Arts & Entertainment
Queery: Wayne Turner
The attorney and AIDS activist answers 20 gay questions
Wayne Turner (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Wayne Turner remembers crying on the first day of school — although it was law school at UDC David A. Clarke School of Law and he was 40 years old that day in 2005.
“The founding professor, Edgar Cahn, was there telling us in this big orientation that their mission was to take bad-ass activists and unleash them on the world,” Turner says. “He said, ‘You’re not just here alone, you’re on the shoulders of everyone who’s come through here before.’ It was about seven years since my partner had died and I thought, ‘Yes, I have found my home.’ The tears just started streaming down my face so there I was, crying on the first day of school.”
Turner and his late partner, Steve Michael, who died of AIDS at age 42 in 1998 (Turner took Michael’s body to the White House as a gesture of protest), had what Turner calls a “roller coaster” seven-year relationship in which they dedicated themselves solely to activism and lived “a very hand-to-mouth existence. We were always changing residences, changing phone numbers. We lived a very mission-focused life and it was just like, ‘We gotta do this stuff.’ It was an issue nobody wanted to deal with.” Turner was a founding member of the AIDS advocacy and protest group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power).
Turner, a Culver City, Calif., native, went to college in Portland, spent time in Europe, then lived in Seattle for about five years where he met Michael. They moved to Washington in 1993 with the express goal of “keeping Bill Clinton accountable” for his AIDS-related campaign promises.
Turner, who remains HIV negative, says going to law school — he earned full scholarships and graduated with honors — was perfect for him.
“I think of it as activism on steroids,” he says. “You gain so much clarity of how things work and how things are supposed to work. I highly recommend it to anyone who is active and involved. It’s like opening up a clock and saying, ‘Oh, that’s how that works.’”
Turner says he now has “his dream job” as a staff attorney at the National Health Law Program focusing on health care quality and access for low-income and disabled individuals enrolled in Medicaid.
He’s single, lives on the H Street corridor in Northeast Washington and enjoys camping and hiking with his dog, Mister, in and around Shenandoah National Park. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?
After the first year of college, my high school friend Robert and I came out to each other. We were just stating what was plainly obvious to each of us (and everyone else), but we had never talked about it before.
Who’s your LGBT hero?
My late partner Steve and the other amazing frontline AIDS activists, living and dead, who struggle and sacrifice so that others might live.
What’s Washington’s best nightspot, past or present?
Otter Crossing at the DC Eagle.
Describe your dream wedding.
One where DOMA has been overturned by the Supreme Court so that same-sex marriages are legally recognized by the federal government and in all 50 states.
What non-LGBT issue are you most passionate about?
Single payer health care. It means getting better care for less money from cradle to grave — what’s not to like about that?
What historical outcome would you change?
I wish Mario Cuomo went to New Hampshire in 1992. He would have won the primary, won the Democratic nomination and won the White House. We wouldn’t have had the disaster known as the Clinton administration with DOMA, DADT and the HIV immigration ban and travel restrictions. We might even have seen a Manhattan Project for AIDS, and could very well have a cure by now.
What’s been the most memorable pop culture moment of your lifetime?
Probably when Tinky Winky came out. I mean, we all knew, what with that red purse and all.
On what do you insist?
Punctuality
What was your last Facebook post or Tweet?
“YES WE CAN!” celebrating the Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare. It is a huge victory, particularly for people with HIV who can qualify for Medicaid without having to wait for an AIDS diagnosis, and can’t be denied health coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
If your life were a book, what would the title be?
“Fasten your seatbelts,” because it has been one bumpy ride.
If science discovered a way to change sexual orientation, what would you do?
Find Ben Cohen.
What do you believe in beyond the physical world?
There’s something besides the physical world? I’ll believe it when I see it.
What’s your advice for LGBT movement leaders?
Too many so-called leaders seem to mistake photo-ops and cocktail party receptions for actual accomplishments. On-the-ground activists are providing the real leadership. Look at marriage equality — activists in Massachusetts propelled that issue forward in 2001 with Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health. The national groups have been playing catch up ever since.
What would you walk across hot coals for?
Nothing. I have nice feet.
What LGBT stereotype annoys you most?
Victimhood. It perpetuates the perception that we are weak. Pity is no substitute for demanding respect and dignity.
What’s your favorite LGBT movie?
“Carrie,” the original with Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie. It shows us that the best way to deal with high school bullies is to turn a fire hose on them.
What’s the most overrated social custom?
Saying “bless you” when someone sneezes. (See “physical world” response above).
What trophy or prize do you most covet?
Raphael Nadal.
What do you wish you’d known at 18?
That Apple stock would have been a really good idea.
Why Washington?
Sometimes at night I walk the dog around the Capitol. I’ll sit on the West steps and look out over the city, with stars and the moon and the Mall and the monuments and the glistening city lights, and I think “this view, at this moment almost makes up for the excruciating summer heat and humidity.” Almost. Actually, I really love D.C. I just wish I had a couple of senators and a representative.
Sir Ian McKellen may now be known as much for being a champion of the international LGBTQ equality movement as he is for being a thespian. Out and proud since 1988 and encouraging others in the public eye to follow his lead, he’s a living example of the fact that it’s not only possible for an out gay man to be successful as an actor, but to rise to the top of his profession while unapologetically bringing his own queerness into the spotlight with him all the way there. For that example alone, he would deserve his status as a hero of our community; his tireless advocacy – which he continues even today, at 86 – elevates him to the level of icon.
Those who know him mostly for that, however, may not have a full appreciation for his skills as an actor; it’s true that his performances in the “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men” movies are familiar, however, this is a man who has spent more than six decades performing in everything from “Hamlet” to “Waiting for Godot” to “Cats,” and while his franchise-elevating talents certainly shine through in his blockbuster roles, the range and nuance he’s acquired through all that accumulated experience might be better showcased in some of the smaller, less bombastic films in which he has appeared – and the latest effort from prolific director Steven Soderbergh, a darkly comedic crime caper set in the dusty margins of the art world, is just the kind of film we mean.
Now in theaters for a limited release, “The Christophers” casts McKellen opposite Michaela Coel (“Chewing Gum,” “I May Destroy You”) for what is essentially a London-set two-character game of intellectual cat-and-mouse. He’s Julian Sklar, an elderly painter who was once an art-world superstar but hasn’t produced a new work in decades; she’s Lori Butler, an art critic and restoration expert who is working in a food truck by the Thames to make ends meet when she is approached by Sklar’s children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning) with a proposition. Hoping to cash in on their father’s fame, they want to set her up as his new assistant, allowing her access to an attic containing unfinished canvases he abandoned decades ago – so that she can use her skills to finish them herself, creating a forged series of completed paintings that can be “posthumously discovered” after his death and sold for a fortune.
She takes the job, unable to resist an opportunity to get close to Sklar – who, despite his renown, now lives as a bitter and unkempt recluse – for reasons of her own. Though his health is fading, his personality is as full-blown as ever; he’s also still sharp, wily, and experienced enough with his avaricious children to be suspicious of their motives for hiring her. Even so, she wins his trust (or something like it) and piques his interest, setting the stage for a relationship that’s part professional protocol, part confessional candor, and part battle-of-wits – and in which the “scamming” appears to be going in both directions.
That’s it, in a nutshell. A short synopsis really does describe the entire plot, save for the ending which, of course, we would never spoil. Even if it’s technically a “crime caper,” the most action it provides is of the psychological variety: there are no guns, no gangsters, no suspicious lawmen hovering around the edges; it’s just two minds, sparring against each other – and themselves – about things that have nothing to do with the perpetration of artistic forgery and fraud, but perhaps everything to do with their own relationships with art, fame, hope, disillusionment, and broken dreams. Yet it grips our attention from start to finish, thanks to Soderbergh’s taut directorial focus, Ed Solomon’s tersely efficient screenplay, and – most of all – the star duo of McKellen and Cole, who deliver a master class in duo acting that serves not just as the movie’s centerpiece but also its main attraction.
The former, cast in a larger-than-life role that lends itself perfectly to his own larger-than-life personality, embodies Sklar as the quintessential misanthropic artist, aged beyond “bad boy” notoriety but still a fierce iconoclast – so much so that even his own image is fair game for being deconstructed, something to be shredded and tossed into fire along with all those unfinished paintings in his attack; he’s a tempestuous, ferociously intelligent titan, diminished by time and circumstance but still retaining the intimidating power of his adversarial ego, and asserting it through every avenue that remains open to him. It’s the kind of film character that feels tailor-made for a stage performer of McKellen’s stature, allowing him to bring all the elements of his lifelong craft in front of the camera and deliver the complexity, subtlety, and perfectly-tuned emotional control necessary to transcend the cliché of the eccentric artist. His Sklar is comedically crotchety without being doddering or foolish, performatively flamboyant without seeming phony, and authentic enough in his breakthrough moments of vulnerability to avoid coming off as over-sentimental. Perhaps most important of all, he is utterly believable as a formidable and imperious figure, still capable of commanding respect and more than a match for anyone who dares to challenge him.
As for Coel’s Lori, it’s the daring that’s the key to her performance. Every bit Sklar’s equal in terms of wile, she also has power, and yes, ego too; we see it plainly when she is deploys it with tactical precision against his buffoonish offspring, but she holds it close to the chest in her dealings with him, like a secret weapon she wants to keep in reserve. When he inevitably sees through her ploy, she has the intelligence to change the game – her real motivation has little to do with the forgery plan, anyway – and get personal. Coel (herself a rising icon from a new generation of UK performers) plays it all with supreme confidence, yet somehow lets us see that she’s as wary of him as if she were facing a hungry tiger in its own cage.
It’s after the “masks” come off that things get really interesting, allowing these two characters become something like “shadow teachers” for each other, forming a shaky alliance to turn the forgery scheme to their own advantage while confronting their own lingering emotional wounds in the process; that’s when their battle of wits transforms into something closer to a “pas de deux” between two consummate artists, both equally able to find the human substance of Soderbergh’s deceptively cagey movie and mine it, as a perfectly-aligned team, from under the pretext of the trope-ish “art swindle” plot – and it’s glorious to watch.
That said, the art swindle is entertaining, too – which is another reason why “The Christophers” feels like a nearly perfect movie. Smart and substantial enough to be satisfying on multiple levels, it’s also audacious enough in its murky morality to carry a feeling of countercultural rebellion into the mix; and that, in our estimation, is always a plus.
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center is marking a milestone year in its new home with a vibrant birthday celebration, inviting the community, allies, and media to join the festivities on Saturday, April 25 at 1 p.m.
Since opening its doors in Shaw, The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center has become a hub of support, advocacy, and celebration for LGBTQ+ residents across the District.
The birthday bash promises a day of programming including Yoga (Center Wellness), Micro Bouquet Making (Center Social), Zine Making (Center Arts), and so much more. Guests can also enjoy tours of the Center’s expanded facilities, showcasing spaces for programs, services, and community events.
Since relocating, the Center has expanded its programs, providing critical services. The birthday bash underscores the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center’s commitment to creating an inclusive space where everyone regardless of identity, age, or background can find community and empowerment.
For more details, contact Paul Marengo at 202-705-2890.
Friday, April 24
Center Aging Monthly Luncheon With Yoga will be at 12 p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. Email Mac at [email protected] if you require ASL interpreter assistance, have any dietary restrictions, or questions about this event.
Lesbian Visibility Week will be at 7 p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. There will be a special screening of “Ahead of the Curve.” Enjoy an evening of film, conversation, and community, with cocktails and beverages available throughout the night For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.
Trans Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This event is intended to provide an emotionally and physically safe space for trans people and those who may be questioning their gender identity/expression to join together in community and learn from one another. For more details, email [email protected].
Saturday, April 25
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Sunday, April 26
Nellie’s Sports Bar will host “Nellie’s DC Drag Brunch” at 12 p.m. Join Sapphire Blue, Deja Diamond and their team of drag performers for the most fun you’ll have all weekend. Tickets start at $58.51 and are available on Eventbrite.
LGBTQ+ Community Coffee and Conversation will be at 12 p.m. at As You Are. This event is for people looking to make more friends and meaningful connections in the LGBTQ community. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Monday, April 27
“Center Aging: Monday Coffee Klatch” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more information, contact Adam ([email protected]).
Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary, whether you’re bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just know that you’re not 100% cis. For more details, visit genderqueerdc.org or Facebook.
Tuesday, April 28
The DC Center for the LGBT Community will host “Candlelight Vigil” at 6:30 p.m. This is a vigil centered on reflection, support, and collective care. Attendees are encouraged to gather at 6:30 p.m., with the program beginning promptly at 7 p.m. and concluding by 8 p.m. The event will take place on the closed-off Wiltberger Street, providing a dedicated and intimate space for remembrance. Electronic candle lights will be available to participants. For those seeking additional support or who have questions ahead of the event, please contact [email protected].
Wednesday, April 29
Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom upon request. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.
The DC Center for the LGBT Community will host “Movement for Healing” at 3 p.m. This trauma- and yoga therapy–informed class is designed to help guests gently reconnect with their body and their breath. Through mindful movement, somatic awareness, and grounding practices, guests will explore how to release tension, increase mobility, and cultivate a deeper sense of safety and ease within. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.
Thursday, April 30
The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245.
Virtual Yoga Class will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This free weekly class is a combination of yoga, breathwork and meditation that allows LGBTQ+ community members to continue their healing journey with somatic and mindfulness practices. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.
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