Past events 2020

Many of our recent educational forums, programs and events have been recorded on video and are available for viewing online. Scroll down for information on these programs and links to video recordings.

Printmaking for Queer Social Justice

December 11, 2020

Speaker: Gabriela Martínez

Master printmaker Gabriela Martínez gave this special workshop on how printmaking can harness the power of visual language for social justice and activism. Participants were introduced to the basics of printmaking using common, accessible materials. The workshop began by establishing a visual vocabulary using personal, political and culturally relevant symbols and slogans based on our online exhibition Angela Davis: Outspoken. Because this event was a virtual, hands-on workshop featuring individual instruction, guidance and feedback, capacity was limited to 20 attendees.

Paper Bullets: How Two Lesbian Artists Defied the Nazis

November 13, 2020

Speaker: Jeffrey H. Jackson

Historian Jeffrey H. Jackson discusses his new book Paper Bullets (Algonquin Books, 2020), documenting the exciting true story of an audacious anti-Nazi campaign undertaken by a lesbian couple, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe. Better remembered today by their artist names, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, these avant-garde artists spent their formative years in Paris creating shocking photographs that undermined gender roles. After the Nazis occupied the British Channel Island of Jersey, where the women made their home, they drew on their creative skills to write and secretly distribute “paper bullets”—notes replete with wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel and subversive fictional dialogues designed to demoralize the occupying troops. Devising their own psyhcological-operations campaign, they slipped their notes into soldiers’ pockets or tucked them inside newsstand magazines. Betrayed and captured by the secret police, they were executed after months of imprisonment in 1944.

Podcasting LGBTQ History, Part II

November 6, 2020

Speakers: Huw Lemmey, Ben Miller, Rick Oculto (Moderator), Morgan M. Page, Leigh Pfeffer, Sally Thiam

With the advent of more digital media than ever before, people are finding new ways to learn about LGBTQ history and culture, including the podcast. In the last several years, there has been an explosion in the number of queer voices in podcasting, a powerful tool and medium for teaching LGBTQ history in an accessible, intimate way. In the second of our two-part conversation, prominent queer podcasters whose shows cover the broad spectrum of LGBTQ history share their experiences, perspectives and tips on how queer history can be shared beyond the classroom through podcasts that potentially reach a global audience.

Reunion: Making History: The GLBT Historical Society Annual Gala

October 16, 2020

Hosts: Peaches Christ, Marga Gomez

Reunion: Making History was an evening of powerful performances, inspiring presentations and a heartfelt celebration of LGBTQ history makers. Through virtual tables and ticket sales, sponsorships, the auction and the live donations, the events raised more than $100,000 to support our archives, museum and other public history programs. Watch the complete video of the broadcast here.

Podcasting LGBTQ History, Part I

October 7, 2020

Speakers: Jason Best, Alice Y. Hom, Eric Marcus, Alice McInnes, Rick Oculto (moderator), Leigh Pfeffer

With the advent of more digital media than ever before, people are finding new ways to learn about LGBTQ history and culture, including the podcast. In the last several years, there has been an explosion in the number of queer voices in podcasting, a powerful tool and medium for teaching LGBTQ history in accessible, intimate way. In the first of a two-part conversation, prominent queer podcasters whose shows cover the broad spectrum of LGBTQ history share their experiences, perspectives and tips on how queer history can be shared beyond the classroom through podcasts that potentially reach a global audience.

Mighty Real: A Celebration of Sylvester

September 16, 2020

Speaker: Ramón Silvestre

To celebrate the birthday of the iconic San Francisco disco diva Sylvester (1947–1988), this event highlighted the GLBT Historical Society’s archival holdings documenting the singer’s life and times. The society’s registrar Ramón Silvestre presented some of the Sylvester-related objects in our Art & Artifacts Collection. We also showed clips of some of our archival footage, including a scarce video of the diva’s 40th birthday celebration in 1987. This footage features some moving clips of Sylvester performing sentimental standards backed by a jazz band.

Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic

September 12, 2020

Speakers: Richard McKay, Gerard Koskovich

The search for a “patient zero”—popularly understood to be the first person infected in an epidemic—has been key to media coverage of major infectious-disease outbreaks for more than three decades. Yet the term itself did not exist before the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. At this event, historian Richard A. McKay read selections from his book Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic (Chicago University Press, 2017) which examined how this idea came to exert such a strong grip on the scientific, media and popular consciousness. The book, which used materials in the GLBT Historical Society’s archives, focuses on the life of Gaëtan Dugas, a gay man who received widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as patient zero of the North American AIDS outbreak. McKay also engaged in a conversation with historian Gerard Koskovich about his archival research and took audience questions.

Leaving a Legacy: Financial Estate Planning

September 4, 2020

Speaker: Alma Soongi Beck

Careful financial planning ensures that our legacies live on by providing for our spouses, partners, children, relatives and friends. The second event in our two-part series offering estate-planning tools and resources for LGBTQ people, this workshop focused on a range of financial-planning strategies and instruments. Attorney Alma Soongi Beck discussed wills, living trusts, powers of attorney, marriage and domestic partnership considerations, document language for nonbinary and transgender people, property tax and co-ownership issues for unmarried couples who are not domestic partners.

Leaving a Legacy: Archival Estate Planning

August 28, 2020

Speakers: Kelsi Evans, Isaac Fellman

The items we collect and produce over a lifetime tell a unique story about who we are, what we value and the impact we have had over the course of our lives. The first event in a two-part series offering estate-planning tools and resources, this workshop focused on how to prepare personal papers, photographs, objects, ephemera and other materials for possible donation to archives. Archivists at the GLBT Historical Society shared recommendations on preparing and organizing your personal archival materials and provided an overview of the considerations involved in intellectual-property transfer, focusing on areas of particular concern for LGBTQ people.

Revisiting Gay USA: A Community Experience

August 21, 2020

Speakers: Robert Baez, Jenni Olson, Don Romesburg

This event was a screening and discussion of Arthur J. Bressan Jr.’s groundbreaking 1977 documentary Gay USA, which vibrantly captured Gay Freedom Day marches and celebrations in June 1977 across the country. The film was beautifully restored in 2018 by the University of California, Los Angeles Film and Television Archive in collaboration with Frameline and Outfest. Film historian Jenni Olson, who guided the restoration of the film, and LGBTQ historian Don Romesburg, who co-curated the society’s online exhibition about the first decade of San Francisco Pride, led a conversation and Q&A session after the screening.

Due to copyright issues, we are unable to include the film screening itself in this video recording, but the rest of the program’s content is available.

No More Silence: Digital Community Histories of HIV/AIDS

August 11, 2020

Speakers: Anirvan Chatterjee, Kelsi Evans, Clair Kronk, Charles Macquarie, Krü Maekdo, K.J. Rawson

No More Silence is an ongoing project of the University of California, San Francisco’s Archives and Special Collections. The project extracts text from digitized archival materials related to HIV/AIDS—including documents from individuals, activist and community-support organizations, medical institutions and government agencies—for use in digital-humanities projects, with the aim of bridging the gap between the empirical, scientific study of the disease and the lived experience of people with AIDS. UCSF organized a three-part workshop from August 12 to 14, 2020 that introduced participants to basic computer-programming skills to perform work in digital history. Participants at the workshop applied these skills to historical documents in the collections of the UCSF archives and the GLBT Historical Society.

This joint event organized by the GLBT Historical Society and the UCSF Archives provided an overview of the No More Silence project. A panel discussion discussed the ways that archives and digital-humanities initiatives can support community-history efforts related to gender and sexual orientation, illuminating digital tools and techniques that can further uncover hidden narratives in these histories. The event also served as an orientation to the workshop.

The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot & the Legacy of Police Violence

August 5, 2020

Speakers: Collette LeGrande, Donna Personna, Victor Silverman, Susan Stryker, Shane Zeldivar

Three years before the Stonewall uprising in New York, the August 1966 riot at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district occurred when drag queens and transgender women fought back against police harassment. A watershed moment in LGBTQ history that was almost forgotten, the riot was rediscovered by researchers in the GLBT Historical Society’s archives decades later. This event, co-presented with the Tenderloin Museum, commemorated the riot with a screening of Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman’s 2005 documentary Screaming Queens. The screening was followed by a panel discussion featuring historians, activists and Compton’s veterans who reflected on the history of this uprising in light of the ongoing problem of police violence and consider how communities can mobilize in response. The event also included discussion of the play The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, a 2018 theater piece commissioned by the Tenderloin Museum.

Dykes, Camera, Action! A History of Lesbian Cinema

July 31, 2020

This event featured a screening of director Caroline Berler’s 2018 documentary Dykes, Camera, Action!, which examines queer women’s cinema from the mid-twentieth century through the present. Lesbian filmmakers have used the cinema to build visibility and transform the social imagination about queerness. The documentary features filmmakers Barbara Hammer, Su Friedrich, Rose Troche, Cheryl Dunye, Yoruba Richen, Desiree Akhavan, Vicky Du, film critic B. Ruby Rich, Jenni Olson, and others as they share moving and often hilarious stories from their lives and discuss how they have expressed queer identity through film. The screening began with an introduction by Caroline Berler, and was followed by a prerecorded panel discussion with some of the interviewees, moderated by Jenni Olson.

Due to copyright issues, we are unable to include the screening itself in this video recording, but the rest of the program’s content is available.

The Evolution of Black LGBTQ Leadership

July 22, 2020

Speakers: Kylar W. Braudus, Bryce J. Celotto, Krü Maekdo, Crystal Mason, Preston Mitchum, Toni Newman, Imani Rupert-Gordon

Since the Compton’s Cafeteria riot of August 1966 in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco and the Stonewall riots in June 1969 in New York, Black LGBTQ leaders have been at the forefront of protest and revolutionary movements. Activists Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major protested in the streets, strategists such as Bayard Rustin worked behind the scenes to combat inequality and thought leaders like James Baldwin moved the intellectual conversation forward.

This panel will shed light on these revolutionary leaders, tracing the arc of justice from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to the burgeoning LGBTQ rights movement of the 1980s to the modern-day movement for Black lives. Foregrounding the significance of intersectionality and intersectional movements, a panel of today’s activists and movement leaders will share their own personal experiences, critical historical context and social commentary on racial and LGBTQ justice in America.

A Curators’ Tour of “Labor of Love: The Birth of San Francisco Pride, 1970–1980”

July 17, 2020

Speakers: Gerard Koskovich, Don Romesburg, Amy Sueyoshi

Join us for a virtual tour of our newest  online exhibition, “Labor of Love: The Birth of San Francisco Pride, 1970-1980.” The exhibition’s co-curators, Gerard Koskovich, Don Romesburg and Amy Sueyoshi, will lead a special guided tour of the exhibition, explaining their curatorial choices and demonstrating how San Francisco’s LGBTQ community forged the internationally renowned annual celebration that would come to be known as Pride.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 — The International AIDS Conference in San Francisco, 1990–2020

July 8, 2020

Thirty years ago, the Sixth International AIDS Conference was held in San Francisco at the height of the AIDS crisis. Activists and people with HIV from around the world confronted political and public health leaders, demanding action in response to the growing pandemic. A reunion of activists and attendees of the 1990 conference will provide opportunities for remembrance of the conference, and reflect on the conference's legacy and role during the COVID era. This event is scheduled during the 23rd International AIDS Conference, originally planned to be held in San Francisco and Oakland, which is now taking place online from July 6 to July 10.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 — Direct Action, Marching & Parading

June 24, 2020

Direct action, marching and taking to the streets have long been tactics used by the LGBTQ community to promote equality, and these methods were critical for drawing attention to the AIDS crisis and effecting change in public policy. But the epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic mandates social separation, not physical gathering. An intergenerational panel of community historians, veteran organizers and younger activists will discuss the history of direct action, marches and parades for advancing social justice in the fight against AIDS and discuss how these strategies are being adapted and deployed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Curating With Pride

June 21, 2020

The GLBT Historical Society currently has three Pride-related exhibitions mounted on its website: “Performance, Protest & Politics: The Art of Gilbert Baker,” “50 Years of Pride,” and, from June 15, “Labor of Love: The Birth of San Francisco Pride, 1970–1980.” This panel discussion brings together all of the curators of the three exhibitions to discuss their curatorial approaches and decisions. Using different sections of the online exhibitions as a guide, they will outline the themes they selected, discuss the curatorial lenses that informed their work and consider both the history and the future of Pride.

Celebrating 50 Years of Pride Through Art

June 18, 2020

Speakers: Win Mixter, Tina Valetin Aguirre, Marke Bieschke, Craig Corpora, Dorian Katz and Alvin Orloff.

Illustrator Win Mixter discusses how his research in the GLBT Historical Society archives provided inspiration for his artistic contribution to this year’s San Francisco Arts Commission “Art on Market Street” program theme, “Celebrating 50 Years of Gay Pride.” Mixter’s artwork recognizes 18 unique people, places, and protests from the pre-Stonewall era through the present in a series of black and white drawings. His intention is to recenter the narrative of our June Pride celebrations on the original principles of resistance and rebellion. This talk will feature community members offering their reflections on five of the chosen subjects, including Craig Corpora on Jerome Caja; Dorian Katz on the Center for Sex & Culture; Marke Bieschke on the 1990 ACT UP protests; Tina Valentin Aguirre on Teresita La Campesina; and Alvin Orloff on Klubsitute.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 — Being Transgender in a Pandemic

June 17, 2020

Speakers: Eva Hayward, Aiden Helstrom, Janetta Johnson, Toni Newman. Moderator: Terry Beswick.

During the height of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S., transgender people were often underrepresented in HIV prevention campaigns, services, clinical research and access to care. And to this day, as we confront the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the transgender community are more likely to experience unemployment, homelessness and inadequate access to health care. Sheltering-In-Place may lead to conflict with transphobic family members or housemates and has curtailed access to relevant health care, including transition-related treatments. A panel of activists, healthcare specialists and community historians will consider how the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s affected the transgender community and identify strategies to provide support to transgender people during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 — No on 64! Testing, Contact Tracing & Quarantine

June 10, 2020

Speakers: Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammed, Matt Coles, Ernest Hopkins, Jon Jacobo, Diane Jones, Tim Wolfred. Moderator: Terry Beswick

In the early years of the HIV epidemic, mandatory testing, contact tracing and quarantine were hot-button issues rife with implications for civil rights, particularly given that the disease targeted marginalized groups already struggling for equal protections under the law. As with COVID-19, politics often threatened to trump public health science, and while mandatory quarantine of AIDS patients had to be defeated at the ballot box in California in the 1980's, testing became a core prevention tool, and contact tracing also gained scientific support as an effective disease prevention methodology. How do these experiences translate to SARS CoV-2? What are the implications of testing, contact tracing and quarantine for civil rights and disease prevention? A panel of HIV-prevention workers, COVID-19 prevention specialists and community historians will tackle these questions and more.

Beyond the Rainbow: Queer Symbology, History & Flag-Making

June 5, 2020

Speakers: Leigh Pfeffer, Lena Heller

This presentation and workshop dives into the rich history of symbols that have represented and been used within the LGBTQ community, just in time for Pride! Participants will learn about the history and evolution of queer symbols before and after the creation of Gilbert Baker’s rainbow flag. The workshop will encourage participants to invent and design their own flags and representative symbols, using the art materials of their choice at home.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 – Harm Reduction: Managing Risk & Social Needs

June 3, 2020

Speakers: Kenyon Farrow, Keiko Lane, Derrick Mapp, Laura Thomas, Monique Tula Moderator: Terry Beswick.

SARS-CoV-2 is not HIV. But can the hard-won lessons of HIV prevention help fight this new virus? As of June 1, most of us have been sheltering in place, or at least facing restrictions on our activities, for ten weeks or more. Psychologists have cautioned that the indefinite curtailment of our ability to socialize—at work, with friends, and at community-based hobbies—is not sustainable from a mental-health perspective. As different states and jurisdictions gradually loosen restrictions, how can we promote ongoing safe public-health initiatives while not giving up on all the activities and interactions that make life worth living? A panel of community historians, harm-reduction experts and AIDS educators will consider what harm-reduction and risk-management strategies from the AIDS crisis might point our way forward as our responses to COVID-19 continue to evolve.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 — Treatment & Research Activism

May 27, 2020

Speakers: George M. Carter, Liz Highleyman, Brenda Lein, Matt Sharp and Jeff Taylor. Moderator: Terry Beswick

In the 1980s and 1990s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S.—and the federal government's woefully inadequate response—led to a new paradigm of empowerment led by people with HIV/AIDS and supporters. They fought for and won radical improvements to everything from research funding and improved design of clinical research, to early access to investigational therapies, to more equitable treatment-access programs. A panel of activists, policymakers, researchers and historians will examine how the lessons learned from fighting for HIV/AIDS treatment and research might help in the fight against COVID-19.

Coming of Age No More: AIDS Activism and Writing About Sex

May 21, 2020

Speakers: Eric C. Wat, Daniel Bao

In spite of the attendant stigma, Asian and Pacific Islander AIDS activists in the 1990s brazenly talked about gay sex, even in immigrant communities that were supposedly averse to discussing such topics. In this event, writer Eric C. Wat will discuss how AIDS activism influences his writing, read from his novel SWIM (Permanent Press, 2019) and share his ongoing work on a community memoir about API AIDS activism in Los Angeles. He’ll be joined by veteran AIDS activist Daniel Bao. This program is cosponsored by API Equality-Northern California, Kearny Street Workshop and Uncles Social Club.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 — Housing Insecurity & Public Health

May 20, 2020

Speakers: Brett Andrews, Jennifer Friedenbac, Margot Kushel, Nick Large, Rafael Mandelman. Moderator: Terry Beswick

What about the homeless? The crisis of homelessness is nothing new in the Bay Area and throughout the U.S., and has paralleled the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with many people with HIV/AIDS also experiencing homelessness. An intergenerational panel of housing advocates, policymakers and historians will discuss how society responded to homelessness in the context of the AIDS epidemic, and how these experiences might inform the response to the COVID-19 homeless crisis today.

Unruly Desires: American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail

May 15, 2020

Speaker: William Benemann

In early nineteenth-century America, the rapid expansion of the maritime industry created an all-male environment where sexual activity was tolerated, and at times even ritualized. The United States Navy adopted rules of conduct based on those of the Royal Navy, but specifically deleted proscriptions against sodomy and buggery. Drawing on a wide variety of archival resources, including diaries, memoirs, business correspondence, court-martial reports, pornography and religious tracts, author William Benemann’s new book Unruly Desires: American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail reconstructs this rare nineteenth-century queer space. Benemann will discuss his research and read selections from the book.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 — The Role of Art & Artists in a Pandemic, Part II

May 13, 2020

Speakers: Joseph Abbati, Lenore Chinn, Katie Conry, E.G. Crichton, Leo Herrera. Moderator: Terry Beswick.

What about art? This second panel on the role of art and artists in a pandemic continues the discussion of our April 8 event. An intergenerational panel of Bay Area artists and curators will gather to explore ways in which artists responded to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and how these experiences might inform artistic responses to COVID-19 today. Panelists will also discuss the personal and cultural impacts of living through a pandemic, and how these impacts might constrain or inspire the creative process.

Our “Fighting Back” series is an intergenerational discussion that brings together community leaders, experts, historians and activists to explore lessons from the past that might be useful in formulating “resistance” efforts today.

Fighting Back: Lessons from AIDS for COVID-19 — Pandemic Sex

May 6, 2020

Speakers: Race Bannon, Eric Cervini, Luis Gutierrez-Mock, Celestina Pearl, Brenden Shucart. Moderator: Terry Beswick.

What about sex? The AIDS epidemic transformed the way that members of the LGBTQ community—and indeed people around the globe—discussed and practiced sexual activity. Technology has radically changed the ways that people meet. And now, COVID-19. A panel of sex educators, activists and a historian will consider how we find connection, sex and love in the era of coronavirus, applying lessons learned from HIV/AIDS prevention efforts to help strategize safer-sex options in the present. Some questions to be considered include: What does the pandemic mean for single queers or people in open or polyamorous relationships? What is the future of hookup culture and phone apps? What about bars? How is the pandemic affecting sex workers?

“Fighting Back” is an intergenerational discussion that brings together community leaders, experts, historians and activists to explore lessons from the past that might be useful in formulating “resistance” efforts today.

Living Room, Reading Room: Exploring Archives From Home

April 30, 2020

Speakers: Kelsi Evans and Isaac Fellman.

Archives are tied to a physical place, so how can we use them from home? Sit down with GLBT Historical Society archivists Kelsi Evans and Isaac Fellman, and we'll give you a tour of our rich online collections, share catalog search tips to help you plan your next visit, and explain some of the ways we're working right now to make home research easier for you. We'll also show you a few great online resources from other archives. Whether you're working on a research project, find yourself with the time to explore a personal obsession, or are just curious to see some unusual pieces of queer history, the archivists are still here to support you.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 — Confronting the Stigma of Disease

April 29, 2020

Speakers: Harry Breaux, Vincent Crisostomo, Eric C. Wat, Sammie Ablaza Wills. Moderator: Terry Beswick.

In the 1980s, the emergence of HIV in the U.S. reinforced existing prejudices against gay and bisexual men, IV drug users, Haitians and other groups heavily impacted by the disease. Today, with the initial appearance of COVID-19 in China, incidents of violence and discrimination against Asians and Asian Americans have increased. Older people have also been stigmatized. An intergenerational panel of activists and community leaders will discuss the destructive phenomenon of stigmatization in epidemics, and how the lessons of the AIDS crisis may be relevant to COVID-19 today.

“Fighting Back” is an intergenerational discussion that brings together community leaders, experts, historians and activists to explore lessons from the past that might be useful in formulating “resistance” efforts today.

Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19 — Healthcare Workers on the Front Lines

April 22, 2020

Speakers: Alison Moed, Michelle Roland, Lance Toma and Guy Vandenberg. Moderator: Terry Beswick.

In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, healthcare workers were on the front lines fighting to save the lives of their patients stricken with an unknown, infectious disease. This panel brought together healthcare veterans and younger professionals to talk about providing care for people with HIV/AIDS and the lessons that might be applied with COVID-19.

“Fighting Back” is an intergenerational discussion that brings together community leaders, experts, historians and activists to explore lessons from the past that might be useful in formulating “resistance” efforts today.

Fighting Back / Lessons from AIDS for COVID-19: Building Community in a Pandemic

April 15, 2020

Speakers: John Bauters, Joe Hawkins, Gabe Quinto and Colette Winlock. Moderator: Terry Beswick.

Bay Area community leaders, mental-health specialists and historians discussed the opportunities for and challenges facing community-building during the ever-growing COVID-19 crisis. What lessons have members of our community learned from the HIV/AIDS crisis that we can apply to our current health emergency? How do we prioritize self-care in the midst of a pandemic? Let’s channel our feelings of anxiety, fear and anger into productive action as we discuss ways to build community while in isolation. This program was co-organized and co-hosted by the East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club and the GLBT Historical Society.

“Fighting Back” is an intergenerational discussion that brings together community leaders, experts, historians and activists to explore lessons from the past that might be useful in formulating “resistance” efforts today.

Fighting Back | Lessons from AIDS for COVID-19: Art & Artists in a Pandemic

April 8, 2020

Speakers: Joseph Abbati, Lenore Chinn, Katie Conry, E.G. Crichton and Leo Herrera. Moderated by Terry Beswick.

Second in our weekly online panel discussions, “Fighting Back: Lessons From AIDS for COVID-19,” the April 8 forum looked at “The Role of Art and Artists in a Pandemic.” An intergenerational panel of Bay Area artists came together to explore ways in which artists responded to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and how these experiences might inform artistic responses to COVID-19 today. Panelists also discussed the personal and cultural impacts of living through a pandemic, and how these impacts might constrain or inspire the creative process.

“Fighting Back” is an intergenerational discussion that brings together community leaders, experts, historians and activists to explore lessons from the past that might be useful in formulating “resistance” efforts today.

Tales from the OUTWORDS Archive: Lesser-Known Stories of LGBTQ Activism

April 2, 2020

Speakers: Marcus Arana, Al Baum, Blackberri, Donna Sachet, and Kitty Tsui. Moderated by Mason Funk.

The OUTWORDS Archive is the first national effort to capture in-depth, professional quality, on-camera interviews with the full spectrum of LGBTQ pioneers and elders. So far, OUTWORDS has conducted more than 140 interviews in 26 states, including a robust cohort of subjects in the Bay Area. Some interviewees are better known to the public than others, but all played fascinating, important roles in struggle for queer rights and representation. In this program, OUTWORDS founder and Executive Director Mason Funk and a panel of OUTWORDS supporters and participants led a fascinating online conversation featuring clips from the completed interviews and a lively discussion of the enduring meaning and importance of these stories.

Fighting Back | Lessons from AIDS for COVID-19: Direct Action & Government Response

April 1, 2020

Speakers: Gerard Koskovich, Brenda Lein, Lito Sandoval, and Matt Sharp. Moderated by Terry Beswkick.

This first program in the GLBT Historical Society’s relaunch of the “Fighting Back” series brought together San Francisco ACT UP veterans to discuss what direct-action protest strategies were effective during the 1980s and 1990s and consider how these might be adapted during an epidemic that requires us to shelter in place.

“Fighting Back” is an intergenerational discussion that brings together veteran and younger LGBTQ community leaders to discuss how the struggles of the past inform our present. The new series focused on identifying what lessons and strategies from the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic may help us understand and respond to COVID-19.

Two Thousand Years of LGBTQ Jewish History

March 30, 2020

Speaker: Noam Sienna

What is the place of LGBTQ Jews in history? Over the past two years Noam Sienna, a doctoral candidate in Jewish history and museum studies at the University of Minnesota, has been compiling documents that suggest answers to that question. His new book, A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts From the First Century to 1969 (Print-O-Craft Press, 2019), is the first anthology of queer Jewish history. The collection brings together over 100 sources on the intersection of Jewish and queer identities that span two millennia and have been translated from more than a dozen languages. In this presentation, Sienna read selections from this groundbreaking collection, demonstrating that queerness and queer Judaism have been a constant subplot of Jewish history.

Following Lou: Searching the Archives for Our Queer Past

February 27, 2020

Speakers: Ms. Bob Davis, Isaac Fellman, Frances Hocutt, Ellis Martin and Zach Ozma

Louis 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, 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. In this discussion, Martin and Ozma read excerpts from Sullivan’s diaries and discuss the complex issues involved in queer historical storytelling.

Beyond the Rainbow: Queer Symbology Before and After Gilbert Baker

January 2, 2020

Speaker: Leigh Pfeffer

This presentation and workshop led by GLBT Historical Society Museum Operations Manager Leigh Pfeffer explores the symbols that have represented that LGBTQ community before and after Gilbert Baker’s iconic, globally adopted rainbow flag. Participants will learn about the history and evolution of queer symbols, including the flags that have been inspired by and developed since the rainbow flag debuted in 1978. In addition, participants will have an opportunity to invent and design their own flags and symbols using paper, textiles and other materials. This program takes place in conjunction with the exhibition “Performance, Protest and Politics: The Art of Gilbert Baker,” currently on display at the GLBT Historical Society Museum.