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Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971
Vol. 55 • No. 48 • November 27-December 3, 2025
World AIDS Day events will evoke the power of community by John Ferrannini
Courtesy the subject
Dr. Andrea Grosz is the lead HIV provider for the Castro-Mission Health Center.
Castro-Mission Health Center marks 60 years by John Ferrannini
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s they mark the 60th anniversary of San Francisco’s Castro-Mission Health Center this year, medical practitioners and patients are reflecting on what makes it a special place. Located at 3850 17th Street, the center booked 11,200 primary care appointments last fiscal year. Twenty-two percent of patients come from the LGBTQ community, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and 55% are Latino or Latinx, DPH stated. The center has a commitment to uninsured, underinsured, and medically underserved populations, the department stated in a fact sheet, and is one of 14 San Francisco Health Network neighborhood clinics. Joseph, who declined to give a last name, is an HIV-positive gay man who is a patient at the center. “I don’t know if I would have made it to 56 if not for my doctors,” he said, adding that he seroconverted around 20 years ago and is grateful for the care he’s received since that time. In addition to helping him with his HIV diagnosis, the center also assisted him in creating a diet and meal plan. “They set me up with people to help me with high blood pressure,” he said. “At this point, it’s like family. When I go there I see the same people every day, and they say, ‘Hey, how’s agoing?’ and we talk about what’s going on in our lives, the holidays.” A longtime member of the Castro-Mission Health Center community is Ricardo Duarte, a straight ally who was a nurse manager from 1996 to 2004, and again from 2015 until his retirement earlier this year, in June. He transferred from Ward 5A, one of the first in-patient AIDS wards at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. It was just as Duarte was starting at the health center that anti-retroviral therapy was coming online – the game-changer in the fight against the HIV epidemic. He said, “Once we started seeing actual viral loads drop and CD4 counts get high – it was very encouraging.” See page 8 >>
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local TV news anchor will headline the 37th annual World AIDS Day observance Monday, December 1, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The day, observed across the globe, is a way to draw attention to the epidemic, for which there is no cure. In California, this year will be the first time that Governor Gavin Newsom will officially proclaim December 1 as World AIDS Day. It’s the result of a bill authored by gay state Senator John Laird (DSanta Cruz) that was passed in 2024 and signed by Newsom. https://www.ebar.com/story/75856 At the AIDS grove, KGO-TV’s Dan Ashley will emcee the observance, which will start at 11:30 a.m. The grove is located at Nancy Pelosi and Bowling Green drives. According to John Cunningham, a gay man living with HIV/AIDS who is CEO of the grove, Ashley has “spotlighted stories of health and social justice in the Bay Area and beyond” for over 30 years. People can reserve a seat at the event on Eventbrite, though RSVPs are not required. Ashley, a straight ally, has “used his platform to speak up for those silenced when few figures on the national stage supported those impacted by HIV/ AIDS,” Cunningham added. Ashley didn’t return a request for comment for this report.
Onyx & Ash Inc.
John Cunningham, CEO of the National AIDS Memorial Grove, spoke at last year’s World AIDS Day observance.
Cunningham said this year’s AIDS grove theme is the “Power of Community.” “We gather to remember those lost to HIV/AIDS and educate younger generations about the leadership and activism associated with this disease,” he stated.
Founded by the World Health Organization and the joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (now UNAIDS) in 1988, World AIDS Day seeks to call attention to the global epidemic that has killed 44 million people since it was first discovered in 1981. See page 8 >>
Gay couple’s connection lives on in quilt panels by Dominic Laituri
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arrett Lindsay-Steiner lives in Walnut Creek, California, and is a gay modern-day Renaissance man. He has written over 200 stage shows and over 500 songs, and has directed 15 productions starring over 300 kids while working as a drama teacher. The afternoon before his phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter, he said he had The Los Angeles Blade covers Los Angeles and California news, just finished prepping dozens of pastrami Reubens politics, opinion, arts and entertainment and features national and for an event his catering company was serving the international coverage from the Blade’s award-winning reporting next day. part of this exciting publication serving LGBT Los Angeles Lindsay-Steiner said that team. he dressesBe exclusively from the team in black and white and enjoys playing a white baby behind the Washington Blade, the nation’s first LGBT newspaper. the freeway to the Beltway we’ve got you covered. grand piano in his Art Deco living room. He From has also hand-sewn dozens of quilts, including a special panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a block of which is now hanging in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. The panel he made is for his late partner, Carl Daddio. Lindsay-Steiner said that he also made a second Courtesy Barrett Lindsay-Steiner one that’s not part of the AIDS quilt for himself. Carl Daddio, left, and Barrett Lindsay-Steiner are shown in a 1988 photo. It was in 1981 that Lindsay-Steiner met Daddio, a gay man who was part of the Bay Area theater com“I used to be a bit shy when I was a young man, but tremely good-looking actor, he was the star of all the munity, as was Lindsay-Steiner. Daddio was diagI had a very outgoing friend who used to take me into shows, headlining ‘Evita’ and ‘La Cage Aux Folles’ nosed with AIDS in 1990. San Francisco to see shows,” recalled Lindsay-Steiner. and countless others,” Lindsay-Steiner continued. “Carl was dying, and I just wanted the quilt square “One day he took me to see the musical ‘1776,’ prob“My friend organized a meeting for us and we had to represent the very best for him,” said Lindsayably for the 1976 Bicentennial. I remember nudging an instant connection.” Steiner. “Carl’s colors were gold and rust, he looked my friend, saying, ‘That actor playing Virginia senator That actor was Daddio, and he and Lindsay-Steiner so handsome in them, so I used those colors heavily Richard Henry Lee is so handsome!’ became a couple, running lines back and forth and starwhen designing his square,” Lindsay-Steiner said. “About four or five years later, I was 20 and started ring in shows together. Things progressed quickly. The story of Daddio and Lindsay-Steiner tumperforming in musicals. I kept noticing this exbled out. See page 8 >>
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