Queer Nation is an LGBTQ activist organization founded in March 1990 in New York City, by HIV/AIDS activists from ACT UP. The four founders were outraged at the escalation of anti-gay violence on the streets and prejudice in the arts and media. The group is known for its confrontational tactics, its slogans, and the practice of outing.
The Compton's Cafeteria riot occurred in August 1966 in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The riot was a response to the violent and constant police harassment of trans people, particularly trans women, and drag queens. The incident was one of the first LGBTQ-related riots in United States history, preceding the more famous 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City. It marked the beginning of transgender activism in San Francisco.
The Tenderloin is a neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, in the flatlands on the southern slope of Nob Hill, situated between the Union Square shopping district to the northeast and the Civic Center office district to the southwest. Encompassing about 50 square blocks, it is historically bounded on the north by Geary Street, on the east by Mason Street, on the south by Market Street and on the west by Van Ness Avenue. The northern boundary with Lower Nob Hill has historically been set at Geary Boulevard.
The Redstone Building, also known as the Redstone Labor Temple, was constructed and operated by the San Francisco Labor Council Hall Associates. Initial planning started in 1910, with most construction work done during 1914. Its primary tenant was the San Francisco Labor Council, including 22 labor union offices as well as meeting halls. The building was a hub of union organizing and work activities and a "primary center for the city's historic labor community for over half a century."
Allan Bérubé was a gay American historian, activist, independent scholar, self-described "community-based" researcher and college drop-out, and award-winning author, best known for his research and writing about homosexual members of the American Armed Forces during World War II. He also wrote essays about the intersection of class and race in gay culture, and about growing up in a poor, working-class family, his French-Canadian roots, and about his experience of anti-AIDS activism.
The GLBT Historical Society maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBTQ people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of San Francisco and Northern California.
The Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies is a collection of LGBT historical materials housed in the Special Collections and Rare Books section of the University of Minnesota Libraries. It is located underground in the Elmer L. Andersen special collections facilities on the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus. The Tretter Collection houses over 40,000 items, making it the largest LGBT archive in the Upper Midwest and one of the largest GLBT history collections in the United States. The collection, which was created by Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, is international in scope and is varied in media.
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 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.
Susan O'Neal Stryker, best known as Susan Stryker, is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and sexuality and trans realities. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona. Stryker is the author of several books and a founding figure of transgender studies as well as a leading scholar of transgender history.
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.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally-specific identities. This timeline includes events both in Asia and the Pacific Islands and in the global Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora, as the histories are very deeply linked. Please note: this is a very incomplete timeline, notably lacking LGBTQ-specific items from the 1800s to 1970s, and should not be used as a research resource until additional material is added.
Tamara Ching is an American trans woman and San Francisco Bay Area transgender activist. Also known as the "God Mother of Polk [Street]", she is an advocate for trans, HIV, and sex work-related causes.
Adela Vázquez was a Cuban-American transgender activist and performer. She died in her home on October 11, 2024. Hailing from Cuba during a time of political uprising, Vázquez was one of 125,000 people who sought asylum and migrated in the Mariel Boat lifts in 1980. Local to San Francisco's gay scene, Vázquez began to organize with HIV prevention organization Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida and became a community activist for transgender rights.
Felicia Elizondo was an American transgender woman with a long history of activism on behalf of the LGBT community. She was a regular at Gene Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco during the time of the Compton's Cafeteria riot, a historic LGBT community uprising.
Julián Delgado Lopera is a queer Colombian writer and performer. They are the author of ¡Cuéntamelo! an illustrated collection of queer immigrant histories in the United States during the 1980s. They use creative expressions, such as writing, queer literary performance, and bilingual poetry to advance LGBT activism projects across the Bay Area. Delgado Lopera serves as the Executive/Artistic director for the nonprofit organization Radar Productions since 2015.
The Stud is a gay bar currently located on 1123 Folsom Street in San Francisco.
Jiro Onuma was a first-generation (issei) Japanese American gay man who was incarcerated in the Topaz Concentration Camp in Topaz, Utah in 1942. Onuma was born in Kanegasaki, Iwate Prefecture in 1904 and moved to the United States in 1923. The collection of his photos and personal belongings held by the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco is the only material in this archive that tells us about the life of a gay Japanese American man who lived in San Francisco before World War II and was interned in an incarceration camp during the war. Tina Takemoto, a fourth-generation Japanese American artist and a visual studies scholar at the California College of the Arts, created a film titled Looking for Jiro (2011) that was based on Onuma's archival materials and received the Best Experimental Film Jury Award at the Austin LGBT International Film Festival.
The Transgender District, formerly known as Compton's Transgender Cultural District, is the first legally recognized transgender district in the world. Named after the first documented uprising of transgender and queer people in United States history, the Compton's Cafeteria riot of 1966, the district encompasses six blocks in the southeastern Tenderloin, San Francisco, and crosses over Market Street to include two blocks of Sixth Street. It was co-founded by Honey Mahogany, Janetta Johnson, and Aria Sa'id.
Divas Nightclub & Bar was a San Francisco nightclub located at 1081 Post Street in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California, where it was located since 1998, prior to closing. With three floors, the club catered predominately to trans women and their admirers, until it closed on March 30, 2019. Prior to its location at 1081 Post Street, Divas had opened in 1989 across the street at the corner of Post and Larkin, under the name Motherload.
