January 19, 2017 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Bay Area women will march

ARTS

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Cary Leibowitz @ CJM

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Justin Vivian Bond

The

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Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community

Obama commutes Manning’s sentence

ACA repeal worries LGBT health advocates

by Heather Cassell

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ransgender former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, convicted of leaking secret information to WikiLeaks, had the bulk of her 35-year prison sen- Chelsea Manning tence commuted by President Barack Obama Tuesday. Manning, 29, is scheduled to be freed May 17, after a standard 120-day transition period. Her sentence had run to 2045. She has been in prison for nearly seven years. Obama’s decision came just days before he leaves office. The administration received a letter in December from the American Civil Liberties Union requesting the commutation. Manning came out as a trans woman just after she was convicted in a military trial in 2013. See page 14 >>

Vol. 47 • No. 3 • January 19-25, 2017

Dr. Tri Do, API Wellness Center’s chief medical officer, prepares to enter an exam room.

by Matthew S. Bajko

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acing harassment at her old job, Sunnyvale resident Amy Krakar opted to quit last summer and work as a freelance graphic designer from home. With the cost to maintain her old health insurance plan $800 a month, she opted instead to enroll with Kaiser Permanente through Covered California, the state-run exchange created by the federal Affordable Care Act.

For the last half of 2016 her monthly premium cost Krakar $263.12 due to her qualifying for a $206 monthly subsidy. This year her premium dropped to $129.99 per month due to her subsidy increasing to $378.10 as her income is now less. Ensuring she retained access to health insurance at a reasonable cost was a high priority for Krakar, 48, as she began taking testosterone nearly nine months ago to begin transitioning from female to male. She is now

in the process of legally changing her name to Jamie and updating her documents so her gender is listed as male. Krakar, who is using female pronouns for now, also has chronic kidney disease, which requires regular checkups to monitor her condition to avoid kidney failure. “For this price I get a decent out-of-pocket maximum and lab, doctor visit and pharmacy costs that don’t break the bank,” Krakar told See page 12 >>

Gay Rep. Pocan girds for Trump ADAP hits snags

Rick Gerharter

by Matthew S. Bajko

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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alifornia’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which is supposed to help thousands of people get the care they need to stay alive, has been hit with problems that have sparked concern among state officials and clients. According to the Dr. Karen Smith California Department of Public Health, the trouble started after the program switched to new contractors in July. In a recent letter to Dr. Karen Smith, director of the state’s public health department, gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) called ADAP “a life-saving program for some 30,000 low-income Californians living with HIV, including more than 3,000 San Franciscans.” “I am alarmed to learn about significant problems that have resulted from the recent transition to three new contractors as well as the implementation of a new eligibility enrollment system,” Wiener said in his December 20 letter. “The destabilizing effects See page 17 >>

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his Friday when Presidentelect Donald Trump is taking his oath of office outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., gay Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin) will be volunteering at a food pantry in the city of Verona, which is part of his 2nd Congressional District centered in Madison. The third-term federal lawmaker, whose district neighbors that of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, is one of more than four-dozen Democrats in Congress who have decided to boycott Trump’s inauguration. Pocan, 52, Congressman Mark Pocan made the decision last Saturday after Trump attacked CongressBut he feels that Trump’s actions, to date, are man John Lewis, a civil rights icon not worthy of the highest office in the country. who was beaten protesting Jim Crow-era laws. “I respect the office of the president and I The Georgia Democrat had said he was need Donald Trump to respect it,” said Pocan, boycotting the inaugural festivities because he views Trump as not a “legitimate president.” one of seven lesbian, gay, and bisexual congressional members. “He is still acting like a reality His comment prompted several irate Twitter television star trying to get people to buy launposts from Trump over the weekend. That was “the breaking point,” for Pocan, dry detergent and not acting like the president.” Trump’s tweet that Lewis is “all talk, talk, who met with the Bay Area Reporter Tuesday talk – no action or results. Sad!” also led gay morning in San Francisco while in town this California Congressman Mark Takano (Dweek for several Bay Area events. Riverside) to announce via Twitter last Saturday “I made the decision Saturday night,” said morning that he too would not be attending the Pocan, adding that, “I did really want to go.”

inauguration in solidarity with Lewis. He is among a dozen California Democrats to do so. The lawmakers’ boycott of the January 20 ceremony is “petty and a case of sour grapes,” Jason P. Clark, chairman of Log Cabin Republicans of California, the gay GOP group, told the B.A.R. Elected this month to a fouryear term as chairman of the Republican Party of San Francisco, Clark added in an emailed reply, “the Democrats lost this election, just as the Republicans did in 2008. One of the hallmarks of our society is that we celebrate Cynthia Laird the peaceful transfer of power from one elected official to another – whether you like him or not. Trump’s record on LGBT issues puts him ahead of ANY President-elect in history on LGBT issues. As gays, we need to cement allies in this new administration, not create new enemies.” There are legislative issues Pocan said he could work with Trump on, such as rewriting trade agreements to better protect American workers, funding infrastructure projects around the country, lowering health care costs, and reforming the tax code. “If he is sincere on these things, I would See page 17 >>

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