Kate Clinton speaking at the Equality Texas Spirit of Texas Brunch on May 17. (Photo by Antonia Padilla)

Hook ‘em
By Kate Clinton, QSanAntonio.com, May 30, 2009

Despite threats of secession from Texas Governor Rick Perry, the Lone Star State was still connected to the mainland when I visited San Antonio to speak to the Equality Texas folks. I called down the ghosts of Ann Richards and Molly Ivins to protect me on my journey. They showed me a really good time.

The co-chair of the brunch event, Barbara del Amo met me at baggage claim with a big smile and a big purple sign that read K8. She took me out to the curb where Tex, her partner of 28 years was waiting. Since I'd been delayed in Dallas - I was detained for not wearing teabags as accessories - we went almost immediately to a donor reception at the lovely Gallery Vetro on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. I chatted with lots of wonderful, big spirited Texans who have been legislating, organizing and partying for equal rights in Texas for years. I tried not to knock over any of the gorgeous hand-blown glass creations as I schmoozed.

A couple of the women I spoke to apologized for leaving early to go to another event in town. When I heard where they were going, I got Barbara and Tex to take me there after the reception.

For years Graciela Sancehz has been trying to get my partner Urvashi and me to come visit the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center that she founded. That evening they were honoring the work of Gloria Anzaldua, a writer and cultural theorist who died five years ago. I was thrilled to be able to finally attend. In a magnificent, colorful converted former car showroom, the Center was jammed with people milling around the visual art exhibit El Mundo Zurdo, a celebration of borderlands, sexuality, spirituality and queer identity. Graciela introduced me to her family, friends and proudly showed me around. Next time you're in San Antonio, make sure you stop by.

The Equality Texas brunch the next day in the gorgeous converted train station was another festive-serious fundraiser for all the work that Paul Scott, executive director and his organization are doing for LGBT equality in Texas. Keith Price, a native Texan and XM radio personality, and I mean personality, emceed the event. I met everyone from elected officials, judges, major donors to the newly formed LGBT student group at a local Catholic! College. You really haven't lived until you've experienced Tex run an auction with Keith Price.

If you visit San Antonio, don't forget to see both cities. There is the gorgeous one you see above ground, but then there's a whole lovely river city below street level. Three women, Kim, Judith and Denise were kind enough to take me on boat cruise of the two and a half mile river cruise through the city, even though Denise, a Facebook friend from way back, had horrible allergies and was in tears most of the ride. After, they took me out of town for "authentic Mexican cuisine" at Los Barrios. Now when someone says "authentic Mexican cuisine" I get frightened because too often I've been served a gringo version - a large brown puddle of lumpen something. Los Barrios was the real deal.

Barbara and Tex took me to the airport at an ungodly hour on Monday morning and I spent the day flying and changing planes until I got to Provincetown - just in time for the lilacs and lilies of the valley. Ahhhhh.

Reprinted with permission from Bilerico.com. Be sure to check out the author’s web site at KateClinton.com.

Equality Texas Spirit of Texas Events, May 16 & 17, 2009

Photos -- Spirit of Texas fundraisers
Photos by Antonia Padilla, QSanAntonio.com, May 19, 2009

The weekend of May 16 and 17 featured two special events in San Antonio for Equality Texas. The Spirit of Texas Brunch on May 17 was preceeded by a VIP party on May 16 at Gallery Vetro (top row). At the brunch, held at Sunset Station, awards were presented to (bottom row) Roberto Flores, Dan Graney and Judge Barbara Nellermoe. The keynote speaker was comedienne Kate Clinton (center row).

Roberto Flores, Dan Graney and Judge Barbara Nellermoe will receive awards from Equality Texas.

Equality Texas to honor San Antonio activists
QSanAntonio.com, May 2, 2009

Equality Texas this week announced that Roberto Flores and Dan Graney are the recipients of this year’s Becky Cross Anchor Award and Judge Barbara Nellermoe will receive the Advocate Award. The awards will be presented during Equality Texas’ annual Spirit of Texas Brunch on May 17.

The Becky Cross Anchor Award and the Advocate Award are presented to San Antonio community members whose life’s work has improved the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Texans.

Flores and Graney have been equality activists for the past 17 years in San Antonio. Both were singing members, as well as officers, of the Alamo City Men’s Chorale from 1994 through 2003. Graney served on the Board of Directors of the San Antonio Black Tie Dinner, Inc., from 1997 to 1999 and was Dinner Co-Chair in 1999.

In 2000, Flores and Graney were among a group of local GLBT activists who founded Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio. Flores served as co-chair of SDSA from 2000-2001 and Graney served as co-chair from 2002-2005. Flores was re-elected co-chair in 2007 and is a member of the SDSA Board of Directors.

In January 2006, Flores was elected a member of the Board of Directors of Equality Texas. That same year, Graney became a member of the San Antonio Area HIV Health Services Planning Council. Both men are also members of the Alamo Business Council, a GLBT social organization. In 2006, Flores was elected male Co-Chair of Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio. In 2008, Graney was elected President of Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus.

Barbara Nellermoe was elected to the bench as a Judge to the 45th District Court in November 2002 to a four-year term effective January 1, 2003. She has previously served as corporate counsel for Clear Channel Communications, as an administrator at St. Mary’s Law School, as staff attorney to Chief Justice Alma L. Lopez, and as law clerk to three federal district court judges. For ten years, she engaged in private practice, representing clients in environmental, banking, securities, and other types of commercial litigation.

Judge Nellermoe is the Editor in Chief of the San Antonio Lawyer magazine and past president of the Bexar County Women's Bar Association. She serves on the board of the St. Luke's Lutheran Health Ministries Foundation, the Development Board of Texas Lutheran University, the UTSA College of Liberal & Fine Arts Advisory Council, and the board of Z-Place, a family center which provides day care and recreation services. She served as congregational president of St. John's Lutheran Church from 1994 to 1998.

See related story below for ticket information about the Spirit of Texas Brunch.

Kate Clinton to headline Spirit of Texas Brunch
QSanAntonio, March 19, 2009

Equality Texas announced this week that Kate Clinton, nationally recognized political humorist and comedienne, will be the keynote speaker and entertainer for the Third Annual San Antonio Spirit of Texas Brunch at Sunset Station on May 17.

Clinton has performed nationally since 1981 from Joe's Pub in New York City to the Park West in Chicago to the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, and back to New York for several off-Broadway runs, with hundreds of comedy club dates and television appearances in between. Her two decades plus of material are on record in her eight comedy collections, including Climate Change, Comedy You Can Dance To, Read These Lips and The Marrying Kind. She writes monthly for The Progressive and The Advocate. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times and George Magazine, among others.

Clinton has been a volunteer emcee for hundreds of fundraising dinners and events which have raised millions of dollars for The National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Ms. Foundation, the New York City LGBT Community Center, the Gill Foundation, and the Gina Gibney Dance Company. In 1999, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. At the 2007 GLAAD Media Awards, Kate Clinton was presented with the Pioneer Award.

The brunch also welcomes co-emcees Larry Flick and Keith Price, host and co-host of Sirius Satellite’s Out Q. Co-chairs for the brunch are Tom Duckworth and Barbara Del Amo.
Equality Texas will present two awards at the event: The Becky Cross Anchor Award and the Advocate Award are given to San Antonio community members whose life’s work has improved the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Texans.

Native San Antonian named to Equality Texas board
QSanAntonio.com, December 18

Katy Dawn Stewart, born as David Alton Friesenhahn on November 5, 1971 in San Antonio, Texas, is one of four new members named to the Equality Texas board of directors on December 16.

Stewart is currently a graduate student at Texas A&M University working on a Certificate in Non-Profit Management at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service.

Following the announcement of her board appointment Stewart said, "I am passionate about the work of Equality Texas because of the strength it engenders to our great state. We are Texans - our identities as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, asexual, and a whole lot more, give us personal power in a world in which Hate is too often the value by way of ignorance."

Stewart graduated from Madison High School in San Antonio and Texas A&M University. She has a Bachelor of Art degree in Chemistry with a minor in curriculum and instruction. She has spent considerable energy and talent in grassroots advocacy specific to civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

Stewart is the Texas State Coordinator of PFLAG and president of the local Bryan/College Station chapter. Stewart also serves as vice president of the national Transgender Network. At A&M, she is a co-facilitator and educator who plans GLBT educational workshops as part of the university’s Aggie Allies safe zone program.

"Equality Texas sees the spark in each of us that desires more," says Stewart. "I am honored to join a board of highly talented individuals that, despite hectic lives, are committed to fanning those sparks into bonfires."

The other Equality Texas board members named on December 16 are Ellen Denise Junious of Sugarland Whitney Kelly of Amarillo and Paul Tran of Dallas.

Equality Texas honors San Antonio transgender activist
QSanAntonio, Updated May 20, 2007

Equality Texas, the Austin-based GLBT lobbying organization, presented its Anchor Award on May 20 to Rebecca Lynn Cross an internationally recognized transgender activist from San Antonio who died last year. The presentation was made at the Equality Texas Foundation’s Spirit of Texas Brunch. Sally Said of the San Antonio Gender Association accepted the award on Cross’ behalf.

After a twenty-two year career in US Army special operations Cross attended the University of the Incarnate Word to complete her Bachelor of Arts in English. She completed an M.A. in English at the University of Texas at San Antonio and was finishing her dissertation on the writings of Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldua when she died on July 7, 2006 while returning from a summer session at Dine College in the Navajo Nation.

Cross was a founding member of the San Antonio Gender Association and the former Vice Chair of the board of directors of the San Antonio Diversity Center. She transitioned on July 4, 2003. In July of 2005 she presented at the first Pan-Asian Sexualities Conference in Bangkok and underwent sexual reassignment surgery following the conference. In March of 2006, she was elected as one of two International Lesbian and Gay Association board members from North America. She was the father of two and the grandmother of three.

"We are excited about hosting this event which honors the life and contributions of an important figure in San Antonio," said Paul E. Scott, Executive Director of the Equality Texas Foundation.

Scott says he considers the Anchor Award especially relevant at a time when Texas legislators are attempting to add "gender identity and expression" to hate crimes legislation. "We hope that naming the Anchor Award after one of San Antonio’s dearest transgender activists, we will raise awareness as to the important contributions LGBT Texans have made," he says. "The award makes people visible who are often invisible."