pgn Philadelphia Gay News LGBT NEWS SINCE 1976
Vol. 43 No. 16 April 19-25, 2019
Family Portrait: Mikey Sharp, painting him proud PAGE 29
GLSEN comes to Philly touting safe school spaces
HONESTY • INTEGRITY • PROFESSIONALISM
Introducing PGN editor Jess Bryant
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Scene no more: Scott Drake bids community goodbye PAGE 30
Cohen bows out of race for City Council
FUEL FOR THE FUTURE: I’m From Driftwood held its sixth annual brunch fundraiser April 13 at John C. Anderson Apartments. Driftwood, celebrating its 10th anniversary, raised about $15,500 from the brunch through ticket sales, silent-bid items and donations. The money will go toward its 50-state Story Tour Exhibition. The pop-up show will be a one-day event in various places across the country. In addition to the stories collected during the original 50-state tour, questions will be answered about what it was like, how participants were located and travel and overnighting costs. The exhibition will make a stop at William Way LGBT Community Center 6-9 p.m. May 14. Photo: Scott A. Drake
Bullied fifth-grader takes own life By Josh Middleton PGN Contributor A family in Southwest Philadelphia is mourning the loss of an 11-year-old who they say died by suicide after he and his brother faced constant bullying at their school. Phillip Spruill Jr., a fifth grader at Benjamin B. Comegys Elementary, ended his life April 5 in hisBartram Village home. S p r u i l l ’s g r a n d mother, Linda LashSmith, 56, told PGN that her grandson wasn’t a model student. He was a fighter. He had been suspended 15 times between November and March because he was involved in physical altercations on school grounds — but she said he had to fight to
defend himself and his younger brother, who was harassed and threatened for being too “effeminate.” “Phil was overweight and bullied because of that on a daily basis, and then he felt that he had to protect his little brother, because kids were bullying him about being gay and calling him that ‘F’ word,’” she said. “Children are cruel. All Phil wanted to do was play and make friends. All they wanted to do was make fun of him. He just couldn’t understand why, and it hurt him deeply.” She said the bullying occurred every day and it was constant. “It was in school, on the school bus and all the way up to his PAGE 14
By Josh Middleton PGN Contributor
Sherrie Cohen has decided to drop out of the race for Philadelphia City Councilat-Large following a public disagreement between her campaign manager and fellow LGBTQ candidate Deja Lynn Alvarez. On March 26, the campaign manager, AbdulAliy Muhammad, heckled Alvarez as she was speaking to a crowd of supporters at a Trans Day of Visibility rally at City Hall. Muhammad yelled above the crowd that Alvarez, a Latinx transgender woman, was faking her MexicanAmerican heritage, and that she was actually white. The move drew criticism from the community and blame was inevitably placed on the entire Cohen campaign. Before the end of that day, Muhammad was out as campaign manager and Cohen was left to play damage control. The candidate said she personally apol-
ogized to Alvarez (“which she accepted graciously”) and wrote statements of regret to community groups. But after nearly a month of reflection, Cohen said she believes sorry isn’t enough. So she pulled the plug on her campaign. “This is one way that I can be accountable and help repair this damage,” she told PGN. “It’s a very hard decision to make, but I think it is an example of how we can be accountable when harms are committed that we are responsible for — even though I never condoned these statements. It had nothing to do with my campaign. It got associated with my campaign because this person was my campaign manager.” Before she decided to leave the race, Cohen said she consulted with several members of the community and even Alvarez herself about ways to find healing after the conflict. PAGE 20
Protest against professor’s speech ends with fire alarm, evacuation By Lenny Cohen PGN Contributor A protester allegedly set off a fire alarm and evacuated a college hall as a prominent speaker was addressing the public. University of the Arts student Joseph McAndrew organized a campus protest April 9 when Professor Camille Paglia was scheduled to speak. McAndrew, a nonbinary film-writing and television major, said Paglia had insulted the transgender community and sexual-assault victims many times, citing a YouTube video in which Paglia questions the validity of sexual assault victims who do not report crimes
immediately. Paglia is heard saying, “If a real rape was committed, go freakin’ report it to the police.” McAndrew said, “I find that she’s been able to go about being controversial with little repercussions, especially lately,” On March 21, McAndrew, who uses the pronoun “they,” saw posters for Paglia’s event, “Ambiguous Images: Sexual Duality and Sexual Multiplicity in Western Art and Androgyny” to be held in a 17th-floor room of Terra Hall. An hour before the event, McAndrew said there were at least 100 protesters sitting on the hallway floor outside the lecture hall, holding signs quoting Paglia’s prePAGE 16