Gerard Koskovich

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Repairing the Loss of the First Queer Archives

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Ninety years ago this month, the Nazis staged their first book-burning in Berlin. The gathering on May 10, 1933, saw hundreds of supporters of the regime march into a square in front of the 18th-century building housing the city’s first public library and across the street from one of Germany’s leading universities. The crowd threw cartloads of books onto a huge bonfire, the flames lighting the night sky as Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels gave a speech attacking Jewish and “un-German” authors. Many of us learned about this grim event in high-school history classes, where it’s often portrayed as an example […]

Thirty-Eight Years of San Francisco Pride: Reflecting Our Community’s Victories, Struggles & Diversity

Held on the last Sunday in June, the San Francisco Pride Parade is recognized as one of the largest Pride celebrations in the world and one of the largest annual public gatherings in the United States. Thirty-eight years after the city’s first Pride march in 1970, community historian Greg Pennington responded to our questions about the early growth of the celebration and its ongoing evolution to reflect the diversity of LGBTQ people. Pennington moved to San Francisco in 1977 as part of the massive wave of gay men who emmigrated from across the United States and beyond during that decade. […]

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Documenting LGBT American Indian Organizing

Regarded as the first organization of its kind, Gay American Indians (GAI) was established in San Francisco in 1975 at the height of gay liberation. Founded by Barbara Cameron (1954-2002) and Randy Burns, GAI initially was a social club for queer American Indians who often felt unwelcome in the LGBTQ community due to prejudice and in American Indian organizations due to homophobia. The group went on to reclaim tribal traditions honoring two-spirit people who embraced mixed gender identities and roles. The archives of the GLBT Historical Society hold a small number of collections of organizational records and personal papers documenting […]