San Francisco opens GLBT History Museum

The long awaited museum of the GLBT Historical Society has opened in the heart of the Castro at 4187 18^th St.  

Only one other city in North America boasts a museum solely dedicated to the history of our movement and this sleek, inviting storefront location is bound to become a must-see destination.  

The space features a video screen visible 24 hours a day on 18^th St. continuously playing historic footage of past events, from Pride parades to public demonstrations and news coverage.  

Once inside, visitors may examine rare artifacts, photographs, documents, sound recordings, films and videos in the exhibition that will open an array of unexpected perspectives on the past, ranging from women’s bookstores to queer temples and churches, from bathhouses to battlefields, from early efforts to find hidden histories to highly visible struggles for GLBT civil rights.   

The Month in Gay History - January

January 1, 1993

The World Health Organization officially deletes "homosexuality" from its list of diseases.

January 3, 1948

Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, shocking the nation with its revelation of the high incidence of same-sex acts among American men.

January 5, 1967

The Los Angeles homophile group Pride mobilizes a crowd of several hundred demonstrators on Sunset Boulevard to protest police raids on gay bars.

January 6, 1967

New York City's Civil Service Commission makes public its year-old policy of allowing city agencies to hire and employ lesbians and gay men. The new policy comes partly in response to Mattachine Society of New York lobbying efforts.

January 7, 1957

The board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union adopts a national policy upholding the constitutionality of state sodomy laws, stating "It is not within the province of the [organization] to evaluate the social validity of the laws aimed at the suppression or elimination of homosexuals."

January 9, 1991

Wishing to "respectfully distance" themselves from Derek Jarman's criticism of Ian McKellen for accepting a knighthood from the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, a large number of prominent gay and lesbian British artists "come out" in a public statement supporting McKellen in the Guardian, including Simon Callow, Nancy Diuguid, Stephen Fry, Alec McCowen, Cameron Mackintosh, Pam St. Clement, John Schlesinger, Antony Sher, Martin Sherman, Ned Sherrin, and Nick Wright.

January 12, 1977

An article in The Advocate reports that the CIA has files on about 300,000 people who have been arrested on charges relating to homosexuality.

January 17, 1971

The New, York Times Magazine includes a groundbreaking seven-page essay by writer Merle Miller entitled, "What It Means to Be a Homosexual."

January 31, 1975

The American Association for the Advancement of Science approves a resolution denouncing discrimination against lesbians and gay men.

The Gayback Machine

The GLBT Historical Society is digitizing their amazing audiovisual collections and putting them on the internet for you to see and hear. Check out their first offering, the entire run of the 1980s radio series The Gay Life. 

Amazing stuff!