Melissa Sklarz Dives into Queens Race
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | For the past several decades, Melissa Sklarz has amassed a wide-ranging portfolio in local LGBTQ and Democratic activism. An out transgender woman, Sklarz served on the Police Commissioner’s LGBT Advisory Committee that established standards for police interactions with the trans community; she’s been a co-president of the Stonewall Democratic Club of New […]
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum Fêted for 25 Years of Leadership
PHOTO ESSAY BY DONNA ACETO | In a benefit evening of speeches, musical performances, and a reception, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the city’s LGBTQ synagogue that is also the world’s largest, celebrated 25 years of spiritual leadership under Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum. The highlight of the evening, which raised funds to complete the capital campaign that allowed […]
Trans Day of Remembrance Downtown
PHOTO ESSAY BY DONNA ACETO | As Transgender Awareness Week came to a close on Monday, November 20, Transgender Day of Remembrance was solemnly marked in several locations in Lower Manhattan. At Christopher Park, the site of the Stonewall National Monument, the Transgender Flag took its place alongside the Rainbow, American, and NYC Parks Flags — […]
Cuomo LGBT Memorial Pick Draws Praise, Fire
BY ANDY HUMM | Monuments to cataclysm — from the Vietnam War Memorial wall in Washington bearing the names of tens of thousands of American soldiers killed in that divisive US “police action” to the 9/11 Memorial waterfalls marking the site of the obliterated World Trade Center towers and the thousands who perished that day — […]
Council Honors Six LGBT Leaders at Pride
PHOTO ESSAY BY DONNA ACETO | At a June 8 celebration at City Hall, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and the seven-member LGBT caucus honored six leaders in New York’s LGBT community. The honorees were Jennifer Flynn Walker, a co-founder and longtime leader at Voices of Community Activists & Leaders (VOCAL-NY), Charles Rice-Gonzalez, an author and the […]
2016 Gay City News Impact Award Honorees
Stuart Appelbaum: A Gay Voice in American Labor’s Top Ranks The president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a post he has held since 1998, Stuart Appelbaum is one of the most influential out gay people in the American labor movement. Chartered in 1937 as an affiliate of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, […]
After ESPA, Picking Up the Pieces of Our Agenda
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | Reaction to the Empire State Pride Agenda’s stunning December 12 announcement that it was folding up its tent is comparable to the way people talk about the weather. Everybody complained about it, but the big question is what can be done about it. A number of people who have spoken to Gay […]
ESPA Leadership Pushes Back on Charge They’ve Declared “Mission Accomplished”
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | In the face of shock, chagrin, and some withering criticism both on social media and from past executive directors, top staff and board members at the Empire State Pride Agenda pushed back against the notion they had declared “Mission Accomplished” in their December 12 announcement that they were winding down major operations […]
Citing Win on Cuomo’s Trans Rights Directive, Pride Agenda Folds Up Tent
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | Citing its success in winning new state regulations protecting transgender New Yorkers from discrimination, the Empire State Pride Agenda has announced it will close down major operations in early 2016. In a press release issued on the evening of December 12, the organization indicated that it hoped to maintain a political […]
Andy Warhol “Superstar” Holly Woodlawn Dead at 69
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | Holly Woodlawn, one among the bright firmament of “superstars” created in Andy Warhol’s Factory that in ‘60s and ‘70s Manhattan produced experimental films and other performance art, died of cancer-related causes in Los Angeles on December 6. The Puerto Rican-born transgender actress and cabaret singer was 69. Woodlawn won wide attention […]
