Los Angeles Blade, Volume 07, Issue 26, June 30, 2023

Six new Mpox cases reported in Los Angeles County

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (Public Health) is alerting residents and health care providers about a concerning increase in mpox cases, with six new cases reported in Los Angeles County in the past week, up from an average of less than one case per week during the preceding four weeks.

Mpox (previously referred to as Monkeypox) is mainly spread through close contact with body fluids, sores, shared bedding or clothing or respiratory droplets (kissing, coughing, sneezing). Symptoms include rash or unusual sores that look like pimples or blisters on the face, body and genitals, fever, chills, headache, muscle aches or swelling of lymph nodes. Early detection, testing and vaccination are vital to controlling the spread of this disease and protecting the health of Los Angeles County residents.

Given the recent increase in cases, Public Health strongly recommends the following actions:

Testing: Anyone who develops symptoms consistent with mpox, such as rash, fever or swollen lymph nodes should seek medical attention and get tested. Health care providers should be aware of the possibility of mpox and promptly report suspected cases to Public Health for appropriate testing and interventions.

Vaccination: Mpox vaccination not only reduces the risk of severe illness but also helps to limit transmission. The vaccine is available to anyone, and individuals who identify with any of the following subgroups are highly encouraged to get vaccinated:

Any man or transgender person who has sex with men or

transgender persons

Persons of any gender or sexual orientation who have sex or intimate physical contact with others in association with a large public event or engage in commercial and/or transactional sex

Persons living with HIV, especially persons with uncontrolled or advanced HIV disease

Sexual partners of people in any of the above groups

People in high-risk groups are urged to get fully vaccinated with two doses for the best protection. Second doses can be given no matter how long it’s been since the first dose. Residents can choose to receive the mpox vaccine subcutaneously (in the upper arm) or intradermally (under the skin on their arm or back). Vaccine boosters are not recommended at this time.

Public Health is collaborating closely with health care providers, community organizations and other stakeholders to address the mpox resurgence as swiftly and effectively as possible. Enhanced surveillance, contact tracing and outbreak investigations are underway to identify potential sources of the infection and prevent further transmission. Public Health’s mobile vaccination units are providing free vaccination at numerous Pride events this season, and other walk-up vaccine clinics can be found at https://myturn.ca.gov/.

A collective response is crucial in mitigating the impact of this outbreak. By increasing vaccination rates, the spread of mpox can be minimized within Los Angeles County to protect the health and well-being of its diverse communities. For the most up-to-date information and resources, please visit  ph.lacounty.gov/mpox or contact the Public Health Call

Center at 1-833-540-0473.

Public Health Network Continues Mpox Vaccinations at Pride Events

St. John’s Community Health, a network of public health clinics serving South, Central, and East Los Angeles, is continuing to be proactive around the Mpox virus by setting up booths at various Pride events in the area throughout the end of the year.

So far this summer, they have offered vaccinations at West Hollywood Pride, LA Pride, Trans Pride, and Juneteenth celebrations. They plan to set up booths offering Mpox vaccines at:

• Compton PRIDE, 6/24

• Long Beach Pride Festival and Parade, 8/5

• DTLA PROUD Festival, 8/26-27

• Indigenous Pride LA, 10/8

• Palm Springs Pride, 11/4-11/5

“We’re continuing to be proactive around preventing the spread of Mpox by literally meeting people where they are,” said Jim Mangia, president and CEO of St. John’s Community Health. “LGBTQ+ folks have been able to hold joy and celebration alongside safety and protection for decades – the community’s response to Mpox is proving this to be true yet again.”

Last year, St. John’s administered over 10,000 Mpox vaccines after investing nearly $100,000 into advertising; working alongside government officials and the Department of Public Health; partnering with local LGBTQ+, HIV, and racial justice organizations; and holding events at local bars, events, and community spaces.

By LA BLADE STAFF

Chino Valley schools ban Pride flag & may out trans students

CHINO, Calif. - After a contentious heated meeting last week during which the majority of speakers during public comments demanded the ouster or resignation of board President Sonja Shaw, the Chino Valley Unified school board voted 4-1 to ban LGBTQ pride flags in all district classrooms.

The action by the board updates district policy which allows the U.S. flag, California state flag, as well as other country, state and military flags. But the new policy would forbid teachers from showing solidarity or support for the LGBTQ+ students by disallowing the Pride Flag.

Shaw addressed the audience saying: “If a teacher has to fly a flag in the classroom to show a kid this is safe space, that is a teacher problem.” That comment brought immediate angered shouts from those gathered in the room.

The meeting was held at Don Lugo High School in Chino and drew a crowd of over 300 that filled the auditorium. Also at issue was a proposal submitted by board president Shaw that would require the teaching and guidance staff to tell parents if their students are transgender.

The board did not take action on the proposal submitted by board president Shaw that would require the teaching and guidance staff to tell parents if their students are transgender instead delaying further discussion and action until July.

Late last week, supporters of the anti-trans proposal for the school district held a press conference, which included Riverside Republican Assemblymember Bill Essayli, one of the co-sponsors of Assembly Bill 1314, which would have required schools across the state to notify parents when a child identifies as transgender, died for the 2023 Assembly legislative year

after the chair of the Assembly’s education committee opted not to schedule it for a hearing Shaw, since her election last Fall and elevation to the board presidency in December, has garnered considerable opposition for her public alliance with policies promoted by anti-LGBTQ Southern Poverty Law Center listed hate and extremist group Moms for Liberty. This in addition to her so-called publicly stated conservative leanings.

The Daily Bulletin noted that according to a report prepared for the meeting, the parent notification rule supports the district’s efforts to be “mutually supportive and respectful partners in the education of their children.”

The notification policy is in the interest of students’ mental health and safety, according to the report, and requires parents to be notified if a student asks to be addressed by another name, different pronouns, or wants access to sex-segregated programs, bathrooms or changing facilities.

Shaw’s proposal mirror’s Assemblymember Bill Essayli’s failed bill.

Brenda Walker, president of Associated Chino Teachers, said the policies carry unknown consequences, noting that the district did not contact teachers about them until this week. She said it was unknown what disciplinary steps would be taken

by the district if teachers violated the proposed rules The Daily Bulletin reported.

“Teachers are very supportive of students, families, other educators, and employees and advocate for the safety and well-being of everyone in our school community,” Walker said, adding that the notification policy violates state law. As such, she said, the policy would put teachers in the difficult position of choosing between following the district’s rules or state law.

“If you are truly here for students, we encourage you to vote no” on the parent notification and flag policy, Walker told the board.

“LGBTQ+ students deserve to feel safe and protected in their schools. However, the recent actions of the Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education are anything but supportive or affirming. The majority-conservative board voted 4-1 Thursday evening to ban the display of Pride flags in classrooms, sending a chilling message to LGBTQ+ students, families, and staff that they are unwelcome,” Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang said in a statement:

“Public comment on Thursday’s vote was also staggeringly one-sided, with parents and educators who attended the meeting to speak out against anti-LGBTQ+ policies largely silenced. It is our hope that the Chino Valley Board of Education — and all governmental bodies — allow comments from community members and advocates representing all sides of an issue, and that they follow the letter of the law established by the Ralph M. Brown Act.

(Screenshot/YouTube FOX 11 LA)

Temecula city councilmember walks out over Pride proclamation

TEMECULA, Calif. - After delivering a six minute diatribe with a slide show presentation to shore up her complaints against the LGBTQ+ community in advance of the city’s Pride proclamation by Temecula Mayor Zak Schwank, City Councilmember Jessica Alexander got up and walked off the dais.

During her speech, Alexander kept demanding to know what the ‘plus’ in LGBTQ+ stood for then answered her own questions claiming, by use of a slide show with various LGBTQ+ flags and their definitions that the plus was strictly to acknowledge ‘sexual deviant behaviours.’

Addressing the proclamation she warned that she would walk out and then said:

“Where is your moral and ethical line for each one of you as a city council member?”

“If you don’t oppose this proclamation being given to minors, we are celebrating and encouraging sexual activity and giving them (a) sexual credit card with no limit,” Alexander said. “You are encouraging them to expose them to all sexual possibilities and exposing them to predators.”

The Press-Enterprise reported:

Saying such proclamations were divisive, the council voted 3-2 in January to stop issuing citywide proclamations recognizing months such as Black History Month that celebrate cultural diversity, women’s history or the LGBTQ community.

Instead, those proclamations were left to the 2-year-old diversity commission, which took up the Pride Month proclamation at its June 7 meeting. Copies of the proclamation were given to LGBTQ clubs from the city’s high schools

Prior to that, in June of 2022 Alexander opposed a similar Pride proclamation, she espoused views that are considered homophobic and she referred to “sexual lifestyle” and “sexual

preference” repeatedly. Then claiming her allegiance as a Christian she insisted she could not in “good faith” support the proclamation she deemed harmful and wrong.

She has also targeted the local Drag Queen shows and a Drag Queen Story Hour labeling them as “grooming” and has previously made references to LGBTQ+ people as pedophiles.

At this council meeting, Alexander said there are more than 50 LGBTQ flags representing “different identities, sexual attractions and most concerning sexual behaviors … Why is this city supporting children 17 and under to become involved in over 50 groups that fall under the LGBTQ+ flag?”  She then claimed that a newly passed Connecticut bill creates a special ‘protected class’ for pedophiles.

However, the Associated Press fact-checked this claim, and found it to be patently false. What the bill does is update the state s definition of sexual orientation in its statewide non-discrimination ordinance, and adds age as a protected class to said ordinance.

Jorge Reyes Salinas, a spokesperson for Equality California, in an emailed statement said:

“In a year where we have seen seemingly unceasing attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, Temecula City Councilmember Jessica Alexander’s comments at the June 13 council meeting continued to add fuel to the fire of anti-LGBTQ+ hatred and trafficked in long-tired tropes and outright misinformation.

Alexander s comments about Pride flags are extremely and

dangerously inaccurate.In saying that supporting the city’s Pride proclamation would ‘celebrate and encourage sexual activity’ and ‘expose [children] to predators,’ Alexander elevated dangerous rhetoric linking LGBTQ+ people to sexual predation, a long-used tactic by members of the far-right to discredit, stigmatize, and place in harm’s way the lives of LGBTQ+ people.

Alexander took a page out of the anti-LGBTQ+ extremist playbook by equating being LGBTQ+ with being a danger to the community, particularly young people. These offensive tropes have been thoroughly and completely debunked and it is shameful to hear them coming from an elected official in 2023.”

Mayor Schwank, responding to a press request for comment in an email wrote:

«He’s been reading “every proclamation that has been presented at (the commission) … so this isn’t something new. I find that there is value to the community to also acknowledge the proclamations during” a portion of the meeting reserved for councilmembers’ comments.

He added: “It’s disappointing to see one of our council member representatives refusing to recognize a valued and important group within our community, because I think it’s antithetical to our purpose here on the City Council.”

“More than anything else, behavior like that from the dais continues to divide this community in ways that are not conducive towards building a better Temecula.”

By BRODY LEVESQUE

Unionized Starbucks workers in LA & around nation on strike

LOS ANGELESUnion employees at the Starbucks Coffee’s Cypress Park location at 3241 N Figueroa Street have joined union workers in approximately 200 more stores across the United States who went on strike after claims that the company banned Pride decorations in some stores.

Speaking with KTLA, one striking worker complained: “We’ve been unionized for a year at our store and we ve yet to have a contract negotiated. The company refuses to sit and bargain in good faith over our contract.”

“As a member of the LGBTQ community, I feel a bit lied to,” said another striking worker. “It just shows that Starbucks doesn’t really have my back, or my community’s back.”

The  Starbucks Workers United union in a statement said that 3,500 workers will be on strike over the course of this next week, and the union is demanding that all stores be allowed to put up Pride decorations in support of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as recognize a collective bargaining (union) contract.

The company has venously denied these claims in state-

ment:

Unfortunately, Workers United continues to knowingly, and recklessly, spread false information related to our inclusive culture and benefits — actions that risk marginalizing and instilling distrust among our LGBTQIA2+ partners and customers.

To be clear: There has been no change to company policies or corporate new guidance issued to store leaders regarding Pride Month celebrations. We continue to encourage our store leaders to celebrate the diversity of our partners and customers within their communities, including for Pride Month.

Our store leaders are each empowered to decorate their stores for heritage months, including Pride Month, within the framework of our established store safety guidelines.

Workers United has alleged instances in at least 22 states when workers have not been able to decorate, pointing to social media accounts where workers have documented their claims.

Starbucks corporate officers responded in a statement released on Friday:

“We want to be crystal clear – Starbucks has been and will continue to be at the forefront of supporting the LGBTQIA2+ community, and we will not waver in that commitment!” Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan and Executive Vice President and President for North America Sara Trilling said in the statement.

“Despite today’s public commentary, there has been no change to any of our policies as it relates to our inclusive store

environments, our company culture and the benefits we offer our partners. We continue to encourage our store leaders to celebrate with their communities including for U.S. Pride month in June, as we always have,” they added. The executives said they “strongly disapprove of any person or group, seeking to use our partners’ cultural and heritage celebrations to create harm or flagrantly advance misinformation for self-interested goals.”

A spokesperson for the union however claims that Starbucks is also not being forthcoming and that they are not negotiating in good faith.

“Good faith bargaining looks like both sides providing proposals and trying to meet in the middle — Starbucks is not willing to do that,” the spokesperson said.

The union told CNBC the coffee chain giant is dragging its feet on negotiating contracts.

“Despite having our non-economic proposals for over 8 months and our economic proposals for over a month now, Starbucks has failed to tentatively agree to a single line of a single proposal or provide a single counter proposal. What Starbucks is doing is not bargaining, it’s stalling.”

For its part, Starbucks maintains Workers United has responded to only a quarter of the more than 450 bargaining sessions Starbucks has proposed for individual stores nationally, to date, and said it is committed to progressing negotiations toward a first contract.

By BRODY LEVESQUE

City Councilmember JESSICA ALEXANDER during her anti-LGBTQ remarks. (Screenshot/YouTube City of Temecula, California)

Starbucks Coffee’s Cypress Park location at 3241 N Figueroa Street (Screenshot/YouTube KABC 7)

Engaged LA lesbian couple killed at Washington music festival

GEORGE, Washington - A lesbian couple were shot to death during a mass-shooting incident near the Gorge Amphitheater at the Beyond Wonderland EDM electronic dance music festival on June 17.

The two deceased victims, Josilyn Ruiz, 26, and Brandy Escamilla, 29, both of whom were from the Los Angeles area and were living in Seattle as traveling nurses, were engaged to be married family members have said speaking to media outlets.

According to the Grant County Washington Sheriff’s Office, a third victim, 31-year-old Andrew J. Caudra AKA “August Morningstar” of Eugene, OR, was shot one time in the left shoulder and received medical treatment at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, WA. He is in stable condition but it is unknown if he has been released.

A fourth victim, 61-year-old Lori Williams, who was working with Crowd Management Services, responded to the area of the shots fired in a Polaris Ranger UTV. During her response she encountered the suspect who shot in her direction multiple times. Williams was struck by a single bullet that penetrated the windshield and struck her in the right side of her face shattering her glasses and causing bruising and lacerations. Williams was treated and later released at the scene.

A fifth victim, 20-year-old Lily A. Luksich of Millcreek, WA., attended the concert with Kelly. Luksich sustained two gunshot wounds to her lower extremities. Luksich was treated and has been released from Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake.

The family of Brandy Escamilla in a GoFundMe post wrote:

My name is Alex Escamilla, our beloved Brandy Escamilla attended the music festival Beyond Wonderland EDM at the Gorge on June 17, 2023 where she was shot and killed alongside her fiancée Josilyn Summer Ruiz.

We cannot put into words the pain our family is enduring.

Brandy was kind, caring, the kind of person that would light up a room with her energy and her beautiful smile. Brandy was a daughter, niece, cousin, godmother, aunt, and fiancée. She was a huge light in our lives with a lot of goals and ambitions to look forward to.

She and her fiancée enjoyed going on endless adventures alongside their cat, Otis, and their friends.

Brandy earned her nursing degree at Mount St. Marys. As she was dedicated and passionate to helping others and making a difference in the world.

The family noted that the funds raised will go towards funeral expenses, bringing her personal belongings home to Los Angeles from Washington State, and any other needed services.

The family of Leilani Ruiz wrote in a separate GoFundMe post:

My name is Leilani Ruiz, I am the sister-in-law of Josilyn Ruiz. Josilyn Ruiz attended Beyond Wonderland Music Festival at the Gorge alongside her fiance Brandy June 17, 2023. That night the world lost two incredible people. Josilyn Ruiz and her Fiance Brandy were shot and killed at the event.

Our lives will never be the same. Josilyn is a daughter, sister, godmother, aunt, niece, cousin, friend, nurse, and fiancée. Words cannot describe the pain our family and friends are grieving from our precious loss of a wonderful angel.

Josilyn came into this world on July 13, 1996, hence why she received her middle name Summer, our ray of sunshine. As soon as you saw her she would brighten up the room with her big beautiful eyes, beautiful smile, and contagious laugh. Not only did our family and friends lose a special human being, but so did the world.

Josilyn became a Registered Nurse and had an immense passion for helping others. She loved to take on adventures with her fiancée Brandy, family, friends, and cat Otis. She ab-

solutely loved dancing, singing, attending music festivals, outdoor adventures, acting, snowboarding, and traveling. She had a kind soul and was willing to go out of her way to help anyone in need.

She was a go-getter, and always went after what she wanted with a brave heart. Her personality was bubbly and full of joy, you would tend to find her doing something goofy to get a good laugh. Josilyn was a beautiful girl who is the definition of work hard- play hard. There are not enough words to describe the wonderful person she is and the wonderful life she lived. She is loved by many and will be truly missed.

Any donations would be greatly appreciated to go towards the efforts of retrieving Josilyn’s belongings in Seattle, WA, funeral services, and other unexpected costs.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for loving our Josilyn.

According to a Grant County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, the alleged gunman, identified as James M. Kelly, 26, was shot by responding law enforcement and survived.

In a press release, the Grant County Sheriff’s Office noted that Kelly, an Army Ranger, is a joint fire support specialist assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, based out of Joint Base Lewis McCord.

“First, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command extends our condolences to the victims and families of those affected by this act of violence. The command is aware of the allegations against Spc. James Kelly,” Lt. Col. Michael Burns, a spokesman for the command, wrote in an email statement. “We take all allegations seriously and are fully cooperating with the appropriate authorities.”

Grant County Sheriff Joe Kriete noted that Kelly “was hospitalized for a gunshot wound and was returned to Grant County today where he is lodged in the Grant County Jail. He is held for investigation of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree assault, and one count of first-degree assault domestic violence.”

By BRODY LEVESQUE

1 in 5 LGBT high school students experience hunger

LOS ANGELES - A new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds 20% of LGBT high school students—an estimated 371,000 youth—experienced hunger last month because there was not enough food at home.

Among older youth ages 18-24, 14%—an estimated 703,000 LGBT people—reported not having enough to eat in the past week.

Researchers analyzed data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey to examine experiences of food insecurity among LGBT and non-LGBT high school youth and older youth ages 18-24.

Results show that racial inequities in hunger due to food insecurity exist for both age groups. More youth of color experience hunger than their white, non-Hispanic peers. For instance, among LGBT high school students, Black (33%), Latino (24%), Asian (29%), and multiracial (21%) youth reported hunger at higher rates compared to white, non-Hispanic youth (14%). Among older youth, slightly more (15%) LGBT youth of color reported food insufficiency than white LGBT youth (13%).

Programs like the National School Lunch Program, the

School Breakfast Program, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program can be reliable food sources for youth who don’t have enough to eat. But accessing those pro-

grams can be difficult for LGBT youth.

Nearly a third of LGBTQ+ youth (32%) who completed GLSEN’s 2021 National School Climate Survey missed a day of school in the past month because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. More than one in five (22%) avoided lunchrooms and cafeterias because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable.

Among older youth, only 23% of income-eligible LGBT adult households are enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

“It is essential that the needs of LGBT youth are centered in conversations about food insecurity and interventions targeted to the community are developed,” said lead author Moriah L. Macklin, Research Data Analyst at the Williams Institute. “Policy interventions, including ensuring all students have access to school lunch through the National School Lunch Program regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, providing summer EBT, and making SNAP accessible for college students and other young adults, are vital to addressing food insecurity among LGBT youth.”

By LA BLADE STAFF

BRANDY ESCAMILLA & JOSILYN RUIZ (Family photo)

(Photo Credit: County of Los Angeles)

Attorney General Bonta releases inaugural State of Pride report

SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Rob Bonta today, in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride month, issued a new  “State of Pride Report” highlighting the California Department of Justice’s (DOJ)recent actionsto support, uplift, and defend the rights of LGBTQ+ communities across California and beyond.

Pride Month is a time to celebrate the beautiful strength and diversity of LGBTQ+ communities, as well as to reflect on the struggles, sacrifices, and historic accomplishments of the LBGTQ+ civil rights movement.

Despite the immense progress that has been achieved, more work remains to be done. Amidst alarming and increasing attacks on LGBTQ+ communities —  from book bans to states pushing discriminatory policies across the nation, DOJ remains steadfast in its commitment to fight alongsideLGBTQ+ communities in pursuit of justice and equality.

“As a committed LGBTQ+ ally, I firmly believe that everyone deserves to be safe, healthy, prosperous, and celebrated for who they are — regardless of how they identify or who they love,”  said Bonta. “As we come together this Pride Month to celebrate our LGBTQ+ communities, we must also recommit ourselves to the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights at home and across the country. Today’s report shows the California DOJ’s commitment to defending, expanding, and advancing LGBTQ+ rights. However, I know that there is substantial work yet to be accomplished. Our pursuit of equality knows no boundaries, and I vow to continue using every tool at my disposal to protect and promote the rights and well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals.”

The State of Pride Report presents detailed insights into DOJ’s latest initiatives to confront hate crimes and discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals. One significant initiative is the launch of the Office of Community Awareness, Response, and Engagement (CARE), and  collaborating with community organizations and the publicto proactively address hate

crimes.

The report emphasizes the efficacy of theAttorney General’s Hate Crime Rapid Response Protocol, which equips local law enforcement with the essential resources to efficiently handle significant hate crimes and extremism. Furthermore, DOJ is committed to combating discrimination in classrooms, sports, healthcare, and public spaces.

The report focuses on DOJ’s work tocultivate safe environments for LGBTQ+ students free from bullying,  enable transgender athletes to participate in sports aligned with their gender identity, offer LGBTQ+ individuals access to gender-affirming healthcare, and advocate forinclusive public business accommodations, irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The State of Pride Report also underscores the ongoing adversities LGBTQ+ individuals face in California and nationwide.

Despite considerable progress, many LGBTQ+ individuals still experience discrimination, harassment, and violence in their daily lives, and transgender individuals are especially vulnerable, facing high rates of poverty, unemployment, and homelessness. These challenges demonstrate  the need for ongoing protective efforts to uphold and expand LGBTQ+ individuals’ rights, enable all individuals to live free from discrimination and violence, and collaborate toward creating a more just and inclusive society.

Key data points in the State of Pride Report depict the reality of hate crimes and discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals:

About 2.7 million or 9.1% of California adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender — the largest share of any highly populated state and one that is “considerably higher” than the national figure of 7.9%.

Unfortunately, in California between 2021 and 2022, there were over 391 reported hate crime events motivated by sexual orientation bias, and 45 hate crimes motivated by anti-transgender or anti-gender non-conforming bias.

LGBTQ+ children have been victimized and bullied at rates four times higher than their non-LGBTQ+ peer groups. This hate has a compounding impact on their physical and mental well-being: Nearly half of all LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered suicide in 2022.

Across the United States, 2022 was a record-breaking year for state-level, anti-LGBTQ+ bills, with more than 200 pieces of legislation introduced in over 40 state legislatures that aimed to codify discrimination in classrooms, sports, healthcare, and public spaces.

This data underscores the pressing need for sustained, vigorous efforts to combat hate crimes and discrimination against LGBTQ+ communities in California and across the nation.

By LA BLADE STAFF

$1.15 Million allocated for restoration of West Hollywood Log Cabin

WEST HOLLYWOOD - Recently published State Budget Bill SB 102/AB 102: Budget Act of 2023 (2023-24 “Budget Bill Jr.”) shows $1.15 Million will be allocated to restore the West Hollywood Log Cabin once the bill is adopted by the State.

California State Assembly Member Rick Zbur and Senator Ben Allen put the allocation for the Log Cabin in their State Budget (Zbur for $650K and Allen for $500K). If passed the dedicated funds will help with badly needed renovations for the Log Cabin.

The City of West Hollywood, and West Hollywood Recovery Center Board of Directors (WHRC) joined forces to lobby the City’s federal and state representatives to secure funding for this project earlier this year.

West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne, Mayor Pro-Tem John Erickson, council member Chelsea Byears and the WHRC have met with California State Assembly Member Rick Zbur, Senator Ben Allen, and Congressman Adam Schiff earlier this year to push for these funds.

“I’m so grateful to our leaders in Sacramento, as well as all of the leaders here in West Hollywood and in the West Hollywood sober community and recovery communities that have worked with us to ensure that this is not only a priority for us, but a priority for the State,” Mayor Pro Tem John Erickson told WEHO TIMES. “This is the reason why we purchased the Log Cabin, to make sure it’s there for years to come for anyone and everyone that needs it.”

The City of West Hollywood is also working collaboratively with the WHRC on the architectural plans to rehabilitate the historic Log Cabin and add two additional rooms for 12 step fellowship meetings. These additional rooms will allow WHRC to operate in a single facility, instead of both the Log Cabin and Werle Building located across the street.

The Log Cabin (which was built in 1936 as part of the Boy Scouts of America organization) was previously owned by the City of Beverly Hills’ water agency. Over the years, the building was neglected, and much needed maintenance was deferred by the previous owner.

In 2022, the City of West Hollywood, after a long negotiation with the City of Beverly Hills, purchased the building and renewed its commitment to the recovery community and the residents of West Hollywood to maintain meeting spaces and make the building safe and accessible.

In order to be fully compliant with today’s building codes/ADA requirements and to meet the current demands for meeting spaces, the facility will need to undergo several millions of dollars in renovation to comply with federal construction standards related to accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 and the California Building Code.

In addition, as the building is eligible for designation as an historic landmark, all rehabilitation work will adhere to the standards set by the U.S. Department of Interior. As part of the

rehabilitation process, and in addition to the two new meeting rooms mentioned above, the City is considering expanding the existing building to include ADA compliant bathrooms, limited space for food preparation, and administrative and storage space.

“The Log Cabinis an iconic historical meeting place where tens of thousands of people have found recovery,” reads a statement from the WHRC. “The Board of Directors of the West Hollywood Recovery Center have been working closely with West Hollywood City officials, Mayor Sepi Shyne, Mayor Pro Tempore John Erickson, Councilmember Chelsea Byers and the architects, to ensure that the Log Cabin renovations provide large enough meeting rooms and storage accommodations that will allow us to continue to serve the recovery community. We have been there through the entire planning process and have the City’s assurances that we will be a part of the final approval process.”

According to the statement, the WHRC will be working with the City to find meeting spaces to accommodate Log Cabin meetings while the renovations are taking place. The City and WHRC will continue to work collaboratively, and new information will be provided as it arises.

The preceding article was previously published by WeHo Times and is republished with permission.

By PAULO MURILLO

California Attorney General ROB BONTA, speaking on June 16 2023. (Photo Credit: Office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta/Facebook)

Bisexuals: The neglected stepchild of the LGBTQ rights movement?

Activists say disparaging views from gays and straights are lessening, but bias

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | lchibbaro@washblade.com

Bisexual rights advocates point out that a recent Gallup Poll using scientifically proven polling techniques shows that 58.2 percent of people in the U.S. who make up the LGBTQ community identify as bisexual.

And for many years, bi activists say, earlier polling data have shown that people who self-identify as bi have comprised close to 50 percent of the overall LGBTQ population.

Yet in spite of this, a half dozen prominent bisexual rights activists interviewed by the Washington Blade who have been involved in the LGBTQ movement for 20 years or longer say bisexuals for the most part have been neglected and treated in a disparaging way in the early years of the post-Stonewall LGBTQ rights movement.

Things began to improve in the past 15 years or so, but misconceptions and biased views of bisexuals among lesbians and gays as well as in the heterosexual world continue to this day, according to bisexual rights advocates.

These advocates point to the one major stigma they have had to endure for years—the belief that they cannot make up their minds or they are hiding the fact that they are gay men or lesbian women.

“For the record, I state that bisexuality is not a counterfeit behavior or a phase,” said longtime bisexual rights advocate Cliff Arnesen in a statement to the Blade. “It is a true sexual orientation of physical and emotional attraction to both genders,” he said. “I believe some of the apprehension to a person’s bisexual orientation lies within the mindset of people who oppose the concept of bisexual people having ‘heterosexual privilege,’” Arnesen says in his statement.

Arnesen, 74, a resident of Canton, Mass., is a U.S. Army veteran and has also been an advocate for military veterans, both LGBTQ and straight. He says one of the highlights of his many years of activism took place May 3, 1989, when he became the first known openly bisexual veteran in U.S. history to testify before a committee of the U.S. Congress on behalf of LGBTQ and heterosexual veterans.

Among the issues he discussed in his testimony, Arnesen says, were HIV/AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder, homelessness, gays in the military, and the then Uniformed Code of Military Justice sodomy law impacting LGBTQ people in the military.

He also told the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs in his 1989 testimony about efforts by him and other LGBT veterans to advocate for the upgrade of less-than-honorable discharges of people in the military based on their sexual orientation.

“Bisexual people have always made enormous contributions of benefit to the larger gay community,” Arneson told the Blade. “Yet historically we are marginalized by many in both the gay community and society,” he said.

“To counter that marginalization, we bisexual people must use the ‘key of visibility’ to enlighten and educate the masses as regards to their preconceived misconceptions of bisexuality.”

Arnesen is among at least five other elder U.S. bisexual rights

continues

advocates who told the Blade they are seeing positive changes in recent years for bisexuals, including among the national LGBTQ organizations that, according to these activists, ignored the ‘bi’ in the movement for far too long.

Among them are longtime D.C. residents Loraine Hutchins, who co-founded the organizations BiNet USA and the Alliance of Multicultural Bisexuals, and A. Billy S. Jones-Hennin, who in 1978 helped launch the National Coalition of Black Gays, the nation’s first advocacy organization for African-American lesbians and gay men.

Jones-Hennin is also credited with helping to organize one year later the first national March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979. During the same weekend of the march, he helped to convene what observers call an historic National Third World (People of Color) LGBTQ Conference at D.C.’s Howard University.

Hutchins, co-editor of the acclaimed 1991 book, “Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out,” holds a doctorate in cultural studies and has taught sexuality and gender and women’s studies at Montgomery College and Towson University in Maryland.

Hutchins is now retired and lives in a retirement community in Montgomery County, Md. She told the Blade she has seen some positive changes in recent years within the overall LGBTQ rights movement and LGBTQ rights organizations toward bisexuals. She notes that the National LGBTQ Task Force’s current executive director, Kierra Johnson, identifies as bisexual.

The Task Force and the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights advocacy organization, “have gotten much stronger on understanding bi advocacy or bi education,” Hutchins said.

But despite this, she said, she doesn’t see sufficient advances regarding the needs of bisexual people being fully taken up at the federal policy-making level, including in the administration of President Joe Biden, even though she sees the Biden administration as being better than previous administrations on bisexual issues.

BiPlus Organizing U.S., a national coalition of bisexual rights organizations, reports on its website that bisexual advocates held “three important convenings with the White House” during the Obama administration in 2013, 2015, and 2016. It says a small group of bi activists met with White House officials and officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2022 under the Biden administration during Bisexual Awareness Week.

Fiona Dawson, one of the co-founders of BiPlus Organizing U.S., said the meeting between bi advocates and the Biden administration officials took place at the Department of Health and Human Services offices rather than at the White House.

Dawson, who is from the United Kingdom and now works as a filmmaker based in Austin said the meeting was productive but she and other bi activists would like the Biden White House to hold an official White House reception for the bi community like the reception it holds for the full LGBTQ community.

“We want more bi organizations to contact us,” Dawson said in describing the work of BiPlus Organizing U.S. “I estimate that there are at least 20 bi organizations nationwide,” she said, with most of the groups being locally based. “I see change coming,” she added, saying the younger generation of LGBTQ people, including bisexuals, are becoming more supportive of bi rights.

Many bisexuals now identify as ‘bi-plus’ Jones-Hennin, who attended the first White House meeting with bisexual rights advocates during the Obama administration, said the lack of information about bisexuality in the media and from gay rights groups going back to the 1970s played a role in his own coming out process as a bisexual man.

“I started as straight and then as a gay man,” Jones-Hennin recalls. “I at first did not buy into the idea of being bi,” he said. “Bisexuals have been erased and to a certain degree that’s still happening. We need more visibility of bi,” he said.

Jones-Hennin said he and his husband, who spend part of each year in their homes in Mexico and in D.C., now proudly identify as bi plus.

His reference to the term bi-plus or bi+ is part of the definition of bisexuality that bi rights advocates have been using to be inclusive of those who identify as pansexual as well as those who are both transgender and bisexual.

“Bi+ people may use many terms to describe their own sexual identities, including queer, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual, and heteroflexible,” according to T.J. Jourian, Ph.D., and author of a January 2022 article on bisexuality for the publication Best Colleges.

In his article, Jourian quotes Massachusetts-based longtime bisexual rights advocate and author Robyn Ochs as providing her own interpretation of being bi.

“I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sex-

Lani Ka’ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins circa 1992 (Photo courtesy Hutchins)

ually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree,” Ochs says in a statement.

Bisexuals more likely to have mental health problems: study

Hutchins, meanwhile, points to a report released on June 13 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that shows that adults who identify as lesbian, gay, and bisexual are more likely to have mental health problems than their straight counterparts. But the study also shows that people who identify as bisexual have a higher rate of mental health problems, including suicidal ideation, than gays and lesbians.

LaNail Plummer, a mental health therapist and licensed professional counselor who serves as CEO and clinical director of the D.C.-based Onyx Therapy Group, said she has seen from her therapy and counseling practice that the mental health issues faced by bisexual people are often the result of discrimination and negative treatment they receive from both the heterosexual community and from gays and lesbians.

Plummer, who herself identifies as bisexual, told the Blade in a phone interview that bisexuals often go through a coming out process that’s more complicated and involves less peer support than the coming out process for gay men and lesbians.

“There’s a lot of people who are bisexual in a world that seems to be centered around polarity,” Plummer said. “It is complicated for bisexual folks because bisexual folks can and will likely date people of the opposite sex at different times,” she said, requiring to some degree that they must “come out” in a same-sex relationship and later in an opposite-sex relationship.

Bisexual people face additional “stressors,” Plummer said, when they are in a relationship with a partner of the same sex because that partner sometimes manifests fear that their bi partner will leave them for someone of the opposite sex.

“I have a person I know who identifies as bisexual and she has a wife,” Plummer told the Blade. “And every time the person that I know goes out, the wife, who identifies as lesbian, gives her a really hard time, by asking are you going to be with a man today? What happens if a man comes up and talks to you? How are you going to respond to them?”

That type of dynamic, according to Plummer, often prompts bisexual people to go back into the closet and withhold their identity as bi to someone they are dating or in a relationship with who may be of the same sex or the opposite sex.

Plummer and bisexual rights advocates say this type of stress placed on bi people is usually based on misconceptions and bias against bisexuality that bi advocates say they hope will continue to decline with improved education and understanding of bisexuals.

Elder activists hopeful that bias is declining

Ochs told the Blade in an interview that she has been an activist in support of LGBTQ and bisexual equality for more than 40 years, with a focus on issues of concern to bisexuals.

“And I would say the first 30 of those years I felt we were beating our heads against a stone wall,” she said in describing efforts to advance bisexual rights. “It was so frustrating. I saw little progress. I felt like we were having the same conversations over and over and over,” she said.

“We continued to be ignored in all sorts of media, both mainstream media and LGBTQ media,” she recounted. “It would have been inconceivable up to about a decade ago for an out

bisexual person to have ever been appointed as head of any national LGBTQ organization,” she said.

“So, that’s the background. The good part is that’s no longer true,” Ochs said. “There is much more cultural representation now with musicians, politicians and public figures coming out as bisexual and pansexual.”

She pointed to the two prominent national LGBTQ organizations that currently have top leaders who identify as bisexual. The two are Kiera Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, and Erin Uritus, CEO of the national LGBTQ group Out & Equal.

Another longtime bi advocate currently based in San Francisco, Lani Ka’ahumanu, is widely recognized as a leader in national social justice movements, including Native American, feminist, anti-war, and LGBTQ and bisexual rights movements. She is also an acclaimed author and poet whose writings appear in 20 books, including the book she co-edited with Loraine Hutchins, “Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out.”

Her online biography says Ka’ahumanu, like other bi activists, evolved from a suburban housewife in a heterosexual marriage with children in the 1960s and an amicable divorce with her husband before she came out as a lesbian.

“I was a lesbian for four years in the ‘70s,” she told the Blade in a phone interview. “And then I fell in love with a bisexual man and came out in 1980 as bi,” she said, adding that she continued, sometimes despite fellow activists who were skeptical about bisexuality, in her involvement in the feminist and LGBTQ rights movements.

She became the first known out bisexual to serve on the board of directors of a national LGBTQ rights organization in 2000, when she was appointed to the board of the National LGBTQ Task Force, where she served until 2007.

Ka’ahumanu agrees with other bi rights advocates that things have improved in recent years for the bisexual community in the political and social landscape. But she said she was startled earlier this year when expressions of bias toward bisexuals surfaced, of all places, at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s annual Creating Change Conference held in San Francisco last February.

In her role as an elder and mentor to young bi activists, she said, she attended one of the conference’s bisexual workshops. “And hearing what some people said, it was the same stories from the ‘80s and 90s,” she recounted. “You know, you need to make up your mind. People were still being trashed for being bisexual within the lesbian and gay community,” said Ka’ahumanu.

“And that part kind of threw me,” she recounted. “I said, are we still in this place of being invisible?” she asked. “A lot of people still can’t step outside of that either or thing.”

Ka’ahumanu made it clear that most of the other sessions of the Creating Change Conference, which marked the beginning of the Task Force’s 50th anniversary, appeared supportive of the LGBTQ organization’s progressive and supportive views and policies on LGBTQ issues.

Shoshana Goldberg, Public Education and Research Director for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ

political advocacy organization, said that like the LGBTQ community as a whole, recent developments have been “mixed” for bisexuals in the U.S.

“Bisexuals, particularly bisexual women of color, consistently earn less than the average American worker, and even less than their LGBTQ+ peers,” Goldberg said in a statement. “Many of the health disparities seen between LGBTQ+ and cis/het folks are magnified for bisexual people, and bisexuals continue to face biphobia from both straight and queer communities, and bi-erasure from all sectors of daily life,” Goldberg stated. HRC official Rebecca Hershey, who works on diversity and inclusion issues, said HRC has been addressing issues of concern to the bisexual community through, among other things, its LGBTQ Coming Out Guides, which offer information to “dispel myths and address stereotypes about bisexuality.”

HRC also supports the annual Bisexual Health Awareness Month and in 2019 released its Bi+ youth report, which analyzed a survey HRC conducted of close to 9,000 teens to “help shed light” on the experiences of bi+ youth nationwide.

Bi rights advocates say the national LGBTQ organization GLAAD, which focuses on improving fairness in media and entertainment industry portrayals of LGBTQ people, has also acted as a strong advocate for bisexuals. In the 11th edition of its Media Reference Guide, GLAAD includes a detailed write-up on how the news and entertainment media should report on or portray bisexual people.

“By being more cognizant of the realities facing bisexual people and the community’s many diversities, and by fairly and accurately reporting on people who are bisexual, the media can help eliminate some of the misconceptions and damaging stereotypes bisexual people face on a daily basis,” GLAAD’s Media Reference Guide states.

Arnesen, the elder bisexual rights advocate who his bi colleagues refer to as an icon in the bi movement, sums up his sentiment as a bisexual advocate in his statement to the Blade.

“As a Bisexual human being, I am mindful that I stand upon the shoulders of the innumerable and courageous GLBT+ pioneers and advocates for ‘equality’ who came before me,” he wrote. “Fate just happened to put me in the right place, at the right time to advocate for ‘equality’ on behalf of my bisexual brothers and sisters; and our country’s GLBT and Heterosexual veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces,” he states.

“Today, the love of my life of 33 years is a heterosexual woman named Claudia, whom I love with all my heart and soul,” he says. “As a bisexual person I have been doubly blessed to know the love of both men and women during my life’s journey, and I cherish those memories within my heart.”

Additional information about bisexual rights issues and the state of the bi movement can be accessed through BiPlus Organizing US and its member organizations:

• BiPlus Organizing US

• Bisexual Resource Center, biresource.org

• Bisexual Organizing Project

• Los Angeles Bi+ Task Force, labitaskforce.org

• Bi Pan Organizing Project of Minnesota

• Bisexual Organizing Project

ABilly Jones-Hennin

(Photo courtesy Hennin)

Blade joins VP Harris at Pride month appearances in NYC

Delivers remarks at Stonewall Inn and campaign reception

By CHRISTOPHER KANE | ckane@washblade.com

NEW YORK — The Washington Blade joined Vice President Kamala Harris on a trip to New York on Monday, where she made a surprise appearance at the Stonewall Inn and delivered remarks at an LGBTQ campaign reception in support of the Biden Victory Fund.

Her first stop began with a briefing and tour of the Stonewall National Monument by Shirley McKinney, Christopher Street Manhattan Sites Superintendent for the National Park Service. The visit came just ahead of the upcoming 54th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots on June 28, 1969, which marked the beginning of a nascent movement for LGBTQ civil rights in America.

Harris then proceeded into the bar, where she was joined by its current owner Kurt Kelly and television producer and talk show host Andy Cohen.

“So just thinking about the symmetry there, it pains but it also reminds me that we can take nothing for granted in terms of the progress we’ve achieved,” Harris said.

Later, addressing reporters gathered outside the bar, the vice president said, “I’m here because I also understand not only what we celebrate in terms of those fighters who fought for freedom, but understanding that this fight is not over.”

“Anti-LGBTQ book bans. A policy approach that is ‘Don’t Say Gay.’ People in fear for their life. People afraid to be. These are fundamental issues that point to the need for us to all be vigilant, to stand together,” Harris said, adding, “I feel very strongly no one should be made to fight alone.”

Just before departing en route to the Upper East Side, Harris finished her remarks by discussing how working toward a more just country is both noble and necessary. “Fighting with pride is about being a patriot,” she said.

After taking the stage at the 24th Annual LGBTQ+ Leadership Council Gala, a campaign reception supporting the Biden Victory Fund, Harris began her remarks by proclaiming, “Pride is patriotism,” adding, “There is nothing more patriotic than celebrating freedom, which includes the freedom to love who you love and be who you are.”

She then told the crowd about her visit to Stonewall where, she said, “I reflected on the determination and dedication of patriots like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson” along with the late political consultant Jim Rivaldo, who helped elect gay rights icon Harvey Milk to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978 and then served as campaign manager for Harris when she was first elected to serve as the city’s district attorney in 2004.

“Jim would tell me about the early days of the gay rights movement,” she said, “stories about bringing folks together from the civil rights movement and labor rights movement and women’s rights movement to fight for and to secure freedom.”

Pelosi said.

Describing the ascendence of anti-LGBTQ sentiment in America, Harris pointed to the rise in extreme rhetoric, threats, and violence targeting the community, noting the Human Rights Campaign’s proclamation of a state of emergency for LGBTQ people earlier this month.

More evidence of the precarity of the community’s rights and freedoms at this moment, Harris said, comes from the same institution that made equal marriage the law of the land, “the court of Thurgood [Marshall] and RBG,” which “will soon rule in a case that could allow businesses to refuse to serve” LGBTQ Americans. A decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis might come this week.

Extremists on the right, the Vice President warned, are working to claw back rights and freedoms across the board. They “have a plan to push their agenda as far and as wide as they possibly can,” she said, “to attack hard won rights and freedoms state by state. To attack the right to live as your authentic self, to attack the right to vote, to attack the rights of workers to organize, to attack the right to make decisions about one’s own body.”

Harris added, “And by the way, a year after Dobbs, it is clear these extremists also plan to ban abortion nationwide. Nationwide.”

However, she said, in the face of these challenges, thankfully voters have rejected extremism and embraced leaders who “have empathy,” those with “curiosity, concern, and care for the struggles of other people.”

They elected governors who “vetoed bills that would hurt transgender children and who signed bills to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination,” Harris said to raucous applause, pointing to Democratic Govs. Kathy Hochul (N.Y.) and Gretchen Whitmer (Mich.), both in attendance.

Noting how “it was a drag queens fighting on our behalf” to defend patrons against yet another police raid on that fateful summer night in 1969, Kelly asked the vice president, “isn’t that ironic where we are today?”

This year has seen the introduction of a flurry of discriminatory bills in conservative states that target drag performances and performers.

“Yes, I know,” Harris responded. “It’s outrageous.”

“There are over 600 bills that are being proposed or passed, anti-LGBTQ+ bills,” she said. “I was honored to perform some of the first same-sex marriages in our country back in 2004. I look at these young teachers in Florida who are in their 20s, and if they’re in a same-sex relationship, are afraid or fear they might lose their jobs.”

Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, signed into law last year by the state’s Republican governor and 2024 presidential contender Ron DeSantis, criminalizes classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. Critics say its overly broad language means an LGBTQ teacher’s decision to display a photo of their family could violate the law and result in penalties, including termination.

Harris then turned to acknowledge another anniversary that was marked on Monday, the eighth year since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges, establishing the nationwide constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

“That progress is not inevitable. It does not just happen. It takes steadfast determination and dedication,” she said, “the kind of determination and dedication possessed by people like Jim Obergefell.”

After thanking Obergefell — who was in the audience, earning a round of applause — Harris said, “it saddens me to think and then talk about aspects of the moment we are in. A moment when LGBTQ+ people and families and freedoms and basic rights are under attack in our country.”

Hours after her remarks, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) issued a statement marking the High Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling that echoed Harris’s warning:

“Despite the progress that has been made, the fight against LGBTQ+ discrimination remains more urgent than ever as right-wing extremists across the nation seek to undermine legal precedent and strip away basic freedoms,”

President Joe Biden, she said, is this kind of leader — famously unafraid to proclaim his support for marriage equality in 2012 before many others did, and then running on a platform in 2020 that “promised to not only protect but to expand the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ people” while “the other side continued their attacks” against them.

In anticipation of the threat posed by conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s stated interest in revisiting Obergefell, Biden codified legal protections for same-sex and interracial couples by signing the Respect for Marriage Act in December, Harris said.

Ten years ago this week, after refusing to defend the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage as California’s attorney general, “I had the privilege to pronounce my friends Kris Perry and Sandy Stier spouses for life,” Harris said.

A full circle moment came at the signing ceremony for the Respect for Marriage Act, she said, where “Kris and Sandy were there on the White House lawn with their four sons” alongside the “families, people from every background, every walk of life, understanding what it means to have a president, to have an administration, who has their back.”

Vice President KAMALA HARRIS speaks near the Stonewall National Monument. (Blade video screen capture by Christopher Kane)

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JULIA SCOTTI

is headlining comedian, actor, transgender activist and former licensed NJ middle-school teacher.

To teach, protect and…INFORM?

OCEAN COUNTY, NJ. - When Middletown, NJ classes resume this fall, its transgender students will have yet another obstacle in their way as they struggle for identity, freedom, and personal safety in the classroom.

On Tuesday, June 20, their school board voted nearly unanimously to enact a policy which would require teachers to notify parents if their child wants to be publicly known by a different name, seeks to use a different bathroom or locker room other than their birth gender or if a child opts to play on a different sports team.

This is in direct opposition to the State’s guidance which states that schools “shall ensure”  students’ preferred pronouns and names be used, that they may dress in accordance with their  gender identity and that it be respected, while specifically noting  that “parental consent is not required.”

I must confess that in my opinion, there is no definitive right or wrong answer here. But as a former NJ middle school teacher in Monmouth County, AND someone who secretly transitioned in my first year of teaching, I have some thoughts on the subject of ‘outing’ students against their wishes. A school is a microcosm of the community in which it exists. There are few secrets. Gossip flies and teachers hear most of it. Sometimes the students, especially the ones in pain, need to share that pain and occasionally it is a teacher who is entrusted with their secrets.

The only time a teacher is legally bound to inform authorities of a student’s situation is if the teacher believes the child is being abused in some way. Having said that, and knowing firsthand the difficulties of coming out to the world as transgender at any age, I know that a trans child needs a haven to exist in safety, and oftentimes it’s their school environment in which they find it.

One of the first things we learned as teachers is that nothing, NOTHING is more important than the safety of our students. We are duty bound to do whatever we can to protect them both in the school and out.

So you might ask, what’s wrong with notifying parents that their kid is identifying differently in school than they are at home? Well, I think the bigger questions are, why don’t the parents know already and if they don’t why is their kid afraid to come out to the people who are supposed to offer them the safest of all environments?

Over the years, I have met many loving parents of transgen-

der kids. And while they may not understand their child’s gender struggle, they make herculean efforts to educate themselves. And to the best of their ability, they support, advocate for, and most of all, love their kids unconditionally.

But there are parents who, for whatever reasons, find the idea of someone being transgender abhorrent—even sinful. And who will resort to extreme measures to ‘cure’ their child of what they perceive to be the disease of being transgender. And as you might imagine, informing a parent of this type could be harmful to a child, especially when they might be under the influence of someone like Washington state pastor, Jason Graber, pastor of Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Spokane, who said he believed parents of transgender children deserved to be killed. One can only imagine what kind of home life a transgender child might have under those circumstances, and it’s easy to understand why he/she/they would want to keep it a secret.

So what is the child to do? It is a fact that a disproportionate amount of homeless youth identify as Transgendered. It is also a fact that a disproportionality high percentage of transgender kids attempt suicide. For many kids, these are their only desperate choices. Implementing a policy such as Middletown’s can only add fuel to an already raging fire of Transgender hate and misunderstanding that is sweeping this country.

There is no doubt that Middletown’s decision, as well as the towns of Marlboro and Manalapan-Englishtown (who have similar policies) can only have a negative impact on these students somewhere down the road and the State of NJ is fighting to keep the original protecting policies in place. The decisions of these districts are no doubt politically motivated. We have an increasing, nationwide conservative movement in this country that will stop at nothing to take away the civil rights of those who dare to be themselves proudly and openly.

I said at the beginning of this piece that there is no definitive right or wrong answer here, but maybe I was wrong. The safety of a child and their right to just “BE” is everything. And if we destroy that right in our schools, whose mission is to teach, educate and protect their charges, then we are responsible in part for the fates of their lives. We spend millions to keep intruders out of our schools, but we put our kids in harm’s way on the inside with policies like Middletown’s.

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We spend millions to keep intruders out of our schools, but we put our kids in harm’s way on the inside with policies like Middletown’s

(Graphic by Sarah Pfleger-Brown, Middletown Township Public Schools NJ parent-activist)

CHRIS WOOD

is executive director of LGBT Tech.

Exploring impact of Artificial Intelligence on LGBTQ community

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into our daily lives has been revolutionary and much more rapid than anyone could have predicted, especially in the last few months with the launch of ChatGPT and similar applications. It has streamlined, automated, and started to change numerous sectors of society, but this rapid technological advancement has many experts sounding the alarm about the unknown and unforeseeable consequences of AI’s broad adoption across society and its potential impact on marginalized communities, including the LGBTQ+ community.

Advancements in technology, accessibility, and connectivity, such as AI, have played a key role in enhancing visibility, building community, and promoting inclusivity for the LGBTQ+ community. For example, social platforms powered by AI algorithms have enabled LGBTQ+ individuals to connect, share experiences, and establish supportive networks on a global scale. Further, AI has the power to harness machine learning techniques to analyze massive datasets, which could solve challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community for decades. On a more human level, AI-powered personal assistants can reduce feelings of alienation simply by recognizing and respecting all genders. But with all the significant aspects of AI that are possible, we must ensure that we recognize the potential harms that AI could have on the LGBTQ+ community as well.

AI systems are only as unbiased as the data they are trained on. If the data used to train AI algorithms is biased or discriminatory, it can perpetuate and amplify existing

prejudices against the LGBTQ+ community. For example, facial recognition technology has shown higher error rates for gender non-conforming individuals and people of color, leading to potential misidentification and discrimination. Similarly, AI algorithms can inadvertently exclude LGBTQ+ individuals if they are not adequately represented in the training data. This lack of data can result in limited access to resources, services, and opportunities. For instance, AI-powered job recruiting platforms may use biased algorithms that discriminate against LGBTQ+ job applicants, perpetuating inequality in employment opportunities. AI-powered recommendation algorithms on social platforms can also lead to online echo chambers. LGBTQ+ users may find themselves predominantly exposed to content from similar perspectives, which can limit their understanding of broader societal contexts. This isolation can exacerbate the issues of marginalization rather than ameliorate them.

Adversely, and even more alarming, the same is true for those using AI who are not part of the LGBTQ+ community and might find themselves in an anti-LGBTQ+ echo chamber perpetuating the worst myths and misconceptions about LGBTQ+ individuals without context or balance. Even if we can provide and train the AI systems with the vast amounts of personal data around the LGBTQ+ community, it raises concerns about our privacy and security, especially for LGBTQ+ individuals who may face threats or discrimination. If this sensitive data falls into the wrong hands, is misused, or, even worse, weaponized against our community, it could harm LGBTQ+ individuals or entire

portions of the LGBTQ+ community.

Undoubtedly, these issues around AI and marginalized communities like the LGBTQ+ community are serious and deserve urgent attention. Solutions are being proposed and implemented to mitigate these risks. AI ethics researchers and engineers are working tirelessly to increase transparency and accountability in AI systems, using techniques such as explainable AI (XAI) and independent auditing. Activists are pushing for more straightforward regulations on how AI is used, especially around privacy and data use.

Most importantly, inclusivity must be a priority in the continued development phase of AI. This includes not only considering LGBTQ+ identities when designing AI systems but also increasing diversity among the engineers and developers who build these systems. The involvement of diverse voices can provide more holistic perspectives, leading to more equitable and fair AI systems.

Ultimately, the impact of AI on the LGBTQ+ community is profound and multifaceted. On the one hand, AI has the potential to promote connection, inclusivity, and understanding. On the other hand, it can perpetuate biases, invade privacy, contribute to marginalization, and harm if not appropriately managed.

AI’s responsible and thoughtful use can contribute to a more inclusive society where the LGBTQ+ community is recognized, respected, and empowered. By addressing the potential pitfalls and maximizing the benefits of AI now while there is still time, we can strive for a future where technology catalyzes positive change and social progress.

If data used to train algorithms is biased, it can perpetuate prejudice

It’s a fun ride for fans to ‘Asteroid City’

Large ensemble of players in a story that takes unpredictable, absurd turns

By JOHN PAUL KING

It’s tough being a Wes Anderson fan. If you are one, you know exactly what we’re talking about. Loving the work of America’s most eccentric filmmaker means accepting the fact that there will always be a significant number of other people who can’t stand it, and that any effort to explain why you like his films to someone who doesn’t has almost as much potential for being divisive as a conversation about politics, though the stakes are admittedly much lower.

It also means putting up with the fact that his quirky directorial aesthetic, which has been parodied for decades now by TV shows like “The Simpsons” and “SNL” and become the inspiration for a massive explosion of AI-aided spoofs all over social media – is now enshrined in popular culture as an easy target for satire, almost certainly familiar to more people as the butt of a joke than as the stylish work of a meticulous auteur. To be fair, though, the jokes are usually funny, and many of those send-ups were made by Anderson fans themselves, paying tribute to the uniquely fey cinematic style they love.

The director’s latest, “Asteroid City,” is bound to provide considerable fodder for both heated debate and high-concept snark; indeed, it is such a “Wes Anderson film” that it sometimes feels like it is making fun of itself – and whether that is a good thing or not may depend on how you feel generally about Wes Anderson films.

Explaining it is complicated, but we’ll try.

The bulk of the movie takes place in a fictional tourist town in the American Southwest – built around the site of an ancient meteorite impact – in 1955; it chronicles an unexpected and mysterious event that occurs there during a convention of junior astronomers, as well as the subsequent impact it has on their lives. Yet the fictional town itself is also fictional, the creation of celebrated mid-century playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), and the story we are seeing is in fact his most famous play; the film simultaneously chronicles that background saga, as told via a vintage TV anthology series, complete with “re-enactments” of crucial episodes that took place during the creation and production of the play itself.

As for the characters, the main focus lands on former war photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), whose genius teenage son (Jake Ryan) is being honored at the convention. There’s also a famous movie star (Scarlett Johansson) and her daughter (Grace Edwards), a fellow honoree. Others in the mix include Augie’s disapproving father-in-law (Tom Hanks), an Army general serving as host for the event (Jeffrey Wright), the easygoing town mechanic (Matt Dillon), the politely brilliant astronomer in charge of the local observatory (Tilda Swinton), and the shifty manager (Steve Carrell) of the town’s lone motel, where the entire visiting entourage is staying. Outside the action, as it were, we also get to meet the gifted stage director (Adrien Brody) and pioneering method acting teacher (Willem Dafoe) who helped bring the play to life, and the austere but friendly television host (Brian Cranston) who ostensibly presides over it all. And these are just the most prominent of the

film’s two dozen significant characters.

All of that seems like a lot, even for a Wes Anderson movie, which typically features a large ensemble of players in a story that takes unpredictable (and often absurd) turns. Factor in the element of campy homage to the nostalgic science fiction movies of old, complete with UFOs and all the alien conspiracy theories those carry with them, and it becomes apparent that there are a lot of layers here.

Yet those elements are merely a premise, a conceit that establishes the rule of a game that proceeds to get even more “meta” from there. Actors appear in dual roles, both as their character in the central narrative and the fictional-real-life performers that portray them; there’s an inversion of styles that seems to dovetail in on itself, in which a theatrical play is experienced as a contemporary film, the “true” story about said vintage play is set up as vintage TV documentary, and supposed real-life events are presented as scenes from a play – a hall-of-mirrors pattern that suggests the fourth and unseen perspective of a real life audience – which means us - viewing the film itself. Anderson’s movie, as it turns out, is perhaps meant really to be about us, all along.

Even if that interpretation is on target, there’s still plenty of room for the signature Wes Anderson style, in this case taken to new heights of exaggeration; the familiar pastel color palette is now hyper-saturated, evoking hand-tinted vintage postcards or the lurid technicolor of 1950s cinema; that connection is underscored by countless nods to iconic films of the period, including Johansson’s image as both a Hitchcock-inspired icy blonde and an earthy Ava Gardner-esque sex goddess, with a dash of Liz Taylor thrown in for good measure.

Then there’s the inescapable fact of its mid-20th Century setting, which evokes not only the kind of corny “alien panic” sci-fi movies “Asteroid City” affectionately lampoons, but the strong current of worldwide trauma that emerged

in the arts and culture of the era. After two world wars and a bomb that introduced the permanent threat of nuclear doomsday to their psyche, humanity was – understandably – preoccupied with finding meaning in a universe that suddenly felt indifferent, and the artists of the day led the search. Since Anderson’s bemusingly post-modern reassembly of these elements is centered on an imagined theatrical masterpiece that emerged from within that zeitgeist, it’s hard not to see a connection being drawn to our own time, when new daily threats force us to endure a similar state of perpetual existential crisis. In any case, Anderson’s familiar blend of precocious whimsy and melancholy nostalgia is tinged with a more profound sadness this time around, even if it is effectively counter balanced by a light heart.

What strikes us at more personal level, though, is the subtle but significant queer core that stems from the creation of the play-within-the-movie by a Tennessee Williams-esque tragic genius – whose presumed queerness is revealed in a scene too exquisitely orchestrated to spoil. It seems a minor touch, but rather than some token effort at inclusion, it feels like a nod to the unsung influence of queer artists, whose outsider status throughout history has granted them an observer’s eye which has played an important role in showing the rest of society the things it might have trouble seeing for itself – as the best artists have always done.

We could say more about this film – the sublime performances, which manage a wealth of emotional range inside the “Andersonian” parameters of the cast’s deadpan delivery; the impossibly kitschy handmade scenery; the self-referential humor that bubbles under so much of what appears on screen – but we won’t. If you’re a fan, you’ll want to pick through the details for yourself.

If you’re not, we know nothing we can say will convince you to see it anyway, and that’s probably for the best.

A scene from ‘Asteroid City.’

LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT

NHL bans special Pride warm-up jerseys next season

The autographed Pride jerseys are typically auctioned off to raise money for LGBTQ+ charities

By DAWN ENNIS

NEW YORK — The National Hockey League’s Board of Governors agreed at a meeting Thursday that players will no longer wear special rainbow-colored Pride-themed jerseys during warm-ups next season.

Pride Nights and “Hockey Is For Everyone” celebrations will continue to be held when the puck drops on the 2023-2024 season in October, reported Sportsnet, which broke the story. The specially-designed jerseys will continue to be manufactured and sold, and players will still have the option to autograph or even model them. The autographed Pride jerseys are typically auctioned off to raise money for LGBTQ+ charities in each team’s hometown.

But from now on, no pro hockey player will be wearing those rainbow jerseys during warm-ups.

The change was prompted by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman s recommendation, which he signaled was coming in a March interview with CTV News: “This is one issue where players for a variety of reasons may not feel comfortable wearing the uniform as a form of endorsement,” said Bettman.

A grand total of seven NHL players, out of 1,123, decided to skip pregame warmups on Pride Nights when their teammates wore the special rainbow-themed jerseys before games, starting with Ivan Provorov, as the Los Angeles Blade reported in January.

At that time, the Russian defenseman played for the Philadelphia Flyers, and claimed a religious exemption based on his Russian Orthodox faith. Provorov’s decision was defended by coach John Tortorella.

He was followed by James Reimer, a goaltender for the San Jose Sharks, and Canadian brothers Eric and Marc Staal of the Florida Panthers, who also cited their religious beliefs for not participating. Canada is home to the vast majority of NHL players, followed by American, Swedish and Russian athletes.

Russian players Ilya Lyubushkin of the Buffalo Sabres, De-

nis Gurianov of the Montreal Canadiens and Andrei Kuzmenko of the Vancouver Canucks also refused to take part in the warmups wearing Pride-themed jerseys.

to ban Pride warm-up jerseys.

Bettman, who this year celebrated three decades as NHL commissioner, defended his decision using the oldest homophobic trope in LGBTQ+ sports: That anything or anyone queer in sports is a “distraction.”

“It’s become a distraction and taking away from the fact that all of our clubs in some form or another, host nights in honor of various groups or causes, and we’d rather they continue to get the appropriate attention they deserve, and not be a distraction.”

Sportsnet reporter Elliotte Friedman reminded Bettman, “It s Pride Month right now,” and asked him directly to address that.

“Those are legitimate concerns,” replied Bettman. “We’re keeping the focus on the game. And on these specialty nights, we re going to be focused on the cause.”

Lyubushkin said he would not participate for fear of violating an anti-LGBTQ+ Russian law, which was also why the Chicago Blackhawks decided against Pride night jerseys. Then, despite promoting that players would wear the jerseys during warm-ups, the New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild scrapped those plans.

One notable Russian exception this past season was Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who took part in warmups on the same night the Staal brothers from Canada declined and stood apart from his comrades who decided they would not wear Pride jerseys.

“I think it’s something that we’re going to have to evaluate in the offseason,” Bettman told CTV news in March.

And so, it came to pass that the head of the NHL met with his league’s governors — during Pride Month — and agreed

The You Can Play Project, the nonprofit advocacy organization that works to erase homophobia in sports and support the inclusion of LGBTQ+ fans as well as athletes, said in a statement to the Associated Press that it was “concerned and disappointed” by the decision.

“Today’s decision means that the over 95% of players who chose to wear a Pride jersey to support the community will now not get an opportunity to do so,” said the organization. “The work to make locker rooms, board rooms and arenas safer, more diverse, and more inclusive needs to be ongoing and purposeful, and we will continue to work with our partners at the NHL, including individual teams, players, agents and the NHLPA to ensure this critical work continues.”

It was not clear as of press time if the NHL ban on Pride warm-up jerseys would also apply to rainbow-colored Pride Tape, which many hockey players applied to their sticks for warm-ups in prior seasons as another show of support for the LGBTQ+ community.

DAVID PALUMBO, You Can Play Vice Chair. (Screenshot/YouTube CBC News)

Celebrating 40 years of ‘Dykes to Watch Out For’

Audible releases spectacular three-hour adaptation of beloved comic

By KATHI WOLFE

“I like seeing queer people falling in love in Christmas movies,” a 70-something, hetero friend who’s a queer ally and a Hallmark movie aficionado told me recently. “We get to kiss, queers, should, too.”

Forty years ago, in June 1983, when Alison Bechdel’s iconic comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For,” (DTWOF) was first published in the Pride issue of “Woman News,” this conversation would likely not have happened. Then, “Ellen” was only an ordinary person’s name. No one would have watched “The L Word” or have known what it was. And, electing a lesbian U.S. senator (such as Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.) would have been unthinkable.

“Dykes to Watch Out For” ran until 2008. The comic strip ran in the “Funny Times” and in many queer papers. Several book collections of DTWOF were published, including: “Dykes to Watch Out For” (1986), “New, Improved Dykes to Watch Out For” (1990) and “The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For” (2008).

It’s hard to convey how groundbreaking DTWOF was (especially in the 1980s and early 1990s) at a time when there was virtually no representation of queer life in pop culture.

Set in a small city (some think it might be Minneapolis), “Dykes” tells the story of a group of lesbians – their friendships, exes, love lives, struggles against the patriarchy, work lives –their cats.

DTWOF was diverse long before “diversity and inclusion” became buzzwords. The comic strip’s characters include people of color. There’s concern about disability accessibility. Other aspects of lesbian life aren’t neglected: there’s therapy and a vegan café.

The characters in DTWOF grew up and older in “real time” during the strip’s 25-year run. Bechdel, whose 2006 memoir “Fun Home” was adapted into the Tony Award-winning musical of the same name, has said DTWOF is “half-op-ed column and half endless, serialized Victorian novel.”

The protagonist of “Dykes To Watch Out For” is the lovable, neurotic kvetch Mo, who along with some of the other characters works (for a time) at Madwimmin Books. Some of the other characters include: Lois, a feminist “Casanova” and activist; Ginger, a professor; Sparrow a former women’s shelter director who identifies as a “bisexual lesbian;” Clarice, Mo’s ex and a lawyer; Toni, Clarice’s partner and a CPA; Harriet, a human rights lawyer; and Jezanna, the owner

of Madwimmin Books.

To the delight of generations of readers (from Boomers to 20-somethings), neither Bechdel nor the DTWOF characters take themselves too seriously. They care deeply about the political (the cruelty of Ronald Reagan’s treatment of people with AIDS, unjust wars, etc.) and their personal dramas (from coming out to whether to embrace monogamy). But, they get how absurd — how overly earnest — they can be.

To commemorate DTWOF’s 40th anniversary, Audible has released a spectacular three-hour adaptation of “Dykes to Watch Out For” as an audio series.

You might wonder how well DTWOF, a comic strip combining indelible drawings with, by turns, funny, poignant, smart dialogue, could be performed in a sound-based medium. You needn’t worry. Through an alchemy of writing, direction, acting, narration and podcast production, DTWOF has been superbly translated into sound. Proving that while a picture may be worth a thousand words, there’s nothing more intimate than listening to a story you love.

Playwright Madeleine George (“Only Murders in the Building”) adapted DTWOF for the Audible series and Leigh Silverman (“Violet”) directed the adaptation. Alana Davis, Faith Soloway and Bitch scored the series.

The Audible adaptation of DTWOF combines stories from the first three years of the strip. One of the lovely things about it is that the cast is so queer – from Jane Lynch, the series’ narrator, to author Roxanne Gay, who plays Jezanna.

I don’t know if there’s an afterlife. If there is, I hope it’s narrated by Lynch. Listening to Lynch tie the story of the series together is like hearing the Voice of God. God as a combo of a lesbian (Vince Scully, sports announcer, and a dyke Edward Everett Horton (from the Bullwinkle cartoons).

Carrie Brownstein (“Portlandia”) nails Mo. You’re right in Mo’s head as she obsesses about whether to call Harriet and ask her out. Harriet has given Mo her phone number two months before. (This is in the 1980s, long before texting.)

Along with the cast, which is a stellar ensemble, the series is filled with memorable, moving, energizing soundscapes: from lesbian softball players batting to footage from the 1987 National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights.

Audible brings popular comic to life.

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