October 16, 2025 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Trans leader

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy dies

by Cynthia Laird

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a Black transgender woman and longtime activist who once lived in the Bay Area, died October 13. She was 78.

Miss Major, as she was widely known, had spent the past several years living in Arkansas and passed away at her home in Little Rock surrounded by family and friends, according to a news release from House of gg - GriffinGracy Educational Retreat and Historical Center. It was there that she entered home hospice in early October, according to friends. She had suffered from various health issues over the years, including a stroke in 2019.

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California Supreme Court Associate Justice Martin J. Jenkins

Jenkins to retire from CA bench

by Cynthia Laird

California Supreme Court Associate Justice Martin J. Jenkins, the first openly gay person named to the state’s highest court, will retire at the end of October. The announcement was made October 9 by the supreme court. Jenkins, 71, will have had more than 35 years of judicial service when he steps down. He has served on the supreme court for five years, having been appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020.

“I could not imagine a better capstone to my career on the bench than serving on the California Supreme Court,” Jenkins stated in a news release. In addition to being the first openly gay justice, he was the third Black man to serve on the court.

Jenkins came out later in life, when Newsom nominated him for the seat on the high court.

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A rainbow over the Castro

MNewsom signs,

by Matthew S. Bajko

Transgender, nonbinary and queer Californians will see improved health care privacy and access due to a number of bills Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law. Yet, Newsom also vetoed a bill aimed at improving health care access for intersex individuals and others. His doing so comes amid months of criticism directed at the likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender over his comments in podcasts and the press supportive of preventing trans women and girls from playing on women’s athletics teams as a matter of “fairness.”

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SF’s Jazzie’s Place shelter triples in size

by John Ferrannini

San Francisco’s only queer adult homeless shelter has tripled in size. The increase in beds is thanks to a $18 million city grant.

Jazzie’s Place, at 1050 South Van Ness Avenue, is overseen by Mission Action (formerly Dolores Street Community Services). The Bay Area Reporter previously reported that the Mission district shelter reached its full, pre-COVID capacity of 24 beds back in December 2023.

But now, a new dorm with 44 beds has opened due to the grant from the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing that was approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors in April. The expansion opened October 1. In addition to the 44 beds, there are also six that are added for single adults not identifying as LGBTQ, bringing the total number to 50.

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The Los Angeles Blade covers Los Angeles and California news, politics, opinion, arts and entertainment and features national and international coverage from the Blade’s award-winning reporting team. Be part of this exciting publication serving LGBT Los Angeles from the team behind the Washington Blade, the nation’s first LGBT newspaper. From the freeway to the Beltway we’ve got you covered.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie touted the increase in a statement October 1.

“Since day one of our administration, we’ve been working to address our city’s homelessness and behavioral health crisis because those struggling on our streets should have the chance to get better,” Lurie stated. “With the expansion of Jazzie’s Place and Dolores Shelter, we are strengthening support for San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ community and adding beds so that more people can have a safe place to find stability and support.”

So, too, did District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder, a queer woman.

“The expansion of such vital housing and services for the unhoused and especially the LGBTQ+ community is sorely needed,” stated Fielder. “We are proud that this program operates in District 9 and thankful that the Dolores Shelter and Jazzie’s Place have the support needed to grow and provide wraparound services to an even greater number of community

members in need of this safety net.” Laura Valdez, a queer woman who is the executive director of Mission Action, recently gave the B.A.R. a tour of the facility before a birthday celebration for the late trans and disability rights advocate Jazzie Collins, for whom the shelter is named. Collins, a Black transgender woman and activist, would have been 67 this past September 24. She died in 2013.

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Newsom enacts LGBTQ youth bills into law

by Matthew S. Bajko

F

ulfilling a promise he had made in the spring, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law legislation aimed at combatting the high rates of suicide and depression in LGBTQ youth. It was one of several bills addressing LGBTQ youth issues he approved in recent days.

On October 10 Newsom signed Assembly Bill 727 authored by gay Assemblymember Mark González (D-Los Angeles) to require public schools with grades 7-12, plus colleges and universities, add The Trevor Project’s 24 hours per day, 7 days per week suicide hotline to their student identification cards. González had introduced AB 727 in response to the inflated rates of suicidal ideation in LGBTQ youth.

Education officials at the campuses covered by the bill have until July 1, 2026, to update their ID cards for pupils. As the new law specifies, the telephone number used by the national LGBTQ youth-focused nonprofit is 1-866-488-7386, while the text line can be accessed by texting START to 678-678.

In a rare instance of his weighing in on legislation prior to it reaching his desk, Newsom earlier this year had announced he would sign AB 727 into law once it passed out of the Legislature. He had done so months prior to the Trump administration canceling in July the specially trained LGBTQ crisis counselors youth under the age of 25 could request when calling the national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Since then, California and several other states have moved to provide such specialty counselors via their state-based suicide hotlines. But as the Bay Area Reporter noted https:// www.ebar.com/story/156129 in July, officials in Sacramento and staffers at The Trevor Project, a national nonprofit focused on the needs of LGBTQ youth, have said it will take months to provide the hundreds of crisis counselors across California’s

October 13 Newsom signed Senate Bill 59 authored by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and known as the Transgender Privacy Act. It will require court records related to the gender transitions of transgender and nonbinary adults in California be sealed in order to protect their privacy.

It is in line with such protections afforded to trans and nonbinary youth under the age of 18 by a state law adopted in 2023. With SB 59’s enactment into law, the state courts must limit access to records related to name, gender, and/or sex change petitions in those proceedings to certain individuals.

Rather than applying retroactively to make confidential all records held by state courts, as the Bay Area Reporter had noted in covering SB 59’s introduction earlier this year, the law requires a petition to be filed requesting the records be kept confidential.

SB 59 takes effect immediately, though the state’s Judicial Council has until July 1, 2026, to develop forms and rules to implement it.

Newsom also signed into law October 13 Wiener’s SB 497. It bolsters Cali-

12 centers with the extra training and skills development to support LGBTQ+ youth in crisis.

Speaking to the B.A.R. earlier this summer, González equated his legislation with providing a “beacon of hope” to LGBTQ young people who may be struggling mentally and contemplating taking their own life. It does so by making The Trevor Project’s helpline number readily available to them in such times of crisis since they just need to look at their ID card to find it.

Newsom chose Friday to sign the bill, as it is World Mental Health Day.

“Every student deserves to feel safe, supported, and seen for who they are. While some in Washington turn their backs on LGBTQ youth, California is choosing compassion over cruelty,” stated Newsom. “AB 727 makes it

fornia’s status as a “transgender refuge state” first enacted two years ago by state leaders in response to anti-trans laws being adopted by other states.

As such, California lawmakers made it state policy to reject any out-of-state court judgments removing trans kids from their parents’ custody because they allowed them to receive genderaffirming health care. State health officials are also forbidden from complying with subpoenas seeking health records and any information related to such criminal cases, and public safety officers must make out-of-state criminal arrest warrants for such parents their lowest priority.

Now, with the Trump administration attacking the rights of trans youth and adults, California will require warrants for law enforcement requests through the state’s health care database. Due to the new law, accessing and knowingly sharing health data from a state database without a warrant to unauthorized parties is punishable as a misdemeanor.

SB 497 also expands California’s transgender shield laws to prohibit health care providers from complying with subpoenas requiring the disclosure of medical information related to gender-affirming health care. Already, several hospital systems in the state, includ-

clear: your identity doesn’t disqualify you from care and community – it’s exactly why we are fighting to make it easier to reach.”

He invited González to a bill signing ceremony along with his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the state’s first partner.

“When Donald Trump and the federal government turn their backs on LGBTQ+ youth, California steps up,” stated González. “With the signing of AB 727, we’re sending a clear message: our LGBTQ+ youth are seen, valued, and never alone. AB 727 is not just a piece of legislation; it is a lifeline for our queer youth. Thank you, Governor Newsom, for standing with us to protect and affirm every young person in California.”

October 7 Newsom signed into law two bills aimed at confronting

ing Stanford and Kaiser Permanente, have paused gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth under 19 in fear of being penalized by the Trump administration for providing such care.

With Newsom’s signage on October 13 of Assembly Bill 1084 introduced by gay Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Hollywood), the legal process to change one’s name to conform with a person’s gender identity will be made easier for both adults and minors. It also speeds up the process for issuing new identification documents or records like a marriage or birth certificate to those updating their sex and gender identifier. No longer can someone file an objection to an adult petitioner’s change of name to conform to their gender identity, and courts will have to enter an order granting the petition without a hearing within six weeks of the petition’s filing. The California Department of Public Health will also need to issue an amended birth certificate within six weeks if it includes a request to change one’s gender.

Intersex bill vetoed

On October 13 Newsom vetoed SB 418 that had aimed to better protect gender-nonconforming patients’ health care access. Introduced by lesbian Senator Caroline Menjivar (D-San Fernando Valley), SB 418 would have defined discrimination on the basis of sex to include intersex traits, pregnancy, and gender identity in the state’s Health and Safety Code.

Under the bill, health insurance companies would have been barred from denying services based upon the individual’s sex assigned at birth, gender identity, or gender otherwise recorded, nor would they be able to charge more for a person’s coverage for

At the same time Newsom signed Senate Bill 48 to create four statewide Discrimination Prevention Coordinators – focused on religious, racial, ethnic, gender, and LGBTQ discrimination – to provide resources and training to prevent and consistently address bias and discrimination in schools. Among its four co-authors was gay Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego).

“As both a proud member of the Jewish Caucus and Chair of the LGBTQ Caucus, I know that when hate goes unaddressed in our schools, it endangers every community,” stated Ward. “As antisemitic incidents surge in California, today California leaders have taken decisive action towards stamping out antisemitism and all forms of hate before they spread further.”

bigotry inside the state’s public school classrooms. AB 715 establishes a new Office of Civil Rights and establishes an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator to develop training, resources, and enforcement strategies for K-12 schools.

Gay Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Hollywood) used the gut-and-amend process to swap out the original bill language - focused on protecting attorneys who offer legal services for such things as gender-affirming health care and reproductive services from facing disciplinary action by states that have outlawed those services - and add in the classroom policy language. AB 715 requires districts to investigate and take corrective action when discriminatory content is used in classrooms or professional development.

such reasons or refuse to provide coverage to them.

The bill would also have restricted the limiting of supplies of hormone therapy to an amount less than 12 months. The bill had excluded a MediCal managed care plan contracting with the State Department of Health Care Services from the requirements, which would have been repealed on January 1, 2035.

But in his veto message, Newsom expressed concerns with how the bill would impact the dispensing of prescription hormone therapy at one time without utilization management (UM).

“I appreciate the author’s intent to ensure patient access to the comprehensive care they need. While there are provisions of this bill that are worthy of support, I am concerned about the limitation on the use of UM, which is an important tool to ensure enrollees receive the right care at the right time,” wrote Newsom. “Prohibiting this cost containment strategy is likely to result in an increase in enrollee premiums to offset costs incurred by health plans and insurers.”

With health care premiums seeing “double-digit rate increases” across the U.S., Newsom noted, “we must take great care to not enact policies that further drive up the cost of health, no matter how well-intended. For this reason, I cannot sign this bill.”

While pleased that most of its sponsored legislation became law this year, statewide LGBTQ rights organization Equality California expressed disappointment in Newsom’s decision to veto the bill in light of the Trump administration’s efforts to “restrict access to care for transgender people.”

As such, “California should be doing everything possible,” stated gay

Joining Ward in authoring SB 48 were Assemblymember Mike Fong (D-Alhambra) and state Senators Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego) and Lena Gonzalez (D- Long Beach). The trio of straight allies were also among the coauthors of AB 715, which Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D–Morro Bay) had joined Zbur as a lead author. By enacting the two bills, Newsom noted, “California is taking action to confront hate in all its forms. At a time when antisemitism and bigotry are rising nationwide and globally, these laws make clear: our schools must be places of learning, not hate.”

Newsom on October 13 signed SB 450 authored by lesbian Senator Caroline Menjivar (D-San Fernando Valley), now LGBTQ+ parents in other states can access California courts to protect their parentage rights as long as their child was born in California through adoption proceedings. t

If you are experiencing a crisis, call The Trevor Project at 1-866488-7386 or visit thetrevorproject. org

EQCA Executive Director Tony Hoang, to ensure “transgender people and their families could continue to access essential medications without disruption.”

Newsom on October 13 did sign AB 82 by gay Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) that provides protection to a gender-affirming health care provider, employee, or volunteer facing threats of violence or harassment from the public because of their affiliation with a gender-affirming health care services facility. Such individuals can now seek to ensure their residential address isn’t disclosed via public records requests to state agencies.

The bill also makes it a crime to share online the images of and the personal information for such individuals, commonly known as doxing a person. And it prevents health providers from reporting certain medications taken by trans patients to an electronic database that monitors the prescribing and dispensing of certain controlled substances.

Also, due to AB 82’s enactment, the state’s Department of Justice has until January 1, 2027, to remove certain existing records related to the dispensing of testosterone or mifepristone to patients from the Controlled Substances Utilization Review and Evaluation System it oversees.

Lastly, in a move to recognize the breadth of the trans and gender-nonconforming community, a state fund for trans health care will now be known as the Two-Spirit, Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, and Intersex (2TGI) Wellness and Equity Fund. It is due to Newsom signing on October 13 AB 1487 authored by Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay). t

CA convenings aim to bring communities together

by John Ferrannini

R

epresentatives of 160 commu -

nity-based organizations are learning how to more closely work together despite America’s intertwined crises of social isolation and rising extremism.

The organizations met in downtown San Francisco last week for the first in a series of eight regional convenings that will be held across California in the coming weeks. The California Connects Regional Convenings are being put together by the Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communications, an initiative of the Governor’s Office of Service and Community Engagement, or GO-SERVE.

Josh Fryday, the state’s chief services officer and a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in next year’s election, is GO-SERVE’s director. In addition to the community partnerships office, GO-SERVE includes the California Youth Empowerment Commission and California Volunteers. (Also running for lieutenant governor next year is Janelle Kellman, a gay Democrat and former Sausalito city councilmember.)

Fryday said that Governor Gavin Newsom’s office and other state policymakers want to engage local communities more effectively.

“We’re trying to figure it out with you,” he said, speaking to the assembled representatives during the October 8 event at the Hyatt Regency in downtown San Francisco. “But here’s what we know about engagement – you can’t actually engage people when you work in silos.”

Fryday said community groups need to learn to engage not only with the governor’s office more but also with one another.

COVID era was inflection point

Social scientists have connected the increased social isolation since the COVID pandemic at the beginning of this decade with increases in extreme ideologies that threaten American democracy.

A 2022 study from University of Mississippi and German researchers, speaking with participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, stated, “Court records indicated that the majority of the rioters were not part of an extremist group. However, several rioters’ testimony suggested that the

“I want to say to some young person who may be out there watching today who is struggling with their identity. Anyone who knows me knows my identity has been as a gay man perhaps the greatest challenge of my life. And it has not been easy,” Jenkins said during a joint appearance with the governor when he was appointed. “But I want to say today to those young people who may be watching and those who may hear about what has transpired here: that I’m not here in spite of the struggle, I am here because of the struggle.”

News of Jenkins’ retirement means that Newsom will name his replacement. There remains out representation on the high court with Associate Justice Kelli Evans, a Black queer woman, who was appointed by Newsom in 2022.

“Having been a judge at every level of the state court system and with the federal district court, I have seen firsthand how judges and justices at each stage of the judicial process faithfully apply the law in a fair and empathetic manner,” stated Jenkins in the retirement announcement. “I

GO-SERVE director Josh Fryday spoke at the first California Connects meeting in San Francisco October 8.

traumatic and financial stressors of a global pandemic, which resulted in record numbers of unemployment and several hundreds of thousands of people dead, increased their feelings of social and economic isolation and motivated their extreme behavior.”

According to a 2025 JAMA Network study, global mean social isolation was stable through 2019. But it exploded during the initial COVID outbreak and has not returned to pre-COVID levels.

“Social isolation was found to have increased globally after the COVID-19 pandemic, with the initial increase disproportionately seen in lower-income populations and subsequent increases broadening across socioeconomic strata,” the study states.

Fryday said Californians are in an “all hands on deck moment.”

“We are living in a different moment now,” he said. “We feel it in our gut – at least when we turn on the news every day.”

He said that people are feeling “disconnected in their communities” and “isolated.”

“Online or in the real world, or ‘irl,’ as my kids like to say, we have to connect with people differently,” he said, adding that philanthropists, community-based organizations, elected officials, and the nearly 40 million people who make the Golden State their home need to look out for one another.

have strived to do the same as a trial judge, at the First District Court of Appeal, and finally, at the California Supreme Court.”

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) stated in a text message that Jenkins will be missed on the bench.

“Justice Jenkins is an extraordinary jurist, and his retirement is a loss to the Supreme Court and to California,” Wiener stated. “As the first openly LGBTQ person to serve on the court, he broke a huge barrier. I’m so grateful for his service.”

Jenkins spent almost two years advising Newsom on judicial appointments prior to filling the vacancy on the court created by Associate Justice Ming Chin’s retirement. Before joining the Newsom administration, Jenkins served as an associate justice on the First District Court of Appeal from 2008 to 2019 and as a federal district judge at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California from 1997 to 2008. Earlier, Jenkins served as a judge on the Alameda County Superior Court (1992-1997) and on the Oakland Municipal Court (19891992). Jenkins’s prior experience as a practitioner included three years

State Senator Scott Wiener spoke to attendees at the first California Connects regional convening in San Francisco October 8.

“As the federal government shuts down, California steps up, and we power up,” he said. The federal government was in its eighth day of the shutdown at the time of the convening.

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) also connected the dots between lack of engagement in local communities with the rise in right-wing extremism that threatens the rights and freedoms of LGBTQs and other minority groups.

“There’s a lot of work we can do with support from the government,” the prolific legislator said, but Wiener added that community-based organizations can do a lot on their own as well.

Referring to President Donald Trump and asking, “How did we get an actual scam artist as president of the United States?” Wiener said that young men in particular, but people in general, have become cynical about systems they only see from afar.

Fryday is working with Newsom on the rollout of his California Men’s Service Challenge to engage young men directly in partnership with a number of nonprofit service providers across the state, such as the Giants Community Fund and the American Institute for Boys and Men.

In late September, Newsom announced the state was investing $5 million to create new paid service

as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice and three years as a prosecutor with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. Jenkins’ colleagues praised his tenure.

“It has been an honor to work with Justice Jenkins at the court,” stated Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero. “His collegiality, and the thoughtfulness and care with which he has approached his work, have provided a constant source of inspiration. I speak for all of my colleagues when I thank Justice Jenkins for his many contributions to the court, to the public, and to the law.”

At the time of his appointment, Newsom’s office described Jenkins, a Democrat like the governor, as “a son of San Francisco” who grew up cleaning office buildings and churches with his father who also worked a full-time job with the City and County of San Francisco as a clerk and janitor at Coit Tower. Jenkins attended two Jesuit-run universities in the Bay Area, Santa Clara University and the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he earned his law degree. t

opportunities with the goal of seeing 10,000 young men step up as mentors, coaches and tutors.

“Too many young men and boys are suffering in silence – disconnected from community, opportunity and even their own families. This action is about turning that around,” stated Newsom in announcing the challenge initiative. “It’s about showing every young man that he matters, he has purpose, and he has a community.”

Now is the time to be engaged

With situations like military deployments in U.S. borders and Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and arrests of American citizens prevailing in the second Trump administration, Wiener said now more than ever is the time to be engaged.

“Way too many people don’t want to watch the news anymore,” Wiener said. “They say, ‘It’s bad for my mental health,’ and what I say is, ‘It probably is bad for your mental health, but you have to.’”

A more checked-out citizenry will only lead to more abuses of power, Wiener asserted.

“The moment you stop, this becomes normalized,” he said.

The morning featured presentations about California Connects, interactive activities between attendees, lunch, and opportunities to network.

Thomisha Wallace, a queer woman who is executive director of the California Youth Empowerment Commission, told the Bay Area Reporter that her agency is traveling around the state to be a more visible presence, particularly with LGBTQ youth.

“We’re a safe space for queer youth,” Wallace said. “We travel across the state to be inclusive to young voices and underserved youth, and we intentionally do that by engaging with LGBTQ+ young people because we know their disparities worsen.”

Wallace said she wants “to bridge our connections across the state, and let young people know we exist, so they can include their voices in the policy recommendations to our government.”

People can contact the youth empowerment commission on its website.

Also in attendance was Kahmarii Jones-White, a straight ally who is a San Francisco human rights commissioner. Jones-White said that the reason she was there was to showcase the San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s youth and workforce development opportunities, and to learn collaboratively about similar initiatives in other cities.

“We’re leaning forward to meet people at the state level so they can see what we are doing,” she said.

Asked at lunchtime if the convocation was helpful, Jones-White said it was, “since we are only about seven years old, compared to people who’ve been doing this development for 20, 30 years, I’m really loving the ideas of learning and how to really do smart partnerships and elevate all of our creative projects and strategies we have.”

A second convening took place October 15 in Los Angeles. The final one scheduled is November 18 in Fresno. GO-SERVE officials said they have working relationships with Equality California, the TransLatin@ Coalition, and CalPride Stanislaus.

Jessica Parman, a disabled queer woman who is the executive director or CalPride Stanislaus, stated to the B.A.R. that it has been “incredibly rewarding” to work with the office of community partnerships and strategic communications.

“I’ve seen firsthand how thoughtful and collaborative the office is – especially in creating digital materials that genuinely reflect and speak to the 2SLBGTQIA+ communities we serve,” Parman stated. “I’m excited to attend the Fresno California Connect Summit. ... It’s always inspiring to explore ways we can support each other and strengthen care for our communities, particularly during challenging times. We’re grateful for the opportunity to share space with everyone in Fresno.”

Equality California and the TransLatin@ Coalition didn’t return requests for comment for this report. t

Frozen treat brands scoop up SF locations

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

hould everything go as planned for siblings Cielo Garat-Zanella and her older brother, Ignacio Iggy” Garat, the third San Francisco location for their Angela’s Ice Cream will open in the city’s LGBTQ Castro district in time for the holidays this December. They are taking over the vacant corner storefront at Noe and 18th streets that once housed a 7-Eleven convenience store.

It should come a month after they open their second location in the Fillmore in early November at 3108C Fillmore Street. They opened Angela’s first San Francisco location July 25 at 3751 24th Street on the corner of Chattanooga.

“We had this crazy idea, which I am proud of, to open three stores in San Francisco at the same time,” Garat, 37, who is gay, told the Bay Area Reporter in early October at the Noe Valley location.

The family-owned company, which is based in Sonoma County, is the latest frozen treat brand with LGBTQ ownership to scoop up vacant retail spaces in San Francisco. Two years ago, during Pride Month in June, Ilary “Hila” Biondo opened her Hila Gelato Caffè at 951 Valencia Street.

The Sicilian-born Biondo, 39, who had owned a renowned gelato shop in her home country, had moved to the U.S. in early 2023 to be with her now-wife, who works in the tech industry. She took over the Mission District space where gelato shop Xanath had been for 13 years. She began serving up her special recipe for the frozen treat made with pure organic cane sugar and fresh milk. (She uses less sugar than is usually found in gelato, which also has no eggs or cream.)

September after being invited by the property manager to do so.

“The city helped me and now I am very popular,” Biondo said of local residents embracing her gelato and patronizing her business. “Now, I want to help the building; I want to help the city. I stay here and open another shop.”

To the left of her stand is the first retail space for gay-owned The Chaga Company which the Business Briefing column profiled back in 2020.

In addition to selling his chaga mushroom infused products, Gavin Escolar is also selling his signature onesies.

ness that began in San Leandro specializes in Indian-inspired ice creams made fresh with local products.

Biondo makes her gelato in small batches throughout the day in flavors like Sicily ricotta with chocolate chip or strawberry drizzled with Colavita Balsamic Vinegar of Modena from Italy. Due to the limited supply, samples of the gelato are not offered.

A kid’s cup costs $5, while two scoops costs $7. Some flavors cost a $1 extra, such as the mango gelato with Tajin, a chili/lime seasoning.

“I change the flavors all the time,” noted Biondo, who also ran a restaurant and wine bar in her hometown of Palermo, Sicily.

October, but construction issues delayed the process. Not only are the Garat siblings adding windows to the Noe Street facade, they discovered the old coolers in the space had rotted the flooring, which had to be entirely replaced.

The work is being done by Pryor Contractors, which Garat co-owns with Carla Alguzzi. They launched the construction company, based out of Petaluma, two years ago.

“I can see the opportunity because I know how much work it takes to change a space,” Garat said of the transformation planned for the Castro location. “Each location has a connection to its neighborhood.”

first time I feel I am going to be in a place where I feel fully at ease,” said Garat. “In Mexico City, I had a closeted boyfriend, and we couldn’t be seen together in public. I now have a new boyfriend of six months, who happens to also be Mexican, but he is out, and we can hold hands walking in the Castro. It feels like I am at home and a place of ease.”

Making artisanal gelato, Biondo said, “this is my mission.”

She spoke with the B.A.R. in between a constant stream of customers of her pop-up inside the downtown building One Market at 1 Market Street. She opened up the gelato stall and cafe serving up Caffe Vergnano coffee in early

He opened his Chaga + Onesie King retail space in August amid efforts by civic and business leaders to populate retail spaces throughout the Financial District amid an upswing of workers returning to their offices and tourists coming back to the city post the early years of the COVID pandemic that hampered people’s travel plans and led many to work from home.

Via the city’s Vacant to Vibrant program Koolfi Creamery earlier this year signed a long-term lease for the alleyway space it opened in last year at 50 Fremont Street, which is owned by Salesforce. The queer and immigrant women-owned busi-

It was where she first met her spouse, Ceci, in 2022. Within six months she had sold her motorcycle, packed up her belongings, and headed for a new adventure in San Francisco.

Biondo is already looking to open a third Hila location in North Beach due to it being the city’s Italian neighborhood. Her plan is to do so sometime in 2026, unless the right location were to come along sooner, she told the B.A.R.

“This is my dream,” said Biondo, who offers gelato-making classes at her Valencia location.

Castro ice creamery

The Angela’s location in the Castro was to have opened in early

The siblings are working with designer Delia Albarrán, whom Garat first met via a friend while living in Mexico City. The interior of the Castro location will have a similar clean look as the Noe Valley space but pay homage to the LGBTQ neighborhood and its Victorian residences.

They plan to have sidewalk tables and chairs on the Noe Street side.

There will also be counter space to sell coffee drinks and their in-house made chocolates, which they first debuted this fall at the Noe Valley location.

It is especially meaningful to be opening in the famed LGBTQ neighborhood, said Garat, who since August has been living in the city’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.

“I have lived in Argentina, Mexico City, and Los Angeles, but this is the

The Castro and Noe Valley locations are in sunnier, warmer parts of their respective neighborhoods, making them ideal places to serve up ice cream in a city famous for its foggy, windy weather. (A single scoop on a cake cone costs $6.75) They already have felt embraced by Noe Valley residents, said Garat-Zanella, 30, who has a toddler son with her husband and lives in Santa Rosa.

“Something I’ve noticed about the neighborhood itself, is our clientele are very vocal in the best way. They tell us what flavors they want and how they are enjoying the space,” said Garat-Zanella, who comes up with most of the recipes for Angela’s ice creams, such as the autumnal special flavor of pumpkin cream cheese that just debuted.

The siblings launched Angela’s in Petaluma in 2017, along with their mother, Angela Pryor-Garat Named in honor of the family’s matriarch, the business now has five North Bay locations, in Forestville, Healdsburg, Mill Valley, and two in Petaluma.

Great Hauntway returns to Sunset Dunes

compiled by Cynthia Laird

The Friends of Sunset Dunes will hold its fifth annual Great Hauntway at the Ocean-fronting park, Sunday, October 26, from 1 to 4 p.m. It marks the first time the official city park will play host to the spooky event.

The event takes place between Judah and Taraval streets. It will feature trickor-treat stations, bounce houses, live music, and costumes galore. The event is free and open to everyone.

Sunset Dunes, the new city park, was created this spring due to the passage of Proposition K last November that saw a portion of the Great Highway permanently closed to vehicles. Before that, the friends group had held the event alongside the beach when that stretch of the highway was closed to cars on weekends, a compromise measure developed during the COVID pandemic. (The passage of Prop K led to the recall of gay District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio last month; his last day in office is Friday, October 17.)

Partnering with the friends group on the Great Hauntway are the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department and Bay to Breakers.

For more information, including volunteer opportunities, go to sunsetdunes. org/hauntway.

Bay Area ‘No Kings’ marches

The second round of “No Kings” marches is set to hit cities across the country Saturday, October 18. Events are planned throughout the Bay Area, including San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Jose. No Kings marches were held in June as organizers mobilized millions of people to take to the streets and declare that America has no king, the website noted.

At the time, President Donald Trump held his military/birthday parade in Washington, D.C., which was largely

congressional districts with five more Democratic-leading ones for the 2026 midterm elections. The country is also in the midst of a federal government shutdown, and Trump said last week that some furloughed workers may not receive back pay.

No Kings, which is co-organized by Indivisible, stressed the peaceful nature of the events.

In San Francisco, there will be a march starting at 1:30 p.m. at Embarcadero Plaza at Market and Steuart streets that will continue up to Civic Center Plaza.

Francisco attorney David Tsai will be honored at the AIDS Legal Referral Panel’s 42nd annual reception Thursday, October 23, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at The Grand, 520 Fourth Street in San Francisco.

rained out, as protesters rallied in cities across the country.

Four months later, organizers pointed to Trump’s continued immigration policies that have seen masked federal agents detain and arrest people without warrants, gutting health care access, and threatening to overtake elections through gerrymandered congressional districts in red states. California is fighting back with a special statewide election November 4 asking voters to support Proposition 50, which would allow the Legislature to implement redrawn

In Oakland, the march will start at 12:30 p.m. at Wilma Chan Park, 810 Jack son Street, across from the Lake Merritt BART Station. It will end at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater between 12th Street and First Avenue.

In Berkeley, a march will start at 10 a.m. at 2307 Telegraph Avenue. San Jose’s takes place at noon at St. James Park at the intersection of Second and St. James streets. Numerous other marches are planned. To find an event, visit nokings. org/#map.

ALRP hosts benefit reception Gay actor George Takei and gay San

Tsai is a trial lawyer who focuses on intellectual property and is a partner at Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman. He is a former board member of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Bar Association of San Francisco. He currently serves on the board of Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ rights organization.

Tsai will be receiving ALRP’s Clint Hockenberry Award, named for the agency’s first paid staff member.

Takei, known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the “Star Trek” franchise, has been an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ community, especially since publicly coming out in 2005. He is known for his humorous social media posts and support for progressive causes.

Takei will be receiving the Bill Hirsh Award, named for the gay former longtime executive director of ALRP.

My reality Commentary>>

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

In about a month, I will have to spend a week in Georgia for my day job. It used to be that I’d relish such a trip but, in 2025, it requires a bit more forethought. For example, I worry that, if I take my passport for identification, versus my Real ID-enabled driver’s license, I could see my passport confiscated, leaving me without a valid identification source.

With the Trump administration’s insistence that there are only men and women, and this is an immutable fact from birth, we have seen an ongoing struggle over identification documents. On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security “to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards” focus only on sex assigned “at conception.”

At conception, I am pretty certain I was a couple of somewhat differentiated cells at the time and did not have an inherent sexual identity, though, to be fair, my memory of that time is pretty sketchy.

Due to this executive order, some saw their passports confiscated or even mutilated, though this largely stopped after the order was stayed by a federal judge in April. Now, the case, Orr v. Trump, will likely end up decided by a hostile U.S. Supreme Court that has served as a rubber stamp for nearly everything this administration has wanted.

I worry, too, how I will be treated. I have had trouble in the past at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, including one agent at Boston Logan International Airport during the first Trump administration who ordered me into a second pat down of my breasts, because I was wearing a bra, and he was unclear of my gender. I cannot imagine this has gotten much better.

I also hope I don’t end up having to use a restroom during my travels. Looking at trans journalist Erin Reed’s Anti-Trans National Legal Risk Assessment Map on her Substack, I will be changing flights in Kansas, which has a bathroom ban targeting transgender people. Maybe I should go on the plane, perhaps while flying over Colorado.

Of course, my destination, Georgia, is not very safe either. It is not as bad as Kansas – let alone Texas or Florida, states that transgender people should absolutely avoid – but the Peach State also added some anti-trans laws over the last few years. I’ll be largely insu-

Imperial state funeral set for Garry McLain

The Imperial Council of San Francisco has announced plans for the state funeral of Garry McLain, also known as Empress XXV Marlena. Mr. McLain died October 5. He was 85.

An announcement October 9 stated that an Imperial state funeral will be held Saturday, November 8, at noon at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 1111 O’Farrell Street in San Francisco. Immediately following the service, a celebration of life honoring Marlena will take place at

lated at my workplace, and in a crowd of my co-workers, but I certainly hope nothing bad happens while I’m there. I’ll breathe a lot easier when I’m home.

That said, even in my home state –California – we’re seeing a governor who has become very timid over trans protections. Indeed, Governor Gavin Newsom appears to be lining up for a 2028 presidential run by, on one hand, talking tough to Trump while vastly softening his once pro-trans stance.

Newsom vetoed one education-related bill that conservative lawmakers targeted as pro-trans but was a technical bill around school curriculum, and another that aimed to better protect gender-nonconforming patients’ health care access, including insurance coverage for hormone replacement therapy.

Newsom signed the Transgender Privacy Act bill and another bill that bolsters California’s status as a “trans refuge state.” He also signed a bill to make it easier for adults and minors to change their names to conform with their gender identity. https:// www.ebar.com/story/159153/News/ Newsom%20signs%2C%20vetoes%20 transgender%20bills

Meanwhile, our federal government is shut down, and even more trans rights hang in the balance. Negotiations between congressional Democrats and Republicans have already hindered trans care and trans participation in sports, with much more at stake.

This is just a taste of what it means to be a trans person in 2025. Every moment is a negotiation between our existence versus the comfort of the non-transgender world at large. Yet, in spite of everything, we continue to navigate it.

Our government wants you to believe that transgender people – a naturally-occurring variation in the human condition that has been documented

2 p.m. outside of her former bar at 488 Hayes Street.

There will be special appearances by Empress Galilea hosting the return of the Hayes Street Follies starting at 2:30 p.m. That will be followed by a performance of SF Imperial Monarchs at 3:30 hosted by John Carrillo, a gay man who was Emperor XXVIII, and Empress Misty Blue.

The announcement noted that a block of hotel rooms has been set aside for that weekend (FridayMonday) at the Hyatt Regency Downtown SOMA, 50 Third Street. For more information, call 415974-6400. The code is G-IMC1.

Marlena was crowned Empress XXV in 1990 and reigned with Emperor Simeon. San Diego resident Nicole Murray Ramirez, who holds the title of Queen Mother I of the Americas, Canada, U.S.A., and Mexico, designated Marlena as Queen Mother I of California. To read the Bay Area Reporter’s obituary on Mr. McLain, go to https://tinyurl.com/3rr7x6sp

the government lacks the ability to realize that transgender people are real and can only picture us as some sort of fraud to achieve some illicit gain, or as mindless dupes who have been coerced against our will to transition.

Neither tends to be true.

Being a transgender woman is simply who I am. It was all those years prior to my transition that I found myself feeling like I was performing a role in a very ill-fitting costume. This is the real me, and the only thing I’m seeking to do is live as au thentic a life as I can.

You’ll find that the ma jority of other transgender people likely will tell you variations of this same thing.

for centuries – does not exist, and it will do all it can to make that a reality.

Yet, as difficult as the federal government chooses to make our lives, we continue to exist.

You see, I have long contended that

By applying all the pressure the administration can, the government feels that we will just take the easier path and live as it claims we are. Yet, for the majority of transgender people in America in 2025,

we are just learning to navigate an increasingly hostile system while remaining true to ourselves. And even in all of this, there still are transgender people coming out every day, standing against a world rigged against our success.

Can you think of anything more badass than coming out and living openly as a transgender person in 2025? That takes far more guts than I had, three decades ago, when I was coming out.

The transgender community may face far worse in the next few years as this administration ramps up attacks against us and tries even more avenues to remove our rights. Yet, I have hope and confidence that transgender people will still remain. t

Gwen Smith is mindful that she currently has it better than a vast majority of her trans siblings. You can find her at www.gwensmith.com

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Benioff riff a buzzkill

Add Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to the list of tech billionaires who have turned to unabashedly support President Donald Trump. This time, however, the stakes are incredibly high, as Benioff told the New York Times and San Francisco Standard that he’s “all for” Trump sending the National Guard to San Francisco. Of course, Benioff, who also owns Time magazine, made the comments in phone calls to reporters from his private jet, enroute to the city for his big Dreamforce confab taking place this week.

Benioff’s caving to Trump follows gay Apple CEO Tim Cook giving the president a 24-karat gold gift; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg now allowing his platforms like Instagram and Facebook to traffic in anti-LGBTQ tropes, hate speech, and deplatforming; and, perhaps the most infamous of all, Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy in the early months of the second Trump administration as leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. As the Times story also noted, gay OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has now turned into a Trump cheerleader. At a White House dinner for tech barons, the paper reported, Altman, who co-led San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s transition team, said that Trump was “a very refreshing change.”

These gay billionaires, Cook and Altman, have no idea what it’s like for the rest of the LGBTQ community, otherwise, they wouldn’t be groveling for Trump’s affections. Then again, it likely has to do more with their companies’ bottom lines and making sure tariffs and other regulations don’t put a crimp in their earning power, or, in the case of Salesforce and X, end their government contracts.

in areas of the city, and reorganized the city’s street teams who work with unhoused people. The city has a shortage of sworn police officers, as Lurie and other city leaders know all too well. Benioff likely knows this too, or would, if he actually lived in the city. He acknowledged to the Standard that he hasn’t called San Francisco home for many years and has largely decamped to Hawaii.

The reaction from city leaders over Benioff’s comments was swift. “This is a slap in the face to San Francisco. It’s insulting to our cops, and it’s honestly galling to those of us who’ve been fighting hard over the last few years to fully staff our @SFPD,” gay District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey wrote on X. Gay Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman was more diplomatic, telling NBC Bay Area, “I am choosing to treat his remarks as an expression of frustration that a lot of San Franciscans share. I think his conclusion is completely wrong.”

ployments to Chicago and Portland.) These troops have run roughshod over citizens and immigrants in their supposed mission of supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who are just vile in the way they treat people. We shudder at the thought of troops in the Tenderloin and Castro neighborhoods, which many LGBTQ people call home; the Mission district, where many Latinos reside; or anywhere else in the city.

As for Lurie, he has studiously avoided antagonizing Trump since taking office. A joint event featuring the two planned for Monday was abruptly canceled after Benioff’s comments. On Tuesday, he released a statement on the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s report showing a decline in accidental overdose rates for September. The mayor also said the city’s on track for a 70-year low in homicides.

“From the day I took office, I told San Franciscans my number one priority was keeping our streets safe and clean,” Lurie stated. “I was hearing from residents across the city for years that they were concerned about crime and felt that the city was caught flat-footed by the fentanyl crisis. As soon as I became mayor, we took a new approach.

“We created the SFPD Hospitality Zone Task Force to keep our commercial districts safe and launched our Rebuilding the Ranks plan to get our police department back to full staffing. We passed a Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance and launched our Breaking the Cycle plan to fundamentally transform our response to the behavioral health crisis and get people off the street,” the mayor added.

For many years, Benioff has been a generous benefactor to San Francisco nonprofits of all stripes. He, apart from many others, really seemed to care – to the tune of more than $1 billion to Bay Area causes over the last 26 years, as the Times noted. Now, we know it was all a mirage. He’s bummed because he has to pay for hundreds of off-duty cops to help patrol the Dreamforce confab. “We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” he said of the National Guard.

What a buzzkill for Lurie, a multimillionaire and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune. Since becoming mayor in January, Lurie has worked to end the open-air drug markets, ramped up police presence

Dorsey subsequently posted a thank you to Benioff, who, after apparently realizing his tone-deaf interviews, attempted to backtrack and wrote on X that Salesforce was investing $15 billion in San Francisco over the next five years. Dorsey’s District 6 seat on the board includes South of Market where Salesforce has its headquarters and annual conference.

The danger in Benioff’s initial comments is that he’s playing right into Trump’s hands. The president has already – more than once – suggested National Guard troops will be deployed to San Francisco. And, given what’s transpired in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., this is not something that will be good for the city. (Judges have delayed guard de-

Lurie also noted that crime is down 30%, and the city is adding police officers and sheriff’s deputies for the first time in a decade. There are a record low number of encampments on city streets, he added, and overdose deaths are down 39% from January.

“I know our work is far from done – I see it every day when I walk the streets and talk to residents,” Lurie stated. “But our local law enforcement, outreach workers, community ambassadors, and I will continue to be relentless so we can deliver the safe and clean streets that every San Franciscan deserves.”

Benioff’s riff with reporters was not helpful: not to his friend, Lurie, not to San Francisco’s police officers and other first responders, and not to the residents who call the city home. It’s just another example of someone who is very wealthy spouting off without considering the possible ramifications. t

How Los Angeles hospital failed me, other trans patients

by Lu Lukah Orona

Iwas 17 when I began my medical transition at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. It had taken over a year of fighting through referrals, canceled appointments, and “we don’t do that here” dismissals before CHLA became an avenue for freedom. CHLA gave me what other clinics had refused: the dignity of choice, and with it, the chance to feel at home in my own body.

For years, my body felt foreign. I had no real sense of home, safety, or connection until I began testosterone. A year later, CHLA opened the door to top surgery. I took my first full breath – free from the chest binders I had worn for years, and free from the deeper binds of a health care system that had long denied me care. CHLA was the first place I felt truly safe and affirmed.

I still remember my first consult: hands trembling, bracing to be turned away again. Instead, I was met with respect. I cried the moment I injected my first dose of testosterone, overwhelmed with joy and relief. It was a long-awaited step toward a freedom I’d once believed was impossible.

Within months, the suicidal thoughts that had haunted me began to loosen their grip. For the first time, I wasn’t just enduring life, I was living it. I noticed things others take for granted: the warmth of the sun on my skin, the ease of laughing with friends, the quiet joy of simply being present in my body. CHLA became my lifeline.

This summer, that lifeline was cut.

abandoned, with consequences that are immediate and devastating.

In July, CHLA announced it would no longer provide gender-affirming care – not only to trans youth, but to young adults like me. At 23, after half a decade of continuity on testosterone, I was suddenly told that the care I depended on was no longer available at the only clinic I trusted.

The cruelty lies in the double standard: cisgender patients at CHLA still receive hormones, surgeries, and gender-related care, while trans patients are barred solely because we are trans. Although CHLA framed its retreat as a restriction for minors, I stand as living proof that young adults are also being

Losing CHLA doesn’t just mean finding a new doctor; it means starting over in a system where affirming care is scarce, waitlists are months long, and navigating insurance feels like combat. I know the cost of disruption all too well: when I once lost access to testosterone due to an insurance lapse, my periods returned, my hormonal balance collapsed, and my mental health deteriorated. It took half a year before I felt stable again.

This is not simply about logistics; it is about trust. Trans people already bear disproportionate rates of depression, anxiety, and medical trauma. Forcing us to fight relentlessly for care compounds the harm, deepening the sense that our lives are treated as conditional. When an institution like CHLA turns its back, the message is unmistakable: our health is negotiable, our survival expendable.

That is why accountability cannot wait. If one clinic falters, others must rise. Health care leaders cannot claim allyship in times of ease only to retreat

under political pressure. We need a new standard of leadership – public, sustained, and binding commitments not to abandon trans patients when controversy swells. Symbolic gestures are not enough. This moment demands a framework of accountability, structural commitments, and protections that transcend individual courage.

The charge is not only for medical institutions but for policymakers and the public as well. Gender-affirming care is not fringe or elective; it is evidence-based, essential, and life-saving. To treat it as optional is to gamble with lives like mine and those of countless others who are now being turned away. And this is not confined to youth. It impacts adults as young as 18 and as old as 23, who are suddenly stripped of care mid-treatment.

We cannot allow this to be reduced to a policy debate or a headline while trans people are forced back into closets of pain and silence. CHLA may have abandoned us, but I refuse to vanish from my own health care.

We deserve a future in which trans people do not merely survive but thrive. That future is not an abstraction; it is possible, and the fight for it begins now. t

Lu Lukah Orona (he/they) is a Latine trans man who embraces gender fluidity and challenges binary norms. He currently works as an organizer with the California LGBTQ+ Health and Human Services Network, where he advocates for the safety, well-being, and visibility of LGBTQIA+ communities in all spaces.

A lifelong creative, Orona grew up knowing there was more to life than what was told and allowed of him, leading him to reimagine his identity beyond conformity and expectation. Beginning his social transition at 13 and his medical transition at 17, Orona found language and resources for his identity and well-being. Through his work and art, he strives to reimagine gender and sexuality as expansive, fluid, and deeply personal.

t Politics >> Governor Newsom vetoes PrEP access bill

by Matthew S. Bajko

Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill its author had hoped would give Californians easier access to HIV prevention medications as of January 1. But on Monday, October 13, Newsom jettisoned the legislation known as the PrEPARE Act of 2025.

The acronym in the name of Assembly Bill 554 stood for the Protecting Rights, Expanding Prevention, and Advancing Reimbursement for Equity. Gay Assemblymember Mark González (D-Los Angeles) had authored it with the aim of preventing health care plans and insurance companies from requiring prior authorization or step therapy for antiretroviral drugs, devices, or products that are approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for PrEP, or preexposure prophylaxis, and PEP, or postexposure prophylaxis. Both are successful methods for preventing the transmission of HIV.

It also would have required a health care service plan to cover the HIV preventative drugs furnished by a pharmacist, including the pharmacist’s services and related testing ordered by the pharmacist. Both pharmacists at in-network pharmacies and pharmacists at out-of-network pharmacies would have been covered if the health care service plan has an out-of-network pharmacy benefit or in cases of a medical emergency.

Medi-Cal managed care plans would not have been impacted. Yet Newsom refused to allow AB 554 to become law.

In his veto message, Newsom raised concerns about the law’s impacts on affordability should it become law due to provisions in the federal Affordable Care Act.

HIV, viral hepatitis and other bloodborne pathogens due to dirty needles shared by injection drug users.

Newsom signed the bill October 13. The rules for furnishing the syringes are now extended indefinitely.

“By exceeding the cost-sharing provisions under the ACA, this bill would result in increased costs to health plans, which would then be passed on to consumers,” wrote Newsom. “At a time when individuals are facing double-digit rate increases in their health care premiums across the nation, the state must weigh the potential benefits of all new mandates against the comprehensive costs to the entire care delivery system.”

While praising Newsom for signing into law a majority of its priority legislation this year, statewide LGBTQ rights organization Equality California expressed disappointment in Newsom’s decision to veto AB 554 in light of the Trump administration’s efforts to “dismantle federal protections for HIV prevention.”

As such, “California should be doing everything possible.” stated gay EQCA Executive Director Tony Hoang, to ensure “people at risk of HIV could obtain PrEP quickly and affordably.”

Other HIV, health care bills signed Newsom did enact several bills aimed at improving HIV prevention, and health care in general, in the Golden State ahead of his October 13 deadline to either sign bills adopted by the Legislature this year into law or veto them.

AB 309 authored by gay Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Hollywood) deletes the pending January 1, 2026 repeal date of state laws that give pharmacists the discretion to furnish sterile syringes to people age 18 and up and that allow adults to possess syringes for personal use without a prescription. Local governments since 2004 were given permission by the state to authorize pharmacies to sell syringes to adults as a measure to halt the spread of

Wiener expressed his gratitude to Newsom for signing the bill, which he hopes will not only benefit patients but also locally-owned pharmacies.

“With SB 41, California is stand ing up for consumers against giant mega corporations trying to rip them off on essential medications,” stated Wiener. “This new law builds on the licensing framework we es tablished earlier this year to begin holding PBMs accountable for abu sive behavior.”

The Pharmaceutical Care Man agement Association, however, bashed the signage of what it termed a “misguided bill” and predicted it would result in higher health care costs for employers who provide coverage and patients who need medications.

Senate Bill 278 by gay state Senator Christopher Cabaldon (D-Yolo) allows the disclosure of the health records of people living with HIV or AIDS to the state’s MediCal program in order to improve the care they are receiving. It also allows the disclosure of HIV test results for the purpose of administering quality improvement programs under Medi-Cal. It became law with Newsom’s signature on October 13. Newsom on October 6 had signed Cabaldon’s SB 351 that empowers the California Attorney General’s office to investigate and intervene in cases where private equity firms unduly influence medical care. Due to the law, private equity groups or hedge funds are banned from interfering with the professional judgment of physicians or dentists in making health care decisions. With such entities “increasingly acquiring medical and dental practices,” Attorney General Rob Bonta noted that, “In the process, they are often putting profits above patients.”

A Democrat who will be seeking reelection next year, Bonta in supporting Cabaldon’s bill stressed that, “Medical decisions should be based on what’s best for the patient – full stop.”

Two bills aimed at reining in prescription drug costs that Newsom signed were authored by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) after his previous similar legislative efforts stalled. On October 13 Newsom signed SB 40 caps monthly copays for insulin at $35.

SB 41, which Newsom signed October 11, imposes new regulations on pharmacy benefit managers, such as prohibiting them from steering patients to affiliated pharmacies and instead allowing patients to choose the in-network pharmacy that best meets their needs. Known as PBMs, the businesses will now need to be licensed through the California Department of Insurance and follow new rules limiting how they charge fees and impose greater transparency on their pricing.

“This bill, together with related efforts in the 2025 budget and CalRx, represents the most aggressive effort in the country to lower prescription drug costs,” stated Newsom. “California continues to lead the way in lowering costs, increasing transparency, and ensuring that the savings are passed on to payers and consumers.”

“It is a failure of the Newsom ad ministration to fall for Big Pharma’s ploy to blame their high list prices on others and to undermine the very mechanisms that actually lower pre scription drug costs,” stated the lob bying group for pharmacy benefit companies. “Nothing in SB 41 will lower drug costs for Californians. In fact, the legislation will increase drug costs for everyone in California.”

LGBTQ people will find it easier to take time off from work to care for a chosen family member due to SB 590 by Senator María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles). Newsom signed it October 13.

The state’s paid family leave program will be updated so employees, beginning on July 1, 2027, can receive wage replacement benefits for up to eight weeks when taking time off to care for a seriously ill chosen family member who is not a blood relative, child, or their significant other. Several years ago, the state had expanded certain family leave provisions to include chosen family members but it did not cover the PFL income.

LGBTQ homelessness bill signed

Addressing the needs of Califor nia’s unhoused LGBTQ individuals will be given greater priority due to Newsom’s signing AB 678 on Octo ber 10.

Numerous studies over the years have shown LGBTQ individuals, from youth to adults, are at risk of losing their housing.

As noted by the National Coali tion for the Homeless on its special webpage for the LGBTQ commu nity, the general youth population is only 10% LGBTQ yet up to 40% of homeless youth are queer or trans. It also highlights a study by the LGBTQ think tank the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law that found 17% of LGBTQ commu nity members were unhoused at one point in their lives.

As the Bay Area Reporter noted in a story last year about the first statewide survey of California’s LGBTQ seniors, roughly one in eight of the respondents said they worried they could lose their current housing. A Milken Institute report released in the spring noted that 40% of LGBTQ+ older adults live below the federal poverty line, set at an annual income of $15,560 for a single person, putting them at risk of being unable to afford their rent.

Due to AB 678, authored by bisexual Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San Jose), the state’s Interagency Council on Homelessness must coordinate with LGBTQ+ community leaders to deliver by July 1, 2027, a plan for providing inclusive and culturally competent services to LG

BTQ+ people experiencing home

lessness. t

Obituaries of 200-words or less are

to place. Please email obituary@ebar.com for more information.

Miss Major

The release noted that Miss Major, also known as “Mama,” fought for more than 50 years for trans, gendernonconforming, and LGB community – especially for Black trans women, trans women of color, and those who have survived incarceration and police brutality.

In San Francisco, Miss Major had served as executive director of the Transgender Gender-Variant Intersex Justice Project. She had co-founded TGIJP in 2004 with Alexander Lee, an Asian American trans man. The nonprofit works to end human rights abuses against trans, intersex, and gender-variant people, particularly trans women of color who are in California prisons and detention centers.

In 2023, Miss Major wrote a book with Toshio Meronek, “Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary,” that discusses her life as a former sex worker, and a transgender elder and activist who had survived Bellevue psychiatric hospital, Attica Prison, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and a world that white supremacy has built, as the publisher, Verso, described.

“She has shared tips with other sex workers in the nascent drag ball scene

Jazzie’s Place From page 1

“We’ve only had one dormitory as part of the shelter,” Valdez said as she showed a reporter the space. “Now, we have 44 new beds, all together in this new dormitory, for the LGBTQ community.”

New dormitory

In addition to beds there are new bathrooms with ADA-accessible showers and changing rooms, and lockers with phone chargers.

“This is all the new build out for folks,” Valdez continued.

Despite a $170 million cut this year to the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s budget, Mission Action hasn’t felt the pinch other nonprofits have reported facing.

“We did not experience any cuts for the Dolores shelter program, or for Jazzie’s,” Valdez said.

“This build out was through capital dollars. The department had allocated capital dollars to be able to do the work here. As you can see, there was electrical work that had to be done so that there’s AC in the unit, electrical, everything had to be done to code and permitting so it was a significant amount of work,” said Valdez.

Stephanie Senna, the program director for Jazzie’s, said the mood as the shelter opens is one of anticipation. Mis-

News Briefs From page 4

ALRP provides civil legal services for the HIV/AIDS community. It has paid staff members as well as volunteer attorneys.

Tickets for the “Rights, Resilience, Revelry!” reception start at $50. For tickets and more information, visit alrp.org/events/42nd-annual-reception.

For more information on the agency, visit alrp.org.

<< Business Briefing

From page 4

Earlier this year Pryor-Garat and her husband, Ignacio, moved to the city’s Bayview neighborhood due to their opening the restaurant Flora King at 4248 18th Street in the Castro. It is four blocks west of where the ice cream shop will be opening.

Due to the expansion of Angela’s into San Francisco, and the growth in local retailers carrying its ice cream pints, the family is expanding into a larger com-

of the late 1960s, and helped found one of America’s first needle exchange clinics from the back of her van,” the webpage for the book stated.

Janetta Johnson, a Black trans woman who is the current CEO of TGIJP, wrote on the organization’s website earlier this year praising Miss Major.

“I will never forget the day in 1997 when I called Miss Major and said, ‘I want change. I need change. I need help. Will you help me?’ And she said, ‘Sure, baby!’ I replied, ‘Thank you! I will be there in two weeks. Give me the address,’” Johnson wrote.

“I left Tampa, Florida, for San Francisco, knowing only one Black Trans woman who was said to be part of uplifting the Black Trans community,” she added. “I got on the Greyhound and arrived in San Francisco. I consider that move the beginning of being raised, supported, and nurtured by Miss Major – having a trans mom, a sister, and a friend. She loved me, nurtured me back to health, and helped me find a sense of safety within myself. She taught me to love, to be strong, and to seek refuge not just for myself but for my community.”

Johnson was formerly incarcerated herself, as she explained in another blog post.

Cecilia Chung, a transgender

woman living with HIV who is senior adviser at the Oakland-based Transgender Law Center, expressed gratitude for Miss Major’s advocacy over the years.

“I have known Miss Major for over 30 years,” stated Chung, who serves on the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. “She was a pillar for Black trans women and an amazing advocate for trans and nonbinary people who are survivors of institutional violence, especially those in the carceral systems. Today, we are not just mourning the loss of an elder, we are also celebrating the life of a phenomenal person loved by all of us.”

Diego M. Sanchez, a Latino trans man who is vice president of policy and government affairs for PFLAG National, was also a longtime friend of Miss Major’s.

“Miss Major was my hero and friend for decades,” Sanchez stated. “She was tender, giving, and selfless. She survived with strength and grace when so many Black trans women didn’t and couldn’t. Miss Major never let the world limit her, defining herself unapologetically as the amazing woman she was. She will be forever in my heart.”

When trans actor Laverne Cox made an appearance in San Francisco in 2014, she praised Miss Major from

sion Action declined to state how Senna identifies under the LGBTQ umbrella, except that her pronouns are she/her/ ella.

“The excitement the clients have at being able to have a bigger dorm, the environment, the nice bathrooms I think we are providing for them, the services that we give them – I’m just very excited and can’t wait for them to be able to experience these new beds,” Senna said.

A transgender woman who is a client of Jazzie’s Place but wished to remain anonymous is grateful for the support they received, revealing, “After my HIV diagnosis, I tried to end my life here at

SF Dyke March elects advisory committee

The San Francisco Dyke March recently elected members of its advisory committee. The organization held the first election in its history September 27 and chose eight of nine open seats on the committee, according to a news release. Seven candidates were a mix of returning and new volunteers; one was an interim steering committee member.

The winners of the election were Sabrina Brennan, a lesbian and founder of the Committee for Eq -

mercial kitchen space in Santa Rosa in January in order to meet the demand for its small-batch ice creams. Garat often commutes up to the North Bay to oversee the operations and check in on the other stores.

He and his sister also own Iggy’s Organic Burger in Healdsburg, California. They are expanding to Sebastopol and Santa Rosa, and may also bring the eatery to San Francisco at some point, said Garat.

He already is pushing his sister to open a fourth Angela’s location in the

the stage, as the Bay Area Reporter noted.

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her and people like her,” Cox told the audience. “She’s a living legend.”

In an interview with the B.A.R. at the time, Miss Major said she felt “thrilled” that Cox looked up to her and was glad to see a public gesture of appreciation toward elders despite not living in a society that caters to that.

“When you do this kind of work, those moments don’t come along often,” Miss Major said. “I was so enamored and honored by her, for who she is and how she got there. She really is a beacon.”

At the time, Cox was starring in the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black,” which dealt with life in a women’s prison and featured several out female characters.

Miss Major was a veteran of the Stonewall riots that occurred at the Stonewall Inn in New York City in June 1969. Locally, Miss Major served as a San Francisco Pride community grand marshal in 2014.

A documentary about her, “Major!” was released in 2016 and won awards on the festival circuit.

Miss Major remained active over the years. The LGBTQ publication Them reported that last year, she attended the inaugural Gender Lib-

asked about any residency limits. “Once they obtain a bed, it’s up to them if they’d like to stay till they find another housing option, whether that’s a bed, a shelter, a nav[igation] center, a [single-room occupancy hotel], or housing through problem solving.”

“All our partners work with the LGBTQ community and know the dorm’s qualifications,” stated Torres.

He added, “There is a referral process where selected partners in SF can refer participants direct to our shelter.”

Asked if the stay is unlimited, Torres confirmed that.

“Correct, unless someone gets housed or has found other housing options. Once they are exited, the team reports the open space to the community partners,” Torres stated.

the shelter.”

“Stephanie and her team saved me,” the person continued. “They were well-trained and responded immediately, even administering Narcan when I needed it most. When I came back from the hospital to Jazzie’s Place, I hugged Stephanie because, thanks to her and the staff, I’m still here today. I’m so grateful for this space.”

Jaime Torres, a straight ally who is director of housing and shelter programs for Jazzie’s Place, said that people can stay at the shelter until they find another housing option.

“It’s unlimited,” Torres said when

uity in Women’s Surfing and Surf Equity and a former elected member of the San Mateo County Harbor District; Jess Trochet, a transgender dyke who wrote and edited the Dyke March’s 2025 values statements; Mellanique (“Black”) Robicheaux, a longtime member of the queer community and DJ; Lyra Wallace, who helped bring the Dyke March back this year and has a financial background; and Cyndi Vee, a queer trans dyke of color and volunteer.

Other successful candidates were Lex McGowen, who hears using

city. They’ve been bandying about which neighborhood to move into next, perhaps sometime in 2026.

“We are very ambitious. It is a family trait,” noted Garat-Zanella.

To learn more about Biondo’s gelato business, as well as the hours for her locations and to sign up for her gelatomaking classes, visit its website at http:// www.hilagelato.com

For more information about Angela’s Ice Cream and its various locations and offerings, visit its website at https:// www.angelasicecream.com/ t

eration March in Washington, D.C. https://www.them.us/story/missmajor-griffin-gracy-trans-stonewallhosptialized-sepsis

After moving to the South, Miss Major co-founded the House of GG aka “the Oasis,” an Arkansas-based center for trans activists to “heal [...] from the trauma arising from generations of transphobia, racism, sexism, poverty, ableism and violence,” as Them reported earlier this year in an article about Miss Major’s hospitalization due to sepsis.

In January 2021, Matt Baum, writing for Them,reported that Miss Major had announced on Instagram that she and her partner, Beck Witt, welcomed a baby named Asiah Wittenstein Major. According to Wikipedia, Miss Major has several other children. The release stated that in addition to her partner, Miss Major is survived by her three sons Asaiah, Christopher, and Jonathon; her many daughters, including Johnson, the successor of the Miss Major Alexander L. Lee TGIJP Black Trans Cultural Center in San Francisco; her sisters Tracie O’Brien and Billie Cooper; keeper of spare parts, Thom Jeffress; countless members of the community who have been shaped by her mentorship and legacy as a leader; and a whole host of family and friends. t

portive Housing, stated, “Creating a safe space where all individuals including people from the LGBTQ+ community and the Mission District can find shelter and support is critical. The new beds at the Dolores Shelter will help alleviate capacity issues and through Jazzie’s Place, ensure that LGBTQ+ adults have access to the services they need during a transitional period in their lives.”

A spokesperson for the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing hailed the expansion, stating it is “providing essential support to people experiencing homelessness as well as LGBTQ adults seeking shelter at Jazzie’s Place.”

The San Francisco Institute of Esthetics and Cosmetology was on site at the Collins’ birthday celebration to provide free haircuts. Jacob Essiambre, a gay man who is a teacher at the institute, said he hopes the haircuts become a regular Jazzie’s event.

“We’re just trying to see how it is,” Essiambre said. “Stephanie [Senna] invited us, and we hope to do more events in the future. One-hundred percent volunteering our time, our students’ time as well, they’re getting [credit] hours for the work, but obviously, we’re doing free services for the community.”

Shireen McSpadden, a bi woman who is executive director of the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Sup-

cochlear implants and led the Accessibility Committee for this year’s Dyke March; Kate Simpson, who has experience in labor and communications; and Celestina Pearl, a queer femme dyke and mixed-race Native Chicana who was an interim steering committee member. M Rocket will continue to serve as interim project director.

Crystal Mason, outgoing president of the interim steering committee, congratulated the new members.

“My deepest wish for the incoming advisory committee is that they

“The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is thrilled to support a major bed expansion at the Dolores Shelter home to Jazzie’s Place, a vital resource in the San Francisco homelessness response system,” the spokesperson stated to the B.A.R. “Improvements to the site include the addition of new bathrooms and other essential amenities, ensuring a safe and welcoming environment for all guests. … This expansion helps to underscore Jazzie’s dedication to celebrating LGBTQ individuals and fostering an inclusive environment where they can thrive on their journey out of homelessness and into stability.”

For more information, go to https:// www.missionaction.org/our-work/ housing-shelter/#dolores-shelterprogram t

lead with courage, joy, and care for one another and our community –while also dreaming boldly about what the Dyke March can grow into,” Mason stated.

The release noted that in the coming months, the advisory committee will continue to build the internal structure for the organization and begin planning for the 2026 Dyke March, set for Saturday, June 27. Dykes interested in getting involved are encouraged to join as a member. For more information, visit thedykemarch.org. t

Tby Myron Caringal

he first episode of “Boots,” which debuted Oct. 9 on Netflix, doesn’t begin with war drills or solemn flag-raising. Instead, it feels like the first day of summer camp: nervous arrivals, awkward introductions, and plenty of laughs. A classic flashback drops us into “how we got here,” quickly setting the tone. This is not your typical military drama.

Based on Greg Cope White’s memoir “A Pink Marine,” “Boots” is a coming-of-age dramedy about Cameron Cope, played by Miles Heizer, a closeted gay teen who impulsively joins the Marines because his life “needs a change.” What follows is part boot camp comedy, part queer love letter to survival and part meditation on identity, belonging and resilience. The series blends sharp

humor and heartfelt storytelling to explore queerness and survival in the 1990s Marine Corps.

Creator and co-showrunner Andy Parker said that from the beginning, he knew the series had to sidestep the bleak tone of most military stories.

“There’s so much iconic media about the military and a lot of it is bleak and a lot of it is monochrome,” Parker said during a recent panel. “I didn’t want to do that. We were going in through Cameron’s eyes. His sensibility, the way he looks at the world, is funny, is refreshing, is unique. As a viewer myself, I want to laugh out loud and then get punched in the face.”

The making of a Marine

That vision has been years in the making. Netflix first announced the adaptation back in spring 2023 under the working title “The Corps.”

Nearly a year and a half later, the series arrives

with a new name but the same ambition: to blend sharp wit with a heartfelt look at queerness and survival in the 1990s Marine Corps.

That range of emotions is front and center in the pilot episode. The comedy lands hard: bodyshaming jokes, though outdated in today’s media landscape, got big laughs in the room during a first-look screening at the recent National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association convention, held in Atlanta in September.

Racist jokes directed at Cameron’s Asian best friend Ray McAffey (Liam Oh) sting in a different way, though the show takes time to let the characters address them directly. That willingness to both include and interrogate the harsh realities of the 1990s makes “Boots” feel unflinching without being exploitative.

The show also doesn’t take long to hint at its central theme: homosexuality. Cameron’s sexual-

ity surfaces almost immediately, made more poignant by Heizer’s layered performance. Heizer, a gay actor himself, brings a subtle authenticity to the role: mannerisms that might ring false in another actor’s hands feel lived-in here. His Cameron is both bold and tentative, constantly balancing his desire to belong with the risk of exposure.

One of the show’s most inventive devices is the portrayal of Cameron’s closeted self, personified as a second character. This internal dialogue, equal parts self-talk and self-love, externalizes his experience of constantly negotiating identity. It makes Cameron’s inner life as vivid as the drill sergeants barking orders outside.

White, who lived the story the show is based on, said the heart of “Boots” is about who gets to belong in America’s most rigid institutions.

Tby Brian Bromberger

he new film “Kiss of the Spider Woman” has a complicated history. First, let’s be clear which version to which we’re referring. It’s based on the famed 1976 novel by the gay Argentinian writer Manuel Puig, which was made into a 1985 film starring William Hurt, Raul Julia, and Sonja Bragg. Nominated for four Oscars, the straight Hurt won Best Actor, the first time an actor was awarded for a gay role.

However, this adaptation is not a remake of the film. In 1992/1993 it was transformed into a Broadway musical with music by John Kander and Fred Ebb, the gay duo of “Cabaret” and “Chicago,” based on a book by the late gay playwright Terence McNally, starring the late incomparable Chita Rivera and the gay Brent Carver. It combined a grim prison drama with the frothy razzle dazzle of an Old Hollywood musical, winning seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

This latest film, released by Lionsgate, is a goulash of political persecution, camp, queer romance, and song and dance, switching back and forth between the harsh realities of an austere, repressive world versus lush cinematic fantasy, a precarious balance at best.

Passion & repression

It’s Argentina, 1983 and the country is ruled by a military dictatorship bent on destroying all its political enemies, which sadly sounds very familiar in 2025. Two prisoners in Buenos Aires share a prison cell, Valentin (Diego Luna), a cranky unrepentant Marxist revolutionary

You should be dancing

by Gregg Shapiro

lassic tracks and new stuff in-

Cclude albums from Boyce Farm, Nation of Language, gay duo Levell, Naïm Amor and Kid Congo Powers, Model/Actriz and longtime favorite Cazwell’s greatest hits are featured this week to get you grooving in a retro-modern vibe.

Do you have a favorite queer band that you feel never got the love and attention it deserved? Honestly, there are probably too many to mention. Take early 1980s San Francisco duo Voice Farm, described as an “experimental synth-pop group and art house video collective,” for example. With vocals by Charly Brown and sound design by Myke Reilly, the pair initially created experimental electroclash-style tunes, before moving into more accessible dancepop with 1991’s “Bigger Cooler Weirder.”

Previously available only on vinyl, never on CD or streaming, Voice Farm’s 1982 debut album “The World We Live In” (Red Radio Records) has been reissued as a limited-edition cassette, in a “pink passion shell.” Backed by other musicians, Voice Farm perfectly captured the electronic mood of the early 1980s – think Jeff & Jane Hudson and the “Liquid Sky” soundtrack – on songs

such as “Beatnik,” “Mama Made Me Do It,” “Double Garage,” a cover of “Sally Go Round The Roses,” and the instrumentals “Davy’s Big Battle” and “Follow Me Home.”

Dig out your Walkman, and don’t let another 40 years pass before you listen to Voice Farm. www.discogs.com

Would we have a band such as the trio Nation of Language without ’80s electro pioneers such as Voice Farm, OMD, or Ministry? Ministry is mentioned because the cover art for “Dance Called Memory” (Sub Pop), Nation of Language’s fourth album, is a subtle tribute to Ministry’s underrated 1983 album “With Sympathy.”

Led by Ian Devaney and featuring his wife Aidan Noell (who identifies as bisexual) and Alex MacKay (who goes by he/them pronouns), Nation of Language is at the forefront of an ’80s synth-dance revival. More than half of the 10 tracks on “Dance Called Memory” are memorable dance tunes, including “Inept Apollo,” “Silhouette,” “In Another Life,” “Now That You’re Gone,” and “In Your Head.” nationoflanguage.com

Like Ministry in its early days, Devell is a Chicago-based synth-pop duo. Unlike Ministry, Devell is comprised of a gay couple, Darrell James and

Great grooves will get you going

Steven McIntosh. Devell’s new album “Two” is as much a reference to the pair as it is to being Devell’s second album. The twosome combines its rock background with a healthy dose of club banger energy, meaning there’s no sophomore slump here. Instead, Devell delivers a solid set featuring “Take Pride,” “Boom Boom,” “Bounce,” “Let’s Go,” and “Feel It.” Also notable are “Leather Daddy,” co-written by Devell, comedian Andy Eninger, and lesbian band Stewed Tomatoes (!), and an elevated dance cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” www.devell.com

A fierce amalgamation of post-punk band Idles and queer musician Hamish Hawk, Model/Actriz, led by the magnetic Cole Haden, returns with its remarkable second album “Pirouette”

(True Panther/Dirty Hit).

Model/Actriz practically dares you to sit or stand still, beginning with galloping album opener “Vespers,” and then follows it with the equally propulsive and heartbreaking “Cinderella” (about being a boy wanting a Cinderella-themed fifth birthday party).

“Poppy” blooms with an industrial blast, and “Departures” leaves gender behind. At under three minutes, “Audience” is a slamming workout, and “Doves” soars. Additionally, Model/Actriz doesn’t hesitate to embrace its softer side on “Baton.” www.modelactriz.com

Years before the current crop of queer hip hop acts Doechii, Lil Nas X, Frank Ocean, and Tyler The Creator, and years before old-school artists such as Queen Latifah and Da Brat came out, there was Cazwell. Queer right out of the gate in the late ’90s as one half of Morplay, Cazwell went solo in the early 2000s. His best songs, including “All Over Your Face,” “I Seen Beyonce,” “Helen Keller,” “I Buy My Socks on 14th Street,” “The Sex That I Need,” “Rice & Beans,” “Get Into It,” “Unzip Me” (featuring Peaches), and “No Selfie Control,” combined irresistible dance beats, sexy and smutty lyrics, and a distinctive sense of humor.

Of the 29 tracks on the double-disc

compilation “Hits All Over Your Face” (Peace Biscuit), nearly two dozen appeared on Cazwell’s full-length albums “Watch My Mouth” (2009) and “Hard 2 B Fresh” (2014), including the songs mentioned above, some featuring legendary West End Records samples. www.linktr.ee/cazwellofficial

If you know any of the 1960s dances referenced in the B-52s’ song “Dance This Mess Around,” such as the Hip O Crit, the Shy Tuna, the Aqua Velva, or the Camel Walk, the new album “Tucson Safari” (In The Red) by Naïm Amor and Kid Congo Powers, would be a great opportunity to show them off.

No one would dare accuse prolific gay music legend Powers of sitting idle, not even during the early days of the pandemic, when this album was recorded. Powers has also made a name for himself as a collaborator (“Jungle Cruise,” his collaboration LP with Alice Bag was released earlier this year), and this collab with Amor, combining rockabilly/garage with synths, results in some superb retro dance rock on “Stoned by the Mile,” “Murder She Wrote,” “Guitar Ping Pong,” and “Surf Sirens,” all spinning out on orange sherbet splatter vinyl. www.intheredrecords.comt

Prokofiev’s ‘The Gambler’

by Tim Pfaff

Whenthe Salzburg festival mounted a production of Sergei Prokofiev’s “The Gambler” in 2024, it wasn’t the usual gamble. Audiences don’t flock to the composer’s operas because they’re grim, often surrealistic, and the music is unruly, spiky, and hard on the ears. Peter Sellars, the out director with spiky hair whose ideas once seemed radical, staged the production in a deft balance of naturalistic acting and surreal stage pictures, and it worked splendidly.

Sellars and his team have concocted a staging that is an ideal setting for Prokofiev’s relentless, wild music and his complete surrender to the terms of the Dostoyevsky’s short story on which it is based, with its grinding, unsparing depiction of the denegrations of addiction. Prokofiev wrote his own libretto.

Some directors have what amounts to their own staging team. Set designer George Tyspin and lighting designer James F. Ingalls have been with Sellars from the beginning, their loyalty a tribute to the director’s deeply considered style.

With the full resources of the Salzburg Festival at their disposal, they transform what is basically a unit set into well-defined playing spaces. In the DVD, there are both closeups and scenes viewed from above. But what gets the attention is Tyspin’s realization of the score’s corrosive, expressionist qualities.

Lighting designer James F. Ingalls lights it all with dizzying layers of colors, slabs of primary colors, often overlapping, to create an environment of menace and, you could say, bad luck. With the Vienna Philharmonic in the pit, Timur Tangiev could, and did, go for broke, and the spiky, often discordant music of the opera kept the hectic drama front and center.

Few directors can match Sellars when it comes to the direction of characters. A production in which Asmik Grigorian, the finest singing actor on the boards today, as the story’s principle love interest, is not a stand-out among the cast of desperate figures is a dream ensemble.

Grigorian is brilliant as Polina, but what’s telling here is that she’s as compelling when not singing than when she tugs at the heart with her voice, deploying it here with what is almost an inattention to standard vocal manners.

As her emotionally unstable partner –true love is compromised by the inconvenience that Polina owes the scheming Marquis money– Sean Pannikar is outstanding as Alexey. His mastery in capturing the character’s lability –he adds the occasional grimace of a smile to the arc of his

descent– is rendered in a tenor of enormous range, musically and dramatically. He’s the center of this play, and he gets the opera’s best single line: “Money is everything.”

Also outstanding in this company of equals is the veteran mezzo-soprano Violetta Urmana as the grandmother from hell. She dodges her son’s petition for money (she has lots) by losing her entire fortune at the roulette wheel.t

Read the full review, with music clips, on www.ebar.com.

Sergei Prokofiev, “The Gambler,” 2024 Salzburg Festival, Peter Sellars, staging, Timur Zangiev, conductor, Vienna Philharmonic, Unitel. www.europadisc.co.uk

‘Caught Stealing’

by Gregg Shapiro

Just a few years after Austin Butler became a household name in Baz Luhrmann’s meh “Elvis,” he’s finally been given a lead role in a movie worthy of his gifts. Darren Aronofsky’s “Caught Stealing” (Sony/Columbia), with its double-meaning title (baseball and theft), flashbacks, ultra-violence, and tangled twists, appears to be the one.

Imagine an Aronofsky version of a Coen Brothers movie, with a screenplay by Charlie Huston (who utilizes they/them pronouns and adapted the script from their novel), a cast full of surprises (stick around for the end credits to say hi to an uncredited Laura Dern), Hasidic hitmen, and lots of Butler flesh, and there you have “Caught Stealing.”

Matt Smith and

Austin Butler

The promising baseball career of Henry (Butler) came to a tragic end in 1982 when, driving while drinking beer with a buddy, he crashed his Camaro into a pole, killing his unseatbelted friend and busting his knee. By 1994, Henry’s been living on New York’s Lower East Side for a few years,

<< Boots

From page 11

“We’re an all-volunteer military, and to exclude someone is ridiculous,” White said. “We are asking people to sign up and risk their life for our flag, and to tell someone that they don’t have the right to do that is absolutely ludicrous. Our country is worth fighting for, but we’re also individually all worth fighting for.”

Blending into brotherhood Brotherhood, or “sisterhood” as co-star Angus O’Brien calls it, is another major theme. In the pilot alone, we see arcs begin to take shape: an interaction between two Black Marines introduces themes of solidarity; family drama and generational tension bubble up in discourse between a set of brother recruits;

friends (or fun) already sparking in unexpected places. By the end of the episode, you’re left wanting to know how these characters will grow together or fracture apart.

“Hicks is so self-assured in his own identity that he doesn’t really care to prove anything to the people around him,” O’Brien said. “He just wants to have a good time, and I admire that about him.”

Off-screen, the camaraderie between O’Brien and Heizer became a real friendship, which spills into their on-screen chemistry.

Heizer called Cameron one of the most unique roles he’s played.

“For a lot of queer people, especially growing up, we hide ourselves and try to blend in,” he said. “We end up not putting ourselves in positions where we might fail, but in turn, we’re also not putting ourselves in positions

who’s being tortured to name other political dissidents, and Molina (Tonatiuh), a flamboyant ‘gay’ window dresser serving time for engaging in public indecency with another man. They couldn’t be more different, one symbolizing ideology, the other fantasy.

To pass the time, Molina describes his favorite film, “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a dazzling Technicolor melodrama circa Hollywood 1940s starring Golden Age movie star siren Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez). The movie is set in a Latin American locale, where she falls in love with two men (played by Luna and Tonatiuh), while trying to flee a mythical predator (also played by Lopez), whose kiss means death.

The musical is reenacted in a kind of mind palace, as a way of escaping their harsh reality, and over time it mirrors Valentin and Molina’s lives. They share stories and confessions and become closer, with the possibility of love despite the horrific environment bent on crushing the human spirit.

He seriously dates paramedic Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz) and spends time on the phone with his California-based

costar in a wild crime drama

mother talking about baseball. Henry’s mohawked punk rock neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) enlists him to look after his cat Buddy, a biter, while he goes to London to say goodbye to his dying father. Shortly after Russ leaves, a pair of Russian goons, Pavel (Nikita Kukushkin) and Aleksei (Yuri Kolokolnikov), appear at Russ’ door, and suddenly Henry’s world is turned upside down. They brutally assault him, landing him in the hospital, minus a kidney. They’re not the only ones looking for Russ.

The equally menacing Colorado (Bad Bunny), and the far more ruthless Hasidic horror show known as Lipa (Liev Schreiber) and Shmully (Vincent D’Onofrio) are also after Russ, and now by extension, Henry.

After reporting the situation to Detective Roman (a frightening Regina King), Henry thinks his life will improve now that the police are involved. He couldn’t be more wrong. Everyone knows and is colluding with everyone else. They are all after the same hidden stash. Meanwhile, Henry has discov-

where we might succeed. [Cameron] ends up discovering all these new things about himself, and it was such an exciting role for me.”

At its core, “Boots” is about resilience. Whether it’s facing racist

Unbeknownst to Valentin, Molina has been put in their cell by the warden (Bruno Bichir) to spy on him. Valentin is being poisoned in his food, giving Molina a chance to help befriend, and seduce him, with the possibility he will open up to him and reveal the names of his fellow activists and information about the resistance. If he succeeds, Molina will be paroled and returned home to his beloved mother.

Identity & desire

The film speaks to the universal struggles of identity, desire, and the human need to escape with storytelling as an act of consolation and liberation. The main qualm with the film is gay director Bill Condon (“Gods and Monsters,” “Dreamgirls”) decidedly favors the Hollywood sequences.

The prison scenes come across as stagey and sanitized, a Hollywood incarnation of what a 1980s Latin American cell might resemble. They lack any sense of real menace. The warden character is a cartoonish villain. This all means we don’t really take the harrowing political ramifications here seriously. Condon wants to avoid being too theatrical or too po-

litical, so we’re left somewhere in the unsatisfying ambiguous middle.

The characters from the 1985 film have changed both for good and bad. Valentin is much less explicitly homophobic, not calling Molina a faggot all the time, which feels good in terms of political correctness, but makes us sympathetic to the character. That initial conflicting tension between he and Valentin is lost and feels contrived.

Molina is imprisoned for public sex, not for corrupting an underage youth. Also, this film hints strongly that Molina is trans, constantly reiterating not only that he wants to look like Ingrid/Aurora, but he wants to be her, a woman, which was barely mentioned in the 1985 film. Unlike the 1985 film, where Molina is describing a Nazi propaganda movie, in 2025 it’s a Hollywood musical. In short, all the hard edges have been softened, so the contrast between prison and the film isn’t as sharp as it should be.

Glamour & grime

The sets in the musical sequences are artificial looking. It’s obvious that expense was spared, though

ered a mysterious key (hidden in the most unlikely of places), presumably to where Russ has stowed the cash. Then the body count begins to mount. The violence is almost unrelenting. The scene in Paul’s bar alone is particularly graphic. There is also a healthy dose of humor, including a visit to the home of Lipa and Shmully’s bubbe (portrayed hilariously by Carol Kane, who revives the Yiddish she spoke 50 years ago in her Oscar-nominated role in “Hester Street”). Additionally, the presence of Griffin Dunne is a reminder of Martin Scorcese’s brilliant, Lower East Side-set “After Hours” from 1984, in which Dunne starred. And while there’s not a single LGBT character to be found in a movie set on the Lower East Side in the mid1990s, “Caught Stealing” does close with queer band The Magnetic Fields’ song “The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” playing over the end credits.

Rating: Bt

www.sonypictures.com/movies/ caughtstealing

barbs, surviving body-shame in the barracks or navigating the risk of being outed, Cameron’s story captures the contradictions of boot camp: brutal and bonding, humiliating and uplifting.

the glitzy costumes and makeup are outstanding with thrilling dance numbers. The production design has a threadbare quality to it.

Condon made the wise decision of cutting out the songs sung by Valentin and Molina in prison to make a keener contrast between gritty prison life and screen escapism. The songs are serviceable but mostly forgettable, hardly Kander/ Ebb’s best. The title song, a dance of seduction and death, is by far the winner here, aided by both beautiful and terrifying choreography.

The acting is the highlight of “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Luna is fine as Valentin but has the easiest job of the three leads. He has convincing chemistry with Tonatiuh so you believe his reevaluation of his relationship to Molina from annoying to caring.

Tonatiuh is the revelation here in a breakout performance. He’s campy, but not in a stereotypical way that Hurt was. Instead, he projects a natural femininity and vulnerability, so you accept his transformation to lovelorn activist.

Hurt’s performance doesn’t hold up well 40 years later. He’s exaggeratingly femme and uses every gay cliché in the book, which Tonatiuh (who identifies as queer Mexican-American) avoids. He deserves an Oscar nomination but may be hindered by the film’s mixed reception.

Lopez acquits herself well. She’s mentioned in interviews this was the role she was born to play, that she wanted to appear in a Hollywood-type musical since childhood. She even convinced her husband actor Ben Afleck, whom she later divorced a second time, to finance the movie.

She obviously relishes her role,

In White’s words, “This show isn’t just about who gets to be a Marine. It’s about who gets to be an American.”t ‘Boots’ streams now on Netflix. www.netflix.com/title/81427990

and exudes a personal magnetism. Her singing is good, but her dancing is far better. If you really want to hear mesmerizing interpretations of these songs, listen to Chita Rivera in the Broadway soundtrack album. Rivera wasn’t afraid to indulge in the campy aura of the role and the movie itself, while Lopez seems restrained.

Still, a Best Supporting Actress nomination appears likely, as she’s quite proficient at differentiating the three roles she plays: Ingrid, Aurora, the vampy diva fashion magazine editor looking for love, and the Spider Woman.

Even with these flaws, the film is well worth watching, particularly for the acting. Audiences needn’t fear they are going to be bombarded with overt political messages. The 1985 incarnation is the one to watch for that perspective.

To combine two wildly different genres would be a challenge for any director, but the 1985 film favored the prison scenes which have greater dramatic force than the melodramatic musical numbers in the 2025 version. However, it’s possible the movie will resonate with audiences today, because of its view of the power of art as consolation for unhappiness, when one is unable to effect real change or avoid tragedy. This speaks to our current predicament on the impact of a repressive regime.

Overall, it’s a miss, but a lofty one. You might exit the theater exhilarated by the invincibility of love, even in the most dire of situations. t

‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)

Terror Vault’s ‘Hexed’

by David-Elijah Nahmod

As a serious fan of horror, you might say that for Joshua Grannell, aka drag icon Peaches Christ, it’s a vocation with him, as his stage shows have often paid homage to the genre. For the past several years, Grannell and his partner in crime David Flower have produced “Terror Vault,” an immersive horror show at the San Francisco Mint, where the audience is led through a maze of sets, with the audience actually becoming a part of the show.

“Terror Vault,” now underway at the Mint through November 1, has become one of the Bay Area’s most popular Halloween attractions.

The current incarnation of “Terror Vault” is called “Hexed,” and it tells the story of three witches who form a powerful coven that threatens to destroy humanity. As this threesome perform their dark rituals, a rising number of missing children alarms a group of witch experts known as The Believers. These Believers seek to recruit people from the audience to help stop the witches. The audience is led from room to room, down long dark corridors, and up and down dark, shadowy staircases. It’s not an experience for the faint of heart.

Before and after embarking on their journey, the audience is invited to have a few drinks at the Fang Bang Bar, visit a haunted gift shop, and, for VIP ticket holders, to enter “Triple Hexxxed,” Minerva Moans’ Witch Strip Club. This is a Halloween experience suited for adults only.

Horror haven

In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Grannell spoke of what attendees can expect when they enter the world of “Hexed.” He also spoke of his deep love of the horror genre.

“It’s something I’ve loved since I was a little kid,” he said. “I don’t know exactly where the inspiration comes from. I’ve always been drawn to hor-

ror and darker things, macabre things, weird things, transgressive things. It’s always been part of my DNA.”

For his Peaches Christ persona, his primary influences are Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, drag legend Divine, and Frank-N-Furter from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” But as himself, he loves the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series and films like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Poltergeist.”

Grannell’s desire to do annual shows at The Mint actually harkens back to his youth.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to do my whole life,” he said. “Even when I was thirteen, fourteen years old, I would do these haunted trails where I would get permission to use this chunk of woods next to where I grew up. I would write and direct these plays that

would happen in the woods. It was called ‘The Haunted Trail.’ My parents would get involved, and I would audition all the neighborhood kids. I spent months building sets and props. It’s kind of like something I did as a kid that I returned to as an adult, after I met David Flower, my co-creator and co-producer.”

Minted bond

The two met in Provincetown, where Flower was doing haunted attractions and Grannell was spending the summer doing a show. Grannell was quite taken with Flower’s work and asked him if he would be interested in working together in San Francisco. Flower said he would, so Grannell spoke to the people at The Mint and put the deal together.

“Our inspiration was to take our love of old-school haunted house experiences and mash it up with our experiences as adult theater makers, and create something that was more immersive theater than just simply a haunted house,” Grannell said.

“Hexed” features around ninety actors on rotation, with 60-something actors scheduled each night.

“People are in different places throughout the show, so I really have to kind of direct chunks of the show at a time, if that makes sense,” Grannell explained. “I get a group of them together who are in four or five scenes back-to-back and we really work on dialing that in.”

And though the show’s story involves missing children, Grannell noted that there are no children in the cast.

“That’s part of the beauty of it,” he said. “I could do a show that involves children, but because they’re missing, I don’t have to cast children. I wouldn’t be allowed to work with children in a show like this. The show for sure is for adults.”

Grannell promised that there’s a lot of queer content in the show, and that his shows are always queer.

“The whole brushstroke of the show is queer horror,” he said. “We’ve never shied away from that. It’s a show about witches, created by a drag queen, so the whole thing is queer!”t

Terror Vault’s ‘Hexed,’ through November 1 at the San Francisco Mint, 88 5th St. $60-$80. www.terrorvault.com www.peacheschrist.com

Whipsmart celebrity-stuffed dream poems

by Natasha Dennerstein

latest collection, Perverts,” (Nightboat Books), she references and includes the poem “Trxnnies” by Larry Kramer. Let’s get this straight: Larry Kramer never wrote a poem called “Trxnnies,” but Gabriel provocatively imaginates such material.

“Perverts” is peopled by smart,

competent, accomplished and substance-affected trans women and gender non-conforming people in all their maribou-feathered and crotchless-pantied glory. These gals reek of Shalimar and poppers. The collection is personned by the Dolls from the fictional Larry Kramer Trxnnies” novel.

There are those readers who will be offended by Gabriel’s use of the term “Trxnnies,” but she is allowed to use it as she is, in fact, trans. It’s like the F word, but T. Also, she’s a poet and is therefore permitted to mess around with words.

There are dreams fueled by drugs (prescribed and non-prescribed) in which crawfish doctors in lab coats perform surgeries on conscious patients: it’s giving William Burroughs’ “Junky.” Variously named characters (Jo, Rainer, Jolene, Anu, Siva) retell their fever dreams of Faye Dunaway in “Chinatown” in huge close-up, chasing down corridors and across cities at a feverish pace, as one does in dreams.

Cher makes a cameo appearance in one dream and Kate Moss in another, as they do. Keanu Reeves makes a guest appearance. Like the fake place dressed as Ithaca for Halloween,” things are not as they seem in this collection of dreams/poems. All classes of drugs run consistently through the book, prescribed and not, and all manners of surgeries and surgical procedures, anesthetized and not.

Initially the dreams are discrete poems, but as the collection progresses, the dreams start talking to each other.

Characters from one dream jump over into the next dream. A first-person narrator hops in and out of the dreams as do many characters from literature and history such as W.H. Auden, Margaret Mead, Dorothy Day, Joan Didion, Bertolt Brecht and Vivienne Westwood, just to name a few.

Pop culture infuses every page of this work: Kylie and Dannii Minogue rub shoulders with incestuous gay/ bi brothers, Queen Elizabeth in daffodil yellow appears alongside the remake of “Interview with the Vampire.” These pop cultural references inform the lives of the people who are dreaming them and also entertain us, the readers, whose lives are also informed by the same pop cultural references and who also dream of them. This work is very queer in that we LGBTQ folk are deeply immersed in pop culture and perhaps in many

ways inform it as well as consume it.

Characters have sex with each other in the dreams/poems and often appear/perform with missing sex organs or possessing lost ones. An omniscient narrator at times addresses all the dreamers and gives them a dressing down or a pep talk, “You people need to get it together,” like a deranged/intoxicated Miss Jean Brodie.

This collection is not only gender non-conforming but also genre nonconforming. Elements of poetry practice are mixed with oral history, nonfiction and prose. Kay Gabriel’s work is boundary-pushing but also amusing and witty. The deep knowledge of LGBTQ culture will appeal to readers in our community.t

‘Perverts’ by Kay Gabriel, $12.99$18.95 ebook & paperback, Nightboat Books www.nightboat.org

‘Don Bachardy: An Artist’s Life’

by Jim Provenzano

If you’ve ever had a lengthy conversation at a dinner party with an accomplished artist, you know how woven they can be in their stories, but also how some discuss their accomplishments as if it were outside themselves, that their talent was a gift, not the results of years of practice and work.

Such is the case with “Don Bachardy: An Artist’s Life,” Michael Schreiber’s oral history, which at length delves into the experiences of the prolific painter and decadeslong partner of acclaimed author and screenwriter Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986).

The richness of his celebrity contacts is evident in the book’s advanced praise from no less than Liza Minnelli, actors Michael York, Joe Gray, Ian McKellen and the late author, Edmund White. The book also has two forwards from actor Simon Callow and filmmaker James Ivory.

Bachardy pretty much tells everything about his life, starting as a young boy in Santa Monica, and how he and his older brother Ted became devoted fans of movie stars and cinema. Their mother often took them to the movies while their father worked overtime in the aerospace industry in the 1950s.

Ted and Don became more drawn to Hollywood culture by at first sitting in the grandstands at movie premieres, but soon crashed the gates dressed in dapper suits, where they requested autographs and had themselves photo-

graphed with luminaries of all kinds, including Marilyn Monroe.

His older brother Ted brought his younger brother Don to certain parties where older gay men were present. It was a while before Don realized that, like him, his brother was also gay.

Don & Chris

Bachardy first met Christopher Isherwood at the Santa Monica beach, and even though his brother got to sleep with him first, they ended up hanging out together and then dating, with Don more often staying at one of Isherwood’s residences.

Despite a 30-years age difference, the two formed a bond that gradually developed after repeated meetings. Isherwood later introduced Bachardy to some of Hollywood elite, as he had written a few screenplays, and had an ‘in’ with the movie stars. Most knew they were gay and partners.

And most were polite, but some were slightly homophobic, or loudly so. Bachardy shares a story about Joseph Cotton, who, drunk at a party, berated the young Bachardy to his face as “half-man,” but out of earshot of Isherwood, who could’ve had some influence on his career.

Woven through Bachardy’s memories are the encouraging words from Isherwood for Bachardy to develop his artistic talents. He took lessons in Los Angeles, New York and even London, where time away from Isherwood was difficult. But while Bachardy was devoted to his elder partner, he needed to have his own adventures and expe-

Author Michael Schreiber

riences, including sexual ones.

Primarily, Schreiber asks about Bachardy’s experiences with celebrities and his talent for portraiture. Having drawn or made paintings of actors and actresses for decades, his work is in the thousands.

He frequently talks about how he tries to capture the real essence of people, often in serious poses, never the varnished prettified version of their looks.

While many of the famous people turned out to be extremely polite and welcoming, like Bette Davis (her wry compliment after seeing one of her portraits; “There’s the old bag!”), others were a bit persnickety about what they perceived as flaws depicted in their portraits like Joan Crawford,

Supernatural stories

by Meg Collins

In advance of Halloween, we present a quartet of intriguing books about women, dealing with witchy powers, ghosts and other supernatural creatures, including themselves.

“A Slow and Secret Poison” by Carmella Lowkis

$28 hardcover, Simon & Schuster

Carmella Lowkis’ sophomore book is like a sapphic Jane Eyre. “A Slow and Secret Poison” is like a trick of the light in a decrepit room. Everything is certainly not as it appears, and covered in spiderwebs. Lowkis continues to tread the waters of historical fiction, as her first novel follows two estranged sisters in 19th-century Paris.

Set in 1922, the novel follows curses and shadows of the past hide in the walls of Harfold Manor, where a gardener falls in love with her employer. Vee Morgan takes up a post in the south of England to work as a gardener under Lady Arabella Lascy. With this latest novel, Lowkis puts a sapphic spin on the tragic love of the Gothic Romance genre, with female characters who are empowered in their actions. “A Slow and Secret Poison” presents queerness with historical accuracy, as existing in frequently shrouded relationships, but allows characters’ obstacles to relate outside of their sexuality.

Lowkis crafts a slowly unravelling mystery which is perfect for readers craving passion, less than reliable

Michael Schreiber’s oral history shares plenty

who donned a huge wig, or Joan Fontaine, who winced at imperfections while her embattled sister Olivia de Havilland sat patiently for hours for her portraits.

Art & work

Although he later developed a talent for colorful nude male paintings, Bachardy had an early preference for painting women’s portraits, and usually got to their likeness much more easily.

Bachardy’s multiple drawings of Isherwood, who encouraged such work even in his last living months, offer a stark dramatic contrast to the more vibrant paintings. Bachardy, now 91, even talks about his impressions of the 2024 Broadway revivals

of “Cabaret,” based on Isherwood’s “Goodbye to Berlin” and other works. Bachardy says that Isherwood didn’t like the original film and never saw a theatrical production.

Schreiber, whose previous books include “The Young and Evil: Queer Modernism in New York, 1930–1955” and “This American House: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Meier House and the American System-Built Homes,” asks probing questions that include references to many of the actors and actresses that the reader may not be familiar with.

There is a bit of repetition throughout, but as with any lengthy conversation, stories get re-woven in remembrance.

Several of Bachardy’s artworks are shown in the book. Suggested additional reading includes Bachardy’s own books of artwork, and some of Isherwood’s novels (particularly “A Single Man,” the title of which was Bachardy’s suggestion) and stories, as well as the films for which he wrote or co-wrote the screenplays.

Also, a viewing of the documentary “Don and Chris: a Love Story” would be a good follow-up or advance viewing. It’s free and available on Tubi.com.t

‘Don Bachardy: An Artist’s Life,’ an oral history by Michael Schreiber, $29 hardcover, $14.54 Kindle, $15 audiobook, $46 audio CD; release date October 28. Citadel Press/ Kensington Publishing Corp. www.penguinrandomhouse.com

Four fun books get sapphically gothic for October

narrators and a bit of a spooky season scare. www.simonandschuster.com www.instagram.com/carmellalowkis

“Witchlore” by Emma Hinds $21 hardcover, $16 paperback, $12 Kindle, $18 audiobook, Wednesday Books Emma Hinds’ debut novel “Witchlore” follows nonbinary shapeshifter Orlando, who returns to Demdike College of Witchcraft after tragic events have left them as an outcast. But with the new year of college comes new student Bastian, who knows a spell to bring Orlando’s ex-girlfriend back from the dead. However, complications arise as Orlando and Bastian develop feelings for each other.

Hinds comes at her debut with a background in fanfiction and theatre, experience that regretfully doesn’t help this novel hit the mark. While conceptually interesting, it feels as if this magical alternate universe and people who inhabit it are only developed enough to provide stepping stones for the two central characters to eventually kiss. Everyone is superseded by Orlando, including Bastian, whose motivations and actions cater to Orlando’s desires from their first meeting. Hinds’ secondary characters are not characters. They’re simply clichéd plot devices. www.wednesdaybooks.com www.emmahinds.com

“The Keeper of Magical Things” by Julie Leong $19 paperback, Penguin/Random House

Bestselling author Julie Leong’s upcoming novel “The Keeper of Magical Things” follows almost-mage Certainty Bulrush on a path to earn her magedom, and romance along the way. She is set out on a seemingly mundane assignment with successful and beautiful Mage Aurelia. What starts out as a task to transport minimally valuable magical artifacts from small village Shpelling turns into something much more complex. Leong’s narration unveils how the Guild’s choices have damaged the lives of residents of Shpelling and

elsewhere. Certainty is an underdog approaching their journey with empathy and drive, even for the inanimate objects she can communicate with.

Leong, who writes out of San Francisco, gives us a cozy adventure that deals with the power relations built out of a magical reality and a world that is built up substantially. julieleong.com www.penguinrandomhouse.com

“A Hexcellent Chance to Fall in Love” by Ann Rose $19 paperback, $11 ebook Penguin Publishing Group In Ann Rose’s “A Hexcellent Chance to Fall in Love,” Pepper White is keeper of the amulet, tethering her soul to The Dead of Night store, a Halloween boutique that needs a human soul to operate.

The book opens with “The Dead of Night Keeper Agreement,” a list of nine rules for the keeper of the amulet to follow. Pepper, tricked by the last Keeper of the Store to take over, is not only tied to this store, but when it disappears between peak seasons, so does she. But something changes when she meets Christina Loring. The romantic spark makes Pepper want to fight for more time.

“A Hexcellent Chance to Fall in Love” splits perspectives between Pepper and Christina, counting down when the store closes, from 70 days. Pepper’s ageless life is not worth the isolation that accompanies it, but there is no easy path to love in her current constraints. This book is a comfy read for those who want Halloween last all year. www.amroseauthor.comwww.penguinrandomhouse.comt