A gay village, also known as a gayborhood, is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBT) people. Gay villages often contain a number of gay-oriented establishments, such as gay bars and pubs, nightclubs, bathhouses, restaurants, boutiques, and bookstores.
The Castro Theatre is a historic movie palace in the Castro District of San Francisco, California. The venue became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, it was built in 1922 with a California Churrigueresque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window surmounted by a scrolling pediment framing a niche—to the basilica of Mission Dolores nearby. Its designer, Timothy L. Pflueger, also designed Oakland's Paramount Theater and other movie theaters in California during that period. The theater has over 1,400 seats. The theater's ceiling is the last known leatherette ceiling in the United States and possibly the world. Another leatherette ceiling was demolished just a few years ago. To make the ceiling look as though it is leather requires a special technique regarded as lost today.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI), also called Order of Perpetual Indulgence (OPI), is a charitable, protest, and street performance movement that uses drag and religious imagery to satirize issues of sex, gender, and morality and fundraise for charity. In 1979, a small group of gay men in San Francisco began wearing the attire of Catholic nuns in visible situations using camp to promote various social and political causes in the Castro District.
Pink Saturday is a street party held the Saturday night before San Francisco Pride in San Francisco's Castro district. It coincides with the annual Dyke March in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebration, usually known as San Francisco Pride, is a pride parade and festival held at the end of June most years in San Francisco, California, to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and their straight allies.
The Bay Area Reporter is a free weekly LGBT newspaper serving the LGBT communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the largest-circulation LGBT newspapers in the United States, and the country's oldest continuously published newspaper of its kind.
Stefan Grygelko, better known by the stage name Heklina, was an American actor, drag queen, and entrepreneur in San Francisco. Grygelko's mother was Icelandic, and having been born in the U.S., he lived in Iceland in the 1980s; he named his drag character after the Icelandic volcano Hekla. Heklina founded the drag club Trannyshack in 1996.
I think that drag queens are still the eunuch clown that's safe to laugh at. It's definitively not shocking anymore. So I don't know if America's really embraced it. The early 90s was when RuPaul [was becoming famous] and it was the first time any drag queen had mainstream exposure. I don't really see a drag queen breaking out like that [again].
Donna Sachet is the stage name of Kirk Reeves, an American drag actor, singer, community activist, and writer based in San Francisco.
The GLBT Historical Society maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBT people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of San Francisco and Northern California.
Halloween in the Castro was an annual Halloween celebration held in The Castro district of San Francisco, first held in the 1940s as a neighborhood costume contest. By the late 1970s, it had shifted from a children's event to a gay pride celebration that continued to grow into a massive annual street party in the 2000s.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in San Francisco is one of the largest and most prominent LGBT communities in the United States, and is one of the most important in the history of American LGBT rights and activism alongside New York City. The city itself has been described as "the original 'gay-friendly city'". LGBT culture is also active within companies that are based in Silicon Valley, which is located within the southern San Francisco Bay Area.
Esta Noche was the first Latino gay bar in San Francisco and notably contributed to queer Latin culture. It operated from 1979 to 2014, and was located at 3079 16th Street between Valencia Street and Mission Street in San Francisco, California.
D'Arcy Drollinger is an American actor, writer, musician, director, producer & choreographer known for his high-camp / vaudeville-style stage productions and films that combine slapstick, farce and often drag. He was a founding member of the post-punk art band Enrique. He is the owner of the San Francisco nightclub Oasis. Drollinger is also the creator of the dance-fitness brand, Sexitude. D'Arcy was appointed the San Francisco Drag Laureate in 2023.
Toad Hall Bar is a gay bar in San Francisco's Castro District, in the U.S. state of California.
San Francisco Eagle is a gay bar in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, in the U.S. state of California. The bar caters to the bear community and the leather subculture. Lex Montiel is one of the bar's owners, as of 2018.
Twin Peaks Tavern is an American historic gay bar. It first opened in 1935 and is located at 401 Castro Street in the Castro District in San Francisco, California. It is one of the most famous bars in the Castro and features prominent oversized windows that were unveiled in 1972, something uncommonly seen in older gay bars. It is located across the street from the Castro Station for Muni Metro, and near the F Market heritage streetcar line.
715 Harrison is a nightclub venue located in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, California, known mostly for hosting Club X since 1989 and previously City Nights from 1985 to 2020. The club is designated by San Francisco as a legacy business and is additionally known within the Bay Area for being one of the few venues consistently open to guests above 18 years of age, rather than 21, as is the case with most clubs.
Miss Smith's Tea Room was a gay and lesbian bar in operation from 1954 to 1960 in the North Beach neighborhood at 1353 Grant Avenue in San Francisco, California, U.S.. It was a lesbian pickup spot, known for its Wednesday poetry nights and was a hangout for Beat poets. It is considered a pioneering gay bar, and had historically faced legal issues in order to maintain operations.
