Park name up for vote
11
'Best of Second City'
ARTS
Lurie's vision for SF
ARTS
05
04
11
SF Jewish Film Festival
The
www.ebar.com
Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971
Vol. 54 • No. 29 • July 18-24, 2024
Debate over pinkwashing claims spur strong feelings in Israel, US by John Ferrannini
S
Jane Philomen Cleland
Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a bill that would prohibit public school officials from outing trans students without their permission.
Newsom bans outing of LGBTQ CA students by Matthew S. Bajko
L
GBTQ students who come out to their public school teachers or administrators will soon be able to do so without fear of their sexual orientation or gender identity being disclosed to their parents or guardians, except in very limited circumstances. California is now the first state to ban the outing of students without their permission. Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation July 15 adopting the prohibition. It brings to an end, for now, efforts led by conservative groups to see local school boards enact such outing policies after attempts to do so in the Democratic-controlled state Legislature were blocked. Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1955 into law without comment. In the spring gay state Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) had revived the legislative proposal after shelving it last fall amid the state’s legal challenge of one Southern California school district’s forced outing policy and calls from educators to tweak its language. Ward used the gut-and-amend approach to rewrite his AB 1955 to insert the ban on the forced outing of LGBTQ pupils unless state public school officials felt doing so was needed to protect the youth from self-harm. At a news conference for the bill’s rollout, one transgender youth spoke about how several of his queer friends were harassed at home and at their Northern California school, leading them to attempt suicide, after being outed by their principal. “The sad truth is, not every kid has a safe home or a safe person to confide in as they figure out who they are,” said Kai, 20, adding that the sixth-grade teacher he came out to when he attended the Rocklin Unified School District “showed the discretion” he needed with being able to also come out to his parents. “Without my teacher, I would not be here today. Please don’t let another kid endure the heartbreaking consequences of that support system being taken away.” See page 9 >>
ince October 7, 2023, the Israeli-Hamas war has brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the center of the world’s attention. In the LGBTQ community, it’s focused renewed attention on the accusation that Israel engages in pinkwashing. Pride parades in New York, Boston, and Toronto last month were disrupted by protesters alleging Israel uses LGBTQ rights to deflect from its policies toward Palestinians. Pinkwashing is the promotion of the pro-LGBTQ aspects of a corporation, political group, or government in order to downplay other things that might be considered negative. Corporations that participate in Pride but donate to anti-LGBTQ politicians are often accused of it, as is Israel. In San Francisco, pro-Palestinian groups boycotted the June 30 Pride parade, drawing between 1,000 to 1,500 people to a countermarch through the city’s Mission and Castro neighborhoods. Rauda Morcos, a lesbian Palestinian citizen of Israel who’s a human rights lawyer, told the Bay Area Reporter in a Signal interview that she thinks Israel uses the issue so Westerners will look the other way from the occupation of Palestinian land. She was one of the founders of Aswat, a group for Palestinian lesbians. “Israel has no right to use their notion of being LG-
Courtesy The Aguda, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib
Hilla Peer, left, is the chairwoman of The Aguda – The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel. Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib grew up in Gaza City and now lives in the Bay Area.
BT-friendly, or their idea of being LGBT-friendly, that would allow them to be supremacists in the region. It would never give them an extra benefit to make them a democratic country,” she said. “You can’t call apartheid and occupation democratic, or LGBT-friendly.” In turn, Israeli LGBTQs with whom the B.A.R. spoke on a recent press trip to the region were surprised at the level of anti-Israel sentiment in the global queer community since October 7 – and asked American activists to compare Israel’s record against that of their opponents.
“If you’re talking about Hamas, you’re talking about a jihadi organization,” longtime Israeli gay activist Rommey Hassman said in an interview. “Jihadi organizations are against homosexuality. They define us as something not even illegal but demonic. They think all gay men should be executed. That is not something new. They are not progressive and [are] antianything LGBTQ. It’s like saying ‘Black people for the KKK.’” See page 5 >>
New press group invited B.A.R. to Israel by John Ferrannini
T
he American Middle East Press Association, a nonpartisan nonprofit that launched last summer, invited the Bay Area Reporter on a trip to Israel in June. Kim Kamen, AMEPA’s chief operating officer, told the B.A.R. that the group started in 2023 and obtained 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in February. The taxexempt organization is based in Monsey, New York. AMEPA’s budget is $1.16 million, Kamen noted. It does not receive funding from the Israeli government, officials said. “We launched in earnest in 2024 as soon as we hired our media advisers,” Kamen stated to the B.A.R. July 12. “We rely on private donations and are not affiliated with any governmental entity.” AMEPA states on its website that it seeks to serve as “a trusted resource for journalists looking for experts and spokespeople on the current conflict and beyond.” Kamen said that it was based on the Europe Israel Press Association, an organization AMEPA is affiliated with that is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. It was founded 12 years ago by Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the chairman of the European Jewish Association. Since then, EIPA has connected European journalists to Israelis and Israeli officials through press trips. It has offices in Brussels, London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Madrid. Tal Rabina, a media consultant with EIPA,
John Ferrannini
Jaffa, an ancient port city that once had an Arab majority, is part of modern day Tel Aviv.
told reporters on the June 23-27 trip that “we are not the [Israeli] government. We are not the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]. We are an NGO [nongovernmental organization]. … We are trying to be very informative.” AMEPA brought two American reporters on the press trip, “Wartime in Israel,” with its counterpart, EIPA, which itself brought 22
Align your brand with the BEST! BESTIES: The LGBTQ Best of the Bay, our annual readers’ choice awards is publishing on August 1, 2024. Reserve your space in our community-led tribute to the best people, places and things to do in the Bay Area. ADVERTISING SPACE RESERVATIONS DUE JULY 26 Call (415) 829-8937 or email advertising@ebar.com to reserve your space or for more information.
journalists from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. EIPA is also not funded by the Israeli government. There was not any pre-approval of interview questions, article topics, or requests to view articles before publication. See page 7 >>