Peppermint, Paddles and $1.6 Million: Callen-Lorde's Very Big Night
There are galas where the cause gets a polite nod between courses, and then there was Chelsea Piers on Thursday night. Callen-Lorde sold out Pier Sixty, packed in more than 900 guests, put Peppermint on hosting duty and walked out with $1.6 million raised for LGBTQ+ affirming healthcare. Nobody was there by accident, and it showed.
Photos by Velvet Turtle and Kade Joy Photography.
The room was the argument: drag royalty and public-health brass at the same tables. Congressman Jerrold Nadler worked the crowd near Dr. Alister Martin, the city's health commissioner, while Peter Staley, Adam Eli, Marti Cummings, Luxx Noir London, Alexis Michelle, Plasma, Tracey Africa Norman and Taylor Trensch filled out a guest list that could double as a syllabus for queer New York.
The Community Health Awards, presented by Cynthia Nixon and Indya Moore, went to three LGBTQ+ families and the Keith Haring Foundation. Nixon set the theme early: chosen family and the families we are born into, she said, "do not have to exist separately. They can strengthen one another," and the three families on stage were the proof of concept.
Then Moore delivered the line of the night. She was once a Callen-Lorde patient herself, cared for through its HOTT program through season two of Pose, with Dr. Anthony Vavasis as, in her words, her biggest champion. Then fame complicated things: "The love was real but it turns out HIPAA does not cover being recognized in the waiting room." Callen-Lorde protected her privacy anyway. It is hard to top a testimonial that doubles as a punchline.
Simon Castets accepted for the Keith Haring Foundation and connected the dots in the room's DNA: Michael Callen, the singer who co-authored How to Have Sex in an Epidemic in 1983, Audre Lorde, the poet who warned that silence will not protect you, and Haring himself. "Both were artists. Both refused silence." So, on Thursday, did everyone holding a paddle.
And the paddles got a workout. Comedian Dana Goldberg ran the auction like a sportscaster with a gavel, Sydney James Harcourt performed, and Lina Bradford and Aquaria kept the room moving on the decks. Underneath the sequins sits the actual mission, which CEO Patrick McGovern put plainly: "the price of health care can never be the denial of self." Callen-Lorde has provided care free of judgment and regardless of ability to pay since the Stonewall era. On Thursday night, 900 people paid it forward.