history? Yes ma’am, and we would do it all over again. Here’s why. Vulnerability is damn uncomfortable but immensely rewarding Ask the cast: I am not a risk taker. I like creating and dreaming, then planning and executing. That’s the world I come from as a health care technology executive. So, to put my own face, thoughts, weaknesses, and shortcomings on a public stage, amplified through a microphone, felt raw and naked. As author and thought leader Brene Brown shares in “Daring Greatly,” “It’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.” I marched on regardless and took to the mic alongside my fellow cast and shared week after week with candor, humility, and plenty of awkwardness with the universe. It was surprisingly therapeutic in a time of great uncertainty. I found that even in my darkest of secrets and struggles, I was far from alone. People in the community are far more beautiful than you could imagine The adage rings true: you are the friends you 14 Columnist November 5, 2021
The Gayly Dose crew
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keep. One of my core beliefs is that every person we meet has a message for you if you can only stop to listen for it. The guests we booked came from every connection the cast and I had in the community, including friends, friends of friends, passionate responses on social media, and even a bold DM from Bennett — which led us to having THE Todrick Hall on OUR podcast. Historic. Every one of our guests left a mark on my soul and improved who I am today. We intentionally sought out a wide range of voices across the queer community, across age, experience, and ilk. Every story was unique, yet the shared struggles, sufferings, visions, and dreams for our LGBTQ future serve as bonding agents to create an interwoven family of sojourners for our listeners to appreciate greater and love more.
The greatest enemy is often me, but I don’t need to wait to love others My mental health journey with this podcast has been real. My biggest inadequacies, greatest self-doubts, and ugliest flaws have been enemies on my path this season. Some days, I flat out wanted to give up, stop recording, throw in the towel and say adios, bitches! But whether it was the voice of an encouraging cast member, friend, daughter, or stranger, somehow, I kept at it. This is the ongoing and ever-present road to self-love and actualization. We do not ever entirely arrive because we are hopefully always evaluating ourselves and discovering areas for improvement — doll, when you are perfectly done, please let me know your secret! That said, we do not have to wait for that perfection to turn that love around to the rest
They are the friends I keep, and that’s a very special thing. What’s next? The Gayly Dose is on its way to a new year and season two! Expect new and expanded voices, new angles, and a lot of passion to create dialogue, debate and insight that will engage our community. As we say on the Dose, “Once you’ve learned to love yourself, we need you to learn to love everyone else!” Helmut (@helmut_smile) is the founder and host of The Gayly Dose, an Atlantabased podcast hosted by an all-gay cast. Unique in its mission and follow-on format, weekly episodes are known for their real conversations about things that matter to the community and their listeners. Purposefully candid and brutally honest, the cast speaks on a range of topics, including monogamy, body issues, coming out, dating apps and growing up gay in the church. Listen at thegaylydose.com. TheGeorgiaVoice.com
Find Your Way Home!
TheGeorgiaVoice.com
November 5, 2021 The Pink Page 15
MARÍA HELENA DOLAN REELING IN THE YEARS
The Pansy Craze María Helena Dolan
moral degeneracy — to be shuttered.
Before and during World War I, there was a great deal of ferment with immigrants peppering these shores; women asserting their rights, for the vote and for control of their own bodies and reproductive destinies; Black people leaving the South for opportunities and to avoid the horrors of Jim Crow and lynching; fundamentalist religious revivals exciting people to assert political dominance; large same-sex groupings in the military where queers found that, in fact, they were not the only one; war work for people formerly denied decently paying jobs; and the repressiveness of the Klan on the march. During this time, people were divided into Wet or Dry. Wet: alcohol-fueled, Satanworshipping, moral degenerates whose boys are girls and girls are boys, driven by or abetted by foreigners. Dry: alcohol forbidding, God-fearing, moral people with clean lines drawn between men and women, native born and proud of it. A nearly frantic policing of sex and gender began as Prohibition was set into place in January 1920, but there were multitudes who would no longer tolerate the conformism of rural and small-town Dry sensibilities. For the first time, people saw women publicly smoke and drink and engage in the freest of love. Popular culture storied it in music, gossip columns, news accounts and movie after movie. With 78s (for phonographs), sheet music, photoplay and Hollywood gossip magazines, regular news coverage and movie and nightclub reviews, overtly queer culture was disseminated in ways not previously possible. We saw the people Noel Coward called the “pretty, witty boys,” along with inundations of 16 Columnist November 5, 2021
The end of Prohibition on December 5, 1933 meant “Gone with the Wind” for clubs everywhere. Cities issued liquor licenses only to “orderly” establishments with “good moral reputations.” Those with previous drag raids or pansy histories didn’t make the cut. Censorship blew in like a relentless tornado. Queers were increasingly identified as commies, security and moral risks, with a drumbeat of hysteria ginned up by the formerly ‘yellow peril’ peddling papers. In 1932, Los Angeles spectacularly began an all-out war on “the Nance and Lesbian amusement places in town.”
A’Lelia Walker
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chorus girls and boys, drag queens, men and women in the most elegant of tuxes. Certain clubs had signs that read “girls will be boys.” To be “diked out” or “out on a dike” meant a young woman in their very best clothes, natty shirts, stickpins, even tuxes, ready for a night on the town. There were blues lyrics like, “They’s two things I cain unnerstan/That’s a B.D. woman and a pansy man.” Yet the Renaissance and the Drag Balls provided plenty of strutters. For instance, the elegant A’Lelia Walker, heiress to Madame C.J. Walker’s fortune, almost never appeared without her crop of chorus girls, socialites, artists, writers, and theater people.
Queers flocked to cities as much for the nightlife as for the ability to connect with others. New York newspapers reported that Broadway “will have night places with ‘pansies’ as the main draw. Paris and Berlin have similar night resorts, with the queers attracting the lays.”
The 1920s also saw an increase in the number of bohemian enclaves in rundown areas, such as New York’s Greenwich Village. Painters, poets and performers were lured by cheap rents and an increasingly wild and lawless lifestyle. Prohibition gave birth to a boozy black market and a bustling underground scene, where bright young things slumming it in mob-run nightspots developed a taste for camp, cutting repartee, powder, pomade, and fabulousness.
Tourist gawking was thinly permitted, and any of the Hollywood clubs would see a cavalcade of elegant stars dressed to the nines, with women such as Garbo and Dietrich often in men’s tails or ties, everyone flirting with or joining in the decadence.
Tourists came from out of town specifically to see those shows, dabble in a little perversity or give themselves over to it entirely. There was a mix of class, race, and sex — although the pansy clubs with their entertainments of drag, gender bending, swishy men and low-down bawd could sometimes have expensive dress codes.
Mr. and Mrs. America liked it not. A spectacular gangland shooting in a pansy club in New York in 1931 led to louder calls for pansy bars — apparent loci of crime and
With the end of Prohibition came the end of sympathetic portrayals of gay characters in Hollywood films and theater. By the mid ’30s, the Hays Code of movie censorship was put into effect in Hollywood, which effectively banned performances or even mention of openly gay characters, and virtually all exhibition of heterosexual “vice.” The Depression meant people got strong men of conviction and their strong, enabling women, or desperate, degenerate criminals, sometimes with molls. The Craze sputtered out its last mincing step in Atlantic City. A tense divide between family-friendly and daringly adult pursuits had always existed there. But in 1935, the Mayor said ‘no more pansy.’ Literally: “The Pansy Club and The Cotton Club” were now “darkened by the police.” This was the last gasp of the wide-open days that had allowed hundreds of thousands to at least vicariously partake in something they’d never dreamt of before. Something shiny, classy, and queer, in Hollywood or Sheboygan, anywhere with a movie house or record player and people hungry to suck in this new oxygen and be a part of something. TheGeorgiaVoice.com
CLIFF BOSTOCK OLD GAY MAN
A History of Bodily Autonomy Cliff Bostock Read the full column online at thegavoice.com. In 1970, my friend Dina and I met up around midnight at the Majestic Diner. I had talked my father out of a pile of money, telling him a lie I don’t even remember. As we sat down at our table, I plopped the $800 in a white envelope on the table, feeling like a mafioso. Dina assured me that I wasn’t that far gone yet, but the money was to finance a crime. Dina was nervous, out of breath, on the verge of crying. I held her hand and tried to be consoling. Then we got in my VW Beetle and drove to a basement apartment near Cypress Street, the city’s popular late-night cruising strip. The purpose of our trip was to get Dina a so-called back-alley abortion. This was just before Roe v Wade legalized abortion. The country, including our own city, was a battleground for women’s rights. To many Americans, legal abortion meant legal murder (and obviously still does to some). I have never forgotten the look on Dina’s face when she emerged after the seemingly hours-long procedure whose surgical tool was the infamous coat hanger. Dina looked like a little girl, limping and crying, needing to be held for a long time. And, no, I was not the father of the child, even though I was at that time still trying to be heterosexual. Dina knew I “experimented” now and then, and both of us were clearly aware of our analogous situations. As a woman, she did not have legal authority over her own body. As a closeted gay man, I knew that were I to come out, I would lose some authority over my body, too. I wouldn’t legally be able to love freely. Black people, as we’ve been shown repeatedly by the Black Lives Matter movement, are murderously also deprived of bodily agency. We’ve got more prisons and cops than anyone to ensure that. The desperation to control bodies reaches insane levels when it comes to trans kids. Thus, the Christian right says a trans 17-year-old girl should be required to use a male bathroom because she was born with a penis. Yes, a beautiful girl walking to a stall in a men’s room will make everyone feel more comfortably natural. If you’re going to TheGeorgiaVoice.com
The Gay Liberation Front
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do that, dumbos, why not make all restrooms gender-neutral? I keep thinking about the difference in our mood in the ’70s. I think activists like me were maybe more optimistic. After Stonewall in 1969, the Gay Liberation Front emerged. It was a strongly activist organization that allied itself with other aggressive and utopic movements, including feminism, of course, but also the Black Power Movement. It opposed capitalism and sought more freedom of gender expression. It opposed the Vietnam War and other imperialistic actions of the U.S. government. Not surprisingly, the GLF movement didn’t explicitly last long, given its radical agenda compared to that of its predecessor, the Mattachine Society. Still, the GLF’s usurping of that organization is an example itself of recovering agency of the queer body. The Mattachines, who certainly worked bravely, at the same time seemed not wholly convinced that they were not possessed by a pathology. They invited sympathetic psychiatrists to speak at their meetings. Of course, this continues at its worst in the form of largely illegal conversion therapy, where magicians apparently increase the selfhatred of their patients enough to make them delusional … for a year, maybe. I haven’t seen Dina in many years, by the way. I didn’t repay my father for financing her abortion. Nobody owns my body, but I am trying to decide whether to bequeath it to a medical school for dissection. Can you sue a corpse for that? November 5, 2021 Columnist 17
A&E SPOTLIGHT
MetroFresh’s Mitchell Anderson Shares Life Story in One-Man Show Jim Farmer
MORE INFO “You Better Call Your Mother” runs November 4–7 at Synchronicity Theater. Tickets are available at BrownPaperTickets. com/event/5159617
Long before openly gay performers could thrive as part of the entertainment world, Mitchell Anderson was in Hollywood — almost alone — as an out actor 25 years ago. Now the longtime Atlanta resident and chef/owner of MetroFresh is relating his experiences in a one-man show, “You Better Call Your Mother,” running November 4–7.
was working as an actor. Around the time Anderson turned 40, he was getting restless in his career. He sold his house in Los Angeles and moved to New York to do theater. Everything changed with 9/11, though. “The buildings fell, and life changed,” Anderson recalled. “At that moment, I said I don’t need this career anymore. I can find something else to do.”
Anderson, who turned 60 in August, had a thought at the end of 2020 that he should have a “big-time” New Year’s resolution. Although he has plenty of stage credits, he’d never done a one-man show or cabaret.
He moved to Atlanta in 2002 to be with Arpino and began looking for another life. Through help from Jenny Levinson, owner of the Souper Jenny cafes, he was able to open MetroFresh in Midtown Atlanta in the fall of 2005.
“I really want to challenge myself, with something that was my own, outside of the restaurant” he said. So, in January he reached out to Courtenay Collins, a longtime Atlanta performer known for her cabarets and for being in the world premiere musical, “The Prom” at the Alliance Theatre and its subsequent Broadway run. Her suggestion was to write down some songs he wanted to sing. “Because I write every day, I knew immediately the beats in my life I wanted to talk about — and how the story came together,” he said.
Mitchell Anderson
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Atlanta making soup for a living.” He landed in New York after college in 1983 and was just coming to terms with his sexuality and establishing his career while people were dying from AIDS all around him. That difficult time is addressed in the show.
With musical direction by Bill Newberry, “You Better Call Your Mother” is a play with music. Or, as Anderson calls it, a series of monologues.
“I made unfortunate mistakes in my relationships because I was very worried about how I was going to work,” he said.
“This [show] hits different eras and moments in my life with different people,” Anderson said, “and tells how I grew from this overachieving, little, earnest boy who grew up and wanted to go to Hollywood for a career in show business and wound up in
Eventually he moved Los Angeles and got substantial roles on “The Karen Carpenter Story,” “Doogie Howser, M.D.” and “Party of Five,” where his character, Ross, was also gay. When Anderson came out at the 1996 GLAAD Awards, he knew it was the right
18 A&E Spotlight November 5, 2021
time and place to do so. He became an LGBTQ activist afterwards. One of the actor’s most underrated projects was the LGBTQ-themed 1998 independent film, “Relax ... It’s Just Sex,” which also starred Jennifer Tilly and Terrence ‘T.C’. Carson. “We were three or four years before our time,” he said. “It should have had a release, but ‘Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss’ — also from that year — was considered more mainstream.” Anderson met his future husband, Richie Arpino, owner of Atlanta-based Richie Arpino Salon, at the HRC Atlanta dinner in 1997. The two traveled across the country for five years back and forth while Anderson
Though he has done some theater while living in Atlanta, Anderson’s acting career got an unexpected jolt when his friend Kevin Spirtas called him and asked him to be part of the web series, “After Forever,” which debuted in 2018. In it, he plays Jason, one half of a 50ish male couple who passes away and leaves his husband Brian (Spirtas) alone as a single gay man. Anderson was surprised when he got the call, since he had not done any on-screen work for a while. The show was highly acclaimed and won numerous Emmy Awards, with Anderson himself nominated. The third season of the series will film in the spring of 2022. Although he promised he would not audition anymore when he left the business, Anderson says now he might be receptive to another acting gig, especially with all the filming that is going on in Atlanta: “We’ll see what happens in the third act of my life.” TheGeorgiaVoice.com
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JIM FARMER ACTING OUT
New Documentary Charts Campaign of Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Jim Farmer
MORE INFO “Mayor Pete” streams on Amazon beginning November 12
As Pete Buttigieg — the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana — was trying to make history by becoming president of the United States in 2020, most people did not know he had a film crew shadowing him through his campaign. The new documentary. “Mayor Pete,” follows the candidate on the political trail with his husband Chasten.
love that vantage point, and it opened up possibilities for the film for me.” The film premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival in October and since has played some LGBTQ festivals. Moss admits it has been fun to see the universally strong reaction “Mayor Pete” has been receiving.
Director Jesse Moss, who calls himself a political junkie, was paying attention to Buttigieg and knew he was a rising star. “I knew he was thinking of running for president, and it seemed very improbable that he could mount a credible campaign, but the norms of American politics have been shattered,” he said. “Who can be a credible candidate and get elected in the post-Obama election and Trump’s election? Anything is possible, and that was intriguing to me.” When his friends, who were working as producers on the film, asked him to get involved, Moss initially said no. They asked him to watch a town hall Buttigieg was involved in, however, and Moss admitted to himself that he had something going for him, more than he imagined. He agreed to shoot development footage but still wasn’t convinced there was a film. Once he realized that the access Buttigieg seemed open to was real, he was onboard. “What was most compelling was the possibility of having access to Buttigieg in this journey, which I didn’t expect to get very far,” Moss said. “The idea of Pete letting us in and seeing a presidential campaign from an intimate perspective was really exciting to me as a documentary storyteller.” He started filming in April 2019, three 20 Columnist November 5, 2021
Moss, who made last year’s acclaimed documentary, “Boys State,” and was also a producer of “Gay Chorus Deep South,” doesn’t shy away from showing some of the homophobia the candidate faced.
“Mayor Pete”
“I think their identities are as gay men,” he said. “They’ve had different lived experiences. Pete was closeted for much more of his life, and Chasten was out at a much earlier age. They bring those lived-in experiences to their relationships and their political identities. It all gets played out in this story in different ways. Chasten also articulates the fact that Pete is not running to be the president of gay America, but his identity is a core part of who he is.”
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weeks before Buttigieg officially announced his campaign as the first openly gay major presidential candidate. Throughout the campaign, both Pete and Chasten were remarkably composed despite the pressures they were facing. “I spent a lot of time with Pete over a year filming this from a staff of four to nearly top of the heap,” the director said. “He got exhausted and there were some hard moments, but he managed to be even keeled. Chasten is very different from Pete. Emotionally, he is much more open
and alive and funny. Their chemistry was appealing to me. I loved how old fashioned their relationship was in a way but also modern. Here was the millennial gay couple on a big political stage. I loved that they were working it out and letting me in to see the excitement but also the tension together, this rocket ship.” “There was much more of a relationship, a love story of them holding on tight to each other,” he continued. “It was a way of understanding Pete as a somewhat remote person through Chasten’s point of view. I
Buttigieg dropped out of the presidential race in March of 2020 and supported now President Joe Biden. Buttigieg was later named Secretary of Transportation under the Biden administration. Earlier this year the couple announced that they had become parents to fraternal twins. Moss didn’t know about their desires to have children until it comes up in the film. “They had wanted to be parents at the time,” Moss said, “and were exploring the process, but Chasten is cautioned to not talk about it too publicly.” TheGeorgiaVoice.com
TheGeorgiaVoice.com
November 5, 2021 Restaurant Guide 21
MELISSA CARTER THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID
Phillis Wheatley, the Mother of Black Literature Melissa Carter As a lesbian, I learned early on that there were moments in history that don’t make the history books. Even though I was a big fan of Greek mythology and read the brilliant philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, I never heard about Sappho until I did my own research. Same is true for most proud moments in gay history, so I understand that what is covered in school textbooks only reflects the narrow view of the victors. I studied the American Revolution and American slavery, but it was only through TikTok that I discovered the incredible story of Phillis Wheatley. Yes, I said TikTok. It’s not all about dancing or silly challenges. A brief video popped up on my feed from a woman who made the effort for Wheatley’s name to be known. I’m glad she did, because I took her cue and Googled the woman who I learned is considered the mother of Black literature. My son is now seven years old and reading, so I try to encourage the behavior by regularly taking him to our neighborhood library. On our last journey I picked up the book Phillis Wheatley by Victoria Sherrow in the children’s section. I have come to realize that children’s books are a great way to learn about new topics without having to invest a lot of time, since they are written in a quick and easy-to-understand way. Phillis was a slave, taken from her home in Western Africa when she was seven or eight and sold to a prominent merchant family. She was the only one in her family sold to these Bostonians, so let’s understand that this girl who today would have been in the first or second grade was stripped and sold on the auction block, torn from her mother and father. The family that bought her was the Wheatleys, and they named her after the slave ship she travelled across the Atlantic in the bowels of, Phillis. 22 Columnist November 5, 2021
Phillis Wheatley
IMAGE VIA WIKICOMMONS
At her new “home,” she was fortunately cared for and educated and soon began to write poetry. Mrs. Wheatley worked to have Phillis’s poems published, with all credit being given to Phillis and the admission that she was indeed a slave. Her poetry became very popular and was admired by the likes of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, both of whom she met. She became well known not only in America, but also in England, yet she found life increasingly difficult once she became a free woman. She died poor, and her unmarked grave has never been found. Over time, though, her contribution as only the second woman ever to publish a book of poetry in the United States led to the Governor of Massachusetts declaring February 1st “Phillis Wheatley Day” in 1985. I came out of this new knowledge shocked and frustrated that this woman’s tale is not a common one known by the general public, nor a whole chapter in my grade school history book. Of course, there are many incredible stories from minorities that never see the light of day, and it saddens me that these same minorities don’t feel seen today because of it. It is true that representation matters, but even if you don’t see yourself in books or on screen, trust that people like you absolutely achieved wonderful things, and so can you. TheGeorgiaVoice.com
RYAN LEE SOMETIMES ‘Y’
Self-Censorship and the Veneer of LGBTQ Acceptance Ryan Lee One of my favorite moments of political dissent was being detained by a police officer after ignoring his demand to stop shouting toward the presidential motorcade, “Fuck Donald Trump!” My catharsis was worth the handcuffs, and I can only imagine how much less satisfying the memory would be if I had instead chanted something as neutered as, “Let’s go, Brandon!” Tough-guy conservatism has reverted to teenaged, coded taunting, where cheering for Brandon is understood as a profane insult toward our current president. I don’t know if this substitution of language is intended to seem clever or classy or simply sates the conservative instinct to communicate in dog whistles. Whatever its etymology, “Let’s go, Brandon!” — which is conservative code for “Fuck Joe Biden” — is cowardly self-censorship among a group of people who endlessly whine about being unable to speak honestly. Supposedly champions of free speech, conservatives are so spooked by the politically correct boogeyman of their imaginations that they’ve preemptively canceled their constitutional right to cuss out politicians. White Republicans are not the only folks who have convinced themselves they can’t express what’s truly on their mind. Dave Chappelle has made millions of dollars with a series of stand-up lectures about the persecution he has endured due to his discomfort with LGBTQ advancement, and even though there are few jokes in his routines, his act allows viewers to rationalize their hostility to LGBTQ rights through the pretext of humor. Chappelle could shoot a transgender person on Fifth Avenue and Netflix wouldn’t lose a subscriber. He is destined to be enshrined TheGeorgiaVoice.com
beside history’s bravest stand-up comics, despite every working comedian having their own version of the rage-against-cancelculture shtick that has elevated his legacy. Chapelle’s latest Netflix special was cited in a meme that went viral after Jon Gruden resigned as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. Leaked emails revealed that Gruden freely used racist and misogynist language, but his departure after homophobic slurs came to light seemed to prove Chappelle was right: homos hop the line, and their rights receive priority protection. The meme suggests Gruden was fired because homophobia has become a death sentence, nevermind that he voluntarily resigned or the dearth of sports figures who have been terminated after expressing anti-LGBTQ sentiments. NBA analyst Chris Broussard and former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz both tried to pretend it was perilous for Christians to voice religious objections to LGBTQ rights; but since their respective, spiritually vulgar condemnations of samesex marriage, Broussard has risen from a beat reporter to hosting the morning show on Fox Sports, and Smoltz provided color commentary for this year’s World Series. There is no more profitable punishment than being canceled. There is also no doubt that LGBTQ court victories, as well as increased representation in Hollywood and corporate marketing, have outpaced the evolution of a society that for centuries believed God hated gay people. So, it cannot be surprising that, as illustrated by the Gruden episode and Chappelle’s meditative rants, even minorities and progressives would rather pledge solidarity with conservatives who feel muzzled by cultural changes than unify against bigotry with LGBTQ folks. There has undoubtedly been a cacophony of LGBTQ support and acceptance over the last decade, but many of the people who we thought were cheering for us were actually chanting an antiqueer equivalent of “Let’s go, Brandon!” November 5, 2021 Columnist 23