SGN September 9, 2022

ISSUE 36

C E L E B R AT I N G

VOLUME 50

48 YEARS

F R I D AY

IN

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10 DEAD IN SEAPLANE CRASH Spokane activist, Black Lens founder among victims

by Lindsey Anderson SGN Staff Writer Tragedy struck in the skies above Whidbey Island on the afternoon of Sunday, September 4.

Without so much as a distress call, a tourist seaplane dove nose-first into the waters of Mutiny Bay. Only pieces of the wreckage have been discovered, along with one body.

According to the Coast Guard, the aircraft was making a routine trip from Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands to Renton Municipal Airport. It crashed just 18 minutes into what should have been a nearly 50-minute flight.

U.S. Coast Guard vessels in a recovery search near Freeland, Wash., on Monday, Sept. 5 – Photo by Stephen Brashear / AP

“Scaled down but mighty”

see CRASH page 5

Come as you are

Compulsory sexuality and the importance of Ace representation for sexual liberation

Trans Pride Seattle returns

Photo by Lindsey Anderson

by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer Surmounting some financial uncertainties of just weeks before, Trans Pride Seattle returned last Friday to Volunteer Park, with booths, music, and live performances to celebrate and support the Trans, Nonbinary, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse communities after a difficult and isolating year.

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric

At the amphitheater, Queer synthpop group Seaside Tryst brought soul to the digital age with hybrid instrumentation and lilting vocals. Indie singer-songwriter karinyo played sonorous tunes from their roots busking in the streets of Seattle, and DJs like “occasional drag performer” Michete and “Seattle’s finest” DJ MIXX America kept the party going.

see PRIDE page 7

by Georgia Skerritt SGN Intern To anyone who’s familiar with the Asexual (or Ace) spectrum, it’s no mystery that the community is both misunderstood and underrepresented.

The most common estimate puts “Aspecs” (anyone on the Asexual/Aromantic spectrum) at just 1% of the global

population. Still, that’s roughly 78 million people, and I would bet money that, like me, almost all of them have at some point felt like they were broken. In a world that centers sex not only as a crucial experience for a fully lived life but also as an identifier that orients you within society, “I think I might be broken” has become an unofficial Ace slogan.

see ACE page 15

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In this Issue

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Local News

A U.S. Coast Guard boat and helicopter search the area Monday, Sept. 5, 2022, near Freeland, Wash., on Whidbey Island north of Seattle where a chartered floatplane crashed the day before – Photo by Stephen Brashear AP

The home base for Northwest Seaplanes and Friday Harbor Seaplanes at the Renton Municipal Airport – Photo by Martha Bellisle / AP

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CRASH

continued from cover The Coast Guard was called in to search for survivors, but after 24 hours and a search that had covered 1,283 linear nautical miles, it called the search off and notified the families of the missing. Scott Giard, the Coast Guard incident manager, said in a statement that “very little of the aircraft” was discovered.

Echoing the hopeless verdict of the Coast Guard, Terry Ney, the deputy chief of operations for South Whidbey Fire and EMS, said it’s “unlikely” anyone survived the crash. “For whatever reason, it went straight for the water, didn’t even attempt a landing, went straight down into the water,” Ney said in a statement. “At this point, we’re not expecting to find any survivors.”

A plane deemed “airworthy” Investigators are now looking into what may have caused the crash. They are still unsure whether or not it was a mechanical malfunction or pilot error. The seaplane was a de Haviland DHC-3 Otter floatplane, built over 50 years ago, in 1967. Despite the plane’s age, Gregory Feith, a former NTSB senior air safety investigator, said it had been approved for flight and updated in recent years to meet safety standards.

In May 2014, the Federal Aviation Administration deemed the plane “airworthy” with an official certificate; however, no information on the state of the plane since 2014 has been made publicly available.

The SGN reached out to the company that owned the plane, Northwest Seaplanes, but it declined to comment on the recent events.

Feith also believes the impact of the plane crash caused “substantial” damage and was likely the result of a significant event that prevented a safe landing. Without recovering the wreckage or black box, the Coast Guard is yet unable to determine what went wrong on Sunday afternoon.

Remembering the victims The pilot of the flight was identified by the Coast Guard as Jason Winters.

He was an experienced aviator with a career stretching back to 1997. Winters had been flying with Northwest Seaplanes since 2013. He leaves behind a

Sandra Williams – Photo courtesy of Black Lens News

wife and three children, who have set up a GoFundMe page, which can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-forjason-winters-family.

Sandra “Sandy” Williams, a Spokane civil rights activist, was also identified as one of the victims. Williams, who was celebrating her 61st birthday in Seattle, was an active member of the Spokane community and leaves behind a rich legacy. She founded The Black Lens, a BIPOC newspaper in Spokane, co-founded the Carl Maxey Center, and was heavily involved

in the activist group Spokane Community Against Racism (SCAR) and the Spokane branch of the NAACP. Tributes for Williams have continued to flow across social media platforms.

On Tuesday, September 6, Spokane community leaders held a march in honor of Williams. “She did bring Black people together, to bring all people together and for us to support each other,” said Michael Brown, a Spokane small-business owner and friend of Williams. “Because when we can come together as a people, we have a

Sandra Williams with the first issue of Black Lens News in 2015 – Photo courtesy of Black Lens News

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beginning. And when we can stay together as a people, we have progress. And when we can work together as a people, we have progress. And that’s what she was about.”

Patricia “Pat” Hicks, Williams’ partner, was another victim of the crash. Hicks was a retired schoolteacher, originally from Los Angeles. In 2020 she moved to Spokane to be closer to Williams. “She loved Sandy, no doubt about that,” said Reverend Walter Kendricks of Spokane.

“I know she found her person,” said Jac Archer, a friend of the couple and fellow community activist. In the few years she lived in Spokane, Hicks became involved with the Carl Maxey Center, hosting AA meetings and participating in outdoor drumming circles. Friends of the couple say they loved nature and giving back to Spokane’s Black community.

Luke and Rebecca Ludwig, a couple from Minneapolis, were also on board the seaplane on Sunday, their family confirmed. They were traveling alone together and left behind their children.

Joanne Mera, a CEO from San Diego, has also been confirmed as one of the victims of the crash. Her family described her as “the life of the party.” She leaves behind her husband of 30 years and three children.

Twenty-nine-year-old Gabrielle Hanna was a promising young attorney in Seattle.

Her colleagues remember her as “a true talent and a team player,” and said she was always quick to smile.

Ross Mickel and Lauren Hilty were another couple on board the plane. Mickel was the owner of an Western Washington winery. Hilty was identified by TMZ as the sister of Broadway actress Megan Hilty.

Mickel and Hilty were joined on board by their nearly two-year-old son, Remy, who is also presumed dead. The family has also confirmed that Hilty was pregnant with their second child.

While family and friends mourn the victims of the Whidbey Island crash, those in the tour industry say the recent events have not affected ticket sales. An associate with Viator (who wishes to remain anonymous), another Seattle-based seaplane tourism company, said in a statement to the SGN, “People die in car crashes all the time, and you still get behind the wheel.

We’ve still been very inundated with booking requests.”

Investigators are still looking into what may have caused the crash and hoping for more answers in the coming days.

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Local News

Seattle schoolteachers on strike

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Seattle’s schoolteachers went on strike September 7, delaying the expected opening of the fall term for an unforeseen period.

The Seattle Education Association (SEA), which represents some 6,000 teachers and other professional staff, said it is “fighting to improve special education, multilingual education, mental health supports, [and] caseloads/class sizes; to provide workload relief; and to create higher wages for all, especially our classified staff.”

“Classified staff” includes non-teaching employees who don’t have an individual employment contract with the Seattle School District. Custodial staff are members of another union, the Operating Engineers (IUOE).

SEA members voted overwhelmingly on September 6 to strike if last-minute negotiations failed to produce results. According to the union, 95% voted in favor of the strike.

Teachers have been bargaining with the Seattle School District for months, with no result, and the last session — which lasted late in the night of September 6 — did not change the situation.

According to the Washington Education Association (WEA), the umbrella union for all local teachers’ unions, picket lines will be up at Seattle schools from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. until the strike is settled.

SEA’s specific demands include: • maintaining staff ratios for disabled and multilingual students, • providing more services in general education classrooms, and • ensuring that the district provides interpretation and translation services in meetings with parents and on official documents.

“We‘re not asking for the moon,” SEA President Jennifer Matter said. “We recognize we have to put forth proposals that work within the district’s budget. Everything that we put in, we know the district can afford.”

The district, which has an enrollment of

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Photos by Jason Redmond / AP

about 50,000 students, is offering a package of pay increases for SEA members, as well as substitutes.

Seattle teachers were last on strike in 2015. Since then, teachers’ pay has gone up significantly, but there have been ongoing complaints of short-staffing and lack of

necessary resources, especially for special needs students.

The Kent Education Association said on September 7 that it had reached a tentative agreement with its school district after a strike lasting eight days.

C E L E B R AT I N G 4 8 Y E A R S!

PRIDE

continued from cover Seattle’s all-Black kiki group Royal House of Noir helped celebrate with a focus on Black, Trans, and Queer performers like King Cee Jay Noir and Queen duo LüCHi. The Gender Justice League, which was back at the helm this year, called the event “scaled down, but mighty,” and at least a few attendees agreed with that description.

“It was at about 50%,” said TransCapybara, who has worked security at the event since 2017 and asked to go by an alias. In her role promoting safety and watching over the crowds, she wasn’t focused on the performances. But the vibes were absolutely her purview: “Everyone was really into it,” she said. “It was a really nice, intimate setting.”

In 2019, TransCapybara recalled, multiple Pride events — Trans Pride Seattle included — were plagued by the presence of emboldened Proud Boys. This year, though, despite Volunteer Park being more difficult to patrol, “security was uneventful.”

Her spouse, who asked to go by their online handle GenderMeowster, described the event as a mixed bag for a disabled person. “Volunteer Park isn’t very wheelchair accessible,” they said of the change of venue. And even though promotional material stated that masks were mandatory, many guests weren’t wearing them, making sticking around risky for immunocompromised and other vulnerable groups.

“A friend who’s in a wheelchair visited me,” GenderMeowster said. But because of the steep slopes and unmasked guests, “they only stayed for a couple minutes.”

Still, they lauded the event’s volunteers for being “very responsive,” and acknowledged some ways in which it was more accessible than other Pride events — namely, one could get a half-table in a booth for free, rather than having to pay for it. Overall, they said, “I’m thrilled that an event happened at all.”

Hyde Nikolaev-Angelus, a local Trans artist, had nearly nothing but praise for the event. “Everyone seemed so happy just to

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Photos by Lindsey Anderson

be around each other,” he said. “The clothing swap was great. Pretty much everyone I know found something that made them happy, and there was a good variety of clothing in all sizes revolving around the racks.”

He also praised resources like free monkeypox vaccines, and people offering free food and drinks. “I’d say that despite it coming back from the pre-COVID era, it was a great experience.” The only thing that

saddened him as an artist, he said, was that there was only one artist booth. He hoped for more next year.

The annual Trans Pride march was also missing this year, since its rescheduling made getting permits from the city difficult.

A march would have also required police presence, which the board didn’t prefer.

“Trans Pride symbolizes a community uplifting its most targeted and marginal-

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ized peoples,” wrote Ganesha, a safehouse advocate for Gender Justice League, in a statement last Friday. “It symbolizes a great reverence for the power and leadership of Trans peoples and our endless contributions to movement work, while simultaneously acknowledging the great sacrifice it takes for us to be us.”

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Books

Rob Osler’s newest mystery worth sinking your teeth into

by Lindsey Anderson SGN Staff Writer The biggest mystery is why there aren’t more books like Rob Osler’s Devil’s Chew Toy. The delightfully fun new novel, described by some as a mystery “cozy,” hit shelves earlier this year and launched the author into literary stardom, as critics and fans praised the newcomer’s wit and attention to detail.

Devil’s Chew Toy follows the misadventures of amateur sleuth Hayden McCall as he teams up with tough-as-nails Lesbians Hollister and Burley to investigate the disappearance of Hayden’s one-night stand. What follows is 309 pages of chaos, calamity, and comedy as the unlikely friends search for clues all around Seattle.

An unintentional comedy Despite some of the highest praise for the book focusing on Osler’s comedic writing, the author admits he never set out to write a comedy. “It is a humorous novel. It’s funny, because I’ve had the fortune of being on a panel in September at Bouchercon, which is the world’s largest mystery convention, and this year, the panel they put me on is ‘Humor and Mystery.’ It still surprises me, because I didn’t set out to write a ‘funny’ book. People tend to think it’s got some funny scenes and… lines and some funny characters. Although I wasn’t intending to write a funny book, I wrote funny characters, so they say funny things and get themselves into silly situations.”

While the humor may have come to Osler naturally, he worked hard to make sure the mystery in the novel kept readers hooked.

“Writing it turned out to be quite an intellectual exercise, as any mystery writer will tell you,” he said, “because to do it right when you figure out who did it or what happened, you should have been able to see it coming. All the clues are planted there — page 12, page 24, 35, 48 — so when you get to the end, you should be like, ‘Oh, of course, it was that.’ But to do that, to not give it away until you want to give it away and then have it not be some ‘what, that didn’t make any sense?’… the plot has to work.”

If at first you don’t succeed, write, write again It took Osler a while to get the plot right, but just how long might surprise some.

“Well, my answer of about ten years would leave someone to believe, ‘Wow, this must be a Pulitzer Prize–winning novel if it took you ten years.’ It’s just this fun, little, lighthearted mystery,” he said.

While the process, from conception to the day the book first hit shelves may have taken nearly a decade, Osler experienced a learning curve. “The first book, you’re learning how to write a book, and you’re learning so much about the craft. I first thought this book was done about five years ago at the San Francisco writers conference, when I was pitching it to agents. Only three things remain the same: the title, Devil’s Chew Toy; Hayden McCall, the main character; and the inciting incident, which I won’t give away, but it propels the action and gets the story going,” he said with a laugh.

“The book was rewritten so many times,” he continued. “The point of view changed, the number of characters changed, it just changed because you go into it with an idea and then through beta readers and editors, it gets wildly changed and then redefined into hopefully a solid book.”

Inspiration and success Osler wrote a mystery novel because “it’s really what I love to read.” Always a reader, he grew up a fan of classic “whodunit”-style mysteries. “I just remember, as a little kid, my mom reading Agatha Christie novels to me, and I just loved the ‘whodunit’ and the trail of breadcrumbs and the traditional amateur sleuth trying to figure out really

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who done it,” he said with a smile.

“The other inspiration was Armistead Maupin, who wrote… Tales of the City.

What I love about that is [that] at the heart of those books, it centers on friendship.

In my book, you’ve got Hayden the Gay, ginger, amateur sleuth, middle school teacher, and part-time relationship blogger, although he’s single, paired with Butch Hollister, who’s got more confidence than she probably should have and drags him into this adventure. I just like that tension of the friendship but set with a whodunit at the heart of it. I love a good mystery, so hopefully, I wrote a decent one.”

Osler’s humility downplays his mastery of his craft. In the year since Devil’s Chew Toy came out, he has already been asked to speak on a panel at the world’s largest mystery convention. His success isn’t limited to his first novel, however. Before finishing Devil’s Chew Toy, Osler submitted a short story to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, which was published last year.

“It was also kind of humorous and techbent,” he said of “Analogue,” his official authorial debut. “It won the Robert L. Fish Award this past April for a best short story published by an unpublished American author, and that is about the biggest prize that a short story could win, so I was shocked and delighted by that.”

Equal time Often Osler is asked why he chose to make his main characters Gay, especially because the storyline could function just as well with straight characters. His answer is always, “They don’t have to be Gay, but it’s more fun that they are. …We’re fun people, all LGBTQ+ people. We’ve got good humor, sarcastic, silly sometimes,” he said laughing.

On a more serious note, Osler recognizes that his story, while it shouldn’t be, is revolutionary. He features a nearly allLGBTQ+ cast, focuses on a fun mystery, and never centers on trauma, relationship issues, or coming out.

see OSLER page 13

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Photos and images courtesy of the author

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C E L E B R AT I N G 4 8 Y E A R S!

Books

Two-four-six-eight! Here's a book to appreciate!

by Terri Schlichenmeyer Special to the SGN BOY WITH THE BULLHORN: A MEMOIR AND HISTORY OF ACT UP NEW YORK RON GOLDBERG © 2022 Empire State Editions / Fordham University Press $36.95 512 pages

Image courtesy of

Ron Goldberg had read something about ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, and he heard they were holding a rally near his workplace. He’d never participated in anything like that before, but whispers were everywhere. He and his friends were “living under a pervasive cloud of dread.”

It was 1987. He “was twenty-eight years old... scared, angry, and more than a little freaked out” about AIDS, he says.

Couldn’t he at least go down and hold a sign?

That first rally led Goldberg to attend

a meeting which, like most, as he came to realize, were raucous and loud and “electric.” Because he was “living fully ‘out and proud,’” and because he realized that this was an issue worth fighting for, he became even more involved with ACT UP by attending larger rallies and helping with organizing and getting his fellow activists fired up. He observed as women became involved, too. Monday night meetings became, for Goldberg, “the most exciting place in town.”

On his years in ACT UP, Goldberg says, “There was hard work, grief, and anger, surely, but there was also great joy.” There, he learned how politics mixed with activism, and why ACT UP tangled with the Reagan administration’s leaders. He felt more than just a little ownership, as other branches of ACT UP began spreading around the country. He learned from its founding members and he “discovered hidden talents” of his own by helping.

He was, he says, also “a witness. And so, I began to write.”

Let’s be honest: Boy with the Bullhorn

the 91-year-old, with those four; include the dog, that’s five.

“It was also very intentional that it’s a group. It wasn’t just a lone wolf, just one kick-ass woman, although both Burley and Hollister are pretty kick-ass ladies, Hayden is anything but. But I wanted it to be this group of characters with hopefully an eye towards a series with a book two, a book three, that, you know, we can dial it up and down. I have a lot more tools and a lot more characters to play with.”

Devil’s Chew Toy is the kind of book where readers can forget about the glum hardships of the world. “I didn’t want it to be challenging,” Osler said, “just a light, easy-breezy, fun little read.

“Katrina McPherson, who is super accomplished, wrote the cover blurb for me — a lovely woman, Scottish, and hilarious, by the way. She called it a ‘pacy romp.’ I thought, yes, you get the book. It’s fastpaced, and it’s a romp.

“I just wanted it to be silly and light. The readers hopefully see it as ‘oh, that’s fun, I want to be with them.’ Sometimes the world needs more silly.”

OSLER

continued from page 8 “For decades, I think, all anyone who identifies in that rainbow of LGBTQ+ has probably read, I would guess, are predominantly books written by straight authors and starring straight main characters and protagonists, and the whole world is overwhelmingly straight,” he said. “I’ve read those books, I don’t know how many thousands of books in that category, and while there are plenty of LGBTQ+ authors writing LGBTQ+ stories and main characters, there aren’t enough.”

“I wrote what I want to read,” he continued. “Something [where] the characters [are] Gay or Lesbian, and there’s probably equal time… that’s also unique, and almost unprecedented. It’s not just a Gay book or a Lesbian book. Between Hollister and Burley and then Hayden, it’s pretty much equal time Gay and Lesbian… I wanted to do that, intentionally. The characters don’t have to be Gay and Lesbian for the story to work. It’s somewhat incidental to the story, which was intentional.”

Writing a cozy While Osler did intend to write a traumafree LGBTQ+ novel, he didn’t realize he was also writing a “cozy,” which is a subgenre of mystery in which the novel avoids violence, swearing, and sex.

“I didn’t have a murder,” Osler said, admitting this decision was bold for someone trying to break into the well-established genre of mystery. “So, there is a mystery, and hopefully the readers are engaged.

It’s like, what just happened, and that’s the mystery, and you go along, and then hopefully the main protagonist [and] his investment in the story makes sense. Because he’s not a detective, he’s not a police officer. So why does he care, why is he going on this adventure — hopefully, that makes sense, and I gave him plenty of motive.

“Again, I didn’t want to murder the Gay or the Lesbian. I just didn’t want to do that.

There are so many times where it’s just the ‘bury your Gays,’ and I repeat, I didn’t want them to be the villain, I didn’t want them to be the victim, and I didn’t want them to be nasty to each other. So guess what? All the villains are straight.”

is basically a history book, with a little memoir inside. Accent on the former, not so much on the latter.

Goldberg says in his preface that Larry Kramer, who was one of ACT UP’s earliest leaders, encouraged him to pull together a timeline for the organization. This book is the end result of the task. It’s very detailed, in sequential order and, as one reads on, quite repetitive, differing basically only in location. It’s not exactly a curl-up-by-thefire read.

Readers, however — and especially older ones who remember the early AIDS crisis — won’t be able to stop scanning for Goldberg’s memories and tales of being a young man at a time when life was cautiously carefree. The memories — which also act as somewhat of a gut-wrenching collection of death notices — are sweet, but also bittersweet.

This book is nowhere near a vacation kind of book, but iF you’ve got patience, it’s worth it. Take your time and you’ll get a lot from Boy with the Bullhorn. Rush, though, and it might just go over your head.

Photo courtesy of the author

Despite Osler making all the bad guys heterosexual, he wants to make one thing clear: he is not heterophobic. He has straight friends. “All the bad guys are straight, you know, and it’s like, I have probably more straight friends than LGBT friends, because the percentage of the world works out that way, and it’s not like I’m anti-straight by any stretch, but it’s just, like, you know, come on, let’s have an LGBTQ+ book where they’re the heroes and not the tragic heroes.

“Also, I didn’t want to write an angsty coming-out story. I didn’t want to write about AIDS or family drama or romance drama. I’m not poo-pooing that: authors can crank out some wonderful reads, [but] it’s just not what I wanted to do. I wanted to pick a different lane.”

Fun in Seattle Setting the story in Seattle was also intentional. “I lived for nearly twenty years in Seattle, so I describe Seattle as my spirit city,” he said, chuckling. “I wanted to set the book there, because anyone who has written a novel will tell you, you spend so much time with these characters and kind of go along on the ride with them. I wanted to do that in Seattle. It allowed me to relive those places, from Ballard to Fremont to Bainbridge Island, and all the places that they race around on their adventure.”

Above all, Osler intended his novel to be fun. “I want [readers] to read the last page and go, ‘That was fun.’ Honest to God, in a nutshell, I want them to say, ‘That was fun, I’ll go along on another adventure with those two, those three”; if you count Jerry

Poetry writing workshop for Queer women Private room; space to write; time to think; great food; well-stocked library; great live performance of our writing on Friday night; chapbook of our week’s work.

More to come from Rob Osler It may have taken Osler a decade to write his first book, but now that he has the hang of it, readers can expect to find more of his work very soon. “There’s a follow-up to Hayden and Friends called Cirque du Slay,” he said. “Something happens, and it’s all set around this circus in Seattle.”

“I sold a short story,” he continued, “which will come out in a year. It features a fiftysomething, Nonbinary, cross-dressing amateur sleuth who is solving a crime.

His name is Perry Winkle. Hopefully, I can turn that into ‘the adventures of Perry Winkle,’ because he’s such a character.

“Then there’s a historical novel set in 1908 Idaho, featuring a closeted Lesbian detective from Chicago who goes to Idaho to save her brother from the gallows. Her name is Harriett, but she’s not afraid to do a good bit of sleuthing as Harry.”

Osler hopes the next Hayden and Friends book will be out within a year and a half.

But in the meantime, for readers looking for a fun escape, a mystery to try and solve, and a lovely tale about an unlikely friendship, Devil’s Chew Toy is a definite mustread.

October 10 - 15, 2022

ROSLYN, WA 98941 $100.00 FOR THE WEEK SPACE LIMITED TO SIX WOMEN

Send a short bio of 200 or less words and two (2) poems to: karenheiken@gmail.com Karen Heiken has taught for 45+ years in a variety of capacities. Until 2020, the last ten years were at IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe NM) and at Santa Fe Community College.”

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Film

Unforgettably repugnant Barbarian is a descent into monstrously entertaining madness

Georgina Campbell in Barbarian – Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

by Sara Michelle Fetters SGN Staff Writer BARBARIAN Theaters Tess (Georgina Campbell) has traveled to Detroit for a job interview. She arrives at her secluded Airbnb in the middle of the night in a punishing rainstorm — only to discover that the key to the front door is not in the lockbox. Stranger still, the young woman finds an undeniably confused Keith (Bill Skarsgård) is already staying there, and she’s just woken him out of a dead sleep with all her noise.

Turns out, the estate company posted multiple listings for the property and mistakenly rented it to both of them. While Tess is appropriately wary, with few options available (there’s a convention in town and hotel rooms are impossible to find), she agrees to stay, since Keith gallantly offers to spend the night on the couch while she takes the bedroom. While there remains a sense of moderate wariness between them, each wakes up in the morning unharmed.

Don’t know what else I can say about the rambunctiously unsettling horror opus Barbarian from writer-director Zach Cregger (Miss March) as far the plot goes. If I add anything more, there’s a strong chance I could spoil the film’s biggest twist. The same goes if I hint at any similar titles that it reminded me of. Suffice it to say, Cregger has taken an ambitiously grotesque swing for the fences, and while he doesn’t hit a home run, he only barely misses.

What I can say is that Tess’s trip to Detroit will be a memorable one for all the wrong reasons. Invisible dangers lurk in the darkness that she could not imagine, even in the depths of her most disturbing nightmares, let alone existing in the bloodcurdling flesh. This house has a past, and it is violent and it is depraved — and by the time Tess learns the truth, it may already be too late to do anything more than pray she lives to see another dawn.

Does Keith play a part in her macabre discoveries? Or is he an equally innocent bystander? Those are just a few of the questions I refuse to answer. There’s also a popular television actor (Justin Long) who ends up taking part in these murderous shenanigans. But other than disclosing he’s a misogynistic jerk who spends more time moaning about the unfairness of his

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situation than taking responsibility for his heinous actions, there’s not much I want to reveal about him either.

What I can disclose is that Cregger valiantly pulls out all the stops. He’s attempting some sort of Jordan Peele meets Bernard Rose descent into human madness, and I feel like he’s trying to say something about economic inequality, race, gender, political inaction, law enforcement, #MeToo, and gentrification. But that may be giving him far too much credit, as his film boldly treads into Alexandre Aja and Fede Alvarez territory with belligerent ferocity. This slowly but surely becomes a violently bloody cartoon of gory excess, escalating to a shockingly goofy conclusion of head-popping psychosis that had me wanting to rise to my feet and let out a hearty cheer of appreciation.

Campbell and Skarsgård are excellent.

The entire opening act between the two coyly getting to know one another — with cagey self-awareness of how dangerously absurd their situation could become — is marvelously released. Their dialogue sizzles, each syllable an attempt to figure out their unexpected roommate and to ascertain if they have any reason to be nervous about having inadvertently placed themselves in danger.

Long is also strong, and while he’s played characters similar to AJ, I don’t think he’s ever gone this deep or allowed himself to be this morally compromised. He has a wonderful scene late in the third act in which his perceptive character comes close to finally understanding who he is and taking responsibility for his past. Long plays this moment with nakedly eloquent thoughtfulness, making AJ’s climactic decisions ring with a truthful aura of tragic unpleasantness that would be hysterical — and does elicit a few uncomfortable laughs — if they weren’t so appalling.

Cregger plays on the audience’s emotions as if they were the fiddle and he the maestro confidently plucking the strings. He uses clichés and old-school genre tropes to his advantage, knowing the viewer will be shouting at the screen, pleading that the characters don’t succumb to temptation and do something that’s clearly stupid — even as they visibly squirm in their seats in petrified excitement, coerced into hoping they actually do.

This wouldn’t be possible without the talents of cinematographer Zach Kuperstein (The Eyes of My Mother) and composer Anna Drubich (Werewolves Within).

Kuperstein’s increasingly unhinged, dis-

combobulated images are augmented with sinister precision by Drubich’s score.

They work in tandem, crafting a delectably ominous synergy between visuals and music that grows in unnerving resonance as events progress. Their contributions cannot be minimized.

Are there elements that do not work?

Certainly. The balance between comedy and horror isn’t always on solid footing. Not all of the social commentary is as sharply delivered as Cregger likely intended. The evolution of Long’s character is fairly bumpy, and if he wasn’t so committed to delivering such a richly prickly and greedily uncouth performance, it may not have worked at all.

This does not change how monumentally entertaining this tumble into full-throttle terror is. Barbarian is a leap of faith. It lets the viewer in slowly, before trapping them in a damp and dingy bunker of exploitive fright that’s almost impossible to escape.

Cregger twists the screws and pulls out all the stops, creating a monstrously smothering hallucination in which humanity and depravity collide to produce unforgettably repugnant results.

Bill Skarsgård in Barbarian – Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

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Op-Ed ACE

continued from cover Since coming out as Ace about nine months ago and learning what I know now, I believe the population is much higher than the estimates. Further, the Asexual experience tells us a lot about how social and cultural narratives have warped the way we understand our own happiness and pleasure, and how we can begin to reclaim them.

First, we need to look at a fundamental concept within the Ace world: compulsory sexuality.

What is compulsory sexuality?

First coined by poet Adrienne Rich in her 1980 essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” compulsory heterosexuality (or “comphet”) is a term that many members of the Queer community are familiar with. In her writing, Rich argued that heterosexuality doesn’t just happen to be the orientation and experience of most people within society, but rather that it is a majority because it is learned, conditioned, and enforced.

Borrowing from this language and conceptual framework, compulsory sexuality can therefore be seen as the assumption that every normal and healthy person is sexual and that sex is an utterly necessary part of a complete and happy life. Compulsory sexuality thus establishes allosexuality (which is used to describe anyone who experiences sexual attraction to others) as the norm and makes anything else (i.e., anywhere on the Ace spectrum) a deviation from a norm rather than an experience equal to any other.

Compulsory sexuality thus establishes allosexuality (which is used to describe anyone who experiences sexual attraction to others) as the norm and makes anything else (i.e., anywhere on the Ace spectrum) a deviation from a norm rather than an experience equal to any other.

Let’s be clear: compulsory sexuality didn’t develop by accident. Sex sells, and as it becomes increasingly commercialized for profit, asexuality has been largely dismissed as “other,” because it’s not profitable to include. When sex is a commodity (think Playboy, Pornhub, Viagra, etc.), having sex becomes a form of consumption and serves as a way for people to tell the world that they’re fun, passionate, and orgasmic. Compulsory sexuality, then, has been intentionally developed as an economic tool. It doesn’t help us understand our own happiness any better; it only tells us where to put our money.

Where asexuality meets sexual liberation Recent decades have witnessed an ever-growing movement of sexual liberation. Women are reclaiming their sexual freedom, and members of the Queer community fight for visibility every day. Historically, these groups have been sexually repressed by patriarchal and heteronormative structures, but now they are taking back their power by advocating that every-

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Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric

one have freedom to have as much sex as they want. But this is where the movement falls short and would benefit from Ace inclusion.

Whenever sexual activists advocate for “as much sex as you want,” it is automatically assumed that they mean “a lot of sex.”

In both female and Queer communities, being sexually repressed is a symbol of a time before freedom and a reminder of why we need progress. In the past, not having sex life that is active, dynamic, and expressive made me feel a like a political failure.

As a Queer woman, having sex didn’t always seem like my private business but rather a way for me to express, perform, and embody the liberal politics that I agree with.

Not wanting to have sex, then, didn’t just make me feel childish or passionless — it also made me feel like a social and political failure. When being sexually liberated is equated to being sexually expressive, new rules are put in place, and the idea of having “as much sex as you want” shifts from being freeing to being restrictive.

The act of having no sex at all (or very

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little) is just as much an embodiment of sexual liberation as having sex multiple times a day with whomever you want. The freedom of choice includes the freedom to say, “No thanks, I’m good” and just walk away. To honor the true sentiments behind our quest for liberation, we must remember that sexual variation includes those who don’t want any sex at all.

There is no right or wrong way to be liberated. Sexual freedom can look like promiscuity, but it also look like celibacy.

The choice is up to you.

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Op-Ed

Ask Izzy: My landlord keeps dead-naming me

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels

by Isabel Mata SGN Contributing Writer

Photo by Alex Quetzali @grainy.girl

Ever since I was a kid, I have been using my own experiences (and traumas) as a bisexual, neurodivergent chronic oversharer to help my friends, family, and even random strangers on the internet have stronger relationships, better sex, and healthier mindsets. I find joy in writing about all the things no one else wants to talk about. The more cringe, the better.

Using my experience and my innate ability to connect with empathy, every other week I will respond to your questions about life, love, friendships, sexuality, mental health, and whatever else is on your mind. Nothing is off limits.

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Dear Izzy, My landlord keeps dead-naming me and has stated multiple times that he thinks I’m living with a roommate despite me being the only one on the lease since 2019 and using my current name. He has tried to charge me double for insurance, has increased my utilities to the cost of two people, and plans on raising my rent by about $150 in March to accommodate his beliefs. His notices start with “[Dead Name] et al.,” implying there are several people living in my small studio apartment. I love my home and I’m not sure I’m financially stable enough to move out, but I feel his actions are transphobic and retaliatory because I continue to politely point him toward reality. What should I do? —Exasperated in Eastlake Dear Exasperated, I am so sorry that you are dealing with this. You are right — your landlord’s behavior is 100% transphobic, and what you are dealing with is not okay.

First and foremost, your safety and emotional well-being is priority #1. I can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like to be in your shoes, so all I can say is that it’s okay to feel upset and distraught by this. Not only is it okay, but it is also expected.

Before we look at solutions, it’s important to acknowledge your own emotions and make space to feel however you may be feeling. You can do this by closing your eyes, focusing on your breath, and grounding into the present moment. Watch what feelings arise and sit with them. This is not an easy situation to navigate, and it’s

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going to take resiliency and courage to move through it, traits that I have no doubt that you exemplify. You are one strong-ass motherfucker. You can do hard things.

If you truly do not want to move out (even though I think you should, because your landlord is a bigot), then you have protections according to the federal Fair Housing Act and the Washington Law Against Discrimination. Thanks to a helpful infographic I found on the King County website, here are the best ways to protect yourself if you have faced discrimination (which I believe you have): 1. Act quickly: The housing agencies that investigate complaints of possible discrimination are only able to do so if it happened in the last year. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to prove your case.

2. Document everything: It is crucial to keep detailed notes about every negative action taken against you for when you bring this to court. Write down exactly what was said and done, and the dates, times, and people involved. If you have witness statements, even better. This also includes keeping all records (voicemails, written emails, notes, etc.).

3. Get support: I recommend calling the Tenants’ Rights Hotline at (206) 723-0500, which offers trained non-attorney tenant counselors via free phone counseling services to help you figure out the best course of action.

One important thing to note is that no one is going to help you enforce your rights if

you don’t stay on top of it. “Landlord-tenant laws in Washington State are considered ‘self-help’ — it is up to individual tenants to get their rights enforced,” according to the Tenants Union of Washington State.

To learn more, check out its website at tenantsunion.org. Here are some other resources to access help: • The CLEAR Line Legal Help at 888201-1014 • Solid Ground Tenant Services at 206694-6767 • The Seattle Office for Civil Rights for properties inside the city limits of Seattle: 206-684-4500 or TTY relay: 711; online: https://www.seattle.gov/civilrights • King County Office of Civil Rights for properties in unincorporated King County: 206-263-2446 or TTY relay: 711; online: https://www.kingcounty.gov/civilrights • Washington State Human Rights Commission for properties anywhere in Washington: 800-233-3247 or TTY 800-3007525; online: https://www.hum.wa.gov • Fair Housing Center of Washington Advocates for renters and home buyers in Western Washington: 253-274-9523 or 888-766-8800 or TTY 711; online: https:// www.fhcwashington.org Thank you for being brave and asking for help. You are doing the right thing! Finally, do not be afraid to act. Fair housing laws prohibit retaliation against people for filing a complaint or for otherwise claiming their civil rights. Don’t let your landlord scare you.

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National News

New legal setback for Starbucks

Company must reinstate fired union organizers, appeals court says

Photo by Lucy Garrett for MLK50 / courtesy of The Memphis Seven @memphisseven901 / Twitter

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Starbucks must reinstate seven Memphis workers fired for their union activities, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on September 6.

The federal appeals court turned down a motion by Starbucks’ lawyers to stay a lower court decision ordering the reinstatement of the group, known as the Memphis Seven. Starbucks must now reinstate the seven workers immediately.

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, known as the Wagner Act, forbids employers from retaliating against work-

ers for union organizing, and Starbucks was found to have violated this prohibition when it fired the seven workers from two Memphis stores.

“This is an amazing turnaround for a ruling. It is a shame that we have to take this route to get our jobs back. We have proven once again that it is a protected right for workers to express how they feel about their workplace and how they can be better for us,” said Nabretta Hardin, one of the Memphis Seven, in a statement.

“We all can’t wait to go back to work and show Starbucks that we have a right to be there and we will continue to fight for our rights.”

The initial decision in favor of the Starbucks workers came from federal district judge Sheryl Lipman on August 18.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — the federal agency charged with enforcing federal labor laws — sought an injunction on behalf of the Memphis Seven and accused Starbucks of using “coercive” measures against pro-union employees at its Memphis stores.

Starbucks has said the employees were fired due to reported “safety and security violations” and not because of their unionization efforts. Judge Lipman disagreed and ordered the company to reinstate the seven in their former jobs.

After her ruling, Starbucks issued a statement of protest and appealed the decision to the 6th Circuit. It also filed a motion to stay the reinstatement pending the outcome of the appeal. The circuit court has now rejected the motion to stay, indicating the judges believe Starbucks will lose their appeal.

The firing of the Memphis Seven led to increased protests across the country in support of Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), the union representing Starbucks employees. As of August 31, 233 Starbucks across the US had voted in favor of unionization, according to the NLRB.

Photo courtesy of The Memphis Seven @memphisseven901 / Twitter

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National & International News National news highlights

by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer DeSantis and prosecutor lock horns over reinstatement After suspending Democratic prosecutor Andrew Warren for statements about not pursuing charges in abortion, Trans rights, and certain lowlevel cases, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now urging a federal judge to throw out a free speech lawsuit Warren filed to be reinstated as state attorney.

“Mr. Warren had no First Amendment right, as a public official, to declare that he would not perform his duties under Florida law,” wrote state Solicitor General Henry C. Whitaker in a filing for DeSantis.

Warren responded in an email statement, “This is a poor defense of an indefensible abuse of power. The fact that taxpayers continue to foot the bill for this makes it even more shameful.”

He argued his suspension went against the will of the people who elected him.

Before his suspension, Warren signed a joint statement with prosecutors across the country refusing to prosecute

those who seek, provide, or support abortions or gender-affirming care. The statement also decried policies around crimes involving police stops of pedestrians and cyclists, known locally as charges that come from “biking while Black.”

DeSantis has already appointed another judge to replace Warren, who has received support for his lawsuit through briefs filed by legal scholars and members of the state Constitution Revision Commission.

School shuts down award-winning paper over pronouns Administrators at Nebraska’s Northwest Public School have closed their decadesold newspaper three days after it printed its June edition, which included “Pride and prejudice: LGBTQIA+,” an article on the history of both Pride Month and homophobia. The edition also had an editorial about Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law.

District officials have given no reasoning for the decision so far, but an email from an employee to the Grand Island Independent said it was “because the school board and superintendent are unhappy with the last issue’s editorial content.”

A month before the paper’s closing, its staff was reprimanded for publishing students’ preferred pronouns and names, and officials had told students afterward that they could only use names assigned at birth.

“It sounds like a ham-fisted attempt to censor students and discriminate based on disagreement with perspectives and articles that were featured in the student newspaper,” said Sara Ripps, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Nebraska chapter.

Northwest High School’s newspaper, Viking Saga, was shut down after 54 years of publication – Photo by McKenna Lamoree The Independent via AP

“The decision by the administration to eliminate the student newspaper violates students’ right to free speech,” said Max Kautsch, attorney at the Nebraska Press Association, “unless the school can show

a legitimate educational reason for removing the option to participate in a class... that publishes award-winning material. It is hard to imagine what the legitimate reason could be.”

International news highlights

by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer Trans streamer’s campaign takes down harassment site Two web-hosting providers have dropped the infamous stalking and harassment site Kiwi Farms from their online security services, after a campaign by Trans Twitch streamer Clara “Keffals” Sorrentis pressured Cloudflare to do so, and shined a light on what the self-proclaimed “lighthearted discussion forum” was often used for.

Sorrenti fled her Canada home in August after she was doxxed (her personal information reveaded online) and swatted (SWAT teams were called to her residence as a prank), but was found again by cyberstalkers in Belfast, Ireland, where the harassment continued.

Her campaign has persisted, however, and is beginning to pay off. Kiwi Farms is now inaccessible.

Cloudflare had previously planned to defend Kiwi Farms, but Sorrenti and the site’s other targets said it wasn’t just used for racist, homophobic, and transphobic rhetoric; it was actively endangering and pursuing people, and it had been designed to do so.

“They are trying to get people to lose their jobs. They’re trying to get people to lose their housing, to be starving and homeless,” said Liz Fong-Jones, a former Google engineer and cloud computing expert, who is Trans. “And then they go after people’s families, and then they tell people that the only way out is to kill themselves.”

Cloudflare dropped Kiwi Farms, citing an “immediate threat to human life” of a degree his company had never seen.

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Photo courtesy of Keffals / Youtube

Later, Russian online security provider DDoS-Guard dropped the .ru domain of the site after receiving “multiple” complaints.

Caribbean court rules Gay sex a right Ruling that sexual orientation is protected by the right to privacy, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court has struck down a colonial-era law against homosexual conduct in the twin-island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis.

LGBTQ activists celebrated the ruling, since many Gay people in the country

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tended to avoid medical care for fear of persecution.

Jamal Jeffers, a Gay man, had sued the country’s attorney general over the right to liberty, which Jeffers argued allows people to choose an intimate partner and have consensual sex however they want.

Jeffers was joined in the suit by the St. Kitts and Nevis Alliance for Equality.

Local governments supporting the antiGay law argued that freedom of expression does not apply to sexual orientation, and that Gay sex threatened the moral norms that were the bedrock of St. Kitts and Nevis — in short, a slippery slope

argument, and a religious one.

The court rejected that argument and others. “Public morality,” it wrote, “is not synonymous with religious dogma or public opinion.”

Courts in Belize, Trinidad & Tobago, and Antigua & Barbuda have also found such laws unconstitutional.

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court has unlimited jurisdiction in six independent states and three British Overseas Territories.

C E L E B R AT I N G 4 8 Y E A R S!

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