Hard times for Araujo's mom
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Film 2015
Eric Himan
The
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Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Vol. 45 • No. 53 • December 31, 2015-January 6, 2016
HIV+ man leads SF AIDS Foundation by Seth Hemmelgarn
Courtesy Dustin Lance Black’s Instagram
Milk producer Bruce Cohen, left, recently joined former Health Commissioner Roma Guy, gay rights activists Ken Jones and Cleve Jones, and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black in San Francisco.
SF man’s memoir inspires LGBT miniseries by Matthew S. Bajko
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he eight-hour miniseries ABC has ordered from gay screenwriter Dustin Lance Black will be partly based on the memoir of longtime LGBT activist Cleve Jones. Jones, 61, moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s and soon befriended the late Harvey Milk, who would make history in 1977 as the first gay person elected to public office in San Francisco and California. Jones, who worked on Milk’s campaign for city supervisor, would go on to work for him at City Hall. But a year later Milk was assassinated along with then-Mayor George Moscone by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White. The events leading up to their deaths were the basis for the 2008 biopic Milk, for which Black won an Academy Award for best screenplay. Jones served as an adviser on the film and became close friends with Black. In fact, in recent years, Jones would stay with Black in Los Angeles in order to work on his memoir. The book details the life of Jones, who in response to the AIDS epidemic created the AIDS quilt and co-founded several agencies to care for people living with HIV or AIDS. Jones himself is HIV-positive, and in the early 1990s, moved to the Russian River gay resort area north of San Francisco where he expected to die soon after due to his failing health. But then came the introduction of antiretroviral therapy and Jones’ health improved. For a while he was living in Palm Springs, but in 2010 he moved back to San Francisco. In addition to speaking to students and youth groups across the country, Jones works as a union organizer. He recently sold his autobiography, When We Rise, to Hachette and the hardcover is scheduled to be released in late May. It includes the stories of a number of his friends, such as lesbian health care advocate Roma See page 13 >>
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or the first time in recent memory, a man who’s living with HIV is leading the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, one of the largest AIDS-based nonprofits in the country. Tim L. Jones, 50, who was named SFAF’s interim CEO in December, said his HIV status is “significant in the sense that we’re hoping to move into an era of supporting people living with HIV more so than what we are today.” As SFAF works to end HIV transmissions and establishes Strut, the gay and bi men’s health center that’s set to open January 4 at 470 Castro Street, there’s been a shift in focus. “We are looking to help people living with the disease, so that’s me, and it really does hit home that I’m involved at this level of the organization,” said Jones, who’s gay and tested positive in 1991, about three years after he moved to the city. “I’m somebody who has benefited from the AIDS foundation. ... It’s important for us to stay focused on helping those living with HIV going forward.” Jones is taking over from Neil Giuliano, who’s led the organization for five years and announced in August that he was leaving to become CEO of Greater Phoenix Leadership, a business organization focused on civic improvement initiatives. Giuliano’s last day at
Courtesy SFAF
Tim Jones
SFAF is Thursday (December 31). Since its founding in 1982, just as AIDS was beginning to decimate San Francisco’s gay community, eight or so people have led the nonprofit, which now has a $32 million budget and offers free services including HIV testing, syringe access, and counseling. It’s not clear which of the former directors, if any, were HIV-positive at the time they led the organization. Giuliano is HIV-negative, as were his predecessors, Mark Cloutier and Pat
Christen, along with the people who ran the agency in the interim between them. The Bay Area Reporter contacted several ex-directors via Facebook, but none of them responded. SFAF spokesman Andrew Hattori noted in an email that SFAF co-founder Cleve Jones is HIV-positive. “Additionally,” Hattori said, “we have a long history of HIV-positive members of our board of directors, including past board chairs.” Cleve Jones recently told the B.A.R. he couldn’t recall any SFAF executive directors or CEOs being HIV-positive. Tim Jones, who’d been a member of SFAF’s board since 2011, is the former national director of operations for the consulting firm Deloitte. He started the interim job December 7. He said that among his priorities in the post are ensuring that “we’re focused on serving our clients to the best of our abilities,” especially through Strut. The center’s opening comes at “an unprecedented time for the foundation,” he said. Jones also wants to continue the momentum he said Giuliano started. One of the accomplishments Jones pointed to was the expansion of the board, which now has 20 members, according to SFAF’s website. “We have really developed a stronger commitment to the community by ensuring our See page 14 >>
Lesbian Air Force major killed in Afghanistan by Heather Cassell
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said Dunning, based on her knowledge and the fact that women have been “serving in harm’s way for many, many years now.” “There may have been other lesbians who were killed in combat that we don’t know about,” Dunning added. Vorderbruggen was the third female member of the Air Force to die in Afghanistan. Two other female Air Force members were killed in a helicopter accident in October, reported NBC News.
ay military veterans are recalling Air Force Major Adrianna Vorderbruggen, who was killed earlier this month by a suicide bomber outside Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. Vorderbruggen and five other members of her special security forces died in the December 21 attack, the deadliest day for the U.S. military in Afghanistan in 18 months. According to reports, a suicide bomber rammed A family in mourning a motorcycle packed with explosives Vorderbruggen was “the light of our into a joint NATO-Afghan patrol. lives,” Lamb told NBC News, recalling The Taliban claimed credit for the that Vorderbruggen had a way of makattack. Courtesy Military and Partners Families Coalition Facebook page ing everyone around her laugh, “even The military hasn’t released details Air Force Major Adrianna Vorderbruggen, right, with wife, when we thought we didn’t feel like it.” of the incident due to the attack still Heather Lamb, and son Jacob in an undated photo. Lamb said that Vorderbruggen being under investigation. loved her work. Vorderbruggen, 36, is the first “Our consolation is, we know she weeks after Defense Secretary Ashton Carter anknown out lesbian active-duty miliwanted to be there, she believed in and nounced that all “remaining occupations and loved her work, and she was doing important tary member and the first openly gay Air Force positions,” including combat positions, would be officer to die in combat. work on behalf of the Afghans and our nation,” open to women. The new policy is scheduled to be She was assigned to the Air Force Office of Lamb said in a text message. “She has always implemented in January, but retired Navy ComSpecial Investigations, 9th Field Investigations been my hero, never more so than now.” mander Zoe Dunning, a lesbian, told the Bay Area Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Family and friends mourned VorderbrugHer wife, Heather Lamb, and the couple’s Reporter that didn’t mean that women haven’t gen’s death and expressed their condolences to been serving in combat zones, just that Carter 4-year old son, Jacob, were staying with her famLamb and the couple’s son on Facebook, acand the military officially recognized it and now cording to media reports. ily in San Rafael during Vorderbruggen’s tour women will obtain the proper training to serve. of duty. Lamb was reported to have traveled to Lamb’s mother wouldn’t speak to ABC 7 While Dunning didn’t know Vorderbruggen Dover Air Force Base in Delaware last week to News. However, an unidentified member of personally, she had learned of her through friends. receive Vorderbruggen’s flag draped casket. See page 13 >> “She is the first out lesbian combat death,” Vorderbruggen’s death comes nearly three
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