GLBT History Museum, Nation's First Gay Museum, Opens in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO — The nation's first gay museum opening in San Francisco's Castro district showcases a variety of items ranging from Harvey Milk's pink-framed sunglasses to manuscripts and sex toys.

The 1,600-square-foot museum, opening Wednesday, chronicles the evolution of what organizers call the liberation of the gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Milk's sunglasses displayed in the GLBT History Museum are a tribute to the late San Francisco supervisor, who was the first elected openly gay politician in California.

GLBT Historical Society executive director Paul Boneberg told the San Francisco Chronicle the society has a five-year lease for a formerly empty storefront.

The society is relying on donations and volunteers to keep the museum open.

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Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle

Comments

[Holly Chats]

12:51 PM on 01/23/2011

Outstanding News - I just caught this story on the Washington, DC news. Wishing the Museum all the very best. I really want to become involved with them. I just wrote to them, hope they reply back... Think it's time to move out west...

~Holly

[dmezz1962]

01:17 AM on 01/20/2011

OMG what's next a bestiality museum? If one tax dollar went to this someone should sue the Government. I have nothing against Gay people but OMG please this is a bit too much. It seems we have to treat gay people as if they were some race and if we don't then we are racist.

I really can't say if this is a choice or your born that way I don't see why we have to (pardon the pun) bend over backwards to treat gay people like they were once slaves and we did them wrong somehow.

Last time I looked they were treated the same way America treated the Irish in the 1890's or the Italians in the 1920's or the Japanese in the 1940's Yea we treated them like Chit but they never said we needed to treat them like a race. We never treated them the way the African people were treated.

Again if it's privately funded then I have no problem but if one tax dollar went to this or they got some 5 year sweetheart deal from the city to rent the property then that's just garbage

[carnitine]

11:51 PM on 01/19/2011

WTF..are you frakking kidding me? I can't be the only one who thinks it's insane that where you stick you private parts doesn't mean you deserves a museum

[dmezz1962]

01:24 AM on 01/20/2011

Where is the Museum for the Black man who wanted to date white woman? I am sure they had more prejudiced shown against them than any gay person in History. Sorry the south were stringing up Black men for dating white woman.

If tax dollars went to this or the government gave them a 5 year sweetheart deal for the lease then that's BS

Sorry you were made fun of but OMG go through the USA history we did it to the Irish, the Italians, the Japanese, the Indians you are no different than they were. BUT for some reason gay people think they are a race? WTF

[nongrata]

02:03 AM on 01/20/2011

Wow so your comparing a sexual act to a race of people, wow..unbelievable

[palainausa]

11:15 AM on 01/15/2011

Just tell me that no tax dollars were diverted from the Lawrence Welk Museum!!!

[CrazyThisIs]

05:03 PM on 01/14/2011

Do we have any other museums around the world?

[GKoskovich]

01:43 AM on 01/15/2011

The one other stand-alone, permanent LGBT museum with multiple galleries, a museum store, and an ongoing program of long-term and changing exhibitions is the Schwules Museum in Berlin: http://www.schwulesmuseum.de/. A number of other LGBT archives and libraries in the United States and elsewhere offer periodic exhibitions in the same location as their collections -- or in space borrowed occasionally from other organizations.

[CrazyThisIs]

01:58 AM on 01/15/2011

Fantastic! Thanks too, for the link. I'll start at that website and check for further information on the web. Happy to have a starting point.

[MsVella]

07:55 AM on 01/13/2011

Awesome!!

[GKoskovich]

10:32 PM on 01/12/2011

As one of the curators for the exhibition in the main gallery at the new GLBT History Museum in San Francisco, I'd like to pass along my album of photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=335532&id=688819866&l=7fe9a9164f. (Although the album is on Facebook, it's accessible even to those without a Facebook account.)

Our three lead curators and seven associate curators worked for nearly nine months putting together this show -- but we couldn't possible tell all the stories we would have liked to tell. The exhibitions in the front gallery of the museum will be changing quarterly, and in the main gallery, they'll be changing annually -- so visitors can look forward to the museum presenting many themes not addressed in the first two shows.

By the way, the photo published by Huffington Post does not portray our museum.

[CharlieJG]

07:26 PM on 01/12/2011

First, this article really minimizes the impressive array of exhibits that will be on display. Here's what the museum's press release lists:

Finding Our Hidden Histories
Consuming Queers: The GLBT Marketplace
The Strategy of Equality
Body Politics: Questioning the Ideal
Adrienne Fuzee: Queer Arts Visionary
Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon: Progressive Pioneers
Drag: Fashioning Our Existence
On the Margin: Queers & Poverty
Queers of Color Organizing
Lou Sullivan: A Life Transformed
Jiro Onuma: Undocumented/Documented
Bar Life: Going Out
Bathhouses: Coming Together or Waiting Outside?
Lesbian Sex Wars
Leather: Dark Desires, Public Pleasures
Erotica: Drawn Out
Sex Toys: Implementing Erotic Expression
Out of the Closets & Into the Streets
Military Matters: Divergent Duties
Bois Burk: Under Surveillance
Bearing the Scars: Violence & Trauma
HIV/AIDS: Grief, Solidarity, Determination
Tales of Our City

Second, sexuality and sexual freedom have always been central to the gay community and there's no reason to be ashamed of that. As one of the staff at Good Vibrations and as a sexologist, I've seen our erotic heritage get swept under the rug by people who want to pretend it doesn't exist. I'm thrilled that the museum is showing it as it really is- one facet of a vibrant and rich community. There's no reason to hide it anymore.

[carter2004]

06:17 PM on 01/12/2011

Sex toys? Sex toys?!?!?

To my fellow LGBT people who insist on nonsense like this: THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.

The image of the gay person as an over-sexed, opposite-gender role stereotype is a STRAIGHT PERSON'S idea of what we are supposed to be. It is why they are so flummoxed at the concept that we have things like families, marriages, and children.

Hey, sex is one of the great things about life. But we HAVE to stop this cultural self-destruction in front of (and at the direction of) straight people. Does that mean we hold ourselves to a higher standard in order to ward off unfair stereotypes. Yes, but that is so much better than our current alternative.

KNOCK IT OFF and start acting like grown-ups.

[neighborhoodmole]

01:00 AM on 01/14/2011

Sort of like the Japanese Americans in the internment camps who felt the need to be super patriotic to the country that imprisoned them?

[kv3854]

10:54 AM on 01/14/2011

As an LGBT-ally - I say screw what straight people find to be in good taste. Straight folk that discriminate against gays or hold stereotypes against the gay community will do it whether or not you have museums with sex toys in them.

Certainly there is more to any person than their sexuality - and our sexuality should not wholly define us - but it doesn't mean you have to hide or otherwise shun overt sexuality.

I hope to live in a world where all people can freely talk about sexuality as if it isn't something that should be hidden from the world.

[carter2004]

01:19 PM on 01/14/2011

I agree that sexuality isn't something to be ashamed of, and gay sexuality in particular is something that is sorely missing from popular American dialogue. But the fact is that embracing a culturally-created stereotype does nothing to accomplish that, and in fact hurts the efforts of those of us who are fighting those stereotypes in our day-to-day lives.

Do you think your average red stater sees a rational discussion of human sexuality when they look at an exhibit about sex toys? Or do you think they see something that confirms their own biases and beliefs? Do you think that person would react the same way to a frank, open discussion about Stonewall or Harvey Milk (about which they have markedly less knowledge and experience)? There's a huge disconnect in the way we are trying to present ourselves. We can only ask for respect from others when we are willing to show it for ourselves.

Admittedly, my reaction to this story yesterday was fueled by anger at an ER nurse, who could not bring herself to acknowledge the fact that my husband and I are indeed married, and kept using the term "partner" throughout our discussion, even after being corrected. This kind of thing happens because people see us as somehow different from a straight married couple. If we parade around with details of sex life that straight people don't share, aren't we kind of proving them right?

[SolarPowerGuy]

03:54 PM on 01/12/2011

Ask your average Teabagger, all museums are gay.

[Titanshanks]

03:19 PM on 01/12/2011

Is this really the first? That's astounding.

I'd also really like to know whether the sex toys mentioned constitute a major part of the museum or just an exhibit or two. In the latter case, fine--if there is a museum based on the history of love, I'd be disappointed to see great sex glossed over. If it's a major part of the museum, I'd consider that unfortunate.

The article makes the museum sound trivial, and I'm very curious to know whether that reflects the writer or the museum.

[Contact1972]

02:16 PM on 01/12/2011

I'd love to see it

[Jdaddy1951]

02:12 PM on 01/12/2011

I'm disappointed that the early exhibits include such superficial entries when the reality of gay history is so much more diverse and interesting. Perhaps further down the line, they will focus on gay writers like James Baldwin and Truman Capote and there will be exhibits on the long neglected civil rights leaders Harry Hay and Bayard Rustin. Maybe an exhibit on the wonderful lesbian and bisexual blues singers of the Harlem Renaissance like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith?

It's a good start, but it does sound like just someone's gay uncle's memorabilia from the old days before the AIDS holocaust.

[DevonTexas]

02:04 PM on 01/12/2011

Cool.

[Jerry Pritikin]

01:46 PM on 01/12/2011

It's better then nothing, but an insult to people like me... a pioneer in the gay rights movement as an activist, photographer and publicist... to have been left out. When the Hormel SF wing of the Main Library opened their Gay Rights Exhibit. I was told they were not interested in any of my memorabilia, or photographs for their repository. The same has applied to the S.F. Gay Historical Society. They fail to communicate, because they are not professionals... yet use dictatorship in doing business, as if it were there own company. Take a peek at
www.thecastro.net/street/memoriespage/pritikin/pritikin.html to see what I had to offer.