The Rainbow Honor Walk (RHW) is a
walk of fame installation in San Francisco, California to honor notable lesbian, gay,
bisexual
Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, wh ...
,
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...
, and
queer (
LGBTQ
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is ...
) individuals from around the world "who left a lasting mark on society."
Its bronze plaques honor LGBTQ individuals who "made significant contributions in their fields". The plaques mark a walk located within the business district of the
Castro neighborhood, which for decades has been the city's center of LGBTQ activism and culture.
The project was founded by David Perry to honor LGBTQ pioneers, who are considered to have laid the groundwork for
LGBTQ rights, and to teach future generations about them.
The sidewalk installations are planned to extend from the
Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy
San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), established in 1851, is the only public school district within the City and County of San Francisco, and the first in the state of California. Under the management of the San Francisco Board of Educa ...
at 19th Street & Collingwood, to proceed along Castro Street to its intersection with
Market Street, and follow Market to the
San Francisco LGBTQ Community Center
The San Francisco LGBT Community Center, also known as the SF LGBT Center, is a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community of San Francisco, California, and nearby communities, located at 1800 Ma ...
at Octavia Boulevard; additionally the Walk will branch out in both directions at 18th Street and Castro.
The RHW eventually could number up to 500 honorees.
The first round of twenty plaques was installed in 2014, a second round of twenty-four was completed in 2019.
A separate sidewalk installation, the
Castro Street History Walk
The Castro District, commonly referred to as the Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood throug ...
, is a series of twenty historical fact plaques about the neighborhood—ten from pre-1776 to the 1960s before the Castro became known as a
gay neighborhood
A gay village is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBT) people. Gay villages often contain a number of gay-oriented establish ...
, and ten "significant events associated with the
queer community in the Castro"—contained within the 400 and 500 blocks of the street between 19th and Market streets.
History
In the late 1980s David Perry, "whose public relations firm has handled everything from the
Olympic Torch Relay
The Olympic torch relay is the ceremonial relaying of the Olympic flame from Olympia, Greece, to the site of an Olympic Games. It was first performed at the 1936 Summer Olympics, and has taken place prior to every Games since.
Although in the pa ...
in 2008 and the 2016
Super Bowl 50
Super Bowl 50 was an American football game to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2015 season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos defeated the National Football Conference (NFC) ...
Committee," and a gay man, had an
epiphany while walking past the
Castro Theater in San Francisco's
Castro district, the cultural center of the city's LGBTQ communities for decades;
and his home since 1986. The neighborhood was one of the country's epicenters during the
height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic before the
AIDS cocktail in the 1990s; and during the
city's response to slow the impact on the gay male community. Perry said, The ''
Bay Area Reporter
The ''Bay Area Reporter'' is a free weekly newspaper serving the LGBT communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the largest-circulation LGBT newspapers in the United States, and the country's oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'' noted five of the inaugural twenty:
Keith Haring
Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...
, activist George Choy,
Sylvester
Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented a ...
,
Randy Shilts
Randy Shilts (August 8, 1951February 17, 1994) was an American journalist and author. After studying journalism at the University of Oregon, Shilts began working as a reporter for both ''The Advocate'' and the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', as well ...
, and
Tom Waddell
Tom Waddell (born Thomas Flubacher; November 1, 1937 – July 11, 1987) was an American physician, decathlete who competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics, and founder of the Gay Olympics (later known as the ''Gay Games'').
Early life
Waddell was bo ...
; all died from AIDS.
Perry envisioned a
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Calif ...
but for LGBTQ people to reach future generations.
Gayle Rubin
Gayle S. Rubin (born January 1, 1949 in South Carolina) is an American cultural anthropologist best known as an activist and theorist of sex and gender politics. She has written on a range of subjects including feminism, sadomasochism, prostitut ...
, a "scholar of San Francisco LGBTQ history and professor of anthropology and women's studies at the University of Michigan" stated, "Marginal groups and those who are disrespected for various reasons tend to not have their accomplishments recognized in public landmarks." The RHW could eventually include 500 honorees.
In 1994, Perry proposed the LGBTQ walk of fame to the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco.
Government and politics
The City and County of San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, being simultaneously a ...
and LGBTQ community leaders including the Castro Business District (CBD).
All approved the concept.
The CBD would later serve as the
fiscal sponsor until the RHW was an independent charity.
Because of the more urgent needs related to the
HIV/AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...
pandemic in San Francisco, the project and its fundraising goals were put on hold. Separately in 2009, Isak Lindenauer, a poet, writer, Castro business-owner and resident since the 1980s, had a similar vision; then-city Supervisor
Bevan Dufty connected the two, so they joined efforts.
Lindenauer coined ''Rainbow Honor Walk;''
and used a
mockup
In manufacturing and design, a mockup, or mock-up, is a scale or full-size model of a design or device, used for teaching, demonstration, design evaluation, promotion, and other purposes. A mockup may be a '' prototype'' if it provides at lea ...
showing the name surrounded by rainbow motif
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
tiles. Supervisor
Bevan Dufty authored city legislation for the project in 2010, although most of the details, including design and scope, had yet to be worked out.
The RHW has been approved to extend from the
Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy
San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), established in 1851, is the only public school district within the City and County of San Francisco, and the first in the state of California. Under the management of the San Francisco Board of Educa ...
at 19th Street & Collingwood, to proceed along Castro Street (the 400 and 500 blocks) to its intersection with
Market Street, and follow Market to the
San Francisco LGBTQ Community Center
The San Francisco LGBT Community Center, also known as the SF LGBT Center, is a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community of San Francisco, California, and nearby communities, located at 1800 Ma ...
at Octavia Boulevard; additionally the RHW will branch out in both directions where 18th Street intersects Castro Street.
In 2009, Perry and other community advocates co-founded the RHW, an all-volunteer, non-profit organization to manage the process of identifying and documenting about twenty honorees each round, and to gain funding for commissioning plaques and their installation.
Perry has served as the board chair until stepping down in 2019, although he'll remain as an unpaid consultant to the project.
Anyone can nominate potential honorees; the inaugural round had more than 150 people suggested.
In 2011 the non-profit announced the inaugural twenty honorees, whose plaques were installed in 2014.
Kathy Amendola, owner of Cruisin’ the Castro Walking Tours, the city's "first and only Legacy Business Tour Company", and the first female RHW board member, noted the diversity of the honorees; and said it was a part of the RHW's mission: to “present multi-sexual, multi-gender and multi-cultural spectrum of human history.”
The tour company added routes based on the RHW.
RHW board
The ten-plus member RHW board of directors oversees all aspects of the project.
In addition to selecting the honorees, they direct the planning, fundraising, and execution of producing and placing the permanent bronze plaques.
One RHW board member, Benjamin Leong, was already an LGBTQ activist when Perry and Lindenauer recruited him in July 2011, "The project grabbed my interest and attention because it is important to know ones history and this project serves to educate and honor the LGBTQ heroes and heroines of the past and present."
Among the fundraising efforts was a sale of local artist
Beth Van Hoesen
Beth Van Hoesen (1926 – November 26, 2010), sometimes known as Beth Van Hoesen Adams, was an American artist who was best known for her prints and drawings of animals and botanical subjects.
Biography
Elizabeth "Beth" Marie Van Hoesen wa ...
’s paintings, including of
drag queen
A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and part o ...
s she met in the Castro:
The Widow Norton
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speak ...
, whose included in the RHW; and
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Design competition for plaques
In 2012 the RHW board held a no-fee, international design competition, led by Anthony Turney, for the plaques, three-foot by three-foot in size to match the existing sidewalk.
Each plaque will contain: the honoree's name; birth and death dates; their signature, and a brief description of contributions.
A LGBTQ historian drafts the likely final text which is also vetted by the
GLBT Historical Society
The GLBT Historical Society (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society) (formerly Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California; San Francisco Bay Area Gay and Lesbian Historical Society) maintains an extensive collection ...
.
An independent
blind jury In a blind audition the identity of the performer is concealed from the judges so as to prevent bias. The performance takes place behind a curtain so that the judges cannot see the performer. Blind auditions have become standard in symphony orchest ...
of "curators from San Francisco's leading cultural institutions", LGBTQ community leaders, and a representative of
San Francisco Arts Commission
The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, Cal ...
's (SFAC) Civic Design Committee determined four finalists.
Tom DeCaigny, Director of Cultural Affairs for the SFAC, said
The RHW board chose a design by architect Carlos Casuso of
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), an ...
, Spain, who was given a $1000
honorarium An honorarium is an '' ex gratia'' payment, i.e., a payment made, without the giver recognizing themselves as having any liability or legal obligation, to a person for his or her services in a volunteer capacity or for services for which fees ar ...
.
The design proposed a
bronze plaque cut into quarters, with each honoree's photo "digitally treated so it can be easily engraved in the bronze".
The engraved image fills the entirety of the plaque, while "one quarter is reserved for the honoree's biographical information".
The contest was overseen,
and design reviewed by the SFAC—which must approve all structures built on public property—and the
Department of Public Works.
The images are
acid etch
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...
ed in the bronze plaque which is an inch thick.
About a dozen images from the finished inaugural group can be see
on this article.
The finished pieces are treated with a slip-resistant coating, which is also protective from shoe scuffing, and the plaques are bolted to the concrete.
The protective coating is re-applied every five years.
The city administers ongoing maintenance in partnership with the RHW, while insurance costs are built into the fundraising for each round of plaques.
Additionally the "composition, make, and design of the plaques have been carefully evaluated to ensure endurance and durability"; plus they are extremely heavy so theft would entail industrial equipment.
Mussi Artworks Foundry, a
foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals ...
in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
, manufactures the plaques.
The process was overseen by Lawrence Noble, head of the sculpture department at
SF Academy of Art University.
The initial per-plaque cost was around $5,600 including production and insurance;
for the second round the cost is about $7000 each.
Inaugural round of honorees (2014)
The inaugural round of twenty honorees includes:
Jane Addams
Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage i ...
,
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; ...
, George Choy,
Federico Garcia Lorca Federico (; ) is a given name and surname. It is a form of Frederick, most commonly found in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.
People with the given name Federico
Artists
* Federico Ágreda, Venezuelan composer and DJ.
* Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, r ...
,
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Genera ...
,
Keith Haring
Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...
,
Harry Hay,
Christine Jorgensen
Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. She had a career as a successful actress, singer and rec ...
,
Frida Kahlo
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by Culture of Mexico, the country's ...
,
Del Martin
Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin (May 5, 1921 – August 27, 2008) and Phyllis Ann Lyon (November 10, 1924 – April 9, 2020) were an American lesbian couple known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
Martin and Lyon met in 195 ...
,
Yukio Mishima
, born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered fo ...
(née Kimitake Hiraoka),
Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights.
Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, in 1 ...
,
Randy Shilts
Randy Shilts (August 8, 1951February 17, 1994) was an American journalist and author. After studying journalism at the University of Oregon, Shilts began working as a reporter for both ''The Advocate'' and the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', as well ...
,
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West (Pittsburgh), Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, Calif ...
,
Sylvester
Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented a ...
,
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical c ...
,
Tom Waddell
Tom Waddell (born Thomas Flubacher; November 1, 1937 – July 11, 1987) was an American physician, decathlete who competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics, and founder of the Gay Olympics (later known as the ''Gay Games'').
Early life
Waddell was bo ...
,
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
,
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
, and
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born ...
.
Co-founder David Perry noted at the time, A conscious decision to not include
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in ...
in the inaugural round was made as he already had a handful of places named after him; as well as two historical markers outside his old camera shop on Castro Street.
The installation was coordinated to be a part of the Castro Street Streetscape Project, an extensive $10 million reimagining of Castro Street's 400 and 500 blocks: including the intersection with 18th Street;
and improvements to Jane Warner Plaza at Castro and 17th streets, the
F Market & Wharves
The F Market & Wharves line is one of several light rail lines in San Francisco, California. Unlike most other lines in the system, the F line runs as a heritage streetcar service, almost exclusively using historic equipment both from San Franc ...
outbound terminus of the
heritage streetcar
Conservation and restoration of rail vehicles aims to preserve historic rail vehicles.
Trains
It may concern trains that have been removed from service and later restored to their past condition, or have never been removed from service, like UP ...
s. The light-posts were updated with rainbow lighting, street-friendly trees—
Ginkgos
''Ginkgo'' is a genus of non-flowering seed plants. The scientific name is also used as the English name. The order to which it belongs, Ginkgoales, first appeared in the Permian, 270 million years ago, and is now the only living genus within t ...
and
King Palms—installed, sidewalk ‘throughways’ widened,
rainbow crosswalk
DIY rainbow crossing was a protest movement that emerged in Sydney, Australia in 2013. The campaign involved individuals creating rainbow pedestrian crossings in chalk to protest the removal of a temporary rainbow crossing from Oxford Street, ...
s installed, and walks and streets repaved.
Inaugural dedication
The plaques were unveiled September 2, 2014, and feature twenty "civil rights activists, writers, poets, artists, and musicians".
The opening ceremony took place at
Harvey Milk Plaza, at the intersection of Castro and Market streets, with remarks from Perry and LGBTQ politicians.
Openly gay
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...
California Senator
Mark Leno
Mark Leno (born September 24, 1951) is an American politician who served in the California State Senate until November 2016. A Democrat, he represented the 11th Senate district, which includes San Francisco and portions of San Mateo County. Befo ...
(D-San Francisco) said, "not unlike slaves,
ur communities
Ur (; Sumerian language, Sumerian: , , or ''Urim''; akk, 𒋀𒀕𒆠 ''Uru''; ar, أُوْر, ʾūr; he, אוּר, ʾūr) was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar ( ar, ت ...
have been denied our heroes and our history."
He added, "People who have changed the history of the course of our planet come from our community."
The inaugural plaques were installed in alphabetical order starting at the plaza: following Castro to 19th Street; 19th to Collingwood Street; and then on the other side of the street returning.
The dedication proceeded to each plaque where LGBTQ leaders and RHW board members unveiled them in a cascading ceremony.
The non-profit raised $100,000–$112,000 for the first round of plaques.
They each cost approximately $5,600–$6,000.
The funds came from private sources. Two
Indiegogo online fundraisers for
Sylvester
Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented a ...
, and
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical c ...
each raised $10,000.
Additionally, thousands were raised by the sale of souvenirs at the Castro outlet of the
Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGB ...
's Action Center.
Two of the installed plaques were later seen to have
typo
A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling mistake) made in the typing of printed (or electronic) material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual type-setting (typography). ...
s: Oscar Wilde's said he had a "bitting wit" rather than "biting wit"; and Christine Jorgensen's spelled transgender without the "s”. They were replaced by the manufacturer and both plaques with errors were to be auctioned: Wilde's to raise funds for the RHW; Jorgensen's to benefit the
Transgender Law Center. They were replaced a month later; free of any costs.
Second round of honorees (2016–2019)
There were 170 people nominated for the second round of honorees.
In June 2016, the second round of honorees, twenty-four total, was announced including:
Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey Jr. (January 5, 1931 – December 1, 1989) was an American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). He created AAADT and its affiliated Alvin Ailey American Dance Cente ...
,
W. H. Auden,
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...
,
Gladys Bentley
Gladys Alberta Bentley (August 12, 1907 – January 18, 1960) was an American blues singer, pianist, and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance.
Her career skyrocketed when she appeared at Harry Hansberry's Clam House in New York in th ...
,
Glenn Burke
Glenn Lawrence Burke (November 16, 1952 – May 30, 1995) was a Major League Baseball (MLB) player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics from 1976 to 1979. He was the first MLB player to come out as gay, announcing it in 1982 afte ...
,
Quentin Crisp
Quentin Crisp (born Denis Charles Pratt; – ) was an English raconteur, whose work in the public eye included a memoir of his life and various media appearances. Before becoming well-known, he was an artist's model, hence the title of ...
,
Divine
Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.[divine< ...](_blank)
,
Marie Equi,
Fereydoun Farrokhzad
Fereydoun Farrokhzad ( fa, فریدون فرخزاد; October 7, 1938 – August 3, 1992) was an Iranian showman, host, poet, actor, political activist, singer, humanitarian, and writer. He is best known for his television variety show ''The Silv ...
,
Barbara Jordan
Barbara Charline Jordan (February 21, 1936 – January 17, 1996) was an American lawyer, educator, and politician. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern Africa ...
,
Kiyoshi Kuromiya
Kiyoshi Kuromiya (May 9, 1943 – May 10, 2000) was a Japanese-American author and civil rights, anti-war, gay liberation, and HIV/AIDS activist. Born in Wyoming at the World War II–era Japanese American internment camp known as Heart ...
,
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...
,
Leonard Matlovich,
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in th ...
,
Sally Ride
Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts ...
,
Sylvia Rivera
Sylvia Rivera (July 2, 1951 – February 19, 2002) was an American gay liberation and transgender rights activist September 21, 1995. Accessed July 24, 2015. who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag q ...
,
Vito Russo
Vito Russo (July 11, 1946 – November 7, 1990) was an American LGBT activist, film historian, and author. He is best remembered as the author of the book '' The Celluloid Closet'' (1981, revised edition 1987), described in ''The New York Tim ...
,
José Sarria,
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendak (; June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012) was an American author and illustrator of children's books. He became most widely known for his book ''Where the Wild Things Are'', first published in 1963.Turan, Kenneth (October 16, 200 ...
,
Rikki Streicher,
Gerry Studds,
Lou Sullivan,
Chavela Vargas
Isabel Vargas Lizano (17 April 1919 – 5 August 2012), better known as Chavela Vargas (), was a Mexican singer. She was especially known for her rendition of Mexican rancheras, but she is also recognized for her contribution to other genres of ...
, and
We'wha
We'wha (1849–1896, various spellings) was a Zuni Native American from New Mexico, a notable fiber artist, weaver and potter. As the most famous ''lhamana'' on record, We'wha served as a cultural ambassador for Native Americans in general, an ...
.
These plaques were estimated to total $120,000.
Their estimated cost per plaque was around $7000 each.
The first eight plaques of this round were unveiled in June 2018; and installed, on both sides of Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November of that year.
On the north side of Market Street are the plaques for Fereydoun Farakzah, Barbara Jordan, Kiyoshi Kuromiya, and Sally Ride.
On the south side is Glenn Burke, Jose Sarria, Rikki Streicher, and We'Wha.
These cost $48,437, while the project has $31,000 raised for the next plaques.
The second eight's designs were unveiled at a June 2019
Pride month
LGBT Pride Month is a month, typically in June, dedicated to celebration and commemoration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) pride. Pride Month began after the Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in 1969, and ha ...
RHW fundraiser at Google which raised over $3300.
The plaques themselves were installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets including: Chavela Vargas, Marie Equi; Josephine Baker, Freddie Mercury; Alvin Ailey, W.H. Auden, Gerry Studds, and Lou Sullivan.
The third group of this round includes: Gladys Bentley, Audre Lorde, Divine, Sylvia Rivera, Leonard Matlovich, Vito Russo, Quentin Crisp, and Maurice Sendak.
They are planned to be installed by October 11, 2019, the annual observance of
National Coming Out Day
National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is an annual LGBT awareness day observed on October 11, to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people ( the LGBT community, sometimes also called the queer community) in "coming out of the closet". Fi ...
.
Third round of honorees (2020)
Perry confirmed the third round of honorees should be announced in 2020.
The plaques were installed in 2022 on Market Street between 16th and 15th streets as part of the Upper Market Street Safety Project.
Honorees
A
*
Jane Addams
Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage i ...
was a pioneering lesbian who is recognized as the founder of the field of social work in the United States.
She was an American
settlement activist, reformer, social worker,
sociologist,
public administrator, and author. She was also a notable figure in
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to gran ...
in the United States and an advocate for
world peace
World peace, or peace on Earth, is the concept of an ideal state of peace within and among all people and nations on Planet Earth. Different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations have varying concepts on how such a state wou ...
. She co-founded Chicago's
Hull House
Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located on the Near West Side of the city, Hull House (named after the original house's first owner Char ...
, one of America's most notable
settlement houses
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and s ...
. In 1920, she co-founded the
ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...
. In 1931, Addams was the first American woman to be awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
.
She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the
American pragmatist school of philosophy, and is known by many as the first woman "public philosopher in the history of the United States". Addams is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
*
Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey Jr. (January 5, 1931 – December 1, 1989) was an American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). He created AAADT and its affiliated Alvin Ailey American Dance Cente ...
was an African-American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) is a modern dance company based in New York City. It was founded in 1958 by choreographer and dancer Alvin Ailey. It is made up of 32 dancers, led by artistic director Robert Battle and associate a ...
, one of the most successful dance companies in the world. He created AAADT and its affiliated Ailey School as havens for nurturing black artists and expressing the universality of the African-American experience through dance. His work fused theatre, modern dance, ballet, and jazz with black vernacular, creating hope-fueled choreography that continues to spread global awareness of black life in America. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece ''
Revelations
Revelation, in religion and theology, is the act of revealing through communication with supernatural entities.
Revelation(s) may also refer to:
* Book of Revelation or simply Revelation, the last book of the New Testament
* Revelation (Latter Da ...
'' is recognized as one of the most popular and most performed ballets in the world. On July 15, 2008, the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washi ...
passed a resolution designating AAADT a "vital American Cultural Ambassador to the World." That same year, in recognition of AAADT's 50th anniversary, then Mayor
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a c ...
declared December 4 "Alvin Ailey Day" in New York City while then Governor
David Paterson
David Alexander Paterson (born May 20, 1954) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 55th governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer and serving out nearly three years of Spitzer's term from March 2008 to December 2010. A ...
honoured the organization on behalf of New York State. Though Ailey was gay, he kept his romantic affairs
in the closet
"In the Closet" is a song by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on April 9, 1992, as the third single from his eighth album, '' Dangerous'' (1991). The song was written and produced by Jackson and Teddy Riley. It became ...
. Following the death of his friend Joyce Trisler, a failed relationship, and bouts of heavy drinking and cocaine use, he suffered a mental breakdown in 1980. He was diagnosed as manic depressive, known today as
bi-polar disorder. Ailey was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.
*
W. H. Auden was an English-American poet whose work was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content. He is best known for love poems such as "
Funeral Blues"; poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" and "
The Shield of Achilles"; poems on cultural and psychological themes such as ''
The Age of Anxiety''; and poems on religious themes such as "
For the Time Being" and "
Horae Canonicae".
[The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the ''OED'' (2008 revision) is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England (or Britain) and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also the definition "an American, especially a citizen of the United States, of English origin or descent" in See also the definition "a native or descendant of a native of England who has settled in or become a citizen of America, esp. of the United States" from ''The Random House Dictionary'', 2009, available online at ] After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British public schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys. In 1939 he moved to the U.S. becoming an
American citizen
Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constitut ...
in 1946. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. He came to wide public attention with his first book ''
Poems
Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...
'' at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by ''
The Orators
''The Orators: An English Study'' is a long poem in prose and verse written by W. H. Auden, first published in 1932. It is regarded as a major contribution to modernist poetry in English.
''The Orators'' is divided into three main sections, fr ...
''. Three plays written in collaboration with
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. He won the
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, publishe ...
for his 1947 long poem ''
The Age of Anxiety'', the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era.
From 1956 to 1961 he was
Professor of Poetry at Oxford
The Professor of Poetry is an academic appointment at the University of Oxford. The chair was created in 1708 by an endowment from the estate of Henry Birkhead. The professorship carries an obligation to lecture, but is in effect a part-time po ...
; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection ''
The Dyer's Hand''. Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual friendship from around 1927 to 1939, while both had briefer but more intense relations with other men.
In 1939, Auden fell in love with
Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. They also collaborated on opera libretti such as that of ''
The Rake's Progress
''The Rake's Progress'' is an English-language opera from 1951 in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings '' A Rake's Pro ...
'', to music by
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...
. After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media. Auden was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.
B
*
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...
was a bisexual American-born French entertainer, activist, and
French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
agent. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. During her early career she was renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the
Folies Bergère
The Folies Bergère () is a cabaret music hall, located in Paris, France. Located at 32 Rue Richer in the 9th Arrondissement, the Folies Bergère was built as an opera house by the architect Plumeret. It opened on 2 May 1869 as the Folies Trév ...
in Paris. Her performance in the revue ''Un vent de folie'' in 1927 caused a sensation in Paris. Her costume, consisting of only a girdle of artificial bananas, became her most iconic image and a symbol of the
Jazz Age and the 1920s. Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Baker was the first African-American to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film ''
Siren of the Tropics
''Siren of the Tropics'' ( French: ''La Sirène des tropiques'') is a 1927 French silent film starring Josephine Baker. Directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant and set in the West Indies, the film tells the story of a native girl named Pap ...
'', directed by Mario Nalpas and
Henri Étiévant. Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the U.S. and is noted for her contributions to the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
. In 1968 she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by
Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King ( Scott; April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was married to Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his death. As an advocate for African-American equality, she ...
, following
Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children.
She was also known for aiding the
French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
during World War II.
After the war, she was awarded the
Croix de guerre
The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...
by the
French military
The French Armed Forces (french: Forces armées françaises) encompass the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the Gendarmerie of the French Republic. The President of France heads the armed forces as Chief of the Armed Forces.
France ...
, and was named a
Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
by General
Charles de Gaulle.
Baker was
bisexual
Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, wh ...
.
[Garber, Marjorie. ''Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life''. Routledge, 2013, p. 122. ] While she had four marriages to men, Jean-Claude Baker writes that Josephine also had several relationships with women.
Baker was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.
*
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; ...
was a gay African-American novelist, playwright, and activist. His essays, as collected in ''
Notes of a Native Son'' (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century North America. Some of Baldwin's essays are book-length, including ''
The Fire Next Time
''The Fire Next Time'' is a 1963 non-fiction book by James Baldwin, containing two essays: "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation" and "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind".
The ...
'' (1963), ''
No Name in the Street'' (1972), and ''
The Devil Finds Work'' (1976). An unfinished manuscript, ''
Remember This House'', was expanded and adapted for cinema as the documentary film ''
I Am Not Your Negro'' (2017), which featured historic footage of Baldwin and was nominated for an Academy Award. One of his novels, ''
If Beale Street Could Talk'', was adapted as a
dramatic film of the same name, released in 2018, which won an Academy Award. Baldwin's novels and plays explore fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid the complex social and psychological pressures that thwart the equitable integration of not only African Americans, but also gay and bisexual men. He also depicts some internalized obstacles to such individuals' quests for acceptance. Such dynamics are prominent in Baldwin's second novel, ''
Giovanni's Room
''Giovanni's Room'' is a 1956 novel by James Baldwin.Stryker, Susan. ''Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback'' (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001), p. 104. The book focuses on the events in the life of an America ...
'' (1956), published well before the
gay liberation movement
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xi ...
of the later twentieth century.
He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
*
Glenn Burke
Glenn Lawrence Burke (November 16, 1952 – May 30, 1995) was a Major League Baseball (MLB) player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics from 1976 to 1979. He was the first MLB player to come out as gay, announcing it in 1982 afte ...
was a
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL) ...
(MLB) player for the
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brookly ...
and
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The t ...
from 1976 to 1979. He was the first MLB player to
come out as gay to teammates and team owners during his professional career and the first to publicly acknowledge it,
stating, "They can't ever say now that a gay man can't play in the majors, because I'm a gay man and I made it."
In October 1977, Burke ran onto the field to congratulate his Dodgers teammate
Dusty Baker
Johnnie B. "Dusty" Baker Jr. (born June 15, 1949) is an American baseball manager and former player who is the manager of the Houston Astros in Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously played in the MLB for 19 seasons, most notably with the ...
after Baker hit his 30th home run; Burke raised his hand over his head and Baker slapped it. They are widely credited with inventing the
high five High five is a friendly gesture in which one individual slaps another's hand.
High five (and variants such as Hi5, Hi-5, and Hi-Five) may also refer to:
Music
* Hi-5 (Australian group), an Australian children's musical group
* Hi-5 (Greek band ...
. Burke kept active in sports after retiring from baseball. He competed in the 1982
Gay Olympics
The Gay Games is a worldwide sport and cultural event that promotes acceptance of sexual diversity, featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) athletes, artists and other individuals.
Founded as the Gay Olympics, it was starte ...
, now renamed Gay Games, in track, and in 1986 in basketball. He played for many years in the San Francisco Gay Softball League. He died from AIDS-related causes in 1995.
In August 2013, Burke was among the first class of inductees into the
National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame
The National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame was a hall of fame established in 2013 to honor LGBT and allied personalities, as well as organizations "whose achievements and efforts have enhanced sports and athletics for the gay and lesbian co ...
. Burke was inducted into the
Baseball Reliquary
The Baseball Reliquary is a nonprofit educational organization "dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American art and culture through the context of baseball history and to exploring the national pastime’s unparalleled creative possibilities ...
's
Shrine of the Eternals in 2015. His plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.
C
* George Choy was a gay Asian-American LGBTQ and
HIV/AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...
activist who fought for human rights for LGBTQ Asian and
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Ocea ...
s.
He grew up in San Francisco's
Chinatown, where he witnessed the minority's struggles for rights.
He "came out" after high school and became an early member of San Francisco's
Gay Asian Pacific Alliance
The GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance (formerly the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance), sometimes GAPA, is a 501(c)(4) non-profit social welfare organization that was incorporated in February 1988 in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, as a social su ...
.
In the spring of 1990, Choy led GAPA's Project 10 effort to get approval for paid counseling for San Francisco's LGBTQ public school students; despite the claims that no Asian queer people existed, it passed.
The next year he was GAPA's point person assisting a lawsuit against the city government of Tokyo, Japan, to gain approval for a queer group, OCCUR, to use its youth center. He organized supporting activities in both San Francisco and Tokyo, and also in
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
.
Choy was a health worker and an activist with both GAPA and
ACT-UP
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...
.
He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
E
*
Marie Equi was an early American
medical doctor
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the ...
in the American West devoted to providing care to working-class and poor patients. She regularly provided
birth control information and
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
s at a time when both were illegal. She became a political activist and advocated civic and economic reforms, including women's right to vote and an eight-hour workday. After being clubbed by a policeman in a 1913 workers' strike, Equi aligned herself with
anarchists
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
and the radical labor movement. Equi was a lesbian who maintained a primary relationship with Harriet Frances Speckart (1883 – May 15, 1927) for more than a decade. The two women adopted an infant and raised the child in an early example, for the United States, of a same-sex alternative family. For her radical politics and same-sex relations, Equi battled discrimination and harassment. In 1918, Equi was convicted under the Sedition Act for speaking against U.S. involvement in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. She was sentenced to a three-year term at
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.
Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is th ...
. She was the only known lesbian and radical to be incarcerated at the prison. Equi was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.
F
*
Fereydoun Farrokhzad
Fereydoun Farrokhzad ( fa, فریدون فرخزاد; October 7, 1938 – August 3, 1992) was an Iranian showman, host, poet, actor, political activist, singer, humanitarian, and writer. He is best known for his television variety show ''The Silv ...
was a gay Iranian singer, actor, poet, TV and radio host, writer, and political opposition figure.
[Payvand News – ''Dialogue of Murder''](_blank)
/ref> He is best known for his variety TV show "Mikhak-e Noghrei" (The Silver Carnation). He was the brother of the acclaimed Persian poets Forough Farrokhzad
Forugh Farrokhzad ( fa, فروغ فرخزاد; 28 December 1934 – 14 February 1967) was an influential Iranian poet and film director. She was a controversial modernist poet and an iconoclast,* feminist author.Forugh Farrokhzad died at the ...
and Pooran Farrokhzad. Farrokhzad was forced into exile after the Islamic Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
in 1979, and after relocating to Germany was the victim of an unsolved murder. The murder is widely believed to be the work of the Islamic Republic
The term Islamic republic has been used in different ways. Some Muslim religious leaders have used it as the name for a theoretical form of Islamic theocratic government enforcing sharia, or laws compatible with sharia. The term has also been u ...
government of Iran, as part of the chain murders in 1988–98. Farrokhzad remains a significant Iranian cultural icon whose popular music and television programs continue to be circulated through various media platforms. His murder—possibly, a political assassination of a celebrity activist entertainer—is a well known and oft-cited event amongst Iranians. His plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.
G
* Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...
was a gay Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27
The Generation of '27 ( es, Generación del 27) was an influential group of poets that arose in Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. ...
, a group consisting mostly of poets, who introduced the tenets of European movements (such as symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
Arts
* Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism
** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
** Russian sym ...
, futurism
Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, an ...
, and surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...
) into Spanish literature
Spanish literature generally refers to literature ( Spanish poetry, prose, and drama) written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the Kingdom of Spain. Its development coincides and frequently intersects wit ...
. He was executed by Nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...
. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
* Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Genera ...
was a gay American poet, philosopher and writer. He is considered to be one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generat ...
during the 1950s and the counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...
of the following decade. He vigorously opposed militarism
Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...
, economic materialism
Materialism can be described as either a personal attitude which attaches importance to acquiring and consuming material goods or as a logistical analysis of how physical resources are shaped into consumable products.
The use of the term materi ...
, and sexual repression, and was known to embody various aspects of this counterculture, such as his views on drugs, hostility to bureaucracy, and openness to Eastern religions
The Eastern religions are the religions which originated in East, South and Southeast Asia and thus have dissimilarities with Western, African and Iranian religions. This includes the East Asian religions such as Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese ...
. He was one of many influential American writers of his time who were associated with the Beat Generation. He is best known for his poem "Howl
Howl most often refers to:
*Howling, an animal vocalization in many canine species
*Howl (poem), a 1956 poem by Allen Ginsberg
Howl may also refer to:
Film
* ''The Howl'', a 1970 Italian film
* ''Howl'' (2010 film), a 2010 American arthouse b ...
", in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
and conformity
Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often cho ...
in the United States. In 1957, his poem attracted widespread publicity as the subject of an obscenity trial; it described homosexual sex at a time when sodomy laws made homosexual acts a crime in every U.S. state. "Howl" reflected Ginsberg's own sexuality and his relationships with a number of men, including Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong partner. Ginsberg took part in decades of non-violent political protest against the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
and the War on drugs
The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, ...
. His collection ''The Fall of America'' was one of two books honored in 1974 by the annual U.S. National Book Award for Poetry
The National Book Award for Poetry is one of five annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by US citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers". .[In 1993, Ginsberg visited the University of Maine at Orono for a conference, to pay homage to the 90-year-old poe]
Carl Rakosi
and to read poems as well
"National Book Awards — 1974"
National Book Foundation
The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...
. Retrieved 7 April 2012 (with acceptance speech by Ginsberg and essay by John Murillo from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) In 1979, he received the National Arts Club
The National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and members club on Gramercy Park, Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the ''New York Times'' to "stimulate, foster, and promote publi ...
gold medal and was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Ginsberg was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book ''Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992''. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
H
* Keith Haring
Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...
was a gay American pop artist whose graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
-like work developed from the New York City street culture of the 1980s: he addressed political and social themes—especially homosexuality and AIDS—through his own iconography and sexual allusions. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
* Harry Hay was a gay American who was involved in some of the earliest gay rights organizations, including the Mattachine Society
The Mattachine Society (), founded in 1950, was an early national gay rights organization in the United States, perhaps preceded only by Chicago's Society for Human Rights. Communist and labor activist Harry Hay formed the group with a collection ...
, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States. In addition, he co-founded the Radical Faeries, an international, loosely affiliated gay spiritual movement. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
J
* Barbara Jordan
Barbara Charline Jordan (February 21, 1936 – January 17, 1996) was an American lawyer, educator, and politician. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern Africa ...
was a lesbian lawyer, educator, and politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
who was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate
The Texas Senate ( es, Senado de Texas) is the upper house of the Texas State Legislature. There are 31 members of the Senate, representing single-member districts across the U.S. state of Texas, with populations of approximately 806,000 per co ...
after Reconstruction and the first Southern African-American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She was best known for her eloquent opening statement at the House Judiciary Committee hearings during the impeachment process against Richard Nixon
The impeachment process against Richard Nixon began in the United States House of Representatives on October 30, 1973, following the series of high-level resignations and firings widely called the " Saturday Night Massacre" during the course ...
, and as the first African-American as well as the first woman to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 ...
. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
, among numerous other honors. She was a member of the Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
s Board of Jurors from 1978 to 1980. She was the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery. Her plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.
* Christine Jorgensen
Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. She had a career as a successful actress, singer and rec ...
was an American transsexual
Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignm ...
who was the first person to become widely known in the U.S. for having sex reassignment surgery
Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and al ...
in her twenties. Jorgensen grew up in the Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...
, New York City. Shortly after graduating from high school in 1945, she was drafted as a male into the U.S. Army for World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. After her service, she attended several schools, and worked. Around this time she heard about sex reassignment surgery. She traveled to Europe. In Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
, Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark
, establishe ...
, she obtained special permission to undergo a series of operations for reassignment, starting in 1951. She returned to the United States in the early 1950s, where her transition
Transition or transitional may refer to:
Mathematics, science, and technology Biology
* Transition (genetics), a point mutation that changes a purine nucleotide to another purine (A ↔ G) or a pyrimidine nucleotide to another pyrimidine (C ↔ ...
was the subject of a ''New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Ta ...
'' front-page story. Jorgenson became an instant celebrity, and used this platform to advocate for transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...
people; she became known for her directness and polished wit. She worked as an actress and nightclub entertainer, and recorded several songs. She is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014. (Her plaque had a typo and was replaced at no cost to the project. The original was auctioned off with the proceeds donated to the Transgender Law Center.)
K
* Frida Kahlo
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by Culture of Mexico, the country's ...
was a bisexual Mexican artist.[Delgado, Marina. ''The Female Grotesque in the Works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabelle Allende, and Frida Kahlo''. The University of Texas at Dallas, ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing, 2010.] She was a painter known for her many portraits, self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...
s, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she used a naïve
Naivety (also spelled naïvety), naiveness, or naïveté is the state of being naive. It refers to an apparent or actual lack of experience and sophistication, often describing a neglect of pragmatism in favor of moral idealism. A ''naïve'' may b ...
folk art
Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative. The makers of folk art are typically tr ...
style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...
, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary '' Mexicayotl'' movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...
or magical realist. By the early 1990s, she was a recognized figure in art history, and was also regarded as an icon for Chicanos
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...
, the feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
movement, and the LGBTQ movement
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, Bisexuality, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the Capital punishment for homosexualit ...
. Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form. She is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
* Kiyoshi Kuromiya
Kiyoshi Kuromiya (May 9, 1943 – May 10, 2000) was a Japanese-American author and civil rights, anti-war, gay liberation, and HIV/AIDS activist. Born in Wyoming at the World War II–era Japanese American internment camp known as Heart ...
was a gay Japanese-American activist in the civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...
, anti-war
An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...
, gay, and AIDS movements. He was a co-founder of Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a v ...
- Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, an openly gay delegate to the Black Panther
A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been ...
Convention, an assistant of Martin Luther King Jr., direct action
Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to othe ...
activist with ACT UP
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy ...
, and People With AIDS
People With AIDS (PWA) means " person with HIV/AIDS", also sometimes phrased as, Person Living with AIDS. It is a term of self-empowerment, adopted by those with the virus in the early years of the pandemic (the 1980s), as an alternative to the p ...
(PWA), founder of the Critical Path Project, and the leading plaintiff in the Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
case, ''Kuromiya vs. The United States of America'', calling for the legalization of marijuana for medical uses. His plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.
M
* Del Martin
Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin (May 5, 1921 – August 27, 2008) and Phyllis Ann Lyon (November 10, 1924 – April 9, 2020) were an American lesbian couple known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
Martin and Lyon met in 195 ...
was a lesbian American feminist and gay-rights
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
activist who, along with her wife Phyllis Ann Lyon, founded the Daughters of Bilitis
The Daughters of Bilitis , also called the DOB or the Daughters, was the first lesbian
A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual b ...
(DOB) in 1955. DOB was the first social and political organization for lesbians in the U.S. The couple served as president and editor of the organization's magazine, ''The Ladder''. The couple joined the National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...
(NOW) together, the first openly lesbian couple to do so. They were the first couple married in the historic San Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings
The San Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings took place between February 12 and March 11, 2004, after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom directed the city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. California Attorney General Bill Loc ...
. As these weddings were ruled legally invalid, they were the first couple married again in June 2008, after the California Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...
's decision ''In re Marriage Cases
''In re Marriage Cases'', 43 Cal. 4th 757 (Cal. 2008) was a California Supreme Court case where the court held that laws treating classes of persons differently based on sexual orientation should be subject to strict judicial scrutiny, and that ...
.'' Martin is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.''''
*Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in th ...
was a gay British singer, songwriter, record producer, and lead vocalist of the rock band Queen
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
. Regarded as one of the greatest lead singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...
vocal range
Vocal range is the range of pitches that a human voice can phonate. A common application is within the context of singing, where it is used as a defining characteristic for classifying singing voices into voice types. It is also a topic of st ...
. Mercury wrote numerous hits for Queen, including "Killer Queen
"Killer Queen" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was written by lead singer Freddie Mercury and recorded for their third album '' Sheer Heart Attack'' in 1974. It reached number two in the UK Singles Chart and became their first US ...
", "Bohemian Rhapsody
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song by the British rock band Queen, released as the lead single from their fourth album, '' A Night at the Opera'' (1975). Written by lead singer Freddie Mercury, the song is a six-minute suite, notable for its lack ...
", " Somebody to Love", "We Are the Champions
"We Are the Champions" is a song by the British rock band Queen, released from the band's sixth album ''News of the World'' (1977). Written by lead singer Freddie Mercury, it remains among rock's most recognisable anthems. ", "Don't Stop Me Now
"Don't Stop Me Now" is a song by the British rock band Queen featured on their 1978 album ''Jazz'' that was released as a single in 1979. Written by lead singer Freddie Mercury, it was recorded in August 1978 at Super Bear Studios in Berre-le ...
", and " Crazy Little Thing Called Love". He also led a solo career and served as a producer and guest musician for other artists. Mercury died in 1991 at age 45 due to complications from AIDS. In 1992, a tribute concert was held at Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...
. As a member of Queen, Mercury was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music an ...
in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame
The Songwriters Hall of Fame (SHOF) is an American institution founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer, music publisher/songwriter Abe Olman, and publisher/executive Howie Richmond to honor those whose work, represent, and maintain, the he ...
in 2003, and the UK Music Hall of Fame
The UK Music Hall of Fame was an awards ceremony to honour musicians, of any nationality, for their lifetime contributions to music in the United Kingdom. The hall of fame started in 2004 with the induction of five founder members and five mo ...
in 2004. In 1990, he and the other Queen members were awarded the Brit Award
The BRIT Awards (often simply called the BRITs) are the British Phonographic Industry's annual popular music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain", or "Britannia" (in the early days the awards were sponsore ...
for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, and one year after his death Mercury was awarded it individually. In 2005, Queen were awarded an Ivor Novello Award
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They have been presented annually in London by the Ivors Academy (formerly the BASCA) since 1956, and over 1,000 statuettes have been aw ...
for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. In 2002, Mercury ranked number 58 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons
''100 Greatest Britons'' is a television series that was broadcast by the BBC in 2002. It was based on a television poll conducted to determine who the British people at that time considered the greatest Britons in history. The series included ...
. Mercury was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.
*Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in ...
was a gay American activist who was the first openly-gay elected official in California, where he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco.
Government and politics
The City and County of San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, being simultaneously a ...
. He was the most pro-LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term i ...
Q politician in the United States at the time. Milk and Mayor George Moscone
George Richard Moscone (; November 24, 1929 – November 27, 1978) was an American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. He was known ...
were assassinated
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
in city hall; the White Night riots
The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of a lenient sentencing of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and of Harvey Milk, a member of the city's Board of ...
broke out in protest. Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in the city and a martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external ...
of the gay community. In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significantly open LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term i ...
official ever elected in the United States". He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
in 2009. The walk passes in front of Milk's former camera shop, which is now a Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGB ...
headquarters. Milk is not technically part of the walk, since he already had an existing sidewalk plaque in front of his former office.
*Yukio Mishima
, born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered fo ...
was a gay Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, film director, nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
, and founder of the Tatenokai. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901 ...
in 1968 A fierce critic of Marxist ideologies and considered anti-Marxist by the Soviet Union's KGB, Mishima formed the Tatenokai. This was an unarmed civilian militia to defend the Japanese Emperor
The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his position is derived from "the ...
in the event of a revolution by Japanese communists. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took the commandant hostage, and attempted to inspire the Japan Self-Defense Forces
The Japan Self-Defense Forces ( ja, 自衛隊, Jieitai; abbreviated JSDF), also informally known as the Japanese Armed Forces, are the unified ''de facto''Since Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution outlaws the formation of Military, armed f ...
to overturn Japan's 1947 Constitution. When this was unsuccessful, Mishima committed suicide by ''seppuku
, sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese peop ...
''. He is among the inaugural twenty people honored in 2014.
R
* Sally Ride
Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts ...
was a lesbian astronaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
and physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...
. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
in 1978 and became the first American woman in space
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually con ...
in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall. Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter ''Challenger'', she left NASA in 1987. She worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics
Nonlinear optics (NLO) is the branch of optics that describes the behaviour of light in ''nonlinear media'', that is, media in which the polarization density P responds non-linearly to the electric field E of the light. The non-linearity is typic ...
and Thomson scattering
Thomson scattering is the elastic scattering of electromagnetic radiation by a free charged particle, as described by classical electromagnetism. It is the low-energy limit of Compton scattering: the particle's kinetic energy and photon freque ...
. After her death, her obituary revealed that her partner of 27 years was Tam O'Shaughnessy
Tam Elizabeth O'Shaughnessy (born January 27, 1952) is an American children's science writer and former professional tennis player who co-founded the science education company Sally Ride Science together with her partner, astronaut Sally Ride, ...
, a professor emerita
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
of school psychology
School psychology is a field that applies principles from educational psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, community psychology, and behavior analysis to meet the learning and behavioral health needs of children and ado ...
at San Diego State University
San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) syste ...
and childhood friend, who met her when both were aspiring tennis players. O'Shaughnessy was also a science writer and, later, the co-founder of Sally Ride Science
Sally Ride Science at UC San Diego is a nonprofit run by the University of California, San Diego. It was founded as a company in 2001 by Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, along with Tam O'Shaughnessy, Karen Flammer, Terry McEntee, and Al ...
(SRS). O'Shaughnessy served as the CEO and Chair of the Board of SRS. They wrote six acclaimed children's science books together.[ ''Mission: Planet Earth'' is two books, making the total five.] Their relationship was revealed by the company and confirmed by her sister, who said she chose to keep her personal life private, including her sickness and treatments. She is the first known LGBTQ
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is ...
astronaut. Her plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.
* Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights.
Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, in 1 ...
was a gay, African-American activist and a leader in the Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
in the United States, from the 1940s through the 1980s. He co-organized the 1941 March on Washington Movement to end racial discrimination
Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain ...
in housing and employment, and was active as a socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
and in the early movements for gay rights
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Notably, , ...
. He later organized the Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions '' Morgan v. Virginia ...
In the American South, and he was instrumental in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civ ...
alongside Martin Luther King Jr., teaching King about nonviolent direct action
Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to othe ...
. Rustin organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, also known as simply the March on Washington or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rig ...
, considered a turning point in the movement for civil and economic rights for Black Americans. It inspired those working for social justice, worldwide. Due to overt homophobia
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy ...
and discrimination, Rustin often organized behind the scenes, supporting civil rights leaders who were not openly gay. In the 1980s, he became a more public advocate on behalf of gay causes. In November 2013, President Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
, which Rustin's partner, Walter Naegle
Walter Naegle (born 1949) is an American artist and photographer who is the surviving partner of late American Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin, and the executive director of the Bayard Rustin Fund, which commemorates Rustin's life, values, and l ...
, accepted on his behalf. Rustin is among the inaugural twenty people honored in 2014.
S
* José Sarria better known as Absolute Empress I de San Francisco, the Widow Norton was a gay community organizer and political activist who became the first openly gay
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...
candidate for public office in the U.S. in 1961. She performed for years as a live-singing drag queen
A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and part o ...
doing parodies
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its su ...
of operas at the Black Cat Bar, and declaring herself ''Empress Norton,'' founded the Imperial Court System
The International Imperial Court System (IICS) also known as the International Court System is one of the oldest and largest LGBT organizations in the world. The Imperial Court System is a grassroots network of organizations that works to build ...
, one of the oldest and largest LGBTQ organizations in the world, with chapters throughout North America. Her plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.
* Randy Shilts
Randy Shilts (August 8, 1951February 17, 1994) was an American journalist and author. After studying journalism at the University of Oregon, Shilts began working as a reporter for both ''The Advocate'' and the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', as well ...
was a gay American literary-journalist and author. A prolific reporter, in 1981, he became "the first openly gay reporter with a gay 'beat' in the American mainstream press" at the ''San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pap ...
.'' He published his first book in 1982, '' The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk''. His second book, '' And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic''(1987), documented the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. His third book, '' Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf'', was published in 1983. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
* Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West (Pittsburgh), Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, Calif ...
was a lesbian American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Oakland, she moved to Paris in 1903 as a young woman, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. There she hosted a salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon ...
, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art would meet. In 1933, Stein published a quasi-memoir of her Paris years, '' The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas'', written in the voice of Alice B. Toklas
Alice Babette Toklas (April 30, 1877 – March 7, 1967) was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century, and the life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein.
Early life
Alice B. Toklas was born in San F ...
, her life partner. The book became a literary bestseller and vaulted Stein from the relative obscurity of high modernist literature into the limelight of mainstream attention. Two quotes from her works have become widely known: "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
The sentence "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" was written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem "Sacred Emily", which appeared in the 1922 book ''Geography and Plays''. In that poem, the first "Rose" is the name of a person. Stein later ...
", and "there is no there there
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West (Pittsburgh), Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, Calif ...
", with the latter often believed to refer to her childhood home of Oakland, California
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...
. Her books include ''Q.E.D.''(1903), about a lesbian romantic affair involving several of Stein's friends; ''Fernhurst'', a novel bout a love triangle
A love triangle or eternal triangle is a scenario or circumstance, usually depicted as a rivalry, in which two people are pursuing or involved in a romantic relationship with one person, or in which one person in a romantic relationship with ...
; '' Three Lives'' (1905–06), and ''The Making of Americans
''The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress'' is a modernist novel by Gertrude Stein. The novel traces the genealogy, history, and psychological development of members of the fictional Hersland and Dehning families. Stein a ...
'' (1902–1911). In '' Tender Buttons'' (1914), Stein explored lesbian sexuality.[ Blackmer (1995)] She is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
* Rikki Streicher was a leader in San Francisco's LGBTQ movement. In the 1960s, she had an active leadership role in the Society for Individual Rights, an organization that promoted equal rights for gays and lesbians. In 1966 she opened and ran Maud's, a year prior to the San Francisco's Summer of Love; it stayed open for 23 years, at that time the longest continuously running lesbian-owned lesbian bar
A lesbian bar (sometimes called a "women's bar") is a drinking establishment that caters exclusively or predominantly to lesbian women. While often conflated, the lesbian bar has a history distinct from that of the gay bar.
Significance
Les ...
in the country. She opened a second bar, Amelia's, in 1978 in the city's Mission district
The Mission District ( Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as The Mission ( Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name i ...
, with both venues serving as makeshift community centers for lesbians who had very few accepting socializing options. In the early 1980s, she was a co-founder of the international Gay Olympics
The Gay Games is a worldwide sport and cultural event that promotes acceptance of sexual diversity, featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) athletes, artists and other individuals.
Founded as the Gay Olympics, it was starte ...
, later called Gay Games, she helped to create the Federation of Gay Games and served on the board of directors. In 1994, she received the Dr. Tom Waddell Award for her contribution to Gay Athletics. The Rikki Streicher Field, an athletic field and recreation center in San Francisco's Castro District, was named after her. Her plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.
* Gerry Studds was an American Democratic
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
Congressman
A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivale ...
from who served from 1973 until 1997. He was the first openly gay
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...
member of Congress. In 1983, he was censured
A censure is an expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism. In parliamentary procedure, it is a debatable main motion that could be adopted by a majority vote. Among the forms that it can take are a stern rebuke by a legislature, a sp ...
by the House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
after he admitted to a consensual relationship with a 17-year-old page. Studds was re-elected to the House six more times after the 1983 censure. He fought for many issues, including environmental and maritime
Maritime may refer to:
Geography
* Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps
* Maritime Region, a region in Togo
* Maritime Southeast Asia
* The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Pr ...
issues, same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...
, AIDS funding, and civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...
, particularly for gays and lesbians. Studds was an outspoken opponent of the Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "''Star Wars'' program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballist ...
missile defense system, which he considered wasteful and ineffective, and he criticized the United States government's secretive support for the Contra fighters in Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean Sea, Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to ...
. Studds was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.
* Lou Sullivan was an American author and activist known for his work on behalf of trans men
A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. The label of transgender man is not always interchangeable with that of transsexual man, although the two labels are often used in this way. ''Transgender'' is an umbrella term that in ...
. He was perhaps the first transgender man to publicly identify as gay,[Highleyman, Liz]
"Who was Lou Sullivan?"
Seattle Gay News. February 22, 2008. Archived fro
the original
on November 4, 2015. and is largely responsible for the modern understanding of sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generally ...
and gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the ...
as distinct, unrelated concepts.[Susan Stryker (1999). "Portrait of a Transfag Drag Hag as a Young Man: The Activist Career of Louis G. Sullivan," in Kate More and Stephen Whittle (eds). ''Reclaiming Gender: Transsexual Grammars at the Fin de Siecle,'' pp. 62–82. Cassells, ] Sullivan was a pioneer of the grassroots female-to-male (FTM) movement and was instrumental in helping individuals obtain peer-support, counselling, endocrinological services, and reconstructive surgery outside of gender dysphoria clinics. He founded FTM International, one of the first organizations specifically for FTM individuals, and his activism and community work was a significant contributor to the rapid growth of the FTM community during the late 1980s.["Guide to the Louis Graydon Sullivan Papers, 1755–1991 (bulk 1961–1991)"](_blank)
The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society. San Francisco, 1999. Retrieved November 4, 2015. Sullivan was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.
* Sylvester
Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented a ...
was a gay African-American singer-songwriter, who was primarily active in the genres of disco, rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed p ...
, and soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun '':wikt:soul, soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The ea ...
. He was known for his flamboyant and androgynous appearance, falsetto
''Falsetto'' (, ; Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave.
It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentou ...
singing voice, and hit disco singles in the late 1970s and 1980s. Moving to San Francisco in 1970 at the age of 22, Sylvester embraced the counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...
. He joined the avant-garde drag
Drag or The Drag may refer to:
Places
* Drag, Norway, a village in Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway
* ''Drág'', the Hungarian name for Dragu Commune in Sălaj County, Romania
* Drag (Austin, Texas), the portion of Guadalupe Street adj ...
troupe The Cockettes, producing solo segments of their shows that were strongly influenced by such female blues and jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...
singers as Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...
and Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...
. With his second solo album ''Step II'' (1978), he released the singles " You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" and "Dance (Disco Heat)
"Dance (Disco Heat)" is a song by American singer Sylvester and his backup vocalists Two Tons O' Fun. The song appears on his 1978 album, '' Step II''.
Chart performance
The song was Sylvester's first Top 40 hit in the United States, where it pea ...
", both of which were hits in the U.S. and Europe. As an openly gay man throughout his career, Sylvester became a spokesman for the gay community. An activist who campaigned against HIV/AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...
, Sylvester died from complications arising from the virus in 1988. He bequeathed all future royalties from his work to San Francisco-based HIV/AIDS charities. During the late 1970s, Sylvester gained the moniker of the "Queen of Disco
When describing popular music artists, honorific nicknames are used, most often in the media or by fans, to indicate the significance of an artist, and are often religious, familial, or (most frequently) royal and aristocratic titles, used ...
" and was awarded the key to the city
The Freedom of the City (or Borough in some parts of the UK) is an honour bestowed by a municipality upon a valued member of the community, or upon a visiting celebrity or dignitary. Arising from the medieval practice of granting respected ...
of San Francisco. In 2005, he was posthumously inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame. He has been the subject of a biography, film documentary, and a musical. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014; the only musician honored in the first round.
T
* Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical c ...
was a gay British man who was a mathematician, computer scientist
A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science.
Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus ( ...
, logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...
ian, cryptanalyst
Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic se ...
, philosopher, and theoretical biologist
Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomathematics, is a branch of biology which employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models and abstractions of the living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development a ...
.[ ] He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science
Theoretical computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, lambda calculus, and type theory.
It is difficult to circumsc ...
, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
and computation
Computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that follows a well-defined model (e.g., an algorithm).
Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as '' computers''. An esp ...
with the Turing machine
A Turing machine is a mathematical model of computation describing an abstract machine that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite the model's simplicity, it is capable of implementing any computer algor ...
. This is considered a model of a general-purpose computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These pro ...
. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machine
A machine is a physical system using Power (physics), power to apply Force, forces and control Motion, moveme ...
. During the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, Turing worked for Britain's code-breaking centre that produced Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park ...
intelligence; it was pivotal in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements and in so doing helped win the war. After the war, Turing worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine, which was one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In July 2019 the Bank of England announced that Turing would be depicted on the United Kingdom's new £50 note. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
V
* Chavela Vargas
Isabel Vargas Lizano (17 April 1919 – 5 August 2012), better known as Chavela Vargas (), was a Mexican singer. She was especially known for her rendition of Mexican rancheras, but she is also recognized for her contribution to other genres of ...
was a lesbian Costa Rican-born Mexican singer. She was especially known for her rendition of Mexican ranchera
Ranchera () or canción ranchera is a genre of traditional music of Mexico. It dates to before the years of the Mexican Revolution. Rancheras today are played in virtually all regional Mexican music styles. Drawing on rural traditional folk mus ...
s, but she is also recognized for her contribution to other genres of popular Latin American music. She was an influential interpreter in the Americas and Europe, muse to figures such as Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narra ...
, hailed for her haunting performances, and called "la voz áspera de la ternura", the rough voice of tenderness.[Boccanera, Jorge, Entrelineas: Dialogos con Jorge Boccanera, ed. Mario José Grabivker (Buenos Aires: Ediciones instituto movilizador fondos cooperativos C.L., 1999)] In her youth, she dressed as a man, smoked cigars, drank heavily, carried a gun, and was known for her characteristic red jorongo, which she donned in performances until old. Vargas sang the canción ranchera, which she performed in her own peculiar style. For years Vargas refused to change the genders in her songs. In "Paloma Negra" ("Black Dove"), Vargas accuses a woman of partying all night long and breaking her heart. The typical ranchera, as represented by José Alfredo Jiménez
José Alfredo Jiménez Sandoval (; 19 January 1926 – 23 November 1973) was a Mexican singer-songwriter of rancheras, whose songs are considered the basis of modern Mexican music.
Biography
Jiménez was born in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, ...
, was a masculine but emotional song about love and its mishaps, usually mediated by alcohol, since in a macho
Machismo (; ; ; ) is the sense of being " manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1930s and 1940s best defined as hav ...
culture, the display of feelings by men is allowed only to the drunk. At age 81, she publicly came out
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...
as a lesbian in her 2002 autobiography ''Y si quieres saber de mi pasado'' 'And if you want to know about my past'' Vargas debuted at Carnegie Hall in 2003 at age 83 at the behest and promotion of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narra ...
, an admirer and friend. The Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, presented her with a Latin GRAMMY Statuette in 2007 after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of that organization. She was among the second group in the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.
W
* Tom Waddell
Tom Waddell (born Thomas Flubacher; November 1, 1937 – July 11, 1987) was an American physician, decathlete who competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics, and founder of the Gay Olympics (later known as the ''Gay Games'').
Early life
Waddell was bo ...
was a gay American athlete and competitor at the 1968 Summer Olympics
The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...
in Mexico City, where he placed sixth in the decathlon
The decathlon is a combined event in athletics consisting of ten track and field events. The word "decathlon" was formed, in analogy to the word "pentathlon", from Greek δέκα (''déka'', meaning "ten") and ἄθλος (''áthlos'', or ἄθ ...
. He broke five of his own personal records in the ten events. He became a physician. In 1982 he founded the Gay Olympics
The Gay Games is a worldwide sport and cultural event that promotes acceptance of sexual diversity, featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) athletes, artists and other individuals.
Founded as the Gay Olympics, it was starte ...
in San Francisco. The international sporting event was later renamed as the Gay Games after the United States Olympic Committee
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee and the National Paralympic Committee for the United States. It was founded in 1895 as the United States Olympic Committee, and is headquartered in Col ...
(USOC) sued Waddell for using the word "Olympic" in the original name. The Gay Games are held every four years. Waddell established his private medical practice in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco in 1974. As a doctor, he also worked internationally, becoming the team physician for the Saudi Arabian Olympic team at the 1976 Montreal Olympics
Events January
* January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force.
* January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
* January 11 – The 1976 Phi ...
.[Virtual AIDS Quilt.org](_blank)
Retrieved May 18, 2012 In the 1980s, Waddell was employed at the City Clinic in San Francisco's Civic Center area. After his death, it was renamed for him. He was among the inaugural twenty people honored in 2014.
* We'wha
We'wha (1849–1896, various spellings) was a Zuni Native American from New Mexico, a notable fiber artist, weaver and potter. As the most famous ''lhamana'' on record, We'wha served as a cultural ambassador for Native Americans in general, an ...
was a Zuni Native American from New Mexico, and the most famous ''lhamana
''Lhamana'', in traditional Zuni culture, are biologically male people who take on the social and ceremonial roles usually performed by women in their culture, at least some of the time. Page 269 They wear a mixture of women's and men's clothing ...
'' on record. In traditional Zuni culture, the ''lhamana'' are assigned-male-at-birth people who take on the social and ceremonial roles usually performed by cis women in their culture. They wear a mixture of women's and men's clothing and much of their work is in the areas usually occupied by Zuni women. They are also known to serve as mediators. Some contemporary ''lhamana'' participate in the pan-Indian two-spirit
Two-spirit (also two spirit, 2S or, occasionally, twospirited) is a modern, , umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-varian ...
community. In 1886, We'wha was part of the Zuni delegation to Washington D.C., and hosted by anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson
Matilda Coxe Stevenson (''née'' Evans) (May 12, 1849 – June 24, 1915), who also wrote under the name Tilly E. Stevenson, was an American ethnologist, geologist, explorer, and activist. She was a supporter of women in science, helping to estab ...
, during that visit, We'wha met President Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
. While We'wha is historically known mainly as a ''lhamana'', We'wha was also a prominent cultural ambassador for Native Americans in general, and the Zuni in particular. During this era, We'wha came in contact with many European-American settlers, teachers, soldiers, missionaries, and anthropologists. In particular, We'wha's friendship with Matilda Coxe Stevenson would lead to much material on the Zuni being published. Stevenson wrote down her observations of We'wha, such as, "She performs masculine religious and judicial functions at the same time that she performs feminine duties, tending to laundry and the garden."[Suzanne Bost, Mulattas and Mestizas: Representing Mixed Identities in the Americas, 1850–2000, (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2003, pg.139] Her plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.
* Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
was a gay Anglo-Irish poet and playwright best remembered for his epigrams
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two millen ...
and plays, his novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray
''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' is a philosophical fiction, philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine''.''Th ...
'', and the circumstances of imprisonment for homosexuality in England. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism
Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be p ...
. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he published a book of poems, and lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and interior decoration. After his return to London, he published prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known public figures of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (1890). Wilde wrote and produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, becoming one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
*Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
was a gay American playwright considered among the foremost three of 20th-century American drama. After years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of his ''The Glass Menagerie
''The Glass Menagerie'' is a memory play by Tennessee Williams that premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on its author, his histrionic mother, ...
''(1944) on Broadway. He drew from his own family background for this play. It was the first of a string of successes, including ''A Streetcar Named Desire
''A Streetcar Named Desire'' is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of pe ...
'' (1947), ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams. An adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", the play was written by him between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his p ...
'' (1955), ''Sweet Bird of Youth
''Sweet Bird of Youth'' is a 1959 play by Tennessee Williams which tells the story of a gigolo and drifter, Chance Wayne, who returns to his home town as the companion of a faded movie star, Alexandra del Lago (travelling incognito as Princess ...
'' (1959), and ''The Night of the Iguana
''The Night of the Iguana'' is a stage play written by American author Tennessee Williams. It is based on his 1948 short story. In 1959, Williams staged it as a one-act play, and over the next two years he developed it into a full-length play, pr ...
'' (1961). ''Streetcar'' is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century. Much of his work has been adapted for the cinema. In 1979, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame
The American Theater Hall of Fame in New York City was founded in 1972. Earl Blackwell was the first head of the organization's Executive Committee. In an announcement in 1972, he said that the new ''Theater Hall of Fame'' would be located in the ...
. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
*Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born ...
was a bisexual English writer, considered one of the most important modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in ''First L ...
as a narrative device
A plot device or plot mechanism
is any technique in a narrative used to move the plot forward. A clichéd plot device may annoy the reader and a contrived or arbitrary device may confuse the reader, causing a loss of the suspension of disbelief ...
. Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by mental illness, believed to have been bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...
, for which there was no effective intervention during her lifetime. She married Leonard Woolf
Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society, Woolf was an avid publisher of his own w ...
, with whom she set up a small printing press. She also had a sexual relationship with "the lovely gifted aristocratic Vita Sackville-West
Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer.
Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as wel ...
", a writer and gardener. The relationship reached its peak between 1925 and 1928, evolving into more of a friendship through the 1930s.[ Cramer 1997]
p. 126
/ref> Woolf was also inclined to brag of her affairs with other women within her intimate circle, such as Sibyl Colefax and Comtesse de Polignac
Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac (8 January 186526 November 1943) was an American-born heiress to the Singer Corporation, Singer sewing machine fortune. She used this to fund a wide range of causes, notably a musical salon where h ...
. Sackville-West transformed Wolf's view to see her writing as healing her symptoms. Her best-known works include the novels ''Mrs Dalloway
''Mrs. Dalloway'' is a novel by Virginia Woolf, published on 14 May 1925, that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional upper-class woman in post-First World War England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels.
The workin ...
'' (1925), ''To the Lighthouse
''To the Lighthouse'' is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.
Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel ...
'' (1927), and ''Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures r ...
'' (1928), which features a gender-shifting protagonist. She is also known for her essays, including ''A Room of One's Own
''A Room of One's Own'' is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf, first published in September 1929. The work is based on two lectures Woolf delivered in October 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, women's colleges at the University of C ...
'' (1929), in which she wrote the much-quoted dictum
In general usage, a dictum ( in Latin; plural dicta) is an authoritative or dogmatic statement. In some contexts, such as legal writing and church cantata librettos, ''dictum'' can have a specific meaning.
Legal writing
In United States legal te ...
, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism
Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or more broadly, by the politics of feminism. It uses the principles and ideology of feminism to critique the language of literature. This school of thought seeks to a ...
, and her works have garnered much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
." She is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.
Castro Street History Walk
A separate sidewalk installation, the Castro Street History Walk
The Castro District, commonly referred to as the Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood throug ...
(CSHW), is a series of twenty historical fact plaques about the neighborhood—ten from pre-1776 to the 1960s before the Castro became known as a gay neighborhood
A gay village is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBT) people. Gay villages often contain a number of gay-oriented establish ...
, and ten "significant events associated with the queer community in the Castro"—contained within the 400 and 500 blocks of the street between 19th and Market streets. They were installed at the same time as the inaugural twenty RHW plaques. The CSHW goes in chronological order starting at Harvey Milk Plaza at Market Street, up to 19th Street, and returning on the opposite side of Castro Street. The $10,000 CSHW was paid for by the Castro Business District (CBD) which "convened a group of local residents and historians to work with Nicholas Perry, a planner and urban designer at the San Francisco Planning Department who worked on the sidewalk-widening project and lives in the Castro" to develop the facts. Each fact was required to be about the neighborhood or the surrounding Eureka Valley. The facts are limited to 230 characters, and were installed in pairs along with a single graphic reminiscent of the historic Castro Theater.
Notes
References
Sources
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External links
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* {{cite news, url=https://kcbsradio.radio.com/media/audio-channel/rainbow-honor-walk-adds-plaques , title=Rainbow Honor Walk Adds Plaques , author=Scott Lettieri, publisher= KCBS Radio, date=August 10, 2019, access-date=August 13, 2019
LGBT monuments and memorials in the United States
Walks of fame
LGBT culture in San Francisco
Halls of fame in California
Tourist attractions in San Francisco
2014 establishments in California