Film tribute for 'AIDS Diva’
Meet Italy's 'Harvey Milk'"
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'Follies'
13
ARTS
09
ARTS
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Queer music
The
Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971
Vol. 52 • No. 30 • July 28-August 3, 2022
Up Your Alley fair returns to SF
Rick Gerharter
www.ebar.com
Steven Underhill
Mr. GAPA 2019 SNJV sports their crown with Ms. GAPA 2019 Mocha Fapalatte in the background.
GAPA pageant returns in-person with genderinclusive titles
by Matthew S. Bajko
T
he GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance is bringing back its major fundraising event in-person for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Known as GAPA Runway, the 34-yearold pageant in the past has crowned genderbased winners whose duties include helping to promote the organization and raise funds for it over the coming year. See page 10 >>
by Eric Burkett
A
fter a two-year hiatus thanks to COVID-19, Up Your Alley, aka Dore Alley, is returning. While excitement around the popular street fair’s return is palpable, so too is the reality that, in addi-
tion to COVID, there is yet another disease outbreak to factor in. While there’s every reason to expect that, for the thousands of folks who descend on the intersection of Folsom and Dore streets this Sunday, July 31, the fair is going to be as sexy and fun as it always has been – public
flogging demos are coming back! – there’s also the new reality of monkeypox to deal with. Since rearing its ugly head at two major European LGBTQ events earlier this summer, monkeypox has been making its way through the LGBTQ community, particularly among men who have sex with men. See page 8 >>
Update SF LGBTQ cultural strategy, say advocates by Matthew S. Bajko
L
GBTQ advocates say it is time for San Francisco leaders to revisit and update the citywide LGBTQ+ Cultural Heritage Strategy. It has been four years since the groundbreaking report was first released in draft form, offering more than 50 suggestions for how the city could preserve and protect the local queer community and its culture. But following more than two years of the COVID pandemic, and now with a monkeypox outbreak impacting mostly gay and bi men, those who worked on developing the cultural strategy contend it is time to review it in order to ensure it is still meeting the needs of the city’s LGBTQ residents. Such was their message during the first-ever hearing about the 56-page document before members of the Board of Supervisors. “This is just a start. We need your help and the city’s help figuring out where we go from here,” said Shayne Watson, a lesbian who works as an architectural historian and preservationist, during the July 25 meeting of the supervisor’s land use and transportation committee. Watson co-wrote an LGBTQ citywide context statement for San Francisco’s planning department that was released in 2016. The following year she served as co-chair of the culture committee for the cultural strategy working group that was created by the supervisors and convened by the planning department.
Rick Gerharter
Advocates are calling on San Francisco leaders to revisit the city’s LGBTQ cultural strategy that was first released in 2018.
One of its ideas was for there to be an LGBTQ community advocacy group for cultural preservation that could advise the planning department and the city’s Historic Preservation Commission on historic LGBTQ properties and sites in the city to landmark, or to weigh in on development proposals that might negatively impact such locations. Yet no such oversight body has been formalized by the city agency. “It would enable people like me who are passionate about this to maintain involvement with the city,” said Watson. “It would
be great to have a group of people who can weigh in and advise the HPC and planning department which sites we feel are most important and should rise to the top.” Terry Beswick, a gay man who is executive director of the Golden Gate Business Association, the city’s LGBTQ chamber of commerce, also helped to compile the cultural strategy. At the time, he was serving as executive director of the GLBT Historical Society. Speaking during this week’s hearing, Beswick praised gay former District 8 supervi-
sor Scott Wiener, now a state senator, for pushing to create the cultural strategy, which he said was “significant.” But Beswick noted Wiener did so back in 2016, and it is time for the supervisors “to take the next steps” to ensure the document and its myriad suggestions are enacted. “We need a resolution or ordinance to ensure we implement and track this list of ideas from our little think tank,” said Beswick. In addition to seeing that “individual line items have been addressed,” Beswick said what is also needed is a policy proposal from the supervisors “to empower a city agency to track, monitor, and follow up on this report.” Trey Allen, a gay man who also helped draft the cultural strategy, said it is meant to be “a living document” that does get updated on an ongoing basis to meet various needs and challenges the local LGBTQ community is facing. “It really needs a refresh. We should go back to the community to tell us again, after COVID, now what do we think about mental health in a new way and what do you need,” said Allen. The city needs to put in place a process for reexamining what the needs are but also reports out metrics on what in the cultural strategy is being accomplished and implemented on an annual basis, argued Allen. See page 8 >>