SF GLBT Historical Society Museum

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Queer Kinship Among the Seen & Unseen: Exploring Japanese American LGBTQ Lives

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A new online exhibition provides a pathbreaking look at LGBTQ lives and culture in the Japanese American community in the United States. Curated by Stan Yogi and Amy Sueyoshi, a frequent GLBT Historical Society collaborator, Seen And Unseen: Queering Japanese American History Before 1945 is a project of J-Sei, a Japanese American community organization in Emeryville. The show draws on a variety of sources, including some of our archival collections, to unearth a hidden past when same-sex relationships and female impersonation were accepted parts of nikkei (Japanese American) immigrant culture. The exhibition also explores how, over time, the nikkei community’s atittudes came to […]

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A Foundation Many Generations Deep: Preserving Black LGBTQ Spaces and Sites

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On February 19, Free Harris joins Shayne Watson in a program about LGBTQ historic preservation. See the events listing below for more information. Here, he discusses some significant sites of Black queer history and how preservationists are correcting and updating the historical record. Historic preservation is inherently a complex process. Black History Month is an opportunity to consider the specific challenges that arise when preserving Black LGBTQ places. One challenge is conducting thorough historical research to open “historical closets” — to uncover and identify the people and events that haven’t been talked about within an LGBTQ context. This also entails examining […]

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A Roadmap to SF GLBT Historical Society Archival Content

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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 […]

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

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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, […]

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

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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 […]

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Happening This Month Virtually at SF GLBT Historical Society

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WorkshopLeaving a Legacy: Financial Estate Planning Friday, September 412:00–1:00 p.m.Online programFreeCareful 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. […]

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Online Happenings This Month at SF GLBT Historical Society

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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 CenterAt 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 […]

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

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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 […]

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

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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 […]

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

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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 […]

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