October 20, 2022 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Castro cultural district hit by fiscal sponsor’s $108K error

by Eric Burkett

The Castro LGBTQ Cultural District has largely recovered from a $108,000 ac counting error made by its fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center. District officials said that the snafu, apparently the result of human error, did make life challenging over the summer.

Cultural district manager Tina Aguirre, a gen derqueer Latinx person, said they had been noti fied of the mistake in early July. That error was “a manual miscalculation of unspent grant funds,” according to the community center, which han dles the cultural district’s accounting.

The LGBT community center has acknowl edged and apologized for the mistake.

“The center has served as the fiscal sponsor of the Castro cultural district for two years, and we’ve worked tirelessly to support the growth of such an important cultural institution,” wrote Miguel Raphael Bagsit, the center’s communi cations manager, in an email to the B.A.R. “The financial error occurred due to a manual miscal culation of unspent grant funds. We’ve expressed our deepest apologies to the Castro cultural dis trict’s leadership team and have continued to move forward with our partnership.”

The error led cultural district staff to believe they had more funds than they actually did. Coupled with a directive by the cultural dis trict’s funder – the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development – to spend down funds before the end of the fiscal year, what was thought to be a $108,000 windfall turned out to be a major headache.

That spend-down included distributing $90,500 on LGBTQ Pride-related events, stated Aguirre in an email to the Bay Area Reporter, as well as distrib uting $30,000 in a second round of small business grants. The problem, of course, was that the district didn’t actually have that money.

“Because we believed that we had a large sur plus, we created a spend down plan for FY 20212022 and a draft organizational budget for FY 2022-2023 that was in excess of what we actually

is the Best Time to Use

The city has paused its charitable giving program for employees after learning that several anti-LGBTQ hate groups are included in it.

SF pauses charitable program for workers over anti-LGBTQ groups

by Eric Burkett

People

had fun at the Barbells, Bears, and Butts Deadlift competition that was part of the second annual Bearrison Street Fair produced by the Bears of San Fran cisco and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Hirsute men and their admirers were part of the inclusive event for all members of the adult

Concerns

about the final destination of money contributed by San Francisco city employees to a nationwide charity clear inghouse, or federation, has resulted in the city pausing a website used to promote the charitable giving after it was revealed there are anti-LGBTQ groups on one of them.

Palm Springs readies for Halloween, Pride

by Ed Walsh

Tourism in Palm Springs has rebounded with a vengeance, surpassing pre-pan demic records in both hotel occupancy and arrivals to Palm Springs International Airport. Tourism officials say that while there are still fewer international visitors, domestic travelers have more than made up for that difference.

LGBTQ travelers were among the first to re turn to the desert city and they returned early and often. Palm Springs’ gay resorts are often sold out even during the quieter weekdays. That may sound like a good problem for the resorts to have but Michael Green, who owns the very popular Triangle Inn along with his husband Stephen Boyd, told the Bay Area Re porter that he is hopeful that the unprecedent ed demand for gay resorts will soon be satisfied with other properties being developed.

“Some people have said that the gay re sorts would fade away, but just the opposite has happened,” Green said. The resort owner added that he hoped that gay travelers won’t become frustrated and get out of the habit of visiting the city because they aren’t able to find a room at a gay hotel.

The formerly gay resorts Bearfoot Inn and La Dolce Vita were sold and closed late last year, while the downtown Canyon Club Hotel is in limbo in a legal dispute after one of the owners died. Green said he is hopeful that

plans by the owners of Descanso and Santiago to convert the Twin Palms resort into a gay resort would proceed quickly to help meet the growing demand. The new Twin Palms is expected to open sometime next month.

Fall in full swing

Fall is in full swing in Palm Springs. The city hosted the lesbian-focused weekend, The Dinah, and the LGBTQ film festival, Cinema Diverse, last month. Palm Springs Leather Prideº is October 27-30. The Desert AIDS

Walk steps off from Ruth Hardy Park in Palm Springs at 9 a.m. on Saturday, October 29. The traditional Halloween block party will be held on Halloween Eve, Sunday, October 30, on E. Arenas road just east of Indian Canyon Road, where most of the gay nightlife is situ ated. Palm Springs Pride is November 4-6, highlighted by a parade that Sunday that steps off at 10 a.m. at Palm Canyon Drive at Tache vah Drive and ends at the festival entrance at Amado Road.

Columbus Day Sales

Friday Sales

Christmas Shopping

Parties

the Above!

Becker talks to B.A.R.

The Red Shades

Screenshot

Bears and barbells at Bearrison

LGBTQ+ community, organizers noted. Held Saturday, October 15, at 11th and Harrison streets in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, the fair promoted body posi tivity for all and works to build a more sup portive, welcoming, and inclusive bear scene by representing a diverse arena of cultures.

Gooch

Destination PSP founder Jeffrey Bernstein stands next to a display of dinnerware in his shop.

Fabian Echevarria

Manager Tina Aguirre said the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District has largely recovered from an accounting error made by its fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center.

Ed Walsh

Milk quotes grace guardrails

Assemblymember-elect Matt Haney by Matthew S.Bajko

Haney winsbigin Assemblyrace

District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney declaredvictoryTuesdayinthespecial runoff election for San Francisco’s vacant 17th Assembly District seat based on the initial vote count. Trailing in second was David Campos,a gay man who is a vice chair of the California Democratic Party. Haney took first place with 64% of the vote-by-mail ballots that the elections department received and processed before Election Day, while Campos received 36%. With3,306votesreceivedfrompollingplaces where people cast their ballots in person Tuesday added in, Haney’s total vote count stood at 38,916 votes and Campos’ was at 22,567 votes. Because most ballots were expected to be mailed in ahead of Election Day, Haney thanked voters for electing him to the Assembly seat representing the city’s eastern neighborhoods as soon as the first election results were posted.

by Matthew S.Bajko

Sisters’ Easter party a hit

Californialegislatorsareonceagainpushing forward on a number of bills aimed at improving the lives of the state’s transgender and nonbinary residents. And due to the legislative attacks on trans children in several other states, lawmakers in Sacramento are also focused on assisting those youth and their parents who are trying to access genderaffirming health care.

CregotappedaspermanentED ofSanFrancisco’stransoffice

“First results are out: We’re up by over 27 points. We won,” tweeted Haney. “Thank you so much to San Francisco voters, & to all of our staff, volunteers, donors, endorsers, & everyone who worked so hard over the last 6 months.” Campos told his supporters as the first numbers came in that “it doesn’t seem like we are going to be able to win this race.”

According to the elections department it still has approximately 16,400 ballots to count and expected to receive approximately 2,700 vote-by-mail ballots onWednesday. It will next update the vote count in the race at 4 p.m.Thursday,April 21.

The progressive politicians were the top two finishers who advanced out of the February 15 election to fill the seat vacated by David Chiu, who in November became San Francisco’s first Asian American city attorney. In that contest Haney had also placed first, though by a narrower margin of about 700 votes. They have also both qualified for the June 7 primary race for a full two-year term in

MayorLondonBreedhasmadeitofficial and appointed Pau Crego as the permanent executive director of the San FranciscoOfficeof TransgenderInitiatives. Crego, a trans and nonbinary Spanish immigrant,hadbeenservingasactingexecutivedirectorsinceClairFarley,atranswomanwhoheaded the department since 2017, stepped down last Septemberafterleadingtheofficeforfouryears. Breed and City Administrator Carmen Chu madetheannouncementApril21. The office was established by the late mayor Ed Lee in June 2016 with Theresa Sparks as its inaugural director. It marked the first time a mayor in the nation had a senior director of trans initiatives, Lee’s office stated at the time. (Santa Clara County’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs was started in 2015, and there are similar officesinPhiladelphiaandWashington,D.C.)

by Cynthia Laird

In a phone interview April 19, Crego, who started at the trans office in 2017 and

tional to the office’s efforts to promote safety and inclusion for trans and gender-nonconforming people, creating a model for other local governments to follow.” Crego, 34, said that one of his first priorities will be to staff up the office.Currently,there are only three staff members, including him, and one is leaving at the end of the month, he said. Crego said that he wants to take this opportunitytorestructuresomeof thejobdutiesasnew staff come on board.

“I am proud to officially name Pau Crego as the new executive director of the Office of Transgender Initiatives,” she stated in a news release.

“For years, Pau has led critical and effective initiatives that have served some of our city’s most

Another immediate goal for Crego is to “deepen some of the trust our office has had”by meeting with community organizations and individual trans leaders“to make sure I’m available as the new director,”he added.

“Rightnowwe’reveryunderstaffed,”hesaid.

In his role as deputy director at the office, Crego advanced the launch and development of some of its most notable initiatives, the mayor’s office stated. These include increasing funding for transgender and LGBTQ community servicesintheareasof housing,healthcare,artsand culture, violence prevention, and leadership and economicdevelopment.Theofficealsoworkedtoensurethatthecity’s COVID response included efforts to focus on LGBTQ people, particularly housing vulnerable queerpeopleinshelter-in-placehotelsduringthe

Christopher Robledo

BreedstatedthatCrego’sexperiencewillbean assettothedepartment.

Pau Crego is the new executive director for the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives.

Courtesy Pau Crego

'PrEP Play' at NCTC

Filmfest faves

Gooch

Aware’ exhibit call for submissions

compiled by Cynthia Laird

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and co-cu rators Joseph Abbati and KT Siebert have announced a call for submis sions for an art exhibit in Wiener’s San Francisco district office, 455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 14800.

“Trans Aware” will be an exhibit by Bay Area trans artists and/or trans represented artwork, a news release from Abbati stated. The exhibit is expected to be installed for Trans Awareness Week next month, with a reception scheduled for Thursday, November 17. It will also highlight a trans awareness conference happen ing that day at the State Building.

Abbati noted that small to large artwork can be accommodated, including painting, photography, sculpture, video, drawing, and through December 31.

The Bay Area Reporter previously reported on Wiener’s Pride Month

encourages trans people to com plete it.

“Every person who takes the sur

NCTE in partnership with the Na tional Black Trans Advocacy Coali tion, the TransLatin@ Coalition, and the National Queer Asian Pa cific Islander Alliance.

NCTE’s last national trans sur vey was taken in 2015 and, as the website noted, “a lot has happened since then.” For that survey, NCTE stated that more than 27,000 people responded. Organizers hope that more people will take the survey this year.

For more on the survey, go to https://www.us transsurvey.org/

Exhibit on Marsha P. Johnson in Oakland

The Queer Arts Healing Center in Oakland will present “Marsha, Mar

The exhibit is divided into three sec tions spanning Johnson’s birth, life, and the fight for recognition after her death in 1992.

The show’s title, a riff on a line from an old “Brady Bunch” TV episode, aims to honor Johnson’s tumultuously authentic life and unapologetic activism, the release stated. During the 1970s, Johnson shattered the ciscentered machinations of race, gender, and sexuality, the release noted, and she kicked down the hypo critical barriers faced by trans women of col or within the women’s liberation, Black power, and gay rights move ments.

The Queer Healing Arts Center is located at 3411 Lakeshore Avenue. The exhibit will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets range from $15 for adults to $10 for seniors to $7 for youth and educators to $5 for children 12 and under. Masks are re quired for everyone over 2. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to https://www. queerartscenter.com/home

Registration open for Gay Games 11

The Federation of Gay Games has announced that registration is open for Gay Games 11, which takes place November 3-11, 2023 in both Hong Kong and Guadalajara, Mexico. These will be the first Gay Games to be hosted in both Asian and Latin America, a news release stated.

The upcoming Gay Games was postponed from 2022 due to the COVID pandemic. Guadalajara was brought on board as a co-host ear lier this year to mitigate strict travel restrictions due to the pandemic, as the B.A.R. previously reported.

Registration for both sites went live October 8. People are encour aged to sign up as quickly as pos sible because FGG is working on a tighter timeframe, the organization stated.

According to FGG, the sports of fered in each city will be clear on the website; in some cases sports will be offered in both cities.

“After challenging times that have marked and redefined us, it is time to meet again, to hug each other, and with pride celebrate our free dom,” stated Monica Sanchez with Gay Games Guadalajara.

Gay Games Hong Kong co-chair Lisa Lam stated, “We are telling the world that Hong Kong is ready to rise to the challenge of hosting this international, multi-sports arts and culture event.”

To register for Hong Kong, go to https://bit.ly/3yMC76i

To register for Guadalajara, go to https://bit.ly/3g3HbN0

Cunningham receives award from hemophilia group

John Cunningham, a gay man who’s CEO of the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, received the In spiration Award from the National Hemophilia Foundation at its re cent Red Tie Soiree gala.

Correction

The October 13 article, “PRC may shut down residences,” should have stated that Justin, the client interviewed, is a participant of Baker Places Supported Living but not a resident of Ferguson Place, one of the programs PRC has slated for closure. The online version has been corrected.

Joseph Abbati stood next to his artwork in state Senator Scott Wiener’s San Francisco office in 2019; he continues to curate the legislator’s art shows with KT Siebert.

Matthew S. Bajko

SF project adds Milk nod to Castro arterial

by Matthew S. Bajko

The colorful orange railings appear to be made out of scrap metal from the Golden Gate Bridge. Cut into them in all capital letters are the lines, “Hope for a better world,” and “Hope for a better tomorrow.”

They are lines from the late gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk’s famous “You’ve Got to Have Hope” speech he gave June 24, 1977. Also included on the safety guardrails now found at the Muni boarding platforms along up per Market Street are the final words of Milk’s speech that Pride Month day, “You gotta give them hope.”

The phrase is carved out of the railing under an image of the Harvey Milk Streetcar PCC 1051, which in real life is painted green and cream colors. Dedicated in 2008 to the first out member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the trolley car is part of Muni’s historic fleet that runs on its F-Line surface street route from the LGBTQ Castro district to down town and Fisherman’s Wharf.

“It’s been really positive. I’ve seen people, visitors, take their pictures with them. The railings, in themselves, have become landmarks,” said Frank Tizedes, a gay man who is president of the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association, of the new nods to the pioneering LGBTQ historical figure.

They were installed as part of the Upper Market Street Safety Project overseen by both San Francisco Pub lic Works and the San Francisco Mu nicipal Transportation Agency. It aims to make the upper Market corridor’s “complex six-legged intersections,” as described by traffic engineers, easier to navigate for pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicle drivers.

Tizedes has followed the project since it was first proposed in 2014. He and his husband have called the Duboce Triangle micro-neighbor

hood within the greater Castro area home for 21 years.

Talking to the Bay Area Reporter this week, Tizedes said a main reason he believes the project is already a suc cess is that it has delivered on making upper Market Street safer for pedes trians. The new bulb-outs found at several intersections along the road way require vehicle drivers to slow down as they drive by, he noted.

“I really love it,” said Tizedes, add ing of the nearly finished project, “it is good for the neighborhood, it is good for visitors, and it is good for busi ness.”

As the B.A.R. first noted in 2016 about the planned improvements, the changes for one of the city’s main arterial roadways are part of the Vi sion Zero plan to end pedestrian and bicyclist deaths. Collisions along up per Market Street have been a serious problem for years.

“In general, the work happening to Upper Market will make it safer for pedestrians and for cyclists. That is all good, and we need more work to ad dress that. The way those streets come together is hard for people to have to cross when traffic is coming,” said gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandel man, who represents the area, in a recent editorial board meeting with the B.A.R.

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU

UCSF is deeply committed to providing care for LGBTQ+ people and their families that isn’t just equitable as crucial as equity is.

We’re committed to giving you care that’s warm, welcoming, and knowledgeable, too.

That’s why we’re a longtime Equality Leader in HRC’s Healthcare Equality Index and why we offer a uniquely wide range of support for our LGBTQ+ patients and employees.

We look forward to warmly welcoming you and offering the great, supportive care that you and your family deserve.

Cynthia Laird

Work started last summer Work on the street safety project began last summer and has sped up over recent months. It included an other historical aspect, the installa tion of more than a dozen Rainbow Honor Walk bronze plaques memo rializing deceased LGBTQ luminaries along Market Street earlier this year, noted SFMTA deputy spokesperson Stephen Chun.

“The Upper Market Safety Project is entering the final leg of construc tion and expects to be wrapped up by early next year. The work that remains is largely focused at the Market/Octavia intersection, a top bicycle collision location where we hope to deter illegal vehicle rightturns onto the freeway with revised medians and signage,” Chun told the B.A.R. this week.

Other final pieces of the project to be completed in the coming weeks, noted Chun in an emailed reply, are new decorative crosswalks at two in tersections, likely in a brick pattern similar to ones found in Noe Valley on 24th Street. The first is Sanchez and 15th streets on the north side where the Chase bank is, and the other is by the city’s Openhouse LGBTQ senior housing and services complex located at the corner of Hermann and Laguna streets.

According to the SFMTA, new sidewalk extensions and/or ramps have been constructed at 17 street corners between Castro Street and Octavia Boulevard, while the traffic signals have been either fully rebuilt and/or modified at the intersections of 16th and Noe streets, 15th and San chez streets, and at Hermann, Laguna, and Guerrero streets.

At that intersection left-turn signals for both directions on Market Street have been added. Meanwhile, the for mer Z-shaped crosswalk on Market Street at Dolores Street that ran from the Whole Foods to the Safeway parking lot was reworked to be a straight line.

“I am very happy with what is go ing on,” said Jamison Wieser, a gay man who lives at Noe and Market streets and has followed the project from its early planning stages.

Having recently dislocated the big toe on his right foot and needing to wear a boot for three weeks as it heals, Wieser said he has personally been able to take advantage of the pedestrian im provements made along the corridor.

“It highlights the necessity of pedes trian safety since I am limping along right now,” said Wieser, a former direc tor of the Market Street Railway, which advocates for the historic trolley cars, who had pushed to honor Milk with one that had carried transit passengers during his time in the 1970s. “I think it is easier to walk around because I have less road to be in.”

Ten London Plane trees were plant ed in the empty tree wells on the 2100 block of Market Street between 15th and Church streets, creating “a grove there,” noted Wieser. Additional Lon don Planes and shoestring acacia trees were planted at other locations along upper Market Street.

Uplighting fixtures have been in stalled for the palm trees in the me dian of upper Market Street. They will add additional luminosity to the

area in time for the important holiday shopping season.

“The project team is tentatively planning a celebration/event to mark the substantial completion milestone and turn on the palm tree uplighting before the holidays. More informa tion will be shared as a date is solidi fied,” Chun told the B.A.R.

Not included in the project is a complete repaving of upper Market Street, which has potholes and crum bling roadwork in numerous spots on it. Only spot repaving has been done where the sidewalks have been worked on as part of the project.

“You are not the only person who has brought up the poor paving of upper Market,” Mandelman told a reporter when asked about it, adding that he wasn’t sure when the street would be repaved.

Chun with the SFMTA directed questions about repaving the road way to Public Works. Rachel Gor don, a spokesperson for that city agency, told the B.A.R. that segment of Market Street will be considered for paving starting in 2027.

“Work will need to be coordi nated with SFMTA with the track in the corridor,” wrote Gordon in an emailed reply.

As for the eye-catching Muni safety railings, the first at each stop has a large “HOPE” carved into it. All of them also include the phrase, “Hope will never be silent.” While widely credited to Milk, it is unclear when, or if, he spoke those words. They are not found in an edited version of his “Hope” speech found in the San Fran cisco Public Library’s archives and up loaded online earlier this year.

To learn more about the street safe ty project, visit the SFMTA’s website for it at https://tinyurl.com/axueev6z Public Works also has a dedicated website for the project at https://sf publicworks.org/uppermarket t

The former Z-shaped crosswalk in front of Whole Foods has been redesigned as part of the Upper Market Street Safety Project.

PUBLISHER

Why we’re ranking Oakland mayoral candidates

Oakland voters face a critical decision elect ing a new mayor. Ranked choice voting has played a pivotal role in previous mayoral elec tions, especially in 2010 when Jean Quan secured victory with the help of lesbian fellow candidate Rebecca Kaplan and prevailed over Don Perata. This time, there are 10 candidates on the ballot and, while some of them are unlikely to secure more than a percentage point or two, there is one whom LGBTQ Oaklanders should not vote for. Therefore, we are ranking three candidates in the race in the hope that one of them secures enough first place votes, followed by second and third place votes, to win.

First choice: Sheng Thao

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

PHOTOGRAPHERS

COUNSEL

CARTOONISTS

Of the four major candidates in the race, current District 4 City Councilmember Sheng Thao is our first choice.

The three candidates who returned the Bay Area Reporter’s en dorsement question naire – all straight allies – voiced support for the LGBTQ community, including the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center. But Thao stands out, because she was the only one to call out fellow candidate Seneca Scott after he was pho tographed with well-known transphobe Chris Elston at an Oakland event while wearing an anti-trans sandwich board. Thao also criticized perennial candidate Peter Liu for his antisemi tism, as the Bay Area Reporter reported, and while candidate Loren Taylor did call out Liu for his rant, none of the other candidates have condemned Scott’s action. When Scott talked with us about the photograph, he exhibited a lack of understanding about gender-affirming care for trans kids. (https://www.ebar.com/story. php?318754) While Liu is likely to lose again as in previous races, we believe Scott’s antics render him unworthy of being Oakland’s next mayor.

Thao stated in her endorsement question naire that she has had discussions with city staff on ways the city can expand protections against right-wing hatred in the city. As has been widely reported, Oakland has been the site of several violent anti-Asian incidents since the start of the COVID pandemic.

On homeless youth, Thao noted that she has been working with the community center to secure transitional housing for unhoused trans people. “I have also been in talks about creat ing more safe community space for our LGBTQ youth and performers – especially after the re cent events in San Lorenzo,” she wrote, referring to the Drag Queen Story Hour event in June at the library that was hijacked by alleged members of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group.

Thao also committed to hiring LGBTQ staff to key roles including department heads and the city administrator. “I have always had LGBTQ staff in my office and will definitely continue that trend,” she wrote. She’s also open to establishing an LGBTQ district but would want that effort to be community-driven.

On Oakland Pride and the kerfuffle this year that resulted in two events in one week, Thao stated that the event should be held on one week

end and co-organized by both Oakland Pride and Pridefest Oakland.

Overall, Thao stated that she has the ability to bring people together who don’t always agree. She’s done this on the City Council to gather five votes in order to pass items, and she stated that she’s done it with organized labor and businesses to get one version of the progressive business tax on the November ballot.

On public safety, a big issue in Oakland, Thao supports Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong and pledged to ensure consistent leadership in the department should she be elected. On the drug crisis, Thao stated that she recently wrote and passed a resolution calling for more support to tackle the opioid and fentanyl crisis, adding that more state and county funding is needed.

Thao has also changed her mind on occasion, particularly regarding police issues. Last year, after voting not to add additional police acad emies, Thao reversed course and did support more academies as violent crime was rising and the number of police officers was decreasing. To us, that shows an ability to learn and lead rather than stubbornly stand by a position.

Thao is our first choice for Oakland mayor, and we think that she would move the city for ward.

Second choice: Loren Taylor

Most observers have current District 6 City Councilmember Loren Taylor and Thao as the leading candidates in the mayor’s race. Taylor, elected four years ago, represents much of East Oakland including the Eastmont, Maxwell Park, and Millsmont neigh borhoods. He stated in his endorsement question naire that he’s running for mayor to be a leader who unites communities to fulfill Oakland’s potential. He stated he would focus on results.

Taylor is supportive of harm reduction ap proaches to the drug crisis, including supervised consumption sites. (Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed pilot pro grams in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Ange les.) Taylor agreed with the governor that the city must prepare for any pilot program with com munity partnerships, such as a nonprofit, and comprehensive plans for siting. That said, Al ameda County would need to provide much of the funding, as it’s the provider of public health services in the city.

On LGBTQ issues, Taylor stated that he would direct staff to apply for grants that could secure sustainable funding for critical nonprofits like the LGBTQ center, as well as direct grants allo cated by the city through the two-year budgeting process. He would also guide staff to integrate LGBTQ community considerations and needs into other funding streams, such as the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth and the Depart ment of Violence Prevention. Like Thao, Taylor would prefer to see a single Oakland Pride event and hopes that can be achieved next year. Taylor also committed to having a dedicated liaison who will serve the LGBTQ community.

Taylor supports Armstrong, the police chief,

and stated that he has done a good job with the resources he has. “We can be compassion ate and focused on addressing root causes of crime while also supporting the good officers whose job it is to keep our community safe, and hold problematic officers accountable should there be a violation of constitutional policing practices,” he stated.

Overall, Taylor understands the city and would be a good mayor.

Third choice: Ignacio De La Fuente

Ignacio De La Fuente is a blast from the past. A former longtime City Council member and president of the body, he may not be as progres sive as Thao and Taylor, but he has long been an ally to the LGBTQ com munity, dating back to his time as a union leader and when it was more risky to do so as an elected official. He stated in his endorsement questionnaire that he championed LGBTQ Oaklanders being appointed to boards and commissions, and hired LGBTQ people.

De La Fuente is a supporter of Covenant House, which provides shelter to homeless youth, including queer young people, and would continue that support so that it could continue to secure funding for its programs. “I am well aware that 40% of the homeless youth popula tion identifies as LGBTQ,” he wrote, adding that trans youth are often forced onto the street and become victims of violence. “The rates of violence against trans women is disgusting and again, I would work with LGBTQ leaders and agencies to address this problem,” he stated.

De La Fuente stated that he would work with public and private sectors to build more afford able housing “and prioritize the improvement of basic city services that will allow the city and builders to make the progress that our commu nity so desperately needs.” He noted that when he was a councilmember, the city built much af fordable housing in his District 5, which includes Fruitvale. He stated that as mayor, he would work with the city’s Adult and Aging Services to devel op a firm grasp on the needs of LGBTQ seniors.

Public safety is De La Fuente’s top priority and he, too, supports the current police chief. He would increase the number of police officers to a minimum of 800. “Yes, there is funding in the city budget for these academies, but it is a matter of managing the budget to prioritize the acad emies and I am willing to do that to make this a reality,” he stated. That obviously would take time, but there is a real issue of the city not hav ing enough police officers as they retire or leave the force faster than new recruits can begin work. Oakland earlier this month recorded its 100th homicide of 2022; there were 124 in 2021.

De La Fuente has the experience in city gov ernment to be an effective mayor. t

Ramachandran for Oakland council

O akland is assured of hav ing out representation on the City Council even if, as looks likely, lesbian at-large member Re becca Kaplan is successful in her bid for the District 3 seat on the Alameda County Board of Super visors. That’s because in the Dis trict 4 race, the two candidates are both queer.

The District 4 seat is open be cause the current member Sheng Thao, opted not to seek reelection and is running for mayor. The dis trict includes much of the Oak land hills and the neighborhoods of Dimond, Glen Highlands, Montclair, Glenview, Laurel, and Redwood Heights, among others. Janani Ramachandran, whom we endorsed during her unsuccess ful run for Assembly last year after Governor Gavin Newsom tapped Rob Bonta to be state attorney general (his wife, Mia, won the race to succeed him in the Assembly), is now seeking the District 4 City Council seat. A

queer woman, she is a progressive, like Thao, who stated in her Bay Area Reporter endorsement ques tionnaire that she looks forward to being part of a new wave of leadership that prioritizes people over profit and that centers com munity voices while co-creating policy agendas.

Ramachandran, who is of South Asian ancestry, is a social justice attorney who stated that she has represented “small business own ers, workers, survivors of abuse, and families failed by the status quo.” She also served on the Oak land Public Ethics Commission, which she noted “exposed me to the corruption and fiscal mismanagement within the city of Oakland, but also to the potential of inno vative local government initiatives to curb unethical behavior and build transparency.”

She served on the California Commission of API American Affairs, as well as the boards of two local violence prevention nonprofits.

All were relevant leadership experience, she noted, and included budgetary management and fiscal oversight.

The candidate is a supporter of supervised consumption sites – places where substance users bring their own drugs and use them under supervisor of staff, which include en try points to recovery services. Newsom ear lier this year vetoed a bill that would have allowed pilot programs in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles. Ramachandran stated that in terms of Oakland moving ahead with any program absent state legis lation utilizing a nonprofit, she would first want the matter discussed with stakeholders and be a “truly community-driven process.”

“If these conversations reveal interest in do ing so, I would then consult with the city at torney’s office for guidance, and also push the Board of Supervisors for funding,” she wrote, adding she would also advocate the supervisors for more funding generally to be directed to Oakland for much-needed men

Sheng Thao

Courtesy the candidate

Loren Taylor

Courtesy the candidate

Ignacio De La Fuente

Courtesy the candidate

Oakland District 4 City Council candidate Janani Ramachandran

Courtesy the candidate

Santa Claran Becker aims to be Bay Area’s first big city gay mayor

by Matthew S. Bajko

In such a liberal region as that of the Bay Area, it seems improbable that there has never been an LG BTQ person elected to a full-term as mayor of a large city. Since 2012 the Napa County city of Calistoga, population 5,346, has been led by Chris Canning, a gay man who will depart this year when his term ends.

A number of out city council members have served ceremonially in the role in smaller cities that do not directly elect their mayor. And out candidates in San Francisco and Oakland have come close to being their city’s elected mayor in recent years but ended up falling short.

Gay former Vallejo City Council member Gary Cloutier did briefly serve as mayor of the Solano County city. But, after being mayor for seven days following the November 2007 election, Cloutier was ousted after a recount determined that Osby Da vis had won the race by three votes. Davis took his oath of office as may or that December.

Now gay Santa Clara City Coun cilmember Anthony Becker, 37, is aiming to end the drought of out elected mayors of major cities in the Bay Area. He is making his second run to lead his South Bay city with a population of 126,723.

Elected to his District 6 council seat in 2020, becoming the second LGBTQ person to serve on it, Becker lost his 2018 bid to become mayor. Once again he is attempting to oust from office Mayor Lisa Gillmor, 62, a former longtime councilmember.

In 2016, her council colleagues appointed Gillmor the city’s mayor when her predecessor resigned. Two years later she won a full four-year term and is seeking reelection this November.

Becker told the Bay Area Reporter it would be both a privilege and an honor should he be able to be the first out mayor of a large Bay Area city.

“I would be happy to break that ceiling. I think it is time, es pecially in this area,” said Becker, who lives with his partner of three years, Abel Cardona , 33, a public school program administrator in San Jose. “I am going to do some thing I think Harvey Milk would have done in San Francisco; he would have been the next mayor after (George) Moscone. He had the power and the will.”

Milk, the city’s first gay super visor, and Moscone were assas sinated on November 27, 1978 by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White. Having received death

threats, Milk famously taped his political will should he be killed and suggested several gay men to be appointed his successor on the board.

As the news site San Jose Spot light first reported last week, LINK: htt ps://sanjosespotlight. com/santa-clara-candidate-at tacked-with-slurs-death-threats/ Becker has also received death threats and been subjected to homophobic slurs. It noted that Becker has been referred to as the “monkeypox candidate” by commenters on the Santa Clara News Online blog.

Becker and other LGBTQ leaders have called on Gillmor, be cause she has retweet ed stories posted to the blog, to denounce the bigoted commen tary on it. The South Bay LGBTQ politi cal group BAYMEC, which stands for Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee and endorsed Becker in the race, issued a statement October 14 calling on Gillmor to “immediately condemn the ho mophobic hate speech” target ing Becker and to “apologize for spreading a platform of hate in our community.”

Equality California, the state wide LGBTQ advocacy organiza tion that has not endorsed in the race, weighed in on the matter this week, retweeting BAYMEC’s state ment October 17 and adding that “homophobic hate speech has no place in Santa Clara or anywhere in California!”

In a response she shared with the B.A.R. and had posted on BAYMEC’s Facebook and Twitter accounts last Friday, Gillmor said

Castro used as a pretty backdrop

Touting being inclusive in nearly all its branding, the recently departed Lesbians Who Tech conference in the Castro appeared to be anything but. This began with the overnight Monday erecting of fencing with tarps blocking all views outside of its foot print of the 400 and 500 blocks of Castro Street. Thus, with the presence of security guards and uniformed San Francisco Police Department officers, the public right of way was limited to admission by only those peo ple who had paid $700 to $1,200 for that exclusive privilege. Along with the addition of 24 hour a day generators, tents, stages, sound systems and an Airstream trailer, the conference was less an embrace of the neighborhood than an armed occupation.

Last spring the Castro Merchants were advised of and asked to support LWT’s intent to close off the street without many of the details just described in my previ ous sentences; along with the promise of a financial boon to the neighborhood. Any financial gain appeared to be

she had shared a post from the blog last December about Becker’s reaction to an opinion from a resident about the 49ers football team.

“I have always supported BAY MEC and the LGBTQ+ commu nity and I will continue to do so even though BAYMEC is support ing my opponent in this election,” wrote Gillmor, adding that she doesn’t “condone inappropriate or hateful comments that any read ers left on that column or any column. Hate speech, threats or bullying is not acceptable in our city.”

The deal the city made over a decade ago with the NFL team that led to it leaving San Francisco for a new stadium in Santa Clara has been a flash point between the two mayoral candidates for years. The football team has re peatedly clashed with city leaders and staff about the facility, from how it is managed to what the city is owed in stadium rent, leading to legal disputes.

Team owner Jed York pumped millions of dollars into the coun cil races two years ago to help elect Becker and several other council candidates. They were painted as being aligned with the 49ers, which Becker strenuously refuted at the time and continues to do so.

He contends the city leadership needs to have a dialogue with the team in order to address the myri ad issues with the stadium. Becker refutes the attacks that his meet ings with 49ers representatives are conducted surreptitiously.

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limited to the Castro Theatre and a handful of event pur veyors as commerce in the Castro ground to a halt for the duration of the street closure, associated detours and loss of parking. Additionally, made evident by the howl of online protests on Hoodline and Instagram, LWT ap parently didn’t bother to notify any of the resident groups about its plans. This only added to the perception that the Castro was being used as nothing more than a pretty backdrop to the event rather than a partner.

Even if it’s a major Hollywood studio or this Washington, D.C.-based operation, I suggest the Castro merchant and resident communities have become weary of the expectation they will continue to support these seemingly self-serving assaults on the day-to-day enjoyment of what is, after all, a neighborhood.

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Santa Clara mayoral candidate Anthony Becker

Courtesy the candidate

The litter box legend

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

October is no stranger to urban legends, dating back at least to Washington Irving’s 1819 Halloween favorite, “The Legend of Sleepy Hol low.” Of course, over the last several decades, the Halloween myth making has revolved around razor blades in the candy or apples – or unfounded fears of households handing out drugs to trick-or-treaters.

Yet there is another urban legend I want to discuss today. Initially making the rounds in Canada last October, this one has finally reached a fever pitch in the U.S. as it’s turned into right-wing anti-trans fodder while the country veers into a contentious and vital midterm election.

It has been brought up by talk show hosts and podcasters, and even men tioned by both U.S. Congressmem bers Lauren Bobert (R-Colorado) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia). The latter claimed it was another example of “woke ideology,” a term itself that’s become a right-wing dog whistle.

I speak of the myth that litter boxes are being provided in schools for stu dents who identify as furries.

For the uninitiated, furries are part of a long-standing fandom of anthro pomorphic animal characters. Over the last couple decades, this fandom has grown, leading to large conven tions and activities for those with fur

sonas, some of whom go so far as to wear full body fursuits. Think, for ex ample, of the general look of animalbased sports mascots, or perhaps the characters from Walt Disney’s 2016 “Zootopia” movie.

The large majority of furries, it is worth noting, do not “identify as ani mals.” Rather, it is a hobby, a costume, and something those in the fandom enjoy being a part of. The bunny head can be safely stowed away in a box when not in use, and the rest of the outfit tucks into the closet.

It’s also a popular subculture to mock, which plays into this urban legend. Its use in right-wing circles, however, has less to do with furries than it does with transgender people, even if there is often a fair amount of overlap between the two.

For a number of years, the right –and particularly right-leaning internet trolls and other provocateurs – latched onto “I identify as ___” phrasing as a way to mock transgender identities.

When you see that language being

used, however, it isn’t typically from a transgender person, but from some one mocking a transgender person, coming up with lubricious examples such as, “I identify as an attack heli copter.”

Or, in this case, the mockery is in identifying as an animal.

The urban myth is a simple one: in order to accommodate students who identify as furries, schools have set up litter boxes in school bathrooms. It’s always presented as a “things have gone too far” tale, usually about a lo cal school that is nearby, but not too close, lest anyone verify the story.

Yes, so far, no such story has proved to be true. The only reported example (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/ misinformation/urban-myth-litterboxes-schools-became-gop-talkingpoint-rcna51439) of anything that approaches reality comes from the Jefferson County Public School Dis trict in Colorado, where some class rooms had “go buckets” full of kitty litter – but rather than being a place for furry students, they were part of its school shooter protocols.

Jefferson County is also home to Columbine High School, where a 1999 school shooting left 12 students and one teacher dead, and the go buckets were for students who may need to relieve themselves should such a shooting happen again.

While school shootings remain an altogether too frequent occurrence,

it’s unlikely that the go bucket was the source of this myth, and certainly isn’t a part of its continued staying power.

Over the last few years, the issues of trans rights in schools, particularly around restroom accommodation and sports participation, have become hot button topics. It is hardly a stretch to go from discussing the very real and very legitimate issue of providing safe, welcoming facilities for all students, trans and otherwise, and mock ing those needs by discussing litter boxes for students who might identify as a cheetah or a husky or a cat.

It is, essentially, the same thing that came up during the battle for marriage equality as some con servatives, for example, opined on how it would lead to people marry ing box turtles or other creatures. This, too, was proved to be ludicrous.

Much like then, the right doesn’t have a legitimate argument against transgender people, other than diver sion or scare tactics. Unlike the myth, there are real trans and nonbinary students out there who do need to use restrooms at schools and need to have appropriate facilities.

Restrooms seem to be a recurring theme in civil rights battles, from “white” and “colored” restrooms dur ing segregation to fights for Ameri

cans with Disabilities Act-compliant restroom facilities. Without appropri ate public restroom access, one’s abil ity to take part in much of public life is reduced greatly.

A decade ago, it was the “trans gender bathroom predator” that was the predominant urban legend, with many pushing the belief that allow ing transgender people the ability to use a bathroom consistent with who they are would lead to an increase in “female identifying” men as saulting women in the bathroom.

That legend, too, seems to have the validity of litter boxes for fur ries or weddings for turtles, as the right continues to flail for a good rea son to deny transgender people their rights.

By using this “schools are offering litter boxes to their furry-identifying students” myth, the right-wing is seeking to delegitimize a real need and do real harm to non-mythical students.

Let’s not let them reduce our needs to the stupidest of urban legends. t

Gwen Smith thanks the furries she consulted with before penning this column. You’ll find her at www.gwensmith.com

6

tal health and addiction services. (The city relies on the county and its health department for public health funding and programs.)

Ramachandran also bemoaned the lack of LGBTQ leadership on

the council – to date there have only been three out members, Kaplan along with former coun cilmembers Danny Wan and Abel Guillén. “The lack of representa tion on [the] City Council has im pacted tangibly outcomes for our communities significantly,” she noted. She would support non

profits like the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center and work with the new mayor (none of the major candidates are LGBTQ) to ensure the administration is applying for county, state, and federal grants to support the center’s expansion and reach. Asked about Oakland Pride activities and the fact that

November 8, 2022

General Election

there were two separate events this year, Ramachandran stated that she would meet with the leader ship of each entity to find out why there were two different events a week apart, Oakland Pride and Pridefest Oakland. “I want to ex plore the benefits of consolidating one large-scale parade in Septem ber in future years,” she wrote.

On housing, a major citywide issue, Ramachandran stated that the city is below its targets for building low-income housing, largely because of glaring funding gaps. “We are especially not build ing housing necessary for LGBTQ elders that involve nonprofits pro viding supportive services and culturally competent medical and mental health care,” she wrote. Realizing that neither the city’s general fund nor bond measures can provide sufficient funds, she would be a “zealous” advocate for

greater state and federal dollars to increase affordable housing pro grams, especially those focused on unhoused youth and seniors.

On public safety, Ramachan dran does not support additional police academies, but does want to prioritize retention – she stated the city is losing 10-11 officers a month. Prior to the pandemic, it was closer to four per month, she noted. Oakland is experiencing an increase in homicides, as well as an uptick in property crimes like car break-ins.

Overall, we think Ramachan dran would be an important addi tion to the City Council. For Oak landers in District 4, the choice is clear and we endorse Ramachan dran. t

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The hemophilia group held its October 15 event at the Julia Mor gan Ballroom in San Francisco, and it was the first time the organization held the gala on the West Coast, a news release noted.

Cunningham was recognized for his ongoing partnership and sup port of the many community mem bers and families impacted by HIV/ AIDS. Karen Fulton Holine, whose son, Jason, died of HIV/AIDS com plications after receiving a blood transfusion, and Leah Ogden Ad ams, an advocate for community awareness, were honored with the

The National Hemophilia Foun dation champions research, educa tion, and advocacy for inheritable blood disorders and is dedicated to finding better treatments, preventa tive measures, and cures for them. It was founded by patients in 1948 and has a network of chapters across the country, as well as a cooperative agreement with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2016, the AIDS grove launched a phase of its Surviving AIDS cam paign by helping to tell the story of how the hemophilia community was impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, as the B.A.R. noted at the time. t

1940 – October 13, 2022

Peter passed away peacefully at home after a short illness. A longtime resident of San Francisco, Peter was born in what was once East Prussia and is now Poland. He grew up in northern Germany

after World War II and came out as a proud gay man early in his life. He immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, coming to San Francisco via New York City. He was predeceased by the love of his life, John Stuart Munn, and by many friends during the AIDS crisis. Peter loved the arts and architecture and San Francisco. His ashes will be scattered at sea, and he requested that no memorial service be held. Rest in peace.

Obituaries >>

Ambassador Award.

<< News Briefs From

Peter J. Gudd

October

Christine Smith

Supes OK expansion of leather history plaques

by Matthew S. Bajko

The former offices for Drum mer magazine and the LGBTQ newspaper the Sentinel at 285 Shi pley Street would receive one. So, too, would the location of the early gay and lesbian rights organization the Society for Individual Rights, commonly known as SIR, at 83 Sixth Street.

Another would be installed at 54 10th Street, once home to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. And one would be found at 947 Folsom Street, where the adult bookstore Folsom Gulch, known for its cruisy video arcade, operates.

The quartet of addresses in San Francisco’s South of Market district are slated to one day receive bronze plaques embedded in the sidewalk honoring the LGBTQ-owned busi nesses and organizations that have called the sites home. It is part of a project dubbed the Leather His tory Cruise that is creating a walking tour of the neighborhood’s current and former locations of gay bars, bathhouses, nightclubs, and other sites that played a role in making the area a world-famous leather and LGBTQ destination.

The Board of Supervisors last year approved installing sidewalk markers at 50 locations tied to San Francisco’s leather and LGBTQ culture in SOMA. At its October 18 meeting, the 11 members of the board unanimously voted to add another 46 sites to the list.

The first set of bronze plaques are to be installed as part of the streetscape improvement project underway along Folsom Street. The roadway had earned the nickname of the “Miracle Mile” because of how many gay bars and bathhouses operated on or near it in the 1960s and 1970s.

But the onset of the AIDS epi demic in the 1980s soon would di minish SOMA’s leather scene. The health crisis resulted in most gay bathhouses and sex clubs in the area closing their doors.

The area went from having at least 40 LGBTQ venues, bars and busi nesses to just 11 today, according to the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural Dis trict. It is working with city officials to turn the history walk project in western SOMA into a reality.

“It will help commemorate the vibrant history of our community in SOMA,” Robert Goldfarb, a gay man who is executive director of the SOMA LGBTQ cultural district, told the supervisors’ land use and transportation committee earlier this month.

As the Bay Area Reporter previ ously reported, the committee had voted 3-0 October 3 in support of expanding the list of locations to be included on the leather walk. It coincided with the start of LGBTQ History Month.

Gay District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, appointed in the spring to the seat that includes SOMA, spon sored the resolution. Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman signed on as a co-sponsor, as did

all three members of the land use committee: chair Supervisor Myrna Melgar (District 7) and Supervisors Aaron Peskin (District 3) and Dean Preston (District 5).

The plaques project is just one of the initiatives the leather cultural district is working on in order to preserve western SOMA as an LG BTQ neighborhood and location for leather establishments.

“The leather and LGBTQ com munity has been established in SOMA since the mid-1960s and has experienced significant displace ment through gentrification and redevelopment,” Bob Brown, presi dent of the leather district’s board, had told the supervisors’ committee. Saturday, October 15, Brown helped show off the San Francisco

South of Market Leather History Alley to state Senator Ben Allen (DSanta Monica) and Assemblymem ber Tasha Boerner-Horvath (D-En cinitas). They were in town visiting several of the city’s cultural districts, including the Transgender District in the Tenderloin neighborhood.

Located on Ringold Alley be tween Eighth and Ninth streets, the display about leather history debuted five years ago and recently received a refresh from the leather district. It sports bronze bootprints embedded in the sidewalk honoring various leather community leaders, some of whom owned the busi nesses to be memorialized with the bronze sidewalk markers.

The cultural district has col laborated on the sidewalk mark

ers with the city’s arts commission, Public Works Department, and the San Francisco Municipal Trans portation Agency. The estimated $120,000 price tag for the first plaques to be installed along Folsom Street is coming from local develop ers of projects in the area who are required to pay for community im provements as part of their permit approval process.

Their installation was included as part of the Folsom Streetscape Proj ect and are to be among the final as pects of the project to be completed. The website for the project now has construction beginning in 2023.

As the B.A.R. first reported two years ago, such storied establish ments as the Folsom Street Barracks, The Arena, Ramrod, The Brig, and the Club Baths of San Francisco are to be memorialized with historical markers, as well as the B.A.R.’s for mer SOMA locations. The paper’s longtime home at 395 Ninth Street next door to the Stud nightclub’s old location at the intersection of Ninth and Harrison streets was on the list of sites approved last year.

The paper’s other SOMA location at 1550 Howard Street is among those being added to the list this year. Another historic address is 1250 Folsom Street, which was the National Leather Association’s in ternational headquarters.

The SOMA LGBTQ plaque proj ect is similar to one undertaken sev eral years ago by the Top of Broad way Community Benefit District in the city’s North Beach neigh borhood. It has installed sidewalk markers at the site of historic busi nesses in the city’s Italian district, including a trio of LGBTQ nightlife spots shuttered decades ago.

“In a time when the queer com munity is under attack across the country and across the world, this sends a powerful statement that San Francisco stands in our support,” Cal Callahan, a gay man who is the leather district’s manager, said of having the supervisors’ support for the leather history walk.

A full list of the sites to be includ ed on the history walk can be found at https://bit.ly/3D6VFEV

More information about the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District can be found at its website https:// www.sflcd.org/ t

CONGRESS

Dist. 15: Buffy Wicks Dist. 16: Rebecca Bauer-Kahan Dist. 18: Mia Bonta Dist. 20: Shawn Kumagai Dist. 21: Diane Papan Dist. 24: Alex Lee Dist. 26: Evan Low

CA SENATE Dist. 10: No endorsement

SAN FRANCISCO PROPS

Yes: A, B, C, D, F, G, J, L, N,O No: E, H, I, M

CALIFORNIA PROPS Yes: No:

SAN FRANCISCO

Board of Supervisors Dist. 2: Catherine Stefani Dist. 4: Gordon Mar Dist. 6: Matt Dorsey, 1st choice, Honey Mahogany, 2nd choice Dist. 8: Rafael Mandelman Dist. 10: Shamann Walton

District Attorney: Brooke Jenkins Public Defender: Mano Raju City College Board

Short Term: Murrell Green 4-year Term: Thea Selby, John Rizzoand William Walker SF Board of Education Lainie Motamedi, Lisa Weissman-Ward Karen Fleshman Assessor-Recorder: Joaquín Torres BART Board, Dist. 9: Janice Li

OTHER RACES

AC Transit At-Large: Alfred Twu Alameda County Board of Supervisors Dist. 3: Rebecca Kaplan

Alameda City Council: Jim Oddie Alameda School Board: Ryan LaLonde Cabrillo College Board Area 2: Adam Spickler

Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors Dist. 4: Ken Carlson

Cupertino City Council: J.R. Fruen East Bay MUD Ward 3

Marguerite Young El Cerrito City Council

Gabriel Quinto

Oakland City Council Dist 4: Janani Ramachandran

Oakland Mayor (Ranked): 1st Choice - Sheng Thao 2nd Choice - Loren Taylor

3rd Choice: Ignacio De La Fuente

Oakland School Board Dist. 4: Nick Resnick

Redwood City Council

Chris Sturken

Richmond City Council Dist. 2: Cesar Zepeda Dist. 4: Jamin Pursell

San Mateo County Board of Supervisors Dist. 3: Laura Parmer-Lohan San Mateo City Council

Sarah Fields

San Jose City Council Dist. 3: Omar Torres

San Jose Mayor Cindy Chavez

San Leandro City Council

Victor Aguilar San Leandro School Board

James Aguilar

Santa Clara Mayor

Anthony Becker Sonoma County S uperintendent of Schools

Amie Carter, Ph.D. Sunnyvale City Council Richard Mehlinger

State Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), left, chair of the Joint Committee on the Arts, joined Bob Brown, president of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District board, and Assemblymember Tasha Boerner-Horvath (D-Encinitas), chair of the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism, and Internet Media, for a tour of the South of Market Leather History Alley that was given by Eric Jost (not pictured).

Courtesy Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District

Selfies look better now that we’ve quit smoking.

For

have available,” Aguirre wrote in a July 10 email to Julia Sabory, community planning and cultural districts man ager with the MOHCD, as well as Brian Cheu, director of community development at MOHCD, and Imani Pardue-Bishop, a community devel opment specialist with the office.

Sabory did not immediately re spond to a request for comment.

The error, Aguirre wrote, would force the district to make serious cuts to its budget. Among the items Agu irre proposed: a $20,000 reduction to their own salary; forgoing a $10,000 salary increase for an assistant; cutting the district’s program coordinator from 30 hours per week to 20 hours; and not being able to pay for security or an assistant for the district’s COV ID hub activities. Finally, Aguirre add ed, “We will have no funds for events, [diversity, equity, inclusion, and ac cessibility] work, or any contingencies that occur within our community.”

Ultimately, Aguirre did not have to

<< Anti-LGBTQ groups

From

This is after concerns were raised that one of the federations, Creating Healthier Communities, includes a number of anti-LGBTQ groups in its mix of charitable organizations. By donating a little at a time over the course of a year, city employees can give more, better supporting charities that are important to them, according to promotional materials the Bay Area Reporter reviewed. The fear, however, is that donations made to the CHC federation are being distributed to these right-wing groups, whether or not the donor specifies them as re cipients.

The San Francisco Chronicle first reported this story.

In 2022, city employees have made $50,892.82 in donations to CHC, with $1,974 being donated directly to CHC itself, which then distributed those funds to various charities under

take the salary cut, nor were the other potential reductions necessary either. A staff member left and the district did not fill the position.

Word of the accounting error was included in documents that Aguirre sent to MOHCD and were obtained through a records request by gay ac tivist Michael Petrelis, a critic of the cultural district, who forwarded them on to the B.A.R.

“Poor management all around and no transparency to the commu nity,” Petrelis wrote in an email to the B.A.R. last month.

The Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, however, was satisfied with the results of an in quiry into the matter.

“As far as actions taken by MO HCD, we met with the Cultural Dis trict and their fiscal sponsor to better understand the nature of the error and once it was established that the money was indeed spent appropriate ly, even if it wasn’t in the established timeframe, the matter was considered resolved,” said Anne Stanley, commu nications manager for MOHCD. “We

its umbrella, according to a combined charities report compiled for Heart of the City, the city’s annual campaign.

Heart of the City kicked off its 2022 campaign in September. It goes through December 2, according to the materials.

While other organizations such as the Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR), the American Heart Asso ciation, and the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation are among the potential recipients, so too are right-wing or ganizations such as the Alliance De fending Freedom and the American Family Association. Both of these groups, only two of numerous orga nizations in the list of potential do nation targets, have been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being anti-LGBTQ. The Family Research Council is another anti-LG BTQ group CHC has listed.

“The American Family Associa tion (AFA) says it promotes ‘tradi tional moral values’ in media,” notes SPLC on its website. ”A large part of

did advise on improved communica tion and budget management with both the District and fiscal sponsor to prevent this kind of issue from hap pening again, but ultimately our office was satisfied with the resolution.”

The cultural district’s COVID hub was a program that arose with the city’s need to do outreach to San Francisco’s numerous communities. COVID hubs, where folks could be tested and vaccinated for the virus, particularly in the early days of the pandemic, provided a means to pro vide particular communities – such as the LGBTQ community – with ser vices and information in a culturally familiar milieu.

But COVID also required a rapid shift away from other activities at the time, Aguirre told the B.A.R. A planned celebration honoring Stone wall Rebellion trans pioneer Mar sha P. Johnson was canceled, and money and resources slated for that event were diverted to COVID ser vices, Aguirre said. As health outreach wasn’t part of the cultural district’s original mission, money for those ser

that work involves ‘combating the homosexual agenda’ through various means, including publicizing com panies that have pro-gay policies and organizing boycotts against them.”

Of the Alliance Defending Free dom, SPLC states it “is a legal advocacy and training group that has supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and criminalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned ster ilization of trans people abroad; has contended that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia; and claims that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society.”

San Francisco’s Heart of the City combined charities campaign is a program designed to allow city em ployees to donate to charities via payroll deduction. “Workplace cam paigns are a very efficient form of non-profit fundraising,” notes the campaign’s promotional material. “They are a proven cost-effective al

vices had to come from the district’s existing budget.

Fortunately, the district received two significant financial lifelines, Agu irre said. The first came in the form of funding for the costs the district had covered at the COVID hubs. As the hubs were typically set up in metered parking areas, such as the parking lot on 18th Street behind Walgreens, the district had to cover the costs of those spaces. They were also paying for se curity at the sites, as well as cleanup, done by the San Francisco Depart ment of Public Works. The San Fran cisco Department of Public Health agreed to begin covering those costs, instead. Since the rest of the expense behind running the hubs was covered by Virus Geeks, a South San Francis co-based medical lab, the district was now out of any financial responsibil ity for the sites. The agreement with DPH will last through December.

“That was a savings of more than $50,000,” said Aguirre.

The second savings arose with the unexpected departure of one of the district’s employees. Aguirre decided

ternative to direct mail, telemarketing, annual fundraiser drives, and special event marketing.”

CHC did not respond to an inquiry from the B.A.R. asking whether dona tions made by San Francisco employ ees to CHC were distributed to the anti-LGBTQ organizations. How ever, the San Francisco City Admin istrator’s office told the B.A.R. it had paused the program as it seeks an swers to questions about the matter.

“The intent of the city’s Combined Charity Program has always been to support efforts by city employees to donate their own funds to local or ganizations that work to improve our community,” said Angela Yip, a spokesperson for the city administra tor’s office. “We’ve temporarily paused the program in order to work with our partners at the Board of Supervi sors to evaluate the parameters of the program. We will find a path forward that amplifies the engagement of our city workers on such pressing issues as

If you want to avoid the crowds, early December, before the holi days, is a good time to visit. The 30th Annual Palm Springs Festi val of Lights is set to take place on Saturday, December 3, kicking off at 5:45 p.m. in downtown Palm Springs on Palm Canyon Drive between Ramon and Tachevah.

In nearby Palm Desert, the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens features its annual Wild Lights spectacular light display November 23-Decem ber 30.

Gay resorts

The Greater Palm Springs Area still boasts the most gay resorts anywhere. All are marketed to gay men and are clothing optional. The newest resort, Descanso, is among the very best. It is north of downtown in the space that was occupied by the East Canyon Hotel and Spa, which eventually was sold and became a mainstream property only to return to its gay roots for its current incarnation. The property’s general manager Kent Taylor has helped restore the luxury touches of the old East Canyon and taken it to an even higher level. The ho tel’s employees pamper guests with a high-end continental breakfast, complimentary lunch, and a pan try with complimentary drinks and snacks available all day.

Descanso’s sister property, San tiago, is just south of downtown and is also known for its high-end amenities including an expanded continental breakfast and lunch. It is the only two-story gay resort in town and has the largest pool and hot tubs of any of the resorts.

The aforementioned Triangle Inn is just steps away from the San tiago. Green and Boyd, the long time owners, live on the property and make guests feel like family. The mid-century modern build ing is a neighborhood gem with a beautiful front garden framing the property.

The largest collection of gay resorts is in the Warm Sands neighborhood, about a half-mile from downtown. The

Warm Sands main stay InnDulge is owned by a gay cou ple, John Jackson and Sandy Miller. Besides a continental breakfast, they host a complimentary cocktail hour ev ery night. Miller seems to remem ber everyone’s names and is great with making introductions so that all the guests can get to know each other.

The Hacienda at Warm Sands in Palm Springs is a luxury property

across the street from InnDulge and includes two pools and a hot tub. A complimentary lunch is also included. It is known for pamper ing guests and the resort even has a pillow menu to satisfy even the most finicky guests.

Desert Paradise Resort Palm Springs is kitty-corner from Haci enda and is another high-end re sort with a steam room and dry sau na.

Vista Grande is another luxury property that includes a huge hot tub grotto and steam room. The resort boasts three pools all heated to 94 degrees, making for comfortable swimming in the cool est nights.

El Mirasol Villas is a historic re sort that was originally built by re clusive billionaire Howard Hughes. The expansive resort includes two pools.

CCBC is the only resort in

neighboring Cathedral City. With 3.5 acres it is the largest of the gay resorts. It is also open for day passes and is particularly popular with bears. The attached Runway Bar and Restaurant serves up great food and hosts live shows.

While not an exclusively gay hotel, the Trixie Motel opened in June under the ownership of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum Trixie Mattel (aka Brian Michael Firkus) and her husband, David Silver. The motel makeover was featured on the Discovery+ channel. Trixie is pretty – and pink – but she ain’t cheap. A night in one of her very colorful and unique seven rooms will cost you on average about $600 and rates go as high as $900 a night during peak demand.

Nightlife

All gay nightlife was centered in Cathedral City up until the 1990s. Now LGBTQ nightlife is begin ning to go back to Cathedral City, which boasts five gay bars. The big gest concentration of gay bars in Palm Springs is in downtown Palm Springs on E. Arenas Road, just east of S. Indian Canyon Drive. With the closure of Delilah’s 15 years ago, there are no longer any lesbian bars in Palm Springs, but Toucans and Hunters in Palm Springs are among the most popular with lesbians.

Toucans Tiki Lounge and Caba ret is famous for its drag shows, dancing, and Latin Fever Mondays. Hunters (https://hunterspalm springs.com/) has a huge dance room, main bar, and expansive pa tio.

Hunters started serving food during COVID lockdowns so it could stay open and it has contin ued that tradition.

not to fill the vacancy; another sig nificant savings. With both of those actions, the district was no longer in the hole.

“The decision not to fill the staffing vacancy and our decision to not par ticipate directly in the hub are direct results of this,” agreed Stephen Torres, a gay man and the district’s advisory board executive co-chair.

For now, the district is back in the black, said Aguirre. They explained that the district receives $230,000 each year from the city. Including rolled over funds and a $50,000 grant that the district just received from the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development for small business acti vations for this fiscal year, which be gan July 1, the cultural district’s total budget for FY 2022-2023 is $478,914, Aguirre wrote in a text message.

“It’s really the last month that I was able to share with the advisory board and the sponsor that we would be in the black. It really has been in the last month,” they said. t

ending hunger, protecting the environ ment, and providing services to our most vulnerable neighbors.”

District 8 Supervisor Rafael Man delman said he wasn’t sure what role the Board of Supervisors might play in this issue, but “as a gay supervisor,” he was concerned about money going to anti-LGBTQ hate groups.

The problem, he noted, is “[t]here may be some First Amendment issues here” if the city were to allow chari table giving to some groups, but not to others.

Gay District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey did not return messages seek ing comment.

Jen Kwart, spokesperson for City Attorney David Chiu, referred ques tions to the city administrator’s office. She noted that the Board of Supervi sors approves the charities and charity federations. Any advice the city attor ney’s office provides is confidential, Kwart added.t

StreetBar is a favorite of locals and always draws a crowd, espe cially in the early evenings.

Quadz video bar is another Are nas Road mainstay with karaoke on Thursdays and Sundays. To help celebrate Halloween, Quadz will host a “Rocky Horror Picture Show” sing-along on Tuesday, Oc tober 25, at 7 p.m.

Chill Bar Palm Springs is right next to Quadz. The bright, glasswalled corner bar always seems to draw a crowd. Like Hunters, it also serves food.

BlackBook is the new kid on the block and is known for its delicious gourmet bar food.

The Eagle 501 is a favorite with the leather, Levi’s, and bear crowd.

Tryst Bar and Lounge is just around the corner from Arenas Road, on S. Indian Canyon Drive, and is known for showcasing local musicians.

The Tool Shed, on the edge of the Warm Sands neighborhood, is famous for its Thursday night underwear night. It expanded to the parking lot in response to the pandemic, so it can accommodate a large crowd and cater to people who don’t feel safe being in large indoor gatherings.

Cathedral City’s version of the Tool Shed, the Barracks, has its underwear night on Wednesdays. It has always had a large outdoor patio.

One Eleven Bar is a popular pia no bar featuring karaoke on Thurs days and Sundays and a popular drag brunch on Sundays.

The AMP Sports Lounge gets its name from the couple who own it, Paul and Antonio Lopez-Cochran. AMP stands for Antonio marries

The Trixie Motel in Palm Springs opened in June under the ownership of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum Trixie Mattel (aka Brian Michael Firkus) and her husband, David Silver.

Ed Walsh

by Jim Gladstone

“People tend not to believe me when I tell them that I wrote a trans superhero rock opera by accident,” says Adrienne Price. “But that’s the truth.”

That happy accident, which eventually came to be called “The Red Shades,” is now being pre sented in a world premiere production at Z Space, San Francisco’s boundary-pushing incubator for new performance works. But it began seven years ago as a series of voice memos.

At the time, Price, 33, who is queer and trans, has been writing songs and performing as a vo calist and violinist in rock bands since her teen years, endured a daily cross-Bay commute for a teaching job.

“To pass the time, I was recording song ideas on my phone,” recalled Price in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter immediately pre ceding the show’s first technical run-through last week.

“Songwriting is kind of the clearest way for me to express myself. I’m always coming up with song ideas. It’s like journaling is for some people. A lot of times, the songs don’t go anywhere.”

“A lot of my life seemed really chaotic when I wrote the first songs for the show. I was having a lot of very complicated feelings that I really need ed to get out. It was something of a therapeutic exercise for me at that point.”

Clearly “The Red Shades,” a comic book-influ enced adventure story built around the real life Compton’s Cafeteria riots of 1966, in which the Tenderloin trans community rose up against po lice harassment, is not autobiographical.

But, in retrospect, Price –who had begun delv ing into the history of San Francisco’s trans com munity around the same time she was dealing with her emotional struggles– realized there was an artistic alchemy when she mixed her personal feelings with the historical record.

Deep-seated feelings

“I’ve heard authors express the sentiment that writing fiction somehow helps them get closer to the truth than non-fiction would. That’s kind of how I felt in writing these songs. I think I was able to allow myself to express some of the deeper lay ers of my unconscious that I would have blocked off if I if I had said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna write about myself.’ Through the fictional characters that I’ve invented, I’ve been able to channel some of my own deep-seated feelings.”

After she’d developed the songs and storyline for what ultimately became Act I of “The Red Shades,” Price brought the work to her friend Jeanine Ad kinson, and the two collaborated on refining and arranging the music (A third composer, Matt Fukui Grandy, eventually joined the fold). The work’s first public showcase was a reading and concert at the El Rio bar in November 2017.

“It was unbelievable,” said Price. “200 people showed up. We’d done a flyer and advertised on Facebook, but we never expected so many peo ple. It was the first year of the Trump administra tion, though; dark days. And I just think seeing

the words Trans Superhero Rock Opera must have felt energizing for the community.”

Those words surely helped, but it was the lyr ics and music of the songs themselves –along with the palpable excitement they generated in an audience– that captured the attention of Z Space interim producing director Rose Oser and executive director Shafer Mazow, who were in

the crowd that day and soon after took “The Red Shades” under their wing.

Four years, four concert presentations, two workshops, a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a global pandemic later, the show has bloomed into the rowdy three act extrava ganza blazing its way onto scenic designer Sarah Phykitt’s sleek multi-tiered set this week.

Asked about artistic influences, Price cites the genre-blurring queer cinema of Todd Haynes and Gus Van Sant. And when it comes to theater, “One thing that has been a big influence on me is ‘Spring Awakening.’ I remember seeing that on Broadway when I was 19 and it really blew my mind that you could have angsty rock music in the theater that way. So that’s definitely part of ‘The Red Shades’ DNA.”

“But the melding of history, fiction, fantasy and rock music in this show? I don’t think there’s any thing quite like it out there.”t

‘The Red Shades,’ through Nov. 5. Sliding scale, free-$50. 499 Alabama St. (415) 6260453. www.zspace.org

by Laura Moreno

“I felt a magical connection and a deep desire to pursue it at all costs,” she said.

ABADÁ-Capoeira

San Francisco (ACSF) was founded in the Mission District 30 years ago this month by the Bay Area’s own Márcia Treidler (a.k.a. “Mestra Cigarra”) who serves as Artistic Director. To celebrate, a free out door capoeira performance by top-level artists will be held in the park for the very first time, along with workshops preceding the event, and the an nual Batizado graduation and initiation ceremony. Accomplished students will be recognized with a new cord (analogous to a belt in karate) as part of this traditional Capoeira ceremony.

The festivities will be held Sunday, October 23 from 11am to 1pm at Potrero del Sol Park at Potrero Ave and 25th Street in San Francisco. In addition to celebrating their 30th anniversary, they are celebrating having survived the pandem ic when many businesses did not. In fact, Mestra Cigarra stated in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, “The pandemic brought us closer.”

A living legend in the Bay Area

Against all odds, by 1990 Mestra Cigarra at tained the highest level in capoeira, a level of mas tery that she maintains to this day. In 2013, she was the very first woman in ABADÁ to receive the title “Mestra,” or master, as one of the top eight capoeiristas in the world (of 60,000 members).

From the moment she first saw a capoeira per formance back in Brazil where she grew up, she knew capoeira was going to be her life.

Despite already being an accomplished ath lete in gymnastics and swimming, it took a year to convince her mother to let her join capoeira.

At the time, capoeira was almost exclusively male worldwide. Finally, when she was 17, her mother relented and allowed her to study capoeira, mak ing her one of the first women to enter the sport. She’ll never forget the day, November 28, 1982, almost exactly 40 years ago.

Notwithstanding the challenges of being put into a box as a woman and a lesbian when she first started in Brazil, she is grateful that the men she trained with didn’t go easy on her because she was a woman, giving her the opportunity to excel and very much prove herself.

When asked what advice Mestra Cigarra would give to her younger self when she was first starting out, she answered, “Play more, jump in there, push yourself more, push yourself.”

A fight, a dance, a game

Considered the predecessor of mixed martial arts, Capoeira is much more than just a sport. It is an art form. Unlike other martial arts, capoeira is performed to music played by traditional Brazil ian instruments and sung by all. Mestra Cigarra explained.

“Some songs are very emotional, some have a fast beat or clapping, and some songs are used to make fun of or challenge opponents.”

ABADÁ-Capoeira Mestra Cigarra Márcia Treidler

Branden Johannesen

Todrick

Tristan Crane

Adrienne Price

trans superhero rock opera

Mizz June and Tommy Clifford-Carlos

2019 workshop production

Red

Playwright-composer Adrienne Price

Scream, queens

by Victoria A. Brownworth

This month, the small screen gives us some big scares. Here’s a round up of the best new shows.

American Horror Story: NYC

If, like us, you were a denizen of the club scene in New York City in the 1980s, then season 11 of the Ryan Murphy/Brad Falchuk “American Horror Story” series is for you.

“AHS/NYC” is set in New York City during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. The teaser trailer’s focus on leather, bond age, kink and blood suggest a less su pernatural and more real-life horror story this time around. The storyline has been kept tightly under wraps, but the teaser is hot.

We admit we have a love/hate re lationship with this series. Some seasons have been absolutely brilliant, others unbearably self-indulgent, tedious and gory for gore’s sake. We’d welcome some thing fresh and more grounded, and this season portends to be that.

In a series of posters of the characters, the creators have given hints to how the story will evolve. We can’t wait.

“AHS” stalwarts Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters won’t be in season 11. But Zachary Quinto returns along with “AHS” regulars Billie Lourd and Leslie Grossman. Also in the cast, the great Patti LuPone and the brilliant Denis O’Hare. Sandra Bernhard, Kal Penn, Rebecca Dayan, Kyle Beltran (“Invent ing Anna”), Dot-Marie Jones (“Glee”), Charlie Carver (“The Boys in the Band”), Joe Mantello (“Hollywood”), and Russell Tovey (“Years and Years”) are also in the ensemble cast.

“AHS/NYC” premieres on FX with two episodes on October 19 at 10pm ET/PT with two episodes to follow weekly over five weeks; also on Hulu.

Queer For Fear

This being Halloween month, you’ll want to watch Shudder’s four-part docuseries from Bryan Fuller (“Hanni bal,” “Pushing Daisies”),“Queer For Fear: A History Of Queer Horror,” which delves into what queers have brought to the horror genre and the history of the LGBTQ community in the horror and thriller genres. Queer people love the Otherness of witches, warlocks and all things supernatural.

“I remember in seventh grade af ter reading ‘Dracula,’ having feelings about it and going, ‘Something more is going on here,’ then looking up Bram Stoker, seeing he’s married with kids and being disappointed,” Fuller told IndieWire during a recent interview.

The series of course discusses the many iterations of vampires and Drac ula, Frankenstein and so much more, from Mary Shelley to Bram Stoker to Hitchcock and Clive Barker, It’s a queer

fest from the encoded and subtextual to the blatant and overt. It’s absolutely cap tivating and totally fascinating.

Chucky

He’s back! Season 2 of “Chucky,” Syfy/USA’s fantastic horror/black dramedy series created by Don Man cini, is queerer and campier and scari er and better than season 1 which was, you know, fabulous.

To recap season 1: Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur) is a gay teen who’s bullied at school and in his family by his father and his over-achieving cousin, Junior. Jake makes scary art with dolls purchased at yard sales. That’s where he finds the vintage Good Guy doll, Chucky, at a yard sale.

But things go awry quickly since Chucky is possessed by a serial killer, Charles Lee Ray, who then terrorizes Jake. Chucky kills Jake’s abusive and anti-gay father horribly, then tries to get Jake to kill Junior’s girl friend who is also his prime bully, Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind).

But instead Jake de cides to align with Devon (Björgvin Arnarson), a classmate who hosts a true crime podcast on whom he has a major crush, and Lexy to take down Chucky. Which ends in a whole lot of mayhem.

For season 2, Mancini, who pivoted off his “Child’s Play” film franchise for the series, draws on his own queer and Catholic childhood. He takes his three main teen characters –Jake and now-boyfriend Devon and Lexy– to

a Catholic boarding school, Incarnate Lord, for violent juvenile offenders.

There’s a creepy priest, Father Bryce (Devon Sawa), who uses a lot of sports metaphors and locks Jake in a room to think about things, and won’t let more than one student go to the restroom at a time because “the devil’s playground” is always nearby. Yet Jake and Devon are rooming together, and kissing!

In the show’s parallel story line, Jennifer Tilly continues to chew the scenery as Tiffany Valentine and her self in over-the-top vintage John Wa ters fashion with her lovers Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) and Nica (Fiona Dourif). And now, her kids, Glen and Glenda, (yes, this is the gay est inside-joke show ever) are visiting.

Mancini has opened his casting as well as his storyline to embrace as much LGBTQ as possible. Twins Glen and Glenda are played by Lach lan Watson, who is non-binary and pansexual. Watson was featured on a Netflix-produced talk segment titled “What I Wish You Knew: About Be ing Nonbinary,” where they discussed gender identity with other non-binary celebrities Jacob Tobia, Liv Hewson, and Shiva Raichandani.

Having spent nine long years in Catholic school, we definitely are a fan of how Mancini is situating the par allels of religious and criminal pun ishments. And the Hogwarts-esque element of Incarnate Lord is unmis takable and yet another twist to the plot; on USA/Syfy and Peacock.t

Read the full article on www.ebar.com

‘Queer For Fear’ and ‘Chucky’ promo posters

Charlie Carver in ‘American Horror Story: NYC’

Gods

by Philip Campbell

Evening fog chills the city, making a mysterious cover for things that go bump in the night. The San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera are providing the soundtrack as Hal loween creeps near.

Nuns above

San Francisco Opera’s (SFO) Cen tennial Season continues with gay composer Francis Poulenc’s ”Dia logues of the Carmelites” at the War Memorial Opera House (WMOH), October 15–30.

There are singing nuns in the pow erful psychological drama to be sure, but they are hardly the sunny-faced stereotypes of “The Sound of Music” or “Sister Act.” They are not stern or abusive caricatures either, but indi vidual human beings with personali ties ranging from timid to heroic. One doesn’t need to be Catholic or even Christian to identify with them. Athe ists and agnostics have the conviction of their own beliefs too.

The question is, would they be will ing to die for them?

Poulenc based his own insightful libretto on a work by Georges Ber nanos, adding lyrical expression, ex quisitely orchestrated, to the deeply moving story of a group of Carmelite nuns facing the Reign of Terror during the most violent period of the French Revolution.

The highly praised production by French director Olivier Py brings Pou lenc’s elevating masterpiece back to the WMOH after four decades. SFO presented the American premiere in 1957 with legendary Erich Leinsdorf conducting and featuring the Ameri can opera debut of Leontyne Price as Lidoine. A 1963 revival included Re gina Resnik as Madame de Croissy and another groundbreaking AfricanAmerican soprano Reri Grist (Con suelo in Bernstein’s original cast of “West Side Story”) as Sister Constance.

The most recent revival was Direc tor John Dexter’s production in 1982 with Henry Lewis conducting. The cast included Carol Vaness as Blanche, Leontyne Price repeating the role of Lidoine and French superstar Regine

Crespin as the Mother Superior.

Olivier Py’s reimagining, a co-pro duction between companies in Paris and Brussels, will create new history, mounted for SFO by stage director Daniel Izzo with sets and costumes by designer Pierre-Andre Weitz and lighting designed by Bertrand Killy, all making their Company debuts.

Haunting classical music events

SFO Music Director Eun Sun Kim conducts.

The cast employs some Company veterans, notably soprano Heidi Sto ber making her role debut as terri fied Blanche de la Force, and tenor Ben Bliss returns as the Chevalier de la Force. Bass-baritone Dale Travis is Blanche’s and the Chevalier’s father, the Marquis de la Force, and favorite mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook is Mother Jeanne.

In her house and role debuts, Mi chaela Schuster is the Mother Supe rior, Madame de Croissy. Soprano Deanna Breiwick makes her SFO de but as Sister Constance.

The Friday, October 21 perfor mance will be livestreamed at 7:30pm and the performance will be available to watch on-demand October 22-24.

It is not really a spoiler to call the con clusion of the opera an understated, but shattering coup de theatre. The power of the climax will haunt your dreams. www.sfopera.com

Goblins and Murderers

Take a careful walk across Grove Street to Davies Symphony Hall (DSH) for an altogether spooky fort night of Halloween themed concerts and events October 20-29 with the San Francisco Symphony.

October 20–22, Music Direc tor Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts a bill including Mussorgsky’s feverish “Night on Bald Mountain” (remem ber Disney’s “Fantasia”?) with Hector Berlioz’s moody orchestral showpiece “Symphonie fantastique” (complete with ‘Dream of a witches’ Sabbath’ and ‘March to the scaffold’). Franz Liszt’s “Totentanz (Dance of the Dead),” features French pianist Bertrand Chamayou in his Orchestral Series debut.

On October 25, 7:30pm, Sarah Hicks conducts the SFS in a performance of Disney’s “Hocus Pocus”-film with a live orchestra, vitalizing composer John Debney’s atmospheric score. The movie is enjoying an anniversary and renais sance of sorts this year with the release of a sequel. Besides, who could resist the trio of over-the-top witches, Bette Midler (Winifred), Sarah Jessica Parker (Sarah), and Kathy Najimy (Mary)?

Frankly, my dear October 27-29, Salonen leads a performance of HK Gruber’s thor oughly insane “Frankenstein!!,” fea turing baritone Christopher Purves making his Orchestral Series debut. He may have to change his name to Christopher Pervy for the occasion. Based on frighteningly eccentric children’s rhymes by H.C. Artmann, is “Frankenstein!!” a cabaret, jazzed up song cycle or surreal performance piece? Who knows, who cares? It provides a unique and thoroughly

engaging experience.

On the same bill, Salonen includes music that has won praise for him on disc with other orchestras: a suite drawn from Bernard Herrmann’s memorable score to Alfred Hitch cock’s “Psycho” and Bela Bartok’s savage Suite from “The Miraculous Mandarin.” The Hungarian com poser’s shocking depiction of murder and thievery is a tour de force for orchestra.t www.sfsymphony.org

The martial art was developed by Af ro-Brazilian slaves starting in the 16th century as a clandestine defense sys tem. It has indigenous and Portuguese influences as well. Because of its history, its fighting power is disguised to look like rhythmic dance and perhaps is still underestimated in the martial arts world. The use of strategic deception in capoeira involves many surprises, in cluding acrobatic somersaults, that are difficult to guard against.

Capoeira has many similarities to the graceful, flowing movements of Kung-Fu that make full use of momentum, unlike karate’s series of attack-and-stop maneuvers done in a fixed stance.

Because of its power as a fighting technique, capoeira was actually out lawed in Brazil soon after slavery was finally made illegal in 1888 remained so until 1920.

Although not attached to any re ligion at all, capoeira has a spiritual aspect. It was a way of passing down culture, including a respect for the ancestors, and being grounded and in touch with the past and with one’s own being.

Mastering the “game” of capoeira, as it is called, very much puts you in the moment. Mestra Cigarra calls it “a game of mind and body” that gives a real in telligence to the body, and teaches men tal and emotional focus. It taught her “how to be herself and validate herself,” she said and to “never underestimate anyone, especially ourselves.”

Capoeira is very good for young people, and is an experience that will serve them all their lives. First, the core values state that it is “a safe space to ex press ourselves as unique individuals,” that “fosters a sense of belonging, cama raderie, and wonder,” dynamics that are too often missing from children’s lives.

Everyone is invited, no matter age, physical condition or previ ous injuries. “All are welcomed with open arms,” Mestra Cigarra said. As with yoga, capoeira is flexible and can be adapted to accommodate the situation.t

ABADÁ-Capoeira Mestra Cigarra Márcia Treidler

‘Dialogues of the Carmelites’

Vincent Pontet, Théatre des Champs-Élysées

Disney’s ‘Hocus Pocus’ with a live orchestra

Above: SF Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen

Below: Baritone Christopher Purves

Nonetheless

by Tim Pfaff

T he old adage about lightning comes to mind. I was one of the readers for whom Andrew Sean Greer’s last novel, “Less,” was a up roarious surprise hit. Not that I hadn’t liked previous Greer novels, but I was enchanted by “Less,” unpre pared for its rich vein of comedy and delighted that, comedy being as per sonal a matter as underwear, I found it a fit.

If you’re a reader who also loved “Less,” and, you know, reads for plea sure, rush to the nearest bookseller and snap up “Less Is Lost,” the sequel. But in what could be called a second act, the follow-up “Less” is –literally, sadly– less.

That out of the way, let’s look un der the hood. The metaphor applies, because “Less Is Lost,” like its pre quel, includes a road trip, as obliga tory a feature in such fiction as the car chase at the end of a vintage ac tion movie.

Whereas the previous book took its hapless protagonist to Europe (on the lam, de rigueur in American fiction), this time Greer dumps the revised and abridged Arthur Less, still a lapsed,

or prelapsarian, novelist –though roughly a year has passed, no time at all in the calendar of a procrasti nating scribe– partly on the Eastern Seaboard but mostly in the American

Southwest, a region ripe for analysis of the Whither-America variety.

That’s a lot to stack against your pro tagonist. The novel-about-a-novelist trope alone… How far we’ve come from that ur-gay novel, Huck Finn.

Like his creator, Less is gay, fetching in a post-camp way and dodging the invisibility of gay middle age with an asiduousness that could produce, in other word processors, a “Queen of the Night.” But Arthur has more lowhanging fruit to pick.

High, perhaps highest, on the list of Less’s ineptitudes is money (a writer to the manner, if not manor, born). The “donnee” of the plot is that Less’s longtime ex, who has allowed him to inhabit The Shack rent-free, dies and his (female) widow wants back rent, ten years of it. Sitting on his grief and like a hen on its egg, Less frets while Freddy suffers Shack shock as a threat to his possible if not imminent sec ond marriage, this time to the oncedumped Less.

Unable to comprehend either loss,

Less promises Freddy safe keeping by becoming a free-range freelancer, a trick that was easier to pull off when he was younger and more reckless and fewer people he met spoke English. Afoot and heavy-hearted, he takes to the open road.

Inevitably, the sense of work on Greer’s part overtakes the reader. The jokes are more calculated than fun, and the loopy but frequently master ful sentences that leavened “Less” are present and accounted for but too few and far between. It missed its chance to be a beach book.

“Less” was the kind of out-of-theblue, runaway hit on which an author can bank the rest of a career. Its suc cessor would have been a lot more successful without it.t

‘Less Is Lost’ by Andrew Sean Greer, Little, Brown, 257 pp. $29. www.littlebrown.com

Read the full review on www.ebar.com

‘Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood’

by Brian Bromberger

John D’Emilio, one of the preemi nent queer historians instrumental in helping establish Gay and Lesbian Studies as an academic discipline, has written a memoir, “Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood,” detailing his coming of age in the 1960s through the beginning of his graduate career at Columbia University, right after Stonewall.

D’Emilio is Professor Emeritus Gender and Women’s Studies at Uni versity of Illinois-Chicago. His 1984 book “Sexual Politics, Sexual Com munities: The Making of a Homo sexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970,” is considered foundation al, while his research with co-author Estelle Freedman, “Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America,” was cited by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in the ‘Lawrence vs. Texas’ decision that overturned sodomy state laws.

In his preface, D’Emilio sets the goal of his book: “How did so many young people move from the quiet of their family backgrounds to the social and political upheavals of this seem

ingly un-orthodox era? What kinds of experiences provoked their shift in outlook? How did they become agents of change? And how did their lives change because of this?”

He largely succeeds in showing how Baby Boomers moved from the status quo life of the fifties into a new world of activism, dissent, and nonconformity, which in his case consisted primarily of political radicalism by protesting the Vietnam War and participating in the emerging gay sexual revolution.

D’Emilio constructs his memoir like a three-act play. Act One delves into his Italian family boyhood in the Bronx and early Catholic educa tion at St. Raymond’s school. Act Two explores his formative high school education at the Jesuit St. Regis school. Act Three centers on his undergradu ate life at Columbia University includ ing campus protests as well as explor ing gay life in Greenwich Village.

Family stories told at the dinner table reinforced his Sicilian ances try, while his mother’s photo albums helped him reconstruct childhood memories. D’Emilio is adept at paint ing the classic post-war urban life where his father made enough money

Moody blues

by Jim Piechota

Nothing evokes a more visceral re action from a reader than when a memoir is written with obvious sincerity, vulnerability, and candor, regardless of the consequences, and with the kind of explicit detail that’s impossible to gloss over.

That is certainly the case in San Francisco activist attorney and for mer adult entertainer Stephan Ferris’s debut memoir that chronicles his life in 77 unflinching and graphically de picted scenes.

While Ferris considers the experi ences that shaped his early years as “dangerous and potentially deadly,” he owns every one of them, never makes excuses, and openly admits to being “lucky to have survived them.”

The opening segment portrays the author as an out 19-year-old under grad at San Francisco State, traveling home to Las Vegas for the summer, and “knocking out” various doctors’ appointments, one that would diag nose him as HIV-positive. Already conceding to living a life of risk where instant gratification was paramount and manifested as rampant IV-drug use and unprotected sex, Ferris’ se ropositivity only serves to dig the

so they could live a solid middle-class existence. His mother decided early on that education was destiny for the smart D’Emilio.

His religious faith became central, leading to his acceptance at the presti gious elite all-male Jesuit St. Regis high school where he blossomed, develop ing friendships outside his neighbor hood. He excelled in Latin and Greek.

The school exposed him to more liberal thinking, but primarily taught him to think for himself.

D’Emilio’s Catholicism compelled him to confess his “sins” and resolve to abstain from any further sexual activi ty. He even contemplated in his senior year becoming a priest and applied to a Jesuit seminary, but later decided he had to deal first with accepting

his gayness, otherwise he’d be fooling himself and his superiors.

What is so refreshing about the book is D’Emilio’s non-judgmen talism. Even though he ultimately rejects institutional Catholicism, he understands how it has formed his values and made him a better person. He learns to trust his own instincts and not be dependent on others’ de mands upon him. This account of his coming-of-age journey is warm, affec tionate, insightful, and compulsively readable, as one feels transported into a more carefree, less ambiguous time.

Although D’Emilio charts his par ticular transformation from confor mity to radicalism through the prism of his sexuality, it is written so hon estly and universally, anyone whose personal discoveries collide with their cultural values will glean wisdom from his writing.t

Stephan Ferris’ ‘Blue Movie: Scenes from the Life of a Sexual Outlaw’

ever-wavering self-loathing, it is also buoyed by its resilient tone and fear less, unfettered content. Nothing seems held back in these pages, which makes it a true achievement for Ferris and a refreshingly honest deep-dive into a sullied life for readers bold enough to bear witness to it.

For an even more immersive read ing experience, Ferris has curated a Spotify audio soundtrack (in the form of a scannable QR code) included in the book.

sion on murder charges. The memoir is composed with short, clipped, declarative sentences and fragments that, in fact, belie the book’s deeper inner core of personal liberation, destigmatization of HIV, and the uplifting of one’s fellow queer community. The book concludes with open-ended ambiguity; a dark, un finished manifesto of stark desire and desperation, but also one of hope and curative possibility.

trenches of his already low self-esteem even deeper.

In his struggles to mitigate mas culinity issues, he joins a fraternity, temporarily (and unsuccessfully) be comes a total top, drinks and drugs in cessantly, and is accidently introduced to having sex on camera, which turns him on enough to investigate the in dustry further.

His subsequent on-screen persona, Blue Bailey, came into being once Ferris

launched a career in porn as the self-de scribed “original demon twink.” But that career as Treasure Island Media’s “Alpha Bottom” only plummeted him further down into desperation and drug-fueled despair. “I am a toxic dump of metham phetamines, semen, and emotion,” Fer ris reflects. “A toxic cumdump filled by men and needles. I am a wasteland.”

Though the memoir is an inces santly gloomy affair of anonymous sex, “chemsex,” filmed sex, drugs, and

Ferris touts a particularly popular gang-bang video he starred in (2014’s “Viral Loads”), which became avail able right as he started an adventur ous and successful series of law school years. Though the lure and impulses of drug abuse became an ever-present specter, Ferris was able to eventually overcome the compulsion through sheer determination to create a life of his own free from destructive habits.

Among the more intensive scenes: Ferris describes the horror of repeated cases of painful priapism, the result of injections of performance-enhancing erectile medications; a racy episode of “harm justification” while meteorical ly high during his first Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend; and a sex scene in Europe that resulted in his apprehen

Throughout this raw, gritty, often grisly and shocking autobiography, Ferris’s narrative voice is crucial and alive with a cathartic urgency to re veal his truth to a world where there are certainly those who still struggle to emerge from the gloomy prison of self-destructiveness. With strident solidarity, Ferris openly shares his life story “so that others might feel less alone and see that there is a path through the darkest passages of life.”t

‘Blue Movie: Scenes from the Life of a Sexual Outlaw,’ by Stephan Ferris; Unbound Edition Press, $29.95 www.unboundedition.com

Ferris will appear at Mr. S Leather for a signing and party Oct. 21, 5pm, 385 8th St. www.mr-s-leather.com

Andrew Sean Greer’s “Less Is Lost” is less than “Less”

‘Memories of a Gay Catholic Boy hood: Coming of Age in the Sixties’ by John D’Emilio. Duke University Press, $29.95 www.dukeupress.edu

Read the full review on www.ebar.com

Author Andrew Sean Greer

Author John D’Emilio

Author Stephan Ferris

Breaking boundaries

‘Beyond Binary’ at SF State Fine Arts Gallery

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto shows one way of handling men in the quilted piece from his “Mussalmaan Muscleman” series. Black and white photographic images of buff male athletes’ bodies are overlaid with colorful, floral-pat terned cloth. Is this an artful, even ca ressing way of taming, defusing male ness/masculinity, or the suggestion of the athletes’ duality?

The poignant theme of lost connec tions, and reenactment as a manifesta tion of love and longing, is evidenced by Vivek Shraya, in work from her “Trisha” series. She uses rather banal snapshots of her estranged mother as the basis for photographs of herself, in similar settings, poses, and clothing. She writes: “My story has always been bound to your prayer to have 2 boys. I was your first and soft. Did this ever disappoint you? You had also prayed for me to look like Dad, but you forgot to pray for the rest of me.”

open floor plan with several artworks on view at once underscores common alities among the artists, with an inti macy missing from more blockbuster shows on themes of race and gender.

“Beyond Binary” is not especially polemical. There is anger and defi ance, but also joy, sly humor, insouci ance, poignancy and sadness.

by Robert Brokl

The timely “Beyond Binary” exhibit of trans and non-binary-identify ing artists at the Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco State University, is on view through Oct. 27.

Curators Sharon E. Bliss, the Fine Arts Gallery Director, Kevin Chen, and Roula Seikaly write in the well-illus trated catalog that the show “originated as a contribution to the Feminist Art

Coalition (FAC), a platform that fosters collaborations among art institutions that are committed to social justice and wholesale structural change.”

“Beyond Binary” spans video, wall art including photographs, drawings, and paintings; ceramics sculpture, and in stallations. One common thread is use of folk and craft traditions: sewing and crochet, “hobby shop” paints, faux-naif technique, paper-cuts, glitter and spray paint. The gallery’s relatively compact,

A gaudy video with peppy music, “Have You Ever Seen a Transsexual Before?” featuring the artist Chris E. Vargas scuba-diving amongst bright tropical fish, is placed at the entrance. Vargas is more provocative in the same video, lifting their shirt before icons like the Mormon Church.

The similarly bright “Clown Fish” by Craig Calderwood features a reclining figure buried under flowers and pat terns, grinning mouth and hands with long fingernails with textured surfaces of craft store dimensional paint and faux fur.

Ben Cuevas’s “Duality #1: Masculine/ Feminine” has featureless white fiber glass mannequins literally sewn togeth

er, in wrap-around fashionable red and gray wool, unifying male and female bodies.  Wells Chandler works with cro chet — their yin-yang abstracted figura tive piece, Pink Lotus, echoed by Jeffrey Cheung, with “Untitled,” also exploring the body/gender merging theme. The simple, bold design of two intwined nude figures employs graphic blue out lines and Matisse colors; Shunga erotica put through a blender.

Juliana Huxtable channels more disturbing energy in her gaudy pink “Ari I” digital color print. An osten sibly female gowned figure, viewed from behind, poses on a bold, faux animal print chair, sporting a huge snake-like tail, and reminiscent of the Yoshitoshi print, “Kiyohime Changing into a Serpent at Hidaka River.”

Beatrice L. Thomas aka “Black Benatar” strikes an aggressive, almost campy “Don’t Mess With Me, Baby!” stance with their “Weapons of Mass Reconstruction #02” installation that includes a full-figured figure sheathed in black.

In a similar vein, Alok Vaid-Menon, in the video “Trans/Generation,” dis plays anger and pain, belied by their costume of hair ornament, abundant jewelry, and batik dress. The 4-min ute loop is a recitation of violence and hostility toward trans people (“Silence and violence done to us in the name of gender”), and disapproval even from a beloved grandmother, herself a victim of gender. Eli Thorne also mines the theme of sadness and alienation in their faux-naif “He Wished He Had a River to Skate Away On” (referencing the melan choly Joni Mitchell song) and “Rescue Horse,” the horse fleeing a landscape in flames, tail and backside on fire.

As a whole, the exhibit is s visually arresting, celebratory, and thoughtprovoking.t

‘Beyond Binary’ at SF State Fine Arts Gallery, thru Oct. 27. SF State campus, 1600 Holloway. www.gallery.sfsu.edu

Read the full review on www.ebar.com

Craig Calderwood’s ‘Clown Fish’

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s ‘Knees’ from the Series ‘Mussalmaan Muscleman’

Juliana Huxtable’s ‘Ari 1’

“Love is the skillful audacity required to share an inner life.”

—Gertrude Stein