“[I]t is impossible to discriminate against a person for being…transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” That strong language is central to a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 15, R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, consolidated with Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia.
That case held, in an employment context, that termination of a transgender employee, i.e., an employee who had transitioned away from the sex listed on the employee’s birth certificate, because the employee was transgender violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
One would therefore think that that language boded well for sports-related cases involving discrimination against transgender individuals. Despite the fact that Title IX, which covers sports cases, contains language very similar to that in Title VII, it is not at all clear that the strong language in Harris Funeral Homes would be dispositive in a Title IX case.
Little Guidance for Connecticut Case
Illustrating this point is a case pending in federal court in Connecticut in which cisgender females, i.e., those who identify with the sex on their birth certificate, are suing to stop transgender females (males who have transitioned to females) from competing in high school track meets. On the question whether such an exclusion would violate Title IX, Harris Funeral Homes gives surprisingly little guidance, as detailed below.
Harris Funeral Homes turned on the interpretation of the language in Title VII that prohibits an employer from discharging any individual “because of…sex.” The court makes it clear that this language means that, if sex is even part of the reason for the discharge, the employee will prevail in court.
The court makes this determination by looking at a number of examples where, if the sex of the individual had been different, the result would have been different. If that is the case, then the termination was implemented because of sex and, therefore, prohibited by Title VII: “if changing the employee’s sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer…a statutory violation has occurred.”
This analysis gives the transgender employee a straightforward route to victory. Comparing two employees who were both female at birth, one of whom has transitioned to being a male and has been fired for that reason, the court states that “the employer intentionally penalizes a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth.” This, the court finds, is unlawful employment discrimination because of sex.
How this analysis will apply, if at all, to Title IX, which governs most amateur sports, is unclear because of a special characteristic of sport: unlike other areas of civil rights law, there is a regulation clarifying Title IX that allows separate (but equal) teams for males and females. Separate but equal male and female teams require more analysis than is given in Harris Funeral Homes, where there were no jobs that were expressly and legally categorized male or female.
Title IX’s language is very similar to that of Title VII, stating that “No person…shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation…or be subjected to discrimination…” A regulation clarifying Title IX, however, allows “separate teams for members of each sex where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill…” The courts have upheld this exemption, which allows, for example, separate male and female track teams.
Applying the test from Harris Funeral Homes to this statute, as clarified by this regulation, is not straightforward. In Harris Funeral Homes, the Supreme Court found that, had the transgender female (male-to-female) employee been a female at birth, that person would not have been fired.
More Difficult Question: What Constitutes a Male and Female
In the sports case involving a transgender female seeking to compete as a member of the female track team, however, the question is not whether an individual can compete, because there are teams for both males and females. The question is on which of those teams one can compete.
In order to answer that question, a court will need to confront a much more difficult issue than statutory interpretation. It must determine—at least for the purpose of the male and female competitive categories for track competitions—what constitutes a male and what constitutes a female. Harris Funeral Homes gives no guidance on this point.
Indeed, not only is there a lack of guidance, but also Harris Funeral Homes decision expressly limits itself. In argument, the losing party in Harris Funeral Homes expressed the fear that a loss would “sweep beyond Title VII to other federal or state laws that prohibit sex discrimination…sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes will prove unsustainable…”
To that the Supreme Court replied that “we do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.”
Therefore, although Harris Funeral Homes was a major victory for transgender individuals, they still have a significant legal battle to fight in the field of amateur sport.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.
Author Information
Ronald S. Katz, senior counsel at GCA Law Partners LLP, is the author of “Sport, Ethics and Leadership” (Routledge, 2017). In 2016 he was a Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute Fellow.
Welcome to Chechnya chronicles the persecution of LGBTQ youth in this ultra-conservative society. HBO Max hide caption
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HBO Max
Welcome to Chechnya chronicles the persecution of LGBTQ youth in this ultra-conservative society.
HBO Max
Welcome to Chechnya is a grimly ironic title for a documentary that plays like a chilling undercover thriller. The camerawork is rough and ragged; the sense of menace is palpable.
The movie opens on a dark street in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, where a man smokes a cigarette and arranges secret meetings and transports by phone. This is David Isteev, a crisis intervention coordinator for the Russian LGBT Network, and he spends his days helping gay and transgender Chechens flee a place where they are no longer safe.
Homosexuality and gender nonconformity have long been frowned upon in Chechen society. But things got much worse in early 2017, when the leader of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, a strongman with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, began a violent purge of anyone suspected of being gay or transgender.
It began with a drug raid when police arrested a young man and found sexually explicit images of men on his phone. He was tortured and forced to name those men, who were then also arrested, tortured and forced to name others, setting off a horrific chain reaction. Some of the men were released — with the expectation that their own relatives would kill them, since the stigma of homosexuality runs deep in this ultra-conservative, primarily Muslim society.
The journalist and filmmaker David France was first alerted to this crisis by Masha Gessen’s 2017 New Yorker article and decided to make it the subject of his next film. He embedded himself with Isteev and another activist, Olga Baranova, and began filming some of the young people who turned to them for help. For security reasons, these individuals are introduced with aliases, and their circumstances and whereabouts are left deliberately vague.
But as the movie tells us upfront, France took an extraordinary step to protect their identities further, using sophisticated facial-disguise technology. Many of the faces we see are actually the faces of people from outside Chechnya, who lent their likenesses to the film.
It’s a bold gambit that may put off those who find it too duplicitous in the context of a documentary. But I found it remarkably effective in the way it lets these young men and women tell their stories and express a level of emotion that would have been lost if they had been filmed with blurred faces or in heavy shadows. Giving them different faces also makes a kind of poetic sense: It’s a reminder that to be LGBTQ in a repressive society is to never feel comfortable in your own skin.
One of these digitally altered subjects is a 21-year-old lesbian introduced as “Anya,” whose uncle knows her sexual orientation and demands that she sleep with him or risk being outed to her father, a powerful Chechen official. Anya decides to escape, but that isn’t so easy with the authorities soon hot on her trail. The Russian LGBT Network moves her into an apartment where she must hole up for weeks on end, waiting for a travel visa that might never arrive.
Similarly harrowing, but also more hopeful, is the experience of a 30-year-old Russian businessman, here called “Grisha,” who was detained and beaten for 12 days during a trip to Chechnya. The Network helps him move to an undisclosed location in Europe with his boyfriend of 10 years. Fortunately, the brave Grisha has the support of his immediate family, who decide to move with him; as his mother notes in one poignant scene, her loyalty is to her family — not to an oppressive government.
Welcome to Chechnya pays important tribute to the courage of its subjects, including activists like Isteev and Baranova, who risk their own persecution and exposure. The mere presence of France’s camera might endanger their lives and their work, but it’s also crucial to drawing international attention to the Chechen government’s abuses. We see some of those abuses in the movie’s most disturbing footage, much of it secretly filmed on cell phones and spliced into the film in brief jolts.
In one video, an incarcerated man is sexually assaulted off-camera by police. In another, a woman is attacked by a relative who — it’s implied but not shown — proceeds to bludgeon her to death. These are ghastly images, and I’m not convinced the film needed all of them to convey the full horror of what’s going on. But there’s no doubting the depth of its fury and anguish on behalf of the victims and survivors we see — and the many, many more that we don’t.
There has been an “extraordinary scale-up of testing” among gay and bisexual men in New South Wales, Australia since 2010. As a result of multiple initiatives to increase service capacity and demand, men at higher risk of HIV now test twice as often. Undiagnosed HIV amongst Australian-born gay and bisexual men is currently estimated at under 3%, but this success has not translated to other groups.
A presentation by Phillip Keen of the Kirby Institute, available as a contribution to the 23rd International AIDS Conference‘s virtual session ‘Can We Achieve Universal Test & Treat?’, examined testing figures for gay and bisexual men over eight years to 2018. Gay and bisexual men make up 80% of all new diagnoses in New South Wales overall and are a key target group for testing interventions.
Keen asked two key questions; firstly, has there been an increase in HIV testing in New South Wales over time and secondly, does this differ between Australian-born and overseas-born gay and bisexual men? Breaking the data down into these two groups of Australian-born and overseas-born men enabled a closer focus which uncovered differing trends in minority populations who may not have equal access to testing and PrEP.
In discussions of consent for medical treatment, the ability of a person to make a decision for themselves and understand its implications. Young children, people who are unconscious and some people with mental health problems may lack capacity. In the context of health services, the staff and resources that are available for patient care.
A range of complex mathematical techniques which aim to simulate a sequence of likely future events, in order to estimate the impact of a health intervention or the spread of an infection.
In HIV testing, when the person testing collects their own sample and performs the whole test themselves, including reading and interpreting the result.
Increased testing has been a priority in New South Wales’ most recent HIV strategies, issued in 2012 and 2016. Key points in the latter included:
a raft of service reforms including SMS testing reminders, express testing clinics, rapid testing, dried blood spot postal testing and community-based, peer-led testing options
training for GPs on HIV testing
including testing targets in the key performance indicators of local health district funding agreements
diversification and targeting of health promotion messages, including community mobilisation techniques and use of many different platforms to promote testing. Examples given included drag queens demonstrating testing, giant foam hands promoting finger prick testing and simple campaign messages using community models, mostly undertaken by ACON (a community-based NGO)
a simple overarching campaign message that ‘test often + treat early + prevent = ending HIV 2020’.
Working with Dr Prital Patel, Keen analysed testing data from 2010 to 2018 from multiple sources including the New South Wales denominator data project, the 25 ACCESS sexual health clinics (including three community-based clinics) and the New South Wales HIV notifications database. This data from 14 testing labs included some 90% of all tests done in the state during this time.
In all, there were over 3.5 million HIV tests during this time, with gay and bisexual men attending clinics in greater number and testing with increasing regularity across that period.
The number of tests being taken annually in New South Wales increased steadily from 2012 onwards, with an average annual increase of 5.8%.
While around 5000 gay and bisexual men attended the ACCESS sexual health clinics in 2010, by 2018 this had tripled to over 16,000. On average attendance increased by 14.3% each year for Australian-born men whereas it increased in overseas-born men by 19.2%. The percentage of those who attended who tested at least annually was already substantial, but this also increased in both groups at a rate of over 1% per year.
Most importantly, testing amongst those men deemed at greatest risk increased considerably, from an average of 1.8 tests a year in 2012 to an average of 4.1 tests annually by 2018. This was seen in both Australian-born and overseas-born men. Quarterly testing is recommended for those at greater risk of HIV transmission, compared to the minimum recommendation of once a year for all other sexually active gay and bisexual men. Indicators of heightened risk used for gay and bisexual men included those who were also injecting drug users, had rectal STIs, had more than 20 partners a year or those who had gone onto PrEP. The average annual increase in testing across this time in those at greater risk was 9% in Australian-born men and 8.7% in overseas-born men.
With gonorrhoea diagnosis seen as a key indicator for missed opportunities to diagnose HIV, the study examined numbers of men who had an HIV test within 30 days before and 60 days after an STI diagnosis. Again, this increased at similar levels in both groups – average annual increases of 2.6% for Australian-born and 2.7% for overseas-born men.
Percentages of those testing who were diagnosed with HIV decreased after a spike in 2012, but this time at different rates, with that of Australian-born men declining faster. In light of this, and using back-projection modelling from CD4 counts at diagnosis of data from the NSW notifications database, investigators posited a major difference in estimated undiagnosed HIV between the two groups.
Whereas the overall level of undiagnosed HIV in gay and bisexual men was estimated to have fallen from 9.5% to 7.7% between 2010 and 2018, this masked a very different story for migrant men. Undiagnosed HIV in Australian-born men was estimated to have fallen from 7% in 2010 to 2.8% in 2018 – well below the 5% declared by UNAIDS as the Fast Track target for 2030. However, undiagnosed HIV among overseas-born men appeared to have slightly increased from 15.3% to 16.9%, making it now six times higher than in Australian-born men.
Additionally, new HIV diagnoses in overseas-born gay and bisexual men now outnumber those amongst Australian-born men in New South Wales. Of further concern was the finding that around half of the overseas-born men were diagnosed late.
Keen explored potential reasons for these disparities. Many of the overseas-born men who were diagnosed with HIV had arrived less than four years previously, suggesting a substantial level of overseas acquisition. Levels of both PrEP and HIV treatment take-up were also higher in Australian-born men.
Suggested interventions to tackle this life-threatening disparity include increasing community-based initiatives aimed at overseas-born gay and bisexual men, particularly those promoting self-testing and postal testing. Barriers to accessing PrEP – an issue for black and migrant populations in a number of countries – need to be addressed.
“While the overall impact of current strategies was highly positive in increasing testing and reducing new diagnoses amongst GBM, these benefits were not shared equally,” Keen concluded. “Findings indicated that if this overall pattern is to continue successfully, there was a need to focus on reaching overseas-born gay and bisexual men.”.
A wave of nostalgia for unfettered, unregulated and carefree travel hit me as I watched a few clips from the new PBS travel series “FLY BROTHER with Ernest White II,” which made its debut in May on KQED here in the Bay Area.
I watched as the ebullient White, 42, walked through the teeming streets of his favorite city in the world, Sao Paulo, with his friend Flavia, a chatty local guide, and thought how much I’d like to be doing that now as the pandemic rages around us, closing off the world to the peripatetic class.
I miss being able to just get up and go. To plan trips, and have several dangling out in the future, drawing me along like a carrot dangling from a fishing pole in front of a horse. But since a trip overseas is out of the question for now, I’m happy to settle in, watch and remember with shows like “Fly Brother.” (Check out the 30-second trailer for the series here.)
These days, while most Americans are stuck inside our borders due to disease and quarantines, it was easy to catch up with Ernest, who lives in the Bay Area, and learn more about the ironic timing of launching a travel show right now, American racism, what it’s like to travel while Black… and gay, and how he was able to create a job and a life doing what he loves…traveling around the world making friends.
Come on along and follow our conversation through the photos and captions below.
A wave of nostalgia for unfettered, unregulated and carefree travel hit me as I watched a few clips from the new PBS travel series “FLY BROTHER with Ernest White II,” which made its debut in May on KQED here in the Bay Area.
I watched as the ebullient White, 42, walked through the teeming streets of his favorite city in the world, Sao Paulo, with his friend Flavia, a chatty local guide, and thought how much I’d like to be doing that now as the pandemic rages around us, closing off the world to the peripatetic class.
I miss being able to just get up and go. To plan trips, and have several dangling out in the future, drawing me along like a carrot dangling from a fishing pole in front of a horse. But since a trip overseas is out of the question for now, I’m happy to settle in, watch and remember with shows like “Fly Brother.” (Check out the 30-second trailer for the series here.)
These days, while most Americans are stuck inside our borders due to disease and quarantines, it was easy to catch up with Ernest, who lives in the Bay Area, and learn more about the ironic timing of launching a travel show right now, American racism, what it’s like to travel while Black… and gay, and how he was able to create a job and a life doing what he loves…traveling around the world making friends.
Come on along and follow our conversation through the photos and captions below.
The fear of traveling in my body made the world seem small, until I did it anyway
Photo: MesquitaFMS/iStock/Getty Images Plus
I’m a workaholic. Until recently, I had never taken a vacation as an adult. During graduate school and the first few years of teaching, I couldn’t afford a vacation. I had no one to go on a vacation with. And then it seemed like an unnecessary extravagance when there was so much work to do. Those were mostly excuses though, because when I could afford a vacation, I still did nothing. I was fat, I told myself, I couldn’t possibly travel abroad and see the world in any meaningful way.
At my heaviest weight, my loneliest truth was that as my body expanded, my world contracted. I longed to travel but knew I would be painfully limited in where I could go and what I might do when I got there. But then, I had weight loss surgery and as my body has contracted, my world has expanded.
During the summer of 2019, my then girlfriend and now wife Debbie and I decided to take a European vacation. While she had been several times, I had only been to Stockholm and London for work. The great continent remained largely unexplored. We are both incredibly busy in that modern way where we overschedule ourselves and say yes to everything asked of us until we reach a breaking point, recalibrate, and repeat the madness all over again. Because we weren’t going to have (read: make) the time to plan the vacation, we decided to work with a travel agent. I consulted Google and found Abercrombie & Kent, a travel agency specializing in all manner of trips and expeditions. They had a handsome website. The name felt official and reliable. I sent an inquiry and when a representative responded, I outlined an ideal itinerary involving several Italian cities and Paris. I’m a writer, after all, and not immune to cliché so of course I needed to visit Paris and sit in a café with a notebook and a fresh baguette, looking writerly. When I finally got to Paris I never managed to sit in a café with a notebook, but oh did I enjoy a baguette, hot from a bakery oven.
Mary, our representative, was wonderfully eager to help plan our trip and after only a little back and forth, she had assembled an itinerary that would take us from Milan to Verona to Venice to Florence to Tuscany to Rome and finally, Paris. In each city, we would take tours and visit historical landmarks and immerse ourselves in local culture. There would be sumptuous food and drink. It all seemed like a dream and then we saw how much a dream can cost. We began to rethink our plan and then we decided to go for it, and when our semesters were done, we packed our bags and flew into the known unknown.
I was nervous on the flight from New York to Milan, nervous about the hotel, nervous about not speaking Italian, nervous about my picky eating habits, nervous about keeping up with my fast-walking girlfriend as we traipsed about. But then we were in Milan and the airport, at least, was not at all different from a hundred other airports I’ve been to. We were met by our local fixer and escorted to our hotel where we encountered the first of several terrible hotel rooms. Mary, the wonderfully eager representative, was suddenly no longer our point of contact. We quickly learned that when you book with a tour operator that takes a 50% cut of what they charge, they put you in really terrible, mildewy rooms with views of air conditioners, brick walls, and dark, narrow alleys. It was fine, we decided. We were not in Italy to spend time in hotel rooms and we were together.
After sleeping for several hours, as we arrived in the morning, we ventured to a restaurant the concierge recommended and every glorious thing we had heard about Italian food was proven true. The pasta was sumptuously soft and pliable, covered in a light, fresh marinara sauce. The wine was plentiful. The Caprese salad with fresh mozzarella was a symphony of flavors. As we gamboled around after, digesting our meal, I felt like I was in a dream and, in a way, I was.
The itinerary boasted a wonderful culinary tour so the next day we were excited to see what local delights we would taste. Imagine our surprise when we were taken to Eataly, a chain Italian grocery emporium where we shop for groceries at home because it’s 10 or so blocks from where we live. I looked at Debbie and all we could do was laugh and agree that we would have a hilarious story to tell. Lovely people walked us through the store. We tasted bread and fresh mozzarella and wine and parmesan. We learned this and that about Italian cuisine and the Eataly empire. The tour concluded with lunch at the seafood restaurant in the store, but I am allergic to fish and shellfish, which they knew, and served me some indescribable glop. There was wine and the wine soothed me as Debbie delighted in her seafood. As we were conveyed to our next stop, we turned and looked at each other and asked, “Did that really happen?” It did.
From one city to the next, my world opened up more and more and I started to understand just how big and beautiful the world is.
For every strange turn or terrible hotel room, we had a dozen incredible experiences. We saw The Last Supper, even as it is fading from the wall of the Santa Maria delle Grazie. Only a handful of people at a time are allowed into the room where the mural adorns a stucco wall. The humidity is constantly monitored. There are air lock chambers on your way in and out. You can’t get too close or take flash photography. And still, at the center of all these reminders of the realities of the world, there is this surreal masterpiece, hundreds of years old, a work of art that has withstood war and calamity and neglect.
We spent an afternoon walking around Verona, with a delightful, irreverent tour guide who was as kind as she was knowledgeable about this history of Verona. She took us into a Benetton store (Benetton! Still a thing!) and we were skeptical until we arrived at the lower level and found an ancient ruin in the middle of racks of mass-produced sweaters and slacks. At Juliet’s balcony, we wrote our initials on a tacky red heart and locked it on a fence amidst hundreds of other locks bearing the names and initials of couples willing to indulge in something at once silly and romantic. We bought sun hats from a street market as the sun shone relentlessly. Late July and early August in Italy are hot and humid. Tourists like us were everywhere, clamoring to see beautiful Italian art and architecture. We walked through what little remains of the Jewish ghetto and saw what was once a synagogue.
All the while I marveled that I was walking, actually walking, for miles, in the sun, hot and sweaty, but keeping up, making conversation. My body was doing things I never thought would be possible and were it not for the joy of the experience, I might have cried.
When we got to Venice, we had to get into a water taxi and I was again filled with anxiety. Would I be able to step down into the boat? Would I fall and humiliate myself? Would people stare? Living in a fat body means you are in constant conversation with yourself, managing the anxieties that rise out of a fatphobic world that wants you to believe you don’t deserve to live a full and joyful life. Living in a somewhat less but still fat body means not knowing what your changing body is capable of and always doubting yourself. In the end, I had no problem getting in the water taxi. I was still anxious throughout the short trip to our hotel because I wondered what getting out of the boat would be like, but that was also fine and maybe people stared but that was their problem, not mine.
Venice is all canals and narrow walkways, the old world and the new, constantly colliding. All of it is stunning; St. Mark’s Square is lined with cafés and live music and tourists and vendors. The basilica is breathtaking. You can walk down a narrow alleyway and find a nondescript restaurant that serves a perfect plate of cacio e pepe and on the way home, you can share a gelato and get caught in the rain and laugh because you’re getting soaked while strolling through a floating city close to midnight. In the hotel bar, we had a nightcap and chatted with the charming bartender who told us the history of the cocktails he made.
We watched glass being made at a Murano glass factory, the heat from the fire threatening to suffocate. We saw linen being made on a small island of bright pink and blue and green and red and yellow houses. We cruised along a water highway, with speed limit signs for boats. We took a gondola ride, after a sharp but brief moment of anxiety about the boat and a fear of falling into the canal. We were serenaded by a burly gondolier. Our tour guide throughout our Venetian visit was an unapologetic sexist who opined at length about everything, absolutely everything, but we were in Italy and so we remained unbothered. He meant no harm.
From one city to the next, my world opened up more and more and I started to understand just how big and beautiful the world is. We very liberally drank our way through the Tuscan countryside. Our driver, a very enterprising young man, had “friends” who owned a winery and so he took us there and three hours later, we had bought a couple cases of wine and imbibed a dozen glasses of wine between us and ate the most perfect pasta we had ever tasted. The restaurant was on the second floor of a building with no elevator and when I realized this, I was going to say I would wait in the car, but then I thought I might give it a try. It was an unremarkable ascent, another reminder that I was not living in the body I thought I was living in, that my body was as capable as I allowed it to be. At another winery, we learned about how wine was made and how balsamic vinegar was made and oh, how we drank, floating around on the most pleasant buss.
In our hotel room that night, with the windows flung open to the night air, we watched Avengers: Endgame and ate olives and mozzarella and fresh basil and tomatoes and bread from a nearby grocery store. We drank more wine. As we drove by a field of sunflowers as far as the eye could see, we stopped just to appreciate the natural beauty. In Florence, more amazing pasta, Florentine steak, more walking, a golf cart ride up to the top of the city where we watched a newlywed couple taking their wedding photos, the immensity of il Duomo, the impossibly large statue of David, street performers playing music in a square at night. The Leaning Tower of Pisa truly does lean, and yes, we did the horrifically cheesy tourist thing of taking pictures holding the tower up. Rome was a city of ruins, absolutely everywhere. Finally, we took a real food tour, more walking, Vatican City, street art, elaborate fountains, the towering Colosseum, all the history I had read about for most of my life.
Our trip ended in Paris, a lifelong dream realized. We toured the city in an old Citroen, drinking cheap champagne in the back seat. We visited Versailles, crowded beyond belief, bodies pressed together and shuffling through the palace. We drove around the immaculate grounds in a golf cart that would shut down if you went too far afield. At the Louvre, we tried to see as much as we could but the museum was massive. We stood in the shadow of Notre Dame, in the process of being rebuilt, and visited the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. I was recognized by the booksellers and asked to sign books which made me thrill, quietly. During a walking tour, we came upon Éditions des Femme, a bookstore and art gallery that only carries books by women, and a store that sells exotic salts and peppers and spices and a gallery that was featuring the gorgeous art of nonbinary artist Caroline Wells Chandler. We walked around Montmartre and went to a fancy store where a security guard racially profiled me because there is no vacation from racism, and my wife chewed him up and then we were being served drinks and there was an apology. We saw a cabaret show, beautiful women, topless even! And then, the trip came to an end and we were ready to return home to our bed and our little life.
On the flight home, content, relaxed for the first time, maybe ever, I only wanted to see more of the world, to live more fully, to hold on to the courage I marshaled each time I did something new and terrifying that opened up my world a bit more. For years, I told myself that the bigger I got the smaller my world became and that was true. When I finally allowed myself to go see the world, when I finally found the will to live proudly and unapologetically in my fat body, I realized that it was me far more than my body that ever made my world smaller.
The greatest joys in life might be the unexpected ones. I’d put the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bostock v. Clayton County in that category. Who expected the high court to affirm that Title VII protected L.G.B.T.Q. people from employment discrimination? And who expected Justice Neil Gorsuch to author such an opinion? It was a tremendous, surprising win for equality — and it was one that I instantly knew would barely matter for many of us who are pursuing work in Christian ministry.
For the past four years, I have been in the ordination process in the Reformed Church in America, a small denomination embroiled in an ugly, decades-long battle over the place of queer people in the church. To be ordained in my denomination, you have to be granted a document called the certificate of fitness for ministry. A week after the Supreme Court decision, I received a letter from the moderator of the board that grants these certificates. It said that I had met all the requirements for my certificate. But because of my sexuality and the denomination’s ongoing debate, I wouldn’t be getting one this year. The board would reconsider me next year.
Without the certificate, I can’t be “legally” ordained. Without the certificate, I can’t preside over communion or do a wedding or perform a baptism — all the duties of a minister. Without the certificate, I don’t qualify for a pastor’s job. No court decision, no act of Congress can change theological convictions or church law. Over and over, I’ve been asked: So why do you stay?
I stay because of love.
For the past six months, I’ve been serving in a part-time, temporary, nonordained position at Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich. I lead Bible studies, I organize Sunday school classes for adults, I listen to people, and once in a while I get to preach. This congregation tailored the position for me — a rare and true gift. I love the work, and I’ve grown to love these people. But because I can’t be ordained, I’m essentially a second-tier minister, without the title or the denominational benefits.
My husband and I moved to Michigan in January — a decision that opens us up for all kinds of questions about our judgment. A part-time job, though, is still a job. And the welcome from the congregation was warm, sort of. We received a beautiful gift basket with local delicacies and information on the area. One member delivered a huge pot of homemade Italian wedding soup, which sustained us as we unpacked. Others wouldn’t even greet us after Sunday service.
One of this congregation’s appeals was its theological and political diversity. Some members proudly wear the “evangelical” label, and others have run as far from it as possible. Some members are hard-core Trump supporters, others are the bluest of progressives, and I’d say the majority are somewhere in between. Yet, for the most part, they’ve hung together as a family of faith — and there’s something beautiful, if difficult, about that.
This congregation is in many ways a microcosm of the broader Reformed Church in America, and indeed of the wider church. The difference is that folks in the broader denomination typically don’t belong to such varied congregations. They don’t have to worship every Sunday, come face to face in Bible study every week, and share the bread and the cup of Holy Communion every month with people who hold such divergent views.
A few days ago, I got an email from a member whose convictions on homosexuality differ significantly from mine. She wrote to thank me for a sermon I preached recently about God’s unconditional love. “Thank you for being at Central,” she said. “I hope you know you are appreciated.” In the austere Dutch culture of West Michigan, this is what passes for gushing, and I was surprised and gratified. When I arrived in January, she was among those who didn’t greet me.
Emails like hers remind me of the power of presence. Our bodies and stories can accomplish what no court can. Even if she never changes her views on sexuality, perhaps I’ve been able to complicate her narrative and to instigate a pause, into which a thought might emerge: Maybe things weren’t as simple as I thought. But that line of thinking applies equally to me. Perhaps she has complicated my narrative, too. She has reminded me that the law that governs my faith doesn’t discriminate, even — and especially — when it comes to those who might discriminate against me.
To me, the most stirring words in the Gorsuch decision were these: “But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands,” he wrote. “[A]ll persons are entitled to its benefit.”
I might never become an ordained minister, but I do know that my calling will remain the same. The legal template set by Jesus for the Christian faith says this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Even if I change no hearts, minds or souls, that higher law remains. The instruction is to love God — and to love my neighbor as she is, not as she might someday be. I crave that kind of love myself, even as I struggle to extend it to others. The limits of my imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. All persons are entitled to its benefit. And that’s why I stay.
Jeff Chu is the teacher in residence at Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., and the author of “Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America.”
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The pandemic has helped wither the flood of self-flagellating gym selfies on Instagram for months now, in part because the backdrops to those heavily hashtagged images remain closed — at least still here in San Francisco. But recently, San Francisco allowed outdoor workout classes to resume, offering a semblance of pre-pandemic fitness training — sans those well-lit abdominal pictures and the tone-deaf inspirational captions that generally saddle them.
Being The Bold Italic’s perpetual guinea pig (with a proclivity for exercising), I took it upon myself to head out and see just what group workout classes look like amid a respiratory virus–spurred pandemic. TLDR: Expect a lot of spacing, and wear a breathable face mask. I also rounded up where you can take one of your own, below.
But first, my experience.
Quite a few boutique fitness studios are offering these approved workouts. After sorting through some of the available local options — Dryft, OaR Outdoors, The Boombox — I chose a $25 7 a.m. HIIT boot camp at Dolores Park organized by 17th Street Athletics.
I chose an early class as an excuse to wake up with the sun; I’ve adopted a bad habit of repeatedly snoozing my alarm over the past few months. I also had to move my Prius before 10:00 that morning or I’d be issued a street-sweeping citation.
Like a hesitant waddle of emperor penguins, each of us took to one of the now-famous circles painted on the park’s grounds.
At the intersection of Dolores and 19th streets, I rendezvoused with certified personal trainer and studio manager Laura Stronach, who would lead the eventual class of five fitness habitués. The skies were overcast, familiarly clouded. It was this aforementioned kinetic chill that brought to my attention I’d forgotten to don underwear before scurrying out the door, that same cool air nipping at my private bits. I prayed to the high power I still struggle to believe in that the class wouldn’t necessitate any long lower-body lunges and stretches — both of which could provoke unintended flashings.
I quelled my anxieties and consciously clenched my legs tight before picking Stronach’s ear on the current state of fitness.
“We’re slowly getting up to speed again and adapting to what we can do, like these outdoor classes,” she said. “People are itching to get back to their normal gym routines for the sake of both their mental and physical health.”
Exercise is considered a nearly essential tool for helping bolster mental health during the pandemic. A recent study in Cambridge Open Engage found that adults who partook in some sort of daily outdoor physical activity (walking, running, etc.) reduced their rates of depression by a third and increased their levels of mental resilience by some 40%.
“I hear from people all the time in these classes how much they appreciate being able to have some kind of normal life back in their routine, safely,” Stronach said through her low-slung bandana before four others joined us. “Because these outdoor classes don’t use much equipment and are set in places where people can actively social distance, it really isn’t more ‘risky’ than going to Trader Joe’s.”
After friendly introductions, our group took a socially distanced run, all of us trailing one another from six feet behind. My Tarahumara huaraches slapped the concrete in an embarrassingly loud fashion, which eventually let up when our small class took to the level grass in Dolores Park. Like a hesitant waddle of emperor penguins, each of us took to one of the now-famous circles painted on the park’s grounds. Then Stronach led us through myriad HIIT exercises.
“Don’t worry about getting your clothes wet,” she said, responding to the fact that we were doing mountain climbers and crunches on grass slicked with morning dew. “You’re going to get sweaty anyway.”
I was also elated to find a workaround to exposing my genitals to the general public: pointing my body and conducting the workouts in an opposing direction to the present throngs of people. It was during this episode of problem-solving that I took note of just how crowded Dolores Park was with other workout classes.
A boxing class took to the area just outside the Mission Dolores tennis courts; people contorting their torsos in yoga positions populated the field around the Miguel Hidalgo statue; another collection of human beings pranced down nearby steps, panting all the while.
More than a few friendly dogs managed to escape their well-meaning handlers and interrupt those pursuits — including ours. One curious shepherd mix by the name of Mindy nuzzled my armpit while I was doing bench dips; what could only be described as a creature crossed between a shih tzu and a golden hamster sniffed my empty pockets during a set of single-leg lunges.
The class’s 50 minutes of strength and endurance training crescendoed into one final round of pushups, which ended in a breathless pause before we nursed our individual water bottles. We quickly rehydrated ourselves and soon collected in an ordered, well-spaced formation to convivially wax on our weeks and fitness itself.
“It’s so nice that we can do these things now,” Sophia L., a class member clad in head-to-toe Lululemon and self-described Burning Man veteran — it’s San Francisco, after all — said to the group. “Sure, it’s not the same as being inside the studio, but it feels good to do workout classes again. I feel like something I love is coming back into my routine. Now I’ve just got to find a Pilates class!”
So, if you’ve been itching to have (face-masked) witnesses to your fitness again, go for it—invite some pre-Covid-19 normalcy back into your life. But just make sure you wear a breathable face covering and stay six feet apart from your fellow classmates during your group workout of choice.
To save you from tedious Google searches, here’s a list of some of our favorite fitness studios currently offering outdoor workout classes in the Bay Area.
A HIIT endurance and strength-training outdoor gym that uses both cycling and oar equipment to get your heart going. (Justin Spence, the business’s owner and lead fitness instructor, passed away earlier this month. His mother is taking over OaR Outdoors; you can email her dr.abigailcrine@gmail.com for updates.)
Though it’ll continue to offer its Zoom classes, mobile fitness studio Dryft has recently started offering in-person HIIT classes at Marina Green on Saturdays. The small amount of equipment, like resistance bands, used during each class is disinfected after each session.
The Boombox is hosting six-person classes at Dolores Park and Keizer Stadium throughout the week. The 45-minute classes incorporate full-body exercises without the use of weights or other equipment. Evening classes are held at Keizer Stadium; morning classes will be conducted at Dolores Park.
Seasoned fitness expert Coach B is taking his lauded Zoom classes and molding them into in-person boot camp classes held at Dolores Park.
Synonymous with sunrise sessions and beachside meditations, Outdoor Yoga SF is again in full swing, offering limited-size group classes at Ocean Beach, Crissy Field, and “one more location” it’ll be “announcing soon.” Book your spot early if you want to save some green—a small portion of tickets for each class are offered at $10 a pop.
This fitness studio offers a rarity during these pandemic times: CrossFit-style workouts. These “open personal workouts” can be done at your own pace, so there’s no pressure to keep up with the Olympian to your left.
With classes capped at a dozen people and cleaning supplies provided — which can be used to disinfect provided dumbbells or kettlebells or your own equipment — Urban Fitness Oakland is offering 45-minute HIIT workouts at Jack London Square and in North Oakland. Curious patrons can sign up for a free trial class.
Sans in-person sessions at its Mission District studio, 17th Street Athletic Club’s HIIT boot camp classes will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays at Dolores Park and Twin Peaks. Like all of the classes on this list, face coverings and social distancing are required. Note: Communal park equipment, like benches, will be used for some of the exercises, so make sure not to touch your face after using them.
North Berkley’s foremost yoga studio, YogaKula is now offering in-person classes Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at nearby Oak Park. BYOM (bring your own mat), water bottles, and other niceties. These outside classes are designed to accommodate all skill levels.
Stella Maxwell’s day job normally consists of jetting around the world for work as a model and Victoria’s Secret angel, but COVID-19 has put that on pause. Weeks spent indoors have provided her with a moment of reflection. “There is nothing like a months-long quarantine to make one confront themselves,” she shared via email from Los Angeles. In between appearing on international Vogue covers and serving as an ambassador for Pride Live’s Stonewall Day events, Maxwell, who identifies as sexually fluid, reaffirmed her commitment to LGBTQIA+ rights. Thanks to social media and the public’s unwavering interest in runway stars, she has been able to use her visibility to signal boost organizations like GLAAD and serve as a high-profile example of a queer model. “I think within any civil rights movement, everyone has their role,” she explains. “I believe living my life within the public eye with confidence is a way of honoring Pride, not just during isolation but always.”
A model since her teens, Maxwell, now 30, grew up immersed in fashion, a privilege that helped shape her perceptions. Inspired by the standards of tolerance set by the designers, photographers, and her team at The Lions, she understands fashion’s cultural influence. The acceptance Maxwell found on set and with her modeling peers allowed her to feel valued right from the start. “I have [always] felt comfortable and welcome,” she says. Still, she acknowledges that others have faced different situations. “You never know, maybe a client has brought up something behind a closed office door, but I don’t want to assume,” she says, noting the importance of placing integrity before personal gain. “If a brand or individual ever had a problem with accepting someone, whether it be because of gender, race, or because they’re LGBTQIA, I don’t think that would be the right brand for me to be representing.”
Otherwild, founded in 2012, offers a curated selection of goods from jewelers, ceramicists, perfumers, artists, cooks, designers, herbalists, quilters, farmers, gardeners, fabricators, musicians, witches, woodworkers, curators, designers, weavers, photographers, dancers and publishers. They are dedicated to “showcasing goods made with care by individuals.”
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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s conservative president, Andrzej Duda, promised Monday to protect traditional Polish values against LGBT rights after a first-round presidential election that gave him the most votes but forced him into a runoff.
Duda’s immediate return to a theme that he has raised frequently during his campaign was an indication that he is heading into a tight runoff with Warsaw’s centrist mayor by seeking to win the votes of those on the far right, not the political center.
Nearly complete results from Sunday’s balloting show that Duda, who is backed by the populist ruling Law and Justice party, won nearly 44% of the votes.
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In second place was Rafal Trzaskowski, the pro-European Union mayor, with slightly over 30%.
The two will face each other in a July 12 runoff that is shaping up as a suspenseful standoff between two 48-year-old politicians who represent opposing sides of a bitter cultural divide.
Whether or not Duda wins will determine whether Law and Justice will keep its near-monopoly on power. Over the past five years the party has taken control of the country’s judicial system in a way that the EU has denounced as violating democratic values.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitored the election, said that it was professionally run. But it also said that public TV broadcaster “became a campaign tool for the incumbent, while some reporting had clear xenophobic and anti-Semitic undertones.”
“The campaign itself was characterised by negative rhetoric by the leading candidates that further aggravated the already confrontational atmosphere,” the OSCE said in a statement. “Inflammatory language by the incumbent and his campaign was at times xenophobic and homophobic.”
While Trzaskowski trailed Duda on Sunday, in a runoff he would likely gain many voters from the nine other candidates who have now been eliminated, including a progressive Catholic independent, Szymon Holownia, who won nearly 14%.
Up for grabs will also be the nearly 7% of votes that went to a far-right candidate, Krzysztof Bosak.
On state radio Monday morning, Duda stressed how his values line up with those of Bosak, calling same-sex marriage “alien” and depicting Trzaskowski as “left-wing.”
Earlier this month, Duda said the LGBT rights movement promotes a viewpoint more dangerous than communism. Despite street protests in Poland and criticism from the EU, Duda appeared to be returning to that theme, though with slightly toned-down language.
He said “ideological materials” must be kept out of schools and said that any pro-LGBT materials in school would remind him of his childhood, when the communist regime taught children one ideology and children learned something else in their homes.
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Trzaskowski’s program calls for allowing same-sex civil partnerships but not marriage, and he has largely avoided the issue on the campaign trail.
He, too, has sought to win some of Bosak’s voters by stressing their shared free-market views.
Bosak is a lawmaker with the party Confederation, which entered parliament for the first time last year on a program that is anti-American and anti-EU and opposes LGBT rights.
The party’s pro-market positions have won over some libertarians who oppose Law and Justice’s strong involvement in the economy.
Marek Migalski, a commentator and EU lawmaker, wrote on the right-wing Do Rzeczy news site that he expects Bosak’s voters to be “neutralized” in the runoff. He argued some won’t vote, some will back Duda and some will “tactically” vote for Trzaskowski to weaken Law and Justice, which Confederation sees as a rival conservative and nationalist force.
Further complicating the bid for Bosak’s voters is that they are not a uniform block.
Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, said support for Bosak does not necessarily reflect the level of support for far-right radicalism in Poland because of the way Bosak avoided radical public statements during the president campaign.
“He presented himself as a well-groomed, nice gentleman in a suit, appealing to many that way,” she said.
Duda’s support reflects the popularity he has among many older and rural Poles for Law and Justice’s mix of social conservatism and generous welfare spending.
“I am sure that we can build here a land of milk and honey,” Duda told voters Sunday night in Strzelce, a village in central Poland.
“A country that will also be safe, free of terrorist threats, without all that is often the bane of Western Europe, a country based on tradition, on its tested values,” Duda said.
Poland’s state electoral commission announced the results of the election Monday based on a count of nearly 99.8% of all votes.
The Stonewall uprising started in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a well-known gay bar on Christopher St. LGBTQ advocates fought back against the police crackdown, sparking several days of running battles in a neighborhood that had become a mecca for the community.
Whether you’re celebrating Pride Month, Transgender Day of Visibility, or simply want to learn more about LGBTIQ+ history any day of the year, you might be wondering where to start. While some sites, such as the Stonewall Inn, are widely known for their significance to the queer community, there are many other places across the country that have also contributed to queer history in a big way.
If you’re looking to learn more about the history of the LGBTIQ+ community in the United States, start with these seven sites from coast to coast. You’ll get fresh insight into who the main players in the queer liberation movement were, when key events happened, and where it all went down.
New Orleans had a thriving queer community in the 1950s and 60s, and Dixie’s Bar was considered one of the prime spots to party. As one of the first gay bars in New Orleans, Dixie’s was famous for drawing in artists and writers from across the country such as Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Gore Vidal as regular patrons. Although the police never raided Dixie’s directly, legend has it that when the city’s first gay Carnival ball was raided in 1962, Miss Dixie herself grabbed all the cash out of the register and bailed everyone out of jail.
The bar not only holds significance for welcoming NOLA’s gay community, but was also a place where artists could mingle as musicians played live music. The bar’s historic 29-ft-long painting, which caricatured more than 60 famous musicians from the 1940s, was damaged during Hurricane Katrina. But in 2018, a restored Dixie’s mural was unveiled for the first time at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.
Dr Franklin E Kameny Residence in Washington, D.C.
Dr Franklin E Kameny was a landmark figure in achieving gay civil rights in both the government and medical establishment. In 1961, Kameny and his allies pressured the US Civil Service Commission to abandon its policy of denying gay people federal employment and security clearance. Kameny also led efforts to remove homosexuality as a basis for denying government security clearances and played a leading role in attacking the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) definition of homosexuality as a mental illness. In 2011, his home was recognized as a historical residence in Washington, DC and remains a significant attraction in the city for those curious to learn more about LGBTIQ+ civil rights.
In 1991, Chuck Renslow, an openly gay business man known for pioneering homoerotic photography in the mid 20th century, opened the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago to preserve leather, kink, fetish, and BDSM history and culture, particularly in the queer community.
The Museum is home to many queer friendly exhibitions such as The Leatherbar, which captures the history of these spaces – often viewed by gay men as centers of masculinity and an entryway into the leather community – and A Room Of Her Own, an exhibit displaying the history of women’s use of leather in their sexuality. The museum also holds the archives of Mineshaft, a historic members-only BDSM gay leather bar and sex club formerly located in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan.
Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in San Francisco
During the HIV/AIDS crisis, this San Franciscoparish extended open arms to the LGBTIQ+ community, offering weekly support groups and sermons throughout the 1980s specifically for queer people. Today, the church is a regularly visited historical site and still remains a popular place of worship for those looking for inclusion.
Jacob Riis Park, aka Riis Beach, or Riis – as it’s known by locals – is a queer-friendly spot that has been popular since the 1940s. Located on a mile-long section of Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, Riis has for decades been where gay people from New York City went to sunbathe nude, as they were often excluded from other more central or crowded beach areas. Today, this area of the beach maintains its queer identity as one of NYC’s popular and diverse LGBTIQ+ public spaces and is a particularly popular go-to during the summers and over Pride weekend.
Prolific Black lesbian writer and scholar Audre Lorde’s house in Staten Island is a regularly visited sight for those who want to learn more about LGBTIQ+ culture. While living at this house from 1972 to 1987 with her partner and two children, Lorde authored numerous influential books including Sister Outsider and Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and spoke at the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.
In 1994, two years after Lorde’s death, QTPOC (Queer and Trans People of Color) scholars and organizers built The Audre Lorde Project to honor Lorde’s legacy of speaking out for oppressed and marginalized groups. In 2019, an “Audre Lorde Way” street sign was installed at the corner of St Paul’s Avenue and Victory Boulevard, near Lorde’s former home.
Considered by many to be San Francisco’s “queer Smithsonian,” the GLBT History Museum maintains an extensive archival collection of materials relating to queer history in the US, with a focus on the LGBTIQ+ communities of San Francisco and Northern California. The museum in the Castro district showcases the extensive history of LGBTIQ+ life in the city from the 1850s to the present.
This article was originally published June 27, 2020 and was most recently updated March 31, 2021.
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Representation is a wonderful thing. It allows young people to see portrayals of minorities and marginalized groups in a positive manner, which not only affects how others see them, but how they see themselves, too. But what happens when the characters that represent the most important aspect of your identity keep getting killed? Like, all the time? So much so that it even has a name.
The existence of this trope came about in the early 20th century during the golden age of Hollywood as a loophole to allow gay and lesbian characters in stories without receiving social backlash. To avoid breaking laws, “promoting the deviance of homosexuality” or backlash from publishers, writers would either kill or punish their gay characters in some form or another. Even somewhat sympathetic characters would usually receive punishment, as their sexuality was perceived as a negative trait, similar to how one would write a sympathetic drug addict.
As awareness and sympathy for gay people became more mainstream, the narrative of the trope changed from homosexuality being a negative trait you had to die for to LGBTQ+ characters being tragic, suffering victims dying because of an uncaring world. This narrative gained more prominence with the rise of the AIDS pandemic and the popularity of films like “Philadelphia” (which created its own trope).
The trope is still around today, in a time and social context where it is unnecessary to give LGBTQ+ characters unhappy endings in order to get published. The pervasiveness of this trope can be seen across all mediums from movies to video games, but most prominently on television. And it’s not that audiences have a problem with writers killing off gay characters, but more so the tendency of writers to only kill the one gay character in a cast of straight people.
Popular examples of this trope can be seen in “The 100,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Doctor Who,” “Arrow” and “Brokeback Mountain.”
While the frequency of LGBTQ+ character deaths may be purely out of coincidence, it reinforces the idea that gay characters are inherently less important and expendable. The use of the trope can be used in a positive way if the character has depth, agency and serves a narrative purpose to the story. For example, how the death of Jack Twist is treated at the end of “Brokeback Mountain.” Twist was a man cared about by those around him, and he had agency within the story.
However, the vast majority of the time, the trope is invoked on unassuming and unimportant side characters, like Larry in “Buffy.” Larry was the only confirmed gay character in the show at that point and was killed unceremoniously at the end of the third season (so unceremoniously, in fact, that his death wasn’t mentioned until the sixth season). This is the root problem of this trope, as LGBTQ+ characters, for the most part, only serve the purpose of supporting characters filling in token representation slots.
There’s already a high degree of anxiety within LGBTQ+ audiences about their place within society, and the consistent use of this trope in the media does nothing to assuage these fears. The reason why tropes become tropes is that they’re overdone, a cliche. It’s expected. Of course, gay characters can die, but if it’s expected, maybe come up with a reason for why you’re doing it.
If writers can’t come up with a good reason to kill off their gay side characters, they should probably do something else.
Above image credit: Dressing area of Melinda Ryder full of dresses designed by Kirk Nelson (photo: Sandy Woodson)
Where can we get a fashion fix with the loss of the West 18th Street Fashion show this June? If you miss the glamour, color, humor and sparkle of this event, which has been rescheduled for October due to the ongoing pandemic, you’ve come to the right place.
Flatland recently visited with seven local designers of drag fashion, and created the following slideshows. Consider this a virtual fashion show to hold you over until the real thing happens.
Kirk Nelson has been designing and creating Melinda Ryder’s costumes for over 30 years.
Andy Chambers is designer and co-owner of Wonderland, a vintage store and salon.
Alan Dunham, designer, hair stylist and co-owner of Wonderland.
Andy has been sewing since his grandmother set up the machine for him when he was 7 years old. He has made everything from wedding dresses to formal wear to the costumes he wears as part of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Sister Glamarama Ding Dong, aka Andy Chambers, is one of the founders of the City of Fountains Sisters. (Photo | Conor Mathew Tierney)
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is a nonprofit organization that began in 1971 in San Francisco.
Chambers says when he is wearing the more traditional costume he feels more connected to the original sisters.
When there is an event to raise money, “Everyone calls the drag queens!” And as the self -professed Queer Drag Nuns they are right there with them. Helping to raise money for others is their core tenet.
These traditional vestments are worn by Guard Phil La Joque-Strapp, aka Alan Dunham, at more somber occasions like a protest.
Guards of the order cover their collars and capes with flash and a name tag.
Phil La Joque-Strapp, aka Alan Dunham (photo: Buck Sommerkamp)
Sister Glamarama Ding Dong’s Doughnut Dress illustrates Chambers’ love of a concept. Dunham says: “He bought the fabric from New York, bought a doughnut purse, doughnut pillows and a bunch of rubber doughnuts.” “I do have a lot of rubber doughnuts,” Chambers confesses.
Chambers calls the Sisters the sacred clowns, meaning “we celebrate our ability to laugh at gender norms and society while manifesting joy within our community.”
Andy Chambers and Alan Dunham are co-owners of Wonderland. Both were the founders of the City of Fountain Sisters, the local chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which began in 1971 with five men wearing their “Sound of Music” nun costumes. The men walked around the city entertaining everyone in their path, but later went on to work with traditional nuns helping the homeless.
Darren Huffman, aka Kissy Lee, and Peyton Westfall, aka Astro, are co-owners of Pop Culture Sculptures and both are participants in Drag Survivor KC. Although officially not a part of the business, their drag design work set them apart for the organizers of the World Balloon Convention. The four costume changes during their 30 minutes on stage sealed their reputation for creating outfits that can withstand performing.
Dick Von Dyke really enjoyed hosting and performing at Missie B’s in Kansas City but is now on his way to Minneapolis. (Special thanks to Mary Schmidt for the mannequin).
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