February 16 2017 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Dennis Peron honored

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Bootycandy

Divas' Las Vegas

The

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

Vol. 47 • No. 7 • February 16-22, 2017

LGBT SF synagogue welcomes refugees by Matthew S. Bajko

Kelly Sullivan

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Sheriff Vicki Hennessy

Sheriff provides trans housing update by Seth Hemmelgarn

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an Francisco Sheriff Vicki Hennessy is asking for body scanners so that transgender inmates in jail can be searched electronically rather than relying on sheriff ’s deputies to examine people. Hennessy addressed that issue, among many others, in a lengthy letter she sent to gay District 8 Supervisor Jeff Sheehy. Sheehy, who took office in January, had requested a progress report on updating housing policies for trans inmates. In June 2015, then-Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi announced plans to stop classifying transgender inmates who have not had surgery according to their birth sex, meaning that trans women would no longer be housed with men. But progress has been slow. In her February 8 letter to Sheehy, Hennessy wrote that she would seek funding for body scanners in her budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year. The scanners would “obviate the need for strip searches where warranted to prevent the introduction of contraband into the jail environment,” she said. Ensuring staff of the appropriate gender are available to do strip searches has been one of the stumbling blocks in improving housing conditions for transgender inmates. “The ultimate goal is to consider gender identity for all individuals, as part of the caseby-case review performed by the Classification Unit, and safely housing all transgender, gender variant, and intersex prisoners according to the gender with which they identify,” Hennessy wrote. Eileen Hirst, a spokeswoman for the sheriff ’s department, said that the agency wants to get three scanners. The machines would cost “about $100,000 apiece, including installation.” Besides getting scanners, Hennessy said, “Much work” remains, but several steps are planned. See page 14 >>

Center bursts forth in color

Rick Gerharter

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orkers loaded a truck with the final bit of scaffolding from the San Francisco LGBT Community Center Monday, February 13 to reveal a bright new lavender color scheme. The work is part of the center’s $6.9 million renovation project. The facade of the Fallon Building, a Queen Anne-style Victorian built in

1894 at the corner of Market Street and Octavia Boulevard, was repainted with Dunn Edwards Palace Purple as the main color. The exterior of the modern addition also sports new colors. The center is expected to formally reopen April 9, just in time for its 15th anniversary, and will house several nonprofit organizations.

ulling out his cellphone, Sergo Adamian quickly hit play on a YouTube video that captured the sea of men attacking a van with LGBT rights activists inside, including him, as it moved through a street in Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia. While police officers kept the mob at bay, the vehicle was nonetheless hit with sticks, bottles, and other objects that damaged its windows. The occupants inside were fleeing from the 40,800 protesters, led by 200 priests from the Georgian Orthodox Church, who showed up to counterprotest the rally Adamian and his colleagues had organized on May 17, 2013 to mark the International Day Against Homophobia. The group of 100 LGBT Georgians and their allies were protected by 3,000 police officer, said Adamian, who escaped injury that day. “If not for the policemen, for sure we would have all died,” recalled Adamian, 27, as he See page 13 >>

‘Berlin Patient’ HIV-free for 10 years by Liz Highleyman

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head of the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle, the man formerly known as the “Berlin Patient” marked 10 years of being HIV-free. At a February 12 community workshop on HIV cure research in advance of CROI, former San Francisco resident Timothy Ray Brown, previously known as the “Berlin Patient,” celebrated the bone marrow transplant he recieved a decade ago, making him the only known person cured of their HIV. In 2006 Brown, then living in Berlin, was on antiretroviral treatment with well-controlled HIV when he developed leukemia that required bone marrow transplants. His doctor, Gero Hütter, had the idea to use bone marrow from a donor with a double CCR5-delta-32 mutation, meaning the stem cells were missing a receptor that most types of HIV need to enter T-cells. Brown underwent intensive chemotherapy that killed off the cancerous immune cells in his blood – nearly dying in the process – and the donor stem cells then rebuilt a new immune system that was resistant to most HIV. “[Hütter] paid attention in medical school and said this could make you free of both leukemia and HIV and you’d never have to worry about it again at all, but I didn’t believe it,” Brown said before he cut a cake presented by cure advocates, researchers, and community members. “It was a hard survival, but I’m here.” Despite 10 years of testing his blood, gut tissue,

Liz Highleyman

Timothy Ray Brown, second from left, shares a cake marking the 10th anniversary of his being HIV-free at a community workshop in Seattle.

and everywhere else they could manage to look, researchers have not been able to detect replication-competent HIV anywhere in Brown’s body. “Brown is why there is a cure research effort,” said Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem, from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where Brown now lives. “He really inspired and

launched this cure effort.” Brown said he doesn’t miss depending on doctors for his survival. “In a way it seems like yesterday, but in a way it feels like a long time ago that I had to take medications every day,” Brown told the Bay Area Reporter. “That is the best part of my cure – not needing to take daily medication and not needing to depend constantly on my doctors for my survival.” But Brown, 50, has recently started taking another type of daily pill. Since the donor’s stem cells were only missing the CCR5 receptor, Brown potentially remains susceptible to the small proportion of HIV strains that use a different receptor called CXCR4. For this reason, he revealed, he has started taking Truvada for PrEP. “Recovery has taken too long, but I feel great and I am grateful for everything,” Brown said. “I still hang on to the hope that everyone living with HIV will be cured in my lifetime.” But some fear that even as cure research advances, the benefits may not be available to all who need it. “Timothy gives me hope, but there’s also a lot of fear that when there is a cure it won’t be available to everyone, and long-term survivors, women, and communities of color will be left behind,” said Pat Migliore, who spoke on behalf of people living with HIV in Seattle. “Until there’s a cure for everybody in the world, there’s a cure for nobody.” Presentations at CROI will feature the latest news on HIV prevention, treatment, and See page 12 >>

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