FundraiserThe Edge Cares: A Benefit for the GLBT Historical Society
Tuesday, February 188:00–11:00 p.m.The Edge4149 18th St., San FranciscoFreeThe Edge is a longstanding bar in the heart of San Francisco’s Castro district, right down the street from the GLBT Historical Society Museum. With a long history of supporting local charities and bringing communities together, the Edge has recently established the Edge Cares, a weekly initiative that earmarks a percentage of Tuesday night proceeds to local LGBTQ nonprofits. The GLBT Historical Society is honored to have been selected as the Edge’s beneficiary on February 18. Join us for an evening of throwback music videos, vintage 1990s hits and two-for-one drinks.
Panel Discussion“The Rainbow Did That”: Remembering Gilbert Baker
Thursday, February 207:00–9:00 p.m.The GLBT Historical Society Museum4127 18th St., San Francisco$5| Free for membersA panel of contemporaries and friends of the late Gilbert Baker, the creator of the iconic rainbow flag, will discuss Baker’s artistic output, activism and legacy. Panelists will include activist Charley Beal, the manager of the Gilbert Baker Estate; Baker’s friend Vincent Guzzone; community activist Ken Jones; and Cass Brayton, better known as Sister Mary Media, a longtime member of the LGBTQ activist and fundraising group the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Swapping stories, spilling secrets and sharing memories, the speakers will recall the life and times of a complex and deeply passionate man. This program is being held in conjunction with the exhibition “Performance, Protest and Politics: The Art of Gilbert Baker,” on display at the GLBT Historical Society Museum through April 5. Tickets are available online here.
Book LaunchFollowing Lou: Searching the Archives for Our Queer Past
Thursday, February 277:00–9:00 p.m.The GLBT Historical Society Museum4127 18th St., San Francisco$5| Free for membersLouis Sullivan (1951–1991) was a founding member of the GLBT Historical Society and a transgender gay man whose pioneering activism on behalf of trans men in the 1970s and 1980s helped shape the modern understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity. The society’s archives hold Sullivan’s extensive diaries, written between the 1960s and the 1990s, which chronicle his coming of age, coming-out as a gay trans man and work as a historian. Researcher Ellis Martin and poet and artist Zach Ozma have compiled selections from the diaries into a new book, We Both Laughed In Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan (Nightboat Books, 2019). In this discussion, Martin, Ozma and the society’s reference archivist, Isaac Fellman, will read excerpts from Sullivan’s diaries and will discuss the complex issues involved in queer historical storytelling. Copies of We Both Laughed in Pleasure will be available for purchase and signing. Tickets are available online here.
Community EventA March to Remember & Reclaim Queer Space
Saturday, February 292:00–4:00 p.m.Harvey Milk PlazaMarket and Castro Streets, San FranciscoFreeA group of LGBTQ leaders, neighborhood organizations, activists and community members will gather at Harvey Milk Plaza and march through the Castro district, laying black wreaths at the sites of former queer spaces in this historic LGBTQ neighborhood. Join drag queen Juanita MORE!, activists Ken Jones and Cleve Jones, and San Francisco District Eight Supervisor Rafael Mandelman at this event cohosted by the GLBT Historical Society, the San Francisco LGBT Center and the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District. Participants will call on elected officials, foundations and philanthropists, as well as residents and lovers of San Francisco, to both commemorate the city’s LGBTQ past and take active steps to sustain the city’s living queer heritage and culture.
