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Spannende LGTBQ*-News aus SAN FRANCISCO

04.24.2025 0 Comments

Updated 4/21/2025

Heute bekamen wir eine sehr interessante aktuelle Presse-News! Schaut euch als Inspiration bitte auch kurz das Video über das CASTRO Viertel am Ende des Textes an.

2025 PRIDE

  • The Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco (CCC) and Edge on the Square are uplifting and rallying around Chinatown’s queer community with Chinatown Pride 2025. The neighborhood-wide Pride party and inaugural Chinatown Pride Procession will take place on May 24 during AAPI Heritage Month and Queer Trans Asian Pacific Islander Week.  The free evening event features a Pride procession led by artists from the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance, with dance stops along the way, performances by premiere API drag troupe The Rice Rockettes, a silent disco on the bridge over Kearny Street, hands-on art activities and activations, and more. The evening party begins at Edge on the Square (800 Grant Avenue) at 6 pm. Participants will journey on foot to several of Chinatown’s queer historical landmarks and significant spaces, such as the former Rickshaw gay bar, the site of a 1943 raid and riot. The Procession culminates on the open-air Dr. Rolland and Kathryn Lowe Community Bridge, renamed “The Immortal Runway” for the event. Audiences can enjoy performances followed by a bridge bash with DJs and a silent disco. A community resource fair and art activations take place throughout the evening on the Runway and in the adjacent CCC galleries.
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  • Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) will present Harvey Milk Reimagined, a groundbreaking revival of the acclaimed opera by composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Michael Korie, in partnership with Opera Parallèle. Directed and conceived by Opera Parallèle’s Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel and conducted by Artistic Director Nicole Paiement, the bold new staging honors the life and legacy of Harvey Milk—the civil rights leader and first openly gay elected official in California. Performances run May 31–June 7 at the Blue Shield of California Theater at YBCA, launching Pride Month 2025 and commemorating what would have been Milk’s 95th birthday.
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  • San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (SFGMC) returns to BroadwaySF’s Curran Theatre for their most powerful event of the year—THE PRIDE CONCERT—presented for two performances on Saturday, June 21. Featuring vocals from almost 300 singers and songs that champion resilience, identity, and belonging—including works by Grammy Award-nominated nonbinary songwriter, Justin Tranter, who will join the Chorus onstage—this performance weaves together anthems of strength, defiance, and joy.
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  • Monét X Change, the multi-hyphenate performer most well-known for her appearances on RuPaul’s Drag Race, will emcee San Francisco Opera’s Pride Concert on Friday, June 27 at the War Memorial Opera House. Classically trained in opera and winner of the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, Monét X Change is among the artists headlining this celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. Expanding upon the Company’s annual Pride celebrations, the evening includes a special concert, immersive projections and more.  Mezzo-sopranos Jamie Barton and Nikola Printz and baritone Brian Mulligan will share the stage with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra conducted by Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim for a genre- and era-spanning program mixing classical arias with queer anthems and music showcasing LGBTQIA+ composers, librettists, songwriters and themes. The high-octane evening will be enhanced by digital artist Tal Rosner’s video projections.
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  • The 55th annual San Francisco PRIDE celebration will take place June 28 and 29. The theme is “Queer Joy Is Resistance.” Founded in 1970 as the Gay Freedom Day Parade, San Francisco Pride has evolved into one of the largest and most renowned LGBTQ+ celebrations in the world, attracting up to one million visitors annually for a weekend filled with parties, concerts, and culminating in a parade. Find information about other Pride events at https://sfpride.org
  • SoSF, a groundbreaking new Pride music festival, will be held at the Pier 80 Warehouse on June 28.  The festival is held in collaboration with Kehlani, The Midway, Non Plus Ultra, XoXo San Francisco, Dreamland NYE, Electroluxx, Fake and Gay, and more of SF’s partystarters. A portion of the proceeds will support the LYRIC Center for LGBTQ+ Youth, investing in the next generation of changemakers.
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  • Arts nonprofit Illuminate is planning to bring back “Welcome,” the 4.1-mile rainbow light installation that runs the length of Market Street, for PRIDE. “Welcome” first debuted in 2022. The laser-beamed flag is 49 feet wide and consists of six colored laser beams (purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red) shooting horizontally above Market Street, rising at a subtle three-degree angle to crest at Twin Peaks. It is the world’s largest laser Pride flag.

News, Updates and Future Developments

  • The AIDS Memorial Quilt is on display at San Francisco International Airport’s International Terminal through January 25, 2026. The new exhibit is accessible to all airport visitors before security, and admission is free. The AIDS Memorial Quilt is a powerful and heartfelt reminder of the ongoing epidemic. With nearly fifty thousand panels dedicated to more than 110,000 people who have died of AIDS-related illnesses, the Quilt is also the world’s largest community art project. Founded in 1987 by the NAMES Project in San Francisco, the Quilt is now under the permanent stewardship of the National AIDS Memorial.
  • In March, the GLBT Historical Society celebrated 40 years of helping to create a world where LGBTQ people are appreciated and celebrated for their diversity and remarkable contributions to history and culture. The GLBT Historical Society safeguards over 1,000 collections in its archives. In a typical year, an average of 20,000 people visit the country’s first museum of LGBTQ+ history and culture. The GLBT Historical Society Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, from 11 AM to 5 PM. General admission is $10.
  • In 2024, a new permanent home for the GLBT Historical Society Museum and Archives was acquired in the heart of the Castro. The City dedicated $12.5 million to purchase the site, and the state allocated $5.5 million. The GLBT Museum is raising additional funds to cover the cost of construction and renovation. Once renovated, the building located at 2280 Market St. will house the non-profit museum, its archives and research center. In the meantime, the museum will continue to operate at its current location.
  • The historic Compton’s Cafeteria uprising at 101 Taylor Street was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Resources in January 2025, making it the first U.S. historic site recognized for its role in the transgender movement.[Note: The cafeteria is no longer there.]
  • Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, an immersive, interactive play that brings to life the 1966 uprising in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, will reopen in a dedicated venue at 835 Larkin St. on April 11, 2025. Presented by the Tenderloin Museum, the powerful theatrical experience offers audiences a front-row seat to a pivotal act of transgender resistance. Set within a 1960s-inspired cafeteria, this unique theatrical experience places attendees at the heart of history. They sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the play’s actors as the riot unfolds around them—over breakfast or dinner. Predating the Stonewall Riots by three years, the Compton’s uprising was the first known militant act of queer resistance against systemic oppression in the U.S.
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  • Founders Danielle Thoe and Sara Yergovich will bring Rikki’s, the Bay’s first bar prioritizing women’s sports, to 2223 Market St. The owners are aiming to open the women’s sports bar in time for the Valkyries’ first WNBA season starting in May. The bar is named after Rikki Streicher, a San Francisco LGBTQ leader who founded the Gay Games Federation in 1982. (Source: SF Chronicle)
  • The Counterculture Museum is slated to open in spring 2025. Located at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets, the museum will explore San Francisco’s place at the center of cultural movements that have shaped society, from the Beat Generation and Summer of Love to LGBTQ+ rights.
  • 2025 Events: Fresh Meat Festival is an annual transgender and queer multidisciplinary performance festival held the third week of June at San Francisco’s Z Space Theater.

Up Your Alley will take place on July 27. The Folsom Street Fair will take place on September 28. The annual Castro Street Fair, a community street celebration founded by Harvey Milk in 1974, will take place on the first weekend of October. Held on the third Friday of every month, the new Castro Night Market is a vibrant celebration of local culture, food, and community. The monthly Castro Art Walk occurs on the first Friday of every month. Celebrated throughout August in the State of California, Transgender History Month was first officially recognized by a mayoral proclamation in the City of San Francisco in 2021.

  • San Francisco’s newest entertainment zone is set to be in the Castro District. Pending a final approval on April 15, the Castro Upper Market Entertainment Zone designation will permit the sale of drinks for on-the-go consumption and on streets and sidewalks during specific hours tied to an event.
  • The historic Castro Theatre is targeting a late 2025 opening following a multi-million-dollar renovation of the century-old Spanish Baroque theater, which opened in 1922.
  • A corner-to-corner reimagining of one corner of the Castro and Market streets intersection is being planned to create The Memorial at Harvey Milk Plaza, with a targeted opening in 2028. With the passage of Prop B by San Franciscan voters in November 2024, $25 million is headed to build the new Harvey Milk Plaza.
    • In 1985, the landscaped entrance to the underground Castro Muni Station was dedicated to Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the history of California. In 1997, the giant Rainbow Flag was added to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Harvey’s election to office. The giant Rainbow Flag became a San Francisco City Landmark in 2024.
    • The Memorial at Harvey Milk Plaza aims to transform the area into a world-class civic space alive with activities, art, and exhibits commemorating the internationally celebrated LGBTQ+ civil rights figure and the movement he led in the Castro neighborhood.
    • The first phase of construction, a four-level elevator added to the plaza to make it more accessible to the Castro Muni Station, will be completed in late 2025. Work to connect the elevator with the broader neighborhood is slated to break ground in 2025, with a multifaceted sidewalk and plaza renovation that includes regrading, new planting, lighting and the installation of commemorative features.
    • The Memorial at Harvey Milk Plaza is projected to cost $35 million.

San Francisco City News & Information

  • In 2024, artist Gilbert Baker’s rainbow Gay Pride flag in the Castro’s Harvey Milk Plaza was designated an official city landmark. Baker’s flagpole installation has had a cultural life of its own as a symbol of the historically queer neighborhood. It has been featured on postcards and used in television series such as the 2019 Netflix sequel to Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City.” 
    • The iconic 20x30 rainbow flag is replaced regularly by the Castro Merchants Association.
    • A fragment of Gilbert Baker’s original rainbow flag is on display at the GLBT Historical Society Museum in San Francisco. The original rainbow flag was designed by Baker in 1978 for San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade, now known as San Francisco Pride. Each stripe represents a value: red for life, blue for harmony and peace, and purple for spirit. The flag originally had eight colors but was simplified to six for easier reproduction, as Baker intended to create a new symbol for the newly empowered LGBTQ community. His creation became a global symbol of love, authenticity, and fearlessness.
  • San Francisco leaders declared the city a sanctuary for transgender people in June 2024, becoming one of the first in the nation to do so. The City’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to declare San Francisco a sanctuary city for transgender, gender nonconforming, nonbinary and Two-Spirit people — a Pan-Indian term that describes those who are neither male nor female — to provide a place of safety for that community and providers of gender-affirming care.
  • Honey Mahogany was appointed the new executive director of the Office of Transgender Initiatives in June 2024.
  • In 2023, San Francisco installed the first Drag Laureate in the US, D’Arcy Drollinger, co-founder of Oasis SF. The Drag Laureate serves as an ambassador for San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ arts, nightlife, and entertainment communities.
  • San Francisco’s Cultural Districts program is a place-making and place-keeping program that preserves, strengthens and promotes cultural communities. Ten Cultural Districts are located across San Francisco, each embodying a unique cultural heritage.
    • San Francisco is home to the world’s first Transgender Cultural District (established in 2017), which commemorates the area around Compton’s Cafeteria, where a group of trans women led a riot in response to transphobic harassment from police in 1966. This occurred three years before the famous Stonewall Riots, an important moment of civil disobedience and protest by members of the LGBTQ community in New York.  
    • Established in 2018, San Francisco’s Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District is in the South of Market neighborhood (SOMA). The neighborhood has served as an LGBTQ+ enclave since the 1950s, boasting a rich legacy of bars, restaurants, bathhouses, and other businesses associated with the Leather subculture.
    • Established in 2019, the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District supports the neighborhood’s history, fosters racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity among its residents and businesses, and works to create a safe, beautiful, and inclusive space for LGBTQ and allied communities for those who call this neighborhood home to those who visit it from around the world. 
  • Castro: Openings and Re-openings
  • Fisch & Flore(2298 Market St.): Opened in 2024, Castro’s newest gem features ethically sourced seafood dining. Deeply rooted in the heart of the Castro community, Fisch & Flore is a heartfelt tribute to the rich legacy of the iconic Café Flore, which once thrived on the same corner.  From its origins as a cultural hub to its transformation into Fisch & Flore, the restaurant honors its historical roots while forging a new path that continues to engage and inspire the community. The restaurant’s front patio boasts a cozy fire pit and elegant glass windbreaks, creating a welcoming atmosphere for all. The kitchen has also been expanded, an ADA-compliant bathroom has been added, and the bar and dining room spaces have been remodeled.
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  • QBar(456 Castro Street): QBar reopened in November 2024 after a lengthy remodel. From QBar: Once the preeminent all-inclusive venue for queer and trans people of color in the neighborhood, QBar was a favorite for locals and tourists alike. The venue was closed in 2019 after a fire damaged the premises. QBar aims to contribute to the ongoing revitalization of Castro Street and introduce a new era of nightlife for San Francisco and the broader Bay Area LGBTQ+ community. The new interior has reimagined QBar as a dark black, industrial underground space. A theme of repurposed materials runs throughout the venue’s interior design, making it a particularly unique addition to the bars and nightclubs of the neighborhood.  
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  • Bar 49(2295 Market St.): Opened in June 2024, Bar 49 pays homage to San Francisco’s seven-by-seven-mile area with more than 49 varieties of beer and wine.
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  • Beaux Bar(2344 Market St.): Beaux Bar celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2024 with a renovation that revealed a new bar, updated bathrooms, and a revised menu.
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  • Catch French Bistro (2362 Market St.) Although it was only opened in 2024, Catch French Bistro’s location at 2362 Market Street is steeped in LGBTQ+ history. Significantly, The NAMES Project and AIDS Memorial Quilt began there in June 1987.
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  • Badlands(4121 18th St.): Reopened in 2023, Badlands is one of Castro’s most popular locations for video/music entertainment and dancing. Its dance floor features a state-of-the-art EAW-powered sound system and colorful dance floor lighting, accompanied by a traditional rotating mirror ball. The front room lounge area is ideal for meeting people, socializing with friends, and enjoying music videos.
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  • Welcome Castro by SF Mercantile (525 Castro St.) is a visitor center and gift shop that opened in 2023. It’s a great first stop to learn about all the sights, attractions and people that make the Castro so unique. Welcome Castro features a wide array of LGBTQ and Castro-themed merchandise, including many gift items from local queer artists and designers. A collaboration between SF Mercantile and Castro Merchants, Welcome Castro is the go-to destination for your Castro map and guide to the best neighborhood bars, restaurants, and stores, as well as historic landmarks and best-kept secrets.
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  • Pasta Panino (4150 18th St.) is a casual, LGBTQ-friendly Italian restaurant situated steps from popular bars, including Toad Hall, The Edge, and Badlands. It opened in 2023.
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  • Hotel Castro (4230 18th St.): The 12-room Hotel Castro opened in 2022 in its namesake neighborhood. The hotel uses technology such as a smartphone web app and virtual concierge to centralize services and reduce staffing needs. The hotel features modern rooms with Google hubs, private balconies, photo mosaics depicting local icons, and a rooftop patio.
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  • The Lobby Bar (4230 18th St, Unit A) is a craft cocktail bar offering sharable bites, a sleek interior design, and happy hour specials. It opened in 2022 below the Hotel Castro.
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  • Queer A.F. (which stands for “queer arts featured”) opened in 2022 at 575 Castro, formerly the site of Harvey Milk’s Castro Camera store and the site of Harvey’s election headquarters during his campaigns for public office.
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  • The Academy is an LGBTQ+ social club featuring multiple bars, a spa, and a barbershop. It also serves as a co-working and midday escape space. The Academy offers a daytime pass club experience called Daylight to nonmembers for $30.
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Beyond The Castro

  • Ginger’s(86 Hardie Place) launched its comeback in June 2024 following its closure in 2020. The Financial District bar hosts events like karaoke and drag shows and features a cocktail program by San Francisco’s Future Bars, the team behind venues such as Bourbon and Branch and the Dawn Club.
  • The Stud (1123 Folsom St.), one of San Francisco’s oldest Queer bars, reopened in 2024 in a new home on Folsom near 7th St. The bar originally opened in 1966. The legendary South of Market bar is the nation’s first collectively owned queer bar.
  • “Valley of the Queens” Walking Tour: Launched in October 2024, the groundbreaking walking tour explores the rich LGBTQIA+ history of San Francisco’s Tenderloin and Polk Street. Created by local historian and professor Shawn Sprockett, the Valley of the Queens tour offers an immersive journey through the pivotal events and unsung heroes that shaped queer culture from the 1960s to the 1990s. The tour highlights several key moments in LGBTQIA+ history, including the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, a landmark transgender uprising predating the Stonewall Riots, and the site of San Francisco’s first Pride parade. It also uncovers lesser-known yet significant stories, such as a police-raided drag ball that was defended by local Christian ministers, showcasing the unexpected alliances that helped shape queer San Francisco. The tour will last approximately two hours. Sprockett’s organization, Unspeakable Vice, also offers a North Beach tour covering San Francisco’s queer history from 1770 to 1960. This tour serves as a prequel to Valley of the Queens, offering a comprehensive look at the city’s LGBTQIA+ heritage.
  • Dacha(1085 Sutter St.) opened in 2024. “Experience the culinary fusion, where Eastern European classics meet a modern twist in a queer-friendly environment. Indulge in healthier and more elegant versions of traditional dishes, expertly crafted with a Californian flair.”
  • Rosebud Gallery (839 Larkin St.) opened in 2024. Longtime friends Shannon Amitin and Cabure Bonugli co-founded the queer-centering art space.


Scarlet Fox (1690 Hayes St.) in NOPA, near Alamo Square, opened in June 2023. It is an LGTBQ and women-owned bar.

  • Jonathan Carver Moore (966 Market St.) is a contemporary art gallery that specializes in working with emerging and established artists who are BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and women. As the only openly gay Black male-owned gallery in San Francisco, Jonathan is committed to amplifying the voices of often underrepresented artists through a Black queer lens. The gallery opened in 2023.
  • Oasis, the nightclub famous for its superstar drag shows and fabulous cabaret performances, unveiled a 2,500-square-foot wrap-around mural honoring the South of Market’s (SOMA) area’s history of drag and fetish culture in 2022. The mural titled Showtime includes portraits of late drag artists such as Bambi Lake and Felicia Flames and images associated with the queer nightlife community. It’s located at the corner of 11th Street and Burns Place, between Folsom and Howard. San Francisco Drag legends Heklina and D’Arcy Drollinger opened the internationally acclaimed Oasis on New Year’s Day 2015 in the heart of San Francisco’s SOMA district. OASIS offers an unforgettable San Francisco nightlife experience in an 8,000-square-foot converted gay bathhouse.

Culture

  • The New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) isSan Francisco’s premier LGBTQ+ and Allied performing arts institution and progressive arts education conservatory.

 

  • National Queer Arts Festival (NQAF) is a twice-a-year multidisciplinary festival held in the Spring and Fall seasons throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Each year, we commission over twenty performances, visual arts exhibitions, and interdisciplinary showcases, supporting hundreds of artists and production crews in the process. NQAF is the longest continuously running queer arts festival in North America.
  • The annual Queer Women of Color Film Festival will take place June 13-15, 2025. Presented by Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP), this free annual film festival will take place at the Presidio Theatre. The festival showcases new films that reflect the lives of queer women of color and address social justice issues that concern multiple communities. Screening at the festival will feature films created through QWOCMAP’s programs, as well as those by independent filmmakers from around the world.
  • The New Roots Theatre Festival is a three-day performing arts festival that unearths artistic voices in the Bay Area, celebrates the development of new work, and uplifts BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices.
  • The Pansy L. Chan and Terrence D. Chan National Queer Arts Center (The Chan)—the home of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (SFGMC)—opened in 2023. Located in the Mission District, the historic LGBTQ center is the first of its kind in the country. The Chan is a new hub for artists, arts leaders, and activists to connect, spark collaborations, and develop new projects that will further enhance the LGBTQ arts field. Founded in 1978, SFGMC sparked a nationwide LGBTQ choral movement after its first public performance at a vigil on the steps of City Hall following the assassinations of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.
  • “Over The Rainbow in the Castro” is a self-guided audio tour from the San Francisco Chronicle. This stroll through San Francisco’s preeminent gayborhood is reported and narrated by Chronicle Arts & Culture Writer Tony Bravo. From the plate-glass windows that made history to the queer icons engraved in the sidewalk, Bravo guides you through the Castro’s story and its streets, spilling tea on local secrets and celebrating the spirit of defiance that still endures today. The GPS-based audio walking tour is hosted on the VoiceMap app.
  • Cruisin’ the Castro Walking Tours explore the historical, diverse and colorful sites of the Castro neighborhood, known as the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Queer community in the world. The tour highlights the significant contributions of San Francisco and the Castro community to LGBTQ history, culture, and the ongoing struggle for equal rights in the United States.
  • San Francisco City Guides’ volunteers are serious about sharing the fun of discovering San Francisco and its neighborhoods. Since 1978, their “volunteer ambassadors” have conducted free walking tours of the city’s richly diverse neighborhoods.  LGBTQ+-related tours include “Castro: Tales of the Village,”  and “Undercover Folsom Street.”
  • As the first airport terminal in the world named for an LGBTQ+ leader, Harvey Milk Terminal 1 at SFO honors the life and legacy of the first openly gay elected official in the history of California. The “Harvey Milk: Messenger of Hope” exhibit from the SFO Museum tells his story on a massive wall in the terminal measuring 30 feet high and 380 feet long. The space features 97 images, including photos, correspondence, and campaign materials, offering travelers a glimpse into Milk’s life, from his activism and ascendance as a political leader to his assassination and the legacy of his fight for diversity, equity, and inclusion, which lives on today.
  • The National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park is a dedicated space where millions of Americans touched directly or indirectly by AIDS can gather to heal, hope and remember. Its mission is to provide, in perpetuity, a place of remembrance so that the lives of people who died from AIDS are not forgotten, and future generations know the story. The sacred ground of this 10-acre living memorial honors all who have confronted this tragic pandemic; those who have died, and those who have shared their struggle, kept the vigils, and supported each other during the final hours.
  • Launched in 2014 in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, the Rainbow Honor Walk features bronze, sidewalk plaques that honor Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer individuals who have made a significant difference to society in California, the U.S., or elsewhere around the world. (Walk Market St. from Noe St. to Castro St., and down Castro St. from Market St. to 20th St.)
  • Pink Triangle Memorial: In memory of the LGBTQ+ victims of the Nazi regime, the city erected Pink Triangle Memorial Park. Inside the park, you’ll find fifteen pylons with pink triangles, each of them representing one thousand victims of the holocaust. You’ll also find that the entire park is shaped like a triangle, filled with pink flowers. You’ll also see a triangle filled with pink quartz stones on the ground.
  • The Pink Triangle: In a reclamation of the symbol once used to shame the gay community, San Francisco illuminates a massive pink triangle atop Twin Peaks each year during Pride Month. The Pink Triangle tradition began in 1996 and has served as a reminder ever since of both a painful past and a hopeful future.

LGBTQ Businesses

History/Facts

  • San Francisco’s first “notorious” gay bar, The Dash, opened in 1908. San Francisco’s first lesbian bar, Mona’s, opened in 1935.
  • Many early “out” LGBTQ+ personalities visited or lived in San Francisco, including Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.
  • The Beat culture in the 1950s fostered many gay writers and artists, such as Allen Ginsburg.
  • The Daughters of Bilitis, founded in 1955, was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the United States.
  • Nightclubs such as Finocchio’s popularized drag shows. In 1961, José Sarria, a well-known drag performer, ran for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, making him the first openly gay candidate to run for public office.  He was also the founder of the Imperial Court System, one of the world’s largest LGBTQ+ fundraising organizations.
  • In 1966, the Society for Individual Rights, the first gay community center in the United States, opened in San Francisco.
  • Transgender women and gay men stood up to police brutality at the Compton Cafeteria riot in 1966. 
  • The Summer of Love in 1967 promoted individual freedom and acceptance of “untraditional” lifestyles. 
  • Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official in the history of California when he became a San Francisco Supervisor in 1977.  He was assassinated in 1978.  In 2019, San Francisco International Airport renamed Terminal 1 as the Harvey Milk Terminal.
  • The rainbow flag was created in 1978 by Gilbert Baker for San Francisco Pride.  It has since become a symbol for the LGBTQ+ community around the world.
  • San Francisco is the birthplace of the first gay men’s chorus (1978), the first gay chamber of commerce (1974) and the first Gay Games Olympic-style competitions (1982).
  • The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence started in San Francisco in 1979 and has grown to be a global charity group of drag queen nuns.
  • The HIV AIDS crisis devastated the gay community beginning in the 1980s. San Francisco General Hospital was the first to create an in-patient AIDS special care unit.  It became a model for AIDS treatment, both in the U. S. and overseas.  Numerous advances in research, medicine and treatment have been made since then, though AIDS continues to be a serious threat
  • The first panels in the AIDS Memorial Quilt were created in 1987 in San Francisco at the height of the AIDS epidemic to remember the names and lives of loved ones that friends and family feared history would forget.
  • The San Francisco metro area is home to the highest concentration of LGBTQ+ people in the U.S., per 2021 Williams Institute estimates.
  • Today, San Francisco continues to be one of the top destinations in the world for LGBTQ+ travelers. 

Throughout its history, San Francisco has attracted and welcomed a multitude of communities of diverse social, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. It is evident in the city’s kaleidoscope of neighborhoods, which attract visitors from around the world with a diverse range of tastes, interests, and expectations. The City has a proud history of supporting its various communities, most famously as a leader in the fight for LGBTQ equality. San Francisco Travel remains committed to welcoming all travelers to the City, no matter where they come from and no matter how attitudes elsewhere in the country may change. In San Francisco, everyone is welcome.


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Phil Hollister

Ich liebe das Reisen in Gruppen, um gemeinsam die Welt zu entdecken. Häufig habe ich auf Pressereisen zusammen mit Journalisten die weltweiten Hotspots der queeren Community erkundet. Diese tolle Art zu Verreisen werde ich jetzt in einem neuen Kapitel meines Lebens auch sympathischen Gleichgesinnten anbieten. Queere Gruppenreisen!