San Francisco

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A Rosetta Stone of My San Francisco Life

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Back in May, we ran a story about a digitized collection we made available this spring: the Daniel A. Smith and Queer Blue Light Videotape Collection. This remarkable collection consists of nearly 100 half-inch videotapes recorded by the Queer Blue Light (QBL) Collective, a grassroots guerilla project that documented the politics and culture of the local LGBTQ community in the 1970s. The footage was all shot on a Sony Portapak, one of the first self-contained videotape recorders from the late 1960s.  While the majority of the tapes document the activities of the QBL Collective, they also include footage by QBL […]

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LGBTQ+ Freedom Day Fest Is Postponed to 2022

Late summer and early fall are street-fair season in San Francisco, and SF Pride has been working on our inaugural LGBTQ Freedom Day Feston Valencia Street, to debut on Sunday, Oct. 10. It is to be an all-new, free event specifically for locals, part of our reimagining what Pride can be for our communities. And it is going to be in the Mission, a neighborhood with a rich LGBTQ+ history, particularly for lesbians and queer women. But as we work on our plans for this event, we’ve determined that to produce a street fair with the safety and health of our communities […]

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HIV long-term survivors call for additional mental health care in San Francisco

Survivor’s guilt and trauma from surviving the early days of the AIDS epidemic are oftentimes cited as the reasons why HIV long-term survivors experience depression and other mental health symptoms. Now, the experience of living through a second devastating pandemic–COVID-19–is compounding the anxiety, sense of loss, and social isolation faced by some long-term survivors.  “COVID-19 has really brought up a lot of memories of friends dying from AIDS,” said Vince Crisostomo, a long-term survivor and director of aging services at San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “The images of hospitals being overrun–they’re similar to the images we saw in the early years of […]

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SF Mayor Unveils Long-Lost 1978 Rainbow Flag & Calls for New Museum

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This photograph shows the priceless queer artifact that the GLBT Historical Society acquired in April: a segment of one of the two original rainbow flags first hoisted in San Francisco on June 25, 1978, for Gay Freedom Day. The flag was created by Gilbert Baker and hand-stitched and dyed with the help of volunteers and friends, including Lynn Segerblom (Faerie Argyle Rainbow), James McNamara, Glenne McElhinney, Joe Duran, Paul Langlotz and others. The society formally unveiled the flag to the public at a press event in San Francisco on June 4. Mayor London Breed; District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman; State Senator Scott Weiner; […]

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San Francisco Giants to honor Pride Month with logo on caps and uniforms

The San Francisco Giants will support Pride Month on the field and on their uniforms and caps. On Saturday against the Cubs, the Giants will feature Pride colors in the SF logo on their game caps along with a Pride patch on the right sleeves of their home uniforms — making them the first major league team to do so. “Very proud that the San Francisco Giants are taking this step. Very proud to be part of it,” manager Gabe Kapler said Tuesday before San Francisco hosted the Los Angeles Angels. “Looking forward to the impact and the support that […]

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Home of San Francisco’s 1st same-sex spouses now a landmark

The hilltop cottage belonging to a lesbian couple who were the first same-sex partners to legally marry in San Francisco has become a city landmark. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to give the 651 Duncan St. home of the late lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin landmark status. The home in the Noe Valley neighborhood is expected to become the first lesbian landmark in the U.S. West, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “They provided a place for lesbians who were really, really, really in the closet to hang out and dance, have holiday potlucks so they wouldn’t have […]

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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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SF GAY MEN’S CHORUS American Sign Language to Keep Holiday Spirit Alive

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has gone virtual this holiday season and has added an inclusive twist to the Christmas classic “Silent Night.” During its annual holiday concert, which will be held on Christmas Eve, the 300-member chorus will perform “Silent Night” while using American Sign Language, so the deaf and hearing-impaired community can enjoy the performance. The chorus released a preview video of what’s to come during its 30th annual holiday celebration.https://www.youtube.com/embed/ycYIksZ5_nU The chorus’ annual holiday concert began in 1990 in an effort to bring cheer to those who had been impacted by the AIDS epidemic. As for the “Silent […]

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SF Drag Legend Bambi Lake Dies

Legendary transgender perfomrer and singer Bambi Lake tragically passed away after being diagnosed with cancer, the Bay Area Reporter reports. Lake was 70. Lake was a beloved performer in the Bay Area, and a mainstay in San Francisco’s queer underground scene. She was a sex worker, a porn actor, a cabaret artist, a songwriter, and a member of the legendary San Francisco theater group The Cockettes. Lake’s friend, Birdie Bob Watt, called Lake a trailblazer. “She’s been inspirational to a lot of people as far as her ability to navigate her own path,” Watt said. “…In telling her story she gave a […]

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