San Francisco Bay Times - April 5, 2018

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LGBTQ News & Calendar for the Bay Area

CELEBRATING FOUR DECADES (1978–2018) April 5–18, 2018 | sfbaytimes.com

Empowering LGBT Seniors See pages 15–18

Openhouse Spring Fling Gala 2018 Sunday, April 8 Ritz-Carlton Hotel

Sisters’ 39th Anniversary Easter Party

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LGBTQ News & Calendar for the Bay Area CELEBRATING FOUR DECADES (1978–2018)

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Hellman Hollow in Golden Gate Park came alive with revelry, costumes, contests and all of the accoutrements that comprise Easter with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. For newcomers, this event is a spectacle on par with the SF Pride Parade and what Halloween in the Castro used to be. There’s the Children’s Easter Celebration, followed by the Easter Bonnet Contest and the Foxy Mary Context, and then there’s the everpopular, always humorous and sometimes shocking Hunky Jesus Contest, plus more activities as the Sisters make blessings, saints, vows and grants. The entire park is aglow with fun-loving nuns and their guests.

Congrautlations to Sister Roma, our own Sister Dana, and the entire nunnery.

In the News Compiled by Dennis McMillan Supervisors Approve Naming Terminal 1 at SFO After Harvey Milk On April 3, San Francisco supervisors voted to name Terminal 1 at the San Francisco International Airport after Harvey Milk. The vote followed four years of debate over the matter.

The terminal is undergoing a $2.4 billion renovation, and is scheduled to reopen in phases next year. Former supervisor and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and former supervisor Harry Britt spoke at the meeting.

Ammiano said that the naming was “a significant moment in San Francisco history.” He added, “One message that Milk gave was let’s connect the dots. He posited being queer as something very generous and something very open. Rather than turn the community inward he asked that we turn the community outward and look at other marginalized communities and embrace and give them empathy.” sfexaminer.com California Lawmakers Propose Limits on When Police Can Use Guns CA Assemblywoman Shirley Weber and other state lawmakers proposed on April 3 that California should become the first state to significantly restrict when officers can open fire.

“Reasonable force,” which is now the standard, would be changed to “necessary force.” The proposal followed last month’s shooting of Stephon Clark, who was suspected of breaking into cars and chased by police into his grandparents’ backyard.

Officers thought he had a gun, but investigators later only found a cellphone. The shooting sparked massive protests supported by many LGBT and other community leaders. Weber said on Tuesday, “Law enforcement is charged with protecting and serving all communities. At times the use of deadly force is used at a terrible cost to all involved. We need to ensure that our state policy governing the use of deadly force stresses the sanctity of human life and is only used when necessary.” cbsnews.com Troubling Questions Remain About Lesbian Couple’s Fatal Cliff Car Crash Married couple Jennifer and Sarah Hart and three of their six adopted children were found dead on March 26 after their SUV plummeted down a 100-foot cliff on the coastline of Mendocino. The other three children are missing and presumed dead. The speedometer indicates that the vehicle was traveling at 90 mph when it crashed. Jennifer and Sarah were wearing seat belts, but their children were not. There were no skid marks found at the site. Greg Baarts, acting assistant chief for the northern division of the California Highway Patrol, told NBC affiliate KGW8-TV: “We do have reason to believe, however, that the crash was intentional.

This is all based on preliminary information.” Authorities were about to investigate the couple for child abuse, following reports from a neighbor that the couple’s teenage son Devonte repeatedly knocked on their door, asking for food. Police are continuing to look into the incident. The neighbor’s earlier action reminds us that anyone in San Francisco can make a report of suspected child abuse, neglect, or exploitation. A conf idential report can be made anytime, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by phoning the Family and Children’s Services Abuse Hotline: 800-856-5553. huffingtonpost.com and other reports San Francisco Mayoral Candidates Respond to LGBTQ Heritage Policy Survey

LGBTQ historic sites, legacy businesses and cultural nonprofits have come under growing pressure in San Francisco due to the effects of the tech and real estate booms in the city. As a result, queer heritage has increasingly become an issue in local debates around public policy. Answers to an exclusive survey just released by the GLBT Historical Society place candidates in the race for San Francisco mayor on the record regarding this vital subject. “The preservation of our history, the strength of our living cultural heritage and the very survival of our city’s dynamic and innovative LGBTQ community are inextricably linked,” said Terry Beswick, executive director of the Society. “Each of those crucial elements of well-being for queer people faces significant challenges in San Francisco.” Beswick continued, “That’s why we’re exceptionally pleased that all eight candidates for mayor responded to our survey. The participation of all the candidates is a testament to the value of LGBTQ culture and heritage in San Francisco.” The special election for mayor of San Francisco is set for June 8. The declared candidates are Angela Alioto, Michelle Bravo, London Breed, Richie Greenberg, Jane Kim, Mark Leno, Amy Farah Weiss and Ellen Zhou. The survey that the GLBT Historical Society distributed to the candidates’ campaigns can be found online (glbthistory.org).

Mayoral Candidates Breed and Leno Receive Matching City Funds San Francisco mayoral candidates London Breed and Mark Leno each received $100,000 for their respective campaigns from the city's Public Financing Program (https://sfethics.org/compliance/campaigns/ candidates/public-financing-program). They are the first candidates to qualify for the program. Mayoral candidates Jane Kim and Angela Alioto also applied and may quality in the coming weeks. In order to receive the funds, candidates must show that they have raised $50,000 in campaign contributions from at least 500 city residents in amounts of between $10–$100. Upon acceptance of the program funds, the recipients must agree to a $1,475,000 campaign expenditure cap. sfchronicle.com State Senator Scott Wiener Endorses Mayoral Candidate London Breed In other San Francisco election news, State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) held a press conference on April 2 to announce his endorsement of Board of Supervisors President London Breed for mayor. The event was attended by several LGBT community leaders, such as longtime city Commissioner Debra Walker and Roberta Achtenberg, formerly of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the first openly LGBT public official in the U.S. whose appointment to a federal position (Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) was conf irmed by the U.S. Senate. At the event, Wiener also praised Leno, saying: “It’s important for me that we elect an excellent mayor, and these are two candidates who would be an excellent mayor.” thebaycitybeacon.com AARP Releases LGBTQ Senior Survey Results A new A ARP survey, “Maintaining Dignity: Understanding and Responding to the Challenges Facing Older LGBT Americans,” gives (continued on page 30) S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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Giving Thanks to Our Elder Agents of Change

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Cross Currents Andrea Shorter The San Francisco Bay Area is rich and abundant with the struggles and histories of legions of people who dedicated their time and energy to nearly every necessary civil and human rights movement of the twentieth century. The gravitational pull to the region boasts Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose and Marin as epicenters for generations of travelers, rebel rousers, bohemians, resistors, peace warriors, hippies, free lovers, free thinkers, laborers, exiles, outcasts, romanticists, realists, surrealists, poets, reformers, womanists, feminists, grey panthers, black panthers, grandstanders, ecologists, environmentalists, innovators, and out, loud and proud queers of every stripe under and over the rainbow.

No movement has existed in isolation.

Each push toward inclusion, equality, voice, and dignity for a particular group is enriched and enabled by the tapestry of lessons learned and carried by warriors rooted in other related battles for freedom and liberation. Cross currents between the civil rights, women’s rights, and gay liberation movements alone have made for richer soil upon which other movements have grown and extended over realms thought beyond reach just mere decades ago. The current youth movement for gun control—led by students, including openly queer youth of color—stands on both the shoulders of the successes of these movements as well as on the lessons learned from the failures of the generations before to demand real change.

From Stonewall to HIV/AIDS to marriage equality and beyond, the elder warriors that laid the groundwork and carved a way forward through rocky, resistant and turbulent paths toward fuller and rightful inclusion are, and should forever be, heralded as greater angels amongst us. That league of angels most certainly includes Dr. Marcy Adelman.

It is an incredible honor to be a fellow San Francisco Bay Times columnist along with Dr. Adelman in this dynamic publication. Dr. Adelman’s groundbreaking work as a psychotherapist, researcher, advocate, and innovator to meet the unique challenges of aging in our community is simply incomparable. In 2016, it was a privilege to honor and celebrate her as a fierce champion for women and LGBT rights from my post on the Commission on the Status of Women.

It is further befitting that she is now seated on the California Commission on Aging as a longtime needed—and pioneering—representative of LGBT experiences. Elsewhere throughout these pages, more eloquent accounts of the importance and impacts of Dr. Adelman’s work are presented. I am just humbled to be among the chorus singing her much deserved praises.

Recently I had a conversation with a new elder friend in my apartment building about how fortunate we are to have in our lives so many living and thriving legends of liberation movements as friends, colleagues, mentors, and neighbors. He isn’t famous per se, and as one of several aging survivors of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in our residence, he is too humble to consider his own contributions, as he puts it, as “anything special.” I think he’s pretty cool, though. I enjoy his stories of some of the people he has met and the events (aka history) he has experienced along the way over the past 50 years or so since he landed in San Francisco from down south. We both enjoy being witness to the stories of friends chronicled in books, television series, documentaries, and historical societies.

Last year’s broadcast of Dustin Lance Black’s docudrama miniseries When We Rise—telling the journey of Cleve Jones, Roma Guy, Diane Jones, Ken Jones, Cecilia Chung, the late Gilbert Baker and others through the perilous 1980’s HIV/AIDS crisis spanning the better part of 45 years towards marriage equality—was not just a must-see moment for our ever evolving LGBT community, but was also a must-see for anyone inspired by the perseverance, heart, and courage it takes to elevate the experiences of the marginalized, outlawed, and outcast. Still thriving, we are grateful for these now or near elder warriors as they continue in the fight for social justice, providing guidance, wisdom, and clear mindedness to the next generations of resistors and warriors.

In the 1990s, that same brand of nerves of steel persistence and perseverance for LGBT equality was offered by a powerful sisterhood of out and proud lesbian California legisla-

tors: Sheila Kuehl, Carole Migden, Jackie Goldberg and Christine Kehoe. Revisiting the film documentary Political Animals, now available on Amazon Prime and other internet streams, is a memorable experience.

Witnessing these women on the floor of the California Assembly Legislature, making the case to protect and create the rights for LGBT families, is a remarkable sight to behold.

They helped to bring the movement from the streets into the corridors and chambers of power. The film shows them in intense debate as they literally forged the legislative path upon which marriage equality, transgender rights, workplace protections, and nearly all else LGBT liberation-related were built. The film rightfully shows that coalitions involving people of color, women, and straight allies were needed to help lift up the advocacy of these talented legislators.

Each has since journeyed into new life chapters, with the women respectively becoming public servants, environmentalists, and civil rights advocates.

The story of this elder quartet, however, continues to demonstrate that through trial and tribulation, persistence at any age in the fight for social justice can lead to positive change and a better world for all.

In this semi-post silence=death era, if we are lucky, we will all live to a ripe old age. At a time when the lives of too many of our brothers and sisters were cut short by HIV/AIDS and the willful neglect of critical response to save those lives, that “fierce urgency of now,” as Dr. King once spoke of, fueled and spurred agents of change to lead movements and action upon which we continue to build and evolve towards further change.

My 92-year-old grandmother’s most sage advice is “age ain’t nothing but a number, baby. It’s what you do with your time that matters most.” For the struggles, trials, tribulations, courage, and gumption gifted to us by our now or near elder warriors, resistors, and agents of change who have brought us this far, thank you. Thank you for your time so very well spent, and for the times ahead that your wisdom, truth and love will continue to help guide and light the way forward.

Andrea Shorter is President of the historic San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. She is a longtime advocate for criminal and juvenile justice reform, voter rights, and marriage equality. A Co-founder of the Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition, she was a 2009 David Bohnett LGBT Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

March for Our Lives to End Gun Violence

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In solidarity with young people throughout the U.S. and in the San Francisco Bay Area, more than 800 marches, attracting hundreds of thousands of marchers, were held in Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities and beyond on Saturday, March 24.

San Francisco Bay Times contributors, readers and friends participated in San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Rosa and other cities.

The lingering question is if the call for gun control and gun-free schools emphasized in these large demonstrations is indicative of an effective “movement” or a “moment.” For updates, visit March for Our Lives on social media, such as via Facebook (www.facebook. com/marchforourlives/).

Oxford, Mississippi

The Untold Story of the Robert Kennedy Funeral Train train on its trip. The exhibition also includes a new film reenactment of the view from the train, and actual film footage and photos that spectators took 50 years ago.

While listening to a recent radio program about the exhibition, I learned something I had not known: two spectators had been killed during the train’s trek to Washington.

6/26 and Beyond John Lewis It was 8 am on the morning of June 5, 1968. I was 9 years old and sat at the kitchen table in our house in Kansas City, eating my breakfast before going to school. When my dad returned home from taking my older brother to school, he told my mother and me the news that he had just heard on the car radio: Robert Kennedy had been shot in the wee hours of the morning after winning the California presidential primary the night before. We were shocked. At age 9, I was already a political geek, following the presidential primaries and convention delegate counts like some children memorize train or airplane schedules.

A few days later—on the evening of Saturday, June 8—I remember my dad making me my favorite food, a homemade chocolate milkshake with chocolate ice cream. Together, our family then watched on television Kennedy’s graveside service and burial, next to his brother at Arlington National Cemetery. The service had been delayed for hours because so many people had come to pay respects to Kennedy’s funeral train as it made its way from New York City to Washington, D.C. Sitting on the f loor in my favorite bean bag chair, I remember holding the straw, but unable to sip my beloved milk shake because I was so moved by what I was watching. I held back tears.

Last week, Stuart and I viewed a small but stunning new exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, called The Train: RFK’s Last Journey. The exhibition features photographs that a renowned photographer took from the train that bring to life the faces of the multitudes of people who came to view the funeral

I was taken aback. Two people lost their lives while paying their respects to the slain Kennedy. I didn’t know their names or their stories.

And after they died, they had neither funeral trains where over a million people turned out to mourn their deaths, nor burials on national television. Yet their lives were just as important to them and their families as that of Robert Kennedy.

I wanted to know who they were, and it took a bit of online searching to find out. They were Antoinette Severini and John Curia, both in their mid-50s and apparently a couple. They, like thousands of others, had come to the Elizabeth, New Jersey, train station to catch a glimpse of the funeral train. The crowd was so large that it spilled onto the nearby tracks.

Unbeknownst to them, the regular train from Chicago to New York was heading north as the Kennedy train was making its way south.

The northbound train blew its whistle, slowed and tried to stop, but it couldn’t do so in time. As onlookers rushed to get out of the way, Curia tried to pull Severini, who was holding her 3-yr-old grandchild in her arms, out of harm’s way. But as Severini hurled her grandchild to strangers on the platform, she and Curia were dragged to their deaths under the wheels of the train.

Secret Service Agent Paul Levine, who witnessed the accident from the Kennedy train, descr ibed “shrieks of horror over screeching steel” and “the indescribable smell of death.” Those shrieks and smells had filled the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles just three days before.

When Robert Kennedy’s widow Ethel, herself pregnant at the time with the couple’s last child, learned the news, she reached out to the families of those injured or killed, sending a stuffed animal to Severi-

no’s granddaughter while the young girl was recovering in the hospital.

A few weeks ago, Naomi Wadler, an 11-year-old African-American student, and her classmate Carter Anderson organized a walk-out from their elementary school to honor those shot and killed in Parkland, F lorida—and to honor Courtlin Arrington, an African American girl who was shot and killed March 7 at her high school in Alabama. Wadler gave an unforgettable speech at the March for Our Lives on the mall in Washington in which she proclaimed: “I am here today to acknowledge and represent the African American girls whose stories don’t make the front page of every national newspaper, whose stories don’t lead on the evening news. I represent the African American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential ... .

I urge everyone here, and everyone who hears my voice, to join me in telling the stories that aren’t told.”

Robert Kennedy would be 92 today if he had not been shot to death by a .22 caliber revolver. Antoinette Severini and John Curia would not have been killed in the train crash had Kennedy not lost his life to an assassin’s bullet.

I remember becoming choked up 50 years ago, not by the “what ifs” of the political implications of Kennedy’s untimely death, but by the human tragedy of a family losing two sons to gun violence in less than 5 years. I believe Robert Kennedy would have embraced Naomi Wadler’s call to action. In the words of Bobby’s famous older brother, “the torch has been passed to a new generation”—or rather, Wadler and her fellow activists have grabbed the torch and will not let go until we all cross the finish line of ending the scourge of gun violence.

John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney, together for over three decades, were plaintiffs in the California case for equal marriage rights decided by the California Supreme Court in 2008. Their leadership in the grassroots organization Marriage Equality USA contributed in 2015 to making same-sex marriage legal nationwide.

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Lifting Low Wage Earners Out of Poverty

Marching and Acting to Stop This American Carnage

tentially thousands of dollars into the pockets of folks who need it the most.

When combined with the federal EITC, the cash back can be life-changing. The money could be used to pay bills or to buy new clothes for the kids. It can also be put into a savings account for emergencies, something that families living paycheck to paycheck struggle to accomplish. I recently met “Wendy,” and she happily told me the extra money will ease her son’s college expenses.

That’s what our investment is supposed to do: give a helping hand to the poorest of Californians.

Assemblymember Phil Ting The Earned Income Tax Credit has been an effective anti-poverty tool, yet too many hardworking Californians don’t claim it and leave money on the table.

According to the Williams Institute at UCLA’s School of Law, about onethird of LGBT people in California and across the United States live on incomes of less than $24,000 a year.

A Queers for Economic Justice report found children in same-sex households have poverty rates twice those of children in heterosexual married couple households.

Fortunately, both the state and federal government offer tax refunds to help improve the lives of working families. By increasing the income of low wage earners, we raise their quality of life and stimulate the local economy when they spend their refunds.

I fought last year to expand California’s EITC program so that more households could benefit. The income limit is now higher at $22,300 for the 2017 tax year. This is up from $14,100 in the prior year, and self-employed workers are newly eligible. That’s po-

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The key to getting this refund, though, is that you must file a tax return. Non-profits, like United Way and the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, can connect people with free tax preparation services. According to the state Franchise Tax Board, the state is well on its way to breaking EITC records this tax season.

So far, more than 600,000 Californians have already claimed their CalEITC, returning $150 million back to them. It saddens me to see that roughly $2 billion in state and federal EITC money is unclaimed in California every year, the highest of any state in the country. Are you or someone you know missing out? Lack of awareness is our enemy here. Help us to spread the word!

The tax deadline this year is April 17. You still have a little bit of time to file. For more information, please visit my website (www.assembly. ca.gov/ting). You can learn if you qualify and find the locations of free tax assistance near you, or obtain information on how to file a return yourself.

There are no easy answers to address economic inequality, but EITC programs are effective in reducing it. The Legislature will continue to look for more ways to help lift Californians out of poverty.

Phil Ting represents the 19th Assembly District, which includes the Westside of San Francisco along with the communities of Broadmoor, Colma and Daly City.

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Out of the Closet and into City Hall Oakland City Councilmember At-Large, Rebecca Kaplan The United States of America is number 1—and that’s not something to be proud of in this case. In fact, it’s something to be ashamed of and to work to change, because the U.S. is number 1 for gun violence.

Other nations throughout the world do not tolerate this level of violence and unnecessary death, and neither should we. I am proud to stand in solidarity with all of the amazing young people who are now mobilizing to fight for common sense gun laws, and with all of the people throughout our communities who have been fighting on this issue for years.

As I told a reporter at the recent March for Our Lives in Oakland: “... it’s not only important to have a conversation about gun violence when it happens to a large group, but the daily fear of gun violence that plagues so many of our communities has to be a part of it, too.”

Councilmember at-large Kaplan blows the Ram’s horn (“shofar” in Hebrew) at the Oakland March for Our Lives, as a call to “wake up” and take action in solidarity.

We must work not only to stop the shootings that make national news, but also for the ongoing gun violence harming so many in communities like Oakland without national attention. The victims of gun violence are disproportionately African American, while large corporations, owned predominantly by wealthy white men, profit by the unrelenting flood of gun sales. And, for decades, even well-funded federal agencies have done little to stop the spread of weapons of war and illegal guns into our communities.

There are reasons why a large, diverse city like Toronto, Canada, (where I lived as a teenager) doesn’t have shootings like the U.S., and the primary reason is that, in the U.S., there is widespread availability of guns, including those sold illegally on our street corners.

Federal enforcement officials could and should be using their efforts to track down and shut down illegal gun dealers and straw buyers. But their efforts have been nowhere near the scale needed, and at times it seems they are going out of their way to avoid going after gun crimes.

In fact, on the morning of a large deadly school shooting in Oakland years ago, numerous armed federal agents f looded into Oakland—and did nothing whatsoever to help with the shooting nor to catch the shooter. Instead, they brought a massive armed force to seize and shut down Oaksterdam University and a City of Oakland permitted cannabis dispensary. While OPD was responding to the worst mass shooting in living memory, the feds demanded that OPD divert numerous police resources to (continued on page 30)

Take a Break from Rehearsing and Rehashing like Tef lon for positive ones.” What Hanson is describing is known as the brain’s “negativity bias.”

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Kit Kennedy Poet-In-Residence

Tom Moon, MFT Recent findings in neuroscience suggest a pessimistic conclusion: the way we’re wired makes it easier for us to be unhappy than happy. The complex human brain isn’t an organ for dispassionately investigating the world.

It evolved as a tool for anticipating and overcoming dangers, for protecting us from pain, and for solving problems. Dangers, pain, and problems are therefore what it notices.

What isn’t painful or problematic tends to slip into the background, along with what’s pleasant and harmonious. As neuropsychologist Rick Hanson writes: “ ... the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but

Because of our negativity bias, as a species we tend to be far more vigilant than we need to be. Our minds are more or less constantly either rehashing or rehearsing. When we’re depressed, they’re usually rehashing, focusing on the hurts and wrongs in our past. When we’re anxious, they’re usually rehearsing—or, as I sometimes call it, “disasterbating”—focusing on what might go wrong tomorrow. Our depressions live in the past and our anxieties live in the future.

Calmness and peace of mind, on the other hand, live in the present.

We spend much of our time explaining the world to ourselves, and we react emotionally to these explanations rather than to the facts. We get lost in our thoughts, forgetting that they’re just interpretations of reality, and mistake them for reality itself.

We confuse the map for the territory, which is like going to a restaurant and trying to eat the menu.

Most of us don’t realize how much of our waking hours we spend in a kind of trance of thought, constantly remembering what’s problematic, and scanning the environment for signs of the next danger around the corner. As a result, almost all of us are prone to

be far more anxious, irritable, and depressed than we need to be.

But there is an important optimistic finding in neuroscience too, and it’s that the brain is characterized by neuroplasticity, which insures that, throughout our lives, its physical structure changes as a result of how we use it. This means that, by inclining our minds away from negativity bias, and toward engaging with what is positive in our lives, we can actually diminish our negativity bias.

The steps to take aren’t difficult, although they do require consistency and patience. My dream is that someday every school will offer children an emotional intelligence curriculum that teaches at least the following two practices: Spend some time every day cultivating present-focus.

The mind can imagine that it lives in the past or in the future, but the bodily sensations and feelings always inhabit the present, so the secret to accessing the peace of the present moment is to focus attention on what is happening in the body. In traditional mindfulness meditation, for instance, you just sit still and pay attention to your breathing. But there are other practices that are also effective. You can take a simple task, such as washing the dishes or brushing your teeth,

and give it your complete attention without wandering off into thought.

Do the same with vigorous physical exercise, such as jogging, swimming, or brisk walking. The point is to spend some part of everyday simply being with what is happening now, rather than leaning into the future.

Take in the good.

This just means deliberately focusing your attention on positive experiences, rather than taking them for granted and letting them slip into the background. Try to do this at least a half dozen times a day, and each time you do it, spend about 30 seconds or so focusing, which is about the amount of time it takes the brain to begin to register positive events. One easy way to do this is to cultivate “an attitude of gratitude” by making a daily list of all the things in your life for which you are thankful. Not much will change each time that you do this, but if you do it regularly, it is like filling a bucket with water one drop at a time. Gradually, you condition your brain to pay more attention to states of happiness and contentment, and these states over time begin to become the mind’s default settings.

Tom Moon is a psychotherapist in San Francisco. For more information, please visit his website http:// tommoon.net/

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CONTRIBUTORS Writers Rink, Sister Dana Van Iquity, Ann Rostow, Patrick Carney, Kate Kendell, Alex Randolph, Heidi Beeler, Gary M. Kramer, Dennis McMillan, Tom Moon, Tim Seelig, Cinder Ernst, John Chen Rafael Mandelman, Jewelle Gomez, Phil Ting, Rebecca Kaplan, Leslie Katz, Philip Ruth, Bill Lipsky, Karen Williams, Donna Sachet, Gary Virginia, Zoe Dunning, Marcy Adelman, Stuart Gaffney & John Lewis Brandon Miller, Jamie Leno Zimron Thom Watson, Michele Karlsberg Lyndsey Schlax, Randy Coleman, Debra Walker, Howard Steiermann, Andrea Shorter, Tom Temprano, Lou Fischer, Karin Jaffie, Brett Andrews Photographers Rink, Phyllis Costa, Jane Higgins Paul Margolis, Chloe Jackman, Bill Wilson, Jo-Lynn Otto, Sandy Morris, Abby Zimberg, Morgan Shidler ADVERTISING Display Advertising Standard Rate Cards are available online at sfbaytimes.com and by calling: 415-503-1375 Custom ad sizes are available. Please inquire! The Bay Times reserves the right to reject any advertising at the discretion of the publishers.

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SF Sketch Randy Coleman Randy Coleman hails from New York, but has lived in San Francisco since 1975. Coleman shares that before moving to the Bay Area, he studied Art History and Architecture at Boston University while working as a resident artist for architectural rendering at a Massachusetts historical society. “All of my life I’ve been an artist,” Coleman says. “To know me is to know that I have a passion for art and architecture. I love this project for the San Francisco Bay Times, and hope that you enjoy my sketches.”

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© Randy Coleman, 2018 8

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GLBT Fortnight in Review

By Ann Rostow

Hold On, Center!

It’s April. I f ind myself counting months the way I expect I would count them if I were in prison for a spell. We have about eight months until the midterm elections; ten months until a Democratic House takes office, if we are lucky. We’ve survived 14 months of Trump already, but I fear that those months were the good times. He was still a little afraid of being President, and he had a number of normal staff members nudging him away from the edge.

Those people are all gone now, and he’s alone with nutty and/or senile sycophants: Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, Wilber Ross. He’s completely untethered from reality, blabbing nonsensical warnings about trade and DACA and the Iran deal that illustrate both his ignorance of current events and his frightening mental limitations. We’ve made it this far, but we still have a long way to go, and it’s getting worse.

Every time I start this column, I feel a little guilty for focusing on our GLBT community’s various social and legal challenges when we’re all in a sinking ship with the rest of the non-Trump American majority trying desperately to hang on together. As someone once said, it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of a few gay men and lesbians don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Except they do, of course.

Plus, speaking of feeling guilty, sometimes these days I don’t even care about politics or life under Trump, because it’s spring! The final four, Dinah Shore, the start of baseball season, Masters week. It’s sports time, ladies and gentlemen. The seasons of fun and sun lie ahead, beckoning us with their hot days, timeless evenings, warm nights. I can feel it coming. I just asked Alexa to play “Happy.”

Whew! I’m back to my keyboard after dancing around the house and putting out the recycling with Alexa’s volume pumped high. I seem to have made a 180-degree move since I typed my first paragraph. How is that possible? Am I that flighty?

If at First…

Oh, don’t answer that question. You must have read by now that Trump and company are trying to resurrect the July 2017 ban on transgender service members, even as four federal courts and two federal appellate courts have given the notion a constitutional thumbs down.

While the judiciary usually defers to the executive branch on matters of national security or defense, this was an exception to that rule. Trump issued his transgender military ban by tweet, on the spur of the moment, without consultation or review. Apparently, he was asked about whether the military should pay for gender transitions, and he f lipped out and decided that no transgender Americans could serve the country. Problem solved!

Naturally, the President claimed to have based his decision on the advice of military leaders and a concern for the huge medical bills that trans troops would incur. In fact, he had consulted no one, and the health bills for some 5,000 transgender troops now serving are estimated to amount to less than .02 percent of the military health budget (according to a Forbes magazine study). And let’s be honest: Do any of you think Trump knew that transgender men and women were already serving? Of course not.

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Faced with the smack downs from the federal courts, Trump and company are trying for a do-over. On March 23, the administration’s selfimposed deadline for action, Trump voided his policy and replaced it with new recommendations from Defense Secretary Mattis. Mattis had been assigned to come up with a report on the matter (which had just been extensively reviewed under the Obama administration). He did so in February, delivering an ill-conceived paper that reportedly was supervised

by Vice President Pence’s office with the help of other social conservatives. His recommendations, in turn, called for transgender troops to be allowed to serve as long as they stick with their birth gender and don’t transition. Yes, I know.

The administration will now try to convince those federal courts that the whole situation has changed, and that the injunctions now in force against the original anti-trans policy are now moot. They’ll face an uphill battle given the eye rolls they’ve received to date from the bench, and indeed, Trump lawyers have made little headway in the two hearings they’ve had since the new policy was announced.

Hear Them Roar I was just about to take note the death of the Ninth Circuit’s “liberal lion,” the iconic federal appellate judge, Stephen Reinhardt, author of our Prop 8 victory, as well as several other key gay rights opinions. (My first cousin clerked for him!) But, as is always the case when I drift into an area of research, procrastination led me instead to several pending Ninth Circuit cases, including a fight over whether or not the government is required to divert water in order to help salmon swim up the Columbia and Snake rivers (of course it is!) and intriguingly, whether or not the town of Everett, Washington, can regulate bikini baristas.

Bikini baristas are women who serve coffee dressed in next to nothing, often just pasties and a thong. Really? The Everett town elders insist on their right to regulate attire based on public decency; the baristas, in turn, cite their First Amendment rights to express female empowerment.

What’s with Everett, Washington? It sounds like downtown Pottersville after George Bailey was erased from history. I love it!

And do you know what? The Seattle-based federal judge who recently ruled in favor of the baristas is none other than Marsha Pechman, now presiding over one of Trump and company’s transgender military cases! A liberal lioness in her own right, on March 27, Pechman told one of the administration’s lawyers to take the Mattis report and stuff it, because it had not been submitted on time.

Dumb and Dumber I have a number of legal and political news stories lined up: the Tennessee legislature is trying to mess with a lesbian divorce, lawmakers in Kansas and Georgia kill antigay adoption bills, Ohio bureaucrats are sued for refusing to change gender markers on birth certificates, and well, the list goes on.

But first, check the lead from a recent story in the Washington Post: “Imagine uncoiling a condom and stuffing it up one side of your nose, then plugging the other nostril and inhaling until the long piece of latex slides into your throat. Then what?

You reach back and pull it from your mouth. Why would someone do that?

“Apparently for the same reason young people have dared each other to pour salt in their hands and hold

ice until it burns, douse themselves in rubbing alcohol and set themselves on fire, or bite into colorful liquid laundry detergent packets.”

According to the Post, teenagers have been practicing the “condom challenge” for years, as part of their ongoing Internet search for new stupid things to do. We expect this from toddlers and small children. (I remember that one of my friends was told by her mother, “Don’t put beans up your nose,” as her mother left the house. Surprise! When the babysitter wasn’t looking, my friend did just that and would up in the ER. I think she was five.) But teenagers? College students? I know the millennials are reportedly slow to grow up, but this is ridiculous. I expect the fabulous postmillennial generation will put an end to such shenanigans pronto.

Final Four As I was saying, both Georgia and Kansas saw antigay adoption bills pass their respective state senates, and lawmakers in both states managed to kill the bills in the house. In Georgia, the legislative session came to a close while the bill languished.

In Topeka, house members voted it down, although there’s something about a conference committee that sounds ominous.

There was a time that I would dig down on such details in order to be able to say conclusively that this or that bill was absolutely dead. But I’ve done this for years, and bills have a habit of rising from the ashes, lingering here and there, being renamed, appearing as an amendment in something unrelated, replacing the text of some other piece of business. You get the picture. That’s what I like about the Georgia story. The legislative session is over, so we’re okay.

Still, I’m married to a Kansan, so I really should make an effort. Or not.

Sorry honey. We just lowered our Jayhawk f lag from the front of the house, now that basketball season is over. The bad news is that we lost to Villanova. The good news is that Kansas is the preseason favorite for 2019. Rock Chalk!

As for Ohio, the Department of Health and the Office of Vital Statistics seem to have no written policy against changing gender on a birth certif icate, and indeed, the DMV allows you to change your driver’s license with no problem. At times, Ohio has even changed some birth certificates, but lately, bureaucrats have sent letters to transgender applicants informing them, quixotically, that their request for a gender change is against these unwritten regulations.

Into the fray come the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal, which are likely to prevail.

Note that Ohio is one of just three states that refuse to revise birth certificates, plus Puerto Rico. The other states are Tennessee and, um, Kansas. Come on, guys!

Can We Move to Costa Rica?

I’m going to skip the details of the lesbian divorce in Tennessee. I’ll just tell you that lawmakers basically tried to insist that the women couldn’t divorce because state law referred to a “husband,” and a husband is a man!

Sorry. Hey, have any of you tried the condom challenge?

I’m also steering clear of that horrible lesbian murder suicide off Highway One. What the hell? I’m happy that the media has not been emphasizing the fact that the deranged woman or women were gay. But we (continued on page 30)

Business Tips from GGBA

Accessible Business Entrance Program: What All San Francisco Small Businesses Need to Know Key Background: San Francisco’s Accessible Business Entrance (ABE) Program was created by Ordinance No. 51-16 (Mandatory Disability Access Improvement), and passed by the Board of Supervisors in April 2016, effective May 22, 2016. The program requires any building with a place of public accommodation to have primary entrances and entrance routes into the building accessible to people with disabilities.

Barriers to accessible entrances include one or more steps to the entryway, door handles requiring grasping or twisting of the wrist, sloping or narrow doorways, and uneven flooring.

What you need to do: The property owner must complete and submit to the Department of Building Inspection (DBI) the Category Checklist Compliance Form in consultation with a Certified Access Specialist (CASp), licensed architect, or engineer. An administrative fee is required upon checklist submittal.

Who is exempted: There are four exemptions to the ordinance: (1) buildings built on or after 2002; (2) buildings or businesses owned and operated by religious organizations; (3) “bona fide” private clubs; and (4) buildings without places of public accommodation.

The DBI’s Pre-Screening Form is required for property owners to document and verify that a building is exempt. Property owners are required to complete and submit the form to DBI. Who is responsible: Compliance is required for places of public accommodation and the responsibility for compliance is on the property owner. A place of public accommodation is a facility where operations affect commerce and that fall within certain categories.

Take Action: For help in determining whether your business is a place of public accommodation, review the ADA Title III Technical Assistance Manual or call the Department of Justice ADA line at 1-800-514-0301.

Property owners should review DBI’s Information Sheet DA-17 and webpage (http://sfdbi.org/businessentrance) and contact DBI directly for assistance: in-person at 1660 Mission Street, 1st Floor, Window #8, by phone 415-558-6128 or by email (dbi.businessentrance@sfgov. org). Note: Technical compliance questions should be referred directly to DBI.

GGBA CALENDAR April Make Contact - San Francisco Tuesday, April 10 6 pm to 8 pm Sennheiser 278 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 RSVP: GGBA.com/events/ Join in the fun and be a part of the Silent Disco!

Stand Up/Speak OUT! A Bi-Weekly Workshop to become a more effective public speaker Led by Gina Grahame, Gina Grahame Presents Wednesday, April 18 8 am to 9:30 am Offices of the U.S. SBA, 455 Market Street, 6th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 RSVP: GGBA.com/events/ Join us for the most effective business generating hour of your week.

May MEGA Make Contact - San Francisco Tuesday, May 15 5:30 pm to 8 pm BMW of San Francisco Showroom 1675 Howard Street @ South Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94103 Join us for some high-performance networking during San Francisco Small Business Week.

RSVP: GGBA.com/events/

GGBA Monthly Report

We Truly Are All Connected I had the honor of being part of history being made on March 16, 2018, when the GGBA hosted the Western Business Alliance 2018 LGBT Economic Summit and Sandra Escalante Conference. For the first time in nearly 45 years, the GGBA gathered together the mind-share, vision, and passion of over 20 LGBT Chambers from across the Western United States, Canada, and a few points East.

As someone who has been in business for over 30 years, I have to admit that I’ve become a bit skeptical about being invited to Summits and Conferences that have been long on promises and short on deliverables. Even as a board member of the GGBA, I was well aware of the format that had been developed for the LGBT Summit, which was to be “short on talking heads—long on collaboration.”

Still, I didn’t really have a good sense of the impact that awaited. Furthermore, the Summit’s planners promised that the discussion topics weren’t going to be “business as usual.” The plans were to address topics that most chambers (which I believe are an antiquated model to begin with) wouldn’t want to touch, such as LGBTQ youth homelessness, the needs of millennial LGBTQ entrepreneurs, and thinking “outside the box” on accessing capital because, for as much as all the banks say, there just isn’t enough money being accessed.

Well, I am a true convert. Never have I been prouder of the San Francisco and Bay Area LGBTQ business community and the GGBA, in particular. The Break-

By Sandra Escalante

out Session facilitators pushed us to dig deep into the issues. Nothing was sacred. All was on the table. And, it wasn’t just a group of “like-minded” people who were sitting at the table. Rather, it was a mix of individuals from all different aspects of the challenging topics.

There was a lot of lively conversation with some incredibly brilliant people, such as LGBTQ business leaders talking face to face with non-profit organization leaders who serve the homeless community.

What came out of the Breakout Sessions was a deliverable that articulated both the challenges and key concrete recommendations that all 22 LGBTQ Chambers of Commerce could immediately take back to their respective city/county/state to plug in and start to move the dial.

I came away from the Summit walking a bit taller knowing that I was part of a group of leaders who were focused on what was most important: addressing business growth and quality of life issues that are important to not just our businesses and employees, but also to the community as a whole.

The impacts of the GGBA’s Summit are already being felt along the West Coast. Business leaders from across the spectrum are engaged like never before. I found myself “all in” on the vision that was created, and I encourage other LGBTQ and allied businesses to engage in what the GGBA has created. This is our time, and we all need to band together to create change and to have a positive impact.

Sandra Escalante, a GGBA board member, is the CEO of Laner Electric Supply Company, Inc., in Richmond (http://laner-electric.com/).

GGBA Member Spotlight

Wooden Table Baking: Argentinian Treats Made from Scratch with Love

By Marlow Schindler, U.S. SBA Wooden Table Baking Co. is an Oakland-based, cert ified LGBT Business Enter pr ise ( LTG BTBE) bakery, dedicated to crafting the f inest Argentinian treats. They make alfajores, conitos and bonbons from scratch with high quality, all-natural ingredients. They use locally-sourced ingredients whenever possible and their flour, granulated sugar, cornstarch, chocolate, potato starch and tapioca starch are all non-GMO. “Our cookies are hecho a mano, con amor. We are a learning organization, dedicated to growing with our employees, our business, and our community,” said Owner and Head Baker Andreas Ozzuna.

Andreas grew up baking alfajores with her grandmother and visiting her grandfather’s deli in Buenos Aires. As a child, Andreas aspired to work in the family business, but it wasn’t until she was 41 that she decided to turn her hobby of cooking into her full-time job.

Initially she sold her alfajores door-to-door to coffee shops in San Francisco. Whole Foods invited her to sell through their Northern Californian stores. Started in 2011 with just two bakers, Wooden Table Baking now employs seven people. As their clients’ orders have grown, they needed more people to help with the baking, packing, shipping, running the office and production. Today, Wooden Table Baking cranks out 6,000 cookies a day.

In October 2017, Wooden Table Baking Co. opened a store located in Uptown Oakland at 2300 Broadway Street. In addition to the delicious alfajores, conitos and bonbons, they also feature an espresso bar that includes submarino, a hot chocolate style in which a whole bar of chocolate lands in your cup of warm milk, and

yerba mate service with bombilla, the traditional strawlike filter.

Wooden Table Baking is unique in that there are few commercial bakeries in the United States that focus on making highquality alfajores and conitos.

In addition, they put their own spin on traditional f lavors, offering Argentinian-American fusion f lavors such as Espresso Chocolate, Snickerdoodle and Peppermint Chocolate. Andreas is always experimenting with new recipes.

Wooden Table Bak ing sought counseling from t wo of the Bay A rea’s Women’s Business Centers along the way. Andreas took classes at Women’s Initiative, and her wife Citabria Ozzuna, Director of Marketing, later took classes at Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center.

At Women’s Initiative in 2011, Andreas took the business course and created a business plan for Wooden Table Baking Co. Andreas had been considering making empanadas as well, but when she learned about all of the regulations around handling and preparing meat, she focused on alfajores instead. The counseling provided Wooden Table Baking with financial planning skills, legal counseling, and marketing savvy—all of which helped them to avoid pitfalls and to get their business on its feet.

At Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, Citabria took the Business Planning class where she wrote a comprehensive business plan. Paul Terry, a counselor and teacher at Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, (continued on page 30) S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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We, the Youth of Generation Z, Are the Needed Changemakers

By Lyndsey Schlax (Editor’s Note: Teacher Lyndsey Schlax of the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts (SOTA) launched the nation’s first on-site high school LGBT course in 2015. She still offers that groundbreaking class but is teaching Ethnic Studies this semester.

The two subjects often intersect, so in this column her students share their thoughts about both Ethnic Studies and LGBT-related matters, including their concerns, what they have learned in class and more. Here, three pairs of students—with each duo cowriting a piece—share their thoughts about #NeverAgain. All six students are seniors at the SOTA.) 1. In 1913, over 5,000 women stormed the capital to fight for the right to vote. In 1963, a quarter of a million people participated in the March for Jobs and Freedom. In 1970, Chicago Gay Liberation marched from Bughouse Square to The Water Tower.

These movements, and countless others, paved the way for us to March for Our Lives on March 24. In the age of the youth movement, many of us forget about the movements that came before us, and the people who led them. From Ida B. Wells to Frank Kameny, the path to activism has

been paved by a wide range of incredible leaders.

Without the movements that came before #ENOUGH, we would have no knowledge of the process that makes political action successful. If Hannah Arendt hadn’t literally written the book on praxis, how would we know how to organize in a productive way?

As we continue to celebrate the inspired young people who are at the forefront of the March for Our Lives, we must keep in mind the activists who paved the road we are marching down.

2. In the past days, there have been a lot of personal videos posted by the students involved in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, revealing what happened at the school while the active shooter was in the building. These emotional videos made us think about all of the issues and controversial events that have occurred in America. These relate to civil rights regarding the LGBTQ community, people of color, and all of the young people affected by the related events and drastic changes.

It saddens us that it took this long for all of these changes to occur, since silence used to be the trend many of

us—the youth of today—were taught.

Although we are angry and disappointed, we are also very proud of all that we have accomplished so far as a generation, and we look forward to what is yet to come.

As the school year comes to an end, this class keeps teaching and reminding us of the voice that we have and need to use, not only to stand up for people who have less privilege and no support system, but also for ourselves and for our futures. At this point, our understanding for the struggles so many have endured—whether it was based on identity, sexuality or ethnicity—has improved.

We may not be able to fully comprehend what others are facing, but at least we know how to be allies and we realize how impactful such roles can be.

3. Many silenced youth and students have been roused by the latest news to voice their opinions and perspectives on our nation’s largest issues. As Generation Z, we the youth have underappreciated capabilities, so it is about time that we be the needed changemakers that so many others have desired.

STUDENT VOICES Recently, many students have been trying to organize various protests around the country. At first, there was a lot of confusion about which protests were official. Because of the confusion, some adults have said that teens do not know how to organize.

They claim that adolescents do not know how to participate and be involved in politics, or how to voice our opinions professionally.

Emma Gonzalez, head of the GayStraight Alliance at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is a survivor of the Parkland school shooting, as well as an advocate for gun control.

Gonzalez recently took on the NRA’s Dana Loesch for her stand on gun control and the effects of the NRA regulations on youth today.

As a bisexual activist, Gonzalez is not new to speaking out and on behalf of others. Activists like herself

PHENOMENAL WOMAN ACTION CAMPAIGN

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are the people that today’s youth look up to and aspire to become as part of the growing, ground-shaking movements. She is one of many young activists with whom we can connect, relate to, and understand.

We, like these activists, are Generation Z: the foundation of America’s upcoming changes that hold promise for creating a brighter, better future for all.

For more information about the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, please visit http://www. sfsota.org/ Lyndsey Schlax has been a teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District since 2008. She is uniquely qualified to address multiple areas of LGBT studies, having also specialized in subjects such as Modern World History, Government, Economics and U.S. Politics. She is a National Board Certified Teacher, and earned her M.A. in Teaching at the University of San Francisco.

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National Poetry Month Spotlight on the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign

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LGBTQ News & Calendar for the Bay Are) a CELEBRATING FOUR DECADES (1978–2018

April is National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world. Tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, bloggers and, of course, poets take time this month to mark poetry’s important place in our culture and in our lives.

In honor of National Poetry Month, we are highlighting the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, which was inspired by the poem “Phenomenal Woman” by the late great poet and civil rights activist (1928–2014) Dr. Maya Angelou. The poem includes the refrain: I’m a woman Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

You can read the entire poem at the Poetry Foundation website (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48985/phenomenal-woman).

Founded by Meena Harris, niece of Senator Kamala Harris, the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign offers an official grey and black shirt that comes in short and long-sleeved styles, plus a version that is sized for kids (https://phenomenalwoman.us/products/phenomenal-woman-t-shirt). One hundred percent of the proceeds benefit the Dr. Maya Angelou Foundation, Essie Justice Group, Girls Who Code, Higher Heights, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Planned Parenthood, and The United State of Women.

Celebrities like Viola Davis, Janet Mock, Issa Rae, Tracee Ellis Ross and Kelly Marie Tran have already donned the bold statement tee with pride, as have students and teachers, such as those shown here from San Francisco’s Ruth Asawa School of the Arts.

phenomenalwoman.us/products/phenomenal-woman-t-shirt

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his 1978 photo by Rink shows a group of women marching in the 1978 San Francisco Gay Parade.

In 1981, Rink and others serving on the Parade’s organizing committee led the drive to change the event’s official name to the Lesbian/Gay Parade. The Parade Committee, previously comprised of ten members, 10% of whom were women, expanded during that year to 60 members with 60% women.

In May of 1981, a seminal pride parade for women was held in Vancouver, B.C, in conjunction with the Bi-National Lesbian Conference. Some 200 women participated.

In October of that same year, a second march was held in Toronto, Ontario.

The first national Dyke March here in the U.S. was organized by the group known as the Lesbian Avengers. It was in conjunction with the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Equal Rights and Liberation. Later that year, the first Dyke March was held in San Francisco in June.

Planning for the 2018 Dyke March is now underway, and an official benefit event will be held on Saturday, April 21, at the Folsom Street Foundry, 3–8 pm.

The 26th San Francisco Dyke March will be held on Saturday, June 23, starting at 5 pm at the Folsom Street Foundry (Folsom & 11th Streets). Check the website (thedykemarch.org) for information on meetings of the General Committee who are planning the 2018 march. Information is also at Facebook (www.facebook.com/ events/1803372629715641/).

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Secret Love and Civil Rights

tively barred lesbians and gays from federal employment. State and local governments, large public corporations, and small businesses soon followed the federal example with their own bans.

STREETCAM presented by

Faces from Our LGBT Past Dr. Bill Lipsky In 1953, when the great and wonderful Doris Day (see story on page 20) sang “Secret L ove” for the f irst time, every LBGT American heard a song of empower ment.

For them the ballad, from the film Calamity Jane, expressed the exhilaration and delight of “the love that dare not spea k it s n a me” a nd possibly sharing it— i f not w it h the world, which could have cost them their jobs and much more— then perhaps w it h t he person who brought it about.

sfbaytimes.com

Photos courtesy of Dr. Bill Lipsky

The reason for Eisenhower’s action was obvious, at least to Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. “Their personal habits” of homosexuals, he explained, “are such that they might be subject to blackmail by people who seek to destroy the safety of our country.” Eventually, some 5,000 federal employees were fired because they were suspected of being lesbian or gay; thousands more never applied for government work, fearing discovery.

One person fervently fought Eisenhower’s executive order. In 1957, Frank Kameny, PhD, Harvard University, was fired from his job as an astronomer with the U. S. Army’s Map Service in Washington, D.C., on suspicion of homosexuality. He Doris Say as Calamity Jane in the 1953 film Calamity Jane.

No other song in American movie h istor y, t ha n k s to Day ’s t r a n scendent performance, better expressed the sheer joy of someone finding his or her passionate center and the empowering energy The actual Calamity Jane that f lowed from it. It reached #1 on the popular mu- refused to go quietly, however. He sued sic charts, earned Day a gold record the government. He lost in court. He for her recording, and went on to win appealed and lost again. He then the Oscar for best song of 1953. Day petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to declined to sing it at the Academy direct that his case be reconsidered.

Awards ceremony, so the honor went When the high court declined, his to Ann Blythe, recipient of the film- case was lost for good. dom’s’ most famous bitch slap.

Undaunted, Kameny turned to acAlmost sixty years after it debuted, tivism. In 1961, he co-founded the Day was asked if she knew that the Mattachine Society of Washington song, coming at the height of Ameri- (MSW) with Jack Nichols, then twenca’s “Lavender Scare,” had been “ad- ty-three years old, to fight for an end opted as an anthem by the gay com- to discrimination against gay men munity” and “taken on such meaning and lesbians by the U. S. Governfor marginalized people.” She “was ment. In addition, he was determined not aware of that,” she responded, to repeal the laws that made homo“but that’s wonderful.” sexuality a crime, to end police enExcept for Day’s song and Chris- trapment of gays, and to remove the tine Jorgensen’s return to the Unit- American Psychiatric Association’s ed States, 1953 was not an especially classification of homosexuality as a good year for LGBT Americans. On psychiatric disorder.

April 27, President Dwight Eisenhow- Three years later, Kameny articuer, only three months in office, issued lated his strategy to win civil rights Executive Order 10450, which effec- for LGBT Americans. “We are dealing with an opposit ion wh ich manifests itself— not always, but not infrequently — a s a r ut hless, unscr upulous foe who

Frank Kameny

Frank Kameny (center) marching at a protest with the Mattachine Society of Washington 14

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Jack Nichols, United States Department of State, Washington, D.C., August 28, 1965

will give no quarter and to whom any standards of fair play are meaningless,” he said. “Let us respond realistically.”

With the Civil Rights Movement as his model, Kameny called for a resolute and ongoing campaign for civil rights, but one where lesbians and gay men met their adversaries as equals, not as imperfect or spurious citizens. “We cannot ask for our rights from a position of inferiority or from a position ... as less than whole human beings.”

Kameny began using public forums, picketing, and civil disobedience to bring attention to the fact that homosexuals were fully entitled to all the rights the nation bestowed upon its citizens. On April 17, 1965, he and Nichols held a demonstration in front of the White House, one of the earliest public protests by lesbians and gay men in the U.S.; another followed at the Civil Service Commission building in June.

Others followed Kameny’s example, turned to activism, and staged public protests in 1965. Chapters of the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis organized demonstrations in front of the United Nations, the Pentagon, and Independence Hall. Marchers made a brave decision: every person who took part, whether employed by the government or not, risked his or her job and more by participating.

Progress was slow. Not until 1975 did the U.S. Civil Service Commission end its ban on homosexuals in the federal civil service. Two years later, the State Department rescinded its policy of forbidding lesbians and gays to be hired from the Foreign Service. Soon after, the Internal Revenue Service stopped requiring “homosexual education and charity groups to publicly state that homosexuality is a ‘sickness, disturbance, or diseased pathology’” before they could get a Section 501 tax-exempt status.

Kameny worked to achieve human rights for LGBTs his entire life. Ironically, given his complete openness about his sexual orientation, he kept his private life very private. He seems never to have had a long-term relationship with another man; always too busy, he said. Whether or not he himself ever had a “secret love” remains a secret.

Bill Lipsky, Ph.D., author of “Gay and Lesbian San Francisco” (2006), is a member of the Rainbow Honor Walk board of directors.

1965 protest in D.C.: two views of the same event

Empowering LGBT Seniors Join Us in Building a Community That We Can Be Proud of at Any Age

By Dr. Karyn Skultety San Francisco is the birthplace of the LGBTQ movement. These are the streets where the leaders of our community were made and where our march towards justice began. On a warm night in August of 1966, the Compton Cafeteria Riots marked the moment when our community came together and said “no more.” Drag queens and transgender women, tired of being harassed by the police and neighbors, rose up and joined together, saying that they would no longer tolerate the abuse and discrimination that were a part of their daily lives.

In the days, weeks, and years that followed, our community was born and this was one of many marches in the fight for our freedom. In 1977, we elected Harvey Milk.

In 1978, we defeated the Briggs Initiative.

Throughout the 80s and 90s, our community led the response to the AIDS crisis— forming the San Francisco AIDS foundation, the AIDS Memorial Quilt: The Names Project, and the National Grove. We also protested by acting up and shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge. In 2004, when others said that it wasn’t the time, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin stood in City Hall and were announced spouses for life. In 2008, they did it all over again legally as the rest of the coun-

So, do we believe that our history makes a difference? Do we believe that it makes us richer, stronger, and more able to lead the fight today for our community? Think of what is lost if those moments, lessons, and leaders are allowed to disappear, and to become memories at best. Now, contrast that to who we can be as a community if those experiences, stories, and leaders are central in our lives and our fight for social justice. At Openhouse, we believe that we can, and should, harness the power of perspective aging brings to make our community stronger and to ensure this city and this community remain a leader in the LGBTQ movement.

But we have our work cut out for us and we cannot do it alone. Profound income inequality, a lack of affordable and safe housing, and the threat of eviction are stripping this community of its heroes. Over 30% of seniors in San Francisco are living in poverty—a number that has dramatically increased in the past 4 years and is higher for LGBTQ people.

Even more tragic, we know health disparities, violence, discrimination and income inequality are amplified for many in our community. When seniors are forced to move out of our city, they lose their family of choice and their city of freedom, and we lose our leaders. When transgender people and people of color are not aging alongside the rest of our community, we lose our power, our richness, and our collective force. Are we a community without lived history? How do we imagine a future without connections to generations of the past?

We need your help to build a strong community. We aren’t just fighting for a place for people to live, and for high quality care.

We are fighting for older people to be seen and central in our lives. Ageism, the idea that older people are less valuable than youth, is a powerful force. It sets up “us and them” as if we will never grow older. It is the force

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LGBTQ News & Calendar for the Bay Area CELEBRATING FOUR DECADES (1978–2018)

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that keeps us scared of using the word “senior.” It is the force that keeps younger people from talking to, or learning from, those older than them. When we realize that LGBTQ seniors are more likely to live alone and are less likely to have children than other seniors, ageism is the force that allows us simply to accept their loneliness and isolation as inevitable.

We must be a community that fights ageism. We must decide that isolation is unacceptable for anyone in our family of choice. At Openhouse, we are actively ending isolation by engaging older people into a community of support. For some, community starts with one connection— a Friendly Visitor who comes into your home twice a month and reminds you that you are not alone. We currently have a Dr. Karyn Skultety with Sam Turner and Colette Bryan at the wait list of individuals asking for that con- Groundbreaking Ceremony, October 17, 2017 nection. There is tremendous power from even a single visit. Over half of those served in San Francisco. It is your support now that by our Friendly Visitor program go from be- will ensure we finish our dream by building ing cut off from the LGBTQ community to a community center integrated into the Marregularly engaging in Openhouse communi- cy Adelman and Jeanette Gurevitch Comty groups and events. munity with 79 more housing units. But beIn fact, many of our engagement programs yond building walls, we all need to work to are led by community members and volun- ensure we aren’t building yet another closteers, rather than staff. When people trans- et. If our housing and our program space beform from isolation to feeling a part of some- comes a place only for seniors, we have again thing bigger, it allows leadership to flourish sent a message that it’s best for our seniors, and brings others out looking for a place to our heroes, to stay away from the rest of us. connect. We can build a place where com- If instead we think of Openhouse as a beacon munity awaits people of all ages with open calling individuals of all ages to come togetharms—and that experience, in the face of er, to celebrate our history, and to fully realageism, is powerful. We have watched the power connection can have, as Openhouse ize the power of perspective from aging— large events (Fall Feast, Pride parties and then we have built a true community center. more!) have become intergenerational cele- We can be a community where older people brations, where seniors are not only central are central in our lives and in our fight for soto the party, but are also cheered on by those cial justice. But we can’t do it alone. Join us who are looking up to, and learning from, them. Imagine a community fueled by the in building the kind of community we want to be: a community we can be proud of at evpower of intergenerational perspectives. ery age.

Your support and belief in community allowed Openhouse to complete the first LG- Karyn Skultety, PhD, is the Executive DirecBTQ-welcoming senior affordable housing tor of Openhouse.

MICHAEL KERNER/OPENHOUSE

try watched. These are, of course, only snapshots of the decades of activism and heroism that make up our shared history.

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Openhouse Programs

By Natalie Summers In the 2016–17 f iscal year, Openhouse served 2 , 3 24 u n d u p l i c a t e d LGBT seniors through our housing and innovative programs. Our programs and activities are free of charge to the community, and are supported by government and foundation grants, and individual gifts.

Program offerings include: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT These programs are aimed at reducing isolation and building community connection for LGBT seniors. Offerings are co-created with seniors and engage volunteers to build a thriving intergenerational LGBT community.

Meal programs: Our popular Rainbow Lunch and Women’s Lunch Bunch bring seniors together to share a meal, meet for social connection, and to make new friends in a safe and welcoming space. The staff and volunteers serve lunch and introduce different themes and topics of discussion to encourage participants to share and connect with others.

terventions promote early detection of health issues, housing stabilization, access to vital services, and support to overcome isolation.

Activities/Interest Groups: Openhouse offers a wide range of activities, often led by seniors, to connect community members with shared interests, talents and hobbies.

Senior-led groups include our Saturday games group, art group, Women of Color book club and opera group.

Friendly Visitors: We recruit, train and match motivated volunteers with isolated LGBT seniors to provide companionship and emotional support through biweekly visits to their homes.

Special Events/Community Gatherings: Openhouse hosts several special events throughout the year for groups ranging from 30 to 200 seniors. Our large events—our annual Fall Feast and LGBT Senior Pride Prom—focus on celebrating our seniors while bringing in the larger intergenerational LGBT community to benefit from their wisdom and to carry on their legacies.

Education Classes: We offer a variety of lifelong learning opportunities—ranging from languages to history classes to computer literacy. Our language classes are incredibly popular, allowing participants to build both new linguistic skills and community around shared cultural traditions.

RESOURCE NAVIGATION AND REFERRALS Navigating the network of aging services is a daunting process. Our resource navigation and referral services ensure LGBT seniors can identify appropriate and supportive services.

Health & Wellness Classes Openhouse encourages positive mental and physical aging through health education classes, wellness promotion seminars, and exercise groups, such as Tai Chi, Yoga and mindfulness groups.

Our Information & Assistance Specialist provides guidance, referrals, and follow-up on a full-range of senior services throughout the Bay Area. In addition, our Housing Assistance program offers workshops, oneon-one counseling, and email and phone alerts on new housing opportunities.

SUPPORT AND WELLNESS PROGRAMS Support and Wellness programs ensure that seniors’ psychosocial, health, and wellness needs are being addressed.

Case Management Our Case Manager and Resident Service Navigator provide care coordination, referrals, emotional support, and home visits. In-

Emotional Support Support groups address depression, anxiety, and long-standing distress and trauma for LGBT seniors and caregivers, providing a safe and supportive space in which they can share their challenges.

In addition, for those who may need more intensive support, Openhouse provides direct referrals and connections to individual psychotherapy sessions with one of our two psychology post-doctoral fellows from Access Institute for Psychological Services.

Natalie Summers is the Mission Engagement Manager at Openhouse.

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Empowering LGBT Seniors Openhouse Community Expansion Campaign

By Natalie Summers The f irst phase of our Expansion Campaign was completed in 2016. In March 2017, Openhouse and Mercy Housing celebrated the opening of 40 units of LGBT welcoming, affordable, senior housing known as the Openhouse Community at 55 Laguna, along with our new Openhouse headquarters, the Bob Ross LGBT Senior Center at 65 Laguna.

The integration of Openhouse services and housing at 55 Laguna is quickly becoming a model for quality care and community building. Our community outreach and housing assistance helped to bring together the residents as a diverse, thriving aging community—68% identify as LGBT and 57% are people of color. 100% of the residents at 55 Laguna engaged in Openhouse services in 2017.

Openhouse will have the capacity over 5,000 community members a reach further into the San Francis population of 20,000.

The new Openhouse community cen

• an art studio where our talen members can engage their cre written, and performing arts;

• a computer lab that will allow a ing in technology for the many currently unable to utilize vital able only online;

• a lifelong learning center where gage in everything from maste guage to enjoying Tai Chi to te sons on activism and history;

The expansion campaign has helped to fuel rapid growth in our programs, resulting in a 70% increase in the number of LGBT seniors served in the past three years.

• a large social gathering space fo munity members with an adjace looking the city for expanded ev tions.

The second phase of our campaign, to be completed in Spring 2019, will provide an additional 79 units of LGBT-welcoming affordable senior housing and a multi-use community center of over 7,000 square feet that allows us to expand on-site community programming and ensures that we are able to meet the needs of our seniors.

The high visibility of the Openhous a source of pride for the entire comm bol of how LGBT people, at every ag grow!

Natalie Summers is the Mission En ager at Openhouse.

Meet the Openhouse Spring Fling Honorees Openhouse’s biggest fundraising event of the year is the Spring Fling. This always great celebration, which this year will include a Tea Dance out on the gorgeous Ritz Terrace Courtyard, raises muchneeded funds to expand quality programs and services for LGBTQ seniors.

Kate Kendell

Cecilia Chung

Awards are presented at the annual fundraiser. The Founders Award is presented each year to a person who has significantly impacted or influenced Openhouse. The Trailblazer Award recognizes visionary pathfinders who are committed to empowering the LGBTQ community.

The recipient of the Adelman/Gurevitch Founders Award 2018 is Kate Kendell, who leads the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). This national legal organization is committed to advancing the civil and human rights of LGBTQ people and their families through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. NCLR’s legal, policy, and legislative victories set important precedents that improve the lives of all LGBTQ people and their families across the country.

Cecilia Chung is the Trailblazer Award 2018 recipient. Chung is the Senior Director of Strategic Projects for the Transgender Law Center and is a nationally recognized advocate for human rights, social justice, health equity, and LGBTQ equality.

She was the former Chair of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and currently serves on the Health Commission.

Colette LeGrande

Donna Personna

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Drag pioneer and writer Colette LeGrande will also be honored. LeGrande is the twice former Grand Duchess of the Ducal Court of San Francisco. She has raised funds for charity in the Tenderloin for 30 years, supporting AIDS Emergency Fund, Magnet, Mama Reinhardt’s Toys for Tots, and many others. She has worked at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge since 1998 and organizes her own bi-weekly drag show, the Dream Queens Revue. She is the co-author of the production The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot presented by the Tenderloin Museum at New Village Cafe in San Francisco. New dates have been added for this month and May. For more information, see the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot website (http://comptonscafeteriariot.com/).

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The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot co-author Donna Personna will additionally be honored at this year’s Spring Fling. Donna Personna is an artist and performer, who first hit the stage with the legendary Cockettes. She was the subject of the 2013 Iris Prize-winning short My Mother, by Jay Bedwani.

She serves on the board of directors’ committees for Trans March and the Transgender Day of Remembrance, working to gain wider visibility for transgender rights.

To get to know each of the honorees better, we had them participate in a short Q&A with the help of Openhouse.

San Francisco Bay Times: Tell us who your LGBT hero is.

Kate Kendell: Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin (before her death).

Cecilia Chung: Sister Mary Elizabeth, the main mover of the AIDS Education and Global Information System database.

Colette LeGrande: Rev. Donald Fox of The Night Ministry.

Donna Personna: Vicky Marlane of The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot.

San Francisco Bay Times: How do you feel about “senior” as a word? What term do you prefer?

Kate Kendell: It’s a polite word for “old.” I learned this from Phyllis and Del. I’d love “old” to be reclaimed as a term of power and wisdom.

Cecilia Chung: Age shouldn’t be measured by using the word “senior.” Call people by their name!

Colette LeGrande: I have no issue with the word “senior.” It means you are wiser and may have something to offer someone younger than you.

Donna Personna: I’m ok with that word. I love my age! Fine wine, Magical, Masterpiece.

San Francisco Bay Times: Who is someone older than you whom you look up to or admire?

Kate Kendell: There are too many to name!

Cecilia Chung: Tamara Ching, the “God Mother of Polk.”

Colette LeGrande: Gary McLain, aka Marlena.

Donna Personna: Georgia O’Keeffe (1887– 1986).

San Francisco Bay Times: What do you think is the biggest strength of the LGBTQ community today?

Kate Kendell: That we are everywhere, in every community. Our multiple identities are strength in action.

Cecilia Chung: We have to talk about individual community strength. The trans community is not the same as others. The strength of the trans community is resilience.

Colette LeGrande: We are closer than ever in response to the current political climate. We have to look out for each other. The rights that we have fought for could disappear at any minute.

Donna Personna: Passing knowledge through experience and sharing are collectively one of our ways of showing strength.

San Francisco Bay Times: If you could have one person, alive or dead, introduce you at Spring Fling, who would it be and why?

Kate Kendell: Helen Mirren. Then we’d go get drunk with friends after the Tea Dance.

Cecilia Chung: The goddess Quan Yin. The “Goddess of Mercy,” Quan Yin, transformed from male to female and is associated with mercy and compassion and limitless transcendence beyond gender.

Colette LeGrande: Mark Leno.

Donna Personna: Amy Winehouse. She was an old soul (“died 1,000 times”), wrote amazing lyrics, and continues to inspire us.

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Building Community

Aging in Community Dr. Marcy Adelman As many of you know, last year, after almost 20 years of service, I transitioned off the Openhouse board. I am deeply confident that Openhouse’s E xecut ive Director, Dr. K ar y n Skultety, will continue to build on the almost two decades of progress that we have achieved. Karyn is a combination of compassion, good will, the right balance of fierceness and humor, and lots of wisdom and brain power to go around.

It was the perfect time for me to transition to take on new opportunities and challenges, among them Com-

missioner on the California Commission on Aging, member of the San Francisco Dignity Fund Oversight and Advisory Committee, and nomination to the board of the Alzheimer’s Association of Northern California and Nevada (term begins June 2018). In future columns here at the San Francisco Bay Times, you will learn more about my advocacy in these other venues. So, I continue to advocate on a state and local level for LGBTQ older adults, quality LGBTQ senior care, and longevity enhancing policies for all older adults.

My heartfelt thank you to every one of you who believed in and supported the dream that my late partner Jeanette Gurevitch and I had so many years ago: to build a village of LGBTQ welcoming senior housing with comprehensive services and a longevity enhancing activity center to help LGBTQ older adults and seniors live and thrive in their homes and in their communities. I feel proud of what Jeanette and I and the Openhouse community have accomplished, and I feel very privileged to have been the recipient of your trust and generosity.

When Jeanette and I started out, we were just two lesbian therapists with little more than a dream. We had no resources to speak of, few connections, and little experience in senior housing and services. The miracle of Openhouse is to have taken a dream of living and thriving together into old age and making it real for all of us. This miracle was possible because hundreds of people shared this dream with us and stepped up to build the Openhouse village on Laguna Street.

But the Openhouse village hasn’t completely crossed the finish line.

Openhouse is putting the f inal touches on the activity center at 75 Laguna. The organization needs your help to complete the build out of the activity center that will be there for all of us. The activity center will offer programing for active older adults, for caregivers, and for those in need of assistance. Donate to ensure quality of life programing is there for yourself or your loved ones.

The vision that Jeanette and I had was always more than bricks and mortar. It was about building community, a community that recognizes and values older adults and el-

ders, and that embraces and celebrates longevity, not as a burden, but as a prized—and in some cases, hard won—achievement. My hope is that, long after the Openhouse village is completed, you will continue to stay engaged and will join me and Openhouse in building that community.

Dr. Marcy Adelman is the Co-founder of Openhouse, a Commissioner on the California Commission on Aging, a member of the San Francisco Dignity Fund Oversight and Advisory Committee, and a leading expert on LGBTQ dementia care and policy issues.

2,500 Shades of Grey

By Fairley Parson, LCSW Recently I attended the annual Aging in America Conference, hosted by the American Society on Aging (ASA).

Movie puns aside, aging issues are multifaceted, and dare I say, exciting.

Each year the ASA conference hosts over 2,500 professionals in aging— from social workers, educators and administrators to lawyers, self-identified “policy wonks” and

a myriad of corporate sponsors. There are panels on caregiving, spirituality and aging, policy and advocacy, mental health and aging, and more. Pricey private homecare agencies vend their services, and start-ups hock high-tech senior gear. Still, the spirit and much of the content of the conference reflect an ethos grounded in the grassroots and that is highly alert to issues of social and economic justice.

In “Aging A–Z: Inequality, Power, and Resistance” we heard from ASA Board Chair Bob Blancato, who de-

tailed the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate critical senior services. Blancato urged us to take action: “We should never forget the importance of grassroots responses to these challenges.”

According to Blancato, despite administration attempts, and due to advocacy efforts on the part of aging activists and everyday people nationwide, funding for critical programs like Meals on Wheels were ultimately maintained, (continued on page 18) S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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Empowering LGBT Seniors 2,500 Shades of Grey

Family taking Care of family

Family of Choice Homecare, LLC offers compassionate inhome care that addresses the unique needs and concerns of LGBT older adults, and allows them to age authentically and with pride in their homes and communities for as long as they can.

We look forward to becoming your family of choice!

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(continued from page 17)

and in many cases, augmented. Blancato told the crowd, “Trump has moved to engage people.”

treatment programs are full of younger people and the issues are different!”

Author Nicholas Di Carlo, LCSW, coauthor with Carroll Estes of the upcoming Critical Aging Policy: A to Z, called on attendees to engage seniors in collective action. Referencing the current administration, he said, “This time period has been a master class for thinking about social welfare, power, trauma, and the importance of collective memory in the process of resistance.” Or, as another presenter decried, “We have to get political. It’s not just for children!”

Kathy Langsam, MA, Senior Adjunct Professor at Golden Gate University, agreed. Treating substance abuse in senior communities requires tailored services. Fortunately, said Langsam, we are finally seeing alternatives to the AA model. Harm Reduction (a model based on clients’ willingness to work toward less harm, but not requiring abstinence) has gained traction. Still, AA or abstinence-only programs are what’s available to most seniors. This is especially true for seniors who live in nursing homes and residential communities.

The conference brought a wide-ranging view of issues to the fore, with over 800 presenters—from topics like “Ending Senior Poverty: Why We Can’t Wait,” and “What’s in a Dress? A Cross-Dressing Case Study for Elders,” to “Emerging Trends in African American Male Caregivers.”

As a therapist, I was drawn to the panels on Mental Health and Aging. We know that older adults face significant barriers to mental health care. Further, certain populations, including LGBT elders and elders of color, are at increased risk for a variety of mental health challenges while facing additional barriers to care.

A history of abuse and stigma within mental healthcare prevents some from seeking help. Jill Gover, PhD, Director of the Scott Hines Mental Health Clinic, LGBT Community Center of the Desert, reminded attendants of so-called “conversion therapy.”

Gover said that “there’s still a great deal of mistrust.

We have to remember that ‘mental health’ practitioners were the enemy.”

In “Aging and Mental Health: A Collection of Voices,” Denise Boston, PhD, and Dean of Diversity and Inclusion at the California Institute of Integral Studies, urged therapists to ensure that a multiplicity of voices inform our work. According to Boston, to treat diverse needs, clinicians must work to understand clients’ intersectional identities, including age.

Fielding a question from the audience about how to communicate “cultural humility” to a client, Boston quipped: “What’s needed is more than cultural humility; it’s cultural responsiveness. It’s: How are you gonna advocate for justice?” Referencing the recent police killing of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man in Sacramento, she asked the room, “Will you show up for Black Lives Matter? With what we know about the trauma of the prison industrial complex, will you work for prison reform?”

Fellow panelist Doreen Maller, LMFT, PhD, and Chair of Holistic Counseling Psychology at John F. Kennedy University, stressed the need to look at mental health as societal and cultural health. According to Maller, “Therapists need to work more like social workers; think outside the consult room. Agencies have boiler plate protocols, but clinicians need a range of approaches to really ‘meet the client where they are.’”

One clinician working in a retirement community in the Bay Area piped up. “I struggle,” she admitted.

She then asked, “What’s an appropriate setting for an 85-year-old who needs to be wheeled up to his room (regularly) because he’s had too much to drink? The

“They won’t spend money on harm reduction groups, but they’ll let us play bocce ball,” quipped Maller to nods and applause.

In “Using the Strengths and Resiliency of LGBTQ Elders of Color to Create Change,” Aundaray Guess, MAPR, Director of Programs at GRIOT Circle, a Brooklyn-based organization serving LGBTQ seniors of color, declared, “We don’t do bingo! … Our members have so much more value—to put a card in front of their face doesn’t speak to their lives.”

Unfortunately, even if agencies offer programs that speak to the needs of diverse elders to combat issues like social isolation or mental illness, barriers in access keep many out. Most seniors can’t afford to pay full-fee for mental health services and many subsidized social services, when available, are eligible only to the very poor.

Many providers want to serve older adults, but end up opting out of programs like Medicare, overwhelmed by the red tape and disincentivized by low reimbursement rates. I have personal experience attempting to navigate the labyrinthine “credentialing process” to become a Medicare provider. After innumerable hours on the phone and online, I’m still working on it.

But there’s good news: a lot of great work is taking place. Locally, Valerie Coleman, Program Analyst with the Department of Aging and Adult Services, spoke of engaging “nontraditional partners,” such as merchants and universities, to ensure age-friendly city planning. Shireen McSpadden, Executive Director of the Department of Aging and Adult Services, and Marie Jobling, Executive Director of the Community Living Campaign, shared plans for the rollout of San Francisco’s “Dignity Fund,” which sets aside a growing portion of local funds for senior and disability services.

From providers using cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic insomnia and free in-home therapies to reduce depression, to innovative programs like GRIOT circle’s “Still Standing”—a program training LGBTQ seniors of color in public speaking and community-based health education—change is afoot.

As Jose Albino, director of programs for GRIOT, said: “We enlist the seniors in our agency. It’s a great time to embolden our communities. We’re riled up!”

Fairley Parson, LCSW, is an aging-advocate and psychotherapist in private practice in San Francisco. She can be reached at fairleyparsontherapy.com

As Heard on the Street . . . How do you plan to spend your time at age 80?

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Lizzie Dierken

Crystal Mason

Jorge Vega

Melisa Hanson

Lee Vang

“I intend to commune with nature, and live my life surrounded by nature. And hiking into the great beyond.”

“Live in an animal sanctuary.”

“Settle down on a ranch.”

“Working on a ranch.”

“To travel the world, but have a ranch with animals to come home to.”

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Alphabet Tent

Photos courtesy of Tim Seelig

Daughter overnight in the beautiful woods of the Bay Area. I am praying they never think of a Grandfather/ Granddaughter camp outing. We’ll have to do that in her living room.

TLC: Tears, Laughs and Conversation Dr. Tim Seelig Let’s talk tents. I don’t like them.

Shockingly, I was a Boy Scout, for a brief stint. That was just one of the activities my parents enrolled me in, trying their best to get something masculine to “take hold.” I would have been fine with the BS (Boy Scouts), had they offered merit badges in the things I liked. But, alas, they did not.

I was shipped off to a one-week summer camp. It was the beginning of my hate/hate relationship with tents.

It was cramped and dirty. It was hot and smelly. And there was nothing to keep the state bird of Texas (mosquito) out! On a positive note, I did learn to pitch a tent.

An aside: When I came out at 35, I asked my Mother when she first knew.

She said it was around 5 years old, when I preferred to go to the fabric store to look at dress patterns rather than to play outside with my friends.

There was not a merit badge for that.

As you will see from the picture, I did love that orange bandana thing (later to be known as a pashmina).

Dan likes tents—for just one week per year (thank goodness). He is preparing for his eleventh AIDS/LifeCycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. 545 miles. 6 nights in 2-person tents after daily rides between 50 and 100 miles each. I can imagine that a tent looks pretty good at the end of a grueling ride. I’m proud of him and all who do this!

Clara likes tents. Her Dad bought her a tent when her school had a Father/

San Franciscans have a troubled relationship with tents. While many pull out a tent for a weekend or even a full week, that is not the case for thousands in our beloved city. They literally live in “tent cities.” Where did the tents come from? There is a brilliant op-ed in The New York Times by Daniel Duane in which he describes the tent phenomenon. At one point, city governments issued tents. One individual gave away $15,000 worth of camping tents. The city now has 80 “encampments.” Some are run by tent slum lords who rent tents by the week. It is cynically called the “urban camping experience.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported the South of Market district has been a gathering place for the homeless since at least 1872, when an observer noted the concentration of “blanket men” who seemed to be mostly “runaway sailors,” “old soldiers” and “bankrupt German scene painters.”

That’s almost 150 years we wish to solve.

Sorry, I got side-tracked. This is not an article about the homeless plight in San Francisco. It’s about tents.

People romanticize tents. The circus tent has piqued every child’s fantasy from the smallest town to the largest city. What a thrill it was to see exotic animals arriving on train cars.

When we lived across from AT&T Ballpark, we even had a Cirque de Soleil tent pitched outside our apartment window. Who didn’t fantasize at some point about running away with the circus? The early days of the big top were the theme of a recent questionable fantasy about the circus, The Greatest Showman. It depicted a loving “tent” that served as a haven for outcasts and misfits. It was not historical, but was popular nonetheless.

In reality, we are all tent builders.

Since deciding to write an article about tents, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how we build our own life tents, deciding whom to let into the comfort and safety of our “circle.”

These tents are fragile and transitory.

They are not bunkers.

Your Facebook page is your tent. You accept friends into your tent based on a variety of factors. Either you know them or you know someone who knows them or know someone who knows someone. As the days go by, you find out if they really qualify for a place in your tent. If they don’t like the cot, bash your choices of sleeping bag, or argue with others in the tent, you un-tent them. Out they go.

Our “tents o’ friends” have exploded. Facebook limits you to 5,000! No problem. Start a second page.

The concept of a “big tent” political party dates back to the 1930s and Franklin D. Roosevelt. We hear a lot about political parties as “tents” and camps. We continue to be more and more divided in our ideology. Camps take sides far from each other, insisting on litmus tests to remain in the tent. Can a Democrat be Pro-Life?

Can a Republican fit a log cabin in their tent? There are a growing number of people in the middle who don’t want to be in a tent at all. It’s not so bad to come out of your tent. After all, the campfire and s’mores are in the middle.

Finally, we get to the name of the article: “Alphabet Tent.” It’s the LGBTQIAPK tent. It’s a huge encampment with lots of small tents underneath it.

There’s the “L” tent, and the “G” tent and the “B” tent. Because we share this alphabet tent, it is assumed that we get along, support each other and each other’s agendas and issues. All of our tents, regardless of differences, strive for many of the same things: recognition, equality, unity, respect, and dignity.

BTW, if the letters confused you, this specific arrangement of letters stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Polyamorous, Kink. Everyone has a right to a tent. The question remains, “Is everyone required to support every tent in the encampment or letter in the alphabet?”

In my 3+ decades of working full time in our community, I have often experienced what some refer to as the Gay Firing Squad. It stands in a circle. It is defined as “a group whose internal disagreements and attacks end up doing more damage to each other than to their opponent or adversary.”

These disagreements often result in further harm when people leave a tent for one reason or the other. Perhaps they tried to change it to fit their own taste.

Rather than be happy after moving on to a new tent that fits them better, they stand outside the tent from which they came and attempt to tear it down. It is often the very tent for which they felt an affinity.

As we travel this journey called life, we learn some important lessons. Not all tents are for us.

We leave those for others to use without spoiling them. Not all humans can fit in our tent. You can’t make everyone in your tent happy. Tents change over time. So must their inhabitants.

There are times in the middle of tent turf battles and “your tent vs. my tent” when the drab, dirty pup tent deep in the woods of snake-infested Texas in the middle of July with a sleeping bag on the ground and communal toilets looks pretty darn attractive!

But there is no going back.

A couple of years ago, I was conducting a concert at Carnegie Hall. There were two choirs—mine and one other. As the other choir took the stage, I leaned over to the producer and said, “Their orchestra is bigger than mine.” She leaned back over to me and said, “Keep your eyes on your own yoga mat.” She dropped the microphone—on my head!

And thus, this word to myself and to all of you who made it this far in the article. Keep your eyes on your own

tent. Keep your eyes on those who are under that tent with you. Take care of yourself. Take care of those around you. And when you look at the other tents in the encampment, show them love and support in amounts you are able to give. And, regardless of how you may feel about their tent— or a tent you have left behind—allow them to exist and grow and thrive.

Remember, tents are fragile and transitory. They are not bunkers.

I love my tent. And I love my tent peeps. I love what we do when we are under the tent—and when we venture out. I love other tents, too. I like visiting them and learning from them.

I love it when others are happy and build their tent. I love the encampment where my tent lives.

OK, I guess I don’t have a hate/hate relationship with tents after all!

Dr. Tim Seelig is the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.

it seemed fitting to mention not only Day, but also her friends at the Doris Day Animal Foundation and Doris Day Animal League, as well as from the SPCA, Muttville, Peace of Mind Dog Rescue and Golden Oldies Cat Rescue.

When most of us think of adopting a pet, playful puppies and cute kittens come to mind. Sadly, many older animals get left behind. As Muttville holds: “The tragic truth is that every day, dogs in good health with wonderful personalities are euthanized.

Why? They’re older. And because they’re older, they’re not considered adoptable.” Senior cats are even less desired than senior dogs, such that numerous ones spend their last days in cold, dark shelters before being euthanized.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY TIMES

A few members of our San Francisco Bay Times team recently attended the birthday celebrations for legendary entertainer Doris Day. At a very sharp 96, she is living proof that quality time with pets can work wonders at boosting spirits and maintaining human health. She used her birthday moment in the spotlight to remind us about homeless pets and especially senior ones seeking their forever homes. For this special issue of the paper we are focusing on Openhouse and their work for seniors, so

PEACE OF MIND DOG RESCUE

One of three big birthday cakes that were served at Doris Day’s 96th birthday celebrations

“Pixie and Bubbles” 20

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Many of us were therefore moved when, right in the middle of Day’s birthday festivities, two frail dogs were brought in.

Named Pixie and Bubbles, they had been left in a cardboard box beside a busy road in Hollister.

The two bonded during the ordeal and have health issues that are manageable, yet they require frequent veterinary care.

Finding a home for them—together—seemed hopeless. Day herself has personally adopted

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more animals than you might imagine over the years, so she has her hands full.

and four months in a foster home, Loki’s fate “Loki” took a further turn for the better. Adopted by a couple in Santa Barbara, he is now loving his new home. According to his adoptive mom, “Loki is the love of my life, spoiled rotten, eats like a king and is a total grit hound. He walks with his two sisters every day, rides in the car, and amuses us endlessly with his commentary and chatter.”

We were extremely happy Pets like Loki, Pixie and when our friend Deb BayBubbles give back far more ley — a f ter some ser ious than they receive, in terms mulling over —agreed to of love, good times, and adopt them! Although there companionship. Studies are so many other homeless also show that pet ownerpets still at shelters and resship lowers blood pressure cue centers, the entire room and anxiety. Often mellowcheered and gained renewed er senior pets likely enhance hope. Even Day—a supreme- Doris Day with those human health benefits Lovey and ly empathetic woman who has all the more.

Biggest shed many tears over both human and animal injustices—seemed So please consider adopting a pet, and do not rule out the super seuplifted the next morning. niors! If adoption is not possible, then We also learned about Loki, a near- please still consider supporting the ly-blind dog who had to be surren- organizations that are dedicated to dered to Peace of Mind Dog Res- helping “four leggers,” as Day calls cue. Loki had been neglected for them. Well, she likes birds and no years because his owner developed leggers too, since her foundation supAlzheimer’s. After cataract surgery ports the Pacific Marine Mammal

KIM WILLIAMS, ANIMALHISTORYMUSEUM.ORG

Doris Day Birthday Celebration Highlights Homeless Senior Pets

Center. Remember the sea lion crisis of a few years back, when hundreds of pups were stranded, malnourished and injured? Day quickly sent funds to cover the costs for food, medication, supplies, and more. She really is the best and continues to demonstrate that our senior years can be active, productive, and meaningful.

Doris Day Animal Foundation: www.dorisdayanimalfoundation.org/ Peace of Mind Dog Rescue: www.peaceofminddogrescue.org/index.php Muttville: muttville.org/ Golden Oldies Cat Rescue: www.gocatrescue.org/ San Francisco SPCA: www.sfspca.org/

From the Coming Up Events Calendar See page 28 Tuesday, April 10 - Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater @ Cal Performances, 101 Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. A performance of classic Ailey works and new material. 8pm. Continues through April 15. calperformances.org

Tuesday, April 17 - You Sa Ho Bingo with Holotta & Saki @ Club 1220, 1220 Pine Street, Walnut Creek.

Drag Bingo hosted by Holotta Tymes and Saki Samora.

7pm. club1229.com

Boys Bite Back: World Premiere by Sean Dorsey Dance Tackles Toxic Masculinity, Trans Tales and Queer Love Fans of dance, theater and live performance are already scrambling to buy tickets for the highly-anticipated world premiere of the newest production from trailblazing transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey.

Dorsey’s award-winning all-queer dance company, Sean Dorsey Dance, returns to Z Space April 19–21 with Boys in Trouble—an evening of dances that unpack masculinity with unflinching honesty, from unapologetically trans and queer perspectives.

Boys in Trouble is an extravaganza of full-throttle dance, raw emotion, irreverent humor, exquisite queer partnering and super-vulnerable storytelling … all performed with Sean Dorsey Dance’s signature technical precision, guts, and deep humanity.

This powerful new work is a visually stunning, emotionally rich, and profoundly timely examination of masculinity and gender by one of the nation’s most visionary choreographers.

“The show is a riotous celebration of trans and queer gender expansiveness as well as a wake-up-call about toxic masculinity,” says Dorsey.

“We dance about a huge spectrum of topics,” he continued. “True transsexual confessions. An unabashed love letter between Black queer men.

A sendup of all things macho. A queer spin on butchness. Real talk about whiteness. An invitation to look deeply at shame. Giving witness to hurt and heartbreak. A roadmap for another way.”

With stark honesty, powerful storytelling and breathtaking dancing, Boys in Trouble is in turns powerful, explosive, devastatingly honest, humorous, and sexy.

After the four San Francisco performances, the company takes the show on a 20-city national tour. Boys in Trouble will be performed in cities including Washington D.C., Atlanta, Maui, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Whitewater, Wisconsin.

Boys in Trouble (world premiere) Sean Dorsey Dance April 19–21 (Thurs/Fri: 8 pm + Sat: 4 pm and 8 pm) *ASL interpretation offered at Sat 4 pm matinee*

Boys Bite Back is performed by Sean Dorsey, Brian Fisher, ArVejon Jones, Nol Simonse and Will Woodward.

The original music was composed

by Alex Kelly, Ben Kessler, Anomie Belle and LD Brown.

Z Space (450 Florida Street, San Francisco) Tickets: $15–30 Info/tickets: www.freshmeatproductions.org

Dorsey created Boys in Trouble over a 2-year period, after visiting communities across the U.S. where he hosted community forums on masculinity, recorded interviews, and taught free movement workshops for transgender, gender-non-conforming, cisgender, gay, bi, and queer people on the masculine spectrum.

Sean Dorsey is celebrated as the nation’s f irst acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer. Dorsey has toured his work to 29 cities and is the Founder and Artistic Director of Fresh Meat Productions and the annual Fresh Meat Festival of trans and queer performance ( June 14–16 in San Francisco).

Dorsey recently took time out of his hectic schedule for a Q&A with the San Francisco Bay Times about the new work—and about performing and touring as a transgender person in the current political climate.

San Francisco Bay Times: What inspired you to undertake this project?

Dorsey: As a dance artist, I feel called to undertake projects that will really spark transformation and healing

in my audiences and the communities we visit. I wanted to unpack some of the deeply unhealthy aspects of the very constructs of gender and masculinity—which are so toxic for all of us, trans or cis, queer or straight. As a company, we have also talked a lot about racism and white supremacy in relation to masculinity—and as a white trans guy, I wanted to center an honest conversation there, too.

San Francisco Bay Times: We have a feeling that there is some signature Sean Dorsey humor in the mix?

Dorsey: Oh my, yes! There is a lot of humor in the show! We allow

ourselves and our audiences to really laugh at the more ridiculous parts of “performing” masculinity, and to also totally revel in wonderful, uniquely queer and trans sass and cheek as we unpack things like being “macho” or “butch enough.”

San Francisco Bay Times: And the dancing?

Dorsey: We dance a lot in this show—we dance ourselves to exhaustion! We sweat through tons of costume changes, which I think is satisfying for the audience … I always love seeing dancers dance really hard!

San Francisco Bay Times: What are the central themes of Boys in Trouble?

Dorsey: Well, there’s the up-front issue of the pressure to “succeed” at masculinity. But it goes deeper. All of us—every single one of us—feels like we’re not “enough.” Whether it’s

KIT’N KITTY’S

QUEER POP QUIZ

LAVENDER MENACE Betty Friedan argued that the “Lavender Menace” would overwhelm the movement generated by what organization?

A) Old Lesbians Organizing for Change B) Equality Now C) National Organization for Women D) The National LGBT Bar Association ANSWER ON PAGE 30

queer enough, trans enough, masculine enough, Black enough, strong enough, smart enough. We unpeel a lot of layers in the show in order to get to those deep feelings of difference, of shame, of hiding. How can we reconnect with each other? What would it look like to touch each other without shame? What would it feel like to love our own body?

San Francisco Bay Times: Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?

Dorsey: Come to the show! This is powerful, moving, hilarious, touching and healing work. These dances will hit you in the gut, make you laugh out loud and open your heart … whether you love dance or think you “don’t understand” modern dance. This is beautiful dance that’s also accessible and relevant to our communities. We can’t wait to share it!

Karin Jaffie as Kitty Tapata hosts Miss Kitty’s Original Trivia Nights at The Wild Side West on Wednesday nights from 8 pm–11 pm, 424 Cortland Avenue in San Francisco. As Tapata says, “It’s free, fun and friendly! To play is to win!”

S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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Lean on Pete Hits Its Stride as a Road Movie and Bittersweet Drama course, Charley hears this message, and ignores it.

Film Gary M. Kramer Out gay writer/director Andrew Haigh has created an engaging, sensitive, and moving drama in his adaptation of Willy Vlautin’s novel, Lean on Pete. The film, which opens at the Embarcadero Center Cinema on April 13, tells the story of a Charley (Charlie Plummer), a teenager who cares for the title Quarter Horse one summer.

Charley is a bright, curious teen living an almost hand-to-mouth existence with his father, Ray (Travis Fimmel), in Oregon. When Charley runs by a local horse track one day, Del (Steve Buscemi) asks him for some help with his truck. Charley is soon accompanying Del on an overnight trip to race horses, one of them being Lean on Pete.

The teen, who is, Del observes, “a natural, and not afraid of hard work,” f inds meaning and purpose in his work, and continues to assist Del regularly. Charley also meets Bonnie (Chloë Sevigny), a f linty jockey who tells him, “You can’t get attached to the horse. You can’t think of them as pets. They are here to race.” Of

Lean on Pete chronicles Charley’s growing bond with Pete as a situation arises that puts his father in the hospital. And when Del has plans to sell Pete after a poor performance in a claiming race (where horses are sold), Charley decides to take matters into his own hands and save Pete and himself.

Haigh depicts these difficult, painful, and arguably poor decisions without judgment. Viewers will be rooting for both Charley, a good kid in a bad spot, and Pete, a beautiful animal who doesn’t deserve the cruel fate that awaits him.

As the film becomes a road movie, and Charley strikes out in search of his aunt Margy, Lean on Pete hits its stride. Charley, who has no money, uses his quick wits to get by. He siphons gas and tries to steal what he can’t afford. He is sympathetic, even when he behaves badly—as when he tries to walk out on a check at a diner—and Plummer’s remarkable, affecting performance is why.

Del gives Pete to make him race faster, Charley gets a lesson into how people sometimes behave to survive, and how to work a losing situation to one’s advantage. But the actor really distinguishes himself in a series of monologues he has while walking Pete, talking to his horse about a camping trip where he was scared, or about how his mother left him.

These are poignant scenes that are all the more emotional because of how Haigh frames Charley and Pete in the vast deserted landscape. The film’s fantastic cinematography is by Magnus Nordenhof Jønck, who employs an earth-toned palette that really captures the harsh beauty of the landscape and the hardscrabble life of the characters who inhabit it.

The gawky young actor uses his body language to convey his emotions. He is especially adept at trying to be invisible—as when he dines and dashes—but is also very expressive and revealing in a pair of “mirror” scenes, such as one where he adjusts his father’s belt around his hips.

Lean on Pete shifts gears once again in its homestretch as Charley has a series of interesting encounters with people he meets on his journey. One of the most revealing episodes has him entering a house shared by Dallas (Lewis Pullman) and Mike ( Justin Rain), two vets.

Plummer exudes innocence and confidence often in the same scene, which is impressive. When he talks with Bonnie about the shocks and drugs

At a dinner that night, Charley confronts an overweight young woman (continued on page 31)

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE DE YOUNG AND LEGION OF HONOR

Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art At the de Young through August 12 The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) are proud to premiere Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art, the first large-scale exhibition in over 20 years to survey this characteristically American style of early twentieth-century Modernism.

Organized by FA MSF and on view at the de Young, the exhibition addresses the aesthetic and intellectual concerns that fueled the development of this artistic style during the 1920s and 1930s. More than 100 Precisionist masterworks by seminal artists such as Charles Sheeler, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Charles Demuth are displayed alongside prints by photographers such as Imogen Cunningham and Paul Strand; clips from films such as Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times; and extraordinary decorative arts and industrial objects from the period—including a vintage Cord Phaeton automobile—to ref lect the widespread embrace of a machine-age aesthetic by artists, designers, and the public alike.

Cult of the Machine considers how the style ref lects the economic and social changes wrought by industrialization and technological progress during the Machine Age in America. Visitors are encouraged to draw connections to our own technological moment, one in which optimism and dreams about what technological progress can 22

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(above) Clarence Holbrook Carter, “War Bride,” 1940.

Oil on canvas, 36 x 54 in. (91.4 x 137.2 cm). Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Richard M. Scaife American Painting Fund and Paintings Acquisition Fund, 82.6.

Photograph by Richard Stoner © Estate of Clarence Carter. Image Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (left) Margaret Bourke-White, “Chrysler Building: Tower,” 1930. Gelatin Silver print, 5 3/8 x 3 7/8 in. (13.8 x 9.7 cm).

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Collection of the Sack Photographic Trust, ST1998.0071. Photograph by Don Ross © Estate of Margaret Bourke-White / Licensed

by VAGA, New York, NY. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

achieve are tempered with anxiety or suspicion about its potential dangers and misuses.

“This project will resonate here in the heart of the Bay Area, at the epicenter of the emerging tech industries of Silicon Valley,” says Max Hollein, Director and CEO of FAMSF. “We, like our visitors, often reflect on how our daily lives are impacted by new technologies—much as the Precisionists did (continued on page 31)

Round About - All Over Town Spring Season!

Photos by Rink

The unique gift and whimsy shop Terrasol on Polk Street presented an array of bunnies, chicks and other Easter items in their storefront window.

The shop known as One Half featured stuffed Easter characters in their window on Polk Street

Smack Dab Open Mic co-hosts Dana Hopkins and Larry-Bob Roberts welcomed featured artists Jaika Danikan and Harmony Moses (center) from the Vasileia cultural group at Dog Eared Books Castro.

Performer Paul McGehee presented his book, Things You Do Before Moving, at the Black Love Comedy and Poetry Show at Strut.

Spark Arts’ Aviva Kanoff (left) shared a hug with a friend at the Castro Merchants mixer on Thursday, March 22.

Emcee and performer Magnoliah Black at the microphone during the Black Love Comedy and Poetry Show at Strut

Mick Del Rosario with Spark Arts’ Angie Stitcher at the Castro Merchants mixer at Spark Arts on March 22

Krystal, Joe, and John at the Castro Merchants mixer at Spark Arts on March 22 24

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Dominique Gelin served as an emcee and performer at the Black Love Comedy and Poetry Show at Strut.

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LGBTQ News & Calendar for the Bay Area CELEBRATING FOUR DECADES (1978–2018)

Rink has been out and about once again, as you’ll see in the photos included here. Several are from his outing on Easter morning to Castro Street where guys were wearing bonnets just as they have since the 60s. Related photos are included on the inside front cover, page 2.

Enjoy these and be sure to say hello to Rink when you see him around town!

Easter bunnies on Castro Street on Easter Sunday, April 1.

On Castro Street, David Lowe was decked out in his Easter bonnet on Easter Sunday.

Since the 1960s, guys going bar hopping on Easter Sunday wearing their Easter bonnets has continued as a time-honored tradition.

Rainbow World Fund board members (front left to right) Javier Rosales, Karen Kai and Yew-Hoe Tan with executive director Jeff Cotter (back) at the organization’s open house held in the Castro on Easter Sunday.

Cove Cafe’s server Annie (right) was blowing bubbles and guest Barry was decked out for the occasion on Easter Sunday.

Rainbow World Fund’s Jeff Cotter welcomed guests at the organization’s open house in the Castro on Easter Sunday where the upcoming excursion to Guatemala in August was promoted.

Publicist Karen Larsen and the Musical Art Quintet’s Sascha Jacobsen at the Silent Film Festival media and donors reception held at McRoskey Mattress Company on March 22.

Guests at the Silent Film Festival media and donors reception held at McRoskey Mattress Company on March 22.

Publicist Sarah Flores displayed the Silent Film Festival’s program at the reception for media contacts and donors at McRoskey Mattress Company.

Harvey Milk Democratic Club members held a Visibility Party and Happy Hour on March 29 at the Midnight Sun bar to promote their endorsements of candidates Mark Leno, Rafael Mandelman and Jane Kim. S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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Legs and Buttocks at the United States Gay Open One of the most historic and iconic LGBT sporting events in the world, the USGO is the oldest LGBT tennis tournament to date. It’s kind of like Wimbledon—just without the $50 million prize money, the beautifully manicured green grass courts, the British accent, strawberries and cream, Roger Federer, Serena Williams, etc.

Sports John Chen At my gym several years ago, a couple of bodybuilders approached me with obvious anxiety and trepidation. Unsure about what was to come, I broke the ice and expressed a polite and friendly greeting. The smaller of the two Herculean-built men in a soft and slightly trembling voice asked, “What workouts do you do to get such big, strong, and incredibly shaped legs?”

Perplexed, I looked at my legs, and then theirs. I realized that my legs were clearly thicker and stronger.

And my buttocks were also firmer, rounder and bubblier. (OK, I had to look.) Feeling pretty good about myself, I discreetly f lexed my legs ever so slightly and eloquently responded, “Gain 50 pounds and play tennis five days a week, two hours at a time.”

If you haven’t noticed—and you should—tennis players have the best legs and buttocks!

So, you must be wondering what tennis legs have to do with the United States Gay Open (USGO). Well, the answer is simple. USGO is where you’ll see the best legs, and buttocks, on any man and woman around the world gathered on the tennis courts of Golden Gate Park. This has been happening ever y Memorial Day Weekend for the past 30 years.

Hosted annually by the Gay and Lesbian Tennis Federation (GLTF) of San Francisco, the USGO is a trailblazing event that has paved the way for nearly 70 LGBT tournaments around the world!

Tour nament Co -Director Gonzalo Azcona wants to make the USGO not only an historic event, but also one of the premiere stops on the international Gay and Lesbian Tennis Alliance (GLTA) tour.

In recent years, competitors from as far away as France and Germany have traveled to our great destination city, San Francisco, to partake in the USGO and, of course, to sample our native, but diverse and colorful, range of legs and buttocks.

Gonzalo, who is originally from Argentina, gave up soccer (gasp!) for tennis, and doesn’t regret his decision one bit. In case you didn’t know, soccer players have the second-best set of legs and buttocks. And since Gonzalo played both sports, needless to say, he has great ... well, you know. But, I digress.

Having won both the singles and doubles titles in his division at the USGO, Gonzalo wanted to make a greater impact and contribution to the iconic tournament. With his fellow CoTournament Directors Frank Pontes and Jeff Tolman, he is part of a talented trio who are working hard to make the USGO a favorite destination on the LGBT tennis tour. Gonzalo would like to inv ite and welcome tennis players of all levels—gay, straight, bi, transgender—to sign up and come out to play, tennis that is!

Maybe you’re not a tennis player, but are a fan of legs and buttocks? Then you must come out to

Take Me Home with You!

Petunia

“I’m just as sweet as my name—Petunia! I’m also as inquisitive as I look in my photo. I love going out, exploring the world around me, and learning. Training classes and day trips are my favorite! Let’s go hiking, swimming, or running! I’m dreaming of meeting someone special who likes a good adventure as much as I do.”

Petunia is presented to San Francisco Bay Times readers by Dr. Jennifer Scarlett, the SF SPCA’s Co-President. Our thanks also go to Krista Maloney for helping to get the word out about lovable pets like Petunia.

To meet Petunia, as well as other pets seeking their forever homes, please visit: San Francisco SPCA Mission Campus 250 Florida Street San Francisco 94103 415-522-3500 Aside from major holidays, the adoption center is open Mon–Fri: 1–6 pm and Sat–Sun: 10 am–5 pm. Free parking is available for those wishing to adopt!

For more information: sfspca.org/adoptions

Golden Gate Park Tennis Center this coming Memorial Day Weekend, May 26–28, and check out the hundreds of fine men and women competitors in tight shorts and miniskirts.

Or come to drink, eat and be merry at the opening party hosted by Anchor Brewery in Potrero Hill, and attend the closing banquet celebration at Don Ramon in the Mission.

Make sure to say hello to Gonzalo and his fellow tournament directors as well as Paul Mabe, President of the GLTF, who would love to talk to you about tennis. And please, by all means, look below the waist! For more info on the USGO and LGBT tennis, please visit the GLTF online (gltf.org).

Dr. Jennifer Scarlett and Pup

Fitness SF Trainer Tip of the Month Aaron Z (quoted) & Zach T, Fitness SF Castro “Everyone has abs, there are just many different forms of body composition. Abdominal routines can be very simple.

Use a Bosu Ball to balance yourself upright.

Add increased difficulty by lifting your arms and feet off the ground.”

John Chen, a UCLA alumnus and an avid sports fan, has competed as well as coached tennis, volleyball, softball and football teams.

Weight Loss and Pain Management extra pounds. Their pain gets worse and they are told to lose weight again.

The cycle continues. What a quagmire! Most people end up feeling worse physically and emotionally.

Easy Fitness Cinder Ernst I have been helping plus size folks for almost 30 years to get more fit. The people I work with are categorized as overweight, obese and super-obese. I don’t use that terminology, but I want you to have a picture.

Most plus size individuals have been told to lose weight if they have knee, back, or hip pain. And most of these same folks have tried repeatedly to lose weight. Statistically, 95% of those who are wanting to lose weight eventually gain it back, with even a few 26

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You may sadly start to blame yourself for joint pain. One of my dearest friends, for example, sustained a calf injury a few weeks ago that kicked up a pretty severe episode of back pain.

He was convinced it was because of his belly. I could see him beating himself up. I know he’s been thinner than he is right now and he struggles with these same twenty pounds all of the time. He tries to lose weight, winds up not liking himself, and generally makes himself unhappy to no avail.

There is no pain relief in sight.

This may all sound familiar to you.

It’s a really common problem. I therefore want to give you a different way to approach pain relief so that you can leave the quagmire behind. The takeaway message is that strength training works wonders for pain relief!

Getting stronger is often the key to pain relief, especially for someone who is not working out yet. StrengthA PR I L 5 , 2 0 1 8

ening your muscles to support your joints helps to take the pressure off of those joints. Getting stronger will help your joints to feel better. Building strength is also the first step to increasing your stamina and energy.

The stronger you are, the more mobile you are, too. There is no downside to appropriate strength training.

You don’t have to lose weight to be successful with strength training, and it’s pretty easy to implement.

Appropriate strength training needs to begin from where you are. If you are pretty sedentary and have knee pain, seated butt squeezing, thigh squeezing and a hamstring stretch are often a perfect start. Look me up on YouTube and you will find all that you need to get started or visit the site Less Knee Pain (lesskneepain.com) and pick up the “Heal Your Knee” starter kit there. Those same exercises will often help to soothe back and hip pain as well.

If you have been doing a lot of cardio in an effort to burn calories and have knee or back pain, make sure that you are stretching your calves, hamstrings, quads and lower back. To

Tore Kelly, Director of Creative & Social Media for Fitness SF, provides monthly tips that he has learned from professional trainers. For more information: fitnesssf.com

add some simple strengthening, you could balance for up to thirty seconds on one leg while squeezing your quads, core and butt muscles as you lift your ribcage. Try it now, if you can. Adding a bit of strength training and stretching can soothe the knee and back pain and improve the ease of the cardio.

Most importantly, take the weight loss idea out of the strengthening exercises.

Let strength training be about getting stronger and moving about in the world with greater ease. If you can move easier, you can move more and have more fun. Give it a try. Be easy and kind to yourself.

Cinder Ernst, Medical Exercise Specialist and Life Coach Extraordinaire, helps reluctant exercisers get moving with safe, effective and fun programs.

Her book, “Easy Fitness for the Reluctant Exerciser” (http://cinderernst.com/ easy-fitness-book/), is available in paperback and eBook. She specializes in fitness and rehab for plus-size clients, but her stress-free approach is suitable for all. Find out more at http://cinderernst.com

Sister Dana Sez: Words of Wisdumb from a Fun Nun

By Sister Dana Van Iquity Sister Dana sez, “Everyone knows I have been preaching impeaching the Trump monster ever since the Orange Ogre stole the presidency. But suddenly I realize that impeachment is only the process by which a legislative body merely formally levels charges against a high official of government. Impeachment does NOT necessarily mean removal from office; it is only a formal statement of charges, like an indictment in criminal law, and is thus only the first step towards removal. So, let’s take ALL the steps to throw this despot off his throne!”

All this chaos in Trumpville is enough to send a nun to his knees. So instead of prayer, The Rev. Diana Wheeler, a couple of us Sisters, and some of the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar took to the sidewalks of the Castro to hand out palms to people on PALM SUNDAY. We got a great reception, and everyone had a lovely time.

I can no longer be silent about this, which is ironically why I am promoting THE SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL. How about THAT segue, folks?! But seriously, the Silent Film Festival is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about silent film as an art form and as a culturally valuable historical record. Throughout the year, SFSFF produces events that showcase important titles from the silent era, often in restored or preserved prints, with live musical accompaniment by some of the world’s finest practitioners of the art of putting music to film. Each presentation exemplifies the extraordinary quality that Academy Award-winning film historian Kevin Brownlow calls “live cinema.” I attended their kickoff reception held at McRoskey Mattress Factory in the Castro. This will be their 23rd annual festival. Every year the Festival brings authors, archivists, and filmmakers to the stage to help audiences appreciate the history, preservation, and continuing influence and importance of these early works of cinema art. The event begins May 30 at the Castro Theatre and promises fun at the after-party at the Mattress Factory. silentfilm.org

ART SAVES LIVES studio gallery and show place held the MARCH ARTIST RECEPTION for the public. Artists included Liam Peters, Lisa Feldman Keith, Brandy Harper, Paisha Rochlin, Vincent Escareno, Cass Alecs Leung, Jacqui Ray, Brett Vanhorn, Grasson, Star Mott, Jim Knosp, Michael Fasanella, and studio owner and curator Thomasina DeMaio.

Entertainment was provided with lively dance and vocals by Tribal Baroque, Penny McClish aka Penny Poundcake doing exquisite burlesque, and Kitten on the Keys, who did not have a piano, so it was Kitten on the Ukulele and somewhat naughty vocals. All in all, it was a fabulous evening of art and performance and friends who enjoy art. The art will remain on the wall all month long, so people can pop into the studio at 518 Castro and 18th Streets and enjoy talented artists’ pieces.

Last October, the SAN FRANCISCO GAY MEN’S CHORUS AND OAKLAND INTERFAITH GOSPEL CHOIR traveled to the Deep South for the LAVENDER PEN TOUR. Over the course of 7 days, they made 23 appearances in 9 churches and 5 states and raised more than $100,000 for local LGBTQ+ non-profits along the way. On Maundy Thursday, March 29, they presented “BRIDGES,” a one-night-only musical and emotional extravaganza at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, for a journey through music, stories, experiences, and pictures gathered while on the road. SFGMC’s first-ever public performance was at the candlelight vigil mourning Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk after their assassination in 1978. During that performance, SFGMC sang “Singing for Our Lives,” a protest folk song written by activist and singer/ songwriter Holly Near. For “Bridges,” Near joined SFGMC as a special guest to sing this iconic song about the struggle against injustice, as well as Near’s “I Am Willing.”

PHOTO BY RINK

Other highlights from the tour included such soul-stirring renditions of Avalon’s “Orphans of God,” The Judd’s’ “Love Can Build a Bridge,” “Light” from Next to Normal, Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” and Sara Bareilles’ “Brave.” Act 2 opened with Phillip P. Whitely in drag as Patsy Kline singing “She’s Got You” while pulling various items from her false bosom (a bunch of 45 records, a saw, a rainbow flag, a pitchfork, a golf club, and more). Hysterical! Then, changing the mood radically, SFGMC sang “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor,” the words on the Statue of Liberty by Emma Lazarus (something the Trump administration has blatantly ignored).

And what a treat to have Beach Blanket Babylon’s Misa Malone belting out the inspirational authentic self anthem, “This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman.

Oakland Interfaith sang several traditional Negro Spirituals.

Additionally, SFGMC presented the disturbing California premiere of a brand-new, monumental choral work titled “Seven Last Words of the Unarmed,” by Joel Thompson regarding the fatal shootings of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Kenneth Chamberlain, Amadou Diallo, and John Crawford—using the text structure of Joseph Haydn’s “Seven Last Words of Christ” honoring those wrongfully slain men and tackling the issues of shameful police brutalDennis McMillan (aka Sister Dana) with hostess Miss ity and racism in America. For Shugana, sporting a Star of David on the blue dress, at the the grand finale, all the choruses recent Purim Party held at Spark Arts Gallery in early got us on our feet to rock out to March. The Purim Party was an observance of the Jewish holiday remembering the threat from an oppressive “Everybody Dancing.”

Persian ruler named Haman who had planned to kill all Jews as described in the Biblical Book of Esther.

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LGBTQ News & Calendar for the Bay Area CELEBRATING FOUR DECADES (1978–2018)

Compiled by Blake Dillon

CALENDAR OF UPCOMING EVENTS sfbaytimes.com

5: Thursday SpaceAge NightLife @ California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, 55 Music Concourse Drive. “SpaceAge” is the theme for the evening in the Academy’s ongoing Thursday NightLife series. 6–10pm. calacademy.org Throwback Thursdays at Virgil’s: Ladykiller! @ Virgil’s Sea Room, 3152 Mission Street.

Electroclash is the genre for this edition of the 1st Thursday event, hosted by Yves Saint Croissant with featured musicians, photobooth and cocktail specials. virgilssf.com

6: Friday Queer First Fridays @ Temescal Brewing, 4115 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland. The event, described as an evening of “beers, beats and babes in Oakland,” continues on first Fridays with resident and guest DJs spinning

tunes and menu items by El Sabrosito ES. 5pm. Queer First Fridays on Facebook. temescalbrewing.com EBabes @ The Terrace Room, Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison Street, Oakland. Now in its tenth year, the popular first Friday social networking event for women continues with San Francisco Bay Times co-publishers Betty Sullivan and Jennifer Viegas as featured guests for April. 6-8pm.

Ebabes TGIF on Facebook MAX First Friday TGIF @ E&O Kitchen and Bar, 314 Sutter Street. The gay men’s mixer welcomes members and more for drinks, conversation and making new friends. 6–8:30pm. maxsf.org

7: Saturday Hey Girl Hey First Saturday Party @ ERA Art Bar, 19 Grand Avenue, Oakland. An LGBTQAAIPTS happy hour, meet, mingle and dance.

5–9pm. Hey Girl Hey on Facebook.

2nd Annual Selena Night @ Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th Street. Sing-a-long to Selena during the screening of the 1997 film about the famous Tejana Singer. 2pm matinee screening. 7:30pm evening screening & dance party. brava.org Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza Community Meeting @ Most Holy Redeemer Parish Hall, 100 Diamond Street. The meeting will provide an opportunity for community members to share thoughts and to work with others interested in the project to redesign Harvey Milk Plaza. 3–4:30pm. friendsofharveymilkplaza.org 13th Annual Walk Against Rape @ Starting Point: The Women’s Building, 3543 18th Street.

This annual 2.2 mile walk is sponsored by San Francisco Women Against Rape in support of the movement to end sexual violence.

Registration: 10am. sfwarevents.org or sfwar.org

8: Sunday Woody Guthrie Sing-Along with Robin Flower & Libby McLaren @ Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison Street, Berkeley. 1pm. thefreight.org Sundance Saloon 20th Anniversary Party @ Sundance Saloon, 550 Barneveld Avenue. The party will celebrate 20 years of country-western dancing in the LGBT+ community. 5:30pm: beginning lessons/7:15pm open dancing. sundancesaloon.org Tribute to Charlize Theron: Tully @ SF Film Festival, Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street. Honoree Charlize Theron and director Jason Reitman are expected to attend.

Their conversation will be followed by a first look at the new film Tully.

7:30–9:30pm. sffilm.org Showgirl Sundays: Broadway Divas @ White Horse Bar, 6551 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland. The 2nd Sunday of each month drag show, featuring for April a line-up of Broadway hits. 9:30pm. whitehorsebar.com

9: Monday Drag Queen Story Hour featuring Yves St. Croissant @ Oakland Public Library, Children’s Room, 125 14th Street, Oakland.

Drag queens will read to children in the series created by Michelle Tea and RADAR Productions. 10:30am. oaklandlibrary.org Photosynthesis: Love for All Seasons @ San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, 100 JF Kennedy Drive. The series of artistic illuminations are presented nightly through Spring. Sundown to midnight. conservatoryofflowers.org Sean Penn @ Herbst Theatre, 701 Van Ness Avenue. The 28

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Commonwealth Club will present the Academy Award-winning actor, producer, director and social activist discussing his career and the inspirations for his debut novel Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff. 6:30pm program/7:30pm book signing. commonwealthclub.org

10: Tuesday Youth HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Resource Fair @ SF LGBT Center, 1800 Market Street. Free HIV testing, networking and more plus weekly Meal Night for youth.

5–7pm. youthaidsday.org Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater @ Cal Performances, 101 Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. A performance of classic Ailey works, including Revelations, plus new material addressing current social themes.

8pm. Continues through April 15. calperformances.org Bombshell Betty & Her Burlesqueteers @ Elbo Room, 647 Valencia Street. An evening of burlesque with the local troupe.

8:30pm. elbo.com

11: Wednesday Castro Farmers’ Market @ 16th and Beaver Streets. The Castro neighborhood’s Farmers’ Market has begun a new season with fresh veggies, fruits, crafts and artisan-made goodies. 4–8pm. Castro Farmers’ Market on Facebook Fags in the Fastlane The Movie Screening @ Elbo Room, 647 Valencia Street. The evening includes a screening of the camp and crazy rock and roll road movie plus performances by El Vez, The Devil-ettes, Kitten on the Keys and Mama Celeste. 8:45pm. elbo.com Queraoke - Miss Thing Can Sing! @ El Rio, 3158 Mission. A weekly event with rotating hosts (queers and queens) as well as laughter and song. 9pm. elriosf.com

12: Thursday Queer Slam Poetry Competition @ SF LGBT Center, 1800 Market Street. The event will present an intergenerational dialogue exploring storytelling through literary elements and artistic expression with prizes to be awarded.

6–8:30pm. sfcenter.org Serving Up the Ace with Billie Jean King & Kate Kendell @ Brava Theater Center, 2781 4th Street. Billing Jean King in coversation with Kate Kendell followed by a screening of Battle of the Sexes. 7pm:VIP reception; 7:30pm: program. brava.org Discriminating Sex: Making the American “Oriental” @ GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th Street. Historian Amy Sueyoshi will discuss how the evolution of gender

SAVE THESE DATES SATURDAY, APRIL 15

LGBT Community Center Soiree FRIDAY, APRIL 20

Donna Sachet’s Songs for No Reason SATURDAY, APRIL 21

APIOWTC Annual Lunar New Year Banquet SUNDAY, MAY 6

Maitri’s BLISS FRIDAY, MAY 11

Our Family Coalition Gala SATURDAY, MAY 19

NCLR Anniversary Celebration SATURDAY, JUNE 23

Pride Brunch SUNDAY, JUNE 24

SF Pride Parade SUNDAY, JULY 15

AIDS Walk AUGUST 2-5

Lazy Bear Weekend SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9

Oakland Pride SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6

Horizons Annual Gala SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7

Castro Street Fair & sexual freedoms in San Francisco in the early 20th century was paralleled by the archetypal “Oriental” stereotypes. 7–9pm. glbthistory.org

13: Friday Surrounded by Beauty Exhibit Opening Reception @ Harvey Milk Photo Center, 50 Scott Street. San Francisco Street Photography Group (SFSP) will host a reception for its second exhibit at the Harvey Milk Photo Center. 5:30– 8pm. Continues through May 12. sanfranciscostreet.photography.com Love and Errors Book Release Party @ Beat Museum, 540 Broadway. Queer writer and performer Kimberly Dark will present her first collection of Poetry, Love and Errors. 7pm. kerouac.com San Francisco Bay Area Queer Contra Dance @ First Unitarian Church, 685 14th Street, Oakland. Gender-free dancing with no partner necessary. 8–11pm. lcfd.org

14: Saturday Tamales con Pollo Fundraiser @ Beaux, 2344 Market Street. The event will launch a new monthly benefit for the Imperial Court’s Monarchs Charity Fund and other non-profits. 3–6pm. imperialcouncilsf.org Laurel Book Store Saturday Events @ Laurel Book Store, 1423 Broadway, Oakland. 1pm: Midday Femme Mayhem: Love and Errors Book Launch; 3pm: Ruth Clein: Author of Ramblings of a Recovering Heterosexual; 7pm: Dancing Girl Press Poetry Night with Luiza FlynnGoodlett, Alison Moncrieff, and Cathryn Shea. laurenbookstore.com 9th Annual Castro Country Club Pageant @ Everett Middle School, 450 Church Street. A new Miss/Mr Castro Country Club will be crowned while Sister Roma and Miss Ethylina Canne serve as emcees.

6:30–10pm. castrocountryclub.org

15: Sunday 2018 SF International Film Festival Award Ceremony & Screening @ Castro Theatre, 490 Castro Street. The event includes the presentation of the George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award and a screening of End Game, the most recent documentary by awardees Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman.

Way Bay Exhibit @ BAMPFA (UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Arthive), 2155 Center Street, Berkeley. The exhibit is a sweeping exploration of creativity through art, film, poetry and performance as expressed in diverse communities of the Bay Area during the past two centuries. Thursday–Sunday through June 3. bampfa.org

Check Out the New Personals Section for LGBTQ Singles: BayTimesDating.com

16: Monday Q Series: The Criminalization of Queer People @ Strut, 470 Castro St. The Horizons Foundation’s event examines why queer people are still criminalized today, who is affected, and how queer lives can be rebuilt. 6–9pm. horizonsfoundation.org Mister Sister Mondays @ Midnight Sun, 4067 18th Street.

Rupaul’s Drag Race RUviewing Party.

9pm–2am. midnightsunsf.com

17: Tuesday Queer Words: In Conversation with Natasha Dennerstein @ Folio Books, 3957 24th Street. Celebrating National Poetry Month, the evening will feature Australian-born poet Natasha Dennerstein reading from her several books. 7–8pm. foliosf.com You Sa Ho Bingo with Holotta & Saki @ Club 1220, 1220 Pine Street, Walnut Creek. Drag Bingo hosted by Holotta Tymes and Saki Samora, every 3rd Tuesday. 7pm. club1229.com

18: Wednesday Dining Out for Life Oakland Kick-off Party @ The Hive, 2335 Broadway, Oakland. Hosted by Project Open Hand with Drake’s Dealership and Calavera, the event celebrates the expansion of Dining Out for Life to Oakland. 5–8pm. openhand.org The Laramie Project @ Left Coast Theatre Co., 156 Eddy Street.

The play by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project will be presented by Left Coast Theatre Co. 8–10pm. lctc-sf.org S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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NEWS (continued from page 3) alarming statistics about the LGBTQ aging experience. The survey finds that half (52%) of LGBTQ adults said they fear discrimination in health care as they age. And 88% of LGBTQ older people want providers in long-term care (LTC) facilities who are specifically trained to meet LGBT patient needs. One-third of LGBTQ elder Americans stated that they were “somewhat worried” regarding having to hide their LGBTQ identity in order to have access to suitable housing. Black and Latino LGBTQ adults reported the greatest concerns about future family support, social supports, and discrimination within LTC facilities. edgemedianetwork.com GetEQUAL Releases Closing Statement On March 27, GetEQUAL Executive Director Gaby Garcia-Vera released a “Closing Statement” mentioning that the organization is shutting down. Previously, the organization had fired its Movement Building and Campaign Manager, Aaryn Lang, a black trans activist.

Lang, in turn, accused GetEQUAL of misogyny and anti-black transphobia, and urged followers to #BoycottGetEqual. Lang also made three demands of the organization: that they pay her three months of severance, overhaul the

board, and donate to several black queer organizations including the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, Trans Sistas of Color Collective, Black Queer and Intersectional Columbus, and No Justice No Pride. Garcia-Vera’s statement reads, in part, “I do not believe GetEQUAL can recover from this controversy. Our financial assets are barely sufficient to cover our operations for more than a few weeks. Our board of directors has collapsed. Raising new revenue and rebuilding the board would be a tremendous challenge even if we weren’t in the middle of a social media storm. But even more importantly, I fear that our capacity to advance our mission has been undermined. GetEQUAL has always been the left of the left, the voice of the voiceless, and I don’t feel we can effectively play that role when there has been so much division and hurt among the communities that we mobilize and represent. And so, with a heavy heart, I have begun taking steps to close GetEQUAL, this organization that I love and cherish.”

The entire statement is online: (docs.google.com/document/ d/1bUtzMtRyqegOwfujdS7vSPEtteVYO_ viLU_q6n_IMEQ/edit). washingtonblade.com

Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN Argue Against Transgender Military Ban Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN argued before a federal district court on March 27 that the Trump Administration’s plan to ban transgender people from serving openly in the U.S. Armed Services is so clearly unconstitutional that it should be permanently blocked. It was the first such argument among the four lawsuits challenging the ban and came just five days after the White House released its so-called “plan” for implementing the discriminatory and harmful ban. The argument before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington follows four U.S. district court rulings and two federal appellate court rulings that granted and preserved preliminary injunctions against enforcement of the ban. Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN, joined by the State of Washington, are the first to argue that the military ban developed in response to President Trump’s July 26, 2017, tweets should be stopped permanently.

“The president’s tweets utterly devastated me.

I felt as if the floor had fallen away beneath my feet,” said Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN plaintiff Conner Callahan, a 29-year-old public safety officer at a North Carolina College who

wants to enlist. “I know about sacrifice: I’ve sacrificed a lot to live as my authentic self and I am willing to sacrifice even more for my country. But because of this ruling, I’ve been forced to consider a future where I am unable to serve in the military. We need a definitive ruling from the court to allow me to pursue the career I am fully fit and qualified to pursue.” lambdalegal.org Human Rights Campaign Lobbies for Equality Act Hundreds of HRC’s members are fanning out across Capitol Hill to advocate for the Equality Act, which would provide consistent and explicit nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people nationwide. HRC notes that currently 244 bipartisan members of Congress, 198 in the House and 46 in the Senate, have co-sponsored the Equality Act. “That’s incredible momentum, and we have to keep building towards full federal equality for the LGBTQ community,” said David Stacy, HRC Government Affairs Director. “Our members and supporters are also calling on Congress to take action on our other legislative priorities: a clean DREAM Act and common-sense gun safety legislation.” hrc.org

KAPLAN (continued from page 6)

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help them with their cannabis raid! At the time I said, and I continue to advocate, that it is insane to focus armed federal enforcement response against licensed cannabis facilities instead of using them to go after gun violence.

all know that our community is not completely free of sociopaths or mental misfits.

was a particularly supportive mentor. “Paul was especially helpful because he is a hands-on teacher who is dedicated to the success of his students,” recalled Citabria “He can always be relied upon to provide sound advice and extra cheerleading.”

So, what are the solutions? At the federal level we must ban assault weapons, implement universal background checks, and redirect federal resources to shutting down illegal gun access. More guns in our schools, such as arming teachers, is not the answer! And, since we know we can’t just rely on federal action, we must also continue to work for local action as well. Oakland, for example, should prioritize our own law enforcement resources to stopping gun violence and shutting down illegal gun sources, including: • responding immediately to notifications of shootings; • using technology and community relations effectively to identify and shut down sources of illegal guns; • enforcing the requirement that everyone (including law enforcement) not leave guns unsecured where they can easily be stolen; • and retaining the pilot program I fought for and won in the previous budget, to have our police respond immediately when they receive notification of shootings, and to collect and trace evidence such as shell casings.

I stand in solidarity with our youth and will continue to fight for common sense gun laws.

Councilmember At-L arge Rebecca Kaplan was elected in 2008 to ser ve as Oakland’s citywide C o u n c ilm e m be r; sh e wa s re - el ec t ed i n 2016.

She also serves on the Board of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), and as the Chair of the Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC).

Instead of those items, let’s focus on the April 1 presidential election in Costa Rica, where the good guy beat the antigay guy by an unexpectedly large 61–39 margin. And why do we care about Costa Rican politics? Because the election was to a large extent fought over the issue of gay marriage. In January, the Inter-American Court, a regional human rights authority, ruled in favor of marriage equality in a decision that a renegade Costa Rican bureaucrat declined to recognize.

Since one of the presidential candidates was a hard line conservative, and the other was a center leftist, the marriage issue dominated the campaign.

Since polls showed 70 percent of the public opposed same-sex marriage, and since the race seemed tight, GLBT activists had their fingers crossed, but were ready for any outcome. The 20-point victory by Carlos Alvarado Quesada seemed to justify Costa Rica’s reputation as a modern, tolerant, progressive state. He beat Alvarado Munoz, an evangelical TV personality known for religious dance songs (my source is France 24). Upon defeat, Munoz reportedly sank to his knees and raised his arms before his weeping supporters.

Slouching Towards Mar-a-Lago You know, this sort of thing—the weeping supporters, the crazy candidate—it isn’t funny anymore. I was laughing when I wrote it, but then I glanced up to see Trump and the Easter bunny on TV. I had the captions running, so I was able to read that we’re keeping the White House in “tip top shape,” and sometimes we’re calling it “tippy top shape,” and I just want to scream. This blithering idiot is inhabiting the White House—or whatever it’s called. How many more months did we calculate? How long will this nightmare go on?

How many times will I have to make depressing allusions to The Second Coming in my column headlines? arostow@aol.com

After getting the Whole Foods contract, Andreas did a Kickstarter campaign to get a chocolate coating and cooling tunnel because she could no longer keep up with demand by hand.

She successfully raised $33,000 dollars. A few years later, she received a United States Small Business Administration 7(a) loan from Wells Fargo, which allowed her to buy a former boxing gym and build it into her own custom commercial bakery. Wooden Table Baking finally had a “home” and no longer needed to worry about paying rising rents.

Andreas and Citabria give back by supporting local organizations that are doing great work in communities that are important to them. Wooden Table Baking donates cookies to events and helps with cross promotion for causes ranging from the East Oakland Youth Development Center to Abrazo Queer Tango.

Wooden Table Baking recently went through the process to become a certified Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual Transgender Business Enterprise (LGBTBE) through the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). They have also become members of the local LGBT Chamber, the Golden Gate Business Association (GGGBA). “We’ve experienced a lot of support here in the Bay Area,” Andreas said. “We are lucky to live in an open culture where our identities are not a barrier to our growth.”

Her business debuted at number 49 on the top 50 LGBTQOwned Businesses in San Francisco Business Times’ “Business of Pride” issue for 2017.

Citabria acknowledged that there are both advantages and challenges to working with one’s spouse: “It’s important to make boundaries around personal time. Sometimes it’s hard to know when to stop talking about the business.” Andreas’ advice more generally for someone thinking of starting a business is simply, “Love your product and the people you work with.

Make it the best you can.”

Wooden Table Baking’s treats can be found not only in high end grocery stores, delis, and coffee shops, but also online.

They ship gift boxes all over the country. Wooden Table Baking is also able to provide large custom orders for weddings, parties, and events.

For more information: http://www.eathomegrown.com/

KIT’N KITTY’S

QUEER POP QUIZ ANSWER (Question on pg 21) C) National Organization for Women The "Lavender Menace" was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the National Organization for Women’s then President Friedan’s exclusion of lesbians and lesbian issues at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970.

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who has been verbally abused by her father all evening. He asks her, with the same innocence and confidence he had when he questioned Bonnie about Pete, why she absorbs all of the hate. Her response is absolutely heartbreaking, but it also captures the same despair Charley feels. It is an extraordinary moment, as moving as a later scene where Charley breaks into a house and quietly observes what it must be like to live as a normal, happy family.

almost a century ago. Aesthetically, these works are masterpieces, but perhaps they represent something more. Like all great works of art, they transcend their historical moment and give us insights about both our present and our future.”

The majority of Precisionist works were created during the tumultuous period between the World Wars, decades when the country’s new technologies and industries were met with multiple and contradictory responses in the arts, literature, and popular culture. As for today, there was a general excitement in the United States about technology’s capacity to engender opportunity and improve the conditions of daily life, yet these attitudes coexisted with fears that it would supplant human labor and deaden the natural rhythms of life. Precisionist artists reflected such contradictions and complexities in their work, capturing a sense of the beauty and the coldness, the sublimity and the strangeness of the mechanistic societies in which they lived.

When Charley later ends up at a homeless shelter and meets Silver (Steve Zahn), an addict who offers him a place to stay for a night, Charley responds with the resourcefulness he developed while also showing how hardened he has become.

By the time Lean on Pete ends, Charley is a different person, and viewers will ache at how he adapted to all of the dramatic changes he has endured.

“The responses to industrialization in these works are particularly fascinating and relevant to contemporary audiences who find themselves in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution,” says Emma Acker, Associate Curator of American art for FAMSF. “They hold up a mirror to our own complicated responses to the legacies of industrialization and technological progress as we continue to navigate our relationships with the ever-multiplying devices that surround us and shape our daily existence.”

Haigh may try to jerk tears from viewers throughout this bleak but tender drama, and the filmmaker does tend to telegraph when something bad is about to happen, but Lean on Pete never feels manipulative. Audiences will likely be as attached to this bittersweet film as Charley is to his horse.

Precisionism emerged in America in the teens and f lourished during the 1920s and 1930s. The style combined realist imagery with abstracted forms and married the influence of avant-garde European art styles such as Purism, Cubism, and Futurism with American subject matter. Artists associated with the style typically produced highly structured, geometric compositions with smooth surfaces and lucid forms to create a streamlined, “machined” aesthetic, with themes ranging from the urban and industrial to the pastoral.

© 2018 Gary M. Kramer

Masterpieces of machine age Modernism are on loan from more than 50 institutions from across the U.S., including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Harvard Art Museums, National Gallery of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, and many others.

Gary M. Kramer is the author of “Independent Queer Cinema: Reviews and Interviews,” and the co-editor of “Directory of World Cinema: Argentina.”

Follow him on Twitter @garymkramer

deyoungmuseum.org

SISTER DANA (continued from page 27) It was GOOD FRIDAY, so some of us spiritual folk wanted to celebrate by executing very formal blessings in the Castro. After appropriate liturgical consecration, we spray painted stencils emblazoned with pink “JOY” on sidewalks where past murders, gay bashings, and violence had occurred—sprinkled with pink, purple, silver, and gold glitter. Our little gang consisted of the Rev. Diana Wheeler, Father Alan Young, Sister MaeJoy B. Withu, Castro Community on Patrol volunteer Alex Upchurch, Krewe de Kinque Queen Miss Chief, and others. The Castro is now thoroughly blessed!

THE SISTERS OF PERPETUAL INDULGENCE offered to the public their egg-celent 39th anniversary EASTER IN THE PARK: Sacred Jesters, Wise Fools (because it was also April Fools’ Day) in Hellman Hollow of Golden Gate Park. The day began at 10 am with the family-friendly, traditional family values Children’s Easter (which included an egg hunt, games, and face painting for the little ones). Then at noon the PG portion started where a stage had been set up. The show opened with emcees Kit Tapata & Jimmy Strano introducing Tribal Baroque. Then Krewe de Kinque King Gooch & Queen Miss Chief took the stage. Electric Spectrum Circus performed with a loop-de-loop hoop show. Her Most Imperial Majesty, The Razor-Tongue Beacon of Hope, Unity, Sass & Service, Reigning Empress Pollo Del Mar and His Most Imperial Majesty, The Teal Mariachi, Golden Bear, Protector of the People Emperor, The Reigning Emperor, Leandro Gonzales took the stage, with Emperor Gonzales having already been sainted by The Sisters.

The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess spoke and brought on Sister Roma & Sister Dana to judge the Easter Bonnet Contest.

Queen Dilly Dally and her puppet gave us “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. Then Breanna Sinclaire served

us with her gorgeous high soprano operatic singing. Next, the Sisters held Saintings of living saints in the community, distributed Grants to worthy charities, and took their solemn Vows in unison. Juanita More and Carletta Sue Kay were next, followed by RuPaul Drag Race Queen winner Honey Mahogany with her amazing, astounding coloratura soprano.

Roma & I then judged the Foxy Mary & Hunky Jesus Contests. The Foxy Mary crown went to an older woman, “been there, done that, for centuries,” who was looking to hook up with an older Joseph. The Hunky Jesus title was whittled down to a battle between “Gun Control Jesus” and “Puerto Rican Jesus.”

The crowd decided the winner was P.R. Jesus, especially after he tossed many, many rolls of paper towels into the audience! Mark Leno, candidate for our proudly loudly openly gay next Mayor of San Francisco, spoke of his many years fighting for us Sisters to stage an annual Easter party in a park (including the infamous battle with the radical Catholics for us nuns to shut down the Castro and hold our celebration), as well as other ways he has been our savior, helping our queer community. He›s the best! And the festivities came to a boisterous booming end with the wonderful Trashkan Marchink Band. It was another fabulous Easter in the Park celebration!

Sister Dana sez, “Spring has sprung, so why not spring on over to these upcoming fun events!”

OPENHOUSE is excited to invite you to the annual SPRING FLING celebration on April 8, 11 am to 5 pm at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, 600 Stockton Street. Come out for a fabulous brunch and program honoring LGBTQ older people and those fighting to keep them central in our lives and our community. Stay out to enjoy the Tea Dance on the gorgeous Ritz Terrace Courtyard. openhouse-sf.org/fling

Join NCLR on April 12 at the Main Stage of the Brava Theater, 2781 24th Street, for an intimate dialogue between two extraordinary women who have each made their mark for equality on the courts. Kate Kendell, Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, will interview sports icon and social justice pioneer Billie Jean King at 7:30 pm, with a special screening of the film Battle of the Sexes following at 8 pm. The film tells the story of the fabled 1973 tennis match between Ms. King and chauvinistprovocateur Bobby Riggs, and stars Emma Stone and Steve Carrell. nclrrights.org Come to a reception featuring Bay Area artists and their take on “NITE LIFE” at the office of Senator Scott Wiener on April 13, 5 to 7:30 pm, City Hall, 455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 14800. Curated by Joseph Abbati, these artists come from all different backgrounds, ages, sexual orientations, countries of origin, races, and artistic styles.

They represent all of the incredible diversity of the San Francisco Bay Area, and their pieces are just as diverse. Free, but you need to register at eventbrite.com/orderconfirmation/43263706912 THE RICHMOND/ERMET AID FOUNDATION (REAF) proudly presents DONNA SACHET’S SONGS FOR NO REASON: The Big Gay Comedy Extravaganza on April 20, 8 pm at the Russian Center of San Francisco, 2450 Sutter Street. This unique collaboration builds on the popularity and following of the annual Songs of the Season with its theatricality and signature humor, while engaging the professional experience and entertainment expertise of REAF, best known for their annual “Help is on the Way” concert and gala. reaf.org SF LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER will present the annual SOIREE on April 14, 5 to 11:30 pm at Terra Gallery, 511 Harrison Street.

Juanita MORE will once again serve as entertainment director for

this evening of wining and dining and dancing and enjoying entertainment. sfcenter.org Sister Dana sez, “DarnOld Trump has announced he will DEMAND immigrants and communities of color reveal their citizenship in the next U.S. Census. This means immigrants and communities of

color will feel disempowered from responding to the Census; they won’t be counted when new Congressional districts are drawn; Repugnicans can use this sensitive information for their relentless voter suppression operation; and Democrats will disproportionately be underrepresented in Congress for a decade. RESIST!”

S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

APR IL 5 , 2018

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