10.1: Gender and Identity in San Francisco, California

San Francisco has been for many years a location where gender is understood differently. Geographers are interested in locations that are different because they offer insight into the processes that shape human behaviors. Consider for example that in 2013, California legislators passed a law protecting the right of schoolchildren to select lavatories and sports teams based on their self-proclaimed gender identity rather than their anatomy or chromosomal profile. It appears to be the first statewide law of its sort in the United States. California has officially recognized that some people do not fit into the traditional gender binary. Meanwhile, in 2020, some states’ politicians seek to advance legislation preventing people from living a life as the gender that suits them. Why do events in California so often foretell changes in the rest of the county, especially with respect to gender and sexuality issues? Why do politicians, and presumably a significant percentage of people in California understand, or at least accept the complexities of gender while clearly people in other states do not?

The Golden State has long been home to large populations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and other people (LGBTIQ+) who fall outside traditional gender roles and classifications. These attitudes can probably be traced back to the days of the Gold Rush. The San Francisco Bay Area may have been the first place in the world to host a truly multi-national, multi-cultural community during the 1850s. Some advanced measure of tolerance for diversity was a necessary component of life in California from its early days. Californians’ reputation for tolerance of difference is probably what attracted thousands of persecuted people from elsewhere for nearly 100 years before. Of course, California has had ugly moments of racism and bigotry, but in general, Californians have shown an extra degree of willingness to condemn their own bigoted moments and to learn from them. The bigotry of the US military during World War II, oddly enough, probably helped create greater openness toward gender identity tolerance in California. During World War II, the Bay Area became the primary location where gay men serving in the Pacific Theater were dishonorably discharged from the military after their homosexuality was discovered. Frequently disgraced and vulnerable, many discharged gay military men found themselves unable to return to their hometowns where the reason for their dismissal from the military would be known. As a result, many gay men appear to have opted to stay in California to build a life after the war. They found that San Franciscans tolerated, perhaps even accepted, people who were deemed outcasts and misfits elsewhere in America. Bohemians, radical poets and Beat Generation figures had already established a significant presence in San Francisco, and their influence grew during the post-war era. These radicals occupied night clubs, like the Black Cat and other social venues that openly accepted LGBTIQ+ people. By the 1950s, several civil right groups focused on the rights of LGBTIQ+ people appeared in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Jose Sarria, an openly gay political activist and regular at the Black Cat, even ran for office in 1961.

Figure 10-4: San Francisco, CA - A gay pride flag flies in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district demonstrating this city's exceptional commitment to divesity and tolerance.

During the 1960s, San Francisco’s growing reputation for gay tolerance attracted more gay men from around the country. An entire neighborhood where gay men could live in relative safety evolved in a region of the city known as The Castro District. At the same time, the nearby Haight-Asbury District evolved into the symbolic headquarters of the anti-establishment youth, or hippie culture. News spread through word of mouth and the news media, that San Francisco was tolerant of alternative lifestyles and alternative cultural politics. People who felt uncomfortable, unwanted or unfit to live in other parts of the United States (and elsewhere) moved to San Francisco, providing additional momentum to the tolerant cultural trajectory of the Bay Area and the rest of the state. In 1977, one of those migrants, Harvey Milk, became one of the first openly LBGTIQ persons elected to public office in the United States. He was assassinated alongside the Mayor of San Francisco George Moscone in 1978.