This Day In Gay Utah History June 16th

16 June

1893 Police Court James Pierson, a sheep herder, from Brigham City, committed a nuisance and made an indecent exposure in the Union depot waiting room and will make the city jail for his headquarters for the next 15 days. James Pierson who was arrested by Officer Blanchet at the Union depot for indecent exposure got fined 15 days in the city bastile The Standard, Ogden Utah

1974-Gay activists interrupted a speech by Dr. David Ruben to protest his opinions on male homosexuals in his book "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex." Dr. David Reuben had legions of fans after publishing his best-selling book in 1969. Murray Edelman wasn't among them. Reuben epicted gay men's relationships as bleakly impersonal and short-lived. lman and some fellow activists decided to attend.

1986-Monday- 30 or more people attended a LGSU sponsored BBQ at Liberty Park. The group met off campus during summer break. 

1987- “Talked to Michael Ortega at the Crossroads Urban Center and

decided to move Salt Lake Affirmation there and meet at 7;30 on Tuesday nights.  If we met on Wednesday we would have to jump up and downstairs. By meeting on Tuesday we will be consistent Members of Salt Lake Affirmation went to see Prick Up Your Ears at the Plitt Theater on Main Street. Story about the life of Gay play writer Joe Orton .(Journal of Ben Williams)

  

1988-Delegates at the annual convention of Southern Baptists passed a resolution blaming gays for AIDS and condemning homosexuals as perverts and abominations who have depraved natures.

1990-Queer Nation held a national Take Back the Night march protesting hate crimes against gays. Over 1,000 people attended, including Queer Nation Utah.

1991 Daddy’s Day was sponsored by Wasatch Leathermen and Motorcycle Club  in SLC UT

1991 Sunday “There was a Library Committee Meeting at Liberty Park at noon. It was a pot luck so I brought some strawberries and donut holes. At the meeting  were Bobbie Smith, Liza Smart, Michelle Davies, Melissa Silatoe, Marlin Criddle and I. We agreed to do removeable tattoos at Pride Day for a fundraiser and to be open at the Stonewall Center on Tuesdays, Thursday and Sundays.  I went to the Gay Rodeo sponsored show of the Saliva sisters. I sat with folks  from Unconditional Support but also saw others I knew but it really wasn’t a large turn out. The Saliva Sisters had new material and I enjoyed them as always.  I went to the Deerhunter afterwards and saw Brad [Townsend] who I knew from Affirmation years ago. How times have changed. After leaving the Deerhunter and talking with Val Mansfield, I went home and watched  a tape.  Val said that the Desert and Mountain States Conference wasn’t in debt $60,000 at all and probably broke even but there won’t be a conference in 1992. [Journal of Ben Williams]

1991 Glenn "Doug" Douglas, age 58, died at his home in Salt Lake City causes incident to AIDS.  Manager/owner of Esquire Lounge in Hotel Ben Lomond during the early 1970's. Founding member of Wasatch Leathermen Motorcycle Club. Survived by Les Emmett, his life partner of 17 years.

1993 With virtually no debate, the Utah State Board of Education rejected more liberal guidelines recommended by the State Textbook Commission that would have permitted a Gay lifestyle to be depicted as acceptable in textbooks. The board kept the existing guidelines for textbooks and in some areas made them more conservative by adding new language, including wording that forbids showing homosexuality in textbooks as a "healthy" lifestyle. Textbooks in Utah's classrooms will give essentially a dictionary definition of homosexuality but will not show it as an acceptable lifestyle.

1996 Salt Lake Tribune Page: B7 Steven Wallace Crook,age 34, of Fairfield Connecticut, died Monday,June 3, 1996 at his home. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah on September24, 1961 Steve was a Fairfield resident for the past six years. He was a graduate of the University of Utah and George Washington University, where he received his Physician's Assistant degree and Masters in Public Health. Steve was a Physicians Assistant specializing in the treatment of people infected with the HIV Virus. He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the American Association of Physicians Assistants.   Survivors include his companion, Barry Vesciglio of Fairfield, Conn.; 

2002 Mark Bryner, “GSA Grandpa” Dies by Sara Jordan On Sunday, June 16, 2002, friends

Mark Bryner center

and family members gathered to remember the life of Mark Bryner, advocate for the gay and lesbian community. Mark was born on May 11, 1920. He married his wife of 60 years in the Salt Lake Temple in 1943 and remained active in the church until his death on May 22. Mark and Grace had three children, including a gay son, Michael, who died in 1998 from complications related to AIDS. Michael was, in his life, a healer and one of the first to incorporate mind/body/spirit work in his practice. He was a teacher to many in the social work community. Father and son never saw eye to eye about Michael’s work, and it was not until his funeral that Mark really understood who his son was and how many lives he’d touched. Natalie Clausen, a family friend, remembers how after Michael’s funeral, Michael’s friends met in a circle to honor him. They invited Mark to join. Upon realizing how much of Michael’s life he had missed out on, Mark committed himself to “walk in my sons footsteps.” He became passionate about social justice issues for gay and lesbian people.  The spring that Michael died, students at East High were becoming vocal about their desire to be formally recognized as a gay/straight alliance (GSA). Their actions set off a firestorm of debate over the rights of gay and lesbian people in Utah’s public schools. Mark, heartbroken over the loss of his son, somehow made his way to East

Camille Lee

High. There he wasted no time assessing the needs of the students and set about providing resources (money, information, furniture, transportation, a place to live) to the GSA and the individual students in it. Mark faithfully attended the students’ weekly meetings, always bringing milk and donuts, and became their advocate and friend. Sometimes this meant waking a student up in the morning to get him/her to school or attending parent/teacher conference. He soon became known as the “GSA Grandpa.” Camille Lee, then advisor to the GSA, recalling one student in particular, comments that without Mark, “there is no way she would have made it out of high school.” In addition to getting involved at East High, Mark became active in P-FLAG, Family Fellowship, GLSEN, and the Utah Coalition for Safe Schools. He told Camille, “I don’t have very many years left in my life, and this is how I want to spend them.” He worked tenaciously, not only to care for “the one” but also to affect

Doug Wortham

institutional change. Doug Wortham, former Chair of GLSEN, worked with Mark to organize GLSEN Day at the legislature. He noted that Mark seemed unafraid to take on any authority or hierarchy. He heard Mark say many times, “I am a citizen and I know how these people think.” This conviction was manifest in his constant willingness to take on whatever problem arose. At the time of his death, Mark was working with LDS seminary and church officials on the appropriateness of information being transmitted to students about the gay and lesbian experience. Mark has been described as a gentle bulldog. He refused to take no for an answer--for example, when requesting a meeting with officials (legislators, school board and district members, etc.). He talked with everyone he could about equality for gay and lesbian people and was particularly concerned about their emotional and physical safety in public settings. Mark was unrelenting in his presence and went wherever this work took him, including the courtroom. He attended hearings concerning the legality of Salt Lake School District’s decision to ban all clubs and worked closely with the family of a lesbian student who was assaulted by a male student, to ensure that justice and accountability were achieved. The morning of his death, Mark met with the Principal of East High to discuss Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination in education. Mark wanted to be sure that gay and lesbian students received the protection they were entitled to. At the  Fathers Day memorial gathering for Mark, John Apel, Michael’s partner of 91/2 years, said, “I am gay, and I have never done the kind of work that Mark has done.” Sadly, Mark’s obituary mentioned nothing of his important work for gay and lesbian people. His legacy as a tireless supporter, community organizer, and activist lives on in the memories of all those whose lives he touched.

2003- Christopher Paul Ricksecker (1982-2003) committed suicide- Even though Christopher was not LDS, his mother was. Chris's death moved the gay and lesbian Mormon community in Salt Lake City, where he resided. Many Affirmation members participated in the vigil held in his memory. Christopher was born in San Diego on January 22, 1982, and attended Highland High School in Salt Lake City. Life was not easy for Chris; he felt overwhelmed with emotional problems and suffered depression. He committed suicide in Salt Lake City on June 16, 2003. Christopher was cremated at his request, and his ashes were later scattered on the Pacific. A vigil for Chris was held on July 1, 2003, in Sugarhouse Park in Salt Lake. The service was conducted by Chris's step mom, Sheri Young; Chris's dad, David, also said a few words.  Through a candlelight ceremony, the audience remembered not only Chris but all gay and lesbian people who have taken lives. Charles Milne, GLBT advisor for the University of Utah, helped conduct the candle lighting ceremony and made some remarks. Kristine Clifford said a prayer. These are some experts for the remarks made by Chris's dad: "I went to several churches for answers. The answers that they gave me were that gay people are evil and bad. One pastor  in a local church told me that gay people are possessed with demons---that they are bad and that they are going to hell." "Chris wanted to be accepted for who he was, but he could never accept himself who he was and how he felt." "We don't need special groups for gays or anyone else. We cannot judge gay people and put them in special groups. What makes us better than gay people? We need to save our children." "We can change the world by accepting people for who they are. I've been very intolerant and judgmental of other people in the past, but I will not be any more." "Help people stop killing our children," echoed Christopher's step mom.

2003 Hey EVERYONE, Please join us for the second Court meeting of the 28th reign and this time I promise that we will not be meeting on the lawn.  Paula Wolff at the GLCCenter has confirmed our scheduling for this meeting. RCGSE COURT MEETING Tuesday, June 17 - 7:30pm Gay & Lesbian Community Center  Multi-Purpose Room   (Black Box Theatre) I hope to see you all there.  If you have not joined the new reign,   I  encourage you to download an application from our web site or to please fill one out at tomorrow's Court meeting.  Thanks in advance for your participation.  See you tomorrow! Service with an Open Mind...HMIM Emperor XXVII Mark Thrash "The Embodiment of the Spike"

Stan Penfold

2003 Stan Penfold to Ben Williams Ben, Two things... Can you send me some current contact information on yourself.  Looks like we don't have your mailing address or phone number. Also, I was talking with Patty Reagan the other day and I mentioned  that I would like to get some history of the Foundation from her.  She said that several years back you did a recorded interview with her that  would be good for me to hear.  Do you still have that?  Could I possibly borrow it? Let me know. Thanks Stan

• I will send you a copy

2005 SLC creates rights commission; Rocky says it lacks 'teeth' By Heather May The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake City created a Human Rights Commission this week to advise the mayor and City Council on nondiscrimination policies. The to-be-formed nine-member panel also will investigate complaints from residents who feel the city has discriminated against them in employment, housing, immigration, public health, public safety, public transportation, and parks or recreation. The commission replaces a defunct one that looked into race and ethnicity. The new commission will address discrimination based on age, ancestry, color, disability, gender, national origin, marital status, medical condition, physical limitation, race, religion and sexual orientation. While the ordinance passed the City Council unanimously, Mayor Rocky Anderson said the commission lacks "real teeth." He said he wouldn't veto it, but added he would rather see the council pass ordinances that "prohibit discrimination in housing and employment, that provide for equal insurance benefits and other legal rights." "Right now somebody could be denied housing because they're gay or lesbian and there's no recourse," he said. Councilman Eric Jergensen - who pushed the ordinance, along with Councilwoman Jill Remington Love - said the mayor can seek those other, toothier, ordinances now. "If he wants to suggest ordinance, let him go ahead," Jergensen said. "I'd like to find out where we are as a city and what recommendations they [commission members] would make to us as a city

before moving forward."

2007 Hello, I'm a psychologist in Salt Lake who thought this group might be interested in one or more of the upcoming workshops in June. Two of my colleagues, Mikele Rauch LMFT and Dale English MS CAS, are coming to our community in June to share their skills in three unique offerings. I have known Dale and Mikele for several years and have worked with both of them. Their clinical skills are superb and the workshops they will be conducting here in Salt Lake City will be unique in their focus and of very high quality. First, on June 8 & 9, they will offer a workshop called "A Wolf In God's Clothing: Recovering from Religious Abuse." This workshop is for those who have suffered any psychological, sexual, or spiritual abuse at the hands of organized religions. The two-day workshop is designed to help participants share their truth, connect with their own inner life in the presence of others, celebrate & reclaim the stolen spirit, and meet others of like journey. I know that Dale and Mikele will treat all participants' religious and spiritual issues with the utmost respect and care. Second, on June 11-13 from 1:00 to 5:00 pm, they will be part of the University of Utah School of Social Work continuing education program offering "'My Turn': Care for the Caregiver" for professional caregivers who may suffer from the effects of Vicarious/Secondary Trauma & Compassion Fatigue. If you or someone you know is a professional caregiver in the field of psychotherapy, trauma work, bereavement, HIV/AIDS, addictions, pastoral care, or advocate for human rights, then this three-day workshop should be helpful. Go to www.socwk.utah. edu/si23/ courses.asp for more information.Dale will offer another "Care for the Caregiver" workshop, but this time for non-professional caregivers who need a day of respite to focus on their needs so that they can continue giving from a place of fullness. If you or you think your colleagues would be interested in learning more of these workshops, feel free to email me or Dale to receive an email attachment or mailing with  more information, especially regarding the affordable price for each workshop. Truly, there is something here for almost everyone. Sincerely, Lee Beckstead, Ph.D.

Juan Lopez

2010 King of Queens: Salt Lake's queer, Latino community Being gay in Utah is hard enough. By Stephen Dark Salt Lake City Weekly When Juan Lopez found his brother, Javier, hanging from a rope in the backyard shed of the West Valley City house they shared, his brother, he says, “had a huge smile, as if he’d finally found happiness.” The brother had been dead for four hours, his nails turning black from pooling blood and his head almost separating from his body when Juan found him at about 10 p.m. on March 25, 2003. Hysterical, he cut the 31 year old down and laid him on the ground. The room was full of fabric that Javier—a brother, but also a transgender woman—had used to make dresses. For the funeral viewing, Juan, now 40, dressed his brother as a man so as not to offend their Mexican family. “They didn’t want to know or talk about him being HIV positive,” Juan recalls. That denial extended to the two brothers. Juan knew his brother had been diagnosed as HIV-positive two years before his death. “I wanted him to tell me, but he never did. The [Hispanic] culture never teaches you to be open.” For Javier’s cremation, Juan dressed him as a woman. “I could do that for him.” Javier had recently started taking hormones and had developed breasts. He was growing out his hair, had smooth skin and tattooed his eyelids. Juan believes his brother was bipolar and killed himself in the midst of a depression. Javier, he says, “wanted to be a woman 100 percent, to have kids, something he knew wasn’t possible in his lifetime. He couldn’t accept that, and it hurt him every day.”  Javier was a pioneer of a popular gay Latino Sunday night at now-closed gay nightclub The Trapp Door. He organized female impersonation shows called Latino Divas that featured drag queens, transvestites and transgender women. Before Latino Divas, attempts by activists to promote HIV prevention had met with failure. Juan, probably Utah’s most experienced gay Latino community activist, used his brother’s Sunday night event to promote HIV awareness. For almost a decade, Juan, and more recently Utah Department of Health’s HIV outreach coordinator Claudia Gonzalez, have been doggedly handing out

Claudia Gonzalez

condoms at both gay and straight Hispanic bars and clubs. Utah Department of Health HIV Education and Training coordinator Heather Bush says Utah’s 2009 HIV-infection rate of 112 new infections was the highest on record. And while the Hispanic community only comprises 12 percent of the state’s population, 21 percent of men and 21 percent of women with HIV/Aids in 2009 were Latino. “A lot of Hispanic men are bisexual,” Juan says. Married Latino men who have sex with transgender prostitutes they pick up at straight Hispanic dance halls, then take STDs including HIV infections home to unsuspecting spouses are an enormous concern, HIV activists agree. Interviews over several months with Latino gay men, lesbians, transsexuals and transgender women, some of whom are sex workers saving for their dream of gender-changing surgery, reveal a universe similar to 1970s San Francisco when gays were coming out and attempting to find a supportive community. The Salt Lake City Latino gay scene is similarly decadent and hedonistic. It’s pleasure seeking with a dangerous dark side, however. As gay Latinos open up to the community, many find themselves caught up in unsafe sex, alcohol and drug abuse, and risky plastic surgery. These behaviors are all the more deadly since few are eligible to receive medical care due to their undocumented status. Lacking government assistance and aid, the community is caring for itself. Juan is helping with his advocacy for safe sex. And if there is a scene for this crowd, 27-year-old gay-night impresario Manuel Arano is hellbent on creating one. Second Options One recent Saturday night at Club Edge, dressed in black T-shirt and knee-length pants, Arano, a languid dancer, drifts through the club, engaging briefly in different conversations. Some of his show’s retinue of drag queens and transsexuals hover around him, yet he remains separate, both from them and from the temper tantrums—over, for example, which drag queen will open and close a show—that occasionally erupt in their midst. Atala, a 25-year-old transvestite and frequent performer in Arano’s shows who grew up in Layton, says, as a drag queen, “I used to love to fight, to get drunk.” Other drag queens and transvestites hated him, he says. “They put crushed glass in my compact. All we want to be is stars.” This is a community riddled with gossip. “I’ve died of AIDS no matter how many times, I’ve committed suicide no matter how many times,” Juan says. Arano initially succeeded Javier’s Latino Divas with his own “Pachanga Night,” which until the weekend before this year’s Pride festival had been at the Sugar House-based Hispanic nightclub Karamba for 12 months. It was arguably the place to be seen for a community that has only gradually emerged into the neon light, and also the place to learn and verify the day’s gossip. But “the scene” has just relocated: On the final night of the Utah Pride Festival, Arano launched his new night, “Papichulo” (which means “Cute Guy”), at Club Edge (615 N. 400 West) leaving in his wake aggrieved managers at Karamba and conflicted regulars trying to decide where their allegiances lay. Karamba manager Martin Medina says his club will continue with a Sunday gay Latino night. Juan worries that the crowd only has eyes for Arano’s gaudy nightclub spectacles, meanwhile ignoring the disturbing health issues that boil beneath. “Everything Juan did was about the community,” Jennifer Nuttall, the Utah Pride Center adult programs director says. “It’s really hard for him to see the shift” to Arano. She adds there’s no reason why the community, which she says needs leaders, can’t have both men at the forefront. Juan says his dream is “for the community to come together and care for each other.” That, though, may well be low on the list of priorities, considering all the obstacles gay Latinos can face. Perhaps the largest obstacle is that between 70 and 90 percent of Utah’s gay Latino population, Juan estimates, are undocumented. Lack of papers means no access to Medicaid for mental-health issues, leading many Latino GLBT community members in Utah, traumatized by coming out into an often unyielding and punitive Hispanic culture, whether in the United States or abroad, to find solace in substance abuse rather than seek help. Alex Moya, the director of the Utah AIDS Foundation’s Hispanic arm, Hermanos de Luna y Sol, argues Latinos are a second or third option when it comes to parceling out resources. “It’s like we’re a second thought,” Moya says. “Everyone talks about being inclusive, diverse, but how do we get there?” “I don’t think their needs are being met,” Nuttall says. The center, she adds, has hired consultants to help it be more inclusive. Juan points out, however, that the lack of resources may well reflect a greater appetite in the community for partying than, for example, taking courses to become sorely needed medical interpreters. “It’s hard to pull them out of the bars,” he says. Oily Skin-Juan and Javier grew up in Michoacan, Mexico, with three other brothers and two sisters. Their stern father filled Juan’s childhood memories of life in Mexico and then in a chicken farm in Herriman with harsh discipline. As gay young adults and brothers, they moved in together. While Juan eventually pursued a monogamous gay life, Javier embraced the bar and bathhouse scene in Salt Lake City, his brother recalls. Javier formed a group of drag queens called Latino Divas. In 2001, the divas found a home at The Trapp Door’s Sunday gay Latino night. When Javier told his brother he wanted to become a woman, “I got really scared for him,” Juan says. The effects of long term hormone therapy on internal organs as well as injections of cooking, engine or mineral oil into lips, legs, thighs and buttocks to achieve feminine curves are known to cause life-threatening health problems. “I was very overprotective, but he kept telling me, ‘It’s my life,’” Juan says. In 2001, Lopez volunteered at the Utah AIDS Foundation and used his brother’s Trapp Door night to pass out condoms and do HIV prevention. After his brother’s death, Juan took over the Latino Divas’ shows at The Trapp Door, while also caring for a close friend of Javier’s, 37-year-old artist Carlos Adame, who was dying of AIDS. Adame had no Social Security number and could not get Medicaid. Juan secured funding to learn how to care for him, whether it was administering shots or trying to heal his stomach when it split open following an operation. “I was sick with exhaustion,” by the time Adame died. “There were times I needed to go out there and scream.” When Manuel Arano started a Sunday night show at the now-closed Club Exit, Juan gradually lost his performers and his following at the The Trapp Door to Arano’s no-cover charge shows and cheap drinks. Lopez’s mission, however, was not to make money. “I’m about helping,” he says. “That’s what I do.” In 2005, Arano took over The Trapp Door’s gay Latino Sunday-night, pushing Juan aside. Feeling abandoned by the community, Juan trained as a nurse and currently does HIV-prevention outreach at Project Reality in downtown Salt Lake City. Gay, Gay, Gay - While there are plenty of resources for HIV prevention, for mental health “there’s nothing,” Juan says. Although many gay Latinos suffer from depression, or being bipolar, they don’t seek help. “We don’t deal with those things.” But even if they did seek help, finding therapists who are Spanish-speaking, gay affirming and offer services on a sliding scale or pro bono is “extremely difficult,” Pride Center’s Nuttall acknowledges. She’s aware of only one volunteer therapist in Salt Lake City. When Juan met now 33-year-old Javier Horta, his face, Juan recalls, “was like someone with no life. You could tell he was very depressed.” Horta’s horrific childhood and life reflects many of the struggles of young gay Latinos to find a footing in life, let alone in a foreign country without papers. Horta grew up in Michoacan, where, he says, a male relative sexually abused him from when he was 6 years old into his late teens. Schoolmates threw him into barbed wire when he was 7, and when he had the courage to come out at 15, his father chased him from the house, firing shots at his feet, screaming, “I don’t want fags in my house.”  As a teen, Horta worked as a prostitute in a Mexican bar with female sex workers. He believes God protected him from contracting AIDS. Horta cared for his dying mother, who had hepatitis. After she died, he crossed the border into the United States, only to end up homeless and begging for food. In Denver, he met a bisexual man who took him to Ogden in 2006, then abandoned him on the street when he returned to his wife. Horta found work as a waiter in a Mexican restaurant in West Valley City and made enough money to rent an apartment and get a car. But he was haunted by his childhood abuse, couldn’t sleep at night and constantly cried. Juan took him to a Hispanic nonprofit where, Horta says, a volunteer therapist worked with him to overcome his traumatic childhood and the guilt he felt at believing he had “provoked people to abuse me.” In comparison to Horta’s cadaverous appearance when Juan first met him, now Horta has an expressive face lit with wide, life-bright brown eyes and works two apartment-maintenance jobs six to seven days of the week. Diana, a slender transgender woman in a low-cut, yellow blouse describes in a husky voice fleeing a similar life to Horta’s, one of poverty, brutality and discrimination in Mexico, while her tears fall almost unnoticed onto her blouse. She was her parents’ only boy, and her seven sisters routinely punished her for her feminine walk and mannerisms. When she was 11, a neighbor raped her. Several months later, bleeding anally from an infection, her father and one of her sisters abandoned her at a hospital for four days, where a doctor diagnosed her as having gonorrhea. When she was 21, she and her male partner hired a coyote—Spanish for guide—to take them across the border to the United States. The coyote, however, she says, tried to abandon her in the desert because she was transgender. In the Mexican town Diana grew up in, definitions of alternative sexual orientation were “only gay, gay, gay,” she says. Through counseling at Hermanos de Luna y Sol in 2006, “I began to see what I wanted.” She worked as a hair stylist to afford breast implants and is now saving for gender-reassignment surgery. Diana has struggled with discrimination in Salt Lake City. Some Latino clients reject her as a “joto,” Mexican slang for gay, and refuse to let her cut their hair. Chicks With Dicks- When Diana first arrived in Salt Lake City, friends quickly introduced her to Arano. He is the first port of call for many undocumented Latino drag queens and transgender women fleeing abusive relationships or searching for work in Utah. His journey to Salt Lake City could not have been more different from Diana’s. When he was a 17-year-old acting student in Mexico, a couple asked him to accompany them across the border and care for their three babies. “They called me on the Monday, I went on the Friday.” Those who recall the humble, young man they knew 10 years ago, when he was struggling to come out of the closet do not always recognize him in the social-media savvy, Latino-night-scene star he has become. “He’s part of [the Hispanic community],” Moya says. “It’s easier for us to see his defects and his virtues.” While many admire his night, which at The Trapp Door enjoyed capacity crowds of 300 or more every Sunday, according to Club Edge DJ Jeff Hacker, Arano’s shows and competition with other clubs “also makes him enemies,” Moya says. Whether at Karamba or his current venue, Club Edge, Nuttall, a passionate advocate for Latinos, says Arano “is providing a space where the gay Latino community can come together.” That’s why she and gay Latino activists like Moya and Lopez work with Arano to do outreach work. “Manuel is building his success on the shoulders of many other people who have worked very hard for the community but haven’t got recognition,” she adds. Each year in March, Arano organizes the annual crowning of Miss Gay Pride Latino and the emperatriz, or empress. This year’s Latina empress, whose duties include raising funds for gay Latino nonprofits, is 43-year-old dancer Lorena Escarraga. She arrived in Salt Lake City from Las Vegas only six months ago and proudly displays her American passport that says she is a woman. “The most beautiful thing in the world is a woman,” Escarraga says. “Woman is sacred, a mother, beauty.” The dream to be a woman is, inevitably, an elusive one. “I am aware of who I am,” she says. “I am not a woman. I want to be what I will never be in my life. But I feel good like this, to feel more woman.”  Escarraga’s journey toward womanhood was not without its bumps. She says she had cooking oil injected into her thighs in Mexico. Her body temperature rose dramatically, and she was forced to have it removed. “It cost me $4,000 to put in, $6,000 to get it taken out.”

• Transgender hair stylist and club performer Alejandra, a 43-year-old Californian émigré and one time Hollywood stripper, wasn’t so lucky. She says men in Los Angeles she later learned were using fake medical credentials injected her thighs with mineral oil. After seven years, her left thigh itched painfully. She scratched it with a hairbrush, only to open the skin. She put on a large bandage, but taking it off three days later opened a hole big enough to put her fist in. Alejandra lives in her elderly mother’s basement, the sheetrock walls and floor bare, black plastic bags and a disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Juan has accompanied her to see a number of Salt Lake City doctors, who told her they can do nothing to extract the oil or stop her skin from splitting open. At the West Valley City salon where she works, her mood darkens quickly. Her leg, she says, “is killing me. I don’t know if I want to live more … nobody knows the pain I go through.” Most transgender Latinas, because of lack of financial resources, “have done the transformation themselves,” Juan says. “They have a dream to become someone and they are willing to do anything to reach that dream.” That includes selling sex. When Alejandra lived in Hollywood, she says “chicks with dicks” were in high demand. Her friends earned $1,000 a night after advertising the services of a “T.S.” (transsexual). Clients would ask two questions, Alejandra says. “Are you functional and how many inches is it?” Escarraga won’t answer rumors of whether she still has the penis she was born with. “Secretos, secretos,” she says coyly. “Maybe yes, maybe no.” Her philosophy, she says, is to be the best transsexual she can be. If she were to be a prostitute, “you have to be one with class, not a common and vulgar one ... who does it only for drugs.”  Four Beers-Transgender prostitutes seeking clients prefer straight clubs to Arano’s spectacles. Partly it’s because they don’t consider themselves as gay, Juan says, so gay men hold no attraction. But it’s also because they want straight or bisexual men—the latter known as mayetes in Mexican Spanish slang—either to pick up or to service as prostitutes and so finance their dreams of surgically completing their transformation to women. One late May Friday night, Juan, who says he works with 25 transgender sex workers, is counting out condoms into three equal piles as part of his HIV-prevention outreach efforts. “They fight, otherwise,” he says with a smile, referring to the house’s occupants, Karina, Amanda and “M” who requested anonymity. He’s sitting on M’s bed, her room shut off from the house by a makeshift curtain that a middle-age American and occasional sex partner, who M calls “el cowboy,” put up for her. Lopez estimates 50 transgender women are sex workers in Salt Lake City and several are HIV-positive. Karina insists on condoms. “Si no hay globo, no hay fiesta,” she says. No condom, no party. She sits on the floor, her legs drawn behind her, and talks about how at midnight on weekends she often goes to straight Latino clubs like Mi Mexico in South Salt Lake. She stands by the bar for a few minutes, and then goes out to the parking lot to see who follows. “What’s the difference between a gay man and a straight man?” Juan jokes. “Four beers.” Men start drinking or using drugs, he says, “and get so horny, they just want satisfaction. Sometimes, 10 [male clients] will take one or two of the workers, and all of them go through them.” Karina works at a West Jordan hair salon during the day and services clients who call her or whom she picks up at the clubs. She’s saving for breast implants, which will cost her $5,600. Three years ago, she stopped taking hormones, and recently her hormone-generated breasts have deflated. Before the economic crisis, prostitution was booming and she would see two or three men daily. “Now, all the world wants it free.” Still, business remains brisk. While she talks, upstairs Amanda is with a client. It’s her third that evening, and Lopez estimates she’s already earned over $400. More than 80 percent of her customers, Karina says, want something that ironically she is unable to provide, at least without props. “Most of my clients are gays in the closet,” she says. They deny their own homosexuality, she argues, while wanting her to anally penetrate them. Since she is not sexually aroused by such an act and cannot achieve an erection with a penis already affected by hormone therapy, she uses sex toys. When her clients, however, seek to penetrate her, she always has to manually check they are wearing condoms just before they consummate the deed. “So many of them take it off,” she says. I Am Woman It’s midnight, just hours before Utah’s Gay Pride parade begins on June 6. Arano, who hopes his new Sunday night at Club Edge will forge strong links between the Latino and Anglo gay communities, and his emperatiz, Escarraga, will both take part. Mention of the parade, however, draws blank looks from Karina and Amanda who are at home in Salt Lake City. Already tired from a long day of cutting hair, as Sunday’s first minutes tick by, they are getting ready for their other job, prostitution. Downstairs, “I’m inventing,” M says, roaming around her room, trying on different pieces of fabric to create a miniskirt to go with her breast-showcasing tank top and the straggly remains of a set of fishnets. She fixes the broken high heels she plans to wear to Mi Mexico that night, then starts applying several layers of foundation makeup. M says she isn’t a sex worker, even while admitting she is dressing as a puta and will often ask men for money after sex. She brings men home and, “if they get rough, I throw them out. One guy said, ‘If I discover you’re not operated, I’ll hit you.’ I threw him out, too.”  Meanwhile, Amanda and Karina, the latter wearing a black teddy, regularly descend the staircase, letting men in and out. By 2 a.m., they are still busy upstairs, the rhythmic sounds of sex audible through the thin walls. M, still waiting for her friends to go out, stands in the doorway, looking out at the silent street. A small child in the neighboring house cries out, “Mama, mama,” then sobs. If M hears the crying child, she doesn’t say. She stands still, frozen in silhouette, in the shadows at least, an alluring, statuesque woman.