10/11/17 V8i41

local name global coverage October 11, 2017 vol. 8 // issue 41

s o u t h

f l o r i d a

g a y

n e w s

Our Past Unveiled SFGN celebrates LGBT History Month Pages 20, 24 - 30

Second Gay Lauderdale Murder in Less than 60 Days Unsolved

Film Series Explores Gay Lives on National Coming Out Day

Page 10

Page 34

SFGN EXCLUSIVE: Roger Stone Defends His Record on Gay Rights • page 19

SouthFloridaGayNews

soflagaynews

SFGN.com

NEWS highlight

SouthFloridaGayNews.com

Pope Francis. Photo credit: CNN.

October 11, 2017 • Volume 8 • Issue 41

2520 N. Dixie Highway • Wilton Manors, FL 33305 Phone: 954-530-4970 Fax: 954-530-7943

Publisher • Norm Kent Norm.Kent@sfgn.com

Chief Executive Officer • Pier Angelo Guidugli Associate Publisher / Executive Editor • Jason Parsley Jason.Parsley@sfgn.com

Editorial

Pope Francis Says Trans People Will Cause Infertility

Art Director • Brendon Lies Artwork@sfgn.com Digital Content Director • Brittany Ferrendi Webmaster@sfgn.com Copyeditor • Kerri Covington Arts/Entertainment Editor • JW Arnold JW@prdconline.com Social Media Manager • Tucker Berardi TBerardi2014@fau.edu Food/Travel Editor • Rick Karlin Gazette News Editor • Michael d'Oliveira HIV Editor • Sean McShee Senior Photographer • J.R. Davis JRDavis12000@hotmail.com

Senior Features Correspondents Jesse Monteagudo • Tony Adams

Correspondents

Dori Zinn • Richard • Donald Cavanaugh • Christiana Lilly • Denise Royal • Sean McShee • David-Elijah Nahmod

Contributing Columnists

Brian McNaught • Dana Rudolph • Ric Reily • Terri Schlichenmeyer

Brittany Ferrendi

Associate Photographers

Carina Mask • Pompano Bill • Steven Shires

T

ransgender, non-binary people and human development and relations.” their “utopia of the neutral” will make In response, LGBT Catholic groups such as people infertile, Pope Francis claims.

New Ways Ministry claim the pope needs to Advances in “biomedical technology” become more educated on gender. apparently “risk dismantling the source of "In his comments about gender identity, energy that fuels the alliance Francis has shown that he between men and women and does not really understand “We know renders them fertile,” he said the biology or the psychology when speaking to the Pontifical from history of gender identity," Executive Academy for Life, which is the Director of NWM Francis that people Vatican’s bioethics advisory DeBernardo told NBC are going board.

News. "He and others in He stands against anyone the Vatican really need to to live their attempting to get rid of gendereducate themselves about truth with associated behaviors. new scientific developments or without “Rather than contrast in the area of gender before technological making any statements about negative interpretations of sexual differences … they want technologies that help people solutions.” to cancel these differences transition."

- Marianne out altogether, proposing Dignity USA Executive Duddy-Burke techniques and practices that Director Marianne DuddyMEMBER Dignity USA render them irrelevant for Burks agreed.

Executive Director MEMBER

"I think Pope Francis doesn't understand how his comments increase the vulnerability of transgender people to many forms of discrimination," Duddy-Burke said. "We know from history that people are going to live their truth with or without technological solutions, and for those who are able to take advantage of technologies to confirm their true identities should be embraced as a blessing."

Last year the Pope made it clear he did not support lessons about gender in schools, calling it a “war against marriage.”

"This is against nature. It is one thing when someone has this tendency ... and it is another matter to teach this in school," he said. "To change the mentality — I call this ideological colonization.”

DeBernardo also spoke out about these claims at the time, simply stating: "Nobody chooses a gender identity. They discover it."

Cover: A diving contest at the Marlin Beach Hotel. Courtesy of the Marlin Beach Hotel.

OUR Other Publications Get yours, on racks now!

MEMBER

Associated Press

Sales & Marketing

Director of Sales & Marketing • Mike Trottier Mike.Trottier@sfgn.com Sales Manager • Justin Wyse Justin.Wyse@sfgn.com Advertising Sales Associate • Edwin Neimann Edwin.Neimann@sfgn.com Sales Assistant / Classifieds • Tim Higgins Tim.Higgins@sfgn.com Distribution Services • Rocky Bowell National Advertising Rivendell Media 212-242-6863 sales@rivendellmedia.com

Accounting Services by CG Bookkeeping Printing by Sun Coast Press

SFGN Winner of & 3 Florida Press Club Awards And runner-up for

NLGJA Journalist of the Year South Florida Gay News is published weekly. The opinions expressed in columns, stories, and letters to the editor do not represent the opinions of SFGN, or the Publisher. You should not presume the sexual orientation of individuals based on their names or pictorial representations. Furthermore the word “gay” in SFGN should be interpreted to be inclusive of the entire LGBT community.

All of the material/columns that appears in print and online, including articles used in conjunction with the AP, is protected under federal copyright and intellectual property laws, and is jealously guarded by the newspaper. Nothing published may be reprinted in whole or part without getting written consent from the Publisher, at his law office, at Norm@NormKent.com. SFGN, as a private corporation, reserves the right to enforce its own standards regarding the suitability of advertising copy, illustrations and photographs.

Copyright © 2017 South Florida Gay News.com, Inc.

MEMBER

2

•

1 0 .11.2017

NEWS national

Vegas Massacre Claims Gay Utah Man Donyae Lewis

T

his past Sunday in Las Vegas marked the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

The shooter opened fire at a country music festival on the city’s strip, killing 59 people and injuring more than 500 others.

While the country tries to cope with this act of terrorism, families are grieving as victims are being identified. One of those victims includes one half of a gay Utah couple.

Cameron Robinson, 28, was one of the 59 victims killed Sunday as he was struck in the neck, while attending the festival.

Robert Eardley, Robinson’s boyfriend, was also injured at the event but is expected to survive.

Eardley told FOX 13 of his late lover, describing him as someone his loved ones will never forget.

“He was so kind and sweet and caring,” Eardley said. “He was quiet and shy but once you got to know him he was goofy and fun and so enjoyable. His family and friends meant the world to him. His loss will leave a scar on us all. He will be missed greatly.”

A GoFundMe page has been created to help support Robinson’s funeral expenses, which as of Tuesday evening exceeded $16,000. On the page, friends and family describe the late legal records resident as a loving soul, who was the life of the party.

“Between his love to cook and amazing dance moves there was always good times,” the page says. “He was full of life and love and so much passion. He loved his family, friends and everyone he came in contact with.”

10.11.2017 •

3

WHAT IS GENVOYA®?

GENVOYA is a 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in people 12 years and older who weigh at least 77 pounds. It can either be used in people who are starting HIV-1 treatment and have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements. These include having an undetectable viral load (less than 50 copies/mL) for 6 months or more on their current HIV-1 treatment. GENVOYA combines 4 medicines into 1 pill taken once a day with food. GENVOYA is a complete HIV-1 treatment and should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines.

GENVOYA does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. To control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses, you must keep taking GENVOYA. Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about how to reduce the risk of passing HIV-1 to others. Always practice safer sex and use condoms to lower the chance of sexual contact with body fluids. Never reuse or share needles or other items that have body fluids on them.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

What is the most important information I should know about GENVOYA?

GENVOYA may cause serious side effects: • Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. GENVOYA is not approved to treat HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV and stop taking GENVOYA, your HBV may suddenly get worse.

Do not stop taking GENVOYA without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health.

Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys.

If you develop new or worse kidney problems, they may tell you to stop taking GENVOYA. • Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.

• Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

The most common side effect of GENVOYA is nausea. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or don’t go away.

•

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking GENVOYA? •

•

Who should not take GENVOYA?

Do not take GENVOYA if you take: • Certain prescription medicines for other conditions. It is important to ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist about medicines that should not be taken with GENVOYA. Do not start a new medicine without telling your healthcare provider.

• The herbal supplement St. John’s wort.

• Any other medicines to treat HIV-1 infection.

What are the other possible side effects of GENVOYA?

Serious side effects of GENVOYA may also include: • Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking GENVOYA.

•

•

•

All your health problems. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis virus infection.

All the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements.

Other medicines may affect how GENVOYA works. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist. Ask your healthcare provider if it is safe to take GENVOYA with all of your other medicines.

If you take antacids. Take antacids at least 2 hours before or after you take GENVOYA. If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if GENVOYA can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking GENVOYA. If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Please see Important Facts about GENVOYA, including important warnings, on the following page.

Ask your healthcare provider if GENVOYA is right for you.

GENVOYA.com GENVOYA.com

4

•

GENC0142_B_10x10.75_SouthFloridaGayNews_Darius_r1v1jl.indd 1-2 1 0 .11.2017

GENVOYA does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.

SHOW YOUR

POWER

Take care of what matters most—you. GENVOYA is a 1-pill, once-a-day complete HIV-1 treatment for people who are either new to treatment or people whose healthcare provider determines they can replace their current HIV-1 medicines with GENVOYA.

10/3/17 2:56 PM • 10.11.2017

5

IMPORTANT FACTS This is only a brief summary of important information about GENVOYA® and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment.

(jen-VOY-uh) MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT GENVOYA

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF GENVOYA

GENVOYA may cause serious side effects, including: • Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. GENVOYA is not approved to treat HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking GENVOYA. Do not stop taking GENVOYA without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months.

GENVOYA can cause serious side effects, including: • Those in the “Most Important Information About GENVOYA” section.

• Changes in your immune system.

• New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure.

• Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.

• Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

The most common side effect of GENVOYA is nausea.

These are not all the possible side effects of GENVOYA. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking GENVOYA. Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with GENVOYA.

ABOUT GENVOYA GENVOYA is a prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in people 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 77 pounds and have never taken HIV-1 medicines before. GENVOYA can also be used to replace current HIV-1 medicines for some people who have an undetectable viral load (less than 50 copies/mL of virus in their blood), and have been on the same HIV-1 medicines for at least 6 months and have never failed HIV-1 treatment, and whose healthcare provider determines that they meet certain other requirements.

• GENVOYA does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. Ask your healthcare provider about how to prevent passing HIV-1 to others.

Do NOT take GENVOYA if you: • Take a medicine that contains: alfuzosin (Uroxatral®), carbamazepine (Carbatrol®, Epitol®, Equetro®, Tegretol®, Tegretol-XR®, Teril®), cisapride (Propulsid®, Propulsid Quicksolv®), dihydroergotamine (D.H.E. 45®, Migranal®), ergotamine (Cafergot®, Migergot®, Ergostat®, Medihaler Ergotamine®, Wigraine®, Wigrettes®), lovastatin (Advicor®, Altoprev®, Mevacor®), lurasidone (Latuda®), methylergonovine (Ergotrate®, Methergine®), midazolam (when taken by mouth), phenobarbital (Luminal®), phenytoin (Dilantin®, Phenytek®), pimozide (Orap®), rifampin (Rifadin®, Rifamate®, Rifater®, Rimactane®), sildenafil when used for lung problems (Revatio®), simvastatin (Simcor®, Vytorin®, Zocor®), or triazolam (Halcion®).

• Take the herbal supplement St. John’s wort.

• Take any other HIV-1 medicines at the same time.

•

GET MORE INFORMATION • • •

This is only a brief summary of important information about GENVOYA. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more.

Go to GENVOYA.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5 If you need help paying for your medicine, visit GENVOYA.com for program information.

BEFORE TAKING GENVOYA Tell your healthcare provider if you: • Have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis infection.

• Have any other medical condition.

• Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

• Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take: • Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

• Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist about medicines that should not be taken with GENVOYA.

HOW TO TAKE GENVOYA • •

GENVOYA is a complete one pill, once a day HIV-1 medicine.

Take GENVOYA with food.

GENVOYA, the GENVOYA Logo, LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE, SHOW YOUR POWER, GILEAD, and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. All other marks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. Version date: April 2017 © 2017 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. GENC0142 06/17

6 GENC0142_B_10x10.75_SouthFloridaGayNews_Darius_r1v1jl.indd • 1 0 .11.2017

3

10/3/17 2:56 PM

NEWS national

LGBT Philanthropy Studied in National Survey Ryan Yousefi

T

he Pride Center has announced that organizations after the 2016 election results. they are joining forces with a handful The survey should only take 15 minutes of other organizations to help conduct but will help organizations, such as The a national research project whose main Pride Center, better understand how our purpose will be to explore how the 2016 community is feeling and what they are election has shaped LGBT individuals' views doing in their respective communities.” and civic engagement. At the heart of the The survey takes a deep dive into what project is an online survey being conducted views and values are most important to

by The LGBT Giving Project in hopes of LGBT members, as well as what actions, if gathering specific information from LGBT any, people have taken since the November community members to better understand vote. According to The Pride Center, all your the values, interests, and responses are confidential and philanthropic engagement anonymous, so don’t worry “The survey of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and about being contacted for should only transgender individuals. follow up questions, or getting take 15 minutes According to Roger Boo, thousands of emails: Only your but will help Chief Executive at The Pride time and your answers are organizations, Center, this survey is just the needed. most recent attempt by the Many of the questions in the such as The Pride organizations involved to better survey simply ask participants Center, better understand the election's how certain changes in understand how impact on the LGBT community. our community is legislation that directly impacts “Over the past two years, The their lives have impacted their feeling and what Pride Center has participated mood, while a much larger they are doing in in a national research portion of the survey asks their respective project for Centrelink, the people where they have donated communities.” national association for LGBT money and time since Donald - Robert Boo community centers, and the Trump took office, if they have The Pride Center CEO Equality Federation. The project at all, and why they chose focused on increasing the LGBT those causes. The purpose of philanthropy to LGBT organizations,” Boo these questions is an effort to find out who told SFGN. is supporting LGBT-focused organizations in “We are now participating in this research their fundraising and outreach efforts, and in our community on the impact of views, which organizations are lacking support. civic engagement and giving to LGBT

To take the survey, visit bit.ly/2gsY2ar For more information about the survey, or to find out about what else The Pride Center has going on this month visit www.pridecenterflorida.org

10.11.2017 •

7

LGBTQIA bites

L

Lesbian

Congressman Scalise, Saved by a Lesbian Cop, Addresses Anti-LGBT Hate Group

B

By Ryan Lynch Bisexual

“Bisexual Representation Awards” to recognize on-screen visibility Alex Anders. Courtesy of Youtube.

Steve Scalise (center). Photo: CNN.

Four months after being shot during a Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, Rep. Steve Scalise will give a speech to the Family Resource Center, a group against gay marriage rights. This comes despite the fact that a lesbian police officer tried to protect him after the shooting.

Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner was assigned to protect the practice when shots rang out and injured Scalise

8

•

1 0 .11.2017

and three other people. According to Pink News, Griner was struck in the ankle by a bullet as she pursued shooter, 66-year old James T. Hodgkinson, and later shot him.

Griner was later awarded a Medal of Valor, the highest honor possible for public safety officers, for her efforts.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the FRC is classified as an antiLGBT hate group.

On-screen roles that promote bisexual visibility will get a chance to be honored with a new award starting this year.

The inaugural version of the Bisexual Representation Awards was created by author Alex Anders and according to their website “is given to those who create positive representations of bisexuals in television.”

The 2017 version awarded ‘Orange is the New Black’ as having the best bisexual representation by a TV show.

‘How to Get Away With Murder’ actress

Viola Davis was given the award for best bisexual representation by a female lead and ‘Lucifer’ actor Tom Ellis was given the award for male lead.

For bisexual supporting role representation, ‘Orange is the New Black’ actress Kimiko Glenn was given the one for females while ‘Shadowhunter’ actor Harry Shum Jr. was awarded in the male category.

According to the Huffington Post, 4,000 people voted in the first edition of the Awards.

LGBTQIA bites

N

Non-binary

Android, Apple Users to get Gender Neutral Emojis

Apple phone users who use emojis will have a more diverse set to pick from on Oct. 9.

Both Apple and Android plan to release gender-neutral emojis for their devices during this year. While Apple will release them with their latest IOS update, Android will have theirs at an unannounced point later this year.

According to Pink News, the Emojis will include five separate skin colors and

feature a child, middle aged and elderly versions. Apple previously included the rainbow pride flag with their Apple 10 update in 2016, in a package of 70 emojis.

Adobe font designer Paul D. Hunt proposed the addition of the emojis in October 2016. In his proposal, Hunt said the emojis could “serve as gender inclusive alternatives” to the faces that were currently available at the time.

Accounting and Tax Services Timothy S. Hart, CPA Managing Partner

2929 East Commercial Boulevard, Penthouse D | Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33308 954-202-9770 | 954-202-9777 Fax THart@R3Accounting.com | www.R3Accounting.com

Call or Come In Today

954.522.3800 www.PallantInsurance.com

Your Pallant Insurance Team

We’ll Handle It!

1800 N.E. 26th Street · Fort Lauderdale, FL 33305

FREE Policy Review FREE Quotes HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE

HURRICANE INSURANCE

FLOOD INSURANCE

AUTO INSURANCE

FAST and Courteous Service 10.11.2017 •

9

NEWS local

Second Gay Lauderdale Murder in Less than 60 Days Unsolved Generosity may be one link between the two of them Michael d’Oliveira

T

he murders of Michael Miccio, 60, and Guy Eargle, 68, aren’t linked by police. But friends say the two men shared a generous spirit, and it may have been beneficiaries of that generosity that murdered the two gay men. Police are still investigating their deaths.

According to the Lauderhill Police Department, Miccio, a Fort Lauderdale

Michael Miccio

resident, was killed in September at the 2000 Block of NW 27 Terrace in Lauderhill. Detectives are still declining to comment on the cause and manner of death. “We’re working on some fresh leads right now,” said Detective Edward McCormick.

One friend of Miccio who spoke to SFGN and asked that his name not be

Guy Eargle

Photos courtesy of the Broward Police.

10

•

1 0.11.2017

published, said that he thinks Miccio to the arrest of Miccio’s murderer or might have been killed by someone who murderers. he was giving money to.

Eargle’s murder, which occurred in “He was corny as hell. He was a July, is also still unsolved. Eargle, who sweetheart of a guy. He had a great laugh split his time between South Florida and and a great smile. It’s just a Atlanta was found dead in shame. It’s really horrible,” the house he rented at the said the friend. “He liked 400 block of Southeast 17 younger guys and he liked Avenue in Fort Lauderdale. to embellish a lot. He Police have also declined gave it all. He was a very to reveal details on that generous person.” He said murder. he thought of the book But friends of Eargle, “Midnight in the Garden who was described as a of Good and Evil” when he multi-millionaire, say he heard of Miccio’s murder. was also generous and “I got this vision of . . . a that may have been what young kid on drugs asking caused his killer or killers ‘Daddy’ for money,” he to murder him.

- Friend of said.

“He was generous and Miccio He said he’s also mad wealthy, and unfortunately that the police haven’t that may have led to his released Miccio’s body to the family yet. demise,” Joseph DiCorpo of Atlanta told A $3,000 Crime Stoppers reward will be the Sun Sentinel in July “He made friends given to anyone with information leading too easy.”

“I got this vision of... a young kid on drugs asking ‘Daddy’ for money.”

Anyone with information on the murder of Eargle is asked to call Detective Mark Breen at 954-828-5708 or Detective Jason Wood at 954-828-5344. Anyone with information on Miccio’s case is asked to Call Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477 or email emccormick@lauderhill-fl.gov.

NEWS miami-dade

The National LGBTQ Task Force Celebrates at Miami Gala This year’s theme: freedom, beauty, truth and love Lynare Robbins

T

he National LGBTQ Task Force hosted its 21st annual Miami Gala at the Fontainebleau this past Saturday, Oct. 7. Billed as an evening to celebrate “freedom, beauty, truth and love,” attendees arrived in their best formal attire with an extensive silent auction in place with items donated by close to two hundred companies and organizations.

During the program, 2017 Gala Chair, community activist Josue Santiago, delivered an engaging special thank you song to sponsors such as Wells Fargo, Everlast Productions, Carnival Foundation and Liebe and Seth Gadinsky, by singing a rendition to Nina Simone’s 1965 hit “Feeling Good.”

Although entertainment was plenty at the Gala, the messaging for its cause was quite clear. Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, said of the event, “Inspiration is desperately needed at this time. As a diverse and loving LGBTQ community, we are facing new attempts to roll back our hard-won rights from the highest elected offices in the country. That’s why your support is vital to the Task Force and everyone we care about right now. We are grateful that you are our partners in this work. Freedom, beauty, truth and love guide our work tonight and everyday.”

A call for donations via text was announced during a three-course dinner with donations projected on overhead video screens. Some of the donation messages congratulated the Task Force staff and award honorees, while others read with more personalized messages, such as: “Love Wins,” and “In

honor of Hillary Clinton, our true President of the United States.”

Each year an individual is selected to receive the Eddy McIntyre Community Service Award, named after the late activist and founding board member of the Dade Human Rights Foundation, Eddie McIntyre.

In recognition for their long-standing activism and philanthropic work in the LGBT community, married couple Alberto Arias and Wood Kinnard, were presented with the prestigious award by last years Eddy McIntyre Community Service Award Honoree, Miami Herald journalist Steve Rothaus.

Also honored for their outstanding support and dedication to the LGBT community was Grammy Award-winning singer, actress, songwriter, author, and philanthropist Gloria Estefan, who received the National Leadership Award. Estefan was introduced by Andrea Burns, who starred as Estefan's mother in the original Broadway production of "On Your Feet," and South Florida’s Channel 10 newsperson Louis Aguirre. Following the program, attendees reveled to the pulsating rhythms of DJ AJ Reddy.

The Task Force Gala provides vital funding for organizations serving the South Florida LGBT community as the National LGBTQ Task Force is committed to returning a significant portion of the net proceeds of both the Gala and the Winter Party Festival to local service organizations through a grant making process administered by the Miami Foundation. To date it has awarded more than $2.7 million in grants.

10.11.2017 •

11

NEWS miami-dade

‘Newbie’ Drag Queens Making a Name for Themselves in Miami LGBT Scene Veteran performers like Shelley Novak, Daisy DeadPetals, Athena Dion helped pave the way for newcomers’ success Jose Cassola

T

lo Ivy doesn’t consider herself a “As a young child at age 5, I would dance veteran in the South Florida drag around while wearing my mom’s red scene. But for the last eight years, the pumps,” she laughs. transgender entertainer has been wowing “My drag mother, Dasha Sweetwaters, audiences with her Britney Spears and and I, when we first became friends, she Selena Quintanilla-inspired performances would always nag and nag about how we at Palace Bar, Azucar and Georgie’s Alibi, should try drag and this and that, playing among other venues. around,” Miller continues. “But eventually “I’m not a vet. To me, vets are like TP we started this journey and we both took it Lords, Poizon Ivy, Erika Norell,” said a very serious because deep inside we both humble Ivy. “I’m not a vet yet. I’m still always wanted to show the queen that we learning and I’m still growing.” had hidden inside.”

Ivy started transitioning at 15 and doing For 22-year-old LaDonna Sucia — the drag and “taking it serious by like, 21.” She only newcomer to be nominated for Best says she does see a younger Miami Drag Queen in generation that is coming South Florida Gay News’ “Drag has forward, “which is great,” Best of 2017 list alongside Ivy said. “I’m not going to be long-established queens already young forever and they have TP Lords, Tiffany Fantasia, become a part to keep the legacy going.”

Dion and Tlo Ivy of my life and Athena In the Miami LGBT scene, — the “party is just getting my identity. one group of drag queens started.” have emerged alongside the She considers Miller her It has become long-established Haus of drag mother, as she and an artistic Lords, which include drag Sweetwaters were the ones outlet for me. who showed her what the legend TP Lords, “Dark Beat” I don’t think singer Oba Frank Lords and drag and nightlife scene in Score “startender” Roger Miami was all about. Now, I could ever Lords. The newbies are Sucia can’t imagine doing leave it.” known as the Haus of Kunt, anything else. including star “Kunts” Neon “Drag has already become - LaDonna Sucia miami drag queen Miller, LaDonna Sucia and a part of my life and my Dasha Sweetwaters. identity,” Sucia said. “It has Since this new “Haus” formed, the girls become an artistic outlet for me. I don’t have kept busy, thanks to venues like Score, think I could ever leave it. In 5-10 years, I which hosts Huntee on Sundays; Twist, want to be able to have my own drag queen/ which hosts Pop Mondays; and longtime theatrical production company. Drag and promoter Tony Ferro, who started the theatrics have always gone hand in hand, “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” pool party and I think for a collective of Miami queens and T-dance at the Washington Park Hotel to come together and tell a story is pretty across from Twist on South Beach. While exciting.”

Miller and Sweetwaters owe their drag These newbies wouldn’t be where they success to Miami, the two queens are ready are today if it weren’t for veterans like to leave the Sunshine State for Sin City. Shelley Novak, Daisy DeadPetals, Athena Both are planning to leave for Las Vegas in Dion and Fantasia Royale paving the way October, even starting a GoFundMe page to for them. make it happen.

Novak moved to Miami Beach from Miller says she’s always wanted to Boston in 1992. “My best friend, the artist entertain, “ever since I can remember.”

DEZI, put me in drag in 1992 at Mark

12

•

1 0.11.2017

Daisy Deadpetals (left) with several other Drag Queens at Molto. Photo courtesy of Jose Cassola.

Leventhal’s Tea Dance. The rest is history,” Novak said.

Today, the comic drag queen — known for hosting her annual Shelley Novak Awards, honoring the best in the LGBT community — hosts Karaoke Circus with Karloz Torres every Thursday at Kill Your Idol and once a month hosts bingo at the Standard Hotel, both on Miami Beach.

“You could make a list of every bad thing you can think of in the world and it’s probably already happened to me,” Novak said. “But I don’t dwell on sadness. I’m here to make people smile and laugh because life is too short. I’ll probably still be singing badly and telling unfunny jokes as they seal my coffin up,” she laughs.

DeadPetals, like Novak, has also had a long career in the South Florida drag scene.

She started performing on South Beach in the 1990s with her drag mother, Allanah Starr, then known as club kid Damian DeeVine, and was the champagne girl at the legendary Warsaw Ballroom for the late Gianni Versace’s parties.

“Meeting him and his guests — Sylvester Stallone, Elton John and others — was a huge honor and such a decadent time in the 1990s.”

Then in the early 2000s, DeadPetals became the first drag queen correspondent with her own segment on “Deco Drive.” She did that for three years, reporting in drag and interviewing celebrities, including Meryl Streep, Lil’ Kim, Kevin Klein and others. Today, DeadPetals spends most of her time performing in Wilton Manors.

“I love what I do and have no plans on stopping,” DeadPetals said. “Making a living off one’s art is an amazing privilege and I am very appreciative of that.”

Royale may be relatively new to the South Florida drag scene, having moved from Jacksonville to Miami four years ago.

But the 29-year-old transgender, known for her exceptionally large bust, has been performing in drag for 15 years. She started taking hormones at 16 and learned about drag during her transition.

“I always wanted to transition, but it just so happened I learned about drag and about being a transgendered woman at the same time,” Royale said. “So I did them both and that’s how I started.”

Today, performing mostly in Wilton Manors and the new drag bar, Molto, in South Beach, where she is a “transtender” (a transgender bartender), Royale says she

NEWS miami-dade

YOU’RE ALREADY A PART OF

“My advice to the new girls is to stay humble.

That will take you a long way, because it got me to a lot of places.”

- Fantasia Royale

HISTORY ● Rec

Miami drag queen

is happy and elated to put on a show for her followers. She says being humble is the best way to advance in the drag community.

“My advice to the new girls is to stay humble. That will take you a long way, because it got me to a lot of places,” Royale said. “Even when I didn’t want to, being humble is the best way to have a long and successful career in drag.”

Dion, of Greek heritage, has been doing drag for the last eight years. “Me, Tlo Ivy and Sasha Lords all sort of started around the same time,” she said. “We’re a part of the same group and family.” She said growing up, as a young kid, she was first introduced to and intrigued by drag after watching the movie, “The Birdcage.”

“At a very young age, that was the initial ‘OMG, I like something about this movie,’ and it pushed me to think about drag more and more,” Dion said. “Then obviously there was RuPaul. She was around in the 1990s and she was hot, flashing on my TV screen a lot.”

It was only until Dion moved to Miami and met the local queens — veterans like Adora, Vegas Dion (her drag mother), TP Lords, Erika Norell and Daisy DeadPetals — that

she was really inspired to join them.

“These were the queens who were performing at the time and they were so inspiring,” Dion said. “The way they were hosting, the way the crowd was so engaged.

Those were the queens who really inspired me once I decided to start doing drag.”

Today, Dion is known for hosting the Sunday drag brunch at R House Wynwood and The Lab Fridays at Score. But the work she’s most proud of is what she does outside of the drag scene.

“Outside of the club is what I really want to focus on right now,” she said. “I helped create something called ‘Dream Queens.’ We’re a traveling band of drag queens who want to impact people outside of the club, like burn victims, cancer patients, the homeless.

We visit these less fortunate people and do makeovers and put on a show for them. It’s really inspirational.”

Meanwhile, Dion is happy the drag community in South Florida continues to grow and evolve.

“It’s super cool to see a new wave of drag queens kind of move in and create their own kind of scene in Miami,” she said.

GET INTO THE MOMENT Follow SFGN.com on Facebook and see all the places you’ve been. We post photos from events across South Florida. From business gatherings to political protests, we’re right there with you.

Facebook.com/SouthFloridaGayNews

Let’s make music together!

Have you ever wanted to play something from your favorite musical, or a cover from Glee, or a Chopin nocturne? Whatever your aspirations, from classical to pop, I can help you. I have worked with hundreds of students at all stages of life. Sign up for a free trial lesson to see if I’m the right teacher for you!

Athena Dion (right) sits with patrons.

Photo courtesy of Jose Cassola.

Nathan Johnson Pianist | Teacher

I’m also available for parties!

Halloween, Christmas…and everything in between!

(617) 444-9926 | pianowithnathan@gmail.com www.pianowithnathan.com 10.11.2017 •

13

NEWS coffee and conversations

NEWS national

‘White Boy’ Sings To Seniors

This week’s ‘Coffee and Conversation’ at the Pride Center John McDonald

T

hrough his soft signing and guitar strumming, Matt DeLuca quieted a large group of seniors Tuesday morning at the Pride Center.

The weekly Coffee & Conversation group heard DeLuca sing a solo from the theatrical production of “White Boy” now showing at Fort Lauderdale’s Empire Stage. DeLuca, a 23-year-old actor from upstate New York, sang “Dream,” an original song he wrote.

In “White Boy” DeLuca plays Patrick an awkward kid from Missouri who moves to east Los Angeles and falls in love with a Latinx man.

“His struggle is to find out what he can have out of life and how to get that,” DeLuca said of his character.

DeLuca said he is straight in real life, but has no problems playing a gay character.

“My girlfriend says I can be a convincing actor,” DeLuca said.

“White Boy: An Urban Love Story” plays through Oct. 22 at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive, Fort Lauderdale. For tickets,

Celebrating our 8th Year on Wilton Drive!

New Patients

$69

Matt DeLuca, right, sings “Dream” at Tuesday morning’s Coffee & Conversation program at Pride Center. Photo by John McDonald

visit WhiteBoyThePlay.eventbrite.com.

Elsewhere, Pride Center CEO Robert Boo asked the audience to consider buying an engraved paver at the Equality Park site.

“We’re short a full load,” Boo said on his current brick order.

Tom Pence, A Celebration of Friends President, reminded the group of Saturday’s “coffee klatch” starting at 10:30 a.m. at the Skolnick Center, 800 S.W. 36th Avenue, Pompano Beach.

Next week’s sponsor is health insurer Care Plus. For more information contact Bruce Williams, Senior Services Coordinator at 954-463-9005, ext. 109.

Your smile should leave a great impression!

($295 Value)

Comprehensive Exam, Digital X-Rays & Cleaning*

General & Cosmetic Dentistry New, State of the Art Facilities•Most Insurances Accepted Always Plenty of Free Parking•Located Conveniently on Wilton

954-565-7666 Dr. David K. Warner, DDS, FAGD Fellow, Academy of General Dentistry

1946 Wilton Drive •Wilton Manors • FL 33305 www.IslandCitySmiles.com *In the absense of gum disease. Not applicable to insurance benefits.

14

•

1 0.11.2017

Tallahassee School Yanks Non-Binary Teacher from teaching children Brittany Ferrendi

C

hloe Bressack was supposed to teach create a positive environment of respect and math and science to elementary school understanding.” children. Instead, parental outrage They added: “I understand that students over the teacher’s non-binary identity will not always address me in the way I caused administration to take Bressack out prefer, and that is okay. We keep moving with of the classroom. a smile and continue on with our learning.

In response to complaints about Bressack’s In our classroom, our learning and our gender identity, the school’s administration well-being is the priority. I am lucky to be moved the teacher out of the Canopy Oaks teaching at Canopy Oaks and I look forward Elementary School classroom in Tallahassee to working with my students this year.” into an adult class.

But the letter was not met with “Given the complexity of this issue, we understanding. Instead, parents took to both agreed a different environment would Facebook expressing outrage and gaining the be best for Teacher Bressack’s attention of the media and righteducational career and for wing organizations.

“My practice the young students at Canopy Former Arkansas Governor Oaks,” said Superintendent in addressing Mike Huckabee even addressed his Rocky Hanna, with the to the Washington Times my students concern Leon County school district (which misgenders Bressack in its is to refer to coverage). claiming the transfer to an adult classroom was a mutual Ironically it appears Huckabee them by their decision. did address Bressack correctly in personal It all started with a letter his attack on them appropriately pronouns, be using the pronoun “they.”

Bressack sent to parents. they ‘he, she, The informal letter sent “I would yank my kid out of a out information about the classroom.

I really would. There’s or they.’” teacher, including personal no way that I would let my child be - Chloe Bressack experiences and a paragraph influenced by someone who is so teacher including a request to be devoid of common sense that they addressed with gender neutral don’t understand that there are pronouns. men and women, boys and girls. I’m appalled “One thing you should know about me is by that,” he said. “I’m going to go back to a that I use gender neutral terms. My prefix biblical standard — male and female. God is Mx (pronounced Mix),” they wrote. “My created them. That’s just reality,” he told The practice in addressing my students is to Times. “We can try to pretend that there’s no refer to them by their personal pronouns, be difference in the gender, but there is. There’s they ‘he, she, or they.’ We work together to a difference that is to be celebrated.”

in memoriam

Veterinarian Remembered As

Witty Soul

John McDonald

U

ncle Poppie loved to travel and take care of all of God’s creations, said friends and family at a “celebration of life” service Saturday afternoon.

Dr. Pierre Bernard “Uncle Poppie” Bland died Oct. 2 at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale. He was 56.

“God may not have given Pierre the ability to talk to the animals; the Lord gave my brother something even better….. the ability to heal animals,” said Marben Bland, Pierre’s older brother.

Many of Bland’s family from his native Georgia attended Saturday’s service at the United Church of Christ Fort Lauderdale.

Reverend Patrick Rogers said he and Bland were drinking buddies. The two also enjoyed writing. Bland wrote of their meetings in his last column for The South Florida Times.

“Though it seems mundane to me, I do lead an interesting life,” Bland wrote. “That becomes apparent when I spend time with my drinking buddies, the pastor and the funeral director. We start sharing the more adventurous aspects of our week and soon we are laughing and forgetting the trials and tribulations that come along with our callings.

“In all modesty,” Bland added. “I have the best stories.”

Born in Macon, Georgia Bland was the fifth of six children. “We called him Pete,” said friend Linda Bostic. They studied veterinarian science together in Atlanta, said Bostic. Bland would come over to Bostic’s house to study and never left hungry.

“He was a very quick-witted person,” recalled Blair, a friend of Bland’s from Fort Lauderdale who said the two, on occasions, sat in the same pew at church.

Bland opened his veterinary practice in 2016, fulfilling a lifelong dream. He received his doctorate in veterinary medicine at Tuskegee University in 1985. Bland is credited with performing groundbreaking research on behalf of Tuskegee University, Oregon State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

His Fort Lauderdale practice was successful because Bland was kind and understanding,

Dr. Pierre Bernard “Uncle Poppie” Bland. Photo courtesy of the Bland family.

said Roger Handevidt, a friend.

“I took my cat to see him and he took good care of her and told me to just pay what you can,” Handevidt said.

Rev. Rogers affirmed Bland’s love for Jesus and Christianity and recalled a conversation the two had recently about faith.

“Prayers without action are just words, he said to me,” Rogers reflected.

In his final column for the Times, “Pigs Generate Dust In The Wind,” Bland wrote of trying to subdue a 300-pound pig while being racially insulted by the animal’s eldery owner.

“If I had a dime for every time I heard that word; strange no matter how hard I work or how accomplished I become for many it boils down to that; But I know exactly who I am so all else is noise and dust in the wind,” Bland wrote.

At Bland’s UCC Fort Lauderdale service, Keyboardist Ederick Johnson, who works at the Pride Center, performed several songs, including “Oh Happy Day!” and “Amazing Grace.” Pianist Ruben Gonzalez peformed “Blessed Assurance” and Jim Sargent recited Psalm 23.

Bland is survived by his mother, Mrs. Mary Lois Johnson Bland of Gray, Georgia and surrogate mother and trusted neighbor Mrs. Fedora B. Patterson of Gray, Georgia, two sisters and three brothers.

The family asks donations be made in Bland’s name to the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

10.11.2017 •

15

NEWS online

Action Online

Don't miss the

Married Lesbian Seeks South Florida U.S. House Seat

Lauren Baer. Source: Twitter.

Suicide Rates Increasing Among Bisexual Men

Award-Winning Artist Back With New Love and New Music

Photo: Twitter.

Ricky Martin Helps Puerto Rico

Lady Gaga Crowned Honorary Miss Gay America

Photo: Instagram / @mdutzer

6. Hugh Hefner’s First Trans Playmate Says Thanks Photo: Facebook / @carolinetulacossey

7. Gay Ex NFL Player Tackles ‘The Voice’ Auditions Esera Tuaolo's performance on 'The Voice.' Photo: YouTube Still.

8. LGBT Anti-Gun Group Protests on Broadway After Las Vegas Massacre Photo: Twitter / @TheEricGoldman

9. Screen Savor: 'Battle of the Sexes' Review Emma Stone as Billie Jean King and Steve Carrell as Bobby Riggs in film "Battle of the Sexes." Courtesy photo.

10. What to Read: ‘The Ada Decades’

Visit SFGN.com to stay up to date on all the news across the web!

Twitter.com/SoFlaGayNews

16

•

1 0.11.2017

Facebook.com/SouthFloridaGayNews

NEWS local Photo: courtesy of Varsity Gay League.

New Gay Kickball League Kicks Off in Wilton Manors Inaugural season already has 76 players

John McDonald

K

ickball is off to a roaring start said commissioner Jason Shervinski.

Teams formed in South Florida this Fall to compete and network in the Varsity Gay League sanctioned sport. Kickball games are popular in Washington, D.C., said Chris Nichols.

“It’s a huge league,” said Nichols, a member of the Stonewall team.

Nichols helped officiate Saturday morning’s kickball action in Wilton Manors.

Varsity Gay League’s first foray into South Florida is underway, Shervinski said.

“To have 76 players in our first season is huge,” Shervinski added.

The Pennsylvania gay man helped line the bases for Saturday morning’s play at Mickel Park. He got the action going in the first game for the Sit On My Base team kicking past Crew members to score. The teams ultimately played to a tie.

“It’s fun meeting new people and a nice way to commune,” Mark Halacy said.

Halacy is a 60-year-old married gay man who lives in Wilton Manors. He brought a tent to the games to give participants a break from the sun. The first game started shortly after noon Saturday with a light breeze in the air and temperatures stuck in the high 80s.

“We’re here to find nice sporty guys and girls to hang out with,” said Nicole Fernandez, who traveled from Miami to attend the kickball games.

Fernandez and her friend Tara did not seem too concerned with the action on the playing field. The young women congregated on the sidelines most of the time.

“I want to play against an all-girls team

because they’re going to pitch it slower,” Fernandez said.

Tara, a nurse who studied at Louisiana State University, was less snide in her comments.

“I had a blast!,” she said. “I absolutely loved it. It’s great that there’s a league where the LGBT community can all get together and have a good time.”

In kickball a rubber ball is “pitched” – or rolled – on the ground and players kick it and run the bases. The outfield, Nichols said, is a good position for those not looking to exert a lot of energy.

“The ball rarely comes out there,” Nichols said.

Five teams registered for the fall league and Shervinski said he was pleased. Gym Bar Fort Lauderdale sponsored the games on Saturday.

Many of the kickball players met at the bar during pre-season registration, while others showed up at Mickel Park to watch and see which team had spots left on the roster.

“It’s a good way to be social,” said Nichols, who umpired the game between Misfits and Balls of Glory. “It’s not too competitive. I don’t play to win or lose. I play for fun.”

Crew coach Troy Bartee said it was an “exciting” first week to the season. The Crew, dressed in gray uniforms, defeated the pink cladded Nutcrackers team on Saturday.

“I am excited about the great turnout for the inaugural season of Varsity Gay League Kickball,” Shervinski said. “Our members represent the full spectrum of the LGBTQ community centered around a sport, common interests and shared values.”

For more information, visit www.VarsityGayLeague.com

This week’s featured

photo

By J.R. Davis

● Rec

Want to see more?  OUTshine Film Festival Opening Night  OutSocial Events with SFGN  Father Bill Collins Celebration of Life

Facebook.com/SouthFloridaGayNews 10.11.2017 •

17

PEACE PIPE Over 1,000 SQ FT. GLASSROOM!

LOWEST PRICES • LARGEST SELECTION GUARANTEED • YOUR ONE STOP SHOP FOR ALL YOUR VAPOR NEEDS!

LARGEST SELECTION

NEWS local Miami Dade Board of County Commissioners.

Photo courtesy of the Miami Dade Board of County Commissioners.

HOOKAHS • SHISHA • ROLLING PAPERS • VAPORIZERS • ELECTRIC CIGARETTES • ELIQUIDS • ZIPPOS • TOBACCO ACCESSORIES

DIESEL • LEFT COAST • MEDICALI • ROOR • GRAV LABS • SILIKA • PULSE • TSUNAMI & MORE!

INCENSE + CANDLES + TAPESTRIES • ASHTRAYS • TORCH LIGHTERS • FLASKS • BODY JEWELRY • GAMES • ROLLING TOBACCO • POSTERS • STATUES • FIGURINES • T-SHIRTS • LOTS MORE!

OPEN MON - SAT: 10AM - 9PM • SUN: 12 - 6 PM EVERYTHING YOU NEED! MORE THAN YOU EXPECT! The Best Since 1996

954-267-9005

15 Minutes From The Beach or I-95 754-779-7007

4800 N. DIXIE HIGHWAY, FORT LAUDERDALE JUST SOUTH OF COMMERCIAL BLVD

Two Locations!

FACEBOOK.COM/PEACEPIPEFL

821 N. FEDERAL HWY., FORT LAUDERDALE JUST SOUTH OF SEARS TOWN NEXT TO CUBBY HOLE @PEACEPIPEFORTLAUDERDALE

Miami-Dade Commissioners Reject Ban on Gay Conversion Therapy Brittany Ferrendi

M

iami-Dade County will not be joining Delray Beach, Wellington and a number of other Florida jurisdictions banning the harmful practice of gay conversion therapy.

In a 4 to 7 vote, Miami-Dade commissioners concluded that the ordinance’s wording was too broad and could potentially affect pastors’ sermons and parent’s concerns over their child’s sexual activity. The proposed ordinance, the commissioners believe, would violate a parent’s right to make decisions concerning their children’s mental health.

“In this case, my problem is with the rights of parents,” said Commissioner Rebeca Sosa according to The Miami Herald. Sosa voted against the ban. “If you make a decision about your children that, in the end, is wrong, that’s your responsibility … I think government has to be respectful of that right.”

Also voting against the ban were Commissioners Esteban Bovo, Jose Diaz, Jean Monestime, Joe Martinez, Xavier Suarez and Javier Souto.

“Why is this even in front of us?” asked Commissioner Martinez. “You can’t tell me what I should tell my child, or what I can’t.

You’re stepping into my house.”

Commissioners in favor of the ordinance recognize assuming a child’s sexual identity needs to be “fixed” is ultimately harmful — a belief backed by many medical organizations.

“The American Psychological Association has linked conversion therapy to depression, substance abuse and even suicide, and these risks are particularly acute for youth,” said Youth Policy Council Coordinator of NCLR’s BornPerfect Campaign to End Conversion Therapy Carole Reyes said when Wellington moved to ban the practice.

18

•

1 0.11.2017

The commissioners voting “yes” on the ban were Bruno Barreiro, Diana Levine Cava, Audrey Edmonson and Sally Heyman.

“What you’re doing is telling that child you’re not accepting them as they are,” Edmonson said.

Miami, Miami Beach and other parts of Miami-Dade county already ban conversion therapy. This ordinance would have applied to outside city limits.

Broward county cities, such as Wilton Manors, also ban the practice. Wilton Manors Vice Mayor Justin Flippen faced conversion therapy in his youth.

“Conversion therapy is so harmful and rejected,” he said according to the Herald.

“Being gay is not a choice. It is not a preference. It is a part of me as much as my eye color is.”

Palm Beach county is currently drafting regulations to ban therapists from trying to change a child’s sexual identity, according to the Sun Sentinel.

Cities that currently ban conversion therapy include West Palm Beach, Wilton Manors, Key West, Tampa, Miami Beach, Wellington, Delray Beach and more.

“It is an unfortunate setback for MiamiDade County, but should have no effect elsewhere in the state. Last night the Oakland Park City Commission unanimously passed a ban on First Reading,” Rand Hoch, president of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council. Hoch and the PBCHRC have been instrumental passing similar bans throughout Palm Beach County. “We also have some things in the pipeline before year's end here in Palm Beach County. I have advised the appropriate elected officials and staff about the loss in Miami-Dade and no one is even considering backing off from their support of the proposed bans we are working on in Palm Beach County.”

Guest Column

Convictions

Local Prominent Trump Supporter Pushes Back Against Advocate Roger Stone proclaims “I’m Try-Sexual” and defends his record on gay rights

Roger Stone

W

hen I was speaking Los Angeles I have never been a part of the so-called Moral recently calling on President Donald Majority and in fact have been one of their Trump to keep his pledge to respect fiercest critics inside the Republican Party. state’s rights on the question of medicinal My work was for Republicans like Governor marijuana I was interviewed by a local blogger Tom Kean and Congressman Jack Kemp. named Jeff4Justice. I should have sensed a Republican Analyst Kevin Phillip attacked me ringer when his first three questions were for my criticism of Religious Right. disjointed and benign but then he unloaded I have long said and written that the his "gotcha question" asking about my sexual Evangelical Christian insistence on opposition orientation. “Are you bi-sexual?” he barked. to gay marriage and legal abortion would In view of my self- admitted past as a destroy the Republican Party by costing us libertine it was a ridiculous question. I was an any chance with younger voters. avid participant in the Sexual Revolution of In 1978 I resigned as treasurer and a member the 1970’s. I responded by saying that it while of the board of the National Conservative it was none of anyone's business that "I'm try- Political Action Committee when NCPAC sexual – I’ve tried everything” reprising an old Chairman Terry Dolan (who was gay) Milton Berle joke. included anti- gay rhetoric in a fundraising I was subsequently surprised to see myself letter for the organization. attacked by Jeff4Justice in The In 1996, along with Senator Advocate defending his gotcha Arlen Specter I was the founder I have always question by saying “I think it's of the "Republican Majority very relevant when you have Coalition” which was a coalition been a people who in their own private of libertarian and moderate libertarian lives are living sexually wild Republicans who supported conservative lives and yet they use their time, LGBT rights. Our goal was to talent, and treasure to elevate counter the influence of the in the people to power who utilize then growing religious right.

Goldwater the religious right to go and do In 1996 I sought to persuade mold, wanting Massachusetts horrible things to other people.”

Governor "Stone's alleged sexual Bill Weld, a supporter of gay government activity may or may not marriage, to seek the Republican out of the correspond with his sexual nomination and failing to do so, boardroom identity," bisexual activist Eliel chaired the campaign of Senator Cruz also told The Advocate. and out of the Arlen Specter who took the "He may have experimented same position in the 1996 race. bedroom. and found it wasn't for him or he I have been publicly may actively engage in sex with supportive of the Log Cabin men while not claiming a bisexual identity. organization and I am a member of GOProud Whether or not Stone is bisexual, his ideology – an organization of Republicans who support and policies are dangerous to large swaths of gay equality which I joined at the request of people — including the LGBT community. Andrew Breitbart, another libertarian who That's far more important." supported LGBT Rights.

My ideology?

I have signed petitions to remove the I am clearly not, based on a long- anti-same sex marriage language from the documented history, the person Jeff4Justice Republican Platform since it first appeared. or Eliel Cruz think I am. Did either do any In 2006 I published an OP-ED in opposition basic research on my record? to the Florida constitutional amendment I have always been a libertarian conservative that would ban gay marriage. I was for gay in the Goldwater mold, wanting government marriage before Bill, Hillary or Obama! out of the boardroom and out of the bedroom.

In 2012 I abandoned the Republican Party

to join the Libertarian party whose platform I was generally more comfortable with on LGBT rights as well as foreign and domestic policy.

I helped persuade Governor Gary Johnson, who had not supported same-sex marriage as governor of New Mexico embrace it in his 2012 presidential campaign.

As a 40-year friend and advisor to Donald Trump I urged him to ad lib pro-gay comments in his acceptance speech in Cleveland.

When he tweeted his recent comments on transgender issues I publicly denounced them when speaking at the POLITICON conference in Pasadena which receive widespread coverage.

Donald Trump will, however, protect the

LGBT community from the violence and threat of Islamic terrorists. He is well aware of the mass murder of gay people at their hands in the Middle East. Obama and the Clinton’s, at a minimum, want to accommodate them, and in many cases, have empowered them.

I have never engaged in hypocrisy or urged candidates to take an anti-gay position if it were politically advantageous. My conduct in the bed room is irrelevant because I am no hypocrite.

Roger Stone was a campaign adviser to then candidate Donald Trump.

MEDICARE

Make

ADVANTAGE

Blue your source

for Medicare

Advantage.

When you’re shopping for Medicare coverage, Blue is here to help. We’re your partner in navigating the Medicare landscape, making the most of your health care and feeling confident about your choices.

Call Steve Herbstman Today

BlueMedicare means SM

value more savings more choices more

more.

Contact us today:

Apple Insurance Steve Herbstman www.appleinsurance.com

954-554-7074 (TTY users call 1-800-955-8770), 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. local time, Mon. - Fri. to speak to a licensed agent.

Florida Blue is a PPO, RPPO and Rx(PDP) plan with a Medicare contract. Florida Blue HMO is an HMO plan with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in Florida Blue or Florida Blue HMO depends on contract renewal. Health coverage is offered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, Inc., DBA Florida Blue. HMO coverage is offered by Health Options, Inc., DBA Florida Blue HMO, an affiliate of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, Inc. These companies are Independent Licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Florida Blue complies with applicable Federal civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex. ATENCIÓN: si habla español, tiene a su disposición servicios gratuitos de asistencia lingüstica. Llame al 1-855-601-9465 (TTY: 1-877-955-8773). ATANSYON: Si w pale Kreyòl Ayisyen, gen sèvis èd pou lang ki disponib gratis pou ou. Rele 1-855-601-9465 (TTY: 1-800-955-8770).

Y0011_87324 0917R1 CMS Accepted

10.11.2017 •

19

Publisher's Editorial

Convictions

Las Olas Boulevard Wrote LGBT History of Gay Fort Lauderdale Norm Kent

The Floridian.

norm.kent@sfgn.com

Butch Samp.

O

ctober is LGBT history month, and apparently, it has just dawned upon the Dolphin Democrats that South Florida has a gay history.

In fact, in what is going to be one of the weirdest ceremonies ever they have decided to honor about 82 of the region’s local gay pioneers and straight allies in a dynamite restaurant that can seat no more than a hundred for that occasion. Let’s face it, that won’t even cover all my tricks for the last year, let alone the last 40.

Anyway, it’s a nice gesture and anytime you can get to eat the baked clams oregano that Marco creates at Café Vico the evening is going to be fun. All you had to do apparently to get honored was live long enough, have a lesbian daughter, or have heard of the Cathode Ray Nightclub- which brings me to today’s column.

If I am going to be honored as a pioneer, hell I will show up naked in my Daniel Boone coonskin hat. But the ceremony set off this shockwave in my brain, reminding me that most of Broward County’s gay history evolves out of stories you can tell about East Las Olas Boulevard, once the mecca of all things gay in Fort Lauderdale.

The best way to approach this is just to share vignettes of the stories which illuminated our lives, in no historical order.

Couldn’t do that if I wanted to, as our past was not accurately recorded. Hell, that’s one of the reasons I started the Express Gay News in

20

•

1 0.11.2017

1999, to ensure that the history of our lives is documented in print and on the net.

I opened my first law office at 1700 East Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale 40 years ago, in a beautiful corner office overlooking a canal. It was a pretty decent gig, until I went on the radio one day, spoke about legalizing marijuana, homosexual teenage prostitution and gay rights, and someone shot up my suite the next day. I was saved by the fish tank taking the hit.

Coincidentally, no one pointed any of their guns to the quiet lawyer working on the second floor mostly doing transactions law for a civil firm. That’s how I met Dean Trantalis. Guess through good and bad, we have been here a while, still eating many of our lunches at the Floridian. He became the politician and spokesman.

I became the radio host, publisher and gadfly. But it’s been a good run for both of us.

The FLO on ELO was home plate not only for the makers and shakers of Fort Lauderdale, it was virtually the place where the downtown business community in shirts and ties would interact daily with tourists in flowered shirts and sandals vacationing across the country. Gays looking for

late night scandalous alliances or real big portions of scrambled eggs would wind up at the FLO. Four decades later, the eggs are still fresh, Butch Samp is still the owner, and history has been written on the street- good and bad.

Here are some stories from the 1980’s that you may have missed on your social media account in 2017.

Butch and I have been friends for 40 years.

I even handled his divorce decades ago, but I was not exactly a family law counselor, so I just copied some rich Jewish Boca doctor’s settlement.

Probably should not have included that paragraph where I had Butch paying for his son’s Bar Mitzvah. I mean, he’s Catholic. So it goes.

Then there was the night I took this very heterosexual man to an HIV benefit in the 1980’s at a hotel on the beach.

Had him pick me up at my townhouse in his fancy Jaguar.

I jump in, sit down, buckle my seat belt, and Butch reaches over, grabs my dick, squeezes my crotch, and I scream, “WTF?” “Hey, what was I supposed to do,” he asks. “Isn’t that what you gays guys do?”

Yeah Butch, but a meal at least comes first!

I jump in, sit down, buckle my seat belt, and Butch reaches over, grabs my dick, squeezes my crotch, and I scream, “WTF?”

1. The Gary Steinsmith Saga A fellow grad from Hofstra University, Gary was perhaps the most well-known liberal gay activists ever to grab a bullhorn in South Florida. And boy did he piss Butch off one night.

From being one of the fiery and fierce founders of AIDS Center One in the Marlin Beach Hotel in 1984, Gary became the heart, soul, and voice of the Dolphins Democrats and our community.

He also became a very real victim of the HIV virus, and suffered dementia along the way, getting taken into custody by the police for being homeless on an evening when he could not find his way to his half million dollar canal-based home that he had hosted dozens of community functions in.

As early as the year 2000, our community did not have the treatment modalities in place for those who suffered from AIDS. A true activist, Gary also almost got arrested at the Floridian one night.

You see, he was so outraged about President Ronald Reagan’s treatment of gay and HIV related issues that when he went into the restaurant one evening and saw a framed picture of Reagan on the wall, he went into a rage, turned postal, took a hammer to it, and ripped it down.

The staff called the police who came to arrest Gary for criminal mischief, but Butch

Publisher's Editorial

Convictions intervened, called me up, and asked me to just take Gary home. We did, and Judge Ginger Lerner Wren stepped in as the county’s mental health court jurist to insure Gary got help in his final days.

The early days at the Floridian were friendly, mixing cultures and communities in a healthy way. But Las Olas and the beach had problems local journalists could not walk away from.

2. Chickin’ Lickin and Runaway Gay Teens Across from the FLO in the early 1980’s was a tiny little narrow rectangular take out fried chicken place, where you could stop and get a meal for five bucks, owned by a very gay man with a morbid sense of humor. The name of the restaurant matched his sexual predilections, and he always had very young boys working there, while living in a small condo just a few blocks away.

When he did not show up for work for a few days, police found the stench from his apartment came not from bad chicken, but his blood-stained body being wrapped up for a week in one of those Persian rugs, carved up with some of his butcher knives. Couldn’t find the story on the Net this week, but I remember it well. The teenage killer is still in jail for the murder.

I mention it because too much of South Florida then and now became a home for gay runaways. I know because I helped Channel 7 and the now retired dear Carmel Cafiero win a Green Eyeshades Award for showcasing the epidemic of teen prostitution that made its way down Las Olas to the beach.

I would eventually be profiled for my work not only on Geraldo Rivera’s national show but on NBC’s nightline. Eventually, community leaders got their act together and Dick Fasenmyer in 2000. Courtesy of the Express Gay News.

after a local judge, now Congressman Alcee Hastings held hearings in the Broward County Courthouse, we would eventually see city leaders reluctantly support the development of Covenant House, a runaway shelter, on the beach.

It’s still there saving lives, and the city, despite its vicious opposition decades ago, does not seem to be hurting because of it today. Spring Break is history. Kids can’t afford rates at the W, and the Marlin Beach Hotel is now just a memory of what once was.

3. The Cathode Ray on the Canal No bar on Las Olas ever enjoyed the gay night life like the Cathode. Its outdoor canal side patio and video bar just over the 12th street bridge was the home for everything gay on Sunday nights, and it was originally operated by a gay liberal political leader, one Wayne Gibson.

A narrow place where so many first explored an upper east side atmosphere of middle class homosexual existence, it was a place where you could hang out with a young Craig Stevens from Channel 7, or enjoy the company of John Castelli, now a nationally respected local president of the Fort Lauderdale Board of Realtors.

At the time, John and his late partner, Bill Bastiansen, had owned the emerging Copa Bar on Dania Beach, which would become one of the nation’s most popular upscale gay bars in America.

Gibson would eventually turn the bar over to John Manzi, who maintained its stature and class for years, but eventually a new owner moved the facility from its narrow home to a more spacious location on the corner of 13th and Las Olas. That man became special to LGBT gay life in Broward County.

4. Richard Fasenmyer, the Cathode, and Bar Amici Dick Fasenmyer was one of the leading Republican donors to the George Herbert Walker Bush campaign, when he moved his operations, yachts and business interests to Las Olas Boulevard in the early 90’s.

The original Cathode would become a temporary home for the second Stork’s, run and operated by Jim Stork, the gay mayor of Wilton Manors. Jim is now mostly in Massachusetts with his partner, the eminent and elegant Ron Ansin, and the gondolas he brought to the canal are gone.

Fasenmyer, however, rebuilt Cathode in his image, sparing no expense. I remember the night Paul Hugo and I looked at the bottoms of his 16 ounce glasses, with footballs etched into them to match the theme of his sports bar.

“I spared no expense building this place,” he smiled and told us. And why should he have? With millions of dollars at his disposal and a fortune he made in the worldwide plastic wallcoverings business, Fasenmyer began to support multiple causes, charities, and the LGBT community.

Next door to the club he opened Bar Amici, a restaurant which hosted everyone from Gamma Mu to political campaigns. Ably armed with a top management staff, like Larry Wald, he showed the LGBT community could bring class and dignity to the Boulevard.

He died too young at the age of 55, to be honest, from alcohol poisoning. This august man fermented. He could not control his drinking, from day to dusk. Bar managers would follow him home at night, to his home on the aisles, a mile away, jokingly remarking, “never knew Las Olas had so many curves in the road.”

But in his life, like Butch Samp at the Floridian, Dick would host, sponsor, and underwrite the gay Lambda AA group that still meets in a small room in an alley just around the corner from his bar.

Even today, a dozen years after his passing, Dick’s legacy and donations are still underwriting AIDS foundations in Pennsylvania and institutions of higher learning in his home state. He sponsored so many local charitable institutions and businesses in South Florida it would be impossible to mention them all. We all owe him big time.

5. More Stories Online If you are enjoying these vignettes, there are more online at www.sfgn.com . I will be updating it periodically, maybe the dawn of a book to capture our heritage and history. I understand I am now part of it, and I am still here to share it. But my perspective is just a blink of one person’s eye. Still, I have the right to, don’t I? Like Ronald Reagan once said to Walter Mondale, “Hell, I paid for this microphone.”

We have the Marty Rubins, Jamie Bloodworths, Jason Bells, and Brad Caseys whose lives have their own stories. We have the 2,398 people the Dolphins have decided to give awards to next month, too many for one night.

But good that they woke up and recognized we have a history worth recording, recognizing, and remembering.

Go online to our site and I will tell you how activists had to fight to have a gay pride march on East Las Olas, because “we did not belong on that side of town.” Or how the city did not much care for gay bookstores or video shops, which they shut down with police raids in the early 1980s, helping me understand that the cause of justice requires challenging the establishment at every turn. Don’t trust power.

It never trusts you back.

In the early 1990’s, I became a full-time radio host at the Floridian for WFTL 1400 AM, hosting morning drive from 6 to 10 am right under the front chandelier as you walk in. It was then my life came full circle. Sponsored by Mutual Benefits Corporation, a multimillion dollar AIDS insurance underwriter, that show would remain on the air for nearly six years.

Who knows, had Mutual Benefits not turned out to one of the most fraudulent viatical companies in the history of planet Earth, I may still have been there daily, commenting on the life and loves, the losses and the gains, of our world and our community. But it may happen again soon. Something about a podcast. We will see.

Follow SFGN online so you can watch as everyone posts all the things I have forgotten, and probably won’t ever remember anymore.

But maybe Jesse Monteagudo can write a little bit about the Tuesday Night Group, the seminal foundation for political activism in Broward, which used to meet at Joe Campanella’s condo off the beach on Las Olas, with all of about seven people in a living room.

Our community, we have grown a bit, wouldn’t you say?

Like Ronald Reagan once said to Walter Mondale, “Hell, I paid for this microphone.”

10.11.2017 •

21

Guest Column

Convictions

Coping with HIV in a Hurricane HIV support group, Pozitive Attitudes, meets every Wednesday Ian Robert Hemley

“S

urviving Irma” was the topic Fund to provide relief. AHF is also asking for discussion at the Pozitive for donations to help displaced clientele.

Attitudes weekly HIV support AIDS United CEO Jesse Milan Jr. said, group at the World AIDS Museum (WAM) “There is no greater emergency than the recently. A group of 20 or so men infected, devastation of these powerful hurricanes.” or affected, by HIV—mostly middle aged— Moreover, Center for Disease Control sat in the museum’s sleek, open gallery statistics rate Florida as number one space and regaled tales of South Florida’s and Texas as number three in new HIV latest hurricane with a mixture of sadness, infections, making the South the epicenter frustration, and humor—a permutation of the U.S. epidemic, and continuity of care of perspective perhaps cultivated over all the more crucial. decades of surviving a Plague.

Back at the World AIDS Museum in The members of this group survived Irma Wilton Manors, Pozitive Attitudes’ intimate relatively unscathed. circle discussion was framed That’s fortunate, as by the museum’s large the tragic deaths at a floor-to-ceiling windows While navigating Hollywood nursing home and sliding exhibit walls illustrated the potentially chronologically outlining HIV in the waters disastrous effects of a the history of HIV/AIDS. of a hurricane natural disaster on health Compliance was a and a politicized, care and human services. common theme in the WAM’s CEO Hugh conversation. Given power Beswick pointed out the outages and evacuations role that the intersection which disrupted routines, of identity—age, race, a few participants reported socio-economic status, missing doses of their and “the haves and the life-saving anti-retroviral can be frustrating, medication. Two members have nots”—naturally plays a role in these missed doses while driving the consensus outcomes. Not everyone long hours over night. of the Pozitive has the privilege of Another—a Millennial, Attitudes group was more recently-infected— picking up and fleeing to a safe location. While the twice forgot his one-pillthat there is much museum closed its doors once-a-day treatment while to be grateful for. for most of the week, one taking refuge across the employee of the noncountry. It’s not likely that profit WAM slept on the just a couple missed doses floor of the museum’s back office to avoid would result in the serious consequences the heat in his apartment which lost power. of resistance, but one never knows.

And just weeks ago, Hurricane Harvey HIV treatment experts always stress shuttered the AIDS Foundation Houston compliance (regular adherence to (AHF), as reported by poz.com. In response prescribed medication) as essential to to both storms, over one million dollars management of the virus. In 2017, there have been donated to fund regional HIV are certainly more available therapies organizations throughout Florida and than there used to be. That’s comforting, Texas, according to AIDS United. The but different drug combinations can pharmaceutical company Gilead donated have more severe side effects and, still, $1 million, while AIDS United appropriated there are only three lines of defense if $150,000 from the Southern HIV Impact resistance to first line treatment develops.

profit-driven health care system

22

•

1 0.11.2017

That’s one reason, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) website published a helpful page on natural disaster preparation for people who are HIV positive including maintaining an extended supply of medication in waterproof containers.

While navigating HIV in the waters of a hurricane and a politicized, profit-driven health care system can be frustrating, the consensus of the Pozitive Attitudes

group was that there is much to be grateful for. And a worldwide view adds further perspective. While a 2010 study shows drug resistance at 7 percent in the United States, that number is more like 20 percent in developing countries where pharmacies often run out of drugs, as reported by Huffington Post. As global climate change progresses, the increased risk of natural disasters disrupting health care only grows.

Pozitive Attitudes meets every Wednesday from 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. with one hour on a focused topic or presenter and one hour of open discussion, in the World AIDS Museum at the corner of Wilton Station, 1201 NE 26th St.

Convictions

A Publisher’s Message to the LGBT Community: Live the words of this musical master: ‘Don’t back down. Don’t ever back down.'

10.11.2017 •

23

history month state

Our history Matters • See more articles from this month at SFGN.com/2017Historymonth

1954 Miami Murder Leads to

‘Homosexual Panic’ Graham Brunk

he ‘Homosexual Panic’ that started in the 1950s can be traced back to one event – the murder of Eastern Airlines Flight Attendant William T. Simpson in August of 1954.

But maybe more importantly, wasn’t the murder itself, but how Miami Daily News reporter Milt Sosin covered the tragedy.

T

The Man – A Gay Flight Attendant Like most gays at the time, Simpson lived a pretty modest life. He was 27 years old and was among many gay men that worked for Eastern Airlines as a flight attendant. Eastern Airlines was based in Miami and was Dade County’s largest employer at the time.

He was a low key guy who would often skip the “crew parties” that were planned amongst his coworkers. He rarely visited the underground gay bars that existed in Miami at the time. Simpson had no family nearby.

He came to Miami in 1951 from Louisville, KY for his career and his sexuality. For the most part the gay community in Miami lived in obscurity, but if you were gay, you knew Miami was full of gay men.

On the evening of Aug. 2, 1954 Simpson landed at Miami International Airport after a final shift working aboard a flight from Detroit. For most of the flight, his colleague, fellow flight attendant Dorothy Hoover, remembered him having a giddy attitude mentioning several times a date he had planned for that evening.

The Murder – A Heinous Crime Simpson reportedly left his NW 4th Ave apartment around 10 p.m. according to his landlord who was last to see him. Two hours later his body was found face down in some

24

•

1 0.11.2017

gravel by Dick Cline and his girlfriend Joan at a spot near the Arch Creek Bridge, near NE 134th St and Biscayne Blvd.

Today a Flanigan’s Bar & Grill marks the spot, but in the mid 1950s this area was a ‘lovers lane’ featuring a small secluded beach area under the bridge where one could park their car right along the Little Arch Creek waterway and engage in sexual activity.

Simpson never made it to his date. It is believed that on the way to his there he was propositioned by a young man named Charles Lawrence on the side of the road. Unknown to Simpson, Lawrence was notorious for “rolling” gay men (as local media called it then) and luring them to a secluded spot where his accomplice Lewis Killen would jump out and help rob the victim.

Usually Killen would wait until Lawrence began engaging in sexual activity with the victim before attempting the robbery. Killen and Lawrence would not kill their victim, but in Simpson’s case, for reasons still not clear, something spooked Lawrence when Simpson didn’t cooperate like other victims had done.

Lawrence shot him in his left side and Simpson, stumbling out of the car yelling “Leave me alone! Leave me alone!” finally tossed over his keys and wallet before collapsing a few yards away.

According to the North Miami Police report Lawrence and Killen made off with $25 and claimed they thought Simpson would live and were surprised when they found out the next day that he had died.

The Reporting – Murder Blamed on ‘Gay Drama’ Miami Daily News reporter Milt Sosin was on the story from the moment it broke. He wrote his first front page article aptly titled “EAL [Eastern Airlines] Man is Slain on Lovers Lane” on the afternoon edition of the paper Aug. 3, 1954.

Along with the headline there was a picture of the head of Simpson’s corpse.

Sosin suspected Simpson was gay because of the location the murder took place. Sosin referenced the potential killer as a man and that it was possibly a sex crime.

The story immediately gained traction, but rather than trying to report on the heinous crime itself, Sosin instead focused

on Simpson’s sexuality. At the time homosexuality was rarely mentioned in mainstream media. Following the police investigation Sosin learned that police felt they were busting a colony of maybe 30 gay men in the area, but he knew he had a major story when he learned that police actually discovered the colony involved 500 gay men.

Much larger than they could have imagined.

The follow up front page story focused on Simpson’s sexuality, rather than the crime, in a story on Aug. 9, 1954 with the headline "Pervert Colony Uncovered In Simpson Slaying Probe."

The article detailed that nearly 500 gay men conjugated in a northeastern part of downtown Miami around where the Omni Center is today. The article went on to further accuse Simpson of mixing with the wrong

One Magazine, October 1954

history month state

crowd and getting involved in 'gay drama' and perhaps that might have been the motive behind his murder. One investigator quoted in the article even went on to claim the murder might have been because Simpson was looking to become 'queen' of the colony.

The Aftermath – The Media Warns Community of the Gays

This murder was the catalyst of what quickly seemed liked endless homophobia in South Florida. Various Christian activist groups stepped up and called for Dade The Trial – County politicians to rid the area of The Gay Panic Defense homosexuality by raiding known gay bars, clubs, and hang out spots.

There was no doubt about who WTVJ ran a documentary warning people committed the crime, Lawrence and Killen of the dangers of gay people in the mid both admitted to the murder. But even so 1960s. All 3 major area newspapers (The they played the gay panic defense testifying Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post, and Ft in November of 1954 that while they did like Lauderdale News) would run article after to 'roll' gay men, Simpson took it too far. article throughout the 1960s informing They claimed Simpson made readers to be aware of them feel unsafe and made their neighborhood unwanted sexual advances surroundings and who The jury towards Lawrence. their neighbors might be The jury appeared to be in the event that one was appeared to influenced by the fact that local gay. be influenced newspapers alarmed them and In response to this by the fact the rest of the public of the panic the state of Florida activity that was going on. that local responded by setting up The Miami Herald and the Florida Legislative newspapers the Miami Daily News Investigation Committee alarmed mostly ignored the trial, (commonly known as them and the instead focusing on stories the Johns Committee). of homosexuality around the rest of the This committee was Miami community. responsible for making public of the With the term 'pervert' being literature available activity that used to describe Simpson in widespread throughout was going on. court the jury might have felt the state warning citizens sympathetic to Lawrence’s of gay activity. The claims. committee also targeted, Lawrence and Killen were eventually interrogated, and stripped teachers of their convicted of a lesser charge of manslaughter credentials that were suspected of being gay. and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Both In the 1970s, singer and orange juice men are alive today and in their 80s, living spokeswoman Anita Bryant launched her in Palm Beach County. now infamous ‘Save Our Children’ campaign SFGN contacted both men by phone. in Miami-Dade county against the LGBT Lawrence hung up after learning what it was community showing gay panic was still alive in regards to and Killen never returned the and well. voicemail.

Graham, a West Palm Beach native, is a local librarian with an interest in LGTBQ history in South Florida. He welcomes emails and story ideas. Contact him at GrahamBrunk@gmail.com.

10.11.2017 •

25

history month national

Lyon, Martin

Paved The Way for Lesbians Alex Madison

Phyllis Lyon (right) prepares to cut their wedding cake as Del Martin looks on after the couple was married by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on June 16, 2008. Photo: Jane Philomen Cleland

LGBT History Project

n a time when President Donald pictures, knickknacks and newspaper Trump has directed a ban on clippings. transgender individuals from serving Kendra Mon, Martin's only child from in the military, his administration has her first marriage, remembers spending rescinded protections for trans students summers at the couple's home when she in public schools and the advancement of was a student at UC Berkeley. Over the years, LGBTQ national historic landmarks are in Mon has come to understand the important question, the stories of those who fought role her mother and Lyon played in the for equal rights in an earlier era seem to be lesbian community, something she didn't more important than ever before. quite grasp as a young adult.

One such story is that of Phyllis Lyon and "Lesbians would call the house from all Del Martin, who ushered in the modern over the world," said Mon, a retired mother lesbian movement and made history of two who lives in Petaluma, Calif. "A lot of by becoming the first same-sex couple their friends were scared at that time. Mom married in San Francisco — twice. Their gave them a place where they could feel accomplishments as activists and the love safe." they shared have become a symbol of perseverance, strength and hope for the LGBTQ community.

When former San Francisco Mayor Gavin "If you got stuff you want to change, you have to get out and work on it," said 93-year- Newsom ordered city officials to issue old Lyon. "You can't just sit around and say, marriage licenses to same-sex couples in ‘I wish this or that was different.’ You have February 2004, the "Winter of Love" was unleashed, as images of happy gay and to fight for it."

Lyon is still a beacon of strength, wit and lesbian couples lined up outside City Hall charm as she reminisced about her younger were beamed into living rooms across years. Although Martin died in 2008 at the country, and around the world. But age 87, Lyon still lives in the couple's one- that day, Feb. 12, started off with a quieter bedroom home nestled in the hills of Noe ceremony inside a City Hall office, where Valley, which they shared for more than 50 Newsom married Lyon and Martin, as LGBT community leaders and years. others looked on.

"I can't be out "Lesbians Ultimately, the California galloping around like would call the Supreme Court ruled I used to, getting stuff house from several months later that done," said Lyon as all over the those 2004 marriages were she sat in her living invalid because Newsom room during a recent world. A lot of had exceeded his authority. interview with the Bay their friends Lyon and Martin — and the Area Reporter. Decades were scared thousands of others — would ago, the room served at that time." have to wait four more years, as a gathering place for when the same court in May lesbians during a time of - Kendra Mon 2008 overturned Proposition social conformity, when Martin's Daughter 22, a same-sex marriage the lesbian community ban, and said that denying only had a handful of bars in the Castro district in which to meet marriage rights to same-sex couples violated the state Constitution. Wedding bells began and socialize.

"Oh, gosh, we used to have dance parties ringing in the Golden State in June.

(The same-sex nuptials were halted in here all the time," Lyon recalled, smiling.

Although Lyon said she has not considered November of that year, after state voters submitting her home to become a national passed the Proposition 8 marriage ban. or local landmark after she passes, one step After years of legal wrangling, the U.S. inside the cozy abode reveals the couple's Supreme Court in June 2013 tossed out Prop history-making life, seen through countless 8 on a technicality and same-sex marriages

I

Wedding bells

26

•

1 0.11.2017

resumed in California.)

Martin and Lyon were the first same-sex couple to be married in the city in 2004 and 2008. Framed, yellowed San Francisco Chronicle articles of the couple's historic weddings grace the walls of Lyon's well-lit living room. The headlines read, "Wedding Bells to Ring in a New Era" and "The Wait is Over."

"We got it started for everybody else," Lyon said of her 2004 wedding. "We didn't get married just for us. We knew it was important to a lot of other people."

Although their first marriage was ended after 181 days, it didn't stop the couple from continuing their fight. Martin and Lyon exchanged vows again on June 16, 2008.

Martin died Aug. 27, just 74 days after again making history.

The matching pink and blue suits the couple wore are now in the permanent collection in the archives of the GLBT Historical Society.

A longtime friend of both women, Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, personally asked Lyon and Martin to be the first same-sex couple to wed in 2004.

"I called the house and Phyllis answered the phone. I told her I needed them to do one

more thing for the movement," Kendell said, recalling it to be a humorous conversation, after Lyon put her on hold to ask Martin.

They said yes a few minutes later.

Kendell attended both marriage ceremonies, an emotional experience for her.

"I burst into tears, as did other staffers," she said. "You knew you were a part of something historically very important standing there."

For someone who grew up in a time where lesbianism was seen as "immoral, sick and illegal," Lyon said she never believed she would live long enough to marry her "sweety-puss" and the love of her life, as she called Martin, let alone see same-sex marriage legalized nationally. But sure enough, in a landmark decision on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples could marry in all 50 states.

"I think we've made tremendous progress," said Lyon, laughing about how she is still amazed that people don't fall over dead when she tells them she is a lesbian. The incredible accomplishments of Lyon and Martin no doubt played a role in the progress of the LGBTQ community in San Francisco and beyond.

When Martin died, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) famously said, "We would never have marriage equality in California if it weren't for Del and Phyllis."

Visit SFGN.com/LyonMartin to read the rest of this story.

Alex Madison is a freelance reporter for the Bay Area Reporter.

This piece is part of a national multi-newspaper LGBT history project that’s put together by the Philadelphia Gay News every year.

10.11.2017 •

27

history month local

Broward’s Gay History Jesse Monteagudo

Gay Social Life before Wilton Manors

This two-part article first appeared in 1994 as part of a series about South Florida LGBT history that was published in Miami’s The Weekly News (TWN). Part one is about Broward County’s queer social life and part two is about the rise of LGBT activism in this county. Many of the people I interviewed, friends and fellow-activists, are no longer with us. This article is dedicated to their memory. Two decades later, during LGBT History Month, we look back in time to the days before we had groups like the Pride Center or communities like Wilton Manors, Oakland Park, or Palm-Aire.

hen Jerry Mitchell came out in accordingly. John Francis Hunter, writing 1962, Broward County was not in The Gay Insider USA (1972), listed the the trendy gay resort that it Everglades, the Gallery, the Gym Steam is today. “There was the Wine n’ Stein and Baths, Odds & Ends, Pat’s Odds & Ends II, the Zanzibar and a couple of others but way Ruthie’s Golden Garter, the Saloon, and back then those were the two bars. And the Venture Inn. The Marlin Beach Hotel, there was one in Hollywood, Garth.” It was on Fort Lauderdale Beach, was Broward’s a time of frequent bar raids, like the one leading gay spot during this pre-AIDS on Oakland Park’s “Val’s Catering Service,” “golden age.” Made famous by the 1960 which Mitchell witnessed from a distance. film “Where the Boys Are,” the “Marlena” “The police raided it, around 1965 or 1966, turned gay in the early 70’s when owner with TV cameras, TV coverage, the whole Bill Hovan realized the marketing potential bit, and they showed pictures of people of the LGBT community. The home of “the entering and leaving the club on TV. They nationally known Poop Deck restaurant and showed the negatives but people were disco,” the hotel was conveniently located recognized. And people were arrested for no across the street from what was then the reason.” gay section of Fort Lauderdale Beach.

In spite of all that, Mitchell, now deceased, Author Edmund White, in his classic study remembered the gay sixties “States of Desire” (1980), and seventies as a simpler described a “typical” day and friendlier time. “People at the Marlin Beach: stuck together a lot more “By day the gay guests “It seemed than they do now because lounge by the pool or the whole they were more closeted. cross the highway and Because there wasn’t this sun on the gay beach. strip was much night life there was Around three in the turning much at-home entertaining.” afternoon a tea dance The late Buddy Markwell, is held poolside; drinks gay.” who arrived in Broward are served by youths in in 1962, agreed. “It was shorts, the Poopettes.

- Mark Silber different. It was nice and Inside is a bar, the Local it was interesting. And the Poop Deck Disco and people here all had names a restaurant. In the and were a large family.” basement is yet another By the late 70’s, Mitchell’s quiet dance floor, the Lower Deck Disco, and a community had undergone a sound-proofed piano bar. Late at night, transformation. Spring Break was in its after the disco shuts down, the guests heyday and “Fort Liquordale” was known stand around the dark courtyard, rattle as a place to go and be wild. Those of us their ice and cruise each other. Everything who lived in Miami at the time went “up is suddenly quiet and sinister, as though to Lauderdale” to have fun and let our hair this were a prison yard and those men the down. Joe Baker, writing for The Advocate in guards on patrol.”

1979, called Fort Lauderdale “a ‘B’ city: bars, Locals have their own fond memories beaches, boys, broads, beer, boobs, bronze of the “Marlena.” The late Tom Bradshaw, bodies, baths and boogying.” Gay men from speaking before the Stonewall Library all over the world came to Lauderdale to be in 1989 (and preserved on tape), called “where the boys are.” the Marlin Beach Hotel “the center of Broward’s gay bar scene multiplied entertainment and cultural life and my

W

28

•

1 0.11.2017

The Marlin Beach Hotel.

home away from home.” Richard Sedlak, who came out in 1973, told me that the community “was pretty well centered around the Marlin Beach Hotel.” “I had some happy memories of the Marlin Beach,” agreed Mark Silber, who was just a teenager when he first went there. “It seemed the whole strip was turning gay.”

The combination of Spring Break and gay resort made Fort Lauderdale Beach in its raucous heyday a center of male prostitution.

“Ft. Lauderdale is a short, angry strip across the ocean, crawling with teens drugged or drunk or both,” Edmund White wrote in States of Desire. “The two most common ages are sixteen and sixty - the latter buys the former. ... In Ft. Lauderdale many gays make the assumption that all older men want adolescents and are willing to pay for them.” Ed White was not the only observer to notice, as we shall soon see.

Other clubs competed with the Marlin Beach Hotel (and the hustlers) for the gay buck. Activist Bob Bernacki, who owned the Oasis Motel in 1977, noted that “the destination for people coming from around the world was the Copa,” which opened

in 1975. Sedlak remembered the Zanzibar and Ruthie’s Golden Garter. I myself recall catching Wayland Flowers and Madame at the Venture Inn on New Year’s Eve 1975, cruising at Tacky’s and its adjacent adult bookstore, and partying at the short-lived Tangerine disco, on Federal Highway near Oakland Park Boulevard.

Gay life seemed to revolve around the clock. Fort Lauderdale’s 2 a.m. closing hours did not bother bar flies, who simply drove down to Hollywood and Hallandale, where clubs remained open till six. According to Silber, who lived in Hollywood at the time, “the most popular bar in South Broward was Keith’s Cruise Room in Hallandale. In spite of its name, it wasn’t the cruisiest bar in town.

But it was very famous. People who did not know any bar in the area knew Keith’s Cruise Room. It opened in 1969 and it closed for a while and it opened for a while before it closed for good.” Silber also remembered T.J.’ s, the Silver Fox in Hollywood Boulevard, Odds and Ends Executive Lounge on Dixie Highway and Tops, “the most famous lesbian bar in Broward County.” Those were the days.

Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and journalist.

He has been an active member of South Florida's LGBT community for more than four decades and has served in various community organizations.

10.11.2017 •

29

history month national

Behind the Lens Photojournalist Kay Lahusen Tracy Baim

LGBT History Project

ay Tobin Lahusen was the first found a book called ‘Voyage From Lesbos: The photojournalist of the LGBT movement, Psychoanalysis of a Female Homosexual,’ written a pre- and post-Stonewall activist who by a psychiatrist named Richard Robertiello,” helped to document the earliest protests for Lahusen told Marcus. “In the book, Robertiello homosexual rights. focused on a lesbian he had treated — and believed Lahusen, born Jan. 5, 1930, in Cincinnati, is — cured. He was a well-known psychoanalyst at perhaps best known as the life partner of activist the time. So in 1961, I made an appointment with Barbara Gittings, but she was an equal partner him in New York. I asked him a couple of questions in their 46-year relationship, begun in 1961, and about what made people gay, which I wasn’t really lasting until Gittings’ death in 2007. interested in. Then I came to the real question, The women met in Rhode Island at a party for ‘How do I meet others?’ So he said, ‘Oh, if that’s The Ladder, a national publication of the lesbian what you want, that’s easy.’ He reached over on his group Daughters of Bilitis (DOB). This was fitting, desk and pulled out this old copy of The Ladder and as they would later work on the publication gave it to me. He said, ‘Here. This is published by together, from 1963 until the summer of 1966. A the Daughters of Bilitis. They have an office here in Lahusen photograph, under the name Kay Tobin, New York. You can call them up. Here’s the phone was the first photo of a real-life number.’ Well, I almost fell off lesbian to appear on the cover the chair. I said, ‘That’s enough,’ "This was of a homosexual publication, in and even though I only spent 10 September 1964. The first fullminutes with him, I wrote him my desire and face portrait of a lesbian on the check for $20 for the full hour. I sex and lust cover was in January 1966, of D.C. was lifted to the skies, but I was activist Lilli Vincenz. so thrown I couldn’t even think of and love, Lahusen spoke about her early contacting DOB that minute. I had just like life with Eric Marcus, for his book to regroup.” straight “Making Gay History: The HalfLahusen soon met Gittings, and Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay quickly became immersed in the people feel."

Equal Rights”: “The summer after I world of homosexual activism graduated, in 1948, I met a girl who and publishing.

- Kay Lahusen had gone to the same high school “After a brief courtship, I had. We hadn’t met before. I fell we settled into her efficiency in love with her … [A]fter a year together, I finally apartment in Philadelphia. We’ve been together in faced the fact that this was more than friendship. the gay cause ever since,” Lahusen wrote in Vern This was desire and sex and lust and love, just Bullough’s book, “Homosexuality: A History.” like straight people feel. I have to tell you, I had a “Although Kay’s name didn’t appear on the breakdown over this revelation … This went on for masthead, her vision, as much as mine, shaped the two weeks … I finally brought it to a head within magazine for three and a half years,” Gittings told myself; I just decided that I was right and the world Troy Perry and Thomas Swicegood in their book was wrong and that there couldn’t be anything “Profiles in Gay & Lesbian Courage.” wrong with this kind of love."

“Kay and I believed we could eventually reach Lahusen moved to Boston to work for The tens of thousands of lesbians who had never Christian Science Monitor in the reference library, heard about our movement, lesbians who didn’t from 1956-61. necessarily want to join us but needed to see She found out about The Ladder from a themselves in a better light, who needed to know psychiatrist in New York City. that they were not alone, that something was being “In doing my research at the Monitor, I done to change things,” Gittings said.

K

To read the rest of this story visit SFGN.com/2017Historymonth This piece is part of a national multi-newspaper LGBT history project that’s put together by the Philadelphia Gay News every year.

30

•

1 0.11.2017

Kay Lahusen (left) and Barbara Gittings.

Photo courtesy of Kay Lahusen.

Kay Lahusen.

Photo credit: Jason Smith.

o C w ents T y M Random Thoughts on Wilton’s Dining Scene Rick Karlin

I

n the ever-changing culinary landscape that is Wilton Manors, a food writer always has something to consider and mull over. Recently I’ve been thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of the WilMa dining scene.

Visit

SFGN.com/FOOD to read the rest of this article.

What is there too much of (or not enough) in wilton manors? Your opinions welcome!

We know you have fine taste... so come treat yourself.

10.11.2017 •

31

F O R

T H E

SFGNITES

W E E K

O F

o c tober

1 2

J.W. Arnold

o c tober

1 7 ,

2 0 1 7

W W W . S F G N . C O M

On the Big Screen

jw@prdconline.com

THU

-

10/12

theater If you just happen to be one of the four daughters of Sappho in the world who have never seen “The Vagina Monologues,” here’s your chance: Eve Ensler’s timeless and unabashedly political celebration of womanhood returns to South Florida this weekend at the Aventura Arts and Cultural Center, 3385 NE 188th St. in Aventura, tonight and tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 13, at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $35 at AventuraCenter.org.

FRI

10/13

television Netflix has once again served up some riveting original television. This weekend, “Mindhunter” is available on the streaming and DVD-rental service. The psychological drama chronicles the investigations of a young agent (Jonathan Groff, HBO’s “Looking”) in the FBI’s elite serial crime unit that tracks killers and rapists. The series is powerful and goes way beyond anything on “Criminal Minds.”

See it at Netflix.com.

Saturday 10/14

film

The fantastic OUTshine Film Festival concludes its 2017 series in Fort Lauderdale this weekend. If you catch only one film, be sure to get your tickets to “Beats per Minute” (“BPM”), screening tonight at 9:30 p.m. at Savor Cinema, 503 SE 6th St. in Fort Lauderdale. The Grand Jury award winner at Cannes, this film offers a fresh and powerful perspective on the AIDS epidemic in France. Tickets are $13 at OutShineFilm.com.

Photo courtesy of OUTshine Film Festival.

SAT

10/14 SUN

10/15 MON

10/16 TUE

10/17

theater

nightlife

nightlife

theater

MNM Productions presents “La Cage aux Folles,” the beloved musical about a gay nightclub owner and his drag performer husband, through Oct. 22 in the Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. Jerry Herman’s memorable score includes the iconic songs, “I Am What I Am” and “The Best of Times.” Watch for outstanding performances by Michael Ursua and Clay Cartland. Tickets start at $45 at Kravis.org.

“America’s Got Talent” may be over for another season, but if you want to see some of the region’s most talented male entertainers, head down to Bahia Mar Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort, 801 Seabreeze Blvd., for the Mr. Florida M.E. (male entertainer) Pageant. Jose Manuel Vega, Mr. Florida M.E. 2016 will crown the winner in formal and beach wear, talent and interview categories. Tickets start at $25 at MissFloridaFIPageant.com.

Who will win the crown tonight at the 45th anniversary Miss Florida F.I. (female impersonator) pageant tonight at 8 p.m. at the Bahia Mar Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort, 801 Seabreeze Blvd.?

In addition to the talented female impersonators who are vying for the title, the show will include performances by the reigning Miss Florida F.I., Shantell D’Marco, and the Honorary Miss Florida F.I., Kitty Meow. Tickets start at $25 at MissFloridaFIPageant.com.

Feeling horny tonight? There’s an app for that. “Hook Ups Vol. 1” is a collection of short plays about—you guessed it—gay men hooking up on Grindr, Scruff, Growler and Mark’s List. The plays are sexy, funny and just a little kinky, too, with male frontal nudity and explicit situations. This hit production closes Oct. 22 at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive in Fort Lauderdale. Tickets are $35-50 at RonnieLarsen.com.

32

•

1 0.11.2017

10.11.2017 •

33

A&E film

Film Series Explores Gay Lives on

National Coming Out Day Alan Cumming stars in “Something Borrowed,” one of eight monologues being featured in BBC America’s “Queers” film series. Photo courtesy of the BBC.

J.W. Arnold

B

BC America will celebrate National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11 with the U.S. premiere of “Queers,” a day-long festival of eight dramatic monologues exploring the lives of British LGBTQ people, both past and present.

Mark Gatiss, creator of the hit PBS Masterpiece series “Sherlock,” curated the collection of short films, commissioned from both experienced and new screenwriters.

Leading British actors were recruited for the films, including Alan Cumming (“The Good Wife”), who will be performing in December with the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida on their holiday concert. The cast also includes Russell Tovey (“Looking,” “Quantico”), Gemma Whelan (“Game of Thrones”) and Ben Whishaw, who has become popular as “Q” in recent James Bond films.

Gareth McLean, former television critic for The Guardian newspaper, was one of the newer writers. His film, “Something Borrowed,” features Cumming as a nervous bridegroom on the eve of his long-anticipated wedding.

Steve (Cumming) reflects on many familiar themes—coming out, dating and relationships, commitment, his mother—and McLean explained in a phone interview from London that the film was somewhat autobiographical, calling it “a love letter to my boyfriend and a love letter to my mother.”

McLean described the experience working with both Gatiss and Cumming as incredible, watching his words come to life on the set during filming; however, he waited until the series was broadcast on television in August to view the finished product for the first time.

“It was very nerve wracking,” said the former critic awaiting the reviews of his work.

The entire series is theatrical in style and McLean admitted that the intimacy of a live performance— the communication between actor and audience—can be lost on a twodimensional screen. He was thrilled when the monologues were later staged at The Old Vic theater and his play performed by acclaimed actor Mark Bonnar.

While many references in the films may be unfamiliar to U.S. audiences, including the 1957 Wolfenden Report and 1967 Sexual Offence Act, universal themes of love and acceptance are woven throughout all in poignant, funny, tragic and riotous moments.

34

•

1 0.11.2017

The eight “Queers” monologues include: 10 a.m. EDT

“A Grand Day Out”

1994. As the government votes on lowering the age of male homosexual consent, 17-year-old Andrew comes to London for the first time – with unexpected results. Starring Fionn Whitehead.

3 p.m. EDT

“Safest Spot in Town”

“The Man on the Platform”

Written in response to the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act, a young man returning from the trenches of the First World War recollects a love that dared not speak its name. Starring Ben Whishaw.

“Missing Alice”

As the Blitz hits London, Fredrick is grateful that he survived in a very unlikely place of refuge. Starring Kadiff Kirwan.

Alice and her husband share a secret but with the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957 it may not need to be a secret anymore.

Starring Rebecca Front.

6:30 p.m. EDT

2:15 a.m.

“The Perfect Gentleman”

Bobby is a swaggering man about town. But Bobby has a secret.

Can it survive when it really matters? Starring Gemma Whelan.

10 p.m. EDT

“Something Borrowed”

Steve, a groom to be, anxiously prepares his wedding speech. But now the big day is here, what has been won and what has been lost? Starring Alan Cumming.

“More Anger”

Actors can easily feel typecast. But it's 1987 and with AIDS hitting the headlines, a promising new part looks like a game-changer for Phil. Starring Russell Tovey.

“I Miss the War”

The 1967 Sexual Offences Act will revolutionise everything, won't it? Well, perhaps not as far as dapper gent Jackie is concerned.

Starring Ian Gelder.

“Queers” will be broadcast throughout the day on Wednesday, Oct. 11, beginning at 10 a.m. The films will also be available on demand at BBCAmerica.com and the BBC America app.

10.11.2017 •

35

October 11 - october 18

Datebook

Theater Christiana Lilly

Calendar@SFGN.com

Top

Picks

The Vagina Monologues

Oct. 12 to 13 at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, 3385 N 188th St. in Aventura. The award-winning performance brings together female voices for their take on womanhood.

Contains adult language or content.

Tickets $34 to $45. Call 305-4668002 or visit AventuraCenter.org.

Bye Bye Birdie

Oct. 13 to 29 at the Lake Worth Playhouse, 713 Lake Ave. in Lake Worth. It’s the ‘60s and Conrad is about to be drafted, but not before he gets a kiss on live television. Tickets $35 and up. Call 561-586-6410 or visit LakeWorthPlayhouse.org.

The Naked Magicians

Oct. 14 at 8 p.m. at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts, 2855 Coral Springs Drive in Coral Springs. In this 18+ show, two Australian magicians perform magic in the buff. Tickets $49.82 to $71.02. Call 954-344-5990 or visit CoralSpringsCenterfortheArts. com.

* Denotes New Listing

broward county * Scorpions and Megadeth

Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. at the BB&T Center, One Panther Parkway in Sunrise. With more than 50 years under their belt, Scorpions return to North America for their “Crazy World” tour alongside Megadeth. Tickets $35 to $125. Call 954-835-7000 or visit TheBBTCenter.com.

* Bruno Mars

Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. at the BB&T Center, One Panther Parkway in Sunrise. Bruno Mars is joined by special guest Jorja Smith. Tickets $175 and up. Call 954-835-7000 or visit TheBBTCenter.com.

36

•

1 0.11.2017

* Tim McGraw and Faith Hill

Oct. 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the BB&T Center, One Panther Parkway in Sunrise. The husbandand-wife country music team celebrate the 10th anniversary of their record-breaking “Soul2Soul II” tour. Tickets $65 and up. Call 954-835-7000 or visit TheBBTCenter.com.

* Hook Ups Vol. 1

Through Oct. 22 at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive in Fort Lauderdale. The short plays return, exploring what happens when gay men look for love online. Contains male nudity and explicit sexual situations. Tickets $35. Visit RonnieLarsen.com.

White Boy

Through Oct. 22 at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive in Fort Lauderdale. Midwestern boy Patrick moves to Los Angeles to get away from the small town life, when he encounters race and cultural differences when he falls in love with Lobo, a Chicano gang member. Tickets $35 to $50. Visit RonnieLarsen.com

The Sound of Music

Through Oct. 22 at the Broward Center, 201 SW Fifth Ave. in Fort Lauderdale. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical of the nun Maria when she becomes a nanny to the von Trapp children. Tickets $30 and up. Call 954-4620222 or visit BrowardCenter.org.

Friday Night Sound Waves Music Series

Fridays from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at The Hub, Las Olas Boulevard and A1A in Fort Lauderdale. Enjoy live, outdoor music spanning genres and tributes every Friday evening through November. Free. Visit FridayNightSoundWaves.com

palm beach county The Vagina Monologues

Oct. 12 to 13 at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, 3385 N 188th St. in Aventura. The award-winning performance brings together female voices for their take on womanhood.

Contains adult language or content. Tickets $34 to $45. Call 305-466-8002 or visit AventuraCenter.org.

* YES

Oct. 13 at 8 p.m. at the Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd. in West Palm Beach. Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, and Rick Wakeman reunite to carry on the legacy of English prog rock band, YES. Tickets $35 and up. Call 561832-7469 or visit Kravis.org.

Bruno Mars will be at the BB&T Center on October 15 at 8 p.m. and at the American Airlines Arena on October 18 at 8 p.m. Photo courtesy of Atlantic Records.

* Florida Georgia Line, Nelly and Chris Lane

miami-dade county

Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. at the Perfect Vodka Amphitheatre, 601-7 Sansburys Way in West Palm Beach. Country and hip hop come together in a special concert throwback to “Cruise.” Tickets $53 and up. Call 561-7958883 or visit WestPalmBeachAmphitheatre. com.

* The Broadway Boys

On Your Feet

* Bruno Mars

* The Little Foxes

The Under Pants

Through Oct. 15 at the Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd. in Miami. Follow the story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan, from their roots in Cuba to becoming music sensations in the United States. Tickets $29 and up. Call 305949-6722 or visit ArshtCenter.org.

Oct. 18 to Nov. 12 at Palm Beach Dramaworks, 201 Clematis St. in West Palm Beach. It’s 1900 in Alabama and sisters REgina and Birdie are ruthless to get what they want.

Tickets $30 and up. Call 561-514-4042 or visit PalmBeachDramaworks.org.

La Cage aux Folles

Through Oct. 22 at the Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd. in West Palm Beach. After 20 years together, Georges and Albin are shocked when Georges’ daughter (from a onenight-stand) is marrying the son of a bigoted politician. Tickets $45 and up. Call 561-8327469 or visit Kravis.org.

Free Friday Concerts

Fridays at 7:30 p.m. at the Delray Beach Center for the Arts, 51 N. Swinton Ave. in Delray Beach. Enjoy live music from the comfort of your picnic blanket or lawn chair every week, for free! Returns in October. Call 561-243-7922 or visit DelrayArts.org.

Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, 3385 N 188th St. in Aventura.

The sextet perform pop, funk, gospel, folk, and jazz to traditional Broadway tunes.

Tickets $40.50 to $49. Call 305-466-8002 or visit AventuraCenter.org.

Oct. 18 at 8 p.m. at the AmericanAirlines Arena, 601 Biscayne Blvd. in Miami. The 24K Magic World Tour lands in Miami with for a show filled with music, dance, and theatrics.

Tickets $125 and up. Call 786-777-1000 or visit AAArena.com.

Through Oct. 22 at the Main Street Playhouse, 6766 Main St. in Miami Lakes. In this adaptation

by Steve Martin, Louise goes outside to see the king in a passing parade when her underpants accidentally fall to her ankles. Suddenly two men are fawning after her, to the dismay of her husband. Tickets $35 to $30. Call 305-5583737 or visit MainStreetPlayers.com.

Outdoor Music Series

Third Thursdays at the Perez Art Museum Miami, 101 W. Flagler St. in Miami. Come out for live music from DJs and musicians by the bay. Drink specials available. Free with museum admission. Call 305-375-3000 or visit PAMM.org.

The Big Show

Fridays and Saturdays at 9 p.m. at Just the Funny Theater, 3119 Coral Way in Miami.

A collection of comedy mixing the likes of improvisation and sketches. Tickets $12. Call 305-693-8669 or visit JustTheFunny.com.

Sunbow String Quartet Oct 15, 2017 6pm Reception • 6:30pm Concert

Performing Bedřich Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 in E Minor, “From my life,” and Antonín Dvořák’s “American” String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96.

4849 N Dixie Hwy, Oakland Park • $40 General Admission Tickets & Info: 954-522-8445 or SouthFloridaSymphony.org

KEEP YOUR EYES ON

South Florida Gay News

SFGN.com @SoFlaGayNews

SouthFloridaGayNews

Classic style... high tech platform.

No room for a newspaper in your back pocket? Keep SFGN’s weekly paper on your phone.

“South Florida Gay News”

10.11.2017 •

37

Datebook

Community

PRESENTS

Christiana Lilly Calendar@SFGN.com

Top Picks

Countdown 2 Zero

Oct. 14 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, 650 Okeechobee Blvd. in West Palm Beach.

More than 1,00 dog, cats, puppies, kittens and other animals will be available for adoption! Also, animal vendors, contests, and swag. Free. Call or visit Countdown2Zero.org.

Playhouse October 6-22, 2017 Rinker

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:30 pm Wednesday and Saturday at 1:30 pm and 7:30 pm • Sunday at 1:30 pm

Book by Harvey Fierstein • Lyrics & Music by Jerry Herman

WiNNER of 11 ToNy AWARdS

“The Funny, Saucy, Gender-Bending Musical” Choose your seat at the Kravis Center’s official website kravis.org or call 561.832.7469 or 800.572.8471 Group sales: 561.651.4438 or 561.651.4304

4.93x5.25 LaCg JewishJourn ad.indd 1

9/18/17 12:39 PM

October 11 october 18 Broward Support Services Gender Bender Youth Group

Mondays from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at SunServe Campus, 1480 SW Ninth Ave. in Fort Lauderdale. A group for LGBT youth 13 to 21 to discuss gender, gender expression, binary systems, friendship, family and whatever else comes up!

Free. Visit SunServeYouth.com

PFLAG

OUTshine Film Festival

Tuesdays in Fort Lauderdale, Coral Springs and Southwest Ranches. A support group for parents of LGBT youth 13 to 21. Free. Visit SunServeYouth.com for dates and locations.

Young Professional Network Social Kick-off

Tuesdays and Thursdays in Fort Lauderdale, Southwest Ranches, Coral Springs and Hollywood. A support group and night of fun for LGBT youth 13 to 21. Free. Visit SunServeYouth.com for dates and times.

Through Oct. 15 throughout Fort Lauderdale. A celebration of LGBT film with screenings, panels, parties and more.

Tickets $11 to $60 for various events and films Visit OUTshineFilm.com.

Oct. 19 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Atton Brickell Miami, 1500 SW First Ave. in Miami. The kick-off to the new social club for LGBT professionals will include free cocktails, passed bites, music, networking, and Ian Houston, a motivational speaker.

Tickets $10, $20 at the door. RSVP to 305673-4440, rsvp@gaybizmiami.com, or gaybizmiami.com.

* Denotes New Listing

SunServe Youth Group

Survivor Support

First and third Wednesdays from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Broward Health Imperial Point Hospital cafeteria, 6401 N. Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale.

Find support from counselors and peers who have lost loved ones to suicide. Call the Florida Initiative for Suicide Prevention at 954-384-0344 or visit FISPOnline.org.

broward county Taste of Equality

Oct. 11 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Gulfstream Park, 901 S. Federal Highway in Hallandale Beach.

Celebrate equality by tasting delectable dishes from restaurants, shopping specials, raffles, entertainment, and more. Tickets $40 in advance, $50 the door benefiting Equality Florida’s Safe and Healthy Schools Project. Visit eqfl.org/tasteofequality.

* SAGE Book Group: “Days Without End”

Oct. 14 from 11 a.m to noon at the Stonewall Library & Archives, 1300 E. Sunrise Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale. In this novel, Thomas McNulty leaves Ireland during the famine for America, where he grows up to become a soldier in the

38

•

1 0.11.2017

Indian Wars and the Civil War. Free. Call 954763-8565 or visit Stonewall-Museum.org.

* Everhard Baths Presentation

Oct. 19 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Stonewall National Museum - Wilton Manors Gallery, 2157 Wilton Drive in Wilton Manors. Ed Sparan discusses the Everhard Baths fire in 1977 that claimed the lives of nine gay men, and its implications on safe spaces for gay men. Free. Call 954-763-8565 or visit Stonewall-Museum.org.

True Colors: In Our Own Words, Video Stories in Queer America

Through Nov. 5 at the Stonewall National Museum - Wilton Manors Gallery, 2157

october 11 - october 18

Wilton Drive in Wilton Manors. View how LGBT activism has blossomed online, from the “It Gets Better” campaign, coming out, and online personalities. Free. Call 954-7638565 or visit Stonewall-Museum.org.

Life Coaching

Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Latinos Salud Clubhouse, 2300 Wilton Drive in Wilton Manors. Get one-onone life coaching from certified CRCS coaches. For guys living with HIV, their partners, and anyone who identifies as transgender. Free. Call 954-765-6239 or visit LatinosSalud.org.

Be

Rest Your Mind

Mondays at 6:30 p.m. at Kadampa Meditation Center, 241 W Prospect Road Ste. B in Fort Lauderdale. Start your week with relaxing meditation to center yourself. Free. Visit MeditateinFortLauderdale.org.

nt.

Man2Man Discussion

Mondays 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Pride Center, 2040 N. Dixie Highway in Wilton Manors.

A weekly informal discussion group among gay men of all backgrounds. Contact John Beuscher at 954-319-4292 or email johnnybushwick@aol.com.

palm beach county Hurricane Irma Relief

Through Nov. 30 at the Urban League of Palm Beach County, 1700 N. Australian Ave. in West Palm Beach. Were you impacted by Hurricane Irma and need help? Come to the league Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to receive assistance. Bring your SSN, address and description of the damage, phone number, a working address, insurance information, and banking information. Call 561-833-1461 or visit ULPBC.org

Transcendence

Meets at Compass GLCC, 201 N. Dixie Highway in Lake Worth. A closed transgender youth support group for teens ages 12 to 19. For more information, email youth@compassglcc.com.

Sober Sisters

Mondays at 6:15 p.m. at Lambda North, 18 S. J St. in Lake Worth. A support and discussion group for female recovering alcoholics. Visit LambdaNorth.net.

Palm Beaches Prime Timers

Second Saturdays at 3 p.m. at Compass GLCC, 201 N. Dixie Highway in Lake Worth.

An active fraternal and social organization

dedicated to bring together mature gay and bisexual men for friendship, activities, support, and personal growth for the best times of our lives. Free. Call 561- 533-9699 or visit CompassGLCC.com.

miami-dade county Arsht Center Farmers Market

Mondays from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Parker and Vann Thomson Plaza for the Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd. in Miami. Purchase fresh food from local farmers, including fruits, vegetables, meats, prepared foods, as well as chefs, live music, and cooking demonstrations. Tickets $45 to $75. Free.

Visit ArshtCenter.org/en/Visit/Dining.

Yoga

Tuesdays from 6 to 7:15 p.m. at Jose Marti Park, 362 SW Fourth Ave. in Miami. Yogis 18 and older of all levels are invited to a practice lead by a certified instructor. Bring your own yoga mat, water, and towel. Free. Call 305358-7550 or visit BayfrontParkMiami.com/ Yoga.html.

Book Study

Wednesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Drolma

Kadampa Buddhist Center, 1273 Coral Way in Miami. Buddhist monk, Gen Kelsang Norbu, will lead classes on learning the foundations of Buddhism. Call 786-529-7137.

Yoga in the Garden

Wednesdays at 12:15 p.m. and Saturdays at 11:30 a.m. at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, 2000 Convention Center Drive in Miami Beach. Hit the mat for an indoor yoga practice overlooking the garden. Tickets $10 Wednesdays, $15 Saturdays. Call 305-6737256 or visit MBGarden.org.

TransSocial Saturdays

Saturdays from noon to 3 p.m. at Pridelines, 6360 NE Fourth Court in Miami. Come hang out with others for a movie, snacks, and discussion every Saturday. Visit TransSocial. org.

key west Tea Dance: A Key West Tradition

Sundays at 4 p.m. at La Te Da Hotel, 1125 Duval St. An early evening dance in the Key West tradition. Call 305-296-6706 or visit LaTeDa.com.

L HELP, LGBT Radio & Podcasts

Let’s Be Let’s Be Blunt.

Blunt.

IF WE IF WE

YOU NEED LEGAL HELP, CAN HELP. YOU NEED The LEGALLaw HELP,Offices of CAN HELP.

Norm Kent & Russell Cormican

News, comm en ry, inte entertata inment rviews,

The Law Offices of

Saturday 7PM-8PM on 850AM WFTL

The Law Offices of COM Norm Kent & Russell Cormican

Streaming live on www.850WFTL.com, or by downloading the 850 WFTL mobile app

954.763.1900 RMKENT.NORMKENT. COM 954.763.1900 Norm Kent & Russell Cormican

NORMKENT.COM 954.763.1900

THE CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAW CENTER OF SOUTH FLORIDA

CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAW DEFENSE CENTERLAW OFCENTERSOUTH THE CRIMINAL OF SOUTHFLORIDA FLORIDA

Hosted by T o • Congressmm Hantzarides with an Mark Fole y for comme • News by S ntary and insight outh Florida • Pop Culture G , Entertainmay News ent with D a n a M • “Faithful & Fabulous” wunson ith Rev. Dr. Le a Brown “Aim

ing to in activate our form, empower, and diverse com munity” Facebook.com/getoutsouthflorida

Instagram: @getoutsflradio • Twitter: @GetOutSF For more information e-mail: TomH@GetOutSouthFlorida.com

10.11.2017 •

39

THE

GUIDE

Business Directory

attorney Law office of george castrataro 707 NE 3rd Ave #300, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304 954.573.1444 Lawgc.com Law office of Robin bodiford 2550 N Federal Hwy #20, Fort Lauderdale, FL 954.630.2707 Lawrobin.com

attorney law office of Gregory Kabel 1 East Broward Blvd #700, Fort Lauderdale, 33301 954.761.7770 gwkesq@bellsouth.net law office of Shawn Newman 710 NE 26th St, Wilton Manors, FL 33305 954.563.9160 Shawnnewman.com

To place an ad in the Business Directory, call our sales team at 954.530.4970

a&e Ft Lauderdale Gay Men's Chorus PO Box 9772, Ft Lauderdale, FL 33310-9772 954-832-0060 www.theftlgmc.org Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida 2040 North Dixie Hwy, #218, Wilton Manors, FL 33305 954-763-2266 Gaymenschorusofsouthflorida.org

call us to reserve space! bookkeeping

Licensed & Insured

accent modification Speak better english - Do people ask you to repeat more than once when speaking English on the phone? Let me, a retired professor, help you with one on one exercises and specific conversational lessons. I will also reduce your apprehension about speaking English.

Call for an appointment 718-415-7809.

dental Oakland Park Dental 3047 N Federal Hwy, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306 954.566.9812 Oaklandparkdental.com Andrews Dental Care 2654 N Andrews Ave, Wilton Manors, FL 33311 954.567.3311 Andrewsdentalcare.com Island City Dental 1700 NE 26th Street, Ste. 2, Fort Lauderdale, FL 954-564-7121 Islandcitydental.com

954-725-3633

custom alarm contractors, Inc.

Est. 1989 “Experience Matters” Service after the sale! ▶ residential security ▶ commercial security ▶ closed circuit tV www.customalarmcontractors.com 40

•

1 0.11.2017

final arrangements

furniture

professional services

handyman

sfgn.com

professional services

Kalis-McIntee Funeral & Cremation Center

2505 N. Dixie Hwy, Wilton Manors, FL 33305 954-566-7621 Kalismcintee.com

florist

Miami/Broward/Palm Beach Paint/Caulk/Remove Grout/Yard Work Fix Drips & Switches/Debris removal Assembles Furniture & Appliances Repair or Fix Call "Avrom" Keith 786-227-9981

www.sfgn.guide

financial services

call us to reserve space! health insurance Medicare/MedicaID Florida Blue / Blue Cross Blue Shield 2765 West Cypress Creek Road Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33309 Call Steve Herbstman @ 954-554-7074

health

American Pain Experts 6333 N. Federal Hwy, Ste. 250, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 954-678-1074 Americanpainexperts.com

Chery’s Blinds & Interiors

Drapery • blinDs • shutters • Silhouette • Drapes • Shades • Swags/Custom Valance • Blinds • Wood Shutters • Flooring & More FREE

Shop at Home Service Leading Brands Low Prices!

repairs aVailable

We Will Beat Any Advertised or Written Estimate by 10%

Cherysblinds.com Free estiMates 4300 n.e. 5th avenue

954-563-4545

call us to reserve space!

photographer

sfgn.com

Let’s make music together!

WE’RE HERE FOR ALL YOUR

FINANCIAL NEEDS Taxes IRS Issues Accounting

call us to reserve space!

Have you ever wanted to play something from your favorite musical, or a cover from Glee, or a Chopin nocturne? Whatever your aspirations, from classical to pop, I can help you. I have worked with hundreds of students at all stages of life. Sign up for a free trial lesson to see if I’m the right teacher for you!

Bookkeeping Small Business Advising

I’m also available for parties! Halloween, Christmas… and everything in between!

954-667-9829

ACCOUNTING@STERLINGACCOUNTING.COM 2435 North Dixie Highway • Wilton Manors, FL 33305

THE

GUIDE

Nathan Johnson Pianist | Teacher

Business Directory

(617) 444-9926 | pianowithnathan@gmail.com www.pianowithnathan.com

To place an ad in the Business Directory, call our sales team at 954.530.4970 10.11.2017 •

41

THE

GUIDE

Business Directory

To place an ad in the Business Directory, call our sales team at 954.530.4970

real estate Fort Lauderdale, Wilton Manors & Oakland Park REMODELED homes:

2 bedroom/2 bath condos from

sports

spirituality

Tennis Lessons at Hagen Park in Wilton Manors. Individual or group lessons. Call Robert 732-604-0362 for more information.

101 NE 3rd St Fort Lauderdale FL 33301

Brian S. Bedigian, P.A.

RealtorBrian@aol.com www.BrianFTL.com

Your South Florida Specialist for Over 18 Years

Realtor

954.205.5275

transportation therapy

www.stsfrancisandclare.org Baptisms • Weddings • Memorial Services

sfgn.com 1 0.11.2017

$250,000

Taylor & Turner Pest and Termite Control, Inc

Mass Times: Saturday 5:00 PM Sunday 10:30 AM

•

Helping Buyers, Sellers, Renters, and Investors for over 18 years in South Florida.

$300,000

call us to reserve space!

Where we welcome and appreciate diversity.

42

from

from

The Parish of Sts. Francis and Clare

Ecumenical Catholic 954.731.8173

Ocean/Intracoastal

3 bedroom/2 bath homes

spirituality

THE BEST SERVICE, THE BEST RESULTS SOMEONE YOU CAN TRUST!

$135,000

RAINBOW RIDES-SAVE MONEY ON YOUR RIDE! - We treat you like family! SPECIALIZING IN AIRPORT RIDES! Need a ride to FLL, MIA, or PBI? (or anywhere else?) I'm a friendly driver with a nice, clean Chevy Malibu. My fixed-rate pricing beat all ride sharing - apps every time. Call or text me to schedule a ride, I'll be there early and I'll text you when I arrive. No 'surge" prices, no hassles. Call or text Nikki at 954-600-3133.

William D. Turner taylorandturner@yahoo.com 2520 North Dixie Hwy Wilton Manors, FL 33305

954.630.2627

SFGN Classified$ To place a Classified Ad, call Tim Higgins at 954.530.4970 or email at Tim.Higgins@sfgn.com

adult networking Single White Male, 52 Seeking - Healthy, Mature Top, Similar Age. Contact Jeff @ 305.781.2122 (Lives in Plantation)

www.sfgn.guide

electrician HARRY’S ELECTRIC RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL - Additions, renovations, service upgrades, breaker panels,FPL undergrounds, code violations, A/C wiring, ceiling fans, recessed, security & landscaping, lighting, pools, pumps, Jacuzzis, water heaters, FREE PHONE ESTIMATES 954-522-3357 Lic & Ins. www. harryelectrician.com

employment wanted

SPECIAL HIRE NEEDED - Looking for strong males (must be able to hold up fall risk gentlemen, dementia, Parkinson's, stage 4 cancer, etc.) for LGBT seniors, must be gay-friendly, many have live-in senior partners (must enjoy the company of gay people and comfortable in gay settings, restaurants, etc.) Call 954-629-1377 and leave a message ONLY, include your contact info, name, and level of experience in senior care or your willingness to devote your time to senior care. Faxes welcome at 754-301-5802

handyman

HUSBAND FOR RENT - Is he procrastinating home repairs? He says he will do it tomorrow?? After the football game?? We fit right in - in the house or the yard, small or big jobs: tile, dry wall, paint, plumbing, roof leaks, broken furniture, irrigation, fences, and more! It doesn't cost to hassle us to see the work - so why wait?

Neat, clean work for a reasonable price. Call Haim at 954-398-3676, sidnalll@yahoo.com

music lessons VOICE LESSONS & MUSIC THEATRE COACHING - Over 30 years experience. Students have performed on (and off) Broadway, in National & International tours, recorded solo albums & placed in prestigious competitions. www.kreutzmusic.com 617-967-0575

painting

GREGG'S PAINTING - I paint both interior and exterior.

Great rates, free estimates. I am detailed-oriented, friendly, reliable, punctual, and neat. No job too small. Broward and Palm Beach Counties. Call Gregg at 617-306-5694 or 954-870-5972 Email: gmanbenn44@gmail.com

piano WANT TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY THE PIANO? Learn from an experienced teacher. All levels and ages welcome. Learn to play classical, popular, jazz, or show tunes. Visit www.edwinchad.com or call 954-826-9555 for more information.

pool service COOL POOLS- RELIABLE POOL SERVICE Professional pool service.Covering Wilton Manors, Lighthouse Point, and eastside of Pompano Beach. 15 years experience. Licensed and insured.Free estimates.

Call 954-235-0775.

Get more bang for your buck!

Place an ad in SFGN’s Classifieds

954.530.4970

real estate new construction United Realty Group - Building in Wilton Manors, Fort Lauderdale Beach, Coconut Creek, Lauderdale Lakes and Hollywood. Starting in the 200's, 2 & 3 Bedrooms, 1 & 2 Garages available with building incentives. Call for details Michael 561-703-5533 or email mkltub@aol.com for more info.

rentals wilton manors

MIKE THE RENTAL GUY - NE Lauderdale/Wilton Manors/Oakland Park-1/1 from $1090, 2/1 from $1140.

Victoria Park-2/1=$1290.00 cable included. Credit & Income Requirements-Pets okay with restrictions Call for Details Mike 561- 703-5533 or miketherentalguy@ aol.com

rentals fort lauderdale

MIDDLE RIVER TERRACE 2/1 $1,350/MO - Live very close to Wilton Manors and The Drive. Tudor Manor Complex. Very tropical. Pets OK. First/Last/Sec & Association approval. Contact Mike Trottier, Realtor 954-627-1222 ext 1 www.mikesREteam.com iHome Florida Real Estate

roommates boca raton

Roommate - Elderly gay man formerly from Europe seeks roommate between 62 and 75 to share a 3 bedroom house and pool. Must have a car. Very low rent. Serious minded only! Call Gary @ 561-451-0205.

rentals oakland park OAKLAND PARK 1BD/1BT $850/MONTH - One bedroom apartment in Oakland Park, recently updated bath. Well maintained. Large walk in closet. Tiles floors through out. Impact windows. Privacy fence and off street parking. $50 application fee. Background Checks, No Smoking. No Pets. $850/month call 954-818-9012

10.11.2017 •

43