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Vol. 50 • No. 42 • October 15-21, 2020

Castro CBD postpones surveillance camera vote by John Ferrannini

Senny Mau

Fishbowl Collective members, from left, Poison Oakland, Cristian Woman, Claude’, Dangerous Rose, Allergiene, FKA Supernovagirl, Terra Bull, Veda Superstar, St.Nastine, Avocado Jones, Beverly Chills, and Bussy Dad.

Preston supports Red Vic collective in tenant dispute by John Ferrannini

collective of queer and trans people who put on an in-person weekly drag show from the former hotel on Haight Street where they reside fear eviction after they received a notice from their landlords. Supervisor Dean Preston, a tenants rights advocate, told the Bay Area Reporter that he stands with collective members. Members of the Fishbowl Collective have been subleasing the former home of the Red Victorian Hotel at 1665 Haight Street for some See page 10 >>

he Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District board postponed a vote October 8 about whether to accept private funds to install surveillance cameras in the neighborhood, after the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club strongly urged the group to reject the initiative. The Milk club had sent a letter to the CBD just hours before its board meeting, asking that the camera item be rejected or at the very least, a vote postponed. “Surveillance technology has been used repeatedly in the Castro to target and harass the LGBTQ community,” the club’s executive board wrote in the letter. Andrea Aiello, a lesbian who is the executive director of the CBD, responded to the letter in a statement to the Bay Area Reporter October 9 in which she wrote “as frontline stewards for our neighborhood, Castro CBD welcomes stakeholder input from everyone in our community. Consideration of the SafeCity camera program came from concerned residents and a real need to address public safety issues in our district.” As the B.A.R. previously reported, the Castro neighborhood has been plagued by petty crime in recent months, from breakins to window vandalism. “Since COVID we’ve seen a real uptick in concern from neighbors around public

San Francisco slow to landmark LGBTQ sites

Rick Gerharter

Some are looking at designating the rainbow flag at Castro and Market streets as a San Francisco historic site.

by John Ferrannini

ith LGBTQ History Month underway, Castro neighborhood leaders are discussing how best to preserve the heritage of the city’s most visible queer neighborhood. Just three of the district’s LGBTQ historic sites have been granted city landmark status by San Francisco officials, while local preservationists have identified a host of other proper-

Untitled-1 1

ties they would like to see be added to the list. In the adjacent neighborhood of Noe Valley, which also has a sizeable LGBTQ population, gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman is seeking to landmark the house of the late lesbian iconic activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, as the Bay Area Reporter recently reported. It will be taken up by the Board of Supervisors land use committee this month and, if passed by the full board, then sent to the city’s historic preservation commission for a vote before being sent back for a final vote by the supervisors. But efforts won’t stop there. Terry Beswick, a gay man who is the executive director of the GLBT Historical Society, said that a citywide historic context statement was published five years ago that gives “the definitive survey of all of San Francisco’s LGBTQ history.” A lot of sites that are not currently designated by the city “come to mind personally,” Beswick said, including the rainbow flag at Castro and Market streets and “the Castro itself as a historic district.” While the city recognizes the area as the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, local preservationists for years have talked about also seeing See page 2 >>

A screengrab of the Castro Street Cam the afternoon of October 13.

safety issues,” Aiello told the B.A.R. in an October 9 phone interview subsequent to her statement. “People don’t feel comfortable in the district and that is a concern for us. We have launched a public safety initiative.” One proposed part of that initiative is cameras. Aiello said “residents in the Castro” on the neighborhood social media website Nextdoor were excited about a New York Times article that appeared in July about tech mogul Chris Larsen, who is paying CBDs to install cameras around San Francisco. “I don’t know if it was a proposal, it was more of a ‘let’s look at this,’” Aiello said, adding that Larsen would, through his foundation, give a grant of $695,000 for the installation and maintenance over two years of 125 cameras in the Castro neighborhood. Larsen did not respond to a request for comment.

Aiello told the B.A.R. that after the Milk club’s letter, the CBD board moved the discussion about whether to accept the grant back to its services committee where it will be heard October 22 at 10 a.m. That committee will decide how to conduct community outreach, Aiello said. “We want to make sure if it does happen that people feel safe,” Aiello said. “The whole point is to feel safe.” Aiello said there would be instituted policies as to who would have access to the footage and that police would only be allowed to see video recordings if they had a police report. Hopefully, she said, merchants would replace their currentlyinstalled cameras with these cameras. According to Hoodline, Larsen has paid for over 1,000 cameras surveilling people in the Fisherman’s Wharf, Lower Polk, MidMarket, Tenderloin, Union Square, and Japantown neighborhoods. Applied Video Solutions would maintain them. Aiello said the location of the cameras would depend upon police advice and which property owners would be willing to have them on their buildings. “Beyond deterring bad actors and providing evidence for investigators, this program creates a platform for community empowerment with innovative tools to take ownership over public safety,” Aiello’s statement continSee page 10 >>

B.A.R. ENDORSEMENTS

CALIFORNIA GENERAL ELECTION

President / Vice President: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris State Senate Dist. 11: Scott Wiener SF Supervisors District 1: Connie Chan District 3: Aaron Peskin District 5: Dean Preston District 7: Myrna Melgar District 9: Hillary Ronen District 11: Ahsha Safaí

State Assembly (Bay Area) Dist. 15: Buffy Wicks Dist. 18: Rob Bonta Dist. 16: Rebecca Bauer-Kahan Dist. 25: Alex Lee Dist. 28: Evan Low State Senate (Other) District 5: Susan Talamantes Eggman District 9: Nancy Skinner District 17: John Laird

SF City College Board Shanell Williams Tom Temprano Aliya Chisti Alan Wong

Congress (Bay Area) Dist. 2: Jared Huffman Dist. 3: John Garamendi Dist. 5: Mike Thompson Dist. 10: Josh Harder Dist. 11: Mark DeSaulnier Dist. 12: Nancy Pelosi Dist. 13: Barbara Lee Dist. 14: Jackie Speier Dist. 15: Eric Swalwell Dist. 17: Ro Khanna Dist. 18: Anna Eshoo Dist. 19: Zoe Lofgren

BART Board District 9: Bevan Dufty District 7: Lateefah Simon

JUDGES Alameda County Superior Court Office 2: Mark Fickes

State Assembly (SF) Dist. 17: David Chiu Dist. 19: Phil Ting

Bay Area (Other) Oakland City Council, At-Large: Rebecca Kaplan District 3: Lynette McElhaney Alameda City Council: Jim Oddie

SF School Board Mark Sanchez Jenny Lam Michelle Parker Kevine Boggess

Fremont Mayor: Justin Sha San Ramon City Council, Dist. 3: Sameera Rajwade AC Transit, At-Large: Victoria Fierce AC Transit, Ward 1: Ben Fong Livermore City Council, Dist. 3: Brittni Kiick Morgan Hill City Council, Dist. C: Rene Spring Santa Clara City Council, Dist. 6: Anthony Becker South San Francisco City Council, Dist. 4: James Coleman Santa Clara County Board of Education Trustee, Area 4: Ketzal Gomez San Jose-Evergreen Community College Trustee, Area 7: Ali Sapirman Palo Alto Unified School Dist. Board of Education: Katie Causey Pinole County Council: Devin Murphy SAN FRANCISCO PROPS Yes on: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, RR CALIFORNIA PROPOSITIONS Yes on: 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 25 No on: 20, 22, 23, 24

REMEMBER TO VOTE BY NOV. 3!

10/13/20 11:44 AM

<< Community News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • October 15-21, 2020

Wiener to reintroduce supervised injection bill by Liz Highleyman

sites if they are sanctioned by the state. “When you have people you know and love who struggle with addiction, the thing you want most is a better life for them. You want them to be able to get help and you want to make sure addiction doesn’t take their life,” Breed, whose sister died of a drug overdose, said at the news conference. “We can’t control people and their addiction, but we can be there for them. ... Why not give it a try, because what we’re doing now is not working.” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf was also scheduled to appear and offer her support for the legislation, but was held up by traffic on the Bay Bridge. Wiener said that he is open

Supervised injection facilities allow people to use drugs under the watch of trained staff, reducing the risk of overdose deaths. They provide sterile needles to prevent transmission of HIV and hepatitis B and C, and offer clients an entry point for seeking medical care and addiction treatment. Indoor sites also reduce street-based drug use and improper syringe disposal, a growing problem in the city. While there are currently no sanctioned injection sites in the United States, around 150 such facilities operate worldwide, including about 40 in Canada. Estimates indicate that there are around 25,000 people who inject drugs in San Francisco. Although harm reduction programs widely distribute Narcan (naloxone) to reverse opioid overdoses, the arrival of fentanyl – which is much stronger than heroin – has contributed to a rise in overdose fatalities. Metham-

phetamine, which does not have a similar antidote, is implicated in a growing proportion of overdoses. Overdose deaths rose 70% in 2019 and are trending up for 2020, according to San Francisco Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax, a gay man who also spoke at the presser. A recent report from the San Francisco Department of Public Health showed that 441 people died from drug overdoses last year. “The need for this key public health intervention has never been greater,” Colfax said. “The data, science, and facts show that safe injection sites do not increase drug injection, drug trafficking, or crime. ... We have some of the best behavioral health treatment in the world for people in our city. But we must do more. We need every tool at our disposal.” Health officials and advocates are concerned that the overdose crisis may be exacerbated by COVID-19. “Overdose deaths are spiking, and many social service programs have had to close their doors for drop-in services,” said HealthRIGHT 360 CEO Vitka Eisen. “There is a clear, pressing need and a moral imperative to open safe drug consumption services. Waiting to open these sites translates directly into preventable deaths.” Responding to critics of supervised injection who argue that it would encourage more drug use, Wiener said, “The reality is that people are already doing this. The

question for the public is, would you prefer that people use drugs or inject on the sidewalks by your home or your business or the park you’re using, or would you rather they do so inside a supervised safe, clean environment? I think most people would prefer the latter.” Lawmakers and advocates hope the forthcoming supervised injection bill, which Wiener plans to introduce once the Legislature is next in session – possibly as soon as December – will be more successful than previous attempts. Although Governor Gavin Newsom has not said whether he would approve such legislation, he has previously spoken favorably about supervised injection sites as a public health approach. Cities also face resistance at the federal level. Shortly before Brown’s veto of the 2018 bill, then-U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein penned an opinion piece in the New York Times reiterating the Trump administration’s opposition and warning that cities and counties “should expect the Department of Justice to meet the opening of any injection site with swift and aggressive action.” Harm reduction advocates planned to open a supervised injection site in Philadelphia earlier this year, after a federal judge ruled that the facility would not violate federal drug laws, but that effort was put on hold due to community opposition, followed by the COVID-19 crisis.t

of protection to historic properties within them, such as restrictions on changing their exterior appearance and greater scrutiny of development proposals at cultural sites. The Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association said its historic consultant is now working on the historic context statement for the area. Once this document is complete,

DTNA will begin to work with the San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission to gain their support for listing on the California Register of Historical Resources,” an item in DTNA’s newsletter stated. “The cultural district designation by the city is not the same as a historic district,” Beswick said, adding that the organization San

Francisco Heritage is looking to designate the Haight as a historic district “and a lot of the research would support that designation for the Castro.” According to Beswick, other landmarked sites could include the original home of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation at 520 Castro Street, Coming Home Hospice

across the street from Most Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Church and the old Metropolitan Community Church-San Francisco site at 150 Eureka Street. “We have a working group with the historical society and we are reinvigorating it to look at the Phyllis

alifornia Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) will reintroduce a bill allowing San Francisco, Oakland, and possibly other cities to open pilot supervised injection sites, he announced at an October 8 news conference in the Tenderloin. “The war on drugs has failed,” Wiener, a gay man, said. “Criminalizing addiction is not effective, and in fact it makes the problem worse. We need to treat drug use as the public health issue it is, not a criminal issue.” This is not Wiener’s first attempt to authorize supervised injection sites in California. In 2018, a bill he co-sponsored with lesbian Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) passed the Assembly and Senate but was vetoed at the last minute by outgoing Governor Jerry Brown. A narrower bill that applied only to San Francisco passed the state Assembly last year but was tabled in the Senate after Oakland officials indicated that they wanted to be included as well. This year’s attempt (Assembly Bill 362) was halted over the summer because of a reduction in legislative activity due to COVID-19. San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors strongly support the proposal. In June, the board approved legislation that will permit nonprofit organizations to operate supervised injection

LGBTQ sites

From page 1

the neighborhood recognized as a local historic district. The city has established 12 historic districts, the most recent one covering the Duboce Park neighborhood adjacent to the Castro. Such a designation provides some level

Liz Highleyman

State Senator Scott Wiener, center, with Mayor London Breed, left, and Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax, rear, spoke at a news conference October 8 where Weiner announced plans to reintroduce a bill to allow for supervised injection sites in San Francisco and Oakland.

to adding other cities that wish to be included to the bill. “Oakland is a compassionate city and overdose prevention sites can save lives and spare families the horrific pain of losing loved ones,” Schaaf said in a news release. “These sites can help people who suffer from drug addiction get on a path to healing, as well as manage the impacts our entire community experiences when we allow drug illness to go untreated.”

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See page 3 >>

Obituaries>>

t Trans activist and journalist Monica Roberts dies

October 15-21, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

by Cynthia Laird

the media, LGBTQ media and mainstream journalists alike, encouraging all of us to do better.” Fried, a trans woman, added that one of her fondest memories of Ms. Roberts was at NLGJA’s convention in 2018 in Palm Springs when it held one of its Trans 101 panels. “Monica was in the audience, both to hear what we had to say and to hold us to account,” Fried stated. “A few minutes into the panel, we invited her to join the panel because, frankly, we couldn’t do the topic justice without her insight and wisdom.” Ms. Roberts had just been appointed to NLGJA’s board last month, president Sharif Durhams stated. The National LGBTQ Task Force was one of many organizations that

issued statements praising Ms. Roberts’ life and mourning her. “This week, the LGBTQ+ community lost one of our fiercest voices in Monica Roberts, an activist who not only lifted up the stories of trans people and inspired generations of countless transgender and nonbinary people but all those who knew her,” Rea Carey, a lesbian who is executive director of the task force, stated October 8. “She was a mother, sister, aunt, friend, protector, and voice for the voiceless. Her journalism was groundbreaking, her advocacy impactful and her spirit and passion limitless. There are people – especially trans members of our community – who are alive and thriving today because of her work.” Carey said the task force honored Ms. Roberts earlier this year at its Creating Change conference, where she received the Susan J. Hyde Award for Longevity in the Movement. “She spoke powerfully at a rally decrying the epidemic of violence against the trans community at the same 2020 conference, which she meticulously reported on, often providing support to local communities and families, while holding the media and law enforcement accountable and seeking justice for her trans siblings,” Carey stated. “One could not be in her presence without being inspired to be a better activist – in-

cluding me. Our hearts are with her family, her innumerable friends and colleagues and especially the trans community, which has lost an elder, a pioneer, and a extraordinary human being.” Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, called Ms. Roberts “an icon and a trailblazing voice for transgender rights” in reaction to the news that she had died. “We are deeply saddened to learn of her passing, and offer our most heartfelt condolences to her friends, family, and loved ones,” stated David, a gay Black man, on behalf of the national LGBTQ advocacy organization. “For decades, Monica has been a fierce leader – bringing light to the injustice transgender people face, especially Black transgender women. She leaves behind a strong, and vital legacy – one that every LGBTQ person and ally should work to honor and advance. Rest in power, Monica, and thank you.” Ms. Roberts was the founding editor of the award winning TransGriot blog, and a longtime award-winning human rights advocate. She advocated for the human rights of transgender people for more than 20 years, with a focus on the issues affecting Black trans people. Her writing appeared at Ebony. com, the Advocate, Black Girl Dangerous, Dallas Voice, and in the

Unapologetically Trans monthly column in Houston’s OutSmart magazine. Some of the honors that Ms. Roberts has received are the 2018 GLAAD Media Award, the Robert Coles Call of Service Award from Harvard University’s Phillips Brooks House Association, the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award, the Barbara Jordan Breaking Barriers Award from the Harris County Democratic Party, the IFGE Trinity Award, and being named to the 2019 OUT 100. GLAAD called Ms. Roberts’ death “devastating.” “She was an unstoppable advocate and a powerful voice, always speaking up for justice and uplifting the trans community,” said GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis, a lesbian. “Part of her advocacy was work creating her own media stories, and fighting to change and shape mainstream media’s coverage of trans people. She told the stories about Black trans people that weren’t told elsewhere. Her legacy will live on in all of the trans advocates she empowered through her own community work, and through her revolutionary TransGriot blog which preserves trans history and provides an in-depth portrait of the fierce, funny, brilliant, incisive woman who created it.”t

the time of its publication. Most of the proposed sites, however, are outside of the Castro neighborhood. There have been efforts over the years to have sites in the Castro neighborhood designated by governments as historic sites, which would offer them some level of protection. As the B.A.R. previously reported, city planning officials determined earlier this year that Harvey Milk Plaza was historically important. Last year, Mayor London Breed

signed legislation designating 524 Union Street in North Beach as the city’s fourth LGBTQ historic site, following Twin Peaks Tavern at Market and Castro streets, Harvey Milk’s Castro Camera shop at 573 Castro Street, and the former Names Project Building at 2362 Market Street, all three of which are located in the Castro. While Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn is a United States national monument, it is the only place so desig-

nated due to its importance to the LGBTQ rights movement. In the past there has been some discussion of seeking federal recognition of the Castro as a national historic district but the talks never progressed to any formal requests. When asked about greater recognition of historic sites in the Castro, Castro LGBTQ Cultural district manager Tina Valentin Aguirre deferred to the historical society, which has studied the issue. Aguirre is chair

of the historical society’s board. “I’m not an expert in that,” Aguirre said. “I want to defer to those experts.” Carnell Freeman, Corey Fusco, Levi Maxwell, and U. Sacred Mitchell – who were elected to round out the cultural district’s advisory board September 19 – told the B.A.R. how they plan to help preserve the neighborhood’s history.

onica Roberts, a prominent Black transgender activist and journalist who shined a light on trans violence and other issues, died Monday, October 5, at her home in Houston. She was 58. The New York Times reported October 13 that Ms. Roberts’ mother, Mable Roberts, said she had suffered from chest pains the day before her death and that the medical examiner had found blood clots in her lungs. LGBTQ community members started learning of Ms. Roberts’ passing last Thursday afternoon and many were shocked upon hearing the news. NLGJA, the Association of LGBTQ Journalists, stated that Ms. Roberts’ passing was “a tremendous loss.” “Monica has been a tireless voice for the trans community, in particular the Black trans community,” stated Ina Fried, NLGJA’s vice president of print. “Countless stories, otherwise untold, were heard because of her strong, unwavering voice.” “She opened so many eyes – including my own – not just to the harsh realities faced by so many in the Black and Brown trans communities, but also to the richness of their beautiful and courageous lives,” Fried added. “Monica also pushed

LGBTQ sites

From page 2

Lyon-Del Martin house in particular,” Beswick said. Pages 358-59 of the context statement include a list of 53 addresses “that may be eligible for City Landmark, California Register or National Register status” throughout San Francisco in addition to the three LGBTQ-specific sites which had been designated by the city at

Rivendell_Pella_101520.indd 1

Courtesy National LGBTQ Task Force

Monica Roberts

See page 10 >>

10/9/20 1:08 PM

<< Open Forum

t Next debate needs an LGBTQ question

4 • Bay Area Reporter • October 15-21, 2020

Volume 50, Number 42 October 15-21, 2020 www.ebar.com

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Bay Area Reporter

he final presidential debate set for October 29 must include at least one question about LGBTQ issues, especially since President Donald Trump has spent his entire term rolling back our rights and attempting to make us invisible through his administration’s policies. So far this cycle, in the first presidential and one vice presidential debate sanctioned by the Commission on Presidential Debates, not one question has referred to the queer community, noted Media Matters for America. This week’s debate between Trump and his Democratic challenger, former vice president Joe Biden, was canceled after the president refused to participate in a virtual format despite having been recently infected with COVID-19; that leaves the one remaining faceoff next week. Media Matters noted that ignoring the LGBTQ community in commissionsanctioned presidential debates is nothing new. Going back to the 2016 cycle, over 250 questions have been posed to the candidates, and not one was about issues specific to our community. Ahead of the October 7 vice presidential debate, a coalition of LGBTQ advocacy organizations – including the Human Rights Campaign, LGBTQ Victory Fund, and Media Matters Action Network – sent debate moderator Susan Page a letter urging her to ask candidates about LGBTQ issues. According to Yahoo News, the letter “specifically zeroed in on stances taken by Pence and the Trump administration as racist, misogynistic, and transphobic, and urged both Page and the commission to press Pence on his record.” The letter was ignored. GLAAD pointed out in its own statement ahead of the vice presidential debate that Pence has yet to be asked about his role in the administration’s record of anti-LGBTQ policy and rhetoric. According to the nonprofit’s Trump Accountability Project, there have been 181 attacks (and counting) since Trump and Pence took office on January 20, 2017. GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis stated, “LGBTQ voters may cast the deciding votes in this election and we need to be part of the conversation. The moderators must include us. The candidates must acknowledge us. LGBTQ people deserve to know where the candidates stand on issues of life and death to us. We will continue to demand to be seen and heard.” GLAAD, which monitored and live-tweeted the vice presidential debate, noted that the fly that sat on Pence’s head for two minutes got more airtime during the debate than queer issues did. “The vice presidential debate was a particularly crucial opportunity to examine Pence’s record of opposing LGBTQ rights through decades in public office,” Media Matters stated. “During his 2000 campaign for Congress, he ran on an extremely anti-LGBTQ platform that called for funding to combat HIV/AIDS to be redirected to ‘institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.’ According to the New York Times, that statement ‘has

by Maureen Bogue and David Eugene Perry

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been widely interpreted as signaling his support for conversion therapy,’ though Pence’s spokesperson has denied it. His platform also opposed same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination laws, and LGBTQ service in the military.” Conversion therapy, of course, has been widely debunked by medical experts and groups like the American Medical Association. California and 19 other states ban the practice on minors. While Biden’s views on LGBTQ rights have evolved over his career (like most straight Democratic elected officials), we suspect that he would love to tout his record on LGBTQ equality. It was Biden, after all, who famously nudged then-President Barack Obama into supporting same-sex marriage publicly, when in May 2012 he said in an interview that he supported samesex marriage; a few days later, Obama took the same position. It was a major step forward for our community, as the issue was going through the courts at the time, leading to the favorable U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2013 in United States v. Windsor that overturned a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (which Biden voted for as a senator in 1996, hence, his evolution) and another decision that year that allowed California to resume same-sex weddings. The mainstream media must drop its habit of largely ignoring LGBTQ issues during presidential races, especially this year when the president seeking reelection is openly and aggressively targeting LGBTQ people and rights. It began six months after he took office when Trump tweeted his desire for a ban on trans people serving openly in the armed forces, which later went into effect. And it has only accelerated with this administration’s attacks on our lives and ability to live free of discrimination, some of which included supporting employment discrimination by filing amicus briefs, creating a religious dis-

crimination division within Health and Human Services, and eliminating guidance for schools on trans students. Crucially, Trump has been hell-bent on solidifying his anti-LGBTQ bona fides by appointing judges who have alarming anti-LGBTQ records. In California, we’ve seen this on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which used to be one of the most liberal appellate courts in the country. His new Supreme Court pick, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, displayed a retroactive belief on LGBTQ people when she said during her Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that she has “never discriminated on the basis of sexual preference” and that “like racism, I think discrimination is abhorrent.” Sexual preference? Yikes. Well, we know how she’ll vote the next time an LGBTQ rights case comes before the high court. For someone who’s 48 years old and a former college law professor, her comment displays a complete lack of awareness of LGBTQ people today. (After a break in the hearing, Barrett came back and apologized for her “preference” comment, but the damage was done.) As the National Center for Lesbian Rights Born Perfect campaign pointed out, for many years LGBTQ people have cautioned against using the outdated term “preference” because of its false and harmful implication that an individual’s sexual orientation is a choice that can be changed. We know that another Trump administration will place a larger target on our backs. We expect a Biden administration to at least treat us as human beings and equal citizens. LGBTQ people and our issues will continue to be marginalized or, worse yet, made invisible if we are not part of the political discussion. The country deserves to hear the candidates’ views on LGBTQ issues, as there is a clear contrast between Trump and Biden.t

Mr. President: ‘We dissent’

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Screengrab via CNN

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden faced off during the first debate September 29.

n September 22, our nation took a giant step backward. Claiming that “Americans should be taught to take pride in our great country, and if you don’t, there’s nothing in it for you,” the president of the United States issued an executive order to ban training on implicit bias and most aspects of diversity for any company receiving federal grants or contracts. With one stroke of his executive pen, President Donald Trump is attempting to erase decades of hard-won freedoms. In order to “form a more perfect union” for our future, we must engage in a critical assessment of the past. This executive order requires that any company seeking to benefit from a government contract must pretend that systemic bias does not exist. To do so requires one to ignore America’s history – of taking land from native peoples, enslaving African Americans, subjecting women to unequal treatment, permitting hate crimes against members of the LGBTQ community, enacting the Chinese Exclusion Act, forcing the internment of Japanese Americans, denying Jews entry to the U.S. during WWII, and the daily indignities suffered by anyone who is not straight, white, privileged, and male. To ignore the cruel and unjust periods of American history denies us the opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of those who

Courtesy David Eugene Perry

BuildOUT founders Maureen Bogue and David Eugene Perry

fought against those injustices and triumphed. How can Americans celebrate the accomplishments of Thurgood Marshall, Harvey Milk, Susan B. Anthony, César Chavez, Jackie Robinson, Megan Rapinoe, or Serena Williams without understanding the historical and systemic injustices they overcame? It is only by studying our past – the good and the bad – that we can identify our own biases and work together to create an equal and just society. Over the years, corporate America has shifted its perspective on LGBTQ+ rights, with many companies making public gestures of support. Two hundred and six major corporations signed an amicus brief in the spring advocating ahead of the Supreme Court’s June decision protecting LGBTQ+ individuals from workplace discrimination. Companies are also increasingly making business-critical deci-

sions about recruitment practices, employee resource groups, and marketing that embrace LGBTQ+ rights. On September 30, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 979 to diversify boards of publicly held corporations headquartered in the state. All of this, and more, signals that the United States’ business community is further ahead of the curve on LGBTQ+ rights than Trump. In response to the news, Erin Uritus, the CEO of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, said in a statement that the executive order is “gaslighting enshrined in policy. This act is the real-life progeny of Orwell’s thought police. It cannot stand unchallenged. It is fundamentally un-American and it is dangerous. Our values prioritize dialogue over censorship.” We agree: BuildOUT California calls upon all elected officials to take immediate and swift action to right the wrongs inflicted by this executive order. We urge all business owners to embrace diversity. And we ask all Americans to stand with us as we say: “Mr. President, we dissent.”t BuildOUT California is the world’s first LGBTQ industry association dedicated to the sustainable growth of LGBTQ-owned and-certified businesses, and our allies, in the fields of architecture, engineering, construction services, real estate development, and related industries. (www.buildoutcalifornia.org) Maureen Bogue and David Eugene Perry are the founders of BuildOUT California.

Politics >>

October 15-21, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

Supe candidates pledge to protect SF’s queer cultural patrimony by Matthew S. Bajko

aintaining San Francisco’s LGBTQ community as a thriving, robust segment of the city has been a perennial concern for decades, and during LGBTQ History Month in October, preserving its rich legacy and historic sites receives even greater attention. As the Bay Area Reporter details in a frontpage story this week, it has been five years since a city report listed dozens of potential LGBTQ sites worthy of being landmarked yet only one has received such a designation. For the past several elections featuring races for seats on the Board of Supervisors, the B.A.R. has asked candidates what they would do if elected to protect and strengthen the city’s queer cultural patrimony, particularly in the historic LGBTQ neighborhoods of the Castro, Tenderloin, and South of Market. The question was put again to the candidates in the races this fall for odd-numbered seats on the 11-member board. Fifteen candidates turned in the B.A.R.’s questionnaire. None mentioned by name San Francisco’s groundbreaking LGBTQ+ Cultural Heritage Strategy, a draft version of which was first released in 2018, or pledged to ensure its myriad ideas for preserving and strengthening San Francisco’s LGBTQ community were enacted. Nonetheless, most of the ideas they brought up can be found in the document, which has yet to be finalized by city officials. And all said they would defer to the leadership of the board’s lone LGBTQ representative, gay Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, when it came to addressing the issues in the Castro since it is part of his District 8. District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who is seeking reelection, noted he has already worked in tandem with Mandelman on various issues affecting the Castro as he has faced similar concerns in North Beach, once home to many LGBTQ establishments and residents that of late has seen its Italian identity be eroded due to business closures. “We worked together on the Storefront Vacancy Tax and have had more recent conversations about how to focus efforts to secure space for LGBTQ-owned and Black-owned businesses in the Castro,” said Peskin, referring to a ballot measure voters passed in March that the supervisors deferred instituting until 2022 due to the health crisis. Nonprofit executive Danny Sauter said if he were elected to the District 3 seat, he would work closely with District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney since their districts border each other and include portions of the Tenderloin and Polk Gulch, which was home to a thriving LGBTQ commercial corridor for decades. He also would partner with Mandelman to make it easier to open small businesses in the Castro and target more city grant programs toward LGBTQ+ agencies and businesses. In the open District 7 race to represent the neighborhoods west of Twin Peaks, as Supervisor and board President Norman Yee is termed out, former planning commissioner Myrna Melgar, the mother of a lesbian daughter, said she would work with both Mandelman and Haney to support “efforts to prevent the destruction of historical sites, ensure adequate mitigation through community benefits that support and expand the preservation and celebration of history and cultural identity and support the stabiliza-

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District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí

tion of the lives of residents, prevent evictions and create affordable and supportive housing.” Joel Engardio, a gay married man and former journalist mounting his third bid for the seat, called for assisting LGBTQ entertainment venues like bars and clubs to remain open and providing “entrepreneurs the freedom to create queer spaces in other, more inclusive types of business that aren’t oriented towards alcohol.” He also said the city needs to do a better job of addressing its lack of affordable housing. “Stopping displacement can only happen when you do the work of making a city truly affordable,” said Engardio,” and that happens when the city meets its housing needs and there are enough quality jobs for residents.” Deputy Public Defender Vilaska Nguyen, brother to a transgender sister, called for building more social housing to “end the outmigration of our city’s queer community.” He also said he would fight for city funding for the LGBTQ cultural districts the city has recognized in the Castro, Tenderloin and SOMA. “I will lead with trans issues because I know from my life experience how important that is,” said Nguyen. Former school board member Emily Murase, who oversaw the city’s Department on the Status of Women, recommended holding regular, “results-oriented meetings” with stakeholders in the LGBTQ community “to determine the best path forward.” Republican Stephen MartinPinto, a city firefighter, was the lone person who questioned if the city needed to do anything to address preserving its LGBTQ cultural patrimony. He said his focus would be placed on reducing the permits needed and fees paid by businesses trying to open in the city. “I’m not aware the queer identity of the Castro is in danger,” said Martin-Pinto. “To me, the bigger concern is homelessness and vacant storefronts in the Castro.” The candidates in the open District 1 seat representing the Richmond district, as Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer isn’t seeking reelection, largely focused their responses on assisting LGBTQ-owned businesses. Connie Chan, a former City Hall aide and spokeswoman for the parks department, told the B.A.R. she would direct city funding toward programs aimed at LGBTQ youth and to assist businesses seen as “the backbone” to maintaining the “queer identity” of the Castro. “I will follow the lead of LGBTQ leaders to best support the Castro’s queer identity,” said Chan. Marjan Philhour, who lost to Fewer in 2016, called for the city to provide grants to LGBTQ-owned businesses, similar to the programs it has in place for businesses owned by minorities and women. “Small businesses are the economic and cultural backbone of any neighborhood, so it is especially important that we provide support to LGBTQ+ owned businesses and

to monitoring and other restrictions. cultural spaces,” she said. Visit housing.sfgov.org for an application and further program information. Educator David Lee echoed that stance, telling the B.A.R. the city needs to “take steps” to preserve the queer identity of the city’s LGBTQ cultural districts. But he was vague 10/13/20 12:24 PM Attorney at Law in how we would achieve doing so,Modera Rincon.indd 1 other than to state the city needs to reduce the taxes and regulations it imposes on small businesses. • Divorce w/emphasis on District 5 Supervisor Dean PresReal Estate & Business Divisions ton, a democratic socialist, is facing • Domestic Partnerships, Support & Custody a rematch against Vallie Brown, • Probate and Wills whom he ousted last November from the seat that covers the Haight, www.SchneiderLawSF.com Fillmore, and Western Addition neighborhoods. He told the B.A.R. the city needs to increase its efforts *Certified by the California State Bar to stop the displacement of marginalized communities, especially in its 400 Montgomery Street, Ste. 505, San Francisco, CA three LGBTQ cultural districts. “We as a whole city have a responsibility to make sure that our city, which has been such a north star in the fight for LGBTQ justice, continues to be a safe haven for all,” said Preston. “There is no room for pushing out our vibrant gay communities, though it is constantly under threat by speculators and landlords eager to sell to the highest bidder.” Brown pointed to her support last year for the legislation that created the Castro cultural district, as it borders District 5, and working with Mandelman to make it easier for businesses to open along upper Market Street within it. Like Preston, she said more affordable housing is needed to ensure LGBTQ residents can afford to remain in the city. “We also need to make sure we’re building housing at all levels of affordability, including in the Tenderloin and SOMA,” said Brown. “Affordable housing prevents displacement and allows residents to age in place among their community, which is crucial to preserving neighborhood identity.” District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who is seeking a second 2:00pm-4:30pm Zoom Conference term representing the city’s southeastern neighborhoods, noted his support for establishing the LGJoin us for an inspirational, FREE, BTQ cultural districts. He echoed online conference designed for others in the need to assist small business owners and residents of members, friends and supporters the three neighborhoods. Uniquely, he also called for apof the LGBTQ Community! pointing more LGBTQ people to city oversight panels so “they are given a stronger voice to bring about change to all San Francisco neighborhoods.” John Avalos, who is running to reclaim the D11 seat he was termed out of four years ago, called for “greater protection for tenants” and local merchants located within the city’s cultural districts, one of : which, SOMA Pilipinas: the Filipino Cultural Heritage District, is led • HOUSING by his partner, Raquel Redondiez. Small business owners should be • LEGAL ISSUES extended grants before given low or • OVERCOMING DISCRIMINATION zero interest loans, added Avalos. “I also support the city identify• BUILD YOUR OWN VILLAGE ing core services for every neighborhood and then seeking to get such With support from the County of services filled throughout the city,” Santa Clara, Office of LGBTQ Affairs said Avalos, who noted his two teenage children identify as queer. “All too often, the city focuses on the big ticket, corporate extravaganzas like the America’s Cup and NFL Superbowl fan complex, pulling vital resources from our commercial corridors and neighborhoods for tourist and billionaires.”t

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6 • Bay Area Reporter • October 15-21, 2020

Our Family Coalition hires new ED by John Ferrannini

imi Demissew told the Bay Area Reporter she is excited to have recently moved across the country to the East Bay as she approaches one month on the job as the new executive director of the Our Family Coalition. The board of the San Franciscobased organization, which is nearing its 25th anniversary, saw Demissew as the best person to implement changes following a national search, according to queer and lesbian board co-chair Lisa Fujie Parks. DeWhen you plan your life celebration and lasting remembrance in missew started the job virtually. advance, you can design every detail of your own unique memorial “I’d really love the B.A.R.’s readers and provide your loved ones with true peace of mind. Planning ahead to know that in 2019 we changed our When your celebration lasting protectsyou your plan loved ones fromlife unnecessary stress and and financial burden, hen you remembrance plan your celebration and lasting inmission statement – a small change allowing themlife to focus what will matter at design that remembrance time—you. in on advance, youmost can every with lots of possible implications in vance, you canofdesign every detail of your ownand unique memorial our strategic planning process,” she detail own memorial provide Contact usyour today about theunique beautiful ways to create a lasting legacy the B.A.R. “We changed ‘LGBT atyour theloved San Francisco Columbarium. nd provide loved ones with true peace mind. Planning told ahead your ones with true peace ofof mind. Planning families with children’ to ‘LGBT families and children.’ We added otects your loved onesProudly from unnecessary stressunnecessary and financial burden, ahead protects yourserving loved onesCommunity. from the LGBT the phrase to expand the spectrum owing them focus on whatburden, will matter most them at thattotime—you. stresstoand financial allowing of LGBTQ families and children, broadening our take on what makes focus on what will matter most at that time—you. a family, because LGBTQ families ontact us today about the beautiful ways to create a lasting legacy are pioneers in chosen families and biological families of all kinds.” the San Contact FranciscousColumbarium. today about the beautiful ways to create Demissew, who is married to a a lasting legacy at the San Francisco Columbarium. woman and identifies as a Black woman who is “part of the commuOne Loraine Ct. | San Francisco | 415-771-0717 nity,” said she is up for the challenge. SanFranciscoColumbarium.com “I saw the mission of OFC and it Proudly serving the LGBT Community. spoke to me, advocating for sexual FD 1306 / COA 660 and gender-minority families. As a parent myself, it looked like an organization doing good work and on a trajectory for growth. It seemed like a good fit,” Demissew, who has a 2-year-old toddler, said. “The mission statement is expanding. As an organization we are doing a lot to advocate and support gender-minority families and we are going to be expanding even more.” One Loraine Ct. | San Francisco | 415-771-0717 Demissew, 42, is a former long-

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time resident of Baltimore, where she was the executive director of the Pride Center of Maryland. Parks said that Demissew’s experience with turning the center’s deficit into a surplus was a key part of her appeal to Our Family. “My background is in organizational development, and that also includes financial accountability,” Demissew said. “Coming into the organization there are good bones in place, so it’s about expanding those to match where the organization is going next.” Mari Villanluna, Our Family Coalition’s parent power lead, was on the search committee. “OFC’s legacy is resilient, and rooted in social justice,” she stated in a release from the organization. “From getting to know Mimi on the search committee, I know that she is going to take the organization to even greater levels, and will continue to expand our commitment to equity, social justice, and family diversity. As a parent leader, I am hella excited to work with her.” According to Our Family Coalition’s most recent available IRS Form 990, the nonprofit spent $1.26 million in fiscal year 2017-18 but only raised $1.03 million, which means it ran a $222,149 deficit. Our Family had about $460,000 in assets, but only about $420,000 were net assets, leaving about $40,000 in liabilities. The form also shows the executive director at the time made a salary of $104,867 that fiscal year. Parks wrote in a text that the

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Mimi Demissew

agency wasn’t making public Demissew’s salary, but stated that previous executive directors made between $100,000 and $110,000. “Mimi’s salary was increased modestly to be more commensurate with San Francisco Bay Area ED salaries and Mimi’s level of responsibilities,” Parks added. “We have faced fiscal challenges in the last years and decided someone who had strong fiscal management skills could help us through these difficult times,” Parks said. “We are at a point in our life-cycle, with our 25th anniversary next year, where we are in a regeneration.” Demissew will be leading the organization through a community needs assessment that will begin in January, which she said will “really help us to get more thoughtful about the data and make sure we are meeting the needs of the people we are serving.” One population that Demissew wants Our Family to expand to is LGBTQ seniors. Already facing an epidemic of loneliness, LGBTQ seniors are increasingly isolated by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We want to do more work with the elders in our community,” Demissew said. “There are a lot of elders without a connection to families of their own. We are finding [for] a lot of our elders that family support network, connecting those folks, and facilitating that elder-younger intergenerational interaction.” Parks said that Our Family Coalition will be hosting a virtual town hall December 4 from noon to 1:30 p.m. – there is a “broad community invite” and more information will be announced “in the coming weeks,” she said. “After a year of growth – and six months adapting support services to life in a pandemic – I know how lifesaving the work of this organization is,” former interim executive director Sam Ames stated in the release. “I’m thrilled to be passing the torch lit a generation ago to Mimi Demissew, a leader with years of dedication to the lives of LGBTQI people.”t

9/8/20 11:29 AM

he Women’s Building has begun an interior painting project that’s funded by a grant from Benjamin Moore through the National Trust’s campaign, Where Women Make History. Benjamin Moore is providing the paint and the project will enhance the grand staircase that extends four flights and showcases the Mission district building’s colorful mural, which was continued inside the building in 2009. The mural extends up to the second floor adorned with calligraphy names. The community resource room and the mailroom are also being repainted. The project, which started October 5, is expected to be completed soon. It comes at a good time as the building is currently closed to nonessential programming due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The Women’s Building is home to nine other nonprofits. Those that are essential and continue to operate are the Women’s Building Food Pantry, Dolores Street Community Services’ kitchen, the Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic, the Immigration Center for Women, and the Children and Head Start Childcare Center. “It’s such a pleasure to be recog-

Courtesy the Women’s Building

The Women’s Building has started an interior paint project thanks to a grant.

nized by a prestigious business like Benjamin Moore and the National Trust,” Women’s Building Executive Director Teresa Mejia stated in a news release. The Women’s Building is an anchor institution in the community. In 2018, the National Park Service officially recognized it as a national historic site. As the Bay Area Reporter has previously reported, the Women’s Building was founded in 1971 by a group of women that included a number of lesbian leaders, such as Roma Guy, whose life and advocacy for the building was in the 2017 ABC miniseries “When We Rise” about a number See page 10 >>

LGBTQ History Month>>

October 15-21, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

The US Supreme Court v. LGBTQ Americans by Victoria A. Brownworth

une 30, 1986 was a broiling hot day in Washington, D.C. when the U.S. Supreme Court released the decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, a landmark sodomy decision. The press was huddled under the small bank of trees near the side entrance, waiting for the copies to be handed out. The fate of millions of lesbian and gay Americans laid in the hands of the high court. The controversial case involved consensual sex between Michael Hardwick and a companion in the privacy of his own home. An Atlanta police officer, Keith Torick, was serving an invalid warrant for a ticket when he entered Hardwick’s apartment, burst into his bedroom, and found him engaged in oral sex. Torick arrested Hardwick and the companion, charging them with sodomy. At the time, the charge carried a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Hardwick sued the state of Georgia, asserting that as a non-celibate gay man, his rights were infringed upon by the existing sodomy laws. A federal appeals court found in Hardwick’s favor and Michael Bowers, the Georgia attorney general, took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court found 5-4 for Bowers. Justice Byron White wrote the majority opinion upholding the sodomy laws. White said the Constitution did not support “a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy.” Chief Justice Warren Burger issued a virulently homophobic concurring opinion in which he asserted that homosexual sodomy was an “infamous crime against nature,” worse than rape, and “a crime not fit to be named.” Burger wrote, “To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.” Justice Lewis Powell also wrote a concurrence. Later Powell would say he should have voted the other way, but did not realize the import of the case at the time. Justices William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor voted with the majority. Justice Harry Blackmun’s dissent accused the court of an “almost obsessive focus on homosexual activity” and an “overall refusal to consider the broad principles that have informed our treatment of privacy in specific cases.” Blackmun wrote of Burger’s religious commentary, “That certain, but by no means all, religious groups

condemn the behavior at issue gives the state no license to impose their judgments on the entire citizenry. The legitimacy of secular legislation depends, instead, on whether the State can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine.” Blackmun was joined in his dissent by William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, and John Paul Stevens, who also wrote his own dissent in the case. When the decision was handed out to the press, Blackmun, then 78, made the unprecedented move of coming out to speak about how wrong he felt the decision was. Blackmun had authored the landmark Roe v. Wade case and his dissent was predicated on what he argued in both cases: a fundamental right to privacy. Seventeen years later, in 2003, the court heard arguments in Lawrence v. Texas. Like Hardwick, the case centered on another consensual relationship, this time at odds with a Texas law that classified consensual, adult homosexual intercourse as illegal sodomy. John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner argued that Texas violated the privacy and liberty of adults to engage in private intimate conduct under the 14th Amendment. In a 6-3 decision, a very different court than had voted on Hardwick declared that the court had gotten it wrong in 1986. Only three justices remained from the original ruling: Rehnquist, O’Connor, and Stevens. Finding for the majority were Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, O’Connor, and Stevens. The dissents were Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia. Writing for the majority, Kennedy declared, “The petitioners [Lawrence and Garner] are entitled to respect for their private lives. The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.” O’Connor voted with the majority, but in a dissent, argued against overturning Hardwick, asserting that the Texas state law violated the equal protection clause because it criminalized male-male but not male-female sodomy and that should be the court’s rationale in finding for Lawrence and Garner against Texas. In his angry dissent, Scalia wrote “Today’s opinion is the product of a court, which is the product of a lawprofession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the

Scott Drake

A person waves a rainbow flag outside of the U.S. Supreme Court.

agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct. ... [T]he court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed.” Both Scalia and O’Connor argued that the breadth of Kennedy’s opinion opened the door to samesex marriage. And a decade later, Scalia was proved correct: Kennedy wrote the opinion in 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized samesex marriage in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Scalia’s comments in Lawrence v. Texas were again invoked by conservatives unhappy with the court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia in June, which granted LGBTQ people protections against employment discrimination. But that 6-3 decision, written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, is predicated upon previous cases the court has rendered on gay rights, as well as previous employment discrimination cases such as Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services. Scalia himself wrote the unanimous opinion in Oncale in 1998. That case, which concerned the sexual harassment of an oil rig worker, determined that a male can be discriminated against by members of the same sex under Title VII. Oncale found that any discrimination based on sex is actionable if it places the victim in an objectively disadvantageous working condition, regardless of the gender of the victim or the person doing the harassing.

Court moves slowly on LGBTQ rights

The court continues to move forward – albeit slowly – on LGBTQ rights issues. But as was the case in Hardwick, religion continues to in-

fringe on LGBTQ rights. The court has found in favor of business owners claiming religious freedom not to serve lesbian and gay clientele in several recent cases. And in Bostock, Gorsuch notes that religious employers may challenge the ruling. But since Hardwick was overturned, in Lawrence, Obergefell, Bostock, and laterally, Oncale, even conservative justices – notably Kennedy, who retired in 2018, and Gorsuch – have found there is a constitutional basis for LGBTQ rights. Whether that will change in the next few months is now a question. The case law of Ginsburg, the court’s most liberal justice for the past quarter century, set a foundation for genderbased legal arguments that have been the predicate for much of the ensuing LGBTQ rights cases. But Ginsburg’s sudden death in September opened a seat on the Supreme Court. Eight days after Ginsburg’s death, President Donald Trump announced his nominee to replace Ginsburg: Amy Coney Barrett, a judge he appointed in 2017 to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a religious ideologue whose association with an extremist sect of the Catholic Church was raised in her 2017 confirmation hearings. Barrett is a professor of constitutional law at Notre Dame University where she received her law degree, graduating first in her class and summa cum laude in 1997. Barrett clerked for Scalia, whose views on originalism – and vitriolic opposition to LGBTQ civil rights – she shares. Barrett has demonstrated bias against LGBTQ rights in her words, texts, and recent rulings. She defended the Supreme Court’s dissenters in Obergefell v. Hodges, asserting that the court had no business deciding the case and that it belonged in the hands of voters. Barrett’s originalism stance is also highlighted in her transphobic responses to other cases. She has said that Title IX protections under the 1964 Civil Rights Act do not extend to trans people, asserting it is “a strain on the text” to reach that interpretation. She likely would have opposed Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia. Equally concerning is her misgendering of trans people, including referring to trans women as “physiological males,” while also questioning how there can even be a case for transgender rights. On November 4, the Supreme Court will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a case that could allow private agencies that receive taxpay-

er-funding to provide government services, such as foster care providers, food banks, homeless shelters, and more, to deny services to people who are LGBTQ. The nexus of the case stems from the discovery by the city of Philadelphia in March 2018 that two agencies the city hired to provide foster care services to children in the city’s care would not, based on their religious objections, accept samesex couples as foster parents. The noncompliance with the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance led to the lawsuit due before the court. Fulton is a lawsuit that Barrett may very well decide, or a case that will be decided by a 4-4 court. At the heart of the case is whether or not religious groups have a right to cite religious freedom as their rationale for antiLGBTQ bias. In recent years the court has found frequently for businesses that refuse services to LGBTQ people on the basis of religious beliefs. In the 2018 case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court found 7-2 for the bakery that refused a gay male couple’s request for a wedding cake. The dissent was written by Ginsburg, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurring. Opposition to LGBTQ equality and municipal and state laws barring discrimination have sent religious groups to seek remedies in the courts for what the American Civil Liberties Union has called a “far-reaching constitutional license to discriminate in the name of religion.” Over 1,000 people have joined amicus briefs in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, including multiple child welfare groups, religious organizations, former foster youth, and nearly half of the states and dozens of cities and mayors. A vote against LGBTQ people in Fulton could have staggering consequences for American social safety net programs for many vulnerable groups. If LGBTQ people thought the landmark employment discrimination case of Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia set the court on a new trajectory, Fulton, the confirmation of Barrett, and the impending shift to a 6-3 conservative court suggests a whole new battle for LGBTQ civil rights may have just begun.t Victoria A. Brownworth is an award-winning investigative journalist who also writes the Bay Area Reporter’s Lavender Tube column.

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GET MORE INFORMATION  This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more.  Go to BIKTARVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5  If you need help paying for your medicine, visit BIKTARVY.com for program information.

BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, DAILY CHARGE, the DAILY CHARGE Logo, KEEP CREATING, LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE, GILEAD, and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. Version date: February 2020 © 2020 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. BVYC0219 04/20

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10/7/20 1:01 PM10/9/20 1:11 PM

<< Community News

10 • Bay Area Reporter • October 15-21, 2020

Castro cameras

From page 1

ued. “An unbiased witness with stringent privacy protocols, the program will support broader placemaking and service delivery strategies, especially during the current public health crisis. We will continue to outreach to the community about this program. No decisions have been made at this point. We work for the Castro and will continue to listen to its needs so that together we can shape a vibrant community.” The Milk club sent its letter to the CBD late Thursday afternoon. “The letter ... was written promptly when we discovered that the Castro/Upper Market CBD would be voting on the matter this evening. As you will probably discover soon, they postponed that vote in order to engage in further community outreach,” Lee Hepner, who sits on the club’s board, wrote to the B.A.R. late October 8. “This whole concept is an affront to the Castro values that have made the neighborhood a beacon of diversity, refuge, and freedom of expression. I’m grateful that the CBD put a pause on this ill-advised

Red Vic

From page 1

months. The members started living there at different times, with most arriving in August. The hotel stopped operations in March due to the pandemic. “We are being represented by a lawyer who specializes in tenantlandlord disputes,” Adam Rice, a trans man who is part of the collective and originally hails from Texas, told the B.A.R. in a recent Zoom call. “I’d say there was a more focused effort to get us to vacate the building this past month. Since we have started working with legal counsel it’s been kind of difficult to tell what’s going on, frankly, but there is a definite sense of things having slowed down. There’s not as much fear and urgency we are facing, but we are still experiencing uncertainty.” The collective’s attorney, James Millar, said that his clients have been served with “what is purporting to be a termination notice” but that an

LGBTQ sites

From page 3

Fusco wrote that “working on making sites historical landmarks is a step in the right direction,” but is not enough. “I feel we need to put more pressure on the city to work beside preservation organizations to close [loopholes] and make these places more protected,” Fusco stated.

News Briefs

From page 6

of LGBTQ San Francisco leaders. In 1979 the Women’s Building moved into its current location, at 3543 18th Street near Valencia Street, where it has hosted numerous meetings of LGBTQ groups and conferences over the years. The building is also a city landmark, though it was listed for its historical significance predating the modern LGBTQ rights movement. A Benjamin Moore representative stated in the release that the project will enable the Women’s Building to experience the “transformative power of paint [and] reap the rewards of color expertise that only Benjamin Moore, with our 135-plus year history, can provide.” Benjamin Moore is a Berkshire Hathaway company and was founded in 1883.

proposal before rubber-stamping it, and I think we should expect nothing less than a robust communitydriven process to determine the future of the Castro,” Hepner stated. Hepner, who clarified his “engagement on this issue” was solely as a board member and not as an aide to District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin “out of an abundance of caution,” said that surveillance technology is used to intimidate. “The notion that this sophisticated surveillance network will make us more safe is naive and misinformed,” he wrote. “Instead it’s been used to target peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in San Francisco. Last week, KQED reported that a lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the city, alleging police illegally conducted mass surveillance on the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in the late spring by commandeering private security cameras in the Union Square area. The Milk club’s letter references the lawsuit (lead plaintiff Hope Williams sits on the Milk club board, the letter noted) and the historic use of surveillance cameras to target the LGBTQ community.

“In the late 1980s, surveillance technology was used to target ACT UP members who were protesting government inaction as tens of thousands of San Franciscans were dying of AIDS-related illness,” the letter states. “In the mid-1990s, SFPD resorted to the use of surveillance technology to shut down Dennis Peron’s Cannabis Buyers Club. “The installation of private surveillance systems is part of a broader movement to expand police power and – even more troubling – to promote the privatization of police without any transparency or oversight. In the wake of calls to defund the police, we have seen the expansion of private surveillance networks and the rise of armed private security firms,” the letter states. “We love the Castro. It is an international beacon for self-expression and a breeding ground for progressive ideas,” the letter continues. “It is also the Milk club’s political and social home, and we have a vested interest in its future. We also understand the challenges of the small business community and count many small business owners in and around the Castro among our membership. We hope that together we can find a path

forward that allows for small business to rebound from the pandemic and to help Castro residents feel safer without resorting to the dangerous use of this surveillance technology.” The letter was also sent to gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, genderqueer Castro LGBTQ Cultural District manager Tina Aguirre; straight Castro Merchants board President Masood Samereie; and gay GLBT Historical Society Executive Director Terry Beswick. Of those, only Samereie responded to requests for comment. “Castro Merchants’ mission is to support and nurture a vibrant business corridor that benefits not only the merchants and organizations that choose our neighborhood to pursue their dreams, but also the consumers that shop here – residents and tourists alike,” Samereie wrote October 9. “We see the benefits increased surveillance in our community represents, particularly during these challenging times, but also understand very well the challenges that [it] represents in terms of privacy and data security.” Samereie wrote that police say crime rates “tend to go down when cameras are visibly present.”

“We applaud the CBD for proactively looking for solutions to make the Castro a safer and more prosperous place to do business and encourage its board to carefully review the data, expert opinion and business/ public commentary before making any decisions,” he concluded. There is, of course, the Castro Street Cam at Cliff ’s Variety on Castro Street, which is available online (http://sfbaytimes.com/castrostreet-cam/). Terry Asten Bennett of Cliff ’s Variety told the B.A.R. October 9 that “both sides of legal cases have requested footage in the past” and it has been handed over. “We have been subpoenaed ... to verify the legitimacy of the footage,” she wrote, adding that she has been subpoenaed about four times total but has never had to show up to court. “Them asking for video is not very frequent. The most memorable time we were asked [was] when the guy drove into Rossi’s and then down the street.” While Cliff ’s houses the cameras and the digital video recorder, they are owned by the San Francisco Bay Times. Co-publisher Betty Sullivan declined to comment, saying she didn’t “want to be in your story.”t

unlawful detainer lawsuit has not been filed. “That’s the gist of the problem – it was never clearly delineated what the status was, but long-term occupancy plus some amount of payments equals tenancy; in this case, subtenancy,” Millar said. In an email Tuesday night, Preston stated he’s proud to stand with the Red Vic tenants. “No one should be worried about losing their homes right now, and that is especially true for queer artists and activists who are very much part of the fabric of the Upper Haight and the artist community at large in San Francisco,” he added. A long-term resident of the building, who is disabled, and the six trans, queer, and gender-nonconforming tenants have started a GoFundMe, where they have raised $16,512 out of a $100,000 goal as of the afternoon of October 14. They want to reimagine the space as housing for Black, Indigenous, queer, and trans people of color. The building is owned by the

Peaceful World Foundation, which has not responded to a B.A.R. request for comment. “We are in a relationship with leaseholders who we have an agreement with,” Michael Thurin, a genderqueer femme performance artist from the East Bay who now lives at the Red Vic, told the B.A.R. during the Zoom meeting. “The leaseholders seem to be making agreements in a casual, conversational way and we are affected by those decisions.” The tenants’ agreement is with the hotel. The leaseholder is the Red Victorian Hotel, which is seeking to terminate its lease of the building. Peaceful World and the hotel share an owner, District Commons, which did not respond to a request for comment. Bussy Dad, a nonbinary trans woman, is originally from Missouri. “I’m unemployed and homeless because of COVID’s impact so I would have no place to go,” Dad wrote to the B.A.R. “My only family is myself and the people I live with

at the Red Victorian!” Dad and other collective members put on a weekly drag show from the building on Saturdays at 8 p.m., which have drawn crowds and media attention. “Art is the easiest way to work through pain and trauma without actually thinking about the triggers,” Dad wrote. “It allows for trans and [gender-nonconforming people and Black and Indigenous people of color] to feel beautiful and real in a world that demonizes and dehumanizes us.” Puma Carpio, a gender-nonconforming Latinx person from San Francisco, told the B.A.R. during the Zoom meeting that they have “worked with different housing cooperatives in the past” and hopes to help the collective stay. “I joined Fishbowl at the beginning of August and started to do the shows,” Carpio said. “I jumped on the team to help with getting connections to different organizations.” Several members of the collective said living in a community with people like themselves has made life

much easier in a tumultuous year. Gia Régalado, a trans woman, also performs in the shows and is part of the collective. “I was displaced from my home due to COVID,” Régalado said. “I’m here to help with outreach and [public relations]. This is a place for me to heal, to be housed. It is a sanctuary and a safe space for me – and to do that [heal] with like-minded people, a support system and to be safe from the craziness of the world.” Régalado is “now able to go through hormone replacement therapy.” “I’m finally becoming the person I always dreamed of,” Régalado stated. Michael Borel, a genderqueer trans person, ran Red Victorian hotel operations for much of the last three years and stayed at the building occasionally during that time. “I have a potent spiritual connection with the place,” Borel said. “We had so many strange, wonderful experiences and we are trying to make art blossom.”t

Mitchell wrote that collaborating with Mandelman to bring about legislation stronger in protecting historic sites is the “best pathway.” Maxwell wrote that “as someone who lectures on various histories and speaks at length – much to the chagrin of my friends – on historic figures and spaces in the neighborhood, the most important step in historicizing a place is informing those around it.”

Recognizing queer history will help the community show resiliency in an uncertain time, Maxwell stated. “At a time when the position of the LGBTQ community is precarious nationally, to be able to look back and see how individuals, coalitions and communities came together to build resistance and showcase resiliency is beautiful but also in this moment, in this

[Trump] administration: climacteric,” Maxwell wrote. “When we have neighbors, party promoters, drag performers, and the everyday person able to just walk to a storefront and think and feel just a sliver of ownership to a history, it becomes much more easy to mobilize folks to ask supervisors, representatives and the mayor to honor, say, Harvey’s camera store because it no longer is just about the store,

it becomes about honoring ‘us.’” Freeman expressed support for preserving the Castro’s history but had a more forward-looking vision. “How do we do that? I cannot answer that at this time,” Freeman wrote. “What I do know is that if we do not work toward transforming the Castro into the community I believe it can be, there is a danger that it will no longer be the popular gay destination it once was.”t

SF Pride announces new board members

Openhouse to hold unity town hall

ing group of the LGBTQ senior nonprofit.

ALRP has been providing legal services to people living with HIV/ AIDS during the pandemic either for free or on a sliding scale. The reception will include an online and live auction, with a special kickoff from members of Cheer-SF. Auction items include getaway vacations to Palm Springs, Yosemite, and Sonoma Wine Country; and virtual items like a quarantine cooking class, a Zoom mixology class, and a Zoom wine tasting. Lunches with City Attorney Dennis Herrera and gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman are also up for grabs, along with a Drinks and Drag delivery. More information is at alrp2020. ggo.bid. Individual tickets to the reception are free but registration is requested and can be done via alrp.ejoinme. org/ALRP2020. For more information on ALRP and its services, visit www.alrp.org.t

The board that oversees the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee has four new members and a returning incumbent following elections last month. Bivett Brackett, Tuquan Harrison, Diana Feliz Oliva, and Joshua Smith formally joined the board October 7. They were joined by Elizabeth Lanyon, who was reelected. Their terms go until 2023, according to SF Pride. According to an email from SF Pride, board members Amy Sueyoshi, Nicky “Tita Aida” Calma, and Jake Little stepped down after years of service. Returning board members who are continuing their terms include Carolyn Wysinger, Suzanne Ford, Nguyen Pham, Anjali Rimi, Kerby Lynch, and Manuel Perez For more information about upcoming meetings, go to members.sfpride.org.

Openhouse and Black Lives Matter will hold a virtual unity town hall Saturday and Sunday, October 17-18, from 1 to 3 p.m. both days. The forum will center and empower the lives of Black people, according to an email. Panelists include activist Afrika America; Aria Sa’id, executive director of the Transgender District; Imani Rupert-Gordon, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights; Joe Hawkins, CEO and co-founder of the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center; Johnnie R. Pratt; and longtime community member and activist Zwazzi Sowo. The town hall is free. To sign up and for more information, go to bit.ly/3lF4ZEI or contact Faire at (415) 231-5883 or faire@openhousesf.org. It is organized by Openhouse’s Leadership Council on Race and Privilege, a member-initiated work-

ALRP reception to go online

The AIDS Legal Referral Panel’s 37th anniversary From the Heart reception and auction will be held online Wednesday, October 21, from 6 to 7 p.m. It will be livestreamed on the agency’s YouTube channel. This year’s special guest host will be District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen. ALRP will recognize Michael Steel, who will receive this year’s Clint Hockenberry Award, and panel attorney James A. Dal Bon, the recipient of the agency’s Attorney of the Year Award. Firm of the Year will be presented to Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati Professional Corporation. ALRP Executive Director Bill Hirsh said that Steel is being honored for his “years of dedication and support of people living with HIV/ AIDS.”

Legals & Classifieds>>

October 15-21, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

Legals>> NOTICE OF PUBLIC SALE OF PROPERTY. SALE DATE SHALL BE NOVEMBER 2, 2020, MONDAY AT 8AM. LOCATION SHALL BE 1871 SACRAMENTO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109 Abandoned property includes free standing bookshelves, books, binders, papers, chairs, folding tables, file cabinets, office supplies, clothes, lamps, beds, exercise equipment, computer, printer, handicap toilet, handicap walker, wheelchair, DVD movies, CD’s, fish tank & related accessories, storage boxes, vacuum cleaner, kitchenware & small appliances, dishes & glassware, microwave, mini-refrigerator, and free standing storage cabinets. All items are in specified rooms and areas, stacked, and in black plastic bags. Touching and rummaging the items are not allowed. Sale shall be to bid for the entire abandoned personal property. Highest bidder to provide guarantee to remove and take responsibility for the entire abandoned personal property. Payment shall be in cash. OCT 15, 22, 2020 SUMMONS IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE FIFTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF IDAHO IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF CASSIA CASE NO. CV16-20-00571 IDAHO STATE POLICE, by and through Colonel Kedrick R. Wills, Director, Plaintiff, vs. $2,855.00 DOLLARS IN UNITED STATES CURRENCY, Defendant. NOTICE: A CIVIL FORFEITURE ACTION HAS BEEN FILED AGAINST THE ABOVE DESCRIBED PROPERTY BY THE ABOVE-NAMED PLAINTIFF(S). IF YOU FAIL TO FILE AN ANSWER TO ASSERT YOUR RIGHT, TITLE OR INTEREST IN THE ABOVE-DESCRIBED PROPERTY WITHIN TWENTY-ONE (21) DAYS OF THE SERVICE OF THIS SUMMONS, OR WITHIHN TWENTY-ONE (21) DAYS OF THE LAST PUBLICATION OF THIS SUMMONS, WHICHEVER IS EARLIER, THE COURT MAY ENTER JUDGMENT TERMINATING ANY RIGHT YOU MAY HAVE IN THE DEFENDANT PROPERTY WITHOUT FURTHER NOTICE. READ THE INFORMATION BELOW. TO LILY RAE McCLEARY: You are hereby notified that in order to defend this lawsuit, an appropriate written response must be filed with the Fifth Judicial District County of Cassia, 1559 Overland Avenue, Burley, ID 83318, within 21 days after service of this Summons on you, or by mail, within 21 days after mailing this Summons. If you fail to respond the court may enter judgment as demanded by the Plaintiff(s) in the Complaint. A copy of the Complaint is served with this Summons. If you wish to seek the advice or representation by an attorney in this matter, you should do so promptly so that your written response, if any, may be filed in time and other legal rights protected. An appropriate written response requires compliance with Rule 8(b) and other Idaho Rules of Civil Procedure and shall also include: 1. The title and number of this case; 2. If your response is an Answer to the Complaint, it must contain admissions or denials of the separate allegations of the Complaint and other defenses you may claim, and must be verified; 3. Your signature, mailing address and telephone number, or the signature, mailing address and telephone number of your attorney; 4. Proof of mailing or delivery of a copy of your response to plaintiff’s attorney, as designated above. To determine whether you must pay a filing fee with your response, contact the Clerk of the above-named court. Dated 6/23/2020, by Noemi Alandis, Deputy, Clerk of the District Court. SEP 24, OCT 01, 08, 15, 2020 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-20-555905 In the matter of the application of YAOL OENN WONG, 581 SOMERSET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner YAOL OENN WONG is requesting that the name YAOL OENN WONG AKA YAOL DENN WONG be changed to LARRY YAOL WONG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103, on the 5th of November 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted. SEP 24, OCT 01, 08, 15, 2020 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-20-555891 In the matter of the application of HELEN TRUONG, 239 2ND AVE #5, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner HELEN TRUONG is requesting that the name HELEN TRUONG be changed to HIEU THI TRUONG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 27th of October 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted. SEP 24, OCT 01, 08, 15, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039155900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as CASTRO NAIL SALON, 431 CASTRO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed RIYAD M. KHOURY & MAHA G. KHOURY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/15/04. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/16/20. SEP 24, OCT 01, 08, 15, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039151800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SEVEN FIGURE SHIFT, 424 CLAY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SEO SYMBIOSIS, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/08/20. SEP 24, OCT 01, 08, 15, 2020 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-038598100 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as NORTH BEACH GYROS, 561 COLUMBUS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by BERMAL ASMIN, INC. (CA). The fictitious name was

filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/08/19. SEP 24, OCT 01, 08, 15, 2020

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF MICHELE PAYNE AKA MICHELE PAYNE-SALOMON AKA MICHELE OSTROFF IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-20-303799 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of MICHELE PAYNE AKA MICHELE PAYNE-SALOMON AKA MICHELE OSTROFF. A Petition for Probate has been filed by GABLE PAYNE in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that GABLE PAYNE be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: October 26, 2020, 9:00 am, Dept. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: RACHEL H. ROSENFELD (SBN 297064), HEISLER ROSENFELD LLP, 610 COURT ST. #205, MARTINEZ, CA 94553; Ph. (925) 386-6885. OCT 01, 08, 15, 2020 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-20-555903 In the matter of the application of JUAN ANTONIO GAMEZ AGUAYO, 2370 31ST AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JUAN ANTONIO GAMEZ AGUAYO is requesting that the name JUAN ANTONIO GAMEZ AGUAYO be changed to JUAN ANTONIO GAMEZ. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 3rd of November 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted. OCT 01, 08, 15, 22, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039155300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as BLUEGOAL HOUSEHOLD SERVICES, 270 TURK ST #207, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MIGUEL EUSEBIO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/15/20. OCT 01, 08, 15, 22, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039157800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as NEXT GENERATION MEETINGS & EVENTS; NXG MEETINGS & EVENTS; 293 2ND AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed PRISCILLA LEE & PATTREE DUKE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/30/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/17/20. OCT 01, 08, 15, 22, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039155600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as WORLD GYM SHOWPLACE SQUARE, 260 DEHARO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TALMADGE & TALMADGE INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/31/03. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/15/20. OCT 01, 08, 15, 22, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039157300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as AXE DIGITAL LLC, 130 BUSH ST, 9TH FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed AXE DIGITAL LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/05/06. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/17/20. OCT 01, 08, 15, 22, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039160000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as ARARAT INVESTMENTS LLC, 2429 VALLEJO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ARARAT INVESTMENTS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business

under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/28/02. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/24/20. OCT 01, 08, 15, 22, 2020

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039157700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as KAILASH HOTEL, 179 JULIAN AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed HARIOMBAPU, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/17/20. OCT 01, 08, 15, 22, 2020 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF ROBERT SCOTT MADISON IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN MATEO: FILE 20-PRO-01276 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of ROBERT SCOTT MADISON. A Petition for Probate has been filed by ZENA HUNT in the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo. The Petition for Probate requests that ZENA HUNT be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: December 14, 2020, 9:00 am, Dept. 28, Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo, 400 County Center, Redwood City, CA 94063. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: ANNE STEELE (SBN 52956), 456 SAN MATEO AVE #8, SAN BRUNO, CA 94066; Ph. (650) 952-0950. OCT 08, 15, 22, 2020 CITATION FOR FREEDOM FROM PARENTAL CUSTODY AND CONTROL IN SUPERIOR COURT, COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO: CASE 20AD000356C In the matter of ANABELLA CHIKEI LIN, a minor, to JIAHUI LIN, you are ordered to appear in the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, in Department 903 at the court location 2851 Meadow Park Dr., San Diego, CA 92123, on December 11, 2020 at 9:00am to show cause why ANABELLA CHIKEI LIN should not be declared free from parental custody and control for the purpose of placement for adoption as required in the petition. At the hearing, the judge will read the petition and, if requested, will explain the effect of the granting of the petition, any term or allegation contained therein and the nature of the proceeding, its procedures and possible consequences, and may continue the matter for not more than 30 days for the appointment of counsel or to give counsel time to prepare. The court may appoint counsel to represent the minor whether or not the minor is able to afford counsel. If any parent appears and is unable to afford counsel, the court shall appoint counsel to represent each parent who appears unless such representation is knowingly and intelligently waived. Someone over the age of 18 – not the petitioner – must serve the other party with all the forms and complete a proof of service form, such as Proof of Service (JC Form #FL-330 or JC Form #FL-335), telling when and how the other party was served and file that with the court. If you wish to seek the advice of an attorney in this matter, you should do so promptly so that your pleading, if any, may be filed on time. Party Without Attorney: Gabriel Blaluk Idip & Yanshan Tan, 17810 Pueblo Vista Ln, San Diego, CA 92127. Date: 09/25/2020, Edlene McKenzie, Judge of the Superior Court. OCT 08, 15, 22, 29, 2020 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-20-555924 In the matter of the application of DAVID PHONG BUI & KEVIN MICHAEL MCCARTHY, 2331 12TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner DAVID PHONG BUI & KEVIN MICHAEL MCCARTHY is requesting that the name GAVIN ALAN MINH MCCARTHY BUI be changed to GAVIN ALAN MINH MCCARTHY-BUI. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 17th of November 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted. OCT 08, 15, 22, 29, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039163300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as STANDARD STUDIO, 702 BRODERICK ST UNIT C, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHAEL DOLAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/30/20. OCT 08, 15, 22, 29, 2020

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039162100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as EYE LEVEL OPTOMETRY, 1544 CHURCH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed NG BONNIE OD, A PROF CORP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/10/05. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/29/20. OCT 08, 15, 22, 29, 2020 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF LYNN MCKANNAY AKA LYNN BLASKOWER MCKANNAY IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-18-302353 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of LYNN MCKANNAY AKA LYNN BLASKOWER MCKANNAY. A Petition for Probate has been filed by RICHARD H. MCKANNAY, JR. in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that RICHARD H. MCKANNAY, JR. be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: November 16, 2020, 9:00 am, Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Party without attorney: RICHARD H. MCKANNAY, JR., 170 AVILA ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123; Ph. (415) 441-4040. OCT 15, 22, 29, 2020 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-20-555931 In the matter of the application of JEANNETTE LAURA DAVIS, 3184 MISSION ST #202, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JEANNETTE LAURA DAVIS is requesting that the name JEANNETTE LAURA DAVIS AKA JEANNETTE LAURA MANN be changed to JEANNETTE LAURA O’CONNOR. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 24th of November 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted. OCT 15, 22, 29, NOV 05, 2020 AMENDED ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-20-555869 In the matter of the application of LI JUAN WU, 577 MISSOURI ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107 for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner LI JUAN WU is requesting that the name LI JUAN WU be changed to LI JUAN WU-WONG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N on the 1st of December 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted. OCT 15, 22, 29, NOV 05, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039175900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as PRETTY BABY BRIDAL; SMOKIES TOKE COUTURE; PUFFY P; 1240 20TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual,

and is signed PILAR JOHNSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/18/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/08/20. OCT 15, 22, 29, NOV 05, 2020

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039174600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as WAX JEWELLERY, 1226 SUTTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DEBBIE MEI WAH CHOU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/08/20. OCT 15, 22, 29, NOV 05, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039172700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as WELLER HOTEL, 908 POST ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed JALASAI BAPU LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/01/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/07/20. OCT 15, 22, 29, NOV 05, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039173600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as BURNT CLAY, 1395 WALLACE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed CLAY CALIFORNIA LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/07/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/07/20. OCT 15, 22, 29, NOV 05, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039173500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as FIORELLA SUNSET, 1240 9TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed PROSPECT PIZZA SUNSET LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/07/20. OCT 15, 22, 29, NOV 05, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039157200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as POWERSTREAM LLC, 912 COLE ST #156, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed QUALITY APPLIANCE REPAIR SAN FRANCISCO LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/17/20. OCT 15, 22, 29, NOV 05, 2020 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039168500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as ABU SALIM MIDDLE EASTERN GRILL, 1599 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ABU SALIM LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/05/20. OCT 15, 22, 29, NOV 05, 2020

NOTICE THE DISSOLUTION OF PARTS PEDIGREE, INC., A DELAWARE CORPORATION. Please take notice that on June 30, 2020, Parts Pedigree, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the “Company”) filed a Certificate of Dissolution with the Delaware Secretary of State. Any claims against the Company must be presented in writing and must contain sufficient information reasonably to inform the Company or successor entity of the identity of the claimant and the substance of the claim. Such claim must be sent to: 332 S. Michigan Ave, Num 10-P825, Chicago, IL 60604. Such claim must be received by December 14, 2020, and such claim will be barred if not received by that date. The aggregate amount, on an annual basis, of all distributions made by the Company to its stockholders for each of the three years prior to the date the Company dissolved was $0.00 annually.

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Lisa Kohler

by Brian Bromberger

Chanticleer in a recent photo shoot.

Chanticleer’s engaging endurance

here is little doubt that the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the arts, both locally and nationally. At such a time of loss and separation, it can be argued we have never needed the arts more, both as a distraction from all the chaos, but through named Ella King song “Distance,” available on building a sense of community they remind us YouTube. of a shared cultural heritage, that can bring us Keeler played an essential role in its creation. together while bridging our differences. “I arranged it as part of my audition process Chanticleer, founded in 1978 in San Francisfor the music director position,” he said. “I had co and dubbed by New Yorker magazine as “the originally conceived of it as part of a program world’s reigning male chorus,” is not immune to about separation. When the ensemble found the disruption engendered by the coronavirus. themselves in lockdown at the end of March, it More than 40 events and concerts, including a seemed to be a very fitting undertaking to make month-long tour of Australia and New Zealand, it into a virtual choir video.” had to be scrapped. When queried about their future plans for There are new staff changes, too. Tim Keeler, Chanticleer, Keeler noted, previously Conductor of the “Chanticleer will embrace our University of Maryland’s Men sterling reputation and tradiChoir, will become the new tion even as we look forward Music Director, while Philip to new repertoire and concerts Wilder will assume the Generand collaborations. We’ll conal Director position, after just tinue to highlight the group’s finishing his stint as Execuhistory with early music, tive Director of New Century spirituals, and jazz, while also Chamber Ensemble. They looking ahead to new comboth spoke with the Bay Area missions and new modes of Reporter in an email interview. presentation related to conWhen asked how the choir temporary purposes and meis coping with the pandemic, Chanticleer’s new General dia.” especially not being able to Director Philip Wilder How has this year’s protour and sing live, Wilder retests about racial justice and plied, “Touring has been the disparities concerning white privilege affected backbone of Chanticleer’s activities for years, Chanticleer? garnering fans all over the world, and supportKeeler answered, “The societal awakening ing the full-time employment of our wonderthat has rocked America since May 25 is long ful ensemble. The sudden end to touring last overdue. As America’s preeminent vocal enMarch has affected all parts of the organization, semble, we have a duty to stand up for what we including the loss of that critical revenue.” believe is right and to project that into our conIndividual singers have posted quarantine certs and our interactions with our audiences. videos, but the entire ensemble came together We’ve already made an effort to highlight more to produce their first music video in years, safeBlack composers in our repertoire. For our Live ly sung from their individual homes, the aptly

Choral group’s new directors on music and a ‘societal awakening’

semble, and the opportunity to support finanfrom London program, for instance, we includcially our singers during the pandemic. Typied a modern-day premiere of a motet by the cally, Chanticleer holds an in-person annual Portuguese-African, 16th-century composer fundraiser in San Francisco. Vicente Lusitano.” “This year, we are moving to the digital forKeeler mentioned the significance of the virmat for this event, which will provide access to tual Live from London concert. the ensemble to our global audience. It is an “Hosted by our friends in Voces8 (an Engamazing opportunity for our fans around the lish choral group) from across the pond, it’s a world to gather in one place and time to supway for some of the world’s finest vocal ensemport the ensemble in any way that they can.” bles to present their work online for our new, The ensemble has recorded five pieces spedigital world. The whole festival comprises cifically for the gala and it ten concerts, one every Satwill be the first time they are urday since back in August. broadcast. We were the final group to What does Chanticleer enperform in the festival, and vision as its role during the our broadcast took place last pandemic? Keeler provides Saturday, October 3. We had the ideal vocation goal for any over 1,100 people watching arts group. live and hope many more will “Art is about connection,” tune in. The concert is availhe said. “It’s about sharing an able to stream until the end of experience. Ensemble singOctober (for a fee). The reping, specifically, is a shared ertoire includes a brand new experience within the ensemcommission by one of our Chanticleer’s new Music ble that we then share with long-time collaborators, SteDirector Tim Keeler our audience. That group ven Sametz, and also features and communal engagement original works by a former is especially crucial in a world Chanticleer member, Matt Alber.” of social distancing. Our role during the panFor its latest project, Chanticleer is sponsordemic is to find ways to connect people and ing the Virtual All Aboard Gala on October 23. capture a shared experience despite our physiIt will feature a sumptuous dinner delivered to cal separation.”t your home by Carrie Dove Catering, a live auction, and a special performance by Chanticleer. Read the full article on Wilder explains its purpose. www.ebar.com “The Virtual All Aboard Gala will provide Chanticleer fans from all over the world access To see Chanticleer’s new performances, to a free and exclusive performance by our enregister at www.chanticleer.org Empress Khmera Rouge and Emperor Kevin Lisle at a City Hall ceremony.

Fabulous at 50 Celebrating the History of the Imperial Council by David-Elijah Nahmod

orgeous gowns and jewels are on display throughout much of 50 Years of Fabulous, Jethro Patalinghug’s stirring documentary about the halfcentury history of the Imperial Council of San Francisco. But Patalinghug offers much more than just a drag show. 50 Years also pays tribute to the late Jose Julio Sarria (1922-2013), the drag queen who founded the Council. At a time when coming out was not yet safe, Sarria lived his authentic self, helping to pave the way for the community we have today. The film is a call for LGBTQ people to stand together. Viewers are reminded during the film that many LGBTQ people have been rejected by their families. For some, their fellow Council members become their family.

“United we stand, or divided they’ll catch us one by one,” Sarria himself says in archival interview footage. 50 Years of Fabulous may also bring a tear to the eyes of long time readers of the Bay Area Reporter. Early on in the proceedings there is archival footage from 1990 of the crowning of Marlena, Empress 25, and Simeon, Emperor 18. Crowning them are Empress 1, Jose, and Emperor 1, Marcus. Marcus was Marcus Hernandez, who for decades was the B.A.R.’s leather columnist. B.A.R. cofounder Bob Ross served as Emperor VII. The film goes back to the beginning. In the late 1940s, through the 1960s, gay bars were regularly raided by the police. Patrons were routinely arrested. “People who were rounded up in those raids would have their names on the front page of the daily newspapers,” recalls openly gay former California State Senator Mark

Leno. “To shame them. To keep us in the closet. It was a very tyrannical time.” But Sarria was undaunted. Starting in the 1950s he performed in drag at The Black Cat Cafe, a “bohemian” bar and nightclub in North Beach. In 1961 he ran for Board of Supervisors, the first openly gay candidate to run for public office in the history of the United States. He didn’t win, but he surprised many people by garnering nearly 6000 votes. Never again could anyone run for office in San Francisco without knocking on

the door of the gay community. A corner had been turned, according to Leno. In 1964, Life Magazine ran a feature called ‘Homosexuality in America,’ declaring San Francisco to be the country’s gay capital. The film follows the many historic events that took place during that era, including the formation of the Tavern Guild, the first coalition of gay business owners. In 1965 the Guild held a ball, crowning Sarria the Queen of the Ball. But since he already considered himself a queen, Sarria proclaimed himself to be Empress Jose Norton I, modeling himself after Joshua Abraham Norton, an eccentric San Francisco character who declared himself Emperor in 1858. 50 Years of Fabulous will have an online screening at the Roxie Cinema’s virtual screening room on October 23. The evening will include a drag show featuring members of the court, and a post screening panel discussion with the filmmakers and members of the court.t

Read the full article on www.ebar.com www.roxie.com

José Sarria at The Black Cat.

BARchive>>

October 15-21, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 13

Rediscovering ‘Mother Camp’ camp meant at that time. The chapter “Two Shows” covers Arnold’s show from the Annex and Lynne Carter’s show from the Bon Soir (40 West 8th St., New York), called the 8th Street Club in Mother Camp. Arnold’s section includes a script of two shows with jokes, audience interactions and songs. Lynne Carter’s segment describes his impersonations of Phyllis Diller, Mae West, Bette Davis and his signature Pearl Bailey impersonation. There is a marked distinction between audience interactions during the performances, because of the types of bars: Arnold was in a gay bar and Carter a tourist bar. In “The Fast Fuck and the Quick Buck” chapter, Newton details differences between these bars. For Arnold’s performance the sense of community is apparent, whereas in a tourist clubs Newton notes “sociability is not expected or encouraged.” The difference between these audiences could be stark, as the book elaborates: “In Chicago, one very popular performer came down off the stage as part of his act and held out his hands to the gay audience sitting along the bar. The people in the audience virtually climbed all over each other to touch him. In Kansas City, I saw the same performer come down into the straight audience, and the people at the tables as he walked among them visibly shrank back. At one point he accidentally touched a seated woman, and she actually screamed out, ‘Get it away from me.’” This distinction is the clearest I have read between these types of bars, a dis-

Courtesy Queer Music Heritage

Skip Arnold at the Jewel Box Lounge

he era before Stonewall is shrouded in the mists of history as a time when many LGBT people were closeted and frightened, and the clubs could be scary places. How refreshing, then, to read about an anthropologist who studied drag culture in the mid-1960s in Chicago, Kansas City and New York and how a female impersonator who got his start in San Francisco’s clubs was central to that study. Skip Arnold (given name Ralph, which he never used) was born in New Mexico in 1922 and eventually moved with his mother to Los Angeles. He served on the USS Saratoga in World War II. By April 1956 Arnold lived in San Francisco and performed at Ann’s 440 (440 Broadway) with club owner Ann Dee and Finocchio’s regular Carroll Davis. Arnold wrote and directed pieces which included performers such as Charles Pierce and Joan Paulsen (Pat Paulsen’s wife). By February 1958 he was working as a bartender at the Opera Club Lounge (621 Gough), owned by Tavern Guild president Bill Plath. While there he produced Ye Olde Auntie Mame, a takeoff on Auntie Mame. In June 1959 the San Francisco Mattachine Newsletter ran an article stating Arnold opened in Kansas City at the Colony Club (3325 Troost). From Kansas City, Arnold moved to Chicago, as Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall notes: “In the summer of 1965 [Nick] Dallesandro hired Skip Arnold, a drag comedian who had recently relocated from Kansas City, where he worked in a straight drag club. Arnold caused a stir in Chicago with his hilarious songs and comedy routines.”

Smutty and witty and gay

It was at the Annex (2863 North Clark) that Esther Newton, a Uni-

versity of Chicago graduate student in anthropology, first saw Arnold perform. She relates first seeing him in her book My Butch Career: A Memoir: “When I first saw Skip Arnold perform in a Chicago gay bar in 1965, I sensed he would change my life. Skip, who worked live, using his own voice and singing with a small band, appeared to be a huge woman figure in makeup, gown, wig and high heels. The audience of gay men laughed, shouted, clapped at Skip’s smutty, witty political patter. It was interactive, live performance … I had fleetingly seen drag queens and even lesbians dressed like men who worked as waiters at Club 82 in New York’s East Village, where my former girlfriend Nannette had worked as a dancer, that summer of 1959.” While searching for a dissertation subject Newton considered working in Kenya or Fiji, and writing a course paper about Chicago drag queens. Her mentor David Schneider, Chair of the Anthropology department, encouraged her to instead make drag queens the subject of her doctoral dissertation. Arnold was also on board. Between shows at the Annex she had talked with him and he told her, “I majored in anthropology in college…Love the subject.” From 1965 to 1967 Newton did field work in clubs In Chicago, Kansas City, New York and San Francisco. Her dissertation was published by Prentice-Hall as Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America in 1972. The book gives a complex portrait of drag in the mid-Sixties. “Role Models” is a chapter where Newton distinguishes between “actress” performers who idolize female entertainers, drag queens concerned with the appearance of gender transformation, and camp performers. Both the drag queen and the camp sections go into a detailed analysis of what drag and

Left: Libby Reynolds and Skip Arnold at the Annex in 1965 from Mother Camp Middle Right: Skip Arnold and Ester Newton backstage, from Mother Camp Left: Skip Arnold as part of the Jewel Box line-up

2011 40th anniv., readers'

Boston, P-town travel

second section

Considering Balenciaga

poll

The

www.ebar.com

Serving the gay, lesbian,

REPORT CITES HEALTH GAPS by Bob Roehr

report released last week detailed the need for more federal and research data collection on the health of LGBT people. Bob Roehr “Lesbian, bisexual, Dr. Robert Graham gay, and transgender individuals health disparities. experience unique LGBT is used as an Although the acronym health needs of this umbrella term, and the grouped together, community are often a distinct each of these letters represents concerns,” health population with its own the report, written stated the summary of of Medicine. by the prestigious Institute lesbians, gay men, “Furthermore, among transgender and bisexual men and women, based people, there are subpopulations status, on race, ethnicity, socioeconomicfactors,” and other geographic location, age, the report continued. statement is not While that summary with the LGBT news to anyone familiar it was made in the community, the fact that commissioned by IOM report, which was of Health, adds new the National Institutes to shaping health meaning and credibility had been policy, which that heretofore lacking. are asked Traditionally, IOM committees priorities gaps and to identify research not does paradigm that within a field. “But Dr. Robert Graham fit for this area,” chair news conference said at the March 31 releasing the report. See page 24 >>

Our new look

decided The Bay Area Reporter that we’re 40. to update its look now slight design So we’ve made some of the paper, changes in both sections the case of the with new fonts, and in a new name. Arts and Culture section, website has Most significantly, our for video with been updated to allow now comment stories, and readers can if they directly on our online content are friends on Facebook.▼

1981 BAR MEMBERSHIP STRIP.indd 1

tinction made between San Francisco gay bars like the Beige Room and tourist clubs like Finocchio’s (the San Francisco bar Newton visited) in oral histories from that era I have read from San Francisco residents. The chapter also vividly paints working conditions in the bars: “Along the back wall were two windows that looked out on a back alley. One of these was broken and freely admitted icy blasts during the winter. Finally one performer put some cardboard over the break.

Top Left and Right: Skip Arnold at the Annex, from Mother Camp

1991

1971

Courtesy University of Chicago Press

Mother Camp, 1979

Courtesy Queer Music Heritage

by Michael Flanagan

Esther Newton, Skip Arnold and drag anthropology in the 1960s

bisexual, and transgender

Vol. 41 • No. 14 • April

communities since 1971

7-13, 2011

by Seth Hemmelgarn the Bay Area or 40 years now, entertained, Reporter has informed, people in San and frequently miffed Francisco and beyond. Bob Ross – chef, The paper started when and bar culture Tavern Guild president, with business partner insider – launched it was dated April 1, Paul Bentley. The first issue on April 2, Ross’s 37th 1971 but hit the streets all the pages by hand, birthday. Ross pasted up them to local bars. copied them, and delivered took the paper In the beginning, nobody too seriously. he had an “up and Cleve Jones, who said Ross and who was down” relationship with gay icon Harvey Milk, a close friend of slain after his arrival to started reading the paper San Francisco in 1972. sort of a silly “To be honest, it was who now works with publication,” said Jones, “Most of the other the Courage Campaign. have much use for young people didn’t really about it. It was basically just announcements going on at whatever whatever specials were bar.” many early 1970s The front covers of the Imperial Court’s issues were dedicated to See page 23 >>

F Community looks back at 40 years of the B.A.R . Founding publisher Bob Ross

Despite setbacks, LGBT nt’ ‘vibra scene in San Jose is by Seth Hemmelgarn

several setbacks he past year has seen even in San Jose’s LGBT community, census recently as data from the 2010 Bay berg is now the revealed that the South 10th largest city in the country. have made it Recent events, however, with almost 1 million seem that for a city strength in the gay people, there’s not much community there. DeFrank LGBT Last month, the Billy canceled its 30th Community Center had been planned for anniversary party, which tickets had been sold. March 26. Only about 40 Silicon Valley AIDS Last November, the had organized the Leadership Center, which announced its closure. annual Walk for AIDS, before that, in And about three months Committee August, the Gay Pride Celebrationa parade. to hold of San Jose Inc. opted not LGBT organizations Of course, problems at Several San Francisco aren’t unique to San Jose. financially. And agencies have been struggling the DeFrank center people with Pride and indicate they’re all right. and when “We have a vibrant community, that they’re there,” we can engage them, I think San Jose Pride’s joined said Ray Mueller, who board earlier this year. LGBT night One example is last Thursday’steam. Tickets hockey with the San Jose Sharks sold out in 10 days.

marched The Pro-Latino contingent Parade; Pride in the 2008 San Jose sure if there will be officials are not yet year, although the a Pride Parade this for August. festival is scheduled

Rick Gerharter

will generate about Mueller said the event which is August 20$1,000 for this year’s Pride, tickets, ranging from 21. A block of about 300 for the hockey night. $36 to $73, were reserved proves there are “I think the Sharks event to something that isn’t people out there to go a gay bar and have a the usual ‘Let’s go to fundraiser,’” said Mueller.

{ FIRST OF THREE SECTIONS

Center official appears

hopeful

been hobbled by The DeFrank center has problems in recent financial and leadership no full-time executive years and currently has Flood, the DeFrank’s director. However, Chris that the center’s board president, indicated appear. He was at a doing better than it might See page 22 >>

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The cold air was offset by the pipes in the heating system, which ran up through the backstage. Performers would often burn themselves on the naked pipes.” Regarding writing about labor conditions, Newton told me, “I think because of my left wing upbringing, all my work has stressed the economic conditions of the subject(s).” In the “Field Methods” appendix she notes in a footnote when she knew she was fully accepted by the performers: “In the last week of the first trip one of the performers [Skip Arnold] offered me what I considered to be a full ‘courtesy stigma’ … When asked by a visiting impersonator who I was, he replied casually, ‘Oh, she’s my husband.’” This prompted me to ask Newton if Arnold had ever mentioned his 1956 marriage to lesbian performer Pat Bond (mentioned in Charles Pierce’s book From Drags to Riches: The Untold Story of Charles Pierce and confirmed in genealogical databases). She responded, “No, I had no idea about this fascinating piece of history. He was clearly okay with lesbians though.” Mother Camp was just the beginning of Esther Newton’s amazing career. For a more complete view of her life in the ’60s and ’70s, when she knew both Jill Johnston (author of Lesbian Nation) and Monique Wittig (author of The Lesbian Body, among many other works) read her autobiography My Butch Career. Aside from her career as a professor at SUNY Purchase and University of Michigan, she published Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America’s First Gay and Lesbian Town in 1993 and Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: Personal Essays, Public Ideas in 2000. In 2018 the American Anthropologist published a special book review section ‘Reviewing Mother Camp (Fifty Years Late)’ which includes Gayle Rubin’s essay, ‘Esther Newton Made Me a Gay Anthropologist.’ A documentary on her life, entitled Agility, is in its final edit (https://www.esther-newton. com/film). Skip Arnold continued to perform throughout the U.S. and Canada, returning to San Francisco for an extended run at the *PS in 1972. He retired to Florida and died in 2005. Among his possessions was a well-worn copy of Mother Camp. Mother Camp has been reclaimed by the world of Anthropology. It deserves to be recognized by LGBT readers as a non-fiction classic which transports us much like Christopher Isherwood’s Christopher and his Kind. It tells the story of a distant time when brave people, drag queens and anthropologists alike, preserved their story for their LGBT progeny.t

Read the full article on www.ebar.com

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2001 9/8/20 12:48 PM

<< Books

14 • Bay Area Reporter • October 15-21, 2020

n o e m Co o t n w do s g n i r p S m l Pa

Personals People>>

Seeking shelter

an interview with writer David Leavitt

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Basso Cannarsa

by Gregg Shapiro

ow, more than ever, we need a reason to laugh. Fortunately, celebrated writer David Leavitt has returned with his first novel in seven years. A thoroughly modern comedy of manners, Shelter in Place (Bloomsbury, 2020) is both one of the best novels of the year as well as the most humorous. Set in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, Leavitt introduces us to his fabulous and expansive cast of characters, including husband and wife Eva and Bruce, Eva’s best gal-pal Min, interior decorator Jake, Eva and Bruce’s antagonistic neighbor Alec, Bruce’s secretary Kathy and Jake’s mentor Pablo, just to mention a few. Eva and Bruce are the novel’s nucleus, around which the other characters revolve. She is so desperate to get away following the crushing disappointment of the election that she is willing to leave the country for Venice. Bruce, a financial mastermind, is willing to do anything to keep her happy. Leavitt, recovering from an unexpected hospitalization for an appendectomy, was generous enough to take time out of his convalescence to answer a few questions about the book.

he would write more books. It’s so funny that you mentioned him. Noel Coward was absolutely was on my mind, but I must have had Joe Keenan in my subconscious. You’re a very good reader! I had not put that together. The title of book is both inspired and timely. Did it come before or after the pandemic? It came in November. I cannot claim credit for it. We had been having a very hard time with the title and it was my editor, Anton Mueller at Bloomsbury. He and I were having a lot of conversations about the fact that all the titles I was coming up with had to do with time. We both felt that the title needed to be about place. One day he called me up and said, “I have an idea for a title. I don’t know what you’re going to think of it,” and he said Shelter In Place. At that point, back in November I associated that with earthquake drills.

Gregg Shapiro: Did you know when you first started writing your new novel Shelter in Place that it would take such a humorous direction? David Leavitt: Various people have told me they have found it really funny. I think it’s revealing of me that I thought of it as a comedy, but I never realized it was actually funny. I was actually happy to hear that. I’m glad you said that because I’ve been describing Shelter in Place to people as a 21st-century comedy of manners on par with predecessors such as Noel Coward and Joe Keenan. Oh, Joe Keenan! I’m so glad you mentioned him. I loved those books. He wrote those great novels Puttin’ On the Ritz and Blue Heaven. I always remember the detail of the porn actor wearing like six pairs of underwear at a time. They were among the funniest books I have read. Then when he went to the dark side – Hollywood -- and he was writing for Frasier, I had a little bit of correspondence with him in which I think I said that I hoped

I loved it and I thought it was a great title. There was a little bit of hesitancy on the part of the marketing people – this is hilarious – that readers would not be familiar enough with the phrase. Little did any of us even begin to know. I think it was a bit of prescience, not on my part, on his part. You incorporate the topic of AIDS in the novel in the subtlest of ways, and yet it’s probably something to which many gay readers, especially those of a certain age, will appreciate. My brain works in strange ways.

I knew that there had to be a reason why Jake was reluctant to go back to Venice. I had an earlier version in which it was not Venice but Paris and he was trying to avoid going back because his parents had been refugees. It just got way out of control. I taught a class last fall (2019) with 49 freshmen called Politics and The Arts. We did a whole section on AIDS, Film and Literature. We watched one of my absolute favorite movies, Parting Glances. We watched that and we read Susan Sontag’s “The Way We Live Now” and some David Wojnarowicz. We looked at art and talked about ACT UP. My TA, who is himself very young, 23, but very knowledgeable. He’s basically a 50-year-old man in a 23-year-old’s body. He said, “(For) a lot of these kids, especially the gay ones, AIDS is like ancient history. They don’t know anything about it.” I really did want to give them a sense of what that period had felt like. In retrospect, I’m glad that I did, because I think there are a lot of useful lessons to be learned about COVID. The book I’m starting now, which is a sort of a sequel to this one, begins right at the beginning of COVID. I want to talk about how living through AIDS in some ways affects how you cope with COVID. I remember in the very early days (of AIDS) that there was, particularly on the part of older, activist gay men, a real resistance to condoms on the grounds that they took away their personal freedom. That’s not unlike the argument that some of the anti-mask people are using. For many authors, book tours appear to be on hold for the near future. Do you have plans for virtual events? I’m doing a number of them. They haven’t been scheduled yet. I know I’m doing one at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. I’m doing one at a bookstore in San Francisco and one in Saint Paul. There should be more, including one in New York, as we continue. I keep meaning to put it on my own website, but it was one of the many things that I was completely waylaid from doing by this unexpected descent into the weirdness of hospitals in the age of COVID.t

Read the full interview on www.ebar.com

Music & Spooks>>

October 15-21, 2020 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

Kyle Motsinger Gay singer-songwriter discusses his second album

by David-Elijah Nahmod

he young man runs through a graveyard in slow motion and enters a crypt. He opens a coffin. The body interred inside the coffin opens its eyes, bares its fangs and grabs the young man by the throat. And so begins “Dark Shadows,” a stand-alone music video produced by and starring Kyle Motsinger, an openly gay singer/songwriter based in New York City. Motsinger’s video no doubt shocked some of the fan base of the original Dark Shadows, the 1960s TV series it pays homage to. In Motsinger’s “Dark Shadows,” both the vampire Barnabas Collins and his manservant Willie (Motsinger) are gay. “I used to watch Dark Shadows reruns in high school on the SyFy Channel,” Motsinger said in a Bay area Reporter interview. “I loved how it felt like spooky, melodramatic theater. Halloween is a favorite holiday of mine and I thought it would be fun to write a Dark Shadows song that would be full of gothic romance. I decided to cast myself as the love interest of the vampire Barnabas

Collins. Gay fans of the series loved my queer take on it.” The adorable ginger is now taking his musical stylings far beyond the world of Dark Shadows with Any Way I Want It To, his just released second album. With this eclectic collection of songs Motsinger shows that he has quite a bit to say.

“My music sounds the way I want it to,” he sings on the album’s title track. “I’ve got much more to say than ooh, there are stories I need to tell.”

“I want to tell stories that people relate to,” he said. “I want to talk about important issues. Some stories I don’t even know I’m going to tell until it becomes clear that I am called to. When I wrote the title track I had no idea we would be in the middle of a global pandemic when the album was released. I wrote several songs in quarantine about what was happening.” In “Believe What You Want,” a melancholy rock number in which he is accompanied by a stirring electric guitar, Motsinger tells his listeners to “believe what you want, no matter if it’s true ...” “‘Believe What You Want’ is a response to the idea of fake news and the political turmoil we are in,” he explained. “I think it’s a writer’s job to tell the stories that they see happening around them.” Originally from a small town in Central Illinois, Motsinger studied musical theatre at Western Illinois University. After moving to New York in 2011 to pursue a career in theatre, he originated a role in an off-Broadway children’s musical and began performing in local cabarets. Though he had always composed, songwriting at first wasn’t his primary focus. “Somewhere around 2015 I began to write introspective, piano driven pop songs as a way of processing my growth as a person,” he said. “I performed a full show of my original music at the Duplex Cabaret Theater (in New York) in Spring of 2016 and knew I belonged at the piano. I decided that night to make music my focus and I set out to record my first album. I released it a year later and have been releasing music and performing it around the city ever since.” Motsinger explained what draws him to write and perform music.

Telegrams’ bring Terrorgrams ‘Screaming door-to-door scary delights

“For me it’s about writing music that inspires people,” he said. “I want to make people think and make people not feel alone. I sometimes write about difficult subject matter. I hope people can find comfort in knowing they aren’t the only ones dealing with struggles. Mental health was a big focus of the first album. I also love writing upbeat anthems about owning who you are. My newest single, ‘No Shame,’ featuring Melody Betts is all about body positivity and loving yourself. My love of performing onstage translates to my live shows. Every song becomes a little minimusical at the piano.” In the upbeat “No Shame” video, now posted at YouTube, Motsinger

sings of not finding himself sexy. Amid a collage of shots of himself dancing to a disco beat in a pair of briefs in which he shows off his furry ginger body, Motsinger then proclaims that his body is beautiful. He is joined in the video by people with other body types. “My parents were upset with my revealing outfits and my tendency to lose clothing in some burlesque inspired numbers,” he said. “Sometimes I step away from the piano to perform the songs to a track at bars like the historic Stonewall Inn. My mother said I had ‘no shame’ and I told her that I didn’t see why I needed to be ashamed of my body.” Motsinger clearly an artist with no shame about who he is, though in one song he admits to being told that he needs to be “less gay.” “A family member was worried I would be shutting out straight audiences,” he explains. They wanted me to change the pronouns of who I was singing about. It came from a place of fear and I don’t have any interest in indulging fear. It’s harder for queer artists to be heard. It definitely makes it harder I think but I don’t want to hide who I am. There will be someone who comes after me that needs me to be myself. I want them to look at what I did and be inspired to be their truest self.” Any Way I Want it To, Kyle Motsinger’s new album, is now available on digital platforms like iTunes and Spotify and elsewhere. A limited number of physical CDs will eventually be issued.t www.kylemotsinger.com

Everything essential for

HALLOWEEN

Some of the ghoulish spectres now available for delivery.

by Jim Provenzano

rowing up in Ohio, autumn brought a literal harvest of Halloween fun, from pumpkin fields to corn mazes. Back then, poison candy and razor-filled apples were a mere (sub)urban legend. And no kid had a peanut allergy. A favorite was the annual haunted house, a Munsters-style Victorian on a dilapidated property next to the McDonald’s on our small town’s main drag. It was an annual favorite, with kids often taking repeat visits between gulping down a Big Mac and a Coke.

So when Peaches Christ’s Terror Vault opened at The Old Mint, I couldn’t wait to tour it. Last year’s exhibit brought out hilarious shivers of ghoulish glee. This year, between pandemics and elections, we’ve got plenty to fear, and sadly the Terror Vault is not open. But you can get some creepy clowns and ghoulish gals delivered to your door, or a f(r)iend’s with the new Screaming Telegrams service. Celebrate the season, and give some out-of-work actors a chance to give you a hilariously spooky thrill. Spawned by Peaches

(Joshua Grannell) and David Flower Productions, the Terror Vault producers, this Halloween gift includes a scary clown visit, from a safe distance, from 5pm to 7pm. Recipient/victims must be over 18. Deliveries are $50, with extra options ($10 to $20) for yourself or your ghoulfriend: cupcakes, a plastic pumpkin with candy, a booze bag for two, even some cigarettes and old porn magazines. That should get you in the horror-day mood.t Order your Screaming Telegram at http://www.terrorvault.com

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