Watermark Issue: 25.01 Darkest Before Dawn

REPRESENTATIVE

CARLOS GUILLERMO SMITH

GRAND CENTRAL

CAMPAIGN

ST. PETE PRIDE

LAUNCHES RE-ELECTION

DARKEST

BEFORE

DISTRICT ASSOCIATION,

DISCUSS STREET FESTIVAL LOCATION

DAWN

one year of Donald Trump’s presidency for the LGbTQ community

daytona beaCh • orlando • tampa • St. peterSburg • Clearwater • SaraSota

2

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

3

2016

g o! tin d ra rlan leb O Ce rs in ea 9y

1972

EAT, EA T, DRINK, AND

BE MAR MARY

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

depaRtments 6 // mail 7 // buReau Chief’s desk 11 // oRlando news 14 // tampa bay news 18 // state news 21 // nation & woRld news 27 // talkinG points 51 // Community CalendaR 53 // tampa bay out + about 55 // oRlando out + about 56 // tampa bay maRketplaCe 57 // weddinG bells/ announCements 58 // oRlando maRketplaCe 62 // last paGe

PAGE

29

In november 2016, we weren’t sure what a Trump presidency would look like. now, we are faced with the reality and it’s everything we feared. He and his supporters are order-by-order undoing every element of progress that’s been achieved in the last century.

—susAN mCGRATH, sTONEwALL DEmOCRATs Of PINELLAs COuNTy PREsIDENT

on the CoVeR

PAGE wRestlinG steReotypes:

39

PAGE DARKEsT

29

BEFORE DAWN:

The LGBTQ community has felt the impact of Donald Trump’s first year as the 45th President of the United States, but local leaders are hopeful for a brighter 2018.

sCan QR Code foR

wateRmaRkonline.Com

Mike Parrow weighs in on being an openly gay wrestler, going viral and “masculine-shaming.”

wateRmaRk i ssue 25.01 //j anuaRy 11- j anuaRy 24 , 2018

CampaiGn kiCkoff

Round two

a new yeaR

self-help

PAGE Florida House Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith officially kicks off his re-election campaign at The Abbey.

PAGE St. Pete Pride and Grand Central District Association business leaders agree on the location of this year’s street festival.

PAGE

PAGE

read it online!

In addition to a Web site with daily LGBTQ updates, a digital version of each issue of the publication is made available on WatermarkOnline.com

11

14

The one and only Divine Grace welcomed in 2018 with a terrible case of the flu, and with a slew of resolutions.

25

Life Coach Eric Casaccio has published a manual empowering readers to heal themselves from narcissistic relationships.

47

give uS a follow on twitter and inStagram at @watermarkonline and like uS on faCebook. watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

5

top web Comments “Many serious questions remain about the shooting and the aftermath. Have Florida nightclubs done anything to beef up their security, their emergency lighting and their crowd control?”

—bEACHCOmbERT

Conway Cleaners

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WALK TO FIGHT SUICIDE

wateRmaRkonline.Com on the mamma mia 2 trailer introduCing a plot twiSt and Cher:

“Actually if you watch the trailer again you see Dominic Cooper standing next to Sophie when Cher arrives.”

—GREGORY MULLINS

on a report Stating opd reSponded to pulSe nightClub performed well:

“Thank you for providing a link to the entire 198-page report. I hope people will take time to read it and recognize its very limited scope. Many serious questions remain about the shooting and the aftermath. Have Florida nightclubs done anything to beef up their security, their emergency lighting and their crowd control?

Have SWAT teams in Orlando and other cities upgraded their training and their first aid skills?

What about bouncer requirements? Unless we are actively demanding that nightclubs be made safer, the endless tributes to the Pulse victims ring hollow.”

—BEACHCOMBERT

OUT OF THE DARKNESS Community Walks

Suicide Prevention Starts With Everyday Heroes Like You. Register Today.

February 3 @ 9AM Check-In 7:30 am

Orlando Walk Baldwin Park

2420 Lakemont Avenue • Orlando

afsp.org/orlando 6

Sponsorship Opportunities Available afsp.org/walk

WALK. VOLUNTEER. DONATE.

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

on eminem Saying he uSeS grindr and baffling hiS fanS:

“Some of the most homophobic persons are gay. Self hate.”

—REV ANTHONY

on penCe being urged to raiSe ConCern over the anti-lgbt CraCkdown in egypt:

“He’ll probably take notes on how to implement the same tactics here.”

—LEE ANNE

wateRmaRk’s faCebook: on eat, pray, love author eliZabeth gilbert’S partner paSSing away:

“It’s not easy to lose your everything.”

—VERONICA DRAKE

“What absolutely beautiful words.”

—SUSAN MCGRATH

on doug JoneS’ gay Son Serving vp mike penCe Side-eye at hiS father’S Swearing in:

“Love it!”

—DAVID EDWARD

on a petition CirCulating urging JamaiCa to ban an anti-lgbt u.S. paStor:

“Jesus must be so proud of followers like him.”

—NEAL UPRIGHT

on Court ruling againSt oregon bakerS in wedding Cake CaSe:

“Does this mean I can now go to a Muslim sandwich shop and demand they make me a BLT?” —STEVEN RESATAR

“No Steven, it means that if said Muslim shop already makes BLT’s, advertises that they make BLT’s and

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

sells BLT’s, they can’t refuse to make you a BLT because you are Christian.”

—ROBIN MAYNARD-HARRIS

on trump firing all memberS of the hiv/ aidS CounCil without explanation:

“If there’s one thing we know for certain about Donald Trump is that he is not a truthful man and he is surely not a man of his word. The best thing we can do is keep ourselves informed and educated so that we can take whatever measures necessary to protect ourselves and our loved ones from this tyrant.”

—SUE JONES

on an orlando Couple being featured on abC’S great ChriStmaS light fight:

“Way to go you two, making us proud nationally.”

—EVE LAKE

on aaron Carter Saying he iS ready to embraCe hiS biSexuality:

“I would volunteer to tutor him.”

—JOHN SULLIVAN

on a CatholiC prieSt Coming out to Congregation and reCeiving a Standing ovation:

“Then he was immediately excommunicated because he wasn’t a pedophile.”

—HEN RY MAYS

Central florida

bureau Chief’S

Jeremy williams Cfl bureau Cheif

Jeremy@WatermarkOnline.com

I

desk

HAVE bEEN wORkING AT WATERMARK

for several years now, and words that I have pieced together into sentences and strung into readable stories have appeared hundreds of times in dozens and dozens of issues of this publication.

This is however the first time that I have been asked to write something that would appear on this page. It’s not an interview or a news article on an upcoming event. It’s words strung together from me to form an opinion. I wasn’t thrilled at first to be writing anything with my opinion in it.

It isn’t that I don’t have opinions. I have many of them. Anyone who knows me personally knows that having a strong opinion is not something I struggle with. For example, my favorite movie in 2017 was the weird, artsy mother! by director

Darren Aronofsky, which most people hated. They even hated the way he wrote the title, lowercased and with an exclamation point.

I made a friend of mine sit down and watch it with me because I told him how much I loved it.

Now he doesn’t return my calls and I’m not entirely sure we are even friends anymore.

My least favorite movie of the year? The Greatest Showman.

The dancing bugged me, the songs sounded like Taylor Swift and Fall Out Boy were their only inspiration and the overall tone left me bored. I’m aware that these are both unpopular

opinions. I thank you if you have continued reading and haven’t already stopped and taken to social media to scold me.

The reason I wasn’t initially thrilled to write this column is because when I was going to school to be a journalist, the first rule of journalism we were taught is you report the facts, not your opinion. I was told that you can’t educate with an opinion. You can only learn with the facts, especially in today’s day and age where we are being governed by a Magic 8 Ball and are expected to accept terms like “alternative facts.”

I thought instead of looking at this as opinionated ramblings I would use this space every other issue to give you a chance to get to know me; and if you can be kind with the comments section, maybe I can learn something about some of you.

I watch a lot of YouTube. One of the things that occupies way too much of my time is these videos called unboxing videos.

People take a box of random items or gifts, even thoughts and ideas, and reveal them to the viewer for the first time. I thought I would “unbox” a few things about myself.

I am a huge movie fan.

You may be rolling your eyes about that because of my above film recommendations, but I assure you I’m also a fan of movies a lot of people liked.

In case you were looking for something to watch this week, you cannot go wrong with The Shape of Water, Molly’s Game, The Disaster Artist and I, Tonya.

I love lists.

It doesn’t matter what you are ranking or in what manner you are organizing them, if it is broken down into a Top 10 list then I am there. Hours of my life are wasted on YouTube watching people list things. I have a sickness.

I am an Air Force veteran.

I served six years in the United States Air Force, from February 2001 to January 2007, the entire time spent under the presidency of George W. Bush and the overbearing rules of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Even with that, they were some of the best years of my life. I spent my time building munitions in northern Italy, South Korea and the state of Louisiana alongside people of different races, genders, religions and upbringings. The stories I heard from them showed me that there is more that binds us then separates. I’ll share a couple of them with you in some upcoming issues.

anyone who knows me personally knows that having a strong opinion is not something I struggle with.

In this issue we have many stories about our community, both in Central Florida and in Tampa Bay, as well as across the country. Our Tampa Bay Bureau Chief, Ryan Williams-Jent, looks at President Trump’s first year in office and how it has affected the LGBTQ community. In our A&E section, we talk with Orlando’s openly gay wrestler Mike Parrow and St. Pete’s out author Eric Casaccio. In news, Hope & Help brings on the AIDS Walk a few months earlier and the Grand Central District and St. Pete Pride discuss the Pride festival location.

In 2018 and in every year before it, Watermark strives to bring you a variety of stories, your stories. I hope you enjoy this latest issue.

wateRmaRk staff Founder and Guiding Light: tom Dyer • tom@Watermarkonline.com Owner & Publisher: rick claggett • ext. 110 • rick@Watermarkonline.com Business Manager: Kathleen harper • ext. 101 • Kathleen@Watermarkonline.com CFL Bureau Chief: Jeremy Williams • ext. 106 • Jeremy@Watermarkonline.com Tampa Bay Bureau Chief: Ryan Williams-Jent • ext. 302 • ryan@Watermarkonline.com Multimedia Assistant: Melody Maia Monet • ext. 100 • Maia@Watermarkonline.com Art Director: Jake Stevens • ext. 109 • Jake@Watermarkonline.com Creative Assistant: Jason Donnelly • ext. 102 • adProduction@Watermarkonline.com Proofreading: ed blaisdell

Sales Director: Danny Garcia ext. 108 • Danny@Watermarkonline.com Senior Orlando Account Manager: Sam callahan ext. 103 • Sam@Watermarkonline.com Orlando Account Manager: Dillan ramirez ext. 105 • Dillan@Watermarkonline.com Tampa Bay Account Manager: Debbie reeves ext. 301 • Debbie@Watermarkonline.com Nat’l Ad Representative: rivendell Media Inc. • 212-242-6863

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

oRlando offiCe 414 N. Ferncreek Ave. Orlando, FL 32803 TEL: 407-481-2243 FAX: 407-481-2246

tampa bay offiCe TEL: 813-655-9890 FAX: 813-849-2986

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

ContRibutoRs JAsON LECLERC

is a near lifelong resident of the I-4 corridor, currently in South Tampa. He publishes poetry online at PoetEconomist. blogspot.com. His first book, Momentitiousness, was published in 2014. His book, Black Kettle, was published in 2016. Page 23

DIVINE GRACE

is an Orlandobased trouble maker with a forked tongue and all the charm you can imagine. Page 25

HOLLy V. kAPHERR

is a food, travel and lifestyle writer and editor born and bred in Orlando, Florida. Her work has appeared in local, regional and national publications.

sabRina ambRa, sCottie Campbell, kRista dituCCi, miGuel fulleR, diVine GRaCe kiRk haRtlaGe, samuel johnson, jason leCleRC, stephen milleR, maia monet, daVid moRan, GReG stemm, dR. steVe yaCoVelli, miChael wanZie, Ryan williams-jent

photoGRaphy bRian beCnel, niCk CaRdello, anGie folks, bRuCe haRdin, julie milfoRd, tRaVis mooRe, ChRis stephenson, lee VandeRGRift, tinkeRfluff

distRibution lVnlif2 distRibutinG, lisa joRdan, jill bates, ken CaRRaway CONTENTS of WATERMARK are protected by federal copyright law and may not be reproduced in whole or part without the permission of the publisher.

Unsolicited article submissions will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Although WATERMARK is supported by many fine advertisers, we cannot accept responsibility for claims made by advertisers.

Publication of the name or photograph of any person or organization in articles, advertising, or listing in WATERMARK is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation of such persons or members of such organizations.

WATERMARK is published every second Thursday. Subscription rate is $55 (1st class) and $26 (standard mail).

The official views of WATERMARK are expressed only in editorials. Opinions offered in signed columns, letters and articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the newspaper’s owner or management. We reserve the right to edit or reject any material submitted for publication.

WATERMARK is not responsible for damages due to typographical errors, except for the cost of replacing ads created by WATERMARK that have such errors.

watermark publishing group inc.

7

top web Comments “Many serious questions remain about the shooting and the aftermath. Have Florida nightclubs done anything to beef up their security, their emergency lighting and their crowd control?”

—bEACHCOmbERT

Conway Cleaners

Your FREE Pickup and Delivery Service TWiCe a Week PiCkuP aND DeLivery

Serving Orlando for more than 30 years Downtown Maitland Call Today to Sign Up! Orlando Lake Nona Winter Park Waterford College Park Lakes ConwayDryCleaner.com

407-275-0397

Conway Cleaners & Shirt Laundry • 4450 Curry Ford Rd., Orlando, FL, 32812

WALK TO FIGHT SUICIDE

wateRmaRkonline.Com on the mamma mia 2 trailer introduCing a plot twiSt and Cher:

“Actually if you watch the trailer again you see Dominic Cooper standing next to Sophie when Cher arrives.”

—GREGORY MULLINS

on a report Stating opd reSponded to pulSe nightClub performed well:

“Thank you for providing a link to the entire 198-page report. I hope people will take time to read it and recognize its very limited scope. Many serious questions remain about the shooting and the aftermath. Have Florida nightclubs done anything to beef up their security, their emergency lighting and their crowd control?

Have SWAT teams in Orlando and other cities upgraded their training and their first aid skills?

What about bouncer requirements? Unless we are actively demanding that nightclubs be made safer, the endless tributes to the Pulse victims ring hollow.”

—BEACHCOMBERT

OUT OF THE DARKNESS Community Walks

Suicide Prevention Starts With Everyday Heroes Like You. Register Today.

February 3 @ 9AM Check-In 7:30 am

Orlando Walk Baldwin Park

2420 Lakemont Avenue • Orlando

afsp.org/orlando 6

Sponsorship Opportunities Available afsp.org/walk

WALK. VOLUNTEER. DONATE.

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

on eminem Saying he uSeS grindr and baffling hiS fanS:

“Some of the most homophobic persons are gay. Self hate.”

—REV ANTHONY

on penCe being urged to raiSe ConCern over the anti-lgbt CraCkdown in egypt:

“He’ll probably take notes on how to implement the same tactics here.”

—LEE ANNE

wateRmaRk’s faCebook: on eat, pray, love author eliZabeth gilbert’S partner paSSing away:

“It’s not easy to lose your everything.”

—VERONICA DRAKE

“What absolutely beautiful words.”

—SUSAN MCGRATH

on doug JoneS’ gay Son Serving vp mike penCe Side-eye at hiS father’S Swearing in:

“Love it!”

—DAVID EDWARD

on a petition CirCulating urging JamaiCa to ban an anti-lgbt u.S. paStor:

“Jesus must be so proud of followers like him.”

—NEAL UPRIGHT

on Court ruling againSt oregon bakerS in wedding Cake CaSe:

“Does this mean I can now go to a Muslim sandwich shop and demand they make me a BLT?” —STEVEN RESATAR

“No Steven, it means that if said Muslim shop already makes BLT’s, advertises that they make BLT’s and

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

sells BLT’s, they can’t refuse to make you a BLT because you are Christian.”

—ROBIN MAYNARD-HARRIS

on trump firing all memberS of the hiv/ aidS CounCil without explanation:

“If there’s one thing we know for certain about Donald Trump is that he is not a truthful man and he is surely not a man of his word. The best thing we can do is keep ourselves informed and educated so that we can take whatever measures necessary to protect ourselves and our loved ones from this tyrant.”

—SUE JONES

on an orlando Couple being featured on abC’S great ChriStmaS light fight:

“Way to go you two, making us proud nationally.”

—EVE LAKE

on aaron Carter Saying he iS ready to embraCe hiS biSexuality:

“I would volunteer to tutor him.”

—JOHN SULLIVAN

on a CatholiC prieSt Coming out to Congregation and reCeiving a Standing ovation:

“Then he was immediately excommunicated because he wasn’t a pedophile.”

—HEN RY MAYS

ContRibutoRs

tampa bay

bureau Chief’S

ryan williams-Jent tb bureau Chief

Ryan@WatermarkOnline.com

I

desk

’VE NEVER mADE A NEw yEAR’s

resolution—at least that I can remember.

It isn’t because I don’t hope for a better year than the last, particularly after a rather polarizing 2017. It’s just something that never really occurs to me, especially now that I have to wrangle my husband for my midnight-mandated “kissy” photo op. He hates pictures of people kissing.

There’s nothing wrong with people making resolutions.

It works for some, and that’s wonderful. I try to make every day the best it can be, so an over-arching 365-day look-ahead just doesn’t do it for me.

Besides, if you don’t make a resolution, you can’t be disappointed if or when you don’t fulfill it.

It’s also not because I don’t have high hopes for the

New Year. In my new role as Tampa Bay Bureau Chief for Watermark (about which I’m ecstatic every day), I’ve finally found myself writing full-time in 2018. And to top it off, I’m surrounded by a talented team of individuals with a dedication to the LGBTQ community, our allies and the stories we hold dear.

Writing full-time has been a lifelong dream of mine, beginning almost immediately

after I stopped writing my name as “4yan” and graduated to “Ryan.” I don’t know why the number four looked so much like an “R” to me as a child, but I do know it remains my favorite number. I imagine that at 33, it will remain that way “4” life.

I’m lucky to have a supportive husband, one who even obliges my photographic demands and the subsequent but inevitable retakes; a fantastic family and group of friends who’ve earned the same title; and two shining examples of why dogs really are a man’s best friend.

On top of all of that, my husband and I just renewed our passes to Walt Disney World, Black Panther and Avengers: In�inity War will hit cinemas before too long and it’s rumored that Britney Spears will release her 10th studio album this year.

If you’re a hater, leave Britney alone. 2018’s already looking pretty great, resolution or not.

To look forward, we sometimes have to look back.

Not long after this issue’s release, our first issue of 2018, Donald Trump will have been president of the United States for an entire year. 365 days of breaking news, often dictated 140 characters at a time, have impacted the LGBTQ community and all those around us in a myriad of ways. In this issue we take a look at some of the highlights—or depending on your viewpoint, the lowlights— and check in with leaders in Tampa Bay and Central Florida about the political landscape of 2018.

In Arts and Entertainment, we speak with wrestler Mike Parrow, who’s been out for

several years in Central Florida but recently came out to the world at large. We also check in with St. Petersburg life coach Eric Casaccio, who’s published a manual that he hopes can help change the world.

In Tampa Bay news, we delve into the latest conversations between St. Pete Pride, Florida’s largest LGBT Pride event, and the Grand Central District Association, which represents the area that historically hosted it. Watermark also attended the swearing-in ceremony

2018’s already looking pretty great, resolution or not.

of Mayor Rick Kriseman and St. Petersburg’s first female-majority city council, and details what some are calling the city’s “year of the woman.”

In Central Florida news, we look ahead to the Hope & Help Center of Central Florida’s annual AIDS Walk, checking in with the organization’s leadership about what’s new and what to expect. We also attended the kick-off party for the re-election of the Florida House of Representative’s Carlos Guillermo Smith, who hopes to continue his public service as “a proud progressive, liberal, feminist, gay, Latino, Democrat.”

In 2018 and in every year before it, Watermark strives to bring you a variety of stories, your stories. I hope you enjoy this latest issue.

wateRmaRk staff Founder and Guiding Light: tom Dyer • tom@Watermarkonline.com Owner & Publisher: rick claggett • ext. 110 • rick@Watermarkonline.com Business Manager: Kathleen harper • ext. 101 • Kathleen@Watermarkonline.com CFL Bureau Chief: Jeremy Williams • ext. 106 • Jeremy@Watermarkonline.com Tampa Bay Bureau Chief: Ryan Williams-Jent • ext. 302 • ryan@Watermarkonline.com Multimedia Assistant: Melody Maia Monet • ext. 100 • Maia@Watermarkonline.com Art Director: Jake Stevens • ext. 109 • Jake@Watermarkonline.com Creative Assistant: Jason Donnelly • ext. 102 • adProduction@Watermarkonline.com Proofreading: ed blaisdell

Sales Director: Danny Garcia ext. 108 • Danny@Watermarkonline.com Senior Orlando Account Manager: Sam callahan ext. 103 • Sam@Watermarkonline.com Orlando Account Manager: Dillan ramirez ext. 105 • Dillan@Watermarkonline.com Tampa Bay Account Manager: Debbie reeves ext. 301 • Debbie@Watermarkonline.com Nat’l Ad Representative: rivendell Media Inc. • 212-242-6863

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

oRlando offiCe 414 N. Ferncreek Ave. Orlando, FL 32803 TEL: 407-481-2243 FAX: 407-481-2246

tampa bay offiCe TEL: 813-655-9890 FAX: 813-849-2986

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

JAsON LECLERC

is a near lifelong resident of the I-4 corridor, currently in South Tampa. He publishes poetry online at PoetEconomist. blogspot.com. His first book, Momentitiousness, was published in 2014. His book, Black Kettle, was published in 2016. Page 23

DIVINE GRACE

is an Orlandobased trouble maker with a forked tongue and all the charm you can imagine. Page 25

HOLLy V. kAPHERR

is a food, travel and lifestyle writer and editor born and bred in Orlando, Florida. Her work has appeared in local, regional and national publications.

sabRina ambRa, sCottie Campbell, kRista dituCCi, miGuel fulleR, diVine GRaCe kiRk haRtlaGe, samuel johnson, jason leCleRC, stephen milleR, maia monet, daVid moRan, GReG stemm, dR. steVe yaCoVelli, miChael wanZie, Ryan williams-jent

photoGRaphy bRian beCnel, niCk CaRdello, anGie folks, bRuCe haRdin, julie milfoRd, tRaVis mooRe, ChRis stephenson, lee VandeRGRift, tinkeRfluff

distRibution lVnlif2 distRibutinG, lisa joRdan, jill bates, ken CaRRaway CONTENTS of WATERMARK are protected by federal copyright law and may not be reproduced in whole or part without the permission of the publisher.

Unsolicited article submissions will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Although WATERMARK is supported by many fine advertisers, we cannot accept responsibility for claims made by advertisers.

Publication of the name or photograph of any person or organization in articles, advertising, or listing in WATERMARK is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation of such persons or members of such organizations.

WATERMARK is published every second Thursday. Subscription rate is $55 (1st class) and $26 (standard mail).

The official views of WATERMARK are expressed only in editorials. Opinions offered in signed columns, letters and articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the newspaper’s owner or management. We reserve the right to edit or reject any material submitted for publication.

WATERMARK is not responsible for damages due to typographical errors, except for the cost of replacing ads created by WATERMARK that have such errors.

watermark publishing group inc.

7

What is TRUVADA for PrEP?

Who should not take TRUVADA for PrEP?

TRUVADA for PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is a prescription medicine that is used together with safer sex practices to help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 through sex.

This use is only for HIV-negative adults who are at high risk of getting HIV-1. To help determine your risk of getting HIV-1, talk openly with your healthcare provider about your sexual health.

Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about how to prevent getting HIV. 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.

Do not take TRUVADA for PrEP if you: ® Already have HIV-1 infection or if you do not know your HIV-1 status. If you are HIV-1 positive, you need to take other medicines with TRUVADA to treat HIV-1. TRUVADA by itself is not a complete treatment for HIV-1. If you have HIV-1 and take only TRUVADA, your HIV-1 may become harder to treat over time. ® Also take certain medicines to treat hepatitis B infection.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION What is the most important information I should know about TRUVADA for PrEP? Before taking TRUVADA for PrEP: ® You must be HIV-negative before you start taking TRUVADA for PrEP. You must get tested to make sure that you do not already have HIV-1. Do not take TRUVADA to reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 unless you are confirmed to be HIV-negative. ® Many HIV-1 tests can miss HIV-1 infection in a person who has recently become infected. If you have flu-like symptoms, you could have recently become infected with HIV-1. Tell your healthcare provider if you had a flu-like illness within the last month before starting or at any time while taking TRUVADA for PrEP. Symptoms of new HIV-1 infection include tiredness, fever, joint or muscle aches, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, night sweats, and/or enlarged lymph nodes in the neck or groin.

While taking TRUVADA for PrEP: ® You must continue to use safer sex practices. Just taking TRUVADA for PrEP may not keep you from getting HIV-1. ® You must stay HIV-negative to keep taking TRUVADA for PrEP: ® Get tested for HIV-1 at least every 3 months. ® If you think you were exposed to HIV-1, tell your healthcare provider right away. ® To further help reduce your risk of getting HIV-1: ® Know your HIV status and the HIV status of your partners. ® Get tested for other sexually transmitted infections. Other infections make it easier for HIV to infect you. ® Get information and support to help reduce risky sexual behavior, such as having fewer sex partners. ® Do not miss any doses of TRUVADA. Missing doses may increase your risk of getting HIV-1 infection. ® If you do become HIV-1 positive, you need more medicine than TRUVADA alone to treat HIV-1. TRUVADA by itself is not a complete treatment for HIV-1. If you have HIV-1 and take only TRUVADA, your HIV-1 may become harder to treat over time.

TRUVADA can cause serious side effects: ® Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. TRUVADA is not approved to treat HBV. If you have HBV and stop taking TRUVADA, your HBV may suddenly get worse. Do not stop taking TRUVADA without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health.

What are the other possible side effects of TRUVADA for PrEP? Serious side effects of TRUVADA may also include: ® Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider may do blood tests to check your kidneys before and during treatment with TRUVADA. If you develop kidney problems, your healthcare provider may tell you to stop taking TRUVADA. ® 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. ® Bone problems, including bone pain, softening, or thinning, which may lead to fractures. Your healthcare provider may do tests to check your bones.

Common side effects in people taking TRUVADA for PrEP are stomach-area (abdomen) pain, headache, and decreased weight. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or do not go away.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking TRUVADA for PrEP? ® All your health problems. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you have or have had any kidney, bone, or liver problems, including hepatitis. ® If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if TRUVADA can harm your unborn baby. If you become pregnant while taking TRUVADA for PrEP, talk to your healthcare provider to decide if you should keep taking TRUVADA. ® If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. If you become HIV-positive, HIV can be passed to the baby in breast milk. ® All the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. TRUVADA may interact with other medicines. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist when you get a new medicine. ® If you take certain other medicines with TRUVADA, your healthcare provider may need to check you more often or change your dose. These medicines include certain medicines to treat hepatitis C (HCV) infection.

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 TRUVADA for PrEP including important warnings on the following page.

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r

I’m active, not unaware.

I know who I am. And I make choices that fit my life.

TRUVADA for PrEP™ is a once-daily prescription medicine that can help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 when taken every day and used together with safer sex practices. ® TRUVADA for PrEP is only for adults who are at high risk of getting HIV through sex. ® You must be HIV-negative before you start taking TRUVADA for PrEP.

Ask your doctor about your risk of getting HIV-1 infection and if TRUVADA for PrEP may be right for you.

Learn more at truvada.com

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IMPORTANT FACTS

This is only a brief summary of important information about taking TRUVADA for PrEPTM (pre-exposure prophylaxis) to help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 infection. This does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your medicine.

(tru-VAH-dah) MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT TRUVADA FOR PrEP Before starting TRUVADA for PrEP: • You must be HIV-1 negative. You must get tested to make sure that you do not already have HIV-1. Do not take TRUVADA for PrEP to reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 unless you are confirmed to be HIV-1 negative.

• Many HIV-1 tests can miss HIV-1 infection in a person who has recently become infected. Symptoms of new HIV-1 infection include flu-like symptoms, tiredness, fever, joint or muscle aches, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, night sweats, and/or enlarged lymph nodes in the neck or groin. Tell your healthcare provider if you have had a flu-like illness within the last month before starting TRUVADA for PrEP. While taking TRUVADA for PrEP: • You must continue to use safer sex practices. Just taking TRUVADA for PrEP may not keep you from getting HIV-1.

• You must stay HIV-negative to keep taking TRUVADA for PrEP. Get tested for HIV-1 at least every 3 months while taking TRUVADA for PrEP. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you think you were exposed to HIV-1 or have a flu-like illness while taking TRUVADA for PrEP. • If you do become HIV-1 positive, you need more medicine than TRUVADA alone to treat HIV-1. If you have HIV-1 and take only TRUVADA, your HIV-1 may become harder to treat over time.

• See the “How To Further Reduce Your Risk” section for more information.

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

ABOUT TRUVADA FOR PrEP TRUVADA for PrEP is a prescription medicine used together with safer sex practices to help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 through sex. This use is only for HIV-negative adults who are at high risk of getting HIV-1.

• To help determine your risk of getting HIV-1, talk openly with your healthcare provider about your sexual health.

Do NOT take TRUVADA for PrEP if you: • Already have HIV-1 infection or if you do not know your HIV-1 status.

• Take certain medicines to treat hepatitis B infection.

HOW TO TAKE TRUVADA FOR PrEP • Take 1 tablet once a day, every day, not just when you think you have been exposed to HIV-1.

• Do not miss any doses. Missing doses may increase your risk of getting HIV-1 infection.

• Use TRUVADA for PrEP together with condoms and safer sex practices.

• Get tested for HIV-1 at least every 3 months. You must stay HIV-negative to keep taking TRUVADA for PrEP.

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF TRUVADA FOR PrEP TRUVADA can cause serious side effects, including: • Those in the “Most Important Information About TRUVADA for PrEP” section.

• 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.

• Bone problems.

Common side effects in people taking TRUVADA for PrEP include stomach-area (abdomen) pain, headache, and decreased weight.

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

BEFORE TAKING TRUVADA FOR PrEP Tell your healthcare provider if you: • Have or have had any kidney, bone, or liver problems, including hepatitis.

• Have any other medical conditions.

• Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

• Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. If you become HIV-positive, HIV can pass to the baby in breast milk.

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 TRUVADA for PrEP.

HOW TO FURTHER REDUCE YOUR RISK • Know your HIV status and the HIV status of your partners.

• Get tested for other sexually transmitted infections. Other infections make it easier for HIV to infect you.

• Get information and support to help reduce risky sexual behavior, such as having fewer sex partners.

• Do not share needles or personal items that can have blood or body fluids on them.

GET MORE INFORMATION • This is only a brief summary of important information about TRUVADA for PrEP. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more, including how to prevent HIV infection.

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

TRUVADA FOR PREP, the TRUVADA FOR PREP Logo, the TRUVADA Blue Pill Design, TRUVADA, 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. TVDC0166 08/17

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central florida news

Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith kicks off re-election campaign at The Abbey Jeremy Williams LEADING THE CHARGE: Orlando

City Commissioner Patty Sheehan and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, with Hope & Help banner in hand, lead the 2017 Orlando AIDS Walk at Lake Eola.

Photo by Brian Becnel

Fund Walk Hope & Help to take an evening stroll through Lake Eola for the annual Orlando AIDS Walk Jeremy Williams

O

RLANDO | The Hope & Help Center of Central Florida returns with their annual AIDS Walk on Feb. 3 at the Walt Disney Amphitheater at Lake Eola Park in Downtown Orlando.

Hope & Help moved the event, typically held in the morning, to an evening time last year which proved a huge success, according to Joshua J. Myers, Hope & Help’s community developmental director.

“We received an overwhelmingly positive response to moving the walk to the evening,” Myers says. “Getting up at 5:00 a.m. to walk around the lake, even though it is beautiful and for a good cause, was tough for some, and others would come do the walk and then leave and we wouldn’t see them again.”

Last year’s inaugural twilight event had more than 700 walkers and raised nearly $60,000, all of which goes back to those affected

by HIV and AIDS right here in Central Florida through Hope & Help programs.

“These funds will enable us to increase the number of free HIV tests we can offer,” Myers says. “We will also be able to increase not only the number of support groups we offer but also increase the quality of those groups.”

This year, Hope & Help is aiming to raise $50,000 in funds from the AIDS Walk. That figure is a bit lower than what the organization collected last year, but Myers says their estimates are based on the fact that they are running the event earlier in the year than usual.

“We moved the event up this year, from April to February,” Myers says.”In planning out this year’s fundraising we realized there’s a lot of competing events, especially on the weekends this spring, so we wanted to be smart about that.”

Myers says Hope & Help is looking at several opportunities they have to hold other community-based, fundraising

events throughout the rest of the year.

More events not only help to raise funds for HIV/AIDS services but they also raise awareness and education opportunities, something Myers says is vital to the community in Orlando and throughout the entire state.

“Florida is number one in the nation for most new HIV and AIDS cases,” Myers says. “That is astronomical. Orlando is number six as far as cities in the U.S. Two other Florida cities also appear in the top 10: Jacksonville and Miami. We have an obligation to the community to continue to raise awareness and funds to stop these new infections.”

According to Myers, the first place to start is with the youth in Florida’s public school system.

“We don’t do enough in education,” he says. “There needs to be more of a push to talk about HIV in the school systems, and not just HIV but all the accoutrements associated with its rise, [one of] those being self-esteem for our young boys and girls who are willing to compromise with their sexual partners because they are afraid of losing their relationship. We want the kids to know that they need to put their health and life first.”

Myers says the time of hiding behind our conservative views on sex needs to end now, especially in the nine southeastern state, the so-called Bible Belt of America, where 50 percent of the country’s

O

RLANDO | “We have all heard him say, and I want you to say it with me, ‘I am a proud progressive, liberal, feminist, gay, Latino, Democrat,’” state Rep. Amy Mercado (D-48) said from the stage, speaking of state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-49), at The Abbey Jan. 5.

Mercado, along with many liberal progressives— among them Florida House District 47 candidate Anna Eskamani, former state Rep. Joe Saunders and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer—joined Smith as he kicked off his 2018 re-election campaign .

Before Smith took the stage, Eskamani spoke to the large crowd about why being at The Abbey was significant.

“How appropriate that we gather here tonight at The Abbey, a venue with incredible staff,” Eskamani said.

“One where Carlos announced his victory in 2016. Where I kicked off my own campaign back in August. This is the place where winners are made.”

Eskamani told the crowd that Smith was the reason she had gotten into politics and the reason she was running for District 47.

“I first met Carlos over seven years ago at the University of Central Florida. I was a college Democrat and he was the chief of staff to Rep. Scott Randolph. Always the ball of positive energy, Carlos invested in young progressives and became a source of mentorship and inspiration to young activists and organizers like me,” she said. “Today, Carlos has proven to all of us that he is a progressive leader who gets shit done. He came up to Tallahassee with a bold vision, and not just one for his own state but one for his own party.”

Eskamani listed off several of Smith’s accomplishments since becoming a Florida House representative: Bringing $2.5 million to the UCF PTSD clinic for vets and first responders, the greyhound protection bill, getting the first committee hearing to decriminalize personal use cannabis and his work on helping to defeat NRA-backed open carry gun laws, to name a few.

“I not only want Carlos in Tallahassee, I need Carlos in Tallahassee,” Eskamani said.

With that, Smith took the stage to cheers and applause from the crowd.

“It has been a heck of a year serving you all in the Florida House of Representatives,” Smith said. “Being back here at The Abbey reminds me of that election night and how quickly it evolved into absolute chaos. After I was elected, what happened was the unimaginable. Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. Once that reality sunk in for me, as it did for you, I realized that you would be depending on me so much more to be leading the resistance.”

Smith began to recount his accomplishments since getting elected to the Florida House, but also looked ahead at what he intends to accomplish in his second term.

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central florida news | uu | Smith re-election from pg.11

“I passed my first policy bill on the floor of the House of Representatives to crack down on the abuses on greyhound racing dogs across the state of Florida.

We are going to finish the job this year by not only getting it signed by the governor but also when the voters finally have a chance to shut greyhound racing down permanently in Florida,” Smith said.

“I stood by many of the Pulse heroes and first responders suffering from PTSD like Officer Gerry Realin and Corporal Omar Delgado, who saved our friend Angel [Colon], who stood with them when no one else would,” Smith continued. “I’m proud to stand with Rep. Victor Torres as a co-sponsor of the Worker’s Compensation for First Responders with PTSD bill.

We’re going to get that passed.”

Smith, who has not been a quiet voice in Tallahassee, told the crowd that in order to get some things done you have to get in people’s faces.

CAmPAIGN fANs: carlos Guillermo Smith (right with sign) and a group of his supporters for his campaign re-election kickoff at The Abbey. Photo coUrteSy carloS GUIllerMo SMIth’S FacebooK

“When we get in their faces that is when we finally make them understand that our issues matter, our people matter and that our dignity matters,” he said to cheers from the crowd.

Smith also took the opportunity to call out Florida Gov. Rick

Scott who, Smith says, promised Equality Florida an executive order protecting LGBTQ people from employment discrimination after Pulse.

“Month after month they came up with a new excuse, quietly behind the scenes, for their inaction

until finally we said, ‘Enough. You are lying.’ We have to stand up and tell the truth when Gov. Scott is lying,” Smith said.

Smith also drew attention to how his campaign is raising funds.

Earlier that day, Smith posted a picture of a check for $1,000 from Wal-Mart made out to the Campaign to Elect Carlos Guillermo Smith. The check had the phrase “NO THANKS” written across it in black marker.

“Just like our 2016 campaign that swept me into office, our 2018 re-election WILL NOT rely on corporate contributions to win!

REAL-- yet unsolicited campaign checks like this one from Wal-Mart were promptly thrown in the trash!

WE MUST RELY ON THE PEOPLE! That’s YOU!” the post read.

At the campaign rally, Smith said he then tore up the check and threw it away.

“There are many checks we had to turn away,” he said. “Big Sugar, I’m not taking that money. Even, if you can believe it, from a greyhound track owner. We aren’t relying on them, we are relying on you. Thank you for having my back.”

| uu | Fund Walk from pg.11 new HIV infections come from.

“Everyone needs to know the risks and they need to get tested,” Myers says.

Hope & Help tested more than 60 individuals at last year’s AIDS Walk and they will have free HIV testing out there once again this year. Along with the testing bus, the event will feature food trucks, specialty drinks sponsored by Tito’s Vodka and a few dozen vendors with free gifts and giveaways. The event will have a kid’s zone as well with a bounce house and face painting.

Something else they have this year: a theme.

“The theme this year is ‘Celebrity,’” Myers says. “We are encouraging people to come out dressed as their favorite celebrity.

We want them to be creative and just have fun with it.”

If you would like to register for the Orlando AIDS Walk, either as a single walker or as a team, visit AIDSWalkOrlando.org or call 407-645-2577, ext. 110.

Innovation • Simulation • Technology • Digital Media • Gaming

January 12-15 Check out Orlando's Favorite Interactive Tech Expo! otronicon.org

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Cherish Your Life Events

• Wedding & Commitment • Baby and Fur-Baby Naming • New Home Blessing • Milestone Birthday • Career Transition • Memorials - People & Pets

Jennie Landau (321) 246-5664 Life Cycle Celebrant & Wedding Officiant

Fr e e B i r d C e r e m o n i e s . c o m

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tampa bay news

St. Petersburg swears in Mayor Rick Kriseman, first female-majority City Council Ryan Williams-Jent

S

t. Petersburg | City officials and an engaged constituency lined the halls and streets of St. Petersburg’s City Hall on Jan. 2 for the official swearing-in ceremony of Mayor Rick Kriseman and the City Council.

The ceremony began just after 11 a.m. in the council chambers of City Hall, where new and re-elected members of the City Council vowed to serve St. Petersburg. Council Members Brandi Gabbard, Gina Driscoll, Darden Rice and Amy Foster were each sworn into the council, creating St. Petersburg history in the process.

“It’s exciting to me that this is the first time ever that our city council has had five elected women to the dais,” Rice said, welcoming her new colleagues to a round of applause.

With the addition of Driscoll and Gabbard, now serving in their first term, five out of eight council members are female.

“You never want to sound reverse-sexist,” Rice continued, “but I think it can be said that women bring a different negotiating style… and typically, a different perspective.”

Council Members Lisa Wheeler-Brown and Steve Kornell were also officially declared the council chair and vice chair, respectively, following a unanimous vote on Dec. 14.

“I’m happy to be on the end of a 5-3 minority, as a man,” Kornell said. “I wish that would happen more places. I think our country would be a much better place if it did… I look forward to the year of the woman on St. Pete City Council.”

The ceremony soon moved outside, where master of ceremonies and St. Petersburg poet laureate Helen Wallace welcomed council members and constituents before Joran Oppelt, minister at Integral Church and president of Interfaith Tampa Bay, began the invocation.

“We are multi-racial,” Oppelt said. “We are multi-cultural.

We are white and black and brown—and now, like our city council, we are female.”

“We are home to an amazing and thriving LGBT community,” Oppelt said to applause. “We live in a city that is vibrant and colorful, and full of people that I am proud to call my neighbor.”

After calling on constituents to put the “neighbor” back in neighborhood, and praising Kriseman’s commitment to diversity in all forms, the faith leader welcomed Wallace back to announce the joint honor guard from the St. Petersburg police and fire rescue departments. The guard presented the nation’s colors and was soon joined by Cepada McKay and No Limits, who performed the National Anthem.

Judge Mark I. Shames of Florida’s 6th Judicial Circuit Court subsequently welcomed Mayor Rick Kriseman. He administered the oath of office for the mayor’s second four-year term, prompting Kriseman’s address.

“There is no place I would rather be today than right here with each of you, at the beginning of a new year and a new term,” Kriseman said. “Four years ago today, standing in this very spot, I made several promises. I pledged, working closely with our city council and the more than Continued on pg. 16 | uu |

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STREET CRED:

Participants line Grand Central for Pride’s street festival in 2015.

PHOTO BY NICK CARDELLO

Rainbow Roots St. Pete Pride votes to hold 2018’s street festival in Grand Central District Ryan Williams-Jent

s

t. Petersburg | St. Pete Pride has voted to hold 2018’s street festival in the Grand Central District following a presentation made to the Grand Central District Association (GCDA) in which they reviewed the cost analysis of holding the Pride staple downtown.

Of the five-person vote, which was held Jan. 9, four voted in favor of holding the event in the Grand Central District, while one meeting attendee abstained. It was held just four days after interim Executive Director Luke Blankenship gathered with the GCDA in the name of “dialogue and transparency,” he says.

Last year, the two organizations found themselves at odds after 2017’s successful but controversial Pride event. For the first time in its 15-year history, the St. Pete Pride parade moved from the Grand

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Central District to downtown St. Petersburg. Initially, the event’s street festival was to make the move as well, but to ensure it received city funding, it remained in Grand Central in a compromise reached with Mayor Rick Kriseman and the City Council.

In the Jan. 5 meeting, Blankenship advises he outlined the talking points for the potential move, now voted down. “The majority of the conversation was an estimated cost analysis of having the festival in Grand Central and downtown,” Blankenship says.

According to documentation obtained by Watermark, attendees were presented with two pages of information labeled “North Straub & Bayshore v. Grand Central.” It provided the cost analysis of holding the festival in Grand Central, as well as having it follow the parade’s lead and transition downtown. It further noted that St. Pete Pride would save an estimated $6,700 by moving.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

The document listed the positives associated with holding the festival at each respective location. For Bayshore, it would be “right on the parade route,” feature “cheaper police fees” and there would be “less logistics” on the day of the festival.

For Grand Central, it’s been held there “since the beginning,” there would be “no potential media/public backlash” and the organization would “keep 10K in city funding.”

“Some members of the GCDA board took this as we were moving the festival downtown because it is cheaper to do the festival downtown vs. Grand Central,” Blankenship tells Watermark. “There were members of their board that took this as the decision already being made because of the cost discrepancy, but there are other factors involved in the decision.”

Those factors, Blankenship says, are most prominently “the logistics of the festival, security measures and where we can make the biggest impact on the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. The latter topics were not discussed at the meeting.”

According to GCDA President Jonathan Tallon, attendees included Executive Director Dr. Jacqui May, Board Member Kate Thorpe, Old Key West owner Mitch Faber, Woodfield

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It’s Official ASAP and Francis House Become EPIC

IAN STANISLAUS GÓMEZ, Esq.

LINDSEY SHEPPY, Esq.

LGBT Attorneys

Representing the

of Counsel

LGBT Community

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Wills/Probate | Criminal (727) 895-7932 • (813) 877-8181

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ASAP (AIDS Service Association of Pinellas) and Francis House have officially merged and are now EPIC (Empath Partners in Care).

This merger brings together two like-minded, community-based organizations with nearly 60 years of combined experience serving those impacted by HIV and AIDS in the Tampa Bay area. We can now serve more people with more services throughout our community.

EPIC has various locations in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and will continue uninterrupted services on its ASAP and Francis House Campuses. EPIC provides a wide variety of services, including: • Free HIV Testing

• • • • •

Medical Case Management Counseling Services & Support Groups Food & Personal Needs Pantries Housing Assistance Day Center with Meals & Activities

For more information about the exciting new organization, visit MyEPIC.org

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tampa bay news | uu | kriseman Swearing In from pg.14

| uu | St. Pete Pride

250,000 citizens we represent, to tackle the most stubborn challenges facing our city… including poverty in south St. Pete, the construction of a new pier and police station, our agreement with the Tampa Bay Rays, and our infrastructure; specifically, our transportation infrastructure. All of us, working together, have either resolved these issues, or made significant strides toward resolving them.”

Kriseman detailed his administration’s priorities and accomplishments, but soon looked toward the future.

“Today, we are a St. Pete that pursues a Cuban consulate, Amazon’s second world headquarters, and the World Pride celebration,” he said. In June, ahead of his re-election, Kriseman told Watermark he’d love for the World LGBTQ Pride celebration to venture to the city.

“Today, we are a St. Pete of green initiatives, not green benches,” he continued. “A St. Pete where 20,000 strong march along our waterfront for women’s rights, and for every other right Donald Trump wishes to deny us. Today, literally today, we are a city where, for the first time... a majority of our council members are women.”

Kriseman called on the city to “continue to shine bright, and not dim our light for others,” and for constituents to stand united.

“Because a united St. Pete,” Kriseman concluded, “is an unstoppable St. Pete.”

from pg.14

Fine Arts owner Jim Woodfield, ConceptBait owner and CEO Frank Clemente, and Schmitz CPA owner Joel Schmitz.

The GCDA also invited former board member and Punky’s owner Brian Longstreth, described by Tallon as one of the godfathers of the organization and of the St. Pete Pride parade.

Tallon asserts that attendees walked away with a fervent resolve, believing that although the parade was moved in 2017, “the Grand Central District will continue to be the home, host and heart for the Bay Area’s LGTBQ community.”

“Last year, [with] the possibility that the parade was moving to an already event-heavy area in downtown St Pete, I was concerned about the economic effect on the locally-owned and community-focused businesses in the district,” Tallon recalls. “When I saw, heard and felt the emotions from the LGTBQ community and our neighborhoods in Kenwood

Framing Watermark readers since 2003

RAINbOw wRAP: Rainbow flags are a Pride staple. Photo by nIcK carDello and Palmetto Park regarding the relocation, it became a much more profound and deeper issue than simply dollars in cash boxes.”

Following the meeting, Longstreth also addressed his concerns via Facebook, noting that Blankenship meant well and that he appreciated the offer to talk. “The last few years, Luke has worked very hard for St. Pete Pride,” he says.

“Last year, Mr. Longstreth pointed out to me that the LGTBQ businesses, their owners, their allies, friends and neighbors are here in Grand Central District, Kenwood and

Palmetto 365 days [a year],” Tallon says, “and not for two days in June.”

“That is woven in the fabric of Grand Central,” he notes. “The Rainbow flag will continue flying in the district in perpetuity.”

Blankenship, and the St. Pete Pride board, seem to agree. “Grand Central is where we originated,” Pride’s interim Executive Director says. “…we will never forget this part of the community and will continue to foster a relationship along each step of the process.”

St. Pete Pride will be held June 23-24, 2018.

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In adults with HIV on ART who have diarrhea not caused by an infection IMPORTANT PATIENT INFORMATION This is only a summary. See complete Prescribing Information at Mytesi.com or by calling 1-844-722-8256. This does not take the place of talking with your doctor about your medical condition or treatment.

What Is Mytesi?

Mytesi is a prescription medicine used to improve symptoms of noninfectious diarrhea (diarrhea not caused by a bacterial, viral, or parasitic infection) in adults living with HIV/AIDS on ART. Do Not Take Mytesi if you have diarrhea caused by an infection. Before you start Mytesi, your doctor and you should make sure your diarrhea is not caused by an infection (such as bacteria, virus, or parasite).

Possible Side Effects of Mytesi Include:

Tired of planning your life around diarrhea?

Enough is Enough Get relief. Pure and simple. Ask your doctor about Mytesi.

Mytesi (crofelemer): • Is the only medicine FDA-approved to relieve diarrhea in people with HIV • Treats diarrhea differently by normalizing the flow of water in the GI tract • Has the same or fewer side effects as placebo in clinical studies • Comes from a tree sustainably harvested in the Amazon Rainforest

• Upper respiratory tract infection (sinus, nose, and throat infection) • Bronchitis (swelling in the tubes that carry air to and from your lungs) • Cough • Flatulence (gas) • Increased bilirubin (a waste product when red blood cells break down) For a full list of side effects, please talk to your doctor. Tell your doctor if you have any side effect that bothers you or does not go away.

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.

Should I Take Mytesi If I Am: Pregnant or Planning to Become Pregnant?

• Studies in animals show that Mytesi could harm an unborn baby or affect the ability to become pregnant • There are no studies in pregnant women taking Mytesi • This drug should only be used during pregnancy if clearly needed A Nursing Mother?

• It is not known whether Mytesi is passed through human breast milk • If you are nursing, you should tell your doctor before starting Mytesi • Your doctor will help you to decide whether to stop nursing or to stop taking Mytesi Under 18 or Over 65 Years of Age? • Mytesi has not been studied in children under 18 years of age • Mytesi studies did not include many people over the age of 65. So it is not clear if this age group will respond differently. Talk to your doctor to find out if Mytesi is right for you

What is Mytesi?

Mytesi is a prescription medicine that helps relieve symptoms of diarrhea not caused by an infection (noninfectious) in adults living with HIV/AIDS on antiretroviral therapy (ART).

What Should I Know About Taking Mytesi With Other Medicines?

Important Safety Information Mytesi is not approved to treat infectious diarrhea (diarrhea caused by bacteria, a virus, or a parasite). Before starting you on Mytesi, your healthcare provider will first be sure that you do not have infectious diarrhea. Otherwise, there is a risk you would not receive the right medicine and your infection could get worse. In clinical studies, the most common side effects that occurred more often than with placebo were upper respiratory tract (sinus, nose, and throat) infection (5.7%), bronchitis (3.9%), cough (3.5%), flatulence (3.1%), and increased bilirubin (3.1%).

What If I Have More Questions About Mytesi?

For Copay Savings Card and Patient Assistance, see Mytesi.com

If you are taking any prescription or over-the-counter medicine, herbal supplements, or vitamins, tell your doctor before starting Mytesi.

For more information, please see the full Prescribing Information at Mytesi.com or speak to your doctor or pharmacist.

To report side effects or make a product complaint or for additional information, call 1-844-722-8256.

Rx Only Manufactured by Patheon, Inc. for Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. San Francisco, CA 94105 Copyright © Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mytesi comes from the Croton lechleri tree harvested in South America.

Please see complete Prescribing Information at Mytesi.com.

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Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

17

state news

RiChaRdson Raises moRe than $1 million in his Run foR ConGRess, eaRns national endoRsement Jeremy Williams

D

emocratic State Rep. David Richardson raised more than $500,000 in the final three months of 2017 for his run to become the next U.S. representative in Florida’s 27th District, according to FloridaPolitics.com.

Adding in what he raised earlier in the year brings his total to $1 million since announcing his run this past summer.

“Fundraising is not especially fun, but if I’m going to run a successful campaign for Congress, then I need to have the resources to communicate with voters,” Richardson wrote on his Facebook page. “As with everything else I’ve done in my life, once I make a commitment to do something I give it my all.”

Richardson continued, saying that while he has received a few big donor checks, most of the contributions are coming from grassroots supporters averaging $31.58 per donation.

“Since we started the campaign on July 10, more than 8,700 individual donors have made more than 12,000 online contributions. Ninety percent of all online contributions have been for $25 or less,” Richardson said.

Richardson decided he would run for the District 27 seat after the district’s current holder, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, announced that she would be retiring.

Richardson is just one of a handful of Democrats who have already thrown their hats into a race that includes state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez and Miami Beach City Commissioners Kristen Rosen Gonzalez and Ken Russell, among others.

“I’ve been looking at the seat for a couple of years,” Richardson said in an interview with Watermark back in June 2017. “All of my state representative seat sits in the congressional district. I had decided that I wasn’t going to run against [Ros-Lehtinen]. I really thought that she would have retired in 2020. I would be termed out in 2020.”

Richardson feels he has a viable path to victory for District 27 and has already amassed a list of endorsements including those from the Victory Fund, the South Florida LGBTQ rights watchdog group SAVE and, most recently, Equality PAC. Equality PAC, the political action committee founded by leaders of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, announced Jan. 2 the endorsements of three LGBTQ candidates for Congress: Lauren Baer for Florida District 18, Chris Pappas for New Hampshire District 01 and Richardson.

“Rep. David Richardson is a tenacious fighter for the people of Florida,” said Equality PAC Chair Mark Takano (D-CA) in a statement. “In addition to taking on the for-profit prison system and strengthening free, public education, David has fought for LGBT equality since his first days in the Florida legislature. That he already represents a significant portion of the FL-27 and his grass roots support shows he is ready to lead. We are proud to endorse his campaign.”

Richardson will face off against his Democratic opponents in the primary election Aug. 28, the same day one of the five Republicans in the race will be looking for their party’s nomination. The general election between the two parties’ winners is Nov. 6.

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foRt laudeRdale mayoR’s RaCe tuRns nasty in debate Michael d’oliveira, courtesy the south florida Gay News

I

n the Jan. 4 Fort Lauderdale mayoral debate hosted by the Sun Sentinel, a night mostly devoted to infrastructure and development issues briefly saw Vice Mayor Bruce Roberts and District 2 Commissioner Dean Trantalis engage in personal criticism of each other.

“You bring politics in Fort Lauderdale to its lowest level,” Trantalis flung at Roberts. While Roberts asked, “If somebody can’t tell the truth, they’re supposed to be the mayor of the city of Fort Lauderdale?”

Roberts, Trantalis, and former City Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom will face off in the mayoral primary on Tuesday, Jan. 16. If no candidate gets 50 percent plus one of the vote, a runoff between the top two vote-getters will be held Tuesday, March 13. If elected, Trantalis would be the city’s first openly gay mayor. If elected, Rodstrom would be the city’s second female mayor after Virginia S. Young. Current Mayor Jack Seiler, who stated he hopes Roberts wins the election, is term-limited and can’t run for re-election.

The cause of the personal attacks was a series of mailers put out by the Florida Community Alliance PC, a PAC with a Tallahassee mailing

address. Sun Sentinel reporter Brittany Wallman said that quite a few voters told her they thought the mailers were “homophobic.”

The mailers depict Trantalis in various outfits and clown makeup and accuse him of hypocrisy over the issue of development. “Dean Trantalis registered as a lobbyist for a developer in Wilton Manors. His hypocritical rant is just another act in The Dean Trantalis Show . . . Fort Lauderdale needs a leader – not a liar,” reads one of the mailers. In the past Trantalis has represented developers before the Wilton Manors Commission, including the failed G Resort hotel proposal.

Roberts said he was involved with the mailer but did not mean it to be homophobic. He cited his past record of pro-LGBT decisions, including being the swing vote in support of Fort Lauderdale’s pro-gay marriage resolution in 2014.

“Other people may interpret it that way . . . If you look at my record, you will see that I am completely the opposite [of homophobic],” Roberts said.

Trantalis didn’t accuse Roberts of being homophobic, but he did criticize his involvement in the mailer. “I’m really surprised you would associate yourself with this kind of chicanery. Besides the fact that these outfits I would never be seen in, I think it really demeans you

as an individual. You bring politics in Fort Lauderdale to its lowest level. That’s unacceptable. If we see another one in the mail I think you should think twice about your ability to lead this community as mayor,” Trantalis said.

Roberts responded back and called Trantalis a liar, but did not get specific.

“If somebody can’t tell the truth they’re supposed to be the mayor of the city of Fort Lauderdale? Dean, that’s very sly of you. You talk about things that are completely untrue in your PAC statements and mailers.”

However, on development and the city’s water and sewage infrastructure problems, something everyone seems to agree is the biggest challenge facing the city right now, the candidates were more closely aligned and congenial. But they were not without disagreement.

When asked if they would put a moratorium on new development until the water and sewage system was brought up to date, Trantalis and Rodstrom said yes. “This is a recipe for disaster. We have to make sure [developers] pay their fair share. We are way behind the eight ball,” said Rodstrom. “We are beyond capacity,” said Trantalis.

Roberts said he wouldn’t institute a blanket moratorium but would go on a case by case basis. “There has to be a balance,” he said.

jaCksonVille’s human RiGhts oRdinanCe thReatened on the fedeRal leVel by new bill Ryan Williams-Jent

J

ACksONVILLE, fLA. | Jacksonville’s City Council approved an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting the LGBTQ community less than a year ago, but those protections are already in danger at the state level.

Jacksonville Republican Rep. Jay Fant has introduced House Bill 871. It would allow businesses to set their policies in accordance to their religious beliefs—something Jacksonville attorney and LGBT activist Jimmy Midyette calls “insidious.”

“It’s frightening for those of us who care about civil liberties,” Midyette

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

says. “It’s pretext. What this law does is create a pretext for every person to discriminate against any person at any time. It’s a license to discriminate.”

On Twitter, Fant cited the recent Supreme Court Masterpiece Cakeshop case, in which an anti-LGBTQ Christian baker refused to sell a same-sex couple a wedding cake, as the reason for the bill’s filing.

“In Florida, we’re not gonna sit around and leave liberty up to dispute,” he tweeted. He further advised the bill was filed so that “business owners don’t have to live in fear of social justice zealots.”

For Midyette, who worked to pass Jacksonville’s Human Rights Ordinance, he believes that “Representative Fant senses a moment

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

here. There are ‘legitimate’ religions in this county that are opposed to interracial marriage, mostly within the white supremacy movement.”

It’s that reasoning that Midyette says would allow groups like white supremacists to invoke protections from the bill, no matter what they do or serve.

“That’s the ultimate danger with a law like this,” he says. “It’s not limited to the LGBT community. This could be their way to essentially reintroduce Jim Crow.”

Fant, a Jacksonville resident, is also currently running for Florida attorney general, pledging “to fight for small business owners and to protect the most vulnerable.”

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19

Jakob, Jr., occupies a special place in our hearts.

You see, he was the first car we ever sold and he has come back home.

Junior is actually a 1974 Volvo 144 Sedan. Like his Dad, Jakob, Sr., Junior was born in Sweden where it is winter eleven months out of the year. With these harsh conditions, you know that both Jacobs were built to last and be reliable.

Soon after he arrived at our dealership many years ago, Jakob II was adopted by a good Winter Park family.

When his family moved to Tennessee, Jakob went along and served his owner admirably.

Some years ago, we began wondering about Jakob’s whereabouts. (Quite frankly, we missed him!) After a long search, we located Jakob and were delighted that his owner was willing to sell him back to us.

Fortunately, Jakob was well cared for over the years. Yet, we still decided to dismantle him in order to completely recondition all his vital components.

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nation+world news

Anti-LGBT Republicans Romney and Bachmann may run for Senate in 2018 Chris Johnson of The Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBT Media Association

S

hake ups in the U.S. Senate led to news Jan. 2 that two prominent Republicans and former presidential candidates who have anti-LGBT records—Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann—may run in 2018.

Following passage of tax reform legislation, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced he’d retire after four decades in the Senate, opening the door for Mitt Romney, who had publicly mulled the idea of running for the seat.

Meanwhile, former Rep. Michele Bachmann said on the Christian Broadcasting Network she’s

considering a run for the seat in Minnesota being vacated by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) amid allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

Bachmann, however, said she’s not certain and would consult God on whether she’s being called to pursue the open seat.

Both Romney and Bachmann have extensive anti-LGBT records as public officials.

As Massachusetts governor, Romney most famously sought to limit the 2003 Goodridge decision at the Massachusetts Supreme Court making the Bay State the first with marriage equality and became a national spokesperson in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have banned same-sex marriage nationwide.

A longtime favorite of social

conservatives, Bachmann has an anti-LGBT record that has animated her career as far back as 2004 when she also championed the Federal Marriage Amendment and said “Gays live a very sad life” and “it’s part of Satan.”

In the course of her career in Congress, Bachmann voted against hate crimes protections legislation, repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. She was elected to Congress too late to have voted on the Federal Marriage Amendment in either 2004 or 2006.

In 2012, both Romney and Bachmann, in pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, staked out anti-LGBT positions and continued their push for a U.S. constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage nationwide.

Bachmann ended up losing the nomination to Romney, but Romney came up short in his bid to unseat President Obama.

said many council members were fired even though additional time remained on their terms as advisers.

The terminated members, sources said, were given the option to reapply.

Created in 1995, PACHA has provided advice starting in the Clinton administration and into the George W. Bush and Obama administrations on policy and research to promote effective treatment and prevention for HIV—maintaining the goal of finding a cure.

In September, Trump signed an executive order that renewed PACHA along with 31 other presidential bodies for an additional year.

Trump’s termination of council members isn’t the first time an

administration cleaned house on PACHA. The Obama administration eliminated all of George W. Bush’s appointees before making new appointments.

In June, six members of PACHA resigned their posts in protest over what they called inaction from Trump on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. An estimated 1.2 million people have HIV/ AIDS in the United States and 37 million have the disease worldwide.

Chief among the reasons was the absence of leadership at the White House on HIV/AIDS. To date, the White House has yet to appoint a director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, which was one of the reasons the six members of PACHA resigned in June.

29-Feb. 3 for a “Missions Trip.”

Jay John, a Jamaican LGBT rights advocate, has petitioned the Jamaican government to ban Anderson for the country. John in his petition he posted to Change.org notes, among other things, that Anderson has said gay men should be stoned to death and celebrated the 2016 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Anderson’s church as one of “the most hardcore anti-LGBT hate groups” in the U.S.

More than 3,900 people have signed John’s petition.

“I don’t anticipate being banned from Jamaica because Jamaicans are in general anti-homosexual, but if I am banned, then so be it,” said Anderson in an email he sent to the Blade Jan. 4, noting his church has had “multiple successful missions trips” to Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. “There are lots of fish in the sea.”

Anderson has been banned from Botswana, South Africa, the U.K. and Canada.

Trump fires all members of HIV/AIDS council without explanation Chris Johnson of The Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBT Media Association

W

ith no explanation, the White House has terminated members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS amid widespread discontent with President Trump’s approach to the epidemic.

After six members of PACHA resigned in June, the White House terminated the remaining 16 members Dec. 27 without explanation via a letter from FedEx. Sources with knowledge of PACHA

Anti-LGBT U.S. pastor does not expect Jamaica to ban him Michael K. Lavers of The Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBT Media Association

A

n anti-LGBT pastor from the U.S. tells the Washington Blade that he does not expect the Jamaican government to ban him from the country.

Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., is scheduled to be in Jamaica from Jan.

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

in other news Texas man who used dating app to assault, rob gay men gets prison Federal prosecutors say 21-year-old Nigel Garrett and three other Dallas-area men were charged with hate crimes, kidnappings, carjackings and using firearms to commit violent crimes against gay men. An 18-count indictment alleges the men arranged meetings at victims’ homes through a social media dating platform for gay men.

Investigators say most victims were tied up, assaulted and robbed at gunpoint. Garrett was sentenced to 15 years in prison following a plea agreement. The other three suspects also have pleaded guilty. They’re awaiting sentencing.

Judge refuses to order Chicago-area school to suspend transgender policy A federal judge in Chicago won’t force a suburban school district to suspend a policy that enables transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice, concluding in a new ruling that decades-old anti-discrimination statutes extend to students whose gender identity isn’t conventional. In his 15-page written opinion, the judge stated that laws prohibiting discrimination by sex do not apply only to those who fall into conventional male-female categories. The lead attorney for the families suing the school said an appeal is likely.

‘Make America Gay Again’ sign greets Pence in Colorado Neighbors of the home where Mike Pence stayed in Colorado over New Years left a message for the current vice president. A rainbow-colored banner was placed on a stone pillar at the end of the driveways to both homes near the posh ski resort of Aspen. The banner reads “Make America Gay Again”—a play on President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.” Pitkin County sheriff’s deputy Michael Buglione told the Aspen Times that Secret Service agents weren’t bothered by the sign.

Representatives for Pence did not comment.

Egypt court releases two people arrested for raising rainbow flag at concert An Egyptian court released two people who raised a rainbow flag during a Cairo concert in September. Egyptian Streets—which describes itself as an “independent, young and grassroots news media organization aimed at providing readers with an alternate depiction of events that occur on Egyptian and Middle Eastern streets”— reported Jan. 2 the Giza Criminal Court released Sarah Hejazy and Ahmed Alaa on $56.37 (1,000 Egyptian pounds) bail. Hejazy and Alaa were among the seven people who were arrested for raising a rainbow flag during the concert that featured Mashrou’ Leila, a Lebanese rock band with an openly gay lead singer. Egyptian Streets reported authorities charged Hejazy and Alaa with “joining outlawed groups that aim to disrupt the provisions of the constitution and the law.”

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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viewpoint

Jason Leclerc

The other side

of life

D

Join or Die ear Self,

If 2017 was the worst year of your life, bookended by incomprehensible tweets about Inauguration crowd sizes and climate change, I invite you to look beyond your cynical hysteria and forward to 2018.

I invite you to reflect on the future in light of history’s— recent and less so—actualities. Whether you want to attribute the actuality of Trump’s inertia to lack of vision, to political ineptitude or to strategic design, most of the doomsday scenarios predicted by a combination of #NeverTrump Conservative purists and #NotMyPresident activists still remain in the realm of circumstantial allegation.

I invite you, despite your last eighteen months of naysaying, to join me in a moment of zen reflection.

Internationally, historically and domestically the dueling rhetoric that has poisoned our collective mental wellness remains completely out of balance with the actuality of our Union’s state.

If 2017 was the worst year of your life, that’s not on Republicans and not on Donald Trump. It’s not on Democrats or Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton.

Internationally, America’s influence is, at worst, baselined. America’s diplomats are actively renegotiating weak and unfair trade and climate deals. Global trade, except for oil shahs, NoKo pseudo-gods or Iranian terror-sponsors, continues to boom. ISIL’s caliphate is all but decimated. Russia’s influence, which reached its zenith during the last half of the previous president’s leadership-from-behind, languishes. The Holy Land, Central Africa, Latin America and Middle East are no farther from peace than they were under previous administrations.

If 2017 was the worst year of your life, you may have overreacted.

Historically, Americans have elected near-authoritarian POTUSes, and often under the banner of populism. Populism, by its very nature, pushes the boundaries of constitutional rule-of-law. It pushes against courts and establishments.

Populism is rabble-roused and transformative; it’s fortunately short-lived. When institutions have become too unresponsive to the will of the mob, the mob has endorsed men like Andrew- “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it,”-Jackson. It’s fallen in line behind habeas corpus-less, rail-splitting Lincoln. It’s embraced Teddy “trust-busting” Roosevelt.

These presidents built cults around themselves and pushed the limits of decorum. Generally un-presidential, they redefined what presidential was.

America survived the crises these men inflicted upon the establishment. If you hold atrocities of the current president’s rhetoric up against the lens of history, you see—minus the hysteria—that America has resisted and overcome such precedents.

If 2017 was the worst year of your life, you may have been manipulated.

Domestically, America’s on edge. America’s been on edge before and has survived Civil War, big-city uprisings and economic meltdowns.

Americans are in a hyperbolic rhetorical cycle in which the detractors who said George W. Bush was a racist Nazi are now saying the same things about the current focus of their ire.

The rhetoric in 2017 validated victimhood: anti-gay zealots, racists and misogynists have twisted pseudo-Constitutional arguments into complaints that their perceived persecutions are as egregious as marriage bans, gerrymandering and system-endorsed glass ceilings.

More obnoxiously, the most powerful man in the world cries victim to a media that mocks him while the cynical media claims victimhood to the petty instigations of the world’s

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

most powerful man.

For all of the grumbling and gnashing of teeth, 2017’s political inertia has yielded very little actual change.

Establishmentarians like you should be rejoicing.

Despite a flurry of mostly symbolic proclamations, travel bans have been neutralized, transgender military moratoria have

the eventual president, no rounding up of gays, no mass deportation of peace-loving immigrants, no rollback of civil rights, no new wars, the Internet-of-Things persists.

If 2017 was the worst year of your life, that’s because you’ve been concerned with what might happen and not with what’s actually happened.

I’m inviting you to join

actuality of their works.

Join me in disempowering identity victimhood and instead asserting the power of individuals within a kinder, gentler village of equals.

Let’s re-embrace friends and neighbors with whom disagreements grew into estrangements. Let’s live love.

Join me, in 2018, looking forward and not back: fearless,

been abandoned, Obamacare survives, federal income taxes for most people reading this are cut and American businesses are suddenly internationally competitive.

The worst things about 2017 were hysterical speculations that remain unrealized: no worldwide economic collapse, no treacherous collusion between the Russians and

me as I dispense with the hysterical rhetoric. Join me in advocating common sense spending of our national resources on education, defense and infrastructure. Join me in recognizing the issues that populism validates while tempering authoritarianism in its wake. Let’s bring the perceived motives of our politicians in line with the

actual and optimistic. You, an admirer of activist spirits, and me, just a radical centrist with conservative leanings, putting hysteria behind us and looking forward to our best year ever.

If 2018 is the best year of your life. It’s because you made it. We made it.

Sincerely, Me

If 2017 was the worst year of your life, that’s not on Republicans and not on Donald Trump. It’s not on Democrats or Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton.

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viewpoint

Divine Grace

Sweet

Divinity A new year, a new me!

H

ello, Dearest Darlings!

Good news! As 2017 came screeching to an end like a locomotive driven by an orangutan with glaucoma and a history of substance abuse issues, I took stock of my life.

Some around the global world were popping champagne and exchanging kisses. Mariah Carey made her annual attempt at hitting whistle notes during another frigid wintertime performance. This year, rather than braving the blustery December Times Square air dressed in a nude leotard, she was swaddled in an open Muppet skin coat. Her own exposed meat puppets were warmed by a cozy diamond necklace and an evening gown that made the top half of her body look like a can of biscuit dough that had been forgotten in the trunk of her car. The blame for her need to sing at a register lower than a baritone in a barbershop quartet this year was awarded to the denial of her request for a piping hot cup of Orange Pekoe, instead of blaming her incessant desire to dress as if her breasts are attempting to escape through a rhinestone chain link fence. But me?

What was I doing, you ask?

This may come as a complete shock to you, but I wasn’t at some fancy party hobnobbing with celebrities. There was no delicious caviar. No bubbly was uncorked. There was no midnight kiss with a significant other while swaying to “Auld Lang Syne.”

Instead, my New Year’s Eve was celebrated with a mouth of generic Walgreens cough drops, a packet of Emergen-C dumped into a glass of club soda, some heavy midnight hacking and vertigo-induced

swaying caused by a lack of oxygen from a coughing spell while listening to every dog within three miles of Lake Ivanhoe bark at firecrackers. I have learned that while NYE fireworks in Orlando reach their explosive zenith at midnight, you will be allowed to appreciate them well into daybreak and generally accompanied by people screaming as if they’re alerting a Cherokee tribe to approaching invaders.

This year, as always, I have just been awful: Short-tempered, judgmental, callous, boorish, insensitive, and hedonistic. If you think my white privilege is agitated when I am slighted, imagine the earful that poor guy with the obvious brain damage down at the cable company receives when I crack open a PAPER bill (because I clearly hate the environment) and discover that my bill has been increased to afford a collection of sports channels that I’ll use as often as a tampon. I am a goddamn monster. Now I see it, and guess what? I am going to change that.

2018 New Year: New Me! I’m not going to burden myself with such pedestrian resolutions such a reading more and committing myself to volunteer work.

I have a library of unread books just waiting for me to find a moment to tell the voices to shut the Hell up, and if Orlando paid her drag queens any less than she already does, my work would constitute community service. Also, I’ll have no cliché resolutions about a healthier diet and a commitment to exercise. If I am running, it’ll be because the ice cream truck just pulled out or because my unruly torch and pitchfork mob has discovered I allowed the fire insurance on my windmill to lapse.

Instead, this year I resolve: 1.) To find the joy in everything. For example, instead of watching Sarah

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Huckleberry Sanders deliver a press briefing and throw glassware at the television because a woman who resembles a well-heated wax figure of Jack Black in drag insists that somebody else in the room is generating lies... I will breathe. I will breathe and smile knowing

transformed into a selfie photoshoot, I will breathe and focus my frustration on the sudden disappearance of selfie sticks that once doubled as a truncheon Billy Club that I could entertain that New Year’s workout with while rearranging someone’s jaw.

talking” in a manner generally reserved for Linda Blair’s demon in The Exorcist. I will instead take a breath, turn around and calmly announce that I am having a hard time hearing the rest of their story and ask if they can project from their diaphragms like

that her one wonky eye will grow wide when the impending impeachment proceedings begin and a room of battle-worn journalists will be poising their pens with sly smiles aimed directly at her.

2.) To be more patient.

Instead of screaming, “HEAD’S UP, LEIBOVITZ!” when a check-out line has inexplicably been

3.) To be more understanding. When I finally leave the comfort of my lair and venture into a movie theater to watch a movie and find this cinematic escape interrupted by a gathering of friends who’ve decided to use the opening night of a film as an opportunity to catch up, I will no longer bark, “Please refrain from

Ethel Merman coaching a cheerleading squad so as not to miss any juicy details.

This all feels like a real stretch, and I hope I can remain strong. But I feel confident that 2018 will see a kinder and sweeter me!

Cross your fingers!

Better still: Hold your breath.

Amen, Divine Grace

I’m not going to burden myself with such pedestrian resolutions such a reading more and committing myself to volunteer work.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

4.1

%

of adultS the u.S.

IDENTIFY AS LGBT.

the State with the

HIGHEST

talking points Time’s up on silence. Time’s up on waiting.

Time’s up on tolerating discrimination, harassment and abuse. #Timesup.

—ELLEN PAGE, TwEETING AbOuT THE #TImEsuP mOVEmENT TO sTOP sExuAL HARAssmENT.

dave Chappelle Slammed for Joking about kevin SpaCey allegationS

D

AVE CHAPPELLE HAs COmE uNDER fIRE for joking about Kevin Spacey’s sexual misconduct allegations in his new Netflix comedy special The Bird Revelation. “Wow, I mean it is really bad out here. Kevin Spacey’s out here, grabbing men by the pussy.

I didn’t even know that was possible,” Chappelle said in the special.

“I’ve been to a lot of parties in my day. Never been to a good one that had 14-year-old boys in it.” Chappelle also placed blame on Spacey accuser Anthony Rapp saying he “grew up to be gay anyway,” and that “Kevin Spacey sniffed that shit out like a truffle pig.” Chappelle added: “And not to victim-blame, but it seems like the kind of situation that a gay 14-year-old kid would get himself into.”

PERCENT OF ADULTS IDENTIFYING AS LGBT IS

VERMONT WITH 5.3%.

the State with the

LOWEST PERCENT OF ADULTS IDENTIFYING AS LGBT IS

SOUTH DAKOTA WITH 2%.

—THE wILLIAms INsTITuTE AT uCLA

fx orderS ryan murphy lgbtq danCe muSiCal SerieS POSe

T

HE fx CHANNEL sAys IT’s ORDERED A sCRIPTED DANCE musICAL sERIEs starring Evan Peters, Kate Mara and James Van Der Beek. FX said that the series, titled Pose, will include what it called an unprecedented number of LGBTQ and transgender actors in ongoing roles. The channel says the show is set in New York City in the 1980s, amid the “luxury Trump-era universe” and other social and literary circles. Series co-creator Ryan Murphy, of Glee and American Horror Story fame, described the show as an exploration of what he called the “universal quest” for identity, family and respect. FX says the first season of Pose will include eight episodes.

The show is scheduled to start production in February and debut in summer 2018.

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

k-pop group loona praiSed for Same-Sex love Song ‘heart attaCk’

K

-POP GIRL GROuP LOONA Is bEING PRAIsED by fANs for their same-sex love song “Heart Attack,” which features a romantic relationship between two women in its music video. In the video, which has received more than half a million views on YouTube, member Chuu appears to have a crush on her bandmate Yves.

Chuu spies on Yves with a camera but soon the two women are seen feeding each other strawberries and dancing together. “The titled track ‘Heart Attack’ does not interpret the feelings of being in love in a serious way, but with Chuu’s own adorable emoticon-like ways,” the YouTube video description reads.

Fans expressed both their shock and excitement to see a South Korean pop group include LGBT content which is rarely seen in the industry.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

eriC trump inSinuateS ellen degenereS iS part of the ‘deep State’

E

RIC TRumP RAIsED EyEbROws ON TwITTER when he suggested that daytime television host Ellen DeGeneres is a part of the “Deep State” conspiracy. President Donald Trump’s second youngest son tweeted a screenshot of Twitter follow suggestions which included Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and DeGeneres. “Shocking… once again, here are the @Twitter “suggestions” of who I should follow. #DeepState,” Trump tweeted. The Deep State conspiracy theory claims that a shadow network within the government is working to undermine elected government officials. It’s unclear whether Trump was poking fun at the theory or is a believer but Twitter found his tweet entertaining especially since none of the three currently hold elective office or are government employees.

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

in-depth: donald trump

DARKEST

BEFORE

DAWN one year of Donald Trump’s presidency for the LGbTQ community

W

Ryan Williams-Jent

HATEVER yOuR THOuGHTs ON

Donald Trump, it’s difficult to deny his influence on Americans after his first year as the 45th president of the United States.

America is often altered 140 characters at a time, and the changes are felt worldwide in walls both proposed and erected by climate change denial and Twitter diplomacy. The LGBTQ

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

community has not been immune from presidential impact.

Donald Trump’s impact on the LGBTQ community began

Continued on pg. 31 | uu |

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

United: More than 20,000 people gathered at St. Petersburg’s Women’s March on Jan. 21 following Donald Trump’s inauguration. PHOTO BY NICK CARDELLO

| uu | Trump’s First Year from pg.29

not on Jan. 20, 2017, when Trump officially assumed the presidency. Rather, it first began six months prior on July 15, when as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump announced then-Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate.

Pence’s record is staunchly anti-LGBTQ. In his political career, he has advocated for conversion therapy, advised that LGBTQ men and women weaken the military and voted against same-sex marriage. He signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into Indiana law. LGBTQ supporters feared this would provide a “license to discriminate” against the LGBTQ community. The backlash reportedly cost the Hoosier State at least $60 million in tourism dollars.

Secondly, Trump’s impact

continued when he officially became the Republican presidential nominee. During his speech at the Republican National Convention, he invoked the name of the LGBTQ community: a Republican first.

“Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist,” Trump said on July 22. “This time, the terrorist targeted the LGBTQ community.

No good, and we’re going to stop it. As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.

Believe me.”

Following applause, Trump further noted that “as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said.”

To some, the cheers seem to contradict the very platform of the party Trump now officially represented. Embedded within it were assertions that laws and

government regulations should only recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman; suggestions that children raised in households without a mother and father are more prone to use drugs, commit crime and get pregnant outside of marriage; and calls for legislation barring transgender men and women from using public restrooms that align with their gender identity.

“It felt like he barely even finished all the letters,” Senior Director of Public Affairs & Communications of Planned Parenthood Anna Eskamani recalls. “He was struggling to finish his sentence.”

“It speaks to his understanding of the issues the LGBTQ community faces,” the Orlando native, now running for public office, recalls. “And his real empathy towards listening to members of the community who have been marginalized their entire lives.”

For those critical of the

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

new administration in January, fears weren’t quelled when all references to the LGBTQ community were removed from the White House website. Soon after, reports of a Donald Trump executive order rescinding Barack Obama’s protection of LGBTQ federal employees surfaced.

This prompted the White House to advise that “President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election.” They further urged that Trump was “proud to have been the first ever GOP nominee to mention the LGBTQ community in his nomination acceptance speech, pledging then to protect the community from violence and oppression.”

Wes Hodge, chairman of the Orange County Democrats, remains as wary as he was then.

While the executive order never materialized, he believes that “in hindsight, we can see that he said that because he knew the greatest

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

threat to our community would be our own domestic ideology.”

“He rode into office on a wave of dog whistle politics, and has proven time and again with the people that he surrounds himself with that he is no ally to the LGBTQ community,” Hodge says, a nod to Trump’s cabinet. The majority of his cabinet members have long and well-documented histories of anti-LGBTQ beliefs, advocacy and policies that mirror Trump’s chosen vice president.

That includes Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who donated $200,000 to Michigan’s proposed ban of same-sex marriage, and whose family donated over $800,000 to Focus on the Family, an anti-LGBTQ organization which often targets children for conversion therapy.

In February, the Department of Education rescinded its Obama-era guidance which assured transgender students

Continued on pg. 34 | uu |

31

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Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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33

| uu | Trump’s First Year from pg.31

access to the restrooms consistent with their gender identity. The move was widely condemned, but only a precursor to what followed.

“In November 2016, we weren’t sure what a Trump presidency would look like,” says Stonewall Democrats President Susan McGrath. “Now, we are faced with the reality and it’s everything we feared. He and his supporters are order by order undoing every element of progress that’s been achieved in the last century.”

Pride Month was particularly troubling for the LGBTQ community. On May 1, the White House issued five proclamations about June—amongst them, that the month would be known as “National Home Ownership Month.”

Thirty days passed without an official proclamation of Pride Month, and no White House events were held in its honor. These facts aren’t particularly unusual for a Republican White House, although since the first recognition of Pride Month in 1999, only one Republican has held the Oval Office.

Political affiliation aside, however, Donald Trump was the first president not to recognize the month-long celebration of LGBTQ equality after same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide, and the first to ignore it after 49 lives were lost at Pulse in Orlando.

But there are those in the LGBTQ community who’ve praised Donald Trump. While Log Cabin Republican Patrick Howell views many of his decisions as disappointing, he does celebrate the nomination of gay and lesbian Americans for positions within the administration.

“Richard Grenell was appointed as ambassador to Germany, and he’s openly gay and has served during the Bush administration,” Howell notes. “It’s nice to see the Trump administration taking that sort of action.”

And while Grenell has yet to be confirmed, Chai Feldblum became the first out lesbian to serve as the commissioner for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “That’s a fantastic appointment, that’s the federal body that looks into workplace discrimination,” Howell continues.

“And I know that some of the right wing conservatives were very upset that she was appointed,”

34

Historically, identity politics have been used to divide us. And in this case, people being proud of their identities actually brought us closer together.

—Anna Eskamani, Candidate for Florida House District 47

the Becker and Poliakoff senior attorney says. “You celebrate the good parts and you’re sad about the other parts.”

Among the other parts are three early morning tweets on July 26 banning transgender recruits from the U.S. military. “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” Trump tweeted. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

“It seems that the transgender portion of our community has

pulled the brunt of some of the actions that have been taken,” Howell believes. “It’s hard to understand the disconnect there within the administration, except to say that obviously transgender Americans are an easier target and always have been.”

And while transgender individuals were ultimately able to enlist in the U.S. military after the Department of Justice opted not to appeal the multiple court rulings barring the proposed ban, Trump’s critics believe July was hardly the last assault on LGBTQ equality.

In October, reports surfaced of conversations held between Trump and Pence, though the vice president’s office subsequently denied them. In a profile on the former Indiana governor, the New Yorker noted that “when the

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

conversation turned to gay rights, Trump motioned toward Pence and joked, ‘Don’t ask that guy—he wants to hang them all!”

That same month, Donald Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to address the Values Voters Summit—deemed an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Trump-headlined event featured both exhibits on gay conversion therapy and “guidance on overcoming transgenderism.”

“We have been erased from Title VII, the White House website, from press announcements on World AIDS day and from the military – although that didn’t stick,” Florida House candidate Jennifer Webb says.

“The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS has been

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

eliminated. And these are only some the issues that explicitly impact our LGBTQ+ community,” she continues. “This doesn’t even touch on the impact that his other terrible actions will have on our community and all communities.”

For Metro Wellness & Community Centers’ lead PrEP navigator Christian Klimas, who works alongside the organization’s health center, what worries him most about the recent actions taken by the current administration is not so much the firing of the HIV/AIDS council members, but the administration’s intentions after their removal.

Their removal, by FedEx letter sent over the 2017 holiday season, Klimas notes, “coupled with a lack of transparent conversation of future objectives, leads to my strong lack in trust that these actions will be for the benefit of the cause.”

“The nationwide HIV/AIDS strategy put in place by the Obama administration is good through 2020, but without the HIV/AIDS council it is difficult to predict what will happen to funding and programming at this time,” he continues. “All we can do is hope for the best and continue to support local community based organizations until further clarification is presented by the current administration.”

It’s community support that, for many members of the LGBTQ community and their allies, led to a stronger 2017. For attorney Erin Aebel, it saw the creation of the Surly Feminists for the Revolution, which has organized women’s events, meetings and marches throughout Tampa Bay. “I had always been involved in local politics and was an avid voter and fundraiser,” Aebel recalls.

“After Trump I felt that I needed to do more. I wanted to use the internet for good and organize the group to create diverse coalitions of folks from the grassroots up to help us take back our country.”

Aebel, also an attorney for Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, believes the real threat to LGBTQ equality lies in federal judicial vacancies. According to LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal, roughly one in three nominations to fill the 120 federal judicial vacancies Donald Trump inherited have anti-LGBTQ records.

“Trump is picking many candidates who are wholly unqualified,” she says. “His political reliance on a small sector

Continued on pg. 37 | uu |

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

THE fIRsT: Jennifer Webb, running for District 69 in the Florida House, will be the first openly gay woman elected to the Florida legislature should she win in 2018.

Photo by QUInn holMeS

| uu | Trump’s First Year from pg.34

of conservative fundamentalist Christians should be concerning to the LGBTQ community. I have never understood how religion should impinge upon humans’ right to love, marry and live as they choose in the United States.

We need to avoid a theocracy and maintain a true separation of church and state.”

“Many of these litmus-test, party-line-toting conservatives are just beginning their legal career,” Webb agrees. “We will have to contend with them and their rulings for decades to come.

How many of our rights have been fought for in the courts?”

“Thinking about this avenue being blocked for attaining social or civil justice for us because of these appointments keeps me awake at night,” she says. “This is the issue around which we all must come together to find a solution.”

And while Eskamani defines 2017 “as the year of grief, grit and grace,” she notes that “under cruel situations so many of us have succeeded in remaining kind, despite efforts to erase LGBTQ people, people of color and to control women’s bodies.”

“We remained resilient throughout 2017, so we’ll have some victories to look back upon to help build our advocacy and

continue our momentum into 2018,” she asserts.

It’s that momentum that she hopes to bring to her race for Florida House District 47, noting that the “one silver lining of the Trump administration is that it’s helped us to see our identities as strength, to come together for real meaningful change. Historically, identity politics have been used to divide us. And in this case, people being proud of their identities actually brought us closer together.”

Eskamani is one part of the numerous political races that LGBTQ Floridians will have the opportunity to weigh in on this year. On the national level, Floridians will elect 27 candidates to serve in the U.S. House, one from each district, and elect one member to the U.S. Senate.

Furthermore, on the state level, Florida is known as a Republican triplex—meaning we have a Republican governor, attorney general and secretary of state. And while that’s been the case since 2011 when Governor Rick Scott took office, that could change.

In 2018, five executive offices are up for election: governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer and agriculture commissioner. Furthermore, a total of 20 seats of the Florida Senate’s 40 are up for election, and all 120 Florida House seats are up for grabs.

RECuERDA PuLsE: Hundreds of thousands descended on Washington, D.C., on June 11 for the Equality March to remind the Trump administration about Pride Month. Photo by nIcK carDello

“We deserve public servants in Tallahassee who will put our communities first and who have the grit and grace to not stop until the job is done,” Webb, running for House District 69, asserts. “I am that woman.”

“In fact, when I am elected I will be the only woman representing Pinellas County in our state or U.S legislative delegation,” she says.

“I will also be the first openly gay woman elected to the Florida legislature, ever.”

It’s not enough to be involved yourself, Wes Hodge believes.

“We also have to make sure all of our family and friends are using their voice in 2018 to send a clear message that we will not tolerate this oppression.”

“We have an opportunity to flip the Congress and stop some of the nonsense coming out of the Oval Office,” Hodge asserts. “We

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

must also use this opportunity to remove the Republican stranglehold on power in Tallahassee.”

To do that, he says, “we need to elect progressive Democratic candidates who will fight to drag Florida into the 21st century with LGBTQ protections and legislation.”

Howell believes the answer lies not with a particular party, but with quality candidates. “To say that a person born gay is also born liberal is highly ridiculous,” he says. “You have the right candidate who presents the right issues to a gay and lesbian voter, they’ll vote Republican. We’ve just gotta get those right candidates in.”

Regardless of party, “make sure you get to know the local, state and federal candidates and ask where they stand on LGBTQ issues,” Aebel says, “as well as other issues that

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

are important to you. Ask elected officials, too. Get in involved in LGBTQ advocacy organizations like Equality Florida and support LGBTQ candidates, as many are running in this cycle in addition to quality ally candidates.”

“Nothing is off the table in 2018,” McGrath says. “People are watching and showing up and allowing their voices to be heard. Run for office, donate and volunteer for candidates that share our values, organize in support for them.”

“This is the time to turn the tide,” she urges. “We simply have to go after this with everything we have. Everything is at stake.”

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Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

artS and entertainment

G N I L T S E R W STEREOTYPES MIKE PARROW ON BEING AN OPENLY GAY WRESTLER, GOING VIRAL AND WHAT HE MEANT BY “MASCULINE-SHAMING”

m

Jeremy Williams

IkE PARROw Is A 34-yEAR-OLD

professional wrestler in Orlando, Florida. At 6 feet, 4 inches and weighing in at over 300 pounds, he towers over most people he comes in contact with. While his outward appearance impresses confidence, inside Parrow spent years gripped by panic that those around him would discover a secret he was keeping: he is gay. watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Parrow first faced that fear about four years ago after he met Morgan—the man who would eventually become his fiancée—by coming out to those closest to him: friends, family and some co-workers.

Publicly, Parrow came out in December during an in-depth interview with the LGBTQ website GayStarNews.com.

Continued on pg. 41 | uu |

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

terms. I didn’t know what a bear was, or what a twink was. I assumed when you are filling out your profile and it asks if you are athletic that it meant are you athletic, do you play sports? I wrestle and played football, I didn’t know that it referred to a body type.

The entire experience forced me back into the closet. Also at the time I’m trying to find gay friends and the guys wanted nothing to do with me because they said I was a closet case.

It was just a very lonely time for me, and I didn’t feel like I had anyone in the community to talk to.

| uu | Mike Parrow from pg.39

“Since doing that interview I have had a lot of positive comments about the story and support from people around the world,” Parrow says. “But the ‘masculine-shaming’ comment that I made didn’t go over well with some, and I tell people this is my story. It’s not everyone else’s experience, and not a generalization, this is just what happened to me.”

Shortly after that first interview made him an online viral sensation, Parrow spoke with Watermark about LGBTQ role models, finding love and what he meant by “masculine-shaming.”

You talked about falling into a deep depression at that point, even trying conversion therapy?

Watermark: The article on GayStarNews.com was your official coming out to the world but you have actually been out for quite a few years in Orlando.

I thought if I could just overcome the gay thing I would be fine. I did go through conversion therapy, which obviously didn’t work. I went and talked to my priest. I did everything I could think of and tried very hard not to be gay. I thought if I come out completely I would be shaming my family. It was all so much that I decided I was going to take my own life.

Mike Parrow: Yeah. I actually started coming out four and a half years ago for my boyfriend. I don’t really put my personal life out there in my profession. A little of it is to protect others around me because social media can be not the nicest place in the world.

What stopped you?

You grew up in New York and went to college in South Carolina where I read you were contemplating law school?

My background is political science and the next logical step for me was law school, and most of my friends were going into law school at the time. So I thought, ‘OK, maybe law school’s for me.’ I’ve always enjoyed law and politics so it seemed like the next logical step, but law wasn’t this big calling for me. It wasn’t something that deep down I was longing to do.

Bringing the pain: Mike Parrow in the ring doing what he does best, beating up his opponent. Photo by Harry aaron wrestler was Mick Foley. He was Mankind and Dude Love. He played several different characters, but he is absolutely one of my favorites.

So what made you rethink your career path?

Is he who you model your character and career after?

I had volunteered to work for a political campaign and I realized this all wasn’t for me. So I took a year to figure out what it was that I did want, and I had a lot of my friends telling me, ‘Dude, all you ever do is talk about professional wrestling, why don’t you give it a go.’

My first thought was I didn’t go to school to be a professional wrestler, but thinking about it—that is my passion and what I love. So why not give it a go?

Mick Foley was my inspiration for believing that I could do this. I think he is one of the best storytellers and promo men that has ever come across this sport. I wouldn’t say my style is like his. My style is more of a bruiser kind of guy. I’m a heavyweight so I don’t do a bunch of high flying stuff. I just beat you up. My style is more suplexes and clotheslines, kicks and punches.

Were you a fan of WWE when you were growing up, and if so who was your favorite wrestler?

Yeah, I was a huge fan. Favorite

How did deciding to become a wrestler land you in Central Florida?

The 3D Academy in Kissimmee is actually one of the best wrestling schools in the world. You learn the ins and outs, and the psychology of

the business. More importantly, how to survive the business. Plus they don’t lie to you.

A lot of schools will teach you the basics of the sport and send you off.

3D lets you know that it’s a tough business to break into and they give you the tools to succeed. It’s your job to succeed. They don’t promise you a contract with WWE by the end of your training. In fact, the training is very intense. It’s a year-long process of them breaking you down and building you back up into a very, very good product. That’s why I choose them over some of the other schools out there.

I read in the interview that when you first came to Central Florida you started to “test the waters,” so to speak, on your sexuality. How did you first start testing those waters?

I didn’t start off going to bars or clubs at that time because I was

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

terrified. I have always known that I’m gay, but I came here in 2009 and decided that since nobody really knows me here, I’m here by myself, let’s start trying to understand me and figure myself out.

So when I first started to come out, I’ll admit that I didn’t really know how to talk to guys in a romantic setting. I didn’t know any of the lingo. I didn’t know anything about the gay community. Growing up I didn’t have any gay friends. So I didn’t know the ins and the outs of that world, and on top of that at that time I was petrified of being outed.

So I started with your ever popular apps —Grindr, Scruff. It was the worst experience of my life.

What kind of encounters did you have?

I would log on and have messages from guys telling me I was fat, I was ugly. I would get attacked because I didn’t know or understand the

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I was ready to do it and I got a call from a friend of mine, a wrestling friend who didn’t know about my situation. He was just going through some stuff himself and said he needed to talk about it and something clicked in my head: ‘yeah, people do care about me and they need me.’

I’m very big on my religion, and I know it sounds crazy and I never push my beliefs on anybody, but I prayed and asked for an answer.

Shortly after that, I met Morgan.

How did you and Morgan meet?

Morgan was a bartender and I saw him and was like ‘wow.’ I kept going to the bathroom so I could walk past him and get a better look. If he noticed me he must have been thinking ‘this guy has the weakest bladder ever.’ I left without talking to him and was really pissed at myself because I didn’t have any courage to go up and say hi. I mean, I still don’t know how to talk to guys.

I am so awkward.

Then I saw him at Publix and I was going through the aisles looking at him. I’m sure it was the most ridiculous thing to see a 6-foot, 300-pound man following this guy around. Again, I don’t say anything.

I ended up downloading one of those apps again and saw him on it and said hi. We ended up going on

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

| uu | Mike Parrow from pg.41

a date, and it was the worst date ever. I’m nervous as hell and I don’t know what to talk about. Turns out we are polar opposites. I wanted to talk about sports, and he’s really smart and into computers and video games. We didn’t have anything in common, besides the fact that we found each other very attractive.

So how did you find that common ground?

Well, after that first date we didn’t talk for three weeks.

I was still hesitant about being open and public about being gay. So on that first date I told him he’s never going to meet my friends, I’m never coming out, I’m staying in the closet and you can only come to my house. So of course he didn’t call me back. Who stays with a guy like that? I was really bad about coming out. But I liked him so I decided I was going to have to change my thinking, so I started coming out slowly.

I started opening myself up and making gay friends, but they would tell me that I was too butch and that I needed to be more involved in gay things.

Is that what you meant when you said guys were “masculine-shaming” you?

I was told that I need to watch more drag shows and I talk about sports too much.

They would tell me it would help me to be a better gay, and I said ‘I’m telling you I’m gay, I have a boyfriend. Why isn’t that enough to make me a part of the community?’

—Mike Parrow, openly gay professional wrestler

article because I had talked to them about how I didn’t feel like I had a gay role model that looked like me growing up. That kid sitting in the locker room who can’t turn to his buddy and talk about how he doesn’t think Sara is cute, but he likes John.

I’m so happy and humbled by the attention my coming out has gotten but I would love it if we got to a place where this isn’t a story anymore. I would love to be at a place where any athlete coming out is just a normal thing, and we just aren’t there yet. That’s why I did this.

Maybe my story can show that even if you’re gay there are role models of all kind in the community. Just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you can’t play sports.

Yeah. I was told that I need to watch more drag shows and I talk about sports too much.

They would tell me it would help me to be a better gay, and I said ‘I’m telling you I’m gay, I have a boyfriend. Why isn’t that enough to make me a part of the community?’

I was getting comments like that more and more.

I know saying this upsets a lot of people, but this is what happened to me. Does it happen like this everybody?

I don’t know. I don’t know everyone else’s story.

Can we expect to see this part of your life filter into your wrestling persona?

My wrestling friends and my straight friends have been the most supportive people in my life. When I was afraid to go to a gay bar they would all go with me. In fact it was my straight friends who convinced me to do that

I’m lucky to work for two different promotions: Gabe Sapolsky’s EVOLVE and Court Bauer’s Major League Wrestling (MLW).

I told them both that I’m gay when I started working and I wanted to know if that would be a problem and they both said ‘No, why would that

How have the other wrestlers been since you came out?

Is Low Testosterone research right for you?

be a problem?’ They let me be me so that’s who my character will be. Doing a gay storyline you have to look how you’re going to do that, and I don’t want to do it like a Billy and Chuck thing.

[Billy and Chuck were a WWE tag team with a same-sex storyline in 2002.

The team revealed it to be a publicity stunt which led to a backlash from the LGBTQ community.]

But I think the sport is ready and I think the audience is ready for a strong, gay storyline and character.

Both organizations I work for are so supportive of not only myself, but of the LGBTQ community. And they are giving gay wrestlers a shot, so we need more of the community to come out and support the shows. The storylines will be reflective of the audience and the more of the community we can get out there the more we can give them the stories they want to see.

Mike Parrow can be seen as a part of MLW, with events Jan. 11, Feb. 8 and March 8 at Guilt Nightclub in Orlando and as a part of EVOLVE with events airing on WWNLive.com throughout the year.

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

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Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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Books

Heart Helper

Out St. Petersburg filmmaker and life coach seeks to empower the world

(above) Empower HOUR: The introduction to Casaccio’s life coaching manual is available at no charge on his website.

PHOTO COURTESY ERIC CASACCIO

S

Ryan Williams-Jent

t. Petersburg transplant Eric

Casaccio, an out filmmaker and international life coach, has published Empowerment from Narcissistic Situations, a manual designed to help move readers’ lives forward.

The e-book provides a roadmap for moving beyond narcissistic situations and “clearing out feelings of doom that come as a result,” Casaccio says. “It’s a workbook guide for taking the story of your disempowered past in the now and transforming it into a story of your empowered future.”

To understand a narcissistic situation one may have found themselves in, Casaccio says, you must first understand that it’s more than being surrounded by “someone who’s obsessed with their looks.” It’s much deeper, he asserts, pointing toward Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Mayo Clinic defines the disorder as “a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others.”

They further note, however, that “behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.”

While romantic relationships with narcissists are the most common amongst Casaccio’s clientele, he says that narcissistic situations exist outside of romance, and afflict both heterosexual and same-sex individuals. The

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manual includes models to help people power through working relationships with narcissists, dealing with family members who are narcissists and includes a model that asks: “is it a genuine friendship?”

The path to publication for Casaccio’s manual actually began in film. Beginning in 2011, Casaccio wrote, directed, produced and edited both Freak and Narcissist while living in California—films that featured LGBTQ characters, enjoyed years on the film festival circuit and are now both available on Amazon Prime Video.

Freak follows the story of

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1830 S Osprey Ave Sarasota FL 34239 www.chasengalleries.com

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PRE-REQ: Eric Casaccio on the red carpet for his film Narcissist, which led to his roles as life coach and author. PHOTO COURTESY ERIC CASACCIO

| uu | Eric Casaccio from pg.47

Randall, a bullied, hard-working “yet fragile soul as he faces his inner demons buried behind a drag queen persona while pursuing the dream of a lifetime.” The film was financed entirely by Casaccio, written as a small project and completed in his own Los Angeles apartment.

“I really didn’t think it would go anywhere,” he says, “and it ended up going everywhere.

Within that character I really wanted to capture someone who was bullied their entire life, and was kind of afraid and isolating themselves from the outside world. I really wanted to show that it’s okay to be who you are no matter where you are, and within adults, bullying still happens.”

His follow-up, Narcissist, was financed through crowd-sourcing. After raising $6,000 within a month, he moved into production. The film, which details “the story of an honest, genuine writer as he discovers the painful truth of a handsome, charming, yet

manipulative and toxic love interest,” screened for over two years at the Boston LGBT Film Festival in 2014.

It was during tours for the films that Casaccio overcame his own relationship with a narcissist and discovered his passion for helping others dealing with similar situations.

“Freak was my first time stepping into the red carpet interview life, and then I got over that pretty quickly,” he says.

“When I did Narcissist, what I really found much more enjoyable while traveling and promoting was not being a filmmaker, but having question and answer sessions with the audience,” he continues.

“Meeting with the audience members that really needed an uplifting moment in their lives because they’d gone through these relationships.”

The one-on-one conversations are what he loved the most, and they “kept happening over and over again.” Within those talks, “someone asked me if I’d considered becoming a life coach,” he says. For Casaccio, the rest was history.

The film festival circuit

It’s imperative that people who’ve gone through these situations get themselves out of victim mode as soon as they possibly can.

Everyone has a different story, yet everyone feels the same. The goal is to take you to a point where you can take everything you know and make the world better.

— Eric Casaccio

brought him to Gasparilla in Tampa, where a friend introduced him to St. Petersburg.

“The city had such a creative energy to it,” he recalls. “I was sitting on a park bench, I looked down and my first name was carved into it. And I thought, ‘Okay, is that a sign?’”

He returned shortly after his initial trip to set up his life coach business, having completed his certification from the Southwest Institute of the Healing Arts.

“If it wasn’t for the journey of

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

my films,” he says, he wouldn’t be where he was today. “My films, they’re not about being a filmmaker to me. I think they have a strong message and they start conversations and make change. That’s what I’m about.”

Casaccio says he loves “helping and collaborating with others to improve their lives.”

The focus of his work as a life coach is “where you are now, in order to move you forward.” So when he created the course for

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

empowering those who’d been hurt by narcissists, the idea of a manual came organically.

“I decided to take all the 24 coaching models I’d created and put them in the manual,” he says.

“It allows people to learn how to coach themselves. To help them find the clarity, answers and awareness to focus on themselves.”

Casaccio believes the manual is for anyone who finds themselves “feeling stuck in their lives from having been in a narcissistic situation.” The first model, which is available on his website as a free sample, allows readers to detail “your story.”

It allows them to input their story and to pick their focus. “It tailors right into the stages of grief: moving forward through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

It then moves into the stages of trauma, going from being a victim to a survivor, to a thriver to a server, and to an empowered server.”

“It’s imperative that people who’ve gone through these situations get themselves out of victim mode as soon as they possibly can,” he says.

“Everyone has a different story, yet everyone feels the same.

The goal is to take you to a point where you can take everything you know and make the world better.”

“With life coaching and with this manual, it’s a collaboration.

I don’t try to sell the manuals…

I let it speak for itself,” Casaccio says. “That’s why there’s a free sample. Here it is, look at it.

I’m a firm believer that if you feel you’re connected to this material and it will help you move forward, then what’s holding you back?”

For Casaccio, his services and the manual aren’t about money, but mending. He advises to “trust your own instincts on any material out there that is best suited to help you move forward. I like things to happen organically. When it comes to this kind of material—if it feels organic, go for it. That’s the universe telling you this is for you. This is going to help you.”

“That’s what I want this manual to do for others,” he says, “and that’s why I created it.”

For more information about Eric Casaccio,

his new manual, his services or films, visit nowyourlife.com, narcissistthemovie.com or facebook.com/freakthefilm.

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community calendar

event planner

aRts+enteRtainment

Central florida

Central florida

Voss events’ Drag Brunch

DIlF orlando, Jan. 12, Stonewall Bar, Orlando. 407-373-0888; StonewallOrlando.com

suNDAy, JAN. 14, NOON - 3:00 P.m. sENOR fROGs, ORLANDO

orlando MlK holiday Parade, Jan. 13, Downtown Orlando, Orlando. SWOJaycees.com

Unleash your fiesta as Voss Events brings Drag Brunch to Senor Frogs. Join Trinity Tayor, Ginger Minj, Roxxy Andrews, Lineysha Sparx and more for an afternoon of drinks, dance and drag. Show starts at noon and seating begins one hour prior to show. See you there for top queens and bottomless cocktails. More information available at DragBrunch.com.

aja from RuPaul’s Drag Race, Jan. 13, Parliament House, Orlando. 407-425-7571; ParliamentHouse.com bria Skonberg, Jan. 14, Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Orlando. 844-513-2014; DrPhillipsCenter.org april Fresh’s comedy brunch, Jan. 14, Parliament House, Orlando. 407-425-7571; ParliamentHouse.com

Seeing green

Book of Love, Jan. 14, The Social, Orlando. 407-246-1419; TheSocial.org SInSation thursdays Grand opening, Jan. 18, Sun on the Beach, Kissimmee. 407-397-0207; SunOnTheBeachUSA.com 2018 ovation awards, Jan. 18, Winter Park Civic Center, Winter Park. 407-644-8281; WinterPark.org Miranda lambert, Jan. 19, Amway Center, Orlando. 407-440-7000; AmwayCenter.org Gaga ball 2.0, Jan. 19, Southern Nights, Orlando. 407-412-5039; Facebook.com/SouthernNightsOrlando brevard Women’s March, Jan. 20, Eau Gallie Causeway, Melbourne. Facebook.com/ BrevardMarchRallyGroup Pip-Squeak: an antibullying Magic Show, Jan. 20, Orlando Repertory Theatre, Orlando. 407-896-7365; OrlandoRep.com 1st anniversary - Women’s March Day of action, Jan. 21, Walt Disney Amphitheatre at Lake Eola Park, Orlando. WomensMarchCFL.org orlando ballet’s Uncorked, Jan. 23, The Abbey, Orlando. 407-426-1733; OrlandoBallet.org

The 20th anniversary tour of the worldwide phenomenon Riverdance jigs its way into the Straz Center in Tampa Jan. 19-21 and the Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando Jan. 26-28. Photo coUrteSy rIVerDance.coM

RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars 3 Viewing Party, Jan. 25, Stonewall Bar, Orlando. 407-373-0888; StonewallOrlando.com

tampa bay Johnny Mathis, Jan. 12, Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater. 727-791-7400; RuthEckerdHall.net balance tampa bay’s January Service, Jan. 13, The Spring of Tampa Bay, Tampa. 813-247-7223; BalanceTampaBay.org charity bInGo for Pasco Piranhas, Jan. 14, Hamburger Mary’s Bar & Grille, Tampa. 813-241-6279; HamburgerMarys.com/Tampa resurrection reunion 2018, Jan. 14, Southern Nights, Tampa. 813-559-8625; SouthernNightsTPA.com neon Glow Party, Jan. 14, The RITZ Ybor, Tampa. 813-248-4050; TheRITZYbor.com

St Pete MlK Parade ‘18, Jan. 15, Downtown St. Pete, St. Petersburg. 949-873-6682; DowntownStPete.com

arbor Day celebration, Jan. 20, Sunken Gardens, St. Petersburg. 727-551-3102; StPete.org/Sunken

bInGo4charity benefiting Pet Pal animal Shelter, Jan. 17, Punky’s Bar and Grill, St. Petersburg. 727-201-4712; PunkBar.com

tampa club Wedding open house, Jan. 22, The Tampa Club, Tampa. 813-229-6028; TheTampaClub.com

So you think you can Drag, Jan. 17, Southern Nights, Tampa. 813-559-8625; SouthernNightsTPA.com Working Women of tampa bay’s 2018 Kick off lunch, Jan. 18, Renaissance Tampa International Plaza Hotel, Tampa. 888-998-6483; WorkingWomen OfTampaBay.com Party on the Patio w/ erin boone, Jan. 18, Punky’s Bar and Grill, St. Petersburg. 727-201-4712; PunkBar.com Riverdance - the 20th anniversary World tour, Jan. 1921, Straz Center for the Performing Arts, Tampa. 813-229-7827; StrazCenter.org

Watermark Third Thursday THuRsDAy, JAN. 18, 6:00 - 8:00 P.m.

CELEbRATION GARDENs, ORLANDO Come out to the first Watermark Third Thursday of 2018 as we meet and mingle at Celebration Gardens in Winter Park. As always, light bites will be provided and your first drink is on the house. Bring cash for raffle prizes. Proceeds benefit Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando. For more information visit Watermark’s Facebook page.

tampa bay

Watermark Wednesday

lisa noe live, Jan. 25, Punky’s Bar and Grill, St. Petersburg. 727-201-4712; PunkBar.com creative loafing’s highball craft cocktail competition2018,Jan.25,NOVA535, St. Petersburg. 813-739-4800; CLTampa.com

SaraSota March for Democracy, Jan. 20, Five Points Park, Sarasota. 941-567-3800; ActionTogetherSunCoast.com Sarasota Seafood & Music Festival, Jan. 20-21, Downtown Sarasota Historic District, Sarasota. 941-487-8061; SRQSeafoodFestival.com

wEDNEsDAy, JAN. 17, 6:00 - 8:00 P.m. mARy’s Pub HOusE, TAmPA Join us for the first Watermark Wednesday of 2018 as we gather to network at Hamburger Mary’s Pub House in Ybor City. Light bites will be provided and your first drink is on the house. Bring cash for raffle prizes. Proceeds benefit Tampa Pride. For more information visit Watermark’s Facebook page.

Mr and Miss Flamingo 2018 suNDAy, JAN. 21, 6:00 P.m. fLAmINGO REsORT, sT. PETERsbuRG Join host Iman, Miss Flamingo 2017 Kenya Black and Mr. Flamingo 2017 Johnny Sparks as they look to crown Mr. and Miss Flamingo 2018. Contestants will battle it out in the categories of Presentation, Swimwear, Talent, Formal Wear and Q&A. For more information visit FlamingoFla.com.

To submit your upcoming event, concert, performance, or fundraiser visit watermarkonline.com.

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overheard

tampa bay out+about

three more yearS

W

ATERMARK CONTRIbuTOR AND OuT RADIO PERsONALITy Miguel Fuller has announced that he and co-host Holly O’Connor will continue livening up the Tampa Bay airwaves with the Miguel & Holly Show for three more years.

“When we started on HOT in March 2015 I was excited, nervous and scared out of my mind,” Fuller shared. “We had been let go from a station in Tampa Bay a couple years before so the fear of returning to the market that we lost our job in was omnipresent. Tampa Bay is a city of legendary morning shows that have been here for a long time. Could we even make a dent?”

“Day after day we’ve had new Miguel and Holly family members come into the fold and welcome us with open arms,” he continued.

“I cannot tell you how much it means that you take the time to listen to us each and every day and because of you we were asked to sign on for another three years.”

Fuller subsequently thanked his team and listeners for “allowing us to live our best lives every day,” joyfully noting that “here’s to more 3:45 a.m. wake-ups!”

O’Connor also celebrated the news via social media. “From my humble roots in Findlay, Ohio, at WCKY to the legendary small market behemoth Island 106 to our exciting ascension to beautiful Tampa Bay, I could not be more excited to continue our stay at Hot 101.5,” she wrote. “We’ve had a passion for this station since its inception in 2011 and I feel lucky to be part of its growth.”

She proceeded to thank the Miguel and Holly team “who make the station the force it is today,” as well as listeners for making her dream a reality. “I am grateful every day that I am living my purpose,” O’Connor wrote. “Here’s to 3 more amazing years!”

Congratulations to the entire Miguel and Holly team! Here’s to more Headphone Karaoke.

fabulouS fifth

Q

uENCH LOuNGE wILL CELEbRATE ITs fIfTH yEAR on Jan. 20, and they’ve announced a “Winter White Glow Party” to honor the landmark anniversary.

“Quench Lounge is hitting half a decade!!!!” the local hotspot announced, advising they’ll be “serving some of the best drinks and entertainment in the Tampa Bay area” with free birthday cake shots, giveaways and surprises all evening.

DJ Bruce Devery will provide the evening’s music, with special shows hosted by Eden Deck.

Also featured will be the rest of Quench’s “Diva Cast,” Elaine Southern Belle, Star Montrese Love and Lady Janet.

Guests are encouraged to dress in their best “winter white” apparel for a midnight contest and additional chances to win prizes.

For more information, visit facebook.com/ QuenchLounge.

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POOL PRINCEss: tim Johnson plots his next move at Enigma on Dec. 22. Photo

by ryan WIllIaMS-Jent

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CARE bEAR COuNTDOwN: Didier lopez (L) and braeden Walker ready their best Care Bear stare at Quench Lounge on Dec. 23. Photo by ryan WIllIaMS-Jent

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fOuR mORE: Mayor rick Kriseman addresses constituents at his swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 2. Photo by ryan WIllIaMS-Jent

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HAIR sHE Is: eden Deck fills the room with her most sensible hair at Quench Lounge on Dec. 28. Photo

by ryan WIllIaMS-Jent

5

HAPPy NEw yEAR: tim Smith (L) and enrique tracy ring in 2018 at Enigma on Jan. 1. Photo

by ryan WIllIaMS-Jent

6

COmING sOON: The board and volunteers of Tampa Pride on Jan. 7 plan for the fast-approaching celebration. Photo by ryan WIllIaMS-Jent

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mERRy TImE: Paul bradford (L) and Paul Martin enjoy the last of the Christmas season at the Florida Botanical Gardens on Dec. 28. Photo coUrteSy

PaUl braDForD

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sPORTs: Marty theriot seizes the day at the Saints vs.

Bucs game at Raymond James Stadium on Dec. 31. Photo coUrteSy

Marty therIot

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overheard

orlando out+about

the kidS are alright

T

HE GLbT COmmuNITy CENTER Of CENTRAL fLORIDA HAs mADE a few changes as of late. In addition to new Executive Director George Wallace and the return of their monthly BINGO night, The Center is bring something else back.

According to Wallace, The Center will welcome back the Orlando Youth Alliance for their weekly meetings.

The OYA hasn’t held their meetings at The Center since 2002. Over the last 15 years, OYA has met at various other locations including the Zebra Coalition and the Reeves United Methodist Church. Reeves goes back to hosting LGBTQ youth events and organziation as far back at the 1990s when the Delta Youth Alliance was having meetings there.

According to OYA’s Michael Slaymaker, the church is adding in a preschool and will need to utilize the OYA meeting space for that purpose.

OYA will begin calling The Center home starting Jan. 23.

OYA is a non-profit peer-based group with members ranging from 13 to 24. For more information on the organization and what programs they offer you can visit OrlandoYouthAlliance.org.

2

1

3

5

6

drip dried

D

RIP, THE INNOVATIVE DANCE sHOw which initially made a big splash at Orlando Fringe, announced via its website that it will close its doors at the end of this month. The announcement did not mention if there will be a new location.

DRIP opened at their International Drive venue five years ago, incorporating performances geared toward the LGBTQ community during the month of June.

DRIP founder and creative director Jessica Mariko called the show’s closing “bittersweet”, saying “we appreciate our fans and are looking forward to playing with them again soon.”

After 700 performances, DRIP will throw its final bucket of paint Jan. 27.

hope and help’S new home

N

Ow THAT THEy’RE fINALLy GETTING sETTLED into their new digs, Hope & Help is having a house warming party and everyone’s invited.

We checked in with Joshua Meyers, the community director at Hope & Help, on what we can expect to see at the grand re-opening.

“We love Winter Park and miss our neighbors but we needed a larger space to be able to offer more effective services and programs to our clients and the Central Florida community, so this new space will be able to give us that opportunity,” Myers says. “We will have two large meeting spaces where we can invite the community in for workshops and trainings, luncheons or even a party or two. Space we didn’t previously have.”

The grand re-opening party is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 26 from 5:00-8:00 p.m. at the new facility located 707 Mendham Blvd in East Orlando. Rumor has it they will be making a big announcement at the event.

4

1

LIfE Is A CAbARET: (L-R) heather abood, Joshua roth, Wes Miles, christian teed, Ginger Minj and Janine Klein at Hamburger Mary’s in Orlando for Ginger’s Big Gay Cabaret Show Jan. 7.

Photo coUrteSy WeS MIleS

2

sHOwTImE: Miqualina Vega (L) and Dashia Moon after a performance at Savoy in Orlando Jan. 5.

5

CHILLED OuT: WFTV’s Jorge estevez (L) and Martha Sugalski are bundled up at the WFTV studio during Orlando’s cold front Jan. 3. Photo coUrteSy

Martha SUGalSKI

6

REPREsENTING: Florida House 47 candidate anna eskamani (L) and state Rep. amy Mercado support state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith at his re-election campaign kickoff at The Abbey in Orlando Jan. 5.

Photo coUrteSy DaShIa Moon

3

HELLO 2018: blue Star (L) and Megan boetto ring in the new year at The Venue in Orlando Jan. 1.

Photo by hP PhotoGraPhy

4

sTRIPTEAsE: Flesh Friday host addison taylor (front) with adult film start hunter Vance strike a pose at Parliament House in Orlando Jan. 5.

Photo coUrteSy ParlIaMent hoUSe orlanDo

7

Photo coUrteSy aMy MercaDo

7

sOCIAL NETwORk: (L-R) Shannon rodriguez, Deb ofowitz and ricky rodriguez mingle at Fields BMW Winter Park for MBA Orlando’s January networking social. Photo by

holly StroUt

8

b-DAy AT DIsNEy: Justin horn (L) celebrates his 30th birthday with Kelly brennan at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World Jan. 7. Photo

coUrteSy JUStIn horn

8 watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

real estate

announcements

wedding bellS

steve Blanchard and Jay Dilley

ConGRatulations

from Tampa, Floirda

lindsey burkholder and Deidre Favero announced their engagement on Dec. 25.

enGaGement date:

loCal biRthdays

Nov. 25, 2016

weddinG date:

Jan. 4, 2018

Venue:

bahama Paradise Cruise Ship

CateReR:

Admiral’s Club by Star Restaurant

ColoRs:

Midnight blue, belle yellow and stormy gray

weddinG sonG:

“beauty and the beast” for the ceremony, “Good Morning beautiful” by Steve Holy for first dance

photoGRapheR:

bruce Hardin

I

T’s A TALE As OLD As TImE,

in the digital age, for this Disney-loving dynamic duo.

Steve and Jay first connected like many do these days, through a dating app. A relationship can’t be sustained through a data plan, so after chatting for a bit they agreed to meet.

“The funny thing is Steve was the first person I’d gone on a date with in the last 12 years,” Jay says.

“We went on our first date right after Christmas in 2015. My New Year’s resolution was that I was going to put myself out there.”

The two had their first date at First Chance Last Chance Bar & Courtyard in Tampa.

“When we met it was kind of cool outside and I remember how adorable he looked,” Steve says.

“I laughed through the entire date, the entire time there were no awkward silences.”

Jay says the date was amazing but admits he was “weird about dating at first,” something Steve agrees with.

“In the beginning he would never say we were dating, he would just say we are hanging out,” Steve recalls.

That same wonderful weirdness

carried over to the first time Jay told Steve he loved him. While staying together in Orlando for one of Jay’s dance competitions and walking through the hotel lobby, Jay looked at Steve and just said it, “I love you.”

“Then he literally tucked and rolled away on the floor like he was embarrassed that he had said it so suddenly,” Steve says. “It was hilarious and weird. I had said something stupid and he was like, ‘God I love you’ and then turned pale and tuck and rolled.”

Steve didn’t say it back immediately; he waited until later that night, but he knew he loved Jay even before the infamous tuck and roll.

“We were having a day in the pool,” Steve says. “The two of us hanging out in the backyard and there was this moment where he was sitting on the edge of the pool and I thought, ‘this is exactly what I want.’”

Steve knew he wanted to marry Jay, and planned to ask him to be his husband around Christmas 2016.

“I had already ordered the ring and everything but Jay beat me to the punch,” he says.

Jay had it all planned out and knew the perfect place to do it at.

“We go to Disney a lot because we both love it. What better place to do it?” Jay says.

Jay took Steve to Disney’s Fort Wilderness and went for a walk.

“There was this overlook there so we stopped,” Jay says. “Steve was talking and looking out. I said to him, ‘I love you,’ and he turns around and I’m on one knee.”

At first they thought a rustic wedding, similar to the setting of their engagement, would be beautiful, but then decided to go for more of a “wedding experience” instead.

“Our first vacation together was to the Bahamas, so the wedding is a two-day cruise back to the Bahamas with our closest friends,” Steve says.

Jay can’t believe how lucky he is to have met his prince.

“All my life I have always said if I got married it would be to a big ol’ ginger with blue eyes and now I’m marrying a big ol’ ginger with blue eyes,” he says.

St. Petersburg instructor and massage therapist Jeremy couture, Lakeland massage therapist David lesnett, Gulfport retired Birkenstock USA specialist Danny hughes (Jan. 11); Sarasota real-life cowboy bill Flynn, Sarasota actress christine alexander, Orlando promoter Jason nuez (Jan. 12); Watermark owner and publisher rick claggett, former St. Pete Pride board member and marketing guru nick capezza, Come Out With Pride board member nolan hart, Sarasota MCC pastor Gina Durbin (Jan. 13); Sarasota Pride executive director cindy barnes, Tampa’s former Chelsea Nightclub owner nikki turnon, Se7en Bites owner trina Gregory-Propst (Jan 14); real estate vixen carla Stanton (Jan. 15); Bradley’s on Seventh bartender levi Garrett; Orlando dog-walker Don Williams, Ex-Watermark intern Gina avile, Central Florida LGBTQ veterans advocate Keri Griffin edenfield; Tampa realtor Patricc Petti, Central Florida musician Justin David (Jan. 16); Watermark art director Jake Stevens, Watermark contributor Scottie campbell, softball stud richard harem, Tampa musician connor Zwetsch (Jan. 17); Lake Fairview Marina owner cynthia Johnson, Orlando Gay Chorus vocalist edd “Peaches” Sinnett, A League of Our Own member Jerry rivera, JP Morgan Chase honcho Kris r. Johnson (Jan. 18); Flamingo Resort bartender Doug lyons, former Space Coast Pride President lexi Wright, pageant aficionado aaron bailey (Jan. 20); Watermark senior sales representative Sam callahan, Watermark business manager’s BFF Michelle carter, D. Cole Hair Design owner and stylist Dylonn cole (Jan. 21); GSH Radio host and Orlando resident Greg henchar; Orlando service industry pro Jeremy Indomenico, marketing analyst Kyle Mason hollingsworth, Teak Neighborhood Grill manager bliss chadwell (Jan. 22); Metropolitan Business Association secretary Michael Deeying, Orlando actor Mike Van Dyke (Jan. 23); Orlando home inspector and art lover Paul Kusic, Ex-Watermark intern Kim Slichter (Jan. 24).

do you haVe an announCement? haVinG a biRthday oR anniVeRsaRy? did you Get a new job oR pRomotion?

See your news in Watermark! Send your announcement to editor@Watermarkonline.com or go to Watermarkonline.com/Submit-a-transition.

it’s that easy!

—Jeremy Williams

Do you have an interesting wedding or engagement story you’d like to share with Watermark readers? If so, email the details to editor@Watermarkonline.com for consideration as a future feature on this page.

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

Call for rateS

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

61

the laSt page

Photo by JaKe SteVenS

Jake Stevens ART DIREC ToR

aGe: 36

hometown:

Jefferson, New Hampshire

identifies as: Gay

out yeaR:

2003

hiRe date:

February 5, 2007

autobioGRaphy title:

J

10 lbs. of Dog Hair: A Tale of Insurmountable Everyday Housecleaning

hobbies:

AkE sTEVENs Is APPROACHING HIs

11-year anniversary with Watermark, making him the most senior staff member outside of the owner.

“I needed a job where I not only could push myself as an artist and contribute to my community in a meaningful way, but feel valued as an employee,” says Jake. Watermark provided him the space he needed to do just that.

“I’m responsible for the look of every product Watermark creates,” Jake continues. “I design all of the editorial of our newsmagazine and specialty products, as well as all of our collateral materials (media kits, promotional items, press passes, business cards, etc.) and WatermarkOnline.com. Being the art director requires me to bank heavily on my multi-faceted art background and continually demands I expand my skill sets. Some of the time I sit behind my computer hammering out designs.

Some of the time I’m arranging and conducting photo sessions.

Other times I’m hunched over an iPad or sketchbook working on an illustration.”

Jake is the kind of employee that gives 100 percent of himself to his work.

New music, playing my guitar, avoiding overly long conversations with my neighbors on the way from my car to my front door.

pRofessional Role model: My mother

Charlie Stevens

THE GooDEST boY

62

watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

Since he began his employment, Jake taught himself how to build websites so that Watermark’s could be versatile and encompass everything it needs to do. With each incarnation of WatermarkOnline.com, Jake’s skill set advanced and now he is fully responsible for the creation of our current site. You can expect some exciting changes to come later on this year to the site.

Where does Jake get his inspiration to be exceptional? He gets it from his mom. “I saw her work the most,” he says. “I saw her day from beginning to end. She would wake up early to get my dad ready for work, then us kids ready for school. She would excel at her job and come home to make us all dinner. She had a strong work ethic.”

A strong work ethic that is easy to see in Jake.

Jake has an incredible sense of duty as Watermark’s Art Director. His goal is to visually represent what the community is experiencing. “My favorite part about working for Watermark is that it gives me a chance to make my work meaningful,” says Jake. “My work isn’t about me, it’s about my community. It’s about providing information and giving strength to those that look to Watermark for those things.”

Jake’s advice to his younger self stems from grade school bullies: “You were right. They were wrong. Don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise.

Suffer no fools,” he says. In short, people will try to push you around to get what they want. Don’t let them.

Watermark is the collective product of a team of incredibly hardworking individuals. Over the next series of issues, we’re using this space to introduce each member of our staff and contributors to you.

When you see us out and about in the community, stop and say, “Hello.” We’d love to meet you.

TAKE THE LEAD

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watermark Your LGBTQ life.

Ja nua ry 11- J a nua ry 24 , 2018 // Issue 25.01

63

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