
GAY SHAME AWARDS 2002 -- HARVEY MILK PLAZA The Nominees Best Target Marketing: Gay Pride has become little more than a giant opportunity for corporations to target market to gay consumers. Gay Pride should be about celebrating our diverse sexual identities, instead of an endless, gated procession of corporate banners. We nominate the pride parade for equating our identities with our corporate loyalty, robbing us of our creativity and individuality in the process. The Gay Monopoly: Out Magazine, The Advocate, Alyson Publications, and Planet Out. We nominate the Gay monopoly for consistently marketing our identities to the highest bidder. We appreciate these publications for consistently affirming straight celebrities’ sexualities and feeding us pre-packaged name brand identities. GLAAD pretends it wants to advance the images of queer people in the media, but they shill for any company that advertises in the gay press, regardless of its product or its politics. The GLAAD Media Awards are sponsored in part by Coors, a huge supporter of right-wing causes. And, once again, as partial repayment for thousands of dollars of tobacco industry money, GLAAD has arranged for Brown & Williamson (makers of Lucky Strike) to provide a smoking lounge at the awards. Thank you, GLAAD, for helping the reactionary death merchants join our community! Best Gender Fundamentalism: Golden gate Peace Officers Association has refused to sign the Law Enforcement Pledge for Transgender Human Rights. You would think at least the gay cops would acknowledge law enforcement’s long history of abuse towards the trans community. Law enforcement personnel are the offenders for 50% of reports of violence and harassment that CUAV receives from the trans community. Thank you and Happy Stonewall. Carl’s Jr UN Plaza has a policy of harassment when it comes to dealing with transgender and transsexual people, not to mention disabled people, homeless people, people of color, and people without money. They have repeatedly denied trans people their legal right to use the bathroom. We nominate Carl’s Jr. on behalf of all segregated public toilets. Michigan’s Women’s Music Festival doesn’t let trannies in. We nominate them for not honoring transgender identities and for promoting outdated definitions of womanhood. Best Racist-Ass White Only Space: The Northwest Bernal Alliance: We would like to thank the Northwest Bernal alliance (recreation and parks association) especially Jaime Ross, for their support and creation of a racist police state in the mission. The alliance is a group of homeowners from Bernal Heights that have a lot of extra time on their hands to fuck with people of color, day laborers and sex workers. The alliance and their members are openly working with the police in the mission to harass and arrest the day laborers on Cesar Chavez St. Most recently they can be thanked for their instrumental role in a coalition spearheaded by the dept of public works that violently kicked out the homeless encampment from under the highway overpass by Bayshore blvd. The Nob Hill Theatre: We nominate the Nob Hill theatre for racial profiling. “Twice they wrongly accused me of stealing a wallet from patrons I went into a booth with, when I had gone into the booth to jack-off alone. They said they had me on tape but they wouldn’t show me, they kicked me out because they said that they reserved the right to refuse service.” San Francisco: This racist-ass bullshit white only city…….. that look at all people of color crazy like we gonna kill em or some shit and all you racist motherfuckers on that eugenics shit ‘cause I ain’t crazy or for sale trying to be no shiny vibe magazine nigga I’m deep and I’m beautiful. Fuck ya’ll. The IN Award (Celebrities Who Should Never Have Come Out of the Closet): Rosie O’Donnell. After years of fiercely denying she’s a lesbian and professing crushes on numerous straight celebrities, Rosie finally came out—right as her talk show ended, and just in time to sell her new autobiography. We don’t need America’s favorite whitebread closet case as our gay role model. Pim Fortuyn, The Gay racist Dutch legislator who argued for a halt to all immigration into the Netherlands. Oops—He got shot. George Michael only came out after getting caught having sex in a public toilet, and the resulting media scandal made it impossible for her to continue her manly image. Handcuffs brought her out—what a hero. Legends Award (Straight Allies for Reactionary Gays): George W. Bush: We’d like to propose a toast to the ruler of the empire and to all of our fallen gay comrades that blindly support him, waving their flags. The war on terrorism, or should we say the re-colonization of the world must stop. Gavin Newsom believes that homeless people are a disease. His cure is the criminalization of homelessness. He plans to use this as a campaign issue to become SF’s next reactionary mayor, cleaning the streets and making SF safer for tourists rather than helping the people who live here. Dr. Laura. We nominate the Queen of Hate Radio for calling us "products of a biological disorder.” Dr. Laura is a joke. A sick joke that spreads a message of hate and insulting stupidity to an audience of millions. We thank you on behalf of the young people that grow up in the shit you spread and anyone who has ever been the target of anti-gay violence. Helping Right-wingers Cope This award goes to the most beautifully hypocritical individuals who cater to the many needs of the right wing. Through their transphobia, white domination, and anti-gay policies, these nominees have made our lifestyles more palatable to the discreet taste of conservatism. Congratulations! You have pushed us one step more towards being in the club. Mary Cheney: The fabulous daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney has served our community by acting as a liaison between the Gay and Lesbian Community and none other than Coors, one of the most right wing corporations serving our nation. Now gays and lesbians can be target marketed by another amazing product: the far right agenda. Human Rights Campaign: Congratulations to the largest gay and lesbian civil rights organization run exclusively by upper class white homosexuals! By lobbying to pass gay rights legislation while leaving transgendered individuals out of the equation, assimilationist gays have been able to maintain a wonderfully uncontroversial public image! Their endorsement of the anti-choice Republican Al D’Amato in NY, and their equation of gay rights with military inclusion and marriage further helps this pioneering agenda. Bob Ross, Editor of BAR: Thank you Bob Ross for continually staying away from progressive endorsements. Your support of Willie Brown over Tom Ammiano has obviously gone a long way for everyone. Furthermore, all of those marginalized by San Francisco’s housing situation give you props for your stance against tenant’s rights. Exploiting Our Youth: Bel Ami. With the help of US imperialism, Bel Ami makes young fresh eastern European buys cheaper than ever. Why fly all the way to Thailand when you can find masculine, poverty-stricken white boys with foreskin so much close to home. Aren’t we proud of our gay porn companies for their pioneering entrepreneurship in the new third world.? XY Magazine: Presents a picture of vapid brainless young white boys (but they’re so cute.) XY provides endless jerk-off material for the senior set. What a way to empower our youth. Castro Residents who Fought Against the Construction of the ARK Shelter for Queer Youth. We nominate them for being more invested in their neighborhood image and their property values than the futures of queer youth. Making More Queers Homeless: Gentrification and displacement are nothing new to our queer community. Harvey Milk was evicted from his combination camera store and apartment in the 500 block of Castro in 1978 when his rent skyrocketed from $400 a month to $1,200. In the late 70s speculators found the Castro a perfect place to do their slimy work, pushing rents up on the once-cheap Victorians and forcing out lower-income queers. The so-called Mecca for queers suddenly became fertile ground for realtors to make big profits--and big profits they made. The same scenario was repeated during the dot-com boom of the mid-90s, as landlords evicted people with AIDS and others to make way for higher-income tenants and condo buyers. Many people with AIDS became homeless. By 2000, the San Jose Mercury News was reporting that 20% of PWAs in SF were homeless. There was no outcry when this story ran. No one seemed to care anymore. Perhaps they were too busy shopping at Nieman Marcus or the Pottery Barn. When activists in the Castro mobilized to provide shelter for homeless queer youth, victims of the dot-com invasion and the spiraling rents, neighbors organized to oppose the plan. Despite their continued opposition, a long-term facility opened right here at Castro and Market over a year ago. Similar opposition developed over a free meals program at MCC. When did being queer mean not supporting our homeless brothers and sisters? When did it mean denying hungry folks a meal because the presence of a food program might bring down property values? Something's rotten in the Castro. It's called gentrification. It's called property values over human values; it's about making money at any cost. It's about getting mine and screwing everyone else. The three nominees for this award exemplify these new values of the Castro…: Pottery Barn is not a small business. It is not owned by pop and pop or even mom and mom. It is corporate America. And it wants our dollars. A few years ago it would have gone bankrupt rather than associate with queers, but now we have disposable incomes and the Pottery Barn moves into the Castro, in fact right at Castro and Market, gateway of our world-famous queer neighborhood. Pottery Barn like beer and liquor companies and many other big corporations want our queer dollars. But with the Pottery Barn comes higher property values in the Castro and higher rents for smaller merchants, the backbone of any neighborhood, who will be forced out. Thanks, Pottery Barn, for helping to gentrify our neighborhood. Zephyr Realty--what can one say about a gay-owned realty company that advises its members on how to get rid of their tenants so that they can make 20% more on the sale of their buildings? Even when those tenants are seniors, people with AIDS and low-income folks. Even in the midst of the dot-com boom when rents were so high that a person's only choice after losing their rent-controlled apartment was to leave SF or live on the streets. Thanks, Zephyr, for evicting our community for over 20 years and getting rid of those pesky people with AIDS, seniors, and low-income folks. We'll look for your contingent in the pride parade and cheer you on. Maybe you'll evict us next so we can move into a nice spot under the bridge; after all, as Mayor Willie Brown once reminded us, if you can't afford to live in SF you shouldn't be here. HOPE. What a concept. Realtors offering tenants the Trojan horse of homeownership when what they're really selling is loss of rent control, higher rents for everyone, displacement of lower-income tenants and condos by the thousands! Just what SF needs--more unaffordable housing and more people forced out of their homes. Promoted by Supervisor Tony Hall, who opposed medical benefits for trangender City employees, this proposal is backed by homeless-bashing Gavin Newsom, realtors, landlords and guess what? NO TENANT ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORT IT. HOPE is bad for queers, it will displace more low-income queers, more PWAs, more transgender folks. HOPE is a HOAX! A similar Santa Monica pilot project resulted in 92% of tenants in buildings that converted being DISPLACED, they did NOT become homeowners. But realtors and landlords made a killing. And isn't that what America is all about? Rah, rah, rah, rally around the rainbow flag, boys and girls... \| Top \|

GAY SHAME AWARDS 2002 -- HARVEY MILK PLAZA

The Nominees

Best Target Marketing:

Gay Pride has become little more than a giant opportunity for corporations to target market to gay consumers. Gay Pride should be about celebrating our diverse sexual identities, instead of an endless, gated procession of corporate banners. We nominate the pride parade for equating our identities with our corporate loyalty, robbing us of our creativity and individuality in the process.

The Gay Monopoly: Out Magazine, The Advocate, Alyson Publications, and Planet Out. We nominate the Gay monopoly for consistently marketing our identities to the highest bidder. We appreciate these publications for consistently affirming straight celebrities’ sexualities and feeding us pre-packaged name brand identities.

GLAAD pretends it wants to advance the images of queer people in the media, but they shill for any company that advertises in the gay press, regardless of its product or its politics. The GLAAD Media Awards are sponsored in part by Coors, a huge supporter of right-wing causes. And, once again, as partial repayment for thousands of dollars of tobacco industry money, GLAAD has arranged for Brown & Williamson (makers of Lucky Strike) to provide a smoking lounge at the awards. Thank you, GLAAD, for helping the reactionary death merchants join our community!

Best Gender Fundamentalism:

Golden gate Peace Officers Association has refused to sign the Law Enforcement Pledge for Transgender Human Rights. You would think at least the gay cops would acknowledge law enforcement’s long history of abuse towards the trans community. Law enforcement personnel are the offenders for 50% of reports of violence and harassment that CUAV receives from the trans community. Thank you and Happy Stonewall.

Carl’s Jr UN Plaza has a policy of harassment when it comes to dealing with transgender and transsexual people, not to mention disabled people, homeless people, people of color, and people without money. They have repeatedly denied trans people their legal right to use the bathroom. We nominate Carl’s Jr. on behalf of all segregated public toilets.

Michigan’s Women’s Music Festival doesn’t let trannies in. We nominate them for not honoring transgender identities and for promoting outdated definitions of womanhood.

Best Racist-Ass White Only Space:

The Northwest Bernal Alliance: We would like to thank the Northwest Bernal alliance (recreation and parks association) especially Jaime Ross, for their support and creation of a racist police state in the mission. The alliance is a group of homeowners from Bernal Heights that have a lot of extra time on their hands to fuck with people of color, day laborers and sex workers. The alliance and their members are openly working with the police in the mission to harass and arrest the day laborers on Cesar Chavez St. Most recently they can be thanked for their instrumental role in a coalition spearheaded by the dept of public works that violently kicked out the homeless encampment from under the highway overpass by Bayshore blvd.

The Nob Hill Theatre: We nominate the Nob Hill theatre for racial profiling. “Twice they wrongly accused me of stealing a wallet from patrons I went into a booth with, when I had gone into the booth to jack-off alone. They said they had me on tape but they wouldn’t show me, they kicked me out because they said that they reserved the right to refuse service.”

San Francisco: This racist-ass bullshit white only city…….. that look at all people of color crazy like we gonna kill em or some shit and all you racist motherfuckers on that eugenics shit ‘cause I ain’t crazy or for sale trying to be no shiny vibe magazine nigga I’m deep and I’m beautiful. Fuck ya’ll.

The IN Award (Celebrities Who Should Never Have Come Out of the Closet):

Rosie O’Donnell. After years of fiercely denying she’s a lesbian and professing crushes on numerous straight celebrities, Rosie finally came out—right as her talk show ended, and just in time to sell her new autobiography. We don’t need America’s favorite whitebread closet case as our gay role model.

Pim Fortuyn, The Gay racist Dutch legislator who argued for a halt to all immigration into the Netherlands. Oops—He got shot.

George Michael only came out after getting caught having sex in a public toilet, and the resulting media scandal made it impossible for her to continue her manly image. Handcuffs brought her out—what a hero.

Legends Award (Straight Allies for Reactionary Gays):

George W. Bush: We’d like to propose a toast to the ruler of the empire and to all of our fallen gay comrades that blindly support him, waving their flags. The war on terrorism, or should we say the re-colonization of the world must stop.

Gavin Newsom believes that homeless people are a disease. His cure is the criminalization of homelessness. He plans to use this as a campaign issue to become SF’s next reactionary mayor, cleaning the streets and making SF safer for tourists rather than helping the people who live here.

Dr. Laura. We nominate the Queen of Hate Radio for calling us "products of a biological disorder.” Dr. Laura is a joke. A sick joke that spreads a message of hate and insulting stupidity to an audience of millions. We thank you on behalf of the young people that grow up in the shit you spread and anyone who has ever been the target of anti-gay violence.

Helping Right-wingers Cope

This award goes to the most beautifully hypocritical individuals who cater to the many needs of the right wing. Through their transphobia, white domination, and anti-gay policies, these nominees have made our lifestyles more palatable to the discreet taste of conservatism. Congratulations! You have pushed us one step more towards being in the club.

Mary Cheney: The fabulous daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney has served our community by acting as a liaison between the Gay and Lesbian Community and none other than Coors, one of the most right wing corporations serving our nation. Now gays and lesbians can be target marketed by another amazing product: the far right agenda.

Human Rights Campaign: Congratulations to the largest gay and lesbian civil rights organization run exclusively by upper class white homosexuals! By lobbying to pass gay rights legislation while leaving transgendered individuals out of the equation, assimilationist gays have been able to maintain a wonderfully uncontroversial public image! Their endorsement of the anti-choice Republican Al D’Amato in NY, and their equation of gay rights with military inclusion and marriage further helps this pioneering agenda.

Bob Ross, Editor of BAR: Thank you Bob Ross for continually staying away from progressive endorsements. Your support of Willie Brown over Tom Ammiano has obviously gone a long way for everyone. Furthermore, all of those marginalized by San Francisco’s housing situation give you props for your stance against tenant’s rights.

Exploiting Our Youth:

Bel Ami. With the help of US imperialism, Bel Ami makes young fresh eastern European buys cheaper than ever. Why fly all the way to Thailand when you can find masculine, poverty-stricken white boys with foreskin so much close to home. Aren’t we proud of our gay porn companies for their pioneering entrepreneurship in the new third world.?

XY Magazine: Presents a picture of vapid brainless young white boys (but they’re so cute.) XY provides endless jerk-off material for the senior set. What a way to empower our youth.

Castro Residents who Fought Against the Construction of the ARK Shelter for Queer Youth. We nominate them for being more invested in their neighborhood image and their property values than the futures of queer youth.

Making More Queers Homeless:

Gentrification and displacement are nothing new to our queer community.

Harvey Milk was evicted from his combination camera store and apartment in the 500 block of Castro in 1978 when his rent skyrocketed from $400 a month to $1,200. In the late 70s speculators found the Castro a perfect place to do their slimy work, pushing rents up on the once-cheap Victorians and forcing out lower-income queers. The so-called Mecca for queers suddenly became fertile ground for realtors to make big profits--and big profits they made. The same scenario was repeated during the dot-com boom of the mid-90s, as landlords evicted people with AIDS and others to make way for higher-income tenants and condo buyers. Many people with AIDS became homeless. By 2000, the San Jose Mercury News was reporting that 20% of PWAs in SF were homeless. There was no outcry when this story ran. No one seemed to care anymore. Perhaps they were too busy shopping at Nieman Marcus or the Pottery Barn. When activists in the Castro mobilized to provide shelter for homeless queer youth, victims of the dot-com invasion and the spiraling rents, neighbors organized to oppose the plan. Despite their continued opposition, a long-term facility opened right here at Castro and Market over a year ago. Similar opposition developed over a free meals program at MCC. When did being queer mean not supporting our homeless brothers and sisters? When did it mean denying hungry folks a meal because the presence of a food program might bring down property values? Something's rotten in the Castro. It's called gentrification. It's called property values over human values; it's about making money at any cost. It's about getting mine and screwing everyone else. The three nominees for this award exemplify these new values of the Castro…:

Pottery Barn is not a small business. It is not owned by pop and pop or even mom and mom. It is corporate America. And it wants our dollars. A few years ago it would have gone bankrupt rather than associate with queers, but now we have disposable incomes and the Pottery Barn moves into the Castro, in fact right at Castro and Market, gateway of our world-famous queer neighborhood. Pottery Barn like beer and liquor companies and many other big corporations want our queer dollars. But with the Pottery Barn comes higher property values in the Castro and higher rents for smaller merchants, the backbone of any neighborhood, who will be forced out. Thanks, Pottery Barn, for helping to gentrify our neighborhood.

Zephyr Realty--what can one say about a gay-owned realty company that advises its members on how to get rid of their tenants so that they can make 20% more on the sale of their buildings? Even when those tenants are seniors, people with AIDS and low-income folks. Even in the midst of the dot-com boom when rents were so high that a person's only choice after losing their rent-controlled apartment was to leave SF or live on the streets. Thanks, Zephyr, for evicting our community for over 20 years and getting rid of those pesky people with AIDS, seniors, and low-income folks. We'll look for your contingent in the pride parade and cheer you on. Maybe you'll evict us next so we can move into a nice spot under the bridge; after all, as Mayor Willie Brown once reminded us, if you can't afford to live in SF you shouldn't be here.

HOPE. What a concept. Realtors offering tenants the Trojan horse of homeownership when what they're really selling is loss of rent control, higher rents for everyone, displacement of lower-income tenants and condos by the thousands! Just what SF needs--more unaffordable housing and more people forced out of their homes. Promoted by Supervisor Tony Hall, who opposed medical benefits for trangender City employees, this proposal is backed by homeless-bashing Gavin Newsom, realtors, landlords and guess what? NO TENANT ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORT IT. HOPE is bad for queers, it will displace more low-income queers, more PWAs, more transgender folks. HOPE is a HOAX! A similar Santa Monica pilot project resulted in 92% of tenants in buildings that converted being DISPLACED, they did NOT become homeowners. But realtors and landlords made a killing. And isn't that what America is all about? Rah, rah, rah, rally around the rainbow flag, boys and girls...

| Top |