On Sept. 14, 1961 242 patrons, nearly all of them men, were packed into the Tay-Bush Inn at the Corner of Taylor and Bush in San Francisco. The photo shows the scene – a block of apartments occupies the block where the Inn was. Gary Kamiya tells SF Gate what happened…
The Eldorado was a famed destination in Berlin for lesbians, homosexual men, transvestites of both sexes, and tourists during the 1920’s and 30’s. As soon as the Nazis came to power, gay bars and clubs like the Eldorado were closed down. The “El Dorado” was situated at 29,…
Nicholas Eden, 2nd Earl of Avon, was born on 3 October 1930 and died on 17 August 1985, from Aids. He was a British Conservative politician and was the younger son of former Prime Minister Anthony Eden and his first wife, Beatrice. He was educated at Eton. He succeeded in…
The Hamilton Lodge was a black gay social group that held extravagant drag balls in Harlem, New York, in the 1930s. Prohibition put an end to the Hamilton Lodge drag formals at the Rockland Palace on West 155th Street. New York’s drag balls were given national exposure by the…
The London Gay Teachers Group, known as Schools’ Out, was co founded by the late Paul Patrick, who came out in 1969, before he became a teacher, and some colleagues. The organisation became an effective campaigning organisation which published a series of ground breaking discussions and booklets, including “Aids Hysteria”…
During the 1970s era of gay liberation, gay centres were established usually by squatting in unused or unwanted, dilapidated premises in various cities around the world. One such gay centre was The South London Gay Community Centre at 78 Railton Road, Brixton, London, an empty shop, which was established in…
Stalin didn’t think much of gay rights. Dan Healy of the Moscow Times had given us a history of homophobia in Russia. “Orthodox clerics condemned sex between men and youths. They also condemned men who shaved, used make-up, or wore gaudy clothing as devotees of the “sodomitical sin.””…
The lambda was selected as a symbol by the Gay Activists Alliance of New York in 1970, following the Stonewall Riots, and was declared the international symbol for gay and lesbian rights by the International Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1974. The lambda signifies unity under oppression. The…