PGN May 3-9, 2019 by The Philadelphia Gay News

pgn Philadelphia Gay News LGBT NEWS SINCE 1976 Family Portrait: Celeste Cottrelle, no “Ordinary Life” PAGE 29

Vol. 43 No. 18 May 3-9, 2019

Supreme Court puts workplace discrimination on the docket

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HONESTY • INTEGRITY • PROFESSIONALISM

The radical roots of Roberta Hacker PAGE 12

A century of drag in print PAGE 28

Senator’s co-authored bill could help LGBTQ elders By Gary L. Day PGN Contributor

ON THE LIST: Philadelphia Black Pride held its third annual ball event, “The List” at Philadelphia Boys Choir and Chorale April 27 with a grand prize of $1,000. The Mother of the event was Jacen Prodigy, and commenters included Jack Mizrahi, Dashaun Lanvin and Greg Lanvin. VJ the DJ provided music for the event. Photo by Kelly Burkhardt

Out educator to receive Hero Award By Michele Zipkin PGN Contributor

teachers confide in her as well.” Out of 77 applications, NLM associates selected 12 educators who demonstrate Freda Anderson created the first Queer- outstanding teaching practices and act as Straight alliance at the U School, a North role models to their students and coworkPhiladelphia high school where she teaches ers. Award winners will have their stories a community-organizing class. On May 11, she will be one of 12 edu- displayed in NLM’s Live Like a Hero galcators to receive the Teacher as Hero lery for the next year. In the QSA, which consists of six core Award presented by the National Liberty members but ranges in size from meeting Museum. to meeting, students Anderson’s colengage in a varileague, Clarice ety of discussions, Brazas, who teaches activities and proj10th-grade humanects. ities and helps run The group is curthe QSA, nomirently working on a nated her for the campaign in which award. they invite their “Freda’s always peers to respond to willing to take on one of two prompts: more responsibil“One thing I love ities, especially about being queer is things that help kids … ” and “One thing specifically,” Brazas I love about myself said. “In addition to is … ” a lot of kids confid- FREDA ANDERSON IN HER ing in her, a lot of CLASSROOM PAGE 21

A Pennsylvania senator is among three U.S. legislators who introduced a bill to expand health services and resources for the older LGBTQ population. U.S. Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA) authored the Invlusive Aging Act with Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). The IAA has three main goals. First, it would establish an Office of Inclusivity and Sexual Health in the Administration on Aging. Second, it would establish a rural grant program to fund training and expand available resources to address the healthcare needs of LGBTQ seniors. Third, it would reauthorize the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging — the country’s only technical-assistance resource center aimed at improving the quality of services and support for older LGBTQ individuals.

Casey, a ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, has made addressing the needs of seniors, including LGBTQ, one of his signature issues. “For too long the needs of LGBT elders and seniors living in rural communities have been overlooked. The Inclusive Aging Act would expand access to culturally competent health care services for LGBT elders and help reduce social isolation among older Americans in rural areas,” said Casey in a press release. The senator promoted the IAA at a townhall April 28 in Center City, where he emphasized the isolation and scarcity of services experienced by rural LGBT seniors. He noted that, in Pennsylvania, almost three-quarters of the state’s counties could be classified as “rural.” “How prepared are our communities to provide needed services for LGBT seniors?” Casey asked his townhall audience. “Especially rural communities? In a state like ours, we have a tremendous rural population, and in rural PAGE 16

Fraternities disband over homophobia, other allegations By Victoria A. Brownworth PGN Contributor In an unprecedented action, two Swarthmore College fraternities have announced they are disbanding in response to campus protests by women’s, LGBTQ and other student groups. The action comes after documents from Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon were leaked to the campus newspaper, the Swarthmore Phoenix, and other media. Racist, sexist and homophobic language and behavior, as well as hazing and pornography were detailed in those documents dating back from 2013-16. Another campus outlet, a protest group, Swarthmore Voices, said the documents were emailed anonymously and included photos showing members “kissing, groping and touching women.”

One of the leaked documents was the 117-page “Phi Psi Historical Archive,” which included numerous rape jokes, racist references, vulgar descriptions of sexual exploits and details of hazing. All of this was framed within the fraternity’s meeting minutes. Also in that archive were references to a “rape attic” and “rape tunnel” at Delta Upsilon. The Voices story begins: “Content Warning: this article contains racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, classist, and transphobic comments (including curse words and slurs).” One account from the leaked documents describes the apparent sexual assault of a woman at a fraternity party who is passed out “face first.” In another reference, the writer describes a plan to “take over one building at a time until we possess enough PAGE 1 building space to start

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Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

Resource listings Legal resources • ACLU of Pennsylvania: 215-592-1513; aclupa.org • AIDS Law Project of PA: 215-587-9377; aidslawpa.org • AIDS Law Project of South Jersey: 856-784-8532; aidslawsnj.org/ • Equality PA: equalitypa. org; 215-731-1447

• Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations — Rue Landau: 215-686-4670 • Philadelphia Police Liaison Committee: 215-7603686; ppd.lgbt@gmail.com • SPARC — Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition: 717-920-9537

• Office of LGBT Affairs — Amber Hikes: 215-686-0330; amber.hikes@phila.gov

Community centers • The Attic Youth Center; 255 S. 16th St.; 215-545-4331, atticyouthcenter.org. For LGBT and questioning youth and their friends and allies. • LGBT Center at the University of Pennsylvania; 3907 Spruce

St.; 215-898-5044, center@dolphin.upenn.edu.

• Rainbow Room: Bucks County’s LGBTQ and Allies Youth Center

Salem UCC Education Building, 181 E. Court St., Doylestown; 215-957-7981 ext. 9065, rainbowroom@ppbucks.org.

• William Way LGBT Community Center 1315 Spruce St.; 215-732-2220, www.waygay.org.

Health and HIV testing • Action Wellness: 1216 Arch St.; 215981-0088, actionwellness.org • AIDS Healthcare Foundation: 1211 Chestnut St. #405 215971-2804; HIVcare.org • AIDS Library: 1233 Locust St.; aidslibrary.org/ • AIDS Treatment Fact line: 800-6626080 • Bebashi-Transition to Hope: 1235

Spring Garden St.; 215769-3561; bebashi.org • COLOURS: coloursorganization.org, 215832-0100 • Congreso de Latinos Unidos; 216 W. Somerset St.; 215-7638870 • GALAEI: 149 W. Susquehanna Ave.; 267-457-3912, galaei. org. Spanish/English • Health Center No. 2: 1720 S. Broad St.; 215-685-1821

• Mazzoni Center: 1348 Bainbridge St.; 215-563-0652, mazzonicenter.org • Philadelphia FIGHT: 1233 Locust St.; 215-985-4448, fight.org • Washington West Project of Mazzoni Center: 1201 Locust St.; 215985-9206 • Transgender Health Action Coalition: 215-732-1207

Other • Independence Branch Library Barbara Gittings Gay and Lesbian Collection: 215-685-1633 • Independence Business Alliance; 215-557-0190, IndependenceBusinessAlliance.com

• LGBT Peer Counseling Services: 215-732-TALK • PFLAG: Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (Philadelphia): 215-572-1833 • Philly Pride Presents: 215-875-9288

Eastern State adds LGBTQ history to programming By Larry Nichols larry@epgn.com Eastern State Penitentiary, one of Philadelphia’s most iconic, is incorporating some newly uncovered history about LGBTQ prisoners into its multimedia exhibition. Annie Anderson, Eastern State’s manager of research and public programming, spearheaded this addition during her efforts to catalog and digitize documents from the prison’s history. “Any time I come across a journal documenting someone who might have identified as LGBTQ, I save that record in a file I’ve been creating to capture the stories of people who were sentenced for their sexuality,” she said. “It’s a little bit tricky using historical records because a gay identity didn’t necessarily exist before the 1900s.” Anderson had to look for records of cases that included sodomy in order to locate LGBTQ prisoners. “Digging a little bit deeper into a person’s court records,” she explained, “we’ve been able to uncover records for people who had been in prison for their sexuality or participated in same-sex activity.” It has been a personal side project for Anderson to collect this data, and she has found at least 484 people that were imprisoned at Eastern State for sodomy — which she defines as “the nebulous term that criminalizes certain sex acts and has been used to criminalize same-sex activity throughout history.” Anderson said the stories of LGBTQ people incarcerated at Eastern State would now become a permanent addition to the audio-visual programming available to visitors of the historic landmark. “We just created a new audio stop about LGBTQ history at the penitentiary to explore some of these stories,” she said, adding that they installed a small interpretive sign to go with the stop. “A couple years ago, we noticed there was very little interpretation about LGBTQ history at the penitentiary. So we wanted to add this new interpretation to flesh out these stories more and acknowledge that queer people have been criminalized and incarcerated throughout history.” Anderson said the Eastern State staff feels it can testify to this story, as the insti-

tution has held many LGBTQ prisoners in its 142-year history. One queer prisoner’s history particularly caught Anderson’s attention. This person’s name was Isaac Hall, and his story is now on the audio stop. “He was charged $100 and sentenced to eight years of solitary confinement for what records indicate was a consensual sex act with a male partner,” she said. “But next to every court document and prison record for Isaac Hall was the alias Lady Washington. The warden at the time wrote that Hall was known, in the locality that he resided, as Lady Washington. The specifics of Hall’s identity might be lost to us forever since this person lived 140 years ago, but it’s interesting to navigate Hall’s records, because it seems that if Hall were alive today, he might have identified as trans. And that’s one of the earliest documents I’ve ever seen of a trans or genderqueer person being incarcerated at the penitentiary, and that is the early 1880s.” Anderson said she hopes this addition to Eastern State’s tour programming will give visitors a clearer picture of how far laws and policies regarding sexuality have come in the last century. “I’d like to get visitors thinking about how identity has been policed and punished throughout time,” she said. “Laws have really shifted. In most places, the Supreme Court struck down the Texas sodomy law [Lawrence v. Texas in 2003], and that made most state sodomy laws illegal.” She said she wants visitors to think about the way law changes and how, at different points in history, it impacts groups of people. “What was once criminalized is no longer criminalized and people that were criminalized are no longer criminalized,” she said. “I wanted to get into those changes and expand the narrative of Eastern State’s interpretation to include LGBTQ folks.” ■ For more information on Eastern State Penitentiary, 2027 Fairmount Ave., visit www.easternstate.org.

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Media Trail Ex-police chief, openly gay woman elected Tampa’s new mayor The Tampa Bay Times reports in a historic election Tampa voters elected, by a wide margin, a former police chief and openly-gay woman to be their mayor. Jane Castor, 59, trounced76-year-old David Straz in the April 23 runoff. Straz is a retired banker and philanthropist worth $426 million. Castor will be the first openly-gay mayor in the history of Tampa and the region. With 97 precincts reporting, Castor held a lead of about 24,500 votes. Castor ran up an overwhelming lead in early voting despite Straz’s record spending: nearly $5 million during the campaign, much of his own money, according to campaign finance reports. At her watch party Castor mostly thanked supporters, including outgoing Mayor Bob Buckhorn and political consultant Ana Cruz, Castor’s partner, whom she dubbed “invincible.”

Amazon joins firms telling Tennessee to shun anti-LGBT bills U.S. News reports amid pressure, Amazon has joined a growing list of big companies telling Tennessee lawmakers to avoid bills that negatively impact LGBT people. The letter organized by the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce is also signed by AllianceBernstein, Bridgestone North Americas, Curb Records, Dell Technologies, Exploration, Genesco, Postmates, Salesforce, Warner Music Group and 28 small businesses along with the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. It says legislation that explicitly or implicitly allows discrimination against LGBT people “creates unnecessary liability for talent recruitment and retention, tourism, and corporate investment to the state.” The campaign named ``No Gay? No Way!’’ had previously called out Amazon for not speaking against bills targeting the LGBT community. The Human Rights Campaign has organized a similar letter featuring 11 other large companies.

Nevada becomes 10th state to offer gender-neutral licenses KTNV.com reports Nevada is joining a handful of states by offering gender-neutral driver’s licenses and ID cards.

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The state Department of Motor Vehicles recently announced that it will allow residents to choose gender “X” on their license or ID, instead of an “M” for male or “F” for female. DMV Director Julie Butler says the agency is committed to being inclusive and understands some people don’t identify as either male or female. The National Center for Transgender Equality says Nevada joins nine other states and the District of Columbia in offering the gender-neutral licenses and cards. State officials say a gender change to a license or ID must be made in-person at a DMV office.

Transgender inmate sues corrections over lack of treatment The Hartford Courant reports a transgender inmate has filed a federal lawsuit against the Connecticut prison system for denying her transitional care and for housing her with male inmates. Veronica May Clark says Department of Corrections officials have denied her medical and mental health care since she began her gender transition in prison. The suit seeks proper care and $500,000 in damages. Clark says she was told that state policy only allows treatment for inmates who began their gender transition outside of prison. A 2018 law protecting the rights of transgender inmates is not clear on the policy. A prison spokeswoman says the department has procedures to meet the needs of gender-nonconforming individuals. Clark was convicted of murder for beating a man to death and sentenced to 75 years in 2009.

Deputy on leave for homophobic comment over teen’s suicide The Birmingham News reports an Alabama deputy has been put on administrative leave for posting a homophobic comment on a Facebook post about a gay teen who killed himself. Madison County Deputy Jeff Graves wrote the comment Sunday on a WZDX-TV Facebook post about the death by suicide of 15-year-old Nigel Shelby. His family says he was bullied for his sexuality. Graves wrote “Liberty Guns Bible Trump BBQ That’s my kind of LGBTQ movement.” He said LGBTQ people are offensive and shouldn’t be accepted. Graves has since deleted his comment. Belle’s Smokin’ BBQ in northern Kentucky offers shirts with a nearly identical slogan : “I support LGBTQ: Liberty, Guns, Bible, Trump, BBQ.” Sheriff Kevin Turner says an internal investigation will be conducted. Graves didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. ■

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Philly Black Pride draws big crowds and generates important discussions By Josh Middleton PGN Contributor Another Philadelphia Black Pride weekend is in the books, and according to PBP President Le Thomas, it was a big hit, attracting nearly 5,000 attendees from Philly and along the East Coast at a host of nightlife and community events held around the city. “The weekend was a success because it was truly community-driven and people were getting to know each other through networking,” Thomas said. “That’s always the most exciting thing to see during Black Pride, the new friendships that form during the week — and seeing people who don’t go out a lot catch up with old friends.” The affair didn’t begin so harmoniously. On April 24, Thomas circulated a press release that blamed Woody’s for trying to use the PBP name to promote a block party outside the bar on 13th Street. Woody’s shot back saying it never used the name, but its party would support a number of black-centric nonprofits. The event would have overshadowed a smaller affair Philly Black Pride was having around the corner, but in the end both sides talked and Woody’s agreed to cancel its bash. “I’m happy that we came to an understanding and they respected where we were coming from in terms of feeling like they would have pulled people away from our

event,” Thomas said. “It was important they did that.” The weekend generated several other productive conversations at a handful of discussion panels, the largest of which was The Conversation, held in an auditorium at University of the Arts. Jason Culler, CEO at Social Life Entertainment, the company behind several Philly Black Pride events this year, told PGN that City Council candidates Deja Lynn Alvarez, Asa Khalif and Duke Orsino attended that forum and shared their takes on the importance of LGBTQ representation in local government.

SUNDAY TEA “They discussed… holding current politicians accountable for their campaign promises and lack of involvement in the commu-

nity at large,” he said. an award for his activism for people of Local health experts on the panel led a color; Madelyn Morrison from the Transdiscussion about the importance of access to Health Information Project was recognized PrEP, the drug used to decrease instances of for outstanding transgender activism; and HIV, and the importance of LGBTQ people Morris Home was honored as Outstanding choosing their own healthcare provider. LGBTQ Community Organization for its “Many of the audience members expressed work to help trans and gender-nonconformthat their primary care providers have often denied them access to PrEP as a prevention method to HIV,” Culler noted. “One concerning story came from a member of the armed forces who visited an in-network physician that denied him access to care because of his sexuality.” Other symposiums included one on sex and spirituality led by Pastor Hayes from the Truth and Light Church. QWOC NETWORKING SUMMIT A COLOURS Organization event doled out tips about the impact of ing individuals get back on their feet after fostering relationships between black prides addiction. and black-owned businesses, and one interThomas told PGN that Philly Black Pride active workshop enlightened attendees on will take some time off to recoup from the intersectionality from the lens of trans non- festivities, but to expect some PBP events binary gender-fluid Latinx twins. during Pride month in June. The first-annual Impaq Awards ceremony “We haven’t mapped out quite what it’s honored a handful of community mem- going to look like, but we will get that bers who have worked to further the black planned soon,” he said. “We don’t typically LGBTQ cause over the past year. do anything in June, but we think it’s a good Black and Brown Workers Co-op opportunity to continue our 20th anniverco-founder Abdul Aliy-Muhammad received sary celebration.” ■

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Disappointing turnout for suicide vigil Victory Fund backs five more candidates in Pennsylvania By Timothy Cwiek timothy@epgn.com

Huntsville, Alabama, also committed suicide. Shelby’s death was attributed to pervasive anti-LGBT bullying at the school. Eugene Brown, an openly gay resident Even in death he was ridiculed. Jeff Graves, of the Brewerytown section, calls anti- a sheriff’s deputy in Alabama who ridiLGBT bullying a “national crisis” that culed Shelby in Facebook posts, has been needs urgent attention. Brown, 30, said he placed on administrative leave, pending the was targeted for bullying numerous times results of an internal investigation. Brown said he tried hard as a student at Olney High School to organize an outdoor vigil and contemplated suicide on mulcommemorating the deaths tiple occasions. of Spruill and Shelby. “I Brown was particularly upset was in their shoes growing after reading about the recent suiup,” he explained. “Bullying cides of two African-American and suicide are major things youths. On April 5, Phillip Spruill we’ve been dealing with for Jr., a fifth grader at Benjamin years. I want to do everyB. Comegys Elementary, ended thing I can to bring light to his life in his Bartram Village the subject.” home after being bullied about The vigil was scheduled his weight. Relatives said Spruill EUGENE BROWN for 7 p.m. April 29 at 19th was also despondent because his and Master streets in North younger brother was constantly bullied by classmates who perceived him Philadelphia. Brown said he reached out to multiple LGBTQ agencies to garner supto be gay. Spruill’s grandmother told PGN the bul- port for the vigil. But only Brown and a lying was pervasive. “It was in school, on PGN reporter attended. Undaunted, Brown the school bus and all the way up to his said the lack of attendance merely demonfront door, because [the kids all live] in strates the need for more public awareness the same complex,” she said. “They would on the issue. He intends to organize another vigil in chase [Spruill and his brother] and call the near future. “This isn’t going to stop,” them ‘fatty and the faggot.’” On April 18, Nigel Shelby, an openly-gay he vowed. “Hopefully, more people will ninth grader at Huntsville High School in attend the next one.” ■

By Josh Middleton PGN Contributor Victory Fund, the organization dedicated to getting more LGBTQ leaders elected to public office across the country, rolled out 17 new endorsements for the 2019 election cycle — and five of those include candidates running in Pennsylvania. The latest list of endorsees emphasizes individuals running in less-flashy local government races in parts of the country where LGBTQ representation is critically low, including Virginia, Mississippi, Indianapolis and central Pennsylvania. Sean Meloy, senior political director at Victory Fund, told PGN that there are currently less than 700 LGBTQ elected officials in the United States, and less than 40 in Pennsylvania, a state with over 12 million people. “LGBTQ people are wildly underrepresented in government, and these endorsements represent our desire to change that,” he said. The five Pennsylvania candidates that nabbed Victory Fund endorsements include three running for school board positions: Jonathan Panofsky (Warminster), Linda Vega (Allentown) and Marisa Ziegler (Parkland). These types of races are especially vital, said Meloy, because of the bullying culture in schools.

“Being on school boards puts us in a position to put policies and procedures in place that protect students so they can learn and not be distracted by bullying,” he said. “LGBTQ leaders can help bring that viewpoint to the table. We know that because in places where LGBTQ people have been elected, they’ve been able to lead on protections for their LGBTQ constituents.” Victory Fund also backed Jessica Semler, who’s running for city council in Etna Borough. Meloy touts Semler’s experience as president of the Young Democrats of Allegheny County, and said putting her in the chamber would provide a “much-needed young, queer voice that Allegheny County needs.” Carlton Stuart, a member of the Upper Merion Transportation Authority, is being endorsed as a candidate for supervisor in Upper Merion Township. “Carlton has been involved for years,” said Meloy. “He stepped up to make sure his community is civically engaged and has been a great representative already. He would be a great addition to the Board of Supervisors.” The latest round of endorsements brings the official count of 2019 Victory Fund-backed candidates to 83. That includes 15 in Pennsylvania and five in Philadelphia: City Council candidates Deja Lynn Alvarez, Lauren Vidas and Adrian Rivera Reyes; and PAGE 16

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Buttigieg targeted by right-wing operatives in antigay sex-assault smear By Victoria A. Brownworth PGN Contributor Two notorious right-wing operatives, Fox News pundit Jacob Wohl and lobbyist Jack Burkman, have been revealed as the masterminds behind a plot targeting Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg with a campaign to damage his standing in the polls. Burkman and Wohl are alleged to have recruited gay Republican men in an effort to implicate Buttigieg of sexual assault. The plan was devised to help President Trump’s reelection campaign against the openly gay mayor of South Bend, Ind., who has become a media sensation in just a couple months. Burkman and Wohl viewed Buttigieg as a threat to Trump’s chances. Buttigieg has secured significant funding for his campaign and has risen quickly through the crowded field of 21 candidates, currently polling in fourth place. Burkman and Wohl previously attempted but failed to smear Special Counsel Robert Mueller in October 2018 with a similar plan. The details began to emerge late on April 29, when a tweet and blog post from the Medium site, allegedly written by a 21-year-old gay man named Hunter Kelly, began circulating on extremist rightwing websites. The Medium post alleged a

February 2019 sexual assault by Buttigieg. There were no details given in the claim by Kelly, other than the very-serious accusation that Buttigieg had “raped” him. An audiotape obtained by the Daily Beast detailed how Burkman and Wohl tried to enlist other men to make the same claims against Buttigieg. In a Facebook post on April 30, Kelly explained how the Medium post attributed to him was written without his input and posted without his permission. Kelly, a Michigan college student, told the Daily Beast that Wohl reached out to him via Signal on April 25 after the two had interacted over Instagram. Wohl then told him about a plan to take down Buttigieg that would require Kelly to claim that the openly gay mayor had sexually assaulted him during a Washington, D.C., visit in February. Kelly told the Daily Beast there was no such meeting with Buttigieg in D.C. and that he has never been to D.C. Kelly also told the Daily Beast that Wohl said “a task force set up by the Donald Trump administration” devised the plan. In a statement, Erin Perrine, deputy communications director for the Trump reelection campaign, said, “This had nothing to do with the campaign and we condemn fake allegations, whether they are against candidates for president or nominees for

the Supreme Court.” According to Kelly, Wohl and Burkman booked him a flight from Michigan to Baltimore and then took him to Burkman’s home in Arlington. Wohl showed Kelly a draft of a statement detailing the false accusations against Buttigieg. Kelly expressed anxiety over the plan, which he claimed was put in motion while he was sleeping. Kelly called his family in the morning and they came to retrieve him from Burkman’s home. In his April 30 Facebook post, Kelly issued an apology about the accusation he now claims he wanted no part in. “I am, from the bottom of my heart, truly sorry for everyone involved in the very serious #MeToo movement,” Kelly said. “I will continue to use my voice and honesty to make a difference. Jack Burkman may have promised me a lavish lifestyle, but at a price that would cost me the two most important things to me: honesty and integrity.” In an April 30 statement, Burkman insisted Kelly had approached his firm with the sexual-assault story. Mark Bode, a spokesperson from Buttigieg’s Indiana office, said of the sexual-assault hoax, “We haven’t engaged and aren’t planning to engage on it.” On May 1, NBC News reported, “If Buttigieg can demonstrate that Wohl and

Burkman spread lies about him, in this case by posting the lies on a social media, he may be able to sue for libel, a form of defamation.” Jessica Levinson, NBC News writer and professor of law, said Buttigieg would “have to show that Wohl and Burkman made a false and defamatory statement and that they knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded its falsity.” Kelly’s statements to the Daily Beast, as well as his own Facebook post, allege that Wohl and Burkman were not only aware the claims were false, but that they created the story. Burkman was a lobbyist for major U.S. law firms and banks, but in recent years has been a lobbyist for the notorious antigay organization, Family Research Council. FRC describes itself as “a Christian public policy ministry in Washington D.C. defending religious liberty, the unborn and families.” FRC’s website has much to say about homosexuality, including the assertion that FRC “believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed. It is by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects.” The Southern Poverty Law Center lists FRC as anti-LGBT hate group. Several of Trump’s cabinet members and other appointees have ties to FRC, including Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, whose father, Edgar Prince, cofounded the organization. In 2014, after NFL defensive lineman Michael Sam became the first major openly gay National Football League draft prospect, Burkman, then a well-connected Republican lobbyist, announced that he would push Congress to pass legislation prohibiting openly gay NFL players. “If the NFL has no morals and no values, then Congress must find values for it,” Burkman said. Burkman later acknowledged his announcement was a publicity stunt. On April 30, Twitter suspended Wohl’s account of nearly 200,000 followers for violation of its terms of service. On May 1, various news sites quoted Buttigieg regarding the story. “I’m sure it’s not the first time somebody is going to make something up about me. It’s not going to throw us,” the candidate said. “Politics can be ugly sometimes, but you have to face that when you’re in presidential politics.” ■

LOCAL PGN

Will historic marker’s language be revised? By Timothy Cwiek timothy@epgn.com Seven months after the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission became the owner of an LGBTQ-oriented historic marker installed near Ritenhouse Square, it remains to be seen whether its language will be revised to recognize contributions of the the early transgender community. Revisions may hinge on whether the city elects its first openly-trans City Council member in November. The marker, dedicated last fall, commemorates a 1965 LGBTQ sit-in at Dewey’s, a restaurant that was located at 219 S. 17th St. The restaurant has since been demolished and a Hyatt Hotel stands at the site. The marker was sponsored and funded by Equality Forum, a Philadelphiabased LGBTQ advocacy group. The text of the marker states: “Activists led one of the nation’s first LGBT sit-ins here in 1965 after homosexuals were denied service at Dewey’s restaurant. Inspired by AfricanAmerican lunch-counter sit-ins, this event prompted Dewey’s to stop its discriminatory policy, an early victory for LGBT rights.” Deja Alvarez, the city’s first openly-trans candidate for City Council, says the marker’s language should be replaced because gender-variant individuals — not “homosexuals” — were the target of Dewey’s exclusionary policy and led the subsequent protests. She pledged to introduce a resolution calling for replacement language, if elected to City Council in November. “Absolutely, I will do a resolution to correct the Dewey’s marker [if elected],” Alvarez told PGN this week. “History is important. But our [trans] history continues to be denied and erased. If we’re going to preserve history, it has to be the correct version of history. We can’t have cisgender people rewriting trans people out of history.” Alvarez emphasized the importance of historical accuracy. “In a city that is so rich with history, making sure the Dewey’s Sit-In story is told correctly is important,” she reiterated. On Dec. 14, 2017, City Council adopted a resolution calling for the installation of a historical marker commemorating the Dewey’s Sit-In. However, the resolution didn’t specify language for the marker. Alvarez believes the council would be receptive to another resolution calling for replacement language. “I think they would be open to hearing the reason why it needs to be corrected,” she said. “I think they would be open to understanding.”

Howard Pollman, a PHMC spokesperson, said it would cost about $1,350 to have the marker replaced. Historic markers typically cost about $1,600, Pollman said, but a pole for the marker has already been installed, reducing the cost. Alvarez pledged to spearhead a fundraising effort to pay for a new marker, if elected. “We’ll figure out a way to raise the necessary funds to correct it,” she said. Alvarez also said she’ll organize a committee composed of trans people and the broader LGBTQ community to formulate the replacement language. “It just can’t be my voice or my decision alone,” she said. “It has to be larger than that.” Bob Skiba, a local historian and the archivist at William Way LGBT Community Center, told PGN he would serve on a committee formed by Alvarez. “I’d be happy to [serve on a committee], especially if Deja is taking the lead,” Skiba said, in an April 26 email. “I thought it was important that a trans person spearhead this.” Pollman said the marker’s current language was a collaborative effort between Equality Forum and PHMC staff. He said PHMC’s historic-marker program has existed for about 70 years and “very few” markers have been replaced. Todd Snovel, executive director of the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs, said the group has discussed the Dewey’s Sit-In marker with PHMC. “Our commission did engage with the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission last fall after the concerns were expressed, to gain a better sense for how nominations for historic markers were submitted and vetted,” Snovel wrote, in an April 26 email. “After learning about the process, we also reached out to the leadership of Equality Forum, the organization who sponsored the nomination and provided language for the marker, to make them aware of the concerns relayed through PGN. We would recommend reaching out to Equality Forum to see if they have made a decision regarding moving forward with altering the language of the marker.” Malcolm Lazin, executive director of Equality Forum, couldn’t be reached for comment. Pollman said permission from Equality Forum for a replacement marker wouldn’t be needed, because PHMC owns the marker. “Once a marker is fabricated and installed it becomes the property of PHMC who maintains the marker in perpetuity,” he explained. ■

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

EDITORIAL PGN EDITORIAL

Creep of the Week

D’Anne Witkowski

Franklin Graham

Editorial

The power of money Amid what feels like an uptick in the opposition to the LGBTQIA community, big businesses are forcing states like Tennessee and Texas to evaluate antiLGBTQ measures. In a capitalist society, an economic threat is perhaps the greatest. In 2015, it was Subaru that forced Indiana’s former governor, Mike Pence, to amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination. North Carolina faced backlash in 2016 when the state approved a law that restricted bathroom use for transgender people. Businesses boycotted the state, and NBA and NCAA games alike were rescheduled in different states. In Tennessee, several bills affecting LGBTQIA folks will be voted on soon, including those related to adoption for same-sex couples and bathroom use in schools that would impact transgender students. So far, Nike, Amazon, Marriott Hotels, Lyft, Hilton, Warner Music Group, AllianceBernstein and Warby Parker, among others, have signed a letter criticizing Tennessee’s proposed bills. And, like in North Carolina, athletic organizations including The Tennessee Titans and Nashville Predators have joined the resistance. In Texas, Amazon, Dell, Apple and Facebook warned legislators that the passing of Bill 17 could create economic consequences. The bill allows occupational-license holders to cite “sincerely

held religious beliefs” if and when their licensing is at risk due to professional behavior or speech, inevitably giving cover to professionals who might deny services to the LGBTQ community. While the bill passed, it is yet to be seen what economic ramifications will exist and how long the bill will be in place. North Carolina lost an estimated $3.76 billion before the measure was repealed in 2017. Ten years ago, it would have been hard to imagine that big business would play such a role in protecting the LGBTQ community. During a time when the alt-right is becoming more vocal, vitriolic and violent toward the LGBTQ community — largely due to the Trump administration’s rhetoric — the threat of economic harm is a new resistance. If nothing else, this might be a sign of change. While Apple has a personal investment with Tim Cook as the openly gay CEO, for many businesses this is a financial decision driven by consumerism. These companies feel that it is financially beneficial to speak out against discrimination rather than support it. Capitalism, as we know it in the U.S., is an overall detriment to underserved communities, disproportionately affecting immigrants, folks of color, and, even still, the LGBTQIA population, making it absurd that we are in a position to rely on it, rather than humanity, to fight discriminatory laws. ■

Hello and welcome to a world where a gay man with the word “butt” in his last name is running for president and it is not a joke. Pete Buttigieg, who has been Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, since 2012, is an absolute contender in a crowded Democratic field. He made headlines when he kissed his husband Chasten Buttigieg in public. It is honestly shocking the hell out of everybody, right and left. Although it’s just the conservative right that is calling Buttigieg’s rise demonic. Also, his last name is pronounced “boot edge edge,” and once you figure out how to say his name you will find it is truly delightful, and you will never want to stop saying it. I’m thinking of getting a second dog just so I can name him Buttigieg. And I mean that as the highest compliment. Right-wing Christians are going absolutely bonkers over Buttigieg, and not in a good way. I mean, they didn’t overlook Trump’s breaking just about every commandment just so they could see a homo in the White House, am I right? Take Franklin Graham, for example. He has said of Trump’s election, “I think God put him there.” Buttigieg, though? Not so much. Right-wing conservatives have made it a habit of heckling Buttigieg at events, something he has handled with grace and maturity. And even Graham has said that heckling Buttigieg isn’t cool. Referring to protesters who shouted “Sodom and Gomorrah” at Buttigieg during an Iowa rally Graham wrote on his Facebook page, “I don’t agree with heckling anyone — I think we should be respectful.” I mean, why heckle him when you could put him to death? Did Graham call for Buttigieg’s murder? Not in those exact terms. But he did cite Leviticus 20:13, a Bible verse that says homosexuals “have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” I mean, he didn’t say that part out loud, but he didn’t have to. Buttigieg reportedly told the protesters, “The condition of my soul is in the hands of God.” And Graham took issue with that. “Mayor Buttigieg is absolutely right,” Graham wrote. “His soul is in the hands of God, so is everyone’s. He also says that he’s a Christian and wants to become the first openly gay president in America’s history. What’s wrong with that picture?” Um, nothing? I’m going to go with nothing.

“Being a Christian isn’t just a title we select or a church membership,” Graham continued. “It is a faith in God and His Word that transforms our lives to be more like the One we follow — Jesus Christ. Jesus said, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’” In other words, Graham isn’t impressed that Buttigieg professes to believe in God because Buttigieg is a homo and those things are incompatible. So after essentially saying being a gay Christian isn’t a thing, Graham plays the Leviticus card. “The Bible makes it very clear that homosexuality is a sin. ‘If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination,’” Graham wrote, citing Leviticus 20:13. “That’s what God says and that settles it for me. I stand with the Word of God. I care enough about people to tell them the truth and to warn them about the judgment to come for all sin.” So you see, by indirectly calling for Buttigieg’s death, Graham is actually just doing him a solid by warning him because he cares. It’s the whole “hate the sinner, not the sin” thing. Wait, I got that right, right? Essentially Graham’s invocation of the “kill the gays” part of the Bible was basically just a great big no-homo bro hug. Also, as far as I know Buttigieg is still on his first husband, hasn’t paid off an adult film star to keep silent about their affair, doesn’t brag about sexually assaulting people, has actually served in the military, sees brown and black people as human beings and doesn’t think poor people are gross. Buttigieg probably knows how to read and isn’t even afraid of stairs. At this rate, Buttigieg will never reach Trump-Level Christian, and seeing as that’s the only kind of Christian Graham and his followers care about, the Graham and Buttigieg bromance was over before it even started. I suspect that’s a pretty big relief to Chasten Buttigieg. Then again, the Buttigiegs are clearly very much in love. And ain’t no God worth worshiping sad about that. ■

Homosexuals “have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

D’Anne Witkowski is a poet, writer and comedian living in Michigan with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBT politics for over a decade. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.

OP-ED PGN

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

We won’t stand for violence Last week my husband said, “Appreciate wrong in their countries. Hamas leadthe privilege.” He was responding to my ers in the Gaza strip have said “death to complaints regarding the hectic schedule I homosexuals,” and family members of have due to being named one of the grand those leaders have gone into exile in both marshals of the upcoming Canada and the U.S. In Libya, World Pride Parade that celethe number of LGBT people brates Stonewall 50. that have been killed since the He was right. It is a privilege revolution is unknown. — one that I never thought I’d This is genocide: “The deliblive to see. While I should be erate killing of a large group of happy, last week I read somepeople.” Some countries have thing that led me to one of the spoken to it, but has anyone deepest depressions I’ve had in taken action? years. Here’s what could be done to The butcher of Saudia any country that supports genoArabia, Mohammad Bin cide against the LGBT commuSalman Al Saud, had beheaded nity: 37 people, and one of them he • Investigate as war/genocide crucified — publicly displaying crimes at the world court his body as a deterrent to oth• United Nations sanctions ers. Four of those victims had Mark Segal • Airline restrictions been accused of homosexuality. • Restrict financial institutions Only two weeks prior, the • Restrict envoys at the sultan of Brunei ruled that homosexuals embassies should be stoned to death. In Egypt, a per• Trade restrictions son can be arrested for waving a rainbow • Facilitate cultural exchanges flag. The presidents of both Poland and • Implement student-exchange Brazil blamed gay people for everything programs

Mark My Words

Op-Ed

While we might complain about an international lack of action, many in our own community use rhetoric that gives cover to horrendous slaughter. Killing gay people once happened in this country, and if you asked today’s trans community, you’d discover that it is still happening at an alarming rate, especially to trans people of color. Countries can take action on an international stage. Leaders of those countries can live with the actions they do and do not take. Individuals can take steps in their own backyards. It is a collective fight against oppression. I wish I could give you some answers, but each of you will have to decide which battle you want to wage. Stopping genocide is a battle; how we fight it and what tools we use is the issue. One suggestion I might make is to be visible, because what’s visible cannot be ignored. That was the action we took 50 years ago. At the very least, every LGBT person or government with the slightest sense of humanity, should be demanding action against the blood-thirsty, crucifying, bone-sawing butcher of Saudi Arabia. ■

Street Talk Who is your favorite LGBT icon and why? “Harrison Browne, the first professional teamsport athlete to come out as trans. He won two championships with Jude Nesmith his teams, student retired, and Philadelphia now he’s transitioned and is an advocate for other trans people.”

Victoria A. Brownworth

Biden is not what 2020 — or Philadelphia — needs On April 29, former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, were having a sit-down interview onABC’s “Good Morning America.” It’s two months until the first debate among the 20-plus Democratic candidates. The first primary vote isn’t until Feb. 3, 2020. So why is Biden being treated like a nominee instead of one of many candidates? Mainstream media is desperate for a match between old white guys for the 2020 election, but both the 2016 presidential election and the 2018 midterm elections mitigate against that. Set aside what happened in 2016: Russian interference, voter suppression in the first presidential election since the Voting Rights Act was eviscerated by the U.S. Supreme Court, and a GOP candidate running on knee-jerk racism and misogyny. Hillary Clinton still won the actual votes by 3 million. And the U.S. is the only country in the world where receiving the most votes doesn’t ensure victory. Unlike 2016, the 2018 midterms had zero gray areas: Voters chose women, people of color, change. The 116th Congress is more female, non-white and LGBTQ than any in U.S. history. The newest members, to a one, replaced — wait for it — old white establishment Democrats, like Biden was for his 36 years in Congress. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

(D-NY), the 116th Congress’s most visible member — and one of its most progressive — replaced a 10-term white male Democrat in the House leadership, stunning the establishment. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS) became the first Native American and only second out lesbian elected to Congress, besting an entrenched white male. Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) is now vice-chair of the prestigious House Oversight Committee. Hill’s candidacy was termed “the most millennial ever,” but the openly bisexual candidate has obliterated any notion of millennial slackerism — and again bested a white-male incumbent 20 years her senior. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) became the first black woman ever elected from Massachusetts, knocking out a 12-term, 67-year-old establishment Democrat. The first presidential election I covered as a reporter was 1988 — the second time Biden ran for president. The 2020 election will be his fourth run. He has never gotten out of Iowa, where the first votes are cast. What has sundered Biden in the past includes everything from plagiarism of U.K. politician Neal Kinnock’s speech to his vote for the Iraq War to simple lack of excitement over his candidacy. What should end his run in 2020 are those complications plus his authorship of the 1994 Crime Bill, which effectively became a conduit for

the prison pipeline that has sent thousands of young men of color to jail; his support of credit-card and loan companies over consumers, which impeded average Americans drowning in debt from discharging bankruptcies; his egregious treatment of Anita Hill, which put Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court and ruined Hill’s reputation at the time; and his “hands on” behavior toward women, about which several young Democratic women have complained. Even if we set aside Biden’s past transgressions, he is not the candidate for now. After teasing a run for literally four years, Biden entered the race with a video. He then went directly to what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the most progressive candidate in the race, called the “swanky” Chestnut Hill mansion of Comcast’s David Cohen, to be feted in a private fundraiser of corporate donors that netted a half-million in campaign funds. While the most progressive candidates are running against corporate money, Biden is taking it hand over fist. Yet Biden launched in Pittsburgh at a union event on April 29, claiming he’s “always been a union man.” He’s always been a politician looking for a union vote while taking the money of upper management and lobbyists. Biden has made Philadelphia the center of his campaign PAGE 18

“My first thought is Janelle Monae, because she’s done so much to open up conversations about Alice Waler the LGBT student community Norristown to people of color and women and so many other intersections.”

“Karamo Brown, because of all the people he’s helped and the charity work he does.” Elijah Hardman artist Delaware Country

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The Road to Stonewall: Roberta Hacker By Victoria A. Brownworth PGN Contributor Roberta Hacker grew up in a small, mostly working-class, largely Mennonite community in Telford, 50 miles outside Philadelphia. At 17, she graduated from high school, six years before the Stonewall riots. Within the year, Hacker had her first job at a Philadelphia social-service agency, working to de-institutionalize patients suffering from mental illness. By the time Hacker retired at the end of 2017 from her position as executive director of Women in Transition, one of the country’s oldest agencies serving abused women, she was a nationally known advocate for victims and survivors of domestic violence. She cofounded the Philadelphia Women’s Death Review Team, the first multi-agency, multi-\disciplinary effort designed to prevent future violence-related deaths of women, and she was president and chair of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Hacker is a longtime activist in the Philadelphia LGBTQ community, dating back to those early years before Stonewall. Like most young lesbians in the 1960s, Hacker was seeking the companionship of other LGBTQ folks. “But it was hard to find the gay community in those days,” she said. “I went to all the bars and clubs in the Gayborhood. The first time I went, I was shocked. I was still a young country bumpkin. The bars were all pretty seedy and Mafia-run. Gay people

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were taken advantage of with expensive drinks and cover charges.” She went to all the regular hangouts in Center City’s 1960s-’70s bar scene: The Hideaway, Parker House, Allegro, Mystique and the main lesbian bar, Rusty’s, also known as Barone’s Variety Room. “The bars were the only place to be. We hadn’t developed a community outside that world yet.”

That, Hacker said, would evolve after Stonewall—and, for lesbians, with the confluence of the feminist movement. “The emerging dyke community happened because of the sexism and misogyny in the gay male community,” she explained. “And that was, for me, worse than being with straight men, because I thought they were my brothers, but they didn’t see us that way at all. There was so much objecti-

fying of women in such negative ways.” Hacker said bar culture was the focal point of lesbian and gay life in those years before and immediately after Stonewall. “It was so sad for me — there was nowhere for us to go, nowhere for us to hang that wasn’t about drinking,” Hacker said. As she explained it, nearly everyone who was openly gay was forced by homophobia into marginalized lives. “The first lesbians I knew were rough-and-tumble bulldykes who were petty criminals and B girls who worked the bars. Some were active drug users. I lived in the Gayborhood then, but we hadn’t named it that yet.” Hacker’s road to LGBTQ activism came through leftist politics. A member of the Socialist Workers Party, she rose through the ranks quickly. She said she could feel the pull of activism, but as a newly out lesbian, she still wasn’t sure how to access it. “I was looking for something to connect with,” Hacker recounted. “There was NOW [National Organization for Women], which I did join. And I was involved in the Young Socialist Alliance. I would go on radio shows and debate people. I was involved in their abortion-rights group,

PGN

WUAR [Women United for Abortion Rights]. It was through The Militant, the Socialist newspaper, that I discovered HAL [Homophile Action League].” HAL was an early gay group in Philadelphia, a spin-off of national lesbian group Daughters of Bilitis. Hacker gave radio interviews, but she was informed she would have to use a pseudonym. “I was Julie West,” she said, laughing. Honey West was a 1960s female detective on TV, and she and her portrayer, Anne Francis, were well-known lesbian heartthrobs of the time. In 1971, Hacker joined the newly formed

Radicalesbians, but was banned from the group when she was accused of being an infiltrator from the SWP. She wasn’t — but she explained that nascent LGBTQ and feminist groups were being infiltrated by the FBI, so there were concerns among those groups’ leadership about provocateurs. The next few years Hacker spent engaged in various political actions, as planned during LGBTQ meetings at a variety of locations including the University of Pennsylvania campus, St. Mary’s Church and the Hillel Society at Penn, the Women’s Center in West Philadelphia, Gay Activists Alliance and Giovanni’s Room bookstore on South Street. She worked on the Philadelphia lesbian quarterly Wicce and in 1975, began cohosting the first lesbian radio program in the U.S., Amazon Country on WXPN-FM at the University of Pennsylvania. Soon she became the sole host, continuing that work for over a decade. The show is still on the air and is the longest-running lesbian radio show in the nation. For Hacker, Amazon Country was a labor of lesbian activist love. “I loved doing that radio show,” she said of the hour-long Sunday program. “I had to spend a lot of time putting that program together every week with a mix of interviews, music and lesbian news. I had an opportunity to meet and interview so many people I never would have met otherwise. In addition to local lesbian activists, writers and performers, there were major feminist authors like Rita Mae Brown, Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin.

Lesbian and feminist musicians, like Meg Christian, Margie Adam, Toshi Regan, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Kay Gardner. It was such a time for an explosion of lesbian work driven by the need to uncover our history.” It was, she said, a period of creative and political enlightenment. The radio program was a subversive underground that connected women to lesbian society and culture in the decades before social media. “I would get letters from women who said that I was the only contact they had with other lesbians. It was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.” Hacker’s lesbian activism paralleled her career as a social worker, where she worked with runaway and homeless youth prior to moving into the domestic-violence arena. As executive director of Voyage House from 1974 to 1985, Hacker established the first drop-in center for LGBT youth at the agency. It was also at Voyage House that she was forced to out herself to her board of directors when a staff member she fired for having sex with one of the minor girls living in one of the agency’s housing units threatened to out her. “It was the first time I had to confront publicly what it meant to be a lesbian,” she said. “It’s nostalgic, thinking back over that time,” Hacker said. “There was so much change in such a short period of time, and yet some things never quite evolved — like we’ve never fully addressed the sexism and

misogyny that’s still so deeply embedded in our own community.” But Hacker is hopeful about the current generation of young LGBTQ activists. “We forged a model of activism in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s,” she said. “Now they are forging their own, 50 years after Stonewall.” ■

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

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Supreme Court to Answer the Question of Whether LGBTQ People are Protected from Workplace Discrimination This column was one of the more skydiving instructor fired after a customer emotional columns I’ve written for the complained he came out to her, and a social Philadelphia Gay News. I am writing this worker fired for inconsistencies in how he sitting in my hotel room at the Dearborn handled workplace finances after he was Inn in Michigan, after visiting the Henry discovered to be a member of a gay recreFord Museum of Innovation which houses ational softball team. the historical bus that Rosa Parks rode One of the strongest arguments is that when she was arrested for violating a yes, sex discrimination cannot happen Montgomery, Alabama ordinance requir- unless one takes into account the sex of the ing her to relinquish her bus seat to a white worker being discriminated against. The passenger. Rosa Parks’ act of defiance fact of a man loving another man requires sparked one of the largest social move- the employer consider their employee’s sex ments in history, the Montgomery Bus to find such an attraction worthy of workBoycott, and helped inspire place hostility or termination. a crusade that led Congress Someone born male at birth who to pass the Civil Rights Act presents themselves as female, of 1964, which, among other only to be fired for that presenthings, bars discrimination on tation, requires the employer to race, color, religion, national consider the sex of the worker origin and sex. both when they were born, and I had the privilege and honor as they currently present themof sitting in that very seat today selves. and was completely overcome The path to SCOTUS for with emotion thinking about R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral the courage Rosa Parks had Homes Inc. v. EEOC began then, how far we’ve come since when Aimee Stephens, who and, how far we have yet to go was employed by R.G. and Angela G.R. Harris Funeral Homes for in the fight for true equality for all. Giampolo six years as Anthony Stephens, As of today, only 22 states began her social transition. After and the District of Columbia learning that in order to qualify have express protections for LGBTQ work- for gender reassignment surgery she must ers based on sexual orientation and gender live full-time as a woman for a period identity enshrined in law, and June of 2020 of 12 months, Stephens began to present will be one barometer for how far we have as female at the workplace. Within two to go in the fight for LGBTQ equality as weeks, Tomas Rost, the company’s owner, the Supreme Court of the United States fired Stephens specifically “because he (SCOTUS) has agreed to hear arguments was no longer going to represent himself on one of the most unsettled civil rights as a man. He wanted to dress as a woman.” questions — are LGBTQ people are proAlliance Defending Freedom, the contected by Title VII in the Civil Rights Act servative legal group who also defended of 1964, which prohibits employment dis- Jack Phillips in the Masterpiece Cake crimination based on race, color, religion, Shop case, represents Rost. Senior counsel national origin and sex? John Bursch said in a statement, “Neither For years, the question of whether dis- government agencies nor the courts have crimination on the basis of sex covers authority to rewrite federal law by replacsexual orientation and gender identity ing ‘sex’ with ‘gender identity’ — a change has matriculated through lower courts, with widespread consequences for everywith some states falling on the side of one.” the employer, and others ruling in favor Stephens won her appeal when her case of the LGBTQ worker. The docket for reached the 6th Circuit Court, which stated SCOTUS’s current session is full, so these in its ruling that it was “analytically imposthree cases won’t be argued until October, sible” to ignore a person’s sex when decidand likely won’t see the light of an offi- ing to terminate them for being transgencial federal ruling until June 2020. The der. The 6th Circuit had additional precetiming is almost guaranteed to influence a dent to fall back on with the 1989 SCOTUS furiously anticipated election year which decision that ruled it is illegal to discrimichallenges President Trump’s place in the nate against workers for not conforming to White House. gender stereotypes. The three cases in question— R.G. In Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, Donald and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Zarda was let go after he told a customer EEOC, Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, and who was to be strapped to him physically Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga.— center for a tandem skydive that she needn’t worry around a transgender woman fired from because he was gay. She later claimed her funeral director position when she Zarda inappropriately touched her, which announced her intention to transition, a gay was the supposed basis PAGE 17

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counties there are great challenges, unique challenges, confronting LGBT seniors.” The IAA was crafted to expand legislation that Bennet first introduced in 2015. Terri Clark, a member of the Mayor’s Commission on LGBT Affairs Elder Advisory Group, said the IAA is a muchneeded response to the pressing needs of the LGBT elder community. “Our LGBT older adults have unique experiences as compared to their hetero/ cisgender peers,” she said. “LGBT seniors have lived a lifetime of discrimination and stigma based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Many are childless or have been disowned by their biological families, resulting in the need to rely on ‘families of choice,’ who are often in the same age cohort, having age-related needs of their own.” Clark also noted the economic disparities of LGBT aging due to a lack of laws and politics that could offer protection. For those longterm survivors of HIV, their care/social networks have shrunk due to so many of their friends, families and lovers being lost to the AIDS epidemic. Folks with HIV are now living into their 60s, 70s, and beyond. People are coming out and transitioning later in life, and numbers of LGBT older adults and those living with HIV will continue to grow as the baby-boomer generation is now aging. However, the aging network is not always ‘ready, willing and able’ to serve our elders.” The introduction of the IAA coordinates with a similar legislative initiative in the U.S. House of Representatives. Last week, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) introduced the Elder Pride Act, which also would create an Office of Inclusivity and Sexual Health and establish a rural grant program. This follows on the heels of a bill recently introduced by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), the Ruthie and Connie LGBT Elder Americans Act, to establish and fund the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging and designate older LGBTQ Americans as a population of “Greatest Social Need.” Casey worked with Rep. Haaland on the introduction of the two similar initiatives. “Obviously it’s good to get similar legislation going in both Houses, to facilitate the process,” said Casey. If these bills pass their respective houses, they would be reconciled by a joint committee before being sent to the president to be signed into law. VICTORY FUND from page 6π

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Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge hopefuls Henry Sias and Tiffany Palmer. “We are very proud that so many folks have stepped up to run this year and make history in places like Philadelphia,” he told PGN, pointing out transgender candidates Alvarez and Sias “These folks are going to showcase themselves as great candidates and great leaders.” Meloy, a Pittsburgh native, said Victory

Meanwhile, the IAA has significant community support, including Services and Advocacy for LGBT Elders (SAGE), Human Rights Campaign, Diverse Elders Coalition, National Black Justice Coalition, CenterLink, National Center for Transgender Equality, National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, National Coalition of STD Directors and National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance. Yet, the bill faces a steep legislative battle. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he would block most Democratic legislative initiatives leading up to the 2020 elections. The biggest hurdle would be President Donald Trump, who has expressed antipathy to efforts in support of the LGBT community. Casey said he had to think about a strategy for navigating the IAA through the Senate before introducing the bill. “Having any Republican attached to the bill is a breakthrough,” he said. “Having Sen. Murkowski is extremely helpful; it shows that the bill has bipartisan support. Obviously we’ll keep trying to get more Republicans to step up and sign on, but having even one Republican onboard increases our chances tremendously.” In dealing with the obstacle presented by the often-recalcitrant McConnell, Casey said, “Once in a while, Mitch likes to point to bills that are bipartisan and let them through in order to show he’s open to bipartisan negotiation. And the fact that the bill is part of the reauthorization process for an already-existing agency [the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging] will, I think, open the door to some horse-trading. Sen. Murkowski can go to him, as a Republican, and say, ‘This is important to me. Can we talk?’” LGBTQ senior advocates hail the IAA as a valuable step in addressing the growing needs of elders. David Griffith, director of programs and outreach for the LGBT Elder Initiative, said the LGBT older population is going to continue to grow, necessitating increased engagement with the aging-services network. “It is really vital that the aging-services system becomes better prepared to effectively provide for our LGBT older adults.,” said Griffith. “This legislation can help to do that by supporting new research, funding initiatives, and cultural competence resources for providers.” ■ Fund is in talks with other candidates in Pennsylvania and expects to make even more endorsements in the coming months. “It’s a really exciting year in the Commonwealth, where we have this opportunity to be better represented in government,” he said. “In a place like Pennsylvania — a state that Donald Trump won — making inroads this year is extremely important. We’re excited to work with our candidates to make that happen.” ■

PGN

Why we share our stories Columnist Jeff Berry reflects on his emotional encounter with an HIV-positive woman In early September of last year, I was attending the United States Conference on AIDS in Orlando, Fla., and running late for a dinner I had been invited to that evening. AIDS conferences are the endurance marathons for AIDS activists, from the moment you wake up until you hit your pillow late at night you are literally running from session to meeting to workshop to reception, just to get up and do it all over again. This goes on for a number of days, and you’re lucky if you get five to six hours of sleep each night. Invariably when you get home you are exhausted and spent — but in a good way. As I was hurrying down a long, wide corridor filled with people scurrying to their own reception/dinner/meeting, one person who was headed toward me in the opposite direction caught my eye. She seemed to recognize me, but I was pretty sure I didn’t know her, and I was late for my dinner, so I smiled back but decided to keep moving. But then, as we neared each other we both stopped, and she began to talk. And my Jeff eyes started to well up as she shared her story. She introduced herself and said she wanted to thank me. When she was incarcerated (she explained then and in a subsequent conversation) they would send her to a local HIV clinic every three months, and that is where she discovered “Positively Aware” magazine. She told me it gave her hope — I think her exact words were, “It saved my life.” She told me that reading about my personal journey and my own struggles touched her deeply during a dark time in her life (she had learned she

was HIV-positive and had lost a friend due to complications from AIDS). But by reading the magazine, somehow she knew she was going to be OK. She knew nothing about which regimens to take or what resources were there for her, but she learned how to formulate questions for her doctor and get the care that she needed. I told her how glad I was to have made a difference in some small way, and how much it meant to me that she shared her story with me. We exchanged cards and both went on our busy way, but I have never forgotten that moment — it will stay with me for the rest of my life. So this is why those of us who work in HIV do what we do, and demonstrates the incredible power that knowledge and sharing our stories can hold. And no matter what field you work in, there is a common thread that weaves throughout all of our stories, that keeps us moving forward and reminds us of our own humanity. It really does take a village, and it’s important to stop and take the time to Berry listen to each other. No one is an island. Individually we can make our own personal achievements, but collectively and working together we can change lives. Take care of yourself, and each other. ■

Positive Thoughts

OPUT LAW from page 14

for Altitude Express firing him. The co-executors of Zarda’s estate, who passed away in 2014 in a base-jumping accident, continued the suit after his death. His partner, William Allen Moore, and sister, Melissa Zarda, The US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled in his favor, stating anti-discrimination laws had protected him: “Sexual orientation discrimination is a subset of sex discrimination because sexual orientation is defined by one’s sex in relation to the sex of those to whom one is attracted.” Altitude Express has continued their appeal, leading to the SCOTUS acceptance of their case. Unfortunately, the case of Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga did not go the way of the LGBTQ community. Gerald Bostock’s claim that he was subjected to homophobic slurs and eventually fired as a social worker after his employers discovered he’s gay was denied by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, a decision at odds with the other two Circuit Court decisions. Bostock had received glowing reviews and had won state and national awards for his work as a child welfare services coordinator for Clayton County, GA in the 10 years he held the position. He claims that when they found out he played for an LGBTQ recreational softball league,

Jeff Berry is the editor in chief of “Positively Aware” magazine, and director of publications at Test Positive Aware Network in Chicago. Find him on Twitter @PAEditor. This column is a project of “Plus,” “Positively Aware,” “POZ,” TheBody.com and Q Syndicate, the LGBT wire service. Visit their websites — http:// hivplusmag.com; http://positivelyaware.com; http://poz.com; and http://thebody.com — for the latest updates on HIV/AIDS

he was chastised by county employees, and within three months, he was under audit for how he handled funds and within another three months, he was terminated for misuse of county funds, though the county DA did not file charges against Bostock. The LGBTQ community is, understandably, on pins and needles with SCOTUS agreeing to hear arguments in these cases. Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, a crucial swing vote in LGBTQ rights cases, has been replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the court under a cloud and whose confirmation hearings after Trump nominated him were fraught with controversy. Kavanaugh is largely considered more conservative than Kennedy, who was the deciding vote in all the landmark gay rights victories of recent memory. James Esseks, director of the ACLU’s LGBT and HIV Project, said it best, “[t]he LGBTQ community has fought too long and too hard to go back now, and we are counting on the justices not to reverse that hard-won progress.” He’s right. Like Rosa Parks, we have fought tooth and nail to attain the protections we have now and whether we experience a setback or not come June 2020, I am confident that our community will continue to show the courage, passion and extraordinary commitment necessary to bring about equality for all. ■

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SWARTHMORE from page 1

our own “’MILF’ sex trafficking ring.” One description shows a photo of the doorway of the campus Intercultural Center that has been urinated on, with a urinal placed in front of it. Protests at the fraternity have been ongoing and have included a sit-in at the Phi Psi house. Human rights groups at Swarthmore — a small, prestigious liberal arts college with about 2,000 students — lauded the May 1 closing of the fraternities. On April 27, students protesting the revelations presented a list of demands to the Phi Psi fraternity, including that the house be closed and apologies be proffered to the targeted groups. Protesters want the college to break the lease of the fraternity house and the house to be given over to marginalized groups historically targeted by fraternities with hazing and other abusive and violent rituals. Those groups included students of color, disabled students and LGBTQ students. During the sit-in, women students hung a banner on the front of the Phi Psi house that read, “Still A Rape Haven.” Swarthmore Voices issued a statement May 1 to acknowledge the fraternity closings. “DU and Phi Psi have disbanded in a testament to the power of survivor-led student organizing and direct action. They made the right decision, even as the College refused to. Our work is not finished yet,” the group stated. At 2:34 a.m. May 1, President Valerie Smith tweeted from the Twitter account of Swarthmore College, “Earlier tonight, we learned separately from both Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon fraternities that they each decided to disband and relinquish

their houses. We respect these students’ decision to take this action.” Smith attached a fuller statement on Swarthmore’s website. Student protesters complained that Smith had not been sufficiently responsive to the Swarthmore community about the fraternity revelations. Both fraternities posted statements on Facebook. Phi Psi’s statement reads, in part: “We the brothers of Phi Psi Fraternity seek to address the harm caused to the community,” and goes on to describe the document contents as “unacceptable” and “heinous.” The post also noted that the current members of Phi Psi “were in high school and middle school” at the time of the writings and events depicted, but that, “we cannot in good conscience be members of an organization with such a painful history.” “We hope that our decision will help the campus achieve transformative justice for those who have been harmed and promote institutional healing.” Delta Upsilon posted that the dissolution of the fraternity “is in the best interest of the Swarthmore community.” Smith had suspended the fraternities on April 27, pending an investigation to determine whether any current members were involved in the activities described in the leaked materials. On the afternoon of May 1, Smith said she accepted both fraternities’ decision to disband and that at that time, there was “no evidence that any current student participated in the behaviors documented in those materials.” ■

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operation. Falling in lock-step with his candidacy are a slew of Philadelphia Democrats, including former Gov. Ed Rendell and former Mayor Michael Nutter, as well as, alas, my own congressman, Rep. Dwight Evans. I have covered all these men in numerous elections. I like all of them and have voted for all of them. But they could not be more wrong in their choice of Biden, who will be pushing 80 on Inauguration Day and has literally not one piece of policy going into a race he asserts he must join for the good of the country. Biden claimed he didn’t want President Obama’s endorsement after Obama had already met with Sen. Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke. Yet Biden’s campaign literature reads, “Joe’s running” with a big photo of him and Obama. Being the ex-VP is not policy. Obama’s record, which is not without issue, is not Biden’s. Biden’s record is his 36 years in the Senate and a slew of votes he would rather voters ignore. While there are no policy ideas from Biden other than “I’d like

to take Trump behind the woodshed,” Biden is against Medicare for All, which 71 percent of Americans support; the Green New Deal and ending college debt. Biden has always been a centrist. Among the current slate of candidates, few lean as far right as he does. Those pushing Biden’s candidacy hardest are all GOP pundits, like The View’s Ana Navarro and Meghan McCain. No matter how centered Biden’s campaign is in Philadelphia, his history is not one that centers the electorate of Philadelphia — a city that is majority minority, majority people under 50, majority poor. Certainly in a general election, we will all vote for the Democratic nominee — whomever that is — over Trump. But the primary demands we choose the best candidate who can serve two terms and eviscerate the Draconian policies Trump has put in place. Biden is simply not that candidate. He wasn’t the best candidate in 1984, 1988 or 2008, and he most definitely is not the best candidate now. ■

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All students are encouraged to write anonymous responses and put them in one of two public boxes. QSA members are taking those responses and making a collage to be displayed in a hallway in the school. Anderson also facilitates discussions about sex education in the group. She creates a comfortable environment for students to learn about safe sex by allowing them to ask questions both openly and anonymously. “Once I started talking to them, I realized that they don’t know anything when it comes to sex, especially when it comes to queer sex education,” Anderson said. “I think the sex ed that they get, if they get it, is not usually queer-centered.” Over the course of Anderson’s three years at the school, many students have opened up to her about personal issues, including those surrounding sexual identity. “Freda’s really good at building relationships with kids,” Brazas said. “A lot of kids trust her and come to her with all sorts of different issues and questions. In QSA we clearly have a lot of kids who are queer and trying to figure out where they fit in the world.” One student approached Anderson a few weeks ago because she wanted to make a plan for coming out to her mother. Anderson said she talked with her and gave her advice, and continued to provide a supportive, safe space for her after she came out. Anderson identifies as bisexual and gen-

derqueer and uses both she/her and he/ him pronouns. She frequently tells her students about her own coming out experiences and emphasizes that coming out is typically an ongoing process. Growing up, Anderson always knew that she/he was genderqueer. “There were days that I knew that I was a guy, and there were days that I knew I was a woman, and there were days that I felt somewhere in between,” Anderson said. “I didn’t always have the words for it, but I always knew it was true.” When Anderson was in school, it was apparent to other students that she was “tomboy-ish” and queer in some way, but because her peers were unfamiliar with what it meant to be gender-nonconforming, they assumed she was gay. “That, at the time, really bothered me.” Anderson said explaining she didn’t like that her gender presentation as sometimes masculine or her identity as sometimes a boy meant people made assumptions about her sexual orientation. These misconceptions caused Anderson to shy away from embracing her identity in high school. She didn’t talk about her bisexuality or genderqueerness with her friends

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

or family and didn’t join the QSA at her school. It wasn’t until after college that she came out to herself, her boyfriend at the time, and her mother. “I always tell that to the kids because I don’t want them to think it’s some box that you check off, because it’s a lifelong journey of figuring things out,” Anderson said. When Anderson came out to her students and colleagues at the U School, she expected to encounter some contentious reactions. Instead, she was surprised to receive enthusiastic acceptance, and hardly any conflict. Academically, Anderson works with students in a community-activism class called the Organize Lab, one of three classes that U School Principal Neil Geyette said are fundamental in preparing 10th- and 11th -grade students for the workforce. As part of an ongoing project in the

Organize Lab, Anderson advises her students to reconnect with alumni and staffers from Ferguson Elementary, the previous occupant of the U School building until it closed in 2013 due to budget cuts. Although the U School admits students citywide, about half of its students are from the neighborhood and have a connection to Ferguson. Anderson noticed some tension between students from the neighborhood and those from other parts of the city. So she had her Organize Lab students invite Ferguson alumni and teachers to the school for interviews, which were recorded in the school’s Highlight Lab. Through these conversations, members of the Ferguson community bonded with U School students and collaborated with them to plan a Ferguson reunion. The event took place at the end of the 2018 school year and welcomed almost 200 guests. Anderson plans to set up a history museum to celebrate the Ferguson community in the form of interviews and objects that once belonged to the school. “I want to have the class function as a nonprofit,” Anderson said. “My hope is that one day the class will be so well-oiled and working that people in the neighborhood can look to it as a resource.” The Teacher as Hero Award ceremony will take place at the National Liberty Museum on May 11 and will be hosted by NBC10 meteorologist Tammie Souza. Middle-school photography teacher and 2018 grand-prize winner Tony Rocco will present the keynote address. ■

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A transgender woman, whose address to the Armenian parliament caused uproar, says she has received death threats and is avoiding leaving her home because of security concerns. Lilit Martirosian, who founded the transgender organization Right Side, told parliament’s human rights committee recently that her group had recorded more than 280 instances of violations of transgender rights. The three-minute speech brought immediate criticism in parliament. The head of the human rights committee complained Martirosian violated the session’s agenda and disrespected parliament. The next day, hundreds protested outside parliament, demanding that the podium where Martirosian spoke be fumigated. Many Armenians resist recognizing rights of sexual minorities. “I received many calls with threats directed against me personally. People would say I needed to be murdered, butchered,” Martirosian said.

Brazil bank ad featuring a transgender woman and black Brazilians taken off air A bank commercial that featured a transgender woman and several young black Brazilians has been removed after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro intervened. Bolsonaro, a former army captain with a long history of disparaging comments about minorities and gays, took office Jan. 1. Since then, he has frequently weighed into cultural wars. In a statement April 26, Banco do Brasil said the ad was taken off air after Bolsonaro spoke with the state-run bank’s president, Rubem Novaes. The statement said the director of marketing had been fired but did not provide further details. The president’s office declined comment. Set to music, the ad shows several Brazilians going about their day. News of the ad’s removal comes a day after Bolsonaro reportedly said Brazil should not become a “gay paradise.”

Party leader calls LGBT rights an imported threat to Poland *PGN is an equal opportunity employer

The chairman of Poland’s conservative ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has called the

LGBT rights movement a foreign import that threatens the Polish nation. Kaczynski, a member of parliament who wields tremendous influence as leader of the Law and Justice party, also said during a lecture on patriotism that “everyone must accept Christianity” in Poland, and questioning the Roman Catholic Church is unpatriotic. The positions Kaczynski expressed April 24 in the central city of Wloclawek came as Poland’s powerful Catholic Church is under scrutiny for child sex abuse by clergy and superiors who might have covered up for pedophile priests. Poland also has two elections this year: the vote next month to elect the country’s representatives to the European Union parliament and a national election in the fall. With his remarks, Kaczynski seemed to be tapping into the belief held by some Poles that liberal values have been forced on them as a result of Poland joining the EU 15 years ago. Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party won the last general election in 2015 — the height of Europe’s mass migration crisis. The party’s campaign included portraying Muslim refugees as a threat to Poland. In recent weeks, Law and Justice has described the LGBT rights movement as another danger to Polish families and children. LGBT rights have become increasingly visible as more Polish cities and towns hold gay pride parades, even places known as bastions of the church and conservative values. Miroslawa Makuchowska, from the group Campaign Against Homophobia, said she thinks the party chairman’s anti-LGBT message was meant to distract attention from corruption scandals in the Catholic Church and in the Polish government.

Study finds Germans increasingly hostile to asylum seekers A study has found that Germans are increasingly hostile toward asylum seekers, whereas prejudices toward other minorities such as the homeless and LGBT populations have declined. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which commissioned the survey, said April 25 that 54.1 percent of respondents expressed negative opinions about asylum seekers, up from 49.5 percent in 2016 and 44 percent in 2014. Germany saw a significant increase in migrant arrivals in 2016, with almost 746,000 people seeking asylum that year. Numbers have since declined again, with about 186,000 asylum requests last year. The representative telephone survey, which is conducted every two years, involved 1,890 respondents and took place between September and February. The study also examined, for the first time, how receptive Germans are to conspiracy theories. It found about that 46 percent of respondents believed secret organizations influence political decision-making. ■ — Compiled by Larry Nichol

Feature PGN

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

entertainment Film Review

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Q Puzzle

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Out & About

Page 26

Family Portrait

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A funny hard time

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A poetic conversation with queer spoken-word sensation By Jess Bryant jess@epgn.com Andrea Gibson said poetry allows a space “open to fall apart if we need to.” A prolific genderqueer writer and spoken-word artist, Gibson performed poetry to a crowd of over 400 (nearly all LGBTQ) at Philadelphia’s The Foundry. On tour for two months, this time around, Gibson said, “I’ve been so emotional. I can’t figure out what makes it different from the past. I’ve been tearing up almost every night. Maybe it’s my hormones or the tenderness of the audiences.” Philadelphia has hosted Gibson many times, and they said that here audiences request their most tender poems. “I love it, it’s always these obscure poems that are rarely requested anywhere else but are requested over and over when I’m in Philly.” Gibson’s queer-femme partner, Megan Falley, opened and the two performed the final piece of the night together. “ I t ’s special as a queer artist to perform with my partner, to be in conversation and prepare sets together,” Gibson said. Recently Falley and Gibson collaborated to write “How Poetry Can Change Your Heart.” “We were really nervous about it at first,” Gibson said. “We were both unfamiliar with writing prose, but as soon as we started diving in, it was fun and celebratory. I so often write in darkness about topics that are heavy and unpleasant, but this was pure celebration to an art form that has lifted us both up.” Gibson said the flow they and their partner created was surprising and tender. “It was sweet. We’d write in the same room and bounce back and forth.” Falley, also a poet, is enamored with performance and the auditory component of poetry. “It’s important for her to hear her work and experience listening to it out loud,” Gibson said, adding that Falley feels the most connected to poetry when performing it. “She feels alive and awake — finds it most purposeful and is energized by it.”

“Being on stage terrifies me,” Gibson said, adding that it’s the process of writing that most appeals to them. They judge a poem by how much time passes while working. They perform because, “I love the art form so much that I have to do it even though it terrifies me.” “Meg writes like a songwriter,” Gibson said, and her work is proof of that — melodic and resonant, while tackling mental illness, suicidality, and fear. Falley, like Gibson, also writes about queer love — its implications, potential and beauty. No stranger to collaboration, Gibson recently worked with Ani DiFranco to produce a video, “America, Reloading,” a commentary on gun control and school shootings. Gibson wrote the piece which appears in “Lord of the Butterflies,” and began performing it shortly after the Parkland shootings. Gibson said they felt there was always something missing; i n e v i t a b l y, they wanted a child to be reading it. Gibson also wanted the poem to be more accessible to people like her parents and those with more conservative views. While they’ve performed with DiFranco many times over the course of their career, the two had never collaborated in this capacity. “It was eye-opening,” Gibson said. “I lean toward using hopeful music, even when a piece is devastating. I want to pull hope in, but Ani felt almost as if it would be blasphemous to create hopeful music for this piece.” Ani wanted Gibson to stay true to the grief and darkness of the poem — to be honest about its hopelessness. And

Gibson doesn’t think hopelessness is bad, if it is true. They said it’s important to find a community within which you can take turns being hopeless, especially under this administration. “Lord of the Butterflies” is a collection full of grief and struggle but also love, with an undercurrent — as in all of Gibson’s work — of beauty — articulated by both imagery and craft. In an old poem of theirs, Gibson said there’s a line that reads, “There’s not much to life but love and loss.”

Gibson s a i d , “Really, that breaks down to there’s not much to life but love or the absence of it, or that we’re losing love when we lose someone.” “If we pay attention,” Gibson added, “and most of us are, it’s impossible to

live in this world without experiencing grief.” “My therapist, who I’m constantly quoting,” Gibson said, “told me when I was going through after-Trump political depression, ‘the only thing we have control over in life is where we put our attention.’” Gibson said that they try to focus on beauty and “show up to address the darkness.” “Last night,” Gibson said, “I was staring at my dog and was overwhelmed with love for her, and at the same time my chest was full of grief because love means knowing you have to say goodbye.” Love and grief, they said, “are always dancing.” Gibson is and has always been open about their relationship to therapy and mental health, writing against stigma. In addition to their dog, who travels everywhere with them. Gibson said, “I do a lot in terms of selfcare because I’m so aware I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t. I can see how it would be to crash and burn.” They also cry. “I don’t know if there’s been a day on tour when I haven’t cried,” Gibson said. “I wash my emotions clean. I do a lot of consistent talking and praying to people I’ve lost who are on the other side, and spirits.” Gibson’s work brims with faith but challenges the mainstream perception of spirituality. They were raised Baptist and attended a “very” Catholic college. “When I came out,” Gibson said, “I felt like I had to throw it all away, and then I returned to it, taking the parts of it which had PAGE 24

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Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

GIBSON from page 23

resonated with me and those which I felt had shaped me into a better person. A lot of that had to do with believing in magic, believing in possibility — things I couldn’t see; holiness as kindness and wholeness. “Writing the other day, I was thinking about a line and about having the same gender as God. I know it will make some people mad but being genderqueer and living beyond the binary feels that way — expansive.” Gibson’s identity is central to many conversations in their poetry. “I’m inclined to approach most pieces from a place of curiosity, uncover something new. Questions are innately queer. Answers are so fucking straight.” “I figured out a lot about my queer identity through the process of writing,” Gibson said. “Leslie Feinberg said

and people being visible with a full expression of who they are. I’ve been able to see more and more of myself as time progresses.” At a performance, you’ll likely see people cry and laugh, experiencing a full range of affect in only a couple of hours. The setting is often intimate, regardless of crowd size. Gibson said, “That’s what spoken word is.” Gibson doesn’t feel comfortable withholding the truth. “It would require more bravery to keep myself shut off from sharing whatever is inside of me. It’s terrifying, but I can also feel it creating safety. Truth is a safe place, the safest place to exist.” Excited about poetry’s place in contemporary society, Gibson said when they first began trying to book music venues, it was difficult. On April 29,

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‘Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught.’ The more language we have, the more we can understand our gender, and our gender is given more colors.” Language, for the LGBTQIA-plus community, has changed and evolved over the course of Gibson’s career. They said this evolution has allowed them to continually make new discoveries surrounding their identity. “I remember being given the word ‘genderqueer’ — that word impacted my life so much. Prior to that, I felt like I knew myself, even as a kid, but didn’t have language for it.” Queer art and visibility also have been crucial to Gibson’s evolution. “One thing I’ve noticed for myself — and I’d be thrilled to know a bunch of people who aren’t like this — seeing a part of myself somewhere else first has been how I’ve uncovered myself. That’s the value of queer art and artists

they filled the Foundry at the Fillmore. Gibson said they feel energized that so many people came out on a Monday night to hear poetry. “It’s great for the art form.” Gibson’s final poem was “Fight for Love,” a poem they performed with Falley about arguing in a relationship. Gibson said, “If I could do every poem of the night with her, that would be preferred.” Though anyone can see their relationship residing in the poem “Fight for Love,” it is particularly resonant to queer relationships. “Queer people are great at supporting queer artists,” Gibson said. “Queer people want to support queer art. We are all desperate to see art where, inside of it, we find ourselves.” ■ Gibson will perform at Lancaster Pride July 20. For all tour dates and more information, visit andreagibson.org/tour.

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Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

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Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

ENTERTAINMENT PGNLISTINGS

Remembering the Queer Bicentennial By Gary L. Day PGN Contributor The U.S. Bicentennial in 1976 was a national celebration of mainstream-American culture and history, and Philadelphia was at its center. However, while mainstream America celebrated, queer America and queer Philadelphia organized in counter to the event. Historian Marc Stein gave a talk last week on “Queering the Bicentennial” at the William Way LGBT Community Center, where he addressed the complex politics that formed Philadelphia’s Bicentennial celebration and the response from the LGBTQ community. Stein meticulously recounted how a proposed political alliance between then-Mayor Frank Rizzo and then-President Richard Nixon would shape Philadelphia’s Bicentennial bash. Nixon viewed Rizzo as someone with whom he could ally to poach working-class voters from the Democrats in order to strengthen his reelection campaign in 1972. Stein explained that Rizzo, ever the opportunist, allowed himself to be wooed. “But the political marriage would come with a heavy dowry,” said Stein — “a promise of significant funding for Philadelphia’s Bicentennial.” Nixon’s strategy worked, and he was reelected, winning by a landslide. Then Watergate happened, as Stein retells it, leaving Rizzo high and dry, scrambling to pull together a Bicentennial on his own. Rizzo, a former police commissioner, was an old-style law-and order type,

who, by many accounts, was no friend to the LGBT community. As both police commissioner and mayor, Rizzo oversaw regular raids on gay bars and businesses. Local businessman Mel Heifetz, an openly gay entrepreneur and businessman, was often targeted with such oppressive tactics. Part of Rizzo’s desperate attempts to pull together a Bicentennial included requesting help from the National Guard to crack down on possible sources of disruption, which

he assumed would come from LGBTQ and black communities, accourding to Stein. In response to the possibility of a crackdown and the general nature of the Bicentennial plans, the July 4th Coalition was founded. The Coalition was a loose national affiliation of activist and counter-cultural groups, which included, locally, the Gay Activists Alliance. The Coalition organized a counter-demonstration and march to coincide with, and contrast, the planned Bicentennial parade and celebration. The demonstration was to include people of color, the LBGT population, women and Native Americans — the nation’s marginalized populations. The GAA drummed up participation from Philadelphia’s LGBT community by passing out flyers that read, “March with the gay contingent to protest 200 years of gay oppression.” Come July 4, Rizzo’s underfunded stopgap celebration resulted in a smaller-than-expected parade. The Coalition’s march, which started in North Philly and made its way to Fairmount Park, was larger than expected, resulting in a parade almost as large as Rizzo’s. While the counter-efforts of the Coalition were successful, Stein also spoke to the rise of consumerism within the LGBTQ community during this time. One of his examples was a photo-spread pullout published by Mandate magazine just after the Bicentennial, ostensibly to celebrate the event’s spirit. The spread consisted of Mandate models dressed in high-end fashions posing at iconic Philadelphia locales, and was created in part by gay impresario Henri David. Stein was asked if he saw any parallels between the queer Bicentennial and the upcoming Stonewall 50 celebrations, relating to conflicts that arise when activism and commercialism meet. “There are definite parallels,” he answered. “Obviously commercialism and profiteering have been a part of gay-movement celebrations almost from the beginning — something activists have never been comfortable with. And commercialism has dominated Pride festivities in recent years. But there’s been a resurgence of activism lately, so it’ll be interesting to see how this longstanding stress between the different aspects of the community will play out.” ■ Marc Stein is the Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Professor of History at San Francisco State University. A former Philadelphia resident, Stein studied history at the University of Pennsylvania. His books on LGBTQ history include City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves, Sexual Injustice, and Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement. His latest, The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History, will be published later this month.

Theater & Arts Arte Povera: Homage to Amalfi ’68 Philadelphia Museum of Art presents an exhibition recreating one artist’s reactionary exhibition against minimalism and pop art, through July, 26th Street and the Parkway; 215-763-8100. At The Hop! A Philadelphia Story at the Birth of Rock and Roll The Philly POPS performs rock n’ roll from the 50s and the 60s, May 3-5 at Kimmel’s Verizon Hall, 300 S. Broad St.; 215-893-1999. Civil War Stories Walnut Street Theatre present a

“Saturday Night Live” performs through May 4 at Helium Comedy Club, 2031 Sansom St.; 215-4969001. La Bohème Opera Philadelphia performs the classic through May 5 at Kimmel’s Verizon Hall, 300 S. Broad St.; 215-893-1999. Long Light Philadelphia Museum of Art presents an exhibition featuring the photography of David Lebe, through May 5, 26th Street and the Parkway; 215-763-8100. Mimi Imfurst Presents Drag Diva Brunch Mimi Imfurst and special guests perform 11 a.m.-2 p.m. May 4 at Punch Line Philly, 33 E.

Tchaikovsky And Elgar The Philadelphia Orchestra performs a premiere performance with Fritz Kreisler, through May 4 at Kimmel’s Verizon Hall, 300 S. Broad St.; 215-893-1999. Treasure Island Arden Theatre company presents the swashbuckling pirate tale, through June 2, 40 N. Second St.; https://ardentheatre.org. Trevor Noah The comedian and host of “The Daily Show” performs May 3-4 at The Met, 858 N. Broad St.; info@ TheMetPhilly.com. Untitled Inis Nua Theatre presents the American premiere of the play by English playwright Inua Ellams

THE ONLY WALL WE’D LIKE TO WATCH BEING BUILT: Brit Floyd, a Pink Floyd tribute show, celebrates the 40th anniversary of the band’s landmark album “The Wall” with a performance 7:30 p.m. May 7 at Kimmel’s Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad St. For more information or tickets, call 215-893-1999.

show featuring a cast of actor/ musicians immersing the audience in stories of real people from both sides of our country’s most divisive conflict, through May 26, 825 Walnut St.; 215-574-3550. Glass Pieces The Pennsylvania Ballet presents the world premiere of three high-energy pieces, May 9-12 at Kimmel’s Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St.; 215-893-1999. The Impressionist’s Eye Philadelphia Museum of Art presents an exhibition featuring the works of Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt, Vincent van Gogh and others, through Aug.18, 26th Street and the Parkway; 215-763-8100. Jon Lovitz The comedian formerly on

Laurel St.; 215-606-6555. New Chinese Galleries Philadelphia Museum of Art presents an exhibition exploring 4,000 years of Chinese art, through Summer, 26th Street and the Parkway; 215-763-8100. Parsons Dance The celebrated dance troupe performs a program including their masterpiece, “Caught,” May 10-11 at Zellerbach Theatre, 3680 Walnut St.; 215-898-3900. Sophie Lewis and Zachary Howe The author hosts a reading and signing of her new book “Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family,” 6:30 p.m. May 3 at Giovanni’s Room, 345 S. 12th St.; 215-923-2960.

about two brothers born on Nigerian Independence Day in a world where myth intertwines with reality, through May 12 at Louis Bluver Theatre at The Drake, 302 S. Hicks St,; 215-454-9776. Whitman, Alabama Philadelphia Museum of Art presents an exhibition that brings Walt Whitman’s poem, “song of Myself” to life through the voices of Alabama residents, through June 9, 26th Street and the Parkway; 215-763-8100. Yoshitoshi: Spirit and Spectacle Philadelphia Museum of Art presents an exhibition featuring the brilliant colors and spirited lines of Yoshitoshi, the last great master of the traditional Japanese woodblock print, through Aug. 18, 26th Street and the Parkway; 215-763-8100.

PGN LISTINGS ENTERTAINMENT

Music Anthem: A Sing-A-Long Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus performs their favorite gay anthems from the 1970s to today, May 3-4 at Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion, 2111 Sansom St.; www.pgmc.org. Fleetmac Wood Presents Gold Dust Disco A rave-style DJ set and AV that reframes the music of Fleetwood Mac through disco, techno and house music, 10 p.m. May 3 at Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St.; 215-627-1332. Alicia Witt The actress and singer-songwriter

performers, 8 p.m. May 3 at Stir Lounge, 1705 Chancellor St.; 215-732-2700. Steam’d: BOS Philly A steampunk/mask themed party, 10 p.m. May 3 at The Bike Stop, 206 S. Quince St.; 215627-1662. Drag Wars: Gayme of Thrones Semifinals A fantasy-themed drag competition, 8-11 p.m. May 10 at Voyeur Nightclub, 1221 Saint James St.; 215-735-5772. Let’s Play: Kingdom Hearts An evening of video game cosplay themed performances, 9-11 p.m. May 10 at Tabu, 254 S. 12th St.; 215-964-9675. The singer-songwriter performs

kicks off 9 p.m. May 4 at The Queen, 500 N. Market St., Wilmington, Del.; 202-7303331. Midnight Run The classic action comedy is screened at 1:30 p.m. May 5 at The Colonial Theatre, 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville; 610917-1228. Galactic Empire The Star Wars themed heavy metal band performs, 8 p.m. May 6 at The Queen, 500 N. Market St., Wilmington, Del.; 202-730-3331. BBMAK The English pop group performs, 8 p.m. May 9 at The Queen, 500 N. Market St.,

BALLET DANCE FEVER: The Pennsylvania Ballet closes out its season with high-energy performances of Christopher Wheeldon’s “DGV: Danse à Grand Vitesse,” and the company premiere Jerome Robbins’ “Glass Pieces,” set to the music of composer Philip Glass, May 9-12 at Kimmel’s Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St. For more information or tickets, call 215-893-1999. Photo Credit: Chris Crisman

performs 8 p.m. May 8 at Bourbon and Branch, 705 N. Second St.; 215-238-0660.

Outta Town

Bring Me The Horizon The rock band performs 8 p.m. May 10 at The Met, 858 N. Broad St.; info@TheMetPhilly.com.

Beth Hart 8 p.m. May 3 at Scottish Rite Auditorium, 315 White Horse Pike, Collingswood, NJ; 856858-1000.

Christine Havrilla & Gypsy Fuzz The out singer-songwriter and her band perform 8 p.m. May 10 at World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St.; 215-222-1400.

Bowielive A David Bowie tribute show, 8 p.m. May 3 at The Queen, 500 N. Market St., Wilmington, Del.; 202-730-3331.

Nightlife Gender Queery: A Trans and Nonbinary Drag Show Retrograde Productions presents the best in binary busting

Serial Mom The John Waters film is screened 9:45 p.m. May 3 at The Colonial Theatre, 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville; 610-9171228. My Chemical Slowdance The second annual emo prom

Wilmington, Del.; 202-7303331. The Temptations and The Four Tops The classic soul/R&B groups perform 8 p.m. May 10 at Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave.; 215-572-7650. ■

Notices Send notices at least one week in advance to: Out & About Listings, PGN, 505 S. Fourth St., Philadelphia, PA 19147 fax: 215-925-6437; or e-mail: listings@ epgn.com. Notices cannot be taken over the phone.

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

Having a ‘Hard Time’ — but laughing By A.D. Amorosi PGN Contributor An overjoyed look at an often misogynist, racist, homophobic patriarchy of traditional comedy, “A Hard Time” is a male comic lampooning lecture. Out actors Jenn Kidwell and Mel Krodman graduated from the Pig Iron Theatre School to join company membership. Together, they created a show, in collaboration with Jess Conda that takes a hard look at society’s worst qualities. “Our piece,” said Krodman, “is the first of any theater works Pig Iron has premiered using a new model of artistic leadership outside of the founding membership.” The eight-year-old school’s 2020 class is also set to perform “The Border Towns” — an examination of the political noise to the north and south — at Caplan Black Box Studio. “Ours is the next phase of Pig Iron Company membership,” said Kidwell. “The beginning of something.” “A Hard Time” started life as a prompt based on character study. “The piece that Jess, Mel and I were a part of centered around drag personas,“ said Kidwell of the trio’s experimentation. As it developed, “A Hard Time” began to incorporate inspiration from “Waiting for Godot.” Company co-founder Dan Rothenberg is obsessed with all-things-Beckett, and he encouraged the trio to mount the production, after further evolutions took place. “After starting from a real place of pleasure,” said Krodman,“Our drag personas dimension-alized. She explained that Pig Iron’s Dito van Reigersberg (Martha Graham Cracker) asked them what their personas allowed them to do that the trio couldn’t do themselves. After spending time with that question, Krodman said the trio realized, “We get to behave in different ways, ask questions of humanity about why things are — the pleasurable joy and profound pain of existence.” What started as a fun, presentational, risqué romp is now a meditation on humanity and our stake in it. “A Hard Time” plays with as much dramatic tension as it does comedic. “Our characters deal with the recognizable currency of a familiar kind of representation of male comedy, a familiar rhythm,” said Krodman. Kidwell added, “We’re laughing at the timing and the rhythms of these men — some gregarious and alpha on the outside while being lonely and afraid inside — and the absurdity of the persistence of those characters.

“The pleasure of all that coupled with the despair of darker commotion — things we might disavow — might make these characters most acceptable, lovable even, despite being misogynistic.” Krodman says that their characters are saying things that they cannot — a frustration that borders on anger. “Channeling such frustration and anger can be delightful to watch — and we laugh at the explosion.” She explained that people don’t often accept anger from women, trans and nonbinary people in the same way we do from men. “It’s a narrow spectrum of those from which [anger] is accepted and they tend to be straight and male.” Krodman, Kidwell and Conda lampoon male archetypes and specific

comedians in “A Hard Way.” When the names Jackie Gleason and Bill Cosby are mentioned, Kidwell and Krodman chuckle. “We’re very intentionally lampooning them,” says Krodman. Kidwell recalls growing up with a funny father — not a professional comic, but the funniest man in her life — and how he found great delight in making fun. “That’s very much alive in me still,” Kidwell said. “I laughed at his jokes, while telling him, over the years, how the things he found funny can be super problematic. Yet, I laughed, so part of this show deals with how can I reconcile being so deeply in love with him as a father figure and a man, when some of the things he found funny were so wrong.” While Kidwell believes he truly was respectful of people, she said, “That complication and coexistence of love and wanting to realign where we find humor is the point of this show for me.” Krodman said that inevitably “A Hard Time” questions the paradigms of humor, reflects on the survival of outdated and often inappropriate jokes, and interrogates the ethics behind our laughter. ■ “A Hard Time” is showing at FringeArts through May 12. For tickets and more information, visit pigiron.org/productions/hard-time.

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

PGN

100 years in heels: New book details the past, present and future of drag By Larry Nichols larry@epgn.com Drag is everywhere. From gay bars to comedy clubs and children’s story times, the performance genrea has achieved cultural saturation. It’s no surprise, then, that the world is ready for a stylish and colorful coffee table book, “Drag: Combing Through the Big Wigs of Show Business,” that takes readers on a century long journey of drag history. Frank DeCaro, out author of books like “The Dead Celebrity Cookbook: A Resurrection of Recipes From More Than 145 Stars of Stage and Screen” and “Unmistakably Mackie: The Fashion and Fantasy,” said that he hadn’t considered writing a book about drag until someone suggested he do it. Then, though, he figured, he might be the perfect person for the task. “I hadn’t really thought about whether I was the right person for it, and I had to do some soul searching about that,” said Decaro, a comedy performer and talk-radio host. But, DeCaro said, “It dawned on me that I had been a drag-hag since I was about 4 years old and first saw Herman Munster in drag on ‘The Munsters.’” He explained that he’s always been “sort of taken with a man in a dress.” He watched drag performances on the big and small screens, whether it was Flip Wilson as Geraldine or “Some Like it Hot.” “Any TV show in the 1960s, sooner or

later men were going to end up in dresses for one reason or another,” DeCaro said. Once he realized he had been following drag performers all of his life, it became apparent that he might, in fact, be the right person to author a book on drag. “It really is a love letter to drag and my thank-you for so much entertainment throughout my entire life. There is no tea and no shade in this book. It’s a thanks for so much fun and glitter and inspiration.” DeCaro said that even as a longtime drag lover, he discovered new corners of drag history. “I was shocked at how early drag performances in the way that we know it now had been going on,” he said. “There is a performer named Julian Eltinge who was the toast of New York City and was given his own Broadway theater in 1912. I’d always known that people had gravitated toward drag, but I had no idea of its ubiquity in show business. I knew that men had played female roles in Shakespeare and ancient Greece, but I had no idea that someone who would have hated the term ‘drag queen’ like Eltinge existed in 1912.” DeCaro’s book dives deeply into drag’s history and describes how we see the genre’s influence in contemporary society. “It was fascinating to me how much drag influenced and infiltrated the culture,” DeCaro said. “It was there whether it was the typical straight guy looking for a cheap apartment on ‘Bosom Buddies’ or the straight guy detective out catching a mugger on ‘Barney Miller.’ It’s fascinat-

ing to me that it’s woven into the culture as much as it is.” But even with the expansiveness of the book (where else are you going to find Boy George and Bugs Bunny prominently featured side by side?), DeCaro conceded there’s too much history to cover in one book. “You can’t do enough research with a topic this big, and you almost can’t wrap your arms around it,” he said. “No matter

how much I found out, there was more that I didn’t know. At a certain point, you just have to say anything I left out is for the next guy who writes their drag book.” Drag is more popular now than it ever has been, and DeCaro is happy to see so many drag performers reaping the bene-

fits of such a high level of exposure. “It’s never been as mainstream as it is now,” he said. “There is drag in so many places and ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ is a global phenomenon. That really was the game-changer.” DeCaro said he also appreciates that drag performers are now perceived as the artists they always have been. “Bianca Del Rio just announced that she’s playing Wembley Arena in Britain. That’s huge. It’s not this little underground secret. It’s really out there in the open. “Wigstock started having drag queens performing in the afternoon of Labor Day weekend in the 1980s. That was where it all began: we’re not going to be pushed into the dark corner of a gay bar. We’re going to be right out there in the sunlight and look fabulous. That was the beginning of what we think of as modern drag.” And now the sky is the limit, DeCaro said. “The notion of what drag is has exploded.It can be a cisgender woman dressed as a drag queen. It can be an 11-year-old kid. It can be someone who has been at this for 60 years, like Dame Edna. It’s all of that. You can be a drag king, a drag queen, a bio queen, a drag kid or a character actor doing a crazed take on a pop-culture figure. The future of drag is a glittery smorgasbord, and everybody gets to be a part of it.” ■ “Drag: Combing Through the Big Wigs of Show Business” by Frank DeCaro is available in stores now. For more information, visit www. frankdecaro.com.

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Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

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Celeste Cottrelle: IRL “The arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic … music, dance, painting, and theater are all keys that unlock profound human understanding and accomplishment.” — William Bennett One of my favorite events each year is the Moore College of Art and Design Senior Showcase. It’s a chance for the students to show their best work. The only draw back is that the work is often so good, it spoils me for the art world at large. It’s tough to go into a gallery and see an art piece for $10,000 and think, Wow, I just saw something equally good, if not better, done by a senior at Moore. Founded in 1848, Moore is the first and only visual-arts college for women in the United States. I stopped by one interactive exhibit and met Celeste Cottrelle, an animator and game designer. Her game, “Ordinary Life,” was designed to be fun, but also to show lesbian characters of color in an ordinary light. PGN: Tell me about little Celeste. CC: Little Celeste was basically where older Celeste is now, very active, very chatty. I was the kind of child who would say hi and run up to total strangers and give them a hugs, “No Celeste, you can’t do that.” I was very animated, and I loved going outside just as much as I loved staying in and watching cartoons and playing games. And that’s been pretty persistent throughout my life. From 13-16, I had my little introvert period, that, “I don’t want to talk to anyone” phase, but I got over it and soon opened my shell again to be the person I am today. PGN: Were you always creative? CC: Yes, I would say I’ve always been a creative entity — that’s something that came from my parents, especially my mom. She’s the person who pushed me into the arts. She introduced me to drawing and still-life studies. I would draw everything I saw around me: toys, a shelf, fruit on the table. Younger me used to get frustrated if I didn’t draw it perfectly and would want to give up, but my mother explained that art was a practice and something you had to work at. After some pushing from her, I got better and began to realize that it was something I was passionate about. I finally said, “I need to be in the art world,” and my mom was like, [smiles] “I told you so.” PGN: What did your mom do? Dad too … CC: She does a lot. For a while she was a teacher working in different Philadelphia high schools. She’s also a culinary artist, specializing in baking. She’s always doing

a thousand things, but she always makes time for laughter. One of the family life models is that you have to find something to make you smile every day. It’s good practice and it keeps us level headed. My father is great at working with machines, from cars to A.C. and heating units — he repairs things. But they are both into gaming and animation, so I got that artistic influence from both sides of the family. I think a passion for the arts was ingrained in me. PGN: Do you have any siblings? CC: I do. I’m the oldest of nine. I’m 22, and my youngest sibling will be turning 4 in May. I have five siblings on my mom’s side and three on my dad’s side. I’m the only product of my mom and dad, but what’s nice is that, though they split, the family has always been together. At the end of the day we always come together as a unit. We celebrate birthdays and holidays together and it’s always cordial and respectful and full of love and good times.

tell me.” And my dad was like, “It doesn’t matter to me as long as they don’t hurt you. I don’t care if it’s a guy, girl or nonbinary person, I’ll fight whoever it is that hurts my daughter!” PGN: Go ’rents! CC: Yeah, though it’s not like I’m the first person in the family to come out. I’m like the seventh cousin to come out. There are a lot of us! It was just a matter of me accepting myself more that anything else and be like, “OK, I’m cool.” PGN: Who’s the funniest in the family? CC: Oh, that can range. I’d say my mother is the funniest, and then it goes to my 12-year-old brother who thinks he’s the funniest guy alive. He’s not, but the fact that he thinks his jokes are funny makes us

PGN: Are you a Philadelphian? CC: I am. I was born in West Philadelphia and have been here all my life. PGN: When did you first start to realize you were part of the LGBTQIA spectrum? CC: That’s a good question. I identify as the B in that equation. I’d say the first time I noticed that I had feelings for someone the same gender as myself would have been at the beginning of high school. I’d be hanging out with friends, and they’d be talking about some guy on Instagram and would ask me what I thought, and I’d be like, “eh, I don’t know.” But then one of them was showing a picture of a girl and said, “Doesn’t her hair look cute?” and I remember thinking, “She’s just cute in general.” And then in my head I was like, “Waaaait a minute, uh, [in a high voice], did I just say that, is that OK? I don’t know!” And then a while later a girl asked me out, and I was like, “Oh no, what’s happening here?” Nothing came of it, but it made me start thinking about myself until I finally realized, “Oh wow. I think this is really a thing and it’s OK.” PGN: Did you tell the folks? CC: I think they always kind of knew, at least my mom did. She knows everything. But I did not officially come out until my sophomore year at college. Not out of fear of judgment, but fear of disappointment. I know the family had certain beliefs and expectations, and I always held myself to certain standards to make my parents proud and happy, but then I realized that I wasn’t happy and I wanted to tell that to them. My mom’s first words were, “I already knew, I was just waiting for you to

laugh; so it makes him funny in a roundabout way. PGN: What’s a favorite family memory or tradition? CC: There are a lot. A recent tradition is something that we like to call Kwinismas. It’s a mash-up of Kwanzaa and Christmas. We’re not really religious, but we still like to celebrate, and about three years ago we started mixing the two traditions. We’d get a tree and decorate with a combination of commercial and handmade decorations. We also put everyone’s name on a slip of paper and you have to pull a name and

say something nice about that person, but the best part is that we celebrate for seven days. Seven days of hanging out and having fun with people you love. PGN: We do something similar. We put the names of family members that have passed away on Christmas balls. You pick a ball and then have to share a memory or fun fact about that person. That way we keep the memories and stories alive for the youngest members of the family. But back to you, let’s talk more about your artwork. Describe your style. CC: My artwork has vastly changed over the years. Before Moore I thought I would go into illustration, but then I met a professor, Stephen Wood, who looked at my work and said, “You’re going to go into animation game arts.” I was like, “Noooooo, I’m going to be a 2D animator,” but eventually I realized he was right. Now I am a game developer and producer. I’m heavily into writing, and I develop games for visual novels. They’re basically textbased games where the choices that you make throughout the game affect how you play and the ending. That involves a lot of writing. PGN: Writing as in storyline or programming? CC: Both. There’s a lot of coding as well as story telling. My first script for my senior thesis was around 80 pages until my professor made me cut it down. My general artistic style is very simplistic. I like to do a minimum drawing and then add detail as I go along, if I want. PGN: Who are some of your artistic inspirations? CC: I get inspiration from a variety of artists, writing wise. I’d say Tee Franklin. I met her once and she was just lovely. Art wise, I love Shauna J. Grant. She’s the creator of “Princess Love Pon.” Her style is very cute and whimsical which is the style I try to go for. Other than my mom, those are the two names that pop into my head when I think of female role models. PGN: Let’s talk about the game you exhibited at the showcase. PAGE 33

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

Wedding Services Directory

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Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

Azuka and the theater of #metoo By A.D. Amorosi PGN Contributor Rooted in the #metoo movement, Emily Acker’s hard dramedy is a semi-nearly, barely, almost-quasi true tale based on her experience in the world of workplace sexual misconduct. Acker was working on a television remake, “Three Up Two Down,” when her boss, Harvey Weinstein became embroiled in a sexual-assault scandal, for which he was subsequently charged. Azuka Theatre is producing Acker’s new show, “Boycott Esther,” and out producing artistic director Kevin Glaccum spoke to PGN about his choice to bring “Boycott Esther” to the stage. Directed by Maura Krause, the show is running now through May 19 at the Drake.

for all to see. But that’s the power of this movement — it’s beyond numbers. It’s your friends, your mothers and your sisters being treated this way. And yes, there are examples of harassment in the LGBTQ community and elsewhere, but I guess being close to it, those responses didn’t surprise me. I’ve had slurs aimed in my direction and have been bashed, but, there was something about the overall pervasiveness #metoo exposed that made that movement powerful. PGN: Do you see new sensitivity within members of the theater community surrounding this issue or do you feel like Philadelphia’s theater community has been respectful? KG: Every community has room for growth in how to treat its members with sensitivity and respect. For as open and welcoming as I, a white man, feel the community can be, I know first-hand that we have a way to go until everyone who wants to make theater in Philadelphia feels at ease doing so. In other words, we have work to do.

PGN: How did Acker’s “Boycott Esther” fit into your vision for Azuka? KG: “Boycott Esther” isn’t a natural fit for us in some ways. This play is much more “ripped from the headlines” than the work PGN: What does we normally produce. the play look like However, what it does onstage? How does do is focus on indiit move? What will vidual responses to we see? outside forces. In this KG: This play is case: the Internet, and ALISON ORMSBY AS ESTHER pretty tech heavy. that is what Azuka With such a proTheatre does. I’m nounced presence always drawn to the plays we produce based of social media, it really had to be. Jorge on my response to the characters, and with Cousineau designed the set and video ele“Boycott Esther,” I could see how easily our ments, and they’re remarkable. We get a real audiences would be able to relate to all the sense of being immersed in Esther’s world, in characters Emily created. how the Internet can join us with thousands of people at once, and yet keep us completely PGN: How do you see “Boycott Esther” as a isolated. tale of an outsider? KG: I think Esther is an outsider. She acquires PGN: What is our collective capacity for fora large following on social media by just being giveness — a question you ask in the tagline herself, which is this quirky young woman for “Boycott Esther”? who says whatever she thinks. Only outsiders KG: This is the challenge of the play, and the can get away with speaking their truth. world we live in. I like to think our collective capacity for forgiveness can be quite generPGN: What had you known about Acker’s ous, but I’m not sure if I’m mixing forgiveness with forgetfulness. Did the world really television remake of “Three Up Two Down” forgive Mel Gibson or did they just forget with The Weinstein Company before she came what he said? And if they did forgive him, to you with Boycott Esther? why him and not someone else who made KG: I knew she’d been working on something a misstep? Michael Richards never came for The Weinstein Company, a pilot for a new back from his racist outburst in a stand-up television show that was based on a British routine, but, now Louis C.K. is doing shows sitcom. I also knew she hadn’t met him; that’s again, and his offense involved far more than pretty much all I knew. a single instance. Not long ago, George W. was being called a war criminal, now he’s PGN: What’s your take on the #metoo movean avuncular old Texan painting with waterment? It is obviously not just women, but men colors. I have a tendency to believe, for and members of the LGBTQ community who better or worse, that forgetfulness is more at have been sexually harassed? play than forgiveness. What I think “Boycott KG: The #metoo movement is extraordinary. Esther” does is to try and get us to make a When it first took hold on the Internet, I was decision, and not let us off the hook. ■ stunned by how many of my friends had firsthand experience with sexual harassment, For tickets and more information about “Boycott and even sexual abuse. I don’t know why I Esther” visit azukatheatre.org/boycott-esther. was so shocked; the numbers were out there

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Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

FilmPGN Review

New documentary profiles famed sex therapist Dr. Ruth By Gary M. Kramer PGN Contributor Dr. Ruth Westheimer is a dynamo — a nonagenarian who has no intention of retiring. An out gay filmmaker, Ryan White does his best to keep up with the diminutive (4’7”) sex therapist — known for her candor and common sense — in his loving portrait “Ask Dr. Ruth.” Westheimer made a name for herself in the 1980s as host of the popular WYNY radio show “Sexually Speaking.” Launched into fame and fortune, she became a pop-culture icon and sought-after media personality. White’s film premiering May 3 at Landmark Ritz Five, unfolds in a rather conventional manner. He observes Dr. Ruth in her Washington Heights, Manhattan, apartment, records her conversations with colleagues, friends and family members and tags along to her personal appearances. Along with her professional history, “Ask Dr. Ruth” chronicles Westheimer’s personal journey, largely by use of animated sequences that depict her as a young girl in Germany, where she was born Karola Ruth Siegel. When Westheimer was 10, the Nazis

captured her parents and she was sent to Switzerland as part of the Kindertransport. She arrived at an orphanage, where she cared for other children and eventually met her first boyfriend. Her painful past includes poignant diary entries and correspondence with her parents. Later scenes show Dr. Ruth looking into her parents’ deaths, something she had not previously pursued.

surface, providing basic biographical information. But when Dr. Ruth’s granddaughter asks her if she is a feminist, Westheimer provides a complicated and nuanced answer; this is when the documentary is at its best. In another compelling scene, Dr. Ruth is interviewed by out WNYC radio host Jonathan Capehart, during which he applauds her for helping him understand his sexuality. Dr. Ruth makes the point that “respect is not debatable,” while the two discuss whether “normal” exists. Dr. Ruth has worked to diffuse shame around sex. Her efforts to support abortion and LGBTQ rights stem, in large part, from her opinions regarding sex. While Westheimer emphatically refuses to discuss politics, she has always been rather DR. RUTH K. WESTHEIMER Photo: Magnolia Pictures progressive and, as White shows in his documentary, was talking about Westheimer vacillates between openAIDS when it was an unpopular topic. ness and secrecy in the film. She talks White shows Dr. Ruth’s sensitivity about her three marriages, an injury she toward the gay community at the height suffered when she was a sniper for the of the epidemic. She brought awareness Jewish Underground Army, and how of HIV and AIDS to a wide audience, she came to study sexuality. She tells answering questions from those afraid and White she worked with Helen Singer confused by the disease. Kaplan, a noted sex therapist, at Planned “Ask Dr. Ruth” shows little about its Parenthood, but she only scratches the subject’s sex life, save a brief recollec-

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tion of losing her virginity as a teenager on a haystack. But White captures Dr. Ruth’s infectious personality, zest for life and outgoing nature in his depiction of Westheimer as a single mother in New York circa 1958. Viewers who are fans or unfamiliar with her work will certainly feel like they understand Dr. Ruth better after watching the film. It nicely incorporates stories, memories, photographs and video clips to provide an affectionate portrait of an unconventional and uncompromising woman. The montage of Dr. Ruth’s rise to fame, occurring in the last portion of the documentary, is terrific. Clips of her talking on camera are particularly amusing — like getting censored when trying to convince Conan O’Brien to use a certain term for sexually frustrated women. Viewers may also chuckle when her son, Joel, recounts a story of returning to his dorm room only to hear his mother’s voice emanating from multiple radios in his hallway. “Ask Dr. Ruth” may not provide all the answers about its subject, but White’s film does raise questions about how we think and talk about sex. He has made a polite documentary that demystifies Westheimer. She is more than just a woman who, some people think, talks dirty. ■

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PGN PORTRAIT from page 29

CC: It’s currently titled “Ordinary Life,” but that could change. It revolves around a young adult named Gina Orleans and her life right before she goes to college. It touches on how you’re meant to grow as a young adult and the choices you’re able to make. It has an emphasis on issues of color and being LGBTQ. There is a huge deficit of representation in gaming, especially for queer girls of color and especially in the visual-novel arena. There’s a lot of gay content, but it’s usually white male characters in love or having relationship problems with other white male characters. So I wanted to create characters that were black or Indian or Asian and use dialogue that felt natural to the characters. I want people to say, “Oh wow. That person talks like me.” PGN: Why is that important to you? CC: I want people to be educated and know that there are tons of people who look like me who play games like this. Not just video games in general but, specifically, games like this, and we’re highly under-represented in this kind of media. I want people to know that they’re not alone and that there are people like me creating programs where everyone is represented. I’m out here, and this game is for you. PGN: I understand that the gaming world can be very misogynistic, have you experienced that yet? Or are you cocooned in the bubble of Moore where it is predominantly female. CC: Well, they definitely emphasize that once we leave the hard walls of this institution that we will be facing a lot of misogyny and prejudice, especially, for me, as a black, queer person. I’ve had to deal Internet trolls, but I’m a positive person. I don’t know why people waste their time; if you don’t have something nice to say, just leave it alone. Or I’ll get, “That was pretty nice… for a black woman” and you want to say, “You know you could have stopped at ‘that was pretty nice.’ But my mom always told me to use the negative to make myself stronger, and I feel like this is our time. PGN: What’s your dream job? CC: I’d like to produce my own game. I have a good start with this game. I’m planning to do a kick-starter soon, so I can hire musicians and sound effects’ people and other artists, etc.

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

the computer? CC: Recently I’ve gotten into needle felting. I really enjoy it, and I enjoy cooking. I get that from my mom. PGN: When did you last cry in front of someone? CC: About a week ago with my best friend. We were both having a good cry about life in general. PGN: What’s your favorite food your mom makes? CC: Her brownies. They’re the bomb dot com! I don’t know what she does but no others compare. PGN: An award that made you proud? CC: Just last night I was told that I am the recipient of the Happy Fernandez Leadership Award. That’s pretty great. Not only do I get a grant, but I also get to speak at graduation. PGN: That’s fantastic! I was in a celebrity basketball game with her once. What three celebs would you like to see as animated super heroes? CC: Janelle Monáe, for sure, Lizzo, and then … Willow Smith. PGN: What movie could you watch over and over? CC: There are two. One of them I’m going to see again tonight: “Into the Spiderverse.” I paid to see it in the theater three times, and I’ve seen it many times since. The other is more of a classic, “Howl’s Moving Castle.” It’s an animated film from 2004. PGN: You seem like such a calm, collected person. What makes you lose your temper? CC:[Laughing] Because I have so many siblings, I’m a really patient person. It takes a lot. I’d say repetitive offenses. But even then I’d have to be really fatigued to lose my temper. I tend to let things go. I realize that no one’s perfect and mistakes happen. If something or someone doesn’t work out, then I let it be. I’m not the type to try to force things. PGN: What’s your astrological sign? CC: I’m a Taurus.

PGN: Wow, I didn’t realize all that goes into it. CC: Yeah, everything from sound effects for when people are walking or knocking on a door or whatever sounds are needed; all the different backgrounds; all the user-interface buttons; graphic designers for the fonts and logos; music, and you need to make sure everything is aligned and works together.

PGN: Ah! I knew I liked you. Me too. They say that our entire lives we only get truly mad a handful of times, but if we do, look out. That’s when the raging bull comes. I think the last time I got truly mad was about 20 years ago, and I almost got arrested. CC: Oh no! It’s true though; if you manage to get us mad, look out!

PGN: What’s the farthest you’ve traveled? CC: [Laughing] Not very far, probably Florida. PGN: What do you like to do away from

PGN: In the meantime, we’ll look out for the “Ordinary Life” kick-starter coming soon. CC: Now that would make me happy! ■

Q Puzzle There’s Something About Marrying Across

1 “Hairspray” composer Shaiman 5 Twinkle in your partner’s eye 10 Visit Barneys, e.g. 14 Person with a PC 15 Two to one, for one 16 Scroll for the cut 17 Circumcision or baptism 18 Gussy up 19 Prefix with science 20 Start of a question in “There’s Something About Marrying” 22 More of the question 24 Ten-incher, for example 25 Tips off 26 Kind of straight, in poker. 30 End of the question 34 Be intense like a queen 36 Rear on board 37 Bone of John the Baptist, e.g. 40 Nuts 41 On-line locales 43 Airline to Ben Gurion 44 He cared for

Samuel 45 Comic Lea 47 The I’s have it 48 Emulates Isadora Duncan 50 Seasonal serving 52 Cartoon series of the episode “There’s Something About Marrying” 56 Ryan of porn 58 German sub 59 “Lions and tigers and bears, ___!” 62 Matching notes for Rorem? 63 Head-oriented group 64 Secure with lines 65 Pain suppressed by Schumacher? 66 Chat room request 67 Flock females

Down

1 Many a painting by Frida’s Diego 2 Broadway whisper 3 Change labels 4 Thick liqueur 5 Will Geer’s role on “The Waltons” 6 Cheryl of “Charlie’s Angels” 7 War zone, in brief 8 Opera singers put them on? 9 Yves, but not YSL 10 Pilot’s place 11 Character who married some gay couples and asked the question

12 Phrase from Ripley 13 Two queens, and others 21 Start of a Sappho title, perhaps 23 Kind of statesman 27 Response to an online personal, perhaps 28 1993 treaty acronym 29 Pass the threshold 30 Fruity kind of computer? 31 Latin I word 32 Urvashi has one 33 Degeneres program, for short, with “The” 34 Hauled ass 35 Marlene Dietrich role in “Blue Angel” 38 “Otello” villain

39 Drain trouble 41 “Mississippi Sissy” author Kevin 42 Breaks for Almodovar 45 Report card blemish 46 “Fourscore and seven years ___...” 49 “Boys Don’t Cry” actress Sevigny 51 Fairy story figure 53 “Suuure!” 54 “Tales of the City” character 55 Time gone by 56 Part of a Stein line 57 “The Times of Harvey Milk”, for short 60 He comes between Larry and Curly 61 Periods that last 525,600 min.

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

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OVEMENT DIRECTORY PGN

Classifieds All real-estate advertising is subject to Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act), as amended. Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act), as amended, prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of dwellings, and in other housing-related transactions, based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status (including children under the age of 18 living with parents or legal custodians, pregnant women, and people securing custody of children under the age of 18), and handicap (disability). PGN will not knowingly accept any realestate advertising that is in violation of any applicable law.

PGN does not accept advertising that is unlawful, false, misleading, harmful, threatening, abusive, invasive of another’s privacy, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful or racially or otherwise objectionable, including without limitation material of any kind or nature that encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, provincial, national or international law or regulation, or encourage the use of controlled substances.

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

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Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com May 3-9, 2019

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