This Day In Gay Utah History May 17th

17 May

1923 –First Presidency and Twelve agree to alter temple undergarment worn outside temple: "buttons instead of strings; no collar; sleeves above the elbow and few inches below the knee and a change in the crotch so as to cover the same." Mormons of the time regard this as a dramatic almost heretical change from endowment garment introduced by Joseph Smith.

1977 Ogden Standard Examiner headlined’ “Homosexuals Won’t Be Named”. The story was about a Third District Court Judge who refused to order the Metropolitan Community Church to supply names to police agencies of its

members so Utah State Deputy Attorney General Mike Deamer could compare the list with “sheriff’s and police records of known homosexuals”.  The motion by Deamer was part of a lawsuit in which Metropolitan Community Church of Salt Lake was denied the legal right to hold a dance in the state Capitol Rotunda.

1979  Lesbian and Gay Student Union the former Gay Student Union, sponsored its first Gay Awareness Day. A panel discussion group was held with representatives from Women Aware, Affirmation-Gay Mormon United and the Imperial Court of Utah answering questions from about 30 attendees.  Gay poetry and music, an information booth, and a forum will mark today’s Gay Awareness Day, according to the Lesbian and Gay Student Union. A panel forum entitled “The Gay Person in Utah Today” will be held at 7 p.m. in Union 323. A coffee house with poetry and song will be at 9 p.m. in the Union Den. The activists will allow the public to explore the meanings of Gay Life and Culture, according to Allen Lee Blaich, chairman of the Lesbian and Gay Student Union. (05/17/1979 Utah Daily Chronicle)

1980 A Candidate show for the Royal Court of the Golden Spike Empire was held at the East Room of the Sun Tavern. The Empress Candidates were Viva, Francine and Joanie Lynn. The Emperor Candidates were Crazy Pete and Bob Elton. The Privy Council candidates who were Board of Director candidates were  MaryLynn, Ralph, Bob Zancanella, Auntie De', Madge and Luckie.

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1983-Reagan administration officials refused to allow congressional investigators access to federal files on AIDS so they could prepare for a hearing on the federal government's response to AIDS.

1986- The Connection, a Gay restaurant next to the INBETWEEN opened. Located at 529 West 200 South owner Dean Weideman 

Steve Oldroyd

1988  At Unconditional Support, Steve Oldroyd showed a video on the March on Washington. We had a pretty good turn out including Brook Hallock. Afterwards we went to Dee’s for coffee and I had fun reminiscing about my train trip with Mark LaMarr back to Washington. In fact we got to laughing so hard that we were told to hold it down! [Journal of Ben Williams]

1990  After work I went up to the May Fest celebration at the U of U. It was very colorful and fetish. Lots and lots of tie dye, granola heads, and alternative lifestyle folks. Good Reggae music was performed by the Bridge. I saw Rocky O’Donovan there and we sat and visited for a while. I saw Bob Waldrop and I spent some time with him.  That old pot smoking libertarian, I think he's a hoot!  It was a nice mellow evening. [Journal  1990 of Ben Williams]

1992 Letter to SL Tribune by David Nelson LDS AND GAYS  When Mormon Church leaders

David Nelson

said recently that they'd published yet another booklet for church members about homosexuality (The Salt Lake Tribune, April 18), I was encouraged. After all, there wasn't any need to reiterate what the church said almost 10 years ago in its last such publication, where it called Gay and lesbian people as sinful as adulterers, murderers, rapists and tax evaders. I figured they must be arriving at some new opinions. They did. Church leaders say now that Gay and lesbian people aren't the victims of excommunication so much as they're offered ``help'' for their homosexual ``problems.'' The booklet states that this help includes ``church discipline.''    When one in three Utah families has a Gay or lesbian son, daughter or parent, it's not only irresponsible for church leaders to cling to such unfounded thoughts, it's embarrassing. Church leaders have said nothing caring or factual about Utah's 175,000 Gay and lesbian people, and their booklet isn't any different. DAVID NELSON Salt Lake City

1997- first annual Stonewall 200 Bowling Benefit held at Bonwood Bowling to benefit the Utah Stonewall Center.

1998- A One Day Event of Hair Care and Entertainment was held to benefit the People With AIDS Coalition.

1998 The Salt Lake Men’s Choir presented their annual spring concert, A Celebration of Life. Concert was the last of their 15th Anniversary Season.  The concert reflected on people living with AIDS and HIV.  AIDS activists, Care givers from Utah AIDS Foundation, the PWAC and New Frontiers participated in the event.

2000-Matthew Glavin, an anti-Gay/anti-Clinton right-wing activist,

was charged with public indecency for masturbating in a public park and propositioning a male undercover police officer for sex.  He resigned as president of the conservative Southeastern Legal Foundation, to fight a public indecency charge for the second time in four years.

2003 The Universe didn't screw around when it created the Taurus!  Join the Gay Community's most famous in celebration of their birthdays and the stubborn bull inside, Todd Dayley, Curtis Baker, and Chad Keller as they host: The Big Bad Taurus Birthday Bash!!  Saturday May 17, 2003 We politely start with Margaritas at 4:30pm on the Patio of the Trapp, and go until you cant take it anymore!   Local Band and Gay Community Favorite Ghosttowne will stop By at 7:00 for a special performance! No cover--But donations gladly accepted for City of Hope and the Utah Stonewall Historical Society!  See You there!! The Trapp is a private club for members...and as always with Utah's Private Club laws....Remember you ID and Membership!!

2003 Subject Utah Gay Rodeo Assc grant to USHS- This may sound weird but we just received our EIN number so we can open a bank account and don't have an account as yet. We just finalized our incorporation papers last month. Could you have the check made out to Chuck Whyte? He's our treasurer. Kevin Hillman and others in your group can vouch for the integrity of Mr. Whyte. Thank you again and much success with your Rodeo '04

• From Tim Knight  : My name is Tim Knight.   I am the 2003 treasurer for UGRA.   I would like to get our donation to your organization but I do not have an address.  Would you please forward your mailing address and I will get a check to you as soon as I can. Sincerely
• Subject: RE: Thank You Thank you so very much, The Utah Stonewall Historical Society address is  PO Box 252 Salt Lake City, 84111
• Tim Knight to Ben Williams Thank you for your quick response.  I am working on UGRA books today as we have our monthly meeting this afternoon.  I am writing a check in full for the UGRA pledge of $300.00.  I have no problem making the check payable to Mr. Whyte per your instruction.  The check will be mailed on Monday so I would assume you would have it by Tuesday or Wednesday.  We at UGRA are pleased that we are able to help a new organization in our community. Sincerely Tim Knight UGRA Treasurer 2003

2005 Tuesday, Social Mixer Peery Hotel historic ambiance... timeless charm... distinguished service 110 West Broadway (300 South) Salt Lake City, UT 84101 6:00 - 8:00 PM "Tell A Friend We Mean Business" Come relax, eat and mingle with fellow Guild members! RSVP on e-vite greatly appreciated or call Karl at 801-550-1700.  Thank you to Hotel Monaco for hosting our April Social Mixer / Networking Event

Jason Osmanski on right

2010 LGBT kids coming out earlier "I prayed every single day ... I didn't want to feel like this and I didn't want to go to hell."  By Rosemary Winters The Salt Lake Tribune :05/17/2010 St. George » Jason Osmanski knew he had to tell his mom, but he didn't know how. He was 14 years old and had spent half his life sensing he was different. Now, he had the words for it. Wanting to break the news somewhere public, someplace safe, Jason tagged along with his mom on a shopping trip to Walmart. But he still couldn't say it. He took a pad of paper from the pharmacy counter and wrote, "Will you love me no matter what?" Carolyn Osmanski gave him a quizzical look but answered, "Of course." Jason scribbled another note, crumpled it, handed it to his mom and bolted to a nearby aisle. She looked down at the wrinkled paper: "I'm gay." Awareness is growing » As society has become more open about sexuality, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) are coming out at younger ages. It's no longer rare for a high school -- or even a middle school -- to have one or more students who are openly gay or bisexual. They are taking same-sex dates to proms and launching gay-straight alliance clubs. And people who are transgender, who feel their gender differs from their biological sex, are sharing that with their families -- and sometimes their peers -- during adolescence. Some might start a transition from one gender to another as teenagers. Others can come out as "gender queer," meaning they don't see their gender identity as solely masculine or feminine. "The fact that kids are coming out in high school says a lot" about how society has changed,

Jude McNeil

said Jude McNeil, youth programs director at the Utah Pride Center, which served 3,000 people ages 14-20 in its youth activity center last year. About 700 teens attended the pride center's Queer Prom in April, up from 250 in 2004. LGBT people are more visible now, in their communities and in the media, McNeil said. Youngsters might know someone who is LGBT or have seen positive images in television and film. Plus, McNeil said, the Internet has allowed teens to learn more about what it means to be gay or transgender and to connect with others who are. "As a community and as a society, we're hearing more and more about LGBT people," she said. "We're thinking more about what it means to be LGBT. Parents are learning more. Schools are learning more." But acceptance hasn't necessarily accompanied awareness. Many youths who come out grapple with rejection by family members and friends. Gay and transgender teens are at higher risk for suicide, depression and homelessness. Margaret Rosario, a psychology professor at the City University of New York, recently reviewed a number of national and international surveys of representative samples of adolescents. She found 21 to 35 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual youths reported attempting suicide in the past year, contrasted with 4 to 14 percent of their heterosexual peers. She shared her findings at a University of Utah conference earlier this year. A relatively small portion of juveniles and young adults identify as LGBT -- 5 percent to 8 percent -- but they compose 20 percent to 40 percent of the homeless youth population in the U.S., according to the National Coalition for Youth. In Salt Lake City, Volunteers of America conducted a survey from October 2008 to February 2009 that found 42 percent of those served at its Homeless Youth Resource Center were LGBT. Each year, the center works with more than 700 homeless young people ages 15 to 22. Fear of rejection » The fear of being thrown out of his home was one of many that Jason Osmanski struggled with before he decided to come out to his parents two years ago. As a child, his family attended a Southern Baptist church where Jason was taught that being gay is a sin. He remembers hearing his father say that having a gay kid would mean he had failed as a parent. "I prayed every single day, asking God to take it away from me because I didn't want to feel like this and I didn't want to go to hell," said Jason, now a sophomore at Snow Canyon High in St. George.  The summer after eighth grade, Jason lit several candles in his bedroom and wrote a suicide note. He lay down on his bed and held a knife to his wrist. But he stopped. He pictured his mother's face when she found him. "I thought, 'I can't do this to her,' " Jason said. Instead, he called his best friend and confided for the first time what he was going through. After Jason passed his mother that crumpled note in Walmart, she found him shaking on the floor in the cosmetics aisle, beneath rows of mascara and eye shadow. Carolyn Osmanski lifted her son to his feet and gave him a hug. She told him, "I love you no matter what." The role of parents » Parents play a key role in the well-being of gay and transgender kids, mental health experts say.  One of the challenges of coming out as an adolescent is the lack of control minors have over their own lives. Their parents decide where they live or where they go to school. Often, home might be the only place where they feel loved. But rejection there cuts deep. "If you're a member of an ethnic minority group and you're bullied at school, you can go home and talk to your parents about it and they

David Huebner

understand -- provided you're not adopted," said David Huebner, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Utah. "For gay kids, they can't necessarily count on that. Often they experience the same mistreatment in the home that they do outside." In a 2007 survey of 6,209 LGBT students nationwide, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network found that 86 percent had been verbally harassed at school because of their sexual orientation. One in five students (22 percent) said they had been physically assaulted, including kicked, punched or injured with a weapon. GLSEN reports bullying rates have remained fairly consistent since the biennial survey was started in 2001.  Huebner and his colleagues surveyed 224 young gay and bisexual adults who came out in adolescence and found that family rejection was linked to higher health risks. The study, published in January in Pediatrics , the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, reported that young adults ages 21 to 25 who experienced greater levels of family rejection during adolescence were 8.4 times more likely to have attempted suicide, 5.9 more times likely to have high levels of depression, and 3.4 times more likely to use illegal drugs than peers who experienced little or no rejection. On average, young adults in the survey reported they first knew they were attracted to members of the same sex at 10. They first told a parent at 15. Parents don't have to throw their kids out of the house to engage in rejecting behaviors, Huebner said. It's usually more subtle. Some parents can deny or ignore the news their child is gay. Others might place blame on the child when he is bullied at school by suggesting he "tone down" his appearance.  "We really recommend that parents take a good, hard look at themselves and what they are doing," Huebner said. Parents, no matter how they feel about their kids' sexuality, need to continue to parent and let their kids know they are loved, he noted. Parents ought to express their feelings of sadness, concern, fear or even disgust with another adult -- not with their LGBT child. "I don't think parents are engaging in these sort of rejecting behaviors because they are bad parents," Huebner said. "I think parents are doing the best they can with a difficult situation -- one where parents often don't have any guidance or support themselves." Many parents wait months or years before seeking out support groups like PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Kathy

Kathy Godwin

Godwin, president of the Salt Lake City PFLAG chapter, tells parents it's OK to make mistakes. The first thing Godwin said she tells them: "You must be an amazing parent because your child just told you the most important thing in their lives." Trapped in the wrong body » Melanie, a Sandy mother of four, thought her first child was going through a phase. Her 5-year-old daughter insisted on being referred to as a boy, telling everyone, "Call me Tommy."  Melanie's transgender son, Bruce, transitioned to life as a boy when he was 14. (Bruce, now 20, is not out to everyone he knows and asked to use a pseudonym for this story. Melanie's last name isn't used to protect Bruce's identity.) Many children will express gender variance and not come to identify themselves as transgender, noted McNeil, of the Utah Pride Center. Some boys just like pink or playing with dolls. Some girls are tomboys. But for Bruce it was more. As a 2-year-old, when he dressed in Western get-up, he insisted he was a "cowboy." In grade school, every self-portrait showed a boy's face with short hair, not the girly mane he really had. When he had to don a Sunday dress to attend the family's LDS ward, Bruce reacted as if the fabric were "toxic," Melanie said. At 12, Bruce would hide his hair under a baseball hat and hang out at skate parks. He was pleased the other boys easily mistook him for one of them. He'd tell them, "Call me Bruce."  But his boyish appearance made him a target for school bullies. In eighth grade, he liked to wear his hair short and dress in boys' clothes. Other kids would call him a "freak," or cry, "Transformer, transformer, female in disguise," Bruce recalled. "They'd shove me and push me around."  One day, Bruce tucked a suicide note in his friend's locker and went home. "I cried in my room and I thought, 'What am I going to do? I want to be this person [a boy], and I don't know how to tell my parents.' "  But death was too "scary," he said.  The next day, Melanie was alerted by the school about the suicide note. She was advised to seek counseling for Bruce. With the help of a therapist, Bruce expressed his strong sense that, on the inside, he was male. He was diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, a condition found in the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual. Melanie sees it as a medical condition, not a mental disorder. At some point in the womb, she says, hormones signaled Bruce to develop a male brain even as he developed a female body. Bruce, with the support of his mother, decided to start living life as a boy. He began ninth grade at a new school with a new name. He changed his name on his birth certificate, and when he turned 16, he got a driver license with an "M," not an "F."  "All of a sudden, everything fit into place," Melanie said. "He's the same person, but now he's able to just be himself."  Bruce has not had surgery or taken hormones, but he has a masculine appearance -- helped by his broad shoulders and bulky biceps. He's still weighing the health risks of those medical treatments. "I'm never going to have a normal life," he acknowledged. "You just have to live your life one day at a time. I'm thankful that I'm this way. It makes me more compassionate." Support for LBGT teens » Despite facing greater risks for depression and other problems, studies show that the majority of LGBT kids are "not in trouble," stressed Huebner, the University of Utah psychology professor. "They're finding ways to cope and to adapt to situations that are very hard," he said. "That points to the resilience of these kids, the strength of these kids." Often, they find support in one another. Morgan Shattuck first told friends she was "questioning" her sexuality when she was 15, two years before she came out to her parents as a lesbian. As a conservative Mormon kid growing up in West Jordan, Morgan, 17, had been a homophobe herself. "I viewed gay people as, like, these slutty monsters," she said. But she found support from her peers at the Utah Pride Center and the Gay-Straight Alliance at Salt Lake City's East High. Now in her senior year, she is president of the GSA, a tight-knit group of about a dozen students. "It's sort of like our own little family who protects each other throughout the weeks," she said. Even when she was fighting with her parents and "didn't feel like home was home," she had her friends. Learning to love herself has helped her reach out to others. "I was this dark person who didn't see any light in the world. I hated everybody," she said. "Now that I've come out, I love everybody. Even if they hate me, I love them."  Help for parents Utah Pride Center » Offers support groups for parents and LGBT youths, 361 N. 300 West, Salt Lake City, 801-539-8800, www.utahpridecenter.org. PFLAG » (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, www.pflag.org) has three Utah chapters: Ogden, ogdenpflag@q.com; Salt Lake City, slcpflag@gmail.com; St. George,

2010 City Weekley to host Drag Queen competition I Posted By:

Jesse Fruhwirth

Jesse Fruhwirth Salt Lake City weekly  Join in this new Pride tradition! CW's first-ever drag contest. Watch as the most fabulous ladies in drag compete for... •$1000 in cash & prizes AND •the title of Miss City Weekly 2010! The event June 3 will be hosted by Gorgeous Jared at the Circle Lounge. $5 cover, 21 Judges include •"I'll-do-anything" star realtor Cody Derrick •The loveliness that is Princess Kennedy •Meg Griggs of Craft Sabbath •and reporter Jesse Fruhwirth of City Weekly! We're still accepting applicants! Go to cityweekly.net/misscw or email theword@cityweekly.net for more information! SERIOUS UPDATE: Due to popular demand from entrants, we've moved the date of the pageant to June 3, so it will now kick-off Utah Pride Weekend. Update your calendars because you won't want to miss it. (The post below

Princess Kennedy

was updated 5-17-2010, 4 p.m) It was inevitable like Ricky Martin coming out of the closet: City Weekly will host our first-ever Drag Queen competition in celebration of fierceness, fishnets, falsies and the Utah Pride Festival 2010. Details are still being arranged--we'll release them as soon as they are settled--but we know this much so far: •There will be prizes. •The competition will be June 3, so entrants must be available that night. •The winner will ride with CW in some fabulous vehicle during the Pride Parade June 6, so entrants must be available to do that. •The winner will hold her title for one year, during which CW will hype her fabulousness while she helps hype our special events hosted by CW's The Word.  We haven't ruled out including Drag Kings, but we'll measure interest on that before deciding--so apply! It'll be naughty. It'll be awesome. It'll be a drag show like only CW could put together. To enter or ask questions, contact theword@cityweekly.net by May 20. Please include three photos, a short biography, and a video performance (if available). Preliminary contestants will be notified if they made it into the pageant by Friday, May 21. 

2014 Utah Supreme Court halts same-sex adoption cases The ruling is in response to a request by Utah Attorney General’s Office.  BY MICHAEL MCFALL AND MARISSA LANG THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE  The Utah Supreme Court has halted all movement in same-sex adoption until the justices determine whether the adoptions — and by extension the marriages — are legal. The announcement came late Friday night, in response to the Utah Attorney General’s Office emergency request Thursday to halt all adoption orders until the high court can rule on the merit of the case. The attorney general’s request, its second to the Utah’s high court, was given renewed urgency earlier this week by a district judge’s order that members of that office and other government agencies appear on June 16 and explain why they were not following orders to fulfill the adoptions. Had Attorney General

Robert Shelby

Sean Reyes appeared, he would have had to answer to the judge, who could have held him and others in contempt of court, which could result in jail time, a fine or both. The high court’s stay presumably puts that June 16 hearing on hold as well, according to an attorney general’s office news release. “The stay will remain in effect until the issue has been fully briefed by the parties and resolved by the court,” according to the release. The court has not yet announced a date for the oral arguments, the release adds. Last month, the state filed petitions that said judges who granted such adoptions “abused [their] discretion” by approving an adoption for couples and ordering the Utah Department of Vital Records and Statistics to issue new birth certificates for the couples’ children. Supporters of same-sex marriage have accused the state of  “tearing families apart” for political reasons, but Assistant Attorney General Joni Jones, who oversees the litigation division of the office, said the state is seeking clarity, not discord. After U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby’s historic ruling on Dec. 20 that Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, more than 1,300 gay and lesbian couples were wed in the state before the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay, halting the marriages. Those couples have since lived in a state of limbo, left to grapple with conflicting and often-confusing answers to the legal status of their unions. A ruling from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments from the state seeking to overturn Shelby’s ruling last month, would also lend clarity to the question of whether same-sex marriage in Utah may, ultimately, be legalized. The federal court has put the case on an expedited calendar and could rule any day. It’s widely anticipated that after the appeals court rules, the case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court along with several similar cases from around the country. 

Robbins, Prespentt, Williams, O'Donovan

2019  Awards announced at Pride Spectacular Q Salt Lake. The Utah Pride Center presented its annual awards at the Utah Pride Spectacular May 17. 2019 Kristen Ries Community Service Award Recipients were Pepper Prespentt and Sue Robbins. The 2019 Utah Pride Lifetime Achievement Awards went to Ben Williams and Connell O’Donovan.

• Sue Robbins has been an incredibly dedicated and effective advocate for the LGBTQA community. She was a founding member and inaugural president of Phi Delta, a local tri-ESS chapter in SLC. After coming out more publicly as a transgender woman she became a member of the board of directors of the Utah Pride Center and served as board president 2017-18. Sue recently became Chair of Transgender Education Advocates, working to build and grow that organization and to help it be more effective in its mission.
• Pepper Prespentt started as an activist for LGBTQ rights in the 70’s and is still active today. She saved lives by funding and supporting the establishment of the Gay Help Line and made it easily accessible. Pepper was one of the founders of the RCGSE, in 1976, and is one of the most active members, to this day – having earned a Lifetime Reign as Emperor 1 of the Golden Spike Empire.
• Ben Williams was one of the primary librarians shaping the permanent/archival lending Utah Stonewall Library. Ben focused on archives and keeping the collection ordered during his off-time hours from 1993-1994; his community historian skills have expanded the community’s knowledge both then and now; he was the first full-time volunteer librarian. Ben also has been educating LGBT Utah History through his years-long Lambda Lore column. In 2015, the State of Utah recognized Ben as having preserved the history of the LGBTQ+ community in the state. 
• Connell O’Donovan spent decades on research and writing with focus on LGBT Mormon History, Black Mormon History, William Smith (youngest brother of Mormon founder Joseph Smith), and LGBT Anthropology/Archaeology; his interest in this area having lived several years in Moab, Utah and explored Anasazi and Fremont ruins all over the Colorado Plateau ecosystem. He’s written a dozen articles on homosexuality in pre-Christian Europe, as well as contributed to several publications on similar areas. He currently serves as the Chair of the “Oratories” Oral Project Committee of the Utah Queer Historical Society.
  

Excerpts from the journal of Ben Williams "I felt honored by the Life Time Achievement Award tonight at the Pride Center's Spectacular Gala benefit . It was humbling to see a video of friends saying kind things about me. When Alan Anderson and I were leaving Savannah, this young Mormon Girl who made news a couple of years ago coming out as a lesbian when she was 12  in her Mormon Sacrament meeting, came up to tell me that she had the courage to do what she did because of me. I was surprised that she’d even know who I was. It's amazing the lives you touch without ever knowing it. I said she was courageous and her action would save lives. On the way home Alan told me how Weston Clark was told by his mother Christy who I taught with, how wonder I was as a Gay teacher which helped him with his decision to come out when I thought I was well hidden."