How San Francisco’s Castro district became the capital of LGBT America

By Lilit Marcus, CNN

(CNN) — In 1965, Life magazine declared San Francisco the capital of gay America. And the Castro was its beating heart.

Arguably the single most famous “gayborhood” in the United States, some of the country’s best known queer artists and activists settled there in the 20th century. It was where the first out gay male politician in the US was elected, where the Pride flag was born, and where many gay, trans and nonconforming people estranged from their biological families created new ones of their own.

At the time, the Castro was known as Eureka Valley, or Little Scandinavia. Amid the tumultuous 1960s, which were marked by protests against US involvement in the Vietnam War and the dawn of the hippie movement, young people flocked to San Francisco.

“The Castro neighborhood has been made famous for its incredible welcoming of LGBTQ people. And I think that that built through word of mouth,” says Roberto Ordeñana, executive director of the GLBT Historical Society.

The San Francisco institution was founded in 1985, at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Its goal was to collect as much memorabilia and ephemera as possible — today, its collection includes everything from back issues of queer zines to the original Pride flag.

Harvey Milk and his legacy

The man who became the most visible symbol of the LGBT rights movement in the US was Harvey Milk. Born in New York state, he moved to San Francisco in 1972 and opened a camera shop on Castro Street.

The neighborhood gets its name from this street, which is its main artery. Milk became politically active, founding the Castro Village Association, one of the first predominantly LGBTQ-owned business groups in the country. His biographer, Randy Shilts, dubbed him the “Mayor of Castro Street.”

In 1977, Milk was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, making him the first openly gay male politician in the country. He was among the leaders who worked to quash Proposition 6, a bill that would have required schools to fire gay and lesbian teachers.

“(Milk) crystallized the political hopes and dreams of a generation of out gay people in the aftermath of the gay liberation movement,” says Timothy Stewart-Winter, associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark, who specializes in LGBTQ history.

Less than a year after being elected to office, Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by a fellow city supervisor named Dan White.

Following his murder, “he became a martyr,” says Stewart-Winter. Like John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr a decade before, the timing of Milk’s assassination froze him in history against the political and social turmoil of the era.

Since then, Milk’s name has become synonymous with the LGBTQ community.

In 2019, the US Navy named a ship after him, a full circle moment considering that Milk — who served in the Korean War — was forced to resign from the Navy due to his sexuality. San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has also named a terminal in honor of Milk.

However, Ordeñana cautions against allowing Milk to be the sole representative of a large, diverse community.

“It’s important for us to celebrate Harvey Milk and all of these other individuals that have done such incredible work for our community. But yet, there are stories like Sally Gearhart, who was a contemporary of Harvey Milk, who worked with him on the Proposition 6 campaign, whose story has been relegated out of mainstream narratives,” says Ordeñana.

Gearhart was a writer, teacher and activist who founded one of the first women’s studies university programs at San Francisco State University.

“We want to make sure that we are lifting up the histories of people that have been most vulnerable in our community,” adds Ordeñana. “That includes seniors, that includes young people, that includes women and trans people in particular.”

The San Francisco spirit

It has been 50 years since Harvey Milk set up shop in the Castro, and some could argue that the area has become a victim of its own success.

“The Castro on the one hand, it is paradigmatic, it’s a place people associate with gayness. It’s a place where people go to be gay, but it’s also a place that is incredibly expensive, and where the contradictions of late capitalism are played out. The larger housing affordability crisis all over the country has been really bad in San Francisco,” says Stewart-Winter.

“The tech industry has transformed San Francisco,” he adds, pointing out that this neighborhood gentrification is not a recent phenomenon.

The Italian clothing brand Diesel opened a shop on the Castro’s main thoroughfare in the 1990s. These days, Apple and Starbucks hold court alongside locally owned taquerias and art galleries.

Harvey Milk’s camera store is still there at 575 Castro Street, an official city of San Francisco landmark with a plaque in front and a mural of Milk on the wall.

In a rapidly growing and gentrifying San Francisco, Ordeñana says that the Historical Society also wants to keep the Castro’s gay history in the present tense. The organization was able to raise enough money to buy a permanent home in the neighborhood.

“Obviously LGBTQ people live everywhere. We are part of every community. We are part of every neighborhood. The Castro continues to be a destination for people coming in from all over the world, which is why it was important for us to open this museum in the Castro that’s available for global tourism and city residents alike.”

“I was born and raised in San Francisco,” Ordeñana says. “I never left. I love traveling the world, but this is home.”

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