The reality of unarmed African American women – LBTQ, gender nonconforming and straight – being beaten, profiled, sexually violated and murdered by law enforcement officials with alarming regularity is too often ignored – especially with the focus of police brutality on our males. Like so many African American women, Sandra Bland’s death in 2015, resulting…
Openly gay Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Nov. 7, 1977. It was a momentous moment in American history and helped open once closed doors to other LGBT leaders and professionals which no doubt improved lives far beyond San Francisco. The fortieth anniversary of Milk’s election afforded us the opportunity…
It was Nov.19, and what was constructed to be the first annual Tea Party took place at the Sunset Theater in Normal Heights. It was a T-Party for transgender community members, family and friends and allies of the community rolled out by T-Spot (thetspot.org). The theme was Alice In Wonderland, with playing card cut-outs as…
In the child-free community, they would call me a fence sitter – a person who is unsure about whether or not they want to have children one day. Despite this, sometimes aggressively imposed, label, I choose to embrace ambiguity in this area in the same manner in which I approach labeling my sexuality and gender…
The story of Thanksgiving has evolved over the years as we have recognized that the tale taught in elementary school wasn’t true to the contributions of native peoples and their treatment by Europeans. At its best, our current Thanksgiving tradition reminds us that we are a nation of immigrants who owe at least a debt…
This Thanksgiving has not been easy for me as I lost one of my best and most loyal friends, Ben Dillingham, who I loved like my brother. He was family to me and loved me unconditionally, “warts and all.” This was a friendship of over 30 years and when Ben gave you his friendship he…
I suppose I’m at my dorkiest about my stuffed animals. I have my first teddy bear, Buzz. I have the two cats Carol from Connecticut sent: Elga Wasserman (after my first attorney) and the appealingly homely Samo. Of course, I’ve kept the last one my mother gave me, a high femme rabbit in an extraordinary…
Since the election of Donald Trump, most Americans on both sides of the political aisle feel American democracy is under siege. The infighting going on in both the Democratic and Republican camps has cast a pall on the country’s future. And neither party, at present, can tamp down the support nor enthusiasm some have for…
Boston-born White House chief of staff John Kelly’s recent remark on Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News show reopened a divide so deep in this country about slavery that I am reminded of American novelist William Faulkner’s quote “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Kelly told the conservative media television host that he…
Sept. 5, Equality California, joined by the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California challenging the Trump administration’s transgender military ban, Stockman v. Trump. It was the fourth lawsuit filed over the ban. Nov. 6,…
