Taxpayers will be on the hook for a LGBT film festival in San Francisco that will screen films spanning a broad range of sexually explicit topics, including pornography, federal records show.
In January, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) made a $35,000 grant to the nonprofit Frameline, to help pay for its annual San Francisco LGBTQ+ International Film Festival in June, federal records show. Films shown at the festival will touch on gay sex, prostitution, pornography, drag queens, transgenderism and abortion, according to the event’s website.
The San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival began in 1977 and, according to Frameline, is the oldest and largest gay film festival in the world. Frameline, through its operations, seeks to “change the world through the power of queer cinema.”
One event at the festival is a compilation of short films titled “Erotic City Shorts,” which is described as a “free-for-all sampling of some of the best in queer X-rated cinema from San Francisco.”
“Alley of the Tranny Boys,” a movie in the X-rated compilation, describes itself as “a groundbreaking film” that “re-imagines sexual liberation for today’s outlaws, claiming an erotic space for transmasculine individuals” by showing transsexuals engaging in intercourse.
Another picture, “100 Boyfriends Mixtape,” depicts an “unforgettably horny cruise around SF” while “Loads” offers an account of a gay filmmaker’s “adventures with straight boys and the hospitality he extends to them.”
“Transit,” which was recorded at a pornography festival, exposes viewers to “Trans superstar Vanniall and non-binary porn icon Jiz Lee” as the two “celebrate the joy in queer sex.”
The NEA, an independent federal agency, has funded an array of LGBT programs, mirroring the Biden administration’s approach to LGBT inclusion.
In October 2023, for instance, the agency funded a “Criminal Queerness Festival.” The agency has also poured tens of thousands of dollars in an all-queer and trans dance group called “Fresh Meat Productions” over the past couple of years.
Before Former President Donald Trump took office in 2017, the NEA earmarked taxpayer funds in March 2016 to study the “history of French lesbian activism.”
Trump tried to cut funding to the NEA during his term, though failed as Congress refused to include his proposed cuts in budget legislation. Trump cited the “notable funding support provided by private and other public sources” to the arts in arguing to defund the agency.
President Joe Biden has made advocating for LGBT issues a focal point of his administration by ending the Trump-era ban on transgender people serving in the armed forces, taking legal action to block laws that prevent child sex changes and directing the State Department to support LGBT rights abroad.
“Grants for Arts Projects supports opportunities for public engagement with the arts and arts education, for the integration of the arts with strategies promoting the health and well-being of people and communities, and for the improvement of overall capacity and capabilities within the arts sector,” an NEA spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “As with all NEA grants, these grants were made on the basis of artistic excellence and artistic merit as described on the NEA website and as required by Congress,” they continued.
“Cruel Summer Streaming Shorts,” another compilation of short films, is set to depict similar material during the festival. One film in the lineup, “Bold Eagle,” is about a gay porn star who “seeks refuge in the strong arms of strange men from the internet as they masturbate their way to true happiness.”
“Cucumber/Knife,” meanwhile, follows “a non-binary person with a vagina” and “an effeminate gay man” as they go “cruising” along a nude lake.
Taxpayers are also helping the festival put on “Sebastian,” a movie about a young male writer who adopts a double life as a “ravenous sex worker” and “Desire Lines,” a documentary-fiction hybrid film that invites the audience to “travel back in time to a steamy gay bathhouse in the ’80s and deep dive into transmasculine desire for cisgender gay men.”
Democratic San Francisco Mayor London Breed, alongside other state and local officials, spoke at Frameline’s virtual gala in September 2020, according to a press release. A few months prior, Breed distributed COVID-19 relief funds to Frameline.
Tickets different to films shown at the festival vary in price. When going through the process of purchasing tickets for “Erotic City Shorts” and other events at the festival, potential patrons are not asked to provide their age.
“At this time, Frameline has no effective means to obtain and track parental consent,” the nonprofit’s terms and conditions reads. “Therefore, Frameline must prohibit the submission of personal information from children under the age of 13.”
Frameline did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated to include comment from the NEA.
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