CityBeat | Aug. 5, 2021

LGBTQ+ Community and Allies

RAISE VOICES After Anti-Trans Speaker at Crossroads Church

Crossroads preaches inclusivity but sows harm and confusion, activists say Allison Babka

VOL. 26 | ISSUE 26 ON THE COVER: AN LGBTQ+-AFFIRMING DEMONSTRATION OUTSIDE CROSSROADS CHURCH ON JULY 25 PHOTO: MARY LEBUS

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NEWS

The Delta variant of the coronavirus carries a viral load 1000x higher than the original (Alpha) virus.

P H OTO : P O L I N A TA N K O L E V I T C H

CDC: Mask Up and Get Vaccinated or Risk Deadlier COVID-19 Variants Vast swaths of Ohio and Kentucky remain undervaccinated, even as the highly transmissible Delta variant pushes the states into high risk

BY A L L I S O N BA B K A

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hen COVID-19 vaccines became widely available earlier this year, Cincinnatians largely rushed to get theirs.

But with a vaccination plateau and the coronavirus becoming even more transmissible in recent weeks, Southwest Ohio isn’t quite out of the woods.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Hamilton County now has a “substantial” risk for coronavirus

as of Aug. 2 — a change from earlier this summer when the CDC said the county’s risk was low or moderate.

Hamilton’s surrounding counties in Ohio — Butler, Clermont and Warren — also are listed as substantial.

In addition, Hamilton County has a rate of 66.42 coronavirus cases per 100,000 individuals, the CDC says, which is much higher than its rate in late spring when most public health measures were dropped.

A little further to the east and to the north, Adams, Clinton, Greene, Highland and Montgomery counties are faring a bit worse. They’re listed as “high risk,” the CDC’s highest level.

The Kentucky counties near Cincinnati aren’t doing well, either.

Boone County is listed as high risk, while the risk in Kenton and Campbell counties is labeled as substantial.

As CityBeat has previously reported, the majority of counties throughout the rest of Kentucky are high risk.

The CDC uses local, state and national data to designate coronavirus hot spots. Earlier during the pandemic, the Ohio Department of Health also had a county-by-county map of risk levels throughout the state but discontinued its map earlier this year.

CDC: This Could Mutate Again In recent weeks, the CDC has warned that the coronavirus pandemic is far from over and that people should take immediate measures to protect themselves and their loved ones.

The best way to do that? Vaccination, experts say.

During a briefing on July 27, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus has been dominating COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations throughout the summer.

The Delta variant carries a viral load 1,000-times higher than the original virus — called Alpha — does, making it much easier and faster to transmit among people, including those who have been vaccinated or who show no symptoms, Walensky said.

The virus especially is easy to transmit among others when speaking, singing, sneezing or breathing hard, particularly within indoor areas. Health experts say that Delta is more than twice as easy to transmit than the original virus.

Unvaccinated individuals are at the highest risk for severe infection and substantial health issues, experts say.

Additionally, new data shows that vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals who are infected carry the same high levels of the virus, so people who have received a Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine also

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are becoming infected, but their symptoms and rates are less severe.

Vaccinated individuals still can spread COVID-19 though — especially the highly transmissible Delta strain.

Walensky said this is a grave concern in areas with low vaccination rates, like many parts of Ohio and Kentucky.

“Unlike the Alpha variant that we had back in May, where we didn’t believe that if you were vaccinated you could transmit further, this is different now with the Delta variant,” Walensky said.

Walensky added that the virus could mutate further and become even more infectious in later iterations.

She added that the country’s overall low vaccination rates enabled the Delta variant in the first place.

“This could have been avoided with higher vaccination coverage in this country,” she said.

No vaccine is 100% effective, but according to Yale University, the Pfizer, Moderna and J&J COVID-19 vaccines are about 95%, 94% and 72% effective, respectively. Experts say that the vaccines largely lessen the effects of COVID-19 and its variants, including Delta.

Walensky also said that the CDC now recommends that all individuals resume wearing face masks indoors and in crowds — even vaccinated individuals — particularly in regions of high transmission. Walensky stressed that because of Delta’s high shareability, it’s much easier to infect people who can’t be vaccinated at this time, such as children under age 11 or immunocompromised people (authorized COVID19 vaccines are available to healthy individuals age 12 and up).

“We’re seeing now that it’s actually possible if you’re a rare breakthrough infection that you can transmit further, which is the reason for the change,” Walensky said.

The CDC also recommended masking for all students and employees in schools from kindergarten through 12th grade.

“The CDC recommends localities encourage universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status,” the CDC’s new guidance says.

“Children should return to full-time inperson learning in the fall with proper prevention strategies in place.”

In May, the CDC had advised that vaccinated individuals no longer needed to mask up but unvaccinated individuals should continue to wear masks, practice physical distancing and consider vaccination. New data has changed that.

“We’re not changing the science,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, told CNN on July 27 after Walensky’s address. “The virus changed, and the science evolved with the changing virus.”

Schools Consider Masking Again On July 26, one day before the CDC’s announcement, the Ohio Department of Health shared its COVID-19

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precautions for school districts and parents but stopped short of mandating masks for students and employees.

“While there are no mandates associated with this guidance, we believe that the recommendations we are issuing are essential to the health of Ohio’s youth, and the success of the coming school year,” said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, chief medical officer for the Ohio Department of Health.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently updated its school-opening recommendations, encouraging a “layered approach,” including maskwearing for anyone older than age 2.

Dr. Patty Manning-Courtney, chief of staff at Cincinnati Children’s, said on July 27 that many school safety measures rely on adults rather than children who may not be eligible for the vaccine.

“I don’t want to see the day where somebody under age 12 was infected because someone in their life chose not to be vaccinated or chose not to wear a mask,” Manning-Courtney said. “That would be a sad day.”

The morning after the CDC’s July 27 address, Cincinnati Children’s sent a statement to media that recommended masking for all students and school employees.

“Cincinnati Children’s recommends that all children returning to in-person school wear masks, regardless of vaccination status. Many children are not yet eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19, and others should mask because no vaccine is 100% effective at preventing infection,” the statement said. “In addition, teachers and staff should continue to wear masks, regardless of vaccination status.”

Cincinnati Public Schools has been exploring a mask mandate for the 2021-2022 school year but had not yet announced its decision as of press time.

CityBeat has reached out to the district for comment.

Low Vaccination Rates Trouble Ohio and Kentucky The CDC’s new recommendations come as the Delta variant sweeps across Midwestern and Southern states as well as the nation’s population centers. Overall, 67.5% of United States residents age 12 and up have gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 58.1% are fully vaccinated. According to the CDC, a “fully vaccinated” person is one who is two weeks past their second dose of a two-dose vaccine (Pfizer and Moderna) or two weeks after a single-dose vaccine (J&J).

COVID-19 vaccines are not yet authorized for people age 11 and younger.

Scientists have said that for group immunity from coronavirus to happen and for the pandemic to end, the country’s full vaccination rate needs to be at about 70%-80%.

But regions throughout the country are seeing much, much lower numbers of vaccinated individuals, particularly since vaccination rates dramatically slowed in May when public health measures began to ease. Experts have said that while national and state numbers are helpful, local vaccination rates

AUGUST 5-17, 2021

control how much and how quickly the coronavirus spreads throughout an area, especially near state borders where people frequently travel.

As of Aug. 2, 49.39% of all Ohioans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Only 46.14% of residents within the state are fully vaccinated.

In Hamilton County, 51.82% have gotten one COVID-19 shot, while 48.34% are fully vaccinated.

Across the river, 52% of Kentucky’s population has gotten one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. The data available does not break out full vaccination.

In Kenton County, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, 55.71% of the population has had at least one dose of an authorized vaccine.

But many counties within Ohio and Kentucky are seeing much lower vaccination rates, which troubles health experts because of Delta’s highly infectious nature.

As of Aug. 2, most of Kentucky’s counties were red or orange on the CDC’s tracker, which means high or substantial risk of virus transmission. In Spencer County, for example, only 24% of the population has been vaccinated at least once.

Similarly, only 15.77% have gotten one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in Holmes County in Ohio.

Ohio, Kentucky Governors Hesitant to Reinstate Public Health Mandates In some regions across the country where coronavirus cases have skyrocketed, such as in Los Angeles and St. Louis, officials are implementing new health restrictions and are asking residents — including those who have been fully vaccinated — to wear masks when outside the home.

Companies throughout Greater Cincinnati — including some hospitals — are considering mandating COVID19 vaccines for staff, WXIX-TV recently reported.

But Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told CNN on Aug. 2 that he will not consider statewide mask mandates or other public health protections again, despite the state’s sharp rise in coronavirus cases. WEWS-TV in Cleveland recently reported that Ohio’s COVID-19 cases had increased by more than 1,000 for several days in a row.

“We have had a significant increase in vaccinations in the last week or so,” DeWine said.

Until May, DeWine and the Ohio Department of Health had pushed several public health measures to corral the coronavirus, including masking, evening curfews, business capacity limits, social distancing and other actions.

Ohio also used the Vax-a-Million sweepstakes — with winners receiving $1 million or full-ride scholarships to public universities within the state — to entice residents to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

But the state ended all health orders on June 2 despite falling far short of several benchmarks that DeWine had set earlier in the year, including hitting an average of 50 cases or fewer per 100,000

residents over the course of a two-week time frame.

Likewise, Kentucky is not considering statewide mandates at this time, despite being hit hard by the Delta variant.

During a media briefing on July 29 — two days after the CDC resumed recommending mask wearing — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear strongly pushed universal masking for Kentucky’s schools that are returning to in-person activities in August. The governor noted that the Delta variant was quickly moving throughout the state, and masks and vaccinations were essential to stopping it from doing further harm.

“This Delta variant is aggressively spreading across this country, and places that haven’t taken steps are seeing results that we should know by now — widespread outbreaks, clusters, large amounts of quarantines,” Beshear said. “We don’t have to have that happen. We have a very simple equation: vaccinations, plus (when we need to) mask-wearing equals we can do everything that we want in our Commonwealth and our economy.”

Beshear also said that all state buildings will require masks, regardless of the wearer’s vaccination status.

That’s in line with new requirements that federal employees and contractors wear masks, as U.S. President Joe Biden outlined in late July.

But as he did previously, Beshear would not commit to mandating masks or other restrictions at this time, leaving those as options later.

“I’m not currently considering the mask mandate, but we will watch what’s happening,” Beshear told media.

“It’s on the table if it’s needed.”

From March 1 to July 28, the majority of COVID-19 cases (94.5%), hospitalizations (91.8%) and deaths (88.8%) were among unvaccinated or partially vaccinated Kentucky residents, said Dr. Steven Stack, commissioner for the Kentucky Department for Public Health. Stack noted the Delta variant’s swift spread recently, particularly over the past several weeks.

And during a briefing on July 19, Beshear said that younger Kentucky residents are increasingly getting the Delta variant of COVID-19, largely because they are the ones who are less likely to have been vaccinated.

Stack added that the Delta variant was “spreading like wildfire.”

Jerome Adams, the previous U.S. Surgeon General appointed by former President Donald Trump, recently said that it was “premature” to ease mask restrictions in late May and early June, as Kentucky, Ohio and many other states had done. The CDC had recommended that fully vaccinated individuals no longer needed to wear masks for their own protection or the protection of others, but many leaders of many local governments — including DeWine and Beshear — used that to walk back all mask mandates, eliminating a preventative measure while vaccination rates continued to decrease.

Find free COVID-19 vaccines in Ohio at coronavirus.ohio.gov and in Kentucky at kycovid19.ky.gov.

CITY DESK

Ohio Senate Candidate JD Vance Says Parents Deserve More Votes Than Child-Free Citizens Do

BY A L L I S O N BA B K A

Apparently, you can’t be good at legislating if you don’t have children — especially if you’re a Democrat.

That’s what Middletown native and Republican Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance claimed during a speech at the Future of American Political Economy conference.

“The ‘childless left’ have no physical commitment to the future of this country,” The Guardian JD Vance reported P H OTO : GAG E S K I D M O R E Vance as saying during his July 23 address. “Why is this just a normal fact of … life for the leaders of our country to be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring?”

Vance specifically referenced Democrats Vice President Kamala Harris, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senator Cory Booker and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Harris is the stepmother to husband Doug Emhoff’s two children, while Buttigieg and husband Chasten are looking to adopt — something conservatives routinely advocate for during anti-abortion efforts (though they are less happy when same-sex couples do it).

Booker and Ocasio-Cortez do not have children, though Booker’s girlfriend, actress Rosario Dawson, has adopted a child.

Vance also advocated for giving parents additional votes on behalf of their children.

“The Democrats are talking about giving the vote to 16-year-olds. Let’s do this instead. Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of the children,” Vance said. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats have voiced support for lowering the voting age to 16.)

When asked if that would inevitably give disproportionate legislative control to parents over non-parents, Vance replied yes.

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“When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power, you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our Democratic republic, than people who don’t have kids,” The Hill reports Vance as saying. “Let’s face the consequences and the reality; if you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.”

Conservative Republicans Senator Marco Rubio and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions also gave addresses during the Future of American Political Economy conference. The conference was hosted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which promotes conservatism on college campuses.

Vance is a Yale Law School graduate who became a venture capitalist in San Francisco with controversial billionaire Peter Thiel. He has since moved back to Ohio to found another venture enterprise in Cincinnati with backing from Thiel. Vance is running for the Senate seat that Rob Portman will vacate in 2022, and his candidacy also is backed

by Thiel.

Vance had written columns and social media posts criticizing controversial former President Donald Trump but reversed his stance earlier in July while deleting those critical posts.

Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy often is credited with foretelling Trump’s rise to political power but also is frequently criticized for not depicting Appalachian life authentically.

LGBTQ+ Community and Allies

RAISE VOICES After Anti-Trans Speaker at Crossroads Church

Crossroads preaches inclusivity but sows harm and confusion, activists say Allison Babka AUGUST 5-17, 2021

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A N LGBTQ +-A FFIRM IN G D E M O N STRATIO N N E A R CR O S S R OA DS CHUR CH O N J ULY 2 5 > > PHOTO : MA RY L E B US

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embers of Cincinnati's LGBTQ+ community and their allies are asking Crossroads Church in Oakley to support everyone — or to stop pretending.

On July 18, David Mahan gave a controversial guest sermon at Crossroads that included transphobic notions, angering local activists and even some members of the Crossroads congregation, people have told CityBeat on background.

Mahan is the policy director at the Center for Christian Virtue in Columbus, which "seeks the good of our neighbors by advocating for public policy that reflects the truth of the Gospel," according to its website.

According to a public video uploaded by a Facebook user, Mahan’s sermon at the Oakley mega-church fixated on transgender individuals — their prevalence in society, Planned Parenthood’s support and their supposed “criminality.” (CityBeat has not yet been able to confirm the video's originator, but Brian Garry, chair of Neighborhoods United who was at the sermon, also sent video and audio to media outlets).

Mahan denigrated transgender individuals using hormones.

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"We've got five and six gender clinics in the state of Ohio right now charging $430 a pop for hormone treatments for these kids every three to six months.

Couldn't somebody from the house of God say 'Is it peace?' Is this really necessary based on the best science that we have?"

Mahan said.

During the sermon, Mahan also said the following:

“We think of a kid with anorexia bulimia. She is 60 pounds soaking wet. Come in here talking about 'I want to commit suicide because I'm fat.' How do you respond?

What is your loving response to that child? Affirmation? Or do you try to get her dysphoric mentality of herself to line up with her biological reality? What do we do? And if we would do the latter, why wouldn't we do that with the same dysphoric condition for transgender?”

Mahan also cited a study of transgender individuals out of context, alleging that adults are pushing transgender children through hormone therapy and surgery and that transgender individuals would be happier if they were “allowed” to go through puberty:

“If you would just let these kids alone, if you would give them two things, which is counseling, therapy and counseling — which is being banned at the statehouse right now — and two, if you would let them go through puberty, which is why they want to ban and suppress puberty right now, because if you let them go through that, it’s really harder for them to justify what they’re doing to these children.

Voices are changing, things like that.

“But here’s something I want to break down. Of all these 324 gender dysphoric individuals, those that actually went through the full transition, surgery, the whole nine (yards), listen, this was the outcome. Significant increased risk of mortality from all causes. Rate of psychiatric hospitalization was three times higher than the control group.

Significantly increased rate of criminal conviction. Suicide attempts went up five times. Listen to this: death by suicide, actual completed suicide, increased, what, 19 times.”

Mahan was referencing a 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, which psychiatrist Paul McHugh misrepresented in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in 2014, spawning a frenzy within conservative circles.

Dr. Cecilia Dhejne, the author of the study, refuted and condemned McHugh’s incorrect interpretation of her study to The Trans Advocate, in a Reddit AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) and through many media interviews since. Dhejne’s words from the 2017 Reddit AMA (all spelling and grammatical errors are the original poster’s):

“I am aware of some of the misinterpretation of the study in Plos One. Some are as you say difficult to keep track since they are not published in scientific journals. I am grateful to friends all over the world who notify me of publications outside the scientific world. I do answer some of them but I can’t answer all.

“I have no good recommendation what to do.

I have said many times that the study is not design to evaluate the outcome of medical transition. It DOES NOT say that medical transition causes people to commit suicide. However it does say that people who have transition are more vulnerable and that we need to improve care. I am happy about that it has also been seen that way and in those cases help to secure more resources to transgender health care.

“On a personal level I can get both angry and sad of the misinterpretations and also sometimes astonished that some researcher don’t seem to understand some basics about research methology.”

The Mayo Clinic defines gender dysphoria as "the feeling of discomfort or distress that might occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or sex-related physical characteristics." The clinic, along with many other clinical and social entities, spells the experience as "dysphoria."

The GLAAD media reference guide says that "transgender" is "an umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.

People under the transgender umbrella may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms — including transgender."

The "T" in LGBTQ+ typically stands for "transgender" (the acronym also covers lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and other individuals).

The Center for Christian Virtue was previously known as Citizens for Community Values. The Columbus Dispatch has reported frequently on CCV and its president Aaron Baer, who has lobbied against bills and actions that support LGBTQ+ rights.

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As the Dispatch previously reported, “Citizens for Community Values’ website once said that the group is not ‘against homosexuals,’ but believes ‘homosexual behavior is unhealthy and destructive to the individual, to families, and thus to communities and to society as a whole.’"

Several years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center had listed CCV as a "hate group" but no longer does so.

Brian Tome, senior pastor at Crossroads, tells CityBeat via email that bringing Mahan in for a guest sermon was a mistake, adding that Crossroads will research speakers better in the future and will have church leaders tackle what he says are "sensitive topics."

"We shouldn't have had an outside speaker come in who works for a polarizing organization that we’ve never previously partnered with and do not support. It was a huge miss for us," Tome says. "As the senior pastor I should have been the first person to talk on that topic since we never have."

Tome says that Crossroads' leadership had seen a slightly different address from Mahan ahead of the visit.

"We aren't disavowing everything in the talk but there should have been adjustments and it should have been from one of our pastors," Tome says.

J ULY 2 5 DE MO NST R AT I O N > > PHOTO : MA RY L E B US

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Amy McKenzie, a Reading resident, tells CityBeat that she was distraught when she heard about Mahan's sermon.

In response, she began organizing an LGBTQ-affirming demonstration that took place Sunday, July 25, near Crossroads.

"I feel like we need to show up and show our support and say 'Hey, we do, as Christians, love this community, and we stand with you and you are welcome in church,'" McKenzie says. "There may have been kids in that congregation who were hurt."

McKenzie, who has a teenaged son who is gay, is concerned about the harm that anti-LGBTQ+ notions can do to individuals, particularly within a church congregation. She says that Crossroads and other local churches often preach inclusion on their websites and in public but don't actively support LGBTQ+ individuals within the congregation, such as by performing queer weddings or having gay and trans individuals within their leadership ranks.

At the suggestion of friends who told her that LGBTQ+ individuals served in ministry at Crossroads, McKenzie had attended a few services and events at the Oakley church and found that it was not the right fit for her family.

"You see things and you hear things, and it kind of confirms that (Crossroads is) not really inclusive," McKenzie says. "A lot of churches, when you're looking for a church like this and you're looking on the website to see if they're open and affirming, they will just leave it out. They just won't say it on their website. So you kind of have to do the research."

"Our kids who have these issues, who are struggling with their identity, they need to know they're loved," McKenzie continues. "They don't need to be going to church on Sunday and be told that they're evil or a hateful message coming

from the preacher. They need to be told they're loved, and the response needs to be love at all times."

Jack Crofts, a Hyde Park resident who is active on LGBTQ+ issues, agrees with McKenzie and organized another July 25 demonstration that then joined with McKenzie’s.

"A lot of people have expressed confusion or concern since (Mahan's sermon), because ultimately, they thought (Crossroads) was a pro-LGBT church and organization," Crofts told CityBeat ahead of the demonstration.

"A huge, huge part of the gathering... is going to be affirming for any current LGBT members of the church as well as people who consider themselves allies or people who just were confused and weren't sure what that messaging (on July 18 at Crossroads) was about. We just want to be there for those people and tell them, 'Hey, you have support, you have other options, you have a community of people who agree with you, who want to support you.'"

At Crossroads, Tome says that the church is trying to walk the line between welcoming LGBTQ+ members and adhering to what he says are biblical traditions.

Tome says that Crossroads does not affirm LGBTQ+ individuals in all ways.

"Our church is in the difficult place of the radical middle. We support the laws of the land regarding things like spousal rights and also have zero interest in entering the political arena related to LGBTQ+ rights or other issues," Tome says.

"We do love, welcome and support the LGBTQ+ community. We don't shame or guilt anyone into changing anything.

Still, as an historically orthodox Christian church that holds to the Bible there are some things we do and some things we won't do," he adds. "We do baptize the children of same-sex parents who are a

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part of our church but we won't perform that couple’s wedding. We don't perform conversion therapy in our church. We know that this sounds inconsistent to some but we are prayerfully trying to honor God as we understand Him." For McKenzie, that's not enough. "(I feel like) Crossroads took a stance (against LGBTQ+ inclusivity). And a lot of people in that audience don't feel that same way as Brian Tome when Brian said something and when (Mahan) said something," McKenzie tells CityBeat.

"They took a stance for Christians in general, which is not a true reflection of Christians. And there's a lot of us who feel that's not an accurate portrayal of what the theology is."

Like McKenzie, Crofts wanted to hold Crossroads accountable for Mahan's sermon and to remind LGBTQ+ congregation members that locally, there are more affirming options for Christian worship.

"We want to reach out to people going in because that's our primary audience," says Crofts, who organizes the Cincy Straddlers, a group of LGBTQ+ individuals who share resources and advocate for political and social justice. "We want them to question their leadership and see if they can get them to answer these questions, or (we want to be a) group that can provide some clarity for them or some help for them in navigating the issues."

McKenzie says that there are liturgical and contemporary churches and faith organizations in Cincinnati that welcome LGBTQ+ in ways that Crossroads does not, noting that she found an LGBTQaffirming faith community in Legend Community Church in Madisonville.

But because church websites frequently are not transparent or direct in their support for LGBTQ+ individuals, they're

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not always easy to find, McKenzie says, adding that a database at churchclarity. org can help people sort through the messaging.

"I know that one of the churches that I'd been going to (until) recently, it said on the website that everyone's welcome," McKenzie says. "And it wasn't until I got to the membership meeting and we got to the issue of gay marriage where they were like, 'Well, we don't do that here.'

And you can't say you include everyone if you're not willing to really include everyone. I made it for months there until I got to that place in the membership meeting."

Crofts adds that her wife, who is transgender, had been raised within an Evangelical environment but found an accepting faith community years later.

"You can be Christian. You can be LGBT. You can be an ally. You do not have to abandon your belief and love of God to support or to be LGBT," she says.

Crofts says that getting Crossroads to fully define its stance on LGBTQ+ issues is key.

"We really hope that clarity will bring a resolution to the question that a lot of people have about Crossroads, which is are they or are they not LGBT friendly," Crofts says. "Because on (Crossroads') site, they do position themselves as pro-LGBT or LGBT-friendly. But from

many people that we know behind the scenes, they do not treat their LGBT members the same as their non-LGBT or heterosexual members. In fact, LGBT members (at Crossroads) have felt shunned or discriminated against or, in some cases, been asked to de-transition if they are trans."

"We just want that messaging to be clear and up front," Crofts adds.

In the wake of Mahan’s sermon, Crossroads Church largely removed users’ ability to comment on its social media posts. But on July 25, one week after Mahan took the church’s stage, Crossroads’ Tome addressed the congregation as McKenzie, Crofts and others demonstrated outside.

In an 11-minute video posted to the Crossroads Facebook page, Tome said the following: “In this past week, we have heard from a wide diversity of people who are hurt: those in the LGBTQIA+ community, those who have friends in the LGBTQIA+ community, teachers who didn’t feel supported, and last but not least, those who are upset that we seem to be apologizing for everything that was said and being weak and afraid of cancel culture. Of all the mistakes I made last week, the biggest was that I didn’t say this: We love people in the LGBTQIA+ community, and that wasn’t clear last week. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

But then Tome said this, leaving little doubt as to Crossroads’ views on its LGBTQ+ members’ places within the church:

“God’s standard for sex is a man and woman in marriage.

And while we believe this to our core, we have never and will never mobilize our church around the politics of sexuality. I think some are really concerned that we might be trying to leverage the size and muscle of Crossroads to reverse gay rights.

“I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with people who don’t like that gay people can serve in our children’s ministry. There is zero link between homosexuality and pedophilia. Zero. People have left over that decision and people leave over the decision that we have made that there are certain leadership positions that are closed to a sexually active gay person just as a heterosexual person who’s having sex outside of marriage.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: CityBeat sued the Center for Christian Virtue, then called Citizens for Community Values, in 2008 for threatening the paper's right to publish freely.

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ARTS & CULTURE

Ellie Mae Mitchell, founder of Moonbow Medicinals P H O T O : E D LY T L E

Moonbow Medicinals Aims to Provide Herbal Womb Care for All Ellie Mae Mitchell founded Moonbow Medicinals to provide herbal care products that help wombs through periods, miscarriages, abortions, pregnancy and after birth

BY M AC K E N Z I E M A N L E Y

M

ugwort. Cramp bark.

Wormwood. Raspberry leaf.

Nettle. Yarrow.

These are just a few of the herbs Ellie Mae Mitchell, founder of Moonbow Medicinals, regularly uses in her

practice as a womb worker.

Many of these same herbs historically have been used by midwives to assist women in all stages of childbirth.

Mitchell — who is not a licensed midwife but a womb sovereignty herbalist — creates herbal products meant to aid and nourish clients through several aspects of womb care, from menstrual cycles to miscarriages, pregnancy and abortion. She sources plants from her farm sites and by foraging.

“Indigenous people all over the world have been using medicine to manage fertility,” Mitchell says. “Predating Christianity or any monotheistic religion, human beings have looked toward the earth in sacredness. There’s a deeprooted connection between human beings and using plant medicine.”

Moonbow Medicinals was founded last summer, but it wasn’t until a few months ago that Mitchell quit her “9-to-5 corporate farm gig” to pursue the small business. Her interest in herbalism, however, goes back 15 years.

Raised on a farm in Appalachia, her family grew most of their own food and did animal husbandry.

“We were pretty self-sustaining. I got into herbalism as a teenager through practicing witchcraft,” Mitchell says. “I recognized that a lot of these plants that had magical properties also had medicinal properties. This opened up this whole world of, ‘What did people do before pharmaceuticals?’ We had village doctors that practiced herbal

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FROM PAGE 17

medicine.”

Starting in 2017, Mitchell volunteered and trained through Planned Parenthood as an abortion doula (someone who provides support to those seeking or undergoing an abortion). At the time, Ohio was making headlines for its “heartbeat bill,” one of the most restrictive in the U.S., which would have banned abortions as early as six weeks gestation. Though Ohio’s legislature passed the bill in 2019, it was blocked by a federal judge and never went into effect.

Still, a study in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found that about 26% of women in Ohio were unsure about the legality of abortion after the bill was passed — and then blocked. Another 10% thought abortion was outright illegal. According to the study, already disenfranchised groups were more likely to believe this, adding to the existing systemic barriers standing in the way of accessibility to proper women’s health care.

While volunteering with Planned Parenthood, Mitchell says she saw “the stark need for empathetic care within the medical paradigm.” But An example of a Moonbow Medicinals Moonbox she found herself being P H O T O : E D LY T L E called more toward supporting people at home.

She points out that site is a quarter-acre at the Woodhaving an herbal abortion was legal cock Nature Preserve in Athens, Ohio, and commonplace in the United States where she is growing 800 cotton plants for most of the 18th and 19th centuries. alongside flowers, milky oats and clover According to CNN, it wasn’t until 1880 as part of an alley cropping grant from that abortions became criminalized, Rural Action, which aims to develop a move led partly by American male Appalachia’s “assets in environmentally, physicians who sought control over socially and economically sustainable women’s reproductive health and a ways.” She plants her crops between tighter hold on the market, edging out chestnut tree saplings at the preserve. midwives and herbalists.

“When I’m out there, I forage for Along with training from Planned yarrow (and roses) in the prairies,” she Parenthood, Mitchell has taken courses says, adding that she tries to use items at Midwest Herb Fest, the Chestnut either grown or foraged in everything School of Herbal Medicine and The she makes.

Wander School, as well as other indeHer Moonbox is one piece of her pendent studying. She’s also taken overall mission. Mitchell gestures to courses from Samantha Zipporah, a the items included in the monthly fertility, sex and cycle educator.

CSA-style box, sent out to clients just “I met (Zipporah) right when I started before the full moon. Each handcrafted at Planned Parenthood. She was on a item — a cramp salve, blood-building teaching tour around the country with tea, menstrual relief tincture and a a womb sovereignty course,” Mitchell handmade beeswax ritual candle — is says. “I hosted her at my farm. When meant to “nourish, soothe and bring that happened, I described it as a balance to the body during and after gong going off in my chest. Everything menstruation.” changed. I was like, ‘This is what I’m “I remember being so embarrassed supposed to be doing.’” the first time I menstruated because I The herbs Mitchell uses in her pracwasn’t really taught what was haptice are cultivated in multiple locations, pening,” Mitchell says. “It makes me including at her home in Price Hill’s really sad for all the people that have to Enright Urban Ecovillage. Another feel like they have to hide it. I want to

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support people by having these tools that they can honor their cycle with and be a little bit in tune with it.”

One moon cycle’s worth — one month of supplies — costs $40, with additional share options available. A one-on-one herbal consultation is $30, and is recommended for “anyone interested in fertility awareness or other issues related to womb-care,” she says.

Mitchell is working to roll out additional products, such as reusable gender-neutral menstrual underwear and crescent-moon-shaped womb pouches that can be heated. Regarding the former, she explains that single-use plastics are one of the most detrimental things to our environment, and the majority of menstrual products happen to be full of the stuff. Most products on the market are made for ciswomen; Mitchell’s products will be genderless so that all people with uteruses can feel seen and empowered.

In June, Mitchell led a workshop at Wave Pool, a contemporary art fulfillment center in Camp Washington, titled “Witchcare: Plant Medicine & Reproductive Justice.” In the class, she discussed “the history of herbal abortion care, the medicinal properties of common plants, and the intersections

between witchcraft and midwifery,” according to its website. She’s also aiming to start teaching cervical self-examination courses this fall (these classes can be done as a group but Mitchell says she always has a private space for those who wish to do it alone).

Mitchell stresses that if individuals find themselves in a dire medical situation, nothing should be done without professional consultation.

“Always talk to your physician; talk to an herbalist before you do anything,” she says. “I am an herbalist and this is what I do. But don’t take something you don’t know. It’s dangerous.

“But I understand that fear and desperation pushes people to do really dangerous things, so we need more care like this in the world. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

Through Moonbow Medicinals, she hopes to support individuals’ rights to make choices for their own bodies.

Community care, she says, is radical care.

For more on Moonbow Medicinals, visit moonbowmedicinals.com or @moonbowmedicinals on Instagram.

CULTURE

Former Price Hill Masonic Lodge Now Home to ARCO Community, Art and Event Center

BY K AT I E G R I F F IT H

The former Price Hill Masonic Lodge that sat vacant on Price Avenue for 30 years recently gained a new identity and purpose.

Local neighborhood development nonprofit Price Hill Will (PHW) acquired the building in 2014 and by 2019 secured $10 million to renovate the structure. The redone space, now called ARCO, debuted July 25 as Price Hill’s new community and event center while hosting the annual Price Hill Creative Community Festival.

ARCO — a portmanteau of “arts” and “community” — will act as a social enterprise, says Rachel Hastings, PHW executive director. It will offer the community a place to convene, share art and ideas and also put those ideas to work. The building also now houses PHW’s offices and operations.

PHW partnered with The Model Group to co-develop the lodge, securing that $10 million through tax credits and a capital grant from the city.

“The spiritual feeling of bringing back this building for the community just really feels good,” Hastings says. “We are also hoping that this sparks other people to think creatively about what opportunities might be in Price Hill.”

PHW has served the East, West and Lower Price Hill neighborhoods since 2004 with a focus on civic, social, economic and physical development.

It places an emphasis on incorporating and promoting the arts, a quality not found in other corporations like it, says Hastings. ARCO will complement PHW’s mission by providing much-needed space for groups to convene, as area recreation centers and library spots are limited and often overcrowded, Hastings says. The 21,000-square-foot building also offers leasable space for public events and private celebrations.

“We are really focused on equitable development and using creativity and the arts as a tool to bring folks together,” Hastings says. “So it’s really about growing opportunity for everyone who lives in Price Hill, particularly folks that have been left out of opportunities in the past. People of color, immigrants, lower-income families, those folks have often been left out, so we are trying to grow opportunities for them to be successful here in the neighborhood.”

ARCO houses two large ballrooms that boast original features of the building’s Neoclassical architectural style. On the first floor, the Shawnee Theater holds the building’s original, 16-foot-deep orchestral-style stage and grand floor space with a 344-person occupancy. The distinctive arched windows on the second floor are a notable feature of ARCO’s Iris Gallery and also contributed to the building’s namesake, as “arco” translates from Italian and Spanish to arch, arc or bow.

On the third floor, Myaamia Hall has a 32-foot stage that sits below a prominent set of three professionally restored,

stained glass skylights.

Hastings sees a lot of potential for weddings and large-scale events in the ballrooms, which get their names from indigenous tribes. PHW partnered with the Greater Cincinnati Native American Coalition to name the spaces and draft a statement recognizing that the land originally belonged to indigenous peoples.

“We wanted to try to honor the people whose land we are sitting on and to recognize their long history in this community,” Hastings says.

“And as much as we want to welcome newer populations of folks that come into this community, we also want to recognize people who lived on this land for thousands of years.”

Sheila Rosenthal, president of the East Price Hill Improvement Association, says ARCO will begin hosting the community council’s monthly meetings in September. The council focuses on civic engagement and the betterment of East Price Hill and the entire West Side of Cincinnati; the group previously met in the Price Hill Recreation Center.

Rosenthal is a Price Hill resident of 30 years and says just having the building restored is an enormous step forward, as its previous decrepit state was not positive for the neighborhood.

“East Price Hill in particular is the city’s most diverse community. We have a broad range of ethnicities and races, and we run the entire gamut of the socioeconomic strata,” Rosenthal says.

“ARCO is going to contribute in a very large way to social and civic life here.

It’s open to events for both local organizations, businesses and families and it’s focused on arts and community also.

It’s for everyone both in and outside of East Price Hill.”

Hastings says that ARCO will rely on rentals from events like weddings and large celebrations to fund PHW projects and building maintenance, while community-centric meetings and groups can utilize the rooms at an approachable fee or sometimes at no cost at all. Revenue from rentals will be funneled directly back into ARCO and PHW programs, and at least one largescale event per week will be necessary to keep up with utilities, loan payments and other building upkeep, she says.

It’s also a major benefit for residents to have something close to host celebrations like retirement parties, birthday parties, celebrations of life or neighborhood gatherings.

“Folks have a love for this neighborhood,” Hastings says. “So when they have important family events, lots of folks want to do that close to home.

Being able to do that here, where your

ARCO has taken over the former Price Hill Masonic Lodge.

P H O T O : FA C E B O O K . C O M / A R C O C I N C Y

ARCO’s opening celebration P H O T O : C AT I E V I OX / P R O V I D E D BY P R I C E H I L L W I L L

home is, rather than having to go out of the neighborhood somewhere is really appealing.”

ARCO also is home to MYCincinnati orchestra, which provides children free access to music education. The afterschool program currently instructs 130 students who now can look forward to practicing and performing in the brand new building. Hastings thinks giving the students this space adds a layer of seriousness to their work, while honoring their dedication and progress.

“To have concerts in a formal, larger space and the opportunity to shine in a grand space is really exciting for young people,” Hastings says. She looks forward to a full building with multiple meetings and events as well as the birth of new ideas and projects that may come from individuals intermingling in the common spaces.

“You might have a neighborhood association on one floor and folks on another floor learning Zumba, and those folks can meet each other in the common areas or the parking lot.

Opportunities for folks to connect are

really important, especially in this COVID world where we are all desperate to see other people,” she says.

Following the excitement of ARCO’s grand opening, PHW will focus on the nearby Warsaw Avenue Creative Campus, for which fundraising is now complete. Eight buildings on Warsaw Avenue will see improvements as well as new affordable housing above commercial spaces. Hastings says construction starts in the Fall.

“Price Hill is a big neighborhood, we have a pretty robust residential community and then our commercial corridors unfortunately still have a lot of vacant spaces,” she says. “I think there’s more opportunity for stuff like this. For us it’s about seeing the value in creative pursuits and how that helps people grow as individuals and how they can build leadership skills together and then harnessing that so it has a positive impact on the community.”

AUGUST 5-17, 2021

ARCO is located at 3301 Price Ave., Price Hill. More info: arcocincinnati.org.

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TREASURES FROM THE TAFT Now on View Assembled nearly 100 years ago, does the Taft’s collection hold relevance today?

Join us as we look at our city’s celebrated art collection through a 21st-century lens.

taftmuseum.org | #TaftHouse200

EXHIBITION SPONSOR

FOUNDATION SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

The H.B., E.W. and F.R. Luther Charitable Foundation, Fifth Third Bank and Narley L. Haley, Co-Trustees

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SEASON FUNDERS

OPER ATING SUPPORT

FOOD & DRINK

Proud Hound’s new cafe P H OTO : H A I L E Y BOLLINGER

Silverton’s Proud Hound Coffee Dishes It Out with Dignity Ethical coffee roaster Proud Hound recently opened a café and kitchen — a dream it has chased for years

BY M AC K E N Z I E M A N L E Y

I

f you’re standing in the lobby of Proud Hound Coffee’s recently opened Silverton café and are reminded of Wes Anderson’s aesthetic, that’s intentional.

Co-founders Daniel Smith and David Holman are big fans of the film director. Similar to Anderson’s films,

the brand’s distinctive color palette, geometric symmetry and minimal-butplayful atmosphere make it instantly recognizable.

A punch-needle piece reading “Keep Chasing” by Jessica Ufkes of Thread Made Goods greets customers as they stroll in. Flanked by hanging plants on

a pink wall, the framed work features a hound herding sheep. A mural spanning two walls by Emily Gable of Indianapolis-based Bootleg Signs is another eye-catcher, marked by Minimalist Pop Art. “If you did a panorama (of the space), you would see the same thing from one shot to the next,” says Smith of the symmetry. “They would just be flipped.”

Located in a 4,000-square-foot warehouse at 6717 Montgomery Road, the café officially opened on June 26 — a milestone the team has been chasing for years. Since launching in 2019, Proud Hound has been helping Cincinnatians get their caffeine fix via pop-ups with its coffee truck and cart, wholesale operations, events and collaborations.

The flagship location, complete with a coffee bar and full-service kitchen, also houses its roasting facility, viewable by customers through large glass windows.

Making approachable coffee minus

the pretension is Smith’s and Holman’s aim. They want people to enjoy Proud Hound coffee, whether they’re used to store-bought brews or something more complex. That being said, experimental flavor profiles are available.

Customers can expect all the usual espresso-based beverages — cortados, cappuccinos, americanos, lattes and mochas — alongside cold brews, pourovers and drip coffees. Not into coffee?

The café also slings teas, hot chocolate and more. You can even order a picturesque blue matcha.

The kitchen, run by Executive Chef Kierstin Dudley, serves up Southerncentric breakfast and brunch with an emphasis on locally sourced ingredients and seasonal dishes.

Originally from Greater Cincinnati, Dudley had spent the past seven years in South Carolina working at gastropub The Southern Growl. Now she’s excited to be back in the Queen City as a part of

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its food culture.

“There’s kind of a void of approachable and affordable food,” Dudley says. “It’s like there is no middle and I’m trying to find the middle for the community.”

From the Nashville-chicken-inspired Nashy ’Nati Chicken sandwich to a Brekkie Banh-Mi, Korean Street Toast and a Cincinnati Love Letter with goetta, there’s much to devour. Dudley says the menu was scaled back for the opening, but the team plans to add more dishes eventually. Mostly, she says, they don’t want to limit themselves to one cuisine or style.

“I really hope that the people in the community are open to all the great options I’m doing,” Dudley says — including her grit tots and grit bowls.

“I love grits and it’s such a great and filling way to substitute for a glutenfree diet,” Dudley says. “So that was my direction with the grit bowls, not just because I’m searching for that Southern influence. But, honestly, grits are great and shouldn’t just be Southern.”

In addition to gluten-free offerings, vegan and vegetarian options are also available.

Proud Hound co-founders Smith and Holman met through Brick, a nowclosed Norwood coffee shop, and found they had similar ideals when it came to coffee.

“We felt the same way about how we wanted to run a shop, our approach to coffee, the culture around a café and what we wanted the hospitality space to be,” Smith says. “So, after a lot of conversation and planning, in 2018 we started getting serious about mapping out what it would look like to open the space.”

They acquired the Proud Hound warehouse in Spring 2019 and kicked off their roasting program in September of that year.

And then, of course, the pandemic hit.

Along with most of the world, the timeline to open their café shifted.

While Smith says they didn’t see extreme delays in construction, it did give them more time to boost brand recognition.

They had already planned on using their mobile truck, but the circumstances allowed them to utilize it in a different way. They were able to pop-up at events in an efficient, safe way all while showcasing their coffees and brand.

“It’s helped gain a more established customer base and allowed people to try us,” Smith says. “It gave people time to familiarize themselves with the brand and then the buildup was better to get people more and more excited about the space opening.”

Look above the menu for Proud Hound’s mission statement: “Dignity for all.” And what better exemplifies dignity than a hound, the brand’s logo?

The brand’s forming members all have experience in the industry, both good and bad (along with Smith and Holman is Carl Arvidson, “director of everything,” who recently left to take a design job. Israel Jones, director of sales, and Dudley, are now also part of the crew). Seeing aspects they didn’t like in

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A dining area inside Proud Hound P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

the coffee business in general, the team asked how they could capture great customer service while creating a better behindthe-scenes environment for employees.

Smith notes that there are “a lot of amazing (coffee) shops (in Cincinnati), but especially abroad” that exceed in their focus on culture and employees’ experience.

“It is leaps and bounds beyond whatever we experienced,” Smith says.

“We were like, how do we bring that to Cincy? And how do we make that a key component in our business?”

As they explored language surrounding the characteristics of hounds, the word dignity reappeared again and again.

“Consider when you meet a dog in public, it’s more often than not you will ask the name of the dog, forgetting the personhood of the owner,” Jones told CityBeat’s Hailey Bollinger in an earlier interview. “Proud Hound wants to reverse this trend: illuminate the profound purpose and constant awareness of the valued humans (and dogs) involved in every degree of life.”

That idea extends to every arm of Proud Hound, including coffee farmers, employees, customers, neighbors and wholesale relationships.

AUGUST 5-17, 2021

A spread of dishes and drinks available at Proud Hound P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

“Every person has inherent value. And they should have dignity,” Smith says.

Pound Hound’s café was designed with inclusion in mind, with a wheelchair lift, unisex bathrooms, infant high chairs and changing stations.

“We want our actions to represent what we’re doing,” Smith says. “We’re not trying to sell inclusivity. We’re not trying to sell accessibility. We’re not trying to make that a point of, ‘You should support us because we’re doing these things.’ Because many people would argue that a lot of businesses do these things. For us, it’s a standard of who we are and what we want it to be.”

Smith, who lives in Silverton, also says Pound Hound has kept in mind that the neighborhood has existed long before they arrived. How they honor the residents of Silverton and its history is “super important,” he says. He wants

to nurture an environment where those who call Silverton home feel welcome in the space.

From the kitchen to the coffee bar to the roasting process, everything is completely open. Like their penchant for Andersonian aesthetics, that’s no coincidence.

“We didn’t just do the food really well and then leave the coffee to the side,” Smith says. “We didn’t just do the coffee really well and then the food was an afterthought. They both have a lot of intentionality.”

Proud Hound’s cafe is open 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Proud Hound Coffee, 6717 Montgomery Road, Silverton, proudhoundcoffee.com.

at j u n g l e ji m s in t e rnat iona l m a rke t

oPen eVeRY thursday 4:00 PM - 10:00 PM Bourbon Bar · Cigar Lounge · Open-Air Seating · Craft Cocktails

AUGUST 5-17, 2021

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THE DISH

Recent Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Openings: Eight New Places to Nosh

BY C IT Y B E AT STA F F

Summer is here, and Cincinnati’s food scene is heating up.

Here are eight recent additions if you’re looking for somewhere new to eat.

Oakley Kitchen Food Hall Greater Cincinnati’s culinary scene is rapidly expanding, and with the opening of incubator kitchen and event space Oakley Kitchen Food Hall, area chefs and food entrepreneurs have the opportunity to develop their ideas, skills and products even further.

The first floor of the joint-use space features eight kitchen pods for start-ups and ghost kitchens, plus the Campfire Foods Commissary and a marketplace offering products from both new and established local businesses. All Oakley Kitchen Food Hall eight kitchen pods P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R are currently occupied by: You can grab a cocktail – La Petite Frite, serving Belgian comfrom The Cutaway while fort food like waffles and carbonade; you enjoy eats from – Khana Gourmet Indian Grill, featurany of the eight pop-up ing Indian-style barbecue and “exotic kitchens, or grab their biryanis;” food (or The Cutaway’s – Jimmie Lou’s, which serves Cajun drinks) to go. There’s also and Creole; indoor seating and out– Loakley, which does farm-to-table door picnic tables. 3715 small bites; Madison Road, Oakley, – Parts & Labor, serving hardwood oakley-kitchen.com. smoke “new school” barbecue; – Onolicious Hawaii, which offers up pupus and plate lunches; Cackleberry – Olive Tree, crafting traditional Squeezed into a biteSyrian recipes; sized vintage trailer, – and an outpost of Milford’s Padrino husband-and-wife duo pizza and pasta parlor.

Nate and China Kautz Upstairs, Oakley Kitchen Food Hall are serving up mobile features a 10,000 square-foot seating breakfast sandwiches space/rentable event venue that can be as the owners of the used for food-centric parties, private new Cincinnati-based events and weddings. pop-up Cackleberry (a The dining hall’s bar, The Cutaway, nickname for a hen’s officially opened on July 21 with Mike egg).

A spread of dishes available from vendors at Oakley Kitchen Food Hall Stankovich, owner of popular Over-theCackleberry currently P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R Rhine bar Longfellow, at the helm. A offers six unique post made by Stankovich announcing sandwiches ranging the bar’s opening explains folks will be slaw; and the “Porter” is loaded with they play music near the truck and sell from Cincinnati staples able to indulge in a variety of beer, wine, goetta. The food truck parks in various merchandise, including T-shirts and to Filipino-fusion cuisine. Cackleberry’s “weird soda,” sake, cider, digestifs and locations on weekends and operates ceramic cups with egg art on them. See “Benny” bacon sandwich has chipotle aperitifs, as well as “stuff you want, stuff until all sandwiches are sold out. a full menu and find where they’ll be ketchup and caramelized onions; the you don’t want, stuff you don’t have, Though it is a mobile shop, China next at eatcackleberry.com.

“Lolo” features a sweet Filipino sausage stuff you’re glad you don’t have, stuff says she wanted people’s experience called longanisa and atchara pickled that’s good, stuff that you don’t like.” with Cackleberry to be memorable, so CONTINUES ON PAGE 26

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FROM PAGE 24

Clear Mountain Food Park Food parks seem to be the next big trend in dining, with spots like Bridgeview Box Park and Covington Yard opening in Greater Cincinnati in the past year or so. Now, Cincinnati’s deep East Side has their own and it is “one of the largest outdoor beer and live music venues in the Tri-State,” according to a release.

Clear Mountain Food Park opened July 23 on a lot that once held a Gold Star chili. The park features a rotating variety of food trucks (for lunch and dinner), live music, outdoor games and “indoor/outdoor beverage stations,” with local craft and national beers, wine and spirits. The upcoming food truck schedule, available online, includes popular eateries like Kabobske, Sea Cuisine and Mama Bear’s Mac. Obviously, the location has undergone significant renovations since its days as a chili parlor. The space now features indoor and outdoor seating, including picnic tables, tables with shade umbrellas and tables set up in recreated pick-up truck beds; firepits; greenery; outdoor lighting; and a playground. 2792 Old State Route 32, Batavia, clearmountainfoodpark.com.

Frosthaus Frosthaus — located next to Germanstyle spaghetti eis cream shop Eishaus — offers a slew of frozen delights, specifically booze-infused slushies. Opt for the rainbow-hued Cov Sunset, with mango, strawberry and mojito; or the Frosé + Cream, with rosé wine, vodka and ice cream. Frosthaus also offers non-alcoholic frozen drinks, Germaninspired salads and sandwiches, macaroni and cheese and flatbreads.

115 Park Place, Covington, frosthauscov.com.

Gulow Street

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La Cantina A new flavor is coming to downtown’s Clear Mountain Food Park Crown Republic P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY C L E A R Gastro Pub. On Tuesday nights, the restaurant group — which also owns Losanti Steak House and Rosie’s Cocktails & Pies — will host a special “La Cantina” pop-up inside Crown Republic. The Cantina will be open from 5-9 p.m. Tuesdays, with limited seating. Chef Johnny Curiel and owner Anthony Sitek are the masterminds behind the menu, which offers “a modern take on some traditional Mexican dishes,” says Curiel in a release.

Dishes include corn elote, which “uses nixtamalized Heirloom corn from farmers in Mexico.” There are also tacos with fillings ranging from Baja fish and carnitas to suadero (smoked brisket), pollo asado and sweet potato. Entreesized options include enchiladas verdes and chicken mole. All dishes are glutenfree. 720 Sycamore St., Downtown, crownrepublicgastropub.com.

M O U N TA I N F O O D PA R K

Gulow Street

Gulow Street is Northside’s new cozyyet-sophisticated bar and restaurant.

Located at the corner of Hoffner and Gulow streets (the establishment’s namesake), it’s a family operation owned by brothers/cousins Jonathan, Danny and Alex Mouch. The trio built the business with hopes of providing an approachable hub where folks can “gather, socialize, create memories and strengthen community,” says Jonathan.

The historic building has served many purposes over the course of its life, originally housing a saloon and later a metal fabricating company and showroom. But Jonathan says the space sat vacant for a long time before his team began its most recent transformation, which now boasts repurposed old doors, tin ceilings, beadboard, lighting fixtures and more comfy details.

The bar and kitchen sports a small but mighty food menu, offering seven dishes ranging from breakfast to dinner.

Stand-out items include sesame noodles, a pimento-stuffed breakfast sandwich, rigatoni bolognese and a cheeseburger (on Tuesdays you can grab a $10 burger and draft beer during

26

happy hour).

The cocktail menu has four craft cocktails ranging in spirits from bourbon and vodka to gin, including a clever Carrot Moscow Mule, infused with carrot juice. The bar/ restaurant has also converted a former garage into a dogfriendly patio.

1614 Hoffner St., Northside, gulowstreet.com.

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OLLA Taqueria Gutierrez

P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

The folks behind Covington’s Gutierrez Deli recently opened OLLA Taqueria Gutierrez on W. MLK Jr. Boulevard in Covington. The eatery serves up Mexican-style street food. The menu is stacked with tacos, burritos, nachos and “Guti fries,” with nine different meat/veggie options (including birria) to choose from, plus a couple of entrees, sides and drinks. 302 W. MLK Jr. Blvd., Covington, facebook.com/OllaCov.

Taco Fuerte A taco truck has set up shop outside of Braxton Barrel House in Fort Mitchell.

Called Taco Fuerte — from the Spanish word meaning “strength” — the truck boasts a selection of hand-crafted creations ranging from birria or cheesecake tacos to totchos and vegetarianfriendly bites. A release from Braxton says the truck’s menu was crafted to pair nicely with the brewery’s beers.

The truck is the third venture by Chef Mike Schieman and his team.

Schieman opened two other restaurants that are positioned alongside

AUGUST 5-17, 2021

Taco Fuerte P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY B R A X T O N B R E W I N G C O .

Braxton Breweries: Parlor on Seventh in Covington and Pendalo Wingery in Pendleton. Taco Fuerte will be parked outside of the Fort Mitchell taproom

Thursdays through Sundays. 5 Orphanage Road, Fort Mitchell, facebook.com/ braxtonbarrelhouse.

Voted Best Smoke Shop

Voted Best Green / Sustainable Goods Store

AUGUST 5-17, 2021

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AUGUST 27, 2021 PURPLE PEOPLE BRIDGE 5:30 - 8:30 p m TICKETS ON SALE NOW! WWW.MARGARITAMADNESSCINCY.COM

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AUGUST 5-17, 2021

MUSIC

Sungaze P H OTO : DA N A L E N T Z

Perchance to Dream Cincinnati’s Sungaze releases its powerful sophomore album, This Dream, in the shadow of — and at least partially inspired by — the pandemic

BY B R I A N BA K E R

D

reams are among the oddest dichotomies in the human experience. Whether in the context of our aspirations and goals for

an unwritten future or the non-linear arthouse movies our brains concoct while we’re sleeping, dreams are incredibly powerful and yet delicately

ephemeral. We construct our lives around vaporous thoughts that lead us to an illusory oasis shimmering on a distant horizon; we remember some of our childhood sleep imagery for the rest of our lives while most dreams are forgotten the moment our consciousness flickers on in the morning.

In that light, it makes perfect sense that Cincinnati Atmospheric Rock band Sungaze christened its sophomore album This Dream.

The brainchild of vocalist/guitarist

Ian Hilvert and vocalist/keyboardist Ivory Snow, who are partners in life as well as music, Sungaze debuted almost exactly two years ago with Light in All of It, a potent showcase of their myriad musical influences — from Pink Floyd and the Beatles to Slowdive and Alice in Chains — and their ability to transform those Classic Rock/Shoegaze/Grunge influences into unique aural patterns and pulses. All of those elements are amplified and more fully realized on This Dream.

“It’s amazing,” Hilvert says.

CONTINUES ON PAGE 31

AUGUST 5-17, 2021

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AUGUST 5-17, 2021

FROM PAGE 29

“Something that is so flimsy can influence your whole life and direction. You can have this goal to do this thing and you base all your emotions and actions off of it. That’s kind of the loose theme of the new album.”

The married couple has been well acquainted with dichotomy.

Hilvert left his post as guitarist for local Metal band Fenrir to pursue a genre less dictated by anger and aggression.

Snow had never been in a band and had never even trained on any instrument, but she had music in her DNA; her father and uncle had both been principals in the 1980s Cincinnati fave Camargo Road.

When Hilvert was assembling Sungaze in 2015, he installed Sungaze is husband-and-wife duo Ian Hilvert (right) and Ivory Snow.

Snow as tempoP H OTO : DA N A L E N T Z rary keyboardist while searching for a permanent bassist and drummer on This Dream, member, but her songwriting and perwho stepped up to maintain the band’s forming talents improved exponentially sonic standards. and she earned her spot in the line-up.

“We both kind of did it, but it was Their dissimilar musical tastes more Ian this time,” Snow says. “He was converged to create Sungaze’s singular the one who was like, ‘You could play beauty. that a little tighter,’ or ‘You could do that Snow’s nascent skills were clearly evibetter.’” dent on the diaphanous Light in All of “I was the pusher on this album,” HilIt, but they’re in full bloom on the more vert agrees. “I just wanted it to be better.” impactful and cinematic This Dream.

“And I always want that, too,” Snow On Sungaze’s debut, Snow was the says. “I definitely trusted him.” studio taskmaster for the band — which That kind of interaction can be hard was then made up of four people — setbetween bandmates, but it can become ting a high quality bar for the band to toxic between husband and wife. clear. On This Dream, only Hilvert and Hilvert and Snow have found the most Snow contributed to the end result. effective tool to navigate their personal “We wrote the first album with our and professional lives. drummer (Tyler Mechlem), who was in “It’s the whole notion of honesty,” the band for a long time,” Snow says. “At Hilvert says. “We learned through comthe beginning of 2020, he and our bassmunicating just to be upfront and honist (Jimmy Rice) both left to do other est instead of holding things back to projects. Ian had built me a guitar for dwell on them later. It’s better that way. my 26th birthday in 2019 and taught me Uncomfortable? Maybe? But better.” some chords, so this album was mostly On Light in All of It, Hilvert tried to written on guitar. The beginnings of this tamp down his long-standing Metal album were things I’d been working influences; even his gauziest playing on that I brought to Ian and then we live would attract questions about his fleshed them out.” possible Metal roots. With This Dream, The defection of half the band natuhe wanted to retain the core sonic rally altered the studio dynamic. While integrity of Sungaze while dialing up Snow still made a few quality-control the intensity. suggestions, it was Hilvert, now also the “We did a lot more distorted guitar

and things were a little heavier overall, but not heavy in a Metal way,” Hilvert says. “I think I leaned into the Metal stuff a little more this time while still trying to retain our diverse little pool of genres.”

It might be natural to assume that This Dream is, in some ways, a pandemic album, and it is — at least tangentially. Snow left her full-time job at the end of 2019 in advance of proposed touring behind Light in All of It, and Hilvert followed suit six months later. Obviously, the tour never materialized, but while Hilvert was still employed, Snow began working on song ideas, one of which became the album’s title track.

“For ‘This Dream,’ I came up with this chord progression,” Snow says. “I always write in some variation of the key of E, because it’s the most normal for me. The entire song is two chords, which is different for us and it came together like a download, where it happened all at once. One part is about new ways of relating and connecting, like in Italy where people would sing to each other from their balconies (during the pandemic). I thought that was really beautiful, so I was thinking of people coming together in new and different ways and what my ideal outcome

would be.”

“That’s why we decided to call the album This Dream,” Snow continues. “It’s the dream of people having what they need, being cared for and co-existing.”

Hilvert and Snow continue taking tentative steps forward after the release of This Dream. They’ve already gotten solid positive feedback to their “Storm Chaser” video, and they’re planning on booking some shows (which, for the time being, will be accomplished with session players in lieu of permanent members) with the caveat that there could be another COVID spike in the fall and winter. They’ve also signed with music rights firm BMI to license their songs for commercials and films, a natural placement for Sungaze considering the cinematic scope of This Dream.

“I don’t think we intentionally went for that (cinematic feeling); it’s just that part of our personalities coming out,” Hilvert says. “We’re both chill on the outside, but on the inside, we’re all...”

And with married couple precision, Hilvert and Snow finish the thought in unison: “Dramatic.”

AUGUST 5-17, 2021

For more on Sungaze, visit sungazemusic.com.

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PUZZLE

EAT FIGURES

BY B R EN DA N EM M E T T Q UIG LE Y

ACROSS

42. Toast Dwayne Johnson’s derrière?

1. Got the red out?

46. Soap opera actor Ramsey

5. Prayer’s beginning

47. Unfit for grazing

10. Chain that sells Shivers

48. Reason one can’t stop thinking of linens?

14. Seep slowly 15. Stock descriptor

55. Split the scene

16. College whose radio station is WYBC

56. Its president is Ariel Henry 57. Org. that busts many brackets

17. “___ and the Lost City of Gold”

58. Nevado del ___ (Colombian volcano)

18. Pseudonymous Italian author Ferrante

59. Apportion

19. Thing in a play

60. Change jar change

20. Grain that glitters?

61. Beast alongside a princess

23. Gist

62. Jobs to do

24. Yacht’s milieu

63. Calculations in the Lyft app: Abbr.

25. Title holder standing next to a purplish salad fruit?

34. Letters on a 7” 35. Arm bone 36. Yank away with force 38. Place where missions are planned out

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13. “Darn right, pal”

L AST PUZ ZLE’S ANSWERS:

composer

29. Muse for bards

45. Circles in space

49. Person next in line

1. Physiques

32. Undemanding, as a job

50. Roosevelt’s Scottie

2. Circular path

36. “Don’t know the guy”

51. Some museum pieces

3. High priest who reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem

37. Bird of fable

52. Rapper who won a 2021 Best Metal Performance Grammy

AUGUST 5-17, 2021

28. Cowboy’s calls, for short

41. Mix things up

27. Bring the ruckus to your tuchus

40. Your family’s all over it

48. Slimy garden creature

6. Book whose narrator describes the title character as “light of my life,

41. Kept from going public

31. Bootleg-nabbing feds

5. Big lead at the Indianapolis 500

40. God with a hammer

12. Inky mark

38. 1989 #1 hit by Prince

26. CRV maker

9. Billiards stroke where the cue returns after striking the object ball

25. Daphnis’s love

22. Bad guy in the wrestling ring

8. Called up

21. Georgia governor Brian

7. Ready for business

11. Beloved, in Bologna

fire of my loins”

10. Universal recipient designation

30. ___ salts

4. 1995 2Pac single about Afeni Shakur

39. Patch of earth

DOWN

32. Bite (down) 33. Sweater material

53. Pop-pop’s spouse

43. Pluck out, as eyebrows

54. Exams for tomorrow’s coll. freshmen

44. “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle”

55. Frizzy do, for short

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