3
Trans woman faces prison
12
DOMA developments
17
Marie Antoinette lives
The
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Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Vol. 42 • No. 28 • July 12-18, 2012
Nightlife ‘war’ shows signs of a detente AIDS talk N ignores gays by Matthew S. Bajko
analysis by Bob Roehr
I
magine two senior HIV/AIDS administrators delivering prepared speeches on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program that assists countries hardest hit by the epidemic and not uttering the word “gay,” or even the more clinical term “men who have sex with men.” It would be disappointing but not Bob Roehr surprising during the George W. Bush Ambassador administration. It is Eric Goosby disheartening when it is the Obama administration in 2012. But that’s what happened when Ambassador Eric Goosby, U.S. global AIDS coordinator, and Nils Daulaire, director of the Office of Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, delivered remarks this week. The occasion was the July 10 unveiling in Washington, D.C. of the 278-page issue of the journal Health Affairs. It focuses on evaluations of PEPFAR, perhaps the only shining legacy of the Bush presidency. Neither the speeches the two men gave nor the papers they contributed to the journal mentioned the group hardest hit by HIV on all continents. It can’t be out of ignorance. Goosby did his medical training at UCSF and has spent his career alternating between Washington and San Francisco dealing with HIV. He knows better. Instead of a balanced discussion that included all of the major groups affected by the HIV epidemic, Goosby focused on advances made in prevention and treating women and children. In the bad old days, say 25 years ago, they were the “innocent victims” of the disease while, to many, gay men were not so innocent, they had brought the infection on themselves. What progress has been made; from being demonized to being ignored, despite the fact that gay men were and remain disproportionately affected by HIV in nearly every country in the world. Even while that six-hour briefing continued to roll on, a mile away at the National Press Club a handful of AIDS advocates tried to draw a little attention to the still-festering domestic AIDS situation ahead of the International AIDS Conference. The Obama administration wants to believe See page 13 >>
ightlife denizens and club owners have long been pitted against San Francisco police and homeowners in what some have dubbed a “war on fun” that has raged on since the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. Lately, there have been signs of a detente in the long-running battle. While no one is yet ready to say the “war” is over, it appears to have entered into a cooling off period. “I think a lot of inroads have been made, but still, a lot more could be done,” said Tom Temprano, a gay club promoter and DJ who moderated a recent discussion about entertainment issues held by the city’s two main LGBT Democratic clubs. “There are still hurdles prohibitive to the nightlife industry. You can’t say we are in the clear and everything is roses.” There are signals that City Hall is beginning to see the entertainment industry as an important economic driver rather than a nuisance in need of being reigned in. In March a City Controller’s report found that the “other 9 to 5” economy generated $4.2 billion in spending in 2010 and at least $55 million in tax revenue. Gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who called for the first-of-its-kind fiscal study, has now requested that the controller examine the financial impacts generated by the city’s numerous street fairs. Like with the
Rick Gerharter
The dance floor was hopping at the combined clubs of Stallion and Rocket Collective, held on a recent Saturday at Rebel bar on Market Street.
earlier study, the one devoted to open-air festivals is aimed at giving city leaders a better understanding of how policy decisions may impact the outdoor events. “Street fairs are running into issues where, at some point, the fees get so high that they are
losing money and at risk of going away,” said Wiener. “Showing the economic contributions specifically of streets fairs is valuable in allowing us to view a complete picture.” The city’s 2012-2013 fiscal year budget, set to See page 13 >>
City College feels the heat after stinging report I by Chris Carson
Rafael Mandelman speaks at a town hall meeting Monday, July 9 about the threatened closure of City College as Supervisor Eric Mar listens.
t was not a hot night. But before speakers began to address the crowd packed into the Rainbow Room at the LGBT Community Center Monday for an emergency town hall meeting on the fate of City College of San Francisco, one man in the front row stood up, sweat soaking the back of his gray polo shirt. No question, for CCSF, the heat is on. Its future as an accredited community college, the largest of all accredited colleges in California with about 90,000 students, many of them part of the LGBT community, has been in question since early June, after the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges issued a blistering report saying CCSF would need to “show cause why its accreditation should not be terminated” by October 15, according to a report sent to interim Chancellor Pamila Fisher on July 2, or lose its accreditation. That’s a loss that many fear could close CC
SF’s doors for good. “The report was enormously alarming,” said gay city resident Rafael Mandelman, a community center board member, but, he added, “a terrible outcome of this report is if they succeed in convincing us that we should become less San Francisco in our approach to City College.” The report, highlighting that City College is poorly run, aimed to have the school meet a few of the eligibility requirements for state accred-
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ited colleges. Among them, to document a funding base and plan for how to bring in future financial resources, conduct audits, and bring in an administrative staff with “appropriate experience to support necessary services for an institution of its size, mission, and purpose,” the ACCJC report said. Angela Thomas, a Services Employees International Union representative for CCSF classified faculty, saw the ACCJC report as more of a wake-up call, and urged supporters to see it that Rick Gerharter way too. “You guys, we have to be real here,” she said. “This college is going to have to take a serious, serious look at how we do things.” The ACCJC report listed “leadership weaknesses at all levels,” as well as financial issues. City College has nine campuses in San Francisco and at least 100 “instructional sites.” Thomas reminded everyone that it is completely within the rights of the ACCJC to “take our acSee page 6 >>