QSaltLake Magazine - November 25, 2010

Utah’s News & Entertainment Magazine for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community | FREE

salt lake Issue 168 November 25, 2010

gay holiday shooing guide

LDS Church Changes Is the Question of Handbook on Gays Choice Still Relevant?

Transgender Vigil and Conference

Cher Speaks on ‘Burlesque,’ Chaz

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Q staff

publisher/editor Michael Aaron

busine aiance

The Q Business Alliance is starting up next month and all gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and ally business owners are invited to join and network with us. Corporations, small businesses, sole proprietors and independent agents are welcome to join, regardless of sexual orientation.

JOIN US AT OUR

december november iday social first iday AT

LANDIS

AT C O DY D E R R I C K ’ S L I F E S T Y L E

S A L O N

185 WEST 700 SOUTH 569 NORTH 300 WEST

FRIDAY FRIDAY

november 3 5 december

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PRIZES BAND FOOD, DRINKS, DOOR PRIZES, MUSIC WIN RESTAURANT AND ART GIFT CERTIFICATES PRESENT YOUR COMPANY

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assistant editor JoSelle Vanderhooft arts & entertainment editor Tony Hobday graphic designer Christian Allred contributors Chris Azzopardi, Lynn

Beltran, Turner Bitton, Dave Brousseau, Brad Di Iorio, Chef Drew Ellswroth, Greg Fox, H. Rachelle Graham, Bob Henline, Tony Hobday, Christopher Katis, Keith Orr, Petunia Pap-Smear, Anthony Paull, Steven Petrow, Hunter Richardson, Ruby Ridge, Ryan Shattuck, A.E. Storm, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Ben Williams, Troy Williams, D’Anne Witkowski, Rex Wockner contributing photographers Ted Berger, Eric Ethington, Honey Rachelle Graham, Chris Lemon, Brent Marrott, Carlos Navales, Scott Perry, Deb Rosenberg, Chuck Wilson sales manager Brad Di Iorio office manager Tony Hobday distribution Brad Di Iorio, Ryan Benson, Gary Horenkamp, Nancy Burkhart publisher

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T H E

B E N E F I T S

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Each third Friday of the month, a themed breakfast will be held at various restaurants in the Greater Wasatch Front with guest speakers and the ability to introduce your business and hand out company literature to other owners and professionals

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2 | QSa lt L a k e | issue 16 8 | Nov e mber 25 , 2010

Online Exposure through QSaltLake.com QSaltLake readers turn to our web site for help finding services in the community.

They can be referred to your web site in a click of a button.

Member Newsletter Promote your business, introduce new products and announce upcoming events to other Alliance members

Swag Bags Place marketing materials or samples in highly-sought “swag� bags or at tables at large community events through the year More We will be announcing more opportunities for members as the Alliance grows

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SA

LT LAKE

S ’ N E M

SLMC’s Holiday Concert has been a mainstay on Salt Lake’s December calendar for decades.

Please join us for a celebration of the season with classic songs ranging from the sublime to the silly.

It’s sure to stir your soul and warm your heart.

We’ll be accepting non-perishable items for the Utah AIDS Foundation Food Bank at the door. $10 GENERAL ADMISSION Tickets available at saltlakemenschoir.org or by calling Brown Paper Tickets 1-800-838-3006

R I O H C

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10 - 7:30 PM SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11 - 7:30 PM SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12 - 4:00 PM FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH (777 S 1300 EAST) SALT LAKE CITY

saltlakemenschoir.org THANKS TO OUR SEASON SPONSORS

FIRST PERSON

C

om the editor We Are Family

by Michael Aaron

HRISTMAS MEANS widely-different things to people within the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community of Utah — from those with life partners who host both sides of the family for Christmas Eve to those who just left a marriage after coming out and will spend their first holiday alone to the throw-away gay kids who will spend their night on the street.

Many of our readers this year will relive traditions from sitting by the fire to setting off the fire alarm (setting said fire).

But imagine having left your home this year with little more than the clothes you’re wearing. Instead of family, you will spend this holiday surrounded by strangers. Instead of being home with the decorations you unbox every year, you will be trying to turn a spartan hotel room into a festive place or an unheated basement into

a livable place.

This is the reality for many gay, lesbian and transgender people in this valley. Men and women coming out in their 40s because the local tradition is to marry, procreate and join a multi-level marketing program, personal-feelings-be-damned. Kids in their teens sent to the streets or into neighbors’ homes because their families will not accept that they will not go to yet another “ex-gay” therapy program. People not accepted by their families because they are different, and therefore shameful.

When I was in college, I met and began dating my first long-term partner, with whom I later had a commitment ceremony. I’d been out to my family for just over a year and this was to be the first time I’d bring someone home as my “boyfriend.” I got a call a few days before that I should not bring him to the annual family Christmas

4 | QSa lt L a k e | issue 16 8 | Nov e mber 25 , 2010

Eve party because my grandparents may not understand. Stunned, I made the decision to take the gifts I’d bought for my family members to my grandparents’ doorstep and have a nice dinner with my partner.

I received a call the next morning — Christmas Day — that I should come up for dinner ... with my boyfriend.

It was the first and last time I was asked to put my partner aside to be part of my family.

I am lucky. My family has embrace all of the five partners I’ve had over the years. (Yes ...

I’m a serial monogamist, apparently.)

But not everyone in this valley is so lucky.

I received a message just last week from a woman trying to place a 17-year-old gay boy in a gay youth shelter of some kind. I had to tell her that no such thing existed in the state. Even with changes in the law last year that allowed for service agencies to help runaway and otherwise homeless teens, the red tape is too thick for service agencies and risk too high for individuals to help in such situations.

This story ended up relatively happy, in that the kid’s local bishop found him a place to live while things are sorted out.

But what about the others whom we don’t hear about?

The good news is that there are rumblings of efforts toward a gay youth shelter here in Salt Lake. Many people remember what it’s like to be a gay teen and feel for those whose families are not so welcoming of their child’s coming out speech.

We, of course, will keep you informed of the progress of such efforts.

In the meantime, we ask you to support such events as the Center’s Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners which provide a home for the displaced teens, older newly-out and other displaced people. We also appreciate local bars which hold dinners as well, welcoming anyone who wants to attend.

Sometimes we have to make family out of who is around us. The lucky ones make families out of close friends.

The holidays are a time of trial for many in our community. Please keep a watch out for those around you who may appear to be having a difficult time during the season.

Ask what people are doing for the holidays.

If you can host the “orphans,” do so. If you can’t, tell them of the programs put on by the Center, bars, and churches.

This community is more than people with a common sexual or gender orientation. We are family to many who have lost theirs.

Remember, family is forever. Q

HOLIDAY CELEBRATION WITH JERRY! FEATURING MUSIC FROM The Polar exPress

DECEMBER 10-11 | 8 PM ABRAVANEL HALL Join the Utah Symphony for a holiday concert guaranteed to make the season merry and bright. Principal Pops Conductor Jerry Steichen will lead the orchestra in a celebration of the season filled with your favorite holiday melodies. Vocal soloists Karen Brookens, Angela Theis, Katherine Tombaugh, Brent Reilly Turner, and the West Jordan High School Concert Choir.

FOR TICKETS, CALL 801-355-ARTS (2787) OR VISIT UTAHSYMPHONY.ORG

national news

Quips & Quotes

by Rex Wockner

DADT Protesters Arrested at White House Thirteen supporters of direct-action group GetEQUAL were arrested at the White House fence Nov. 15 after handcuffing themselves to it and supergluing their handcuff locks.

They demanded that the Senate join the House in authorizing repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell military ban on noncloseted LGBs before the Senate adjourns this year.

Arrested were Dan Choi, Autumn Sandeen, Evelyn Thomas, Mara Boyd, Geoff Farrow, Robin McGehee, Miriam Ben-Shalom, Justin Elzie, Ian Finkenbinder, Robert Smith, Dan Fotou, Scott Wooledge and Michael Bedwell.

“Included in the 13 arrested are veterans and advocates spanning three generations of brave and courageous Americans, who sacrificed their careers and lives to see the day this discriminatory ban on openly gay and lesbian service in the military finally goes into the history books,” said GetEQUAL Director Robin McGehee. “Today, we have sent a loud and clear message to the U.S. Senate and President (Barack) Obama that we expect them to make good on their promises to end this inhumane law this year, during the lame-duck session of Congress.”

DADT was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal District Court earlier this year and, for eight days, an injunction prohibited the military from kicking out open gays or barring them from enlisting. In the end, the Obama administration appealed the injunction all the way to the Supreme Court, which refused to overturn a stay of it issued by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That reinstated the policy for the duration of the appeals of the District Court ruling.

Obama has said he wants Congress, not courts, to end the ban. And Justice Department lawyers argued in court filings that the ban must not be lifted abruptly by a judge because that would harm military operations.

The House of Representatives voted earlier this year to authorize the armed forces to end DADT, but the Senate failed to follow suit.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has been conducting a massive survey of troops and their families, due to be released in December, to help it decide how to end DADT. Leaked reports of the findings suggest that a majority of members of the military are not troubled by openly gay servicemembers.

But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Com-

you actually do ❝read ❝ Buttheifwhole thing, like

Protesters stand at the White House fence demanding repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell miltay policy excluding gays and lesbians from serving in the armed forces.

mittee, has, for all intents and purposes, vowed to continue to block Senate authorization of DADT repeal, complaining that the massive Pentagon survey didn’t ask the right questions.

“All four service chiefs are saying we need a thorough and complete study of the effects — not how to implement a repeal, but the effects on morale and battle effectiveness,” McCain told MSNBC on Nov. 14. “That’s what I want, and once we get this (current) study, we need to have hearings and we need to examine it and we need to look at whether it’s the kind of study that we wanted. It isn’t, in my view, because I wanted a study to determine the effects of the repeal on battle effectiveness and morale.

What this study is designed to do is to find out how the repeal could be implemented.”

The DADT repeal measure is part of the bill that funds the U.S. military in 2011. As a result, McCain’s obstructionism has left the overall funding bill unpassed by the Senate as well.

Some surveys have found that nearly 80 percent of Americans are fine with letting

gays in the military come out of the closet by ending the DADT policy.

Meanwhile, two days after the protest, McGehee was invited into the White House to meet with Brian Bond, the openly gay deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, “and (with) someone from the domestic-policies office and the legal counsel.”

“What it proved to me was that we were in a situation where we took bold action and we applied pressure, and the president and his staff were not afraid to talk to the people that really are showing frustration,” McGehee said. “If you apply pressure, it does not mean you’re going to lose your access.”

McGehee insisted that the meeting be onthe-record, which the White House refused to agree to, so the administration representatives merely listened to what she had to say but did not offer comments of their own, McGehee said. “[Bond] said their standard for the meeting was that they would listen and we would talk, but he would not engage further than that,” she said.

HHS Mandates Same-sex-partner Hospital Visitation The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced its final rule Nov. 17 on ending discrimination against same-sex couples in hospital visitation policies.

The rule, which takes effect in January, directs any hospital receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds — nearly all hospitals — to have written visitation policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

In addition, the hospitals must inform patients of their right to receive visitors of their choosing, “including, but not limited to, a spouse, a domestic partner (including

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a same-sex domestic partner), another family member or a friend.”

The rule will cover about 6,200 hospitals with more than 35 million patient admissions per year.

“Of all the things same-sex couples have to worry about, of all the discrimination and pressures we face, not being able to see our partner or spouse shouldn’t be one of them,” said Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “Today’s announcement honors our relationships, our love and our basic humanity.”

PRIDEinUtah has, you find that while they did remove calls for gay people to enter into therapy from one section, that call remains in another. They still make the comparison between homosexuality and murder/ rape, and zero changes were made to their hateful policies toward our transgender brothers and sisters.”

—Eric Ethington, PRIDE in Utah blogger, discussing the inaccuracies of a Human Rights Campaign press release on changes in the LDS Church’s administrative handbook

were singled ❝out❝ Mormons more in news coverage

because they were an easy ‘other’ to identify.”

—BYU associate communications professor Joel Campbell telling attendees at the BYU’s Mormon Media symposium that the LDS Church was disproportionately criticized by journalists for its support of Proposition 8 a long time for ❝people’s ❝ It takes prejudices and

people’s justifications for things we think are wrong to be overturned. My hope is that eventually people will come to understand human sexuality in a broader context.”

—Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune while in Salt Lake City to consecrate Utah’s new Episcopal bishop

If there’s one thing to ❝be❝said for aggressive

homeless panhandlers, it’s that they serve as a constant reminder of our fucked-up economic system.

The only way to get rid of them is with a sustainable economic policy that lifts all boats — including those of the least among us.”

—City Weekly blogger Brandon Burt, opposing a measure before the Salt Lake City Council that seeks to make panhandling illegal

❝ ❝We can’t reach a community we can’t see.

The further we drive this community underground, the worse we make the situations.”

—Maren Lacy, co-captain of Justice Vanguard telling the Salt Lake City Council why an anti-panhandling ordinance is a bad idea.

Nov e mber 25 , 2010 | issue 16 8 | QSa lt L a k e | 7

Qmmunity

LOC al news

LDS Church Changes Policies on Treatment of Gays Changes to LDS Church policy on homosexuality were presented to LDS lay clerical leaders worldwide Nov. 13 as the church rolled out an updated 400-page lay priesthood manual.

The newly revised LDS Church Handbook of Instructions is reserved for use by LDS Church members in local and regional lay leadership positions, but was recently put online for the general public as well.

The changes remove a call for professional counseling or repentance for those who have homosexual feelings or thoughts. It still, however, groups homosexual behavior with attempted murder, forcible rape and spouse abuse. Homosexual behavior is also permanently noted in one’s church records, however heterosexuals found to commit “sexual sin” outside of marriage receive no permanent annotations.

Some of the changes regarding homosexuality are as below (striked out is removed from previous versions of the handbook and underscored content is added): Homosexual behavior violates the commandments of God, is contrary to the purposes of human sexuality, distorts loving relationships, and deprives people of the blessings that can be found in family life and in the saving ordinances of the gospel. Those who persist in such behavior or who influence others to do so are subject to Church discipline.

Homosexual behavior can be forgiven through sincere repentance.

If members have homosexual thoughts or feelings or engage in homosexual behavior, Church leaders should help them have a clear understanding of faith in Jesus Christ, the process of repentance, and the purpose of life on earth. Leaders also should help them accept responsibility for their thoughts and actions and apply gospel principles in their lives.

While opposing homosexual behavior, the Church reaches out to understanding and respect to individuals who are attracted to those of the same gender. [Paragraph moved from second to third position.]

In addition to the inspired assistance of Church leaders, members may need professional counseling. When appropriate, bishops should contact LDS Social Services to identify resources to provide such counseling in harmony with gospel principles.

If members feel same-gender attraction but do not engage in any homosexual behavior, leaders should support and encourage them in their resolve to live the law of chastity and to control unrighteous thoughts. These members may receive Church callings. If they are worthy and qualified in every other way, they may also hold temple recommends and receive temple ordinances.

“The new guidelines clearly show that advocacy efforts pay off with real change,” said Solmonese. “We spoke out against the harms of so-called ‘reparative therapies’ on LGBT young people. Church leaders heard us and responded by dropping their recommendamation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons says the tion that such discredited interventions be changes do not go far enough. forced on LGBT and questioning youth.”

“The policies in the new Church Handbook Church spokesperson Scott Trotter reof Instruction continue to class homosexual leased a statement saying, “The HRC’s repbehavior as a choice and as a sin,” said Da- resentations of the changes in the new handvid Melson, the group’s president. “It states book are simply absurd.” He also reiterated that in order to be considered ‘worthy,’ an the church’s stance against same-sex marLGBT church member must refrain from riage and called for civility in the discussion. all sexual activity throughout their life and HRC re-released their statement, toning must remain in the closet in most discus- down its rhetoric and calling for the church sions and conversations.” to continue to work on the issue.

“To tell someone that they are less than “It is good to see the Mormon Church has fiworthy, or that they should never respond nally recognized what science has told us for to natural sexual attraction, or that they years — people cannot change their sexual should live their life dishonestly by living orientation and attempts to do so are harmin the closet, has the potential for incredible ful,” Solmonese said. “But the church has a harm to that individual,” he continued. lot further to go. Too many kids are strugHuman Rights Campaign President Joe gling with their identities and self-worth.

Solmonese was quick to issue a press release Church leaders must let them know they are taking credit for the policy change. loved and worthy just the way they are.”

Vigil Remembers Victims of Anti-Trans Violence

After a month of events celebrating transgender, genderqueer and gender-variant people throughout Utah and around the world, 2010’s Transgender Awareness Month closed with a solemn event to commemorate known victims of anti-transgender violence in the last year.

Groups in Logan, Ogden, Provo and Salt Lake City observed Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20. Founded in 1998 following the (still unsolved) murder of transgender woman Rita Hester, the day is now observed across the world.

Salt Lake City’s service was held at the First United Methodist Church, 203 S. 200 East. The church, said parishioner Mike Green in the service’s opening remarks, recently adopted “a reconciling statement that included gender, gender identity and sexual orientation.”

“We appreciate you being here and look forward to having other opportunities to serve our community in the way we should be serving them,” he said.

“A collaboration of this magnitude has never happened in Salt Lake City or statewide before,” said Christopher Scuderi, referring to the number of Utah organizations that participated in this year’s Transgender Awareness Month, which has been by far the largest celebration of its kind in state history. Scuderi, the executive director of Transgender Education Advocates of Utah, the education group that sponsored Transgender Day of Remembrance, then thanked the month’s sponsors, which included several churches, social justice groups, The gay and lesbian Mormon group Affirand lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender

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organizations.

Scuderi then spoke to a much more grim fact. This year he said that the day would honor 30 people from around the world who were brutally murdered because of antitransgender prejudice and hatred.

“Unfortunately, this trend shows no sign of abating,” he said, noting that most media outlets ignore these deaths, leaving “our brothers and sisters [to potentially be] otherwise forgotten.”

“This violence affects us all,” he said, noting that the 30 dead ranged across the gender-variant spectrum from cross dressers to drag queens to transgender people. This year’s Day of Remembrance, he added, would memorialize those murders reported since last year’s observance.

“Please notice that I said ‘reported,’” he said. “For while it would be nice to say that the number had decreased [due to education about transgender issues], these crimes are often misreported or not reported.” Also not among the names of the dead, he added, were transgender people who died because hospitals denied them medical treatment because of their transgender status.

The 30 people memorialized this year came from Italy, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand, the United States, Turkey, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Pakistan, Malaysia, the Dominican Republic and Brazil. With one exception, they were transgender women or described as individuals found wearing women’s clothing.

Most were also women of color, a group that anti-transgender violence heavily impacts.

They included Brenda from —Continued on page 42

PWACU Poinsettias Once again, the People With AIDS Coalition of Utah is offering red poinsettias for the holiday season. The plants are locally grown and come in six inch pots, and they range from 15–19 inches in height with five or more blooms per plant. Plants will be delivered to locations throughout Northern Utah on a schedule found on their web site. All proceeds benefit PWACU’s programs for Utahns living with HIV/AIDS. INFO: 801-484-2205 COST: $10 each or $75 for eight

Gobble, Gobble The Utah Pride Center will hold its annual Thanksgiving dinner for members of Utah’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer community, and their friends and allies, complete with games and movies to add to the fun. To donate food, volunteer or to R.S.V.P. for the dinner, contact volunteer@utahpridecenter.org.

WHEN: Nov. 25, 12:30–6 p.m. (food will be served from 1–3 p.m.)

WHERE: Utah Pride Center meeting rooms, 351 N. 300 West

Slip One On Simply Social, an informal social group for Utah’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, will sponsor Slip One On, a speed dating and dancing event following the Utah Pride Center and U of U LGBT Resource Center Queer Sex Ed workshop on Dec. 4. Pre-registration is open now and space is limited.

Pre-register to Lillian Rodriguez at lillian@utahpridecenter.org. Age ranges for the event are 21–32, 30– 49 and 50 and over. Hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar will be available.

WHEN: Dec. 4, 6:30p.m.–Midnight WHERE: Club Try-Angles, 251 W 900 S COST: $10 at the door

Queer Sex Ed Conference The University of Utah’s LGBT Resource Center and the Utah Pride Center will present a Queer Sex Ed Conference for gay and bisexual men, and transgender people. Workshops include: How to Live Happily Ever After: Sexuality, Dating and Relationships (Joshua Bytendorp); Find Your Man’s G-Spot: A Gay Men’s Sexual Satisfaction Workshop (Lee Beckstead); and Wrap It Before You Tap It, a safer sex workshop.

WHEN: Dec. 4, 11 a.m.–3 p.m.

WHERE: 1637 Campus Drive CRCC room 215, UofU COST: Free

Nuttall Leaving Pride Center after 8 Years of Service After Thanksgiving, Jennifer Nuttall will be working at a new job, seeing new people — much younger ones than she’s used to seeing as the Utah Pride Center’s adult programs director.

On Nov. 30, Nuttall, who started at the Center as a volunteer in 2002, will start work as the development director of Neighborhood House, which offers day-care services for children and adults, and has cared for her own children, Skyler and Anjelika since 2006, when Nuttall, their biological aunt, received permanent custody of them.

“When I got my kids four years ago, I got them quickly and abruptly and I didn’t have a lot of resources, and I was scrambling to find out what I’d do with them during the day because they weren’t school age yet,” she said. On the recommendation of a neighbor, Nuttall enrolled her son, who, having faced neglect before coming to Nuttall, was not ready to begin school.

“They got him with a wonderful teacher and got him kindergarten-prepped that year,” she said.

Impressed both by the day care’s tutors and its sliding-scale fee, Nuttall kept her son there and enrolled her daughter when she reached school age. But although she loved Neighborhood House, she said that she initially balked at the idea of applying when the position of development director opened up and staff encouraged her to apply.

“I’m a programming person,” she said.

“But the more I thought about it, the more it became an interesting idea because my office would be there for my kids after school and all day during the summer.

Everything just started falling into place, and I feel it’s the right move for me to make in my life at this point. [This job] brings my priority of being a mom and my passion for nonprofit work together in one position.”

Eight years ago, the position of adult programs director did not exist at the Utah Pride Center. But there, as at Neighborhood House, Nuttall moved into the place where the community needed her.

In 2002, then-Executive Director Paula Wolfe asked Nuttall, then a volunteer, to assist with grant management. One year

later, the Center leveraged money from its anti-tobacco grant into creating the full time position that Nuttall would hold until this year. During this time, the Utah Pride Center would drastically increase the number of programming options for adults to the diverse track it offers today.

“The position did not exist before I was hired, and so I was fortunate to have the opportunity to build that programming from the bottom up,” she said. “This position has truly been my dream job, and has afforded me unparalleled opportunities for growth, both personal and professional, community engagement and hands on knowledge on so many fronts.”

For Center regulars worried about how her departure will affect the programming she and they have worked so hard to put in place, Nuttall said that services will not be interrupted.

“There’s always so much to do here, so I’m a little afraid for the staff!” she joked. “But we have a plan for the interim time when someone’s not in the position.” This plan, she said, will include parceling out the responsibilities of running the programming track among the staff. “[Executive Director] Valerie [Larabee] is on top of making sure those gaps are filled so no one has to worry about programs and services being provided for the community,” she said. “Those will stay in place thanks to the fabulous staff and volunteers we have.”

Further, she added, the Center will also be looking to fill a volunteer programming intern position — and to restructure the adult programs director position after her departure.

“Valerie is going to be looking at how she wants the re-organization to look and the position as more than one position in the near future,” she said. “So if people in the community are interested [in applying], they could keep an eye on our website.”

In some ways, however, Nuttall said that her new job will be like her old one. As Neighborhood House’s development director, she will once again be writing and managing grants. However, she will also attend to fundraising for the day care’s programs and developing its donor base.

Another thing that will not change, she added, is her commitment to Utah’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.

“I want to give a huge thank you to everyone in the community for supporting me, and for their friendship and for the community work we did together,” she said.

“I’m proud of our community and excited for everything that’s still to come.”

Nov e mber 25 , 2010 | issue 16 8 | QSa lt L a k e | 9

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LOC al news

World AIDS Day

By JoSelle Vanderhooft

Along with protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth from bullying, HIV-prevention has been a hot topic in Utah’s community this year. In August, local activist Richard Matthews called for the resignation of Utah AIDS Foundation Executive Director Stan Penfold, saying that the foundation had drastically scaled back its prevention efforts under Penfold’s leadership. The controversy touched off a discussion about Utah’s rapidly-rising HIV infection rates — which are highest among young men who have sex with men — and what the community can do to slow the spread of the virus.

In many ways, the events surrounding Utah’s observance of World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) appear to be a response to this heightened concern. From Dec. 1–4, a number of HIV/AIDS and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups around the state will work together, and separately, to promote prevention, raise awareness and stamp out the still-prevalent stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS. On Dec. 1, Salt Lake City’s government will honor, for the second year, those in Utah, and from around the world, who have died from AIDS-related complications since the disease’s classification in 1981. As part of vigil and lighting event (Salt Lake City) RED, Mayor Ralph Becker will read a proclamation recognizing the day, and a number of speakers will address the ongoing AIDS crisis and its impact on Utah’s citizens. The event will include two minutes of silence during which bells around the city will ring 10 times — to commemorate the five people worldwide who are infected with HIV every minute. The event will culminate in Becker giving the signal to light the City and County Building red. “[The city] called us as well as other organizations to partner with them for this,” said Tyler Fisher, programming director at the Utah AIDS Foundation. “It was such a successful event last year, and we had such a great turn out. The community seemed to respond well to it, so we wanted to partner with [the city] again. We think it’s incredible that Salt Lake City is taking such a notice of World AIDS Day.” (Salt Lake City) RED will take place at the Salt Lake City and County Building, 451 S. State St., from 5:30–6 p.m.

At noon on the same day, UAF and the Utah Pride Center will combine forces for “Stick it to Stigma,” an demonstration against stigmatizing and discriminating against people with HIV/AIDS that will get its point across using balloons instead

of signs. At an appointed moment, demonstrators will all pop balloons labeled with the word “STIGMA.” “We wanted to have a very visual representation of actually sticking it to stigma,” said Lillian Rodriguez, the Center’s HIV/ AIDS prevention & education coordinator. Balloons, she said, appealed to her and other HIV-prevention specialists from both organizations as something that would get the message across in a striking way.

“We think that will send a powerful visual,” she said, noting that she hopes at least 100 demonstrators will join them on the northeast corner of 400 South State Street.

Stigma was an important topic for the prevention teams at both organizations, Rodriguez added, because of the way younger generations now regard HIV/ AIDS. She recalled a conversation with a young gay man who called AIDS “an old gay man’s disease.”

“I’ll never forget that,” she said. “It’s like, no, no it’s not. It hasn’t gone away.

It’s a lot more than just taking pills. If you are HIV positive there’s no reason why you should be shunned [and we shouldn’t] turn our backs on people who are positive.

These are members of our community and this [demonstration] is a great opportunity for us to come together and join in solidarity in addressing stigma.”

Fighting the stigma of HIV/AIDS will also be the theme of the “Stick it to Stigma” Gallery Stroll, held Dec. 3 in the Salt Lake City Main Public Library’s auditorium, 210 E. 400 South. This event, said Rodriguez, will feature works created by local artists that will have one thing in common whether they are paintings, sculptures or woven art: being done entirely in the color red.

Other events scheduled for World AIDS Day will include HIV BINGO at the Indian Walk-in Center on 120 W. 1300 South at 6 p.m. and a benefit dinner hosted by Salt Lake Community College’s Pre-Med Club, Student Health Advisory Committee, Pacific Unity Association and gay-straight alliance, Coloring Outside the Lines. All proceeds from this dinner will go to the Utah AIDS Foundation. It will be held from 6:30–8:30 p.m. in the Student Center Oak Room (2nd floor) of SLCC’s Redwood Campus, 4600 S. Redwood Rd. For more information or to R.S.V.P, call 801-739-1889 or e-mail SLCCPreMedClub@gmail.com.

That same evening, another dinner will be held in Utah County, also to benefit the Utah AIDS Foundation. It is being put together by Mike Talbot, a member of Provo Community Church.

“Our reverend is very committed to get-

10 | QSa lt L a k e | issue 16 8 | Nov e mber 25 , 2010

ting involved with the community,” he said. “I had mentioned something about World AIDS Day coming up and how we really should do something, and he said, ‘I’ll give you this. It’s your baby, roll with it.’ I want people to be aware that AIDS is around Utah.”

The dinner, which will be either Chinese or Samoan food, will be $25 per person and will be held at the Provo Community Church on 175 N. University Ave. (across from Zion’s Bank) at 8 p.m. Misty Thompson, a case manager with the Utah AIDS Foundation, will be the featured speaker,

Project Director Sarah McClellan. The service will be held at Your Community Connection, 2261 Adams Ave., Ogden. To R.S.V.P. (by Nov. 26) contact McClellan at 801-393-4153 or nuc536@comcast.net.

Back in Salt Lake Valley, UAF and the Utah Pride Center will team up for “Who’s to Blame for AIDS?” a provocative panel discussion that will explore, said Fisher, “the complexities of HIV” as it interacts with issues pertaining to race, culture, sexual orientation and class status and why, nearly 30 years after the AIDS epidemic began, HIV infections continue to spike across the nation.

“We really hope to arrive at a different conclusion than people may assume when they read the panel description,” he said.

“HIV is a complex issue that doesn’t have one answer.”

Panelists, he said, will be announced soon. The discussion, which will be fol-

and the evening will conclude with a candlelight vigil. The church will also be assembling “AIDS stockings” — packages of toiletries, snacks, office supplies and games for Utahns living with HIV/AIDS. “We really could use donations for these,” said Talbot. “If people are willing to bring [items to fill the stockings], that would be awesome.”

For more information about the dinner, contact Mike Talbot at 801-318-2950 or talbot.mike@ymail.com.

World AIDS Day events will take place at a number of other venues, including the University of Utah (see accompanying story). At 6 p.m. the Northern Utah Coalition will commemorate World AIDS Day with a memorial service for Utahns living with and who have died from HIV/AIDS. “We’re going to have some people with HIV/AIDS tell us what it’s like to deal with the disease and some of the barriers and stigma and those kinds of things,” said

lowed by a reception, will be held in the Salt Lake City Main Public Library’s auditorium, 210 E. 400 South, from 7–9 p.m. on Dec. 3.

Both Rodriguez and Fisher said that they were pleased to see so many organizations working together this year to help raise awareness and end stigma.

“I think this is the year where people want to address World AIDS Day and make it visible and well known, but it doesn’t stop there,” said Rodriguez. “World AIDS Day isn’t the only day we can talk about HIV/AIDS and addressing stigma. The conversation can and should continue. I don’t see why World AIDS Day is the one day out of the year that we stop to address ... what we ourselves are doing, whether that’s volunteering for an [HIV/AIDS] organization or going to clubs [to do HIV prevention education] or using a condom when you have sex. These are things we really want to push.”

UofU, Weber State Plan World AIDS Day Events

By JoSelle Vanderhooft

Along with AIDS and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organizations from at least three Utah cities, a number of universities and colleges will also observe World AIDS Day — and some of them have even planned a week around the day, which promotes HIV/AIDS awareness and commemorates those who have died or whose lives have been impacted by the disease.

AIDS Condom Wall The University of Utah will hold a series of events throughout the week leading up to the day, which is observed annually on Dec. 1. From Nov. 22 to Dec. 3, the school, in partnership with Planned Parenthood of Utah’s VOX student group, will present an AIDS Condom Wall on campus as well as “Stay Alert, Stay Aware,” during which VOX members will distribute free condoms and coffee in partnership with Westminster College.

AIDS-Related Workshops On Dec. 1 itself, the school’s LGBT Resource and Student Health Centers will partner for several events surrounding not only sexual health, but groundbreaking research into HIV/AIDS being conducted in the school’s medical labs. At 10:30 a.m., Elizabeth Craig will present a safer sex workshop called “‘There is a Monster in My Bed!’: An Overview of Sexual Health Including STDs and How to Protect Yourself.” This presentation, said Kathleen Covington, graduate assistant for the LGBT Resource Center, will cover safer sex practices for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, not just gay men and heterosexual people. This workshop will be followed by a speaker series about HIV/ AIDS research at university, during which four researchers will discuss their work.

“We wanted to connect upper and lower campus” for World AIDS Day, said Covington, referring respectively to the medical research labs at the mountainside University Hospital and the rest of the school’s campus below.

The speaker series will run 12–3:30 p.m. in the Student Union’s Collegiate Room, with each speaker giving 45- to 50-minute presentations. Dr. Wesley Sundquist will begin with a lecture on a topic that will be announced shortly. He will be followed by Dr. Vicente Planelles who will give the presentation, “Why HIV Reservoirs are Difficult to Eradicate,” about pockets of the virus that often hide in an HIV-positive person’s body.

“He basically is talking briefly about the history of the HIV epidemic, the origin of the virus in primates, the discovery of antiretroviral therapy [in the mid ’90s] and additional new therapies” being researched

at the university, said Covington.

Dr. Michael Kay will speak next on “Inhibiting Viral Entry for the Prevention and Treatment of HIV,” a presentation about various HIV inhibitors, like polymer vaginal rings and gels, that several of the U’s medical labs are currently developing.

In an article on these devices published by QSaltLake earlier this year, Kay explained that these devices hope to block the virus before it infects vaginal cells.

Finally, Dr. Larry Reimer will speak on “HIV: Where We’ve Been and Where We Are.” “He’s going to give a brief narrative about the history [of HIV/AIDS] as well, and how the illness and our perceptions of it have changed over time,” said Covington, noting that Reimer would also use “characteristics of HIV infection locally as a model” to discuss these perceptions on a national and global scale.

“There’s not a lot of opportunity to get upper and lower campus involved [in something together], so the greater number of students and faculty who attend, I think the greater chance we have of ensuring that we have successful collaboration with upper and lower campus, and we’ll have more opportunities in the long run,” said Covington.

The University of Utah will close out its World AIDS Day events with a “Queer Sex Education Conference” in the school’s CRCC building, room 215. Like a similar event held this spring for queer women, the conference will cover safer-sex techniques for men who have sex with men, as well as topics pertaining to healthy relationships and enhancing sexual satisfaction.

HIV Testing Covington noted that the school would also hold free HIV testing at its Madison Student Health Center, located on the corner of Mario Capecchi Drive and 500 South. Testing will be held 2–4 p.m. on Dec. 2, 7 and 9. For more information call 801-581-6431.

Films and Information Tables A number of HIV/AIDS prevention organizations will also be present throughout the day in the school’s Student Union lobby to provide students and community members with information about HIV testing and other subjects. Additionally, from 2:30–5:30 p.m. the school will screen, in the Student Union theater, two films about HIV: Pedro: The Pedro Zamora Story about the life and work of Zamora, an openly gay and HIVpositive man and star of MTV’s The Real World: San Francisco, who died of HIV-related causes in 1994; and Yesterday, about a South African Zulu mother trying to raise her daughter while dying of AIDS.

Day With(out) Art The Utah Museum of Fine Arts, which is located on the campus, will also honor African AIDS victims by observing a Day With(out) Art, a movement begun in 1989 when the world’s artistic communities were being hit hard by the disease. As part of this day, museums drape at least one piece in their collection in black, effectively removing it from viewers’ sight.

This year, as last year, the draped piece will be a 20th century Sowei helmet mask from the Mende people of Sierra Leone, which is part of the museum’s permanent Africa: Arts of a Continent exhibition. The diamond-shaped wooden mask was worn by members of the Sande women’s society to symbolize Sowei, a water spirit who guides women into the roles of wife and mother.

“The “absence” of this work in the Africa: Arts of a Continent exhibition will serve as a reminder to museum visitors of those who have fallen victim to the disease and are now absent, as well as those who continue to suffer from the epidemic and

crusade for a cure,” said the museum in a release. It noted that Sierra Leone had roughly 55,000 people living with HIV or AIDS in 2007 and that sub-Sahara Africa, in which the country is located, “is more heavily affected by HIV and AIDS than any other region in the world, with an estimated 22,400,000 adults and children living with the disease at the end of 2007; approximately 1,400,000 who died from the epidemic that year; and over 14,000,000 children who are now orphaned” according to AIDS charity AVERT. The group also estimates that nearly 33,000,000 people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS. Admission to the museum will be free throughout the day, and a card explaining the mask’s “absence” will be placed on top of the drape.

Workshop in Weber

Weber State University will also observe World AIDS Day with a presentation on the fundamentals of HIV given by members of the Northern Utah Coalition at 12:30 p.m. in the school’s Shepherd Union, Room 232. Q

Red Party Like a Rock Star Fans and friends of Hotel Monaco’s annual Red Party take note: Lady Gaga is going to make an appearance.

Well, all right. Not Lady Gaga herself, but the next best thing: a drag celebrity impersonator. The pop superstar, known for her outlandish costumes and her outspoken support for gay rights, is just one of many rock stars that drag performers Gorgeous Jared, Porshea and Coko are thinking of portraying during this annual benefit party for the Utah AIDS Foundation.

“As far as anyone else, they don’t know,” said Shawn Jackson, entertainment guru at Hotel Monaco, which has sponsored the Red Party for six years.

“But,” he added, “they have mentioned Britney Spears and David Bowie.”

Why rock stars in particular? They’re the theme of this year’s celebration, which encourages guests to “Party Like a Rock Star.” As “celebrity” rock and pop stars roam the hotel’s lobby in between performances, party-goers will be treated to what Jackson calls “mini-rock star makeovers” courtesy of Ulysses Hair Salon.

“Of course, there’ll be feather boas, balloons and [temporary] tattoos this year, and hopefully some scantily-clad gentlemen and women to wear and put them on [party-goers],” said Jackson.

As usual, Hotel Monaco’s lobby will be decked out in red, the color of the AIDS awareness ribbon. In keeping with this theme, attendees are asked to wear red, and on-site Bambara restaurant will, as in years past, supply party-goers with red hors d’oeuvres and drinks. (This year’s menu, said Jackson, is still being developed and very top secret).

And those feeling cheated that the real

Lady Gaga won’t be on the guest list can take heart: they can win one of two chances to see her when her Monster Ball Tour stops in Salt Lake City this coming March.

One set of tickets will be given out that night as part of an opportunity drawing; the other will be auctioned off.

“You could see Lady Gaga for as low as $10,” said Jackson.

Other prizes will include Jet Blue airline tickets, vouchers for two-night stays at 12 different Kimpton Hotel properties (the chain that owns Hotel Monaco), and two trips to Las Vegas — one to the men’s hotel Blue Moon Resort, and the other to Rio Suite Hotel and Casino. Local businesses and local chapters of national businesses who are sponsoring the evening include Ulysses Hair Salon, Red Bull, Beam Global Spirits & Wine, Inc., Bud Light and David Daniels Photography, who will be photographing the event.

The “after Red Party” will be held at JAM, 751 N. 300 West, from 8 p.m.–1 a.m., featuring live deejays and a prize drawing.

The suggested donation to attend is $5.

“Party Like a Rock Star” will be held at Hotel Monaco, 15 W 200 South, on Dec. 2, 5:30–7:30 p.m. Packages for the evening start as low as $35. To R.S.V.P., contact Nathan Measom at nathan@utahaids.org or 801-487-2323 by Dec. 1.

Each year, a number of Kimpton Hotels across the country hold events similar to Monaco’s Red Party to raise money for their local HIV/AIDS organizations.

Though Salt Lake City has but one Kimpton hotel, Monaco has nonetheless earned more money than several hotels in larger cities, coming in second or even first place in years past. Q

Nov e mber 25 , 2010 | issue 16 8 | QSa lt L a k e | 11

LOC al news

Drag King Discusses Race, Gender Identity at Conference At the end of a day-long conference on issues about gender, gender identity and gender expression, a drag king artist took the stage at Westminster College for an informative — and oftentimes humorous — discussion about his art, his stage performances and the women who identify as various aspects of butch who have inspired his work.

Lim, who is Canadian and of Chinese decent, was introduced by Bo(nnie) Owens, former Youth Programs coordinator at the Utah Pride Center, who jokingly referred to Lim as the catalyst that would change Utah.

“He is the moment, mark it, you’re here, it’s changing now,” said Owens, who identifies as genderqueer and prefers a mixture of male and female pronouns. “So hopefully when you’re enjoying cleaner air and military pacifism and cheap prescription drugs, you’ll remember to thank TransAction,” the youth-lead transgender advocacy program at the Center that was one of the main sponsors of the conference, which was called Engendering Community. ”I am going to talk today about engendering community,” said Lim after taking the stage. “I don’t think I was invited [to speak in Utah] because I’m an authority on any particular subject, but because I like telling stories.”

To begin, Lim shared stories of butches and transgender people he had known who helped him form his identity, from his “baby queer” roommate who taught him about the trans community by identifying with the pronoun “they,” to a black man angry at how the gay rights movement had frequently excluded people of color, to a transgender woman who angrily told him about how the feminist movement (and lesbian feminists in particular) frequently “threw transgender women away when they got their rights.”

“It was terrible. I felt attacked,” said Lim when recounting this story. “She was calling me ignorant and I couldn’t stand that.”

But the fact that this friend could be angry with him, Lim continued, “showed me she valued me as part of a community that she wanted to keep.”

“When we talk about engendering community, we’re also talking about a failure of community,” he said. “We’re talking about new models and breaking old models because the old ones failed us. We’re building our own community because maybe the gay community failed us or the lesbian community. Or the cisgender [non-transgender] community. And maybe the fact is that communities aren’t really designed to be inclusive after all, they’re designed to be exclusive. When we’re talking about engendering community, maybe the best thing we can do is be honest. We can ask who is in our community and who is not, and why, and what does this say about our community? I don’t think it’s our job to encompass everybody, but it is our job to be truthful about that.”

While Lim said that diversity was important, he encouraged the audience to ask why that was so. In his opinion, he said, di-

versity benefits individuals.

“Fostering diversity serves me because there are too many people I’ve lost,” he said.

“When someone’s afraid of me and my gender or avoids me because I’m different or tells me my whole race is homophobic, or claims my race makes their race unsafe, or denies me from talking about my racialized experience whatsoever, they deny the opportunity to share with me and experience my authentic self.”

Lim also pulled up slides from the pages of his graphic novel, 100 Butches. The book, he said, was inspired by people from several races, social/economic classes and gender identities who identified as butch or similar identities, and whom Lim had met on his travels around the world. A majority of them, like Lim, were people of color, and some of them rejected the label of “butch” because of its connotations to white, working-class identity.

In the stories, Lim pointed out that, for butches of color, passing as male or identifying as butch often came with “new kinds of racism.” In one story, a butch of Chinese descent wondered if white people saw his race before seeing his gender identity and, if so, how that affected their perception of him altogether.

“I changed from being a fetishized Chinese woman to an invisible Chinese man,” he said.

Lim closed by reading a letter that he had written to a friend before coming to Salt Lake City this summer for the Utah Pride Festival.

“I’ve been scared of coming to Salt Lake City,” he said. “I don’t want to show up and be Chinese. I want to be desired and recognized and beloved, but I don’t want to be Chinese. I’m proud of my race, but I know there are people who avoid me because of it, who ask for this permanent costume. I wish when I walk into a queer bar that strangers would look at me with attraction, like they do when a handsome white butch walks in.”

In her closing remarks, Owens said he wasn’t entirely kidding in his opening remarks.

“We really do here in Salt Lake set the tone for the rest of the country, and the country does look to us for what we’re doing,” he said. I think we gave them something good to look at today.”

Engendering Community was the second conference on gender issues to be held during Transgender Awareness Month. This year’s conference covered several panels not only on the basics of gender identity and gender expression, but the oppression experienced by transgender, genderqueer and gender-variant people of color and the limited outreach several local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organizations have done into communities of color. Other topics included a panel on transgender health and general medical issues, as well as a workshop that encouraged participants to examine social and economic privileges like being white, wealthy or able-bodied. Q

12 | QSa lt L a k e | issue 16 8 | Nov e mber 25 , 2010

Homosexuality a Choice?

Does it Still Matter?

This month, The Salt Lake Tribune released figures from its latest poll about homosexuality in Utah that were just as surprising as past polls that revealed widespread support for gay rights.

Although a majority of Utahns surveyed by the paper in 2009 and 2010 showed support for such gay rights initiatives as hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples and employment nondiscrimination laws based on sexual orientation, the Tribune’s recent poll, conducted in late October, showed that a large percentage also believe that homosexuality is a choice. In a random survey of 625 registered voters, 44 percent said that gays and lesbians can change their sexual orientation and 25 percent said they were unsure.

Anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family have long embraced the idea that homosexuality is not inborn and can be changed and have used this argument as a reason for opposing not just gay marriage, but any number of protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (even though many of the latter identify as straight). This idea is also the cornerstone of so-called ex-gay programs and ministries like Utah’s Evergreen International, which council members experiencing unwanted same-sex attractions. However, nearly all professional medical groups in the United States disagree. For example, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the National Association of Social Workers all condemn “reparative therapy” as harmful to those who seek it.

Although national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights groups have, in the past as well as now, continued to stress that people cannot choose or change their sexual orientation and gender identity, members of Utah’s community nonethe-

less told QSaltLake that they have mixed feelings about the debate over chosen versus inborn sexuality.

“I don’t find the question relevant at all,” said local activist Eric Ethington. “While it’s a scientific fact that sexual orientation is not chosen, what does that matter? If two adults are in love and committed to each other, or if an individual chooses to live their life in a different manner than others, how is that any business of the government?”

Ethington, who co-founded the social justice group Justice Vanguard and who runs the blog PRIDE in Utah, added that the “bottom line” is that U.S. citizens should all have the same guarantees of freedom and equality. “What type of equality is it if we refuse to protect those who are different from us?” he said.

Troy Williams, producer of KUER’s RadioActive and a QSaltLake columnist, agreed with Ethington.

“Homosexuality is a great choice! I’d recommend it to anyone,” he joked.

“But the “born that way” debate is really a male-centered argument,” he continued.

“Many women actually do choose lesbian relationships. It’s us guys who typically argue that our attractions are essential. But why should women’s choices be disparaged as less valuable just because some of them don’t feel “born” gay? We are all gay for cultural, social, biological and temporal reasons. All of these factors intersect in myriad ways to create desire within humans. Nature vs. nurture arguments are just lazy. They ignore the complexity of sexuality and gender.”

Some lesbians have, in fact, argued that their sexuality was a political choice.

However, this was largely an argument made by second-wave lesbian feminists, who viewed heterosexuality as damaging to women, during the 1970s and ’80s.

Also, some gay and bisexual people have argued that their sexuality was not inborn, but something they happily chose. For example, WNBA star Sheryl Swoops caused controversy in 2005 when she came out by saying exactly that.

“I can’t help who I fall in love with. No one can,” she told ESPN Magazine. “I didn’t always know I was gay. I honestly didn’t. Do I think I was born this way? No. And that’s probably confusing to some, because I know a lot of people believe that

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However, several Utahns told QSaltLake that the argument was still relevant — if only because gay opponents make it so.

“Most people believe and most research shows that homosexuality is biologically based and not a choice,” said Aimee Selfridge. “It is relevant because the scientific backing gives those fighting for our equal rights a firm foundation to argue from.

It’s all politics and double-talk most of the time, so having solid facts to offer up moves us closer to equal rights.”

“As long as people use it as a way to jus-

tify discrimination against people, it will remain an issue,” added Cody VanderStappen. “It is by virtue of believing it is a choice that people are able to deflect responsibility for their bigotry. Once a person is forced to acknowledge it is not a choice, they are left with only religious arguments, which is when they know they lose. Why do you suppose they keep rebranding creationism?”

Others, like Jeff Lensman said that proving that homosexuality is not a choice will do much to dispel fear and ignorance about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people — which will also prevent recent instances of queer youth suicides from happening.

“The question about choice must be answered scientifically and behaviorally so that much of the fear and misinformation can be replaced with understanding and compassion,” he said.

Ultimately, however, many who commented to QSaltLake agreed that the question should not matter, regardless of where they fell on the choice versus not a choice argument.

“It is specious reasoning that people shouldn’t have full civil rights because of their skin color, sexual preference, or gender identity,” said Maureen Duffy-Boose.

“Civil rights should be based on being an American citizen and nothing else. Science will tell us whether it is a choice. Law must tell us that doesn’t matter.”

And, ultimately, the argument may not matter to Utahns at large, either. In 2009, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that 56 percent of those surveyed supported “hospital visitation rights and employment protections” for gays and lesbians, though 54 percent and 70 percent did not support, respectively, homosexual couples adopting children or same-sex marriage. One year later, 67 percent of Utahns favored basic protections. So far, no explanations have been floated in any media outlet as to why a majority of Utahns both favor protections based on sexual orientation and believe that homosexuality is a choice. Q

Nov e mber 25 , 2010 | issue 16 8 | QSa lt L a k e | 13

LOC al news

IHC Employees Displeased by Domestic-partner Benefits When Utah’s Intermountain Healthcare announced in October that it would extend benefits to unmarried partners (of either sex) of employees, the lesbian, gay, bisex-

ual and transgender rights groups across the country hailed the move as a milestone for Utah businesses.

“Equality Utah celebrates this monumen-

tal policy change,” said Brandie Balken, executive director of statewide gay and transgender rights group Equality Utah, in a release at the time. “[W]e see this as an incredibly important shift. Intermountain Healthcare is one of the largest businesses in Utah with over 32,000 employees. We applaud them for stepping forward and joining other businesses in providing equal

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However, not all Intermountain employees were as pleased once they discovered that the company, the third largest employer in the state, would not be subsidizing the benefits. Rather, employees who want to insure their unmarried partners will do so at cost, meaning that they will likely pay anywhere from $100–$300 more than would a legally married couple, from $100–$400 more than an employee and his or her children, according to figures released by The Salt Lake Tribune earlier this month.

“They’re not truly treating us as equals,” Life Flight nurse Lori Hutchison told the paper, saying that writing letters of complaint to the company as she did was the only recourse same-sex partners had.

“We have no legal standing,” she said.

“Any company that offers domestic-partner benefits does it because it’s the right thing to do, not because they have to.”

Intermountain spokesperson Daron Cowley said that while insurance benefits for employees’ unmarried partners were not subsidized, they were still guaranteed issue, this giving “access to coverage for some people who might not normally qualify.”

At press time, Cowley had not returned phone calls seeking further comment about employees’ reactions and whether Intermountain would reconsider subsidizing domestic partner benefits in the future.

Balken said that she was surprised when she saw the company’s rate sheet.

“I commend Intermountain for taking the first small step in allowing access to benefits,” she said. “We will continue to have conversations about equity in the way those benefits are applied.”

Balken added that she had called the company and left a message asking for the reason why insuring one person could potentially cost an employee more than insuring his or her entire family. She said she had yet to receive a response.

“I look forward to continuing that conversation so I can understand and we can understand as a community why there is such a difference in insuring up to five or six people as opposed to one person,” she said.

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UTAH PRIDE CENTER serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community

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amination about how family rejection and societal homophobia and transphobia also drive young gay and transgender people to suicide. He praised a recent move by group’s such as Dr. Caitlin Ryan’s Family Acceptance Project to see the families of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning as allies, rather than enemies. The best way to do this, he said, is not to engage in debates over the morality of homosexuality, but to tell families that “when you say or do these things [like telling their children that homosexuality is sinful] you’re hurting your children and you’re hurting us.”

To underscore this point, Minter discussed his own coming out experiences — first as lesbian and then as transgender — and the way his family from “a small community in Texas” reacted, and how that reaction changed. He said he was crushed when his family told him not to come and visit because they would be humiliated and would have to move out of town. After seven years of abiding by their wishes, Minter said he missed them too much and finally went for a visit.

“I still remember when my grandma saw me and hugged me and said she loved me.

She did not care that I was transgender,” he said.

Rather than forcing his family to move as they had feared, Minter said his hometown “was wonderful” and helped his parents to accept him. A year before his father died, Minter said that he referred to him for the first time as his son in front of other people, and said that he was proud of the work he was doing at NCLR. “That meant the world to me, and even at my age, I felt it gave me so much strength,” he said. “I thought, ‘What if I’d had that as a child or even as a young adult?’”

Minter also discussed the change in juries’ attitudes in transgender murder cases in which he had participated. In the 2002 trial of Gwen Araujo’s murder, he said that the prosecutor’s insistence on not referring to Araujo consistently as “she” had “an alienating effect on the jury and dehumanizing and hard on Gwen’s family.” Ultimately, that case went through two trials, the first resulting in a hung jury and the second in a second-degree murder conviction for two of the three suspects, without a hate crime enhancement.

By contrast, Minter said that he and NCLR were able to change this behavior in the trial of Angie Zapata’s murderer, Allen Andrade, in 2008.

“Having sat through Gwen’s trial, we reached out to the prosecution and they were very open,” he said. “We worked with them and talked to them behind the scenes

ties,” he said, noting that the United Farmworkers played a key role in California’s Legislature’s vote to legalize gay marriage in 2005 (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed this move, however).

“What tipped the balance was the United Farmworkers talking to a couple of the legislators that they worked closely with and pushing them to do the right thing on t hat vote,” said Minter. “That was because Equality California had so strongly supported the United Farmworkers in their boycott of [E&J] Gallo Wines.”

The passage of Proposition 8 in 2008, which re-banned gay marriage just months after the State Supreme Court struck down the ban, “galvanized all these other communities to come to our aid,” Minter continued.

“It has really strengthened the connections between LGBT groups and other social justice groups to an amazing degree actually,” he said.

Minter then opened the floor to questions, which ranged from the possibility of working with the LDS Church to end antigay and anti-transgender bullying, President Barack Obama’s successes in granting rights to gay and transgender people, and legal strategies he has employed in arguing that transgender parents should retain custody of their children. Q

8

Utah’s many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organizations have long had a close relationship with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, in part because Executive Director Kate Kendall is a native Utahn who returns to the state regularly to update members of the community at large on NCLR’s work.

Another of the law center’s frequent visitors is Legal Director Shannon Minter. As a guest of Transgender Education Advocates, Minter, a transgender Shannon Minter man, returned to the Beehive State this month to give a lecture as part of Transgender Awareness Month.

On Nov. 13, Minter and 10 members of Utah’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, including TEA leaders Christopher and Teinamarrie Scuderi gathered in the Salt Lake City & County Building’s council chambers for the talk, during which Minter discussed subjects from anti-gay and transgender bullying to a recent trip to China to work with lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocates. There he attended a secret conference in a hotel basement in which 420 people attended and visited a support center organized by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

“They were so excited and proud of what they’d done,” said Minter, noting that the center was located in a rundown building to prevent authorities from finding it (homosexuality is still highly stigmatized in China). “They had this big rainbow flag and had given each color a symbolic meaning. … They put their mission statement up [on the wall] in English because they didn’t want authorities to walk in and know what was going on.”

“Since I came back, I wanted to honor their courage and they made me realize, even though we lose sight of it here, we are part of this movement of LGBT people over the world to stand up for ourselves and be treated with dignity and respect,” he said.

Minter then shifted his focus to the United States, onto reports of student suicides following anti-gay bullying that have rocked the country since September.

One problem with the media’s coverage of these suicides, he said, was its lack of ex-

and said, ‘Look, whatever you do, you have got to respect who Angie was, and when you’re presenting this case, you have to get it right in your head and be clear with the jury that she was female and used female pronouns and do not deviate from that.’”

“And they did that and put her family up there to testify,” he continued. “Her family totally thought of her as a woman.

And her sister — the defense kept trying to say, “you mean your brother?” And she would say, ‘You mean my sister.’ It was so powerful.”

Unlike Araujo’s case, the jury convicted Andrade of first-degree murder with a hate crimes enhancement.

“That is the first time there has been any prosecution of a bias-motivated crime against a transgender person in this country, and it’s still the only one, actually,” said Minter.

Finally, Minter described a strategy that California Equality has used that would be useful in Utah. After encouraging lesbian, gay, and bisexual cisgender (non-transgender) people to be good allies to transgender people, Minter encouraged the entire community to be good allies for all oppressed people.

“Equality California managed to pass so much positive legislation for community by being a good ally to other communi-

Nov e mber 25 , 2010 | issue 16 8 | QSa lt L a k e | 15

our views

Q on the street

guest editorial

❝ ❝With all the talk on whether or not homosexuality is a choice, is it still a relevant issue?”

HIV remains a gay disease

Erik Hartwell No. The ‘choice’ to be gay has been disproved multiple times. The only reason it still exists is because the religious right refuses to acknowledge fact and stick with uneducated opinions. It’s a weapon of hate used out of ignorance.

Daniel O’Neill’

D

ecember First is World AIds Day, part of a growing list of efforts to draw attention to HIV and AIDS. Sadly, I fear this day will come and go without notice; but I hope I am wrong.

As highlighted in the recent National HIV/ AIDS Strategy, the plight of gay and bisexual men has taken a turn for the worse over the past decade. Once again, we have reached a tipping point in the course of this epidemic with an imminent rise of new HIV infections on the horizon — the likes of which we have not seen since the early ’90s.

Nationally, MSM are 44 to 86 times more likely to be infected with HIV than their heterosexual counterparts, for they account for 53 percent of new infections, despite comprising an estimated 2 percent of the total population. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius even noted recently “in some U.S. cities, it is estimated that nearly half of gay African-American men are HIV-positive.”

While many factors are to blame for this new epidemic of HIV among gay men – including a growing complacency around the disease and the threat it still poses to one’s health; the advent of the internet, facilitating quick and often anonymous sex; and, until recently, the lack of a coordinated domestic plan to fight HIV – gone from our memories, it seems, is a time when the gay men rallied together to fight for our survival, galvanized by the death and destruction that HIV/AIDS inflicts on our community. Thus, as our communal urgency around the disease has waxed and waned, so has our perceived need to protect each other and ourselves.

In D.C. the picture is especially grim. For despite the recent National HIV Behavioral Surveillance (NHBS) study revealing that 14 percent of those sampled tested HIV-positive, only 57.4 percent reported using a condom during the most recent anal intercourse.

Considering our community’s history, we should know better. Yet for whatever reason, HIV/AIDS continues to remain an undeniably “gay disease,” begging the question: How have we backslid so terribly in preventing its spread?

Perhaps it’s because so many of those who would have passed on memories of the disease’s devastation have since died, while others may insist it’s because we’ve recently been distracted by so many other LGBT civil rights issues. Or maybe it’s because those who have survived are so exhausted from practicing and preaching safer sex that they have finally given way to HIV “prevention fatigue.”

John Guerrero

Regardless, today we find a new generation of gay men that never endured the fear and suffering of those who lived and died only decades before them. They never attended weekly funerals or had their social circles decimated overnight. Today, when just one young gay man dies, it’s a tragedy; but back then it was commonplace.

Yet despite the pressing challenges our community currently faces, we now have a much broader arsenal of information and technology to protect ourselves than ever before. Knowledge is power; but this knowledge does us little good if we’re unwilling to educate ourselves and our fellow gay men.

As such, in recognition of NGMHAD, following are four important, and often-overlooked, facts that all gay men should know about this disease and the new epidemic we now face.

• Newly infected individuals who are still within their “window period” (less than three months since being infected) are both most infectious and unlikely to test positive for the virus: In a perverse twist of fortune, until newly infected people seroconvert, they will continue to falsely test negative for HIV while also being at the greatest risk of transmitting the virus to someone else.

In the early stages of HIV infection, the virus expands rapidly, seeding throughout the body, as one’s immune system delays in mounting an appropriate response. Only when this robust response occurs, producing HIV-specific antibodies, will a screening test identify someone as positive. In the meantime, one’s viral load becomes astronomically high, dramatically increasing the chance of transmitting the virus. Thus, at times when people may feel most safe, they may be at most risk of infection. So close those windows!

• The advent of PEP: Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) was initially developed for healthcare workers who were accidentally exposed to HIV. Ultimately, it was found

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that following a month-long regimen of antiretroviral therapy, begun within 72 hours of the exposure, dramatically reduced one’s chance of developing an infection. Thus, if you believe you’ve been exposed to HIV (i.e. condom breaks), go to the nearest clinic or department of health to begin PEP within three days.

• The importance of routine testing: Stigma around HIV testing will forever remain a barrier to early diagnosis unless we are adamant about asking for the test and routinely expecting it from our providers. Despite drastic changes to the CDC HIV testing guidelines in 2006, many physicians still refuse to implement such proven cost-effective approaches. As a result, among those gay men who tested newly positive in the recent NHBS study, who had seen a doctor within the past year, approximately two-thirds had NOT been offered an HIV test, often presenting with full-blown AIDS at the time of diagnosis. These cases are missed opportunities for early treatment and care, the most effective way to curb future spread of the disease. This practice has to change; so ask your primary care physician to routinely offer the test.

• Taking action against HIV: For the younger generation of gay men, it’s an accident of history that we are living in 2010, instead of 1980. If that were the case, well over half of us would be dead or dying within the next few years. We’re lucky. Conversely, if you endured those years unscathed, you know what it was like. So please share your story with the next generation of gay men.

They need to hear it. And perhaps, you may motivate all of us to take action. One great way to help is by volunteering for a HIV vaccine research study at one of many NIHsponsored sites throughout the country.

They need your help and are now actively recruiting MSM. Go here to get involved.

Daniel O’Neill is chair of the DC Center’s HIV Prevention Working Group

Sexual preference is not a gender issue. It’s a choice in my opinion. The social environment plays an important role for this choice.

Vivi Melody Blue The question of choice is still relevant to understanding social sciences, but should have no bearing on civil rights. Opponents love to invoke it as an unprovable strawman argument, but citizens are already protected based on life choices like religion. We mustn’t be drawn in.

Tolai Pei Yes. Because many people still think it is a choice. Nothing worse than trying to fight for gay rights while the curious thwart our reality.

Pay no heed to those imposters.

True gays don’t choose.

Megan Pedersen I know this is important in our fight for equality, but telling me it’s not a choice makes it sound like if I had a choice I wouldn’t choose this. I choose to love my wife because she is amazing, NOT because someone tells me I am hard-wired to.

Todd Asay Hopefully one day this will be irrelevant and people will be equal in all civil rights. However we are nowhere near that point now.

M

the straight line On Choice

By Bob Henline

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uch ado has been made of late regarding the bigoted and insensitive comments of LDS “Apostle” Boyd K. Packer referring to homosexuality as a choice that people can, and should, overcome. Packer indicated that in some way LGBTQ individuals choose their gender identity/orientation and that choice is evil. While this kind of statement from a bigot like Packer isn’t surprising, it is surprising that there is still a fairly large segment of the population that believes this nonsense, contrary to all of the science on this subject.

Being a straight male, I can’t say from first-hand experience that LGBTQ people are “born that way” — but I can confirm that I was born straight and I am confident enough in the research and science to say that this is most likely true. I didn’t choose my gender or preference, I was born as I am. Why should I believe that people with different gender orientation, identity, or preference were not born as they are?

As the topic has been beaten to death lately, I’m going to ignore the aspects of God, Jesus and sin in this argument. In my opinion it’s all a ridiculous fairy tale used to megalomaniacs to secure some form of control or power over other people. What I want to focus on today is choice. The religious fanatics like Packer would have us believe that LGBTQ persons are not entitled to equality under law because they make a conscious choice to be different, and that equal protections don’t apply because this is a choice, not an inborn characteristic.

To these idiots I would like to raise two primary arguments. First, science has conclusively demonstrated that orientation/ identity are no more a choice than skin color or gender itself. All of us are born as we are, each unique, and each with inherent value. I didn’t choose to be a straight male with pattern baldness and a genetic predisposition to gout and diabetes, but here I am.

I personally don’t know a single individual that identifies themselves as LGBTQ by choice. Such a person may exist, but I’ve yet to meet him or her. I also don’t know anyone that is truly heterosexual by choice. I do know a few people that, for

reasons of their own, choose to live a hetero (or even celibate) lifestyle even though their natural desires fall under the LGBTQ umbrella. And while these individuals make a choice about how they live and express themselves, their gender identity/ preference remains, although hidden.

I think that the best argument that can be made regarding choice in this regard is one simple question: could you truly change your orientation? Boyd Packer, I’m asking you: can you honestly say that you have the ability to change your preference, emotionally, mentally, and physically? I’m not talking about suppressing your sexual desires, but truly changing your innate attractions. I know I couldn’t do that, nor would I ever want to try. Why, then, should we ask any other member of our society to do that?

The second part of the argument, though, is the interesting part, and the one that is most often overlooked in this discussion. Why should a choice result in the loss of liberty or equality?

Let’s assume, just for argument’s sake, that the science is wrong and we’re all delusional.

Gender identity, preference and orientation are choices we make. Even if that is true, why should that choice impact an individual’s right to liberty and equality?

All you have to do in this town is utter a vaguely anti-LDS remark to have the brethren come out of the woodwork shouting about religious freedom. Yet religion is a choice, is it not? It is a choice that doesn’t negatively impact other individuals or society as a whole, and hence is protected under law. There are a number of choices that we make that are protected under law, such as religion, marital and family status, etc. Protections exist under law that prohibit discrimination on the basis of these choices.

These are not in-born characteristics.

So, again for argument’s sake, if an individual chooses to be gay, why should they still not be entitled to equality under law?

That choice poses no risk to any other individual and no harm to society as a whole.

The only risk that is posed is to outdated dogma and ridiculous religious “sensibilities.” Even if this was a choice, society has no right to impose consequences on that choice. Q

Can you honestly say that you have the ability to change your preference?

Lisa M. Winward, MBA, CRPC

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QSaltLake Tweets @QSaltLake Nov e mber 25 , 2010 | issue 16 8 | QSa lt L a k e | 17

our views

O

lambda lore The Dick and the Hull

by Ben Williams

kay. Sometimes you look at a blank screen and realize, “I got nut’n.” After six years of writing this column, I’ve about covered every major issue of our collective historical past. Unless you want me to tell a queer and inconsistent story from November, 1891.

All right, if you insist.

It was a dark and chilly November evening when Salt Lake City Detective William Daggett decided to take the Warm Springs Trolley to the Beck Street Bath House for a good Saturday night wash. Being late in the evening, there were but two men in the plunge when he arrived. They were J. H. Murphy, foreman of the Union Pacific Depot roundhouse, and his friend John J. Hull, foreman of the Rio Grande boiler shop. The two naked men “loitered” in the room, but soon after Daggett got into the water they left and went to the dressing rooms.

Daggett said he was at the lower end of the pool when the two men came out of their dressing rooms. After Murphy went outside, Hull allegedly called out to Daggett “asking him if he wasn’t lonesome.” The detective told Hull, “it was a little lonesome” and waded over to the platform where Hull was standing. Daggett claimed that Hull then asked him “to get out as he wanted to have some fun with him.” Daggett, unaware of Hull’s intentions, climbed out of the pool and stepped into the dressing room “at the invitation of the railroad man.” There Daggett alleged that Hull tried to touch his junk and “made an assault of the most infamous character.” Incensed, the detective bitch-slapped Hull in the face, but realizing he “was naked and in no position to exercise authority at that moment, jumped into the pool again.”

Just then, the bathhouse manager entered the place and Hull skipped out. Daggett called to the manager expressing “great indignation at the heinous assault.” The manager was so pissed off that he said “that it would have served the man right if he had been killed then and there.”

After climbing out of the plunge and putting his drawers on, Daggett “made up his mind to arrest the man on the charge of attempting to commit the ‘Crime Against Nature’.”

Daggett found Hull outside the bath house, apparently hoping for another go at him.

Instead, Hull found himself before a police officer who dramatically threw back his coat and displayed his star saying, “I will just arrest you for this.” Hull, according to Daggett, then “commenced to plead for leni-

ency saying that he had only been married a few months and that this exposure would simply ruin him forever.”

“Let me go,” pleaded Hull. “And I give you my word as a man that I will never repeat this offense.” With the palm of his hand thrust forward, Daggett — as melodramatically as possible — retorted, “You cannot give the word of a man because you are only a dirty cur.”

Hull wasn’t going down without a fight, and Daggett reported that he had to strike him in the neck with his fist wrapped around handcuffs. That got his attention; Daggett wasn’t to be fooled with.

Coming out of a daze, Hull, however, again

‘You cannot give the word of a man because you are only a dirty cur.’ appealed for mercy. He even tried to bribe Daggett by “taking off his watch and chain and ring and thrusting them into my hand.”

Stoic Daggett told him, “It was no use he would have to go along.”

About this time Hull’s friend Murphy appeared, and seeing Hull detained he wanted to know what the heck he was charged with?

Daggett said he “began to feel a little sorry for Hull and not wishing to expose him to his friend said it was a girl scrape.” Murphy persuaded Daggett to release Hull on his own recognizance after getting the addresses of Hull and Murphy.

The next morning Det. Daggett went off to see if Hull had given him the correct address of 415 W. First North. When Hull came to the door, Daggett notified him that he had an appearance before a city judge on Monday. At this point, Daggett said that Hull again tried “to square the matter” by promising to give Daggett $100 if he would let the matter drop.

Daggett then informed the other man that he “had a great mind to take him up to the hall [station]” right then for his impudence.

Hall retorted, “I will get my hat.” Instead, he skipped out of the back door.

At about this time, Hull’s wife confront-

1 8 | QSa lt L a k e | issue 16 8 | Nov e mber 25 , 2010

ed Daggett wanting to know what was the charge against her husband. Daggett told her, “I couldn’t state it to you, little woman.”

As Daggett was returning to the police station, Hull and his friend Murphy hunted up a Salt Lake City commissioner and charged the detective with attempted robbery and assault upon him. Upon this information, a complaint was sworn out charging Daggett with assault with intent to commit a felony and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Here was Hull’s side of the story: On that Saturday evening, he said he went up to the Hot Springs with his friend Murphy to take the vapors. When they left the pool, that was when Daggett went in. They were all buck naked. (I put that in for sensationalism.)

After getting dressed, Murphy went outside while Hull remained inside for a short time walking around the platform talking with Daggett. When the bath house manager entered to announce the place was closing, he then went outside to find his friend.

Hull stated that while he was standing outside, Daggett came up to him and asked if he was going to the city. Hull said he was and walked down to the end of the station with Daggett. There Daggett pulled a gun and demanded Hull’s watch and chain. Hull instead ran back into the bath house waiting room, at which point Daggett followed him. Hull then ran from the bath house and shouted for Murphy for help. It was then, he said, that the detective struck him in the neck with his pistol, dazing him.

Murphy soon appeared and asked Daggett what he was doing. The detective replied that he was arresting Hull on a “case of long standing.” However, Daggett released Hull on his own recognizance only to appear at Hull’s door the next day demanding money to let the matter drop. Hull told the detective that he had no money, and Daggett then demanded his watch and chain. When Hull refused to give the jewelry to the officer, he “notified him that he would have to go to jail.” Hull then ran through the back door, jumped over a fence and hid.

A neighbor named Taylor, upon hearing the ruckus, went over to Hull’s to see what was going on. There he met Daggett, who informed him that Hull “had got a girl in a fix and money was wanted to square it.” He then added, “If Hull had acted square with me today I could have covered the whole business up for him.”

Later that day, on a gloomy November Sunday, City Detective Daggett was arrested on the mean streets of Salt Lake City.

Newspapers reported that both Hull and Daggett “have many friends and each side insist that neither of the men could have committed the offenses charged against them respectively.”

And that’s how it was, boys and girls, in the City of the Saints in 1891.

For more dish, join the Utah Stonewall Historical Society’s Facebook page for a daily dose of “This Day In Queer Utah.” Q

snaps & slaps SNAP: Nine Out of Ten Now that Murray’s and Moab’s City Councils have hopped on board the Equality train, the number of Utah municipalities prohibiting housing and employment discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender residents has reached nine — one short of Equality Utah’s goal of “10 in 10,” or 10 counties on board by the beginning of next year’s general legislative session.

We applaud both cities’ councilmembers for doing the fair, just (and economically sound) thing, and are excitedly placing our bets for the county or city that will be lucky number 10 (psst! Ogden, are you reading this?)

SLAP: Human Rights Campaign As journalists, we totally understand how tight deadlines, multiple deadlines and rapidly-evolving stories can lead a well-meaning writer — and even a well-meaning editor — into making mistakes that range anywhere from the trivial to the enormous. Nonetheless, HRC’s misinterpretation of the language in the LDS Church’s handbook regarding homosexuality is about as big a mistake as one can get. We don’t know how HRC misinterpreted calling homosexual behavior, as opposed to homosexual orientation, sinful to the church removing homosexuality from its list of sins, but to call this a huge stretch in logic is an understatement. Next time, we recommend that HRC read the text more thoroughly before making any statements.

SNAP: Jennifer Nuttall A lot has changed about Utah’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community this year, including the departure of leaders like Jacob Whipple and former Rep. Christine Johnson. Roughly on the day this issue hits the streets, it will see the departure of one more, Utah Pride Center Adult Programs Director Jennifer Nuttall. After her years of tireless service to the community, we at QSaltLake will miss working with her, but we are excited that she is moving on to a new phase of her life that will not only allow her to spend more time with her children, but that won’t take her away from the community completely. Best of luck and wishes, Jennifer!

lipstick lesbian Gay Witch Hunt

By H. Rachelle Graham

(With special thanks to Pagan and a straight military ally)

‘K

ick him out,” Lt. Orrin Hatchass screamed.

“What’s he guilty off, sir?”

“He looked at me. Must be a queer,” Hatchass said. “Queer. Queer.

Queer.”

It’s officially a modern day gay witch hunt as military officers spend $1.3 billion to investigate private e-mails, call friends to chat and go through closets to find the incriminating color pink.

America keeps ex-convicts while discharging lawful men and women, who may or may not be homosexual. Any heresy can be grounds for starting an investigation.

For example, if a guy drinks apple martinis and a girl likes football, their whole life secrets could be torn inside and out, due to anyone having a problem, even if it’s the janitor.

Imagine having your dream job taken

away from you for absolutely no reason other than you may look or act like you’re gay; 14,000 men and women had to face this harsh reality.

I can’t understand why being yelled at constantly is anyone’s dream job, but I’m sure there might be some perks, as many people do join the military willingly. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t even join if a gun was held to my head.

Since my military aptitude consists of only what’s in my worst nightmares, I had to consult expert witnesses.

Like my friend Pagan, who was discharged for doing his job well. A lower servicemember, who is also a Mormon, asked if he was gay. Fed up with lying and being investigated he finally told the truth. An act so heinous, according to the military, that they told a loyal, intelligent and goodworking man to start packing.

Hardly seems just to find yourself losing your job and dignity because of something you can’t change. Imagine if the tables were turned, and a heterosexual had to hide his/her spouse, orientation, favorite actress/actor and kids.

I feel better knowing most of the military puts the job first and doesn’t care about the orientation as much as duty to the country. With holding the country’s weapons at their disposal, it’s important they’re thinking with more than a few screws.

This outdated policy never should have been enacted in the policy and according to a Quinnipiac University poll done in February, 70 percent of Americans understand this policy is homophobic and pointless.

Even right here in this state where many tiny Orrins hatch from large conservative families think the policy is bogus.

For example, a straight Mormon man I interviewed. Let’s call him Steve, is currently a military intelligent officer and has been since 1990. He always thought the

policy had no basis in fact or form.

“Every year in the guard, we have a sexual harassment brief, so arguments for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell don’t hold water,” Steve said. “I don’t care what religion, color, gender, or orientation a person is if they do their job and they do it well.”

People, like Steve, used to be in the minority but is now in the majority as DADT gets closer and closer to dead and buried status. Thank God. Unfortunately, the rotten policy took and destroyed lives in countless ways, by bringing lesbian, gay and bisexual members to suicide, rape or further harassment from their fellow officers.

Just as the witch hunt’s insane nature was revealed; the cause chalked up to irrational fear. As the study to repeal DADT supports, gay military do not affect combat readiness and unit cohesion. The gay military hunt is soon to be revealed for its true nature, fear of different orientations. Q

He looked at me.

Must be a queer

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Nov e mber 25 , 2010 | issue 16 8 | QSa lt L a k e | 19

OUR VIEWS

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20 | QSa lt L a k e | issue 16 8 | Nov e mber 25 , 2010

JOSHUA PAYNE ORCHESTRA

OU KNOW THE OLD SAYING, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, say it on Facebook?” Well, Arkansas Midland School District vice president Clint McCance took it to heart recently when he posted some vile anti-gay hate speech to rival Fred Phelps and his band of “God Hates Fags” loonies.

What set McCance off was a call for supporters of LGBT youth to wear purple in memory of the young people who recently committed suicide after being bullied.

“Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide,” he posted. “The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed therselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE.” Yes, really. Did I mention he was a school board member?

Oh, to be a gay kid in Midland. Those lucky devils.

One of McCance’s friends commented, “Because hatred is always right...”

To which he responds, “No because being a fag doesnt give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then dont tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that shit to yourself. I dont care how people decide to live their lives. They dont bother me if they keep it to thereselves. It pisses me off though that we make a special purple fag day for them.

I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die.”

Did you catch that last part? He “enjoys” when gays get AIDS and die. Ha ha. You know, typical LOL stuff.

Another friend commented, “You know this is somebodys kids here how would you feel if they were talkin about your kids like this. It would make you feel like SHIT.”

No worries, McCance knows exactly how he’d feel. “I would disown my kids if they were gay,” he posts. “They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid christian beliefs.”

Where these “solid Christian beliefs” will come from I don’t know. Certainly not from their father.

Needless to say, McCance’s comments caused quite a stir with many people calling for his firing.

A visibly uncomfortable and maybe even contrite McCance appeared on CNN with Anderson Cooper and apologized for his comments saying they were “too emotional” and “went too far.”

As for the terms “fag” and “queer” he told Cooper, “I know those are hurtful words and like I said, I picked the wrong words to use. And used them poorly. I didn’t bring honor to what I was about.”

I’m not sure that there’s an honorable way to wish all gay people dead even if he had used different words to do it.

He also stated that he doesn’t “wish death on anyone” and that “it does look like I’m a hatemonger or a horrible person and that’s not me at all.”

Um, yes. It does look like that. Very much like that, in fact. It’s kind of hard to accept that a person who thinks, “Hey I have a minute to post on Facebook before I head off to this school board meeting and here’s something totally appropriate to say” isn’t a hatemonger. No matter how much they apologize or resign from the school board on Anderson Cooper 360.

So, yeah. He resigned. And he’s sorry.

But the boot print of mistrust and fear on the backs of LGBT school kids, especially those in the Midland school system, isn’t going to wash out so easily. Q

‘I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die’

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Nov e mber 25 , 2010 | issue 16 8 | QSa lt L a k e | 21

gay holiday shopping guide

classy gifts

This year’s Holiday Shopping Guide is the place to find that special something for that “Special” someone in your life.

We have focused on local businesses and local products and included many gay- and lesbian-owned shops. We also sought things that were unusual, fun and maybe (at times) a little naughty, because, after all, aren’t we all unusual, fun and (at times) naughty?



Since 1945, Badash has hand-cut crystal tumblers, stemware, gifts and vases. These bowls are very affordably priced and range from clear to amber to a deep blue.

Available at 15th Street Gallery, 1519 South 1500 East, Salt Lake $24–99

 “You will never merely taste a Chapon chocolate; you will only want to hold it in your memory.” From the Eiffel Tower to Van Gough paintings to truffles in beautiful hand-made boxes, these are no ordinary chocolates.

Great for friends and hostess gifts Available at Tabula Rasa, Trolley Square, Salt Lake $6.50–18

22 | QSa lt L a k e | issue 16 8 | Nov e mber 25 , 2010

 Hive Gallery is filled with the work of artists of whom you’ve yet to hear. If you want to plunk down a 50, you can get any of a wall-full of 12x12 original paintings.

Who knows, maybe the one you choose will be from an artist who becomes the next Michelangelo. Or Van Gogh, but they will hopefully keep both ears and live past 37.

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2 4 | QSa lt L a k e | issue 16 8 | Nov e mber 25 , 2010

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More than 100 years ago, the story began in the small farming community of St. George, Utah with Henderson Cox. After nearly three decades, Marion Cox moved to Cache Valley where he continued to raise honey bees and harvest honey. They now sell anything from, of course, honey to beeswax candle, beeswax massage bars and candy. And how could we pass up s place called Cox Honey?

Mini Nuts and Honey gift box Available through COX HONEYLAND OF UTAH coxhoney.com | $18.99

 We mentioned Reduce, Reuse, Recycle a few gifts ago.

While we are not (necessarily) fans of reused beer, how about reused beer bottles? This Salt Lake company takes those empties and creates works of chaliced art from them.

Cheers to that!

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