Chivonn Anderson is a multi-talented woman, a small business owner, an entrepreneur, former events coordinator for film and music festivals and the food industry, a real estate agent, and one of the co-partners of Redcrest Kitchen in Queen Village. The interview was supposed to be mainly about the restaurant and her desire to make it a go-to gay spot, but my first question took us down a long road about her experience in the military that was so intense and important, that I barely went beyond that first question. Tears were shed and laughs were shared as Anderson recounted her courageous story. Some responses have been edited for length or clarity.
So I understand that you’re originally from Philly, but did some traveling before settling down in South Philly. Where did you go?
I lived in Philly until I was 20 when I joined the air force. I went through something traumatic there that changed everything. When I got out of the military, I lived in West Chester for six months and then moved to Austin, Texas. I lived there for just under 10 years and then moved back to Philly in 2013.
The problems in the military — did everything turn out OK?
No. My experience happened almost 20 years ago. But because of some of the recent things that have been coming out in the news about harassment in the military, I’ve decided that I need to tell my story. I’ve been talking to attorneys and people in Congress, not only to get things changed but also to let other survivors of this particular predator know that they’re not alone.
Are you comfortable talking about it?
Yes, I am. I was on active duty during 9/11 at a special operations base in Florida. It was brand new and it was built to train us to fight at night in the desert. This was also during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” era. So when I signed up for the military, I was putting myself back in the closet. But during the course of my time there, I became a whistleblower. I brought someone to justice and the powers that be did not like that.
It started the first week that I got to my permanent duty station. There were about 100 of us, and we were divided into smaller groups in the shop. There was a [leader who] started sexually harassing me. I was 21 and didn’t know what to do about it. In the military, you’re a piece of property. You just follow orders. It happened for months and I was silent about it but eventually, it came to a head when he assaulted me in the shop and threatened to kill me. It happened around people in my shop. People were there who heard it and saw him assault me and no one did anything [pauses to wipe a tear].
At that point, I felt there were only three options: stay silent, desert (as in go AWOL) or suicide. Fortunately, there was another colleague who I was friendly with — who was also gay — that I was able to talk to. We would go to a gay club in Pensacola called Emerald City along with my friend, who was also gay. When I told him what had happened in the shop and how my life was threatened, his question was, “Has this happened to any other women there?” I said that I didn’t know and he suggested that I try to find out. There were 100 people in our shop. Ten of them — including me — were women. So I started doing my own secret investigation and asked all of the women if they’d been assaulted or harassed by him and eight of them had — eight out of nine!
Woah!
Yeah, but I was only in the military for a four-year stint. All of them were in it as a career for 20+ years, so none of them were willing to come forward against him. But once I found out that this was happening to nine of us, I was just like, “I can’t stay silent.”
There was a supervisor — a woman, also queer — who had also been harassed by him and I asked her if she would come with me to the shop chief to let him know what was happening and she said, “I wish I could but I can’t. I’m so sorry, I just can’t jeopardize my career.” I told her that I understood but I went on my own to a shop chief and told him that this person had threatened to kill me and had physically and sexually assaulted eight other women. I said that it was his responsibility to make sure we were safe and asked him if he was going to do something about it and he said, “No.”
I was in shock. So I said, “Then I’m going over your head, because this is unacceptable.” He looked at me with disgust and said, “You better make sure you have all your ducks in a row before you go over my head, because I guarantee you it’s not going to end up the way you think it will.” I was again stunned that his response to me being threatened was to threaten me again.
It didn’t have the result he wanted — just the opposite. I’d developed a relationship with the person who was basically the top of command over the course of my time on the base. I told him what had happened and said, “If you don’t do something, I’m going to go to the inspector general.” The IG is a third party, neutral entity and it’s a big deal when something gets to their level. It’s really bad. So he asked me to give him 24 hours to look into it. He said if I wasn’t satisfied with the result, he would personally take me to the inspector general.
I hid out the rest of the day and the next morning when I went in, the shop chief came up to me and he was pissed. He said, “There is a restraining order and he’s not allowed to come within 500 feet of you and there’s an investigation happening.” I was scared to death. It was going down. It would take too long to go into detail, but in short, we were all deposed, and it turned out that he had been doing this for 20 years — his entire career — and he’d been shipped around from base to base.
Like what they did with so many priests.
Exactly. When they confronted him with the results of the investigation, he broke down crying, bawling, begging them not to do anything. So they gave him two options, either go to a court marshal and see what happens or retire immediately. So he of course chose to retire and received full benefits and pension! So I’m like, “OK, at least this predator is gone” and I was feeling pretty good until two weeks later when I walked into the shop and there he was. Turns out he was also with the local police department and he was standing there in a sheriff’s uniform chumming it up with the guys in the shop. They had no idea what had happened. They just knew he retired. But when I walked in and saw him there… It was too much.
From that point on, I started getting harassed by the local police. It was reported to the base, instigated by him, I’m sure, that I was a huge drug dealer in nearby Pensacola. So they opened an investigation on me within the military. In the meantime, I’m being followed and pulled over by the police, whatever they could do to intimidate me. All of these men who had been serving with him for 20 years were furious that a 21-year-old, obviously queer, person of color stood up against one of them and got results. At this point, I’m getting paranoid. I’m stressed out. I’m going to the gay bar so often that they offer me a job. So I started working there, being gay when I wasn’t supposed to be gay. And they could have gotten me for that and had me kicked out, but they wanted blood. I was being approached in the club by undercover agents asking me to buy them narcotics. They completely stood out. It was like, “Come on, do you think I’m stupid?” Not to mention, that’s just not me. I don’t do that.
It went on for weeks where they tried to entrap me and then it stopped. [They then went after someone] I had been friends for about two years and long story short, since they couldn’t get me, they went after her and got her to commit a crime. They blatantly told her, “We don’t want you, we want her. If you help us, all this will go away.”
So she set me up.
On Memorial Day weekend, which draws a huge gay crowd in Pensacola. She introduced me to two cousins that she said were super cool and we hung out with them all weekend, partying with thousands of gay folks from all over in our gay bubble. On the second or third night of partying, the cousins asked if I knew where they could get ecstasy. Stupid on my part but I said, “I don’t know, I’m not into that but I can ask around.” It was a party weekend and I asked someone who gave me four pills for them at $20 a pill. It was $80 and as soon as I took the money from them, that was it. Possession and distribution sentence, 20 years for each pill. I was facing 80 years in prison. I found out that it was my friend who facilitated it.
This is like a movie, or a nightmare.
Yeah, and the crazy thing is I was in Philly for 30 days prior to all this for my sister’s wedding. I was away when they were talking to everyone I knew, including at the club trying to find dirt on me and there was none to be had, so they had to set it up. They tried threatening people with outing them before they got to my friend. When they first brought me in, they were asking me about all these names I’d never heard of and then they showed me a picture of two people and right away, I thought, “Ha! I get it now. It was the cousins.”
I was facing 80 years or I could plead guilty and get a 16-month reduced sentence with forfeiture of all pay, and a bad conduct discharge. And keep in mind, when this was all going on around me, I wasn’t able to connect all the dots. It’s hard to see the grand picture with the chaos happening. I was in Florida and the only long-term facility for women was in California. So I get flown on a public airline, wearing my dress uniform, and handcuffed. [Wiping a tear] I can’t describe the shame of people looking at you and the flight attendants talking to the soldiers escorting me. And then being processed for intake at a facility with people who have committed murder to people who popped hot on a urine analysis.
The person responsible for making sure all the paperwork was correct at intake said, “Why are you here? You don’t fit the criteria of the people being held here.” And I responded, “Because I … I don’t really know. I don’t understand what happened.” Once I got into the brig, I realized that most of the women in there had all been abused in some way. And you know how in a prison movie, there’s the one inmate you don’t mess with. Well she luckily took me under her wing. She too said that I didn’t belong there and wanted to keep me out of trouble, so I could get out on time. She didn’t let me associate with inmates so I was able to keep my nose clean and serve my time.
When I got out, I was living in denial of everything. There was such a feeling of dishonor, and disappointment, like I had done something wrong to my country and service. I moved to West Chester, cloaked in shame and couldn’t be around my family, so that’s when I moved to Texas. I worked for the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema for 10 years and started their first queer programming series. Then in 2013, I moved back to Philly. I’m now on a mission to get my military records and tell my story, because this man was hurting women for 20 years. I can’t imagine the amount of pain and trauma he’s caused and I want other women to know that it’s out now.
Well, damn. Thank you for sharing that. Let’s try to fit in a few other questions before we wrap up. What did you do when you moved back to Philly and what are you up to now?
One of my passions is throwing parties and events. I’ve been doing it since I was 18. So when I moved back to Philly, I got a job with the Awesome Film Festival, which operated out of the Trocadero. At the same time, I was working at Cantina restaurant group but I always wanted to open my own business. Even as a kid, I’d tell people I wanted to be the CEO of my own company even before I knew what it meant! It just sounded right. I’ve always been someone who did multiple things at once in order to achieve my goals.
At Cantina, I helped them open their first beer garden and later, I met my current business partner, Adam Volk. We worked at one of the beer gardens, which is madness. You’re working 12-hour days and it is hot and insane and every nerve you have is tested. And at the end of the summer, we still liked each other enough to work together. Long story short, he opened up a quick-service fried chicken place that did well and now I’ve joined him to open Redcrest Kitchen at 6th & Bainbridge in Queen Village. We found a great spot with a liquor license and lots of room, signed a 10-year lease in 2021 and three weeks later, there was a massive water main break. We had 100,000,000 gallons of water destroy the basement and everything in it. It pushed us back 18 months. We had to fight our insurance company. It was rough.
But my motto was, “the only way out is through it.” We opened in 2022. It’s a huge space that I’m hoping to start to utilize for the queer community. We did a new menu last May that I’m really excited about, and I love the idea of having a new spot outside of the Gayborhood. I mean I remember coming out in ’95 when I was 15 and being scared because I didn’t know any gay people. I came out to my family and they were very accepting, I think in part because I come from an interracial background that tends to be more accepting.
I say the same thing. When you’re mixed, it’s just like, “OK just one more adjective to add to the list.”
Exactly! I grew up in Olney and we were blockbusters, the first family of color to move into our neighborhood. My sister was the first of three students of color at the Catholic school and was the victim of a hate crime. She has scars to this day on her face from it. I knew who I was since I was 5 but didn’t come out until I was 15. It was the only other time when I contemplated suicide, until I decided that this was who I was and I needed to deal with it. I realized that my morals and values and integrity had nothing to do with my sexual orientation, that it was just a part of me. So to go back, I want this to be a space where people can feel comfortable being themselves. A place where performers can put on shows, and we can show films and do all sorts of things. We did a brunch for Sip City. I’m going to do a single mixer next month and things like that.
I see a film festival night there in my future!
Yes! And we’re having a BVLicious event here on Jan. 25. I saw one of their flyers on a telephone pole and contacted Dirk Allen, who puts them together.
I love that group! And Dirk, he’s the best! And I read that you also do real estate too.
Yes, I got my license in Texas and I’m licensed here as well. I’ve always wanted to give back, so I’m planning to do workshops on buying your first home; what to do to get a mortgage, what grants are available, and creative ways to purchase houses, like combining incomes with a friend to buy a duplex together. I believe housing security is one of the most important things, especially for queer people. Owning your own house means no one can kick you out because of who you are or how you look. It’s not that hard to do. I tell people coming out is hard. Buying a house should be exhilarating.
Okay, let’s squeeze a random question or two. What song gets you hyped?
“Work Bitch,” by Britney Spears. It’s my song for 2024!
What’s the highest you’ve jumped into water?
Back in my 20s, we used to go to Lake Travis in Texas and jump off a cliff. One of them was about 30 feet high — high enough for me to regret it as I was plummeting down, but it was like, “Oh well, too late now!”
What’s a food you could never be a taste tester for?
Doughnuts. I love them but I judge them on such a high scale it would be ridiculous. Like, don’t come at me with some crappy doughnut. [Laughing] I’m still going to eat it because, well, it’s a doughnut, but I won’t be happy.
What’s a fun family tradition?
Well, I’m Black and Puerto Rican and we love to eat and dance, so for holidays like Thanksgiving, we’d get like 50 people together. And my dad used to throw a “cousin’s weekend” and he’d come up with different games and activities. He’d break us up into teams and we’d compete against each other for little silly trophies. He’d have a great time setting it up, and made everyone feel loved. He was killed on a job site in Jersey City in 2014. He was hit in the head with a tape measure that fell from the 52nd floor of a building they were working on. He was in the middle of worshiping with a co-worker and literally the last words out of his mouth were, “God is Good” before he got struck. It made national news and his case changed the laws on construction sites in some states. We continue the cousins’ games in his honor.
Wow, I think we need to make a documentary about your life and have the premiere at Redcrest!
I’m in!