pgn Philadelphia Gay News LGBT NEWS SINCE 1976 Family Portrait: Court Walton PAGE 23
Vol. 42 No. 52 Dec. 28, 2018-Jan. 3, 2019
HONESTY • INTEGRITY • PROFESSIONALISM
Our person of the year honorees
Queer cinema from 2018 PAGE 8
PAGE 17
Morris anniversary haunted Story of the year: Mazzoni Center by lingering questions By Kristen Demilio editor@epgn.com
By Timothy Cwiek timothy@epgn.com This week marks the 16th anniversary of the death Nizah Morris — a homicide that still haunts the local LGBT community. The transgender woman of color was found with a fatal head injury during the pre-dawn hours of Dec. 22, 2002, minutes after receiving a courtesy ride in the Gayborhood from Philadelphia police. She died 64 hours later, after her attending physician had her removed from life support at Jefferson University Hospital. Her homicide remains unsolved. Officers Kenneth Novak, Elizabeth Skala and Thomas Berry responded to Morris on the morning that she was fatally injured. None has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing related to the case. But their version of events raises troubling questions that linger to this day. For example, Skala told investigators she gave Morris PAGE 7 a ride from the old Key West Bar near
Transgender recovery will expand services By Adriana Fraser adriana@epgn.com
DIG IN!: William Way LGBT Community Center staff and volunteers set up and served meals to almost 100 people Dec. 25 at the annual Christmas pot luck, but bringing food was not a requirement to join in. The center is open 365 days a year and hosts dinners on several major holidays. Photo: Scott A. Drake
Sean White hasn’t used heroine in 17 months — a victory he credits to Morris Home, the only residential substance-abuse recovery program in the country to offer services specifically for the transgender community. White had battled substance abuse for 17 years. He served multiple stints in prison and couldn’t stay clean. He said he feared recovery specialists wouldn’t acknowledge — or understand — his trans identity. “I didn’t want to surrender who I was to get help with my substance abuse. I felt like that would put me in more depression and I would fall deeper into using,” White said. “I didn’t want to be addressed in a manner that wasn’t true to me. Most places wanted to use the name on my birth certificate or chose to ignore my trans identity.” White, a Chicago native, found himself in Pennsylvania after being released from prison on
drug charges. He was without a place to live and had no legitimate sources of income and no guidance on how to kick his drug addiction. After he’d tried several recovery programs, White was referred to Morris Home. “The program is so intimate and it’s completely different from anything else that’s currently available,” he said. “The intimacy creates a different value to the people that are here. None of my success would have been possible without the nurturing support from the Morris Home staff.” With that level of help, White was able to find and maintain employment at a juicery in Rittenhouse Square and completed training as a peer specialist so he could assist others in their recovery journey. “I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be where I am today without the program,” White said. Morris Home began in 2011 after Sade Ali, former deputy commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual PAGE 2
This week, Mazzoni Center CEO Lydia Gonzalez Sciarrino and COO Ron Powers are vacating their posts. And so ends another rough year for Mazzoni Center — one which opened with a search committee vetting CEO candidates. A year ago, Stephen Glassman was serving as interim CEO. He had replaced longtime Mazzoni CEO Nurit Shein, who was asked by the board of directors to resign in April 2017 following accusations of delayed action on medical director Robert Winn’s alleged sexual misconduct. Gonzalez Sciarrino is a straight Latinx woman; a healthcare professional with extensive C-Suite experience. She previously ran a health center of similar size, and impressed Mazzoni Center’s board because of “her ability to work with people from different backgrounds and her ability to institute processes for better efficiency of the organization,” then-board president Christopher Pope told PGN in April, the month Gonzalez Sciarrino began her tenure. She was the third CEO in less than two years. When her hiring was announced in March, some Mazzoni Center employees and community members took to social media to attack her and demand her resignation, at least partly due to her non-LGBT status. Mazzoni officials defended her hiring to PGN. “She’s the right choice for us,” said Mazzoni Center communications director Larry Benjamin. But others continued to demand that the incoming CEO step down — an effort led by the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative (BBWC), whose founders say represents nearly 400 workers in Philadelphia. BBWC co-founder Shani Akilah said a community-rooted organization like Mazzoni Center must have leadership reflecting those it serves. “A white, straight cis woman is not fit to lead Mazzoni, no matter how much experience she claims to have,” Akilah told PGN in April. “The one thing she does not have and will never be able to have is lived experience.” In August, Kay Martinez, the center’s first director of diversity and inclusion, PAGE 6 posted pictures on