FINALLY: GLBT history finds permanent home in San Francisco!

San Francisco's Castro District may still be licking its wounds after The Advocate, declared early this year that San Francisco is no longer "the gayest city in America." They give that title to Atlanta, Georgia.

But San Francisco is home to the first gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender historical museum in the country, and only the second such museum in the world (the first is in Berlin).

With California's statewide Harvey Milk Day coming up this Sunday, May 22, KALW News sent Steven Short to check out the museum. Here's his report.

STEVEN SHORT: If all you know about gay culture is what you see at annual gay pride parades - namely, men in too little clothing or too much mascara, and Dykes on Bikes - then you might learn something by visiting San Francisco's new Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, Transgender Historical Museum, in the heart of the city's Castro neighborhood.

AMY SUEYOSHI: I think what this museum really does is to talk about sexuality, particularly queer sexuality, as a social and political process.

Amy Sueyoshi is one of three curators for the current main exhibit, titled "Our Vast Queer Past." She says one of the museum's goals is to "normalize sexuality." But these displays also try to address broader issues.

SUEYOSHI: It's also very much an issue of social justice. Not just around issues of sexuality, but also for folks of color, for immigrants. The ways in which people of marginalized sexuality have also aligned with other marginalized communities in America makes this very much a story of social justice.

Supervisor Milk was assassinated in his City Hall office, less than a year after his election. Last year, the State of California designated May 22 as Harvey Milk Day, in his honor. TIME magazine includes him on their list of "Heroes and Icons of the Twentieth Century."

The museum includes video and audio excerpts from groundbreaking gay rights demonstrations and parades, matchbooks from many early gay bars, and even a few sex toys. Visitors can see the sedate outfits worn by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon when they received the first same-sex marriage certificates in San Francisco, along with Harvey Milk's flamboyant pink sunglasses.

More poignant than such public materials, however, are what appear to be mundane showings of home movies made by "regular people" prior to the Gay Liberation Movement. Nothing racy here, just picnics and swim parties.
The GLBT History Museum hopes that putting this once-hidden movement on display can help visitors - whether gay or not - to better understand gay life. And perhaps that understanding will even lead to acceptance.