SoCal Pride Guide

Pride Then Pride Now Our Heroes (Robbie Rogers)

The Gay

The Black Cat’s Meow

Mega-­ Metropolis

Your Three-­Pride Guide

L ong B e ac h

L o s A ng e l e s

San Diego

“Not your graNdmother’s tupperware party!”

— NBC today show

“pure theatriCal Bliss!”

— Nytheatre.Com

“dixie is all smiles aNd sweet sugar!”

— assoCiated press

Kris Andersson directed by PAtricK richwood written by

Dixie Longate, the fast-talking Tupperware Lady, packed up her catalogues, left her children in an Alabama trailer park and took Off-Broadway, London & Melbourne by storm!

Contains Adult Content Groups of 10+ save 10%! Inquire at groupsales@geffenplayhouse.com.

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Photo by Bradford Rogne

Now, join Dixie as she travels the country throwing good ol’fashioned Tupperware Parties filled with outrageously funny tales, heartfelt accounts, FREE giveaways, audience participation and the most fabulous assortment of Tupperware ever sold on a theater stage!

PRIDE 2014:

A Time to Revel and Remember We LGBT people know that our sexual orientation isn’t something we’ve chosen (despite the claims of bigots to the contrary.) But if we were straight and did have such a choice, why wouldn’t we want to live in West Hollywood or Long Beach’s Alamitos Beach or San Diego’s Hillcrest and join one of the LGBT tribes?

5. Southern California: The Gay Metropolis

Nowhere in the country is there as sunny and cosmopolitan and fun a collection of major gay communities than one finds in Southern California, all within a two-hour drive of one another (depending of course on traffic.).

8. West Hollywood: A Mix of Party and Arty

Yes, New York City has Chelsea, and Chicago has Boystown.

Fort Lauderdale has Wilton Manor and San Francisco has the Castro. In the perpetual migration that characterizes gay life (move into a rundown neighborhood, fix it up, get priced out, move on) those places are evolving, and new gayborhoods are sprouting up as centers of gay life.

But none of them beat Greater LA’s West Hollywood, San Diego’s Hillcrest, Long Beach’s Alamitos Beach and pretty much all of Palm Springs for their sense of community. In those places we share a common bond forged by our collective and individual campaigns to be who we really are.

41921MG_MLA_SOCAL_PRIDE_BOOK.indd 1

3/21/14 6:15 PM

On the Inside

There is something about us that is different, and that is something we should treasure when we get together.

Oppression can be cruel. It also can bring out the best in the person against whom it is aimed.

6. Long Beach: The Vibe is ‘Neighborly’

12. One City One Pride: West Hollywood Celebrates 16. San Diego: Does Hillcrest Top WeHo? 18. The Black Cat: When the Claws Came Out 23. Timeline: Important LGBT Moments 26. Then and Now: SoCal’s LGBT Pioneers and Our Latest Heroes

This Pride season is the perfect time to remember and revel in how we are different. It’s the time to remember how far we have come as LGBT people and to remember those who got our campaign for equality started.

Together We’re Generating More Than Electricity

It’s also a perfect time for us to do a little traveling and meet our LBGT brothers and sisters in other Southern California communities. In mid-May its Long Beach Pride, in early June it’s Los Angeles / West Hollywood Pride, and in mid-July it’s San Diego Pride. This guide will give you the basic information you need to do that. We’ll be updating and adding various events throughout Pride season on our website, WEHOville.com, which features its own GayLife page.

Southern California Edison, an Edison International company, is proud to support diversity and the 2014 LA PRIDE Celebration

Updates: Visit WEHOville.com’s GayLife page for the latest on SoCal Pride events.

Henry E. (Hank) Scott President, West Hollywood Media Co. Inc. Publisher, WEHOville.com

FOR OVER 100 YEARS...LIFE. POWERED BY EDISON.

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Southern California:

The Gay Provincetown MegaMetropolis gaycities.com

“Best Resort Town” 2 years in a row AOL Travel

“World’s Sexiest Beaches” Herring Cove st” Beach being “The Racie

Provincetown, America’s First Destination Ptowntourism.com

Download your free app today!

This is the time of year when three of Southern California’s biggest communities celebrate their LGBT identity with Pride parades and festivals.

Your Provincetown.

What follows is a brief guide to each LGBT community and a summary of its Pride festivities.

While they’re all relatively close to one another, each community is different enough from the others to warrant a visit. And what better time to do that than Pride?

iPtown

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Where to Go

Long Beach

Club Ripples 5101 E. Ocean Blvd, (562) 433-0357 clubripples.com

Mineshaft 1720 E. Broadway, (562) 436-2433 facebook.com/mineshaftLB

Executive Suite Artcraft Manor, 3428 E. Pacific Coast Highway, (562) 597-3884 facebook.com/ExecutiveSuite

Piston’s Bar 2020 E. Artesia Blvd., (562) 422-1928 pistonsbar.com

Falcon 1435 E. Broadway, (562) 432-4146 falconbar.com

Paradise Piano Bar and Restaurant 1800 E. Broadway, (562) 590-8773 paradisepianobar.com The Brit 1744 E. Broadway, (562) 432-9742 thebritlb.com

The Broadway Bar 1100 E. Broadway, (562) 432-3646 The Crest 5935 Cherry Ave, (562) 423-6650 thecrestlongbeach.com The Silver Fox 411 Redondo Ave., (562) 493-6343 silverfoxlongbeach.com Sweetwater Saloon 1201 E. Broadway, (562) 432-7044 facebook.com/pages/Sweetwater-Saloon

Pride Activities

While there aren’t any definitive statistics, Long Beach is thought there’s still Paradise Piano Bar and Restaurant, Club Ripples, the by many to have one of the largest concentrations of gay people of Falcon and Mineshaft (where you’ll be as comfortable in a t-shirt any city in America. The city is undeniably gay friendly (it boasts a and jeans than leather.) For lesbians there’s Debra’s, Doll House and Vixen Den. Out of the Alamitos neighborhood you’ll find gay vice mayor, Robert Garcia, who is running for mayor, and a lesbian councilmember, Gerrie Schipske.) According Piston’s, a favorite of the leather crowd, the Crest, Dolphin Bar and Silver Fox. to South Florida Gay News, it ranks third among all American cities in the growth of its LGBT population.

You’ll notice that Alamitos Beach has a distinctly Those LGBT people live in neighborhoods such as Gay Pride different feeling from West Hollywood’s Boystown. In Belmont Heights, Plaza / South of Conant and Long Beach there’s more of a comfortable mix of gay Eastside, all with especially large lesbian populations, May 16-18 and straight people. The vibe on any given evening is and Signal Hill. more likely to be neighborly than “party time.”

Like LGBT people everywhere, in Long Beach they If you’re from out of town and looking for a place to rest also play. For that, you’ll want to head down what’s called your head, consider these gay-friendly options, all a short the Broadway Corridor to the Alamitos Beach area. Yes, that distance from Alamitos Beach and the Pride festivities on Shoreline “gayborhood” has lost Hamburger Mary’s, which moved to 330 Drive at Marina Green Park.

Pine Ave. in downtown Long Beach last year. But for gay men

Where toStay Stay Where to Courtyard Long Beach Downtown 500 E. First St., 1-562-435-8511 marriott.com/hotels/travel/lgbcy-courtyardlong-beach-downtown Hotel Maya 700 Queensway Dr., (562) 435-7676 hotelmayalongbeach.com

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Hyatt Regency Long Beach 200 S. Pine Ave, (562) 491-1234 longbeach.hyatt.com The Varden 335 Pacific Ave, (562) 432-8950 Reservations: (877)382-7336 thevardenhotel.com

The Westin Long Beach 333 E Ocean Blvd., (800) 937-8461 westinlongbeachhotel.com

It all starts on May 16 at 6:30 p.m. at Bixby Park, where the Long Beach lesbian community gathers for the second annual rally and Dyke March. Guests include author and activist Jeanne Cordova, Second District Councilmember Suja Lowenthal and local leaders Judi Doyle and Vanessa Romain. The evening’s festivities will conclude with a party at Ambrosia Café, 1923 E Broadway, at 8 p.m. with music performed by songwriter and drummer Michelle Mangione.

Saturday is the Long Beach Pride Run,

which begins at 8 a.m. at East Ocean Boulevard at Junipero Avenue next to Bixby Park. There are 5K and 10K runs for students ages 24 and under (advance registration $25) and others over 25 (advance registration $35.) The fee is $40 for those who register the day of the race.

Registration can be done online at https:// racewire.com/register.php?id=3872.

The runners and those who watch them will have time to cool off before the Pride Parade begins nearby on Ocean Boulevard at Cherry Avenue. There they will be entertained by the Cheer LA cheerleading squad and Hamburger Mary’s drag queen Brunchettes, hosted by Jewels. At 10:30 a.m. the parade will start.

The floats and bands and marchers will proceed down Ocean Boulevard to Shoreline Drive, where the annual Pride Festival is staged from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

This year the parade grand marshal is Ross Matthews, host of “Hello Ross” on E! TV. Others honored with marshal titles are Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, who has been named the Morris Kight political grand marshal for his support of the Long Beach LGBTQ community; Giovanna Martinez, youth services coordinator for the Womens Shelter of Long Beach, who has been named female community grand marshal for working to curb domestic violence, and Dale Warner, a co-owner of the Hamburger Mary’s restaurant chain, who is the male community grand marshal. Jim MCDonnell, the Long Beach police chief, has been given the “Whitey Littlefield” community bridge building award, and Kyle Bullock of the Long

Beach Gay & Lesbian Center, is being recognized for his work there.

Also participating will be Miss Nicaragua International, Indira Rojas Calderon.

The festival has six dance and performance areas. The main stage has a variety of performers booked for Saturday. They include Aunjel Adams, Donovan, Vinita, Lindsay Smith, Dream Chase Collective and Troy Jones during the day and DJ Spark, Lunden Reign, Pamela Williams and Kelly Rowland in the evening.

Saturday night there will be many celebrations, but perhaps none so hilariously appropriate than the Queen Mary party presented by Justin David.

Designed to appeal to all of Pride’s Queens and Marys and those who love them, the event will have a sailor theme.

It will take place from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. on the famous ocean liner, docked at 1126 Queens Highway. DJs and producers Wayne G and Ryan Kenney are offering choreographed laser shows and dancing on the open air top deck dance floor with the Long Beach harbor skyline as a backdrop.

Tickets, $29 if bought in advance and $40 at the door, can be purchased online at www.queenmary.com/poseidon. Guest rooms for an overnight stay are available from $159.

Sunday starts out with a 12:40 p.m. performance by the 1st Congregational Church Choir. Other daytime performers are Nicole Santiago, Twisted Angels, Travis Foxx, Karina Nistal and Eryn Woods. Evening performers are Jay Justified, Cumbia Sun, Corday, CeCe Peniston and Cazwell.

On both Saturday and Sunday the festival offers up country performers such as the LA Wranglers and Chely Wright (8 p.m.

Saturday.) Other themed events on both days include Latino Caliente, with a variety of DJs and live performances by Fedro, Tatiana, Belanova and Jesse Medeles and Urban Soul.

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Where to Stay

West Hollywood

Alta Cienega Motel

Holloway Motel

Petit Ermitage

1005 N. La Cienega Blvd.

(323) 656-4100 altacienega.com

8465 Santa Monica Blvd.

(323) 654-2454 hollowaymotel.com

8822 Cynthia St., (310) 854-1114 petitermitage.com

Andaz West Hollywood

Le Montrose Suite Hotel

8401 Sunset Blvd., (323) 656-1234 westhollywood.andaz.hyatt.com

900 Hammond St., (310) 855-1115 lemontrose.com

8585 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 652-6400 ramadaweho.com

Best Western Sunset Plaza

Le Parc Suite Hotel

San Vicente Inn

8400 Sunset Blvd., (323) 654-0750 bit.ly/1mS2SbX

733 N. West Knoll Dr., (310) 855-8888 leparcsuites.com

Chamberlain

London West Hollywood

845 N. San Vicente Blvd.

(310) 854-6915 thesanvicenteinn.com

1000 Westmount Dr., (310) 657-7400 chamberlainwesthollywood.com

1020 N. San Vicente Blvd., (310) 854-1111 thelondonwesthollywood.com

Charlie Hotel

Mondrian

819 N. Sweetzer Ave., (323) 988-9000 thecharliehotel.com

8440 Sunset Blvd., (323) 650-8999 morganshotelgroup.com/mondrian/ mondrian-los-angeles

Sunset Tower Hotel

Palihouse West Hollywood

The Standard Hotel

8465 Holloway Dr., (323) 327-9702 palihouse.com

8300 Sunset Blvd., (323) 650-9090 standardhotels.com/hollywood

Eleven

Here Lounge

St. Felix

8811 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 855-0800 eleven.la

696 N. Robertson Blvd.

(310) 360-8455 herelounge.com

8945 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 275-4428 saintfelix.net/

Fiesta Cantina

Micky’s

The Abbey

8865 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 652-8865 fiestacantina.net

8857 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 657-1176 mickys.com

Fubar

Mother Lode

692 N. Robertson Blvd.

(310) 289-8410 sbe.com/nightlife/brands/ theabbeyfoodandbar

7994 Santa Monica Blvd.

(323) 654-0396 fubarla.com/wordpress

8944 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 659-9700 facebook.com/MotherLodeWestHollywood

Gold Coast

Rage Restaurant & Bar

8228 Santa Monica Blvd.

(323) 656-4879 goldcoastweho.com

8911 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 652-7055 theragenightclub.com

Gym Sportsbar

Revolver

8737 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 659-2004 gymsportsbar.com/lahome

8851 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 694-0430 revolvervideobar.com

Grafton on Sunset

8560 Sunset Blvd., (323) 654-4600 graftononsunset.com

Ramada Plaza Hotel & Suites

Sunset Marquis Hotel and Villas

1200 N. Alta Loma Rd., (310) 657-1333 sunsetmarquis.com 8358 Sunset Blvd., (323) 654-7100 sunsettowerhotel.com

Photo: Jon Viscott

In West Hollywood, a city that covers only 1.9 square miles, 40 percent of the 34,500 residents are gay men (as are four of the five City Council members.) Could there be a gayer place to celebrate Pride? Or to just have a gay old good time?

While gay men (and a tiny smattering of lesbians) live in all areas of this compact town, the biggest concentration when it comes to nightlife is the west end of Santa Monica Boulevard.

The area that stretches from San Vicente Boulevard to Robertson Boulevard is called Boystown because of its assortments of gay bars and restaurants. They range from the world famous The Abbey on Robertson (where Elizabeth Taylor used to drop by for a drink) to Motherlode, a classic dive bar. Not everything gay is in Boystown. Fubar, which is on Santa Monica Boulevard in Mid City, is reminiscent of New York City’s old East Village Scene. Then there’s Gold Coast, another dive bar on Santa Monica, behind which is the area that used to be known as “Vaseline Alley” in the days before gay men could use mobile phone apps like Grindr and Scruff to meet up.

at Crescent Heights Boulevard and ends at Robertson Boulevard.

Before you get to Robertson you’ll pass San Vicente Boulevard, south of which lies West Hollywood Park, the site of the annual Pride festival. Along SMB you’ll find very gay restaurants such as La Boheme and Basix and diners such as Joeys and EatWell, which are farther east on Santa Monica. And there’s the Big Gay Starbucks, on Santa Monica Boulevard at Westmount Drive. At the BGS, it’s not about the coffee. It’s about the eye candy, and the chance to wink and flirt and perhaps actually meet.

While West Hollywood is known as a party town, it also has a reputation for acknowledging and celebrating LGBT history and arts and culture.

The ONE Gallery Archives and Museum at 626 N. Robertson Blvd. has regular exhibits related to queer art and culture. Details are available at www.one. usc.edu. The June Mazer Lesbian Archive at the same address houses a collection of lesbian art, books, historical documents and other items. More information about it is available at www.mazerlesbianarchives.org.

Gay Pride June 6-8

Santa Monica Boulevard, which runs the length of West Hollywood, parallel to Sunset Boulevard to the north and Melrose Avenue to the south, is the site of the annual LA Pride Parade. The parade starts

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The City of West Hollywood focuses on LGBT history and culture during Pride with its annual “One City One Pride” series of events, listed elsewhere in this guide.

Where to Go

Trunks

8809 Santa Monica Blvd.

(310) 652-1015 trunksbar.com V Wine Room

903 Westbourne Dr., (310) 339-9202 vwesthollywood.com

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Pride Activities The country’s very first Pride parade was staged on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles in 1970, over the objections of the city’s homophobic police chief. How times have changed!

In 1979, Christopher Street West, which puts on the parade and its accompanying festival, moved it all to gay-friendly West Hollywood.

That’s where, on June 8, you’ll see floats and marching groups and bands representing every aspect of LGBT life.

As in years past, the Parade will be on Santa Monica Boulevard, starting at Crescent Heights Boulevard and ending at Robertson Boulevard in West Hollywood’s Boystown. The parade starts at 11 a.m. and could end as late as 4 p.m.

This year’s grand marshal will be singer and actor Demi Lovato.

Also rolling by will be various community figures honored by Christopher Street West.

If you’d rather run the Pride parade route than stand by and watch, consider signing up for the annual Pride Run. The 5K run starts West Hollywood City Hall at 8300 Santa Monica Blvd. at Sweetzer at 7:30 a.m. and the 10K run starts at 8:30 a.m. You can reserve a place in the race online at this site: http://bit.ly/1oyHBoS Remember that the parade comes pretty much at the end of the Pride Festival. It all really starts inside West Hollywood Park on Friday night, June 6, with “Lavender Menace: A Celebration of Women.” Formerly known as the “Purple Party,” Lavender Menace begins at 5 p.m. and runs to midnight. Admission is free.

The starter for Lavender Menace is the annual Dyke March, which begins in the park and then heads down Santa Monica Boulevard and back. Then there are performances by Mary Lambert, the female voice on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Same Love,” and Australian singer Betty Who, who will performer her hit song, “Somebody Loves You.”

Other special events at the Pride festival in West Hollywood Park include the Transgender Social, with performers including Ryan Cassata, a 20-year-old singer who gained national attention at the age of 14 for his singing talents. He has opened for acts including Salt N Pepa and Karmin. Other performers are comedian Dina Nina Martinez and rock band Lunden Reign. Admission is free to those events, which will take place on the Latin Stage in the festival’s Latino Carnival area.

Then there’s Latino Carnival, at which Mexican singer Marisela will be among the performers, who will include a mariachi band.

Other performers booked thus far include R&B singer Deborah Cox and singers Jennifer Hudson, Azealia Banks, Danity Kane and The Bangles. CSW tends to book performers up until the last minute. To do a final check on who will be onstage, go to its website, lapride.org.

Other festival staples will return, including the adult Erotic City section, a Hip Hop/R&B area and the Country Pavilion. Bills Cafe will also be back, offering a gathering place for sober people.

This year the festival also will add what CSW calls a “VIP experience,” with a private area offering outdoor roller disco and private parties with live entertainment and DJs, all produced by Luke Nero and Andres Rigal.

What’s it going to cost you? Watching the parade is free. As for the festival, general admission is $20 (a weekend pass covering both days of the festival is $35). You can buy tickets online at www. lapride.org/VIP.html for an additional processing fee. For the first time, Christopher Street West also is offering VIP passes at $65 a day (or $100 for a weekend pass). They’re available at the same online location. A VIP pass will get you exclusive access to the Thunder Ground outdoor roller rink, two drink tickets per day at the VIP bar and lounge, access to fancier bathrooms and a close up view of the main stage.

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The City of West Hollywood Presents...

One City One Pride: May 22– June 30

This year’s One City One Pride events are all grouped under the theme “I Do,” to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the legalization of same-sex marriage in California. Many events are free, with some requiring ticket purchase and/or advance RSVP.

For a full calendar, check Events at WEHOville.com. Here are a few highlights to whet your appetite.

May 22 (7 – 9 pm)

May 28 (7 – 9 pm)

May 30 (6 – 9 pm)

May 31 (8 – 11 pm)

JUNE 6 (Opening reception 5 - 9 pm)

JUNE 7

Love is Love: The Five Year Road to Marriage. A special exhibition celebrating the struggle for marriage equality featuring photos taken at Prop 8 rallies across Southern California. A reception will feature classical renditions of pop songs

by Queertet, and special comments

by Mayor John D’Amico and photographer David McCoy. West Hollywood Library, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., free admission.

Sexuality and Human Rights on the Global Stage. This installment of West Hollywood’s Human Rights Speakers Series will feature global leaders discussing issues of sexuality, gender and human rights.

West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. Admission free.

LGBT Dynasty LA Art Show.

Gallerie Sparta hosts an opening reception of its LGBT art show. 8641 Sunset Blvd. Admission free. RSVP required to galleriesparta@gmail.com.

ONE Night. An outdoor digital art event in West Hollywood Park featuring projections on an inflatable balloon and music and dance performances by Kate Crash and Kate Johnson. Produced in collaboration with ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, EZTV and LA ACM-SIGGRAPH. West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., free admission.

Out There: I Do. The 7th annual “Out There” art exhibition celebrates marriage equality and the special role played by West Hollywood in that struggle. Gallery 825, 825 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles.

Admission free.

Queer Classics Presents: The Importance of Being Earnest.

Two couples fight for the right to be engaged in this masterful satire written by Oscar Wilde and re-imagined by Queer Classics. The Actors Company, 916 N. Formosa Ave., Los Angeles.

Tickets $10. Performances June 07, 8:30 PM; June 14, 3:30 PM; June 15, 5:30 PM; June 19, 8:30 PM; June 22, 11:00 AM

May 29 (7 – 9 pm)

JUNE 4

Stagebridge LA: No Day But Today. This installment of West Hollywood’s Human Rights Speakers Series will feature global leaders discussing issues of sexuality, gender and human rights. West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd.

Admission free.

May 31 (4 pm)

May 27 (7 – 9 pm) A talk with author Dennis Altman. As part of West Hollywood’s monthly Lambda Lit Book Club, author and activist Dennis Altman will discuss his latest book,”The End of the Homosexual?” He will entertain questions from the audience and sign copies of the book that will be for sale at the end of the program. Presented by: The West Hollywood Library and Lambda Literary Foundation. West Hollywood Library Community Room, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd.

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May 30 (7 – 9 pm) A Lovely Bouquet of Flowers: The Play. Monologue, dialogue and performance art based on real interviews fictionalized for the stage and addressing homelessness, sex work, social work, religion, healthcare, ageism and pride in transgender communities.

WeHo Park Auditorium. 647 N. San Vicente Blvd. Admission free.

Hollywood Master Chorale: Voices of Freedom. The Chorale celebrates the fight for same-sex marriage in a concert that revolves around Randall Thompson’s “A Concord Cantata.” It will also include noted freedom anthems, from Irving Berlin, Stephen Paulus and others. West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. Admission free.

WeHo Pride Community Kickoff/Outfest West Hollywood Screening. Christopher Street West and WeHo Mayor John D’Amico with an open house/preview of the art and culture pavilion at the LA Pride Festival followed by Outfest’s monthly film screening. West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd.

Kickoff admission free. Film $8.

WEST HOLLYWOOD SERIES

JUNE 5 ( Opening reception 7 - 9 pm) TransPride Exhibit, Brought to You by the Letter ‘T’. The L.A. Center’s Advocate & Gochis Galleries a show of work by some of SoCal’s finest transgender artists including Isabella McGrath, Leon Mostovoy, Andrew Overtoom and Kathryn Wilkins along with a self-portrait project by transgender young people. Advocate & Gochis Galleries, The Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Pl., Los Angeles. Admission free. Exhibit runs through July 12.

JUNE 7 Jay R. Lawton: Project 50. An exhibit of work by this Los Angeles recording the leather/fetish/kink community. ONE Archives Gallery & Museum, 626 N Robertson Blvd. Admission free, except during LA Pride Festival. On exhibit through June 22.

JUNE 10 (8 pm) Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton. A documentary about this California queer liberationist who expressed himself in poetry, as a filmmaker and as a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and the Radical Faeries. West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd.. Admission free (suggested donation $5-$20.

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JUNE 11 (7 pm)

JUNE 14 (Shows at 2 pm and 5 pm)

JUNE 18 (7:30 pm)

JUNE 22 (3 pm)

JUNE 25 (7:30 pm)

JUNE 28 ( 6 pm – 9 pm)

ALAP Lesbian & Gay Play Reading Festival. Readings of new six new short LGBT plays on the theme “I Do” chosen by a panel of judges presented by The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP). Plummer Park Rooms 1 and 2, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd. Admission free.

Metropolitan Master Chorale: ‘All You Need is Love.’

A concert celebrating the love of music, the right to love,and the love of singing together. West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd..

Tickets are $25 general, $20 senior or student and $5 children. Available online at www.metrosings.org/performances.

TRIBE WeHo Gay Men’s Discussion Group. A look at ‘Love and Marriage’ West Hollywood Library Community Room, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., Admission free.

This Joint Is Jumpin’ by Vox Femina. A jazz concert by jazz bassist and vocalist Jennifer Leitham and the Jennifer Leitham Trio and a “Q &A” with Leithamr about “I Stand Corrected”, the documentary about her life and career. Congregation Kol Ami, 1200 N. La Brea Ave. Admission free.

Pacific Serenades: Sense & Sensuality. Performances by a bassoon and string quartet of a new work by gay Los Angeles composer Jeffrey Parola and Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet. West Hollywood City Council Chambers,, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. Ticket $32; $5 students with ID, available at pacser.org.

“The Classical Nude and the Making of Queer History.” Opening reception for an exhibit organized by the Leslie Lohman Museum for Gay and Lesbian Art and curated by Jonathan David Katz. ONE Archives Gallery & Museum, 626 N Robertson Blvd. Admission is free.

JUNE 26 (8 pm)

JUNE 15 (1 pm)

JUNE 13 (8 pm)

Summer Sounds Father’s Day Concert. A child-friendly celebration of parenthood featuring information and activities for parents and prospective parents and their kids. The band will be La Sirena y Mar de Ashe.

West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd. Admission is free.

Miss Barbie-Q: Rumor Has It – Part II: Not the Marrying Kind.

Anecdotes, poetry, monologue and storytelling show Miss Barbie Q trying to decide if she is the marrying kind. West Hollywood Library. 625 N. San Vicente Blvd.. Admission free.

JUNE 20 (6 pm) The Ovaaness Archives. An interactive exhibit tour of the “Ovaaness Archives” will take guests on a behind the scenes virtual tour of the House/ Ballroom scene. West Hollywood Park Auditorium, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd. Admission - Free, $5 Suggested Donation.

JUNE 22 (7 pm) ‘Ivy,’ a Portrait of a Crusader. A An ensemble cast, relying on interviews with West Hollywood resident Ivy Bottini, tells the story of a woman whose determination makes a lasting impact on feminism and gay rights. West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. Admission free.

Under My Skin / Bajo La Piel.

Akabal Theater presents a comedic series of monologues, enhanced with dance, movement and poetry to explore what lives under the skin of transphobia, homophobia and intolerance.

Marilyn Monroe Theatre / The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd.. Tickets $20.

More information at www.facebook. com/events/222682491262849. Performed in Spanish with some English.

JUNE 28 ( 10 am – 6 pm) 4th Annual Celebrating All Life & Creation Pow Wow. Red Circle Project’s commemoration of National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day with dancing, singing, drumming and food.

Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd.

JUNE 15 (4 pm) June Mazer Lesbian Archives presents ‘Baby, You Are My Religion.’ A reading by Dr. Marie Cartier from her book about the American butch-femme bar culture of the mid-20th century. West Hollywood Council Chambers. 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. Admission free.

JUNE 14 (2 pm) LA Doctor’s Symphony: Classics with a Twist. A concert showcasing works of gay composers SaintSaens, Griffes, Copland, Tchaikovsky, Bernstein and Ravel and featuring Mariano Dugatkin playing works of Piazzolla on the bandoneón. Plummer Park Fiesta Hall, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd. Admission free.

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JUNE 21 (2:30-6:30 pm) A Midsummer Afternoon’s Queer Wedding Reception. A special reception featuring some of Southern California’s most cuttingedge queer musicians and performance artists, all curated by Planet Queer and Apt 3F. The show will be followed at 7 p.m. by ‘Behold the Bridegrooms’ an exploration of the poetry of James Broughton on the 100th anniversary of his birth.. Plummer Park’s Fiesta Hall, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd., free admission.

JUNE 24 (7:30 pm) Annual Rainbow Key Awards.

Recognition of those who have made significant contributions to the LGBT community. West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. Admission is free.

JUNE 27-28 (7:30 pm) Interface: The Marriage Project. A work titled “I Do” featuring members of the LGBTQ community performing with MXD dancers in two shows that correlate with Marriage Equality Day. Plummer Park Fiesta Hall, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd. Admission free. 8 p.m. on both days.

JUNE 28 ( 6:30 pm) The Last Bastion: A Conversation on Feminist and Queer Museum Politics. Dr. Amelia Jones and Dr. Jonathan D. Katz examine how art can serve as activism. West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. Admission free ($5 suggested donation).

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Where to Stay

San Diego

Fiesta Cantina

Number One Fifth Avenue

The Brass Rail

142 University Ave., (619) 298-2500 fiestacantina.net

3845 5th Ave, (619) 299-1911

San Diego, CA 92103, (619) 298-2233 thebrassrailsd.com

Flicks

3811 Park Blvd, (619) 294-9005 numberssd.com

The Caliph

Pecs

The Gossip Grill

1017 University Ave., (619) 297-2056 sdflicks.com Kitty Diamond

3780 Park Blvd., (619) 546-4642 kittydiamondsd.com Martinis Above Fourth

3940 4th Ave., Ste 200, (619) 400-4500 martinisabovefourth.com

Numbers

3100 5th Ave, (619) 298-9495

2046 University Ave., (619) 296-0889 pecsbar.com

1440 University Ave., (619) 260-8023 hegossipgrill.com

Rich’s San Diego

The Loft

1051 University Ave, (619) 295-2195 richssandiego.com

Urban Mo’s

3610 5th Ave, (619) 296-6407 308 University Ave., (619) 491-0400 urbanmos.com

Pride Activities

When it comes to the gayborhood, San Diego gives greater Los Angeles a run for its money. Its version of West Hollywood (and more particularly WeHo’s oh-so-gay westside) is Hillcrest. Hillcrest is just northwest of Balboa Park (in the old days a major gay cruising area) and a short drive north of downtown. There, along University Avenue and its intersections with 4th and 5th avenues, you’ll find many of the city’s gay bars and restaurants and shops. Not far away are two other LGBT popular neighborhoods -University Heights and North Park. But Hillcrest is where the action is.

If the gay nature of the neighborhood isn’t obvious to you as you walk down University Avenue, consider that a survey shows 43 percent of households in Hillcrest are occupied by gay and lesbian couples. It is a progressive enclave of some 36,000 people in a city known for its right-of-center leanings.

and in 1986 Mayor Maureen O’Connor became the first elected official to march in the Pride parade. Now the July parade and festival are recognized as the city’s biggest public event.

Businesses catering to gay customers began opening in the neighborhood as LGBT people moved in, looking for affordable housing and a safe environment, which they found in a neighborhood then largely populated by the elderly. The Brass Rail, San Diego’s oldest gay bar, was one of those businesses. It opened in 1958 as a restaurant on the corner of Sixth Avenue and B Street in downtown San Diego then moved to Hillcrest in 1963. In 1968 the Show Biz Supper Club (now closed) opened in Hillcrest, giving San Diego its first female impersonator venue. And in 1984 The Flame supper club reopened as a lesbian bar.

Gay Pride July 18-20

The LGBT crowd began to populate Hillcrest in the 1970s and make its voice known. In 1974, when San Diego refused to grant a permit for a gay pride parade, 200 gay men and lesbians marched in protest through downtown (albeit some wearing paper bags over their heads to hide their identities.) They got that permit in 1975,

To give those more familiar with West Hollywood an idea of how Hillcrest differs, consider that it has two independent bookstores -- Fifth Avenue Book and Bluestocking Books -- and several independent coffee shops -- Babycakes and Caffe Vergnano 1882 are among the better known. Some liken it to New York City’s East Village in the early 1990s.

The next day the Pride Parade begins at University and Normal at 11 a.m. San Diego Pride, the non-profit organization that puts on the parade and accompanying festival, has responded to complaints that past parades have been too long. This year the number of parade floats and marching groups is limited to 150, which means you’ll be able to see the whole thing in two hours.

Now Hillcrest is one of the most prominent LGBT communities in Southern California. And that small 1974 gathering has evolved in three-day event (July 18-20) that brings tens of thousands of LGBT people from Southern California and afar to Hillcrest each year.

And what will you be seeing? Of course there will be the usual floats with shirtless go go boys and contingents from San Diego’s wide array of LGBT groups and organizations.

This year’s grand marshal is Toni Atkins, speaker of the California State Assembly. Community grand marshals will include representatives of the LGBT Community Center, Dignity San Diego, the Imperial Court de San Diego and the Metropolitan Community Church. Given that San Diego is home to several military bases (Point Loma, Camp Pendleton, etc.) you shouldn’t be surprised when the parade’s military contingent marches by.

There are earlier events. She Fest takes place from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 12, at North Park Community Park.

There women will gather for various music performances, workshops and sporting events.

You can begin your official celebration of Pride on July 18 (Friday) at 6 p.m. at Normal Street and University Avenue at the Hillcrest Pride Flag rally. The rally celebrates the erection in 2012 of a 65-foot flagpole from which flies the rainbow flag, a symbol of LGBT rights. Laverne Cox will preside over a ceremony that includes raising the flag and unveiling a new Pride monument.

And then it’s time for some fun at the Pride of Hillcrest block party, which takes place around the flag area. Now in its third

Where to Stay Hillcrest Inn Hotel

Inn At The Park

Balboa Park Inn

3754 5th Ave., (619) 796-9804 hillcrestinn.net

525 Spruce St., (619) 291-0999 shellhospitality.com/Inn-at-the-Park

3402 Park Blvd., (619) 298-0823 balboaparkinn.com

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San Diego Pride got its start in 1974, a time when people weren’t especially friendly to LGBT people in this right-leaning Southern California city. Four hundred men and women showed up at Balboa Park in June that year for a rally and a march. The Hillcrest neighborhood where they gathered had been slowly evolving into a community where LGBT people felt safe and accepted.

year, the event has partiers dancing in the streets to music spun by local DJs. It begins at 7 p.m. and concludes at 11 p.m. General admission tickets ($20) and various levels of VIP passes can be purchased online at fabuloushillcrest.com/events/pride-ofhillcrest-block-party/

Saturday is also the day the Pride Festival in Balboa Park opens. It will

include nine different entertainment areas with an array of musicians who hadn’t been announced as of this publication. Tickets for two days of the music festival are $20 and can be purchased online at www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/554219?utm_medium=bks.

The festival also will offer a “Cool Zone” for those 55 and over, a “Leather Realm” for the leather crowd, a wedding expo, an “Art of Pride” exhibit by local LGBT artists, a “youth zone” and a “Children’s Garden.” And of course vendors offering everything from t-shirts to tacos.

The festival runs from noon to 8 p.m. on Saturday and from noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

17

1967: The Black Cat Raid

When LA’s Hidden Gay Community Showed Its Claws

S

ometimes patrons walk into the Black Cat on Sunset Boulevard, which opened in late 2012, and wonder about its name.

They’re surprised when the staff, which knows the history, tells them about the police raid on the original Black Cat and its gay patrons on New Year’s Eve 1967 and the protest that followed six weeks later.

Far from being unlucky, they learn, the Black Cat in Silver Lake is the site of an important moment in the LGBT history of Los Angeles.

Designated a historic and cultural monument by the City of Los Angeles in 2008—just as the passage of Prop 8 was leaving the LGBT community reeling—the building will soon feature a plaque that marks the site’s significance.

Here’s what it will say:

The Black Cat Site of the first documented LGBT civil rights demonstration in the nation Held on February 11, 1967 Declared 2008 Historic Cultural Monument No. 939 Cultural Heritage Commission City of Los Angeles

Story by Stevie St. John 18

19

“… That gay bar scene in the ‘50s was absolutely crucial for us lesbians and gays—because it was virtually the only place we could be who we were in terms of our sexual identification. It felt like the bar was our little piece of the world… Except that we were often reminded that it wasn’t a safe little piece of the world. Raids were frequent in L.A. gay bars …This was the situation in gay bars throughout the 1950s and much of the 1960s, in Los Angeles and big cities throughout the country.”

That was the case on New Year’s Eve 1967, when a dozen undercover vice officers positioned themselves in the crowded Black Cat. Highland described the scene in Tangents: “Midnight came. 1967. ‘Happy New Year!’ A bartender pulled a string and the balloons showered down.

The Rhythm Queens yelled a jazz-rock version of “Auld Lang Syne.” Noisemakers squawked. Confetti flew.

Kissing is a New Year’s Eve tradition. Did it happen here? If so, it didn’t go on for long,” he wrote.

F

ebruary 11, 1967 is not a date that’s widely heralded as significant in the fight for LGBT civil rights. In the popular consciousness, it doesn’t rival June 28, 1969, the day of the famous Stonewall riot in New York City, which is widely regarded as the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement. But in truth the 1967 Black Cat protest is the older sister — the Jan Brady to Stonewall’s “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia” — of Stonewall. And in Southern California, its claws ran deep and left their own indelible mark.

It was the first time that LGBT people in the United States organized a protest against police persecution. The raid and the arrests that accompanied it inspired the first legal argument that gay people were entitled to equal protection under the law.

“We need a plaque to look at and go to,” said Alexei Romanoff, 77, one of the few known survivors of the 1967 protest that followed the raid. “I want some young person to go and say, ‘That’s where my civil rights started.’ ” The Black Cat is at 3903 Sunset Blvd. at Hyperion Avenue. In the late 1960s it was one of a dozen gay bars along a one-mile stretch of Sunset ending at Sunset Junction.

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“Most are beer bars, with pool tables, juke-boxes, coin-operated game machines,” gay activist Jim Highland wrote in a 1967 article in Tangents, a gay magazine published in the late 1960s. “The buildings housing the bars are shabby, the rents cheap, and business failures are common. But when one bar closes another soon opens.”

They may have been run down, but those bars were among the few places where gay and lesbian people could gather.

Evelyn Hooker, a UCLA psychologist who studied homosexual men in Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s, described the gay bar as the central institution of the homosexual subculture of the time.

The bar was a place where “the protective mask of the day may be dropped.”

Lillian Faderman, a co-author of “ Gay LA: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics and Lipstick Lesbians,” recalled her bar experience in a 2008 speech.

“I came out in the 1950s, at a time when lesbians and gays were made to feel like outlaws by society, and especially by the Los Angeles Police Department,” she said.

“Witnesses report: An officer who had been standing next to the Black Cat’s short-order cook suddenly grabbed the cook’s arm and tried to lead him out the back door. It was locked. He turned and steered the cook through the crowd toward the front. Alarmed, a man in woman’s clothes clutched for the front door. The butt-end of a pool cue felled him, one ear split and bleeding … “[A bartender] went quietly …

Maybe not so quietly, but others went too. A dozen of them. For the most part they were the transvestites. The police were trying to build a case. If drag is no longer illegal, juries tend to think it should be. To the public mind it suggests degeneracy. A youth in taffeta, forced to bend across the hood of a patrol car, tore the paper leis from his neck and dropped them into the gutter. They were for happy times and this was not.

“A stout man in a red wig, second-hand movie-star gown and high-heel shoes that were a dazzle of crushed sequins, tried to look inconspicuous. He woke on his stomach on the floor. An officer knelt on his back. Handcuffs clicked. The raid was over. It had taken ten minutes.”

Two of those arrested, Charles Talley and Benny Baker, were convicted of lewd conduct and filed an appeal. Vice cops had seen them kissing other men, Baker while wearing a white dress. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal, but their attorney, Herbert Selwyn, set a precedent by arguing that they should have been granted equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Romanoff wasn’t in the Black Cat that New Year’s Eve. But he was one of the people who, in the wake of the raid, decided it was time to fight. He may be the only person from the protest still living.

Romanoff ’s husband, David Farah, 55, said that word went out in the community back when the Black Cat was dedicated as a historic site. Besides Romanoff, the only person found was Aristide Laurent, who was too sick to attend the dedication and who died in 2011.

“We would love to know anyone else, too,” Farah said.

Reports vary on the number of people who attended the protest. Romanoff estimates there were 300 to 600 people there.

“We were very orderly,” Romanoff said. If so much as a leaflet dropped to the ground, it was quickly snatched from the ground to avoid offering any excuse for police to start cuffing protestors. “It was an angry demonstration—but orderly.”

The demonstration was planned by a group called P.R.I.D.E. (Personal Rights in Defense and Education). A Hollywood bar owner agreed to let P.R.I.D.E. organizers meet in the bar during hours when it was closed. A phone tree was set up, with each person calling 10 or 20 others.

People were nervous and feared further violence from the police. That’s why the protest didn’t happen until weeks after the New Year’s raid.

That’s also one reason protests were planned in communities other than the LGBT one. The organizers tried to coordinate simultaneous rallies in black, Latino and other minority communities. The strategy was to spread police forces thin with demonstrations across various parts of the city.

A letter signed by Jim Kepner, curator of the National Gay Archives (now the ONE Archives), mentions the simultaneous rallies.

“The Black Cat attack outraged gays and many others as well,” Kepner wrote. “On February 11, a protest was organized outside

21

Timeline:

the bar by PRIDE, first gay organization largely oriented toward the bar community, and coordinated with similar protests on the Sunset Strip (where Sheriffs were beating hippies nightly for the 6 o’clock news), Watts, Pacoima and Boyle Heights. The overall coordinators howled at the word ‘homosexual’ on our leaflets, so, under pressure, we avoided mentioning our name during the rally, but swore that ‘the love that dared not speak its name’ would never again be silenced. Forty people marched in the picket line, and two hundred of us (and fifty incredibly armed police) participated in the rally in the lot east of the bar. We passed out 3,000 leaflets, chiefly to persons driving by who promised to join us next time.

In a newsletter for the Southern California Council on Religion and the Homophile, Kepner described the scene in court where Baker, Talley and others were on trial.

“The defendants and several supporting witnesses claimed that police, in sports clothes, had not identified themselves as officers, had dragged two of the defendants (bartenders) across the bar onto the floor, and had injured several defendants,” he wrote. “The court steadily maintained that this was not relevant to the case, limiting defense questions to whether the kissing had taken place, how the officers were dressed, and whether kissing constituted willfully lewd and dissolute behavior in a public place, under the statute.” “[The jury] found all the defendants guilty, except one young bartender, who’d had the foresight to spend the recess in the hallway, in view of most of the jurors, kissing a young lady.”

“There is really nothing new about this story – to homosexuals, or Negroes, or Mexicans, or juveniles, or alcoholics, or others whom some policemen regard as scum. What is new is that homosexuals, who have always been dependably meek, are fighting back …

The fight continues, but in the decades since the Black Cat demonstration in 1967, LGBT people have been winning to a degree that probably would surprise some of those present at that raid. The cat didn’t run away. Indeed, to quote from Harry S. Miller’s song: “The cat came back. We thought he was a goner, but the cat came back. It just couldn’t stay away.”

Moments in SoCal LGBT History (1947-1969) 1947

Edith Eyde launches Vice Versa, a lesbian magazine published for seven months. She used the pen name Lisa Ben, an anagram for the word lesbian.

1950

Harry Hay holds a meeting about starting a “homophile” group in L.A.; the next year the Mattachine Society becomes official.

1952

ONE, Inc. is formed, and the next year it launches ONE Magazine, which the ONE Archives website calls “the first widely distributed publication for homosexuals in the United States.” It was published until 1967.

1957

1959

A police raid sets off a riot at Cooper’s Donuts, an all-night downtown L.A. spot that according to LGBT site Queerty was “a popular late-night hangout for trans folk, butch queens, street hustlers and their johns.”

1966

A group called P.R.I.D.E. (Personal Rights in Defense and Education) is formed.

1967

A New Year’s Eve police raid at the Black Cat in Silver Lake spurs a February protest led by P.R.I.D.E. The organization P.R.I.D.E. soon disbands, but its newsletter, re-tooled that year to become the Advocate, carries on.

1968

Police raid the Patch, a Long Beach gay bar owned by activist Lee Glaze, who died in late 2013.

1968

Rev. Troy Perry, a former Pentecostal minister defrocked for being gay, starts the Metropolitan Community Church, an LGBT Christian denomination.

1968

Diann Pierce is discharged from the Navy after coming out. Her dishonorable discharge is later changed to an honorable discharge.

1969

Morris Kight starts the L.A. chapter of the Gay Liberation Front.

Evelyn Hooker of UCLA publishes a study about gay men.

cat came back.

“The We thought he was a

goner, but the cat came back. It just couldn’t stay away. Nine lives.

”

22

23

Moments in SoCal LGBT History (1969-1979) 1969

The LGBT Catholic organization Dignity USA forms in San Diego.

1970

The Gay Liberation Front and the Metropolitan Community Temple sponsors the first Pride parade in L.A. It took place in June because that month marked one year since the Stonewall uprising in New York.

1971

The Los Angeles Gay Community Services Center, founded by Morris Kight and others, is legally incorporated.

1971

Del Whan starts the Gay Women’s Services Center in L.A. It closes in 1972.

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1972

Metropolitan Community Temple, which became Beth Chayim Chadashim, the first gay and lesbian synagogue, opens in L.A.

1973

Van Ness Recovery House, a place for LGBT people in recovery from substance addition, opens. Initially run by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center and Alcoholics Anonymous members, it becomes an independent organization in 1976.

1973

Jewel Thais-Williams opens Jewel’s Catch One, an L.A. night club for black gays and lesbians.

1973

The San Diego LGBT Center (then the Center for Social Services) is incorporated.

1973

Moments in SoCal LGBT History (1980-2013) 1980

One Long Beach (now the LGBTQ Center of Long Beach) is incorporated.

1981

1987

1983

AIDS Healthcare Foundation is founded

by Michael Weinstein and eventually becomes the largest non-government provider of services to people with HIV.

The California State Supreme Court overturns the state’s ban on same-sex marriages. Later that year, Proposition 8 passes and eliminates the right for samesex couples to wed.

A CDC report includes information about five gay men in L.A. (two dead by the time it is published) with symptoms of what is later called AIDS.

1979

An AIDS hotline opens in 1982 and grows into AIDS Project Los Angeles.

1979

Gay men in some cities, including L.A., have symptoms of the disease that will be named Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) and later AIDS.

2007

The LGBT-inclusive Muslims for Progressive Values begins in Los Angeles.

National Lesbian Conference takes place at UCLA. Among the organizers is Jeanne Cordova, whose work also includes starting and editing the lesbian magazine Lesbian Tide and creating an LGBTQ yellow pages directory.

An L.A. conference spurs the Radical Fairies movement.

1986

In an L.A.-headquartered campaign, Lyndon LaRouche pushes Proposition 64, which would have allowed for the quarantine of people with HIV.

1984

The City of West Hollywood is incorporated, with a commitment to gay rights.

1985

1997

Ellen DeGeneres comes out as a lesbian.

2000

State Proposition 22, a statute against same-sex marriage, passes.

2008

2013

U.S. Supreme Court rulings against Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act are followed by a celebration in West Hollywood, where Human Rights Campaign president and AFER founder Chad Griffin announces a goal to “bring marriage equality to all 50 states within five years.”

WeHo’s anti-discrimination ordinance mandates the removal of the misspelled, long-protested “Fagots Stay Out” sign at Barney’s Beanery.

25

W HEN T NO & r e d a e L s ’ l SoCa ights R T B G in L

s

In 1970, LGBT advocates in Los Angeles had to go to court to win the right to put on the nation’s first pride parade. And three years earlier gay men, fed up with police harassment, took the streets in Silver Lake to protest a raid by cops that was sparked by a kiss. As we dance and drink and march and cheer, we should take a moment to acknowledge those who made all of this possible.

which was to the existing gay rights movement what Black Power was to the NAACP: much more radical. He was 50 years old then and described himself as a “Sugar Daddy without the sugar.”

What follows is a list of some of them who have made an impact in Southern California. And because the fight for LGBT rights still isn’t over, we’ve decided also to call out some from the present.

The GLF, Kight said, was to “break the chains” of a “racist, sexist, imperialistic system.” That reached beyond the LGBT community.

In 1967 Kight founded the “Dow Action Committee” in 1967 to protest Dow Chemical’s production of Agent Orange and napalm, herbicides and defoliants used during the Vietnam War. Many LGBT people refused to join Kight in that and other battles, and some called him a “Communist sympathizer.”

You’re standing on Santa Monica Boulevard, watching the LA Gay Pride floats and marchers move by. You have Morris Kight to thank for that. You’re at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center, getting an STD check. You have Morris Kight to thank for that. You’re considering checking into the Van Ness Recovery Center. You have Morris Kight to thank for that.

THEN MORRIS KIGHT (1919- 2003) 26

Kight, who grew up in Comanche County, Texas, moved to northern New Mexico in 1951 and to Los Angeles in 1958. Kight wasn’t just gay. He was radical and gay, and proud of it. He took his time getting there. According to “Gay LA: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians,” the definitive account of the LGBT movement’s early years, in his earliest days in Los Angeles Kight carried a sign saying he was a “Heterosexual in Support of Gay Rights” (and he did have two daughters, born during his time in New Mexico.)

After the famous Stonewall Riots in New York City, an emboldened Kight helped found the LA chapter of the Gay Liberation Front,

Never one to miss an opportunity to stir the homophobic hornets nest, Kight turned a proposal for the gay community to take over sparsely populated Alpine County, which is in Sierra Nevada, between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park, into a massive publicity stunt. He put together a press release announcing that 479 gays would move to Alpine, demand a special election and take over every county office. Kight announced that soon Alpine would be home to the first American lesbian and gay university.

The announcement was covered by the Associated Press and UPI and hundreds of local newspapers and radio stations, including the then-homophobic Los Angeles Times.

Ten years later Kight launched a national boycott of Coors Brewing Company to protest its support of anti-union laws and homophobic politicians. That was a campaign that outraged Outfest, organizers

of the annual LGBT movie festival, which accepted donations from Coors. Kight called out Outfest with a demonstration at one of its events.

Kight founded the Christopher Street West gay pride parade in 1970, facing opposition from LA Police Chief Edward Davis, who rejected an invitation to join the parade in 1975 with a letter saying he would “much rather celebrate ‘gay conversion week’ which I will gladly sponsor when the medical practitioners in this country find a way to convert gays to heterosexuals.”

Eventually Kight and other GLF members began focusing on the LGBT community rather than the heterosexual culture that they saw as its enemy. Kight worked with John Platania and Don Kilhefner to establish the Van Ness Recovery House, a rehab facility for gay men that is in operation today. In 1971 he worked with others to create what is now the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, the largest such organization in the world.

In an interview with Jack Nichols of GayToday.com, Kight describes the founding of the Center and Van Ness as his proudest achievements. “When I walk in front of it, I sometimes weep tears of joy,” he said of the Center.

Kight died in 2003 at the age of 83. The City of Los Angeles dedicated the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and McCadden Place as “Morris Kight Square.” It was the place at which the LA Pride Parade, the first in the world, used to begin its march.

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RICHARD MITCH

(1926-1991)

Richard Mitch grew up in Rochester, NY, and got his start in journalism as a writer for the Journal of the American Chemical Society. It was that job that took him eventually to Los Angeles, where an encounter with the notoriously homophobic LA Police Department pushed Mitch into another kind of journalism that was nearer and dearer to his gay heart.

That encounter occurred on a night in 1966 when Mitch was arrested at the Red Raven, a bar on Melrose east of La Brea, very near to what one day would become West Hollywood. The Red Raven was famed for its movie room where the gay crowd gathered for unauthorized screenings of movies featuring stars such as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. But Mitch wasn’t arrested there while watching a film. The police nabbed him on the dance floor and charged him with performing oral sex on another man.

That arrest is what prompted Mitch to join Personal Rights in Defense and Education (PRIDE), a group radical for its time that organized demonstrations against homophobia, including the 1967 police raid on the Black Cat in Silver Lake. Mitch started out as editor of the PRIDE newsletter, which evolved into the Los Angeles Advocate. In its 1967 inaugural issue, the Advocate became the first publication to use the words “gay pride” in a cover headline. Mitch and his lover, Bill Rau, eventually took over the Advocate and ran it themselves.

While the Advocate was bold for its time in calling out abuses by the LA Police Department, Mitch himself kept a low profile, adopting the name “Dick Michaels” rather than revealing his real name in print. Mitch even avoided obviously gay events where he might be photographed. In 1974 he sold the Advocate, which by then had an audited circulation of 44,000, to an investment banker named David Goodstein for $350,000. Goodstein took the Advocate in a new direction, saying he wanted as readers “the upwardly mobile homosexual who has a home in the hills, drives a luxury car and orders alcohol by the brand.”

Mitch died in Syracuse, NY, of cancer in 1991. He was 65.

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TROY PERRY

(1940 - )

Even as a young man growing up in Tallahassee, Florida, Troy Perry says he was a “religious fanatic.” By the time he was 15 he was a Baptist preacher. By the time he was 19, he was married to the daughter of another preacher, with whom he had two sons. He attended the conservative Midwest Bible College and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and became a Church of God minister before he turned 21.

As he was preaching the Holy Scripture Perry was struggling with an attraction to other men. He was forced to leave his Church of God ministry when one sexual partner told church leaders about a liaison. He and his wife and children moved to Southern California, where he became minister at a Church of God of Prophecy. In California, Perry continued to be pushed out of the closet despite himself. One day his wife found a copy of “The Homosexual in America,” described as “one of the most influential works in the history of the gay rights movement,” under their mattress and ended their marriage.

Perry spent time as a store clerk and two years in the Army. In 1968, he saw the police arrest his date for the night at the Black Cat Tavern, a gay bar in Silver Lake. That inspired him to return to preaching, but this time to a gay audience. Three years later Perry’s congregation swelled to more than a thousand people. It opened its own church at 22nd and Union streets, which was destroyed by a fire of mysterious origin in 1973.

Perry was interested in diversity in his congregation and welcomed people of color. He even had butch lesbians dressed in suits serve as ushers. He encouraged the creation of a lesbian group within the church called De Colores. While founding a Christian church for an LGBT congregation was radical for its time, Perry’s religious philosophy was conservative. Nevertheless he encouraged his congregants to join even the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front, a group that disdained the more mainstream efforts at acceptance pursued by other homophile organizations.

Today the MCC, a Protestant denomination, has 222 member congregations in 37 countries and continues to focus on LGBT people. Perry lives in Los Angeles with his long-term partner, Phillip Ray De Blieck, whom he married under Canadian law at Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto.

DEL WHAN

(1941 - )

These days Del Whan, who lives in Long Beach, describes herself as a “pet sitter.” That evokes an image of a passive and quiet woman, content to stay at home with her dog. In so doing it belies both Whan’s early history as a lesbian activist and her continuing advocacy today for environmental protection, animal rights and the legalization of marijuana, among other things.

In a chapter in “Old Lesbians and Their Brief Moments of Fame,” Whan describes what got her out of the gay closet. It was 1970, and she was director of the foreign language lab at the University of Southern California. Her nights out were at “gay girl” bars in LA. During the day, she writes, “I suffered from hangovers, internalized homophobia, eye twitches and muscle cramps from hiding in the closet.” Then, feeling a little apprehension, she went to hear a speech on campus that spring by gay activist Morris Kight.

Kight invited his gay listeners to visit the Gay Liberation Front, which he had founded, in Silver Lake. Soon Whan was picketing a Los Angeles police station and working with Kight and others to create the nation’s first gay pride parade.

Whan also stepped boldly out of the closet at USC, founding the Gay Liberation Forum with a group of students, staff members and faculty. In 1971, the USC Board of Trustees refused to recognize the GLF as a legitimate student organization. It wasn’t until 1975 that the trustees officially recognized the group as the “Gay Student Union,” responding to threats by gay alumni that they would cut off their donations.

Meanwhile, Whan was making other moves. In 1970, the year she formed GLF, she also created the Gay Women’s Services Center (GWSC) in Echo Park, the first lesbian social services center in the nation. It hosted consciousness-raising meetings, classes, dances and other events. Failing to attract the volunteers and money it needed, the GWSC closed in 1972.

Whan remained active in Morris Kight’s Gay Liberation Front and for a while was a member of the Lesbian Feminists, a group that saw oppression of all as an issue as big as homophobia. Whan eventually pulled out of that group, but at the age of 73 she hasn’t given up speaking out against oppression, whether by the Republican Party, Wall Street bankers, the oil industry or the Sultan of Brunai.

BILLIE JEAN KING

(1943-)

Billie Jean King (Nov. 22, 1943-) Billie Jean King, a Long Beach native who studied at California State University-Los Angeles, is a tennis icon who bested self-identified chauvinist Bobby Riggs in the highly publicized 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match that attracted an estimated 50 million viewers around the world.

King was a tennis phenomenon from an early age. In 1961 she became world famous when, at the age of 17, she won the women’s double’s title at Wimbledon. Supporters in Long Beach had raised $2,000 to send her there. King won 39 Grand Slam titles during her tennis career, with six of them at the world-famous Wimbledon.

While King knew during her 20s that she was a lesbian, being raised in a homophobic family and culture kept her in the closet.

“I couldn’t get a closet deep enough,” King said in an interview with The Times of London. “I’ve got a homophobic family, a tour that will die if I come out, the world is homophobic and, yeah, I was homophobic. If you speak with gays, bisexuals, lesbians and transgenders, you will find a lot of homophobia because of the way we all grew up.”

King married in 1965 but filed for divorce in 1987. While married she began an affair with another woman that ended in an acrimonious lawsuit in 1981 that made public her attraction to women. She reportedly lost $2 million in endorsements as a result.

King embraced her lesbian identity and became an LGBT rights advocate. She founded the Women’s Tennis Association and is involved in the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

King received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and was tapped earlier this year to be part of the U.S. delegation to the Olympics in Sochi. She missed the opening ceremony because of her mother’s health problems (she died in February) and attended the closing ceremony instead. Her inclusion was perceived as a political statement because to the anti-LGBT laws recently passed in Russia. The laws included bans on gay adoptions, “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,” gay pride events and providing children with information about homosexuality. As a result, many LGBT people protested the decision to hold the Olympics in Sochi.

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NOW ELLEN DEGENERES

(1958-)

Once a closeted sitcom star, Ellen DeGeneres is now the world’s most famous lesbian and a popular talk show host. Her dramatic coming out was a watershed moment in pop culture history.

DeGeneres was born in Louisiana and was raised as a Christian Scientist until she was 13. She spent one semester at the University of New Orleans. Then she dropped out and worked a variety of jobs, from office clerk to sales clerk to waitress to house painter.

DeGeneres got her start in comedy a small clubs in New Orleans.

Eventually her career took off such that she was touring nationally and in 1986 appeared on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.

The comic and actress eventually landed the title role in the show “Ellen.” In April 1977 she came out as a lesbian on the cover of Time magazine with the headline “Yep, I’m Gay.” Her fictional character on “Ellen” also came out at the same time.

Her coming out sparked frenzied coverage in gossip tabloids and hurt DeGeneres’ career.

But DeGeneres bounced back with her talk show, her recurring award show hosting duties and her role as Dory in “Finding Nemo” (set to be reprised in a Dory-focused sequel).

In recent years, the once-pariah has starred in commercials for brands such as JC Penney. Not only has DeGeneres spoken publicly about LGBT rights, but her mother, Betty, wrote a memoir that focused largely on Ellen’s coming out and has served as a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign. In 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named DeGeneres a special envoy for Global AIDS Awareness DeGeneres lives in Beverly Hills with wife Portia de Rossi.

BAMBY SALCEDO

(Unknown )

Lauded for her work with many advocacy groups, Bamby Salcedo is the founder and president of the TransLatina Coalition, the publisher of XQsi Magazine and the creator of the Angels of Change trans youth calendar.

“Drug addiction, homelessness, skid row, prison, a broken home, HIV and immigration issues. This could be an episode line-up for a season of CSI, but it’s the true-life story of Bamby Salcedo,” A & U Magazine wrote in piece about the documentary “TransVisible: Bamby Salcedo’s Story,” which was screened at Outfest in 2013.

Salcedo was born and raised in a poor family Guadalajara, Mexico.

Her’s was a life of street gangs and crime. She was a teenager when she emigrated to the United States and was beginning her journey from a male to a female identity. It was a trip confused by drugs.

When she arrived in the U.S., Salcedo lived in poverty on LA’s Skid Row, became a prostitute and spent time in jail. She also discovered that she was infected with HIV. The obstacles Salcedo faced would seem insurmountable to most people. But Salcedo got sober and earned a college degree. Then she threw herself into helping those who struggling with what she gone through.

She created Angels of Change, a program that calls out transgendered young people who are role models on a calendar. Salcedo is project coordinator of the Harm Reduction Project and the Division of Adolescent Medicine at the Children’s Hospital.

“I love what I do!” Salcedo said in an interview with A&U magazine.

“I’m working to prevent infection among young people who are getting hit so hard by HIV these days. Hope is what keeps me alive and thriving. When I see a young person who’s been shattered from the injustices of our society and then eventually blossoms into their full potential as a beautiful person, that inspires me.”

Among her many honors, Salcedo was honored by Christopher Street West, the organization behind LA Pride, in 2010.

DUSTIN LANCE BLACK

(1974-)

Dustin Lance Black was born in Sacramento to a Mormon family and spent part of his childhood in San Antonio, Texas, before moving to Salinas when his stepfather was transferred to Fort Ord. He knew from an early age that he was attracted to other boys.

In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter he said he had been attracted to a young neighbor when he was six or seven. But, being raised in a Mormon family in Texas, Black was frightened by that attraction.

“I’m going to hell. And if I ever admit it, I’ll be hurt, and I’ll be brought down,” he recalled thinking.

It wasn’t until he attended UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television that Black began to become comfortable with his sexuality. A pivotal moment was when he watched in his senior year “The Times of Harvey Milk,” Rob Epstein’s Oscar-winning documentary about the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. Milk’s assassination in 1978 stunned both California’s gay and straight communities.

Milk became a role model for Black. “In college, when I first saw a copy of the documentary, I remember just breaking down into tears. I thought, ‘I just want to do something with this, why hasn’t someone done something with this?’ “ Black did, in 2009 winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for “Milk,” his story of Milk’s life. Black drew on his Mormon background in his work for the HBO series “Big Love,” which told the story of a Mormon man living in Utah with three wives.

Black has become a major LGBT activist, serving as a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which was established in 2009 to support a federal lawsuit challenging California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages.

He penned “8,” a play based on the Proposition 8 trial. Last year, he served as the master of ceremonies at a West Hollywood rally celebrating the Supreme Court decisions against Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. Black moved from Los Angeles to London this year to live with his boyfriend, Tom Daley. But, he jokes, he returns frequently to LA so that his friends don’t think he’s dead.

30

ROBBIE ROGERS

(1987-)

Robbie Rogers came out as a gay man last year and quickly announced his retirement, at the age of 25, from professional soccer, the sport he loved. But within a few months he had signed on with the Los Angeles Galaxy team, joining that team of gay athletes who have decided their homosexuality is no reason to stop playing.

Rogers is a Southern Californian, born in Rancho Palos Verdes and growing up in Huntington Beach. There he started playing football at the age of four. He played in high school as well and for one year at the University of Maryland. In 2006, Rogers joined Heerenveen, a Dutch soccer team, and then Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew in 2007. Also that year he played for the United States in the 2007 U20 World Cup, an International Federation of Football tournament for athletes under 20. In 2008 he represented the United States at the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing.

At the end of 2011 Roberts signed with Leeds United, an English team. Various injuries took him out of play. On Feb. 15, Rogers said he was retiring from professional sports and also announced that he is gay. In an interview with the Guardian of London, Rogers explained that he didn’t want to deal with the scrutiny that came with being an out gay athlete.

An appearance last year at an event for LGBT young people changed Rogers’ mind. As he stood in front of a crowd of 500 LGBT young people who were “ standing up for themselves and changing the world,” he “seriously felt like a coward,” he told USA Today.

“I’m 25, I have a platform and a voice to be a role model. How much of a coward was I to not step up to the plate?” he said.

Rogers did that right away, reaching out to the Los Angeles Galaxy team, which signed him on in May. In a match on May 26 he became the first openly gay man to play in a top North American professional sports league. More recently, basketballer Jason Collins, swimmer Tom Daley and figure skater Brian Boitano have come out. Recently the NFL drafted Michael Sam, making him the first openly gay professional football player.

Rogers has moved to West Hollywood, where last year he joined revelers at LA Pride, his first ever Pride event.

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WeHo Celebrates 1 Year of Marriage Equality For the 7th Annual One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival, West Hollywood celebrates the 1 year anniversary of Marriage Equality in California with 40 days of arts, culture, education and community with the theme ‘I Do.’ Just a few highlights include:

May 22: Kick-off for One City One Pride / exhibit reception for Love = Love, 7-9 pm May 31: ONE Night, an outdoor digital art experience in WeHo Park, 8-11 pm June 4: Outfest West Hollywood Series / Community Pride Kickoff June 21: Apt 3F & Planet Queer’s A Midsummer Night’s Queer Wedding Reception, 3:30 pm

weho.org/pride In WeHo we celebrate Pride all year round!

Find out more at www.gogaywesthollywood.com and weho.org One City One Pride is presented annually by the City of West Hollywood through its Arts & Cultural Affairs Commission, Transgender Advisory Board, and Lesbian & Gay Advisory Board, between Harvey Milk Day (May 22) through the end of June. Most events are free, although some require an RSVP or ticket purchase.