the pride
ISSUE NUMBER 70, VOLUME 41 | DECEMBER 18 – DECEMBER 31, 2021 12.18.2021 – 12.31.2021
WWW.THEPRIDELA.COM
LOS ANGELES
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THE LOS ANGELES LGBT NEWSPAPER
Gender Neutral Locker Rooms May Be Coming to Long Beach School District
Lockers would be part of new aquatic center at Winston High School By timothy miChael Long Beach Unified School District has proposed gender neutral locker rooms for a $23 million aquatic center at Wilson High School. Long Beach Unified School District officials on Monday, Nov. 29, said the allgender locker room is meant to provide a safe environment for all students. The gender neutral locker room design is expected to be replicated at five additional high schools where the district wants to build pools. In the design proposal, the gender neutral locker rooms would have 58 individual changing stalls and 10 individual stalled showers and nine restrooms. The facility would have a common area,
where students will gather to wait for a stall to be available for them to change or shower. Two open-space team rooms for water polo and swim teams to use will also be incorporated into the locker room and would be accessible for staff of any gender, district officials said. This planned change comes after students, LBUSD officials added, were nearly unanimous in saying they were uncomfortable using the communal showers and changing areas that have long been the norm in high schools. “The school district’s decision to include plans for inclusive facilities aligns with our equity and inclusivity values, while also taking into consideration a student-driven campaign that called for equitable access to school facilities for all students,” Chris Eftychiou, a spokesperson for the district, said in a statement. “Student safety and privacy, as well as staff supervision were diligently considered in Wilson [High School’s] inclusive locker room design. The locker room can be accessed by staff of any gender, providing Wilson an
increased ability to monitor students.” Eftychiou explained that the design for the all-gender facilities was created with input from students, staff and physical education
and aquatics coaches from WHS and other LBUSD schools. The aquatic center is scheduled to begin construction in the summer of 2022.
LACMA Spotlights Queer Black Artists & Subjects “The Obama Portraits Tour” and “Black American Portraits” at LACMA By timothy miChael “The Obama Portraits Tour” and “Black American Portraits” exhibits at LACMA not only celebrate portraiture, but also queer Black artists and subjects. In the West Coast presentation of “The Obama Portraits Tour,” Kehinde Wiley’s Barack Obama and Amy Sherald’s Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama are on loan from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through Jan. 2. Wiley, who identifies as gay, was the first Black artist to paint an official presidential portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait
Gallery when Obama selected him in 2018. Wiley’s “Portrait of a Young Man,” his eagerly anticipated reimagining of Gainsborough’s iconic 1770 painting “The Blue Boy,” is on display at The Huntington. Wiley’s work, which takes the name that Thomas Gainsborough initially used, incorporates the Grand Manner portraiture technique and style, but in a contemporary setting. “The Portrait Gallery’s official portraits of President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley and First Lady Michelle Obama by Amy Sherald are powerful works of art,” Michael Govan, LACMA CEO, said in a statement. “The colors and styles of the paintings are a fresh departure from the history of presidential portraiture, and these have become two of the most recognized artworks in the world.” To complement “The Obama Portraits Tour,” “Black American Portraits” is an exhibit that reframes portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters, and spaces. It features 140 works mainly drawn from the
museum’s permanent collection. “Black American Portraits” includes works that make visible LGBTQ sitters and stories with works by Tourmaline, Jonathan Lyndon
Chase, Alvin Baltrop, Clifford Prince King, Lyle Ashton Harris, Renee Cox, Cathy Opie, and more. It’s on view through April 7.