Christopher Agee, Gayola: Police Profsnalizatn and the Polics of San Francis's Gay Bars, 1950-1968, Journal of the History of Sexualy, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Sep., 2006), pp. 462-489
Contents:
- GAY SAN FRANCIS
- SOCIAL REVOLUTN: THE GAY BARS AND CLUBS OF SAN FRANCIS 1960S-1980S
- GAY RIGHTS ACTIVISM AND RELIGN 1960S SAN FRANCIS
- GAY RIGHTS
- SF GAY HISTORY
GAY SAN FRANCIS
The bars helped shape and harn San Francis's gay inty. * gay san francisco 1960s *
After several proment bars San Francis started shutterg -- victims of Manhunt and Grdr and time -- I started mappg a cy's worth of shuttered gay bars. Focch's (1936), 506 Broadway:The drag show at Focch's was more of a tourist draw than an hont-to-goodns gay club, but helped brg gay culture -- and drag culture -- to the mastream spotlight.
SOCIAL REVOLUTN: THE GAY BARS AND CLUBS OF SAN FRANCIS 1960S-1980S
Des of pa and perseverance San Francis's gay muny fally led to vditn the Bay Area and across the natn. This is a timele of historil events. * gay san francisco 1960s *
I951, after two years of police harassment, owner Sol Stouman took the police to the California Supreme Court, and argued that a bar uld not be shut down jt bee gay men ngregated there.
He prevailed, providg stenance to the growg homophile Handle Bar (1960), California and Hy:Until 1960, most gay bars were expected to pay brib to police officers for 'protectn' om raids.
But 1960, the "gay-ola" sndal exposg such brib beme a media sensatn, and began a discsn about the rights of gays to equal protectns unr the Q (1962), Polk St. :In rponse to police harassment, San Francis bar owners formed the Tavern Guild -- the first gay bs associatn the Uned Stat -- at the Suzy-Q bar on Polk Street.
GAY RIGHTS ACTIVISM AND RELIGN 1960S SAN FRANCIS
Dcriptn: Gay San Francis by Jonathan Raymond, is a prevly lost documentary pictg queer life San Francis five s ago. Shot between... * gay san francisco 1960s *
Members set up a phone-tree to warn each other of impendg raids, set up relief funds and raised money for homophile groups like the Dghters of Bilis, the Mattache Society and the Not? One of the first mastream discsns of S&M, the article tablished San Francis the mds of middle Ameri (and lns of gay men) as a place of sexual diversy and tolerance. :The Stud helped cubate San Francis's gay hippie movement -- even Janis Jopl would e when she was town -- and provid an alternative to sweater queens and htlers.
GAY RIGHTS
Sce my twter post this past week looked at a map of gay bs 1980, I cid to create my own map on this topic but over a longer time perd. I rived my dataset om a larger llectn on GoogleMaps, which had over 163 lotns. This larger llectn was tled "Lost Gay Bars of San Francis",… * gay san francisco 1960s *
Wdows were smashed, police were fought off for hours and a muny showed s strength, providg a flashpot for gay and trans anizg on the Wt Coast: In 's wake a work of social, polil and LGBT-centric medil groups Hall (1971), 482 Castro:The origal Toad Hall -- a bar of the same name recently opened a nearby space -- is often creded wh lnchg the Castro as a gay district.
One of the first bars to chew a jebox favor of a DJ, Toad Hall ma the sleepy Eureka Valley a statn for gay men on the weekends, and soon bs owners and homebuyers saw the potential for a real neighborhood where gays uld live Peaks Tavern (1972), 401 Castro:Prr to Tw Peaks, gay bars were secretive affairs wh eher black-out wdows or no wdows at all.
The California Supreme Court l that gays have the right to assemble, leadg to a proliferatn of gay bars and eventually the formatn of social and polil groups San Francis’s gay muny. This photo is of the sprawlg La Galleria ndomiums on the rner of Bh and Taylor streets on Thursday June 20, 2013, the se of the raid at the gay nightclub. Before leavg for San Francis the early 1970s, I had been volved the Civil Rights stggl the South and protted agast a sensels war Vietnam, and I was about to fd out that gay men San Francis were changg the way Ameri thought about sex.
SF GAY HISTORY
The gay rights movement the Uned Stat began the 1920s and saw huge progrs the 2000s, wh laws prohibg homosexual activy stck down and a Supreme Court lg legalizg same-sex marriage. * gay san francisco 1960s *
” Next to Toad Hall had jt opened, and on Sundays had a le around the rner where the newly-arrived gay men stood amazement, as I did, that there uld be that many gay men the world. I was raised Wisns as a Unarian, so I arrived Baghdad by the Bay wh no Catholic shame or Jewish guilt, but I’d fought my gay urg hard llege and stggled to live like my straight iends graduate school and the Peace Corps.
From 1942 to 1943, ary patrols known as the San Francis Moral Drive targeted and raid the gay bars of San Francis, claimg to be protectg servicemen om homosexuals. However, by the end of the 1940s, the gay bar scene was growg and queer bars beme not only a safe space for gay and lbian people, but also a statn for visors to the cy, who watched performanc and mgled wh the lols. Many beat poets, cludg those who were openly gay such as Allen Gsberg, me to San Francis due to the more permissive environment and aligned themselv wh LGBTQ+ groups.