Year-end op-art
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HIV+ seniors want funding
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Best LGBTQ films of 2025
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Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971
Vol. 55 • No. 52 • December 25-31, 2025
Tanzil Choudhury, ASE Statewide Chair, UAW Local 4811
UAW members at UC Berkeley rallied against the federal funding cuts in April 2025.
Rick Gerharter
Daniel Lurie waved to the crowd after he was sworn in as San Francisco’s 46th mayor January 8, 2025.
UCSF LGBT health research cuts alarm researchers
Lurie leaves his mark in 1st year by John Ferrannini
by Shreya Mishra
O
n a late March afternoon, Caitlin Turner sat in the corner of a screen-studded cafe bustling with remote workers and students, sipping her coffee as she worked on her doctoral dissertation due in a few months. An epidemiologist by training, Turner had been researching how better state policies can reduce binge-drinking in LGBTQ adults. A few missed notifications later, Turner checked her phone, which was blinking an update from her colleagues at UC San Francisco. The National Institutes of Health had cut her two-year-long predoctoral fellowship award of $80,632. Turner’s grant was not in line with NIH priorities, the agency wrote in a March 21 termination letter to UCSF’s grant manager. “Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans,” the letter read. “Many such studies ignore, rather than seriously examine, biological realities.” Turner’s advisers and lab manager were appalled by the decision and wrote to NIH for further explanations, but for Turner, nothing was left to be done. She drove back home, dropped her backpack, took a deep breath and fell asleep. According to the data shared by the UCSF Office of Research, 97 research grants amounting to $240 million were terminated by the Trump administration in the spring. Most of the terminated grants were related to trans health or DEI, said Dr. Harold Collard, UCSF vice chancellor of research. Turner’s project was one of them. “It’s causing researchers who are very dedicated to their topics to reconsider the viability of a career in that field, and that’s deeply troubling,” Collard said. UCSF responded to the grant cuts by asking schools and administrative units to cut their budgets by 5%, reducing the UCSF Health workforce by 1% and implementing a hiring freeze. In June, a federal judge intervened, saying the NIH’s targeting of research about certain populations was unlawful and ordering many of the terminated grants reinstated. But by then, the damage had been done. Researchers like Turner knew they could no longer count on the federal funding that has been essential to their research. She and others had little choice but to move away from studying health disparities and other LGBTQ issues. “So much in academia is driven by the funding streams, and so much of what we study is driven by what’s fundable,” Turner said.
‘Studying inequities is risky’
The LGBTQ community is more susceptible to a number of health issues such as HIV and AIDS, depression and anxiety, substance use, eating disorders and certain types of cancer. It’s imperative for the medical community to have the ability to address those issues, said Jorge Reyes Salinas, a spokesperson for Equality California, the largest statewide LGBTQ civil See page 9 >>
J
A kinky Christmas
ohn Fry, center, donned a Santa costume accompanied by his elf, Michael Kinson, left, for the San Francisco Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District’s Kinky Holiday Market that took place at SOMArts December 13. Joining
Gooch
them were attendees Mel DeFort, second from left, and Spring Collins, right. The market offered shoppers a chance to purchase presents for those on their list with a penchant for leather and kink.
U
mit Sener is used to city workers coming to Gyro King, a family-owned Mediterranean restaurant near San Francisco City Hall. But he’s been seeing more patrons since one city employee in particular stopped by. “People didn’t know we existed before they came,” Sener, who is straight, said, referring to when San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and an entourage visited during one lunch rush and the mayor promoted the eatery on his Instagram page. “Now they come and say, ‘We saw you.’ We See page 8 >>
Castro elevator readies for its 2026 debut by Matthew S. Bajko
M
uch of the fencing came down in recent days around the new elevator shaft at the Castro Muni Station that serves as the de facto front door to the famed San Francisco LGBTQ neighborhood. A widened sidewalk running from Castro to Collingwood streets along Market Street is now accessible to pedestrians, while the lift itself is just months away from going into public service. It is expected to soon be installed inside the glass shaft crews constructed to encase it. A period of testing will be needed to be undertaken then sign-off by various inspectors will be required before the elevator is operational for subway users. “We are looking at a construction completion date by the end of January and public use by the end of March,” said San Francisco Public Works architect Eric Fura while giving the Bay Area Reporter a sneak peak of the project site in early December. The see-through elevator tower already provides a stunning marker for the neighborhood, with its LED “Castro” signage aglow at night. It was designed to complement the neon signage for the Castro Theatre across the street, which is readying for its own public debut in February after undergoing a $41 million interior renovation to allow the moviehouse to accommodate live concert crowds. “It looks impressive,” noted Christian Kalinowski, a project manager with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency who’s been working with Fura on the new elevator installation. The structure is meant to serve as “a lantern” when lit up at night, said Fura. While the roof and sides are translucent, there are design elements to ensure the light doesn’t spill into the surrounding residential units. “It is all contained,” Fura said of the lighting.
Rick Gerharter
Eric Fura, left, associate architect at San Francisco Public Works, pointed as he and Christian Kalinowski, SFMTA project manager, stood at the entry gate level to the new elevator at the Castro Muni Metro station.
First phase of reimagining
The elevator structure built within Harvey Milk Plaza adjacent to the subway stop is the first phase in a planned reimagining for the public parklet named after the late gay supervisor who represented the Castro at City Hall for a mere 11 months before being assassinated the morning of November 27, 1978 along with then-mayor George Moscone. The plaza was posthumously named in honor of Milk, a champion of public transit. As the B.A.R. exclusively reported in June, the renovations to the plaza itself are expected to commence construction next November due to city officials penciling out the cost of the work so most of it is covered by the $25 million allocated to it by a bond voters passed on the November 2024 ballot. Those plans call for constructing a smaller stairway covered by a rose-colored, trans-
parent overhang to funnel passengers in and out of the underground subway station, replacing the wider one there today that undulates downward across most of the space. A new spiral podium feature is to be built by the intersection of Castro and Market streets as a nod to the site’s history as a gathering place for protests and rallies. Historical elements about the LGBTQ neighborhood, Milk, and other civic leaders are also to be incorporated into the redesigned plaza, though some of those features are dependent on raising additional funds to pay for them. Debates on overhauling Milk plaza delayed the start of adding the new elevator, as city leaders pushed back its timeline to allow for the community to discuss a larger reimagining of the area. Fights to get a fourth elevator stop at Market See page 2 >>