Reprinted with permission from History Happens

/

A Roadmap to SF GLBT Historical Society Archival Content

, ,

While the society’s archives remain closed in compliance with city and state health regulations during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we have been busy adding digital content for researchers at home and are thrilled to provide you with a roadmap to these resources. We have overhauled the archives area on the website to make it easier to find the content you’re looking for. On the website, click on “Online Resources” under the “Archives” tab, and you’ll find a new launch page for all of our digital materials featuring four colored boxes that link to the four following sections:  Digital Collections, accessed through the pink box (top left), are selections from our physical archival collections, scanned and photographed. We’ve vastly expanded this page in the last six months. Recent additions include ACT UP oral histories; videos of performers at the Valencia Rose cabaret in the 1980s; the Posters and Art and Artifacts collections; Jean-Baptiste Carhaix’s evocative photographs of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence; Hal O’Neal’s home videos of gay men socializing as far back as the 1940s; and collections about lesbian poet Elsa Gidlow, Japanese American World War II incarceration-camp survivor Jiro Onuma, and the famed “Maestrapeace” mural on the Women’s Building in San Francisco.  Exhibitions, accessed through the yellow box (top right), takes you to our online exhibitions, curated and built since March by our museum staff. You can view exhibitions that were previously on display at the museum on Roz Joseph’s drag photographs, Angela Davis, Gilbert Baker and more. And some of the exhibitions, such as AIDS Treatment Activism, are “born-digital” shows that are exclusively available online. Primary Source Sets, linked from the orange box (bottom left), are a new resource we’ve introduced this year. These are curated sets of images, articles and recordings on specific topics, ranging from drag to the Gay Games, to gays and lesbians in the military, to queer feminism and trans men and women. They’re great jumping-off points for research, and are intended to be especially helpful to students, educators and novice researchers. Research Guides are available through the blue box (bottom right). They’re textual roadmaps of the archives, also themed around specific topics, and intended for researchers who are planning to dig deeper and ultimately consult the physical archives. They list relevant collections, oral histories and periodicals. Also available here are our presentations about research and collection donation, as well as information about local LGBTQ historic places, links to other LGBTQ archives and more. We hope you’ll explore our online resources. And if you have any suggestions for topics you might like to see covered or any questions, email us at reference@glbthistory.org. We’re here to help you!

Kelsi Evans is director of the Dr. John P. De Cecco Archives & Special Collections at the GLBT Historical Society.
Isaac Fellman is the reference archivist at the GLBT Historical Society.

/

Advocating for Transgender People in 2020: Not a Moment, but a Turning Point

,

The second week of November is observed as Transgender Awareness week and leads up to the Transgender Day of Remembrance on the 20th, which memorializes victims of transphobic violence. This has been another perilous year for trans people: more were murdered in the first seven months of 2020 than all of last year, and trans people of color are still disproportionately victims of violent crime.

As part of our commitment to Transgender Awareness Week, the GLBT Historical Society’s archivists have organized two new primary-source sets on trans men and trans women in the Online Resources area of our website. And we’ve caught up with Aria Sa’id, the executive director and cofounder of San Francisco’s Transgender District. Established in 2017, the District is one of seven officially designated cultural districts in the city and the first legally recognized transgender district in the world.

What has the Transgender District been doing to remember the many precious trans lives lost this year? 

AS: I don’t think we’re ever able to properly mourn and grieve the loss. We live in a world where so much is stacked against transgender people, and it has been a gravely emotional experience both as a trans woman and as the leader of an organization that focuses on celebrating our joy and resilience. We held a #BlackTransLivesMatter rally in June called “Courthouse 2 Comptons” in partnership with transgender historian Dr. Susan Stryker and filmmaker Julian Carter. Hundreds of people filled the streets of the Tenderloin to raise awareness and mourn the lives of transgender people who have been senselessly murdered. In August, as part of our celebration of the 54th anniversary of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, we painted the historic Turk and Taylor intersection with the affirmation “BLACK TRANS LIVES MATTER” as a symbol of both past and present struggle in America — and to commemorate the lives of transgender women who have been lost.

The Transgender District is centered in the Tenderloin, a neighborhood that has historically been home to trans people and has been hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. How has the District responded?

AS: As a cultural district, we are both limited in how we can support people (for example, we don’t have access to a clinic or a food pantry), but on the other hand we are able to be innovative. Within three days of the San Francisco shelter-in-place orders, after seeing the lines of hundreds of people in grocery stores stocking up on food and supplies, we launched our COVID-19 mutual-aid relief fund. So many of our folks were struggling to get supplies and food. To date, we’ve given cash grants to over 550 transgender people across the country, and over 40 nonprofit projects across the country have replicated our model to support their local communities. We’ve also launched our COVID-19 testing-access event in partnership with Mayor London Breed’s administration to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 testing for transgender San Franciscans. We have a ton of other projects and efforts launching in 2021 that I’m confident will support our community and educate people on how to minimize the spread of COVID-19, especially those who are marginally housed and economically vulnerable.

In a year when racial injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement are at the forefront of the nation’s attention, how has the District addressed these issues?

AS: I pray this isn’t just a moment, but a turning point. We’ve been doing this work and addressing these issues from the beginning. We were founded by Black transgender women and created a space and sanctuary for ourselves even when gay white men stood in opposition to us (literally and figuratively). And we continue to design every aspect of our programming, actions, efforts and moments with Black transgender San Franciscans in mind — we are so often treated as the afterthought, or not included at all. Our racial justice work is applied to intersections of being Black, transgender, and women — this is a Tenderloin experience that is consistently ignored, consistently not centered.

But we’ve also been working in tandem with Black transgender leaders from across the country, including the lead organizers of both Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives, to ensure an expanded framework for our movement’s fight for the protection and safety of our people and to shape how we communicate that to non-Black people. We’ve also been a part of MegaBlackSF and our collective effort to defund the San Francisco Police Department of $128 million — funds that will be directed to Black communities across San Francisco as we face forced outmigration, displacement, and increased poverty in a city that has gentrified and erased us.

Aria Sa’id cofounded the Transgender District and currently serves as its executive director.
Mark Sawchuk is the communications manager at the GLBT Historical Society.

/

Striking a Pose & Building a Community: Reflections on the Photographs of Roz Joseph

,

One grins knowingly at a friend over the camera’s shoulder, caught up in the joy of the moment. Another strikes an imposing pose in a pink beard. A third fixes the camera with an inscrutable gaze, daring us to ask a forbidden question. These are three of the iconic photographs of drag queens taken by San Francisco photographer Roz Joseph (1926–2019) that will be on display from September 21, when the GLBT Historical Society unveils an online selection of images drawn from its 2015 exhibition “Reigning Queens: The Lost Photos of Roz Joseph.”

Joseph, who passed away in December of last year, moved to San Francisco in 1970. Her series of remarkable photographs documenting the city’s drag balls of the 1970s was rediscovered when she donated her work to the GLBT Historical Society in 2010. As we put the finishing touches on the online show, board members and drag performers Nick Large and Kyle Levinger share their reflections on the photographs.

Nick Large: Looking at these photographs, many of them depicting drag queens associated with San Francisco’s Imperial Court, causes me to reflect on how much drag has changed in the past 40 years and even in my own lifetime. When I first started doing drag, I had never heard of RuPaul’s Drag Race. There were no makeup tutorials on YouTube, and you could get your entire look locally. My first drag purchase at Forever 21 was a sleeveless fake-leather jacket, which at the time represented $30 of the total sum of $150 I had in my bank account. It’s easy to forget that in the grand scheme of things, the existence of Drag Race is a very recent phenomenon.
The “lost” photographs of Roz Joseph are a reminder of earlier times. Joseph’s photos represent a moment when drag was more a form of expression than a competition. As the photographs document, San Francisco’s thriving drag community is decades old. Many people came together and formed their own families through the medium of drag, even though they were sometimes shunned by the larger LGBTQ community. I wonder what these queens of days gone by would think if they witnessed a drag performance today. What would they say we have gained, and lost? What advice and stories would they have for us? In the age of COVID-19 and online streaming shows, I wonder how we can replicate that feeling of family-building in a virtual world.

Kyle Levinger: In 2020, many members of the LGBTQ community are unaware of or uninterested in the Grand Ducal Court and Imperial Court here in San Francisco. Roz Joseph’s photographs transport us back to an era when the Courts were key in helping to shape the LGBTQ community. Drag queens were central in the fight for equality, and the Courts played a vital role in founding and supporting nonprofit organizations to fight AIDS, feed the hungry and meet many other community needs. The Ducal and Imperial Courts also served as families for people when their relatives turned their backs. Today, the Courts do not have the same appeal as they once did. As acceptance of the LGBTQ community continues to broaden and drag becomes an increasingly popular form of entertainment, they have had difficulty attracting and maintaining membership. How can the Ducal Court and Imperial Court adapt to remain relevant in the community?

NOTE: “Reigning Queens: The Lost Photos of Roz Joseph” opens on September 21 on the GLBT Historical Society’s website.

Nick Large is a member of the society’s board of directors and regularly performs as Kristi Yummykochi at the Lookout.

Kyle Levinger is a member of the society’s board of directors and performs as Kylie Minono, who was Grand Duchess 39 of the Grand Ducal Court.

/

Happening This Month Virtually at SF GLBT Historical Society

,

Workshop
Leaving a Legacy: Financial Estate Planning
Friday, September 412:00–1:00 p.m.
Online programFree
Careful financial planning ensures that our legacies live on by providing for our spouses, partners, children, relatives and friends. The second event in our two-part series offering estate-planning tools and resources for LGBTQ people, this workshop focuses on a range of financial-planning strategies and instruments. Attorney Alma Soongi Beck will discuss wills, living trusts, powers of attorney, marriage and domestic-partnership considerations, document language for nonbinary and transgender people, property tax, and co-ownership issues for unmarried couples who are not domestic partners. This event will include a Q & A session. Learn more about this series and how to plan for the future here. Register online here.
Author Talk
Patient Zero & the Making of the AIDS Epidemic
Saturday, September 1212:00–1:30 p.m.
Online programFree | $5 suggested donation
The search for a “patient zero” — popularly understood to be the first person infected in an epidemic — has been key to media coverage of major infectious-disease outbreaks for more than three decades. Yet the term itself did not exist before the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. At this event, historian Richard A. McKay will read selections from his book Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic (Chicago University Press, 2017) which examined how this idea came to exert such a strong grip on the scientific, media and popular consciousness. The book, which used materials in the GLBT Historical Society’s archives, focuses on the life of Gaëtan Dugas, a gay man who received widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as patient zero of the North American AIDS outbreak. McKay will also engage in a conversation with historian Gerard Koskovich about his archival research and take audience questions. Register online here.
Community EventMighty Real: A Celebration of Sylvester

Wednesday, September 166:00–7:30 p.m.Online programFree | $5 suggested donation

To celebrate the birthday of the iconic San Francisco disco diva Sylvester (1947–1988), join us at this event that will highlight the GLBT Historical Society’s archival holdings documenting the singer’s life and times. The society’s museum registrar and curatorial specialist, Ramón Silvestre, will present some of the Sylvester-related objects in our Art and Artifacts Collection. We will also be presenting clips of some of our archival footage, including a rare video of the diva’s 40th birthday celebration in 1987. This footage features some moving clips of Sylvester performing sentimental standards backed by a jazz band. Register online here.
Frameline FestivalGLBT Historical Society Copresents Two Queer Films
Sunday, September 204:00 p.m.Sunday, September 271:00 p.m.Online programsTickets available from Frameline 

The GLBT Historical Society is serving as a copresenter for two films focused on queer history at the 44th Frameline Festival, the world’s oldest and largest LGBTQ film festival. The full festival runs from September 17 to 27; each film is scheduled for a formal virtual screening, but will be available for viewing during the entire duration of the festival. For more information and to buy tickets, click on the film titles below or visit the Frameline Festival home page.
Killing Patient Zero. Right-wing bigots exploited AIDS to demonize gay men, and no one was more villainized than Gaëtan Dugas, the Canadian flight attendant dubbed “Patient Zero” of the North American AIDS outbreak. In this groundbreaking documentary, director Laurie Lynd explodes the myth of Patient Zero using beautifully framed interviews with Dugas’s friends and the scientists who were unlocking the mystery of what was still known as the “gay cancer.” Killing Patient Zero is an important work of queer archaeology that shines an empathetic light on a generation traumatized not just by a virus but by society’s blame and vitriol. Screening: The formal screening takes place at 4:00 p.m. on September 20 and will be followed by a Q & A.
Cured. For most of the 20th century, homosexuality was formally diagnosed as a mental illness and LGBTQ people were subject to drastic medical interventions posing as “cures.” But in 1973, in one of the most significant turning points in LGBTQ history, the American Psychiatric Association removed the stigma of mental illness from its medical manuals. This riveting documentary by Patrick Sammon and Bennett Singer goes behind the scenes to reveal the inspiring, courageous efforts of the scrappy band of gay and lesbian activists in the 1960s and 1970s, both within and outside the psychiatric field, who took on the mainstream medical establishment’s views about homosexuality. Screening: the formal screening takes place at 1:00 p.m. on September 27 and will be followed by a Q & A.

/

Online Happenings This Month at SF GLBT Historical Society

, ,

A Legacy as Deep as the Ocean
By Lisbet TellefsenTwo years ago, historian Amy Sueyoshi and I co-curated a special exhibition at the GLBT Historical Society Museum called “Angela Davis: OUTspoken,” documenting the journey of Black lesbian activist, scholar, political prisoner and public intellectual Angela Davis. A major success in 2018, the exhibition is being released as an online exhibitionon the society’s website on August 10.

A Moral Center
At a moment when the concept of intersectionality is finally beginning to penetrate the mainstream, Angela Davis’s life is more relevant than ever. Davis was involved with Communist Party USA and the Black Power movement, and she’s still pushing the envelope around LGBTQ issues internationally, including places where it is not politically welcome. She is among the globe’s foremost philosophers on freedom and has always held the moral center. After a half-century, she has maintained the ability to communicate with remarkable clarity, even while engaging with complex issues of history and theory.
Amy and I focused the exhibition around the most graphically impactful political posters of Davis from my personal archives. I came to build this collection through my longtime love of graphic poster design — the intersection of graphics, propaganda, politics and messaging remain fascinating to me. I collected posters as a child, and growing up in Berkeley, political graphics were ubiquitous. In fact, one of my earliest jobs in high school was at The Print Mint, which was “ground zero” for psychedelic posters and early alternative comics. It was there that I learned to run a printing press, and I went on to run a print shop for the next 30 years.

Repurposing Images
Davis herself came to public prominence in the heyday of early reproductive graphics: after a full-page photograph of her appeared in Life magazine, artists around the world from Spain to the Soviet Union borrowed that image and repurposed it in different ways. Posters are very interesting media because while they are mass-produced, they still contain incredible original artwork. So when it came time to select posters for this exhibition, I chose those I felt were most impactful and represented significant ideas or events.
The COVID-19 pandemic has, unfortunately scuttled plans for the largest exhibition of my career, which was scheduled to open at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University this year, and in 2021 would have gone to the Oakland Museum of California. In fact, these institutions scouted material that I first displayed at the GLBT Historical Society Museum. So it’s gratifying that “OUTspoken” will now get a new lease on life. Davis’s five decades of activism and the legions of scholars she has mentored add up to a legacy as deep as the ocean. She’s a voice that we need to center right now.

Lisbet Tellefesen has been an archivist, collector and event producer in the Bay Area for more than three decades.
Upcoming Online Events
Living History DiscussionCompton’s and the Legacy of Police Violence
Wednesday, August 56:00–7:30 p.m.Online programFree | $5.00 suggested donation
A watershed moment in LGBTQ history that was almost forgotten, the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria riot was rediscovered by researchers in the GLBT Historical Society’s archives decades later. This event, co-presented with the Tenderloin Museum, will commemorate the riot with a screening of Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman’s 2005 documentary Screaming Queens. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring historians, activists and Compton’s veterans who will reflect on the history of this uprising in light of the ongoing problem of police violence and consider how communities can mobilize in response. The event will also include discussion of the play The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, a 2018 theater piece commissioned by the Tenderloin Museum. Register online here.
Panel/Workshop OrientationNo More Silence: Digital Community Histories of HIV/AIDS
Tuesday, August 115:00–7:00 p.m.Online programFree | $5.00 suggested donation
No More Silence is an ongoing project of the University of California, San Francisco’s Archives and Special Collections. The project extracts text from digitized archival materials related to HIV/AIDS — including documents from individuals, activist and community-support organizations, medical institutions and government agencies—for use in digital-humanities projects, with the aim of bridging the gap between the empirical, scientific study of the disease and the lived experience of people with AIDS. UCSF has organized a three-part workshop from August 12 to 14 that introduces participants to basic computer-programming skills to perform work in digital history (no prior experience is necessary). Participants will apply these skills to historical documents in the collections of the UCSF archives and the GLBT Historical Society.

The workshop opens on August 11 at this joint event organized by the GLBT Historical Society and the UCSF Archives that provides an overview of the No More Silence project. A panel discussion will discuss the ways that archives and digital-humanities initiatives can support community-history efforts related to gender and sexual orientation, illuminating digital tools and techniques that can further uncover hidden narratives in these histories. The event will also serve as an orientation to the workshop, which begins the following day. More information on the workshop and registration is available here. Register for the August 11 event online here.
Film ScreeningRevisiting Gay USA: A Community Experience
Friday, August 216:00–8:00 p.m.Online programFree | $5.00 suggested donation
This event is a screening and discussion of Arthur J. Bressan Jr.’s groundbreaking 1977 documentary Gay USA, which vibrantly captured Gay Freedom Day marches and celebrations in June 1977 across the country. The film was beautifully restored in 2018 by the University of California, Los Angeles Film and Television Archive in collaboration with Frameline and Outfest. Film historian Jenni Olson, who guided the restoration of the film, and LGBTQ historian Don Romesburg, who co-curated the GLBT Historical Society’s online exhibition about the first decade of San Francisco Pride, will lead a conversation and Q & A session after the screening. The discussion will focus on the importance of documenting the history of Pride and encourage audience members to engage in their own community-history efforts by sharing their Pride stories and helping to identify unknown individuals depicted in the film. Register online here.
WorkshopLeaving a Legacy: Archival Estate Planning
Friday, August 2812:00–1:00 p.m.Online programFree
The items we collect and produce over a lifetime tell a unique story about who we are, what we value and the impact we have had over the course of our lives. The first event in a two-part series offering estate-planning tools and resources, this workshop focuses on how to prepare personal papers, photographs, objects, ephemera and other materials for possible donation to archives. Archivists at the GLBT Historical Society will share recommendations on preparing and organizing your personal archival materials and provide an overview of the considerations involved in intellectual-property transfer, focusing on areas of particular concern for LGBTQ people. This event will include a Q & A session for those who register in advance. Learn more about this series and how to plan for the future here. Register online here.
WorkshopLeaving a Legacy: Financial Estate Planning
Friday, September 412:00–1:00 p.m.Online program Free
Careful financial planning ensures that our legacies live on by providing for our spouses, partners, children, relatives and friends. The second event in our two-part series offering estate-planning tools and resources for LGBTQ people, this workshop focuses on a range of financial-planning strategies and instruments. Attorney Alma Soongi Beck will discuss wills, living trusts, powers of attorney, marriage and domestic partnership considerations, document language for nonbinary and transgender people, property tax and co-ownership issues for unmarried couples who are not domestic partners. This event will include a Q & A session for those who register in advance. Learn more about this series and how to plan for the future here. Register online here.
Current Online Exhibitions
Performance, Protest & Politics: The Art of Gilbert BakerExamine how rainbow-flag creator Gilbert Baker blurred the lines between artist and activist, protester and performer.
50 Years of PrideThis photography exhibition documents the evolution of San Francisco Pride, the event that most powerfully represents and celebrates the Bay Area’s LGBTQ community, over the past half century.
Labor of Love: The Birth of San Francisco PrideLearn how San Francisco forged the internationally renowned annual celebration that would come to be known as Pride.
AIDS Treatment Activism: A Bay Area StoryExplore the rise of and growth of the treatment-activism movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s and 1990s.

/

Bay Area AIDS Treatment Activism is the New Online exhibit at SF’s GLBT Historical Society

, ,


In the face of daily tragedy, the Bay Area’s AIDS treatment activists of the 1980s and 1990s undertook their advocacy with defiance, determination and hope. They distributed experimental medications for people with AIDS. They founded advocacy organizations demanding government and industry-sponsored research on the disease, and then demanded community participation in those initiatives. They took to the streets in order to attract and leverage media attention. “AIDS Treatment Activism: A Bay Area Story” is a new online exhibition on the GLBT Historical Society’s website. The show uses documents, flyers, photographs, ephemera and audiovisual materials to explore the rise and growth of the treatment-activism movement in the San Francisco Bay Area. History Happens interviewed curator Brenda Lein, a veteran of the treatment-activist movement, as she put the finishing touches on the exhibition. 

Q: What drew people to AIDS treatment activism in the 1980s? 

People find their path to activism in different ways and for different reasons. Some are fighting for their lives, or the lives of their friends or a lover. Others are digging themselves out of wells of grief or rage and looking for both escape and empowerment. For still others it is a way to grasp at control during a time that is chaotic and out of control. In the 1980s, HIV was spreading through the LGBTQ and other undervalued communities, while mainstream America went on, business as usual. It’s the same with the Black Lives Matter movement today; for decades Black Americans have been dying at the hands of largely white “law enforcement.” When lives hang in the balance and people are dying before you, you turn up the volume. Many people who turned to treatment activism felt there was simply no other choice but to act. They were not extraordinary; they were very ordinary people in an extraordinary situation and they rose to the moment.  

Q: What was the relationship of treatment activists to the medical community? Did it evolve over time? 

There were a few different kinds of relationships at play. The mainstream medical establishment didn’t (and still doesn’t) have much room for input from the communities it serves. There was reticence to embrace community involvement, but AIDS treatment activists weren’t waiting for permission; they were reading medical journals (with a thesaurus in hand) and attending scientific conferences. It wasn’t long before they were more informed about HIV disease and the bleeding edge of research than the average general practitioner. Over time treatment activists were invited as featured guests to speak at Continuing Medication Education forums. The relationship of activists to the research establishment was a different animal. Initially, researchers made efforts to minimize contact and input from community activists. Perhaps not surprisingly, the brightest scientists — the thought leaders — were often the first to sit down with treatment activists. When their peers and colleagues witnessed positive and growing relationships between activists and scientific leadership, it softened the edges. As activists were made privy to the barriers to scientific progress, they marshaled their forces and fought for changes that loosened purse strings and resulted in meaningful reforms. When scientists were flooded with more resources, they began reaching out to the activists as partners, as opposed to adversaries. 

Q: How does this exhibition document a uniquely Bay Area story? 

While AIDS treatment activists emerged in many urban areas, both the approach and focus of activists in the Bay Area were unique. The community in San Francisco mobilized more rapidly, establishing organizations to provide care and services, buyers’ clubs to provide access to experimental therapies and HIV information networks emerged. And while New York is known as the birthplace of ACT UP, San Francisco was the birthplace of treatment activism. Project Inform was founded in 1984 to provide information, advocacy and inspiration to people living with HIV. On the proposal of an ACT UP Golden Gate member, Jesse Dobson, Project Inform created Project Immune Restoration, an advocacy program focusing research attention on immune therapies and advanced-stage AIDS. This focus area of activism became signature to Bay Area treatment activists.

NOTE: “AIDS Treatment Activism: A Bay Area Story” opened July 1 on the GLBT Historical Society’s website.

Brenda Lein was a member of ACT UP San Francisco, a founding member of ACT UP Golden Gate, and held the dual positions of director of information and advocacy and director of Project Immune Restoration at Project Inform.

/

Living in a Historical Moment for Black LGBTQ People: The Evolution of Queer Black Leadership

, ,

We are living in a historical moment for Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people — a moment that is on par with the Compton’s Cafeteria riot (1966) and Stonewall (1969). In both instances, trans women and queer people of color led the charge against constant police brutality and street harassment. The scenes of 2020 mirror those iconic actions, as Black LGBTQ people are still leading the way in the face of constant violence, harassment and discrimination.

In June 2020, during nationwide protests organized by Black transgender women and queer folks, tens of thousands of people came out to march, sing and dance, declaring not only that “BLACK LIVES MATTER” but that “BLACK QUEER, TRANS, LIVES MATTER.” This rallying cry of justice is rooted in the intersectional experiences of Black LGBTQ people.
Intersectionality, a framework designed by Black feminist scholar and lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, takes into account the fact that people with multiple marginal identities face compounded challenges. This is true for Black LGBTQ people like myself, as we facedisproportionate obstacles accessing equitable opportunities and outcomes in healthcare, criminal justice, education, housing, employment and other essential services necessary to survive and thrive.

Pioneers & the Present

As we continue the march forward, we must be committed to looking back to the pioneers such as Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major, James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin, who paved the way for us, while simultaneously looking forward to the fights on the horizon. We continue to fight, because the reality is that Black LGBTQ people are still being killed at disparate rates, are still being economically exploited, and are still being harassed by police simply for existing in the world. 


To learn more about the history of Black LGBTQ leaders, and where the movement for Black queer and trans lives is headed next, join us for a “Fighting Back” panel on July 22 entitled “The Evolution of Black Leadership” (see the events section below for more information or register here). This panel will feature six Black LGBTQ movement leaders who will share their own personal experiences, critical historical context and social commentary on racial and LGBTQ justice in America. 

Author’s note: This article is written in memoriam of all those who have come before us whom we have lost too soon. Rest in power Nina Pop, Tony McDade, Dominique Fells, Riah Milton, Titi Gulley and so many others. 

Bryce J. Celotto, M.A.T., is a proud Black, queer, transgender policy advocate, DEI strategist, historian and educator in Oakland.

/

A Manifestation of Courage & Celebration: The Birth of San Francisco Pride, 1970–1980

,

It all started with an impromptu march and a picnic. On June 27, 1970 a small band of hippies and “hair fairies” marched down Polk Street, then San Francisco’s most prominent LGBTQ area, to celebrate an event they called “Christopher Street Liberation Day.” The following afternoon, celebrants congregated for a “Gay-In” picnic in Speedway Meadows at Golden Gate Park. These two modest gatherings inaugurated the annual celebration we now know as San Francisco Pride.

As difficult as it is to believe that every single Pride participant in 1970 could fit into a small area of the park, it’s also remarkable that just ten years later, Pride was drawing some 250,000 participants and spectators. The foundational first decade of Pride is the subject of a new online exhibition, “Labor of Love: The Birth of San Francisco Pride 1970–1980,” opening June 15 on the GLBT Historical Society’s website. It’s the second of two exhibitions the society is organizing to commemorate Pride’s golden jubilee.

“Labor of Love” is curated by three LGBTQ historians who have worked with the society for many years: Gerard Koskovich, Don Romesburg and Amy Sueyoshi. To introduce the exhibition, each selected one item that will be on display and wrote a brief reflection about its significance:
Gerard Koskovich: The flyer for the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day Gay-In (top left) is one of many items of ephemera that stand out for me. It’s our first fragile historical document recalling an event that appeared to have little impact at the time. At the end of tumultuous 1960s, when enormous protests, sprawling counterculture festivals and massive full-on riots regularly dominated the news, a ragtag band of hippies and queens staging an informal march followed by a couple hundred queerfolk holding a picnic the next day didn’t strike much of anybody as meriting a headline.

The fact that this flyer survived likely tells us something important: Some of the people involved in the event thought of themselves as actors in history. In this case, the copy came to the archives with the papers of Charles Thorpe, an activist involved in the first glimmers of gay liberation in San Francisco. He carefully gathered this flyer and other materials documenting those efforts. For Thorpe, the flyer evidently wasn’t just designed to announce an event, then be tossed in the trash. It was a reminder of a manifestation of courage and celebration that should be handed along to the future.
Amy Sueyoshi: The logo for gay pride on the 1972 program (top right) features a raised fist with purple butterfly wings. It’s an odd image when you stare at it too long, but it reminds me of the explicit ties that the Gay Power movement had with other cultural nationalist movements such as Black Power. We know from Asian Americans activists that the alliances were far from perfect. Queers of color felt racism in dominantly white gay and lesbian spaces, and homophobia disabled full inclusion in the fight for Third World liberation. Still, the logo to me signals an aim for a liberation movement that explicitly articulates allyhood and intersectional identities, in its nod towards mariposa consciousness and a raised fist against white supremacy.
Don Romesburg: From its earliest years, people used Gay Freedom Day to express sameness and difference simultaneously. Unlike bars, organizations and neighborhoods, which served particular identitarian, political, cultural and erotic constituencies, the parade and festival were the only places where all of the community would experience its full collectivity. Yet many also used the gathering to assert the worth and pleasure of their particular facet of sexual and gender diversity. Gay Freedom Day became the annual reunion of one big queer dysfunctional family. Early Pride events showcased that we could all be an LGBTQ community, despite and through our differences.

That’s why I love this Marie Ueda photo of the Third World Gay Caucus (center), a coalitional organization for the liberation of queer people of color, marching in the 1977 parade. Black, Latinx and Asian American people assembled themselves under one banner, an exuberant solidarity in difference. And they gestured, through signs such as “Gay Rights Are Human Rights,” toward a universal call for all “gay” (what we’d now call LGBTQ) people to claim their full humanity in the face of racism, cis and hetero marginalization and erasure.

NOTE: “Labor of Love: The Birth of San Francisco Pride” opens on the GLBT Historical Society’s website on June 15. 

Gerard Koskovich is a San Francisco historian, curator, rare book dealer and a founding member of the GLBT Historical Society.

Don Romesburg is a professor of women’s and gender studies at Sonoma State University.

Amy Sueyoshi is dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University.

/

Queering the Way We Celebrate & Embracing Our Identities: 50 Years of San Francisco Pride

,

Dykes on Bikes zooming by on motorcycles wearing leather jackets. A little boy holding a sign professing his love for his trans parent. Hundreds of thousands of people crowding into San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza. These are but three of the images on display in a new photography exhibition, “50 Years of Pride,” opening online on May 15 on the GLBT Historical Society’s website. The exhibition is presented by the society and the San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries with the support of San Francisco Pride, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. In addition its online incarnation, the exhibition will ultimately be displayed on the ground floor and North Light Court of City Hall.

“50 Years of Pride” is one of two online exhibitions the society is organizing to commemorate Pride’s golden jubilee. This colorful and exuberant show features nearly 100 photographs, drawn both from the society’s archives and contributed by over a dozen independent queer photographers. The exhibition has been curated by Lenore Chinn and Pamela Peniston, two San Francisco artists with deep roots in the city’s queer arts and culture milieu. As we approach the virtual unveiling of “50 Years of Pride,” History Happens interviewed Chinn and Peniston, who provided joint responses, about their curatorial vision. 

What was your conception for “50 Years of Pride” when you began planning the exhibition? 

When we set out, we knew only a few things that we wanted to establish and bring forward. First, that by “Pride” we meant what has developed into an entire weekend of events made up of Pride and Pink Saturday, the Dyke March and the Trans March. Although these are run by independent boards and in entirely different ways, they are all showcasing the breadth of the LGBTQ communities.  We also wanted as large a representation of diversity in the photographers as in the photographs. Finally, we also decided that we would choose each photo initially on its ability to convey how people were experiencing the events, as well as the beauty of the image itself.  

How did your curatorial choices evolve as you researched in the archives and reached out to photographers? 

As we examined the archives of the GLBT Historical Society and solicited photographs from many photographers in the community, we saw that the work was naturally dividing into two main categories: people participating in the parade and people watching. So we mirrored that by separating photographs of participants and spectators. Whether marching or waiting for the parade to begin, the excitement on both sides is palpable!
Also, we chose not to organize the entire exhibition along a chronological timeline, but rather to focus on the “onstage” and “offstage” aspects of the events. We had certain focal points in mind: politicians of or in support of our community, or heroes within it; issue-oriented contingents and affinity groups. We wanted to show how all of our people and organizations constantly queered the way we celebrated! 

What do you want viewers to take away from this exhibition? 

We would like people to view this as an experience of Pride as it has evolved over the years, from a relatively small, grassroots event that has grown, along with the LGBTQ community, into a celebration. But we also wanted to chart the growth of a movement politically and culturally from an era marked by resisting homophobia, to challenging the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and through the victory of marriage equality. We want people to know that through politics, alliances, celebrations, demonstrations, drag or the arts, queers embrace all our identities. 

NOTE: “50 Years of Pride” opens on the GLBT Historical Society’s websiteon May 15. The installation at San Francisco City Hall will follow when the state’s shelter-in-place order has been relaxed. Lenore Chinn is a painter, photographer and cultural activist, and was a founding member of Lesbians in the Visual Arts.

Pamela Peniston is a founding member and artistic director of the Queer Cultural Center, and has won numerous awards for her work designing and painting sets for national and Bay Area theatrical and dance companies.

Mark Sawchuk is the communications manager at the GLBT Historical Society.

/

SF GLBT Historical Society Presents Online Forums, Talks, Exhibitions & More

,

Upcoming Online Events
Fighting BackLove in the Time of COVID-19: Pandemic Sex
Wednesday, May 66:00–7:30 p.m.Online forumFree | $5.00 suggested donation

What about sex? The AIDS epidemic transformed the way that members of the LGBTQ community — and indeed people around the globe — discussed and practiced sexual activity. Technology has radically changed the ways that people meet. And now, COVID-19. A panel of sex educators, activists and a historian will consider how we find connection, sex and love in the era of coronavirus, applying lessons learned from HIV/AIDS prevention efforts to help strategize safer-sex options in the present. Some questions to be considered include: What does the pandemic mean for single queers or people in open or polyamorous relationships? What is the future of hookup culture and phone apps? What about bars? How is the pandemic affecting sex workers?

Our “Fighting Back” series is an intergenerational discussion that brings together community leaders, experts, historians and activists to explore lessons from the past that might be useful in formulating “resistance” efforts today. Register online here.
Fighting BackThe Role of Art & Artists in a Pandemic, Part II
Wednesday, May 136:00–7:30 p.m.Online forumFree | $5.00 suggested donation

What about art? This second panel on the role of art and artists in a pandemic continues the discussion of our April 8 event. An intergenerational panel of Bay Area artists and curators will gather to explore ways in which artists responded to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and how these experiences might inform artistic responses to COVID-19 today. Panelists will also discuss the personal and cultural impacts of living through a pandemic, and how these impacts might constrain or inspire the creative process. Register online here.
Author TalkUnruly Desires: American Sailors & Homosexualities
Friday, May 156:00–8:00 p.m.Online forumFree | $5.00 suggested donation In early nineteenth-century America, the rapid expansion of the maritime industry created an all-male environment where sexual activity was tolerated, and at times even ritualized. The United States Navy adopted rules of conduct based on those of Britain’s Royal Navy, but specifically deleted proscriptions against sodomy and buggery. Drawing on a wide variety of archival resources, including diaries, memoirs, business correspondence, court-martial reports, pornography and religious tracts, author William Beneman’s new book Unruly Desires: American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail reconstructs this rare nineteenth-century queer space. Benemann will discuss his research and read selections from the book. Register online here.
Fighting BackHousing Insecurity & Public Health
Wednesday, May 20 6:00–7:30 p.m.Online forumFree | $5.00 suggested donation

What about the homeless? The crisis of homelessness is nothing new in the Bay Area and throughout the U.S., and has paralleled the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with many people with HIV/AIDS also experiencing homelessness. An intergenerational panel of housing advocates, policymakers and historians will discuss how society responded to homelessness in the context of the AIDS epidemic, and how these experiences might inform the response to the COVID-19 homeless crisis. Register online here.
Author TalkAIDS Activism & Writing About Sex
Thursday, May 21 6:00–8:00 p.m.Online forumFree | $5.00 suggested donation

In spite of the attendant stigma, Asian and Pacific Islander AIDS activists in the 1990s brazenly talked about gay sex, even in immigrant communities that were supposedly averse to discussing such topics. In this program, writer Eric C. Wat will discuss how AIDS activism influences his writing, read from his novel SWIM (Permanent Press, 2019), and share his ongoing work on a community memoir about API AIDS activism in Los Angeles. This program is cosponsored by API Equality-Northern California, Kearny Street Workshop and Uncles Social Club. Register online here.
Fighting BackDisease Treatment & Research Activism
Wednesday, May 27 6:00–7:30 p.m.Online forumFree | $5.00 suggested donation

In the 1980s and 1990s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. — and the federal government’s woefully inadequate response — led to a new paradigm of empowerment led by people with HIV/AIDS and supporters. They fought for and won radical improvements to everything from research funding and improved design of clinical research, to early access to investigational therapies, to more equitable treatment-access programs. A panel of activists, policymakers, researchers and historians will examine how the lessons learned from fighting for HIV/AIDS treatment and research might help in the fight against COVID-19. Register online here.
Online Exhibitions
The GLBT Historical Society has made the following exhibitions available online. See our online exhibitions page for more information.
Performance, Protest & Politics: The Art of Gilbert BakerView the exhibition here.
Pioneering Periodicals, 1940s–1950sView the exhibition here.
Picturing Kinship: Portraits of our Community by Lenore ChinnView the exhibition here.
50 Years of PrideOpens online on May 15.
1 2 3