HAPPY LEATHER PRIDE WEEK The
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Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Leather Week kicks off
Courtesy Jeffrey Miller Associates
by Matthew S. Bajko
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ive decades ago San Francisco’s Ringold Alley was the go-to place for gay and bisexual men to engage in late-night sex once the leather bars scattered about South of Market had closed. Dingy and dark, the roadway was far removed from more heavily populated areas and offered a modicum of privacy. Today the alley, which runs between 8th and 9th streets and parallels Harrison Street, borders a massive redevelopment project that will bring hundreds of new residents as well as new businesses to the neighborhood. Known as LSeven, the first residents of the apartments fronting 8th Street have started to move in, and work on the other buildings is near complete. Developer 4Terra Investments, as part of the capital improvements it is required to pay for, has worked with leather community members and city officials to reimagine Ringold Alley into a streetscape that honors local leather aficionados and their colorful past. Construction on the $2 million redesign should soon commence with an official ribbon-cutting likely in early 2017. “This is going to make a big difference for this neighborhood,” Amir Massih, 4Terra’s northern California president, told the Bay Area Reporter during a recent interview at the site of the project. “This was such a neglected, beat up street. It needed some love.” The location is a fitting spot for such a commemoration of the local leather community as the neighborhood since the 1960s has served as its heart. The alley also parallels Folsom Street, which at one time was known as the “Miracle Mile” for the gay bars, sex clubs, and bathhouses clustered on or near it. But the advent of AIDS in the 1980s led to the closure of many of the businesses, while the growth of the internet in the 1990s, and more recently social media and hookup apps, have continued to eat away at SOMA’s leather and fetish scene. The alleyway project, officially known as the San Francisco South of Market Leather See page 13 >>
Frank, Polis endorse Wiener’s Senate bid by Matthew S. Bajko
A schematic drawing shows proposed pavement treatment for Ringold Alley.
Alley project to highlight leather history
Vol. 46 • No. 38 • September 22-28, 2016
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wo gay national leaders have endorsed Scott Wiener’s bid for a California state Senate seat, with both noting the significance of having LGBT representation as playing into their decision. This week CongressJane Philomen Cleland man Jared Polis (DFormer Colorado) and Barney Congressman Frank, a former Mas- Barney Frank sachusetts congressman who retired in 2013, announced their support for Wiener, a gay San Francisco supervisor running to be the city’s lone representative in the state Legislature’s upper chamber. Wiener and fellow Supervisor Jane Kim are locked in a tough race to succeed gay state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), who this year is termed out of his Senate District 11 seat, See page 13 >>
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he 25th annual LeatherWalk Sunday, September 18 marked the start of San Francisco Leather Week, with balloons in the colors of the leather flag adding to the festivities. The walk started outside the Castro Theatre and from there, participants stopped at several bars and businesses in the South of Market neighborhood, including the Powerhouse, Mr. S Leather, the Lone Star Saloon, and the SF Eagle, where a closing beer bust was held. Demetri Moshoyannis, executive director of Folsom Street Events, which now produces the walk, said there were about 200 marchers and is confident that the walk will reach its $20,000 fundraising goal between online donations and other gifts. He said that Haus of Starfish raised $9,500 alone by staffing coat checks at the Eagle and Powerhouse and doing fundraisers. The Folsom Street Fair takes place Sunday, September 25, along Folsom Street between 8th and 12th streets. For more information, see the BARtab section.
New prez takes the helm at Mills Rick Gerharter
by Sari Staver
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rowing up in a middle class neighborhood in Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Hillman’s family didn’t rub shoulders with academics, lawyers, or college presidents. But her parents constantly emphasized the importance of higher education, a message Hillman took to heart. Armed with four degrees, including an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Duke University, a master’s degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania, and a joint Ph.D.-law degree from Yale, Hillman, 48, is, among other things, an internationally recognized expert on military law, history, and culture. She moved to California in 2006 to teach at UC Hastings College of the Law and in 2013 was named provost and academic dean of the school. On Friday, Hillman, a lesbian, will be inaugurated as president of the prestigious Mills College in Oakland. Her wife and five children have already moved onto campus with her, following her appointment July 1. “One of my goals,” said Hillman in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter, “is to make sustainable the kind of education Mills offers to the kinds of students we have now,” she said. “We face the same financial challenges” as other institutions of higher education and are “under siege to prove we are worth it,” she added.
Steve Babuljak
Mills College President Elizabeth Hillman
Hillman aims to help the college stabilize its enrollment, now fewer than 900 undergraduates. Mills is an undergraduate women’s college with graduate programs for women and men. According to Hillman, some 40 percent of Mills’ students identify as LGBT or other gender fluid identities. As a child, said Hillman, she didn’t have her eye on any particular career. “I remember my mother telling us that she gave my father an ultimatum ... she wouldn’t accept his marriage proposal until he agreed to get his college degree,” she recalled. Her dad, a mid-level manager at U.S. Steel, went on to become an accountant after he got his degree, thanks to the G.I. Bill, Hillman said. Her mom worked as a dietician, taking time off to raise Hillman and her four siblings, a twin sister and three older brothers.
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Taking a cue from her father, Hillman obtained an ROTC scholarship that enabled her to get a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, which landed her an assignment as a space operations officer at the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. At first, said Hillman, her interest in the Air Force was merely as a means to college tuition. But her experiences in ROTC, “seduced me hook, line, and sinker and I really wanted to be successful” in the military, she recalled. “I was exposed to the values of people working together in public service,” Hillman said. “I liked the leadership opportunities and found that a lot of the experiences were fun for me.” But after six years in Colorado, including two teaching at the Air Force Academy, “I was ready to go back to graduate school,” said Hillman. While in Colorado, she had married a man, another Air Force officer, she said. This time, the Air Force Academy awarded Hillman a scholarship that allowed her to get her master’s degree in history, “my second degree on their nickel,” she noted.
Coming out
When she arrived in Philadelphia to begin her studies at Penn in 1997, “it was really the first time I’d lived in a big city,” she said. “The world really opened up for me.” “I had never been in an environment with open LGBT people,” Hillman said. “Of course they had been there all along but it wasn’t until I See page 13 >>
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