ONE CITY ONE PRIDE Calendar of events Celebrating LGBTQ HEROES OF PRIDE
L.A. PRIDE
How the Nation’s First Pride Parade Got Its Start
#JUSTBE
THE PRIDE ISSUE
LA PRIDE PARADE AND FESTIVAL All you need to know
Entertainers. Chefs. Drag queens. Librarians. Trainers. Activists. Change makers. Heroes. You give West Hollywood all the reasons to feel pride.
CONTENTS THE PRIDE ISSUE: 08
LA Pride Parade and Festival Could there be a gayer place to celebrate Pride? Or to just have a gay ole good time? All you need to know.
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One City One Pride WeHo celebrates LGBTQ art, dance, film, history, music and more.
History of LA Pride Important Moments In SoCal LGBT History.
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Our Heroes Morris Kight, Troy Perry, Del Whan, Billie Jean King.
EDITORS LETTER The annual L.A. Pride festival and parade are major events for the City of West Hollywood. And they also are major events for Greater Los Angeles. That’s one reason why we decided to give LA Pride its own major presence in this issue of West Hollywood Magazine. But we also want to call out GayLifeLA, the only publication that actually covers the LGBTQ community in Greater Los Angeles. GayLifeLA.com currently is a welltrafficked website. Our hope is also to turn it into a complementary print publication. No, we won’t be publishing stories about what Donald Trump did two weeks ago or about the inside fights in the state Democratic Party. There are other local gay publications that do that. Our focus will be on the life and culture of our various communities in Los Angeles County and on the people who are part of those cultures.
Bears, pups, otters, dykes, twinks, daddys – we have them covered. Health and fitness? We know we have some unique issues and unique passions there. We’ve got them covered. Our everevolving social scene – bars and clubs, Grindr and Scruff – we’re on top of it. Our local heroes (and local villains)? We also have our eye on them.
By Henry E. (Hank) Scott Hank Scott is editor and publisher of WEHOville. com, West Hollywood Magazine and GayLife LA.
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Kehlani is scheduled to perform on June 9 on the Park stage in West Hollywood Park, where Tove Lo will perform on June 10.
THE YEAR’S L A PRIDE IS ALL ABOUT DIVERSIT Y
Kehlani represents triumph over tragedy and diversity in many ways. She was born in Oakland to an African-American father and a mother she has described as “mostly white, Spanish and Native American. Her mother struggled with drug addiction and was in prison. Her father, also a drug addict, died young. Kehlani was raised by her grandmother. At the young age of 14 Kehlani was recruited to join PopLyfe, a local pop cover band. Kehlani left the band after a fallout with its management and struggled for years, stealing food from grocery stores and sleeping on friends’ couches. But Nick Cannon, a former host of America’s Got Talent, on which Kehlani performed with PopLyfe, rescued her and sent her to New York to work with a record producer.
Tove Lo, who identifies as bisexual and is known for her grunge look on stage is a Swedish singer and songwriter who Rolling Stone has called “Sweden’s darkest pop export.” Out magazine has called her “the world’s most brutally honest pop star” and noted that she has been called “the world’s saddest pop star.” Those descriptions were a result of the release of “Out of Mind,” a single that chronicles the heartbreak of a broken relationship. Tove Lo grew up in an affluent neighborhood near Stockholm in a family she has described as “pretty posh,” a life the opposite of that of Kehlani. Early on she formed a rock band named Tremblebee and later worked as a songwriter, at which she became successful. She was offered a recording deal in 2014 and became a hit with her debut album “Queen of the Clouds.” Other popular albums have been “Lady Wood,” released in October 2016 and “Blue Lips,” released in November 2017.
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There will be three performance stages, the Park Stage, Boulevard Stage and the Plaza Stage, where a variety of performers can be found on both June 9 and 10. This year the list of performers will be dominated by women. Two of whom -- Kehlani and Tove Lo -- represent the social diversity of this year’s performers.
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In 2015, Kehlani released her second mixtape “You Should Be Here,” which Billboard called the “year’s first great R&B album.” In 2016 she was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Urban Contemporary Album.
Over at the Boulevard Stage on San Vicente Boulevard on June 9, Grammy-nominated R&B singer and songwriter Keri Hilson, known for hits like “Knock You Down,” will perform. Also on that stage 2 0 1 8 P R I D E F E S T I VA L H E A D L I N E R - PA R K S TA G E - T O V E L O
That diversity is evident in this year’s lineup of performers at the annual festival, which takes place on June 9 and 10 in and around West Hollywood Park and will include performers of all gender and sexual and most ethnic identities. This year’s festival will include the traditional booths occupied by non-profits and Pride sponsors. However, given the construction underway in West Hollywood Park, the festival will expand across San Vicente Boulevard and incorporate the plaza outside the Pacific Design Center.
THAT ’ S E VIDENT IN THE LINEUP OF PERFORMER S ON ALL THREE S TAG E S
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The slogan for this year’s LA Pride weekend is “just be,” a call out to the diversity of the LGBTQ community and the importance of being proud of who you are.
Icona Pop, an international pop duo for the platinum single “I Love It,” will perform at the Park Stage on June 9. Also performing there on that date will be Kim Petras and Lauren Ruth Ward. On June 10, you’ll find Eve, Allie X and Jessica 6 among the women on the Park Stage.
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JessLove. Cece Peniston and Keke Wyatt are the women who will be on the Boulevard Stage on June 10. that day will be Leikeli47 and Jump across San Vicente Boulevard to the PDC Plaza Stage and you’ll find Crista Bella performing on June 9 along with the Karisma trio. Crista Bella will be back on June 10 along with Karol Posadas.
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Vanessa “Miss Vanjie” Mateo, who will be on the Plaza Stage on June 9 and Eureka O’Hara who will perform there on June 10. The festival is open from noon on Saturday until 1 a.m. on Sunday, and then again on Sunday from noon to 11 p.m.
Pride this year also offers VIP tickets that include admission to
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General admission tickets are $25 for a single day and $35 for a weekend ticket. They can be purchased in advance at the LAPride.org website. Tickets for those 65 and over and for veterans and active military personnel are $15 and available only at the entrance to the festival.
But it’s not just female singers! P L A Z A S TA G E - K A R O L P O S A D A S
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The Park Stage will feature the male duo Superfruit on June 9 along with Jesse Saint John. On June 10 you’ll see Leland on the Park Stage and Saturn Rising. Gio Bravo will perform on the Plaza Stage on June 9 as will Oscar Velazquez and the Tom & Collins duo. On June 10, Kidd Madonny will be the guy on stage And we can’t forget the drag performers,
the festival, backstage access to the Park Stage, two free vodka drinks and an afternoon meal. They are $250 for a single day and $400 for the weekend. And then there’s the parade, which was first staged 48 years ago at a time public safety officers and Los Angeles City Council members found the concept appalling. This year, local public figures are proud to be featured on the floats and in the cars that will be part of the parade.
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It begins at 11 a.m. on Sunday, June 10, on Santa Monica Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue and continues for three hours down Santa Monica to Doheny. Attendance (which means watching and cheering from the sidewalk) is open to everyone. Public safety officers will be there to ensure everyone’s security, and those coming to the parade are advised not to bring anything – a long stick, a baseball bat, a knife and certainly not a gun – that could be used as a weapon
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ONE CIT Y ONE PRIDE
LG BTQ ARTS FE S TIVAL Each year the City of West Hollywood celebrates Pride with its One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival, which runs from Harvey Milk Day (May 22) to June 30. The theme for 2018 is “I Remember,” which celebrates our shared history and the people and events that paved the way for LGBTQ rights. Some highlights of One City One Pride in June include: June 2 : A special full day of screenings and panels including previews of documentaries about the history of the West Hollywood Aquatics Team, AIDS activist Connie Norman, and the creators of the rainbow flag June 13 : Special excerpted performances of songs from “Considering Matthew Shepard” with a talkback with composer Craig Hella Johnson June 22 to 23 : New Stages presents “Heroic Lives,” a musical based on LGBTQ seniors’ lives created through a workshop process June 24 : Summer Sounds concert with Mariachi Arcoiris de Los Angeles, the world’s only LGBTQ Mariachi Band June 30 : TransLife LA PoP Up Film Festival Events and times may change. For the latest information please visit https:// pride.wheho.org
40 DAYS OF LGBTQ ARTS
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5 p.m. - Light in the Water Filmmaker Lis Bartlett offers a sneak peek of a work in progress documentary about WH20, the West Hollywood Aquatics team. From the team’s founding by athletes training for the inaugural Gay Games in 1982, through the impact of the AIDS
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Saturday, June 2 1:30 to 9:30 p.m. City Council Chambers 625 North San Vicente Boulevard
1:30 p.m. - Genitalic A documentary made by a young filmmaker featuring older gay men reflecting on West Hollywood, dating and life. Running time 40 minutes, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Victor Yates.
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A day of screenings and panels around the theme of “I Remember” that include:
PHOTO CREDIT JAMES MCNAMAR A
3 p.m. - Meet the Rainbow Flag makers Original Rainbow Flag Artists and Their Friends.” The first rainbow flags
were conceived and handmade in June 1978 at the 330 Grove Gay Community Center in San Francisco. Several of the artists who worked on the flags will share their stories of creating and flying the original rainbow flags. It will be preceded by a slideshow of “330 Grove, the People and the Flags” from historian and 330 Grove volunteer Glenne McElhinney. The event is copresented by the California LGBT Arts Alliance and Impact Stories History Project.
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The afternoon will create a fun atmosphere through artistic drag and House/Ballroom performance, featuring 3 House/Ballroom categories (Sex Siren, Vogue and Runway). Presented with Micky’s and Stefano Rosso. Creating a fun atmosphere through artistic drag and House/Ballroom performance. Admission is free.
epidemic, and two members getting married after marriage equality was passed, the story of WH20 also tells the story of West Hollywood and the gay community at large. Running time 45 minutes followed by a Q&A.
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7 p.m. - AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman.” This is a work in progress screening of a film about the self-appointed “AIDS diva” and spokesperson for ACT UP/LA in the late 80s and early 90s Los Angeles. Norman described herself as “exdrag queen, ex-hooker, ex-IV drug user, ex-high risk youth and current post-operative transsexual woman who is HIV positive” and simply “a human being seeking my humanity.” The running time is 45 minutes, followed by a reception and a panel moderated by Karen Ocamb and featuring Peter Cashman, Jess Nowlin, Mary Lucey, Paul Langlotz and Valerie Spencer. Directed by Dante Alencastre (“Transvisible,” 2013; “Raising Zoey,” 2016). Admission is free with an RSVP required online at www.weho.org/pride
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“CABARET” June 2 - 30 Visit the Celebration Theatre at www.celebrationtheatre.com/cabaret for all dates and times 6760 Lexington Avenue (Celebration at the Lex Theatre) Celebration Theatre, the world’s oldest LGBTQ theatre group, presents Kander & Ebb’s dark masterpiece directed by the multiple Ovation Award-winning Michael Matthews. Based on the play by John Van Druten and the stories of Christopher Isherwood. Tickets are $25 to $55 and can be purchased online at www.celebrationtheatre.com/cabaret
R E AC H L A P R E S E N T S I C E C R E A M S U N DAY F U N DAY Sunday, June 3, 4:30 to 8 p.m. Mickey’s WEHO 8857 Santa Monica Boulevard PHOTO CREDIT TONY COELHO
VOX F E M I N A Sunday, June 3, 3 to 5 p.m. Congregation Kol Ami 1200 North La Brea Avenue VOX Femina, an all-female choir that debuted during a concert with Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, performs songs that offer tales of love, songs of protest and hymns of praise from the hills of Appalachia to the stages in Greenwich Village. Admission is free with an RSVP required. It can be made online at https://bit.ly/2rsE0lX.
R A I N B O W K E Y AWA R D S Tuesday, June 5 6 to 8:30 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard. A City of West Hollywood event honoring people and groups who have made outstanding contributions to the LGBTQ. Admission is free. This year’s honorees are: -R udy Akbarian, openly transgender member of the U.S. Army who has served as a mentor to other Trans service members; -K athy Griffin, actor-comedian and fierce LGBT ally; -M att Palazzolo, co-founder of Equal Roots and a longtime member of the Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board, who died in January; -B rian Pendleton, founder of Cause Force and a leader of last year’s #ResistMarch; -B amby Salcedo, trans activist who has worked on issues such as immigration, HIV, incarceration, and Latinx communities; and -E lizabeth Savage, longtime activist who recently retired after 22 years with the City of West Hollywood working for LGBT rights, affordable housing and aging-in-place.
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06/06 I D E A L H O M E - O U T F E S T W E S T H O L LY W O O D S E R I E S . Wednesday, June 6, 7:30 to 9 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard
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Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at www.outfest.org/weho-series
DY K E M A R C H Friday, June 8, 6 to 10 p.m. Sal Guarriello Veterans Memorial 8447 Santa Monica Boulevard The annual Dyke March event, produced by the City of West Hollywood, begins at Sal Guarriello Memorial at 6 p.m. with a live set with Claudette Sexy DJ and a protest sign making workshop led by artist Julianna Parr with all materials provided. There will be a rally with speakers at 7 p.m. At 7:45 p.m. the march begins down Santa Monica Boulevard to San Vicente Boulevard and back. At 9 p.m. there will live DJ sets from Claudette Sexy DJ, WASI, Kaleena Zanders and Niña Dioz. Admission is free.
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The LA Pride Festival has been organized by Christopher Street West since the 1970s. Headliners include Kehlani and Tove Lo, and the #SIZZLE sober area will return. Tickets are $25 for one day and $35 for both days and can be purchased online at www. lapride.org
06/10 L A P R I D E PA R A D E Sunday, June 10, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood (between Crescent Heights and Doheny) PH OTO CRE DIT DE RI CK WANK E R
A pre-release screening of “Ideal Home,” a comedy from director Andrew Fleming (“The In-Laws,” “The Craft”) that stars Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd as Erasmus and Paul, a bickering gay couple. Their lives are turned inside out when a ten-year old boy shows up at their door claiming to be Erasmus’ grandson. Followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker.
SPEAKERS SERIES Tuesday, June 12, 6:30 to 9 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard “Real Boy” is an intimate story of a family in transition. As 19-year-old Bennett Wallace navigates sobriety, adolescence and the evolution of his gender identity, his mother makes her own transformation from resistance to acceptance of her trans son. Light refreshments will be offered before the screening and a panel discussion featuring filmmaker Shaleece Haas will follow. Admission is free and RSVP required at www.bit.ly/WeHoHRSS_ RealBoy.
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C R E AT I O N P O W W O W Saturday, June 16 , 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Boulevard
OUR JOURNEY WITH
Join Red Circle Project of APLA Health for a full day of traditional Native American music, dance, crafts and food, along with HIV testing and prevention resources. Admission is free.
M AT T H E W S H E PA R D Wednesday, June 13, 7:30 to 9 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard
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Grammy-winning conductor Craig Hella Johnson and Conspirare choir members share the story behind creating “Considering Matthew Shepard” in an intimate evening of song and conversation. Admission is free, with an RSVP required that can be made online www.weho.org/pride.
06/15 TR ANSPRIDE Friday, June 15, 7 to 10 p.m. and Saturday, June 16, 12 to 9:30 p.m. LA LGBT Center, 1125 North McCadden Place, Los Angeles Friday night will feature Big Queer Convo, and Saturday will feature a panel focusing on the gender nonconforming/non-binary community along with a clothing swap, self-defense workshop, resource fair, dancing and a variety show. Admission is free.
06/19 C H U C K R O W L A N D AWA R D Tuesday, June 19, 7 to 8:30 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard Celebration Theatre presents this year’s Chuck Rowland Award to Billy Porter, along with a reading of his semi-autobiographical play, “While I Yet Live.” Admission is free.
06/20 W E S T H O L LY W O O D A R T I S T S AND ICONS: WHEN BETTE MET MAE Wednesday, June 20, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard
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The first meeting of West Hollywood resident Bette Davis and screen icon Mae West took place in 1972. That evening’s conversation was captured on cassette tape, and 40 years later this film by Wes Wheadon is the first effort in history to create video from an authentic live tape. The screening will be followed by a brief discussion with Wheadon and a panel of people involved in the film. Admission is free. An RSVP is required and can be made online at www.weho.org/pride.
PHOTO CREDIT SASHI PETERSON
L A P R I D E F E S T I VA L Saturday: Noon to 1 a.m. Sunday: 11 am to 11 pm West Hollywood Park, 647 North San Vicente Boulevard
The LA Pride Parade is the oldest pride parade in the world and has been taking place in West Hollywood since before cityhood. It takes place on Santa Monica Boulevard, beginning at Crescent Heights and ending on Doheny.
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N E W S TAG E S : “ H E R O I C L I V E S ” Friday, June 22 and Saturday, June 23, 7 to 9 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard “Heroic Lives” is about the people who changed our world, told by the people who were there. Presented with the LA LGBT Center’s Senior Services Department and through a grant from the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division, “Heroic Lives is directed by Mark Salyer and Kay Cole and the music directed by Debbie Lawrence. Admission is free but those attending are asked to RSVP by calling (323) 860-5830 or emailing seniors@ lalgbtcenter.org and referencing event #0410.
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A free outdoor concert with Mariachi Arcoiris de Los Angeles, the first and only LGBTQ mariachi group in the world. Free admission with seating first come, first served. Guests are asked to RSVP at www.weho.org/ pride.
D R A G Q U E E N S T O RY H O U R Saturday, June 23, 11 to 11:45 a.m. West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard Bring the kids and join the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division and the West Hollywood Library for “Drag Queen Story Hour.” Admission is free.
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W O M E N I N F I L M : “J E W E L’ S C AT C H O N E ” Monday, June 25, 7 to 9 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard
F E S T I VA L Saturday, June 23, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Plummer Park Plummer Park, Rooms 1 & 2, 7377 Santa Monica Boulevard The annual ALAP (Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights) Pride Play Reading Festival features short plays around the theme “I Remember: Our Stories, Our Courage, Our Joy.” Admission is free with an RSVP required at www.weho.org/pride.
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S U M M E R S O U N D S : M A R I AC H I ARCOIRIS DE LOS ANGELES Sunday, June 24, 5 to 6:30 p.m. Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Boulevard
PROMETHEAN SISTERS June 25 - 29, 1 to 5 p.m Plummer Park’s Long Hall 7377 Santa Monica Boulevard
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and harm-reduction activism. The exhibition presents safer sex posters, comics, brochures, videos, PSAs and safer sex and clean needle kits, among other archival items, all from the collections at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at USC Libraries.
N E L LY Q U E E N : T H E L I F E A N D
Yozmit will create a wearable art installation as a performance shrine in the Long Hall/Plummer Park, one of the historic LGBTQ places in West Hollywood. Admission is free.
Inaugural West Hollywood City poet laureate Steven Reigns and the Lambda Lit Book Club discuss “Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda” by Becky Albertalli. Admission is free. The documentary “Jewel’s Catch One” chronicles four decades of the oldest black-owned disco in America and establishes the legacy of businesswoman, activist, and healer Jewel Thais-Williams. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion. Admission is free for WIF members and $10 non-members. An RSVP is required at https://womeninfilm.org/ speaker-series.
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Outfest’s festival programmers invite the public for a preview of the Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival lineup. Admission is free with an RSVP required at www.outfest.org/weho-series.
L A M B DA L I T B O O K C LU B Tuesday, June 26, 7 to 8:30 PM West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard
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OUTFEST WEHO:COMMUNITY COLLABOR ATOR FILM GUIDE
REVIEW Wednesday, June 27, 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard
TIMES OF JOSÉ SARRIA Friday, June 29, 7 to 9 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard At the unexpected intersections of politics and high camp, this preview of “Nelly Queen” reveals an intimate portrait of the Latino civil rights pioneer whose heroic drag has been overlooked as a cornerstone of the LGBTQ rights movement. Admission is free with donations accepted.
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TR ANSLIFE L A POP UP F I L M F E S T I VA L Saturday, June 30, 2 to 7 p.m. City Council Chambers, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard This first annual one-day film festival features films created by and featuring transgender and gender non-conforming filmmakers, artists, actors and themes along with filmmaking/acting workshops and an opening reception. Admission is free with an RSVP required at www. popupfilmfestival.org.
ART EXHIBITIONS L A A A “OUT THERE EXHIBIT Friday, June 8, 6 to 9 p.m. opening reception: LAAA/Gallery 825, 825 North La Cienega Boulevard.
“Out There” is an all media exhibition by the LA Art Association during the City’s One City One Pride festival. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily except Mondays through June 15. Admission is free.
ADELAIDE DRIVE: CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD
On view Thursdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 3 to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays through Wednesdays and on June 9 and 10.
TINY TIM ’ S SHOWC A SE On view through June Circus of Books, 8230 Santa Monica Boulevard
A N D D O N B AC H A R DY On view through the end of June West Hollywood Library, 625 North San Vicente Boulevard.
Tiny Tim’s Showcase is a window display and performance series that reimagines the history of this corner, from the 20s to the present.
The city’s Arts Division presents a new exhibit featuring photography by Wayne Shimabukuro and original artworks by Bachardy. Bachardy and novelist Christopher Isherwood were a couple for over 30 years and lived together in Santa Monica on Adelaide Drive, which provides the name of the exhibit. On view during regular library hours (Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Closed holidays and June 8 through 10.
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LOST & FOUND: SAFER S E X AC T I V I S M On exhibit through June. ONE Gallery, 626 North Robertson Boulevard This exhibit examines 30 years of inspiring and defiant safer sex
PANEL DISPLAYS On view through June 8120 Santa Monica Boulevard The city’s Arts Division in collaboration with the ONE Archives presents this outdoor exhibition of LGBTQ history and heroes on fencing along Santa Monica Boulevard
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H O W T H E N AT I O N S ’ S F I R S T P R I D E PA R A D E G O T I T S S TA R T A N D W H E R E I T I S N O W With several hundred thousand people descending upon 1.9 square miles, Los Angeles Pride is the largest gathering of LGBT people and their allies in Southern California. What many people don’t realize is that the fabulously colorful parade, which has long been the centerpiece of Pride weekend, was the first of its kind in the nation when it began in 1970. It was nearly one year after the Stonewall riots of June 1969, when Reverend Bob Humphries (United States Mission founder), Morris Kight (Gay Liberation Front founder), and Reverend Troy Perry (Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches founder) gathered to plan a commemoration. They settled on a parade down Hollywood Boulevard. But homosexuality was still illegal in the state of California at the time, so securing a permit from the city was no easy task.
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Rev. Perry has recalled the L.A. Police Chief Edward M. Davis telling him, “As far as I’m concerned, granting a permit to a group of homosexuals to parade down Hollywood Boulevard would be the same as giving a permit to a group of thieves and robbers.” Grudgingly, the Police Commission granted the permit, though there were fees exceeding $1.5 million. After the American Civil Liberties Union stepped in, the commission dropped all its requirements but a $1,500 fee for police service. That, too, was dismissed when the California Superior Court ordered the police to provide protection as they would for any other group. All that negotiation left the team with only two days to throw together a parade before the June 28 anniversary. In Los Angeles, the parade was a display of pride, complete with a float from the Advocate magazine, loaded with men in swimsuits, and a conservative gay group clad in business suits. Immediately, there was talk of making it an annual event. It would become the model for Pride celebrations across the nation.
After controversial parade entries in 1971 and 1972, and internal disagreements, the parade went on hiatus in 1973. But it was back in 1974, when pioneering gay filmmaker Pat Rocco came up with the idea for a festival to accompany the parade. The first festival was a carnival with rides, games, food, and information booths held in a Hollywood parking lot at Sunset and Cherokee. But continued LAPD hostility, as well as redevelopment in Hollywood, led Pride to move to what would become the city of West Hollywood in 1979. The parade and festival have found a welcoming home there ever since.
Through the decades, LA Pride has offered an opportunity for the LGBT community to celebrate who we are and what we’ve accomplished and bring attention to the work that’s still to be done. In the 1970s, the focus was largely on sexual liberation. In the 1980s, the community was primarily concerned with empowerment in the face of the emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic. In the 1990s, Pride was a platform for social equality. Marriage equality has been a major issue in the 2000s, along with family and relationship equality. In 2017, the LA Pride parade gave way to the Resist March, a demonstration about efforts by Donald Trump to roll back rights and protections of LGBT people, women and immigrants.
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2010 AND BEYOND This decade got off to a trailblazing start. In 2010, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa opened the doors to the Getty House, the official mayor’s residence, for the first-ever LA Pride Garden Party. Then, in 2011, he declared June as LGBT Heritage Month in the city of Los Angeles, an enormous milestone. That year, the Pride parade also included more than 350 students from the Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest youth group contingent ever. The replacement of the Pride parade in 2017 by the Resist March was mourned by many, who are likely to be excited to find the parade back this year.
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OUR HEROES:
A N E M P LOY E E O F U S C , S H E FORCED THE UNIVERSIT Y TO RECOGNIZE LGBT PEOPLE Del Whan (1941 - ) These days Del Whan, who lives in Long Beach, describes herself as a “pet sitter.” That evokes an image of a passive and quiet woman, content to stay at home with her dog. In so doing it belies both Whan’s early history as a lesbian activist and her continuing advocacy today for environmental protection, animal rights and the legalization of marijuana, among other things.
DEL WHAN
1975
In a chapter in “Old Lesbians and Their Brief Moments of Fame,” Whan describes what got her out of the gay closet. It was 1970, and she was director of the foreign language lab at the University of Southern California. Her nights out were at “gay girl” bars in Los Angeles. During the day, she writes, “I suffered from hangovers, internalized homophobia, eye twitches and muscle cramps from hiding in the closet.” Then, feeling a little apprehension, she went to hear a speech on campus that spring by gay activist Morris Kight. Kight invited his gay listeners to visit the Gay Liberation Front, which he had founded, in Silver Lake. Soon Whan was picketing a Los Angeles Police station and working with Kight and others to create the nation’s first gay pride parade. Whan also stepped boldly out of the closet at USC, founding the Gay Liberation Forum with a group of students, staff members and faculty. In 1971, the USC Board of Trustees refused to recognize the GLF as a legitimate student organization. Whan pressed on, holding GLF meetings at the Religious Center off the USC campus. For a long time she was the only woman in the group. She hung out with gay male students, going to their apartments to listen to Judy Garland records. It wasn’t until 1975 that the trustees officially recognized the group as the “Gay Student Union,” responding from threats by gay alumni that they would cut off their donations. Meanwhile, Whan was making other moves. In 1970, the year she formed GLF, she also created the Gay Women’s Services Center (GWSC) in Echo Park, the first lesbian social services center in the nation. It hosted consciousness-raising
meetings, classes, dances and other events. Failing to attract the volunteers and money it needed, the GWSC closed in 1972.
Whan remained active in Morris Kight’s Gay Liberation Front and for a while was a member of the Lesbian Feminists, a group that saw oppression of all as an issue as big as homophobia. Whan eventually pulled out of that group, but she continued to speak speaking out against oppression, whether by the Republican Party, Wall Street bankers, the oil industry or the Sultan of Brunei.
“ I suffered from hangovers, internalized homophobia, eye twitches and muscle cramps from hiding in the closet.”
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OUR HEROES:
MORRIS KIGHT A FOUNDER OF THE L A P R I D E PA R A D E AND THE L A LGBT CENTER Morris Kight (Nov. 19, 1919 – Jan. 19, 2003). You’re standing on Santa Monica Boulevard, watching the LA Gay Pride floats and marchers move by? You have Morris Kight to thank for that. You’re at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center, getting an STD check? You have Morris Kight to thank for that. You’re considering checking into the Van Ness Recovery Center? You have Morris Kight to thank for that. Kight, who grew up in Comanche County, Texas, moved to northern New Mexico in 1951 and to Los Angeles in 1958. Kight wasn’t just gay. He was radical and gay, and proud of it. He took his time getting there. According to “Gay LA:
A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians,” the definitive account of the LGBT movements early years, in his earliest days in Los Angeles Kight carried a sign saying he was a “Heterosexual in Support of Gay Rights” (and he did have two daughters, born during his time in New Mexico.) After the famous Stonewall Riots in New York City, an emboldened Kight helped found the LA chapter of the Gay Liberation Front, which was to the existing gay rights movement
what Black Power was to the NAACP: much more radical. He was 50 years old then and described himself as a “Sugar Daddy without the sugar.” The GLF, Kight said, was to “break the chains” of a “racist, sexist, imperialistic system.” That reached beyond the LGBT community. In 1967 Kight founded the “Dow Action Committee” in 1967 to protest Dow Chemical’s production of Agent Orange and napalm, herbicides and defoliants used during the Vietnam War. Many LGBT people refused to join Kight in that and other battles, and some called him a “Communist sympathizer.” Never one to miss an opportunity to stir the homophobic hornets nest, Kight turned a proposal for the gay community to take over sparsely populated Alpine County, which is in Sierra Nevada, between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park, into a massive publicity stunt. He put together a press release announcing that 479 gays would move to Alpine, demand a special election and take over every county office. Kight announced that soon Alpine would be home to the first American lesbian and gay university. The announcement was covered by the Associated Press and UPI and hundreds of local newspapers and radio stations, including the thenhomophobic Los Angeles Times. Kight founded the Christopher Street West gay pride parade in 1970, facing opposition from L.A.
1971
Police Chief Edward Davis, who rejected an invitation to join the parade in 1975 with a letter saying he would “much rather celebrate ‘gay conversion week’ which I will gladly sponsor when the medical practitioners in this country find a way to convert gays to heterosexuals.”
Eventually Kight and other GLF members began focusing on the LGBT community rather than the heterosexual culture that they saw as its enemy. Kight worked with John Platania and Don Kilhefner to establish the Van Ness Recovery House, a rehab facility for gay men that is in operation today. In 1971 he worked with others to create what is now the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, the largest such organization in the world. Kight died in 2003 at the age of 83. The City of Los Angeles dedicated the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and McCadden Place as “Morris Kight Square.” It was the place at which the LA Pride Parade, the first in the world, used to begin its march.
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OUR HEROES:
BILLIE JEAN KING
A WORLD - CL A SS T E N N I S P L AY E R , KING CAME OUT OF THE CLOSET AND BECAME A POWERFUL LGBT R I G H T S A D V O C AT E
Billie Jean King (Novembeer 22, 1943-) Billie Jean King, a Long Beach native who studied at California State University-Los Angeles, is a tennis icon who bested self-identified chauvinist Bobby Riggs in the highly publicized 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match that attracted an estimated 50 million viewers around the world.
The Times of London. “I’ve got a homophobic family, a tour that will die if I come out, the world is homophobic and, yeah, I was homophobic. If you speak with gays, bisexuals, lesbians and transgenders, you will find a lot of homophobia because of the way we all grew up.” King married in 1965 but filed for divorce in 1987. While married she began an affair with another woman that ended in an acrimonious lawsuit in 1981 that made public her attraction to women. She reportedly lost $2 million in endorsements as a result. King embraced her lesbian identity and became an LGBT rights advocate. She founded the Women’s Tennis Association and the Women’s Tennis Foundation and is involved in the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
King was a tennis phenomenon from an early age. In 1961 she became world famous when, at the age of 17, she won the women’s double’s title at Wimbledon. Supporters in Long Beach had raised $2,000 to send her there. King won 39 Grand Slam titles during her tennis career, with six of them at the world-famous Wimbledon. While King knew during her 20s that she was a lesbian, being raised in a homophobic family and culture kept her in the closet. “I couldn’t get a closet deep enough,” King said in an interview with
King received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and was tapped in 2014 to be part of the U.S. delegation to the Winter Olympics in Sochi. She missed the opening ceremony because of her mother’s health problems (she died in February of that year) and attended the closing ceremony instead. Her inclusion was perceived as a political statement to the anti-LGBT laws recently passed in Russia. The laws included bans on gay adoptions, “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,” gay pride events and providing children with information about homosexuality. As a result, many LGBT people protested the decision to hold the Olympics in Sochi.
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OUR HEROES:
T R OY PE R RY A C O N S E R VAT I V E CHRISTIAN ONCE MARRIED TO A WOMAN , PE RRY ENDED UP FOUNDING THE L ARGEST LGBT CHURCH IN THE WORLD Troy Perry (July 27, 1940 ). Even as a young man growing up in Tallahassee, Florida, Troy Perry says he was a “religious fanatic.” By the time he was 15 he was a Baptist preacher. By the time he was 19, he was married to the daughter of another preacher, with whom he had two sons. He attended the conservative Midwest Bible College and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and became a Church of God minister before he turned 21. Even as he was preaching the Holy Scripture Perry was struggling with an attraction to other men. He was forced to leave his Church of God ministry when one sexual partner told church leaders about a liaison. He and his wife and children moved to Southern California, where he became minister at a Church of God of Prophecy. In California, Perry
continued to be pushed out of the closet despite himself. One day his wife found a copy of “The Homosexual in America,” described as “one of the most influential works in the history of the gay rights movement,” under their mattress and ended their marriage. Perry spent time as a store clerk and two years in the Army. In 1968, he saw the police arrest his date for the night at the Black Cat Tavern, a gay bar in Silver Lake. That inspired him to return to preaching, but this time to a gay audience. Three years later Perry’s congregation swelled to more than 1,000 people and it opened its own church at 22nd and Union streets in Los Angeles, which was destroyed by a fire of mysterious origin in 1973. Perry was interested in diversity in his congregation and welcomed people of color. He even had lesbians dressed in suits serve as ushers. He encouraged the creation of a lesbian group within the church called De Colores. While founding a Christian church for an LGBT congregation was radical for its time, Perry’s religious philosophy was conservative. Nevertheless he encouraged his congregants to join even the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front, a group that disdained the more mainstream efforts at acceptance of other homophile organizations. Today the MCC, a Protestant denomination, has 222 member congregations in 37 countries and continues to focus on LGBT people. Perry lives in Los Angeles with his long term partner, Phillip Ray De Blieck, who he married under Canadian law at Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto.
SUMMER 2018
The City of West Hollywood's Arts Division presents the
2018 One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival Cel Celebrating pride in 2018 with the festival theme “I Remember” which honors our shared history, and the people and events which paved the way for the rights we hold dear today. Some highlights: June 2: a full day of screenings and panels including sneak peeks at new documentaries on the West Hollywood Aquatics Team and Connie Norman, transgender AIDS activist June 13: composer Craig Hella Johnson presents a preview of Considering Matthew Shepard and Q & A as part of the 20th anniversary commemoration of Matthew Shepard's death June 20: Screening of ‘When Bette Met Mae’ June 22-23: New Stages present Heroic Lives, an original musical based on the life stories of, and performed by, LGBTQ seniors June 24: Summer Sounds concert with Mariachi Arcoiris, the world's only LGBTQ mariachi Adelaide Dr Drive: Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy exhibition at the West Hollywood Library Heroes and History of The LGBTQ Civil Rights Movement display at Santa Monica Blvd and Crescent Heights
Mo info at weho.org/pride or More @WeHoArts and @WeHoCity
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