December 1, 2022 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Senate gives final passage to Respect for Marriage Act

by Cynthia Laird

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday gave final passage to the Respect for Marriage Act, sending the bill back to the House of Representatives for a vote before it goes to President Joe Biden, who has said he will sign it. It will enshrine in federal law a right to same-sex marriage and interracial marriage.

The 61-36 vote included all 49 Democratic senators present and 12 Republicans. The lone Democratic senator absent was Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia), who is a co-sponsor but was in his home state where he faces a runoff next week against Republican Herschel Walker, according to Equality California, the state’s LGBTQ rights organization.

The Senate bill contains an amendment to include protections for religious liberty.

The House previously passed the bill without the amendment back in July on a bipartisan 267-157 vote. House members now need to have a concurrence vote before the bill can be sent to Biden.

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

LGBTQ leaders praised the Senate action.

“This vote is an affirmation that the United States will stand up and protect the freedom for all Americans to marry the person they love,” stated Tony Hoang, EQCA executive director. “And it’s a reflection of the fact that for the overwhelming majority of Americans – across political parties, backgrounds and in every corner of the country – the debate over marriage equality is settled.”

Biden indicated his strong support in a statement. See page 14 >>

Holiday spirit shines in Castro

Out East Bay dads win school board seats

by Matthew S. Bajko

Two out dads scored historic victories in the November 8 election by winning seats on their East Bay cities’ school boards, while two out Bay Area female education leaders also scored historic wins.

Mayor-elect Thao vows to unite Oakland

by Cynthia Laird

Walking onto the steps of City Hall November 23 to Queen’s “We are the Champions,” Oakland Mayorelect Sheng Thao thanked those who voted for her and vowed to be a mayor for all residents –even if they supported another candidate during the hotly contested campaign.

Thao, 37, will be the youngest mayor in Oakland’s history and its first Hmong mayor. A straight ally, Thao stood with the LGBTQ community during the mayoral campaign when another candidate participated in a transphobic photo shoot with a well-known transphobe, as the Bay Area Reporter previously reported.

Thao, who currently represents District 4 on the Oakland City Council, will take office January 2.

Thao told supporters and the media at her news conference that she thanked her main opponent, outgoing District 6 Councilmember Loren Taylor, for his concession phone call to her November 22. Taylor also held a news conference that day where he formally conceded the race.

“He ran a strong campaign,” Thao said.

For his part, Taylor congratulated Thao. “The results are in, and while we ran an extremely competitive race and received a large share of the vote count, we came up short,” Taylor stated in a November 22 release. “I’d like to formally congratulate Sheng Thao on her successful victory in the race to be Oakland’s next mayor.”

The Oakland mayor’s race was one of the

last local races to be called when the final votes were released November 21. On election night, November 8, Taylor emerged with the most first place votes and had a 33.07% lead to Thao’s 31.79%. But Oakland uses ranked choice voting and, as those results were tabulated, Thao began to cut into Taylor’s lead. With the final unofficial results, Thao won with 50.30% of the vote to Taylor’s 49.70%, a margin of 682 votes.

Thao has quickly worked to unite the city.

“To all Oaklanders who voted for another candidate, I will do anything I can to earn their

trust,” she said Wednesday. “I will be a mayor for all of Oakland.”

She said she was excited to get to work as mayor in January.

“I am also humble,” she added.

Thao briefly recited her campaign stump speech, how she escaped an abusive relationship and was homeless and living in her car with her young son 16 years ago. Today, she lives with her partner, Andre Jones; son, Benedict; and daughter, Brooklyn. “So many people have held our hands and lifted us up,” she said.

Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971

Eggman to chair caucus

'The Inspection' Theater picks

Alameda school board member-elect Ryan LaLonde, left, and Oakland school board member-elect Nick Resnick, left, will take office in January.

The U.S. Senate gave final passage to the marriage bill November 29.

Public domain

Christopher Robledo

Courtesy the campaigns

Oakland Mayor-elect Sheng Thao spoke to the media and supporters at her first news conference since winning the mayor’s race Wednesday, November 22, outside City Hall.

Cynthia Laird

Mayor London Breed, center, greeted visitors who attended the annual Castro Holiday Tree lighting ceremony at Bank of America Plaza at Castro and 18th streets Monday, November 28. Spearheaded by the Castro Merchants Association, the yuletide tradition in the city’s

LGBTQ neighborhood kicked off the all-important holiday shopping season as businesses look to recover from the economic hardships brought about by the COVID pandemic. The evening featured the San Francisco Gay/Lesbian Marching Band (the city’s official band), political leaders, and Santa.

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Castro leaders look at diversifying the neighborhood

by Sari Staver

One recent evening, in a dimly lit empty storefront in the Cas tro, several dozen locals gathered to hear a panel of neighborhood lead ers discuss strategies to preserve and expand queer spaces in the LGBTQ neighborhood.

Held November 3 next door to the Academy, an LGBTQ social club at 2166 Market Street, the meeting was organized by gay attorney John Hendricks of Hendricks Law PC. The 90-minute discussion touched on the wider problems affecting the neighborhood, including the stub bornly high rate of empty store fronts, street crimes, tent encamp ments, exorbitant real estate prices, regulatory snags in opening a busi ness, and sparse entertainment op tions for women and people of color.

“In more than a decade repre senting local queer business,” Hen dricks said in an interview before the meeting, “I’ve observed sig nificant barriers for business own ers, including obtaining clear and consistent regulatory guidance and managing the cost of compliance.”

Commercial vacancy rates in the Castro are at nearly 22%, he said, compared to the citywide retail va cancy rate of about 5.5%, accord ing to a fact sheet Hendricks pre pared and distributed to attendees. Yet, in recent months, a number of new businesses have opened in the neighborhood on its two main commercial corridors of Castro and Market streets, while three new eat eries set to open on upper Market Street are working through the per mit process.

In addition, while there are more than 170 Black-owned businesses in San Francisco, there are a couple in the Castro, including florist Guy Clark, according to gay District 8 Su pervisor Rafael Mandelman’s office.

While it is still unclear how many neighborhood businesses will suc cessfully bounce back from the damage they suffered during the COVID pandemic, several attendees sounded optimistic.

For example, the empty store front where the meeting was held was recently leased by the Academy to become an event space for rent to local groups. One of the Acad emy owners, Nate Bourg, said that “business has been good” and “we felt confident” that they have a good chance to make a go of it.

And panelist Dave Karraker, who owns MX3 Fitness, which has loca tions in the Castro, Lower Haight, and the Mission, said his center at 2336 Market Street “was very busy,” more so than the others. Karraker, who is co-president of the Castro Merchants Association, also pointed out that workers were busy renovat

ing Cafe Flore, the iconic cafe at Market and Noe streets that has been shuttered for several years. A seafood-focused eatery is expected to take over the high-profile corner space.

“Nightlife is fundamental to the neighborhood,” noted Hendricks. For decades, bars were the most popular place to socialize but, in the eyes of many, those businesses often haven’t been welcoming to people of color, women, and trans people.”

Discrimination complaints led investigators to look at the Badlands bar more than a decade ago. A 2004 report by the San Francisco Hu man Rights Commission found that Badlands was discriminating against African Americans, but the find ings were never official because the HRC executive director at the time, Virginia Harmon, did not sign off on the staff report. Owner Les Na tali and the complainants eventually reached a confidential settlement, and Natali denied the allegations. Badlands permanently shuttered in 2020 during the pandemic.

Karraker conceded that other neighborhoods, including 24th Street in Noe Valley, and the shop ping corridor on Chestnut Street in the Marina, are “more vibrant” than the Castro. Karraker thinks that lo cals who opposed the opening of a Trader Joe’s in the Castro several years ago, citing traffic issues, “made a big mistake.”

“It worked in New York City,” said Karraker, pointing out that such a move would’ve brought a tremen dous amount of foot traffic to the area. “Much of the nightlife has shifted to Oakland,” he added.

Mandelman, who recently easily won reelection to a second term on the Board of Supervisors in the No vember 8 election, said that when he moved to the city in the mid-1980s, the Castro was a “vibrant, popping place” with few vacant storefronts.

“For me,” he said, “it was a dy namic and exciting” place.

The Castro isn’t the only neigh borhood suffering vacancies, he said, “it’s a citywide problem.”

If landlords reduced rents and the city eased many of the require ments for building permits, busi ness owners would be more likely to set up shop, Mandelman noted. As it is, owners have to “get through 17 departments that have to say yes” before they can open, he added.

Challenges

In an email to the Bay Area Re porter after the meeting, Mandel man wrote that he recently intro duced a pair of policies allowing new queer bars and bathhouses to open. He said there are barriers to get these businesses going, includ ing complex approval processes and also addressing the city’s mental health care.

“A huge challenge is street condi tions and what’s happening with ad dicted and mentally ill folks,” Man delman said. “They go into stores and make life hard for business owners and their employees. Folks in the Castro are rightly frustrated with the city’s response.”

The Board of Supervisors voted in April on a zoning change to al low gay bathhouses to operate in the Castro and other areas of the city, as the B.A.R. previously reported. So far, however, no one has indicated an interest in opening one.

Levi Maxwell, a transgender ad vocate who is chair of the Economic and Workforce Development Com mittee of the Castro LGBTQ Cultur al District, said the ongoing prob lem of tent encampments won’t be solved until the number and quality of shelters improves. When given the opportunity to move to a shelter, “many people won’t go” because the shelters are unsafe, they said.

In terms of nightlife, “people are going across town to Jolene’s,” a queer-owned establishment, said Maxwell. Currently, there are no dedicated spaces for lesbians in the Castro, they said.

An audience member, who identi fied himself as Frank, said he came to San Francisco after living in Paris where the gay scene is “over.” When he moved to San Francisco, he was disap pointed to see how much the Castro had changed. “It’s gotten very expen

sive here,” he said. “I can’t afford it.”

Another audience member, Kent Mirkhani, a gay real estate devel oper, said, “I’m part of the prob lem. I’m trying to build 140 units on this block” but he’s hit numer ous roadblocks that have stalled the project. “I’m about to give up,” he said, noting that the building he has proposed would have 22 affordable units, more than the minimum re quirements of the city.

Mirkhami, who lives nearby, has been trying to develop two sites on the 2100 block of Market Street for years, one of which is the vacant Open Bible Church at 2135 Market Street. His earlier proposals were met with objections from nearby residents due to the height of the buildings and the configuration of the housing units.

Just this month Mirkhami and his architects released new render ings for a project at 2140 Market Street with 91 units of housing. It would replace the Lucky 13 dive bar, a surface parking lot to its left, and a three-unit apartment building to the right of business.

Terry Beswick, a gay man and longtime local activist who recently started a consultant practice to help connect small businesses and non profits to government and corpo rate funding, said the meeting was a “constructive” method of bringing the community together.

In an email to the B.A.R., Beswick wrote that there is “a cool campaign rolling out soon” that aims to mar ket empty storefronts in the Castro to prospective tenants co-sponsored by the merchants group and the Castro/Upper Market Commu nity Business District. “The cam paign tagline is ‘I’m available,’ and it involves catchy posters in vacant storefronts with a cute avatar and QR codes that will link to a website and a database of brokers,” he stated.

“I’m hopeful the project will bring a lot of visibility to the op portunities for small businesses and entrepreneurs in the neighbor hood, but I think its success will be dependent on participation from landlords and commercial brokers,” Beswick wrote.

Beswick said many factors con tributing to the high vacancy rate “are outside our control as the economy continues through a cycle of disruptions. But we can help our commercial corridors adapt through targeted funding and technical assis tance, as well as changes to burden some regulations and costly fees.”

Beswick recently secured a $100,000 grant from the city so that the merchants group, where he serves as treasurer, could “activate” vacant storefronts in the Castro. “It is not a lot of money to tackle this

Thao eventually became an in tern and then staff member for les bian at-large City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan. Four years ago, she was elected to the District 4 council seat, which includes the Montclair, Redwood Heights, and Dimond neighborhoods. That council dis trict has produced the city’s last three mayors: Jean Quan, Libby Schaaf, and now Thao. Quan was on the steps with Thao’s other support ers, as was District 1 Councilmem ber Dan Kalb.

Kaplan, who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, will remain in her council seat as she still has two years in her term. Having previously run for Oakland mayor herself, Kaplan endorsed Thao when she kicked off her campaign.

“Sheng Thao was an excellent and

effective staff person whom I was honored to hire, promote, and sup port in her runs for office,” stated Kaplan in a congratulatory email she sent out November 22. “She started in my office as an intern and rose to Chief of Staff prior to her run for City Council. Her election is historic, and she will be a ground breaking Mayor for Oakland.”

Succeeding Thao in her City Council seat will be social justice at torney Janani Ramachandran, who is queer and lost a bid for state As sembly last year. At age 30, she will be the youngest councilmember in Oakland’s history, as well as the council’s first LGBTQ woman of color and first South Asian member.

She tweeted Wednesday morning that she looks forward to working with Thao next year “to uplift & em power our Oakland communities.”

Thao said that her top priorities would be public safety, homeless ness, and cleaning up the city’s

streets. She wants the city to imple ment the council’s public safety plan and wants to create more jobs for Oaklanders. On the issue of polic ing, Thao said the Oakland Police Department’s vacancies should be filled “with diverse homegrown of ficers.”

Last year, after voting not to add additional police academies, Thao reversed course and did support more academies as violent crime was rising and the number of police officers was decreasing.

Thao also wants to get guns off the streets, she said.

Thao did not take questions from reporters following her remarks. Some LGBTQ residents who were there said that they looked forward to the new administration.

“She’s been a very strong” ally, said Port bar co-owner Sean Sulli van, a gay man who owns the LG BTQ nightspot with his partner, Richard Fuentes.

Sullivan noted that Thao put out a statement on Twitter following the mass shooting in Colorado Springs, Colorado November 19 that left five people dead and 18 injured.

“I am shocked and angered by the horrid attack on our LGBTQ community in Colorado,” she wrote. “Brazen acts of violence like this have been tolerated for far too long and it is unacceptable Congress has not taken bold action against gun violence and rising hate in our country.”

Added Sullivan, “I look forward to creating a safer and more vibrant city for LGBTQ people.”

Fuentes told the Bay Area Reporter that he first met Thao when she was interning for Kaplan and he worked for then-city councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente (who also ran for may or this year but came up short). He said he’s looking forward to Thao’s support for small businesses.

Moderator John Hendricks, left, asked questions of panelists Dave Karraker, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, and Levi Maxwell during a recent meeting about the business climate in the Castro.

Sari Staver

A new hair salon is expected to open at 323 Noe Street, left, the former home of Six, while a former tanning salon next door is available.

Sari Staver

Cultural districts offer entrepreneurial opportunities

by Eric Burkett

Forty-two years ago, leather dominated San Francisco’s South of Market district. There were 44 leather-oriented businesses ranging from leather bars and bathhouses to sex clubs and shops that specialized in leather gear. Leather permeated the old industrial neighborhood, until it didn’t.

It would have been virtually impossible for many to anticipate what was waiting.

“But in ways that were not yet obvious, the foundations of leather South of Market were being undermined by economic and political forces as well as the emerging AIDS epidemic,” wrote cultural anthropologist Gayle Rubin, Ph.D., in her article “The South of Market Leather History and Guide” in SF Frontiers in September 2001.

In the 1990s, leather would make a resurgence in the old industrial neighborhood, Rubin wrote, with the appearance of bars like My Place, The Loading Dock, and The Lone Star Saloon but, as nearly anyone can attest, it’s never been quite the same. The number of leatheroriented businesses currently operating in the neighborhood is, perhaps, a quarter of what it was back in the summer of 1980.

“We currently count 11,” said Bob Goldfarb, executive director of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District. “The leather community began locating in South of Market in the 1960s. We don’t want to see that go away. We’re here to prevent displacement of people and businesses.”

The leather district, founded in 2018 as one of now-10 cultural districts throughout the city, has been working to change that, most notably with a business incubator program helping people to develop business ventures that tie in with the neighborhood’s leather heritage. The Entrepreneur Training Program, a nine-week class led by San Francisco LGBT Community Center veteran Eddy Tang, teaches members of the leather community how “to build their businesses from the ground up,” according to the leather district’s website.

On September 22, the training program graduated its first class of six aspiring entrepreneurs, thanks to Tang, a gay man who has led the small business program at the community center for the past five years.

“I’m also a business owner myself,” said Tang, who has lived in San Francisco for 17 years.

In fact, Tang brings a wealth of experience to his students. Besides his work at the LGBT center, he’s involved in a few other nonprofits, including the San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center, where he helps people 50 and over start businesses.

With an MBA from the University of San Francisco, he has 10 years of experience in the financial industry and, prior to that, worked as an engineer, he said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

Other programs

The leather district isn’t the only LGBTQ cultural district offering classes to prospective entrepreneurs, however. Both the Transgender District and the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District offer opportunities, if not classes, for aspiring business people.

The Transgender District, which was established back in 2017, completed its first round of classes over the summer, said Aubrey Davis, a transgender woman and executive associate for the district.

“The program started around mid-July,” said Davis. “We had about 170 applicants.”

Only six made it into the program this time, however. But those successful applicants – or cohorts – had access to what Davis described as “a four-week boot camp” in cooperation with the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, a San Franciscobased nonprofit that has helped people, primarily women, open their own businesses throughout the Bay Area. Participants in the program have access to business coaches, financial education through US Bank, web design, and branding.

The Transgender District also offered an entrepreneurship accelerator program and that provided Melanie Ampon, a trans woman and electrologist, with a $10,000 grant to open her practice, as the B.A.R. previously reported.

While most of the participants in last summer’s boot camp were from San Francisco, the program is open to anyone in the Bay Area, said Davis. Best of all, the program is free.

Across town in the Castro, wouldbe entrepreneurs won’t find classes but existing businesses can find financial assistance through the Cas-

tro LGBTQ Cultural District, said Tina Aguirre, a genderqueer Latinx person and director of the district.

With the assistance of Tang, who sat on the review committee for the district’s most recent grant cycle, and Rosemary Gardner, program director for the LGBT center, Aguirre “and one or two other” advisory board members sort through grant applications from various Castro area businesses, ultimately awarding $60,000 in grants.

The assistance isn’t merely financial, said Aguirre. “Post grant, we worked with small businesses if they needed our help.”

In one case, a $30,000 grant was issued to Healing Cuts, a hair salon and barber on Market Street that was having difficulty getting a parklet approved by the city, said Aguirre. When the owner asked for support, he wasn’t getting responses from the various agencies about his application, Aguirre said.

“It took several months to get an application approved, which is longer than it should be,” Aguirre said.

The parklet, designed to look like a cable car, is now used for cutting hair.

Ismael De Luna, the owner of Healing Cuts, said the cultural district was “very helpful. Thanks to them, I am able to provide a safe waiting space for the community.”

The cultural district gave out grants to four other businesses, as well, Aguirre continued. Two $10,000 grants and two for $5,000 each. Along with the money, merchants are offered an opportunity to participate in the small business program led by Tang at the LGBT center. The cultural district also continues to check in with them and offer additional support if needed.

“We are committed to making sure they get the support they need,” said Aguirre. “At the same time, there is more need than capacity for all the districts.”

Leather district graduates first class

The leather district’s entrepreneurship program graduated its first class of six at the beginning of October. A nine-week long program, the class drew participants with a wide range of professional goals but all geared toward the leather and kink communities.

One student, Joseph Valliere, a 44-year-old gay man who has lived in San Francisco for 17 years, wants to open a consignment shop for leather and kink gear. A former employee at the old Worn Out West, which also sold leather and kink gear on consignment but closed abruptly in 2018, Valliere had hoped to buy the business but gave up after what he described as “horrible communications problems” with the owner.

“I have felt SF needs another kink consignment shop and I want to get that ball rolling,” he said. The new shop, when he gets it off the ground, would offer a wider variety of styles, he added, including a bigger selection of boots for women.

“I want to do a little more towards women’s footwear and clothing as well,” he said. “I want to get some crazy-ass styles for drag queens. I think they need to spice up their footwear.”

Other proposed businesses included a plan for creating storage equipment for sex toys, to be used when traveling. One student, a photographer, specialized in photographing members of the kink community, including couples and trans folks, while yet another, a chemist and a clothing designer, invented a silicon material that makes it possible to avoid rubber sticking to one’s body. Finally, two more students, working together, are starting a practice to provide mental health therapy for people from the kink community.

The class “was very helpful,” said developmental psychologist and gay man Richard Sprott, who, with Anna Randall, a sex therapist and researcher, plans to open their specialty practice. “I would say the information was new to us and very helpful in how to propose a full business venture.

“Probably even more important was just spending time with the

other entrepreneurs and hearing about their dreams and business ideas,” Sprott continued. ”That sort of connection with other creative types in the leather community was definitely a highlight. And there was a lot of help and cooperation giving feedback on different ideas. That was really, really the most valuable aspect.”

The classes required commitment from the students, however. Running from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Thursday, some students said –in their efforts to fit the classes into already busy schedules – they were often rushing to finish homework assignments.

“I have to say that, each week, the homework took up a good and important chunk of the business plan,” said Sprott, who said he and Randall “basically cleared our schedules.”

“I did as much as I could and was there for every minute,” he said. “We did that because we saw the value in having that kind of support and structure. It was also doable for us because it was an eight-week, nineweek program.”

Cal Callahan, the leather cultural district manager, said he was concerned initially about retention of students in the program but was pleased with how they stuck it out.

“It’s a challenging program for the trainees,” he said. “For them to be successful, they have to put in the work. I think it’s paid off for them.”

For their efforts, students received a $500 grant, as well as feedback from professionals and the other students. By week eight, they had finished all the classwork and presented their business plans to the class and experts brought in to help.

Goldfarb said the students in the first class were all “highly engaged” and reported being very happy with the program. They learned a lot, he said.

Tang said that the participants got a lot out of the sessions.

“A lot of people join the program because they feel they don’t have the business knowledge and want more comprehensive information,” said Tang. “They‘re in the process of turning their side hustle into a business but they don’t understand what paperwork they need.”

And in some cases, the program helped students wrap their heads around information they might have already known, or had been putting into practice already.

“A good amount of the info was common sense,” observed Valliere. “More of a confirmation.”t

Paying tribute to Milk, Moscone

Bob Goldfarb, left, executive director of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District, and Cal Callahan, the manager, were pleased with a recent entrepreneurship program the district offered to aspiring business owners.

Courtesy Goldfarb, Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District

Ernesto Cuellar leaves flowers at the site of Harvey Milk’s former camera store in the Castro district as part of the annual vigil and memorial of the November 27, 1978 San Francisco City Hall assassinations of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. The November 27 march

and vigil marked the 44th anniversary of the murders and was organized by the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club. Among the attendees was former supervisor Carol Ruth Silver, who served with Milk on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Rick Gerharter

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by Eric Burkett

The San Francisco Board of Su pervisors Tuesday voted unani mously to approve an update of agencies qualified to participate in the city’s employee fundraising pro gram, Heart of the City.

Following concerns raised by city employees about the destination of monies raised under the city’s com bined charities program, the Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee agreed Monday to recommend updating the regulations concerning agencies qualified to participate in the 2022 Annual Joint Fundraising Drive for officers and employees of the City and County of San Francisco.

by Eric Burkett

The San Francisco Board of Su pervisors on Tuesday unani mously approved changes to the city’s administrative code, updating definitions of prohibited discrimi nation in contracting ordinances.

Sponsored by Mayor London Breed and gay Supervisors Rafael Mandelman (District 8) and Matt Dorsey (District 6), the proposal passed the rules committee on No vember 14 with no comments from the public. The ordinance is expect ed to have a second and final vote December 6.

The changes had been proposed to clarify some outdated definitions in Chapters 12B and 12C of the admin istrative code, dealing with contracts, including property contracts, that the city enters into. In addition to revis ing the definitions of gender identity, sex, and sexual orientation, the term gender expression was added and the

Sponsored by gay District 8 Su pervisor Rafael Mandelman, the measure passed 3-0 in committee before the full board approved the resolution the following day with out comment. Mandelman said the new program is intended to be tem porary so that city employees can make contributions this year.

The matter came up after con cerns were raised in October that one of the four charitable giving federations to which employees could donate, Creating Healthier Communities, included a number of anti-LGBTQ groups in its mix of charitable organizations. (A request for comment from the organization was not returned.)

This resulted in the city pausing the program altogether.

Tuesday’s passage of the measure will allow the city to resume the pro gram but with an abbreviated list of donation recipients. Employees are still able to write in additional chari ties to which they want to donate.

On Monday, rules committee members Mandelman and Supervi sors Aaron Peskin (District 3) and Connie Chan (District 1) heard three proposals for overhauling the program, presented by Sophie Hayward, legislation and public af fairs director for City Administrator Carmen Chu.

The proposals included passing an ordinance to amend the Admin

istrative Code “to alter the criteria for participation in the campaign;” passing an ordinance to limit par ticipation in the campaign to funds based in San Francisco, such as Give2SF; or simply discontinuing the program.

Calling the effort to overhaul the system “a temporary and imperfect solution,” Mandelman said any ef forts launched right now could allow the program to continue through the year, in order to face a thorough review early in 2023. “Tinkering” with the first alternative to bring the program into compliance could potentially result in a “ton of brain damage” Mandelman said and, after

definition of age was also revised in Chapter 12A, which is the Human Rights Commission ordinance.

Jude Diebold, with the San Fran cisco Human Rights Commission, told the rules committee two weeks ago that they had gathered input from a variety of sources, including the commission’s LGBTQ advisory bodies.

In an email to the Bay Area Re porter November 29, Diebold elabo rated on why the changes are needed.

“The admin code Chapters 12A, 12B, and 12C govern the HRC Civil Rights Division’s work, and provide definitions to clarify terms,” Diebold wrote. “The definitions both have a functional purpose (to protect against discrimination) and symbolic mean ing. The Civil Rights Division identi fied several definitions that were out of date and problematic and devel oped the proposals to update them.”

For example, Diebold pointed to the current definition for gender

identity: “a person’s various individ ual attributes as they are understood to be masculine and/or feminine,” which is binary.

Under the proposal passed by the supervisors, “gender identity” shall mean how a person self-identifies their gender or their internal un derstanding of their gender. “A per

son’s gender identity may or may not correspond with social norms or stereotypes related to the sex they were assigned at birth,” the defini tion states. “There are many terms related to gender with which a per son may identify, including but not limited to: agender; androgynous; bigender; cisgender; cisgender man; cisgender woman; gender fluid; gender non-conforming; genderexpansive; genderqueer, non-binary, pangender, Two-Spirit, transgender, trans, transgender man, transgender woman, masculine, feminine. One’s gender identity may also be de scribed through any number of everexpanding terms or definitions, and one’s gender identity may be subject to change by the individual.”

Under the definition of “sex,” the old definition was also “purely bina ry,” as HRC staff member Matthew Oglander noted in an email.

Under the new ordinance, sex is defined as “one’s anatomical, physi

ological, genetic, or physical at tributes, and the variation in these attributes that may or may not indi cate male, female, or a different sex such as intersex.”

The changes also update the age cap which, while based upon earlier state and federal laws, have since been eliminated at both those levels. Disability, too, is now more broadly defined to match state definitions, which are more broad than those of the federal government.

Dorsey had told the B.A.R. he was pleased the item, which was first pro posed earlier this year, got a hearing.

“The updated language in our municipal code reflects a more en lightened take on gender identity and sexual orientation, which I think is more worthy of San Francisco’s inclusive values.” he said. “Language updates that pertain to age and dis ability status are really about har monizing local provisions with their state and federal counterparts.”t

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman successfully passed a resolution that makes changes to a charitable giving program for city employees.

Courtesy Rafael Mandelman

San Francisco Human Rights Commission staff member Jude Diebold spoke at the Board of Supervisors rules committee meeting November 14.

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Beswick leaves GGBA to start consulting

by Eric Burkett

After a year leading the world’s first LGBTQ chamber of commerce, Terry Beswick has departed the Golden Gate Business Association and struck out on his own as a consultant for small businesses and nonprofits.

He has touted his ability to turn organizations around and bring in additional funding, something he said he accomplished at the Castro Country Club, a sober community center in San Francisco’s LGBTQ neighborhood; the GLBT Historical Society, where he served as executive director for five years; and GGBA.

Take the historical society, for example. When Beswick, a gay man, became executive director there in 2016, the society was in debt and operating on a budget of just over half a million dollars per year. When he left in 2021, the organization was financially stable and had more than doubled its budget to $1.2 million, he said. In addition, he also secured $12 million in funding from City Hall to build a full-scale LGBTQ history museum. The task of finding a location for that museum, preferably in the Castro, now falls to Roberto Ordeñana, who was hired on as the society’s new executive director in October.

Beswick, 63, left his post as the executive director of the GGBA in October. For the time being, “the board will assume leadership responsibilities on behalf of the chamber,” according to a statement on the organization’s website. GGBA officials did not return messages seeking comment.

Much of Beswick’s work over the years has centered around helping organizations find the financial support they need to be successful. That was a challenge he recognized when

he was working at CCC, as well as the GGBA.

As the manager and executive director of both organizations, respectively, he found he didn’t have a lot of time to fill out grant requests, he told the Bay Area Reporter. That realization paved the way for his new business, Grants and Things, LLC (https://grantsandthings.com/).

“I connected the dots and thought, you know, let’s help small nonprofits and small businesses access money,” he said. “They’re busy just doing their job.”

With Grants and Things, Beswick will be offering services as diverse as grant writing and needs assessments to donor relations, project analysis, and legislation.

Despite all the work he’s done with professional organizations such as the Castro Merchants Association, where he serves as treasurer, and GGBA, this venture marks Beswick’s first time launching his own

business. Helping businesses find the resources they need to succeed is something he particularly enjoys, he said.

“I encouraged a lot of business owners who needed help just in accessing grants and I was really inspired by their independence,” he said. “I’ve never owned my own business before. I have always worked for boards or higher-ups in an agency.”

With the consulting business he hopes to help a broader swath of the community – not just the LGBTQ community – to find the funding they need. Beswick said he has many interests “beyond the LGBT sphere” and concerns about “a great many issues.” Add to that a background in performing arts as well as a stint at the B.A.R. as an assistant editor, and he feels he “is well equipped to tackle different subjects.”

“With the GGBA, I did manage to get some significant corporate grants, as well,” he said. “When I talk to other agencies, or small busi-

nesses, they’re not even aware these grants exist.”

Beswick’s departure from GGBA, and starting his own business, seemed to some like a natural step.

“Terry’s new business seems perfectly suited to some of his great strengths,” said Dave Karraker, copresident of Castro Merchants Association. “He was instrumental in helping Castro Merchants secure $400K in grants from the city, which will be used to drive consumer foot traffic to the neighborhood to support small businesses, as well as help fill vacant storefronts. He has a very keen financial and business sense, as well as a passion for the neighborhood, that serves the Castro very well.”

When Beswick stepped down from his role at the GLBT Historical Society, his colleagues praised him for the work he’d done there.

“When he started at the society, we were just a small set of loyal volunteers, contractors, and two other staff members,” the society stated at the time. “During his tenure, the

team grew substantially – and so did the society’s footprint – with archive and museum leases secured and exhibitions and archival programs expanded to more fully represent our community’s stories. He also played a critical role in bringing diverse and committed stewards to the society, who share his and our passion for preserving our community’s history, and who have committed to supporting the society’s plan for a new museum.”

With the new business, Beswick hopes to focus on things that are meaningful to him, and – for the first time in his profession – be able to take visible stands on important issues. The recent death of a friend, Crispin Hollings – a stalwart community activist in his own right –reminded Beswick of an important point, he said.

“Our time is limited here on this planet, and it’s important for me to just enjoy the work,” Beswick said. ”To get up in the morning and be passionate about what I do.”t

Storyteller helps Oakland youth find ‘belonging’

Oakland culture and history lovers now have a new way to explore the city’s historic Swan’s Market with a new self-guided tour launched last month.

The new free digital audio tour can be easily accessed online or while walking around the historic Oakland market using a smartphone app. The oral history of the market and the accompanying map

A little help. A big difference.

and zine, “Oakland Belonging: The Voices of Swan’s Market,” were created by a group of seven youth participating in a program of the same name that’s a project of Chapter 510.

The project was co-led by teaching artists Elena Botkin-Levy, who identifies as queer and lesbian, and Vernon “Trey” Keeve III, who is nonbinary, along with producer, editor, and sound engineer Alicia Crawford, who declined to state her sexual orientation. Keeve was not available to comment for this story.

The tour includes an overview of the market’s history that “explored the idea of community and how Swan’s has told the story of community,” said Botkin-Levy, a 39-yearold oral storytelling expert.

Oakland Belonging’s tour also features a poem about the market, information about the Friday Old Oakland Farmers Market, and a conclusion. The zine is currently on sale at Chapter 510’s store, the Dept. of Make/Believe, at 546 Ninth Street.

Chapter 510 is a Black, Brown, and queer Oakland youth writing, bookmaking, and publishing center in the “bright side of the bay.”

at Peninsula Del Rey. Learn more at our upcoming event.

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Join us for an informative presentation on senior living and the exceptional services offered. Afterwards, take a tour and enjoy a delicious lunch prepared by our culinary team. To make a reservation, please call 650.735.3161

Swan’s Market, which takes up an entire city block, opened in Old Oakland in 1917, according to the market’s website. It closed in 1983 after decades of serving generations of Oakland residents. In 1998, the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation bought the building, restored the market, and added residential communal living space above it. The market reopened in 2000. The market has been further

revitalized by the Old Oakland Farmers Market that has attracted shoppers visiting the food vendors, and arts and crafts stalls, for more than 25 years.

In 2021, the $1.3 million awardwinning Chapter 510 organization opened its new writing center at the historic Swan’s Market at the corner of Ninth and Clay streets in the heart of Old Oakland. Since 2013, the organization has provided free writing workshops for more than 4,000 youth, including New York Times bestselling author Leila Mottley, who wrote “Nightcrawling,” and former Oakland youth poet laureate Tova Ricardo.

Chapter 510 program director Jahan Khalighi and program manager Marabet Morales wanted to get to know the new space, neighbors, and neighborhood, and find a way to belong in its new home. The only way they knew how to do that was to create a project for youth to tell the hidden stories of the market, said Botkin-Levy.

Belonging

“It’s really been an incredible journey,” said Botkin-Levy about the project that launched in January. “Swan’s is a particular historic landmark with a particular history in a particular part of town that’s at the intersection of a lot of different neighborhoods. So, that makes it ripe with story and history.”

Botkin-Levy and Keeve, who led the writing instruction of the project, and Crawford helped the youth who participated in the project to

Our assisted living services are about the whole family and the whole YOU. But the best part? No matter if you need a little help or a lot, you’ll be amazed by the difference

Terry Beswick has started his own consulting firm after leaving the Golden Gate Business Association.

Rick Gerharter

by Heather Cassell

Elena Botkin-Levy, co-lead teaching artist of Oakland Belonging, sits at the mic at Chapter 510’s recording studio at Swan’s Market in Oakland.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Castro CBD raises funds to keep palm trees lit

by Matthew S. Bajko

With city officials set to turn the switch on next week to light the palm trees in the median of upper Market Street, the Castro Community Benefit District is raising money to cover the cost of the electricity bill for doing so. It has set a goal of at least $12,500 in donations to pay for five years worth of the new uplighting.

According to Andrea Aiello, the CBD’s executive director, the city only agreed to install the uplighting as part of the near complete Upper Market Safety Project if the nonprofit neighborhood group agreed to cover the operational costs for the 88 LED lights installed near the base of the palm trees. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has estimated the yearly cost will be $2,500, Aiello told the Bay Area Reporter.

As of November 29, the CBD had raised $1,780 toward its Light Up The Night campaign. The community group offered to pay for the lighting bill because residents of the city’s LGBTQ neighborhood have wanted to see the palm trees bathed in light for decades, said Aiello.

“When I was first hired, members of my board were talking about wouldn’t it be wonderful to have

retail

enormous problem. We’re working now to identify landlords in the neighborhood who we hope would be willing to lease to us at very low cost so that we can activate and market their spaces,” he stated.

“My hope is that we will secure a good sized space that we can brand as a Castro Visitor’s Center,” he added, similar to what is being done in the

uplighting on the palm trees on upper Market Street. I have been with the CBD since 2008,” said Aiello.

“I don’t think there has ever been lighting on the palm trees, not that I can remember.”

Along with helping to beautify the commercial corridor, the lighting will also provide a bit more safety for people walking about in the evening, noted Aiello.

“It is a beautification project but will also help a little bit toward public safety,” she said. “Hopefully, it will encourage people to get out and walk a little more in the neighborhood and feel OK about that.”

For most of the year the LED lights will be white. But as the CBD noted in its appeal for donations, the lighting can be changed to pink during Pride Month in June or red during the holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

Mayor London Breed is set to flip the switch to unveil the new uplighting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, December 8, at Laguna and Market streets near the campus of Openhouse, the nonprofit provider of services and affordable housing for LGBTQ seniors. She will also cut a ribbon to officially inaugurate the pedestrian improvements the city has installed along Market Street between Octavia Boulevard and Castro Street.

Haight with “Welcome Haight & Ashbury.” The space would be used to direct tourists to businesses and attractions and showcase Castro-themed merchandise from multiple vendors.

“We have lots of great LGBTQ and allied vendors who participate in our monthly Art Marts on Noe, or in the Castro Street Fair, who just don’t have the financing to rent an expensive storefront on their own, and we’d love to help them generate revenue in a more long-lasting pop-

As the B.A.R. noted in October, (https://www.ebar.com/story. php?319906) the project included the installation at the Muni boarding platforms on upper Market Street of orange-colored safety railings honoring the late gay supervisor Harvey Milk, who lived in the Castro and represented it at City Hall. New bulb-outs at several intersections along the roadway were added to slow down vehicular traffic and make it safer for pedestrians.

up arrangement,” Beswick stated.

Attorney Hendricks conceded that many of the ideas discussed at the meeting have been debated for years, noting that a 2015 retail strategy report for the Castro outlined some of the same recommendations.

That report “is a valuable document, and while some of its recommendations have been implemented, it is apparent that many have not, or at least not fully,” he wrote. While the 2015 strategy “ap-

New decorative crosswalks in a brick pattern are being added to two intersections, the one by Openhouse where the dedication ceremony will be held and the other at Sanchez and 15th streets on the north side in front of the Chase bank.

According to SFMTA, new sidewalk extensions and/or ramps have been constructed at 17 street corners between Castro Street and Octavia Boulevard, while the traffic signals have been either fully rebuilt

pears slightly outdated,” he recommended “dusting it off and putting its recommendations back to work for our neighborhood.”

While the 2015 strategy expressly calls for developing and monitoring annual benchmark indicators of district improvements, Hendricks said he was unaware of any updated statistics.

“You can’t improve what you don’t measure,” he wrote.

Andrea Aiello, a lesbian who’s

and/or modified at the intersections of 16th and Noe streets, 15th and Sanchez streets, and at Hermann, Laguna, and Guerrero streets.

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

The changes for one of the city’s main arterial roadways are part of the Vision Zero plan to end pedestrian and bicyclist deaths. Collisions along upper Market Street have been a serious problem for years.

Work on the street safety project began last summer and sped up in recent months. According to the SFMTA, it included the installation of more than a dozen Rainbow Honor Walk bronze plaques memorializing deceased LGBTQ luminaries along Market Street earlier this year.

“I am glad the project is done,” said Aiello. “There was a lot of delays with the shipping and supply chain issues.”

To donate toward the CBD’s fundraising drive for the lighting bill, visit the donation page on its website at https://castrocbd.org/ donate/t

the executive director of the Castro CBD, did not attend the meeting. In an email she wrote, “What you must understand is that there was funding for the study, not funding to implement the recommendations from this study. We did get another grant to hire a consultant to help new merchants get into spaces; but the funding became available right when the pandemic hit. We decided to redirect the funding to our new retail leasing campaign, which will launch soon.”t

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The Castro Community Benefit District is seeking donations to cover electricity costs associated with uplighting the palm trees along upper Market Street.

Matthew S. Bajko

Volume 52, Number 48

December 1-7, 2022 www.ebar.com

PUBLISHER

Michael M. Yamashita

Thomas

NEWS EDITOR

Cynthia Laird

Jim Provenzano

Tavo

Editorial Pelosi’s lasting legacy

HouseSpeaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent announcement that she would step down from the Democratic House leadership when the new Congress begins in January was not unexpected. After all, she had agreed to do so years ago in a compromise with House Democrats, but it still sent shockwaves as San Francisco residents and other Californians have come to terms with the fact that we will lose an influential voice in the leadership ranks that really helped LGBTQ people and people living with HIV/AIDS. While Pelosi will remain in Congress and represent San Francisco – she was just handily reelected in the November 8 midterms – the Golden State stands to lose some institutional power if, as expected, the next minority leader is Congressmember Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York). Unfortunately, the Republicans took control of the House following the election, albeit with a slim majority. Pelosi’s leadership legacy in the fight for HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ rights is unmatched – and we deeply appreciate her accomplishments.

It’s fitting that on this World AIDS Day we recall that Pelosi has always been an unwavering ally for those living with the disease. Her actions as a top House Democrat over the years have helped save lives both in the U.S. and around the world.

Her first speech on the floor of the House, on June 9, 1987, dealt with the epidemic that was ravaging her congressional district as well as many other places in the U.S. “... Now we must take leadership of course in the crisis of AIDS,” she said. At the time the federal government’s response to HIV/AIDS was abysmal, and President Ronald Reagan had waited until September 17, 1985 – four years after the disease was discovered – to first publicly mention AIDS. And Pelosi did take leadership on HIV/AIDS, working to accelerate development of an HIV vaccine, expanding access to Medicaid for people living with HIV, and increasing funding for the

Ryan White CARE program, the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), the Minority HIV/AIDS Initiative and other research, care, treatment, prevention and search for a cure initiatives vital to people living with or at risk for HIV/AIDS, as her congressional website notes. An AIDS vaccine remains elusive, but researchers continue to work on the issue. In 1996, Pelosi successfully spearheaded the passage of legislation designating San Francisco’s AIDS Memorial Grove, located in Golden Gate Park, as a national memorial of the United States. Pelosi has celebrated multiple anniversaries of her service representing San Francisco by volunteering at the grove, which will hold its annual World AIDS Day observance December 1. She has worked with Republican and Democratic presidents. She supported President George W. Bush’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, because disease knows no borders, as we’ve repeatedly seen, not only with HIV/ AIDS, but COVID-19, MPX, and others. PEPFAR, a global initiative, is aimed at combating AIDS in Africa and other countries, its website notes. Most significantly, in her first stint

as House speaker, she helped secure passage of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2010, which expanded health care access to millions of people.

Pelosi has supported the LGBTQ community, through good times and bad. She has attended the pink triangle ceremony that is held in San Francisco over Pride weekend and participated in the Pride parade. Legislatively, she has led Congress to twice pass the Equality Act; this landmark legislation extends the protections of the Civil Rights Act to LGBTQ Americans – barring discrimination in employment, education, access to credit, jury service, federal funding, housing and public accommodations. Unfortunately, the legislation remains stalled in the U.S. Senate.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning Roe V. Wade, in which Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in a concurring opinion that other precedents, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage, also be considered for reversal, Pelosi led the House Democrats earlier this year to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, which will repeal the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act. The Senate also passed a version of the bill, and once an amendment is approved by the House, it will be sent to President Joe Biden, who said he would sign it.

After the tragic mass shootings at LGBTQ nightclubs – Pulse in Orlando, Florida in 2016 and more recently, Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado on November 19 – Pelosi has mourned the loss of life in traditionally safe spaces for LGBTQ people and reiterated calls for more gun safety legislation. (In June, Biden signed the most significant gun safety legislation in years. The bipartisan bill was passed by the House and Senate in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.)

We look forward to Pelosi’s future as she seeks to carve out her own post-leadership role in the next Congress. She will do so on her own terms and, whatever form it takes, San Franciscans can know they have a representative who will continue to work for them and the country.t

Changing the pattern for a future without AIDS

by John Cunningham

As our community comes together this World AIDS Day, it’s hard not to look around and see who’s missing – our friends, lovers, and family we’ve lost over four decades of this horrific, cruel disease. It always brings tears and we carry so many emotions, particularly in thinking about what could have been.

But for me, as a man living with HIV/AIDS, I shift to a brighter space, choosing to look around me, thinking about so many of us still here, living and thriving. We survivors, who have so much to be thankful for, also have a heavy burden to share our own stories and journey so history is less likely to repeat itself.

However, behind the smiles, so many of us remain furious. Today, people are still dying and there should have been a cure, long ago. We are angry because bigotry, hate, and stigma still persist today in society. And we carry shame, because communities of color, and LGBTQ+ and other marginalized populations, continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV and discrimination, and it shouldn’t be this way.

It is time to change the pattern.

While at times faint, there is light and hope. Progress continues to be made, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept the timetable that’s been laid out before us. In fact, we shouldn’t. Rather, it’s our responsibility to change the narrative, to raise the flag high, and to demand more action, change, and justice.

We know our collective voices are powerful. History proves it with Stonewall, the civil rights movement, the marches on Washington and in our streets, Black Lives Matter, women’s rights, protests against gun violence, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Our activism is rooted in not accepting the status quo and for what are perceived as norms in society. At a time when some in society take

us to dark places through violent attacks, rhetoric, and otherisms, we meet the challenges of our times by taking on causes larger than ourselves.

On this World AIDS Day, we gather in the nation’s federally-designated memorial to AIDS – the 10-acre National AIDS Memorial Grove –to remember, in the peaceful surroundings of nature. This year we honor Cleve Jones for his activism and visionary work in carrying Harvey Milk’s bullhorn in the fight for health and social justice. His vision for the quilt, to lay our dead on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol with quilts made the size of a grave, captured hearts and minds in a way previously unimagined, and created what is now the largest community arts project in the world.

In communities all across the country, sections of the quilt are on display, being used as a teaching tool, and to continue its long tradi-

tion of raising resources for local HIV/AIDS service organizations. This includes the largest display ever in Alabama, where HIV is on the rise, and a panel made by legendary civil rights leader Rosa Parks for her friend who died of AIDS, just blocks away from where she stood her ground exactly 67 years ago – on December 1, 1955 – unknowingly starting a movement that continues today.

The symbolism is powerful. Standing here in this moment, we know that Parks’ work –and that of so many in the fight for health and social justice – is not complete.

It is our responsibility to channel that same fury, passion, and love to continue to change the pattern – today, tomorrow, and into the future.

On this World AIDS Day we celebrate all those who have carried that movement forward in their own way, with their own voices, to demand action. We share their stories in remembrance, to educate, and to inspire young and old from all walks of life to continue delivering on the promise.

Whether for civil rights, human rights, LGBTQ+ rights, or a cure for HIV/ AIDS, our health and social justice movements never stop, because new leaders emerge from each new generation to chart a new path that leads to a day when we can live without fear and, finally, see justice and equity for all people in every community.t

John Cunningham is CEO of the National AIDS Memorial, steward of the 10-acre National AIDS Memorial Grove, 50,000 panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and educational programs to ensure that the story of AIDS and the AIDS movement is never forgotten. Learn more at www. aidsmemorial.org.

Cathy Jefferson placed a flower on the name of her brother in the Circle of Friends as part of the December 1, 2016 World AIDS Day remembrance in the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park.

Rick Gerharter

On June 18, 2017, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), in white, planted a tree in the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. She was assisted in the planting of a magnolia by her granddaughter, Bella Kaufman, foreground, and grove volunteer Tom Jensen.

Rick Gerharter

Eggman to chair historic CA LGBTQ caucus

by Matthew S. Bajko

When lesbian state Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) assumes leadership of the affinity group for California LGBTQ legislators in January, she will preside over the largest caucus of out lawmakers since it was formed in 2002. As of Wednesday, the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus was assured of having 12 Democratic members when the winners of the November 8 election are sworn into office December 5.

As the Bay Area Reporter’s online Political Notes column first reported October 31, it will mark the first time that 10% of California’s 120 state legislators are LGBTQ. No other statehouse has reached such proportional LGBTQ representation.

One of Eggman’s first orders of business, she told the B.A.R. in a recent phone interview, will be getting an official picture taken of the new caucus when it meets January 4. Visitors to its website (LINK: https:// lgbtqcaucus.legislature.ca.gov/) will notice there isn’t currently a group shot posted there.

“Our last official portrait still has retired members,” noted Eggman, as the COVID pandemic over the last two and a half years impacted lawmakers’ ability to meet in person for such ceremonial activities.

All eight of the current caucus members are returning for the next legislative session, as the quartet of out incumbent assemblymembers all easily won their reelection races last month, including gay Assemblyman Chris Ward (D-San Diego), who will be vice chair of the caucus. Joining them will be four freshmen legislators – two in the Assembly and two in the Senate – as their races have already been called.

Corey Jackson, set to become the first gay Black member of the Legislature, won an Inland Empire Assembly seat. Rick Chavez Zbur, the gay former executive director of statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization Equality California, won a Los Angeles Assembly seat.

Steve Padilla, a gay Chula Vista City Councilmember, won election to a Senate seat in San Diego County. Senator-elect Caroline Menjivar, a lesbian social worker, will be the first out state legislator elected from the San Fernando Valley.

Meanwhile, Palm Springs City Councilmember Christy Holstege has fallen back into second place in her Assembly race. As of the B.A.R.’s print deadline Wednesday, she was trailing her Republican opponent Greg Wallis by 12 votes in their contest for the open Assembly District 47 seat spanning Riverside and San Bernardino counties. (There are still more than 5,400 ballots to count in the two counties.)

If she wins, Holstege will be the first bisexual female LGBTQ caucus member. She will also bump up the LGBTQ caucus to having 13 members and bring the number of women in the group to five, its most ever.

“We are still small but glad to say we are growing,” Eggman told the B.A.R., adding that “I think we feel great” about reaching the historic milestone in its membership.

Based on the election results, the LGBTQ caucus will outnumber Eggman’s Republican colleagues in the Legislature’s upper chamber. The GOP Senate caucus could grow by one to being 10 members next session depending on a still too-

close-to-call Central Valley race.“I don’t mean to say this in any divisive way, but our caucus will be bigger than the Republicans in the Senate,” noted Eggman. “They could fit in an SUV for the most part.”

With the next round of state legislative races less than 16 months away, as the primary contests will be held on March 23, 2024, Eggman is already looking to recruit LGBTQ candidates for Assembly and Senate seats.

She especially wants to widen the bench from the state’s more inland and rural areas.

“One of the things I am focused on coming from the Central Valley is I always try to increase our representation around the state and to make sure we are providing an avenue for candidates to run around the state. California is still a very big state,” said Eggman, who last chaired the caucus during the 2015-2017 session when she was serving in the Assembly. “There are a lot of conservative parts along the spine of California and a lot of those things lead to homophobia. We see it in this new wave of pushback from people going against LGBTQ rights and against trans rights. We want to get around the state and be doing our part with visibility there.”

A top priority is to elect the first transgender member of the state Legislature. Many had hoped that milestone would have come this year with the election of Palm Springs City Councilmember Lisa Middleton to the Senate. But due to redistricting, the open seat she expected to seek was renumbered to be an odd district whose election will be held in 2024.

“With that Senate seat in Palm Springs, we really want to get our first transgender member with Lisa Middleton. We will see how things shake out,” said Eggman.

Challenges

Recruiting LGBTQ candidates has been made harder by the increasing attacks out lawmakers receive via social media and in the conservative media. Eggman faced homophobic attacks in her past electoral campaigns, though they paled in comparison to the egregious attacks and death threats her gay colleague, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), is increasingly subjected to, she noted. Last week GOP House member Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) called Wiener a “communist groomer” in a tweet.

“It is absolutely unacceptable and not a sign of a healthy democracy for people to be fearful from attacks of physical violence against them

and their family if they want to serve as public officials. It is frightening. I think we have a lot of soul-searching to do going forward,” said Eggman. “It is going to take all of us to meet and find ways to see the value in civility and dialogue and governing. Our constituents depend upon us to do that.”

The insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 led Eggman to reconsider her own safety protocols for herself and her family, she said.

“I know my family was one of those who invested in a security system,” said Eggman. “My wife said, ‘We are getting one now.’ I don’t think I am alone in that.”

Both Eggman and her lesbian colleague, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), will be termed out of the Legislature in two years. Neither has officially announced what their future political plans will be, but both have opened campaign accounts for potential runs to be lieutenant governor in 2026 when the incumbent, Eleni Kounalakis, will be termed out.

It allows them to continue raising campaign contributions for the time being, with Atkins reporting she had $729,530 in her account as of June 30. Eggman, meanwhile, reported she had $67,322 in hers as of October 22.

She suggested to the B.A.R. that her caucus chairmanship could be her political denouement.

“You want to keep your plans open,” said Eggman, “but I feel pretty done with elected life, I think.”

As for who will succeed Atkins as the leader of the Senate, Eggman told the B.A.R. she hadn’t given it any thought.

“I think there is only one pro tem at a time, and we have ours. We love our pro tem,” she said. “Our house runs smooth, and people like that. Important work gets done when we’re not fighting with ourselves.”

Eggman was also mum on where she stands in regard to Governor Gavin Newsom’s calling for a special session of the Legislature next week to adopt a windfall tax on oil companies. She noted she had yet to see an exact proposal for such a tax.

“I am always waiting to see what a proposal looks like, and we go from there,” said Eggman.

She also was coy about what LGBTQ legislative proposals the caucus would prioritize next year. Whatever LGBTQ-focused bills do get introduced, they are likely to generate attention not just in other U.S. statehouses but legislative bodies around the world, as Eggman noted the caucus has been fielding calls from out elected leaders in other countries interested in learning more about its work and legislative accomplishments.

“We are getting attention from other countries of the world. Japan reached out; India reached out,” said Eggman of fielding requests from gay or lesbian lawmakers in those nations. “They are starting to look at policy and wondering how we did it. When they hear about everything we have done, they are like ‘Whoa!’ There is interest in us visiting those other countries.”

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Eggman did make one pledge to the B.A.R. regarding her new caucus chairmanship term. She intends to see the late San Francisco drag performer and gay Latino civil rights leader José Julio Sarria inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

Caucus members have worked with LGBTQ community leaders for years to see Sarria, who in 1961

State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman will chair the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus in January.

Courtesy Sen. Eggman’s office

Headline goes right here

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

It was late in the evening of November 19 at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Tending the bar were Derrick Rump and Daniel Aston.

DJ T BEATZ was performing in the hours following the “Delusions” drag show, featuring a local drag artist called Del Lusional.

In the crowd that night were Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, and Raymond Green Vance. Vance was at the club for the first time, attending with his girlfriend, her parents, and some of her parent’s family.

That night, someone else would enter the club and open fire. In the aftermath, Aston, Loving, Paugh, Rump, and Vance would be killed. Eighteen others, including DJ T BEATZ, would be injured.

The club was planning to host an all-ages “Musical Drag Brunch” the next day. Hours after that was to be its regular Sunday show, “Let’s Do Drag,” which for that day intended to offer a “variety of gender identities and performance styles” as part of its observance of Transgender Day of Remembrance.

This is where the story becomes a bit personal. I founded the Remembering Our Dead project, which helped fuel the creation of the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I have grown increasingly worried over the past several years that a TDOR event would turn into exactly this sort of very American mass shooting event.

Two of the five who were killed were trans – Aston and Loving –though I don’t know that they were specifically targeted because of their

identity. I don’t really think it would matter to the shooter, who seemed only to want to kill.

While we do not know the whole story as to what was going through their mind, we do know that the shooter who allegedly killed Aston, Loving, Paugh, Rump, and Vance had a history.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that the shooter went to a LGBTQ club for their rampage – let alone one hosting multiple drag events, including an all-ages event. This is precisely what the right wing has been focused on – ginning up ignorant and false narratives that drag is dangerous for kids.

As we’ve seen a political landscape that uses queer lives as a weapon, we’ve also seen an increase of transphobic and homophobic violence. This comes as right-wing groups such as the Proud Boys have harassed numerous drag events; Boston Children’s Hospital has had to field bomb threats merely for providing gender-affirming care.

Politicians, such as Republican Governors Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida, as well as plenty of others, have cast LGBTQ people – primarily transgender people as well as drag performers – as the cause of so-called societal decay in this country. They, too, have painted us as less than human.

It only follows that someone would use the kindling they provided to set a fire.

Anderson Lee Aldrich is the shooter’s name. You will note that I am using they/them pronouns for Aldrich: their lawyers have stated in a footnote in a legal filing that is their preference, though there is a

mountain of evidence that this may simply be a bit of clever trolling on their part, or possibly a dodge to avoid hate crime enhancements.

Certainly, a lot of other online trolls rose to this bait, arguing that we have no room to speak of violence, given that the shooter supposedly uses they/them pronouns. As if that would make any difference when one allegedly has the blood of five victims on their hands.

At any rate, this isn’t the first incident in which Aldrich has allegedly been involved. According to media reports, they had a run-in with police last year after threatening to blow up their mother’s home, and harm her in the process.

Even though this led to a sevenhour standoff with police, the local district attorney filed no charges, and they were able to avoid Colorado’s “red-flag” law preventing access to firearms. It is speculated that this may be, in part, due to influence from their grandfather – outgoing right-wing California Assemblymember Randy Voepel (R-Santee). Television station KCRA reported that Voepel, who lost his reelection bid in the November 8 election, had

not had a relationship with Aldrich in 10 years. So far, Voepel has not commented on the matter.

A neighbor of Aldrich’s, Xavier Kraus, told the Daily Beast that Aldrich had a history of homophobia, often using the F slur “from a place of anger.” This reminds me of Aldrich’s father, Aaron Franklin Brink, who, when he found out that his child had shot up “a gay bar,” worried that Aldrich themself was gay.

“They started telling me about the incident, a shooting involving multiple people,” said Brink in an interview with KFMB-TV. “And then I go on to find out it’s a gay bar. I said, ‘God, is he gay?’ I got scared, ‘Shit, is he gay?’ And he’s not gay, so I said, ‘Phew.’”

No compassion for the victims of his child’s alleged rampage, just a worry that his own child could have been gay.

In a sane world, this mass shooting incident would cause a change in tone, but less than 24 hours later, right-wing pundits like Fox News’

Tucker Carlson were once again pushing the false notion that LGBTQ people were “sexualizing” children while talking with Jaimee Michell, the founder of a group called Gays Against Groomers, who said that shootings like this would continue to occur, “until we end this evil agenda that is attacking children.”

Podcaster Tim Pool spoke along similar lines.

“We shouldn’t tolerate pedophiles grooming kids. Club Q had a grooming event,” said Pool, presumably referring to the all-ages drag brunch. “How do you prevent the violence and stop the grooming?”

This event should be our wakeup call: we cannot be complacent as the right seeks even more of our blood and will wait for the next Aldrich to do more of its dirty work.t

Gwen Smith hopes you will stay as safe as you can. You’ll find her at www.gwensmith.com

“With inflation and layoffs, support is critical for small businesses like us,” he said.

Schaaf weighs in on race

A progressive, Thao also talked about how she hopes to work with the City Council, which has a progressive majority.

“There will be unity of the mayor’s office and council,” she said.

Schaaf, more of a moderate, often did not have a council majority during her eight years in office.

That was something Schaaf alluded to at her own news conference held shortly before Thao’s. There, she announced there will be a special session of the Oakland City Council Tuesday, November 29, to approve two financial grant programs aimed at increasing neighborhood shopping and dining in Oakland and a “Welcome Back Downtown” campaign aimed at encouraging employees to return to working in person at their offices.

The grants for the neighborhood safety program – about $315,000 –will be for the holidays and include more ambassadors and a program for emergency window repairs. The downtown program, at $464,000, is a three-month pilot project. The funds for both, totaling $779,000, will come from the city’s surplus, mainly from the police department, Schaaf said.

After those announcements, Schaaf reflected on the mayor’s race, in which she had endorsed Taylor.

“Now is the time for us to come together,” she said.

“I believe Sheng’s political approach does reflect this city,” Schaaf

said, “and I think Sheng will have a City Council that she’ll have a good relationship with.”

Schaaf as mayor does not sit on the City Council but can cast a tie-breaking vote under Oakland’s strong mayor ordinance. The council has eight members.

Schaaf, a native Oaklander, was asked about public safety.

“Oakland has always struggled with public safety,” she said. “Mayor-elect Thao will need everyone’s support. I hope she will continue with the Operation Ceasefire strategy.”

That strategy has three goals: reduce gang and gang-related shootings and homicides; decrease recidivism and incarceration rates of individuals participating in the intervention; and strengthen policecommunity relations.

The mayor also praised the city for its progress on police reform, even as it remains under a federal monitor. The police department was mandated to complete reforms 20 years ago following the Riders scandal, in which officers beat people and planted drugs on them. However, Oaklandside recently reported that there are new problems that could derail the department’s plan to end the monitoring.

“Oakland has been recognized for its incredible effort at police reform,” Schaaf said.

Schaaf said that Thao will inherit a city in better shape than when she took office eight years ago. At that time, Oakland had a low credit rating and infrastructure issues. Today, the debt rating is the best in city history, and the city’s efforts at street repair have proved popular. Schaaf also mentioned the debt the city incurred from the Oakland Raiders

Shock and horror accompanied the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Christine Smith

Outgoing Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf reflected on the mayor’s race in remarks with reporters Wednesday, November 22, in her City Hall conference room.

Cynthia Laird

<< Oakland mayor

From page 2

Headline goes right here

LGBTQ rights on the line in case before US Supreme Court

analysis by Lisa Keen

The ordinary rights of LGBTQ people are on the line again at the U.S. Supreme Court – this time on Monday, December 5, with a case seeking to allow any business to deny service to a customer by claim ing a personal objection to treating that customer the same as others.

Oral arguments will begin at 7 a.m. Pacific time and 70 minutes have been allotted. Some members of the public will be allowed to at tend the oral argument in person but on a first come, first served ba sis, which generally requires camp ing outside in a designated line overnight. People can listen to the argument live or read the transcripts or listen to the audio from the ses sion shortly after it concludes.

The case

The case is 303 Creative v. Aubrey Elenis, the Colorado attorney gen eral. The Alliance Defending Free dom, a legal group that has focused largely on anti-LGBTQ projects, initiated this case. In the case, ADF sought to restage an earlier case that fell short – 2018’s Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado – where the group won only a procedural vic tory. In this case, ADF has asked web designer Lorie Smith to press a preemptive case against the state public accommodations law pro tecting LGBTQ people, saying that if she did offer wedding page servic es, she would not want to offer them to same-sex couples because of her religious beliefs.

Graphic artist Smith was recruit ed by ADF to file this lawsuit even though no same-sex couple had yet come to her seeking a design for their wedding plans. In fact, Smith had not yet even offered to provide wedding site designs for any poten tial customers. Although Smith said she has had LGBTQ clients, she said she could not do wedding website designs for same-sex couples be cause of her belief that the Bible prohibits same-sex marriage.

The state of Colorado, and Elenis, its attorney general, are defending the state law that prohibits in pub lic accommodations discrimination based on “disability, race, creed, col or, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry.”

Previous rulings

Both a U.S. district court and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Colorado Anti-Discrim ination Act, or CADA, in this chal lenge. The 10th Circuit ruled CADA to be a “neutral law of general ap plicability” and said it is neither unconstitutionally vague nor over broad and did not violate the free speech or free exercise rights of the plaintiff.

But the Supreme Court has dra matically reframed the question posed by attorneys for the web

designer. ADF attorneys asked: “Whether applying a public accom modation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent, contrary to the artist’s sincerely held religious be liefs, violates the free speech or free exercise clauses of the First Amend ment.” The Supreme Court, in ac cepting the ADF appeal, posed a much larger question, one that does not require a religious objection but any objection: “Whether applying a public accommodation law to com pel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment.”

For that reason, LGBTQ legal ex perts are concerned about the case.

“The court framed the question to presuppose that designing a web site for money in a business open to the general public is ‘artistic expres sion’ rather than an ordinary com mercial service,” explained Shannon Minter, a trans man who is legal di rector for the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights.

“That is a radical departure from existing law. It’s one thing for the court to change the law. It’s another for the court to do so surreptitiously by framing the question in such a highly loaded and novel way.”

Kristen Waggoner, head of ADF, will argue Smith’s side of the case, while Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson and U.S. Deputy Solici tor General Brian Fletcher will ar gue for the state.

The prospects

The current composition of the court, with its supermajority of six conservative justices, has been ag gressively pursuing decisions that square with Catholic and evangeli cal doctrine. Most notably, the six issued a decision in June (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Orga nization) overturning two longstanding precedents on reproduc tive freedom and, in doing so, gave the green light for states to enact laws prohibiting abortion. One of the six, Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote a concurring opinion urg ing his colleagues to “reconsider all of this court’s substantive due

process precedents, including Gris wold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” Lawrence v. Texas struck down state bans against same-sex sexual rela tions; Obergefell v. Hodges struck state bans against marriage for same-sex couples; and Griswold v. Connecticut struck bans against couples using contraceptives. The fact that the court accepted the 303 Creative appeal, even though the plaintiff never had a same-sex couple seeking a wedding web de sign, suggests an eagerness to fulfill Thomas’ wishes.

A worst-case scenario decision in 303 Creative could allow any business in the public marketplace (hotels, restaurants, bakeries, web designers, etc.) to refuse service to a customer by claiming to have some personal objection to treating that customer the same as all others.

A much better outcome for LG BTQ people would be for the court to rule that laws prohibiting dis

crimination in public accommoda tions protect people with religious beliefs, as well as others, from dis crimination and only incidentally implicate free speech concerns. And, as a friend of the court brief from the NAACP stated: “Public accom modations laws are vital to ensuring free and full access to society and its benefits on an equal basis to all. When merchants exclude individu als from commercial transactions based on their identity – as Petition er wishes to do here – the excluded individuals suffer a stigma that the law is meant to guard against.”

The oral argument comes just two weeks after the New York Times reported that Justice Samuel Alito has for years been carrying on cozy relationships with religious conser vative groups. The Times obtained a June 7 letter from a former antiabortion activist to Chief Justice John Roberts in which the activist claims that Alito leaked the outcome of a 2014 religious exemptions case to a personal gathering of antiabortion leaders at his home. The leak enabled anti-abortion groups to move swiftly to capitalize on the decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.

Alito, who wrote the 5-4 majority decision, denied leaking the opin ion that held that a federal law may not require a closely held commer cial employer to provide health in surance coverage for contraception if that employer claims that to do so violates his or her personal reli gious beliefs. LGBTQ legal activists said the decision was a “dangerous and radical departure from existing law” with repercussions for LGBTQ employees. Alito told an audience in Italy this summer that attacks on religious liberty grow out of “a ten

dency to distrust and dislike people who are not like ourselves.”

Earlier this year, a draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the right to abortion, which was also written by Alito, was leaked several weeks before the decision was an nounced in late June. An investiga tion by the court has so far yielded no public announcements.

In an interesting aside, 10 trans gender lawyers are scheduled to be sworn into the U.S. Supreme Court Bar just days before the 303 Creative argument. The plan to swear in transgender attorneys as a group was initiated two years ago but delayed because of the COVID pandemic. To be sworn into the Supreme Court bar, an applicant “must appear to the court to be of good moral and professional char acter,” according to the Supreme Court’s application instructions.

The application asks applicants to indicate if they have ever “changed your name or been known by any name or surname other than those appearing on this application.” The 10 transgender attorneys include Rook Ringer from Florida, Jesse McGrath from California, Ames Simmons from Georgia, and Zsea Ofure Bowmani from Illinois.

People can listen to the 303 Cre ative argument live by going to https://www.supremecourt.gov/ and then going to the Quick Links bar to access the live audio or click on the case name (303 Creative) on the court’s homepage that day. People can also read the written transcripts and hear the audio recording of the argument that should be available on the court’s website 90 minutes after the argument or soon thereafter.t

became the first known gay person to run for elective office, join the list of Golden State residents bestowed with the honor. Yet Sarria has been repeatedly snubbed since a cam paign was launched in 2015 to see that he be selected.

The California Hall of Fame is a project of the governor, first part ner, and the California Museum. The Newsoms will induct the new est class, which includes lesbian professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe, on December 13.

“I don’t know. We are going to get to the bottom of this mystery,”

pledged Eggman when asked about the ongoing snub of Sarria. “It is frustrating year after year we submit Jose’s name, and year after year it doesn’t make it. When we make his tory for the caucus, we make history for California. In the class of 2023, we are going to get it done.”t

Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion, will return Monday, December 5. Keep abreast of the latest LGBTQ political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

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

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments December 5 on a case that affects LGBTQ rights.

Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

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Trans-Pacific Māhū ancestors:

Reclaiming Hawaiian trans identities/spirits

by Michael Yamashita

In a world full of anger, hurt and worry, a Hawaiian legend of dual male/female identities has been resurrected to reclaim an ancient tradition and bring healing to our modern lives. Such a story is necessary today as transgender people are openly attacked as easy targets of hatred and discrimination, scapegoats for all that is wrong with “ e Le ” and “Wokeness.” Contemporary Hawaiians are reclaiming ancient cultural understandings of gender to provide us with expansive ways of being and the freedom of possibilities beyond the narrow gender binary of Western civilization.

On the island of O’ahu, a short walk from the historic gay bar Hula’s Bar & Lei Stand and touristy gay Kuhio Beach Park, a locus of healing and pilgrimage has been re-remembered on Waikīkī Beach through a reclaimed legend of transgender healing spirits. A formation of four stone boulders has been hiding in plain sight for most of the 20th century, now located between the Duke Kahanamoku statue and a police substation, oblivious to the many locals and tourists as they pass by along the world-famous beach, although they have long been considered sacred by Native Hawaiians. eir transgender history, meaning and importance had been

purposefully erased in the last century through a process of American colonialism, imported Christian attitudes, and the increasing commercialization of Waikīkī.

e transgender identities of these sacred healing stones have been restored in a retelling of their legend in the award-winning, short animated lm “Kapaemāhū,” a collaboration between Native Hawaiian educator, cultural practitioner, and transgender activist Hinaleimoana WongKalu, Emmy and GLAAD awardwinning lmmaker activists and married couple Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson, and Oscar-nominated animator Daniel Sousa. Notably, the lm, released in 2020, is narrated by Wong-Kalu in the Ni’ihau dialect of Hawaiian, and a bilingual, illustrated children’s book version was published in June 2022.

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In about 1500 CE, four extraordinary individuals with a mixture of male and female spirit, or māhū, sailed from Tahiti to Hawai’i to share their gi s of knowledge and healing cures to the ailing people of Waikīkī. According to a written account about the māhū healers in the early 20th century to preserve the history of the stones: “ eir ways and great physique were overshadowed by their low, so speech, and they became as one with those they came in contact with. ey were unsexed, by nature, and their habits coincided with their womanly seeming, although manly in stature and general bearing.” In gratitude to these mysterious beings named Kapaemāhū, Kinohi, Kahaloa and Kapuni, a monument of four boulders was erected on the beach in their honor, which the māhū imbued with healing powers before disappearing.

Over time, Western foreigners arrived on the islands and the once-sacred stones were forgotten until the 1960s. Even then, the transgender identity of the stones was consciously obscured or omitted. Although the true story of these stones was not fully recovered until attempted by the lmmakers of “Kapaemāhū,” the power of the māhū healers still calls out to those who pass by them on Waikīkī Beach today.

... ey were respected and honored because people knew that their male and female duality made them even more powerful a healer.”

An exhibition, “ e Healer Stones of Kapaemāhū,” was mounted in the summer by the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Hawai’i’s premier natural and cultural history museum, to cultivate a deeper understanding of gender diversity, Native Hawaiian health and the power of monuments. Historian, Native Hawaiian and lead curator Desoto Brown, 60, said that people of dual identities were accepted in traditional Hawaiian culture and valued for their unique talents and contributions. “People who were sexually di erent, who identify differently, who looked di erent were not objects of scorn. ey weren’t pushed aside. ey weren’t hated. ey were accepted as part of the normal array of di erent types of human beings. And that’s true for the four healers,” he said. “With the introduction of Christianity, with the introduction of Western morality and Western perceptions start-

ing in the late 1700s, people like the Kapaemāhū healers, people who are di erent, became not accepted, but disliked. Actively hated. Suppressed.”

Brown hopes people will come to understand that being māhū is a powerful cultural identity that can inform and undermine Western prejudice and discrimination. “ ere are people that are māhū, and there always have been, and there always will be,” he said. “Yeah, there are these people – don’t hate them, don’t destroy them, just respect them as part of everything that we are as humans.”

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Wong-Kalu, 50, said māhū was a common, derogatory slur directed at LGBTQ+ people when she was growing up in Hawai’i. She remembers being among the beachgoers who would sit on the stones and drape towels over them a er swimming, unconscious of their signicance. Wong-Kalu added that there are physical, emotional, mental and spiritual elements to being māhū. “In Hawai’i, one could really exist in the middle,” she said. “Such stories are rarely told, and when they are, it’s usually by outsiders who impose their lens of the world, their language and culture to synthesize and process the narrative through their own experience. I wanted to tell the story from my perspective as a native māhū wahine [woman] and tell it in the language that my ancestors might have used to pass it on.” She wanted to show children in Hawai’i that “proper Hawaiian culture” doesn’t pass judgment against those “who have elements of duality.

<< Oakland mayor

From page 10

fiasco, and that is still with the city, to the tune of $189 million, according to reports.

Asked what advice she has for Thao, Schaaf said, “Build big partnerships and don’t forget about the politics of basic services.”

Schaaf said she remains in favor of ranked choice voting, even

though her endorsed candidate came up short. Taylor was critical of the process at his news conference.

“I’m a fan of ranked choice voting,” Schaaf said. “It’s no secret I endorsed Loren Taylor but in no way do I blame ranked choice voting. It more accurately reflects voters.”

Schaaf said she has texted with Thao but has not yet spoken on the phone with her. She said that she just returned November 22 from

LGBTQ+ residents and visitors to Hawai’i now have an ancient point of reference in Waikīkī, and a powerful reminder that queer people occupy a unique historical and spiritual dimension by dint of their existence. e stone monument is physical evidence of the deep roots of gender uidity in Polynesia. By reclaiming the true history of Kapaemāhū, the spiritual power of ancient Hawai’i is transmitted across time to bring healing to our modern world. Tatiana Kalaniopua Young, 40, a Native Hawaiian anthropologist, māhū, and a director of the Hawai’i LGBT Legacy Foundation, said the story of the stones and healers helped her family understand that she was not “this weird creature that’s outside of the norm.” And that in a Hawaiian sense, she was part of the norm. She said, “It gave me a sense of place and purpose as a māhū and it really made me proud to be Kanaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiian.”t

Michael Yamashita is the publisher of the Bay Area Reporter and a founding member of News Is Out, a pioneering national collaborative of queer media outlets, where this piece was first published. The collaborative includes six of the leading local and queer-owned LGBTQ+ publishers across the nation.

For a video, go to https://kapaemahu.com/

the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, in Egypt.

As for Schaaf’s future plans, she said she likely will have a “small announcement” in the coming weeks. “I will decide next year,” she said, adding that she will be fulfilling her mayoral duties until she hands them over to Thao.

“I’m not doing [a] ‘check-out’ in the last few months,” she said.t

Sami L.A. Akuna, left, Ka’imi Cambern, Ākea Kahikina, Keawe Parker, Walter Kepa Barrett, Leimaile Barrett, Sarah Kamakawiwo’ole, Mahina Choy-Ellis, Alika Masei and Ian Tapu celebrate the first Kapaemāhū Ceremony September 25, 2021 as part of Hawai’i LGBT Legacy Foundation’s Pride.

Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu is a community leader and activist who also narrated the short film, “Kapaemāhū.”

Wong-Kalu’s Instagram

Mahina Choy-Ellis/Kapaemahu Facebook

Headline goes right here

AGUILAS, SF center to unveil Pulse memorial

compiled by Cynthia Laird

It’s been a long time coming but the San Francisco LGBT Community Center and AGUILAS El Ambiente, one of the agencies that has its offices in the building, will unveil the “Aegis” sculpture to commemorate the 49 victims of the Pulse nightclub tragedy that took place in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016.

The ceremony will take place Wednesday, December 7, at 5:30 p.m. at the center, located at 1800 Market Street. AGUILAS serves the gay and bi Latinx community, according to its website.

The victims of the Pulse mass shooting were mostly LGBTQ Latinos. The gunman, Omar Mateen, died in a shootout with police that night.

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported in a June Pride article, Barbara Poma, the owner of the nightclub and founder of the onePULSE Foundation, is involved with plans to create a permanent memorial in Orlando. When Poma was in San Francisco in February

stories to life over nine months.

The next phase of Oakland Belonging is marketing the tour and zine, and for Chapter 510 to identify any other storytelling opportunities that were included in the second phase of the grant funding, Khalighi said.

Oakland Belonging was funded by a $20,000 grant from the California Humanities and a $58,000 grant from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.

The students were introduced to historians, urban planners, writers, and community activists who were guest speakers at the project, and were supported by six mentors.

Oakland Belonging was the first project Botkin-Levy worked on with Chapter 510. It was also the first time the organization ventured into audio storytelling.

“It’s just been beautiful to watch the young people” through the process of developing the stories, she said, “and also reflect upon these ideas of belonging and past, present, and future of this particular space” that is “a place full of stories and full of history.”

It was particularly special, BotkinLevy noted, because the project happened when Chapter 510 moved into its new location at the market. Many of the youths who grew up in Oakland had also never been to the market.

Botkin-Levy explained to the B.A.R. that the project happened while Chapter 510 built out the space when it moved into Swan’s Market, “so that was a fun piece of it too.”

A queer youth who participated in the project responded anonymously (to protect their privacy) to the Bay Area Reporter’s questions and stated they joined the group to continue developing their writing. Despite growing up in Oakland, they had never been to the market before going to Chapter 510.

“I loved the community in Swan’s and working on this project just allowed me to become a part of it,” the youth stated.

The project was broken down into three “chapters” and launched virtually in January due to COVID. In the first chapter, the youth came together in person in February to start learning about story-centered

she was asked about the AGUILAS project but said that she had not heard about it.

At the time, Renato M. Talhadas, director of programs at AGUILAS, said the local project had been held up by city bureaucracy.

Talhadas will be one of those on hand to speak at the unveiling, along with Eduardo Morales, Ph.D., the nonprofit’s founder and executive director; and Jen Valles, director of programs at the LGBT center.

According to an email announcement about the unveiling, the memorial project was taken on by AGUILAS after San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors provided funds for a memorial in 2017. In an email, Morales stated that the amount provided by the city was

daily prejudice we continue to grapple with all over the world.”

The sculpture’s design consists of a V-shaped shield engraved with the victims’ names. The 49 markings embedded in the metal shield that dissipates on its two sides also represent the victims murdered at Pulse. According to Wilson, “They are integrated, creating a distinct web on two sides for complete protection. They symbolize our inner pulse radiating with love and solidarity.”

Morales stated that AGUILAS is proud to hold the memorial’s unveiling.

“We’re honored to lead the creation of this memorial for community members we lost at Pulse, as intended by the survivors,” Morales stated. “This was a significant moment for our community, as

Courtesy AGUILAS

Meanwhile, several other out parents seeking school board seats in Alameda and San Mateo coun ties fell short. And voters rejected more than a dozen candidates seek ing education posts who had taken anti-LGBTQ stances in races across Northern California.

In Oakland, Nick Resnick became the first transgender person elected to help oversee a K-12 public school district in California, while Alameda resident Ryan LaLonde is the first out LGBTQ person elected a board member for the island community’s public schools.

Serving alongside Resnick as the first-ever known LGBTQ mem bers of the Oakland Unified School District board when they take their oaths of office will be queer la bor leader Valarie Bachelor. With 48.31% of the vote, according to the unofficial returns, in the race for the school board’s District 6 seat, she defeated Kyra Mungia, who was ap pointed in June to fill a vacancy.

In Sonoma County, gay married mom Amie Carter, Ph.D. easily won election as the first female Sonoma County superintendent of schools. With her opponent having ended his campaign in August, Carter sailed to victory with 72% of the vote.

“Thank you Sonoma County for electing me as the first female coun ty superintendent in almost 100

“With today’s bipartisan Senate passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, the United States is on the brink of reaffirming a fundamental truth: love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love,” the president stated. “For millions of Americans, this legisla tion will safeguard the rights and protections to which LGBTQI+ and interracial couples and their chil dren are entitled. It will also ensure that, for generations to follow, LG BTQI+ youth will grow up knowing that they, too, can lead full, happy

Charitable giving

dismissing it, the supervisors went on to the other two proposals.

Peskin wondered if, given access to the internet, a program such as Heart of the City was even necessary.

“Do we want to devote a full-time staff to an ongoing program in an environment where charitable giv ing has many less barriers?” Peskin asked. ”I lean towards starting a conversation where we excise this program in toto.”

Chan agreed it was time “to rein vent this program;” she asked to be added as a co-sponsor of the measure.

“The third bullet is certainly the simplest,” observed Mandelman.

<< Oakland youth

From page 13

design, how to gather stories and interview people, and use the tools to put the stories together exploring the question: “What does it mean to belong?” The youths met and lis tened to several guest speakers.

During the second chapter, which Botkin-Levy dubbed the “summer jam,” the youth identified the sto ries they wanted to focus on, inter viewed people, wrote, and recorded narration for the audio stories.

Two of the students profiled the market’s local businesses, Taylor’s Sausage, which is the oldest business in Swan’s Market even before its re habilitation, and the newer Lucky Barbershop.

One student wrote a poem about what she observed standing at the corner of Eighth and Clay streets, the entrance to the farmers market

years. I feel humbled by the oppor tunity to lead during these times,” Carter tweeted November 11.

She is the second out woman elected to such a countywide edu cation post. San Mateo County Superintendent of Schools Nancy Magee, a lesbian, secured a second four-year term this year, as she was unopposed in the June primary.

Resnick, a married father of two sons, is set to become the second trans man serving in an elected education post in the Golden State. Cabrillo Community College Board of Trust ees member Adam Spickler won re election this month in his Santa Cruz County contest; four years ago he was unopposed and was automatically ap pointed to his college board seat, be coming the first trans man to hold an elected office in California.

On election night Resnick land ed in first place among the three people seeking the District 4 seat on the Oakland school board. He maintained his lead in the race over the past three weeks, but with thou sands of ballots still to be counted, Resnick waited until November 22 to declare victory.

“After nearly two weeks of vote counting, it’s finally clear: Oakland parents and neighbors have given me the honor and the privilege of representing our community. I am grateful and humbled by each of your support during this journey,” Resnick wrote in an email he sent to thank his supporters.

lives and build families of their own.

“Importantly, the Senate’s pas sage of the Respect for Marriage Act is a bipartisan achievement. ... I look forward to welcoming them at the White House after the House passes this legislation and sends it to my desk, where I will promptly and proudly sign it into law,” he added.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (DSan Francisco) underscored the im portance of the bill.

“Since the Supreme Court’s mon strous decision overturning Roe v. Wade, extreme MAGA Republicans have set their sights on additional personal freedoms,” Pelosi stated.

“In his concurring opinion, [Jus

“The concern for me is that there are these 3,000 people who cur rently use, and presumably like, the current program.”

Hayward noted that while her department had received many complaints about the matter, they had also “received a lot of email in support” of the program. She sug gested looking at payroll deductions and, possibly, no longer processing individual checks. Other revisions might also be workable, she added.

There was no public comment at the rules committee.

The charity program is popular among city workers because by do nating a little at a time over the course of a year, paycheck-by-paycheck, they can give more, better supporting non

and Swan’s Market.

Botkin-Levy said during one of the writing exercises, Keeve brought the group to a corner around the block from the market to write.

“We just stood on a corner,” she said, and then wrote. “Just this idea around observing and learning about [the] place, and then identify ing ourselves in that place, I think is so valuable.”

In the third chapter, called the “exhibition phase,” Crawford worked with the youth to produce the audio tour and zine that were revealed at a listening party on Oc tober 1.

A week later, Chapter 510 released the tour and zine to the public.

Botkin-Levy hopes that the tour and zine prompt visitors to the website and to the market to think about some of the same questions the youth explored in the program. What it means to belong in “the en

He noted that because of his vic tory, “Oakland students and families will have a former OUSD teacher, a current OUSD parent, and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ commu nity centering every decision back where it belongs: our students’ aca demic and social-emotional success.”

LaLonde overcame homophobic attacks to win a seat on the Alam eda Unified School District board. He and his husband, Chris Moody, have their 14-year-old son, Farber Moody-LaLonde, enrolled in the East Bay city’s schools.

As of November 23 LaLonde had taken second place in the fourcandidate race for two school board seats with 30.62% of the vote. Fellow gay married dad Leland Traiman landed in fourth place with 14.78% of the vote.

The day after the election LaLonde had declared victory in the race. In a tweet thread he thanked Alameda vot ers for casting their ballots for him.

“I know the weight and respon sibility this brings with it and I am proud if [it] inspires just one LG BTQ+ student, parent or communi ty member to dream of possibilities. Thank you for making history hap pen,” wrote LaLonde, who chairs Alameda Unified’s LGBTQ Round Table for parents, students and staff.

He also heralded his being the first out candidate elected in his city.

“While this campaign was never about me or lofty personal goals, it was symbolic for many margin

tice] Clarence Thomas explicitly called on the court to reconsider the right to marriage equality handed down in its Obergefell decision. Once signed into law, the Respect for Marriage Act will prevent rightwing extremists from uprooting legal precedent, tearing away funda mental freedoms and upending the lives of families across the country.”

Senator Alex Padilla (D-Califor nia) also hailed the vote.

“Today, the Senate took a bold step to affirm the lives of millions of LG BTQ people and interracial couples across our country,” he stated. “By passing the Respect for Marriage Act, we sent a clear message to all LGBTQ

profits that are important to them, according to promotional materials the Bay Area Reporter previously re viewed. The fear, however, is that do nations made to the CHC federation were being distributed to right-wing groups, whether or not the donor specified them as recipients.

While other organizations such as the Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR), the American Heart Asso ciation, and the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation are among the potential recipients, so too were right-wing or ganizations such as the Alliance De fending Freedom and the American Family Association. Both of these groups, only two of numerous orga nizations in the list of potential do nation targets, have been identified

vironment around us, both the built environment and people in place,” she said, adding that she hopes peo ple will think about “how do stories inform bigger city processes?”

Oakland Belonging is part of a broader project, “Story Centered Design: Moving from a Sense of Place to a Sense of Belonging,” in collaboration with San Franciscobased SITELAB Urban Studio, whose urban designers Lauren Wong and Ashutosh Singhal are advisers of the project and are guest speakers in Oakland Belonging.

Laura Crescimano, co-founder and leader of SITELAB, wrote in a statement to the B.A.R. that the students’ work and “the bigger out comes of this course – how the stu dents experienced and reflected on belonging, and how we can have a voice and shape place as a model for filling the gap between lived experience and the often alienating

alized students & families in our schools. I want to acknowledge the history Alameda made last night. Alameda, CA elected its 1st ever openly LGBTQ+ candidate to any public office,” wrote LaLonde.

He can lay claim to breaking through that political glass ceiling even though he isn’t the first out LG BTQ person to hold elected office in Alameda. That honor went to gay for mer city councilmember Jim Oddie in 2018. He came out that year in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter but lost his bid that November to be elected to a second four-year term.

Yet, because Oddie landed in third place in the race for two coun cil seats, and another councilmem ber was elected mayor that Novem ber, he was automatically appointed to fill the resulting vacancy on the council. In 2020, Oddie lost his bid for another full council term and again fell short this year.

In Berkeley, bisexual single mom Tatiana Guerreiro Ramos lost her bid for a seat on the city’s school board. In San Leandro, bisexual public school leader Abbey Kerins lost her race for the Area 2 seat on her city’s school board. (Gay trustee and current school board president James Aguilar was unopposed this year for his Area 6 seat and was automatically appointed to another four-year term.)

On the Peninsula queer and non binary single parent Kit Waffle lost their bid for a seat on the San Carlos school board.

Americans that we see them and rec ognize that they are worthy of equal treatment under law regardless of who they are, who they love, and who they choose to marry.”

A statement from San Francisco Pride was more muted.

“Today the Respect for Marriage Act was approved 61-36, with unan imous support from Democrats,” SF Pride board President Nguyen Pham stated. “While passage of this bill is encouraging, the legislation is not nearly as inclusive as it could be. When the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer, they made a decision that simulta neously rescinded hard-won repro

by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being anti-LGBTQ.

“The American Family Associa tion (AFA) says it promotes ‘tradi tional moral values’ in media,” notes SPLC on its website. “A large part of that work involves ‘combating the homosexual agenda’ through various means, including publicizing com panies that have pro-gay policies and organizing boycotts against them.”

The Family Research Council is another anti-LGBTQ group CHC has listed.

Of the Alliance Defending Free dom, SPLC states it “is a legal ad vocacy and training group that has supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LG BTQ adults in the U.S. and crimi

process of urban planning and de velopment.”

“We see deep ripples for how it can influence real estate, develop ment, and design,” she stated.

Outgoing California Humanities President and CEO Julie Fry told the B.A.R., “Our goal is to speak to the human experience and it’s to all hu man experience,” about being able to “lift up voices that don’t often get to be heard.”

“It’s a really important thing to really be able to appreciate and share the richness of the people who inhabit California,” she said about why Chapter 510’s Oakland Belong ing project received a grant.

Oakland Belonging wasn’t an LG BTQ-focused project but has queer leadership and participants. The California Humanities also funded two queer-specific projects this year, San Diego’s Queer Mvmt Fest, and is bringing the “Queer Threads”

Anti-LGBTQ candidates

As for candidates criticized for stak ing out anti-LGBTQ stances, Lisa Dis brow lost her bid for the Area 2 seat on the Contra Costa County Board of Education. Jennifer Kouvaniaris lost her bid for a seat on the Fremont Unified School District board, as did Maria Elena Moreno Van Maren in the Alameda school board race.

Ingrid Campos came in last in the race for two seats on Palo Alto’s school board. Another who gener ated headlines for his antigay views, Dennis Delisle, lost his bid for a Morgan Hill school board seat.

The two were among the 15 South Bay school board candidates endorsed by the Silicon Valley As sociation of Republican Women who failed to win election. As ABC 7 News had reported, many said on their campaign sites that they were against discussing gender identities, like being transgender, in school.

But four school board candidates the GOP group did endorse won election in Morgan Hill (Pamela Gardner) and to seats on three San Jose school boards: Alum Rock (Lin da Chavez), Evergreen (Jim Zito) and Franklin-McKinley (Marc Cooper).

In the Sacramento region, two candidates running for seats on the Natomas Unified School District board who came under fire from LGBTQ leaders for their positions on LGBTQ issues – Megan Allen and Monique Hokman – both lost their races.t

ductive rights and threatened the legality of same-sex and interracial marriage. It is clear that many of our representatives are listening and making every effort to protect our rights as LGBTQ+ people.

“While we applaud this bill and the positive step toward greater equality in our country, there is still so much work yet to be done,” he added. “We look forward to a time when our gov ernment can come to greater consen sus on a more comprehensive bill that offers fewer concessions to the reli gious right and more broadly shields our community, including transgen der and gender nonconforming indi viduals, from discrimination.”t

nalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; has contended that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia; and claims that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will de stroy Christianity and society.”

In fact, Alliance Defending Free dom will be presenting oral argu ments at the U.S. Supreme Court December 5 in a case that has rami fications for LGBTQ people. ADF has asked web designer Lorie Smith to press a preemptive case against a Colorado public accommodations law protecting LGBTQ people, say ing that if she did offer wedding page services, she would not want to offer them to same-sex couples be cause of her religious beliefs.t

exhibition to San Jose’s Museum of Quilts & Textiles in the spring of 2023.

The key thing Fry and her team look for in grants are unusual sto ries that haven’t been heard before or that are being presented in a dif ferent format, she said.

This year’s grant recipients are “re ally the cream of the crop,” she added.

At the end of the Oakland Be longing project, the youth stated, “Swan’s is physically very beautiful and well taken care of, but it’s also been through many tough times. Swan’s has stood strong through it all. I hope that people are able to see the inner beauty in Swan’s Market.”

To listen to or download the “Oakland Belonging: The Voices of Swan’s Market” tour, visit https:// tinyurl.com/oaklandbelong or visit Chapter 510 and the market and scan the QR code to be taken on a journey around the market.t

Sisters to hold Krampus pageant

Join San Francisco Krampus and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as they pay homage to the sinister and scary side of Christmas at the fourth annual Krampus pageant Saturday, December 3, from 3 to 7 p.m. at El Rio, 3158 Mission Street. A news release stated, “the naughty creatures of San Francisco will join a panel of steely judges and compete for a chance to be crowned the Krampus of 2022.”

The winner will receive a special effects makeup gift package and an array of prizes to “help numb them through the holidays,” the release stated. The pageant will also feature special (and spooky) drag performances and live music.

The competition will be on the outdoor patio and proof of COVID vaccination is required to enter the venue, according to the release.

Legals>>

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557540

In the matter of the application of ERIN ELIZABETH LYDON, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ERIN ELIZABETH LYDON is requesting that the name ERIN ELIZABETH LYDON be changed to ERIN WILSON. 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 15th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557542

In the matter of the application of JOHN TYRELL NALLS, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner JOHN TYRELL NALLS is requesting that the name JOHN TYRELL NALLS be changed to JOHN ALLEN TYRELL NALLS. 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 15th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557535

In the matter of the application of ELUVIA BEATRIZ LOPEZ & JHONATHAN WILFREDO NIETO MERINO, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioners ELUVIA BEATRIZ LOPEZ & JHONATHAN WILFREDO NIETO MERINO are requesting that the name ALEXANDER SANTIAGO NIETO LOPEZ be changed to MATEO JONATHAN NIETO LOPEZ. 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 13th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

CAUSE

TO SHOW

ORDER

FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557533

In the matter of the application of ZULLY IRENE LOUIE, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ZULLY IRENE LOUIE is requesting that the name ZULLY IRENE LOUIE be changed to ZULLY CHING. 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 13th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR

CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557539

In the matter of the application of STEPHANIE KAYE BOOHER, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner STEPHANIE KAYE BOOHER is requesting that the name STEPHANIE KAYE BOOHER be changed to STEPHANIE BOOHER KAYE. 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 13th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557549

In the matter of the application of IVANNA BERNARD, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner IVANNA BERNARD is requesting that the name ALEXANDER IVAN BERNARD-POLANCO be changed to ALEXANDER IVAN BERNARD. 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 20th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

Admission is a recommended donation of $10-$20, though no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Proceeds will benefit the Pacific Center for Human Growth in Berkeley, the oldest LGBTQ community center in the Bay Area and the third oldest in the country.

For more information, including how to enter the pageant, go to https://www.krampus-pageant.info/.

World Tree of Hope lighting

It’s that time of year and the Rainbow World Fund will hold a lighting ceremony for its World Tree of Hope Monday, December 5, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Grace Cathedral, 1100 California Street.

Rainbow World Fund is an LGBTQ humanitarian organization based in San Francisco. Its tree contains thousands of origami cranes inscribed with wishes for the future of the world. This year marks the 17th annual event.

The celebration will feature the Grammy-winning San Francisco

Boys Chorus; the Right Reverend Marc Andrus, Episcopal bishop of California; Hajime “Jimmy” Kishimori, the deputy consul general of Japan in San Francisco; the Very Reverend Dr. Malcolm Young; RWF founder Jeff Cotter, a gay man; and Honey Mahogany, a trans person who is chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party and former District 6 supervisor candidate.

The emcee for the evening will be drag artist Donna Sachet, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will bless the tree.

The event is free, though RWF appreciates donations, which can be made online at https://www. rainbowfund.org/. There is also additional information about the World Tree of Hope and contributing a wish.

Horizons’ State of the Movement program Horizons Foundation will hold its annual State of the Movement program Tuesday, December 6,

from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Pacific time. This year’s event is virtual.

Panelists will include Andy Marra, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund; Kierra Johnson, a bisexual Black woman who’s the executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force; James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ Rights Project; and gay California Assemblymember Evan Low (DCampbell). Roger Doughty, a gay man who is president of Horizons, will moderate.

There is no charge to attend. To register, go to https://www.horizonsfoundation.org/state-of-themovement-2022/.

Caltrain seeks members for bike advisory panel

Recruitment is now underway for five seats on Caltrain’s Bicycle and Active Transportation Advisory Committee. The panel serves as the primary venue to integrate the interests and perspectives of customers who use ac-

tive transportation – bicycling, walking, and other closely-related modes – as their primary method of access to the Caltrain system into its planning process, a news release stated.

The openings are for one member of the general public who rides Caltrain and either boards or alights from the train in San Francisco County and one from San Mateo County, as well as one member of a bicycle advocacy organization from each of Caltrain’s three counties: San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara.

The committee is composed of nine volunteer members from those three counties. Four of the five open seats came from the natural end of the members’ terms, the release stated.

The committee meets on the third Thursday of every month at 5:45 p.m. It is anticipated that meetings will be held in person beginning in 2023, the release stated. All meetings are open to the public.

Applications are due by Sunday, December 11, and are available at www.caltrain.com/batac.t

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557544

In the matter of the application of ERICK ROSENTHAL, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ERICK ROSENTHAL is requesting that the name ERICK ROSENTHAL be changed to HOA HUYNH. 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 15th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

AMENDED ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557562

In the matter of the application of EUGENE DARYL TATE, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner EUGENE DARYL TATE is requesting that the name EUGENE DARYL TATE be changed to GENE HANSON TATE. 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 15th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557545

In the matter of the application of ALISHA MARIE DUDISH, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ALISHA MARIE DUDISH is requesting that the name ALISHA MARIE DUDISH be changed to ALISHA MARIE ROWE. 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 20th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557519

In the matter of the application of CRISTI RUBI PALALA CHAVARRIA, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner CRISTI RUBI PALALA CHAVARRIA is requesting that the name CRISTI RUBI PALALA CHAVARRIA AKA CRISTI PALALA AKA CRISTI R PALALA CHAVARRIA be changed to CRISTI RUBI CHAVARRIA. 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 6th of DECEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME

STATEMENT FILE A-0398481

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LIL SOMETHING NEW, 1300 EVANS AVE #881154, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94188. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DESTINY GREEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/14/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/13/22.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398629

The following person(s) is/are doing business as IDEAS AND VISIONS USA, 4021 18TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EUGENE BENDOW. 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 11/01/22.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS

BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398630

The following person(s) is/are doing business as GLASS HALF FULL RESEARCH, 4021 18TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EUGENE S. BENDOW. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/02/08.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/01/22. NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF RICHARD EDWARD HERINGTON IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-22-305806

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of RICHARD EDWARD HERINGTON. A Petition for Probate has been filed by DENISE KAY LEBLANC in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that DENISE KAY LEBLANC be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: DECEMBER 06, 2022, 9:00 am, Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: DAVE L. NEVILLE, 111 WEST TOPA TOPA ST, OJAI, CA 93023; Ph. (805) 640-6468. NOV 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398668

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LOYAL, 548 MARKET ST #26099, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CELLULAR LONGEVITY, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/20/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/03/22. NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE

A-0398586

The following person(s) is/are doing business as O’BRIEN’S IRISH PUB, 1940 TARAVAL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed OBGK, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/26/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/27/22.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398654

The following person(s) is/are doing business as BEST HOLIDAY CRUISES; PCRB E-COMMERCE, 1536 NORIEGA ST #202, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BEST HOLIDAY INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/03/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/03/22. NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398660

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MISSION BAY PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY THE DENTAL PRACTICE OF ERIN SHAH, DDS, MS, 2690 3RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ERIN SHAH DDS, PC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/20/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/03/22. NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398674

The following person(s) is/are doing business as DA TEAM, 1400 VAN NESS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed THE DALE + ALLA TEAM (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 11/04/22.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398609

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MY RADISH, 2565 3RD ST #313, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed THE FIRE SOCIETY LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/15/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/31/22.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398691

The following person(s) is/are doing business as RAIN’S PLATES, 1609 PALOU AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed RAIN’S PLATES (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 11/07/22.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398695

The following person(s) is/are doing business as KIDZ COUTURE LLC, 1609 PALOU AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed KIDZ COUTURE 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 11/07/22.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

STATEMENT

OF

OF ABANDONMENT

USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-0397580

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as MOXIE BAKEHOUSE, 298 4TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business was conducted by a limited liability company and signed by BAGEL BABY LLC (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/29/22.

NOV 10, 17, 24, DEC 01, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0398524

The following person(s) is/are doing business as THAI CURRY RESTAURANT, AUTHENTIC THAI CUISINE; THAI CURRY RESTAURANT & BAR, AUTHENTIC THAI CUISINE, 96 MCALLISTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KATHLEEN KAEWPRASERT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/19/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/19/22.

NOV 17, 24, DEC 01, 08, 2022

ClassifiedsClassifieds

by Brian Bromberger

The experience of being Black and gay has only rarely been portrayed in narrative films like “Moonlight” and “Pariah,” but we have an exciting new entry in “The Inspection,” (A24 Films) gay writer and director Elegance Bratton’s fictionalized reminiscence of his entry into the Marines, after surviving the near-death trauma known as Boot Camp.

Bratton’s journey from self-rejection to ac ceptance, through his cinematic alter ego Ellis French, echoes the healing path of gay AfricanAmericans’ refusal to abandon their own truth and what makes them unique by embracing who they are in art and life.

At 25, after almost a decade living homeless on the streets, Ellis French (Jeremy Pope) craving stability, decides to enlist in the Marines. He visits his mother (Gabrielle Union), a New Jersey corrections officer, to ask for his birth certificate. She kicked him out of the house at age 16 when he told her he was gay. With a cross on the wall and Christian radio playing in the background, we know the reason for her intolerance. She reluctantly gives him the certificate, telling him if he still comes back gay, he can consider it revoked. He desperately wants her approval, one of his motivations for joining the Marines.

Tender cruelty

It is 2005 when the U.S. was fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq to fight post-9/11 terrorism and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still being enforced by the military.

At boot camp as a recruit, his drill Sgt. Laws (Bokeem Woodbine) on the first day declares,

“I hate recruits but I love Marines,” with bul lying, verbal abuse, and sadism his stock in trade. “I will break you, I promise…I will be the nightmare that keeps you from closing your eyes at night.” They are ordered never to use the word I when referring to themselves and are subject to regular repeated humilia tions.

French does well, becoming head of his class. But getting a boner while fantasizing during a communal shower results in a vicious beating as well as the enmity of Laws, now keen to force him out of the Marines. He’s virtually quarantined from his fellow recruits. In one harrowing incident he’s almost deliberately drowned in a training exercise.

He finds a sympathetic ally in Rosales (Raul Castillo), an officer who is closeted. French

develops a crush on him. He befriends fellow recruit Ismail (Eman Esfandi), a Muslim also mercilessly discriminated against and ridi culed. Will French survive and graduate?

Towards the beginning of “The Inspection” we wonder which emotional abuse is more cruel, his mother or the military? Yet it’s not a stretch to see the film as a love letter to the Ma rines who turn recruits into lean mean fighting machines, so they can “protect the person to your left and to your right.”

What does emerge, despite differences in beliefs and personal opinions, are soldiers bonding in a disparate community who learn to work together, because their very lives depend on creating solidarity in an unexpected tender brotherhood, which has homoerotic overtones.

The fascinating question posed by the film is how does one forge an identity when the in stitution itself is so determined to strip away any personal selfhood from its enlistees? The tentative answer is that the process forces them to harness reserves of strength they didn’t know they possessed so it’s in the perseverance –to push oneself beyond one’s limits– rather than quitting, that becomes the building block for a new persona.

French is resolved to prove he’s stronger than his demons, that by enduring the abuse he suffers, he will develop the resilience he needs to succeed. Also through the Marines, French discovers his career in photography and filmmaking.

As unsparing as the landscape on which it takes place, director Emma Rice’s interpre tation of the least decorous of all Victorian novels leans hard into its darkest corners. In scene after hair-raising scene, staggering acts of abuse are committed by husband against wife, parent against child, neighbor against neighbor.

The Gothic grand guignol of it all is tem pered a tad by jolts of broad vaudevillian humor, non-realistic sets, and comic props (including a terrific Tim Burtonesque dog puppet). Still, winking jokes and even a few lively songs and dances (This is more a play with music than a full-on musical) can’t dis tract from the fact that this endlessly clever show is also unrelenting parade of domestic cruelty.

The cast is headed by a smashing cen tral couple: Leah Brotherhead, as Catherine, unleashes unearthly Kate Bush-like vocals (Bush’s first hit was titled, and inspired by “Wuthering Heights”). Liame Tamne’s whipcracking Heathcliff successfully walks a fine line between seductive and repugnant.

This dark and stormy “Wuthering Heights” may make you turn to the novel, wondering just why it’s had such enduring appeal. It ain’t no Christmas Carol.

There’s a super-abundance of energy on Berkeley stages this holiday season.

dren’s “Wuthering Heights” at the Berkeley Rep each compress the soul of an epic literary masterwork into a three-hour extravaganza.

The dramatic intensity and ingenious stage craft of these productions are breathtaking in the sense that they barely give you room to breathe. For better and for worse, they’re flabber-gasping.

“Wuthering Heights” grabs the trunk of a gnarled family tree and uses it on the audience like a battering ram. With a chorus of voices that literally howls like the wind, aggressive punk-rock percussion and a raw, raucous inyour-face style, this non-stop Bronte adapta tion storms the stage and never lets up.

‘Wuthering Heights,’ through Jan. 1. $19.50$124. Berkeley Rep, 2015 Addison St. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

by Jim Gladstone

Shotgun Players’ “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812” and Wise Chil

Moor! Moor! Moor!

Kevin Berne

Jeremy Pope and Raúl Castillo in ‘The Inspection’

Patti

Leah Brotherhead as Catherine in ‘Wuthering Heights.’

“In retrospect, it had to be a vio lent end,” said Kenny Mellman, recalling the demise of “Kiki and Herb” back in 2007, not long after the locally-formed twosome’s last San Francisco performance.

Ever-contentious in the spotlight, the prickly cabaret couple –a sort of bitter salt-cured Steve and Eydie portrayed by Mellman (Herb) and Justin Vivian Bond (Kiki)– also had its share of offstage ups-and-downs, culminating in the high of a Tonynominated Broadway show fol lowed by a lengthy split that was not patched up until 2016.

Waylaid by a presidency, a pan demic and their own separate proj ects, the pair finally return to take the stage of the Curran Theatre for one night only on Friday, December 9.

In a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Melman recalled that when they split at the height of their success, “We’d been doing Kiki and Herb for over 15 years at that point. I defy you to come up with a two-per son act that doesn’t have its flare-ups.

“Still, they won’t mind me saying it [Bond uses they/them pronouns], because it’s the truth: They ended the act at that point. I wasn’t ready to let Kiki and Herb go. We didn’t speak to each other for quite some time after.”

Introduced by a mutual friend in the 1990s, Mellman and Bond’s first regular bookings as Kiki and Herb took place at the Mission’s now de funct Eichelberger’s bar. “We took mushrooms before every gig,” Mell man recalled.

Those early drug-fueled perfor mances helped the pair develop an act underpinned with AIDSera fury. Kiki and Herb provided a cranky, creative catharsis that helped both the performers and their audiences get through a nearly incomprehensible period of loss.

Big apples

The pair moved to New York and further acclaim, but an act forged in flame was perhaps doomed for burnout. Bond felt it first.

In an essay for online publication Talkhouse, Mellman recalled, “I was blindsided when Vivian told me, in front of the Astor Place Starbucks, that V wanted to end Kiki and Herb. It felt to me like that gut-wrenching moment when a lover says they

don’t love you anymore. It felt com pletely and undeniably final.”

Bond went on to build a solo songwriting and cabaret career that has brought them back to San Francisco on numerous occasions, playing venues including the Castro Theatre, Oasis and Feinstein’s at the Nikko. More recently, they have won international acclaim for a duo act with queer countertenor Anthony Roth Constanzo.

While more laid back than Bond, Mellman has quietly chalked up an impressive record of artistic ac complishment. Along with Kath leen Hanna, whose other bands in clude Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, he’s a founding member of indie rock act The Julie Ruin; and co-creator, with Bridget Everett and “Sex and the City” actor Michael Patrick King, of “At Least Its Pink,” Everett’s break through cabaret show, the predeces sor of her recent HBO series “Some body Somewhere.”

Mellman dates the beginning of his rapprochement with Bond to the 2013 death of queer theorist José Esteban Munoz at age 46. Munoz’ groundbreaking academic work at Duke University and the City Univer sity of New York acknowledged the social and political significance of Kiki and Herb to the queer community.

While Mellman and Bond hadn’t seen each other in several years, they found themselves together at Mu noz’ memorial service and, in Kiki and Herb personae, performed the duo’s cracked, heartwrenching ver sion of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

Sole Asylum

By 2016, in the throes of the Trump-Clinton presidential race, they mounted a full-scale reunion with 22 sold-out performances of “Seeking Asylum!” at Joe’s Pub. Just one month after that engage ment, the Pulse nightclub massa cre took place in Orlando, Florida,

prompting a friend of Mellman’s to post on Facebook: “I really wish there was a Kiki and Herb show to night so I could watch two people transform rage into cathartic art.”

While on the one hand Mellman acknowledges that “Kiki and Herb is a nostalgia act for our audiences,” he also recognizes their unfortunate ongoing utility as a tool for outrage. The Club Q massacre, the overturn of Roe and the rise of authoritarian ism are sure to set the duo’s flinty old bones aflame.

Mellman marvels at the air of cultish allure surrounding Kiki and Herb, attributing it to their emergence in the final years before the internet became omnipresent. “Who knows what it would have been like if we’d started ten years later? Most of Kiki and Herb’s career took place before there were phones with cameras attached, before drag was a mainstream phenomenon.”

Today, says Mellman, he and Bond are close friends once again.

“When we’re not in New York, we both have places in the Catskills. I’m pretty much a hermit, but as far as I have a social life, other than with my boyfriend it’s as much with Viv as anyone else. There’s something very seductive about doing Kiki and Herb together after all this time. It’s very ful filling and comforting. But it’s still ex hausting. And we’re comfortable with each other beyond the act now.”t

‘Kiki and Herb: Do You Hear What We Hear?’ Dec. 9. at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St. $35-$117. (888) 746-1799. www.sfcurran.com

It’s Judy for Xmas with Connie Champagne

by David-Elijah Nahmod

Itwouldn’t be Christmas in San Francisco unless chanteuse ex traordinaire Connie Champagne brings her annual Judy Garland hol iday show to Martuni’s. The singer will in fact be holding court as Judy in “It’s Judy for Xmas” on December 10 and 11 at 7pm.

The evening promises to be filled with a plethora of Judy de lights. Known for her uncanny abil ity to recreate the spirit of Garland, Champagne will be performing classic holiday favorites like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” which Garland immortalized in the film “Meet Me in St. Louis” (1944). Champagne will be accompanied by Daniel Fabricant on bass and Barry Lloyd at the keyboard.

Kenny Mellman on breaking up and reuniting with Justin Vivian Bond by Jim Gladstone

Connie Champagne

Kent Taylor

Kenny Mellman and Justin Vivian Bond at Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2021.

Eric McNatt

Fight

by Jim Piechota

In this new memoir, activist Ron Goldberg candidly and dramati cally shares his experiences on the front lines of the ACT UP AIDS protest movements in New York City three and a half decades ago.

Beginning in the summer of 1987, the author recalls being drawn to ACT UP meetings through their notorious reputation for being “bold, angry, and –unlike the other AIDS groups– dedicated to con frontation, not caregiving.”

Direct action on the release of lifesaving AIDS medications by the Food and Drug Administration as a result of ACT UP protests sealed the deal for Goldberg, and he immedi ately sought out gatherings and ac tivist networks.

This new life was a far cry from his Jewish upbringing in the 1960s and ’70s in Great Neck, Long Island when, as a boy, he felt a stirring after watching Bobby Sherman in “Here Comes the Brides!” Though he’d had girlfriends in high school, Goldberg also enjoyed dalliances with boys and, after coming out and graduat ing college, he moved to Manhattan to pursue an acting career.

His book intimately describes early influences by Larry Kramer (1935-2020), who angrily fin

Though Champagne is famous for channeling Garland, it wasn’t the legendary singer who inspired Champagne to be a performer. In an interview with the Bay Area Re porter Champagne recalled that her original inspiration came from The Beatles. Growing up in the 1970s near Sacramento, it was rock and roll that touched Champagne’s heart. She would sing to herself in her room and recalls being woken

ger-pointed and wrote distress ing alarmist dispatches about the mounting body counts from AIDS in local newspapers. As Goldberg’s rage and fright mounted, the inac tions of a homophobic government and the shameful indifference of medical establishments to the suf fering of the queer population pro ceeded to exacerbate what would become a full-on global epidemic.

Goldberg’s passion for activist participation soon graduated to the forefront of his life as he realized and fully embraced the heft of collective community movements and the so

up by her mother when she was 13 to watch David Bowie on “The Mid night Special,” a rock-oriented vari ety show of the period.

“Bowie would have been my big gest influence because he was so unique, an actor who sang,” Cham pagne said. “As he did his mime thing, Mom gushed, ‘Look, he’s had acting training.’ I rolled my eyes, but nevertheless, that performance changed my life. My inner weirdo emerged, no more Marcia Brady outfits for me.”

Champagne quit cheerleading

cial and political weight they carried. He resonantly describes life for gay men in New York as “living under a pervasive cloud of dread” and the “low threatening hum in the back ground of everything we did.” Every physical ailment, no matter how mi nor, could be a prognostication of something much more insidious.

“Was that a bruise or a lesion? A chest cold or pneumonia?” he writes of the palpable terror of con tracting AIDS. “You could be fine one day and gasping for breath the

and changed schools to one with a drama department.

“Through Bowie, I discovered Iggy Pop, and he was by far my big gest influence,” she said.

Judy’s Gay Appeal

Judy Garland remains a classic and enduring gay icon more than fifty years after her death. Cham pagne addressed the singer’s appeal to the queer community.

“I guess she was so much fun,”

next, your life suddenly measured in months, if not weeks.”

Encounters with defiant police brigades, community heroes, and fellow activists commingle with the electrified atmosphere of frus tration, sadness, fear, and defiance. Goldberg’s dramatizations will pro voke astonishment for new readers and a bittersweet sense of nostalgia for those who were actually there and found themselves fighting the good fight to stay alive while a cruel,

Champagne said. “That’s what I’m told. She had that fabulously gay sense of humor and yet she was ter ribly naive or maybe in denial, at least in her personal life. But there’s no denying, she connected deeply with her audience, and it seems that she really felt their pain.”

Champagne has often been told that she’s very good at performing as Garland.

“I’m an actor who has been hope fully typecast,” she said. “But if you

deadly disease ran rampant (and ig nored by those in power) through out the community.

The book’s images of “die-ins,” “Silence = Death” signs, and street protests are nothing short of strik ing and graphically capture the significance of the timeless activist movement, a powerful and unique collective that has seen a resurgence of late and has incrementally in creased in importance as the mil lennium marches forward.

This fine amalgam of memoir and queer history is constructive, emboldening, and necessary read ing, and quite likely to inspire young queer readers to engage and partici pate in the enduring fight for LG BTQ equality and freedom. t

‘Boy with the Bullhorn’ by Ron Goldberg, Empire State Editions/ Fordham University Press, $36.95 hardback, $19.99 e-book, $24.49 au diobook. www.fordhampress.com Ron Goldberg will appear with fellow author K.M. Soehnlein (the ACT UP-themed novel, “Army of Lovers”) in a joint reading event at The Green Arcade, 1680 Market Street, San Francisco, on World AIDS Day, Thursday, December 1, at 6:30pm. www.thegreenarcade.com www.boywiththebullhorn.com

have to be typecast, Judy Garland is not a bad one to be typecast as. I hope to make the holidays fun and sentimental for people who love Christmas and also for people who loathe it. Yes, I hope to bring them in for a wacky holiday show. It really is for everybody.”t

Connie Champagne’s ‘It’s Judy for Xmas,’ December 10 and 11, 7pm at Martuni’s, 4 Valencia St. www.eventbrite.com

Pain mutated

Jeremy Pope gives a stupendous star-making performance that with any justice should net him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Pope ac complishes much of his acting with his expressive eyes, conveying both vulnerability and steely determina tion after years of keeping his guard up to protect himself. It is the best queer performance of the year.

However, Pope is matched in the electrifying career-best perfor mance of Union, who in real life has a trans daughter and is an LGBTQ ally/activist. She is a powder keg who can explode at a moment’s no tice rendering her scenes with Pope unpredictable and chilling. He can stand up to her only harboring the probably false hope she will change. She’s bitterly disappointed and

scornful, not only with her son, but how her life has panned out. She’s a likely Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee.

The superlative acting helps to compensate for the glaring deficien cies in the script, because besides French and his mother, there is little development of the characters, es pecially his fellow recruits.

“The Inspection” makes the dis tinction of being pro-troops, but not being pro-military, so you can’t help but root for the recruits. “The Inspection” can be painful to watch at times, but French’s refusal to play the victim speaks loudly. His deter mination to survive echoes the LG BTQ community’s refusal to be un dermined and defeated by hate.t

www.a24films.com

Read the full review on www.ebar.com.

Ron Goldberg’s ‘Boy With the Bullhorn’

Author Ron Goldberg

Ron Goldberg leads a chant during an ACT UP ‘renegade’ New York City Pride march in 1989.

Joey Stamp

TL Litt

<< Connie Champagne From

Jeremy Pope in ‘The Inspection’

Patti Perret/A24 Films

Holidays & heartache

by Victoria A. Brownworth

What happened in Colorado Springs on November 19, just days before Thanksgiving, made for a sad holiday for many families, including the nation’s LGTBQ com munity.

Wiping tears from his eyes, Josh ua Thurman, 34, a Black gay man who was at Club Q when yet another en raged young man with an assault weapon began shooting, told local ABC News affiliate KRDO, “This was our only safe space in Colorado Springs. Where are we going to go?”

Where indeed? Where would it be safe?

On the eve of the Trans Day of Remembrance, the crowd at Club Q was there for a drag show and to celebrate and memorialize those who have died from anti-trans vio lence. Yet before the clock struck 12, one of the victims would be a trans woman, Kelly Loving, who at 40 was living her best life, according to her sister and friends.

Club Q bartenders Daniel As ton and Raymond Green Vance were both killed, as were patrons Ashley Paugh and Derrick Rump. More than two dozen patrons were wounded, some critically.

The alleged shooter, Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, was subdued by a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, former Army Maj. Richard Fierro. Aldrich was arraigned on Nov. 21.

Aldrich’s father, Aaron Brink, a former porn star and MMA fighter, gave an extended interview with

gay bar. I got scared, ‘Shit, is he gay?’ And he’s not gay, so I said, phew…I am a conservative Republican.”

Brink added, “I praised him for violent behavior really early. I told him it works... You’ll get immediate results.”

Aaron Brink would rather have a son who was a mass murderer than a son who was gay. Never forget how much they hate us. Never.

House of Mormon

One of the things

Aaron Brink said in his CBS8 interview was, “You know Mormons don’t do gay, we don’t do gay, there are no gays in the Mormon church. We don’t do gay.”

Former “American Idol” star Da vid Archuleta, a gay Mormon, gave an in-depth interview to ABC’s “GMA” on Nov. 18. The singer de tailed his “faith crisis” after coming out in the Mormon church.

“I’ve had a faith crisis this year,” Archuleta, 31, told ABC News’ Steve Osunsami, who is also gay, in an in terview on Good Morning America.

“So now I’ve had to deconstruct ev erything.”

The Lavender Tube on tragedies televised

Archuleta, who was second dur ing season 7 of “American Idol” in 2008 and who has had a strong solo career since, told Osunsami that he told his family he was gay and his church he was on the bisexual spec trum. They told him to find a nice girl. But after three broken engage ments, he has stepped away from both the church and any attempts to pretend he is anything but queer–the way he prefers to identify now.

Archuleta told GMA that he also considered suicide, the pressure on him to match the narratives being presented to him were so intense.

“You’re trying to decide what’s worse,” he said. “Is it worse for this feeling of being desiring men to fi nally explode where I can’t control it anymore and you look at it as that’s Satan trying to take over my soul? Or is it better for me to end my life and, that way, I’m free from that temptation?”

That someone with Archuleta’s fame and international support still had these suicidal feelings and such despair speaks volumes about the impact of homophobia on in dividuals, particularly when that comes from ones own former ref uge; church.

“That was really hard for me to accept, because my church wasn’t outright aggressive towards gay peo ple, but it’s a very passive-aggressive, stern stance they have about it,” Ar chuleta said. “A rejection.”

Now the singer is working on his music and can see himself marrying another man one day. And unafraid to call out the people who should have given him the most support but instead nearly drove him to his death.

Sam Buttrey– all competed.

Schneider had won 40 games pri or to the Tournament, the secondlongest winning streak in “Jeopar dy!” history. She had made history by being the first out trans contes tant and first out trans winner on the popular game show.

Schneider, a writer from Oakland, California, won three games in the tournament finals, narrowly beating Andrew He, a software developer from neighboring San Francisco, who won two games. The third con testant, Sam Buttrey, was another Californian. He won one game.

All the contestants thanked peo ple before the final game began. Schneider thanked her wife, Gen evieve, who she married in a private ceremony in May.

Schneider said she owed “so much to so many people.” To Gen evieve she said, “I can’t find enough ways to say how lucky I am that the most amazing woman in the world has chosen to spend her life with me. I love you, Genevieve, and I could never, ever have done this without you.”

Schneider won $250,000 for the tournament and is the first woman to win more than a million–$1.4 million. Congratulations to Amy who played fabulously against two really fine competitors in He and Buttrey. It was a very exciting tour nament for those of us who are “Jeopardy!” devotees.

What to watch

We’re moving into the TV dead zone of season finales (no more “Alaska Daily” until February? No!), holiday baking shows, too many holiday specials and far too many straight Christmas-themed rom coms. Something fun to check out that we’ll delve into more deeply next column is Hulu’s “Welcome to Chippendales.” The series is the story of Indian immigrant Somen ‘Steve’ Banerjee who becomes the unlikely founder of the male dance revue that then becomes a cultural phenomenon. Kumail Nanjiani is spectacular as Banerjee.

He gave a fabulously funny inter view to Jimmy Kimmel last week. Kumail talked about eating food constantly while he was putting on weight for “Welcome to Chippen dales,” and then getting sleep apnea from eating so much, breaking a tooth while eating lentils, not go ing to the dentist for 15 years, his bizarre experience while getting his teeth cleaned, his family celebrating Eid where they would visit the hous es of 12 relatives and eat the whole way, and of course the Hulu series.

“Welcome to Chippendales” is even more fun –and hot– than you’d expect, and is streaming now.t

Read the full column on www.ebar.com.

A piece of “War and Peace”

Every production that Shotgun Players mounts in the Ashby Play house offers unique visual delights. Artistic director Patrick Dooley pushes set designers to creative heights in this small former church. The West Coast premiere of “Nata sha, Pierre and the Great Comet” of fers the apotheosis of this effort thus far, with scenic designer Nina Ball transforming not just the stage, but the entire auditorium into a single opulent playground of a Russian nightclub.

This theatrical architecture, con structed by the California Shake speare Theater, would be worthy of sightseeing in and of itself, but the production (based on a section of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”) sets it teeming with music, motion and further dollops of delicious design (Jasmine Milan Williams’ costumes are covetable Slavic chic). Imagine spending time inside of your spar kliest Christmas ornament.

The music twinkles, too. The To ny-nominated songs by Dave Mal loy immerse you in their charms. That said, the score surrounds more than it sinks in, creating a lovely overall atmosphere rather than the hip Hamiltonian stickiness the pe riod trappings can’t help but make one hope for. Malloy’s own marvel ous “Octet,” which played at the Rep last year, was far more memorable on the lyrical front.

Even when truncated to a few chapters worth of material, “War and Peace” can be a bit of a haul. De spite character introductions and a plot synopsis in the program, plus a

musical introduction to the drama tis personae in the show’s opening scene, there’s an awful lot going on here. I sometimes found myself feel ing like a military strategist tracking the maneuvers of toy soldiers.

Then again, a certain mechanical music-box precision is part of what makes this massive production so unique. This is a spectacle that wins you over with its clockwork more than its heartbeat.t

‘Pierre, Natasha and the Great Comet of 1812’ through Jan. 15. $30-$62. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-6500.

https://shotgunplayers.org

Read more at www.ebar.com.

David Archuleta on ‘Good Morning America

Amy Schneider on ‘Jeopardy!’

Kumail Nanjiani in ‘Welcome to Chippendales’

Roeen Nooran (front) and cast members of ‘Pierre, Natasha and the Great Comet of 1812’

Ben Krantz

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by Jim Gladstone

When you think about the prince in “Sleeping Beauty,” it’s unlikely that a certain purple Minnesotan comes to mind. And yet, when the curtains open on the second edition of Panto in the Presi dio next Thursday (Dec. 1), a rous ing parody of “Let’s Go Crazy” –with new lyrics crafted by Stephanie Brown and Richard Ciccarone– will set the tone for a compound-frac tured fairy tale suited to both little ones and adults with hyperactive in ner children.

Inside jokes for locals, a cast and crew chockfull of “Beach Blanket Babylon” alumni, and an antic at mosphere of non-stop audience participation are the hallmarks of this emerging annual holiday tra dition which began last December during one of our many whack-amole emergences from the corona virus pandemic.

“I’d been wanting to bring London Palladium-style panto to San Fran cisco for years,” said local arts patron and executive producer Peggy Haas in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “But the pandemic really kicked things into gear. It was just the right time to bring something so joy ous and fun to the community.

“I always like to give my artists a mission statement when they begin the creative journey of putting a new show together. Last year with ‘The Magic Lamp’ it was about find ing hope around you. This year is about reawakening.”

That particular theme made the story of “Sleeping Beauty” an ideal choice explained director Liam

Vincent: “When we were trying to figure out our follow-up, there was a lot of talk about ‘Cinderella,’ but I just didn’t feel like the stakes were high enough.

“Yes, both Cindy and Sleepy have romantic elements, but given the recent pandemic Vincent loved the fact that ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is about a life and death situation. The witch (played with delicious wickedness by Rotimi Agbabiaka) is out to take the princess’ life. Everyone who has been through the past couple of years can relate to the idea of falling

into an endless sleep and then com ing back to see the world anew.”

Freewheeling fun

Unlike other holiday theater fare, be it “The Nutcracker” or “Frozen,” the freewheeling, patchwork nature of panto –in which familiar stories and songs are scrappily reassembled rather than presented in familiar forms– leads to shows that are full of surprises.

“You’ll have a snippet of classical music from Wagner,” explained Vin cent, “and then it’s followed up with

a little Doja Cat!”

The quick-shifting musical versa tility required by the show is provid ed by music director and band leader Bill Keck, who held those same posi tions with “Beach Blanket Babylon” for 26 years. “Beach Blanket” DNA is also present in cast members in cluding Curt Branum (the one-time pink-wigged Louis XIV now plays a female cook) and beloved 34-year Blanketeer Renée Lubin, who brings her diva pipes to the role of Queen Montgomery (her character’s spouse is King Powell, natch).

Haas, who has been involved in local children’s theater for decades, said that she particularly enjoys the multi-generational aspect of panto. “There are people who grow up in England seeing panto who then go back with their own kids and realize that there was a whole set of jokes that had gone flying over their heads when they were children.”

“In ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ we’re bring ing back a rooster character from last year who happens to be named Pecker. I have an English friend who brought her five-year-old son last year and he kept pestering her about why the grownups kept laughing at that name until she finally had to explain it.”

For director Vincent, who also worked on the show last year, the audience participation elements of the program (Audiences are provid ed with instructions on how, when and what to holler in that princely opening number ‘Let’s Go Panto!’) are also a particular joy in the wake of the pandemic.

“Post-lockdown,” he said, “I feel heartbroken when I see a kid in the theater who is looking at their phone screen. So it’s wonderful to watch them get involved in the shouting and back talk that are integral to this form. Last year I just loved watch ing kids get into the show. Honestly, they were losing their minds!”

“That’s something that doesn’t happen at ‘A Christmas Carol.’”t

Panto in the Presidio: ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ Dec. 1-30. $10-$40. Presi dio Theatre, 99 Moraga Ave. (415) 960-3949. www.presidiotheatre.org

by Philip Campbell

The Adler Fellows class of 2022 will appear in their final con cert of the year, ‘The Future Is Now: Adlers in Concert’ on Friday, Dec. 2 at the Herbst Theatre. The annual performance, which features gifted participants from the residency sea son, always feels a bit like a festive commencement ceremony, except the students sing for their creden tials, while the audience cheers in pride and admiration.

San Francisco Opera Music di rector Eun Sun Kim will conduct the grand night of singing, pre senting arias and scenes performed by SFO’s special crop of resident artists, drawn from the esteemed Merola Opera Program.

The 2022 Adler Fellows are sopra nos Anne-Marie MacIntosh (Lang ley, British Columbia, Canada), Mi

kayla Sager (Vancouver, B.C.); Elisa Sunshine (San Clemente, CA) and Esther Tonea (Buford, GA); mezzosoprano Gabrielle Beteag (Atlanta, GA); tenors Victor Cardamone (Pittsburgh, PA) and Edward Graves (Oxon Hill, MD); baritone Timothy Murray (Whitefish Bay, WI) and bass Stefan Egerstrom (Brooklyn Center, MN).

Gabriella Beteag, Victor Carda mone, Edward Graves and Mikayla Sager, selected from the Merola Op era Program, are incoming first-year fellows. Anne-Marie MacIntosh, Elisa Sunshine, Esther Tonea, Timo thy Murray and Stefan Egerstrom continue in the program as thirdyear fellows.

The 2022 class includes two pia nist/coaches, first-year fellow Mari ka Yasuda (Williamsburg, VA) and returning third-year fellow Andrew King (Syracuse, NY). They work

closely with Opera Center Artistic Director Carrie-Ann Matheson and with SFO Head of Music Staff John Churchwell in developing the neces sary skills for a career in music.

One of the biggest advantages for Adler Fellows includes experience appearing in roles of increasing im portance in SFO’s repertory season at the War Memorial Opera House (WMOH). Members are conse quently prepared for international success in the world of opera and vocal recitals.

Famous graduates of the presti gious program include Patricia Ra cette, Ruth Ann Swenson, Deborah Voigt, Dolora Zajick, and Leah Cro cetto, late lamented countertenor Brian Asawa, Brian Jagde, John Relyea, and more recently baritone Efrain Solis and countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. That is just a short list; every year produces a bumper crop.

After a recent matinee of Pou lenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmel ites” on the stage of the WMOH, three Adler alumnae whose careers with SFO each span over three de cades received the San Francisco Opera Medal. The Opera Medal is the Company’s highest honor and awarded for distinguished service to SFO over many years.

Mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook, the beloved inveterate scene-stealer, who was Mother Jeanne in the after noon performance, and impressive singing actor bass-baritone Dale Travis, who portrayed the Marquis de la Force, were joined by inter nationally acclaimed bass-baritone Philip Skinner to each receive the well-deserved Medal from General Director Matthew Shilvock. They embody proof of the importance of the Adler Fellowship mission.

The tradition of “The Future is Now” concerts has grown into

something of an institution itself. The meticulously prepared highenergy programs often contain rari ties deserving rediscovery, even if their source operas are unlikely to be revived. Of course, familiar tunes from hit operas make up most of the program.

The professionalism of the SFO Orchestra is expected, but delighted listeners are equally impressed by the startling maturity and artistry of the new singers. It is a feel good experience and a great show, guar anteed to reinforce hope about the state of the art.

They may be going out there as youngsters, but they are coming back as stars.t

‘The Future is Now: Adlers in Concert,’ Friday, Dec. 2, 7:30pm. Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave. (415) 864-3330. www.sfopera.com

Beauty”

Jen Brooks, Phaedra Tillery Boughton, Andre Amarotico and Kaylee Miltersen in ‘Sleeping Beauty’ at the Presidio Theatre.

Terry Lorant

SF Opera’s 2022 Adler Fellows.

Matthew Washburn

by Laura Moreno

Filmed in Austria in 1991, “Flam ing Ears” is truly an under ground film. Highly acclaimed for its endlessly disruptive narrative –almost to the point of rendering it incomprehensible. It also calls to mind the fiction of UK writer J.G. Ballard. Originally shot on Super 8 film, the newly restored film had to be reconstructed from prints after the original negatives and sound re cordings were lost.

Far, far into the future among the ruins of the once-great city of Asche (pun intended) live three women. Meet Spy (Susana Helmayr), a closet comic book artist; Volley (co-director Ursula Pürrer), a pyro maniac and sex addict who laughs maniacally as she burns Spy’s print ing press, destroying her one cre ative outlet; and Nun (co-director Angela Hans Scheirl), an alien who wears red vinyl and has a thing for reptiles, and steps in to protect Spy although she has no earthly concept of right and wrong. Nun is also Vol ley’s lover.

Seeking revenge, Spy immedi ately bolts to the lesbian club where Volley performs. But just as she ar rives, she is seriously injured in a fight outside the club and lies help less in the street until Nun rescues her, taking her home to hide her from Volley. This is the sum total of the discernable plot.

Low-tech, high camp

The grainy, lo-fi film drifts almost joyfully over the edge into explicit sex, references to fetish practices (such as objectum sexuality, which is an attraction to inanimate objects, like the woman who married the Berlin Wall), even going into out right disgusting territory.

The three directors –Ursula Pür rer, Angela Hans Scheirl, and Diet mar Schipek– with the smallest of budgets, clearly anticipated the film would not have much of an audi ence to offend. This is no hedonis tic lesbian club in the tradition of Ancient Greece and Rome. Earth’s once-invincible civilization is now in shambles, and so are the people who populate this post-apocalyptic world.

But the film’s saving grace is that it is filmed in such low lo-tech that the scenes are not really realistic enough to be very offensive, even if they seek to be, and can be enjoyed as thoroughly campy. A bloody murder scene comes off as cheesy with blood so fake it ends up mock ing any attempt at seriousness.

The film mirrors how the great USSR must have looked in 1991, particularly to its near neighbors like Austria: unconquerable one day, and gone the next. The whole thing in retrospect seems to have been only make-believe.

Interestingly, Volley wears pigtails and roller skates (like a juvenile) and sports a white head decoration that mimics weird cat ears on the sides of the back of her head (rather than on top, like a cat), but is reminiscent of both Mickey Mouse and the ultraweird police hat of Franco’s Fascist Spain, still worn today by the Guar dia Civil. The subtle message seems to be: meet your new (immature) dictator.

The film score? Early German techno music, of course, featuring a dark and hard-driving robotic bass.

Moreover, this film, as in “Blade Runner,” contains a surprising num ber of references to religion. In this case, not transcendent Buddhism, but reminders of the tyrannical hi erarchy (or ex-hierarchy) and accou

trements of Roman Catholicism are present alongside arson and various forms of immodesty.

Far-fetched, or not

The narration and often headscratching dialogue shatter all the typical rules. They are strangely disconnected from everything, in cluding from the cannon of litera ture and film. The voiceover states, “Highly unlikely for a pure heart to survive,” and we see a person gunned down, which goes against the grain of the traditional hero and heroine, who is almost always a worthy character.

Ever since storytelling began, a pure heart is a rare advantage: Da vid and Goliath, Snow White and the Evil Queen, Maria Von Trapp and the conniving Baroness, and also an endless number true stories that happened during WWII that do not seem to have made their way to the GenX ears of the Austrian directors, which may not be as farfetched a notion as it seems.

The memories of World War II and the partitioning of that part of Europe that followed were still quite raw at the time; they seem to be the elephants in the room that inform the sensibilities of the film, all that it upends, and all that it embraces. Ul timately, it can be read as a plea for acceptance and love in a very odd time at the close of the Cold War.

“Flaming Ears” is a full-blown anti-romantic rebellion with a DIY creative quality that makes the world of the film a creative uto pia even as it exists in a dystopian world.t

Drafthouse San Francisco, 2550 Mission Street, and can be rented online. www.kinolorber.com