History of the GLBT Movement
in San Francisco



Beginnings: post-WWII

San Francisco was the point of departure and reentry for many men involved in the war...Rather than returning home, many soldiers (and particularly those dishonorably discharged for homosexuality) stayed or settled in San Francisco after their service ended.
post WWII


Black Cat Cafe

Left Coast Stonewall: 1960s

In the 1960s, the gay movement absorbed the profound and successive influences of the civil rights, anti-war, feminist and counterculture movements...
But it took several years for these elements to converge and for a grassroots gay community to adopt a civil rights agenda and burst into the forum of national politics.



GLBT Mecca(s): 1970s

The years between 1970 and 1975 brought more breakthroughs in the area of gay rights than those of the previous two decades combined.
1970s




Gay Riots


Murder of
Harvey Milk/
White Night Riots

The one thing that was clear and powerful about Harvey was that he was hard to control. He went to institutions of power without a sense of "What do I have to do to get people to be nice to me?"





Fighting Back:
1980s and 1990s

Groups like Aids Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT-UP) and Queer Nation came into being. Many of their demonstrations shocked the world into knowing and realizing that AIDS was not exclusively a gay man's disease and that quick government action and research was needed to find a cure.
Fighting Back