This Day In Gay Utah History October 14

October 14th

1896 Provo 4^th District Court Yesterday in the Fourth District Court the case of the state of Utah versus Frank Merrill, Patsy Colvey, and James Owens came on for hearing.  The defendants are charged with a crime against nature committed upon the person of one Thomas H Clark a boy about 18 years of age near Spanish Fork.  The boy testified as to the circumstances of the offenses and circumstances tending to collaborate the statements of the boy were testified to by Dr. Allen of Provo and Dr. Warner of Spanish Fork. The defendants called in defense eight or ten of the tramps who were present at the time the crime is alleged to have taken place and they all testified that they saw nothing of the kind take place. Deseret News The Juvenile and the Tramp 1923 Nels Anderson  "Concerning sexual inversion [homosexuality] among tramps, there is a great deal to be said, and I cannot attempt to tell all I have heard about it, but merely to give a general account of the matter. Every hobo in the United States knows what "unnatural intercourse" means, talking about it freely, and, according to my finding, every tenth man practises it, and defends his conduct." Josiah Flynt

• A Dictionary of Old Hobo Slang from the 19th and 20th Century Drag: - a homosexual party, Fagot or fag : A road kid with homosexual tendencies. Gay cat:  A slang term for a tramp or hobo who is new to the road, commonly in the company of older tramps, implying a homosexual relationship. The term dates to at least the 1890's. Jocker: - A hobo who goes about with a road kid or punk.  A road kid's teacher and companion, the relationship is often sexual.

1913 Mike Lasko, a local transient, files a complaint against John Oscor for having sex with him in Salt Lake City, Utah. Oscor is sent to prison for sodomy.

1957 Monday- In an effort to stem an “alarming increase” in cases involving homosexuals, Salt Lake City Judge Marcellus K. Snow plans “more use of the jail sentence to curb such offenses.”  The judge explained that certain places in the city are widely known as “Mecca’s for sexually maladjusted persons.”  A recent case bore out the judge’s statement.  A vice squad officer arrested an Aberdeen, Idaho man who said he had been told in Spokane, Washington of a downtown Salt Lake theater (State Theater) and tavern (Radio City Lounge) used as a rendezvous for homosexuals. In recent months vice squadders have nabbed a half dozen men from 21 to 57 who attempted indecent liberties with an under cover agent as he sat in the theater. Judge Snow said his action was intended to prevent sexually maladjusted persons from “proselytizing our youth”.  The court is attempting more use of the jail sentence to curb continuing practices already in the city and keep others from coming here.”  He said he would issue six months jail sentences unless circumstances indicated otherwise with a suspension of the sentence on condition the defendant leave the city for six months. “If he returns within that time,” the judge said, “He will be subject to arrest in the city on sight.”  Judge Snow said he would retain jurisdiction in all cases to permit closer supervision and in event the defendant requested psychiatric treatment. (SLTribune 10/14/57 Page 20 Col. 2)

• Marcellus K Snow great grandson of Mormon Apostle Erastus Snow

1971 Thursday Moratorium Gatherings Mostly Small- Where many thousands have rallied in the past relatively small crowds turned out this year to observe Moratorium Day and speak out against the war in Indo-China. At many of Wednesday’s demonstrations concern also focused on the wage-price freeze, voter registration, prison reform, and gay liberation. There were no huge campus or big city gatherings as in recent years. Most events were peaceful and subdued.Deseret News 2A Associated Press 

1979 The first March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights was held, attracting 50,000-100,000 participants. No official representatives from Utah attended the March. Marking the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall riots and coming in the wake of the lenient jail sentence given to Dan White for the assassination of openly gay San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, the First National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights on October 14, 1979 was an historic event that drew more than 100,000 people from across the United States and ten other countries.  National lesbian and gay groups were initially reluctant to support the 1979 march, fearing that such a public display would not attract many people or, if it did, that it would generate a right-wing backlash similar to Anita Bryant's 1977 "Save Our Children" campaign. But these concerns proved to be unwarranted, as the march helped solidify a national lesbian and gay rights movement. The march also featured the first National Third World Gay and Lesbian Conference, which was attended by hundreds of people of color and was convened by the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, an organization that had been organized the previous year by Delores Berry and Billy Jones. The 1979 march was conceived largely by a cadre of maverick gay Americans who had stronger ties to left-leaning progressive causes than to the established national gay groups of that period, according to some of the organizers and participants. “None of the established

groups wanted anything to do with [the march] until it became clear it was going to happen and it had widespread support from local communities across the country,” said veteran lesbian activist Robin Tyler of Los Angeles, who was among the earliest advocates of the 1979 protest. Among the speakers were poets Allen Ginsberg and Audre Lorde, feminist activist and writer Kate Millett, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt, ousted gay U.S. Army Sgt. Leonard Mattlovich, and U.S. Rep. Ted Weiss, the chief sponsor of a House gay rights bill. “You were just amazed and astounded to see so many of our own people in one place,” said D.C. lesbian photographer and filmmaker Joan E. Biren, who publishes her photos under the name JEB. “I was very publicly out, but there were not too many others who were,” Biren said. “The triumph of the 1979 march was that so many people did come out. To me, the importance was we were going to be a political force. This was the most visible we had ever been.” Getting on board-Veteran D.C. gay activist Frank Kameny, who initially opposed the march, said he, too, was converted to the ranks of supporters when he became convinced the event would attract a relatively large crowd. Kameny is credited with being one of the gay movement’s founding fathers for his role as a movement strategist and organizer in the late 1950s. He said his biggest fear was that a small turnout for a national gay march would make

the gay movement look weak and insignificant. “I stood on Pennsylvania Avenue and congratulated Steve Ault,” said Kameny, referring to one of the lead organizers of the 1979 march.. -Little effect on Carter- Most organizers of the march considered the widespread coverage of the march in the mainline news media to be favorable. Network television news programs and newspapers across the country gave it extensive coverage. But other activists, including Tyler, acknowledged that the Oct. 14, 1979, march had little impact on Congress and the administration of President Jimmy Carter, who declined to support gay rights legislation. Tyler and a number of D.C. activists who attended conferences in Philadelphia and Houston, which were called to plan the march, said the behind-the-scenes deliberations and the widespread participation by activists in these conferences

appeared to have an important impact on the gay movement.  Up until that time, most gay rights initiatives, including efforts to persuade government policy makers to pass gay rights laws, were set by established groups. The then National Gay Task Force and the Gay Rights National Lobby were the two leading national groups working on gay issues, with the task force located in New York City and GRNL in Washington, D.C.

1980 Argued Oct. 14, 1980. Decided Nov. 24, 1980 Howard P. Johnson, Salt Lake City, Utah, for plaintiff-appellant. Lawrence J. Leigh, Asst. U. S. Atty., Salt Lake City, Utah (Ronald L. Rencher, U. S. Atty., and James R. Holbrook, Asst. U. S. Atty., D. Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, on the brief), for defendant-appellee. Before SETH, Chief Judge, and BREITENSTEIN and BARRETT, Circuit Judges.

BARRETT, Circuit Judge.

Walter Kelbach

• Walter B. Kelbach (Kelbach) appeals from the final order of the District Court confirming the findings, Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate, who, in turn, confirmed the decision of the Administrative Law Judge denying Kelbach's application with the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 416(i) (1)(A) and 423(d)(1)(A). Our jurisdiction vests by virtue of 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
• Background Kelbach, then age 39, filed his application with the Secretary for disability benefits on January 4, 1977, while an inmate of the Utah State Penitentiary, where, since the year 1966, he had been serving a life sentence following conviction on a two count charge of murder in the first degree. Kelbach testified at the administrative hearing that he committed the murders in a brutal and senseless manner, and that he had been in trouble with "the law" most of his life. Kelbach previously served a term in the Wisconsin State Reformatory and, prior to his incarceration in 1966 on the murder convictions, he had served a term in the Utah State Penitentiary. He was born June 25, 1938. He has a tenth grade education, some training as a printer, experience as a cook, a hydrogen-nitrogen worker in a heat treating plant, a taxicab driver, truck driver and a car salesman.
• Kelbach's evidence was in large part non-medical. The first formal psychiatric reports of Kelbach are those contained in his military service record in 1960 stating that he was "unable to cope with every day changes," displayed "poor judgment" and "continuous misbehavior." He was discharged from the army as "unfit." The military psychiatric reports did not attribute any cognizable psychiatric disease to Kelbach and they determined that he was able to distinguish right from wrong and to adhere to the right. In 1965, psychiatric examinations revealed that: Kelbach had "an acting-out sociopathic personality disturbance" involving great hostility toward society and people in general; he was "amoral in general value system"; he was unwilling to learn from experience; he tended to be impulsive; he was unable to make accurate judgments; and his interpersonal relationships were distorted.
• Later, in 1966, Kelbach was again evaluated. He was found to be under pressure which could prompt aggressive behavior. He was diagnosed as a person of "Sociopathic personality disturbance; Dysocial or antisocial reaction-manifest by impulsivity, labile emotions, anxiety, dysphoria and acting out tendencies." Kelbach's testimony generally supported the above findings; however he attributed a good share of his problems to his use of alcohol. He concluded that he is still in the "same mess" he was in 1966; that his attitude is the same; and that if "we'd have killed the witnesses we wouldn't have got tried." (R., Vol. II, pp. 85-93).
• Kelbach's claim was anchored to his contention that he had become disabled and unable to work in April of 1965 as a result of a "mental disorder manifested by extreme antisocial behavior," and that this condition commenced in April of 1965. Kelbach's application reads, in part, that he has "worked" for the Utah State Prison commencing April, 1965, and that he "earned" less than $100 in 1976 and had also "earned" less than $100 during the current year (1977). (R., Vol. II, pp. 96-99).
• Kelbach's claim listed two children under the age of 18 years who may be eligible for benefits, both of whom bear the last name of Kopitzke. (R., Vol. II, p. 98). The record indicates that Kelbach is divorced from the natural mother of the children, and that he is under a monthly support and maintenance order of $150.00. (R., Vol. II, p. 209).
• Among the contentions advanced by Kelbach was that widespread adverse publicity concerning his crimes had made him unemployable and thus disabled from gainful employment. A prison psychologist evaluated Kelbach in January, 1977. He reviewed his prison records and interviewed Kelbach. He reported that Kelbach was free from mental illness, did not suffer disordered thinking, but did have a deeply ingrained antisocial personality. Nothing, however, indicated that Kelbach suffered mental illness or that there was evidence of psychotic behavior. (R., Vol. II pp. 117-119).
• Prison psychiatrist Van O. Austin, M. D. reported on January 28, 1977, that Kelbach was not suffering from a mental illness or disorder, and that there was no evidence of disordered thinking, affect, contact with reality or organic brain damage. He stated that Kelbach's personality structure is deeply ingrained and is classically representative of the antisocial personality. (R., Vol. II, p. 116).
• The Administrative Law Judge determined that Kelbach had established persistent antisocial or amoral behavior but that he had not proved a marked restriction of interest and deterioration in personal habits impairing his ability to relate to other people. He concluded that Kelbach's habitual behavior pattern culminating in murders did not alone establish the requisite disability impairment.
• The United States Magistrate meticulously reviewed the evidence adduced before the ALJ. He recognized that the Secretary (HEW) is the administrative authority delegated to hear and weigh the evidence and to render findings in the decisional process, which are not to be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion. He concluded:
• With the determination that the plaintiff's criminal behavior does not establish without substantial conflict a disabling mental impairment there is little substantial evidence in the record supporting the plaintiff's claim. He argues that the record shows that during periods of freedom he did not retain jobs for extended periods, and from this failure the Administrative Law Judge should have determined that his sociopathic personality deficiency prevented him from holding gainful employment and was a disabling impairment. Again, from the failure to retain employments several inferences might reasonably have been drawn. The fact finder was not compelled to accept the one inference favorable to the plaintiff's claim.
• A review of the entire record, including the reports of and the plaintiff's testimony concerning the crimes committed, the behavior, and the psychiatric and psychological reports, discloses that the decision that the plaintiff had not proved all the essential criteria of the listed impairment is supported by substantial evidence. Also there is substantial evidence supporting the determination that, although the plaintiff suffers from personality and psychological disorders, he did not sustain the burden of proving either that his impairments are of such severity as to prevent him from engaging in substantial gainful employment were he free to do so, or that his impairments are responsible for or the cause of his unemployability. The plaintiff is incarcerated not because of adjudicated or because of diagnosed insanity, as in Marion v. Gardner, (359 F.2d 175) Supra, but because of criminal misconduct, not shown to have resulted from a disabling mental impairment. For these reasons it is recommended that the defendant's motion to affirm his decision be granted. (R., Vol. I, pp. 60, 61).
• The District Court confirmed the findings of the Magistrate in its order of September 30, 1979, finding, upon review of the record, that the decision of the Secretary is "indeed supported by substantial evidence and should be upheld." (R., Vol. I, p. 204).
• Pertinent Statutory Provisions 42 U.S.C. § 416(i)(1)(A) defines "disability" for purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 423 (benefit payments), as "... inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity by determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months, ..." 42 U.S.C. § 423(d)(1)(A) defines "disability" in the identical language above recited and further provides under § 423(d)(3) that a "physical or mental impairment is an impairment that results from anatomical, physiological, or psychological abnormalities which are demonstrable by medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic techniques."  
• Contentions on Appeal Kelbach contends that the District Court erred in denying his disability claim inasmuch as: (1) the record contains substantial evidence that he should have been granted Social Security Disability Insurance benefits because of his proven inability to work caused by a severe case of impulsive, acting-out antisocial personality disorder, (2) there was not substantial evidence that he could regularly engage in any form of substantial gainful activity with success, and (3) improper evaluative criteria were used for this type of impairment.
• Our Disposition In the course of oral argument, counsel for the Secretary was asked why the Government had not challenged Kelbach's claim on the basis that his incarceration in the Utah State Penitentiary for life following conviction on a two count charge of murder in the first degree was a proper ground for denial of his disability claim inasmuch as his intentional, willful criminal acts had, for practical purposes, eliminated any possibility that Kelbach could engage in any gainful work. The response was that such a position should perhaps be advanced and that it does have merit. We were extremely puzzled why the Government did not advance the argument. We requested that both parties file supplemental briefs on "the issue of what effect, if any, the claimant's status as a prisoner has on his claim for benefits."
• The Magistrate observed, in relation to the aspect of Kelbach's incarceration: The plaintiff's incarceration makes him unemployable, but this fact alone does not, of course, establish a qualifying disability under the Act. Equally true, however, the fact of incarceration is not a disqualifying circumstance if the incarceration has resulted from a mental disturbance that satisfies the requirements for disability set forth in the Social Security Act. The language of then Circuit Judge Blackmun in Marion v. Gardner, 359 F.2d 175 (8th Cir. 1966) pinpoints the proper inquiry

Liberace & Scott Thorson

1982-Scott Thorson filed a palimony suit against Liberace, requesting $113 million. He would later settle for $95,000 and a Rolls Royce.

1983 Salt lake City singer Jean Jankowski performs at lesbian coffee shop 20 Rue Jacob.

Bruce Barton

1984 - Metropolitan Community Church of Salt Lake City moved to 569 South 1300 East  renting space at the Unitarian Church. Bruce Barton was worship coordinator.

1987-Congress voted to ban federal funding for AIDS education organizations that "promote homosexuality." There was considerable conservative congressional resistance to spending federal tax dollars on AIDS-related measures. For example, Republican senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina was highly critical of federal spending on AIDS education. On October 14, 1987, Helms appeared on the floor of the Senate during a debate over a federal AIDS appropriation bill to denounce a safer-sex comic book, which he thought had been federally funded, published by

Jesse Helms

Gay Men's Health Crisis of New York. A subsequent investigation revealed that no federal funds were used to support the production of the comic book; nonetheless, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass the Helms amendment to the AIDS appropriation bill. The Helms amendment prohibited the use of federal tax dollars for AIDS education materials that "promote or encourage, directly or indirectly, homosexual activities." Since 1987, Helms continued to offer his amendment to each appropriation bill. With these amendments, Helms and his conservative supporters in Congress, notably former California Republican representatives Robert Dornan and William Dannemeyer, helped limit federal funding for safer-sex education targeting gays and lesbians.

Friday, October 14, 1988 AIDS MEMORIAL STRESSES COMPASSION Wind whipped the candles' flames and the lights shimmered across the Salt Lake Valley as residents gathered to mourn and remember those who have died from AIDS. Eighty-nine white bags containing candles were shaped to form a heart on the State Capitol steps Thursday night, symbolizing Utahns - four of them children - who have died from the incurable disease. The third annual AIDS Memorial was also to honor the families, friends and care givers of AIDS. "We all do a lot of things to take care of people with AIDS. That's why we put the candles in the shape of a heart," said Richard Starley, a member of AIDS Project Utah, which organized the vigil in connection with the Royal Court of the Golden Spike, a gay and lesbian organization. "Let's always remember that AIDS is about people, people living in difficult circumstances, struggling against overwhelming odds," Starley said. "It's also about families, for every person with AIDS comes from a family somewhere, both natural and chosen families. "This is a tribute to all of these and to us who teach our communities about love, caring and compassion. We will survive AIDS and be the better for it." About 40 people sat on the Capitol steps above the heart and held candles during the short ceremony that began just after dusk, shielding the flames from the wind. October is AIDS Awareness Month in Utah. The Utah Department of Health statistics show 53 percent of those who have contracted the disease that destroys the body's ability to fight off infection are in the 30-39 age bracket; 64 percent are homosexual or bisexual males. [Deseret News]

1990 Sunday- An AIDS benefit “dog show” all day at Fairmont Park sponsored by Horizon House.

Donny Eastepp

1990 Sunday I went to Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church today. Kelly Byrnes preached a good sermon on social responsibility.  Rev. Bruce Barton was in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his lover Bruce Harmon attending Coronation there. After the service I attended the pot luck and sat with Michael Bryner, Steve Oldroyd, Willie Marshall, and Mike Pipkim.  It was a nice turn out and fun to meet new people but I've come a long way from my early involvement with MCC and I cringe to hear some of the sexist patriarchal references made. I heard from Bobbie Smith that Donny Eastepp was diagnosed with AIDS three days after his lover Bobby Dubray died last September and that Donny will be closing the Inbetween Bar to go back to Texas to die. I asked Chuck Whyte if this was true but he wouldn't deny or confirm it.  The times they are a changing. I hear the police are trying to close down Club 14, the last bathhouse in Salt Lake City. They probably will succeed. [Journal 1990 of Ben Williams]

Kate Kendall

1993 Kathryn Kendell, legal counsel for the ACLU, leads a discussion on gay rights at the Utah Stonewall Center.

1993 In conjunction with October AIDS Awareness Month, The NAMES Project  AIDS Memorial Quilt was on display at the Salt Palace The display featured more than 700 panels, each commemorating the life of someone who had died of AIDS. These panels were a portion of the 23,000 panels that make up the entire AIDS Memorial Quilt.  Quilt was presented by the Utah AIDS Foundation, in conjunction with the National Hospice Foundation. Dean Jack Schachter loved his '78 Toyota Celica, kosher pastrami, skiing Snowbird and boating on Lake Powell. But, according to his partner, the stage hand partied hard and died young -- one of 453 Utahns killed by AIDS. At his memorial service, nearly 100 friends signed a 6-foot-by-3-foot piece of white cloth decorated with his name, the date of his birth and the day he died 29 years later. ``Dean had so manyfriends, people he had touched, that it seemed appropriate to me to memorialize him in that way,'' says Robert Chase, his friend, lover and nurse. Four years later, Mr. Schachter's panel will join 22,400 others made by friends, relatives and lovers of people who have died of AIDS. One section of The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt -- more than 800 panels primarily from the Intermountain West --is on display at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. Since its first showing in 1987, the national quilt has grown to 13 acres and 29 tons. Some names are famous: Arthur Ashe, Rock Hudson, Perry Ellis and Connecticut Rep. Stewart McKinney. But most are known only to the friends and relatives who miss them. Each panel is as different as the person it memorializes. Many depict the deceased's hobbies or passions -- Scrabble, musical instruments or Utah's red rock. Designers attached cutoffs, police badges, sequins, photographs, feather boas, photographs, Beethoven sheet music and, on one particularly vivid panel, a plastic pink flamingo. Most are highly personal.   One Utah panel remembers that Barry

R. Fairbanks loved racquet ball and hated pickles. It is decorated with a teddy bear, hand and footprints and a note from one of his children: ``I love you Dad.'' Others make political statements, some powerful in their simplicity: ``For the Latter Day Saints who died alone and in anonymity.'' Unlike angry protests and pickets, most people are receptive to a quilt-- even one that chronicles death with coffin-sized panels. `The show has changed Mindy Menlove. The University of Utah student has never known anyone with AIDS and assumed it was primarily a homosexual disease. Then she saw the pictures of women and children. `I didn't really think it could affect my life,'' says Ms. Menlove . ``It can happen to anyone.''   And it does. Larry Lamper was helping set up the show when he saw a familiar face: Kent Burnett, a former co-worker at US WEST.``I could not believe it,'' said Mr. Lamper, staring sadly at the colorful letters. ``He was too nice -- too young.'' ( 10/15/93  Page: C1)(10/03/93  Page: SLTribune) Search the Quilt

Kelli Peterson

1995- Kelli Peterson, Ivy Fox, Keisha Barnes and others form the Gay Straight Alliance Club at East High School with teacher Camille Lee as faculty sponsor

1995 - The Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats (GLUD)

Rich McKeown

received assurances from Rich McKeown Salt Lake City mayoral candidate that he would take immediate steps to protect gays and lesbians from any kind of discrimination in city employment.  ``We asked him for an executive order that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in city personnel hiring and city services,'' said GLUD founder David Nelson. ``He said he would sign that executive order the first week he is in office. Then he also said he would work with the City Council to draft an ordinance to make it law.'' The next day, Oct. 15, GLUD issued a news release endorsing Rich McKeown's candidacy, although it made no mention of the proposed executive order. But McKeown's campaign promise is not sitting well with Salt Lake City Council members. Among the four councilmen who are not standing for election this year -- Keith Christensen, Tom Godfrey,  Stuart Reid and Sam Souvall -- none expressed support for amending the city's employment and hiring policy to include specific protection for sexual orientation.  ``That kind of conduct from a mayoral candidate is irresponsible,'' said Christensen. ``The City Council is responsible for the legislative side of the city. If [McKeown] wants to get along with the City Council he had better get straight on the role of the mayor.'' The city needs no change in its ordinance, says Chairman Stuart Reid because there have been no cases of discrimination in hiring. ``Our present policy is fair and adequate to prevent discrimination against any single group in our community,'' he says. ``For Rich McKeown to issue an executive order his first week as a mayor would be inappropriate, and I will oppose it.'' The current city ordinance prohibits discrimination in such things as hiring and promotion based on an ``individual's race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, mental or physical disability, unless based on job-related or bona fide occupational qualifications.''(SLTRIBUNE Published: 11/01/95 Page: B1)

William J Pete Knight

1999-California state senator Pete Knight, who sponsored a ballot initiative Proposition 22 banning same sex marriages in California, was criticized in the Los Angeles Times by his gay son David Knight. He questioned his father's defense of family values because his father rejected him when he came out.

1999 UNIVERSITY OF UTAH STUDENTS CAUGHT IN MARRIAGE DEBATE THE DAILY UTAH CHRONICLE 240 Union Bldg University of Utah Salt Lake City UT 84112 Tuesday,  October 12, 1999 Students Caught in Marriage Debate by SCOTT LEWIS Chronicle News Writer The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints often avoids getting involved in anything political, but when it stepped into the ring to push bans on homosexual marriages, it met strong resistance and loud protests. Lost in the political debate between pressure groups, church authorities, legal advisers, and government agencies are the members and followers of the church. Those LDS Church members expressed strong support of their church's political activity, and any disagreements or inner conflicts within their ranks appear nonexistent. But, as the director of the University of Utah Hinckley Institute of Politics and former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson puts it, anytime you get involved in politics you pay a price.  It's just a matter of being willing to take it. "Whenever there is an issue in society that undermines the moral fiber of that society, we believe it is our prerogative as a church, [which] believes in morality, to make a stand and voice an opinion where it is appropriate," said Ryan Thompson, president of the Latter-day Saints Student Association. The LDS Church has voiced its opinion in the past months with its political support of the Knight ballot initiative in California. A "yes" majority vote on the initiative would ban all homosexual marriages in the state, even though existing California laws prohibit any same-sex marriage. An estimated 60 percent of U students are Mormon, and many of them are active in the LDS Church's Salt Lake Institute of Religion and LDSSA. "If we can take a measure to prevent same-sex marriages, then yes, I support the church's moves on that," said Thompson. "It's our role as believers in God, who believe in families being divine, to voice our support against it, to protect the family, and the morality in society." Thompson added, "It should be up to every member; I mean, we're not robots." But Thompson believes LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley is a prophet, and he has faith in Hinckley's decisions. "If he is a true prophet of God, then I believe that what he is doing is correct." During the recent fall LDS General Conference meetings, about 150 gay and lesbian rights activists stood at the south gates of the LDS temple grounds in a silent protest with signs sounding off against the LDS Church's actions in California. Many conference goers ignored the messages as they filed in and out of the events Sunday, Oct. 3, but others read the signs and spoke with the protesters. The Lesbian and Gay Student Union participated in the protest, and many of the demonstrators were students from the U. "I feel sad for them," said Kari Bodell, a U student who is a member of the LDS Church, in reference to the protesters. "I think that they are confused." Bodell, who is the vice-president of LDSSA, was not speaking on behalf of the organization. "It breaks down to this: there are laws based on legal theory and principle, then there are other laws based on doctrine and spiritual principle. This is a law based on doctrine and gospel," Bodell said. She said it would be hard for a person within the church to disagree with its political actions in California and around the nation. "If they choose to disagree with it, there is a fundamental paradox. They would probably need to take a good look at that and become aware of how the law fits into it." According to Bodell, LDS Church members don't always have to agree with the political action of their church because some of the actions may not be based on spiritual doctrines. But on this issue, it's very difficult to think differently, she claims. "It is kind of hard to ice skate around the spiritual nature of this law," Bodell said. The LDS Church may create some problems as a result of its involvement, according to Wilson. "The church traditionally does not like to get involved in politics because it tends to isolate its members and cause division," said Wilson. "I assume they figured it was worth accepting that risk this time."  According to Wilson, the LDS Church's structure and organization make it unique when it comes to the realm of politics.  "There is a top-down leadership system which creates a phenomenon where there is a prophet whose speech tremendously affects the way people may act," said Wilson. "It may remove members from a more thinking mode to a follower or more emotional mode, where they follow a movement easier, and with more emotion than say a politician who is not as powerful as a church that dispenses what they call truth," he added. Despite naysayers, LDS students still strongly support their church's actions. "I know it's not viewed as politically correct, but it all comes down to my belief in the family," added Thompson. 1999, The Daily Utah Chronicle. 

1999 NEARLY 100! I now have copies of resignation letters from 92 people.  Just 8 more to go to have 100 and I've been told several have been mailed.  I've heard about quite a few other people doing it and I know lots of people across the country have asked to have their names removed from the records without having a clue that I'm coordinating an organized campaign.  Those of you who've promised letters but haven't gotten them written, please consider doing it soon and please consider using this new version. 'RESIGNING' FROM THE MORMON (LDS) CHURCH October 1999 If anyone asks you about how to 'resign' from the Mormon church, please refer them to me or send them this new-and-improved sample letter and instructions on how to get their names off the membership rolls of the church.  If the older version of the resignation letter is still posted out there on web sites etc., please take it off and replace it with this new one.  I think this new one will work better, although it hasn't been used enough to be truly tested. Thanks! Kathy Worthington Salt Lake City

Chrissy Gephardt

2004 October 14, Thursday October 2004 U OF U EVENT FOR THEIR PRIDE   Pride at the University of Utah: Visions of Acceptance Chrissy Gephardt Keynote Address Director, Grassroots Campaign Corps for the National Stonewall Democrat Noon, Gould Auditorium, Marriott Library For more information on Pride Week events, contact the University of Utah Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Resource Center. On the forefront of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered politics, Chrissy Gephardt came out in the 2004 presidential democratic primary as the openly lesbian daughter of Congressman Dick Gephardt. The first openly gay family member of a presidential candidate in history, Gephardt is an accomplished spokeswoman for GLBT issues, and gave issues of equal rights and social justice a prominent place in the 2004 campaign. Gephardt reaches out to students in high schools, colleges and universities to encourage active participation at the polls and relates current political issues to the lives of young people.  Gephardt continues her involvement in LGBT and youth politics through her work as the Director of the Grassroots Campaign Corps for the National Stonewall Democrats, America's only grassroots Democratic lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organization. She is also on the board of directors of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, an organization that is committed to increasing the number of openly gay and lesbian Gephardt's commitment to social justice began with her career as a social worker in mental health. She has worked for the past four years in the field of social services in various non-profit organizations. Her work specifically involved community mental health services, women's mental health, hospital social work, clinical case management, employee assistance programs, and counseling. Much of Gephardt's work has centered on assisting women in their recovery from the devastating effects of trauma in their lives. Gephardt is an accomplished speaker for LGBT issues, women's issues, and other causes related to social justice. Through her public persona, she is committed to furthering the cause of social justice in the LGBT community including voting rights, relational and familial rights, equality in employment and other legal rights. She also possesses a strong dedication to raise awareness around women's issues such a reproductive freedom, women's mental health, and domestic and sexual violence. And finally, she believes in working towards ensuring the vital participation of all people in the political process, particularly the youth of America. Gephardt is a 1995 graduate of Northwestern University in Illinois and completed her Master of Social Work in 2001 from Washington University in St. Louis. After living in St. Louis from 1995 to 2001, she moved to Washington D.C. where she currently resides. Leo Leckie Executive Assistant Office of the Associate Vice President for Diversity University of Utah

• Keynote Address ~ Chrissy Gephardt Director, Grassroots Campaign Corps for National Stonewall Democrats Gould Auditorium, Marriott Library University of Utah Campus October 14, Noon Reception to follow.g ala Dinner and Silent Auction Jewish Community Center 2 North Medical Drive (north of University Hospital) October 14, 6:30 pm Featuring Chrissy Gephardt. $65 per person, $650 per table. All proceeds benefit the LGBT ~ Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender ~ Resource Center.

2005 In our view: Let gay club go forward  Daily Herald Friday, October 14, 2005 Provo School District officials are finding themselves in a pickle in their conservative community. They must decide whether to allow a club supporting gay students at a city high school. Students at Provo High School want to form a gay-straight alliance as a means, they say, to dispel negative stereotypes and to allow gay students to discuss issues facing them. Naturally, this has created some controversy, though not on the scale of Salt Lake City's East High School Gay-Straight Alliance. In that case, there were demonstrations at the Utah State Capitol, a closed-door meeting of the state Senate and a federal lawsuit to prevent the district from saying no the club. Local critics who have spoken up so far have said such a club at Provo High would expose its members to ridicule and violence. Another objection is that the club might endorse activities prohibited by school policies, such as sexual relations outside of marriage. The school district is now wrestling with whether to change its policy to regulate non-curriculum clubs -- that is, clubs not tied to academic classwork -- even to the point of banning them all if need be. Banning all non-curriculum clubs would knock out the chess club, Harry Potter club, German club, dance club, photography club and many others. Allow us to suggest a better way. Let these few kids organize their gay-straight alliance the same as any other club and don't make a fuss about it. Have we learned nothing from the Michael Moore debacle? If Utah County had simply taken a laissez faire attitude toward Utah Valley State College's decision to allow the filmmaker to speak on campus, Moore would have come and gone with little fanfare, and nobody would be the worse for it. Overzealous protests only polarize the community, and they're not necessary in the club case. Experience in other school districts shows that clubs like the one proposed tend to have short lives. They fade quickly since there's just not that much to talk about -- especially with a faculty adviser hanging around. To see this, one need only peruse a school's yearbooks and notice how the number and types of clubs on a given campus change through the years with the shifting sands of student interests. Attempting to ban a gay-straight alliance will only make matters worse. It could create a backlash against a few homosexual students if the school district were to shut down all clubs unrelated to curriculum. Gay students would be blamed for the loss. Legally, the school district is on shaky ground. It may attempt to follow state law, but federal law is already stacked against it. The Equal Access Act, sponsored by our own Sen. Orrin G. Hatch to protect religious clubs, says schools can't discriminate against non-curriculum clubs based on viewpoint. While Hatch wrote the law to protect Bible clubs on campus, he opened the door for gay clubs and other groups. There is also a body of case law that could be trouble for Provo School District. In one case, Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), the Supreme Court declared that students do not leave their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate. Any restriction on student expression must be viewpoint-neutral and enforced only to avoid disrupting the school's educational mission. The court also noted that the student activity itself (in Provo's case this means a club meeting) must be the cause of disruption. Other people who react negatively to an activity do not disqualify the activity itself. In other words, students' basic rights of assembly and association are protected by the Constitution. There is no "heckler's veto." Provo School District would be right to insist that a gay-straight alliance remain within the bounds of the law, the same as other clubs. No club may advocate unlawful sexual relations, drug use or the violent overthrow of the government. But it would be wrong for the district to achieve equal treatment by dismantling all other non-curriculum clubs -- in essence throwing the baby out with what it may perceive as bath water. A gay-straight alliance is going to form, whether the school district approves of it or not. We daresay it already exists informally. The only question is whether it will be allowed to use school facilities to meet. If the proposed group is sanctioned and allowed to use campus facilities, as other groups do, it would have a faculty adviser to ensure that discussions stay within bounds. That seems sufficient to us, and it's by far the best alternative. Leave the clubs alone. Let them form and operate so long as there is sufficient student interest. The district should not shut down all non-curriculum clubs because of objections to a single club designed to support homosexual students. That's too high a price to pay for a sense of moral satisfaction. Beyond that, it would be an expensive, and probably losing, course under the law. What do you think? Should Provo allow a gay-straight alliance in its high schools

2010 The Pentagon’s declaration on Thursday that it planned to comply with the court order by a federal judge in California that struck down the law, which bans openly gay service members from serving in the military. 

Rosemary Winters

2010 Does use of the word ‘gay’ signal LDS shift? The Salt Lake Tribune by Rosemary Winter The Salt Lake Tribune Spokesperson for the LDS Church, Michael Otterson reads a statement from church leaders regarding a petition drive to get LDS apostle Boyd K. Packer to correct his remarks about same sex attraction on Tuesday,October 12, 2010 When an LDS Church spokesman, speaking for the leadership of the church, gave an unequivocal rebuke this week of all forms of cruelty against gay men and lesbians, his speech may have been as notable for its wording as for its message. On Wednesday, Kristine Haglund, editor of the Boston-based magazine Dialogue — A Journal of Mormon Thought, pointed out in an interview on KUER’s 

Michael Otterson

RadioWest that LDS spokesman Michael Otterson actually said the “L” word — lesbian. He also referred to the tragic suicides recently of several “gay young men” across the country. The LDS Church usually speaks only of attractions for the same-sex, not people’s identities as gay men and lesbians. The church teaches that sexual acts outside of marriage between a man and a woman are immoral. Last month, Bishop Keith B. McMullin, an LDS general authority, told attendees of a conference for Mormons who want to “overcome homosexual behavior” to not label themselves as gay or lesbian. “If someone seeking your help says to you, ‘I am a homosexual,’ or, ‘I am lesbian,’ or, ‘I am gay,’ correct this miscasting,” McMullin said. “Heavenly Father does not speak of his children this way and neither should we. It is simply not true. To speak this way sows seeds of doubt and deceit about who we really are.”  So when Otterson spoke of the church’s support for housing and employment protections for “gays and lesbians,” Haglund suggested it was an earth-rattling shift. “You could say that’s a minor grammatical point,” she said in the radio interview. “But actually, in the way the church works, I think it’s tectonic.” 

2014 State Issues First Foster License to Gay Spouses KUTV NEWS Michael and Nicholas Valdez were married in Salt Lake County in December but already they are growing their family by fostering two girls who they hope to adopt in the next few months.  "We are loving. We can do everything a mom and dad can do," said Michael.  The day after same sex marriage became legal in Utah, the couple received their joint foster parent license from the state of Utah.  DCFS spokesperson Liz Sollis said they are the first same sex spouses in Utah to be licensed. The girls, ages three and one, arrived in the Valdez' home a month ago.  That's because Nick applied for a foster care license as a single person.  The girls are his great nieces.  Their mother, who couldn't care for them, asked Nick to do so – he was glad to accept. "I wanted to be a father since I was 18," he said.  Even though they couldn't be co-foster parents at the time, Michael went through the training anyway hoping someday things would change. That day came on October 6th when same sex marriage became the law in Utah. "We bonded immediately," said Michael of the moment the girls showed up in their home.  Now, the men are hoping to adopt the girls by early next year.  "My life is much happier," said Nick. Mike Hamblin, Director of Recruitment for the Utah Foster Care Foundation, which trains and supports foster parents, said with more married, same sex couples, the pool of potential foster parents will likely grow.  "Anything that increases the pool of foster parents benefits the kids and adds to the resources that are there for kids in need of placement," Hamblin said. Currently there are 2,700 kids in foster care in Utah, while there are only 1,300 foster families.  Just like there are kids moving in and out of foster care, foster families come and go too.

2015. City Weekly by Stephen Dark On June 5, 2015, Ella Mendoza made history in Utah. She was the first undocumented queer Latina to give a speech at the Utah Pride Festival. For the first time in Pride's nearly 40-year history of celebrating Utah's LGBT community, organizers lumped together rallies for transgender, lesbian, sexually fluid and polyamory groups into one, a decision that had angered some in the transgender community who felt that one march for all diluted their own message. But such frustration was dwarfed by the anger 25-year-old Mendoza vented as she stood on the steps of the Capitol that Friday evening as the rally's final speaker. The co-founder of Utah's chapter of Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement said, "This world was made strange, because the white people came here in the first place and decided that trans people were wrong, that gender was a thing. They decided to put [up] these walls. I saw this and said, 'White people, you all look fucked up.'" In a powerful voice, she contrasted those in the crowd who had attended college with her own experience at the age of 19 years old: being homeless for 18 months, living in a shelter and "wondering, 'Where are my rights?'" As her fiery oration grew, she condemned "the romantic notion behind 'saviors,' behind helping victims." She told the crowd, "I am not your token; I'm not your token survivor. My trans sisters are not your token trannies. We are not here to make you feel good about saving us." Then she spoke of the 75 undocumented trans women of color held in detention centers across the United States. "Our survival is not a request. It's a demand," she said. Finally, she turned to the festival itself. Calling the rally "the poor people's party," she referenced the annual Grand Marshal Reception—which was being

Janet Mock

held at the same time. The shindig honored the parade's 2015 grand marshal, Janet Mock, a transgender woman of color, TV reporter, author and national celebrity. Many at the rally wished to hear Mock, but were effectively blocked either by wanting to march for their community, or because they couldn't afford the $50-per-head tickets. "How come we're here, and they're over there?" Mendoza said. "Do you realize that if Janet Mock was aware of this shit, she'd be pissed?" Mendoza, along with her Familia chapter's co-founder, Eusebio Echeveste, joined Adrian Romero, leader of Stand for Queer Lives, both 20 years old, to lead the

Eusebio Echeveste

march to Salt Lake City's Library Square, where the festival was taking place. But not all were pleased with Mendoza's remarks about white privilege. The next day, one woman complained that it is white men, not white women, who enjoy privilege. Another argued that despite "white privilege," there are still white trans people suffering in jail. Mendoza learned later the person lodging the complaint was a transgender person who herself had a criminal history and had ties with a white supremacist group. Talking about race, Mendoza realized she was hitting some nerves. "I never thought I would feel threatened in my own movement." Familia began in Los Angeles in late 2013, says national coordinator Jorge Gutierrez. "Part of the vision came from seeing that there was a lot of undocu-queer youth

organizing and yet our identities and sexual orientation weren't being fully honored and included in all the immigrant work we were doing." In December 2014, Mendoza and Echeveste founded Familia in Utah. Later, they attended a regional conference in New Mexico. "A family loves you and supports your losses and celebrates your life. That's why it's called 'Familia,'" Mendoza says. At the conference, they learned that their concerns about marginalization by the LGBT community were identical to those of Familia chapters from seven other states who attended. "Every state was saying the same thing." Mendoza recalls. Transgender women of color "are being silenced, we are being left behind." While the mainstream LGBT community has focused on marriage equality for the past 10 years, the need for a strategy to combat issues facing people of color within the movement—issues like discrimination, police violence and homelessness—became undeniable, Gutierrez says. "The further you step away from that identity of a gay white cis man, the more difficulty you have asking for resources, for your voice to be heard, or to be part of the power table," he says. "That's why, for us, doing intersectional work is at the very critical core of who we are. We embody many identities, and by default, you can't push one issue at a time; we have to push different issues." This has led to a distinct uneasiness between minority and mainstream LGBT communities that Mendoza—in speeches, press conferences and even a cartoon, "Ellita," she draws about her life—puts her finger on with, at times, merciless precision. LGBT

Troy Williams

advocacy group Equality Utah's executive director Troy Williams believes the solution lies in communication and education. "Transgender people face twice the national average of unemployment, trans people of color face four times," he says. "They're worried about survival, putting food on the table, making sure the rent is paid." The challenge for white LGBT communities that want to address these issues, he says, "is how do you access these communities and know what their needs are if they're not around you?" Mendoza and Echeveste identify as bisexual, while Romero uses the more general term, queer. Their stories speak to a growing number of children, teenagers and adults embracing a spectrum of gender identities, all at a time when the topic of transgender is trending in America, as the popular Amazon TV series Transparent and extensive media coverage of Caitlin Jenner's transition would attest. According to the American Psychological Association, "Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth." Mendoza says she is "cis-passing," meaning that she appears cis-gender—defined as someone who is comfortable with being the sex assigned at birth. But, she says, she is gender fluid: That is, "I'm always both male and female." Her group, Familia, are rabble-rousers. "We're a couple of brown undocumented queers standing up and saying 'fuck you' to the system," Mendoza says. That's a reflection of the culture of the national organization that saw one of its members, Jennicet Gutierrez, interrupt President Barack Obama during a speech he was giving to demand rights for detained undocumented trans women, only to be shouted down by representatives of other LGBT groups. "I don't believe in equality," Mendoza says. "I believe in solidarity. I believe in revolution." At the heart of their struggle is what Mendoza believes is a taboo subject in Utah's LGBT community: namely, white privilege. "People don't want to know the privilege they have," she says. Along with the relative lack of support the LGBT community has shown the fledgling group until recently, the hostile reception to Mendoza's remarks at Pride showed that the marginalized state of trans people of color in Utah's LGBT community remains highly sensitive. And it's one that Familia and others insist be addressed. Alejandro Mora is a board member of T of Utah, a transgender education and advocacy group. "As a community, we are tasked with challenging the damaging perception that LGBT identities and politics are for and about white people," he wrote in a statement prepared for City Weekly. "It is the responsibility of our state's LGBT advocacy organizations to take on the intersection of race, sexuality and gender identity and expression head on." Mora advocates for "general and targeted funding for LGBT organizations of color and partnership-building" and calls for prioritizing increased "visibility for LGBT leaders of color—who represent some of the most vulnerable among us." With the passage of marriage equality, some LGBT community members wondered if there were any point to keeping the services-focused Pride Center and advocacy agency Equality Utah's doors open. Pride's newly minted

Marian Edmonds-Allen

executive director Marian Edmonds-Allen says the fight is far from over, precisely because of the kind of issues Familia is raising. In August, Mendoza went to a transgender picnic and met Edmonds-Allen. When Edmonds-Allen offered the center's help to Familia, she recalls Mendoza sharply putting her in her place. "You know what?" Mendoza said, "If you want to be an ally, get the Pride Center in order," referring to its lack of services for minorities and lack of diversity. Edmonds-Allen didn't know what to say. Mendoza "is exactly right," she concedes. 

HOMELESS & UNDOCUMENTED Mendoza grew up in a gated community in La Molina, a suburb on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. Her parents were separated. She remembers her mother taking her to visit relatives at the shantytown her mother grew up in, Tahuantinsuyo, named after the Kingdom of the Incas. While Mendoza would complain of Tahuantinsuyo's impoverished conditions, her mother told her she wanted her to remember her roots and her people. When Mendoza was 12, she, along with her younger brother, went to live with her father in Utah. Her mother flew with her to Salt Lake City, then said farewell at the Salt Lake City International Airport before flying back to Peru. "We didn't really say goodbye. I just thought it was, 'See you later.'" It's been 13 years since she has seen her mother. "I didn't think that was the last time I was going to see her." Shortly after Mendoza moved to the states, her mother hit hard times and lost her home. All Mendoza knew about Utah was the image of a salt-shaker over a lake on a puzzle. During her teenage years in Layton, "I truly believed I was one of them," she says, meaning an American. But, while she was in high school, she learned she was not only undocumented, but that pathways to college and scholarships open to her friends were closed to her. She ran away from home at age 19 and lived on the streets for a year and a half. She bounced from one friend's couch to another, cleaning houses and babysitting in exchange for a bed, in between the one week per month she was permitted to stay at an Ogden shelter without papers. If she had documentation, she could have stayed at a shelter for three months. Sometimes, the best she could get was sleeping for a few hours on a toilet in a Walmart, her foot propped up against the door, her head on her knee. "I tried to be the best homeless person I could be," she says. Being on the streets was, in a sense, liberating. Being undocumented, she had always lived "in the shadows," she says. Suddenly, even though her immigration status remained the same, her attitude toward it changed. "I could breath the air, I was so happy," she says. "I felt that air, I felt that breeze, the world seemed wide open. Even in my homelessness, I found my freedom, my happiness, my peace. Stepping out of the shadows is good. I was out as queer, out as undocumented." Yet, despite such freedom, she still struggled with fear. "I think my biggest struggle was how unrelatable I felt, how lonely. I didn't know when it was safe to talk about my documentation. I just felt so alone." When her 17-year-old brother left their father's home, Mendoza feared he would not be able to survive on the streets, and so she got him a plane ticket to New York City, where their uncle lives. The siblings have not seen each other in five years. "I miss my brother. I wish I never sent him, I wish I could have kept him—but for what, you know?" She pushes up her glasses and wipes away tears. "I couldn't keep my family together. I tried." BUBBLEGUM FRIENDS Eusebio Echeveste also learned he was undocumented while in high school, having grown up believing he was American. When Echeveste was filling in applications for college, he realized there were questions he had about his past. His father told him he was "an alien." When he Googled the term, "I felt sick to my stomach." He identifies as bisexual but, at times, struggles with the machismo culture of the Latino community that can be oppressive and violent to LGBT members. He and Mendoza met at a Salt Lake City rally. "Her voice was the same as it is now, but less," Echeveste recalls. "She was still trying to find herself, still trying to find other people who were undocumented. Her speeches were nothing but a punch to people's faces." She and Echeveste became close. "We just got connected like bubblegum," he says. Echeveste met Adrian Romero in high school. Romero had identified as queer at age 11. Romero recalls not fitting in with either gender and strugging with gender dysphoria, in which "your body causes you a great deal of misery. Your body doesn't want to correspond with the idea you have, the way you want to see yourself." Romero wanted to be liked and to stop being bullied, and adopted a more feminine identity. "My sister helped me pick out my clothes, shave my arms. I was trying really hard to be feminine and act like other children my age." That, Romero says, led to depression. "I'm not good at this woman thing, I beat myself up about my masculine voice." After high school Romero moved out, got a part-time job in a fast-food Mexican restaurant and pursued activism in the form of Stand for Queer Lives, which began one month before Familia, in response to the suicide of a transgender teen from Ohio, Leelah Alcorn, in late 2014. Romero began Stand as a support campaign for youth in the LGBT community. Nationwide, according to a survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National LGBTQ Task Force, each year, a staggering 41 percent of trans people attempt suicide. "I struggled with depression my whole life because of who I am, what I feel," Romero says. "I struggled with people trying to change me, make me feel ashamed; I struggled with self-harm." Romero joined Familia shortly after it was formed, because "they were doing what I wasn't doing: focusing on marginalized people, focusing on Latinos and the undocumented."  WHERE ARE MY PEOPLE? In June 2012, President Obama announced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that provides access to work permits for undocumented people who came to the United States as minors. When Familia co-founder Echeveste heard the news, he realized that his horizons, while still limited, had broadened. "'I can work legally,'" he recalls thinking. "My limits got wider, but I still have limits to what I can do"—such as being unable to secure scholarships to go to college or work for the government. When Mendoza received a DACA work permit in April 2013, she says the world changed, not only in terms of her ability to secure long-term employment—she got a job as a kindergarten teacher in Davis County—but also in the way she saw things. The third year she attended Pride, she asked herself, "Where are the Latino people?" Mendoza joined the immigrant-rights group Salt Lake Dreamers and, with Echeveste, helped organize protests against local deportations. Henia Belalia is a former Salt Lake Dreamer who now resides in New York City. Via Facebook, she writes that what had started out as "youth fighting for DACA mostly grew into an intergenerational crew of folks also fighting deportations [and] border imperialism." The Salt Lake Dream Team came to "a natural ending" in December 2014, Belia writes. "At first we called it a hiatus, as there were only a few of us showing up [and] we couldn't build our momentum back up," she wrote. "A lot of undocumented folks are busy surviving, so organizing meetings and events can be tough." A month after the Dream Team's mothballing, Mendoza and Echeveste launched Familia. Three people showed up at Mestizo's Coffeehouse near Rose Park. To boost their numbers, they asked a barista to join them in their group photo. Shortly after, Romero joined. In February 2015, Mendoza sent 16 emails to the Utah Pride Center and Equality Utah announcing Familia's birth and seeking their support. She received no response. At the time, Pride director Edmonds-Allen was not yet working at the center. EU's Williams says the emails came during the middle of the legislative session—at a time, he says, when "we were passing a bill to protect them." Senate Bill 96 provided legal protections in employment and housing for gay, lesbian and transgender communities, "making Utah the first red state to do it. I'm proud of that," says Williams. Silence wasn't the only issue Mendoza encountered. Links on the Pride website for services for Latinos were all broken. "What happens when a Latino person comes out as queer?" Mendoza says. "Email Pride, and nobody will ever get back to you. How many people are we leaving behind? That's my biggest fear." HIDDEN VIOLENCE Familia's emergence came during a crucial time for Utah's Pride Center. The service organization had been through an extended period of turmoil that saw first longtime executive director Valerie Larrabee depart, followed by two subsequent replacements also leaving in short order. Critics have long argued that the agenda of Pride, being overwhelmingly about marriage equality, reflected domination by rich, white gay men and women. "It became a club for rich, white queer people to feel good about themselves, that they're making a difference," says former Pride Center staff Dayne Law, current volunteer, trans man and board member of T of Utah. "But they're making a difference in causes they feel good about, not that necessarily are important." In the past, Law says, when concerned community members brought up the board's lack of diversity, "they think inclusion means a token person of color or Latino." Rather than simply adding a person of color to the board, "it's about changing things that you do in terms of ... programs for the most marginalized communities." Board member and

Matt Landis

high-profile hairdresser Matthew Landis has a different take. "One of the reasons I joined the board of the Pride center is I believe it does important work on the ground as a service organization. It's there to provide a safe space for people, advocate for people, find the services and support that they need—and that means everybody," he says. Marian Edmonds-Allen took over as executive director of the Pride center in August 2015, after a much-lauded career in social and economic justice, particularly working with homeless youth in Ogden. Edmonds-Allen is keenly aware of the criticism Pride is facing. Indeed, at a press conference upon her appointment, she says among the first questions she was asked was, "What are you going to do for people of color in the community? What are you doing for trans people?" She says the center is working to both improve services access for minorities and diversity at the center itself. Some critics have noted a reluctance to address the needs of transgender people, whether in terms of access to a shower for homeless trans individuals (Edmonds-Allen says the center's shower is available for anyone to use) or publicly addressing violence against members of the trans community. Violence against trans women, both white and of color, is rarely reported in Utah and across the nation. T board member Law says that, by mid-2014, there had been 20 attacks in Utah in that year alone. And although community members held meetings attempting to address the violence, "it didn't come out to anything solid," Law says. Pride recently instituted a self-defense clinic for transgender and non-binary adults and youth. ("Non-binary" refers to individuals who do not conform to either female or male gender identities.) "We are very aware if you are transgender, you are at high risk of assault," Edmonds-Allen says. She plans to develop a street outreach program and a mobile medical clinic. Edmonds-Allen says that the turmoil at the center prior to her arrival reflected turmoil within the community at large. "It seems to be pretty fractured to me," she says. "There's a lot of fighting, a lot of arguing, 'This is for us; this is for you.'" Healing these lines of fracture will take some doing: "What I am working on is bringing all these different groups together," Edmonds-Allen says. She plans to implement a community council, where groups from across the spectrum of the LGBT community can meet regularly to air their concerns. Landis argues that the LGBT movement is "experiencing growing pains as we strive to be more inclusive." With Edmonds-Allen at the helm, he believes "we are getting back to where we need to be, refocusing our mission which is reconnecting with our community." AND ACCESS FOR ALL In March 2015, Mendoza and Echeveste "barged into the Pride center," they recall, demanding a meeting. Several unproductive meetings later, they were told they could march in the Pride Parade. They ended up having the 96th slot out of 100. Dayne Law asked Mendoza to speak at the trans rally. In the weeks running up to the Pride Festival, controversy emerged about the rally's scheduling. Frustrations about the combined march came to a boil in a Facebook thread on the "Dyke, Trans, Sexually Fluid and Poly rally and march" page. Pride festival supporters tried to address complaints from transgender members of the community who felt the decision to combine the rallies did them a disservice. When it came to Mendoza's Pride speech, "the ones who really needed to hear that speech were not there," Law says. "They were with 'the haves'—they were partying." As it has done for a decade, Pride held its annual Grand Marshal Reception on the Friday of Pride weekend. Pride board member Landis says the scheduling of the rally and march at the same time was "unfortunate," but says it was the members of the participating communities who combined their respective demonstrations into one Friday march. Mendoza, however, believes the rationale was financial, since it costs less to police one march than four. EU's Troy Williams says bringing Janet Mock to Utah was meant to launch conversations, rather than lead to acrimony and allegations of exclusion. "We didn't intend to marginalize. But if we did, we've got to be better," Williams says. "I can't make excuses for that." He points to a lack of knowledge both in straight and gay societies regarding the transgender community. While most straight people know someone who is gay, very few gay or straight people know someone who is transgender. "We don't know that there's a whole community that's in crisis, that's facing issues of poverty, violence. [Without knowing someone in the transgender community] there isn't this urgency," Williams says. Edmonds-Allen says there are no statistics for Utah's transgender community, white or of color, as trans individuals are reluctant to come forward for fear of violence. Williams is a fan of Mock's. "I love a good activist. They call people on their shit, they disrupt the status quo." Mock in her speech "connected us to our history, that the Stonewall riots were launched by Latino drag queens. It was a riot, not polite gays at a cocktail movement." Despite such a discourse, Mock was irked by the loud chatter among roughly half the people in the room when she spoke. She furiously called out one group of

Adrian Romero

loquacious males at the bar with their backs to her. Pride's Edmond-Allen says that problems that dogged the Pride Festival in 2015, such as the cross-scheduling of the rally and the reception, as well as the reception's high ticket prices, will not reoccur. "I find it tremendously unfortunate, and it's not anything that will happen under my watch. My goal is to have a community festival where everyone has access to the things they want to have access to." Despite all the drama, arguments and confrontations, when Sunday, June 7, came around, Mendoza shrugged off the controversy surrounding her speech and got dressed for the Pride parade. She chose her outfit to reflect her identity—a black bikini top to emphasis femininity, fishnets for sensuality, a bandana for radical politics and butterfly wings for the Monarch butterflies who emigrate from South to North America, a symbol of the fight for immigrant rights. TOMORROW, WE RISE Late summer 2015, Mendoza learned her mother planned to travel from Peru to New York to meet with her and her brother. Her longtime friend and fellow Dreamer, Itza Hernandez told her she would attend a fundraiser for Mendoza's plane ticket on Sept. 26. But instead, Mendoza was at a fundraiser the following day to raise bail for Hernandez, who days before had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Hernandez was arrested in May 2011 on DUI and assault charges and then detained by ICE. The immigration judge granted her bail, and shortly after, she took plea deals on the charges that left her with two class B misdemeanor convictions. Unbeknownst to her and her bail-bond company, the insurance company holding the bond filed for bankruptcy. Almost four years later, ICE called in 27 people, among them Hernandez, whose bonds were held by the bankrupt company. Most were released. Hernandez was held. An ICE spokesperson in a statement wrote that Hernandez was "a civil immigration enforcement priority," and would be held without bail until she appeared before an immigration judge on Oct. 29, when she was scheduled for a hearing on her green-card application. Just prior to being detained, Hernandez had started work at a bakery. Caught between anguish and fury, Mendoza helped organize a protest outside Beehive Bail Bonds that saw many of the former Salt Lake Dream Team reunite for their detained friend and activist. She told reporters, "Today is a press conference. Next time, we rise." Hernandez was a key figure in Salt Lake Dream Team, which was where she and Mendoza met. In a phone interview from a Spanish Fork jail, Hernandez describes herself as identifying as "queer in a non-binary way." She says "the only kind of organizing that makes sense is intersectional"—which is responding to where race, gender and other issues overlap in peoples' lives and can result in systemic social and economic injustice. That way, "you address things from the root of the problem and you're not leaving anyone behind." Equality Utah's executive director Troy Williams says Familia, and particularly Mendoza, "are reinventing and blowing apart all the old ideas about gender, race and class in a very exciting way, but also in a way that's very disturbing and uncomfortable for the older generations. They are challenging power—namely who has it and who has been excluded. Conversations we have had a hard time going to in America—race, gender, identity, poverty and violence—they're going right to it." That's because all those issues intersect in the lives of trans people of color. So Familia, "are challenging us to engage in these issues that are the most difficult to talk about." And challenge the establishment she does, including Equality Utah. On Oct. 3, 2015, EU invited Mendoza to attend its annual fundraising dinner, themed "Queer New World." Online the next day, she condemned EU as unnecessary, writing "white [saviorism] ABOUNDS in Utah." Small things jumped out at her at the dinner: "the amount of white award recipients, and the people of color GIVING the awards, the gendered bathrooms and the firm line between the classes." Mendoza says marginalization in Utah is not simply an issue of white privilege, of white entitlement but of Utahns fostering "this white-dominated narrative in a place where color is rare." She asks and answers her own question. "Where's the color in the rainbow?" For all its spectrum of colors, when it comes to people of color, "There is no color in that rainbow." CW

2016 KWCR Wildcat Radio   The Signpost Ogden Peak Communications Drag Show raises awareness and money October 16, 2016 by Jeweliette Cordero Mikka Paris of the Imperial Rainbow Court of Nothern Utah receives a donation to Youth Futures homeless shelter at the Drag Ball at Weber State University Davis campus on Oct. 14. Drag Queens are often associated with big hair, lots of makeup and beautiful, over-the-top dresses. This year, Weber State University hosted the second annual Charity Drag Ball,

Robbie Blaylock

showcasing performances from one of Utah’s only “Drag” organizations: The Imperial Rainbow Court of Northern Utah. They’re a non-profit organization and have over 70 chapters internationally. Their main goal is to give back to the community and help raise money and awareness for the LGBT community. “Everything we do is strictly charitable. We don’t make any money off of it,” said Robbie Blaylock, Imperial Majesty Emperor XVI of the IRCONU. Every dollar goes towards raising money for cause like diabetes, Make a Wish, AIDS, Christmas Box, and Youth Futures. This year’s event focused on homeless youth shelter: Youth Futures. Youth Futures was the first homeless shelter for teens in Utah. It opened its doors in February 2015. The organization’s goal is to provide a safe place for kids who have been kicked out of their homes, helping these kids avoid life on the streets. A large portion of these teens are LGBT and are “a very vulnerable population” said Kestin Page, LGBT Resource Center advocate. According to National Conference of State Legislators, “Between 20 and 40 percent of homeless youth identify as

Lady Delish

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender or Questioning.”Veteran Drag Queens like Lady Delish and Mikka Paris performed at the event. In case you’ve never been to a drag show before, it’s traditional for audience members to tip during the performance. Each performer brought their own style to the stage and would offer a small bow after someone would tip during the performance. These displays of gratitude excited the audience members and engrossed them in the performances. By the end, two of Weber State’s track students, Candace Bowman and Chloe Lund, decided to give the very last performance of the night. They earned not only respect from their fellow students watching them, but two more dollars for Youth Futures. “I think that drag is really awesome,” said Lund. “I like seeing them going out there and being able to express themselves. And me and (Candace) like to dance in the locker room. So we saw them doing that and thought, ‘Well we do that every day,’ and wanted to join in on the party.” With both students and the IRCONU performers, the Charity Drag Ball was able to raise $256 for Youth Futures. They encouraged all attendees to join future events, including both drag and non-drag events, to further support the organization help give back to the community and to help spread awareness of teen homelessness prevention.