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Newsom names lesbian lawyer to Alameda bench by Matthew S. Bajko
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overnor Gavin Newsom has named a prominent lesbian attorney to a vacancy on the Alameda County Superior Court. Julie Wilensky is one of three female Courtesy the governor’s judicial appointees office Newsom named AuJulie Wilensky gust 7 to vacant seats was appointed an on the East Bay bench. Alameda County A onetime senior Superior Court staff attorney at the judge by Governor National Center for Gavin Newsom. LGBTQ Rights when it was known as the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Wilensky is now with the San Francisco City Attorney’s office. She is a deputy city attorney on the complex and affirmative litigation team. A Democrat who resides in Oakland with her family, Wilensky will fill the vacancy created by then-President Joe Biden’s appointment last year of Judge Noel Wise to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It is unclear when she will take her judicial oath and officially become a superior court judge, as her swearingin date has yet to be set. This isn’t the first time that Newsom has tapped Wilensky for a prominent role. In late 2020, he named her to the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Council. Due to her being on vacation, Wilensky told the Bay Area Reporter she was unavailable for a phone interview. In an August 7 emailed reply to questions, she said she had applied for a gubernatorial appointment to be a judge last year and only learned about being selected shortly before the public announcement made by Newsom’s office. “I want to become a judge to serve my local community in Alameda County, and to carry out the judiciary’s goal of providing fair and equal access to justice for all Californians,” Wilensky told the B.A.R. “I’m grateful to the Governor for appointing me, and I look forward to working hard every day to earn and maintain the public’s trust.” This marks the second time a staff member from City Attorney David Chiu’s office has been named a judge by the governor over the four years Chiu has held the position. Chiu praised Wilensky’s selection in a statement to the B.A.R. “We’re excited that another judge will be coming from the ranks of the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. Julie is a remarkable attorney, who has contributed significantly to our office’s successes on behalf of San Francisco,” stated Chiu. “While we will miss working with her, the people of California are gaining an outstanding jurist, with strong analytical skills, a deep sense of justice, and a fair temperament.” Wilensky, 45, served on the board of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, the local LGBTQ bar association, in 2016 and 2017 as its secretary and amicus chair. Her board bio noted she was in her fourth year of serving on the BALIF board of directors at that time. While at NCLR, she was involved in the case that made national headlines of an elderly lesbian couple in Missouri who had sued the senior housing community that allegedly denied renting them a unit after finding out they were married. In December 2020, the parties reached a confidential settlement to resolve the case, according to the legal nonprofit. See page 2 >>
Vol. 55 • No. 33 • August 14-20, 2025
CA helplines face own hard times by Matthew S. Bajko
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fter providing support to their callers for years, several helplines in California are now facing their own hard times. They are no longer receiving the same amount of state funding they used to in years past to cover their operations, throwing the longevity of their services into question. The California Parent & Youth Helpline, for example, had been counting on $3 million from the state’s Behavioral Health Services Fund that the Legislature had approved in the spring as part of its 2025 state budget proposal. Yet Governor Gavin Newsom removed the funding from the final budget that he signed in late June. Now, the helpline run by Parents Anonymous based in Los Angeles is seeking to have state lawmakers restore the funding via a budget trailer bill they are expected to pass prior to the end of the current legislative session in mid-September. Otherwise, it has warned its helpline is at risk of shutting down entirely. “We want continuity of services,” Parents Anonymous CEO Lisa Pion-Berlin, Ph.D., told the Bay Area Reporter. Pion-Berlin, a straight ally, noted her agency’s helpline, accessible by dialing or texting 855-4272736, routinely handles calls from parents whose children have come out to them about their sexual orientation or gender identity and don’t know what to do, or they say they’re unable to be accepting of their child due to their religious or personal beliefs.
Courtesy California Parent & Youth Helpline
The California Parent & Youth Helpline is advocating for additional state funding and has warned it may need to shut down due to the budget cuts.
The helpline also fields calls from youth not yet out of the closet and uncomfortable calling other help lines marketed to LGBTQ young people, she added. “We know youth reach out to talk about bullying. All of our staff are trained on what issues might be around bullying,” said Pion-Berlin. “Some kids are not ready to discuss their sexual orientation. We’ve trained our counselors to be sensitive about what are people talking about, and what are they trying to talk about, so we can hand them off to the right support services.”
It launched a petition at to drum up public support, though as of August 6 had reached just 93 supporters out of a goal of 20,000. One of the people doing so was Robert Costic, a gay man who is president of the PFLAG San Francisco chapter. “Yes, we support the helpline’s petition. I’ve signed on to it and have posted about it on our social media,” Costic told the B.A.R. in late July. See page 6 >>
SF nonprofit looks to add LGBTQ luminaries’ plaques to Castro streets Leadership changes expected
by Cynthia Laird
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rganizers of the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood are gearing up to add several plaques amid changes to the project that posthumously honors LGBTQ luminaries. The board of the nonprofit may also alter how it selects people in the future in an effort to get the plaques installed quicker. The last formal class of 23 inductees was announced in 2022. The plaques for three of those people, including gay Bay Area Reporter founding publisher Bob Ross, are expected to be installed soon. A plaque for Roger Casement, a gay Irishman who was hanged for treason in 1916, is expected to be installed in October, according to Charlotte Ruffner, vice president of the honor walk board, and Matthew Rothschild, a gay man and retired attorney who has taken the lead in fundraising for the Casement plaque. The other plaques from the 2022 class that are expected to be installed will honor trans activist Marsha P. Johnson and gay activist Gilbert Baker, who co-created the rainbow flag. In 2021, the all-volunteer honor walk board selected lesbian trailblazer Phyllis Lyon, who died in 2020, to have a plaque. Lyon’s spouse, the late Del Martin, was inducted into the honor walk in the first class in 2014 and her plaque can be found on 19th Street near Collingwood Street. “The plaques for Phyllis Lyon, Bob Ross, Marsha P. Johnson, and Gilbert Baker were all received from the foundry in May,” Ruffner wrote in an email. “I’m happy to report they’ve all been paid for in full and are ready to be installed. As Donna Sachet mentioned, we’re now navigating the city’s permit process and finalizing the selection of a contractor. Once that’s in place, we’ll coordinate the installation.” Sachet, a former Imperial Court empress and longtime San Francisco resident, has served as the president of the honor walk board for six years, though she is expected to step down from the role in September. Right now, Sachet wrote in
Courtesy Rainbow Honor Walk
A plaque for Irish patriot Roger Casement is one of several expected to be installed soon as part of the Rainbow Honor Walk in the Castro.
an email, she is working with San Francisco Public Works to coordinate permits and other issues related to the installation of the plaques. Last year, in addition to Casement, the board approved a plaque for Mario Mieli, a gay man considered a founder of Italy’s homosexual movement and one of the leading theoreticians in Italian homosexual activism. Mieli died in 1983 at age 30. “For clarification, the Mieli and Casement plaques have not been fabricated. We have not paid them,” Ruffner stated. “The Mieli plaque has been ordered, but we don’t yet have a delivery date. If it arrives in time, we’ll aim to install it with the others.” The Casement plaque is hoped to be installed in early October, Rothschild told the B.A.R. in a phone interview. Ruffner told the B.A.R. it is likely the new plaques will be installed along 18th Street. According to Ruffner, there are currently 44 plaques installed in the Castro as part of the Rainbow Honor Walk project. A map of the locations is on the honor walk’s website.
Ruffner, a straight ally, could become the honor walk’s next board president. She told the B.A.R. in a phone interview that she would like to see the plaque selection process changed. “I have agreed to step up when Donna steps down,” Ruffner said. “We only meet once a month,” Ruffner continued. “We’ve had 44 plaques in 11 or 12 years, that equals four plaques a year. Why don’t we do four a year?” she said, referring to selecting a smaller number of honorees instead of announcing a class of 23 people, as happened in 2022. “If it were up to me, it would only take a year to pick a person and get the plaque in the sidewalk.” Ruffner noted that reviewing the text for each plaque also takes time. “It’s hard to edit someone’s life down to 30 words,” she said. Each plaque includes the text, generally around 25 words, an engraved etching of their image that becomes clear when a photo is taken of it, and their signature. She also noted that the board has leeway in selecting an honoree. “There’s no rule on how we pick,” she said. The honor walk board had used as criteria that a person had to self-identify as LGBTQ during their lifetime. But that policy was not always adhered to. In 2016, the board chose astronaut Sally Ride and Texas politico Barbara Jordan; both were posthumously outed as lesbians. (Recently, Ride’s surviving partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy, said that Ride gave her permission to talk about their life together before Ride died in 2012. A new documentary, “Sally,” was released earlier this year and is available for streaming.) The Rainbow Honor Walk includes famous and not-so-famous people. One of the reasons for the project is so that passersby can learn a little history about LGBTQ individuals and their contributions around the world as they walk along main streets in the Castro. See page 2 >>