by Cynthia Laird
Pat Norman, a trailblazing lesbian in San Francisco who became a “first” in some important city appointments, died August 5 at an assisted living facility in Las Vegas. She was 82.
Karen Langsley, Ms. Norman’s former partner, said in a phone interview that Ms. Norman had suffered from dementia for many years and had other health problems.
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The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously ratified the city’s public health emergency declaration for the monkeypox outbreak at a special meeting August 8, interrupting its summer recess.
Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax addressed the board. “As a gay man who came out personally and professionally at the height of the AIDS epidemic” he said he’s concerned about stigma and discrimination around the monkeypox virus. “We are committed to ensuring discrimination and stigma are confronted head-on,” he said. “Men who have sex with men account for 95% of monkeypox cases in San Francisco.”
The emergency declaration, Colfax said, will help the Department of Public Health “have all the tools we need and help the communities at highest risk.”
During the meeting, city Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip was asked by gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman about an article in the San Jose Mercury News indicating that the Department of Public Health had abandoned contact tracing.
“But San Francisco has never announced publicly whether it is tracing the contacts of infected residents in order to detect and control the spread of a monkeypox outbreak that has affected hundreds, and emails obtained by this news organization indicate
that health department officials are reluctant to answer questions about their strategy,” the paper reported. “It turns out that for this city, contact tracing – a key endeavor during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic,
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Long regarded as nonpartisan, the nation’s school boards recently have been identified as crucial battlegrounds by right-wing and conservative groups, while LGBTQ advocates want to see greater diversity on them.
On May 9, former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who was found guilty in July of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for intentionally defying a subpoena related to the assault on the U.S. Capitol last year, interviewed the winner of the Frisco, Texas, school board on his War Room podcast.
The winner, Stephanie Elad, won her seat after running a campaign “heavily focused on culture war topics, including critical race theory,” according to the Dallas Morning News. Her campaign was supported in part by the conservative political action committee, the 1776 Project, which sent supportive texts to potential voters. The 1776 Project describes itself as “a political action committee dedicated to electing school board members nationwide who want to reform our public education system by promoting patriotism and pride in American history.” (Critical race theory was developed by academics that seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law in the U.S.)
Courtesy TeachHub.com
The LGBTQ Victory Fund and its affiliated Victory Institute is working to see more LGBTQ candidates elected to local school boards.
Bannon touted Elad’s victory as “just the beginning in the nation,” the Dallas Morning News reported. “And this is how we’re going to take the nation back – village by village, school district by school district,” Bannon said on the podcast. At the same time, LGBTQ rights groups such as the LGBTQ Victory Institute have also identified the country’s school boards as a place where LGBTQ voters can have a huge impact.
“Public schools in the U.S. have been under increasingly fervent attack in the past few years,” according to the institute’s eight-page report, “Few & Under Fire: LGBTQ School Board Members in the U.S.,” “LGBTQ students, teachers and administrators have faced the brunt of this vitriol, making LGBTQ representation on school boards more important than ever.”
Across the country, the Victory Fund – the
institute’s PAC – supports LGBTQ candidates in what press secretary Albert Fujii described as down ballot campaigns, those campaigns for office at the local level that often don’t garner as much attention as races for governor or members of Congress. But this year, that may be changing as school districts become more polarized and some states, like Florida, have the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” that prohibits discussions of LGBTQ issues.
“Schools have become ground zero for antiLGBTQ attacks and in many cases, LGBTQ school board members have been specifically targeted,” according to a news release from the Victory Fund.
And with such low numbers – only .01% of the nation’s 90,000 school board members are LGBTQ, according to the fund – increasing representation is vital.
That .01% is “far below the 7.1% of U.S. adults who identify as part of the LGBTQ community. To achieve equitable representation among school board members, U.S. voters would need to elect 6,300 more LGBTQ school board members,” the release stated.
Doing so will increase the ability to introduce pro-LGBTQ policies, said Fujii, in a phone call with the Bay Area Reporter.
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The four candidates vying for the District 6 supervisorial seat, which is up for grabs in this November’s election, faced off in a polite first major debate of the campaign.
Gathering August 6 at Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library main branch for the debate, moderated by Mission Local journalist Joe Eskenazi, gave Matt Dorsey, the appointed D6 supervisor; Honey Mahogany, the trans former chief of staff to former D6 supervisor Matt Haney; labor activist Cherelle Jackson; and longtime trans community activist Ms. Billie Cooper a chance to weigh in on local issues. For attendees and viewers (the program was recorded and posted to Facebook), it was a chance to see how prepared the candidates were to take on those issues.
District 6 includes South of Market, Mission Bay, and Treasure Island.
Mayor London Breed named Dorsey, who is HIV-positive, to the board in May after Haney won election to the state Assembly. Mahogany is also currently chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party.
In the cases of Mahogany and Dorsey, preparation was on exhibit throughout the one-hour forum, as both candidates were able to fall back on experience, as well as rich knowledge of city issues, as they answered questions from both Eskenazi and the audience. For candidates Jackson and Cooper, it was clear that, although passionate, they weren’t as well versed in the particulars in some cases.
Eskenazi led off with a particularly loaded question: “How would you work with your board colleagues and with the mayor to keep District 6 from becoming the citywide dumping and containment unit they apparently expect it to be?”
Dorsey stressed the importance of a single “citywide strategy,” a stance that put him at odds with Breed’s Tenderloin emergency initiative last December, he said, even though he supported the effort. He wanted a strategy that wouldn’t just move the problems currently plaguing the Tenderloin back to other neighborhoods throughout San Francisco. (Due to this year’s redistricting, the Tenderloin, which was once in D6, is now in District 5 and represented by Supervisor Dean Preston.)
“We have the resources to do it,” Dorsey said, and he urged following blueprints established by cities in Europe and New York City with supervised consumption sites. A bill by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) to establish pilot supervised consumption sites in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles
is awaiting action by Governor Gavin Newsom, who can either sign it into law or veto it. Those facilities allow people to use pre-obtained drugs under the supervisor of staff.
Mahogany brought up her four years of experience in Haney’s office, where she “advocated relentlessly” for Navigation Centers in each district across the city. Those allow unhoused people to stay on site with their possessions and partners. She said she agreed with Dorsey that San Francisco needs a citywide strategy for dealing with mental health care, substance abuse issues, homelessness, and affordable housing. All these things could use a citywide approach and, “unfortunately, we’ve seen a failure of that at the Board of Supervisors.” Mahogany said she opposed Dorsey’s proposal to station police around recovery sites because it would only
drive potential clients farther away from help, “and it just becomes somebody else’s problem.” Dorsey, in recovery himself, has advocated for such a program.
Jackson called for investment in nonprofits and housing, calling it “critically important,” as well as helping people learn the skills they need “to compete in the workforce” with funds allocated “in the right way.”
Cooper decried the transfer of the Tenderloin from District 6 to District 5 during redistricting and said, “We have to stop pussyfootin’ around with City Hall and our politicians that sit in the Board of Supervisors chamber…” There has been little to no progress on housing, she said.
The second question revealed just how on top of electoral issues the candidates were. Referring to two measures on the ballot in the upcoming election, Eskenazi asked, “What affordable housing measure you’re supporting on the November ballot and why?”
One proposal, Affordable Homes Now, is backed by Breed. It requires a mixed-income project to meet the city’s 21.5% affordable unit requirement plus another 15% more affordable units. A competing measure by District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan would require the percentage of affordable units to be 29.5% and also requires that additional on-site units include at least 30% two-bedroom units and 20% three-bedrooms.
Cooper replied, “Me and my constituents, and people who look like me, we’re tired of just being tolerated.”
She called out the high rents of new construction that is out of the reach of most Tenderloin residents.
“I’m for housing. We need housing,” she replied when the moderator asked her, again, which ballot measure she would support. A third try didn’t elicit any better response. “I’m really not up on what the measures are,” Cooper finally acknowledged.
Jackson, lamenting how little money seniors, disabled persons, and veterans have to live on, declined to take a position on either measure because she said she believes there needs to be amendments to them.
Mahogany said the two measures sound very much alike on the surface but she was supporting Affordable Homes Now [https:// missionlocal.org/2022/05/affordable-housing-charter-amendmentscompete-whats-the-difference/], proposed by Breed. That measure, Mahogany said, is the only one of the two that streamlines 100% affordable housing. If she could change the measure, Mahogany said she would add language about skilled trades labor and more affordable housing.
“We need to change the way we build affordable housing in San Francisco,” Mahogany said, wrapping up her answer. “We can’t do it alone and we need the state to help us.”
The state announced Tuesday that it is launching an unprecedented review of San Francisco’s housing approval process, which is expected to take months, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Dorsey said he was one of the first supporters of Affordable Homes Now, the charter amendment supported by Breed and Wiener that will accomplish regional housing needs and goals, building more than 82,000 housing units. “There are consequences if we don’t do the necessary work to provide the amount of housing required by the state,” he said, noting that – at worst – the state could step in and assume control of the city’s efforts. With that, he added that he supported a housing plan for the whole city. The days of supervisors supporting something in their district but not in another are over, he said.
“I need to support housing in your district because it helps my district,” said Dorsey.
Eskenazi’s question “What can we do to get people back into downtown?” drew a range of responses, as well.
Dorsey said he had been hearing from small businesses about this matter. Large employers can’t convince their own employees to return to their offices because there are more jobs than people. And many people, particularly tech workers, regard working from home as a perk, he said.
The gross receipts tax structure is based on the number of people working in San Francisco, Dorsey said, adding he doesn’t know whether companies like Google or “big employers” are being forthcoming about their own structures because they have a financial stake in not having people come back to work.
Saying it was something she was “extremely passionate about,” Mahogany said she wasn’t sure that office space in the city would return to its former level of use, so finding alternate uses for existing buildings, such as housing, and then doing what’s necessary to bring tourists back, such as cleaner streets, might help. Nightlife, too, is a big draw for the convention market, and South of Market, where much of District 6 is located, has some of the best nightlife in the city, she said.
Jackson, describing it as an opportunity to innovate, called for investing in small businesses and infrastructure, “but I also think it’s a good time right now to support individuals coming back into the city” so they have ample opportunities to spend their money.
Cooper wasn’t having any of that.
“I feel as though we need to stop pulling people into San Francisco and stop giving people money to come here because we’re not helping the people that are here,” she said, adding that she’s upset because she sees Black and Brown people working but not actually owning any businesses. The city, she said, has done nothing to help them.
“Low-income housing! No BMRs! Because my people can’t afford it!” she said, referring to below-marketrate units.
“What could be done about the situation on the streets of District 6?” Eskenazi asked about the growing drug crisis, adding that if the candidate used the term “accountability,” he wanted to know what that means beyond incarceration. If they were to favor incarceration, how would that work given the state of the city’s jails and limited space in pre-trial detention?
compiled by Cynthia Laird Laney
College in Oakland and College of Alameda, both part of the Peralta Community College District, are offering incentives for students for the fall semester.
Laney College is offering new and continuing students a free fall semester that goes beyond free tuition, a news release stated. The Fall is Free program is open to students who complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or the California Dream Act application, and there are no minimum or maximum units required. Students can take in-person, hybrid, or online courses. (International students are not eligible for the program.)
In addition to free tuition, the program covers textbook costs and the college’s student health fees. Students will also receive free bus passes, free lunch on campus, free weekly produce boxes, and Chromebook and Wi-Fi hotspots to check-out from the library.
“Laney College is thrilled to offer a free fall to most of our students,” stated college President Rudy Besikof. “Now more than ever, we must recognize that college costs that go beyond tuition represent barriers to success for so many students whether they are working adults attending part-time or high school graduates.
With more than 130 programs to choose from, Fall is Free gives students the extra support they need, officials stated. Laney College offers associate degrees, certificates, and associate degrees for transfer, which guarantee admission into a California State University. This fall, there are over 600 classes to choose from, the release stated.
Laney College is located at 900 Fallon Street.
For more information, students can visit the college’s Welcome Center, visit the Fall is Free website or call the Fall is Free helpdesk at (510) 255-3507, open from 9 to 11 a.m. and 1 to 5 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday; 3 to 6 p.m. on Tuesday. Laney will be hosting information sessions for students August 11, 12, 15, and 16 at noon with an additional evening session at 6 p.m. on August 11. Students can also access the online FAQ at https://bit.ly/3Q9PuEl.
In Alameda, the community college will offer students “$500 on Us” for the fall semester. According to a release, to qualify, a student must enroll in three or more units at the College of Alameda for the fall semester, for which classes start August 22, and complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or California Dream Act application by October 1. The funds will be awarded once eligibility is verified and no later than October 31.
“We see the ‘$500 on Us’ campaign as an opportunity to show students we care, and help them kick-start their future at COA,” stated Tina Vasconcellos, Ph.D., vice president of student services. “This campaign was the result of all divisions of the college (instruction, student services, administration, and the office of the president) working together to help students benefit from the transformative power of education.”
She added that students who don’t qualify for traditional financial aid will still get $500. Those who do qualify will get the $500 plus any other forms of aid they may receive.
“We are investing in our students and community – all students, regardless of income – in order to put money in their pockets while we provide them with a pathway to a four-year university degree,” stated Nathaniel Jones III, Ph.D., COA president. College of Alameda is located at 555 Ralph Appezzato Memorial Parkway. For more information or to enroll, students can visit the college’s website at https://alameda.edu/. College of Alameda is open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Students
are welcome to visit the College’s Rock EnRoll Days on August 15 and 22 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. These are opportunities for new students to get assistance with application, registration, financial aid, and connect with student support programs. Free food and drinks will also be available.
Santa Clara has openings on bike panel
The city of Santa Clara has an opening to fill a partial term on its Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Com-
mittee. The term ends June 30, 2024.
According to an email announcement, the advisory body reports to the City Council. Its goal is to encourage recreational and commuter biking and walking by promoting safe, convenient, well-designed facilities and by evaluating local bicycle- and pedestrian-related projects.
Interested residents of the South Bay city can apply online at https://bit. ly/3Qgwhku. The deadline is Wednesday, August 31.
The California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network has a new director. Dannie Caseña will lead the statewide coalition that works to advance LGBTQ health equity. He takes over from Amanda McAllister-Wallner, who stepped down at the end of July. She will continue to provide stra tegic guidance as deputy director of health access, a news release stated.
Caseña is the first Indigenous Two-Spirit with Mexica roots to be director of health. The release stated that he has over 15
years of experience working with nonprofits in program development and advocacy. He also has extensive knowledge in creating transgender and gender-nonconforming health care collaborations by utilizing upstream interventions and addressing the root cause of the lack of access to TGNCaffirming health care, the release stated.
McAllister-Wallner stated that she’s glad Caseña’s on board as the next director.
“I feel fortunate to have had a front-row seat to Dannie’s work
and leadership over the past four years, and have no doubt that he will take the network to exciting new heights in the coming years,” she stated.
Among Caseña’s work is as one of the partners in the California Tobacco Control Program. He is responsible for building the We Breathe: Supporting Tobacco-Free LGBTQ Communities from the ground up, and has established the program as a leader statewide, nationally, and even internationally, the release stated.
He stated that he’s looking forward to the new position.
“Amanda has done a tremendous job in taking a small program that is housed at Health Access and turning it into a statewide powerhouse and organization that has name recognition and respect among many state departments,” Caseña stated. “Even though I am following in the footsteps of a legend, I look forward to working closely with our steering committee and deepening our work in state advocacy and policy for equitable and accessible LGBTQ health care.” For more information on the network, go to https://californialgbtqhealth.org/t
Researchers, policymakers, advocates, and people living with HIV converged in Montreal July 29 to August 2 for the 24th International AIDS Conference, the first such confab since the 2020 meeting, slated for San Francisco and Oakland, pivoted to a completely virtual format due to COVID-19. This year’s hybrid format included 9,500 in-person and nearly 2,000 virtual participants.
Despite remarkable gains in HIV treatment and prevention, barriers stand in the way of universal access. Key populations including gay and bisexual men, adolescent girls and young women, transgender people, sex workers, and people who use drugs continue to face stigma that keeps them from accessing the tools they need. And now, monkeypox poses a new threat to some of the same communities hard hit by AIDS. Even access to the conference itself was restricted, as many would-be participants were denied visas to enter Canada.
UNAIDS released a new report on the state of the global pandemic, showing that “the AIDS response has been blown off course,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, who herself was nearly denied entry into the country.
According to the report, 38.4 million people were living with HIV and 650,000 people died of AIDS in 2021. About 1.5 million new HIV infections were reported in 2021, exceeding the global target by more than a million. While three-quarters of people living with HIV were on antiretroviral therapy in 2021, the number of treated people grew slower than it has in over a decade.
“The latest findings reveal that the response to the AIDS pandemic has been derailed by global crises, from the colliding pandemics of HIV and COVID to the war in Ukraine and the resulting global economic crisis,” Byanyima said. “Progress has been stalled, inequalities have widened, resources have shrunk, and millions of lives are now at risk.”
Speaking at a session July 31, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci concurred, stating, “There has without a doubt been a backslide in the HIV response.”
Among the scientific highlights of the meeting was a report that a Southern California man appears to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell trans-
plant from a donor with a rare mutation that makes cells resistant to the virus. As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, this risky procedure is not appropriate for the vast majority of people with HIV who do not have lifethreatening cancer, but advocates saw more hope in the news that a woman in Spain maintained viral remission for 15 years after stopping antiretroviral therapy.
With the availability of highly effective treatment, people who maintain an undetectable viral load do not transmit HIV, a concept dubbed “undetectable equals untransmittable,” or U=U. U.S. officials including gay men Harold Phillips, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of HIV Prevention and newly appointed national monkeypox response deputy coordinator, announced their full support of U=U, as did Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam.
Also on the treatment front, researchers, including a team from Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, reported success using long-acting cabotegravir/rilpivirine (Cabenuva), a new treatment that can be administered by injection every other month.
Long-acting cabotegravir injections alone (Apretude) are also highly effective for preventing HIV. The World Health Organization added the new regimen to its recommended PrEP options, and ViiV Healthcare and the Medicines Patent Pool announced a voluntary patent licensing agreement to enable generic manufacturers to make injectable PrEP more affordable worldwide.
But there was also discouraging news on the PrEP front, as CDC researchers reported that disparities in PrEP use have widened over time, with Black and Latino people – the groups at highest risk for HIV – being less likely to use it.
Despite the mixed news, new International AIDS Society President Dr. Sharon Lewin ended the conference on a note of optimism.
“From our perspective as those engaged in the global HIV response, it is easy to take a pessimistic view and to fear that the rise of another pandemic has drawn energy and attention from our work,” she said. “I like to take a more optimistic view. ... Let us capitalize on the global surge in awareness around infectious diseases and their impact on human rights.”
Turning to the latest global health crisis, leading experts and public health officials discussed the growing monkeypox outbreak at a hastily organized media roundtable on July 31.
“Having worked in HIV for so long, we want to make sure that some of the mistakes in the early response to HIV are not going to be repeated in this situation,” Lewin told reporters.
As of August 5, the CDC has identified 7,510 monkeypox cases in the United States. Worldwide, there are now more than 28,000 cases. California reported 1,310 cases and the San Francisco Department of Public Health counted 444.
While anyone can get monkeypox through close physical contact, cases remain overwhelmingly concentrated among gay, bisexual, transgender, and other men who have sex with men.
“The epidemiology is becoming
From page 1
To date, the Victory Fund has endorsed 13 school board candidates around the country, Fujii said, and a few have already been successful, including Alex Ruggiers in Norman, Oklahoma, who in April won a seat as the first openly LGBTQ person on that city’s school board. The fund expects to endorse new candidates monthly, Fujii said.
Here in the Bay Area, there are several LGBTQ candidates seeking local school board seats. The Victory Fund has endorsed gay San Leandro Unified School District board President James Aguilar, who is running for reelection.
Aguilar did not return a message seeking comment, but his campaign website notes that he is running because “our school district needs strong and bold leadership to work towards equity, and to keep putting students first.”
Another local gay candidate is Leland Traiman, who’s running for a
4 telebriefing that the federal government has shipped more than 602,000 Jynneos doses to states and has allocated a total of 1.1 million doses. The government anticipates that an additional 150,000 doses will arrive next month, but Daskalakis said the supply and demand mismatch will probably continue through the summer and into the fall.
On Saturday, August 5, SF DPH announced on Twitter that the city has been allocated another 10,000 doses from the federal supply, more than double the previous two shipments.
more clear as time goes on,” said Dr. Meg Doherty, WHO’s director of global HIV, hepatitis and sexually transmitted infection programs.
On August 4, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra declared the growing monkeypox outbreak a national public health emergency, as the B.A.R. reported. (https://www.ebar.com/ story.php?ch=News&sc=Latest%20
News&id=317843) The designation follows California Governor Gavin Newsom issuing a state of emergency August 1 and San Francisco’s public health department declaring a public health state of emergency July 29.
Reporters asked numerous questions at the media roundtable, but Dr. Marina Klein of McGill University in Montreal acknowledged that many of them don’t yet have answers. The exact mechanisms of transmission aren’t known, nor is it clear whether the respiratory route is important or whether people can transmit the virus before they develop symptoms. There’s little data showing how well the new Jynneos vaccine works or whether treatment with TPOXX (tecovirimat) reduces symptoms or lessens viral shedding.
Health officials, clinicians, and advocates agree that the global monkeypox vaccine supply is not keeping up with demand. Two doses of Jynneos are needed a month apart. Due to supply constraints, many cities, including San Francisco, have resorted to a one-dose strategy to give twice as many people partial protection as soon as possible, rather than holding second doses in reserve. But given the shortage, it is unclear whether people will be able to get their second dose on schedule.
Becerra told reporters at an August
But advocates say this is not enough. As Daskalakis started to speak at a monkeypox symposium in Montreal on Monday, August 1, dozens of protesters – including many veteran AIDS activists – stormed the stage, demanding wider and more equitable access to vaccines and therapeutics in the United States and worldwide.
“We need to act now,” said James Krellenstein of PrEP4All, which has taken the lead on monkeypox advocacy. “We’re in a worsening outbreak that could have easily been prevented.”
The activists’ list of demands includes “decisive leadership” from WHO and the United Nations on global monkeypox vaccine and treatment access, including efforts to scale up production. They called for “immediate transfer of intellectual property, know-how and technology” to manufacturers around the world that can make vaccines, treatments and diagnostics.
The activists also demanded that higher-income countries make good on their commitment to be a “vaccine arsenal for the world.” Advocates are loath to see a repeat of the inequitable global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
In an effort to stretch the limited vaccine supply, the U.S. is exploring an alternative administration method in which a single-dose vial of Jynneos, which is now given as a subcutaneous injection, is split into five doses injected under the upper layer of the skin, known as intradermal administration. The skin contains plentiful immune cells that can recognize viral antigens in the vaccine, triggering a strong immune response.
“There are some advantages to intradermal administration, including an improved immune response to the vaccine,” Dr. Robert Califf, a commissioner with the Food and Drug Administration, said on the teleconference call. “It’s important to know that that overall safety and efficacy profile will not be sacrificed with this approach.” t
seat on the Alameda Unified School District board.
In an email, Traiman, who came up short in his campaign for a seat on the Alameda school board in 2020, said he was mostly running “against” the current board. He was the lead plain-
tiff in a lawsuit that got a 2020 school parcel tax invalidated, he stated. “Reduce class size, not classroom hours,” Traiman’s ballot statement reads. “Financial responsibility with taxpayers’ money is the most
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At Thursday’s meeting of the Castro Merchants Association, the first following its July recess, members had the chance to speak with District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who laid out ideas to help the neighborhood’s business owners tackle the ongoing issues of petty theft, vandalism, and the presence of unhoused, and often, mentally ill individuals who have gravitated to the district over the past couple of years.
Just before Jenkins began speaking to the group, meeting via Zoom, former District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was routed in a recall election in June, announced on Twitter that he would not seek reelection to the office to which Jenkins was appointed by Mayor London Breed in July. (Jenkins will be on the ballot in November to complete Boudin’s term; in media interviews before he left office, including with the Bay Area Reporter, Boudin had not ruled out seeking his old job.)
“I’ve also taken stock of the burden that more than three years of nearly non-stop campaigning placed on my family,” Boudin wrote on Twitter around 10 a.m. “I’m committed to criminal justice reform; I’m also committed to my family … I am choosing to put my family first: I will not be running for office in 2022.”
Jenkins, who told the B.A.R. that Boudin’s decision would have no impact on her own campaign for the office, which she officially declared August 8, declined to comment.
At the merchants’ meeting, however, Jenkins had plenty to say, including ideas for making the DA’s office more responsive
to neighborhood needs. Among them, plans to re-institute the formation of community affinity groups as well as the implementation of community prosecutors.
This was Jenkins’ first appearance before the merchants group, and her second visit in the community – even if only virtually –since she did a walk-through in the Castro a few weeks ago with gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman. She promised CMA members she planned to show up regularly in the neighborhood.
Jenkins was warmly received by CMA members, who peppered her with questions about the district’s ongoing problems with unhoused individuals who like to hang out, particularly in front of Walgreens, at the corner of 18th and Castro
streets. Locals have taken to referring to the corner as “the morgue,” Dave Karraker, CMA co-president, told attendees. There, it’s not unusual to find people passed out, or camped out begging for change from passersby. Jenkins assured CMA members she was aware of their concerns.
“I know that you all have been very vocal with the supervisor [Rafael Mandelman] and he’s been very vocal with me,” she told merchants. He’s the one supervisor who has brought her to his district and sat her down and addressed specific concerns, she said.
“I was able to gather a lot of information on the merchant walk. I want you to know first and foremost, I am committed to finding solutions,” she said.
Her vision for community prosecutors is similar to a program put in place by her predecessor, she said, consisting of community liaisons, with the department’s assistant DA’s volunteering to fill those positions.
“I know there’s one for the Tenderloin and the Bayview,” she said in an interview with the B.A.R. following the meeting. It’s been, however, more of an informal program. The assistant DA’s attend monthly neighborhood meetings, which would occasionally include representatives from the San Francisco Police Department.
As the B.A.R. previously reported, District 8, which includes the Castro, had two different liaisons from the DA’s office during Boudin’s tenure.
Jenkins’ idea, still in the formative stages, would take a more formal approach and would see a prosecutor assigned – possibly part-time – to the various precinct police stations around the city where they would then cover the various neighborhoods served by that station. Jenkins said the program could take effect relatively quickly.
“Very soon,” Jenkins said. “Over the course of the next six weeks is what I’m looking at.”
The community affinity groups, a program instituted under former District Attorney George Gascón, who served as San Francisco’s DA from 2011 to 2019 before being elected to the same position in Los Angeles in 2020, represented many of the city’s various communities. There were groups representing African Americans and Latinos, as well as Asian American and Pacific Islanders, and the LGBTQ community. Jenkins said she has heard a number of communities express interest in the affinity groups since she became DA.
“We used to have monthly meetings where members would sit down and have an agenda to discuss particular topics and questions they wanted to address,” she said. The DA would often attend these meetings, as well, she added.
“They were sort of representing the voice of the overall community to the district attorney’s office and we could work together,” said Jenkins.
It could be a little while before these groups are organized, however. With things still “rapidly changing” in the DA’s office, it’s a matter of prioritizing what needs to be done first, the DA said.
“Everything for me is, I want to do it right away,” she said. t
Volume 52, Number 32
August 11-17, 2022
www.ebar.com
PUBLISHER
Michael M. Yamashita
Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013)
Publisher (2003 – 2013)
Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003)
NEWS EDITOR
Cynthia Laird
ARTS & NIGHTLIFE EDITOR
Jim Provenzano
ASSISTANT EDITORS
Matthew S. Bajko • Eric Burkett
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Tavo Amador • Christopher J. Beale
Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth
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Now that San Francisco, California, and the U.S. have emergency declarations for monkeypox in effect, officials at all levels of government must quickly ramp up efforts for testing, vaccinations, and treatment. While there are some positive developments on all fronts, it bears repeating that the overall response, especially at the federal level, which controls vaccine distribution and, until recently, had a lock on testing, has been dismal. If this outbreak had been primarily affecting ANY group other than men who have sex with men, we think that there would have been a vastly different – and quicker – response. And while it’s true that the country’s public health infrastructure has been woefully underfunded for years, that’s no excuse in this case, when the feds had millions of doses of the Jynneos vaccine in the national stockpile, only to allow them to expire, rendering them useless.
As John Oliver said on his “Last Week Tonight” show the other day, the U.S. could have sent those vaccines to countries in Africa where monkeypox has been endemic for years. This country could have been a good neighbor. That’s the difference between monkeypox and COVID – the U.S. had all the tools to combat the outbreak from the beginning, yet still fell behind, which allowed the virus to spread. Talking heads wondered during the early months of COVID if the country was ready for the next epidemic. Clearly, the answer is no, it is not.
The recent emergency declarations are a good first step that should have been taken much earlier. For San Francisco, the declaration of a local emergency is a legal action that will mobilize city resources, accelerate emergency planning, streamline staffing, coordinate agencies across the city, allow for future reimbursement by the state and federal governments, and raise awareness about preventing monkeypox in the community, according to health officials and the mayor’s office. The Board of Supervisors interrupted its August recess on Monday to ratify the declaration and heard from Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip about how it could help the city get more of the Jynneos vaccine. (The city recently received 10,000 doses, less than is needed but way more than previous shipments.)
Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman,
The Jynneos monkeypox vaccine continues to be in short supply.
Courtesy HHS
however, had some tough questions for Philip, particularly regarding the long lines of people waiting to get vaccinated outside Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. He urged the creation of an online appointment system similar to what was used for the COVID vaccines. Philip was able to say that the state, which declared its monkeypox emergency August 1, is in the process of utilizing its MyTurn system, which was put in place for COVID, for monkeypox shots and that it should be completed by the end of the month. But Philip also noted that jurisdictions that have pivoted to online appointments are seeing frustration among people because the slots fill up so quickly. We think a hybrid system would work the best, with both online appointments and drop-in options. There still remains a class issue in that not everyone can afford to take a day off of work to stand in line for a shot. That needs to change, as several supervisors have pointed out.
It’s also worth noting that Philip said medical providers Kaiser Permanente, UCSF, and Sutter Health are all able to provide monkeypox vaccines to people in their networks. These providers need to do a better job of letting their clients know this is available. It would take some of the pressure off SFGH if people can go to other medical centers. Men who have sex with men and trans people who have sex with men if they’ve had multiple sexual partners and sex workers regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity are eligible for the vaccine, accord-
ing to DPH. Persons who have had close contact in the last 14 days with someone with suspected or confirmed monkeypox are also eligible.
Public health officials also need to address stigma, since the current monkeypox outbreak is mostly affecting men who have sex with men and their sexual partners. Most officials have been regularly pointing out that anyone can get monkeypox through close personal contact, but there is still this sense of stigmatizing the gay, bi, and trans male communities.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a gay man who’s director of HIV prevention for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was just named the deputy director of President Joe Biden’s White House National Monkeypox Response. He told reporters last week that the response team is planning to partner with social media influencers to get messages out about monkeypox with nonstigmatizing messages. That’s a good idea. We also like what the San Francisco AIDS Foundation has been doing. Ahead of last month’s Up Your Alley leather and kink street fair, it released “Douchie’s guide to a Dore Alley without fear of monkeypox.”
The information remains relevant even after the street fair, and we hope SFAF continues to use Douchie’s message ahead of the Folsom Street Fair. It’s a good guide for guys going to any parties or get-togethers and written in a sex-positive way that has earned praise.
At gay state Senator Scott Wiener’s (D-San Francisco) meeting Tuesday of the select Senate Committee on Monkeypox, Joe Hollendoner, the former SFAF CEO who’s now in the same position at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, suggested the state compile a comprehensive list of where and when vaccines will become available. Kristen Hwang of CalMatters was following the hearing and tweeted that this would mitigate the stampede of people searching for the vaccine.
CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during the feds’ announcement of an emergency declaration August 4 that testing capacity has greatly expanded. Local officials have said the same thing, now that more labs are able to run the tests, which can only be done by swabbing the lesions.
We can’t say it enough – more must be done to make up for the lost opportunities that allowed the infections to spread because the government’s response was so poor. t
On June 11, San Lorenzo Library, part of the Alameda County (CA) Library system, hosted a Drag Queen Story Hour as part of the library’s annual Pride Month programming. As the event began, members of a local chapter of the Proud Boys – a national hate group – entered the library and shouted homophobic and transphobic slurs at the event’s performer while families and children were in attendance.
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I was present at the story hour that day; a post on the right-wing social media account Libs of TikTok two weeks prior to the event tipped us off that there might be trouble. I’m extremely proud of how our San Lorenzo Library team responded, including getting our performer, Panda Dulce, and the children and families safely out of the room. I am grateful for our partnership with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, deputies’ quick response, and their ongoing investigation of the alleged crime. I am also grateful for the courage, conviction, and general fabulousness of Panda Dulce, who not only finished the story hour after the protesters were removed, but has spoken bravely and publicly about the experience.
My team and I have fielded a lot of questions in the last two months. One is: Why does Drag Queen Story Hour belong in public libraries? This is an honest question asked by well-meaning people. I’ve learned that some folks don’t initially get the connection between public libraries and drag culture.
A great resource for learning more is the website (and social media) of the nonprofit group, Drag Queen Story Hour (https:// www.dragqueenstoryhour.org/). Its mission statement explains that “Drag Queen Story Hour celebrates reading through the glamorous art of drag. Our chapter network creates diverse, accessible, and culturally-inclusive family programming where kids can express their authentic selves and become bright lights of change in their communities.”
Courtesy San Lorenzo Library
Alameda County librarian Cindy Chadwick, Ph.D., delivers remarks at the July 27 kick-off for Every Month is Pride Month at the San Lorenzo Library that was sponsored by District 3 Supervisor Dave Brown.
The art of drag has a long and diverse herstory; as RuPaul famously put it, “We’re all born naked. The rest is drag.” Drag is a flexible and multi-faceted art form. Drag Queen Story Hour is tailored to the age of the attendees (children) and to the performance space (a public library). Nothing age-inappropriate happens; as one librarian put it, “It’s a person in a pretty dress reading stories to kids – the same as any other story hour.”
There are at least two big benefits to Drag Queen Story Hour. In an interview after the June 11 incident, Panda Dulce put it this way: “When you do story hour, sometimes there are queer kids, and you can really tell because they light up in a way where you just know, and you have that immediate connection. ... Words can’t capture what that feels like.” As
librarians, we believe books can be both windows and mirrors; some books provide windows into unfamiliar worlds, and some books reflect and confirm our own experiences. Both are important for children – and adults. For some kids, Drag Queen Story Hour is a window into a new, colorful world; for others, it reflects and confirms a deeper part of themselves. That sense of exploration and discovery is at the heart of public libraries.
A second benefit is that Drag Queen Story Hour provides a space for families to connect. An essential mission of public libraries is connecting community members in spaces that are open to all. Librarians want folks not just to feel welcome at the library, but to feel like they belong. We want everyone to feel that the library is their space – because it is. Libraries are one of the few institutions that belong to all of us, equally.
In such a space, not everyone is going to agree with everything they see or experience.
As we sometimes jokingly, but proudly, say, “We have books to offend everyone!” But we believe it’s essential that our communities find ways to connect, even with our different opinions, beliefs, and experiences.
The library is the perfect place for this connection; in fact, the vision statement of Alameda County Library is “Kind, Connected Humans.” Come to the library to find kindness, to find connection, to find people –even, or perhaps especially, people who see the world differently than you.
And if you can’t abide what is happening, you don’t have to come, or let your children come.
Drag Queen Story Hour is all about connection – connecting with our own creativity and joy, and connecting with others. Drag Queen Story Hour belongs in public libraries.t
Cindy Chadwick, Ph.D., is an Alameda County librarian.
Oakland resident Nick Resnick, a married father of two sons, is vying for a seat on the school board that oversees the Oakland Unified School District. Should he be elected, Resnick would become the first-ever known LGBTQ person to serve on it.
He would also become the first known transgender person to be elected to a local school board in the Bay Area, as well as in California. According to a list of out LGBTQ elected officials maintained by the LGBTQ Victory Institute, the only trans elected education official listed from the Golden State is Cabrillo Community College Board of Trustees member
Adam SpicklerAs the Bay Area Reporter noted in 2018 when Spickler was appointed to the college board in lieu of an election, since no one else ran for his Area II seat, he became the first transgender man to hold public office in California. Spickler is now seeking reelection this year to another four-year term.
Resnick, 37, in 2016, ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the East Bay’s Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees. Since then he and his wife, Kelly, a real estate agent, welcomed the birth of their son Dylan, who is now 4 and in his last year of preschool. Their eldest son, Jude, is now 7 and attends their local public elementary school.
Speaking to the B.A.R. last month, Resnick noted, “I would be the first LGBTQ school board member ever, which is crazy in Oakland Unified.”
He said that he doesn’t know of any current transgender school board member whom he could reach out to for advice, nor is he aware of any other trans candidates running for school board seats this fall.
“I am surprised by that,” said Resnick, who moved to the Bay Area from the East Coast at the age of 22 due to it being “a hub” for LGBTQ individuals and expected someone else who is trans would already have been elected to a school board seat.
(In San Francisco, several trans
Letters >>
people have sought election to the city’s school board but came up short in their campaigns.)
During his first race for public office, Resnick was not as comfortable talking publicly about his gender identity or sexual orientation – he identifies as queer. Today, amid attacks on families like his, and the rolling back of rights for transgender youth and other gendernonconforming individuals, Resnick is much more willing to serve as a public role model.
“We need representation in front of our parents and children that looks like them and shows them whatever they want is possible,” said Resnick. “I want them to feel like they have a voice and a space in places of power focused on their safety and their development. We need to be ensuring that the people around them know how to best support them.”
The Resnicks live in the Oakland hills, which is part of the school board’s District 4 seat. The incumbent, Gary Yee, told the website Oaklandside in July that he didn’t plan to seek reelection but would make a formal announcement in August.
Yee, currently school board president, is listed among the various elect-
Seeing all these young people standing in line at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center to get a monkeypox vax, for many of us I have to ask: since those who are at risk most (the elderly and those with compromised immune systems), why are none of us informed as to where we can possibly get vaxed? Who is informing the people who I see in line and why are the rest of us not getting the memo? That is, exactly who do you have to know to get in line and where are the priorities in reaching out?
John Mortimer San FranciscoLike anyone who considers the U.S. a democracy, author James Kirchick is clueless [“Author explores DC’s gay past in ‘Secret City,” July 20]. “The movement,” he states, “has achieved nearly everything it needs for gay people in terms of equal rights and legal rights and protections, we are equal citizens, full stop…it should declare unilateral victory.” He glosses over the Florida schoolteachers now forbidden to mention same-sex relationships; he ignores Texas Republicans calling homosexuality an “abnormal” choice not entitled to protection from discrimination. According to Kirchick, “we should be directing our attention [to] the real medieval treatment of gay people in places like Iran, Uganda, China, or Russia ... countries that are not democracies are really suffering.”
The country that’s not a democracy is the U.S., and are we ever suffering. Our last president, Donald Trump, having lost to Hillary Clinton by 3,000,000 votes (democracy?), appointed three reactionary, unaccountable Supreme Court justices for life whose decisions 70%
ed and community leaders who have endorsed Resnick in the race. Among his backers is Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Oakland school board member Clifford Thompson
“Momentum is continuing to build for our priorities: academic achievement, fiscal responsibility, and civility not hostility on the school board,” noted Resnick in an August 8 email to supporters.
Resnick, who graduated from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland with an additional focus in sociology, received a master’s degree in education from Alliant International University in San Francisco. He formerly worked as a middle school teacher for the Oakland school district before departing for other educational career opportunities.
He had served as the math in common manager at the nonprofit California Education Partners. Since January 2021 Resnick has been the CEO at Inquiry by Design, which works on curriculums for students.
Resnick said one of the main reasons he decided to seek the school board seat is to ensure parents have a voice on it. He noted that of the current seven school board members, only one has a child who is now in high school.
“Parents who are living the decisions and experiences in our schools should have a voice on our school board,” argued Resnick.
He noted that he could potentially serve as that parental voice for years to come as his sons receive their education.
“I am a trans man and queer-identified parent of two children in our system. I am also a previous teacher and a community member for 15 years,” said Resnick. “I have seen firsthand the injustice within our education system, both at the state and federal level, as well as here in Oakland.”
Yet, Resnick said he believes it is possible for Oakland to have “great schools for every child and every family” no matter where they reside. He pledged to remain focused on that goal as a school board member.
See page 11 >>
of us oppose. Emboldened by this new cohort, Justice Clarence Thomas is now inviting challenges to legalized same-sex relations and marriage. Yet missionaries like Kirchick want us to be preaching to China and Russia when we should be fighting Washington.
And notice who’s missing from Kirchick’s democracydeficit list: U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia (no elections, homosexuality punishable by death, gay men tortured and executed) and Bahrain, home to U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, where “accusations of homosexuality ... are levied against critics of the Bahraini government ... [as a] means of bullying reformers” (Wikipedia).
Kirchick only pounds approved U.S. punching bags, not just China and Iran, but also trans anti-war activist Chelsea Manning, who, he once wrote, should “face the strictest possible punishment for [her] treachery” (https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgg838/what-ifchelsea-manning-was-russian). When RT News asked him about her court-martial he refused to answer, instead choosing to attack Russia. For missionaries the problem is always elsewhere, never here. Kirchick praises Washington’s gay apparatchiks – “the perseverance of these people who served their country when their country didn’t want them is important to acknowledge” – but Manning’s service outweighs theirs. The former Army private who exposed U.S. violence in Iraq revealed the truth of a criminal occupation, and paid for it with jail and treatment Yale and Harvard law professors called “a violation of the criminal statute against torture” (https:// www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/04/28/private-mannings-humiliation/).
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It may have been a summer of leisure for many high school students, but not for 17-year-old Amara Fernandes. The Santa Clara resident spent her school break bolstering her leadership skills.
She was one of 300 communityfocused high school juniors and seniors from across the U.S. selected for the Bank of America Student Leaders class of 2022. Launched in 2004, the program annually selects students for the eight-week paid summer internship interested in gaining first-hand experience in serving their communities.
Their experience wraps with a multi-day Leadership Summit led by the Close Up Foundation. Held virtually this year due to the ongoing COVID pandemic, the summit allows the participants to meet with members of Congress, and hear from civil and human rights leaders. The Stanford University Young Democracy at Home program also engages them in conversations about current issues facing young people today.
“I am really passionate about social justice and community engagement and I wanted to find something to do for this summer,” said Fernandes, who for two years has taken part in the South Bay Youth Changemakers’ program aimed at empowering Asian American youth. “I wanted to do something more politically focused, so I did research online and found this. I thought it was interesting so I applied.”
She was one of five students from Silicon Valley accepted for the program this year.
“These students are the future of Silicon Valley, which is why programs like Student Leaders are one way we can provide paid opportunities for them to gain positive employment experience, while developing a diverse pipeline of talent as they enter our local workforce,” stated Bank of America Silicon Valley President Raquel González.
Of South Asian descent, Fernandes and her younger sister are first-generation Americans. Their parents, who both work in tech, emigrated from India; their father grew up in Mumbai, while their mother is
originally from the port city of Mangalore.
Fernandes identifies as LGBTQ, and speaking to the Bay Area Reporter last month via videoconferencing, she explained that she is still determining how to define her sexual orientation.
“I am not super sure right now. I used to think I was bisexual, but now I am more queer,” said Fernandes, who also interned with bisexual Assemblyman Alex Lee (D-San Jose), at 27 one of the youngest members of the Legislature, and credits him with helping her embrace her own identity.
Her family found out that she is queer due to her applying for the leadership program. On her application she listed being the events and activities director for Shepherd, the LGBTQ+ advocacy club at Archbishop Mitty High School. She is an incoming senior of the Catholic school in San Jose, and the club’s name is a double entendre referring both to the slain gay college student Matthew Shepard as well as the biblical figure who leads their flock.
“I didn’t have a traditional coming out conversation like most people do,” explained Fernandes, who had couched her involvement in the student club to her parents as being focused on “community engagement.”
So when her mother saw Shepherd
described as being for LGBTQ+ students on her application, she asked Fernandes if it “was fair” for her to take a leadership role from someone in that community.
“I said, ‘Well, funny story!’ and it went from there,” recalled Fernandes, adding of her parents, “They are really supportive, and I am really grateful for that.”
For her internship, for which she was paid $17 an hour and received a Chromebook, Fernandes was teamed with the LGBTQ Youth Space in downtown San Jose. It is a part of Family & Children Services of Silicon Valley, which is a division of Caminar. Fernandes helped with the twice-weekly queer hangouts on Monday and Friday evenings.
“I am hoping to be able to help out the LGBTQ community in a way I haven’t been able to do before. All of my work has been through my school’s LGBTQ club and program,” she said. “We do activism and campaigns, but I have not ever had a chance to go out to the community and help people not in the diocesan community. It is exciting working with the LGBTQ Youth Space.”
One aspect of the youth program she particularly enjoyed was she didn’t have to address her own identity if she didn’t want to.
“You are allowed to exist as yourself. Most of the time you play games and have a sense of community and an affirming space,” she explained.
“You are not always talking about yourself all the time. It is a space to be yourself.”
Her time at the program also introduced her to LGBTQ older adults who are comfortable with their own identities, something she hadn’t been exposed to prior, said Fernandes.
“At the youth space you interact with adults very much in control of themselves and in love with their identities. That’s not something I have seen before, I’ve only interacted with youth and a couple LGBTQ moderators,” said Fernandes. “To see adults and leaders in the community unapologetically themselves, I never thought was something I would find, but it has been really great.”
The leadership skills she has gleaned from the internship will help her navigate a delicate line of having support from her high school administrators and facing pushback from the Diocese of San Jose, which oversees the nationally recognized college preparatory school. Via the Shepherd club, Fernandes is aiming to carve out a “safe space” for herself and other students like her both on campus and within the local Catholic community.
“I take point on effective organization and brainstorming for various ways in which our club can take action or provide a welcoming environment to those who need it,” wrote Fernandes in explaining her club role. “Recently, there have been some issues with the restriction of LGBTQ+ representation by the diocese, and planning campaigns and events to speak out about this problem has opened my eyes to the direct impact I can make in the community at large.”
Certain things, such as at the start of school encouraging students to ask each other what pronouns they prefer, have gone over well with full support from teachers and school leaders, said Fernandes. During Black History Month in February and Women’s History Month in March, attention is given to LGBTQ famous historical figures, she noted.
“We find ways to celebrate and raise awareness that is considered as a Pride event but with more intersectionality,” said Fernandes, adding
the Shepherd is pushing for more LGBTQ history to be embedded into the school curriculum.
But the diocese nixed a planned production of the musical “Head Over Heels” last school year, a decision Shepherd club members suspect was due to it having a samesex romance subplot.
“The problem isn’t with the school community,” said Fernandes. “It is true that most Catholic schools in this area are very accepting. But the diocese has to adhere to church teachings.”
Fernandes told the B.A.R. that she likes certain aspects of Catholicism but questions how people approach it and worries about there continuing to be a separation between church and state.
“I do enjoy, fundamentally, what the religion is about. For me that is caring for other people, helping the community, serving others, and being compassionate,” she said. “The problem for me, and so many other people, comes with the structure put into this religion and hierarchy.”
As for her future goals, Fernandes will be applying to colleges on both coasts, some of which are also religiously affiliated, to pursue a degree in political science with a minor in philosophy. As for a career, she is aiming to be a lawyer.
In the meantime, she is preparing for her senior year at school, where she is also a leader in a club that promotes environmental issues and recycling, an award-winning orator who mentors and coaches the 50-member debate team, and takes parts in an advocacy club that pitches legislation on social issues, like immigration, to lawmakers.
“Looking outside and seeing what is happening right now is a big motivator for me. Even things that don’t directly affect me, affect other people,” said Fernandes, who is inspired by the ideas of the late philosophers Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Immanuel Kant. “I use philosophical discussion to apply to my own empathy and my own sense of justice. It has been really helpful in terms of motivating me to do better.” t
If one goes looking, they can find plenty of online quizzes and tests that will supposedly tell them just how transgender they are. Many of them, like the somewhat infamous Combined Gender Identity and Transsexuality Inventory, or COGATI, test that many early 2000s-era trans people subjected themselves to, are full of stereotypes of feminism and masculinity, and are as scientific as rubbing a dandelion flower under your chin to tell if you like butter.
They’ll typically only tell you the answer you expect to hear.
There’s an easier way to get an answer, however, and that can be deter mined in just one question: have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a gender different from what you are right now?
If so, yes, you may well be transgender. Congratulations. Someone will be along shortly with your flag.
Now I’m being a bit reductive, you might say, and you are right. A brief, passing notion may not be the same. There are certainly plenty of other reasons that might cause a person to ponder such.
Yet if you have found yourself wondering that more than a few times, if perhaps you’ve looked at trans people with some envy, wishing you could transition, but deciding something insurmountable is in your way – such as your current appearance – then I may have some news for you.
This is not the thought process of a non-transgender person.
I was very fortunate, given the time and place I grew up, to hear about trans lives. There really wasn’t much out there that I could get at the time, however, and that scarcity certainly delayed my transition by a decade or so.
Even today, where information is relatively easy to come across, not everyone may be able to process it for themselves for some time, due to any number of reasons.
Some may live a great deal of their lives before the realization dawns on them that they, too, may be transgender. That is OK.
It is very healthy, as a human, to re-assess based on new information. When we touch a hot stove, we quickly learn that this is a painful behavior – and that we shouldn’t do that in the future.
There is a difference, of course, between knowing you may be transgender and acting on that knowledge. You may not currently be in a place where you can: you may be living with parents who won’t be supportive, or in a state that is actively trying to ban trans lives. I’m not advocating you take a risk you aren’t able to take right now, and I feel it worth noting that having to hold off on a transition, or even detransition given unwelcoming circumstances, is a perfectly valid step you may have to take. There’s no shame in doing what you have to do to survive.
Heck, not all of us even want to transition in a traditional sense; we just want to find our own path. That’s just as valid.
By the same token, as we learn more about our feelings, our sense of self, and about our gender identity, we may also find ourselves reconsidering how this plays out in our lives.
This brings me to one other important note: if you can, well, there is also no shame in experimenting.
To be human is to be in a state of constant change. We age throughout our entire lives, going from babies to children to teens to adults, and so on. Our interests change over the years, as to our values and knowledge. We change.
Our understanding of our gender may change over our lives as well. You
may find it easier to present in one way now, but wish to try something else. You may, down the line, decide that it isn’t for you and try something else. This is a path of learning.
The thing is this: people are trans and come to their trans-ness in many different ways. There is no one, true way to be transgender.
We have come out of all sorts of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. Heck, we have existed in apparently all or most times and locations.
We’re not some new notion that has sprung up in the last decade or so, but a long-lasting part of society, and we have approached our trans natures in any number of ways.
Yours, too, might be unique – like something we have yet to imagine.
Finally, and this is the key: keep your horizons open. Consider that there are possibilities, and that it is never, ever too late to explore them.
Again, I learned about myself when there was only one digit to my age, but I was also keenly aware that there was nothing I could do about it at that time. A decade or so later, I started to learn, and a couple years after that, I transitioned.
Some started earlier than I. Many transitioned much later than I. I have known tweens and I have known octogenarians who have started on this journey. There’s no age that is too late.
Finally, too: there is no body that will limit you. Your height, your genitals, your secondary sexual characteristics, your body in any way – none of these need define you. Indeed, bodies tend to come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, regardless of gender identity.
If you’ve read this far, and if this has made you think, then once again I am compelled to say: congratulations, you may well be transgender. It’s a hell of a journey.t
Gwen Smith isn’t going to tell you what to do; she will only offer suggestions. You can find her at www.gwensmith.com
L esbian author Elana Dykewomon died in her Oakland home August 7, just hours before a staged reading of her first play over Zoom. She was 72.
According to an obituary in the Mendocino Beacon, Ms. Dykewomon was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last September, her brother, Dan Nachman, said. The staged play that was to be read, “How to Let Your Lover Die,” was about the death of Ms. Dykewomon’s longtime partner, Susan Levinkind, from Lewy body dementia, according to an obituary in the Advocate.
The play was part of the Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, Ms. Dykewomon wrote on Facebook in May.
Julie Enszer, Ph.D., a lesbian who is the editor and publisher of the journal Sinister Wisdom, wrote in a tribute to Ms. Dyke -
“I am one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of women inspired by Elana’s life and work,” Enszer wrote. “I first met her through the pages of Sinister Wisdom; I purchased the journal at the feminist bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan. With grace and flare, Ms. Dykewomon edited Sinister Wisdom for eight years enabling lesbians to build their own villages within its pages – and inspiring women to create other communities in the world.”
new possibilities for lesbian life and liberation, Enszer stated.
Enszer stated that Ms. Dykewomon was a lesbian separatist and declared herself one in the pages of Sinister Wisdom.
Cooper had her suspicions about the presence of dealers in the Tenderloin. Somebody must be lining somebody’s pockets, she opined, adding that all the drug dealers are “foreigners” who come here specifically to sell drugs.
“We can’t go to their country and sell drugs,” she said, adding that the dealers work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and then, at 5 p.m., the nighttime shift takes over.
Jackson called for increased investment in harm reduction practices to ensure “we get them rehabilitated, if we can,” she said, calling for further investment in workplace programs, for example. “We gotta get them headed in a different di-
womon that she left a “large body of creative work” and was a model for “how to dedicate ourselves to lesbians and creative lesbian life.”
Ms. Dykewomon edited Sinister Wisdom from 1987 until 1995.
“It is literally killing people, so I think we need consequences there,” she said.
Dorsey pointed to a program launched in North Carolina called High Point Intervention, named for the town in which it was started. Prosecutors compiled evidence against dealers, “banked the cases, developed cases against them,” he said.
Dorsey added there “are strategies that would help, short of incarceration, such as assertive case management, utilizing geo-tracked ankle monitors, and the wearers could be subject to searches.”
“There’s no business model that will persist if you’re taking away their money and their product,” he said.
Rent control
Eskenazi’s final question dealt with
Creating communities is one of Ms. Dykewomon’s legacies, Enszer added. She nurtured communities, built lasting friendships, and wove kinship networks throughout her life. From the Lesbian Gardens housing community in Northampton, Massachusetts, to a lesbian widows support group, Ms. Dykewomon knit lesbians together to know one another, to support one another, and to create
“So I don’t see many people like me living in these apartments,” she said. Jackson said that the high cost of rent was at the core of the issue. “We’ve got to stop raising the rents every year, it’s what we have to do. This would help so many individuals,” she said. Rising rents are causing “hardship and poverty.”
As for vacancies, Jackson said, “I think this is a more difficult issue and will need more time,” and was then cut short by the bell.
Mahogany called for an end to Costa-Hawkins, the 1995 state legislation exempting some types of residential rental units from rent control
“She articulated a vision of lesbian separatism that centered lesbians and gave attention, time, and resources to lesbians,” Enszer stated, “The enactment of this idea was, at times, controversial and polarizing, but Elana taught lesbians throughout her life the importance of lesbians, lesbian communities, lesbian labor, and lesbian projects.”
Born in New York City in 1949, Ms. Dykewomon was 24 when she published her debut novel, “Riverfinger Women,” in 1974, a coming of age story about lesbian life during the social upheaval of that era, the Beacon obituary noted. As a pre-teenager in the early 1960s, Ms. Dykewomon, then known as
Efforts to repeal the measure in the Legislature and at the ballot box have failed in recent years.
The other step is to support vacancy taxes, she said. High rents are an artificial inflation, Mahogany said, and as a small business owner, she said she feels strongly “the rents are too damned high.” (Mahogany is part of the collective that owns The Stud bar, which closed its physical space during the pandemic.)
“We absolutely do need to start taxing people for vacancies,” Mahogany said. “We need to overturn CostaHawkins and the Ellis Act…”
The Ellis Act is another state law that
Elana Nachman, attempted suicide and was hospitalized. She knew she was somehow different but was told by doctors she couldn’t possibly “be homosexual,” as she wrote in an essay included in the 2017 anthology, “Dispatches from Lesbian America.”
“Elana Dykewomon built a life that centered lesbians, and she dedicated her work to lesbians,” Enszer stated. “Her loss is tremendous, but her contributions are extraordinary. To mark her passing and celebrate her life, read Elana Dykewomon’s work so that it endures and blesses us all.”
Enszer stated that Sinister Wisdom and Ms. Dykewomon’s cousin, Jennie Brier, are planning an online celebration of Ms. Dykewomon’s life that will take place Sunday, September 18, at 4 p.m. Pacific time. More information is at http://www.sinisterwisdom. org/elana t
hibits vacancy controls.
“We have the obligation to expand rent control beyond rent stabilization, beyond where it is right now,” he said, adding that he is partnering with Supervisor Aaron Peskin (District 3) to add a rent control option to the Home SF [https://sfplanning.org/ home-sf] program so that developers “can do an affordable option for BMR kinds of things, or do rent control by agreement.”
Expanding rent control stock would be better for the public and the city, he said.
The city’s two LGBTQ Democratic clubs, Harvey Milk and Alice B. Toklas, co-sponsored the forum with the Rose Pak Democratic Club, San Francisco Young Democrats, and San
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Ms. Norman’s longtime friend and the godfather to one of her children, Rupert Kinnard, said that she died in her sleep.
Ms. Norman was the second African American lesbian to serve on the San Francisco Police Commission, to which she was appointed by former mayor Willie Brown. She also served on the fire and human rights commissions. She ran for supervisor three times, and is believed to be the first African American lesbian to do so, but she came up short in her bids for public office.
Ms. Norman spent much of her career working at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, where she was the first out gay or lesbian employee, and later was the longtime executive director at the Institute for Community Health Outreach, which trains outreach workers in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
“She was working at DPH in the Office of Special Problems,” recalled Roma Guy, her longtime friend, in a phone interview. She was always welcoming to differences, even if the differences were not named.” In other words, Guy said, Ms. Norman was well aware there were community members who identified as something other than gay or lesbian.
“She knew how to listen to those different voices,” Guy recalled.
During the AIDS epidemic, Langsley said that Ms. Norman was the coordinator for lesbian and gay health services at DPH.
As a mother who endured a custody fight for four of her children, Ms. Norman was well-known for cofounding the Lesbian Mothers Union with late lesbian pioneer Del Martin. The group raised funds for legal defense for lesbians enduring custody fights. It was a time when judges routinely denied lesbians and gay men parental rights after they left their heterosexual marriages. Langsley said that “absolutely,” Ms. Norman helped queer families.
From page 1
and an approach epidemiologists say should work well against monkeypox – plays only a small part.”
Philip told the supervisors that when the monkeypox outbreak first appeared in San Francisco this spring “we were reaching out to every individual” and that continued through early summer. “What we found was that people were not willing or able to talk about names of people” they may have been in contact with, she said. Because of that, DPH pivoted to a broader strategy because monkeypox cases were seen that were not specifically tied to travel, as some of the early cases were, she said.
“We have talked to over 72% of people as of August 22,” Philip said, adding that DPH wants to target young people and people who may become pregnant, as well as other high-risk groups such as men who have sex with men and their sexual partners.
District 4 Supervisor Gordon Mar also asked about contact trac-
From page 4
important job of board members second to concerns for students, teachers and staff. However, the current board has failed both students and taxpayers. The board created illegal tax measures allowing large corporations to avoid school taxes and bond measures which annually diverts millions to large corporate banks outside Alameda.”
Traiman, who is a father to two children with his partner, Stuart Blandon Traiman, is a retired nurse
“When she was running [for supervisor] she went to all these meetings and these people would see different representation” – an out Black lesbian mom, she said.
Langsley said she and Ms. Norman were together for 14 years, from 1983 to 1997, and raised six children, including two that Langsley and Ms. Norman had. Famously, in 1992, the couple posed for billboards sponsored by GLAAD under the tagline, “Another Traditional Family.” Langsley, who is white and used Norman’s last name then, was pregnant with their son Zach at the time. As KQED reported in a 2020 article, the billboard made a political statement. (https:// www.kqed.org/arts/13882197/how-a1992-billboard-loomed-large-in-thefight-for-lgbtq-rights)
Ms. Norman spent much of her adult life fighting for social justice. During the 1980s, she co-chaired broad civil rights marches for peace, jobs, and justice, as the B.A.R. reported in a 2007 article (https://www.ebar. com/story.php?ch=news&sc=pride &sc2=&id=248520) about Ms. Norman being that year’s San Francisco Pride parade lifetime achievement grand marshal. She was a delegate for presidential candidate Jesse Jackson in 1988 at the Democratic National Convention, and she served on the
state Democratic Party Central Committee.
At the local level, Ms. Norman was involved in fighting racism, including problems in the Castro years ago. The late Ken Jones, a gay Black man, was a close friend of hers, Guy and Langsley both said.
“It’s strange,” Ms. Norman told the B.A.R. in 2007, of changes she’d seen in the last three decades. “We go on, and certainly, there is some progress. On the other hand, there are issues in 1971 that are still the same issues we’re dealing with now.
“A while ago there was almost no consciousness around racism, sexism, classism,” Ms. Norman said at the time. “Also, we have a need to continue to focus – we’re part of the human movement, not just sexual orientation. We need to expand our vision and horizons and include not just orientation, but as people who work everyday, who go to the same churches.”
Tom Ammiano, a gay man and former San Francisco supervisor and state assemblymember, told the B.A.R. that the community “owes her a lot.”
“Historically, Black queer women have been ostracized by many,” he wrote in a text message. “Pat just approached this in her measured and warm way.”
It was around 2007 that Ms. Norman moved to Kauai, Hawaii, where she lived for 20 years with one of her sons. Earlier this year she moved to Las Vegas where one of her daughters lives, and was in assisted living care, Langsley said.
Early life
Ms. Norman was born October 21, 1939, in Brooklyn, New York. In the 2007 article, she said she was raised by parents who were “very conscious about what was happening in the world.” She went into the Navy, “but got out.” She spent time in Dallas, and came to San Francisco in 1971.
Born Patricia Elise Richardson, Ms. Norman was the youngest of four children, and the daughter of James A. Richardson (owner Richardson Trucking Company) and Maude B. Richardson (community activist and leader), according to an obituary prepared by her family. Ms. Norman was inspired by both of her parents, especially her mother who was a community activist and leader of the civil rights movements in the 1940s. Ms. Norman was encouraged by her parents to get involved with various African American civic groups and in high school she was a member the Brooklyn chapter of the NAACP. She went on in her education as far as a master’s degree in clinical psychology.
An obituary prepared by her family stated that Ms. Norman provided years of leadership on nonprofit boards such as president of Black Coalition on AIDS, president of SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation), and president of Larkin Street Youth Center.
She was a member of the California State Democratic Party Central Committee, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Women’s AIDS Network, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (now the National LGBTQ Task Force), Lesbian Rights Project, Human Rights Campaign, and Community United Against Violence.
of Supervisors needed to ratify it, which it did Monday by a vote of 100, with District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen excused. The declaration will enable the city to obtain additional vaccines, now in short supply, and raise awareness and provide education for people. Philip noted that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra issued a national public health emergency August 4 and California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a similar declaration for the state August 1, as the Bay Area Reporter has reported.
Langsley said that Ms. Norman co-chaired the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987 and National March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation in 1993. She was co-chair of Stonewall 25 in 1994 in New York City, where demonstrators unfurled a one-mile long, 30 foot Rainbow-colored flag symbolizing lesbian and gay rights. Roughly one million participants from around the world converged on the Avenue of Americas, an obituary prepared by her family noted.
At the 1987 march in Washington, D.C., she spoke in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building, Langsley said. The year prior the justices had ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that there was no constitutional protection for gay adults to engage in consensual sodomy. The case was overturned in 2003 with the court’s Lawrence v. Texas decision, which invalidated sodomy laws across the country.
Kinnard, who was art director at the old San Francisco Sentinel gay newspaper, recalled visiting Ms. Norman’s San Francisco home years ago, where he saw “an extraordinary display of awards and recognitions.” Her office had just as many, he noted.
“Each stood for the work she had done,” Kinnard said.
Ms. Norman’s son, Zach Norman, told the B.A.R. in a phone call August 8 that his mom ran in circles with important people.
“Every single time, she would say, ‘she’s a righteous woman,’ or ‘he’s a righteous man,’” Zach Norman said. “My biggest descriptor is she was a righteous woman.”
Ms. Norman was predeceased by her son, Paul. In addition to Zach Norman, Ms. Norman is survived by her children Elise, Angela, James, and Kim; grandchildren; and greatgrandchildren.
“Pat was very happy to spend her last months surrounded by her family, whom she loved very much,” her family stated. “She will truly be missed by us all – 22.” t
people line up in the early morning hours.
“I got my shot and I was the 123rd person in line. It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Can we identify a time and sign up, much like we did for COVID? Use the emergency authority to create a system?”
ing, particularly for congregant settings such as the jails, Navigation Centers, and homeless shelters. He said monkeypox has been reported in the jail system. Philip said that case is unconfirmed, “though it is a concern there.”
As of August 5, the city had recorded 444 cases, both probable and confirmed, she added.
practitioner, small businessperson, former high school teacher, and recent law school graduate. For many years he ran Rainbow Flag Health Services and Sperm Bank.
Nick Resnick, a transgender man, is running for a seat on the Oakland school board. In this week’s Political Notebook, Resnick, a queer married father of two sons, said that representation is important and that parents’ voices are needed on local school boards.
There are no out candidates running for seats on the San Francisco school board this year, though the
“Monkeypox impacts all people,” Philip said, “but it’s spreading in the LGBTQ community at a higher rate. Anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, can contract monkeypox.”
As health officer, Philip is responsible for issuing public health emergency declarations, which she did for monkeypox July 28. The Board
filing deadline is August 12. Its lone LGBTQ member, Mark Sanchez, formerly a school principal in the district, is not up for reelection.
Mayor London Breed appointed three straight women following the recall of three commissioners in February. All are seeking election, though one, Ann Hsu, has come under intense criticism for racist comments she made – and later apologized for – in a candidate questionnaire. Several other candidates have also filed to run.
Elsewhere in California, the Victory Fund has also endorsed An-
Philip also said that the city received 10,000 doses of the Jynneos vaccine August 5, “more than double” the previous allotment, “but we requested 35,000 doses and have only received 22,000, including the 10,000,” she said. “DPH will continue to ask for vaccine.”
Mandelman also asked Philip about the “incredibly long lines” of people waiting to get vaccinated at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. During a Board of Supervisors committee hearing July 21, health department officials were criticized for the length of lines, which has seen
drew Taban, currently running for school board of the William S. Hart High School District in Los Angeles County, and teacher Jorge Pacheco Jr., who is running for reelection to the Oak Grove Board of Trustees in Santa Clara County.
The Victory Fund gives its endorsees “really hands-on support,” said Fujii, from pulling together campaigns to finding volunteers.
That’s paid off well for California where, Fujii said, there are currently 22 LGBTQ school board members across the state, almost 25% of LGBTQ school board members
Philip said that DPH is using the authority under the emergency declaration to explore partnerships with vendors and may utilize additional DPH staff. “The state of California has said it will utilize the system used for COVID, My Turn, for monkeypox later this month,” she added.
But Philip pointed out she’s heard criticisms from those in other jurisdictions that are using online appointment-based systems because of how quickly the slots fill up. And she said that SFGH is not the only place in the city where people can go to get a monkeypox vaccine. Kaiser Permanente, UCSF, and Sutter Health are all providing the vaccine to people affiliated with those providers, she said. t
around the United States. Across the political spectrum, California has more elected LGBTQ officials than any other state and – within California – San Diego has elected four LGBTQ Assembly members over the years, one more than San Francisco, and is currently represented by an out Assembly and Senate member.
The City-by-the-Bay has also sent four out state legislators to Sacramento: three Assembly members and one state Senator. It currently is represented by an out Senate member. t
U.S.
Health and Human Services
Secretary Xavier Becerra on Thursday declared a national public health emergency for the monkeypox outbreak while other officials discussed increases in vaccine availability and testing, including a possible new way to get more doses out of a vial of Jynneos, the current vaccine used.
The designation follows California Governor Gavin Newsom issuing a state of emergency August 1. San Francisco’s public health department declared a public health state of emergency July 29 because of the city’s rapidly growing monkeypox outbreak. New York state also did so, and last weekend New York City followed suit.
On a teleconference call with reporters, Becerra said the declaration will allow officials “to take our response to the next level.”
“We urge every American to take seriously” the threat of monkeypox, he added.
The monkeypox outbreak, which began in the U.S. in May, is primarily affecting men who have sex with men
From page 7
“In our city, unfortunately, the neighborhood you live in often dictates your future and your choices,” he said. “We need critical people getting in there and remaining focused on students, and student growth academically and socially and mentally. I believe I can help us get there.”
Acknowledging that many families opt to send their children to private, parochial, or charter schools instead of Oakland public schools, Resnick told the B.A.R. he wants to help improve the district’s educational standing in the community with parents so they are confident about keeping their children enrolled in it through high school.
NOTICE OF PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION (DIVORCE) OF MARRIAGE OF PETITIONER ELORA BELT AND RESPONDENT HAMZA BOUDLAL IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE FDI-22-795873
We are married. Petitioner has been a resident of this state for at least six months and of this county for at least three months immediately preceding the filing of this Petition. Date of marriage: September 23, 2020. Date of separation: September 1, 2021.
Time from the date of marriage to date of separation: 0 years, 11 months. The minor children are ZACHARY BELT-BOUDLAL, birthdate 05/31/21, age 7 months. Petitioner requests that the court make the following orders: divorce (irreconcilable differences); legal custody of children to petitioner; physical custody of children to petitioner; child visitation (parenting time) be granted to petitioner; terminate (end) the court’s ability to award support to petitioner and respondent. There are no such assets or debts that I know of to be confirmed by the court. There are no such assets or debts that I know of to be divided by the court. have read the restraining orders, and I understand that they apply to me when this petition is filed. I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct. Signed ELORA BELT, 01/03/22. Party without attorney: ELORA BELT, 561 KANSAS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107; (415) 350-4644.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22557269
In the matter of the application of CYNTHIA LEE, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner DONG EUN LEE AKA CYNTHIA EUN LEE is requesting that the name DONG EUN LEE AKA CYNTHIA EUN LEE be changed to CYNTHIA EUN LEE. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 23rd of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF
NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22557271
In the matter of the application of CAITLIN SARAH-MARIE KELLY-KARTER, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner CAITLIN SARAHMARIE KELLY-KARTER is requesting that the name CAITLIN SARAH-MARIE KELLY-KARTER be changed to CAITLIN MARIE KELLY. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 23rd of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22557264
In the matter of the application of MICHAEL
and their sexual partners. San Francisco had 386 reported cases as of August 2. On Thursday, Becerra said that the latest national numbers show 6,600 reported cases; last week it was 5,000. In terms of the Jynneos vaccine, Dr. Robert Califf, a commissioner with the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency is considering injecting the doses intradermally, or under the skin. That would allow five doses per vial of Jynneos, he said.
“My number one goal across our campaign is to ensure we are investing in schools that have quality programs, quality curriculum, and community support and everything necessary to ensure we are educating all of our children in an equitable way across the city,” said Resnick.
Another top priority for Resnick is trying to ease the hostility that has been present “for decades,” he said, between teachers, administrators, and the school board, which he acknowledged he felt during his time working in the district.
“Until we can fix that, we won’t be able to move big things forward in the name of all students and equity,” said Resnick. “We need to find ways to collaborate on changes in our system that better support all of our students and families. We can’t do that until we can be in productive dis-
ERNESTO GIRON VALLADARES, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner MICHAEL ERNESTO GIRON VALLADARES is requesting that the name MICHAEL ERNESTO GIRON VALLADARES be changed to ARLO MICHAEL VENTURA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 23rd of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397734
The following person(s) is/are doing business as BEAUTIFUL 99 BEAUTY SPA, 1637 TARAVAL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YUEYING WANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/15/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/14/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397542
The following person(s) is/are doing business as PRECISE PRESSURE WASHING, 231 ADDISON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ORIN KINDELL BAILEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/27/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397689
The following person(s) is/are doing business as LEFT WING, 3995 ALEMANY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132-3206. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GEE MIN KIM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/08/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/08/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397731
The following person(s) is/are doing business as CAFÉ MYSTIQUE, 464 CASTRO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SAMMER KHALILI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/20/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/13/22. JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397764
The following person(s) is/are doing business as STELLAS PLUMBING, 1355 GOLDEN GATE AVE #5H, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DMITRIY VARTANOV. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/19/22.
“There are some advantages to that,” he said of using what is called a dosesparing approach. “We would not be sacrificing the high quality of the vaccine.” The intradermal approach would basically mean sticking the needle under the skin and “creating a pocket” where the vaccine goes, Califf explained.
While monkeypox is not a new virus, the current outbreak is hitting the LGBTQ+ community hard. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a gay man who’s
course and conversation.”
One controversy engulfing Oakland’s district is school closures. It is attempting to consolidate staff and reduce operating expenses by mothballing a number of its schools to the consternation of teachers and families with students at those campuses.
It has led to heated school board meetings and the occupation of schools by protesters who contend the current plan disproportionately impacts students of color. While Resnick told the B.A.R. that “yes,” some schools do need to be shuttered, he believes the school board and administration should reexamine their plan for doing so.
“I think we need to step back and look at our entire system and work over a period of time leveraging the things
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397736
The following person(s) is/are doing business as YYK SECURE CARRIER, 223 FLOURNOY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed YYK SECURE CARRIER (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/14/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397700
The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE G SPA SAN FRANCISCO, 490 POST ST #1703, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed OFFICEMD, A CALIFORNIA MEDICAL CORPORATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/12/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397685
The following person(s) is/are doing business as CONVIVIUM ENOTECA, 516 GREEN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed CONVIVIUM LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/15/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/08/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397638
The following person(s) is/are doing business as ADMIRAL HOTEL, 608 O’FARRELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed RK 608 LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/01/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397674
The following person(s) is/are doing business as STADE SPORT, 580 HAYES ST #408, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed VON BRACHNER LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/08/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397728
The following person(s) is/are doing business as BOOCHMANIA, 685 HARRISON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed OSBAN FERMENTS
director of the division of HIV/AIDS prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, discussed the need for federal officials to work with organizations that serve the LGBTQ+ community and said that is ongoing. Daskalakis this week was also named deputy coordinator for the White House National Monkeypox Response by President Joe Biden.
“Monkeypox is not exclusively a sexually transmitted virus,” he said, “but we recognize it’s spreading more rapidly than previous outbreaks. We saw the virus spreading in the LGBTQ+ community and our work has been aggressively ongoing since Day 1.”
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said that the public health emergency “will enhance our nation’s response,” to the outbreak. This can include personnel to deploy to help health centers and data sharing to inform public health decisions.
In terms of vaccines, Becerra said as of August 4 more than 600,000 doses of Jynneos have been delivered to
we said would be helpful, such as an equity rubric we wanted to use,” said Resnick. “We need to be thinking about where students are choosing to go to school versus where they live and have a better understanding of why parents are making those decisions. We need to work with the community to figure out a better way to educate all children, because right now, we are not.”
Due to Yee deciding to step down, the filing deadline to seek his seat will be extended from Friday to next Wednesday. Also seeking the seat is Pecolia Manigo, a mother of three children with two attending Oakland schools, while her oldest is now in college. Manigo is the executive director of Bay Area PLAN, a parent advocacy group, and chairs the school district’s Black Students and
LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/11/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/13/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397752
The following person(s) is/are doing business as SF CITY TAILS, 1808 47TH AVE #2, SAN FRANCISCO, A 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed HEY BIG SISTER PROJECT (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/18/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/18/22.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE 291553
The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: THE MOCHI DONUT SHOP, 7 SAN PEDRO RD, COLMA, CA 94014 County of SAN MATEO. Registrant(s): SAN PEDRO ENTERPRISES LLC (CA). This business is conducted by a limited liability company. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on N/A.
declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime.) SAN PEDRO ENTERPRISES LLC S/ ROSE LILY BAUTISTA. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Mateo County on 07/05/2022. Mark Church, County Clerk, MARIA GALLARDO, Deputy Original Filing
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-0395624
The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as THE G SPA, 490 POST ST #1703, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by ELISE GRENIER. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/01/21.
JULY 21, 28, AUG 04, 11, 2022
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22557288
In the matter of the application of MARIA JOSE HERREROS ZUBIETA, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner MARIA JOSE HERREROS ZUBIETA is requesting that the name MARIA JOSE HERREROS ZUBIETA be changed to MARIA JOSE HERREROS. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 1st of SEPTEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.
JULY 28, AUG 04, 11, 18, 2022
states. He also said 14,000 treatments of TPOXX have been delivered, with another 1.7 million doses in the national stockpile.
Dawn O’Connell, with HHS, said the agency’s vaccine strategy is to make 1.1 million doses of Jynneos available to state and other jurisdictions such as tribal governments. She said that 6.9 million doses will be secured. A shipment of 786,000 doses began being shipped this week. The next round of ordering doses for states will be August 15, she said.
In terms of treatment, TPOXX (tecovirimat) is an antiviral drug that is used to treat severe cases, but it is currently difficult to get. Califf said it’s approved for smallpox but it’s never been tested in humans for monkeypox.
“We think it will be effective, but we don’t know,” he said, adding that there are plans for a clinical trial.
Nevertheless, TPOXX is being used through an expanded access program but requires substantial paperwork for monkeypox cases. t
A longer version of this story is at www.ebar.com
Families Thriving Task Force.
Having launched his campaign last September, Resnick is now focused on canvassing the neighborhoods he would represent on the school board, such as Redwood Heights and the Laurel district. He has talked to more than 500 parents about their concerns about the district and what they want to see in the public schools for them to keep their children enrolled in it.
“The whole goal of this is for families to remain in our system and stay here and go to the schools we have,” said Resnick of his campaign. t
To learn more about Resnick’s candidacy, visit his campaign website at https://www.nickforoaklandschools.com/
FILE A-0397781
The following person(s) is/are doing business as CARDIACU; WIN SOFTWARE SALES; 2000 BROADWAY ST #517, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CATHERINE DUPONT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or
The following
doing business as GGV BROKER, 134 MILTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALICIA VILLEGAS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/19/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/19/22.
JULY 28, AUG 04, 11, 18, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397778
The following person(s) is/are doing business as MEDELUM COACHING AND COUNSELING, 4212 25TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BARRY LIPSCOMB. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/20/22.
JULY 28, AUG 04, 11, 18, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397755
The following person(s) is/are doing business as SHADDAI SALON, 5524 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed WENDY Y ARGUETA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/07/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/18/22.
JULY 28, AUG 04, 11, 18, 2022
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397760
The following person(s) is/are doing business as ARGUETA’S CELEBRATIONS, 6793 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This
The “Oklahoma!” that comes sweeping into the Golden Gate Theatre next week on a national tour is a dark, radically reimagined take on the show that debuted on Broadway in 1943. That sunny, clean-scrubbed version ran for over five years, was adapted for an Oscarwinning movie, and is today staged by American school and community theaters around the country in approximately 600 tradition-honoring productions annually.
Back when it premiered, there was little public backlash around the show’s romantic portrayal of farmers and ranchers squabbling and struggling as they found a new state in what had been known as Indian Territory (“The farmer and the cowman should be friends!”). Never mind the complete absence of Native American characters in the script. Never mind that “Green Grow the Lilacs,” the decidedly less cheerful play from which “Oklahoma!” was adapted, was written by Lynn Riggs, a writer of Cherokee descent (who also happened to be gay).
But the version now heading our way –developed at Bard College and St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn before winning a “Best Revival of a Musical” Tony on Broadway in 2019– finds director Daniel Fish effectively responding to the title song’s famous lyric, “You’re doin’ fine/Oklahoma/ Oklahoma, OK!” with an emphatic “I will refine/ Oklahoma: Oklahoma P.C.!”
Changing perspectives
Cultural values have evolved since 1943 and, over time, “Oklahoma!” has been taken to task for reasons other than its failure to acknowledge Native Americans: As originally written, the
characters’ rigidly conform to gender stereotypes, the casting of many productions has been overwhelmingly white (despite the presence of Black cowboys in the territory during the musical’s time period) and –as countless high school musical vets will tell you– the show is so damned shiny and square.
Fish and company have worked hard to rough it up around the edges and throw shadows on the sheen. (The original sin of Native American erasure remains baked into the 77-year-old script, which is used verbatim; it stands out even more in light of all the other changes).
Instead of the lush traditional orchestral arrangements, theatergoers should expect bluegrass and Americana iterations played by a small onstage band. Instead of bright golden surroundings, the set is stark and makeshift, evocative of pioneer hardship. The threat of violence con-
stantly hovers. Frontier justice is corruptible. Casting is unconventional.
Trans actors in lead roles
“This version is polarizing,” said Hennessey Winkler, the trans male actor who plays sweet, dopey cowhand Will Parker on tour in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “I think most people have the movie in mind when they come to see us. So we’re really fucking with something that’s part of people’s cultural fabric. But if you’re a theater person and you can look at it with an analytical eye, you’ll love it.”
“I actually love the sunny, fun Oklahoma!” noted Sis, the mononymed trans woman who plays Ado Annie. “The glitz and glam of old-fashioned musicals is a big part of what attracted me to theater in the first place.”
“But I think the perfect audience member for
by Robert BroklGeorge Platt Lynes is known, in certain educated circles, as the photographer of fashion, ballet dancers, cultural icons, and male nudes, anthologized in surveys of gay art and photography, like “Hide/Seek.” But Allen Ellenzweig’s important new book, “George Platt Lynes: the Daring Eye,” reveals far more about Lynes and his times, nearly seven decades since his untimely death of lung cancer in 1955, at 48. Ellenzwieg had the cooperation of the Lynes family for this biography, including access to the manuscript written by his late brother, Russell Lynes, from 1988, about his brother.
But the book is no “authorized” hagiography, nor is it dishy or prurient. Instead, Ellenzweig artfully traces Lynes’ origins in New Jersey, son of a minister of a well-to congregation, with sophisticated tastes and a decorator wife. (Lynes appended the Platt to Lynes, perhaps as an act of sibling rivalry, but also linking him to an ancestor, mid-19th-century New York City interior designer, also named George. Names are destiny.)
Young Lynes was sent off to the Berkshire School for Boys in Massachusetts, an expensive private school. His parents hoped the headmaster
this show is someone who is interested in change. The younger more diverse audiences with a lot of musical theater kids really get it. America is going through a transition right now. And getting America to see Ado Annie as this bigger Black woman is a way to showcase my existence.”
According to Winkler, “There are people who come to the show who don’t know I’m trans. There’s really no reason you would know from just watching. But for myself, in interviews I tell everyone that I’m trans, because trans male erasure is real.”
“This tour is feeding my soul,” he said, “I’m a pig in shit, I’m a rambling man.”
Spoken like a true Oklahoman.t
Oklahoma! at the Golden Gate Theatre. 1 Taylor St. Aug. 16-Sept. 11. $56-$256 (888) 746-1799 www.broadwaysf.com
might de-sissify him. Indeed, an older classmate, and lifelong bisexual, Lincoln Kirstein, kept a careful, disapproving distance, although later he and Lynes would develop an important collaboration, with Lynes photographing the dancers of the New York City Ballet, the company Kirstein and George Balanchine founded.
The young Lynes is described as precocious, stubborn and willful, with writing ambitions. He successfully cultivated Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, ultimately gaining access to their circle and visiting them in France. With more ambition than resources, he published essays by Stein, and later took the Roman emperor-like portrait of Stein that appeared the cover of Time. Stein, in her transactional fashion, appreciated his efforts on her behalf. Lynes was a catch. His blond hair turned gray early earned him the ”silver fox” nickname. He exercised, was suave. We’re told female fashion model subjects were disappointed to learn he was gay. Despite financial ups and downs, he maintained elegant studio and living spaces, dressed well, and liked entertaining. He’s articulate and literate in his correspondence, even successfully negotiating the purge of other male gays by Stein and Toklas from their circle.
Although they are vastly different films, both “A Run for More” and “The Art of Love” dare to venture off the beaten path, pulling back the curtain on their subject matter. One film documents the unlikely political campaign of the first transgender candidate in Texas, and the other is the unlikely love story between an older man and a self-professed lesbian. Both films exemplify extraordinarily good filmmaking, beautiful cinematography, and emotionally rich musical scores. And both films crescendo to memorable endings.
Notably, a major star of each film ends up being the beautiful city in which it was filmed. No doubt, San Antonio, Texas and San Juan, Puerto Rico seem to have been built for to be featured in cinema.
In many ways, “The Art of Love,” starring Esai Morales and Kunjue Li, is an old-fashioned love story with a new twist. Set in 1994, just a generation ago, this beautiful love story feels emotionally “clumsy” to younger audiences who may be more jaded about affairs of the heart today. But there is something wondrous about seeing a man fall so completely head over heels in love on-screen, as was common an earlier more innocent era (because it is more natural to what the human heart truly wants). Of course, the heart wants the whole package.
Another point of criticism of this film, the primitive 1994 graphics that illustrate his emotional state at various points, to me just shows how far we have come technologically in so short a time. The computer-animated sequences add a lot by quickly conveying information that would be difficult to convey in words, as the animations did in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” But some audiences may be so affected by style that it actually blinds them to substance, it seems.
These are two alienated souls that find each other for one brief moment. He (the nameless male lead) is alienated from satisfying social relationships, trapped within the ivory tower in his hometown. The film is very good at giving us the feel of the stifling social
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milieu – neighbors’ attentive faces and prying eyes are everywhere as the action plays out. He has never found a satisfying relationship, yet he stays on the island, unwilling or unable to find conditions and social connections that better suit him.
When a Chinese immigrant student and aspiring artist woos him, it’s too much to resist. She too is alienated, but she is an outsider even in her own community due to a scandal in her teen years. Indeed, even Li Chao’s family is absent except for a predatory cousin. She has been in a long relationship with a female professor, but it seems to be a relationship of convenience. Recall that back in the day, dating and marrying students (adult college students) was considered acceptable, as in the film – a point that is often lost today.
In each other’s arms, they both realize that what they share in common is that they do not know how to love. “She was my other half. The impossibility of two bodies that have not learned to recognize themselves in anyone else.”
The film is based on the book “Simone” by Eduardo Lalo, adapted for the screen and directed by Betty Kaplan. It is currently playing in select theaters and VOD/Digital.
Two new uncommon LGBT films
A Run for More
Amid a torrent of anti-transgender pieces of legislation, Frankie GonzalesWolfe courageously sought to become the first openly transgender elected official in Texas when she ran for a seat on the San Antonio City Council.
Gonzales-Wolfe is a seasoned campaign staffer who has worked on more than 50 campaigns, but her ascent has not been easy. The campaign was historic, deep in the heart of the most staunchly gendered, most anti-transgender part of the country. GonzalesWolfe endured an endless struggle to replace campaign signs that voter unscrupulously ripped down. Occasionally, people openly insulted her for being transgender, so plans to knock on doors in her district had to be cancelled.
Even her friends in the LGBTQ community felt they could not help her with the campaign, although they very much wanted to, for fear that they look too transparently trans or too gay and therefore might incur additional wrath from the public. Democracy cannot flourish, to say the least, under such hostile conditions.
Two key trans activists in the film did not survive the pandemic, and one
must wonder whether the survival rate within the LGBTQ community (like the Hispanic community, especially in Texas) was lower than the general population.
In 1998, Gonzales-Wolfe was assaulted in a parking lot by three men. She prayed for God’s help and amazingly survived the violent attack, and went on to thrive.
The film ends on an exultant note. Although she did not win, she found Frankie. She became the campaign manager of a successful campaign in Bexar County and is now Chief of Staff of County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores. Frankie GonzalesWolfe is the only transgender chief of staff in Texas.
In her own eloquently simple words, she summarizes her life since transitioning:
“Hello, new me. She’s now strong. She’s now confident. She is alive. She’s in love... I am here. I am her. I am transvisible.”
Directed by Ray Whitehouse, executive produced by award-winning documentarian PJ Raval, “A Run for More” will soon be available on Disney+.t www.arunformore.com
The candid male nudes Lynes took from his twenties on were for his private enjoyment, at the end of formal shoots, of friends and acquaintances, dancers. They were shared with friends, but carefully, since “pornography” could not be sent through the mail, and homosexuality was illegal.
In and out of fashion
In 1949, Lynes made two fateful encounters: E. M. Forster and Alfred Kinsey. He photographed Forster and his married-to-a-woman policeman boyfriend, Bob Buckingham. Westcott and Wheeler had already become involved with Kinsey, the scientist who “proved” homosexuality was normal, innate. Both submitted to Kinsey’s in-depth sexual-history interviews, Westcott had a short affair with him, and Lynes allowed Kinsey to observe him having sex.
From page 13
Encounters
Equally fortuitous, through the Stein connection, he made the life-altering meeting with the older, more sophisticated and worldly couple, novelist Glenway Wescott; and publisher and later New York Museum of Modern Art curator Monroe Wheeler. During the meeting with Wescott, Lynes had a coupe de foudre experience: spotting a photograph of Wheeler, he announced, “That’s the man for me.” Wescott went along, and both were helpful to his career. They suggested photography to Lynes. They maintained this sometimes difficult menage-a trois for eleven years, Lynes noting in code in his journal when he slept with each of them. His circle included another artist menage-a-trois, the “Pajama” threesome of Margaret and Jared French, and Paul Cadmus. (“Pajama” combines the first two letters of their names.)
They all painted and photographed each other. French painted a triptych of Wheeler, Westcott, and Lynes nude, Cadmus painted the psychologicallyrevealing group portrait “Stone-blossom: A Conversation Piece.”
As a photographer for Condé-Nast, Lynes specialized in images for advertising and fashion spreads. His fashion photography is notable for its elegant arrangements and dramatic, theatrical lighting. Similar staging and misen-scene characterized his surrealist images, involving dancers and props. Under the guise of artful fantasy, his use of male nudity got a pass, and was shown in galleries and museums.
Of more lasting importance as documentation, Lynes photographed his friends and contemporaries: Stein, Toklas, Virgil Thompson, Kirstein, Andre Gide, Marianne Moore, Jean Cocteau, Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, Marsden Hartley (with whom he briefly shared his studio), movie stars Katherine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster.
Most importantly, Kinsey started to buy his photographs for the Institute, sometimes out of his own pocket when Lynes desperately needed money. Lynes’s problem was that his commercial photography that paid the
See page 15 >>
“Yourwaking world is shaped by dreams.” And by nightmares. This is a premise for “The Sandman,” a fabulous new dark fantasy series from Netflix. “The Sandman” is based on the comic book written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics.
After years of imprisonment, Morpheus (Tom Sturridge), the King of Dreams, embarks on a journey across worlds to find what was stolen from him and restore his power. A nightmare he created to force humans to look inward, called The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), escapes the Dreaming and then uses his skills to become a celebrated serial killer. Oh and The Corinthian is gay. “I’m not gonna stop till I’ve reshaped this world,” says The Corinthian. “Let’s see if dreams can die.”
Vivienne Acheampong plays Lucienne, the librarian of the Dreaming who is a gender-flipped version of the book’s Lucien. Patton Oswalt is the voice of Matthew the Raven, Dream’s emissary and the fabulous Joely Richardson, daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richard-
son, plays Ethel Dee. It’s queer AF and really, really good.
We don’t want to do spoilers here and there are many to reveal that come early on, but “If dreams disappear, so will humanity” and The Corinthian might just be a dream crusher.
This is a lush, fully immersive production and one finally worthy of Gaiman’s vision.
Dream catchers
We absolutely love “Reservation Dogs.” Season 2 of FX’s Peabody and Independent Spirit Awardwinning dramedy series is even better than season 1.
Created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi for FX, “Reservation Dogs” is the first series to feature all Indigenous writers and directors as well as an Indigenous North American cast and production team.
“Reservation Dogs” follows the adventures of four Indigenous friends in rural Oklahoma. The gang “spend their days committing crime and fighting it.”
It’s very queer, with Devery Jacobs as Elora Danan Postoak as a stunning baby butch lead. D’Pharaoh WoonA-Tai play Bear Smallhill, Lane Fac-
ing that they remain available for the public, not locked away in secret.
Ellenzweig reports Lynes was notoriously apolitical, tuning out during political conversations. Yet his catalog of important gay cultural luminaries and the straightforward depiction of male nudity and beauty, whether youthful acrobats or, from 1942, the leonine Yul Brynner –full frontal, naked but for the full head of hair, posing on a modernist, unpainted plywood bench– are ahead of their time, presciently avoiding Mapplethorpe’s calculated provocation and Bruce Weber’s shallow clichés.t
From page 14
bills fell out of fashion. A brief move to Hollywood was a financial disaster, and the return to his natural habitat of Manhattan was rocky.
Lynes befriended longtime Berkeley resident Samuel Steward, pornography writer and tattoo artist (whose reputation was revived by Justin Spring’s book, “Secret Historian ”) They corresponded, made visits, Steward even suggesting his handsome Black male sexual partner as a subject for Lynes.
In later years, he survived on loans from friends and relations, undermining the relationship he had with his brother and sister-inlaw, the ones he turned to first, even moving in with them for a time.
Lynes was only 48 when he died of lung cancer, but he managed, with great determination, to place many of his prints and negatives with the Kinsey Institute, negotiat-
‘George Platt Lynes: The Daring Eye,’ by Allen Ellenzweig, Oxford University Press $45 hardcover, $17 Kindle, 640 pages. www.global.oup.com
tor is Cheese and Paulina Alexis plays the gender-fluid Willie Jack. These are incredibly fabulous characters and this is a funny, heartbreaking and enraging series.
With Wes Studi, Jana Schmieding, Megan Mullally, Marc Maron, and Bobby Lee. Now streaming on FX/ Hulu.
Dream, girls
Some reality shows are back to make the waning days of summer more enjoyable.
There’s season 2 of “RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race” where RuPaul and a panel of judges get judgy as a whole new group of performers lip sync their way to the title of America’s Next Celebrity Drag Superstar. On VH1 starting August 12.
On August 19, “Good Sex” premieres on Discovery+. In this sexy and informative show, sex coach Caitlin V “helps real-life couples discover how to have mind-blowing sex” With sensual caresses, hot toys and brand spanking new techniques, the couples delve into their deepest sexual desires to reach that elusive climax as well as touch on that all-important intimacy.
Queer Eye: Brazil premieres on Netflix on August 24. The Brazilian Fab Five version of the original Pri-
metime Emmy Award-winning series stars Fred Nicácio (well-being), Guto Requena (design), Rica Benozzati (style), Luca Scarpelli (culture) and Yohan Nicolas (beauty). Tem um monte de caras lindos aqui. (There are a lot of hot guys here.)
Dream factory
A judge ruled August 4 that Oscar- Tony- and SAG- award winner Kevin Spacey and his production companies must pay the makers of “House of Cards” nearly $31 million because of losses brought on by his 2017 firing for the sexual harassment of crew members.
Spacey has been accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault by a series of men. Actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making a sexual advances toward him when Rapp was 14. Netflix cut ties with Spacey in 2017, removing him from the last season of “House of Cards” and shelving his film “Gore.”
Actor and singer Demi Lovato who came out as nonbinary in 2021, is using she/her pronouns again in addition to they/them and cis het people can’t figure it out. We don’t understand why pronouns are so hard for people, but they seem to be absolutely flummoxing, right up there with nuclear
physics and String Theory.
In March 2021, Lovato came out as pansexual and sexually fluid, stating “I’ve always known I was hella queer, but I have fully embraced it.”
Actress Anne Heche (“Chicago P.D.,” “All Rise”) was critically injured after a fiery crash on August 4. “Anne is in the ICU, she’s lucky to be alive. She has severe burns and has a long recovery ahead. Her team and her family are still trying to process what led up to the crash,” a source close to Heche told CNN. Heche’s injuries have prevented police from interviewing her about the accident, but her car was traveling at a high rate of speed before crashing into a house and catching fire.
The actress has had a series of issues with substance abuse and bouts with mental illness. The New York Post reported August 7 that Heche “slurred her way through a podcast that was posted hours before her horrifying high-speed crash--saying she was downing vodka and wine after being ‘rocked’ by a ‘very bad day’.”
We wish Heche well and hope she recovers fully and receives all the help she needs.t
Read the full column on www.ebar.com
It’s by no means a backhanded compliment to say that, in his debut novel, “Other Names for Love” (Farar, Straus and Giroux), Taymour Soomro is ace at describing weather. These days, when fiction can’t compete with the news when it comes to extreme meteorology, reporting the weather has become one of the lost arts of literary fiction. Here, Soomro shoots far beyond trite notions of local color to describe climates and weather events that operate like characters.
Maybe you have to have lived long in South Asian climes like the Pakistan of Soomro’s book to appreciate what a force the heat is, and what a Rembrandt Soomro is at painting it.
In “Other Names” the sun is withering at its most benign and more often than not scorching. It’s a “hot, hot sun that for some reason could never be seen.” It, in turn, spawns “the dust that clouded up around you as you walked so that you appeared from it as if conjured by a sandstorm.”
A season in the country
In South Asia, not only the scribblers but also the common people speak of the monsoon that comes to dissipate the heat as “walls of water.”
Soomro reclaims the image to repurpose it as a curtain concealing the spectacle of young men letting off the steam of sex that has been long foreshadowed but, until a storm, repressed. In the resulting scene, witness Soomro’s deft avoidance of the sand traps of writing about sex.
Predictably, when young Fahad is sent from the rich family home in Karachi to work on Abad, the family’s vast farm, he becomes ensorceled by one of the locals. Less inevitably, Ali, besides being big and hairy and something of a rube –“a thug, the kind of boy Fahad would have gone out of his way to avoid at school”– is a roughneck and only transitionally, situationally interested in Fahad romantically.
Here is their first-time boy-on-boy sex:
“And suddenly it felt as if everything was allowed –for Fahad to tug lose the knot that tied Ali’s salwar, for him to press his palm against the soft hairs on Ali’s flank, for him to dip his head into the nook between Ali’s neck and shoulder– and, in turn that he must allow everything too –for Ali to twist Fahad’s arm behind him, to send him backwards, to knock one of Fahad’s heels away from the ground and lower him onto his back.
“Kissing was teeth knocking, faces that didn’t fit, it was the same with their bodies, grappling with each other… threats of force, that they could not make gifts of their bodies to one another because their bodies were not theirs to give.”
The weather in London, where Fahad’s family subsequently dispatches him, is not the stereotypical gloom. Soomro, who lives in London but has spent family time in Pakistan, is instead sensitive to its winds, which clap and batter more than they soothe. Ev-
volving
issues of domination,
erywhere, the author’s creations have to weather the weather.
Farewell to formula
I go on about the enveloping climate like this because the elements of Somroo’s story are the lingua franca, the common coin, of contemporary gay fiction: the youth sent away to make him a man, young gay love and its discontents, the flight from the boonies to cities for liberation, the tangles of cross-cultural relationships, the fatal attractions across chasms of age and gulfs of class, and, pre-eminently, the primally fraught relationships of fathers and sons. They’re all at work in this novel, but they acquire other names from an author with an outright allergy to formula. His characters, too, are as variable as the weather and crafted with a sculptor’s skill. Mingling with them are other, shadowy characters who haunt the pages and each other, none other so compellingly as Mousey, whose sweet tooth
for men in the sack sheds slanted light on Fahad’s father, Rafik, and mirrors Fahad in his creation of a sophisticated gay life in London while being essentially in exile from Pakistan.
The mother-land for Fahad, London is where he makes, if not quite finds, his adult gay self. There he lives in near-posh circumstances with his older partner Alex (a near rhyme for Ali?) and makes his living as a teacher and writer, another maneuver that could go terribly wrong, the all-too-predictable designation of the novel’s protagonist as a writer. That’s an old story.
Then, in another arresting passage, a writer’s group Fahad oversees considers a student’s story about a girl raped in a field by an itinerant worker. It reminds Fahad of his own earlier life in Abad, with its romanticized violence, and he realizes that he’s retreated from his own writing.
“What if, he wondered for a terrible moment, he’d written nothing in so long because he hadn’t written this, because he’d written always so far away from himself, as though tossing a grenade?”
You can’t go home again
When, an adult lifetime later, Fahad is manipulated into returning to Abad to retrieve what is left of the family fortune Rafik has squandered
by selling the house, he “sees” Ali everywhere, finally reaching him on a scratchy phone call during which he learns that Ali is now married to a Punjabi woman and the father you’d expect him to be.
There’s not a shred of sentimentality in the depiction of their interactions, which holds true of all the relationships in the book. The title of “Other Names for Love” becomes simultaneously clearer and murkier as the plot unfolds.
In the same climactic episode we see Fahad given both his childhood designation as “Little Sir” and, elsewhere, as just “the boy,” those names enacting the difficult relationship –not without deeply flawed love in both directions– that he has with Rafik. His father’s towering persona dominates the book and would sink it if Fahad had not found his own way in the world before it becomes his charge to rescue Rafik from one of his literal, dangerous nocturnal perambulations.
Without fail, Soomro walks his characters into situations from which they might want to flee and then leads them through those trials without dodging the emotionally hard parts. Grating as many of the characters are at times, at their worst they’re troubled, impossibly conflicted people.
All of them become sympathetic in fundamental, necessary ways. The sheer generosity of the abundance of points of view Soomro takes in the writing is powerful; these advanced modes of fiction that don’t outsmart themselves. This is a book not a word of which you would change.
The wise old men of gay letters are birthing lively late-life offspring this year. Meanwhile the young’uns, the new kids on the block, are making their debuts, not just as writers of advanced shades of color but as tellers of tales in fresh, untiring Sheherazade voices –none more clarion and involving than Taymour Soomro’s– saying, Lookee here.t
‘Other Names for Love’ by Taymour Soomro, Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Macmillan, 256 pages, $26.
If this lead character’s name sounds familiar, it can be found formerly in Jean Genet’s 1947 tale “Querelle de Brest” and, in Lambert’s hands, has been relocated to Roberval, Quebec, a small hamlet on the banks of the Lac SaintJean, and reincarnated as a 27-year-old sawmill worker joining a rowdy band of workers in unionization.
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But before the story even gets rolling, we are introduced to Querelle’s sexual prowess in all its salacious glory. After an abrupt departure from Montreal where his tiresome friends bragged about their lofty goals, he arrives in Roberval as a big fish in a smaller pond. He makes quick work capturing the attention of the horniest men and “the little slutboys of love” in the town, despite the vitriolic anger of these boys’ fathers who have formed into a vengeful mob.
Enticing the boys with a detailed Grindr profile, Querelle is “not known for his smartness, but in the blows from his pelvis there flickers a different kind of genius.”
Not only has Querelle’s beautiful body and insatiable libido become legendary, but it’s also put a target on his back regarding the nasty rumors circulating around the small town about his responsibility in the disappearance of a local teenaged boy.
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Tensions are running high as the employees of the sawmill begin striking while the bosses, a vicious father and son team, seethe with anger and violent resentment at the labor conflict that is costing them thousands of dollars each day and weeks of bad publicity.
Despite this, Querelle is unbothered at work, observing how predictably his dullard straight co-workers behave and unabashedly describing his dalliances with men. He boasts loudly about his “most impressive couplings” to whomever is within earshot embodying the type of dude who masturbates under the table during union meetings while glancing at NSFW photos on his phone.
A subplot involving the sister of a downtrodden co-worker pales in comparison to the sordid exploits of a teenaged trio of rebellious urchins who busy themselves smoking crack, having unprotected sex with each
other, and heaving Molotov cocktails into homes and busy businesses on Christmas Eve.
As the strike reaches its boiling point and violence takes its toll on Querelle, the three nasty vulture boys head out for the night high on meth and marijuana to defile a corpse they discover on a baseball field.
Previously published in French in 2018, the book has won France’s Marquis de Sade Prize among other awards in Quebec and Montreal. This English translation will certainly garner the author an expanded fanbase, particu-
Canadian author Kevin Lambert’s second novel is a heady affair re-
around
labor equality, sexuality, and violent exploitation at the hands of a cocksure sex-god-like man named Querelle.
2022 has been a triumphant year for Ryan O’Connell. The gay writer/actor/ director/disability advocate is not only one of the stars of Peacock’s reimagining of “Queer as Folk,” but he wrote the best episode of the series, “F—Disabled People,” which featured a disabled sex party orgy or crip rave. Now he’s penned his debut novel, scoring another home run.
Background-wise, O’Connell authored his 2015 memoir “I’m Special And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves,” concerning his life as a gay man with cerebral palsy, which he then adapted as a television series, “Special,” for Netflix, starring in it for the two seasons it ran.
COVID ended “Special” and during lockdown, he wrote “Just By Looking At Him” –what did you do during the pandemic? “Just” should make some critics list of the Top Ten Queer novels of the year and win the prize for sexiest book jacket, a reproduction of Henry Scott Tuke’s 1927 painting, “The Critics.”
Elliott is a thirty-five-year-old overpaid TV writer (for a popular moronic series about a robot called “Sammy Says”) with cerebral palsy.
The deceptively simple story is told from Elliott’s perspective. He has the “perfect” supportive boyfriend Gus, together, almost six years in a codependent relationship.
At night, they order Postmates, drink bottles of natural wine, watch numbing television for hours, and have dissociative sex. Stuck in a rut and perhaps hit by the seven-year itch, Elliot is becoming less grateful and more resentful about the relationship. And he feels creatively stifled in his flashy job.
In talking to his emotionally abusive boss Ethan, he hears about his wild night with a sex worker named River. Seeking more life experiences to mimic those of his able-bodied peers, Elliott spends the $480 an hour with the aspiring optician River. It becomes an ongoing arrangement, which at first he hides from Gus, fearing a conversation about opening up their relationship and forgoing monogamy. Elliott slowly realizes he is self-sabotaging, with River hookups
From page 16
larly those who may have missed out on his smashing debut “You Will Love What You Have Killed.”
Going into the novel without knowing anything about Lambert’s writing can be deceptive, however, with selected lyrics from “Work Bitch” by Britney Spears as a campy, innocently goofy epigraph. It’s a curious start, but this novel is so very far from bubblegum pop music; it’s a piece of art that pushes boundaries and will either repel or attract a reader, depending on how deep a dive into exploitation fiction you want to take.
Amidst and despite all the violence
becoming a sex addiction, as is his increasing alcohol dependency.
Through an unlikely series of events, River forms a threesome with Gus, though the latter isn’t informed of Elliot’s previous association with him. Elliot watches River top Gus, who lets out “guttural almost inhumane, moans of pure pleasure he had never heard before. This was the way sex was supposed to be. This was sex without me.”
Elliott’s disability issues seem to be deflected back on Gus. Can their partnership survive all this turmoil? And what will be the impact when Elliot reconnects with Jonas, someone he knew in school, who also has cerebral palsy? Can Elliott learn to value himself in a world that he doesn’t believe values him?
Gay Mad Libs
The novel starts with a fantastic opening line: “My boyfriend Gus has a beautiful penis,” which O’Connell spends a paragraph praising. The many sex scenes are all explicit and graphic. The book’s first half is reminiscent of Stephen McCauley novels
(“The Object of My Affection”) in the comic, sardonic tone satirizing many elements of gay life, though raunchier.
For example, here’s O’Connell’s
and depravity layered within these pages, Lambert illustrates his shameless protagonist and his unapologetic deviance as consistently “honest and natural.”
Definitely not for the easily offended, only fans of the kind of bizarre, perverse, and controversially provocative fiction that put writers like Dennis Cooper on the literary map will enjoy discovering Lambert’s graphic yet lyrical language style, unfettered storytelling bravado, and, of course, his intense, daring vision.t
‘Querelle
snarky takedown of “pointless brunches with other upwardly mobile gays that our meals are basically a game of Mad Libs: Insert adjective to describe your gay vacation here. Insert name of gay famous person whose house you recently went to for a dinner party. (It’s always Jesse Tyler Ferguson. WHY?). Insert flighty comment to demonstrate that you haven’t gone full snooze and are DTF outside the relationship. Did a black trans woman really throw the first brick at Stonewall so cis white gays could eat $26 eggs Benedict as they unpacked the new Robyn album?”
Or this priceless blunt description of Provincetown:
“It’s like someone painted the perfect picture of a quintessential New England seaside town. And that someone also happened to be really gay and horny. Husbands and wives eat ice cream with their children right next to a group of leather gays. You can see beautiful pieces of art, eat your saltwater taffy, and then mosey on over to a place called Dick Dock, which is pretty self-explanatory. You can bring your dad one week and your daddy the next.”
The book is filled with witty zingers and an endless stream of pop culture references all compacted into one-or-
two-page fast paced chapters, zipping the plot along and building up the characters.
Dark demons
However, the novel’s second half mirrors a kind of dark night of the soul where Elliott confronts demons related to his disability that he has ignored or repressed, as well as ableism, which he critiques but also acknowledges he’s benefitted. All these demons coincidentally follow similar struggles O’Connell has divulged in interviews.
Elliot tires of always trying to be the “most palatable, easy to digest, the crostini” version of disability, worrying about other people’s snap judgments of him. He realizes how much of being disabled is feeling restricted or boxed in, of being told what would happen to him, a preordained life. His struggle is to do something on his own terms, instead of others trying to control him.
Elliot’s worst fear is being rejected for his body, which is why he pays River to accept him and provide a safe place for him to explore without any fear of repudiation. He’s also hounded by the nagging suspicion he’s not good enough in bed. But when he wants River “to fuck him for free,” their arrangement ends.
Elliot’s mission is to get his dick back, as once you are born disabled, society doesn’t see you as sexually viable.
Elliot discover how sex is a great way to feel less alone, less stigmatized. That is why he’s willing to put himself out there, being vulnerable, experiencing rejection and bouncing back, but regardless, not letting it act as an indicator of his worthiness or value as a person. Elliot’s dream is for other people to see and accept him for who he is, including his giant ass (“a CP thing,” but also a sexual asset).
The other insight underlying the novel is how much disability is deplored by our society because it’s based on productivity, being bigger, faster. Being a death-denying culture, we don’t know how to deal with aging and weakness. If you live long enough, you will likely end up disabled in some capacity, a fact people dread facing.
Cerebral palsy artistically has been a gold mine for O’Connell, giving him his unique autobiographical voice. He’s already written the screenplay for the film version of this novel.
What’s next? A Broadway play or musical on the subject? O’Connell is a singular talent along the lines of the early Woody Allen, so one hopes he might transcend his comfort zone and tackle a different topic for his next creative endeavor.
Regardless, “Just” excels in giving a window as to how disabled people feel when they are treated as other, but this instruction comes through hilarious, heartfelt episodes rather than scolding rhetoric or tirades about how ablebodied people oppress the disabled.
Elliot is on a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance, but a candid one where he’s not afraid to make mistakes or confess and lampoon his flaws. Readers will be thrilled to accompany Elliot as he limps toward redemption.t
‘Just By Looking At Him: A Novel’ by Ryan O’Connell. Atria Books/ Simon & Schuster, $27.00 www.simonandschuster.com
‘Broadway homages wowed the audience at the 26th Richmond/Ermet Aid Foundation (REAF) Help Is On The Way concert at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre on August 7, the first to be held in person since 2019. Performers included Garrett Clayton (who performed “Sweet Transvestite” from “The Rocky Horror Show” - see photo), John Lloyd Young, Paula West, Sally Struthers, Jason Graae, and others. Shawn Ryan MCed and Leanne Borghesi also performed, and both were given special honors for their years of participation in the REAF benefit concerts. Fans enjoyed a VIP afterparty at the Beacon Grand Hotel. www.reaf-sf.org
Enjoy more nightlife albums at facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife
And see more of Steven’s work at www.stevenunderhill.com
