Leather subculture denotes practices and styles of dress organized around sexual activities that involve leather garments, such as leather jackets, vests, boots, chaps, harnesses, or other items. Wearing leather garments is one way that participants in this culture self-consciously distinguish themselves from mainstream sexual cultures. Many participants associate leather culture with BDSM practices and its many subcultures. For some, black leather clothing is an erotic fashion that expresses heightened masculinity or the appropriation of sexual power; love of motorcycles, motorcycle clubs and independence; and/or engagement in sexual kink or leather fetishism.
Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin and Phyllis Ann Lyon were an American lesbian couple based in San Francisco who were known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ+) clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBTQ+ communities.
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.
Gay Shame is a movement from within the queer communities described as a radical alternative to gay mainstreaming. The movement directly posits an alternative view of gay pride events and activities which have become increasingly commercialized with corporate sponsors as well as the adoption of more sanitized, mainstream agendas to avoid offending supporters and sponsors. The Gay Shame movement has grown to embrace radical expression, counter-cultural ideologies, and avant-garde arts and artists.
The Frameline Film Festival began as a storefront event in 1976. The first film festival, named the Gay Film Festival of Super-8 Films, was held in 1977. The festival is organized by Frameline, a nonprofit media arts organization whose mission statement is "to change the world through the power of queer cinema". It is the oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rikki Streicher (1922–1994) was an American activist and community leader in San Francisco's LGBTQ movement. In the 1960s, she had an active leadership role in the Society for Individual Rights, an organization that promoted equal rights for gays and lesbians. In 1966, she opened and ran Maud's, a year prior to the San Francisco’s Summer of Love; it stayed open for 23 years, at that time the longest continuously running lesbian-owned lesbian bar in the country. She opened a second bar, Amelia’s, in 1978 in the city’s Mission district, with both venues serving as makeshift community centers for lesbians who had very few accepting socializing options. In the early 1980s, she was a co-founder of the international Gay Olympics, later called Gay Games, she helped to create the Federation of Gay Games and served on the board of directors. In 1994, she received the Dr. Tom Waddell Award for her contribution to Gay Athletics.
Maud's was a lesbian bar at 937 Cole Street in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury District which opened in 1966 and closed in 1989. At the time of its closing, which was captured in the film, Last Call at Maud's, it was claimed to be the oldest lesbian bar in the United States. Its history, documented in the film and other media, spanned almost a quarter-century of LGBT events.
Peg's Place was a San Francisco lesbian bar (1950s–1988) and the site of an assault in 1979 by off-duty members of the San Francisco vice squad, an event which drew national attention to other incidents of anti-gay violence and police harassment of the LGBT community and helped propel an unsuccessful citywide proposition to ban the city's vice squad altogether. Historians have written about the incident when describing the tension that existed between the police and the LGBT community during the late 1970s.
The Stud was a queer bar located in South of Market, San Francisco, closed in May 2020. It was started by associates George Matson and Alexis Muir on May 27, 1966. According to George Matson, it was a "bar for people, not just pretty bodies". Originally, the Stud was located at 1535 Folsom Street; in 1987, it moved to its current location at Ninth and Harrison Streets. The Stud was known for its themed parties, drag and burlesque shows, and community events. It was also home of the famous Trannyshack, a weekly drag show that featured all different types of drag and drag stars from 1996 until 2008.
A lesbian bar is a drinking establishment that caters exclusively or predominantly to lesbian women. While often conflated, the lesbian bar has a history distinct from that of the gay bar.
Mona's 440 Club was the first lesbian bar to open in San Francisco, California in 1936. It continued to draw a lesbian clientele into the 1950s. Mona's and the gay bars of that era were an important part of the history of LGBT culture in San Francisco.
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.
El Rio is a gay bar located at 3158 Mission Street, San Francisco, California. It was the first gay bar to debut queer salsa in San Francisco. El Río was established in 1978 as a Leather Brazilian Gay Bar and has been recognized as a Legacy Business by the San Francisco Small Business Commission. El Rio is best known for supporting the community by providing a space for community gatherings, LGBT performances, diverse forms of music and dancing, and offering a space for community fundraising events.
Irene Tu is an American comedian, actor, and writer. She has appeared at comedy festivals such as SF Sketchfest, the Portland Queer Comedy Festival, Bridgetown Comedy Festival, and Comedy Central's Clusterfest, and on shows such as Take My Wife and Funny How? In 2016, she was named one of KQED's Women to Watch and SFist listed her as one of the Bay Area's 11 Best Stand Up Comics. In 2017, the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed her as an "artist on the brink of fame". In 2019, Vulture by New York Magazine placed her on their list The Comedians You Should and Will Know in 2019, tracking "23 comics that industry insiders are watching closely". The same year, SFist listed her as one of 13 San Francisco Standup Comedians to Go See Now.
