Minorités:  Where are Glendon Hyde and Anna Conda from?

Glendon “Anna Conda” Hyde:  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And Anna Conda is from New York. Glendon was born in Pittsburgh, and I left there shortly after 19 because one of my very best friends, after my New Year’s Eve party, got hit by a car and died. So I decided to ditch Pittsburgh and start anew. And I went to New York and I was there for about 6 months, or maybe less, maybe 3 to 4 months when I moved in with my soon to be friend and drag mother Wayne, and he told me about Wigstock. We then proceeded to take acid and pot, put on dresses we had bought, bad makeup and flat hair, go trip our brains out at Wigstock and it was awesome, and it was fun. It was amazing!

And voilà! Anna Conda was born!

And Anna Conda was born.

Were you doing drag before?

No, it was my first day. I was afraid of drag queens. In Pittsburgh, they were  considered weird people, and also I was from such a cloistered upbringing that I didn’t have an expansive mind like that. I was taught to hate strange things and even though I knew I was a strange thing... you know how it is. I still harbor that.

When did you bring Anna Conda to San Francisco?

I’ve been here; it will be 16 years, in October of 2011.

How did your career as an entertainer start?

It’s hard to think of it as a career as an entertainer...

I read that you never got paid for your acts.

It’s not that I didn’t get paid, but it was never a living. You can make a living as a promoter of a show, but it's quite hard to make a living as a drag performer. I think you used to be able to. But, you know, people think of me, as they think of drag queens being just performers — and I think a lot of them are, because if your are going to look that great and have that much fun you should share the gift — but I don’t think that I was ever an entertainer. I hate lip-syncing, I hate it, and I don’t really want to sing, either. It’s not really where my passion lies. I just want to dress up. I’m multi-gendered, so… But it started in New York. I started performing in New York, at Boy Bar, and then I performed at the Pyramid and around, and I did the Club Kids circuit, Limelight by Michael Alig...

Club Kids, you said?

Club Kids are kids that sort of dress up in drag, but they were more like frogs and monsters, and, you know, ravers. I guess I kind of made a living in New York doing that, although, everything was free in New York, so…

Was that more like an MC role?

No, I didn't start MC-ing until I came here and started my own club.

So, what kind of performance?

Lip sync. But, I was just kind of a celebrity more than anything. You do this lip sync and then you just get better opportunities. Like you get opportunities to do better parts, like at Jackie 60 where I got to play Candy Darling. You got to be more expansive and break out of a kind of a pure lip sync thing, and then, as you find your way, people go into hair, people go into writing, people go into… I mean, a life of lip-syncing is hard to sustain.

What triggered your desire to run for supervisor?

Because everyone was sitting around talking about how much we needed change, and no one was doing anything about it. Americans are so lazy and so apathetic, and they allow themselves to believe that they can't do anything and that the only way to do something is to be mean and awful and cruel. You know, that's all the politicians are, and I thought, you know, I don't believe that's true and I'm going to prove it. So I'm out to try to prove it, I guess.

What were your observations about San Francisco and what was going wrong? Because, on the left, people think that San Francisco gets it mostly right.

I think we do get it mostly right, and I think we are a very engaged city politically, which I think is really unusual for the United States as well, but I think that part of the need is that, instead of continuing to be a leader they're going backwards in a lot of respects. When you look at the way the city is funded, it is funded mostly by development and development taxes and fees, and stuff like that. And what is happening now is that there is a destruction of culture in a city that was created by culture and for culture, and the way the are doing it… Recently I saw an article that was talking about here where I live in SOMA… All the eastern neighborhoods in San Francisco, from the Mission all the way out to Hunters and Bay Point, it’s all going through heavy redevelopment right now. And in our corridor, right here, they are pushing the idea to create lots of high-rise housing, a corridor of high-rise housing. That's supposed to bring people from the suburbs into the city, that is their thought processing, that it's going to bring people into the city and will reduce emissions and, really, that's just a bold-face lie. No family that is living out in Walnut Creek is going to be coming in from the suburbs to live in high-rise housing.

For the supervisor seat, you were already feeling that pressure?

No. For the supervisor seat, I had a party at The Cinch, and neighbors moved in. The party was a rock'n roll-like extravaganza, it was free to the public and in the last year of it, there were a lot of straight people coming to the bar — it's now the last gay bar on Polk Street, which used to be THE gay street in San Francisco. Change happens, and I understand that, but they were… I got pulled off the stage, my wig was getting ripped off, they were starting fights, and when it was just gay people in the club we were not having that because they understand about the respect for drag queens, and it just wasn't fun anymore. And then a new neighbor moved in and started complaining about The Cinch every night a 8 o'clock at night — no matter what night it was — about noise, and so, they got investigated literally by the Entertainment Commission (which I'm now going to sit on) and the police. The Cinch didn't have any of the permits and they called me and they said, "We don't have these permits, but give us a couple of weeks and you can start up again." And I was like, "No, I'm not really going to go against what needs to happen." The thing about the bar is that's it's been a bar since the 1800s and it hasn't really had a lot of capital improvements on it, and because it's so old, to make any improvements you would have to redo the whole thing, all the plumbing, everything would have to be redone. And you are talking about at least $40,000, if not much, much more, which for a small business is very difficult to raise. So, you know, they're really in a bad spot. And I think they're still without a permit.

So that really motivated you...

That, and we did those "Take Back the Polk" marches, where we would march down the street and say "Take Back the Polk, Marina Girls Go Home!" And it's not really like we wanted the Marina Girls to go home. Everything I do has sort of a tongue in cheek approach, because I think "keep it humorous, otherwise you will really upset people and nobody wants angry people, they want aware people."

How did it go from a supervisor seat to the Entertainment Commission? Because you could have said, "Oh, I will try again for supervisor, or I quit politics." I saw from your interview at the Board of Supervisors that since the campaign, you worked with many organizations. Did your campaign open all these other doors?

No, I think I was political, I was a politically motivated person. It's much easier not to look at everything and find out all the issues and all the problems, just burry your head in a club and kind of live you life. And it's also a fine way to be. I don't know what motivated me, but I think that you do things where you fit in and you feel like you can be useful. And during the campaign, I went from the joke drag-queen candidate to a well-respected voice in the community, and then from there I didn't quit and people really believe my dedication and believe that I'm earnest in what I do. And through their support, I am now able to take on new responsibilities. It's really because the community has said "yes, we support you," that I'm now being able to apply for the Entertainment Commission and have the Board of Supervisors, which are elected officials, and very hard to… it's like herding cats, as you can imagine. I had enough supervisors support me so that I could move on and take a position that is a regulatory position for the city. I get a badge, and it's a very serious position and I get to represent neighborhood concerns on the regulatory body. And I think people like me because it's not about me. I'm not really a cult of personality, which is funny for Anna Conda, but I like that people think that about me, because it's much easier to have people expecting nothing from you, than to expect something from you. So I can use that to my advantage.

What are your goals at the Entertainment Commission?

Well, I think the goals are actually going to be set for me, by the permitting and stuff like that. During the hearings, twice a month, I will have my goals set for me. I think that one of the goals I am setting for myself is that I heard a lot of complaints when I ran for District 6 about people in their cars drinking after hours and a lot of the violence is brought in from cars coming into the City, with guns. And I think that it would be very good for the city to have BART running 24 hours on the weekends, raise the bridge tolls a little bit on weekends. And, you know, work out something there. I think nightlife is a perfect reason to promote that sort of safety, and nightlife is a great way to promote things that are beneficial to the entire city. Because it's a big shiny thing, and if you say, "oh, I would really like this"… I think I would really like to work on that, because we are frying ourselves to death, we have to get out of our cars, and we need to take bold steps. You were asking me what I thought was wrong with the sort of politics in the city. I don't think bold enough steps are being taken, I think people are wasting too much time in fighting. I think legislation should be written about construction and condo conversions, and something needs to be done when someone moves in an entertainment corridor. They cannot move in and, by their complaint, when they live in a building that was not built to code — you know, it's "buyer beware" except for in the case of entertainment — and they can get the State's Alcohol and Beverage Control department to come and shut down the club. I don't think that that right or wrong approach is really creating any solutions. It's certainly creating community discourse. I have to look at the legislation, there needs to be some improvement there.

How do you position yourself in the trans community? A documentary by Rosa Von Pronheim in the 90s was covering every one, from the casual straight man going to go to a retreat once a year to do drag with his friends in Provincetown, to people who change sexes completely and become gay transgender or straight transgender, or else. It's a huge rainbow of people, do you feel like you belong to it?

It's funny, because I don't ever seek to belong. I just sort of try to make my own way and try not to hassle people about theirs. I consider myself transgender to an extent, but I think I really consider myself multi-gendered. I mean, I look at myself in the mirror and I'm a decently good-looking male. I have hairy arms… I'm a man, but my insides are totally… I'm “feminally” polarized. I'm totally a woman inside, I feel like a woman inside. But, I don't think that that, for me, meant that I needed to change my body. I think that the transgender community is very aware, especially here in San Francisco, about all the various stages of human sexuality and psyche, and I have a lot of really great transgender friends, and I think I have a good name in the transgender community, but you know, it's just because, yeah… things don't bother me more than anything.

When we watch the documentary of your campaign, everybody had to think about the part of the Milk movie, the Gus Van Sant movie, where they had their first campaign. There is a parallel with the gang of misfits, or fun-loving people, who put together a campaign and find all the pitfalls and the excitement at the same time, as well as the the mini successes and the little failure by the end. But that also opens new doors.

No, no, no little failure, I will challenge you on that! (laughs)

No, you know, the failure to be elected, not the failure of the campaign. Because, yes, it was obviously a stepping-stone. So how do you see yourself in comparison to what Milk has experienced almost 40 years ago, and what your campaign was. Do you see a parallel, do you see yourself historically?

I just try not to think about that. Honestly. It's flattering to be compared to Harvey Milk, but...

There is a pioneering streak about it. You went on the campaign in full drag, Anna Conda was on top of your name on the posters...

OK, so here is what I'm going to say: to look at the drag and make that the focal point of what made it pioneering is to miss the point. I think that my efforts were pioneering because of the manner in which they're done and I continue to work. Which is why I think it's hard to compare me to Milk because I don't know, first hand, how he did it. I can only see what people say. I believe that it is something more to do with my spirit and my grounded approach to caring for the constituents and still getting things done and still being able to be taken seriously. And I think that what people don't understand, just because what people don't understand what my power is, doesn't mean that I didn't. And I knew that if I was going to go into my first race. One, it would be stupid to negate who I was, and you know, if you don't promote it, someone is going to use it against you. I think that people don't get told a lot that they should be proud, and I don't think that people demonstrate that a lot. I certainly don't think that modern politics demonstrates that.

No, everyone's hiding.

Yeah, it's not the drag, it was the fact that I was not hiding, like you just said. I don't want to associate too much of it to the power of drag, although I do feel like drag is definitely where I found my power.

But it's really funny, because the more you want to say that you don't want to be associated with Milk, all the values you are pushing ahead, it's very parallel to what motivated him.

I think I'm asking people to act up a little more, and be a little more responsible. I think that's another parallel, he was like "come out! You have to come out! It's very, very important to come out!" And I'm saying, "Get involved, it is really important to get involved. You want to know why nightlife is suffering? Because you are all too busy thinking about yourselves.”

I realized something about politics some time ago: everyone thinks they have to win for the thing to work, and I realized that no, that's not the idea. The idea is that everyone has to be involved. Because it's like a zen thing of life, light and shadow together, if you're very liberal you defend something very liberal, if you are very conservative, you defend your thing, but we are all involved and everyone talks, nobody hates each other and we get to somewhere where it works for everybody, or most everybody.

Yes, you know it's the two sides that give you the true answer. That’s not left or right, black or white, there are so many other situations. It's just like one of the great things I heard yesterday about the Entertainment Commission is, "We're not here to shut down clubs, and we're not here to let them run wild. We're here to find the in-between. And we do that by putting conditions onto permits." And people look at it as punishment, and stuff like that, but it's true. But if you have both sides a little upset with the end result, then you probably have nailed it.

To go back to issues of the transgender community, do you think there is more acceptance of the trans people now than there was of gay people at the times of Harvey Milk, or is it still a long struggle?

I think it's interesting because I don't think there is one queer culture anymore. I think there used to be one queer culture…

Or there was at least only one at the forefront.

Right, it was the gay white male culture at the forefront. And I think the gays have always been accepting African-Americans, of black people. I hate to say African-American; it makes me sound like such a dweeb. I think that black people were accepted into the fray, but then again, I can't say, because I wasn't there. So now there is the lesbian agenda, and there is a very strong trans agenda and… I think that there are advances, but I think that, as we advance, the problem we're having is we're not recognizing that we are a culture. We are looking for acceptance in a hetero-normative world, by seeking their approval for marriage and having babies, and we are the spiritual shamans of the world. There is no need for us to do what everyone else is doing. And by trying to be someone else in some other culture, we are actually doing ourselves a huge disservice. We have to really recognize that just because someone tells you this way is right, it doesn't make it right. My hero was a Native-American name We’wha, who was a Zuni Indian and was a much, much, much beloved multi-gendered leader. She was a leader because he was kind and generous, and because she was multi-gendered. And she went to Washington DC to work on treaties, and was always greeted as an Indian princess, even though he was like six-foot tall. The thing is, we always had those people. Quan Yin, one of the fathers of Chinese Taoism was a multi-gendered person. We have always been there. There is no need for us to be acting in any way other than how we are, because we have always been leaders, and it's a real shame to believe that you have to change. It's not true.