San Francisco. If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to check out the trams at the airport. They’re done up in psychedelic colors. And over by the gates you can have your picture taken in a mock-up of an old VW bus like the hippies used to drive, also decorated psychedelically. Wearing flowers in your hair is strictly optional.
Glenn Crawford suggests meeting in the parking lot between Staples and the Book Bazaar at the Corner of Bank Street and Gladstone Avenue. It seems like a rather mundane place to start a historical walking tour. But Crawford, the research and project leader of the Village Legacy Project, assures that this newly paved lot is a storied space. Notorious, even. In this location there was once an upscale cinema called The Rialto, which opened in 1931. But it became increasingly seedy. By the 1950s and ’60s, it was known as the “Rat Hole” and was a gay cruising area. Later, the building that is now home to the Book Bazaar had a basement bar called Bottom’s Up.
A Moscow court on Aug. 17 upheld a ban against gay Pride parades for the next century. The ruling from the city court affirms a Moscow law banning public LGBT gatherings from March 2012 until May 2112, according to the BBC’s website. An appeal is expected, first to a higher court in Russia and then possibly to the European Court of Human Rights.
In what the organizers are calling “our coming-out story,” the South End club Boulevard 1820 is changing into a drag queen-themed restaurant starting Aug. 22, with servers and performers in drag. While similar restaurant concepts exist in New York, Atlanta, Orlando and other cities, including the national chain Hamburger Mary’s and the Atlanta restaurant Lips, Boulevard 1820 will be the first of its kind in Charlotte, according to Kolby Brinkley, an owner of the new restaurant at 1820 South Blvd., downstairs from Tupelo Honey.
Wilton Manors city officials raised the transgender flag recently in a show of solidarity with the minority community after President Donald Trump tweeted his intention to prohibit transgender people from serving in the military. The Commander in Chief’s announcement offended many residents and leaders. “Transgender persons are U.S. citizens who pay taxes, support their communities and currently serve with distinction in the military,” Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick said.
A Japanese nonprofit group said Wednesday it is preparing to set up a hospitality venue welcoming LGBT athletes and fans during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in an effort to boost diversity at the events. Similar spaces for LGBT athletes and fans called “Pride House” have been created at cities hosting international sporting events since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, but it would be the first such venue to be set up in Japan.
Indonesian social media was flooded with images of the 141 men, many shirtless and faces turned away from the cameras, who were detained in a raid on the men-only Atlantis sauna in Jakarta. The incident was slammed by human rights activists worldwide in May, before it quickly faded from the news. Yet it remains one of the most public examples of Indonesia’s growing intolerance of its LGBT community.
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