Los Angeles Blade, Volume 07, Issue 11, March 17, 2023

Strength in searching: LA teen artist grapples with early success

At a large apartment complex in Los Angeles’ Studio City neighborhood, Grey DeLisle – also known as Grey Griffin –and her 12-year-old son, Tex, followed a man down a long hallway and into his apartment.

It was a cool night in late summer 2019, and DeLisle – a voice actor known for her role as Daphne in the “ScoobyDoo” franchise – was there for a psychic reading a friend had gifted her for her birthday.

DeLisle described her friend, who was working as a producer on a show about psychics, as a skeptic. “Ninety-nine percent of people are full of it,” DeLisle recalls her saying. “But I went to this one guy who was amazing, told things not my like that nobody could know, he freaked out all the producers. He’s amazing.”

So, DeLisle and her son entered the man’s apartment. “The guy gave me all my stuff about my grandma that nobody knew, conversations I had with people – stuff that was definitely not on the internet,” DeLisle said.

During the reading, Tex was sketching in a notebook when the psychic turned to Tex, then looked back at DeLisle and said: “Your son is an artist.”

“Oh, yeah, you know, he likes to draw,” she remembers saying.

“No, your son is gonna be one of the biggest artists of the 21st century,” the psychic said. “He’s gonna be a household name.”

Jefferson “Tex” Hammond – now 16-years-old with a head full of long, curly hair – is proving those words may have meant something after all.

In 2021, at 14-years-old, the California School of the Arts, San Gabriel Valley student became the youngest ever artist to exhibit at the prestigious LA Art Show – where he sold nearly all of his paintings.

The feat proved so newsworthy that the Los Angeles Times featured Hammond – an abstract artist whose website bio describes his work as “a window into the mind of a young talent maturing in a chaotic world” – in an article last year.

Since then, the Pasadena-based artist – who does not label his sexuality – has exhibited his work in art shows worldwide, from Los Angeles to Paris.

Arthur J Schwartz, a Willamina, Oregon-based salesman who collects Hammond’s art, said he “immediately was taken” by Hammond’s paintings.

“His work is just so compelling that I just couldn’t take my eyes off of it,” Schwartz said. “I mean, in fact, my reaction was this kid is going to be the next Michel Basquiat [an American artist who rose to fame during the Neo-expressionism movement in the 1980s] – I mean, that’s how taken I was with his work.”

The success excites Hammond, but he was also quick to note that he doesn’t want to let his achievements hinder his progress.

“Life is so much more than what we accomplish here,”

he said, adding: “I gotta keep moving, I gotta keep moving always. I can’t let myself get wrapped up in, like, oh, I’m so special.”

Like many 16-year-olds, Hammond doesn’t quite know who he is yet – both as a person and an artist. It is this exploration, he said, that motivates him and gives him a sense of purpose.

“I don’t even know what I want to do with my art yet,” he said. “I’m still taking in inspiration from different art. I haven’t truly found what I want to do with it yet.”

There is one thing Hammond is sure of: “I gotta paint,” he said. “I need to not give up, and I need to paint every single day.”

AN OLD SOUL

When asked how she would describe her son, the first words that came to DeLisle were “old soul” – there’s “always been like a little old man in his body,” she said.

DeLisle remembers flying with a two-year-old Hammond – his legs crossed, an in-flight magazine in hand. He wasn’t reading, she recalled, just taking in the photos on the glossy magazine paper.

Hammond turned toward her, DeLisle said, pointing to a cello in a spread about a symphony orchestra. “Oh my God,” she thought, “the Lord gave me a kid that I can handle.”

Hammond may not remember the moment, but he, too, describes himself as an old soul – at least, that’s what he’s heard his whole life.

“I may be young, but like, I already feel way older than I am,” he said. “I just turned 16, but people have thought I was 18 for two years now.”

“But a lot of that comes with the hype,” Hammond said. Sometimes, Hammond said, he feels embarrassed – not necessarily with his accomplishments but with what he sees as a leg up and the pressure that arises as a result.

“My mom has connections, you know; I’ve gotten a lot of help along the way,” he said.

DeLisle is a Grammy- and Emmy-Award-winning veteran voice actress, comedian and singer-songwriter with almost three decades of experience in the entertainment industry. She describes her voice-acting bio as “braggy” to her 85,000 followers on Instagram.

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‘I want more people to see my art, to see how it makes other people feel’

By ZACHARY JARRELL

TEX HAMMOND sketches using oil pastels. (Photo courtesy Mike Chaney)

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Local teen artist finds success

Recently, DeLisle has starred in Nickelodeon’s “The Loud House,” voicing the role of Lola Loud – one of the show’s main characters. Hammond joined his mother on the series’ third and fourth seasons, voicing the show’s main protagonist, Lincoln Loud.

Hammond’s father, Murry Hammond, is a musician who co-founded the alt-country band the Old 97s, which has released over a dozen studio albums and appeared in films and television. Murry Hammond is now a solo artist, preparing to release a new album, “Trail Songs of the Deep,” later this year.

“I think that some people feel a little bit of anger or resentment towards me because of that,” Hammond said.

He also noted that his journey as an artist is just beginning – if it has even started.

“It’s amazing that I’ve done art shows, but I have a long way to go,” he said.

Hammond didn’t “know quite how to respond” to a question about the statement he hopes to make with his art. He believes it takes an artist years – maybe even a lifetime – to find the true meaning of their work.

“I’m not even in my career yet,” he said.

For Hammond, art is compulsive. “I can’t sit down at a table and not draw,” he said. “It’s seriously like a problem sometimes.”

Hammond said sometimes friends at school tease him for his drawing habits. “They’re like, it’s so funny,” he said, “you can’t sit down without drawing – even at the lunch table.”

“When I’m not drawing, I feel antisocial a little bit,” he said. “I just don’t really know what to do with my hands.”

Like him, Hammond’s art is “ever-changing” – “I’m never going to want to stop or cut it off,” he said.

“To be honest, I just want to be an old man and live in a cabin and lock myself away and paint,” Hammond said.

In November 2022, Hammond and his family went to London – the first time he had stepped foot in the city.

He remembers standing on the iconic Tower Bridge, gazing at the Tower of London, officially His Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London – a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames.

“I love architecture,” Hammond said. “I love seeing the way humans have developed – making everything down to the finest detail, getting everything sculpted perfectly.”

After fixing his eyes on the 900-year-old castle’s Kentish rag-stone, Hammond broadened his vision to see the city behind it.

“I feel like it completely changed my perspective,” he said. “We can build these amazing, glowing sculptures – but also, there were people hundreds of years ago who could do these unimaginable sculptures on the sides of buildings that we probably don’t even know quite well how to do now.”

Traveling, Hammond said, is fueling his growth as a person and inspiring his art.

“When I go to different countries, the art is still just as good, but it completely changes,” he said, adding: “I want to bring in all of those elements. I feel like the more I travel, the more I’m just going to see and the more inspiration I’m

going to take because I take inspiration from everything.”

The places Hammond visits – whether an American city like Miami or what’s widely viewed as one of the most beautiful cities on Earth, Paris – affect his creativity and the direction of his artwork.

“Naturally, when I visit a place that really makes me feel good and puts me in a creative space in my head, then I’m going to want to see what it does to my art,” he said. “I feel like it’s time to branch out more with my art.”

Hammond has big goals for his art, so traveling allows him to get more eyeballs on his paintings.

“That’s a big part of it, too,” he said. “I want more people to see my art; I want to see how it makes other people feel, you know, and all that sort of stuff.”

In September 2022, Hammond took a trip to Paris for the Focus Art Fair – an annual contemporary art fair organized by HongLee, an international art agency based in Paris.

Before that show, Hammond said, he felt like he was creating solely for a specific art show – “following a specific theme or listening to a specific type of music or something just to get that certain flavor.”

However, Hammond noticed a shift afterward. “I feel like since I’ve gotten such an influx of creativity,” he said.

Hammond said his Paris art show was the “most exhilarating trip I’ve ever been on.”

To Hammond, the LA Art Show was “one of the biggest things” to happen to him. But Paris is his favorite city – he “instantly fell in love with it” when he visited the city before.

“So the fact that I heard that I got accepted into the Focus Art Fair was just like, surreal to me – traveling to one of my favorite cities and showing and just seeing people from around there, getting to know my work,” he said.

But more than the show itself, Hammond was happy to have a chance to experience the city.

“Being at the Louvre, that was incredible,” he said. “I mean, heck, it’s where they show the Mona Lisa, like, I mean, it’s pretty much any artist’s dream.”

On his last day in Paris, Hammond remembers going on a ferry trip around the city on the Seine. He and his mother, DeLisle, were on the boat’s top deck – where others were snapping photos of Paris on either side.

“I wanted to tell her how thankful I was,” he said. “Because I feel like, you know, growing up, I saw a lot of starving artists and artists who really didn’t make it. They may have the talent but may have just never gotten the resources to show who they really were.”

So, Hammond turned to his mother and said, “Thank you, thank you for making everything that this is possible.”

And, he said, he is going to continue saying that. “I really do feel like my mother and my father have played a really big card in what this is becoming,” Hammond said.

WHAT’S NEXT

In the midst of his junior year of high school, many days look the same for Hammond – up at 7 a.m. to make the train, which he will take to the end of the line and sit in school for hours, thinking about art.

After school, it’s back to the train and home – snapping photos along the way, saving the inspiration for later.

“It honestly feels like the same day sometimes because of school and everything,” Hammond said.

Soon, though, it will be summer – and Hammond has an exciting one lined up, set to do an artist residency in Brussels.

“The Brussels thing, it’s been driving me,” he said. “I’ve been looking at pictures of the city, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ You just get to go outside and have a drink at a cafe and paint – that’s my dream. That is my dream. I don’t get to do that in LA.”

DeLisle is busy searching for a babysitter, as she described it, to look after Hammond while he’s in the city. “Who knows what happens in Brussels? I don’t know,” she said. “Is it the Vegas of Europe? I don’t know.”

Looking past the summer, Hammond is excited to continue exploring himself and his art – and, in turn, show that to the world.

“I feel like I’m waiting to show people what the next me is going to be,” he said, adding: “I want to show everybody everything that I am. I don’t want to confine it to a certain skill set or a certain style or color choices or anything like that. I want them to get a taste of all of it.”

Hammond is especially excited about his future beyond school. “I just can’t wait till I’m an adult,” he said. “I can just like wake up and treat it like a nine-to-five and just paint.”

He may not know what the future holds, but one thing is sure: He won’t stop searching.

“I’m always searching,” Hammond said. “I’m always searching for what the next thing is going to be.”

TEX HAMMOND hard at work.

(Photo courtesy Mike Chaney)

Social media platforms a primary source of anti-LGBTQ hatred

Walking fine line between First Amendment rights and illegal harassment

By SIMHA HADDAD

With cyberbullying at an all-time high, all states now have laws requiring schools to respond to this type of online harassment. But are those laws working? The escalating mental health crisis amongst queer youth would suggest that no, they are not.

According to a pre-covid pandemic study conducted by stopbullying.gov, about 16 percent of students in grades 9–12 nationwide experienced cyberbullying. Dosomething. org reported that approximately 37% of young people between the ages of 12 and 17 have been bullied online- with 30% experiencing incidents more than once.

Among those are a significant percentage of LGBTQIA+ youth who are consistently targets of online bullying and hate speech. In fact, the organization says that about half of all LGBTQ+ students experience online harassment — a rate higher than their cis-gender peers .

Many queer youth suffer acute mental health crises due to cyberbullying and have nowhere to turn for help and guidance. This is where Rainbow Youth Project (RYP) steps in.

All in, RYP receives an average of 300 calls per day – such a large number that they have had to triage their mental health care which Garrett told The Blade “is a big no no,” because often, the calls RYP receives are of youths in acute and immediate distress.

“We had a child just three weeks ago who was a trans girl from Louisiana,” said Garrett. “She had taken a very large quantity of various medications and all she wanted was somebody to speak to you while she went to sleep. We were able to do a welfare check immediately, and we were able to get her to the hospital. We were able to save her life.”

Many of these calls come to Garrett and his Rainbow Youth colleagues as a result of cyberbullying, which leaves these queer youths traumatized and isolated and seeing no other recourse than taking their own lives.

Garrett shared two stories with the Blade:

“Tony Vallejo was a young man who was a gay teen. His parents were very involved with the church and he had a boyfriend at that church who was his age. That boy’s parents found their text messages and outed him. They literally emailed everyone in the church and in their community that Tony was a sexual predator and trying to make their son gay.”

“Tony ended up being attacked online because people were passing this false information along. He attempted suicide twice and had four or five hospitalizations. He was so distraught over the cyberbullying that he was undergoing that he was stabbing himself with pencils just to try to get rid of this pain.”

“All of this traveled through social media. It traveled through TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. People were driving by the family’s house screaming ‘fag’ from their cars. The family couldn’t even go to a Walmart without people, saying ‘I saw online that your son is a sexual predator.’”

yelling slurs. The police department had to send someone to drive by their house every fifteen to thirty minutes just to make sure the family was okay all as a result of what was posted online.”

Although Christian had been hospitalized with a concussion after the filmed beating, the false rhetoric that Christian was lying about the attack continued to spread on social media. The bullying wreaked havoc on Christian’s depression as he became more and more isolated from his peers and his community at large.

When Christian’s assailant was sentenced, the judge ordered him to do community service with an LGBTQIA+ organization in Utah. This caused even more outrage amid the homophobic community, which then began to harass the organization itself online.

“He couldn’t go outside of his house, because people were sitting across the street waiting for him to come out,” said Garrett. “All of that harassment was a result of all the things that were being posted online.”

Alarmingly, so much of this hate speech and false rhetoric on social media could have been but was not stopped by the platforms themselves.

“All these hateful comments should have violated the TOS [Terms of Service] on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Even though those things were reported, they were never removed.”

“Let’s just be honest, social media platforms do not care. They do not care,” Garrett added.

Garrett noted he recently read about a social experiment wherein a group created and submitted purposefully hateful and bigoted posts to various social media platforms as paid ads. The platforms accepted these advertisements, which used words like “groomer” and “fag.”

“The primary purpose of Rainbow Youth Project is to promote the health safety and well-being of LGBTQIA+ young people,” Michael Garrett, Communications Manager told the Blade. “Our nationwide mental health program is our core program that provides meaningful access to free, indefinite mental health counseling to LGBTQIA+ teens who otherwise would not have access to it.”

“Cyber bullying has just gone through the roof,” Garrett said. “We get hundreds of calls every day that say ‘I don’t even want to turn my phone on when I get home because now the hate follows me home. I block and they make a new account, I block, and then they make a new account. I report it and I get told that this is not a violation.’”

Sadly, Garrett said, the need for mental health crisis intervention has quickly become overwhelming.

“This past weekend we had 741 contacts to Rainbow Youth Project between Sunday morning at 8 AM and Monday morning at 8 AM. Those were all mental health needs.”

Finally, the family had to resort to leaving the state, uprooting themselves from Texas to California to save their son’s life.

“If they hadn’t moved,” said Garrett, “Tony was literally going to be a victim of his own taking.”

Christian Peacock, was another queer youth whose story went viral after RYP started working with him.

“Christian was on his front porch in his hometown in Utah hugging his boyfriend when a car was driving by and these teens started calling them all kinds of slurs. Those teens then came back and beat Christian up on his front porch. The family ran out and videotaped it. The New York Daily News reposted it, and the assailant was arrested and just a matter of 24 hours later.”

“After he was arrested, it was found that he was part of a Mormon sect. Many of that clan started posting things about Christian’s family online and calling him a liar, saying the assault didn’t happen like he said it did. This manifested into people tormenting him, very similar to the Vallejo’s, by pulling up in front of his family’s house with squealing tires,

When the group recalled these ads, explaining that they had only submitted them to test whether the platforms would accept them, the platform representatives responded claiming that they would not actually have allowed the ads to run, despite having already accepted payment for them in advance.

It is no secret that social media has become an open playing field for hate speech. So many perfectly innocuous posts get taken down for “violating” the platform’s cryptic guidelines, while others, like the ones created for the aforementioned social experiment, run rampant and unchecked by these sites.

With so many social media users frustrated at the confusing rules of what is and is not allowed to be posted, California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed AB 587, authored by Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel, into law. The new bill is designed to hold social media platforms more accountable by demanding transparency of their rules and how they intend to implement them.

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(Los Angeles Blade graphic)

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LGBTQ people finding hatred in social media

In a recent interview with The Blade, West Hollywood’s first ever queer, Iranian Mayor, Sepi Shyne, explained that social media platforms need to treat online hate speech as real threats that can lead to real violence.

“We also have to reconsider our laws about what is considered inciting violence,” Shyne said, “because those laws didn’t consider social media at the time. When those laws were created, they were about people saying things in person and then asking whether or not it is probable that violence will ensue from that interaction. But now we have people on social media saying horrible things that do lead to violence.”

In addition to violence, another serious threat are those who know how to walk the fine line between what is considered first amendment rights and that defined as illegal harassment. These people are aware of those types of laws mentioned by Shyne, and actively harass and traumatize LGBTQIA+ youth to a certain point but without straying into unlawful territory.

“There is a major box chain store known across the country for its inclusivity,” Garrett told The Blade. “It is known for having a specific section for pride, rainbow shirts, rainbow bracelets, things of this nature. In the last forty-three days we have had four reports of teen trans people who have been in this store shopping in that particular merchandise section who have been verbally attacked by adults. It is almost as if these people were stalking that section of the chain’s locations to harass people who were looking at those items.”

Garrett explained that these adults avoided being charged with hate crimes by never physically assaulting or touching their targets.

“I think these people know just how far to go without going too far which tells me that they are actually putting training into this. I’m not a cop. I could be wrong. But it’s almost just too coincidental that in all four of these instances, people never physically threatened or touched, or did anything actually illegal. They were just making comments and being disruptive and possibly stalking.”

Garrett also made the connection between these verbal attacks and a particular TikToker who made it his public mission to stake out the queer section of this chain with the intent of “hunting down LGBTQIA+ people.” These videos did get removed initially, but resurfaced at a time coinciding with documented four attacks.

One of these four victims is being featured in an article in the Advocate.

“The harassment was so severe that she attempted suicide after the interaction. Someone was following her around the store, saying that she was ‘one of those freaks who was trying to sleep with children,’ calling her a pedophile and a groomer. This was a 17-year-old child. This man followed her out of that store. Like I said, we have had four kids who have called, and one who actually attempt suicide as a result of that attack. The other three were in acute crisis and they had to be met by a psychologist immediately,”

Garrett said.

Sadly, there is only so much organizations like the Rainbow Youth Project can do for these victims.

“I am happy to say that while her situation was very serious and very dire, she is doing well but she is very isolated. Her parents do not allow her to leave home without one of them or another adult that they know so that whole family is really suffering from this entire 10 to 15 minute interaction. It is trauma,” he added.

As Republican state legislators continue to pass bills stripping LGBTQ+ rights into law in GOP-led states, many parents turn to Rainbow Youth Project for things like gender affirming care, which they cannot attain in their home states.

“The second program taking up a substantial amount of Rainbow Youth Project’s resources is the transgender non-surgical gender affirming healthcare assistance program. The program advises and assists young individuals who are underinsured or uninsured by setting them up with physician consultations and continuation of care. Like their mental health program, this assistance is nationwide, benefitting states like Oklahoma where gender affirming care is illegal. In October, the program was assisting twelve youths. Now the program assists 174 youths and has a waiting list of 223,” Garrett noted.

Despite all the help and advocacy they provide for targeted queer youth, RYP itself is not safe from virulent online hate speech and threats of violence.

“We have been called groomers and pedophiles,” said Garrett. “We had an accusation a few weeks ago that we were running a sex trafficking ring of children. We also have been accused of performing surgeries on children. These allegations are absolutely not true. We offer suicide prevention and mental health help. We do not perform surgeries on children, but Moms for Liberty and [the anti-LGBTQ+] Libs of TikTok attacked us, and said that we were indoctrinating children. People read that, and then they attacked us even though these are lies. They don’t take the time to research what we do or how we do it, but they attack us because they believe what they are seeing online.”

“Lance (RYP’s founder) does not take any bullshit. He served a ‘Cease and Desist‘ to the guy on his job hours after the tweet about sex trafficking posted. He also turned it over to the attorney general in the state of Minnesota where if you make an online statement that you cannot actually support, it is a crime. It’s a misdemeanor, and Lance actually told him in the letter, ‘I have reported you to the attorney general for the state of Minnesota and we will prosecute you.’ He removed the tweet immediately. We need to track these

people down and serve them with these notice of intent to file litigation against them .”

Eric Nathan, a private investigator specializing in cybercrime, told The Blade that in many cases it is almost impossible to track down most cyberbullies, unless they link their handles directly to their personal emails, which many know not to do.

“Last year we had so many bomb threats that we had over 24 pride events that we had planned in June for young people that we had to cancel,” said Garrett. “We had to cancel every single one of them because the threats were so strong and they were coming from Libs of TikTok and Moms for Liberty people. It was just too risky to expose children to that.”

The online hate not only threatens youthful victims and supportive organizations, but misinforms parents who then are too frightened to seek assistance for their LGBTQ+ children.

“As you might or might not know, 50% of LGBTQIA+ kids who seek mental health help cannot get it. 20% of those kids cannot get it because their parents will not consent. So when we are dealing with parents trying to get their consent for treatment, the biggest barrier is fear because of what they have read online,” said Garrett. We hear things like, ‘I read on Facebook that you’re going to transition my son. You’re not going to be happy that he’s gay you’re not going be happy that my daughters is a lesbian. You want everyone to be trans now. You’re going to teach my son that he is trans and not gay when you take him to counseling.’”

“But all of that false narrative is coming from the information that is on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok that they will not remove. It’s all lies, and it’s all misinformation, and they know that, but they will not remove it and that is exactly what happened with Tony Vallejo. Moms for Liberty started feeding his mom so much nonsense. They were sending pictures of mastectomies and telling her, ‘If you take your son going to counseling, they’re going to tell him he’s trans and they’re going to start doing surgeries on him.’ This woman was so convinced that if her son participated in mental health help, that they were going to put him in genital mutilation surgery.”

As in the cases of the children they help, hate against RYP often turns into physical actions.

“We have had to have all kinds of security measures since last year just going to these extremes to protect staff. Our staff has left the office and found zip ties on their car doors. Our staff has received death threats.”

“At one point, our founder was getting in his car in front of our office and a phone call came in that said, ‘you can tell him that I just saw him get into his black car with his black and gray duffel bag. He was on his phone.’ Then the law enforcement had to get involved and had to try to find out where the threats were coming from and it’s all from stuff that they are starting online.”

As in the cases of cyberbullying they deal with every day, social media platforms continue to be unhelpful in the face of hate says Garrett.

“We submitted all the tweets that were threatening us to Twitter, and they responded by suspending our founder and president’s accounts. Eventually we got them back, but that was the response. We had threatened Twitter with a lawsuit, and that was their response sort of telling us not to push it.”

CHRISTIAN PEACOCK sitting between sister JOCELYNN PEACOCK and boyfriend JACOB METCALF (Photo by Stefanie Peacock)

Vt. school banned from state events for anti-trans policies

A Christian school that chose to forfeit a girls’ basketball tournament game rather than play against a team with a transgender player has been banned from Vermont school sporting events, VTDigger reports.

The Vermont Principals’ Association, which oversees school athletics in the state, said the Mid Vermont Christian School in Quechee will no longer be eligible to participate in any sports or any other sponsored activities.

Members of the Vermont Principals’ Association executive committee decided at a meeting Monday “that policies have been violated at the school level and thus there is an immediate determination of ineligibility for Mid Vermont Christian in VPA sanctioned activities and tournaments going forward,” according to a statement posted online.

Specifically, the private religious school violated the orga-

nization’s anti-discrimination and gender identity policies, the organization told the school in its letter of ineligibility. Those policies allow athletes to play on teams that are “consistent with their gender identity” and prohibit discrimination “based on a student’s actual or perceived sex and gender.”

As the Los Angeles Blade reported, Mid Vermont Christian School head of school

Vicky Fogg issued a statement last month, defending their decision to forfeit.

“We believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players,” said Fogg. “Allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women’s sports in general.”

MVCS’s decision made headlines around the world, with opponents of transgender inclusion hailing the school for standing up for cisgender girls and women and LGBTQ rights advocates and allies labeling the school transphobic and bigoted.

Administrators at the school did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.

Biden admin honors Argentina’s LGBTQ rights envoy

The Biden-Harris administration on March 8 honored Argentina’s special envoy for LGBTQ and intersex rights with an International Women of Courage Award during a White House ceremony.

A State Department press release notes Alba Rueda is one of 11 “extraordinary women from around the world who are working to build a brighter future for all.” The Biden-Harris administration honored Rueda, along with Dr. Zakira Hekmat from Afghanistan, Danièle Darlan from the Central African Republic, Doris Ríos from Costa Rica, Meaza Mohammed from Ethiopia, Hadeel Abdel Aziz from Jordan, Bakhytzhan Toregozhina from Kazakhstan, Malaysian Sen. Datuk Ras Adiba Radzi, Mongolian Brigadier Gen. Bolor Ganbold, Bianka Zalewska from Poland, Yuliia Paievska from Ukraine. The “Women and Girl Protesters of Iran” received the Madeleine Albright Honorary Group Award.

“In Argentina, Alba Rueda is a transgender woman who was kicked out of classrooms, barred for sitting for exams,

refused job opportunities, subjected to violence and rejected by her family,” said Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks during the ceremony. “But in the face of these challenges, she worked to end violence and discrimination against the LGBTQI+ community in Argentina.”

First lady Jill Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are among those who also spoke at the ceremony.

“As you’ll hear, these women are reporting on Russian atrocities in Ukraine. They’re fighting for equal opportunities for women and girls in Mongolia. They’re defending democracy in the Central African Republic. They’re protecting indigenous land in Costa Rica. They’re advocating for the rights of refugees, people with disabilities, the LGBTQI+ community,” said Blinken.

Rueda was a well-known activist before Argentina’s government last May named her the country’s first Special Representative on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

Miami Hyatt liquor license may be revoked over a drag show

The DeSantis administration is in the process of revoking the Hyatt Regency Miami’s alcohol license after the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation determined that the hotel’s affiliated James L. Knight Center had hosted “A Drag Queen Christmas” performed Dec. 27 with minors present in the audience.

The Knight Center is a major South Florida venue and has previously hosted the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants. The venue’s main room can seat 4,600 people. This is the third time the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, which operates under the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, has targeted a business that hosted a drag show.

A popular restaurant and pub in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood is also under threat of losing its liquor license. The R House identifies itself on its Facebook page as “the proud home of South Florida’s most popular weekend drag brunches.”

The July 2022 complaint filed by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation asks for a final order that the R House restaurant is a declared a public nuisance and has its liquor license revoked.

According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the complaint was issued after a video of a recent performance at the bar’s drag brunch went viral. A topless drag queen wearing lingerie stuffed with money can be seen in the video attempting to dance with a young girl, who the DPBR estimates is “between three and five years old.” Twitter account “Libs of Tik Tok” originally found the footage on Tik Tok, posted by a user who wrote, “Children belong at drag shows!!!! Children deserve to see fun & expression & freedom.”

In late December “A Drag Queen Christmas” was hosted by the Orlando non-profit Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation on Dec. 28, filing a complaint alleging that children under age 18 were allowed to attend.

The complaint against the Orlando Philharmonic alleged the foundation violated Florida law in allowing for a person to “commit lewd or lascivious exhibition” in the presence of an individual who is less than 16 years old.

In this latest targeting of the show, which is a holiday-themed drag show that tours in 36 different cities and features stars from the reality show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Insider webzine journalist Kimberly Leonard reported that the DeSantis administration officials accused the Knight Center of several violations, including a prohibition of “lascivious exhibition” before people younger than 16, mirroring the December complaint against the Orlando Philharmonic.

Hyatt Regency Miami is allowed to keep selling alcohol until the department makes a final decision. The business has 21 days to request a hearing, Beth Pannell, spokeswoman for the department, told Insider.

BRODY LEVESQUE

DAWN ENNIS

Mid Vermont Christian School (Facebook photo)

ALBA RUEDA, center, is Argentina’s special envoy for LGBTQ and intersex rights. (Photo courtesy of Alba Rueda)

Pence targets Buttigieg with homophobic joke

Former Vice President Mike Pence made homophobic remarks about U.S.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, D.C. Saturday night, a source familiar with the matter told the Washington Blade.

Per tradition, headliners from both parties deliver remarks meant to be humorous during the dinner. Pence represented the Republicans while New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy represented the Democrats and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken represented the Biden administration.

During his speech at the 138th annual event, Pence

said Buttigieg “took maternity leave” following the birth of his and husband Chasten’s twins in 2021, adding that the country subsequently “got postpartum depression,” referencing the ongoing issues over problems with U.S. airlines and massive delays and cancellations that has plagued air travel.

According to the source, Pence also claimed his pronouns were “thou” and “thine.”

In a piece ahead of the event Politico reported: “Pence’s closest advisers hope that he will use the appearance as an opportunity to deploy a trait he has for the most part kept under wraps over the past half dozen years: his humor.”

The Associated Press Chief White House Correspondent, Zeke Miller, reported that the remarks referencing the Transportation Secretary were not well received in the room.

Many of Pence’s prepared remarks were targeting former President Donald Trump, whose “reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day” during the Jan. 6 insurrection, Pence said.

Pence is widely expected to challenge his former boss for the Republican nomination in the 2024 Presidential Elec-

tion race.

A journalistic organization, the Gridiron Club inducts members by invitation only, and it has historically been restricted to only Washington newspaper bureau chiefs. By tradition, headliners from both parties deliver remarks meant to be humorous during the dinner.

Pence’s homophobic and misogynistic comments about Secretary Buttigieg mirrored those made by far-right Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has on numerous broadcasts in the past two months suggested Buttigieg took paternity leave “to figure out how to breastfeed.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement Monday condemning the remarks.

“The former vice president’s homophobic joke about Secretary Buttigieg was offensive and inappropriate, all the more so because he treated women suffering from postpartum depression as a punchline,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement she shared with the Washington Blade.“He should apologize to women and LGBTQ people, who are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect,” Jean-Pierre said.

CHRISTOPHER KANE

Mich. man arrested for threats against LGBTQ community, Biden

A Michigan man was arrested and charged in a criminal complaint with illegally possessing firearms after having been committed to a mental institution and while being an unlawful user of a controlled substance.

The man came to the attention of the FBI after he made numerous threats over YouTube to kill FBI agents, members of the LGBTQ community, President Joe Biden, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The arrest was announced U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison. who joined in the announcement by James A. Tarasca, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office.

According to the criminal complaint, Randall Robert Berka II, 30, of Sebewaing, Mich., was illegally in possession of four firearms, three long guns and a pistol, after he had been committed to a mental institution and while he was a daily user of marijuana. Berka also was in possession of ammunition and body armor.

The firearms were previously purchased for Berka by a relative who now feared that his mental health treatment was not working and was scared of Berka. The relative cooperated with FBI agents in securing the complaint.

The Detroit Free-Press reported: “The case involves a

30-year-old Sebawaing resident named Randall Robert Berka II, whose mother bought him three long guns and a pistol over the last year despite his history of mental illness. He was involuntarily committed for mental health treatment in 2012 and declared legally incapacitated by the state of Michigan, which prohibited him from owning a gun, according to the criminal complaint.

The mother, however, eventually feared her son’s mental health treatment was not working and grew scared of him — so much so that she cooperated with the FBI in securing criminal charges against her son this week, authorities said.”

The complaint further provides that Berka came to the attention of the FBI after Google reported to the agency that Berka was posting various threats on YouTube. Among other statements, Berka posted the following: “I’m going to kill these Democrats. Biden deserves to die,” “I’m gonna kill LGBT freaks,” “You could be like me and get guns and threaten to kill politicians. I’m more than willing to kill Whitmer and I do live in Michigan,” “I’ll assault her … with my bullets” and “I buy guns though and plot to kill people.”

The FBI arrested Berka at his residence March 9. He will make his initial appearance in U.S. District Court today in Bay City, Mich. The U.S. Attorney’s Office will be asking the court to hold Berka in pretrial detention because of his danger to the community and the risk that he will flee.

“We will take immediate action when we learn of individuals illegally possessing firearms and threatening to harm or kill others,” said Ison. “I applaud Google’s vigilance in this matter, and we hope members of the community will, likewise, pay attention and report such conduct to law enforcement.”

“This defendant’s actions were very alarming,” said Tarasca. “When free speech crosses a line and becomes a threat of violence against another — aggravated by the illegal possession of firearms — the full investigative resources of the FBI will be brought to bear. As always, we encourage the public to be vigilant and report concerning behavior to the FBI and local law enforcement.”

Berka faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. The case is being investigated by FBI special agents and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Vance.

BRODY LEVESQUE

Pocan, Equality Caucus criticize trans sports ban bill

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and the Congressional Equality Caucus held a press conference last week at the U.S. Capitol to rally opposition to House Republicans’ proposed legislation that would prohibit transgender women and girls from participating in sports.

The bill was slated for markup by the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee later Wednesday.

“I’m assuming by the time it gets to the floor, we have talked to many members of Congress, especially on the Democratic

side, we’re gonna fight hard on this,” Pocan said in response to a question from the Blade.

“I have no idea where some of the extreme politicians may try to take this, but the bottom line is they promised us they’re going to lower the costs for the American people they promised us smaller, less intrusive government, and now they’re being the biggest of big brother that can possibly be by trying to determine which kids can play in sports,” Pocan said.

Joining Pocan and the caucus at the press conference were

Shiwali Patel, director of justice for student survivors and senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, Rebekah Bruesehoff, a trans student athlete, and Jamie Bruesehoff, her mother.

“Today, Republicans are showing their real priorities, political priorities, by considering a trans and intersex sports ban as the opening salvo in their efforts to undermine the rights of LGBTQI+ people,” Pocan said during his prepared remarks.

CHRISTOPHER KANE

Former Vice President MIKE PENCE (Official White House photo by Myles Cullen)

Ambassador to Kenya: Countries must make ‘own decisions’ about LGBTQ rights

U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman earlier this month said every country “has to make their own decisions about” LGBTQ and intersex rights.

“Every country has to make their own decisions about LGBTQ rights,” she said on March 3 while speaking to reporters in Kenya’s Kajiado County. “In the United States we probably have a different position, which is we view LGBTQ rights as human rights, but we respect every country’s point of view on what position they want to take on this and we will respect that, but of course our democratic values and the way we feel is different and that’s okay.”

“Countries have differences,” added Whitman. “We have a very strong working relationship over many years and I think the Kenyan government probably knows the U.S. perspective, in fact I know they do, but we also respect Kenya’s right over this particular issue.”

Kenya is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized.

The Kenyan Supreme Court on Feb. 24 ruled the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, an LGBTQ and intersex rights group, must be allowed to register as a non-governmental organization. The country’s groundbreaking intersex rights law took effect last July.\

President William Ruto last September told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour before he took office that LGBTQ and intersex

rights are “not a big issue” in his country. His government last month began to crack down on foreign books with gay content that it feels targets teenagers.

President Joe Biden in 2021 signed a memo that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad as part of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.

First lady Jill Biden on Feb. 25 spoke with young people about condoms, contraception and safer sex practices during her visit to the Shujaaz Konnect Festival in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. Whitman on March 3 told reporters the $123,124,278.40 (16 billion Kenyan shillings) in aid the U.S. has given to Kenya for food and drought relief is not connected to the country’s LGBTQ and intersex rights policies.

“I want to underscore there is absolutely no linkage at all between that food and drought relief and Kenya’s stance on LGBTQ,” said Whitman.

A State Department spokesperson on Monday in a statement to the Washington Blade said “our position on the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons is clear. Human rights are universal.”

“A person’s ability to exercise their rights should never be limited based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics,” said the spokesperson. “Governments should protect and promote respect for human rights for each and every human being, without discrimination, and they should abide by their human rights obligations and com-

mitments.”

Whitman on Monday in a tweet reiterated this point. She also said she met with LGBTQ and intersex activists.

“Over the past week my team and I met with the LGBTQI+ community and stakeholders to support human rights of LGBTQI+ persons,” tweeted Whitman. “The U.S. proudly advances efforts to protect LGBTQI+ persons from discrimination and violence and will continue to stand up for human rights and equality.”

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

Namibian Supreme Court hears three LGBTQ rights cases

The Supreme Court of Namibia will soon issue rulings in three pivotal cases involving LGBTQ and intersex people that will set a precedent for the recognition of same-sex marriages and spousal immigration rights for non-Namibian partners.

Furthermore, a case is soon to be heard in the country’s high court that will challenge the southern African nation’s antiquated sodomy law.

These cases have incited public debate around LGBTQ and intersex rights in a country where homosexuality is a controversial and polarizing subject.

This is the first time since 2001 that Namibia’s highest court will hear cases regarding same-sex relationships. It is also the first time the high court will hear arguments regarding the sodomy law.

The first hearing, which took place on March 3, was the joint cases of Digashu and Seiler-Lilles versus the government.

The applicants — both foreign nationals married to Namibian citizens — in both cases are seeking recognition of their marriages concluded outside Namibia in order to access spousal immigration rights such as permanent residence and employment authorization.

The second hearing, which took place on March 6, was in the case of a Namibian man married to a Mexican man seeking citizenship by descent for their children born via surrogate. The government has demanded DNA testing to prove that the Namibian national is the biological father to the children.

In the last case, a gay Namibian man is not only challenging the constitutionality of the country’s sodomy law but also the prohibition of “unnatural sexual offenses.”

While the cases represent a crucial moment for the country’s LGBTQ and intersex community and their rights, individual people and families fighting a fight bigger than they had foreseen are at the center of these cases.

South African citizen Daniel Digashu married Namibian national Johann Potgieter in South Africa in 2015. The couple and their son moved to Namibia in 2017.

While the move was favorable for the family, the law around same-sex marriage was not.

Digashu’s first encounter with the Home Affairs and Immigration Ministry was not to have them officially recognize his marriage. He was applying for a permit allowing him to work in the country in the company that he jointly started with his husband.

“We’ve always had a dream to live on a farm and run this tourism company. We registered the company first, about six months before we officially moved,” Digashu said.

He said the ministry advised him against applying for permanent residency because the country does not recognize his marriage. Officials instead told him to seek a work permit.

Despite assurances from the ministry’s personnel, the application was denied. Digashu filed an appeal, and that was denied too.

From this moment to today, Digashu has lived a life in limbo.

Due to the ongoing court cases, he is able to renew his visitor’s visa every few months. This, he said, comes with exhausting administrative costs that legal fees exacerbate.

Digashu said the process has put psychological, emotional and financial strain on his family.

“Prior to finding funding it had been quite difficult financially. It is not something that a lot of people would afford. I don’t think we even could afford it. That’s why we sought out and looked for funding and luckily we found that,” he said.

As they await the judgment of their hearing, everything remains the same for Digashu and his family: His husband remains the sole breadwinner as Digashu himself still cannot work.

Namibian citizen Anette Seiler and her German wife Anita Seiler-Lilles face the same dilemma.

Neither expected to become cornerstones of the advocacy around marriage equality and LGBTQ and intersex rights in Namibia.

“We didn’t plan to come to Namibia in the early 2000s,” said Seiler. “We thought we might want to come back when Anita didn’t have to work anymore, and that would be many years later. So, we didn’t think so much in terms of gay rights in Namibia at that time.”

“It was a very personal thing for us to get married. We were not active in Namibia or Germany in the gay community,” she added.

Both couples have received copious amounts of support from the local LGBTQ and intersex community and civil society as they fight to be afforded the same spousal rights that would be granted to opposite-sex couples.

As Namibia grapples with the recognition of same-sex marriages, the right to family and protections of them is another matter that has come under scrutiny.

Namibian citizen Phillip Lühl and his husband, Mexican national Guillermo Delgado, are fighting for their children born via surrogacy to be granted Namibian citizenship by descent.

Delgado and Lühl say they are fighting for their children’s birthright.

While both fathers are listed on the children’s South African birth certificates, the Namibian government has demanded DNA proof that Lühl is the biological parent of the children.

“The fact is that any other South African birth certificate is accepted but in our case it’s not because we’re of the same sex. In the case of a heterosexual couple, nobody will ever ask for any proof or dispute the validity of the document, but in our case it is,” Lühl said.

ARLANA SHIKONGO

U.S. Ambassador to Kenya MEG WHITMAN (Screen capture via Citizen Kenya TV/YouTube)

When I was growing up, people like me, who were disabled, were usually met with scorn, pity and exclusion.

On March 4, Judith (Judy) Heumann, a founder of the disability rights movement, died at 75 in Washington, D.C.

For decades, Heumann, who contracted polio when she was 18 months old, was a leader of a civil rights movement that changed the lives of millions of folks like me.

Judy (so many of us, whether we knew or not, connected with her on a first-name basis), was known as the “mother” of the disability rights movement. She was the Harvey Milk of our struggle.

You might think: why should LGBTQ people care about the passing of a disability rights leader?

Here’s why: Nearly, 20 percent of people in this country have a disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This includes LGBTQ+ people. An estimated three to five million people are queer and disabled.

Studies, including a study by the Map Advancement Project, reveal that queer people are more likely than non-queer people to become disabled. We face the double-whammy of anti-queer and disability-based discrimination. The MAP study reported that of the more than 26,000 transgender people surveyed, 39 percent reported having a disability.

If you’re queer and have a disability (blindness, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, psychiatric disorder, etc.), you’ve likely run up against employers who don’t want to hire you or restaurants who don’t care to serve you. If you’re a queer parent of a disabled child, you’ve probably had to fight to get your kid the education they need.

These battles are hard. But, thanks to Heumann and the movement she led, there are ways — from the Americans with Disabilities Act to working the media — to fight this injustice.

Heumann, who at 29 led a month-long protest that was the Stonewall of the disability rights movement, and in her 70s was the star of the fab, Oscar-nominated documentary “Crip Camp,” was a powerhouse of energy, discipline, hard work and humor. She was a quintessential bad ass who worked for justice 24/7, and kicked your butt if you didn’t.

“Kathi, get your self together!” commanded the voice over the phone, “or you won’t get anything done.”

It was 1987, and I was writing my first news story. I was interviewing Heumann about an historic protest that she’d led a decade earlier. It was the 10th anniversary of what is believed to be the longest non-violent sit-in a federal building.

In April 1977, more than 100 disabled people took over the (then) Health, Education and Welfare building in San Francisco. President Richard Nixon had signed the Rehabilitation Act into law in 1973. But, regulations, known as “504,” a section of the Act that prohibited discrimination against disabled people by institutions (schools, hospitals,

etc.) receiving federal funding, hadn’t been signed. After protesting in the San Francisco building for a month and in Washington, D.C. (including at then President Jimmy Carter’s church), the “504” regulations were signed.

Heumann, who was an official in the Clinton administration and a special adviser in the Obama State Department, was tough, kind, and proud of herself and the movement that she founded.

For Heumann, who is survived by her husband and brothers, disability was a normal part of life, not a tragedy.

“I never wished I didn’t have a disability,” Heumann wrote in her memoirs “Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist.”

When Heumann was a child, disabled children were often institutionalized. Like being queer, being disabled wasn’t considered to be normal then.

Doctors advised Heumann’s parents to send Judy to an institution when she was a child. But her parents, who were Jewish and had fled Nazi Germany, refused. This experience turned her mother and father against institutionalizing her, Heumann wrote in her memoir.

“If I’d been born just 10 years earlier and become disabled in Germany, it is almost certain the German doctor would also have advised that I be institutionalized,” Heumann wrote, “The difference is that instead of growing up being fed by nurses in a small room with white walls and a roommate, I would have been taken to a special clinic, and at that special clinic, I would have been killed.”

Just as it is if you’re queer, if you’re disabled, if you want to respect yourself, you need to be out and proud.

Judy more than anyone I’ve ever known, helped so many of us with disabilities to be out and proud. She taught us that being disabled isn’t something to be ashamed of. That it’s an important aspect of who we are.

Her disability, Judy often said, is, “Like the color of my eyes or the color of my hair, it is a part of who I am.”

I knew Judy only from interviewing her over the years and being on an episode of her podcast “The Heumann Perspective.” But Judy, whether you’d known for decades or just a few months, made you feel like you were a friend. She’d advise you, cheer you on and challenge you over the phone, in texts and on Zoom.

She almost got me, a non-make-up wearing lesbian, to wear lipstick (so I wouldn’t look like a ghost on her podcast). Earlier this winter, Judy wondered why I didn’t put my disability on my resume. Being nervous could be good, she said, when I was scared of reading at a poetry festival.

“If you don’t respect yourself and if you don’t demand what you believe in for yourself, you’re not going to get it,” Judy said.

Thank you, Judy for teaching us to respect ourselves and to demand our rights! R.I.P., Judy!

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Judy Heumann helped so many of us with disabilities to be out and proud

‘Like the color of my eyes or the color of my hair, it is a part of who I am’

Kathi Wolfe

a writer and a poet, is a regular contributor to the Blade.

My 60th high school reunion in Florida – say ‘GAY!’ Even

MAGA classmates joined the cheer

I had a very special and wonderful experience at my high school 60th reunion I recently attended on Jan. 28 in Deerfi eld Beach, Fla. Although I graduated from Great Neck North Senior High School, located in Great Neck, Long Island, N.Y., the reunion event was held in Deerfi eld Beach, Fla. You may ask: Why did we have our reunion in Florida if our high school was in Great Neck, N.Y.? Like many New York-Long Island Jews, most of the folks in my high school class moved to Florida. Whatever our political beliefs, it’s the weather.

Initially, I was not going to attend the reunion because I was boycotting Florida. I opposed Florida’s horrible homophobic Gov. Ron DeSantis and the homophobic legislation enacted in Florida — especially the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. But I realized that this is our 60th class reunion. We are in our late 70s. Will I ever see these guys again? Will I be around to attend? I relented and decided to go.

It was a wonderful experience. I hardly recognized most of my alumni. We look quite a bit diff erent than what we looked like 60 years ago in 1962. We all enjoyed getting together. We shared stories about where we worked, who we married (or in my case, my domestic partner), where we live, and more.

After a pre-cocktail party and dinner, the coordinators of the event passed around

the microphone, asking for recollections and comments from our classmates. At fi rst, I passed up on the microphone. (What, me shy?) However, after a few comments from my fellow classmates, I grabbed the microphone.

I explained to my classmates that I initially refused to attend the 60th reunion because of DeSantis and Florida’s homophobic laws. My fellow classmates listened intently to the reasons I thought about skipping the reunion. Even though a few of my classmates are MAGA/Trumpers, they listened.

I introduced my classmates to Tom, my partner of 18 years. (I think they liked him more than me.) At that point, I asked my classmates to please support me and the rights of LGBTQ people by shouting out the forbidden words in Florida: “G-A-Y.” I said I would count to three, and asked them to say “GAY” on the count of three.

One, two, three: GAY! GAY! And they said it two times.

After I reluctantly gave up the mic, many of my fellow classmates came up to me afterwards and said: “We love you. We support you.” It was one of the best moments I will ever remember in my life.

And, yes, I intend to attend the 70th reunion – I hope with Tom. Let’s hope that Florida will have a new governor by then and the “Don’t Say Gay Law” will be repealed.

Oscars so safe Fraser wins for playing gay in ‘Whale,’ but night belonged to ‘Everything’

By JOHN PAUL KING

It must be said that the 95th Annual Academy Awards were doomed to be a letdown before they ever started. After all, last year’s ceremony included a physical assault on a presenter by an A-lister – who then proceeded to win the Best Actor award! Even by rewarding an indie underdog for becoming a populist hit by giving it a record-setting sweep of the major categories, how could this year’s Oscar broadcast hope to top that?

Snarky digs aside, the Academy had already squandered a lot of its good will by announcing a slate of nominees that seemed a step backward in its recent efforts toward diversity. While 2022’s honors included overdue recognition for Asian American talent, the notable shortage of people of color or LGBTQ individuals among the nominees had already led many observers to write off this year’s Oscars as just another backsliding return to the all-too-familiar status quo; and when the broadcast itself finally happened, the Jimmy Kimmel-led ceremony played it so safe that the proceedings seemed dull even in comparison to other Oscar shows – and as anyone who’s ever watched one will certainly attest, that’s saying a lot. It’s almost as if, after a few years of pushing the boundaries, controversy, and conservative backlash over a perceived capitulation to “woke” sensibilities had pressured the Academy into a return to business as usual.

In fairness, that assessment feels a little unreasonable, considering that “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – a movie in which the survival of multiple universes hinges in no small part on a mother’s acknowledgment and acceptance of her child’s queer sexuality – had enough critical and popular momentum going into the ceremony to make its claiming of the top prize all but inevitable. The popular surprise indie sci-fi hit claimed that prize and more – including Best Actress for cinema icon Michelle Yeoh and supporting honors for co-stars Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as wins in the Direction and Original Screenplay categories for filmmakers Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan – to take home an impressive seven of the 11 awards for which it was nominated; child-actress-turned-celebrated-filmmaker Sarah Polley, while shut out of the Best Director category for “Women Talking” in favor of an all-male roster of nominees, took the prize for Best Adapted Screenplay nevertheless; Best Actor winner Brendan Fraser, while himself not gay, earned his victory for a deeply humanizing portrayal of a gay man and is a very public survivor of alleged same-gender sexual harassment in the workplace – a reminder that #MeToo is not just a “women’s issue” but a cause encompassing even those in positions most seemingly insulated from such abuses.

All these winning films – as well as numerous others among their fellow winners and nominees –are queer-inclusive, if not directly queer-focused. Though other queer nominees – like Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s “Close” for Best International Feature and Laura Poitras’ Nan Goldin profile “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” for Best Documentary Feature – failed to take their respective categories, the overall queer presence represented in this year’s nominated films is too widespread and deeply integrated to be ignored.

Still, in today’s very divided cultural atmosphere, such equivocating overtures toward a more equitable Oscar playing field can undeniably feel like hollow, insincere tokens, convenient to bestow on their non-LGBTQ recipients thanks to the more universal appeal of the movies that earned them a place at

the table; and while the wins for Yeoh and nostalgic Gen X fan favorite Quan represented historic firsts for Asian American inclusion, nominations for Viola Davis in “The Woman King” and “Till” star Danielle Deadwyler as Best Actress, or for Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union of “The Inspection” as Best Actor and Supporting Actress, respectively, would have gone a lot further toward proving the Academy’s commitment to true diversity than its loading of the stage with an ostentatiously multi-ethnic roster of presenters – an overcompensation tactic that becomes increasingly obvious every time they deploy it. As for the ceremony itself, there were some highlights, such as Lady Gaga, with a face freshly scrubbed of her red carpet makeup, passionately delivering a performance of nominated song “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick,” or fellow pop diva Rihanna’s rendition of “Lift Me Up” from “Wakanda Forever” – not to mention the wildly entertaining production number staged to the eventual Best Song winner, “Naatu Naatu” from the Indian blockbuster “RRR.” So, too, were there memorable moments from among the presentations, like the infectious wave of authentic joy that met Quan’s and Curtis’ early wins or Fraser’s genuinely choked-up, self-effacing acceptance speech, as well as a few polite-but-pointed barbs and zingers aimed at various low-hanging political targets – and, of course, at Will Smith – along the way. Even so, the atmosphere of the evening was decidedly contained, marked by a frankly uncharacteristic effort from Hollywood’s elite to remain on their best behavior and avoid ruffling too many feathers – and while that may have made for an evening relatively free of controversy, it also resulted in an Academy Awards show arguably far less entertaining than some of the notoriously embarrassing debacles they’ve produced in past years.

With all that in mind, it’s easy to see Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony as just another validation for people who loathe the Oscars. Yet while the Academy might seem to be some monolithic organization handing out decrees, its awards are bestowed by a voting body made up of individual film professionals, each with their own opinions about who the winners should be, and many of whom likely feel no obligation toward following whatever cultural or political agendas the organization itself may be hoping to advance. That means that whatever good intentions it proclaims itself to have, the Academy will always be little more than a barometer – and, perhaps, a convenient scapegoat – for an industry that perpetually drags its feet. After all, can we really blame the Academy for failing to recognize queer-centric and queer-friendly content – or con-

tent centered on any demographic that isn’t white, male, and heterosexual – when there is still so little of it to choose from among the award-worthy movies the mainstream continues to offer us?

There’s no right answer to that question, perhaps, only food for thought as we continue to press Hollywood to do better; that’s the only way we’ll ever see wider inclusion on the big screen. In the meantime, it’s important to remember that deciding the “best” of anything is always an entirely subjective exercise, which means that the Oscars are ultimately less about gauging quality than they are about measuring cultural attitudes toward the content – and the way that content is presented – that the movie industry produces. That makes awards like the Oscars an invaluable tool, perhaps, but does that mean it’s worth putting up with all the shallow, facile, tribalistic conversation that inevitably happens around them?

In a year like this one, when the Academy honors films that uplift and celebrate outsiders, underdogs, and ordinary people, that emphasize kindness and compassion, that allow for resolution and redemption without destructive conflict or violence, then it feels like the answer is yes.

The complete list of winners is below:

Best Picture: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”

Best Director: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert,“Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Actress in a Supporting Role: Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Actor in a Supporting Role: Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best Animated Feature Film: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”

Best Original Song: M.M. Keeravani and Chandrabose,“Naatu Naatu,” “RRR”

Best Original Screenplay: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert,“Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best Adapted Screenplay: Sarah Polley, “Women Talking”

Best International Feature Film: “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Best Documentary Feature Film: “Navalny”

Best Cinematography: James Friend, “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Best Visual Effects: “Avatar: The Way of Water”

Best Costume Design: Ruth E. Carter, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Adrian Morot, Judy Chin, and Annemarie Bradley, “The Whale”

Best Production Design: Christian M, Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper,“All Quiet on the Western Front”

Best Film Editing: Paul Rogers, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best Original Score: Volker Bertelmann,“All Quiet on the Western Front”

Best Live Action Short: “An Irish Goodbye”

Best Animated Short: “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse”

Best Documentary Short: “The Elephant Whisperers”

Best Sound: “Top Gun: Maverick”

Oscar winners celebrate on Sunday night.

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BOOKS

A timely biography of drag queen Doris Fish

An eye-opener to queer life in Sydney and San Francisco

By KATHI WOLFE

Kiss of the Spider Woman

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY Allan Baker

DIRECTED BY Michael Michetti

March 26–April 23

Tennessee, home of Dollywood, just passed legislation banning “adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors.”

“If I hadn’t been a girl, I’d have been a drag queen,” Dolly Parton has said. (Make of that what you will, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.)

Nothing is more timely than cultural critic and writer Craig Seligman’s new work of queer history “Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag.”

One day in the 1980s, Doris Fish, a San Francisco drag queen, sat for a shoot in a beauty salon. Sitting under a dryer, “curlers in his yellow fright wig, wearing a fuchsia top, turquoise pedal pushers, white peep-toe pumps and (too much) matching makeup, wide-eyed in what looks like despair,” Fish modeled for West Graphics, a local greeting card company, Seligman writes.

‘Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag’

By Craig Seligman c.2023, PublicAffairs

$29 | 352 pages

These greeting cards featured queer humor. “BOTH YOUR DOCTOR & HAIRDRESSER AGREE! THIS TIME IT’S GOING TO TAKE MORE THAN A COMB-OUT,” the caption to the card with Fish’s stunning beauty parlor photo, read.

Then, most gay people weren’t proud or irritated by these greeting cards, reports Seligman in his captivating history of drag told through the life of Fish, who was legendary in San Francisco from the 1970s until he died from AIDS in 1991.

The greeting cards were just funny to queer people at that moment, Seligman writes, “which was how the rest of the country saw them, too.”

“Yet it’s hard to envision their taking off the way they did a decade earlier,” he adds, “The very people who might once have been appalled to learn they had a queer family member were snapping up these artifacts of gay humor.”

This is one of the many insights into cultural changes in attitudes toward queer people and drag to be found in Seligman’s illuminating bio of Fish.

Fish was born into a middle-class, Catholic family in 1952 as Philip Clargo Mills in Manly Vale, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. (Even the most ironic novelist wouldn’t have come up with that name!)

Doris considered himself to be what we, today, would call cisgender, Seligman reports.

Fish’s Australian friends and family referred to Fish as “he” and “him,” Seligman writes. When Fish’s queer male friends called him “she,” it was “Mary camp banter,” not “gender confusion,” he adds. For these reasons, Seligman refers to Fish with masculine pronouns.

After a childhood spent quietly drawing, Fish became a star of the Sydney drag queen scene. He performed with, what Seligman calls a “psyche troupe” of drag queens, Sylvia and the Synthetics.

After moving to San Francisco in the 1970s, Fish performed in the beloved drag shows “Sluts a Go-Go” and “Nightclub of the Living Dead” as well as the outrageous sci-fi drag film “Vegas in Space.”

Fish, Seligman makes clear, was complex, talented, and creative. Along with being a drag queen, he was a sex worker and artist. Fish was disciplined in all these areas of his life, Seligman writes.

“All three of those personas centered on his gayness,” Seligman adds, “at a time when homosexuality was just beginning to make its way toward the center of the conversation in both of the countries [Australia and the U.S.] he called home.”

Fish’s life and work were entwined with queer history – from Club 181 to Anita Bryant’s vicious anti-queer “Save Our Children Campaign” to the heroic role that Dianne Feinstein (as mayor of San Francisco) played during the AIDS crisis. Many queer histories, especially of the AIDS crisis, focus on New York. Seligman’s work is an eye-opener to queer life in Sydney and San Francisco.

Seligman’s husband, Silvana Nova, was part of “Vegas in Space.” A hat tip to Seligman for working his spouse seamlessly into this thoughtful history.

Drag shows aren’t just entertainment. They accomplish “satire’s deepest dream: not just to rail against society, but to change it,” Seligman writes.

If only Gov. Bill Lee and his ilk could be changed by “Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag.”

Manuel Puig’s

All charged up: Ford Mustang Mach-E, Mercedes EQB

Move over, Tesla!

By JOE PHILLIPS

Move over, Tesla! Elon Musk may have delivered a record number of electric vehicles last year, but rivals are certainly nipping at his heels. Robust demand for the all-electric Mustang Mach-E, for example, has helped make Ford the second-best EV producer in the U.S. And global EV sales for Mercedes more than doubled in 2022, thanks in part to the automaker’s all-electric crossover: the EQB. Motorheads like me are all charged about such electrifying rides, and for good reason.

FORD MUSTANG MACH-E

$46,000

Battery range: 270-312 miles

0 to 60 mph: 5.1 seconds

One side note: With so much emphasis on EVs today, it’s easy to forget how much of a gamble it was for Ford to create the Mach-E. After all, this was not the automaker’s first electric-car rodeo. Henry Ford built a prototype for a low-cost battery-powered vehicle in 1913, then opted for the internal combustion engine. Other experimental EVs came and went, including the quirky 1966 Ford Comuta minicar and an all-electric 1998 Ford Ranger pickup, which lasted only four years.

Lucky for Ford, it looks like the Mustang Mach-E is a keeper.

(For more on the Ford Mustang Mach-E, read “One Lean, Mean Green Machine.”)

MERCEDES EQB

$54,000

Battery range: 205-243 miles

0 to 60 mph: 5.6 seconds

OK, fine, Ford sold fewer than 62,000 EVs in the U.S. last year compared with over 522,000 cars sold by Tesla. Yet while Tesla sales were up 40%, Ford EV sales skyrocketed a whopping 126%. Yes, Tesla sold an impressive 1.3 million-plus vehicles worldwide in 2022, but Ford expects to sell 2 million EVs by 2026. The Mustang Mach-E—first introduced as a 2021 model—shows you one way Ford expects to get there.

For 2023, Ford knew better than to mess with the winning design of the Mach-E, which is at once futuristic and timeless. My fave styling cue is the clever use of flush-mounted buttons on the outside door frames instead of clunky conventional door handles.

Inside, with the battery placed under the floor, there’s oodles of room for passengers and cargo—including 60 cubic feet of stowage with the rear seats folded. Beneath the center console, there’s enough space for a handbag or small computer case.

The wide dashboard has a built-in soundbar, as well as large vertical touchscreen for the infotainment system. An active-safety system—with forward-collision alert, emergency braking, evasive steering and such—is now standard across the lineup.

This year the battery range can reach up to 312 miles, which outpaces much of the competition—including the Hyundai Ioniq, Volkswagen ID.4 and Volvo C40 Recharge. Another plus: Mach-E sticker prices have been reduced between $400 and $5,700, depending on trim level. Pricing also has been slashed for the extended-range battery, from $8,600 to $7,000.

Sure, there’s still a big difference between the $46,000 base model and $65,000 hightest GT. But trust me, the thrill of that GT is hard to resist. Stomp on the accelerator, enjoy the excitement as your body is thrust back against the driver’s seat, and be prepared to achieve warp speed. Rocketing from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.5 seconds took my breath away— literally. Many auto aficionados were skeptical when Ford first gave this EV the seemingly bait-and-switch moniker of a “Mustang,” but the GT version of the Mach-E comes closest to feeling like a true pony car.

My, how time changes things. As recently as 2020, Mercedes said that its diesel-powered cars were here to stay. But within a year, Mercedes announced it would go all-electric by 2030.

Enter the Mercedes EQS. This flagship sedan debuted last spring in the U.S. and was followed by the seven-passenger EQS SUV. Both EVs are exquisite, oozing luxury and overflowing with techno gadgetry. But—ouch!—pricing for these beauties starts at $105,000 and tops out at close to $170,000.

Fortunately, for those of us on a plebian budget, there’s the new Mercedes EQB. At half the price of its larger EQS siblings, the all-electric EQB is built on the same platform as the gas-powered GLB compact crossover. And except for minor styling tweaks and a bit quicker acceleration, the EQB looks and handles like the GLB. That’s a good thing for anyone needing some reassurance when making the leap to their first EV.

Despite the low price on a base-model EQB, standard features include power liftgate, dual-zone climate control, automated parking, ambient interior lighting and other niceties. There’s also the MBUX infotainment system, which comes with 10.25-inch touchscreen, voice-recognition technology, smartphone integration and a navigation system.

While the EQB does seat seven, third-row legroom is extremely tight. Best to leave those seats folded flat, unless carting around kids—and only for short distances.

Comparing the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Mercedes EQB is easy: Both have similar pricing and amenities. The Mach-E is certainly faster and has more of a space-age ambiance, but the traditional driving experience of the EQB is comforting on long drives. And, well, the EQB also has that coveted three-point star found only on a Mercedes.

FORD MUSTANG MACH-E

MERCEDES EQB

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WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH IN MARCH!

Events throughout March will mark the City’s celebration of Women’s History Month 2023. More information is available at weho.org/news