Bay Area Reporter: 40 years at hub of gay culture San Francis - Sger Associat Public Relatns

Contents:

• GAY PRS
• THE GAY TRAVELER’S GUI TO SAN FRANCIS
• UNVERG GAY HISTORY SAN FRANCIS
• SAN FRANCIS TELLS GAY BATHHO, "WELE BACK!"
• LOOKBACK: WHAT GAY LIFE WAS LIKE SAN FRANCIS 1976

GAY PRS

San Francis LGBTQ publitn The Bay Area Reporter grew om an early 1970s “gay bar gossip rag” to one of the most fluential LGBTQ newspapers and onle news outlets the untry.

For short – started 1971 as a “bar rag” weekly newspaper verg San Francis’s gay bar culture and grew over the s to one of the most fluential LGBTQ news publitns the untry.

Articl, photos and advertisements - cludg racy gay classified ads - that illtrate how thgs have changed over the s a fascatg onle exhibn, Stori of Our Movement: The Bay Area Reporter at 50.

THE GAY TRAVELER’S GUI TO SAN FRANCIS

Hormel LGBTQIA+ Center is the gateway to the Library’s broar llectns documentg lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer, qutng, tersex, asexual and alli’ history and culture, wh a special emphasis on the San Francis Bay Area. The Bay Area Reporter is the olst ntuoly published lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer weekly newspaper the Uned Stat and is the hight circulatn publitn servg the LGBTQ muni of the San Francis Bay Area.

Atlas Prs was the official prter for the Santa Clara County Democratic Party, and both Johnie and Nikki were eply volved the stggle for gay rights through the existg polil procs. Seekg to fe the gay suburban muni of the South Bay, Our Paper/Your Paper was tend to offer a platform distct om the gay prs of San Francis, which domated the entire Bay Area the years prr. John Folldal, Whayne Herriford, Richard Kendall, and Ted Sahl (who already had worked extensively on other gay prs the area) started a new paper, South Bay Tim, that sought to be not only fancially solvent but beneficial to the lol lbian and gay muny.

UNVERG GAY HISTORY SAN FRANCIS

If San Francis is the natnal epicenter of gay culture, then the Bay Area Reporter newspaper is the ppot wh – the place to disver what matters most to the gay folks livg wh the most fluential gay cy Ameri. After 40 years of verg what was then known as the gay liberatn movement, om early police harassment, to polil efforts to ban gay teachers, the Cy Hall assassatns, the AIDS epimic and now marriage equaly, the ee weekly paper is takg a pse to celebrate s evolutn as the untry’s longt ntuoly published gay newspaper. While most big ci now have a gay newspaper, no other paper close to the impact of the BAR, which began as a gossip flyer wh bar advertisements and grew to the untry’s loust voice for the gay muny.

Although the Inter has killed s classified advertisg, the BAR hasn’t succumbed to the enomy and the iPad like so many mastream papers, part bee s display advertisers have remaed loyal, as predomantly gay bs owners want to reach ctomers who prefer gay doctors, therapists and bookstor. It was that niche dience that the late rtratr Bob Ross had md April 1971 when he and bs partner Pl Bentley mimeographed some stori and photos and livered them to lol gay bars. Life magaze had e out wh a ver story 1964, “The Secret World of the Homosexual Grows Bolr and Broar, ” namg San Francis as home to 70, 000 homosexuals, and advertently g a migratn.

SAN FRANCIS TELLS GAY BATHHO, "WELE BACK!"

When San Francis police showed up wh meras at a black-tie gay chary fundraiser at California Hall lookg to photograph “known homosexuals, ” many felt that thgs had gone too far. When the gay Tw Peaks softball team bted the San Francis Police Department team 1974, the paper gleefully ran a banner ont-page headle: “Police Beaten!

Reporters om all over turned to the BAR, which had the bt nnectns to wre the most powerful stori om wh the gay muny about the impact of their fallen lear. The days, feels as though the staff is filg more reports of victori – the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell, ” promisg velopments toward an AIDS vacce, and creasg numbers of stat allowg gay upl to marry. Whereas the BAR ed to be the only place to fd major verage of the Gay Pri Para, now ’s reprted, tweeted and blogged everywhere, to almost every major cy the world.

Given mastream sentiment regardg homosexualy and the wily held misunrstandgs about the nature of the AIDS vis, natnal rponse to the AIDS crisis was largely slow and effective. The image is a poster which was placed around San Francis, specifilly the Castro district, which promot a Women’s Day Blood Drive gog to occur the Castro and urg lbian women to donate blood to the gay men affected by AIDS.

LOOKBACK: WHAT GAY LIFE WAS LIKE SAN FRANCIS 1976

At one pot, Altman stat that most AIDS s “volved homosexual men who have had multiple and equent sexual enunters wh different partners, as many as ten sexual enunters each night up to four tim a week” (Altman). The AIDS outbreak had a ser impact too on the spac utilized by the gay muny, particularly the Castro, a district which a large proportn of the cy’s queer muny historilly have lled home.

Bs the district lost bs bee heterosexual San Francisns were sred to mgle wh and e the same rourc as homosexual men for fear of ntractg the disease (Sis 2001). " (DeBare) The removal of a type of bs that was such a cril social lotn for the gay muny was tragic for the Castro district, as the article lls , the “end of an era. Sce those early, heady days of what was then lled the Gay Liberatn Movement, the bar rag evolved to bee the undisputed newspaper of rerd for the Bay Area's LGBTQ muny, distributg 20, 000 paper pi each Thursday, and of urse available 24/7 onle.

Acrdg to Michael Yamasha, a gay man who has been the paper's publisher sce 2013, the paper has never missed an issue adle — not even when threatened by the Loma Prieta earthquake 1989. Nile Murray Ramirez, a gay man who serv as a San Diego human rights missner and who -chairs that cy's mayoral LGBTQ advisory body, said that he was exced to disver the B. In November 1976 the paper whheld endorsg any printial ndidate due to neher of the major party ndidat supportg gay rights, while 1988 went wh civil rights lear Jse Jackson the June printial B.

Followg his and Mosne's assassatns 1978, the paper routely endorsed Milk's succsor gay Supervisor Harry Brt his reelectn mpaigns and unsuccsful 1987 ngrsnal bid, and Dianne Feste, who beme terim mayor and won electn to the posn outright before gog on to be elected a U. Mister Marc lumn giv voice to leather munyRobert Goldfarb, a gay man who is print of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District board of directors San Francis's South of Market neighborhood, said that the paper (which has been loted SOMA for s, except for a brief relotn downtown 2013-2014) has always given attentn to the leather and kk muny, particularly through the ntributns of Marc Hernanz, who was the B. "No obuari were filed wh the paper for this issue, a first sce the AIDS epimic explod San Francis's gay muny, " the story, wrten by assistant edor Timothy Rodrigu, utly stated.

Horn was also named the paper's new 2013, the nonprof foundatn had to divt self of the for-prof bs, after the end of a grace perd, leadg Yamasha to purchase a majory ownership stake, at which time he beme the first gay Asian Amerin publisher of a U.

In the world of paper doll publishg, the most famo gay player was Tom Tierney, who almost sgle-handly kept paper dolls alive the 1970s and ’80s—a low pot for the populary of the form.

San Francis had a gay bar—or, at least, a proto-gay bar—lled the Paper Doll, sometim known as the Paper Doll Club, which was operatn by 1945, perhaps even earlier than that, which was credibly early for an openly gay space.

More generally, the agily of the paper doll mak them a ready metaphor for gay people the 1950s and ’60s—and still for some people even today—whose existence was prer, who were nstantly danger of beg found out, losg their jobs and fai, and havg everythg ripped away om them. Out the real world, you might wear the cloth of a lawyer or a sailor, but then when you’re around other gay people, say at the Paper Doll San Francis, you n shed that outf and don somethg more thentilly yourself. Event listgs clud hik for sgle lbians over 50, lbian birdwatchg, outgs hosted by the Gay and Lbian Sierrans, mpg trips throughout California, and others.