With Dutch king ill, Queen Maxima will lead delegation on SF visit – Bay Area Reporter, America’s highest circulation LGBT newspaper
King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has had to cancel his planned visit to San Francisco after he became ill with pneumonia and was advised against traveling. But a tour of the Castro will go ahead, as Queen Máxima will be making the trip with cabinet ministers, Dutch officials said.
According to the Royal House of the Netherlands, Queen Máxima and other officials will still be traveling to the U.S. and “will give substance to already planned programme components.”
“The king is recovering from pneumonia and air travel at this time could impede a full recovery,” a news release stated. “The king’s commitments in the Netherlands will not be affected by this decision and will go ahead as planned, albeit on a more limited scale.”
The Castro tour planned for Tuesday, September 6, is still going ahead, Vincent Storimans, the deputy consul general for the Netherlands Consulate in San Francisco stated in an email. Storimans, a gay man who talked about the upcoming visit in this week’s Bay Area Reporter, said the delegation will also be attending planned events at Stanford, Berkeley, UCSF, and Google, as well as a cocktail reception at San Francisco City Hall with 700 expected guests.
Royal Central reported that it is anticipated that the queen will travel accompanied by the minister of foreign trade and development cooperation; the minister of health, welfare and sport; the minister of education, culture and science; the minister of economic affairs, communication and sustainable development of Aruba; the minister of public health and tourism of Aruba; and the state secretary of infrastructure and water management.
Further details of the schedule for activities during the trip will be announced once arrangements have been made taking into account the king’s absence, the online news site reported.
The trip will take place between September 6-9, and will take the Dutch delegation to California and Texas to discuss, among other things, climate change impact on populations, potential solutions to the energy crisis brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions imposed, and transatlantic cooperation.
As the B.A.R. reported, the royal tour of the city’s LGBQ district is to begin at the GLBT Historical Society Museum and proceed to the Castro Theatre and Twin Peaks Tavern. At the tavern, the queen will meet briefly with San Francisco LGBTQ community leaders District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman; San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D.; San Francisco LGBT Community Center Executive Director Rebecca Rolf; and National Center for Lesbian Rights Executive Director Imani Rupert-Gordon.
“It’s exciting that they have chosen the Bay Area to visit and that they are reaching out to local LGBTQ community leaders to not only give them a tour of some of our most historic places here in the Castro but to sit down and have a conversation about what’s happening here in our community,” TerMeer said before the king’s cancellation was reported.
TerMeer, a 39-year-old gay man who is of Dutch ancestry, had looked forward to speaking with the royals about HIV/AIDS issues here in the U.S. and learning more about the Netherlands’ response to the epidemic and other public health threats to the LGBTQ community, he said.
Andrew Shaffer, a gay man who’s co-interim executive director of the historical society, said he’s excited about the tour in spite of the change of plans.
“We’re very much looking forward to showing her majesty around the museum,” he wrote in an email.
Mandelman took the news in stride.
“The Castro loves queens,” he quipped Thursday. “I’m looking forward to meeting her and walking around and I wish the king a speedy recovery.”
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