Trans confab seeks funds
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Getting your body In-Symmetry
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ARTS
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Big dance week
The
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Vol. 44 • No. 15 • April 10-16, 2014
Isolation Pride announces grand marshals hampers seniors’ well-being by Matthew S. Bajko
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walk through Manhattan’s gay Chelsea district is no longer as enjoyable for Charles Cole as it once was. Many of his longtime neighborhood haunts, from gay bars and hangouts to gaySAGE/Martha Gorfein catering businesses, have closed as the SAGE volunteer Charles Cole area’s LGBT population moves to other sections of New York City. And at the age of 64, the gay single New Yorker can sense the younger men who remain don’t acknowledge him when he does venture out. “One of the things I do notice when I am out in the real world ... since I am an older gay man I can be invisible to a lot of people. I can walk down the street and other gay men that are younger than I am don’t even see me,” Cole said. “Definitely, I felt isolated.” Four years ago, while attending a job fair at New York City’s LGBT community center, Cole overheard talk about computer classes offered by SAGE, short for Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders, and enrolled. Although he knew about the agency, Cole didn’t see himself as a senior citizen and had never sought out its services. “I don’t know why, I definitely was. I laugh now when I think about it,” he recalled. “When I came through the doors here the very first time, I thought for the first time I was somewhere where being an older gay man wasn’t going to automatically be two strikes against me.” Today, Cole volunteers at the SAGE Center, a community center for LGBT seniors that opened in 2012, where he works as a receptionist and programs a popular movie night. Instead of eating a TV dinner alone at home, Cole now often eats at the center, breaking bread nightly with other LGBT seniors and SAGE staffers. “I like to say that I came here to get some computer classes and I found a community and I found a home,” said Cole. Yet many LGBT older adults are lacking the social bonds and connections that Cole has formed through the center. Various research studies have found that LGBT seniors are vulnerable to being socially isolated, which can hamper their well-being and elevate their risk for depression, anxiety and other maladies. “LGBT elders don’t feel like they fit in to See page 13 >>
Jo-Lynn Otto
Jewlyes Gutierrez
Courtesy SF Pride
Tommi Avicolli Mecca
by Seth Hemmelgarn
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ransgender people, a longtime queer housing activist, and a lesbian global rights advocate are the grand marshals announced so far for this year’s San Francisco LGBT Pride parade and celebration. Jewlyes Gutierrez, a transgender teen who gained attention after defending herself in a schoolyard fight, and organizers of the local Trans March, which annually draws thousands of trans people and supporters, have been selected by public vote to be honored at this year’s festivities, which are set for June 28-29. Pride organizers announced those honorees Monday, April 7. The rest were announced Tuesday Other grand marshals include housing ac-
Courtesy SF Pride
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
tivist Tommi Avicolli Mecca, who was selected by Pride membership. The board chose transgender activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and global rights activist Melanie Nathan as grand marshals, and poet Judy Grahn as the lifetime achievement grand marshal. Neither GriffinGracy nor Grahn had formally accepted their selections as of Wednesday morning, according to Pride board Vice President Marsha Levine. Nathan said earlier this year when she was nominated, “I hope that it will help bring more attention to the international LGBT issues our community should be more cognizant of, especially in Africa.” The public also selected anti-gay pastor Scott Lively to receive the pink brick “award.” Each year, the pink brick goes to a group or
Courtesy SF Pride
Melanie Nathan
individual who’s hurt the LGBT community. Lively, the anti-gay U.S. activist who was a leader behind Uganda’s Kill the Gays bill, beat out nominees including Russian President Vladimir Putin, who’s been cracking down on homosexuality in his country, for the Pride distinction. Levine said that almost 6,900 people placed their votes from late February to mid-March, which she estimated is more than double the number of people who voted last year. In the non-voting category, Pride officials announced that TV personality Ross Mathews would be among the celebrity grand marshals at this year’s Pride. See page 14 >>
LYRIC marks 25 years of helping youth
by Seth Hemmelgarn
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s a San Francisco nonprofit that helps youth get into housing and jobs marks its 25th anniversary, its executive director said that many of the people her agency works with annually face the same economic challenges as adults in the Bay Area. Asked about the biggest need for participants, Jodi Schwartz, who heads Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center, said, “Housing is really at the top of the list,” along with employment, and health and wellness, particularly mental health. Schwartz referred to these areas, all of which the center provides assistance with, as “the three legs of the stool.” “If any one of those things isn’t being supported, the lives of our young people are off balance,” she said. In the 2012-13 fiscal year, the agency provided direct services to 1,254 people. Just over half of them were 17 or younger, while the rest were 18 to 24. Most of the clients were “extremely low income,” according to LYRIC. The center recently has been one of the organizations placing youth in a new South of Market neighborhood housing site. Even with that space, however, there continues to be a strong lack of housing for youth. “We got five young people into this permanent housing site specifically for transition-age youth,” Schwartz, who’s been at the nonprofit for more than eight years, said. She couldn’t
Courtesy LYRIC
LYRIC supporters held signs at a press conference outside San Francisco City Hall last year when they released an evaluation brief on their successful School-Based Initiative.
remember another new housing site for that demographic opening “the entire time I’ve worked at LYRIC. This is the first time, and we’re talking about five.” The nonprofit hires more than 100 young people a year, where they spend time “learning how to work.” That includes practicing skills that may seem obvious: “showing up, filling out a time sheet, [and] working on projects,” said Schwartz. “A lot of these young people just don’t have
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any of those basic skills or anyone in their lives who can help them get those skills,” she said. She pointed to a sector that’s provided benefits for some in the city when she said, “While we have this growing tech field in our community, the level of expertise that those jobs demand, our young people are not ready for.”
Complex issues
“Overall,” said Schwartz, since LYRIC began See page 12 >>