With the risk of former President Trump winning the election November — which would likely result in the rollback of human rights — the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund has been working harder than ever to increase the number of out Queer office holders in the US. Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr — the first openly Transgender person elected to the state’s legislature — was a featured speaker at the organization’s party in September in Seattle.
“Washington, despite being very liberal, it does not have a Trans woman elected to the legislature, so [I’m] going out and talking to folks and showing them what we in Montana are doing, and hopefully providing inspiration and hope for the Trans folks in the state,” Zephyr told the SGN
Zephyr spent her high school and college years in the greater Seattle area, having grown up in Montana. It was during her time at graduate school back in Missoula that she became a human rights activist, which included filing discrimination claims. Her activism led her to work with the City of Missoula on crafting a human rights policy, as well as become a deescalator, so as to keep antiracism protesters safe from armed counterprotesters.
“What became clear, particularly in late 2020, early 2021, was that so much of grassroots activism is trying to bandage up the wounds created by the government, either government inaction or action,” Zephyr said, “and sometimes the harm that comes from government is intentional. There were people in office who wanted to consciously pass policies that hurt certain subsets of our community.”
SEE ZEPHYR PAGE 11
Midori Monét:
Seattle’s nightlife star ready to shine at Miss International Queen USA
BY ALAN MOTLEY
energy of our city’s LGBTQ+ hot spots, chances are you’ve seen Midori light up the stage with her unforgettable performances.
Midori’s journey is deeply rooted in our community. “I chose to be Miss Capitol Hill because I wanted to represent the
Queer youth victims of attacks in Bellingham and Bremerton
October 22, a
being verbally and physically abused. They were shoved to the ground, kicked, and punched, while onlookers told the attacker to “beat his ass.” The videos were then posted to Instagram and shared around the school.
If you’ve spent any time soaking up the
MONET PAGE 15
The attack was filmed by one of the eight other students, and depicts Ruben
Hey, Seattle! Big news from our vibrant nightlife scene: Midori Monét, a beloved figure on Capitol Hill and a trailblazer for Transgender visibility, is gearing up to take the national stage at the Miss International Queen USA pageant December 8–12 in Las Vegas.
SGN STAFF WRITER
On
16-year-old high school student from Bellingham was attacked by a group of eight other students because they were Trans. The victim, Adrian Ruben, was rushed to the emergency room with a concussion.
BY AUDREY OSCARSON AND HANNAH SAUNDERS
PHOTO BY NATE GOWDY
PHOTO COURTESY OF MIQ 2024
PHOTO BY ALEX SMITH
READER'S CHOICE AWARDS VOTING BEGINS AT SGN.ORG!
Newcastle councilmember resigns after continued issues with flag raising following Pride Month
BY HANNAH SAUNDERS SGN STAFF WRITER
Conservative Newcastle City Councilman Steve Tallman resigned during the October 15 meeting, due to similar concerns and stances that led to an uproar over the raising of the Pride Flag over the Town Hall this past June.
This year, the councilmembers have remained split when voting on whether to issue proclamations and raise related flags, and the Hindu Heritage Proclamation led Tallman to reach his breaking point.
“This divisive behavior apparently is not going to change. People, I refuse to hold hands with participants in this misguided, divisive, and unproductive environment, with people who refuse to put the welfare of our community at the top of the list in everything we do,” Tallman said. “Effective immediately, I’m disassociating myself with this unhealthy, toxic environment. I could be more effective where I’m not consistently attacked by ignorance and hatred. I’m out.”
During that October meeting, Tallman said he abstained from voting on the Hindu Heritage Month proclamation due to impartiality, and accused Councilmember Paul Charbonneau of attacking his motives and reputation during Charbonneau’s comments. Mayor Robert Clark dismissed Tallman’s claims of ethics violations.
Tallman highlighted how a pastor testified and asked the council to not vote in favor of the Hindu Heritage proclamation, and that these proclamations put the council in a position of having to be consistent among communities.
Tallman has a track record of voting against proclamations recognizing the diverse groups that make up Newcastle.
The council voted against raising the Pride Flag at the June 4 meeting, after Charbonneau brought up the issue. Tallman said the Pride Flag would leave out other groups of people if raised, emphasizing the feelings of those who would be excluded while not acknowledging the history or hardships of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Back in 1945, the president signed a proclamation to incarcerate Japanese people, because of concerns about public safety. We took away their land and their property, and we put them in prisons,” Tallman said during the meeting. “We didn’t raise a Japanese flag or do anything to support the Japanese people who went through hell during 1945.”
The SGN previously reported on the council’s June 18 meeting, where Tallman again expressed his desire to not raise the
Pride flag and said that other members of the council were working hard to create division. Tallman reiterated his desire for unity and to not exclude anyone, including heterosexual cisgender people, but by the end of the meeting, the council narrowly voted in favor of raising the flag.
The city must fill Tallman’s vacant position by January 13, and if the council is split on its decision, the King County Council will become involved. Councilmember Charbonneau told the SGN he hopes to see that position filled sooner rather than later, since the council has a comprehensive plan and budget to approve.
“I think to be a city councilmember you need to have patience, be able to deal with frustration, and accept that just because you want something to happen doesn’t mean that’s what is right or should happen,” he said.
STEVE TALLMAN PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF NEWCASTLE
Ryan Mello seeks to be Washington state’s first LGBTQ county executive
BY MATT NAGLE
As an out Gay man in Pierce County politics, Ryan Mello has broken new ground for Queer people. While LGBTQ officials serving in elected office are common in King County, it’s not quite the same there, where Mello was the first out LGBTQ member of the Tacoma City Council (2010–19), the second out member of the county council (elected in 2021), and the latter’s first Queer chair, a position he currently holds.
Now Mello is embarking on another first in his campaign for county executive. Winning this race would make him the county’s — and Washington state’s — first LGBTQ executive and only the second out one in the country.
“Like anyone’s lived experience, it matters, and this is why all kinds of diversity and inclusion is so important,” he told the SGN. “We need women, we need people of color, we need LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities in decision-making roles, whether it’s elected or on boards and commissions. You bring a different lived experience and a different set of questions, thoughts, and ideas.”
A positive “climate change”
A staunch Democrat, Mello looks to bring a positive sort of “climate change” to Pierce County. For the past eight years, Republican Bruce Dammeier has held the executive’s office and has now reached his term limit. While Dammeier has done his share of good for the county, he has blocked numerous progressive efforts that the council has tried to establish by ordinance.
In fact, since early 2021, Dammeier has vetoed seven proposed ordinances of which council chair Mello was the co-sponsor or prime sponsor. These include: hazard pay for grocery workers during the COVID pandemic; an effort to change county policy to allow the flying of nongovernmental flags on county facilities (like the Pride flag); the creation of the Pierce County Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Commission; safe-parking land-use regulations for those experiencing homelessness; and a temporary Housing Community Land Use Code to allow well-managed tiny-home villages in unincorporated Pierce County so as to provide safe options for those currently living unsheltered on the streets.
There are others, but these serve to show the difference between what Mello envisions for a safer and more welcoming Pierce County versus Dammeier’s use of his veto authority on ordinances meant to help the very people who live there.
“My opponent is Dammeier’s hand-
picked successor, so it would be more of the same,” Mello said of candidate Kelly Chambers (R). “I can’t wait to be the first Pierce County executive to raise the Pride flag on all county facilities next July as a symbol of freedom and inclusion.”
Mello’s track record illustrates that being a Gay man is not the sum of who he is, either personally or politically. His campaign platform reflects key issues that he has long championed, like the opioid epidemic, the climate crisis, affordable housing and homelessness, reproductive healthcare, protecting servicemembers, and taking care of seniors. He has won the endorsement of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike.
“I’m the only candidate that has Democrats, Republicans, and Independents publicly supporting me because of the work we’ve done to try to tackle problems in a bipartisan way. My opponent cannot say that,” he said.
“I want to bring my leadership and experience of bringing people together to tackle the big challenges facing our region [so as to make] some progress [and] make this region more affordable, healthier, safer, and more prosperous.”
From Hawaii to Tacoma
Mello was born and raised in Kailua, Hawaii, and arrived on the mainland right after high school to attend the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. Being away from home and within the university’s diverse environment allowed him to flourish and make some important self-discoveries. In Kailua, he felt he had to stay closeted, but in Tacoma, he was free to come out and finally be himself.
“My parents and my family now fully accept me and I’m very grateful,” Mello
said, “but growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, my experience is not unlike so many others’ experiences of so many signals from society that put you in the closet and keep you in the closet.”
After earning his degree in politics and government, Mello went to work for AmeriCorps for two years. Assigned to the United Way of Pierce County, he was charged with designing ways for young people to cultivate a lifelong ethic of giving back to the community through service. After that, he was a staffer in the state legislature, where he was inspired to make his first foray into elected office in 2005, when he ran for and won a seat on the Metro Parks Tacoma Board of Commissioners.
His next professional experience was as the Pierce County director of the Cascade Land Conservancy, now called Forterra. He was there for about six years, working to conserve farms, forests, and open space.
From there, he moved on to become the executive director of the Pierce Conservation District for 10 years, then won a seat on the Tacoma City Council.
He recalls a special moment while on the council, when he stood up for Transgender city employees during collective bargaining over benefits and working conditions.
“I said we’re going to make sure that our healthcare package is inclusive of Transgender healthcare issues… like everyone else’s healthcare, and we’re not going to ask for anything. We’re just going to give that benefit in our employee package,” Mello said. “Would someone else had brought that up? Probably not, because they didn’t come from that community or have that experience at that time. It took someone bringing it to the table and making sure it got followed through on.
“This is a simple example of why it abso-
lutely matters who is at the table and why diversity and inclusion matter.”
Facing blatant homophobia
During his time in political circles, Mello has worked with and mingled among people from all walks of life. He has also faced open hostility toward his sexual orientation. An example is when the South Sound’s Pride Month comes around, in July (so as not to compete with June events in our area). The Pierce County Council formally recognized Pride Month for the first time in 2021 by issuing an proclamation — but not without pushback from Mello’s Republican council colleagues. County Executive Dammeier did not sign onto the proclamation either.
This past July, Councilmember Amy Cruver (R) refused to sit in the council chambers because the Progress Pride flag was included, for the first time, on the dais next to the American flag and those of Pierce County and Washington state. She chose instead to attend council meetings remotely that month. She asserted that this was her plan in a long presentation she gave via Zoom in a July council meeting, during which she painted LGBTQ people as sexually perverted and “anti-family.”
All the while, Mello had to sit quietly and endure her open bigotry, remaining calm and collected throughout. Democratic councilmembers supported the flag’s presence, but their Republican counterparts did not.
“The past few Julys, I’ve had to watch my colleagues work against me and organize fellow neighbors in Pierce County to write hateful things about my life and the people I care about — how ‘sinful’ we are and … all kinds of ridiculous and disgusting things about me and people like me,” Mello told the SGN
He holds no illusion that Cruver will change her mind about him, and he puts no energy into that. Instead, he said he strives to be an example that she and everyone can see, staying focused and dedicated to the people he is charged with representing.
“All I can do is show by example that I work hard and that I care deeply about my community, as she says she does,” Mello said, “to show with my actions that I care about making this place safer and help to make more people feel included and have stability in their life to thrive.
“I am going to be everybody’s county executive: Gay, straight, Republican and Democrat, urban and rural. I’m going to wake up every day to work hard to make meaningful progress on the issues that are holding us back.”
SGN EDITOR
PHOTO COURTESY OF RYAN MELLO
SEATTLE NEWS
Queer history honored with new marker in Pioneer Square at site of first Pride celebration
BY RENEE RAKETTY SGN PUBLISHER
As LGBTQIA+ History Month came to a close, a new historical marker was unveiled at Occidental Park in Pioneer Square on Tuesday, Oct. 29, commemorating the site of Seattle’s first Pride celebration. The marker will become part of the Trail to Treasure historic walking paths in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
“I can think of no better way to close out Queer History Month than this moment, a lasting reminder of our vibrant history here for us and future generations. Thank you all for celebrating with us today,” Seattle Pride Executive Director Patti Hearn told
the assembled crowd.
The marker, designed by Seattle-based brand strategy and interactive agency People People, is the result of collaboration between Seattle Pride and the Alliance for Pioneer Square. It features photos and storytelling about the city’s Pride celebrations, the history of Pioneer Square as Seattle’s original Queer neighborhood, and a timeline of the city’s LGBTQIA+ milestones.
“This sign commemorates the Seattleites who put their energy into creating our city’s first Gay Pride Week to promote the visibility and celebration of the LGBTQ+ com-
munity,” said Alliance for Pioneer Square Executive Director Lisa Howard. “Please join me in honoring these individuals and their community as we unveil this historical marker.”
Among those present were David Neth, Ann Manly, and Tom Hubbard, organizers of Gay Pride Week in 1974. “[It was] not a protest, and it wasn’t a demonstration, just events out in the daylight, out in the sunshine, to let the world know our joy and freedom, even if it is just us being us,” said Neth, the lead organizer of Seattle’s first Pride. “We chose what was then this newly created Occidental Park for our big
Saturday celebration — a public space in the heart of the city and the center of all the ten Gay bars that were around here. Queer people out and proud!”
Beneath the Streets offered an abbreviated version of its tour, showcasing Pioneer Square both above- and belowground, with an emphasis on Queer history.
Free Trail to Treasure walking tour maps are available throughout the Pioneer Square neighborhood, including at the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (319 Second Ave. S) and at information booths in Occidental Square and Pioneer Square Park.
(L TO R) ANN MANLY, DAVID NETH, PATTI HEARN, AND TOM HUBBARD, PHOTOS BY RENEE RAKETTY
The remains of faith and discrimination: A look at Seattle Pacific University’s past
BY AUDREY OSCARSON
Seattle Pacific, a private Christian university nestled next to the Ship Canal, has been subject to over four years of legal battles related to its controversial hiring policy and Statement on Human Sexuality.
In January of 2021, Prof. Jéaux Rinedahl sued the university for discrimination after being denied a full-time position because he was Gay. This sparked conversations on campus in relation to the university’s hiring policy, its connection with the Free Methodist Church, and what being a truly ecumenical religious university means.
Staff and faculty drafted what they called a “Letter of Lament” in response to the hiring policies being enforced, which gained over a thousand signatures by February of the same year. Emily Huff, director of field placements and clinical faculty in the School of Education at SPU, was one of the faculty members who wrote the letter.
“The letter came from a group of caring and committed faculty and staff who wanted to highlight the pain that SPU’s discriminatory hiring policy caused (and continues to cause), and we were able to collect and present over 1,400 signatures in support of it,” Huff said.
The original group that wrote the Letter of Lament formed the group Affirm, a group of staff, faculty, and alumni dedicated to supporting LGBTQIA+ students.
Daniel Mercado was a freshman entering university the academic year after the Rinedahl lawsuit was filed, and quickly became involved after learning what was happening on campus. A senior now, Mercado has seen the controversy play out in person.
“I went to a private Christian high school, so I was kind of used to this whole notreally-affirming-but-not-really-outwardlyhating Gay people,” Mercado said. “The board didn’t like Gay people, but the students didn’t care. I didn’t know the same issues were happening at SPU. I was just going in blind.”
Within weeks however, groups on campus made it known that Queer people on campus were fighting a larger battle, planting hundreds of Pride flags around campus and decorating sidewalks with chalk messages voicing their displeasure. Protests of all sorts were held throughout the year, raising awareness and providing a community to the campus’s Queer students.
Seattle Pacific ended up settling the Rinedahl lawsuit out of court, a decision that was disappointing to some on campus but did nothing to halt the momentum students had gained. They were now fighting for the rights of any future Queer person that wanted to work there.
Protests and lawsuits
In early 2022, SPU created a work group
of staff, faculty, and board members to create a plan of action addressing the Statement on Human Sexuality and hiring policies, then present it to the board of trustees to vote on. The group created what they called “the Third Way,” which removed the ban on same-sex sexual relationships but still held that sexual relationships should be within the confines of marriage.
However, the board decided to keep the Statement on Human Sexuality, despite protests. As a result, students organized a sit-in outside of the president’s office, which was then occupied by Interim President Pete Menjares. For over a month, students slept, ate, and worked on the floor outside his office, hosting events in the evening and taking shifts during the day so that everyone could continue attending classes.
“I remember one of the students who was organizing the protest was like, ‘Hey, I remember you and I remember your poster said, “I’m not a monster,” and I just want to tell you, you are not a monster, you’re not an aberration, you’re exactly how God made you to be and we want you here,’” Mercado said. “[The sit-in was] really accepting, loving, welcoming, and just radical love that is expected in any sort of Christian community and hoped to be seen, and I saw that in SPU’s Gay community.”
The protests sparked national media attention, which prompted Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson to investigate the university’s hiring policies. As a result, the university filed a lawsuit against the attorney general for religious persecution, and a group of students sued the board of trustees for breach of fiduciary duties.
In July of 2023, the students who sued the board were forced to settle out of court, due to rising legal costs. As students entered another year at SPU, the university began to crack down on protests, prohibiting flags and pro-Queer posters from being displayed.
Quieter now
Currently, campus is much quieter than the early years of the protest. M, who has requested their name not be used, for safety reasons, is a member of Haven, SPU’s LGBTQIA+ group, and has noticed that many students have become less outspoken and more fearful of retaliation by the school.
“I think since the lawsuits have been pulled back and those who were suing the board have gone quiet or graduated, there’s been some… relaxation going on. [At Haven] we can’t talk politics there. We can’t talk SPU politics there, and they’ve made sure to drill that into our heads,” M said.
Faculty have also felt the change in momentum lately.
“Many faculty and staff who were central to some of these early efforts have left SPU amidst the budget cuts, and the group is very small now,” Huff said. “While the administration has made it clear that policies will not change, the group now focuses on supporting student-led efforts to protect an inclusive and supportive space for LGBTQIA+ students.”
In 2023, Deana Porterfield became president at SPU, which many students hoped would lead to more change. However, while some conversations are happening on campus, Dr. Porterfield seems to be prioritizing repairing the university’s image.
“She doesn’t want there to be any press for SPU, so we don’t mention the lawsuit,” M said. “We had Redacted Fest last year… We weren’t allowed to say ‘Pride Fest’ so we [used] Redacted Fest, and she was not happy about that. We used to have a Lavender Graduation to celebrate Queer and allied students, but we can’t call it a graduation anymore, because that implies that we are treating a certain set of students differently, so now it’s just Lavender Celebration.”
Where things stand
Throughout the lawsuits and protests, SPU has also been dealing with significant financial troubles, due to a general decline in university admissions and in part the negative news attention the university garnered over the last few years. As a result, many majors have been cut, and a 40% cut to faculty and staff has been implemented.
“My major is discontinued,” Mercado said. “The class right beneath me, they are the last people to graduate with a major in theater until the foreseeable future. All but two of our professors have been let go. We’re not fully gone just yet, but because of the board’s decisions, it has directly impacted the quality of my education, the access I have to other professors, and
some of the knowledge and resources that I would otherwise be able to get if we still had half the professors here.”
As SPU tries to rebuild its image as a leading Christian university, Queer students are left to figure out on their own where they fit into the story. For many students, being Queer and Christian is not a contradiction, despite the decisions of the board of trustees.
“This was one of the first times I really experienced having friends who are also openly Queer alongside me and also openly Christian too. We learned together,” Mercado said. “My theology has gone from one of self-hatred to self-love, and I think that’s really beautiful and I hope that that continues to be a theology that’s taught at SPU.” Despite setbacks, students, staff and faculty have been working hard to make the environment one where Queer students feel accepted.
“Kerri Cline was an outstanding [alumna] who spoke at our Lavender Celebration two years ago, and she said something that I will never forget,” Huff said. “Having graduated in 2008, she never imagined that something like Lavender Celebration would be possible, as she was in the closet as a student when she was at SPU. During her remarks, she offered this simple praise and gratitude to them: ‘You are my dream come true.’”
Currently, Seattle Pacific University v. Robert Ferguson is still being contested in court, but the university shows no signs of changing its policies anytime soon.
“I hope that SPU continues to be a place where Queer people are accepted,” Mercado said. “I hope that SPU can learn from its mistakes and change for the better, but I don’t think I’ll see it in my time here, and I don’t think I’ll see it for quite some time.” Seattle Pacific University declined to comment.
2022 PROTESTS AT SPU
PHOTOS BY AUDREY OSCARSON
New city budget proposal will cut funds for arts, culture, and low-income aid
BY LINDSEY ANDERSON SGN STAFF WRITER
On Tuesday, September 24, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced his proposed 2025–26 city budget’s plans to decrease Seattle’s $250 million deficit. The $8.3 billion proposal prioritizes keeping city services and workers employed but sacrifices social assistance, Green New Deal programs, and educational public broadcasting.
“My guiding principle as mayor is that my obligation to you, the people of Seattle, is to do our best to spend every dollar we have toward the needs of the city and its people in a responsible and efficient and effective way,” Harrell said.
“We don’t have the luxury of pie-in-thesky reimagining of our budget based on the hope that our state’s regressive tax system will magically change,” Harrell added.
The mayor’s proposal avoids cuts to city staffing by reallocating funds from the JumpStart payroll expense tax away from low-income communities. The tax, which was passed by the Seattle City Council in 2020, affects employers who have more than $8,511,281 in annual payroll
Obituary:
expenses and at least one employee with a yearly compensation of $182,385 or more. The tax does not apply to grocery businesses.
The JumpStart tax was initially proposed during the pandemic, when the largest corporations in Seattle profited while low-income and marginalized communities suffered the most. Most of the tax (62%) goes toward building affordable rental housing, housing and services for community-focused acquisition development, and program support funds to address discriminatory housing policies and practices. The rest goes toward immigrant and refugee services, expanding grocery vouchers, and assistance to small businesses and childcare centers. In previous years, the tax has been so successful, it often outperforms its projected revenue. The excess is frequently used to balance the budget.
Instead of the funds generated by this tax helping Seattle’s most vulnerable, a significant portion will pay for govern-
Trudy A.
James, AIDS and death with dignity pioneer
Trudy A. James, 86, MRE, interfaith hospital chaplain, AIDS worker, end-of-life advocate, and much more, died Sunday, October 20, at her home in Seattle, surrounded by her family.
Trudy was born in a small town in the middle of Kansas on August 6, 1938, the first child of Adolf Gier and Gertrude (Witte) Gier. She surprised everyone by receiving a prestigious scholarship to the University of Kansas, which led to a BA with honors in English. She had two adventurous summers working in San Francisco, before attending Union Theological Seminary in the middle of New York City, where she received a master’s in religious education. She moved to Edinboro, PA, in the 1960s, where she had four children with former husband (now deceased) Arthur Rathbun, and where she was very involved with the civil rights movement and working with high-need urban youth.
After moving back to Kansas with her family in 1974, she raised her children on small farms, sold real estate, did church youth work, and more, before getting divorced. She then made the bold move to take a pastoral care internship at the University of Arkansas Medical Center in Little Rock in 1989. As a newly trained chaplain from Kansas, she knew nothing about AIDS, a fearful, stigmatized disease, but learned fast from the eight AIDS patients she served that year. At the end of her internship, she applied for a new halftime position in Arkansas as director of the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN), a four-state experiment funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and designed to see if people in churches could become part of the solution to AIDS hysteria in the South, via the creation of CareTeams helping people with AIDS.
She continued with this important work from 1989 to 1997, growing RAIN Arkansas until it covered the whole state, serving over 500 male and female CarePartners with AIDS, who, with the love and support from their CareTeams, talked openly about their own deaths, lived longer, and died more peacefully. She also traveled to ten other states to begin and support the CareTeam model, and was honored by President Clinton at the White House for her work with AIDS patients in 1993.
ment employees and programs, but it still isn’t enough to close the deficit. According to the proposed budget, 159 full-time city positions will be eliminated, most of which are in HR and IT. Although the City Council has approved the transfer of excess funds in the past, this proposed transfer is expected to be much higher than previous ones, requiring legislation that modifies the original JumpStart rules.
Service providers, labor leaders, and advocates are unhappy with the new proposal and have issued a joint statement urging the mayor to pass new progressive tax legislation instead of redirecting JumpStart funds. “This structural shortfall requires a structural solution, not stopgap measures that will simply kick the problem another year down the road,” they said.
Cuts and increases
When money is tight, arts and culture are usually the first programs to go. To balance the budget, Harrell also proposed eliminating $1.6 million for the Seattle Channel. This will cut several beloved public programs, including Book Lust with Nancy Pearl, Art Zone with Nancy Guppy, and City Inside/Out with Brian Callanan. With an emphasis on local arts, culture, and entertainment, the Seattle Channel is one of the country’s highest-quality public television stations; however, with a major cut in funding, many viewers worry the channel’s quality will drastically tank. “This will reduce programming down to basic City Council and Executive coverage,” Harrell said in the proposal.
Former city councilmembers Nick Licata and Tom Rasmussen fear this cut to the Seattle Channel will limit the flow of information and the reach of independent local news. “We urge the Council not to cut Seattle Channel services but rather to initiate an open discussion between the public and the city on how to sustain a vibrant Seattle Channel,” they said in a joint letter to the council. “This will give all stakeholders a voice and ensure a thoughtful approach to budgeting the channel in the future.”
Despite cuts to arts, culture, low-income assistance, and Green New Deal programs, Harrell’s budget proposes a $400 million increase over last year’s. If approved, it will provide $392 million for administration costs, and a $121 million increase for public safety.
The public safety budget includes a $60 million increase to the Seattle Police Department, including $10 million specifically allocated toward increasing the number of officers located downtown. Harrell has also proposed $2.3 million to expand the operations of the Unified Care Team, the program that addresses and removes homeless encampments.
The City Council has two months to review and amend the budget for the next fiscal year. “It’s crucial that we center both fiscal responsibility and prioritize the investments the people of our city depend on: improving public safety, creating affordable housing, and addressing homelessness,” Council Budget Chair Dan Strauss said. “We can and we must do both.”
Trudy moved to Seattle in 1997 to be closer to her first grandchild, Kaiser. There she continued her work with the AIDS CareTeam program as part of the Seattle Multifaith AIDS Agency. She trained 70 such teams in the Puget Sound area, in addition working as a chaplain at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. She also began having her renowned fundraising events, which were a lovely combination of learning, celebrating, eating, and drinking.
When she “retired,” she used what she learned from her work to see if others could become comfortable talking openly about death and planning for a good ending, and started an organization called Heartwork, initiating a program of four-session, community-based, end-of-life planning workshops called “A Gift for Yourself and Your Loved Ones.” She went on to convene Grief and Loss groups in senior housing, facilitated three-day Aging Wisely Together retreats for women at Whidbey Institute, and spent years pioneering end-of-life work, along with training other facilitators to lead related workshops.
Trudy spent two years producing the film Speaking of Dying, which grew out of her experiences with more than 60 endof-life groups (over 600 participants) and her desire to ensure that everyone knows a peaceful ending is possible. She screened the film throughout the Puget Sound area, and in Palm Springs, northwest Arkansas, Minneapolis, and other locations, and continued offering one-on-one support for individuals, couples, and family members dealing with illness, grief, loss, and the end of life up until days before her own death. She was on the advisory board for End of Life Washington; gathered signatures for Washington’s Death with Dignity law, passed in 2008; and received the 2020 Janet G. Newell Award for Community Service in 2020, presented by Companis, and the 2020 Inspire Positive Aging Award for her advocacy and activism, as well as other such honors.
But she received her greatest reward in helping others, in her work with AIDS and end-of-life issues , and in working closely with friends and colleagues.
Throughout her life, Trudy loved to travel, visiting the United Kingdom multiple times (with family, and also to talk
about the AIDS CareTeam model), taking an inspirational trip to Thailand and Bali, and crisscrossing the US to talk about AIDS and end-of-life planning. She had a special connection to Italy, being deeply inspired by and feeling a spiritual kinship with St. Francis, and visited Assisi and other parts of the country numerous times.
One of Trudy’s greatest joys in life was spending time with her grandchildren Kaiser and Coen, playing games, putting on holiday plays, cooking for them, and having long conversations with them. She also enjoyed doing art projects, baking, and watching movies with her “selfappointed” grandchild Tara Kankesh. She adored a good Aperol Spritz and a wellmade tiramisu, and always kept her commitment to mind, body, heart, and spirit wholeness.
Trudy is preceded in death by her parents, brother Richard, and infant daughter Juliann. She is survived by daughters
Holly DeMaranville (and
Nancy Gier and her children, and many wonderful friends.
A celebration of Trudy’s life will be held in the spring.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in Trudy’s name may be can be made to End of Life Washington by visiting her page at https://support.endoflifewa.org/a/trudyjames or by mail at 1600-B SW Dash Point Road #1272, Federal Way, WA 98023, or to Bailey-Boushay House by visiting its website http://www.baileyboushay.org and clicking “Donate,” by phone at (877) 277-1025, or by mail to the Virginia Mason Franciscan Health Foundation at P.O. Box 1930, MS: D1-MF, Seattle, WA 98111.
grandsons Kaiser and Coen DeMaranville) and Jill Rathbun (Jonathan Davis), son A.J. Rathbun (Natalie Fuller and granddog Ainsley), brother Henry Gier, sister-in-law Kathy Gier, their children and grandchildren, sister-in-law
The origins of Seattle’s LGBTQ community: The Mocambo (1951–1978)
BY NATHAN BENEDICT & STEVE NYMAN
The Mocambo, located at 203 Yesler Way, was the “go-to” bar for men from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. The 1976 Gay Community Center Guide described “the Mo” as having “roomy facilities yet an intimate atmosphere decorated with warm color schemes and accented with subdued lighting.”
Although it has been reported that the building survived the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, according to the Washington State Archives, it was built in 1895 (though some historical records indicate a slightly earlier date of 1891). In 1937, it had one story, five storefronts, and a basement cabaret. It housed Don’s Alaskan Log Cabin Tavern (“Dine, Dance, Music, Fun”) on the corner and Don’s Café and Oyster House (opened 1898) next door. The basement cabaret may have been a speakeasy during Prohibition.
Don’s Oyster House (209 1/2 Yesler Way, also known as Don’s Café, according to a notation in the Seattle Public Library’s Menu Collection) — named for Frank Ehle’s son — was one of Seattle’s earliest seafood restaurants in 1898 (possibly the first). The first mention of the restaurant in the Seattle Times was in 1911, when it was on the honor list for selling whole milk. (There was a milk scandal at the time in which restaurants were serving skim milk to their customers but not informing them of that fact.)
Located at the corner of Yesler and Second Avenue S., the building — which served an important role as a “safe gathering space and hosted the meetings of early LGBTQ social and business groups,” according to Richard Freitas) — no longer exists, replaced now by the Quintessa Apartments.
First LGBTQ liquor bar
The Mocambo is believed to be the first Gay-identified bar in Seattle to legally serve hard liquor. With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the the Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB) was established. It took over the liquor business; heavily regulated all aspects of the liquor, beer, and wine business; and did not allow liquor to be sold by the drink. The net result
was the conversion of many speakeasys to, and the opening of, new “bottle” and “private” clubs, where gambling and bottle service (with patron-supplied bottles) were allowed. The Casino (1930–64), which became known as Madame Peabody’s, probably started as an underground speakeasy but became one of the most famous LGBTQ-frequented spots on the West Coast.
In 1949, after many years in control, the WSLCB permitted liquor by the drink, and in 1951 started issuing licenses based on population (one per 1,500 people, so roughly 300 licenses in Seattle). The “Mo” got one of the few.
“In 1949, George Wagner, who was straight, bought the space, opened the west dining room, and birthed the new Mocambo tavern and restaurant. The restaurant catered to all stripes, and a private dining room played host to the founding of many of Seattle’s most influential Gay organizations, as discussed below.
“‘The Mo’ was considered elegant, but a few said it was the place for the ‘cufflink’ crowd and the ‘piss elegant queens,’” according to Don Paulson (SGN, 10/24/2008). But it also drew an “average Gay crowd: clerks, office workers, decorators, Boeing workers, and a healthy smattering of Seattle’s Gay elite…
Time of day partly determined the clientele at the Mo. As Bill Parkin, a dishwasher there, recounted in the SGN article, “The Mo was a mixed crowd until 1955, when it became mostly Gay — except for daytime, when office workers, courthouse workers, lawyers, and judges came in for lunch... The menu was sophisticated: Coquille St. Jacques… and roast loin of pork, stuffed with prunes, etc. for $1.30.”
Rules
The WSLCB had many rules that had to be followed. As remembered by Jimmy McLane (Paulson 2008), “One had to sit down to drink in those days, and it was strictly enforced. Suit and tie were required at the Marine Room, but the Mocambo was less strict, and you could camp a little, but they still had the red velvet rope at the
entrance. Sometimes you stood in line in the rain for an hour waiting for someone to leave before you could go in and be seated at a table.” But the rules also resulted in a distinctly different atmosphere compared to the many taverns. As told by Stan (Paulson 2008), “I loved the Mocambo; it was a relief from the sometimes-rowdy tavern crowd.”
Why did one have to wait? At that time, WSLCB rules said a patron could not carry a drink from the bar to a table; they could not stand up and drink; women could not be seated on bar stools, only at tables; no drinking of liquor could be visible from the street, but beer drinking had to be visible; and no restaurants or taverns could be open on Sunday, which forced them to close at midnight on Saturday night! (Many of these rules were in place until 1969.) With all its rules and regulations, the WSLCB had a major impact on Gay bar history in Seattle. (And on top of all that, the Mo was on the Armed Services’ blacklist for many years due to “homosexual patronage.”)
Armand Delmage, a bartender in many of the early bars, recalled in an interview conducted by Northwest Lesbian Gay History Project: “Back in those days all the Gay bars, except for two of them, were right very close together in Pioneer Square. You
could get out and walk to every bar that was in town.”
As summarized by Richard Freitas in his thesis on the Pioneer Square Queer landscape: “By the 1960s, the Mocambo was part of a social circuit as LGBTQ patrons navigated the neighborhood’s Queer landscape … Pioneer Square was a destination for queer socilaizing and provided a mix of places to gather … The owners of the Golden Horseshoe opened at 6 a.m. when The Casino closed, effectively extending the temporal and cultural overlay of Gay Pioneer Square” to 24 hours a day. (For other firsthand accounts of early LGBTQ life, see “Mosaic 1: Life Stories” by Ruth Pettis and transcripts of various oral histories at the Northwest Lesbian and Gay History Museum Project.)
A central role in shaping Seattle’s LGBTQ community
The Mocambo played a pivotal role in forming “the nucleus” of Seattle’s LGBTQ community that we enjoy today. It had a series of owners including George Wagner, Ivan Prather, and Robert (“Bob” or “BB”) Bedord, who owned it from roughly 1969 until its closing in 1978.
Bedord, the last owner, was instrumental in founding and forming Jamma Phi,
JIMMY PAUL DONAHUE HEIR TO THE WOOLWORTH FORTUNE HELD COURT AT THE MOCAMBO
PHOTO BY SLIM AARONS
Seattle’s first Gay social group, by customers of the Mocambo, in 1959. He served as its first president and organized its activities, including Seattle’s first Gay picnic in 1960, attended by two hundred people. Other Jamma Phi events attracted up to seven hundred participants from the Pacific Northwest and California.
Bedord was also instrumental in the forming of the Queen City Business Guild (which morphed into today’s GSBA) and served as its second president, as well as the Imperial Sovereign Court of Seattle (he organized and served on the board and was one of its first members). He also launched a campaign to prevent the city council from forbidding Gay men to dance together in public (women were always permitted to).
Bedord also provided free meeting space to the United Ebony Council, the Knights of Malta, the Imperial Sovereign Court, the Dorian Society (which later became the Dorian Group and a powerhouse for legal and social change; it also spurred formation of the Pride Foundation), and many other groups.
The First Empress (Olympia I “Scotty” 1971 aka John Scott), Second Empress (Olympia II Della 1973), and Fifth Empress (Olympia V “The Lady Graytop” 1976 aka Jim Torchia) all worked at the Mo: Scotty as cook, Della as bookkeeper, and Jim as long-term manager. (Jim’s 1985 murder is still unsolved.)
As reported by Bob Kus in the SGN (8/18/78), his “unselfish generosity resulted in hundreds of dollars in bad checks written to him and his businesses as well as thousands of dollars in defaulted loans... Having come from being a waiter to a successful businessperson by pulling himself up by his bootstraps, BB gives all of us something to think about and strive for.”
Kus also wrote that Bedord was a very dynamic person in the Gay community, who used “every talent [he possessed] to make Seattle a better place for all Gays to live,” “a very warm person who is a Horatio Alger figure in the community,” and “a well-known and deeply committed member of the Gay community for many years, confidant to many Gay couples, and a selfmade businessperson. He moved to Seattle from Montana and started as a waiter at the Mocambo. Bedord went on to own not only the Mocambo but the Golden Horseshoe, Seattle Uniform Company (SUC), and the Caper Club. Many of his accomplishments and his important role in creating and nurturing Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community have been ignored by more recent accounts.
The central position the Mocambo played in early Gay Seattle is exemplified by a story from 1959 as reported by Don Paulson in another article in the SGN (1/6/06). One of the world’s most out and wealthy Gay bachelors was James (“Jimmy”) Paul Donahue Jr., heir to the Woolworth fortune (who, according to Adorable Times #76, was joined in a notorious affair with Wallis Simpson, wife of Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor). In 1959 he visited Seattle and took a suite at the
Olympic Hotel, where he also rented all the surrounding rooms for privacy. He held court at the Mocambo, where the Gay crowd would bribe the maître d’ to be seated at his table. With a purported budget of roughly $5,000 a week (Editor’s note: Over $50,000 today), he dazzled Gay Seattle, according to Bill McClane (Paulson 2006), with a “non-stop week of alcoholic dinner parties and social engagements. He absolutely loved Madame Peabody’s and couldn’t believe its freedom.”
Seattle’s Stonewall: Dismantling the police payoff system
In 2024, most of the world has heard of the Stonewall Riots by New York City’s Queer community in 1969, but few know about the rebellion by Seattle’s Gay bar owners in 1966.
Seattle’s early LGBTQ community developed in the libertine atmosphere of Pioneer Square. Due to an embedded system of corruption in the police department and aided by other local and state bureaucracies, Queer nightlife was not only tolerated but encouraged by local law enforcement agents — but always for a hefty price tag. This resulted in nationally famous bars that allowed dancing and often raucous merriment and entertainment starting as early as 1930 at The Casino. Some of these locations, including the Double Header and the Golden Horseshoe, may have been some of the earliest “out” Gay gathering spots nationally. Unlike other cities, the police gladly looked the other way even when they were stationed at the doors — as long as the owners paid “the rent.”
As documented by various authors, the payoff system was active throughout Seattle and targeted all establishments, not just
Gay ones, as is sometimes reported. It also overlapped and interacted with other methods of controlling bar and tavern operations, which often involved payoffs.
The sums of money were substantial. One vice squad officer testified that his share was $1,800 a month (approximately $17,000 today). Police reportedly would “bid” for certain beats, with the amounts going as high as $100,000 for certain areas, usually with high densities of strip clubs and bars, such as the area behind the current-day Sheraton Hotel.
This system functioned smoothly as long as it was well lubricated by money from the many establishments that were targeted. It allowed Seattle’s early “alternative” cultures to develop not only for the LGBTQ community but for other minorities, as well as for straight locations offering gambling, strippers, risqué entertainment, and bawdy houses.
Everything was fine until “the rent” got too high and nonpayment started resulting in the potential loss of operators’ licenses. As “the rent” got increasingly expensive — and with constant threats of raids and other business interruptions — the Gay bar owners rebelled.
And as they did, the police and media suddenly reported that the “homosexual problem” in Seattle “was out of hand.”
As reported in the Seattle Times, Police Chief Frank Ramon stated that “the city was going to move against establishments catering to homosexuals. We’re not going to let this city get like San Francisco.” Assistant Police Chief M. E. Cook said the “word got out that Seattle is soft on homosexuals,” which resulted in “the number of ‘Gay bars’ doubling between 1958 and 1966 to 15 establishments.” The plan was to come down full force on them:
city licenses would be revoked, the police would work with the WSLCB to close the bars, and the military would place them on “off-limits” lists.
MacIver Wells, along with his life partner John Chadwick (owners of the Madison Tavern, 611, and 614), was the lead instigator of the rebellion against the police extortion scheme. The Mocambo’s Robert Bedord, along with other Gay bar owners, played a major role in the exposure and the eventual dismantling of the payoff system and in prosecuting the officers involved.
As a result of Bedord’s work with the FBI and his testimony in the early 1970s, a contract was put out on his life, as proven in court. Fearing for his life, he lied to federal agents when they asked his name. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to six months at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary. The conviction was appealed in San Francisco, where it was overturned.
Closure
The Mocambo closed unexpectedly and suddenly on June 25, 1978. Bedord had been in the hospital dealing with a possible cancer, which ultimately killed him years later. The business was plagued by mismanagement in his absence and forced to close by various taxing agencies. In his later years, Bedord felt that the community had abandoned him, so he moved to Everett, and worked for the state.
He died on April 13,1991, at the age of 52, from adenocarcinoma of the lung, which had metastasized to his brain. Even though his funeral was well attended by coworkers and friends in Everett, only three members of the LGBTQ community showed up: Steve Nyman, Nathan Benedict (both of whom owned Thumper’s and currently co-own Union), and Paul Slick (a longtime patron of the Mocambo and a friend of Bedord). He is buried in Missoula, Montana.
The “Mo” is still missed and fondly remembered by many of the elders in Seattle’s Queer community. If you are fortunate enough to know any, ask them about the “Mo” and the early Pioneer Square scene.
If you would like to share your memories and pictures of the Mocambo, visit https:// ComeOutSeattle.org or email at history@ comeoutseattle.org.
The authors are indebted to the excellent history reporting and recording done by Bob Kus, Don Paulson, Richard Freitas, Ruth Pettis, Lawrence Knopp, Michael Brown, all the other people who worked on the Northwest Lesbian & Gay History Museum Project, Gary Atkins, Judith Dern, all the LGBTQ elders who have taken the time to do oral histories, the reporters at the Seattle Times in the 1960s and 70s who held official feet to the fire, and of course George Bakan and the other SGN owners, editors, and writers, who have kept a priceless record of Seattle’s LGBTQ community over 50 years.
MOCAMBO ORIGINAL LOGO
SITE OF THE MOCAMBO
OP-ED
The urgency of gender liberation
BY MATTIE MOONEY
As we gather to honor the Trans Day of Remembrance (Nov. 20) and celebrate Trans Awareness Week (Nov. 13-Nov. 19), it’s crucial to reflect on the trajectory of our community’s discourse surrounding gender. While we have made strides in asserting our identities, we must confront a troubling trend: the increasing co-optation of oppressive gender frameworks that not only mirror those imposed by right-wing politicians and transphobes but also serve to reinforce white supremacy and marginalize our most vulnerable community members.
Gender essentialism posits that certain traits, behaviors, or roles are inherently tied to one’s biological sex, reinforcing binary notions of gender. In this framework, people may feel pressured to conform to traditional gender norms, which can restrict the rich tapestry of identities that exist outside the binary. Trans medicalism, on the other hand, emphasizes medical transition — often through surgical procedures — as the primary validation of one’s gender identity. These frameworks confine our understanding of gender to rigid binaries and fail to account for experiences that exist beyond them. Many in our community may embrace gender essentialism and trans medicalism as a means of protection against rising anti-Trans sentiment, as a way to create power and control to lord over others with less privilege in the same ways that have been traditionally used against our community, as well as creating community and shared ideology based on limiting the experience of transness to binary identities or something else entirely.
However, this reliance on colonial gender binaries is detrimental. It perpetuates the very systems that render all of us unsafe, particularly those with intersecting identities and experiences of marginalization.
When we cling to the idea that gender exists solely within a binary framework informed by white colonial ideologies, we overlook the complexities of gender as understood in various cultures, particularly among Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples. The historical richness of gender expansiveness in West African, American Indigenous, and Pasifika cultures, for instance, challenges the limited American perceptions of what it means to be Trans. This cultural context has been stripped from many in our community, commodified, and then sold back to us through oppressive narratives and policing behaviors.
As a Black Nonbinary person with roots in Liberia, it pains me to witness how the frameworks of whiteness have seeped into the understanding of Trans identity among Black, Indigenous, and non-Black people of color in the Trans community. It is disheartening to see the “Trans experience”
narrowly defined by surgical procedures, rendering those who don’t conform — especially Nonbinary people — as invalid. This reductionist view is not just a misunderstanding; it is a lateral harm that undermines the very essence of who we are and stifles the celebration of our authentic selves.
We must recognize that transness does not exist solely within the confines of a postcolonial narrative. It transcends these boundaries, encompassing a spectrum of identities that are fluid, expansive, and deeply rooted in our ancestral histories. Many cultures (including many European ones) have historically celebrated a rich tradition of gender diversity that defies the simplistic categorizations often imposed by colonial narratives. By studying and understanding them, we can reclaim a broader definition of transness that is inclusive of all identities and experiences.
The policing of gender expression in our community reflects a troubling internalization of white supremacy at its root. When we engage in this behavior — determining who is “really” Trans based on aesthetic choices or surgical status — we are reinforcing oppressive systems rather than dismantling them. This behavior not only harms those we target but also diminishes our collective power as a community. Our liberation cannot hinge on gatekeeping who is deemed valid based on arbitrary and often harmful standards.
Gender identity and expression are nuanced, and we must embrace this complexity. Just as RuPaul expresses his gender through makeup and dresses while identifying as a man, and Ellen DeGeneres embodies a masculine aesthetic yet identifies as a woman, we too must accept that gender expression can vary widely. Trans men can be femme; Trans women can embody butch aesthetics; cis women and trans women can and do have natural facial hair; Nonbinary people do not owe the world androgyny, and they are not required to be “binary gender lite,” with AFAB people needing to present masc or AMAB people needing to present femme. Our definitions of gender must allow for this fluidity, acknowledging that binaries, while present, are not rigid constructs enforced by nature or biology but are socially constructed. We are at a critical juncture. As we advocate for our rights, we must also challenge ourselves to reevaluate our own conditioning around gender and power. Those who possess privilege — whether through passing as cisgender, wealth, or social capital — must recognize their role in perpetuating harm when they support exclusionary narratives and how those narratives create danger for us all. People like Caitlyn Jenner and Blair White wield their influence to undermine those who do not fit neatly
within their limited understanding of gender, gender expression, and Trans identities, disproportionately impacting Trans people who are not white or who are disabled, poor, etc. And because we’re shamed into believing that passing is the true litmus test for our validity as Trans human beings or whether or not we deserve dignity and respect — even from each other — we end up carrying the same torch used by conservatives and transphobes to burn our own community to the ground.
In this moment of remembrance and reflection, let us recommit to a vision of gender liberation that is truly expansive. We must reject the frameworks that seek to divide us and embrace the beautiful diversity of our experiences; no one is trying to co-opt experiences by claiming a varied experience within a singular community.
By doing so, we honor those we have lost and pave the way for a future where all Trans and gender-diverse people can exist authentically and safely. Our liberation is intertwined, and we cannot afford to uphold systems that perpetuate harm within our community. Let us strive for a world where all expressions of gender are celebrated, where authenticity thrives, and where our shared humanity prevails over oppressive ideologies.
To read more about the history of expansive gender from around the world, visit PBS online to check out “A Map of GenderDiverse Cultures” at https://www.pbs.org/ independentlens/content/two-spirits_maphtml , created in partnership with a world gender expert of Indigiqueer Transfemme experience.
GENDER LIBERATION MARCH SEPT. 14, 2024
PHOTO BY COLE WITTER
“They threw my child against a tree, kicked them in the head, all while screaming ‘kill the tranny,’” said mother Alyssa Ruben in a video posted to TikTok. “They are still continuing to have severe concussion symptoms.”
The group of students that attacked Ruben attend Bellingham High School and Options High School. At this time, neither of the schools have made a comment about the attack, and Alyssa Ruben says that there has been no disciplinary action.
The Ruben family is currently working with a detective from the Bellingham Police Department, as well as a lawyer from the Rainbow Youth Project.
“I really want to bring attention to the fact that Transgender kids are not safe, at least in my town,” Alyssa Ruben said.
According to a survey taken in 2015, one in ten Transgender people have been physically attacked because they were Transgender. The Human Rights Campaign has reported that at least 27 people were killed because they were Transgender in 2024 alone.
ZEPHYR
CONTINUED FROM COVER
Those wounds, she felt, were coming so fast, she said. After testifying in front of the Montana House and Senate, Zephyr met with the governor’s office, where she encountered deaf ears regarding the harm certain legislation would cause Transgender people.
“I watched those bills go through and pass by one vote, and I said, ‘If we’re going to try to make progress, we need Trans people in the room,’” Zephyr said.
She met with former Sen. Bryce Bennett, the first openly Gay man to serve in the state legislature, and asked if it was the right space for her to advocate, given her skills. Zephyr said he agreed, and she kicked off her electoral campaign.
With the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and “the escalation of the violent rhetoric around LGBTQ people, but also more broadly,” Zephyr said, legislators must not
Man arrested for tying noose around Queer child’s neck
Joseph Sweeney, a 38-year-old Bremerton man, was arrested on Oct. 21 for allegedly tying a noose around the neck of a 14-year-old for saying he was Gay. Sweeney is charged with a hate crime and is facing two counts of assault in the second degree: for putting the noose around the child’s throat and for allegedly assaulting his own 13-year-old son during the crime.
Sweeney apparently overheard the two boys talking and approached them, asking if his son’s friend is Gay. When he responded yes, Sweeney wrapped a rope around his throat, but the teen managed to escape before Sweeney was able to carry out further action, according to FOX13. Sweeney also allegedly lassoed his son in the rope after, but his son also escaped.
After making it home safely, the 14-year-old boy told his mother, who reported the hate crime to the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office. Video footage obtained by FOX 13 following a residency search of Sweeney’s home showed the rope used during the attacks and a black and silver semiautomatic handgun with bullets. Sweeney is barred from possessing a firearm, due to a previous
back down from tackling the needs of the community.
Preparing for a new president
Zephyr said she is preparing for either a Trump or Kamala Harris presidency and the different realities she’ll have to face in the next legislative session depending on who wins the election.
“There’s been no shortage of horrifying remarks from the former president about his intent if he were to be reelected — a dictator on day one, I believe was one of his lines,” Zephyr said. “For me, when it comes to buffering against someone like the former president who has issued many of our laws — and I believe fallen short of the dignity of the office — my first real goals would be to try to make sure Montana’s judicial system is defended.”
More recently, Trump announced that, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had” and that the fascist “did some good things,” according to AP News.
During Trump’s presidency, he went after
domestic violence protection order that from 2023 in Kansas City, according to KIRO 7.
Charging documents received by KIRO 7 said that Sweeney allegedly used his cell phone to record the children while telling them to kiss each other as a humiliation tactic; Sweeney also cracked jokes about the Queer child being a princess.
Sweeney was arraigned on October 22
state and the federal judicial systems, and Zephyr said in 2023 that she saw many attempts to undermine the nonpartisan courts in Montana and turn them into partisan races, as well as to allow the governor to have more influence over state Supreme Court appointments.
“Those efforts were all defeated last session in Montana. If Trump were to win, I expect to see a redoubling of those efforts, and goal number one would be to ensure that our judiciary can survive another Trump term. That is, of course, in addition to … protecting the Queer community,” Zephyr said.
Legislation
Zephyr said she is also excited to push for tenants’ rights policies in Montana next year. She mentioned how state legislatures don’t pay very much, which attracts legislators who have passive incomes, like landlords.
“You often have people who are retired with decent salaries, or you also have land-
and his bail is set at $50,000. His court hearing is scheduled for November 13.
The SGN reached out to the Kitsap County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office numerous times to receive the case’s charging documents and a headshot of Sweeney but did not receive a response.
These are developing stories; for the latest details go to https://www.SGN.org
lords. I believe … half the legislature is landlords,” she said, noting how even in best efforts to craft policy legislators deem beneficial, it skews the balance of power.
In the previous legislative session, Zephyr introduced House Bill 552, which would have prohibited the panic defense in criminal proceedings, in which people charged with violent crimes use their victims’ sexual orientation or gender identity to strengthen their defense.
“When a defendant uses the LGBTQ+ ‘panic’ defense, they argue that their violent actions are both explained and excused by their victim’s real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity/ expression. The goal of this strategy is to employ homophobia and transphobia to persuade a jury into fully or partially acquitting the defendant,” the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association website states. “Whether or not this appeal to bigotry is successful in court, every time a defendant invokes the LGBTQ+ ‘panic’ defense, they reinforce the dangerous and discredited belief that LGBTQ+ lives are worth less than others.”
HB 552 did not pass, but Zephyr said she will make similar efforts in 2025.
When looking at anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in Washington, Zephyr said she wished legislators fought “tooth and nail” to ensure that Initiative 2081 didn’t pass. It allows parents and legal guardians to receive public school records, like vocation counseling and medical records, and would permit opting out of assignments, questionnaires, surveys, and other student engagement activities relating to a student’s sexual experiences and orientation. The citizens’ initiative went into effect earlier this June after being passed by the state legislature.
“If you’re in a blue state, fight like hell for the best policies you can get,” Zephyr said. “When you allow even the seeds of an anti-Queer policy to be planted in your state, maybe you can root it out, but it impacts … red states, where we have to fight with everything we have… Those decisions ripple into our states and cause so much harm.”
Zephyr encourages Seattle LGBTQ+ people to take care of each other, as she has seen what she describes as “cruel” policies come out of Seattle City Council, like antihomelessness policies that disproportionately impact Queer people. Zephyr said the way the unhoused community is treated in Seattle will not make it a safer place for people moving in from out of state. (In Miles City, Montana, Zephyr met a young Queer couple at a gas station who told her that they were saving every penny they had to move out of the state as renters.)
In the meantime, before the 2025 legislative session, Zephyr will marry her fiancée, Erin Reed.
THE NOOSE ALLEGEDLY TIED AROUND THE 14-YEAR OLD'S NECK
PHOTO BY KITSAP COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE
PHOTO BY NATE GOWDY
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Jacob Storms’s Tennessee Rising at Intiman November 8–10
BY MK SCOTT
New for the 2024-25 season, the Intiman will transform the Erickson Theater into a 21+, intimate cabaret venue with table and bar seating, cocktail lounge service, and the chance to enjoy a theatrical mix of oneperson plays, drag and performance art, musical acts, and more, from Seattle and beyond.
The Cabaret Series includes Hotel Gatsby, featuring the Beauty Bois (Oct. 31–Nov. 2) and Triple Fire Sign: Justin Huertas in Concert (Nov. 4–5), after which Portland-bred actor and writer Jacob Storms brings his solo show, Tennessee Rising: The Dawn of Tennessee Williams (Nov. 8–10) for the finale.
I had a chance to chat with Storms through email, excerpts of which follow.
On Tennessee Williams
I actually had no interest or knowledge of Tennessee Williams until a strange series of events took place back in 2012. After living in New York City for a couple years, I received an out-of-the-blue call from my high school, the Northwest Academy in Portland, Oregon, asking if they could fly me out to give a speech at their annual scholarship fundraiser.
I was more than happy to do so, and while I was back in Portland on this chance visit, my middle school called Da Vinci (a public arts magnet school where I really started to take acting seriously) was doing a fundraiser organized by Elizabeth Taylor’s granddaughter, Laela Wilding, who was a parent at Da Vinci at that time. It was a screening of Tennessee Williams film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, starring Taylor and Paul Newman. One of the founders of Da Vinci, Connie Cheifetz, heard I was in town, so they asked me to introduce the film screening and sing happy birthday to Elizabeth Taylor’s ghost, because it took place on what would have been [her] 80th birthday.
The whole experience was very surreal, and the next day I walked into Powell’s Bookstore with the intention of wanting to learn about the person who created the amazing work of art I saw the night before. As soon as I walked into Powell’s, Tennessee’s infamous memoir was on display, staring at me! What I did not realize until I saw the cover of the memoir was the shocking physical resemblance we shared!
I read the memoir over a couple days and really resonated with his love of humanity and feelings about society and culture, which were very close to my own feelings. It was at that moment I realized I needed to write a play about him in which I would play the part of Williams. As I learned more about him though, I realized there was this earlier period of his life that had never really been explored, which he glossed over in [his memoir]. Charles Busch, who I had become friends with in New York, really encouraged me to focus on that unknown period and gave me his copy of Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams by Lyle Leverich, which was the only authorized biography of Williams.
As I learned more about his younger years as an artist trying to make his way in the world as society was falling apart during World War II, I resonated with him his story even more, and my initial feeling of wanting to create a play about him was only reconfirmed.
On the hidden era
Learning about his struggles as a young artist made me appreciate his amazing success so much more. There are so many times he was promised great things that never came to pass in those early years I focus on (1939–45). Fortunately for him, and us, Williams was driven by a selfproclaimed “religion of endurance,” which kept him going through those lean years, during which he experienced so many false starts in his professional life and some major personal tragedies, which could have easily derailed his trajectory. His friends at that time nicknamed him “Tenacity Williams,” which sums him up perfectly.
On his inspirations
His relationship with his sister Rose is one of the main through lines throughout Tennessee Rising. It is also during the sixyear period I cover that he meets many of the real-life figures who would go on to inspire some of his major characters, like Big Daddy, Maggie the Cat, Stanley Kowalski, etc.
His relationship with his grandparents is also something I was very excited to share with audiences, as it is often overlooked. He used to say his grandmother was the closest thing he had to God in his life. She got him
out of many tough binds during the period of Tennessee Rising, when he was mostly broke and barely getting by. I have always been very close to my grandmother, so that was yet another parallel we shared. When Williams was growing up, his grandmother always used to tell him he was “born old” because of his old soul, and my grandmother’s nickname for me was “Old Man,” so you can start to understand why I wrote Tennessee Rising
On working with director Alan Cumming
It was a dream come true working with Alan, who is someone I have admired for as long as I can remember. Alan is another fan of Tennessee Williams, so getting to work so closely with him to revamp the play — which I had already been performing for a year before he came on board — was more than I could have ever asked for.
Alan and I worked on the play over a sixmonth period in which we went through the script line by line and rearranged scenes [and] made cuts, and he had me expand certain scenes and add some new ones. When we got the revamped script on its feet, Alan had me put even more of myself into my portrayal, which was exactly why I wanted to do the play originally, because it was such a personal story for me.
Alan’s direction gave me permission to take even bigger chances and hone the play to the point that I could do it basically anywhere with very little needed to make it effective and enthralling for audiences. I have done the play for audiences as small as 30 people (Club Cumming in New York City) to as large as 700 people (The Theater at Innovation Square, a performing arts center in Rochester, New York) and all sizes in between over the years — and the play works, no matter the size of the venue.
On Tennessee’s importance today Williams’s tenacity, refusal to conform, and endurance … in the face of personal and professional rejection, in addition to the societal chaos surrounding him, is something I think we can all be inspired by and find comfort in. The parallels between what was happening during the period of Tennessee Rising and what we
are living through today is shocking and will hopefully inspire other young people who are struggling to see that surrendering is not an option and that we still can and must find ways to be creative and express ourselves, even when all hope seems lost.
On Storms’s origins
I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon! I actually started as a visual artist … and always imagined I would pursue a career in illustration, until I got bitten by the acting bug in middle school. I always loved creative writing in middle and high school, and I even wrote a play in fifth grade for an end-of-year performance, much to the shock of my teachers. I wrote a role for myself in that play, so I realized when I set out to create Tennessee Rising that it wasn’t my first time at the rodeo! When I was 16, I was asked by a director at my high school, named David Wagstaff, if I would consider taking on the titanic solo play I Am My Own Wife, in which I would portray 35 characters. I took the leap and agreed to this crazy idea, and the experience of doing that play changed my life and helped me realize that a career in the performing arts was what I wanted to do with my life. Had I not had the amazing privilege of performing I Am My Own Wife when I was [that age], I don’t think I would have written Tennessee Rising a few years later!
On the future
My performances with Intiman are part of a fall tour I have been on, which started a few months ago in Indianapolis, Little Rock, and Provincetown. After Seattle, I will be at the Forbes Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia on November 21 and will be announcing more performances next year.
I have also adapted Tennessee Rising as a limited series for television, so one day soon we will get to see even more of this period of Tennessee’s early life and the years beyond the period I cover in the stage version Stay tuned!
See Tennessee Rising as part of the Intiman Cabaret at the Erickson Theater Nov. 8-10. Tickets are at https://www.intiman. org/cabaret
JACOB STORM
PHOTO BY ELLEN MCDERMOTT
Stephen Brower tours Palatable Gay Robot across US and Canada
BY LINDSEY ANDERSON SGN STAFF WRITER
On September 25, audiences poured into The Here-After to witness Stephen Brower in his one-man show, Palatable Gay Robot, in which he stars as Billie, a robot programmed by a futuristic tech company to be the ultimate performer — Gay but not too Queer for straight audiences. Full of nuance, humor, and insight into how LGBTQ+ performers are treated in the entertainment industry, the production was a smash hit with local audiences.
Brower, a comedian from New York, specifically chose Seattle as a stop on his tour due to the city’s thriving LGBTQ+ entertainment scene, having debuted Palatable Gay Robot at the Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Festival in 2023. The attendees there loved it, though Brower credited that to the fact that the festival “is a particular and forgiving audience that’s understanding of these weird, quirky, nuanced solo shows.”
Back in the States, he took it on a run in New York, which had some stronger standards for theater. “New York is a very discerning crowd,” Brower said. “There’s so much theater here, and we wanted to explore what different audiences in different parts of the country would get from the show. It’s been such a surprise to us — a nice surprise to us — to see the different subcultures of people who cling to the show, and we’re excited to see what Seattle can add to that, because I love Seattle.”
Timely topic
Brower started writing Palatable Gay Robot after he lost his job during the pandemic. “It made me feel like I needed to take control over something artistically in my life,” he said. “As a Queer performer, I think all performers feel used to an extent by the business, and [try] to pigeonhole themselves into something that will make themselves more marketable. I wanted to explore that through a lens that felt fun, welcoming, funny, and lighthearted, sort of working through what I was dealing with and being able to do what I love to do most, which is perform.”
The show explores the struggles of Queer performers set against the backdrop of a dystopian, robot-filled future. It feels especially timely as writers and actors continue
to express concerns over competition with AI.
Given all this rumination, a lesser writer may struggle to find the balance between contemplation and humor, but Brower blends both by emphasizing the innocence of the play’s only physical character.
“We’ve structured it so that this robot has a blind innocence to the world,” Brower said. “He starts from a place of not having any emotional attachment to current societal issues. I can honestly get away with saying some pretty crazy things, because you can laugh at it. After all, it’s a robot. We all have that blissful ignorance in us somewhere, and it’s fun and childish to play with on stage.”
Hopeful and contemplative
Brower, much like the production, is focused on the future. Though Palatable Gay Robot does, at times, depict a dark eventuality for the Queer entertainment industry, Brower is hopeful it is not an accurate depiction of where it’s is going. “I think it’s changing, and I think it’s changing quickly,” he said. “Each generation has their relationship to sexuality and the taboos around it. I remember when I came out of the closet, it was during a time in a part of the country where it wasn’t necessarily disgusting or perverted to be Gay, but it also wasn’t something that people talked about. There was still a layer of shame around it.”
While he is hopeful about the future, Brower admits, it’s going to take more than humor to set a course toward free expression and nuance for LGBTQ+ people in the entertainment industry. “The realist in me knows that as important as [humor] is to me and as much as I enjoy it and enjoy creating it, we also live in a world that is moving so quickly,” he said. “What might be popular and funny and meaningful a week ago could be totally forgotten today. Humor moves us in a direction to get in touch with our humanity, and that’s kind of how we can change the world with it. I don’t think one single comedy show is going to change any person’s politics.”
Palatable Gay Robot is fun, funny, and contemplative, though the audience it
reaches tends to already exist in an echo chamber. Fans won’t be switching political parties or reading Judith Butler for the first time, but they may leave reflecting on how they consume Queer media and reconsider some of the biases they’ve unknowingly contributed to the zeitgeist.
“Something I hope people take away from the show is just looking at stereotypes differently,” Brower said. “There are so many more stereotypes for specifically Gay men in show business than I think people even realize if you don’t live in that world. I feel like I’m surrounded by it all the time. My
friends and I understand it, and we have a shorthand for talking about it. To be able to take 75 minutes to watch something that is entertaining and can hold your hand through what that experience is like, I hope people walk away more joyful and open-minded.”
Palatable Gay Robot wraps up its tour in Toronto, but fans can keep up with Brower wherever he goes by following his Instagram and TikTok, @stephernbrower. “I’m always writing, and I’m always online,” he said.
Brower is now working on his next show, which should be out in December.
PHOTOS COURTESY STEPHEN BROWER
Queer district of Seattle and all of my LGBTQ+ community,” she told me, her eyes gleaming with pride.
For her, Capitol Hill isn’t just a neighborhood — it’s the heartbeat of Seattle’s nightlife and a platform that has shaped her career. “Highlighting Seattle nightlife and Queer life makes everything I do worthwhile,” she added. “I wanted to put my community at the forefront.”
Balancing the spotlight with self-care
Preparing for a national pageant while maintaining a bustling nightlife career is no small feat, but Midori makes it look effortless. “I’ve developed a system to destress,” she explained. “I’m focusing on my diet, skincare, getting good sleep, and staying creatively stimulated.”
“Keeping my stress to a minimum and enjoying each day is key,” she emphasized, embodying a self-care ethos many of us aspire to.
And get this: she’s designing her own evening gown and part of her national costume!
The upcoming pageant isn’t just about competing; it’s also a family reunion. “My parents live out in Las Vegas,” she mentioned with excitement. “Every time I visit, my skin just clears up — it’s like magic!”
For Midori, Vegas is more than the glitz and glamour; it’s a place to relax and
recharge. “It’s time for me to get myself ready, unwind, and do what I do best,” she said with a wink.
Inspired by trailblazers
Midori draws inspiration from Trans women who’ve paved the way, like Jazell Barbie Royale and Kataluna Enriquez. Their achievements ignited her passion for pageantry. “After watching Kataluna win Miss Silver State and Miss Nevada, I just knew I had to apply,” she recalled.
Her historic accomplishment as the first Trans woman to place in the top six at Miss Washington USA speaks volumes about her talent and determination.
Recently, Midori embraced a new chapter by adopting the name Midori Monét — one rich in personal significance.
“All the girls in my family have Japanese names given by my grandmother,” she explained. When she asked her grandmother what her name would be, she was told “Midori,” meaning green. “She said when she sees me, she sees peace, joy, tranquility, and lots of money,” Midori said with a laugh. The name beautifully intertwines her heritage with her identity as a performer.
The multitalented performer
If you’ve caught one of Midori’s shows, you know she’s a powerhouse. As a designer, model, and entertainer, she brings a unique flair to every performance.
“All the facets that make me me as an entertainer go hand in hand,” she said.
“Designing and creating my own costumes adds to the whole package that is the Midori Monét experience.”
Midori is quick to acknowledge the incredible support she’s received along the way. “I have to thank everyone in Seattle, my network, the SeaTac ballroom community, and the Pacific Northwest ballroom community,” she said gratefully.
She also gave a heartfelt shoutout to her fiancé, Mufasa. “They continuously uplift me, push me, and challenge me to be the best I can be,” she added warmly.
Using her platform for advocacy Living authentically is at the core of Midori’s mission. “Living my life in my authentic truth every day is an act of rebellion against society,” she stated passionately. She hopes her visibility will challenge misconceptions and advocate for Transgender rights.
“We all deserve to be seen in the height of our glory,” she declared.
While Midori shines under the club lights, she also values connecting with people offstage. “I’ve had folks come up to me and say, ‘Aren’t you Midori Monét? You competed in Miss USA,’” she said. “It’s amazing to see how it inspires, especially younger Trans women.”
For those in the Transgender community looking to pursue their passions, Midori has straightforward advice: “Like Nike says, just do it!” she said encouragingly. “Put yourself out there and hit the ground running. You’re ready exactly where you are.”
Changing perceptions one performance at a time
Midori believes that events like Miss International Queen USA are vital for fostering acceptance and changing perceptions.
“We get to live our truth in all of our regalia,” she said. “It truly shifts how people see us — visible and proud in our identities.”
As the pageant approaches, Midori feels the love from the community. “It truly takes a village,” she acknowledged. “I want to give that love back and say thank you.” Her recent announcement on Instagram was met with overwhelming support. “The responses have been so lovely,” she said, her gratitude shining through.
So, Seattle, let’s rally behind Midori as she represents us on the national stage! Follow her on Instagram @midorimonet to keep up with her journey. Whether she’s lighting up the clubs on Capitol Hill or dazzling audiences in Vegas, Midori embodies the spirit and resilience of our city’s nightlife.
“Stay tuned, baby,” Midori said with a confident smile. And you bet we will — eagerly watching her next move and rooting for her every step of the way.
Alan Motley is a nightlife columnist for the SGN, covering the vibrant LGBTQ+ scenes and stories that make our city shine after dark.
Cinema is a comfy loveseat and then you move: Grand Illusion
Executive Director Brian Alter
on the U District theater’s rich cultural history and impending relocation
BY SARA MICHELLE FETTERS SGN STAFF WRITER
I don’t remember the first film I saw at The Grand Illusion when I came to study at the University of Washington in the early 1990s, but I do remember my reaction. It was great: The kitschy atmosphere. The red curtains. The tiny auditorium. The lobby area that looked like something between a curio shop and coffeehouse. The amazing loveseat one could disappear in while watching a movie.
Over the next three decades, I’ve been to The Grand Illusion more times than I can count. I’ve watched VHS rarities from the depths of Scarecrow Video’s massive library. I’ve gone to archival presentations of everything from The Curse of Frankenstein to La Cage aux Folles to Bringing Up Baby to The Beyond to Do the Right Thing It was where I first watched Glen or Glenda and Boys Don’t Cry. And, like so many others, it’s where I’ve gone almost every December to watch It’s a Wonderful Life on 35mm for its annual exhibition.
Make no mistake, The Grand Illusion is a Seattle landmark, a one-of-a-kind theater that’s entirely volunteer run (from programming to the concession counter to the projection booth) and celebrates cinema of all types and persuasions from around the globe. There’s no other venue quite like it anywhere.
All of which makes the recent announcement that its longtime home had been sold and that it needed to move somewhat heartbreaking. Could this essential cultural Seattle destination disappear? Is it destined to be another cinema to vanish into the void of history?
Thankfully, the answer to those questions and so many others is an emphatic “no!” shouted to the entire Pacific Northwest in THX surround sound. The volunteer forces who make up The Grand Illusion’s board of directors and staff are going to move it, and while a new space as of yet still has not been found, with aid from the U District Partnership, prospects are good that one will soon be secured.
I sat down with Grand Illusion Executive Director Brain Alter to discuss the theater’s rich history, the upcoming move, and what’s planned between the time of the
venue’s closure and its reopening in a new location. The following are the edited transcripts from our conversation:
Sara Michelle Fetters: Thank you for sitting down with me. I’m guessing you’re crazy-busy at the moment, and not just with doing all the prep work for The Grand Illusion’s impending closure in its current University District location and relocation in 2025.
Brian Alter: Yes, definitely. We’re all volunteers at The Grand Illusion, as you know, so I do have a day job and other stuff going on, And then there’s the planning for [the move]. It was a bunch of work just to get it to this point, and now, we’re getting so near to the end of this journey and the start of a new one. It’s a lot of work, yes, but we’re all hanging in there. We’re happy to be doing it.
SMF: Doesn’t it speak to just the beauty of The Grand Illusion, though, that there are people like yourself and the other generous volunteers that put on the programming and run the theater, that you are all willing to balance your day-to-day lives and still put forth this effort to make sure this vital Seattle institution doesn’t disappear?
BA: Maybe we’re all a little crazy but, yeah, I’m always shocked that so many of us are still doing this. That we’re making sure the theater survives. When the people who took over The Grand Illusion in 2004 and made it its own nonprofit started, and they made it all-volunteer, who knew that would work? Yet here we still are. It’s incredible.
People want to come and help out. I’ve been here for 20 years, but there’ve been so many other people over the years that helped, and there’s like thirty-some people right now going in every week to open the theater up, sell the tickets, and run the projectors. Then there’s the programmers and the extra behind-the-scenes stuff, like the venue’s maintenance. It’s cool that people love the theater, and that they love it so
much to get involved and keep it going.
SMF: I think everybody that I know who considers themselves a “true Seattleite” — whatever that means —has their own Grand Illusion story, one they feel is uniquely their own. I know I have mine. What is your Grand Illusion story? What is it that first brought you to the theater and then got you to the point where you were like, “I need to be involved. I need to help this theater. I need to be a part of this incredible history”?
BA: I moved to Seattle in 2002. I think it was a year before I found the theater … to see the film Badlands. I had worked at film festivals. I loved movies and loved seeing art house stuff, not just the big-budget titles. I think at some point [during] the transaction or buying a ticket I realized, “Oh! Everyone is a volunteer!”
Just being in the auditorium — it’s such a small, little place with its own wonderful ambiance. Back then, everything was a 35-millimeter print. I couldn’t believe a venue like this existed. And, of course, the signature loveseat was there. I probably sat there just because it was such a weird, cool thing. Why wouldn’t you sit there the first time you come to visit?
Within a few months, I think I had emailed the group running the theater — it was Wiggly World back then, but now it’s the Film Forum — and I was like, “How can I volunteer?” Eventually I got in on a Saturday afternoon concession shift, and then in a couple of years, I took over and became the projectionist. Those were wonderful days.
I think it was probably later in the 2000s, before 2010, maybe 2011, when the folks who had started the nonprofit were kind of starting to back off. It was time for somebody else to take over. I was willing to help out and do more, so that’s when I became the general manager.
From there, I just started doing more and more things. I was the film programmer for a few years in the early 2010s. Eventually I kind of started feeling like it was time to
back away a little bit. I’d been volunteering every weekend for like 15 years at that point, so I was starting to get a little burnt out. And then the pandemic hit. I couldn’t step away. I had the help shepherd the theater through that. But I did try to retire again in 2023, but that’s when we news broke that the building was going to be sold. So I’m still here as the executive director. [laughs] I guess that’s the whole story. I loved the place when I first visited and now here I still am. I became an unintentional lifer. The Grand Illusion got its claws into me, and now here we are.
SMF: I think something similar happens to almost us all of us who visit The Grand Illusion. I remember that The Grand Illusion was one of the greatest little discoveries I made during my time as a student at the University of Washington. It’s just this little gem of a place tucked away in a corner that looks like it should be a coffeehouse instead of a movie theater.
BA: It’s definitely kind of like you walk into another little weird world or something. The Grand Illusion is such a weird little unique place.
SMF: Being an “unintentional lifer,” as you say, do you see it as part of your legacy volunteering at the theater to help shepherd it to what will hopefully be its permanent home?
BA: I’ve never moved a theater or made a new place for one. I just work a day job that has nothing to do with working at a movie house or running a business. But while I’ve done a lot for the place, I guess I never really thought it would be a legacy-type thing. I tend to be fairly anonymous, and that’s by choice. But now I have to do these interviews and talk to people, which is fine. And I’m happy to do it, but I’ve kind of always preferred to be in the background. The Grand Illusion exists because of what it is and the people who make up the audience. It’s not about me being there. When
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE GRAND ILLUSION
we move this place and find its new home, my hope is that I can then hand the theater off to the next generation. That’s what I want my legacy to be.
SMF: A crazy thing that I don’t think a lot of people know: it’s not like The Grand Illusion struggles to survive each month. It’s a successful movie theater, which is no small thing nowadays. It’s a popular theater. Screenings tend to be full.
BA: That’s right. I think is probably important to note that the whole thing of us having to move [is] not because of the financials or anything. We may be a nonprofit, but as a business, we’re successful, in large part thanks to those thirty-some people who show up and run the place every week. We’re profitable. We’re a successful place.
I mean, part of that is thanks to the programming. Trevor Brandt, the programmer, [has] tapped into a bunch of stuff. There’s a good kind of cadence to it all and how the calendar works. That’s a big part of it, too, just having good movies to show. So, kudos to them, the entire programming team.
Part of the reason of just going for it and announcing that we have to move is like, yes, we can continue to make money and take in donations. We’re going to keep programming and showing a great variety of films all the way up to our last day in this space, January 30 of next year. This will help us when we do have to build a new auditorium.
SMF: And that brings us to another misconception, that theater is going to be 100% closed until it reopens in a new space. That’s not exactly true, is it?
BA: No. It is not. It was never that we were ever going to close and cease to be an organization showing movies and that kind of stuff. We figured, if we’re going to have to close, we can at least do pop-ups around town while we get the new space ready. We’re still working out those details, but Northwest Film Forum — and, let’s be clear, without them, there wouldn’t be a Grand Illusion, because they took it over in the ’90s, fixed it up, and made a good deal to sell the infrastructure to the nonprofit that runs it now — they’ve been really great about wanting to help out however they can. It’s in the works to kind of use them as
sort of a pop-up home base. That’s exciting. I don’t know what the frequency of these shows would be, but we plan on taking over one of their cinemas and show whatever movies would have been on our calendar. I don’t know if it’ll be a money-making type of thing, because we’d still pay rental fees … in any venue we do this at. But we want to stay on the minds of our supporters while also giving something back to the community.
The planning for all of this is still taking shape. That plan will be announced later, probably in December or January of next year. But the plan is not to close. The plan is to stay active by doing these things until we find this new place, build it, and open it up.
SMF: How important is it to maintain the ambiance and the history of the current Grand Illusion when you do move into that new space?
BA: I think it’s a huge part of it. Everybody who volunteers there probably agrees that we don’t want to create some swanky new space or something. We want to be able to kind of funkify it up a little bit. We’re still going to have the red curtains all over the walls and the tin ceiling. But the seats that we have now? They’re so old, so I think we would get new ones, but we would want to make sure that they are still decorative in the same way as they are now. Just modern and probably way more comfortable. [laughs]
But, yes, definitely we want to keep that ambiance [and] the whole vibe of the current auditorium. I think as long as we don’t push to grow too much bigger, we will be able to maintain that kind of feel.
SMF: Does that mean the loveseat makes the move?
BA: I don’t know if the loveseat would make the move, but I would like to see the new space have a love seat. Just probably a new one. We’ll see. It hasn’t really come up yet, but do I feel like that’s part of the charm of The Grand Illusion is that there’s a loveseat in there. So, I’ll try. I’ll definitely make my case for it, and we’ll see if everybody agrees. I mean, it’s just two seats. It’s not like we’re putting in a row of love seats. [laughs]
SMF: At the very least, shouldn’t the original loveseat be donated to one our local museums?
BA: I think so. We’ll have to see. Maybe we could get it in MOHAI or something.
SMF: I think another vital part of The Grand Illusion and its history is that it has served all of Seattle’s rich cultural makeup and diversity. You show everything from archival works to new releases, to the latest LGBTQ films to Grindhouse Cinema. You have the Erotic Film Festival. How vital is it to maintain those relationships with the cultural aspect of Seattle’s rich cinema history when you move?
BA: We’ve always tried to show as wide an array of movies as possible. It seems like Seattle [has] shown up for all of the stuff we program. I feel like people appreciate that we’re showing such variety. It’s important to us from the philosophical programming perspective to showcase everything: wide viewpoints, different films made by a wide array of people. The stories, and the actual filmmakers, they aren’t just cis, white, heterosexual men. This is important to me. It’s important to us at The Grand Illusion. As long as Seattle thinks this type of diverse cultural variety is important enough to support us, we’ll continue to program our calendar that way. Absolutely.
SMF: The most important question: How can people help?
BA: There’s a link on our website. It’s a little bulletin at the top that says we’re moving, and you can find the whole story there. It’s like, here’s what happened and here’s
what you can do to help.
But the biggest thing? Keep seeing movies at The Grand Illusion while we’re still operating and in our current location! The last screenings will be on January 30. While we will be closed in February, hopefully during that period, we’ll kick off this Northwest Film Forum pop-up screening schedule. So while we would have stopped at our current location, we’ll have something new happening for fans of the theater already planned and programmed.
People can also donate to help with the move. We’ve got a link to donate also on our website.
Also, while we’ve had a more expanded membership program with different participation levels, we’ve minimized and streamlined that to the single $40 level for right now, which is completely taxdeductible. That’s another great way to help out the theater. It’s kind of a donation, but instead of just donating, you get a discounted ticket at the screenings, and we’ll be able to honor that discount at pop-ups and our other events.
But I do think the biggest thing is just coming to see movies and helping us enjoy our last few months at our current location. Come out and visit us. You’ll have a great time.
The Grand Illusion is open with a full calendar of films and special events though January 30, 2025. For more information on the theater, its calendar of events, tickets, and how to get more involved with its upcoming move, please go to https:// grandillusioncinema.org.
Donald Trump and Roy Cohn forge a profanely ephemeral alliance in The Apprentice
BY SARA MICHELLE FETTERS SGN STAFF WRITER
THE APPRENTICE
Theaters
Maybe it’s appropriate that The Apprentice director Ali Abbasi (Border) has made something so perplexingly frustrating, yet still aggravatingly mesmerizing, out of the relationship between young New York real estate developer Donald Trump and firebrand lawyer Roy Cohn. Even though it never felt like I was learning anything new about the blossoming megalomaniac (and future US president), I could not pull my eyes away from the screen. Watching this man (monster?) come into his own was upsettingly captivating.
In the script written by journalist and Roger Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman, Trump’s vapid emptiness is displayed directly parallel to Cohn’s ferociously unrestrained carnivorousness. While it’s never clear what it is that draws the latter to become the former’s mentor, the electricity generated between the two, at least early on, is nevertheless undeniable.
As portrayed by Emmy winner Jeremy Strong, Cohn is an unredeemable piece of human excrement. Yet somehow, some-
way, he manages to bring an odd, disquieting humanity to the man, and it’s wholly believable how such a tyrannical figure could spew virulent homophobic sound bites while at the same time hedonistically living it up with his live-in “assistant” Russell (Ben Sullivan). Strong is mesmerizing, and it’s a shame the film’s second half (when Trump began to distance himself from the lawyer, especially during the height of the AIDS crisis) doesn’t do more with him. Still, a scene at Cohn’s birthday party toward the end is bone-chilling, due to the emotional permutations the actor goes through as it becomes clear the apprentice has surpassed the master, and the only thing left for him to do is take a polite bow and find a quiet place to die.
Sebastian Stan tackles Trump, and for a public figure who has been celebrated, pitied, pilloried, and parodied (and selfparodied) ad nauseam for decades, that he brings something new to the table is somewhat shocking. But he does. Stan showcases the lifeless internal forces that shaped the developer into the unapologetic cretin he would become. He brings a dead-eyed focus to Trump that’s depressing. The idea
Unapologetically repugnant (and ruthless) Terrifier 3 fills its holiday stocking with gore
BY SARA MICHELLE FETTERS SGN STAFF WRITER
TERRIFIER 3
Theaters
With Terrifier 3, writer and director Damien Leone takes Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) fully into loopily insane, Evil Dead 2 anything-goes territory while still channeling his inner William Lustig or Lucio Fulci, where nothing is off limits, little makes sense, and anyone on the screen — no matter their age, gender, or level of innocence — is fair game to meet the most sickening demise possible. Once again, he crafts a nastily confident blizzard of abhorrently violent nonsense that fans are guaranteed to go gonzo over, even as they work overtime to keep from upchucking into their collectible Art the Clown popcorn bucket.
Personally, after a rough opening segment that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sit through, I found this third chapter in the supernatural killer clown’s story to be far less exhausting than its predecessor, 2022’s surprise cult hit, Terrifier 2. Also, even at a couple minutes over two hours, this sequel
doesn’t feel nearly as drawn out or as padded as the last one. Even though it scrutinizes more of the mythology connecting Art and heroine Sienna (Lauren LaVera) as eternal adversaries destined to do battle, the plot is actually fairly straightforward and focused. I appreciated that.
Be that as it may, the existence (and continued success) of the Terrifier series impresses me more than any of the three features (or four, if you count Art’s first appearance in the 2013 horror anthology All Hallows’ Eve) that make up the series so far. While I “enjoyed” this one the most, that doesn’t mean much: I sat through the whole thing with my guts twisted in knots, my brow covered in sweat, and the hair on my arms standing on end, as if they’d received an electric shock. While I’m certain that is what Leone was shooting for, I can’t say suffering through all of that was a heck of a lot of fun. Still, Leone keeps getting better behind the camera with each successive outing. This is his most visually appealing effort yet. A climactic fight sequence in a con-
that this empty vessel of a human being — and frequent failure in life and business — could craft an illusion of prosperity, wealth, and acumen that the public would eagerly embrace and celebrate is far more terrifying than anything Art the Clown does in the entirety of the latest Terrifier installment.
Some will applaud Abbasi and Sherman for so resolutely refusing to take a concrete stand. At least, that was how I read things. It’s as if they want to preach to both choirs: those who hate Trump with a ceaseless passion, as if he were the actual Antichrist, as well as those who hang on every one of his meandering, nonsensical words as if he were a messianic figure come to lead them to salvation.
It’s a tricky balancing act, and one that doesn’t always fit with the images (especially during the picture’s second half) that Abbasi and cinematographer Kasper Tuxen (The Worst Person in the World ) choose to emphasize with such documentary-like precision. These include Trump’s infantile outbursts, his casual dismissing of brother Freddy (Charlie Carrick) when he apparently needed him the most, his casual
tained small suburban living room (featuring everything from a chainsaw to a sword to a victim’s fresh intestines utilized as a garrote) is phenomenally well staged. Another bit in a college shower is an equalopportunity corker that eviscerates with ball-busting abandon. Leone also has become even more confident at balancing comedy, action, suspense, and outright terror, a single scene traipsing through a litany of emotional permutations with astonishing clarity.
I think that’s what makes these films, at least for me, virtually unreviewable. Especially Terrifier 2 and now Terrifier 3 are incredibly well-made slice-and-dice shockers. The performances keep improving with each entry (I think LaVera has the potential to be a bona fide star), and the practical makeup and gore effects are simply out of this world. But the unrelenting cruelty doesn’t do it for me. After every one of these, I feel pummeled to the point I can barely breathe, and my entire body has an icky sensation of being covered in such overwhelming filth that I wonder if I’ll be able to clean the muck off of or if it will instead be there forever.
There’s precious little in the way of an actual plot. For those who do require a synopsis: after a brief flashback to what transpired at the end of the previous film, things pick back up five years later during the Christmas holiday. Sienna has left the psychiatric clinic to stay with her aunt Jessica (Margaret Anne Florence), her husband Greg (Bryce Johnson), and their
revulsion when he learns Russell is dying of AIDS, and his reported (if subsequently denied) sexual assault on first wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova).
That these moments (and more like them) are part of the story isn’t the issue. Instead, it is the almost blasé way Abbasi chooses to platform them. They’re all strangely benign facets of Trump’s history, nothing more, and certainly nothing less. They don’t provoke an emotional response, and because of this, they become like background noise that only adds ephemeral highlights to his journey and not essential building blocks that formed his foundation.
But maybe that is exactly the point. Trump took Cohn’s three rules (1. always attack, 2. admit nothing and deny everything, 3. claim victory and never admit defeat) and revolved his life around them. They become his bedrock principles. In The Apprentice, doing this appears to transform Trump into a cipher, a shapeless phantasm who shifts who he is and what he’s all about from moment to moment. If that’s not an unsettling metaphor for the reality we’re all stumbling through right now, I’m not sure what else would be.
bubbly daughter Gabbie (Antonella Rose). Reawakened by a pair of bumbling demolition contractors, Art the Clown and his now undead sidekick Victoria Heyes (Samantha Scaffidi, returning to the series in full force after being left a deformed, monstrous mess at the end of Terrifier) slowly make their way to the young woman’s location, brutally murdering with jolly enthusiasm everyone and anyone they encounter. Elliott Fullam also returns as Sienna’s younger brother Jonathan, now in college and unsuccessfully trying to put his encounter with Art behind him.
I could give a litany of trigger warnings for practically everything that happens in the buildup to Art and Sienna’s inevitable reunion. The cold open involving a loving family of four will be especially trying for some viewers. I also would hope people understand what they’ve signed up to tolerate when they purchase their tickets. Still, the body count is both exceptionally high and sickeningly on the younger side of the spectrum, so there may be those who feel this particular turn of events is a bridge too far, even for this unapologetically pitiless series. But, as with Leone’s two previous Art the Clown adventures (especially Terrifier 2), that’s what makes Terrifier 3 more of an audaciously repugnant test of endurance than anything even moderately substantive. Interested parties already know what to expect. For everyone else? Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. This is not the holiday-themed horror film you are looking for.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE APPRENTICE
Boys Don’t Cry :
Celebrating the complicated, problematic legacy of an essential entry in the LGBTQ cinematic canon on its 25th anniversary
BY SARA MICHELLE FETTERS SGN STAFF WRITER
It’s not a stretch to say that director Kimberly Peirce’s 1999 Academy Award-winning debut Boys Don’t Cry helped save my life. I was in a horrible psychological place during the late 1990s: struggling to keep a job, barely paying bills, kicked out of the University of Washington for not attending class. While my roommate, family, and closest friends didn’t necessarily see it, I was inching toward the end of my rope. Suffice it to say, I was pretty good at keeping things like that hidden.
When I saw Peirce’s drama in October of that year, it was like a switch went off in my brain. The tragic story of Brandon Teena struck a nerve, and I knew I had to make changes right then and there. Within months, I had found a therapist and began coming out to my friends. I started going to support groups at Ingersoll Gender Center and made the acquaintance of the incredible Marsha Botzer. Soon after, I let my family know what was going on. By the middle of 2000, I was openly living and working as my authentic self. Best of all, I was happy.
What’s hard to explain is why this graphically violent, sometimes exploitative docudrama that took several liberties with Teena’s real story (which culminates in his rape and murder) spoke to me the way it did. Peirce’s ferocious direction certainly helped, as did Jim Denault’s searingly immersive cinematography. The topnotch ensemble was electrifying, led by relative newcomer Hilary Swank (hardly a household name, even if she’d appeared in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie and had the lead in The Next Karate Kid ) and featuring the likes of Chloë Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, and Brendan Sexton III,.
Yet it was how Peirce and co-writer Andy Bienen structured their narrative that impressed me the most. Much like the monumental 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, there was a “Trans gaze” to the film that hit me like a sledgehammer. It was hardly subtle, and sometimes even sensationalistic, but nevertheless Peirce confidently and daringly forces the audience to see everything — hopes, desires, longings, joys, loves, and, yes, the bone-chilling terrors — from Teena’s perspective, making them part of his Trans narrative. This gaze was not always successful, and certainly not without uncomforting voyeuristic missteps, but it’s still there. For a relatively mainstream motion picture hitting theaters at the tail end of the 1990s, this was no small thing.
It’s doubtful that few viewers had experienced anything like Boys Don’t Cry unless they had wanted to do a deep, sceneby-scene analysis of Ed Woods’s much-
maligned 1953 drama Glen or Glenda, were a big fan of underground provocateur Doris Wishman, or had the good fortune of catching Paris Is Burning during its theatrical run. I found it eye-opening. Moreover, it got me to see the lie I had been trying to erase every time I angrily peered into the mirror.
But Peirce’s film is also the definition of “problematic.” It has not aged gracefully. Not that this is surprising. Few motion pictures from decades past hold up in every way when placed underneath a modern microscope, especially ones that deal with topics like race, sexuality, and gender. What passed muster in 1999 at best looks quaint today, and at worst comes off as ris-
ibly offensive. Plus, Peirce and Bienen took significant liberties with Teena’s story. They left out essential characters (cutting out one of the murder victims entirely).
This list of things that feel off and even downright wrong about Boys Don’t Cry only grows longer from there.
Partially this is due to Peirce and Bienen breaking down the story into its simplest, most straightforward elements. That they do this with skill and precision is laudable. That they inadvertently play into several Trans stereotypes that were common in 1999 but are considered shamefully egregious in 2024 sadly is not. Scenes where Teena stands in front of a mirror chang-
ing his reflection come across as if he is clandestinely putting on a costume instead of doing the work to be his authentic self. These moments were difficult to watch 25 years ago; they’re almost impossible to sit through now.
Then there is Swank’s performance. It’s magnificent, make no mistake about that. I have no issue with her winning the Oscar for portraying Teena. It’s bracingly introspective work, fueled by a nakedly raw vitality that’s haunting. I have her autograph that a friend snagged while attending the 2000 Independent Spirit Awards that I treasure. It means a lot to me, almost as if it is a personal signifier of the official start of my own transition.
However, for all of Swank’s dexterous skill, for a Trans viewer, there is something of a disconnect between the truth of dealing with gender dysphoria and her creating a rather glossy facsimile of it for viewers. While Peirce, much to their credit, did consider Trans actors for the role, it’s difficult now not to wonder how much the film would have changed had the casting gone in that direction. Going with Swank does feel like somewhat of a mistake.
Yet, for me, this effort remains essential, even with these challenging, maybe even angering, aspects. Context is key when watching it, and in many ways, it is the things that Peirce gets wrong that make the film a crucial entry in the LGBTQ cinematic canon. I firmly believe that the only way to keep moving forward is to know where we have been, and knowing how we have told stories such as these in or past is vital in helping us to effectively tell similar ones in the future. One wonders if projects like I Saw the TV Glow, Emilia Pérez, Lingua Franca, A Fantastic Woman, Tangerine, Bit, any one of the genre-jumping offerings from 20-year-old Aussie wunderkind Alice Maio Mackay, and so many others would have seen the light of day had Peirce’s drama not been a critical and box office success.
All of that aside, it remains my personal connection to Peirce’s debut that keeps me coming back to it again and again and again. I’ve watched it six times in the theater. I’ve seen it at least another six or so at home. I thankfully do not know if I’d have committed suicide had I not watched Boys Don’t Cry when I did. I tend to think I wouldn’t have, but that I can’t truly say speaks volumes.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Boys Don’t Cry is available on DVD and Bluray, and can be purchased digitally on multiple platforms.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BOYS DON'T CRY
BOOKS
Diabetic blood demons and Lesbian
grandmas:
Clare Edge is writing the next generation’s fantasy
BY LINDSEY ANDERSON SGN STAFF WRITER
For young readers, especially LGBTQ+ people, fantasy can be a safe escape from real life. Like many voracious Queer readers, author Clare Edge enjoys the escapism fantasy novels can provide. But they also noticed something was always missing.
Edge has had type 1 diabetes since they were 16, and while contemporary literature has made progress in disability representation, fantasy novels still trail behind. “Often, when you add magic to something, disability is used as an obstacle, or something that is cured,” Edge explained. “It’s important for kids to see themselves as heroes in their own lives. That’s why I think it’s important to see [disability representation] in fantasy, especially. All disability representation is in fantasy, because you can go on a magical adventure and have very realistic obstacles that are put upon you by your body and the lack of accommodation the world provides. For disabled kids to get to experience that escapism is important.”
Started with a joke
Edge stumbled into writing their debut middle-grade novel, Accidental Demons, after making a joke on the internet. “I made an Instagram joke. I was reading Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas, and there’s a mention of blood magic in it, and it’s too strong, and I was like, ‘That wouldn’t be an option for me, as a diabetic.’” They posted what they thought was a “funny idea”: that a witch with diabetes wouldn’t be able to stop conjuring demons whenever they tested their blood sugar level. “That was March of 2021, and I had a draft I was querying by that June,” they said.
When Edge started writing Accidental Demons, they didn’t think much about the book’s target demographic. “I tripped and fell into it,” Edge said. “I started writing it and [the protagonist] was 13, and I was like, okay she’s 13. Thirteen’s a weird age: it’s kind of between the middle-grade audience and the YA audience, but it also felt like a rich narrative time for dealing with diabetes and chronic illness.”
Looking back, they’re glad Accidental Demons is written from the perspective of a middle schooler. “There’s almost no type 1 diabetes representation in children’s lit-
erature,” Edge explained. “Babysitter’s Club is kind of the standard, and that is a representation of diabetes from the ’90s — things have changed a lot since then. Diabetics don’t have much available in any age range, so you might as well make it approachable for kids.”
While Accidental Demons is marketed toward kids aged 10-14, Edge included humor in the novel for older readers, some of which might go over the heads of the target demographic. Kids dealing with chronic illness may see some of their unique experiences portrayed in the book, but at the end of the day, it’s a fun fantasy adventure anyone can enjoy.
“I often joke … that [this book] is for diabetic kids, but it’s also for their shitty best friend. They can give it to them and [say], ‘Here, this is kind of what it’s like. You can learn something, but you’re learning it through a fun, silly story,’” Edge said. “I aim for it not to be pedantic. The diabetes rep is sometimes slightly sacrificed for the pace of the story. We don’t get too in the weeds about blood sugar numbers, but they are there when they’re relevant, and sometimes they are.”
A world without queerphobia
Accidental Demons not only provides excellent representation for kids and adults with type 1 diabetes, but it also creates a world without prejudice against Queer and Trans identities. “There is no queerphobia in the book,” Edge said. “There are other prejudices; there are magical prejudices. The family that it’s focused on, the Crowleys, they’re very Queer. Grandma’s a Lesbian, the sister is Bisexual, and the queerness is extremely casual. I think we’re at a place, at least in publishing, where that’s fine.” One of the book’s main characters is also a sassy Nonbinary demon.
Given the current controversy that continues to rage on — especially over books aimed toward children, particularly in Edge’s home state of Montana — they decided not to worry about the conservative backlash the book may receive. “I fully expect there are librarians [for whom] I will be on their shitlist, but I couldn’t create it with that in mind,” they said. “People are going to be upset with so much about it — I
mean, it has demons in it. People who are going to be mad about the Queer [representation] already aren’t going to like the book.”
Just like portraying type I diabetes accurately, Edge wanted to tell a story about queerness that isn’t often shown in the media. “Queerness just isn’t an issue for [these families]. Those families exist. I know young Queer people who are dealing with it societally, but they are not dealing with it in their families; they have support-
genre
ive amazing families and Lesbian grandmothers. That sort of amazing, positive, casually Queer world is what I wanted to create, and I’m sure there will be market obstacles to that, but middle grade is facing so many other market obstacles, I decided not to worry about it.”
Instead, Edge hopes to introduce a new generation of readers to fantasy escapism by creating a fun magical world where Queer, Trans, and disabled kids not only exist but get the chance to be the heroes.
PHOTO COURTESY CLARE EDGE
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