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JOAQU CASTRO: PROVISNS FOR GAY COUPL COULD KILL IMMIGRATN BILL
"It was immediately apparent to me, " Fraga says, "that they had an unrstandg of polics that was eper than any other llege sophomor I'd e across. “Well, jt didn't seem to be as gay as ed to be, ” he said. Which rais the qutn: Is the Castro gettg ls gay?
IS THE CASTRO GETTG LS GAY?
While the Castro might look as gay as ever, the rabow explosn on the streets vers up a changg neighborhood that’s home to fewer and fewer gay people.
Many of the neighborhood's gay rints have been priced out recent years. “It's gone om beg a gay village to beg a tourist statn for people around the world who want to e here and experience a ltle b of the gay, ” says Don Romburg, an LGBTQ historian who moved to the Castro the 1990s after llege. The Castro and the gay liberatn movement gaed speed together, creatg a more fully realized neighborhood than any of s precsors.
There weren’t jt gay bars and bathho the Castro. There were gay barbers and gay doctors and opportuni to do gay activism wh gay nonprofs. “To have a place San Francis, the world, where gay people n e together as a muny and feel like they tly belong and that there's no real sense of stigma, that's what ma the Castro very special for me as a young guy my 20s, ” Romburg says.