News Briefs: NY-based group launches trans laureate program

A New York-based organization has announced that applications are now being accepted for its inaugural trans laureate program. Any trans person across the world can apply, according to organizers.

The Kingdom of Navassa is the Rochester, New York organization that developed the program. The one-year term of the trans laureate is set to begin in January and includes a $5,000 budget to cover the laureate’s honorarium, community programming, and operational support.

Marie-Adélina de la Ferrière is a trans woman and queen of the kingdom. She told the Bay Area Reporter in an email that the Kingdom of Navassa was proclaimed in 2017 as a “micronation,” an art-meets-activism project that was formally incorporated in 2025. A micronation is a self-declared “country” that performs all the trappings of statehood – flags, stamps, honors – without United Nations recognition, she explained. It’s similar in some respects to the Imperial Council, a philanthropic drag organization that started in San Francisco decades ago and has its reigning monarchs, as well as chapters across North America.

“Like the Imperial Court System, we borrow royal imagery to raise money. The key differences are continuity: Navassa is an ongoing story-driven micronation with a hereditary sovereign, rather than annual elected monarchs,” de la Ferrière wrote.

The kingdom is also made up of a small number of volunteers, including a “privy council,” and include de la Ferrière’s extended family, friends, and members of the wider Navassian community, she stated.

“While this started as a hobby (and escapism, in part moved by the first Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies), it has evolved into a project that desires to create, advocate, and support projects that uplift and empower,” de la Ferrière’s added.

Indeed, the trans laureate program seeks to do just that. It is officially known as the Bernadine Casseus Trans Laureate Program, named after de la Ferrière’s late aunt who was a Black trans woman, community activist, and ballroom advocate, a news release stated.

“The trans laureate embodies our belief that art can heal, unite, and catalyze change,” stated de la Ferrière. “Securing an inaugural Pride grant from Trillium Health shows that our region stands behind trans creatives – but lasting impact will take collective effort. Through this program, Navassa is doubling down on culture as community care.”

The Trillium grant was for $2,500. De la Ferrière has started a crowdfunding campaign to raise additional funds for the trans laureate, though it had raised only $170 as of June 23.

Applicants must be aged 18 or older; identify as transgender, nonbinary, or gender-expansive; and demonstrate a track record in community engagement, arts, humanities, or storytelling.

Prospective applicants should send a personal statement (800-1,000 words), resume, up to five work samples, and two letters of support via the online portal. The deadline to apply is Saturday, September 6.

For more information, go to kingdomofnavassa.org/laureate

To donate, go to click here.

For more information on the Kingdom of Navassa, go to kingdomofnavassa.org.

Gay American Indians celebrate 50 years
San Francisco’s American Indian Cultural District is celebrating Gay American Indians as the oldest Native queer club in the U.S. marks 50 years. There will be a celebration Friday, June 27, from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Veterans War Memorial Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue.

The event will include food, drag performances, live music, and poetry, organizers said.

According to a news release, GAI was founded in 1975 by Randy Burns (Northern Paiute), a gay man, and the late Barbara May Cameron (Hunkpapa Lakota), a lesbian. Burns continues working to preserve Native American history in San Francisco, the release noted.

Originally, GAI was a place for LGBTQIA Two-Spirit Natives to meet in the Bay Area, as they felt a general lack of support from the gay bars in the Castro district because of their race. Cameron, a former co-chair of San Francisco Pride, founded the Institute on Native American Health and Wellness.

In a phone interview, Burns said that GAI had accomplished much in its five decades of work.

“It’s been a long journey. There were a lot of friendships and a lot of pain,” he said, referring to the years of the AIDS epidemic that started in the mid-1980s.

Burns said that Mayor Daniel Lurie is expected to attend the celebration, which is free and open to the public.

He added that GAI members plan to march with the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit in Sunday’s Pride parade. They should be the third contingent, he said.

Over the years, GAI worked on a number of initiatives and social political activism. A 1984 project to collect oral records and the history of same-sex relationships and gender differences in Native tribes culminated in the 1988 book “Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology” (St. Martin’s Press).

For more information, go to americanindianculturaldistrict.org and click on “Events.”
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Noe Valley church appoints queer vicar
Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood has appointed the Reverend Hannah Elyse Cornthwaite, who identifies as queer and nonbinary, as the new vicar. Cornthwaite comes to Holy Innocents from St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in the city’s Western Addition neighborhood, where she was vicar for six years. There, she led the historically African American parish in a pilgrimage throughout the Bay Area, worshipping in other Episcopal and ecumenical churches, as well as in their neighborhood parks, restaurants, and bars, a news release stated.

“Over the last seven years, I have loved doing ministry in the queer community in San Francisco with the Companions of Dorothy the Worker, a dispersed ecumenical religious community,” Cornthwaite stated. “It’s a core part of who I am. I am really excited to be joining Holy Innocents, who shares these values and commitment to living out our baptismal vows to respect the dignity of every person.”

Elizabeth Weise, a congregant who handles communications at Holy Innocents, stated that the church has many two-mom and two-dad families. Weise married her wife in the church, and the couple has two daughters, she added.

Cornthwaite has a varied background, the release noted. She served as campus chaplain and director of ministry at San Francisco State University’s Ecumenical House, where she offered pastoral care to students at both SF State and City College of San Francisco.

In Beijing, Cornthwaite served as a priest at Congregation of the Good Shepherd, a diverse, inclusive ecumenical community of Christian expatriates in China.

Cornthwaite was born and raised in Petersburg, Alaska, on Mitkof Island. She studied pre-medicine and history at Northwestern College, Iowa, with a focus on late antiquity and early church history. She attended seminary at Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley.

For more information on Holy Innocents, go to holyinsf.org.

Drag artists launch protest campaign
Earlier this month, drag artists supported by Qommittee protested President Donald Trump’s appearance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in full drag. Now, the effort is expanding into the states and cities where performers face the most severe threats. 

According to a news release, 21 drag artists from Idaho, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah have launched a national petition with Qommittee and MoveOn demanding that elected officials stop attacks on Pride celebrations and drag performances across America. The petition, “Stop Attacks on Pride, LGBTQ+ People, and Drag: Protect Free Expression Nationwide,” already has over 17,600 signatures.

“The attacks on drag aren’t just on performers – they’re attacks on free expression, on LGBTQ+ people, and on anyone who dares to be different,” stated Maxine LaQueene, from Austin, Texas. “By coming for drag, they’re testing how much hate they can get away with before coming for the rest of us. But when they try to silence us, we get louder. When they try to erase us, we become more visible. When they try to divide us, we stand together.”

Qommittee is a national coalition of drag artists and allies that emerged in May 2024 to protect and promote drag performance in the face of increasing harassment, threats, and violence, the release noted. It was founded by survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting, Club Q shooting, and other anti-LGBTQ+ attacks.

For more information and to sign the petition, go to qommittee.org.

Updated, 7/15/25: The article about the trans laureate program has been updated as organizers lowered the minumum age for applicants to 18.