Local
Students, former faculty keep the faith after Catholic high school firings
‘There’s something really wrong with this picture’ in Indiana case
Shelly’s Voice was founded by students at Roncalli to support their fired guidance counselors.
Marriage equality may be the law of the land, but at Roman Catholic Church-run Roncalli High School in Indiana, the lesson being taught is that having a same-sex marriage, or standing in solidarity with those who do, will cost you your career.
Those scenarios played out, when the Central and Southern Indiana-serving Archdiocese of Indianapolis discovered longtime Roncalli guidance counselors Shelly Fitzgerald and Lynn Starkey were both married to women. Roncalli social worker Kelley Fisher, a straight ally who publicly supported Fitzgerald and Starkey following their firing, also lost her job—and gay-identified Dominic Conover, who founded the Shelly’s Voice Advocacy Group alongside five straight Roncalli students, discontinued his vocal support of Fitzgerald for months (a behavior without which, he was told, he would not receive his diploma).
Fitzgerald, who grew up in the Catholic faith and graduated from Roncalli High School in 1991, returned to its halls as a guidance counselor in 2004, then worked as Co-Director of Guidance until 2018, when the church obtained a copy of her marriage certificate via a tipster who, ironically, has yet to be publicly identified.
Fitzgerald, notes the Indy Star in an Aug. 20, 2019 article, “was called into a meeting [Aug. 10, 2018] with officials from her school and the church and given three options: divorce her wife, quit her job or wait out the end of her contract quietly and be fired at the end of the school year, when it would expire.”
Two days later, Fitzgerald was put on administrative leave and banned from campus. She received a May 2, 2019 letter from Roncalli that her contract would not be renewed, by which point she had filed with the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), alleging discrimination and retaliation. A federal lawsuit was filed on Oct. 22 of this year.
“I was stunned,” says Fitzgerald, of her dismissal. “I was just living my life as I wanted to live it, and was caught completely off guard,” especially since her sexual orientation had never been a source of controversy or trouble.
“The predominant amount of people I worked with not only knew I was gay and had a partner,” says Fitzgerald, “but my daughter has walked the halls since she was able to walk—and we hung around socially with many who worked there, including administrators … I’ve been out, really, since I was 18 years old. But I wasn’t out to students and parents, because as a counselor, that’s not part of the job, to compare stories.”
Once dismissed from Roncalli, however, Fitzgerald found herself at the heart of a “nonstop local story” for the past year and a half.
“One of the biggest adjustments for me has been the lack of anonymity,” says Fitzgerald, who cites the activism of Conover and other Shelly’s Voice members as the reason “why this story has legs. The day they stepped up, they changed the trajectory of my life forever. They’ve shown what it’s like to be true allies… That made it easier for me, because it gave me an opportunity change things, so nobody has to go through this again. I just want people to have a safe place to be. So this is not a story about a guidance counselor getting fired. It’s a story about how we can change the path, to make sure everyone has a welcome seat at the table.”
As for his own activism, Conover says, “I tell people that before Shelly was fired, I was blind to discrimination, blind to the fact that there was a difference in standing up for other people and standing up for your Catholic faith… I identify as gay and, sadly, it took me up to this year to do that, because of the shame and guilt that goes along with it.”
Conover, who graduated in 2019, says he’s no longer in touch with Roncalli faculty, but has “a few friends there [students], that I still talk to, who are supportive of what I’m doing [with Shelly’s Voice]. But they can’t say that out loud.”
For LGBTQ people at Roncalli, “It’s a very toxic environment,” notes Conover. “It’s hard to be happy with yourself when the school you go to won’t allow you to be who you are… There are others [Roncalli students] in our organization who have had to back down on their positions, to ensure they can graduate.”
Shelly’s Voice, he says, “kept me afloat” during his time at Roncalli. “Without being an activist and an advocate for Shelly, I would not have had the mental strength” to endure the ultimatum he was given in order to receive his diploma. “I did not, at the time,” recalls Conover, “understand what this state of forced silence would have on a person.”
During that period, recalls Conover, “I had the blessing of meeting Ariadne Getty,” a lifelong philanthropist who, he notes, worked with him “to make sure my voice would be heard after graduation.”
“He’s what we love to invest our time in, which is the next generation of disrupters and activists,” says Getty, whose Ariadne Getty Foundation (AGF) secured pro bono legal and public relations work for Conover, and gave financial support to Fitzgerald.
“I want to make an impression that this isn’t acceptable,” says Getty, calling the Roncalli situation “a story that you can’t ignore,” and noting AGF’s support is part of its wider effort to “do right by people who have been wronged… If there’s anything I can do to help other people facing similar crisis, I would love to know.”
Getty has taken a hands-on approach, noting of Fitzgerald, “We’ve become very good friends. We talk often, and I talk with Dominic regularly. I’m blessed to have them in my life.”
Of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, says Getty, “There’s something really wrong with this picture. Here, we have this community that’s supposed to love everybody, and go to church on Sunday. Then what happens on Monday? You get fired. Or, if you’re a student, your graduation is going to be held over your head.”
Not everybody in the church or the wider community has been hostile. Conover says Shelly’s Voice has received letters “from priests across the country, who have written, anonymously, to say they support what we are doing, and pray for the change we are seeking.”
Conover notes that despite many letters of support sent to the archdiocese via Shelly’s Voice, his almost daily voicemails left with the office of Archbishop Thompson have gone unanswered since the beginning of last year, when “We [Shelly’s Voice] had a meeting with him to discuss our opposition to what he was doing. But I never get a call back or a request for a conversation.”
That silence is confounding to members of Shelly’s Voice, whose website notes, “Contrary to common belief, the power to change the [Roncalli employment] contract is held by each Catholic Archdiocese, not the individual schools, facilities, and institutions which fall under the Archdiocese … Once the Archbishop changes the policy [whose code of conduct was cited as a reason for the Roncalli firings], dozens of schools all over Indianapolis will be able to hire members of the LGBTQ+ community.”
Fitzgerald notes there are “supportive clergy from all over the world, who have reached out to me” as well as members of the [Indianapolis] community who “come up to me when I’m with my wife or daughter, who just want to say how supportive they are. So my faith is stronger, honestly, than it’s every been.”
Self-described “cradle Catholic” Conover, raised in the faith “since I was born,” notes, “The love I had for the Church before I started to fully accept myself was very fulfilling. I hated to see such a small part of the Catholic teaching effect my faith, and I don’t want any other youth or Catholic to go through that turbulent time of questioning, just because of hate, basically—hate toward the LGBTQ+ community.”
“Clearly, after the fact,” says Kelley Fisher, of her own period of turmoil, “I felt very much that I was a target.” Fisher is currently in the process of an EEOC charge, claiming retaliation and discrimination, but remains steadfast in her commitment to “stand up for social justice and the vulnerable. As a social worker, that’s our goal… and I think it’s bigger than just our schools here in Indianapolis. It’s a global issue. People are being murdered for being gay, for who they love.”
“Regarding Shelly and Lynn,” says Paul Castillo, Counsel and Students’ Rights Strategist for Lambda Legal, “The practical effect of these terminations is the school sending a message to youth, and the community, that the archdiocese seeks to purge all LGBTQ staff from their positions. It’s teaching youth that discrimination is acceptable, although that can’t be squared with ‘love thy neighbor.’ ”
With respect to allies, Fitzgerald notes the events at Roncalli have wider implications.
“Eventually,” she says, “all of us are going to have a brother or sister or cousins or friends who are impacted by this.”
Los Angeles
AIDS Healthcare Foundation will celebrate its legacy of food relief at the New Year’s Rose Parade
This Thursday, AHF will march at the Rose Parade in celebration of its “Food for Health” program: an initiative that has fed community members in need for five years.
This Thursday, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) will march in the highly-anticipated Rose Parade in Pasadena. AHF will present a Jack and the Beanstalk float with the titular character climbing amongst ginormous tomatoes, eggplants, strawberries, and tomato plants. It’s befitting of this year’s parade theme: “The Magic in Teamwork,” which celebrates the power of collective effort and unity.
The whimsical design also honors the organization’s “Food for Health” program, an initiative that began in 2021 to respond to food insecurity across the U.S. For nearly five years, “Food for Health” has hosted free food pantries and farmers’ markets, providing hot meals and fresh groceries nationally for families and veterans in need of food assistance.
“Food for Health” was also crucial in the wide-sweeping emergency response various nonprofits were trying to organize after the devastating Palisades and Eaton Fires in January. AHF’s program delivered over 75,000 hot meals to evacuees and Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) first responders.
The float also honors the individuals fueling these on-the-ground efforts, like Janet and Christy Lee, the sisters behind Altadena’s Fair Oaks Burger. For eight months after these major fires broke out, the Lee sisters worked closely with “Food for Health” to host free weekly farmers’ markets in the parking lot of their restaurant to support community members who had been displaced and impacted by the wildfires.
Both sisters will join fellow local advocates and leaders like labor activist Dolores Huerta, LAFD Captain Thomas ‘Kit’ Kitahata, Champions of Caring Connections executive director Bettye Randle, and “Food for Health” directors Carlos Marroquin and Tara O’Callaghan as riders on the AHF float.
The Rose Parade begins at 8 a.m. on Thursday morning, marching through 5 miles of Colorado Blvd. Now in its 137th year, the parade’s inaugural event was held in 1890 and continues to delight local residents and usher in the new year with illustrious musical performances and grand floats. More information about tickets and parade guidelines can be found on Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses website.
Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
California
Hate crimes targeting transgender and gender nonconforming people have tripled since 2013
The Williams Institute is examining increasing anti-transgender and anti-gender nonconforming violence, as well as as the policies shaping it.
On Dec. 17th, the Williams Institute found that hate crimes targeting people based on their gender identity have more than tripled in California since 2013. The research center’s latest report on statewide gender identity hate crimes utilizes data reported to the California Department of Justice from 2001 to 2024, and outlines the increasing violence transgender and gender nonconforming people face.
Hate crimes motivated by gender identity and sexual orientation have made up 23% of all reported hate crimes in California since 2001, and nearly half of these incidents between 2013 and 2024 were reported in Los Angeles County alone. The study’s lead author, Jordan Grasso, points to several possible reasons for such high numbers in L.A., including the county’s overall population size, its large transgender community, and local law enforcement policies around identifying and reporting hate crimes.
It’s difficult to compare these numbers across counties, though, Grasso explained to the Blade, since practices like reporting, investigating, and recording incidents “are shaped at the local level and can vary widely from agency to agency.”
While these practices can vary, one overarching statewide shift occurred in 2013, when the California Department of Justice added “anti-gender nonconforming” as its own bias subcategory: one that was separate from “anti-transgender.” Since then, over 500 gender identity hate crimes targeting transgender and gender nonconforming people have been recorded in California.
This marked a step towards creating more nuance in the ways gender identity hate crimes are understood, reported, and responded to by law enforcement officials. Five years later, in 2018, California passed a law that required all law enforcement trainees to receive training on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“This matters because once someone reports a hate crime, officers who have a better understanding of these issues may be more likely to recognize the incident as a hate crime and record it as such, rather than treating it as a general offense,” Grasso wrote to the Blade.
As transgender and gender nonconforming people face increasing violence, they are also reporting lower levels of trust in police. They are more likely than cisgender people to experience discrimination, harassment, and bias when seeking help from law enforcement, which then discourages them from seeking help at all.
“There are clear gaps between transgender and nonbinary Californians’ experiences of violence and what shows up in official hate crime reports,” Grasso wrote. “These gaps are shaped in large part by longstanding and persistent negative interactions between LGBTQ people, especially transgender people, and law enforcement.”
Grasso found in another recent study that, while almost 60% of transgender and nonbinary survey respondents reported experiencing violence or harassment in the last year, their self-reported experiences may outnumber actual reported hate crimes. “This suggests that officially recognized hate crime reports capture only a small fraction of the violence and victimization that transgender and nonbinary people experience across the state,” they explained.
These gaps widen even more when considering transgender and gender nonconforming people who experience intersectional forms of hate. Transgender women, notably, face a disproportionate amount of violence and harassment, but current law enforcement recording policies around gender identity hate crimes can water these facts down.
Grasso explained that when law enforcement officers make hate crime reports, they are required to note a single “most serious bias,” a practice that aims to create one digestible explanation out of what are often very layered and complicated incidents of violence. “This has two consequences,” Grasso wrote. “First, gender identity hate crimes are likely undercounted, especially among people who are multiply marginalized. Second, patterns of victimization among people who are targeted for multiple, intersecting reasons—such as race and transgender identity—remain largely invisible.”
These limitations fuel new solutions, and several public policy recommendations are detailed in the report. Many of these suggestions urge improved data collection and access: namely, that law enforcement officials explain all applicable bias motivations in their hate crime reports to California’s Department of Justice. This way, researchers can better understand the scope and impact of those who are targeted by multiple biases.
The report’s authors are also supportive of the development of alternative options for reporting hate crimes because of the stigma and fear transgender and gender nonconforming people experience with law enforcement. Grasso points to CA vs. Hate, the California Civil Rights Department’s non-emergency resource and reporting hotline.
The local offshoot LA vs. Hate similarly provides a community-centered and non-law enforcement system that encourages Angelenos to report the hate crimes they experience and access various social services offered by grassroots organizations. This trust in community solutions also allows researchers to better comprehend and respond to increasing violence based on gender identity, as people are more willing to lean on these alternatives to share their stories.
Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
Riverside County
Yesterday, Palm Desert residents shut down Councilmember’s “hateful” proposal to remove City’s Pride Month resolution
Mayor Pro Tem Joe Pradetto motioned to remove the Pride flag from City Hall, stating that the government “should not be in the business of celebrating one group’s private identity over another’s.”
On Tuesday, Dec. 16th, a special city council meeting for Palm Desert, which rests in the Coachella Valley, opened up with a passionate public comment session that lasted for two hours. Resident after resident took to the podium, their voices tinged with outrage, to speak against recent moves made by Mayor Pro Tem Joe Pradetto to amend and rescind two City resolutions focused on diversity, inclusion, and LGBTQ+ pride.
These action items are outlined in a staff report that was prepared for yesterday’s special meeting. One included updating Resolution No. 2018-09, a formal statement that was adopted in 2018 to uphold the City’s commitment to nondiscriminatory policies. Pradetto motioned to edit a section of the resolution that initially focused on celebrating and learning from differences. He was in favor of changing this sentence to “the values that unite us” instead.
Pradetto also wanted to rescind Resolution No. 2024-038, which established for the City a policy related to LGBTQ+ Pride month commemorations last year. This includes the City’s issuing of a proclamation recognizing Pride Month and the displaying of a banner at City Hall in November, to coincide with local events like the neighboring Palm Springs Pride.
Pradetto claimed that the motivation for these motions came from “concerns…[about] unequal treatment” he received from community members about the Pride banner. After public comment concluded, Pradetto doubled down on his stance, stating that the government “should not be in the business of celebrating one group’s private identity over another’s.”
To this, queer residents like Bekz Lorton objected. “Actions like this proposal have given Palm Desert residents the power to treat us as less than human,” said Lorton, a programs manager at the LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert. “My existence is not a private identity, and I will not walk around in my hometown silenced, shunned or made invisible.”
Pradetto’s reframing of his motions to remove a resolution that promotes queer visibility as a step forward in inclusivity earned bitter laughs from the crowd. “Let the records show that today, Joe Pradetto took a stand for liberty, tolerance, and equality,” he stated, as attendants stared and guffawed in disbelief. Many argued that the sterile kind of “unity” he is trying to achieve is predicated on the alteration and removal of language and policies that explicitly protect the rights and visibility of marginalized community members.
“Recognizing one group does not prioritize a group over others, despite what you say,” resident Eugene Williams stated during public comment. “Recognition is not exclusion. Visibility is not favoritism. What that banner represented was safety, belonging and hope, especially for young people who are watching closely [as] to whether or not they matter in a place they call home.”
Towards the end of the meeting, Pradetto realized how outnumbered he was in his perspective and resolved that his motion would simply “die” without a seconding approval from the other councilmembers. To this, the crowd began to grow discontent. “Vote — don’t chicken out!” someone called out.
Councilmember Jan Harnik motioned to take no action on the resolutions, keeping their policies as they exist presently without any changes to how they are worded. The other councilmembers, including Gina Nestande, Karina Quintanilla, and Mayor Evan Trubee, voiced their unanimous support while Pradetto committed to his stance. He was the only “no” vote, and the motion passed to loud cheers and applause.
Resolutions No. 2018-09 and No. 2024-038 will remain as they are, in a victory bolstered by a great wave of community advocacy and support for queer identity. The win marks the continued importance of the Pride banner as a symbol for LGBTQ+ history, activism and resilience — one that will not be used to “score cheap political points by hurting others,” as stated by Palm Springs Pride in response to the situation.
Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
Los Angeles
Recent L.A. County report reveals record number of hate crimes against transgender and nonbinary community members
The county’s Commission on Human Relations (LACCHR) released its annual hate crime analysis, revealing a rising violence against LGBTQ+ Angelinos.
Last Thursday, Los Angeles County’s Commission on Human Relations (LACCHR) released its 2024 Hate Crime Report, which analyzes data compiled from over 100 reporting groups, including local law enforcement agencies, educational institutions, and community-based organizations like the TransLatin@ Coalition. In its 45-year history of compiling these reports, the LACCHR recorded an “unprecedented” amount of hate crimes in this most recent analysis.
The report states that there were 102 anti-transgender crimes, “the largest number ever documented in this report.” 95% of these reported incidents were violent.
Part of the reason for this increase in reported crimes is the expanding outreach LACCHR is trying to create with partner organizations, ensuring that queer community members feel increasingly safe in reporting crimes that have been committed against them. These “grassroots efforts” have proven invaluable in building community trust, according to Dr. Monica Lomeli, who leads the production of LACCHR’s annual hate crime report.
“For the LGBTQ community, [there’s] a history of not being heard, not being believed or being misgendered,” Lomeli told the Blade. “I remember us working with a lot of different law enforcement agencies [and] victims would tell us: ‘They keep misgendering me. They don’t believe me. They keep having me make different reports.”
Lomeli stresses that, for those who feel unsafe reporting hate crimes to law enforcement agents, there are other options. One of these pathways is the commission’s community-centered initiative and reporting system, LA vs Hate, which allows people to report hate crimes and access resources like multilingual reporting guides. There is also 211 LA, a program funded by the commission that provides free, confidential support in 140 languages.
The report is instrumental to the formation of initiatives focused on queer safety and is also a resource to various LGBTQ+ organizations as they track violence committed against their community members. But the collection of this data has not been smooth, especially in this current administration.
Lomeli explained that, earlier this year, the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reached out to various human rights organizations, including the LACCHR, and was aiming to gain access to and shut down the commission’s hate crime database. “There was an attempt to bring down our data,” said Lomeli, who described these attempts as an infringement on the general public’s ability to access the report’s findings.
Moving forward, the commission’s Network Against Hate Crime, which hosts quarterly meetings with leaders from law enforcement agencies, advocacy groups, educational institutions, and social services providers, will hold a briefing on the report and discuss collaborative solutions to support community members.
Lomeli hopes to bring LGBTQ+ issues to the “forefront” of one of these upcoming meetings, given the high number of hate crimes committed against queer community members that were highlighted in the report. LA vs Hate will also continue to host campaigns, marketing efforts, and awareness events to promote the equitable treatment and safe existence of queer and other marginalized Angelinos.
Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
California
Ricardo Lara, John Heilman inducted into Victory Institute’s Hall of Fame
Induction took place in D.C. on Saturday
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute on Saturday inducted California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and West Hollywood Vice Mayor John Heilman into its LGBTQ+ Political Hall of Fame.
The inductions took place during the Victory Institute’s annual International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference in D.C.
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, San Leandro Councilmember Victor Aguilar Jr., are among those who attended the conference. Evan Low, the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute’s president, served in the California State Assembly from 2014-2024.
Former state Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, former Assembly Speaker John Pérez, former state Sen. Christine Kehoe, former Palm Springs Mayor Ron Oden, Harvey Milk, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who was the state’s first openly gay elected official, and José Sarria, who ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961, have also been inducted.
West Hollywood
Administration refused to honor World AIDS Day; residents gathered with defiance, grief and love
Yesterday, members of the APLA Health Writers Group read moving stories to a large group of locals gathered at the AIDS monument.
On Monday, the federal administration did not honor World AIDS Day, for the first time since the international awareness day was created in 1988. In addition to significant funding cuts to organizations focusing on HIV preventative treatment and care, the government’s halting of this commemoration perpetuates a dismissive system of inaction against LGBTQ+ people.
And yet, over 50 community members filled the empty spaces of West Hollywood’s AIDS monument yesterday evening, waiting in the night chill as city officials delivered impassioned statements and writers from APLA Health read personal pieces that centered a grief and love for those lost to the epidemic.
Before the readings began last night, West Hollywood vice mayor John Heilman asked for residents to join him in a righteous rage against administrative apathy. “I want to ask us all to reflect for just a moment about all of the people we lost…I want us to reflect and get angry,” said Heilman. “We have a fucking president who won’t even recognize World AIDS Day.”
Irwin Rappaport, board chair for STORIES: the AIDS monument, echoed this immense disappointment. “Many of us here tonight lived through the 1980s, so we know what that’s like,” Rappaport said. “We also know that because of that neglect, because of that lack of caring from the federal government, we have to care for one another — and we know how to do that. When we don’t have recognition from others, we know how important it is to preserve our own history, to tell our own stories.”
Through heavy silence, five writers from APLA Health’s writers group stood tall before a podium and shared intimate writings they created about the epidemic and its personal impact on them. The collective was established in 1989 to provide an inclusive, expressive space for HIV-positive writers and allies to work on their writing and learn how to share their stories.
Writer Brian Sonia Wallace, who served as West Hollywood’s poet laureate from 2020 to 2023, has been working with the writers group for the last four years to help them hone and refine their narrative voices as they share their heaviest grief and the depths of their love for the people they lost to HIV and AIDS.
Hank Henderson, one of these writers, read from a diary entry from November 29, 1991. His voice, clear and strong, wavered as he shared about the death of his dear friend Richard. In a piece filled with lush, rich detail, painted clearly with a strong and loving voice, Henderson recounted a memory with Richard during the latter’s last years.
“The Santa Barbara sky is clear blue forever today…Yesterday came and went like a half-remembered dream between snooze alarms,” Henderson recited. “Last year, we walked to the beach. We spent hours there, played frisbee ourselves, brought the dog. Richard even yelled out 30-minute tanning turnover alarms. Yesterday, he took tiny, labored steps back to the car, used my shoulder to keep himself from falling over. Nobody said anything. We just pretend it’s normal.”
Another writer, Austin Nation, shared the story of being told he was HIV-positive at 26 years old. As a young nurse, he remembered the shock of seeing “young, beautiful men” arriving at the hospital covered in “purple, blotchy sores.” When he received his own test results, a paralyzing terror washed over his body. An incredulity followed the fear: why was this happening to him? “I got this thing for what?” Nation spoke. ”For having fun? For making love? And now it’s gonna cost me my life?”
But as he stood before the crowd, now 63 years old, he was met with applause and joy as he stated and repeated: “I’m still here. I’m still here.” The writers, in their grief and loss, have come to a place where they are able to share these stories, empowered and held. “In a world that writes off people with stories like mine,” Nation said. “It’s a hell of a good day to be alive.”
Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
West Hollywood
West Hollywood kicks off community-focused programming for World AIDS Day
Since 1988, queer communities have come together on Dec. 1st to honor siblings and allies lost to the AIDS epidemic.
Since 1988, LGBTQ+ communities have come together on Dec. 1st to commemorate queer siblings and allies lost to the AIDS epidemic. This year’s World AIDS Day follows the theme “Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response” and highlights the substantial funding cuts to research, health services, and community initiatives that have prioritized the safety of people with HIV and AIDS. The theme challenges people to think about “radical” ways to organize together and ensure that those who are impacted are able to access the care, treatment, and awareness that they need.
Beginning today, the City of West Hollywood is kicking off programming to recognize the historical transformation that local queer communities experienced during the AIDS epidemic. A panel from the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be available for viewing at the City’s Council Chambers at 625 N. San Vicente Boulevard through Monday, Dec. 15th.
Known as the largest community arts project in history, the Quilt is a powerful memorialization of loved ones who died during the epidemic. Each panel of the Quilt contains a story of remembrance, immortalizing a life cut short during the crisis. The project currently contains over 50,000 panels dedicated to over 110,000 people, all woven together in a 54-ton tapestry piece.
If you’re visiting the panel today, there will be an additional gathering opportunity tonight at the West Hollywood Park for STORIES: the AIDS Monument. From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., members from the HIV-positive writers collective APLA Health Writers Group will present intimate readings that reflect on their experiences. Community members will be allowed time to wander through the monument and also preview the new Herb Ritts: Allies & Icons exhibition at ONE Gallery after the program. The art show includes striking black and white portraits of activists who stood in alliance with those most impacted during the AIDS epidemic.
Additionally, fresh flowers will be placed on the bronze plaques that line the City’s AIDS Memorial Walk. During the AIDS epidemic, West Hollywood was at the center of a rampant grief and loss that juxtaposed vibrant programming and efforts that boosted healing and fought against stigma and violence. It continues to be a vibrant space that houses various organizations and memorial spots that continue to uphold the revolutionary history and advocacy work that has continued since the epidemic’s beginnings.
Today, West Hollywood is in the process of executing its HIV Zero Strategic Plan, an initiative that began in 2015. Its goals include: expanding healthcare access for people living with HIV and AIDS, reducing the rate of infections, lessening health disparities and inequities for those impacted, and slowing the disease’s progress from advancing to AIDS.
According to West Hollywood mayor Chelsea Byers at a recent Cityhood event, the initiative carries forth the City’s “bold vision” and commitment to ensuring marginalized community members living with HIV do not face the life-threatening discrimination and health barriers that their elders experienced.
To learn more about the City’s programming, read here.
Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
West Hollywood
Today, West Hollywood celebrates 41 years of queer cityhood
WeHo’s city officials are trying to preserve the fight for queer safety and rights that began decades before.
On Nov. 29th, 1984, West Hollywood was incorporated as an independent City, making its sovereignty official and solidifying it further as a sanctuary for LGBTQ+ community members, their stories, and their freedoms. Inspired by other prominent gay neighborhoods like New York’s West Village and San Francisco’s Castro District, West Hollywood was established by local queer advocates and residents. Their first city council was made up of a majority gay governing body — the first in the world, according to the West Hollywood History Center.
This political legacy, and the city’s vibrant and proudly queer history, continues to be preserved. On Monday’s celebratory event, West Hollywood mayor Chelsea Byers announced that the City’s current council “continues to be a majority-LGBTQ+ body,” holding tightly onto a “spirit” that reflects, prioritizes, and fights for Los Angeles’ queer community.
West Hollywood has been through various transformations, cocooning and revitalizing itself through the country’s evolving political and cultural upheavals. It has long been home to a ravishing nightlife that celebrates LGBTQ+ expression, and was a focal point for queer-led liberation and activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Trailblazers like Morris Kight led the first gay pride march through West Hollywood’s streets in 1970 and opened the Los Angeles LGBT Center to nourish the City’s robust and blossoming queer communities.
Today, West Hollywood continues to be the place where queer organizers and residents plant roots. Earlier this month, STORIES: the AIDS monument opened up in the City’s park after over a decade of work, shining a light on the legacies of gay activists, artists, historians, and community members who fought to survive as anti-gay stigma led to the erasure of their rights and lives.
As waves of anti-LGBTQ+ hate and violence continue to surge through the country, West Hollywood elected officials aim to continue doing the critical work that began decades before them: the work that protects the ability of queer residents to advocate for themselves, to live with protections and dignity, and to relish in joy. Mayor Byers is inspired by the resilience of the community members who stood together to establish this independent City in 1984. “The people who lived here…wanted a city with strong protections for renters, with progressive policies, and with a local government that would actually reflect and protect the people who call this place home,” said Byers, at the Nov. 24th celebration.
Over 40 years later, these needs have not changed. The way forward? Remembering and fighting for that initial promise and hope. “We are a chorus. We are a tapestry,” said Byers. “We are the product of thousands of people who, for more than four decades, have dared to say: We can build something better here.”
Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
Los Angeles
LGBTQ+ community calls out Radio Korea over host’s homophobic comments; station acknowledges but skirts accountability
On Nov. 3rd, Radio Korea host Julie An claimed that “gay people began the spread of AIDS” on a talk show broadcast by the station.
On Monday, Nov. 3rd, Radio Korea aired its regular morning talk show program, where one of its hosts, Julie An, discussed her lack of support for the LGBTQ+ community, citing her religious beliefs. She also went on to comment that gay people spread HIV and AIDS, and that conversation therapy — which has been linked to PTSD, suicidality, and depression — is a viable practice. Clips of this have since been taken down.
Radio Korea offers Korean language programming to engage local Korean American and Korean immigrant community members. Its reach is broad, as Los Angeles is home to the largest Korean population in the U.S, with over 300,000 residents. As An’s words echoed through the station’s airwaves, queer Korean community members took to social media to voice their concern, hurt, and anger.
In a now-deleted Instagram post, attorney, activist, and former congressional candidate David Yung Ho Kim demanded accountability from the station. Writer and entertainer Nathan Ramos-Park made videos calling out Radio Korea and An, stating that her comments “embolden” people with misinformation, which has the ability to perpetuate “violence against queer people.”
Community health professional Gavin Kwon also worries about how comments like An’s increase stigma within the Korean immigrant community, which could lead to increased discrimination against queer people and their willingness to seek health care.
Kwon, who works at a local clinic in Koreatown, told the Blade that comments like An’s prescribe being gay or queer as a “moral failure,” and that this commonly-held belief within the Korean immigrant community, particularly in older generations, strengthens the reticence and avoidance clients hold onto when asked about their gender or sexual orientation.
“When you stigmatize a group, people don’t avoid the disease — they avoid care,” Kwon explained. “They avoid getting tested, avoid disclosing their status, and avoid talking openly with providers. Stigma pushes people into silence, and silence is the worst possible environment for managing any infectious disease.”
For weeks, Radio Korea did not offer a direct response to the public criticism. Its Instagram feed continued to be updated with shorts, featuring clips of its various hosts — including An.
On Friday, Radio Korea CEO Michael Kim released an official statement on the station’s YouTube page. In this video, Kim stated that An’s comments “included factual inaccuracies” and that the station “does not endorse or share the personal opinions expressed by individual hosts.” Kim also stated that Radio Korea “welcomes members of the LGBT community to share their perspectives” in order to deepen understanding through dialogue.
Afterwards, Kim continued that though he acknowledges the “pain” felt by queer community members, he concluded: “I don’t think Radio Korea needs to apologize for what was said any more than Netflix should apologize for what Dave Chappelle says, or any more than Instagram or TikTok should apologize for what people say on their platforms.”
Kim then offered a justification that An’s statements were “not part of a news report,” and that he was “disappointed” that David Yung Ho Kim, specifically, had been vocal about An’s comments. Kim stated that he was the first person to interview David in 2020 during his congressional campaign, and that he had provided the candidate a platform and opportunity to educate listeners about politics.
“After all these years, the support Radio Korea has given him,” said Kim, “the support I personally gave him, even the support from other Radio Korea members who donated or even volunteered for him — he dishonestly tried to portray Radio Korea as being an anti-gay organization.”
Kim went on to criticize David’s purported “hurry to condemn others,” and also questioned if David has disowned his father, who he states is a pastor. “What kind of person is David Kim, and is this the kind of person we want in Congress?” Kim asked viewers, noting that Koreatown is “only about three miles from Hollywood, and some people just like to perform.”
At the end of the video, Kim stated that his duty is to guard the legacy of the station. “My responsibility is to protect what was built before me and ensure that Radio Korea continues serving this community long after today’s momentary controversies disappear,” Kim said.
For community members and advocates, this response was unsatisfactory. “The overall tone of the statement felt more defensive than accountable,” Kwon wrote to the Blade. “Instead of a sincere apology to the LGBTQ+ community that was harmed, the message shifts into personal grievances, political dynamics, and side explanations that don’t belong in an official response.”
Kim’s portrayal of the criticism and calls to action by community members as a “momentary controversy” paints a clearer picture of the station’s stance — that the hurt felt and expressed by its queer community members is something that will simply pass until it is forgotten. An continues to be platformed at Radio Korea, and was posted on the station’s social media channels as recently as yesterday. The station has not outlined any other action since Kim’s statement.
Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
Los Angeles
Forgetting queer pioneer Morris Kight is “impossible”: Advocates and friends share stories at remembrance
On Saturday, Nov. 22nd, Kight’s ashes were interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Over 50 people made their way to the rooftop chapel at Hollywood Forever Cemetery’s Gower Mausoleum on Saturday afternoon, taking in sweeping views of the city as a gentle wind began to envelop the space — a wind that some thought signaled the presence of Morris Kight. Hosted by local nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), this reception provided longtime friends, fellow activists, and anyone else impacted by Kight’s legacy with the opportunity to share some of their most memorable stories about the LGBTQ+ vanguard.
Kight died on January 19, 2003, after decades of leading peaceful, bold, and outspoken action against oppressive systems that targeted marginalized communities. As Congresswoman Maxine Waters declared at the remembrance event: “You have to be a hell of somebody to be memorialized 22 years after.”
Kight co-founded the Los Angeles LGBT Center in 1969, first known as the Gay Community Services Center, where so many queer youth and adults found the courage and empowerment to seek education, resources, and comfort. It became the place where they could fully embrace themselves.
At 19, AHF president Michael Weinstein found himself at the front steps of the Center, afraid but compelled. This is where his and Kight’s lives would intertwine, setting him on his own path of liberatory leadership. This first encounter and relationship “cemented” his identity, Weinstein told the crowd, after an arduous search for belonging and internal understanding.
The impact Kight had on Weinstein and innumerable other queer folks was not just a consequence of his work, but the purpose for it all. “We were his payment. We were his reward,” said Miki Jackson, Kight’s longtime friend and another instrumental voice in early LGBTQ+ movements. “Morris cared that we were loud enough, we were out enough, we were visible enough that a child in Kansas in elementary school would know about it. He cared about where people were wounded the most.”
Kight projected his voice in hopes it would reach those who were silenced, becoming the face of several important movements, including the Gay Liberation Front. He raised money for people with AIDS, co-founded the Stonewall Democratic Club, and pushed for L.A.’s first pride parade in 1970 — unabashedly fighting for the visibility of LGBTQ+ people as they were met with societal violence and rejection.
“The idea of forgetting a Morris Kight is basically impossible,” said Terry DeCrescenzo, one of the founders of the Gay Academic Union. She recounted fond memories with Kight, including a story tied with her roots of protesting. Together, they blocked the streets of Sunset and Larrabee and sang the civil rights anthem “We shall overcome.” At first, DeCrescenzo was in disbelief. “I thought, ‘I went to Catholic school for 17 years to sit on the sidewalk singing We shall overcome?’ And the answer is yes. He showed me a way of doing things — of approaching life — that I didn’t dream I was capable of. So I thank you, Morris. I love you. I miss you.”
Kight’s ashes have been officially interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, granting him a final resting place. In life, he built sites of belonging for queer people, and today, this ground joins a tender catalog of spaces that contains a trace of what his loved ones hope he is remembered for: the fierce kindness with which he led his life. His endless stories. His desire to be with and fight for the people he loved.
Saturday’s remembrance event also offered a moment of deep reflection for the future of local queer activism. “We’re what we have left,” said Jackson, a queer elder who marched alongside Kight in the country’s early days of LGBTQ+ protesting — and who paved a path for younger advocates like Congressman and Equality Caucus Chair Mark Takano to continue the fight. “May we honor Morris by carrying his fire forward until every LGBTQ+ person in this country can live safely, open and unafraid,” said Takano.
Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation will celebrate its legacy of food relief at the New Year’s Rose Parade
This gay author sees dead people
The hazards of hating ‘Heated Rivalry’
Long-awaited ‘Pillion’ surpasses the sexy buzz
