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Vol. 52 • No. 32• August 11-17, 2022

SF supervisors ratify monkeypox emergency declaration by Cynthia Laird

Pat Norman

Rick Gerharter

Lesbian trailblazer Pat Norman dies by Cynthia Laird

at Norman, a trailblazing lesbian in San Francisco who became a “first” in some important city appointments, died August 5 at an assisted living facility in Las Vegas. She was 82. Karen Langsley, Ms. Norman’s former partner, said in a phone interview that Ms. Norman had suffered from dementia for many years and had other health problems.

he San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously ratified the city’s public health emergency declaration for the monkeypox outbreak at a special meeting August 8, interrupting its summer recess. Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax addressed the board. “As a gay man who came out personally and professionally at the height of the AIDS epidemic” he said he’s concerned about stigma and discrimination around the monkeypox virus. “We are committed to ensuring discrimination and stigma are confronted head-on,” he said. “Men who have sex with men account for 95% of monkeypox cases in San Francisco.” The emergency declaration, Colfax said, will help the Department of Public Health “have all the tools we need and help the communities at highest risk.” During the meeting, city Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip was asked by gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman about an article in the San Jose Mercury News indicating that the Department of Public Health had abandoned contact tracing.

Rick Gerharter

Several hours after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors ratified the city’s emergency declaration for monkeypox, August 8, Vinny Eng spoke at a small demonstration outside the local office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services protesting the federal government’s slow response to the monkeypox emergency.

“But San Francisco has never announced publicly whether it is tracing the contacts of infected residents in order to detect and control the spread of a monkeypox outbreak that has affected hundreds, and emails obtained by this news organization indicate

that health department officials are reluctant to answer questions about their strategy,” the paper reported. “It turns out that for this city, contact tracing – a key endeavor during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, See page 10 >>

See page 10 >>

LGBTQ Victory Institute works to see out candidates elected to school boards by Eric Burkett

ong regarded as nonpartisan, the nation’s school boards recently have been identified as crucial battlegrounds by right-wing and conservative groups, while LGBTQ advocates want to see greater diversity on them. On May 9, former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who was found guilty in July of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for intentionally defying a subpoena related to the assault on the U.S. Capitol last year, interviewed the winner of the Frisco, Texas, school board on his War Room podcast. The winner, Stephanie Elad, won her seat after running a campaign “heavily focused on culture war topics, including critical race theory,” according to the Dallas Morning News. Her campaign was supported in part by the conservative political action committee, the 1776 Project, which sent supportive texts to potential voters. The 1776 Project describes itself as “a political action committee dedicated to electing school board members nationwide who want to reform our public education system by promoting patriotism and pride in American history.” (Critical race theory was developed by academics that seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law in the U.S.)

Courtesy TeachHub.com

The LGBTQ Victory Fund and its affiliated Victory Institute is working to see more LGBTQ candidates elected to local school boards.

Bannon touted Elad’s victory as “just the beginning in the nation,” the Dallas Morning News reported. “And this is how we’re going to take the nation back – village by village, school district by school district,” Bannon said on the podcast. At the same time, LGBTQ rights groups such as the LGBTQ Victory Institute have also identified the country’s school boards as a place where LGBTQ voters can have a huge impact.

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“Public schools in the U.S. have been under increasingly fervent attack in the past few years,” according to the institute’s eight-page report, “Few & Under Fire: LGBTQ School Board Members in the U.S.,” “LGBTQ students, teachers and administrators have faced the brunt of this vitriol, making LGBTQ representation on school boards more important than ever.” Across the country, the Victory Fund – the

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institute’s PAC – supports LGBTQ candidates in what press secretary Albert Fujii described as down ballot campaigns, those campaigns for office at the local level that often don’t garner as much attention as races for governor or members of Congress. But this year, that may be changing as school districts become more polarized and some states, like Florida, have the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” that prohibits discussions of LGBTQ issues. “Schools have become ground zero for antiLGBTQ attacks and in many cases, LGBTQ school board members have been specifically targeted,” according to a news release from the Victory Fund. And with such low numbers – only .01% of the nation’s 90,000 school board members are LGBTQ, according to the fund – increasing representation is vital. That .01% is “far below the 7.1% of U.S. adults who identify as part of the LGBTQ community. To achieve equitable representation among school board members, U.S. voters would need to elect 6,300 more LGBTQ school board members,” the release stated. Doing so will increase the ability to introduce pro-LGBTQ policies, said Fujii, in a phone call with the Bay Area Reporter. See page 4 >>

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