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The GLBT Historical Society

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The GLBT Historical Society

We preserve and share one of the largest collections of LGBTQ historic materials ever assembled.
(1073)

The GLBT Historical Society Museum in San Francisco’s Castro District — a project of the GLBT Historical Society — is the first stand-alone museum of its kind in the United States. The museum currently features a long-term exhibition, "Queer Past Becomes Present,” as well as changing exhibitions in the Community Gallery.

05/26/2026

You're invited! Join us this Thursday for a FREE after-hours reception honoring Blake Cedric, the artist behind this year's Juanita More's Pride Party artwork.

Toast with us at this Pride Month kick-off, explore our latest exhibition, Directory of Dreams, and mix and mingle with your community — all while supporting the GLBT Historical Society, this year's beneficiary of Juanita's annual Pride Party & fundraiser.

📆Thursday, May 28
🕓5pm–7pm
📍GLBT Historical Society Museum

Space is limited — don't miss it!

Learn more about the artist & get tickets to this special event: www.glbthistory.org/events/blake-cedric

05/22/2026

Today is Harvey Milk Day. As the first openly gay elected official in California, Harvey figures prominently in our archival collections, which contain materials illuminating the life of this iconic figure of LGBTQ+ history: campaign flyers, personal letters, photographs, and ephemera that offer a deeper connection and insight into the man who forever changed a movement.

As Pride Month approaches, there is no better moment to reflect on his legacy and what his advocacy and optimism mean for our fight today.

Explore our archival holdings and discover the history that continues to inspire: glbthistory.org/primary-source-set-harvey-milk.

📷 Header: Supervisor Harvey Milk in a white t-shirt during a parade. Crawford Wayne Barton Collection (1993-11), GLBT Historical Society.
📷 Lower: Harvey Milk addressing a crowd from the stage, 1978 San Francisco Gay Day Parade. Marie Ueda Papers (2006-12), GLBT Historical Society.
📷 Poster: Tribute poster to Harvey Milk. GLBT Historical Society Poster Collection, No. 0028.

05/20/2026

Digital Collection Spotlight: The Victoria Schneider Papers document Schneider's lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco and her engagement with the public during the case.

Explore this collection and others at glbthistory.org/digital-collections

In 1997, inters*x activist and s*x worker Victoria Schneider successfully sued the city after being unlawfully strip searched during her booking at the San Francisco County Jail. Her papers — including letters, photographs, newspaper clippings, and ephemera — are now available through our digital collections, digitized in partnership with the Digital Transgender Archive.

📷 Photo 1: Victoria Schneider walking in a parade on San Francisco's Market Street, presumably a Pride event. She holds a flag for the s*x workers' organization Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE). Victoria Schneider Papers, GLBT Historical Society.

📷 Photo 2: An article from the San Francisco Examiner about the arrest and court case of inters*x s*x worker Victoria Schneider. Victoria Schneider Papers, GLBT Historical Society.

05/03/2026

🌈 Pride began as a protest. The first march in San Francisco was explicitly political — a direct response to police violence and state persecution. Fifty years later, it had floats sponsored by banks, tech companies, and beer brands. In recent years, the climate has shifted, and our community has come under renewed attack across the country, with many companies retreating from their embrace of the rainbow.

Join Unspeakable Vice's Shawn Sprockett, along with Suzanne Ford (Executive Director of SF Pride), Elizabeth Hudy (Founder of The Peach Fuzz), Laura Thomas (Senior Director at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation & Society Board Member), and others to be announced, for an in-conversation event at the GLBT Historical Society Museum.

The panel will ask the question that activists have been raising since the 1970s: what does it mean when your liberation becomes a marketing strategy?

🏳️‍🌈 Selling The Rainbow: When The Market Adopts & Drops A Movement
📅 Thursday, May 21st at 6:30pm
📍 GLBT Historical Society Museum
🎟️ $15 General Admission | Free for Society Members!

Get tickets today — glbthistory.org/events.

04/22/2026

Le***an Visibility Week is here — and we're uplifting collections, exhibitions, and special events that spotlight le***an history.

🌙 Late Night at the Museum — Thursday, April 23, 5–8 PM. Visit the museum after hours, enjoy late-night beats, light bites, and experience Directory of Dreams: Bay Area Le***an Economies and Radical Care, 1970–1995 — curated and co-presented by the Bay Area Le***an Archives — with your friends and loved ones.

🌸 Sapphic Saturday — Saturday, April 25. The museum opens its doors for an additional day of free admission to explore the rich, dynamic history of our community.

Learn more at glbthistory.org/events — link in bio.

Image 1: Visitors in the Gallery viewing Directory of Dreams at the GLBT Historical Society Museum.
Image 2: Courtesy of the Bay Area Le***an Archives, Brick Hut Cafe Collection. Photo by Ace Morgan.

***anVisibilityWeek

04/14/2026

What can the spatial histories of LGBTQ+ communities teach us about cities — and resistance?

Drawing on archival research and community narratives, architectural historian Stathis G. Yeros presents "Q***ring Urbanism: Insurgent Spaces in the Fight for Justice", which traces how q***r people, often excluded from formal planning and policy, have reshaped urban life by appropriating everyday spaces and building networks of collective resistance.

This reading & conversation will explore the Women's Building of the Bay Area, gentrification's impact on LGBTQ+ communities of color, and ongoing struggles to preserve q***r spaces as sites of radical possibility.

📅 Thursday, May 7 | 6–8 PM
📍 GLBT Historical Society Museum, 4127 18th St.
🎟 $10 General Adm | Free for Society members!

Get your tickets ➡ visit glbthistory.org/events

04/10/2026

What an evening! Last night's presentation of The Castro: The Story of San Francisco's Best-Known LGBTQ+ Neighborhood brought out a sold-out audience for a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation about the neighborhood's history, its community, and what it means to us today.

Thank you to authors Jen Reck and Society founding member Gerard Koskovich, to Tina V. Aguirre of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, and to our managing reference archivist Devin McGeehan Muchmore — and to everyone who turned out and engaged so generously. Conversations like this are exactly why we're here.

04/09/2026

Now Available in Our Digital Collections: the Felicia "Flames" Elizondo Papers.

Elizondo was a Chicana trans woman and drag queen associated with San Francisco's Tenderloin. She was a regular at Gene Compton's Cafeteria at the time of the Compton's Cafeteria Riot, a historic 1966 uprising by trans and q***r people, and performed for many years at Aunt Charlie's Lounge alongside her close friend Vicki Marlane.

Digitized in partnership with the Digital Transgender Archive, this collection offers photographs, writings, ephemera, and materials she collected about Marlane and the community around her.

Explore More: https://ssl.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/col/xs55mc49j

Image 1: A portrait photograph of Felicia Elizondo from the early 1970s.
Image 2: A group photograph of drag performers in various costumes. Felicia Flames Elizondo is pictured in the middle row, wearing a short blonde wig and white dress.

Felicia "Flames" Elizondo papers ( #2021-06), GLBT Historical Society.

03/29/2026

The Lexington Club records are now available in our online collections. A le***an-owned, dyke-centered bar and cultural hub in San Francisco's Mission District from 1997 to 2015, the Lex holds a special place in the city's LGBTQ+ history. Explore more from this collection — https://glbt.i8.dgicloud.com/lexingtonclub

Shown: Promotional cards promoting events at the Lexington Club, San Francisco, CA.

This work was supported by the State of California, administered by the California State Library. It is part of a grant project awarded by the State that supports the preservation and accessibility of California's LGBTQ+ history. We are grateful to the State of California for its ongoing support of our important work to preserve and share LGBTQ+ history.

03/27/2026

How did the world-renowned Castro neighborhood come to be known as the most prominent "gayborhood" in San Francisco? From a quiet Irish Catholic residential neighborhood to the center of LGBTQ+ activism and community in the Bay Area?

Join authors Jen Reck and Society founding member Gerard Koskovich as they present their new booklet, The Castro: The Story of San Francisco's Best-Known LGBTQ+ Neighborhood. Tracing the neighborhood's history back to the 1950s, the work covers LGBTQ+ community-building, cultural production, and political engagement; the forces of opposition that targeted it; and the struggles around diversity, exclusion, and belonging within the community itself.

📆 Thursday, April 9 | 6–8 PM
📍GLBT Historical Society Museum
🎟 $10 | Free for Society members

Reserve your spot at glbthistory.org/events

Joining them will be Tina V. Aguirre, Director of the Castro LGBTQ+ Cultural District, and Devin McGeehan Muchmore, our managing reference archivist, to discuss the roles their organizations played in bringing the project to fruition. Copies of this new publication will be available for purchase and signing.

Address

4127 18th Street (Between Castro And Collingwood)
San Francisco, CA
94114

Opening Hours

Tuesday	11am - 5pm
Wednesday	11am - 5pm
Thursday	11am - 5pm
Friday	11am - 5pm
Saturday	11am - 5pm

Telephone

+14157775455

Website

http://www.glbthistory.org/

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