The GLBT History Museum: A Fabulous Look at Gay History

This column first appeared in the February issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition.A fascinating museum in San Francisco is now offering its collection of exhibitions online for the rest of the world to see. The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Historical Society Museum and Archives features constantly changing exhibits, and is an interesting virtual museum trip for anyone interested in the history of queer sexuality—or any sexuality! Hoping to physically open again soon in San Francisco’s Castro district, the main gallery focuses on facets of San Francisco queer life—from the Gold Rush era to today.SEXHIBITIONSReigning Queens, The Lost Photos of Roz Josephs features the lost photographs of Roz Jacobs who “captured the pageantry and activism of the city’s diverse drag cultures at Gay Freedom Day parades, Halloween celebrations, and drag balls including “The Closet Ball” and the “Imperial Court,” a charity event for the community. Jacobs especially liked “capturing the elaborate drag and costume balls that attracted thousands of revelers to the city.” She captured “the fun, the color, the wild, and the unpredictable scenes decades before RuPaul became a household name.”The Mayor of Folsom Street, The Life and Legacy recounts the story of “Leather Daddy” Alan Selby, the founder of Mr. S. Leather, a leather and kink store. “The show traces the opening of his shop in 1979 to his community efforts during the AIDS crisis, to his undisputed position as “Daddy of all Daddies” in the city’s leather and kink subculture. It also traces the evolution of a small shop into a de facto community and international destination that continues to occupy a unique place in the history of alternative sexualities.” The show is a “portrait of a man, a business, a subculture, and an era.”50 Years of Pride features nearly 100 photographs “spanning five decades of Pride celebrations, including photographs held by other institutions, as well as works by more than 20 independent queer photographers who have captured Pride over the years.”“On June 27, 1970 a small group of LGBTQ people marched down Polk Street—then San Francisco’s most prominent queer neighborhood—to mark an event called ‘Christopher Street Liberation Day.’ It commemorated the one-year anniversary of the historic Stonewall uprising on Christopher Street in New York City. The march was followed the next afternoon, June 28, by an intimate ‘gay-in’ picnic in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Fifty years later, the modest gatherings of 1970 have evolved into the massive gatherings of San Francisco Pride in recent years.” In one photo of a vintage National Enquirer, the judgy headline reads “50,000 weirdos march in a parade of perverts!” RAD COLLECTIBLESOver the years the museum has collected ephemera and fun collectibles such as posters, buttons, signs, clothes, and other quirky items that offer a glimpse into the political history of gay San Francisco. Language that might seem politically incorrect now was used jokingly back then, like buttons that say “Faggots unite,” “Dyke March,” or “Sissy in ‘85.” The fun-to-browse “Art & Artifacts” collection is like going to a flea market with amazing time capsule stuff. Protests are a part of sex radical San Francisco, and one 1980’s protest sign says “Justice O’Connor: get out of our bedrooms and stay out!” Another poster advertises a drag queen/“Tranny” “Slut A Go Go”; a second advertises a 70’s gay bath house (“poppers & condoms $2.75”); and a third promotes a 90’s “The Safe Sex Video Awards.” The collection also includes “erotica and graphic depiction of sexual situations, such as BDSM scenes.” Nuthin’ wrong with that!FROM THE AIDS CRISIS TO THE COVID CRISISOn a more sobering note, one of their exhibits is particularly poignant to today. AIDS Treatment Activism, A Bay Area Story, chronicles the HIV/AIDS epidemic which devastated San Francisco in the 1980’s.In the early 80’s, underground “buyer’s clubs” were used to supply non-FDA approved anti-viral protease inhibitors or “AIDS cocktails,” that are still in use today. According to the exhibit, in 1982, “the secretive Guerilla Clinic germinated the earliest AIDS treatment activism in the world. It was a grand experiment that saved a lot of lives.” “In the midst of the current pandemic,” says Terry Beswick, executive director of the GLBT Historical Society. “I often recall the grief of the darkest days of the AIDS pandemic, when hope was so often hard to come by.” Beswick was a founding member of Act Up.    The AIDS activism movement has forever changed biomedical research,” he says. Without the changes brought by AIDS to the regulatory framework, advances in biomedical research, strategies for disease control, and service-delivery models, the fight against COVID-19 would most certainly be far more devastating. The words and images of the foot soldiers of those earlier struggles reflect lessons of hope for today. We take hope in knowing they will not be forgotten today.“During the height of the AIDS pandemic, we used to say ‘stay safe’ or ‘be here for the cure.’ On behalf of the GLBT Historical Society, I wish for you to stay safe, and be here for the vaccine.” Pictured: (1) Evening view through the windows of the GLBT Historical Society Museum on 18th Street in San Francisco’s Castro District. (Photo by Dave Earl)(2) A visitor viewing the “Faces From the Past” display in the Main Gallery at the GLBT Historical Society Museum. (Photo by Gerard Koskovich)(3) A drum circle from Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) opens a program at the GLBT Historical Society Museum (February 2018 photo by Gerard Koskovich)(4) Latinx transgender elder Felicia Elizondo recalls life in San Franciso’s Tenderloin neighborhood in the 1960s during a talk at the GLBT Historical Society Museum. (August 2016 photo by Gerard Koskovich)