Tiffany Cabán Aims to Scramble Queens DA Race

The attitudes and actions of an institution that Reclaim Pride was taking to task “appear to be rooted in transphobic, racist, and classist attitudes,” the group wrote in an open letter circulated last week. Was this... Show more

this a blast at the Trump administration? Nope. The target, instead, was New York’s LGBT Community Center. The hyperbolic missive from the group — whose primary objective is producing a Queer Liberation March on June 30 as an alternative to what it views as an over-corporatized LGBTQ Pride March — was, sadly, no model of either well-reasoned argumentation or substantiated claims, but let’s try to follow its logic anyway. Reclaim members and others were upset that the Center had greenlighted a room reservation for the #WalkAway movement, a push launched last year by gay conservative Brandon Straka, who supports Donald Trump and hopes to lure unhappy Democrats away from their party. #WalkAway critics, in a March 22 open letter, said the group should find no welcome at the Center and demanded that the 13th Street institution be more transparent about its room rental policies. The Center canceled the #WalkAway event the same day that first letter appeared. Not content with that vi

Bridging the Gap

Queens district attorney candidate Tiffany Cabán stopped at one point during a recent interview with Gay City News to make it clear she prefers to speak about the LGBTQ community in the first person because, in her words,... Show more

, “It’s my community.” Cabán’s identity as a queer Latina woman has helped shape her career as a public defender and her understanding of other marginalized groups facing tough hurdles in the criminal justice system, and she is now vying to channel her insight toward a broader effort to shake up the political and legal establishment in the borough. Cabán, who grew up in Queens, admitted she “never thought” she would be running for an office with a tough-on-crime reputation. But a burning desire to eradicate the systemic problems she’s witnessed was part of the driving force behind her decision to run, and she ultimately wants to flip the script on the way Queens residents think of prosecution in their borough. “When I walk through the halls of the courthouse, people say, ‘You’re the good guy!,’” Cabán said, referring to her work as a public defender. “You have to ask why that is. Why am I on the good side?” The 31-year-old Cabán is facing formidable foes in the looming June 25 pri

A Whitman Sampler

Wes Enos, executive director of The Generations Project, has a deep-rooted affinity for history. The enterprising young activist founded the history-minded group in 2015 with the aim of bridging what he saw as the wi... Show more

dening chasm between young and old queer generations. And the prime building blocks for those bridges take the form of shared histories through highly personal stories — whether happy or harrowing — about the LGBTQ experience. “History has a history of being forgotten,” the 32-year old Enos said. “When history is not shared, it is lost. Our community has not had the resources or social acceptance to have our heritage recorded properly. Now we have all the resources available.” Enos concedes that when he started the not-for-profit endeavor, he knew nothing about the watershed Stonewall uprising. He’d heard of it, but didn’t grasp its historical impact. By creating an inclusive, safe space for dialogue, vital queer history is passed down to younger generations and the LGBTQ community is fortified. Naturally, Enos, who grew up in rural Oregon, has a captivating story of his own. “History has always been a part of my life, for better or for worse,” he recalled. “My dad taught every

Abel Cedeno’s Trial Finally Begins June 18

The clear, open, and wondering eyes of a child stare out at you from Matthew Brady’s portrait of Our Good Gay Grandfather Poet in the New York Public Library’s show “Walt Whitman: America’s Poet,” running through July 27. ... Show more

July 27. Given this writer’s enduring, towering reputation and the exhibit’s portentous title, in observance of his bicentennial (May 31), no less, one might expect gallery after gallery of stuff relating to the man many consider our country’s national poet for all time. What a surprise, then, to discover that the whole shebang is housed in a quite intimate first floor gallery not far at all from that famous pair of lions guarding the library façade, so beloved by tourist shutterbugs. It can become quite crowded in this room filled with students, Waltphiles, and other library denizens, so be prepared to be patient and as full of brotherly love as old Walt himself propagandized about his entire career. A cursory overview of his lifetime emerges here, with a curatorial hand very much aware of making this 19th century scribe relevant to a generation more attuned to the rhythms of rap than epic poetry and whose only exposure to Whitman may be the “I Sing the Body Electric” dance numbe

Bolsonaro Event Out at Natural History Museum

Almost 20 months after a fight in a Bronx high school led bullied gay teen Abel Cedeno to use a knife in what he said was self-defense, killing one classmate and slashing another, his trial for manslaughter is set to begin... Show more

in Bronx Criminal Court on June 18. Defense pleas for a special prosecutor in the case were rejected by Judge Robert Torres, though his written decision was not available at press time. Christopher R. Lynn and Robert J. Feldman, attorneys for Cedeno, argued that Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark had compromised the case by not pursuing charges of witness tampering against Kevon Dennis — the brother of the deceased, Matthew McCree — for his alleged coercive contacts with other students later in the day of the fatal incident. Dennis also tried to jump Cedeno inside the court building early in the proceedings, but that case was not pursued, either. Feldman called Clark “corrupt, conflicted, and compromised” and said, “She threw the Dennis cases in the garbage.” Lynn said, “The DA did not charge properly on the defense of justification — self-defense.” Judge Steven Hornstein, who has been hearing pretrial motions, did give the defense one thing they have been pleading for in co

Cops’ Fatal Shooting of Gay Black Man Questioned

The direct action group Revolting Lesbians once again picketed the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) on April 13, demanding that billionaire Rebekah Mercer, a major Breitbart News investor, be removed from the muse... Show more

um’s board for being a climate-change denier and funding groups that challenge the reality of global warming. The spirited demonstration came in the midst of another controversy engulfing the museum for renting its main hall to the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, which was set to honor the anti-LGBT Q, anti-environment right-wing president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, as its man of the year on May 14. Protests against the event by museum employees were vociferous, and 20,000 people signed letters and petitions demanding AMNH cancel it. Mulheres da Resistência no Exterior, Revolting Lesbians, and five other groups had planned a demonstration at the museum to protest the Bolsonaro event on April 20, but by then the museum caved so the protest was held instead at Zuccotti Park near Cipriani Wall Street, where the event had been moved. Cipriani has now rejected it, as well, and it is now set for the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, where Bolsonaro and, as “American of the Year