June 29, 2023 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

SF Pride parade flexes community’s muscle

by John Ferrannini

Thousands of people marched in 200 contingents up Market Street Sunday for the San Francisco LGBTQ Pride parade – a defiant answer from the City-by-the-Bay to a resurgence in homophobic and transphobic attitudes elsewhere.

Marchers included the notable – Congress-

California Attorney

Jane Philomen Cleland

Rob

rode in the San Francisco Pride parade June 25 and issued the statewide hate crimes report two days later.

Anti-LGBTQ hate crimes up in CA, AG report says

by John Ferrannini

Just days after appearing in San Francisco’s LGBTQ Pride parade, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that hate crimes against gay men, lesbians, and trans people all rose last year.

The numbers came as part of his office’s annual report non hate crimes, which was released Tuesday, June 27. Bonta blamed “racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and destructive language” for the uptick.

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member Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the former House speaker, and the city’s mayor, London Breed – and the many more community members and allies like LGBTQ bankers, bureaucrats, first responders, service workers, and indeed people of all occupations, who make the Bay Area work day-by-day.

The parade is now in its 53rd year, although it did not take place in 2020 and 2021 due to the

ongoing COVID pandemic. It – along with Pride parades nationwide this month – commemorates the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in Manhattan, New York, which in June 1969 stood at the beginning of the movement for LGBTQ civil rights in the United States. New York City held its parade the same day as San Francisco.

One of the parade’s community grand mar-

shals, Honey Mahogany, a trans nonbinary person who is chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, told the Bay Area Reporter that though she’s been in many Pride parades over the years and has hosted the main stage at Civic Center Plaza with Sister Roma for the past five years, “being a grand marshal this year in particular feels really special.”

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2024 to be record year for CA LGBTQ legislative candidates

by Matthew S. Bajko

The 2024 legislative races are shaping up to be a record year for LGBTQ candidates in California, with at least 24 out contenders already pulling papers to seek Assembly or Senate seats in the Statehouse. It is one more than the 23 LGBTQ legislative candidates known by the Bay Area Reporter to have run in 2020.

As the B.A.R. has been reporting, next year could finally see the first transgender and queer members be elected to the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus. The affinity group for out legislators in Sacramento currently stands at a historic 12 members following the results of the 2022 election cycle, four of whom are lesbian, seven are gay men, and one is bisexual. Six are running for reelection next year and one is seeking election to a different chamber.

A seventh could depart next year if they end up running for Congress instead of reelection to their legislative seat, while two of the caucus’ lesbian members will be termed out at the end of 2024. Both Senators Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) and Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), the current senate president pro tempore, are in their last legislative terms.

Thus, depending on the outcomes of next year’s races, there is the possibility of seeing the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus nearly double in size during the 2025 legislative session. With two pairs of out candidates running for the same seat

next year, and one a Republican with little chance of winning, the affinity group could number 23 members should there be a rainbow sweep in all but one of the 2024 legislative races with out candidates.

Since 2008, when a then-record nine known out candidates sought legislative office in the

state, the B.A.R. has been keeping track of LGBTQ contenders for the Statehouse in the Golden State. The nine out female candidates who are already seeking to join the Legislature next year is just shy of the record 11 women from the LGBTQ community who ran in 2020.

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Sara

State Assembly candidate Joseph Rocha, left, joins Southern California Senate candidate Sasha Renée Pérez and East Bay state Senate candidates Jovanka Beckles and Kathryn Lybarger as four of the 24 out people running for legislative seats in 2024.

General

Bonta

Members of Dykes on Bikes led off the San Francisco Pride parade June 25.

Jane Philomen Cleland

The Vera Sphere contingent sported brilliant colors in the SF Pride parade. Gooch

SFPD arrests man with loaded firearm at Pride party

by John Ferrannini

A man was arrested by the San Francisco Police Department Sunday evening for allegedly carrying a loaded, concealed firearm into the Pride celebration at the Civic Center.

“What shocked me was how many police there were and how fast they got in,” Charlie Hinton, a gay San Francisco resident who witnessed the arrest, told the Bay Area Reporter.

“They were prepared for trouble.”

“The first thing I saw was a line of police running in from McAllister toward Fulton Street on Larkin right in front of the Asian Art Museum,” Hinton said. “There’s a Black man they’ve arrested and word of mouth is he had a gun. There were three, four police holding this man and the police surrounded them to protect the people making the arrest from the crowd. There was a lot of taunting of the police from people in the crowd.”

Leedell Moore, 23, of Oakland, was arrested and booked on charges of carrying a concealed firearm, carrying

a loaded firearm, and resisting arrest, police stated to the B.A.R. Officers were alerted to Moore after they were told there’d been a fight.

“On June 25, 2023, at approximately 5:23 p.m., SFPD officers who were as-

signed to work at the San Francisco Pride event at Civic Center were in the area of Larkin Street and Grove Street when they were flagged down regarding a possible physical altercation on the 100 block of Larkin Street,” Offi-

cer Gonee Sepulveda stated. “Officers observed three subjects in an argument. When officers approached the subjects, a male attempted to flee the scene on foot and a witness conveyed to the officers that the male fleeing the scene had a firearm. After a brief foot pursuit, the officers detained the male and located a firearm on his person.”

The SFPD posted a purported picture of the gun on Twitter, stating that Moore “attempted to flee but fell and was arrested by officers.”

“Great arrest by our officers keeping Pride safe,” the tweet stated.

Hinton said the experience was “surreal” due to the juxtaposition of people partying and protesting.

Around the same time at last year’s Pride celebration at the Civic Center on Sunday, there were false reports of a mass-casualty shooting that caused a stampede in Civic Center Plaza. Separately, there were physical fights, and someone sprayed pepper spray into the crowd.

The San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Celebra-

tion Committee – which puts on the annual parade Sunday morning and the celebration Saturday and Sunday afternoon – released a safety plan last month after 11 inquiries by the B.A.R. , and assured metal detectors and bag checks. SF Pride spokespeople have not replied to a request for comment for this report.

In 2013, there had been a man shot at the celebration. The SF Pride organization was sued and settled two years after Trevor Gardner of Los Angeles had claimed that lax security led to him being shot in the leg after a brawl broke out nearby, as the B.A.R. reported.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s office did not return a request for comment asking if Moore will be prosecuted.

The SFPD states that this is still an “open and active investigation.” Anyone with information is asked to contact the SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD. Tippers may remain anonymous.t

Castro hate crimes defendant will face trial

by John Ferrannini

Aman who pleaded not guilty to Castro-area hate crimes will continue to be held without bail as he awaits his trial, a judge ordered after a June 21 preliminary hearing.

Muhammed Abdullah, 20, had his preliminary hearing just days before Pride festivities get underway in San Francisco in front of Judge Patrick Thompson in Department 12 at the Hall of Justice, 850 Bryant Street.

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported (https://www.ebar.com/story. php?ch=news&sc=crime&id=325948),

Abdullah pleaded not guilty June 8 to two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of committing a hate crime, and counts of resisting arrest, misdemeanor battery, violation of a person’s civil rights, and petty theft. During that court appearance, he made clear his disdain for the LGBTQ community in a statement, saying, “what the LGBT community is doing to kids is disrespectful to everyone who stands for God.”

More specifically, 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 San Francisco police. He’d been following the man and another man “aggressively shouting anti-LGBTQ language,” the San Francisco Police Department stated in the news release.

Thompson ruled that the district attorney’s office met its burden to move forward to trial. The next hearing in the

case will be July 5 at 9 a.m.

Before lunch, the judge heard from two witnesses called to the stand by Assistant District Attorney Nancy Tung.

The first was Jayden Lee, who works at the Ampersand flower shop at Market and Sanchez streets.

“I was working on arrangements when I heard a tear sound from the door,” Lee testified. “I saw the Pride flag was gone and I went to see where it went and saw he had it.”

When Tung asked Lee to identify who “he” is, Lee indicated the defendant. Tung asked Lee his sexual identity, to which he replied he was bisexual. Tung also asked what the Pride flag means to him.

“For me, it kind of represents our Pride and being able to be proud of our sexuality,” Lee said. “Especially during Pride Month, it felt like a personal attack.”

Lee testified that the flag belonged to his boss, whom he did not identify. When Lee saw Abdullah with the flag, he asked him why he had taken it.

“He [Abdullah] responded with ‘this is nasty,’” Lee said. “He walked across the street and I ended up calling the police because that’s what I am told to do by my bosses whenever someone steals something.”

Tung entered into evidence a picture, from video taken by Lee, of Abdullah at the time.

Deputy Public Defender Tehanita Taylor, who is representing Abdullah, cross-examined Lee.

She asked several questions about the

door, trying to establish that perhaps it blocked Abdullah’s ability to use the sidewalk unobstructed. She also established that Lee did not see Abdullah tear down the flag with his own eyes.

Victim takes the stand

The next person to testify was Aaron Stout, who, in response to a question from Tung identified himself as a gay trans man and said he was walking with his partner on Castro Street when he first saw Abdullah while the two were trying to find a place to eat.

“He was yelling obscenities and tearing up a Pride flag,” Stout testified. “I don’t recall specifically but he did call us perverts and was saying other homophobic language.”

Stout said that initially he didn’t take the shouting to be directed at them. But as they turned from Castro to 18th Street going west, Stout said he noticed Abdullah in his peripheral vision, standing behind them.

Then Abdullah started yelling at Stout, he recalled.

“He was yelling at us directly, calling us perverts and fags and saying we should go to hell,” Stout said. “He had dropped the rainbow flag at the corner. All he had was a backpack on, that I saw.”

Then, Stout felt something hit his foot. A glass bottle – the makeup of a “Starbucks latte bottle you get at a corner store,” as Stout described it – had shattered on his foot. Some of the glass got into his hand.

Abdullah was standing six to eight feet away, Stout said.

“He was laughing after I got hit,” Stout said. “He said, ‘I was aiming for your head.’”

Defense attorney Taylor asked Stout if he had remembered specific words of Abdullah’s during his initial interview with police; Stout testified he had not.

After lunch, Taylor continued crossexamining Stout, who testified it “was not difficult” to walk after being hit by the glass bottle, and that Abdullah never said he wanted to “fight [Stout] because [he’s] gay.”

The next witness was San Francisco Police Officer William Tsang, who took

<< AG report

From page 1

“In the past several years we’ve witnessed national rhetoric get more heated, more divisive, more extreme. Hate unfortunately has no borders. California is not immune,” Bonta said, speaking at the Los Angeles Central Library for the livestreamed news conference. “As the vitriol spreads so does hate. We see that to be true year after year.”

Specifically, there were 2,120 reported hate crime events in total in California – up 20.2% from the reported 1,763 events in 2021, Bonta said.

“I’m fairly confident these numbers are undercounted,” Bonta said. “We know from lived experience and individuals that they don’t always feel comfortable coming forward.”

The group with the largest share of hate crimes committed against them were Black and African American Californians, accounting for 652 bias

a report two days earlier from a gendernonconforming person identified as Kiley B.

Kiley told Tsang that someone matching Abdullah’s description had punched them while putting up a sign on Noe Street for a “trans liberation day,” as the officer described it.

This person reportedly had a sign with the LGBTQ initialism with a circle and ‘X’ on top of it.

Officer Eric Ma joined Tsang’s testimony. Ma was the officer who arrested Abdullah at 18th and Church streets on June 5, he said.

“After he was placed in handcuffs, the defendant started yelling ‘Allah Akbar’ [in Arabic, ‘God is the Greatest’] and said being LGBTQ is wrong multiple times and that what they’re doing to kids is wrong,” Ma said.

Ma had also seen an email circulating around the police department with a picture, purporting to be of Abdullah, taken after the June 3 Noe Street incident.

Taylor challenged the counts of assault with a deadly weapon, saying that should only be charged “if it was meant to be designed as a deadly weapon.”

“A Frappuccino Starbucks bottle is not a dangerous weapon,” Taylor said.

Tung disagreed, saying if it had hit Stout and his partner in the head, they could have been victims of great bodily injury.

Thompson agreed with Tung.

“It’s not a matter of it being inherently deadly,” Thompson said. “It’s about whether the weapon is used in such a way as to be uniquely dangerous.”

The trial is set for Department 22.t

events in 2022, compared to 513 in 2021.

The next most likely group are gay men, who were victimized by at least 271 reported hate crimes. The report also listed 81 hate crimes as being motivated by “anti-homosexual bias.”

The report also shows 49 antitransgender hate crimes, 33 reported anti-lesbian hate crimes, 12 anti-gender-nonconforming hate crimes, and four anti-bisexual hate crimes. There were two reported anti-heterosexual hate crimes.

Excepting anti-bisexual hate crimes, these were all increases over 2021 numbers. Anti-gay male hate crimes rose by 28.4% alone, from 211 in 2021 to 271 in 2022, according to the report.

Sunitha Menon, a queer woman who is the managing director of operations for Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ rights group, and its affiliate Silver State Equality in Nevada,

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Muhammed Abdullah will face trial in San Francisco Superior Court on hate crime and other charges stemming from incidents in the Castro earlier this month.

Scott Wazlowski

San Francisco police officers were out in force after receiving word that a man at the celebration at Civic Center Sunday had a gun.

Charlie Hinton

Pelosi honored at Alice Pride breakfast

by Cynthia Laird

It was both a celebration and a call to action at the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club’s annual Pride breakfast June 25 as speakers touched on the community’s victories but remained cognizant of the current backlash underway, particularly against trans people and drag artists.

Congressmember Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the former House speaker, received a standing ovation as she addressed the crowd at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco. Dismissing the word “tolerant” when talking about what Pride means, the powerful ally, whose first speech on the House floor in 1987 was about the AIDS crisis, said Pride instead means respect.

“We draw strength from our LGBTQ+ community,” she said, adding that activism on HIV/AIDS “is what democracy is about.”

Pelosi, who hasn’t said whether she will seek reelection in 2024 after leaving the speaker’s position in January, offered a list of accomplishments during her two stints as House speaker (2007-2011 and 2019-2023). Those included passing the Affordable Care Act, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, repeal of the military’s anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and passing the Respect for Marriage Act.

She also said that President Joe Biden was the first “at his level” to come out in support of same-sex marriage when he served as President Barack Obama’s vice president in 2012. Last December, Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House.

The Respect for Marriage Act repealed 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. The act includes protections for religious liberty.

Pelosi encouraged people to keep up their activism.

“Know your power in all of this,” she said, adding that politicians such as herself “can only do so much with our inside maneuvering.” Change also takes agitation from the outside, she said.

Pelosi received the Anna Damiani “Show Up No Matter What” Award from the Alice club’s co-chairs, Iowayna Pena and Mawuli Tugbenyoh.

Damiani was a lesbian longtime club member and former state legislative aide who died in February 2022.

Other speakers

Others who addressed the audience both praised the LGBTQ community and reminded people of the stakes both now and in the 2024 elections.

San Francisco’s drag laureate D’Arcy Drollinger thanked the city for creating the post and Mayor London Breed for appointing her to it. Drollinger was named drag laureate in May and is the first person in the world to hold the title, though it’s expected she will soon have a counterpart in West Hollywood, California. Drollinger referenced the efforts of conservative politicians to ban drag performances in other parts of the country.

“I will help celebrate and elevate the art of drag,” she said of her reign, which will be for 18 months. She talked about the importance of people being their authentic selves.

“And by that fabulous self we can inspire everyone,” Drollinger said. “We can change the world by making our lives better.”

For her part, Breed accused conservative leaders “of trying to write off LGBTQ kids.”

“They have ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ we light up the pink triangle,” Breed said, referring to the law in Florida that prohibits teaching about LGBTQ topics and gender identity in public and charter schools through the eighth grade.

“They go after drag, we create the first drag laureate position in the world,” Breed said.

Despite all the challenges, Breed said, “the city is doing amazing things. Our values ring true. What we do in San Francisco has extraordinary impact for LGBTQs all over the world.”

U.S. Senate race

Two of the three Democratic candidates vying to replace U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) were at the breakfast. Feinstein earlier this year said she would not seek reelection. Congressmember Adam Schiff (DBurbank) addressed the audience and rode in the parade with Pelosi, who has endorsed him in the race. Congressmember Katie Porter (D-Irvine) also attended the breakfast. The third candidate, Congressmember Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) was not on hand but had supporters working the room.

During his remarks, Schiff made light of the fact that congressional Republicans censured him last week in a party-line vote for his role in investigating former President Donald Trump while serving as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

“So how was your week?” Schiff asked, going on to list meetings with constituents he had, other routine matters, “and got censured.”

Schiff, a straight ally, said the LGBTQ community “has shown remarkable resilience and determination.” He also mentioned how rights are under attack both by the U.S. Supreme Court and MAGA extremist Republicans.

“Two-thirds of the LGBTQ community report discrimination. The transgender community continues to face alarming violence,” Schiff said. “These injustices demand our attention.”

In a brief interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Porter, also a straight ally, said she was happy to be at the breakfast.

“I’m proud to be here,” she said, adding the community is going through “an incredible fight.”

“Today is a day to celebrate and have resolve,” she added. “I’m excited by the energy in this room to continue the fight for equality.”

Local leaders

Local political leaders were on hand as well. Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who has formed an exploratory committee to raise funds to run for Pelosi’s congressional seat if she does not seek reelection, thanked her for helping to turn around the fight for federal funds for AIDS when she went to Congress. During her remarks later, Pelosi acknowledged Wiener’s comment thanking straight Democratic state legislators who support LGBTQ-related bills even though they come from more conservative parts of California. She made a similar comment about House members who come from more conservative districts and states.

Wiener talked about the current political and social environment that includes school boards banning books and state lawmakers passing – and Republican governors signing – antiLGBTQ legislation.

“When I look at where we are today ... it scares the crap out of me,” he said.

He alluded to a comment Schiff made, “but I’ll say it in a gay way,” said Wiener. “Whenever we see these people and the garbage that spews out of their mouths, we say, ‘grrl, we’ve seen this before.’”

Gay state Assemblymember Evan Low (D-Cupertino) talked about the importance of Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 that is expected to be on the 2024 general election ballot to repeal Proposition 8 that defines marriage in the California constitution as being between a man and a woman. Voters adopted it in 2008, and though a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2013 invalidated it, there is concern that the current conservative majority on the court could issue a new decision once again outlawing samesex marriage as a federal right. The “zombie” Prop 8 language remains in the state constitution and this amendment, should voters pass it next year, would remove it.

On Monday, June 26, the Assembly passed ACA 5 and it now heads to the Senate. Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ rights group, stated in a news release the measure passed with bipartisan support. Once it passes the Senate, it will head to the 2024 ballot. Governor Gavin Newsom does not need to sign it. (Wiener co-authored ACA 5 with Low.)

“Galvanize and get engaged,” Low said of working to pass ACA 5 at the ballot box. “Everything is at risk.”

The reason for the Prop 8 repeal goes back to last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurring opinion in Dobbs, suggested that other precedents, including on samesex marriage, contraception, and state sodomy laws, are also ripe for reconsideration. With the 6-3 conservative supermajority now on the high court, LGBTQ activists, legal experts, and others are concerned marriage equality could be next.

Wiener introduced Lisa Middleton, a trans woman who’s on the Palm Springs City Council and is running for a state Senate seat next year.

“One thing we have not done is elect a trans person to the legislature and we’re going to change that,” Wiener said.

Middleton, who used to live in San Francisco, said she was glad to be back for Pride weekend.

“It’s been nearly 30 years since I came out ... and moved to San Francisco,” she said.

She added that while she expected to hear “some hate and rejection,” today’s climate is much more.

“I am appalled to wake up 30 years later and hear what I hear every sin -

Congressmember Nancy Pelosi, left, greets state Senate candidate Lisa Middleton at the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club Pride breakfast.

Bill Wilson

San Francisco drag laureate D’Arcy Drollinger makes her entrance at the Alice club Pride breakfast.

Bill Wilson

Volume 53, Number 26

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Grim report on CA hate crimes

Two days after California Attorney General Rob Bonta rode in the San Francisco Pride parade to the cheers of thousands, he issued the California Department of Justice’s annual hate crimes report. It is a grim reminder that hate is alive and well in the Golden State despite the many, many laws and policies in place to prevent such bias crimes. This year’s report, which covers 2022, is the second one to show an alarming uptick in reported hate crimes against the LGBTQ community.

Anti-transgender bias events increased from 38 in 2021 to 59 in 2022, while reported events against gay men shot up from 211 in 2021 to 271 in 2022, a 28.4% increase. Anti-lesbian bias crimes rose from 27 in 2021 to 33 in 2022. In all, hate crime events motivated by sexual orientation bias increased 29% in 2022 from 303 in 2021 to 391 last year, according to the report.

Overall, reported hate crime events in the Golden State increased 20.2% over last year, the report stated. In 2021 there were a total of 1,763 reported events; that figure rose to 2,120 in 2022, according to the report. At a news conference June 27 to discuss the findings, Bonta was clear that these figures are likely lower than the reality, because people don’t always feel comfortable coming forward.

“This report is a stark reminder that there is still much work to be done to combat hate in our state,” Bonta noted.

During the news conference, Bonta talked about how he and his staff have convened roundtables up and down the state to discuss combating hate crimes and bias. Yet the problem persists, whether it be anti-LGBTQ, antisemitic, or anti-Black – all groups that saw increases in 2022. Surprisingly, anti-Asian hate, which had risen the past couple of years, saw a 43.3% decrease in 2022, from 247 reported events in 2021 to 140 last year. But again, there is likely underreport-

ing in these numbers. In the LGBTQ community, we’ve seen first hand how vile social media posts targeting community members lead to brawls at public meetings and other instances of hate, such as stealing and defacing Pride flags or attacking people. In fact, the report stated that there were 699 reported incidents of property destruction/vandalism in 2022 across the state.

The politics of polarization, which includes all the anti-LGBTQ bills and laws being passed and signed in red states, have found their way to California in the shape of physical attacks, intimidation, theft, and many other types of crimes.

If there’s some good news coming out of Bonta’s report, it’s that prosecutors are taking hate crimes more seriously. The number of hate crimes referred for prosecution to district attorneys or elected city attorneys last year was 647, an increase of 5.9% from the 611 in 2021. Of those, 43.4% resulted in hate crime convictions;

45.9% resulted in other convictions, and 10.7% were not convicted.

There’s an anti-LGBTQ hate crimes case being prosecuted now in San Francisco after a man allegedly attacked another man and his partner in the Castro neighborhood earlier this month. As we’ve reported, defendant Muhammed Abdullah has pleaded not guilty, but testimony at his recent preliminary hearing revealed evidence of bias against the LGBTQ community, the judge ruled in ordering him to stand trial. We’re glad the district attorney’s office is prosecuting the case and extremely grateful that the victims came forward and reported the incident.

Reporting is the key in these cases, as is the necessity for the alleged perpetrator to utter some type of discriminatory remark, as was the case in San Francisco, according to testimony. Too often, perpetrators will take some action against someone but not say a word, making it extremely difficult to prosecute. Regardless, it’s critical that members of the LGBTQ community, and members of other vulnerable communities report these incidents when they happen.

Bonta stated that he has issued an updated law enforcement bulletin to all DAs, police chiefs, sheriffs, and state law enforcement agencies with a summary of the multiple California criminal laws that prohibit hate crimes or provide enhanced penalties for specified hate-related acts, as well as guidance related to the investigation and prosecution of these crimes. People reporting hate events is the first step – law enforcement must continue to follow up with investigating and prosecuting the cases if warranted.

Pride Month may be coming to a close but that doesn’t mean hate crimes will subside. As long as this toxic environment continues to flourish – with politicians and other leaders spewing hate and disinformation, people will act on it, for whatever demented reason. We must stand in solidarity with religious groups and other minority communities to fight this hate. t

Our LGBTQ students need a voice at the table

by John Laird

Last year, Paso Robles High School, located in my state Senate District 17, experienced a deeply disturbing incident. A Pride flag was ripped down and subjected to appalling and gruesome acts that I do not wish to detail here. These acts were then proudly shared on social media.

Unfortunately, the school administration and board failed to take immediate action in response. However, a group of courageous students, primarily representing the LGBTQ+ community, took matters into their own hands. They organized a town hall meeting, which saw an impressive turnout of over 350 attendees.

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This gained significant attention from local media outlets, resulting in news coverage, commentary, and public discussion. This increased scrutiny prompted the administration and school board to finally take action. Furthermore, the mayor of Paso Robles hosted a forum to foster unity and collaboration within the community.

I had the privilege of inviting these high school students who organized the town hall meeting to dinner. As an older gay man who witnessed and participated in the organizing struggles of the 1970s and 1980s, who served as one of the first openly gay mayors in the country, and a founding member of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, I found their organizing and actions deeply moving. I could not help but reflect on my own youth and acknowledge that I most likely would not have possessed the same level of courage to do what they had done.

Witnessing these young individuals real ize their own power was a truly inspiring experience. It was an important reminder for myself just as much as them on what a collective voice can accomplish in the face of what seems like daunting odds.

In recognition of their remarkable efforts, the students were recognized at last year’s Legislative LGBTQ Caucus awards as my honorees. I proudly shared their accomplishments while on the Senate floor, in acknowledgment and recognition of their bravery and dedication to standing up against injustice. However, the work is not yet done.

It is startling that in California, to get a seat at the table in situations like this – the students had to construct the table and demand to sit in the very chairs they built.

So this year, when approached by the California

Association of Student Councils to introduce legislation, I said yes and introduced Senate Bill 857.

In the California Association of Student Council’s own words:

“Every student deserves a safe and supportive school environment where they can learn and succeed. Unfortunately, while California has passed several laws to protect LGBTQ+ students, many school districts lack the resources to implement these laws, face hostile local social climates that impede implementation, or lack awareness regarding existing legal requirements and the best ways to meet them. According to Equality California Institute’s 2022 Safe and Supportive Schools Report Card, 30% of school districts that responded to the survey had not adopted an anti-bullying policy that explicitly prohibits bullying on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Nearly half (48%) of respondents had not adopted LGBTQ+ inclusive educational materials that are compliant with the FAIR Education Act. SB 857 is an important opportunity to empower the growing community of LGBTQ+ students, ensure the enforcement and implementation of existing laws, and work to address the real needs of all California students.”

The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful, or FAIR, Act, signed into law by former governor Jerry Brown in 2011, states that a “teacher shall not give instruction and a school district shall not sponsor any activity that promotes a discriminatory bias on the basis of race or ethnicity, gender, religion, disability, nationality, or sexual orientation.” It was the first such law of its kind in the nation.

SB 857 will require the state superintendent of public instruction to convene an LGBTQ+ advisory task force to identify statewide needs and make recommendations to create a safe and supportive learning environment for LGBTQ+ students.

The goal is to have everyone at the table to make sure that there is a way to be prepared to deal with similar situations before they happen and to be proactive rather than reactive – without the students having to be the only ones to take the lead. This 11-member advisory task force would represent the diverse geographic, racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, cultural, physical, and educational backgrounds of California’s LGBTQ+ students and community.

The members of the advisory committee, appointed through a selection process overseen by the superintendent of public instruction, would include:

 Three LGBTQ+ students currently enrolled in a California high school;

 One school administrator employed by a local educational agency;

 Two certified school teachers employed by a local educational agency;

 One licensed physician and surgeon, with a preference for those practicing LGBTQ+ affirming care;

 Two mental health professionals, with a preference for those practicing LGBTQ+ affirming care;

 One community LGBTQ+ advocate, with a preference for those with programmatic expertise; and

 One representative from the Office of Health Equity established by the State Department of Public Health.

It is high time that we ensure California’s students have a rightful place at the table when it comes to matters of equity and inclusion. They should not have to demand a seat only after a distressing incident occurs and makes headlines. The passage of SB 857 would help to rectify this situation. Notably, it received majority support in the state Senate, passing on a bipartisan vote of 35-0. In the coming weeks, it will be considered in the state Assembly. Let us come together and enact this crucial piece of legislation into law in California. t

State Senator John Laird, a gay man, represents the 17th Senate District, which contains Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo Counties in their entirety, as well as portions of Monterey and Santa Clara Counties. Laird served as former governor Jerry Brown’s secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency and previously as a member of the state Assembly. He’s also a former mayor of Santa Cruz.

State Senator John Laird

Courtesy John Laird

Attorney General Rob Bonta AP/file

UC Berkeley grad Mohajer aims to make history as 1st gay Iranian legislator

by Matthew S. Bajko

With his bid in 2024 for a California state Senate seat, Alex Mohajer is looking to make LGBTQ political history. The gay UC Berkeley graduate would not only be the first out legislator from Orange County, he also believes he would be the first out Iranian man to hold elected office anywhere in the world.

His candidacy is already making national headlines. The newsite Queerty this month named Mohajer, 38, one of its 50 most influential and inspiring LGBTQ+ voices in the U.S.

In March, Bear World magazine profiled the Southern California candidate. It noted that the Golden State “may have a beary handsome history maker on its hands.”

First Mohajer has to survive next March’s primary for the open Senate District 37 seat. The incumbent, Senator Dave Min (D-Irvine), is running to succeed Congressmember Katie Porter (D-Irvine), who is vying for the U.S. Senate seat that Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein is stepping down from next year.

Min had flipped the seat to the blue column back in 2020. And due to the recent redistricting process, Mohajer believes the Senate district leans even more Democratic.

Nonetheless, the first-time candidate for public office told the Bay Area Reporter, “I am certainly the underdog” in the race.

Mohajer is facing a fierce campaign for the legislative seat, with four Republicans pulling papers to flip it from blue to red next year. Only the top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, will move on to the November 2024 ballot.

“I actually think Orange County is ready for an openly gay legislator,” Mohajer told the B.A.R. during a recent phone interview about his candidacy. “It is still a purple area, that is for sure. But the heart of the district is Irvine, which has come a long way in the last decade.”

Ahmad Zahra, a gay Syrian American, has served on the Fullerton City Council since 2001. The city is part of the 37th Senate District, along with Irvine, Orange, Tustin, Costa Mesa, Lake Forest, Aliso Niguel, and Laguna Niguel.

But several candidates in Orange County from the LGBTQ community have not had success at the ballot box during recent election cycles. Transgender Seal Beach resident Stephanie Wade lost her bid for a city council seat in a February runoff race called when no candidate won it outright last November.

In 2020, gay lawyer Bijan Mohseni had sought to be the first out LGBTQ legislator of Iranian descent. But the Los Alamitos resident lost his bid for an Orange County Assembly seat.

Gay Mission Viejo resident Scott Rhinehart also lost his bid that year for another Orange County Assembly seat. It marked his second time waging an unsuccessful campaign for the seat, having lost in 2018.

Meanwhile, cities throughout the coastal county between Los Angeles and San Diego have moved to curtail LGBTQ rights of late. In February, a conservative majority on the Huntington Beach City Council banned displaying the Pride flag on city properties such as City Hall or the local library.

Mojaher joined in a Pride protest held in May by LGBTQ activists who marched through the famous beach town with rainbow flags. They also unfurled a gigantic Pride flag that included colored stripes representing Black, Brown, and transgender individuals over the side of the Huntington Beach Pier.

Just weeks later, in early June, at the start of Pride Month, the Orange County Board of Supervisors followed suit by imposing a similar countywide ban against displaying the Pride flag. LGBTQ issues have also become a flashpoint this year in the Orange Unified School District after conservatives won a majority on the school board last November.

“This is why we need openly gay people to start running for office to fight back against those ordinances. It isn’t only happening in GOPcontrolled legislatures, it is happening in our backyard,” noted Mohajer. “One way to tackle that is to have representation and make sure we are at the table, which is what I am trying to do.”

Deep roots Mohajer is banking on his familial roots in the district to help him break through the pink political ceiling in his county. Born in Irvine to parents who both emigrated from Iran, Mohajer was raised by his mother after his parents divorced when he was very young and his father returned to Iran. (His dad died from COVID in February 2021 on the same day that Mohajer received his first vaccination for the coronavirus.)

Mohajer came to the Bay Area for college and graduated in 2007 from UC Berkeley with a degree in mass communications. He then earned a law degree in 2011 from the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. After living in Los Angeles for a few years, he moved back home to Irvine during the COVID pandemic.

An award-winning journalist, Mohajer since 2013 has tried due process hearings and investigated allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination as a civil service advocate for Los Angeles County, from which he likely will take a leave of absence later this year to focus full-time on his campaign. He has been sober nearly five years and is a

member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he said.

Mohajer was the first millennial and first Iranian American elected to lead the Stonewall Democrats, the LGBTQ political group with its largest chapter based in Los Angeles where it was founded in 1975. He will be stepping down in July after serving a two-year term as president.

In addition to being one of a record number of LGBTQ legislative candidates this year, as noted by the B.A.R. in a story this week, Mohajer is part of a small but growing group of LGBTQ Americans with Middle Eastern ancestry seeking elected office.

“Part of why I wanted to run is there are no Iranians in the California Legislature. We have the deepest diaspora and no representation in the Legislature,” said Mohajer, noting that Southern California has the largest diaspora of Iranians outside of Iran. “We think 5% to 7% of the district is Iranian and represents a winning margin.”

He is eschewing donations from political action committees affiliated with corporations and is a champion of addressing climate change. His goal is to land in second place in the primary behind one of his Republican opponents, setting them up to compete head-to-head in the fall race.

“I think most people are receptive to a candidate like me,” Mohajer told the B.A.R. “Most people I have engaged with are open and receptive. I think the county is ready; somebody has to be the first to do it.”

Nonetheless, he knows he faces an uphill climb to convince a majority of voters to send him to Sacramento at a time when conservative media is “dedicated to boogey-manning LGBTQ people,” Mohajer acknowledged.

“What I am able to do is show people, particularly Republicans and the more conservative side of the political spectrum, we are the same people who care about the same things,” he said. “I want to pass policies that will help all families. We love this place. We want a place where our kids can grow up, and thrive, and have opportunity.”

After all, said Mohajer, “LGBTQ people, we have the same interests and desires like everybody else.”

To learn more about Mohajer, visit his campaign site at https:// alexmohajer.com/ t

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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.

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State Senate candidate Alex Mohajer

Courtesy the campaign

Shooting off one’s mouth

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

In British Columbia recently, an elementary school track meet became something very different.

A 9-year-old girl was preparing to take part in a shot put event when a man spoke out about the girl’s participation. The man, Josef Tesar, has claimed that he privately spoke to officials, while the girl’s parents and other present claim that he made a much larger scene.

“She was standing in line and all of a sudden, this man comes out of the crowd,” one of the girl’s mothers, Heidi Starr, told the New York Post. “He stops the entire event and says ‘This is a girl’s event, why are boys allowed to throw?’”

The 9-year-old wears her hair in a short pixie cut.

“If she’s not a boy,” Tesar is reported to have said, “she is obviously trans.” Tesar’s wife was reportedly not above the fray either, accusing Heidi Starr and her wife, Kari, of being, “genital mutilators, groomers, and pedophiles.”

Tesar also demanded documentation that the 9-year-old was assigned female at birth.

In spite of some questions as to who said what, Tesar has remained adamant on one thing: his right to question a child’s gender identity. “I am not apologizing for that question that I asked. I think personally I have a right to ask questions, and I always will for the rest of my life,” he said. He further claims that the child’s parents were the ones trying to “satisfy an agenda.”

Over the last few months, we have

<< AG report

From page 2

joined Bonta at the news conference. She said, “It goes without saying that this Pride season feels a lot different than others,” referencing the homophobic and transphobic rhetoric that has ratcheted up in recent months, as

seen a rise among the right in the U.S. and elsewhere to press the idea that transgender girls and women are attempting to infiltrate women’s sports in order to, I suppose, take advantage of some innate masculinity to, I guess, win fortune and fame.

Of course, women’s sports have always been known for their lucrative prizes and high levels of celebrity. Particularly, I suppose, for 9-year-old shot put competitors in British Columbia schools.

Additionally, both those of us who are transgender, as well as our allies, have been painted with the same words the

the Bay Area Reporter has reported.

The United States Department of Homeland Security issued guidance last month warning that “individuals or events associated with the LGBTQIA+ community” could be targets of “lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and personal grievanc-

Starrs were smeared with. Legislators across the United States, for example, have sought to interfere with parental agency, removing trans children from supportive households by arguing that gender-affirming care – itself not including hormonal treatments and surgical interventions in young children – is a form of child abuse. Likewise, simply acknowledging that LGBTQ people exist has fueled book bans and “don’t say gay” bills, with their proponents claiming that the mere acknowledgment of queer identities is “grooming” children into underage sex. It really doesn’t, to me, make much

es,” particularly in the aftermath of the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs last November that killed five people and injured 25 others last November.

(The shooter, Anderson Lee Aldrich, pleaded guilty to a raft of charges, including five first-degree murder counts, June 26 and was given five consecutive life sentences plus more

sense. Probably not to you, either.

The thing is that after months of this constant drumbeat, there are a large number of people caught up in the hysteria – and not just in places like Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s Texas or GOP Governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’ Florida. It doesn’t matter how blatant and ridiculous the lies: many have long been primed to believe in such, and our dysfunctional mainstream media is not at all interested in pushing back against this right-wing narrative.

So now this long campaign against transgender people, the larger LGBTQ community, and even our allies and supporters has led to a non-transgender 9-year-old being berated by an adult man at a track meet.

I want to say I told you so. Any time you focus on who is or isn’t transgender, it is never just transgender people affected. Bathroom bans rarely cause transgender people to be kicked out, but more commonly cause non-transgender women to be challenged in their local restroom stalls. Gender conformity is wielded against us all.

For that matter, I think this very story would have read very differently if the 9-year-old in question were transgender. Would the stories have been nearly as sympathetic if she had been assigned male at birth, even though, at age 9, there’s simply no physical advantage supposedly being exploited? Would the narrative, rather, framed the parents or even the child as the villain of the tale, or even attempted to present this as some

time by the judge.) “It is heartbreaking that once again our community is experiencing a surge of hate crimes in the Golden State,” Menon said. “Hate speech leads to violent actions and LGBTQ Californians are experiencing that. The domino effect is clear and we cannot allow this to continue putting lives at risk.”

“For all LGBT people, we are grateful for the continued support of Attorney General Rob Bonta and for his commitment to ensuring LGBTQ+ people – especially our trans siblings – grow up in a California that welcomes them,” Menon continued.

The numbers show that people are most likely to be victims of hate crimes at their own homes, residences or driveways, on the street, in a parking lot or garage, in school, or at a house of worship.

Rabbi Ken Chasen of the Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles said, “Frankly, California’s Jewish community did not have to wait until the report was released. We experienced the increase in hatred directed at us with our own eyes and their own ears.”

sort of “both sides are bad” argument?

The day that Tesar decided that a 9-year-old child shouldn’t be allowed on the field, the shot put competition was moved to the other side of the field, away from him. Nevertheless, the girl, obviously shaken, did not place in the event.

Tesar is now barred from future competitions and, as of this writing, remains under investigation by the Kelowna Royal Canadian Mounted Police for possible discriminatory actions. He may also be losing his own spot in sports history as an inductee into the Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame as a wrestler and coach.

As I said, this sort of anti-transgender mania will never be contained to just trans people; it will affect us all. No woman will be safe from being challenged in sporting events, in bathrooms, or anywhere in public life. Anyone who shows support for transgender people will face the same sort of accusations as the Starrs, which, in turn, will press the more timid from supporting us at all.

Those of us who are trans, of course, will end up ostracized from public life. Many of us may even end up dead, either from our own hands or others.

This event should be a wake-up call. We can choose to let things grow even worse, or we can fight back. Cowards like Tesar should be told, firmly, to go back to their caves.t

Gwen Smith knows very little about shot put, and is happy to keep it that way. She can be found at www.gwensmith.com

Jewish people were the most targeted religious group; and the fourth most targeted group in total, following the Black, gay male, and Latino communities. There were 228 reported anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2022 compared to 33 anti-Muslim and 23 anti-Catholic hate crimes, No. 2 and No. 3 among religious groups, respectively.

Chasen said members of his congregation were targeted with “hate baggies” with literature accusing Jewish people of “masterminding the COVID agenda.”

“It’s been shown again and again and again throughout Jewish history that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist in a hate vacuum,” Chasen said. “When a society permits any minority population to be targeted with hate, any minority population will be targeted with hate.”

Forty-one of the 2,120 hate crime events were in San Francisco, the report shows. One hundred and ninety-one were in Santa Clara County and 109 were in Alameda County. t

Trans March protests anti-LGBTQ bills

Activists from El/La Para TransLatinas staged a die in along Dolores Street while on the Trans March June 23 to protest the many anti-transgender bills that have recently been introduced and/or passed in various state legislatures. The march

stepped off from Mission Dolores Park and made its way to the Tenderloin. It included participants representing many different countries with a unified message to red states: “Your bills are killing us.”

Rick Gerharter

Christine Smith

Castro elevator project to break ground in July

by Matthew S. Bajko

At long last construction is set to begin on a new four-stop elevator at the Castro Muni station in the city’s LGBTQ district. A groundbreaking on the $11.5 million project is slated for early July, with the completion date now expected sometime in 2026.

The “Notice to Proceed” for construction was set for Tuesday, June 20, according to the city’s public works department. The general contractor, CLW Builders Inc., has begun posting construction notices around the neighborhood, while the city’s transit agency has also begun to send out notices to inform nearby residents and business owners of the pending construction.

“That said, they’ll likely perform project site survey first, then install construction fencing, sound barriers and landscape protection before starting work. This will take about 1-2 weeks,” noted San Francisco Public Works spokesperson Rachel Gordon in an emailed reply to the Bay Area Reporter. “No heavy construction to take place before end of Pride Month.”

As the Bay Area Reporter had reported in early February, the commission that oversees San Francisco Public Works unanimously approved in January the

From page 4

gle day,” she said of the anti-trans vitriol. “We’re going to win this fight but children will have to endure it.”

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman was excited to have another gay member of the Board of Supervisors with him on the podium. Joel Engardio, who represents District 4, was attending his first Alice breakfast as an elected city leader. (The third gay supervisor, Matt Dorsey, who represents District 6,

contract with CLW Builders Inc., which was the lowest bidder to build the elevator. The city agency has overseen the design of the four-stop lift for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which operates the belowground subway station at the corner of Castro and Market streets.

Public Works officials had hoped to break ground on the glass and steel elevator in March, but a delay in SFMTA finalizing the insurance certificate for the project with BART had slowed the permitting process. The regional transit agency built

the station and leases it to the city’s Muni system.

Another hiccup came from protests being lodged by the losing bidders for the project. Those also needed to be resolved before the SFMTA could award the contract to CLW Builders Inc.

There had been a possibility of work on the elevator beginning in June, several sources told the B.A.R. But with Pride Month an important time period for businesses in the Castro due to an influx in visitors, neighborhood leaders had impressed upon city officials the impor-

tance of not disrupting a major access point to the area until the end of June.

“I am glad that it is happening and I am glad it did not happen during Pride,” said gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro at City Hall. “There was a possibility it could, but folks in DPW and I concurred it was not a good idea.”

The new elevator had first been proposed in 2016, as the current elevator for the Castro Muni Station is across the street from its main entrance near Pink Triangle Park where 17th Street meets Market Street, which can be hard to access for wheelchair users and others with mobility issues. If out of service, then there is no way to access the station without using stairs or an escalator.

As the B.A.R. has previously reported, the elevator project includes several upgrades to Harvey Milk Plaza, named in honor of the city’s first gay supervisor who represented and lived in the Castro. Several of the existing lighting fixtures will be replaced, plus the red paver bricks will be removed to install sparkle grain integral color concrete that matches the paving installed when the sidewalks along Castro Street were widened.

The elevator project will also result in a wider segment of sidewalk fronting Market Street headed toward Collingwood

arrived late due to a previous commitment.)

“Now I’m just another gay county supervisor,” Mandelman quipped.

Engardio said he helped marry same-sex couples at City Hall on June 23 and noted it’s been 10 years since same-sex marriage was legalized in California after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal appeals court ruling that Prop 8 was unconstitutional in June 2013.

Bishop Yvette Flunder, who is same-gender loving, delivered the invocation at the start of the break-

Rainbow Skies Ahead!

Street so it is usable for people in wheelchairs. New plantings, bench seating, and interpretative signage about Milk will also be installed in the plaza’s below-grade area adjacent to the subway concourse level.

“The benefits to accessibility are really important. We have heard about this from folks who would like to be able to have better access to the station, and there is currently no good access on the plaza side,” said Mandelman.

City officials had pushed back their initial timeline for the elevator project in order to allow for community discussions to take place on a proposal to completely redo Harvey Milk Plaza. It is a separate project being overseen by the Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza that has also faced delays, vocal opposition, and gone through multiple architects and design concepts.

Initially estimated to cost $10 million, an exact price tag and funding source for the plaza remodel project remains unknown. Its proponents are seeking private donors and other fiscal sources to pay for it, with leaders of the effort recently telling the B.A.R. there could be news on that front later this summer or in early fall.

For more information about the elevator project, visit its website at https:// www.sfmta.com/projects/castro-stationaccessibility-improvements-project t

fast. She lifted up Black and Brown people “killed by those who our tax dollars pay for” and held up “hearts for the LGBTQ community.”

Alex Randolph, a gay man who’s chair of the Alice club’s finance committee, announced that the breakfast raised over $150,000.

“We’ll be able to clap back against transphobia,” he said. t

With

Messenger of Hope” in Harvey Milk Terminal 1, Departures level.

A rendering shows the new Castro Muni elevator during the daytime.

Courtesy SF Public Works

San Francisco Supervisors Joel Engardio, left, and Rafael Mandelman spoke at the Alice club Pride breakfast.

Bill Wilson

Some changes coming to AIDS Walk SF

by Cynthia Laird

AIDS Walk San Francisco will take place next month, and event organizers are getting the word out about some changes to the event that raises funds for HIV/AIDS nonprofits.

The biggest change is that the walk, scheduled for Sunday, July 16, at Robin Williams Meadow in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, will only be a 5K trek. In previous years it had been a 10K walk, said Bert Champagne, event director. He said that for many people the route was too long. The walk will begin and end at the meadow. Champagne, a gay man, said many people wanted a shorter walk.

Champagne told the Bay Area Reporter in a phone interview that the event is being brought in-house this year. No longer owned by MZA, which originated the walk decades ago in 1987, AIDS Walk SF is now run by an eponymous foundation. Champagne used to work for MZA and said that he told organizers that if brought in-house, he would stay on.

MZA was paid a “small fee” to retain the rights to the AIDS Walk SF name, Champagne said, adding he was not at liberty to disclose the amount.

“It’s still in Golden Gate Park, there will be a big tent and a pancake break-

fast,” he said, adding there will be an opening ceremony as well.

At the time the B.A.R. spoke with Champagne, post-walk entertainment was still being worked out.

As with previous walks, there is no registration fee and people can sign up

the morning of the event if they want to. But what has become popular in recent years is people walking as team members of a nonprofit or company. The HIV/AIDS nonprofits that are co-beneficiary partners keep 80% of what they raise, Champagne said. This year, there

are 15 of those co-beneficiary partners.

One of those co-beneficiaries is the AIDS Legal Referral Panel. Outgoing Executive Director Bill Hirsh stated in an email to supporters that the nonprofit has its Legal Eagles Team.

“Every AIDS Walk is a momentous

event, but this year’s walk has an especially personal significance for me, as it will be the last time I participate as the executive director of ALRP,” he stated, having recently announced that he will step down from the position at the end of the year.

“Today, most of ALRP’s clients are living and aging with HIV rather than dying from AIDS, but the need for caring and zealous legal advocacy is as great as ever,” Hirsh added. “I am, as always, deeply appreciative of your generous support over the years, and I hope that you will join me in supporting ALRP’s essential legal services for people living with HIV/AIDS once again this year.”

Other co-beneficiaries are the National AIDS Memorial Grove, the Spahr Center in Marin County, the LGBT Asylum Project, Ward 86 pop-up at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, La Clínica, Quan Yin Healing Arts Center, Maitri Compassionate Care, the Rainbow Community Center in Concord, Huckleberry Youth Programs, UCSF 360 Wellness Center, Hive, the Castro Country Club, West County Health Centers in Contra Costa County, and Face 2 Face in Sonoma County.

Champagne, who’s been with AIDS Walk for 30 years, started out as a receptionist. He said that by staying in Los Angeles, the organization “saved an enormous amount of overhead” as opposed to opening an office in San Francisco.

This year, about 2,500 walkers are expected, he said.

“People can raise or donate what they want,” he noted, adding that people can raise $150 for a T-shirt.

So far, according to the website, nearly $670,000 has been raised.

Champagne said that Gilead Sciences is the presenting sponsor and that ABC7-TV’s Dan Ashley will once again be on hand to encourage walkers. The walk will be shown on ABC-7’s digital channel.

The pancake breakfast, open to all fundraising participants, starts at 8:30 a.m., followed by pre-walk festivities at 10 and the walk at 10:30. There will be a community dance party from noon to 3 p.m.

For more information or to sign up, go to sf.aidswalk.net/ t

Volunteers installed the pink triangle earlier this month. Now help is needed to take it down and unload the materials at an Oakland warehouse.

Help dismantle pink triangle

by Cynthia Laird

It’s that time again. Pride Month will soon be over and organizers of the pink triangle installation atop Twin Peaks need volunteers to help dismantle the canvas and sailcloth borders.

The “farewell” to the 28th iteration of the pink triangle will be Saturday, July 1, from 9 a.m. to noon, said Patrick Carney, a gay man and co-founder of the project. People can stop by anytime within those hours. Additional help is needed Sunday, July 2, from 11 a.m. to noon to unload the canvass from a truck at a storage warehouse in Oakland.

“It’s a great option for East Bay residents,” Carney noted.

Carney stated that “fashionable pink triangle T-shirts will be provided to all who help.” Interested volunteers should bring gloves and wear closed-toe shoes.

To sign up, go to https://tinyurl.com/ bsves24t.t

Walkers start the 6.2-mile route of the San Francisco AIDS Walk in Golden Gate Park on July 14, 2019

Rick Gerharter

Hossein Carney

Gay man confirmed to CA appellate court

by Cynthia Laird

D avid Rubin, a gay man and Superior Court judge in San Diego County, was unanimously confirmed and sworn in June 23 as a justice for the Fourth District Court of Appeal after a hearing by the state Commission on Judicial Appointments.

Governor Gavin Newsom nominated Rubin in March.

Rubin will serve on the Fourth District’s Division One, and he said after his swearing in that he would be the first LGBTQ person in that division. Justice Marsha Slough, a lesbian, was the first out appellate bench officer in the Fourth District, where she serves on Division Two, Rubin noted.

The hearing by the Commission on Judicial Appointments was chaired by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero and held at the Supreme Court building in San Francisco. She was joined by Attorney General Rob Bonta and Manuel A. Ramirez, presiding justice of the Fourth District’s Division Two.

Rubin, who was first elected to San Diego County Superior Court in 2006, began his tenure in 2007. He has presided over civil, criminal, and family court matters, speakers told the commission.

Maureen Hallahan, assistant presiding judge of the San Diego County Superior Court, told the commission she first met Rubin when she and Rubin’s husband, attorney Todd Stevens, met volunteering at an AIDS nonprofit. Rubin was the first openly gay deputy district attorney hired in San Diego County, she said, and he quickly grasped

complex cases. Rubin and Hallahan worked in family law together once both became judges. Later, he was assigned to criminal cases, she explained. When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, however, “he was the first to volunteer to hear family court cases.”

Associate Justice Douglas P. Miller, who sits on the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, told the commission he considers Rubin to be his best friend. They worked together on the California Judges

Association and Rubin served as president of the group from 20111012.

“He was the first and only openly gay president of CJA,” Miller said. “He’s a brilliant colleague and a true public servant.” Miller added that Rubin has an approach to solving problems whereby he’s “calm, patient, innovative, and resolute in knowing the goal.”

The third person to speak in support of Rubin was Judith D. McConnell, administrative presiding justice

for the Fourth District’s Division One. She talked about Rubin’s background, including that he was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and experienced both antisemitism and homophobia.

McConnell said that Rubin “acknowledged being gay in college.”

After earning undergraduate degrees at UC Berkeley, Rubin earned his juris doctor degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law. While there, he also renewed the LGBTQ student group for law students.

“It’s important for appellate justices to be compassionate, show empathy, be intellectually disciplined, remain flexible, and be open to ideas and [have] a clear sense of justice,”

McConnell said. “Those are all qualities he has shown in trial court.”

In San Diego, Rubin has been involved with the Tom Homann LGBT Law Association.

Justin A. Palmer, chair of the State Bar Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, said that after a review, Rubin was found to be “exceptionally well qualified” for the appellate bench.

Bonta asked Rubin about what he looked forward to and the challenges ahead in the new position after telling Rubin, “I love the commitment to marginalized communities.”

Rubin responded that he looks forward to continuing the work of research and writing, and now being able to look at it from an appellate perspective.

“I’m looking forward to the new adventure,” he said.

As for challenges, Rubin said he hopes to learn from his colleagues.

“It’s going to be a lot of hard work, but I don’t mind,” he said.

Rubin offered just a brief comment during the hearing: “I’m very humbled and honored to be here.”

However, during remarks after Guerrero swore him in, Rubin thanked the many people who have helped him, including Newsom, Luis Céspedes, Newsom’s judicial appointments secretary, and his staff.

“They have worked hard to create a bench that reflects California,” Rubin said.

Of the Tom Homann LGBT Law Association, Rubin noted that when it was formed “it was very difficult to be out.”

As he neared the end of his remarks, Rubin said he could feel tension in the audience because he had not yet mentioned his husband.

“I’m not Hilary Swank forgetting to thank Chad Lowe at the Oscars” he quipped, referring to 2000 when Swank, who won best actress for “Boys Don’t Cry,” a film about a trans man, neglected to acknowledge Lowe, her then-husband.

“I saved the best for last,” Rubin said, looking at Stevens, who was standing near him. “We’ve been together 33 years and I don’t have the words to express how much you mean to me.”

Referring to his hearing being held at the start of Pride weekend in San Francisco, Rubin said he attended his first LGBTQ Pride parade in 1982. He joked that he didn’t plan for his confirmation hearing to coincide with local Pride festivities.

“Happy Pride in San Francisco,” he said. “I didn’t set this up.”

Rubin fills the seat created by the retirement of Justice Cynthia G. Aaron. The compensation for each of the positions is $264,542. t

David Rubin was confirmed and sworn in June 23 to a seat on the California Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One, in San Diego

Courtesy Governor’s Office

“After a year full of over 500 hateful anti-LGBTQ bills being introduced across the country, a year filled with violent rhetoric and attacks, marching in Pride felt incredibly cathartic, necessary, and in some ways revolutionary to be able to celebrate queer and trans joy amidst it all,” Mahogany stated. “I’m so grateful to be able to be here and be a part of this moment.”

The parade allowed the city’s queer community to flex its political muscle in more ways, too. The American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau estimates 15.4% of San Francisco’s population is LGBTQ –the highest proportion in the country.

District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio, who represents the Sunset and Outer Sunset neighborhoods on the city’s Board of Supervisors, is one of three gay men on the city’s legislative body. Last year, there was only one: District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro.

“This parade was especially meaningful because not only was it my first as a city supervisor, I was able to share the experience with my husband. Not that long ago it seemed impossible that historically conservative western districts in San Francisco would ever elect an openly gay supervisor,” Engardio stated. “And not that long ago it was impossible for Lionel [Hsu] and I to be legally married husbands. So this march was a celebration of how far we have come. It was also a realization of how much work we still have to do to help trans people who are under threat and ensure the liberties LGBTQ people have gained remain for the next generation. Freedom is fragile and we must always be working to protect it.”

District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, whose South of Market district runs along the parade route, told the B.A.R., “My thoughts on Pride, kudos to Su-

<< LGBTQ candidates

From page 1

“It’s important to note as well that we aren’t just running we are winning. We celebrated 10% LGBTQ+ representation in the state Capitol this year,” noted Eggman, the LGBTQ caucus chair, in an emailed reply to the B.A.R. “I think the reason we are winning more often than not is that LGBTQ+ elected officials have a track record of getting things done for every member of our constituencies, including individuals who work to deny us basic rights and dignity. Because we know the Gay Agenda is rooted in radical love for all people.”

Among the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus members seeking reelection next year are gay state Senator John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) and bisexual Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San Jose). Also running for their current seats are gay Assemblymembers Evan Low (D-Cupertino), Rick Chavez Zbur (DWest Hollywood), Corey A. Jackson, Ph.D., (D-Perris), and Chris Ward (DSan Diego).

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (DSan Francisco) has also pulled papers to run for reelection next year. But he is expected to seek to succeed Congressmember Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) should she opt not to run again in 2024, and if that happens, it could lead to seeing one or two LGBTQ leaders in San Francisco launch legislative campaigns.

They are likely, though, to run to succeed Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco). He is expected to run for Wiener’s Senate seat, as the B.A.R.’s Political Notebook column noted in early June, leaving his 17th Assembly District seat up for grabs. (As of now it does not appear an out candidate will seek next year to succeed termed out Democratic Assemblymember Phil Ting in San Francisco’s 19th Assembly District.)

When the B.A.R. spoke with Eggman last year about her taking over leader-

zanne Ford and the team at SF Pride for an amazing parade and celebration.

Suzanne Ford, a trans woman, is the executive director of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee that puts on the parade and celebration.

“I’ve been marching in SF Pride parades since 1990, and it felt like there was a lot of great energy out there this year,” Dorsey added. “I was especially proud to take part in Rafael Mandelman’s contingent this year. Rafi is one of my dearest friends, and if there’s an opening in the state Legislature next year, I’m doing everything I can to encourage him to run for that. We’ll see how it goes, but it was certainly clear to me that there’s a lot of enthusiasm for Rafael in our community.”

As the B.A.R. has previously reported, depending on a number of factors, there may be an open San Francisco seat in the state Legislature. The political musical chairs would first be set off by Pelosi opting not to run for reelection next year. Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who already has set up an exploratory committee to seek her House seat, would then officially jump into the race for Pelosi’s open 11th Congressional District seat.

As his current term in the Legislature is up next year, it would mean Wiener’s Senate District 11 seat would now be open in 2024. A likely candidate to succeed Wiener would be Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), who was just elected to his 17th Assembly District seat last year.

Were Haney to run for Senate, it would mean his Assembly seat would be up for grabs in 2024, as the elected position is on the ballot every two years. Jumping into the race would almost assuredly be Mandelman, now serving his final term on the Board of Supervisors.

ship of the LGBTQ caucus, she had said recruiting out candidates was top of mind. Asked this month about the record number eyeing legislative seats in 2024, Eggman said she was “thrilled” that so many LGBTQ people were interested in seeking public office at a time when the LGBTQ community has come under increased attacks from Republican lawmakers and conservative groups.

“This has been a historic year for the LGBTQ+ community for better and worse. While we have seen a historic amount of attacks and violence to our community this year, our community has not been idle nor complacent in the face of this aggression. We have been busy,” stated Eggman. “I am thrilled to see a historic amount of out LGBTQ+ elected officials running for office. It used to be a huge lift to get one or two out candidates to run, and now we are looking at 24 amazing members of our community who have decided to lead with love and compassion.”

Trans, bi candidates

In recent interviews with the B.A.R. the two trans women seeking legislative seats in 2024 both said rather than being deterred by the rise in anti-trans political attacks, the pushback to trans rights has instead spurred them to stand for public office. Justine Gonzalez, who is also bisexual, is running for the open 52nd Assembly District seat in Los Angeles, while Palm Springs City Councilmember Lisa Middleton is seeking the open 19th Senate District seat.

Her colleague, bisexual Palm Springs City Councilmember Christy Holstege, is again seeking the 47th Assembly District seat after losing to the incumbent, Assemblymember Greg Wallis (R-Palm Springs), by 85 votes last November. She and Gonzalez are among the record number of bisexual candidates running in 2024.

Lee, whose election in 2020 marked the first time a bisexual legislator had joined the LGBTQ caucus, is seeking reelection to his 24th Assembly District

seat that straddles Alameda and Santa Clara counties. Earlier this month he hosted a fundraiser in Los Angeles for 25th Senate District candidate Sasha Renée Pérez, vying to become the first bisexual elected to the Legislature’s upper chamber.

Two other bisexual candidates are running for Assembly seats. Dulce Vasquez, a Mexican immigrant, is seeking to represent the 57th Assembly District in Los Angeles. In Riverside County, Clarissa Cervantes, who also identifies as queer, is running to succeed her sister in the 58th Assembly District.

As for lesbian Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes (D-Corona), she is seeking election to the 31st Senate District seat. Should the sisters both win their races, they would be the first set of out siblings to serve together in the Statehouse.

There are currently 10 legislative districts that include parts of Riverside County, with three now held by out legislators: Padilla, Cervantes, and Jackson. Come next year a majority, six, could be represented by LGBTQ leaders should Holstege, Middleton, and both Cervantes sisters be elected.

“I think, overall, what you will begin to see is we are respected in our own right for the heavy lifting we have been doing in our communities,” said Jackson of seeing LGBTQ candidates, and those who are also people of color, break through politically in a region of the state that has historically tended to elect Republicans. “Meaning if you look at the numbers of voters, none of us should have been elected if you look at the populations we represent. We found a way to do it somewhere that has been one of the top breeding grounds for conservatism or white supremacy. To see a majority of the ticket in Riverside County be LGBTQ people is something to take note of.”

Further west along the Southern California coastal region gay Lynwood City Councilmember José Luis Solache is running to succeed Assembly Speak-

er Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood), who is termed out of his District 62 seat, while gay veteran Joseph C. Rocha is vying to succeed Assemblymember Brian Maienschein (D-San Diego), who is termed out of his District 76 seat. Solache and Rocha lost their previous campaigns for legislative seats but are seen as stronger contenders in their respective races next year.

Southern California

Four other gay male candidates are running in Southern California for open seats. Alex Mohajer, profiled in this week’s Political Notebook column, is seeking the 17th Senate District seat. If elected, the Iranian Democratic Party leader would be the first LGBTQ state legislator from Orange County.

Running for Los Angeles County seats are Mark Gonzalez in Assembly District 54, Ari Ruiz in Assembly District 52, and Javier Hernandez in Assembly District 53, which stretches into San Bernardino County.

Bay Area

In the Bay Area three out candidates are looking to become the first LGBTQ lawmakers to represent East Bay counties. Gay former West Sacramento mayor Christopher Cabaldon is running for the open District 3 Senate seat that includes parts of the Bay Area counties of Contra Costa, Solano, Sonoma and Napa, as well as sections of Yolo and Sacramento counties.

Two queer women are seeking the East Bay’s open 7th Senate District seat that spans western Contra Costa and Alameda counties from Rodeo south to the San Leandro border. Former Richmond city councilmember Jovanka Beckles, now an elected member of the board that oversees the AC Transit public transportation agency, and California Labor Federation President Kathryn Lybarger, who lives with her wife in Berkeley, are among a number of Democrats in the race hoping to survive the 2024 primary to advance to the general election ballot in the fall.

Due to it being a presidential election year, the primary will take place Tuesday, March 5. Under California’s open primary system, the top two vote-getters regardless of party affiliation will move on to the November 5 election.

While the deadline for candidates to file for next year’s legislative races is in early December, the LGBTQ caucus has already endorsed nine of the out non-incumbent candidates running in 2024. Among the female candidates, they are the Cervantes sisters, Middleton, Holstege, and Pérez.

The out male candidates endorsed by the LGBTQ caucus, so far, are Solache, Rocha, Hernandez, and Cabaldon. The caucus isn’t expected to announce another round of endorsements for LGBTQ candidates until mid-July at the earliest.

“I am deeply honored and humbled to receive the endorsement of the CA State Legislative LGBTQ Caucus,” stated Cabaldon. “This endorsement is a testament to the collective strength and resilience of our LGBTQ+ community. In the face of escalating threats and hostility nationwide, it is clear that our fight for equality and justice is far from over.”

Gay Republican

So far the only gay GOPer running in 2024 that the B.A.R. is aware of is Anthony Macias, who plans to run against Senator Dave Cortese (D-San Jose) in the South Bay’s 15th Senate District. For years Macias has vied for legislative seats but has either failed to make the ballot or fallen short when he has due to running in predominantly Democratic-leaning districts.

A spokesperson for the LGBTQ caucus told the B.A.R. that it is unaware of any other LGBTQ candidates who have already launched legislative bids. One gay Democrat who had announced a state Senate bid in 2024 was Los Angeles resident Darryn Harris. But the Black political aide announced in May he was suspending his campaign for the 35th Senate District seatt t

The Dyke March on June 24 started at Mission Dolores Park, looped through the Mission, went up to Castro, and then back to Dolores Park.

Jane Philomen Cleland

The crowd at the June 25 People’s March raised their fists. Gooch

by David-Elijah Nahmod

Sara Toby Moore is pretty laid back. A nonbinary queer person, Moore prefers they/ them pronouns, says that they don’t offend easily. Their family of origin still calls them “Sare,”

but Moore doesn’t give them a hard time about it.

“It only gives me more license to tease and play pranks on them,” they said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

Moore is the writer and star of “Atomic Comic: a Human Cartoon Fantasia,” which will perform at Z Space from June 30 through July 8. It’s a show

they promise will be rife with humor while dealing with some very serious topics. Moore will be sharing their experiences on dealing with the death of a parent, a painful breakup and surviving cancer. Certainly not topics to laugh about, yet Moore found humor in all of these journeys.

Moore explained what they mean by subtitling

the show ‘a human cartoon fantasia.’ They consider this to be a new form of theater, one where performers mix emotional truth with physical comedy, all performed at cartoon dimensions, which is how they describe their day-to day life.

See page 17 >>

by David-Elijah Nahmod

As the music starts, he slowly leans back onto a plaid easy chair. He’s wearing an open, loose fitting green shirt, revealing his chest. His hair falls carelessly across his forehead. He sings intensely about not being able to give up on a love who has already found someone else. It’s a gutwrenching song called “I Can Not,” and the singer/songwriter is Ivo Dimchev, an openly queer HIV-positive performer who hails from Bulgaria, a fairly conservative country. Yet Dimchev stands his ground, proudly letting the world know exactly who he is.

Dimchev has performed all over the world, singing in both Bulgarian and English. He has amassed quite a following, and on July 5 his Bay Area fans will have a chance to enjoy his music when he takes to the stage of Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. The concert is titled “Top Faves.” It’s a collection of Dimchev’s greatest hits from the past two decades. This is not his first time entertaining Bay Area audiences. In 2016 he performed at CounterPulse.

“Back then I had only twenty songs in my repertoire,” Dimchev said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

“I started writing songs when I was forty years old, now I’m 47 and I have already a hundred songs. So my repertoire on the 5th of July is going to be very different.”

Dimchev has an impressive falsetto range. His voice is almost operatic, yet he was never trained in opera and isn’t an opera singer. He doesn’t even listen to opera. His voice, he says, gives him a vibe of classical music.

“It gives me this vibe of femininity which I kind of enjoy exploring and using this feminine energy I have as a performer,” he said. “The falsetto voice makes this very accessible and very easy to me, so that’s why I’m using it, but I don’t believe that I have a big range. I’m just comfortable with my falsetto which gives the impression that my vocal range is very big.”

Theatrical

Prior to his singing career, Dimchev was a performance artist. While in his twenties he enrolled in Bulgaria’s National Academy for Theater and Film Arts, but he found their method of teaching to be restrictive, so he left shortly thereafter. Two years later he mounted his own show at the National Theater, but he still wasn’t satisfied. He found Bulgaria to be too conservative, so he left to perform in other, less restrictive countries. For the next fifteen or so years he mounted numerous productions and became established in avant-garde circles, performing across Europe and in the U.S.

“In my early twenties I deeply believed that the performative body does not have a gender by default,” he said. “I felt if I was using just part of my just part of my genderless performative body, it would be just like cutting off half of my vocabulary as an artist. So it was very important to me to use the capacity, the full range of emotions, of expressions of my body, which includes feminine/masculine and it’s primitive, very high, very tender, very violent, very everything.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic Dimchev performed four hundred private concerts in people’s homes. This began in Bulgaria, but went on to include Istanbul, New York and Los Angeles. He is now making a documentary about those at-home concerts, as many of them were recorded. He wanted to interact with these audiences, so he asked them strange questions.

“I was asking weird questions like, from a list of fifty questions, ‘Would you prefer to be in hell with Jesus or in heaven with Trump?’ or ‘Would you have sex with Putin or sex with the Dali Lama?’” he said. “So I would give them these strange dilemmas that they would never ask themselves, but just because they’re put in this kind of narrow choice and possibilities, they would choose one from the other. It would give me a little impression of who these people are.”

See page 16 >>

Gay singer/songwriter’s Bulgarian rhapsodies

Ivo Dimchev

Justin Monroe

Left to Right: Colin Johnson, Sara Toby Moore, DeMarcello Funes

Atomic Comic

Sara Toby Moore’s human cartoon fantasia

Vive la différence!

by Jim Gladstone

“It’slike throwing a baby in a pool!” said Christine Heesun Hwang, 24, describing the experience of leaving Ithaca College midway through her undergraduate studies to jump into the cast of an in-progress national tour of “Miss Saigon” in 2019.

Haley Dortch, 21, began her professional life with similar splash, departing the University of Michigan after sophomore year to play Fantine in the latest touring production of “Les Miserables,” which opens an engagement at the Orpheum Theater on July 5. Old-timer Hwang is also in the cast, playing Éponine.

The two queer actors of color spoke to the Bay Area Reporter by phone last week about beginning their work lives in constant motion.

“I was learning how to live on the road at the same time I was learning how to just be an adult at all,” recalled Hwang of the few months she spent traveling with “Miss Saigon” before the pandemic sent her new career into unexpected intermission.

“I’d never had to think about a 401K

Queer actors of color in “Les Misérables” at the Orpheum

or housing or insurance. I really got those lessons on my feet.”

Hwang said that during the time she spent with her family in Seattle during the shutdown, the fact that she’d fulfilled a longtime dream of becoming a professional actor really sunk in with her.

“On the road, you’re so tired that it’s easy to forget that you’ve been given this amazing opportunity. I also got back in touch with why I was doing it in the first place and how much I love the theater. I spent so much time on the internet going down these crazy rabbit holes of fandom. I also had a chance to sit with myself and think about the kind of life I hope to lead in the next few years.”

Setting an example

Hwang, who has been out since she was 16, has realized that she can use her platform as a performer to reach out to kids, particularly AsianAmericans, whose family dynamics can make coming out – and careers in the arts – feel particularly challenging.

In the program for “Les Misérables,” she pointedly identifies herself as “a queer Korean American.”

415 370 7152 • StevenUnderhill.com

“I put it in my bio to try and make a little difference. To let younger people know that you can be queer; that you can make a career out of performing. A lot of people forget how difficult it can be for kids in some of these smaller cities we visit,” said Hwang about a tour with stops that include Appleton, Wisconsin; Lincoln, Nebraska; and El Paso, Texas.

“I really admire Christine for doing that,” said Dortch, who spent her own childhood in Texas. “I wish I did more. It’s something I’m trying to navigate, because I’m a new member of the queer community. I’ve known at least since I was in high school, but I just came out to my parents last June, just a few months before the tour started. But I look forward to creating more space for young queer artists as my career progresses.”

Settling into one’s identity while living an itinerant lifestyle is doubtless a challenge.

From page 15

Those questions became the dramaturgical spine of his musical “In Hell With Jesus,” because he found that most people preferred that option. The American version of this show will premiere at La Mama in New York this coming fall. When he performs in Berkeley, he will be performing some of the songs from this musical.

Dimchev is a huge Elton John fan, and even wrote a song about his idol. As a kid in Bulgaria, John was his only gay role model and was a source of support for him. He didn’t have it easy as a gay kid in Bulgaria.

“Having Elton John as somebody who I connect with musically and emotionally, but also on a queer level for me, was really helpful,” he said. “Even if he doesn’t hear it (the song), I’m happy to have it and to sing it.”

He hopes that the Elton John song will be ready to be performed in Berkeley.

He says that things have gotten better for gay kids in Bulgaria. Nowadays schoolteachers are obliged to support kids who experience aggression directed toward them.

Monday 8am (last seating 9:45pm)

Tuesday 8am (last seating 9:45pm)

Wednesday 8am (last seating 9:45pm)

Thursday 8am Open 24 Hours

Friday Open 24 Hours

Saturday

Open 24 Hours

Sunday 7am (last seating 9:45pm)

“I was so frustrated that all of the Pride activities in the cities we’ve been touring have been during times we’re on stage,” said Dortch. “But in Seattle, the apartment building where I was staying had a Pride brunch, so I got a bunch of friends from the cast to come over and we made it into our celebration.

“The cast is one of the few things that keep me rooted,” said Dortch.

“And about two months ago, while I was at home on a vacation, I adopted a dog, a mini golden doodle, and now he’s on tour with me. That’s really a cozy comfort for me.”

Dortch says it’s ironic that “Les Misérables” marks her professional debut.

“For my sixth grade talent show audition, I sang ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ and didn’t get to be in the show. And now I’m singing it eight times a week!”

Both Hwang and Dortch feel for-

tunate to have interests beyond acting that help them pass time on the road.

“I really pride myself on my writing,” said Hwang, who is committed to both her own free-form journaling and several playwriting projects, including collaborating with a friend, composer Adam Rothenberg, on a musical about wildfires.

“I’m lucky that writing requires such isolation and monastic focus. I’m actually an introvert when I’m not on stage.”

Dortch, who also enjoys having plenty of downtime alone, is a hardcore reader. She recently tackled a tome that she suspects most of her cast mates have never read: Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables.”t

‘Les Misérables,’ July 5-23. $60.50$372.00. Orpheum Theater, 1192 Market St. (888) 746-1799. www.broadwaysf.com

Extravagant

“Back then, forty years ago, they were not obliged to support you,” he said. “I had a difficult time as a kid, not as being gay, but as being extravagant. But for me it was the same thing. My queerness was coming out in the way I behaved, the way I dressed. I was not fitting any norms, and it was part of my queerness. It was so difficult for them to accept it as normal so of course my environment was very aggressive towards me. When I was twelve I went to a theater school where my extravagance and my strange way of reacting and expressing myself was found good and creative. It was tolerated and encouraged.”

These days, things are much easier for him because he’s well known. In Bulgaria he’s respected as an artist.

“I have beautiful love songs in Bulgarian that many people relate to, besides my weird songs about food and cock-sucking,” he said. “I am the

only Bulgarian who is openly HIVpositive. My HIV status is open, and I’m the only one who talks about this in the media. To the majority of the Bulgarian audience I am very, very out of the box. Being HIV-positive makes me even more strange, but thank God there are enough intelligent people who are okay with it.”

Most HIV-positive people in Bulgaria are fearful about coming out. They think that being open about their status will cost them their careers or their personal lives. But Dimchev has no such concerns because he doesn’t consider himself a Bulgarian artist. His stage is global.

“I feel good about who I am,” he said. “But it’s important for me to be accepted by Bulgarian audiences because I’d like to educate them. I’d like to be an example of somebody who’s free, somebody who’s brave enough to cross boundaries and play with them and just be gay and be happy. I think they need this example and I don’t think I have something to lose by being honest about it. I don’t think I even have a choice.”t

‘Ivo Dimchev: Top Faves,’ July 5, 8pm, $15-$34, Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison St. Berkeley. 18+ www.thefreight.org www.ivodimchev.com

Left: Haley Dortch as Fantine in ‘Les Misérables’

Right: Christine Heesun Hwang as Éponine in ‘Les Misérables’

Both photos: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

Ivo Dimchev

<< Ivo Dimchev

Glam, girls

or a luscious frozen margarita and be dazzled. And just like that, your stress level dropped, right?

A good morning ABC’s “Good Morning America” celebrated Pride Month with a live, surprise marriage proposal during the June 23 broadcast. “GMA” helped Gen Agosto propose to her partner, Ari Lopez, who thought she was on the show to participate in a quiz game for couples.

Agosto said she was “slightly” nervous, but guessed, “She’s going to start crying, and then I’m going to start crying, and then we’re all going to start crying…”

by Victoria A. Brownworth

As Pride moves seamlessly into the Independence Day holiday and a coup is quelled in Russia, we’re looking for uplift as the days get hotter and the politics get more dicey. But we can also take a breath and relax with some queer TV.

‘Sex and the City’ sequel Season 2 of “And Just Like That...” the sequel to the HBO series “Sex and the City” is back, baby. If you needed the hot middle-aged women of summer to make you feel grounded, here they are, this time with a much hyped cameo ap pearance from Kim Cattrall’s Samantha. People pronounced the new season “Sexy, daring and sizzling.”

“You don’t move on because you’re ready to, you move on because you’ve outgrown who you used to be.” So says Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and we are catapulted back to our ’90s youth and our middle-aged present. It’s not terrible to feel all those things at once. Life comes at you hard between one’s 30s and one’s 50s and this series addresses that to varying degrees.

You’ll get to see Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) exploring her queer side we just knew she always had with Che (Sara Ramirez, whom we’ve loved since “Grey’s Anatomy”), who this time is less cipher than in season 1. And Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is a deeply invested helicopter mom. Sarita Choudhury’s Seema Patel is a terrific addition, making the case for menopausal sex. Nicole Ari Parker as Lisa Todd Wexley is fabulous. And a lot more. It’s not deep, it’s not heavy. It’s just as much as we can bear with 2024 bleating all around us.

From page 15

“It’s mad fun to create this kind of theater,” Moore said. “Mainly because I think it affords our actors/clowns license to be emotional acrobats while being wonderfully, wackily physical. This form is rooted in the craft of clowning while employing a traditional theater narrative that’s sprinkled with some really cool and interesting filmed elements and visual effects.”

The filmed elements come in the form of Sharon Gless, the actress best known for her long TV runs on “Cagney & Lacey” and the LGBT serial drama “Queer as Folk.” Gless play’s Moore’s therapist as an outrageously inappropriate character. Moore and Gless found each other because Gless is close friends with Moore’s co-producer Debbie Mosk. Gless wanted to be part of the project but was unable to do the run of the show due to other commitments. So Moore came up with the idea of filming Gless on video, which was done in 2019. Gless will appear during the show via faux Zoom.

“And as we all know she’s a fantastic actor and a pro on camera, so we have a great performance from her,” Moore said. “The trick for me is to get the timing right when responding to her because I’m live and she’s on video, so she just keeps going. I can’t miss any lines.”

But if you don’t expect too much, you will have a good time with some old friends you reconnected with at the Pride march.

“And Just Like That...” is about how we craft new beginnings, next chapters, finding joy when it feels like none exists. And all with these people we know so well they feel like old friends. It’s streaming now on whatever we’re calling HBO these days.

Make-up to break up

Did you want to see “The Devil Wears Prada” meets “Ugly Betty” meets “The Bold Type” as a queer series starring Kim Cattrall and a young gender nonconforming queer person?

Yes you did, kids. You just didn’t know it until you tuned in to Netflix’s “Glamorous.”

It’s everything you imagined it could/would be: fun, arch, painful, catty, queer, delightful. Yes, “Glamorous” brings joy and we need as much of that as we can find this summer.

Marco Mejia (Ben J. Pierce, YouTube breakout star Miss Benny) is an aspiring influencer who has to get a real job. Rather than get stuck in cubicle world, Marco looks for a better life at the make-up counter and ends up landing a job working for legendary makeup mogul Madolyn Addison (Kim Cattrall). From there Marco tries to revolutionize the fashion industry. Hilarity, romance and more ensue.

And yes, it’s as queer as that proverbial $3 bill we always heard about growing up, with Zane Phillips as Madolyn’s hunky son Chad, and Michael Hsu Rosen as the nerdy-but-nice Ben for a love triangle. Add out queer actor Ayesha Harris (“The L Word: Generation Q”), and Jade Payton and some fun queer cameos from Joel Kim Booster and drag star Monét X Change.

There are a lot of intersecting queer and trans storylines, which makes the series feel very fresh and Gen Z. Miss Benny is a delight and Cattrall is just fabulous.

Not for nothing, Netflix dropped all 10 episodes of “Glamorous” as HBO/

MAX dropped “And Just Like That...” so there’s definitely some shade somewhere. Bask in it, delight in it, watch both shows with a really dirty martini

Lopez said, “I’m just surprised, honestly…” adding “This is fabulous!”

We love a love story! Watch at www. goodmorningamerica.comt

Moore hopes that “Atomic Comic” will be seen as a queer show first and foremost.

“I’d love to have this production and future productions benefit LGBTQ teens and trans teens in particular, because I myself am non-binary and the show is all about resilience and humor as therapy,” they said. “I hope too that it can have some measure of universal appeal because it’s about overcoming trouble with humor and friendships. This is a blisteringly funny show but also a heartfelt trip into the tunnel of

love. It’s 70 to 80 minutes of fun, high sensory theater that will give you an emotional workout and leave you smiling. Oh, and please support your local queer clowns.”t

‘Atomic Comic: A Human Cartoon Fantasia,’ June 30, July 1, July 6-8, $20-$55, Z Space, 450 Florida St. www.zspace.org

Read the full interview on www.ebar.com.

Sharon Gless and Sara Toby Moore

Fernando Gambaroni

<< Sara Toby Moore

Left: Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon and Sarah Jessica Parker in ‘And Just Like That…’

Middle: Ben J. Pierce and Kim Cattrall in ‘Glamorous’

Right: Zane Phillips in ‘Glamorous’

A ‘Good Morning America’ proposal

SF Pride

Photos by Steven Underhill

San Francisco’s annual LGBTQ Pride parade and Civic Center celebrations on June 25 also included a VIP party at the Asian Art Museum, and other festivities.

See plenty more photos on BARtab’s Facebook page, facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at StevenUnderhill.com.

Passion for Pasolini

by Brian Bromberger

When people hear the name Pasolini, if they recognize it at all, it’s primarily due to two references: one, his brutal murder by a male prostitute (and perhaps a criminal syndicate group) or his later sex-laden films, especially “Salo: 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade,” which has been repeatedly named the most controversial film of all time. What has been overlooked or forgotten is that Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) was one of the defining public intellectuals, both artistically and politically, in mid-century.

With the resurgence of Fascism throughout the world, he seems more relevant. This mixture of ideologies and identities is celebrated in the release by Criterion Collection of the provocative, lyrical, and indelible films he made in the 1960s, in an exhaustive Blu-ray collection of nine movies, “Pasolini 101” ($199.96).

Second neorealism

Pasolini’s filmmaking encompasses two phases. The first phase can be termed a second neorealism, building off the first neorealism that began after the end of World War II, characterized by films such as Vittorio De Sico’s “Bicycle Thief,” Roberto Rosselini’s “Open City,” and Visconti’s “Obsession,” which often used nonprofessional actors and explored the conditions of the poor and lower working class. Pasolini extended his cinematic study of the marginalized to pimps, prostitutes, thieves, and gangs.

In his second phase, he studied myth and fable in such films as “Oedipus”

and “Medea,” but especially in what became known as The Trilogy of Life, which included his take on the lusty tales of “The Decameron,” “The Canterbury Tales,” and “The Arabian Nights.”

Each film challenged modern consumer culture, but also celebrated the sensual human body, while attacking contemporary erotic and religious mores and hypocrisy though his use of scatological humor and a “roughhewn” sexuality that was carnal, provocative, leaving behind modern standards of decency.

Criterion Collection rereleases nine classic films

This inquiry into contemporary social and sexual dynamics reached its apotheosis in his final film “Salo,” a depraved, nauseating masterpiece where he transposed the Marquis de Sade’s eighteenth-century opus of torture and sexual degradation to Fascist Italy in 1944.

“Pasolini 101” covers mostly the first phase, though “Oedipus” and “Medea” included, encompass elements of both careers. Years ago, Criterion released The Trilogy of Life and “Salo” as separate DVDs.

The films

Criterion deserves praise for collecting all Pasolini’s early films, beginning with one of cinema’s stunning debuts “Accattone (1961),” the nickname of a pimp as his protagonist in a hardscrabble slum, which also shocked Italian audiences with its use of street vernacular and rough Roman dialect.

The set comes with a 95-page booklet that includes an essay by Pasolini, “Why Cinema?” plus some of his short writings and drawings as well as an introduction to Pasolini, “The Elegiac

Heart: Pier Pasolini, Filmmaker,” by art critic James Quandt. Quandt also provides notes for each of the nine films.

There are new 4K digital restorations of seven films and 2K digital restorations of “Teorama” and “Medea.” These films, even with their grainy textures, have never looked better.

“Mamma Roma” (1962) stars the inimitable, immortal Anna Magnani in one of her greatest roles, as a former prostitute trying to start a fresh life in a new apartment with her teenage son. But the criminal underworld slowly sucks her back into her past habits, leading to a tragic ending.

“Love Meetings” (1964) is considered the first Italian cinema verité. It’s a documentary with Pasolini as interviewer asking a cross-section of Italian society questions on virginity, prostitution, homosexuality, and sex education.

“The Gospel According to Matthew” (1964) is atheist Pasolini’s life of Christ in which most of the actors are nonprofessionals and peasants. Combining neorealism with reverence and simplicity, by critical consensus, it’s considered the greatest film ever made about Jesus.

“The Hawks and the Sparrows,” (1966) Pasolini’s favorite of his films, is a comedy about Toto and his son Ninetto who roam the countryside of Rome witnessing birth and death. They encounter a talking crow who symbolically represents poverty and class conflict.

“Oedipus Rex” (1967) is a faithful adaptation of Sophocle’s Greek trag-

“Pasolini 101” Pier Paolo Pasonlini on a film set

Author Jonathan Harper on belonging

by Gregg Shapiro

Jonathan Harper is good at luring and lulling readers. In his debut novel “You Don’t Belong Here” (Lethe, 2023), the queer writer sets the stage with protagonist Morris, a bisexual writer from the DC area, finishing up his residency at the Manderlay Colony. As with many of these kinds of venues, Manderlay is in a small (unnamed) town, which often makes for a good place to create without the distractions of a metropolitan location. But things don’t go as planned for Morris. On what he thinks will be his last night out, he encounters Henry, a significant presence from his past who, like Morris, can’t seem to find his way home. “You Don’t Belong Here” unfolds like a cross between Martin Scorcese’s “After Hours” and Ira Levin’s “The Stepford Wives” and will keep you guessing until the last page.

Gregg Shapiro: Jonathan, your first book “Daydreamers” came out in 2015. Looking back on it, how would you describe the experience?

Jonathan Harper: Egads! It’s hard to believe that was eight years ago. The whole experience was such a whirlwind. I had been working on those stories for years, thinking no one would ever publish them and then one day, I’m holding my book in a state of disbelief. There was a lot of anxiety and imposter syndrome, but there was also a lot of joy and excitement.

I did a few readings and each time I was just taken aback by how many friends and loved ones showed up to support me. There were a few times when someone reached out to me because they had read “Daydreamers” and wanted to share their thoughts. I kept thinking, what a beautiful way to connect with others.

One thing I learned from publishing “Daydreamers” was the importance of being grateful. The publishing world is competitive and no matter how hard you work, nothing is guar-

<< Pasolini

From page 18

edy, which Pasolini considered his most autobiographical film, based on his military fascist father and teacher mother.

“Teorema” (1968) stars Terence Stamp as a mysterious stranger (angel?devil?) who one by one seduces all the members of a wealthy Milanese family, causing an existential crisis in each of their lives, ending in primal rage and despair. This ribald allegory on the Second Coming was denounced by the Catholic Church as degeneracy and the state as obscene.

“Porcile” (1969), translated as ‘pig sty’ in English, are two parallel allegories about destruction. The first one takes place in medieval times with a young guy wandering around a volcanic landscape. He becomes a cannibal, joins a violent gang, then is executed. The second story revolves around a 1960s German industrialist and his young son. The industrialist is involved in a rivalry with another industrialist, while his son gets involved with pigs and is eaten by them. Pasolini is attempting to link Nazi Germany with the German “Economic Miracle” of the 1960s.

Finally, “Medea” (1969) is a love song to the famed Greek-American soprano Maria Callas (who doesn’t sing here) in her only film role in Pa-

anteed. If I’m lucky enough to continue publishing, I need to appreciate the moment as well as the people who make this possible.

“You Don’t Belong Here” pulses with a subtle sense of dread. How much of it was written during pandemic?

I completed several drafts before 2020, so the core of the novel was done, and I was wading through the editing phase. And then the pandemic hit and everything just stopped. For that first year, I was trapped inside my house feeling like the outside world was slowly ending. I could barely look at the manuscript.

By the time I regained focus, I did see some parallels between what we were experiencing with COVID and “You Don’t Belong Here.” Just as we were trapped in our homes, the novel was about people who were metaphorically trapped in this little town. Not all of us survived the pandemic; not everyone escaped the town. I’m sure this did have an effect on the prose.

Morris is someone who doesn’t necessarily fit in, something of which he is aware as early as the second chapter when, perhaps because he’s bisexual, comments about a visit to gay club Badlands

solini’s haunting adaptation of Euripides’ tragedy about a woman rejected by her husband, who takes vengeance on her children. Callas, who is generally considered the foremost actress among opera singers, is transcendent here in what is reckoned the best performance in any Pasolini film. She’s aided by the ravishing visual imagery, shot in Turkey and Syria.

As usual, the cornucopia of extras on this Criterion release are outstanding, including two shorts (“La ricotta,” “The Sequence of the Paper Flower”) and two documentaries about his travels, all made by Pasolini. There’s a riveting 1966 Italian documentary on Pasolini’s life and career, with some narration by Pasolini as well as archival interviews.

Also supplemented is a perceptive program on Pasolini’s visual style as told through his personal writing, narrated by actor Tilda Swinton and writer Rachel Kushner, as he reflects on the meaning of cinema in his life.

“Pasolini 101” makes a strong case that Pasolini’s impact on cinema as resistance was and remains far-reaching, and his anti-establishment quest to find truth and his profound alienation from the world speaks to us today as loudly as it did in 1966.t

‘Pasolini 101’ 9 discs, Blu-Ray $199.96 www.criterion.com

in DC that “this place is not for you.” Am I on the right track about Morris?

Maybe. I agree that Morris is a person who struggles to fit in, especially when he’s outside of his comfort zone. But it’s not connected to his bisexuality. He’s actually very comfortable with his queerness. What makes Morris an out-

sider has more to do with his passivity and his reluctance to make hard decisions. Depending on how you perceive him, he’s naïve, coy, immature, and possibly manipulative. He’s not very good at saying what he wants and can be quick to blame. This is something other characters pick up on.

Morris and Henry were two close friends whose friendship ended but are reunited unexpectedly years later. Have you ever had a similar experience, and if so, was that a source of inspiration for the book?

Well, maybe? I’m very sentimental about friendship, probably because I grew up in a military family and we moved every other year. My childhood was in constant transition, constantly leaving people and places. So, as an adult, I crave stability. I have a loving husband and this amazing network of long-time friends. Trust me, I’m not trying to jeopardize any of that.

That being said, there is that one “bad friendship” that comes to mind.

Similar to Morris and Henry, it was an important friendship that ended rather abruptly. The details of the falling out have faded over time, but I still remember the intense feeling of grief that festered for years after.

He was in all of these photos and memories and there was never any chance for reconciling or at least getting closure. For a while, I would fantasize about running into him again and I knew by heart everything I would say to him.

And then it happened. I walked by him on the streets in DC and he looked right at me and just pretended I wasn’t there. This didn’t inspire the book, but it’s something I thought about while writing it.t

Jonathan Harper’s “You Don’t Belong Here,” $15. Lethe Press www.lethepressbooks.com www.thejonathan-harper.com

Read the full interview at www.ebar.com.

Author Jonathan Harper

Gordon Phelps

Sunday, July 16, 2023.

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