| Formation | 1 March 1981 |
|---|---|
| Type | Nonprofit |
| Legal status | registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization |
| Headquarters | San Jose |
| Website | www |
The Billy DeFrank LGBTQ+ Community Center (formerly the Billy DeFrank Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center) is a non-profit organization that promotes services for and about the LGBT community of San Jose and Santa Clara County, California. The mission statement of the DeFrank Center is to provide "community, leadership, advocacy, services and support to the Silicon Valley’s LGBTQ+ People and their Allies." [1]
The Billy DeFrank LGBTQ+ Community Center is named after Billy DeFrank, the stage name of William Price (1936–1980), an African-American and prominent 1970s gay rights activist and a member of the Bay Area's drag community. In 2021, to commemorate the DeFrank Center's 40th anniversary, artist Serge Gay Jr. painted a mural on the side of the DeFrank Center that features a portrait of DeFrank. [2] [3]
The Billy DeFrank Lesbian and Gay Community Center opened on March 1, 1981, in a two-room storefront on Keyes St. in south downtown San Jose, a year after Santa Clara County residents voted to repeal ordinances extending housing and employment protections to lesbians and gay men. The new DeFrank Center emerged from a desire to respond to that setback. [4]
The DeFrank Center was the meeting place for several activist groups, include High Tech Gays, which brought the High Tech Gays v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office suit in 1984 arguing that the U.S. Department of Defense should not deny security clearances to applicants who were known or thought to be homosexual. [5] The DeFrank Center was also one of the original meeting places of Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee (BAYMEC), a PAC that advocates for the civil rights of LGBTQ people. [4] [6]
In subsequent years, the DeFrank Center expanded to serve a large and diverse community. It moved location several times within San Jose before landing at its current location on The Alameda in San Jose's gay-friendly St Leo neighborhood. [4] In 2016, the street in front of the center became the site of San Jose's first rainbow-striped crosswalk. [7] [8]
To commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1, 2023, the DeFrank Center displayed several panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. [9]
From all around the nine counties of the Bay Area, the DeFrank Center provides resources to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of all ages and backgrounds. Each month more than a thousand people visit the DeFrank Center. Their online newsletter has over 6,000 subscribers. [4] The DeFrank Center has events, activities, and support groups every week. They also provide HIV testing, a cyber center, a library, and art exhibits. [1]
The LGBTQ community is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals united by a common culture and social movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality. LGBTQ activists and sociologists see LGBT community-building as a counterweight to heterosexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, sexualism, and conformist pressures that exist in the larger society. The term pride or sometimes gay pride expresses the LGBT community's identity and collective strength; pride parades provide both a prime example of the use and a demonstration of the general meaning of the term. The LGBT community is diverse in political affiliation. Not all people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender consider themselves part of the LGBT community.
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.
Over the course of its history, the LGBTQ community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both within their communities and to mainstream culture. The two symbols most recognized internationally are the pink triangle and the rainbow flag.
OutNow Newsmagazine, also known as ON and ON Magazine was a monthly lifestyle magazine that targeted lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) members of the gay community in the San Francisco Bay Area. OutNow had been published since 1992 from its headquarters in San Jose, California, in the Silicon Valley.
The history of LGBT residents in California, which includes centuries prior to the 20th, has become increasingly visible recently with the successes of the LGBT rights movement. In spite of the strong development of early LGBT villages in the state, pro-LGBT activists in California have campaigned against nearly 170 years of especially harsh prosecutions and punishments toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
Victoria Kolakowski is an American lawyer who serves as a judge of the Alameda County Superior Court since January 2011. Kolakowski is the first openly transgender person to serve as a trial court judge of general jurisdiction in the United States, the first elected to a judgeship, and the first to serve as any type of judge in California..
In the post-Stonewall era, the role of libraries in providing information and services to LGBTQ individuals has been a topic of discussion among library professionals. Libraries can often play an important role for LGBTQ individuals looking to find information about coming out, health, and family topics, as well as leisure reading. In the past 50 years, advocate organizations for LGBTQ content in libraries have emerged, and numerous theorists have discussed various aspects of LGBTQ library service including privacy concerns, programming, collection development considerations and librarian/staff education needs, as well as special services for juvenile and teen patrons.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) 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.
New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ+ populations. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:
Silicon Valley Pride, also known as San Jose Pride, is an annual LGBT pride celebration in San Jose, California, the largest city in Silicon Valley. Founded in 1975, it is organized by the Gay Pride Celebration Committee of San Jose.
Twin Cities Pride, sometimes Twin Cities LGBT Pride, is an American nonprofit organization in Minnesota that hosts an annual celebration each June that focuses on the LGBT community. The celebration features a pride parade which draws crowds of nearly 600,000 people. The parade was designated the Ashley Rukes GLBT Pride Parade in honor of the late former parade organizer and transgender LGBT rights activist. Other Twin Cities Pride events include a festival in Loring Park and a block party spanning multiple days.
LGBT culture in Baltimore, Maryland is an important part of the culture of Baltimore, as well as being a focal point for the wider LGBT community in the Baltimore metropolitan area. Mount Vernon, known as Baltimore's gay village, is the central hub of the city's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities.
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