One of the most well known gay men in Los Angeles is stepping down after claims of sexual misconduct.
John Duran, also the mayor of West Hollywood, has denied allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct.
However, he is also stepping down from his post at the end of the season.
Three chorus members accuse West Hollywood mayor of sexual misconduct
Three current or former chorus members have accused Duran of inappropriate comments or touching.
Jason Tong has accused Doran of slipping his hand inside the waistband of his underwear in a changing room before a show.
He described the alleged incident as a ‘traumatic and shocking experience’. He said this prompted him to leave the group.
Tong said chorus leaders ‘supported somebody who wielded power rather than somebody who is vulnerable and needs community’.
Brian Philip Nichoalds claimed he was also victim of a similar incident. He said Duran slipped his hand inside his waistband and made sexually inappropriate comments.
When elected to membership committee, Nichoalds said he was made aware of other alleged incidents of misconduct by Duran. Nichoalds said he believes no action was taken.
Joey Firoben reported two incidents. He resigned from the group, claiming Duran made inappropriate comments and another alleging a different chorus member groped him multiple times during a dress rehearsal.
Firoben told the LA Times: ‘I flat-out told them that I can’t support the organization anymore because there is too much sexual misconduct, particularly from leaders of the organization.’
John Duran denies any wrongdoing
Duran has denied any wrongdoing in his 20 years with the chorus.
He also said he was planning on leaving the group anyway due to the ‘toxic’ climate.
Board member Diane Abbitt, chair of the human resources committee, said she was only aware of one allegation against Duran.
‘If there was a problem, if there were allegations of sexual harassment, they would have been brought to the board,’ Abbitt said.
‘Nobody has even asked me privately to have a discussion about allegations of sexual harassment or misconduct.’
In 2016, a former aide to Duran alleged sexual harassment and settled for $500,000 with Duran admitting no wrongdoing.
Today, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and a coalition of civil rights, intersex, healthcare and LGBT advocates announced legislation to ensure intersex babies – “intersex” being a term used for people born with variations in their sex characteristics, including genitalia – can provide informed consent before undergoing medically unnecessary surgeries that can effectively assign them a gender (before they can decide for themselves) and that can irreversibly harm them. Senate Bill 201 would not prohibit treatment or surgery when it is medically necessary; it simply prohibits cosmetic surgeries on babies that are medically unnecessary and based on a desire to “normalize” a child’s genitals. Some of these surgeries include, reducing a clitoris, creating a vagina or removing healthy gonadal tissue.
This long overdue measure delays medically unnecessary, often irreversible and potentially harmful procedures until children have the ability to make informed decisions for themselves. SB 201, at its core, is about giving people born with variations in their sex characteristics autonomy over their own bodies and lives. Performing highly invasive genital surgeries on babies is risky, while waiting costs nothing and allows people to make their own decisions. Delay gives individuals and their families the most options, including access to future medical advances once the patient can understand the risks as well as allowing an individual to express their own gender and not have that decision made for them.
Approximately 1-2% of people are born with variations in their sex characteristics, referred to as intersex traits. A subset of these variations are recognized at birth, while others may go unnoticed until later in life or may never be recognized. Although a very small percentage of intersex infants may require immediate medical attention—for example some are born without the ability to pass urine—the vast majority are born perfectly healthy and able to live rich, fulfilling lives without any modification to their genitals. In other words, they have no medical problems – they simply have atypical genitalia.
SB 201 answers the questions: If someone is born perfectly healthy but with atypical genitalia, who should decide the person’s gender and who should decide whether the person should undergo highly invasive surgery with potentially significant and permanent side effects? SB 201’s answer is that the individual should decide, not a physician or parent.
Human Rights Watch, the World Health Organization and every other human rights organization to consider the issue has condemned the continued performance of these procedures. Dozens of United Nations entities have repeatedly condemned the practice of intersex infant genital surgery. Not unlike the victims of LGBT conversion therapy, intersex individuals living with the results of nonconsensual genital interventions often deal with the harmful emotional and physical consequences of medically unnecessary attempts at “treatment” for the rest of their lives.
“Everyone deserves autonomy about who they are and what medically unnecessary surgeries they undergo,” said Senator Wiener. “This legislation allows individuals to choose for themselves if and when they undergo life-altering medical procedures. Parents and doctors have a critically important role to play in the health and well-being of their children, but we should not deprive individuals of the right to choose whether to undergo invasive surgeries that are cosmetic, medically unnecessary and associated with long-term permanent health consequences. It’s particularly important to allow individuals to make their own healthcare decisions when a medical procedure makes potentially irreversible decisions about a person’s gender assignment – a decision that each person should be able to make on their own. I look forward to working with our broad coalition of intersex advocates, medical professionals, LGBT advocacy organizations, parents, civil rights organizations and affected individuals to pass this important human rights legislation.”
Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, physicians began modifying the genitals of infants they considered atypical, even if the surgeries were purely cosmetic and not medically necessary. These treatments and interventions include infant vaginoplasties, clitoral reductions,and removal of gonadal tissues, and may result in extreme scarring, chronic pain, incontinence, loss of sexual sensation, post-traumatic stress disorder and incorrect gender assignment. While a number of doctors continue to perform these often irreversible procedures in infancy based on the theory that they will help intersex people feel more “normal,” no research definitively proves that claim and all major groups led by affected adults condemn the practice when performed without the consent of the individual involved.
“SB 201 preserves options for families of children born with natural variations in sex characteristics and genitalia. Drastic cosmetic procedures, like reducing a clitoris or creating a vagina for an infant, have not been proven beneficial, compared to delaying for the individual’s informed consent—acting has high stakes, while waiting costs nothing,” said Kimberly Zieselman, Executive Director of interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, an intersex woman herself affected by the surgeries. “Attempting to erase these natural differences perpetuates a message of shame, stigma and homophobia. Medicine evolves alongside social acceptance, and this bill sends a clear message: there’s no rush to perform these surgeries on infants. interACT is proud to be a part of this historic human rights effort. ”
“When my daughter was born in 2012 with an intersex condition known as Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, we faced intense pressure to consent to cosmetic surgeries to reduce the size of her clitoris and create a vagina for heterosexual intercourse. I was surprised and angered by the fact that some did not agree that delaying cosmetic surgery until our daughter could decide for herself was the only ethical choice,” said Eric Lohman, a parent, author and PhD in Gender Studies.
“For too long, our society has denied intersex children and their families the ethical, compassionate health care they deserve,” said Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur. “This is a critical human rights issue – and it’s one on which California should be leading the way. We’re grateful to Senator Wiener for his leadership and look forward to once again sending a strong message of support to intersex Californians.
“Instead of forcing conformity, we should celebrate our differences,” said Elizabeth Gill, Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. “We must allow intersex individuals to embrace their identities and bodies, and to articulate who they are before doctors perform risky, irreversible and medically unnecessary surgeries.”
SB 201 builds on Senator Wiener’s Senate Concurrent Resolution 110, passed in 2018, which called on the medical community to delay performing medically unnecessary sex-assignment and genital “normalization” procedures until an individual can provide informed consent. The resolution was the first of its kind in the nation, and if passed SB 201 would make California the first state to mandate intersex patient participation in decision-making before procedures such a clitoral reductions are performed.
SB 201 is co-sponsored by interACT, Equality California, the American Civil Liberties Union of California, and is also supported by Human Rights Watch. It is co-authored by Senator Jim Beall (D-San Jose) and Assemblymembers David Chiu (D-San Francisco), Todd Gloria (D-San Diego), Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) and Bill Quirk (D-Hayward).
The bill was officially introduced on January 28, and will be set for a committee hearing in the coming months.
Transgender service member Air Force Staff Sgt. Logan Ireland is set to attend President Trump’s upcoming State of the Union address on Tuesday as a guest of Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.).
Speier, a champion of transgender military service and now chair of the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, announced Friday on Twitter she had invited Ireland to attend the State of the Union as a guest in the House chamber.
Ireland, a security forces airman who served in Afghanistan, has been public about being transgender in the military. When the Defense Department sought to implement openly transgender service during the Obama administration, the Air Force consulted Ireland for guidance.
Speier gives Ireland visibility as the Trump administration seeks to change that policy to ban transgender military service. Although courts had blocked the Defense Department from implanting Trump’s reversal, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month issued stays on those decisions, essentially green lighting the ban. (One injunction issued by a federal court against Trump’s policy remains in place for the time being, but the Justice Department is challenging that order.)
After the Defense Department unveiled plans last year to implement Trump’s plan last year, Speier questioned former Defense Secretary James Mattis about the policy during a congressional hearing, holding up a photo Ireland and asking Mattis to explain why Ireland shouldn’t serve. Mattis declined to say, citing ongoing litigation against the transgender ban.
Technically, Ireland would be able to continue to serve in the military under the Mattis policy — on its face anyway — because it has a grandfather provision for openly transgender people currently in the armed forces. However, openly transgender people wouldn’t be able to enlist in the military unless they’re willing to serve in their biological sex, and individuals who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria or seek transition-related care after enlisting would be kicked out.
Jussie Smollett was blunt, emotional and defiantly determined Saturday night at a Southern California concert some urged him not to play, telling the crowd before singing a note that he had to go on with the show because he couldn’t let his attackers win.
“The most important thing I can say is ’thank you so much, and I’m OK,” said the “Empire” actor and R&B singer from the stage at the Troubadour in West Hollywood in his first public appearance since he reported to police in Chicago on Tuesday that two masked men had assaulted him and put a rope around his neck while using homophobic and racial slurs.
“I’m not fully healed yet,” said Smollett, who is black and openly gay, “but I’m going to be, and I’m gonna stand strong with y’all.”
The concert had been planned long before the incident, and his family members and others had urged him to postpone it.
But Smollett said he couldn’t do that.
“I had to be here tonight, y’all. I couldn’t let those (expletives) win,” he said to screams and cheers from the packed room of about 400 people. “I will always stand for love. I will only stand for love.”
His small band then launched into an upbeat song and he broke into dance, wearing a simple white buttoned shirt, white sneakers and black jeans, shuffling across the front of the stage and at times standing defiantly with a fist in the air.
Smollett kept the tone mostly celebratory through his hour-long set before addressing the attack head-on toward the end of his hour-long set, when he told the crowd he wanted to clarify a few things.
He said he was bruised but his ribs were not cracked. He went straight to the doctor but was not hospitalized, and physicians in both Chicago and Los Angeles cleared him to play but told him to be careful.
“And above all, I fought the (expletive) back,” he said to cheers.
Then he paused and said, emphatically but with a laugh, “I’m the gay Tupac.”
Fan Monique Davis said after the show that she was shocked he spoke so bluntly and directly about the incident, but she’s glad he did.
“It was amazing, it was emotional, it was inspiring,” Davis said. “He showed everyone in the room he was strong.”
Smollett told police the men attacked him as he walked home in Chicago early Tuesday, throwing a chemical substance at him in addition to shouting slurs and putting the rope around his neck.
No arrests have been made, and police have not found surveillance video of the attack, though they found footage of Smollett walking home with the rope around his neck.
Smollett had made his first public comments about the incident on Friday in a written statement that said he had been “consistent on every level” with the police during their investigation, countering comments on social media saying he had changed his story and been uncooperative with investigators.
Chicago police also said Smollett has been cooperative and they have found no reason to think he’s not being genuine.
Smollett stars alongside Terence and Taraji P. Henson in “Empire,” the Fox TV show about the power struggles of a family in the music business that is now in its fifth season. The series has allowed Smollett to play, sing and occasionally write music in addition to acting.
Last year he released a solo album, “Sum of My Music, which made up much of Saturday night’s set, along with songs from “Empire.”
He often sits at the piano on the show but stood front and center at the microphone at the Troubadour, the legendary Los Angeles club that helped launch the careers of James Taylor, the Eagles and Elton John.
He was joined in jubilant dance by his family members during his encore.
Earlier, they had taken the stage and voiced their support before he came on.
“To be honest, as his big brother, I wanted him to sit this one out,” Joel Smollett Jr. said. “But we realized this night is an important part of Jussie’s healing. He’s been a fighter since he was a baby. He fought his attackers that night, and he continues to fight.”
The LGBT Center of Los Angeles announced Thursday “50 Years of Queer,” a jubilant campaign to commemorate its 50th anniversary. Throughout the new year, the Center’s signature events and other community-focused occasions will hallmark the organization’s half-century milestone.- Advertisement –
“This is a historic moment for the Center and for the LGBT community,” Center CEO Lorri L. Jean said in a press release. “Fifty years ago, a small group of volunteers banded together and decided to change the world. Perhaps that’s not how they thought of it, but that’s what happened. What began as a vision for helping members of our community developed into what’s now the largest LGBT organization, with nearly 700 employees, thousands of volunteers and supporters, and many more thousands of people whose lives have been changed for the better. What better way to celebrate who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going than with a year-long set of opportunities for everyone to get involved!”
The year-long celebration will feature two landmark events that will serve as centerpieces of the anniversary festivities:
On April 7, the Center will open the two-acre Anita May Rosenstein Campus, a first-of-its-kind complex in Hollywood which will offer comprehensive multi-generational services and 100 beds for homeless youth, a new Senior Community Center and Youth Academy, and expanded programming and administrative space. Phase 2—scheduled to open in early 2020—will include 99 units of affordable housing for seniors and 25 supportive housing apartments for youth.
On September 21, a star-studded celebration and concert at the Greek Theatre will feature musical headliners and special guests, preceded by a sit-down gala dinner.
In celebration of 50 Years of Queer, events throughout the year will integrate important historical and cultural themes that highlight not only the history of the Center, but the LGBT movement at large. Among those events will be a special year-long Big Queer Convo panel series documenting the impact of LGBT people on the entertainment and news media over the last half-century, beginning on January 30 with The New Normal: Television and the Emergence of LGBT Identities. A host of other events will follow including: Simply diVine (April 27), the premier food and wine event for LGBT people and their allies at Hollywood Forever; L.A. Pride Parade (June 9) in which the Center’s march contingency will hold placards depicting LGBT individuals who posed for the 50 Years of Queer campaign; Trans Pride L.A., one of the oldest and largest trans celebrations in the country (June 14–15); OUT Under the Stars summer outdoor film screenings at Hollywood Forever (tentatively scheduled for June 21 and August 16); and the 27th Annual Models of Pride, the world’s largest free conference of its kind geared for LGBTQ youth and their allies (October).
Starting later this month, a special series of commemorative books will be released throughout the year, along with a digital 50 for 50 series, highlighting 50 moments from the Center’s history and inviting community members to share their stories. Don’t miss out on the details! For the latest news and updates about the 50 Years of Queer campaign and the exciting year-long events and activities, visit lalgbtcenter.org/50 and follow @lalgbtcenter on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Sen. Kamala Harris, the California Democrat and presidential aspirant, lamented on Monday the lack of congressional action on gun control, saying a solution would have been possible after the 2012 massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, if only lawmakers had been placed in “a locked room, no press, no one, nobody else” and required to examine “the autopsy photographs of those babies.”
“And then, you vote your conscience,” she said at a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa. “This has become a political issue.”
Applause rang out as she added, “There is no reason why we cannot have reasonable gun safety laws in this country.”
The impassioned answer, to a question from a Presbyterian pastor, was a measure of the depths of Democratic outrage over the lack of a robust federal response to mass shootings in the years since 20 6- and 7-year-olds were gunned down at their elementary school in a quiet Connecticut suburb.
Eighty percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say gun laws should be more strict, according a to Pew survey conducted in September and October 2018. Overall, 57 percent of adults say the rules should be tighter.
Despite these figures, outbursts of gun violence are no longer guaranteed to spur calls for action. An apparently random, execution-style shooting last week at a Florida bank, which left five women dead, barely registered in Washington, seized by negotiations over the government shutdown and enthralled by the beginnings of a race for the White House.
The 2020 election is not shaping up to be about gun control. Instead, it shows signs of turning on President Donald Trump’s job approval, as well as on questions of identity and immigration. For the Democrats, who broadly agree on the need for new gun legislation, a more vexing question is how far left to tack on health care, taxes and the environment.
At the same time, Democratic candidates have shown increased willingness to put gun safety at the center of their campaigns.
Their gains in the midterm elections last November lay primarily in the suburbs, where the spending of groups seeking to tackle gun violence surpassed that of the National Rifle Association in federal contests. Exit polls showed that 59 percent of voters in House races favored stricter gun measures. And enthusiasm behind efforts to curb gun violence found an example in Lucy McBath, who lost her 17-year-old son in a shooting in 2012. On the same day that she was officially declared a congresswoman-elect, clinching the House seat in Georgia once held by Newt Gingrich, the Democrat found herself responding to the mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Harris, a former prosecutor and attorney general of California, took care to note that her support for “smart gun safety laws” did not imply disagreement with the tenets of the Second Amendment.
“You can be in favor of the Second Amendment and also understand that there is no reason in a civil society that we have assault weapons around communities that can kill babies and police officers,” she said.
She called for a ban on assault weapons as well as universal background checks, saying the only obstacle was Congress, which lacked “the courage to act the right way.” As for the NRA, which awards her a 7 percent rating, she acknowledged that its influence was “real” but also suggested that its power has been overstated, making the organization a “paper tiger.”
“We’re not waiting for a tragedy,” she said. “We have seen the worst human tragedies we can imagine.”
In her first news conference after announcing her 2020 presidential run, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said she takes “full responsibility” for legal briefs as California attorney general seeking to deny gender reassignment surgery for transgender inmates and called for a “better understanding” of needs — medical or otherwise— for transgender people.
Harris made the comments during a news conference Monday at Howard University in D.C. in response to a question from the Washington Blade, asking her about representing the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation in seeking to deny gender reassignment surgery prescribed to two transgender inmates in the California state prison system.
Initially, Harris defended her actions by asserting she was obligated to defend the state agency in her role as California attorney general, implying her personal position was contrary to that of the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation.
“I was, as you are rightly pointing out, the attorney general of California for two terms and I had a host of clients that I was obligated to defend and represent and I couldn’t fire my clients, and there are unfortunately situations that occurred where my clients took positions that were contrary to my beliefs,” Harris said.
Harris also suggested lawyers working for her in her role as California attorney general were taking approaches to these cases without her knowledge.
“And it was an office with a lot of people who would do the work on a daily basis, and do I wish that sometimes they would have personally consulted me before they wrote the things that they wrote?” Harris said. “Yes, I do.”
Ultimately, Harris said she takes responsibility for the litigation approach of her office because she was responsibe as California attorney general.
“But the bottom line is the buck stops with me, and I take full responsibility for what my office did,” Harris said.
Harris indicated she also helped the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation come to an agreement to set up a process where transgender inmates could obtain transition-related care, including gender reassignment surgery. That’s similar to what her office later told the Blade in response to an article about concerns over her legal support for the position of the agency.
“On that issue I will tell you I vehemently disagree and in fact worked behind the scenes to ensure that the Department of Corrections would allow transitioning inmates to receive the medical attention that they required, they needed and deserved,” Harris said.
Transgender advocates have made the case that transgender inmates are entitled to receive the taxpayer-funded procedure because denying them medical treatment amounts to cruel and unusual punishment — a clear violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
But a series of briefs signed by Harris during her tenure as California attorney general made the opposite case. In one brief dated April 10, 2015, Harris and other state attorneys dismiss the importance of gender reassignment surgery in seeking to appeal a court order granting the procedure to transgender inmate Michelle-Lael Norsworthy.
“Norsworthy has been treated for gender dysphoria for over 20 years, and there is no indication that her condition has somehow worsened to the point where she must obtain sex-reassignment surgery now rather than waiting until this case produces a final judgment on the merits,” the brief says.
It should be noted California didn’t come to an agreement to grant transgender inmates gender reassignment surgery until after a court decision ordering Norsworthy be granted the procedure. At least one transgender advocate in California has also said the California Department of Correction has built a reputation for not fulfilling the agreement reached on behalf of transgender inmates.
Asked by the Blade in a follow-up question to clarify whether transgender inmates across the country should have access to gender reassignment surgery, Harris called for a “better understanding” of the medical needs of transgender people.
“I believe that we are at a point where we have got to stop vilifying people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and we’ve got to understand that when we are talking about a particular transgender community, for too long they have been the subject of bias, and frankly, a lack of understanding about their circumstance and their physical needs in addition to any other needs they have, and it’s about time that we have a better understanding of that,” Harris said.
The response arguably falls short of a recent statement from the presidential campaign of Elizabeth Warren asserting the candidate “supports access to medically necessary services,” including “at the VA, in the military or at correctional facilities.” The statement reversed Warren’s previously articulated opposition in 2012 to gender reassignment surgery for transgender inmates.
Jillian Weiss, a transgender lawyer with a practice in LGBT employment discrimination, said Harris’ response is “a mass of contradictions.”
“She first suggests that she did not know about the 2015 appeal to the Ninth Circuit to stop the surgery ordered for Michele Norsworthy, which is troubling,” Weiss said. “But her response also suggests, contradictorily, that her hands were tied because the California Department of Corrections insisted on appealing over her objections.”
Weiss also said Harris response to the Blade’s question on whether transgender inmates should have access to gender reassignment surgery amounts to “a bland reference to having a ‘better understanding.’”
“These contradictory responses stand in stark contrast to Elizabeth Warren’s clear and unequivocal statement supporting access to medically necessary services, including transition-related surgeries, and including procedures taking place at the VA, in the military or at correctional facilities,” Weiss added.
Other aspects of Harris’ record on LGBT issues in her time as California attorney general include refusing to defend in court California’s ban on same-sex marriage known as Proposition 8 and declining to certify a “Kill the Gays” ballot initiative proposed in California that would have (unconstitutionally) instituted the death penalty for homosexual acts.
Upon election to the U.S. Senate in 2016, Harris co-sponsored the Equality Act, legislation that seeks to bar anti-LGBT discrimination under federal law.
Taking the lead on other issues, Harris has also questioned the Trump administration over refusing to include questions in the U.S. Census allowing residents to identify their sexual orientation and gender identity. The California Democrat was also among three senators demanding answers from Immigration & Custom Enforcement about the death of transgender inmate Roxsana Hernández in immigration detention.
A transcript of the Q&A follows.
Blade: How would you address concerns about seeking to deny surgery for trans inmates as California AG?
Harris: So I was, as you are rightly pointing out, the attorney general of California for two terms and I had a host of clients that I was obligated to defend and represent and I couldn’t fire my clients, and there are unfortunately situations that occurred where my clients took positions that were contrary to my beliefs.
And it was an office with a lot of people who would do the work on a daily basis, and do I wish that sometimes they would have personally consulted me before they wrote the things that they wrote? Yes, I do. But the bottom line is the buck stops with me, and I take full responsibility for what my office did.
But on that issue I will tell you I vehemently disagree and in fact worked behind the scenes to ensure that the Department of Corrections would allow transitioning inmates to receive the medical attention that they required, they needed and deserved.
Blade: Should trans inmates access throughout the country have access to GRS?
Harris: I believe that we are at a point where we have got to stop vilifying people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and we’ve got to understand that when we are talking about a particular transgender community, for too long they have been the subject of bias, and frankly, a lack of understanding about their circumstance and their physical needs in addition to any other needs they have, and it’s about time that we have a better understanding of that.
The new home of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus on Valencia Street, San Francisco (Photo courtesy San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus)
The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has announced that is launching its own LGBTQ Arts Center in the California city.
The Chorus has taken over a $9.6million, four-storey, art deco building at 170 Valencia Street. It will be the first time the Chorus has had a permanent home.
The SF Gay Men’s Chorus is arguably the most famous gay choir in the world. It formed in 1978 and is famed for its performances and recordings.
According to the SF Chronicle, besides acting as a home for the Chorus, the building will evolve into a fully-fledged LGBTQ arts center.
The building dates back to 1930. Former occupants include worshippers of the Baha’i Faith. They used it as a place of worship up until 1976.
The Chorus hope to begin programming events from the fall onwards.
‘The way we envision this space is really being a community space, so being able to bring in more LGBTQ arts organizations,’ said Executive Director Chris Verdugo.
‘As we introduce this into the community, a big piece of that will be aligning ourselves with other various LGBTQ arts organizations who need rehearsal space, who need small performance spaces.’
The purchase of the building has been largely thanks to a $5million donation from a former Chorus member: Terrence Chan.
In a statement, Verdugo praised Chan’s generosity.
‘We are so grateful to Terrence Chan and his life partner Edward Sell who will lead our campaign and our board of directors for their most generous support of this remarkable venture. We look forward to working with and alongside other LGBTQ arts organizations while supporting them in their artistic and advocacy endeavors.’
In the same statement, Chan said, ‘I am particularly excited about the vision for a National LGBTQ Center for the Arts. At this time in our nation’s history, it is vital that we in the LGBTQ community have a home for our art and artists.
‘I am confident that great work will be created in our new home – work that will inspire, engage and educate.’
Amongst those to congratulate the Chorus on their new home is San Francisco’s recently elected mayor, London Breed.
‘Congratulations to @SFGMC on their new home at the old Baha’i Temple on Valencia Street!’ she tweeted. ‘This space will serve as a national arts hub for the LGBTQ community, providing workshops and trainings for artists and performers from all around the globe.’
“To the left of me,” wrote David Colker for the Los Angeles Times in a 1994 article, “four men were having sex. Only two of them were actually looking at each other.”
So begins most bathhouse stories of the time. At the Compound, one of the Valley’s oldest establishments, porn would screen on the walls while patrons got it on in public (or private) rooms below. But not for long. Even in 1994, the gay bathhouse’s days were numbered.
“A decade ago,” Colker writes, “Los Angeles boasted slick, high-tech bathhouses famous throughout the gay world. But as the specter of AIDS darkened the mid-1980s, the baths came under fire as places where unsafe, multi-partner sex spread the disease.”
The Compound wasn’t the only spa coming under attack. It seemed that the more sexually open the bathhouse was, the more it would be targeted by law enforcement and political officials.
“The Corral Club…” according to the L.A. Times “had a community ‘orgy room’ with a small stage where live sex shows took place, and several private rooms containing chains with wrist and ankle straps hanging from the ceilings.”
Whether or not the baths were at fault for these crimes, the scene soon shut down, leaving only a few houses remaining in L.A. by the late ‘90s. In 2014, the oldest of these, Ivar Avenue’s Hollywood Spa, closed its doors for good. The spa was originally opened by Scott Goulet in 1974, when bathhouse culture was booming in the city. The owner’s death by AIDS-related complications came only three years after the spa was included in a lawsuit filed against the then-L.A. District Attorney for encouraging the spreading of HIV/AIDS through unprotected sex.
“We’re going to fight this thing. As far as we’re concerned, we’re the good guys,” co-owner John Ferry, told the Los Angeles Times at the time. “We consider the Hollywood Spa to be an important asset in terms of being a place for gay men to socialize, be educated about health issues and be free from homophobic attacks such as this lawsuit.”
Little did he know that the spa would end up shutting down decades later due to factors as basic as a declining patronage and a rent increase.
While a few bathhouses still exist that cater to a Gay clientele – FLEX Spa and North Hollywood Spa to name a few – the fact that the bathhouse has gone the way of the dodo says more about trends in law enforcement and national prudishness than anything else. When these bathhouses first opened, they had to fight against an openly homophobic government and a culture still viewed gay sex as deviant. Today, in a more outwardly liberal era, bathhouse culture hasn’t had a real renaissance.
“Behind the walls of a bathhouse lies a totally homosexual world unlike anywhere on the outside.” Colter wrote in his article. “Even on the streets of gay enclaves such as West Hollywood, there are billboards showing heterosexual couples, straight love songs on the radio and plenty of reminders ranging from magazine covers to movie posters that to be gay in this society is to be different.”
Manny’s Cafe, a civic engagement space in San Francisco’s Mission District, has been facing an onslaught of protest.
Manny Yekutiel, the space’s owner, is the gay son of an Afghan refugee. He opened the doorsto the community space in November 2016. Since then, it’s been a hub for cultural and intellectual discourse. It has been a host to speakers from many social justice causes, including Black Lives Matter. Visitors are also welcome to peruse the space’s bookstore for titles from authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Howard Zinn. The food at the space is prepared daily by Farming Hope, a non-profit employing the homeless.
The protest
Still, this hasn’t stopped a San Francisco-based advocacy group The Lucy Parsons Project from demonizing the space. The group meets every Wednesday since December to protest Manny’s. The reasoning? Manny Yekutiel is a ‘Zionist gentrifier.’
The group’s signs include slogans like ‘Zionists out of the Mission,’ ‘Free Palestine,’ ‘Manny’s = homelessness,’ and more.
The Lucy Parsons Project describes themselves as a ‘radical black queer direct action group fighting anti-blackness in the Bay Area.’
This group has called on the public to ‘boycott Manny’s and its “woke-washing” of the Mission.’
In a letter to the media, the group said, ‘the proprietor of Manny’s, Emmanuel Yekutiel, has unequivocally espoused racist, Zionist, pro-Israel ideals that we will not tolerate or accept in our community. We will not tolerate gentrifiers and Zionists attempts at invading and destroying our community through “woke-washing!”’
In Manny’s own words
‘I worked on both the Obama and Clinton campaigns and, after 2016, was struck by the thirst for civic engagement. Here was a citizenry, with their hands raised, looking for a starting place for action and unsure of how to begin — that’s what 2016 inspired. Seeing this problem, I gathered a community to build a physical civic events space called Manny’s at the corner of 16th and Valencia streets in San Francisco,’ Yekutiel wrote in a recent op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle.
‘We’ve had elected officials and advocates in the space, artists and poets and change-makers coming in to teach and to learn. The space is fulfilling a real need.’
‘Amid this remarkable coming-together of people from all walks of life, there also have been fringe activists who’ve gained an outsized voice demonizing Manny’s online. The far-right has attacked the business and me when they’ve disapproved of a guest speaker. The alt-left has pushed vitriolic lies and hatred on social media. Claims such as the space is a Zionist takeover of the Mission has emboldened people to walk in off the street and demand to know if the owner is Jewish.’
‘The building has been vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti [and] is the target of weekly protests. The business has been ideologically extorted: tell us if you’re a Zionist so we can try to drive you out of business. Given the mission of Manny’s, we have invited these individuals into the space for dialogue, but their goal is to shut down discourse, not engage in it.’
Manny’s story
‘I’m a religious Jew and proud of it. My father escaped persecution in Afghanistan and journeyed, partly on foot, to Israel to reunite with family who had previously escaped oppression and found safety there. My little sister was almost blown up by a suicide bomber at a bus stop in Jerusalem,’ Yekutiel explains.
‘As a liberal American Jew, I have complicated feelings about Israel. I do not support everything that its government does (nor everything our American government does). Israel and the United States have provided my family with safety when other countries haven’t. But that doesn’t mean I support the ending of innocent life. My hope for the Israeli and Palestinian people is to soon live in peace with mutual recognition in sovereign and safe borders. This complex issue is a perfect example of the need for high-quality discourse.’
‘What bonds ideological absolutists on the left and the right is precisely what inspired the building of this new space — the opportunity to reverse corrosive incivility and to have vibrant discussion about complicated subjects,’ he says. ‘The ugliness of online discourse has made people hungry for the constructive in-person dialogue we are fostering at Manny’s.’
Anything else?
Manny Yekutiel is not the only liberal LGBTI Jew who has faced backlash due to assumed support of Israel. In 2017, Jewish lesbians were asked to leave the Chicago Dyke March because they had a Star of David on their Pride flag. The organizers deemed them ‘Zionist’ and thus unwelcome. Wendy Sue Biegeleisen, one of the founders of Dyke March, called the action anti-Semitic.