som has named a prominent lesbian attorney to a vacancy on the Alameda County Superior Court. Julie Wilensky is one of three female judicial appointees
Newsom named August 7 to vacant seats on the East Bay bench.
A onetime senior staff attorney at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights when it was known as the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Wilensky is now with the San Francisco City Attorney’s office. She is a deputy city attorney on the complex and affirmative litigation team.
A Democrat who resides in Oakland with her family, Wilensky will fill the vacancy created by then-President Joe Biden’s appointment last year of Judge Noel Wise to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It is unclear when she will take her judicial oath and officially become a superior court judge, as her swearingin date has yet to be set.
This isn’t the first time that Newsom has tapped Wilensky for a prominent role. In late 2020, he named her to the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Council.
Due to her being on vacation, Wilensky told the Bay Area Reporter she was unavailable for a phone interview. In an August 7 emailed reply to questions, she said she had applied for a gubernatorial appointment to be a judge last year and only learned about being selected shortly before the public announcement made by Newsom’s office.
“I want to become a judge to serve my local community in Alameda County, and to carry out the judiciary’s goal of providing fair and equal access to justice for all Californians,” Wilensky told the B.A.R. “I’m grateful to the Governor for appointing me, and I look forward to working hard every day to earn and maintain the public’s trust.”
This marks the second time a staff member from City Attorney David Chiu’s office has been named a judge by the governor over the four years Chiu has held the position. Chiu praised Wilensky’s selection in a statement to the B.A.R.
“We’re excited that another judge will be coming from the ranks of the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. Julie is a remarkable attorney, who has contributed significantly to our office’s successes on behalf of San Francisco,” stated Chiu. “While we will miss working with her, the people of California are gaining an outstanding jurist, with strong analytical skills, a deep sense of justice, and a fair temperament.”
Wilensky, 45, served on the board of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, the local LGBTQ bar association, in 2016 and 2017 as its secretary and amicus chair. Her board bio noted she was in her fourth year of serving on the BALIF board of directors at that time.
While at NCLR, she was involved in the case that made national headlines of an elderly lesbian couple in Missouri who had sued the senior housing community that allegedly denied renting them a unit after finding out they were married. In December 2020, the parties reached a confidential settlement to resolve the case, according to the legal nonprofit.
CA helplines face own hard times
by Matthew S. Bajko
After providing support to their callers for years, several helplines in California are now facing their own hard times. They are no longer receiving the same amount of state funding they used to in years past to cover their operations, throwing the longevity of their services into question.
The California Parent & Youth Helpline, for example, had been counting on $3 million from the state’s Behavioral Health Services Fund that the Legislature had approved in the spring as part of its 2025 state budget proposal. Yet Governor Gavin Newsom removed the funding from the final budget that he signed in late June.
Now, the helpline run by Parents Anonymous based in Los Angeles is seeking to have state lawmakers restore the funding via a budget trailer bill they are expected to pass prior to the end of the current legislative session in mid-September. Otherwise, it has warned its helpline is at risk of shutting down entirely.
“We want continuity of services,” Parents Anonymous CEO Lisa Pion-Berlin, Ph.D., told the Bay Area Reporter.
Pion-Berlin, a straight ally, noted her agency’s helpline, accessible by dialing or texting 855-4272736, routinely handles calls from parents whose children have come out to them about their sexual orientation or gender identity and don’t know what to do, or they say they’re unable to be accepting of their child due to their religious or personal beliefs.
The helpline also fields calls from youth not yet out of the closet and uncomfortable calling other help lines marketed to LGBTQ young people, she added.
“We know youth reach out to talk about bullying. All of our staff are trained on what issues might be around bullying,” said Pion-Berlin. “Some kids are not ready to discuss their sexual orientation. We’ve trained our counselors to be sensitive about what are people talking about, and what are they trying to talk about, so we can hand them off to the right support services.”
It launched a petition at to drum up public support, though as of August 6 had reached just 93 supporters out of a goal of 20,000. One of the people doing so was Robert Costic, a gay man who is president of the PFLAG San Francisco chapter.
“Yes, we support the helpline’s petition. I’ve signed on to it and have posted about it on our social media,” Costic told the B.A.R. in late July.
See page 6 >>
SF nonprofit looks to add LGBTQ luminaries’ plaques to Castro streets
by Cynthia Laird
Organizers of the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood are gearing up to add several plaques amid changes to the project that posthumously honors LGBTQ luminaries. The board of the nonprofit may also alter how it selects people in the future in an effort to get the plaques installed quicker.
The last formal class of 23 inductees was announced in 2022.
The plaques for three of those people, including gay Bay Area Reporter founding publisher Bob Ross, are expected to be installed soon. A plaque for Roger Casement, a gay Irishman who was hanged for treason in 1916, is expected to be installed in October, according to Charlotte Ruffner, vice president of the honor walk board, and Matthew Rothschild, a gay man and retired attorney who has taken the lead in fundraising for the Casement plaque.
The other plaques from the 2022 class that are expected to be installed will honor trans activist Marsha P. Johnson and gay activist Gilbert Baker, who co-created the rainbow flag. In 2021, the all-volunteer honor walk board selected lesbian trailblazer Phyllis Lyon, who died in 2020, to have a plaque. Lyon’s spouse, the late Del Martin, was inducted into the honor walk in the first class in 2014 and her plaque can be found on 19th Street near Collingwood Street.
“The plaques for Phyllis Lyon, Bob Ross, Marsha P. Johnson, and Gilbert Baker were all received from the foundry in May,” Ruffner wrote in an email. “I’m happy to report they’ve all been paid for in full and are ready to be installed. As Donna Sachet mentioned, we’re now navigating the city’s permit process and finalizing the selection of a contractor. Once that’s in place, we’ll coordinate the installation.”
Sachet, a former Imperial Court empress and longtime San Francisco resident, has served as the president of the honor walk board for six years, though she is expected to step down from the role in September. Right now, Sachet wrote in
an email, she is working with San Francisco Public Works to coordinate permits and other issues related to the installation of the plaques.
Last year, in addition to Casement, the board approved a plaque for Mario Mieli, a gay man considered a founder of Italy’s homosexual movement and one of the leading theoreticians in Italian homosexual activism. Mieli died in 1983 at age 30.
“For clarification, the Mieli and Casement plaques have not been fabricated. We have not paid them,” Ruffner stated. The Mieli plaque has been ordered, but we don’t yet have a delivery date. If it arrives in time, we’ll aim to install it with the others.”
The Casement plaque is hoped to be installed in early October, Rothschild told the B.A.R. in a phone interview Ruffner told the B.A.R. it is likely the new plaques will be installed along 18th Street.
According to Ruffner, there are currently 44 plaques installed in the Castro as part of the Rainbow Honor Walk project. A map of the locations is on the honor walk’s website.
Leadership changes expected Ruffner, a straight ally, could become the honor walk’s next board president. She told the B.A.R. in a phone interview that she would like to see the plaque selection process changed.
“I have agreed to step up when Donna steps down,” Ruffner said.
“We only meet once a month,” Ruffner continued. “We’ve had 44 plaques in 11 or 12 years, that equals four plaques a year. Why don’t we do four a year?” she said, referring to selecting a smaller number of honorees instead of announcing a class of 23 people, as happened in 2022. “If it were up to me, it would only take a year to pick a person and get the plaque in the sidewalk.”
Ruffner noted that reviewing the text for each plaque also takes time.
“It’s hard to edit someone’s life down to 30 words,” she said. Each plaque includes the text, generally around 25 words, an engraved etching of their image that becomes clear when a photo is taken of it, and their signature.
She also noted that the board has leeway in selecting an honoree.
“There’s no rule on how we pick,” she said.
The honor walk board had used as criteria that a person had to self-identify as LGBTQ during their lifetime. But that policy was not always adhered to. In 2016, the board chose astronaut Sally Ride and Texas politico Barbara Jordan; both were posthumously outed as lesbians. (Recently, Ride’s surviving partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy, said that Ride gave her permission to talk about their life together before Ride died in 2012. A new documentary, “Sally,” was released earlier this year and is available for streaming.)
The Rainbow Honor Walk includes famous and not-so-famous people. One of the reasons for the project is so that passersby can learn a little history about LGBTQ individuals and their contributions around the world as they walk along main streets in the Castro.
'Honey Don't!
Mission mural vandalized
'Deaf President Now!'
Belinda Carlisle
A plaque for Irish patriot Roger Casement is one of several expected to be installed soon as part of the Rainbow Honor Walk in the Castro.
Courtesy Rainbow Honor Walk
The California Parent & Youth Helpline is advocating for additional state funding and has warned it may need to shut down due to the budget cuts.
Courtesy California Parent & Youth Helpline
Julie Wilensky was appointed an Alameda County Superior Court judge by Governor Gavin Newsom.
Courtesy the governor’s office
For example, Ruffner said that the late lesbian teacher and political activist Sally Gearhart was added by the board last year and some money was raised for her plaque around the release of the documentary “Sally!” (Not to be confused with the film about Ride.)
“After watching ‘Sally!’ at the Roxie, I personally would like to see Gearhart’s plaque added to the sidewalk in 2026, but it’s not up to just me,” Ruffner wrote in an email. “A majority of the board has to vote on it.”
Ruffner also talked about the ability of the board to fundraise when current events highlight someone who has been inducted into the honor walk.
“When we do have the opportunity to generate some buzz,” Ruffner said, it’s easier to raise money. “That’s what happened with Roger [Casement] and Mario [Mieli].”
“We’re doing our best,” Ruffner added.
In Mieli’s case, the Italian consulate held a fundraiser last month.
“We are glad to announce that the Rainbow Honor Walk of San Francisco has decided to install and dedicate a bronze plaque to the Italian LGBT Activist Mario Mieli within the pathway of plaques in the Castro,” the consulate wrote on its Facebook page.
“The Circolo di Cultura Omosessuale Mario Mieli of Rome is one of the most active LGBT+ organizations in Italy,” the consulate added. “As Consulate General of #Italy in #Sanfrancisco, we invite all our
friends to support this important project and the fundraising with a donation.”
In terms of other fundraising, Rothschild’s GoFundMe for Casement has raised about $7,800, he said. Ruffner said that it has raised enough money to help pay for some of the other plaques. (A total amount raised was not available on the GoFundMe page.)
Ruffner said that all the money raised will go to the honor walk’s general fund, and she has now taken responsibility of the fundraising page.
It costs about $6,000 to fabricate and install a plaque, and now there are additional city expenses, Sachet and Ruffner said.
There will be a fundraiser to celebrate Casement’s induction Thursday, September 4, from 5 to 8 p.m. at Casements bar, 2351 Mission Street in San Francisco. The suggested donation is $20, Ruffner said.
The bar, known for its extensive Irish whiskey selection, is co-owned by Chris Hastings, a gay man who
that he “was just thrilled” to learn of her appointment.
also owns the Castro gay bar The Lookout. It is named in honor of Casement, an Irish merchant marine who exposed colonial atrocities in the Belgian Congo and in South America but was later accused of being a homosexual and executed.
Sachet will emcee the party, which will feature remarks by Rothschild, the Honorable Micháel Smith, consul general of Ireland; and Hilda Kissane, president of the United Irish Societies of San Francisco.
Rachel Gordon, spokesperson for San Francisco Public Works, wrote in an email August 5 that previous honor walk plaques were installed as elements of two city streetscape projects – Upper Market and Castro – so the city covered the cost. The installation of any new ones needs to be paid for by the project leaders, she noted, since they are not sponsored by the city.
“The new plaques, however, are community-sponsored,” Gordon stated. “While Public Works is working with Donna and others through our Love Our Neighborhoods permitting program, the installation costs will be covered by the sponsors and a permit is required. There is a permit fee of $533 for all the plaques within the proposal, a reduced cost under the new Love Our Neighborhood program.”
Ruffner and Sachet said the honor walk is now also responsible for finding a contractor to do the work. Gordon confirmed this.
“As for contractors, we by practice and policy do not recommend specific contractors but as a courtesy do provide lists of companies that perform the work,” she stated. “The list
inely one of the most thoughtful and open-minded people I have ever met.”
<< From the Cover
is not exhaustive and folks can use it as a starting point if they want.”
Gordon said that to date, Public Works has not received an application for the plaques expected to be installed soon.
“While we have not yet received an application, we have been working closely with the sponsors on locations, acceptable sidewalk plaque specs, and the like,” Gordon told the B.A.R.
The Love Our Neighborhoods program enables Public Works, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and the planning department to work together to speed up the process for neighborhood improvement projects. The first one was a heart sculpture installed downtown by the cable car turnaround outside the Hyatt Regency, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
In another honor walk development, Brian McConnell, founder of the old roving Guerrilla Queer Bar crawls of straight venues, recently wrote on social media that he’s joined the Rainbow Honor Walk as an adviser. He hopes to assist with fundraising and is looking for web developers to help redesign the honor walk’s website, he stated.
Casement’s history
Rothschild, who used to work in the San Francisco City Attorney’s office, told the B.A.R. he became focused on Casement after learning about him.
“He transcends political leanings,” he said. “Everyone looked up to him. There probably isn’t a city in Ireland that doesn’t have a Casement Street.” Casement was outed as gay when
authorities found his diaries, the authenticity of which has been debated for decades, as the Irish Times noted last December. He’s credited with human rights investigations.
Casement risked everything to expose the brutal atrocities committed against people in the Belgian Congo. In the early 1900s, he traveled deep into the heart of Africa and documented the horrific abuse, forced labor, and mass killings carried out under King Leopold II’s rule – a regime that left millions of people dead. Casement’s report shocked the world and helped ignite an international movement that saved countless African lives.
He later traveled to Peru where he also documented abuses in the rubber industry against the Putumayo Indians.
Casement was involved in the Easter Rising, an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter week. “That was treason at the time,” said Rothschild. “He stood up for what he believed in.” Casement was tried on the treason charges and found guilty. Some people wanted him to receive a life sentence, Rothschild noted, but then his enemies discovered his diaries and he was hanged on August 3, 1916. He was 51. Rothschild said he looks forward to community members learning more about Casement. And he recommended “The Dream of the Celt,” a novel written in 2010 by Mario Vargas Llosa, a Peruvian writer and 2010 Nobel laureate in literature.
“We have heroes that we know,” he said. “It’s nice to learn about others who gave their lives.”
For more information on the Rainbow Honor Walk, go to www.rainbowhonorwalk.org. t
NCLR Vice President of Legal Shannon Minter has known Wilensky for 14 years, from her serving as a cocounsel on cases prior to working for the
to her time as a
and
of its
she applied to be a judge and told the B.A.R. in an
8 phone interview
“I am so proud and excited that someone of her caliber from our community has been appointed to the bench,” said Minter, a trans man, adding that there are “many reasons” for why he believes she will excel at being a judge. “I think what stands out to anyone who knows Julie is her integrity and sense of fairness. She is genu-
Minter told the B.A.R. he knows Wilensky “will bring those qualities to the bench and that every single person who appears in front of her will receive a fair and compassionate hearing.”
Prior to joining NCLR in 2018, Wilensky served as a deputy county counsel at the Santa Clara County Counsel’s Office. She also previously worked as a senior counsel at Disability Rights California and as a director at the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center, now known as Disability Law United.
Over a decade ago Wilensky was an associate at Lewis, Feinberg, Lee & Jackson, P.C. She became a shareholder in the local law firm in 2015.
In 2016, the Daily Journal named Wilensky as one of California’s Top 40 Lawyers Under 40 and Top Women Lawyers. The National LGBT Bar Association in 2015 had named her one of the Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40.
Wilensky clerked for Judge John T. Noonan Jr. at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals from 2009 to 2010 and for Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York from 2008 to 2009. A Thomas Emerson Fellow at David Rosen & Associates from 2007 to 2008, Wilensky received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School.
While at Yale, in 2001, she met Rachel Claire Berger, a graphic designer who is vice provost at the California Institute of the Arts. The women had a civil union ceremony and a wedding in Connecticut in 2007.
“Due to the patchwork of laws recognizing same-sex relationships at the time, we also got married in Montreal, Canada in 2008,” recalled Wilensky, who has two kids with her wife.
The Alameda County Superior Court had 10 known LGBTQ judges serving on it as of the end of 2024, according to the latest demographic data for the state’s judges released earlier
this year. The East Bay court for several years now has had the distinction of having the most LGBTQ judges of any county in Northern California. Newsom filled two other vacancies on the court’s bench Thursday. He named Diane Meier, an appellate court attorney in the First District Court of Appeal, to the seat vacated by Judge Charles A. Smiley upon Newsom naming him last year to California’s First District Court of Appeal, Division One.
Deputy County Counsel Cara Sandberg for the Santa Clara County Counsel’s Office will fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Ursula Jones Dickson. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors appointed Jones Dickson as district attorney earlier this year after voters recalled former DA Pamela Price last November.
Like Wilensky, Sandberg and Meier are both Democrats. All three will earn $244,727 as judges. t
<< Alameda bench
From page 1
A depiction of the plaque for Italian gay activist Mario Mieli
Courtesy Rainbow Honor Walk
Activists persist on Compton’s zoning issue Community News>>
by Eliot Faine
Activists are preparing to challenge
a recent San Francisco Board of Appeals decision that upheld the continued use of the historic site of the former Gene Compton’s Cafeteria as a prison reentry facility. The activists plan to make their request at the August 20 Board of Appeals meeting.
City residents, historians, and scholars are preparing to present new evidence to the Board of Appeals in their request for a rehearing, challenging the board’s 4-1 decision in July to uphold a zoning determination for GEO Reentry Services, a subsidiary of GEO Group Inc.
Wilder Zeiser, who filed the zoning complaint, said they were surprised with the appeals board’s decision allowing GEO Group to continue operating out of the 111 Taylor Street building.
“We were surprised that we lost the hearing on July 16,” Zeiser said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.
For 36 years the private prison operator and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractor GEO Group has been operating a reentry facility at 111 Taylor Street.
The ground floor commercial space had housed Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, where one night in August 1966 a drag queen reportedly threw a cup of hot coffee in the face of a police officer who tried to arrest her without a warrant. The exact date of the altercation has been lost to time.
But the incident sparked a riot between trans and queer patrons of the 24-hour diner and cops, as detailed in the 2005 documentary “Screaming Queens” by transgender scholar and historian Susan Stryker, Ph.D.
The property earlier this year became the first one of its kind granted
Two plaques at the Turk and Taylor intersection in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood commemorate the 1966 riot at Gene Compton’s cafeteria.
federal landmark status specifically for its connection to the transgender movement in the U.S. It is also now on the California Register of Historical Resources.
In 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declared the intersection in front of Compton’s and the exterior walls of 111 Taylor Street as the city’s 307th landmark . It provides some level of protection to the building facade from being altered.
Present-day activists with Compton’s x Coalition had appealed the letter of determination from the zoning department earlier this year affirming the facility’s group housing determination on the grounds that the building should be considered a “carceral operation.” It was that determination that the appeals board upheld last month.
Since then, however, there have been new revelations.
Chief among them is the July 14
death of former 111 Taylor Street resident Melvin Bulauan. He died about a block away from the facility, and had been transferred to 111 Taylor Street the day before. News of his passing came the day after the Board of Appeals upheld the group housing determination.
“We compiled a new set of evidence and submitted that for a rehearing so there’s obviously, you know, Melvin Bulauan’s death, in addition to a couple of other points that aid in our quest for rehearing,” Zeiser said. “August 20 will be at the Board of Appeals, a brief hearing to determine whether we qualify for a full rehearing.
“I believe that we would qualify for a rehearing based on the new evidence,” Zeiser added. “But again, I’m not getting my hopes entirely up because of the surprise of losing the last hearing.”
The Compton’s x Coalition will argue in its request that Bulauan’s case and other residents’ allegations of “prison-like” conditions at 111 Taylor Street should be enough to qualify for a rehearing.
The Board of Appeals will hear Chandra Laborde’s request, as well as GEO Group’s response. The meeting takes place at 5 p.m. at San Francisco City Hall. If granted the request, a rehearing of the determination appeal will be set.
If not, with administrative remedies exhausted, Compton’s x Coalition will be able to file a writ, a type of lawsuit to challenge government decisions, Zeiser stated. A writ would take the case beyond the Board of Appeals to superior court. Ultimately, if the zoning status of the facility is found inaccurate, this could lead to termination of GEO’s contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
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SF Sheriff Miyamoto’s dubious endorsement
San Francisco’s Democratic Sheriff Paul Miyamoto ran for election and reelection on a platform of increasing safety for those in custody, especially those with mental health issues. He became the city and county’s first elected Asian American sheriff when he won office in 2020 and easily secured a second term in 2024. Miyamoto has been with the sheriff’s office since 1996, rising through the ranks. He’s always struck us as someone who knows and understands San Francisco’s diverse communities.
So, we were surprised when it was recently reported that Miyamoto has endorsed MAGA Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco for California governor in 2026. It’s a dubious show of support, to be sure, and Miyamoto himself has sought to downplay it. What’s even more amazing is Miyamoto’s reasoning – that he and Bianco are law enforcement colleagues, so they should support each other. (We would be shocked if the tables were turned and Bianco had endorsed Miyamoto for governor.)
Miyamoto should rescind his endorsement instead of trying to justify it.
“I support Sheriff Chad Bianco, alongside other sheriffs in California, as a peer leader in law enforcement and in the work we do to keep our communities safe,” Miyamoto wrote in a statement to Mission Local, which first reported the story.
“Law enforcement is not defined by political parties, but grounded in a commitment to public safety and the integrity of the profession.”
A few days later, Miyamoto further attempted to explain himself during an interview on KQED, the local public television station. “I don’t support him in terms of political affiliation or political party,” Miyamoto said. “This is coming from the fact that we’re both sheriffs working together in a sheriffs’ association.”
Miyamoto told the station that he and other sheriffs signed a letter of support for Bianco, but his endorsement has limits: as a professional courtesy to a fellow law enforcement officer and member of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, the nonprofit professional organization representing all of California’s 58 elected sheriffs. https://www.calsheriffs.org/
What Miyamoto fails to understand is that an endorsement is an endorsement, and that’s how it appears on Bianco’s campaign website. There is Miyamoto’s name, alongside other county sheriffs. There isn’t an asterisk that notes Miyamoto doesn’t support Bianco “in terms of political affiliation of political party.” When potential voters visit Bianco’s site and look at his endorsements, they will see the name of San Francisco’s sheriff. That may lead them to believe Bianco isn’t the anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ candidate that he is. In other words, Bianco having the ability to list Miyamoto’s name among his endorsers may result in voters giving him the benefit of the doubt.
That would be wrong. Bianco has cozied up to President Donald Trump, especially on his immigra-
tion policies. Bianco states on his campaign website that he would work with the Trump administration to stop illegal border crossings and abolish sanctuary state policies and ensure local law enforcement is free to collaborate with federal partners when dealing with illegal immigrants who commit crimes. As we have seen in California since June, ICE officials have conducted numerous immigration raids that have ensnared legal residents and U.S. citizens, among others. ICE agents have targeted individuals based on race, language, and accent. The San Francisco Police Department has come under criticism from queer District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder for deploying officers outside immigration court, while SFPD brass have maintained that the department does not assist ICE in the enforcement of civil immigration laws.
As for the sheriff’s office, NBC Bay Area reported in July that the federal Department of Justice issued requests to some California sheriffs, including Miyamoto, to turn over lists of inmates in their jails who are not U.S. citizens, along with their alleged crimes and scheduled release dates.
Miyamoto responded to the DOJ’s intentions, saying that his office would not participate in civil immigration enforcement, the station reported.
“The federal government already knows the identity and has the fingerprints of every inmate in San Francisco’s jails,” said Miyamoto in a statement released by his office. “If the federal government has a legal reason to arrest someone, they can do so by obtaining a criminal warrant or court order.” Miyamoto said the sheriff’s office will honor judicial warrants.
“My priority is public safety – not politics,” Miyamoto told the station. “We will not foster fear in immigrant communities by acting as an arm of immigration enforcement.”
That, of course, is directly at odds with the man he’s endorsed for governor.
On education, Bianco supports repealing Assembly Bill 1955, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed last year. AB 1955, by gay Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego), bans school districts from outing trans youth without their permission to their parents unless doing so is needed to protect their mental health. This law is especially critical now that transgender youth are being attacked by Trump and his administration on everything from participating in school sports to accessing genderaffirming care.
Miyamoto has long considered himself an ally to the LGBTQ community, which makes his endorsement of Bianco all the more puzzling. On issue after issue, Bianco spews the MAGA line at the expense of fairness and equity. That’s not who we need leading California.
With California being a deep blue state, it’s unlikely Bianco will win the governor’s race; at this point, he’s probably more interested finishing in the top two in next June’s primary. (California has an open primary, meaning the top two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of political party.)
A recent Emerson College Polling California survey had Bianco at 7% support in the primary, behind fellow Republican Steve Hilton, who had 12%. Besting both at 18% was Democratic former congressmember Katie Porter of Orange County.
Being a MAGA candidate here may not be that helpful. The Desert Sun, a newspaper in Bianco’s Riverside County, found that in California, 29% approve of Trump, 68% disapprove, and 3% neither approve nor disapprove as of Monday, August 4. The Economist was even blunter, reporting that Trump has a net approval rating of -31.1% in the Golden State. Those numbers don’t bode well for Bianco.
Yet, in spite of knowing that California is a Democratic state, and despite securing endorsements from a bevy of Democratic political clubs in his previous races, Miyamoto is blowing up his own brand with this stupid endorsement.
Endorsements are generally made because a person supports a candidate’s policy positions. Miyamoto has said he’s not aligned with Bianco by political affiliation or political party. But his endorsement implies that he believes in Bianco’s policy positions, which are out of step with most Democrats.
Miyamoto should have had the resolve not to sign the endorsement letter. According to Bianco’s campaign site, he has endorsements from 38 county sheriffs, not including some retired sheriffs, meaning that 20 did not endorse him. That list includes gay Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto and Alameda County Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez, a progressive law enforcement officer in the East Bay.
In fact, other Bay Area sheriffs have not endorsed Bianco, with the exception of Solano County Sheriff Tom Ferrara. It’s too bad that Bianco’s website lists Miyamoto as an endorser, but it’s even worse that Miyamoto basically signed a letter because others did too.t
Why I’m afraid to apply for a passport in the US
by Daniel H. Sohn
Five years ago, I made the move from Florida to California – a leap of faith in pursuit of opportunity, stability, and community. In that transition, amid boxes and bags and everything new, I lost one of the most important documents I’ve ever held: my certificate of naturalization.
As a naturalized U.S. citizen, this document isn’t just a piece of paper. It’s proof of my status, my rights, and my place in this country. When I filed to replace it, I paid over $500 to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Then the pandemic hit, and the already slow process crawled to a halt. It took nearly four years to receive my replacement certificate – a wait marked by delays, red tape, and uncertainty.
You would think that after all that time, the worst would be behind me. But now, as I prepare to embark on a global book tour, I face yet another hurdle: in order to apply for a U.S. passport, I must surrender the one and only copy of that newly reissued certificate.
In theory, this should be a routine step. In practice, it fills me with hesitation and fear.
I am not just a citizen in name – I’ve dedicated my life to public service in the country I proudly call home. I’ve run for public office, been elected, and served in a number of appointed positions over the past 30 years. Most recently, I was appointed as a commissioner on the Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights. I’ve built my career advocating for equity,
dignity, and opportunity – for all. And yet, I’m scared. I’ve been outspoken about immigration issues, social justice, and human rights policy – not just here at home, but around the globe. As a commissioner and advocate, I’ve raised difficult truths and pushed for accountability. But as a naturalized citizen, I can’t shake the fear that those very truths could be used against me.
If I surrender my naturalization certificate and
something goes wrong – if it’s lost, delayed, flagged, or caught in bureaucratic limbo – I could be left without proof of my citizenship. I could be stuck abroad. I could be vulnerable in ways I shouldn’t be, not after 30 years of being an American in every sense of the word.
Naturalized citizens like me shouldn’t be forced to choose between our professional obligations and the security of our citizenship. We shouldn’t have to pause our lives – postpone global opportunities, delay personal travel – because we’re afraid to part with a document that represents the very rights we are supposed to hold equal.
And we certainly shouldn’t have to live in fear that being critical of a presidential administration –or any government for that matter – might put our status at risk.
I am grateful to this country. I believe in its promise. I’ve lived it. I’ve served it. But I also believe no one should be made to feel like a second-class citizen in the country they call home – especially not because they used their voice, upheld their values, or dared to dream beyond borders.
This country gave me opportunity. It gave me a voice. I shouldn’t have to be afraid to use either. t
Daniel H. Sohn, who is bisexual, is an American naturalized citizen. He’s a former city councilmember in Haverhill, Florida. He is currently a commissioner on the Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights and consults for a number of chambers of commerce. More information: www.DanielSohn.com
Daniel H. Sohn
Courtesy the subject
Democratic San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, left, has endorsed MAGA Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco in his race for California governor.
Courtesy the subjects
Deaf doc promotes the power of protest
by Matthew S. Bajko
The Emmy-nominated Apple Original Film “Deaf President Now!” chronicles the weeklong uproar that engulfed Gallaudet University sparked by the March 6, 1988 announcement that its board had hired another hearing person to serve as its president. Students at the world’s only university for the deaf rose up to demand that the first deaf person be named its leader.
After initial defiance by the incoming president and the college’s board members, all of whom were not hearing impaired, they reversed course seven days later. Amid resignations by the board chairwoman and the woman with a nursing background she had initially defended as the best person to run the then 124-year-old institution, I. King Jordan, Ph.D., a deaf man who was the dean of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, was named Gallaudet’s president.
Focused on the quartet of Gallaudet students who became leaders of the collective uprising on their campus known as the Deaf President Now (DPN) movement, the documentary has arrived on screens amid the myriad protests that have sprung up across the U.S. against the policies and actions of the Trump administration. At the film’s heart is a lesson about what makes such actions successful, contended co-director and co-producer Nyle DiMarco at a special screening of it August 10 at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in San Francisco’s Mission district.
“I think it is very tough today the way we are protesting because so much of it focuses on our disagreements and our separations,” said DiMarco, 36, who’s the fourth generation in his family to be deaf. “I think one of the key themes of this film is really that the four student leaders didn’t get along with each other in the beginning. But they were quick to overcome that, and I think that is what gave them their power in a lot of ways. So, I think, you know this is a movie that really inspires hope surrounding what collective action can be and that is, in short, very successful.”
Not mentioned in the film is that a major reason for why King and other deaf applicants had been dismissed by the university’s board was due to concerns about their being unable to connect with members of Congress and successfully fundraise to keep the campus open, said Guggenheim. King proved them wrong and raised $180 million for Gallaudet during his 18year tenure, noted DiMarco.
Guggenheim said King “was widely popular in Congress” and noted that he “became a running buddy with President (Bill) Clinton,” something none of his hearing predecessors had done.
DiMarco is a model, actor, and activist who is queer and sexually fluid. Signing with an interpreter, he and his collaborator, Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim, 61, fielded questions from the moderator and audience members about the film. They are among the 2025 Emmy nominees for outstanding directing for a documentary/nonfiction program.
They are also in the running for outstanding documentary or nonfiction special, nominated along with several other producers on the film. The 77th Emmy Awards will air live on CBS from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles at 5 p.m. Sunday, September 14.
“To me, co-directing was a challenge and a blessing because we really couldn’t have made it without the other, I think,” said Guggenheim, who isn’t deaf and asked questions of those interviewed for the film that DiMarco credited with drawing out interesting responses that he may not have gotten as a solo director.
Guggenheim acknowledged that he is “an alien when I step on that campus” since he doesn’t sign himself and isn’t personally familiar with the deaf experience. Yet, his lack of such knowledge ended up benefitting the documentary, said the filmmakers, who devised how to intertwine segments from the perspective of a deaf person and that of a hearing person into it.
“The movie has the challenge of serving both audiences,” said Guggenheim. “You can’t make a film only for a hearing audience and you can’t make a film only for a deaf audience.”
For those unaware of what took place at Gallaudet, from which DiMarco graduated in 2013, the documentary’s title and poster image can be a bit of a misdirect, with it sounding like a movie about a deaf candidate for president of the U.S. The film poster features a photo of protest leader Greg Hlibok, at the time president of the student body government, from his backside with his clenched right hand thrust in the air and the dome of the U.S. Capitol building in the background. (The university is located in D.C.)
DiMarco explained the image harkens to the fact that at the time of the protest over the college’s president, roughly 75% of Gallaudet’s budget came from the U.S. Congress and it could face closure should its federal funding be pulled. (The doc includes a brief snippet of gay former congressmember Barney Frank of Massachusetts speaking on the floor of the House in support of the student protesters.)
While it appears Hlibok is signing the sign for protest, DiMarco explained it becomes clearer when zooming in on the image that he is actually signing the sign for deaf power.
“It was made popular during Deaf President Now, but it also carries a sort of double meaning,” explained DiMarco.
In light of the political double entendre in the documentary’s title, DiMarco was asked by the Bay Area Reporter if he was interested in seeking elected office one day. He didn’t rule it out.
“I mean, running for politics sounds like a whole nother ball game. I am not sure I am up for that challenge,” he said. “I would say that I haven’t totally closed the door to it. I don’t know if I would close the door to it.”
As for seeing a deaf person be elected the country’s president, DiMarco told the B.A.R. it is conceivable.
“But yeah, why not? Why shouldn’t we have a deaf president of the U.S.?
Let’s go,” said DiMarco. “Hopefully, in my lifetime; that would be great.”
In response to another audience member’s question, DiMarco would like to see the DPN movement be taught in schools. During a brief stint of enrollment at a public school in the fifth grade, as most of his education was at schools for the deaf, DiMarco was struck by the omission of lessons about deaf history, particularly of the Gallaudet presidency protest.
“I think this should absolutely be a part of every curriculum,” he said. “Imagine in middle school if you were reading about various civil rights events that happened and, you know, you read about something like this, it helps you shape your understanding of the deaf community and shows even at that point we are equal citizens in society, which shapes your perspectives as an adult, right?
“So, I think that definitely, our community deserves to be a part of history because we literally made it,” DiMarco continued. “I think putting it in more curriculums allows people to see us as equals.”
To learn more about the historic protest at Gallaudet University, visit the college’s special website devoted to it at gallaudet.edu/deaf-president-now. It gave the filmmakers dusty reels of archival footage totaling 40 hours that they mined for use in the documentary.
The film, which screened at Sundance and was released in May, is accessible via Apple TV+ at https://tinyurl. com/68v9ph3s
Gay East Bay school board member resigns
Gay San Leandro Unified School District Board of Education Trustee
James Aguilar is resigning from his Area 6 seat effective as of 11:59 p.m. August 31. He announced his decision at the school board’s August 6 meeting due to being hired as San Lorenzo High School’s new activities director and a leadership teacher at the school.
“Being on the school board is what ultimately inspired me to get my master’s degree and become a high school social science teacher. Little did I know I’d end up taking on my dream job,” Aguilar wrote in a Facebook post announcing his decision, adding that it “ultimately, is my larger reason for leaving the board. It’s time, and I’m ready to put my all into it.”
First appointed in 2018 at the age of 18 due to his being the only person to file for the school board seat, Aguilar again found himself the sole person to file in 2022 and was automatically given another four-year term that was to run through 2026. In 2021, he fell short in the special election for an open Assembly seat.
Matthew S. Bajko
Queer Latine mural in Mission district defaced
by Cynthia Laird
Amural featuring elements of queer Latine history on an electric box in San Francisco’s Mission district has reportedly been defaced with graffiti. The artists have started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for repairing the damage.
The mural, by artists Manuel J. Carmona, who is queer, and Joshua Barry, is located at 19th and Valencia streets. It was “badly tagged on,” the artists noted in the fundraising appeal, “especially Dulce de Leche’s face and around José Sarria.”
De Leche is a multifaceted drag artist. Sarria, who died in 2013, was a gay Latino veteran who left a lasting impact on politics and the queer community. He
CA warm line
The Mental Health Association of San Francisco has also warned it will need to cut back on the services it provides via the California Peer-Run Warm Line, CalHOPE Warm Line, and the Spanish Warm Line. People can call or text 855-600-WARM (9276) to speak with a counselor 24/7. Their aim is to keep people out of crisis and offer them support and referrals to mental health services. The association is “exploring other partnerships” to assist it in providing the services it has been offering via the warm lines.
“Since the elections last year, we have seen an uptick or surge in calls,” Peter Murphy, the association’s outreach manager, told the B.A.R. “In May this year, we had over 40,000 requests for help. It was the biggest number we have ever had. We were not able to get to all of those, but we can circle back with people if they leave a message.”
In July, the agency noted that despite $5 million in the revised budget released by Newsom in May and an additional $15 million legislative leaders had agreed to in June, the warm lines ended up with $4.2 million in the final budget. It amounts to less than one-third of the funding needed to operate the warm lines for one full year, according to Mark Salazar, the association’s chief executive officer.
The fiscal cut comes amid increased volumes of calls to the warm lines. May ended up being “a record-breaking month,” Salazar noted, having seen 41,378 contacts.
“While the $4.2 million approved is significantly less than what is needed to keep up with growing demand, we are grateful for the continued state investment. This allows us to keep offering our services in some capacity,” stated Salazar in early July. “Though
founded the International Court System, a drag philanthropic organization, in 1965. Sarria also made history as the first openly gay person to seek elected office when he ran for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961. The GoFundMe was created about a week ago and has raised $375 as of August 12.
In an email to the Bay Area Reporter, Carmona said that he became aware that the utility box had been vandalized about a month ago. He stated that he did not report the incident to the San Francisco Police Department. An SFPD spokesperson stated that they could not locate a vandalism call for service in the area.
“This is not the first time this particular box has been tagged since it was painted, though graffiti is unfortunately a common challenge for public art in the mission,”
the impact on our ability to serve Californians is still unknown at this point, we are working to cut costs, including reductions in staff hours. We ask our callers to be patient, as it may take longer to reach a counselor.”
Based primarily in San Francisco, the association serves the entire state of California and employs 140 counselors and 45 coordinators, some working parttime, around the state. Over the past six years in which it’s received state funding, it has seen a steady increase in the number of LGBTQ people calling the warm lines.
According to data the association provided to the B.A.R., in its 2019-2020 fiscal year it fielded 3,109 calls from LGBTQ individuals. By the 2024-2025 fiscal year that just ended on June 30, that number had increased to 18,110.
“It feels like demand is greater than ever,” said Murphy, a straight ally who fielded thousands of calls over a five-year period as a peer staffing the warm line.
The association had launched its own petition in June ahead of the budget being finalized that attracted 35,350 supporters. Now it is preparing for “drastic reductions in staff and hours of service later this fall,” the association told the B.A.R.
“We are not going to shut down. But we have to curtail or cut back on our availability in some of our services,” said Murphy.
Murphy told the B.A.R. his agency has spoken with Pion-Berlin about pursuing fiscal help from Sacramento via the budget trailer process.
“I am not sure where we are at with that, but we are going to explore all options,” he said.
The association does intend to seek additional funding in the 2026 state budget. It likely will make a similar request as it did this year and seek $15 million with a hope of receiving at least $10 million. Back in 2022, it had received $43 million over three years from the state.
“We are looking for going back to the state again next year,” said Murphy. “We are exploring other partnerships and other kinds of funding, but that is going to take some time to negotiate and navigate.”
State funding uncertain
As for funding from the state for the California Parent & Youth Helpline, gay legislators Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymember Mark González (D-Los Angeles) were noncommittal about ensuring it would be restored via the budget trailer process when asked about doing so by the B.A.R. in recent phone interviews. Wiener, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, noted lawmakers are facing competing fiscal requests made by various stakeholders that all can’t be funded in light of the deficit in its budget the state is facing.
“Anything is possible. I certainly think they should absolutely keep advocating,” said Wiener. “It is challenging once the main budget is passed. But they will continue to have my support and, if it is possible to increase their funding, I would certainly support it.”
González laid the blame on the policies and funding clawbacks being enacted by Republican President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress. It has forced state leaders to make
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Carmona added. “My hope is to repaint it within the next few weeks, depending on weather and material availability.”
Carmona and Barry stated in the fundraising description, “It’s probably a two-day job. At the moment, there is no available funding from Paint the City for repairs.” The Paint the City program that saw artists paint utility boxes around the city was funded by the Civic Joy Fund and Paint the Void.
Carmona and Barry are asking the community for funds, as the spraypainted graffiti will take fresh layers of paint to cover up, depending on what type of paint the taggers used, the fundraising page stated.
“It’s important for the LGBTQ community to have spaces like this and to keep
hard fiscal decisions to counteract the impacts California is contending with at the federal level, he told the B.A.R.
“The fact is we are in a budget deficit. We know that,” said González. “We also know that the Trump administration is trying to kneecap us at every turn and every time they can.”
Newsom’s office, when asked about the funding for the helplines being cut out of the budget he signed, directed the B.A.R. to contact the California Health and Human Services Agency. It directed the questions to be asked of the Department of Health Care Services.
In an emailed reply, DHCS pointed to the budget allocation for the CalHOPE Warm Line.
“California remains committed to ongoing support for the CalHOPE Warm Line,” stated the department.
“This year’s budget includes $5 million to support the continuation of the CalHOPE Warm Line in 2025-26 and beyond, as well as the CalHOPE Red Line, which provides resources, referrals, and trauma-informed support for Urban Indian and Tribal populations.
This allocation aims to sustain statewide availability of the warm line to ensure all Californians continue to have access to peer support services through the CalHOPE Warm Line.”
As for the California Parent & Youth Helpline, DHCS stated that Parents Anonymous “did not receive an allocation in the previous budget cycles. Therefore, the state did not eliminate or reduce its budget. It simply was not adopted as a new budget item.”
DHCS noted that the state budget did provide funding for BrightLife Kids and Soluna, virtual behavioral health platforms with coaching, tools, and resources serving California youth/ children ages 0-25 and their families.
Soluna provides on-demand, one-onone telehealth coaching at no cost for all California youth and young adults aged 13-25, while BrightLife Kids offers free coaching for children ages 0-12 and their families.
“Both resources are available regardless of insurance or immigration status. DHCS is committed to supporting Californians’ emotional and mental well-being, fostering holistic health, personal dignity, and resilience,” stated the department.
Elizabeth Harris, Ph.D., an instructional professional at Arizona State University and faculty associate the past five years, looked at data and calls to the California Parent & Youth Helpline for a study published by the Journal of Technology in Human Services in May. A lesbian who raised three kids in the Bay Area with her wife, Harris has worked for Parents Anonymous as a consultant conducting evaluations for it and doing qualitative analyses of its helpline.
“I see parents who are homophobic or transphobic calling because they are upset their child has the sexual orientation they have. I think what the counselors are able to do is help the parent distinguish between, ‘My child is out of control and I don’t know what is wrong with them’ to perhaps, ‘My child is angry with me because I am referring to them by the wrong gender.’ Out of control behavior is a normal response of an adolescent
them maintained,” the artists wrote. “We’re not asking for much, just $500-$1,000 for supplies.” Carmona stated needed materials include paint and sealant.
Additionally, Barry spends most of his time in San Diego now, so it will cover a little bit of travel expenses as well, according to the statement.
The mural is just one of many painted on utility boxes across the city. A San Francisco Standard article noted that some 322 boxes have been painted with colorful murals. Carmona began painting boxes on Valencia Street in 2023.
Public art in high-traffic areas like this one plays an important role in celebrating and representing our community, and I’m committed to keeping it looking its best,” Carmona stated in the email. t
being misgendered every day at home,” Harris told the B.A.R.
She pointed out that Parents Anonymous is providing a unique service to guardians of youth, whether it be mothers or fathers or grandparents, and doing so using trained counselors. It is a service incredibly needed, contended Harris, and one that not only benefits those parents calling the helpline but the adolescents under their care.
“Our community gets pathologized all the time. I am so tired hearing how LGBTQ youth are so at risk of all these mental health problems,” she said. “To me, we have a society that is homophobic and we have a society that is intolerant. Just as much as we need services directly for youth subject to that discrimination, we need to be talking to the parents engaging in the discrimination to be educating them.”
The funding fight for the California helplines comes as the Trump administration last month canceled the specially trained LGBTQ crisis counselors youth under the age of 25 could request when calling the national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. California officials plan to provide LGBTQ cultural competency training to the counselors staffing the 12 call centers scattered around the state that handle calls made to 988 from within the Golden State.
As the B.A.R.’s Political Notebook reported in July, it will take “months” to train all of the state’s 500-plus counselors. It is contracting with the LGBTQ youth nonprofit The Trevor Project to provide the training, though it is unclear how much doing so will cost.
While a news release issued earlier this summer by González’s office made it seem the LGBTQ training would be covered by $17.5 million that Newsom allocated for the 988 State Suicide and Behavioral Health Crisis Services Fund, the Department of Health Care Services told the B.A.R. it was using a different source of money for the contract with The Trevor Project.
“The $17.5 million in additional funding will be allocated to all 12 of California’s 988 Crisis Centers to allow them to respond to calls, chats, and texts from people in crisis. This funding is critical to keeping California’s 988 Crisis Centers operational amid rising contact volume,” stated the department. “These centers provide free, confidential support to all help seekers, including LGBTQIA+ youth, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
It added, “While this funding ensures that counselors are available to answer every call, chat, or text, targeted efforts are also underway to strengthen services for LGBTQIA+ individuals.”
DHCS told the B.A.R. it’s “exploring other available resources to support 988 Crisis Center counselors on LGBTQIA+ contacts. This initiative, in coordination with CalHHS’ partnership with The Trevor Project, reflects a robust and intentional approach to meeting the unique needs of LGBTQIA+ callers.” t
If you are experiencing a crisis, contact the abovementioned helplines or warm lines, or call The Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or visit thetrevorproject.org.
Elizabeth Harris, Ph.D., looked at data and calls to the California Parent & Youth Helpline.
From LinkedIn
A mural on an electric box at 19th and Valencia streets was reportedly vandalized with graffiti.
From GoFundMe
by Gregg Shapiro
You never know what Californianative and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Belinda Carlisle is going to do next. Throughout her music career she has kept us guessing and entertained.
From her punk origins in the Germs and later in the groundbreaking, all-female, platinumcertified band The Go-Go’s, and into her nearly 40-year stint as a Grammy-nominated solo artist, Carlisle is the very definition of a chanteuse.
Her new album, “Once Upon a Time in California” (Demon Music), is another fabulous chapter, one on which she covers ten chestnuts from the golden age of AM radio, adding her distinctive, sun-kissed touch to songs by Harry Nilsson, Burt Bacharach, Leon Russell, Gordon Lightfoot and others.
Gregg Shapiro: Belinda, listening to your new album “Once Upon a Time in California” made me feel like I had my ear pressed to the transistor radio of my youth set on WLS AM. Do you remember what was the first 45 single you ever bought as a child with your own money?
It was “Aquarius” by The 5th Dimension. I still love it.
Yes, it’s a classic. What about the first LP you bought?
I can tell you that I won it, I didn’t buy it. The first LP was “Pet Sounds” (by The Beach Boys) and I won that at a baseball tournament.
Would it be fair to say that your interest in classic pop started long before “Once
have to steal that, and I’ll give you credit. That’s an amazing idea.
Would you say that your inclusion of “Get Together,” which is often described as the “quintessential 1960s love-and-peace anthem,” is a political statement on your part?
No, it’s not a political statement. It’s just an observation of how everything has become so fractured and polarized. With everything, not just politics. I remember when the Vietnam War was happening, and the Watts riots. There was a lot of chaos happening then, and I think even more chaos now. At least it seems so. I just think they’re really timely lyrics, but I didn’t think in terms of politics at all with that song. I thought in terms of polarization and what a fractured society and fractured world we live in.
As the mother of a gay son, you’ve been an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ community.
Since I was a teenager, all my friends have been gay or lesbian. I remember in the punk days, and the first AIDS case, they didn’t know it was AIDS then, in West Hollywood. It was a young man who worked at the deli on Santa Monica Boulevard. I just remember being in the thick of it because all my friends were gay men.
Belinda Carlisle
Upon a Time in California”?
Yes. This album was inspired by all the songs that inspired me as a young girl, to want to be a singer. California radio, and I love the transistor radio reference you made, because I lived for music growing up in California. 93 KHJ and KRLA were classic California radio. A good pop song is a good pop song, and a great one stands the test of time. I think that the songs on this album are timeless.
During the period represented on the album, 1963-1972, there were also numerous female songwriters, including Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon, who were also part of the Laurel Canyon scene, as well as Roberta Flack, Laura Nyro, Aretha Franklin, and Dolly Parton. Could you foresee recording an album dedicated to female songwriters?
Oh, my God, that’s such a great idea! I might
by Gregg Shapiro
Non-traditional married couple Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke (Google it!) are on a roll with the queer noir film, “Honey Don’t!” (Focus/Working Title). The second installment in co-writer/director Coen and co-writer Cooke’s lesbian trilogy, following 2024’s “Drive-Away Dolls,” “Honey Don’t” also stars Margaret Qualley (who also had a lead role in the aforementioned “Dolls”).
While “Honey Don’t!” has a similar comedic tone found not only in its predecessor but also in numerous Coen brothers movies, it also takes a much darker and more unsettling turn at the end. Nevertheless, it’s worth watching for Qualley’s outstanding performance, as well as seeing Chris Evans half-dressed for most of the movie. Coen and Cooke were kind enough to make time for a recent Zoom interview.
Gregg Shapiro: I’d like to begin by asking you both to say something about the inspiration for “Honey Don’t!”
Ethan Coen: We were inspired by all those noir movies and all the kind of hard-boiled literature that all those movies were based on: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler. Those writers and the movies that are associated with them.
Tricia Cooke: We were inspired by all the 1950s and 1940s noir and thought there should be more queer noir.
EC: And one more thing. There’s a John Houston movie called “Fat City.” It’s about the kind of hardscrabble California, not glamourous California. It’s kind of bare-assed, depressed California; in the case of that movie, Stockton. In the case of our movie, Bakersfield. But it’s a great movie, it’s very different, generically, from our movie, but it made an impression on us.
TC: “The Long Goodbye” was also a huge source of inspiration for us, how Robert Altman used the score throughout the movie. That was something that we had written into our movie, (that the Carl Perkins song) “Honey Don’t” would play throughout, although it didn’t [laughs]. But there were other ways that we borrowed from “The Long Goodbye.”
Margaret Qualley, with whom you both worked on “Drive-Away Dolls,” is playing the titular character in “Honey Don’t!” What is it about Margaret that makes her appealing to work with more than once?
TC: She’s a great actress. She can take, from what we’ve seen, any part and really run with it in a really interesting way. She makes interesting choices, and she’s easy. We all get on really well. She’s playful when she approaches a part. I think she’s easy to work with. She’s easy for other actors to work with.
I never even thought of it as…it was no effort, a no-brainer. I just wanted to get in there and do what I could for the community because they’ve always been a big part of my life. And then being the mother of a gay son, thank God, made me even more want to do what I can and to be a voice. My son (James Duke Mason) has been an activist since he was 14. I can’t imagine life without being supportive of that community.t
Read the full interview, with music videos, on www.ebar.com.
Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Once Upon a Time in California’ will be available August 29 on CD, vinyl and digital formats. Pre-order at https://belinda.lnk.to/california
EC: She just brings the stuff to life. You don’t catch her acting. It’s just like, “Oh, wow, cool.”
The queerness in the movie extends beyond Honey and her various lovers, including MG, played by Aubrey Plaza. Please say something about why you also included the cuckolded Mr. Siegfried, a queer male character played by Billy Eichner.
TC: I have a lot more gay male friends than lesbian friends [laughs]. They’re familiar to me. We wanted someone to be emotional in a way that it felt like if it were a male couple, that would be interesting. You don’t see that so much in noir. We wanted to change the gender norms in noir. We thought that having him there would be interesting.
EC: Not that we said this to each other when we were writing it, but I think we just imagined a queer world. The private detective is queer; that’s not a big deal. One of the clients is queer, not a big deal. People are queer. Not universally, but the world is almost all queer.
Reverend Drew, played by Chris Evans, who –to the delight of many gay fans, I might add, has an extended scene in a jockstrap– is a drug dealer, in addition to being a preacher. Is this a play on “religion is the opiate of the masses” being taken to another extreme with the addition of actual drugs?
EC: I don’t think we were literally playing on or thinking about that expression.
TC: I like it!
EC: We were just making him sleazy.
page 10 >>
The Go-Go’s singer-songwriter on her new covers solo album, ‘Once Upon a Time in California’
Josef Jasso
Margaret Qualley in ‘Honey Don’t’
Filmmakers Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke on their noir-inspired dark comedy
Don’t!’
Karen Kuehn/Focus Features
Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen
Lianne Marie Dobbs
by Jim Gladstone
When Lianne Marie Dobbs performs her cabaret concert, “The Windmills of My Mind…for Dusty Springfield,” at Feinstein’s at the Nikko on August 23, she’ll dig deep beneath hits like “I Only Want to Be With You,” “Son of a Preacher Man,” and “You Don’t Own Me” to probe the Springfield psyche.
While some consider Springfield an icon, the British singer born Mary O’Brien, is generally underappreciated. In part, that’s due to her untimely 1999 death from cancer at age 59.
But there’s little doubt that Springfield’s relatively low posthumous public profile is also due to the fact that, from the beginning of her career in the 1960s, she lived fairly openly as a queer woman.
“She never had a beard, she brought her girlfriends to music industry parties and events in L.A. and London,” Dobbs told the Bay Area Reporter in a recent telephone interview. But at the very beginning of her career, she didn’t feel she could be out to the public.
Before long though, Springfield began, a bit equivocally, to acknowledge her sexuality in interviews.
“People say I’m bent…I’ve almost learned to accept it,” she told London’s
“Evening Standard” in 1970. “I know I’m perfectly capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy. More and more people feel that way and I don’t see why I shouldn’t.”
Discovering Dusty
Dobbs, an accomplished actress
whose recent credits include a featured role on HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” grew up in the Bay Area and studied at A.C.T. She was only vaguely familiar with Springfield until being cast to play her in a 2017 workshop of the ShangriLas bio-musical, “Leader of the Pack” at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.
‘The Lovers’ Passion amid a pandemic
by David-Elijah Nahmod
Daviel Shy’s “The Lovers” is a seven-episode streaming series about love in the age of COVID. It’s also about sex and spirituality. Shy, who wrote and directed, stars as Dafnah, daughter of a rabbi, a sex worker who picks up a few extra bucks by appearing as an extra for Pool Boi Productions, an adult film company. She is living her life as she sees fit.
But then the pandemic hits, and Dafnah goes into isolation, refusing
to touch anyone and refusing to have the internet in her home. In the age of COVID, love can be deadly and the internet is needed in order to interact with others.
Dafnah’s best friend Siren (Siren Saint Sin) is a BDSM sex worker who decides she will only service women. Siren urges Dafnah to go online. Dafnah downloads a dating app onto her phone and connects with the beautiful Antonie (Valerie Whitehawk).
Sparks fly.
Shy includes humor in her story. In
“Dusty was a small role, because she was just one of many influences on the Shangri-Las,” Dobbs said, “But I was going to sing two of her songs, and as part of my research I read her biography, ‘Dancing with Demons’ and ever since then I wanted to do a whole show honoring her.”
Dobbs, who is straight, particularly connected to “Dancing with Demons”’s discussion of Springfield’s mental health struggles and her strategies to keep them in check.
“They didn’t use these words back then, but it’s pretty clear that Dusty was what we would now call neurodiverse,” she said. “Dusty was neurospicy. She had performance anxiety, she probably had ADHD, and she figured out ways to manage them on her own. There was a story that went around at one point about her being on tour in Canada and locking herself in her hotel room and refusing to come out until somebody brought her a cat.
Dobbs continued, “She had terrible vision but would never wear contact lenses on stage. Having the audience be a blur made her less self-conscious. If she was having trouble remembering lyrics, she would pinch herself and it would help her recall. As a performer, I feel like I can connect with
all of this. She developed these mental tricks that worked for her, and I’m celebrating them in this show. That’s why I chose to name it after her song ‘The Windmills of My Mind.’”
Dobbs will also sing one of Springfield’s early hits, Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa.”
“The song was originally recorded by Gene Pitney in 1963,” she explained. “It’s about a traveler who meets a woman on the road, falls in love at first sight, and decides to never return to his long-term partner.”
The lyrics include: “All of a sudden, I lost control as I held her charms / And I caressed her, kissed her / Told her I’d die before I let her out of my arms.”
On Springfield’s 1964 version, every “her” was changed to “his.”
“I won’t do it that way,” said Dobbs, “I’m letting Dusty use the pronouns she’d prefer.”t
Read the full interview on www.ebar.com.
Lianne Marie Dobbs’ ‘The Windmills of My Mind…for Dusty Springfield,’ August 23, 8pm. $70. Feinstein’s at the Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinssf.com
the opening scene, Dafnah is kissing and caressing a flower that’s growing in the front garden of her apartment complex. She closes her eyes and disappears into her dreamworld in a sequence that’s very sensual, until a neighbor appears.
“Hey, hello, people live here,” says the indignant neighbor as Dafnah opens her eyes and sheepishly exits the garden.
“The Lovers” isn’t just Dafnah’s story. Even as she’s getting to know Dafnah, Antonie is grieving the loss of her ex-girlfriend Julia, who cuts off all ties. While she’s lying in bed crying, Antonie is scolded by her COVID-cautious roommate. By showing Antonie’s breakup with her ex, and by showing a bit of Julia’s story as well, Shy displays her commitment to fully developing each character.
Throughout their courtship, Dafnah insists that she and Antonie observe safety protocols. But in episode four, Antonie proposes that they lift the safety precautions. Dafnah isn’t sure she can go along with this, even though she wants to. They confess to each other about other people they’ve dated and flirted with.
In episode five they are separated. Dafnah is miserable. She calls Pool Boi to ask them if they have any work for her and is soundly rejected. After
learning a shocking secret about her mother’s past, she bikes to Antonie to set things right.
“The Lovers” is a series that is sorely needed. In this era where mainstream Hollywood isn’t telling queer stories, it’s refreshing to see a series in which queer characters interact as they embrace who they are and explore love and sensuality. The episodes are slow and melodic, and the dialogue is well paced, which allows the audience to peek inside the characters’ souls. Each episode is beautifully shot, with some scenes resembling a series of paintings.
“The Lovers” ultimately stands as a
<< Honey Don’t
From page 9
Ethan, in the past you’ve talked about how you and Joel couldn’t have made “Drive-Away Dolls,” and likely by extension, “Honey Don’t!” because you’re both straight. And yet, Coen Brothers movies, such as “Miller’s Crossing,” which you co-
deep meditation on queer intimacy, expression, and desire. It’s a haunting series, made all the more so by a score that sounds almost ghostly. The acting is super. Shy and Whitehawk have enormous chemistry. Even in scenes where they refrain from touching, the screen sizzles.
Making these seven episodes was a radical act on Shy’s part. She doesn’t just show love, she makes the audience feel it.t
Daviel Shy’s “The Lovers” is now streaming at Amazon Prime. www.davielshy.com
wrote, and “Hail, Caesar,” which you co-wrote and co-directed had queer characters.
EC: That’s true. They weren’t central characters, and they were kind of broader characters. In our movies, the central characters are a little more grounding, in stuff we really know, and the peripheral characters less so. In our movies, Trish and mine, in these two movies the gay characters are definitely front and center. It’s kind of a different thing.t
Read the full interview on www.ebar.com.
‘Honey Don’t’ opens in theaters August 22. www.focusfeatures. com/honey-dont
A scene from Daviel Shy’s ‘The Lovers’
Lianne Marie Dobbs at 54 Below in New York City
Left: Aubrey Plaza and Margaret Qualley and Right: Chris Evans in ‘Honey Don’t’
Both photos: Focus Features
Stephen Mosher
Books & Events>>
Queer robots in futuristic California
by Chelsea Davis
“Ilove
writing gay robots,” Annalee Newitz says. It’s clear the Lambda Literary Award-winning author and science journalist had a ball writing “Automatic Noodle” (Tor), their fourth queer sci-fi book. The punky novella follows a group of sentient bots who open a noodle shop in a futuristic, war-torn San Francisco, soon after California has seceded from the United States.
In the world of “Automatic Noodle,” robots fought alongside humans in the secession conflict and now form the titanium backbone of the city’s recovering economy. Yet bots are roundly distrusted and formally deprived of their full rights, a marginalized position that echoes our own era’s resurgent oppression of trans, queer, and non-white people.
Chelsea Davis: What made San Francisco the right setting for this story?
Annalee Newitz: I’ve lived in San Francisco for 25 years. I fled my hometown of Irvine, in Orange County, which was a really shit place to be queer. The thing that kept me sane was thinking, “I’m going to go to San Francisco. I’m going to make it.” It’s where I became who I am; all the people I love, pretty much, live here.
But a lot of “Automatic Noodle” is
about how California on the one hand is a very welcoming place, and on the other hand has many barriers to entry for the very people it should treasure the most. California has always had a violently ambivalent relationship with immigration, for instance. It’s a state whose economy depends on immigrants, and yet is constantly inventing laws and regulations to punish those people.
Lately, I’ve been in mourning not just for California, but for the United States. I wanted to imagine a time after this transition that we’re going through, where everything is falling apart and going fascist. I wanted to remind myself that it’s going to be really hard, but we will recover, and we’re going to have tasty noodles again.
In what respects are the robots of “Automatic Noodle” a way in to talking about queerness?
Robots in reality –as they’re being developed now– are not going to look like “regular” people, the Terminators that we see in movies. They’re going to be all different kinds of body shapes so that they can swim or crawl or squeeze into little spaces.
As somebody who is non-binary,
and who is in the trans and queer community, I think a lot of us often experience our bodies as being not quite “normal,” partly because if you’re transgender or non-binary, you’re constantly being asked to fit into a body that isn’t what you want it to be. Or you’re constantly trying to modify your body to look the way you want. And you’re getting lots of judgments from people about whether you’re normal-looking enough.
Also, queer desire itself –queer sex– is often portrayed as abnormal. It’s about pleasures and activities that
are not promoted by heteronormative porn or culture. In my book there’s one character who’s just made of arms, and another who’s a squishy swimming octopus. They’re all trying to figure out how to have fun and how to have pleasure in these bodies that don’t fit mainstream images.
Sweetie is designed to be a very femme-presenting bot, but after robots are liberated, she shaves her hair and has her breasts removed by a friend who does body mods.
I had just had top surgery while I
was writing this book. There’s a lot of medical gate-keeping around that procedure, and there’s a long recovery period. And I was just like, “I wish I could just go to somebody who does sewing. What if top surgery was as easy as getting your pants hemmed?”
One of the robots reflects that the noodle shop can only survive “by defying categorization, hiding neatly in the rift between what humans could see and what they couldn’t.” I found that bittersweet.
That is the paradox of queer identity, especially right now in the United States, especially if you’re trans: visibility is super important for community-building, but it’s also super dangerous. So, we have to keep being rogues, to come out and show ourselves and then have a really good place to hide.t
Read the full interview on www.ebar.com.
‘Automatic Noodle’ by Annalee Newitz, Tor Publishing Group, $22 hardcover, $13 Kindle, $9 audiobook www.torpublishinggroup.com www.techsploitation.com
‘Constantine Cavafy: A New Biography’
by Tim Pfaff
The more or less undying fascination with the poetry of Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933), largely but hardly exclusively by the gay audience he addressed both expressly and subliminally, has not produced a full, reliable biography until now.
“Constantine Cavafy: A New Biography” (Farrar Straus and Giroux), by Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffries, paints a portrait that extends to the edges of the canvas without using a broad brush.
Their scholarship is exemplary, but quietly within it beats an unmistakable affection for their subject, an asset in any biography that stops short of hagiography. In short, the reader learns not only why Cavafy is now regarded as one of the greatest 20th-century poets but also one whose work occupies a prominent place at many bedsides.
It’s not uncommon for biographies
of this depth to begin with a bare chronology of dates and their corresponding events. With the prospect of a long biography in the wings (this one weighs in at 418 pages of text, not inclusive of the notes and an exhaustive index), the reader might be tempted to skim here, but in “Constantine Cavafy” there’s a tale –and then some–in those bare facts, and perusing them
makes a difference.
Cavafy fans know –if only from his poetry– that Alexandria, Egypt was his true, beloved home. But the family in which he was raised was itinerant, and there’s a tale to tell in accounts of their restless, usually money-related travels, mostly around Europe. The sense of dislocation amid the devotion to a particular place infiltrates Cavafy’s verse.
That said, the authors are not bound by the facts, as reliable as they are. They tell the story in fundamentally reverse order, and arrange their study by themes, not speculative but concentrated in a more extensive and rewarding examination of the evidence. Survivors of multi-volume, “complete” biographies of the subjects will appreciate this ultimately more illuminative strategy.
“On the whole,” his new biographers write, “Constantine remained
faithful throughout his life to his aesthetic beliefs … At the same time, however, he feared that by middle age, he had compromised the sexual freedom of his youth. In 1905 he “grumbled,” the authors say, that “[the] wretched laws of society … have diminished my work. They have inhibited my expressiveness.” If only a time machine could reach back to console Cavafy that his poetry would live, be inspirational, and sell.t
Read the full review on www.ebar.com.
‘Constantine Cavafy: A New Biography,’ by Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys. Farrar Straus and Giroux, 530 pages, $40. www.fsgbooks.com
Josef Jasso
Author Annalee Newitz
Authors Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys
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