Cannabis co. forming
Sci-fi writing program
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'PrEP Play' at NCTC
ARTS
8
ARTS
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SF Filmfest faves
The
www.ebar.com
Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971
Vol. 52 • No.16 • April 21-27, 2022
Courtesy CA Assembly
Christopher Robledo
Several LGBTQ-related bills are being heard in Sacramento.
Assemblymember-elect Matt Haney
Haney wins big in Assembly race
Trans issues top CA LGBTQ legislative push
by Matthew S. Bajko
by Matthew S. Bajko
D
istrict 6 Supervisor Matt Haney declared victory Tuesday in the special runoff election for San Francisco’s vacant 17th Assembly District seat based on the initial vote count. Trailing in second was David Campos, a gay man who is a vice chair of the California Democratic Party. Haney took first place with 64% of the vote-by-mail ballots that the elections department received and processed before Election Day, while Campos received 36%. With 3,306 votes received from polling places where people cast their ballots in person Tuesday added in, Haney’s total vote count stood at 38,916 votes and Campos’ was at 22,567 votes. Because most ballots were expected to be mailed in ahead of Election Day, Haney thanked voters for electing him to the Assembly seat representing the city’s eastern neighborhoods as soon as the first election results were posted. “First results are out: We’re up by over 27 points. We won,” tweeted Haney. “Thank you so much to San Francisco voters, & to all of our staff, volunteers, donors, endorsers, & everyone who worked so hard over the last 6 months.” Campos told his supporters as the first numbers came in that “it doesn’t seem like we are going to be able to win this race.” According to the elections department it still has approximately 16,400 ballots to count and expected to receive approximately 2,700 vote-by-mail ballots on Wednesday. It will next update the vote count in the race at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 21. The progressive politicians were the top two finishers who advanced out of the February 15 election to fill the seat vacated by David Chiu, who in November became San Francisco’s first Asian American city attorney. In that contest Haney had also placed first, though by a narrower margin of about 700 votes. They have also both qualified for the June 7 primary race for a full two-year term in See page 10 >>
Sisters’ Easter party a hit
T
he Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence brought their Easter party back to Mission Dolores Park Sunday, April 17, for the first time since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic and the crowd was thrilled. This year’s Hunky Jesus was “Black Woman is God” (Brittany Henry) and the Foxy Mary, at far left, was “Transgender Maria de Guadalupe”
Gooch
(Shane Zaldivar). The day before, nearly two-dozen Sisters gathered at Alert Alley, between Dolores and Landers streets, for the commemorative street renaming of the alley to Sister Vish-Knew Way, after Sisters co-founder Sister Vish-Knew, aka Kenneth Bunch. For more on that, see story, page 6.
C
alifornia legislators are once again pushing forward on a number of bills aimed at improving the lives of the state’s transgender and nonbinary residents. And due to the legislative attacks on trans children in several other states, lawmakers in Sacramento are also focused on assisting those youth and their parents who are trying to access genderaffirming health care. See page 7 >>
Crego tapped as permanent ED of San Francisco’s trans office by Cynthia Laird
M
ayor London Breed has made it official and appointed Pau Crego as the permanent executive director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives. Crego, a trans and nonbinary Spanish immigrant, had been serving as acting executive director since Clair Farley, a trans woman who headed the department since 2017, stepped down last September after leading the office for four years. Breed and City Administrator Carmen Chu made the announcement April 21. The office was established by the late mayor Ed Lee in June 2016 with Theresa Sparks as its inaugural director. It marked the first time a mayor in the nation had a senior director of trans initiatives, Lee’s office stated at the time. (Santa Clara County’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs was started in 2015, and there are similar offices in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.) In a phone interview April 19, Crego, who started at the trans office in 2017 and rose to deputy director before taking over on an interim basis, said he was honored by the appointment. “I’m thrilled,” he said. “I’ve been with the Office of Transgender Initiatives almost since the beginning. It’s an exciting opportunity for me and the trans community locally.”
Courtesy Pau Crego
Pau Crego is the new executive director for the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives.
Breed stated that Crego’s experience will be an asset to the department. “I am proud to officially name Pau Crego as the new executive director of the Office of Transgender Initiatives,” she stated in a news release. “For years, Pau has led critical and effective initiatives that have served some of our city’s most vulnerable trans and LGBT residents. His experience and connection to the community will help build on the instrumental work of this office.” Chu stated that Crego has been “founda-
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tional to the office’s efforts to promote safety and inclusion for trans and gender-nonconforming people, creating a model for other local governments to follow.” Crego, 34, said that one of his first priorities will be to staff up the office. Currently, there are only three staff members, including him, and one is leaving at the end of the month, he said. Crego said that he wants to take this opportunity to restructure some of the job duties as new staff come on board. “Right now we’re very understaffed,” he said. Another immediate goal for Crego is to “deepen some of the trust our office has had” by meeting with community organizations and individual trans leaders “to make sure I’m available as the new director,” he added. In his role as deputy director at the office, Crego advanced the launch and development of some of its most notable initiatives, the mayor’s office stated. These include increasing funding for transgender and LGBTQ community services in the areas of housing, health care, arts and culture, violence prevention, and leadership and economic development. The office also worked to ensure that the city’s COVID response included efforts to focus on LGBTQ people, particularly housing vulnerable queer people in shelter-in-place hotels during the pandemic. See page 10 >>