Contents:
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?
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.
IS THE CASTRO GETTG LS GAY?
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. But a untry where gay marriage is legal and acceptance of LGBTQ people is greater than ever, some argue that “gayborhoods” aren’t necsary anymore. Romburg agre that this “post-gay this” is part of the reason why there are fewer gay people livg the Castro today.
Acrdg to Romburg, the mostly gay whe men who moved to the Castro the 1970s transformed the workg-class neighborhood.