SF library goes all out for Pride
ARTS
12
21
SF Doc Fest
31
Jose Xtravaganza
The
www.ebar.com
Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community
Vol. 47 • No. 22 • June 1-7, 2017
National LGBT health study seeks participants by Matthew S. Bajko
A
yearslong national health study of LGBT residents of the United States being conducted by researchers based at UCSF is now seeking participants. Known as the PRIDE Study – the acronym short for Dr. Juno ObedinPopulation Research in Maliver is co-director of the Identity and DispariPRIDE Study. ties for Equality – it is the first longitudinal study of a cohort of LGBTQ adults in the country. The web-based health study aims to enroll 100,000 people in the U.S. and its territories over the next decade. Those taking part in the survey must consent to annually filling out an online survey about their health and lifestyle choices, such as if they exercise regularly or if they smoke and drink alcohol. “We are a study for and by the LGBTQ community. For that, we need as many voices and experiences as possible,” said Dr. Juno ObedinMaliver, a co-director of the PRIDE Study and an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at UCSF. “We ask that people stay connected and stay engaged.” Its launch comes amid concerns about the Trump administration’s moves to remove questions about sexual orientation and gender identity from a number of federal surveys and research-based initiatives. At the same time, there have been efforts at the local and state level to increase data collection about the LGBT community. Officials in San Francisco and Sacramento, for example, are working to add questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to numerous local and state surveys and health intake forms. Without such information, LGBT advocates argue the health needs of the community cannot be adequately addressed. It is insight the PRIDE Study researchers aim to glean at a national level. “We need to know what’s happening with people’s health, the good and the bad, in order to do a better job of helping them,” said Dr. Ward Carpenter, director of primary care services at the Los Angeles LGBT Center and a founding member of the PRIDE Study’s advisory committee. It takes approximately 40 minutes to complete the PRIDE Study’s annual survey, which can be accessed via a computer or any internetconnected device. Since announcing its call for See page 17 >>
Gay SF ‘Survivor’ player plots return by Matthew S. Bajko
H
aving landed in fourth place his second time out on the CBS game show “Survivor,” and believing he had a path to victory, gay San Francisco resident Tai Trang is ready to compete a third time on the long-running show. He told the show’s producers and host
Tai Trang, left, and Zeke Smith talk during the just-concluded season of “Survivor: Game Changers – Mamanuca Islands.”
Jeff Probst they should invite him back during the 34th season’s recent live finale and reunion show. But just not right away, Trang clarified in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter May 26, two days after “Survivor: Game Changers – Mamanuca Islands,” which was filmed in Fiji, had crowned police officer Sarah Lacina
the million-dollar winner. “I need some time off, one or two years off to give me some perspective,” said Trang, 53, a gardener for the Port of San Francisco, speaking by phone from Mexico. “This game we taped nine months ago; watching it again psychologically does a lot of trauma to you, See page 8 >>
Queer arts fest expands to S. Bay
Courtesy CBS
by Heather Cassell
T
he National Queer Arts Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and is expanding to the South Bay. “It’s very exciting. It’s actually the very first event ever to happen in the South Bay as part of the National Queer Arts Festival, so we are very excited and honored,” said Maya Scott-Chung, a consultant who has been working with De Anza College’s Office of Equity, Social Justice and Multicultural Education since last fall producing Queer and Now. Pam Peniston, artistic director of the National Queer Arts Festival and the Queer Cultural Center, which produces the festival, said that the expansion of the event to the South Bay is important, as an increasing number of LGBTQ artists are locating to cities outside of San Francisco. “In the last decade, more and more queer artists and audiences were moving to the East and South Bay,” wrote Peniston, 67, who described herself as a “big ole dyke,” in an email interview with the Bay Area Reporter. Last year, the festival received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support its goal to bring queer arts to Bay Area residents where they live, wrote Peniston. The festival was awarded a larger grant this year, despite President Donald Trump’s administration and attempts to defund the NEA, she added. Some of the events around the Bay Area that the QCC is most excited about this year are the Topsy Turvy Queer Circus in San Francisco, the
Elena Rose
Femme Space participant Luna Merbruja.
Singing Bois and Dena Underwood performing for Vintage Q in Oakland, and the “Femme Space” exhibit at De Anza College in Cupertino. “This is so important for the Queer Cultural Center’s expansion of programs throughout the Bay Area,” said Peniston. “It’s a chance to see what queer artists in other parts of the bay are creating; what concerns and topics are driving the work. But to also have a chance to be a part of it and initiate closer participation among artists in the South Bay, that’s amazing.” The series of events for Pride Month will kick off Thursday (June 1) with “Femme Space,” an
exhibit of portraits exploring femme identity by the late femme photographer Amanda Arkansassy Harris. Additionally, there will be a screening of Luna Merbruja’s film “For All My Homegurls Who Are Semi/Non-Passable” and Dulce Garcia’s “With Conviction” from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the California History Center classroom at De Anza College. This is the second time “Femme Space” has been exhibited. The works first appeared at last year’s queer arts festival in Oakland. “’Femme Space’s’ vision portrays the true diversity of femmes from varying racial and ethnic groups, abilities, sizes, ages, and regions of the country and is inclusive of trans, cis, and gender fluid/nonconforming femmes,” wrote Peniston. Participants in the project are looking forward to it. “There’s so few places where I see us, queer femmes, taking up space,” wrote Celeste Chan, a 30-something queer femme who is one of the participants in the exhibit, in an email interview with the B.A.R. The San Francisco transplant from Seattle said she participated in the exhibit because, “I don’t see other queer Asian American femmes often enough.” “I remember coming out as a teenager in Seattle, and thinking ‘but I can’t be gay, there’s no one who looks like me here,’” she wrote about how lonely it made her feel. See page 18 >>
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