QSaltLake Magazine | Issue 339 | September 2022

SANDY GAY TEEN ATTACKED • UTAH PARENTS TURNING IN SUSPECTED TRANS ATHLETES • PROVO PRIDE CANCELED

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Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 2022 staffbox PuBlIsheR/edItoR Michael Aaron desIgneR Christian Allred sales Michael Aaron, 801-997-9763 x1 sales@qsaltlake.com Rivendell Media, 908-232-2021 ext 200 natsales@rivendellmedia.comIonalneWsedItoRCraig Ogan contRIButoRs Joshua Adamson Pickett, Diane Anderson-Minshall, Chris Azzopardi, Paul Berge, Jeff Berry, Paul Campbell, Laurie Bennett-Cook, Roger Cox, Stephen Dark, Jennifer Dobner, Mikki Enoch, Jack Fertig, Greg Fox, Oriol Gutierrez Jr., Tony Hobday, Ashley Hoyle, Joshua Jones, Christopher Katis, Sam Kelly-Mills, Craig Ogan, Peter Reynolds, Mikey Rox, Terri Schlichenmeyer, Gregg Shapiro, Petunia Pap Smear, Steven Petrow, Ed Sikov, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Ben Williams, D’Anne Witkowski dIstRIButIon Roger Cox PuBlIsheR Q Media Group 222 S Main St, Ste 500 (by appt. only), Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 tel: 801-997-9763 CONTACT EMAILS: geneRal: info@qsaltlake.com edItoRIal: editor@qsaltlake.com aRts: arts@qsaltlake.com sales: Checksales@qsaltlake.comusoutonlineat:QSALTLAKE.COMFACEBOOK.COM/QSALTLAKETWITTER@QSALTLAKE QSaltLake Magazine is a trademark of Salt Lick Publishing, LLC., Q Media Group Copyright © 2022, Salt Lick Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted or reproduced without written permission from the publisher. 8–18,000 copies are distributed free of charge at over 300 locations across the state. Free copies are limited to one per person. For additional copies, call 801-997-9763. It is a crime to dispose of current issues or otherwise interfere with the distribution of this magazine. Printed locally in the USA on recycled paper. Please recycle this copy when done.

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 7 Wharton Law, PLLC 1 6 5 S . M a i n St . S u it e 2 0 0 Sal t L a ke Ci t y, U T 8 4 111 CALL 801-649-3529 FOR A FREE CONSULTATION W H A RTON LAW, PLLC chriswhartonlaw.com • Family Law • Criminal Defense • Wills & Trusts • Business Law • LGBTQ Advocacy Financial Wellness Dinner Now more than ever, it is crucial to plan and protect your future Enjoy a meal on us, learn to safeguard your rights and wealth, and make connections with experienced professionals and with our community as a whole. P L A N N I N G Y O U C A N T R U S T When: Sunday October 23 6 Where:pm Monarca Mexican Restaurant 268 S State St Suite 110, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 RSVP TODAY Limited Spots! Securities and investment services offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC Legal advice and related services offered by the Law Office of Kyle H Barrick, not affiliated with LPL Financial or Reichert Wealth sam@reichertwealth.com(385)257-6500 LAW OFFICE OF

Obergefell was unopposed in the Ohio State primary and will vie for a seat in the east ern part of the state against a Republican incumbent.

The top national and world news since last issue you should know BY CRAIG OGAN Climate for Respect for Marriage Act, polluted Legislation to protect mar riage equality at the federal level, the Respect for Marriage Act, passed the U.S. House of Representatives and was introduced in the U.S. Senate, where it was expected to pass easily. The revelation of secret negotiations on the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act has caused a pause in RMA’s progress. Sen. Susan Collins, a supporter of RMA, said secret negotiations leading to IRA’s passing, could spell doom for the Respect for Marriage Act. Collins said that a bipartisan spirit that led to gun safety legislation and microchip bills, “destroys the many bipartisan efforts that are underway.”

Chuck Norris inspires Hungarian PM The Conservative Political Action Conference heard Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán deliver an anti-LGBTQ+ and pro-Chris tian rights rant. He opined that Europeans are threatened with becoming, as if they weren’t already, “people of mixed race.” He was cheered for calling for bans on same-sex marriage, LGBTQ+ content that is accessible to minors, and legal recogni tion of transgender identity.

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Proposed changes to the legal interpretation of Title IX of the U. S. Civil Rights Act were announced by the U. S. Department of Education. The interpretation changes the previous administration’s rules to more strongly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender iden tity and change due process in sexual assault investigations at colleges and universities. One state, Florida, has instructed the state’s public and private schools to ignore the new rules. Other states are expected to follow Florida’s lead. The beef is that the DOE suggests federal funds for school lunch programs and other school programs be withheld if the states have any restrictions on gender identity expression or transgender participation in any school programs, like girls’ athletics. So far 20 states have joined a lawsuit to stop the defunding of school lunch es. No one but the attorneys makes out in these situations.

“We decided we don’t need more genders [and need] fewer drag queens and more Chuck Norris,” he claimed.

Turing memorial Alan Turing was a WWII British codebreaker who contributed to defeating NAZI Germany and was instrumental in the develop ment of the modern comput er. He was also gay when it was illegal in Great Britain. Turning, subject of the movie “Imitation Game,” committed suicide after being convicted of gay sex offenses that led to incarceration and chemical castration. He was pardoned posthumously in 2013. A 12-foot-tall statue has been commissioned to be placed in a courtyard of King’s College at Oxford University, which is causing controversy. First, the college will be charging peo ple to look at the statue. Local officials want the statue on a public road. King’s College says on-campus placement will be disruptive and says a viewing fee will cut down on traffic. Second, it’s not a por trayal of the man, but a mod ernesque sculpture. Critics say the sculpture’s abstract design, though not a breaching whale in a traffic circle, would be jarring amongst King’s College’s gothic architecture.

Monkeypox advice

Another bad card for Kevin Spacey Unable to be dealt a better hand, Kevin Spacey has lost a bid to overturn a court deci sion that ordered him to pay nearly $31 million to the stu dio behind the Netflix series, “House of Cards.” The produc tion company is recouping lost revenue after Spacey’s boorish manners caused the series to collapse like a … house of cards. The first card to be pulled from Spacey’s career was actor Anthony Rapp’s 2017 “Me-Too” accusation that Spacey made a sexual advance toward him in 1986. Spacey has since been accused by various other grips, bartenders, and journalists of unwanted sexual advances. Some charges and suits have been dropped, others settled, some forgotten. Still, Spacey’s career is a dead man’s hand.

Wisconsin school district denies flags and pronouns

A Wisconsin school district announced a policy that prohibits staff from, “Using their positions to promote partisan politics, religious views, and propaganda for personal, monetary or non monetary gain.” The effect of the policy is the prohibition of displaying gay pride flags (or any non-government issued flags) in classrooms or teachers putting their preferred pronouns in email signatures. Students, alumni, and others have protested the policy, but district officials said it was reaffirming a pol icy that was already in place.

Obergefell wants to go to Washington, again Jim Obergefell, whose landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage national ly, is running for the Ohio Statehouse. He is a Democrat running on the “Rodney King Platform,” saying in his announcement, “It really just all comes down to: Can’t we all just get along and treat each other like human beings? Can’t we be decent people?”

Advice from health author ities, including the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, to people at risk of catching monkeypox, is to consider reducing the number of sexual partners. The U.N. health agency said to stay mo nogamous or socially distant “for the moment”. WHO said 98 percent of the monkey pox cases detected since the outbreaks emerged in May have been among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. The CDC issued 11 guidelines, which amount to “cool your jets.” Two notable guidelines advise masturbation from a distance of six feet. It also advises to, “Have virtual sex with no in-person contact.”

CDC and others say anyone can get monkeypox from skin-to-skin contact or even from sharing household linens, it isn’t an STD. WHO also has decried any stigma-encouraged violence against monkeys.

Reinterpretation of Title IX launches lawsuits

Log Cabin Repubs go low A question not asked by any one but us is, “Do Log Cabin Republicans want to be so laughable as to be irrelevant”? In a Twitter submission, NLCR compared the recent FBI search of Mar-a-Lago to the 1969 police raid at the historic Stonewall Inn in New York City, a place now pro tected by the Federal Govern ment antiquity act. In a troll tweet, NLCR said, “Just as the patrons of Stonewall were not intimidated by police, we will not be intimidated by the weaponization of the FBI and DoJ.” The NCLR pledged to continue plans to hold its an nual gala at Mar-A-Largo. This ill-advised hot-take came after the FBI executed a search warrant at the Mar-A-Lago, Florida hide-out of the previ ous president. The search has been decried by conservatives and flinched at by liberals.

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RIP Elana Dykewomon Acclaimed lesbian author and activist Elana Dykewomon died of cancer at age 72. Dyke womon wrote about lesbian life in “Riverfinger Women,” a coming-of-age story pub lished in 1974. “Beyond the Pale,” about Jewish lesbian immigrants involved in move ments for social change in early-20th-century New York City was published in 1997. “Riverfinger Women” is on The New York Times’ list of 100 Greatest Gay Novels and “Beyond the Pale” won the 1998 Lambda Literary Award for lesbian fiction. Dykewo mon also wrote poetry and essays, including a collection, “Dispatches From Lesbian America,” published in 2017. She was born Elana Nachman but changed her name to not be defined by men. “I chose ‘dyke’ for the power, and ‘womon’ for the alliance.” Her play, “How to Let Your Lover Die,” about the death of her longtime partner is scheduled for this year’s Bay Area Play wrights Festival in California.

Love and Marriage (well living together) in the U.S. The U. S. Census Bureau does an extrapolation of the census data. The current American Community Survey shows almost 63 million marriages in the U.S. and 17 million unmar ried couples living in the same household. The survey says there are about one million same-sex couples living in married or unmarried status, with 600,000 or so same-sex marriages and 400,000 un married household couplings. A majority of “same-sex coupled” U.S. residents in the survey identify as females.

NEWS | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 9sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com

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To schedule an appointment, please call 801-883-9177 Most Insurances Accepted, Evening and Saturday Appointments Available Free $50 Gift Card or iPod with new patient exam, complete series x-rays and cleaning. One o er per family. Not valid with any other o er. Limitations and Exclusions Apply. Located in Bountiful & Salt Lake Dr Josef Benzon, DDS The Intermountain West LGBTQ+ Oral History Project This project aims to document and preserve the lived experiences of queer culture, history, heritage, and day-to-day living throughout the region. Call for IntWestQueerHistoryparticipants! @gmail.com contact us to share your story!

‘Fear’ marketing now a Texas thing In an inventory-tight “buy ers” real estate market, it may not be craven to use fear as a marketing tool to acquire listings and referrals. A Dallas realtor, though, has set up a website titled “Flee Texas” to appeal to LGBT people who are fearful of living in Texas. The site offers to help LGBTQ+ homeowners leave the Lone Star state, saying, “As LGBTQIA+ citizens of Texas, many of us feel at risk. If you feel the need to leave the jurisdiction of Texas, let us help you sell your property here and connect you with an LGBTQIA or ally agent in a better location of your choice.” Says the apparently fearful agent, “A lot of people don’t remember what it’s like to be an illegal person. I’ve been in Texas since 1987 and I have seen this state trans form into a juggernaut of right-wing conservatism.”

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“The Biden administration is unlawful ly expanding Title IX to include dis crimination based on sexual orientation or sexual identity in an effort to force policy in Utah schools,” Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes wrote in a state ment. “The federal government should not hold food for school children hostage to force policy change. The administra tion is unlawfully trying to rewrite the law and is placing essential nutritional services for Utah’s children at risk.”

Utah AG joins suit against Biden over LGBTQ-friendly policy, Cox pens letter

“In our own discussions in Utah over how to manage school policies related to gender identity and sexual orientation, I have tried to turn down the temperature and look for common ground between opposing sides. As I wrote in a letter to Utah’s Legislature earlier this year, “The transgender sports participation issue is one of the most divisive of our time. Because there are logical and passion ate arguments by many parties, finding compromise or common ground can be difficult. The changes your admin istration is proposing fail t0 seek that compromise or common ground, and in fact, make such compromise far more difficult. They also, ironically, make any final resolution less likely, as the rule and guidance is certain to be rescinded by a future Republican president.”

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III led the lawsuit, arguing that the guidelines are unlaw ful, in part because they are “based on a misapplication of U.S. Supreme Court precedents,” according to an Indiana AG’s office press release.

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Utah Governor Spencer Cox sent a letter to the president, say ing the directive “will only inflame and polarize the debate further.”

Utah joined 21 other states in a law suit against the Biden administration over a rule that would cut federal meal funding for schools that don’t include LGBT-friendly policies.

“I strongly encourage you to pull back the proposed rules and policy guidance and consider how to ‘work more collab oratively with sates. Letting states come up with different answers to difficult questions is the foundation of our system of federalism,” Cox concluded.

“We all know the Biden administra tion is dead-set on imposing an extreme left-wing agenda on Americans nation wide. But they’ve reached a new level of shamelessness with this ploy of holding up food assistance for low-income kids unless schools do the Left’s bidding,” Rokita said, according to the release. The 22 states that signed on to the case are Tennessee, Indiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Ken tucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.

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“[Y]our administration’s policy on this front is a mistake for at least two reasons. First, deeply sensitive and contentious areas of policy are best left to states, where different populations will come to different conclusions and solutions. Using the hammer of federal funding to force states to adopt policies they don’t support is the height of federal arrogance. It cuts off policy innovation, creates resentment, and lets problems fester.”

Demetre Daskalakis, deputy director of the White House task force on monkeypox, outlined the new guidance.

to limit

Vaccinations for monkey pox are a key component of the CDC guidance, even though the limited avail ability has not kept up with the growing demand for the shots as the outbreak con tinues. Daskalakis conceded on the call there is “supply and demand mismatch” for vaccines, but maintained the Department of Health & Human Services announce ment declaring monkeypox a public health crisis would be a tool to address the shortage.

with

The call to limit partners was previously made by the World Health Organization and has been controversial as observers say it may stigmatize sex among gay and bisexual men, who are disproportion ately affected by monkeypox.

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“Vaccination is an important tool in preventing the spread of monkeypox,” the guidance says. “But given the current limited supply of vaccine, consider temporarily chang ing some behaviors that may increase your risk of being exposed. These temporary changes will help slow the spread of monkeypox until vaccine supply is adequate.”

“It mentions that folks should consider reducing mul tiple partners and anonymous new partners as one strategy to prevent exposure to mon keypox,” Daskalakis said. “So I think really, there’s a broad range, and I think one of the things that’s really important about the CDC guidance is it’s designed to really meet people where they are and see what we can do to have individuals to create their own preven tion plans, understanding that there’s not one answer for preventing monkeypox, that it requires a lot of domains to really achieve the goal of preventing new infections.”

call for men who

Daskalakis, drawing on his experience as a medical expert during the HIV/AIDS crisis, emphasized stigma should play no part in messaging.

“I know from my own experience in public health and personally that stigma is actually what drives so much of infection and really creates false starts and false informa tion that really gets people to go down paths that end up really vilifying people’s lives and behavior,” Daskalakis said. “And so, coming from the experience, both profession ally and personally, it is my mission, to not allow stigma to be a part of this or any response that I work on.” WHO have sex men partners

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention echoed a controversial call for men who have sex with men to lim it their sexual partners amid the monkeypox outbreak.

The agency made the call as part of new comprehensive monkeypox guidance issued Aug. 5, which lists “limit your number of sex partners to reduce your likelihood of exposure” as among several ways to reduce risk, with vac cination at the top of the list.

Asked whether the Biden administration agrees with WHO about the need for men who have sex with men to limit their sexual part ners, Daskalakis alluded to the multi-faceted aspects of the CDC guidance.

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The state motioned to dismiss the lawsuit, which the judge denied earlier this month. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction on the law being enforced and the court has not yet ruled on that.

David Spatafore, the legislative representative of the Utah High School Activities Association, addressed the Utah Legislature’s Education Interim Commit tee and said that a girl won first place at a state-level sports event and “clearly outclassed the rest of the teams. Second and third [place] were significantly below.”

The Utah state legislature pushed through the transgender sports ban, H.B. 11, earlier this year in the session’s final hours. Republican Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed the bill, saying it “will likely bankrupt the Utah High School Ath letic Association and result in millions of dollars in legal fees for local school districts.” The legislature went into a special session to override his veto.

“We expect a decision any day now [on the injuntion],” Michael Curtis of the Utah Office of Legislative Re search and General Counsel testified. If an injunction is granted, a second part of the law goes into effect, which requires a transgender student to get permission to play on a girl’s team. The consent would be granted or denied based on medical history, care or treat ment, and other evidence of” sinceri ty” of the student’s gender identity.

Utah passed its transgender sports ban earlier this year, and these cases are among the first to test the law. Spatafore said that school records are enough to satisfy the law’s require ments “because if all of the questions about eligibility were answered by the school or the feeder system schools, there was no reason to make it a personal situation with a family or that athlete.”

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He said neither the girls nor the parents were made aware of the complaints or the investigation.

Curtis also noted other questions have arisen since the law was enacted on July 1.

The parents made the complaint that day. Spatafore said the association — with out informing the student or family members about the inquiry — asked the student’s school to investigate.

The school investigated the stu dents’ enrollment records.

The term “student” is left undefined in the language of the law, leaving it unclear if a private school must enforce the ban.

“A male to female transgender stu dent athlete who is taking a medically

Utah parents file complaint against firstplace winner, claiming she’s transgender

Spatafore said that UHSAA is trying to follow the new ban. “Quite frankly, this is new ground for us,” he testified. “I’m not going to say that we have it down pat, because I have no clue. I don’t think any of us in the office have a clue if we have it down pat. What we want to do is we just want to try to do our job.”

Another question Curtis addressed was the stated policies of UHSAA for the 2022–23 school year, which ap pear to conflict with the state law: “With the consent of parents or a legal guardian, a student shall be permitted to participate on a gender specific sports team that is consistent with the public gender identity of that student for all other purposes. In deciding eligibili ty, the UHSAA will first refer to the confirmation of the student and his or her local school regarding gender identification. The UHSAA will require that member school districts and schools make a determination of a student’s eligibility to participate in gender specific sports team for a particular season based on the gender identifica tion of that student (1) in current school records, and, (2) daily life activities in the school and community at the time that sports eligibility is determined.”

In an expected outcome to Utah’s law banning transgender girls from compet ing in school sports, parents of girls who got second and third place in a sporting event filed complaints to have the firstplace winner investigated for her gender.

LGBTQ advocates have warned for years that transgender sports bans could be used by the families of los ing student-athletes to attack winners. Some states, like Idaho, require genital examinations in their sports bans. Such requirements would have subjected the student under investigation to an unnecessary and invasive examination.

First is the question of whether private schools are included in the law. The law states, “a student of the male sex may not compete, and a public school or LEA may not allow a student of the male sex to compete with a team designated for students of the female sex in an interscholastic athletic activity.”

In June, the families of two transgen der girls in the state filed a lawsuit chal lenging the sports ban, arguing that the bill was “based on unfounded stereotypes, fears, and misconceptions about girls who are transgender. It is not support ed by medical or scientific evidence.”

“The school went back to kindergarten, and she’d always been a female,” he said. Spatafore said the association has received other complaints say ing “that female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough.” He said UHSAA investigated all of them.

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“To this day, we haven’t had a transgender student make an application through the system,” he said. Rep. Kera Birkeland testified of her “frustration” with UHSAA’s policies.

“As a private entity, they can have whatever policies they want to have,” he said. “The concern is presenting confu sion by presenting the policies to students and parents when in reality the state law gov erns the interaction between the school and the team and the student

UHSAASpataforedifferently.”testifiedthatknowsandacceptsthatitspoliciesaresubservienttoUtahlaw.Hesaidtheorganizationleftitspolicyintactbecausetheywere unsure if a court would rule on the separate parts of the law before the school year. He further said that the vast majority of students were cisgender and that should any transgender student-athlete apply to participate, they would be notified before the school year of where state law was at that time.

“As of July 1, [HB11] is the law,” she said. “It takes a lot of time and effort to create a law. I spent two years working on this legislation. And then to hear that, well, a judge might enjoin it … it under mines our process of trying to create legislation and laws to properly govern the people that have elected us.”

UAF AIDS Walk is Sept. 10

The annual Salt Lake AIDS Walk will take place Satur day, September 10, at Lib erty Park, 600 E. 900 South from 10 a.m. to noon. The walk is to raise awareness of the health injustices faced by the LGBTQ+ community, reduce HIV-related stigma, and honor those we have lost to HIV. It is also an annual fundraiser that benefits clients served by Utah AIDS Foundation. Participants are encouraged to raise money to provide Utahns with health services. Organizers hope to raise $75,000 at the event. Organizers ask you to challenge your friends to start a team and encourage them to raise more than the rest. Utah AIDS Foundation is rolling out an expanded mission and vision to fill gaps in the health needs of the LGBTQ+ community. In this spirit, organizers say they re named the event to Salt Lake AIDS Walk +, reflecting Utah AIDS Foundation’s commit ment to the community. For more information, go to utahaids.org

prescribed hormone treat ment under a physician’s care for the purpose of gender transition may participate on a boys team at any time, but must complete one year of hormone treatment related to the gender transition before competing on a girls team.” Curtis explained that UHSAA is not a state orga nization, though it is under certain state regulations.

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Christian’s mother, Stefanie Peacock, posted on Twitter that the family has hired two attorneys, Chris Wharton and Paul Burke to represent Christian and Jacob “as we go through this Ugly Hate Crime and assault that happened over the weekend. Please keep them both in your prayers & thoughts.”

Though one of the passengers in the car was blocking the license plate, Joc elynn was able to get a clear photo and told the guys she was calling the police. The guys got back in the car, and they sped off. Jocelyn tried following them in her car but couldn’t locate them.

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The guy allegedly punched Christian in the face hard enough that it left teeth marks in his mouth. He began to stagger.

“This actually fits in as a hate crime. When you’re targeting someone’s sexual preference, their religion, the color of their skin, or ethnic background, those all can be considered a hate crime,” Moffitt added. “If you are a victim of something that’s targeted as a hate crime, we’re going to take it serious[ly].”

Paramedics arrived and told Chris tian that, on top of his “busted lip and gums,” he may have a concussion. He refused to be taken to the hospital. When Sandy City Police arrived, they took the information and said they would investigate. However, the fam ily said that investigation ended after a detective called the number the car was registered to, and the person who answered said they had sold the car.

hisafterassaultedhuggingboyfriend

The video had captured the alleged assailant saying he had punched Christian because “he’s a faggot.”

Sandy, Utah teen

Christian said he was afraid for his boyfriend, thinking they would hurt him. He stepped in front of Metcalf to shield him and said, “The most re pressed people are the ones who bully gay people. You must be gay yourself.”

Jocelyn posted Jacob’s video on Insta gram, and someone recognized the car that the boys were in. She and Christian drove to his house in West Jordan and confront ed the boy’s parents. They said their son would never do anything like that. The family gave the name and phone number of the guy who allegedly hit Christian. They called his parents and asked him to come to their house to apologize to Chris tian. Jocelyn called the police, who arrived right after the family and the accused attacker. They took him into custody.

Initially, according to Jocelyn, the officers who showed up were hostile and unsupportive. One told her there was “zero chance we can charge a hate crime,” saying the assailant would have had to admit he hit Christian because he’s gay.

Social media blew up when post ed by the Rainbow Youth Project, which provides free mental health counseling to LGBTQ youth.

People began calling the police department and the Sandy mayor’s office, demanding hate crime charges. Jocelyn says the police called the family and told them they were being inundated with calls and would try to add a hate crime enhancement.

A car drove by slowly, and one of the passengers rolled down the window, and someone shouted “faggot” and yelled that gay people didn’t belong on “their street.” The car sped off, and the cou ple decided to stay in the driveway to talk about what had just happened. Half an hour later, the pair was still standing outside when the same car drove up, and two guys jumped out and confronted them. They again shouted “faggot” while three guys who stayed in the vehicle egged them on. One of the guys went up to Jacob, pushed him on the shoulder, and yelled, “What, faggot? You gonna do something?”

Christian was later taken to the emer gency room as he complained of extreme headache, memory loss, and exhaustion.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE PEACOCK FAMILY

Christian’s sister, Jocelynn, ran outside, and Jacob began filming with his phone. The guy continued to shout “faggot” and said he punched Christian for being a “faggot.”

Sgt. Greg Moffitt of the Sandy Police Department told the media that the juve nile justice system will handle the case and that the hate crime enhancement makes the crime a class A misdemeanor, which means the result could include jail time.

The other did a mock strip tease, taking off his shirt, taunting, “Am I turning you on? Does this make you horny?”

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Jacob was saying he needed to go home, and Christian was hugging him, cling ing on to every moment he could.

Jacob Metcalf and Christian Pea cock, both 18 years old, were close to celebrating their 3-month “boyfriend” anniversary when they were enjoying a warm Utah night in front of Christian’s house, where he lives with his parents.

Late in Jacob’s video, the camera jostles in what appears to be a physical altercation as someone yells, “Stop! No!” Another voice shouts, “You think you can just fucking hit people? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

A viral video shows a teen in Sandy, Utah, being assaulted after being seen hugging his boyfriend in front of his home. A teen suspect was detained by Sandy City Police and released to his parents after being identified by the victim’s sister.

“There can be no place in Utah for hate crimes. We appre ciate the swift and continuing efforts of the Sandy Police Department, Sim Gill, and the District Attorney’s Office to in vestigate and prosecute the hate crimes that targeted our family. We also thank our friends and neighbors in Sandy, including Mayor Monica Zoltanski, for standing by us and making clear that hate crimes will not be tolerated in Sandy.”

“Stowell ripped down the Pride flags just 12 hours after [the alleged assailant] was booked into detention,” the charge state. “Stowell has returned to the scene of the original assault with the only clear purpose to further in timidate and harass Christian Peacock after [Stowell’s friend] was booked into custody.”

Hayden Perry Stowell, 19, of Sandy, was charged Mon day in 3rd District Court with retaliation against a witness, a third-degree felony; criminal mischief, a class B misdemean or; theft, a class B misdemean or; and disorderly conduct, an infraction. Prosecutors filed hate crimes penalty enhancements on both the alleged assailant and Stowell. About 5 a.m., the mother of the teen victim got a notifica tion on her phone from one of her home surveillance cameras.

A friend of the 17-year-old male charged with allegedly punching a gay Sandy teen ager is facing felony charges and a hate crime enhance ment after destroying pride flags at the victim’s home. Project Rainbow had planted a number of flags at the home of the victim as well as neighbors’ houses.

Man charged with retaliation of a witness after Sandy attack

“She later looked out the window and observed all her Pride flags strewn about her front yard and the street in front of her home. At least one of the flagpoles had been broken during the process. Both Christian and Jocelyn Peacock have been struggling with anxiety and fear since the assault on July 30, and with the continued intimidation they felt by the damage to their flags,” the charges state.

The witness identified Stow ell, who turned 19 on August 13, as the person damaging the Pride flags, the charges state.

Another witness who watched surveillance video of the original assault told police she immediately recognized all of the people in the car. “[The witness] said that she recognized all the people cap tured in the video surveillance on July 30 [and 31]because they are members of” the Kingston polygamist family and “she has known them for a long time,” charging documents read.

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com NEWS | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 17 Danielle Hawkes, esq 801-953-0945 261 E 300 S #200 Salt Lake City, Utah ESPAdanielle@hawkesfamilylaw.com84111ÑOL|PORTUGUÉS Hawkes Family Law Divorce | Custody | Alimony H A down-to-Earth law rm that aims for solutions, not ghts. We help you develop the most cost-effective strategy to meet your goals for the case. Our mission is to give a voice to underrepresented people and to empower our clients through a wide variety of legal services. 801. 595. 0666 Of fice 801. 557.9203 Cell 1174 E Graystone Way, Suite 20 E JerryBuie@mac.com W W W PRIDECOUNSELING T V

Prosecutors also noted that the incident happened just hours after the 17-year-old accused in the assault was booked into juvenile detention.

Stowell was booked into the Salt Lake County jail, and is being held without bail after prosecutors argued that “there is clear and convincing evidence” that he “would constitute a substantial danger” to the victim and his family if he were to be released.

The Peacock family re leased a statement through their attorneys, Chris Warton and Paul Burke.

Q

“If you believe in Provo Pride, we ask you to consider donating,” the post concluded. Only about $1,400 was raised by six donors, including an anonymous donation of $1,000. All of those dona tions were reversed at the request of Pride organizers.

Damn These Heels queer film festival slated for October In response to many festival fans saying July is just too filled with events, the Utah Film Center announced they will move the week-long Damn These Heels queer film festival to October 14–16. The event will take place at the Eccles Black Box Theater. More details will be an nounced at damntheseheels. org as they become available.

2022 InternationalAffirmationConference

Affirmation: LGBTQ Mor mons, Families & Friends are hosting their annual international conference at the Salt Palace Conven tion Center, Oct. 7–9. After two years of be ing virtual, the conference is returning in person. More information conference.affirmation.orgat.

Matrons of Mayhem Drag Queen Bingo for Street Dawg Crew — Prizes worth $5,720 The Matrons’ charity for August is Street Dawg Crew of Utah, a nonprofit serving the pets of Utah’s homeless and other low-income and vulnerable populations through providing free pet food and supplies, promot ing positive and responsible pet ownership, including spay and neuter. Details fb.me/matronsofmayhemat

Q mmunity

Project Rainbow’s Big Gay Barbie-Q Project Rainbow’s Big Gay Barbie-Q and Volunteer Appreciation Party is Saturday, Aug. 27 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Jordan Park, 1060 S 900 W. Get to know your Gaybor hood, find out about local LGTBQIA+ , QTBIPOC resources and community programs and partners. Music, games, hot dogs. For more information email gmail.comrobertolopezPRU21@

On July 31, the group an nounced they were reducing booth fees and sponsor rates, as “many individuals and organizations are struggling” In response to the can celation, a number of people have asked to be involved to ensure the event happens next year.

Sing with the Salt Lake Men’s Choir

Asexual Awareness Week Utah Asexuals will be hosting Asexual Awareness Week Oct. 24–30. A planning meeting will be held online on July 12. More information facebook.com/UTAcesat NOH8 photo shoot in Salt Lake City The next #NOH8 photo shoot is at Hampton Inn Salt Lake City — Cotton wood, 3210 E. Millrock Ave, on Saturday Sept. 10th, from 2–4 p.m. $40 for single, $25 each for groups, cou ples for digital files. Info at noh8campaign.com

Local/Regional Prides

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If you donated or paid booth fees those funds will be sent back starting today. Love to all, and sorry we weren’t able to make the festival happen.

The Salt Lake Men’s Choir will come back from its summer break on Aug. 4 and singers are welcome to join. The choir rehearses each Thursday at 7 p.m. at First Baptist Church, 777 S 1300 East, kitty-corner from East High School. No audition is necessary. Show up early to get a guest music book. Info at saltlakemenschoir.org

We will update this story as other dates are officially announced.

Q Provo Pride canceled

—Tay” the announcement read. An update stated, “In re sponse to your questions. We did not raise enough funds to move forward. The gap between what we needed and what we had was simply too much. Thank you everyone for your concern and support.”

On July 22, a post on the Provo Pride Facebook page asked for sponsors and a GoFundMe was set up to help cover costs for services required by the city of Provo. These included sanitation, security, and insurance.

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202218 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | QMMUNITY

facebook.com/slmenschoiror

Citing funding issues, organiz ers of Provo Pride announced Tuesday the 2022 event is canceled. It was scheduled to take place on Aug. 20 at Provo’s Memorial Park. “Hi friends, I’m sad to have to let you know that we have canceled the festival. Thank you everyone for your support of Provo Pride and your ad vocacy for the LGBTQ+ com munity here in Utah County.

The following dates have been announced for upcoming Pride celebration in the region: Sept. 9–11 BOISE PRIDE, Cecil D. Andrus Park, Boise Idaho Sept. 10 LOGAN PRIDE, Willow Park, loganpride.org Oct. 7–8 LAS VEGAS PRIDE, LasVegasPride.org

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com QMMUNITY | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 19

“We are very excited to partner with the Utah Beer Festival and look forward to bringing awareness and resources while having a great time,” says Catina Struble, American Cancer Society’s Senior Development Manager.

“Just like the colors of the rainbow each have a meaning for the LGBTQ+ community, these colors also correspond with a specific cancer ribbon,” organizers wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately so many of us have a connection to cancer, whether it be ourselves or someone we love. Research confirms that the LGBTQ+ community carries a disproportionate burden of cancer, has distinctive risk factors, and faces additional barriers to accessing health care. We plan to change that and have fun doing it.”

The festival will be at The Gateway on August 20–21 from 2–8 p.m. daily. Over 200 beers and ciders from local, regional and national breweries will be featured, as well as food trucks, merchan dise vendors, a special VIP area, and the return of the International Beer Room.

Utah Beer Festival to raise funds for LGBTQ+ cancer awareness

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Ticket prices for the event are $25 for single-day general admission, which includes $10 of punch token value for consumers to $90 for VIP tickets and are available for purchase on UtahBeer Festival.com. A two-day VIP experi ence ticket, which includes a private serving area, exclusive beers, appetiz ers, additional food, swag bags, and single-day ticket admission, is priced at $150. Sample pours are available in 5-ounce and 12-ounce sizes.

The festival is at The Gateway from Aug. 20–21. Info at UtahBeerFestival.com. Invited by QSaltLake Magazine

The 12th annual Utah Beer Festival by Salt Lake City Weekly will benefit the Ameri can Cancer Society’s “Colors of Cancer” initiative to raise awareness of cancer screening in the LGBTQ+ community. A silent auction at the event will be the key fundraiser for the initiative.

“Our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right ... Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

—Justice Clarence Thomas

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202220 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | VIEWS views

“If the rationale of the decision as released were to be sustained, a whole range of rights are in question. A whole range of rights.”

quotes

“For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”

—Justice Samuel Alito

—Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan

—Justice Brett Kavanaugh

—Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan

RoeandLGBTQrights

—President Joe Biden

“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent.”

“I emphasize what the Court today states: Overruling Roe does not mean the overruling of those precedents and does not threaten or cast doubt on those precedents.”

“No one should be confident that this majority is done with its work. The right Roe and Casey recognized does not stand alone ... They are all part of the same constitutional fabric, protecting autonomous decisionmaking over the most personal of life decisions.”

Sex-related genes ultimately turn on hormones in specifics areas on the body, and reception of those hor mones by cells throughout the body. Is this the root of “biological sex”?? “Hormonal male” means you pro duce ‘normal’ levels of male-associated hormones. Except some percentage of females will have higher levels of ‘male’ hormones than some percentage of males. Ditto ditto ‘female’ hormones. And... ...if you’re developing, your body may not produce enough hormones for your genetic sex. Leading you to be genet ically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally non-binary, and physically non-binary. Well, except cells have something to say about this... Maybe cells are the answer to “bi ological sex”?? Right?? Cells have receptors that “hear” the signal from sex hormones. But sometimes those receptors don’t work. Like a mobile phone that’s on “do not disturb’. Call and cell, they will not answer. What does this all mean?

A Y with no SRY means physically you’re female, chromosomally you’re male (XY) and genetically you’re female (no SRY). An X with an SRY means you’re physically male, chromsomal ly female (XX) and genetically male (SRY). But biological sex is simple! There must be another answer...

t means you may be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally male/female/ non-binary, with cells that may or may not hear the male/female/non-bina ry call, and all this leading to a body that can be male/non-binary/female. Try out some combinations for yourself. Notice how confusing it gets? Can you point to what the absolute cause of biological sex is? Is it fair to judge people by it? Of course you could try appealing to the numbers. “Most people are either male or female” you say. Except that as a biologist professor I will tell you... The reason I don’t have my stu dents look at their own chromosome in class is because people could learn that their chromosomal sex doesn’t match their physical sex, and learning that in the middle of a 10-point as signment is JUST NOT THE TIME. Biological sex is complicated. Be fore you discriminate against some one on the basis of “biological sex” & identity, ask yourself: have you seen YOUR chromosomes? Do you know the genes of the people you love? The hormones of the people you work with? The state of their cells? Since the answer will obviously be no, please be kind, respect people’s right to tell you who they are, and remember that you don’t have all the answers. Again: biology is complicated. Kindness and re spect don’t have to be. [end of thread] Q Rebecca R. Helm tweets at twitter.com/rebeccarhelm guest editorial

Friendly neighborhoodbiologisthere. I see a lot of people are talking about biological sexes and gender right now. Lots of folks make biological sex sex seem really simple. Well, since it’s so simple, let’s find the biological roots, shall we? Let’s talk about sex.

Biological sex: A Twitter thread BY REBECCA R. HELM

If you know a bit about biology you will probably say that biological sex is caused by chromosomes, XX and you’re female, XY and you’re male. This is “chromosomal sex” but is it “biological sex”? Well... Turns out there is only ONE GENE on the Y chromosome that really matters to sex. It’s called the SRY gene. During human embryonic development the SRY protein turns on male-associated genes. Having an SRY gene makes you “geneti cally male”. But is this “biological sex”? Sometimes that SRY gene pops off the Y chromosome and over to an X chromosome. Surprise! So now you’ve got an X with an SRY and a Y with out an SRY. What does this mean?

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com VIEWS | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 21 Everything from Angels to Zen 12896 S Pony Express Rd Suite 200 in Draper (just north of 801.333.3777IKEA) www.ilovelotus.com LotusStore

For some reason, someone asked Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) what he thought about the bill and his response was that it was a “stupid waste of time.”

There are a lot of things that are a waste. But protecting LGBTQ+ families is not one of them.

BY D’ANNE WITKOWSKI

Forgive me if I do not think that my marriage and the protection it affords me and my family is a “stupid waste of time.” That’s pretty offensive, actually.

Buttigieg then began to describe how he spent his morning giving breakfast to his twins and allow ing his husband a small break.

A bill to protect marriage equality passed in the U.S. House re cently and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is raring to get it passed in the Senate. Which would be nice! (And which would also be more likely if senators would stop getting Covid).

And it turns out a lot of the people who are threatened by the right-wing Supreme Court and radicalized Repub lican Party’s obsession with undoing marriage equality are also offended.

Of course, we all know why this is hard for Republicans. It’s because they have made vilifying and dehumanizing

“It was one of those days where the tray table wasn’t quite fitting into the highchair and I’m trying to make sure that they’re busy enough with their little cereal puffs to give me enough time to chop up the banana and get the formula ready,” he said. “And it just, I don’t know, that half hour in the morning had me thinking about how much I depend on and count on my spouse every day.”

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202222 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE |

“Our marriage deserves to be treated equally,” Buttigieg continued. “And I don’t know why this would be hard for a senator or a congressman. I don’t understand how such a majority of House Republicans voted no on our marriage as recently as Tuesday, hours after I was in a room with a lot of them, talking about transportation policy, having what I thought were perfectly normal conversations with many of them on that subject, only for them to go around the corner and say that my marriage doesn’t deserve to continue.”

PHOTO BY GAGE SKIDMORE

Never mind that the Republican party is dominated by white supremacists who consider it their Christian duty to seize power over this nation by any means necessary. There’s a word for that. And it sure as hell isn’t “misfits.”

LGBTQ+ people a campaign strategy because they do not have any policies to address things like inflation, gas prices, climate change, gun violence, poverty, public education, and on and on. They have NOTHING. This is not a party of ideas. This is a party of obstruction. And a party of pain in that cruelty is the point. It’s what they do best. Even better when they can pretend they’re doing it in the name of Christianity. And if Republicans are so concerned about “time,” Buttigieg said, “they can vote ‘yes’ and move on. And that would be really reassuring for a lot of families around America, including mine.”Rubio responded to Buttigieg via a video in which he said, “I’m not going to focus on the agenda that [is] dictated by a bunch of affluent, elite liberals and a bunch of Marxist misfits who, sadly, today control the agenda of the modern Democratic Party.”

Of course, we know Rubio’s dismiss al of marriage equality has nothing to do with time constraints and every thing to do with him being a spineless cheerleader for Christian extremism and an apologist for a failed president who famously said that Rubio had a small dick on national television.

VIEWS creep of the month RubioMarco

One of these people is Transportation Secretary and married gay Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union on July 24th, “If [Rubio]’s got time to fight against Disney, I don’t know why he wouldn’t have time to help safeguard marriages like mine. But this is really, really important to a lot of people. It’s certainly important to me.”

D’Anne Witkowski is a writer living with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBTQ+ politics for nearly two decades. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.

It brought me back to when my son was a baby. In those early days, my wife and I were SO TIRED because having a child (let alone twins) is exhausting. It’s wonderful, sure, but it’s so, so much work. Having a spouse who is a good co-parent means everything. My wife and I will have been together 25 years as of Sept. 1. That’s a lot of years. And we’ve been through a lot together. Committing to being there for someone you love through the inevitable ups and downs of life is hardly a waste of time.

An uncomfortable truth, one doc umented in peer-reviewed papers, is that sexual behaviors and networks specific to gay and bisexual men have long made them more likely to acquire various sexually transmitted infections compared with heterosexual people. This includes not only HIV, but also syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, hepatitis B and sexually transmitted hepatitis C. Global public health experts agree that skin-to-skin contact in the con text of sexual activity between men has been the principal driver of the monkeypox outbreak, at least thus far. Such experts have also asserted that the risk of monkeypox to the broader population not having multiple sex partners remains low — even “very low.” This is hopeful news, and the wider public deserves to be reassured accordingly. Assuaging fears of conta gion will help fight unhelpful hysteria and prevent gay and bisexual men from being subjected to even greater stig ma should they be painted as culprits of the spread of virus to others. Monkeypox didn’t begin with gay men, that much is true. As Yale infec tious disease expert Gregg Gonsalves explained to the New York Times, “This is not a gay disease; it has been circulating in West and Central Africa for many years… What likely happened, in this case, is that somebody who had mon keypox had a lesion and showed up at a gay rave in Europe, and it spread to those in that social and sexual network.”

Monkeypox is a gay thing — we must say it

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com VIEWS | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 23 guest editorial

BY MARK S. KING

suicide hotline

In a July 28 New York Times story of the excruciating symptoms and lack of care available for those with monkeypox in that city, the sexuality of the men pro filed isn’t referenced until 11 paragraphs into the story, and even then it refers to them as “men who have sex with men,” which is technically correct but dodgy.

Other media stories, and statements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have mentioned monkeypox cases in the context of “the LGBT com munity.” Really? Should lesbians be lining up for a monkeypox vaccine, whenever the heck they become widely available? This is happening to gay men. Say it. Journalist Benjamin Ryan, in his excellent Washington Post opinion piece, draws a hard line between at tempts not to unnecessarily stigmatize gay men and the importance of telling the truth about monkeypox, writing that “public health officials cannot be expected to police the public’s re actions to epidemiological facts.” Ryan lays out those facts plainly: Here is what we can discern from data collected about monkeypox so far: This viral outbreak isn’t just mostly occurring among men who have sex with men. The confirmed cases, at least to date, have consistently almost entire ly occurred among this demographic, which accounts for 96 percent or more of diagnoses where data are available. Per capita, the few monkeypox cases in women and children remain minus cule compared with the rate among gay and bisexual men. Of course, sub stantial transmission could always occur among such other groups. But researchers at the WHO and elsewhere have speculated that the monkeypox reproduction rate will likely remain significantly lower in such demograph ics — meaning the virus will more likely hit transmission dead ends among them than among gay and bisexual men.

Moreover, the article, which supposedly addresses barriers to care, ignores the fact that gay men routinely experience apathy and even judgment from health providers.

PHOTO BY MATT ROTH

substance use hotline mental health hotline

988 confidential, no-cost, available 24/7/365, on any phone in any language

Whatever the origins, we’re now dealing with an outbreak almost entirely limited to gay men in the United States and Europe. And that is worth saying explicitly. Why? Because identifying those at risk and getting information to them is a basic public health strategy for contain ing an outbreak. Gay men are getting monkeypox and suffering greatly. When gay men understand the threat, we are more likely to take precautions, get vac cinated, or be informed about treatment. Will there be stigma and judge ments and homophobia? Of course. And we’ll have to deal with that. But that doesn’t mean we bury crucial facts in vague, evasive messaging. Monkeypox is a gay thing. That’s the truth.

The mainstream media and public health officials are being so damn careful not to label monkeypox “a gay disease” that they’re doing a dis service to the gay men who most need important information about the out break – while misleading everybody else.

just dial three numbers:

Q Mark S. King is an award-winning blogger, author, speaker, and HIV/AIDS activist who has been in volved in HIV causes since testing positive in 1985. Willtherebestigma, judgments, homophobia?andOfcourse.

Small, everydayloving,gestures

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202224 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | VIEWS who’s your daddy

A 2019 Penn UniversityState study discovered something important; it showed that small, loving, everyday ges tures significantly impact our feelings of well-being. I guess that makes sense. After all, those gestures give us hope, assurance, and confidence. Those are the same amazing feelings we get from allies. I will never forget how absolutely embraced Kelly and I felt by a seemingly small gesture by one of our closest straight allies. Many years ago, we were spending the weekend with a group of friends. Someone we all knew was getting married, and even though she was a friend of all of us, Kelly and I had not been invited to the wedding. Yes, I think we were both more than a little hurt. Yes, we both downplayed just how much it bothered us. Then, when everyone else got ready to go, we noticed John was still in shorts and a tee shirt. He was boycotting the wedding. He told us, “If you guys aren’t good enough to go, then I’m not good enough.” I wanted to throw my arms around him, but John’s not the hugging type. There was also the time I signed our oldest son up for Boy Scouts. It was the same troop I had been in 30 years earlier. He loved that first meeting, the fun, the games they played. He really dug being a part of a group of other little boys. At the end of that first meeting, Maria, the “Den Mom” for the Cubs asked another dad and me if we’d be assistant Scout Leaders. The other guy immediately accepted. I hesitated, and then came out to her (and by proxy, the other dad) and told her I was barred from stepping up. Back then, the Boy Scouts had a ban on gay leaders. She looked at me and said, “we don’t care, will you help or not?” And that’s the story of how I became an assis tant Cub Scout leader. But no one was a bigger, tougher, and more dedicated ally to the LGBTQ+ community than QSaltLake’s own late columnist and assistant editor, Bob Henline. Or as I called him, “Pumpkin.”

Bob fought for queer rights tirelessly – even when actual gay people refused to rock the boat. He liked making waves and he loved to make the establish ment “leaders” of the LGBTQ+ community squirm with his demands for more aggressive action when they were cau tioning baby steps. Nothing like a starter on the straight team saying you’re not doing enough for the people you claim to represent to make a public meeting awkward. His simple, constant re minder that he loved me and supported me – in everything I did, and just as a person – is validation that I feel deeply even with him no longer here. Each of these allies proved to me, time and again, just how invaluable having people on your side is. And Kelly and I are incredibly lucky to have so many allies in our corner as dads. Our allies really have run the gamut. Our families of course, but also the Sunday School teachers who worked with the boys on choosing recipients for Mother’s Day gifts. There were colleagues who held a surprise baby shower for me – chipping in to buy us a car seat! – as well as parents who sent their kids to our house for play dates with our sons. The list, thankfully, is endless. If I’m being honest, that Penn State study just proved what I already knew. My family and I have been the recipients of small, loving, everyday gestures too often to count. And we’re better people because of that.

BY CHRISTOPHER KATIS

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Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202226 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | MONKEYPOX

WHAT ARE THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF MONKEYPOX?

• Within 1 to 3 days (sometimes longer) after the appearance of fever, a rash develops. The rash often begins on the face or in the mouth, then spreads to the arms, legs, hands, and feet.

• Respiratory droplets through prolonged (more than 3 hours), close, face-to-face contact HOW LONG AFTER EXPOSURE DO SYMPTOMS APPEAR?

Symptoms usually appear 6 to 13 days after exposure but can range from 5 to 21 days. People with monkeypox are NOT contagious before they have symptoms.

HOW IS MONKEYPOX SPREAD?

Monkeypox Fact Sheet

• People ill with flu-like symptoms should isolate in a room or separate area from other family members, if possible.

WHAT IF I THINK I’VE BEEN EXPOSED TO MONKEYPOX?

• Monkeypox begins with fever (100.4° F or greater), headache, mus cle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills, and exhaustion.

• Contact with bedding or cloth ing contaminated with body fluids of lesion material

The Salt Lake County Health Dept. has this information for peo ple regarding MonkeypoxMonkeypox:isadiseasecaused by a virus first identified in animals. It occurs primarily in tropical rainforest areas of Central and West Africa and is occasion ally exported to other regions. Current ly, the virus is circulating in western Europe, Australia, Canada, and the U.S

• Avoid intimate, sexual, or skin-to-skin contact with anyone who has a rash.

WHAT TYPE OF HEALTH PROBLEMS ARE CAUSED BY MONKEYPOX?

• Clean and disinfect surfaces with stan dard household products in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.

As of press day, 77 cases of monkeypox are confirmed or probable in the state of Utah. Salt Lake County has 57 cases, Utah County has 8, Davis has 5, Weber/Mor gan has 6, and Summit has one. Health departments in Salt Lake, Weber-Morgan, and Davis Counties announced new availability of monkeypox vaccines, and 2,590 people have been vaccinated to date.

• Monitor yourself for symptoms, includ ing taking your temperature to deter mine if you have a fever, for 21 days.

• Cover skin lesions (long sleeves, pants), if possible. The person with monkey pox should wear a surgical mask. If this is not feasible, others in the home should consider wearing a mask.

• People with lesions that cannot be easily covered should isolate in a room or separate area from other family members and pets, if possible.

IS THERE A VACCINE FOR MONKEYPOX? Monkeypox vaccine is not avail able to the general public.

Your health care provider will swab any lesions for testing, and a laboratory will analyze the sam ples for the monkeypox virus.

• If you develop flu-like symptoms and/or skin rash, seek medical care; if possible, call ahead before going to a healthcare facility.

HOW IS MONKEYPOX DIAGNOSED?

HOW IS MONKEYPOX TREATED?

WHAT DO I DO IF SOMEONE IN MY HOUSEHOLD HAS BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH MONKEYPOX?

Complications of monkeypox can include secondary infections, pneumonia, sepsis, inflammation of the brain, and eye infection (that can cause loss of vision).

• Avoid contact with any materials, such as bedding, towels, or clothing, that has been in contact with someone who has monkeypox. Soiled laundry should be washed often in warm water with standard laundry detergent.

• Do not share dishes and other utensils. Soiled dishes should be washed in a dishwasher or by hand with soap and warm water.

Most people recover fully with no treatment. People with severe illness or who are immunocompromised may receive antiviral medication with the approval of SLCoHD and the CDC.

• Seek medical care if you devel op a new, unexplained skin rash; if possible, call ahead before go ing to a healthcare facility.

Monkeypox vaccine is current ly available only to people who meet ALL of the following: You are a man* who has sex with men (cisgender or transgender); You are NOT in a mutually ex clusive, monogamous sexual rela tionship with only one person; You do NOT have any symp toms of Thosemonkeypox.whomeetALL of the crite ria may call 385-468-SHOT (7468) or 385-468-4100 to schedule a monkeypox vaccine appointment with SLCoHD. Weber-Morgan Health Department is also offering monkeypox vaccine at its clinic in Ogden; those who meet the eligibility can call 801-399-7250 to schedule an appointment there. For those who prefer to not make an appointment to get the vaccine, Davis County Health Department is holding a drive-thru vaccine clin ic for people who are eligible: Saturday, August 20, 9 am to noon 22 S. State St. in Clearfield Q More information is at slco.org/health. and health.utah.gov/monkeypox

• Avoid close, prolonged contact with anyone with flu-like symptoms.

Utah health departments releasing monkeypox vaccines to gay, bisexual men as they are available

HOW DO I PROTECT MYSELF FROM MONKEYPOX?

Monkeypox is transmitted per son-to-person through:

• The rash, or lesion, starts as hard, red bumps that, over time, be come filled with fluid. They even tually scab over and fall off.

• Contact with body fluids (in cluding semen and vaginal se cretions) or lesion material

HOW LONG DOES MONKEYPOX LAST? The illness typically lasts for 2 to 4 weeks. People with monkeypox can spread the virus the whole time they have symptoms. Once all the lesions have healed and scabs have fallen off, the person is no longer contagious.

• People in the home of someone who has monkeypox should fre quently and thoroughly wash their hands with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer..

• People with monkeypox should not leave home except as required for follow-up medical care.

● If you don’t have a provider or health insurance, visit a public health clinic near you.

Facts for People Who are Sexually ActiveMonkeypox Facts for People Who are Sexually Active

● Some people have developed a rash before (or without) flu-like symptoms

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com MONKEYPOX | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 27

● You may experience all or only a few of the symptoms of monkeypox.

■

● Monkeypox can cause a rash which may look like pimples or blisters, sometimes with a flu-like illness.

● When you see a healthcare provider, wear a mask, and remind them that this virus is circulating in the area.

● Most people with monkeypox will get a rash.

For more information, visit www.cdc.gov/monkeypox

Monkeypox is a rare disease caused by the monkeypox virus.

● This contact can happen during intimate contact including:

Touching fabrics and objects during sex that were used by a person with monkeypox and that have not been disinfected, such as bedding, towels, and sex toys.

What Are the Symptoms?

■ Contact with respiratory secretions.

■ The flu-like symptoms may include fever, headache, muscle aches and backache, sore throat, cough, swollen lymph nodes, chills, or exhaustion.

■ The rash may also be inside the body, including the mouth, vagina, or anus.

● Monkeypox can spread to anyone through close, personal, often skin-to-skin contact including:

If You Have a New or Unexplained Rash or Other Symptoms...

■ If someone has flu-like symptoms, they will usually develop a rash 1-4 days later.

● Avoid sex or being intimate with anyone until you have been checked out by a healthcare provider.

Monkeypox can be spread from the time symptoms start until the rash has healed, all scabs have fallen off, and a fresh layer of skin has formed. This can take several weeks.

● We are trying to better understand if virus could be present in semen, vaginal fluids, or other body fluids.

Direct contact with monkeypox rash, scabs, or body fluids from a person with monkeypox.

● Having multiple or anonymous sex partners may increase your chances for exposure to monkeypox. Limiting your number of sex partners may reduce the possibility of exposure.

■ Hugging, massage, and kissing.

● Follow the treatment and prevention recommendations of your healthcare provider.

■ Prolonged face-to-face contact.

■

■ The rash will go through several stages, including scabs, before healing.

● Monkeypox symptoms usually start within 3 weeks of exposure to the virus.

■ The rash can look like pimples or blisters and may be painful or itchy.

■ Oral, anal, and vaginal sex or touching the genitals (penis, testicles, labia, and vagina) or anus (butthole) of a person with monkeypox.

● Avoid sex or being intimate with anyone until the rash has healed, scabs have fallen off and you have a fresh layer of skin. If You or Your Partner Have Monkeypox...

Monkeypox

Touching objects, fabrics (clothing, bedding, or towels), and surfaces that have been used by someone with monkeypox.

●

■

July 2022

● The rash may be located on or near the genitals or anus but could also be on other areas like the hands, feet, chest, or face.

Dr. Demetre Daskalakishashad

Let’s start first things first. Vaccines. Vac cines! When, and when, where, how, and when? There have been so many paths of work going on with that. Work to get vaccine faster, work to figure out ways to build the vaccine faster so we have more on the ground, and then on the 9th of August, that’s when the Emer gency Use Authorization allowed for an alternative dosing strategy, when a vial can be used for five doses instead of one dose. It stretches what we’ve got while we work to get more on the ground. They keep calling it The Vaccine Lottery, right? Which I’ve been participating in, by the way. Which is good! If you need it you should absolutely be participat ing in it, so thanks for participating.

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Mark: As best as I can understand this new dosing you’re talking about, using one-fifth the amount, it’s based on one study, right? It makes me skeptical. Are you a little nervous about it, that three months from now we’re going to figure out that one-fifth was actually not so great, and we would have wasted a lot of time? Looking at the science, and having reviewed it with people at the FDA, the quality of the data is really high. They looked at immune response using four separate tests, and when compar ing it to standard dosing the immune response is completely superimposable. In an environment where you have an emergency, where you have a disconnect between supply and demand, and you have really strong data that tells you the vaccines are equivalent, no matter how you give them, there is a high level of confidence that this is equivalent.

Mark: You’re extrapolating this and that, and the emergency set of circum stances, and the fact you’re willing to take a certain amount of risk if it means reaching more people. It’s a measured risk. (The data suggests) this is a gam ble I think we’re going to win.

Mark: I’m excited, but I don’t know if I’m getting the full dose, or the one-fifth dose, but I hear they must be specially trained to give that one-fifth dose correctly, and I will probably be staring at them, going, “do you know what you’re doing?” We’re giving people appropriate training so they are comfortable giving people these shots. We are hoping health departments move

Mark: I hear you, and I appreciate the fact that there are a whole lot of qualifications in there. Totally.

positive thoughts CDC’s Daskalakis on monkeypox, stigma,and being ‘the gay in the Room’

Mark: Other domains. I don’t know what that means. Domain one is, how do we stretch what we’ve got. The other do main is getting produc tion of the vaccine to go faster, and then getting that into people’s arms.

BY MARK S. KING

Mark: I actually won the lottery and have an appointment with my local health department on Friday. Yay!

a swift, visible ascent at the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which snatched him away from a successful tenure at New York City’s Department of Health after he created the progressive “HIV Status Neutral” program. His very direct, sex positive, and unapologetically gay point of view served him well there and, since at CDC, have become important traits for his latest gig as part of the White House’s monkeypox response team. Debates are still raging over how to talk about monkeypox and “men who have sex with men.” Conservative media is having a field day with the CDC’s candid new language about monkeypox transmission and prevention (it speaks to gay men in plainspoken and sometimes explicit ways), while cautious gays and allies fear it is fueling homophobia.

Mark: When will supply meet demand? Two weeks from now? Four weeks? I think the story with this new strategy, with five doses in one vial, makes what looked like 400,000 doses coming to us means 2 million doses. And the effort continues to get more. It doesn’t mean we’re not work ing in other domains…

Demetre took some time from his stacked schedule to do a zoom call from his office at the White House. I managed to ask about all of the above, as well as the advantages and burdens of being “the gay in the room” at times like this. Here is our conversation, gently edited for length and clarity.

With that said, studies are still going to happen to make sure it’s working. If we have to pivot again – which, by the way, this monkeypox thing has been pivot, pivot, pivot – we’ll pivot again. This is not an ivory tower moment. This is when science is being applied very rapidly, and the best intention of getting vaccines into arms and vaccines that work.

Mark: So whereas the vaccine distribu tion hasn’t been where anyone would like, certainly the evolution of the language has been swift. It was remarkable, how fast the guidance language started as a glimmer in the eyes of folks who have experience in HIV and this population, and then how fast the first iteration came out. It’s a priority for CDC and for the rest of this response that we provide as clear and culturally appropriate guidance as possible. We literally pulled a page out of the AIDS playbook. The Michael Callen document, “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic,” is the inspiration for this (Callen wrote the iconic pamphlet with Richard Berkowitz, who is still living).

Mark: Right-wing media is an influencer, too, and they take this provocative language and run with it to stigmatize gay men. I think homophobia will always be there. We can’t let it stop us from speaking candidly to communities at risk. Someone used the example of a gay bashing when the attackers shouted, “monkeypox faggots!” You know what? Those attackers would have picked up that beer bottle anyway. Any fuel you can give to hate is bad. From the perspective of governmental public health, it’s our job to be frank and honest, but also in

Mark: Sure. On the CDC website, you talk about sex toys. You talk about buttholes. You say the word “cum!” Fe tish gear! And leather and latex.

Mark: Let’s talk about messaging. As you know, I really like the new CDC language on your website about mon keypox risk, and ways to alleviate risk, and who specifically is at risk. I’ve been talking about it. Yes, thank you for that. We appreciate your voice there.

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com MONKEYPOX | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 29 quickly to the new strategy of one-fifth, so they can get more shots into arms.

Mark: Are local health departments adopting this language? The CDC sort of flips a switch, and gives clear guidance and language, and it helps the health departments, yes. They take it and might massage it for their own communities. Other places are literally just posting the guidance. It’s taken a life of its own because of its frankness, with influenc ers and others. (The gay online sites) Scruff and Jack’d put it out verbatim.

Mark: Like? The latest CDC guidance suggests that, as we’re scaling up vaccines, you might want to back off on some behaviors that could expose you to monkeypox. That is the most sex-positive guidance I’ve ever seen in the last year.

Mark: I’ve said that gay men might want to dial back our more prolific sexual adventures for a little bit. The vaccine is on the truck. It’s coming. Give it a few weeks. Let’s talk about the way the infections work, monkeypox and HIV. Let’s go back to 1981, and say that we didn’t have antiretrovirals or PrEP or anything. If you only had behavioral change alone, and everyone listened and did it, it would still take three or four generations of behavior change to end HIV, because of the half life of the virus.

Mark: I just wondering how crucial it was to have a gay man in the room, during monkeypox. You’re the gay in the room. How crucial was that when they start ed talking about language and guid ance…? Yeah. Well, I’ll say there are lots of gays in the room (laughs). But being the gay in the room that had a level of au thority, being a division director, I think was really important. I think the only thing that was as important as being the gay in the room was being the one with HIV prevention and treatment experi ence. There were so many opportunities to say, “this is exactly something that hap pened in HIV that we shouldn’t replay…”

Science writer Benjamin Ryan has been great on Twitter, knocking down hyste ria about monkeypox and who it might affect. It is still affecting, to the tune of 98%, men who have sex with men. It isn’t jumping the line, at this time, to hetero sexuals. Right? The CDC just released an MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) for the first couple of thousand cases. There’s definitely been some scenarios where it’s been non-men who have sex with men, and monkeypox doesn’t differentiate based on sexual orinetation or gender identity, but the vast majority of cases that we are seeing now are men who have sex with men. Mark: I want to talk about you and what you’re going through right now. I think you’re the most visible openly gay man at CDC right now. What’s that been like? I’m out about every thing. So it feels great. I’ve intertwined my identity into the work because I can’t not do that. That’s not for every one. Some people need that partition. This community is why I did HIV.

Mark: Okay, then you run along. Thanks for all this time. Nice talking to you, Mark. Take care. Q

Mark: You’re talking to a guy who went to high school in the late 1970s in Boss ier City, Louisiana, and wore platform shoes and pooka shells and was, like, don’t fuck with me. What a trendsetter!

Mark: We need to hear it! We need to know this is about us. There is something correct about creating guidance that is appropriate for lots of groups, but if you don’t disseminate that guidance to groups in a way that is audible to the group that is overrepresented – gay, bisexual, men who have sex with men – you’re failing.

Mark: But isn’t Job One to tell the truth? Absolutely. We toe that line every day. (In our HIV work) we work on getting messages to populations that are overrepresented in the epidemic, but without making the epidemic a defining characteristic for them. What I keep saying is, it only takes a moment to create stigma, and it can last decades. But you have to be fearless, and give the guidance that you actually think is based on epidemiology and science.

Mark: Even with this great guidance, there was a story on The Today Show this morning about monkeypox that barely mentioned sex or men who have sex with men. But they were sure to mention to wash the towels. What the fuck? Here you have a great outlet that is tripping over themselves, I guess, not to offend the queers, when those folks, us, are craving information! Yesterday we had this press conference (about the new dosage strategy), and reporters were using words like, “the affected population.” When I got to speak, I made sure they knew it was important to say “gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men…”

Mark S. King is an award-winning blogger, author, speaker, and HIV/AIDS activist who has been involved in HIV causes since testing positive in 1985. This article first appeared in POZ. This column is a project of TheBody, Plus, Positively Aware, POZ and Q Syndicate. Visit their websites for the latest updates on HIV/AIDS.

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202230 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | MONKEYPOX a way that doesn’t propagate stigma.

And by intertwining my identity as a gay man with my work, I hope I’m being used as a resource. That’s why I do it. And Mark, there are some days when you don’t feel like being the gay in the room. Right? But I don’t have that option be cause it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes, you walk in, and some micro-aggression happens, and you just want to disappear and not deal with it. But ever since I was a kid, my strategy was to return a level of aggression back. But I totally understand people who don’t want to deal with it.

Mark: GLAAD was quoted in The Guard ian story today, essentially pushing the line that “anybody can get monkeypox,” and I’m like, you’re fucking GLAAD. Why aren’t you dealing with real facts?

Mark: Okay… Monkeypox is differ ent. If you do behavior change for a small amount of time, and you have a countermeasure that works, then boom!

Mark: It’s close-ended! And it isn’t a moral judgment. Guys are welcome to return to whatever sexuality suited them previously, but right now, guys, just give it some time. Yup.

I remember GRID (an early name for HIV/AIDS, known as “Gay Re lated Immune Deficiency”). Anytime someone is going to call something “a gay disease,” your skin crawls. That’s why I say, “it only takes a moment to create decades of stigma.”

Mark: What’s the rest of your day like? This is like wartime to me. There’s media, there’s decision making, there’s policy discussions, and it’s really all over the place, which is appropriate. We’re in wartime to make sure we control this outbreak. My full time job is monkeypox.

Mark: But for those of us who were excited about you going to do HIV at CDC in the first place… I’m coming back. HIV is my central passion. And I’ll just say that I’m getting quite a number of new skills and insights into the way things work that will serve HIV really well when I return.

Saturday, Sept. 24 — 11am–7pm Sunday, Sept. 25 — 11am–5pm MUSIC, Preserves, Crafts, FUN! THE GARTEN, 417 N 400 WTheMarmaladeJamFestTHANNUal7ANNUal 7

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“I didn’t change my pronouns – I was thinking of changing them,” she told My Seven Wonders with Clive Anderson.

The gala is set for Aug. 27, at the Eccles Theatre, 131 S. Main St. in downtown Salt Lake City. a first since 2019. The 2020 and 2021 galas had to be canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tickets are available online, through EqualityUtah.org. Individual tickets are $295 — access to general recep tion and after-party is an additional $100. Third-tier seats are $195. And corporate sponsorships are available in packages costing $3,500, $6,500, $10,000, $15,000, $30,000 and $50,000.

Awardees

Eddie Izzard talks she/her

Izzard was appearing on a Sky Arts program in December 2020 when she was asked which pronouns she used. She replied she/her – which she has gone by publicly since. But in a new interview, Izzard said the mo ment wasn’t planned, and in fact she was only thinking about chang ing her pronouns at the time.

An Impact Award will be presented to Bruce Bastian, who was a founding member of Equality Utah and hilan thropist to LGBTQ organizations.

The Equality Utah Jeff Green LGBTQ and Allied Student Scholarships are being awarded to Badí Israel Quinteros, Drew Cannon, Isabella De Las Casas, Tyrel Barney, Sarah Ostler, Heather Barstow, Jordan Jones, and David Shill. Q More information on the Allies Gala can be found at equalityutah.org

Proceeds will go to support Equality Utah’s programs and lobbying efforts.

The theme this year is “Gor geous Planet,” with a dress theme of “Cosmic Vogue,” defined as “gor geous DIY to high couture.”

Equality Utah Allies Dinner

“I went on a program called Portrait Artist of the Year, Sky Arts, very nice, go on there. “Some young artists painting me, they ask me, like a coffee thing, they said, ‘She/her or he/him?’ I was wearing a dress and I’m based as a trans wom an now, so, ‘She/her, I’ll have a latte.’ It was that kind of lack of stress.” Izzard’s pronoun update made headlines, and won her praise from transgender activists, fel low comedians and Stonewall.

“In two days in America and Britain where I’m best known, all my pronouns were changed. Which is fantastic, a great honor. I’ve been promoted to she, I see it as a great honor,” Izzard said. “But I prefer she/her, don’t mind he/him, and I’m going to be re laxed about it. It’s not the time for fighting each other on this.” She explained that the Sky show was “the first programme I’ve asked if I can be she and her, a little transition period.”

Eddie Izzard also spoke about her continued ambitions to run as a La bour MP, something she has been vocal about since 2010, and how ex-come

Allies Gala host

dian and Ukrainian president Volo dymyr Zelensky has inspired her. “He’s been very strong. Very con sistent,” she said of his leadership.

“It’s the Queerer MET gala of Utah,” said organizers. “Look to the stars for

inspiration. Let your imagination inform your fashion, from DIY to High Cou ture. Glide across the universe and our red carpet in a look befitting a starchild. Be inspired by quasars, supermoons and ultraviolet cosmic fractals. What ever illuminates your personal style.”

A second Impact Award is being presented to transgender activist Sue Robbins, who lobbies the Utah State Legislature and works behind the scenes to help guide and/or thwart transgender-related legislation.

PHOTO: CHRIS LOBINA/SKY TV

Speaking about her journey of coming out, she added: “When I came out I was trying to put words out that were better than ‘I am a transvestite’ because that latin word just sounded so negative… “I knew this definition of trans, transgender that’s kind of where I was but I am genderfluid, I think I have the gift of boy genetics and girl genetics.”

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‘A Previous Life,’ Edmund White National Book Award-winning author Edmund White explores polyamory, bisexuality, aging and love in “A Previous Life,” a book about Sicilian aristocrat and musician Ruggero and his younger Amer ican wife Constance’s decision to break their promise to each other to refrain from sharing intimate details about past relationships. Their transparency leads to some revealing revelations about each other: Constance was married to multiple older men, and Ruggero has loved not just women, but men too. And White, whose book experiments with writing himself into the story as a secondary character, just happens to be one of them.

O’Connell’s story is about the fight to overcome addiction while also search ing for acceptance in an ableist world.

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“Just By Looking at Him” tells the story of Elliott, who masks his alcohol addiction with a smoke-and-mirrors career as a TV writer. He’s cheating on his boyfriend, though, and things aren’t great over all. All the while, he has cerebral palsy, which makes him feel like a “gay Shrek.”

ran for two seasons on Netflix. Now you can add author to his ever-expanding resume with his first foray into fiction.

“Special,”beforeAndthat,hecreatedtheEmmy-nominatedcomedy-dramalooselybasedonO’Connell’slifeasagaymanlivingwithcerebralpalsythat

A visiting pro fessor in fiction at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Lydia Conk lin’s Rainbow”“Rainbowpullsfromvariousaspectsofqueer,gender-nonconforming,andtranslifeforthiscollectionofstories:ayounglesbianand her lover try to have a baby with an unprofessional sperm donor, a fifth grader dresses as an ox for a class “Oregon Trail” reenactment, and a nonbinary person experiences an open relationship alongside their top surgery during the height of the pandemic.

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BY CHRIS AZZOPARDI No matter what Republi cans tell you, there’s never a bad time to get lost in a queer book. But now just happens to be a really good time to do so as parents pressure administrators to ban books with LGBTQ+ content from school classrooms and libraries. You can take action against these conservative groups relentlessly pushing their troubling censorship efforts. One way? To simply exercise your reading rights by support ing these LGBTQ+ stories and authors.

‘You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty,’ Akwaeke Emezi Nigerian fiction writer and video artist Akwaeke Emezi, who identifies as non-bi nary transgender, has been a celebrated queer voice — a “once-in-a-generation” one, according to Vulture — since “Fresh water,” their 2018 debut novel that is currently being adapted into a TV series for FX. Since then, Emezi has gone on to achieve major prestige, including being named a “5 Under 35” honoree by the Na tional Book Foundation that same year. Their 2019 book, “Pet,” which explored identity and justice, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. And their latest book, “You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty,” the story of Feyi Adekola grappling with the aftermath of her lover’s death, was described by The New York Times Book Review as “an unabashed ode to living with, and despite, pain and mortality.”

Fight the queer book ban by lovin’ up on these 11 new LGBTQ reads

‘I Was Better Last Night,’ Harvey Fierstein Harvey Fierstein is a bona fide gay legend across the board, from his“Torchstageillustriousandscreencareer(amonghismostmemorablework:SongTrilogy,”“Hairspray”and“Mrs.Doubtfire”)onthrough“KinkyBoots,”theTonyAward-winningmusicalhewrotethebookfor.Ofcourse,there’severythingin between and everything that came before, and in his first memoir, “I Was Better Last Night,” Fierstein reflects on all of the above. The book covers aspects of his life as a prominent figure in the LGBTQ+ community, including his community theater roots in Brooklyn, his noncon formist childhood, and two seminal moments in queer history — the early gay rights movement in the 1970s and the AIDS crisis in the following decade. In a 2015 interview with Pride Source, Fierstein said, “I don’t believe in life after death, so whoever’s gonna remember me is none of my business, certainly. I ain’t gonna know about it.” With this memoir, surely, though perhaps unintentionally so, he’s given us yet another reason to not let him slip away into oblivion. ‘Just By Looking at Him,’ Ryan O’Connell Ryan O’Connell is currently playing a gay pop culture nerd on Peacock’s “Queer as Folk” reimagining, while also serving as a writer and executive producer.

‘Ma and Me,’ Putsata Reang

Described as “a layered story of queerness, assimilation, and displacement” to the press, author Putsata Reang’s memoir sheds light on the gay refugee experience in America as she — born in Cambodia and raised in rural Oregon — tells her

‘Rainbow Rainbow,’ Lydia Conklin

The second novel from author Douglas Stuart, winner of the Booker Prize for “Shuggie Bain,” is, at its tender core, a story of queer love and working-class families. Stuart, of course, is no stranger to steeping his literary work in queerness: In “Shug gie Bain,” his coming-of-age debut novel, he wrote about Hugh, a young gay boy growing up in the 1980s with an alcoholic mother. Now, in “Young Mungo,” we meet Mungo and James, who grow up together in a Glasgow housing estate. A world seeks to divide them, but their against-all-odds friendship — that, in time, blossoms into a romance — pushes against the violent, dangerous forces they must, like many queer people, face together.

The openly Vietnamese-Amergayicanessayistandnovelist,whosemotherdiedin2019frombreast

Now,’ Jill Gutowitz

‘Tripping Arcadia,’ Kit Mayquist If you’ve ever been desperate for a job, you might understand Lena’s situa tion — to make money, in this case to support her financially challenged parents, no matter how unusual the work. And working for one of Boston’s most elite families is… weird. Weirder, too, the more Lena, a med school dropout, learns about the family; there’s that mysterious live-in doctor and Jonathan, the sickly poetic and drunken heir to the family empire. The author is Kit Mayquist, who is trans, and “Tripping Arcadia,” her debut novel, is a Mexican Gothic soap opera where the champagne flows as freely as revenge and greed.

Q

“Mamother,relationshiptraumatergenerationalinandhercomplicatedwithherwhichshedescribesas“painful.”InandMe,”whichisbasedonherMod ern Love essay in The New York Times, Reang recalls how, in her 20s, after doing everything she could to be the kind of Cambodian daughter who would make her mother proud, she came out to her. Her mother tells her it’s only a phase, but then, in her 40s, Reang marries a woman, forever changing her relationship with Ma. A journalist for The New York Times, Politico, and The Guardian, this is Reang’s first memoir.

‘Miss Memory Lane,’ Colton Haynes Colton Haynes lays bare his thoughts on stardom, addiction, and living as an openly gay man in Hollywood in his debut memoir, which is described as the story of “a man stepping into the light as no one but himself.” The star of TV shows like “Arrow,” “Teen Wolf” and “American Horror Story,” Haynes writes about a death scare in his 20s that led to his sobriety. He chronicles that galvanizing episode in the book when he woke up in a hospital after having two seizures, lost sight in one eye, ruptured a kidney, and was put on an involuntary psychiatric hold. His frank storytelling and emotional transparency moved Elton John and his husband David Furnish; they called the book a “brutally honest memoir that socks you in the gut with its candor,” adding that “Miss Memory Lane” is an example of “how conquering our demons in life is a never-ending journey.”

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com A&E | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 35 own story of

‘Time Is Mother,’a Ocean Vuong “I was grieving, the world was grieving, and the only thing I really had was to go back to poems,” Vuong, who wrote “On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” told TIME mag azine earlier this year. At the time, he was expressing how his mother’s death, paired with the pandemic, led to his latest work, “Time Is a Mother.”

cancer, writes about how he survived that loss in collection,the his second poetry book Wounds.”2016’safter“NightSkywithExit ‘GirlsCanKiss

‘Young Mungo,’ Douglas Stuart

Author and humorist Jill Gutowitz has been writing about her gay relationship with pop culture (thankfully lots about Taylor Swift) for 15 years, in magazines such as the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vulture. Now, in her first book of essays, “Girls Can Kiss Now,” the journalist and essayist expands, with her signature wryness, on the pop-culture stuff that makes her tick. And then, of course, there is, as the back of the book promises, “the time the FBI showed up at her door because of something she tweeted about ‘Game of Thrones.’”

Getting One Up on Life ACROSS 1 Symbol on Bern stein’s score 5 Shakespeare’s shrew 9 Broadway gun getter 14 Taylor of “I Shot Andy Warhol” 15 Club for Sheehan 16 Rock Hudson roles, usually 17 Nat. counterpart in MLB 18 Mind the bar 19 Jobs for Burr’s Ma son 20 Start of a quote by 48-Across 22 Cadillac model, with “El” 23 Word after post or ad 24 “Bolero” composer 25 More of the quote 32 Tape over a video 33 Blue bottoms 34 Came out on top 35 Boy Scout outing 36 Composed on a keyboard 37 «Terrif!» 38 Lesbian opponent of Wade 39 Also-ran 40 Metallic in sound 41 End of the quote 44 Queen topper 45 “Bambi” doe 46 David Hyde ___ 48 She plays a videog ame aficionado in the upcoming series “1UP” 53 Strongly opposed (to) 54 Composer John 55 Phantom name 56 Come after 57 San Francisco’s Nob 58 Conveyance weight 59 Howled at the moon 60 Maker of some fruity flavors 61 Aspen vehicle DOWN 1 Family group, in the land of Barrie 2 Green fruit 3 Mt. sign 4 Laddermen use it to hook up 5 Elvis picture on velvet, e.g. 6 Part of San Francis co’s BART 7 Curtis of “Some Like It Hot” 8 Split one in the locker room 9 Breakfast nooks 10 Less remote 11 Feature of Gomer’s speech 12 Fingered 13 Big name in pumps 21 Horror writer Mi chael 22 Michelangelo piece with stones of stone 24 Echo effect 25 India’s first prime minister 26 Hunter that comes out at night 27 Song by the Eagles 28 “My Name Is Earl” girl 29 Portable erection 30 Band members blow them 31 Covet thy neighbor’s ass, e.g. 36 Joe of baseball 37 Mosque towers 39 Percolated like Cary Grant? 40 Like Elton John’s dancer 42 Faith, hope, or sweet charity 43 Dean, and others without causes 46 Naval freshmanAcademy 47 Island of Barrie’s land 48 Police incursion at Stonewall 49 Like America’s Betty 50 Anal alternative 51 k.d. lang record label 52 Barely made, with “out” 54 Antonio’s “Evita” role Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202236 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | COMICS PUZZLE SOLUTIONS ON PAGE 23

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com PUZZLES | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 37 Q doku Each Sudoku puzzle has a unique solution which can be reached logically without guessing. Enter digits 1 through 9 into the blank spaces. Every row must contain one of each digit, as must each column and each 3x3 square. Qdoku Level: Hard 2 9 8 7 399 1 25 166 8 7 1 3 4 5 7 3 7 59 6 57 4 85 2 3 3 6 9 8 1 8 5 9 426 5 7 4 6 5 2 6 1 4 8 5 4 9 3 5 31 1 2 8 5 7 467 2 9 1 7 7 2 59 9 5 4 462 175 1 4 8 9 4 1 1 3 8 3 9 8 9 3 638 1 6 3 5 9 1 6 42 8 4 3 7 57 6 6 7 CleaningX-rays,Bite-wingExam,First-time New patients only. Limitations and exclusions may apply. Not valid with any other offers. Salt Lake 2150 S. Main St 801-883-9177104 Bountiful 425 S. Medical Dr 211www.alpenglowdentists.com801-397-5220 To schedule an appointment, please call 801.878.1700 Evening and Saturday Appointments Available Most Insurances Accepted Dr Josef Benzon, DDS

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202238 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | QMMUNITY BUSINESS ofPsycho-therapistsLGBTQ-AffirmativeGuildUtah  lgbtqtherapists.com * jim@lgbtqtherapists.com Utah LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce  utahlgbtqchamber.com * info@utahgaychamber.com LGBT & Allied Lawyers of Utah  lgbtutahlawyers.com * lgbtutahlawyers@gmail.com Utah BusinessIndependentCoalition  801-879-4928utahindependentbusiness.org DOMESTIC VIOLENCE National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233 YWCA of Salt Lake  801-537-8600322ywca.org/saltlakecityE300S HEALTH & HIV Peer Support for Mental Illness — PSMI Thurs 7pm, Utah Pride Ctr Planned Parenthood  801-322-5571654bit.ly/ppauslchivS900E Salt Lake County Health Dept HIV/STD Clinic 660 S 200 E, 4th Floor Walk-ins M–F 10a–4p Appts 385-468-4242 Utah AIDS Foundation  utahaids.org * 801-487-23231408mail@utahaids.orgS1100E Weber-Morgan Health Mon., Weds 1-4:30p 477 23rd St, Ogden Appt 801-399-7250 HOMELESS SVCS VOA Homeless Youth Resource Ctr, ages 15–21 880 S 400 801-364-0744W Transition Homes: Young Men’s 801-433-1713 Young Women’s 801-359-5545 LEGAL Rainbow Law Free Clinic 2nd Thurs 6:30–7:30pm UofU Law School, 383 S University St POLITICAL Equality Utah  equalityutah.org * 801-355-3479175info@equalityutah.orgW200S,Ste1004 Utah Libertarian Party 6885 S State St #200 888-957-8824 Utah DemocratsStonewall  utahstonewalldemocrats.org  fb.me/ utahstonewalldems RELIGIOUS First Baptist Church  firstbaptist-slc.org * 801-582-4921777slc.orgoffice@firstbaptist-11aSundaysS1300E Sacred Light of Christ  11a801-595-0052823slcchurch.orgS600ESundays SOCIAL 1 to 5 Club (bisexual)  fb.me/1to5ClubUtah * utahpridecenter.org1to5club@ blackBOARD Men’s education,Kink/Sex/BDSM1st,3rdMons.  blackbootsslc.org blackBOOTS Kink/BDSM Men’s fetish/BDSMleather/kink/4thSats.  blackbootsslc.org Flaming Man  menwhomove.org OWLS of Utah (Older, Wiser, Lesbian. Sisters)  bit.ly/owlsutah qVinum Wine Tasting  qvinum.com Sage Utah, Seniors  fb.me/sageutah * 801-557-9203utahpridecenter.orgsageutah@ Temple Squares Square Dance Club  801-449-1293templesquares.org Utah Bears  utahbears.com  fb.me/utahbears * Coffee,Wedsinfo@utahbears.com6pmRawBean611WTemple Utah Male Naturists  umen.org * info@umen.org Utah Pride Center  utahpridecenter.org * 801-539-88001380info@utahpridecenter.orgSMainSt Venture OUT Utah  bit.ly/GetOutsideUtah SPORTS QUAC — Queer Utah Aquatic Club  quacquac.org * quacquac.orgquestions@ Salt Lake Goodtime Bowling League  bit.ly/slgoodtime Stonewall Sports SLC  fb.me/SLCStonewall  385-243-1828leagueapps.comstonewallsaltlakecity. Utah Gay Football League  UtahGayFootballLeague.com  fb.me/UtahGayFootballLeague Venture Out Utah  Venture.OUT.Utahfacebook.com/groups/ SUPPORT Alcoholics Anonymous 801-484-7871  utahaa.org LGBT meetings: Sun. 3p GroupAcceptance , All Saints Episcopal Church, 1710 Foothill Dr Tues. 8p Live & Let Live, Mt Lutheran,Tabor175S 700 E Wed. 7p Sober Today, 1159 30th St , Ogden Wed. 7:30p, Sober AF, Zoom mtg ID 748 896 1508, Password Fri.SLQ20207pGroupStonewall , Mt Tabor Lutheran, 175 S 700 E Crystal Meth Anon  Sun.crystalmeth.org2:30pm Clean, Sober & Proud CommerceAlanoLGBTQIA+StraightClub,5056Dr,Murray Genderbands  fb.mgenderbands.orge/genderbands LifeRing RecoverySecular 801-608-8146  Sat.501Sun.liferingutah.org10amUniv.NeuropsychiatricInstitute,ChipetaWay#156611am,Howwasyourweek?FirstBaptistChurch,777S1300E ofPsycho-therapistsLGBTQ-AffirmativeGuildUtah  lgbtqtherapists.com * robin@lgbtqtherapists.com Men’s Support Group Tues, 6pm  mental-health/mens-sg/utahpridecenter.org/ * utahpridecenter.orgTherapy@ Parent & Caregiver Support Group Mon 6:45pm  youth--programs/utahpridecenter.org/ Survivors of Suicide Attempt  mental-health/sosa/utahpridecenter.org/ Trans & Nonbinary Adult Support Thurs, 6pm  programs/lgbtq-adults/utahpridecenter.org/ * utahpridecenter.orgtnbsupport@ TransAction Sun, 1:30pm  Sundaystransaction/org/adult-programs/utahpridecenter.2–3:30pm Women’s Support Group Wed 6pm  womens-sg/org/mental-health/utahpridecenter. * utahpridecenter.orgwomensupport@ Youth Support Group ages 10-14, 14-20  org/youth-programs/utahpridecenter. YOUTH/COLLEGE Encircle LGBTQ Family and Youth Resource Ctr  33119091fb.me/encircletogetherencircletogether.orgW200S,Provo,S100E,St.GeorgeS600E,SLC Gay-Straight Alliance Network  gsanetwork.org The OUT Foundation  theout.foundation  fb.me/theOUTfoundation Salt Lake Community College LGBTQ+  slcc.edu/lgbtq/ University of Utah LGBT Resource Center  801-587-7973Dr200lgbt.utah.eduSCentralCampusRm409,M-F,8a-5p USGA at BYU  usgabyu.com  fb.me/UsgaAtByu Utah State Univ. Access & Diversity Ctr  lgbtqainclusion.usu.edu/ Utah Valley Univ Spectrum  groups/uvuspectrumfacebook.com/ Weber State University LGBT Resource Center  801-626-7271lgbtresourcecenterweber.edu/ Westminster Diversity Center Bassis 105, M-F 8a-5p  edu/diversityestminstercollege. Youth Activity Night ages 10-14, 14-20  youth-programs/utahpridecenter.org/ Qmmunity Groups

SCORPIO Oct. 23–Nov. 21

AQUARIUS Jan. 20–Feb. 18 There is a transaction that must be honored, so take care of matters that are weighing on you. A business risk is not so easy to quantify, but if you merge ideas, peace will be found.

CAPRICORN Dec 21–Jan 19 Extinguish your angst and learn to enjoy. See things you dislike on their own terms. It could change your mind. Despite seemingly being set in stone, it feels good to touch new things.

REVIEW BY TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER Magic Season: A Son’s Story BY WADE ROUSE C.2022,304PRESS,SQUAREHANOVER$27.99,PAGES lookedalwaysYou’ve up to literally,happenedtimesdad.yourSomeit like when you were a child and “up” was the only way to see his face hovering over yours. You’ve looked up at him in anger, embarrassment, dismissal, and yeah, you’ve looked up to him in the best ways, too – never forgetting, as in the memoir “Magic Season” by Wade Rouse, that sometimes, the hardest thing is seeing eye-to-eye. Wade Rouse threw like a girl. He couldn’t catch a baseball, either, and he wasn’t much of a runner as a young boy. He tried because his father insisted on it but Rouse was better with words and books and thoughts. He was nothing like his elder brother, Todd, who was a natural hunter, a good sportsman, and an athlete, and their father never let Rouse forget it. And yet, curiously, Rouse and his dad bond ed over Specifically,baseball.their love of Cardinals baseball became the one passion they shared. The stats, the players, the idea that “Anything can happen,” and the hope that there’d be a World Series at the end of every season were the glue they needed. It was what saved them when Todd was killed in a motorcycle accident. When Rouse came out to his father, Cards baseball was what brought them back together af ter two years of estrangement. In between games, though, and between seasons, there was yelling, cruelty, and all the times when father and son didn’t communicate. Rouse accepted, but didn’t like, his father’s alcoholism or his harsh life lessons: his father didn’t like Rouse’s plans for his own future. Rouse admits that he cried a lot, and he was surprised at the rare times when his father displayed emotion – especially since an Ozarks man like Ted Rouse didn’t do things like that. Until the time was right. Love, Wade Rouse says, is “shaped like a baseball.” You catch it, throw it, or hit it out of the park, but “You don’t know where it’s going.” Just be sure you nev er take “your eye off it, from beginning to end.” Oh, my. Oh, my, but “Magic Season” is a ten-hankie book.

LEO July 23–August 22 Submit yourself for a blessing from someone you trust or admire. There is confusion on what to do next and it never hurts to get a second opinion. Learn much and proceed carefully.

Tread carefully before jumping into a deep situ ation. There is always room for error, but you might not appreciate the trouble. Take care of a friend but don’t lose sight of yourself.

First, though, you’re going to laugh because author Wade Rouse is a natural-born hu morist and his family is a great launching pad for him despite the splinters and near-clawing despair of the overall theme of this book. That sense of humor can’t seem to let a good story go, even when it’s obvious that there’s something heartbreak ing waiting in the bullpen. Which brings us to the father-son-baseball triple-play. It may seem to some readers that such a book has been done and done again, but this one feels different. Rouse excels at filling in the blanks on the other, essential teammates in this tale and, like any big skirmish, readers are left breathless, now knowing the final score until the last out. If you like your memoirs sweet, but with a dash of spice and some tears, right here you go. For you, “Magic Season” is a book to look up. Q

SAGITTARIUS Nov. 22–December 20. You might have to spell out to others what you are feel ing. You cross bridges when you come to them, but looking ahead is a good idea. Express yourself to get what you really want.

GEMINI May 21–June 20 What can create a perverse incentive is likely to keep you motivated. Explore new ways to have a good time and don’t worry about being offended. You know limits without pushing.

PISCES Feb 19–Mar 19 Bad facts make for bad results, so get informed. Ease your mind and get some help from a friend or loved one. It might be a good time to eat something you love, so love your words.

the bookworm sez sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com BOOK REVIEW | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 39 q scopes

A temptation is bound to get into your head. There is nothing wrong with giving in as long as you keep an eye out. The most intense moments are those that test your desires.

TAURUS Apr 20–May 20 Be realistic with your scheduling. Make time for a friend or partner who provides much pleasure to you. There is nothing more exciting than learning new things from old flings.

Q

ARIES March 20–April 19

LIBRA Sept 23–October 22

SEPTEMBER BY SAM KELLEY-MILLS

In the event of a surprise, stay focused. There could be a party or gathering and a nice time to let your hair down. The longer you wait to join, the more likely fun is to come to you.

CANCER June 21–July 22 Even if you could, it’s not a good time for drastic change. Stay with what you know and don’t lose your grip on a complex situation. Enjoy your time and go with the flow for a while.

VIRGO August 23–Sep. 2 You could be unaware of something that is remotely impossible. The world is chang ing even though you may not be. Hold on tight and get ready for a wild ride. The world is rocking.

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202240 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | Q&A

This, on top of the fact that there are so few speculative plays being produced, prompted me to attempt something very different than what I was used to seeing. What scares you most about your play? Maybe its execution. I hope that it works as a play and that I didn’t shoot myself in the foot, as it were. What excites you most about your play? The horror of it! I think cults are interesting, I love monsters, and I think it is very different. I want to continue creating work that is very uncom mon with supernatural elements. Tito Livas, what made you decide to pursue playwrighting? I’m not really sure. Probably the same reason every other person pursues playwriting, to share my perspective and views in a way that hopefully speaks to others. What was the impetus for creating your play “Squeak”? I wrote SQUEAK because I have a son with ADHD and I wanted others to understand what it can be like in his brain, and how best to interact with a child who is neurodivergent … not only for his sake but for theirs as well.

Plan-B Theatre’s Script-InHand Series, launched in 2004, provides the first public audience for many a play. This season’s series has a festival vibe to it, with four workshops taking place within a four-week period, each culminating in a free public reading on Zoom. Tatiana Christian’s (they/them) “Radio Show” is a genre-bending horror play centering on Black char acters but not Black trauma. Tito Livas’s (he/him) “Squeak” takes us on a journey across the spectrum through the eyes of a kindergartner.

Tatiana Christian Tito Livas

Plan-B’s Artistic Director, Jerry Rapier, asked them each to share a few thoughts on their processes and plays. Tatiana Christian, what made you decide to pursue playwriting? A long time ago, an astrologer I followed online talked about writing a one-act play. I remember thinking that was very interesting. On and off over the years, I thought about playwriting and how people even got plays made. When I moved to Park City, I fell down a rabbit hole, not knowing how I got there and started traveling to Salt Lake City to see plays. The first play I saw was “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncolo gy Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City” at [Salt Lake Acting Company], and it was a comedy about this woman whose mom was in the hospital and she meets a guy whose mom is also sick (or dead). I remember really liking it because it was a play with only white charac ters but no racism. (Seeing art made by white creatives is uniquely fraught). I moved to Salt Lake in order to see more plays (which I did). I saw as much as I could, and seeing some at Plan-B Theatre, I looked them up and read about the Theatre Artists of Color Playwriting Workshop.

BY JERRY RAPIER

Although I didn’t have any experience, I had written everything else (screen plays, comics scripts, short stories, and half-finished novels), so I thought to see if/how I could participate. After a performance of “…Of Color,” I ap proached Jerry and asked how I could take part. And it’s history after that! What was the impetus for creating your play “Radio Show”? I had seen “Lovecraft Country” and really liked it. But I noticed that there aren’t any Black people writing cosmic horror. (Lovecraft was a virulent racist and his cosmology is steeped in his fear/hatred of Black people.)

Outside of one novella, “The Ballad of Black Tom” by Victor Lavalle, there are no notable Black cosmic horror writings that I have been able to find. (“Lovecraft Country” is adapted from a novel written by H.P. Lovecraft, a white man.) (There is an antholo gy of cosmic horror writings that is almost exclusively white women.)

What scares you the most about your play? What scares me most is get ting it wrong. And people not taking away from it what I hope they will. What excites you most about your play? My oldest son, and those like him, seeing themselves onstage. Q Free-but-required tickets to the Script-In-Hand Series readings of “Radio Play” by Tatiana Christian (Octo ber 1) and “Squeak” by Tito Livas (September 24) on Zoom are available at planbtheatre.org – click The Plays. The Series also features readings of “Tip Top Triangle” by Rachel Bublitz (September 17) and “The Robots of Walmart” by Jenny Kokai (October 8).

Plan-B’s Script-in-Hand series gives a first glimpse into plays

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com Q&A | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 41 U T A H B E E R F E S T I V A L . C O M AUG 20 & 21 12TH ANNUAL UTAH BEER FEST i VAL U TA H B E E FR E ST i VA L Colors of Cancer FIGHT WITH 2022 Utah Beer Festival Beneficiary American Cancer Society “colors of cancer” BALLET WEST IN THE GARDEN Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre Friday, September 9 On sale redbuttegarden.org/concertsnow! Artists of Ballet West | Photo by Beau Pearson

TUC WATKINS ON QUEER TV, THEN & NOW

The ‘Desperate Housewives’ staruncouplesfrom Neil Patrick Harris in a new Netflix series

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202242 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | Q&A

Tuc Watkins justhasn’tseen how gay relationships have evolved on television — he’s been a part of that evolution. On “Desperate House wives,” Watkins portrayed one half of gay couple Bob and Lee, who became residents of Wisteria Lane in 2007. But the 55-year-old actor has actually been playing gay characters since the 1990s, when he portrayed the boyfriend to Alexis Arquette’s character in the 1997 indie rom-com “I Think I Do.” In 1999, he took on the satirical Showtime comedy-drama “Beggars and Choosers,” which ran for 42 episodes. In the show, Watkin’s character, Malcolm Laffley, came out of the closet after being accused of sexual harassment by a woman. Now, as Colin, he returns to a differ ent kind of queer culture in the Netflix series “Uncoupled,” where PrEP and sending butthole pics on Grindr are the norm and, most importantly, LGBTQ+ characters aren’t just mere accessories but full-on leads. In other words, as Colin breaks it off with Michael (Neil Patrick Harris), they don’t get to just watch the drama unfold — they _are_ the drama.

Watkins, of course, is no stranger to the kind of heightened emotional spec tacle that lives most commonly within the TV world. Beginning in 1994, the Kansas City native spent nearly 20 years on “One Live to Life.” More recently, he played Hank in the 2018 Broadway revival of “The Boys in the Band” and the 2020 Netflix film, which featured the same Broadway cast, including Watkins’ partner Andrew Rannells. Recently, Watkins reflected on his firsthand experiences of playing gay roles, how it took 30 years for him to star in a Darren Star (“Sex and the City,” “90210”) project, and the crazy thing he learned that Neil Pat rick Harris can do with his tears. A gay man being in a bubble after being in a relationship for so long, which is the concept for “Uncoupled” — has that ever been you, where you get back out into the

BY CHRIS AZZOPARDI PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Did you audition for the role? Well, I’ve been trying to work with Darren Star ever since he did not cast me in the pilot of “Melrose Place.” I reminded him of that when we started working together. I schemed and plotted and made very fast work of forcing him to cast me almost a half century later. What happened with “Melrose Place”? Well, I auditioned for the gay guy, and he hired that knucklehead, Doug Savant, instead of me. Doug and I later became friends on “Desperate Housewives.” He’s one of the nicest guys in the world, which made it even worse that Doug got the job because a nice guy succeeded. There’s nothing worse than a nice guy succeeding. You stick around long enough, every thing comes around. So it took a while, but I got to work with Darren after all. So what was it like to be a part of the Darrenverse? What I like about Darren shows is they’re aspirational. By way of example, I was in a relationship with a guy and I had the opportunity to move to New York a number of years ago, and he didn’t want to move to New York. I made him watch “Sex and the City” because who doesn’t want to live in Darren Star’s New York City? I made him watch that and sure enough, it worked and he moved to New York with me. I think [Darren] creates a world that we want to live in. “Desperate Housewives” was also a world like, “Who doesn’t want to live on that street? It looks so inviting.” In fact, I tried to mail a letter in the mailbox one day and the prop

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com Q&A | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 43 gay world and you’re like, “Wow, gay people have changed”? Unfortunately, I have experience in this arena. I’ve had four significant, intimate relationships in my life, and I’ve been dumped in 50% of those relationships. The reason I think that those two guys dumped me is because they are morons. I am kind and fun and a 100% all-around, wonderful guy. I got back together with those two guys to prove that to them and then we broke up again. Yes. I’ve experienced singledom in midlife and it stinks. Of course, it stinks. You think it might be fun. “Oh, I get to go on the apps, so I get to date around. I get to try all these things that my friends have been trying.” Most of that stuff is more fun in theory. You’re right because there’s a big learning curve here, as Michael realizes in “Uncou pled.” I imagine straight people also have to deal with some kind of cultural curve af ter their breakups. Breakups don’t choose a sexuality to be more horrible to. They’re bad to everybody. I think what is unique about “Uncoupled,” is it wasn’t that long ago that we were celebrating gay mar riage, but what comes with gay marriage? Gay divorce, and so there’s two sides to that coin. To reflect what it’s like to be single and gay in midlife in an urban envi ronment is not something that we’ve ex plored a lot. In the hands of [creators] Jeff Richmond and Darren Star, breaking up stinks when it happens to you. But when it happens to someone else, it’s funny.

Now to their credit, later, we had a very passionate kiss in another episode, but the fact that it was an issue… It probably went through several committees at the network: “Should they or should they not?” And if you watch “Uncoupled,” there’s a lot more than kissing. I’m no prude, but it gets pretty… in there. The show opens up with you two in bed. It does. In fact, in the script, it was more graphic. What made it into the episode was a little bit tamer, but we are pushing that envelope in scripts and what we shoot. And maybe it doesn’t always make it to screen, but we are headed in that direction. I think that’s a great thing. It’s just more represen tative of who we are as a community. What was the conversation around the scene that was cut and the one that inevi tably made it on screen? I was not part of that conversation. I was in the scene, and Neil and I did the scene together. That scene in bed initially was a scene [that] was more graphic in a funny way, but in a very real way. I think they actually made a good choice in toning that down a little bit, because I think it may have set the series off on the wrong foot. The first 30 seconds are very indicative of the tone of a show. I think it would’ve been a good spice to the show, but maybe not in the first 30 seconds. [In a separate interview, Star said, “We wanted to emphasize the intimacy of their relationship and not the sexuality of their relationship. For the first 30 seconds of a show that nobody knows what it’s about, it felt like it was kind of creating almost a false impression of the story we wanted to tell about who these two people were.]

Speaking of gay men in relationships on TV, I was thinking about Bob and Lee in “Desperate Housewives” and reflecting on whether a shift has happened in how gay or queer men in relationships are portrayed. Have you seen a shift between being an actor on that show and, years later, on “Uncoupled?” Well, I think that’s a really good observation because there has been a shift. When Kevin Rahm and I played the gay couple on “Desperate House wives,” it was about the same time that Jesse Tyler and Eric [Stonestreet] were playing the gay couple over on “Modern Family.” But what was notable about those two things is that there was a gay couple on those shows. And what I think has happened since is, you’ve got a show like “Uncoupled,” where it’s full of characters from the LGBT community. It’s not just the gay couple who have to represent what a gay couple is. You’ve got different stripes from a very colorful tapestry. I don’t feel like we have to show up and feel like we’re representing what being a gay person means. Because as we all know, there’s a huge spectrum, and that spectrum is now starting to be re flected in the programming that we have. I don’t remember in “Desperate House wives” how many love scenes you had with Kevin. But I do know that “Modern Family” got a lot of flack for not allowing its gay couple to kiss. I think Kevin and I got married on that show. And if I re member correctly, there was a kiss in the script and it was cut, either by the time we shot it or the time that we aired it.

Growing up, what was the moment in your life where you knew you wanted to be an actor? I remember in high school, I went to see a production of “Cyrano de Bergerac” at the Guthrie Theater in Min neapolis. There was a moment where the stage went dark, and it came right back on and a huge tree branch had come out from under the proscenium. The actors took their cues off of individual leaves that fell off of that branch. I remember thinking, “That is so cool, I want to do cool stuff like that.” I think I was more interested in the magic and the tricks. The first musical I ever saw was “The Music Man” with Tony Randall at Starlight Theater in Kansas City, and I was just a kid. I remember that at the end of one of his big musical numbers, Tony Randall climbs to the center of this red, Japanese bridge. One of those short but highly arched, red bridges. He throws out his arms and it’s a big musical number that ends. My takeaway was:

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202244 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | Q&A

guy said, “What are you doing? That’s a prop.” You forget that you’re on a set. For “Uncoupled,” what was it like building an onscreen romantic relationship with Neil, and how much did you know each other before you started shooting? Neil and I had never met. I quickly learned that Neil is like a surgeon when it comes to his acting style. He knows what needs to be done and he executes it. He knows where the joke is, he doesn’t do too much. He doesn’t do too little. And, well, he’s a magician, isn’t he? In real life, he’s a magi cian. He’s got a tattoo of a magic trick on his shoulder. One of the magic tricks that I saw him perform was, he has to do some pretty emotional, heavy lifting in some scenes that he and I do. When he was shot in profile, he cried from the eye that was on camera. But he reserved the tears in the eye that the camera couldn’t see, in case there was coverage coming up that he might need to use that eye. Now, that is a real technical, magical actor at work. I didn’t even know that was scientifically possible. Well, he’s got a real facility to his instrument, you could say. You have appeared in some of my favorite shows throughout the years, including “Six Feet Under” and “The Other Two.” I was surprised to find out that you were in “Silk Stalkings,” the show I watched and shouldn’t have as a teenager. I think Rick Springfield beat me up in “Silk Stalkings.” I was beat up by Rick Springfield. What does that do for your ego to be beat up by Rick Springfield? If you’re going to be on “Silk Stalkings,” you might as well. Yeah. Might as well get beat up by Rick Springfield.

“That’s not a real bridge. That’s a bridge on a stage, and that’s cool. I want to do that.” My entrance to being an actor was for all the tricks and the fun stuff. Now that you’ve been doing this for quite some time, have you pulled off the kind of magic you dreamed about as a kid? Well, I used to think as an actor, I wanted to ride a horse, shoot a gun and get killed. I got to do all three of those things in “The Mummy,” 20 years ago. So maybe I should have just retired at that point. It’s all downhill after you get to ride a horse, shoot a gun and get killed. And of course, Rick Springfield. Yes. Well, that was a departure. Q Chris Azzopardi is the Editorial Director of Pride Source Media Group and Q Syndicate. He has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Cher, Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. His work has also ap peared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ and Billboard. Reach him via Twitter @chrisazzopardi.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX

“We’re at the New York Film Fest, and we’re about to do the red carpet, and [director] David Fincher, when we’re all saying hello, turns to me and goes ‘Oh, by the way: We added a digital dick to your thing so just so you know, it’s not yours. It’s digital.’ I was like, ‘Is it nice?’” Harris knows that, perhaps, you were misled: “I think people think they might have actually seen my dong on ‘Gone Girl,’ but that was a digital dong.’”

It wasn’t that it was hard, but when Neil Patrick Harris shot a scene for the new Net flix series “Uncoupled,” in which his character tries to snap just the right Grindr shots, it was a little… hairy. It was “taking angles” and “making sure that you didn’t show your stuff in certain positions” that Harris says was “interesting.” “We had to find what my ‘d ac tually looks like,’” said the actor, throwing up air quotes while on Zoom to promote the series.

Specifically — because who wouldn’t want every single last detail? — Har ris described the phalluses as “latex, pale, single-colored thing[s].”

“I really do need to erase those pictures off my phone,” he said.

In “Uncoupled,” Harris’s Mi chael, a married Manhattanite, has the rug pulled out from un der him when his husband of 17 years, portrayed by Tuc Watkins (“Desperate Housewives,” “Boys in the Band”), suddenly decides to end things. Michael quickly learns that, for a single gay man in his mid-40s living in New York City, he’s a little behind the ball when it comes to contem porary queer culture. Openly gay TV rom-com mogul Darren Star, who created “Sex and the City” and “Younger,” helmed “Uncoupled” with Jeffrey Richman, so naturally, there’s a fair amount of gay sex. But, as Michael learns, in order to get some taps, you’ve gotta show the goods on social media. Harris’ bare bottom is prominently featured during the episode, though it was the front of his body that resulted in heated discussions and debates.

And if you ever wondered what it’s like to work on a set of a show in which the penis of your character is up for debate, wonder no more: “We had a nice text thread with the producers,” he recalled. “‘What about this photo if we crop it? And what about this? It was the filthiest thing of all. ‘Too big, too thick, too long.’ I was like, ‘Come on!’ But we kind of met in the middle.”

Theactoron‘Uncoupled’and his‘digitaldong’in‘GoneGirl’

As for the NPH-approvednew-and-improved,penispics?Stillonhisphone,hesays.Thoughnotfor

long because his two kids with Michi gan-born husband David Burtka, Harper and Gideon, could possibly see them when they go through his phone.

“My modesty’s fine; I wasn’t that nervous about that,” he admitted. “You have this weird contraption around your actual genitals so no one can see it, but I didn’t want Netflix execs or the editors to see this, like, weird pouch thing, and the camera couldn’t see that either.” In other words, situating a penis just right is a complicated affair on set. So complicated that, when he went to his trailer the day of the shoot and found “two flaccid rubber phalluses on my desk,” it was time to get the producers involved. “They were like small and weird, and I think something people used to pack themselves, like drag kings, but it didn’t look very flattering and I sort of said, ‘I don’t want this! I don’t want you to take a picture of this!’”

On behalf of NPH, sor ry for the confusion. Q Chris Azzopardi is the Editorial Director of Pride Source Media Group and Q Syndicate. He has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Cher, Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. His work has also ap peared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ and Billboard. Reach him via Twitter @chrisazzopardi.

BY CHRIS AZZOPARDI

In other Neil Patrick Harris penis news: He had you fooled in “Gone Girl,” and contrary to popular belief, what you saw down there wasn’t the real thi ng.

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com Q&A | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 45

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS’ PENIS PROBLEM CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Q Joshua Jones is the director of communica tions and marketing at Downtown Alliance.

Toys, gems,jewlery,andjava BY JOSH JONES

In-store isshoppingcom ing back in a big way and it is driving entrepreneurs to find physical locations across downtown to expand, or open new businesses. In brick-and-mortar brands, the biggest success across the nation is fitness channels. City Creek welcomed two such businesses recently: Vuori, a premium perfor mance apparel brand inspired by a coastal California life style; and Asher, a high-quality golf apparel retailer. Also, newly-opened at City Creek is Lovisa, a fashion-forward jewelry brand with readyto-wear affordable rings, necklaces, earrings, and more. Luxury was one of the strongest segments during the peak of the pandemic. With less entertainment spend ing, there was a significant increase in other disposable income. With that comes Jade Furnishings at The Gateway.

on the street Salt Lake City: CAFE JUNIPER 29 E 400 South, Salt Lake City  Toasts,cafejuniperslc.comsnacks,andcoffee COFFEE GARDEN 878 E 900 S, Salt Lake City  sandwichesPastries,coffeegardenslc.commacarons,quiche,antcoffee FILLINGS & EMULSIONS 1475 Main St, Salt Lake City  Internationalfillingsandemulsions.compastries LAZIZ KITCHEN 912 S Jefferson St, Salt Lake Modernlazizkitchen.comMediterranean THE MED 420 E 3300 South, S. Salt Lake Old-worldmedslc.comMediterranean RAWTOPIA LIVING CUISINE AND BEYOND 3961 S Wasatch Dr, Millcreek  Organic,rawtopia.comglute-free PIG & A JELLY JAR 401 E. 900 S., Salt Lake City 1968 E Murray-Holladay Rd  Southern-inspiredpigandajellyjar.comcuisine PORCH RESTAURANT 11274 Kestrel Rise Rd, S. Jordan  Newporchutah.comAmericancuisine LGBTQ-owned restaurants in Utah We get asked all the time to suggest an LGBTQ-owned restaurant in the area. Here is our list of those we know. Don’t see your favorite LGBTQ+ owned restaurant? Please let us know and we will add it to our list. Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202246 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | FOOD & DRINK

What started as two friends doing residential interior design has grown into a company that has been fea tured on HGTV and in Sunset Magazine. Soon they will sell their highly-curated furniture from around the world to the public. They are located near the Olympic Plaza. Also opened at The Gateway, inside the Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum, is The Red Balloon Toy Store. We’re big fans of this Utah-based company and congratulate them on their eighth store.

Finally, sprouting on Broadway is From the Ground Up, a rock and coffee shop from local entrepreneur Kathie Chadbourne. This gem is filled with treasures including Native American art, jewelry, and unique gifts. A trickling water feature welcomes you and Kathie fills the space with a positive aura. Go find some treasures.

sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com FOOD & DRINK | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 47 Come join us at our original and only location for your fresh L ebanese favorites! Fabby Awardthepie.comWinner801-582-5700 1320 E 200 S SLC 801-582-5700 275 S 1300 E SLC 801-466-5100 3321 So. 200 E SLC 801-233-1999 7186 S Union Park Ave Midvale 801-495-4095 10627 S Redwood Rd. South Jordan 801-627-1920 4300 Harrison Blvd Ogden Fabby2020AwardsBESTPIZZA SWEET HAZEL & CO 167 W 4500 S, Murray  Vegansweethazelandco.combakery ZEST 275 S 200 West, Salt Lake City  Healthy,zestslc.complant-based Green River TAMARISK RESTAURANT 1710 E Main St, Green River  American,Breakfast,tamarisk.restaurantlunch,dinner,Southwestern Huntsville THE SHOOTING STAR SALOON 7350 E 200 S, Huntsville  NOBurgers,shooting-star-saloon.business.sitebeers,soda,andchips.fries Ogden KAFFE MERCANTILE 1221 26th St, Ogden 930 Chambers St, S. Ogden  Breakfast,kaffemercantile.compastriesand coffee NO FRILLS DINER 195 25th St, Ogden  fb.me/NoFrillsDinerOn25th Breakfast, burgers, sandwiches PIG & A JELLY JAR 227 E 25th St, Ogden  Southern-inspiredpigandajellyjar.comcuisine WB’S EATERY 455 25th St, Ogden  Winewbseatery.comcafeandcoffeehouse Food Truck/Catering FRY ME TO THE MOON  NavajoFrymetothemoonSLC.comtacos,foodtruckfaves MAKAYA CATERS  HaitianMakayaCaters.comFood NOEMIS CATERING  Chileanfb.me/noemiscateringstyleempanadas,steaks,desserts

positive thoughts Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202248 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | HEALTH By now we’ve all heard into that wisdom and begin to turn the the closet when entering facilities,long-termintocareforfear of being outed, ostracized and stig

Jeff Berry is the editor-in-chief of he is Director of

Positively Aware mag azine, and

Publications at Test Positive Aware Network in Chicago. This column is a project of TheBody, Plus, Positively Aware, POZ and Q Syndicate. Visit their websites for the latest updates on HIV/AIDS. The state of HIV and aging BY JEFF BERRY 7pm, most third Fridays First Baptist Church, 777 S 1300 E fb.me/matronsofmayhem

ROMEO

Q Romeo San Vicente understands the cow boy fascination with chaps.

VICENTE

deep inside hollywood sePtemBeR, 2022 | Issue 339 | Qsaltlake.com HOLLYWOOD | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 49 BY THE COMMUNITY, FOR THE COMMUNITY PUBLISHED BY QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE GET LISTED AT SALES@QSALTLAKE COM

In the upcoming period thriller “The Critic,” based on Anthony Quinn’s novel “Curtain Call,” the two-time Oscar nominee will play a mean drama critic in 1930s London, and the wonderful Gemma Arterton (“Their Finest”) will play an ac tress on a mission to win him over. Enter — stage left — some journalistic intrigue, blackmail, backstabbing and an actual murder, and now there’s a story. Anand Tucker (“Hilary and Jackie”) directs this one from a script by Patrick Marber (“Notes on a Scandal”), and production is already underway. And for the record, if McKellen’s critic is the murderer, we want him to get away with everything.

Pedro Almodóvar’s queer western is galloping your way The legendary gay Spanish filmmak er Pedro Almodóvar made a stunning short film during 2020’s lockdown, “The Human Voice,” with Tilda Swinton, and it was as deliriously gorgeous and satis fying as any of his full-length features. So why not another one? In August he begins production on “Strange Way of Life,” starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as middle-aged, same-sex-enjoying gunmen who meet again for the first time in decades. Plans are to shoot in the desert region of Spain where the classic western “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” was filmed. And in what will most likely amount to a third starring role, all the costumes will be from Saint Laurent.

Kal Penn joins ‘The Santa Clauses’ Nearly 30 years after the 1994 Disney hit film “The Santa Clause,” its particular extended cinematic universe keeps on paying Christmas bonuses. There have been three feature films based on the story of a regular guy, played by Tim Allen, who learns that he’s contractually obligated to become Santa Claus (hence the “clause”), and all of them are beloved by the adults who watched them as ’90s kids. Now that those kids have kids of their own, a Disney+ series that keeps the story going is in the works. Starring Allen and Elizabeth Mitchell from the original films, the series will also feature Kal Penn as a single father whose own visit to the North Pole changes his life’s direc tion. That’s all we know right now, but we’re making a Christmas wish that the star of “A Very Harold & Kumar Christ mas” ascends to the reins of that sleigh. Watch for it this fall on Disney+.

The fashion house’s designer Anthony Vaccarello, who’ll also act as an associate producer on the film, will handle the cowboy duds in the way only Saint Lau rent can. Quickly now, someone tell Sam Elliott so we can all laugh at his reaction.

BY SAN

Thumbs up to Ian McKellen in ‘The Critic’ In the movies, critics are the people we love to hate. Critic characters get even less overall sympathy than Marvel Cinematic Universe villain Thanos after “The Snap.” And who better to play an imperious and widely feared critic than the king of queer elders, Ian McKellen?

The road to Hell is fraught with danger and excitement. Many moons ago, eleven moons to be exact, I was lying on the sofa, watching the finals of “The Great British Baking Show.” Of course, the delectable de lights they were baking were making my salivary glands work overtime. I was constantly needing to wipe the drool off my chin with a large beach towel because a drool bucket was just so last year’s fashion. Between wipes, a commercial for Broadway at the Eccles came on the TV. I got a wild hair and decided that I needed to broaden my horizons and inject a little more cul ture into life between the breasticles. Hence, I winched my gargantuan bottomus maximus up off the couch with the engine hoist that I keep beside the coffee table for just such occasions. Now, before you go thinking that my living room lacks the level of artistry and sophistication necessary for a mullet con vention, of course, I bedazzled the hoist with about 20 pounds of rhinestones. Then, I wrapped a green plastic vine around the beams and viola, a beautiful and magical yet useful piece of furniture, worthy of any queen’s throne room. Consequently, I trundled downstairs (note, this time I did not fall or roll down the stairs) to my computer and looked up the Eccles box office, and purchased tickets for “Hadestown.” The site said that I would receive an email sometime within the next month from which I could just display the QR code at the theater or I could print the tickets myself on my printer. Well, I’m an old queen with old habits. It’s uncomfort able for me to not have a paper ticket in my purse. Therefore, I took a screen shot of the order screen, showing my purchase, and printed that out at least. So, every morning when I would get on the computer to post my daily Pearl of Not-So-Great Price, I would also check my email inbox, searching for the tickets. After a few weeks, I never saw it in my inbox. Eventually, I got all caught up in the preparations for the monthly bingos and forgot about it. Fast forward to last week, when I happened to look in the calendar on my phone and realized that the per formance was only one week away. Great Glitter God, I’d better find the tickets. So, I began scrolling through hundreds and hundreds of old e-mails searching with my aging eyes, subject lines like “dump truck loads of glitter,” and “industrial strength bras.” Which, I might say is rather difficult when you must look through pounds of glittery eyeliner and globs of clumpy mascara. Then I typed in various search words, hoping against hope that it would be found. No such luck. Next, I got out the paper copy of the screenshot that I had made, looking for some clues. No dice. So, I thought, I shall go directly to the source, I drove to the Eccles theater and went to the box office so I could speak to a real person. I boldly produced my screenshot paper of the purchase, confident that they would be able to quickly produce my tickets. Alas, No! They looked at the paper and told me that it was from a third-party ticket seller, they were not involved, and they could do nothing to help me. WELL, SHIT!!!

BY PETUNIA PAP SMEAR

My heart leapt into my throat. Partially because it was a real person that I could talk to, but also because his voice sound ed so dreamy. I could just tell that he was uber cute. He explained that he was re turning my call and would try to help me. He tried several different things, which didn’t work. Finally, he ended up calling the theater himself and after about 55 minutes (which I spent imagining what Michael was wearing) he finally worked out my ticket issue, and I received a ticket email in my inbox. Victory! The real tragedy of this story is that after all these ticket travails, I didn’t like the show AND I didn’t get a date with Michael. Like always, these events leave us with several eternal questions:

These and other important questions to be answered in future chapters of: The Perils of Petunia Pap-Smear Q

2. Should I call it Petu nia’s Wench Winch?

3. If I had threatened to throw glitter into the Eccles ticket office, would I have received a quicker result?

4. Should I install glitter cannons into my breasticles for just such occasions?

1. Should I design a bedazzled line of engine hoists for the gravity-enhanced queen?

Qsaltlake.com | Issue 339 | sePtemBeR, 202250 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | FINAL WORD

I quickly returned to Chateau Pap Smear and frantically began to search for the contact information for the ticket seller. They were very clever in the design of their website. It was indistinguishable from the real, actual ticket office. I clicked the contact us link and it opened an email. I asked for help and sent it. I quickly dove head first down the rabbit hole of automated responses with answers to frequently asked questions. This was no help at all. Next, I called the phone number and got put into a phone cue, with the most annoying music blasting (definitely not suitable for party fowls). I listened to that horrible dribble for an hour and a half and then an automated voice said they would call me back and it hung up on me. Despair began to set in. I was at my wit’s end. It was now Sat urday evening, and the show was the Sun day matinee, only 17 hours away. I was at the verge of surrendering to the internet demons and just accept the fact that I was not going to be able to see the show, and chock this all up to being a very expensive lesson learned about third-par ty ticket sellers when my phone rang.

“This is Michael with *%$S# Tickets.”

the perils of petunia pap smear The tale of the highway to Hell

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