July 27, 2023 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

The rainbow banner in front of the Congregational Church of Belmont was vandalized sometime overnight July 18.

Police probe Pride banner vandalism at Belmont church

by Cynthia Laird

Belmont police have launched a hate crime investigation after a rainbow banner at a local church was vandalized earlier this week.

According to the Reverend Jim Mitulski, the Pride banner at Congregational Church of Belmont, where he is senior pastor, was discovered vandalized Tuesday, July 18.

“A rainbow banner celebrating the Congregational Church of Belmont’s commitment to LGBTQ rights – and its extravagant welcome to members of that community – was slashed in two on the porch of the church overnight Tuesday, July 18,” Mitulski stated in a news release.

The church’s office administrator discovered the vandalism when she arrived at work on Wednesday morning, July 19, the release stated. The Belmont Police Department responded to a call from the church that day.

Belmont police Lieutenant Pete Lotti confirmed to the Bay Area Reporter that police did respond to the church and took a report.

“We are investigating it as a hate crime,” Lotti said. “We shot the report straight up to the investigative unit.”

Lotti said that police have not found any surveillance cameras in the area of the church, which is located at 751 Alameda de las Pulgas in the San Mateo County city south of San Francisco. The church is a member of the United Church of Christ denomination.

It isn’t the first time in recent months that a church in the area has been targeted due to displaying a Pride flag, In May, Palo Alto police opened a hate crime investigation into the vandalism of the LGBTQ symbol flown by the city’s First Lutheran Church.

A church employee had found it ripped down and reported the incident to police on May 16, as the Mercury News reported.

See page 10 >>

Age with Pride

San Francisco’s budget adds $5.4M for LGBTQ needs

by Matthew S. Bajko

The two-year budget San Francisco leaders have crafted includes funding for various LGBTQ needs, from beefing up security at nonprofits to assisting the local transgender community through an array of programs. Mayor London Breed signed the balanced budget July 26.

The $14.6 billion budgets adopted 10-1 by the Board of Supervisors at its July 18 meeting cover fiscal years 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 and addressed a nearly $800 million deficit over that time frame. According to the office of gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, a member of the board’s budget committee this year, there is roughly $5.4 million in special allocations for LGBTQ programs.

“My colleagues generally recognized the need for these services. A lot of cuts included in the mayor’s budget had needed to get back filled,” said Mandelman, who noted that numerous programs “that had been going, some for a number of years, have always been funded by add backs, and we were able to find add backs to keep them going.”

Mandelman’s office included in its LGBTQ funding total several budget asks made by HIV

service providers, who had rallied in the spring at City Hall to press their case. However, not all of the $7 million in funding they had requested was appropriated. (See story, page 2.)

“These are tough budget times; a lot of things

are on the chopping block,” noted gay District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio, who was elected to his first term last year. “Every group or organization that was in jeopardy had a very compelling case to not lose funding.”

See page 10 >>

SF leather district board member resigns over tweets

by Cynthia Laird

Amember of the San Francisco Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District board resigned July 20, a couple of weeks after he posted tweets that some viewed as racist and anti-trans. It comes as the city’s fetish and leather communities ready for the annual Up Your Alley street fair being held on July 30.

JConr B. Ortega, the organization’s diversity and membership committee chair, posted a statement on Twitter July 20, stating that he has left the cultural district’s board. (Twitter rebranded to X on July 24.)

“It was brought to my attention that political activist(s) in our community have taken issue with my personal stance on various political issues and instead of conducting civil discourse in an entirely separate forum, they, in turn, have pressured members of our leadership to remove a democratically elected board member of a cultural district nonprofit board,” Ortega wrote. “As a board member of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District, I am resigning my position immediately.”

Ortega also wrote that had he not resigned, it was likely the district’s board would have “forced me out by a politically motivated vote to appease the activist(s).” He stated that he did not violate the bylaws of the leather district.

Ortega was likely referring, in part, to retweets of his July 3 post by Lito Sandoval, a former president of the San Francisco Latino Democrats and former

board chair of the GLBT Historical Society. In one of those, Sandoval retweeted Ortega’s tweet in which Ortega wrote. “Wrong lane. This is the Pride lane –trans lane over to the right.”

“Uhhh, So this dood is on the board of @SFleatherDist and @sfyd? With his anti-affirmative action stance and LGB not T attitude? Que lastima! [what a pity]” Sandoval tweeted, referring to the leather district and the San Francisco Young Democrats.

Regarding affirmative action, Ortega had written July 2, “Call me an old fashioned Democrat, I do not support the idea of race being a factor in an admis-

sion to a school. I reject the premise that one’s acceptance should be based on the color of their skin and not the contents of their character, as Dr. King would say.” He was referring to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the late civil rights leader.

The tweet was an apparent reference to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision last month that struck down affirmative action in college admissions.

In a direct message to the Bay Area Reporter July 20, Ortega blamed a Twitter troll but did not specifically name anyone.

See page 10 >>

Rev. Steve Pieters dies

Lucinda Williams Drag King Contest

Courtesy CCB

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman was able to secure funds in the city budget for LGBTQ programs in the Castro and other parts of the city.

Cynthia Laird

JConr B. Ortega stands by San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s Pride float June 25.

From Ortega’s Twitter feed

San Francisco’s budget includes boost for HIV agencies, housing subsidies

by Matthew S. Bajko

HIV advocates were unable to secure all of the $7 million funding ask they were seeking in San Francisco’s budget this year. But they did score a few wins, including a small boost for service providers receiving federal funding, in the two-year budget the Board of Supervisors finalized at its July 18 meeting.

The $14.6 billion budgets covering fiscal years 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 addressed a $780 million deficit over that time span. The supervisors adopted the revised budget 10-1, with District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston opposed, and Mayor London Breed signed the fiscal documents July 26.

“There were some really bad things in the mayor’s proposed budget so, to a great extent, the advocacy community was playing defense and trying to avoid some really bad cuts from happening,” said AIDS Legal Referral Panel Executive Director Bill Hirsh, who co-leads the HIV/AIDS Provider Network, or HAPN. “I think we were largely successful at minimizing the impacts so that there won’t be any service reductions for vulnerable communities.”

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, a member of the board’s budget committee this year, told the Bay Area Reporter that he was pleased, overall, with how the budget negotiations turned out considering the deficit city leaders had to address in order to come to a balanced two-year fiscal plan.

“This was not a great budget year, as you know, and my concern is next year is going to be worse,” said Mandelman.

Specifics on HIV funding

As for the HIV funding asks the supervisors were able to include in the budget, there is $1,250,000 for housing subsidies that will be available for people living with HIV. It is less than the $3.6 million sought by HIV advocates, who noted the money is also earmarked for keeping seniors (60+) and adults with disabilities (18+) housed.

“Here is the rub with the housing subsidies. While we were able to get the $1.25 million for year one, there is

only $500,000 in year two,” said Hirsh, though he noted once people begin receiving the subsidies they have not been cut off by the city in future years. “We are in conversation as we speak with the mayor’s office of housing to try and get this money into contract and do it in a way that allows for the subsidies to continue moving forward.”

He also noted in an interview with the B.A.R. that the budget includes $8 million in rental assistance for people facing an eviction so they can pay their back rent and not lose their current housing.

“Given the affordable housing crisis we face, and given how expensive it is to build new permanent affordable housing, these housing subsidies are the best bang for the buck the city can utilize to address the crisis right now,” said Hirsh.

The supervisors also included a $500,000 allocation to cover what is referred to in budget speak as the cost of doing business. The money is to help HIV agencies funded through the federal Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program cover rising expenses for staff salaries, benefits, and other costs that rise each year due to inflation or other reasons.

“We did fight for the Ryan White cost of doing business increase,” noted Mandelman. “That is important for providers that are serving folks with HIV through the Ryan White act.”

The funding is similar to the 3% increase for the cost of doing business for most service providers given city-funded contracts that Breed had included in her budget proposal that she submitted to the supervisors in the spring. The mayor also included an additional 1% for providers of services related to health and homelessness due to the high rate of staff vacancies such agencies experience.

But her proposal didn’t include Ryan White funded agencies. The city’s most recent allocation from the federal program was $16 million, with the city kicking in $24 million in local funds to maintain the full amount for Ryan White HIV services in the city at $40 million, noted Hirsh.

The cost of doing business allocation for Ryan White-funded agencies is the largest they have “ever gotten,” he told the B.A.R. And it is the first time they have been able to secure such funds in a number of years, Hirsh added.

“It is rare that we have ever received one. I think we got one a couple years ago through the general fund process. I don’t think we have ever gotten 3%,” said Hirsh.

Nonetheless, he noted it is only in the fiscal year that began July 1 and not included in the budget for the fiscal year that begins next July 1 and runs through June 30, 2025.

“The challenge for us is the city bud-

get process is a two-year budget cycle. We got that in year one of the two years and not in year two. We will fight again for it next year,” said Hirsh, though he will do so as an advocate and not as a nonprofit executive, since he will be stepping down from leading ALRP in December.

While the budget approved by the supervisors also allocates $500,000 for the expansion of transgender health care services in the city, it doesn’t include several other fiscal requests that HIV advocates had been demanding this year. Omitted was $500,000 they had sought to fund intensive case management for people living with HIV experiencing acute behavioral health challenges so that they remain in care.

Nor was another $500,000 they wanted to expand mental health services for longterm survivors of the HIV pandemic. The mayor did budget $973,000 for mental health services for people living with HIV, as the B.A.R. previously reported.

The HIV advocates had also sought $1 to $2 million to open a safe consumption site for drug users with the goal of preventing fatal overdoses and connecting them to services that wasn’t allocated in the budget. As the B.A.R. previously reported, Breed did include $18.9 million in her budget proposal to open up to three Wellness Hubs over the two budget years “to improve the health and well-being of people who use drugs, including those experiencing homelessness, and reduce public drug use.”

But any safe consumption site “would be funded by private entities,” the mayor’s budget document had specified.

(City Attorney David Chiu has argued no city dollars can be spent on opening such a facility.)

As for $1.5 million the San Francisco AIDS Foundation was seeking for its Stonewall Project program that provides harm reduction services to drug users, Mandelman told the B.A.R. the supervisors and mayor’s office worked out a deal to see the funding be appropriated. The city’s Department of Public Health had cut the Stonewall funds in the budget it submitted to the mayor earlier this year.

“We felt keeping Stonewall going

was pretty important,” said Mandelman.

Breed’s office had told the B.A.R. in June that the health department anticipated it could redirect $1.6 million in funding to Stonewall but doing so requires sign off from the city’s health commission. The oversight body has yet to vote on the money, based on a review of its agendas.

Gay SFAF CEO Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D., told the B.A.R. his agency is “glad” that the health department will fill the program’s funding gap and expressed appreciation for Mandelman’s “persistence and focus” on the issue.

“Serving hundreds of community members every year, the Stonewall Project at SFAF provides individuals interested in changing their relationship to substances with comprehensive counseling, harm reduction, mental health, and group support,” stated TerMeer in an emailed reply. “It is one of the few state-certified drug and alcohol treatment programs that specifically addresses the unique needs of gay, bisexual, queer, and trans men and other men who have sex with men, and serves as a vital resource for our community.”

Hirsh praised District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, the board’s budget chair this year, and her staff for “doing an amazing job” under difficult circumstances. He also noted “it was great” to have assistance for the first time from three gay men on the board due to the elections last year of District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio and District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey.

As for what next year holds, Hirsh predicted HIV advocates are likely to face an even tougher budgetary environment as they press their fiscal requests with city leaders.

“I feel like the city is facing some real challenges around revenue. I think in order to have a budget that truly reflects the values of San Francisco there need to be more robust conversations around how to address those needs,” he said. t

B.A.R. freelancers receive NLGJA awards

by Cynthia Laird

Two arts freelancers for the Bay Area Reporter will receive awards from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists.

Victoria Brownworth, a lesbian who pens the Lavender Tube column for the B.A.R. and has written for many other publications, is the recipient of the Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for the LGBTQ+ Journalist of the Year Award, according to a news release from NLGJA. Pettit, a lesbian,

was a pioneering figure in LGBTQ media. She was the founding editor of Out magazine, which she co-founded with Michael Goff. She died of lymphoma in 2003 at the age of 36. Brownworth, who has been a columnist for the B.A.R. since 1992, wrote in an email, “I am thrilled to have been chosen for this prestigious award. At a time when the LGBTQ community is under dire threat from the MAGA GOP, and our rights are being eroded by the courts, reporting by out LGBTQ journalists has never

been more crucial.”

Brownworth said she is “grateful to the NLGJA for the recognition” of her reporting and the work she has done to bring “important news and feature stories and series about and for our community to both the mainstream media and our vital LGBTQ press, like the B.A.R.” Brownworth added that she and Pettit worked together at OutWeek and OUT magazines, “so winning an award named for her has special significance to me.”

Jim Gladstone, a gay man who covers theater and other arts for the paper, was named the recipient of the Excellence in Travel Writing Award for “A Postcard from Berlin” for Passport magazine. (https://passportmagazine. com/a-postcard-from-berlin/)

“The award is a big honor and a big surprise,” Gladstone wrote in an email. “I didn’t enter the competition. My story was entered by Passport editor in chief Robert Adams. I’ve been writing for Passport since 2002, when it was based in an office on Castro Street (it’s now in New York).”

B.A.R. arts and nightlife editor Jim Provenzano, a gay man, praised both writers.

“Victoria A. Brownworth’s recognition is well deserved,” Provenzano stated. “Along with her political journalism for other publications, she has produced a television column for the B.A.R. for nearly three decades that explores visibility of LGBTQ actors and characters, and also offers insight on societal changes in media representation.

“From his features on musical theater to dramatic plays and cabaret artists, writer Jim Gladstone has provided insightful input through his reviews and deft interviews with performers,” he added. “His recognized work for Passport also includes literary and travel features.”

B.A.R. publisher Michael Yamashita, a gay man, congratulated Brownworth and Gladstone.

“I’m not surprised that Victoria

Brownworth has garnered another award for her writing accomplishments,” Yamashita stated. “She deserves NLGJA’s recognition of journalist of the year.”

He added, “B.A.R. readers know Jim Gladstone for his consistent, insightful theater reviews, but now also a talented travel writer. Kudos to both Victoria and James!”

In addition to Brownworth and Gladstone, a number of other journalists were also recognized with awards. NLGJA officials commended all of them.

The new city budget includes a boost for HIV agencies and housing subsidies.

Steven Underhill

Courtesy the subject

Trans district kicks off history month

compiled by Cynthia Laird

The Transgender District and Opera Parallèle will kick off Transgender History Month with “Expansive 2023: A Showcase of Transgender and Nonbinary Classical Artists.” The shows takes place Thursday and Friday, August 3-4, at 7:30 p.m. at the Strand Theater, 1127 Market Street in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, Mayor London Breed will observe Transgender History Month by raising the trans flag at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Wednesday, August 2, at 11:30 a.m. on the Mayor’s Balcony, second floor, according to her office.

A news release from the trans district stated that “Expansive” will feature musical performances by award-winning classical singer Katherine Goforth; Detroit-based harpist and multidisciplinary artist Ahya Simone; and mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz, who will also incorporate aerial work into their performance, with accompaniment by Taylor Chan. Serving as host will be San Francisco’s own DIVAlicious Dreamgirl Afrika America.

Goforth recently served as the dramaturge of Opera Theater Oregon’s workshop of “Nu Nah-Hup: Sacajawea’s Story,” a new work that reimagines the story of Sacajawea, the release noted. She also received the True Voice Award from the Washington National Opera and the Career Advancement Award from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Women in Classical Music Symposium.

Simone is a multi-hyphenate harpist whose work in music and film is recognized across multiple institutions, the release stated. She was the first Black trans woman to receive a Knight Fellow at the Sundance Institute (2018), and her web series, “Femme Queen Chronicles,” screened at the 20th annual Allied Media Conference.

Printz is a multifaceted artist who combines opera with aerial perfor-

mance. They first started training in aerial performance when they were a company resident at Opera Memphis. They recently made their debut with the San Francisco Symphony, performing their original act, “Meine Lippen sie Kussen so Heiss,” on the trapeze for its Holiday Gaieties concert.

The release stated that pay what you can tickets start at $10. For tickets and more information, go to https://tinyurl. com/yjwtkwkj.

Muttville senior dog adoption day

Muttville Senior Dog Rescue, the nonprofit that works to get older pooches adopted, will be having a community day Sunday, July 30, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the lawn of the Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery Street in the Presidio in San Francisco.

The event coincides with the museum’s latest exhibit, “Disney Cats & Dogs,” which explores the innovation of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ animal-inspired animation and storytelling through the decades, and the massive

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU

UCSF

We’re

That’s

into the community’s past. The 2023 cohort transformed these interviews into audio stories to be released weekly starting this week.

sations with those trailblazers,” Ladner stated.

We

undertaking involved bringing the iconic cats and dogs to life on screen.

In a news release, the museum said it is partnering with Muttville to bring adoptable dogs to the facility with the hope of matching them with their forever homes. People can meet, cuddle, and walk the dogs, and practice live animal sketching using the dogs as models.

The event is free to attend and no registration is required. Standard adoption fees apply and dogs cannot be taken home that day. Rather, guests will be shown how to submit adoption applications on Muttville’s website.

For more information on Muttville, go to muttville.org.

For more information on the museum, go to waltdisney.org.

LGBTQ+ trailblazers on new radio episodes

ONE Archives Foundation in Los Angeles has unveiled its new season of Youspeak Radio, an educational initiative that pairs high school students with California-based LGBTQ+ activists for in-depth conversations that offer insight

The trailblazers featured include gay former Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin, who was thrust into the media spotlight last year after racist and bigoted audio recordings made by other councilmembers and a labor official were leaked that included a racist slur used against Bonin’s adopted Black son; gender-fluid multidisciplinary artist Dorian Wood; political activist Terence Alan Smith, known as his drag persona Joan Jett Blakk; bisexuality expert Mimi Hoang, Ph.D., a psychologist and educator; healer and trans community leader the Reverend Valerie Spencer; and queer historian Amy Sueyoshi, Ph.D., provost and vice president of academic affairs at San Francisco State University.

Those who were interviewed praised the project.

“I am just so touched that ONE has this platform to help youth,” stated Hoang. “You are going to change the world. It makes me happy as someone who is older to be able to impart some of my experiences.”

Youspeak Radio equips students with audio storytelling, oral history, and interview skills necessary to bring stories to life, the release noted. This year’s program is led by Trevor Ladner, ONE Archives Foundation’s new education programs manager. As a former K-12 social studies educator, Ladner champions initiatives to make LGBTQ+ history more accessible to queer and trans teens, the release stated.

“In a time of attacks on a new generation of LGBTQ+ people, I am inspired by the knowledge and passion that our youth fellows brought to their conver-

Tony Valenzuela, a gay man who is the foundation’s executive director, stated, “By connecting our community’s youth with our community’s elders, ONE is playing a vital role in passing down queer legacies to tomorrow’s leaders, making the future stronger and safer for all.”

To listen to the interviews, go to onearchives.org/youspeakradio.

Chalk festival in Daly City

Westlake Shopping Center in Daly City invites people to attend a free, funfilled “Hello Sunshine” chalk festival Saturday, July 29, from noon to 3 p.m.

According to a news release, festival artists will utilize hundreds of sticks of pastel chalk to create spectacular murals on the pavement encompassing a full city block at the shopping center. In addition to the chalk artists, a DJ will be spinning upbeat summer music while open-air artists will have easels and canvases located throughout the event.

The festival includes family-friendly activities such as a kids’ chalkland where children can create their own works, as well as a craft section where children can decorate a butterflyshaped suncatcher.

The release stated that there will be a youth chalk art challenge in which amateur student artists ages 14-18 are invited to create their own chalk mural during the festival for a chance to win $200 worth of Westlake Shopping Center merchant gift cards.

Students interested in signing up should contact Karla Ross at karla@karlaross.com.

For more information on the festival, go to westlake.shopkimco.com. t

ucsfhealth.org/lgbtq-care

Trans and nonbinary artists Katherine Goforth, left, Ahya Simone, and Nikola Printz will appear at “Expansive 2023” to help kick off Transgender History Month in San Francisco.

Courtesy Transgender District

SFPD chief defends mass arrests at ‘hill bomb’

by John Ferrannini

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott gave a dramatic multimedia presentation to the Police Commission July 19 in an attempt to quell criticism of the department’s mass arrest of teenagers during what law enforcement characterized as a “riot” following chaos at the annual “hill bomb” skateboard event down Dolores Street earlier this month.

“Nobody was arrested for skateboarding,” Scott said. “Our No.1 responsibility is to protect the safety of the people of San Francisco. On July 8, we deployed officers to do just that.”

Over 100 people were arrested at the event that day, mostly juveniles.

Gunshots, smoke bombs, a stabbing, vandalism, the takeover of Muni streetcars, and fireworks led to the mass arrest (https://www.ebar.com/story. php?ch=news&sc=news&id=326782) around 8:30 p.m. July 8 after dispersal orders from the San Francisco Police Department, authorities said. In all, 81 juveniles and 34 adults were arrested, according to police.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s office said July 11 that most of the adults arrested and booked were issued citations for misdemeanors. When asked about the juveniles, Randy Quezada, spokesperson for the DA’s office, stated to the B.A.R. that the “juvenile proceedings are confidential.”

The crowd was ordered dispersed when, during the arrest of two juveniles after an officer suffered lacerations to the face, people in the crowd threw “ignited fireworks, smoke bombs, glass bottles, and metal cans” at arresting officers, police stated. After barricades for the hill bomb erected by the police started to be torn down – about 45 minutes later – the mass arrest was conducted. A hill bomb is a skateboard maneuver in which a rider goes down a big hill.

Responses in the community were mixed, with some like gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman thanking the police for taking action, while others such as gay Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club President Jeffrey Kwong likening the SFPD response to police marching down Castro Street following the White Night Riots in 1979, when officers went to the Castro to beat up patrons at the Elephant Walk.

At the July 12 Police Commission meeting, Scott had promised a “detailed account” of events, as the B.A.R. reporte At the outset of Wednesday’s meeting, Police Commission President Cindy Elias stated that both internal SFPD and

Department of Police Accountability investigations of the police response have begun and are underway.

Upon completion, areas will be identified that the commissioners can address, Elias added.

Unpermitted event

Scott began by saying that tear gas and rubber bullets were not used, and that everyone arrested was given their Miranda warning, as required by law. He also said stories of youth urinating themselves have not yet been confirmed in the department’s own investigation.

“So far we have not seen anything to corroborate these claims but we are still viewing the hundreds of hours of footage,” Scott said.

Residents of the neighborhoods around Mission Dolores Park had been increasingly asking the city to get more involved in the unpermitted event, Scott said, after one hill bomb turned fatal for a cyclist in 2020 after he collided with a skateboarder. But issues had been mounting for years earlier. Scott played a video of a 2017 KGO-TV news report showing a skater sustaining an injury that required staples in his head. Police at the time said emergency responders were impeded in responding by attacks from members of the crowd.

“The city has been seeing an increase in demand from residents to intervene,”

Scott said. “I want to emphasize this is an unpermitted event with no organized leadership. It’s dangerous for the participants as well as pedestrians and cyclists who are not participating but are in danger of being struck.”

The officers were not in riot gear initially, but donned it after bottles, cans, and fireworks started being thrown, the chief said. Scott then showed videos showing two fireworks and one bottle being thrown.

“Officers in the past have sustained serious injuries due to illegal fireworks,”

Scott said. “Some have sustained permanent disabilities and have been unable to return to duty.”

It was the attack on a police officer with an object presumed to be a nail that led to a further escalation. That’d been during the process of an arrest of a person on suspicion of spitting in an officer’s face, according to Scott.

“It’s unacceptable and illegal to spit in a police officer’s face,” Scott said. “We will arrest anyone who spits in an officer’s face without hesitation, and it should go without saying attacking an officer is something we take very seriously.”

After that, at 7:09 p.m., the SFPD de-

clared an unlawful assembly. Twelve orders to disperse were read over a megaphone and with a longer-range acoustic device over the next 80 minutes.

Gunshots near the Muni J-Church line led officers to respond there, where they found vandalism to the Muni light rail vehicle, an F-line heritage street car, and several buses. It was at that point that the assembly was declared a riot, Scott said.

“Riots are declared when an unlawful assembly escalates to widespread violence and vandalism,” Scott said.

Police discharged ERIWs, or extended range impact weapons, 15 times, Scott said.

“In each case, the officers targeted individuals about to or actively throwing fireworks at them,” Scott said. “It’s not so funny when fingers get blown off. There were 5-year-old kids out there  – it’s not so funny when a firework lands in front of these 5-year-old kids. It’s not a joke and there needs to be some accountability.”

The mass arrests started in the 8 p.m. hour, Scott said. Arrested juveniles were given a “know your rights” card and were ordered to sit on the ground until a bus arrived to transport them to the SFPD’s Mission Station, also near the park.

“They were ordered to sit on the ground because they’d not been searched and the crowd had demonstrated violent behavior,” Scott said.

Scott: Police had wanted to stop hill bomb

The police’s intention in showing up was to prevent the hill bomb from taking place. Scott said the department had learned the 2023 event was going to occur just three days earlier.

“Announcing it, posting up, could’ve

led to some conversation and a less violent incident,” Commissioner Jesus Yáñez said. “I don’t condone fireworks being thrown where there are children. I commend our officers for entering the space in a, it seems like, respectful manner. Things devolved quickly, and it became very challenging, but I still believe there was a failure of de-escalation.”

Elias said that the police had missed an opportunity for outreach to the community.

“There’s all this outreach the department does in the community, and I’m just wondering why the department didn’t engage in any of those strategies if they knew that everything would be happening, because it’s been happening for years,” she said.

Scott said that the event has no organized leadership and likened it to stunt racing.

“Sometimes you don’t have the luxury of waiting,” Scott said. “Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.”

Elias also asked if it’s possible innocent people were arrested because they were caught up in the fray. Scott said that it’s a crime to violate a dispersal order, but conceded once the police came in for the mass arrest people may have been arrested who’d just happened to be in the area, even if they’d been trying to leave.

“Is there a possibility some people were caught up in this? Yes. But the dispersal order was read repeatedly to give people the opportunity to leave,” Scott said. “A lot of people did leave. The group that remained was still behaving violently.”

Scott focused his remarks on those who allegedly committed other crimes during the chaos.

“We do plan to present the evidence of people actually involved in vandalism, assault, and all that,” Scott said.

“Once that’s done we’ll be able to tell who were actually doing what, to a certain degree.”

Scott got boos when he said the teenagers arrested got the opportunity to call their parents. The Public Defender’s Office was also notified, he said.

“There definitely were some delays, yes,” Scott said. “Every child was picked up. Somebody had to be called to pick them up.”

Commissioner Kevin Benedicto asked Scott when the last mass arrest of this size was. Scott said there were mass arrests during the 2020 George Floyd protests condemning Minneapolis police officers’ murder of the Black man, but didn’t remember their sizes. He also didn’t recall the last mass arrest of juveniles that was so large.

“Is it possible there haven’t been this number of juveniles arrested in your tenure since you’ve started?” Benedicto asked. Scott, who became chief in 2017, agreed that is possible.

Yáñez said getting the event permitted and established would help, bringing up the Día de los Muertos festivities in the Mission every November as an example.

“The police department steps aside and we have community members chaperoning 20 to 50 to 100 individuals – all community led, community driven,” Yáñez said. “We’ve never had an incident.

“San Francisco is a mecca of skating, and people are going to continue to come here to skate,” he said. “I hope when people give public comment we can get solutions going forward.”

Among the commenters was teenager Max Reyes, who said he was speaking for those arrested.

“A lot of them were scared and vulnerable,” Reyes said. “I understand there was hectic going on but I don’t understand why the police treated us the way they did, not knowing who did what when it happened. That’s all I really have to say.”

Leslie, a young woman who didn’t give a last name, agreed.

“I was scared and I just really don’t understand why we were treated like animals. Even though some behavior is unacceptable, I didn’t know why I was treated that way or why at that moment. Just let us skate, please,” she said.

Jennifer Blanco, a trustee of the San Bruno Park District, brought up a solution similar to Yáñez.

“Seven of our kids were treated that way here in this city where I actually grew up,” she said, adding that like Carnival, the Italian Heritage parade and the Pride parade, the city should find a way to make the hill bomb a success.

“We can do it for our kids,” she said. “I’m all for safety – let’s do it for our kids – let them have fun. Let them skate.” t

Mental health experts to reevaluate defendant

by John Ferrannini

The man who faces trial in a Castro-area hate crime case will have the opportunity for another meeting with mental health experts before it’s decided whether he will enter a diversion program in lieu of prosecution.

Muhammed Abdullah, 20, had a court date Wednesday in Department 22 at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice, at 850 Bryant Street. Superior Court Judge Brendan P. Conroy presided.

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reporte, Abdullah is accused of stealing a rainbow flag and then hitting a man with a “glass object” in the vicinity of 18th and Hartford streets just before noon June 5, according to police. He’d been following the man and another man “aggressively shouting anti-LGBTQ language,” the San Francisco Police Department previously stated in the news release.

Scott Wazlowski

The defendant in a Castro-area hate crime case has indicated he wants another meeting with mental health experts.

In addition to hate crimes, Abdullah was also charged with misdemeanor battery, violation of a person’s civil rights, and petty theft. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts and remains in custody.

During Abdullah’s June arraignment, he made clear his disdain for the LGBTQ community in a statement

during court, saying, “what the LGBT community is doing to kids is disrespectful to everyone who stands for God.” A San Francisco sheriff’s deputy was overheard by a reporter saying Abdullah was “in the tank screaming” for some time before he was called before the judge that day.

At a July 5 hearing, Judge Harry M. Dorfman set a trial date of August 18 pending the completion of an evaluation of Abdullah by a mental health professional.

That meeting had happened by the time of the July 19 hearing, when the issue of whether Abdullah should enter a diversion program was to be decided. But Abdullah might want to meet with them again, and thus the issue will be postponed again.

“They were asking for August 9,” Conroy said, referring to the proposed new date for the diversion issue to be

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott showed video that included a glass bottle, circled, being hurled at police from Dolores Street during the July 8 hill bomb event.

Screengrab via SFGovTV

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott spoke at the July 19 Police Commission meeting.

Screengrab SFGovTV

by Liz Highleyman

Aman dubbed the Geneva Patient may be the sixth person to be functionally cured of HIV after a stem cell transplant for cancer treatment, researchers reported ahead of the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science, taking place in Brisbane, Australia. But unlike the other five cases of people being cured of the disease, he received stem cells from a donor who does not have a rare mutation that protects against HIV.

“What has happened to me is wonderful and magical,” the unidentified man said in a statement. “We can now focus on the future.”

The man, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1990, received chemotherapy and radiation followed by a stem cell transplant to treat an aggressive type of sarcoma in July 2018. The procedure used so-called wild-type stem cells that lack the CCR5-delta-32 mutation, which knocks out receptors HIV uses to enter cells. After the transplant, he developed graft-versus-host disease – which occurs when donor immune cells attack the recipient’s body – and was treated with immunosuppressive medications.

The man maintained an undetectable viral load, and three years after the transplant, he and his doctors decided to try an antiretroviral treatment interruption in November 2021. Now, 20 months later, he shows no evidence of HIV rebound, Asier Sáez‐Cirión, Ph.D., of Institut Pasteur in Paris, reported at a preconference media briefing on July 19.

The man has no detectable HIV RNA in his blood according to the most sensitive tests, and the researchers have only been able to find traces of defective, not intact, virus in his T-cells and bone marrow.

What’s more, he does not show HIVspecific T-cell immune responses and his HIV antibodies have declined, suggesting there may be no remaining virus.

“All the immunological markers we have analyzed have been unable to detect HIV products,” Sáez‐Cirión said. “We cannot exclude that there is still some virus present ... so there may be viral rebound in the future, although we hope this situation of viral remission remains permanent.”

Experts caution that continued monitoring and further testing are needed, as transplants using nonmutated stem cells have failed to cure HIV in the past. The virus inserts its genetic blueprints into host cells and establishes a long-lasting viral reservoir that has proved nearly impossible to eliminate.

“This is great news, but case reports are case reports,” IAS president

Dr. Sharon Lewin of the University of Melbourne said at another media briefing. “This individual will need to be watched closely over the next months to years.”

Previous cures and failures

Former San Francisco resident XBerlin Patient, was the first person to be cured of HIV. His physician in Germany, Dr. Gero Hütter, came up with the idea to use cells from a donor with the CCR5-delta-32 mutation, hoping that it might cure both his leukemia and HIV. The second transplant was successful, but Brown nearly died from graftversus-host disease.

Brown, a gay man, stopped antiretroviral treatment at the time of his first transplant, but his viral load did not rebound. Over the years, researchers extensively tested his blood and tissue samples, finding no evidence of functional HIV any-

where in his body. At the time of his death from leukemia in September 2020, he had been free of HIV for more than 13 years.

Marc Franke, dubbed the Dusseldorf Patient, received a double CCR5-delta-32 stem cell transplant more than a decade ago and stopped antiretroviral treatment nearly five years ago. In April, his doctors finally declared that he’s cured. A man in London, a woman treated in New York City, and a Southern California man also received transplants using stem cells with the same mutation and have had undetectable HIV for two to six years after stopping antiretrovirals.

Many experts assumed the CCR5-delta-32 mutation was the key to success, but the latest case calls this into question. Pre-transplant chemotherapy and radiation, the graft-versus-host reaction, and post-transplant immunosuppressive drugs may have also played a role.

Previous attempts to cure HIV with stem cells lacking the mutation have not led to long-term viral remission. A decade ago, Dr. Timothy Henrich, now at UCSF, reported that two HIV-positive men in Boston appeared to be in remission after transplants using wild-type stem cells. But hopes were dashed when they experienced viral rebound three and eight months after stopping antiretrovirals.

The Geneva patient “has already achieved far longer durable HIV remission without treatment than the Boston patients, lasting 20 months so far,” said Lewin. But those cases showed that even a single remaining viral particle could trigger a rebound, so “this individual will need to be watched closely over the next months to years.”

According to Henrich, the new case raises several interesting pos-

sibilities. The man’s chronic graftversus-host disease and long-term use of the immunosuppressive drug ruxolitinib might be helping to keep HIV in check. The fact that he used on-demand PrEP on two occasions after stopping antiretroviral treatment might also be important.

“It is possible that in the setting of a very low reservoir with a very rare chance of viral reactivation events, intermittent [antiretroviral] exposure may have partially suppressed whatever low-level residual viral activity was smoldering in tissues, leading to longer-term remission,” Henrich told the Bay Area Reporter.

“Whatever the contribution of each of these factors, there is a suggestion that long-term remission following allogeneic stem cell transplant with CCR5 wild-type donor cells may be possible, but is likely to be rare.”

Using stem cells without a double CCR5-delta32 mutation – which only occurs in about 1% of Caucasians – could offer more HIV-positive cancer patients the chance to be cured of HIV as well. But the costly procedure is too risky for people who don’t have a life-threatening malignancy, and it is far from feasible for the vast majority of people living with HIV worldwide.

Nonetheless, each new case provides clues that could lead to a more widely applicable functional cure for HIV. Scientists are now exploring various strategies, including CRISPR gene editing, that could be used to delete or disable CCR5 receptors and make an individual’s own immune cells resistant to HIV.

“I agree that case reports are case reports ... but I think that these kind of reports have a lot of value,” Sáez ‐Cirión said. “Once we understand the mechanism, even if it’s from a case report, it can give us a lot of valuable information.” t

Asier Sáez‐Cirión, Ph.D. of Institut Pasteur in Paris Courtesy Institut Pasteur

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Chino school board’s decision is dangerous

Onthe heels of the attempt by the conservative Temecula school board in Southern California (https://www.ebar.com/story. php?ch=news&sc=news&id=327034) to ban textbooks, the equally right-wing Chino Valley Unified School District board in San Bernardino County has adopted a policy that is dangerous. It will forcibly out transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming students to their parents without the student’s consent. At a contentious meeting July 20, the board had elected state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond ejected from the meeting after he attempted to return to the podium to respond to comments by school board President Sonja Shaw, who accused him of “proposing things that pervert children.”

Thurmond, who recently announced that he’s exploring a run for governor in 2026, wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “I don’t mind being thrown out of a board meeting by extremists. I can take the heat – it’s part of the job. What I can’t accept is the mistreatment of vulnerable students whose privacy is being taken away.”

In a fundraising letter to supporters, Thurmond added, “In all my years as an education leader, I’ve never seen behavior like what was displayed by the Chino Valley Unified school board president this past week.”

The school board’s new policy is chilling. It will impact trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming students who may not be ready to come out to their parents or who may face real harm if they do. By requiring school officials to forcibly out these students to their parents without their consent, the Chino school board has sacrificed learning for pandering to social conservatives, just like all the Republican lawmakers in red states who have voted for bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth – and the governors

who have signed that legislation. State Attorney General Rob Bonta sent an urgent letter to the school board and the district superintendent ahead of the vote, urging them to safeguard students’ rights to privacy and promising to take appropriate action to protect students’ civil rights.

“The protection of every student’s privacy and safety is of utmost importance, and that includes protecting their right to choose when, how, and with whom they share their gender identity. That is a personal decision for them, and them alone,” Bonta stated in a news release.

Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ rights group, was also alarmed by the school board’s decision. It, too, had staff removed from the meeting, according to a news release.

“With LGBTQ+ youth around the country under attack, the school board put their most

Montpellier takes pride as the ‘French San Francisco’

by Malcolm Biiga

On May 29, 2013, a month after the final adoption of Marriage for All, then Montpellier mayor Hélène Mandroux presided at the very first same-sex wedding in France. Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau became the first gay couple to be married. First in history, Montpellier became the center of attention: Agence France-Presse gave the city a new nickname when it wrote, “international media converged on Montpellier – dubbed the French San Francisco.” It turns out the moniker is far from anecdotal given the shared history between the two cities.

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A month after the ceremony in Montpellier, San Francisco also celebrated its first same-sex wedding after winning a court case: lesbian activists Kris Perry and Sandy Stier said “I do” before the California Attorney General Kamala Harris, now vice president of the United States. Perry and Stier were the lead plaintiffs in an epic legal battle to obtain the right to marry, which was recognized in 2013 in California after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn an appeals court decision that Proposition 8, the state’s same-sex marriage ban, was unconstitutional. (Same-sex marriage was legal in California for a brief period before Prop 8’s passage in 2008.)

It wasn’t until 2015 and the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that America saw “Marriage for All,” as it’s called in France, legalized nationwide.

Gay or lesbian, French or American, from Montpellier or San Francisco, these “pioneers of pride” were the faces of Marriage for All on both sides of the Atlantic. Ten years later, Autin and Perry agreed to participate in interviews with me. More than ever “allies,” Montpellier and San Francisco commemorated the “rainbow decade” together.

The rainbow awakening in Montpellier and SF

What’s viewed as the catalyst for the modern LGBTQ rights movement occurred in 1969 with the Stonewall riots in New York City. Regularly arrested by the police, the LGBTQ community rebelled against the authorities. On June 28, 1969, gays, lesbians, and transgender people let their voices heard in the infamous gay bar, the Stonewall Inn. This event became the founding act of Pride celebrations in New York City, San Francisco, and numerous other cities, and of the LGBTQ struggle around the globe.

The aftermath of Stonewall saw the launch of the Gay Liberation Front in New York City, and 1977 marked a turning point: on June 25 of that year, 400 LGBTQs marched in Paris’ first Gay Pride. The call to demonstrate was issued by the Groupe de Libération Homosexuelle (GLG) and the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes (MLF). The crowd rallied behind the slogan “Phallocracy, morality, virility, enough is enough!” Far from the capital, 1977 also marked a turning point for Montpellier and San Francisco.

Perry believes that what Montpellier and San Francisco have in common is that both cities have had courageous municipal officials: “The LGBTQ struggle is all about leaders. A mayor can change a city, a country, and the world,” she said in an interview. In 1977, Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official in California when he won his San Francisco supervisor race. Sadly, he was assassinated in November 1978, 11 months after taking office, but his legacy lives on. In February 2004, San Francisco mayor (and current California governor) Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to issue

vulnerable students in harm’s way with their dangerous vote to forcibly out trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming youth without their consent,” Executive Director Tony Hoang stated July 21. “The policy they passed last night is dangerous and in direct opposition to recommendations made by the California Department of Education.”

Hoang, a gay man, pointed to Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health that found 51% of trans and nonbinary youth identified school as a gender-affirming space, while only 32% said the same of their homes. (The survey included responses from 44,828 LGBTQ youth ages 13-24.) Hoang also noted that queer youth are more likely to be housing insecure and engage in self-harming behavior – particularly if they don’t feel they have a supportive family environment.

See page 11 >>

marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Some 4,000 same-sex couples married during what became known as the “Winter of Love” before the California Supreme Court declared their unions null and void.

In France, George Frêche was elected mayor of Montpellier in 1977. For Autin, the election was the starting point for “the city’s particular history with LGBT struggles.” One of the mayor’s first acts was to grant a place to meet for the GLH (Groupe de Libération Homosexuelle). A powerful political act that transformed Montpellier into a haven of tolerance. In 2009, Mayor Mandroux delivered the “Appel de Montpellier,” a speech in favor of same-sex marriage. France is a U.S. ally in the LGBTQ struggle

In 2014, France celebrated the first anniversary of Marriage for All, and Autin wanted to mark the occasion. “As president of the Montpellier Pride, I wanted to reinforce the city’s image as the French San Francisco. So I decided to invite Stuart Milk,” he said in an interview. An LGBTQ rights activist, Stuart Milk is the gay nephew of Harvey Milk. Stuart Milk, founder of the Harvey Milk Foundation,

Kris Perry, with her spouse, Sandy Stier, drove then-attorney general and presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, in the 2019 San Francisco Pride parade.

Bill Wilson

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond was escorted from the Chino Valley school board meeting July 20.

West Hollywood mayor Shyne eyes halls of Congress

by Matthew S. Bajko

L esbian West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne’s political career has been one of firsts. Her election in November 2020 marked the first time a woman of color had won a seat on the West Hollywood City Council and resulted in the fivemember governing body having its first female-majority.

Shyne’s taking over her city’s ceremonial mayoral role in January marked the first time a California municipality had an Iranian female mayor. She also is the first out LGBTQ Iranian mayor in the world, having already become the first known queer Iranian to be elected to public office.

Now Shyne, 46, is aiming to become the first out Iranian elected to the U.S. Congress and the first out woman of color to win a House seat in California, as well as the West Coast. She is running in the crowded 2024 field for the open 30th Congressional District seat being vacated by Congressmember Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who is running next year to succeed retiring U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California).

It is time for the district to have LGBTQ representation, said Shyne.

“This is the largest LGBTQ congressional district,” noted Shyne, adding that, “allies don’t have the experience needed to create policies truly reflective of what the people need.” With just 11 current LGBTQ members in the House, Shyne argued, “We need so much more representation.”

Nearly 20 people have pulled papers to seek the seat, including gay Armenian Americans Jirair Ratevosian, Ph.D., and Dr. Alex Balekian, an ICU physician. Ratevosian is a Democrat and former legislative director for Congressmember Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), who is also running for Feinstein’s seat. Balekian had filed as no-party preference but recently switched to run as a Republican.

He also has come under fire from another candidate, Maebe A Girl, for misgendering her and using her deadname. (Due to federal election rules, she must use G. Pudlo in addition to her preferred name for her ballot designation.) A nonbinary drag queen elected in 2019 as the at-large representative for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles, she is running a third time for Schiff’s congressional seat.

She didn’t advance out of the 2020 primary but did in 2022, losing to Schiff last November. Now she is counting on her voters from those prior races to help propel her out of the primary where only the top two vote-getters regardless of party affiliation will advance.

Also running and the focus of much media coverage in the race are Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D-Burbank) and Democratic former state legislators Anthony Portantino, who served in the Senate, and Mike Feuer, who served in the Assembly and later on the Los Angeles City Council. Portantino ran unsuccessfully last year for a county supervisor seat, while his gay son lost his bid to succeed his father in the Legislature.

In early July the Iranian American Political Action Committee endorsed Shyne. Most LGBTQ groups have yet to endorse in the House race, though Shyne does have the support of LPAC, which works to elect lesbians, queer women, and nonbinary people to office.

The Bay Area Reporter met up with Shyne and her nearly 9-yearold mixed-breed dog Chloe, sworn

in as the city’s first pet mayor on April 1, for an interview at Miss Melbourne Coffee not far from City Hall.

“She loves it, though we thought there would be a lot more for her to do,” said Shyne, explaining her dog’s only official event to date was a tree planting on Arbor Day. “She pooped on the dirt, so she helped to fertilize the soil.”

Coming out of the stress of COVID, Shyne wanted to add some levity to her mayoral term by creating the canine leadership post. Plus, West Hollywood is a very pet-friendly city, she noted.

“We went through so much in the pandemic. I wanted to do something fun and lighthearted,” said Shyne.

On a more serious note, among Shyne’s achievements on the council include setting the highest minimum wage of a U.S. city (it’s now $19.08 an hour) and banning singleuse plastics at city businesses. She advocated for the creation of a social justice task force that is now an official advisory board for the City Council and is working to launch a crisis response team this winter to handle mental health calls instead of the police.

A gender-neutral bathroom policy she helped pass led to changes in state plumbing requirements, and Santa Monica this spring passed a similar requirement after leaders in both cities backed a state law to make such policies easier to implement.

“It didn’t become a culture war on bathrooms because we focused on how it would help all people,” said Shyne, referring to Republican-led statehouses passing laws restricting what bathrooms transgender people can use.

Shyne has raised more than $315,000 for her campaign and aims to net $1 million by the primary in order to get her message out to voters. Key to that will be her get-outthe-vote efforts she plans to ramp up after the holidays in early January.

“I feel confident. My intuition is people feel it is time for change,” said Shyne, stressing that what will be key “is reaching voters. Once I am able to share my story, a majority of voters will vote for me. People don’t vote for policy; people vote for who they can relate to.”

Bay Area ties

Shyne has deep ties to the Bay Area, settling in Cupertino in the South Bay in 1982 after she and her family fled the Iranian revolution. She graduated from San Jose State University then the Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco.

It was being harassed at a San Jose coffeehouse by a police officer during her second year of college in 1997 while holding hands with her girlfriend at the time that led Shyne into the legal field. The manager had

called the cops on the women, who were told they had to leave.

“He blew me a kiss and winked at me,” recalled Shyne of the police officer. “We knew it was wrong but didn’t know it was illegal.”

She had been talking about her future plans with her girlfriend and that day decided they both needed to go into law.

“The purpose was to become empowered to help,” explained Shyne, who served on the board of BALIF, the Bay Area’s LGBTQ bar association, and in 2008 co-led the LGBTQ legal group in Los Angeles.

She had relocated in 2006 and first lived with her sister in Beverly Hills. Shyne then moved to Long Beach and to West Hollywood in 2009 to be closer to a former girlfriend who had tipped her off about the apartment she continues to rent.

“I love West Hollywood,” said Shyne.

She now owns her own law firm, focusing on business law and trademark issues, and is also a Reiki master energy healer. Shyne formerly served on the board of governors for national LGBTQ advocacy organization the Human Rights Campaign and worked on the Proposition 8 campaign in 2008, which saw voters narrowly ban marriage equality in California.

(Should she survive the March primary, Shyne will find herself on the fall ballot next year along with a measure to repeal Prop 8’s language from the state constitution.)

After Prop 8 was found unconstitutional in 2013 and the Supreme Court expanded marriage equality to all 50 states in 2015, Shyne decided to focus more of her attention on growing her law firm.

Then Donald Trump won election as president, and the misogyny and rollback of LGBTQ rights his presidency wrought thrust her back into politics. She got back involved with HRC and helped to elect Katie Hill, who is bisexual, in November 2018 as California’s first out female member of the U.S. House. (Hill would resign a year later after nude photos of her were leaked.)

“She was a dynamite,” Shyne said of Hill.

Still, Shyne hadn’t thought about seeking office herself.

“In politics there was no one like me with all my intersectional identities,” said Shyne, who came out in high school and obtained her U.S. citizenship in her 20s. “I didn’t feel there was a space for me.”

That changed when a friend of hers who had served on West Hollywood’s former LGBTQ advisory panel – it is now a city commission – resigned and suggested the mayor at the time name Shyne to her seat. It was Shyne’s first foray into city politics and led to her decision to seek a council seat.

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“There were a lot of things as a resident I wanted to change,” said Shyne, noting one of her goals was to see women, trans and bi individuals, and people of color feel more welcome in West Hollywood.

After falling short by a small margin in the March 2019 election, Shyne ran again the following November and won.

“It felt incredible,” recalled Shyne of breaking through the pink political glass ceiling.

As she has gained more attention since then as a queer Iranian elected official, even receiving news coverage as such in Iran, Shyne has

When you plan your life celebration and lasting remembrance in advance, you can design every detail of your own unique memorial and provide your loved ones with true peace of mind. Planning ahead protects your loved ones from unnecessary stress and financial burden, allowing them to focus on what will matter most at that time—you. Contact

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West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne is seeking a Southern California House seat.

Courtesy the campaign

<< Obituaries

Rev. Stephen Pieters, interviewed by Tammy Faye Bakker about AIDS, dies

by Brian Bromberger

The Reverend Albert Stephen Pieters, a gay man living with AIDS whose interview by televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in the 1980s opened people’s minds about the disease, died July 8 in Los Angeles. He was 70.

Brad Bessey, the director of communications and talent relations at nonprofit Project Angel Food in Los Angeles, shared in a Facebook statement that Reverend Pieters had been battling gastrointestinal cancer that metastasized.

November 1985 was a time of fear, false information, and ruinous stigma around AIDS. With a diagnosis of Kaposi’s sarcoma and stage four lymphoma, Reverend Pieters’ physician told him he had less than a year to live, though the same doctor asked him, “If one in a million survived AIDS, why shouldn’t you be the one to defy the odds?” according to an unattributed piece from the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, of which Reverend Pieters was once a member.

Reverend Pieters, known widely as Steve, had been the first pastor in the predominantly LGBTQ Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches to come out as HIV-positive. In September 1985, in response to a reporter’s question, then-President Ronald Reagan had first said the word “AIDS,” which had already killed thousands of Americans. In October of that year, actor Rock Hudson became the first celebrity to die of the disease, raising public awareness. This was the setting for what was, at the time, the most consequential interview about the HIV pandemic that would help change public perceptions on AIDS.

Reverend Pieters had been approached by the producers of the show “Tammy’s House Party” starring Pentecostal televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker of the PTL (Praise the Lord) Television Network. Reverend Pieters had volunteered to come to their Charlotte, North Carolina studio, but soon after having received the plane tickets, Bakker’s team called to cancel, worried about how close contact might spread the disease. Instead, as a compromise, a satellite link was established. Reverend Pieters insisted the interview be live so that it couldn’t be edited or jettisoned later. He recognized he could

talk about AIDS and his religious faith before an audience of 20 million viewers – people that he would not normally reach.

Bakker was empathetic from the start, asking Reverend Pieters if people “feared to breathe the same air as you breathe.” He replied, “I was asked not to use the bathroom in somebody’s house. I remember going to a party once where, every time I finished my soft drink, the host took the glass to the kitchen and steam cleaned it.”

It was toward the end of the interview, with tears in her eyes, that Bakker looked into the camera and cried, “How sad that we as Christians, who are to be the salt of the earth and are supposed to be able to love everyone, are afraid so badly of an AIDS patient that we will not go up and put our arms around them and tell them that we care.”

Reverend Pieters replied, “Jesus loves me just the way I am. I really believe that. Jesus loves the way I love. ... Your courage in doing this interview is bringing me to life. It’s giving me life.”

Reverend Pieters would later write of this interview, “It really rocked the conservative Christian community and kind of rocked the gay and lesbian community as well.”

In various interviews he commented, “I was amazed at how those 25 minutes reverberated throughout my life more than anything else I’ve done. I’ve had any number of people come up to me through the years and say that my interview with Tammy Faye helped them come out or even saved them from suicide, by helping them realize they could be gay and

Robert (Rob) Kevin Morrison

Robert (Rob) Kevin Morrison, 74, of Santa Rosa, California passed away peacefully from heart and lung disease on June 6, 2023, while being held by his dearest and closest friend, Connie.

Robert was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to the late Henry and Doris Morrison. He was raised primarily in the state of California. During his lifetime Robert lived in numerous cities both large and small however he always gravitated back to be near the city he loved, San Francisco.

Robert retired from the California Department of Social Services several decades ago. He found enjoyment in traveling and exploring new foods, his support groups, dinner with friends and supporting the LGBTQ communities. Robert was quite the movie and film enthusiast belonging to preview movie groups. Additionally, Robert was an avid antique collector, traveling around the United States searching for those elusive antique treasures. His focus was on antique glass and, during several periods of his life, he owned antique resale establishments.

Robert is preceded in death by his partner Robert (Bob) Lemmons and his beloved dog Bart. Along with his sister, Lynn, and several other family members, Robert is survived by an extensive network of loving and caring friends in addition to his longtime beloved friend, Connie.

Robert was strongly independent and even stubborn at times; however he had an enormously gentle spirit, kind heart and a wonderful quirky sense of humor. Robert’s journey through life was filled with unique experiences, challenges and joyous moments. Rest in peace Rob, know Bart found you immediately and has smothered you with kisses.

A celebration of Rob’s life will be taking place on September 16, 2023. For information regarding the celebration of life email kailuum@roadrunner.com

Memorial contributions may be made to the dog rescue of your choice.

Christian, or that God was not punishing them with AIDS for being gay.”

The following Easter, he preached to his MCC congregation in Los Angeles, “God is greater than AIDS.” From 1987 to 1998 he served as field director of MCC’s AIDS ministry. He also volunteered as chaplain at an AIDS hospice also in L.A. In 1993, he was a guest at the first AIDS Prayer Breakfast at the White House, hosted by then-President Bill Clinton.

He sang with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles as a bass beginning in 1994 and served on its board of directors from 1994 to 1999. Last year he received the group’s Humanitarian Voice Award.

In a statement, GMCLA Executive Director Lou Spisto summarized Reverend Pieters’ legacy: “There was no one like Steve Pieters. Our lives were made better by what Steve did with his time on earth. He lifted us all. He fought so hard and for so long, for his life and for all of ours. He will never be gone though, as his spirit will be with us always and his impact will live on.”

He accomplished all these feats despite fighting many illnesses for the rest of his life. In fact, a few months after his Bakker interview, he went blind and started wasting away. He said listening to Bakker’s song “Don’t Give Up (On the Brink of a Miracle)” inspired him to persevere, especially the last line, “Come on people, don’t you dare give up!”

In a 2022 interview with National Geographic he remarked, “If I could survive AIDS back at a time when there were no treatments, then why not believe that you can survive whatever you’ve been diagnosed with that the doctors say is going to kill you?”

Reverend Pieters emerged as a nationally known spokesperson for AIDS, in essence becoming the nation’s minister/comforter-in-chief for those suffering with HIV, helping to rid them of the shame and humiliation often hurled at them by other religious leaders.

Immortalized in film

Reverend Pieters’ watershed conversation with Bakker would be im-

Obituaries >>

Jon P. Borset

May 1, 1929 – July 8, 2023

Richard Thomas Borset, born in Detroit, Michigan to Vernon and Gwendolyn Borset, legally changed his name to Jon as a young adult. His artistic flair served him well as a window designer for prestigious department stores in New York from 1952 until he retired and moved to San Francisco. An early gay activ-

mortalized in the 2021 film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” starring Jessica Chastain (in her Oscar-winning performance as Bakker) and actor Randy Havens playing Pieters. The interview was also a scene in the Sir Elton John musical “Tammy Faye,” which opened in London last October.

Reverend Pieters, a long-term survivor of AIDS, was first diagnosed in 1982 of having what was then called GRID (gay-related immune deficiency).

Chastain wrote her admiration on X (formerly Twitter): “Steve Pieters was an inspiration and advocate for those living with HIV/AIDS for over 35 years. He was a constant reminder that God is LOVE. Rest in Peace sweet angel Steve. You made a difference in the lives of so many and you will be missed.”

Born on August 2, 1952 in Andover, Massachusetts, Reverend Pieters first joined the MCC church in Chicago in the mid-1970s, and then, after receiving his Master’s of divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary, he became pastor at the MCC church of Hartford, Connecticut. After receiving his AIDS diagnosis, he moved to L.A. Right before the Bakker interview, he was patient No. 1 on an experimental antiviral drug suramin, which was later recalled due to its toxicity, but for Reverend Pieters it did result in putting his cancers into remission.

UFMCC issued a statement after Reverend Pieters’ passing.

“Yes, we’ve lost many pastors and supporters to HIV, particularly in the early years of the pandemic,” it read. “Steve was an outlier, and he persevered against many life-threatening ailments over the years. He almost died many times. But God had other plans. In Steve, we had not only a tremendous voice for Christ, but an amazing advocate who gave peace, hope, and grace to people with HIV/AIDS.”

The Reverend Jim Mitulski, a gay man and former pastor of MCC-San Francisco, as well as a long-term AIDS survivor and a close friend of Reverend Pieters, noted in a public

remembrance, “It was an act of bravery to be as open as he was, because prejudice against people with AIDS could be as strong within our community as it was from those outside it. ... His blend of personal experience, activism, public speaking, and preaching were just what we needed, as a person living with AIDS, not a victim of AIDS. He was a pioneering AIDS liberation theologian fusing an analysis of race, class, and gender within Christianity. He challenged notions of masculine identity in ways that were liberating for all.” Mitulski, now with the United Church of Christ denomination and senior pastor of the Congregational Church of Belmont on the Peninsula, also commented that Reverend Pieters was a lot of fun, always making people laugh, “encouraging us to explore and enjoy our sexuality, which challenged another stereotype – that people living with HIV were post-sexual – and our needs for affection and touch were just as strong as they had always been. ... Steve taught me to live life as a proud, gay, sexually active person living with AIDS.”

The Bay Area Reporter asked Mitulski how Reverend Pieters was able to persist in the face of so many trials.

“He was always candid about how he was feeling, talked a lot about it, and we listened,” Mitulski wrote in a text message. “He believed not only in the healing power of prayer, but its motivational effects. He was also an entertainer and performer, who so enjoyed opportunities to share his story and sometimes those continuing opportunities seemed to keep him alive.”

Mitulski also referenced Reverend Pieters’ fairy wand (as mentioned in “Peter Pan”), which he would wave, asking congregations if they too believed in fairies when so many good fairies were dying.

“He made us believe in ourselves to do the work of healing,” Mitulski wrote. That wand is now archived in the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collection. “Sometimes I think it was the spirit that kept him alive and sometimes I think it was magic,” he added.

Reverend Pieters’ articles on his experiences with AIDS penned for the MCC Journey magazine were published, along with other writings, in his 1991 book “I’m Still Dancing.” His second book, “LOVE is Greater Than AIDS: A Memoir of Survival, Healing, and Hope,” will be published posthumously by Rowman & Littlefield in spring 2024.

Bessey wrote on Facebook, “I spent time with him as his story was featured in our ‘Lead with Love’ special on KTLA 5 News in June. He told me, ‘The quality of life is not measured by the length of life but by the fullness with which we enter into each present moment and, as long as we are alive, we are called to love.’ And he personified love.”  t

ist, he was arrested and found guilty of lewd and lascivious behavior for dancing with another man in California Hall when it was famously raided by police in 1965 (YouTube: “Lewd & Lascivious”). (https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=rsAZGyDTSEI) Upon turning 50, he decided to start taking care of himself with diet changes like drinking unsweetened black cherry Kool-Aid (perhaps a little red wine added), running, and racewalking. An early member of San Francisco FrontRunners, he racewalked numerous marathons and competed in the

first eight Gay Games. Jon’s passions were snow skiing (until his body said no more in his 80s), San Francisco Ballet, and public service.

Jon volunteered 38 years with Project Open Hand delivering (on foot) meals to homebound AIDS patients and did meal assembly, often seven days a week, into his early 90s. He was a stickler about proper presentation. If Jon (or Uncle Tom as he was known to his family) were here today, he would encourage remembrance donations to Project Open Hand. (https://www. openhand.org/)

The Reverend Stephen Pieters made history when he was interviewed by televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in 1985.

Courtesy People magazine

The Reverend Stephen Pieters From Pieters’ FB page

Take a mile

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

Youreally don’t need me to tell you that 2023 has been a challenging one for those of us who are transgender. We have seen nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills make their way through the statehouses of this country, with a majority of those being trans-specific.

At the same time, right-wing lawmakers and pundits have latched onto anti-trans animus as their big cause célèbre, using this as a cultural wedge issue to, they hope, drive people to the polls and vote for conservative candidates. This has gotten so bad, and so obvious, that right-wing attack ads in a battle over an abortion-rights amendment to Ohio’s constitution are not focusing on abortion itself – a hot button issue that has caused the right to lose a lot of elections since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade –but instead deflects to the outside possibility that the amendment could allow for gender-affirming care for transgender people.

Even in this early part of the 2024 presidential election, you have the leading GOP candidates – former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – trying to paint themselves as the biggest anti-LGBTQ voice. DeSantis’ camp has gone so far as to release an attack ad focused on Trump, claiming him to be a supporter of LGBTQ rights, to try to turn people off to him.

Meanwhile, right-wing pundits and activists are going after brands and other organizations showing support for LGBTQ – and in particular trans – rights. The Los Angeles Dodgers were pres-

sured to initially drop support for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, but later brought them back for the team’s Pride Night. Bud Light has ended up as shorthand for costly corporate fiascos after it provided trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney with a single beer can with her face on it, causing a nationwide rightwing performative boycott of the brand.

Target, too, has faced an ongoing series of attacks for providing a Pridethemed swimsuit for adults that has an easy-tuck option, some shirts, and other objects with a design by a trans artist, and even simply offering trans and other flags as merchandise.

In the midst of all this, transgender people in sports have been assailed, largely drummed up by a single trans swimmer, Lia Thomas, who had a sin-

Perry, who has never had the chance to visit Montpellier, has already received an invitation from Autin.

gle good outing and won the women’s 500-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Division I national championship. That singular victory has remained in the forefront of the debate over trans people in sports ever since, eclipsing stories about long-distance runner Caster Semenya. Semenya, while not transgender, was still attacked as such due to her unusually high natural testosterone levels. Meanwhile, a Gallup poll found that support for trans rights has been slipping over the last two years. Fifty-five percent of the 1,000 or so Americans surveyed declared that it was “morally wrong” to “change one’s gender,” with 69% declaring that transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete against members of the sex they were assigned to at birth.

For comparison, Gallup’s 2021 poll showed only 51% opposing transition, and 62% having an issue with trans athletes competing against members of their gender.

Now I’ve mentioned a couple times here about how it is the right who is continuing to keep trans rights in the news, still focusing on Thomas more than a year after she won in a competition, still focusing on Bud Light months after the Mulvaney endorsement, and Target stores long after their Pride displays were supplanted by back-to-school shelves.

Conservatives continue to talk about how trans rights are being crammed down their throats, even though they are the ones doing the shoving. Indeed, from many of my trans con temporaries, all I hear is that we just want to be left alone to live our lives in peace. We have no desire to be the po litical football that we’ve be come.

I totally get that myself. I’ve had to watch the right’s cynical attempts to use trans rights as a “culture war” scandal. I’m wary, by the way, to use the term culture war, given that it’s truly only one side that is attempting to mold the culture, while another just wants the right to exist.

Let’s take a moment, however, to consider something that might be a touch radical.

When Target, Anheuser-Busch, and the Dodgers faced right-wing attacks, they pulled back. This didn’t win them accolades – it just meant the vitriol became even more vicious, and the right demanded more. Likewise, the Interna-

tional Swimming Federation voting to bar all transgender athletes from competitions against members of their authentic gender didn’t end the debate on trans athletes, and didn’t stop Thomas from being its punching bag. Far from it. We have spent 2023 being called the worst names they can throw at us. They have called us groomers and pedophiles, even while countless religious leaders, conservative politicians, and others from the right have faced sexual abuse accusations.

We need to be bold. We need to be brash. We need to push for everything we want, and then some.

We need to demand the government pay for our gender-affirming care. We need to ask that trans rights be an expectation, not a demand. We need to ask for everything we could want, and then a little bit more. We need to be the ones pushing the brands and companies to go further, to be bolder, to show some backbone. A single beer can and a quiet endorsement? No, it’s time to make transgender people the face of your campaigns, and promote products both by us and for us.

It’s not the time to hope to be left alone. It is the time to demand it: they won’t let us have an inch, but we must surely take a mile. t

Gwen Smith has never been exactly good at being a nice, quiet woman. You can find her at www. gwensmith.com

went to Paris and Montpellier that year – the 20th anniversary of Montpellier Pride – hosted by Montpellier Pride and the U.S. Embassy.

Is the link between Montpellier and San Francisco a little-known aspect of Franco-American friendship?

“Yes,” according to Perry. “Marriage for All has given new meaning to the word ally. France and the U.S. have been allies since the American Revolution and remained so during both World Wars. They are now united in the fight for LGBT rights, thanks to Montpellier and San Francisco,” she said. Perry and Autin even agree that Marriage for All would not have been possible without heterosexual allies such as Newsom, who participated in the recognition of this right for all.

This year, Perry and Autin celebrated the 10th anniversary of their respective marriages and commemorated the 10th anniversary of the laws that made their unions possible.

<< NLGJA

From page 2

“We are thrilled to recognize the exceptional work of LGBTQ+ journalists through our Excellence in Journalism Awards,” stated NLGJA Executive Director Adam Pawlus. “It is truly gratifying to be part of an organization that uplifts and celebrates the best that LGBTQ+ journalism has to offer. Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you for your invaluable contributions to our communities.”

National board President Ken Miguel, a gay San Francisco resident who works for KGO-TV, expressed his enthusiasm for this year’s award recipients, stating, “On behalf of the association, I offer my congratulations to the winners of the 2023 Excellence in Journalism Awards. Each recipient has demonstrated outstanding skill, integrity, and commitment to reporting stories that are essential for

Separated by 10,000 kilometers, Autin, a Montpellier native, hopes one day to meet his Bay Area counterpart. Conscious of “the honor of having made history and now being

part of it,” their long struggle has enabled young and old LGBTQ couples to get married but, above all, to love each other, freely. t

Malcolm Biiga is a young French Black straight ally and a political specialist of U.S.-France relationships. He previously worked at the U.S. Embassy in

9 NEW BMR HOME OWNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

Paris, at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. House of Representatives and the French Senate.

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Courtesy the subject

Jim Gladstone was recognized with an award from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists.

LGBTQ+ visibility and equality. Your dedication to highlighting diverse voices, uncovering important issues, and promoting understanding is an inspiration to us all.”

For the complete list of awardees, go to nlgja.org t

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WHO reaffirms zero U=U HIV transmission risk

by Liz Highleyman

In a move long encouraged by advocates, the World Health Organization has reaffirmed that people with HIV who consistently take antiretroviral treatment and maintain an undetectable viral load do not transmit the virus during sex, a concept known as Undetectable Equals Untransmittable, or U=U. The WHO policy brief was released July 22 at the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science in Brisbane, Australia.

“The brief is a game-changer for equitable scale-up of viral load testing and clear messaging about transmission risk,” Bruce Richman, executive director of the Prevention Access Campaign, told the Bay Area Reporter. “This is the first time a global health institution has recommended that health care providers use and reinforce ‘zero risk’ to communicate U=U. There’s no room for ambiguity with ‘zero!’

“When the WHO’s new brief is translated from policy to implementation, millions more people living with HIV will have the assurance that their treatment is working to protect their health and their partners,” he added.

The WHO brief states that people with an undetectable viral load who continue to take their medication as prescribed “have zero risk of transmitting HIV to their sexual partner(s)” and “minimal risk of

<< Belmont church

From page 1

Mitulski, who once served as the senior pastor at Metropolitan Community Church-San Francisco when it was located in the LGBTQ Castro district, has served as a pastor at various UCC churches over the years. He returned to

<< LGBTQ needs

From page 1

In casting his first votes for a city budget, Engardio told the Bay Area Reporter he viewed the funding designated for both HIV services and LGBTQ needs as benefiting all San Franciscans, and thus, worth supporting as the board and Mayor London Breed worked to deliver a balanced budget plan.

“One could argue serving the LGBTQ community, and certainly those affected by HIV and AIDS, cuts across all groups,” said Engardio. “Something I believe is by ensuring that we fund

<< Defendant

From page 4

decided. “He indicated he wants to talk to them again.”

Also, Abdullah was out sick July 19, according to Deputy Public Defender

<< Leather district

From page 1

“So there is a Twitter troll who has a habit of going around posting their distaste for Tom Wolf and Senator Scott Wiener,” Ortega wrote, referring to a formerly homeless recovering heroin addict who is director of West Coast initiatives for the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions and the gay state legislator from San Francisco. “Previously, the same troll decided to bring up trans issues in a conversation about fentanyl. To which I replied to them: ‘This is the Fentanyl lane, not the trans lane.’ To the post, I post a picture of me and mayor breed at pride parade, to which this troll posted a picture of

transmitting HIV vertically to their children.” What’s more, people with a suppressed but detectable viral load “have almost zero or negligible risk” of sexual transmission. Data on the link between viral load and transmission via shared drug injection equipment are inadequate. The WHO considers a viral load of 1,000 HIV RNA copies or less to be viral suppression, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the threshold at 200 or less. A level below 50 is considered undetectable according to standard viral load tests, though more sensitive tests can measure lower levels.

the Bay Area and the Belmont church earlier this year.

“The vandalism at the Congregational Church of Belmont is disappointing but not surprising,” stated Mitulski. “As a gay pastor in the United Church of Christ, I’ve noticed a marked increase in hostility toward the LGBTQ community of late. At CCB, we remain deeply committed to LGBTQ inclusion and

programs for the LGBTQ community, we are helping people across the spectrum of humanity. I looked at it that way and felt it needs to be a priority because you are helping so many people who are LGBTQ in every walk of life.”

One new area of funding that Breed had included in her budget proposal is $350,000 for LGBTQ nonprofits to improve the safety measures at their offices due to an increase in threats some have received of late. The Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development is expected to issue a request for proposals from agencies wishing to receive some of the funds.

The mayor also directed $110,000

Tehanita Taylor, who is representing him, and thus did not appear at the hearing. Conroy said the defendant is “ordered to appear” August 9, again in Department 22.  Section 1001.36 of the penal code allows people to receive treatment

Senator Wiener and Tom Wolf. And I replied: ‘this is the pride lane the trans lane is over there.’”

A search of Ortega’s Twitter feed shows that @eyesontransphobesSF did post a comment June 23 and included a tweet from Wolf, who wrote about meeting with Wiener to discuss the fentanyl epidemic.

Wiener declined to comment.

Wolf could not be reached for comment.

Sandoval said he was glad Ortega stepped down.

“I’m happy to hear JConr B. Ortega has taken the correct action of stepping down as diversity and membership committee chair of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District,” Sandoval wrote in a Twitter direct message to the B.A.R. “However,

While it has long been recognized that people with an undetectable viral load do not transmit HIV, the brief clarifies that people with suppressed but detectable virus – between 200 and 1,000 copies – also have an extremely low risk of transmission.

Advocates are urging public health officials and care providers to explicitly state that people with an undetectable or suppressed viral load have zero or near-zero risk. A group of activists took the stage at a conference session on July 24, chanting, “Sex is good, sex is fun, sex is zero risk.”

The new guidance is supported by

equality in church and society.

“Rather than engaging in violence, I invite whoever did this to engage in a sincere conversation with us about why our church proudly welcomes LGBTQ people,” he added. “Our church stands in solidarity with the LGBTQ community as part of our faith.”

In a brief phone interview, Mitulski said that since moving back from Duluth, Min-

toward instruction and support group facilitation for the Lift Up SF Program, administered by San Francisco HIV Health Services, according to Mandelman’s office. There is $200,000 for wellness services for formerly incarcerated transgender individuals, plus $150,000 to pay for asylum immigration legal services for TGNC immigrants.

A set aside of $75,000 will go toward transgender and gender-nonbinary Asian and Pacific Islander leadership development, while a violence prevention program for monolingual, immigrant transgender Latinas will see $67,000 in city funding.

The supervisors allocated $400,000

instead of being prosecuted when charged with a crime. At the successful completion of treatment, the charges are dismissed, and the arrest record sealed.

To qualify, a defendant must have been diagnosed with a mental health

I’m disheartened that his statement shows he just doesn’t get it. Being called out for statements made is not being bullied, it is called being held accountable for one’s actions. No threats were ever made, just questions raised as to how one could be anti-affirmative action, make an anti-trans statement and be in a leadership position in both a cultural district and Democratic club.”

As for the leather district, Executive Director Bob Goldfarb, a gay man, confirmed that the district received Ortega’s letter.

“We received JConr Ortega’s letter of resignation, which the board has discussed and accepted,” Goldfarb wrote in an email.

The cultural district’s July 15 newsletter includes a statement on

a systematic review of evidence published in The Lancet.

In eight studies that included more than 7,700 mostly heterosexual couples, WHO’s Lara Vojnov, Ph.D., and colleagues found no cases of sexual transmission when viral load was less than 600 copies. There were two cases of transmission when the HIV-positive partner may have had a viral load below 1,000, but these were difficult to interpret due to the timing of viral load tests.

“There is almost zero risk of sexual transmission of HIV with viral loads of less than 1,000 copies per ml,” the study authors concluded. “These data provide a powerful opportunity to destigmatize HIV and promote adherence to antiretroviral therapy through dissemination of this positive public health message.”

Prompt treatment and good adherence also prevent HIV disease progression and improve overall health. A recent study in The Lancet HIV showed that HIV-positive people who start treatment early and have a high CD4 T-cell count can expect to live nearly as long as their HIV-negative peers. Consistent treatment can keep CD4 cells from falling into the danger zone for opportunistic illnesses and other health problems.

According to a UNAIDS report released ahead of the conference, 29.8 million of the estimated 39 million people living with HIV worldwide are on antiretroviral treatment,

nesota, where he’d been a pastor, things in the Bay Area “seem more conservative.”

“It felt important to report it and note it,” he said of the incident.

The rainbow banner, along with another with the words “Black Lives Matter” printed in white on a black background, were installed in March 2022 between pillars of the porch of the historic church building, originally the

toward enhancing information and referral services offered by LGBTQ agencies, in addition to community building and cultural programs. Another $200,000 will go toward the operations and sustainability of the LGBTQ museum operated in the Castro neighborhood by the GLBT Historical Society.

In other cultural funding, the budget includes $100,000 for year-round arts programs, events, arts education, artist commissions, and artist services focused on the transgender and gender-nonconforming community, plus $75,000 for the city’s trans film festival. The San Francisco Unified School District is set to receive $100,000 for

disorder that played a significant role in the charges. A defendant has to agree to treatment and a qualified mental health expert has to agree that treatment would be effective. The defendant waives their right to a speedy trial when they agree to diversion.

its communication policy.

“Only statements made through official District communication channels represent our organization,” the statement reads. “Individual board members using their personal social media are not speaking on behalf of the District.

“We are fully inclusive and supportive of the BIPOC, trans, nonbinary, and queer communities,” the statement continues, referring to Black, Indigenous people of color. “We have been and will remain steadfast in that support as well as creating events that are a safe and welcoming environment for all.”

Goldfarb said that the policy has been adhered to by the district.

“While it has always been our internal policy, we felt stating our

up from 7.7 million in 2010. But this still leaves about 9 million people untreated and therefore at ongoing risk for disease progression and viral transmission. Children with HIV are not faring as well, with just 57% on treatment.

To increase the number of people who know their HIV status and have access to treatment, WHO calls on countries to expand the use of self-testing and to promote testing through sexual and social networks.

“For more than 20 years, countries all over the world have relied on WHO’s evidence-based guidelines to prevent, test for and treat HIV infection,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ph.D., said in a statement. “The new guidelines we are publishing today will help countries to use powerful tools that have the potential to transform the lives of millions of people living with or at risk of HIV.”

San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D., also weighed in.

“U=U has been an empowering message for people living with HIV, and goes a long way in helping to end stigma associated with HIV and AIDS,” TerMeer, who is HIV-positive, stated. “For the WHO to now recognize that people who are undetectable present zero risk of transmission to partners is a message of hope for many.” t

Belle Monte Country Club built in 1925.

The Black Lives Matter banner was not vandalized, the release stated. Lotti said that anyone with information or tips about the incident can call the Belmont Police Department at (650) 595-7400. People can remain anonymous, he added. t

theater and health education for students in grades K-8.

Additionally, Mandelman secured $250,000 to fund community events in the Castro, which he represents at City Hall, and $30,000 for the annual Queer Transgender Asian Pacific Islander (QTAPI) Week held in late May and early June.

“I feel like we did pretty well given the circumstances,” said Mandelman. “There were very worthwhile programs that didn’t get funding or funds for only one year, so we will have to fight for them next year. Given the budget deficit we were facing, this could have been a lot worse.” t

The diversion program is only in cases where the risk of endangering the public is small.

There is a pre-trial hearing for lawyers only on August 1. t

communication policy would help clarify for the public that only statements coming from the District’s own channels are representing official District positions,” he wrote.

In his statement, Ortega said he would continue to stand by his personal beliefs.

“Even though this decision did not come lightly, I will continue to serve the leather community itself and now have a clear avenue to publicly state my positions without fear of retaliation from my fellow Leather & LGBTQ board leadership,” he wrote. “Knowing the activists who made the complaint, I have no ill will toward those who seek to undermine me, but as stated above, I will not apologize for the positions I have taken.” t

An action at the International AIDS Society’s Conference on HIV Science promoted that Undetectable Equals Untransmittable.

International AIDS Society

Supervisors OK LGBTQ commissioners

by Cynthia Laird

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a gay man for a seat on the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force July 25.

The board, at its last meeting before its August recess, also reappointed a lesbian to the city’s Entertainment Commission.

Saul Sugarman, 38, was approved 7-4 by the supervisors to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force one day after the board’s rules committee forwarded his name with a positive 3-0 vote.

Sugarman is currently the editor of the Bold Italic, an online site run by GrowSF, which describes itself as a nonpartisan group of volunteers who want the city to be safe, clean, affordable, and vibrant.

Seat 3 is specified for a member of the media. Sugarman fills an unexpired term that ends April 27, 2024.

During his remarks to the committee, Sugarman said he has previous media experience at the now-defunct SF Weekly, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Daily Journal.

“I’ve been interested in this task force for awhile,” he said, explaining that he had applied before but deferred to another candidate and was urged to apply again in the future.

In his application, Sugarman notes that he is HIV-positive and active in the LGBTQ community. He stated that he has written for nearly a dozen San Francisco-based news outlets in his 12 years of living in the city. He stated that he is Jewish and has an active relationship with local Jewish media.

Voters approved the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force 25 years ago. Its purpose is to protect the public’s inter-

Political Notebook

From page 7

fielded requests from other Iranians, either LGBTQ themselves or friends of those who are, seeking assistance in helping them to immigrate to the U.S. and has connected them with agencies that do such work.

“Fuck the Iranian regime and their anti-LGBT policies,” said Shyne, who took part in local protests

From page 6

EQCA called out Shaw’s rhetoric and behavior. Hoang stated that she and fellow members “referred to LGBTQ+ students as being mentally ill – a harmful and wildly false statement to make in front of students attending the meeting.”

Assemblymember Bill Essayli (RRiverside) attended the meeting. He’s the lawmaker who attempted to pass a bill that would have implemented forced outing policies statewide,

est in open government. It also provides information to city departments on appropriate ways to implement the Sunshine Ordinance.

The supervisors also approved David Pilpel on the same 7-4 vote to the task force’s seat 9, which requires experience in the issues of citizen access and participation in local government. That position also fills an unexpired

last fall after Mahsa Amini died while in the custody of Iran’s notorious “morality police” after being apprehended for not wearing her headscarf properly.

While Shyne’s sister still lives in Southern California, her mom lives in Los Gatos and her three brothers continue to call the Bay Area home.

Shyne is planning to come up to San Francisco for an LGBTQ-focused fundraiser sometime in August or

EQCA noted. Thankfully, the bill died in April after the chair of the Assembly Education Committee opted not to schedule it for a hearing.

At the time, Essayli tried to argue that his bill actually benefited trans minors, which is magical thinking.

“My bill is aimed at supporting trans minors, not hurting them. The notification requirement is only triggered when a minor is already publicly identifying by a different gender at school,” he wrote on X back then. That, of course, was the problem with his bill – it would have forced outing trans students who may have wanted their

term that ends April 27, 2024. Pilpel is a former member of the task force, but drew criticism from some public commenters during the committee meeting. (https://www.ebar.com/story. php?ch=news&sc=news&id=327143)

There was no comment during the supervisors’ meeting. Board President Aaron Peskin (District 3) voted no, along with Supervisors Dean Preston

early September.

“I am very grateful I am able to serve as mayor in the city of West Hollywood and I am grateful I am able to run for this seat and bring representation to all, not just some,” said Shyne.

To learn more about her candidacy, visit her campaign website at https://www.sepishyne.com/ t

teachers and peers to call them by a different name and pronoun.

The existence of LGBTQ youth should not be a partisan issue, yet that’s exactly what it has become in our current political climate. We’re extremely grateful that Thurmond went to that Chino school board meeting and stood up for queer youth, and, in the process, showed everyone exactly what we’re facing from transphobic school board members. With the new school year starting soon, it’s imperative that all students get the support they need on campus.

The Chino district might want to

(D5), Hillary Ronen (D9), and Shamann Walton (D10).

As a member of the rules committee, Walton had voted yes on July 24 to forward the men’s names to the full board.

Entertainment Commission

On the Entertainment Commission, the board unanimously ap-

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of profiles of out 2024 congressional candidates in California.

Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http://www.ebar.com Monday mornings for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. This week’s column reported on the race for a Palm Springs U.S. House seat heating up.

see what happened regarding the Chico school district in Northern California. There, a parent sued the district and the superintendent because they believed the district permits school personnel to socially transition students and prohibits the district from informing parents. But a federal judge recently dismissed the parent’s lawsuit, which challenged the state’s policy of allowing students to be their authentic selves at school without fear of being outed at school or at home.

United States District Judge John

A. Mendez held that parents do not have a constitutional right to force

proved the mayoral reappointments of Cynthia Wang and Ben Bleiman. The board also approved the reappointment of Dori Caminong. The terms are all until July 1, 2027.

Wang is the urban planning representative on the panel.

Wang and her spouse, Tessa Chavez, were in the news last December when they renewed their vows in front of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (DCalifornia), who was in San Francisco to promote the Respect for Marriage Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law shortly afterward.

The Respect for Marriage Act repeals the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act that was passed in 1996 but had key provisions struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 (Section 3, U.S. v. Windsor) and 2015 (Section 2, Obergefell v. Hodges). Not only does it require federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages nationwide but also mandates states must recognize such unions performed in other states.

Wang was also in the news earlier this year when the San Francisco Democratic Party initially balked at recognizing her new Westside Family Democratic Club, claiming it was a front for Republicans. The club later got its charter and an influx of members, after a San Francisco Chronicle story about the dustup.

Bleiman is an industry representative on the commission. He currently owns five bars/restaurants in the city, according to the commission’s website. Caminong was reappointed by the supervisors to the neighborhood seat on the commission. She works for the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families. t

Keep abreast of the latest LGBTQ political news by following the Political Notebook on Threads @ https://www.threads. net/@matthewbajko.

Got a tip on LGBTQ politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or e-mail m.bajko@ ebar.com.

schools to out students who use different names and pronouns at school than those they were assigned at birth, noted the American Civil Liberties Union. The judge also made clear that schools have an interest in protecting students’ privacy and ensuring they aren’t bullied or harassed.

Based on this ruling, Chino is likely on the losing side of the argument should it be subject to litigation. The Chino district should rescind its hurtful and dubious policy. t

Cynthia Wang, left, and Saul Sugarman were approved for city commissions by the Board of Supervisors.

Courtesy the subjects

by Gregg Shapiro

In a recording career that spans more than 40 years, with well over a dozen studio albums of unforgettable originals, Grammy Awardwinner Lucinda Williams has left an indelible mark on contemporary Americana, country, blues, pop, and rock music. Virtually unstoppable – undeterred by a tornado, a stroke, and a pandemic – Williams emerges victorious on record and in print in 2023.

Her memoir, “Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You” (Crown), was recently published, and her new album “Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart” (Highway 20/Thirty Tigers), featuring a stellar lineup of guest artists including Angel Olsen, Bruce Springsteen, and Margo Price, arrives this summer. Lucinda performs on Aug. 8 at The Greek Theatre in Berkeley.

Gregg Shapiro: 2023 is the 35th anniversary of your self-titled album which contained the song “Passionate Kisses,” later covered by Mary Chapin Carpenter, earning you your first Grammy Award. What was the experience of having one of your songs become a hit for another singer, and what did it mean to you win that Grammy?

It was great, of course. Having Chapin –that’s what her friends call her– cover “Passionate Kisses” opened a big door for me, really. It started getting all this airplay and eventually won a Grammy for Country Song of the Year, which was the biggest irony, because it almost didn’t become the single. She wanted it to be the first single off her new album and her people said no. They didn’t think it was a good idea because it wasn’t a country song.

It was more pop.

Yeah, but she stuck to her guns and said, “I don’t care.” She had been playing it live and she said her fans really liked the song a lot. She stood her ground and said she wanted it to be the first single. They relented and it became the single. When it won the Grammy for Country Song of the Year, it was nice. It was like, “Ha ha ha.”

Over the years, you’ve had a wonderful array of guest musicians performing with you on your albums, and “Stories From A Rock

Lucinda Williams

Grammy-winning singer-songwriter on her new music, memoir and tour

N Roll Heart” is no exception, beginning with Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa on “New York Comeback” and “Rock N Roll Heart.” What made those songs a good fit for you, Bruce, and Patti?

I think the nature of the songs, what they’re about, and just the feel and vibe of them. I’m in Nashville right now with my husband Tom, and our friend Jesse Malin was in town. We were working on songs together. That one came up, and I think it was Tom who had the feeling. He’s always been a huge Bruce fan, and he said, “Wouldn’t it be

Drag King Contest returns to Oasis

by David-Elijah Nahmod

The 27th Annual San Francisco Drag King Contest comes to Oasis on August 6, and King extraordinaire Fudgie Frottage says that 27 is his lucky number. Frottage will co-host the contest with beloved Sister Roma. The evening promises to be filled with fun, excitement and laughs, though this year’s contest is also turning out to be somewhat of a political statement, given the anti-drag backlash going on in red states.

“Are we living in Weimar Germany?” Frottage asked in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

“Why will they pay money to see Tyler Perry as Madea or Grace Jones? They will let their offspring watch Disney’s ‘Mulan’ yet they think that a drag queen story hour is going to turn children gay. They are so clueless it’s pathetic. Thankfully we have intelligent communities in cities like ours. The bottom line is, you can’t stop art, or freedom of speech or free expression. You can try to be Hitler incarnate, but it won’t play in the long run.”

Frottage describes the drag king contest as being similar to a pageant, except that they elimi-

nate the extraneous and go directly to the talent segment. The show usually opens with a big production number, followed by some all-star performers like Matt Dogg 20/20 or Meatflap, This is followed by the stepping down number from last year’s winner Helixer Jyder Byntwell.

Then the judges are introduced. Judging this year’s contest are Marga Gomez, Joan Jett Blakk, Vera, Fontaine Blue and Klingon Vanna White. Then contestants are brought out, first with the Lip-sync for Your Life segment to select one more king from a group of newbies who will move on to the main competition.

“These kings bring their skill set to the stage and the competition gets fierce,” said Frottage.

“Following that segment, the judges go off to deliberate and once they have made their decisions, everyone is brought back on stage and the winning King is crowned along with the first and second runners-up. Then we all stick around to dance and schmooze a little before calling it a night.”

Roma and ‘roni

Frottage can’t say enough good things about his co-host Sister Roma, whom he refers to as a goddess.

“Where Roma gets the energy to be out everyday and night, sometimes at more than one event in any 24-hour period, is some kind of incredible superpower,” said Frottage. “She travels all over the world representing the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as well as our community. I am proud to be her friend.”

There will be one more guest judge in the contest, a performer who goes by the name Tenderoni.

great if we could have Bruce on this song?”

At first, it was just Bruce, and then Patti jumped in, bless her heart. Anyway, Jesse Malin was the one who piped up and said, “I think I can get I can get a hold of Bruce for you. He’d probably be into it.” Jesse went back home to New York where he lives. He’s tied in with all the East Coast rockers and musicians and all. So, he was able to track Bruce down. Bruce said yes. We sent him the tracks. We weren’t in the studio with him at the same time.

See page 15 >>

Hailing from Chicago, Tenderoni has a schtick that harkens back to the 1980s. He won Alaska Thunderfuck’s Drag Queen of the Year Pageant in 2021.

“Guaranteed to get the whole audience dancing,” Frottage promised. “Tenderoni is the definition of showmanship.”

“Tenderoni is my alter-ego, the persona that gives me the confidence to be myself and perform in front of strangers,” Tenderoni said.

As a teenager he was obsessed with ’80s and ’90s music and would impersonate Michael Jackson. His favorite movies growing up were “The Birdcage” and “To Wong Foo,” so drag was a part of his life from an early age.

“When I moved to Chicago as an adult I was opened up to so many different types of drag, including drag kings,” he said. “I was so inspired that I decided to take a chance and try a competition. I’ve been performing ever since, almost seven years.”

Bring out the best

Tenderoni is excited to be working with Frottage and Roma and considers them legends. He added that San Francisco is one of his favorite places to perform because the drag community is so welcoming and creative. He has strong opinions as to why the Drag King Contest has become so popular.

“I think that big competitions bring out the best in performers,” he said. “When the stakes are higher, people are more creative, bringing production and really bringing amazing performances to the stage. Drag kings are a rising niche category in drag right now, so I think people are

See page 15 >>

Performers, hosts and judges at the 2019 Drag King Contest at Oasis

Fudgie Frottage and Sister Roma Drag King Contest judge Tenderoni

Left Coast Theatre debuts ‘QueerStory’

by Jim Gladstone

Sure, the Castro boasts sidewalks studded with brass plaques celebrating icons of LGBTQ history. But given a couple hundred centuries of erasure, there are plenty of noteworthy folks who have slipped between the cracks.

Similarly, while our city boasts two relatively high profile LGBTQ theaters –New Conservatory Theatre Center and Theatre Rhinoceros– there’s a third innovative company that flies under most queer San Franciscans’ radar.

It seems altogether fitting that the latest production from Left Coast Theater Company is “QueerStory: Forgotten Figures from Queer History,” which opens on Friday, August 4 at the Phoenix Theater, a nifty–and itself underappreciated– venue secreted away on the sixth floor of 414 Mason Street, just off Union Square.

Typical of Left Coast’s productions, “QueerStory” is an evening of short plays (10-15 minutes long), each featuring a different writer’s take on a common theme.

Among the based-on-a-true-story characters rising from the past at the Phoenix will be Albert Cashier, a transgender Union soldier who fought in the Civil War; Joachim Reticus, an uncredited gay collaborator of 16th-Century astronomer Copernicus; Pamela Coleman Smith, the lesbian who created the world’s most famous Tarot deck; and Billy Haines, once the #1 male box of-

fice draw in Hollywood, who was driven off-camera during the Production Code crackdown of the 1930s.

Starting with scripts

In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Left Coast’s artistic director Neil Higgins explained that the company offers a unique opportunity for fledgling playwrights.

“The company started out as a gay men’s playwriting group called Guy Writes,” said Higgins. In 2012, under founding member Rodney Taylor,

it transformed into Left Coast, with a plan to mount productions of the group’s short works and offer opportunities to a broader community of queer and allied writers.

Higgins, who has performed and written for Left Coast since 2018 and by day works as the business manager for Z Space, took the reigns as artistic director during the pandemic. This year, along with executive director Erica Andracchio, he’s helping steer the company back to a regular production schedule of two annual anthologies.

In February, they presented the ribald “Between the Sheets” anthology, inspired by the sexual revolution.

But Left Coast’s mainstage productions are just one element in a generous eco-system of mutual support for participants in its unusual theater community.

The plays featured in each anthology are solicited through wide-scale calls for submissions, distributed through local, national and international networks. And twice a year, the company runs playwriting workshops, where aspiring theater makers can learn the craft.

Building creative community

“We try to time our writing workshops, so they align with our calls for submission,” explains Higgins. Though the current workshop is already underway, participation is by no means a prerequisite for submitting plays for consideration.

The next window for submissions, on the theme of “Found Family,” opens on August 1. In December, a one-night staged reading of those entries selected for production will be held and videotaped, after which recordings will be distributed to the playwrights to assist with potential rewrites. (Typically, about 50% of plays featured in the anthologies are by Bay Area writers).

“For ‘Queerstory,’ we really focused on making sure that none of the plays felt like Wikipedia entries

on little known figures,” said Higgins. “They had to have dramatic structure. And lots of the plays we do also incorporate a sense of humor.

“From a writer’s perspective,” says Higgins, who penned one of the pieces in the current anthology, “it can sometimes be harder to write a short, self-contained piece than a longer play. We get a lot of submissions that are excerpts from longer pieces, and that’s easy to tell, because they don’t feel complete. Our pieces don’t have to be tied up with a bow, but they need to feel whole and finished.”

Left Coast has published the scripts of several past anthologies in book form. “Twisted Hitchcock,” “San Francisco Here I Come,” “Screaming Queens” and “#WTFamily” are all available for sale online.

Higgins stresses that beyond writers, community members who are invested in careful reading and critical thinking are essential to Left Coast’s work.

“We usually get about 100 scripts in response to each call for submissions,” he explains. “So, we need people to help read through them, to pick the work that’s the strongest and that helps us represent a wide range of queer voices.”t

‘Queerstory,’ August 4-19. Pay what you can/$20-$60. Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason St., 6th floor. (415) 964-1442. www.lctc-sf.org

Joe Goode debuts new work at YBCA

by Jim Gladstone

“Idon’tthrow people away,” said Joe Goode, whose eponymous performance group’s latest work, “As We Go,” debuts next week at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

“Several of our company members are not spring chickens,” says Goode about the cast of 12 dancers in the new piece, some of whom he has worked with for more than 20 years.

There are performers in “As We Go” who are in their forties and fifties. Not to mention Goode himself, who is 72.

“This piece is especially personal for me,” said Goode, a gay man, in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “It’s about aging and the arc of life. I’ve been thinking a lot about myself in my early thirties as compared to now. How

do I make the transition from being the bad boy to the elder statesman? How can I do this with grace and élan?”

Since the 1980s, Goode, now a faculty member in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, has stretched traditional boundaries of modern dance in collaborative and site-specific work incorporating spoken word and song along with movement. Goode’s pieces have won him international acclaim and honors, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and multiple Isadora Duncan Awards.

Now, in what Goode acknowledges is the early twilight of his career, “As We Go” finds him trying to define a path forward.

“Culturally, we don’t know how to deal with aging,” he noted. “We find ourselves living with a lot of fear. We don’t know what to do with our older people. We house them away and hide them away.

“This piece is a rejection of that. It’s a rejection of the idea that as you get older you should just sit at home and chat with your three friends about your latest surgeries and how on earth you’re going to live on an artist’s salary into your dotage. That feels false to me. This is a time of life to become active in your exploration of who you are. There’s more to be explored.”

Finding one’s way

Exploration is an essential element of the 75-minute “As We Go.” When Goode first began to plan the production with YBCA, he insisted that the work not be mounted in the center’s 757-seat theater, despite his company’s having performed on that stage in the past.

“I wanted to be in the main building,” he explains. “The piece is intended for a maximum audience of 100 people, and I want to have very intimate connections between audience members and performers.”

“As We Go” threads together ten short thematically-linked pieces that needn’t be viewed in a specific order. The pieces were collaboratively developed by the company in response to provocative prompts about the aging experience from Goode.

“There’s a moment at the beginning when everyone is gathered all together,” explained Goode, “but then they’ll be broken into four groups of 25 and eventually into even smaller groups. You might even find yourself pulled off for a moment alone, just one audience member with one performer.

“It’s a bit of a treasure hunt. Groups will be guided through the building along separate pathways. We’ll be in storage rooms, closets, hallways, and

other spaces the public has never been in before.

“I play a character who is not too far from myself,” said Goode, “but with the frailty and feeling of invisible that come with age, exaggerated. I’m a big fan of self-deprecating humor, so you’ll see this guy bumble through the process of aging.

“As a young gay man, I thought of myself as having a bold sexually ambiguous persona. But how do you nav-

igate that as you get older and grayer and balder? I might still see myself that way, but nobody else does!

“I think that laughing at myself as we’ve working on this piece has been very healing and helped me to think differently. I’m feeling refreshed. I think the real secret to aging well is to keep up your vitality; to be courageous enough to approach each day as a new experience to discover.”

Goode said that his work teaching college students has provided some valuable insights on aging as well.

“I work with young people all the time, and I love them. Many of them are courageous and full of bravado. But in part, that’s because they feel like the things they’re thinking are being thought for the first time!

“One of the benefits of being older is that you don’t have to care so much about everything. You’ve already been through a lot of scenarios. You don’t need to revisit them. You’ve managed to figure them out and get through them. That’s wisdom.”t

Cast members of ‘Queerstory’ in rehearsal

Left Coast Theatre Company

Felipe Barrueto-Cabello and Patricia West in ‘As We Go’

RJ Muna

Joe Goode

Tony Nguyen

From page 13

Bruce has his own studio. They went in and jumped on board. We didn’t even tell him what to do. We let them decide for themselves. They ended up really getting into it enthusiastically. You can tell when you listen. Every time I hear it and I hear his voice on there, I just get so excited and happy. It’s such a thrill to hear him on there. He’s just such a sweetheart.

Another one of the stellar guest artists on the album is queer singer/songwriter Angel Olsen, who joins you on “Jukebox.” Why did you want to work with her?

I love her voice and her vibe and everything. I wanted another voice on there. I love having guests come in the studio and do their thing. It adds so much to the song. A lot of the time it has to do with if the person is available and how convenient is it going to be and all those technical details. She happened to be in Nashville around the time we were in the studio.

I think she told me she spends a lot of time in Asheville, North Carolina. But she was in Nashville, and she was really into coming in and doing something. That’s how all that happened. That went smoothly. She just came in and did her thing. It’s real subtle, but I think it really adds something, especially at the end.

To my ears, it sounds like you are addressing bigotry and discrimination in the song “This Is Not My Town.” Am I right about that?

I wasn’t necessarily, but it’s open for interpretation. I’m glad you mentioned that actually because I like to politicize things. I like to make statements about things. That was a collaborative effort

<< Drag Kings

From page 13 excited to see what these entertainers will bring.”

Frottage, for his part, is delighted to be returning to Oasis for the latest contest. He considers Oasis owner D’Arcy Drollinger to be a genius.

“His vision has held our community together and I cannot sing his and his crew’s praises loud enough,” Frottage said. “Now that he is Drag Laureate, aka the gay mayor, I only wish that he were in charge of running the city and the country because then it wouldn’t be as screwed up as it is right now. Not that I would wish that on him, because his priorities are focused on his art.”

Frottage noted that the art of being a Drag King has changed over the years, both evolving and devolving as it has grown. Since he has a musical background, Frottage prefers to sing live when he’s on the stage, but says that there are no set-in-stone rules for the show. They’ve had everything from live bands, wrestling matches,

between me and my husband Tom and Travis Stephens. I know Tom and I talked about this. It is politicized, but it might not be real obvious. You’re right, basically, it is supposed to be about that feeling of division; being politically divided and being frustrated with it, just all the stuff that’s been going for the last however many years.

Are you aware of if you have an LGBTQ following for your work?

I hope so! It’s hard for me to tell. Somebody would need to have been keeping track of all that. I mean, the only thing I could do is look out in the audience or, after the show, meet and greet people. But there’s always been a certain percentage of my audience from that community. I’m not sure if there’s more now or not. It would be cool if there were [laughs].

As the daughter of a writer, poet Miller Williams, do you think it was inevitable that you would someday write a memoir?

Yeah, probably. For years, people have been saying I should write a book. I’m such a storyteller. I’ve always written songs that tell stories. When I get on stage to perform my songs, I explain the song by telling the story behind the song.

The book is really just the same thing, just taking it a little bit deeper even; with more details about the characters and the songs because they’re all true stories. I talk a lot about characters that people already know about through the songs. When they read the book, they can get to know them even better, maybe see a photograph of them in the book.

Did you do anything special to commemorate your 70th birthday?

I think we were performing somewhere. It was January 26, so we would have been in Europe. We did the show and they brought a cake out on stage for me. The audience sang “Happy Birthday” [laughs]. It was a trip turning 70! I wanted to tell everybody, “I’m 70! I’m 70!”t

Lucinda performs with Big Thief on Aug. 8, 7:30pm at The Greek Theatre, 2001 Gayley Road, UC Berkeley campus. $56. www. lucindawilliams.com

Read the full interview, with music videos, on www.ebar.com.

power tool demos, as well as live singing, dancing and lip-syncing.

“What I would like to say to the children is that the best way to own the stage is to develop a unique identity,” he said. “Not to copy what everyone else is doing, because that can get boring. Originality and creativity is what it takes to be successful, not some predictable formula act. The judges for SFDK are all OG, they have seen it all. They want to see a stellar concept and execution. Drag should be fun, funny, shocking, glamorous, filthy gorgeous, or any or all of those. It is a gay, outrageous, evolving art form with a long history that will live on forever.”

Proceeds from the San Francisco Drag King Contest will benefit Rocket Dog Rescue and PAWS, Pets Are Wonderful Support.t

The San Francisco Drag King Contest, Sunday August 6, 7pm, $25-$55. Oasis, 298 11th St, 21+. www.sfdragkingcontest.com www.sfoasis.com

<< Lucinda Williams

by Gregg Shapiro

If Fin Argus, who stars as Derek in the movie “Stay Awake” (MarVista), now available on VOD, looks familiar to you, you may recognize them from their portrayal of Mingus in Peacock’s 2022 revival of “Queer As Folk.” Depending on how old you are, you may also recognize him from the time he spent as a member of “Kidz Bop.” He’s also an accomplished singer-songwriter.

In “Stay Awake,” Argus’ character Derek and his kid brother Ethan (Wyatt Oleff) struggle to keep their prescription drug-addicted mother Michelle (Chrissy Metz) alive and prevent her from overdosing, which she does with some frequency. Argus is marvelous as Derek, believable and empathetic. It’s a credit to Argus that his performance is so strong.

Gregg Shapiro: Fin, what was it about the character of Derek in “Stay Awake” that appealed to you as an actor?

Fin Argus: Derek is a born and bred people-pleaser. That’s something I can relate to. I grew up in an evangelical environment, which for me, turned into appeasing everyone else’s wishes for my life path and personality. I saw a lot of that in Derek. There were things that I could relate to in his experience of caring for some past the point of actually being able to make a meaningful impact on their health or well-being.

There comes a point when you start taking away your own light in order to

keep someone else alive. That’s been a recurring theme throughout my life that I’d like to think I’ve dealt with. This was a way I could find catharsis and help get that story told so other people realize that they don’t need to be that crutch for people. There’s a certain point we you need to let people help themselves.

Addiction and rehabilitation are complex issues, occasionally resulting in families being torn apart. And yet, Derek and his brother Ethan do everything they can on their mother Michelle’s behalf. Do you think that that’s a reflection of your upbringing, to hold things together?

Yes, definitely. I think I’ve done a lot of work to not behave on that wavelength anymore. But it’s still a voice in my head, and that’s what spoke to me about Derek, and the brothers’ experience, in general. But, specifically, Derek, because I think he’s more on the wavelength of, “We need to live our own lives and move on.” It kind of personifies the battle I’ve had within my own brain.

Derek works at a bowling alley. Do you bowl, and if so, what’s your high score?

I have bowled [laughs]. I’m not very good. I would say that my skill level is that I might get a strike once per game. So, I’m not terrible, but I’m definitely not winning a tourney.

Are there other sporting activities that you enjoy?

I used to play competitive baseball. My whole life, I was a centerfielder and a third baseman because I could throw far and accurately. That was my special talent. And handball, which is a fun dorky sport, I was really into because my best friend at the time was like a pro, and now he’s literally a professional handball player. He was always going to practice. I was like, “This is annoying, I wanna hang out.” So, then I got into handball.

Derek has acting aspirations and Ethan describes him as “the most prolific TV commercial actor” in the region. Did you, at any point in your career, do regional or national commercials?

I'm

I did! That was my start in the TV/ film industry. I was a part of a children’s music franchise called “Kidz Bop” for three years [as Steffan Argus]. That was my launchpad. I’ve done plenty of other commercial work here and there. That embarrassment in that audition scene [laughs], I deeply resonate with. Commercial auditions tend to be humiliating, I’ll be honest. But it’s a super-valid work path, and I was on it for quite some time.

Speaking of Ethan, he and Derek have a close and supportive relationship. Do you have siblings, and if so, how would you describe your relationship with them? I have two sisters, one older and one younger. They are my best friends. We’re very close. They also live in L.A. as well. I don’t have a brother, so I had some nerves going into this movie not really knowing the dynamic of two brothers. What I discovered is that it’s not dissimilar from my relationship with my two siblings. It’s the closeness, it’s the intimacy. I think the big thing was tapping into the way their respective toxic masculinity clashes. But that wasn’t hard to do. Also, (co-star) Wyatt (Oleff) and I became so close, so fast, it really feels like he’s my brother. He’s a little twerp [laughs].

Your “Stay Awake” co-star Chrissy Metz performed in early June 2023 at the annual Pride month Concert For Love & Acceptance, produced by gay country singer/songwriter Ty Herndon and GLAAD. As a member of the LGBTQ community, what does it mean to you that Chrissy is part of such an event?

Allyship is important. That’s what provides queer people with safety and a large sense of community. While it’s incredible that the queer community is so close-knit and we support each other, we’re part of a larger community, which is just the fact that we’re humans, and we need to take care of one another. When people who are outside of marginalized communities use their voice and their platforms to uplift marginalized communities, that’s the best thing you can do. I really appreciate her doing that, as well as any ally using their voice to help queer folks.

You played the role of Mingus in the 2022 revival of “Queer As Folk.” There is a devastating scene in which a gunman opens fire in the bar when Mingus is performing onstage. At a time when

the LGBTQ community is under constant attack from ultra-rightwing conservatives, what do you think it will take for real societal change to occur?

I think everything starts on a micro level. Outreach to your immediate community and being active in local politics. I think that’s what will make long- lasting impacts and being open to difficult conversations.

It’s a scary time to be a queer person in America. It has been, basically since America’s inception, but especially now, there’s so much hate targeting trans folks specifically. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know what’s going to push us over the edge into a safer living environment.

But I do know that what we can do is focus on community. Helping people day-to-day, making sure people are supported emotionally, and staying active in local politics. Making sure that we maintain our rights and make our voices heard, whether that’s protesting or using our vote or just being there for our queer friends or queer loved ones.t

www.instagram.com/finargus www.marvista.net

Above: Wyatt Oleff (left) and Fin Argus (right) in ‘Stay Awake’

Below: Fin Argus as Mingus in ‘Queer as Folk.’

Fin Argus WikiBio

Alejandro Mejia/MarVista Entertainment

Alyssa Moran/Peacock

by Brian Bromberger

With transgender people frequently in the news, mostly because of restrictive laws or outright bans effectively trying to silence their voices, it’s imperative their stories be heard. That’s precisely what director/ writer D. Smith accomplishes in her luminous and refreshing documentary “Kokomo City.”

The film centers on the lives of four sassy uninhibited Black transgender sex workers (Liyah Mitchell, Dominique Silver, Koko Da Doll, and Daniella Carter) in New York and Atlanta. Most transgender women are not sex workers, but Smith ingeniously uses that perspective to arrive at certain truths universal to the transgender journey.

Smith doesn’t invoke any shame or judgment on these women, but empowers them to speak their unvarnished truth with brutal honesty and openness, even if it defies the dictates of political correctness, which is one reason that despite dealing at times with grim subjects, “Kokomo City” is unexpectedly fun and wildly entertaining. These four dynamic women can be seen and heard as themselves, multi-dimensional but not defined only by what they do as sex workers.

Scary moments

The film’s sensational opening sets its funky tone with Liyah relating her “scariest moment” about trying to steal a client’s gun, then struggling with him in the hallway, managing to escape, but the kicker is that the next day she reinitiates contact with him, both deciding it was all a misunderstanding, then resuming their paid tryst. This incident relays the dangers of sex work but also its titillating unpredictability, a true living-by-the seat-of-your-pants extravaganza alternating between terror and tongue-in-cheek.

Later Daniella gives a sharp real-

ity check, “I’m supposed to tell people this shit is cool? This shit is safe? This is survival work. This is risky shit… putting your life in the hands of a man that don’t know shit about you and the only thing he’s there for is escaping his own reality… and his reality is ten times better than the one he’s giving you.”

This violence is in retaliation against the dissolution of the gender binary.

Survival is key here with Koko matter-of-factly commenting, “A lot of girls don’t make it out,” then revealing that she herself has almost been killed several times, that “all her girlfriends are dead and gone,” either killed by their clients or HIV casualties. After often having been rejected by their families, they also fear being arrested, “been to jail three times, and the next time it’s a felony.”

Ambitious glamour

Yet these women seem intent on having a good time and relish making themselves look as glamorous as possible. Often wives and girlfriends don’t acknowledge trans women as women, prompting Daniella to scream, “My money, my swipe has the same motherfucking value as your sacrifice. It’s just two different sacrifices. I use my body and you use your brain. We were just two ambitious women trying to achieve a goal.”

Or as Dominique notes, “We’re always existing around systems who tell us who we should be for someone else.”

There are conversations about how they got into sex work, meet clients, and the types of men they confront with varying attitudes. As Daniella says, “We’ve broken down, but have a great way of making ourselves stand out.”

The other facet of the film is interviews with straight men who appreciate trans women, but also feel threatened by that desire.

“Some guys ignore the dick and don’t want anything to do with it, while other rugged dudes wanna see a pretty-ass girl with a big dick,” sneaking behind

their wives or girlfriends to do so. Dominique observes, “violence doesn’t happen before the orgasm, but after… because they feel like their masculinity is threatened.”

Smith was a successful music producer working with talent like Katy Perry and Lil’ Wayne, even nominated twice for Grammys, but when she transitioned, nobody wanted to hire her. It took her three years to finish the film (with out lesbian writer/actor Lena Waithe as executive producer), crashing on different friends’ couches, with no assistant, no editor, no lighting person, “just the vision of a truth.”

She’s doing everything in this movie on her own (filming, editing, and scoring the doc with writing some original songs creating a captivating rhythm that propels the narrative) but undoubtedly her experience won the women’s trust, as if they were speaking to a friend, holding nothing back, in terms of explicit language and their uncompromising opinions.

The women condemn the hypocrisy of their Black community vis-à-vis transphobia, particularly Black men dating trans women but publicly castigating them. Daniella decries this Black sexual and gender conservatism of rigid norms: “We all scream the narrative

that we’re oppressed…but we’re the first motherfuckers to turn out nose up to the next person who want to stand out and be different.”

Dominique angrily explodes, “The whole stereotype that you’re gay if you sleep with a trans woman just because we have male genitals, but a lot of us are way more woman than a lot of cis women.”

Sissy stigma

She frankly summarizes the film’s desire to explode the stigma surrounding dating “nontraditional” partners: “Why do you care where somebody else is putting their dick?

The problem with this world is that everybody is so worried about who’s fucking who, when at the end of the day, they want to fuck each other. That’s the whole tea.”

“Kokomo City” is shot in luscious Black and white photography with its stark contrast between light and dark.

The title comes from 1930s Black singer, Kokomo Arnold’s recording used in the film, “Sissy Man Blues,” with its potent line, “ I woke up this morning with my pork grinding business in my hand/ Lord if you can’t send me no woman, please send me some sissy man.” Smith also uses cheesy re-

enactments (really not necessary) with animated and time-lapse visuals plus bubbly graphics all to create a snappy tempo and vibe juxtaposing sometimes appalling confessions.

“Kokomo City” is gripping yet hilarious, frightening with certain comments flat-out jaw-dropping with their shocking, no sugar-coating candor.

The vicissitudes of sex work has transformed these defiant women into street philosophers proclaiming hard-earned wisdom.

But sadly no raucous line or trenchant observation could capture the absolute necessity and urgency of this electrifying documentary to deplore the religious/political/cultural attacks against the trans community, than the news that Koko Da Doll was shot and killed in Atlanta this past April.

As Smith so aptly summarizes the dream of her mind-expanding film about vulnerable trans people in the press notes, “We’re all in the same boat. We’re all looking for a decent man, a woman, or whatever you’re into—we just want love, so we want the trans community to be recognized as part of the human community.”t

www.magpicturesinternational. com/kokomo-city

‘Kokomo City’ Black trans sex workers’ stories

Scene from ‘Kokomo City’

Magnolia Pictures

What’s cookin’? The Lavender Tube on ‘Recipe for Disaster,’ climate frights and more

by Victoria A. Brownworth

Recipe for Disaster

Do we need another cooking show? Always. The CW debuts “Recipe for Disaster” in August (check local listings). In each episode, three professional chefs and friends compete to prepare spectacular dishes under “absurdly adverse conditions.”

disasters that challenge our chefs in ways they never imagined. They will attempt the perfect sear while stuck on a “sinking cruise ship” during a tropical storm, try their hand at risotto while bouncing in baby jumpers, or create an earth-shattering gnocchi with nothing but a chisel and rock hammer while dining with dinosaurs.

They will attempt the perfect sear while stranded on

a show-stopping soufflé while dodging aliens on Mars. ”

To make matters worse, the cooking buddies are people from their lives who are total kitchen novices. Who will impress the judges, and whose dishes will succumb to the not-so-ridiculous disasters du jour? Ultimately, only one team will be crowned Masters of Disaster.

Executive producer Cyle Zezo told NPR, “A couple of years ago, if you’d brought up talking about climate on screen, people would think it was crazy and they wouldn’t even touch the subject.”

Queen

We’re not sure how we missed this amazing series last year, but does it matter when we can watch it now?

ABC has “The Golden Bachelor” and Netflix has “Queen.” Sylwester (Andrzej Seweryn, in an amazing performance), is a retired tailor and drag queen. He leaves his home in Paris where he is planning to move to the South of France after he receives a letter from a young woman who says she is his granddaughter and needs his help. Sylwester decides to return to his hometown in Poland, forcing him to face a difficult reckoning with his past–and come out into his present and future.

We found “Queen” absolutely mesmerizing and deeply moving.

The Netflix original four-part drama series was written by the late Árni Ólafur Ásgeirsson and Kacper Wysocki, and is directed by Lukasz Kosmicki, best known for “The Coldest Game” and “The Dark House.” The cast includes Loretta, Maria Peszek as Wioletta, Julia Chetnicka as Izabela, and several drag queens; in Polish, with subtitles.

First X July is Disability Pride Month and the intersectionality of the LGBTQ and disability communities is the subject of director and writer Josiah Polhemus’s film “First X.”

The short film stars Nicole Adler and Lena Sibony and it will tear your heart out. As detailed by the producers, “Adler (28) is a two-time governor-appointed member of the State Council of Developmental Disabilities and takes her civic responsibilities seriously. She wants to make an impact on changing perceptions and accepting people for the way they are.” That is, disabled.

Disabled people, especially those with intellectual disabilities, are roundly considered by non-disabled people as not sexual and definitely not LGBTQ. “First X” explores how wrong that perspective is; on YouTube, and well worth your time.

Smiley

“Smiley” is a delightful Spanish romantic dramedy series based on the play of the same name by Guillem Clua which stars Carlos Cuevas (Alex) and Miki Esparbé (Bruno). It’s one of those shows you fall in love with watching the trailer because every single line is fabulous and it just gets better from there.

Netflix gives this oblique description: “Two men and their friends in Barcelona navigate hesitations, hang-ups and missed connections as they search for the true love they’ve been missing.” We’re telling you that Alex is heartbroken because he has just suffered a breakup. After asking for an explanation by voice mail, he mistakenly sends it to Bruno, whom he doesn’t know. This error changes Alex and Bruno’s lives as they navigate the hilarity–and where it leads.

Smiley also addresses those class and job strata issues that are often raised. Bruno is an architect, Alex a bartender. How much –outside of the gym– do they have in common? You can binge all eight episodes

Above: A scene from The CW’s ‘Recipe for Disaster’

Below: Andrzej Seweryn in ‘Queen’

of “Smiley” (the awful title refers to a critical emoji in the plot) in a weekend. Plus all the men are hot and believable and the other characters are very funny. And “Smiley” will make you laugh and feel good and don’t we need that? Yes we do!

Soccer time

Finally, FIFA is on baby, and this is lesbian soccer queen Megan Rapinoe’s final World Cup. We’re rooting for an unprecedented third win for

See page 19 >>

Above: Josiah Polhemus’s short film ‘First X’

Middle: The cast of ‘Smiley’

Bottom: US Women’s World Cup

‘Creep: Accusations & Confessions’

by Laura Moreno

“Creep:Accusations & Confessions” is a truly worthy new collection of essays about the evil that exists all around us. It is written by the very talented Mexican-American writer Myriam Gurba. As insightful as it is poetic, it explores the knife’s edge between sanity and madness.

The book opens memorably: “It’s easy to get sucked into playing morbid games.” The first chapter delves into childhood memories of little girls cutting their Barbie dolls’ hair, something Myriam Gurba was not allowed to do. “My mother had put that rule in place after I tried giving myself Cleopatra bangs.”

The girls reenact dramatic soap opera-inspired scenes of lesbian love and hatred with their Barbie dolls. (They didn’t own any male dolls.) “They yelled, wept, shook, and made murderous threats. They lied and broke promises. They trembled, got naked, and banged stiff pubic areas. Clack, clack, clack...”

Gurba’s vivid description of the child’s play culminates in the children throwing their emotionally tormented Barbies out the window ten stories

<< Lavender Tube

From page 18

the USA team and our girl who has done so much for women in sports, LGBTQ people in sports, support

with her fontanel, and the children play Delivery Room pretending to give birth. Once her imaginary baby died and twice she herself died in childbirth, as if trapped in the curse of Genesis with no way out.

Her father recalls that Bela Lugosi (who played Dracula) came to town to be treated at the State Hospital for

Drivers sometimes fell for it hook, line and sinker.

The book also goes into detail about her very interesting family history in Mexico that touches on the history of the nation. Warts and all, Gurba hones in on some of the illusions that have guided the lives of her male ancestors in particular.

Stupid Stunts and Real Abuses

Intriguingly, the book offers little-known stories of people like Night Stalker Richard Ramirez, the son of a terribly abusive police officer and firearms expert who did not want his boy to join the police force; drug addict William Burroughs, author of “Naked Lunch” who accidentally killed his 28-year-old wife while performing their William Tell stunt for guests in Mexico City; and Carlos Salinas de Gortari, future president of Mexico, who at age 4 accidentally shot and killed a maid while playing.

Each story is a perfect storm of the stupidity and/or abuses that infect corners of society. Tragedy is never fomented out of nothing.

For example, Richard Ramirez’s

war hero who had just returned from combat in Vietnam. The tattooed vet relished recounting his experiences in graphic detail to the 12-year-old boy: his countless war crimes –researchers have claimed a Mai Lai Massacre occurred about once per month, only the press wasn’t there to document them all– against Vietnamese civilians, and his 29 taxpayer-funded killings (more victims than the Night Stalker) of Vietnamese people simply for being Vietnamese.

Perhaps the Night Stalker’s victims were indirect casualties of LBJ’s war, a war that significantly darkened and marred the American mindset.

Gurba astutely observes, “Richard slept on the grave of the outlaw John Wesley Hardin, a gunslinger who committed his first murder at age fifteen. Hardin proceeded to take 39 more lives and perhaps his spirit slithered into Richard, intoxicating him with frontier poison.”

She also notes that serial killers are “not rare when you consider how many people cops, soldiers, prisons, and insurance companies kill.” This isn’t the first nation to descend helplessly into madness.

Making literary waves

Simply by speaking the truth, even before “Creep” was published, Myriam Gurba has been punching above her

ments of the population.

When she was asked to review the book “American Dirt” for Ms. Magazine, she called out the book for being filled with negative Mexican stereotypes. The tragic tale recounts the journey of migrants to the US, but it is written (some say cartoonishly written) by a self-described white woman with no first-hand knowledge of the subject matter. Gurba read the book while she was visiting Mexico and found it almost unreadable. It angered her. Nontheless, it was featured nationally as an Oprah Book Club selection, making it a pre-ordained bestseller. When Myriam Gurba turned in her negative review of the book, her editor told her she was not famous enough to write a negative review of this book, so Gurba published it elsewhere and kicked off a national debate.

Latinx writers are painfully aware that in the 25+ years that Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club has existed, improbably, no book by any Latinx author has ever been featured. And no publisher, it seems, went to bat to correct the oversight until now, thanks to Gurba’s book review.

Myriam Gurba previously wrote the highly acclaimed memoir “Mean” and formed Dignidad Literaria with other writers to help correct the current state of affairs in publishing.t

for Black athletes and trans athletes and just a generally decent person who has changed how we look at women and sports. We hope she gets to take her team to victory once more.

The first U.S. Women’s World Cup match July 22 drew a combined audience of 6.26 million on Fox and Telemundo, making it the most-watched soccer telecast in the U.S. since last year’s men’s World Cup final. It was

also the largest combined Englishand Spanish-language audience for a U.S. women’s group stage match. And so exciting! The U.S. team welcomed newcomer Vietnam by slaughtering them 3-0. The next U.S. match is

Wednesday night (July 26) against the Netherlands.

So for the scary and the sweet, the sublime and the ridiculous, you know you really must start composting at home and stay tuned.t

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