26. THE PRIDE L.A., SEPT. 9, 2016

the pride ISSUE NUMBER 21, VOLUME 2 09.09 — 09.22.2016

WWW.THEPRIDELA.COM EDUCATION ⚫ 3

California’s Ed. Accountability Policy Lacks LGBT Awareness

MOVIE REVIEW KOBO STRIKES A DEEP CORD ⚫ 16

| SEP 9 - SEP 22, 2016

LOS ANGELES

⚫

THE LOS ANGELES LGBT NEWSPAPER MARRIAGE HISTORY VA HOSPITAL GAY NUPS WILL MOVE YOU ⚫ 10

CHECK US OUT ONLINE FOR BREAKING NEWS AND UPDATES.

HISTORY MADE ⚫ 4

Senator Mark Leno’s 17-Year CA Legislative Career Ends MEMORIAL ⚫ 5

Memorial for Mark Thompson, pioneering writer Sept. 18 NEWS ⚫ 10

SCOTUS may review Transgender man’s fight to see kids NEWS ⚫ 8

Transgender youth adoptions are an urgent matter END PAGE ⚫ 18

Love is like a butterfly and Dolly Parton is like an angel

1

TRANS YOUTH AND ADOPTION: THE HOMELESS LGBT YOUTH CRISIS HAS A SIMPLE SOLUTION. ADOPTION. 40% OF ALL HOMELESS YOUTH ARE LGBT.

⚫ 2

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

WE FOCUS ON HIV TO HELP YOU FOCUS ON

TODAY

Ask your doctor if a medicine made by Gilead is right for you.

onepillchoices.com © 2015 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. UNBC1848 03/15

UNBC1848_FocusOnToday_8.125x10.75.indd 1

3/13/15 10:26 AM

>

09.09 — 09.22.2016 CALIFORNIA YOUTH

LOS ANGELES

⚫ 3

EDUCATION POLICY

⚫ BY KAREN OCAMB

California’s Ed. Accountability Policy Lacks LGBT Awareness

With LGBT youth issues on the rise, California fails to adequately address key issues even as the state adjusts student retention policy.

LGBT education and legislative activists have been trying to get the attention of California’s education administrators since science teacher Dr. Virginia Uribe created a school dropout prevention program for LGBT students at Fairfax High School in 1984.

This year, 32 years later, three LGBT youth-related bills passed the Legislature and are now sitting on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk awaiting his signature: one would regulate the abusive but lucrative “troubled teen” industry; another would require private religious colleges that take tax dollars to publicly state that they discriminate against LGBT students and employees for religious reasons; and the third would require the Department of Education to create and provide a model comprehensive suicide prevention plan to be adopted by local school districts.

These three bills were created because of a need and specific situations brought to the attention of their authors: SB 524—the “Protecting Youth from Institutional Abuse Act”—was brought to Sen. Ricardo Lara by the Los Angeles LGBT Center and Survivors of Institutional Abuse (SIA); Lara also authored SB 1146—“Uncovering Discrimination in Higher Education”— sponsored by Equality California after complaints from LGBT students; and AB 2246—“Suicide Prevention Policies in Schools”—authored by former Long Beach teacher Assemblymember Patrick O’Donnell with Equality California and The Trevor Project after new studies show that LGBT suicide rates continue to be high.

No one knows whether Brown will sign or veto the bills. But the real question is why—after three decades of fighting for compassion and equal treatment in the state’s school sys-

CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN.

tem—must these conditions still need a remedy?

In 1984, openly lesbian Dr. Uribe worked with then-closeted Jackie Goldberg, president of the Los Angeles Unified School District, to fight rabidly anti-gay Traditional Values Coalition head Rev. Lou Sheldon to make sex education and condoms available in the schools during the AIDS crisis.

In the early 1990s, out Sheila Kuehl brought the issue of discrimination and bullying against LGBT youth to the Assembly floor with her “Dignity For All Students” bill. Later, out Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s “School Success and Opportunity Act” ensured that transgender students have access to all school programs and facilities—a law that sent the religious right screaming about the scary “bathroom bill.”

But none of those three decades of laws and attempts to instill LGBT cultural competency in America’s most progressive state seem to have penetrated the thick bureaucratic thinking of the California State Board of Education, which is meeting Thursday to “adopt key elements of a new and distinct school accountability system,” according to education watchdog EdSource.

“The new system shifts from a one-di-

mensional school rating under the API and the federal No Child Left Behind Act, based on test scores, toward a broader picture of what constitutes a quality education. It combines measures of underlying conditions, such as teacher qualifications and student suspension rates, and academic outcomes, including gauges of college and career readiness and standardized test scores,” reports EdSource.

Including the issue of student suspension indicates at least some cultural competency. A federal report last year showed that African American students are four times more likely than whites to be arrested in or suspended or expelled from school, mostly in the South.

However, the rates in California for students being suspended for “willful defiance” apparently declined for three years, according to a 2015 report by the UCLA Civil Rights Project.

“Michael Thompson, director of the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a nonprofit policy group, said blacks are more likely to be suspended or expelled in situations where teachers or school leaders have discretion in determining how to respond to behavior, such as when a student is deemed disrespectful or defiant or violates a dress code,” the New York

Times reported.

African American parents have long decried the “school-to-prison pipeline” for unfair school suspensions that can start as early as preschool.

But LGBT youth of all races and ethnicities are subject to acting out and suffering the consequences of “willful defiance.” And for LGBT youth who are unruly and perhaps non-gender conforming, the penalties can far exceed the “crime”—they can be sent to a rehabilitation facility where they may be forced to endure starvation, physical, mental and emotional abuse and maybe even lose their lives.

“We’re so close to finally regulating an industry rife with institutions that masquerade as residential schools, camps, and wilderness programs to help troubled youth, but frequently abuse and even kill the kids they claim to ‘treat,’” said the Center’s Director of Policy & Community Building Dave Garcia after SB 524 passed. “For all youth, and particularly for the well-being of LGBT youth whose parents are frequently conned into sending their kids to these programs simply because they’re LGBT, we implore Governor Brown to quickly sign the Protecting Youth from Institutional Abuse Act.” The Center urges everyone to sign a petition to Gov. Brown urging him to sign the “Protecting Youth from Institutional Abuse Act”- click here.

But the EdSource report on Thursday’s California State Board of Education meeting —ironically during Suicide Prevention Week—makes no mention of the need to consider or develop protocols for compassionate treatment for troubled LGBT youth in schools. Nor is there mention of the need to adopt more comprehensive suicide prevention policies, despite the CDC noting last month that suicide is the second-leading cause of death among all young people aged 10-24; specifically, “more than 40 percent of LGB students have seriously considered suicide, and 29 percent reported having attempted suicide during the past 12 months.” Suicide consideration and attempts are even greater among transgender youth.

EDUCATION continued on p. 7

⚫ 4

POLITICS CALIFORNIA

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

TRIBUTES TO LEGEND

⚫ BY KAREN OCAMB

Senator Mark Leno’s 17-Year CA Legislative Career Ends

Most LGBT Californians got to know Mark Leno after he was elected to the State Assembly in 2002 and became an outspoken proponent for marriage rights for same sex couples. But it was not a new fight for him: in 2000, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing the Castro and surrounding districts, Leno was a statewide leader against the anti-gay Prop 22 initiative and introduced legislation that would allow a tenant protection to get another roommate if the previous roommate (or lover) died from AIDS. He also secured equal access to the city’s health care plan for the city’s transgender employees.

That’s just some of the heart and experience Leno, a small business owner, brought with him to the Assembly, where he joined John Laird from Santa Cruz in becoming the first gay men

in that august body. They joined with Sheila Kuehl, Chris Kehoe and Carole Migden to form the California LGBT Legislative Caucus.

But none of that—nor any of his hard work fighting against Prop 8 and for LGBT rights—was mention by his State Senate colleagues on Wednesdaynight, Aug. 31, the last day of the legislative session for the body he had served since 2008. Instead he was praised for his leadership as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, leadership his Republican counterparts said was brilliant, fair, and resulted in a state budget surplus. Their effusive respect and obviously sincere declarations of friendship and goodwill were a very far cry from the ultra-conservatives who unflinchingly harangued and slurred Leno in the early years as he successfully passed two marriage

equality bills, vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Leno’s 17-year political legacy from Supervisor to State Legislature, where he authored 161 laws, will be remembered as one of grace, brilliance and always fighting for the underdog, as a terrific Los Angeles Times portrait pointed out.

Last June, The Times notes, after Leno presented “his final state spending plan as budget chairman, the entire Senate rose for a long and loud ovation. As many Republicans as Democrats praised him.” For a gay man who took over Harvey Milk’s seat in San Francisco, that image encapsulates LGBT progress in California.

State Sen. Pro Tem Kevin De Leon opened the tribute to Leno, describing him as “elegance, eloquence with the intellectual super fire power to

deal with the complexities and the arcane-ness of today’s budget matters,” which are now multi-dimensional and worldwide. Noting that Leno is a Democrat who “leans to the very far left” but “gets the incredible respect from within the political spectrum,” De Leon called the San Franciscan “the best budget chair that I worked with” a leader with “so much knowledge, so much wisdom and so much grace.”

Mark Leno seatedSenate Majority Leader Bill Monning said Leno leads “with such a steady sense of purpose,” adding that he “makes the impossible possible. And he does it with aplomb and grace and always with great respect. We’re going to miss you tremendously.”

LENO continued on p. 11

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

⚫ BY KAREN OCAMB

Memorial for Mark Thompson, pioneering writer Sept. 18 Mark Thompson was a seeker, a diviner of the gay soul and its scrumptious flesh, this era’s Walt Whitman.

As an early activist in the Bay Area, it was his duty to challenge the heterosexual norm. As a writer and editor at The Advocate from 1975 to 1994, it was his delight and responsibility to plumb the burgeoning gay movement and capture its culture and history as it was happening. And as a gay man with HIV during the AIDS crisis, it was his personal joy and agony to wrestle everyday with the existential dilemma of why he got to keep rolling that bolder up the mountain.

Mark found meaning in myth and in the spirit of new life illuminated and sung and danced by naked gay men together at gatherings of the Radical Fairies. Something in him deeply believed what his friend Harry Hay said – that gays are different from straights and have their own contribution to make to the world.

Mark also loved deeply his beloved husband, Episcopal priest and civ-

⚫ 5

il rights hero Malcolm Boyd. They flaunted their vast age difference as its own spiritual defiance to rigid societal custom in the name of love.

Malcolm preceded Mark in death by a year, laying a table for him to rejoice together in their spiritual reconciliation.

MARK THOMPSON AT ONE NATIONAL GAY & LESBIAN ARCHIVES AT THE USC LIBRARIES

THE GATHERING Mark’s friends—including Rev. Troy Perry, lesbian feminist icon Ivy Bottini and academic activist Chris Freeman—will also rejoice at a memorial and reception on Sunday, Sept. 18 from 2:00-4:00p at ONE Institute, 909 West Adams Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90007.

Only 100 chairs are available inside for the ceremony (which will start promptly at 2:15) but there is a reception afterward for more sharing.

Free parking is available in the area.

Please visit Mark’s webpage for more about him and his writing and visit The Pride LA story for more about his life and times.

Advice and insight from parents & surrogates to assist your journey to parenthood.

AdviceSurrogacy and insightConference from Families Through Advice and insight from

Advice Advice Advice and and and insight insight insight from from from& surrogates parents & to assist parents tosurrogates assist Advice and insight from Advice and insight from to parenthood. parents parents parents & surrogates && surrogates surrogates to to assist to assist assist your journey your journey to parenthood.

Advice and insight from parents & surrogates to& assist parents surrogates to assist your your your journey journey journey to to parenthood. to parenthood. parenthood. parents & surrogates to assist Families Through Surrogacy Conference Through Surrogacy Conference your journey Families to parenthood. your journey to parenthood. your journey to parenthood.

LOS ANGELES 1 OCTOBER 2016 LOS ANGELES

Families Families Families Through Through Through Surrogacy Surrogacy Surrogacy Conference Conference Conference Families Through Families Surrogacy Conference Through Surrogacy Conference Families Through Surrogacy Conference

LOS ANGELES LOS LOS LOS ANGELES ANGELES ANGELES OCTOBER 2016 To1LOS learn more1visit: OCTOBER 2016 LOS ANGELES ANGELES LOS ANGELES 1 1OCTOBER 1OCTOBER OCTOBER 2016 2016 2016 To learn more visit: www.familiesthrusurrogacy.com/la To learn more visit: 12016 OCTOBER 2016 1 OCTOBER 2016 1 OCTOBER www.familiesthrusurrogacy.com/la

To learn ToTo learn learn more more more visit: visit: visit: www.familiesthrusurrogacy.com/la To learn more visit:To learn more visit: To learn more visit: www.familiesthrusurrogacy.com/la www.familiesthrusurrogacy.com/la www.familiesthrusurrogacy.com/la www.familiesthrusurrogacy.com/la www.familiesthrusurrogacy.com/la www.familiesthrusurrogacy.com/la

Create your family.

Create your family.

Create your family.

Create Create Create your your your family. family. family.

Create your family.

Create yourCreate family.your family.

PROUDLY

PROUDLY PROUDLY PROUDLY SUPPORTED SUPPORTED SUPPORTED BY

BY BY PROUDLY

PROUDLY

SUPPORTED BY

SUPPORTED BY Untitled-3 1

SUPPORTED BY

PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY

PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY

8/30/16 2:56 PM

⚫ 6

LOS ANGELES NATIONAL

>

TRANSGENDER PARENT

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LEGAL

⚫ BY TROY MASTERS

Get 690 $

1

in Value

DURING AAA TRAVEL’S EXCLUSIVE

TROPICALDAYS HAWAI`I | MEXICO | CARIBBEAN

5 NIGHTS FROM

$

676

2 LAND ONLY

HILTON HAWAIIAN VILLAGE® WAIKIKI BEACH RESORT INCLUDES: • • • • •

Five nights’ resort view accommodations 3 Kids 17 and younger STAY FREE EXCLUSIVE: Resort fee waived ($150 Value) EXCLUSIVE: Two-category room upgrade4 ($340 Value) TROPICAL DAYS SPECIAL OFFER: $150 SAVINGS per booking5

6

Hawai`i

Contact your AAA Travel Agent today to book!

CALL: 310.453.5800 VISIT: AAA Travel 2730 Santa Monica Blvd.

Santa Monica, CA 90404 1 The value listed is per booking and equal to the total inclusions and member benefits listed for the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort. Value for other participating properties may vary. 2Rate is per person, land only, based on double occupancy in resort view accommodations for check in on February 1, 2017. Rate and availability are subject to change. Rate shown includes government-imposed fees and taxes. Advertised rate does not include any applicable daily resort or facility fees payable directly to the hotel at check-out; such fee amounts will be advised at the time of booking. Terms & Conditions apply. 3Kids stay free in same room as adults using existing bedding. Occupancy limits apply. 4Two-category room upgrades: Resort View to Ocean View, Partial Ocean View to Rainbow Tower Ocean View, Ocean View to Rainbow Tower Ocean Front, Rainbow Tower Ocean View to Rainbow Tower Ocean Front Corner Room. Blackout dates: September 15 – September 19, 2016, October 2 – October 6, 2016, November 25 – November 27, 2016, December 25 – December 31, 2016, January 15 – January 24, 2017, May 22 – May 27, 2017, June 5 – June 7, 2017, June 14 – June 15, 2017. Additional blackout dates may apply. Not applicable to group bookings. May not be combinable with any other offer. Subject to availability and can change without notice. Other restrictions may apply. 5Valid on new bookings made September 1 – October 31, 2016 for travel September 1, 2016 – June 30, 2017. Blackout dates apply December 21, 2016 – January 3, 2017. Requires round-trip airfare from the U.S. and minimum 5 nights’ accommodation at a participating hotel or resort. Savings is per booking and is applied at time of booking. Savings is not yet reflected in rate. 6Activity voucher does not apply to air/car only booking. Valid toward the purchase of a select optional activity. Not valid for hotel direct activity bookings.

Airfare, taxes, surcharges, gratuities, transfers and excursions are additional unless otherwise indicated. Fuel surcharges, government taxes, other surcharges and deposit, payment and cancellation terms/conditions are subject to change without notice at any time. Rates quoted are per person, based on adult double occupancy unless otherwise stated. Cruise rates are capacity controlled.

Rates, terms, conditions, availability and itinerary are subject to change without notice. Other airline restrictions, including, but not limited to baggage limitations and fees, standby policies and fees, non-refundable tickets and change fees with pre-flight notification deadlines may apply. Fees and policies vary among airlines without notice. Please contact the airline directly for details and answers to specific questions you may have. Certain restrictions may apply. AAA members must make advance reservations through AAA Travel to obtain Member Benefits and savings. Member Benefits may vary based on departure date. Unless otherwise stated, rate is accurate at time of printing and is subject to availability and change. Not responsible for errors or omissions. Your local AAA Club acts as an agent for Pleasant Holidays®. CTR #1016202-80. Copyright © 2016 Auto Club Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Transgender man fights to see kids One day after New York State’s highest court issued a favorable decision for two lesbian parents, a transgender father in Louisiana got closer to seeing the twins he helped raise in a case that could reach the Bayou State’s top court.

In 2003, Vincent Ferrand and Paula Stephanie exchanged vows and wedding rings in Tennessee, but the state refused to recognize their union.

That was because, though Vincent identified as a man, Tennessee still viewed him as a woman, and the state would not recognize same-sex marriages until the Supreme Court forced it to 12 years later.

Two years after their ceremony, Paula would legally change her surname to his, and the couple braced for Hurricane Katrina to make landfall in their home state of Louisiana.

In the wake of the storm’s devastation, Vincent says, his construction business had been “booming.”

He said that his new influx of cash made him able to fund Paula’s in vitro fertilization, and she became pregnant with twins in 2007.

Both of the children, a son and a daughter, called him “Daddy,” and the boy took his name: Vincent, II. The parents changed both birth certificates to take Vincent’s surname.

After the twins both turned four, the mother reconnected with a high-school boyfriend on Facebook, and they began an affair that would eventually lead to her remarriage — this time, recognized by the state.

Vincent claims that his former partner rarely visited her children for well over a year as she essentially “walked away” to begin a new life.

This abruptly changed in early 2014, when Vincent said that he dropped the children off at school

in the morning, and received an email from Paula in the afternoon threatening to call the police if he tried to contact them. Their relationship continued to take a messy downturn: Paula claimed that Vincent got “violent” against her, and they filed protective orders against each other.

Days later, Vincent says, he filed a petition for custody for the children, whom he says he has not seen since 2015.

A judge upheld only Paula’s protective order against him, and threw out his petition seeking visitation.

On Aug. 31, Louisiana’s Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal unanimously found that the trial judge should not have awarded custody to the mother without a court-appointed expert considering the children’s well-being. The court upheld the order protecting Paula from Vincent, but vacated the order keeping him from the children.

Louisiana Circuit Judge Fredericka Homberg Wicker noted for the panel that the state’s highest court has never heard a case like Vincent’s, where the “non-parent is neither biologically nor legally related to the child but has, in essence — together with the biological parent — parented the child in a, albeit non-traditional, family unit since the child’s birth.”

Wicker noted in the 55-page opinion that “the dynamics of the American family, however, have drastically changed.”

Indeed, Pew Research Center found two years ago that fewer than half of all U.S. children live in a “traditional” family, defined as two heterosexual parents on their first marriage.

“The United States Supreme Court has recognized that ‘the demographic changes in the past TRANS PARENT continued on p. 7

09.09 — 09.22.2016 century make it difficult to speak of an average American family,’” Wicker continues. “For example, samesex couples are raising more than 2 million children in the United States. Further, no Louisiana court has opined on any same-sex custody dispute since the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell, wherein the court held that ‘the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment couples of the same sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.”

The ruling’s reasoning echoes the findings that New York’s highest state court reached a day earlier, in a decision favoring two nonbiological, nonadoptive lesbian mothers.

While the New York ruling updated a 25-year-old precedent in the Empire State, Louisiana Fifth Circuit’s findings will have a more limited effect — as the court for five state parishes, none of which includes New Orleans.

But Vincent’s attorney Martha Maher said the court’s ruling meant the world to her client, who found out about it before she did because he has been regularly logging onto its website for updates.

Maher said it has been 14 months since Vincent has seen the EDUCATION continued from p. 3

“As educators, our most important duty is the protection of the children in our care,” says Tom Torlakson, California Superintendent of Public Instruction, at the top of the Department of Education’s webpage on Child Abuse Prevention—a webpage that provides an online “Educators Training Module” explaining the legal responsibilities of mandated reporting and suggests behavioral red flags such as anxiety, depression, self-mutilation, and “suicidal gestures/attempts.”

Torlakson and the California State Board of Education seem unaware of this unfilled need http://www.eqca. org/ocamb-16/—and the fact that a model policy (called for by AB 2246) already exists, created by experts The Trevor Project, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the American School Counselor Association and the National Association of School Psychologists. The 16-page “Model School District Policy on Suicide Prevention: Model Language, Commentary, and Resources,” describes risk factors, protective factors, prevention, best practices, referrals and more.

And then there’s the Education Department and the School Board’s turning a blind eye towards the plight of students or employees who come

children, and she emphasized that her client still has a long road ahead.

“I calmed him down, [telling him] to just enjoy our victory, and we’re a long way until getting custody,” she said.

Though Paula’s attorney did not respond to a telephone request for comment from this reporter, Maher said that opposing counsel informed her of a possible appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which has never heard a case like it.

Such a hearing could continue an increasing trend across the nation to broaden traditional notions about family.

Several pages of Wednesday’s ruling outline the legal precedents in cases tackling similar issues throughout the South, including in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee and Texas.

In a primer on legal recognition for LGBT families, the National Center for Lesbian Rights listed 25 states where a nonbiological and nonadoptive parent may seek visitation or custody even if they are not a legal parent.

“Only a small number of states have said that a nonlegal parent has no ability to seek custody or visitation with the child of his or her former partner, even when he or she has been an equally contributing caretaker of the child,” the San Francisco-based group wrote. out while at a religious school they did not realize would discriminate against them for who they are. Lara’s bill—vociferously opposed by longtime anti-LGBT religious activists—calls for simple transparency. “With SB1146, we shed light on the appalling discriminatory practices LGBT students face at private religious universities in California,” Lara said in an email.

“No university should have a license to discriminate, especially those receiving state funds. That’s why I will update my bill to ensure that Title 9 universities disclose their exempt status publicly and require that universities notify the California Student Aid Commission if a student has been expelled due to their moral conduct clauses. As a gay Catholic man, nobody can dictate how I worship or practice my religion. These provisions represent critical first steps in the ongoing efforts to protect students from discrimination for living their truths or loving openly.”

But none of these issues appear to be on the agenda forThursday’s meeting of the California State Board of Education, which is meeting to revise their accountability process. After three decades of trying to achieve equal and compassionate treatment from those responsible for forming and enforcing fair school policy, when will state officials go beyond nice-sounding rhetoric and actually be accountable to LGBT students and employees?

“ Talks of the Town!

— Los Angeles Times

“

TRANS PARENT continued from p. 6

LOS ANGELES

⚫ 7

t!

Almost Sold Ou

Order Today!

Perfect Date Night!

Steve Martin

Gen. David Petraeus

Diana Nyad

A Fun Evening Out With Friends!

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Capt.

Scott Kelly

Take Your Folks!

Entertain Clients!

Vin Scully

SERIES OF THE WESTSIDE Spend Sundays at the SABAN Theatre in Beverly Hills!

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS Oct. 23, 2016 DIANA NYAD Nov. 6, 2016 STEVE MARTIN Jan. 8, 2017 AYAAN HIRSI ALI Feb. 19, 2017 VIN SCULLY March 19, 2017 CAPT. SCOTT KELLY May 7, 2017

Order Today!

www.speakersla.com 310-546-6222

⚫ 8

TRANSGENDER YOUTH

>

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

ADOPTION MATTERS

⚫ BY MARTHA BEBINGER

Trans youth adoptions are an urgent matter

PUBLISHER & EDITOR TROY MASTERS troy@smmirror.com

CONTRIBUTORS

MATTHEW S. BAJKO, ZACK FORD, CYNTHIA LAIRD, HENRY SCOTT, CHARLES KAISER, LISA KEEN, ALAN MILLER, TIM MILLER, MAER ROSHAN, KIT WINTER, BRAD LAMM, DAVID EHRENSTEIN, STEVEN ERICKSON, LILLIAN FADERMAN, ORIOL GUTTIEREZ, SETH HEMMELGARN, THOMAS LEONARD, IAN MILLHISSER, KAREN OCAMB, STEVE WEINSTEIN, CHRIS AZZOPARD, DIANE ANDERSON-MINSHALL, ALLEN ROSKOFF, JOHN PAUL KING

PHOTOGRAPHY

BOB KRASNER, JON VISCOTT

CREATIVE DIRECTOR (SPECIAL PROJECTS) GARETT YOSHIDA

As transgender youth become more assertive a parallel rise in the number of homeless transgender youth poses new challenges in foster care Two summers ago, when Nathan Tasker was 13, his mom drove him from Melrose, Mass., to Maine, where he would attend his first session at a transgender camp. Nathan remembers feeling happy for the first time in years.

“I finally, finally finally was not alone,” says Nathan, a young man with dark, sparkling eyes and a wise smile.

But even at this camp, Nathan expected to be different. He’s transgender — and adopted.

“I thought I was just a packaged deal, like, this only happens to one kid in every place in the world,” he says. But then, as fellow campers told their stories, Nathan realized he was not all that different. “I was like, ‘You know what? There are a lot of adopted kids who are trans.’ And that’s pretty amazing.”

Doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Gender Management Service clinic, where Nathan is a patient, began making the same connection a few years ago. They combed through patient records and found that 8.2 percent of the 184 young people seen in the clinic between 2007 and 2015 were raised in adoptive families. Overall, only 2.3 percent of children living in Massachusetts were adopted.

“Before I started seeing transgender kids, it would not have occurred to me that we might see more adopted kids,” said Dr. Daniel Shumer, a pediatric endocrinologist who treated transgender kids at the GeMS clinic for three years before moving to Ann Arbor, Mich., to work in a similar clinic. Shumer and three co-authors recently presented their adoption data at a conference and have submitted it for publication.

Nathan and his doctors aren’t the

GRAPHICS GAIL HODGE

ARTURO JIMENEZ | artkex@yahoo.com

VIDEOGRAPHER JOHN BOATNER

VP OF ADVERTISING

JUDY SWARZ | judy@smmirror.com

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

SHAWN MONSHAUGEN | SHAWN@SMMIRROR.COM

Please call (310) 310-2637 for advertising rates and availability.

BUSINESS MANAGER MAX MONTEMER

max@smmirror.com

NATIONAL DISPLAY ADVERTISING Rivendell Media / 212.242.6863

NATHAN TASKER IS TRANSGENDER AND ADOPTED. HE WAS SURPRISED AND DELIGHTED TO MEET OTHER ADOPTED TRANSGENDER CHILDREN AT HIS CAMP IN MAINE. (JESSE COSTA/WBUR)

only members of the transgender community who’ve noticed this phenomenon.

“People have been talking about this for a long time,” said Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, the largest such clinic in the country. Olson-Kennedy says she often hears colleagues around the country say, “we have a lot of kids who are adopted in the gender clinics.”

And Diane Ehrensaft, a psychologist and author of the book, Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children, said in an email, “I am seeing the same thing in my work as a gender specialist in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Looking For Explanations No one seems to know why. But there is some agreement about possible explanations.

First, it may be that there’s a higher percentage of trans adopted children who get health care, rather than a higher rate of trans kids who are adopted.

“Adopted people of all ages, especially children, are disproportionately represented in clinical settings,” said

Adam Pertman, president of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency, and author of the book Adoption Nation. “The majority of adoptions today are from foster care. Then add to those the children adopted from institutions abroad and you have a population who suffered early trauma — so of course they are disproportionately represented in clinical settings.”

Shumer suggested another factor when it comes to families with adopted trans children: “Perhaps parents who adopt kids are more open to differences in gender identity — may have less shame in the fact that their child may be transgender,” he said, “[and] may be more likely to present to clinics for help.”

That idea resonated with Olson-Kennedy: “When parents have biological children [who] are transgender,” she said, “what happens is a blame game, like, ‘Whose fault is it?’ I’ve heard many families say, ‘Well, you know, my husband has two gay cousins’ or, ‘My wife has a trans aunt.’ ” Olson-Kennedy said adoptive parents seem to “let go of the ‘this is my fault’ piece.”

But maybe there’s something else

THE PRIDE L.A., The Newspaper Serving Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender L.A., is published by MIRROR MEDIA GROUP. Send all inquiries to: THE PRIDE L.A., 3435 Ocean Park Blvd. #210. Phone: 310.310.2637 Written permission of the publisher must be obtained before any of the contents of this paper, in part or whole, can be reproduced or redistributed. All contents (c) 2016 The Pride L.A..

THE PRIDE L.A. is a registered trademark of MIRROR MEDIA GROUP. T.J. MONTEMER, CEO 310.310.2637 x104; E-mail: troy@smmirror.com Cell: 917-406-1619

© 2016 The Pride L.A. All rights reserved.

about growing up adopted — about coming to terms with that experience — that explains why transgender clinics are seeing more such children.

“Adopted children who are aware of their adopted status also have an easier time being ‘other’ than their parents, and therefore find greater ease in being forthcoming in expressing their TRANS ADOPTION continued on p. 13

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

⚫ 9

⚫ 10

MARRIAGE LOS ANGELES

>

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

FEATURING LOVE

⚫ BY TROY MASTERS

L.A. Veteran’s Administration Hospital gay nups will move you 1200 people gathered in Palm Springs for the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce’s convention.

It was love at first sight. And it will be until the last breath.

“The second I saw Takashi I knew he and I would be together forever,” said a teary-eyed Dale Green, 85, a Korean War Veteran. “There wasn’t even a slight chance that we would not be. It was love at first sight and it was profound and mutual. We both knew that, then and there...and still.”

Thirty-one years ago, when Dale and Takashi Nakaya, 53, met while working in a textile factory in Lima, Peru, the world was a very dangerous place. Open hatred of homosexuals was a menacing danger made all the more lethal by AIDS hysteria.

Peru was engaged in an increasingly violent armed conflict with rebel forces intent on replacing the Peruvian state. No aspect of life in Peru was stable. Takashi, a person of Japanese heritage with a Japanese passport, felt the heat of oppression and feared violence. Dale, an American citizen, was adamant that they flee.

But for bi-national gay couples in 1985, immigration options were non-existent. Takashi was unable to obtain a visa to the United States and Dale would not leave Takashi to stay alone in an explosive Peru. So, they decided to move to the safety of Japan, a place where Dale would not have trouble obtaining, at the very least, a tourist visa.

In Japan, the couple flourished.

They built a beautiful life full of friends and a traditional Japanese home full of love. From Japan, they traveled the world together—their home is decorated with photos of the couple’s travels: Egypt, Istanbul, Mykonos, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Berlin, Peru, Mexico, New York, Los Angeles...

Their strategy to remain together required Dale to leave Japan every 3

DALE GREEN, 85 (L) MARRIES TAKASHI NAKAYA, 53 (C) IN A CEREMONY PERFORMED BY CHRIS ROBINSON AT THE LOS ANGELES VETERAN’S ADMINISTRATION HOSPITAL. (PHOTO BY TROY MASTERS)

months so as not to violate his tourist visa. Because gay relationships in Japan have almost no legal standing, Dale was never able to satisfy Japan’s requirements for obtaining residency.

“I knew that every time Dale left Japan there was a chance he’d be unable to return,” said Takashi. “We sometimes imagined reversing our strategy, with me using my Japanese passport to enter the U.S. on a tourist visa and departing every few months, but we loved Japan and since I had a career we never gave it more than passing thought.”

As the years passed, Dale and Takashi settled into the routine.

Peaceful, always polite Japan was

never a place that homophobia or politics would be a disruptive force.

As long as Dale was able to re-enter Japan, all would be fine.

But the realities of growing older can disrupt everything.

In August, while at home in Toyohashi with Takashi and their dog, a Golden Retriever named Mimi, Dale suffered what appeared to be a stroke and was rushed to a hospital. He stayed a few weeks and was never given a thorough diagnosis. “We were alarmed at their lack of urgency,” Takashi said.

“Dale has always thought things out several steps ahead. He’s a master of anticipating obstacles and mak-

ing sure the path is as smooth going forward as he can possibly make it,” Takashi said.

When doctors told him that his hospital stay would likely be an extended one, an alarmed Dale spent the night mulling his options.

Takashi explained the obstacles: “Japan has an incredibly complex medical system. With Dale, the complications quickly became extreme. He could not overstay his visa. Veteran’s benefits, SocialSecurity, and Medicare are essentially useless abroad.

Even though there is a VA hospital in Japan, Dale did not qualify for treatDALE AND TAKASHI continued on p. 12

09.09 — 09.22.2016 LENO continued from p. 4

Republican Sen. Anthony Canella of Ceres noted that there were times when the two clashed politically but said he will forever be grateful to Leno for helping a school district that had gone into receivership for which he had been unsuccessful in getting funding.

“I’ve served with some of the best of them here,” said Republican Sen. Jim Nielson of Tehama. “You’re right up there with the best, Sen. Leno. I’ve so enjoyed serving with you as vice chair of that committee….You are a legislator’s legislator, a senator’s senator.

You’ve brought great distinction on this entire legislature and particularly on the Senate.”

Mark Leno honoredBut it was Republican Sen. Joel Anderson of San Diego who got the biggest laugh. “Senators, this is a sad day for me. You see, Mark completes me,” Anderson said, alluding to the famous Tom Cruise romantic line from the film “Jerry Maguire.”

Anderson noted that he has “a little bit of a reputation of being from a very conservative area” and considers Leno his “bookend.” That dynamic lead to a “great friendship” and great teamwork.

“You’re a unique individual, a true statesman” and, said the conservative to the gay liberal, “you complete me.”

Raising the microphone when it was his turn to speak, Leno seemed mindful of the chamber full of colleagues as a rarified club of public servants. But instead of closing his final moments with soaring rhetoric, Leno used the occasion to thank those who had worked with and for him.

“I think we all understand the great privilege it is to be one of 40 representing almost 40 million people,” Leno said, looking around. “There’s no job like it. There is certainly no legislative

LOS ANGELES job like it anywhere in the country, if the world.”

And then he called out for special recognition Chief of Staff Bob Hartnagel, who has been with Leno for all 17 years and his district staff who have been with him for his 14 years in the Legislature. Though the longevity of service might seem normal to Leno, surely there were some colleagues wondering who among them also warranted such loyalty. Then displaying the humble grace for which he had been so roundly praised, Leno named a number of the Senate chamber staff and others who work behind the scenes and too often go unnoticed in the course of the legislative session.

“This has been the opportunity and experience of a lifetime and it’s been a great ride. Everyone is asking what’s next, what’s next? My honest answer is—I haven’t a clue. But as unsettling as that can be, it’s also with great exhilaration. It’s time for the next chapter,” said Mark Leno, concluding his remarks and his legislative career. “We’re all beneficiaries of term limits. Without them, Willie Brown would still be in my old Assembly seat. And we all soon become victims. Those are the rules coming in and those are the rules going out and there are talented young energetic capable people who will follow us. So – from the bottom of my heart—I thank you.”

And with that, Leno brought down his Senate microphone for the last time.

He received a standing ovation, a big hug from De Leon.

And a kiss from Sen. Bob Hertzberg from the San Fernando Valley, a scene never imagined in the California State Legislature that Mark Leno joined in 2003. But on Wednesday, the gay legislative heir to Harvey Milk received a grateful standing ovation.

MARK LENO RECIEVES A KISS FROM HIS COLLEAGUE, SEN. BOB HERTZBERG FROM THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, PHOTO BY KAREN OCAMB.

⚫ 11

⚫ 12

LOS ANGELES

09.09 — 09.22.2016

Celebrate love

IN A CEREMONY PERFORMED AT THE VETERAN’S ADMINISTRATION HOSPITAL IN WEST LOS ANGELES, DALE AND TAKASHI WERE MARRIED. THE ENTIRE FLOOR’S STAFF JOINED TO CELEBRATE THE MOMENT. SEE MORE PHOTOS AND THE UPDATED STORY ONLINE. DALE AND TAKASHI continued from p. 10

761 SWARTHMORE AVENUE | PACIFIC PALISADES REDUCED PRICE

ment there because he is not an active service-member. Foreigners are not allowed to stay in Japanese hospitals without private insurance for more than one month. Dale was in the hospital on a cash basis. We were looking

ence impairment in his limbs and was unable to walk. His right side was weakening rapidly and his left side was no longer mobile. On arrival at LAX, Dale and Takashi took an Uber to the Emergency Room of the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in West L.A. Dale had planned it that way. “He

Graceful and elegant Cape Cod home with finished basement. Custom built in 2009 and located in the Via Bluffs, this richly appointed home with 6 bedrooms, 5 1/2 baths, family room, paneled library/den and a finished basement with 2 bedrooms, media room, full bath and an elevator. The kitchen is truly gourmet and features Viking appliances, granite counters, a center island, breakfast nook and walk-in butler’s pantry. The family room with fireplace is spacious and opens to a grassy backyard with barbecue and sports court. A superb master suite has cathedral ceilings, a fireplace, large walk-in closet and outdoor balcony. Enjoy the glorious sunsets and views from the must-see rooftop deck. Ideally located close to the many shops and restaurants of the Palisades Village, this home offers the finest in casual, yet luxurious living for which the Pacific Palisades is famous. Offered at $4,750,000.

MURRAY WEISBERG Associate Manager, Brentwood Brokerage cell: 310.729.6156 | office: 310.481.6260 mw729@aol.com CalBRE# 00906751

ONLYWITHUS.COM

KNOWLEDGABLE. PROFESSIONAL. CONFIDENTIAL.

Sotheby’s International Realty and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered (or unregistered) service marks used with permission. Operated by Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc.

at going broke within days.”

Dale made a firm decision to leave the hospital and Japan.

By the time Dale and Takashi boarded a United Airlines flight, incurring the necessary cost of Business Class seats, Dale was beginning to experi-

felt that an ambulance would not give us choice of hospital,” Takashi said.

On arrival, the VA doctors immediately worked to establish a diagnosis.

Within 24 hours, doctors had identiDALE AND TAKASHI continued on p. 14

09.09 — 09.22.2016 TRANS ADOPTION continued from p. 8

true gender selves,” said Ehrensaft.

Shumer said he wonders whether children who grow up knowing they are adopted might develop their identities in ways that make them more open to rethinking gender.

“As adoptive kids are becoming teenagers,” Shumer said, “they may more actively consider their gender identity in the context of their overall identity [than kids who aren’t adopted]. This might help them identify that they have a gender difference more frequently than kids that aren’t adopted, that aren’t going through as rigorous an identity-formation thought process.”

Pertman said that’s a new, but reasonable idea.

“Identity in adoption is a complex issue,” Pertman said. “I mean it’s complex for everybody, but there’s a whole other layer for adopted people that sort of triggers, in many of them, a deeper look within themselves about identity. And maybe this is part of what they find.”

More Theories — And The Need For More Study Maybe, but that reasoning doesn’t ring true to Hunter Keith, a 17-yearold trans male who was adopted at birth — at least not in terms of his own experience. Hunter said the gender transition he started in the eighth

LOS ANGELES grade did not coincide with questions about his adoption.

“I’ve been part of my family my whole life,” Hunter said. “I’ve never had that feeling of not belonging. It’s not something I ever questioned.”

Hunter’s mother Roz, who lives with Hunter and her husband and daughter in the metropolitan Detroit area, would like to see more research about the neurological roots of gender identity. She believes there may be all kinds of connections that no one understands yet.

Here’s one possibility Roz Keith has discussed with friends, based on studies that show greater rates of autism and learning disorders among transgender kids than among the general population: Could the kids be inheriting those conditions from their birth parents, and could those conditions be one reason the mothers place their children for adoption?

“There’s this incidence, then, of children who are adopted who have a genetic history coming from families where there are learning issues — ADD, ADHD,” Roz Keith suggested. “It does seem that those things overlap and correspond in greater numbers [in the transgender population].”

Some members of the transgender community say all these theories deserve more attention, but for now, they don’t see any connection between being trans and being adopted.

“I think it’s a stretch, frankly,” said Jamison Green, the immediate past president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

“People, in trying to understand what ‘transness’ is and how it manifests, and why some of us are this way, will elicit all kinds of conjectures.”

Nonetheless, Green, who is adopted, said he would like to see more research in this area.

The speculation “speaks to how little we actually know,” Green said.

“There’s much more to be learned about transness, about gender, about gender identity development in all people.”

With so little research, it’s not clear if or how these findings should affect care for children at transgender clinics. Shumer said it may help parents contemplating adoption to learn more about gender identity as a spectrum.

Doctors, nurses and counselors may want to set up support groups for adopted children, to help kids who might find such groups useful explore any and all sorts of issues as they arise.

Judy Tasker, Nathan’s mom, said she’s sure that being transgender and adopted makes life more complicated for her son.

“It’s the transgender piece that throws everyone off,” she said, “but, really, it’s his issues from being in a poor foster home for the first 15

⚫ 13

ROZ KEITH WITH HER SON HUNTER, WHO WAS ADOPTED FROM BIRTH.

months of his life that really make him struggle at school, struggle with anger. The trans piece is this little piece, but it over-complicates what therapists see, what schools see, and they fixate on it.”

Nathan said he’s always assumed that being adopted and being trans were two separate experiences. But, “maybe somehow they’re connected,” he said. “Maybe adopted kids feel some dimensions that non-adopted kids can’t feel, because they haven’t been in that situation.”

There are a lot of maybes in the expanding world of gender identity.

⚫

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

14

DALE STROKES TAKASHI’S FACE VIA SKYPE. DALE AND TAKASHI continued from p. 12

fied several areas of swollen lesions on Dale’s brain. In discussing the results with Dale, they learned that, years earlier, he had been treated for Melanoma on his nose. The information led doctors to order a full body scan that revealed several other areas of lesions on his abdomen, his liver, his lungs, and bone. Stage 4 Melanoma requires radiation therapy and possibly chemotherapy, he was told.

The information was incredibly hard

offered them little. They felt “married” already. All of their friends around the world knew they were a couple.

In many ways, partly because they live abroad, they were simply uneducated about the benefits and protections marriage equality offers gay couples. Even though there was a lot of news in Japan about marriage equality becoming law in the U.S., that news focused narrowly on the fact that some people wanted it and others opposed it.

For couples living in marriage equality “hostile” nations, the benefit of mar-

through music, Judaism dramatic readings, film,

provocative discussions, and inspiring guest speakers

RABBI

DAVID BARON

Watch Video Highlights

BHTOTA.org

Cantors Ilysia Pierce and Jordan Bennett, with a superb choir and instrumentalists conducted by Sharon Farber

FAMILY

TICKETS MEMBERSHIP FROM $400 AVAILABLE

323 658-9100

YOUNG ADULT MEMBERSHIP $150

BHTOTA.org

to take. But, aside from his own mortality, Dale began to seriously think aboutTakashi’s well-being and future.

In recent months, they had discussed taking a trip to the U.S. together so that they could get married. But, because they live in Japan, a country that does not recognize same-sex marriages, a U.S. marriage, as they understood it,

riage is vague and may not frequently be discussed.

Dale, a lifelong Republican, did not understand that gay marriage was U.S. law. “I never dreamed of such a thing,” he exclaimed. “The Supreme Court ruled that way? Well, that’s just asDALE AND TAKASHI continued on p. 15

09.09 — 09.22.2016 DALE AND TAKASHI continued from p. 14

tonishing. That’s something I’d want to do for Takashi,” he said as he became wide-eyed and straightened in his chair.

Dale and Takashi did not fully appreciate, for instance, that in the U.S., and other countries that honor same-sex marriages, their relationship would be recognized to the fullest extent of laws granted to heterosexual married couples, including surviving spousal benefits and all legal protections. The U.S. would recognize their spousal rights whether or not their country of residence recognized them.

The clock was ticking for Dale and Takashi.

Takashi had to return to Toyohashi to care of their home and to return to work. But the separation was too painful to bear and they decided that getting married would be a wonderful way to mark their love for one another and to solve many of their problems.

Because of Dale’s condition it was impossible to get married in the ordinary way. He could not leave the hospital and go to a marriage bureau to get a license or hold the required ceremony outside of the hospital.

West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran suggested a notary wedding and put the couple in touch with various officials who could help with suggestions to arrange it.

Dale and Takashi hired Chris Robinson, known as the Officiant Guy, to come to Dale’s Veteran’s Administration bedside and conduct the wedding. Mr. Robinson’s role is to notarize all of the necessary identifying documentation and other information required to obtain a marriage license, and then fully process it through a marriage bureau. He also performs wedding ceremonies. Lawyer Lavi Soloway, who famously represented another Los Angeles bi-national couple, Anthony Sullivan and Richard Adams, was urgently hired by Dale and Takashi to initiate immigration actions that could result in citizenship for Takashi.

Everything was magical.

As Dale and Takashi waited for Mr. Robinson, a team of doctors entered the room and explained to Dale that his situation was dire and that Stage 4 cancer Melanoma is very difficult for any patient to overcome. The doctors were matter-of-fact and resolute, but in a flourish Dale interrupted them and thanked them. “In just a few minutes a man is coming in here to marry me and Takashi. We have been together for 31 years and now is the time. I have to marry my man and get better so we can go back to Japan and live the rest of our time together.”

The doctors were thrilled and tripped over themselves offering congratulations and best wishes.

Dozens of staff members—doctors,

LOS ANGELES nurses, orderlies, secretaries, and social workers—lovingly flooded Dale’s private ICU room and surrounded the couple as Mr. Robinson conducted the Los Angeles Veteran’s Administration Hospital’s first same-sex wedding.

Their wedding was a distillation of all we have been fighting for these past 50 years. Love. Respect. The dignity of having the country you have served honor your love. Acceptance.

Full inclusion.

Mr. Robinson asked: “Dale Robert Green, do you take this man, Takashi Nakaya, to be your lawfully wedded husband?” Dale, fighting back tears, managed to say “Yes, forever. Always.”

Robinson continued his questioning.

“Do you promise to hold him from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until

you are parted by death.” Dale, barely able to speak, gazing with an intense pride into Takashi’s eyes, said, “I do.

I do. I do. I love him. I do.” Takashi’s answers were joyful and tearful and full of love, “I love this man with my whole self, my soul. I do. I do. Yes, I do.”

Once Robinson pronounced the couple married, the room erupted into dance and cheer, with hugs from the entire staff. It was a sincere expression of love and affirmation.

Takashi and Dale kissed repeatedly and told one another “I love you.” The expression on both of their faces was a mixture of bliss and astonishment.

“For people to be accepting of us is one thing,” Takashi said with tears rolling down his face, “but to celebrate our love with us—total strangers—is something incredible.”

⚫ 15

Takashi returned to Japan without Dale, but he left Dale with an incredible sense of hope and love. An iPad was set up so that they could communicate daily. Over the next two weeks, they were able to do so until Dale’s ability to respond faded.

It is unlikely that Dale will ever be able to return to Japan. On Thursday, doctors moved Dale into the Intensive Care Unit and informed him that he was no longer able to tolerate cancer treatment.

Always thinking ahead, he asked for removal of the Do Not Resuscitate Order he had previously committed to. Unable to speak he simply pointed to the purple band that denotes a DNR order and tugged at it and cried, “Cut.” Takashi is now en route to Los Angeles to be by Dale’s side.

⚫

>

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

16

MOVIES KOBO

⚫ BY JOHN PAUL KING

MOVIE KING

Kobo strikes a deep cord Always a nominee but never a winner, this larger-than-life personality, is almost cartoonish, but in Streep’s hands she is nothing less than completely, believably human.

There is a popular perception that animated movies are pure kid-stuff, designed to lure families to the box office and to generate lucrative marketing tie-ins.

After all, animation pioneer Walt Disney used this formula as the foundation for a financial empire that continues to dominate the entertainment industry today. Of course, Disney’s films (at least the early ones) were also artistic triumphs, and there have since been numerous others that rival them in stature.

Nevertheless, even the most open-minded critics often tend to join the general public in considering “cartoons” as belonging to a separate-and-unequal category from live-action filmmaking, and often overlook them in any discussion of serious cinema.

This intellectual bias may often be warranted; but occasionally, a film like “Kubo and the Two Strings”

comes along to challenge it. Set in Ancient Japan, it’s the story of a boy who lives with his strangely afflicted mother in a cave by the sea.

Every night, she tells him half-remembered tales of his long-lost Samurai father; every day he spins them into adventurous yarns to entertain the nearby villagers- aided by magic which allows him to manipulate pieces of paper with the music from his shamisen.

He is careful, though, to heed his mother’s warning and return home before nightfall, in order to avoid the watchful eye of his grandfather, the Moon King, who wishes to steal him away to his kingdom in the sky.

One day, however, Kubo lingers too long at a village festival, and suddenly finds himself caught up in

an adventure of his own- aided by a monkey and a man-sized beetle, with his two terrifying aunts, the Daughters of the Moon, pursuing him every step of the way.

This deceptively simple setup provides the basis for a magnificent visual journey, full of magic, which blurs the lines of reality and challenges us to jump seamlessly between different levels of existence.

This is no small feat, and the fact that we never question it is a testament to the brilliance of its technical execution- the bulk of which was performed using the same basic techniques that took King Kong to the top of the Empire State Building over 80 years ago.

MOVIE continued on p. 17

1 SEARCH SITE for homes in Silicon Beach!

#

Danielle

BRE# 02007023

SiliconBeachHomes.com

Maison International LA Exclusive | Specialized | International

Office BRE# 01907551

Give us a call today to see why we offer a fresh approach to Real Estate.

424-272-0916

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

KOBO AND THE TWO STRINGS

⚫ 17

DIRECTOR: TRAVIS KNIGHT PRODUCTION COMPANY: LAIKA BOX OFFICE: 30.5 MILLION USD DISTRIBUTED BY: FOCUS FEATURES RAVE CINEMAS BALDWIN HILLS ARCLIGHT CULVER CITY ARCLIGHT HOLLYWOOD AMC CENTURY CITY

Though some assistance was provided by modern CG technology, most of what we see on the screen was achieved by posing models, one frame at a time, in front of a camera.

This painstaking effort certainly pays off; Kubo’s story comes to life with such palpable reality that the viewer might almost forget to be dazzled by it.

What’s impressive about “Kubo and the Two Strings,” though, is that its story more than lives up to the technical wizardry surrounding it.

Though it evokes the traditional folk tales of Japan, “Kubo” is entirely original, its screenplay written by Marc Haimes and Chris Butler from a story by Shannon Tindle.

Even so, as guided by director Travis Knight, it maintains a strong sense of mythological authenticity as it delivers its own version of the classic hero’s journey; the mystical elements which comprise much of the story’s framework are presented as factual conditions of the plot, yet the deeply resonant symbolism they possess- a quality downplayed by most such films aimed at contemporary American audiences- is given equal weight.

Similarly, while the film doesn’t avoid sentimentality, it never manufactures it to generate an unearned emotional response; rather, it allows the story and its characters to provide it, in appropriate doses, when it arises naturally. As a result, “Kubo” manages to amuse, frighten, touch, and surprise its viewers- whatever age they might be- all the way through to its lovely, delicate, and bravely bittersweet ending.

Of course, there are many other

factors contributing to the film’s success. Its visual design is a marvelous blend of stylization and historical detail, effectively transporting us to the story’s time and place from the very first frames- with the aid of a majestic and immersive score by Dario Marianelli.

As for the voice cast (led by Art Parkinson as the title character and including the likes of Charlize Ther-

on, Matthew McConaughey, Rooney Mara, and Ralph Fiennes), it must be mentioned that “Kubo” has drawn some heat for using mostly white actors.

Conroversy aside, those actors deserve credit for their fine work, which plays a big part in making “Kubo” into the special experience it is.

It’s a bit early to start making lists

of the year’s best films, but when the time comes, I think it’s a safe bet that “Kubo and the Two Strings” will be on a few of them- anti-animation prejudices notwithstanding.

It fully deserves that honor. It’s a multi-layered, visually stunning work which tells a powerful story without pandering to its viewersand a film like that, animated or not, is very rare indeed.

Michael Feinstein on Grand Avenue October 22, 2016

An intimate concert celebrating film composer David Raksin (Laura, The Bad and the Beautiful) Seating is very limited VIP Package includes private post-concert dinner

Get Your Tickets Now colburnschool.edu/feinstein Honorary Committee Diahann Carroll Kristin Chenoweth Marc Cherry Michele Lee

Ginny Mancini Barry Manilow Liza Minnelli Johnny Mathis

Maria Ferrer Murdock Judge Judy Sheindlin Jean-Yves Thibaudet Betty White

Photo by AJ Mast

MOVIE continued from p. 16

⚫

> Love is like a butterfly and Dolly 18

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

INTERVIEW BOOKS

DOLLY PARTON CHATS

Parton is like an angel The Pride LA had 10 minutes to chat with the legendary Dolly Parton. We touched on a lot of things but what came through most strongly is that Parton is more than an ally. She is a champion who has always been there for the LGB and, of course, the T community. Here’s what she had to say: Growing up in the Great Smoky Mountains, did you know any gay people?

If I did, I didn’t know they were at the time! (Laughs) We were just mountain people, and I did not know at that time – I sure did not.

What was your introduction to the gay community then?

As I started to be a teenager there were a couple of guys downtown that everybody was sayin’ were queer, ya know? I know they often said that about anybody who was odd or different “they’re just queer, just strange and odd” but the way they would talk about these two guys they would say, “Well, they’re sissies, they’re girls.” I was a teenager then. But in my early days we did not know (what gay was). It didn’t take me long to know that people were different and that was always fine with me ’cause I was different too, and I embraced and accepted them and I knew them. I knew them well. But no, in my early days I did not know. But I know a lot of them now! I have a huge gay and lesbian following and I’m proud of ’em, I love ’em and I think everybody should be themselves and be allowed to be themselves whoever they are, whatever they are.

How big is your gay circle these days?

You know what, I have so many (gay) people in my companies. And later on, I did find out I have many gays and lesbians in my own family. We accept them, we embrace them. Oh, there are some in the mountains who still don’t know quite what to make of it or how they should feel about it, but they’re ours and they’re who they are and we know they’re wonderful and they’re like us. We love the fact that they are who they are and we nurture that. We don’t try to make them feel separate or different. We embrace it.

Because you’ve always been so LGBT-affirming, are you a safe place for them to open up about their sexuality?

Yes! Actually, I’ve had many people

through the years who I have helped to feel good about themselves. I say, “You need to let people know who you are and you need to come on out. You don’t need to live your life in darkness – what’s the point in that? You’re never gonna be happy; you’re gonna be sick.

You’re not gonna be healthy if you try to suppress your feelings and who you are.”

I have a couple of transgender people in my company who are on salary with me, so I am totally open for that.

And a lot of people feel like they _can_ come to me… and they do! Whether it’s about being gay or whatever, a lot of people do me like they used to do my mama and come to talk to me about things. Hopefully I’m able to help. I think I have.

When were you first aware of transgender people?

I remember watching the news when I was a girl and they (were talking about the) first operation that somebody had.

That’s the first time I ever heard about that, and so that was many, many years ago. But yeah, I’ve known a lot since then, though.

What have you learned from the gay people in your life?

I certainly know that the gay people I know are the most sensitive and most

caring of all. I think they go through so much that they have to live with their feelings on their sleeve. They’ve had to go through so much that I think they’re very emotional and tenderhearted and more open to feelings, so I’ve just learned the same things I try to learn from everybody. I know they’re good people and I’ve tried to learn from that as well. They’re very creative, most of them. And I think that also comes from just embracing the fact that they’re different. Most of the gays I know just want to make the world a more beautiful place like I do.

After 50 years of marriage, what inspired your new self-proclaimed “friends with benefits” song, “Outside Your Door”?

Well, I’m married, but I’m not dead!

I’m a romantic, fantasy person and I’ve felt _all_ of those feelings. I’ve been through _everything_ in my life. And when I don’t write about myself, I write about other people that I know and their relationships, and people I know who don’t know how to express themselves. So I gather my ideas from everything. And hell, you don’t get too old to fantasize!

There’s a 20-minute intermission during your Pure & Simple show. What do you do for those 20 minutes?

It takes every bit of my time! I fly back to my bus right after intermission, and I go back and I change. I take a little breather to cool off for a minute, and then I change clothes – that’s the only change I do (during the show). Then, I change my hair, change my wig, and I touch up my makeup. And by the time I’m done with all that it’s time to go back on.

Where do you get your sense of humor and sharp wit?

Oh, that comes from both sides of my family. My mama’s people were hysterical; my daddy’s people were hysterical.

They just had a different sense of humor, and that’s how we got through everything, with our sense of humor. And as a writer I just think funny. I try to find things to laugh about and so anyway, I just say whatever I say.

What’s the closest you’ve gotten to Willie and his weed?

Oh, I know Willie really well! I sang with him on my last album. We did a duet together called “From Here to the Moon and Back” and I was singing – well, I was trying to sing and I said, “Willie, I’ll tell you, you’re the worst person I ever tried to sing with. I mean, you’re brazen! I can’t keep up with you!

I’mma need a sack of your grass! I’mma need something!” But he laughed so hard. But anyway, I love him, but he’s Willie and that’s OK. You’ve been singing “I Will Always Love You” since the early ’70s. What does that song mean to you now that it didn’t mean to you when you first wrote it?

Well, you appreciate things more as you get older. That song is just the gift that keeps on giving. It’s always getting licensing in my publishing company; somebody’s recorded it and we’re signing off on that. And so the fact that people are always calling me and always wanting rights for (the song for) a wedding – I actually rewrote it as a wedding song; it makes a beautiful song – it just makes me appreciate the fact that I’ve been able to write something that’s been that meaningful to so many people through the years. So, it does touch me. And it turned out to be the perfect song to sing to my fans – it’s the song I like to dedicate to the fans. Not the sad parts, but the good parts – especially the line of, “I will always love you” for letting me do this.

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

⚫ 19

OPEN SUN 2 – 5PM | 10574 BRADBURY ROAD

Beautiful Cheviot Spanish

Perfectly located near Century City and Beverly Hills, this beautiful, 2008 cusOffered at $2,999,000 tom-built home features an open floor plan, high-quality details and an entertainer’s yard with pool, spa, bbq & more! Spacious rooms include formal living & dining, great room and upstairs family room. Professional grade appliances in the chef’s kitchen with center island. Authentic Spanish tile & fixtures, douglas fir wood floors & handcrafted doors. Other features include skylights, stone fountain in the front courtyard, hand-forged ironwork, built-ins in several rooms, and wood-beam ceilings. The main level enjoys a large suite, plus separate powder room. Upstairs boasts a luxurious master suite + 4 additional bedrooms, two baths and a spacious family room. This truly is a classic Villa-style home with the perfect combination of casual California living and Westside sophistication.

OPEN SUN 2 – 5PM

1019 LAS PULGAS ROAD

Offered at $1,995,000

5

OPEN SUN 2 – 5PM

4 2

1332 EL HITO OFFERED AT $3,895,000

5 4.5

4.5

HOME FOR LEASE

MID-CENTURY MODERN

Offered at $1,875,000

4 3

STUNNING VIEW

Offered at $21,500/mo

5 4.5

10,000+ sq. ft. lot set on two levels

Exquisite one-level Architectural home

A. Quincy Jones-designed Palisades home

Brentwood Hills location near trail head

Light & bright home with wood floors

Ocean and hillside views

Open floorplan with walls of glass

Sweeping views of mtns, city & ocean

Fourth bedroom could be den/office

Italian tile floors, modern kitchen

Vaulted ceilings and cinder-block wall details

Boffi kitchen, designer fixtures & finishes

Move-in condition with great potential

Large entertaining patio + grass yard + spa

Wonderful indoor/outdoor connection

Chic yard with pool, wood decks & spa

CalBRE# 00902158

310.230.7373

©2013 Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage office is owned by a subsidiary of NRT LLC. Coldwell Banker® and the Coldwell Banker Logo, Coldwell Banker Previews International® and the Coldwell Banker Previews International Logo, are registered service marks owned by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. If your Property is currently listed for sale this is not intended as a solicitation of that listing.

⚫ 20

09.09 — 09.22.2016

LOS ANGELES

®

FIAT 500X. ALL PRIDE. ZERO PREJUDICE.

34 HWY MPG

fiatusa.com Based on EPA estimated MPG. EPA EST. 31 HWY MPG on model shown. Actual results may vary. ©2016 FCA US LLC. All Rights Reserved.

FIAT is a registered trademark of FCA Group Marketing S.p.A., used under license by FCA US LLC.