LGBTQ Breaking News Service

Upsetting news out of Australia: a gay, former janitor has gone public with allegations that his co-workers harassed him about his sexuality. He further claims his employer fired him after reporting the abuse.

James “Jimi” Fuller, 29, landed a job as a cleaner for the city of Ipswich last year. In a new interview with The Queensland Times, Fuller says that after coming out to his co-workers, his job turned into a campaign of harassment over his sexuality. At one point, a co-worker referred to him as a “dirty f*g” as well.

Not long after, Fuller claims, his co-workers refused to work with him. Another co-worker also accidentally sent a text message to Fuller as part of a group chat reading “Let’s get Jimi the sack;” in other words, that his fellow janitors were plotting to get him fired.

Fuller then filed a complaint with his supervisors, which was co-sponsored by another employee that overheard the homophobic slur.

“They did a code of conduct training and bullying and harassment training after I put that complaint in,” Fuller said. “I just want what’s right and that’s to come and do my job and not be bullied. I was victimized and had things thrown at me.”

Related: That story about the Australian parliament gay sex tape leak just took another weird turn

Fuller’s employer responded with a letter dated March 23 that labeled his claims “unsubstantiated,” and, Fuller says, pressured him to withdraw the complaint altogether. He refused.

Not long after he received the letter, Fuller says his bosses reprimanded him for discovering a muddy footprint and fingerprints on a glass door at the Ipswich Art Gallery. Fuller had cleaned the area just hours earlier and notes that the gallery was open to the public at the time.

Then, just two weeks after he received the letter pressuring him to withdraw his claims of harassment, Fuller was fired. He continues to deny any wrongdoing.

“I do my job to the highest standard,” he told The Times. “I’ve got about 20 [references] from all the buildings that I cleaned which stated what a great cleaner I am. I said, you’re dismissing me over a fingerprint that was on a glass door … three-and-a-half hours after the building opened to the public.”

Fuller has now filed a suit with the Australian Fair Work Commission in hopes of getting his old job back. The city of Ipswitch, for its part, has declined to comment on the matter.

“While council always seeks to be transparent, this is an ongoing legal matter,” a city spokesperson said. “It would not be appropriate for council to make comment at this stage.”

The case remains ongoing.

With his new book, Tucson resident and award-winning food writer John Birdsall captures the duality of the late James Beard, one of the first high-profile food personalities in America, whose struggles as a closeted gay man influenced ideas about home cooking.

Over the course of five-plus years, Birdsall set out to write “The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard,” the definitive biography of a man who would brisk at being called a chef. Digging past Beard’s sanitized public image, Birdsall’s research portrays a complicated, and often lonely figure who helped shape American culinary culture.

Before moving to Tucson in 2020, Birdsall grew up in the Bay Area and cooked professionally for nearly two decades, starting with an apprenticeship at Greens Restaurant in 1983. He later transitioned into becoming a full-time writer and contributed to the San Francisco Sentinel, an LGBTQ weekly.

He later worked as a food critic and edited SF Weekly’s food blog. Birdsall has won two James Beard Awards for food and culture writing, in 2014 for “America, Your Food Is So Gay” printed in Lucky Peach magazine and in 2016 for “Straight-Up Passing” printed in queer food journal Jarry.

On May 5, Tucson-based organization Southern Arizona Senior Pride is hosting a free virtual event with Birdsall and Food Network star Ted Allen to discuss Beard’s legacy and fraught life.

The Arizona Republic spoke with Birdsall recently ahead of the event. (Answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.)

‘I wanted to look at this lingering stigma of being queer in the kitchen’

Question: Why did you want to pursue this biography of James Beard? What part of Beard’s story did you relate to?

Answer: In the late 1960s I lived in a suburb outside San Francisco where my parents became close to a gay couple that lived nearby, Pat and Lou. I could tell from my parents’ conversations, not a lot of people around us accepted them.

What fascinated me about Beard was that similar experience — how privately it’s possible to live a really rich life, especially around food, but publicly, having a certain armor around your identity. That duality of public and private I grew up seeing in these neighbors that I loved was a really important part of my research into Beard’s life. I had an insight to those generations before the LGBTQ liberation movement, those struggles, and I felt a real emotional pull.

Q: In your article “Straight-Up Passing,” you talked about your 2009 idea to interview every gay and lesbian chef in San Francisco. But many chefs balked at getting involved. Why do you think that was?

A: I felt that a number of chefs I looked at, they felt being labeled that way would maybe limit the perception, make it seem like they weren’t serious chefs. Like it was acceptable to be out, but “it’s just part of who I am, not something I bring to work, it doesn’t define me.”

Fine dining has been about a chef’s personal expression and it was important for chefs to create food that expressed their resume, who they were, what they were exposed to growing up, experienced when they were younger. But somehow, being queer was off the table. I was interested in exploring that dynamic, why it didn’t seem to be a problem for straight fine dining chefs to talk about dishes they created for their spouse, feelings that went into a certain dish. I wanted to look at this lingering stigma of being queer in the kitchen. 

With a few people I spoke with, there was a sense that being too out was a type of activism. That in the culture of especially fine dining, it didn’t seem appropriate. Like it was either distracting or unprofessional or detracts from your art.. I had one chef say, “What would you want me to do? Garnish my plates with Pride flags?”

Q: Did you feel this way when you were working in the kitchen yourself?

A: I found myself hiding a lot, not choosing to talk about my private life. As a white gay cis man, trying to pass is an option that I know is not available for a lot of queer people in the kitchen. I should say, even though I wasn’t aware of what I was doing, I found it necessary to try to hide in key points, in certain jobs I had, certain people, certain crews that I would work with.

For me, it was a matter of just trying to be safe so that I could do my best work. There’s a lot of pressure in the industry to either conform or get out. That’s the sad thing for me.

‘There’s a sort of reckoning happening with the culture of food’

Q: For chefs and restaurateurs with a public platform, what kind of responsibility do they have to speak up on homophobia and discrimination in restaurants?

A: Absolutely there’s a responsibility. The sort of reckoning for gender and racial equality, and just representation in the industry, that feels more urgent to me now. In queer culture generally, queer and trans people are so diverse that it’s hard to talk about one queer experience in the kitchen. There are so many intersecting issues with queerness: gender, race, trans issues — it’s hard to talk about queer issues in isolation.

There’s a sort of reckoning happening with the culture of food in America, looking at whose cultures have been erased from the history of American food. I feel like queer people have figured out in some way, sometimes tortured ways, to survive in the industry. But many of us survived because we could act like the dominant, straight white culture of restaurants.

Q: Where does James Beard fit in with all this, leading up to the restaurant reckonings?

A: So much of James Beard’s experience was about accommodating a world, certainly in the food and media industry, that was very small and had very strong gatekeepers about what was possible. 

He was one of the first people in American food to create a really public identity around food. But he was also complicit in this culture of presenting this very conservative, straight, conventional face. For me, the story of James Beard becomes poignant after Stonewall in 1969. He’s older, almost in his 70s when Stonewall happens. You see him under pressure to reveal who he is, become part of this movement, but he’s not able to — there are editors, publishers, friends trying to protect him, there’s too much at stake.

‘The whole biography is based on the sense of speaking out’

Q: Being a food personality himself, what would Beard think of the rise of the “rock star” and celebrity chefs? Many high-profile chefs have been scrutinized in recent years.

A: I believe it was Ruth Reichl who coined the term “rock star chef.” There were these road trips with big-name, splashy fundraisers that would invite chefs from around the country: Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Jeremiah Tower.

The visibility of high-profile chefs you see now started in the late 1970s. I think James would see the absurdity of it. This culture did eclipse him — he died in ’85. Nobody wanted a 70-something man as a cooking god and he always considered himself an amateur. He was an old-fashioned expert who by this time, was not seen as very exciting anymore.

Before this generation, restaurant chefs were nameless and faceless. Invisible men who worked behind the swinging door. Now they are in magazine profiles, people want a sense of their lifestyle. It definitely contributed to this culture of abuse in the kitchen. It made chefs sort of unaccountable. There was so much adulation for these chefs, how they treated people in the kitchen became invisible.

Q: We’ve spoken previously about the James Beard Awards (which is undergoing its own overhaul) and how he would have liked some aspects, but not others.

A: Part of my impetus for writing the Beard biography and earlier pieces, I was just so pissed off because I knew the homophobic culture of restaurants and the fact James Beard had a tortured life because of it. I looked around and essentially every chef wanted to win a James Beard Award as a sort of career peak. I just felt the injustice of it, people wanting to wear James Beard’s image around their neck, and so casually express homophobia with their staff.

And so I wanted to write about Beard’s sexuality and how that interacted with how he cared about food. All the things he created about food, how that influenced a broader sense of the 21st century. The whole biography is based on that sense of speaking out and wanting chefs and everybody in the food industry to realize the truth of the food culture they inherited.

Event: ‘In the Kitchen Closet’

When: May 5, 2021 from 10:00–11:15 a.m.

Where: Virtual

Cost: Free, but donations accepted to support Southern Arizona Senior Pride

Details: Ted Allen, host of Food Network’s “Chopped,” chats with award-winning food writer John Birdsall about the secret gay life of James Beard. Allen was the food and wine connoisseur on the Bravo’s original reality TV series “Queer Eye.”

There will be a 15-minute Q&A session. Register to attend online at soazseniorpride.org/event/in-the-kitchen-closet.

“The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard” is available for purchase on Bookshop.org.

Reach the reporter at Priscilla.Totiya@azcentral.com. Follow @priscillatotiya on Twitter and Instagram.

Subscribe to azcentral.com today to support local journalism.

After years of the “War on Drugs” and nearly a century of staunch anti-marijuana policies, the United States is nearing full legalization of cannabis substances in medical and recreational form. Nearly half the country now lives in states where marijuana is legal.

All of this progress builds on decades’ worth of work by committed activists, with gay activists playing an outsized role in the push for legalization.

Related: Americans think marijuana is more “morally acceptable” than being gay

In 2021 alone, New York, New Mexico and Virginia have passed legislation that the possession or use of recreational cannabis is legal. Legislation is advancing in Louisiana, Minnesota and Rhode Island.

Last fall, voters in conservative states South Dakota, Mississippi and Montana all approved ballot measures to loosen restrictions on cannabis.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill legalizing cannabis, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) has pledged to move ahead with the bill in the upper chamber, despite President Joe Biden’s (D) reluctance on the issue.

As with a lot of progressive policies, San Francisco was at the forefront of marijuana acceptance. The city’s large gay population wasn’t incidental to that cause. In many ways, it was the reason for it.

The push to decriminalize marijuana possession started in the 1970s. Before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk pushed a nonbinding ballot measure requesting the city district attorney to stop prosecuting marijuana possession and usage.

The effort to legalize marijuana ramped up considerable with the advent of AIDS in the 1980s. Treatments for the disease were poor at best.

Marijuana emerged as a legitimate treatment for pain and loss of appetite that were common with AIDS. Activist and hospital volunteer Brownie Mary toured the wards at San Francisco General Hospital, offering cannabis brownies to AIDS patients.

The person who did the most to push for legalization in the Golden Gate City, and eventually all of California, was Dennis Peron, who became known as the gay ‘father of medical marijuana.’

Peron was a Vietnam War vet who sold medical cannabis out of a storefront in the Castro. Seeing the benefits of cannabis for people with AIDS, Peron organized a statewide measure to legalize medical cannabis. That initiative passed in 1996 with more than three-quarters of the vote.

The issue was personal for Peron. His partner died from AIDS.

Having the largest state legalize medical marijuana was the start of broader acceptance for usage in all forms. While it wasn’t all that hard to get approved for medical usage, the move from legalizing medical cannabis, to legalizing recreational, became shortly inevitable.

Ironically, Peron opposed legalizing recreational marijuana, on the grounds that all usage was medicinal.

Years later, in a perfect pairing, the first ballot measures to legalize recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington state both appeared at the same time as ballot measures to legalize marriage equality. Both measures passed handily in both states.

The speed in which attitudes changed around both issues is remarkably similar. At the turn of the century, about a third of voters supported legalizing cannabis and a third supported marriage equality. Both issues are now supported by two-thirds of Americans.

One significant split on the issues: a majority of evangelicals support cannabis legalization, while still opposing LGBTQ rights.

Changing societal attitudes is time-consuming work, as LGBTQ activists can attest to. It’s no wonder gay men like Dennis Peron applied those same lessons to the quest to legalize marijuana, and with the same winning effect.

Virginia Prince was a pioneer for transgender recognition

Born in Los Angeles, California in 1912, Virginia Prince was assigned male at birth. From when she was 12 years old she used to often dress in women’s clothes, and began to pass as a female in public. When she was 18 she attended at Church Halloween Party as a woman, and won the first prize in a competition for best costume.

After training as a pharmacist, she married and had a son, but the relationship did not last because of her desire to dress as a woman. Her family were shocked when her divorce papers cited “transvestitism” – the term of the time – as the grounds for the divorce.

After consulting a psychiatrist, who advised her to just embrace the desire and accept who she was, Prince became more comfortable with her gender dysphoria. In 1960 she began publishing the magazine Transvestia. She started the project by getting 25 friends to donate $4 each to the start-up costs of the publication.

Sold by mail order, and through adult book stores, Transvestia published bi-monthly and 100 issues were created between 1960 and 1980. The magazine attracted readers from around the world.

With the magazine she rejected the notion that people who wished to live as a different gender were psychologically disturbed, and she was at the forefront of using the term transgender. However by the 1970’s she was criticised for her promotion of traditional family values and societal norms. She argued that homosexuals, and people who treated gender as a fetish, were not aligned with her views.

She passed away in 2009 in Los Angeles.

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Alex Johnson was handed a 12 month community order for the homophobic abuse. (Envato Elements)

A man who threatened a gay couple at their home has walked away with a community service order and a fine after he produced a character notice from a gay friend in court.

Alex Johnson, 36, was handed a 12-month community service order and was ordered to pay a £120 fine after he targeted Steve Lanza and his partner Jason Smith at their home in Leek, Staffordshire.

During a hearing at North Staffordshire Justice Centre, Lanza said Johnson called them “gay b******s” when he turned up outside their home on 1 February, Metro reports.

Lanza said Johnson behaved “menacingly” and he believed the assailant was going to assault him.

Johnson finally left the couple alone after Lanza’s partner went to the window of their flat, which is above a clothes shop, and shouted back at him.

Court heard that Alex Johnson was ‘under the influence of drink and drugs’

Prosecuting, Ian Shaw told the court that Johnson was carrying a beer at the time of the incident and he was “struggling to walk”.

“It seemed quite clear that he was under the influence of drink or drugs,” Shaw said.

In a victim impact statement, Lanza said: “I have been targeted by a member of the public who I do not know at my home address.”

Lanza said he and his partner were made to feel welcome in Leek and were happy living in the community – but the homophobic abuse from Johnson left them on high alert.

“Every time I hear a noise, I worry about what is going to happen,” Lanza said.

Defending Johnson, Angela Trafford said he was “ashamed” of his actions and insisted that he is not “homophobic”.

She went on to produce a “character notice from a friend who is gay”.

“The friend has never witnessed any discriminatory or homophobic behaviour from him. He’s attended gay events and clubs with Alex.”

Johnson pleaded guilty to using threatening words and behaviour to cause distress during the hearing. He was also instructed to complete 15 days rehabilitation as part of his sentence.

Rudy has played for 4 different teams in his career, but for the last 4 seasons he’s been a critical cog for the Silver and Black. This week, he became one of the top 100 scorers in NBA history, passing up Buck Williams on Friday. Next up is Elton Brand, and with 33 points to go, Rudy should easily pass him this season.

Rudy has been a main scorer for most of his career, but the 2020-2021 season could be the first time in his 14 years that he hasn’t started a game, but he’s still been productive this year, averaging 11.2 pts, slightly more than last year’s 10.8. Even though he’s not as quick at the age of 34 as he was earlier in his career, he has a bag of tricks that he’s learned over the years to get open, and he’s still counted on by the Spurs to keep the bench squad afloat with his scoring and veteran leadership with a lineup that often consists of three young players along with him and Patty. Both of those guys will be free agents at the end of this season, so it will be interesting to see if the Spurs bring Rudy back for another tour. What do you think?

Finally, some Rudy-based music:

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