Big gay cities like ours change, and so do their gayborhoods.

by Rich Smith

Seattle’s gayborhood, located on Capitol Hill spiritually if increasingly less so demographically, certainly isn’t what it used to be in the early 2010s, which wasn’t what it used to be in the early ‘00s, which definitely wasn’t what it used to be in the ‘90s, or the ‘80s, or the ‘70s. And before that, the gayborhood wasn’t even on Capitol Hill! It was in Pioneer Square. And how dare we forget about the lesbians of the University District in the ‘70s–we’d never, and we won’t start now!

The point is that big gay cities like ours change, and so do their gayborhoods. Rather than dwell on its past for the 50th anniversary of Seattle Pride, this year I wanted help envisioning its future. So I asked five bright brains with connections to the neighborhood to look into their crystal balls. Please allow me to introduce them.

Andrew Grant Houston is an architect and urban designer who runs House Cosmopolitan, an innovative architecture and design firm. Joey Burgess runs many of the Hill’s growing and foundational institutions, including The Cuff Complex, Queer/Bar, Grims, and Elliott Bay Book Company. Among many other things, Cynthia Brothers founded Vanishing Seattle, a media project that documents the city’s fading cultural institutions. Manish Chalana is an associate professor in the University of Washington’s Urban Design and Planning department. Yes Segura founded Smash the Box, an urban planning and design firm.

The Seattle Times reports that the LGBTQ+ population of Seattle is dropping but still pretty strong–do you think Capitol Hill will still be seen as the gayborhood in 2074? If not, where do you think the next one will be?

Andrew Grant Houston: Yes, unless by an act of God we all become rich and join the rest of the homo homeowners who are building up some cool communities in the South End and White Center. Symbolically, Capitol Hill will always be the gayborhood, but if we want to ensure the neighborhood stays queer in truth and not just in name, then we need to provide more housing options for people in all walks of life—especially those who are a part of our nightlife community. The dual-income dog daddies and the badass enby bartenders both deserve to live here in housing that works for their lifestyles and budgets.

Joey Burgess: I think the Hill will forever be the queer bedrock of Seattle. In a perfect Seattle, though, every neighborhood would have queer bars. Imagine a bunch of queer waterholes becoming as common as your neighborhood corner store–that would be a dreamy future.

Cynthia Brothers: As much as I would love for Capitol Hill to retain a strong, unapologetically queer character, based on the way things have been going I think there’s a huge risk that queer residents, businesses, and cultural and subversive spaces could be displaced to cater to more hetero, mainstream, and economically dominant tastes by 50 years or much earlier … unless there’s some political and financial interventions from City leaders to supplement the efforts of the LGBTQ+ community to maintain their presence. Rainbow crosswalks may last 50 years, but if queer culture isn’t embedded in the neighborhood anymore, they’ll be more a memorial than an affirmation.

Manish Chalana: Seattle’s gayborhood has shifted from Pioneer Square to Denny Triangle and then to Capitol Hill, so another move isn’t out of the question. However, Capitol Hill now feels deeply established. While multiple queer districts are likely to emerge (as they already are), Capitol Hill will remain the mothership.

Yes Segura: Give me a second as I scream this into the void: RENT SHOULD NOT BE THIS HIGH! Looking at how America has treated queer landmarks like Stonewall … No, I don’t think Capitol Hill will be the queerborhood then. But, at the same time, I like to think that by then everyone will realize that they are queer.

Do you think the Hill will still serve as the center of the city’s nightlife in 50 years? Which venues, shops, and restaurants do you think will still be around?

AGH: I hope we’re not! Yes, gay clubs play great music, but I’d love to see some more clubs across Seattle because density for housing is great but for dancefloors it is not. As for other spaces, what I hope will be around here again is a big gay coffee shop. Losing both Gaybucks (I know) and Kaladi means we don’t have a larger community gathering space the way we used to.

JB: Out of all the businesses on the Hill … I hope to see The Wildrose open, alive, and thriving when I’m 91. I hope that my husband and I can take our 54 and 52-year-old daughters to Taco Tuesday and play some Indigo Girls on a vinyl jukebox. Maybe after we can head over to Elliott Bay Books and toast to its 100-year anniversary?  Fingers crossed.      

CB: I think as long as Capitol Hill continues to attract a mix of younger folks, bars, restaurants, and businesses, then it will be a nightlife “hot spot”—for better or worse. The question is what that nightlife will look like, and who it is for. It’s wild to think that Neumos is one of a very small handful of live music venues left in an area once teeming with clubs and musicians (so I’m guessing Neumos, as a heavy-hitter, will still be around). I’d be happy to see longtime legendary places like Wildrose, Pony, Neighbours, The Eagle, Club Z, Harry’s Bar, The Crescent Lounge, Madison Pub, The Mercury, City Market, CC’s, Century Ballroom, Trendy Wendy, Elliott Bay, and DeLuxe still around. Plus, it’s heartening to see new clubs like Massive resurface/reclaim space (RIP R Place). Also, more gloryholes, please. A Seattle without gloryholes is certainly not one I want to live in.

MC: Yes, mostly, but other neighborhoods will continue to become “more gay.” West Seattle and White Center will be in full competition by then. I mostly hang out in Diesel and CC’s, so I hope they’ll still be around. But honestly, I bet it’ll be Club Z—that place seems like it could survive Armageddon!

YS: For sure the Hill will be the center of nightlife in 50 years–as long as it continues with the density of its restaurants, bars, and its Arts District. Honestly I would like for all of these places to still be up, though what the neighborhood needs is more local Queer Transgender + BIPOC-owned spaces. PERIOD.

Do you think the housing will be denser, or abandoned, or pretty much look the same as it does now?

AGH: Definitely denser. I expect a high-rise tower or two next to the current light-rail station, though hopefully in less monochrome motifs. I’d also love to see a balance of building heights and public space akin to another global gayborhood, Le Marais. There, public cruising–aka walking around at all hours of the day and night–is prioritized over space for cars.

JB: Hopefully much denser, with residential and commercial rent control in place.

CB: I’d guess denser; doesn’t seem like it’s been slowing down in the last 20 years.

MC: Denser, probably; affordable, probably not. Sure, US cities experienced a big population decline once, as they went through deindustrialization and suburbanization. But my money is safe betting on a city like Seattle to keep on growing in the long term. And if the city’s growing, then the inner core is growing in all but the weirdest of times. And who knows—by then maybe there’ll even be a second light rail station in Capitol Hill.

YS: How we assess the value of property needs to be dismantled. I’ll leave it at that.

Do you think Pike/Pine will ever become pedestrianized, like a Barcelona-style superblock? Do you think it should be?

AGH: Yes and yes. One motto to keep in mind in Seattle is “never say never:” whether by organizing or a fluke, some changes in the city happen when you least expect. Funnily enough, as part of the comprehensive plan the City has to create a subarea plan for Capitol Hill/First Hill, which will be an opportunity in the next year to push for the superblock to happen.

JB: In a dreamworld this would be heavenly. I believe a new generation of leadership in local politics might be up for this challenge one day in the not-so-distant future.

CB: I can see urban planners here trying to jump on that. Hopefully not implementing them in a way that would exacerbate gentrification and already stark income divides, which is one of the criticisms of superblocks.

MC: Not Barcelona-style superblock morphology per se, but Pike/Pine’s emerging urban form could strive to embrace principles of superblock planning, emphasizing livability shaped not just by density, safety, and walkability, but also by equity and social justice.

YS: We should pedestrianize Pike/Pine, but we should also pedestrianize the same Cap Hill pocket areas that temporarily close off streets for events. For example, On the Block: 2nd Saturdays closes off 11th Avenue and E. Pike Street/E. Pine Street. CLOSE IT OFF. Capitol Hill Pride closes off Broadway from Roy to John. CLOSE IT OFF. There are many more examples in the neighborhood. This outdated mindset that we must have cars on every street is one that is draconian and degrades society’s health. Other countries have figured it out, why can’t we?

Today I still occasionally see the jester skipping through the streets, the colorful wizard on walks, and Mohammad walking the streets selling his bundle of roses. What sort of characters do you imagine on the streets of Capitol Hill in 2074?

AGH: These three are icons, so it’s hard to guess, but our next characters will also be unique. I could imagine a bear furry that sells smoked salmon, a daylight drag queen doing impromptu numbers on street corners, or someone moonwalking up Broadway in a spacesuit. In short, they’ll be queer and out of this world.

JB: I imagine Bosco will be occasionally spotted in the corridor looking forever young and forever gorgeous, living by the words of Lisle Von Rhuman, “This is life’s ultimate cruelty. It offers us a taste of youth and vitality, and then it makes us witness our own decay.”

CB: I love the Skipping Jestress and Mohammed! Those sightings make me happy. In 2074 Capitol Hill, there might be some kooky “characters” that are actually AI-generated hologram personas reciting the classifieds of The Stranger issues from the 1990s. But if it was a hologram of Slats, Mama Tits, or Lady Krishna, I could get into it.

MC: Crazy fringe people who dare to explore the urban fabric in front of them instead of keeping their cerebrally implanted iPhone 669s on all of the time. Someone without any tattoos? Community robots in rainbow underwear doubling as traffic police?

YS: I imagine by then we will have flying cars that will help us crusty elder millennials to be out and about. Those free-spirited characters will both be in their flying cars and down on earth being themselves. For real though, where are our flying cars?!

The Stranger

That Stranger article gives an incomplete impression of who I am in large part because of how I represented who I was when Herzog interviewed me.

by Ky Schevers

Originally published in Reclaiming Trans.

Back when I was still a detrans woman, I was interviewed a few times by journalists for articles on detransitioning. An article in The Stranger written by Katie Herzog drew the most attention and the strongest reactions. Many trans people and their allies found the article offensive and transphobic, and they reacted to it in outrage. Many also wrote critical responses.

That Stranger article gives an incomplete impression of who I am in large part because of how I represented who I was when Herzog interviewed me. Now I want to uncover the parts of my life that I kept hidden at the time, and to discuss the deception I was engaging in but unaware of.

In doing so I do not mean to excuse my actions or argue that my lack of awareness made them any less harmful. I believe it’s important for people to know my state of mind; I was more a cult member than a con artist.

In the months before the interview, there were many signs that my detransition wasn’t working out, but I was keeping all of that almost entirely to myself. I’d been living as a detrans woman and using “alternative treatments” to cope with dysphoria for around four years at that point. When I look back on my journals from that time, I find myself talking about how I still had trouble relating to my female body; it still felt weird, and I felt uncomfortable with my breasts and reproductive parts in particular. I could accept that I had those body parts, but it took work to do so, and I didn’t feel especially positive about them or connected to them. I also talked about wanting a cock and how that seemed more appealing than having a cunt. In one journal entry, I wrote that I still wanted a male body on some level and “[i]f I woke up with a male body, I think I’d be ok with that as long as it wasn’t radically different, just the male version of my current body.”

I wrote about how I still felt like a dude sometimes, like a kind of “female man.” I talked about how I “became a woman” when I detransitioned and about how much work that involved.

I wrote about how I found myself wishing that I had gotten more out of detransitioning than I actually did, how I had wanted it to fix more problems in my life.

I talked about how “I made myself into a lesbian feminist,” how I had really wanted learning to accept myself as a woman to heal me and make me whole, and it just hadn’t lived up to my expectations. Some of it helped me heal from past trauma, but not as much I was hoping it would, and I felt let down.

I talked about how hard and stressful it was to live as a woman. I was beginning to question both my motives for detransitioning and just how much it had helped me.

I wrote about how both my detransition and conversion to radical feminism now looked like they were at least partially a response to conflict and trauma I had experienced in a radical queer collective house I used to live in. I talked about how I had joined the radical feminist community because of how I’d been hurt in the radical queer community. I’d been looking for a better, safer place to belong. That’s not what I’d found, not at all. In fact, I found the same kind of hurtful behavior and abusive people in the radical feminist scene.

I still had a very critical view of transitioning and tended to see trans identity as a response to living in patriarchy, but I was growing increasingly frustrated with the way most radical feminists viewed trans people and transitioning. I was questioning more and developing my own views based on my experiences and research into the history of trans people and medical transition. I was fed up with how cruel many radical feminists were towards trans people, how they talked about transitioned bodies with disgust, and how so many of them treated trans people as if they were freakish and inferior. I was opening up to the idea that for some people being trans was the most authentic way to exist in this present society, and that transitioning actually helped some people, though I still worried a lot about people being pushed to transition or to identify as trans.

This thinking marked a big shift for someone who had previously believed that all trans identity was a harmful coping mechanism, and that transition was inherently harmful, a person who wanted to stop as many people as possible from transitioning and to encourage people to detransition or desist. I didn’t get to believing in transphobic ideology all at once, and I couldn’t disengage from it all at once, either. It was a long process that took years to fully unfold.

At the time, I was conducting research for a book on “female gender dysphoria” that I was planning to write. I wanted to talk about gender dysphoria in female-assigned people as a result of life under patriarchy and discuss the different ways people managed this dysphoria.

When I began my research, I saw both medical transition and radical feminism as ways to respond to “female gender dysphoria,” the first being contaminated by false consciousness while the latter got to the true root of the problem.

My views ended up shifting dramatically over the course of my research. What I learned about the history of trans peoples’ interactions with medical professionals ended up challenging a lot of my beliefs, but initially I twisted what I read to fit my pre-existing theories and eagerly shared my “findings” with others, offering up “proof” to back up the radical feminist interpretation of transmasculinity and transition.

It was hard for me to totally break free from radical feminist ideology, in large part because of the kind of people I was spending most of my time with. During that period of my life, I lived in the East Bay, where I participated in a community of transphobic radical feminist lesbians, a few of whom were also detrans or re-identified. I was dating and living with a member of this community.

While hanging out among ourselves, the other younger members of this scene and I would jokingly refer to ourselves and to each other as “TERFs”, reclaiming a word we viewed as a slur. Many of us got a kick out of having a secret life in a subculture outsiders (correctly) viewed as a hate group.

We thought such people were ridiculous and misogynistic for seeing us as hateful, and we frequently mocked them, acting as if they were ignorant, misled and/or overly sensitive. We would gather at a lesbian-owned coffee shop and complain about how trans activists were a threat to lesbian culture, talk about dangerous and disgusting “autogynephiles” trying to infiltrate “female-only” spaces, and the social forces supposedly pushing lesbians to “dis-identify from femaleness” and identify as trans.

Generally, we were much more sympathetic towards transmasculine people than we were towards transfeminine people. We were especially harsh and hateful towards trans lesbians and other transfeminine people who were attracted to women. We also hung out with older lesbians, who were happy to find younger dykes who shared their particular transphobic interpretation of lesbian feminism. I recall one of these older women talking about how Big Pharma was funding the trans movement and tricking butch dykes, femmy gay men, and other gender nonconforming people into transitioning.

I had made the choice to move to a city with a radical lesbian feminist subculture and attempted to live up to my separatist views and values. I spent years working with other women to build the detransitioned women’s community and had become an influential detrans writer and activist. One of my essays had been published in an anti-trans anthology called Female Erasure, alongside influential transphobic thinkers such as Cathy Brennen, Sheila Jeffreys, Leirre Keith, Jennifer Bilek, and Gallus Mag.

I had plunged into the life I thought I wanted, but it didn’t seem to be working. Nevertheless, I kept my doubts, questions, and disillusionment hidden inside my head and in my journals. In private, I wrote out my criticisms and disillusionment with radical feminism, but among my friends I still voiced the same concerns about trans people, and I still made the same arguments. I went back and forth between acknowledging that my detransition hadn’t really worked and struggling to make it work. I switched back and forth between recognizing that I still found much in common with trans men to writing out all the reasons I couldn’t identify as trans. I tried to treat my dysphoria using the methods I’d promoted for years, doing my best to “accept myself as a woman” because I couldn’t see how I could give it up at this point. My consciousness was fractured into the parts that knew the truth and the parts that still wanted to uphold the ideology I’d bought into. There was the persona I’d created–that of a detransitioned radical lesbian feminist–and there was a messier reality that I tried to keep hidden, even from myself.

I was a trans person who spent most of my time with lesbians who didn’t believe trans people existed and didn’t want them to exist, who treated trans people as a threat to their own existence.

To participate in this community, I had to deny my own feelings, hide many of my thoughts, and distort much of my reality. I had to pretend that I wasn’t who I was every single day. There was no way to be a part of this group without engaging in constant deception. My social life depended on it. This is who I was, and this is what my life was like when Herzog interviewed me.

On the day of the interview, before my phone call with her, I wrote in my journal:

“I have a phone interview with a journalist this afternoon. Should be interesting. Not totally sure I’m the person to do it because I’m having doubts if I really count as a detransitioned woman anymore. I detransitioned, that’s true. Am I sticking with that though? Did I just need to try out living as a woman because I didn’t get the chance to before? I don’t think I need to make anymore changes to my body. I’m also not sure I’d really be happy living full-time as a man. I probably am more in-between than anything but I have a lot of trouble accepting that. I don’t know why I’m like this but I’ve been this way for most of my life now. Able to see myself as a woman or a man. ”

I kept these feelings hidden just as I was hiding so much else. I was still very invested in the role I’d performed as a creator and representative of the detransitioned women’s community.

Once the interview actually happened, I found it easy to slip back into the role I’d perfected by that point. I’d given multiple workshops, written hundreds of pages of blog posts, made videos, and talked to numerous people about what it meant to be a detransitioned woman. I had my story down, and I knew which parts to emphasize. I believed in the story I was telling and thought I was doing important work.

I spoke not only for myself but for my community. Part of my job was to represent detransitioned women and make our stories visible to others. I had ideas I wanted to communicate, but I was largely focused on talking about my lived experience. I wanted other detransitioned women to know they weren’t alone. I wanted people to see that living as a detransitioned woman was possible, to make us seem like real people, not something theoretical or a scare story. I don’t think all my intentions were bad, and I do think greater visibility would help detrans people.

My intentions, however good, don’t change the fact that my understanding of myself was grounded in transphobic ideology and was a distortion of my own reality. I was telling the story I thought should be my truth, not actually describing my reality. There’s a lot I used to believe about my own life that I now see as a manifestation of self-hatred, and I worry about the impact my story could’ve had on other people.

In the article for The Stranger, Herzog, for instance, describes me as being merely sympathetic to radical feminism. In reality, I was far more of a radical feminist than I came off in the article, and I think Herzog inaccurately reflects the relationship between the detransitioned women’s community I belonged to and radical feminism. She mentions non-detrans radical feminists trying to use our stories, but she didn’t discuss how many detransitioned women themselves use their experiences to advance transphobic radical feminism. Many detrans women I knew were committed radical feminists who believed all trans identity was rooted in internalized misogyny and trauma. We didn’t like it when other radical feminists objectified us or treated us primarily as a way to win arguments with trans people, but we shared many of their views and political goals.

The way Herzog described my politics and the relationship between the detransitioned women’s community and radical feminism is partially a result of how I represented myself when she interviewed me. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, I intentionally moderated my views when talking to most people outside of the radical feminist subculture I belonged to. My views were in the process of changing, and I had gotten a lot more open-minded about transitioning and trans people. At the same time, I was still hanging out with self-identified TERFs, and I held a lot of transphobic beliefs.

I can’t imagine that I was entirely forthright with all my views. I focused largely on promoting the idea that trans identity and transitioning could be a manifestation of trauma, dissociation, and internalized misogyny, and I used my story as a way to demonstrate that. I framed what I was doing as working for detransitioned, re-identified, and dysphoric women instead of against trans people. I didn’t see myself as being dishonest when I hid my more extreme views, I saw myself as being practical. I saw most people as being unready for “the truth,” and there were serious consequences to openly calling into question the entire notion of trans identity, and I wanted to avoid that.

I presented Herzog with a more moderate version of my detrans radical feminist persona, completely omitting my more transphobic views and my connections to anti-trans lesbian feminists as well as my raging dysphoria and my disappointment with womanhood. I slipped into the character I’d perfected and forgot about the feelings and doubts I struggled with. I put the well-being of the detrans women’s community ahead of describing the real details of my life. I didn’t even feel like a woman when I gave that interview, but I felt like I had to be one anyways or I would be letting down my whole community.

The story I told to The Stranger was a fabrication, one that I believed in and fought for. It was a story I got trapped in for years, one that swallowed up my actual life. I can’t say it’s entirely false–after all, it includes events from life that did indeed happen, but I don’t believe in this story anymore, and I don’t want it overshadowing my life. It confined and trapped me for years, and I’m concerned about the impact that it had on others.

I’m concerned the story I told could’ve led other trans people to deny or distort themselves. I fear that it encouraged cis people to dismiss trans peoples’ identities or reinforced their transphobia. I was a trans person with a distorted view of myself, magnifying that and projecting it into the larger culture, inflicting my own wounds on other trans people. I am deeply sorry for any suffering I have caused others. I am sorry for participating in transphobic subcultures and engaging in what I now see as noxious and hateful behavior.

I can’t change the past, but I can describe what my life was actually like at the time and make visible the parts I left out or hid. I want people to know that detransitioning didn’t work for me, that it stopped working for me even as I was presenting myself as if it had. I want people to know that I belonged to transphobic communities that encouraged me to deceive myself and others. I want people to know that journalists can be fooled when they hear a story that lines up with what they may be expecting to find. So many people who question trans identities take the stories of detrans people  at face value, never considering that there could be more to them than meets the eye.

I’m a trans person who converted to a transphobic ideology, surrounded myself with transphobic people and worked against my own people. I struggle with grief and regret over many of the choices I’ve made.

I commit myself now to be as honest as I can be. I can’t know how my views, feelings, and perspectives will change over time but I can do my best to represent my life and my beliefs as openly and clearly as possible.

Writing about that particular time in my past is difficult because I had a lot of contradictory parts and impulses pulling me in different directions. I can remember what it was like, but I worry others will find my descriptions of it confusing. That time in my life was confusing to live through,  and it’s surreal to look back on. I read my old journals and can’t imagine that I shared many of these thoughts and feelings with the lesbians I was friends with. I didn’t even share most of them with my partner at the time. I knew I kept a lot from other people, but it’s intense to realize just how much.

At the same time, it’s a relief to write about this now. Back then, I existed in so many different pieces. I can finally bring all the parts together, connect them to create a more honest description of my past, and make myself whole. 

The Stranger

The Stranger’s morning news roundup.

by Vivian McCall

Seems a little cozy: In private group chats with Seattle Police Department leaders, Federal Monitor Antonio Oftelie (the person in charge of federal oversight to the department) described a disconnect between what the apparently ignorant public wanted to see from the department (accountability) and the “systemic learning” he wanted to see (no accountability but somehow things get better?). He also replied “Sigh 😖” to a Seattle Times article about a former SPD detective’s tort claims of racial and sexual harassment. The Department of Justice declined to say whether or not these conversations with SPD’s Chief Legal Counsel Rebecca Boatright, Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey, and former SPD Chief Strategy Officer were appropriate. Ashley has more here.

Now to Hannah with news from the fetid chambers of City Council…

Humiliation works: Council Member Maritza Rivera got her ass handed to her in the last week when dozens of BIPOC organizations called her amendment to gut funding to their Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) capital projects “racist,” “discriminatory,” and “appalling” for three-and-a-half hours straight. The backlash prompted the council to delay the routine, technical “carry forward” bill. This week, she learned her lesson—at least partially. Rivera did not reintroduce the amendment, and the underlying legislation passed, but she doubled down on her point that her amendment wasn’t actually a threat to BIPOC capital projects, and that all the organizers who came out against it are actually victims of disinformation.

There’s been a whole lot of talk about disinformation today, let’s break it down what’s true and what’s false 🧵

— Puget Sound Sage (@PugetSoundSage) June 5, 2024

Rivera made enemies: I don’t think insulting the intelligence of BIPOC organizers will win you any favor, Rivera, but it appears the damage is done. Anti-displacement organizations including Puget Sound Sage, Africatown Community Land Trust, and El Centro de la Raza held a press conference at City Hall Tuesday morning demanding that the Mayor and the City Council protect EDI, the JumpStart payroll tax, and to find new progressive revenue so other important programs do not face a similar fate while the City tries to balance the budget with a quarter-billion-dollar deficit.

Kent didn’t sweep the migrants: The King County Sheriff’s Office said it wouldn’t help the city sweep the encampment, and the City said it wasn’t going to sweep on land it didn’t own, so the sweep didn’t happen: 

No sweep today! pic.twitter.com/YwaJoDvfvy

— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) June 4, 2024

Back to me!

New unions are born <3: Workers at the 7th and Westlake store filed for election with the National Labor Relations Board Tuesday, along with workers at 17 other US locations. The filings come days after Starbucks Workers United wrapped a second round of national bargaining with the company. The union says it made significant progress toward establishing a foundational framework for store contracts. 

.@SBWorkersUnited says another Starbucks in Seattle has filed for an union election & significant progress is being made regarding contract negotiations pic.twitter.com/jFYeh8xWRk

— Lilly Ana Fowler (@LillyAFowler) June 4, 2024

Recent WSU grad goes missing at Sea-Tac: KING 5 reports 21-year-old Nadia Erika Cole of Port Angeles was last seen leaving the airport at 3 pm on May 29. She wore a black North Face jacket, sage hoodie, black yoga pants, white converse, and carried a tan shoulder bag. If authorities know what may have happened, they’re not saying. Authorities in Fife say she “may” have been seen there after she left Sea-Tac.

Stealing doesn’t pay, kids: A federal jury awarded $81 million in damages to the founders of the failed electric airplane startup Zunum last week after ruling that Boeing stole their technology. Back in 2017, Washington and Boeing invested in an ambitious plan from Zunum to design a hybrid-electric aircraft for short city-to-city flights. The company spent $282,000 of our tax dollars, never built an airplane, and fell apart. Zunum alleged Boeing had engineered its collapse to access its trade secrets and build an electric airplane of its own. Because the jury found Boeing’s actions were “willful and malicious,” the judge could triple the damages. 

Great, we’re trying to sanction the ICC now? Nearly every House Republican and some Democrats voted to sanction the International Criminal Court over potential arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials for war crimes. It’s unlikely to go far because even though Biden called the ICC’s indictments “outrageous,” he doesn’t support this.

Israel targeted US lawmakers with an influence campaign: According to officials who spoke to the New York Times, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs organized a $2 million social media campaign last year to convince American lawmakers and the public to support the war in Gaza. Last October, the Israeli government began posting ChatGPT-generated, pro-Israel comments from hundreds of fake accounts on X, Facebook, and Instagram.

Evanston, Illinois sued for paying reparations: In 2021, the Chicago suburb’s city council voted to create the first government-funded reparations program in the country. The program paid Black residents with family ties to Evanston between 1919 and 1969 (or those who’d experienced housing discrimination since) up to $25,000 each. Last week, the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch filed a class-action lawsuit claiming reverse racism. The six members of the class-action suit claim they’d be eligible for $25,000 in reparations if not for a “race-based eligibility requirement.” I’d say they’re eligible to get a fucking grip.

F-: Any student knows to turn in their assignments or else fail, which is sort of what happened this week to Keith Posley, the Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools. He forgot to submit essential financial reports to the state, threatening millions of dollars in funding for the largest district in Wisconsin. He resigned the day after a public meeting where more than 100 freaked parents and teachers said they wanted him gone. His last day is June 29. I’ll be surprised if they don’t chase him away with pitchforks.

Way too hot: A sweltering heat wave is melting portions of the West. Temperatures from Texas to Nevada to California are soaring to over 100 degrees. Yesterday, Texas cities San Antonio, Abilene, Del Rio and San Angelo neared records. Phoenix could break them, which is really saying something if you’ve ever been to Phoenix. Such heat can be fatal. Even normally hot places struggle to handle it. In Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, nearly 650 people died of heat-related illness last year, a 52% increase over 2022. About 32 million people are on alert for life-threatening temperatures today.

It’s a no: Scientific advisors to the FDA voted 10-1 against recommending that the regulator approve MDMA (aka ecstasy and molly) to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. The panel focused on a supposedly murky or tainted dataset from a recent clinical trial that left more questions than answers about the drug’s effectiveness and safety. The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review and the American Psychological Association also found there was insufficient evidence to support MDMA’s therapeutic application. The FDA doesn’t have to take the panel’s advice (but it usually does and probably will) and will make a final call in August. 

Pipe dream: Pissing in American cities sucks, but New York is attempting to make it better. Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan to build 46 new public restrooms, renovate 36 existing halls of relief, and release a new Google Maps layer indicating where they all are. They call the plan “Ur in Luck.” Charming. (Years before the city launched this initiative, New Yorker Teddy Siegel created got2gonyc, an incredible map of 2,000 such facilities).

And George Costanza will create an app called iToilet rating the best public bathrooms and make a fortune… pic.twitter.com/VOZE2vBeYo

— jellin76💙🟧🟦patriotism=caring about others (@jellin76) June 4, 2024

The Stranger

SPD policy allows officers to use force, such as hitting, punching, knee strikes, and batons in order to arrest someone as long as officers use necessary and proportional force. Officers may not kneel on a person’s neck, though it’s unclear if that’s what happened in this video.

by Ashley Nerbovig

On May 31 a person riding the Route 7 bus southbound shot a video of two Seattle Police Department officers forcing a man to his stomach by punching him, kneeing him, and hitting him three to five times with a baton. The video appears to show both officers kneeling on the man. At one point, one officer’s knee appears pinned right on or near the man’s neck. The video does not show what led up to the incident, though officers did arrest the man for felony arson.

Deeanthony Marcell took the video at about 1:30 pm May 31 as the bus slowed down to pass the incident. The King County Metro bus operator also reported to dispatch that he saw police fighting with someone, and that their cop cars had partially blocked the road. 

Link to video.

Marcell said that as the bus drove past the stop on Rainier Avenue South and Andover Street, he saw two SPD officers struggling with a man. “Before I pulled my phone out they were already beating him bad, I think he might have even got slammed,” Marcell said. 

Marcell captured the rest of the incident in a video posted to Instagram. Throughout the video, the man appears to mostly just be resisting officers by tensing his arms, but he does not appear to be actively fighting with officers. 

After the officers forced the man to his stomach, they appeared to start putting him in handcuffs. The man on the ground yelled “police brutality” at one point, and he kept yelling throughout the arrest until a few seconds before the bus drove away. As the sergeant continued to kneel on him, the man went quiet. 

Marcell said the actions of officers looked excessive. 

SPD officers arrested the man for felony arson. According to the probable cause statement, King County Sheriff’s Deputies had previously evicted the man from a house located behind the bus stop, and he had returned after the eviction. The property owners called police after he allegedly hit one of them with a cane. The owner reported that the man had tried to set the house on fire by holding a lighter against the boards of the front porch and lighting sticks and pushing them through the building’s windows.

According to an SPD spokesperson, an officer’s note claims the man said that if anyone threw out his belongings, then he would hurt the cops. King County Prosecutors have yet to file charges against the man.

SPD has not identified either of the officers involved in the arrest, though the probable cause statement shows Officer Cody V. Alidon as the arresting officer. 

SPD policy allows officers to use force, such as hitting, punching, knee strikes, and batons in order to arrest someone as long as officers use necessary and proportional force. Officers may not kneel on a person’s neck, though it’s unclear if that’s what happened in this video. 

An SPD spokesperson said the department would have a statement Tuesday regarding the video, but they have not sent that along by the time of publication.

The Stranger

On the Magnum: Comedian Jared Goldstein

by The Stranger

Dan takes on a couple of heavy calls this week. A woman learned that her ex-boyfriend of eight years was convicted on child pornography charges. He will almost certainly go to prison. He was once her fiancé. Rough stuff.

Then, Dan helps a woman make the heart-breaking choice between a single or a double mastectomy.

Our guest this week is the sharp, hilarious comedian, Jared Goldstein. He and Dan talk about how gay men reject long-haired homos, how straight men don’t get “headaches,” and definitively answer whether dreams get weirder and kinkier as we age. A little is on the Micro, the whole thing is on the Magnum.

Finally, he’s dating a woman who isn’t quite over her ex. And her ex is the caller’s boss. And the ex is a super-hot guy who hunts caribou. He was “like a drug” to his girlfriend. How can the caller ever hope to compete?

Follow Jared Goldstein on Instagram and Threads @heyjaredhey

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The Stranger

Weed In The White House

As rescheduling is driven by the president and his administration, what is the current history regarding weed in the White House?

The post Weed In The White House appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

The Fresh Toast