Although the locales did not specifically cater to LGBT people, they also did not turn them away. In the 1920s, venues emerged that were amenable to gay and lesbian people. You also have the red-light district, places where there were women together and the potential connection between them.” “You have what we might call faeries or either cross-dressing men or transgender women who were selling sex and having unpaid sex with men. “Men were picking up men for sex,” Romesburg said. Cruising spots popped up in the lower Market Street area, which was connected to a very vibrant port and produce market that is today the Embarcadero.ĭon Romesburg, an associate professor of women and gender studies at Sonoma State University, described the waterfront as a place where the potential for same-sex intimacy was presented. The transition to San Francisco as a major port city through the end of the 19th century solidified it as a place that was flexible and tolerant, which allowed for same-sex desire to be displayed in certain spaces and in nuanced ways. “You had a self-selected population where there was bound to be some men who didn't fit in back home,” Koskovich said, “because they were queer and this all-male setting might be interesting to go looking for opportunities.” As far back as the Gold Rush era (1848-1855), homosexuality possibility existed as the city became a boomtown that was heavily populated by men who wanted to try their luck out West.
“San Francisco remains astoundingly marked as the world mothership for homosexuality.”įor any city with a far-reaching impact on any front, a particularly unique and dynamic history is always part of the story.
“From Angola to Vietnam, everyone had to do a story,” said GLBT Historical Society board member Gerard Koskovich. The GLBT Historical Society did a customary public-relations campaign and received coverage of the opening in 38 languages across 75 countries. Take, for example, the opening of the city's GLBT History Museum last year. San Francisco is a beacon and when something happens in the city, the global LGBT community hears about it. That capital is leveraged every day to advance the rights of LGBT people everywhere. The city has been at the forefront of LGBT political and cultural movements, and is home to a vast array of support networks, nonprofit organizations and government institutions that are symbolic of the intellectual and financial capital that exist. It’s a commonly accepted fact that the world has always perceived San Francisco as a gay mecca. Gay History Project: History Shows SF Has Long Been Gay Mecca