If you’re active in San Diego’s trans community, you’ve likely heard of Claire Russell. She’s known for being imaginative, being service oriented and for being an organizer. Her work includes volunteering at the LGBT Youth Center, creating an online San Diego Trans Resource Center and she was a key organizer for the first annual Trans*Pride…
If you Google the Rev. Troy Perry and Phil Wilson you will immediately know why they will both be honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards at the eighth annual Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast to be held Thursday, May 21 at the Hilton Hotel by the Bay. Rev. Troy Perry is the founder of the worldwide Metropolitan…
Oh the trials of writing a weekly political print column. Last week, in the day between submitting my big questions for the year and printing them, Sen. Barbara Boxer answered one of them by announcing she would not seek re-election in 2016. Since then, some of the major players have stolen my opportunity for impressive…
If there ever is an object lesson about vetting leadership for transgender specific organizations, Allison Woolbert’s elevation to executive director of the Transgender Human Rights Institute (THRI) start-up nonprofit and creation of the Trans* Violence Tracking Portal (TVTP) should be that lesson. Allison Woolbert recently resigned as executive director of Transgender Human Rights Institute (THRI)…
Carl DeMaio to wed in 2015? Recently, I had dinner with Carl DeMaio and his life partner Johnathan Hale who have been together about seven years. They had returned from a week’s vacation aboard a cruise liner and looked tanned, rested and ready for a new chapter in their life together. While many Republican Party…
Barring an unexpected vacancy, 2015 should be a boring electoral year, as there won’t be any major offices open at the federal, state or local level. That doesn’t mean it will be a boring political year, particularly as candidates begin jockeying for 2016 races. The following are some of the major questions that will get…
There’s a reason why, in the mid-2000s, my first blogging gig was for The Ex-Gay Watch. My parents made it a requirement for me to live in their house that I go to a Christian therapist to “treat” me for my “transvetism.” My parents and I were Pentecostals, and I wanted to be cured of…
Many years ago, the Imperial Court de San Diego established the Ben F. Dillingham Fund for special emergency needs. Among those it has helped is an 89-year-old-man whose apartment was totally burnt down (no insurance) and a lesbian mom who had one of her legs cut off. But more than half of the Dillingham Fund…
After I came out in 2003, most of my holiday seasons have been filled with holiday depression. You know, that kind of seasonal depression one experiences that has known cause or causes and comes and goes at roughly the same times each year in fall and winter. Annual events and anniversaries with gray and black…
After the death of the black New Yorker who was put in a choke-hold by police officers I joined a demonstration in front of the Federal Building in downtown. I agree with the 70 percent of Americans of color who in recent polls stated that the justice system is not equal for all Americans. Since…
