June 8, 2023 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Scott Wazlowski

The Board of Supervisors voted 6-4 to remove an amendment requiring fixed orchestra seating to the interior landmarking ordinance for the Castro Theatre.

Stefani casts 6th vote in favor of APE

by John Ferrannini

San Francisco District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani cast the sixth vote Tuesday to remove an amendment that would have landmarked fixed, orchestra-style seating at the Castro Theatre – dealing a crushing blow to activists who’ve been trying to block Another Planet Entertainment’s plans to make major changes at the historic moviehouse.

The amendment, introduced in April by District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, a straight ally, was opposed by gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the LGBTQ Castro neighborhood on the board. Mandelman’s opposition was joined in recent days by gay District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio and straight ally District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, as the Bay Area Reporter first reported.

Mandelman made a motion to remove the fixed-seating amendment, which passed 6-4, with District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen absent. A subsequent vote on the interior landmarking was approved 9-1 with Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin (D3) casting the dissenting vote.

Peskin told the B.A.R. after the meeting that “at that point it was a protest vote.”

“The Castro Theatre is a landmark,” he emphasized. “The whole reason for the interior landmarking was really about preserving the cultural icon that is the Castro Theatre. When we basically gave them the green light for a party palace, it’s like ‘why did we even go down this road?’”

Safaí and Stefani had been identified as swing votes on the matter last week by Jeffery Kwong, a gay man who is the president of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, during a town hall.  At the meeting, Stefani said that though she understands both sides of the issue, it’s Mandelman’s support for removing the amendment that swayed her.

“I know there are strong feelings on this topic and I appreciate the hundreds of people who reached out to me,” said the supervisor, who represents the Marina and Cow Hollow neighborhoods. “What I want to really focus on is the fact that Supervisor Mandelman is not only my colleague, he is also my friend and he’s someone I trust greatly, someone I

See page 12 >>

Drag shows aim to bolster downtown San Francisco

by Matthew S. Bajko

To kickoff Pride Month the downtown San Francisco German restaurant Schroeder’s had turned a portion of its dining room into a performance area with a screened in dressing room. A DJ booth had been set up in one

corner, and rainbow-themed decorations had been festooned on the wood-paneled walls.

About half past 5 p.m. last Thursday, June

1, drag performer Bobby Friday kicked off the evening’s entertainment by lip-syncing to Madonna’s “Where’s the Party” from her 1986 album “True Blue.” As she danced to the song’s fitting

lyrics – “Working Monday through Friday / Takes up all of my time / If I can get to the weekend / Everything will work out just fine” – the gathered diners bopped along and cheered on Friday as she worked the room.

“This is a very special show,” Friday noted after completing her performance.

See page 12 >>

Contra Costa Supervisor Carlson marks 1st Pride Month

by Matthew S. Bajko

Aweek into June and it already has been a busy month for gay Contra Costa County Supervisor Ken Carlson, the first out member of the countywide governing body. At the start of Pride Month last Thursday, he raised the Progress Pride flag at the County Administration Building in Martinez and also attended that day the city of Concord’s Pride flag raising ceremony.

Sunday he rode in his first Pride event as the representative of the board’s District 4 seat, which he was elected to last November. Joining him in the Clayton Pride Parade was his husband, Jeremy Carlson, wearing a matching black T-shirt declaring in rainbow-colored text “Love is Love.”

“It was a little overwhelming,” Carlson, 60, told the Bay Area Reporter about taking part in the town’s second annual LGBTQ celebration. “For Clayton being a small community, the turnout was great.”

Earlier this year he had issued a proclamation for the Mt. Diablo Unified School District’s Pride Prom held in April. This week, he attended the Pride flag raising at the Phillips 66 facility in Rodeo on Tuesday.

Next Tuesday, June 13, Carlson will lead the supervisors’ Pride Month Presentation honoring a number of groups for their support of the East Bay county’s LGBTQIA+ community. Among them

are health care workers, the RYSE Center for youth in the city of Richmond, and the Royal Grand Ducal Council of Alameda/Contra Costa County.

The LGBTQ philanthropic organization in 2009 had crowned Carlson as its Royal Grand Duke XVIII Ken St. Michael and his husband as the Royal Grand Duchess XVII Vivian Lee St. Mi-

chael. Due to Carlson having served as a Concord police sergeant, they chose St. Michael for their titles because he is the patron saint of police officers. Also being honored is the Rainbow Community Center, the LGBTQ center in Concord on whose board Carlson had served on as president.

See page 10 >>

Contra Costa County Supervisor Ken Carlson, right, rode in the June 4 Clayton Pride parade with his husband, Jeremy Carlson.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Matthew S. Bajko

Drag artist Bobby Friday greets customers at Schroeder’s June 1 during the first Drag Me Downtown event.

HIV advocates ask SF supes to fund $7M request

by Matthew S. Bajko

With their roughly $7 million funding request not included in Mayor London Breed’s budget proposal this year, HIV advocates and service providers are turning to the Board of Supervisors to find the money as it takes up this month the city’s fiscal priorities for the next two years. The city is facing a $780 million deficit over that time span.

Roughly 40 people marched on City Hall Monday, June 5, for a rally on the steps of the building. Timed to coincide with HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day, the activists then met with eight of the 11 supervisors to press their case for why they should allocate the additional funding for the various health services and programs for those living with HIV.

“It is a travesty we still need to do this,” said Ms. Billie Cooper, 64, a Black transgender woman who has lived with HIV for close to four decades. “We shouldn’t have to come out and beg for this.”

As the Bay Area Reporter first reported last week, among the HIV advocates’ priorities this year are $3.6 million to fund 200 additional housing subsidies for people living with HIV so they do not become homeless and $500,000 to expand mental health services for long-term survivors of the HIV pandemic. They have also sought $1 to $2 million to open a safe consumption site for drug users with the goal of preventing fatal overdoses and connecting them to services.

Another $500,000 is being sought to fund intensive case management for people living with HIV experiencing acute behavioral health challenges so that they remain in care. HIV organizations are also seeking $500,000 to cover their increased cost-of-doing-business for federally funded programs.

Unlike in years past, the HIV/AIDS Provider Network was not apprised by the mayor’s budget office about what funding for HIV programs Breed included in her proposed $14.6 billion budgets covering fiscal years 20232024 and 2024-2025, said AIDS Legal Referral Panel Executive Director Bill Hirsh. He told the B.A.R. Monday that the coalition had yet to hear from the mayor’s office or public health officials regarding this year’s budget proposal.

“It used to be the mayor’s budget office would meet with the community in advance,” said Hirsh, as what was known as “the walk through” of the budget documents helped HAPN members with their conversations with the supervisors and other city officials during the annual budget negotiations each June.

The supervisors’ budget and appropriations committee will take up the mayor’s budget proposal and make revisions to it over the coming weeks.

It is expected to vote on the proposed budget June 29, with the full board scheduled to cast its first vote on it July 11 and expected to finalize the budget July 18 in order to send it to Breed to sign by August 1.

“The cost of providing these services continues to go up each year,” noted Hirsh during his comments at the rally.

He sounded a confident note that the supervisors would find the funding HAPN is seeking, telling the attendees “with your voice and with your support, we are going to make it happen.”

Meeting with supervisors

The HIV advocates met with all of the supervisors except for District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, the board’s president, District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, and District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who is running for mayor against Breed in 2024. Gay Supervisors Matt Dorsey, who represents District 6 and has lived with HIV for two decades, and Rafael Mandelman, who represents District 8 and sits on the budget committee, also addressed the rally beforehand.

“The best and most important thing we can do,” said Dorsey for long-term survivors of HIV, is to adhere to the San Francisco Principles, a document cre-

ated to address their specific needs.

Dorsey also said the city needs to remain committed to its goal of getting to zero new HIV cases in a given year. The projected number of new HIV diagnoses this fiscal year is 158, according to the mayor’s budget proposal, with 80% of people virally suppressed within one year of being diagnosed.

The city’s target for new HIV diagnoses in the fiscal year that begins July 1 is 128, decreasing to 106 in the following fiscal year. Its target for viral suppression is 85% each year.

Mandelman said he looks “forward to working with all of you to ensure we do right by the long-term survivors.”

He added that adopting a budget that only ensures no cuts to HIV services “is not enough.”

Conflicting information

The mayor’s office has provided conflicting responses to the B.A.R. when asked which of the specific funding asks from the HIV service providers were included in Breed’s spending plan.

Saying at first it needed more time to dive into the 362-page budget document released May 31, Breed’s press secretary Parisa Safarzadeh emailed the B.A.R. June 2 to note that the budget continued and maintained “financial and programming investments” of concern to the LGBTQ community, including “HIV education, prevention and treatment programs.”

“I want to be clear that the mayor’s proposed two-year budget avoided any cuts to HIV funding and services, and previously launched LGBTQ initiatives, despite facing a significant budget deficit,” wrote Safarzadeh, noting in particular the new drag laureate position and specific programs for transgender individuals.

One new area of funding the mayor is seeking is $350,000 for LGBTQ nonprofits to improve the safety measures at their offices due to an increase in threats some have received of late. Safarzadeh noted Breed included the funding in her proposed budget for the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation is separately seeking $1.5 million for its Stonewall Project program that provides harm reduction services to drug users. The funding had been cut from the budget submitted to the mayor by the city’s Department of Public Health.

According to Safarzadeh, the city’s Department of Public Health “anticipates being able to fulfill this request at $1.6M. This is contingent on health commission approval.”

When asked to clarify if the other specific HIV funding asks from the coalition of service providers were funded, Safarzadeh had replied, “Yes – and it’s important to note all of the asks will be continued and maintained, not reduced.”

But on Monday, mayoral LGBTQ policy adviser Victor Ruiz-Cornejo told the B.A.R. that none of the $7 million additional HIV funding request was included in the mayor’s budget proposal. He, too, stressed that the mayor did not cut any of the HIV funding the city has been providing “despite this massive deficit.”

“The mayor’s budget includes a lot of funding for these investments already,” said Ruiz-Cornejo.

He noted that more than $10 million has already been allocated for housing subsidies for people living with HIV. The mayor made no cut to the $973,000 for mental health services for people living with HIV, including long-term survivors, added Ruiz-Cornejo.

While the mayor did propose a 3% increase for the cost of doing business for most service providers given city-funded contracts – Breed also proposed an additional 1% for providers of services related to health and homelessness due to the high rate of staff vacancies such agencies experience – it does not include those agencies funded through the federal Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. According to Hirsh, the city is expected to absorb a nearly $60,000 decrease in its Ryan White allocation this year.

As the B.A.R. noted last week, Breed proposed $18.9 million to open up to three Wellness Hubs over the two budget years “to improve the health and well-being of people who use drugs, including those experiencing homelessness, and reduce public drug use.” But any safe consumption site “would be funded by private entities,” specifies the budget document. (City Attorney David Chiu has argued no city dollars can be spent on opening such a facility.)

“We are still pushing for safer injection services. The mayor says she supports them. We just want to see it happen,” said Hirsh.

Paul Aguilar, a long-term survivor community liaison with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s Aging Services department, said during the rally that housing and access to mental health services are critically needed for the city’s residents living with HIV. According to the agency, one in six people living with HIV is unhoused or at risk of losing their housing.

“San Francisco, you once set the standard of care for people dying from HIV and AIDS. Why can’t you do that for those of us living with it?” asked Aguilar, who was diagnosed as being HIV-positive in 1988. t

Valor LX2 3-sided gas fireplace shown here with Murano glass, and reflective glass liner

AIDS advocates marched across Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place to the steps of San Francisco City Hall June 5 where they rallied for the Board of Supervisors to fund nearly $7 million for HIV/AIDS services in the city budget.

Matthew S. Bajko

More CA LGBTQ bills survive 1st chamber votes

by Matthew S. Bajko

A nother six bills related to LGBTQ issues or health concerns are moving on this legislative session in the California Legislature. Lawmakers in the bills’ houses of origin adopted them by their June 3 deadline to do so this year.

All 20 pieces of legislation the Bay Area Reporter is tracking this year are moving forward. Many build on LGBTQ laws previously enacted by state lawmakers that focused on issues impacting public schools and foster youth, with several others related to ending the HIV pandemic.

The state Senate voted 33-6 May 31 to pass Senate Bill 760 by state Senator Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), which would require all K-12 schools in California to provide at least one accessible all-gender restroom for students “to use safely and comfortably during school hours.”

It is believed to be “first-of-its-kind” legislation, according to LGBTQ advocates, and comes as lawmakers in other states restrict people’s usage of public bathrooms to those that align with the sex they were given at birth.

“Let’s face it – at some point during a typical 8-hour school day, everyone is going to have to go,” noted Newman in introducing his bill. “By requiring all California K-12 schools to provide gender-inclusive restroom facilities on campus, we’ll ensure the well-being of our LGBTQ+ and nonbinary students and ensure safer school communities for everyone.”

Should SB 760 become law, every school district, county office of education, and charter school in California would need to provide at least one all-gender restroom for pupils to use by July 1, 2025. It would need to be clearly identified with signage as being open to all genders and be easily accessible during school hours and student functions.

Meanwhile, Assembly Bill 1163 by Assemblymember Luz Rivas (DArleta) would require various state agencies and departments to revise

their public-use forms, by January 1, 2025, to be more inclusive of individuals who identify as transgender, gender-nonconforming, or intersex. It would also require the impacted agencies and departments to collect data pertaining to the specific needs of the transgender, gender-nonconforming, or intersex community, including, but not limited to, information relating to medical care, mental health disparities, and population size. The Assembly passed it June 1 64-0.

Rivas celebrated her bill being passed on the start of Pride Month in a tweet, hailing that “the bill is moving to the Senate!”

Also passed out of the Assembly, by a 66-0 vote on June 1, was AB 1487 by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles). It aims to establish the Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Wellness Reentry Fund to provide grants for reentry programming “specifically to support transgender, gender variant, and intersex people who have experienced carceral systems.”

It includes no funding, though the bill’s backers would like to secure at least $5 million for it. It mirrors the

dignity | san francisco

state fund Santiago pushed to create that pays for trans health care services several years ago, which Newsom appropriated $13 million for in 2021.

Santiago also hailed his bill being passed at the start of Pride Month in a tweet.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) has authored two bills this session to further protect paid leave provisions for LGBTQ people and others who need to care for their chosen family members, i.e. people they are not related to but have close bonds with and care for when they are sick. Her AB 518 by would give workers the right to receive Paid Family Leave wage replacement benefits while on leave to assist their chosen family.

Her AB 524 would make it unlawful for employers to refuse to hire, fire, demote, or take other adverse employment action against workers because of their responsibilities to their biological or chosen family

members. Since January California family leave provisions cover workers with chosen family due to the enactment of Wicks’ AB 1041 that was passed by lawmakers last year.

The Assembly passed AB 518 64-0 on May 31. It passed AB 524 June 1 by a 47-15 vote.

“They will ensure workers can afford to take leave for chosen & extended family members & protect family caregivers from discrimination at work. On to the Senate!” noted the organization Equal Rights Advocates in a tweet.

AB 1645, authored by gay Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (DWest Hollywood), would close loopholes and strengthen protections in existing law to ensure that California health insurers continue to provide free and complete coverage for preventive services like PrEP and testing for sexually transmitted infections. The Assembly passed AB 1645 by a 64-10 vote May 31.

It is one of two bills moving forward this session aimed at ensuring Californians can access to PrEP in light of recent court decisions that have ruled health insurers don’t need to cover the HIV prevention medicine. The Assembly will now take up SB 339 authored by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco).

It would increase the amount of PrEP that pharmacists are authorized to provide without a doctor’s prescription and require health plans to reimburse pharmacists for PrEP services. The Senate passed SB 339 in mid-May.

Prop 8 bill

Lawmakers have yet to vote on an additional bill related to LGBTQ rights. Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5, introduced by gay Assemblymember Evan Low (D-

Cupertino), would place on the 2024 general election ballot a repeal of 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 same-sex 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.

Low and a number of his legislative colleagues will gather on the West Steps of the California State Capitol Monday, June 5, to announce the actual language to repeal Prop 8. It requires a two-thirds vote to be adopted, with the Assembly expected to pass it by the end of the month.

The Senate is expected to pass it later this summer, but the chamber has until June 30, 2024 to vote for it in order to get it onto the November ballot that fall. ACA 5 doesn’t need to go before Governor Gavin Newsom to sign.

As for the 2023 bills that do need a gubernatorial signature to become law, legislators have until September 14 to pass them. But with California facing a budget shortfall of upward of $34.5 billion this year, it remains to be seen if the LGBTQ bills with fiscal costs will survive Newsom’s veto pen should they make it to his desk.

For example, Rivas’ AB 1163 is pegged to cost between $3 and $5 million for state agencies to update the forms they use, while Wicks’ paid leave bill AB 518 is estimated to need $3.7 million to launch its provisions then fall down to about $900,000 annually to for state agencies to oversee. t

Trial in killing of gay photographer Ed French ends in hung jury

by John Ferrannini

The partner and sister of a gay photographer killed during a 2017 robbery are stunned after a recent San Francisco criminal trial of the accused killers ended with a hung jury.

“You don’t want to know what my thoughts were,” Lorrie French, the 83-year-old sister of Ed French, told the Bay Area Reporter when asked what she thought when she heard the news.

The jury voted 10-2 on May 22 in favor of convicting Lamonte Mims, 25 of Patterson, and Fantasy Decuir, 25 of San Francisco of murdering Ed French, 71, of San Francisco, but a unanimous verdict was required for conviction.

On a second count of seconddegree robbery of Ed French – Mims was convicted, but the jury hung on the charge for Decuir, 10-2.

The charges stemmed from July 16, 2017, when French was approached in the early morning hours by Mims and Decuir, according to prosecutors, as he was photographing the sunrise from Twin Peaks.

According to video evidence, Decuir is seen shooting French after Mims took his camera.

Decuir and Mims were arrested several weeks later after a man and woman were robbed of their camera, wallet, credit cards, and both United States and European Union currency at St. Mary’s Cathedral Square. Decuir and Mims were found guilty on the counts relating to these allegations, which are separate from the charges of homicide and robbery against French.

They remain in custody awaiting sentencing on their robbery convictions.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s office provided the B.A.R. a copy of the complaint against Mims and Decuir but did not respond to a request for comment on the case as of press time. Lorrie French and her brother’s partner, Brian Higginbotham, 65, also of San Francisco, told the B.A.R. that the DA’s office plans to prosecute the charges that ended in a mistrial.

“Frankly, it was disbelief,” Higginbotham told the B.A.R. regarding his reaction. “Let’s not forget they killed him in July, [police] caught them in August, and in two months it’ll be six long years we’ve been waiting. There’s video, there’s audio and there’s a compelling witness statement. … We’re all very upset, there’s a lot of people following this case.”

Lorrie French and Higginbotham said the defense brought in a medical expert who stated that Decuir’s sicklecell disease led her to think that “she was dreaming and didn’t realize she killed someone,” in Higginbotham’s words.

“It was laughable,” Lorrie French said. “She certainly wasn’t unconscious, as the doctor alluded to.”

Lorrie French said that the DA’s office said next time it’d bring its own medical expert to provide an alternate scenario.

Paul Demeester, Mims’ attorney, told the B.A.R. that “my client was not the one who shot Mr. French, as can be clearly seen on the video. It was Fantasy Decuir who clearly shot Mr. French on Sunday morning at Twin Peaks.” He added that Mims “may only be found guilty of felony murder – first-degree murder – if the person was a major

State Senator Josh Newman, left, and Assemblymembers Luz Rivas and Miguel Santiago all had their LGBTQ-related bills pass out of their

of origin

Courtesy the lawmakers’ offices

Photographer Ed French was fatally shot in 2017.

Courtesy Stop Crime SF

SF sheriff, other law enforcement, raise Pride flag

by John Ferrannini

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Office held its third annual Pride flag raising at county jail No. 3 on Monday, hosting other public safety professionals and first responders in sending a unified message of LGBTQ acceptance in the face of more hostile attitudes elsewhere.

Deputy Sheriff Danilo Quintanilla, who is a member of the LGBTQ community, said that the celebration June 5 reminded him of his first time at San Francisco Pride.

“When I was 18 I remember coming to San Francisco and going to my first Pride event and I was very moved to see not only law enforcement but also firefighters marching in the parade and it gave me courage,” Quintanilla said, adding he hopes young people seeing law enforcement expressing allyship “will help another young person’s life feel validated.”

The sheriff’s office first ceremonially raised the Pride flag in 2021php?ch =news&sc=pride&id=316073) over the county jail, which ironically sits in San Mateo, and not San Francisco, county.

It’s the first year that the sheriff’s office chose to fly the Progress variation of the Pride flag. It includes black and brown stripes to represent people of color, and the blue, pink and white stripes of the

trans flag in a chevron pointing toward the six colors of the rainbow flag.

Sheriff Paul M. Miyamoto, a straight ally who’s been the county sheriff since 2020, said that the choice was made not to fly the more common variation of the rainbow flag in an effort to fully reflect “the diversity and inclusivity of our community.”

Miyamoto said that Pride happens

to be one of the department’s primary goals, along with professionalism and service.

“Pride in our core values is not just to share what we do, or how we do it, but who we are,” Miyamoto said. “Let’s always remember we are representing our community and serving our community in all that we do.”

Sheriff’s officials were joined by rep-

resentatives of the San Francisco fire and police departments.

Lieutenant Jonathan Baxter, the public information officer for the fire department, spoke to encourage people to feel safe attending Pride festivities in San Francisco this year. The city has garnered harsh headlines around public safety in recent years for property theft and open-air drug sellers; on the other hand, the United States Department of Homeland Security issued updated guidance last month advising the LGBTQ community to stay cautious in the face of violent rhetoric.

“There’s no concern for safety because look at this crowd in front of you,” Baxter said, referring to the law enforcement officers and first responders present.

Added Baxter: “We are proud. We are here for you. If you are questioning your place in America, we say we’re here. We love you and we will fully embrace you.”

San Francisco police Sergeant Kathryn Winters, a trans woman, spoke on behalf of SFPD.

“It’s an honor to be able to join the sheriff’s department at this small, but important, event,” she said. “It wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago. It might seem like a small thing but it’s a huge thing.”

Winters is part of the SFPO Pride Alliance, an affinity group of the depart-

ment’s LGBTQ officers. The alliance and other law enforcement will be in this year’s parade, as the Bay Area Reporter reported in April (https://www.ebar. com/story.php?ch=news&sc=latest_ news&id=324469) under the same terms as last year after they were almost excluded by the Pride committee’s board until gay District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey and Mayor London Breed said they’d boycott the parade if they were excluded.

The compromise reached last year allowed the city’s police, sheriff, and fire departments to march together, with command staff allowed in uniform but without visible weapons. Some adjacent officers were allowed weapons for security, but the largest group had to be out of uniform, in shirts with department logos.

The San Francisco LGBTQ Pride parade is Sunday, June 25, at 10:30 a.m. t

Obituaries >>

Robert Wayne Starkey

January 20, 1949 – May 20, 2023

Robert Wayne Starkey, 74, of San Francisco, lost his battle with cancer on May 20, 2023.

Bob will be long remembered by many lifelong friends, family, and devoted online followers who enjoyed his adventures through his published writing and photography, which are available at BooksbyStarkey.com and his Facebook page The Story of Bob.

With his first husband, Larry Stevens, he moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1973 where he lived until 1976 when he was invited to speak as guest poet at the International Conference of the Metropolitan Community Church in Washington, D.C. It was there that he was introduced to, and became the roommate of, Frank Kameny, one of the most significant figures in the American gay rights movement. By 1977, he had created the activist organization Save Our Children focused on stopping Anita Bryant, who was seeking to overturn the ordinance in Dade County, Florida, that protected the rights of gay people. Under the banner of Save Our Children, he organized a demonstration in Lafayette Park in D.C. to call President Jimmy Carter’s attention to the civil rights abuses faced by the LGBTQ community at that time. As co-delegate on a steering committee, he was instrumental in organizing the first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979.

While in D.C., Bob met his soulmate, Robert Frank Villacari, forming a relationship that will forever be known as Rob and Bob.

According to his obituary posted on Facebook, Rob and Bob moved to San Francisco in 1982 during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Together they created the Poppy Project to honor the memory of the many friends and others who had died of AIDS by planting California poppies throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1988, they toured Europe to promote the project internationally. When police brutally beat gay men in the Castro in 1989, as the Truth Fairy, they worked tirelessly to expose the abuse. From 1986 to 1989, Rob and Bob, with a group of friends, created and hosted the Friday Night Dinners. The dinners were open to people with AIDS, their friends and family, and others challenged by other illnesses.

Bob is survived by his sisters: Marlene Stevens, Patricia Testa, Barbara Talbert, and Sandra (Mike) Petteway; and his brother, Steven (Nancy) Starkey. He is preceded in death by his parents, Robert H. and Mary L. Starkey; his sister, Christy Jo Williamson; and his soulmate, Robert Frank Villacari.

An article about Bob was published in the San Francisco Chronicle shortly before his passing at https://tinyurl.com/ b4dvsx9r. Please consider contributing to a charity of your choice in Bob’s memory.

San Francisco Sheriff’s Lieutenant J. Pineda, left, was assisted by sheriff’s Deputy B. Staehely in raising the Progress Pride flag June 5 at San Francisco County Jail No. 3.

John Ferrannini

Pride 2023>>

Oakland officials decry anti-LGBTQ bills at City Hall Pride flag raising

by Cynthia Laird

T aking a stand against the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ legislation sweeping red states, Oakland and Alameda County officials June 1 raised the Progress Pride flag as a symbol for justice.

Officials also spoke about a new youth club that the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center expects to open this month.

The Oakland ceremony happened shortly before Governor Gavin Newsom issued his annual LGBTQ+ Pride Month proclamation, noting that the LGBTQ community “has fought tirelessly for their very right to exist and to be treated with the equality and respect that everyone deserves.”

Lesbian at-large Oakland City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan started off the local ceremony on the third floor roof of City Hall by leading a small crowd in a “We say gay” chant in response to “all the rightwing stuff,” she said. It was a dig at Republican Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’ signing of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill last year and, more recently, a new law that expands the prohibition on teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms to the eighth grade. (A separate Florida Board of Education directive expands that to 12th grade.)

Kaplan added, “We also say L, B, T, and Q – everyone is welcome here.”

“Raising the flag in this time is to celebrate and say we won’t bow down to the hatred,” Kaplan said. “We raise the flag to be seen and we won’t back down to hate. Oakland is a place that stands for justice. We will stand up and build solidarity and community.”

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao was traveling to a mayors’ conference and wasn’t at the ceremony. Brandon Harami, a gay man who’s director of community resilience and Thao’s de facto LGBTQ liaison, said the mayor, an ally, supports the LGBTQ community.

District 3 City Councilmember Carroll Fife, an ally, said Oakland “is a place for community and we don’t back down from the nonsense” being spearheaded by conservative politicians and organizations. “We know that what happens to one happens to all. In 2023 you’d think we’d be past all the bigotry but we’re not.”

More than 400 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legis -

latures across the country this year, with many being signed into law by Republican governors. The laws target gender-affirming care for trans youth, drag performances, and who can use which restroom in public buildings.

District 1 Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb, an ally who’s seeking the 7th District state Senate seat (formerly District 9) that includes Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro, talked about how some of these same states and school districts are banning books, many that feature LGBTQ content.

“We here are sending a different message,” he said. “We want to promote books, including LGBTQ books.”

City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas represents District 2, home of the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center. She said that the city needs to lift up the work the center is doing, especially around queer youth.

In fact, the center expects to open an all-inclusive youth club June 16. Joe Hawkins, a gay man who’s CEO and co-founder of the center, said the space is located a short distance from the center and is actually in Kalb’s council district.

“We have queer people in all districts,” Hawkins said. “With so much anti-LGBTQ legislation and attitudes, we’re resilient and celebrate Pride.”

Alameda County Supervisor

Lena Tam was also in attendance. She defeated Kaplan last year for the District 3 seat on the Board of Supervisors and praised Kaplan’s comments.

“We need to empower diversity,” Tam said, adding the county board will also recognize Pride Month at an upcoming meeting.

As an aside, Tam said that county health officials asked her to note that people can get mpox vaccinations in advance of Pride celebrations. While the outbreak has sub-

sided, health officials are concerned about a resurgence and recommend people get both doses of the vaccine. For more information, check the county health department’s website.

Queer youth trivia night

Thao is expected to be back in town to attend the inaugural Oakland Queer Youth Trivia Night that will be held at City Hall Friday, June 9, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. The featured guest emcee will be 40-episode “Jeopardy!” champion and trans woman Any Schneider. The event will feature refreshments and prizes and is cosponsored by the LGBTQ center. To RSVP, visit https://rb.gy/ktgp8

1 Oakland Pride this year

Oakland Pride and Pridefest Oakland leaders were on hand at the flag raising and spoke briefly to the Bay Area Reporter about there being a single event this year, scheduled for September 9-10. Last year, as the B.A.R. reported, the two groups could not agree to work together and so each had its own event over successive weekends.

There will be a party Saturday night, and parade and street festival on Sunday. Harami said there likely would be another Pride flag raising ahead of that event.

“We’re very excited,” said Sean Sullivan, a Pridefest organizer and coowner of the city’s LGBTQ nightclubs The Port Bar and Fluid510. “Oakland Pride and Pridefest came together in the spirit of unity.”

George Smith, vice president of Oakland Pride, said the organization, which is under new leadership, is collaborating with Pridefest. He said discussions started earlier this year. Oakland Pride made the announcement on its Facebook page in early May.

“Your fave Pride organizations have joined forces to create a partnership of strength and respect to rep the LGBTQ community,” the post stated. t

SF welcomes Pride Month

Oakland City Council members Rebecca Kaplan, front, and Noel Gallo hold the Progress Pride flag while Councilmembers Nikki Fortunato Bas and Carroll Fife look on during the June 1 flag raising. In back is Brandon Harami, Mayor Sheng Thao’s LGBTQ liaison.

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Anti-LGBTQ backlash means we’re winning

With all the headlines about retailers coming under fire for selling Pride-themed merchandise, legislation trying to curb drag performers, and some locales canceling Pride events due to hostile local agitators, it’s important to remember that overall, the LGBTQ community is winning – and that’s a big reason why we’ve become the object of so much ridicule and scorn on the right. At the same time, we need to pay attention to the vitriol, which is ramping up now that it’s Pride Month.

On a positive note, a recent Gallup poll has found that support for same-sex marriage remains strong at 71% nationwide. According to Gallup, that matches the high recorded in 2022. Even among Republicans, it’s at 49%, though it remains lower, at 41%, among weekly churchgoers. “Public support for same-sex marriage has been consistently above 50% since the early 2010s,” Gallup stated in its report. (The survey is from Gallup’s Values and Beliefs poll conducted May 1-24 and used a random sample of 1,011 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The sampling error was plus/minus 4 points.)

Not surprisingly, the groups most in favor of legal same-sex marriage are the same found in previous years – adults aged 18 to 29 (89%), Democrats (84%), and infrequent churchgoers (83%), Gallup stated. Same-sex marriage has received majority support in the U.S. for over a decade, and support has been on an upward trajectory for most of Gallup’s polling since 1996.

Same-sex marriage, of course, became the law of the land after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision. More recently, Gallup noted that President Joe Biden last December signed bipartisan legislation to ward off future judicial attempts at undoing its legality.

That was the Respect for Marriage Act, which 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 that states must recognize such unions performed in other states.

The act includes protections for religious liberty.

Gallup’s poll report stated that among many groups – including older adults, Protestants, and residents of the South – perspectives on same-sex marriage have gone from majority opposition to majority support over the course of the organiza-

tion’s surveys spanning more than a quarter of a century. In 1996, support for same-sex marriage was only 27%.

The polling numbers give us hope that an effort to repeal the “zombie language” of Proposition 8 in California’s constitution on the November 2024 ballot is winnable. This week gay Assemblymember Evan Low (D-Cupertino) amended his Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 with the language for excising Prop 8’s definition of marriage being between a man and a woman.

The Legislature is expected to back putting it before the state’s voters next fall. And while the polling on the marriage equality is promising, a well orchestrated campaign on behalf of repealing Prop 8 will still be essential in light of the intense backlash against LGBTQ rights that is even popping up in liberal California.

It’s the acceptance of same-sex marriage by such an overwhelming majority of U.S. residents that has led, in part, to the current battles over transgender rights, such as gender-affirming care for trans youth and adults. We’ve seen that with the marriage equality battle largely over, conservatives have pivoted to fighting against rights for transgender people, many of whom are more vulnerable than gays and lesbians. Trans people continue to experience greater unemployment and underemployment, as well as access to housing. Even here in the blue Bay Area, unhoused trans people have a very difficult time, a fact that was brought into stark reality with the shooting in April of Banko Brown, an unhoused trans man, by a Walgreens security guard at a downtown San Francisco store.

Conservative politicians have attempted – sometimes successfully – to halt the march to equality

with discriminatory laws. The courts, however, have served as a check against legislative excess and there are some early hopeful signs.

On June 2, a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump threw out an anti-drag law in Tennessee, ruling that it was unconstitutional. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker wrote that the law violates First Amendment freedom of speech protections and was “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad,” as the Washington Post reported. Parker had earlier issued a preliminary injunction to block the law from taking effect, stating that it was too broad. That’s the problem with laws like this, as we noted in an article last week. Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis recently signed a similar bill that is a little more specific, so it remains to be seen if a court challenge will be successful. But the judge’s decision in Tennessee, which likely will be appealed by the conservative legislature, nonetheless put lawmakers on notice that they must craft laws that don’t run afoul of free speech.

Remain vigilant

In spite of the progress and court victories, LGBTQ people must remain vigilant, especially during Pride Month. This week the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights organization, for the first time declared a “state of emergency” for queer people in the U.S. It joins recent travel advisories issued by Equality Florida, the NAACP, and the League of Latin American Citizens for the Sunshine State, saying that under DeSantis, the state has become openly hostile to African Americans, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals.

HRC issued its declaration along with a new report detailing more than 75 anti-LGBTQ bills that have been signed into law this year, more than doubling last year’s number, which in itself was a record. HRC has compiled a guidebook for the community that contains “know your rights” information and a summary of state-level laws. People should download (https://hrc-prod-requests.s3-us-west-2. amazonaws.com/LGBTQ-Guidebook-for-Action. pdf) it, particularly if they’re planning to travel to a state that has anti-LGBTQ laws. California, we’ll note, has none of the anti-LGBTQ laws highlighted in the report.

So yes, the extreme pushback the LGBTQ community has received via these laws in red states is reprehensible. But conservatives are reacting to an unjustified fear of the “other,” and we must not capitulate. Be careful, but have pride in who you are –because that’s what bothers them the most.t

Addressing California’s mental health crisis

by Corey Jackson

We, as Californians, have made significant progress in recognizing and affirming the rights of the LGBTQ community. However, amid the celebrations and raising of the symbolic Pride flag, we must confront a grim reality: a silent epidemic that is plaguing our marginalized community –the mental health crisis.

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Research reveals a tragic truth about the mental health challenges that disproportionately affect the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/ questioning community. As the first Black openly gay member elected to the California State Assembly, I can attest to personal experiences along my trajectory that have caused a great deal of harm to my mental health. Research consistently demonstrates that LGBTQ individuals experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide compared to their heterosexual counterparts. The discrimination and societal pressures they endure often result in elevated levels of stress and profound emotional distress.

According to a report from the American Psychiatric Association, (https://www.psychiatry.org/ psychiatrists/diversity/education/lgbtq-patients) LGBTQ individuals are more than twice as likely as heterosexual men and women to have a mental health disorder in their lifetime. In addition, this report states that, approximately 31% of LGBTQ older adults report depressive symptoms; 39% report serious thoughts of taking their own lives.

The LGBTQ community is among the populations in our society widely affected by the lack of resources and support for this crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated the existing pressures LGBTQ individuals faced on a daily basis. Regardless of age, LGBT adults have consistently reported higher rates of symptoms of both anxiety and depression than non-LGBTQ adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s experimental Household Pulse Survey.

Despite the clear need for increased mental health services, California’s mental health system is underfunded and understaffed. This shortage is particularly acute in rural areas, where access to mental health services is even more limited. We must ensure that mental health services are accessible to all, regardless of identity expression. We must break down the barriers that prevent individuals from accessing quality care and support. We need a comprehensive strategy that includes prevention, early intervention, and treatment. We need to educate our communities about mental health, reduce stigma, and provide culturally competent care. We need to train more mental health professionals and support them with fair compensation and resources.

As chair of the Select Committee on California’s Mental Health Crisis, I plan to aggressively tackle this issue. That is why I have introduced two bills focused on increasing access to mental health services in vulnerable communities. The first piece of legislation, Assembly Bill 1451, re-

moves the requirement of preauthorization for urgent and emergent mental health treatment in order to ensure timely treatment.

The second bill, AB 1450, would require K-12 schools, county office of education, or charter school to conduct universal screenings for adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, and mental health conditions of all students. AB 1450 also requires schools to employ or contract with at least one mental health clinician, and at least one case manager to conduct these critical and lifesaving screenings. Lastly, this bill will require the mental health clinician who conducts a screening to develop and provide an action plan based upon findings from the screening. We know when ACEs and mental health conditions are caught early, outcomes can improve for everyone involved – both those suffering from these conditions and for those providing the care.

But these bills are just the beginning. We need to come together as a state to demand action on mental health. The mental health crisis in California is a complex problem that will require a comprehensive, coordinated response. But the stakes are too high to ignore. We must come together as a state to prioritize mental health and ensure that all Californians have access to the care they need to thrive.

I urge you to join me in this fight for mental health justice in California. We cannot afford to wait any longer. Lives are at stake. We must act now. t

Assemblymember Corey Jackson, Ph.D., (DPerris) is a gay man who represents the 60th Assembly District (https://a60.asmdc.org/) in the Inland Empire. He is a former member of the Riverside County Board of Education and is the first Black LGBTQ person elected to the California Legislature.

Assemblymember Corey Jackson, Ph.D.

Courtesy the Assemblymember’s office

Amos Lim, right, carefully pinned a corsage on his soon-to-be-husband, Mickey Lim, during the first day of same-sex marriages in California on June 17, 2008.

Rick Gerharter

Trans candidate Gonzalez seeks Los Angeles Assembly seat

by Matthew S. Bajko

Should Justine Gonzalez win her bid next year for a Los Angeles Assembly seat, she could be one of the first transgender members of the California Legislature and one of the first bisexual women to serve in Sacramento. A resident of her city’s Silver Lake district, Gonzalez is running to represent the 52nd Assembly District.

The seat will be open next year as the incumbent, Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles), is seeking to unseat embattled Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de León, her former ally. Caught on tape making racist comments, a recording of which was leaked last year, de León has ignored demands that he resign and seen several attempts to recall him fail.

In announcing her legislative campaign last month Gonzalez noted she decided to seek the seat “because as a renter, a parent, and a transgender woman, I feel a responsibility to step up and uplift the voices of those who are left behind. And I am running because in the face of hundreds of attempts across the country to strip LGBTQ+ people and women of their individual and reproductive rights, I believe California must set an example for a more just and inclusive nation.”

Gonzalez, 33, is one of two transgender candidates running in 2024 to be elected to the Statehouse. Palm Springs City Councilmember Lisa Middleton is seeking the open 19th Senate District seat that includes the LGBTQ tourist and retirement mecca of the Coachella Valley.

Middleton would be the first transgender person elected to Legislature’s upper chamber, while Gonzalez would be the first in the lower chamber and serve alongside the Legislature’s first bisexual member, Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San Jose), who is likely to be reelected next November.

Also seeking to join them in Sacramento are several other bisexual female candidates, including Palm Springs City Councilmember Christy Holstege

After losing her bid last year for an Assembly seat by 85 votes, Holstege is now running to unseat the winner of that race, Assemblymember Greg Wallis (R-Palm Springs), next year from his 47th Assembly District seat.

Middleton and Holstege both have been the targets of personal attacks and vitriol on social media due to their gender identity and sexual orientation, respectively, during their political careers.

As Middleton noted in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter last month during a visit to San Francisco, although transphobic and homophobic attacks against candidates across the state and the U.S. have “exploded in the last two years,” it has only emboldened her to stand for legislative office.

“It has convinced me, even more, that we need to see committed, strong, capable candidates are in these races,” said Middleton, 70, of the current political landscape.

Talking to the B.A.R. recently by phone Gonzalez also said that the increasingly hostile environment for out LGBTQ candidates, rather than being a deterrent, had convinced her it was “fundamentally important” that she wage her first bid for elected office.

“As I see my child grow, I don’t want to imagine a world where we don’t step up and ensure our voices are heard,” said Gonzalez, the co-parent of CJ, a 9-year-

Tennessee law was incomplete

old who is questioning their own gender identity. “I don’t think this is something I can wait on. What are we supposed to do? I should never run for office? What would my child think? What would future generations think?”

Gonzalez is one of a number of younger LGBTQ people, some also parents, who are seeking legislative seats in California next year. She is still adjusting to being in the public eye as a parent while trying to protect the privacy of her family and co-parent, whom she told the B.A.R. is not yet ready to be publicly identified.

“It is a big deal for the community to have more parents within the LGBTQ community running,” said Gonzalez. “We know there are structural challenges for any parent running, let alone aspiring candidates in our community who have family planning obstacles to that as well.”

It is set to be a record year for out candidates in the Golden State, with at least 22 LGBTQ individuals already having pulled papers to run in 2024. (According to a tally kept by the B.A.R., the 2020 election saw a record 23 LGBTQ legislative candidates.)

“We still have work to do in the Legislature,” said Gonzalez. “Trans women, men, people can be legislators. We deserve a chance. We deserve this, and I can’t back down from that.”

Growing up

Her tenacity likely is rooted in her being born and growing up in the Bronx, New York, to parents of Puerto Rican and Afro-Latina descent. Gonzalez is the middle child of five siblings.

At age 12, her family moved to the suburbs of New York City, and three years later, she had relocated to Los Angeles, graduating from a high school in the San Fernando Valley. She struggled financially while in college, and briefly found herself unhoused at the age of 20, just as she was coming out of the closet, and resorted to couch surfing with friends as she sought housing.

“I was an undergraduate student working and trying to make ends meet. There just came a point where it became too much,” recalled Gonzalez. “That small experience of it just showed me how difficult it is to go through this. We know so many on our streets in Los Angeles have been searching a long time and can’t find

So glad the federal judge struck down the Tennessee anti-drag law. It was so incomplete. What about all that splendid Catholic and Anglican Church drag of the hierarchy that the law omits?

Those splendid lavender and crimson gowns beautifully accented by dragsters bejeweled in necklaces, opulent rings, and ermine “to die for!”

the housing or assistance they need.”

Homeless services and building more affordable housing are among her top priorities she would work on if elected to the Legislature. Legislation is needed to make it easier to build different types of housing throughout the state, argued Gonzalez, adding she would look to find incentives for such construction to be done faster.

“I feel it as a parent and as a renter. The idea of where can I go, how can I buy a home, all these things seem increasingly out of reach,” said Gonzalez. “This is a moment to act. We need legislators willing to take tough votes to build more housing and pass a pro-housing agenda.”

One of four Democrats to already have pulled papers for the Assembly race, Gonzalez has a wealth of local political experience. She was a legislative aide for former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and served as the external affairs coordinator and LGBTQ liaison for former mayor Eric Garcetti

In 2017, she helped establish a transgender advisory council in Los Angeles then became the first transgender person appointed to the city’s Human Relations Commission. That year Gonzalez was also part of the inaugural class of LGBTQ Victory Fellows who took part in a training for aspiring candidates for political office put on by the LGBTQ Victory Institute.

She has worked for both the statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization Equality California and the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Currently, Gonzalez is employed with the California Charter School Association.

“I feel really prepared in terms of what I need to do to win and build a strong campaign,” said Gonzalez, adding that she is excited about the prospect of serving alongside Middleton in the Legislature. “I am really excited for us and by the possibility of both us both making history as trans candidates.”

To learn more about her campaign, visit justineforassembly.comt

Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. This week’s column reported on the politicization of Pride merchandise.

Got a tip on LGBTQ politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com

And those adorable little hats – “Kiss my ring, darling.” God forbid that a child would attend these opulent performances and be enthralled by the show and want one of those outfits.

John Caton Oakland, California

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Assembly candidate Justine Gonzalez

Courtesy campaign website

Biden nominates Maloney as 6th out ambassador

by Heather Cassell

President Joe Biden’s commitment to putting LGBTQ rights at the forefront of the United States foreign policy that he announced shortly after he was sworn into office in 2021 is now gaining momentum, as seen by his recent nomination of a sixth out person to serve at the rank of ambassador.

Gay former congressmember Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York) has been nominated to be the U.S. representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Biden announced Maloney’s nomination last month and officially sent it to the Senate June 1, the first day of Pride Month.

The OECD works to build better policies with the goal of fostering prosperity, equality, opportunity, and well-being for better lives for all, according to the organization’s website.

If confirmed, Maloney will succeed the current OECD ambassador, former Delaware Governor Jack Markell, whom Biden nominated to fill the coveted Italy and San Marino ambassadorship, which has been vacant for two years, reported Axios. Maloney and his husband, Randy Florke, will move to Paris, where the OECD is headquartered. The couple recently celebrated their 30th anniversary. They raised three children – Jesus, Daley, and Essie – together, according to the release and Maloney’s campaign website. The children were only identified by their first names.

Maloney did not respond to the Bay Area Reporter’s request for comment.

In 2021, Biden placed LGBTQ rights at the forefront of the United States foreign policy with a stroke of a pen. Standing at a podium, he proudly announced that he strengthened the historic memorandum protecting LGBTQ people glob-

ally signed by former President Barack Obama in 2011, when Biden was vice president, with his own revised memorandum, the B.A.R. previously reported.

Who is Maloney

Maloney, the youngest of six, grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire. His father was a disabled veteran. His mother was a small business owner. She put Maloney and his brothers through college, according to his biography on his congressional campaign page. Maloney earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Virginia. He worked as a volunteer with the Jesuits in rural Peru between college and law school from 1988 to 1989.

Prior to serving in Congress, Maloney served as then-President Bill Clinton’s White House staff secretary, helped found a financial services software company, and worked as a partner at two

global law firms, according to the White House’s May 12 news release.

Maloney was the first openly LGBTQ person elected to Congress from New York. While in Congress, Maloney authored more than 40 pieces of legislation that became law. He chaired both the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure as well as the Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development Subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture. He served as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and was elected by his colleagues to House leadership in 2020.

Hard loss

Maloney is the former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democratic House members. He led Demo-

crats to a major political upset, holding back the expected “red wave” and flipping some electoral districts from red to blue in the 2022 midterm elections last November. But that wasn’t enough to keep the GOP from regaining control of the House, albeit by a slim margin.

However, Maloney lost his own seat representing the people of the Hudson Valley in the 18th Congressional District that he held for five terms from 2013 to 2023. Under redistricting in 2022, several districts in the New York City suburbs and Hudson Valley area were redrawn, including District 17 and District 18, both represented by gay men. Maloney moved into District 17, which was held by Mondaire Jones, a gay Black man, reported The River. Jones ran for office in District 10, reported NBC News.

Maloney lost the race for District 17 to Republican Mike Lawler. Jones lost his District 10 bid to Democrat Dan Goldman.

Bitter about his defeat, Maloney, speaking with the New York Times shortly after the election, blamed the loss on redrawn district lines, Republicans pouring millions into his opponent’s smear campaign, and New York City’s aggressive media negatively spinning crime stories in New York City, scaring suburban voters.

Since November, Biden has been searching for a position for Maloney, insiders close to Biden told Axios, which broke the news 10 days before Biden’s announcement.

Slow process

In March, more than two years after Biden’s pledge, the U.S. made its biggest move to protect LGBTQ people globally when it led a coalition of countries,

along with the United Nations LGBTI Core Group, the U.N. LGBTQ expert, and two experts from Afghanistan and Colombia. The coalition called upon the U.N. Security Council to better integrate LGBTQ human rights under its international peace and security mandate, the B.A.R. previously reported.

Nominating LGBTQ ambassadors has been a slower process. According to the American Foreign Service Association’s tracker, there were a total of 194 positions as of May 16. Of those, 46 of Biden’s 2022 and 2023 nominees were entering the Senate confirmation process or are at various levels of the Senate confirmation hearings. Of the 46 pending nominations, 24 offices are vacant. Some of those vacant offices are very important, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the African Union and many African countries, like Uganda; the United Arab Emirates, and the United Nations/Deputy Representative, to name a few.

Other empty or pending appointments are in coveted destinations like the aforementioned Italy and San Marino and Colombia.

In 2021, the Washington Blade questioned if Biden was missing an opportunity “to exhibit America’s LGBTQ community overseas through its first-ever appointment of a lesbian and transgender ambassador” after he passed his first 100 days in office. t

A longer version of this column is online at ebar.com.

He is also planning to take part in the Pride in the Plaza event the agency is hosting Saturday, June 17.

As for taking part in the Bay Area’s largest LGBTQ celebration, the San Francisco Pride Parade on Sunday, June 25, Carlson doesn’t plan to have his own contingent this year. He told the B.A.R. he may inquire about marching with the Ducal Council contingent.

“There is a lot going on,” Carlson noted of this year’s Pride Month. “I am not sure what my schedule will allow.”

In an email to his constituents inviting them to the county supervisors’ Pride observance in its chambers, Carlson noted the significance of the moment due to his breaking through a political glass ceiling in last year’s election.

“As the first openly gay member of the board, I recognize that my role and this moment wouldn’t be possible without those who came before me,” wrote Carlson, who served nearly a decade on the Pleasant Hill City Council.

He added, “I look forward to continuing to fight for more inclusivity and acceptance in our community and across our country. Inclusivity starts in our community. I encourage you to attend Pride Events throughout Contra Costa County to support your neighbors.”

<< Ed French

From page 4

participant, which we conceded, and acted with reckless indifference.”

Demeester added that the medical testimony regarding the sickle-cell disease asserted it was high doses of an opioid medication that led to nullified culpability.

“What was shown in evidence was that Fantasy was in the hospital for some days – as late as the afternoon of July 14 – and she was given intravenously heavy doses of pain medication, Dilaudid, and that’s way up there in terms of pain medication, and a number of attending physicians

East Bay native Carlson grew up in Concord until his family moved to Pleasant Hill in the early 1970s. His grandfather, James Moriarty, was a county supervisor in the 1970s.

As the B.A.R. noted when Carlson announced his supervisor bid in 2021, he is believed to have been the first out LGBTQ candidate to seek a seat on the five-person board overseeing the sprawling East Bay county. Today, he is the only known out supervisor serving in the nine-county Bay Area region outside of San Francisco County, which now has three gay men on its Board of Supervisors.

“Of course it has been great. I get to work with some great folks,” Carlson told the B.A.R. during a recent phone interview to discuss his being the first out supervisor on his county board. “The staff have been tremendous, and my other board members have been great. There hasn’t been a hint of negativity.”

Justice and equity

One issue he has been working on is if LGBTQ concerns will be part of the purview of the county’s Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice that it is establishing. In meetings he has had with LGBTQ advocates, it is one issue that has been brought up.

“Where will the LGBTQIA representation be in that organization and

testified about the treatment she received in the week leading up to July 16, when Mr. French was killed,” Demeester said.

Decuir’s attorney Mark Iverson told the B.A.R. that “the legal defense of unconsciousness we presented on behalf of Ms. Decuir involved the interaction of the extreme pain Ms. Decuir experienced during that time from her sickle-cell disease and the large amounts of opiates prescribed and administered to her to relieve her pain.  Her ability to manage this medical crisis and her withdrawal from opiates was severely compromised by her intellectual disability.”

Iverson said no expert “testified that

will there be someone specific to our community who will have input and say on what goes on in that office,” Carlson said are some of the questions he has asked about the new office.

Another area he believes the office should be focused on is access to LGBTQ culturally competent health care in the county, as it runs its own health system. Carlson told the B.A.R. it has been an ongoing concern, particularly around the health needs of transgender youth.

“Even I know our community is more comfortable going to Planned Parenthood to get access to health care as opposed to other health care systems, and that can include the county health care system as well,” said Carlson. “How can we address that is what I see the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice being about.”

Allotted a certain number of seats on county commissions and boards to fill – his recommended appointees must be approved by the supervisors – Carlson told the B.A.R. he is being cognizant of the need to have LGBTQ people on the oversight bodies.

“For example, we have a housing and homelessness commission, and a mental health commission. We need people to apply to serve on them,” noted Carlson.

Improving his own communication with his constituents has been another

Ms. Decuir was unconscious at the time of the shooting of Mr. French because such opinions are not legally permitted.”

“Rather, the jury heard from a variety of doctors and nurses about what it is like to suffer from sickle-cell disease generally and specifically the course the disease took with Ms. Decuir during the month of July 2017 and how medically opiates were the only viable way to alleviate her severe pain throughout the month of July 2017,” he continued.

‘He loved this city’ Higginbotham said he’s made 75 different court appearances. The couple had been together for over 30 years.

focus of Carlson’s during his first six months on the board. He is an infrequent user of Instagram and isn’t active on Twitter, where he doesn’t have an official profile as supervisor. His personal page still lists him as a Pleasant Hill council member, with his last post made in late March 2022.

He does post to his official Facebook page throughout the week, but not daily – or multiple times a day – like some other politicians. Carlson also sends out an emailed newsletter usually twice a week and has worked to make it more personal, as he had been advised to do by his campaign manager.

“Within a month or two, he told me, ‘OK, you are getting there.’ But I was told to get more out there and show you are doing more, and to share more of what you want to do,” recalled Carlson, who included a photo of his being at Clayton Pride in his June 6 newsletter.

Being out front on issues, particularly those related to the LGBTQ community, whether in the press or on social media, doesn’t come naturally for him, explained Carlson, who did do a recent interview with the Bay Area’s NBC affiliate, KNTV-TV, to mark Pride Month.

“Part of it is me. I lived in the closet a longtime,” said Carlson, who was raised Mormon and had three daughters with his ex-wife.

Earlier this year, Carlson learned of

“I met him in 1989,” Higginbotham recalled. “We met here; some club south of Market. He was a very interesting guy. It’s so outrageous; that Sunday morning he had $50,000 to come in the next day to invest in something. He was so excited. He’s a lifelong San Franciscan – born by the Zuni restaurant on Market, grew up in the North Bay, Petaluma, but got out of there quickly. In 1979, he moved down here after all the Harvey Milk stuff was happening.”

Lorrie French said that “they didn’t just take away my brother. They took my best friend, my buddy. He was such a good, caring person.” She described her late brother as “Mr. San Francisco.”

several students being bullied due to their race or gender identity and attended a rally held at a local middle school to show them his support. More recently, after being connected through a friend of a friend, Carlson met with the mother of a transgender student who was being bullied at their middle school in Concord, though he lamented that as a supervisor, he has “no leverage over” how the school district has handled the matter.

With his being a gay county leader and retired police officer, Carlson had expected he would field press requests for comment when news broke this spring about racist and homophobic text chains involving 45 Antioch police officers. Several people arrested by the police have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, and the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta launched an investigation of the police department. Because the county’s district attorney has also been involved, Carlson said he has been paying attention to the scandal. As part of the balanced budget the supervisors approved last month, they budgeted an extra $2.1 million for the county’s D.A. and public defender to bring on five new employees each to review cases handled by the implicated Antioch officers.

See page 13 >>

“One time we took our nephew and niece from Washington to the California Street cable car,” Lorrie French said. “As we went down, he was telling the kids the buildings, and when we got off at the end of the line the people behind us asked ‘Can we go with you?’ because they were listening, getting the history of San Francisco. He loved this city. He really loved this city, but that’s the city that took him.”

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for July 7 at 9 a.m. in Department 22 at the Hall of Justice. t

Former Representative Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York), has been nominated by President Joe Biden as the U.S. representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which carries the rank of ambassador.

Maloney’s campaign website

Pink triangle display reverts to canvas this year

compiled by Cynthia Laird

The pink triangle atop Twin Peaks will revert to a canvas-only display for 2023, after having special LED lighting the past three years, and volunteers are needed ahead of the installation, co-founder Patrick Carney stated in a news release.

Volunteers can sign up for several jobs. Site cleanup will take place Saturday, June 10. On Friday, June 16, the display layout and installation of the outline will take place. That will be followed by the main installation Saturday, June 17, starting at 7 a.m., followed by the ceremony and program at 11. Finally, help is needed to take down the installation on Saturday, July 1.

The pink triangle will be up for two full weeks, Carney stated. Last year the display was up for all of Pride Month, but in years past it has just been up for Pride weekend. Carney stated that volunteers are especially needed for the takedown, which typically draws the fewest people.

Carney said that new materials have been obtained.

“New canvas and sailcloth border materials were ordered many months ago and have arrived,” Carney stated.

He thanked Illuminate and Ben Davis, its founder and chief visionary officer, for help during the COVID year of 2020 with the LED lighting when people couldn’t gather to volunteer, Carney explained.

“And then that system was used for an additional two years – a beautiful bonus for sure,” he added. “For all that I am forever grateful.”

In an email, Carney, a gay man who was appointed last year as a city arts commissioner, didn’t rule out lighting the pink triangle in the future.

“It may be lit again someday in a manner to be determined,” he wrote. “It depends upon many factors including of course money and operating costs, but most importantly on how it serves the goals of the project.”

Carney noted that the pink triangle is a reminder and a warning. It was originally used to brand suspected homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps. It was revived in the 1970s as a symbol of protest against homophobia, and has been used to symbolize LGBTQ+ Pride ever since.

“The pink triangle fits in well with the theme of Pride 2023, ‘Looking Back and Moving Forward.’ The pink triangle has always been doing that,” noted Carney, “because part of appreciating and celebrating any Pride is understanding where we have been, and the pink triangle illustrates how bad things can get – as pointed out during the history portion of

the program.”

To sign up for a volunteer shift, go to bit.ly/3OPAD3V

To make a donation, go to www.bit. ly/43zCq16

Community Boards to honor ‘peacemakers’

Community Boards, a nonprofit that works on mediation with city residents in all manner of disputes, will honor individuals at its Peacemaker Awards Friday, June 9, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. While the in-person event is sold out, people can watch a livestream for free, said Darlene Weide, executive director.

Additionally, there are still spots available for an online workshop Thursday, June 10, from noon to 1:30 p.m. The virtual session, “The Magic of Mediation,” will be led by Kenneth Cloke. The cost is $65 for Community Boards members and $85 for non-members.

Weide, a lesbian who used to work at the Stop AIDS Project, became executive director at Community Boards in 2008.

The agency itself started as an experiment back in 1976 in Visitacion Valley and Bernal Heights, she said.

The idea was to train people in the art and skill of mediation and problem-solving in neighborhoods without the intrusion of institutions such as the police. It became so successful that today the model is replicated in 500 cities in the U.S. and around the world, Weide said.

Today, the agency offers conflict coaching to those who call for help, and can do a three-hour mediation session if agreeable to both sides in a dispute. Weide said sessions have been held to resolve landlord-tenant issues and other disagreements that can involve businesses, schools, or neighbors.

Services are offered in English, Spanish, and Chinese, she added.

This year’s Peacemaker event will honor Susan Stone, who has worked as a mediator and caseworker inside juvenile halls in the Bay Area; California Lopez, a junior at Mission High School who has trained in communication and conflict resolution skills; and Brava! for Women in the Arts, which has been an anchor organization in the Mission district for over 37 years and owns and operates the Brava Theatre Center.

To learn more about Community Boards, including how to be a mediator, go to communityboards.org.

To sign up for the online workshop, go to https://tinyurl.com/5ayvrnbt

To watch a livestream of the Peacemaker Award event, go to https://tinyurl.com/3vsx4eua or https://tinyurl. com/2t5zck7x

Pride in Pinole

The East Bay city of Pinole will celebrate its 120th birthday, LGBTQ Pride, and Juneteenth at a festival Sunday, June 11, from noon to 3 p.m. at Fernandez Park, 595 Tennent Avenue.

Pinole Mayor Devin Murphy, a gay Black man, wrote in a Facebook post that it will be the city’s first-ever Pride celebration. The city raised the Pride flag June 1. At the festival, which is free to attend, there will be musical performances, food vendors, and activities for children.

For more information, go to https:// tinyurl.com/8vznxnzm

Presidio Tunnel Tops

queer field day

Presidio Tunnel Tops, the new attraction within the Presidio National Park, will hold a queer-centered Fantastic Field Day Sunday, June 11, from noon to 4 p.m.

According to a news release, the all-ag-

Clayton shows its Pride

es inclusive event is part of Queer Athletic Futurity and challenges how people look at conventional forms of athleticism. Activities include dance performances and stunts from FACT/SF, a contemporary dance company, and CHEER San Francisco, the primarily LGBTQ pep squad, as well as workshops from coaches from a variety of sports. The aim is to show that anyone, inclusive of orientation, ability, and experience, can be athletic.

The event is free. RSVPs are not required but can be made at https://tinyurl. com/ekjms7mk

Rainbow Honor Walk

raises $45K

The Rainbow Honor Walk, the nonprofit that highlights the contributions of deceased LGBTQ pioneers with sidewalk plaques in San Francisco’s Castro district, recently announced an exhibit of art by the late acclaimed artist Beth Van Hoesen raised $45,000 for the project.

The exhibit, “Beth Van Hoesen: Punks and Sisters,” ran January 17-February 25 at the city’s Altman Siegel Gallery, the release stated. Van Hoesen, a longtime Castro resident who died in 2010, and her estate donated a significant number of her works to the Rainbow Honor Walk for sale to benefit its work.

“Thank you Beth Van Hoesen,” stated Donna Sachet, board president for the Rainbow Honor Walk. “Thank you to Diane Roby, who administered her artistic estate. Thank you, Altman Siegel Gallery and especially thank you, Peter Goss, our longtime supporter and

board member who helped to facilitate the sale of the Rainbow Honor Walk’s Beth Van Hoesen artworks.”

To date, the honor walk, working with San Francisco Public Works, has installed 44 plaques along Market, Castro, 19th, and Collingwood streets.

As the Bay Area Reporter has previously reported, the first 20 plaques were installed in 2014 with additional plaques added in 2017, 2019, and last year. In February 2022, the next 24 honorees were announced with design of their plaques commencing this year, as the B.A.R. reported. One of the inductees is B.A.R. founding publisher Bob Ross.

All funds for manufacture of the plaques are raised privately, with each plaque costing approximately $6,000, the release noted.

For more information on the Rainbow Honor Walk, including a map of the plaques, go to rainbowhonorwalk.org.

Panel recalls

1973 Coors boycott

The Coors boycott and beer strike of 1973 will be remembered at a panel discussion and organizing workshop Saturday, June 24, at noon at the Teamsters Local 2010 Hall, 7739 Pardee Lane in Oakland.

The local aspect of the boycott started in 1973, when Allan Baird, a straight ally, took charge of a union strike against Bay Area distributors, including the Coors Brewing Company. Baird reached out to his neighbor, gay future supervisor Harvey Milk, to build a coalition. Coors also had a 178-question employment application form, as Nancy Wohlforth explained in 2017 on the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ website.

“One question demanded: ‘Are you a homosexual?’ If you answered ‘yes,’ that terminated your application,” she stated. “Another demanded ‘Are you pro-union?’ If you answered ‘yes,’ that terminated you, too.”

Even after Teamsters Local 888’s boycott of Coors ended in 1975, Baird continued to work with Milk – both against the anti-LGBTQ Briggs initiative in 1978 that would have banned queer people and their supporters from teaching in California’s public schools, and for LGBTQ equality in the labor movement. Milk was elected the city’s first openly gay supervisor in 1977 and was assassinated in November 1978.

The event is free. To register, go to https://tinyurl.com/3f3bfnfz. t

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The city of Clayton in Contra Costa County held its second annual Pride parade Sunday, June 4. Contingents included Dykes on Bikes, elected officials such as gay county Supervisor Ken Carl-

son, and others. Clayton Pride officials wrote on the group’s website that the event “was a huge success,” and thanked all who participated. (For more on Carlson, see related story.)

Bernadette Scully, center, joined other volunteers in putting together the canvas tarps that form the pink triangle atop Twin Peaks in 2009.

Hossein Carney California Lopez will receive a Community Boards Peacemaker Award.

Courtesy Community Boards

Jane Philomen Cleland

The reason being that the restaurant, established in 1893, hadn’t hosted a drag show until last week.

“I am very excited to be here in a space where you would normally not find queer performers,” said Friday.

In attendance were friends Liz Polo and Damien Keller, who both work nearby. Polo, a straight ally, owns Polo Promotions and has had an office in the city’s downtown business district for 22 years.

One of her clients is Schroeder’s, as she has helped with its marketing efforts. When COVID struck back in March 2020, the city ordered all non-essential businesses to shutter, forcing restaurants to close their dining rooms and most employees of downtown offices to pivot to working from home.

“We saw the devastation with COVID. When I would walk by here, this place would be empty,” recalled Polo. “Everyone says they want to support local businesses, but it takes action to support them. We need to walk in and order drinks or food and be there for each other.”

Keller, a gay man originally from San Diego, agreed. He has worked in the hospitality industry in the Bay Area for several decades and had just been hired as director of sales and marketing for the Galleria Park Hotel on Sutter Street in downtown San Francisco when COVID forced the hotel to close its doors for a year.

Furloughed during that time, Keller eventually returned to work. This year the hotel has seen its business rebound, he said, and is nearly sold out over Pride weekend later this month.

“This is a great way to celebrate Pride,” said Keller of the special drag show. “Especially with what is going on in the world today with drag, visibility is important.”

He was referring to the bans against drag performances and laws attacking drag performers being adopted in conservative-led states. In Florida, the administration of Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, has targeted the liquor licenses of businesses that host drag shows, as the Bay Area Reporter has reported. (A federal judge on June 2 struck down Tennessee’s law that restricted drag shows as unconstitutional.)

“More than ever I want to go out to support drag. When someone says ‘Don’t do it,’ I want to do it more,” said Keller.

Downtown coming back

As for San Francisco’s business district, Keller noted that, “downtown is coming back.”

The drag show was the brainchild of Robbie Silver, executive director of the

Downtown SF Partnership, a nonprofit that promotes businesses and provides services in the city’s Financial District and Jackson Square Historic District areas. The Vallejo resident had landed on the idea during one of his morning commutes via ferry.

“My staff calls them my ‘ferry thoughts.’ Seeing the Golden Gate Bridge when it is not foggy is inspiring,” explained Silver, adding that most of his best ideas come to him while crossing San Francisco Bay.

A few months ago he came into work not only with the idea to put on drag shows in downtown venues but also with a name for the endeavor, “Drag Me Downtown.” He budgeted $40,000 toward it and empowered his community benefit district’s staff to implement it.

“Arts and culture belongs in downtown San Francisco and drag belongs in downtown San Francisco,” Silver, 31, told the B.A.R. during a joint interview with Friday outside of Schroeder’s at one of its parklet tables. “Bringing drag to downtown is a new concept.”

While several venues, from restaurants and hotels to nightclubs and bars, have hosted drag shows in the area on weekend nights or Sundays during brunch, and during Pride weekend at the end of June, post-work drag shows on weekdays aren’t a common occurrence in San Francisco’s financial district, several business leaders in the area told the B.A.R.

Popular entertainment

Long a beloved entertainment within the LGBTQ community, drag shows have taken off in popularity with the general public over the last decade largely due to the success of the television competition show “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

Silver is a fan of the show and, though a few seasons behind, watches it via a streaming service with his mom, whom he moved up from Riverside to help care for five years ago.

With headlines blaring that San Francisco’s downtown is in a “doom loop” of demise, due to employees working remotely and stores shuttering for a lack of customers, Silver wanted to change the narrative and felt hosting drag shows in June would be a novel approach for drawing people back to the area and giving office workers a reason to stay after work.

“I wanted to add a little queer flair to what would be a heteronormative downtown,” said Silver, adding that his drag name would be Silver Linings. “Coming out of COVID downtown needs to come out of the 9 to 5 mindset and offer opportunities for not only performers but also attendees to come downtown after hours and see a drag show.”

It had an even more personal component for Silver, who years ago befriended the owner of Riverside gay bar The Menagerie, David St. Pierre. In September, after a long battle against cancer, St. Pierre died at the age of 59.

“I felt his presence in the room,” said Silver about watching the drag show at Schroeder’s.

Speaking publicly for the first time about his own sexual orientation, Silver is bisexual and only came out of the closet to his mother three years ago. He did so after breaking up with a boyfriend and his mother, noticing he was upset, asked him what girl had broken his heart. In reply, Silver showed her a pick of his ex.

Recalling the story, Silver joked to the B.A.R., “I guess this is my coming out party.”

Hired at the age of 29 to oversee the Downtown SF Partnership, making him one of the youngest executive directors of such an entity, Silver has always been “in awe” of the architectural details of the area’s buildings and its history. He first came to the city as a teenager with his cousin shortly after they had gotten their driver’s licenses and took a road trip to Northern California.

He had bought a poster of San Francisco’s downtown, which hung in his dorm room at California Baptist University in Riverside, from which he graduated in 2014 with a degree in communications. Nearly a decade later he now works as one of the area’s biggest boosters.

“San Francisco has always been a welcoming place to be. It has always been welcoming to me,” said Silver, first hired to be the marketing director for the Union Square Business Improvement District in 2018.

Friday is the drag persona of Bobby Rivera, 39, a gay man who is also initially from Southern California. Born in Los Angeles, he “lived all over” the area until moving to Gilroy right before high school after his mother met his stepfather and they relocated to be with him.

For the last 13 years he has called San Francisco home and currently lives in the Mission and works as a hairstylist at Revamp Salon on 16th Street. About five years ago he started performing as Bobby Friday, which was a nickname a friend gave him during his clubbing days in his 20s, and was crowned Grand Duchess 48 last year by the Grand Ducal Council Of San Francisco.

Friday founded the Haus of Friday, a company specializing in custom-styled wigs and merchandise, as well as event production and hosting. Her wig styling business is called Wigs By Friday.

Every second Saturday of the month Friday hosts and performs at Pop Up Brunch at Beaux, a gay nightclub in the Castro LGBTQ district. At the nearby

APE

know cares deeply about his community, cares deeply about his district, and cares deeply about the LGBTQ+ community. He’s someone I trust, someone I admire, who’s honest and hardworking, and when he comes to me and tells me this is what he wants to do in his district and thinks this is best, I’m going to honor that.”

Peskin, who voted for the fixedseating amendment in committee, saw things differently. Peskin, who represents North Beach and Chinatown, said it’s “nothing short of tragic that this interior landmarking of the Castro Theatre has invoked division and anger, and sadly, intentionally sowed.”

Peskin invoked Harvey Milk, the late gay Castro supervisor, who asked that the movie palace first be landmarked (which it was in 1977) after the 1963 demolition of the Fox Theatre on Market Street.

“I don’t think we need to make this decision beholden to the inertia of one party’s investment,” Peskin said, referring to APE.

District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar and Mandelman said that the vote shouldn’t be considered a referendum on APE’s plans. The latter called landmarking the space under the original historic preservation commission recommenda-

gay bar Lookout, she hosts the drag show Glamatron every third Thursday of the month, and this month she will be working the drag brunches on Saturdays at the venue 650 Jones with the same street address in the city’s Tenderloin.

Melissa Buckminster, the Downtown SF Partnership’s marketing and communications manager, had reached out to Friday with an offer to come on board as a consultant and producer of the drag show pop-up performances the organization wanted to present each Thursday night in June. Friday loved the idea of bringing drag performers to venues they normally wouldn’t perform in.

“San Francisco has always been known as a queer mecca, which is a beautiful thing for the LGBTQ-plus community. But it is interesting that parts of the city haven’t gotten to experience that,” said Friday. “For instance, I was surprised to learn this restaurant and bar has been here that long and never had a drag show. That was interesting to me.”

Her only expectation for the pop-up event at Schroeder’s was that “everyone had fun,” said Friday. “I think we did that.”

Seeing a packed house of people clapping for and supporting the drag performers “was incredibly amazing,” said Silver, and portends the initiative should be a success.

“It is going to be a good time for Pride in San Francisco,” predicted Silver.

All of the drag pop-up events run from 5 to 7 p.m. This Thursday, June 8, it will take place at Latin Steakhouse, 56 Belden Place. For June 15, the flower market Nigella, at 388 Market Street, Suite 105, will host it.

It moves to One Market Restaurant, 1 Market Street, on June 22 and to Pagan Idol, 375 Bush Street, on June 29.

Friday is hosting the next two popups then turning over emceeing duties to MGM Grande, with Bionka Simone overseeing the final one of the month.

The featured performers last week were drag king Madd Dogg 20/20 and drag queen Rahni NothingMore.

Others set to perform include Coco Buttah, Dulce De Leche, Helixer Jynder Byntwell, Jota Mercury, Mary Vice, Nicki Jizz, Vera, and Voodonna Black. They run the gamut from male drag queens to nonbinary and transgender drag performers.

“Drag is an art form and it encompasses everything and everyone,” noted Friday.

While the Drag Me Downtown events are free to attend, tipping of the performers is recommended. (At the June 1 pop-up Friday gave a tutorial for how to hold up bills of a dollar or more for the performers and had a diner practice screaming out, ‘Yes, work, slay! Take my fucking money!’)

Those who pre-register for $10 via the website https://downtownsf.org/ do/drag-me-downtown receive a free fan and feather boa, which were procured from Polo’s promotional business.

The proceeds benefit Trans Thrive, the transgender drop-in center operated by the SF Community Health Center that moved into its own space earlier this year at 1460 Pine Street near Larkin.t

Gay APE spokesperson David Perry was jubilant in his statement to the B.A.R.

“Thank you San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Everyone who treasures the Castro Theatre, the Castro neighborhood, and the film and LGBTQ programming that is so much a part of both should be grateful tonight,” he stated. “An irreplaceable international icon now has the ability to be preserved, restored and to evolve for this and future generations.”

tions “good preservation hygiene.”

“The sentiment in the neighborhood, at least as I am reading it, is strongly in support of the APE project,” Mandelman said. “The Castro Merchants, Harvey Milk’s own merchants group, is highly supportive of it.”

Indeed, last week the merchants voted overwhelmingly to drop conditions it had previously set for endorsing APE’s plans, as the B.A.R. reported.

Mandelman and Safaí disagreed with the Fox comparison.

From page 1 See page

“This is not like the Fox Theatre,” Safaí said. “We are not talking about demolishing. We are literally talking about restoring frescos, restoring chandeliers … but also for it to be an adaptable space.”

Stephen Torres, a queer man who is executive co-chair of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, one of the many groups opposed to APE’s plans, told the B.A.R. after the vote, “Although we are disappointed that the Board of Supervisors did not take this opportunity to mandate proper stewardship over a threatened community asset, we will continue to support the broad coalition of community stakeholders as they seek to ensure that community self determination. We are grateful to the supervisors who have stood by our position.”

Peter Pastreich, a straight ally who is the executive director of the Castro Theatre Conservancy, which is opposed to APE’s plans, condemned the decision.

“The Castro Theatre is a beloved landmark and a vital community asset, and should be treated as such,” Pastreich stated. “Today’s vote, indicating the su-

Drag king Madd Dog 20/20 performs at Drag Me Downtown as Liz Polo looks on.

Matthew S. Bajko

Robbie Silver, left, executive director of the Downtown SF Partnership, talks with drag artist Bobby Friday outside of Schroeder’s.

Matthew S. Bajko

Supervisor Catherine Stefani

Courtesy the subject

by Brian Bromberger

To celebrate the 47th annual San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, Frameline47 will host 47 screenings at the Castro Theatre, currently in controversy as to what its future might entail. This will entail half of the nearly 90 film screenings during the June 14-24 runtime, including streaming encores June 24-July 2.

Screenings will also occur at The Roxie, Balboa, 4-Star, and Vogue Theaters as well as Oakland’s New Parkway Theater. Frameline47’s theme is See & Be Scene.

“It’s about setting our focus on the unconventional and unexpected,” said Executive Director James Wooley. “It’s an opportunity to look through different lenses, see others in new lights, be seen for who we are, and celebrate the fact that we are all players in life’s grand scene…to participate in the seeing and to be seen yourself.”

Here are a mere seven films, with more coverage in the next two weeks.

The opening night film, “Fairyland,” is bound to be a crowd-pleaser. Like Alysia Abbott’s memoir of the same title on which it is based (and very highly recommended), “Fairyland” is as much about gay bohemian libertine life in the liberating San Francisco of the 1970s as it is about her relationship with her gay father, the poet Steve Abbott, who wrote for many queer publications, including the B.A.R., and died of AIDS in 1992.

The death of her mother in a car crash when Alysia was two compels Steve to move to San Francisco to start a new life, not only as an author but to come out and explore his sexuality.

Frameline47 faves

He’s ill-equipped to be a parent, with Alysia almost drowning in a pool, exposed to rampant drug use, and climbing into bed with her father’s naked lovers. Yet he instills in her independence, though as she grows older she really just wants a normal childhood and resents her father’s narcissistic deficiencies and absence during critical life transitions such as when she gets her period.

Alysia is played wonderfully by two actresses, eight-year-old Nessa Dougherty and teen Emilia Jones. Kudos for the long overdue return of the marvelous Geena Davis as Alysia’s grandmother not too thrilled with Steve’s parenting.

The film is sure to bring back joyful and sad nostalgic memories for older San Franciscan audiences, reminding us there are also many straight survivors of HIV as there are queer ones.

Nearly 40 years after his death, enough time has passed so we can get a more rounded inci-

sive portrait of actor Rock Hudson’s impact in the new HBO documentary, “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed,” rather than as just an AIDS martyr. Using archival footage and interviews with friends and colleagues, the film covers the breadth of Hudson’s professional span from leading man romantic star (best known for his Oscar-nominated performance in “Giant”) to character actor at the end. Despite being gay, the doc is unequivocal that had Hudson come out, his career would have been destroyed. Hudson was a reluctant AIDS activist, only revealing he had the then terminal illness when the media circled their wagons around him, though he embraced the role in his final days, leading to enhanced public awareness about the disease.

From the beginning when he was mentored professionally and personally (via the male casting couch) by his gay Svengali agent/manager

Henry Willson, Hudson really had little choice throughout his career and paid an emotional price for remaining in the closet. This winning documentary also implies not much has changed in Hollywood for romantic leading actors, who to this day, are still too scared to come out as gay.

In their press release, Frameline mentions that one of the messages popping up in several films this year are messy queers behaving badly. Two films so far embody this paradox, one semi-successful, the other not. “Cora Bora” features a poly bisexual singer/musician whose life and career is in freefall, played by queer comedy personality Megan Stalter (“Hacks”) in a bold bid for star status. A failure in Portland, she heads for LA in a bid to rejuvenate her fledgling club career.

See page 16 >>

‘Breaking the Rules’

Paul Wonner and Theophilus Brown at the Crocker Art Museum

by Robert Brokl

Sacramento’s new dual exhibit, “Breaking the Rules,” benefits by the association that Crocker Art Museum curator Scott A. Shields had with both artists during their lifetimes. Former San Francisco supervisor and artist Matt Gonzalez contributes a catalog introduction. The exhibit references such luminaries of Bay Area art as David

Paul Wonner and Theophilus Brown, fall 1999

Ira Schrank

William Theophilus Brown’s ‘Standing Bathers,’ 1993.

‘Coming Around’ ‘Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed’ and ‘Cora Bora’

She has an open long-distance relationship with Justine, which she suspects may be in danger of collapsing due to a new love interest. She returns to Portland in a surprise appearance at Justine’s graduation party, which leads to chaos and the realization not only her romance but her whole life is in danger of collapse. She hooks up with men, all disastrously. Far from perfect and it won’t appeal to all tastes, but it’s a standout centerpiece film and a rare good movie about bisexuals.

The same cannot be said for another messy bisexual Jess (Abby Miller) in the semi-awful “Jess Plus None,” who travels to a remote California campsite to serve as maid of honor at her best friend Melanie’s wedding. Jess is in the process of calling off her relationship with a guy (we never see him) as she’s still reeling from her horrendous breakup with the groom’s sister Sam.

The truth is that Jess spends most of her time with a vibrator recreating fantasy sex scenes with Sam that might actually give this sex toy a bad name. By the time Jess has her totally implausible enlightenment moment, she seems as annoying post revelation as she did “pre-conversion.” The film’s only virtue is that no one bats an eye or comments on Jess’s bisexuality. Since most audience members will only be able to deal with one screwed-up bisexual, skip Jess and go with Cora.

In a weak year for queer documentaries, one film, “Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes” stands above all the rest, about the famous mid-century celebrity and fashion photographer, the Richard Avedon of his era, the 1930s and ’40s. Sent to Paris in 1925 to prepare him for college, Lynes became intertwined with the expa-

triate culture in between the wars, making friends with Gertrude Stein and Jean Cocteau, living a privileged openly gay life among wealthy artists.

When he returned to the US in 1926 to attend Yale, he left after a year to pursue a literary career but instead discovered his gift for photography. He became part of the most famous gay throuple of the 20th century, living for more than a decade with novelist Glenway Westcott and his lover, Museum of Modern Art’s curator/publisher Monroe Wheeler.

Lynes bequeathed this work to the Kinsey Institute, which has released

these stunning photos to the public through the years to the point that Lynes is finally being given his due nearly 70 years after his death. This doc is our favorite of Frameline47.

Another doc we were expecting to love, but which is instead a disappointment, is “Coming Around,” concerning 28-year-old scholar Eman, a second-generation Egyptian woman living in Brooklyn, who’s active in her queer Muslim community, but can’t quite come out to her traditional Muslim mother. The film focuses on her disastrous decision to marry her current boyfriend to fulfill her mother’s expectations. It uses a cinema verité style as she prepares for the wedding and then must deal with its inevitable aftermath, all the while navigating a complex relationship with her mother.

While Eman comes into her own at the conclusion, “Coming Around,” should have been a better more absorbing film than it is, with too many lethargic intervals to sustain audience interest.

Everything you always wanted to know about sapphic literature is provided for you in the documentary “In Her Words: 20th Century Lesbian Fiction.” Our tour guide is the great historian Lillian Faderman, who not only documents its history from the 1920s, opening with Radclyffe Hall’s iconic “The Well of Loneliness” which provided the foundation, through the 1990s, ending with bestselling author Sarah Waters.

She also recounts the impact key world events had on queer history throughout the decades. But the heart of the film are the interviews, mostly current but a few archival ones (about deceased writers) of these trailblazing authors.

Every genre from pulp (Ann Bannon) to horror (SF’s Jewelle Gomez and her Vampire stories) to children’s literature (Leslea Newman’s “Heather Has Two Mommies”) is represented, with shares from Dorothy Allison (“Bastard Out of Carolina”), Katherine V. Forrest (“Curious Wine”), Ellen Hart (the Jane Lawless mysteries), Rita Mae Brown (“Rubyfruit Jungle”), Pat/Patrick Califa (S & M sexuality), to the trials and successes of Naiad Press, among many others.

Despite a steady stream of talking heads, it’s not boring and we can thank directors Marianne Martin and Lisa Marie Evans for interviewing many of these older authors, preserving a brief record of their accomplishments and memories before they leave us. t

‘Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes’

Emilia Jones and Scoot McNairy in ‘Fairyland’

Dorothy Alison in ‘In Her

20th Century Lesbian Fiction’

‘Jess Plus None’

Park, Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira, and Joan Brown. Shields sets out to right the wrongs of exhibitions and commentary that slighted their contributions, and the pushback over subject matter involving male nudes and “male-to-male interactions.”

Unlikely Match

Paul Wonner and Theophilus Brown couldn’t have come from more different backgrounds. Paul Wonner was born April 24, 1920, in Tucson, Arizona, and he described their home as in a “slum.” His father was a railroad conductor; Wonner described his mother as “paranoid schizophrenic.” But Wonner did well in school, and left Arizona to attend the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. He graduated in May 1941, and was soon drafted by the U.S. Army, serving four years.

William Theophilus Brown came from a privileged background. (He later dropped the use of William.) Born April 7, 1919, he grew up in Moline, Illinois, where his father was a mechanical engineer and inventor for Deere & Company. The family was prosperous; their lineage was traceable to 17th-century English settlers. After graduation from a private high school, at his parents’ urging, he chose Yale, where he took art and music classes and frequented museums in New York. But he was also drafted by the Army. In 1942, he began his first relationship, lasting six months, with a Navy sailor.

Post-war New York and Paris beckoned. Brown made important connections to modern art collectors and artists like the Elaine and Willem de Koonings who “took him under their wing.” Elaine’s sports-themed work encouraged his football paintings. He joined artists and intellectuals in Paris, meeting Picasso, Balthus, and others, while carrying on a relationship with a French critic. But he realized he was “orbiting” around more accomplished people, and at age 33, decided to go back to school.

Wonner, too, arrived in New York post-war. He worked as a package and department store display designer, and attended Subjects of the Artist School, where Abstract Expressionism was taught. But he ended a four-year relationship with a violent boyfriend and moved west to enroll at UC Berkeley.

In 1952, they began the collaboration that lasted some 56 years. Brown was initially attracted to Wonner, but he was standoffish, Brown assumed by his snobbish attitude and background.

Still, they decided to share a studio together on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. Although the physical attraction faded for both early on, they went on living together like “brothers” in a more open relationship.

Bay Area Figurative

Brown began teaching in UC Berkeley’s art department. Diebenkorn and Bischoff rented studios in the Shattuck building, where they all began figuredrawing sessions. Despite the tight-knit nature of this group, Shields writes that Brown felt he and Wonner were separate:

“Brown knew that because he and Wonner came from different backgrounds and were a homosexual couple, they would always remain, at least to some degree, outsiders, stating,’ David, Elmer, and Dick were very important to each other in a way the rest of us in a sense were very peripheral’.”

Wonner and Brown were both slyly spoofing masculinity. Wonner’s “Seven Views of the Model with Flowers” shows nude male figures holding bouquets, Brown’s cubistic paintings blended jocks’ body parts. Paul Mills, curator at the Oakland Art Museum, assembled his “Contemporary Bay Area Figurative Painting” in 1957, drawing from this group primarily. The final cut included Bischoff, Dienbenkorn, Park, Wonner, and Brown. The show was a sensation, merging figurative subject matter with the Abstract Expressionists’ paint handling. It put the Bay Area art scene on the map.

Afterward, they made frequent moves, following after teaching jobs, with numerous gallery and museum shows. Wonner had earned a Master of Library Science degree, and took a library job at Davis, after being outed cost him another teaching job. He and Brown finally moved in together, before leaving for Los Angeles and Wonner’s teaching jobs at UCLA and Otis Art Institute.

Swimming Pools and Isherwood

Living in Santa Monica and Malibu, they frequented a nearby nude beach. Brown came to appreciate surreal painters like Giorgio de Chirico, and they both turned toward more crisply defined figures and objects. They also socialized with novelist Christopher Isherwood and his artist partner, Don Bachardy, and met David Hockney.

“Living Room at I’s” ca. 1964, is the title of Wonner’s small gouache, and the viewer has to guess to whom “I” refers. Hockney, however, flaunted his connection to Isherwood and Bachardy with his billboard-size portrait of them.

Wonner’s “Untitled” which shows a submerged figure, is similar to Hockney’s famous “Portrait of an Artist,” but more intriguing. Brown’s painting “Swimming Pool,” from 1963, is also suggestive. The water is inky blue, two male figures are separated by a female figure with red bathing suit top.

Brown consulted a Jungian therapist in LA, but Wonner’s paintings often seem more morose. “Nude with Indian Rug” from 1961 depicts a rather lifeless female figure, propped against the wall. “Glasses with Pansies” is gray with two vases of pansies. “Pansy” is, of course, an anti-gay epithet.

Late Work and Critical Reactions

In 1976, Wonner and Brown were finally able to put down roots. With Brown’s inheritance, they bought a Victorian house at 468 Jersey Street in Noe Valley, where they lived for the next 25 years. Brown painted abandoned industrial buildings in San Francisco. The paintings are rather desolate and devoid of figures, except an occasional dog.

Wonner, meanwhile, launched a series of large “Dutch Vanitas” still life paintings, over two decades. He featured everyday objects; postcards of artwork, flowers, and food, often against dark backdrops. The large “A Peaceable Kingdom” includes a cat sidling up to a dog, a toucan, rabbit, and more. I’m reminded of the advice offered by a drag queen friend that you can throw on all the jewelry you want, just remove one piece and you’ll be in perfect taste. Wonner gleefully broke that rule.

In a review of Wonner’s 1981 SFMOMA retrospective, San Francisco Examiner critic Allen Temko attacked his “coy table settings, shallow color, sly ambiguities, and cheap postcard illusions to masters such as Vermeer and Chardin…” Shields defends Wonner, arguing he’d updated the vanitas paintings he admired by “putting Vermeer’s aesthetic into a Safeway supermarket, visual metaphors for San Francisco’s combination of seamy bohemianism and conservative wealth and privilege.”

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But these paintings sold well, and ended up in museums like the Metropolitan. The Bay Area Figurative survey exhibition by Caroline Jones at SFMOMA in 1990 was also damaging. Her delineation of the Bay Area Figurative artists into first and second-generation groups, with Wonner and Brown as a “bridge generation” in between, casts shadows over their reputations. Wonner and Brown were so irritated that they considered skipping the opening.

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When Wonner’s back gave out, he and Brown moved to the Towers senior residence. Wonner painted small gouaches of an older artist with young, nude male models. Brown turned to small abstract collages. Wonner’s 2008 obituary in the SF Chronicle, by art critic Kenneth Baker, only cursorily mentions Brown as “his longtime companion and fellow painter.” Brown’s 2012 obituary by Julian Guthrie mentions his “quick mind

and mischievous wit,” describing his artwork of male nudes and horses as “Oh, the horses and dicks.”

Concealed, revealed Curator Scott Shields and the Crocker Art Museum are to be commended for showcasing Brown and Wonner. But we live in difficult times, when LGBTQ people are being pushed back into the closet, or worse. Yet blue chip gay artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol are above attack and even Robert Mapplethorpe is monetized.

Kenji Yoshino, in his book “Covering,” describes how marginalized minorities adopt survival strategies of concealment, which wasn’t necessary for artists like Agnes Martin or Ellsworth Kelley, with discrete lives and abstract work. Artists like David Park encoded what many read as gay imagery, but critics ignore such interpretations.

It’s not demeaning Brown and Wonner to suggest their need to hold down jobs and sell work may have caused

them to pull their punches. The late Bay Area artist Richard Caldwell Brewer, roughly their same age, grabbed the bull by the horns with explicit homoerotic imagery and paid the ultimate art world price: obscurity. Bernice Bing – Asian, lesbian, female – is finally getting the belated recognition she deserves. Unfortunately, the groundbreaking, controversial “Hide/Seek” exhibit of 2010, would likely generate the same pushback today, if it were held at all. “Breaking the Rules” is worth a visit to our state capitol. t

‘Breaking the Rules: Paul Wonner and Theophilus Brown’ at the Crocker Art Museum, thru Aug. 27. 216 O St., Sacramento.

https://www.crockerart.org/

A longer version of this review originally appeared in Square Cylinder: https://tinyurl.com/3a8wbmyu

Entrance to the Crocker Art Museum’s ‘Breaking the Rules’ exhibit

Paul Wonner in his studio, ca. 1960

Theophilus Brown and self-portraits, 1969

Basil Langton

Brandon Taylor’s ‘The Late Americans’

by Brian Bromberger

Nobel-prize winning poet Louise Gluck is quoted in Brandon Taylor’s latest novel: “What are we without this? Whirling in the dark universe, alone, afraid, unable to influence fate,” setting the bleak tone of this campus novel, more of a linked short story collection that jumps from character to character. Taylor zeroes in on the final year in the interconnected lives of poets, dancers, and other artists – mostly gay men of varying racial and class backgrounds – to form a loose circle of lovers and friends attending university in Iowa City.

Coincidentally, the setting resembles the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa where Taylor got his M.F.A. That experience also provided fodder for his superior brilliant debut, the Booker Prize shortlisted “Real Life,” about the experiences of a gay Black doctoral student in a predominantly white Midwestern Ph.D. program. Another college story, but from a Black vantage perspective usually ignored, it sported an empathic dignity strangely absent from “Late Americans.”

Seamus, the main character (only because he gets two chapters where everyone else has only one), is a white male working-class frustrated poet in a writer’s seminar who voices out loud the pretentiousness of what he’s hearing. He isn’t afraid to give an honest evaluation of his classmates’ work, which he feels is steeped in woke victimhood. He sees their wounds and oppressions as excuses to legitimize substandard output that promulgates an unearned authenticity. He basically hates everyone’s writing. In a later chapter, the class will retaliate by eviscerating Seamus’ excellent poem.

Seamus, asked to leave the class, heads for his job as a hospice kitchen cook. He has a sexual encounter that turns violent with Bert, an older local closeted gay man, whose father is a dying patient there. Bert burns a hole in Seamus’ face with a cigarette. In a later chapter when Seamus is writing his poem, he has sex with Oliver, a fellow seminar student, who confesses he’s doing

so because Seamus looked so sad, which enrages him. Seamus can be a self-loathing jerk, but he’s the only character that elicits any sincere rapport with readers.

In the following chapter, we meet a couple Fyodor and Timo, both of whom are mixed-race. Timo, a pianist, comes from a wealthy family.

Fyodor is employed in a meatpacking slaughterhouse as a butcher, which upsets vegetarian Timo who calls it murder, even though he supports the death penalty for mass shooters, a hypocrisy Fyodor denounces. They are an on-andoff-again pair, who separate, then reunite repeatedly.

Then we encounter another unhappy mismatched duo, Black Goran and mixed-race Ivan. They no longer have sex. Ivan formerly attended ballet school, but abandoned that career due to an injury. He’s now pursuing finance so he can make lots of money. Goran, raised by a wealthy adoptive white family, studies music. Ivan sleeps with Noah, a married dancer, “who didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection.” Noah recommends Ivan do amateur porn for a social media site, which irritates Goran.

There are no happy people in this book.

These intelligent millennial characters debate and argue with each other about race, power, politics, and especially class, trying to ascertain how social forces have shaped their identities, which seem in constant flux. The ones with money feel guilty, as do the poorer Marxist/Socialists trying to survive. There is a nihilist stream underneath all the sturm und drang. Even the act of creativity isn’t a source of salvation, but a soothing balm from torment and past trauma, either revealed or hidden.

The sex, which is bountiful (and well described), seems motivated mostly by boredom or as a wellspring of recreation or temporary succor. The reader might require a flow chart to figure out who’s sleeping with whom.

Ultimately the novel is unsatisfying. The chief flaw, the exception being Seamus, is that all the char-

acters seem alike, talking the same way, so it’s easy to get them mixed up or blurred together. For all their intelligence and capabilities, they lack depth and insight about themselves.

This is a novel of despair sans humor, because all the characters seemed steeped in hopelessness and self-loathing. They’re so mean and unforgiving to each other.

Taylor is especially strong in dialogue as well as composing tautly constructed vivid sentences and perceptive razor-sharp snarky observations. “The Late Americans” is a noble beautifully written bravura letdown, but a letdown nonetheless. t

‘The Late Americans: a Novel’ by Brandon Taylor. Riverhead Books, $28. penguinrandomhouse.com brandonlgtaylor.com

author Brandon Taylor

Haolun

Tuning in to the Tony Awards

by Jim Gladstone

In anticipation of the 76th Annual Tony Awards, which will be presented this Sunday, June 11 at 5pm on CBS and Paramount+, I traveled to New York last week to see some of the nominated productions and performances along with the first show official show of next season. Here are some of my notes and nit-picks from a Big Apple binge.

Sondheim revival redux

In the wake of last year’s Best Revival of a Musical win for Steven Sondheim’s “Company,” this year finds the late composer-lyricist’s valedictory trophy case likely to get even more crowded as two of his most popular works, “Sweeney Todd” and the now-closed “Into the Woods” compete for that same honor.

It’s hard to imagine that “Sweeney Todd” won’t be this year’s big winner. It’s a hugely satisfying production with a 26-piece orchestra that pulls the entire theater into its dark embrace.

Annaleigh Ashford, who plays Mrs. Lovett, should take Best Actress in a Leading Role for one of the most precisely calibrated performances I’ve ever seen. Her exquisitely timed shrugs, eye rolls and sideward glances cut through the grand operatic gloom of the production to make it human, and very funny.

Josh Groban, while solidly enjoyable, is less of a sure thing for Best Actor in the title role. His singing outshines his acting and he doesn’t quite hit the strange balance of sympathetic and sinister required by the role of the demon barber.

Ten days after the Tonys, San Francisco theatergoers will have a chance to make their own judgements about “Into the Woods” as Best Director nominee Lear deBessonet’s production plays the Curran Theatre. The cast includes four of the revival’s original Broadway cast members, including past Tony winners Stephanie J. Block (Best Actress in a Leading Role, “The Cher Show”) and Gavin Creel (Best Featured Actor, “Hello Dolly!”).

Sweeney Todd,” open-ended run at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, with a tour announced, beginning 2025. Local dates not confirmed. www.sweeneytoddbroadway.com

Into the Woods,” June 20-25. Curran Theatre. www.broadwaysf.com

Best original musical

I caught both leading candidates in this category, and they couldn’t be more different from each other. “Some Like It Hot” – quite loosely based on the classic film – is a big, brash cheerful spectacle with songs by Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman (past Tony winners for “Hairspray”). “Kimberly Akimbo” is

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an intimate coming-of-age dramedy in the “Dear Evan Hansen” mold with music by past winner Jeanine Tesori (“Fun Home”).

As the latter’s titular Kimberly, a 16-year-old with a genetic condition that causes her to physically age four times as fast as normal, Victoria Clark turns in a delicately nuanced performance that straddles two eras of social awkwardness: adolescence and senior citizenry. She will likely win Best Actress.

“Some Like It Hot” succeeds in lighting upon serious issues of race and sexuality within what is fundamentally a showcase for old-fashioned comedy and tap-dancing razzamatazz, whereas “Kimberly Akimbo” stumbles a bit when it tries to force crowd-pleasing comedy into its more earnest storytelling (There are way too many jokes about how lousy it is to live in New Jersey).

For clarity of tone and mission, I’d pick “Some Like It Hot” for the win.

Kimberly Akimbo,” open-ended run at Booth Theatre. www.kimberlyakimbothemusical.com

Tour begins Fall 2024. Local dates not confirmed.

Some Like It Hot,” Shubert Theatre.

www.somelikeithotmusical.com

Tour begins Fall 2024. Local dates not confirmed.

Jack be nimble

Bay Area audiences had a chance to see the stage talents of Sean Hayes (Jack from television’s “Will and Grace” when he played the Almighty in the one-man comedy “An Act of God” at the Golden Gate Theatre back in 2016.

“Goodnight, Oscar,” in which Hayes plays the real-life character Oscar Levant, a B-list actor, popular talk show quipster and one-time piano prodigy who is plagued by mental illness and prescription drug addiction has a cast of seven but amounts to a one man show, nonetheless.

Hayes cracks wise, breaks down and plays a smashing rendition of “Rhapsody in Blue” in a scenery gobbling tour de force that is no less impressive for its self-indulgence. This is a bespoke play, written for Hayes by Doug Wright (“Gray Gardens”). It doesn’t really have much to say, but Hayes has truly remarkable chops to display.

It’ll be hard to begrudge the enormously entertaining Hayes a Best Actor win, but one wishes the script was more substantial. If he does win, the name of another Tony-nominated new play will also come to the top of my mind: “Fat Ham.”

Goodnight, Oscar,” through Aug. 27. Belasco Theatre.

www.goodnightoscar.com

Net loss

The first Broadway show of the official 2023-2024 season is “Grey House,” a horror story starring Laurie Metcalf, the brilliant stage actress best known for playing Roseanne’s sister on TV. But despite uniformly excellent performances, the show – about a spooky house in the woods haunted by tragedy – is all ambiguity with no central coherence.

Produced in-part by internet influencers, the script’s endless mysteries, symbols and muddled meanings have been spun into Reddit threads and online communities of folks who are already dissecting this show like true crime fanatics. But it’s a pile of hints without any solvability.

On the night I saw it, the audience included a large proportion of teenagers, many of whom had already seen the show multiple times during its preview run.

If there was a Tony for marketing innovation, “Grey House” would be next year’s big winner.

“Grey House,” open-ended run at the Lyceum Theatre.

www.greyhouseonbroadway.com t

‘Some Like It Hot’

‘Sweeney Todd’

‘Kimberly Akimbo’

‘Goodnight, Oscar’

“Grey House”

Circus Center’s ‘The Secret Garden’ t Dance>>

by Mark William Norby

Do you remember the joy you felt as a child when the circus came to town? Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus used to roll into town by train from 1927 to the early 1990’s, an extraordinary caravan that carried a wide variety of animals, acrobatic performers, circus staff and strangely, the Freak Show that from the early 1880s was the most popular component of The Greatest Show on Earth.

Fortunately the circus has evolved and San Francisco’s Circus Center, which opened in 1984, focuses on the acrobatic arts – like Cirque du Soleil –with none of the exploitative practices of abusing animals, and certainly no freak shows.

San Francisco Circus Center’s upcoming productions of “The Secret Garden” will feature the San Francisco Youth Circus. It promises to appeal to children as well as adults where you can immerse yourself in the world of “The Secret Garden,” with aerialist birds, acrobatic plants, juggling and jump-roping children, and storytelling that will move you to laughter and tears. The timely story explores loss, grief, the healing power of nature, play, and community. It’s based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 children’s book by the same name, and adapted and directed by Felicity Hesed.

Circus Center’s gay acrobatic designer Evan Tomlinson Weintraub, who has been with Circus Center since he was twelve years old, was asked in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter what it was like growing up gay and training in the circus; what his life was like so deeply involved in the constantly evolving presentation of wonder, talent, and magic.

Evan began training at Circus Center in 2005. He trained with the San Francisco Youth Circus through 2010. He returned to Circus Center in 2021 after a career in Montreal’s National Circus

School and has been with Circus Center ever since. He described how the circus has always had a history directly linked to ideas of the supernatural, exotic, and the queer.

Mark William Norby: What are the most magical aspects of the circus?

Evan Tomlinson Weintraub: As an acrobatic designer and director, my challenge is to communicate the story of “The Secret Garden,” where Mary and Colin go in and out of Lily’s locked secret garden to regrow plants and bring Craven’s Manor back to life.

For our production, we transform words into movement and invite the audience to see and feel a garden come to life, complete with blossoming flowers and growing vines entirely created through acrobatics. To achieve this, my acrobats spent many hours exploring what it means to inhabit plant life, imitating the way plants grow and recreating forms and shapes of different plants using only our bodies, presenting a garden as an acrobatic movement.

Tumbling with acrobatic designer

Has the circus supported your growth as a gay man after working with Circus Center for so many years?

Circus Center was and is the place where I found my calling. They have been the community that has consistently supported me throughout my circus career and I am excited to come back to my forever circus. When I did finally realize I was gay, I had little trouble expressing myself. It wasn’t my defining characteristic, but another important facet of my personality that I could bring into the circus world. Circus Center is a place that instilled in me values that made being my true self, and supporting others’ authentic selves, second nature.

Is there something inherently gay about the circus?

High-flying acts presented sanctuaries for people looking for liberation and self-discovery, inviting those who felt like outsiders to choose a different kind of family. Modern circuses still maintain the reputation of being safe havens for the marginalized and misunderstood.

The best circuses are a melting pot of expression, including fashion, music, theater, drag, dance, and acrobatics. There is nothing that is impossible in the circus, making it a magnet for queer people looking to find their voice and confidence among friends and allies. Finding queer people in the circus is like finding family.

What is the most mind-blowing moment you’ve had in your circus life?

Eventually I found myself bowing for the first time at the Chicago Theater with Cirque du Soleil’s performance of “‘Twas the Night Before” with a huge group of friends at my side. I couldn’t help but tear up. With “The Secret Garden,” I have learned that as you build community, you also have to rely on it because then the show explodes. t

‘The Secret Garden’ at the Children’s Creativity Center, every weekend June 17 through July 9, 11am & 2pm. 221 4th St. $20-$40. www.circuscenter.org

Evan Tomlinson Weintraub

A scene from Circus Center’s ‘The Secret Garden’

Acrobatic Designer Evan Tomlinson Weintraub

Gina Yashere

by David-Elijah Nahmod

Gina Yashere is a busy woman. The popular comedian, an out lesbian, is currently playing a supporting role in the hit CBS sitcom “Bob Hearts Abishola,” a show she co-created, co-writes, and is now the show runner for. In addition to all that, Yashere also enjoys a career as a stand-up comic, playing to sold-out houses wherever she performs. On Saturday June 17, Yashere returns to San Francisco with her new show, “The Woman King of Comedy.” San Francisco is where she recorded her live show, “Laughing to America,” more than a decade ago.

In a recent chat with the Bay Area Reporter, Yashere revealed that “Bob Hearts Abishola” has been renewed for a fifth season. She was pleased to report that the show has done well in the ratings.

“I take less sleep per night,” she said. “From the moment I get on set

I don’t stop. If I’m not in the writer’s room, if I’m not running around producing the other actors, then I’m also in costume acting. It’s pretty nonstop, but I’m loving every minute. I’ve learned a lot these last few years.”

Yashere added that she loves the acting, because it’s a character that she’s been working on for twenty years. She’d been waiting to bring that character to television. But she also loves the writing aspect of it in that she’s bringing authentic stories to primetime television.

“I think we’re kind of breaking boundaries here,” she said.

Coastal comedy

Yashere has been keeping busy elsewhere. She has hosted the NAACP Image Awards and is now touring with her stand-up show. Her favorite places to perform are New York and San Francisco.

“Those audiences tend to be more well-traveled,” she said. “Which

means I can talk about a wider range of subjects and not have to explain so much. It’s just a much more fun place to play. And when they come out to see comedy, they’re coming out to see comedy. Where in Los Angeles half the audience wants to be in movies or TV themselves, so they’re keeping one eye on you and one eye watching to see whoever else is in the room. I never have that problem in New York or San Francisco.”

Her new show chronicles her journey from being born in London to immigrant parents to dreaming of coming to America. Before she broke into comedy she worked as an electrical engineer. She’ll talk about finally making it in America as a comedian and the struggles that ensued, and how she finally succeeded and got a TV show. She assured us that there was a lot of hilarity along the way.

“My last job was building and repairing elevators,” she said. “I worked for a company called Otis, which is

by David-Elijah Nahmod

The word ‘abbale’ is the Hebrew word for father. It’s a word that means a lot to dancer-choreographer Andrew Pearson. His show, titled “Abbale,” will be performing at the ODC Theater June 15-18. Pearson describes the show as a dancetheater memoir piece that intersects his relationship with his older boyfriend and their relationships with their fathers.

Pearson has always been a dancer. He has home video footage of himself performing for his parents at the tender ages of two and three, although it wasn’t until later that he realized that dance was something he could study. In middle school he told his parents that he didn’t want to do sports anymore. They insisted that he find something that could keep him active.

“I had just met this boy who was taking break dancing lessons,” Pearson recalled in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “He suggested that I try hip hop classes. My only real exposure to dance at the time was music videos. This was around the time that Britney Spears was coming onto the scene, so that’s the kind of dance I wanted to do. It’s the kind of dance that was cool for boys.”

Dance remained a part of Pearson’s life. He was a dance major at UC Irvine, then worked with LA Contemporary Dance Company while in his twenties. He has since done a great deal of theater work, appearing in musicals, opera, and in avant-garde theater. He spoke of being in a show called “Young Caesar.”

“We staged a big gay orgy at the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage with projections of penises flying by,” Pearson said. “I got to portray the physical embodiment of Caesar, like an extension of the singer who played him. I’ve also done a number of museum installations. I got to work with French visual artist Julien

the biggest elevator company in the world. I was the first female engineer in England in their hundred-year history.”

But the job wasn’t always fun. There was misogyny and racism on a daily basis, but she stuck with it for four years just to prove that she could do it and to open doors for women and for other Black people.

Yashere is quite open about her lesbianism.

“It’s extremely important to be an out performer,” she said. “It took me a long time to get to that point where I was comfortable enough to come out, because being a Black woman in this industry I already had two strikes against me. So I kind of took my time coming out because I didn’t want to be boxed in any further.”

But she now feels that being unapologetically who she is helps young people who are facing issues and living in parts of the country where they’re not as accepted as they would

be in New York and San Francisco.

“And I also feel that being completely myself has made my comedy a lot better because I’m not hiding anything about myself,” she said. “I’m completely free to say whatever I want however I want to say it.”

Yashere has a simple message for those on the fence about attending her show in San Francisco.

“If you speak English, you like a good laugh and you like interesting subject matter, there is no reason not to give my show a go,” she said. “A lot of people come to my show never having heard of me and 99 percent of them become lifelong fans. The other one percent are just racist! My show is the place to be!t

Gina Yashere, June 17, 7pm at Social Hall, 1270 Sutter St. $27 and up.

www.socialhallsf.com

www.ginayashere.com

Previeux when he was in residence in Los Angeles, which led to a number of international engagements.”

Pearson is excited to bring “Abbale” to San Francisco. It’s a show he’s already done in Los Angeles to great acclaim. Audiences will get to know a great deal about Pearson and Asaf, his boyfriend. He and Asaf had very different childhoods. Pearson is American, while Asaf was born and raised in Israel to a quadriplegic father. But despite the differences in their upbringings, both men have an enormous amount of love and gratitude towards their fathers.

Daddy issues

“Being in an intergenerational relationship, I wanted to create something that poked at our ideas around daddy issues,” he said. “To kind of complicate and

destigmatize older men dating younger men, or younger men pursuing older men. I also wanted to depict gay sons and their fathers in a more positive light than we typically see in art and media. Also, both Asaf and I wanted to create love letters to our fathers.”

Asaf was very involved in creating the show. He provided his own stories and memories, and in a way he helped to choreograph some of the sections about him and his dad.

“I’d ask, ‘What’s a good gesture for Tel Aviv or Passover,’” Pearson explained. “He’d think about it and then do a move and I’d put it in. He’s not a dancer but he is a storyteller. He works in film and television. So he also created all the video work in the show.”

The ‘woman king of comedy’ returns

Gina Yashere

Gina Yashere and Folake Olowofoyeku in ‘Bob Hearts Abishola’

Dancer-choreographer Andrew Pearson in ‘Abbale.’

Fresh Meat Festival a celebration of queer and trans performance

by David-Elijah Nahmod

For the past three years the Fresh Meat Festival has conducted its annual performances online. Now, with the pandemic tapering off, the festival returns to performing live and in person. Fresh Meat, the brainchild of trans dancer/choreographer Sean Dorsey, will perform at Z Space from June 14-18.

The Fresh Meat Festival will offer three distinct programs. Together they represent a fusion of Afro-Latin dance, bomba dance and music, vogue, opera, aerial dance, stand-up comedy, live music and much more. The performers are trans, queer and gender non-conforming. Dorsey feels that Pride Month is a time to celebrate trans joy and to uplift BIPOC gender non-conforming artists, and to rally around queer and non-binary creativity.

“We’re in the midst of a brutal increase in anti-trans hatred and violence,” Dorsey, who serves as the artistic director of the Fresh Meat Festival, said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “Not just in red states, but also here in the Bay Area. As trans and queer folks, we must remember to never take our rights and our freedom of expression for granted. This is why this year’s festival is especially important.”

The name Fresh Meat was coined in 2002 by Jessie Bie, choreographer/ director of Steamroller Dance. Dorsey and his colleagues felt that this name

allowed them to reclaim their power and sexiness, as well as their innovation and audacity as trans and queer performers who create art in a world that demonizes them.

“We honestly keep saying ‘pinch me’ with the stunning roster of artists we’ve lined up this year,” said Dorsey.

“We’ve got artists from the Bay Area, Seattle, Austin, Portland and more.”

According to Eric Garcia, who serves as managing director for Fresh Meat Productions, Z Space is among their favorite places to perform because it evokes a San Francisco that is now gone while continuing to remain a cultural hub for many contemporary artists doing new and experimental works.

The festival has always felt like some

sort of red carpet event where the audience and artists show up for each other to celebrate queer excellence,” Garcia said. “Hosting it at Z Space completes the fantasy. Big shout out to the staff at Z Space for continued love and support throughout the years.”

The show is not just for queer, trans and non-binary people, according to Dorsey. These are performances that everyone can enjoy.

“It is so, so powerful when us trans and queer folks get to see our lives, our experiences, our bodies and our full selves represented onstage,” he said. “It is literally life saving for us. And yes, the show absolutely appeals to folks beyond the queer and trans commu nity, because the art is amazing and the audiences are overflowing with joy and raucous love.”

Dorsey noted that when he books a performer or an act for the Fresh Meat Festival, he looks for innovation and dedication to their artistic craft and practice. He wants people who offer what he calls gorgeous artistry and who push the envelope.

“Bold aesthetics and perspective,” added Garcia, “Wearing queerness on the sleeve. Deep connection to com munity. Courageous efforts. Presence.”

This year the festival will take ad vantage of Z Space’s 13,000 square feet and present the artists performing all around the building. On balconies, in the lobby, in the building’s nooks and crannies and on the main stage. Because of this, tickets will be limited in order to allow smaller audiences to enjoy an up-close and personal inti mate site specific format.

“Just take a second to pause and feel into the greatness and power of showing up in community,” said Garcia of the festival. “The 75 minutes you’ll spend in the theater witnessing and experiencing truly excellent artistry will likely give you the space to embrace expansiveness, lick some old wounds, tap into lineages and legacy, and be the puzzle piece that completes a moment in queer time.” t

The Fresh Meat Festival’s three programs:

A: June 14 and 15, 7:30pm (the 15th with ASL interpretation) une 16 and 17, 7:30pm (the 16th with ASL) Program C: June 17 and 18, 2pm (the 17th with ASL) Z Space, 450 Florida St. Sliding scale, $15-40. www.freshmeatproductions.org

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From page 22

“Abbale” is about half monologue and half contemporary dance, or physical theater, with a lot of the dance set to recorded text. They use three different storytelling styles to delineate the different relationships in the show.

“For example, Asaf’s story is like an audiobook with me dancing along,” Pearson said. “When the music comes in, I enter a kind of dream ballet state where all three relationships co-exist.”

According to Pearson, the biggest challenge in marketing a show like this is being an independent emerging artist. He got a lot of support from his collaborators like Asaf and director Lisa Owaki Bierman. But for the most part Pearson is wearing all the hats: writer, choreographer, performer, producer, as well as marketing the show.

“I think the one person show can also get kind of a bad rap, especially if it’s self produced,” he said. “There’s a worry that it’s going to be really self-indulgent. But that’s why I had Lisa. She really made sure

that we weren’t just making something for me the artist, but for audiences as well.”

Pearson feels that he’s bringing the show to San Francisco at the best time.

“I’m performing on Father’s Day weekend during Pride Month,” he said. “When else would you get to see a performance so perfectly themed?”t

Andrew Pearson’s ‘Abbale, a dance theater memoir,’ June 15, 7:30pm, June 16 & 17, 8pm, June 18, 2pm. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St. $15-40. www.odc.dance www.bodiesinplay.com

For more information: Call: 628.217.6314

Email: curb.2@sfdph.org

Website: www.curb2.org

Going Out

Along with the arts events in this week’s issue, we’ve got dozens more in our expansive coverage, with comprehensive LGBTQ bar and nightclub listings, each week on www.ebar.com.

The Fresh Meat Festival performers include Neve, Charles Williams III, and Sir JoQ

Alexa Trevino

<< Andrew Pearson

Wild Side West fans

Sean Dorsey Dance

Kegan Marling