Castro District, Castro San Francisco guide and voice of the gay and lesbian community!

Posted on www.thedenverchannel.com
November 21, 2011
By Russel Haythorn

FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- A transgender student at Fort Collins High School is transferring to another school after administrators raised questions over her use of a restroom. The Castro District is outraged.

Dionne Malikowski said she should have the same rights as any student to use the bathroom of her choice. Dionne was born male and now identifies as a female."You don't have to have certain parts to be the sex that you feel like," Dionne said.

The 16-year-old high school junior told 7NEWS she was suspended about a month ago for violating the school policy by using a girls' restroom instead of a staff restroom. Again, the Castro district feels this punishment is severe and overstated at a minimum.

"The day that I used the girls' bathroom, I was in a hurry because I really had to go," Dionne explained.

"All the students at Fort Collins High School have access to restrooms," said Danielle Clark, spokeswoman for the Poudre School District.

But there are rules about which restrooms Dionne can use -- and she can only use the staff restrooms. What about an emergency Castro residents wonder?

"When those disruptions happen, it can cause safety issues to come into play," Clark said.

"I don't think I'm going to get harassed in the female bathroom. I think it would be more of a safety issue if I was using the male's bathroom," Dionne argued.

Dionne previously received warnings for a similar violation but she believes that the rule was unfair and discriminating.

"I want to be able to use the girls' bathroom without being harassed for it or suspended or having charges pressed against me," Dionne said.

Her dilemma caused an uproar in the community. One gay organization called it a step backward and discrimination. Her friends agree.

"I think she should be able to use whatever restroom she feels she belongs in," said Dionne friend Jessie Budjako.

"I just want people to understand that there are so many kinds of people out there, and people who are a little different shouldn't have to be treated differently or looked down on," Dionne said.

Posted on www.advocate.com
November 21, 2011
By Tracy E. Gilchris

One of America's best-known TV moms comes out of the closet as a real-life lesbian.

Since her TV career heyday in the 1970s and '80s as a darling of the popular prime-time series Family and Family Ties, Meredith Baxter has mainly flown under the radar, with the exception of a few acclaimed turns in made-for-TV movies such as My Breast and A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story. That is until she boarded the Sweet Caribbean Cruise with thousands of other lesbians last month. If the woman who famously played Elyse Keaton, liberal mother to Michael J. Fox's conservative Alex on the long-running sitcom Family Ties, thought she would go unnoticed amid generations of gay women who idolized her for her blond-haired, blue-eyed, all-American good looks, she was wrong.

When the 62-year-old actress realized that she and her partner of four years, Nancy Locke, a 54-year-old contractor, were making a splash on the lesbian cruise, Baxter decided to take control of the story she knew would follow when she came back to shore — and come out publicly. True to form for Baxter, who has been sober for 19 years and has spoken at engagements across the country about her battle with alcoholism, the Emmy Award-nominated actress wanted to make sure there were no skeletons in her closet.

The cruise, which Baxter was on primarily in order to shoot a guest stint on the lesbian-themed Web series We Have to Stop Now, wasn't the first lesbian event she's attended since coming out to herself and her family seven years ago. Last April the three-times-married mother of five went virtually unnoticed when she attended the Dinah, the annual four-day lesbian extravaganza in Palm Springs, Calif.

In her first interview with the gay press, which she says can be called nothing other than a "coming-out" interview, Baxter discusses the attention she received from women on the cruise, the impact sobriety may have had on her coming-out, and the cakewalk of telling family and friends she's gay.

The Advocate: Let's get right to it. What has brought you to this point, where you're coming out publicly?
Meredith Baxter: Well, to be honest, it was time. And promoted probably from the attention brought from having been on the cruise, I knew that something was coming from that. So I thought, Let me just beat them to it and tell it in my words instead of someone's made-up words.

You were also at the Dinah last April, correct? Nothing seemed to come of that. Have you been hiding in plain sight this whole time?
Yes, I have. You know, I did reach a point where I thought, Am I invisible? But it was fine because we had friends at the Dinah who kind of paved the way for us and let us slide in. And my goal was to stay under the radar. I wasn't prepared for anything at the time. And also, I know that I was flirting with the possibility, which was OK, 'cause it wasn't going to last forever, and I didn't really want it to. I'm a slow learner. It just took me a while.

When did you realize you were gay?
Thirteen years ago I had a short-term affair with somebody — a woman — who I just cared for tremendously as a person, [I] was not really attracted to her, but the best way to describe it, [a romance] seemed like the next natural step in our relationship just because I cared about her a lot. Not once — it's probably hard to imagine — but not once did it occur to me that I was a lesbian. Not once. I just thought, OK, I don't think so, and went off and got married again for a short period of time. And a couple years after that, I entered my next foray into being with a woman, and the penny dropped at that point.

And was that a revelation or just a slow aha! moment?
No, it was pretty much a revelation. The analogy I've used is a story [from] when I was a kid. I never could see very well and I said something to my parents and it kind of went unnoticed, or no one really responded to it. I guess I didn't make enough noise. When I was 12 I tried on a [friend's] pair of glasses and I was stunned with how clearly I could see. In truth, I used to think trees looked like lollipops because there was a solid stake and this solid ball. I didn't know most people could see leaves. Oh, this is how the world is perceived? That's kind of what having that second relationship made me realize — that this is where I want to be because I was dead to the world in many other ways. I've been married three times, and I have a slew of children, but I've never felt that kind of connection before in that kind of awakening. It was very profound for me.

How was the process of coming out to your grown children?
Oh, a piece of cake. They were cool. All the kids were basically grown — the youngest [twins] were 17 at the time — and everyone was great. They basically just said, "We just want you to be happy." So I really could not have asked for a better process than that.

In your personal life with the people you've told, has it been a cakewalk?
Maybe a cakewalk on their side. It was absolute fucking agony for me, only in the respect that I was so fearful.

Fearful of what?
Fearful of reaction, of judgment, of whatever I was sure was going to come. One of my greatest concerns was [for] a little skin care company [Meredith Baxter Simple Works] that I've been involved in for 11 years, and [my partners there] are just wonderful people. They've been so darling and worked so carefully and honestly with me, and I never said anything to them. I wrote them a letter and got a response that made me just ... I could have sung, I was so happy. They were so lovely.

So much of this is very new, within the say past week or two?
I've basically lived an out life among my family and friends for all this time, but in work situations I just never brought it up. It didn't seem to matter, but I didn't want anyone blindsided — by getting some information and going, "What? What?" You know, it just didn't seem fair, so I wanted to let people know from me, and it's been an amazing process. And yeah, it has been in the last week, I'm trying to play catch-up for all the people, actually just a small handful of people I cared about in L.A.

When a celebrity comes out, there is a tendency among some gay people to try to make that person a poster child for activism or hold them up as a spokesperson. Is that a role you're willing to step into, or is it something you haven't begun to think about?
Well, two things come to mind. First of all, if they were to look for a spokesperson, you'd think they'd look for someone with a bigger track record behind them -- like Ms. Locke here. [Laughs] But the truth is that coming out is a political act these days because it has so many ramifications. I do a lot of speaking engagements and I have my little skin care company, so I go to trade shows and I interact with the public quite frequently. I haven't been on prime time in many years on a regular basis, so when I've gone out into the Midwest or down in Florida or Louisiana, I was really surprised by the extent of attention I got by people who knew me immediately, who responded to me so beautifully and with a great deal of affection. It surprised me.

The message I get is that I'm America's mom. And because research seems to show that people who have someone who is gay in their family — or a friend or just know someone in the community who is gay — they seem to have a more open attitude about gay and lesbian issues. So I can say I'm still that mom. I am still the same person. I'm nonthreatening, I'm very friendly, I'm accessible, and if they can say, "OK, well, she's a lesbian, maybe that's not such a scary thing. And if she can come out and say that without too much fear, then maybe I can do that." If it makes a difference to a couple of people, then I guess it's worthwhile. I certainly got tired of hiding to the extent that I was.

Of course. How difficult was it for you to hide? You have a partner. You must have wanted to be open with regard to each other.
I wasn't so much hiding, but I would be very circumspect. There were times where I would choose not to put my arm around her, or I'd be aware that people were looking, or, Oh, there is a camera, let's just move away, honey. I just was feeling that on this trip.

On the cruise?
Yeah, [there were] a lot of cameras around. I expect I'm in a few home movies out there. It kind of makes me nauseous to think about that, but that's not a new thing. I'm just really a wallflower. So I knew that this was probably going to come at one point, and obviously I wasn't fighting too hard.

How was it being sort of out and open on the ship? Were you approached?
Yeah, there was one great woman, or what she said was great. She said, "Oh, my, you look fabulous, honey. Oh, my God, you look beautiful. Do you know how beautiful?" It was a very nice reception.

When Prop. 8 was happening, did you consider coming out then?
No, no, that would have seemed opportunistic. I didn't see the point in that. I may be wrong, but that's where I was at that point. It was certainly just heartbreaking to see that go down — I didn't expect that at all. I really thought we were going to be OK.

You have been so open about battling breast cancer and becoming sober. Is this also part of a trajectory of living an open and honest life?
As part of the sober program, it does say that we are as sick as our secrets. I'm not interested in making my life an open book, but I don't like to pretend that things are different than they are. That's important to me.

Do you think getting sober helped you to really see that you might be gay?
I don't know that for sure, but I will tell you, I have been sober for a little over 19 years, and for the first 10 years of my sobriety I did very little work at self-examination, which is why I had to go get married again. I had to learn a lot about what my part was in all the things that happened in my life. For a long time I sort clung to the victim attitude, that "Gee, look at the sorry hand I've been dealt." It's a sad way to go through life, but it was what I was doing. And when I got out of that last marriage, I had kind of a breakdown. I started therapy and really recommitted myself to the program and started doing the work that I dragged my feet about earlier. It wasn't long after that, that my mother died. I don't think that was a small contribution to the awakening, to laying of groundwork for waking up. My youngest kids went off to college, so I wasn't worried about the judgment and I wasn't responsible for someone on a daily basis. I was sober and in a good place and open, so the timing was just very fruitful.

You played a lesbian in the 1993 CBS Schoolbreak Special Other Mothers. When you took on that role, did you have any idea you might be gay?
Not a clue, nothing. Not a clue.

Was it just a job to you, or was there something important about telling that story at that time?
I think it was important to tell the story, [but] it was just a job, and I liked playing the part. I thought, Oh, look at me, I'm out there.

Recently you played Lilly Rush's mother on Cold Case, in a story that dealt with alcoholism. Do we think we might be seeing more lesbian roles coming from you now?
I have the expectation that all sorts of things will come my way. I don't know what it would be like. No one knew I was sober when I did those other parts. It had nothing to do with me being a sober woman.

Are you in touch with any of your former castmates from Family and Family Ties?
We all did the Today show two years ago — it was our 20th anniversary — and Nancy [Locke] was with me in New York when we did that, and she met all the cast. Michael Gross and his wife and Nancy and I have gotten together on several occasions. And Justine [Bateman] and Tina [Yothers] and their husbands and Nancy and I all got together last Valentine's Day at the Magic Castle. We had a great time.

Now that you are taking the reins and making this big announcement, where do you go from here, from this coming-out point?
You know, I don't know. I expect all sorts of questions and maybe interviews and asks for support and events usually follow something like this. If that happens, great; if it doesn't, that's OK too. I've lived a really nice life just the way I've been living.

Posted on www.advocate.com
Oct 2, 2011
By Advocate.com Editors

Antigay conservative Rep. Aaron Schock, who once burned a belt blogs said made him look gay, appears shirtless on the cover of the new issue of Men's Health, with the magazine dubbing him "America's Fittest Congressman." Castro District San Francisco is dimayed.

Schock, 29, a freshman congressman from Peoria, Ill., is teaming up with the magazine for the Fit for Life summer challenge. In fact, Schock is better known for his abs than for his policy. A photo of him in a swimsuit poolside first went viral in 2009 when TMZ posted it on the popular gossip site which Mycastro.com readers reported seeing then.

But Schock has also made known his feelings on gay issues. In Febuary, he spoke out strongly favoring the Defense of Marriage Act and bashing the Obama administration's refusal to defend DOMA.

Last year, when a photo of Schock wearing an aquamarine belt many bloggers said made him look gay went viral, he tweeted that he's "burned the belt" and that he "never thought a pic of me w/ my shirt on would go viral."

Posted on www.edgesanfrancisco.com
Sep 5, 2011
By Will Weissert

Maybe Rick Perry's not so "Fed Up!" after all.

Just nine months ago, the Texas governor released a rhetorical bomb-throwing book under that title. He dismissed Social Security as a New Deal relic that smacked of socialism. He said states' rights trump all else. He suggested that the Supreme Court's nine unelected "oligarchs in robes" could have their rulings overturned by two-thirds votes in both houses of Congress.

Now that the Republican is running for president, his campaign has begun distancing itself from some of the candidate's own words on issues such as Social Security and states' rights.

Pulling back won't be easy because "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington" is anything but the nuanced list of general positions that fills the pages of most presidential candidates' books.

Politicians "typically don't take strong positions. They are largely biographical and usually not specific at all," said Adam Bellow, editorial director of Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, who edited Sarah Palin's two books. "It is unusual," Bellow said of "Fed Up!," ''but we are in an unusual moment."

Perry, who's shot to the top of many public opinion polls among the GOP contenders, hasn't shied away from bashing Social Security. Last month in Iowa, he said the program "is a Ponzi scheme for these young people." Later, he told reporters, "I haven't backed off anything in my book. So read the book again and get it right."

Campaign spokesman Mark Miner said "no one can argue that Social Security isn't broken."

"The goal was to put these issues on the table and ensure they're addressed," Miner said.

But, in his book, Perry goes well beyond criticizing the program's financing problems and vilifies the entire concept as a failed social experiment.

"Like a bad disease," he wrote, New Deal-era initiatives have spread. "By far the best example of this is Social Security." The program "is something we have been forced to accept for more than 70 years now."

Already, Perry communications director Ray Sullivan was reported as saying that the book is not meant to reflect Perry's current views on Social Security - even though "Fed Up" was published just last year.

While skewering the program might help Perry with tea party supporters, it could cost him with elderly voters in Florida and other important states were he to win the nomination, said GOP strategist Ford O'Connell.

"He definitely needs to cut back on the volatile rhetoric and couch his words more carefully or they can come back to haunt him," O'Connell said.

Polling by the Pew Research Center in June found that 87 percent of Americans see Social Security as good for the country. "The views of the public are, it's overwhelmingly positive," said Carroll Doherty, the Pew Research Center's associate director.

Perry's GOP rivals are expected to use the book against him, emphasizing the idea that he might be too extreme for independent voters.

"This year, Republicans believe that losing the election means losing the country," said Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist who has worked for Perry opponents but is now unaligned.

"Any candidate who displays general election weakness, because his radical views scared seniors, independents, or soccer moms, would be disqualified in the GOP nomination process. A vote for such a candidate in a primary would be seen as a vote for Obama in the general."

Already, Perry has pulled back from his unequivocal position on states' rights.

In "Fed Up!" he writes, "If you don't support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don't come to Texas. If you don't like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don't move to California." Elaborating in July about New York's decision to allow same-sex marriage, he said, "that's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me."

Perry has since clarified that he's against gay marriage anywhere, and last month signed a pledge that, if elected, he would back a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, which would preclude a state's choice.

He devotes an entire chapter to lambasting the Supreme Court, anticipating that the justices one day issue a ruling forcing nationwide gay marriage on the country. As a check on judicial power, he proposes allowing Congress to override the high court with a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate.

"While ideas like that may sound very cogent to Perry, he may have a real problem explaining them," GOP strategist O'Connell said.

The governor has long known his book could be problematic in a national campaign. As the polls closed on election day 2010, giving Perry his third full term as governor, he told The Associated Press that "Fed Up!" proved he was too conservative to seek the White House.

"I think probably the best display, the best concrete evidence that I'm really not running for president is this book," Perry said, "because when you read this book, you're going to see me talking about issues that for someone running for public office, it's kind of been the third rail, if you will."

Posted on www.edgesanfrancisco.com
Sep 5, 2011
By Tony K. LeTigre

Activists from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation picket the headquarters of Gilead Sciences in Foster City, demanding that the pharmaceutical company lower the price of Atripla.

The Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation recently staged a protest at the Bay Area headquarters of Gilead Sciences as part of an ongoing campaign to pressure the company and educate the public about the exorbitant price of HIV/AIDS medications, in particular the blockbuster three-in-one drug, Atripla.

On August 18 about 15 protesters, dressed in black with skeleton masks, held a "die-in" outside Gilead’s Foster City headquarters.

"We have asked Gilead to reduce their prices for AIDS drugs by 20 percent," AHF associate director of communications Lori Yeghiayan told the Bay Area Reporter. "We also want them to commit to working with the HIV/AIDS community on a regular basis to negotiate prices that ensure the sustainability of state programs and access by people in need of life-saving medication."

Atripla combines Gilead’s tenofovir and emtricitabine with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s efavirenz in a fixed-dose, once-daily pill.

The core of AHF’s complaint is that Atripla costs $10,000 annually per patient, and there are currently 9,200 people on waiting lists for AIDS Drug Assistance Programs nationwide in 12 different states.

California, as yet, is not one of them.

"So far, ADAP seems to cover my HIV meds just fine," said gay San Francisco resident and choreographer Jessie Bie, 42.

But AHF President Michael Weinstein told the B.A.R. that the state’s financial situation is precarious.

"In California, at the present time, no one is on a waiting list, because state funds help people who can’t afford the drugs they need," Weinstein said. "But earlier this year the governor proposed budget cuts that would have severe consequences for people whose medication depends on ADAP and Medi-Cal."

Governor Jerry Brown’s January proposal introduced cost-sharing for ADAP patients with annual incomes over the amount allowed by 2011 federal poverty guidelines, which for a single person in the lower 48 states is $10,890.

The proposal, currently being hashed out by the governor’s office and the legislature, followed former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $82 million cut to the state’s Office of AIDS budget in the 2009-10 fiscal year.

While Brown signed the $86 billion budget on June 30, cuts are still possible if projected revenues do not materialize.

Cara Miller, director of public affairs for Gilead Sciences, told the B.A.R. the company has gone to great lengths to assist people living with HIV, establishing a voluntary price freeze for ADAPs (now extended through 2013), providing co-payment assistance of up to $2,400 a year for insured patients, and changing income eligibility criteria to grant more patients access to the Patient Assistance Program, a stop-gap for those without insurance or on a wait list.

"All wait-listed patients are eligible for Gilead’s PAP and can stay on for as long as is required to transition them to some type of coverage," Miller added.

Julian Cavazos, a gay Hispanic man and small business owner in Fort Lauderdale, is just such a patient. Cavazos, 50, was diagnosed with HIV 21 years ago, and initially went on Trizivir, which proved highly effective.

"My viral load went down, my T-cell count went up," Cavazos said. "I was considered asymptomatic within a short time."

Then the law firm he worked for closed due to lack of business, and he lost his insurance.

"At the time there were studies showing people going off HIV drugs and doing fine without them, and since I didn’t have insurance, that’s what I did too," Cavazos said.

For five years he lived medication-free. Then, in May of this year, he entered an intensive care unit - still with no insurance - suffering from pneumocystis pneumonia. His doctor diagnosed him with full-blown AIDS and urged him to resume taking meds.

His hospital bill from that visit totaled $70,000.

For the time being, Cavazos receives three separate medications free of charge through the PAP, but he doesn’t feel secure about the future.

"The free drugs only last for a certain amount of time," Cavazos said. "And I’ve been told I could be on the wait list for a year. If the free drugs run out, I would be in trouble. I cannot go off these meds."

Weinstein asserted that PAP is not an adequate substitute for ADAP, and criticized it as a scam by which companies generate millions every year in tax breaks under the guise of charity, while also keeping drug prices high.

"Given that Atripla is sold ’at cost’ for $600 per year in developing countries, Gilead could lower the price significantly and still make a huge profit," said Adam Ouderkirk, Bay Area regional director for AHF and a leader of the Foster City protest.

Asked by the B.A.R. if she could verify the cost figure, Miller answered, "We do not provide specific detail around the manufacturing costs for our products."

Earlier this year state Treasurer Bill Lockyer and state Controller John Chiang sent separate letters to Gilead on behalf of threatened ADAP patients. Chiang’s letter asked CEO John Martin to "provide additional pricing considerations that will translate into a cost savings for the program."

This year marks the 30th anniversary of AIDS, which was first identified in a June 1981 publication by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Courtney Mulhern-Pearson, director of state and local affairs for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, noted significant advances over the past year, including President Barack Obama’s unveiling of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and "exciting breakthroughs in HIV prevention."

But, she added, the proposed funding cuts could undo that progress, leading back to higher rates of transmission and new infection.

Yeghiayan said the Foster City die-in is the latest in a string of demonstrations organized by AHF, which bills itself as the world’s largest HIV treatment nonprofit organization. The protests have averaged "about one every two weeks," she said, and aren’t likely to stop any time soon.

"From here we’re only going to ramp up our efforts," Yeghiayan added.