Founded in 1985, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Historical Society is recognized internationally as a leader in the field of LGBTQ public history. We operate the nation’s first museum of LGBT History and Culture, located in the heart of San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, and our Dr. John P. De Cecco Archives and Research Center, open to researchers in the Mid-Market district.
2023
annual
report
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2023 annual report ✶
You Are Here.
Notes from attendees on claiming your place in LGBTQ history.
For hundreds of years, small-minded groups have sought to erase LGBTQ people from the landscape and to write us out of history, yet thanks to a long line of people and organizations, we have kept our stories alive for each other. Shared through oral traditions, hidden in plain sight through codes and secret languages, and carefully passed down from generation-to-generation LGBTQ people have kept our stories alive for centuries.
The GLBT Historical Society carefully preserves and shares more than a thousand archival collections – one of the largest selections of LGBTQ historic material ever assembled in human history. Our archives hold intimate portraits of hidden love, brave stories of resistance and rebellion, the minutiae of countless groups working to make the world a better place, and so much more.
You are Here is an intentionally incomplete exhibition, installed at our museum, offering a timeline of some important moments in LGBTQ history.
A WARM WELCOME FROM Roberto Ordeñana AND Ben Chavez Gilliam
Dear Friends,
It is clear that our mission to preserve and elevate LGBTQ+ history has never been more urgent. In the face of escalating attacks on our community — particularly targeting the most marginalized individuals, including trans and non-binary people, as well as youth — our commitment to safeguarding and showcasing our rich history stands as a vital response.
We must not only continue to care for our 1,000+ collections but also find innovative ways to expand access to these materials and create spaces that catalyze dialogue and learning. Given the growing bans on queer content, including pride flags, our role becomes even more critical. For instance, we hold the last remaining original flag from the 1978 Pride Parade. Seeing visitors connect with this piece and understand its significance is profoundly moving.
Together we are writing a new chapter for the GLBT Historical Society. You will soon hear more about our exciting plans to create a new, world - class, international home for our museum, archives, and research center right here in San Francisco. Visitors will have new access to our vast collections and the myriad perspectives of the queer community past, present, and future.
We thank you for your loyal support that has made all of this possible and hope that we will continue this journey together. While we recognize the challenges ahead, we also hold a deep sense of hope, knowing that the challenges in our past do not make us weaker, they make us wiser. They make us stronger and more resilient. With this sense of unity and optimism, we know that we will get through this - together.
Roberto Ordeñana
Executive Director
Ben Chavez Gilliam
Board Chair
IN THE ARCHIVE
2023 was an incredibly productive year in the GLBT Historical Society Archives. We received several important grants, shared our work with national audiences through presentations, tours, and guest lectures, and accepted numerous archival collections that greatly enriched our holdings. We met the growing demand for our collections by digitizing a substantial amount of material, and continued to grow the archives and make material more accessible to researchers.
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Researchers were welcomed to our reading room to perform in-person research activity.
Research questions were answered via phone and email.
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New digital collections were made available, along with a primary source set.
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We are grateful for the support that made this work possible, including funding from the Al Larvick Conservation Fund, the California State Library, California Revealed, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the Jewish Pride Fund, and a number of other group and private donors.
Left: Jewish Lesbian Writers Group flier from the Judy Freespirit Papers.
Right: Arab/Jewish Communications panel recording from Jewish Feminist Conference Records and Audiotapes.
We continued to grow the archives and make material more accessible to researchers. We had 107 new accessions and completed a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to catalog collections that had been backlogged by the pandemic, resulting in over 200 new online collection descriptions.
Some new collections include:
For, By, and About, Transsexuals
Dina Boyer and Kitty Castro’s public access television show ‘by, for, and about Transsexuals’ ran on San Francisco’s Channel 29 between 1999 and 2007. Common topics across segments include violence against trans people; policing; discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodation; hormones; relationships among different trans and LGBTQ communities; and sex and sexuality.
THE POWER OF THE SUN
Now available online, you can read the papers of Richard William Evans, a Black, gay artist and member of the Stellar Arts Collective who helped create “The Power of the Sun,” a large-scale stained glass installation that was displayed in the State of California office building in San Francisco. The collection includes stunning photos of the stained glass installation, as well as behind-the-scenes process photos.
IT’S YOUR HISTORY: EXPLORE THE DIGITAL ARCHIVE
With so many new materials being added to our digital collections, there’s no better time to explore the archive yourself. Visit our explore page, and discover your history today.
Queer ancestors project
An interview with Dr. Katie Gilmartin
HOW DID THE QUEER ANCESTORS PROJECT BEGIN?
I spent a decade as an academic, teaching college courses in the histories of gender, sexuality, and intersectionality, before becoming a printmaker. Towards the end of my own young adult years, I interviewed forty LGBTQ+ elders about their experiences in the 1950s, and their stories never left me – in different ways, they’ve formed the core of all my own creative work. Those interviews instilled in me a deep reverence for history and for the power of connections that exist across time. I needed to pass some of that on – and, more importantly, I needed to create space for young people to make their own discoveries about history, about ancestors, about connections across time and space. Disconnection from the past is an act of spiritual violence, The Queer Ancestors Project – and the GLBT Historical Society – aim to heal.
Why is it important to connect LGBTQ young people to their history?
What I see happening is this: they realize that they are the Queer and Trans ancestors of the future. That their ways of being – the words they choose to use, their style, how they build community, their modes of resistance, their engagement with consent, their disruptions of gender, their decolonizations – that all of this, they will pass on to future generations. They are the ancestors of the future. And in that moment of recognition, I see them step into history. I see them recognize that we are all, always, co-creating history. Each of us does so in ways profoundly shaped by the power structures within which we live.
See young queer and trans artists from the Queer Ancestors Project at their event, Under Pressure, a community screen print party and exhibition!
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We go on a field trip! The artists gather at the archives, go on a behind-the-scenes tour with glimpses of the remarkably intimate materials there – photographs, clothing, diaries, furniture, art, hair! Then the artists spend time with specific materials the generous archivist has pulled related to their interests. During the tour there is all this bubbly, excited, surprised energy – and then that settles: there’s always a deep, deep quiet, as the artists get engrossed in the materials at hand. It’s an awe-inspiring moment. That moment of experiencing ancestors as real, flesh, fully embodied and fully emotional creatures, who both were and were not just like us.
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Again, so many reasons – but certainly among them is current attempts to erase, deny, and rewrite our history. The ludicrous assertion that Trans and Nonbinary identities are a brand new invention is used to prevent life-saving, suicide-preventing healthcare from being provided to people who so tenderly need it. We all need to know that gender expansive people have existed throughout time and space, that we are sacred, that we have been the vanguard of LGBTQ+ resistance, and that our acts of resistance have been gorgeously creative, fabulously resourceful, and sourced in a power that will not ever go away.
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Ah, yes! Please visit our website, queerancestorsproject.org, where you can see more than a decade of extraordinary prints made by young Queer and Trans artists, age 18-26. For the recent cohorts, you can click to hear them talk about their prints! You can learn about our writing program and watch performances! You can also follow us on Instagram to join us for events throughout the year: art openings, artist panels, performances, and our newest outdoor summertime event, Under Pressure, where you can bring a t-shirt and have one of the artist-created images printed on your shirt. That’s right: you can go home wearing your ancestor on your sleeve.
What impacts have you seen among people who participate?
A hugely ecstatic experience comes to mind – an artist who already had a strong connection to Sylvester was astounded to be holding one of Sylvester’s fabulous sequined outfits.
They felt its gorgeous weight in their hands and trembled with pleasure at the knowledge that Sylvester had worn this!
They studied the garment closely, noticing how it was constructed with Velcro so it could be quickly removed – and together we queried: for stripping on stage? For speedy costume changes? Or for quickies in the dressing room?
AT THE MUSEUM
In 2023, attendance at the museum continued to climb back toward our pre-pandemic averages of approximately 20,000 visitors annually.
Compelling programming drew more than 9,200 visitors including students, teachers, tourists, and community members.
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Visitors came to the museum, including 1,359 international visitors from 52 unique countries!
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Hours of service was contributed by our amazing community of volunteers. Thank you!
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Educational institutions were welcomed for visits, from elementary to university level.
CURVE MAGAZINE CARTOONS: A DYKE STRIPPERS’ RETROSPECTIVE
The landscape of lesbian cartoons in the 1990s was small yet vibrant; full of passion, satire, self-deprecation, and deep-cutting political and social commentary. Publishing these cartoons in the early years of Curve Magazine (which was named Deneuve between 1991-1995) was a natural fit, aligning with the pivotal lesbian publication’s cheeky voice and journalistic integrity, and enhancing both the aesthetics of the pages and its witty content.
They comment on the content of articles, provide interesting layout design, and are occasionally stand-alone strips with their own views.
Visitors of the exhibit were invited to draw their very own cartoons. Click to enlarge!
The journalism in early 1990s Curve Magazine reflected the diversity of the lesbian community but there was room for more representation amongst the artists whose comics were published. There were, indeed, lesbians of color creating cartoons during this period. While these voices may not have appeared in Curve magazine in its first decade in print, the exhibition was augmented with diverse lesbian artists from the GLBT Historical Society’s Archive so that The Curve Foundation can aim to provide an additional platform for them today.
WHERE TO LEARN MORE
You can learn more about The Curve Foundation’s work championing lesbian and queer women’s stories at www.thecurvefoundation.org
MATCHMAKING IN THE ARCHIVE
LGBTQ people owe a lot to past generations, yet our historical inheritances are still too often lost or buried. Working with the archives of the GLBT Historical Society, artist E.G. Crichton decided to do something to bridge this generational loss of memory.
Matchmaking in the Archive describes and shows E.G.’s seven-year project with the GLBT Historical Society to match about 25 living individuals to the archives of 25 individuals whose lives are embedded in the archives. She asked each participant to get to know their archive match and invent a response in any media.
This exhibition shows some of the portraits E.G. made of living participants as they interacted with their archive matches. The resulting body of work has been exhibited and performed across the US and in several other countries, including Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the and Philippines.
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BY THE NUMBERS
Financial information is preliminary. For full and finalized financials, please visit glbthistory.org/reports.
MAKE YOUR MARK
The critical work of the GLBT Historical Society is only possible because of the generosity of its incredible community of donors.
Your contributions help us preserve more than 1,000 archival collections, create digital and physical exhibitions throughout the year, and keep our museum open for thousands of visitors from around the globe.
More ways to give
In addition to cash gifts, you can also make contributions of stock, mutual funds, and crypto currencies. If you’d like to become a member, visit our membership page here.
MAKING HISTORY
THANK YOU to our community of donors, whose generosity makes our mission possible.
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Grants for the Arts
The Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development
The Office of Economic and Workforce Development
The San Francisco Arts Commission
The San Francisco Office of Small Business
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The California State Library
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The National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission
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Al Larvick Conservation Fund
Creative Work Fund
The Council on Library and
Information Resources
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Anonymous Lesbian Donors
Daniel Bao
Wells Fargo Bank N.A.
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Bob Ross Foundation
Robert Holgate
David Kessler Estate
Lesbians for Good
Levi Strauss Foundation
Karen Merzenich & Ross Fubini
Snap
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Sasha Aickin
Anthropologie
Larry Brenner & Angelo Figone
John Caldwell & Zane Blaney
Benjamin Chavez Gilliam
Ron Conway Family
Tomlinson Holman &
Friederich Koenig
Horizons Foundation
Eugene Kaeck Estate
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Salesforce
Jason Seifer & Brian Ayer
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