Before summer ends, Transcendence presents one final holiday weekend — our Gala! It’s not only our biggest fundraising event of the season — this year, it’s the best of the best from our last 8 years!
Please join our virtual family for one last dazzling, sparkling, spectacular Summer evening. We hope you’ll want to join our family and become a supporter. And no matter what, we want you there shining and celebrating with us.
Make sure to sign up to watch! Once you reserve your ticket(s), we’ll email you a link 24 hours before your event. Be sure to register for each show you want to see — the “watch” links are different for each performance date/time. We encourage you to share your watch link with family and friends. Help us spread the magic and inspire people in their living rooms, wherever they live.
One Last Week to Help Us Meet Our Goal!Our campaign ends on September 13 at 11:59 pm PST.
Friends, this is the moment. For Transcendence, Keep the Dream Alive is more than just a campaign, it is our reality and the need for your support has never been greater. We’ve been gifted a huge opportunity to help us reach our goal thanks to a generous donation from a fan. Your contributions are now being matched DOLLAR for DOLLAR. You have the unique opportunity to double your impact, at a time when Transcendence’s future is reliant solely on the generosity of our faithful community.
We are so close to meeting our goal of $575,000 before the end of our summer season. If you, our supporters and community, can dig deep and help us raise approximately $100,000 by 11:59 pm (PST) on September 13, we will meet our goal with the match! There are many ways to donate, and your donation will be matched dollar for dollar! We plan to continue making magic and uplifting and inspiring audiences around the world, but we cannot do it without you. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Ways to donate: Check by mail: 19201 Sonoma Highway #214 Sonoma, CA 95476
Jack London State Park Sponsor SpotlightEnsuring a sustainable park that would make Jack London proud.
Jack London State Park has been the gorgeous backdrop for Transcendence Theatre Company’s (TTC) Broadway Under the Stars summer series since the very beginning. When TTC arrived in 2012, a state crisis threatened to shut down the Park, which gave the Transcendence founders an idea to help save the Park; by making it their stage. With six weeks and $83 in their pockets, the company put on on the show of a lifetime. Nine hundred members of the community came out to save the Park and join the magic. At the same time, Jack London Park Partners (JLPP) emerged. JLPP was the first nonprofit organization to take up management of a state park on behalf of the people of California, and it has been successfully running Jack London State Historic Park ever since.
The Park Partners is the outgrowth of Valley of the Moon Natural History Association, a citizens’ group established nearly a half-century ago to support the interpretive needs of three parks in Sonoma County, including Jack London State Historic Park. The Association has played a vital role in recruiting and organizing the band of hundreds of volunteers, which supports all functions of the Park. It contributes funds to advance cultural and recreational programs, creates educational exhibits, displays, and signage at the Park.
Jack London Park Partners depends on the generosity of private citizens in providing programming, operating, and maintaining the land and historic structures of this treasure of natural beauty and historical significance, which is why Transcendence has teamed up with JLPP as their nonprofit partner for the Gala Celebration. Jack London Park Partners will receive 10% of all donations made during the Gala! Make sure to show your support for both Jack London Park Partners and Transcendence Theatre Company by watching and donating during the Gala!
Community Member ShoutoutsStaying connected to our Transcendence family.
As we continue to find ways to strengthen our transcendent connection with you all, we asked some of our staff members to give shout outs to some phenomenal community members that have touched their hearts. Every one of you is so very important to us, we hope this finds you well and brings a smile to your heart.
MEGGIE CANSLER NESS: The Zwerling family are my PEOPLE! They volunteer for us EVERY SUMMER for EVERY SHOW. Their faces fill me with love and joy whenever I see them. We all had a lovely dinner at the MAYO reserve room years back and it bonded us for life. Beautiful, magical, people – I am so thankful you are Son-home-a family!
LEESA YOUNG: I would love to shout out to our Team Skittles Awesome Volunteer Judy Mahoney! Judy is always there for our team whether it is making cobbler for the office or being at the park helping the box office anytime we need to fill a spot. She always brings Skittles with her to make us happy. Some weekends she volunteers 3 nights in a row! When I moved into my new house and didn’t have very many things she brought me a bag full of kitchen pots and pans and clothes. She has given endlessly and is always there for us.
Hugh Jackman, Janelle Monáe, Regina King, Pose sensation and fashion trailblazer Billy Porter, groundbreaking trans actress Laverne Cox, Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy and vaunted political satirist John Oliver are among the slew of actors, comics and performers lending cheer to GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics’ inaugural Dorians TV Toast 2020 on Revry, airing Sunday, September 13th on the first LGBTQ+ global streaming network Revry.
In the two-hour star-studded virtual event, hosted by famously opinionated entertainer and talk show host Karel, fans will find out which stars and TV shows the LGBTQ+ organization’s 270 members deemed the best, most visually stunning and even campiest of the past TV season. In addition to raising a glass to the honorees—many of whom delight in virtual acceptance videos—GALECA members discuss the nominees’ merits and even controversies (Randy Rainbow and Tiger King don’t get off lightly).
Going into Revry’s September 13th special, star and co-creator Dan Levy’s riches-to-rags comedy Schitt’s Creek leads the pack with seven nominations, while Hollywood whiz Ryan Murphy’s ambitious, star-studded reimagining of Tinseltown’s early days sashays down the red carpet with six nods. The fact-based TV movie Bad Education and daring miniseries Watchmen each have four Dorian nominations, with the HBO titles’ respective stars, Jackman and King, earning best performance nominations. Singer and actress Monáe, now seen in the centuries-spanning horror film Antebellum, and Porter share a nomination for TV Musical Performance of the Year for their vibrant opening number in this year’s Academy Awards telecast. The full list of contenders, across 14 categories, can be found at DoriansToast.com.
Helping present the TV Dorians: Drag icon Shangela (star of HBO’s We’re Here), What We Do in the Shadows’ vampire-slayer Harvey Guillén; DailyMailTV and Gay Good News host and groundbreaking cable news anchor Thomas Roberts; actor and music artist Alex Newell (Glee and NBC’s Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist); RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars champion Chad Michaels; multi-hyphenate Josh Thomas of the hit Freeform sitcom, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay; actress-comedian Margaret Cho; veteran talk radio host and Sexy Liberal podcast network founder Stephanie Miller; legendary saxophonist Dave Koz; acclaimed actress and jazz singer Lea DeLaria (Orange is the New Black); rising stars Rafael Casal and Kate Rose Wilburn; and iconic comic Bruce Vilanch.Revry personalities Shira Lazar and Andy Lalwani, of the news and pop culture series What’s Trending, will also be on deck offering insightful commentary.
“It’s really incredible how the industry has so positively responded to our show,” said outspoken host and producer, Karel (otherwise known as Charles Karel Bouley). “While COVID has definitely created challenges, it’s also strangely brought us together in a global way: We’ve got Alex Newell in Canada, Laverne Cox in New York, Lea DeLaria in LA, Margaret Cho in her back yard and even a surprise from Ireland! A pub is a place that brings people together, and we think Oscar Wilde would approve of our virtual Plan B.” “Revry is honored to host the exclusive premiere of the star-studded Dorians TV Toast 2020 on Revry and to stream the show worldwide on our queer network,” said Christopher J. Rodriguez, Esq., Revry co-founder and CBO. “We believe that representation saves lives and while our network focuses on uplifting LGBTQ+ entertainment within queer culture, GALECA has been essential in pushing the broader entertainment industry towards increased representation of LGBTQ+ people in mainstream media. This partnership creates the perfect bridge between these two worlds and allows GALECA and Revry to honor our allies in the industry on a network made by and for our community.” The Society’s Dorian Awards, which in the past have gone to both film and television titles combined, announced the nominees for its first separate Dorian TV Awards on June 30. The Dorians are awarded to both general and LGBTQ content, reminding bigots, bullies and at-risk youth that the world looks to the Q eye for leads on great entertainment. “With September being Suicide Prevention Month and next month being LGBTQ History Month, this is a lovely and loving time to celebrate not just great television, but also how ‘rainbow’ journalists have boosted Hollywood from day one,” said John Griffiths, GALECA.org’s Executive Director and Founder. “Be they black, Latinx, indigenous, white, bi, trans, nonbinary or several of the above, queer entertainment critics and reporters have a distinct perspective born of their culture and oppression that has shaped all of the arts for the better. People should know that—and they will thanks to Revry.”
GALECA members offering their opinions in what host Karel calls his “virtual pub” include Tre’vell Anderson (Cohost, Maximum Fun’s FANTI podcast), Kevin Fallon (Senior Writer, The Daily Beast), Eric Andersson (Senior Writer, TV Guide Magazine), Tracy E. Gilchrist (Co-Editor in Chief, The Advocate), Liz Shannon Miller (Senior TV Editor, Collider), Dino-Ray Ramos (Associate Editor, Deadline), Erik Anderson (Editor in Chief of Awards Watch), Jose Bastidas (Assistant Entertainment Editor, The San Francisco Chronicle), Tariq Raouf (Entertainment Queerlypodcast), as well as freelance journalists Ren Jender, Manuel Betancourt, Topher Gauk-Roger and Griffiths (former longtime TV critic for Us Weekly).
Chiming in as well with lively comments are former CNN Headline News show host Jane Velez-Mitchell, legendary showbiz columnist Michael Musto and Revry co-founder Wadooah Wali, all GALECA Advisory Board members. The Emmy-winning Velez-Mitchell, now a crusader for animal rights, veganism and the environment via her #JaneUnchained initiative, is one of five media experts to recently join the Society’s list of advisors. The others are Shane Michael Singh, former executive editor of Playboy turned brand partnerships and development manager at the LGBTQ youth charity The Trevor Project; groundbreaking black film critic and former VH1 talk show host Bobby Rivers; Nick McCarthy, director of programming for the NewFest LGBTQ film festival; and Gil Robertson, co-founder and president of the African American Film Critics Association.
The show is produced and created by Karel.Media, whose creative team includes Brandon Riley Miiller (High the Series, Life In Segments) and talent liaison Makiko Ushiyama, with awards design by Karel and Jason Young of Pearl Image. The special includes an original theme tune: The cozy and festive “Toast,” with music by Morgan Mallory and lyrics by Karel. Viewers can also hear what Karel calls a “power-pub” version of the song, “Toast 2,” performed by Las Vegas-based Irish band The Black Donnellys, featuring a new melody and an added stanza by Donnelly’s frontperson Dave Rooney.
And the Dorians special will include a special message from siblings Rosanna and David Arquette in support of the Alexis Arquette Family Foundation and its missions to offer care and support of the LGBTQ+ community and reflect its namesake’s belief that the arts can transform lives.
The show will air Sunday, Sept. 13 at 8pm EST, 5pm PST for free on Revry, the LGBTQ+ streaming network, available globally at watch.revry.tv. For more information about the Society and its Dorians Toast, visit GALECA.org and DoriansToast.com. For Commercial Promos and Photo Assets click HERE.
Celebrities set to appear: Hugh JackmanRegina KingRafael CasalMargaret ChoLaverne CoxLea DeLariaHarvey Guillén Dave KozDan LevyDamon LindelofChad MichaelsStephanie MillerAnnie MurphyMichael MustoAlex NewellJohn OliverJanell MonáeBilly PorterShangelaThomas RobertsFiona ShawJosh ThomasJane Velez-MitchellBruce VilanchKate Rose Wilburn About GALECAGALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics’ Dorian Awards, a nonprofit professional organization, was founded in 2009. Today, GALECA consists of 270 active critics and journalists who write on entertainment for major and distinctly unique media outlets in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K. Visit GALECA.org for more info, and support us @DorianAwards on Twitter and Facebook and @Dorian_Awards on Instagram.
GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics is a member of CGEM: Critics Groups for Equality in Media, an alliance of underrepresented entertainment journalists and Time’s Up’s CRITICAL database. For more information, visit CGEMCritics.org.
About RevryWatch Queer TV 24/7 with the first LGBTQ+ virtual cable TV network. Revry offers free live TV channels and on-demand viewing of its global library featuring LGBTQ+ movies, shows, music, podcasts, news, and exclusive originals all in one place! Revry is currently available globally in over 250+ million households and devices and on seven OTT, mobile, and Desktop platforms. Revry can also be viewed on nine live and on-demand channels and Connected TVs including: The Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, Comcast Xfinity X1, Dell, XUMO TV, Zapping TV, STIRR, TiVo+, and as the first LGBTQ+ virtual reality channel on Littlstar (available on PlayStation devices). The company–an inaugural member of the Goldman Sachs Black and LatinX Cohort–is headquartered in Los Angeles and led by a diverse founding team who bring decades of experience in the fields of tech, digital media, and LGBTQ+ advocacy. Follow on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @revrytv.Revry.tv
The owner of the Baltimore Eagle, an LGBTQ leather-Levi bar that has been in business for 30 years, has raised strong objections to what he says was an Aug. 7 raid on his establishment by a dozen representatives of city regulatory agencies who claimed they were investigating a complaint that the Eagle was violating COVID-19 social distancing rules.
Eagle owner Ian Parrish told the Washington Blade the raid came shortly after he alerted officials with the Baltimore Board of Liquor License Commissioners that he learned that people associated with a competing LGBTQ establishment filed complaints against the Eagle with the liquor board and the city Health Department falsely claiming the Eagle was violating social distancing requirements.
He said his attempt to alert the liquor board and health department about the false complaints apparently did not reach the people who conducted the raid.
Parrish said one of the officials in charge of the agents that conducted the raid, all of whom wore “black body armor,” became angry when he asked to take their temperature as they arrived at the Eagle’s door. Parrish said taking people’s temperature “is part of our COVID-19 protocols for all people entering the premises.”
“’We’re the f[**]king liquor board,’ was their answer to my request,” Parrish said in an email to Maryland State Sen. Mary Washington (D-Baltimore), a copy of which he sent to the Blade. “Then, the horde of the agents in body armor walked through me. I was ping-ponged from side to side as each agent physically pushed me from left to right and back about ten feet as they forced their way past me,” he said in his email to Washington.
“Not only did those agents abuse their authority by assaulting me, they put our patrons at risk by willfully ignoring State of Maryland COVID protocols, and some of them weren’t even wearing masks!” Parrish said in his email message.
“The SWAT style show of force put upon us was grossly out of proportion for the circumstances, it frightened our patrons to the point of them leaving, and the worst part of it was that we were subjected to this gross abuse of authority for absolutely no valid reason,” said Parrish in the email.
Adam Abadir, a spokesperson for the Baltimore City Health Department, responded by email to a Blade inquiry about the concerns raised by Parrish that the Health Department was part of an unnecessary raid on the Baltimore Eagle.
Abadir characterized the visit to the Eagle by the various city agents as an “inspection” that was conducted by members of the Baltimore Social Club Task Force, which consists of several city agencies, including the Health Department, liquor board, and the police and fire departments. He said the inspection visit was prompted by complaints received from citizens that the Eagle was allegedly in violation of social distancing orders issued by Baltimore Mayor Barnard Jack Young to address the COVID pandemic.
Abadir said that at least one of the individuals that filed a complaint against the Eagle sent the Health Department a flier issued by the Eagle advertising a “foam party” scheduled to take place Aug. 7 and 8. The flier, a copy of which Abadir sent the Blade, states: “Throw on your harness and get naughty under piles of safe, antibacterial foam on our social distance patio. Thank you for respecting our COVID-19 guidelines.”
According to Abadir, the task force members determined through their inspection that the Eagle was in violation of a mayoral order issued on Aug. 7 just hours before the Eagle raid that banned indoor operations at bars and restaurants after 10 p.m. He said that during the inspection visit the Eagle’s management immediately complied with the order by moving all indoor patrons to the Eagle’s outdoor space and no penalty was imposed.
Abadir said that due to threats made against members of the Social Club Task Force during past inspection visits to other establishments, the task force members “unfortunately must wear bulletproof vests/flak jackets for their protection.” He said the “body armor,” as Parrish called it, is worn by task force members on all inspection visits and the inspection visit to the Eagle was handled the same as inspections for all other bars, restaurants and other establishments.
Matt Achhammer, a spokesperson for the Baltimore Board of Liquor License Commissioners, provided the liquor board’s explanation of the raid on the Eagle in a Sept. 2 email to Baltimore City Council member Ryan Dorsey. Dorsey asked the liquor board about the raid after being contacted by Parrish.
Achhammer said in his message to Dorsey that the inspection visit to the Eagle was prompted, among other things, by the Eagle’s flier advertising its foam party as well as two complaints about the Eagle from citizens who called the city’s 311 non-emergency services phone line to report the complaints.
“In this case please note that on August 7, though the location had major COVID violations, it was issued a warning,” Achhammer told Dorsey in his email. Achhammer acknowledged Parrish’s concern that multiple executive orders by the Baltimore mayor have created confusion among businesses required to put in place COVID related restrictions and policies.
Parrish said that he later learned that the mayor’s order banning indoor operations at restaurants and bars was issued at noon on Aug. 7, just hours before the raid took place at the Eagle. He said no one from the liquor board or health department contacted the Eagle to inform the club about the revised order.
“There is no reason why a call, a text, an email can’t be sent out to licensees to keep us informed so that nobody is causing an infraction unwittingly,” Parrish told the Blade. He said that at least one of the task force members participating in the Eagle raid acknowledged that the COVID related orders and rules have changed frequently over the past several months, making it difficult for businesses to keep abreast of the changes.
In his email message to State Sen. Mary Washington, a lesbian, a copy of which he sent to the Blade, Parrish said the Baltimore Eagle has a long record of operating as a responsible bar, restaurant, and retail shop.
“I mention this because in 30 years the Baltimore Eagle has never – not once – never been called before the Liquor Board for any wrongdoing,” Parrish states in his email to Washington. “We are a bar with a very long and verifiable history of community involvement and charitable giving, and we enjoy the formal written support of over 1,200 residential and commercial neighbors of all backgrounds and beliefs, the Charles North Community Association, and the support of 5,000-plus people who follow the Baltimore Eagle on social media,” he said.
Parrish told the Blade the agents participating in the raid never explained to him what the alleged multiple COVID violations were that Achhammer referred to in his email message to Councilmember Dorsey. Parrish said it was possible that Eagle patrons moved closer together than required for social distancing during the confusion that took place during the raid when the agents walked through all of the Eagle’s different rooms and spaces.
“Regarding the presence of foam, that has absolutely no bearing on social distancing or our other COVID-19 protocols,” Parrish said in a follow-up email to Councilmember Dorsey. “[T]he antibacterial soap-based foam has a deleterious effect on the COVID-19 virus, which is one of the reasons why we moved forward with it in the first place,” Parrish told Dorsey.
“So that certainly was not a reasonable impetus for the raid,” he continued. “What was actually relevant about the theme was that it was a threat to a competing venue’s performers to the point they openly discussed in the very same Facebook post their plan to file false complaints – which they did; and again, I personally made the authorities aware of this prior to the raid,” Parrish said in his email.
Parrish said he believes the people who filed what he says were false complaints against the Eagle were drag performers associated with a competing LGBTQ venue. But he declined to identify the competing venue.
“I think this story has a real chance of just touching off more negativity and a bigger problem,” he said. “I’m not trying to point fingers, even though these people really frightened our patrons and affected our business,” Parrish said. “But we’re talking to them since this whole incident. We started talking. We’re really not trying to go backwards and inflame anybody.”
Andrew Gillum, former rising star of the Democratic Party, said he “cried every day” after being found in a Florida hotel room with a gay escort.
A former Tallahassee mayor who ran for Florida governor in 2018, Gillum’s political career plummeted in March when he was found in a Miami Beach hotel room with a sex worker who had reportedly overdosed on crystal meth.Read More
Now, Gillum and his wife are set to appear on chat show Tamron Hall for his first interview since coming out of rehab, one that the eponymous host said is “one of the most difficult” in her 27-year career as a journalist.
“Everybody believes the absolute worst about that day,” Gillum reflected in the pre-recorded interview, due to air Monday (14 September). “At this stage, I don’t have anything else to conceal.
“I literally got broken down to my most bare place, to the place where I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to live, not because of what I had done, but because of everything that was being said about me.”
Andrew Gillum interview was ‘heartbreaking’ says Tamron Hall.
Tamron Hall said her interview with Andrew Gillum interview was “intense, and at moments it was heartbreaking, upsetting and it was disorienting”.
“I’m only there because they’ve agreed, but I still felt like I was prying,” Hall, 49, told PEOPLE magazine.
“They agreed to talk with me, but as a journalist, there’s moments where you wonder: How far are we really supposed to go?”
An outpouring of first responders hit the Mondrian South Beach hotel midnight on March 13, where officers found Gillum “inebriated” and vomiting in the bathroom, according to a police report.
Paramedics treated a man found struggling to breathe, who police suspected had overdosed on crystal meth. He was later identified as Travis Dyson, an escort through the website Rent Men.
Gillium, 41, checked into rehab for alcoholism and depression two days after the incident – a stunning and swift fall for the promising politician once considered a potential kingmaker in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, so sought after was his endorsement.
Rivky strolled through the Zara store in Manhattan’s fashionable SoHo neighborhood, one eye examining the racks of skirts and blouses and the other looking out for anyone she might know. She was looking for something that would fit her broad frame. Rivky made her way to the women’s dressing room line, dresses and skirts piled on her forearms. The female attendant looked confused and then chuckled. Why was this male-presenting person — wearing traditional Hasidic Jewish men’s attire — walking into the fitting room with women’s clothing?
Rivky, 41, is not your typical gender-conforming religious observer. Her white dress shirt, black vest and black slacks — the daily dress code for Hasidic men — serve as culturally acceptable covers for the bra and women’s underwear she frequently wears underneath. She feels her best when dressed in women’s attire, and at home she regularly strips down to just a bra, panties and nylon tights when she knows her wife will not be back for hours.
“It makes me feel like I want to dance for joy,” said Rivky, who asked that her full name not be published because she is not out to friends and family about her gender identity.
“If you take a magnifying glass and look into my heart, you will see 100 percent I am a girl.”
RIVKY
Rivky identifies as transgender but deeply buries these emotions and feelings away from her ultra-Orthodox community in Borough Park, Brooklyn. She fears that if she were to come out of the proverbial closet, she would face social expulsion or, worse, abandonment by her wife and four children. While there is no set Hasidic policy regarding those who come out as transgender, the community’s strict code of living does not condone even the slightest deviation from the Hasidic norm.
Neither biblical nor rabbinical literature points to changing one’s sex, but the Torah does discuss cross-dressing, said Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky of Park Avenue Synagogue, a prominent Conservative congregation in New York.
Deuteronomy 22:5 reads, “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.”
Witkovsky said some rabbinical teachings might support the literal translation of this verse, while others would interpret it otherwise.
From a young age, Rivky was in tune with her womanhood, but always in secret. As a child, she mirrored her sisters and female cousins, and she dressed like a girl when she had the chance. When her mother was away, Rivky, as young as 6 years old, would sneak into dresser drawers and try on her mother’s undergarments. They were large on Rivky’s child-size body but nonetheless “amazing,” she recalled with a smile.
When she grew older, Rivky ventured to women’s stores outside her community and glanced around the racks, wistfully. She was ashamed to admit her presence and found herself telling salespeople that she was shopping for her mother or sister. That prevented her from entering fitting rooms to try on clothes, denying her the satisfaction she craved.
“I should’ve been born a girl,” she said.
Despite temptations, Rivky kept her desires clandestine, believing they were sinful thoughts that needed to be purged.
“I would pray to God, ‘Take this away from me,'” she recalled.
But the more she pushed her womanhood away, the stronger her feminine wishes would return. Rivky continued to fight them off and kept to tradition when the Hasidic community arranged her marriage at 18. More than two decades and four children later, concealing her true identity left Rivky feeling incomplete. Only in the past 10 years has she realized that the only way to make peace with herself is to embrace those thoughts. Her urge to be the woman she has always wanted to be — after decades of hiding — grew stronger and stronger.
“I wanted to take off my beard,” she said. “I wanted to grow my hair.”
Rivky’s face glowed under tangled facial hairs when she discussed how she wants to take hormones some day. She also dreams of growing her hair long and styling it. She does, however, already shave her legs and chest hair from time to time, she confessed.
In small and subtle ways, Rivky increasingly started to express her gender identity, while keeping her friends and relatives in the dark. Her wife, however, had her suspicions and conveyed her disapproval. The couple have not discussed Rivky’s identity as a transgender lesbian, but Rivky said she knows that if she were to come out, she would lose her wife and children.
While coming out to those within her religious community is still a bridge too far for Rivky, she has taken steps to open up to those outside her Hasidic circle.
On a recent Sunday, Rivky attended a monthly feminist gathering in Brooklyn called Sacred Space, which celebrates and empowers women of all and no religious backgrounds. Women of various ages flashed smiles, exchanged hugs and gathered in a large circle around pastel furniture at the meeting room in the borough’s trendy DUMBO neighborhood. Attendees began introducing themselves, and Rivky, dressed in slacks and a dress shirt with her long curly sidelocks falling from her balding head, spoke up.
“If you take a magnifying glass and look into my heart, you will see 100 percent I am a girl,” Rivky announced in a Yiddish accent. She attended the event to see the co-host, Abby Stein, an openly transgender woman who was once an ultra-Orthodox rabbi. Rivky listened to Stein attentively, admiring her courage and openness, and then ducked out of the meeting early, as confidentiality was a concern.
Rivky yearns to assimilate into a larger society that extends beyond Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox community, and without blowing her cover, she relies on Facebook as an outlet. Hasidic Jews typically do not use social media, but Rivky’s account is disguised, and it is strictly used for expressing her womanhood. Her Facebook cover image is of a rainbow flag with the words “love is love,” and her profile photo is of a polished woman’s hand holding a red rose. Her tag line reads, “A transgender girl who appreciates seeing a smile on her friends lips when they are painted hot red!”
An estimated 1.4 million adults identify as transgender in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, although it is unknown how many trans Americans, like Rivky, are not open about their gender identities. For those who do come out, living openly is not without its challenges: According to the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, transgender people often face discrimination in housing, employment and health care, among other hurdles.
Stein, 28, is no stranger to the challenges of both the proverbial closet and coming out as transgender in the Hasidic community. A former rabbi, Stein said she struggled with her gender identity since she was at least 5 years old, recalling anger toward her parents at the time for not letting her wear dresses and telling her mother that the genitalia she was born with “doesn’t belong there.”
Stein was born into a large family of 12 children, and she socialized with no one outside her close-knit Hasidic circle in Brooklyn growing up. She divorced her wife, pursued a secular education and then came out as transgender in 2015. Stein was ostracized by her religious community, and her ex-wife severed ties, as well, because Hasidic leaders forbade their remaining in contact. She does, however, get to visit with her son from time to time. Now, five years after having left the community, she still savors the freedom fueled by that difficult decision.
“Even sometimes just waking up in the morning and walking in the streets you can be yourself,” she said. “Being yourself every day is really powerful. I can’t overstate that enough.”
She finds value in the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life rather than be confined to one group that shares the same religious and cultural values.
“I could never form strong friendships before I came out,” she said, adding that now, after having traveled to six continents and becoming friends with diverse groups of people, that aspect of her life is thriving. Over the past few years, Stein has become a global LGBTQ rights activist and has given lectures in more than 20 countries, hoping to inspire courage, resilience and inclusion. Her autobiography, “Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman,” was released in November.
But while Stein has found beauty and inspiration in her expanded world, the loneliness that comes from the loss of her Hasidic friends and family still creeps in from time to time. Stein said that for years after she was shunned by her religious community, she would call her mother every Friday, even though her mother would avoid answering the phone or answer and immediately hang up when she realized Stein was on the other end of the line. Stein called less frequently, reaching out only on holidays, and eventually she stopped calling altogether.
“Being yourself every day is really powerful. I can’t overstate that enough.”
ABBY STEIN
The fear of alienation and losing her family is what kept Rivky on guard during her SoHo shopping trip. But despite the uneasiness, the experience was a mini-vacation, because her wife was out of town.
“Just walking into this environment makes me feel womanized, girlish,” she said while walking into Club Monaco.
“I like heels. Something pointy,” she said before settling on a pair of pink pumps at a nearby shoe store. Her size was not available, but that did not stop her from squeezing what she could of her foot into the shoe and admiring the dainty look in the mirror.
Rivky abides by social distancing rules during the COVID-19 pandemic, but she said the most difficult part has been the lockdown on self-expression. Her family is home more than usual now, which means bras, panties and other expressions of her gender identity are relegated to their own version of quarantine.
There’s “very little time to express my feminine self,” she said dejectedly. A quick trip to the market is her excuse to escape the social construct and at least call her non-Hasidic friends to discuss her frustration. Rivky said her fear of “remaining a man” is greater than her fear of contracting a dangerous virus.
Rivky remains caught between two worlds, and she yearns to one day reconcile her inner gender identity with the person she presents outwardly. On some days, she feels that her coming out is closer, but for now, she continues to sneak out for short shopping trips and to message people through her secret Facebook account.
“Keeping the FEMININE flame’s burning and it gets stronger and wider,” she recently wrote on Facebook. “I am getting closer to living my feminine dream.”
One grins knowingly at a friend over the camera’s shoulder, caught up in the joy of the moment. Another strikes an imposing pose in a pink beard. A third fixes the camera with an inscrutable gaze, daring us to ask a forbidden question. These are three of the iconic photographs of drag queens taken by San Francisco photographer Roz Joseph (1926–2019) that will be on display from September 21, when the GLBT Historical Society unveils an online selection of images drawn from its 2015 exhibition “Reigning Queens: The Lost Photos of Roz Joseph.”
Joseph, who passed away in December of last year, moved to San Francisco in 1970. Her series of remarkable photographs documenting the city’s drag balls of the 1970s was rediscovered when she donated her work to the GLBT Historical Society in 2010. As we put the finishing touches on the online show, board members and drag performers Nick Large and Kyle Levinger share their reflections on the photographs.
Nick Large: Looking at these photographs, many of them depicting drag queens associated with San Francisco’s Imperial Court, causes me to reflect on how much drag has changed in the past 40 years and even in my own lifetime. When I first started doing drag, I had never heard of RuPaul’s Drag Race. There were no makeup tutorials on YouTube, and you could get your entire look locally. My first drag purchase at Forever 21 was a sleeveless fake-leather jacket, which at the time represented $30 of the total sum of $150 I had in my bank account. It’s easy to forget that in the grand scheme of things, the existence of Drag Race is a very recent phenomenon. The “lost” photographs of Roz Joseph are a reminder of earlier times. Joseph’s photos represent a moment when drag was more a form of expression than a competition. As the photographs document, San Francisco’s thriving drag community is decades old. Many people came together and formed their own families through the medium of drag, even though they were sometimes shunned by the larger LGBTQ community. I wonder what these queens of days gone by would think if they witnessed a drag performance today. What would they say we have gained, and lost? What advice and stories would they have for us? In the age of COVID-19 and online streaming shows, I wonder how we can replicate that feeling of family-building in a virtual world.
Kyle Levinger: In 2020, many members of the LGBTQ community are unaware of or uninterested in the Grand Ducal Court and Imperial Court here in San Francisco. Roz Joseph’s photographs transport us back to an era when the Courts were key in helping to shape the LGBTQ community. Drag queens were central in the fight for equality, and the Courts played a vital role in founding and supporting nonprofit organizations to fight AIDS, feed the hungry and meet many other community needs. The Ducal and Imperial Courts also served as families for people when their relatives turned their backs. Today, the Courts do not have the same appeal as they once did. As acceptance of the LGBTQ community continues to broaden and drag becomes an increasingly popular form of entertainment, they have had difficulty attracting and maintaining membership. How can the Ducal Court and Imperial Court adapt to remain relevant in the community?
Groups of men in Cossack military uniforms have been filmed roaming the Russian city of Yekaterinburg during Pride week in “anti-LGBT patrols”.
According to the Russian news outlet E1RU, the men were on the look out for LGBT+ activists, but succeeded in targeting straight people who they thought looked queer.
The group briefly detained at least one “absolutely heterosexual” student, 19-year-old Alexander Zinovyev, because he had dyed hair and wore an earring.
“Why’d you dress up like this? Are you one of them?” Zinovyev recounted one of the men saying to him. “Do you even know that we control the propaganda of gayness among the people?”
He said the men who intimidated him carried certificates declaring themselves to be “Ural Voluntary Cossack Corps”. While most of the group were dressed in military camouflage, others were patrolling in civilian clothes.
The men reportedly intended to detain LGBT+ people whom they deemed to be in violation of Russia’s gay propaganda laws, and turn them in to law enforcement.
“The prosecutor’s office issued a warning to them about the inadmissibility of propaganda. We’ll be checking how the LGBT movement representatives comply with Russian legislation,” Oleg Bogunevich, the deputy head of a local Cossack organisation, told URA News.
He claimed that around fifty people were participating in the patrols, with some Cossacks travelling over 200km from Chelyabinsk to support their Yekaterinburg “brothers”.
Opponents of the LGBT+ activists have also organised a rival “traditional values” week that includes a family parade and an Orthodox Christian fair.
The patrols come after Russia adopted a set of wide-ranging constitutional changes, including a provision that defines marriage solely as a “union between a man and a woman”.
Same-sex marriage is already banned, but the constitutional re-write means marriages registered abroad will no longer be recognised, and makes the prospect of it ever being legalised dimmer than ever for Russian activists.
Transgender people are likely to face high barriers to voting in the 2020 election, a report has warned.
An estimated 378,000 transgender people who are eligible to vote do not have ID documents such as a driver’s license reflecting their name, appearance or gender identity, according to the study from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
Some 35 US states have a form of voter ID law, which require voters to provide identification when voting. The strictest forms, in operation in 12 states, require a government-issued photo ID at the polls, with no alternative for voters who do not have one.
As well as disenfranchising minority groups who are less likely to have any form of government-issued photo ID, such laws present a barrier to trans people because they can “be challenged by poll workers or election officials who find that their voter registration information, ID, and appearance do not match”.
While many states would allow a person whose identity is disputed to cast a provisional ballot, the report’s co-author Jody Herman told Voice of America: “If those poll workers decide that those IDs don’t adequately or accurately reflect the person who is standing in front of them, they wouldn’t be able vote.”
The report notes: “There is no way to predict precisely how election officials and poll workers will treat transgender voters at the polls if their registered name and/or ID do not accurately reflect their gender.
“However, 32 per cent of respondents reported having negative experiences after presenting identification documents that did not match their gender presentation [while accessing services].”
Some 57 per cent of trans people in states with strict photo ID laws do not have an ID that reflects their correct name, according to the report.
Trans people in states without voter ID laws “may still face challenges related to potential mismatches between their gender presentation and their name as listed on their voter registration”, the report warns — with poll workers able to question “a person’s eligibility to vote if they do not believe that the name matches the voter, such as when a name is traditionally masculine or feminine and the voter appears to not match that gender”.
Trans people are worried they could be denied a vote.
Tori Cooper of Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative told VOA: “We hear about folks in our community who feel so uncomfortable or who are made to feel so uncomfortable that they simply give up when they are challenged on their own identity.
“I know someone who is listed on a voter registration form as female, which does not accurately reflect their current gender identity, which is male. He’s afraid the way he looks and presents himself could actually keep him from being able to vote in person.
“Voting is not about challenging people on their identities. It is giving people an opportunity to express their constitutional right to vote.”
“All female athletes want is a fair shot at competition,” a young woman can be heard saying over a video of several athletes preparing to run a race. “But what if that shot was taken away by a competitor who claims to be a girl but was born a boy?”
That controversial digital ad — which then shows a teen boy outrunning his female competitors and shrugging at them with indifference afterwards — is one of three released this week by the American Principles Project, a Virginia-based conservative think tank, and its PAC. The group issued a statement Thursday saying the political ads are part of a $4 million effort to “target persuadable Democrats and independent voters in key swing states.”
Half of the campaign budget will be spent in Michigan, a state Trump won in 2016 but now lags in the polls, and the American Principles Project confirmed it will release ads in Wisconsin “in the coming weeks.” The group said it hopes the Michigan ads draw attention to the support of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., “for policies which would allow biological males to compete in women’s sports and push children into dangerous, life-altering sex-change” procedures.
The two other ads feature Kevin Whitt, a man who says he lived as a woman for 17 years before deciding to detransition. Whitt warns viewers that “treatments to change the gender of a minor are very dangerous and irreversible.”
The Biden and Peters campaigns did not immediately respond to a requests for comment.
National LGBTQ advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD, were quick to denounce the campaign.
“These ads perpetuate dangerous stereotypes, traffic in misinformation, and put the lives of transgender people at risk,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “Sites and social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook should decline to run them and send a message loud and clear that those who would use their platforms to peddle hate and lies will not be tolerated or validated.”
The Human Rights Campaign also called for social media companies to take down the digital ads, saying they are blatant lies from an “outdated playbook.”
“APP wants a future where LGBTQ people can be fired, denied housing, refused business services or health care solely because of who they are. But they know full well that they’re on the wrong side of this issue and the wrong side of our future.”
Representatives from Facebook and YouTube did not immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment regarding the ads.
This is not the first time APP has funded an ad campaign with the hopes of making transgender rights a political wedge issue. Last year, it funded a similar campaign amid the Kentucky governor’s race, though the group’s preferred candidate, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, lost to Democrat Andy Beshear.
The gruesome killing on Saturday of a second transgender woman in northern Mexico has unnerved the local transgender community and amplified calls for greater protections in the Latin American nation.
The murder of Leslie Rocha in the border city of Ciudad Juarez came days after a transgender civil society group staged a protest there to demand greater protection.
Those demands were sparked by the murder late of Ciudad Juarez-born transgender activist Mireya Rodriguez Lemus, whose body was found earlier this week in Aquiles Serdan, a town in the northern Chihuahua state.
Last year 117 people from the LGBTQ community were killed in Mexico, up almost a third compared from 2018 and the highest since 2015, according to local advocacy group Letra S.
“They’re torturing them, they’re killing them horribly,” said Rocha’s aunt, Leticia Sanchez.
“Justice must be had because they deserve respect,” she said. “Why are they doing this?”