Top Stories
ICE Sent a Gay Brazilian Man to Equatorial Guinea. Now He’s Gone Silent.
Hotel Bamy in Equatorial Guinea is not a prison, but Pietro Graza hasn’t been able to leave for weeks. He has been held captive in the semi-abandoned luxury hotel in Malabo, the former capital city, after being deported from Arizona despite legally seeking protections in the United States for protection against torture in his home country of Brazil. Graza was almost killed by police partly because he is a gay man, and immigrated to the states where he sought asylum. But in 2024, he was detained by federal agents and held in a Florida detention camp before a transfer to […]
Dems with anti-trans views are on the ballot. What should pro-trans voters do with them?
Numerous Democratic midterm candidates have previously made anti-trans statements or voted for anti-trans legislation. Trans journalist Erin Reed published a list yesterday of these candidates and advised her followers not to vote for them, lest their victories convince the Democratic Party “that throwing transgender people under the bus is a winning strategy,” Reed wrote. Reed’s list only included Democrats running in federal and statewide races, and noted that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) endorsed some candidates who had made anti-trans votes or statements. She warned that if these candidates win and transphobia becomes a permanent Democratic Party value — as it has with the UK’s ostensibly left-of-center Labour […]
Female-only app Giggle For Girls loses appeal in trans discrimination case
The High Court of Australia has blocked Giggle for Girls app founder Sall Grover from challenging the landmark ruling that found excluding a transgender womanfrom her app was gender identity discrimination. After years of back-and-forth court appeals, this landmark case (dubbed Tickle v Giggle) has finally come to an end. Giggle for Girls was marketed as a female-only space. The app allowed women to find roommates, engage in freelance work, find friendship groups and more. The discrimination case brought by trans woman Roxanne Tickle was against Giggle for Girls and its founder, Sall Grover. Grover’s Wikipedia page describes her as a “self-identified trans-exclusionary radical feminist”. […]
Local News
Free Online LGBTQI+ History Class Will Focus on Local Queer Counter Culture of the 1960s
LGBTQI History: A Sonoma County Timeline 1947-2000. Mondays 6-7:30pm. Online via Zoom. Join us on Monday, 9/21 for a segment on the 1960s Counterculture and early LGBT back to the land communities. Contact me to enroll and receive a Zoom link: cdungan@santarosa.edu
Wake Up Sonoma Reports on Sonoma School Board Meeting About the Pride Flag at Sonoma Valley High School
On Thursday night, September 10 there was a school board meeting which continued to illuminate the ways in which we have the wrong people sitting on our school board, and points to it’s ineffectiveness. Who are the adults in the room? Three of the Board members showed their inability to understand basic concepts of inclusion, bias, and compassion. There were moments of shock, disbelief and outrage from the audience in ways they can’t .. or won’t, comprehend these ideas, but then continue to re-process and state their same listless, inaccurate arguments. The disrespect shown to the students, as well as […]
Arts & Entertainment
Friday/Saturday September 18 & 19: Occidental Jazz Festival! at Occidental Center for the Arts.
Friday/Saturday September 18 & 19: Occidental Jazz Festival! at Occidental Center for the Arts. OCA offers audiences an opportunity to experience jazz in an intimate setting , where musicians and listeners truly connect. Greg Johnson, leader of Glass Brick Boulevard curated the lineup, as well as directing the Junior-Jazz All Stars youth band. This year’s festival continues OCA’s commitment to presenting exceptional regional artists while creating opportunities for audiences to discover new music and new voices. Featuring Jose Neto and Netoband, Glass Brick Boulevard, Paul Hanson, Michael Manring and Scott Amendola, Jaycie Grady 4 Tet, Ken Cook Trio and the Junior […]
September 12 @ 8 pm at Occidental Center for the Arts Fall Into Funk Dance Party with Ariel Marin & James Earley Band
Saturday September 12 @ 8 pm at Occidental Center for the Arts. Fall Into Funk Dance Party with Ariel Marin & James Earley Band!Join us for a fun night of your favorite funky tunes performed live by one of the Bay Area’s hottest bands! Songstress Ariel Marin, James Earley and talented friends return for an evening of funky grooves, groovy funk and everything you need to get your dance on! Tickets are $25, $10 for OCA members at www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org; or at the door. Limited seating. Dance floor. Wheelchair accessible. Fine refreshments, Art Gallery open at intermission. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. […]
State News
Newsom Signs New Restrictions On Social Media
The New York Times reports: California’s governor on Thursday signed into law restrictions on addictive social media technology and interactions with harmful artificial intelligence chatbots, ushering in some of the strongest online protections for young users in the United States. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill that prohibits social media platforms from providing addictive features to users under the age of 16, the first law of its kind in the nation. He also signed a new law mandating that A.I. companies disclose to young users whenever they engage with a chatbot, not a human, and restrict dangerous content on topics […]
San Diego repeals bathhouse ordinance passed during HIV/AIDS crisis
San Diego has officially removed a decades-old ordinance that targeted LGBTQ+ people from its books. The San Diego City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday (1 September) to repeal a bathhouse ordinance originally passed in 1988 and amended in 1991, during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The law explicitly sought to regulate bathhouses in an effort to prevent gay and bisexual men from having sex and transmitting HIV, as reported by KPBS. The ordinance had effectively been sitting unused for years. Council President Joe LaCava’s office brought the repeal forward after a staffer stumbled across it while searching the city’s municipal code. LaCava said the law […]
