Saturday, March 64:00–5:30 p.m.Online programFree | $5 suggested donation Award-winning young-adult author Malinda Lo will read selections from and discuss her new novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club (Dutton Books, 2021), a queer coming-of-age story set in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1950s. The story traces the blossoming of love between seventeen year-old Lily Hu and her friend Kathleen Miller in a Chinatown beset by Red-Scare paranoia and deportation threats. Lo will share details from her research into the midcentury LGBTQ community at the GLBT Historical Society’s archives, and discuss the novel and its historical inspirations with historian Amy Sueyoshi. Register online here.
Thursday, March 117:00–7:30 p.m.Online programFree | $5 suggested donation In this month’s installment of the Queer Culture Club, GLBT Historical Society Executive Director Terry Beswick will interview architectural history and historic preservation planning consultant Shayne Watson, the owner of Watson Heritage Consulting. Watson coauthored the Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco(2016) and, with Beswick, was a cochair of the San Francisco LGBTQ+ Cultural Heritage Strategy (2020). Queer Culture Club is our monthly series each second Thursday that focuses on LGBTQ people who are defining the queer culture of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Each month, Beswick interviews queer culture-makers, including authors, playwrights, historians, activists, artists and archivists, to learn about their work, process, inspirations, hopes and dreams. Register online here.
Friday, March 196:00–7:30Online program$10 | No one turned away Legendary San Francisco gay “radical sex” photographer Mark I. Chester will present a live slideshow presentation and discuss his recently published book of contemporary photography, Street Sex Photos (2021). The book documents gay men’s sexual lives in the South of Market district of San Francisco in an era when the neighborhood was, in Chester’s words, “like a giant supermarket of the sexual underground.” The book also is an elegy to the changing social world of SoMa since the 1980s, as the darkened alleyways give rise to new development that threatens to extinguish what is left of a gay subculture that flourished for decades. The book is available for purchase in two sizes; contact the author directly by text at (415) 613-0939, or by email at sfphotou@yahoo.com. Register online here.
Friday, March 266:00–7:30 p.m.Online program$5 | Free for members To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the GLBT Historical Society Museum and the 36th anniversary of the GLBT Historical Society’s foundation, we are hosting a virtual LGBTQ history trivia evening! Participants will mix and mingle with other queer history buffs and show off their knowledge of our vast queer past. The top-scoring teams will win fabulous prizes, including a private museum tour, complimentary memberships and limited-edition merchandise. All ticket sales go directly to supporting our archives, museum and public-history programs, furthering the society’s mission to preserve and share LGBTQ history. A good time for all is guaranteed! Register online here.
Friday, April 26:00–7:30 p.m.Online programFree | $5 suggested donation For a half-century, the Bay Area Reporter (BAR) has provided coverage of San Francisco and the Bay Area’s LGBTQ community. In this special discussion commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication that has become the community’s newspaper of record, a group of activists, writers and culture-makers will recount their relationship to and history of the BAR. The panel will be moderated by Terry Beswick, executive director of the GLBT Historical Society, and panelists include Gwen Smith, “Transmission” columnist for the BAR; Hank Plante, an award-winning, veteran Bay Area journalist; Paul Henderson, executive director of the San Francisco Department of Police Accountability (SFDPA); Marga Gomez, an award-winning Latinx performer and comic; Sharon McNight, a Tony-nominated singer and performer; and Michael Yamashita, the BAR’s publisher. Register online here.
