Funding senior housing
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David Archuleta
ARTS
Celebrating trans history
ARTS
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Luis Felipe Chávez
The
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Vol. 55 • No. 35 • August 28-September 3, 2025
Silicon Valley Pride’s ‘Unstoppable’ for 50th anniversary weekend by John Ferrannini
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Cynthia Laird
Valentino Carrillo stands behind the bar at Next Level, a new LGBTQ venue in Oakland soft opening August 28.
New LGBTQ club opening in Oakland by John Ferrannini
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s Oakland readies for Pride early next month, it’s also welcoming a new LGBTQ nightclub from a familiar face. Valentino Carrillo, a gay man who owns the Latino LGBTQ nightclub Que Rico at 381 15th Street, is opening Next Level at the former Level 13 Ultra Lounge space at 341 13th Street. A soft opening celebration is set for Thursday, August 28, from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. (Level 13, which described itself as LGBTQ-friendly, quietly shuttered earlier this year.) The first 100 attendees will receive gift bags, Carrillo said, and there will be a ribbon cutting at 9, along with appetizers, go-go dancers, other performers, and drinks. Free entry tickets are available at www.nextleveloakland.com. (Table reservation tickets are $135.23.) Coinciding with the three-day Labor Day weekend, Carrillo has “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum Coco Montrese booked for a Janet Jackson tribute on August 29, Paraguayan singer Carmen Jara on August 30, and Club Papi Oakland Latin Labor Day Weekend on August 31. Next Level’s website also has a lineup of events listed for Oakland Pride weekend, September 6-7. Speaking exclusively to the Bay Area Reporter, Carrillo, who in addition to owning Que Rico co-produces the Latin stages at the San Francisco and Oakland Pride festivals, said that there will be cover charge reciprocity between Next Level and Que Rico most nights, so that “people will be able to have access to both clubs.” The venues are roughly a five-minute walk from each other. Asked what will differentiate Next Level from Que Rico, Carrillo said, “The main thing that’s going to set it apart is they’re going to complement each other by offering counterprogramming each night. For instance, Friday will be Latino night at Que Rico, but at Next Level, maybe a hip-hop, pop, or EDM [electronic dance music] party. “At Next Level, Saturday will be Latino night, and Saturday at Que Rico will be Delicious Saturdays, more of a hip-hop, top 40 pop party,” he added. Carrillo elaborated on the changes at Que Rico.
ilicon Valley Pride is proud to be celebrating its 50th anniversary this weekend, August 30-31. This year’s theme is “Unstoppable: 50 Years of Love, Legacy and Liberation,” according to Nichole A. Denson, a proud Brown Native American Mexican lesbian woman who is the CEO of Silicon Valley Pride. The events of the second Trump administration, including stripping rights from transgender people, helped inspire the theme, Denson said. The queer community needs to fight those who seek to “push us back in the closet, and back in time,” Denson said. “Everything speaks on a larger scale to everything going on, not just with things that affect the LGBTQ population but the entire population of the country. We need to be unstoppable together, and be vocal for everyone.” The festival will be held at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez, 1 Paseo de San Antonio, in downtown San Jose on Saturday, August 30, from 6 to 11 p.m. and Sunday, August 31, from noon until 6 p.m. On Saturday, admission to the festival will be $45, and on Sunday, admission will be $15. Tickets are available online at https://tinyurl.com/yujexcss. Denson said that the high price of the Saturday ticket is for two reasons; first, the organization’s budget has been “drastically reduced” due to donors not giving money amid economic uncertainty and the
Courtesy SVP
Members of Dykes on Bikes took part in a previous Silicon Valley Pride parade.
Trump administration’s hostility toward diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. This has led to there being less entertainment at this year’s event than in the past. “In prior years we had multiple stages,” Denson said. “This year, we’ve cut it down to one stage, which is unfortunate.” The second reason, Denson said, is the cost of entertainment. Saturday will be headlined by Snow Tha Product, a San Jose native and bisexual rapper.
“We’ve spent half a century breaking barriers and embracing every facet of who we are, and this historic festival – featuring Snow Tha Product – is our boldest statement yet: we are truly unstoppable,” Denson stated in a news release. “Whether you’ve been with us for decades or you’re new to Pride, we invite everyone to feel the magic and the momentum that has carried us through five remarkable decades.” See page 8 >>
Date of Compton’s riot remains elusive by Cynthia Laird
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2017 0 Media a Kit
an Francisco’s Transgender History Month, observed in August for the past several years, often brings attention to the fact that an exact date of the 1966 riot at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin remains elusive. The former eatery, which was frequented by drag queens and trans people, among others, has been in the news The Los this Angeles Blade covers Los Angeles and California news, year, as activists work to reclaimpolitics, the historic site that opinion, arts and entertainment and features national and is now a reentry facility for formerly incarcerated coverage from the Blade’s award-winning reporting international people. team. Be part of this exciting publication serving LGBT Los Angeles The ground floor commercial space at 111 Taylor from the team behind the Washington Blade, the nation’s first LGBT Street had housed Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, where newspaper. From the freeway to the Beltway we’ve got you covered. one night in August 1966 a drag queen reportedly threw a cup of hot coffee in the face of a police officer who tried to arrest her without a warrant. The exact date of the altercation has been lost to time. But the Cynthia Laird incident sparked a riot by trans and queer patrons of 111 Taylor Street once housed Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, the site of an August 1966 the 24-hour diner and cops, as detailed in the 2005 riot by drag queens and trans people against the police. documentary “Screaming Queens” by transgender scholar and historian Susan Stryker, Ph.D. tion to the building facade from being altered. Several dates offered The property earlier this year became the first Today, 111 Taylor Street houses the facility opDates for when the Compton’s riot occurred that one of its kind granted federal landmark status speerated by GEO Reentry Services, a subsidiary of the Bay Area Reporter have heard about or seen cifically for its connection to the transgender moveGEO Group Inc. Activists with the Compton’s x recently range from August 12, to the 14th, to later ment in the U.S. It is also now on the California RegCoalition want to reclaim the site and have tried to in the month. Stryker, an academic and professor ister of Historical Resources. get GEO Group’s zoning determination revoked, emerita at University of Arizona, is now a visiting In 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors which would require it to vacate the premises. Thus professor at Stanford’s Clayman Institute. She is declared the intersection in front of Compton’s and far, they have been unsuccessful, as the Bay Area Recredited with being an expert on the riot, even as she the exterior walls of 111 Taylor Street as the city’s porter has noted. has been unable to find the date of it. 307th landmark. It provides some level of protec-
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