April 7th, 2022 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter, America's LGBTQ newspaper

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Vol. 52 • No. 14 • April 7-13, 2022

Rick Gerharter

Pride groups grapple with police in parades Wilson campaign

New Assemblywoman Lori Wilson

Mother of trans son elected to CA Assembly seat

The San Francisco Police Department’s rainbow-decorated patrol car made an appearance in the 2019 San Francisco LGBT Pride parade.

by Matthew S. Bajko

by Eric Burkett

T

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s San Francisco Pride looks to enforce for the first time its ban on police marching in uniform when the inperson event returns in June, other cities are also grappling with the issue.

San Francisco Pride in September 2020 announced that the members of the Pride Alliance of the San Francisco Police Department would not be allowed to march in uni-

form going forward, as the Bay Area Reporter noted at the time. The 2021 Pride parade was canceled due to the COVID pandemic, meaning this year’s event will be the first where the policy will be implemented.

Police officers would be allowed to march out of uniform, according to SF Pride’s policy.

In Southern California, a meeting held at St. Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego March 23 underscores the challenges Pride organizations around the country are facing when it

comes to whether or not they will allow uniformed police officers to participate in their annual parades.

At that meeting, organized by San Diego Pride’s Healing and Safer Communities Commission, LGBTQ bar and business owners; members of the LGBTQ Black Coalition; transgender and Black, Indigenous, and people of color activists; community activists and leaders; and “a top gay FBI agent” gathered at St. Paul’s to discuss San Diego Pride’s See page 14 >>

Suspect in 1st Castro Theatre burglary accused of 2nd break-in days later

by Eric Burkett

I

n an apparent encore performance, a man arrested for suspicion of breaking into the Castro Theatre March 29 was arrested again, April 1, for allegedly breaking into the historic movie palace days later, authorities said.

Gary Marx, 38, was taken into custody just before 5 p.m. Friday, a normally busy time in the Castro, after police were “flagged down at the scene by a witness who pointed out the male who was trying to break in,” according to a news release from the San Francisco Police Department.

Marx was one of three men arrested earlier in the week for allegedly breaking into the historic cinema. Along with Nicholas Degrego, 25, and Jason Kilbourne, 32, Marx was apprehended inside the cinema March 29 after one of them was spotted by SFPD officers on routine patrol around 6:30 a.m.

Kilbourne is still being held on a $30,000 bond and is next expected to appear in court April 12.

Degrego was released into assertive case management shortly after his arrest. Marx was released into assertive case management in both incidents, said Robyn Burke, a spokesper-

Scott Wazlowski

San Francisco police said that a suspect from a March 29 break-in at the Castro Theatre was arrested April 1 after allegedly burglarizing it again.

son with the San Francisco District Attorney’s office. He was expected to face arraignment April 5, as well, for his earlier arrest.

Marx is being charged with second-degree burglary, possession of burglary tools, and

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vandalism of more than $400, according to Burke. Marx is scheduled to be arraigned April 7, according to the San Francisco Public Defender’s office, which is representing him.

See page 14 >>

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he California Legislature now has its first parent of a transgender child. Suisun City Mayor Lori Wilson easily won election Tuesday to the open 11th Assembly District seat that straddles Solano and Contra Costa counties.

Wilson who, with her husband, has a transgender son in college, took her oath of office Wednesday morning. As her name was the only one on the ballot for the April 5 special election, Wilson garnered 26,293 votes or 100% of those reported as of Wednesday morning.

“Thank you to the voters of Assembly District 11 for your confidence and trust. I am deeply humbled and grateful to have the opportunity to serve our communities in the state Assembly,” stated Wilson, who participated in her last City Council meeting Tuesday night. “From constituents who need help with state services, to challenges like rising homelessness, climate change, and keeping our neighborhoods and communities safe, I promise to work every day to deliver results for our communities, and to be a relentless advocate for every person who lives in our district.”

She is serving out the term through December of Democratic former assemblymember Jim Frazier, who resigned in order to seek work in the transportation field. Wilson is favored to win the contest in November for a full two-year term in the Legislature’s lower chamber.

Due to redistricting the Assembly district is losing most of its areas in Contra Costa County other than Oakley and gaining all of Solano County. Because the filing deadline for the June 7 primary has already passed, Wilson will not be listed as the incumbent assemblymember but instead as “mayor/finance director.”

As the Bay Area Reporter’s Political Notebook reported [https://www.ebar.com/news/ news//314257] last week, there has yet to be a state legislator serving in Sacramento whose child is transgender or nonbinary. Wilson’s election comes as the rights of trans people, particularly youth, are under attack across the country.

The opposite is true in California, where bills are pending in Sacramento to improve trans people’s access to health care in the Golden See page 15 >>

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<< National News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13, 2022

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Prop 8 proponents appeal tape release to high court

by John Ferrannini

P

roponents of the overturned Proposition 8 have appealed a decision to release tapes of the 2010 San Francisco federal trial that first struck down California’s same-sex marriage ban to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The appeal was filed March 30.

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision November 18 that the tapes could be released to the public.

KQED-TV, the Bay Area affiliate of the Public Broadcasting System, has been fighting for access to the tapes for documentary purposes.

Thomas Burke, an attorney for KQED-TV, stated to the B.A.R. that “one hopes that this second trip to the U.S. Supreme Court is the final stop in this odyssey.

After over a decade of sealing, it is long overdue for the video recordings of this historic federal trial to be public.”

The Prop 8 case, known as Hollingsworth v. Perry, first went to the high court back in 2012 after proponents appealed federal Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling that the initiative was unconstitutional. The 9th Circuit upheld Walker’s ruling. The justices let Walker’s ruling stand, ushering in same-sex marriage in the Golden State in 2013.

Proponents for Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban that was ruled unconstitutional, have appealed release of the tapes in the federal trial to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Charles J. Cooper, the attorney for the proponents, did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.

The saga over the tapes has lasted longer than the court fights over Prop 8 – the same-sex marriage ban approved by Golden State voters in 2008 – itself.

Judge William A. Fletcher of the 9th Circuit ruled in November that proponents of Prop 8, who’d wanted the tapes to remain under seal, failed to show suffi-

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cient injury. They had appealed a July 9, 2020 decision by Judge William H. Orrick of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordering the release of the tapes.

The 9th Circuit found that the Prop 8 proponents hadn’t proved they’d be victims of harassment or intimidation, and that Walker’s statements shouldn’t be read as a perpetual promise.

The root of the saga over the tapes began in 2010. The consti-

tutionality of Prop 8 was challenged in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the federal lawsuit that appeared in Walker’s court.

The idea was floated about televising the trial, which attracted national public interest, in other courthouses. The California Supreme Court issued a stay of the proposed broadcast, but Walker continued to tape the proceedings in case the stay was lifted.

Subsequently, Walker stated that the tapes were being made in or-

der to aid in his consideration of the testimony and evidence during the trial, saying at the time “it’s not going to be for purposes of public broadcasting or televising.”

Walker, a federal judge appointed by former President George H.W. Bush, ruled that Prop 8 was indeed unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Walker’s ruling could go into effect, two years before the nation’s highest court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges. Walker came out as gay after his ruling and retired from the bench in 2012.

The Northern District of California placed the tapes under a 10-year seal in accordance with its rules. Trial transcripts, however, formed the basis of both a stage production and a network television docuseries.

That seal expired in 2020. Prop 8 proponents sued to stop the release of the tapes, alleging that they may be subject to harassment or intimidation as a result, and that releasing the tapes ever would be a violation of Walker’s statement they’d not be used for broadcast. Last summer, Orrick ruled that the tapes should be released, but the proponents appealed to the 9th Circuit, which kept the tapes sealed while it could consider the case. t

Gender-neutral US passports available soon Michael K. Lavers, Washington Blade

U

.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced passports with an “X” gender marker will be available beginning Monday, April 11.

Blinken last June announced the State Department will allow passport applicants to “self-select their gender as ‘M’ or ‘F’” Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym last October received the first gender-neutral American passport.

Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund represented Zzyym.

“When Dana Zzyym first embarked on their journey to get the country they fought for to recognize them as the person they truly are on their passport, they weren’t just fighting for themselves, they were always fighting for all intersex, transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people,” stated Avatara Smith-Carrington, staff attorney at Lambda Legal.

“This moment is, in large part, the culmination of Dana and Lambda Legal’s relentless activism, demanding the federal government recognize all people – regardless of the gender binary – as valid and worthy of recognition and respect.

I want to applaud the president and his administration for the thoughtful declaration of support for our community, but most importantly, I want to thank them for backing up their words with meaningful actions that will help so many. Words are great, but actions are better.”

Blinken made the announce-

Stock photo via Washington Blade

People will be able to select “X” as a gender marker on U.S. passports beginning April 11.

ment on March 31, which was Transgender Day of Visibility.

“The Department of State has reached another milestone in our work to better serve all U.S. citizens, regardless of their gender identity,” Blinken stated. “In June, I announced that U.S. passport applicants could self-select their gender and were no longer required to submit any medical documentation, even if their selected gender differed from their other citizenship or identity documents.

“Starting on April 11, U.S. citizens will be able to select an ‘X’ as their gender marker on their U.S. passport application, and the option will become available for other forms of documentation next year,” he added.

According to Lambda Legal, the Biden-Harris administration also made other announcements timed with trans visibility day.

These include actions that will decrease the harassment transgender, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people experience in the Transportation Security Administration process when traveling, eliminating the requirement that transgender people prove their gender when changing gender markers with the Social Security Administration, new resources for transgender youth and their families, improved access to federal services and benefits for TGNCNB people, advances in inclusion and visibility in federal data, and further formal recognition of the clinical evidence supporting evidence-based care for LGBTQ youth by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the news release stated.

For information on all actions taken by the Biden-Harris administration, go to https://bit. ly/3715Oprt

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<< Community News

4 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13, 2022

t

Accusations fly between Jones and landlord

by John Ferrannini

L

ongtime gay activist Cleve Jones has decided that, actually, he’d like to fight his new landlord who wants to see him leave his Castro neighborhood home.

As the Bay Area Reporter reported (https://www.ebar.com/ news/latest_news//314112) March 24, Jones initially decided to leave the Castro due to a tense dispute he’s having with Lily Li Pao Kue, the new owner of the building he’s been renting a rent-controlled unit in for several years.

Kue alleged Jones bringing Brenden Chadwick to live with him was against the lease. (Subsequently, Kue said she alleges Chadwick lives alone while Jones lives in Guerneville.) Jones said that doesn’t matter due to San Francisco rent laws. Kue then alleged Jones’ primary residence is in Guerneville, where he bought what he describes as a “very small cottage, under 1,000 square feet.” Jones alleges that Kue is trying to push him out of the Castro unit so she can put it up on Airbnb.

Through Jones, Chadwick declined to comment.

Kue has cameras trained on Jones’ front porch area, both agree, and is doing construction upstairs.

Jones, who said he is drawing attention to his situation to shine a light on what he considers abusive behavior by landlords, told the B.A.R. that he decided that actually he’d like to stay and fight because it’d be hypocritical not to.

“I was packing when Brenden and I decided we weren’t going to fight it,” Jones said. “I felt a great sense of relief – for about two hours.

Then, I felt angry and ashamed.”

Jones said many friends and supporters said they understood why he didn’t want to fight Kue at the San

Jane Philomen Cleland

Cleve Jones, second from left, leads a chant during a March 27 rally at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro.

Assembly candidate David Campos is at right.

Francisco Rent Board.

“Then I got a copy of the petition she filed with the rent board,” Jones said. “It was so full of lies and misrepresentations that I couldn’t believe it.”

Jones was talking with Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a queer housing rights activist, when he made the fateful decision to flip the script.

“Tommi can be really persistent,” Jones said. “And, he can be a pain in the ass. As we were putting together the rally – which wasn’t to save Cleve, it was to say here’s this guy with unearned advantages of race and gender and legal advice and political connections who can’t stay in his home – he called me and said, ‘We need to talk about messaging’ and he said ‘It’s all about defeat.’

I thought, ‘Well that hurts,’ and he told me about a woman named Ali-

son who keeps getting evicted and as he’s telling me this story I thought ‘how can I tell people to stand up and fight if I can’t.’”

Jones, who worked with the late Supervisor Harvey Milk in the 1970s and co-founded the AIDS Memorial Quilt, said, “people expect better of me.”

“I expect better of me. Brenden expects better of me,” Jones said.

“So, I’m going to fight it.”

Jones said he thinks he’ll win if his case goes before the San Francisco Rent Board but that Kue “always has the option of an owner move-in or the Ellis Act.” The Ellis Act, signed into law by then-Governor George Deukmejian in 1985, prevents municipalities from banning evictions if the property owner decides to go out of business as a landlord.

“The assertion that I’ve vacated the apartment is false and certainly my nextdoor neighbors on both sides [can] testify to that,” Jones said.

Jones held the rally at the famed Castro and Market Street intersection on March 27 to bring attention to renters’ issues. Avicolli Mecca and Alison Wright were among the speakers. Originally there was going to be a march to Jones’ apartment, though this was scrapped.

When contacted by the B.A.R., Avicolli Mecca said, “Cleve and I did discuss” messaging and Wright.

“Alison’s story is amazing. It really is,” Avicolli Mecca said.

At the rally, Avicolli Mecca said he “basically talked about how speculators have been displacing people from the Castro for many years and we need to fight to preserve the Cas-

tro as an LGBT community and as a safe space for LGBT people.”

Avicolli Mecca said that District 8, where the LGBTQ Castro neighborhood is located, is among the hardest for renters to stay in their homes.

“My understanding is that District 8 is one of the hardest hit for no-fault evictions,” Avicolli Mecca said.

Wright, who is pansexual, told the B.A.R. that speaking at the rally was a great experience.

“It was pretty galvanizing to speak from the heart,” she said. “It was really supportive to see all those people and faces.”

Wright said she added, “save our homes” to the ACT-UP chant “Stand up, fight back.”

When asked about her personal story, Wright said she’d “ended up with a speculator for a landlord” who tried to kick her out through four Ellis Act evictions, each of which failed, she said.

“I tell people, you need to stand up for your home,” Wright said.

“It’s something you’re paying for as a customer. You got a 50% chance of winning if you fight it, and a 0% chance if you don’t.”

Kue, who said that she’s been with men and women when asked her sexual orientation by the B.A.R. for the March 24 report, told the B.A.R. that “Cleve was on the fence to leave quietly pre-rally, because he knows his one true principal address in 2021, but decided to stay to save face.”

“This is indeed a fight,” Kue stated. “The SF Rent Board judge will decide. The cops, SF district attorney’s office have been contacted. I respect the law. Will Cleve?”

The date for the rent board hearing has not been set. t

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<< Open Forum

6 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13, 2022

Volume 52, Number 14 April 7-13, 2022 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS & NIGHTLIFE EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • Eric Burkett CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Tavo Amador • Christopher J. Beale Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth Philip Campbell • Heather Cassell John Ferrannini • Michael Flanagan Jim Gladstone • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • Lisa Keen Matthew Kennedy • David Lamble David-Elijah Nahmod • Paul Parish Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith •Sari Staver • Charlie Wagner Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood

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t

We don’t need Jenner’s visibility

O

f course Fox News would announce its hiring of Caitlyn Jenner on Transgender Day of Visibility. The trans former Olympic gold medalist and Republican California gubernatorial candidate in last year’s recall election made her first appearance as a contributor that same evening – March 31 – on her pal Sean Hannity’s program. Jenner, part of the Kardashian clan, is not a spokesperson for the LGBTQ community, and to her credit, she hasn’t claimed to be one.

But her conservative views align with her new employer, and that’s the problem. “Caitlyn’s story is an inspiration to us all,” stated Fox CEO Suzanne Scott in making the announcement. “She is a trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community and her illustrious career spans a variety of fields that will be a tremendous asset for our audience.”

Scott didn’t mince words with that statement – Fox News’ audience no doubt will agree with Jenner, if they can get past the fact that a trans woman is talking to them. Moreover, Jenner’s hiring is just the latest salvo in Fox News’ continued war on trans people, cynically using a conservative trans former athlete to do it.

During last year’s gubernatorial recall, in which Jenner received a scant 1% of the vote, she earned the enmity of LGBTQ advocates with her position on the issue of trans student athletes competing on teams that match their identity, as we reported. (http://www. ebar.com/news/news/308417) “That is why my position has been so clear and consistent: biological boys should not be allowed to participate in girls’ sports. It is a question of fairness,” stated Jenner, who transitioned long after her athletic career had ended. “To be clear, I do believe that athletes that have fully transitioned should be able to participate in sports provided they meet all other eligibility criteria as defined by their state, local, league, conference, or school rules.”

Courtesy AP

Caitlyn Jenner has been hired as a contributor for Fox News.

In a Fox News interview in January, however, she seemed to change her mind, saying that trans Ivy League swimmer Lia Thomas shouldn’t compete with other women, as the Washington Post reported, even as Thomas met eligibility criteria.

She even urged the NCAA to “stop this right now.” The body overseeing collegiate sports didn’t stop, but instead released new rules governing trans athletes. Thomas, for her part, underwent her transition working with NCAA officials. Academic researchers compared Thomas’ times before and after she transitioned, the Post reported, finding she was about 5% slower in her recent races, according to a recently published study. But they also determined that the gap between elite male and female swimmers is 10% to 15% for shorter distance races and 7% to 10% for longer ones. The issue of trans athletes, particularly women, competing on women’s teams is one of the reasons lawmakers in so many states have introduced bills to keep trans girls off of girls’ teams even as research on the issue is not definitive.

Fox News was right there, leading the charge

against Thomas. Media Matters for America, a leftleaning watchdog group, reported in January that the network has “obsessively” covered Thomas.

“From December 3 through January 12, the network aired 32 segments on Thomas’ swim career,” the site reported. “Throughout Fox’s coverage of the story, hosts and guests spewed dehumanizing rhetoric about Thomas and went so far as to assert that ‘this is like everyone has taken a crazy pill and no one wants to admit that this is wrong.’”

The right-wing Washington Examiner, no friend to trans people, reported that Jenner would “love” to talk with Thomas. With her new perch at Fox News, Jenner may get her wish, but Thomas would be wise to decline.

In this era of polarizing politics, the trans community has been under constant attack by conservatives. Florida law will soon prohibit teachers from teaching about LGBTQ issues, while Texas wants trans kids to forego medical care and label their parents as child abusers if they provide medical care in consultation with their child’s doctor.

It’s no wonder the mental health of trans people, especially minors, is a serious concern. Jenner should bone up and focus on the facts. She should use her platform at Fox News to help its viewers understand just why these draconian laws are so harmful – and talk with people who have a deep understanding of LGBTQ youth and mental health issues, like those at the Trevor Project. That would involve Jenner stepping outside of her comfort zone of the wealthy and privileged in which she lives, and in which most trans people, particularly trans people of color, do not.

We’re not optimistic, however, that Jenner will use her new TV gig for anything other than to harm the trans community and feed a steady diet of red meat to her red state audience. And that’s a shame. Instead of pandering to fellow conservatives, Jenner could help rewrite the narrative and flip the script that Fox News has used for so many years - but don’t count on it. t

The other days

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

I

n 2009, feeling a need for an event to balance the Transgender Day of Remembrance, the inaugural Transgender Day of Visibility was held. The event was held this year on March 31 and provides a way to celebrate living transgender people. (The remembrance event, which was started by yours truly in 1999, is meant to recognize trans people lost to violence, though many places also honor those lost to AIDS and other diseases.)

The visibility event has grown, including being officially recognized by President Joe Biden for the first time this year. Indeed, the executive branch took the opportunity to roll out a number of trans- and nonbinary-related policies, including allowing for “X” gender markers for United States passports beginning April 11. (https://www.ebar.com/news/ latest_news/314295) These are good things that I should feel happy about. And yet, on a day of visibility, I felt as if I’d rather get a day to be invisible.

I feel the need to put a caveat into this piece.

I know that my own involvement with Transgender Day of Remembrance might make this sound like I’m bitter about the attention paid to the Transgender Day of Visibility, or that there’s some feud between the two.

Far be this from the truth.

This year we are dealing with hundreds of anti-transgender bills being introduced in statehouses across the country. These bills will deny us from participating in sports at school, deny us from using appropriate restroom facilities, deny us from getting medical care, deny us from reading and learning about trans people like ourselves, and even deny us our very families.

Of course, this has already started to reverberate at the federal level, with Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) threatening a national version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill should the GOP return to power. (Right now, the Democrats control the House and Senate, albeit by slim majorities, and, of course, the White House.) The Florida bill, which Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed March 28, is titled “Parental Rights in Education” and will not allow public school classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3, while “age-appropriate” teaching would be allowed in older grades – though it is not clear what is

Christine Smith

considered “age-appropriate.” The bill would also allow parents to sue schools or teachers who violate the legislation. It goes into effect July 1.

Meanwhile, transgender people, either generally or specifically, are being attacked every day. Athletes like Lia Thomas, a collegiate swimmer, are being accused of having an advantage when they win and of “sandbagging” when they lose. We’re incorrectly called “groomers” in order to whip up fears of pedophilia and trafficking. We’re even referred to as a “contagion,” as if we were something to be eradicated.

In short, we are most definitely visible to our opponents. It feels like we’re wearing an archery target every day of the year and, every day, it’s one more wound.

Meanwhile, our allies – such as they are – are making nice statements and posting trans Pride flags on their Twitter feeds.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what they’re doing, but instead of something concrete that can help fight back against the hatred, we tend to get a day with trans-flag draped sentiments, liberally coated in treacle.

What’s more, those who stand against us will claim that these milquetoast statements will somehow show how powerful the transgender community is, how oppressed they are, and how they must valiantly stand against it all.

I’m very glad for the changes that the Biden administration has put in place, both on Trans Visibility Day and before that. At the same time, the Obama administration made similar strides years ago, only to see the Trump administration strip those away. Without actual law, passed by Congress, these changes are

only as secure as there is an administration in place that cares to press for them.

I probably don’t need to note that, even with laws in place, they will need to be defended, and likely more than a few times. Just look at Roe v. Wade for an example of that. Or, at least while it still exists.

We live in a precarious time, and I’m honestly not sure how this will all play out. While I remain hopeful, I am also very wary. More than that, I’m very tired. A lot of us are.

I want to go back to the roots of the Transgender Day of Visibility. I want to think of this beyond what it seems to be becoming in some circles. I want this to be a time to celebrate ourselves, not a time for well-meaning allies – and corporations eager to sell trans colored cookies and such – to pander to the fairly scant transgender dollar.

Right now, it feels as if the two days on our trans calendar are a day focused on our deaths, and a day where we are asking to be seen. I want something more.

For many of us, we choose to be visible every day of the year. I choose to stand up, in the hope that others may feel they, too, can be seen. I know I am nowhere alone in that.

That is the sort of visibility I want to see in this world. That is the sort of visibility that is vital to our continued existence. It means a lot more to me than some nice words on a social media site, particularly from companies that may not ever speak of trans issues – or hire transgender people.

To my community, I wish a time when we can join again in the sun, in joy. To dance and sing together. To feel free. I want to wish a happy Transgender Day of Vitality: a time when we can just live our best lives.

Maybe that is it. Maybe we need more days on our calendars: I want a trans day of community, of kinship, and of comradeship.

I want a trans day of sanctuary, of safety, and of security.

I want a trans day of jubilation, of joy, and of happiness.

This year, however, I’d probably settle for a trans day of leaving us the hell alone. t Gwen Smith wonders who would be on the transgender dollar. You’ll find her at www. gwensmith.com

April 7-13, 2022 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

Lesbian Oregon US House candidate McLeod-Skinner seeks Bay Area support

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head of her state’s Democratic Party primary May 17, Oregon U.S. House candidate Jamie McLeodSkinner is swinging through the Bay Area this weekend to attend several fundraisers for her campaign. The first lesbian to serve on the Santa Clara City Council, McLeod-Skinner would be the first lesbian elected to Congress from the West Coast.

She would also be the first LGBTQ House member from the Beaver State should she win her race for the newly drawn 5th Congressional District in Oregon. She is in a tough primary campaign against incumbent Congressmember Kurt Schrader (D-Canby), a moderate Democrat whom she has criticized as being too conservative.

“Our momentum has been really good,” McLeod-Skinner told the Bay Area Reporter in a recent phone interview about her campaign.

In recent weeks local Democratic Party committees in the counties of Linn, Deschutes, Marion, and Clackamas, where Schrader lives, have endorsed McLeod-Skinner in the primary race.

While the LGBTQ Victory Fund has yet to endorse her candidacy, McLeod-Skinner has the support LINK: http://jamiefororegon.com/ endorsements/ of LPAC, which works to elect out women across the country, and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts). Our Revolution, the progressive political group aligned with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (IVermont), is also backing her bid.

In a recent email to its members, the group noted, “Jamie has a real shot to remove one of the biggest roadblocks to progress in Congress.”

While Schrader, 70, a farmer who had worked as a veterinarian for more than 30 years before entering Congress, doesn’t list his endorsements on his campaign website, LINK: https:// kurtschrader.com/ he has been touting the support he has received via his Twitter profile. LINK: https://twitter. com/voteschrader Among the groups endorsing him are the Oregon State Fire Fighters Council and the Oregon Nurseries’ PAC. McLeod-Skinner, 54, will be receiving an assist this weekend from various political leaders and friends of hers in the Bay Area. She served for eight years on the South Bay City Council in the 2000s.

In addition to several private fundraisers in the East Bay and in Silicon Valley hosted by friends of hers, McLeod-Skinner is holding a public event from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 9, at the Backyard Bayou Cajun seafood restaurant in San Jose. Among the co-hosts are San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, former San Jose Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen, Santa Clara County Supervisor Otto Lee, and former supervisors Rod Diridon Sr., and Ken Yeager, a gay man who is the only LGBTQ person to have served on the countywide board.

“She left a real imprint on LGBTQ rights in the city of Santa Clara. We have missed her since she went to Oregon,” said Yeager, executive director of the BAYMEC Community Foundation. “I am really very excited about the prospects of her winning a seat in Congress and how wonderful that is going to be to have another lesbian elected to Congress.”

McLeod-Skinner is the second outof-state LGBTQ candidate to descend on the Bay Area this week in order to fundraise for their campaign. As the B.A.R.’s online Political Notes column reported Monday, April 4, Jim Obergefell is kicking off his efforts to

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Courtesy McLeod-Skinner campaign

Oregon congressional candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner will be in the Bay Area fundraising this weekend.

raise funds for his Ohio statehouse bid this year with an April 6 fundraiser in San Francisco’s LGBTQ Castro district.

The Buckeye State native has long had ties to the region due to his involvement in wine label Equality Wines, which has a downtown tasting room in the LGBTQ vacation destination of Guerneville. Obergefell gained national stature being the lead plaintiff in the federal court case that secured same-sex marriage rights in 2015. He is now trying to oust from office Republican Ohio State Representative D.J. Swearingen.

With candidates from out-of-state often criticized for fundraising in the liberal Bay Area, McLeod-Skinner said she has no qualms about returning to the region she called home to seek support for her campaign coffers.

“We are looking forward to it. I am really excited about it,” she said. “It will be great to reconnect with folks in the Bay Area.”

Her campaign has been aggressive in courting donors, emailing backers last month with a goal of raising another $26,000

by March 31. According to the website Open Secrets, McLeod-Skinner has so far reported raising $231,446. Meanwhile, it reported that Schrader has raised more than $1.4 million for his campaign.

Expected to attend her various local fundraisers, including private ones in Santa Clara and Oakland, are friends McLeod-Skinner met through her government work, business ties, and classmates from the law school at the University of Oregon, where she graduated in 2016, who now reside in the Bay Area.

They are people, she said, “who know me and know my work and just want to invest in good governance, and also environmental protections, and support all the work I have done for years in the Bay Area and here in Oregon.”

This is McLeod-Skinner’s second run for a congressional seat, having lost in 2018 against then-congressmember Greg Walden (R-Hood River) for Oregon’s expansive 2nd Congressional District seat. He had held it since 1999 and opted not to seek reelection two years ago.

McLeod-Skinner won election in July 2019 to an at-large seat on the Jefferson County Education Service District but came up short in her 2020 bid to become Oregon’s secretary of state. With the decennial redistricting process incorporating parts of the state’s former 2nd House District into the new 5th District, McLeod-Skinner jumped into the race for the seat since it covers much of the areas where she ran for office in the past.

Her wife, Cass Skinner, comes from a multi-generational ranching family in eastern Oregon’s Jordan Valley. The couple resides in Terrebonne just outside the southeastern border of the new 5th Congressional District.

McLeod-Skinner, who has four children, had first moved to southern Oregon as a child. After graduating from Cornell University McLeodSkinner worked for the International Rescue Committee in the late 1990s, first in Bosnia and Herzegovina then in Kosovo.

The agency in 1998 sent her to work in its San Jose office; she then took a job with the city of Sunnyvale.

In 2008 she went to work for the Santa Clara Valley Water District as an environmental planner.

McLeod-Skinner moved to Oregon in the early 2010s to attend law school.

She was hired as the city manager of Phoenix in late 2016 but was fired the following year after a local election brought new leadership to the town’s City Council.

Last year she served as interim city manager in Talent, overseeing its recovery from a wildfire that tore through it over Labor Day weekend in 2020. Since November she has worked part-time for Oregon’s Department of Human Services in its emergency management unit.

Following her defeat in the primary race for secretary of state, McLeodSkinner co-founded Team Jamie for Oregon and launched a political action committee under that name to help elect progressives and people of color in rural districts of the state.

To RSVP for McLeod-Skinner’s April 9 fundraiser, where individuals are asked to donate at least $100 to attend, email sam@jamiefororegon. com. Anyone unable to make it but is interested in attending one of the private events can inquire about doing so by emailing Jack Werner at jack@ tallpoppyfundraising.

For more information about McLeod-Skinner’s campaign, visit http://jamiefororegon.com/ t Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. This week’s column reported on Obergefell’s Bay Area fundraiser.

Keep abreast of the latest LGBTQ political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

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

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<< Community News

t Busy 2nd year for UCLA’s LGBTQ research center 8 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13, 2022

by Matthew S. Bajko

I

n its second year the UCLA Center for LGBTQ Advocacy, Research, and Health is expanding its work into myriad focuses of inquiry, from HIV and mental health to substance use issues. It is also conducting trainings about LGBTQ health for medical professionals and others interested in learning about the topic.

The center, also known as CLARAH, has formed a partnership with the Los Angeles LGBT Center to work co-jointly on research projects. It is also being asked to provide expert testimony in court cases related to transgender health and aspects of LGBTQ health.

“A lot of research cited in different court cases informs health policy around LGBTQ well-being and health,” said Matthew J. Mimiaga, 44, a gay man who directs the center.

He is also a tenured professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health as well as a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. Mimiaga also is an adjunct professor of epidemiology and behavioral and social sciences at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

He earned master’s degrees at Brown and Boston University and his doctorate of science from Harvard University. Mimiaga taught at both Brown and Harvard before returning to Los Angeles, where he was born and raised, in 2020 to work at UCLA. C-LARAH launched that December; Mimiaga had worked on the proposal for it for about a year.

Initially thinking he would try to establish it at Harvard then Brown,

Courtesy Fenway Institute

Matthew J. Mimiaga is the director of the UCLA Center for LGBTQ Advocacy, Research, and Health.

The UCLA Fielding School of Public Health houses the Center for LGBTQ Advocacy, Research, and Health.

Mimiaga ended up partnering with the Fielding School to establish it, which he told the B.A.R. “ultimately felt right.”

Despite operating during the COVID-19 pandemic, the center has been able to implement several different training programs for students enrolled at both UCLA and Brown. Last summer it oversaw a program funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse for UCLA graduate students researching substance use among LGBTQ populations.

“Certainly, we are dedicated to sort of addressing a variety of different topics related to training medical doctors and other organizations on different aspects of LGBTQ health,” said Mimiaga.

Under the center’s purview is UCLA’s ongoing involvement with the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, begun in the mid-1980s to study the impact of HIV on more than 7,000 gay and bisexual men

nationwide. UCLA has the largest cohort of participants, at 3,000 men, and Mimiaga was hired to take over leadership of the school’s work on the study.

It received $4 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a study on male sex workers who are at risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. It stems from a decade’s worth of research already conducted on the population, a majority of whom are heterosexual and likely to transmit STIs to their female partners.

The new study is looking at how to get male sex workers using the HIV preventive medication PrEP and maintaining adherence to the drug.

It is recruiting roughly 500 men from across the U.S. for the study.

Such research is important, argued Mimiaga, because “male sex workers are at much greater risk for HIV and other STIs.” Providing the men with an “opportunity

Courtesy UCLA

A community you can connect with.

to go on PrEP if they want to and helping them to adhere to it,” he noted, “would make a huge difference in terms of HIV infection in that population.”

Other research

Other research C-LARAH is involved in is looking at HIV treatment engagement and adherence with a cohort of 400 LGBTQ youth in Chicago and Boston. Another study is working with 300 men who use meth during sex with other men in Boston, Providence, Los Angeles, and Miami to see if a psychosocial treatment regimen can help them stop using the stimulant.

“We want to get them engaged in activities without drugs,” explained Mimiaga. “We want to address their depression and get them back to activities they enjoyed in the past without using stimulants.”

Another of the center’s studies is enrolling 5,000 young trans women across the country, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento, into an intervention focused on sexual risk reduction using a variety of different methods. Funded by the NIH at $9 million over five years, it will examine if the interventions help to keep the participants HIV negative.

It also received a $1 million grant over three years from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct a study with 150 trans women of any age on their access to PrEP. The federal agency also awarded it a similar grant to enroll close to 80 Brazilian youth living with HIV into a study looking at what barriers they face to accessing medications and adhering to them.

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Mimiaga believes C-LARAH is taking a unique approach toward the projects it has underway.

“We are focused on not only improving the health and well-being of the LGBTQ population, but really providing a training experience for our graduate students, post docs, and fellows interested in doing behavioral and epidemiological medical research related to LGBTQ health,” said Mimiaga, who has been studying the intersection of LGBTQ health and HIV since 1998.

Mimiaga and the research center have won plaudits from others working in the LGBTQ health sector. Sean Cahill, Ph.D., a gay man who is director of health policy research at Boston’s Fenway Institute, where Mimiaga is an affiliated senior research scientist, told the B.A.R. the UCLA institution is unique in the U.S. “I think what he is doing is very exciting,” said Cahill, who has followed Mimiaga’s work since his days at Brown. “He is going to produce some really excellent research results.

It will hopefully have a positive impact on LGBTQ health equity.”

The center’s multifaceted approach comes as more research dollars are going toward studying health ailments other than HIV among LGBTQ individuals, noted Cahill, from such national sources like the NIH. Hopefully, it leads to university-based LGBTQ research centers opening up around the country, he added.

“There is a lot more focus on LGBTQ+ health equity,” said Cahill, noting that his organization is also increasing its involvement in health research. “There is more funding for it from NIH research money. It means more research is happening on other issues besides HIV.” Scott D. Bertani, a gay man who leads the National Coalition for LGBTQ Health, also told the B.A.R. he was unfamiliar with a similar research center on a college campus focused on LGBTQ health issues.

He, too, hopes more universities will support such centers being established on their campuses and establishing partnerships across fields of study.

“I think the more you create awareness of that equity and inclusiveness across health care settings you amplify the message,” said Bertani, director of advocacy at Health HIV based in Washington, D.C. For example, one area of concern Mimiaga shares with his colleagues focused on LGBTQ health research is the ongoing struggle to collect more accurate sexual orientation and gender identity demographic data. Cahill and the Fenway Institute have been leading the calls in recent years to see better collection of SOGI data in various surveys and health care settings.

“There is going to be ongoing effort in terms of advocating for these types of assessments specifically for the LGBTQ population as a whole,” said Mimiaga. “Just in the general population, those surveys adding specific questions related to sexual minority status is important in order to be able to compare these populations.”

The interest in studying and researching LGBTQ health has grown exponentially in recent decades, said Mimiaga. It is leading to the need for additional LGBTQ research centers, he added.

“You are seeing more universities’ schools of public health and schools of medicine be open to starting centers such as our center at UCLA with a focus on LGBTQ health and recognizing the importance of working with that population,” said Mimiaga. “Some of the issues faced

by LGBTQ individuals are very different than that of heterosexual individuals, so understanding those contexts are important.” t To learn more about C-LARAH and its work, visit https://lgbtq. ph.ucla.edu/

t

Community News>>

April 7-13, 2022 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

SF redistricting panel reverses itself in D6, 8

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

an Francisco’s redistricting task force continues to bounce back and forth between new maps for the city’s 11 supervisor districts to the consternation of LGBTQ advocates and other groups. In its latest head-scratching move, the panel in the early morning hours of April 5 rejected the map favored by the public that it had nearly unanimously voted for Saturday.

Instead, by a 6-3 vote, it decided to go with a different map that once again splits off the city’s transgender cultural district in the Tenderloin from District 6 and places gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s residence into District 9.

It mirrors the map the task force had voted for in late March that was roundly criticized by LGBTQ leaders and other advocates.

“It is a complete affront to our community and absolutely an attempt at marginalization,” Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District Executive Director Robert Goldfarb told the Bay Area Reporter. “It is quite aggressive and just shocking, actually.”

Goldfarb, a gay man, had left the latest redistricting meeting around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday when the task force was still tinkering with the map overwhelmingly favored by community groups that maintains the Tenderloin and its Transgender District with that of central South of Market and the leather district in supervisorial District 6. Known as Map 4D, it also keeps Mandelman, the board’s lone LGBTQ member, in his Castro-centered district.

After hearing nearly seven hours of public testimony Saturday, the task force had voted 8-1 to move forward with that map.

A number of the members stated that keeping the Tenderloin with central SOMA in the new District 6 was a priority of theirs.

“To me, most important is keeping the Tenderloin and central SOMA together,” Commissioner Raynell Cooper had said during the panel’s April 2 deliberations.

Yet three days later the task force reversed course and in the early hours of April 5 decided to advance an entirely different map, known as Map 4B. It combines the Tenderloin and a portion of SOMA between Third and Eighth streets roughly to Interstate 80 with the Western Addition, Fillmore, Japantown, and Alamo Square to create a new 5th supervisorial district.

The rest of SOMA would be combined with Treasure Island, Mission Bay, the Dogpatch and Potrero to create a new District 6. Meanwhile, the Haight, Lower Haight and a portion of Hayes Valley would move into District 8.

As for Mandelman, who lives on the block of Valencia Street between 24th and 25th streets, he would squarely be in District 9. Map 4B moves the boundary between the districts west to Dolores Street and further zigzags so that Mission Dolores Park, Mission High School, and Sanchez Elementary School would now be in District 9.

If that map is eventually adopted, Mandelman would need to move in order to run for reelection this fall to his District 8 seat.

He told the B.A.R. “I of course have strong concerns about this map and feel that, for District 8 at

least, it’s a significant move in the wrong direction.”

District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston also blasted the current map moving forward. With the Inner Sunset, Cole Valley, and North of the Panhandle slated to be removed from his district, Preston criticized the task force for “gutting” his district “for no disclosed reason” in violation of its obligation to respect existing lines and neighborhoods to the greatest extent possible.

“If Steve Bannon came to San Francisco and drew maps, this is what they would look like,” stated Preston, referring to former President Donald Trump’s onetime adviser. “This an orchestrated hit, political gerrymandering at its worst.”

As noted by the League of Women Voters of San Francisco, which has been covering the redistricting process on its blog, task force chair the Reverend Arnold Townsend expressed concern at the latest meeting with “for lack of a better word, us looking flighty. It’s better to make no decision than a bad decision.”

Yet Townsend voted with the majority “to take itself back in time,” wrote the league. “This backwards motion comes when the task force has just five days and four meetings left before they must be done drafting the new supervisor district map.”

Waking up to the news was a shock, Goldfarb told the B.A.R., but he remains “optimistic they will do the right thing” in the coming days as the task force continues to work on the new supervisorial maps.

“They are going against what the massive public feedback has been,” said Goldfarb. “We hope, once again, they will listen to the public, which seems at the moment they are not doing. I think it is unfortunate they are not listening to the public. It is going to require strong turnout on the part of the community.”

Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club President Edward Wright, who has repeatedly called into the task force’s meetings to denounce its proposed maps for District 6, told the B.A.R. Tuesday that the latest proposal continues to be an affront to the city’s LGBTQ community.

“This map divides and disenfranchises queer and trans communities, neighborhoods, and cultural districts, severing our political power and cultural ties.

It is shameful, unacceptable, and it would be laughable if it wasn’t so harmful,” Wright said in a texted response. “I don’t know who the task force is listening to, but it isn’t the public, and it isn’t queer and trans voices. Our communities are under legal assault across the country. We expect, demand, and deserve better from San Francisco.”

San Francisco’s 11 supervisorial districts are redrawn every 10 years based on census data so that they each have roughly similar populations. Things the task force considers include boundaries, neighborhoods, and communities of interest.

The task force is to submit a final map to the Board of Supervisors by April 15.

To learn more about the panel’s work and meetings, visit https:// sf.gov/public-body/2020-censusredistricting-task-force t

Rick Gerharter

Jupiter Peraza, director of social justice and empowerment initiatives for the Transgender District, joined other community and LGBTQ groups March 30 in speaking in opposition to proposed redistricting maps for San Francisco that would separate the Tenderloin neighborhood from South of Market, diminishing the political strength of the LGBTQ community.

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<< Community News

10 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13, 2022

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n recognition of Transgender Day of Visibility March 31, Vice President Kamala Harris, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, and Admiral Rachel Levine of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services welcomed six transgender and nonbinary youth and their families to the White House, along with advocates from national rights organizations. The families were joined by advocates from transgender and LGBTQ+ rights groups and surprise guests including “Jeopardy!” champ Amy Schneider. The event was organized by the White House at the request of Transgender Legal Defense and Edu-

cation Fund and coordinated by fellow advocacy groups the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and PFLAG National. It marked the first time a presidential administration has hosted an official event to mark this day of awareness and celebration of transgender and non-binary people. The visitors included, front row, Jose Trujillo Mota; second row, from left: Ellie Ford, Harleigh Walker, Kylee Uradomo, Daniel Trujillo, and Amir Bell; back row, from left: RJ Ford, Jeff Walker, Janet Uradomo, Sonia Murphy, Myriam West Reynolds, and Cameron Wright.

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by Matthew S. Bajko focus on what will matter most at that time—you. ven in retirement San Francisco Contact us today about the beautiful ways to create a lasting legacy police Lieutenant Lisa Frazer will at the San Contact FranciscousColumbarium. today about the beautiful ways to create forever be remembered as the Castro’s beat cop. Out as a gay woman within a lasting legacy at the San Francisco Columbarium.

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the department, she patrolled the city’s LGBTQ neighborhood for close to a decade starting in 1999.

“Some of my best times in my job was as the Castro beat officer,” Frazer recalled in a recent phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “I loved my job. I loved being a San Francisco police officer. I loved representing our department and being a part of our community.”

But her time with the San Francisco Police Department was cut short due to her needing to medically retire in February. This weekend she and her wife are co-hosting a private retirement party to bring Frazer some closure as she transitions into being a civilian again.

“I had to retire early because I

Courtesy Lisa Frazer

San Francisco Police Lieutenant Lisa Frazer, shown here at a Folsom Street Fair.

got injured. I am still wrestling with it,” said Frazer, 59, who grew up in Concord and lives in the East Bay. “I planned on staying with SFPD 30 years because I am a lifer or longer. I had an opportunity to work in one of the greatest cities in the world. I have truly valued and appreciated the opportunity to serve the city and county of San Francisco.”

Frazer graduated cum laude in 1985 from St. Mary’s College in Moraga with a B.S. in physio-experimental psychology. She began her law enforcement career in 1993 as a deputy with the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department. Two years later Frazer entered the police academy and trained at the old Potrero Station before being assigned to the Richmond Station.

In 1997, Frazer transferred to Mission Station, and when the gay officer who had the Castro beat left, she took over the role. Former SFPD Sergeant Carri Lucas, a straight ally who retired in 2009, worked with Frazer and told the B.A.R. that she stood out for being “an extremely hardworking person” with “tremendous integrity.”

Lucas added that Frazer epitomized what a good beat cop should be, having the necessary abilities to develop relationships with business owners and residents of the Castro to investigating felonies and other crimes.

“Being a good beat cop is the true meaning of community policing, and Lisa was a true beat cop,” said Lucas. “Being a beat cop isn’t just going around shaking hands with merchants, there is crime to be dealt with.

Lisa would deal with it; she was an excellent investigator.”

Gay former District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represented the

Castro, told the B.A.R. that Frazer remains to this day popular in the LGBTQ neighborhood.

“Lisa will never walk down Castro Street without people waving at her, hugging her, and doing all of that stuff,” said Dufty.

He recalled one occasion when he accompanied Frazer and the leader of a youth services agency to visit a single-room-occupancy hotel on upper Market Street. The nonprofit was partnering with the city to rent rooms there, in order to house LGBTQ homeless young adults. Observing nearby were two young gay men, their possessions packed in bags they had with them. It turned out that Frazer was trying to get them placed into the housing, recalled Dufty.

“It was such a non-police thing but she was like the mother hen who sticks around and says, ‘I can help you get into housing.’ They did in fact move in,” said Dufty.

It demonstrated to Dufty how Frazer approached people, whether they were living on the streets or an “A-list gay” member of the community.

“Lisa treated everyone the same way: strong but fair,” he said. “She was a great credit to our community and exemplified what a San Francisco police officer could be.”

After being promoted to sergeant in 2008, Frazer was reassigned to Southern Station. She went to the Homeland Security Division and special operations in 2014, then became a lieutenant in 2017 and was assigned to the police station at San Francisco International Airport.

“I actually loved it because everyday I got to go to work and have a direct impact on safety and security for my community,” said Frazer, who also served as a police academy instructor, a field training officer, a crisis intervention officer, and a hostage negotiator throughout her career.

While patrolling on bike during a Bay-to-Breakers marathon several years ago, Frazer responded to a call for assistance. But she hit a pothole on the Hayes Street hill and flew about 20 feet over the handlebars of her bicycle.

Due to her experience as a fifthdegree black belt in jujitsu, which she started taking in 1974, Frazer used her See page 15 >>

t

Community News>>

April 7-13, 2022 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

Newsom names 2 out leaders to state posts compiled by Cynthia Laird

available from 9 a.m. to noon, noon to 4 p.m., and 3 to 6 p.m.

He added that attendees and volunteers will need to bring their ID and proof of COVID vaccination.

Help is also needed Saturday, April 16, from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and on Tuesday, April 19, from 10 a.m. to noon. These shifts are for truck workers – picking up groceries on Saturday and unloading the truck on Tuesday, the email stated.

To volunteer, contact Gagne at (415) 584-3252 (landline only, no text) or email tenderlointessie@ yahoo.com.

G

overnor Gavin Newsom has recently appointed two out Bay Area leaders to top state posts.

In February, Newsom appointed Jeanne Rizzo chair of the California Environmental Safety Board.

In March, the governor named Jonathan Moscone as director of the California Arts Council.

Rizzo, 75, is a lesbian who resides in Tiburon. From 20012019 she was president and chief executive officer for Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, a release from the governor’s office stated.

She was co-chair of the Federal Advisory Committee for the Interagency Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Coordinating Committee from 2010-2013.

She served on and was chair of the California Breast Cancer Research Program Council from 2008-2011.

Rizzo was the owner of JR Productions and Great American Music Hall from 1972-2001. Currently, she is a member of the Seventh Generation Social Mission board, the release stated.

In a phone interview April 1, Rizzo told the Bay Area Reporter that she was sworn in and started work February 11 leading the inaugural board that is the result of legislation. While her post as director is full-time and requires Senate confirmation, Rizzo said the body has a year to confirm her and the rules committee has begun gathering information.

The board was established under Senate Bill 158, which Newsom signed last year. The board is in the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. SB 158 requires the board to perform certain activities, including setting of fees related to the handling of hazardous substances and hazardous waste, hearing appeals of hazardous waste facility permitting decisions, and conducting a specified analysis. The law establishes an office of the ombudsperson in the board to receive complaints and suggestions from the public, to evaluate complaints received, to report findings and make recommendations to the director of toxic substances control and the board, and to render assistance to the public.

Rizzo said she is excited about the new position.

“This is a capstone,” she said, adding that she had been doing some consulting work since leaving Breast Cancer Prevention Partners. “It’s a stellar opportunity.”

The board will look at fee structure changes, which she said are underfunded. For example, after a contamination incident, companies sometimes file for bankruptcy and there’s no money left to pay for the cleanup. The board will hear permit appeals, and the ombudsperson will be a great asset for the public, she added.

“We are the first oversight board,” she said, under this legislation. The board consists of Rizzo as chair and two others appointed

by Newsom, two appointed by the Senate, and two named by the Assembly. One of the members is queer former San Diego City Council president Georgette Gómez, though Rizzo said that if she wins her special election for a vacant Assembly seat April 5, as expected, she will need to step down.

Rizzo was featured in the B.A.R. years ago during the fight for marriage equality when she and her now-spouse, Pali Cooper, came within minutes of getting a marriage license during 2004’s “Winter of Love” when the state Supreme Court put a halt to the same-sex nuptials. Newsom, then

Rizzo, courtesy BCPP; Moscone, courtesy YBCA

Jeanine Rizzo, left, and Jonathan Moscone were recently appointed to top state posts by Governor Gavin Newsom.

the mayor of San Francisco, had ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in February 2004 and the happy couples lined up outside City Hall for about a month before the weddings were halted. Rizzo and Cooper sued the state in 2004 so that they could marry.

Same-sex marriage resumed briefly in 2008 before passage of Proposition 8, the state’s samesex marriage ban. In 2013, after a federal judge ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional, same-sex marriage resumed in the Golden State.

Rizzo’s compensation is $171,590. Rizzo is a Democrat.

Moscone, a gay man, will become the state’s top arts official when he takes the helm of the council April 25.

Moscone has been chief producer of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts since 2015 and a member of the California Arts Council since 2020, according to a release from Newsom’s office.

Prior to that, Moscone was artistic director of the California Shakespeare Theater from 2000-2015. He’s a member of the Homeless Prenatal Program Board of Directors and the board of Alice Waters’ edible Schoolyard Project, the Chinese Culture Center’s board of directors, and the Lorraine-Hansberry Theater Board of Directors, the release stated.

In a phone interview, Moscone said that he’s excited about moving from the board of the arts council to overseeing the agency.

“It’s an excellent opportunity for artists and arts organizations to get the resources they need to do their work,” Moscone said. “I will keep my eye on that prize.”

The arts council has a budget of about $30 million, he explained, plus two new cash infusions from the totaling of about $100 million for youth programs and what is called the creative core, which is modeled on the old Works Progress Administration, he said. The council allocates resources in the form of grants and other funding mechanisms such as artists fellowships and arts in corrections.

“My job is to steward resources the state allocated to artists and cultural districts to use equitably and quickly,” he said.

The state has 14 designated cultural districts, including the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District and the SOMA Pilipinas Filipino Cultural District in San Francisco. Moscone hopes that others in the city, such as the Transgender District, the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District, and the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, can be designated by the state in the future.

Moscone earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in directing from

the Yale School of Drama.

The position does not require state Senate confirmation and the compensation is $166,428, the release stated. Moscone is a Democrat.

Moscone is the son of slain San Francisco mayor George Moscone, who was assassinated along with gay supervisor Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978.

Tenderloin Tessie to host Easter dinner

Tenderloin Tessie, an allvolunteer nonprofit, will provide its free Easter dinners Sunday, April 17, from 1 to 4 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 1187 Franklin Street (at Geary Boulevard) in San Francisco.

Michael Gagne, president of the Tenderloin Tessie board, also noted that organizers are seeking volunteers to help during the event. Shifts are

SF Historical Society to mark ‘06 quake anniversary

The San Francisco Historical Society is hosting an open house to commemorate the 1906 Earthquake and Fire Saturday, April 16, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the SFHS Museum at 608 Commercial Street.

The museum is introducing its new walking tour, “1906 Earthquake and Fire: Chinatown’s Devastation and Renewal,” at 11 a.m. and there will be two docent tours of the museum at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. There is an earthquake rubble display, first-hand written accounts of the earthquake from survivors, photographs of San Francisco before and after the disaster, and artifacts and relics recovered from the earthquake, including some that people will be able to examine and hold alongside SFHS curators, according to a news release. The media room will be showing a loop of short films about the earthquake and fire.

People can visit the underground vault, where dusty crates used to hold a fortune in gold. The top floors of the original building

came crashing down in the 1906 earthquake, but the ground-level floor and the subterranean vaults survived and some of the original brick walls still stand.

Some of the attractions include the late San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen’s typewriter, wire rope from the San FranciscoOakland Bay Bridge, and artifacts recovered with buried Gold Rush ship Candace.

The museum is built on the site of the first U.S. Mint in the West, which opened in 1854 during the California Gold Rush to turn nuggets and gold dust into coins and bullion. Later it was used as a subtreasury, where the government stored millions of dollars in gold and silver bars.

Light refreshments will be served. For more information, and to register for the walking tour of Chinatown and the docent tour of the museum, visit https:// bit.ly/3j2IWZ9. Tours are free for SFHS members; $20 for nonmembers. Entry to the SFHS Museum is free for all.

‘Racism Under the Rainbow’ conference

The Queer Healing Arts Center will hold its virtual “Racism Under the Rainbow: The LGBTQ+ Community envisioning an equitable New Normal” conference and leadership summit Friday, April 15, and Saturday, April 16.

According to a news release, the conference is part of a similar community forum created over six years ago by Kin Folkz and Evelyn Carmack to share effective strategies and build skills to end anti-Blackness and implicit bias in the LGBTQ+ community. This latest edition, usually presented See page 14 >>

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<< Community News

14 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13, 2022

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News Briefs

From page 11

in-person, marks the second time it will be held online with an international audience.

Co-presented by Spectrum Queer Media Center and the Queer Healing Arts Center, the conference will have programming for young children, older students, and adults, the release stated.

The conference will include

<<

films, a virtual art exhibit, workshops, and panel discussions.

People should RSVP by Friday, April 8. For a schedule and to RSVP, go to https://bit. ly/3DLm1eE

Spahr Center formally welcomes new ED

The Spahr Center in Marin County will formally welcome its new executive director at an inperson event Thursday, April 14, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Osher

Pride groups

From page 1

2-year-old ban on police officers marching with their uniforms and guns in the annual San Diego Pride parade. The request for the ban had initially come from the LGBTQ Black Coalition, transgender, and BIPOC activists, reported LGBTQ San Diego County News. It was one of a series of meetings organized by HSCC. According to the story, the San Diego Pride board proffered a compromise that would have allowed both city and district attorneys, as well as members of the FBI, to march in the parade but would have required officers of the San Diego Police Department and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to march out of uniform wearing, instead, T-shirts that would have identified them as police officers. Both the SDPD and the SDCSD announced they would not participate in this year’s parade, according to the LGBTQ San Diego County News.

Fernando Lopez, the nonbinary executive director of San Diego Pride, said the news site’s version of what happened at the meeting was completely incorrect. Negotiations, he told the B.A.R. in a phone interview April 5, are ongoing.

Around the United States, Pride organizations have been wrestling with the same question, with many of the larger organizations electing to ban the presence of uniformed police officers in their parades, while offering compromises that rarely seem to ameliorate the feelings of the police they affect. Trans and BIPOC persons say, however, that the history of police aggression against their communities more than merits the bans.

<<

Castro Theatre

From page 1

The cost of damages to the theater from the first break-in is $30,000, said Mary Conde, vice president of Another Planet Entertainment, which recently took over management of the theater. The costs for the second, most recent break-in is $15,000, she stated.

In a March 30 tweet gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro, lauded San Francisco Police Officer Kathryn

The upcoming event, titled “New Horizons,” will also be a farewell to Dana Van Gorder, a gay man and the recent executive director at the Spahr Center. Benita McLarin, Marin County’s director of health and human services, will be recognized for guiding the county’s response to COVID. Tickets for the event are $65.

People who can’t attend are welcome to make a donation. For tickets and more information, go to https://bit.ly/3uT836d. t

parade out of uniform.

Sergeant Nicholas Buckley, chair of the Pride Alliance, said April 5 the organization has, indeed, been in talks with SF Pride.

The sense of distrust grew even more profound after those initial conversations.

“We’ve been accused of trying to force them back in the closet, to go back into hiding,” said Porta. In those conversations, “we realized we weren’t going to get anywhere, trying to describe to them that there is a whole segment of our community who don’t feel safe. They don’t understand why people don’t feel safe.”

As of this year, Portland and Multnomah County law enforcement still may only participate out of uniform.

Portland

B.A.R., SFPD Police Chief William Scott said, “I would like to be a part of it. Those conversations are ongoing.

I’ve reached out and the Pride Alliance has asked to be the lead.”

“We’ve got to be there to police the event but we want to be part of it,” said Scott, who added that members of the Pride Alliance have expressed “some heartburn” over participating in the

Farther north, in Portland, Oregon, relations between the city’s police and Northwest Pride are uneasy, at best.

After “quietly” banning firearms from the parade in 2019, the police response was “unreal,” said Pride Northwest Executive Director Debra Porta, a lesbian, in a phone interview with the B.A.R. As it turned out, law enforcement in Oregon are prohibited from presenting as police officers unless they’re armed, she said.

“They don’t have a choice, which means we don’t have a choice,” said Porta.

The violence that rocked the United States in 2020 following the police murder of Black Minnesotan George Floyd seemed to reverberate particularly hard in Portland. Images of shootings, fires, and general mayhem replete with pictures and video of heavily armed Portland Police Bureau officers left many Portlanders, especially LGBTQs and, particularly, people of color, with a pronounced distaste for their local law enforcement agency. Even before Floyd’s death, however, PPB was struggling with poor public opinion (“Portland police always look like they’re ready for a riot,” Porta observed).

A report issued by Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing in 2019 found that 71% of community members trusted the PPB only “somewhat.” Another question found that 71% of Portlanders view the Portland Police as “being an outsider or somewhat of an outsider in their community.”

“This lack of trust grows in communities of color,” the report stated.

Pride Northwest began having conversations with local law enforcement in 2017 around concerns brought forward by people of color about their discomfort attending Pride because of the number of uniformed officers present, said Porta, but police didn’t respond well to efforts to find compromise.

“In all honesty, it was like talking to a brick wall,” Porta said.

Through a series of meetings with the Alliance for Safer Communities, a queer/LGBTQ+ community advisory council to PPB, Porta said she had come to some startling conclusions.

After speaking with LGBTQ members of the PPB, she realized that, for officers, identity as law enforcement came first, before their marriage status, before their sexual identity. Police identity supersedes everything else, said Porta.

“We literally speak two different languages,” she said.

Winters for noticing that signs were missing and there was broken glass the day before, which led to the initial arrest of Marx and the two other suspects.

“Thanks to Officer Winters’ sharp eye, further damage was averted, and the Theatre was quickly repaired,” wrote Mandelman.

The repeat break-ins have left management of APE frustrated and considering more drastic measures to protect the venue.

“This is both heartbreaking and

galling,” said Conde in a statement from the company. “Why this individual was allowed on the streets again is beyond my understanding and should be unacceptable. We are so grateful to the San Francisco police for their continued vigilance and for again arresting this person. However, our system is failing us.”

Throughout the years, there have also been numerous attempts to break into the century-old theater’s distinctive tiled ticket booth with its beautiful leaded windows, as the Bay

Courtesy SF Pride

San Francisco Pride interim Executive Director Suzanne Ford

“In providing the SF Pride Parade, we are working to do everything we can to practice radical inclusion, supporting those who are marginalized within our community,” Ford, a transgender woman, wrote. “We acknowledge and appreciate the steps that the police have taken to heal decades of mistrust between the department and the city’s LGBTQ+ communities.

However, we know that officers in full uniform affect marginalized people within our community.”

To that end, “We are all in agreement that to end the ban, a mutuallybeneficial agreement must be created that prioritizes marginalized communities to ensure they are safe, represented, and included,” Ford added.

But police officers, especially those who are members of the LGBTQ community or allies, often want to be visible and proud in the parade.

In a February interview with the

SF policy

The San Francisco decision in 2020 came after an incident in 2019, the last in-person parade before the COVID epidemic shut everything down. Parade attendee Taryn Saldivar, who describes themself as a nonbinary dyke, was roughed up and injured during an attempt by San Francisco police officers to break up an anti-police and anti-corporate demonstration that blocked the parade route for almost an hour, the B.A.R. reported. Saldivar, who was not participating in the protest but standing on the sidelines, later filed a federal lawsuit for unlawful detention and arrest against the city and law enforcement officers for how they were treated by SFPD. That suit was settled in September 2021, awarding Saldivar $190,000.

This June police are welcome to march in the parade, provided they do not appear in uniform, Suzanne Ford, interim executive director of SF Pride, reiterated to the B.A.R. in an email.

Marin Jewish Community Center, 200 N. San Pedro Road in San Rafael.

As the B.A.R. previously reported, Adrian Shanker was named the new leader of the North Bay LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS community center in February. Shanker, a gay man, comes to the Bay Area from Pennsylvania, where he founded the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown.

Shanker officially began his new job April 1.

Cynthia Laird

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott

New York City

New York City, too, has banned the presence of uniformed police officers.

In a decision made in May 2021, NYC Pride announced it would ban “corrections and law enforcement exhibitors at NYC Pride events until 2025.” During that time, the release stated, “their participation will be reviewed by the Community Relations and Diversity, Accessibility, and Inclusion committees, as well as the executive board. In the meantime, NYC Pride will transition to providing increased community-based security and first responders, while simultaneously taking steps to reduce NYPD presence at events.”

That decision followed years of mistrust between NYPD and BIPOC, trans, and queer communities.

The decision was then followed the next month with dramatic images of NYPD attacking Pridegoers at celebrations in Washington Square.

“Eight people were arrested on Sunday after skirmishes between the New York Police Department and people celebrating Pride in and around Washington Square Park in New York City,” Vice News reported on June 28, 2021. “Reporters on the scene described a wave of battle-ready cops descending on the park.”

Dan Dimant, media director for NYC Pride, said officers are welcome to march out of uniform but that decision had not gone down well with members of Gay Officers Action League, the professional organization for LGBTQ police in New York City.

“We want to see some motion to enact change,” said Dimant. “We don’t see gay officers speaking out against violence against minorities and trans people.”

Dimant said they welcome discussions but GOALNY has not expressed an interest in doing so.

No one at GOALNY responded to B.A.R. requests for comments.

Meanwhile, back in San Diego, discussions between the many law enforcement agencies in San Diego County and San Diego Pride continue, said Lopez, the Pride director.

Despite what was reported in LGBTQ San Diego County News, they said, the mayor’s office and police haven’t sworn off attendance in the parade Area Reporter noted in a recent article on vandalism in the Castro. The cost for repairing the glass is quite high, the B.A.R. was told by APE project manager Margaret Casey. As a result, APE management is now considering the installation of a gate over the open entryway.

“We have tried to avoid installing a metal security gate across the front of the Castro’s iconic entrance, but I don’t believe we are now left with any choice,” said Conde. The installation of such a gate would be expensive, she said.

t

Courtesy Spahr Center

New Spahr Center Executive Director Adrian Shanker

Courtesy San Diego Pride

San Diego Pride Executive Director Fernando Lopez

(San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, a gay man, did not respond to a B.A.R. request for comment).

The recent meeting was an eyeopening event for many attendees, said Lopez. Many of the attendees – white, cisgender, older gay men – heard for the first time stories from BIPOC and trans folks about the hostility and oppression they had suffered at the hands of police, and they were shocked.

“Several of the men openly cried after, saying they had never heard these stories before,” said Lopez.

There have been numerous meetings between SD Pride’s HSCC and law enforcement – there are 40 law enforcement agencies in San Diego County, Lopez noted – and a meeting held April 4 went very well, he said. Uniforms are still a sticking point, they said, but the idea of wearing branded polos or T-shirts is not off the table.

“It is our understanding from what was conveyed at the meeting last night, and several other meetings, that any time law enforcement officers are grouped and wearing the same clothing that also designates their area of service, it is considered a uniform,” said Lopez. “It was also told to us that each agency has its own specific wording and policy, so I can’t speak to the specifics of any of the over 40 agencies in the region.

We’re still working on the details and finding mutual understanding around language use.”

“We’re agreeing on 95% of stuff,” Lopez said, although there are a few they noted, who seem to be interested in fostering division.

Law enforcement agencies and HSCC are fine tuning the policy recommendations that are going before the SD Pride board later this month, Lopez said, although whether there will be a final proposal to vote on at its meeting April 20 is anyone’s guess.

“I’m feeling really good about some of the actual substantive policy reforms,” said Lopez. ”So, it’s not done, because nothing has been voted on yet.” t It would also require, of course, permits from the city.

“Any permanent exterior changes to the Castro Theatre would require a Certificate of Appropriateness,” said Richard Sucre, Historic Preservation Commission deputy director. “We have some scopes of work that can be handled administratively by our qualified preservation staff, and other scopes which may require a full hearing in front of the Historic Preservation Commission.” t

t <<

Community News>>

CA Assembly

From page 1

State and require community colleges to use trans students’ preferred names and pronouns on their diplomas. A similar law was enacted this year that requires the state’s four-year colleges and universities not to deadname trans students on their diplomas by using the names given to them at birth that they no longer go by.

Gómez campaign

Assembly candidate Georgette Gómez is headed to a runoff.

San Diego Assembly race

Looking to join Wilson as one of the newest members of the Legislature’s lower chamber is queer former San Diego City Council President

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Frazer retires

From page 10

skills to roll as she landed on the ground and avoided breaking her arms or legs. After being checked out at the hospital, and thinking she had avoided serious injury, Frazer went to work the next day.

But she had suffered an injury, and its improper diagnosis eventu-

April 7-13, 2022 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

Georgette Gómez. She ran in Tuesday’s special election for the vacant Assembly District 80 seat, looking to become the first queer state legislator in Sacramento.

According to unofficial returns Wednesday, Gómez had 37% of the vote. Former San Diego City Council member David Alvarez, who was strongly backed by business groups, was in first place with 38% of the vote.

Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher had resigned from the seat in January ahead of her leading the powerful California Labor Federation this summer. She endorsed Gómez as her successor.

There are still 6,500 ballots to be counted, and San Diego County elections officials plan to post a tally update after 5 p.m. Thursday. As neither candidate is expected to reach more than 50% of the vote to win the seat outright, Gómez and Alvarez will advance to a runoff race on the June 7 primary ballot.

The two will also be competing in the primary race for a full two-year term and could end up running against each other on the November ballot. A win in June by Gómez would mean a record high of nine members in the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus. It would also make her the frontrunner in the general election race for the Assembly seat, which will remain numbered 80.

Gómez tweeted Tuesday night that she is “thrilled to be advancing to the runoff” in which “voters will have a stark choice between real change to make San Diego more affordable for working families who are struggling, and the special interest status quo that’s making life harder and more expensive for all of us.”

In Los Angeles Lawndale Mayor Robert Pullen-Miles was leading in the special election to fill the 62nd Assembly District seat vacated by assemblymember Autumn Burke, who left due to personal reasons. Burke had endorsed Pullen-Miles to serve out her term this year.

He had 37% of the vote according to the unofficial returns. Trailing him was nonprofit director Tina McKinnor in second place with 35% of the vote.

They two will advance to a June 7 runoff race to fill the vacant seat for the rest of the year.

Both have also qualified to appear on the primary ballot for the contest to represent the newly numbered 61st Assembly District for a full two-year term.

In the Central Valley special election Tuesday to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by former congressmember Devin Nunes, who left to helm the troubled social media platform

Meanwhile, in the special election to fill San Francisco’s vacant Assembly District 17 seat, Mayor London Breed this week endorsed District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney ahead of the runoff race Tuesday, April 19. Haney had been the first-place finisher in the special February 15 election to serve out the term of former assemblymember David Chiu.

He fell short of the 50%-plus-onevote threshold to avoid a runoff race, as did second-place finisher gay former District 9 supervisor David Campos. He had lost to Chiu back in 2014 when the former board colleagues sparred over the legislative seat covering the city’s eastern neighborhoods.

Despite Haney and Campos both being aligned with the progressive wing of the local Democratic Party, Haney is seen as the more centrist candidate in the race. In endorsing him in the runoff race, Breed pointed to Haney’s chairing the supervisors’ budget committee and working with

ally led her to take a medical leave then retirement. It was an outcome she has struggled to accept, as she never planned to leave the police force so soon.

“We are alpha dogs. We are the ones who go into a firefight. We risk our lives, so any weakness is counter to our way of being, our culture,” Frazer explained as for why it has been a difficult transition.

Unable to work, she is devoting her time as president of the nonprofit dog rescue Golden Gate Scottish Terrier Rescue. Frazer had appeared in a 2007 recruitment ad for the SFPD with her Scottie named Bailey, who passed away in 2015.

She now owns two black coat Scottish terriers, 7-year-old Max McBarker she adopted as a puppy, and 8-year-old Bennett she rescued

about seven months ago. Their description as “a big dog in a little body” reminds her of herself, said Frazer.

“My life of service is not going to end here. It is going to change form.

I think I will always be a helper,” said Frazer adding that, for now, “my main focus is to get better and live a long and healthy life for as long as I can.”

She expressed her gratitude to the city for giving her the opportunity to be a police officer.

“I want to thank the community for working with me and connecting with me and being part of my family,” said Frazer. “I want to thank my supervisors and mentors and LGBTQ officers who came before me and paved the way.” t

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556969

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039653100

as SHIRTIQUE/KRAZY KAPS, PIER 39 N-1, N-2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed D AND D RETAIL ENTERPRISES, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039639700

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039657000

Other special election races

launched by former President Donald Trump, former Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway was leading.

Conway promised not to seek a full two-year term this November and will compete in a June 7 runoff race against the second-place finisher, currently Democrat Lourin Hubbard who was at 20% of the vote Wednesday.

Breed endorses Haney

her “during extremely challenging times during the pandemic to craft a balanced budget that delivers the services and priorities our city needs.”

Her support for Haney bolsters speculation that Breed could tap his legislative aide and de facto chief of staff, Honey Mahogany, to succeed him on the board if he is elected to the Legislature. Were Breed to do that, Mahogany would be the city’s first transgender supervisor.

They would also be the first supervisor to identify as queer and nonbinary. Last year Mahogany became the first Black person to ever chair the San Francisco Democratic Party, as well as the first transgender person and drag queen to chair it.

Mahogany succeeded Campos in the leadership role, as he stepped down due to his being elected a vice chair of the state Democratic Party.

He is currently on leave from his being chief of staff to embattled District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who is fighting off an attempt to recall him on the June primary ballot.

As for Campos, he and his supporters rallied Wednesday outside the offices of the San Francisco Association of Realtors to denounce its statewide umbrella group, the California Association of Realtors, funneling more than $350,000 toward defeating Campos in the Assembly race. t

Legals >> SUMMONS SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO NOTICE TO DEFENDANT: JOHN REYNOLDS, JR., AN INDIVIDUAL, AND DOES 1 THROUGH 10, INCLUSIVE, YOU ARE BEING SUED BY PLAINTIFF: RECOLOGY INC., A CORPORATION AUTHORIZED TO DO BUSINESS IN CALIFORNIA CASE NO. CGC-19-578961

NOTICE! You have been sued. The court may decide against you without your being heard unless you respond within 30 days. Read the information below. You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this summons and legal papers are served on you to file a written response at this court and have a copy served on the plaintiff. A letter or phone call will not protect you. Your written response must be in the proper legal form if you want the court to hear your case. There may be a court form that you can use with your response. You can find these court forms and more information at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo. ca.gov/selfhelp), your county law library, or the courthouse nearest you. If you cannot play the filing fee, ask the court clerk for a fee waiver form.

If you do not file your response on time, you may lose the case by default, and your wages, money, and property may be taken without further warning from the court. There are other legal requirements.

You may want to call an attorney right away. If you do not know an attorney, you may want to call an attorney referral service. If you cannot afford an attorney, you may be eligible for free legal services from a non-profit legal services program. You can locate these non-profit groups at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www. courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp) or by contacting your local court or county bar association. NOTE: The court has a statutory lien for waived fees and costs on any settlement or arbitration award of $10,000 or more in a civil case. The court’s lien must be paid before the court will dismiss the case.

SAN FRANCISCO SUPERIOR COURT, 400 MCALLISTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. Plaintiff’s attorney: TERESA M. BECK, ESQ. (SBN 149763), BUCHANAN INGERSOLL & ROONEY, LLP, 600 W. BROADWAY #1100, SAN DIEGO, CA 92101. Sept.

03, 2019, Bowman Liu, Deputy Clerk.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556965

In the matter of the application of CLYDE GILMORE JR, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner CLYDE GILMORE JR is requesting that the name ROBYN EZRA WONG be changed to ROBYN EZRA GILMORE. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 21st of APRIL 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556967

In the matter of the application of YI-HSUN CHEN AKA YI HSUN CHEN, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner YI-HSUN CHEN AKA YI HSUN CHEN is requesting that the name YI-HSUN CHEN AKA YI HSUN CHEN be changed to RICHARD YI-HSUN CHEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 21st of APRIL 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

In the matter of the application of VERONICA JOANN APPLEBERRY, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner VERONICA JOANN APPLEBERRY is requesting that the name VERONICA JOANN APPLEBERRY be changed to VERONICA JEANNETTE APPLEBERRY. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 26th of APRIL 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556968

In the matter of the application of KELLER CLIFFTON RINAUDO, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner KELLER CLIFFTON RINAUDO is requesting that the name KELLER CLIFFTON RINAUDO be changed to KELLER RINAUDO CLIFFTON. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 26th of APRIL 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556970

In the matter of the application of TOINETTE TARA ROLLINS, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner TOINETTE TARA ROLLINS is requesting that the name TOINETTE TARA ROLLINS be changed to TERA TOINETTE ROLLINS. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept.

103N, Rm. 103N on the 26th of APRIL 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039652100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as VILLA GROUP, 891 BEACH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FRANK VILLANUEVA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/08/22.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039649600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as A&N LIQUORS, 1521 OCEAN AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed UDDHAB KC. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039652800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as G. ALEXANDER DESIGN, 838 22ND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALEX NORWOOD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/08/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as ART AND JEWELRY, 1012 GRANT AVE #3A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EMAD DUAR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039654800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LOLAMILO SALON, 1645 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SARAH BOWEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/09/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039658000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LOVE LIGHT PROJECT, 1720 48TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GERALDINE MASSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/13/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/11/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039658900

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as UNDER THE GOLDEN GATE, PIER 39 B-2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed D AND D RETAIL ENTERPRISES, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039659600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SPORK, 631 BROADWAY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TIPSUWON INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/14/22.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039655600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as RED ROCK HILL CONSTRUCTION, 2125 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NICOLAS GOFFO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/23/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/11/22.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MIDPOINT SPORTS CHIROPRACTIC, 540 CASTRO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed RIZZO CHIROPRACTIC CORP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/09/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039660900

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039650100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as ARIA PROPERTIES, 4406 18TH ST #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MASOOD SAMEREIE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/14/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039657900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as KAMI SMOKE SHOP, 1838 DIVISADERO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed VICTORIA HABASH, JOUNI ABU-ZAGHIBRA & LESLIE ABUZAGHIBRA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/10/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/11/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039652300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FACIAL PLUS – NORIEGA, 1322 NORIEGA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed REJUVE BEAUTY INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039656900 The following person(s) is/are doing business

The following person(s) is/are doing business as TBWBH PROPS & MEASURES, 50 OSGOOD PL, 4TH FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TERRIS BARNES WALTERS BOIGON HEATH LESTER, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039650200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as TBWBHL, 50 OSGOOD PL, 4TH FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TERRIS BARNES WALTERS BOIGON HEATH LESTER, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/01/21.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039650300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as PROPS & MEASURES, 50 OSGOOD PL, 4TH FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TERRIS BARNES WALTERS BOIGON HEATH LESTER, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as COTERIE CATHEDRAL HILL, 1001 VAN NESS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed VAN NESS OPCO TENANT LLC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/03/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/23/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039660400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE KITCHEN OF EVE, 2953 HARRISON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed THE KITCHEN OF EVE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/29/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039641900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as MEANINGFUL INSIGHTS, 1770 POST ST #236, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MEANINGFUL INSIGHTS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/25/22.

MAR 17, 24, 31, APR 07, 2022

AMENDED ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556951

In the matter of the application of WILLIAM JOHN MARSHALL, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner WILLIAM JOHN MARSHALL is requesting that the name WILLIAM JOHN MARSHALL be changed to SHILOH BEN ISRAEL. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 12th of APRIL 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

AMENDED ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556952

In the matter of the application of ADONIS J’QUAN MARSHALL, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ADONIS J’QUAN MARSHALL is requesting that the name ADONIS J’QUAN MARSHALL be changed to ASA BEN ISRAEL. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 12th of APRIL 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556978

In the matter of the application of CHAU LE NG, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner CHAU LE NG is requesting that the name CHAU LE NG be changed to LE CHAU NG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 28th of APRIL 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

<< Legals

16 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13ß, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039661800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as KAILI BEAUTY NAIL SALON, 2545 NORIEGA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HUA JIANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/02/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/15/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039662300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as MATERIALIST, 2432 WASHINGTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CONOR WARD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/15/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/15/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039649000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as WISHLIA, 160 BEMIS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHRIS RICHARDSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/22.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039656200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as PHO 808, 808 GEARY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PAK S. WAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/10/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039662900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as HAIRCRAFT BY SERENA, 350 WEST PORTAL AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SERENA R. GOMEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/16/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/16/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039664900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as FIRST PEAK, 516A DIAMOND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOCELYN NEWMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/18/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039660600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SAVOR, 401 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MOHAMED ABOGHANEM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039666700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LUX BLACK RIDES, 2275 19TH AVE #7, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHAEL MANGIAMELE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/21/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/21/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039662500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as BEAUTIFUL HANDS JANITORIAL SERVICES, 929 CONNECTICUT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BEAUTIFUL HANDS JANITORIAL SERVICES (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/16/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/16/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039656100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as EL FAROLITO #9, 1230 GRANT AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TAQUERIAS EL FAROLITO INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/10/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039658100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as OVERHEAD DOOR OF SANTA CLARA VALLEY; OVERHEAD DOOR COMPANY OF SANTA CLARA VALLEY, 1266 LAWRENCE STATION RD, SUNNYVALE, CA 94086. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ENGINEERED PRODUCTS, A PAPE COMPANY (OR). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/22/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/11/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039664700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as TERRACE CAFÉ, 2100 WEBSTER ST #108, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed LEE TERRACE INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/31/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/18/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039664300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as EMPIRE PIZZA, 688 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed G680 GROUP, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/17/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039662700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SCOTT’S CHOWDER HOUSE, 1325 FILLMORE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SCOTT’S CHOWDER HOUSE FILLMORE STREET LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/16/22.

MAR 24, 31, APR 07, 14, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556983

In the matter of the application of TAM MINH NGUYEN, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner TAM MINH NGUYEN is requesting that the name TAM MINH NGUYEN be changed to TOM MINH NGUYEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 3rd of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556995

In the matter of the application of IRIS BERNARDA SANCHEZ, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner X IRIS BERNARDA SANCHEZ is requesting that the name IRIS BERNARDA SANCHEZ be changed to IRIS SELENA SANCHEZ. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 3rd of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556993

In the matter of the application of DANIEL OTTO WACKER, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner DANIEL OTTO WACKER is requesting that the name DANIEL OTTO WACKER be changed to OTTO WACKER. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 3rd of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557007

In the matter of the application of REED WALKER HINCKLEY BARNES, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner REED WALKER HINCKLEY BARNES is requesting that the name REED WALKER HINCKLEY BARNES be changed to REED WALKER HINCKLEY-BARNES. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 10th of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557008

In the matter of the application of MARISSA TAYLOR ELLISON, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner MARISSA TAYLOR ELLISON is requesting that the name MARISSA TAYLOR ELLISON be changed to MARISSA TAYLOR HINCKLEY-BARNES. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 10th of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039669300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as AFFORDABLE FISHING & TOURING, 26 RIDGEWOOD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARTIN GALLARDO MACIAS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/23/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/23/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039667200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as TRANSWAY, 350 TOWNSEND ST #827, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed VITALY DANEKIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/21/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/21/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039668500

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039668100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SEMILLA SPEECH THERAPY, 737 LA PLAYA ST #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANGELA DIBERNARDO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/22/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039668900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as BAY INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL, 1660 SUTTER ST #206, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SOOTEENIE STRICKLAND. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/03/05. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/23/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039674100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as TWIN PEAKS YOGA, 4686 18TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOSEPH A. NAUDZUNAS JR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/28/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/28/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039646900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as GROOMING AND MORE, 1524 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARWAN ZEIDAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/03/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/03/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039673900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FREE ART, 341 11TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YU LI GELLERMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/28/22.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/28/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039674200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LUIS & CHRIS HANDYMAN CREW, 379 COLLEGE AVE, VALLEJO, CA 94589. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAISY VALDEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/28/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/28/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039675100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LAHORE DI KHUSHBOO, 4445 3RD ST #310, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SHUMAILA ALI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/29/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/29/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039671100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as NEBIA, 375 ALABAMA ST #200, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BRONDELL, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/24/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/25/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039670200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as COMMUNITY VISION CAPITAL & CONSULTING, 870 MARKET ST #677, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed COMMUNITY VISION CAPITAL & CONSULTING (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/20/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/24/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039672400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SWITCH CONSTRUCTION, 98 PARKRIDGE DR #105, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LIAM MITCHELL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/23/22.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FIGURE, 757 BRANNAN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed FIGURE DESIGN (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/29/18.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/25/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039667700

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039673200

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE PATH ILLUMINATED, 1044 PINE ST #11, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KIMBERLY RICE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/15/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/22/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039667500

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LITTLE DUMPLING, 59 30tTH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PHO BERNAL (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/25/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039656300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as AT TRAVEL & TOUR SERVICES, 245 CLEMENT ST #5, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YUI A. TUNG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/09/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/22/22.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MALCOLM PLUMBING AND MECHANICAL INC., 184 MENDELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CAHILL & KAVANAUGH INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/20/11.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039667300

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039671500

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MICHELLE WONDER SCHOOL, 7 ACEVEDO AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHELLE VINES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/07/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/21/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039667900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as IRVING SEAFOOD MARKET, 2130 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed XIU L. CHEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/10/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/22/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MAN OF THE WORLD MEDIA, 450 VICKSBURG ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MAN OF THE WORLD INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/01/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/25/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039661000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE SARUM SEMINAR. 1400 GEARY BLVD #6-P, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed JULIA P. FREMON & ROBERT A. SCOTT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/01. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039668200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as GHOSTNOTE WINES, 624 ASHBURY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed B.P. FRIEDMAN WINES, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/22/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/22/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039669500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SEETEADISH, 280 SPEAR ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed HOMETOWN TASTE (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/23/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/23/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039671700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as RICCO MEDITERRANEAN, 3145 FILLMORE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed COW HOLLOW MEDITERRANEAN DINING GROUP, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/25/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039668600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as VAMPIRE SPIRITS, 1615 INNES AVE #C, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed RAFF BEVERAGE, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N /A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/23/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039665100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as COOKING WITH CLASSIE; CLASSIE COCKTAILS; 2 VISTAVIEW CT, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed COOKING WITH CLASSIE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/18/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/18/22.

MAR 31, APR 07, 14, 21, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557017

In the matter of the application of ARIEL GLIAHOU COHEN, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ARIEL GLIAHOU COHEN is requesting that the name ARIEL GLIAHOU COHEN be changed to ARIEL ELIJAH COHEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 12th of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

AMENDED ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556781 In the matter of the application of KUJICHAGULIA ANGELO MAILHOT SADIQ, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner KUJICHAGULIA ANGELO MAILHOT SADIQ is requesting that the name KUJICHAGULIA ANGELO MAILHOT SADIQ be changed to ANGELO MAILHOT SADIQ. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept.

103N, Rm. 103N on the 14th of JUNE 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557013

t

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557015

In the matter of the application of VIVIAN KATE BARAD-BURDITT, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner VIVIAN KATE BARADBURDITT is requesting that the name VIVIAN KATE BARAD-BURDITT be changed to VIVIAN KATE BARAD, and the name ESTHER BARAD THOMPSON be changed to ESTHER VERA BARAD-THOMPSON, and the name MOSS EMIL BARAD THOMPSON be changed to MOSS EMIL BARAD-THOMPSON. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 12th of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039676500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as HUGO’S HANDYMAN REMODELING, 929 CAYUGA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HUGO ESCOBAR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/20/09. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/30/22.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039679100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as RED KITE MEDITATIONS, 16 COVENTRY CT, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SHONA CURLEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/04/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/02/22.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039679200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as BUTTERMILK SOUTHERN KITCHEN, 2848 23RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed G & GR INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/04/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/04/22.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039679500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PEPITOS PALETAS, 161 CLEO RAND LANE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ABEL 1950 INC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/04/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/04/22.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039670300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as DANIEL LEROUX; DANNY LEROUX, 2156 GROVE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed YEARS NOT DOLLARS LLC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/24/22.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/24/22.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039676400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as TEMESCAL BREWING COMPANY, 1195 EVANS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed HUNTERS POINT BREWERY LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/30/22.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-038039000

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as RED KITE MEDITATIONS, 650 LAGUNA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business was conducted by a limited liability company, and signed by HASTI PILATES LLC (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/09/18.

In the matter of the application of ANA MARIA SALGADO, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ANA MARIA SALGADO is requesting that the name ANA MARIA SALGADO be changed to ANA MARIA MEDICI. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 12th of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

Classifieds

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-556997

(415) 441-1054 Large Truck

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

In the matter of the application of DINA RAQUEL GUILLEN GARCIA, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner DINA RAQUEL GUILLEN GARCIA is requesting that the name JIMENA RAQUEL GUILLEN MARTINEZ be changed to JIMENA RAQUEL GUILLEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in 103N on the 12th of JULY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557016

In the matter of the application of CINTHIA ROSE SHARP, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner CINTHIA ROSE SHARP is requesting that the names CINTHIA ROSE SHARP AKA CYNTHIA ROSE SHARP AKA CINTHIA ROSE TIPTON AKA CINTHIA ROSE-TIPTON SHARP AKA CINTHIA ROSE SHARPE be changed to CYNTHIA ROSE TIPTON. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 12th of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557024

In the matter of the application of AKIHIKO MARUSHIMA, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner AKIHIKO MARUSHIMA is requesting that the name AKIHIKO MARUSHIMA be changed to AKI MARUSHIMA EZAWA SIEBELINK. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103N on the 17th of MAY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

APR 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

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100 Years of Men in Love New film celebrates historic affectionate photos

Photos from 100 Years of Men in Love: The Accidental Collection

Much of the film is a collage of the many pho“I didn’t want this to be just a montage of tographs in the collection, with narration taken photos,” Millbern said. “I wanted to really linger, from words written on the back of some of the and have the audience get the relevance of each photos. Interview footage shot, get the feel of each shot, with Treadwell and Nini fantasize about what it was was added, and the result is like for this couple, the risks a charming piece that unthat were involved, the joy derscores the fact that male that was expressed. We relove existed long before there ally stand on the shoulders of were gay bars or gay dating these gentlemen that really apps where men could find went out on a limb to docueach other. ment their commitment In some of the photos the and their love. They paved men were discreet, smiling the way for us to be free and into the camera almost like open, because they weren’t David Millbern friends, though the look in allowed to be free and open. their eyes reveals that there They took the risk, they were was more going on than so joyous that they wanted to mere friendship. Some of the shots in the film memorialize their love in a picture.” would begin by focusing on a close-up of the Millbern hopes that viewers of the film will see men’s faces. that LGBT people have always been around.

“The courage that these folks, these couples had to take a picture when it was not cool to take a picture with your lover,” he said. “We celebrate that courage and realize that those pictures were really important then and are even more important now when we face the challenges that LGBTQ people still face in this country. We always say that these people pass the torch. Well, if you pass the torch, you’re in the dark. Ignite another torch to say to young people and to our fellow LGBTQ, go out and find love, and commit to love and experience love in this open free society that we have now, these folks didn’t have that, yet they did it.”t 100 Years of Men in Love: The Accidental Collection can now be seen on Here TV. https://www.here.tv/

Read the full article on www.ebar.com

fact that they were on that boat reflects who they drew worldwide attention, became a watershed were beforehand,” said Elsayigh, “and it affects moment for queer visibility in Egypt. how they move through the world afterwards.”

Elsayigh, who has degrees in theater and playIts surely more than a coincidence that the writing from New York University’s Abu Dhabi aftermath of the raid, which occurred when Elcampus and the City University of New York sayigh was still a toddler, has generated debates (both earned through full merit scholarships), about the Catch-22 of identity and visibility has been thoroughly immersed in critical theory. among queer people in the Arab world.

But as a young queer person, an Arab-American “I’ve heard a number of people refer to the and an emerging artist, he now has to wrestle with Queen’s Boat as the Stonewall of Egypt,” said Elthe real world complexities of identity politics, sayigh. “I have mixed feelings about that: Stoneself-consciousness and self-confidence. wall started a move toward “I’ve been in situations,” he significant policy change and confided during our intersocial reform in the U.S; The view, “where I’ve met with a Queen’s Boat raid actually did producer or an artistic dithe opposite.” rector and it’s been clear that “It wasn’t the first time a gay they’re only interested in my person was arrested in Egypt, work because they’ve been and of course there had alcalled out for not having proways been men who were duced an Arab playwright or having sex with other men. a gay playwright.”

But this was the first time it “Look,” he said, “If people was made so public and was come because they want to transformed into a governhear from a queer Egyptian Adam Ashraf Elsayigh ment propaganda item, provoice, that’s cool. I’m not ofmoted to straight Egyptians fended by that. But when in a way that was vilifying and you actually come through condemning. Since then, there’s been consistent, the door, try not to come with assumptions active raiding and terrorizing of queer identities about what I have to say or how I’m trying to and queer spaces.” challenge you.”

“In some ways,” reflected Elsayigh, surely aware To the sensitive, thoughtful Elsayigh, one of of the irony in regard to his rising reputation as a the hazards in a writer having their work assumed playwright, “Becoming visible takes away some of to be representational is the potential self-censoryour sense of being in control.”t ship that ensues.

“I want to write Muslim characters and trans characters and disabled characters who do Drowning in Cairo produced by Golden shitty things and be assholes, and are also like Thread Productions at Potrero Stage. April 8 through May 1. $20-$100. 1695 18th St. (415) people we love.”

626-4061. www.goldenthread.org Drowning In Cairo follows its three characters over the course of two decades, and they all Read the full interview do shitty things. Only two of 11 scenes take place in 2001, the year of the Queen’s Boat raid. “The on www.ebar.com Amal Bisharat Photography

The cast of Drowning in Cairo: Wiley Naman Strasser, Amin El Gamal, and Martin Zebari

Amal Bisharat Photography

n his new documentary 100 Years of Men in Love: The Accidental Collection, actor and Emmy-winning filmmaker David Millbern looks back upon gay couples who had the courage to celebrate their love openly, long before gay rights or marriage equality were even a thought.

Millbern shows us photos from the 1850s to the 1950s, beautiful images of gay men who were unafraid to show the world who they were and what they meant to each other.

Throughout the film viewers hear commentary from Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell, a gay couple currently living in New York City. Nini and Treadwell have been collecting the photos for years, scouring flea markets and antique stores for images that would have been lost to history were it not for their efforts. They are currently holding more than 3000 photos, hundreds of which are shown in the film. Their collection was first seen in a well received-book titled Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love, 1850s-1950s.

In a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Millbern recalled his youth, when he saw a tintype, an early form of photography which preserves an image onto a thin sheet of metal or iron, of two handsome men sitting very close to each other with their legs, arms, hands and shoulders crossed towards each other.

“When I would ask my parents, my family about it, no one really knew anything about it except that it was my great, great, great uncle,” he said.

After his parents passed away, Millbern took possession of a number of items in their house, including the tintype, which he held onto and always wondered about.

“Then I came across Neal and Hugh’s collection,” Millbern said. “And I started looking at what they were discussing, and the signs, and the implications of what was in the photo, and I thought, bingo, this is what was going on, these are my ancestors, and obviously I wanted to celebrate male partnerships.”

He found Treadwell and Nini through their publisher and contacted them, suggesting that their book could make a wonderful documentary. They agreed.

Drowning in Cairo

by Jim Gladstone

A

dam Ashraf Elsayigh is having a moment.

It’s an exciting time for him. It’s also a bit unsettling.

The Egyptian-born, New York-based writer will arrive in San Francisco for the opening of Golden Thread Productions’ world premiere production of his play, Drowning In Cairo, which is

about … Well, here’s where it gets complicated.

Golden Thread’s publicity copy, written by director Sahar Assaf, for whom Elsayigh has nothing but praise, sketches the show as follows: “It is May 2001 in Cairo…on the Queen Boat, a gay nightclub docked on the Nile. When an unexpected police raid results in the arrest and public humiliation of the attendees, the lives of these young men are altered forever.”

The Queen’s Boat raid, an actual event that

<< Books

18 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13, 2022

John Weir’s Your Nostalgia is Killing Me

by Gregg Shapiro

I

f patience is a virtue, then fans of award-winning gay writer John Weir are among the most virtuous people you will ever find. Weir won a Lambda Literary Award for his remarkable 1989 debut novel The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket and then had his readers wait 17 years for his second novel, 2006’s devastating What I Did Wrong.

Winner of the 2020 AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, Weir’s debut short story collection Your Nostalgia is Killing Me (Red Hen Press, 2022) is certainly worth the wait. The linked stories span a 40-year period, illustrating the power of nostalgia to alternately bring us to tears and make us laugh with a familiarity that is sure to resonate with readers from all walks of life.

Gregg Shapiro: One of the things that struck me about Your Nostalgia is Killing Me is the poetry in it. There are references to poets W.H. Auden, Frank O’Hara, and Robert Frost, and the narrator of the story “Kid A” talks about the “embarrassing poems” he’s written about Andy, described as “Straight guy half my age. Lives with his mom.” Please say a few words about the presence of poetry in your life.

John Weir: I teach in the MFA Creative Writing and Literary Translation program at Queens College CUNY, and one of the best features of our program is the requirement that students take a workshop outside their genre.

So, I often have poets in my Fiction Writing Workshop. So much fun to see how poets read, to notice what they notice in a piece of fiction. It’s hard to generalize about poetry – there are so many poetries – but I think of poetry as being generally more condensed and image-driven than most prose. I

Author John Weir

love how poetry can compress a range of feelings into a coppery-tasting, odd, unexpected image.

My father read Robert Frost to my brother and me when we were kids, so Frost was my first poet. And then Langston Hughes! Because of a public TV show where Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis read and recited Hughes’ poetry.

In addition to poetry, modern music also features prominently in the book, aside from the Radiohead nod of “Kid A,” the story “Katherine Mansfield,” which perfectly blends comedy and tragedy, is packed with music references. What kind of role does music play for you?

Thanks for using the word “perfect” in relation to my writing. My mother’s father was assistant manager of a radio station in Denver during World War II, and she grew up with the radio on, 24/7, and so did I, thanks to her. There was music in the house when I woke in the morning, and music until bedtime.

Not live music, though my mother would sometimes bang out “Musetta’s

Waltz” on the piano. And my parents had a huge collection of LPs – obsolete technology! – ranging from Bach to the Beatles, and I listened to Ella Fitzgerald’s Cole Porter Songbook over and over during high school.

And Sondheim! I guess I’m gay. I need music in the background in order to concentrate, and I also sometimes need to play a song or album over and over in order to write a story. That’s actually what I was doing when I wrote “Kid A,” about a guy wandering into a porno movie theater in Queens. It’s the only story in Your Nostalgia Is Killing Me that I wrote in one sitting. Maybe it took six hours? And I was plugged into headphones and listening to – no lie – Radiohead’s Kid A, over and over.

“How to Disappear Completely!”

The third section of the book, “Imitation of Life,” opens with a Lance Loud epigraph.

Lance Loud! Surely you watched An American Family on TV in the early 1970s. I saw every episode: the Loud family as reality TV before reality TV happened. And Lance Loud

was my first homosexual. Other than Paul Lynde, but Lynde wasn’t out. Lance Loud was completely out – unlike anybody else on TV or in movies or anywhere in popular culture in 1973. It wasn’t a pose, it wasn’t a fashion statement, it wasn’t a flirtation with queerness or a temporary thing: he was gay. He went on Dick Cavett and was gay! So, he was one of my idols.

And my biggest reward for publishing my first novel was getting to meet him, in Los Angeles, in 1992. I was in L.A. for the summer, staying with Randy Dunbar, then Art Director of The Advocate. Randy took me to a party in Silverlake, and Lance Loud showed up on his motorcycle.

It was like Bowie or Grace Jones had walked in the room.

He wasn’t the skinny guy from the TV show, he’d gotten pumped up and he was sort of a studly motorcycle guy, but with irony. I hope I told him how much he had mattered to me when I was a fourteen-year-old queer kid stuck in rural New Jersey. I think I did.

In any case, I picked him up once in a borrowed car and we went to the preview of Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!

I would’ve married him, or anything else, if he asked me, but I don’t think I was his type.

I wanted his voice in my book, and so: the epigraph. Kind of a memorial to him, and to all the complicated theatrical courageously queer gay guys I’ve known.

In more than half of the stories, including “It Must Be Swell to Be Laying Out Dead” and “Neorealism at the Infiniplex,” Dave (who represents gay writer David Feinberg) is a character, and in many ways, he haunts some of the other stories. Do you think Dave will always have a place in your work as he does

t

in What I Did Wrong and Your Nostalgia is Killing Me? Gosh, I don’t want to write about David Feinberg for the rest of my life, but. . . I mean, you’d think I’d have exhausted that topic by now. Not to cast shade on Dave! He was quite the character in real life, and so of course he’s a fun character on the page. I have two voices playing constantly in my head, one is my mother’s, and the other is Dave’s. Are they the same voice? The older I get, the more they merge.

When I’m writing about a character who’s inspired by David or my mother, I don’t have to work hard to come up with dialogue. It’s like taking dictation: I just write down what I hear them saying. Which is not to say that I’m remembering what either of them said, in real time in the actual world.

I can hear them talking about stuff they would never have known about – Covid or Marjorie Taylor Greene or Spielberg’s and Kushner’s West Side Story. It’s hard not to write about characters who make writing so easy for you. And I’m not good at inventing things. I couldn’t invent a character as vivid as either of them.

But the question of writing about David Feinberg and his writing, his fiction, and nonfiction, is also a question of writing about the first fifteen years of the global AIDS crisis. And I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to write about anything that doesn’t take that crisis into account. That is, if I’m writing realist fiction, and not fantasy or science fiction.

I would not be able to pretend AIDS was not there – is not still here. Well, and reality is lately so much like science fiction, that all you have to do is write down what happened this afternoon, and you’ve got a dystopian novel.t www.redhen.org

Read the full interview on www.ebar.com

Paul Gallo’s Extravaganza

Left: Artist and author Paul Gallo Right: Pages in Paul Gallo’s coloring book

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ike many others, artist, fashion designer and teacher Paul Gallo was heavily affected by the pandemic.

When the country went into lockdown, Gallo’s creative life came to a screeching halt. It led to his having a nervous breakdown.

“Then I was reminded to focus on staying on the artistic path which allows me to enjoy my life,” he writes in the introduction to My Sketchbook is the Safest Place on Earth: A Coloring Extravaganza of Healing for Folx 16 and Beyond, his recently published coloring book.

In the book, Gallo, who is queer, presents images he has drawn from his childhood to the present day. Most of the images are drawings of people dressed in a wide array of styles. Many of the pages include short affirmations in which Gallo expresses his innermost feelings, such as “our hearts leave impressions on many fellow beings,” words which accompany a drawing of a young man in a sleeveless leather top and a pair of tight leather shorts.

Leather has always been a big part of his design work.

The images in the book are all presented in black and white and are meant to be colored in by the reader.

Gallo said he hopes that others will find it healing to explore a creative path.

Though he drew other images, Gallo was always primarily interested in fashion. He drew voraciously in his youth, attracting the attention of the adults around him. Much to his surprise, his father encouraged him to attend classes at the prestigious Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

“It was very weird later in life that fathers would beat their sons for drawing dresses, and my dad made me go to college,” Gallo recalled in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “No one could believe it. He said, ‘You’re not going to be nothing, you’re going to do something, and this seems to be the only thing you know how to do, so go do it.’”

In addition to his teaching, Gallo has enjoyed high-end production jobs, which includes pattern-making and draping gigs. But when the pandemic hit, almost all of his gigs were cancelled.

“My brain could not comprehend how I could work for forty years do-

ing the same thing and it could come to a halt in three weeks,” he said. “They cancelled up to a year and a half worth of jobs. Suddenly there was nothing left to do.”

That was when he suffered his breakdown. As always he found solace in drawing, which is what led to his coloring book.

“I can’t write a book, but I can draw a book,” Gallo said. He explains why he put together a coloring book instead of a book of illustrations and essays.

Gallo wants people to know that creativity is healing. He feels that everyone is creative in some way. He spoke of one friend who told him that she uses the book whenever she feels ‘stuck’ or has a headache. The book, she told him, reinvigorates her.

“We can all color, or draw, or doodle or write words.”t My Sketchbook is the Safest Place on Earth is now available at Paul Gallo’s Etsy page, www.etsy.com/ shop/PaulGalloSF

Read the full interview on www.ebar.com

<< TV & Film

20 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13, 2022

Award war, too Slapgate upstages queer and Deaf wins

t

Left to Right: Chris Rock slapped by Will Smith at the Academy Awards; Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress as Anita in West Side Story; Troy Kotsur won Best Supporting Actor for his role in CODA; Lady Gaga with Liza Minnelli

by Victoria A. Brownworth

comedian and host Jerrod Carmichael was fabulously funny as he talked about “It” and ended by enjoining Barack Obama to “heal the nation” by talking about “It.” Carmichael said, “This is gonna really blow your minds. It happened a week ago. A week ago, bro … Doesn’t it feel like it happened when we were in high school?”

“A

pril is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot in The Wasteland, and it certainly seems to have begun that way.

Due to what could be called The Fresh Slap of Bel Air, we are still talking about the Oscars and the fallout from Will Smith slapping Chris Rock for an ableist joke directed at Jada Pinkett Smith. It doesn’t seem as if that talk will end anytime soon.

Will Packer, who made history as the first Black person to produce the Oscars, gave an exclusive interview to TJ Holmes on ABC’s Good Morning America on April 1 –a full five days after the event.

Packer told Holmes that Rock told him not to remove Smith from the event, despite the slap and that Rock was adamant with LAPD that he did not want to press charges. Rock may have thought that would end discussion of what happened, but it didn’t. Everyone has weighed in.

Whoopi Goldberg, who has famously dismissed Oscar winner Roman Polanski’s rape of a 13-year-old as “not rape rape” (Polanski was convicted) talked non-stop on The View about the incident, defending The Academy, the audience and Smith.

On Saturday Night Live, newly out

#OscarsSoQueer

Folks have been so caught up in talking about the assault that we never talked about how queer the Oscars were or how disabled people got the stage they were cheated out of the year before.

Jane Campion became only the third woman in the history of the Oscars to win Best Director and she won it for a gay-themed film, The Power of the Dog, which garnered more nominations than any other movie, including three acting nominations.

But you may not have heard about any of this because, well, yeah, that.

Before Will Smith “slapped the shit out of ” Chris Rock and the rest of us, we were laughing at the women comedians hosting: out lesbian Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall.

Sykes encouraged the audience to make it a “gay, gay, gay” night in a dig at Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The awards themselves had us crying real tears over the fabulousness of Ariana DeBose’s speech when she won Best Supporting Actress for her role as Anita in the remake of West Side Story. After thanking her partner, Broadway costume designer, and theater professor Sue Makkoo, DeBose said, “You see a queer, openly queer woman of color, an Afro Latina who found her strength in life through art.”

Uniqueness of you

The tears kept flowing as Troy Kotsur became only the second Deaf person to win an acting award. He won for Best Supporting Actor, for his role in CODA, signing his speech. He ended a long, moving speech saying, “I just wanted to say that this is dedicated to the Deaf community, the CODA community, and the disabled community. This is our moment.”

Jessica Chastain won Best Actress for her portrayal in the biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Chastain gave an emotional speech about suicide, LGBTQ kids and being better humans. She said, “We’re faced with discriminatory and bigoted legislation that is sweeping our country with the only goal of further dividing us.”

The night ended, post-slap, with perhaps the most moving scene of the night as Lady Gaga attended to Liza Minnelli, who was giving the award for Best Picture. Minnelli has been in ill health for years and now uses a wheelchair.

Compartment No. 6

by Brian Bromberger

although created by Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen (The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki) has the misfortune of occurring in Russia, when now anything Russian seems

I

n Hollywood, timing is everything.

And the new film Compartment No. 6, screening in Bay Area theaters,

unpalatable even traitorous. However, the movie isn’t about Russia per se, but boasts a universal theme of connection and acceptance in a world of chaos and anxiety, which during this

“PROVOCATIVE EXPLORATION OF QUEERNESS” -AMERICAN THEATRE MAGAZINE

, Y A L P e t P u h E c r ra

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IERE PREM D L R G WO G LIUALIST LLIN N ARD FIN A RO IRLAO Y AW R KER BYLY E WAL A IT N D I M D A L YA ED B CT DIRE

Clockwise from top left: Akaina Ghosh, James Aaron Oh, Troy Rockett, Matt Weimer • Photos by Lois Tema

APR 1-MAY 8, 2022

Barista blowoff

Smith has tendered his resignation to The Academy, but they are still considering what actions to take against him. They will meet on April 18, so

this ain’t over. And Chris Rock has yet to speak, so stay tuned.

One of the dishiest scenes on Oscars night took place on the red carpet when Caitlyn Jenner tried to get into Lady Gaga’s orbit and failed. The always charming LG did her best to swat that gnat with delicacy.

“Are you still in Malibu?” Jenner asked Lady Gaga. “I don’t see you at Starbucks anymore.”

Lady Gaga said, “Well, I switched baristas.”

Brilliant.

Alas, Jenner insists on making her presence felt in all the wrong ways.

On the Trans Day of Visibility she announced she had been hired by Fox News, which regularly misgenders people and has recently gone full QAnon with their anti-gay messaging. The one-time gubernatorial candidate will be a contributor to the network referred to as “State TV” in the Trump years.

In her statement about her new role at Fox, Jenner said, “I am humbled by this unique opportunity to speak directly to FOX News Media’s millions of viewers about a range of issues that are important to the American people.”

Meanwhile, Human Rights Campaign has stripped Fox News of preferred LGBTQ employer status, noting “Enough is enough.”t

Read more on www.ebar.com

A train journey worth boarding

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Shaky and shaking, Minnelli looked up at Lady Gaga who said, kindly and with no hint of condescension, “I got you” and helped her finish announcing the nominees and the winner, CODA. That win for CODA brought Deaf people to the stage. It’s impossible to articulate fully how impactful that scene was for the disability community in America. It’s to be hoped that CODA’s success will lead to more roles for Deaf and disabled actors on the big and small screens.

What’s saddening and frustrating is that so much history was made at these Oscars and the inspiration and aspiration of those wins have been lost in the non-stop discourse on The Slap.

Sykes went on Ellen’s show to talk about how horrified she was, noting she felt physically ill over witnessing the incident. Fellow host Schumer said on Instagram that she was traumatized, but felt bad for Smith in his tearful Best Actor speech.

But Pedro Almodovar, whose film Parallel Mothers was nominated in several categories, had a very different take when he wrote a piece for IndieWire and likened Smith to a cult leader.

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current crisis, is not only timely but instructional.

Adapted from a popular 2011 Finnish novel by Rosa Liksom, Compartment is an arctic road movie set in late 1990s Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It features a train showcasing two lost-soul riders, a grittier, less romantic reimagining of Before Sunrise, minus any Western clichés or conventions. The drab, gray, decaying countryside matches Russian pessimism during this pre-Putin period. The film just missed the shortlist for last year’s Best International Feature Oscar, but won 2021 Cannes’s Grand Prix.

Finnish student Laura (the superb Seidi Haarla), studying Russian and archaeology, attends the party of her professor and lover Irina, the night before leaving on a long railroad trip from Moscow to the city of Murmansk (north of the Arctic Circle) to see the recently discovered Kanozero Petroglyphs, 6000-year-old ancient rock carvings. Laura is infatuated with Irina, but ominously, the latter has canceled accompanying her.

Laura is forced to share her dingy compartment with Ljoha (the excellent Yuriy Borisov), a boorish drunken lout on his way to Murmansk to work as a coal miner. He thinks Laura might be a sex worker and crudely grabs her crotch. Laura flees his aggressiveness, attempting to switch berths, but is stuck with Ljoha in their tight quarters, suggesting a bumpy ride.

Slowly they open up to each other, with both characters simultaneously conveying both attraction and repulsion. Laura learns to surrender her

Seidi Haarla and Yuriy Borisov in Compartment No. 6

guarded façade, showing how heartbroken and emotionally afloat she is, while the restive Ljoha reveals a tender vulnerability and generosity of spirit.

This film is a beguiling offbeat charmer that emotionally grabs you when you least expect it. In this beautifully etched cross-cultural exercise, the film urges us to go beyond surfaces and assumptions we make about one another, to risk letting our guard down and be vulnerable to the moment, a message in these violent, bitter, partisan times that we ignore at our peril.t Compartment No. 6 is playing at the Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. www.rafaelfilm.cafilm.org www.sonyclassics.com

Read the full review on www.ebar.com

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<< Theatre & Music

22 • Bay Area Reporter • April 7-13, 2022

Circle Mirror Transformation

by Jim Gladstone

C

ircle Mirror Transformation, now being mounted by the Custom Made Theatre Company, is the third major Bay Area presentation of Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker’s work in the past few years—following John at A.C.T. and The Flick at Shotgun Players. It is every bit as oblique, intelligent and goosebumpy as those other love ’em or hate ’em shows (Take that as lure or warning). I’m an inamorato, which made the creepy intimacy of this one all the more engrossing.

An ingenious work of meta-theatrical metastasis, the play is set in a mirror-walled studio at a Vermont community center, where instructor Marty, played with saucer-eyed, granola-fed perfection by Emily Keyishian, is teaching a six-week intro-toacting workshop to four novices, one of whom happens to be her husband (David Boyll, hitting just the right balance of fawning and fed-up). Such

classes being what they are –and artsinclined Vermonters being who they are– the weekly sessions owe as much to therapy as to Thespis.

Class members’ marital strains, identity crises and other personal angsts bleed into the improvs, creativity prompts and trust exercises they participate in. Where Method Acting consists of full emotional identification with a fictional character, the method on display here is about fully disclosing one’s neuroses to one’s nosey fellow townsfolk.

Through watching them participate in awkward theater games, which will be recognizable to audience members who taken this sort of class, we learn about group members’ past breakups, see them stumble into flirtations and flings with each other, and generally fuse into a pablum-soaked blob of codependent goo.

One of the show’s most delicious moments comes in the middle of a recurring exercise in which the group

Wicked games with Custom Made Theatre

Jay Yamada

Brenda Cisneros, Alfred Muller, Emily Keyishian, Lauren Dunagan and David Boyll in Circle Mirror Transformation

lays on the floor and tries to telepathically communicate while counting to ten, when Lauren (Brenda Cisneros, nailing the full-body eyeroll of adolescent attitude), a high school student and the youngest class member by at least a decade, suddenly gets twitchy, loses her composure and asks “Are we going to be doing any real acting?”

For game audience members, this

t

provocation opens the floodgates to all sorts of brain-twisting fun: We’re invited to think about what it means to watch actors playing non-actors who want to be actors; to consider whether this sort of class serves any legitimate purpose (and whether that purpose is related to theater skills, or just social skills); and to guess what playwright Baker thinks about the people and

situations presented in her own play.

It’s a particular pleasure to experience this show in the close confines of the 49-seat Phoenix Theater, just off of Union Square (Custom Made was previously in residence at the Sutter Street Theater complex). The audience sits on the perimeter of the classroom/ studio set in which scenic and lighting designers Starr Jiang and Weili Shi have tucked away some uncanny effects to punctuate the mind-melds and cognitive cramps experienced by Baker’s characters.

The proceedings are all smoothly orchestrated by director Ciera Eis, who helps leave us guessing whether we’ve just been shown how the sausage gets made or been given a wicked parody of the process.t Circle Mirror Transformation through April 17. Custom Made Theatre Co. at the Phoenix Theater. 414 Mason Street.

Tickets: $20-$45. (415) 7982682 www.custommade.org

John Holiday to perform at Opera Parallèle

by Jim Provenzano

J

ohn Holiday, the acclaimed countertenor known for opera, pop and jazz singing, will headline a benefit

Personals

for Opera Parallèle at Saint Joseph’s Arts Society in SoMa on April 14.

The singer, known for his spectacular range and versatile style, will perform several songs, including the classic

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Harold Arlen The Wizard of Oz song, “Over the Rainbow,” which is also the theme of the benefit.

The event will support Opera Parallèle’s launch of a new LGBTQ+Ally social network, the Rainbow Chorus, and their July 14-17 production of the Philip Glass opera, La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) at SF Jazz’s Miner Auditorium.

Holliday has been the recipient of numerous music awards since his career began. He has degrees from Southern Methodist University, Cincinnati College and Conservatory of Music, and the Juilliard School. The gay singer came to national fame when he competed on the NBC TV show The Voice.

“For me the most important aspect of picking a song is the idea of connectedness,” said Holiday in a March 2021 interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “What is it that I can bring to the floor that will allow my audiences to have some kind of connected tissue

Shervin Lainez

John Holiday

to the text? Is there something emotional, is there some kind of statement that the song is making? Is there some kind of statement the song is making that goes along with my platform?

How does it make me feel? If it makes me feel good maybe it’ll make some-

one else feel good.”

“When we selected the theme of ‘Over the Rainbow’ for our benefit celebration - thinking of the dispersion of light and hope in our community, I immediately thought of John Holiday as the perfect artist,” said Opera Parallèle General and Artistic Director Nicole Paiement. “John’s astonishing voice has a myriad of colors that take you from opera and jazz, to gospel and pop music. He is also a powerful storyteller with an amazing life story of his own and a generous spirit on stage.

His magnetism will magically pull us together into a colorful evening.”

During the evening, Rainbow Chorus Co-Chairs Deb Stallings and Paul Woolford will announce the new LGBTQ+Ally social network, the Rainbow Chorus. Tickets for the April 14 Benefit Celebration at 1401 Howard Street begin at $300 per person.t www.operaparallele.org

Gay Men’s Chorus to premiere new work

by David-Elijah Nahmod

O

easter o t ff en stu thing d y r r a e g v e From ll find ’ u o y , kets. s s e i a l b p r p su you to stuff

479 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA 94114

www.cliffsvariety.com

n April 10, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus will present Voices Rising, an evening of music as only the chorus can present it. Voices Rising will include the world premiere Songs of the Phoenix, a song cycle featuring ten songs by thirteen composers and lyricists.

Curated by the Tony nominated Broadway composer Andrew Lippa, who is also one of the composers represented in the cycle, Songs of the Phoenix comes at an emotional time for the chorus, as longtime artistic director and conductor Dr. Tim Seelig is preparing to step down and retire.

Seelig made reference to the pandemic as he explained why the new show is called Voices Rising. The voices of the chorus were silenced during the pandemic, which devastated both himself and the singers. Two years ago, the chorus was forced to cancel its Spring show at Davies Symphony Hall, which is the locale for Voices Rising.

Lippa chose the thirteen librettists and composers. They are Ty Defoe, Alexandra Elle, Siedah Garrett, Joriah Kwame, Patrick and Daniel Lazour, Melissa Li, Ingrid Michaelson, Stephen Schwartz, Diana Syrse, Kit Yan, the great Stephen Sondheim and Lippa himself.

“The thirteen composers possess as wide a range of experience as one

San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus

could imagine,” said Seelig. “They are straight, gay, bi, trans and two-spirit.

They are African American, Latinx, Chinese, Pacific Islander and Middle Eastern. They are young and old. The youngest is 25, the oldest is 91. Mr. Sondheim contributed his piece this past summer before his death in November. We are very lucky. It also includes Siedah Garrett, who co-wrote ‘Man in the Mirror’ with Michael Jackson.”

The evening will also include highlights from two of the chorus’ commissions, “Unbreakable” and “@ Queerz. Unbreakable,” which was first performed four years ago.

The evening will feature a tenth anniversary performance of “Testimony,” which was written by threetime Academy award and four-time Grammy Award winning composer Stephen Schwartz. First performed in

2012, “Testimony” was inspired by the It Gets Better Project. There will also be a tribute to Sondheim.

“Most of us have lived through not one, but two pandemics,” said Seelig.

“As an HIV-positive man, I can testify that we are still grappling with the first one. But we are coming out of a very different pandemic than the first. This one shut the world down. Our message of the evening is in the very first piece we will sing, “We Are Survivors.”

That is the powerful and uplifting message of the entire evening.”t San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performs Voices Rising Sunday April 10, 7:30pm, at Davies Symphony Hall at 7:30pm. www.sfgmc.org

Read the full article on www.ebar.com

t

Art >>

April 7-13, 2022 • Bay Area Reporter • 23

Marvelous Muppets

Courtesy The Jim Henson Company/Museum of the Moving Image.

Jim Henson with Muppets from Fraggle Rock.

by Jim Provenzano

T

he Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited, currently showing at the Contemporary Jewish Museum through August 14, brings joy and visual delight to fans of all ages.

In panels of text, photos, embedded videos, displays, and of course actual Muppets and characters from Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, The Dark Crystal and Fraggle Rock, the exhibition includes more than 150 items, and an interactive booth where you can actually operate a Muppet and make a short video.

Fans of a certain age may recall when their childhood was filled with the joy of Sesame Street, and later The Muppet Show, which was enjoyed by international audiences on hundreds of TV stations.

The exhibition, in the eighth of its nine-city U.S. tour begun in 2018, spans four decades of Jim Henson’s

creative output (before he died in 1990) and the work with his many collaborators. Video excerpts of Henson’s early film works include the Academy award-nominated Time Piece, his many wacky black and white commercials for Wilkins Coffee and various products, and guest appearances on numerous chat shows.

Sketches, drawings and storyboards show how his work developed, up to what became a PBS classic, Sesame Street. Included among the actual Muppets in the CJM exhibit are Ernie and Bert, Count Von Count, and the popular favorite Grover.

The Muppet Show characters Scooter, Miss Piggy (in a Baby Muppet version), Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker are each placed in cases near a reconstruction of the opening number set, which offers opportunities for patron selfies.

“While Henson himself was not Jewish, his life’s work and legacy beauti-

Jim Provenzano

Scooter Muppet near a recreated set piece in The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited, at The Contemporary Jewish Museum

Courtesy The Jim Henson Company/Museum of the Moving Image.

Richard Hunt (left), Jim Henson (center), and Frank Oz (right) performing Ernie and Bert on the set of Sesame Street, 1970s.

fully reflect the core values of The CJM,” said Senior Curator Heidi Rabben in a press statement. “Henson sought to create a better world on-screen, which allowed people from all walks of life to see parts of themselves reflected through these beloved characters.”

Organized by the Museum of the Moving Image, the exhibition focuses on Henson’s biography back to the 1950s where he created early characters on WRC-TV, including the very first version of Kermit the Frog, whose modern version greets attendees at the entrance.

The exhibit includes installed video clips of Henson and decades-long collaborator Frank Oz. In 1969, the now iconic children’s television show Sesame Street premiered with both human and Muppet characters, including Cookie Monster, Ernie and Bert, Big Bird and many others.

After a brief foray into more adult comedy with Muppets appearing on Saturday Night Live and a bluntly titled special, The Sex and Violence Show, Henson pitched The Muppet Show to the major networks, who all rejected it. It was Lew Grade, a British television producer, who got the wit and variety show tone of the project.

Part of the show’s charm was the interaction between Muppets and numerous guest stars, ranging from Raquel Welch to Alice Cooper. The weekly behind-the-scenes hijinks and snafus made up a great part of the shows that pleased both children and adults.

In attendance at the press preview was Bonnie Erickson, known mostly for creating Miss Piggy, along with other characters like Statler and Waldorf, the elder back-talking audience members on The Muppet Show.

Erickson supervised the London workshop for The Muppet Show’s first season in 1976.

With Kermit hosting and his side-

kick Fozzie Bear pushing corny jokes, the show took on a witty vaudeville style, with plenty of songs. Kermit’s eager assistant Scooter was voiced and operated by Richard Hunt, who also played Statler and among many characters, Ernie’s right hand on Sesame Street. Although he’s shown in two exhibition photo panels, that Hunt was openly gay and died of AIDS in 1992 is not mentioned.

Asked about how the Muppets charmed both kids and adults, Erickson said, “Jim’s humor was not mean. There were a lot of very crazy characters but it wasn’t mean and they were forgiving. So his abstract strange off-the-wall humor came into the process, and the writers got it. There was always an undertone of satire with what was going on, but the kids got the humor, and also the slapstick of having Cookie Monster eat so many cookies.”

Among her favorites, Erickson said that she still tears up when she hears the popular Paul Williams/Kenneth Ascher

song “The Rainbow Connection,” featured in 1979’s The Muppet Movie.

Speaking of rainbows, the question had to be asked; Ernie and Bert and their relationship. Are they gay?

“Somebody asked Jim that, and he said, ‘Oh my god; they’re puppets!’”

Straight or gay, blue, green or purple, Erickson also thinks that Hensen’s sense of humanity mixed with humor had an effect as well. “There was an irony that he had, but he was very kind. As people have called him, he was a gentle Anarchist.”t The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited, at The Contemporary Jewish Museum; Thu-Sun, 11am-5pm. $14-$16, under 18 free.

736 Mission St. www.thecjm.org

Read the full feature, including Erickson’s story of creating Miss Piggy, plus video clips, on www.ebar.com.

Above: Bonnie Erickson in a previous version of the The Jim Henson Exhibition.

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