Item 32 2024-01878 LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project Final Draft Historic Context and the Historic Building Survey Findings (M24-005) — Sacramento City Council, December 3, 2024 (part 1 of 2)

City of Sacramento
City Council - 5PM Report
915 I Street Sacramento, CA 95814
www.cityofsacramento.org
File ID: 2024-01878 12/3/2024 Discussion Item 32.

LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project Final Draft Historic Context and the Historic Building Survey Findings (M24-005)
File ID: 2024-1878
Location: Citywide
Recommendation: Pass a Motion to accept the LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project’s Historic Context Statement and the Historic Building Survey findings concerning potentially historically significant resources.

Contact: Sean de Courcy, Preservation Director, (916) 808-2796, [email protected], Community Development Department
Presenter: Henry Feuss, Preservation Planner, (916) 808-5880, [email protected], Community Development Department
Attachments:
1-Description/Analysis
2-Background
3-Final Draft Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Context Statement and Property Evaluations Description/Analysis
Issue/Detail: The City of Sacramento's Community Development Department, with funding from the California Office of Historic Preservation, has undertaken a significant initiative to document and evaluate the city's LGBTQ+ historic resources. This project, titled the LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project, aims to recognize and preserve sites of cultural, social, and political importance to Sacramento's LGBTQ+ community. The project involved comprehensive research, oral history collection, community outreach, and detailed surveys, culminating in a historic context statement (HCS) that outlines key themes, significant individuals, and crucial events shaping the LGBTQ+ experience in Sacramento. The project also included the documentation (survey) of five potential landmark structures and a potential historic district in the Lavender Heights neighborhood.

A supplemental Historic Preservation Fund grant of $5,000, with $5,000 matching funds provided by Preservation Sacramento, helped support a stipend program for individuals who made significant contributions to the project. The project was also carried out with significant in lieu staff support from

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File ID: 2024-01878 12/3/2024 Discussion Item 32.
the Planning Division, and the Economic Development Manager for Community Engagement. An assortment of community partners, community outreach liaisons, subject matter experts, and community volunteers provided additional invaluable support for the project.

Staff is requesting City Council review the final draft of the LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project HCS and survey findings (Attachment 3) and pass a motion accepting the final document. Additional details about the project can be found in the Background document (Attachment 2).

Policy Considerations: This project is part of a larger effort by the City’s historic preservation office to recognize and celebrate the historical experiences of Sacramento’s underrepresented and minority communities. This effort recently resulted in the successful completion of the African American Experience Project (2023) which included a similar scope of work.

The development of an LGBTQ+ HCS and the associated survey aligns with the 2040 Sacramento General Plan’s objectives within the Historic and Cultural Resources Element. This project supports the following goals and policies:

Preservation of Historic and Cultural Resources Policy 1 - Historic Surveys and Context Statements
• It is the policy of the City to prepare updated historic resource surveys and context statements, evaluating the eligibility of properties 45 years and older for listing in national, state, or local registers.

Preservation of Historic and Cultural Resources Policy 3 - Public Involvement and Awareness • The project fosters an awareness of the significance of LGBTQ+ history and cultural resources, promoting social and cultural diversity. Through a robust public outreach process, this project helps achieve the City’s policy to involve the public in identifying and preserving important historic and cultural resources.

Economic Impacts: The LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project stipend program, with funding from the National Trust Preservation Fund and Preservation Sacramento, provided $10,000 in stipends to community members in exchange for assistance with public outreach, oral history interviews, graphic design services, or as subject matter experts.

Environmental Considerations: The council’s acceptance of the historic context and survey findings is not a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it is an administrative activity, such as general policy making. (CEQA Guidelines, § 15378(b)(2)).

Sustainability: Not Applicable.

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File ID: 2024-01878 12/3/2024 Discussion Item 32.

Commission/Committee Action: The Preservation Commission has received periodic updates regarding the project and has been provided an opportunity to review drafts of the HCS. On November 20, 2024, the Preservation Commission reviewed the final draft Historic Context Statement and Historic Buildings Survey Findings and recommended the City Council accept the document.

Rationale for Recommendation: An LGBTQ+ historic context statement and documentation effort will provide guidance for identifying and evaluating potential historic resources related to Sacramento’s rich LGBTQ+ history. Historic resources associated with Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community are the product of the dynamic, conflicting, and intersecting perspectives of personal identity, public attitudes about human sexuality, and behavioral science theories concerning sex and gender.

The final project deliverables reflect the project mission and justify acceptance by the City Council for use as a reference document that will enhance the City’s effort to highlight the significance of historical resources and individuals associated with the LGBTQ+ community.

Financial Considerations: Not Applicable.

Local Business Enterprise (LBE): Not Applicable.Page 3 of 3 Background:

Project Origins and Goals
The LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project was initiated by the City of Sacramento as part of a broader effort to recognize and preserve the cultural and historical contributions of the LGBTQ+ community. Sacramento boasts a rich LGBTQ+ history, characterized by significant social movements, key events, and influential individuals.

However, much of this history remains undocumented and unprotected. To address this gap, the City embarked on this project aimed at identifying, documenting, and preserving sites of historical significance to the LGBTQ+ community. The primary goals of the project are to:

1. Document & Identify: Through the development of a Historic Context Statement document significant historical themes associated with LGBTQ+ history. Identify sites, buildings, and landmarks of historical and cultural significance to the LGBTQ+ community.

2. Preserve and Protect: Ensure significant sites are recognized and protected under local historic preservation process, including listing resources on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources.

3. Educate and Engage: Raise awareness about the historical contributions of the LGBTQ+ community and foster public appreciation through educational initiatives and community engagement.

4. Enhance Civic Identity: Strengthen Sacramento’s identity as an inclusive city that honors and celebrates its diverse cultural heritage.

Consultant Selection Process
To ensure a comprehensive and professional approach to this significant project, the City issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) in late 2023. The RFP invited qualified consultants with expertise in historic preservation, particularly those with experience in LGBTQ+ history and cultural resource surveys, to submit proposals.

The selection process was rigorous and transparent, involving several key steps:

1. Objective Review Committee: An objective consultant selection committee was formed with members of the LGBTQ+ community. Preservation Staff facilitated the review, but remained objective and neutral in the selection process.

2. Proposal Review: An initial review of all submitted proposals was conducted to ensure compliance with the RFP requirements.

3. Evaluation Criteria: Proposals were evaluated based on specific criteria, including the consultant’s relevant experience, methodology, project understanding, qualifications of the project team, and cost-effectiveness.

4. Selection: Based on the evaluations, the committee selected the most qualified consultant, Page & Turnbull, who demonstrated a comprehensive understanding of LGBTQ+ history, innovative methodologies for historical research, and a proven track record in similar projects, including the award-winning Sacramento African American Historic Experience Project.

Major Project Accomplishments
Since the project's inception, several major milestones have been achieved:

1. Historical Research: Page & Turnbull has conducted extensive archival research and reviewed existing oral history interviews. This research provided a foundational understanding of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ history.

2. Community Engagement: The project team made extensive efforts to ensure community perspectives and priorities were integrated throughout the process. In addition to holding public meetings, staff supplemented the outreach with small group sessions and targeted discussions to engage a diverse range of voices, particularly from the LGBTQ+ community. The engagement process aimed to gather meaningful input to shape the direction of the project and provide opportunities for community members to review and comment on key findings.

Table 1 provides a summary of the significant public outreach events along with key milestones reached as part of the project.

Tabel 1: Public Outreach Events and Milestones
Date Summary
18-Apr-24
First public meeting with approximately 50 attendees held at First United Methodist Church, 2100 J Street. The meeting introduced the project and gathered initial input from the community.
23-May-24
Second public meeting with about 25 attendees held at Hart Senior Center, 915 27th Street. Preliminary findings were presented, and feedback was gathered to adjust the project’s focus.

June-24
Public release of the first draft of the historic context statement for review. The staff promoted the draft at several events during the review period including: City Hall Pride Flag Raising, Drag Queen Bingo, Sacramento Pride, Servant
Hearts Wisdom Project, Lavender Heights Walking Tour,
CityConnect Mixer, AIA Pride Month Social Hour, Sac County LGBTQ Caucus, Preservation Commission, NDAT Community
Ambassadors, and the LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group
July - Aug -
Sep 2024
Seven small group sessions held at community hubs,
including the LGBT Community Center, Lavender Library, and Marsha P. Johnson Center South. Focused on engaging
underrepresented voices, especially BIPOC, Latinx, AAPI, trans, and lesbian communities. City staff and Page and Turnbull also conducted several one-on-one meetings with community members and subject matter experts throughout the project including with: Kimberly Miller, Theresa Corrigan, Jolanne Tierney, Nurk Franklin, Cherie Gordon, Jonathan Cameron, John Bennett, Bob Vizzard, Dennis Mangers, Asa Salley, Judy Walls, Jude Grden, Maureen Gaynor, Rita
Maningo, Pat Drouet, Clarmundo Sullivan, Fred Palmer,
Charlene Jones, George Raya, and Tina Reynolds
27-Sep-24 Public release of the second draft of the project document for review.

Oct-24 Public release of the first draft Lavender Heights and LGBTQ+ Landmark Property historic resource evaluations.
2-Oct-24 Public meeting to present the major findings of the draft document and gather community feedback.
9-Oct-24
Second public meeting to further discuss the findings and help community members navigate the document and provide
additional feedback.

Additional public outreach events include attending the following events: CGNIE Coronation Gala, Rainbow Chamber of Commerce Gala, LGBT Community Center Career Fair, Jammin’ Jo’s Annual 21st Birthday, The Center for Spiritual Awareness, and the Latino Book and Family Festival. Staff also organized private tours of the Center for Sacramento History’s archive for project participants interested in donating materials.

3. Draft Historic Context Statement: Following the release of the first public draft in June 2024, a comprehensive second draft of the HCS was developed and reviewed by the public in October 2024. Following the second public comment period, a final draft of the HCS was produced in response to public comments and additional research (Attachment 3), detailing the historical narrative of the LGBTQ+ community in Sacramento, significant sites, and key historical themes.

4. Historical Resources Survey: Page & Turnbull has conducted a comprehensive historical resources survey of the Lavender Heights neighborhood and identified a potentially eligible historic district. In addition, five individual properties were identified as potentially eligible historical landmarks and individually evaluated.

These evaluations are included in Attachment 4.

Conclusion
By documenting and preserving Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ history, this project not only honors the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community but also enriches the city’s cultural heritage and fosters a more inclusive and diverse historical narrative. The City of Sacramento is committed to continuing this important work and ensuring that the stories and sites of significance to the LGBTQ+ community are recognized, preserved, and celebrated for generations to come.

Sacramento
LGBTQ+
Historic Experience Project
HISTORIC CONTEXT STATEMENT • DECEMBER 2024

PROJECT

WEBSITE

Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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D
isclaimer: Available historic sources favor a gay white male and lesbian perspective. The Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project team has made every effort to broaden the historical narrative to include information about the BIPOC, AAPI, Latinx, trans, bisexual, and other communities wherever possible based on available information and public input, particularly by collecting oral histories.

Th
e cover page graphics and all chapter divider graphics were designed by Sacramento-based LGBTQ+ owned and operated graphic design and video production firm:

C
over images (from left to right):

1. Marchers walk to the Sacramento during the 1971 March for Sexual Freedom. Source: Ski p S
hulman for The Sacramento Bee.

2. CGNIE Empress IV Pat Montclaire at the Parking Lot (1979). Source: Fifty Gay Years In The Greater Sacramento Area.

3. Tom Bach (right) and Patrick Elkins-Zeglarski (left) in a Lambda Players’ production (ca. 1990).

Source: Center for Sacramento History.

4. GALA co-president Lavinia Cooper. Courtesy of Asa Salley.

5. Billie Jean Jones (1998). Source: ETVC Archives.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 4 PROJECT BACKGROUND & GOALS ....................................................................................................... 6 METHODOLOGY & OUTREACH ............................................................................................................. 7 TERMINOLOGY .................................................................................................................................... 13 EARLY GENDER TRANSGRESSIVE EXPRESSION IN THE SACRAMENTO AREA (PRE-1940) ............... 17 Two-Spirits in Native American Societies .................................................................................................. 19 Spanish, Mexican & Early American Periods ............................................................................................ 20 Early 20th Century & Birth of the First Homosexual Communities ........................................................ 26 Non-Normative Gender and Sexuality in Sacramento, Mid-19 th to Early 20th Centuries .................... 29 FINDING ONE ANOTHER: WORLD WAR II & POSTWAR-ERA SACRAMENTO (1941-1968) ............... 38 World War II and Shifting Gender Norms ................................................................................................. 40 Cold War and the Lavender Scare .............................................................................................................. 41 The Homophile Movement ......................................................................................................................... 43 Cruising & Gay Bar Culture ......................................................................................................................... 47 OUT & PROUD: DEVELOPMENT OF A VISIBLE SACRAMENTO LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY (1969- CA.2000) ............................................................................................................................................... 54 Formation of LGBTQ+ Subcultures ............................................................................................................ 60 Gay Bars & Cruising Locations .................................................................................................................... 63 Lavender Heights .......................................................................................................................................... 77 Community Centers & Services .................................................................................................................. 82 Lambda Community Center/Sacramento LGBT Community Center .................................................... 94 LGBTQ+ Newspapers & Media ................................................................................................................... 98 LGBTQ+ Social Outlets & Events .............................................................................................................. 109 Religious & Spiritual Expression Within the LGBTQ+ Community ...................................................... 144 Gay Pride Parades ..................................................................................................................................... 147 AIDS & THE SACRAMENTO LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY’S RESPONSE (1981-1996) ................................ 152 Federal and Global Context ..................................................................................................................... 154 AIDS Advocacy in Sacramento ................................................................................................................. 156 POLITICAL ACTIVISM & THE FIGHT FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS IN CALIFORNIA’S STATE CAPITAL (1969- CA. 2000) ............................................................................................................................................ 170 The Gay Liberation Movement in Sacramento ...................................................................................... 173 Political Advocacy & The Push for Legislative Change .......................................................................... 181 Responses to Continuing Discrimination ............................................................................................... 200 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................... 206 Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................. 209 APPENDICES ...................................................................................................................................... 230 Preservation Goals & Policies .................................................................................................................. 232 Historic Designation Eligibility Standards and Criteria ......................................................................... 235 Lavender Heights Survey .......................................................................................................................... 271 Individual Historic Resources Survey & Evaluation ............................................................................... 297 Identified Potential Historic Resources………………………………………………………………………………………..336

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The story of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community is one of countless individuals who put themselves at risk to express their true identities and build a vibrant, rich, and supportive community. Members of the LGBTQ+ community have always been an integral part of the fabric of Sacramento, though for much of the city’s history their existence was hidden and misunderstood. To date, the contributions of this community to Sacramento’s history have been significantly underrecognized. In 2023, the City of Sacramento received a Certified Local Government grant from the California Office of Historic Preservation (OHP), part of California’s Historic Preservation Fund allocation by the federal government, to develop a historic context statement (HCS) and survey focused on LGBTQ+ history and associated historical resources in Sacramento.

This HCS highlights Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ history and begins to rectify historical disparities through the identification of sites, persons, and events that are of historic importance to this community. It is not intended as a comprehensive history of the community, which has been and continues to be documented by community members and scholars. Instead, this context statement draws upon new and existing research, including oral histories with members of the community, and provides a general discussion of the overarching forces that shaped LGBTQ+ life in Sacramento over time to understand the community’s contributions to history and the places that are most important to this history.

This context begins with two chapters that provide a broad chronological overview of early gender transgressive expression in the Sacramento area, first from its initial settlement by Native Americans to 1940, and then from World War II to 1968. Due to widespread discrimination and the real risk of arrest, imprisonment, or institutionalization that gender and/or sexually nonconforming people faced throughout these periods, most were forced to hide their true selves from their family, friends, and general society, as well as themselves. As such, very little verified research or information exists about their existence in Sacramento prior to the gay liberation movement of the late 1960s.

As such,
these first two overview chapters include brief summaries of how gender non-conformity was generally understood and treated in the United States and California prior to 1968 to provide useful background information that helps explain what life was likely like for LGBTQ+ people in Sacramento during these early periods. This general national and statewide context is interspersed with relevant known examples of gender nonconformity in Sacramento.

These first two chronological overview chapters provide a broad foundation for three thematic chapters about LGBTQ+ history in Sacramento that follow, which include Out and Proud:

Development of A Visible Sacramento LGBTQ+ Community (1969-2000); AIDS and the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Community’s Response (1981-1996); and Political Activism and the Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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in California’s State Capital (1969-2000). A list of potentially eligible properties related to each chapter, as well as guidelines for assessing the eligibility of properties for historic designation , are included in the Appendices. Due to limited available research, particularly about the period prior to the 1960s, and time constraints tied to the project’s grant funding, not all possible themes associated with Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ history were examined. Suggestions for future research to expand this HCS are included in the “Preservation Goals and Policies” section of the Appendices.

People with non-normative gender identities and sexual orientations have always existed in Sacramento. Many Native American tribes—including the Nisenan, Miwok, and Patwin who called the Sacramento region home—embraced an expansive and fluid understanding of gender and sexuality. Spanish missionaries and European and American settlers who colonized California in the 18th and early 19th centuries brought with them more restrictive views that demonized gender transgressive personal expression. Although the flood of men into California during the Gold Rush in the mid-19th century created a stark gender imbalance that upended many of these gendered and racialized structures, gender nonconformity was still not generally accepted by American society and was often met by arrest or imprisonment. In Sacramento, accounts of the arrest of individuals who engaged in gender non-conforming relationships or actions contrast with stories of male and female impersonators who were celebrated for their portrayals of members of the opposite gender on theatrical stages across Downtown Sacramento from the late 19th the early 20th centuries.

Pioneering medical studies in the late 1940s and 1950s increased societal awareness and understanding of non-normative gender and sexuality and contributed to the formation of the first gender nonconforming communities in the United States. However, this greater visibility was met with a period of increased paranoia toward and criminalization of any personal expression that differed from society norms during the Cold War. Amidst this period of intense scrutiny, the first homophile groups organizations – including the Association for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) in Sacramento in the 1960s – formed to provide support for gay men and women. Discrimination and criminalization of non-normative sexuality and gender expression within the boundaries of the City of Sacramento led to the coalescence of the first LGBTQ+ bars, businesses, and community gathering places across the Sacramento River in the separate and, at the time, unincorporated city of West Sacramento. The epicenter of the local LGBTQ+ community began to shift from West Sacramento to the City of Sacramento following the Stonewall Inn riots in New York City in 1969 and the repeal of California’s anti-sodomy laws in 1975. Although gay-owned and gay-friendly businesses and services opened throughout the city, the largest and most visible concentration developed in a neighborhood of Midtown near the intersection of 20th and K streets that became known as Lavender Heights. A rich social and cultural scene emerged that reflected the diversity of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, including bars, restaurants, bookstores, medical and legal offices, sports leagues, theater troupes, social clubs, media publications, professional business associations, Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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and religious and spiritual institutions that catered specifically to the LGBTQ+ community. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community was recognized as a visible and vibrant part of the city’s general population.

The AIDS outbreak in the 1980s was a watershed moment in history and exacted an unfathomable toll on Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, as many of its leaders and brightest members were lost.

However, more than any other event prior to the 1980s and 1990s, the AIDS epidemic united Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, who rallied to form organizations, clinics, charities, and other services to support its sick and dying members. AIDS also mobilized the LGBTQ+ community to fight for equal rights to protect itself from discrimination and provide essential support, care, and services to its loved ones. Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community was well placed to have an outsized impact on policy and legislation because of its proximity to the seat of state government at the California State Capitol. The Capitol became the marquee destination for numerous statewide g ay rights marches, protests, and rallies. Local LGBTQ+ residents lobbied for anti -discrimination legislation both from within the political establishment and through grassr oots efforts as private citizens through advocacy groups, letter writing campaigns, and personal lawsuits. The experiences and policy wins garnered through the efforts of the statewide LGBTQ+ community laid the foundation for monumental legislative, social, and cultural changes in the 2000s, which culminated in the legalization of same-sex marriage in California in 2013 and across the United States in 2015.

With greater acceptance and a decreasing need to cling tightly together for survival, the tight-knit quality of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community dissipated around 2000 as the LGBTQ+ community became an integrated part of Sacramento’s broad and diverse population.

Throughout this document, properties associated with local LGBTQ+ history that are known to survive are labeled as “extant.” Properties that do not include this label have either been demolished or require more research to determine their status. Members of the public, the academic community, and City staff will continue to research the history of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, leading to future discoveries, new observations, and more detailed analyses of this history. Historic context statements can be living documents, and with time and as more information is revealed, this document may be amended and expanded to add more themes, time periods, and details to recognize the continued contributions of the LGBTQ+ community to Sacramento’s development.

00 Introduction
Project Background + Goals

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Images on previous page (from left to right):

1. Jolanne Tierney (1989). Source: Courtesy of Jolanne Tierney.

2. Stan Hadden (1991). Source: Sacramento Bee.

3. Reverend Freda Smith of the Sacramento MCC (1987). Source: Sacramento Bee.

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INTRODUCTION

PROJECT BACKGROUND & GOALS
What is a Historic Context Statement?
As part of the effort to accomplish these goals and outcomes, the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project provides a historic context statement (HCS) as a foundation for the identification of significant individuals, key events, buildings, and sites associated with Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community. An HCS is a specialized historic study. As defined by the National Park Service, it is an organizational structure for the interpretation of history that groups information about historic properties sharing a common theme, a common geographical area, and a common time period.

That is, it is the history of the physical development of a place during a certain time and organized by themes and patterns. In this case, the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project HCS focuses on the history of the LGBTQ+ community (theme) in Sacramento (geographic area) from the 19th century through 2000 (time period). While the LGBTQ+ community extended across the greater Sacramento area, the primary focus of this context is within the current boundaries of the City of Sacramento, though important locations and events in West Sacramento and the surrounding area are discussed as they played an important role in local LGBTQ+ history. The end date, approximately 2000, was selected to capture the LGBTQ+ community’s response to the AIDS epidemic and important events in efforts to gain equal rights in the 1990s, as well as to allow for sufficient time and distance between the present and the events described to adequately understand their impact in the context of the past. It is important to note that the HCS is not a comprehensive history of Sacramento or the LGBTQ+ community’s contributions to the city. It does not include all themes, potentially significant built resources, or individuals related to the city’s LGBTQ+ history. Instead, it provides a general overview of the community’s presence in Sacramento and the forces that shaped its lived experiences, development, and activities over a specific period of time.

Project Team
This HCS was prepared by Page & Turnbull, a California-based architecture and planning firm that has been dedicated to historic preservation since 1973. With its headquarters in San Francisco, the firm has had an office in Sacramento since 2006. Page & Turnbull staff responsible for this project includes Principal-in-Charge Christina Dikas, Project Manager/Senior Associate Cultural Resources Planner Clare Flynn, and Cultural Resources Planner Samantha Purnell, all of whom meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Professional Qualifications Standards in Historic Architecture, Architectural History, and/or History.

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Coordination of the project and public outreach was undertaken by City of Sacramento Preservation Director Sean deCourcy and Preservation Planner Henry Feuss. Considerable day-to-day assistance on the project was provided by City of Sacramento interns.

METHODOLOGY & OUTREACH
The HCS is organized thematically, beginning with two chapters that provide a broad chronological overview of LGBTQ+ history through 1968 and connects important international, national, and statewide events to local LGBTQ+ history in Sacramento. The overview is intended to provide the necessary background information for the more focused thematic chapters that follow. The organization and content of this HCS are consistent with federal, state, and local guidelines for developing historic contexts and registering historic properties. These include the guidelines found in the following publications:
• National Park Service: National Register Bulletin No. 15 How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation
• National Register Bulletin No. 16A How to Complete the National Register Registration Form • National Register Bulletin No. 16B How to Complete the National Register Multiple Property Documentation Form
• National Register Bulletin No. 24 Guidelines for Local Surveys: A Basis for Preservation Planning • State of California, Office of Historic Preservation “Instructions for Recording Historical Resources”
• California Statewide Historic Preservation Plan, 2006-2010 • Marie Nelson, State of California, Office of Historic Preservation, “Writing Historic Contexts” • State of California, Office of Historic Preservation, “OHP Preferred Format for Historic Context Statements”

Numerous and varied sources of information were reviewed to create this report. Primary source documents that originated within the historical period include personal narratives and oral histories, newspaper articles published in Mom…Guess What…!, the Sacramento Bee, and other media publications; business listings in the Damron Guides; photographs; maps; official reports and records; and records of building construction. Of particular importance are oral histories gathered by community members and scholars that are archived at the Lavend er Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE); Center for Sacramento History; California State University, Sacramento; and Sierra College, or which were conducted purposely for this project. These oral histories and biographies provide a first-hand account of the lives and experiences of individual members of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community and are an invaluable resource for con tinued research.

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Literature Review
A broad review of existing written academic research and popular histories related to the history of the LGBTQ+ community in Sacramento, as well as the state of California and United States, formed the basis of the HCS. Principal literary sources that informed this study include William Burg ’s books, Sacramento Renaissance: Art, Music & Activism in California’s Capital City (2013) and Midtown Sacramento: Creative Soul of the City (2014). Research term papers completed by students at local and regional universities were also referenced, including Michael Andrew Claussen’s master’s thesis, “Lavender Heights: The Emerging Gay Community in Downtown Sacramento, California,” (California State University, Chico, 1998); Stan F. Carlsen’s master’s thesis, "Out on the Inside: A Case Study of the Political Transformation of the LGBTQ Community in California” (California State University, Sacramento, 2006); and Amber Elena Pion’s master’s thesis, “How To Create Policy in an Epidemic:

AIDS in Sacramento, 1981-1989” (California State University, Sacramento, 2010).

Recent historic context statements for LGBTQ+ communities in other California cities were also referenced to provide general background information. These include the City of Los Angeles’ SurveyLA LGBT Historic Context Statement (2014), prepared by GPA Consulting, as well as the City and County of San Francisco’s Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco, written by Donna J. Graves and Shayne E. Watson (2016).

Archival Research
The following is a summary of the archival research that informed the HCS:
• Personal documents, photographs, and other materials provided by community members, including George Raya, Denny Mangers, Nurk Franklin, and others. • Archival materials held by the Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE); GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco; ONE Archives at the University of Southern California; and other state LGBTQ+ repositories.
• Oral histories recorded in the Center for Sacramento History’s Legends of Courage LGBTQ+ history video documentary and interview series, directed by Dawn Deason. • Newspaper articles published in Mom...Guess What...!, ARC News, PATLAR Gazette, TV Guise/Genderflex, The Latest Issue, Outword Magazine, and other local LGBTQ+ newspapers and publications that are held by LLACE, Center for Sacramento History, California State University, Sacramento Library, and Digital Transgender Archive • Online historic newspaper articles in the Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Union, and others at Newspapers.com
• Online maps, aerial photographs, and historic photographs from the Sacramento Public Library, Calisphere.org, and UC Santa Barbara’s FrameFinder website Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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• City directories, United States federal census records, and other records held by the Sacramento Public Library and Ancestry.com

City of Sacramento interns collected and mapped the addresses of LGBTQ+ businesses listed in Damron’s Men's Travel Guide (the Damron Guides) in Sacramento from 1965 to 1989 and scoured Jail Register records and Mug Books at the Center for Sacramento History to document arrests of gender non-conforming individuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Community Outreach & Stipend Program
The history of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community has been underrecognized and under-researched until the present and the vast majority of information about this history remains in the memories of the people who witnessed it. Community involvement was, thus, essential to the completion of the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience project. City of Sacramento Historic Preservation staff and their consultant, Page & Turnbull, engaged members of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community through numerous avenues over the course of the year-long project.

To spread word about the project and share opportunities to participate, City of Sacramento Historic Preservation staff presented and handed out flyers at various LGBTQ+ events and spaces throughout Sacramento. Some of the events they attended included, but are not limited to, the Rainbow Chamber of Commerce Gala in 2023 and 2024, Drag Queen Bingo events at Mango’s, the LGBT Community Center Career Fair, the CGNIE Coronation Gala, Sacramento Pride and the annual Pride flag raising ceremony, Jammin’ Jo’s annual 21st Birthday Party, meetings of the LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group and Center for Spiritual Awareness, a walking tour of Lavender Heights presented by Preservation Sacramento, and a CityConnect Mixer event at Roscoe’s.

An initial public meeting was held at the First United Methodist Church in the Lavender Heights neighborhood on April 18, 2024. A second public meeting was held at the Hart Senior Center in Midtown approximately one month later on May 23, 2024. During these meetings, City of Sacramento Historic Preservation staff and Page and Turnbull introduced the purpose, scope, and approach of the LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project and gathered initial input from community members. Following the release of the First Public Draft of the historic context statement, two additional public meetings took place in October 2024 at Eskaton Land Park and the Hagginwood Community Center, respectively, during which the project team summarized progress on the project progress, provided an update on the project schedule, and gathered additional feedback on the draft historic context statement.

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City of Sacramento Historic Preservation staff supplemented these larger public meetings with seven additional small group sessions in August and September 2024. The meetings took place at the LGBT Community Center, LLACE, and Marsha P. Johnson Center South. Community members— especially members of the BIPOC, trans, and lesbian communities—were invited to share their stories in small listening sessions.

To gather detailed information about prominent individuals and specific topics, Henry Feuss, Historic Preservation Planner for the City of Sacramento, and Clare Flynn, historic consultant from Page & Turnbull, met with individual community members for one-on-one conversations about their experiences and memories about the LGBTQ+ community. The following individuals participated in these individual meetings and provided invaluable information about the history of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community (listed in alphabetical order by last name):

• Liz Almendarez
• John Bennett
• Matt Bunch
• Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U
• Theresa Corrigan
• Pat Drouet
• Nurk Franklin
• Maureen Gaynor
• Cherie Gordon
• Jude Grden
• Jeanette Hess
• Charlene Jones
• Denny Mangers
• Rita Maningo
• Kimberly Miller
• George Raya
• Tina Reynolds
• Asa Salley
• Clarmundo Sullivan
• Jolene Tierney (Jammin’ Jo)
• Bob Vizzard
• Judy Walls

Preservation Sacramento provided matching funds to set up a stipend program to compensate individual community members who volunteered their time to actively contribute to the project. The stipend program was facilitated and promoted by LLACE and administered by City of Sacramento staff.

Stipend recipients directly contributed to the project in several specific categories, including collecting oral histories, conducting in-depth scholarly research, documenting individual properties with historic connections to LGBTQ+ history, producing multimedia graphic content for the historic context statement, and assisting with public meetings.

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Figure 1. Stipend recipients (from left to right) Kerry Parsons, Carson Anderson, and PJ Carlino reviewed archival collections at the Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE).

Stipend recipients who contributed to the project included retired City of Sacramento Preservation Director Carson Anderson, Sacramento State University assistant professor PJ Carlino, and LLACE volunteer Kerry Parsons, who served as community researchers for the project, combing through archival collections materials at LLACE, California State Library, GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, and ONE Archives in Los Angeles.

Sacramento State University student Samuel Williams assisted with the intensive survey of the Lavender Heights neighborhood to evaluate it as a potential historic district, photographing contributing properties and researching their association with the LGBTQ+ community by searching city directories available online at Ancestry.com and the Sacramento Public Library .

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Local LGBTQ+ multimedia graphic
design and marketing company
Uptown Studios, founded by
community member Tina Reynolds,
created the graphics for the historic
context statement cover and chapter
dividers. The graphics were designed
by creative director and senior graphic
designer Noel Michienzi and design
project assistant and graphic designer
Jill Bruschera.

Community member Alan LoFaso
received a stipend to complete an in-
depth review of the public drafts. Nick
Kobel researched and created a map
of historic cruising locations, using the Damron Guide listings for Sacramento.

Oral Interviews
Oral histories that record the stories of local LGBTQ+ community members in their own voice were essential to compiling this history. Dawn Deason’s documentary and interview series Legends of Courage, which featured filmed interviews with several prominent members of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community and included a feature-length documentary about the life of pioneering lesbian attorney and activist Rosemary Metrailer, served as a key source. The series, released in 2017, was funded in part by a California Humanities grant and private donations. In 2023, the Center for Sacramento History released a series of oral history interviews with Mom…Guess What …! publisher Linda Birner and other community members—including Denny Mangers, Elizabeth Harrison, Frank Lawler, and Del Richards. These oral histories were a vital resource for the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project.

In addition to these previously filmed oral histories, the City of Sacramento awarded stipends to community members to record additional oral histories as part of the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project. These oral histories will be archived at the Center for Sacramento History for the public to view.

Figure 2. Stipend recipient Samuel Williams photographed and helped research many of the contributing properties in Lavender Heights.

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Lavender Heights Survey
In July and August 2024, Page & Turnbull and community stipend recipient Samuel Williams completed an intensive survey of the Lavender Heights neighborhood to evaluate it for potential listing as a City of Sacramento historic district. All addresses identified while conducting research for the historic context statement were mapped to visualize concentrations of properties with a historic association to the LGBTQ+ community. This mapping exercise confirmed the existence of such a concentration of properties in the Lavender Heights neighborhood. Survey area boundaries were refined by identifying buildings that remain in existence. The extant buildings were photographed from the public right-of-way, and the length of their historic association with the LGBTQ+ community was confirmed by reviewing city directories available at the Sacramento Public Library’s Sacramento Room and online at Ancestry.com.

All photographs in this document were taken by Page & Turnbull unless otherwise noted.

TERMINOLOGY
The LGBTQ+ community is broad and diverse. Words and terminology used to refer to the community as a whole, as well as subgroups within it, have evolved over time and have complex meanings, many of which vary in usage and acceptance between generations. The term LGBTQ+ is a relatively recent one that came into use in the 1990s and is still contested. 1 Additionally, no term exists that accurately reflects the LGBTQ+ community in all of its complexities before the 2000s. 2 To address these language challenges, an attempt has been made throughout the HCS to first use terminology that would have been known and understood during the time period being described (such as “gender non-conforming” or “gender transgressive” prior to the introduction of the term “homosexual” in the late 19th century, “homosexual” from the late 19th century to the 1950s, and “homophile” to describe precursors to the gay rights groups of the 1960s and 1970s) . The word “gay,” though it does not accurately reflect the diversity of the community, was often used as an umbrella term for the community through at least the 1990s, and has, therefore, been used in some instances to describe the community as a whole in the period between the 19 50s and 1990s, prior to the introduction of the acronyms LGBT or LGBTQ+. Where the gender identification and/or sexual orientation of groups or individuals is known, more specific term s, such as “gay man,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” or “transgender” are used. In general, however, when the authors intended to encompass all people within the community or when the exact composition of people who were part of a

1 Erin Blakemore, “From LGBT to LGBTQIA+: The Evolving Recognition of Identify,” National Geographic, October 19, 2021, accessed May 21, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/from-lgbt-to-lgbtqia-the-evolving-recognition-of- identity.
2 Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Forging Gay Identities: Organizing Sexuality in San Francisco, 1950 to 1994 (Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press, 2002), xix.

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specific group, organization, club, business, activity, event, or other entity is unknown, the term LGBTQ+ has been broadly used, even during time periods when the term did not exist, to avoid potentially and unintentionally excluding any one group.

The following list of terms is adapted from GLAAD’s Glossary of Terms and UC Davis’ LGBTQIA Resource Center Glossary, which were drafted in collaboration with other U.S.-based LGBTQ+ community organizations and leaders.3 Additional historical information has been added to provide context for the emergence of specific terms used in this report, some of which are no longer accepted or used by the LGBTQ+ community.

Bisexual: An adjective used to describe a person who has the potential to be physically, romantically, and/or emotionally attracted to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, in the same way, or to the same degree.

Cisgender: An adjective used to describe a person whose gender identity is aligned with the sex they were assigned at birth.

Drag/Drag King/Drag Queen: The theatrical performance of one or multiple genders via dressing in the clothing of a different gender, or in a manner different from how one would usually dress. Drag queens perform in distinctly feminine attire. Drag kings perform in distinctly mascul ine attire. Drag is a form of gender expression and is not an indication of gender identity. Individuals who dress in drag may or may not consider themselves to be transgender. They may identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight or some other sexual orientation.

Gay: An adjective used to describe a person whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attractions are to people of the same sex (e.g., gay man, gay people). Some lesbians prefer to use the term “gay woman.”

Gender expression: External manifestations of gender, expressed through a person’s name, pronouns, clothing, haircut, voice, and/or behavior.

Gender identity: A person’s internal, deeply held knowledge of their own gender.

3 “Glossary of Terms,” GLAAD, accessed April 28, 2024, https://glaad.org/reference/terms; “,“LGBTQIA Resource Center Glossary,” UC Davis, accessed May 11, 2024, https://lgbtqia.ucdavis.edu/educated/glossary#d. This document uses the term “LGBTQ+” rather than “LGBTQIA” with the intention of including all possible gender and sexual identities within the community.

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Gender non-conforming/gender transgressive: Terms used to describe people whose gender expression differs from conventional expectations of masculinity and femininity.

Heterosexual: An adjective used to describe a person whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction is to people of a sex different than their own. Also: straight.

Homosexual: An outdated term to describe a sexual orientation in which a person feels physically and emotionally attracted to people of the same gender. Historically, it was a term used to pathologize gay and lesbian people.

Intersex: An adjective used to describe a person with one or more innate sex characteristics, including genitals, internal reproductive organs, and chromosomes, that fall outside of traditional conceptions of male or female bodies. Not equivalent to transgender.

Lesbian: A woman whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction is to other women.

LGBTQ+: An acronym that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and all other, non - straight, non-cisgender identities.

Nonbinary: Nonbinary is an adjective used by people who experience their gender identity and/or gender expression as falling outside the binary gender categories of man and woman.

Queer: An adjective used by some people, particularly younger generations, whose sexual orientation is not exclusively heterosexual (e.g. queer person, queer woman). Once considered a pejorative term, queer has been reclaimed by some LGBTQ+ people to describe themselves.

However, it is not a universally accepted term within the LGBTQ+ community.

Sexual orientation: The scientifically accurate term for a person’s enduring physical, romantic and/ or emotional attraction to another person. Sexual orientations can include heterosexual (straight), lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual, and other orientations.

Transgender: An adjective to describe people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.

Transexual/Transvestite: Older terms that originated in the medical and psychological communities, which are now considered derogatory. As the gay and lesbian community rejected Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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homosexual and replaced it with gay and lesbian, the transgender community rejected transexual and replaced it with transgender.

Questioning: An adjective used by some people who are in the process of exploring their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

01 Early Gender Transgressive
Expression in the Sacramento Area
Pre-1940
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Images on chapter cover (from left to right):

1. A Zuni two-spirit (ca. 1879-1907). Source: National Archives.

2. Frances Orlando (1933). Source: Sacramento Bee.

3. Mug shot of Joe Franklin (1888). Source: Mug Books, Center for Sacramento History.

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THEME 1: EARLY GENDER TRANSGRESSIVE EXPRESSION IN THE
SACRAMENTO AREA, PRE-1940
Two-Spirits in Native American Societies
Native Americans have lived in the land that later became known as California for at least 13,000 years, and perhaps for much longer. It is conservatively estimated that approximately 300,000 indigenous people, who spoke roughly 78 entirely different languages, lived in California just prior to the arrival of the first European explorers in the 16th century, though these numbers may have been significantly higher. The indigenous peoples of California, thus, represented some of the highest linguistic diversity in the world.
4 Native American tribes throughout the United States had a sophisticated understanding of sexuality, gender, and identity that was more nuanced than that of traditional European- American societies. Individuals who crossed traditional gender roles and dressed in the clothing and performed the traditional tasks of the opposite gender were held in high regard by many tribes. European explorers and settlers called these people berdache, which roughly translates to “boy slave” or “kept boys.” In the 1990s, Native American tribes began to decolonize the term and adopted the term “two-spirit” for individuals who crossed or combined traditional gender roles.
5 Anthropologists
tend to think of two-spirit individuals as a third, or sometimes fourth, gender; however, Native American societies saw such identities as less about a person’s sexuality or physical characteristics and more closely related to how their special qualities integrated into the social and religious life of the community. Because they fulfilled roles not addressed by traditional male or female roles, two-spirit individuals were often believed to have spiritual powers and frequently served the role as medicine people for their communities and played an important part in religious ceremonies, such as the sun dance, puberty

4 Naomi Scher, “Native Americans and the California Mission System, 1769-1848,” National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, 2023, E-5.
5 Brian Joseph Gilley, Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), 8.

Figure 3. A Zuni two-spirit (ca. 1879-
1907). Source: National Archives.

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ceremonies, and name-giving ceremonies. They could also serve as mediators, match makers, or peace makers in their communities.6

The land now called Sacramento is the traditional homeland of the Nisenan, Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains Miwok, and Patwin Wintun peoples, and the Wilton Rancheria tribe.7 Historical information about the specific role of two-spirit individuals in these tribes is limited; however, the languages of each group have words for male-bodied two-spirit people, indicating that two-spirits existed in their societies. The Nisenan call male-bodied two-spirits Osa’pu. The Miwok call them Nde'isdzan, which roughly translates to “man-woman,” while the Patwin call them Panaro bobum pi, which translates to "he has two [sexes]."8

Spanish, Mexican & Early American Periods
The reverence many Native American tribes held for two-spirit individuals contrasted sharply with the treatment individuals received if they crossed traditional male-female roles or identities in the European societies that colonized California. Spanish explorers first visited Alta California (present - day California) in the 1540s and established the first mission in San Diego in 1769. 9 Spanish attitudes toward sex and gender roles and identities were dictated by their Catholic faith. Spain was a devoutly Catholic society that viewed all forms of sexual activity that did not lead to reproduction as sinful and unnatural. For a man to take a submissive position during sexual activity was considered a violation of gender roles, and sodomy was referred to as “el pecado negado,” or “the abominable sin.”10 Similar to the views and teachings of Puritan New England colonies, religious Catholic rhetoric under the Spanish government’s colonial rule limited sexual expression to the confines of marriage between a man and woman. Sexual expression outside of marriage, including sodomy, was considered a sin and punishment and could include banishment, whipping, branding with a hot iron, or burning as a witch.11 Sodomy laws, in particular, applied mainly to sexual activity between two men. Female sexuality was often denied, and in instances of female-female sexual activity, it was commonly assumed that this type of relationship was a result of one of the wom en possessing intersex/male genitalia, which would give her male urges.12

6 Trista Wilson, "Changed Embraces, Changes Embraced? Renouncing the Heterosexist Majority in Favor of a Return to Traditional Two-Spirit Culture," American Indian Law Review 36, no. 1 (2011-2012, pp. 161-188; Harlan Pruden and Beverly Gorman, "LGBTQ2 Well-Being Education: Two-Spirit People: Then and Now," February 14, 2014, accessed March 1, 2024, https://www.ihs.gov/sites/lgbt/themes/responsive2017/display_objects/documents/lgbttwospirithistory.pdf. 7 Sacramento Native American Health Center, “Land Acknowledgement,” accessed March 1, 2024, https://snahc.org/land- acknowledgement/.
8 Pruden and Gorman, "LGBTQ2 Well-Being Education: Two-Spirit People: Then and Now.” 9 Scher, “Native Americans and the California Mission System, 1769-1848,” E-4. 10 Susan Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History at Museums and Historic Sites (Lanham, PA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014), 23, 30.
11 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 31.
12 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 31.

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After Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821 and the United States obtained California as part of the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, California’s society and government was secularized. Sexual behavior no longer came under the control of the Catholic Church, but rather, civil authorities. Californians generally reflected the European Enlightenment’s and U.S.

Constitution’s rejection of blind religious faith in favor of reason, science, and the separation of church and state. However, sodomy remained outlawed, not because it was believed to be a sin against God, but because it was considered dangerous to the natural order of the universe. 13

GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES, LATE 1700S-1900 The integration of cultural norms and traditions from white European and American settlers, explorers, and tradespeople who traveled to California in the 18th and 19th centuries significantly influenced the understanding of gender and sexuality in Californian society. In the late 1700s to early 1800s, a societal attitude emerged in the United States and Europe in which men and women were seen as binary opposites in terms of gender, though with complementary masculine and feminine characteristics. This attitude created a more pronounced division between men and women, particularly among the middle class. 14

Departing from the Colonial-era farmstead in which all family members contributed to the physical and economic upkeep of the household, the Industrial Revolution and subsequent introduction of the market economy to the United States deepened gendered divisions of labor. 15 As men and a
smaller percentage of working-class and young immigrant women joined factory work for the first time, the genders were often divided into so-called “separate spheres.” Women from middle-class and wealthy families typically stayed home to care for the home and children, while their husbands were at work and were responsible for everything outside the home. Following this shift in economic practices, members of the same gender began to spend more time with each other, and “romantic friendships” became more commonplace between members of the same gender. Such friendships, often between two people in separate heterosexual marriages, were common among middle- and upper-middle class white people in the late 19
th century.16

Through much of the 19
th century, any non-normative form of gender or sexuality was viewed by mainstream American society as voluntary and circumstantial and was treated as an illegal vice that should be punished by the police, lawyers, and judges or treated by doctors and medical

13 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 32.
14 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 35.
15 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 36.
16 Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 11-13.

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professionals.17 For people with non-normative sexuality or gender expressions, urbanization allowed for an increase in anonymity as individuals could indulge in their “vices” away from the eyes and ears of family and community members. 18 Separation of the workplace from the home also allowed for the newfound freedom to explore the privacy of hidden spaces with others of like- minded interests. For example, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), first founded in London in 1844 as an upstanding Christian organization for young men to gather in the urban environment, opened its first U.S. location in Boston in 1851. YMCAs across the United States became a popular place for same-sex relationships to flourish as dormitories, showers, and locker rooms became common meeting grounds that allowed for sexual encounters, while maintaining anonymity. Along with new opportunities to gather away from the surveillance of small community networks, urbanization also allowed for men and women to engage in socially non -conforming behaviors such as cross-dressing.
19 THE AMERICAN WEST
The Gold Rush from 1848 to 1855 brought approximately 300,000 people from all over the world to California. For many, the American West symbolized a frontier that was new and uncharted, providing many families and individuals an opportunity for self-determination and a fresh start away from the strict class and gender confines of established society. 20 While some women and families made the journey westward, a disproportionate number of men pursued these early economic opportunities on the frontier compared with women, creating a notable gender imbalance. In 1850, there were approximately 12.2 men for every woman in California. Although the imbalance decreased over time, there were still 2.4 men for every woman in the state in 1860 .21 The severely imbalanced demographics upended many of the gendered and racialized structures of Anglo - American society. Men were forced to take on roles and tasks that had traditionally been assigned to women, including cooking, cleaning, laundering, sewing, and nursing the sick a nd dying.22 Most spaces catered to and for men, and brothels were one of the only female- dominated spaces, though in some cases, even brothels were controlled by a male owner or local law enforcement. The portion of men was so high that it was common for many men to go weeks or months without seeing a woman.

20 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 39. 20 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 39. 20 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 39. 20 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 39. 21 Albert Hurtado, Intimate Frontiers: Sex, Gender and Culture in Old California (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1999), 76.
22 Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold (New York City: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000), 176, 121-122.

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Figure 4. Drawing showing the wide diversity of men mining on the banks of the Sacramento River (ca. 1849- 1852). Source: UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library.

From these circumstances, a unique kinship and camaraderie between men developed; including a cowboy culture celebrating the comfort of male friendship and the impersonation of women. 23 During this time, there was reportedly a custom of using different colored handkerchiefs to identify men playing male roles and men playing female roles at all-male dances.24 Cross-dressing was relatively commonplace, and there are several known instances of women and men choosing to live as the opposite gender, suggesting that the West invited individuals seeking less rigid societal gender norms.25 While some men cross-dressed to express their true gender identities, there are also instances in which they did so to commit crimes or escape arrest. For women, cross -dressing was likely motivated by several factors: to travel more safely, gain employment, and/or as an

23 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 39. 24 William Burg, Sacramento Renaissance: Art, Music & Activism in California ’s Capital City (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2013), 159.
25 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 41.

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expression of their transgender/nonbinary identities. 26 One known example from the Sacramento area is Charley Parkhurst, a highly regarded stagecoach driver with one eye who was known for his skill with a whip and ability to transport passengers and gold safely over important routes between gold-mining outposts and major towns, including San Francisco and Sacramento. After Parkhurst’s death, it was discovered that he had been born with female anatomy. 27

Though records of same-sex relationships in
California during the 19th century are
extremely limited, they certainly occurred.

The term “boom cover trade,” referencing
sailors having sex under the coverings that
protected a ship’s mast, emerged to
describe a man having sex with another
man. Sharing a bed with someone of the
same gender was not an uncommon
occurrence in 19
th century, particularly in
frontier areas, and was, therefore, not
necessarily a sign of homosexuality.
28 Some
documented examples of same-sex
relationships, though rare, do exist. In 1849,
lifelong partners Jason Chamberlain and
John Chafee sailed from Boston to California
to seek their fortune in the Gold Rush. They
lived together in Groveland, California, until
Chamberlain’s death in 1903.29 Despite the small number of known examples, in the charged atmosphere of the frontier West—which was often characterized by groups of young single men and lonely husbands, who danced, drank, and slept together far from the customary social constraints and gender norms of home—it is not farfetched to assume that same-sex relationships occurred.30

The mid-19
th century saw the American West evolve towards a mythological realm in which the white, masculine, and heterosexual male was celebrated for settling and civilizing what was seen as

26 Peter Boag, “The Trouble with Cross Dressers: Researching and Writing the History of Sexual and Gender Transgressiveness in the Nineteenth-Century American West,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 112, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 322–39. 27 Tim Arango, “Overlooked No More: Charley Parkhurst, Gold Rush Legend With a Hidden Identity,” 5 December 2018, New York Times.
28 Johnson, Roaring Camp, 173-174.
29 “Teaching LGBTQ History: LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History,” LGBTQHistory.org, accessed April 4, 2024, https://lgbtqhistory.org/lgbt-rights-timeline-in-american-history/. 30 Johnson, Roaring Camp, 173-174.

Figure 5. Charley Parkhurst. Source: Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.

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a vast uncivilized wilderness. These traits were promoted in national rhetoric and celebrated as heroic and patriotic. In order to promote this mythologized vision of the West and justify the exploitative treatment of racial minorities, people of Asian, Mexican, African American, and Native American descent were stereotyped as being effeminate and sexually deviant.31 By 1873, passage of the Comstock Law forbade sending sexually explicit material through the mail, therefore limiting the spread of information between gender nonconforming people and potential opportunities for self - education and the growth of true communities. Overall, societal fears about sexual deviance served as a catalyst for laws prohibiting dressing in clothing of the opposite sex. Such laws passed in 1863 in San Francisco; 1879 in Oakland; 1882 in San Jose; and the 1890s in Santa Barbara. 32 Possibly as a direct response to perceptions of Seattle as a hotspot for sexually transgressive behavior, Washington State enacted its first sodomy law in 1893, and in 1916 passed a licensing law requiring the strict regulation of clothing and prohibiting other sexually transgressive behavior in bars and cabarets.
33 Research has not revealed whether Sacramento passed a similar ordinance in the 1800s.

Despite this wave of ordinances restricting expression of sexual orientation, the 14 th Amendment was ratified in 1868 and served as a landmark for future civil rights case law.34

INTRODUCTION OF THE TERM “HOMOSEXUAL”
While the concept of same-sex attraction and other gender-nonconforming behavior had been integrated into many cultures and ethnic groups for thousands of years, the term “homosexuality” was not formally used until the latter half of the 19th century. At this time, discussions in European and American society and among medical professionals began to emerge around the newly established field of psychology, and early practitioners began to explore gender and sexuality.35 The concept of same-sex attraction as an innate part of a person’s being was first introduced in 1864 by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a German jurist who identified himself as a member of the third sex (a male with a “woman’s soul” who desires men). Ulrichs wrote a series of essays that described homosexuality as a congenital and natural sexual variation, as opposed to an unnatural defect. 36 Austro-Hungarian journalist Karoly Maria Kertbeny adopted Ulrich’s theories and coined the terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual” in 1868 in response to the Prussian government's proposal to prohibit male same-sex relations in its constitution. German sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s 1886 pioneering study Psychopathia Sexualis introduced the concepts of homosexuality and non-

31 Peter Boag, “The Trouble with Cross Dressers: Researching and Writing the History of Sexual and Gender Transgressiveness in the Nineteenth-Century American West,” 337.
32 Stryker, Transgender History, 46–47.
33 Gary Atkins, Gay Seattle: Stories of Exile and Belonging (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), 15, 55. 34 “Teaching LGBTQ History: LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History." 35 Erin Blakemore, “From LGBT to LGBTQIA+: The Evolving Recognition of Identity,” National Geographic, October 19, 2021, accessed May 15, 2024, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/from-lgbt-to-lgbtqia-the-evolving-recognition-of- identity.
36 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 55–56.

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normative sexuality as inborn traits to the general public in Europe and the United States. Krafft- Ebing defined “heterosexuality” as “erotic feeling for a different sex,” while “homosexuality” was defined as “erotic feeling for a same sex.” 37 He also introduced a third category, which he called “psycho-sexual hermaphroditism,” to characterize “impulses toward both sexes.” 38 The first recorded use of the words “homosexual” and “heterosexual” in the United States occurred in a journal article written by Chicago doctor James G. Kiernan in 1892.39 In contrast to Krafft-Ebing, Kiernan, like other researchers in the United States at the time, viewed homosexuality as a pathology that required treatment, rather than compassion.40

Early 20th Century & Birth of the First Homosexual Communities During the early 20th century, urbanization grew at a rapid pace, while at the same time, there developed a growing perception among the medical community and mainstream society that same- sex desires and gender non-conformity were outside the societal “norms.” Between 1880 and 1920, the percentage of the United States population living in urban centers doubled from 26 to 50 percent. Wage labor jobs became centralized within the urban core, attracting young working people and immigrants in search of economic opportunity. In addition, Black Americans t ook part in the Great Migration from Reconstruction-Era Southern states to cities in the Northeast, Midwest, and West in the 1910s and 1920s.41 Cities became melting pots where people from all backgrounds and walks of life met, intermingled, and increased the likelihood that gender and sexually non-normative people would meet and find each other. The dissemination of new theories from the medical community to the general public increased self-awareness among gender non-conforming individuals that there were others like them. This broader understanding of shared gender and sexual identities and their place in the larger sociopolitical context eventually laid the groundwork for the creation of early non-normative gender and sexuality communities and cultures in the United States.42

While the workplace at the turn of 19th century largely consisted of male workers, women were slowly introduced to the labor force by the early 20th century. Single women began to migrate to urban areas in search of work, and women increasingly enrolled in all-female colleges, the earliest of which were founded in the mid-late 19th century. To quell fears about the safety of single young women in urban areas, organizations were established to provide reputable and safe all -female

37 Amin Ghaziani, “The Reinvention of Heterosexuality,” Gay and Lesbian Review, May-June 2010, accessed May 7, 2024, https://glreview.org/article/the-reinvention-of-heterosexuality/. 38 Ghaziani, “The Reinvention of Heterosexuality.”
39 Ghaziani, “The Reinvention of Heterosexuality.”
40 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 56. 41 Graves and Watson, “Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco,” 15. 42 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 70.

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lodgings.43 In a similar fashion to the clandestine rooms and spaces in early YMCAs utilized by single men in the mid-19th century, the all-female establishments provided safe and secluded places for women to explore their sexual identities and commune with like-minded individuals.

As the economy continued to evolve into the 20th century, more opportunities were afforded to women to find occupations from which they could support themselves, such as secretarial or clerical work. Two working women could live together and support themselves, and this became known as a “Boston marriage.” Boston marriages between two women were commonly accepted as an extension of friendship until the 1920s, after which suspicions of lesbianism emerged. Around this time, large numbers of unmarried educated women were participating in the suffrage movement, and criticism of the movement took advantage of this social suspicion surrounding female relationships, accusing suffragists of lesbianism.
44 The 1920s brought a time of greater sexual exploration, experimentation, and culture throughout the United States. New freedoms in fashion, music, and sexual expression emerged in other countries, as well.
45 Germany was a hotbed for thought around gender and sexuality. Magnus Hirschfeld, a German researcher and advocate for homosexuals, founded the Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin in 1919 and organized the first conferences of sex researchers. 46 In 1924, German
immigrant Henry Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights in Chicago, the first gay rights organization in the United States.47 The organization was an outlier, however, and efforts to create advocacy groups in support of gay and lesbian relationships did not begin in earnest until after World War II.

Gender transgressive communities flourished in urban centers such as New York’s Green wich Village and Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Several female African-American Blues singers—such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Gladys Bentley, and Bessie Jackson—had lesbian or bisexual relationships and created music that explored themes of lesbian or bisexual desire, struggle, and humor.
48 Performances of this music, along with those by male and female drag stars,

43 Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, 38-39; Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 51–52. 44 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 59.
45 Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, 62.
46 Brandy Schillace, “The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic,” May 10, 2021, Scientific American, accessed September 6, 2024, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/. 47 “Teaching LGBTQ History: LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History.” 48 Carla Giaimo, “The Queer Black Woman Who Reinvented The Blues,” Atlas Obscura, April 27, 2016, accessed September 6, 2024, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-queer-black-woman-who-reinvented-the-blues; Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, 71-79..

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introduced an underground gay community to patrons when society was otherwise restricted by Prohibition.49

However, the increased visibility of non-normative gender and sexual identities and expressions between World War I and the Great Depression led to greater suspicion among mainstream society of practices that had, until that point, been considered common and socially acceptable, such as Boston marriages, romantic friendships, and bachelorhood. This scrutiny made individuals feel the need to create more elaborate public personas to obscure their true identities.50 By the 1930s, tolerance for homosexuality further decreased in response to shifting perceptions of the medical community, sociopolitical developments overseas, and a worldwide economic recession . In the 1910s, psychiatrist Sigmund Freud introduced a new medical theory that explained homosexuality as a sexual perversion that was the result of arrested childhood development. Freud’s theories were broadly disseminated and influenced public perception of homosexual relationships .51

In the years leading to World War II, public support for eugenics and S ocial Darwinism intensified under the regime of Nazi Germany and other fascist dictatorships in Europe and gained popularity among members of the general public. These theories classified the human race into high and low orders, spreading the idea that desirable traits of the “higher orders,” included fair skin and Northern European descent, while those who were poor, disabled, or of any other racial or ethnic background were considered part of the undesirable lower orders. 52 In 1933, the Nazi regime burned down the Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin, destroying its collection of crucial early gender and sexuality research. During World War II, the Nazis rounded up men and women identified as being homosexual and imprisoned them in concentration camps, where they were forced to wear a pink triangle marking their sexual orientation, and systematically murdered, along with millions of disabled, Romani, leftist, Jewish, and otherwise “socially undesirable” groups of people.53 In the United States, the relative tolerance of homosexuality from the previous decades declined during the Great Depression as people feared they might lose their jobs if they engaged in any behaviors or activities outside the societal norms.54

49 Morris, “A Brief History of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Social Movements.” 50 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 61.
51 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 56.
52 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 55.
53 Schillace, “The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic.” 54 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 61.

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Non-Normative Gender and Sexuality in Sacramento, Mid-19th to Early 20th Centuries
Very little is known about the existence or lives of LGBTQ+ individuals in Sacramento before the 1960s due to discrimination, lack of acceptance, risk of arrest, imprisonment, or institutionalization of individuals found to engage in homosexual or gender non-conforming activities. In the late 1800s, at a time when an increasing number of cities in California were passing legislation to ban cross - dressing, attitudes in Sacramento appear to have been more relaxed. An editorial article published by the Sacramento Bee in 1866 articulated a general consensus that formal legislation to prevent cross-dressing was not necessary in Sacramento because instances of such behavior were limited, and lack of acceptance among the general public would act as a deterrent:

The Legislature has no business to legislate generally upon dress. […] Grant that it is within the power and province of the Legislature to prevent by law the indiscriminate wearing of each other’s dresses by the sexes, is any law on the subject necessary? “The world is governed too much,” is the favorite maxim of many. And we incl ine to the belief that no law is necessary. […] So far no great evil has accrued in our land, in this matter, because public sentiment has demanded that the distinction [between male and female dress] be kept up. Mrs. Bloomer and Mrs. DeWolf, and all other ladies who have tried the new style, have been kept in check by the reception they have invariably met when appearing on the streets of our cities and villages – for, appearing thus. […] We may safely leave it to free discussion and good taste to settle this momentous question.55

Despite the attitude expressed by the Sacramento Bee, newspaper records indicate a growing institutional criminalization of gender non-conforming behaviors in Sacramento in the 1800s. The Sacramento Bee and Sacramento Union, as well as city and county jail registers, document several instances of men and women arrested for wearing clothing of the opposite gender, which was often described as "masquerading.” Between 1868 and 1876, the local jail registers recorded the arrest of six people in Sacramento for wearing clothing of the opposite gender.56 In October 1876, a group of four people—William Fawcett, Tom Burns, Clara Hall, and Nellie Boone—were arrested together for wearing clothing of the opposite gender, suggesting that a small underground community existed.

At the time, Fawcett was employed as a clerk for William H. Sherburn, an auctioneer, furniture, and bedding dealer.57 Hall and Boone worked as “beer jerkers,” a slang term for bartenders or servers.

Burns may have also been a bartender at a local saloon. 58 A police officer spotted the group as they

55 “There She Goes Again,” Sacramento Bee, 9 August 1866. 56 Sacramento Jail Registers, 1866-1940, Center for Sacramento, accessed online May 9, 2024, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22Prisoners+--+Sacramento+%28Calif.%29+--+Registers%22. 57 Sacramento city directory, 1876.
58 1900 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com.

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walked along L Street between 2nd and 3rd streets and followed them until they went into a restaurant on 2nd Street called The Mint Restaurant. The group reportedly started their evening in a basement apartment on L Street between 2nd and 3rd streets, where Hall and Boone dressed in men's clothing and one of the men put on female clothing before going out on the street for “a little lark.”59

Figure 6. Mug shot of Ah Joe and Ah Lee
(1876). Source: Mug Books, Center for
Sacramento History.

Figure 7. Mug shot of Thomas
Abbott (1885). Source: Mug
Books, Center for Sacramento
History.

Figure 8. Mug shot of Joe
Franklin (1888). Source: Mug
Books, Center for Sacramento
History.

Between 1876 and 1916, 10 people were arrested for sodomy. People were often arrested in pairs or groups, suggesting they might have been lovers or arrested at establishments known to be tolerant of same-sex relationships. One of the earliest recorded arrests for sodomy, sometimes recorded as a “crime against nature,” in Sacramento was of two young Chinese men, Ah Joe and Ah Lee, in 1876. Due to the common use of the surname “Ah” for Chinese immigrants, research has been unable to confirm further information about these men. Punishments for sodomy were serious, including the potential for short or long-term imprisonment.60 In 1885, a 17-year-old named

59 "Masqueraders," Sacramento Bee, 21 October 1876.
60 “Coast Notes.” San Francisco Chronicle, May 11, 1883, 4.

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Thomas Abbott was arrested for sodomy and sentenced to one year in jail at Folsom Prison. Abbott was the son of Irish immigrants who was born and raised in Sacramento. His father was a railroad worker, and Abbott later followed in his footsteps into the same career.61 A 25-year-old Black man named Joe Franklin was arrested for the same crime and sentenced to eight years at Folsom Prison in 1888.62 Franklin was born in Missouri and had one leg. Likely due to challenges finding steady employment as a result of his race and physical disability, he made a living “occasionally [singing] a song to the rattle of the tambourine,” begging, and stealing, activities for which he was arrested several times. Racism and his history of arrests likely contributed to the length of his imprisonment for sodomy compared to Abbot.63

The increasing intolerance toward gender and sexual non-normativity that was present throughout the country in the early 20th century was also apparent in Sacramento. In response to reports of large numbers of individuals identified as homosexual in other cities around the world, including Berlin, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Venice Beach, and San Francisco in 1914, the editorial staff of the Sacramento Bee published an article requesting that the State Legislature pass laws increasing the punishment for homosexuality, which at the time was treated as a misdemeanor. The article warned that homosexuality was “A canker sore [that is] eating into the humanity of this State, as of other States – a leprous evil that is far, far more dangerous than all the prostitution that ever existed.”64 Given Sacramento’s proximity to San Francisco and Los Angeles, there was a fear that homosexuality could spread to Sacramento, where it was considered to be present "although in a limited degree" only. The Sacramento Bee followed its initial article with another piece that listed the names of dozens of men who had been arrested as “social degenerates" in Long Beach , including their ages, occupations, nationalities, and punishment. The decision to publish the names of these men was an outspoken attempt to force the State Legislature’s hand: "The Bee gives these names, not so much to pillory a few degenerates,” the article stated, “as to bring to the attention of The People of California the burning shame for which the Legislature has not provided a merited punishment." 65

Crack downs on homosexuality and gender transgressive expression increased following the United States’ entrance into World War I in 1917. Efforts to enlist healthy men for military service led to

61 1870 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com; 1910 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com. 62 Sacramento Jail Registers, 1866-1940, Center for Sacramento; Sacramento Police Department Mug Books, 1860-1949, Center for Sacramento, accessed online May 9, 2024, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Sacramento+Police+Department%22&sort=- date&and%5B%5D=subject%3A%22mug+books%22&and%5B%5D=collection%3A%22centerforsacramentohistory%22&and% 5B%5D=collection%3A%22cshsacmugbooks%22.
63 "In the Police Court," Sacramento Bee, 9 June 1888; Judy Walls and Asa Salley, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, September 6, 2024, Sacramento, CA.
64 "Need of State Legislation Against a Horrible Vice," Sacramento Bee, 21 December 1914: 6. 65 Clayton Campbell, "Wide Spread of Debasing Practices Make Punitive Legislation a Necessity," Sacramento Bee, 22 December 1914: 1.

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campaigns to clean up what was perceived as rampant vice and immorality, particularly in urban centers. Prostitution, venereal disease, gambling, and homosexuality were targeted.66 Police surveillance of local boarding houses, brothels, pubs, and gambling houses increased sharply in Sacramento in 1918 under federal and public pressure to clean up the town in preparation for the construction of a military base. The number of police officers patrolling the downtown area grew to cut down on crime. Racism toward immigrants—particularly single men of color, many of whom came to Sacramento as migrant workers—fed suspicions that they were prone toward vice and illegal behavior and made them targets for increased police surveillance. 67

In this charged atmosphere, the 1918 sodomy cases People vs. Jamil Singh (Sacramento Superior Court case #6029) and People vs. Tara Singh (Sacramento Superior Court case #6039) captured the public’s attention. Both Jamil Singh and Tara Singh were Sikh men who were followed by police to their lodgings, after the police received dubious tips that they were luring young men for sex, and arrested for sodomy. Jamil Singh, who was working as a ranch hand, was arrested in February 1918 for supposedly having sex with a younger white man in Sacramento. In court, Singh denied having committed any crime, explaining that he was a good man, who was working to send money back to his wife, widowed mother, and son in India, and avoided gambling and drugs. Despite his pleas, the judge sentenced him to seven years imprisonment at San Quentin State Prison. The same week as Jamil Singh’s arrest, another Sikh man, Tara Singh, was arrested after being accused, without a warrant or evidence, of having had sex with a young Native American man who was staying in an adjoining hotel room. The judge in the case ultimately found the accuser‘s testimony to be unreliable and dismissed the case. Nevertheless, the cases of Jamil Singh and Tara Singh illustrated racist policing practices that often targeted cross-racial and native-born/foreign-born sexual encounters.68

These articles exemplify the risks that gender non-conforming individuals faced, such as the possibility of public exposure to their friends, family, and employers, or in more extreme cases, physical imprisonment or other criminal punishments. The State Legislature ultimately took action to strengthen punishments against homosexual and gender non-conforming behaviors, and in 1921 the Assembly approved a bill to punish “social vagrancy” with a maximum of 15 years for anyone who “commit[ed] any lewd or lascivious act” with other persons,” which included sodomy.69 One year later in 1922, the City of Sacramento passed a city ordinance, ostensibly to stop the use of

66 Chet DeFonso, “The Great War and Modern Homosexuality: Transatlantic Crossings,” Proceedings Of Armistice & Aftermath: A Michigan Tech Symposium On WWI, September 28-29, 2018, Northern Michigan University. 67 Nayan Shah, Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexuality, and the Law in the North America West (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012), 74,-76.
68 Shah, Stranger Intimacy, 74-78.
69 "Assembly Passes Bill Aimed at Long Beach Cases," Sacramento Bee, 16 April 1921: 11.

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disguises by members of the Ku Klux Klan that made it unlawful “for any person in the City of Sacramento to appear in public in a disguise.”70 However, the ordinance could also be applied to people dressing in the clothing of members of another gender.

In 1923, a person named Harold Saunders was arrested at 3rd and K streets on suspicions of being a “female impersonator.” At the time, Saunders had “plucked eyebrows, rouged lips and [a] powdered nose” and was found to be in possession of “one dollar, a lip stick, a powder puff, rouge, perfume…silk ladies’ underwear, stockings, and other bits of dainty clothing.” 71 Saunders was on the way to Hollywood at the time of the arrest and was released by police on the condition of leaving
Sacramento.

In 1936, a 26-year-old woman named Frances Orlando was
arrested in Sacramento for running away with a 16-year-old girl from Florin in Sacramento County named Helen Sydston. 72 Orlando—who also went by the names Dick Bruno, Freddie, Ted Perry, and Dick Perry in public—spent at least ten years traveling throughout California, dressed in men’s clothing and starting relationships with other women, some of whom she became engaged to and attempted to elope with before being caught by local police.73 Raised on a ranch in Los Gatos, she ran away as a young woman after tiring of farm life and traveled the country working in construction camps in Utah, as a sheep herder in South Dakota, digging potatoes in Idaho, and as a bus boy in a Los Angeles restaurant.74 When questioned by police in 1934 about her actions, Orlando stated simply, “I left my home in San Jose three years ago and put on boy’s clothing because I feel better that way.”75 The cases of Saunders and Orlando show the hypocritical treatment of gender expression in the

70 "Ordinance Would Stop Klan Disguises," Sacramento Bee, 14 April 1922: 16. 71 "It’s Harold, But The Copes Say ‘Gladys,’” Sacramento Star, 6 July 1923: 1. 72 "Male Impersonator, Girl Runaway Are Hunted," Sacramento Union, 25 July 1936: 12. 73 “Masquerading Girl Is Ordered from Oakland,” Sacramento Bee, 29 December 1933: 5; "Girl Who Poses as Man is Sentenced In Stockton," Sacramento Bee, 4 November 1939: 23.
74 “Women Propose Marriage to Girl Posing as Man,” Sacramento Bee, 27 December 1933: 1. 75 “Girl Masquerading as Man for Three Years,” Sacramento Bee, 24 April 1934: 13.

Figure 9. Frances Orlando (1933).

Source: Sacramento Bee.

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early 20th century, in which the “impersonation” of another gender was acceptable and even celebrated on theatrical stages, as discussed later in this chapter, while at the same time being the cause for arrest if done as part of one’s private, personal expression.

Local institutions and civic leaders continued to express vehement opposition toward gender non- conforming behavior in the 1930s. In one notable example, Sacramento chief of police William M.

Hallanan stated publicly in an article in the Sacramento Bee in 1934 that he supported the sterilization of so-called “sexual perverts” and “habitual criminals” in an effort to prevent them from passing on their homosexual “tendencies” to their offspring. Reflecting the spread of eugenics into the general population, Hallanan expressed support for the actions taken by the Nazi regime against homosexual people and argued that the sterilization taking place in concentration camps did not go far enough.76 Hallanan’s willingness to publicly make such extreme statements shows the degree to which anti-homosexual views infiltrated local institutions in Sacramento and were broadcast from positions of power to the general public, creating an atmosphere that was openly intolerant and sometimes outright violent toward anyone who did not fall within the strict lines of socially accepted sexuality and gender norms.

MALE & FEMALE IMPERSONATORS IN MINSTREL & VAUDEVILLE SHOWS While dressing in gender non-normative clothing in
one’s personal life could be grounds for arrest,
theatrical portrayals that crossed gender lines were
common in minstrel and vaudeville shows in the 19th
and early 20th centuries. Male and female
“impersonators,” who portrayed members of the
opposite gender, became stars of stages across the
United States, including in Sacramento. Minstrel shows
and vaudeville shows, featuring male and female
impersonators, took place regularly at theaters that
lined K Street in Downtown Sacramento—such as the
Metropolitan Theater at 5th and K streets, Star Concert Hall at 304 K Street, Tivoli Theater on K Street between 9th and 10th streets, and Clunie Theater at 811 K
Street—in the 1870s to the 1890s. Performers during
this period included Eddie Fonteneau, who was billed in newspaper advertisements as “the best Female Impersonator on the Coast.”77 Born in France to a French father and Swiss mother,

76 "Chief Hallanan Would Go Further in Sterilization," Sacramento Bee, 6 January 1934: 5. 77 “Free and Easy,” Sacramento Bee, 13 November 1880: 3.

Figure 10. Advertisement for a performance
featuring Eddie Fonteneau (1880). Source:

Sacramento Bee.

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Fonteneau lived on 5th Street between K and L streets in Sacramento. He performed regularly on stages in Sacramento in the 1880s. Burlesque shows also featured gender -crossing actors, such as Gus Mills, who the Sacramento Bee hailed in its review of an 1884 production at the Tivoli Theatre as “unquestionably the best of [his theater] group in disguises. His burlesque of a concert hall singer has not been surpassed, and his falsetto is as near an approach to the female voice as is heard in any company.”78 An actor known professionally as “Stuart” or “the Male Patti” performed operatic and other songs at the Clunie Theatre and was known for both his voice and costumes. The Sacramento Bee raved that Stuart “has a remarkable voice and sings like a prima donna soprano.

Stuart's dresses are remarkable for their richness and beauty." 79 Stuart enjoyed a long career and
continued to perform on Sacramento stages through the 1920s. Other actors who portrayed female characters in theatrical productions in Sacramento during the 19th century included Billy Arlington, Paul La Drew, and brothers John and James Russell, among others. 80

Figure 11. View of theaters and businesses along K Street at 8th Street, including the Clunie Theater (left).

Source: California State Library.

78 "Amusements, Etc." Sacramento Union, 21 April 1884: 2. 79 Amusements," Sacramento Bee, 12 January 1897: 5.
80 "Amusements," Sacramento Bee, 29 March 1876: 3; "Metropolitan Theater," Sacramento Union, 21 December 1886: 3; "Clunie Opera House," Sacramento Union, 29 April 1887.

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In the first decades of the 20th century, theatrical productions featuring male and female impersonators continued. Local venues included the Grand Theater on 7th and K streets, the Novelty Theater at 6th and K streets, Pantages Theater nearby at 615 K Street, and Orpheum/State Theater at 12th and J streets. In 1911, the Grand Theater organized a press stunt to drum up excitement for a performance of the Berren duo that featured a female impersonator, who faked being arrested by the police and started a mock fight in the street before revealing the act to the watching public. 81 In 1921, a female impersonator who went by the stage name La Varde performed at Joyland amusement park in Oak Park at a performance called “Change in Vaudeville.” 82 Julian Eltinge, known as the foremost female impersonator of his day, came to Sacramento and performed several times in the 1920s at the peak of his fame. Born Willilam Julian Dalton in Massachusetts, Eltinge gained fame on Broadway stages in New York City before transitioning to acting in Hollywood feature films and becoming one of the highest paid stage actors in the 1910s.

Figure 12. Press still of Julian Eltinge published in the Sacramento Union (1923). Source: Sacramento Union,

Figure 13. Kitty Doner (1923). Source: Library of
Congress.

81 "Local Brevities," Sacramento Star, 24 August 1911: 8. 82 Sacramento Star, 20 July 1921: 5.

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Male impersonators appear to have been less common, though they did perform in Sacramento as well. One of the most popular male impersonators in the country, Kitty Doner, came to Sacramento in 1924 for an appearance at the Star Theater.83 Born Catherine Donohoe in Chicago, Illinois to British parents, she gained experience and popularity acting on stages across the country and earned a reputation as the best male impersonator in the United States. 84 In 1925, Miss Jeanette, billed as “Vaudeville’s only colored male impersonator on the stage,” performed as part of the Midnite Strutters with an actor named Seymour at the State Theater.85

83 Sacramento Star, 20 September 1924: 5.
84 Anthony Slide, The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville (Jackson, MS; University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 133-134. 85 “Alma Neilson Will Headline Show at the Orpheum To-night," Sacramento Bee, 29 October 1925: 2. 02 Finding One Another:

World War II and
Postwar Era Sacramento
1941-1968
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Images on chapter cover (from left to right):

1. City Hall across from Plaza Park (now Cesar Chavez Plaza), a popular cruising location in the 1940s and 1950s. Source: California State Library.

2. Earl Barnett with some of his masks (1986). Source: Mitch Toll for The Sacramento Bee.

3. ARC founder Rick Stokes (1972). Source: San Francisco Examiner.

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THEME 2: FINDING ONE ANOTHER: WORLD WAR II & POSTWAR-ERA SACRAMENTO, 1941-1968
World War II and Shifting Gender Norms
The onset of World War II in the early 1940s brought great economic and social change to the United States. Wartime efforts required enormous shifts in the workforce to accommodate the production of weapons and other goods for troops abroad, resulting in the creation of millions of new jobs in factories and shipyards throughout large cities. Millions of men were drafted into the military, and many who lived in small or rural towns were called to work in large city environments during a time of uncertainty and tumultuous societal change. While disrupting many lives, wartime also brought individuals to new places and subsequently brought increased open-mindedness as people expanded their worldviews beyond the confines of their sheltered hometowns. Accompanying these shifts in environment and workforce was a marked increase in opportunities for same-sex connections, as young men joined the military or factory lines and women remained to take care of the homefront and, in some cases, also joined the factory workforce to support the war effort. 86 Women experienced a unique period of independence from restrictive heterosexual marriages, and many took over jobs normally reserved for men to keep the economy going.87 In the years following the war, a cultural shift remained as women maintained their place in the workforce and increasing numbers of women enrolled in college.

Despite these liberties and the benefit that wartime brought many individuals to meet other people of similar beliefs and sexual orientations, there were also risks rooted in increasingly discriminatory rhetoric towards LGBTQ+ individuals as societal fears were compounded by larger global conflicts.

Homosexuality could result in dishonorable discharge from the military and, therefore, created barriers to employment and denial of veteran’s benefits, along with other negative impacts such as ostracization from society.

At the same time, medical studies and publications in the late 1940s increased overall awareness of non-normative gender and sexuality, including homosexuality. Alfred Kinsey—a sexologist, biologist, and professor at the University of Indiana—released his groundbreaking studies, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, collectively known as the “Kinsey Report,” in 1948 and 1953, respectively. These publications increased public dialogue around gender and sexuality and received widespread attention for its assertion that same-sex relationships were fairly common. Kinsey surveyed sexual experiences in the American population and found that sexual

86 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 62.
87 Erin Owens, “The Lavender Scare: How Fear and Prejudice Impacted a Nation in Crisis,” Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History 10, no. 2 (November 1, 2020): 120, https://doi.org/10.20429/aujh.2020.100208.

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preference and activity had notably more variation than was commonly known and accepted.

Kinsey’s survey found that roughly 10 percent of the United States’ white male population had same- sex preferences and two to six percent of the United States’ white female population identified as lesbian.88 This publication played an important role in elevating awareness of same-sex relationships at a broad level and providing a sociological perspective to a subject that had formerly been considered taboo in most medical fields.

Cold War and the Lavender Scare
Despite the Kinsey Report’s normalization of homosexuality, the years following World War II brought renewed fear and paranoia surrounding otherhood and the prevalence of identities that subverted normative behaviors. The Cold War was a period of geopolitical struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, lasting between 1947 to 1991. As the predominant political ideology of the Soviet party, Communism was treated as a corrupting threat to American morals and treasonous against the American government. Beginning in the late 1940s, a climate of fear and anxiety around the Cold War led to a “culture of containment” that criminalized anything different as dangerous to society and national security. In 1950, Joseph McCarthy gave a famous speech in which he condemned the insidious presence of Communism within American institutions and communities.

This paranoia was reflected acutely in actions taken by the Federal government, which began to fire employees suspected of being homosexual in large numbers from the late 1940s through the 1950s.

In 1950, the United States Congress issued a report entitled “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government,” which was distributed to members of Congress following secret investigations of the sexual orientations of federal employees. The report’s findings were rooted in the false rhetoric that homosexual employees constituted a security threat to the nation due to homosexuality’s stigma as a mental illness, the long-standing legal proscription against homosexuality, and risk that homosexual employees trying to hide their true sexual expressions might be blackmailed. .
89 Following these events, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450 in 1953, which prohibited homosexuals from federal employment due to their perceived security risk. The prohibition also extended to government contracts, extending its reach.

Persecution of homosexual individuals extended
from state and local governments to colleges,
where students were sometimes required to take tests designed to expose their sexualities.90

88 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 65.
89 “Teaching LGBTQ History: LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History.” 90 Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, 145.

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Between 1947 to 1953, twice as many people accused of homosexuality were dismissed from their jobs as those accused of Communist sympathies.91

During this time it became mandated to investigate new government employees and applicants for their sexual orientations, and there was no judicial oversight of cases to ensure legality. Individuals could be fired simply based on accusations.92 This order continued to prevent LGBTQ+ individuals from federal government employment until 1993, when President Bill Clinton and Congress passed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law.93 In general, the era of McCarthyism during the Cold War reinstituted a climate of fear for LGBTQ+ individuals who were forced to create a false identity to maintain their livelihoods and a level of safety. Queer subcultures were pushed deeper underground, and many gay men and women often had surface-level relationships in which they married members of the opposite sex to hide their true sexual orientations. 94 Others remained hesitant to come out for fear of personal harm to their social, familial, and
professional lives.95

One well-publicized case in Sacramento that showed
the severity of accusations of homosexuality revolved
around prominent local architect and sportsman Earl
Barnett. Employed by the highly regarded
architecture firm Dean and Dean, Barnett was
responsible for designing several beloved buildings in
Sacramento, including the Memorial Auditorium,
Sutter Club, and others. In 1944, Barnett was accused
of being the center of a “sexual perversion” ring after police raided his house at 3032 44th Street and found
items indicating that a network of men and teenage
boys had engaged in regular “homosexual orgies” at
the house for at least six years. During the raid, the
police seized hundreds of pictures of nude young
men in sexual poses, photos of young men and boys
wearing “weird and exotic clothing,” several trunks of
costumes, a dozen books with pornographic
illustrations, and a file of photo negatives showing

91 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 63.
92 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 63.
93 “Teaching LGBTQ History: LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History.” 94 Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, 155-156.
95 Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, 156-157.

Figure 14. Earl Barnett with some of his masks
(1986). Source: Mitch Toll for the Sacramento Bee.

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naked young men.96 Several of the young men in the photos were in military service and came from prominent Sacramento families. Sixteen people, many of whom were teenagers, were ultimately arrested and charged with the crimes of sodomy and sex perversion, though approximately 50 young men were ultimately investigated in connection to the ring. 97 Barnett’s case was tried without a jury, and he was sentenced to five to 75 years in jail and sent to San Quentin Prison.98 Barnett was eventually released, and the story of his arrest and imprisonment faded into the past. In 1989, the Sacramento Bee highlighted Barnett’s career as an architect and later an artist known for designing masks, stating in its headlines that he “deserv[ed] recognition for his art.” 99

A similar case occurred in the 1950s when local resident, pharmacist, and junior college educator Fred Beauchamp of 2515 Capitol Avenue (extant) was arrested along with 13 other men as part of what was described by police and local media as a “sex perversion ring .” The activities of the so- called “ring” featured dressing in drag and attending parties that included sexual acts with other men and teenaged boys. During the investigation, Beauchamp pled guilty to charges of committing “lewd and lascivious” acts with a minor and admitted to “homosexual activity” going back as far as 1949. He was forced to resign from his position as an anatomy and physiology instructor at Sacramento Junior College, lost his pharmacy license, and was sentenced to four-years of probation that included one year of imprisonment in county jail. During sentencing, 65 former students, teaching associates, and friends of Beachamp sent letters to the court on his behalf, praising his character and requesting leniency. After the completion of his jail term, Beachamp was required to reside with his parents and undergo psychiatric treatment. It was later revealed that the young man who had testified against Beachamp during his trial had given false information and was an adult at the time of the arrest. This, along with letters of support from the county jail’s attending physician, led to Beachamp successfully reinstating his pharmacy license after his release. He subsequently was hired by Kellogg Drug at 28th Street and Capitol Avenue in 1959 and served as the primary caregiver for his father and mother before their deaths. Later in life, he split time between Sacramento and San Francisco, where he worked as a relief pharmacist at the San Francisco School of Pharmacy and adopted a son.100

The Homophile Movement
The first precursors to the gay rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s emerged in the 1950s in California. Amidst this period of immense scrutiny by the federal government and the spread of

96 “Architect Held in Probe of Boy Orgies,” Sacramento Union, 4 November 1944. 97 “Architect Held in Probe of Boy Orgies,” Sacramento Union, 4 November 1944. 98 “Parole Is Denied to Earl Barnett,” Sacramento Bee, 15 December 1945. 99 Gary Delsohn, “For Love of Pretty Buildings,” Sacramento Bee, 1 January 1989. 100 Cliff Fisher, “A (Not So Brief) History of the Schroth Mansion (2515 Capitol Avenue),” undated.

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discriminatory rhetoric, organizations formed that sought to provide support for homosexual men and women. These groups adopted the term “homophile,” coming from the Greek words “homos,” meaning “same,” and “phile” meaning “love.” The first homophile organization was the Mattachine Society, founded by gay activist Harry Hay in Los Angeles in 1950. The group’s name was inspired by Renaissance French and Italian court jester groups, derived from the Arabic word “mutawajjihin” meaning mask-wearers.101 The group focused on self-education, building social acceptance, and providing support for the homosexual community.102 Active in Communist politics, Hay incorporated some of its ideology into his work with the Mattachine Society. Hay saw the gay community as an oppressed minority that needed to unite in its efforts to fight injustices against them. The group published its own newsletter and organized conventions to educate the community and broader public about homosexual life and provided financial, legal, employment, and spiritual support for gay men in need. Eventually, other branches of the organization formed in other cities in the United States and inspired the creation of other homophile groups. Despite its early influence on the formation of a homophile movement, the Mattachine Society disbanded in 1953 due to differences in ideologies among members. One of the homophile groups inspired by the Mattachine Society was the Society for Individual Rights (SIR). Founded in San Francisco in 1964, it adopted a more militant attitude and had a strong focus on community formation. SIR became the largest homophile organization in the country and also sparked the creation of offshoots in other cities. 103

Lesbians were not fully represented or welcomed in these early male-oriented homophile organizations. Seeking similar support and connection, women-focused homophile groups formed.

In 1955, four lesbian couples—Rose Bamberger (a Filipina woman) and her partner, Rosemary Sliepan; Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon; Noni Frey and her Latina partner, Mary (last name unknown); and Marcia Foster and her partner, June (last name unknown)—founded the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in San Francisco.
104 The group was the first known women-led homophile organization in the country. Initially started as an alternative to the lesbian bar scene for middle-class lesbians seeking connection and a social outlet, the organization gradually shifted from a social club to taking on an advocacy role for lesbian rights.105 The organization hosted private social functions and educational programming with the understanding that developing self-confidence among the lesbian community was the first step toward advocating for greater rights. Similar to the Mattachine Society, the DOB published its own newsletter and held biennial conventions. The group also encouraged participation in research projects to refute negative medical theories about homosexuality. 106

101 Johansson, Warren, and William A. Percy. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies.

New York: Haworth Press, 1994. 92.
102 “Teaching LGBTQ History: LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History.” 103 Graves and Watson, “LGBTQ History in San Francisco,“ 151-152. 104 Graves and Watson, “LGBTQ History in San Francisco,“ 140. 105 Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, 149.
106 Graves and Watson, “LGBTQ History in San Francisco,“ 140-149.

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Transgender people began organizing and forming communities in the 1940s and 1950s, as well.107 The most publicized story was that of Christine Jorgensen, a U.S. military veteran who received sex reassignment surgery in Denmark in 1952 to make her body conform to her identity as a woman .

Jorgensen became a national celebrity and helped raise awareness of transgender people in the United States.108 In the early 1960s, transgender woman Virginia Prince founded one of the first modern transgender organizations, the Foundation for Personality Expression (later the Society for the Second Self/Tri-Ess) in Los Angeles. Modeled after the collegiate sorority system, the organization promoted cross-dressing among heterosexual men to express their “full personalities.” The first known transgender support group, Conversion Our Goal, formed in San Francisco in 1967 , followed by the National Transexual Counseling Unit in 1968.109

HOMOPHILE GROUPS IN SACRAMENTO
The homophile movement took shape in Sacramento in the
early 1960s, about a decade after the earliest groups
formed nationwide. Around 1965, Rick Stokes founded a
local chapter of SIR in Sacramento called the Association for Responsible Citizenship (ARC). Stokes was an Oklahoma native who moved to Sacramento in 1961 after meeting his partner, attorney David Clayton.110 Stokes was closely
connected to the gay community and organizations in San Francisco and had been active in SIR and Glide Memorial Methodist Church, a pioneering church that openly
welcomed gay parishioners. Because of these
relationships, ARC became deeply connected with and
often collaborated with its counterparts in San Francisco. 111 ARC facilitated connections to other gay organizations and planned special events, such as a visit in 1966 by political activist Jose Sarria, a founder of SIR and the first openly gay political candidate in the United States, who ran for the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors in 1961. Sarria was first empress of the drag community’s Imperial Court
System, a network of nonprofit charitable organizations, and was better known by his stage name,

107 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 68.
108 Stryker, Transgender History, 66-68.
109 Stryker, Transgender History, 74, 99-100.
110 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 160
111 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 160
Figure 15. ARC founder Rick Stokes
(1972). Source: San Francisco Examiner.

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Empress Jose Norton I, as well as The Grand Mere, Absolute Empress I de San Francisco, and the Widow Norton. Sarria's visit to Sacramento on Memorial Day in 1966 included a production of “My Fair Laddie,” an adaptation of the Pygmalion story that premiered in San Francisco the month before.112 By 1966, ARC had grown large enough to publish an article in the 1966 edition of its newsletter, the ARC Journal, titled "We're Provincial?," which indicated that Sacramento had enough gay nightlife to challenge San Francisco's perception of Sacramento. 113

Figure 16. Cover of the pamphlet handed out by ARC at the California State Fair in 1966. Source: “Flyer Passed Out by CRH Members at the California State Fair in 1965”, The Council on Religion and the Homosexual, LGBTQ Religious Archives Network, accessed July 14, 2024, https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/crh/item/1803.

Reflecting its focus on community advocacy and education, ARC applied for a booth at the California State Fair in 1966. The group’s application was initially accepted but was given away to another group as the date of the fair grew closer. ARC and other gay organizations brought a lawsuit against the fair’s president, former Sacramento mayor Clarence Azevedo, which was rejected and later denied on appeal by California Governor Pat Brown. In protest, ARC—joined by members of SIR, the Daughters of Bilitis, and other volunteers—gathered at the front entrance to the fair and handed out fliers with the headline “Every Tenth Person is a Homosexual,” at the education booth. This action gave the group a much larger exposure at the fair itself, and through media coverage of the lawsuit, than it would have experienced if its original application to host a booth in the exhibition hall had

112 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 161-162
113 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 162.

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been honored. The following year, ARC hosted a forum titled "The Homosexual 1967 Sacramento" at the First Methodist Church on 21st and J streets. The event was envisioned as a part of the organization's educational program to "educate the public as to the nature of homosexuality and to promote mutual understanding and acceptance between the homosexual and heterosexual communities."114 A panel of ministers, attorneys, educators, members of the Sacramento City Council, and other civic leaders spoke at the forum.115

Cruising & Gay Bar Culture
Because homosexuality during the mid-20th century was socially unacceptable and sex with anyone of the same gender was illegal, gay men and women were forced to find cracks in society where they could meet and have sexual experiences. Although public bathhouses existed in cities across the country in the late 19
th and early 20th centuries, the first bathhouses that catered specifically to gay men were established during the postwar period. Bathhouses provided the safest and most private places for gay men to hook up while maintaining their anonymity.

Bars, however, emerged as the de facto center of homosexual life for both men and women. Though not openly advertised as “gay bars,” small networks of bars that were known to be welcoming to gay men and women developed. Knowledge of these bars initially passed through word of mouth. Gay bars became the primary places where gay men, and some gay women, met to form social and sexual connections, exchange news, share experiences, and openly express themselves.

For those looking for an alternative to gay bars, public places provided a vital option for gay men and transgender women looking to meet for sex anonymously and discreetly. Public places—such as public parks, beaches, public restrooms, and streets—were attractive places to “cruise” for someone to have sex with for those who did not like the bar and bathhouse scenes, were too young, didn’t have enough money, or who had families at home and did not have a private place to go for sex.

Public spaces also allowed gay men and transgender women to form important connections and share experiences at a time when community networks remained small and deeply underground.

Although cruising took place in the early 20
th century, the practice became more prevalent during
World War II as military servicemen, visiting cities for short periods of time while on leave, looked for a quick hook up before returning to duty. Cruising locations frequently changed as police raids and crackdowns forced participants to look for alternatives.116

114 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 162.
115 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 162.
116 Graves and Watson, “LGBTQ History in San Francisco,“ 90-92.

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In 1965, San Francisco businessman Bob Damron published the first issue of the Damron Guides , a city directory and guidebook that listed known cruising locations, businesses, and accommodations that were inclusive and friendly towards gay individuals. The Damron Guides gradually expanded to an increasing number of cities across the United States and have continued to be updated annually since 1968. The publication’s name was changed to Damron’s Men’s Travel Guide in 1999.117 Damron also produced a guide for women called the Women’s Traveller. The Damron Guides provided a vital service to the gay community, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, when homosexual activity remained illegal and individuals risked arrest and imprisonment if they were discovered.

During the postwar period, the most common way for municipalities to control homosexual activity was by repealing liquor licenses of establishments suspected of catering to homosexual clientele. In 1949, the State Board of Equalization accused the Black Cat bar in San Francisco of being a gay bar and suspended its liquor license. The bar’s owner filed a lawsuit that was appealed to the California Supreme Court. The court’s landmark decision in Stouman v. Reilly in 1951 found that a bar could not lose its liquor license because it catered to homosexual people, making California the first state in which gay bars could legally operate. After the decision, the number of gay and lesbian bars increased for a period. However, the decision was undermined by state legislation that passed in 1955, which made it illegal for a bar to serve as a "resort for illegal possessors or users of narcotics, prostitution, pimps, panderers, or sexual perverts.”
118 The State Department of Alcohol and
Beverage Control subsequently used the law to suspend or revoke the licenses of establishments where people they believed were homosexual were seen. This practice continued until the 1959 California Supreme Court case Vallegra v. Department of Alcohol Beverage Control reaffirmed that "a license may not be suspended or revoked simply because homosexuals or sexual perverts patronize the bar in question."119

CRUISING & GAY BARS IN SACRAMENTO, CA. 1940-1968
The crackdown on gay bars and cruising locations that occurred in California in the 1950s extended to Sacramento. In April 1957, the State Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control indefinitely suspended the liquor license of The Windsor, a bar at 731 J Street, because it was a known “hangout for homosexuals.”120 The bar was within a block of Plaza Park (now Cesar Chavez Plaza), which had been a popular local cruising spot for gay men for at least the previous 20 years. 121 Gay men would park their cars around the perimeter of the park late at night with their lights off and wait for other gay men to walk up to them and initiate contact. 122 The crackdown on the Windsor instigated a

117 SurveyLA, “LGBT Historic Context Statement,” 61.
118 SurveyLA, “LGBT Historic Context Statement,” 60.
119 SurveyLA, “LGBT Historic Context Statement,” 60.
120 "State Suspends License of J Street Tavern," Sacramento Bee, 15 April 1957: D-1. 121 "No Inference," Sacramento Union, 10 July 1957: 10. 122 Bill Blaylock, “Slow Emergence; Sacramento’s Gays Still in Shadows,”, 5 September 1976: B1.

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police raid of the park in June 1957, in which 26 men were arrested and charged for soliciting "immoral acts" after police officers disguised in plainclothes caught the men in the act. To cut down on cruising in the park, the police began to close the public restrooms at midnight.123 Within a few weeks, the crackdown on cruising locations was expanded to four unnamed major city parks, which the Sacramento Police Department kept under nightly surveillance
.124

Such instances of strict policing in Sacramento deterred the development of gay bars, cruising locations, bathhouses, and a true gay social scene within the boundaries of the City of Sacramento until the 1960s and 1970s. West Sacramento,
located just across the Sacramento River in an entirely different county (Yolo County) and connected via a busy thoroughfare to Sacramento, became the logical location for gay men and women to seek social and sexual connections.

West Sacramento was an unincorporated part of Yolo
County, outside of the immediate control of the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office, which was headquartered at the county seat in Woodland, approximately 20 miles away.125 In the early 1970s, the district attorney’s office in East Yolo County prioritized cracking down on violent crimes that caused physical injury to others, the illegal sale of narcotics, and crimes against property, such as burglary and theft, over policing what it viewed as “moral issues.”126 As such, the local police in West Sacramento adopted a laissez-faire attitude toward enforcing vice ordinances in the area, and West Sacramento developed a reputation as “Sin City” where gambling, prostitution, and homosexual activity took place, though the actual rate of major crimes—such as murder, assault, robbery, and rape—was nearly nonexistent.127 It was also common practice during the postwar period for Sacramento police officers to pick up vice ordinance offenders, such as prostitutes operating in downtown Sacramento, and drop them off in West Sacramento.128 This relationship between Sacramento and West Sacramento was similar to that of

123 "Where Fault Lies," Sacramento Union, 4 July 1957: 12. 124 "Unpleasant Task,” Sacramento Union, 18 July 1957: 12. 125 “Fred Reminisces About the Bars," undated, private collection of George Raya. 126 Paul Merz, “Sacramento’s Tower Bridge: Gateway to Sin and Sex,” The Advocate, 14-27 October 1970: 16. 127 “Fred Reminisces About the Bars," undated, private collection of George Raya; Merz, “Sacramento’s Tower Bridge: Gateway to Sin and Sex.”
128 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 161.

Figure 17. Newspaper article about the
suspension of the liquor license of The
Windsor in 1957. Source: Sacramento
Bee, 15 April 1957.

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the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood in Los Angeles, which was located in an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County between Beverly Hills and Hollywood. 129

Because of this relationship, the first
gay-friendly establishments listed in
the Sacramento area in the 1965
edition of the Damron Guides were
located in West Sacramento. Many
of these businesses were clustered
along West Capitol Avenue and
Sacramento Avenue, two major
thoroughfares that led in and out of
Sacramento. The most well-known
of these early gay establishments
were the Yolo Baths (also known as
the Yolo Sauna), a gay bathhouse at
1531 Sacramento Avenue, and the
Log Cabin, a gay bar at 1532
Sacramento Avenue. Other gay bars
located in West Sacramento in the
1960s included the Kolo Club
(address unknown), No Hu Hu Hut
(later the Hawaiian Hut) tiki bar at
2400 West Capitol Avenue, Robert's
No. 3 (address unknown), and the
Hide & Seek at 825 Sunset Avenue
(extant). The Hide & Seek,
colloquially dubbed “Hide & Suck,”
was the oldest hard liquor bar with
dancing in the Sacramento area and became a popular place to stop on the road between San Francisco and Tahoe or Reno because of its proximity to the Yolo Baths where those needing to recover could rest and recover after a night of drinking. 130 The Hide & Seek operated under the
ownership of Pat Avala and Marghe Covino from approximately the mid-1960s to the 1980s.131One unidentified man interviewed by Sacramento native and gay rights activist George Raya shared his

129 SurveyLA, “LGBT Historic Context Statement,” 58.
130 “Fred Reminisces About the Bars," undated, private collection of George Raya. 131 Mom…Guess What…!, October 1981: 11.

Figure 18. Advertisement for the
No Hu Hu Hut (1966). Source:

ARC News, March 1966.

Figure 19.Advertisement for
the Log Cabin (1966). Source:

ARC News, June 1966.

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memories of arriving in Sacramento and experiencing the gay bar scene in West Sacramento for the first time:

It certainly was not with a thought of community in my mind as I timidly crossed the threshold of my first gay bar (the Log Cabin) in 1960. I was a junior at Sacramento State College, but had spent most of my life in a tightly closeted redneck corner of the Midwest known as Missouri. I had only a sketchy ill-defined idea of what gay was, much less what mysterious weird or perhaps dangerous things might be happening behind that bar door […] I opened the door to that bar and ventured inside. There were 8 or 10 men in the bar laughing and telling jokes. They made no move to throw me out just because I was homosexual. In fact they made me very welcome. I did not always understand the jokes between the others, but I laughed anyway and before long I had learned several names. One guy was even willing to drive me home from the Broderick Bar to my apartment in West Sacramento. In looking back at that first night in the gay bar I must admit that I was not looking for community. I was looking for sex. What I didn’t know was that I had found both.132

The first lesbian bars were also located in West Sacramento due to efforts by the Sacramento Police Department to prevent women's bars from being established inside city limits. The first known lesbian bar was Jean’s Place (address unknown), although some claimed that the Log Cabin operated as a lesbian bar before becoming a gay men’s bar in the 1950s. Jean’s Place was eventually replaced by Hide & Seek, which operated as a men’s bar. In 1967, another popular lesbian bar known as Off Key opened in a converted warehouse next to railroad tracks at 1040 Soule Street (extant).

132 Unnamed author, "Bar Story History II 1955-1995," private collection of George Raya.

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Figure 20. Inside the Off Key bar in West Sacramento (undated). Source: Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Cherie Gordon Collection.
.

Figure 21. Drawing of the interior of the Topper Club (1950). Source: Sacramento Public Library.

The earliest known gay bar in Sacramento was the Topper Club at 1218 K Street. The Topper opened in 1940 at the same time as Esquire Theater, which was located next door, and operated at least

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through the late 1970s.133 Located on K Street, one of Sacramento’s busiest commercial streets where the sales staff from Weinstocks, J.C. Penney, and other departments stores worked and socialized, Topper became a known hangout for gay men by the late 1960s. Men would wait at the east side of the building until the traffic light at 12th and K streets stopped traffic, allowing a few minutes in which gay men could enter the bar from the alley without being seen by their coworkers.134 The Topper Club was an interracial primarily gay male space where black and white men could find one another.135 The bar’s popularity declined in 1970s as residents and businesses moved to the suburbs and commercial activity on K Street and the broader downtown Sacramento are a decreased. Downtown also became increasingly unsafe as ex-prison inmates were released into the area.136 In addition to the Topper, other early gay bars in Sacramento in the 1950s and 1960s included the Diamond Club near the Greyhound bus station on 8th and L streets, which had a gay crowd on weeknights, the Mark Twain Hotel Bar at 1316 I Street, and Hickory House at 13th and J streets.137

Figure 22. Advertisement for the Hickory House (1966). Source: ARC News.

133 “Lease is Signed for Cocktail Bar," Sacramento Bee, 24 February 1940: 9; Thom Akeman, "Nightlight," Sacramento Bee, 22 December 1977: 55.
134 "The Topper Bar," undated, private collection of George Raya. 135 Michael J. Smith, Colorful People and Places (San Francisco: The Quarterly, 1983), 24. 136 "The Topper Bar," undated, private collection of George Raya. 137 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 161; "Gay Sac History Bars 1953," undated, private collection of George Raya.

03 Out and Proud:

Development of a Visible
Sacramento LGBTQ+ Community
1969-2000
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Images on chapter cover (from left to right):

1. Rosemary Metrailer (ca. 1979). Source: Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Jonna Ramey Collection.

2. Jerry Sloan (undated). Source: San Jose State University Special Collections & Archives.

3. Mom…Guess What…! founder Linda Birner (1998). Source: Hector Amezcua for the Sacramento Bee.

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THEME 3: OUT & PROUD: DEVELOPMENT OF A VISIBLE SACRAMENTO LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY, 1969-CA. 2000
While the anti-gay hysteria and police crackdowns of the postwar period forced many members of the LGBTQ+ community deeper into the closet, the repression of entire groups of people, their desires, and their personal expressions created an increasingly pressurized environment in which generations of pent-up emotions were about to reach a boiling point. Late one night in August 1966, police officers entered Gene Compton’s cafeteria—a popular hangout for drag queens and transgender and gender nonconforming people in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood—with the intent to raid it. Raids, police harassment, and arrests for “female impersonation” were common in the area, known in those days. This time, however, when a police officer grabbed one of the drag queens at the cafeteria, she threw her cup of coffee in his face, unleashing a mass revolt. Drag queens, trans women, and gender nonconforming patrons overturned tables and threw anything they could find at the police. The fighting spilled out into the streets, and in the aftermath, the windows and doors of Compton’s cafeteria were smashed, and a police car was destroyed. The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot became what transgender historian Susan Stryker called “the first known instance of collective militant queer resistance to police harassment in United States history.”138

More was soon to follow. On New Years Eve in 1967, a police raid of the Black Cat, a gay bar in Los Angeles’s Silver Lake neighborhood, kicked off several days of protests.139 Then, in June 1969, tensions came to a head in New York City in an event that captured the nation’s attention and sparked a gay liberation movement that transformed the experiences of LGBTQ+ people across the United States. On the night of June 28, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the city's Greenwich Village neighborhood. Instead of trying to escape or surrendering to arrest, the bar’s patrons—most of whom were gay men, drag queens, and transgender women— resisted. Five days of protests followed, inspiring the establishment of gay rights organizations and a new era of political organizing, as well as a seismic shift in the way members of the LGBTQ+ community saw themselves and their place in the world.

Prior to the late 1960s, it was virtually unheard of for LGBTQ+ individuals to be publicly open about their sexual orientations. Inspired by the feminist movement’s strategy that “the personal is political,” the Gay Liberation Front, one of the gay rights organizations founded in the wake of the Stonewall riots, adopted the slogan “Out of the Closet and Into the Streets” to encourage gay and lesbian people to be open and proud about their sexual orientations in order to increase acceptance

138 Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria, directed by Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman (San Francisco: The Independent Television Service and KQED Public Television, 2016), KQED Arts, YouTube, accessed November 4, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-WASW9dRBU.
139 SurveyLA, “LGBT Historic Context Statement,” 12.

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among the general public, progress the fight for gay rights, and engender a sense of individual and community pride.140 The phrase “to come out of the closet,” or simply “come out,” came to signify revealing one’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity to oneself or others.

This was accompanied by a major shift in how the medical community viewed homosexuality. In 1974, after considerable advocacy from members of the Mattachine Society, the American Psychiatric Association updated the classification for homosexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the definitive source used to diagnose mental illnesses in the United States. Homosexuality, itself, was no longer classified as a mental disorder, though distress over one’s homosexuality remained in the manual until 2013. Though imperfect, the 1974 update removed the threat that individuals might be incarcerated in mental hospitals for having same-sex relationships.
141 Large numbers of people came out as gay over the following decades as a result of these developments. As they found each other and formed connections, the first visible LGBTQ+ communities developed in cities across the United States.

Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community remained largely underground until the late 1970s. In 1978, one gay resident who was interviewed for an article in The Advocate, a national gay and lesbian newspaper, described Sacramento’s gay scene as “very much below the surface, in fact, 10 feet under,” with most people who identified as gay or lesbian remaining closeted for fear of retribution.142 Sacramento resident Gary Miller, who moved to Sacramento from San Francisco, stated that, “Moving to Sacramento was like going back 10 years. People still [did] not want to be known by their last names—even some of those participating in the organized gay community. They [were] paranoid about who [knew they were] gay.”143 Another resident, who was not named in the article, described the gay scene in Sacramento in the 1970s as if, “the closets [were] jammed with fun people, but the doorknobs [were] deadbolts.”144 Despite its clandestine character, a few brave individuals began to publicly work toward building a safe, welcoming community in Sacramento, prompting The Advocate to report that “the seeds of a thriving gay community [had] definitely taken root in California’s capital. And healthy shoots of social, religious, and political activity [were] beginning to show ‘very much’ above ground.” 145 Those seeds were planted by countless individuals from all facets of the LGBTQ+ community whose passion, diligence, and care for their community laid the groundwork for the vibrant, tight-knit community that emerged in the early 1980s. Many individuals interviewed for this document described this feeling of closeness, supportiveness, and

140 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 79.
141 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 81.
142 Robert I. McQueen, “Deadbolts for Doorknobs,” The Advocate, 4 October 1978: 17. 143 McQueen, “Deadbolts for Doorknobs.”
144 McQueen, “Deadbolts for Doorknobs.”
145 McQueen, “Deadbolts for Doorknobs.”
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sense of camaraderie as a defining characteristic of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community through around the year 2000, by which time the community became increasingly integrated into mainstream Sacramento society. Because the start of the new millennium marks an important period of evolution and transition for Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, a period of significance of 1969 to the year 2000 has been selected for this theme of the community’s historic development.

Some events that occurred after 2000 are included in instances where groups, organizations, clubs, or other groups have had long or continuous periods of activity that extend beyond the year 2000.

Several factors contributed to the development of a visible LGBTQ+ community within the boundaries of the City of Sacramento in the 1970s and 1980s. During the postwar period, the flight of wealthy residents and resources out of the older neighborhoods within and near Sacramento’s original Central City street grid to newer suburbs in outlying areas resulted in a decline of property values and rents in the Central City.
146 Young, single people, some of whom were gay, moved into the area, attracted by the abundance of low-rent apartment houses, excitement of urban life, and greater tolerance for alternative lifestyles than suburban areas. One such example was an apartment house at 1516 22nd Street (extant), known as the Pink Fairy Palace, which gained a reputation as a residence where groups of gay men lived in the late 1960s. The Pink Fairy Palace reportedly housed one of the first known concentrated groups of gay men in Sacramento. 147 A
similar group house for lesbians, known as the S Street Collective, was located in a Victorian house approximately three blocks south at 1903 21st Street (extant) in the 1970s. The S Street Collective was known among the lesbian community as a place where lesbians, who had recently moved to Sacramento and had yet to find permanent housing, could stay. 148

The intersection of P and 22nd streets was a hub for local LGBTQ+ activity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1971, the first known LGBTQ+ coffeehouse opened at a building around the corner from the Pink Fairy Palace at 2215 P Street (extant). The coffee shop was located in Apartment #2, which was the apartment of local gay rights activist Edgar Carpenter. Carpenter was a student at Sacramento State College (now California State University, Sacramento and also known as Sacramento State University) at the time; a writer for Gay Voice Sacramento, one of the first LGBTQ+ newsletters in Sacramento; and a leader in the gay liberation group, the Society for Homosexual Freedom (SHF), which was founded at Sacramento State University. SHF held its early meetings at the coffeeshop in 1971.
149 It also hosted a series of gay community potluck dinners.

146 Claussen, “Lavender Heights,” 140.
147 Robin Witt, "Gays Gain Acceptance, Visibility in Sacramento," Sacramento Bee, 12 September 1982: A1-A17. 148 Theresa Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn, August 27, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 149 “Judge Orders College to Recognize Gay Club,” The Advocate, No. 55 (March 17-30, 1971), 1, 9.

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The coffeeshop, appropriately known as the Gay Alternative Coffeehouse, was created as space for young gay people to socialize outside the gay bar scene. According to a piece written by Carpenter in Gay Voice Sacramento around the time the coffee shop opened:

The reason the coffeehouse has been started is that there is no gay scene in Sacramento outside of the bars (no gay scene for those of us under twenty-one) where we are charged exorbitant prices for drinks in a noisy, impersonal, meat-rack atmosphere which is the opposite of the atmosphere of community and brotherhood/sisterhood. 150

Visitors entered the coffeehouse from the alley behind the house. A blue light and sign marked the entrance. To furnish the coffeehouse, Gay Voice Sacramento solicited donations of pillows, rugs, artwork, other décor items and a refrigerator. The coffeehouse offered a place for young gay people to meet, talk, order a hot beverage, and listen to the local KZAP or KERS radio stations.151 In 1972, the Gay Alternative Coffeeshop moved to another apartment building at 1516 29 th Street (extant).152

By, 1982, the number of residents in Sacramento who identified as gay grew to an estimated 70,000 to 80,000. That year, the Sacramento Bee published a series of articles that highlighted the growing visibility of an identifiable gay community in the city: “Unobtrusive gay and lesbian couples go almost unnoticed in districts as diverse as Curtis Park and Carmichael, Land Park and Rancho Cordova ,” the newspaper reported. “They are, in a word, everywhere."153 A majority of gay residents lived in the suburban areas of Sacramento; however, an increasing number lived in the city’s original street grid, known as the Central City or simply as “The Grid.” Gay people chose to settle in Sacramento for the same reasons as straight people: they were drawn to job opportunities; the city’s proximity to rivers, mountains, lakes, and the Pacific Ocean; and the chance to live in a city without the pressures of being in a large metropolis like San Francisco or Los Angeles. Some moved to Sacramento from other parts of the country where they had experienced harassment and discrimination, hoping to experience a greater degree of tolerance and acceptance. 154 As more people came out, a greater number of openly gay-owned or gay-welcoming businesses and institutions were established to serve them, laying the foundation for the emergence of a diverse and rich LGBTQ+ community in Sacramento.

150 Gay Voice Sacramento, No. 1, 1971.
151 Gay Voice Sacramento, No. 1, 1971.
152 Gay Voice Sacramento, No. 2, undated.
153 Witt, "Gays Gain Acceptance, Visibility in Sacramento.” 154 Witt, "Gays Gain Acceptance, Visibility in Sacramento.” Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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Formation of LGBTQ+ Subcultures
As the visibility of LGBTQ+ people increased and awareness of the complex and multifaceted nature of the community grew, individual members found themselves drawn to others who were like them, resulting in the formation of unique subcultures within the broader community that shared the same sexual orientations, gender identities, life experiences, backgrounds, and/or interests. These subcultures offered a sense of safety and belonging that individual members did not always experience when crossing into other subcultures.

LGBTQ+ residents who lived in Sacramento as the community crystalized in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s described Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community as factionalized and often divided between the various subcultures. In an era in which institutional support was scarce and legal protections were minimal or nonexistent, members of one subculture sometimes excluded members of others as they fought for recognition and an equal piece of the pie. 155 As one unnamed resident described it to The Advocate newspaper in 1978, “Sacramento relies a lot on friendship, but because social activities are limited, it tends to be cliquish. […] If you belong to one group, you can’t belong to another. Cliques reign supreme.”156

Gay white men were historically, and continue to be, the most visible and recognized subgroup— receiving the most coverage by the media and popular culture—both in Sacramento and the broader LGBTQ+ population nationwide. As in other cities, lesbians in Sacramento felt angered, embittered, and alienated by the treatment they received from gay men and the lack of recognition or representation they often received. Some gay businesses and organizations explicitly did not welcome lesbians, and as a result, lesbians were forced to establish their own safe spaces, social gathering places, clubs, and organizations. Gay men and lesbian women, thus, often chose to socialize and organize separately in Sacramento, as in other cities across the United States. Given this factionalism, instances in which members of different subcultures came together to organize, support each other, socialize, and recreate were particularly notable for their efforts to unite the community.
157

155 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 2: Linda Birner and Dennis Mangers,” May 30, 2023, Center for Sacramento History, YouTube, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8t3BwNfUXk; Tina Reynolds, “The Spectrum Archives:

Narratives of Courage,” Sierra College Applied Art and Design, December 14, 2016, accessed May 33, 2024, Conversation between Liz [last name redacted] and Clare Flynn, April 26, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 156 McQueen, “Deadbolts for Doorknobs.”
157 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 2: Linda Birner and Dennis Mangers,” May 30, 2023, Center for Sacramento History, YouTube, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8t3BwNfUXk; Tina Reynolds, “The Spectrum Archives:

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More nuanced terms to describe additional equally important identities within the broader LGBTQ+ community emerged in the 1960s, as well. The term “transgender” was introduced by John Oliven’s 1965 book Sexual Hygiene and Pathology to identify a person who identifies with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth. The term replaced earlier derogatory terms coined by the medical and psychological communities, such as “transexual” and “transvestite.”158

Though the term “bisexual” was first used in the 1897 pamphlet by German psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing Psycopathia Sexualis to describe people who were attracted to both men and women, the term became a distinct sexual orientation in the late 1960s and 1970s. In 1967, one of the earliest organizations for bisexual people, the Sexual Freedom League, was founded in San Francisco. The National Bisexual Liberation Group formed in New York City in 1972. 159 By 1979, Sacramento State University had its own “Bi-Support Group,” which sponsored a panel on bisexuality at the university as part of Gay Awareness Week. 160

The removal of homosexuality from the DSM in 1973, while a positive development for the gay and lesbian communities, did not apply to transgender people, creating a rift between the transgender and gay and lesbian communities as the transgender community continued to fight for equal recognition, often with little support. Gender identity disorder (GID), later known as gender dysphoria, remained listed as a mental disorder in the DSM until 2012. 161

As minorities within a minority, members of the LGBTQ+ community who were also people of color experienced additional challenges to feel welcome and accepted by the broader community. Torn between their allegiance to their racial identities and their sexual or gender identities, they often struggled to find a place where they felt they truly belonged. Many gay bars, which catered to a majority white male clientele, employed the practice of “carding” lesbians and queer persons of color to discourage their presence. If carded, those seeking admission would have to produce multiple forms of personal ID to secure entrance.162 Liz, a Black woman and lesbian who moved to Sacramento in the early 1980s, described challenges finding girlfriends because of racism within the broader Sacramento lesbian and gay communities. White lesbians often refused to date her. As a result, many lesbians of color like her dated other lesbians from communities of color. Even then, cultural differences sometimes got in the way. Though not unlike the experience of gay and lesbian individuals from other racial or ethnic backgrounds, many gay Black and Latinx people came from deeply religious Christian families who disapproved or rejected them entirely if they came out as gay

158 “Glossary of Terms,” GLAAD, accessed April 28, 2024, https://glaad.org/reference/terms. 159 Teaching LGBTQ History: LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History.” 160 “Bisexuality Panel at CSUS,” Mom Guess What…!, 1979. 161 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 81.
162 Carson Anderson, “Comments on Draft LGBTQ HCS,” July 9, 2024.

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or transgender. Both the Black and Latinx communities often placed high value on traditional views of masculinity and hierarchical family structures and viewed homosexuality as a threat to their families. Often, gay Black and Latinx men and women decided to stay closeted to avoid rejection from their families and the communities into which they were born. They might secretly visit gay bars and establishments where they could freely express themselves and form clandestine romantic relationships outside their public heterosexual relationships. Because of the risk of being exposed if they were caught and lesbians’ aversion to being hit on by straight men, members of the LGBTQ+ community sometimes resented the presence of straight people in gay spaces, such as gay bars and clubs.163

Because of the racism, discrimination, fetishization, and exclusion they often experienced, LGBTQ+ people of color in Sacramento created safe spaces of their own. LGBTQ+ spaces and organization that provided important outlets for social gathering, uplift, empowerment, and connection for Sacramento’s Black LGBTQ+ community included an annual Afrocentric Weekend hosted by the local drag club and charitable organization, the Court of the Great Northwest Imperial Empire (CGNIE), at the Mercantile Saloon in the 1980s and later by the social group Gay and Lesbian African Americans (GALA) at Faces and the only Black lesbian bar in Sacramento, The Mirage, at 601 15 th
Street (extant) in the 1990s. Tired of the unwelcoming attitudes and mistreatment they received from many of Sacramento’s gay bars, many Black LGBTQ+ individuals hosted exclusive private parties at their houses. One local Black lesbian, Shirley Mims, became well known for the parties she hosted at her house in the early 2000s. All of these groups and topics are discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.

The leather and drag communities have been historically outcast from the broader LGBTQ+ community because it consists of members who visibly express themselves through their dress and physical appearance in ways that have been traditionally stigmatized by mainstream society. As a result, they created their own safe spaces for personal expression in Sacramento and across the country while also adopting a strong sense of obligation to help others in need. Leather communities across the United States evolved from gay motorcycle clubs in the 1940s and adopted clothing associated with motorcycle culture, military uniforms, denim, cowboys, and other hyper- masculine forms of expression, most commonly through leather dress. Over time, the leather community evolved into a subculture that broadly celebrates freedom of personal and sexual expression, or kink, and developed a deeply held sense of responsibility for protecting each other and the vulnerable. As such, the leather community developed a reputation as the protective force for the LGBTQ+ community. The leather community always had a particularly close kinship with the drag community, escorting drag queens at their events, and seeking each other out for protection in

163 Conversation between Liz [last name redacted] and Clare Flynn, April 26, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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public places and dangerous situations.164 Sacramento’s drag community has been notably diverse and inclusive. Several of CGNIE’s Empresses and Emperors have been people of color, transgender, or straight.165 With their collective sense of responsibility to aid those in need, both the leather and drag communities integrated fundraising as a fundamental part of their cultures , becoming major forces for support within Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community particularly during the AIDS crisis.

Gay Bars & Cruising Locations
The development of the first openly gay-friendly
social gathering places and business
establishments in Sacramento did not occur
overnight. Through the late 1960s and into the
early 1970s, as much of the gay community
remained closeted and being publicly “out” could
still put one at risk of arrest, losing one’s job, and
being ostracized from family, friends, and
coworkers, gay and lesbian individuals continued
to meet in secret.

Cruising continued to be a common way for gay
men to find sexual partners and increased during
the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The K Street
mall – the stretch of K Street in downtown
Sacramento between roughly 7
th and 13th streets –
was a popular cruising destination for gay men in
the Sacramento area. Other known local cruising
spots included city parks, such as Fremont Park in
Midtown and Del Paso Park in Del Paso Heights,
and beaches along the Sacramento River and
American River, including Discovery Park near the confluence of the two rivers, Paradise Beach in the River Park neighborhood, and a beach near the end of N. 10th Street and Richards Boulevard.166 The beach off North 10th Street was not just a cruising destination, but was also a popular hangout

164 Matt Bunch, phone conversation with Clare Flynn, August 27, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 165 Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 20, 2024, Sacramento, CA; Margaret Hale, “Queer Leather Culture,” Subcultures and Sociology, Grinnell College, 2024, accessed August 24, 2024, https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/queer-leather-culture/. 166 Mapping the Gay Guides, accessed April 4, 2024, https://mappingthegayguides.org/.

Figure 23. Advertisement for The Steam Works
(1979). Source: Mom Guess What...!
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spot during the summer months, where people would park their boats, and others would party and sunbathe on the secluded beach for much of the day.167

Figure 24. Cruising locations in the Sacramento area, ca. 1960s-1990s. Map created by Nick Kobel.

Compared to parks and public restrooms, however, gay bars and bathhouses were safer places to find sexual partners.168 The first bathhouse within the City of Sacramento was Steve’s Health and Social Club (later Steam Works Bath), located at the former Sunshine Chicken Hatchery warehouse at 2551 5th Street. Ward Percifield first opened the bathhouse around 1974. Arsonists firebombed the building in 1976, reportedly after the establishment had received several threats of extortion. 169 By 1979, the business was described publicly in the Sacramento Bee as a 24-hour bathhouse primarily for gay patrons. The bathhouse had a policy of welcoming co- ed couples and straight people three nights a week, in order to allow closeted individuals to enjoy the baths and meet people.170 Steam Works hosted events, such as ”An Evening at the Baths,” a 1979 benefit for the Sacramento Film Festival that included drinks served by ”satin-shorted skaters, hors d’oeuvres in the

167 Comments from small group sessions, September 2024. 168 Bill Lindelof, "Gay Bars Flourish in Downtown Area As Places to Relax, Find Partners," Sacramento Bee, 12 September 1983:

A16.
169 ”Firebombing Suspected as Massage Parlor Burns,“ Sacramento Bee, 18 October 1976: 19. 170 ”Getting Steamed Up at 3:45am,” Sacramento Bee, 27 December 1979: 65.

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’orgy room,’ poolside dancing, funky films, a song and dance revue and the ’best of Sacramento in drag.’”171

Gay bars—which had covertly served a vital role as some of the only places LGBTQ+ individuals could openly express their sexual identities since the first decades of the 20th century—blossomed into the public center of LGBTQ+ life in the decades after the late 1960s. Gay bars became not just places to meet sexual partners; they developed into the de facto center of gay life, where LGBTQ+ individuals received and exchanged news, formed lasting friendships and romantic relationships , and organized social, professional, and political groups, clubs, and events.

While some gay bars existed in Sacramento’s Central City grid prior to the late 1960s, California’s anti-sodomy laws, which had been used to harass and imprison LGBTQ+ individuals for over 100 years, and the City of Sacramento’s strict enforcement of those laws, prevented the formation of any recognizable concentration of gay-owned or gay-friendly establishments within the boundaries of the City of Sacramento until the state laws were repealed in the 1970s. In 1975, Assembly Bill 437, which ended California’s sodomy laws, passed both houses of the California state legislature and was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, Jr.
172 The impact of the repeal of the state’s sodomy
laws is visible in the pattern of development of gay bars and gay-friendly establishments in the Sacramento area. Locations where queer people could openly gather and interact were initially scattered throughout the city, though the largest concentrations remained across the Sacramento River in the City of West Sacramento through the mid-1970s. The Damron Guides recorded only two queer-friendly establishments in Sacramento from the publication of the first issue in 1965 through 1970: the Topper Club and Mark Twain Hotel bar located along the cruising area on the K Street Mall in downtown Sacramento.

Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, however, the number of gay bars and queer -friendly establishments steadily increased and spread throughout the City of Sacramento as policing of sexual activities decreased. A small number of new establishments emerged within the city in the early 1970s, including three Goldie’s Book Store locations at 1305 J Street, 5644 Stockton Boulevard, and 2026 Broadway (extant). Both 21
st Street and Broadway would gradually include small
concentrations of LGBTQ+-friendly businesses. The first, though short-lived, gay bar on 21st Street that was listed in the Damron Guides was Raye’s Inn at 1617 21st Street in 1971. A few years later, the Cruz’in/Y-Not bar was located a few blocks to the north at 2026 I Street near the intersection of

171 Stanley Gilliam, ”Stan’s Sacramento,” Sacramento Bee, 8 May 1979: 38. 172 Graves and Watson, “LGBTQ History in San Francisco,“ 227-228.

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21st and I streets. By 1973, the Goldie’s Book Store location on Broadway was joined by the Corker Club (later Bob and Frank’s Underpass and Corral/Broadway Limited) at 1946 Broadway.173

Many of the most popular and successful early gay bars within the boundaries of the City of Sacramento opened in outlying neighborhoods outside the Central City in the 1970s. In 1976, Wisconsin-native Terry Sidie opened his first gay bar in Sacramento, a dance club called Bo Jangles at 7042 Folsom Boulevard (extant) just outside the campus of California State University, Sacramento in East Sacramento. However, despite the growing visibility of gay men and lesbians in Sacramento, anti-gay discrimination and violence remained a constant reality. In 1979, four patrons at Bo Jangles were wounded when someone fired a gun into the crowded patio outside the bar from nearby Highway 50. No arrests were recorded in the Sacramento Bee’s reporting.174 Despite the continuing threat of violence and harassment, Bo Jangles was an important social outlet for the community. The bar was a popular spot for young people due to its proximity to the campus of Sacramento State University and the fact that most of the bar was open to people under the age of 21. 175 Jolanne Tierney, known fondly by her DJ-ing name Jammin’ Jo, remembered the bar as the first place where she publicly came out. When she walked into Bo Jangles for the first time as a high school student in 1979, she said it “was the first time [she] knew she wasn’t alone,” adding, “It felt like home.”176

During the same period, four gay bars existed in Carmichael: Atticus (later Male Box) and Play Pen near the intersection of El Camino Boulevard and Walnut Avenue and Fay’s and Joseph’s Montana Saloon near the intersection of Fair Oaks Boulevard and Manzanita Avenue. The T- Room at the Carousel Restaurant was located at the Arden Fair Shopping Center, north of the Central City, while the Stardust Room restaurant was located at 5609 Freeport Boulevard near the Sacramento Executive Airport (extant) south of the Central City.
177 Around 1980, a co-ed gay bar called the
Parking Lot opened at 2804 Auburn Boulevard with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and billiard room and became a popular destination for Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community.

173 Mapping the Gay Guides, accessed August 14, 2024, https://mappingthegayguides.org/viz/map/. 174 “Shots Fired at Bar Crowd,” Sacramento Bee, 29 July 1979: A26. 175 Alan LoFaso, conversation with Clare Flynn, September 13, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 176 Jolanne Tierney, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 2, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 177 Mapping the Gay Guides, accessed April 4, 2024, https://mappingthegayguides.org/.

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Figure 25. Sign in front of Joseph’s
Montana Saloon (1978). Source: Gay in
Sacramento.

Figure 26. Josep Migliaccio (undated). Source: Outword Magazine.

Several of the bars outside the Central City were owned by Joseph Migliaccio. In addition to Joseph’s Montana Saloon, Migliaccio was also the proprietor of Joseph’s Town and Country at 1454 Del Paso Boulevard (extant), The Forum at 2840 Auburn Boulevard (extant), The Broadway Limited at 1946 Broadway (extant), The Bolt at 2560 Boxwood Street (extant), and various other incarnations of “Joseph’s” over the course of his lifetime. At a time when many of Sacramento’s gay bars frequently rejected anyone other than white gay men—including lesbians, drag queens, African Americans, and straight people—Migliaccio’s bars were significant within Sacramento’s broader LGBTQ+ community for welcoming all members of the community. In its 2009 obituary for Migliaccio, Outword Magazine described the clientele of Migliaccio’s bars as a mix of gay men, lesbians, “leather men and women, cowboys and cowgirls, drag queens, crossdressers, transgenders, bikers, bears, pool players, jeans and Elvis guys, the occasional punker, preppies and the boy and girls next door all had a home at Joseph's and he even occasionally hosted a nudist club.” 178

MIDTOWN’S GAY BAR SCENE
By the early 1980s, a new concentration of gay bars began to emerge in Midtown, centered around the intersection of 20
th and K streets. One of first gay bars in the area was the Mercantile Saloon (extant), which opened at a converted Victorian house at 1928 L Street in 1976. Lovingly nicknamed “The Merc,” it was credited with making gay nightlife more visible in Sacramento . The Merc was

178 Charles Peer, "Remembering Joseph Migliaccio," Outword Magazine 22, No. 378 (February 2009).

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owned by local restauranteur Bill Christie. Christie was also the owner of a prime rib restaurant called Christie’s Elbo Room nearby at 2001 K Street (extant), which later became a series of gay bars.

The bar became known for welcoming gay Black men at a time when many other gay bars did not.

Ernie Brown—a gay Black man who was also an Emperor of CGNIE, board member of the George Sand Community Benefit Fund, and former owner of Ernie’s Place bar at 725 Tower Court in West Sacramento—managed the bar in the 1980s. Robert “Bobbette” Hoyos was another popular manager of the bar for 15 years from 1981 until his death in 1996. 179 The Merc was less hostile toward gay Black men than most of Sacramento’s other gay bars. T ogether with a jazz bar called the Rose Cocktail Lounge across the street at 2001 L Street, The Merc, under Ernie Brown’s management, became the main bar and social gathering place for gay Black men in Sacramento. 180 On Friday nights, tables five rows deep would be filled with gay Black men until the AIDS epidemic killed many of the bar’s gay Black patrons in the 1980s.181

Figure 27. Advertisement for the Mercantile Saloon (1992). Source: Patlar Gazette.

179 “Hoyos, ‘Bobbette’ Robert,” Sacramento Bee, 15 November 1996: B7. 180 John Bennett, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 26, 2024, Sacramento, CA; Clarmundo Sullivan, conversation with Carson Anderson, August 9, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 181 Asa Salley, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, September 5, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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The Western at 2001 K Street was continuously operated as a bar by members of the Dallosta family from 1938 through the 1990s and took the name The Western around 1953. 182 By at least the 1990s, it had a reputation as a bar for older gay men.183 In 1997, TJ Bruce and his mother Marjorie purchased the building and opened it as a gay bar called The Western Pacific Depot.

Figure 28. Club 21 with owners Clay and Bill Biscoe (standing) and Bernie Ferris (seated). (1982). Source: Morgan Ong for The Sacramento Bee.

In 1981, Bernie Ferris opened Club 21 at 1122 21st Street with investors and brothers Clay and Bill Biscoe. Ferris received his teaching credential from Sacramento State University and initially worked as a grade schoolteacher for 17 years before coming out as gay in the late 1970s. After being publicly harassed at school by former students who had seen him at a local gay bar, he left his teaching career and went to work as a real estate agent for Century 21. In 1979, he met brothers Bill and Clay Biscoe, and the men decided to take over a straight bar called the Aero Tavern, which they named Club 21. The bar was immediately successful, attracting 350 people on an average Saturday night and receiving an award as the River City Business Association’s Business of the Year in 1982 .184 Two years later, they closed Club 21 in order to open a larger bar in the building formerly occupied by Christie’s Elbo Room. The new bar was named K Street and had an upscale atmosphere with

182 Sacramento city directories, 1938-1982, Ancestry.com; “Genevieve Mary ‘Gen’ (Domich) Dallosta,” Sacramento Bee, 27 November 2018.
183 Taylor Facha, text message conversation with Clare Flynn, August 30, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

184 Bill Lindelof, “Gay Bars Flourish in Downtown Area As Places to Relax, Find Partners,” Sacramento Bee, 12 September 1982:

A16.

Figure 29. Business cards for Club
21 and K Street. Courtesy of Bernie
Ferris.

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bar hosted art shows for local artists and had dancing every night. In spite of the bar’s popularity, its owners became overstretched and declared bankruptcy in 1985. Bo Jangles owner Terry Sidie purchased the property and transformed it into Faces in 1985. Ferris continued to work as the manager of Faces until 1994.185 Similar to Migliaccio’s vision for his bars, Sidie wished to combat the exclusionary attitude of the gay community and the bar scene in the 1970s by creating a place that welcomed everyone. The name Faces was coined by Incredible Edible Place restaurant owner Paul Fitzgerald and was intended to reflect the bar’s inclusive nature as a place that was open to all communities and all “faces.” Sidie envisioned Faces as a destination for dancing and a luxurious alternative to the typical dive bar. By 2015, the bar featured three dance floors, each of which played different genres of music, 16 bar stations, and an outdoor swimming pool. A rainbow-colored triangular sign at the front door was installed that read “You are entering a gay bar! Respect us, and we’ll respect you!”186

Figure 30. Faces owner, Terry Sidie (kneeling in front
with a cowboy hat) with staff of Faces (1987). Source:

Collection of Terry Sidie.

Figure 31. An unidentified man in front of The
Western, ca. 1992. Source: Center for Sacramento
History.

185 Bernie Ferris, “Bernie Ferris History,” undated, courtesy of Christine Ferris. 186 Chris Macias, "Celebrating Inclusion," Sacramento Bee, 5 September 2015: B1, B6.

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By 1983, there were least five gay bars within two blocks of the intersection of 20 th and K streets, including K Street Station, The Western across the street at 2001 K Street (extant), and the Wreck Room at 925 20th Street (altered but extant).187 Clyde Frampton opened the Wreck Room around 1980. The bar became a popular destination for the local leather and motorcycle communities. It relocated to 2513 Broadway (extant) around 1984 after the building’s owners decided to remodel the building into apartments.188 A Latin gay bar opened at the American Legion Hall, Fort Sutter Post No. 392, at 1119 21st Street (extant) at an unknown date.189

Figure 32. A group outside the Wreck Room (background left) at 925 20th Street. Source: Personal Collection of George Raya.

The character of Sacramento’s gay bars varied widely, reflecting the diversity of Sacramento's gay community. The Merc looked like a typical straight bar except that there were usually no women present. Club 21 had a similar “casual and friendly” atmosphere to The Merc, but differed from other local gay bars in hosting a clientele that consisted of gay doctors, lawyers, and other professionals.190 The Wreck Room, a few blocks away, was a leather bar that featured male underwear hanging on chains above the bar.191 In a written recollection, Sacramento resident Tim

187 William Burg, Midtown Sacramento: Creative Soul of the City (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014), 41. 188 Sue Boylan, “Gay Bar Owners Change Minds on Midtown Move,” Sacramento Bee, 27 December 1984: 11. 189 Public comments, Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project, small group sessions, September 2024. 190 Christine Ferris, “1980’s History of Sacramento LGBTQ Community,” email to Henry Feuss, July 10, 2024. 191 Lindelof, "Gay Bars Flourish in Downtown Area As Places to Relax, Find Partners.”

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Holt offered a glimpse of the vibrancy and variety of Sacramento’s gay bar scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s:

The atmosphere in the gay bars was more relaxed than you generally find in most singles bars. People were definitely checking each other out, so there was a certain feeling of nervous expectation, but I noticed that there was a lot more touching going on – much of it obviously just friendly contact – than you’d expect to see in straight bars.

The Mercantile Saloon [was] a quiet, relatively sedate, sit-and-talk-while-you-check-out-the- action bar. It [was] located in Midtown, at the corner of 19th and L streets.

Bo Jangles, at 70th and Folsom, [was] a flashy disco spot that cater[ed] to a fairly young crowd, a lot of them from nearby CSUS.

At Joseph’s Montana Saloon on a Wednesday night, we encountered what was obviously the regular crowd of women playing pool. One, who wore glasses and played lousy pool, looked matronly enough to be my old fourth grade teacher – except that my fourth-grade teacher never wore tight blue jeans.192

Despite the differing characters of the city’s gay bars, community members reflected that Sacramento’s gay bar scene “had a closeness and unity that larger cities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, could only wish to have.”193 By 1982, an article in the Sacramento Bee estimated that roughly 3,500 to 5,000 of the city’s estimated gay residents frequented the city’s gay bars. By 1987, the Damron Guides no longer showed any gay bars located in West Sacramento, indicating that the center of gay life had completed its shift east to Downtown and Midtown Sacramento.194

The transgender community was not accepted by the gay and lesbian communit ies through the 1990s. While some transgender people went to gay bars, they were often beat up or bullied , and instead typically socialized in small groups at potlucks, dinners, or other gatherings at their private residences. It was not until the early 2000s that the transgender community began to be welcomed into Sacramento’s broader LGBTQ+ community.195

192 Tim Holt, ”Sacto’s Gays,” personal collection or George Raya. According to community member Alan LoFaso, Bo Jangles was also popular with young people, because most of the bar was open to people under the age of 21. 193 "Story - Bar History I, 1955-1995," undated, George Raya collection. 194 Mike Walker, "Damron Guide Reveals Sacramento Past," 2005, George Raya collection. 195 Conversation between Tina Reynolds, Clare Flynn, and Henry Feuss, May 22, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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Figure 33. Collection of advertisements for gay and lesbian bars in Sacramento, circa 1970s-1990s. Source:

Personal collection of George Raya and Mom Guess What…!

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LESBIAN BARS
Many of Sacramento’s “men’s bars” did not welcome lesbians or transgender people. While lesbians and transgender people went to gay bars, they were often harassed and formed their own separate safe spaces for socializing. Lesbian residents formed their own tight-knit bar scene. As in other cities across the country, the local lesbian bar scene grew as more women, including gay women, attended college and found jobs outside the home and formed bonds with other women like them.

According to Cherie Gordon, a lesbian resident who started the Le Theatre Lesbien theater troupe and frequented many of Sacramento’s lesbian bars between the 1960s and 1980s, drinking and cruising were not as central to lesbian culture and social life as it was for gay men, and Sacramento struggled to support more than one lesbian bar at a time. Older lesbian bars closed shortly after new ones opened.

Like the gay men’s bar scene, the local lesbian bar scene had its roots in West Sacramento. Perhaps the most well- known lesbian bar in West Sacramento in the late 1960s
and early 1970s was Off Key, which opened at 1040 Soule Street around 1967 and was run by a straight man named
Jack Gaylord. He gained a reputation for protecting the lesbians who frequented his bar. In the early 1970s, Cherie Gordon and Patricia (now Matty) One Person—both
Sacramento State University students and founders of the lesbian theater troupe, Le Theatre Lesbien—previewed
films they created about the lesbian experience at the bar.

The Off Key closed after a new gay bar, the Hawaiian Hut, opened around 1974 and attracted most of the Off Key’s
lesbian clientele. To their shock and dismay, lesbian patrons soon discovered that they were not welcome at the new bar and had to find a new place to socialize.196 They found open doors and open arms The Casino Club, a bar recently
opened by another straight man at 1923 16th Street
(extant). As lesbian and gay bars were typically not allowed to operate on the east side of the Sacramento River at the time, the Casino Club was a rare destination for lesbians in Sacramento, who appreciated not having to drive to West Sacramento to socialize. In 1974, members of Le Theatre Lesbien approached the owner of the Casino Club about performing their play “From Lesbos to Homophobia” in order to attract a crowd to the bar on a

196 Cherie Gordon, ”A History of Lesbian Bars in Sacramento,“ personal collection of George Raya; Cherie Gordon, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 8, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

Figure 34. Advertisement for the
Crescent Moon (undated). Source:

Collection of George Raya.

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typically quiet Sunday night. The play was a success, and other staged events were held at The Casino Club in the 1970s.197

In 1978, Angie Saldivia purchased a straight bar nearby at 1704 Broadway (extant) and opened a new lesbian bar there called the Crescent Moon. Saldivia remodeled the building, commissioning a local artist to create a stained-glass crescent moon for the front door, and decorating the building’s storage room doors with etched glass inserts of birds and flowers. The 200-person club had a large dance floor, making it a popular destination during the height of disco in the late 1970s. The Crescent Moon also had a pool room in the backyard, which was built by patrons and decorated with unicorns, and hosted variety shows and barbeques. According to local resident and patron Connie Allen, the Crescent Moon “had a very homey, relaxing, comfortable environment,” and w as a place where many relationships began. A song written by patrons and sung nightly at closing time captured the atmosphere of the Crescent Moon:

It’s another lonely night in Sacramento
Sitting with the girls and drinking wine.

Louise and I were talking of the old days
Trying to remember better times.

And where, where are you tonight?
How come you thought it was all right
For you to walk away
Show yourself the world?

I’m lonely but I’m trying to make it all right.

Now I’m asking this one here
If she would like another beer
And if she’d like to go with me tonight.

Come on, honey. Come go with me tonight.198

According to Allen, the opening of the Parking Lot around 1980 pulled much of the clientele away from the Crescent Moon, which closed around the same time.199 The similarly named Once Upon a Blue Moon, more commonly known as the Blue Moon, opened around 198 5 at 2565 Franklin Boulevard (extant). Owned by local blown glass artist Shannon Morgan, it was one of the only

197 Cherie Gordon, “Corrections to Your 2nd Draft of Chapter 3,” emailed to Clare Flynn, September 23, 2024. 198 Connie Allen, email to George Raya, 13 December 1999, personal collection of George Raya. 199 Allen, email to George Raya, 13 December 1999.

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lesbian bars in Sacramento for much of the 1980s. Members of the local women’s slow and fast pitch softball leagues and other sports teams often gathered at the bar after weekly Sunday games to socialize.200 The Blue Moon closed around 1990.201 Other popular lesbian bars that operated between the 1970s and 1990s included the Buffalo Club at 1831 S Street , The Mirage at 601 15th Street (extant), and Jammin’ Jo’s Sports and Dance Bar at 2721 Broadway (extant). 202 The Mirage was owned and operated by a Black lesbian in the 1990s. All aspects of the bar—from its music to its food, staff, and décor—welcomed and validated the Black gay experience, making it a rare and important gathering place for Black lesbians in Sacramento.203

Figure 35. Map showing the LGBTQ+ community "where to go," published in Mom...Guess What...! in February 1979. Source: Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE).

200 Jolanne Tierney, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 7, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 201 Haines Criss-Cross Directory, Sacramento, 1990, Sacramento Public Library. 202 Melba, Fifty Gay Years In The Greater Sacramento Area: 1950 – 2000,” 2007-2020, accessed April 27, 2024, https://gayinsacramento.com/index.html; Conversation between Liz [last name redacted] and Clare Flynn, April 26, 2024, Sacramento, CA.
203 Clarmundo Sullivan, conversations with Carson Anderson, August 2024, Sacramento, CA; Asa Salley and Judy Walls, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, September 5, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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Lavender Heights

LOCATION
By the 1970s, the foundations of a clearly
identifiable, vibrant, openly gay neighborhood
began to emerge in Sacramento. Known as
Lavender Heights, the neighborhood was
centered around the intersection of 20th and K
streets and the surrounding blocks, though its
boundaries were not clearly defined and evolved
over time with the growth of LGBTQ+-owned and
LGBTQ+-friendly business establishments in the
Midtown area. In the early 1980s, an article in the
Sacramento Bee described Lavender Heights as "a
cluster of gay-owned or gay-frequented
businesses along 21st Street between Broadway
and C Street.” 204 However, by the 1990s, the
neighborhood had expanded north and to the
east and west, primarily along K and J streets. In a
survey of 111 residents and patrons of Lavender
Heights conducted in 1998 by graduate student
Michael Claussen, participants broadly identified
G, H, or I streets as the neighborhood’s northern
boundary; L Street, Capitol Avenue, or N Street as its southern boundary; 16 th or 20th streets as its western boundary; and 23rd Street or Alhambra Boulevard as its eastern boundary. While the north and south boundaries were geographically relatively close, the variance between the east and west boundaries reflected the locations of establishments that were commonly frequented by t he neighborhood’s residential community more broadly. Popular gay restaurants the Bread Store at 1716 J Street (extant) and Hamburger Mary’s at 1630 J Street (extant) and local lesbian/feminist café Earhart's Café at 1905 16th Street (extant), which also served as meeting places for LGBTQ+ groups and organizations, were located on or near 16th Street, while 20th Street was the location of several of the most popular gay bars in the city, Faces and The Western. Alhambra Boulevard does not appear to have been selected by survey respondents because of the presence of important gay businesses but rather because it was home to several establishments that were frequented by residents of Midtown more broadly, including a Safeway grocery store at 1 025 Alhambra Boulevard

204 Witt, "Gays Gain Acceptance, Visibility in Sacramento.” Figure 36. Earhart's Cafe owners Pam Musante and
Jo Harding outside the café (ca. 1992). Source:

Center for Sacramento History.

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(extant), humorously nicknamed “Gayway,” and another popular gay-owned restaurant and meeting place, Incredible Edible Place, at 1401 Alhambra Boulevard (extant).205

NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT
The name “Lavender Heights” was coined by members of Sacramento’s gay community in the 1970s, but it did not become more publicly used until the early 1980s, when the Sacramento Bee published a series of articles highlighting the neighborhood and several of its businesses. Although the origin of the neighborhood’s name is unknown, the color lavender was a reference to the popular association of the gay community with the color purple. Another name, “Fruit Flats,” was reportedly considered for the neighborhood and showed the community’s sense of humor but did not catch on. 206

Likely drawn to Midtown by the growing number of gay and lesbian residents in the area, gay - friendly businesses began to open. As with many gay neighborhoods throughout the United States, the first seeds of the Lavender Heights neighborhood were planted by the establishment of several gay bars—traditionally the center of gay life.207

As previously described, some of the earliest and most prominent gay bars in the neighborhood were the Mercantile Saloon, The Western (later The Depot), Club 21, K Street Station (later Faces), , and the Wreck Room, all of which were located at or within a few blocks of the intersection of 20 th and K Steets. The success of Faces, in particular, brought a groundswell of energy to the intersection.

Steve Hansen, the first openly gay City Councilman in Sacramento’s history, described Faces as “that initial piece of life that built this reef of activity [in Lavender Heights].” In 2015, Sidie reflected back that prior to the opening of K Street Station and its reopening as Faces, the neighborhood around 20th and K streets “was nothing. It was broken-down garages, an empty funeral parlor. There was a down bar called The Western. Lewis Florist was falling into the ground. It wasn't called 'Lavender Heights.' They didn’t even call it 'mid-town.’"208

Under Sidie’s leadership, Faces became akin to a community center. Born and raised on a farm in Wisconsin, Sidie left home at the age of 19 to live with an aunt in Detroit, where he came out as gay.

He later moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a private -duty nurse before enlisting in the military in 1971. Though hoping “to see the world,” he was stationed at the hospital at Mather Air Force Base in the Sacramento area. During the evenings, he moonlighted as a bartender at bars in Sacramento and West Sacramento, gaining experience with the local gay bar scene. After opening

205 Michael Andrew Claussen, “Lavender Heights: The Emerging Gay Community in Downtown Sacramento, California,” (M.A. thesis, California State University, Chico, 1998,) 100-102. 206 Witt, "Gays Gain Acceptance, Visibility in Sacramento.” 207 Claussen, “Lavender Heights,” 90.
208 Quote from Terry Sidie in Chris Macias, "Celebrating Inclusion," Sacramento Bee, 5 September 2015: B1, B6.

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Bo Jangles in 1976, Sidie became one of the most successful and influential figures in Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, opening several other bars, restaurants, and establishments, and supporting community clubs and organizations through donations and fundraisers. At one point, Sidie owned Bo Jangles and Faces, as well as the reopened Club 21 (which operated through the early 2000s), a restaurant called Head Hunters, the Verona Village Resort in Sutter County, and a farm in his home state of Wisconsin. Sidie used the success of his business endeavors to benefit and empower Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community. Faces became a hub for the community and arguably the most well-known and recognizable landmark for the LGBTQ-life in Sacramento. In addition to its regular business, the bar hosted events such as voter drives for local gay political advocacy groups, including the River City Democratic Club and later the Stonewall Democratic Club; fundraisers for LGBTQ+-friendly politicians; and the first meeting of the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Softball League.209 In 1987, Sidie helped start the Rainbow Festival with Hamburger Mary’s owner Richard Boriolo. The festival, which is held annually as a fundraiser for local LGBTQ+ charities and organizations, was Boriolo’s idea and continues to use Faces as its main hub.210 In reflecting on Sidie’s impact on the community, Reverend Jerry Sloan, founder of the Lambda Community Center (now the Sacramento LGBT Community Center), stated, “A lot of people and groups, including myself, have certainly gone to him and said, 'Terry, we need,' and he never hesitates. And we're talking thousands of dollars, not 20 bucks."211 By 1997, Sidie, himself, estimated he had given $120,000 to local LGBTQ+ charities and organizations. 212

Figure 37. Terry Sidie at Faces (2015). Source: Paul Kitagaki for The Sacramento Bee.

209 Macias, "Celebrating Inclusion.”
210 Jolanne Tierney, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. 211 Macias, "Celebrating Inclusion.”
212 Macias, "Celebrating Inclusion.”

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The growing concentration of LGBTQ+ residents and bars created a sense of safety, acceptance, and awareness that contributed to the establishment of other businesses and institutions that transformed Lavender Heights into a full-fledged community. In contrast to many of Sacramento’s ethnic and racial minorities, who could be visually identified—and, therefore, discriminated against, due to their physical appearance—gay individuals could not typically be identified as such by their outward appearance alone and were able to seek out locations to set down roots where they felt safe, accepted, able to freely express themselves, and had access to important community services.

Thus, Lavender Heights became what Claussen called a “community of congregation,” a self-created and self-defined place where the LGBTQ+ community chose to establish itself, rather than a community of segregation that was forced into a specific area due to discrimination. 213

As more gay and lesbian individuals moved into Midtown and the number of gay businesses, institutions, and services grew, a true community emerged that provided services for all aspects of daily life. Transgender people also patronized gay establishments but were less visible due to a general lack of acceptance from the gay and lesbian communities through the early 2000s.214 By the 1990s, Lavender Heights contained not just a concentration of gay bars but also a wide variety of restaurants, clothing stores, laundromats, shops, bookstores, beauty salons and barber shops, doctors, therapists, lawyers, dentists, and realtors that catered specifically to LGBTQ+ clientele.

While Lavender Heights had its epicenter at the intersection of 20 th and K streets, 21st Street and J Street were also important corridors in the neighborhood. 215 In addition to Club 21, 21st Street was the home of the offices of out gay doctors Harvey Thompson and Sandy Pomerantz and later The Open Book, a gay and lesbian bookstore, at 910-912 21st Street (extant); an early headquarters of Mom…Guess What…!, a newspaper founded in 1978 by Linda Birner to serve Sacramento’s gay community and allies, at 1919 21st Street (extant); and a temporary location of the lesbian feminist bookstore, Lioness Books, at 1311 21st Street.216 Mom Guess What…!, Lioness Books, and The Open Book are discussed in more detail later in this chapter. Other gay-owned businesses on 21st Street included the popular gift shop Postcards Etc. at 2101 L Street (extant) and garden supply and design store the Gifted Gardener. The Gifted Gardener was opened in 1989 by former banker and Gay Men’s Chorus founding member David Kwong. The store initially operated at 2220 J Street (extant) for a little more than a year before moving to 1730 J Street (extant), where it remained for nearly 30 years.217 Postcards Etc. was started by jazz pianist and Sacramento native Jeffrey Heald and Mexican

213 Claussen, “Lavender Heights,” 84, 164.
214 Conversation between Tina Reynolds, Clare Flynn, and Henry Feuss, May 22, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 215 Witt, "Gays Gain Acceptance, Visibility in Sacramento.” 216 Witt, "Gays Gain Acceptance, Visibility in Sacramento.” 217 Cathie Anderson, “Midtown Sacramento’s Gifted Gardener Will Close,” Sacramento Bee, 28 March 2017: A2.

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native Abdon Legrand at a flea market on Northgate Boulevard near Pell Drive in 1991 and moved to 21st Street in 1994.218 It closed in the early 2000s.

Figure 38. Jeffrey Heald (left) and Abdon Legrand
(right) at Postcards Etc (1996). Source: Owen Brewer
for The Sacramento Bee.

Figure 39. David Kwong inside The Gifted Gardener
(2017). Source: Cathie Anderson for The Sacramento
Bee.

J Street later became the site of the First Sacramento Women’s Building at 2224 J Street (extant), the longest-running location of the Sacramento Women’s Center, which included Lioness Books, the Rape Crisis Center, and Women’s Employment Services Training; the LGBTQ+-friendly First United Methodist Church at 2100 J Street (extant); and, by the 1990s, several LGBTQ+ owned businesses and shops, including Styleyes at 2231 J Street (extant), Fleet Feet at 2408 J Street (extant) and later at 2311 J Street (extant), and others; and the offices of the Sacramento AIDS Foundation at 2115 J Street (extant). A community center for the LGBTQ+ community that was the birthplace of the Lambda Players theater troupe was located in a Victorian house at 1931 L Street (extant) and for a short time, next to the Wreck Room at 919 20th Street. Gay men used the New Helvetia Roaster coffee shop at the old fire station building at 1215 19th Street (extant) as a location to meet men they found in classified ads away from the gay bars.219 With such a variety of businesses and services specifically by and for LGBTQ+ residents, Lavender Heights became a relatively self- contained and self-sufficient neighborhood.220 As the primary location throughout much of the surrounding area in which one could find businesses and services specifically intended to meet the needs and desires of LGBTQ+ individuals, it also served as the center for the Sacramento region’s broader LGBTQ+ community.221

218 Norman D. Williams, “Off-the-Wall Postcards Etc Thrives in Growing Niche,” Sacramento Bee, 25 March 1996: E1. 219 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 2: Linda Birner and Dennis Mangers,” May 30, 2023, Center for Sacramento History, YouTube, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8t3BwNfUXk. 220 Claussen, “Lavender Heights,” 120.
221 Claussen, “Lavender Heights,” 122.

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The tight-knit character of Lavender Heights as an enclave primarily by and for members of the LGBTQ+ community shifted by the early 2000s as social acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, identities, and expressions became more common and a growing number of straight people began to patronize the area’s gay bars and businesses. As the LGBTQ+ community became more mainstream and the number of businesses grew, competition increased and the drive to support LGBTQ+ businesses as an act of resistance, survival, and pride from within the LGBTQ+ community declined .

Terry Sidie reflected that Lavender Heights lost much of its previous “oomph” by 2005. “There’s not the same energy as before,” he said.222 That year, the Open Book closed, citing competition from other stores and waning support from LGBTQ+ patrons. Looking back on the evolution of Lavender Heights since the 1970s, Fred Palmer, publisher of the LGBTQ+ publication Outword Magazine, reflected in 2005, “[Lavender Heights] used to be a true 'gay ghetto' business district, but it's lost a lot of its gay focus. What that tells you is that the local gay community has grown up, that Sacramento in general is a safer place to be publicly gay." 223

Community Centers & Services
The growing self-awareness among Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ residents that they were part of a larger underserved community came with the recognition that they needed to come together to help their own. Individuals pooled their resources and social networks to found community centers, charities, and other service organizations to meet the community’s needs. Though no officially designated LGBTQ+ community center existed in Sacramento in the early 1970s, some shared spaces emerged during this period that served as important meeting and incubator spaces for local LGBTQ+ residents, groups, and organizations. Around early 1971, the local chapter of the gay-friendly Metropolitan Community Church (described in detail later in this chapter) began leasing space on the second floor of the Ruhstaller Building at 902 J Street (extant). Several local LGBTQ+ groups and leaders used the space for meetings and events, including the Society for Homosexual Freedom, Gay Liberation Coffeeshop (also known as the Alternative Coffeehouse), Gay Activists Alliance, and Gay Rap group in the early 1970s. When the Metropolitan Community Church moved to a new location at 17th and R streets, the church’s new location continued to serve as an important early community space. Among the events and meetings that took place there were discussion groups that focused on raising public consciousness around homosexuality and a Western States Conference organized by Sacramento State University’s Gay Liberation Front in 1972. 224

222 Jon Ortiz, "No Longer a Sure Sell," Sacramento Bee, 14 April 2005: A1. 223 Ortiz, "No Longer a Sure Sell.”
224 Peter Tucker, “Notes on CSUS’s Gay Liberation Front Alterative Coffeehouse Becoming Damien House/Gay Men’s Collective,” email to Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience team, October 24, 2024.

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Two blocks north of the original location of the Alternative Coffeehouse and Pink Fairy Palace at 22 nd and P streets, the residence of a group of gay men in a Victorian house at 1320 22 nd Street (extant) developed into another early community center. Known as Damien House (later the Sacramento Gay Men’s Collective), its early residents and founders included gay student activist Edgar Carpenter, fellow Sacramento State University student Crittenden Going, and out gay radio DJ Jok Church, who hosted programs on the local radio stations KZAP and KERS. Damien House was envisioned as a permanent community resource center that provided a range of services for gay men, including a coffee house for casual hangouts, educational and counseling services, a crisis cente r, and suicide prevention services.225

In 1977, a local charity called the George Sand Community Benefit Fund was created to provide financial assistance to members of the local gay community who found themselves in a position of need. The charity was evocatively named after the famous 19 th-century female novelist Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, best known by her pen name George Sand, who was famous for writing novels that addressed women’s rights and who sometimes wore men’s clothing.226 The following year, Clay Shipway, a member of the gay religious order the Brotherhood of Simple Life, founded The Way Station at 1403 I Street (extant), a drop-in center where gay individuals could meet and seek help. Shipway funded The Way Station using his personal disability checks and donations from the Valley Knights Motorcycle Club, a social club for local gay motorcyclists and leather enthusiasts, and other local gay clubs.227 The drop-in center closed in 1981 due to lack of funding but maintained an active phone number as a “Gay Switchboard” for referrals for a period after. 228 In the 1970s and 1980s, gay and lesbian professionals opened practices to provide medical, legal, and other professional services to the LGBTQ+ community. Notable examples include the dental office of Dr. Art Katz at 1820 Professional Drive (extant), medical offices of Dr. Harvey Thompson, which opened at 912A 21st Street (extant) in 1978, and all-women law office of Metrailer, Langenkamp, and Buscho, led by attorneys Rosemary Metrailer, Carolyn Langenkamp, Tami Buscho, at 1725 Capitol Avenue (extant) and later 1329 H Street (extant) in the 1980s.

225 Tucker, “Notes on CSUS’s Gay Liberation Front.”
226 "George Sand Inc. Alive and Well," Mom, Guess What…?!, 1 January 1979, personal collection of George Raya. 227 "Flashback 1977," personal collection of George Raya. 228 Burg, Midtown Sacramento, 41-42.

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Figure 40. Dr. Art Katz (1983). Source: Morgan Ong
for The Sacramento Bee.

Figure 41. Rosemary Metrailer (ca. 1979). Source:

Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange
(LLACE), Jonna Ramey Collection.

WOMEN’S SERVICES
In the 1970s, many women in Sacramento came together to create an expansive network of social services specifically for local women, including lesbians, who had been historically overlooked and underserved by institutional systems and leadership. Nationwide, many women, including Sacramento residents, were first introduced to community organizing and advocacy through the women’s liberation movement. The women’s movement attracted many lesbians, who faced the same issues as straight women and similarly sought recognition and equal rights. Seeking to uplift women and reject all forms of patriarchy that had historically been the source of their oppression, some of the more radical feminists came to believe that lesbianism, or love between women, and the rejection of all things male were the highest forms of feminism. Most lesbian-feminists dreamed of creating self-sufficient, women-centered institutions and communities where women supported each other and were the primary drivers of culture and society.229

Inspired by the women’s movement, almost all of Sacramento’s first women’s services and aid organizations were started by lesbian-feminists, who took it upon themselves to support women in the community who were otherwise largely overlooked and underserved by institutional systems and authorities. Starting in the late 1960s, Midge Marino, a local lesbian and martial artist with a black belt in judo, began providing a powerful and important service to help local women protect and uplift themselves through through judo, self-defense, and gun-safety classes and trainings.

Marino dedicated her life to teaching individuals, especially women, to protect themselves in dangerous situations.

229 Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, 201-206.

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Born on a farm in Vacaville in 1938, Marino was first introduced to judo when her school bus driver offered to take students to judo classes at Travis Air Force Base. Marino was the only girl who accepted the invitation. As she progressed in her training, it became apparent that most of the advanced martial artists in the area would not train he because of her gender. Undeterred, she traveled to Japan, where she completed her formal training alongside third-degree black belt judoka Kuniko Takeuchi, then the sixth highest ranking female judoka in the world.

Marino and Takeuchi became
romantic partners and moved back
to California together in the late
1960s. In 1968, Marino began
teaching judo classes for female
students at El Camino High School
as part of the the San Juan Unified
School District’s physical education
and recreation department.230 By
1974, she was a part-time self-
defense instructor at Sacramento
State University and conducted
trainings for the Sacramento
Women’s Center’s Rape Crisis
Center.231 Marino’s trainings aided
local women during the crime spree of serial killer and rapist Joseph James DeAngelo, Jr., then known locally as the “East Area Rapist” and now as the “Golden State Killer,” which took place across the Sacramento area in the late 1970s.

From the 1970s to the 2010s, Marino was hired by numerous public and private organizations, nonprofits, businesses, and other groups throughout Sacramento and across the state of California to provide classes in self-defense, gun safety, and other skills to their members. By the early 1980s, Marino opened her own business, Trade Your Fear For Anger (TYFFA), whose name was based on a phrase she used in her trainings. According to an article in UC Davis’s California Aggie newspaper, Marino taught that “anger is an instinct used to protect oneself, and women’s anger is suppressed through socialization. [Marino] encouraged women to trade their fear for anger… to protect themselves.”232 She opened a training school that offered a six-week self-defense course. In the

230 “Judo Offered for Women,” Press-Tribune (Roseville), 5 November 1968. 231 “Women’s Defense,” The Express, 17 January 1974; “
232 “Women Take Back the Night Rally Focuses on Making the Streets Safe,” California Aggie 118, No. 264, 7 June 1999.

Figure 42. Midge Marino (left) conducting a self-defense class for the Women Take Back the Night march in 1999. Source: Chris de Asis for The California Aggie.

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1980s, the California Department of Education, Department of Social Services, State Board of Equalization hired her to conduct workshop across the state for their employees. It was at one of these workshops that Marino met her life partner, Pat Drouet. In the 1990s, Marino also conducted trainings for the City of Sacramento, City of Berkeley, Office of Food Distribution, California Dental Association, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, American Indian Training Institute, and others. In 1991, she was appointed to serve on the Police Community Relations Advisory Committee, a committee made up of local citizens to advise the Sacramento Police Department. She served on the committee under three different police chiefs. Marino was also instrumental to organizing local Take Back the Night marches in Sacramento to raise awareness about violence against women and stand up against sexual violence. Over the course of her life, she received numerous certificates of appreciation from organizations and groups across California in recognition of her service.233

Many of Sacramento’s women’s service organizations spawned from one organization, the Sacramento Women’s Center. The center began as the idea of a group of approximately 30 local feminist women, many of whom were students at local colleges—including Sacramento State University, UC Davis, and American River College—as well as other local women’s groups, such as the YWCA and Sacramento Community Commission for Women. According to the Sacramento Bee, the group was led in its earliest phase by Judy Poxon, then a sophomore at Sacramento State University, and Karen Burke Redman, a graduate student at UC Davis. From the start, the women envisioned the Sacramento Women’s Center as having the “feminist perspective” at the core of its mission. The center would be operated collectively to provide a broad base of support for the needs of Sacramento’s women. Modeled after women’s centers in Davis, Oakland, Berkeley, Santa Barbara, Seattle, and Vancouver, the vision for the Sacramento Women’s Center included providing temporary housing for women in need, a medical clinic, a children’s day care, job placement programs, classes, workshops, a library and bookstore, and referrals to relevant community aid agencies.234

The Sacramento Women’s Center moved to several buildings across the Midtown and Downtown neighborhoods throughout the course of its existence. The earliest iteration of the center opened on Susan B. Anthony Day, February 15, 1973, at the YWCA building at 1122 17th (extant). The center began by providing an identifiable and visible place for local women to come together to discuss women’s roles in society. The center relocated to its first standalone location, a house at 1221 20th Street, in 1974. The Sacramento Bee published a feature on the center, which by this time had expanded into the Sacramento Women’s Center and Bookstore and had begun to offer some of the

233 Pat Drouet and Rita Maningo, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, October 8, 2024. 234 Jan May Bassett, "Women's Center Will Have 'Feminist Perspective,'” Sacramento Bee, 29 November 1972: 67.

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services its founders originally envisioned. One of those services was a rape crisis center (RCC).

Although there was broad agreement among City officials and the police department about the need for such a program, the police department opposed it being run by the Sacramento Women’s Center, after they reported finding lesbian books, pamphlets, and posters at the center. With no evidence, they claimed that vulnerable women who had been physically and emotionally abused, would be coerced into becoming lesbians.235 Despite this opposition, the City awarded the Sacramento Women’s Center a $10,000 grant. 236

Figure 43. Members of the Sacramento Women's Center, likely at the 1980 March on Sacramento for Gay and Lesbian Rights (1980). Source: Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Jonna Ramey Collection.

In 1974, the center received a $178,000 grant from the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) to set up a program for women who were the victims of rape or other forms of sexual abuse.237 The grant was one of the largest federal grants for any project in the country at the time and made RCC one of the first rape crisis center to receive federal funding in the United

235 Jeff Raimundo, “Women ‘Appalled,’” Sacramento Bee, 12 July 1974: 21. 236 Bathen, “Women’s Center Raps Council Unit On Rape Crisis Funding.” 237 Sigrid Bathen, “Women’s Center Raps Council Unit On Rape Crisis Funding,” Sacramento Bee, 2 July 1975: B3.

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States. However, it required $10,000 in matching funds from local sources. To match the federal funds, RCC borrowed the money from ten local women, and RCC held self-defense classes, taught by Midge Marino, a black belt martial artist who taught self-defense at Sacramento State University’s Women’s Studies Program. RCC charged money for some of these classes to reimburse the women.

Some of them in turn donated their money to RCC and others were paid back .238 RCC turned down a second year of funding from LEAA, after LEAA required that RCC disavow that any lesbians worked there and that the program establish a governing board, 50% of which consisted of law enforcement personnel, as conditions for continued funding. Both conditions were untenable to the Women’s Center.239

Initially led by Women’s Center members Inga Mountain and Kathy “Kit” Mahoney, by 1975, RCC was led by coordinator Kate Guzman. RCC provided 24-hour services for rape victims, including individual and group counseling, assistance dealing with the legal and hospital systems, self-defense classes and speaker series on women’s issues, and a 24-hour telephone hotline, which was staffed by volunteers who provided immediate emotional support to rape victims. The hotline received 145 calls in its first three months alone. It also gave educational sessions about sexual assault and abuse on local public television and at other women’s centers across California.240

Figure 44. A group of women and children at the Sacramento Women's Center at 1221 20th Street (1974).

Source: Sacramento Bee.

238 Theresa Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, July 25, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 239 Theresa Corrigan, “Edits,” email to Clare Flynn, September 25, 2024. 240 Sigrid Bathen, “Capital Rape Victim Helped Inspire New Legislation,” Sacramento Bee, 15 September 1974.

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With calls for help pouring in, the staff of the Women’s Center discovered there were other serious unmet needs facing the women of Sacramento. Women who called in that were experiencing abuse needed a safe place for themselves, and sometimes their children, to stay to escape their abusers.

The idea for a shelter evolved into a broad-reaching range of services for Sacramento’s low-income mothers. Claudia Deuel (also known as Claudia Desmangles) was a key figure in the development of such an agency within the Sacramento Women’s Center. Deuel was, herself, a single mother, who knew the struggles of low-income single mothers well. While completing her bachelor’s degree in psychology, she used welfare to care for her son and eventually became so physical ly debilitated that she had to be hospitalized with rheumatic fever and permanent heart damage.241 Initially, the Sacramento Women’s Center assisted single mothers by serving as a home for women to share childcare and household expenses, as well as an emotional outlet to discuss and process their feelings. In Spring 1974, the Sacramento Women’s Center submitted a grant proposal to Sacramento County to expand their services for low-income mothers into a more comprehensive program, which would include a 24-hour hotline, a drop-in center, counseling services, a children’s playroom, a lending library, emergency clothing closet, and a referral service for legal aid, child care, pregnancy and birth control information, and housing assistance.242 The County awarded the center a $71,000 grant. The resulting organization was named Mothers Emergency Stress Service (MESS).243

Just as Sacramento Women’s Center with its two subsidiary agencies, RCC and MESS, seemed poised for further growth in the second half of the 1970s, internal disputes over funding and leadership led to a period of upheaval and transition.244 In February 1975, the center relocated to a new location at 2220 J Street (extant). Just before the move, the center’s existing leadership group, which called itself the “G Street Collective” and was headed by Linda Garcia, resigned and was replaced by RCC coordinator Kate Guzman and Claudia Deuel and her partner, Virginia “Nicky” Lytton, from MESS. The conflict came to a boil in March 1975 when Lytton died of heart failure after she and Deuel were attacked by Garcia and a group of more than six women in the parking lot at Ms. Fay’s bar at 7436 Fair Oaks Boulevard.245

241 Sigrid Bathen, "Women's Center Is for a Woman Alone Who Need Not Be," Sacramento Bee, 23 June 1974: 19. 242 Bathen, "Women's Center Is for a Woman Alone Who Need Not Be.” 243 Sigrid Bathen, "Control of Women's Center May Have Been Spark for Fatal Fray," Sacramento Bee, 3 April 1975: 17-19. 244 Theresa Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn, August 27, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 245 Sigrid Bathen, "Struggle in Women's Center Pits Moderate and Radical Forces," Sacramento Bee, 4 April 1975: 27.

Figure 45. Kate Guzman (1977).

Source: Sacramento Bee.

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Despite this internal turmoil, the Sacramento Women’s Center persevered and continued to grow.

Under Guzman’s coordination, by the late 1970s, the organization had matured into a sophisticated and professional government-funded service center.246 The Women’s Center and all of its programs—including the bookstore, RCC, and MESS—moved to a new location at 1230 H Street in 1977.247 The center relocated to a Victorian house at 2104 Capitol Avenue (extant) in 1979, where it remained until around 1981. The building contained the Women’s Center, bookstore, and RCC. By this time, MESS had been overtaken and replaced by a second separate organization to aid victims of domestic violence called Women Escaping A Violent Environment (WEAVE). WEAVE was started in 1975 by a group of Hispanic women who had been abused. 248 WEAVE was formally established as a nonprofit organization in 1978, and funding sources that had previously been allotted to MESS were shifted to WEAVE. MESS dissolved shortly after. By the mid-1980s, services offered by RCC were also absorbed into WEAVE.249

In 1979, another program, Women’s Employment Services Training (WEST), was established under the Sacramento Women’s Center’s umbrella of services. The program was funded by a $200,000 federal grant for funds from the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA).250 Led by local lesbian activist Robin Purdy, editor of the early feminist newsletter Gibbous Rising, WEST provided training for women who were struggling to find long-term employment and had been on welfare. The program offered trainings and workshops on topics such as resume writing and interview techniques, on-site career counseling, and travel vouchers and a clothing closet for women to attend job interviews.251 The program’s offices were originally located on the second story of the office building directly next door to the Women’s Center building at 2100 Capitol Avenue (extant) before moving one half-block west to the converted house at 2022 Capitol Avenue (exta nt). As described later in this chapter, ultimately, the Women’s Center, including all of its programs and services, moved to 2224 J Street with Lioness Books.

Another women’s service program, Women’s Stress Alternatives, was also founded in 1979. Led by project director Yvonne Frazier, the program sought to provide women dealing with substance abuse with alternatives to prescription drugs and alcohol for dealing with stress and depression. The program was briefly located at 1216 18th Street (extant) before moving to 1322 27th Street, and offered drug counseling and detoxification services, emergency crisis intervention, vocational and

246 Cheryl Clark, "Women's Centers," Sacramento Bee, 12 April 1977: B4. 247 Sacramento City Directories, 1977-1981.
248 “WEAVE’s Journey,” WEAVE, accessed August 14, 2024, https://www.weaveinc.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/40-yr- timeline-8.5x11_2.pdf?1518826703.
249 Nurk Franklin, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 8, 2024, Sacramento, CA; Theresa Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, July 25, 2024. 250 Nurk Franklin, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 8, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 251 Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, July 25, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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educational counseling, health and nutrition information, and workshops, all of which were voluntary and confidential. Fees were based on each individual’s income level.252 To aid its work, Women’s Stress Alternatives created a fundraising arm called Women’s Strength Unlimited .253 Among the fundraising events it organized was an annual fun run called Blisters for Sisters, which coincided with the annual Camellia Festival. Funds from the run supported Women’s Stress Alternatives, RCC, the Sacramento Women’s Center, WEAVE, the YWCA, and other local women’s organizations.254

Figure 46. Flyer for the 1986 Blisters for Sisters fun run. Source: Personal collection of Nurk Franklin.

In 1980, Theresa Corrigan, who had been involved with the Women’s Center in many capacities— including as a staff member at RCC, co-author of the grant proposals that funded WEST and Women’s Stress Alternatives, and president of the center for a period—purchased the stock of the Women’s Center’s bookstore along with her partner Kathy Haberman and Karie Wyble with plans to continue the bookstore under a new name, Lioness Books. Seeking a property that the Sacramento Women’s Center and bookstore could call their own, without the risk of being forced to move, Corrigan and Haberman purchased a converted Colonial Revival house at 2224 J Street in 1982.

More than 35 volunteers, most of whom were women, volunteered their time mostly on weekends to renovate the old building for reuse. Haberman, who was a builder and handyperson, typically worked 14-hour days, seven days a week, to bring the building up to code.255

While the building at 2224 J Street was being renovated, Corrigan reopened the bookstore at a temporary location at 1311 21st Street (extant), around the corner from the Women’s Center’s

252 Dale Vargas, “Timely Hand…A New Program Assists Women Battered By Stress,” Sacramento Bee, 31 December 1979: B2. 253 Nurk Franklin, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 8, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 254 “Run for the Camellias,” Sacramento Bee, 19 March 1984: A1. 255 Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, July 25, 2024; Alison apRoberts, “First Women’s Building True Labor of Love,” Sacramento Bee, 18 August 1983: 29.

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Capitol Avenue headquarters. RCC occupied space at the rear of the same temporary location as the bookstore until renovations at the permanent location on J Street were complete. Corrigan had renamed the bookstore Lioness Books, drawing inspiration from the role of female lions in a pride, because “in a pride of lions, the [male] lion gets all the credit, but the lionesses do all the work.”256 The Sacramento Women’s Store’s bookstore and Lioness Books were the first and only women’s and gay/lesbian bookstores in Sacramento for a number of years. Lioness Books fostered a welcoming and inclusive environment and worked together with other local bookstores to service the Sacramento community. Tower Books stopped carrying feminist and gay/lesbian literature and directed customers to Lioness Books, while staff at Lioness Books directed clientele who came looking for other types of literature to Tower Books and other local stores.257

Lioness Books was more than a
bookstore; it was an important alternative
for social gatherings, entertainment, and
personal connection to the lesbian bar
scene. For many lesbians who moved to
Sacramento, it was the first place they
came after they arrived and helped them
make some of their first connections. The
bookstore hosted events and social
gatherings, had bulletin boards with
information about women’s and lesbian
social groups and organizations,
sponsored a softball team of Black
lesbians called Sisters and Friends, and
provided referrals to women’s, lesbian,
and gay service providers. Lioness Books
also carried the largest selection of gay men’s books in Sacramento at the time. 258

Around the same time the Women’s Center was relocating from Capitol Avenue to J Street , Kate Guzman left the Women’s Center to become the executive director of the Sacramento AIDS Foundation. In 1983, Mayor Anne Rudin participated in the official opening ceremony of the building at 2224 J Street, which she designated the First Sacramento Women’s Building. While Lioness Books occupied the first floor, and the offices of the Sacramento Women’s Center’s programs, including

256 Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, July 25, 2024. 257 Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, July 25, 2024. 258 Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, July 25, 2024.

Figure 47. Lynn Ohlson and Colleen Moreland at the
Sacramento Women’s Bookstore (1978). Source: The
Advocate.

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RCC and WEST, were located on the second floor. WEST later split off from the Women’s Center and moved across the street to 2300 J Street (extant). As previously described, RCC’s services were eventually absorbed into WEAVE. Lioness Books closed in 2000, making it the longest continuously operating location of the Sacramento Women’s Center and its associated agencies. When Lioness Books closed, Corrigan donated all of the relevant remaining inventory to the UC Davis Women’s Center, Sacramento State University’s Women’s Resource Center, and LLACE. 259

Figure 48. Photographs from the opening of the First Sacramento Women's Building (1983). Courtesy of Theresa Corrigan. Clockwise from top left: Theresa Corrigan (left) and Kathy Haberman (right), the First Sacramento Women’s Building, and groups of individuals who helped renovate the building at a celebration for its opening.

259 Haines Criss-Cross directories, Sacramento, 1982-1999; Theresa Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn, August 27, 2024.

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Figure 49. The First Sacramento Women's Building (1983). Courtesy of Theresa Corrigan. From left to right:
custom sign outside the building, showing Lioness Books and the various programs of the Sacramento Women’s Center; the interior of Lioness Books; and a bulletin board inside Lioness Books.

Lambda Community Center/Sacramento LGBT Community Center The most prominent and long-standing of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community centers, the Lambda Community Center (later renamed the Sacramento LGBT Community Center) was established in the 1980s, using funds procured by Reverend Jerry Sloan, a pastor of the Sacramento Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). As a young man, Sloan attended Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, where his classmate was Reverend Jerry Fallwell. Fallwell later became the leader of the Religious Right, founder of the Moral Majority political action committee, and an outspoken opponent of homosexuality. Sloan, meanwhile, came out as a gay man and founded chapters of the MCC in Kansas City, Missouri; and Des Moines, Iowa. On March 11, 1984, Falwell expressed his view that homosexuality was the embodiment of evil, stating, “Thank God this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven." 260 When Falwell and Sloan were guests on a television program in Sacramento a few months later, Falwell denied his statements and promised to pay Sloan $5,000 if he could provide taped evidence. Sloan produced the tapes, but Falwell refused to pay him, claiming that he had been misquoted. Sloan hired local attorney and lesbian legal pioneer Rosemary Metrailer and filed a lawsuit against Falwell and won nearly $9,000 in the settlement.261 After paying his legal fees, Sloan—along with Timothy Warford, Terry Sidie, Marghe Covino, CGNIE Emperor Randy Hartman, and other community members—used the rest of the winnings from the lawsuit to open the Lambda Community Center in the heart of the

260 Burg, Midtown Sacramento, 41-42.
261 Burg, Midtown Sacramento, 41-42.

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Lavender Heights district at 1931 L Street (extant) in 1986.262 Sloan named a bathroom at the center of the building after Falwell.

Figure 50. Reverend Jerry Sloan and Rosemary Metrailer with the check from the lawsuit against Reverend Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. Source: Sacramento LGBTQ Community Center.

The Lambda Community Center was similar in some ways to earlier drop-in centers, but it offered a larger and more comprehensive scope of services and over the years served the full cross-section of Sacramento’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community.263 The center provided services such as AIDS education, a youth program, political lobbying and letter-writing campaigns, health education, a theater troupe called the Lambda Players, and a monthly newsletter. 264 In 1996, the center relocated to 919 20th Street (extant). Around the same time, the center established a Lambda Youth program for gay youth between the ages of 15 and 19. The program was overseen by Jerry Sloan and Tim Warford and became a beloved and important safe space for young gay people in

262 “History,” Sacramento LGBT Community Center, accessed April 11, 2024, https://saccenter.org/history. By comparison, LGBTQ+ community centers were established in San Francisco in 1966, the Los Angeles in 1969, Seattle in 1971, and San Diego in 1973.
263 Burg, Midtown Sacramento, 41-42.
264 Claussen, 142.

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Sacramento.265 The center changed its name to the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center in 2006 and again in 2013 to the Sacramento LGBT Community Center, after a long and arduous effort by the transgender community to be included in the organization’s name. The center moved to 1015 20th Street in 2019.266

The Sacramento’s community’s response to HIV/AIDS is discussed in detail in Chapter 4; however, it was the community’s acute need to provide care and services to its sick and dying members during the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s that began the process of uniting Sacramento’s previously fractured LGBTQ+ community under one banner. Many lesbians stepped up during the epidemic to provide care and other services to sick and dying gay men, breaking down barriers and forming lasting bonds between the groups. The experience began the path toward further collaboration between gay men and lesbians and initiated a shifting perspective that gay men and lesbians were part of one unified community. Transgender people and people with other gender and sexually non- conforming identities were not brought into community until the 2000s. 267

THE LAVENDER LIBRARY, ARCHIVES AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE (LLACE) The creation of a library, archive, and research center for Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community began in 1997 during a tumultuous time for Sacramento’s LGBT Community Center (then the Lambda Community Center). Struggling to stay open, the center downsized from a large building at 919 20th Street (extant) to a small office located across the street at 920 20th Street (extant). This resulted in a purging of the center’s Jane Roundtree Library, in which over half of its collection of LGBTQ+ books were taken outside and thrown in a dumpster.

The downsizing of the Jane Roundtree Library caught the attention of community member Gail Lang, who was working a block away at the LGBTQ+ bookstore The Open Book at 912 21st Street (extant).

Lang immediately spoke to Matt Burlingame, who was the production editor for This Side Up Newspaper (TSU), which also had offices at 920 20th Street. The two rallied a few other community members, including Clint Vigen, who worked nearby at The Lambda AIDS Project, and the group took the discarded books into the TSU office, where they were kept for several months.

When TSU officially closed its doors in May 1997, the book collection was moved to Lang’s basement, where it remained while a core group of local community members—including Lang, Vigen, Burlingame, Ann Jones, Marsha Swayze, Troy DeVore, and later Michael Bennett —began meeting to

265 Matt Burlingame, email correspondence to Clare Flynn, October 17, 2024. 266 “History,” Sacramento LGBT Community Center, accessed April 11, 2024, https://saccenter.org/history. 267 Conversation between Tina Reynolds, Clare Flynn, and Henry Feuss, May 22, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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form the 501(c)(3) nonprofit known as The Lavender Library Archives & Cultural Exchange (LLACE), or more commonly as the Lavender Library.

Figure 51. Michael Bennett (left) and Gail Lang (right) at the Lavender Library's original B Street location (2000).

Source: Leilani Hu for The Sacramento Bee.

The founders considered several other names before settling on the Lavender Library, including River City Community Library, Sacramento Alternative Library, Capital Library Archive Project (CLAP), and Sacramento Library and Archive Project (SLAP). With the generous support of the community, within a short time, the new library moved into its first location in the same complex as the B Street Theatre at 2711 B Street (extant). The opening was attended by many and included poetry by Poet Laureate Michael Gorman. Quickly outgrowing the small B Street location, the library moved to its current space at 1414 21st Street (extant) in 2000.

LLACE would not have existed had it not been for the passion and tenacious drive of Gail Lang.

When she died in 2003, she left the library a legacy fund that allowed it to carry through during lean financial times over the years. The library’s visionaries and founders hoped for a future where the LGBTQ+ community in Sacramento could thrive. Today, LLACE houses a lending library and archive for LGBTQ+ books and magazines, archival materials, and other media that preserves the collective

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histories of the LGBTQ+ community. The library regularly hosts community events throughout the year, including book clubs, support groups, open mic nights, craft markets, becoming a sanctuary and gathering place for Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community.268

LGBTQ+ Newspapers & Media
Through at least the 1990s, most local community newspapers and media catered specifically to the gay and lesbian communities, with little or no coverage of the transgender community or other LGBTQ+ sexual and gender identities. Among these were Sacramento’s primary newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, despite the fact that its president, starting in 1980, was a closeted gay man. Charles Kenny “C.K.” McClatchy II, the fourth-generation president of McClatchy Newspapers, which owned many of the major newspapers in the Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley, including the Sacramento Bee, was closeted for his entire life. As leader of McClatchy Newspapers, he guided the family-owned media company to become the modern, publicly owned McClatchy Company. Though he reportedly quietly supported the local gay and lesbian newspaper, Mom Guess What…! (described in detail in this chapter), it was only after his death in 1989 that his sexual orientation was discovered. The Sacramento Bee and Sacramento Union reported that McClatchy had died of a heart attack while jogging in Land Park; however, medical examinations, spurred by a tip from someone close to McClatchy, showed that McClatchy had AIDS at the time of his death. The discovery, along with an obituary in Mom Guess What…! that listed McClatchy’s friend and housemate Eugenio Brodbeck Neto as his survivor, before his mother and three children, confirmed the long-held suspicions of many who knew him. McClatchy’s insistence, as reported by those who knew him, on keeping his sexual orientation a secret even beyond death, shows the degree to which even the most powerful gay and lesbian individuals were pressured by society to deny their true identities.269

The establishment of newspapers and other forms of media specifically by and for the lesbian and gay communities was crucial to spreading news and fostering connections between individuals, organizations, clubs, and businesses that contributed to the development and growth of gay communities across the United States, including Sacramento. Along with the gay bar scene, gay newspapers, journals, and magazines showed individuals that a wide network of people just like them existed in the same cities and neighborhoods. In the late 1960s and 1970s, gay newspapers began to proliferate in major cities across the United States with the intention of developing positive gay awareness and providing needed support for gay and lesbian individuals as an increasing number of people came out of the closet.270

268 Matthew Burlingame-Couk, “Re: LGBTQ+ Historic Project,” email to Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, October 9, 2024. 269 Robert W. Peterson, “He’d Die First,” The Advocate, 20 June 1989: 13. 270 David C. Weinerth, "From the Inside Out," Mom…Guess What…!, 1 December 1978.

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Sacramento’s first gay publication was ARC News, published by the Association for Responsible Citizenship, which appeared in serial production during 1966 and early 1967. ARC News was distributed in bulk at gay-positive venues around Sacramento and West Sacramento. 271 More gay and lesbian publications were established in the early 1970s, as the community became increasingly open and visible. Early publications had short runs, often lasting less than one year and in some cases only publishing a single issue. Examples included the Gay Voice Sacramento newsletter, which ran from 1971 to early 1972 and was published by a small group of gay male and lesbian non- journalists, the Good News newspaper, which was based in Roseville and published one issue in April 1976; and Gay Sacramento, a mimeographed newsletter published by James K. Graham and his friends in June 1977.272 A feminist newspaper named Gibbous Rising, created by Robin Purdy and Lynn Patten, began publication in 1978 and focused on women’s issues.

Other forms of media also emerged to serve the community in the late 1970s. Out gay man Jok Church became news director for the popular local freeform radio station KZAP in 1975. Church began his radio career at local public radio station KERS-FM (now Capital Public Radio), which started as a student radio station at Sacramento State University.273 Radio programs hosted by Church on KERS and KZAP were key sources of information about local gay events and provided meaningful visibility and validation to members of the LGBTQ+ community at a time when many still remained closeted.274 In 1976, a radio program specifically for gay men and lesbians began airing on 88.9FM, hosted by Sue Diehl and Allen Chamberlin. Originally titled “Our Hour,” the program changed its name to “Interface” in 1977. The program aired every Saturday evening from 6:00pm to 7:00pm and featured news, interviews, music, and other “features of interest to gay people.” It ran through at least 1979.275 Despite their short spans of operation, early gay and lesbian forms of media such as these showed that there was an increasing awareness among Sacramento’s lesbian and gay residents of the existence of others like them and a desire for media specifically by and for them.

271 Carson Anderson, “Comments on Draft LGBTQ HCS,” July 9, 2024. 272 “Publications Sacramento,” undated, private collection of George Raya; “One Year Later…” Mom…Guess What…!, November 1979; Gay Voice Sacramento, No. 1 and No. 2, 1971-1972. 273 John V. Hurst, “On The Air,” Sacramento Bee, 4 March 1975. 274 Tucker, “Notes on CSUS’s Gay Liberation Front.”
275 "Gay Radio Returns," Mom…Guess What…!, 1 March 1979.

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Figure 52. “Our Hour” radio program hosts Sue Diehl and Allen Chamberlin (1978). Source: Robert I. McQueen, "Deadbolts for Doorknobs," The Advocate, 4 October 1978: 17.

MOM…GUESS WHAT…! NEWSPAPER
The longest-running and most influential of all of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ media was the Mom…Guess What…! (MGW) newspaper. The newspaper was founded by local resident Linda Birner and ran its first issue in November 1978, roughly around the same time that similar newspapers launched in major North American cities, including New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Philadelphia, Montreal, San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, and others. 276 Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1949, Birner arrived in Sacramento in 1962, where she worked her way through a Master’s degree in Psychology at Sacramento State College doing graphic work for state legislators Mervyn Dymally and Leona Egeland.

After working for a consulting firm for a period, she started her own graphics design business.

Demonstrating the close ties between growing activism among the gay community and other activist

276 Weinerth, "From the Inside Out.”

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movements of the 1960s and 1970s, she became active in the Women’s Movement through the National Organization for Women (NOW), believing that the first step to achieving gay rights was obtaining equal rights for women. “All of it’s related,” she said. “I call it the Gay/Feminist Movement.”277 Spurred into action by the campaign to pass Proposition 6, known as the Briggs Initiative, which aimed to ban gay and lesbian individuals from working in California’s public schools, she founded MGW to share important information about the initiative and encourage readers to vote against it. The first meeting to share information about plans for the newspaper and solicit interest from potential writers, photographers, artists, and other contributors was held at Earhart's Café in November 1978.278 Early staff members, all of whom initially worked as volunteers, included publisher and design director Linda Birner, executive editor David S. Weinerth, editor James K.

Graham, associated editors Bill Spiller and J. Anne Wessel, and photographers Jan-Michelle Sawyer and Adam Ciesielski. Contributing writers included Allen Chamberlin, Sue Diehl, Ron Drum, Colleen Moreland, Greg Low, Doug Biggert, Arthur Corbin, and Zana S. Blazer. 279 Former State Assemblyman Dennis Mangers later contributed to sections on politics, art, and culture.280 Mangers’s involvement in local LGBTQ+ political activism is discussed further in Chapter 5.

The group initially worked out of Birner’s house at 3441 Fair Oaks Boulevard, where they brainstormed the name of the paper and assigned and wrote stories, before eventually moving to an office of its own at 1919 21st Street (extant). In contrast to many of the sexually oriented publications directed toward the gay community at the time, Birner insisted that MGW be a “clean” newspaper without sexually explicit content so that it could appeal to a broader audience, could be openly displayed on coffee tables in public places, and could improve the self-esteem of the gay community.281 The newspaper was published monthly and distributed at gay bars and restaurants, the Sacramento Women’s Center, and other local gay businesses, establishments, and social gathering places.282

277 “One Year Later…” Mom…Guess What…!, November 1979.
278 Mom…Guess What…! , November 1, 1978.
279 Mom…Guess What…! , November 1, 1978.
280 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 2: Linda Birner and Dennis Mangers,” May 30, 2023, Center for Sacramento History, YouTube, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8t3BwNfUXk. 281 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 2: Linda Birner and Dennis Mangers,” Center for Sacramento History. 282 Mom…Guess What…! , November 1, 1978.

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Figure 53. Mom…Guess What…! founder Linda Birner (1998). Source: Hector Amezcua for the Sacramento Bee.

Figure 54. Mom…Guess What…! staff (from left to right): Bill Spiller, J. Anne Wessel, Linda Birner, James K.

Graham, and Gary Kimball. Source: Mom…Guess What…!, November 1979. Photo by Rebecca Gregg.

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At a time when the gay and lesbian communities were often distinctly separate from each other, MGW was designed as a newspaper for both gay men and lesbians across the Sacramento area and wider region. Reflecting one of its goals of increasing awareness, understanding, and acceptance toward the gay community among the broader population, it also notably targeted straight allies, or “Friends,” as part of its main readership base. This mission was explicitly stated on the first page of its first issue:

“MOM…GUESS WHAT…!" is a tabloid newspaper that happens to be Gay. It's for women and men in the Sacramento Valley area and the Mother Lode countries who happen to be gay and for their friends who happen to like sharing the enjoyment of their friends who happen to be gay.

"MOM…GUESS WHAT…!" is designed to appeal to the interests of a lot of nice people who may not know each other yet but probably should. After all, Sacramento's a big place. In and around River City there are thousands of Lesbians, Gay Men, and Friends of all ages and all walks of life who are not only interesting and unique in themselves, but who are also eager to find out more about each other and about their many opportunities for social activity, recreation, and personal growth through involvement with each other.283

As demonstrated by its original mission statement, MGW went beyond political activism and was explicitly intended to foster the creation of a gay community in Sacramento. In the newspaper’s one- year anniversary issue, associate editor James Graham stated, “You can’t decide, ‘we are going to organize a community.’ It has to happen, develop and come together. You can work to create the conditions, and I feel MOM…GUESS WHAT! is doing that.”284 With that goal in mind, MGW published articles not just about local news, important legislation, and policies that were of special interest to the gay community, it also included a calendar of social events, a guide to local entertainment locations, a list of social organizations along with their contact info, and classified advertisements.

According to local mental health worker Elizabeth Harrison, Sacramento’s gay community had been primarily bar-oriented until MGW began publishing issues. “When Mom, Guess What…! started, it opened a whole new world,” she said.285 The newspaper allowed lesbians and gay men to find not just bars and clubs but also doctors, therapists, sports leagues , professional organizations, and other social clubs, events, and services, specifically by and for members of the gay community.

Demonstrating its goal of uniting and uplifting the community, MGW was unique in that, as Harrison

283 Mom…Guess What…!, 1 November 1978.
284 “One Year Later…” Mom…Guess What…!, November 1979.
285 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 4: Linda Birner and Elizabeth Harrison,” May 31, 2023, Center for Sacramento History, YouTube, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nWsdfGrixw.

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described it, “the newspaper was kind – it didn’t go after people or do exposés. It elevated people and brought people together.”286

Often the newspaper literally did just that. Classified ads published in MGW were frequently the way gay and lesbian individuals met each other and found romantic relationships. People would place an ad in the newspaper and typically list a P.O. box address as their contact in order to keep their personal addresses private. According to Sacramento resident and former State Assemblyman Dennis Mangers, it was common for individuals to meet for coffee at the New Helvetia café located in the former fire station at 1215 19th Street (extant) or for some other activity after work.287

On the newspaper’s tenth anniversary, the newspaper received proclamations from the City of Sacramento, County of Sacramento, and the California State Assembly. It was also reco gnized by the Human Rights Commission and received numerous journalistic and photography awards from the Gay and Lesbian Press Association (GLPA).288 MGW ceased publication in 2009, having published approximately 585 issues over the course of its more than 30-year existence.289

GROWTH OF LGBTQ+ PUBLICATIONS IN SACRAMENTO
PATLAR Gazette
MGW paved the way for other LGBTQ+ publications in Sacramento. Among these were many short- lived publications that lasted for one or two years, including the River City Rambler (1981-1982); the Sacramento Star (1982-1984), Dad Guess What (1996), and Our Families Magazine (1997-1998), among others.290 One of the longest running of the publications that emerged after MGW was the PATLAR Gazette, which was founded in 1982 by publisher Larry Lanham with business partner James “Pat” McWhorter (Pat and Lar) and editor James Weston. Initially started as a local gazette for the greater Sacramento Valley region, PATLAR grew at a rapid rate most immediately and was picked up for national distribution in all 50 states and several Canadian provinces within a little more than a year of its first publication. Billed as the “Voice of Gay America,” its staff was soon joined by nationally well-known gay writers Bob Damron, founder of the Damron guides, and Frank B atley, who became regular contributors. It also featured columns that addressed the experiences of gay and lesbian

286 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 4: Linda Birner and Elizabeth Harrison,” Center for Sacramento History. 287 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 2: Linda Birner and Dennis Mangers,” Center for Sacramento History. 288 Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press, “News from Those Who Print the News: Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press, What It’s Been Like and Where They’re Going,” undated, LLACE. 289 Graham Womack, “Community Gathers Issues of Sacramento LGBT Newspaper,” Sacramento Bee, 2 July 2023: D1. 290 “Publications Sacramento,” George Raya collection.

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people of color, written by Ernie Brown and
DeWitt Hoard.291 Just as PATLAR appeared to be
posed for long-lasting success, the publication
faced a major setback and period of uncertainty
and transition following the devastating loss of
many of its writers and readers to the AIDS
epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. Among those
lost were editor Jim Weston in 1990 and co-
founder Jim McWhorter in 1991. The outlet
responded with a renewed commitment and
vision to its community under new editor Martin
Casey and new writers, such as Michael Gorman.

PATLAR evolved into a magazine for political and
social discourse that would serve its readers
nationwide, with a focus on sharing information
about AIDS and issues facing lesbian and gay
families.292

The Latest Issue & Outword Magazine
Around 1988, publisher Kate Moore founded The
Latest Issue, a monthly newsletter that covered
local gay and lesbian happenings in Sacramento.

Moore envisioned the newsletter as a way to
“build pride in the community and inspire its
membership to take action in the lesbian and gay
civil rights movement.”293 In addition to Moore,
early staff members included graphic artist Kevin
Cohee, graphic designer Michael J. Patterson,
business representative Sara Myers, and
bookkeeper Cher Pearson. Tina Reynolds, who
later became Moore’s life partner and wife, did
graphics work for the publication. In 1992, Dell
Richards—a journalist and author of the

291 Ernie Brown, “Views from the City,” PATLAR Gazette, 20 September 1982; DeWitt Hoard,” People of Co-Lore,” PATLAR Gazette, 20 September 1982.
292 Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press, “News from Those Who Print the News: Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press, What It’s Been Like and Where They’re Going,” undated, LLACE. 293 Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press, “News from Those Who Print the News: Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press.” Figure 55. A collage of mastheads of PATLAR over the
course of its first ten years. Source: PATLAR, July
1992.

Figure 56. Logo for The Latest Issue. Source:

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“Lesbian Lists” whose syndicated articles appeared in gay and lesbian publications across the country—joined The Latest Issue as editor. Michael Gorman, who had previously spent a short time as the editor for Mom Guess What…! and PATLAR, was the editor, editorialist, reporter, reviewer, and columnist for The Latest Issue until its closure. One of Gorman’s columns, titled “An Old Dude Speaks,” was republished in the national gay magazine Genre. The magazine’s publisher called it one of the most significant pieces he published during his career. 294

Within its first three years, The Latest Issue co-sponsored more than 30 community events, such as the Capital AIDS Walk and Lambda Freedom Fair, and received national recognition from GLPA for its local and national news reporting, photojournalism, and design.295 Moore gained a reputation for her activism in support of LGBTQ+ rights, victims of HIV/AIDS, and marriage equality, organizing rallies and marches, while covering the subjects in The Latest Issue. After being diagnosed with leukemia in 1995, Moore sold The Latest Issue to publisher Fred Pamer. At the time, the publication had a circulation of 15,000 readers.296 Moore went on to join KOVR Channel 13 as a graphic artist and the marketing and design studio Uptown Studios, which was founded by her wife, Tina Reynolds, in 1992. Uptown Studios ‘s tagline is “Designs for Social Change,” and specializes in work with nonprofits, government agencies, and local entities that make positive changes in their communities. In a letter to Moore, just before her passing in 2023, Denny Mangers summed up Moore’s contributions to Sacramento:

Professionally, you’ve developed a strong reputation as a creative force in our community . […] For many of us, your most significant contribution to our community and our activism on behalf of civil and human rights will be your creation of “The Latest Issue.” It was a pivotal time for us, and you sensed a need to support our activism by keeping the larger community informed, inspired and motivated to remain proud and empowered to take initiatives against hate, bullying and discrimination. At the same time, it was entertaining and its reporting on our activities in the community reminded us that being gay is not just a matter of sexual orientation but an invitation to live, love and have fun as our authentic selves.

Under Fred Palmer’s leadership, The Latest Issue evolved into Outword Magazine. Approximately 20 staff members and volunteers who had worked on The Latest Issue joined the staff of the new magazine, including Michael Gorman, who served as its first editor, and Tina Reynolds, who did graphic design for the magazine before founding Uptown Studios. Outword Magazine was envisioned as a professional news publication with paid staff and less of an activist focus than MGW. The first

294 Michael Gorman, email to Clare Flynn, August 20, 2024. 295 Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press, “News from Those Who Print the News: Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press.” 296 Tina Reynolds, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, May 22, 2024, Sacramento, CA; Robert D. Davila, “Ailing Editor of Gay Paper Stops Presses for Good,” Sacramento Bee, 18 July 1995: B4.

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issue of the new bi-monthly publication hit newsstands in August 1995 and was distributed in cities throughout Northern California, including Sacramento, Davis, Lake Tahoe, Chico, Stockton, Modesto, Santa Rosa, and the Russian River area.297 Outword Magazine continues to publish regularly.

Figure 57. (From left to right) Outword Magazine art director Ron Tackitt, an unidentified person, Kate Moore, and Outword Magazine publisher Fred Palmer (ca. 1993). Source: Outword Magazine, Special Issue, no. 214, February 9, 2023.

LGBTQ+ Media Publications in the 1990s and 2000s
As the LGBTQ+ community became more integrated into mainstream society, the number and diversity of media publications that catered to the community expanded in the 1990s and early 2000s. In 1991, Billie Jean Jones started TV Guise as a newsletter for the Sacramento Gender Association (SGA), a local social club for the transgender and crossdressing communities. The newsletter was originally billed as “A General Journal of Gender.” Jones laid out her vision for the newsletter in its first issue: “The SGA newsletter could profile a different TV [transvestite] each issue, report on all the preceding social events organized through SGA … [include] an extensive letters page or two; an editorial section with guest commentary; [and] a page or two of news concerning the progress of TV’s as we take our rightful place as honored members of society.” 298 By 1992, it was renamed GenderFlex and rebilled as “A Polygenderous Publication.” Jones ran the publication from her residence at 3430 Balmoral Drive #10 (extant). It highlighted Sacramento-area and Northern

297 “New Gay Paper Rises After Closure of Old,” Sacramento Bee, 9 September 1995: B1. 298 Billie Jean Jones, TV Guise 1, No. 1 (April 1991).

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California events, clubs, organizations, commentary, works of fiction, and interviews for the transgender and crossdressing communities.299

Figure 58. Billie Jean Jones (1991). Source: TV Guise,
August 1991.

Figure 59. July-September 1994 cover of GenderFlex.

Source: Digital Transgender Archive.

Around the same time, many publications began to shift their mission away from activism and hard- hitting news and increasingly toward serving LGBTQ+ individuals, couples, and families as ordinary members of society. While MGW and Outword Magazine continued to focus on the news and important issues, they expanded their coverage to include lifestyle topics and celebrity news. Jane and Jane, a Sacramento-based women’s magazine, was created in 2006 by co-publishers and partners Alison Zawacki and Debbi Wells. Jane and Jane billed itself as the “first home and family magazine for lesbian lifestyles” with a mission to show that lesbians were just like everyone else in mainstream society. An article in the Sacramento Bee that highlighted the evolution of LGBTQ+ media in Sacramento described the look and content of Jane and Jane as akin to that of a younger sibling to

299 TV Guise 1, No. 6 (September 1991).

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Sunset Magazine.300 Collectively the wide-ranging coverage offered by Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ media from the 1960s to 2000s played a pivotal role in increasing the visibility of LGBTQ+ residents, portraying them as ordinary and often-extraordinary people, instilling a sense of pride, and helping to build a rich, vibrant, and self-sustaining LGBTQ+ community in Sacramento.

Figure 60. Jane and Jane founders and co-publishers Alison Zawacki and Debbie Wells (2007). Source: Autumn Cruz for the Sacramento Bee.

LGBTQ+ Social Outlets & Events
As shown by the wide-ranging coverage of social and recreational activities published in Mom, Guess What…?!, bars and clubs were no longer the only place for members of Sacramento’s lesbian and gay communities to socialize and meet people by the early 1980s. A myriad of alternative forms of entertainment, recreation, and socialization began to proliferate during this period, fostered by the connections and promotional opportunities provided by publications like Mom…Guess What…!. The variety of offerings reflected the diversity of Sacramento’s gay community.

300 Sam McManis, “Media Savvy: New Outlook.,” Sacramento Bee, 24 April 2007: E1.

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In addition to gatherings and events at the Lambda Community Center and Lioness Books, several other opportunities were available for members of the LGBTQ+ community to meet and make connections outside Sacramento’s gay bar scene. Classified ads published in issues of the Mom…Guess What…! newspaper frequently provided a means for gay and lesbian individuals to meet each other and found romantic relationships. People would place an ad in the newspaper and typically list a P.O. box address as their contact in order to keep their personal addresses private.

According to Sacramento resident and former State Assemblyman Dennis Mangers, it was common for gay individuals to meet for coffee at New Helvetia café located in the former fire station at 1215 19th Street (extant) or for some other activity after work. 301

In 1996, Larry Bailey and Ron Grantz opened a second gay and lesbian bookstore, The Open Book, at the building formerly occupied by Dr. Harvey Thomson and Dr. Sandy Pomerantz’s offices at 910 - 912 21st Street (extant). The Open Book stayed open until midnight and also contained a café that hosted small live music performances and art shows, offering popular option for late -night socializing.302 The bookstore carried titles related to HIV/AIDS, self-help, coming out, and queer science fiction, and was an important home for LGBTQ+ for literary fans and writers in the Sacramento community.303 A reading group of Black lesbians, Sister Circle, met there regularly in the 1990s.304 The Open Book developed strong ties with Patricia Nell Warren, an author known for writing the first gay love story to make the New York Times bestseller list.

SOCIAL CLUBS & CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS
Numerous social clubs and charitable organizations formed, often in response to the need for social outlets that could provide a safe and welcoming environment for specific groups or subcultures within Sacramento’s broader LGBTQ+ population. The activities of these social clubs and charitable organizations were often interlinked, reflecting a collective sense of responsibility to uplift the community as a whole.

An early gay charitable organization that was active in the early 1980s was the Charitable Sisters of Izod. A satellite of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in San Francisco, t he group raised money for local charities, such as Muscular Dystrophy, and sponsored events with the goal of projecting a positive image of the gay community to Sacramento’s broader population. Members dressed as nuns—as one member, Jim Harvey explained—because “there is no group so identified with caring

301 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 2: Linda Birner and Dennis Mangers,” May 30, 2023, Center for Sacramento History, YouTube, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8t3BwNfUXk. 302 Walt Yost, “Booksellers Provide Rare, Eclectic Works,” Sacramento Bee, 13 June 1996: 2A. 303 Walt Yost, “Booksellers Provide Rare, Eclectic Works,” The City, June 13, 1996, 6A. 304 Judy Walls, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, September 5, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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and community service as nuns, and we think that’s the kind of image we want to project. We’re a sensitive and caring group.”305

Figure 61. Members of the Charitable Sisters of Izod in 1982, including from left to right, Sister Cutty a la Sark, Sister Lyla, Sister Grace, Sister Heavyweight, Sister Salvation, Sister Talya All About It, and Sister Mary F. Source:

Suttertown News, August 1982.

Pillars of the Community, or “Pillars” for short, was a popular gay and lesbian social group founded in the 1980s by Larry Hoover. The group met monthly at local hotels and motels with large banquet rooms.306 Dinners often included entertainment, including performances by Romanovsky and Phillips, a gay singing and comedy duo from San Francisco. Hundreds of people often attended their events, providing important opportunities for members of the gay community t o make personal, as well as professional, connections. 307

305 “Sacto’s Gays Find Home in ‘Lavender Heights,’” Suttertown News VIII, No. 22, August 13-20, 1982. Courtesy of William Burg.

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Figure 62. A group of transgender and crossdressing people at an SGA event at Joseph’s Town and Country in 1991. From left to right: Aunt Helen, Jane Peabody, Bill Henken, Baby Sybil, and (across their laps) Billie Jean Jones as “Miss Tacky.” Source: TV Guise, December 1991/January 1992.

Sacramento’s first known social group specifically for the transgender and crossdressing communities formed in 1984. Initially created as a local chapter of the Gateway Gender Alliance, a group originally founded in San Francisco as the Golden Gate Girls/Guys, its formation was announced in the Phoenix Monthly International, an internationally distributed newsletter for transgender and crossdressing individuals in April 1984. Bonnie Goodwin was listed as the group’s key contact for early meetings.308 The chapter disbanded later the same year but was reincarnated as the Sacramento Gender Association (SGA). The group’s initial meetings were held on Friday evenings at the Metropolitan Community Church at 2731 34th Street before moving to the home of a sympathetic cisgender woman named Pati Preston Fink. In September 1987 , Fink died in a car accident on the Capitol Avenue bridge. To honor Fink, SGA incorporated her nickname “Princess Blue Rose” into its name, adding "The Blue Rose Chapter" to its moniker. SGA was governed by a four-person, membership-elected board, though it did not become an official nonprofit organization. As described previously, by 1991, it had its own monthly newsletter, TV Guise (later

308 “New Sacramento Chapter,” Phoenix Monthly International IV, No. 3 (March 1984).

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renamed GenderFlex), which was led by SGA member Billie Jean Jones. SGA members met once a month at Joseph's Town and Country Inn at 2062 Auburn Boulevard (extant).

While the SGA served as a social group for crossdressers and transgender individuals, it remained connected with the Sacramento drag community in Sacramento and attended CGNIE Coronation Balls. The SGA held yearly talent shows with proceeds going toward funding the group's newsletters and keeping a member "closet," which contained donated and purchased garments of larger sizes, for members to use who were unable to purchase their own clothing. Members often opened their homes to other members, many of whom were closeted, to change into their female personas before group activities. SGA disbanded in the mid-2000s.309 Local transgender residents, including Billie Jean Jones, also participated in Educational Transvestite Channel (Educational TV Channel or ETVC), a social and support group for transgender people founded in San Francisco in 1982. In 1998, the group changed its name to TransGender San Francisco.310

Tired of Sacramento’s predominately white gay bars treating them unfairly, refusing to play soul and R&B music, and mandating strict dress codes, gay Black men and women formed their own social clubs to collectively gather, connect, and express themselves. A group of 30 Black lesbians from Northern California formed a group called the Nia Collective during the Black Lesbian Caucus at the Lesbians of Color conference in San Francisco in 1987. The group’s name, “nia,” was inspired by the Swahili word for “purpose,” which is also one of the key principles of Kwanzaa. The Nia Collective became the only Black lesbian organization in Northern California in the 1980s and 1990s and sought to bring together LGBTQ+ Black women together from around the world for empowerment and sisterhood. Though centered broadly in Northern California, according to Sacramento resident and Nia Collective member, Judy Walls, the group’s membership was predominately composed of women from San Francisco and Sacramento, who gathered together at small social events and house parties in each other’s cities throughout the year. Members donated money and organized fundraisers to produce a large annual event, which brought members together from around the world and included empowerment workshops. Workshops focused on health, spirituality, stress management, financial management, and other topics for individual and collective betterment. The first annual event took place at a beauty shop in Oakland, but over the years other venues, such as the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove and Walker Ranch, hosted the event. Though it ceased activity in 2016, the Nia Collective provided an important safe space for Black LGBTQ+

309 Heather McCabe and Matt Burlingame, email correspondence to Clare Flynn, October 17, 2024; Jennifer Richards, "The Blue Rose Chapter: A Brief History," SGA newsletter, 1988. 310 ETVC Archives, accessed November 4, 2024, https://lltransarchive.org/etvc/.

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women to discuss difficult topics and helped many women address substance abuse and other significant issues in their lives.311

In the early 1990s, Sacramento resident and gay Black man Joe Hawkins started a local chapter of the group Black Men’s Xchange in Sacramento.312 Black Men’s Xchange was originally founded by Dr.

Cleo Manago in Los Angeles in 1989 to provide “Black males, across the class, perspective, sexuality, educational attainment, age and economic strata, with tools for increasing self -evaluation, embracing a sense of responsibility, and working toward self-sufficiency and community care.”313 The group works to address and heal the social, mental, and health issues and toxic ideas of masculinity that many Black men face, and which contribute to homophobia within the Black male community.314 The Sacramento chapter of Black Men’s Xchange organized fundraisers at The Mercantile Saloon in the summer to support local charities and organizations.315 Many members of GALA—including Asa Salley, John Ortiz-Hudson, and John Freeman—were also involved with the Black Men’s Xchange. The group lost many members during the AIDS epidemic.

Around 1990, a group of Black community members formed Gay and Lesbian African Americans (GALA) to provide a safe space and greater visibility of the African American presence in Sacramento’s larger gay and lesbian community. The organization began meeting in one of the community rooms at the Lambda Community Center (now the LGBT Community Center). In later years, the group’s gatherings rotated between members' homes. Tolanda McKinney and Guy Madison were the organization’s first co-presidents. Lavinia Cooper later replaced McKinney as a co- president. Founding members included McKinney, Madison, Cooper, John Freeman, Virgie-Roots- Hayes, John Ortiz-Hutson, Asa Salley, and many others.

GALA became a community in its own right and a refuge for many, as one of the important faces of Sacramento’s African American LGBTQ+ community. During the first couple of years of its existence, the group formed an African American Gay and Lesbian book club at The Open Book bookstore with employee Carmen Fortes, an African American lesbian and PhD student at UC Davis. In 1992, GALA rented a booth at the Sacramento Rainbow Festival to highlight the organization and increase membership. According to one member who had just moved to Sacramento, when she first arrived in Sacramento that day, she was drawn to the Pride-like festivities, found GALA’s booth, and found

311 Judy Walls, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, September 5, 2024, Sacramento, CA; Heather Cassell, “Nia Collective Celebrates its Silver Anniversary,” Bay Area Reporter, November 14, 2024, accessed September 12, 2024, https://www.ebar.com/story.php?ch=news&id=243075.
312 Salley, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. 313 “What is BMX?” Black Men’s Xchange, accessed September 12, 2024, http://www.bmxnational.org/what-is-bmx/. 314 Irene Monroe, “Cleo Manago: The Most Dangerous Black Gay Man?,” HuffPost, February 2, 2016, accessed September 12, 2024, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cleo-manago_b_1280272. 315 Salley, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss.

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her tribe. In 1996, GALA successfully petitioned the Lambda Community Center to add two of its members, Leann Robinson and Asa Salley, to its Board of Directors, thus, providing visibility and a voice for Sacramento’s African American LGBTQ+ community.

That same year, the Lambda Community Center’s Board of Directors, under the leadership of board president Larry Hoover, decided to commemorate the opening of the new Lambda Community Center at 919 20th Street by selling glass blocks for a permanent display in the center's Assembly Room called the "Founder's Wall," designed by local architect Michael Sweeney. GALA purchased a brick for $500 to ensure that the organization would forever be remembered. The “Founder’s Wall” was lost during the Lambda Community Center’s relocations to new locations, and its whereabouts are unknown.

Figure 63. GALA co-presidents Lavinia Cooper and Guy Madison (second and third from the left) giving a $500 check to members of the Lambda Community Center board of directors. Source: Courtesy of Asa Salley.

In July 1996, GALA hosted a three-day AfroCentric Weekend that kicked-off at The Mirage with a performance by a live jazz band featuring transgender African American woman Diva Diana and Jazz Explosion. The weekend continued with two events: a barbeque at Faces with Bid Whist dominoes competitions and a guest DJ, followed by a much-anticipated talent show at The Mirage, the only Black lesbian-owned bar in Sacramento. The weekend concluded at the Lambda Community Center with poetry readings, screenings of gay and lesbian African American films, and assorted vendors.

The AfroCentric Weekend remains the largest and most ambitious event organized by GALA. In the

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years that followed, GALA struggled to decide if it was primarily a social club or political organization.

The group decided to undertake strategic planning to pursue 501(c)(3) status but began to splinter and disbanded near the end of the process around 2000.316

Outside of the activities organized by these groups, many of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ people of color turned to private house parties as an essential social outlet. “Big Kim” hosted a large annual Memorial Day party for Black lesbians and gay men at her house in the 1990s. Shirley Mims was well-known for the private house parties she hosted in the early 2000s.317

Drag & The Court of the Great Northwest Imperial Empire (CGNIE) A drag queen and drag king social club and charitable organization, called the Imperial Court of Sacramento was established in 1973.318 The Imperial Court of Sacramento was a local chapter of the International Court System, which was founded by Jose Sarria (“Mother Jose”) in San Francisco in 1965. Initially created as a guild of gay bars to protect themselves against police raids and arrest, the International Imperial Court System evolved into a charitable organization with local chapters across the United States, Mexico, and Canada as the need for support and protection for LGBTQ+ communities around the world became increasingly apparent.319

The Imperial Court of Sacramento followed a similar pattern of development and primarily functioned as a social club for its first decade. In the 1970s, Imperial Court events and drag shows took place at the Hide and Seek, Log Cabin, Parking Lot, Joseph’s Montana Saloon, and other local

316 Asa Salley, email correspondence with Clare Flynn, October 2024. 317 Clarmundo Sullivan, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments, June 9, 2024. 318 “Who We Are,” The United Courts of CGNIE, accessed August 24, 2024, https://www.cgnie.org/who-we-are/. 319 Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 20, 2024, Sacramento, CA; “Jose Julio Sarria,” California Museum, accessed August 24, 2024, https://californiamuseum.org/inductee/jose-julio-sarria/.

Figure 64. GALA's AfroCentric Weekend (1996). Source: Courtesy of Asa Salley.

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bars.320 Members also did drag performances as far away as Auburn and Reno in the 1970s, and more recently in
other states across the country. During the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, the organization increasingly shifted its focus to fundraising to support the local LGBTQ+
community.321

The leadership body of the Imperial Court consists of a hierarchy of officers, led by an Empress and Emperor.

Other titles include a Prince and Princess Royale, Leather Crown Prince, and King Father and Mother Queen. The
Emperor and Empress are selected at an annual
Coronation Ball. Coronation Balls have been held at the Jewish Community Center, Sacramento Convention
Center at 1401 K Street (extant, now the SAFE Credit
Union Convention Center), and California Automobile
Museum at 2200 Front Street (extant), though most have
taken place at Turn Verein at 2249 J Street (extant) in East Sacramento, because it includes a stage and theatrical
equipment and can be rented for a full day.322

The first Emperor and Empress of the Imperial Court of
Sacramento were Tim Carson and Billy Tree. Several
people have been crowned as Monarchs multiple times,
including Billy Tree (Empress I and IX), Spanky (Emperor III and IV), Tina Barbosa (Empress VI and VII), Terry Sidie (Emperor XIII and XXXVII), Paul Becerra (Emperor XVI and XIX), Stacy (Empress WVI and XIX), Ashley Harwood
(Empress XXIII and XXXIII), Danielle (Empress XXIV and
XXVIII), Do-Me Moore (Empress XXVII, XXX, XXXXI, and XXXXVII), Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U (Emperor XXX, Empress XXXII and XXXXIII), and Jeo Treto (Emperor XXXXIII and Regent XXXIX). 323 Terry Sidie was crowned Emperor I of the Americas, one of the two highest ranked people in the

320 Melba, “Fifty Gay Years In The Greater Sacramento Area: 1950 – 2000.” 321 Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 20, 2024. 322 Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 20, 2024. 323 “Imperial Court Emperors and Empresses,” The United Courts of CGNIE, accessed August 24, 2024.

Figure 65. Empress IV Pat Montclaire at
the Parking Lot (1979). Source: Fifty Gay
Years In The Greater Sacramento Area.

Figure 66. CGNIE Emperor XXV Ernie
Brown (left) (undated). Source: Courtesy
of Clarmundo Sullivan.

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International Court System in 2020, giving Sacramento international prominence and power among the drag community.324

The overall character and fundraising focus of a
specific “Reign” is determined by The Empress and
Emperor, based on causes they are passionate
about. In 1976, the Imperial Court of Sacramento
organized a fundraiser for the George Sand
Community Fund at the Parking Lot. The event
notably brought together members of the local
lesbian and gay motorcycle clubs and LGBTQ+-
supporting church organizations, such as the
Metropolitan Community Church and Dignity.325 In
1982, Emperor John V of Modesto hosted a Mr.

Macho and Junior Mr. Macho contest to raise funds
for the Special Olympics and the Sacramento
Aquarian Effort Health Clinic.326 In the 1980s,
Sacramento’s court hosted prom-like events as a
playful response and act of healing to homophobia
that had denied them the right to dance with same-
sex partners at high school proms and dances. 327
More recent reigns have supported the Heart
Foundation, Front Street Animal Shelter, local arts
organizations, and others.328

The Imperial Court of Sacramento has historically
been a diverse and inclusive organization,
welcoming people of all genders, races, and sexual
orientations. One of its earliest empresses, Pat
Montclaire, was a transgender woman. Several Empresses and Emperors have been Black or from communities of color. In the 1980s, Emperor XXVIII Willie Anderson and his Empress Danielle organized an annual Afrocentric Weekend at the Mercantile Saloon. This was an earlier and separate

324 “Official Message from Queen Mother 1 of the America’s, Nicole the Great,” International Court System, August 26, 2019, accessed August 24, 2024, https://internationalcourtsystem.org/official-message-from-queen-mother-1-of-the-americas- nicole-the-great/.
325 Tim Holt, "Sacto's Gays," undated, private collection of George Raya. 326 River City Rambler 2, no. 1, January 1982.
327 CGNIE event flyers, Kevin Cohee Collection, LLACE.
328 Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 20, 2024.

Figure 67. Empress XXI Racine (far left) with local
drag queens posing in front of the State Capitol
as the Spice Girls from a video shoot with David
Menken (ca. 1990s). Source: Courtesy of Larry
Engelhardt-Lee.

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event from the Afrocentric Weekend organized by GALA in the 1990s and was the only Black LGBTQ+ Pride event in Sacramento. The weekend of events included soul music, soul food, dominoes and other card games, and drag performances. 329 During the 1990s, Sacramento’s court was known for its three Black Empresses, known as the “Dream Girls,” Shondra, and Danielle.

Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U is Filipino. Empress XXXXVIII Dymond Brown is straight.330

The Imperial Court of Sacramento has expanded over time to include “sister courts” in 27 counties in Northern California, including the courts of Redding, Chico, and Stockton. The Sacramento court provides training and other support for these smaller sister communities. Reflecting its broad geographic territory of influence, the Sacramento court adopted the name the Court of the Great Northwest Imperial Empire (CGNIE), or the United Courts of Sacramento, Redding, Chico, and Stockton. Locally, CGNIE continues to grow as “Rebel Courts”— such as the Fairy Godfathers and Rainbow Festival, which represent specific causes or organizations—seek to take over its leadership are absorbed into the court.

Leather Clubs & Competitions
Like the drag community, the leather community has historically been stigmatized and “othered” within the broader LGBTQ+ community and created its own spaces and social outlets for personal expression and mutual support. The Valley Knights Motorcycle Club (for gay men) and Leather and Lace (for lesbians) were clubs for local motorcyclists and enthusiasts and were important early incubators for the leather community. The Valley Knights Motorcycle Club has been in continuous operation since 1976. According to an article published in the River City Rambler in 1982, the Valley Knights were “a social organization of gay men ‘on the masculine side’ who [shared] a love of motorcycles and the gay community’s betterment.” 331 Gay motorcycle clubs, such as the Valley Knights, traditionally led annual Pride festivals in communities around the country. 332 Such motorcycle clubs hosted events called “runs” during which members would take their bikes on a “run” to campsites and meet up with other motorcycle club members. Sacramento’s motorcycle clubs held runs until around the 1980s. The idea of leather “runs” was revived in Sacramento around 2006 with the Sacramento Leather Run, a convention of queer leather people. 333

329 Clarmundo Sullivan, conversations with Carson Anderson, August 2024, Sacramento, CA. 330 Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 20, 2024. 331 “Interview,” River City Rambler II, No. 2, February 1982, LLACE. 332 Filmmaker Glenne McElhinney, Bay Area Dykes on Bikes leader during the 1970s/1980s, Carson Anderson, “Comments on Draft LGBTQ HCS,” July 9, 2024.
333 Matt Bunch, phone conversation with Clare Flynn, August 27, 2023.

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Figure 68. Members of the Valley Knights Motorcycle Club in front of Bob and Frank’s Underpass (1978). Source:

Fifty Gay Years In The Greater Sacramento Area.

Leather and Lace was founded in 1979 with the goal of bringing together motorcycle clubs, independent riders, and their supporters to raise funds for non-profit organizations that work to address health issues for women, children, and animals. One of the c lub’s original members was Dayne “Grumbles” Davidson-Sands. The club adopted a “Heart and Wings” logo and, in 1981, the colors fuchsia and silver to represent it. Members of Leather and Lace often served as the security force at LGBTQ+ events and led the annual Pride parade. In 2001, the club changed its name to Sisters of Scota.334

In 1997, an all-men’s leather club, the Sacramento Leathermen (now the Sacramento Leather Corps), formed. Reflecting the leather community’s history, rooted in motorcycle and military culture and a sense of obligation to protect the vulnerable among the LGBTQ+ community, t he group was initially created to meet the need for a color guard at local LGBTQ+ events, a role which is traditionally filled

334 “Sisters of Scota Women’s Motorcycle Club,” accessed September 24, 2024, https://www.sistersofscotawmc.org/.

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by military veterans. Because Sacramento did not have a gay veteran’s group, the Leather men stepped in to provide this service. The group also had a strong interest in fundraising to support the LGBTQ+ community and hosted regular pancake breakfasts at the Lambda Community Center at 1931 L Street (extant) to raise funds for local charities. The club remains active. Existing members sponsor new members, who are “patched” and “paddled” in at initiation ceremonies, somewhat like a college fraternity.335

The Wreck Room was the hub of the local
leather community for much of the 1980s.

First located at 925 20th Street in 1980, it
relocated to 2513 Broadway (extant) in
1984. After the Wreck Room closed in 1999,
The Bolt, located at 2560 Boxwood Street
(extant), became the main hub and social
gathering place for the leather community.

The Bolt hosted an annual competition to
award the title of “Mr. Bolt.” The current
iteration of the contest began in 2003,
though there were earlier Mr. Bolt contests
in the 1990s and earlier leather title
competitions and winners in Sacramento
that predate the 2000s, such as Mr. Leather
Sacramento, Bear titles, and rodeo titles. Title winners represent Sacramento in the International Mr. Leather Competition in Chicago and serve as ambassadors for The Bolt and Sacramento’s leather community at events throughout the year. Somewhat akin to a pageant, participants compete against each other in several rounds of events, which include a meet and greet and private interview with a panel of judges; a formal introduction to the public; a “leather formal” in which participants dress in evening wear-inspired leatherwear, and a “pecs and personalities” event, in which participants describe their personal platform if selected as the winner.336 The annual Mr. Bolt competitions are one of the largest yearly events at The Bolt. Half of the proceeds go to local charities, often HIV treatment and education organizations like the Sunburst Project and Golden Rule Services. The other half pays for event expenses and to keep The Bolt, as community hub for the leather community, running. Matt Bunch is the only Mr. Bolt title winner to have also been an Emperor of CGNIE.337

335 Matt Bunch, phone conversation with Clare Flynn, August 27, 2023. 336 Jonathan Cameron/Taryn Thru-U, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 20, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 337 Matt Bunch, phone conversation with Clare Flynn, August 27, 2023.

Figure 69. The Wreck Room during its third anniversary
celebration (1983). Source: Patlar Gazette.

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Leather titles and competitions also existed for lesbians. In 1987, the first Ms. Leather Sacramento competition was held to select a woman to represent Sacramento at the International Leather Competition. The first Ms. Leather Sacramento competition took place at the Blue Moon on Franklin Boulevard. Kim Wallace was chosen as the winner. Jolanne Tierney won the next two titles in 1988 and 1889. After the Blue Moon closed, the competition moved to Joseph’s Town and Country on Del Paso Boulevard and later Tierney’s bar, Jammin’ Jo’s Sports, and Dance Bar in 1995.338

Figure 71. Mr. Leather Sacramento 1991-1992 (1992).

Source: Patlar Gazette.

338 Text message from Jolanne Tierney to Clare Flynn, August 21, 2024.

Figure 70, The first Ms. Leather Sacramento, Kim
Wallace (1987). Source: Private collection of
George Raya.

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Figure 72. Ms. Leather Sacramento Jolanne Tierney and other competition participants (1988). Source: Courtesy of Jolanne Tierney.

SPORTS & ATHLETICS
The number and variety of sports clubs and leagues also grew in the 1970s and offered many options to the local community. Sacramento had its own gay baseball league for a time in the 1970s.

The league was comprised of four or five teams, each of which represented one of the area’s local gay bars: the Hu Hu Hut in West Sacramento, Mercantile Saloon, Faces, the Parking Lot, and Wreck Room. Games were held on Sundays and attracted approximately 300 to 400 fans. Similar clubs from San Francisco that were looking for more teams to play traveled to Sacramento for games for a period, before the league folded due to a lack of a sufficient number of teams.339 In the 1980s, some games were held at Ulysses S. Grant Park at 21st and C streets.340

339 Tim Holt, "Sacto's Gays," undated, private collection of George Raya. 340 Wreck Room advertisement, PATLAR Gazette, June 1992: 4.

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Several women’s sports leagues were also available to lesbians in the Sacramento community and were important athletic and social outlets that fostered a strong sense of camaraderie among members. A women’s rugby team, the River City Ruggers, formed in the late 1970s. The team competed against other women’s rugby teams from Northern California and occasionally traveled to Southern California for tournaments. Practices and local games were initially held at Miller Park and McKinley Park before moving to Florin Reservoir Park around 1986. After games and practices, the players and their opponents typically gathered at the Blue Moon women’s bar on Franklin Boulevard, which was owned by River City Ruggers player and artist Shannon Morgan, for food, entertainment, and socializing. The team supported itself by organizing fundraisers to pay for team uniforms, equipment, and travel expenses. Jude Grden was president and captain of the team from approximately 1983 until the team dissolved around 1998, as the rising popularity of women’s soccer pulled many players away.341

Figure 73. The River City Ruggers (undated). Source: Courtesy of Jude Grden.

341 Jude Grden, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 23, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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Many lesbian and straight women also participated in popular fast and slow pitch softball leagues. Fast pitch softball dominated in the 1970s and 1980s. Slow pitch softball overtook fast pitch softball in the early 1980s and 1990s. Women’s softball teams represented local gay hair salons and bars, such as the Crazy Razors. Games and practices took place at Roosevelt Park at 10th and P streets and were typically followed by team gatherings at the Buffalo Club nearby. The league was so popular among the lesbian community that members often told lesbians who were new to town to go to games to meet women.

Feeling unwelcomed by white lesbians on these softball teams, Black lesbians started their own softball team, Sisters and Friends, which was sponsored by Lioness Books and played in another City-run women’s softball league on Sundays at Curtis Park.342

There were also active women’s teams for rowing, golf, and roller hockey. In the 1990s, Chicks with Sticks, a Masters Women’s Rowing club for women over the age of 27, competed and won sweeps at Lake Natoma. For a short period, a women’s roller hockey team, managed by Manon Rheaume, a Canadian Olympic gold medal- winning hockey player and the first woman to play in the National Hockey League, played at Iceland Ice Skating Rink at 1420 Del Paso Boulevard (extant). A casual all women’s gay golf league, called Mixed Bag, played at the William Land Golf Course.343

Sacramento has produced many elite LGBTQ+ athletes. Judoka master Kuniko Takeuchi arrived in Sacramento from Japan in 1968 with then partner and fellow judoka Midge Marino. At the time, she was the second highest ranked female judoka in the United States and the sixth ranked judoka in the world. By 2022, she was an eighth-degree black belt and was considered the highest ranked female judoka in the world.344 Takeuchi began her training in judo as a high school student in Tokyo. In 1968, she and Marino began teaching judo and self-defense classes to female students at El Camino High School. She later became a physical education teacher at Campos Verdes Junior High School and Martin Luther

342 Judy Walls and Asa Sally, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, September 11, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 343 Jude Grden, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 23, 2024. 344 “Highest Ranked Woman in the World,” Okubo Judo, accessed October 24, 2024, https://www.okubojudo.com/highest- ranked-woman-in-the-world/.

Figure 74. Kuniko Takeuchi
(1970). Source: Sacramento Bee.

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King, Jr. High School, before retiring in 1999. She contributed to the spread and popularization of judo in the United States as an instructor at the San Juan Judo Club and later the Okubo/APOA.

In 1993, Takeuchi coached a team of American women to a world championship in Canada. Three years later, she was selected to serve on the technical staff for the judo competitions at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.345 From 2000 to 2010, she was Vice Chairman of the Promotion Committee of the American Judo Association, and from 2001 to 2010, she was the Chairman of the American Judo Federation’s Judicial Committee. In 2020, the government of Japan awarded her the Order of the Rising Sun, a prestigious national award given to those who have performed exceptional service to the state in various fields, for her role in promoting judo and friendship between the United States and Japan. Takeuchi has continued to teach judo in the Sacramento area through the 2020s.346

A gay and lesbian bowling league, the River City Bowlers, competed at the Alhambra Bowl at 1229 Alhambra Boulevard. The league later met at Land Park Lanes at 5850 Freeport Boulevard (extant) and included a team of Black gay men and lesbians called “Four Brothas and a Sistah.” Members included Robert Jones, Steve Sykes, Asa Salley, John Ortiz-Hudson, and others.347 Sacramento also had a gay square-dancing club called the Capitol City Squares and a Sacramento Gay Rodeo Association. A gay volleyball league was started by David Kwong.

Sacramento LGBTQ+ athletes also competed in many sporting events at the Gay Games. The first Gay Olympic Games was held in San Francisco in 1982. According to founder Tom Waddell, the event’s “formula for success was visibility and identity. And both were right there on the field. We were visible, and we were identified. And what did people see? They saw healthy people, out there, doing something that everyone could understand. They were out there to complete and have fun.”348 More than 1,300 athletes from 11 countries, including the United States, and approximately 170 cities participated in the first event. Music legend Tina Turner performed. Athletes from Sacramento took home a total of 18 medals. The end of the games featured a triumphal march of all the athletes, which received a 45-minute standing ovation.349

345 Edgar Sanchez, “Martial Artist at Work,” Sacramento Bee, 2 April 1996. 346Satoru Furuya, “Kuniko Takeuchi Sensei Interview,” Daiheigen Judo Yudanshakai, accessed October 24, 2024, https://www.daiheigen.org/2023/05/kuniko-takeuchi-sensei-interview/. 347 Dr. Jon Marshack and the Reverend Rik Rasmussen, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments, July 3, 2024; Asa Salley and Judy Walls, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. 348 Scottie Andrew, “Welcome to the ‘Gay Games,’ An Alternative to the Olympics, Where Activism is Encouraged and Everyone’s an Athlete,” CNN, July 31, 2021, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/31/us/gay-games-lgbtq- olympics-trnd/index.html.
349 Ernie Brown, “Gay Olympic Games,” PATLAR Gazette, 20 September 1982.

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Figure 75. Some of Sacramento's contingent of athletes at the first Gay Olympic Games in 1982. Source: The Sacramento Star, 8 September 1982, Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE).

After the U.S. Olympic Committee demanded that organizers remove the word “Olympic” from the event’s name, the event was changed to the “Gay Games.”350 A second Gay Games was held in San Francisco in 1986. Sacramento had 165 athletes at the games, the third largest contingent of athletes from any city after San Francisco and New York. Sacramento’s athletes captured 54 medals that year.351 Among Sacramento’s many medalists were Don F. Dingler, who won the bronze medal in triathlon in 1986, and Carl Ray McCollum, who won a bronze medal in bowling at the 1990 games.352

Many of Sacramento’s gay and lesbian athletes, and those simply seeking to stay fit or get into better shape, found a welcome place to train and exercise at Valentis gym. When lesbian couple Kimberly Miller and Liz White opened the gym in 1988, they realized a lifelong personal dream. Miller was

350 Andrew, “Welcome to the ‘Gay Games.’”
351 Ernie Brown, “Views from River City,” Patlar Gazette, September 1986. 352 “Don F. Dingler,” Sacramento Bee, 13 December 1989: C2; “McCollom, Carl Ray,” Sacramento Bee, 17 September 1992: B7.

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herself a lifelong athlete who had been
inducted into the San Francisco State College
Hall of Fame, while White enjoyed personal
fitness, competitive bodybuilding, and
outdoor recreational activities. Located inside
the Elks building at 921 11th Street (extant) in
downtown Sacramento, the building was
already equipped with a swimming pool,
racquetball courts, basketball courts, and a
sauna when Miller and White first arrived.

They added a juice bar and a hair salon, run
by Eddie Camacho, and massage therapist
facilities. White was responsible for running
the gym’s fitness programs, while Miller took
charge of business finances and
administration.

Miller’s upbringing and positive experience
coming out to her family instilled in her the
belief that there was no separation between
gay or straight people. They took that belief to
Valentis, which was envisioned as a gym that
was welcome to all. Valentis was successful
immediately, with lines out the doors. News
about the gym spread by word of mouth
through friends in the local gay community. Clientele consisted primarily of men and women between their thirties and fifties who worked in the downtown area and came there after work or during breaks. Employees from the Legislative Data Center, located across street, made up a large portion of early membership. Several local athletes who competed in the Gay Games trained at Valentis, including White, who performed a well-received bodybuilding routine to Barbara Streisand’s version of the song “There’s A Place For Us” with fellow bodybuilder Ed Blagdon at the 1990 Gay Games. A combination of factors led to the close of Valentis Gym in 1995, including rising rent prices at the Elks building and the declining number of people working nearby.353

353 Kimberly Miller, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, July 22, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

Figure 76. Kimberly Miller (front) and Liz White (back) at Valentis gym (ca. 1988). Source: Courtesy of Kimberly
Miller.

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Sacramento also had plenty to offer for gay and lesbian residents with an interest in the arts in all of its forms. In the 1960s and 1970s, artistic offerings were directed primarily at gay and lesbian residents, but did not specifically cater to transgender people or other LGBTQ+ subgroups.

Mom…Guess What…! advertised live music, theater, dance performances; art shows and exhibitions; and other artistic events in its monthly publications. The newspaper also published reviews of new music releases, highlighting those that were the work of local gay and lesbian musicians, and profiles of local artists. Many of the local gay bars and clubs regularly hosted live music performances by local and traveling musicians.

Theater
Several LGBTQ+ theater troupes formed and were active in Sacramento between the 1970s and 2000s. Le Theatre Lesbien, a lesbian theater company, was founded by Cherie Gordon and Patricia One Person (now Matty One Person) in 1971, making it reportedly one of the earliest openly gay theatre troupes in the United States. At the time, both Gordon and One Person were active in the women’s movement at Sacramento State University. Gordon was completing a master’s degree in communications, with a research focus on the subject that “lesbianism is everywhere.” One Person was part of the university’s pioneering faculty, who, along with Marty Rogers and Charles Moore, introduced the first gay and lesbian courses to the university. One Person taught courses in the Honors Program on the “Lesbian in America” and the “Lesbian in Society.” 354 More information about One Person’s contributions to LGBTQ studies at Sacramento State University are included in Chapter

5. Gordon and One Person initially created Le Theatre Lesbien to provide an additional source of entertainment at parties; however, all of its productions had a strong political message at their core that were underpinned by the principles of lesbian-feminism. By increasing the visibility of lesbians, its founders believed, more lesbians would be encouraged to come out of the closet. Countering the serious tone of much of the women’s movement, Gordon believed that humor was the most effective way to communicate these messages and open the hearts and minds of audiences. In Gordon’s words, Le Theatre Lesbien was “dedicated to the presentation of lesbians with positive models with whom they [could] identify” and “also to spoof the gay community just a bit.” 355 One play, called “The Homobrontosaurus,” featured lesbian dinosaurs to show that lesbianism is “as old

354 Cherie Gordon, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 8, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 355 Alfred Kay, “Strategically OK Lesbian Play Fails as Theater,” Sacramento Bee, 10 September 1979: B7.

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as time.”356 The play was performed as part of the Lesbian Colloquium, which One Person helped organize at Sacramento State University, in 1972.357

Figure 77. Members of Le Theatre Lesbien, including Cherie Goron (far left), at the 1980 March on Sacramento for Gay and Lesbian Rights (1980). Source: Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Jonna Ramey Collection.

In 1976, Le Theatre Lesbien presented a production called "Dykes on Parade," which was billed as a "hersterical, herstorical, theatrical review of lesbian fashion." 358 The characters portrayed in the production were inspired by real lesbian or gender non-conforming people from history, gay publications, and lesbian journals and included the Greek poet Sappho; Gertrude Stein; Quaquam, a female Blackfoot warrior; Parisian novelist Collette; and French poet Renee Vivian, among others.

The play’s intent was to portray these famous lesbian figures from history as real people.359 “Dykes on Parade” was one of Le Theatre Lesbien’s most popular productions, receiving standing ovations that lasted several minutes when it was performed at Sacramento State University.360 The play was performed several more times throughout Northern California through the early 1980s. Le Theatre

356 Cherie Gordon, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. 357 Cherie Gordon, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. 358 Cheryl Clark, "Lesbian Show Of 'Herstory' Is Gay Event," Sacramento Bee, 28 October 1976: B2. 359 Clark, "Lesbian Show Of 'Herstory' Is Gay Event.”
360 David A. Reichard, Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in California (Athens, CA: University of Georgia Press, 2024, 68.

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Lesbien also used its work to challenge how lesbians were perceived and talked about in broader society. The name of the troupe's 1979 production, "Cowdykes at the Lavender Corral," was intended to bring derogatory words used to refer to lesbians out into the open, challenge them, and show them to be "as ludicrous as they are."361

Most of Le Theatre Lesbien’s plays were initially created through improvisation and later written down. By 1973, Sue Cugene joined the troupe and developed many of the plays with Gordon. After 1976, Pat Lynch (also known as Madame Szwambi) also contributed several plays. Actors were recruited from the community, often by Gordon simply walking up to women at bars and asking if they were interested in acting. Most of the Le Theatre Lesbien’s early plays were performed at theatres and venues on the campus of Sacramento State University, where they had easy and free access to stages and theatrical equipment. In the early 1980s, after Gordon left Sacramento State University, many of the troupe’s productions were performed in the theater at the Sierra 2 community center at 2791 24th Street (extant) in Curtis Park. Over the course of the troupe’s history, they also performed at local lesbian bars, including the Off Key in West Sacramento and the Casino Club on 16th Street, as well as local gay pride parades, festivals, and events; cafes, bars, and theaters in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Albany; and the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).362 In 1986, Gordon created a women’s only dance event, The Botticelli Costume Ball, and Le Theatre Lesbien performed its play “Wine, Women, and War,” written by Madame Szwambi. An all- female band, Tommy, was hired from San Francisco to perform at the catered event, and guests were greeted by vestal virgins clad in togas. Le Theatre Lesbien’s last performance took place at the one-night-only “Off Key Re-union” event at the building formerly occupied by the Off Key bar and featured a performance of “The Psychoanalysis of Edward the Dyke,” based on a poem by Judy Grahn.363

Neil Treganza formed another theatre troupe, the Lambda Players, at the Lambda Community Center (now the Sacramento LGBT Community Center) at 1931 L Street (extant) in 1989. The troupe was initially created as an alternative to the local gay bar scene and served as entertainment at the community center’s regular coffee nights. The troupe gradually outgrew the community center’s living room space and began performing at local theatre venues around Sacramento, such as the YWCA and Sierra 2 community center theater. Over time, the Lambda Players performances evolved from casual amateur events into major sponsored productions that were attended by audiences of roughly 1,000 people. The troupe typically performed five plays each season. Plays performed by the troupe were selected to promote a positive image among the LGBTQ+ community and included

361 Alfred Kay, "Strategically OK Lesbian Play Fails As Theater," Sacramento Bee, 10 September 1979: B7. 362 Cherie Gordon, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss; Cherie Gordon, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments, July 5, 2024.
363 Cherie Gordon, “Corrections to Your 2nd Draft of Chapter 3,” email to Clare Flynn, September 23, 2024.

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both established and original works that dealt with LGBTQ+ themes or were written by LGBTQ+ playwrights. Some years, the plays had a political message that was intended to respond to issues that were being debated at the State Capitol. Early board members who were instrumental in the troupe’s growth and development included Treganza, Maureen Gaynor, Terri Ramos, Wayne Spellman, Michael Perry, Tom Bach, and Charlie Peer. Board members shared responsibilities and took turns completing tasks required to get each production to the stage. Gregg Peterson served as the in-house playwright for a time. Tom Swanner and Matt Burlingame also served as in-house playwrights and directors at the same time and were co-artistic directors. Swanner and Burlingame wrote both together and individually. Actors included both gay men and lesbians. The troupe was nomadic, performing in various spaces throughout Sacramento until 2007, when it obtained its first official theater space at 2427 17th Street (extant). The troupe remained there for one year before moving to the Studio Theater are 1028 R Street (extant). Burlingame and Swanner wrote and directed almost all of the Lambda Players’ productions in the troupe’s final year. The troupe disbanded in 2011 but had a lasting impact on uplifting the community and encouraging closeted individuals to come out.364

Figure 78. Tom Bach (right) and Patrick Elkins-Zeglarski (left) in a Lambda Players’ production (ca. 1990). Source:

Center for Sacramento History.

364 Maureen Gaynor, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 23, 2024, Sacramento, CA; Michael Gorman, email to Clare Flynn, August 20, 2024.

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Music
Starting in the 1970s, individual LGBTQ+ musicians emerged, and clubs, groups, and businesses formed to provide additional avenues for community members to express themselves and see their experiences reflected back at them through music.

Among the most successful LGBTQ+
musicians to come out of Sacramento
were sisters June and Jean Millington,
founders of Fanny, one of the first all-
female rock bands to sign to a major
record label and achieve critical and
commercial success. The Millington
sisters were born in the Philippines and
moved to Sacramento with their
parents as teenagers in 1961. Outcast
by students in school due to their race,
they found a refuge in music and
formed a garage band called the Svelts,
which initially performed Top 40 rock at
local Air Force bases, San Francisco
hotels, and Las Vegas casinos.365 In
1969, the Millington sisters, along with
drummer Alice de Buhr and keyboardist
Nickey Barclay, signed a record contract
with Reprise Records as the band
Fanny. June came out as gay at the age of 20; de Buhr was also gay. Fanny recorded five albums before disbanding in 1975 and achieved two Top 40 hits: “Charity Ball” and “Butter Boy.” The band performed with other prominent rock bands of the 1970s, including Jethro Tull, Humble Pie, the Kinks, Slade, and Chicago. In a 1999 interview with Rolling Stone, David Bowie called Fanny one of the finest rock bands of their time. Other fans included Bonnie Raitt.366 After the band disbanded, June and Jean continued to play music as solo artists and in various configurations with former

365 Judy MacLean, “June Millington,” The Advocate, 8 June 1982. 366 Mark Yarm, “The All-Female Band Fanny Made History. A New Doc Illuminates It,” New York Times, 25 May 2022.

Figure 79. Jean Millington (far left) and June Millington (top, center) on the cover of Fanny's 1972 album, Fanny Hill. Source:

AllMusic.

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members of Fanny.367 The documentary “Fanny: The Right to Rock,” which was released by PBS in 2023, highlighted the band’s unheralded importance to music history. 368

Music and concerts produced specifically for women, known at the time simply as “women’s music,” provided an important social and emotional outlet for many in Sacramento’s lesbian community.

Women’s music was written by and for women, many of whom were lesbians, and reflected their lives, emotions, and experiences in a way that other popular or mainstream music did not. In 1979, four local women—Anne Seeley, Terry Wong, Lisa Davis, and E. Jane White—formed a production company to promote women’s music in Sacramento called Crystal Moon Productions. The company organized and promoted concerts featuring local and touring feminist musicians.369 Operating on a budget of up to $2,500 per event, each of Crystal Moon’s concerts attracted approximately 600 to 700 people within the first year. Most of the concerts took place at local school auditoriums, including at Hiram Johnson High School, which were the cheapest venues to rent that included stages and equipment.370 Local lesbian musicians who performed at events organized by Crystal Moon Productions included Robby Fuller, Jeanette Hess, Jan-Michelle Sawyer, Liz Cook, and others.

Many of the performers were nationally known touring musicians associated with the pioneering women’s music record label Olivia Records, which was established in Oakland in the mid-1970s.

Among the “Olivia Women” who performed in Sacramento were Olivia Records founder Meg Christian, Cris Williamson, Holly Near, Linda Tillery, Margie Adams, Theresa Trull, Mary Watkins, and others.371 In 1973, Kate Millett, a visiting professor and author of the classic feminist book Sexual Politics (1970), organized a Women’s Music Festival at Sacramento State University. Musician and composer Margie Adam began her professional career as a musician during an open mic session at the event.372

In addition to Cherie Gordon’s work with Le Theatre Lesbien, she also created Lavender Lady Productions, which produced smaller concerts, featuring local lesbian singers and musicians, at local cafes, restaurants, and other locations in Sacramento and Davis. One of the common locations for these shows was Earhart’s Café.373 Other local women’s music performances were organized by musician Jan-Michelle Sawyer, who created “A Light Night of Women’s Music” as an outlet for lesbian women to showcase and experience music that spoke to them. These small concerts for women’s

367 Jason Ankeny, “Fanny Biography,” AllMusic, accessed July 31, 2024, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/fanny- mn0001467262#biography.
368 Yarm, “The All-Female Band Fanny Made History. A New Doc Illuminates It.” 369 Cherie Gordon and Nurk Franklin, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. 370 Zenobia Jonell Gerard, “Feminist Music – Producers Encourage Non-Offensive Lyrics,” Sacramento Bee, B4. 371 Cherie Gordon and Nurk Franklin, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. 372 “Margie Adam,” Women Arts, May 24, 2004, accessed September 24, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20100620211925/http://womenarts.org/network/profile_974.html. 373 Cherie Gordon, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss.

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music took place at the Redwood Room at Sacramento State University and the Pease Conservatory of Music at 2130 L Street (extant) in the late 1970s and early 1980s.374

Many of the local gay and lesbian bars had dance floors that made them popular for dancing, such as the Parking Lot, Bo Jangles, and Faces. One of the most popular DJs and event coordinators in the Sacramento LGBTQ+ community since the early 1980s has been Jolanne Tierney, also known by her DJ-ing name as “Jammin’ Jo.” A Sacramento native, Tierney came out when she was 15 years old at Bo Jangles bar. Tierney’s mother, Georgette Tierney, though a practicing Catholic, accepted her daughter for who she was and welcomed her friends into her home like family, becoming a mother- like figure to the community, who provided safety and acceptance for many who had been rejected by their own families. When Jolanne turned 21 in 1984, her parents allowed her to throw a birthday party at their house. Approximately 100 people attended the event. It was such a success that Tierney’s friends asked her to throw another party the next year. From then on, Tierney’s annual “21st birthday party” became a major event for the LGBTQ+ community. The parties grew larger each year and eventually included a stage and lip-sync performances. After police were called to respond to the sixth annual 21st birthday party, Tierney began to rent event halls to host the event.

During the late 1980s, Tierney began to develop her skills as a disc jockey (DJ) while working as a bartender at Faces. While bartending at Ladies’ Night one Wednesday night, she was asked to fill in for a DJ who had failed to turn up. People enjoyed the music so much that Tierney was asked to DJ again and became the regular DJ for Wednesday Ladies’ Nights at Faces. Soon, friends began to ask Tierney to DJ birthday parties, weddings, and other events, and “Jammin Jo” was born. In 1983, she became a Universal Life minister and received her marriage license, which she used to symbolically marry gay and lesbian couples from the 1980s and until the early 2000s. After the passage of Sacramento’s Domestic Partnership Ordinance in 1992, Tierney performed ceremonies for same-sex couples who registered as domestic partners. Between June and November 2008—after the California Supreme Court overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriages and before Prop 8 repealed that decision—she legally married approximately 35 same-sex couples.

Tierney, who also had a passion for fundraising to support the LGBTQ+ community , used nearly all of her events, including her annual 21st birthday parties, as fundraisers that supported local charities and organizations that were dear to her heart, including the local YWCA, Sacramento AIDS Foundation, the Society for the Blind, and others. Tierney’s events were open to anyone who wanted to have fun, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or income level and allowed people to

374 Jeanette Hess, conversation with Clare Flynn, August 13, 2024.

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pay for entrance to her events on a sliding scale, depending on what they were able to pay, or offered those who could not afford it a spot on the guest list. 375

Joey Claytor—a Black lesbian, DJ, and community organizer—created similar events that brought the community together through music, dance, and personal expression. Claytor began her career as a DJ at Anna Marie’s, a popular lesbian bar in West Sacramento, in 1975. After the bar closed, Claytor DJ-ed at Anna Marie’s reunion parties, initially at rented spaces in downtown Sacramento, and later at Faces, before starting a production company called Music by Joey and hosting her own events, using the popularity of her own name and reputation to attract crowds. She also created high-end parties, known as “Secrets” and “Gay-las,” knowing they would be more attractive to women than typical bar events. All of Claytor’s events were underground and advertised only by word of mouth.

Claytor’s events brought community members together in meaningful ways and were the place many couples first met.376

Sacramento also offered opportunities for gay men who had a passion for music to socialize and express themselves through music. During Pillars’ monthly gathering in August 1984, Rick Whitnah and his partner Steve Mabbs announced their intention to form a men’s chorus. The chorus was originally named the Sacramento Men’s Chorus to protect its members from discrimination. The chorus’s first planning meeting was held at a Christmas party at Whitnah and Mabbs’ house at 2851 Castro Way in December 1984. The chorus initially consisted of between 25 and 40 singers.

Members included successful lobbyists, lawyers, school principals, teachers, businessmen, and community leaders, some of whom were closeted in their professional lives and for whom the club was an outlet and refuge from the realities of discrimination they faced in their daily lives. It also offered an alternative for socializing outside of gay bars.

In the early years, members sang in straight lines and dressed in formal suits and ties to avoid the chance of being identified as gay. As it became increasingly safe and acceptable to be openly gay in the early 2000s, the chorus changed its name to the Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus and began to incorporate dancing and more expressive styles of singing and clothing into their performances. The chorus’s first rehearsals and its first formal concert took place at the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) at 2741 34th Street in Oak Park in 1985. Over the years, many performances have taken place at the MCC and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 1430 J Street (extant). In addition to these formal concerts, the Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus has performed at a variety of notable events, including the inaugurations of Governor Gray Davis and Mayor Joe Serna, numerous AIDS benefits,

375 Jolanne Tierney, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 2, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 376 "Joey Claytor, DJ and Lesbian Social Organizer," Legends of Courage, dir. Dawn D. Deason, February 14, 2024, accessed September 17, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRIi3NZIYRQ.

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the opening of the Center for AIDS Research and Education Services (CARES), two concerts by famed folk singer Judy Collins, and Sacramento Kings basketball games. Most of the chorus’s performances have been performed for charity or community benefits for which members were not paid. Money spent on costumes, rehearsal spaces, travel, and other expenses were paid almost entirely through donations. The club celebrated its 30th anniversary at the Memorial Auditorium in 2015 and has grown to more than 150 singers.377

Figure 80. The Sacramento Men's Chorus in front of the Capitol just before its first public concert (1985). First row (from left to right): Dr. L. Steven Winlock, Robert O’Neil, Ray Irish, Dr. David Kirp, Mark Fisher, J. Michael Angelwirth, Dennis Mangers, Bob (last name unknown), Lindsay Ouelette, unknown, Tony Martin, Norv Giles, and Dr. David Newnham. Second row (from left to right): Frank Lawler, Rich Whitnah, Matthew Curtin, Ron Clyma, Steve Mabbs, Alan Charles, Larry Hoover, Curt Filer, Mike Dole, Brent Smith, Jeff Goldman, David Kwong, and Larry Dunlap. Source: Courtesy of Denny Mangers.

377 Marcos Breton, “Men Live, Sing in the Open,” Sacramento Bee, 10 May 2015: B1.

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Fine Arts
Research revealed limited information about the
involvement of the LGBTQ+ community in fine
arts and crafts. Twin brothers Jed Johnson and Jay
Johnson were born in Minnesota but moved to
Fair Oaks, just east of Sacramento, with their
parents at the age of 10. The boys attended Bella
Vista High School and moved to New York City in
1967, where they met artist Andy Warhol and
became fixtures of The Factory, Warhol’s famed
Manhattan studio. Jay Johnson became a model
and helped paint some of Warhol’s paintings for
the Factory.378 Meanwhile, Jed’s talent for design
and aesthetics caught Warhol’s eye, who tapped
Jed to collaborate with him on several of his films,
including as editor of Trash (1970), Heat (1972),
and Blood for Dracula (1974), and director of Bad
(1977). Jed Johnson and Warhol developed a
romantic relationship, and the two were partners
for 12 years. Friends of Warhol and Johnson
considered Johnson to be one of the great loves
of Warhol’s life.

After leaving Warhol in 1976, Johnson became a
renowned and sought-after interior designer with
clients that included rock star Mick Jagger, actress and singer Barbara Streisand, French businessman and art patron Pierre Bergé, and French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. His life was cut short by the TWA Flight 800 crash in 1996.379 In its obituary, The New York Times stated, “Jed Johnson had an eye, one of the best eyes that has existed in our time.” 380 He was posthumously inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame and was named as one of the “World’s 20 Greatest Designers of All Time” by Architectural Digest in 2010.381

378 William L. Hamilton, “The Surviving Twin, Rearranging the Furniture,” The New York Times, 10 November 2005. 379 Mitchell Nugent, “Meet Jed Johnson, the Man Who Stole Andy Warhol’s Heart,” Interview, March 21, 2022, accessed September 24, 2024, https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/meet-jed-johnson-the-man-who-stole-andy-warhol-heart. 380 Paul Goldberger, “Jed Johnson: Grace Interrupted,” The New York Times, 25 July 1996. 381 Gerald Clarke, “The World’s 20 Greatest Designers of All Time,” Architectural Digest, January 2010, accessed September 24, 2024, https://archive.architecturaldigest.com/article/2010/1/the-worlds-20-greatest-designers-of-all-time.

Figure 81. Jed Johnson (right) with Andy Warhol (left).

Source: Revolver Gallery.

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Jok Church, a local radio host and founding member of the Damien House community service center in Sacramento in the 1970s, created the popular cartoon strip “You Can with Beakman and Jax,” which first ran in the Marin Independent Journal in 1991. Each panel of the “wacky science” cartoon strip answered a science question submitted by readers. By 1999, the cartoon strip was featured in approximately 300 newspapers across the country. It also inspired the children’s television show “Beakman’s World,” which ran for four years.382

In 1979, a woman named Donna opened a co-op for gay artists and their friends to display and sell their artwork on a commission basis. The co-op was located at the Double D Manufacturing Shop at 3443 La Grande Boulevard (extant).383 In addition, Artist Harry John “Ric” Roletto resided in Sacramento for a time and was featured in a profile in the nationally distributed LGBTQ+ newspaper, The Advocate, in 1981. The profile highlighted a series of series of collages Roletto created as part of his coming-out process that mixed humor with images of nature, architecture, and erotica.384 Other known local artists in the LGBTQ+ community who were active through 2000 included photographer Larry Lazarus and sculptor and painter George Kafource.

Figure 82. Portion of a “You Can with Beakman and Jax” comic strip by Jok Church (May 1992). Source:

Sacramento Bee.

382 “’Wacky Science’ Man at UCD,” Sacramento Bee, 22 January 1999; “Steve Rubenstein,” Jok Church, of Beakman and Jax Cartoon Strip for Kids, Dies at 67,” SF Gate, 5 May 2016, accessed October 29, 2024, https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Jok-Church-Beakman-and-Jax-cartoon-strip-for-7396400.php. 383 “Gay Art Co-Op Has Display Area,” Mom…Guess What…!, February 1979. 384 “Ric Roletto,” The Advocate, 1 October 1981.

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Film & TV
In the 1980s, Robert Bequette and his partner Will created “Being Gay Today,” a television show that ran on local cable access television on Thursday nights for approximately twenty years until the 2000s.

In its early incarnation, it was an interview show that featured local politicians, group organizers, HIV experts, and community members from all backgrounds to talk about their work and the Sacramento LGBTQ+ community. The program later added movie reviews by Tom Swanner , which led to an overhaul of the show into an entertainment focused show with pre-recorded segments. “Being Gay Today” highlighted LGBTQ+ life in Sacramento and became an important source of information for the local LGBTQ+ community. The show featured several not able hosts over the course of its run , including Swanner, Joanna Cassese, Sam Catalano, and others. 385

In 199 2, Sacramento State University student and military veteran Allen Cole approached student activities director Lou Camera about starting an annual LGBTQ+ film festival at the university to celebrate National Coming Out Day (October 11) , inspired by a similar student -run festival at Fresno State University.386 Cole and Camera enlisted the help of the Delta Lambda Phi gay fraternity and the university’s gay and lesbian student alliances to help. The result was the Sacramento International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (SIGLFF) . The first program consisted of seven short films and sold out almost immediately. As its popularity grew, the festival’s annual program quickly expanded to consist of more than one dozen feature-length and short films from around the world that dealt with LGBTQ+ topics, some of which were written and performed by members of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community.

Question and answer sessions with the directors, producers, and other production members were held after each screening. Proceeds from each year’s festival went to a local LGBTQ+ charity or nonprofit.387

According to Cole, the festival’s intention was to offer “not just positive portrayals of gays and lesbians but realistic, artistic portrayals —something that was multidimen sional and not stereotypes.” 388 Inspired by the California Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriages in 2008, the theme of that year’s festival was marriage. Gay and lesbian couples with marriage licenses were welcomed to get married at the festival. Amon g those to officially marry at the festival were Uptown Studios founder Tina Reynolds and her partner Kate Moore, Latest Issue newspaper founder

385 Matt Burlingame, comments on Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Historic Context Statement Second Public Draft and October 9, 2024 public meeting; Matt Burlingame, email correspondence to Clare Flynn, October 17, 2024. 386 Michael McGough, “Sacramento’s LGBTQ Film Festival Coming to Permanent End,” Sacramento Bee, 16 May 2022: 5A; Carla Meyer, “Reflecting the Times,” Sacramento Bee, 9 October 2011: I1. 387 Carla Meyer, “Wedding Theme for Gay-Lesbian Film Fest,” Sacramento Bee, 5 October 2008; Maureen Gaynor, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 23, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 388 Meyer, “Reflecting the Times.”
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and multimedia director for Uptown Studios, whose film “Words Matter” premiered at the festival and documented gay and lesbian weddings in Sacramento. The films were chosen by the festival’s long- time program director Patti Barcen a and a selection committee. 389 In addition to Cole , Camera, and Barcena, other individuals who contributed to organizing the festival over the years included Paul Curtis, Todd Lohse, Dawn Deason, Michael Dennis, Brian Verkuylen, and David van der Griff, among many others. Scott Brozek served as the festival’s president from approximately 2012 to 2022. 390

Figure 83. Founders and board members of SIGLFF/BENT outside the Crest Theater during the festival’s 20th anniversary in 2011. From left to right: Paul Curtis, Todd Lohse, Allen Cole, Patti Barcena, Michael Dennis, Brian Verkuylen, Dawn Deason, Lou Camera, and David van der Griff. Source: Manny Crisostomo for the Sacramento Bee.

389 Meyer, “Wedding Theme for Gay-Lesbian Film Fest,” Maureen Gaynor, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 23, 2024, Sacramento, CA.
390 McGough, “Sacramento’s LGBTQ Film Festival Coming to Permanent End.”

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Early festivals were held at the Redwood Room at Sacramento State University, the Sierra 2 Community Center, and other small venues. As the festival grew, the Crest Theater at 1013 K Street (extant) became its primary screening location, although additiona l screenings also took place at the Tower Theater at 2508 Land Park Drive (extant). In the 2020s, the festival was renamed the BENT Film Festival. Declining annual attendance and the COVID-19 pandemic led to the festival’s closure in 2022.

At the time, it was the longest running film festival in Sacramento. 391 On National Coming Out Day 2023, the festival’s organizers continued the legacy and mission of SIGLFF/BENT by using remaining funds to create a lasting grant program to support LGBTQ+ filmmakers from the Sacramento region.392

PROFESSIONAL CLUBS & ORGANIZATIONS
Several professional clubs and organizations supported
Sacramento’s local gay and lesbian business leaders starting in the 1970s. In 1979, Linda Birner and copy shop owner Norvell “Norv” Giles created the River City Business Association (RBCA), a local business association modeled after the Golden Gate Business Association in San Francisco, as well as similar groups in San Jose, San Diego, Chicago, New York City, and other major U.S. cities. The organization aimed to help local gay and business owners and professionals network and build mutual support. Members met monthly at the Whistle Stop restaurant in Old Sacramento, where they passed around business cards and discussed issues facing them. Giles, who served as president of the association, envisioned RCBA eventually becoming part of a national gay chamber of commerce with connections stretching across the country. Within two months of its founding, 26 people joined the RCBA. Members included lawyers, accountants, restauranteurs, interior decorators, boutique owners, graphic designers, newspaper employees, housekeepers, and other local businesspeople. Members’ names were kept secret upon request to prevent backlash if employers discovered that their workers were members. 393 Giles used his position to publicly speak out against the discrimination that gay businesses and patrons faced,

391 McGough, “Sacramento’s LGBTQ Film Festival Coming to Permanent End.” 392 BENT – LGBTQ Film Festival, Facebook page, October 11, 2023, accessed August 31, 2024, https://www.facebook.com/bentfilmfest.
393 Marguaret Peterson, “’Mom, Guess What?’ Gay Tells of Fear Overcome, Association Started,” Sacramento Bee, 10 July 1979:

C7.

Figure 84. Norvell Giles,
founder of the River City
Business Association (1979).

Source: Sacramento Bee.

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particularly anti-gay attitudes and treatment they received from the Sacramento Police Department.394

Looking to form a group to help lesbians socialize and network, attorney Rosemary Metrailer founded the Sacramento Area Career Women’s Network (SACWN) in 1984. The group was created in response to numerous requests that Metrailer received through her law firm for referrals to lesbians in other professional fields and careers. The group’s 1989 constitution stated that its purpose was to provide “a structure for sharing ideas and resources” to lesbians “of all cultures, ages, physical abilities, and social and economic backgrounds.”395 In meeting this mission, SACWN provided a safe place for lesbian career women to meet socially, do business together, and enjoy educational and recreational events together. With the emergence of other professional networking opportunities in the early 2000s, the organization dissolved in 2007. Over the group’s 23 years of existence, it served hundreds of Sacramento area women and their families and friends and was responsible for the formation of many enduring relationships.396

In 1981, Metrailer was part of the establishment of another support group for gay Sacramento -area professionals. Realizing that many deeply closeted gay men in Sacramento lacked much-needed support networks during the terrifying early days of the AIDS crisis, she and fellow gay attorney and McGeorge School of Law professor Larry Levine, started a professional association for gay and lesbian attorneys and their allies. The group, Sacramento Lawyers for Equality for Gays and Lesbians (SacLegal), was initially envisioned as a safe space for gay and lesbian attorneys to connect and bond.397 By 1996, the group had 60 members, who heard about the group largely through word of mouth.398 SacLegal worked to provide effective legal representation to Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, confront discrimination and defend the legal rights of LGBTQ+ people, and create a network of LGBTQ+ lawyers. SacLegal continues to be active in the Sacramento com munity and is an affiliate of the Sacramento County Bar Association and National LGBTQ Bar Association. 399

In 1989, Kevin Cohee organized a new gay business group called the Business Alliance for Networking Gays (BANG). With the mission to foster an inclusive and prosperous environment for Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ business community, the group provided assistance to local LGBTQ+ business owners and corporate partners through networking opportunities, advocacy, business develop ment, and knowledge sharing. Criticism that the group’s name was too sexually charged led it to change its

394 “Hiring Ban ‘Immature,’” Sacramento Bee, 31 July 1979: B2. 395 “S.A.C.W.N. Inc. Constitution, Policies and Committee Descriptions," 1989, LLACE. 396 Rosemary Metrailer, “Comments on Draft LGBTQ HCS,” July 9, 2024. 397 "The Story of Rosemary Metrailer," Legends of Courage, dir. Dawn Deason, accessed September 25, 2024, https://vimeo.com/legendsofcourage.
398 Ramon Coronado, “Lawyers United to Uphold Gay Rights,” Sacramento Bee, 19 September 1996: B4. 399 “About,” SacLegal, accessed September 25, 2024, https://www.saclegal.org/about_saclegal.

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name to Lesbian and Gay Business Alliance and, by the early 2000s, to the Rainbow Chamber of Commerce. The Rainbow Chamber continues to serve the LGBTQ+ business community of the seven-county Greater Sacramento region.400

Religious & Spiritual Expression Within the LGBTQ+ Community Just like any other community, members of the LGBTQ+ community have sought spiritual fulfillment through religion and other spiritual traditions. However, for much of their existence, LGBTQ+ - identifying individuals have had to hide their identities when worshiping openly and publicly, due to discrimination they often faced from mainline religious congregations and fellowships. Starting in the 1960s, however, some churches began to welcome gay and lesbian individuals into their congregations. For example, Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, known for its progressive teachings and focus on social justice, had a pioneering role in advocating for the LGBTQ+ community at a time when other churches rejected them, providing ministry, social support, and organizing retreats and conferences to educate others about homosexuality. The church formed strong bonds with local homophile groups, with whom the church and became an important partner in advocating for LGBTQ+ rights.

In Sacramento, a similar relationship developed between the Oak Park Methodist Church at 36th Street and Broadway in the Oak Park neighborhood and the local chapter of the homophile group Association for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), founded by Rick Stokes and his partner David Clayton in 1965. Oak Park Methodist was Clayton’s long-time family church and hosted early meetings of the ARC, disguised under the name “David’s group,” until the growing size of the meetings alerted other parishioners to their true purpose. Oak Park Methodist allowed the meetings to continue, as long as attendees refrained from drinking or smoking, and, similar to Glide Memorial Church, held regular church services, educational forums, and dinners, in addition to organizational meetings for ARC. 401 For approximately one year in 1966, ARC also distributed Sacramento’s first gay/lesbian periodical, a monthly newsletter, at bars and other gay-positive venues.402

Sacramento’s first religious congregation dedicated primarily to serving the gay community was the Sacramento Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). Founded in 1971, the Sacramento MCC was an offshoot of the Metropolitan Community Church, first established by Reverand Troy Perry in Los Angeles two years earlier in 1969. The MCC welcomed gay, lesbian, and straight parishioners. 403 The

400 “MS2/Kevin Cohee Collection,” Lavender Library, Archives, and Cultural Exchange; “Sacramento Rainbow Chamber,” Sacramento Rainbow Chamber of Commerce, accessed November 4, 2024, https://rainbowchamber.com/about/about- history/.
401 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 161.
402 Carson Anderson, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments, June 23, 2024. 403 SurveyLA, “LGBT Historic Context Statement,” 49.

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scope of pent up demand for spiritual sustenance
among the lesbian and gay populace was immediately
apparent, and attendance soared, spawning the
establishment of local congregations in other cities in California, starting with San Diego and San Francisco.404 The Sacramento MCC was founded by Sacramento
native Vance Babineau, a young deacon who decided to
establish a congregation in his hometown after serving
at the MCC in San Francisco. The congregation initially met in Babineau’s mother’s living room.405 After hearing Troy Perry preach at his church in San Diego, pastor
Joseph H. Gilbert offered his services to the fledgling Sacramento congregation and became its first pastor. 406 In the spring of 1971, the Sacramento MCC voted to
become a separate church from the San Francisco MCC.

Among the 13 original charter members were Reverend
Gilbert, Reverend Freda Smith, Reverend Jean Hart,
Madeline Reed, Eugene Brockett, and Keith Kimball. 407
After meeting in Reverend Gilbert’s living room for a
time, the congregation rented offices on the second
floor of the Ruhstaller Building at 902 J Street (extant) for one year, before moving to a building at R and 16th
streets, which included a small sanctuary, 10-bedroom
parsonage, and separate building, which they leased to the first Gay Community Center in Sacramento. The congregation welcomed 72 parishioners at Sunday services in 1972 , by which time the Sacramento MCC was one of 26 MCC branches in California. By 1974, the number of MCC branches had grown in more than 70, including branches in Nigeria, Australia, England, and Sweden.408

Reverend Freda Smith, a graduate student at Sacramento State University, was ordained as the first female and lesbian pastor by the national body of the MCC in 1973 and became one of the Sacramento MCC’s pastors the same year. When Reverend Smith joined the congregation, its membership primarily consisted of men, but her presence helped shift membership so that it was

404 SurveyLA, “LGBT Historic Context Statement,” 49-50. 405 "History of the Metropolitan Community Church," undated, private collection of George Raya. 406 David Deas, "Metropolitan Church Preaches, 'God Also Loves Homosexuals,'" Sacramento Bee, 12 February 1972: A12. 407 "History of the Metropolitan Community Church.”
408 Ann Reed, “Gay Church,” Sacramento Bee, 22 September 1974: 29.

Figure 85. Reverend Freda Smith of the
Sacramento MCC (1987). Source: Sacramento
Bee.

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split roughly evenly between men and women within one year. She was also instrumental in helping the Sacramento MCC acquire and relocate to the former Odd Fellow’s Building at 2741 34th Street in the Oak Park neighborhood in 1974.

There, Reverend Smith married gay and lesbian couples who had been together for at least six months and, at the couple’s request, filed the marriage certificate with the Sacramento County Clerk’s office, using a special form designed for heterosexual couples who had been living together and wanted to legitimize their weddings without others finding out. Such certificates were officially recorded by the County but sealed by the clerk’s office to ensure the couple’s privacy. Reverend Smith believed that the church helped gay and lesbian individuals overcome the “heartache, alienation and loneliness which they encounter so often in the gay community .”409 “We aren’t only lesbians, only homosexuals here. We are the children of God,” she preached. “This is the church that God, that love, is building. […] I no longer feel I am wrong. I feel that the people who oppress me are wrong.”410 In 1990, the congregation purchased a former bank building at the opposite end of the block at 3418 Broadway (extant) for a new sanctuary so that they could offer expanded activities and services from its building on 34th Street. Before this could happen, however, the building on 34th Street was destroyed by a fire. Instead, the congregation moved to a church on the closed Mather Air Force Base in 1994, where it remains.411

A local chapter of Dignity, an organization of lesbian and gay Catholics, began in Sacramento in 1975, after local resident Ron Drum attended several Dignity meetings in San Francisco the year before. The pastor at St. Francis Church at 26th and K streets in Midtown encouraged Drum to form a local chapter and offered the church’s social hall for monthly meetings. The first Dignity meeting was held in April 1975, with Drum serving as its first president. According to a pamphlet produced by the group, "Dignity exists to show lesbian and gay Catholics—God loves all people unconditionally."412 Dignity masses, retreats, dinners, and other events were held at St. Francis Church. The local chapter’s membership was much smaller than that of other chapters in California. In 1989, the Sacramento Dignity chapter had 34 members, compared to 245 in San Francisco, 189 in Los Angeles, 171 in San Diego, and 115 in Long Beach. According to Drum, Sacramento Dignity’s “main purpose was always to merge into our Parishes as active and contributing members —This has happened almost miraculously at St. Francis Church with the Franciscans.” Feeling that this purpose had been achieved, the Sacramento Dignity chapter disbanded around 2000.413

409 Ann Reed, “Gay Church.”
410 John Robin Witt, “The Gospel According to Freda Smith,” Sacramento Bee, 17 May 1987: 6. 411 "History of the Metropolitan Community Church.”
412 Dignity pamphlet, undated, private collection of George Raya. 413 Ron Drum, "Dignity History Update," 2005, private collection of George Raya.

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In the decades following the 1960s, several other religious congregations or fellowship s, representing a wide range of denominations and faiths, were established to serve Sacramento’s diverse LGBTQ+ community. The First United Methodist Church at 2100 J Street (extant) hosted early homophile group meetings in the late 1970s and gained a reputation for welcoming the LGBTQ+ community. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 1430 J Street (extant) was led by a gay rector David Myers in the 1980s until his death in 1991. Myers was a member of the Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus, which also held its rehearsals and formal concerts at the church in the mid-1980s.414 By 1987, at least seven gay-specific congregations existed in Sacramento: MCC, Dignity, Affirmation (Methodist), Ahavat Tzion (Jewish), Integrity (Episcopalian), Kinship (Seventh-Day Adventist), Sacramento Family (Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints), Presbyterians Concerned, Lutherans Concerned, and Sierra Oaks New Covenant Christians (Independents).415 By the late 1990s, additional congregations and fellowships that welcomed LGBTQ+ members included the Pioneer Congregation Church at 27th and L streets (extant), CA House, Interfaith Counseling Service, the Sun Holy Communion, the Unitarian Universalist Community Church, the Assembly of Wicca, and the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer in Arden Arcade.416

Gay Pride Parades
The gay liberation movement’s messaging and mission included instilling the community with a sense of pride, rather than loathing, toward their authentic selves and their sexual orientations. On the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots in June 1970, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade was held in New York City, marking the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The event inspired gay pride parades and celebrations that occur every June across the country, including Sacramento.417

Sacramento’s first gay pride parade took place on June 17, 1979. The parade’s theme was “It’s About Time,” and was billed as a celebration of how far the community had come while recognizing how far they had yet to go to achieve equality. The march started at the Way Station at 14th and I streets, traveled down I Street to 7th Street, from 7th to J Street, east on J Street to 11th Street, and ended with a rally at Capitol Park on the north steps of the Capitol. An estimated 800 to 1,000 people participated in the march. Keynote speakers at the rally included Leonard Matlovich —then a candidate for San Francisco County Supervisor who as a gay federal employee had successfully sued the government for anti-gay employment discrimination—and Theresa Corrigan of the Sacramento Rape Crisis Center, a notable manifestation of the Women’s Movement during the 1970s.

414 Dennis Mangers, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 30, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 415 Witt, “The Gospel According to Freda Smith.”
416 Claussen, “Lavender Heights,” 149.
417 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 81.

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Representatives of various gay and ally organizations also spoke, including Sacramento Human Rights Commissioner Gary Miller, Mom…Guess What…! associated editor James Graham, River City MCC Reverend Freda Smith, Audrey Merz of the National Organization for Women, and Cherie Gordon and Liz Fisk of Le Theatre Lesbien. Free buffet dinners at the Topper, Upstairs/Down stairs, and Bo Jangles followed the rally. Bo Jangles also held a “victory dance.”418 A second gay pride parade was held the following June. The event attracted 1,000 marchers. In the lead -up to the event, Mayor Phil Isenberg declared the week of June 15-22, 1980 as Sacramento Gay Pride Parade.419

Figure 86. Flyer for Sacramento's first gay pride parade (1979). Source: Mom…Guess What! Collection, Center for Sacramento History.

418 Mom…Guess What…!, July 1979.
419 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 173-174.

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The annual Pride parades were accompanied by a festival of food, drink, crafts, music, and other entertainment to celebrate and uplift the LGBTQ+ community. Originally titled the Lambda Freedom Fair and sponsored by the Lambda Community Center, the event w as initially held at McKinley Park in East Sacramento before moving to Southside Park under a new name, the Freedom Fair, in 1998.

At the time, the River City Metropolitan Community Church took over sponsorship of the event. The annual fair attracted thousands of people from across Northern California. 420

Figure 87. Various photographs from Sacramento’s first gay pride march in 1979, including (clockwise from upper left): a banner with the parade’s theme, members of an interracial lesbian motorcycle group, members of the Parking Lot’s baseball team, and marchers with out gay dentist Dr. Art Katz. Source: Mom…Guess What…!, July 1979.

420 “7,000 Attend Gay Picnic at McKinley Park,” Sacramento Bee, 16 June 1991: B2; “New Location for Gay Fair,” Sacramento Bee, 9 May 1998: B2.

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Figure 88. Float for the Wreck Room at the 3rd annual Pride parade in 1981. Source: Frank Stork for the Sacramento Bee.

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Figure 89. Map of LGBTQ+ spaces in the Sacramento area, ca. 1940-2000. Green markers denote locations that were active from the 1940s-1960s. Purple markers denote locations that were active from the 1970s to the 1990s. Source: Google Earth, edited by Page & Turnbull.

04 AIDS and the Sacramento
LGBTQ+ Community’s Response
1981-1996
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Images on chapter cover (from left to right):

1. Participants in the die-in at the State Capitol comfort an AIDS victim (1988). Source: Center for Sacramento History.

2. Dr. Harvey Thompson (left) and Dr. Sandy Pomerantz (right) in 1983. Source: Sacramento Bee.

3. Demonstrators at a candlelight march at the State Capitol in memory of AIDS victims (1989).

Source: Center for Sacramento History.

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THEME 4: AIDS & THE SACRAMENTO LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY’S RESPONSE, 1981-1996
Federal and Global Context
The AIDS outbreak in the 1980s and the subsequent global pandemic was a watershed moment in history and led to profound loss, stigmatization, and alienation for those within the LGBTQ+ community. In 1981, a rare cancer-like illness was detected in California and New York City among otherwise young, healthy men, many of whom were gay. In the earliest years, the disease had a very high mortality rate, leading to panic within the general public and alienation of patients for fear of the spread of the disease. Despite the emergence of cases amongst women and other heterosexual patients, the media began to perpetuate rhetoric stigmatizing the gay male community, calling the illness the “gay disease,” “gay cancer,” “gay plague,” or “gay-related immune deficiency” (GRID).421 It was not until August 1982 that the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) began calling the disease “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,” or AIDS; however, misconceptions and associations of the disease with the gay community persisted. AIDS is a disease caused by the spread of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and is defined as an advanced stage of the HIV infection. Regardless of their sexual orientations, those infected with HIV/AIDS, including numerous healthcare workers who treated infected patients, were often ostracized by friends, family, and employers due to the intense stigmatization of the disease.

Members of the LGBTQ+ community quickly and harshly discovered how little support they had from within mainstream society and political institutions to help their sick and dying loved ones.

Because same-sex marriages were not yet legal, gay couples were not able to extend health benefits provided by their employers to their partners. The mainstream media ignored or only provided minimal coverage of AIDS in the early years, and only fractional funding was initially provided to study the disease. At the federal level under President Ronald Reagan (in office from 1981 to 1989), there was little to no response to the public health crisis and minimal funding for research or aid that would normally assist with a national emergency and global pandemic of this scale.422 In January 1983, 18 months after the first cases were reported, a total of $2.2 million had been given to the CDC to study AIDS, even though more people had died of AIDS during that short time period than Legionella and toxic shock syndrome, which received seven times the amount of research funding.423 As a result, the LGBTQ+ community was largely left to navigate the horrors of AIDS, provide care for victims, and advocate for funding to research the causes and treatments for the disease on its own.424 In the following decade, numerous organizations were founded across the

421 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 86.
422 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 88.
423 Don Stanley, “AIDS Nightmare: Puzzling, Deadly – And Spreading,” Sacramento Bee, 4 January 1983: A18-A19. 424 Conversation between Liz [last name redacted] and Clare Flynn, April 26, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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United States to provide education, resources, and care to the LGBTQ+ community for those who were sick and dying.425

Within the country’s largest cities—including San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles— bathhouses where many gay men congregated were forced to close in an attempt to curb the spread of the disease. After such action, many members of the gay community saw the closures as a misguided solution and an infringement on their civic freedoms.426 The death of movie star Rock Hudson from AIDS in 1985 was a pivotal moment for many Americans outside of the gay community to understand the breadth and impacts of the epidemic. Hudson was a closeted gay man, and his death marked the first of a major American celebrity to die from an AIDS-related illness. President Reagan, who was a fellow actor and close friend of Hudson, acknowledged the HIV/AIDS epidemic publicly for the first time upon Hudson’s death. The statement was deemed long overdue, and the federal government faced immense criticism throughout the 1980s and early 1990s from the LGBTQ+ community and allied communities for its perceived failure to provide timely and adequate resources for lifesaving research and medical coverage.427 Over the next decade, case numbers rose exponentially. By 1990, over 31,000 people had died of AIDS. 428

In 1986, the landmark Supreme Court case Bowers v. Hardwick upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia state sodomy law that criminalized oral and anal sex in private between both same -sex and heterosexual partners. This case was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court case Lawrence v.

Texas in 2003, however during the 1980s the Bowers v. Hardwick ruling, coupled with overall federal inaction, contributed to further radicalization of rhetoric about AIDS within the media and increased social castigation of HIV positive/AIDS patients.429 To combat these larger political setbacks and lack of government assistance, many gay and lesbian communities united in grassroots efforts in the fight against AIDS. In 1987, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was founded in New York City and played an important role in nationwide LGBTQ+ mutual support and advocacy efforts. ACT UP staged protests and “die-ins” to draw attention to the AIDS crisis, including its publicized debut at the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Washington, D.C.430

425 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 87.
426 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 87–88.
427 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 88.
428 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 86.
429 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 88.
430 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History, 89.

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AIDS Advocacy in Sacramento
While Sacramento had a significantly smaller and more culturally conservative gay population than the larger cities of San Francisco or Los Angeles, the AIDS epidemic still took a grim toll on Sacramento’s gay community and local resources. Prior to 1982, most of the reported cases were clustered in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and coverage of the topic in Mom…Guess What…! shows that the perception of the disease remained at a distance. The perception within Sacramento’s gay community became more heightened after the summer of 1982 when the CDC formally named the virus the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the disease the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), and after the first member of Sacramento’s gay community died later in 1982 with symptoms mirroring people infected in other large cities.431

Figure 90. Dr. Sandy Pomerantz comforts a patient with AIDS at their home in Sacramento (1987). Source:

Sacramento Bee.

431 Amber Elena Piona, “How To Create Policy in an Epidemic: Aids in Sacramento, 1981-1989” (California State University, Sacramento, 2010), 28-29, Sacramento State University Library, https://scholars.csus.edu/esploro/outputs/99257830893001671/filesAndLinks?index=0.

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From 1981 to 1985, the spread of HIV and resulting AIDS cases was managed through community advocacy within Sacramento’s gay and lesbian populations, who took an overtly internalized and compassionate approach to care, rather than treating patients as a threat or dangerous, as was common by the media and outsiders. 432 At the forefront of local efforts were Dr. Harvey Thompson and Dr. Sandy Pomerantz, two Sacramento-based internal medicine physicians. Both members of the gay community themselves, Dr. Thompson and Dr. Pomerantz had mostly gay, male patients and focused their work on the treatment of AIDS. Dr. Thompson opened a medical clinic, which mostly served gay men, at 912A 21st Street (extant) in 1978. Dr. Pomerantz was a recent transplant from San Francisco and teamed up with Dr. Thompson to serve Sacramento’s gay community.433 Dr.

Pomerantz authored a regular column that focused on health issues facing the gay community in Mom…Guess What…?!. His August 1981 column “Gay Medical Symposium: Two New Gay Illnesses” was the first mention in Sacramento of the disease that became known as AIDS.434 The Sacramento Bee did not step up its coverage until 1983.

In the fall of 1982, shortly after diagnosis of the first reported case of AIDS in Sacramento, Dr.

Thompson and Dr. Pomerantz met with other members of the gay and lesbian communities to brainstorm methods to manage the further spread of AIDS within their community. The meeting held by Pomerantz and Thompson in 1982 was attended by Stanley “Stan” Hadden, a senior administrative aide to Senate President Pro Tempore David Roberti, and Dr. Elizabeth Harrison, a psychiatrist and contributor to Mom…Guess What…!. The meeting produced the early framework of what would become the AIDS/Kaposi’s Sarcoma Foundation, later changed to the Sacramento AIDS Foundation (SAF). Inspired by (and originally affiliated with) the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, SAF officially began operation at 2115 J Street (extant) in the spring of 1983 and provided educational advocacy along with emotional and hands-on support to patients through a service called “Hand to Hand.” 435 SAF was a volunteer-run, community-funded organization. Much of the initial funding came from gay bars, including $4,000 from the Wreck Room, which was used to get the organization started. Funding for much of the first year of operations came from the Sacramento County Public Health Department and various fundraisers and donations.436 SAF worked in affiliation with the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Medical Center, where Dr. Thompson served as an assistant clinical professor of medicine and family practice. Later addresses that housed the clinic included 1900 K Street (extant) from 1986 to 1994 and 1330 21st Street (extant). Other key leaders of SAF were Dr. Jerome Lackner and Dr. Neil Flynn, head of the UC Davis AIDS Clinic.

432 Piona, “How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 2–3.
433 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 29.
434 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 24.
435 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 29.
436 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 29-30.

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Figure 91. Dr. Harvey Thompson (left) and Dr. Sandy Pomerantz (right) in 1983. Source: Sacramento Bee.

Dr. Thompson and Dr. Pomerantz held meetings with the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) at the Carmichael Presbyterian Church at 56465 Marconi Avenue and a free public forum for members of the gay community called “AIDS: Implications for Lifestyles” at the auditorium of Sutter General Hospital at 2820 L Street (extant) in January 1983. By this time, studies had begun to indicate that AIDS was sexually transmitted, and Dr. Pomerantz was determined to relay this essential information to the gay community in the hope of slowing the spread of the disease.437 Dr.

Pomerantz’s column in Mom…Guess What…!, along with others in the Sacramento Bee, highlighted the outreach that was done amongst Sacramento’s medical professionals to educate the gay community regarding sexual health and information on the HIV virus, a vital service at a time when little information was known about HIV and AIDS.438 Dr. Thompson’s column in Mom…Guess What…! was

437 Stanley, “AIDS Nightmare: Puzzling, Deadly – And Spreading.” 438 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 3.

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eventually syndicated and distributed nationwide to the gay and lesbian press. Throughout this time, SAF played an integral and often intersectional role in Sacramento’s gay community, serving as a fundraiser for important medical and educational services and advocating for policy changes, among other capacities. Dr. Thompson died of AIDS in 1986 at the age of 45. Dr. Pomerantz died of AIDS in 1993 at the age of 44.439

Such efforts by the gay medical community were aided by some in the religious and spiritual community. Several SAF volunteers came from St. Francis Catholic Church, which hosted the Sacramento chapter of the gay Catholic organization Dignity and was located in Midtown, where many gay residents lived, and a few blocks away from Sutter General Hospital, where many AIDS patients were treated. Franciscan Brother Angelo (last name unknown) also assisted patients at the hospital.440

As residents of California’s capital city, several
members of Sacramento’s gay community were
directly involved with policymaking and
specifically with the drafting of California state
legislation that provided funding for AIDS
research and treatment. Across the United
States, there were five main focuses of AIDS
policy: domestic HIV/AIDS funding, U.S. foreign
policy in response to international AIDS,
preventative education, government regulation
of blood products, and AIDS drug testing. 441
Along with his work through SAF, Stan Hadden,
in his role as legislative aide to Senate President
Pro Tempore David Roberti, helped to draft the
legislation that established funding for most of
the programs carried out by the state Office of
AIDS. Hadden is also credited with the passage
of a California Senate bill that established the California AIDS Advisory Committee in 1983 and legislation in 1985 that encouraged a coordinated approach to local AIDS programs and services.

Hadden died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 41.442 Following his death, Stan’s efforts were continued by his life partner, Ken Topper.

439 Robert D. Davila, “Noted AIDS Physician Dead at 44,” Sacramento Bee, 6 October 1993: B1. 440 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 4: Linda Birner and Elizabeth Harrison.” 441 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 19.
442 “Stan Hadden; Roberti Aide Influenced AIDS Policy,” Los Angeles Times, December 26, 1991.

Figure 92. Stan Hadden (1991). Source: Sacramento
Bee.

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Another prominent local activist who worked to address the AIDS crisis at the state level was Laurie McBride. Born in Hollywood, McBride moved to Sacramento as a child and
graduated from McClatchy High School and then University of the Pacific in Stockton. As a young woman, she moved to San Francisco and lived there for 20 years, where she
opened a successful print and graphic design business.

There, she began to hone her political skills in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, serving as the Northern California co- chair for the campaign that defeated Propositions 64 and 69, which called for quarantining people with AIDS. She also co-chaired the state’s Mobilization Against AIDS, an
experience that introduced her to lobbying at the State Capitol in Sacramento for AIDS funding and policy issues.

Building upon that experience, she accepted a position to serve as the executive director of the Lobby for Individual Freedom and Equality (LIFE) in 1990 and moved back to Sacramento. At the time, LIFE was California’s only lobby dedicated exclusively to HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ health and civil rights issues.

During her tenure with LIFE, McBride worked tirelessly to defend the rights of LGBTQ+ Californians, bringing together voices from across the political spectrum—including the AIDS patient advocacy group, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP), Log Cabin Republicans, and gay doctors and lawyers—to develop a unified message to support their positions.443 Among her wide-ranging work to promote LGBTQ+ rights, she played a pivotal role in defeating other legislation, in addition to Propositions 64 and 69, that would have stripped away the rights of those with HIV/AIDS, including policies that would have made having sex with someone with HIV a felony. She passed away in 2020.444 Additional details about McBride’s accomplishments as a political activist are included in Chapter 5: Political Activism and the Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights.

As the AIDs crisis worsened through the 1980s, local interest groups from various sides came together to address AIDS in Sacramento. In response to pressure from the LGBTQ+ community and concern from the public and medical community about the growing number of AIDS cases among low-risk groups, Mayor Anne Rudin organized the Mayor’s AIDS Task Force in December 1985. The idea for the task force came from a letter Hadden sent to Mayor Rudin, suggesting the creation of a

443 “Laurie McBride,” Legends of Courage, dir. Dawn Deason, 2017, accessed July 19, 2024, https://vimeo.com/244891172. 444 “Laurie McBride,” Sacramento Bee, 20 December 2020: C8.

Figure 93. Laurie McBride (undated).

Source: “Laurie McBride,” Sacramento Bee,
20 December 2020.

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task force led by the combined governments of the City of Sacramento and Sacramento County to help coordinate responses and services for AIDS, which up to that point were disorganized and scattered amongst various groups and organizations. The task force’s mission was two-fold: to address the LGBTQ+ community’s demand for improved treatment services for those with AIDS while also addressing the broader public’s desire for better prevention and containment of the disease.445 Members consisted primarily of doctors, public health officials, and policy makers. Some of these people, such as Hadden and SAF executive director Kate Guzman, also represented the gay community. The task force recommended a four-prong response, consisting of understanding how the disease was transmitted, preventing its spread, and treating and preventing discrimination against those with AIDS. Although most of the recommendations were not funded or adopted, the task force resulted in the adoption of an AIDS anti-discrimination ordinance, similar to Sacramento’s anti-discrimination ordinance that had been adopted in 1986, and organization of a needle exchange program to reduce transmission among IV drug users.

Lacking funding at the local level to address the need for increased treatment and care services, in March 1988, Mayor Rudin spoke at the Hearing of Western States Response in San Francisco, part of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, to request federal and state funding for a regional AIDS care center. That center, the Center for AIDS Research and Education Services (CARES), opened at 2710 Capitol Avenue (now the site of The Sophia/B Street Theater) in 1989.446 Susan Strong was its executive director during these early years. In 1996, the center moved from its cramped original location to a vacant bank building at 1500 21st Street (extant).447 For more than two decades, CARES devoted its efforts primarily to addressing the causes and treatment of AIDS. The center used a variety of programs that combined science and clinical treatment with social justice—including helping patients enroll in research studies to improve treatment of the disease, advocating for needle exchange programs, and working to heal the rift between gay men and the religious community—to holistically combat the AIDS crisis at the individual and community level .448

The HIV/AIDS epidemic exacted an unfathomable physical, emotional, psychological, cultural, and political toll on the LGBTQ+ community. Although the disease was most often associated with the young, white gay male population in the media, the broader African American/Black and Latinx communities were among the hardest hit, with disproportionate impacts toward LGBTQ+ individuals within those ethnicities. In 1986, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reported that African Americans/Blacks accounted for 51% of all AIDS cases among women and were more than three

445 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 5.
446 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 80.
447 Cynthia Hubert, “Former Midtown Bank Turning into AIDS Center,” Sacramento Bee, 8 December 1996: B3. 448 “History,” One Community Health, accessed September 25, 2024, https://onecommunityhealth.com/about/history/.

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times likely to contract the disease than white people.449 In 1988, the CDC reported that African American/Blacks accounted for 70% of all AIDS cases among heterosexual men, 70% of those in women, and 75% of those in children.450 Historically, the majority of cases in which women have contracted AIDS resulted from unprotected sex with a male partner, although cases also occurred within lesbian communities and in non-sexual scenarios involving blood transfusions, drug or other needle injections.451

Despite these disparities, very little HIV prevention efforts occurred in Sacramento for minority communities. The Women’s Civic Improvement Club is credited with conducting some of the first HIV prevention efforts in Sacramento that targeted the African American/Black community. However, it was not until 1999 when Clarmundo Sullivan, a local Afro-Latinx gay man, founded Golden Rule Services (GRS), that culturally competent HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and outreach interventions were created "by" and "for" local African American/Black gay and bisexual men. The organization originally operated out of Sullivan’s garage before relocating to a building at 4433 Florin Road (extant).452 Golden Rule Services conducted Sacramento County’s first needs assessment for African American/Black gay and bisexual men to better understand the challenges they faced and what they wanted in an HIV prevention intervention. The needs assessment found that they experienced an alarming rate of social isolation, exclusion, invisibility, fetishization, racism, and discrimination--all risk factors that contributed to their elevated risk of HIV infection. In response, Golden Rule Services created the Men's Soul Food Project, the first African American/Black adult gay and bisexual men's HIV prevention intervention in Sacramento. Because young adult African American/Black gay and bisexual men wanted a service that addressed their unique needs, Golden Rule Services created the Son-Shine Project. In addition to home- grown HIV prevention services, GRS also conducted street and bar outreach, condom distribution, and HIV information tabling at LGBTQ+ events. GRS has evolved from a small needs assessment program to becoming Sacramento's first and only BIPOC LGBTQ+ HIV service organization in Sacramento that provides a variety of free, trauma-informed, and culturally competent services, including rapid HIV and HCV testing, three-site STD testing, PrEP and DoxyPEP navigation, and non-medical case management for people living with HIV/AIDS. GRS has gone from being called the little "Black gay organization in Oak Park" in the early 2000s to now being a respected and trailblazing BIPOC LGBTQ+ HIV service organization by community members. Mr. Sullivan is affectionately know as the "Black Gay Godfather."453

449 Center for Disease Control, “30 Years of HIV in African American Communities: A Timeline,” accessed November 8, 2024, https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/26102.
450 Richard M. Selik, Kenneth G. Castro, and Marguerite Pappaioanou, “Distribution of AIDS Cases, by Racial/Ethnic Group and Exposure Category, United States, June 1, 1981-July 4, 1988,” Center for Disease Control, July 1, 1988. 451 HIV and Women (Based on Assigned Sex at Birth). “HIV and Specific Populations,” December 11, 2023. https://hivinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv/fact-sheets/hiv-and-women-based-assigned-sex-birth. 452 Clarmundo Sullivan, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments, June 9, 2024. 453 Clarmundo Sullivan, “Golden Rule Services Narrative,” email to Henry Feuss, November 7, 2024.

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Figure 94. Golden Rule Services founder Clarmundo Sullivan tabling at 2001 Sacramento Pride to share HIV information and invite African American gay and bisexual men to the Men’s Soul Food Project (2001). Courtesy of Clarmundo Sullivan.

Hospices were set up by community members to care for those dying of HIV. Board members of the local non-profit Loaves and Fishes, which was dedicated to helping people experiencing homelessness in Sacramento, became invested in the AIDS crisis when they began to observe the growing number of people with AIDS who were becoming homeless after they were rejected by their families and friends and lost their homes. Loaves and Fishes founders Chris and Dan Delany, who were members of the Catholic Worker movement, donated a Victorian house at 619 12 th Street (extant) to serve as a hospice residence for AIDS patients. Donations from local businesses and organizations were used to renovate the house. The largest donor was the Sierra Foundation, which contributed $30,000 to the cause. The hospice, called Hope House, opened in 1987 with a prayer service led by local religious leaders, including Bishop Francis A. Quinn of the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, Rabbi Kalman Dubov of Congregation beth Shalom, Reverend Freda Smith of the River City MCC, and Reverend Kent McNair of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California. The house could accommodate 12 people in private rooms that were decorated to feel like home, rather than like a hospital or medical facility. At the time of its opening, the media was asked not to publish the

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address or photos of the building because of stigma against people with AIDS. 454 In 1989, actress and activist Jane Fonda visited Hope House and hosted a benefit to raise funds for Hope House and the Sacramento AIDS Foundation.455 In 1995, another residential hospice, Avalon House, opened in the Carmichael area. It was operated by the AIDS Housing Alliance and provided comfortable private rooms for six people. Residents were referred to Avalon House by the Sacramento AIDS Foundation, which also provided training for volunteers to assist residents. 456

The religious community stepped up in other ways as well. In the mid-1980s, the Bishop’s Commission on AIDS was developed by the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California . A workshop was held at St. Paul’s Church at 1430 J Street (extant), which was known for embracing the gay community, to address the spiritual support of persons with AIDS and how the church could advocate for health care and against discrimination. 457

The loss of a large portion of a generation of Sacramento’s gay community and many of the most prominent leaders took a long-lasting toll on the community. Some community members remembered that the annual Pride parades, which had previously been occasions of joyful outpouring, began to feel like funeral processions, and they stopped attending. 458 After growing rapidly after its founding, the membership of the Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus shrank rapidly as a large proportion of its members were killed by AIDS. People who attended their performances during the peak of the AIDS epidemic remembered that with every performance, it seemed like the size of the choir was cut in half.459 Mom…Guess What…! provided an essential public service by publishing the obituaries of those who had died of AIDS, creating a record of the people who had been lost and a comforting space for the community to openly and collectively grieve.460 Sonya Cox became the newspaper’s HIV/AIDS editor from 1986 until the newspaper ceased publication in 2009.

Cox wrote an “HIV Newswire” column for the newspaper and created an “In Loving Memory” column in early 1993. The June 1993 column contained six names. By 2009, the annual list contained over 1,000 names, most of which consisted of those who had died from HIV in the Sacramento community.461

By the mid-1980s, frustrations at both a local and national scale had mounted around the lack of adequate government response to providing healthcare, support, and research. Despite the growing

454 Mark Glover, "Home for AIDS Patients Opens," Sacramento Bee, 1 December 1987: B3. 455 ‘Fonda Benefit,” Sacramento Bee, 19 January 1989: 196. 456 Ronald Javor, “Agencies Offer Affordable Housing to Residents with Special Needs,” Sacramento Bee, 3 August 1996: 2. 457 Dr. Jon Marshack and the Reverend Rik Rasmussen, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments, July 3, 2024. 458 Conversation between Liz [last name redacted] and Clare Flynn, April 26, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 459 Conversation between Tina Reynolds, Clare Flynn, and Henry Feuss, May 22, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 460 “Sacramento Oral History Episode 4: Linda Birner and Elizabeth Harrison.” 461 Matt Burlingame, email correspondence to Clare Flynn, October 17, 2024.

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mortality rate and pressure from the gay community for funding for AIDS research from the State, Governor George Deukmejian repeatedly slashed funding for AIDS, from $3.9 million to $2.9 million in 1984, and from $21.5 million to $4.9 million in 1985. The lack of support reflected the general public’s false perception that AIDS was limited to a small sector of the population and was restricted to the gay community.462

Discrimination and harassment of the gay community
increased in response to continuing fear and misinformation about the disease. In 1985, human rights activist Cleve Jones, recently diagnosed as HIV positive and then living in
Sacramento while working as a lobbyist, was stabbed in the back and called a “faggot” while walking on H Street near 19 th Street in downtown Sacramento.463 While recovering in
Sacramento, Jones worked to develop a large-scale, tangible memorial to bring greater attention to the scale of lives lost to AIDS. The concept for the memorial was inspired by events at a 1985 march in San Francisco in remembrance of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Jones asked
marchers to write on cardboard placards the names of friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS and tape them on the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. The resulting display looked like a patchwork quilt.

This event sparked Jones and his friends to create the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, a quilt composed of human-sized cloth panels contributed by people from across the United States in remembrance of those who had been lost to AIDS. The quilt was first displayed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. at the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987. At the time, it included nearly 2,000 panels and spanned approximately two football fields. 464 Approximately 200 delegates from Sacramento attended the march to protest the government’s inaction on AIDS. 465 Panels contributed by Sacramento residents included memorials to Dr. Harvey Thompson; Al Adami, a former staff member of the Sacramento AIDS Foundation; and Randy Hindman, a bartender at the Mercantile Saloon.466 The response to the quilt led to a four-month national tour of the quilt in 20 cities across

462 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 39.
463 Judy Tachibana, “Activist’s Knifing Called Part of Anti-Gay Trend,” Sacramento Bee, 31 May 1986: A1. 464 “The History of the Quilt,” National AIDS Memorial, accessed October 7, 2024, https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt-history. 465 Ernie Brown, “Views from River City,” Patlar Gazette, November 1987. 466 Gretchen Kell, “Sewing Goodbye to AIDS Fallen,” Sacramento Bee, 31 August, 1987: A1.

Figure 95. AIDS quilt founder and
activist Cleve Jones recovering after
being stabbed in downtown
Sacramento (1986). Source: Leilani Hu
for the Sacramento Bee.

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the country. At each stop, the quilt grew as panels from local residents were added. By 2020, the quilt included approximately 50,000 panels containing nearly 110,000 names. 467

In 1986, a local chapter of ACT-UP formed in Sacramento.468 With frustrations growing to a boil, in May 1988, 500 people staged a "die-in" on the State Capitol steps in memory of 5,000 AIDS victims and demanded increased funding for AIDS research and treatments. A second die-in, protesting state budget cuts for AIDS funding and social services, was held in July 1990.469 They also called for an end to discrimination based on sexual orientation and legislation prohibiting discrimination against people with AIDS.470

Figure 96. Participants in the die-in at the State
Capitol comfort an AIDS victim (1988). Source:

Center for Sacramento History.

Figure 97. Demonstrators at a candlelight march at the
State Capitol in memory of AIDS victims (1989). Source:

Center for Sacramento History.

Federal AIDS funding increased under the administration of President Bill Clinton, though the majority of this funding went toward paying for the high cost of treatments, leaving those with low

467 “The History of the Quilt,” National AIDS Memorial. 468 Arturo Jackson III, “Act-Up Sacramento Active Again,” The Latest Issue, March 1990. 469 “Acting Up Over State Budget Cuts,” The Latest Issue 2, No. 3, July 1990. 470 Piona, "How To Create Policy in an Epidemic," 80.

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incomes with few options for treatment and care. Local residents and service agencies stepped in to assist. Ted Ross, a community organizer and president of the local outreach and television production firm Ross-Campbell, Inc., organized several AIDS benefit concerts in Sacramento that featured major nationally known celebrities to raise money for local AIDS service organiz ations.

These included performances by Barry Manilow at Arco Arena in 1993, Bette Midler also at Arco Arena in 1994, and Michael Feinstein at the Sacramento Community Center Theater (now the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center) in 1996. Proceeds from the concerts benefited local AIDS organizations, including the Sacramento AIDS Foundation, CARES, and Hope House. Manilow’s concert alone raised $160,000.471 In 1995, the Lambda Community Center received grants from Sacramento County to start the Lambda AIDS Project. The program had a staff of approximately five therapists and provided AIDS education and prevention services, as well as mental health services, food vouchers, and rent assistance for roughly 150 HIV-positive people. Facing a loss of its grant funding, the Lambda AIDS project dissolved in 1998. 472

Figure 98. Barry Manilow (left) with Ted Ross (right)
on stage at Arco Arena at the 1993 AIDS benefit
concert. Source: Courtesy of Ted Ross.

Figure 99. Bette Midler (third from left) presenting a
check to organizers of her 1994 AIDS benefit concert,
including Denny Mangers (far left), Ted Ross (far
right), and representatives from benefiting HIV/AIDS
agencies. Source: Courtesy of Ted Ross.

Another vital local program emerged at the same time as the Lambda AIDS Project. In 1995, Sacramento’s Metropolitan Community Church established Breaking Barriers to serve low-income AIDS patients in Sacramento. The program was inspired by a one-day event held at Plaza Park (now Cesar Chavez Plaza) on World AIDS Day in 1994 during which approximately 30 local AIDS agencies offered free AIDS testing to roughly 150 unhoused individuals. Headed by former Lambda AIDS Project director John Rambo and funded in part by the Ryan White Care Act and private donations, Breaking Barriers was the only program of its kind in California at the time, providing transportation for participants to and from medical appointments, errands, and social service agencies; peer

471 Ted Ross, Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project - Public History Collection, October 2024. 472 Robert D. Davila, “Help South for Gay Programs,” Sacramento Bee, 20 February 1998: B1.

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counseling; help with household chores; and companionship for free to those in need. The program relied on a paid staff of only four people and nearly 200 volunteers. One of its principal aims was to reintegrate HIV-positive people, whose diagnosis had cut them off from friends and family, back into society by enabling them to leave their homes and attend social events around the city. 473 The program operated out of an office building at 1722 J Street (extant). Around 2004, Breaking Barriers and Golden Rule Services began a collaboration to provide HIV/AIDS education and prevention services to Sacramento, which became a model for HIV/AIDS service organizations across California during the 2009 State HIV/AIDS budget cuts. Faced with declining funds, Breaking Barriers closed its doors in 2014.474

In 1996, the tides in the war against AIDS began to ebb. That year, several important medical treatments were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) , starting with the first home testing and collection kit in May, followed by the first viral load test that could measure the level of HIV in the blood and the first non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) drug in June. Introduction of the first NNRTI drug was a major turning point in the fight against AIDS, as it gave patients a chance to survive the disease for the first time and dramatically decreased death rates. After this, the first substantial decline in AIDS deaths occurred in the United States, which fell by 47 percent compared to the previous year.475 The LGBTQ+ community’s advocacy led to HIV and AIDS drugs being approved by the CDC faster than the usual timeline. The precedent set by the AIDS epidemic became integral in the accelerated approval of COVID-19 vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.476

As the treatment and understanding of AIDS progressed and diagnosis shifted from being a death sentence to a chronic disease that a person could live with, local community responses and AIDS organizations evolved. CARES expanded its services to address all health issues affecting the Sacramento community and, following the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, became a primary healthcare provider for all in need of care. Reflecting its broadened mission, CARES was renamed One Community Health in 2017 and continues to serve the Sacramento community. 477

473 Matt Burlingame-Couk, “The Time is Now for Breaking Barriers,” Mom Guess What, 1 July 1997: 12; Rebecca Nolan, “Agency Strives to Open Doors for Ill Clients,” Sacramento Bee, 23 January 1997: 1, 11. 474 Tia Ewing, “Sacramento HIV/AIDS Nonprofit Breaking Barriers Closing its Doors,” Fox 40 News, 3 November 2014, accessed October 14, 2024, https://fox40.com/news/local-news/sacramento-hivaids-nonprofit-breaking-barriers-closing-its-doors/. 475 HIV.gov, “A Timeline of HIV and AIDS,” accessed May 3, 2024, https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/history/hiv-and-aids- timeline#year-1982; “Golden Rule Services on the Closing of Breaking Barriers,” Golden Rule Services Press Release, 26 November 2014.
476 Thomas Calder et al., “Leveraging Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic for HIV,” Communications Medicine 2 (2022), accessed May 21, 2023, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9423691. 477 “History,” One Community Health, accessed September 25, 2024, https://onecommunityhealth.com/about/history/.

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More than any other event prior to the 1980s and 1990s, the AIDS epidemic united Sacramento’s previously fractured LGBTQ+ community and mobilized it to fight for equal rights to protect itself from discrimination and provide essential support, care, and services to its loved ones. The organizations, strategies, and leaders that were forged during the crisis helped pave the way for the progress that was achieved in the following decades and continues to reverberate into the present- day.

05Political Activism and the
Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights
in California’s State Capital
1969-2000
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Images on chapter cover (from left to right):

1. Members of the board of directors of the Gay Studies Program at CSUS, including Darby Malone, Joe Aiello, and Dr. Marty Rogers (1972). Source: “Nation’s First? Gay Studies Program Formed,” The Advocate, August 16, 1972: 9.

2. Marchers at the 1980 March on Sacramento for Gay and Lesbian Rights (1980). Source: Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Jonna Ramey Collection.

3. George Raya (ca. early 1970s). Source: ONE Archives at USC Libraries.

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THEME 5. POLITICAL ACTIVISM & THE FIGHT FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS IN CALIFORNIA’S STATE CAPITAL, 1969-2000
As discussed under earlier themes in this document, in the late 1960s, a potent mix of forces and the coming-of-age of the Baby Boom generation combined to push back against traditions, norms, policies, and prejudices that had restricted much of America’s diverse population . Out of this mix, a more inclusive society was forged which brought members of the gay, lesbian, and transgender communities out of the closet for the first time.

The Baby Boom generation, the largest generation in the United States in the 20th century, entered their teenage years and early adulthood during the 1960s and 1970s. More Americans than ever attended college, producing a highly educated generation of young people who were exposed to different perspectives and ways of life and were ready to reshape society according to their vision.

Long-festering discontent and frustration with the unequal treatment of African Americans and women, as well as opposition to the Vietnam War, spread across the United States, coalescing in the civil rights movement, women’s movement, and anti-war movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s. All three movements supported and spread the idea that individuals should have control over their own bodies, rather than the government.478

The civil rights movement introduced strategies and methods that were adopted by other activist groups, including sit-ins, protests, marches, and more militant approaches to force political action.

Black activist and gay man Bayard Rustin was a key organizer for Martin Luther King, Jr. and the principal planner for the March on Washington in 1963.479 Greater sexual freedom and the free love hippie movement challenged conventional gender expressions, as young men and women began wearing clothing of either gender or dressed in unisex styles. The approval of the birth control pill in 1960, meanwhile, gave women greater freedom to delay or avoid pregnancy entirely, allowing greater numbers to work outside the home and forge new paths for themselves outside of marriage and motherhood. The pill also undermined traditional thinking that sexual relationships were only for procreation, and therefore, should only occur between a man and a woman. At the same time, escalating opposition to the Vietnam War increased distrust of the government, bubbling up in massive anti-war demonstrations, and encouraged more people to question institutions and figures of authority.480 These powerful, nationwide grassroots activist movements reshaped the history of

478 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 76.
479 Bonnie J. Morris, “A Brief History of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Social Movements,” March 16, 2023, American Psychological Association, accessed April 25, 2024, https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/history. 480 Mark Thompson, Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement (New York City: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 18.

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the United States and laid the foundation for similar activist movements among other minority groups, including the gay, lesbian, and gender non-conforming community.

The visibility and increasingly radical strategies of these movements—such as the Black Power movement and radical feminism—inspired gay, lesbian, and transgender activists to shift away from the polite, assimilationist methods espoused by the earlier homophile groups toward a more direct and confrontational approach in the late 1960s.481 Inspired by the slogan of the Black Power movement “Black is Beautiful,” gay rights activist Frank Kameny coined the slogan, “Gay is Good” at a national convention of homophile organizations in 1968.482

The Gay Liberation Movement in Sacramento
Out of this charged environment emerged the Gay Liberation Movement. Sparked by the police raid of the Stonewall Inn in New York City and following days of protests in June 1969, a new revolution emerged that inspired a more visible and direct era of political organizing. In the aftermath of the Stonewall riots, numerous national gay rights activism groups with a more radical approach formed.

Unlike the cryptic names and missions of the earlier homophile groups, the names of these groups were more explicit and clearly expressed their advocacy for gay, lesbian, and transgender rights, including the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), Gay Activists Alliance, Street Transvestite Action Revolution (STAR), and National Gay Task Force. Inspired by these pioneering national organizations, activists founded local chapters and similar groups in smaller cities across the country.

SOCIETY FOR HOMOSEXUAL FREEDOM & GAY LIBERATION FRONT
In December 1969, a group of teachers and students who were influenced by the Stonewall riots and militant race rights groups, such as Black Panthers and Sacramento’s own Royal Chicano Air Force, formed a gay activist group at Sacramento State College. The group’s first meeting was held at the home of Dr. Martin (“Marty”) Rogers, an assistant professor of psychology who first conceived of forming such a group after helping a similar student group form at UC Davis. 483 Titled the Society for Homosexual Freedom (SHF), the group’s mission was to "further self-understanding among the members and to promote better understanding of homosexuality in the community .”484 In addition to Dr. Rogers, founding members included student body president and executive coordinator Steve Whitmore, executive director Bill Cross, Edgar Carpenter, and George Raya, who was also active in

481 Thompson, Long Road to Freedom, xviii; Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 77. 482 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 77; Megan Gambino, “Remembering Gay Rights Activist Frank Kameny (1925-2011),” Smithsonian Magazine, October 14, 2011, accessed May 22, 2024, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian- institution/remembering-gay-rights-activist-frank-kameny-1925-2011-105187020/. 483 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 163.
484 Pat Jones, "Society for Homosexual Freedom Seeks Recognition on SSC Campus," Sacramento Bee, 1 March 1970: 16.

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the local Chicano movement.485 In
addition to Marty Rogers’ house, early
meetings were also held at the
Alternative Coffee Shop, which was
located in Edgar’s home in Apartment #2
at 2215 P Street (extant).486 SHF created a
speakers bureau to organize speaking
events at local schools and organizations
to increase education and understanding
of homosexuality among the general
population. The group also created a 24-
hour crisis hotline to help gay, lesbian,
and transgender individuals find
professional psychiatric, medical, and
legal aid.487

By March 1970, SHF had approximately
50 members, which included both gay
and heterosexual individuals. With its
membership growing, the group applied
to Sacramento State College for formal
recognition. Although similar groups had
already formed at other college
campuses in California without causing
any serious disturbance to campus life,
college president Otto Butz denied the
request, stating that “California and most
American jurisdictions today hold homosexual behavior to be a crime, and generally an offense of serious dimensions.”488 He substantiated his refusal by citing fears that formal recognition of such a group would “seem to endorse, or to promote homosexual behavior, to attract homosexuals to campus, and to expose minors to homosexual advocacy and practices.” 489

485 Jones, "Society for Homosexual Freedom Seeks Recognition on SSC Campus.” 486 “Judge Orders College to Recognize Gay Club,” The Advocate, No. 55 (March 17-30, 1971), 1, 9. 487 Jones, "Society for Homosexual Freedom Seeks Recognition on SSC Campus.” 488 Letter from Otto Butz to Stephen Whitmore, March 3, 1970, personal collection of George Raya. 489 Letter from Otto Butz to Stephen Whitemore, March 3, 1970, personal collection of George Raya; “George Raya: A Sac State LGBT Pioneer,” April 26, 2023, accessed April 25, 2024, https://hornethistories.com/2023/04/george-raya-a-sac-state-lgbt- pioneer/.

Figure 100. Letter from Sacramento State College president Otto Butz denying recognition of SHF as a recognized student organization (1970). Source: Personal collection of George Raya.

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In response, Raya, who also headed the college’s
committee that approved the charters of student
organizations, filed a lawsuit challenging Butz’s
decision. Sacramento State College alumnus and
attorney John M. Powell represented the case for
SHF. During preparation for the trial, the group
met at the Ruhstaller Building on 9th and J streets.

During the trial, Butz and his replacement, Bernard
Hylink, admitted that SHF's intentions were not
inherently illegal or dangerous and that their
concerns were based on personal suspicions that
the group would become dangerous or encourage
other students to engage in homosexual behavior.

The presiding judge, William Gallagher, decided
that the college could not suppress student free
speech unless there was a clear and present
danger, and since by their own admission they had
denied recognizing SHF out of "mere suspicion,
disgust, unpopularity, and fear of what might
occur," the college had violated the student's rights
by denying SHF. Following the decision, the college
formally recognized SHF in February 1971.

Although SHF was not the first gay student group
in California, the lawsuit set a legal precedent for recognizing other similar student groups around the country and kicked off a particularly active period for organizing among Sacramento’s gay community.490 In April 1971, the SHF, renamed the Gay Liberation Front of Sacramento State College, held a week-long gay symposium in Sacramento, named “The Gay Scene,” that featured prominent national speakers, including Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, MCC founder Reverend Troy Perry, and Daughters of Bilitis founders Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. Later that year, Perry and national gay rights groups such as the GLF organized a march of 300 people from Los Angeles to the State Capitol in Sacramento to bring attention to efforts to pass a bill authored by State Assemblyman Willie Brown, Jr. to end California’s state sodomy laws, which had been languishing in the state legislature.

Although the number of marchers dwindled to around a dozen the day before the planned rally in

490 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 165-166.

Figure 101. Poster for the 1971 “March for Sexual
Freedom.” Source: GLBT Historical Society Museum
Archives.

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Sacramento, approximately 200 people ultimately attended a rally on the steps of the Capitol.491 While the march did not have the immediate effect of pushing Brown’s bill through , it increased public awareness and inspired other marches and activists. A local chapter of the MCC was founded in Sacramento the year after the march.492

Figure 102. Marchers reach Sacramento during the 1971 March for Sexual Freedom. Source: ONE Archives at the USC Libraries.

GAY STUDIES PROGRAM AND CENTER AT SACRAMENTO STATE UNIVERSITY Simultaneously with these events, the women’s liberation movement, which was encouraging women to seek equal rights across the country in the late 1960s and 1970s, inspired students and faculty members at Sacramento State College (renamed California State University, Sacramento, or Sacramento State University, in 1972) to establish women’s studies courses at the university. These

491 Max Miller, "Sex Freedom March," Sacramento Bee, 24 June 1971: 21; “’Gay Power’ Group Treks to Capitol,” Sacramento Bee, 25 June 1971: 26.
492 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 166.

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women’s studies courses became the seed from which a gay studies program developed at Sacramento State University.

In 1970, Patricia One Person (now Matty One Person) published a study titled “Suppression of Sexual Behavior.”493 She and other lesbian-feminists at the university were instrumental in bringing other feminists, including faculty members from San Francisco State University , to speak at the campus about lesbianism. In 1971, the university began to offer its first women’s studies courses.494 The organizers of the new Women’s Studies Program always intended for it to include lesbian topics and courses, though these courses were met with backlash and controversy. By 1972, the university offered 11 women’s studies courses and two extension courses. One course , which was offered as part of the Honors Program, was called “The Lesbian in America” (or alternatively as “The Lesbian in Society”) and was taught by Shannon Hennigan and Patricia One Person. 495 Facing complaints about the inclusion of the word “lesbian” in the course title, its name was changed to the more generic “Female Sexuality” in 1973.496

In December 1972, Sacramento State University’s Cultural Programs, Women’s Studies Program, and local lesbian-feminists organized a three-day event called the “Colloquium on Lesbian Women: Myth and Reality,” which was aimed at increasing awareness of lesbians in society .497 The event featured speeches and presentations by many prominent members of the women's liberation and gay liberation movements, including author Rita Mae Brown, Daughters of Bilitis founders Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons; Sally Gearheart, an out lesbian professor who founded the first women and gender study programs in the country at San Francisco State University; and Le Theatre Lesbien's performed its play, "The Homobrontosaurus," based on a poem by One Person.498 Hundreds of people attended the three-day event.499

The lawsuit against SHF, Gay Symposium, March for Sexual Freedom, Lesbian Colloquium, Women’s Studies Program at Sacramento State University, and other gay events and organizations at the university in the early 1970s increased the visibility of LGBTQ+ people, particularly at Sacramento State University, and provided a vital spark that brought positive momentum to the creation of more lasting change at the university. In 1971, Dr. Marty Rodgers and fellow out gay professor Dr. Charles Moore initiated a Gay Studies Program and Gay Studies Center at Sacramento State University.

493 Matty One Person, ” First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments,” July 5, 2024. 494 “Women’s Studies,” Sacramento Bee, 5 February 1971: C1. 495 “Women’s Studies,” course brochure, 1972, personal collection of Theresa Corrigan; “Gay Studies Course Offerings,” The Hornet, California State University, Sacramento, Spring 1973, courtesy of Theresa Corrigan. 496 Reichard, Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in California, 45. 497 Reichard, Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in California, 60. 498 Matty One Person, ” First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments,” July 5, 2024. 499 Freda Smith, “Lesbianism: ‘Personally Healthy, Politically Necessary,’” The Lesbian Tide, December 1972, 13.

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According to an article published in The Advocate newspaper in August 1971, the university’s Gay Studies Program and Gay Studies Center were believed to be the first college -recognized gay studies program and center in the United States. While other universities had single courses as part of their curriculum by 1970, the Gay Studies Program at Sacramento State University included multiple courses in conjunction with the Gay Studies Center with the goal of establishing at least a minor in gay studies.

Figure 103. The board of directors of the Gay Studies Program at Sacramento State University, including, top row (from left to right), Darby Malone, Judy Williams, and Freda Smith; and bottom row, Joe Aiello, Dr. Marty Rogers, and Edgar Carpenter. Dr. Moore is not pictured. Source: “Nation’s First? Gay Studies Program Formed,” The Advocate, August 16, 1972: 9.

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In developing the program, faculty members Dr. Rogers and Dr. Moore followed the earlier examples set by the university’s Women’s Studies Program and drew support and expertise from the women who led the program. Both programs had begun by initially offering a limited number of unofficial courses to demonstrate student demand, prior to seeking official university approval and recognition. Similarly, the Gay Studies Program at Sacramento State University started with two unofficial courses: “The Image of the Homosexual in Literature,” which was taught by Dr. Moore as part of the English department, and “Homosexuality,” which was taught by Dr. Rogers as part of the psychology department. Both courses were quickly over-enrolled. Cross-pollination with the Women’s Studies Program continued as the Gay Studies Program grew. Hennigan and One Person’s course, “The Lesbian in Society,” which was intended to raise the sexual consciousness of women by dispelling negative stereotypes about lesbians, was offered as part of the university’s Experimental Honors program in 1972.

With the courses proving to be immensely popular among the student body, Moore and Rodgers went before the Student Senate for initial approval in 1972. Approval by the Academic Senate followed soon after.500 The Gay Studies Program was administered by a board of directors, which included Dr. Rogers and Dr. Moore, and five gay students, three of whom were women: Darby Malone, Judy Williams, Freda Smith (later pastor for the Metropolitan Community Church), Joe A iello, and Edgar Carpenter.501 By Spring 1973, the program had doubled in size and offered six courses.

New courses included “Human Sexuality,” taught by Mina Robbins, which explored human sexuality through a physiological, sociological, and psychological lens to dispel confusion surrounding the subject. Another course, “The Homoerotic Tradition in Western Literature,” taught by Marc Bertonasco, focused on homoeroticism as an integral part of the human experience in Greco-Roman and Renaissance literature. “Homosexuality: A Cross-Cultural Approach,” taught by Charles Moore, examined the role and status of homosexual people in different societies and cultures through time, and “Laboratory in Human Relations: Gay-Straight Male Encounter,” taught by Marty Rogers, focused on student interactions and male sexual stereotyping.502 Cherie Gordon, a graduate student, taught a course in the Speech Communications Department, titled “The Rhetoric of Feminism,” which included lesbian content. In 1974, Sacramento State University added a new course titled “Lesbianism and Feminism,” later renamed “A Society of Women,” which bridged between the women’s studies and gay studies programs. The course was taught by recent Sacramento State University graduate, Theresa Corrigan, who had been teaching courses in the English Department.

The course continued to be taught until the mid-1990s, at which time it was the only course that included lesbian content in its description. Corrigan went on to be a leading figure in the found ing

500 “Nation’s First? Gay Studies Program Formed,” The Advocate, August 16, 1972: 9. 501 “Nation’s First? Gay Studies Program Formed.”
502 “Gay Studies Course Offerings,” The Hornet, California State University, Sacramento, Spring 1973, courtesy of Theresa Corrigan.

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and development of the Sacramento Women’s Center and its many women’s service programs and was founder of Lioness Books. She taught courses in women’s studies at Sacramento State University for 30 years until her retirement in 2003. She and Dr. Rogers worked to extend educational opportunities beyond Sacramento State University. After the University of California system was mandated to prevent discrimination against gay and lesbian employees, they created a training program for UC employees called “The Invisible Employee.” At the high school level, they developed a second training program for high school students to address homophobia in their classrooms, called The Invisible Student.503

Outside the classroom, the Gay Studies Program engaged in direct action to demand fair and equal treatment. Shortly after receiving university approval in the fall of 1972, the Gay Studies Program rented the Newman Center, a campus ministry center run by the Catholic Diocese that was located just outside the Sacramento State University campus at 5900 Newman Court (extant), for a Halloween Costume Ball that was to be held in conjunction with the Regional Conference of Gay Organizations. Bishop Alden J. Bell cancelled the contract the day before the event, claiming that gay people were immoral and should not be allowed to dance in the center. In response, approximately 75 members of the Gay Studies Program and conference delegates picketed in front of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in downtown Sacramento before morning Mass, attracting a dispatch of police officers to the peaceful demonstration. The matter was brought before the student senate of Sacramento State University, which passed a resolution that it could break off relations with the Newman Center if it did not treat all campus organizations equally.504

Students continued to lead local gay and lesbian activism in Sacramento over the course of the decade. In 1976, three Sacramento State University students and members of Le Theatre Lesbien— Patricia (Matty) One Person, Cherie Gordon, and Therese Quinn—infiltrated the City’s Bicentennial Parade. Uninvited and unannounced, the trio unfurled a six-foot banner that read, “Lesbians Come Out After 200 Years Of Oppression,” leaving the crowd speechless.505

LGBTQ+ studies offerings at Sacramento State University extended beyond gay and lesbian topics, as well. In 1979, the university’s Gay Peoples Union and Bi-Support Group sponsored a panel on bisexuality at the student union as part of Gay Awareness Week. Dr. Harriet Leve, co-founder of the Bisexual Center in San Francisco, was one of three bisexual speakers on the panel. 506

503 Theresa Corrigan, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments,” July 7, 2024; Theresa Corrigan, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, July 25, 2024.
504 Freda Smith, “Gays Picket Catholic Church,” The Lesbian Tide, December 1972, 9-13. 505 Gordon, “Corrections to Your 2nd Draft of Chapter 3.” 506 “Bisexuality Panel at CSUS,” Mom Guess What…!, 1979.

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Political Advocacy & The Push for Legislative Change

GAY RIGHTS POLICIES & LEGISLATION
Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community was perfectly placed to have an outsized impact on politics on all levels because of its proximity to the State Capitol, where state legislation was debated and passed , and proximity to the powerful and outspoken LGBTQ+ community in San Francisco. The Capitol was the marquee destination for grassroots marches, protests, and rallies, and attracted scores of legislators, lobbyists, and their staff to Sacramento every day. Exposure to political dealings at the state level gave Sacramento residents—many of whom were themselves State employees—greater access to politicians and an up-close education on political tactics that could also be used at the municipal level. Members of the local LGBTQ+ community used these factors to their advantage.

The proximity and exchange of ideas, resources, and expertise between the LGBTQ+ communities of Sacramento and San Francisco also proved to be a powerful tool, with the communities often working hand-in-hand to enact political change. A potent example of the collaboration between people in Sacramento and San Francisco emerged during the years of efforts to repeal California’s state anti-sodomy laws, which had led to arrests and harassment of gay and lesbian people for more than 100 years. The bill to repeal these laws, known as AB 437, was authored and sponsored by State Assemblyman Willie Brown, Jr. of San Francisco. George Raya, who had moved to San Francisco become the state’s first gay rights lobbyist, was hired by the Society for Individual Rights (SIR) to work as the first full-time lobbyist to work on the bill. During this period, Raya survived on food stamps, handouts from family and friends, and occasional payouts from selling his own blood plasma.507 On June 20, 1971, the San Francisco MCC congregation marched from Oakland to the State Capitol for a statewide rally to support the bill’s passage. Rick Stokes, founder of the Association for Responsible Citizenship in Sacramento, who had also subsequently moved to San Francisco, drummed up endorsements. In May 1975, State Senator George Moscone and Assemblyman Brown led efforts to pass AB 437 in both houses of the state legislature , and it was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, Jr. shortly after.508 The repeal of California’s anti-sodomy laws was a sea change in LGBTQ+ history, as it allowed gay people to openly express their sexual identities without fear of arrest or incarceration.

The gay rights movement made similar gains in states across the country in the early 1970s. The first anti-discrimination ordinances were passed in Seattle, Washington, Washington, D.C., and Alfred, New York between 1973 and 1974. In California, Harvey Milk became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the state when he was elected to serve as a member of the San Francisco

507 Pam Strandberg, “Raya: ‘No Game for an Ostrich,’” The Advocate, 23 April 1975: 10. 508 Graves and Watson, “Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco,” 227-228.

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Board of Supervisors in 1977. The same year, the National Gay Task Force (now the National LGBTQ Task Force) was formed and invited to the White House to discuss policy issues that affected the gay community, the first group of openly gay lobbyists to receive such an invitation. Sacramento gay rights activist George Raya was chosen to participate in the task force as a representative from Northern California. The task force’s efforts led to funding for hepatitis research and laid the groundwork for later efforts to study the transmission of AIDS in the early 1980s. 509

As public and government support grew, a corresponding anti-gay movement emerged, led by conservative Christian congregations and the religious right. In response to an anti-discrimination law passed in Dade County, Florida, also in 1977, popular singer and orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant launched a campaign to repeal the law and founded the anti-gay organization Save Our Children. Bryant’s highly publicized campaign initiated a nationwide anti-gay political effort that spread to the California State Capitol. In 1978, conservative California State legislator John Briggs, of Orange County, sponsored Proposition 6, known as the Briggs Initiative, in the California State Senate. The proposition proposed to ban gay people from teaching in the state’s public schools.510 When Linda Birner founded the newspaper Mom...Guess What…! that same year, one of its initial missions was to spread information about the Briggs Initiative to members of the gay community encourage them to take action. The newspaper’s first issue was published on November 1, 1978 and included letters of support from Sacramento Mayor Phillip L. Isenberg and District Three Supervisor Sandra R. Smolley, both of whom were outspoken supporters of the gay community.511 Public support from City officials in the 1970s showed the growing clout of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community as a political force. The Briggs Initiative was defeated on November 7, 1978 by 58 percent of California voters.512 The defeat of the Briggs Initiative was accomplished through a massive grassroots campaign across the entire state and was a watershed moment in LGBTQ+ history and political activism in California.

509 Cody Drabble, “LGBTQ Civil Rights Pioneer George Raya Looks Back on 50 Years of Progress,” Capitol Public Radio, June 27, 2019, accessed May 1, 2024, https://www.capradio.org/news/insight/2019/06/27/lgbtq-civil-rights-pioneer-george-raya-looks- back-on-50-years-of-progress.
510 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBTQ History, 84-85.
511 Mom…Guess What…!, November 1978.
512 “LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History,” Teaching LGBTQ History, accessed May 1, 2024, https://lgbtqhistory.org/lgbt- rights-timeline-in-american-history/.

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Figure 104. George Raya (far right) with members of the National Gay Task Force during their visit to the White House (1977). Source: ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, University of Southern California Libraries

On November 27, 1978, Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, a vocal advocate for gay rights, were assassinated by fellow Supervisor Dan White. In response, Mom…Guess What…! published an “In Memoriam” piece honoring Milk and Moscone. The piece contained the following call to the community to use their loss to fuel increased political advocacy:

We have to accept the loss, but we do not have to accept the attitude that caused the loss – the feeling that violence and bloodshed will solve our problems. Now more than ever, all people must join forces and work to end misunderstanding and prejudice, the conditions that cause and perpetuate them, and the violent, outrageous results of them. A fitting memorial for Harvey Milk and George Moscone will not be any statue or plaque, or even a political or charitable fund. No, their fitting monument will be redoubled efforts to achieve goals they worked for – the triumph

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of human rights and human dignity over ignorance, prejudice, oppression, and hate.513

One event, however, finally pushed the State Legislature and local government to take up the issue of gay rights. In 1981, the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported the first cases of AIDS in the United States. The AIDS epidemic and Sacramento community’s response are covered in greater detail in Chapter 4, but it is important to highlight here the significant role it played in the political landscape and broader fight for equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community. Some of the first debates in the State Legislature around gay issues centered around the issue of providing funding for AIDS research.514 Discrimination prevented LGBTQ+ couples—who were unable to legally marry—from being able to provide health insurance and necessary health care to their sick and dying loved ones.

In some cases, lesbian women married gay men in order to provide them with health insurance. 515 In 1988, Sacramento State Assembly Member Phil Isenberg and State Senator Patrick Johnston (D - Stockton) introduced twin bills address the issue of companies testing individuals for HIV to exclude them from life or health insurance. In a de facto compromise, testing for life insurance was allowed, but the bill allowing testing for health insurance failed in the Sen ate.516 This laid the foundation for further legislation in 1993, when State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco and State Senator Art Torres of Los Angeles successfully sponsored legislation that prohibited insurance companies from cancelling policies for persons with HIV and/or AIDS. 517

Others risked losing their jobs if they contracted the disease. AIDS revealed in the most stark and tragic ways imaginable how little legal protection the LGBTQ+ community had against discrimination in health care, employment, housing, and other sectors of everyday life. It mobilized the LGBTQ+ community to become politically active more than any other previous issue. The AIDS epidemic also set community progress in the battle for equal rights back by a decade, as much of the previous generation of leaders was killed by the disease, and all of the community’s energy and attention was redirected toward fighting the disease and supporting its loved ones and away from efforts to get LGBTQ+ people elected to political office.518

As a result, political support through officially elected channels continued to come from allies at the state and local levels for much of the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to Mayor Isenberg and Supervisor Smolley, another prominent ally who effected positive policy changes for the local LGBTQ+

513 James K. Graham, editor, "In Memoriam," Mom…Guess What…!, December 1978. 514 Stan F. Carlsen, "Out on the Inside: A Case Study of the Political Transformation of the LGBTQ Community in California” (masters thesis), California State University, Sacramento, 2006, 23. 515 Conversation between Liz [last name redacted] and Clare Flynn, April 26, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 516 Alan LoFaso, comments on First Public Draft, email to Clare Flynn, September 219, 2024. 517 Carson Anderson, “Comments on Draft LGBTQ HCS,” July 9, 2024. 518 Carlsen, "Out on the Inside: A Case Study of the Political Transformation of the LGBTQ Community in California,” 27-30.

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community was Anne Rudin. A registered nurse by profession, Rudin was elected to City Council in 1971. She became motivated to publicly express her support for gay rights following the passage of the national Equal Rights Amendment in 1972 and subsequently earned a reputation as a vocal advocate for gay rights over the course of her career. In 1983, she ran for election to become the city’s mayor. Rudin was endorsed by Mom…Guess What…!. She won the election and served three terms, stepping down in 1992. 519 In 1986, Mayor Rudin created the Mayor’s AIDS Task Force to address AIDS in Sacramento. Among its recommendations was passage of an anti -discrimination ordinance to protect gay people from banned discrimination against homosexual people in employment, housing, commerce, real estate, education, and city services . Later that year, Mayor Rudin and the Sacramento City Council approved the city’s first anti-discrimination ordinance by a 7- 2 vote.520

In 1992, Rudin spearheaded passage of the City of Sacramento’s domestic partnership ordinance.

The ordinance allowed any two people, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, to register with the city as domestic partners. The ordinance required employers to grant unpaid leave to domestic partners for situations such as bereavement, required hospitals to grant the same visitation rights to domestic partners as married couples, and declared that domestic partners must be treated as family in any lease or rental agreement. 521 It was not until 2006 that Sacramento County’s first openly gay public official, Gretchen Bender, was sworn into office when she won the election to serve on the Sacramento County Board of Education. Bender, a former teacher, served as president of the Board of Education, representing Area 2, which includes Antelope, Del Paso Heights, Elverta, Gardenland, North Highlands, Natomas, and other northern Sacramento communities. She resigned in 2009 to take a job in San Diego.522 Steve Hansen became the first openly gay person to hold office in the City of Sacramento in 2012 when he was elected as the City Councilman, representing the neighborhoods of River Oaks, Central City, Land Park, South Land Park, and Little Pocket .523

POLITICAL ADVOCACY GROUPS
Political advocacy groups, specifically aimed at influencing policy changes relevant to the gay community, formed in Sacramento during this volatile period. In 1975, a local chapter of the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club was established in Sacramento. The group, whose name referenced Roosevelt’s secret relationship with a woman named Lorena Hickok and her reputation for defending the rights of minorities, worked within the established political systems to influence lawmakers to support legislation that improved gay rights and freedoms. Members met at the local

519 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 177-178.
520 Jim Sanders, “Gay Rights Ordinance Backed After Heated Council Session,” Sacramento Bee, 26 March 1986: 1. 521 Dan Bernstein, “City Extends Some Benefits to Domestic Partners,” Sacramento Bee, 14 October 1992: A1. 522 Melody Gutierrez, "Region in Brief," Sacramento Bee, 22 June 2009: B2. 523 “Meet Steve,” Steve Hansen for Sacramento Mayor, accessed May 1, 2024, https://www.steve4sacramento.com/meet-steve.

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MCC facilities. A liaison for the group attended State legislative sessions and kept track of bills that were entered into or up for a vote in committees. Bills related to or that might impact the gay community were reported back to the club, after which letters were sent to committees to inform them of the club’s stance on the issues.524

The Briggs Initiative prompted a massive response from Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, which came out in force to oppose the initiative. Following the defeat of the Briggs Initiative in November 1978, Mom…Guess What…! issued a call for the community to redouble its efforts to educate the public and support local advocacy groups working to pass gay rights legislation. Among the groups mentioned were the Gay Speakers Bureau, which was organized by Way Station founder Clay Shipway and planned speaking engagements in the Sacramento area for gay rights activists and prominent figures, as well as the Sacramento chapter of the California Human Rights Advocates (CHRA).525 The CHRA had a full-time lobbyist named Steve Badeau based in Sacramento who worked to get gay rights legislation passed by the State Legislature. In late 1978, Badeau’s focus was on passage of Assemblyman Art Agnos’s Gay Employment Rights Bill (AB 1). The organization opened a local office at 1107 9th Street in December 1978. Another local political group formed in the wake of the Briggs Initiative was a local chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization for LGBTQ+ Republicans. Other local advocacy events around the same time included a statewide meeting of the Gay Caucus of the California Democratic Council in January 1979. 526

Two political advocacy groups, the Capitol Network and Capitol Political Action Committee (CAP-PAC), were created with the help of former State Assemblyman Dennis (“Denny”) Mangers in the 1980s. Mangers was born in Inglewood, California and studied singing and education administration as a young man at the University of Southern California (USC). After serving in the Navy, he worked as a teacher at inner-city schools in Long Beach and became one of the youngest principals in the state of California. In 1976, Mangers ran for and won election to serve as the State Assembly representative for Orange County. He lost his seat in 1980 and was hired to serve as principal lobbyist for the California Cable and Telecommunications Association. Shortly after

524 Untitled article in Good News (Roseville) newspaper, 4 June 1976, George Raya collection. 525 An earlier informal speakers bureau was created at Sacramento State University in 1971. Speakers included Marty Rogers, Charles Moore, Cherie Gordon, Matty One Person, and Edgar Carpenter. 526 Greg Loe, “Under the Dome,” Mom…Guess What…!, December 1978.

Figure 105. Dennis Mangers
when he served as State
Assemblyman for Orange
County. Source: Sacramento
Bee.

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leaving the state legislature, Mangers was outed as a gay man.527 Though no longer himself a member of the State Legislature, Mangers used his experience, connections, and compassion for the gay community to continue to fight for gay rights. He contributed articles on politics to Mom…Guess What…! to raise awareness about policies that would impact the community.

Then, in 1985, Stan Hadden, aide to Senate President Pro Tempore David Roberti, came to Mangers with the idea of forming a political group outside the State Capitol building to help him gather the perspectives of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community on legislative issues . Mangers initially named the group “The Junto,” inspired by the name of a secret group founded by Benjamin Franklin, before renaming it the Capitol Network. The group’s mission was to form a unified agenda for the LGBTQ+ community and establish clear priorities, strategies, and steps for advancing the community’s rights.

Hadden would report the group’s priorities and stances to Roberti to push forward in the State Legislature. Early members included approximately 30 closeted gay staff members for Governor George Deukmeijian and the Secretary of State, consultants working for senate committees, the director of the California Arts Council, legislative advocates, legislative analysts, lobbyists, activists, chiefs of State departments, local journalists, and others. The group met secretly once a month in Mangers’ offices in the Senator Hotel at 1121 L Street (extant) across the Street from Capitol Park. An emotional encounter with a man dying of AIDS in 1986 convinced Mangers that the fight on behalf of the gay community could no longer remain quiet and hidden. The Capitol Network dissolved, and Mangers and others formed a new public-facing political organization, the Capital Area Political Action Committee (CAP-PAC), in its wake.528

Inspired by the gay advocacy political action committees in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles (MECLA) and BAYMEC, CAP-PAC was formed to provide a unified political organization, based in Sacramento, that could influence political campaigns and political opinion on issues of statewide importance to California’s LGBTQ+ community. The committee aimed to “provide a voice for the lesbian and gay communities in the mainstream political process.”529 CAP-PAC was unique in that it was entirely bi-partisan with membership that was evenly split between gay men and lesbians of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The first co-chairs were Doug Brown and bisexual attorney Carolyn Langenkamp. Most of the early members were closeted gay men and women, many of whom were legislative staffers employed by the Senate Majority Leader and Governor George Deukmejian. As such, early meetings were held in secret to maintain the anonymity of members. The first official meeting was held in 1988 at Mangers’ house at 2230 Indian Wells Court (extant) in the Swallows

527 Matt Coker, "The Gay Godfather," Sacramento News & Review, 8 May 2008. 528 Denny Mangers, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 30, 2024, Sacramento, CA. 529 “CAP/PAC – A Voice of Political Power,” pamphlet, 1990, courtesy of Ted Ross.

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Nest housing development along the Garden
Highway. Early members included AIDS quilt
founder Cleve Jones, Channel 40 news
director Bob Cook, Bureau of Automotive
Repair chief Marty Dyer, journalists Scott
Schaeffer and David Kirp, and others.530

However, reflecting the continuing stigma
against gay people and very real risk of losing
their jobs if they were outed, some members
refused to allow their names to be listed
publicly and in some instances publicly
opposed efforts to expand gay rights, while
secretly working behind the scenes to
advance them. One illuminating example is
that of Bob Cook, who wrote an editorial
opposing lifting the ban on gays in the
military in 1992 in which he stated that
“allowing homosexual into barracks, on bases and serving onboard U.S. Navy ships could create a serious health threat” due to the risk of spreading AIDS.531 Meanwhile, Cook was actively working to repeal discriminatory policies like this as a member of CAP-PAC.532

Among CAP-PAC’s early accomplishments was raising $15,000 in 1986 to help defeat Proposition 64, known as the LaRouche Initiative, which would have returned AIDS to the list of communicable diseases under state public health laws, resulting in the quarantining of people with AIDS. In addition to its lobbying work, CAP-PAC also raised money for local charities and organizations, particularly the Sacramento AIDS Foundation. The group’s first fundraiser event in 1987 raised $9,000 for SAF and featured an appearance by actress Jane Fonda. Starting in 1989, CAP-PAC held annual fundraising dinners that attracted hundreds of political leaders. Prominent politicians—such as well-known gay Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, women’s movement leader Bella Abzug, and then San Francisco mayor Gavin Newson—have spoken at the events over the years.

CAP-PAC continued its work through the early 2000s.533

530 Denny Mangers, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. 531 Bob Cook, “Gay Navy,” November 14, 1992, courtesy of Alan LoFaso. 532 Alan LoFaso, comments on First Public Draft, email to Clare Flynn, September 19, 2024; Bob Cook, editorial to LIFE AIDS Lobby, courtesy of Alan LoFaso.
533 Denny Mangers, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, August 30, 2024; Materials and documents from the private collection of Denny Mangers.

Figure 106. List of the Board of Directors and Council of Founders for CAP-PAC in 1990. Source: Courtesy of Ted
Ross.

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Figure 107. From left to right: City Council member David Shore, Congressman Vic Fazio, State Assemblymember Phil Isenberg, and former State Assemblymember Dennis Mangers at a fundraiser for CAP- PAC in 1990. Source: Alan LoFaso, "Congressman Attends Brunch," Mom...Guess What...!.

Liberal members of CAP-PAC later formed the River City Democratic Club in 1983. The club first met at the Incredible Edible, a gay-owned restaurant at 1401 Alhambra Boulevard (extant).534 The River City Democratic Club spearheaded advocacy efforts to pass a local Domestic Partnership Ordinance in collaboration with Mayor Anne Rudin, which eventually passed in 1992. The River City Democratic Club also took on community improvement projects, most notably planting 200 trees in 1992 along Highway 50 outside of the Capital Christian Center. The tree plantings were dedicated as an AIDS Memorial.535

534 “New Club,” The Sacramento Bee, April 1, 1983, C7.
535 Steve Wiegand, “Tree-Planting with a Twist,” The Sacramento Bee, March 16, 1992.

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Figure 108. Sam Catalano (left) with Laurie McBride (undated). Source: Sacramento Stonewall Foundation.

Though the River City Democratic Club folded in 1992, its remaining members formed a local chapter of the Stonewall Democratic Club in 2000. The club’s original members consisted of a group of 100 individuals, who collectively worked to give the LGBTQ+ community a voice and recognition in state politics with the ultimate goal of getting LGBTQ+ people elected to political office. Through the recruitment efforts of its members, most visibly represented by Sam Catalano, co-chair of the California Democratic Party for Sacramento County, the Sacramento Stonewall Club became the largest Stonewall Democratic chapter in the nation and had over 300 members in 2006.536 Catalano, along with others, expanded the leadership of the club with the creation of the Stonewall Foundation in 2016, which works to empower LGBTQ+ youth and young adults and their allies through educational initiatives, scholarships, and partnerships.537 Catalano also worked tirelessly to integrate the LGBTQ+ community into the state government system and physical environment at every chance he could. He successfully petitioned to have the first LGBTQ+ displays installed in the Rotunda of the California State Capitol building for Pride month, won support to have a paving stone for LGBTQ+ veterans included in the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Capitol Park, and

536 Carlsen, "Out on the Inside: A Case Study of the Political Transformation of the LGBTQ Community in California,” 26; "Sam Catalano - Political Animal," Legends of Courage, dir. Dawn D. Deason, 2023, accessed July 19, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7KvRz6fBIs&t=232s.
537 “About,” Stonewall Foundation of Greater Sacramento, accessed July 19, 2024, https://www.sacstonewallfoundation.org/about.

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raised funds to have a bench installed at the State Capitol Park World Peace Rose Garden. Catalano considered these accomplishments to be among his highest personal achievements. 538

The same year CAP-PAC formed in 1981, the Gay/Lesbian Sacramento Political Action Caucus was created. Led by chairman Steve Schwichow, the group worked to support non-discriminatory laws in employment and housing and increase political representation by getting LGBTQ+ people and their allies elected to political office.539

In 1988, Boyce Hinman—an out gay man, Carmichael resident, and employee of the State Employment Development Department—created the Lambda Letters Project with significant aid and professional guidance from the River City Democratic Club.540 The project was run out of Hinman’s residence at 6212 Silverton Way (extant). The grassroots advocacy effort created a coalition of residents from districts across the spectrum of political parties to write letters to their elected officials about policies and issues regarding LGBTQ+ issues, women’s issues, and AIDS.541 The project published three Tip Sheets each month, one for each of its key topics, which contained a comprehensive listing and status of bills before the State Legislature that were of importance to the LGBTQ+ rights, women‘s rights, or the AIDS response. Each month, Hinman provided members with sample letters (or emails), which they could sign and return to their legislators as -is, or use them to model their own messages.542 Topics addressed each month were selected at monthly meetings based on suggestions from concerned citizens. The Lamba Letters Project also had a hotline that members of the public could call for information about State and Federal legislation. By the end of its first year, the project sent an estimated 1,700 letters to legislators. 543 The numbers grew exponentially. By 1997, the project was sending 40,000 pieces of mail to legislators annually. The number grew to 353,000 letters and emails per year by 2006.544

Hinman was also instrumental in the establishment of a gay rights advocacy group within the State system, itself. Around 1985, a group of approximately 12 gay and lesbian employees of California State Parks, part of the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), formed State Parks Advocates for Gay and Lesbian Rights (SPAGLAR). Among its founding members were Nina Gordon, Lois Harter,

538 "Sam Catalano - Political Animal," Legends of Courage. 539 “Gay Group Forms,” Sacramento Bee, June 7, 1981.
540 Dr. Jon Marshack and the Reverend Rik Rasmussen, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments, July 3, 2024. 541 Robert D. Davila, "Gay Rights Movement Now at Standstill in Capital, Many Say," Sacramento Bee, 23 November 1997; Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press, “The Lambda Letters Project,” News from Those Who Print the News, undated, LLACE, 51 542 "Lambda Letters History til 2004," 2004, private collection of George Raya. 543 Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press, “The Lambda Letters Project.” 544 Davila, “Gay Rights Movement Now at Standstill in Capital;” Carlsen, "Out on the Inside: A Case Study of the Political Transformation of the LGBTQ Community in California,” 31.

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Anna Cross, Jonathan Williams, and Nan Haynes, many of whom had personally experienced discrimination at work due to their sexual orientation. Williams, for instance, was refused access to a required training because the instructor knew he was gay. Inspired by women’s rights groups which formed within the State government system and were making noticeable gains, the founders of SPAGLAR sought a similar group to aid gay and lesbian employees. More commonly known as the “Lavender Bears,” the group initially met in San Francisco, where many of its members were based; however, the group grew to include representatives throughout the State. In its first year, the Lavender Bears participated in the Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco , wearing their Park ranger uniforms to vividly demonstrate their presence within the State system. At the following year’s Pride parade, the Lavender Bears again wore their uniforms and marched with a campsite display at which they humorously pretended to camp whenever the parade stopped . Even after State officials told members they could no longer wear their uniforms at the Pride parades, they continued their advocacy efforts.

SPAGLAR became an officially recognized organization within the State system around 1987 thanks to the assistance of Boyce Hinman, who used his position in the State Employment Development Department to push for formal recognition. Female members of SPAGLAR were placed on existing State women's rights committees. Through their presence in these committees, they were able to bring LGBTQ+ issues to the forefront of the State’s attention and implement notable changes.

Through their efforts, gay and lesbian employees were included in hiring interviews, giving them a voice in who was hired by the State. Official meetings of SPAGLAR took place at State office buildings in Sacramento, where all of the State department headquarters, including DPR, were located. The visibility of the Lavender Bears had an important impact on morale by acknowledging and showing support for gay and lesbian employees as part of the State Parks community. The group remained active for approximately ten years and gradually disbanded as members retired or changed careers.545

As previously described in Chapter 4, LIFE was a powerful force for change at the statewide legislative level. Led by executive director Laurie McBride, starting in 1990, the organization grew to represent 75 affiliated organization throughout California around issues of LGBTQ+ rights. In addition to McBride’s previously discussed work with LIFE, fighting for legislative support during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, she was tireless leader for local, state, and national LGBTQ+ policy and politics, who pushed to advance LGBTQ+ rights across all facets of life. In 1990, she met with Governor Pete Wilson and Senator Diane Feinstein to establish the statewide credibility of LIFE and discuss topics they could collectively support.546 During her tenure with LIFE, McBride was the principal lobbyist in

545 Jonathan Williams, conversation with Clare Flynn, August 7, 2024. 546 Internal Memo to Life Lobby Affiliates, October 30, 1990, McBride Collection, Box 4, LLACE.

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support of AB 101, which would have added sexual orientation to the non-discrimination provisions of the state’s fair employment and housing law and defeated legislation aimed at prohibiting discussions of gays and lesbians in California’s public schools, and AB 1001, which amended the state’s Education Code to protect LGBTQ+ students from discrimination in school. In 1996, LIFE organized a Queer Youth Lobby Day at the State Capitol that brought together over 300 queer students and allies to show their support for further school-based anti-discrimination legislation, known as the “Dignity for All Students Act.”

Figure 109. Hundreds of queer youth and allies attended Queer Youth Lobby Day at the State Capitol (1996).

Source: Centerstone, Newsmagazine of the Stonewall Alliance Center II, No. 2, February 1996, McBride Collection, Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE).

In addition to introducing local young people to gay rights advocacy, LIFE was also significant for explicitly welcoming not only gay and lesbian youth but also transgender and bisexual youth and queer youth of color.547 When a second Youth Lobby Day was held in 1997, it included a diverse range of caucuses including HIV Positive, Latina/Latino, Men’s, Women’s, Mixed Heritage, Service Provider, Transgender/Transexual, White Youth Resisting Racism, and Youth of Color caucus es.548 In 1998, McBride was hired by then-Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa to serve as the Assistant

547 “California’s first Lesbian/Gay Youth Lobby Day Successful.” Mom Guess What…!, 15 January 1996, McBride Collection, LLACE.
548 Flyers, McBride Collection, Box 4, LLACE.

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Secretary of State, a role she filled for 10 years. McBride was also involved with the National Stonewall Democrats from 2003 to 2023 and became co-chair of the California Democratic Party’s LGBT Caucus in 2007.549 After her death in 2020, the Stonewall Democratic Foundation of Greater Sacramento named an annual scholarship in her honor. 550

With Governor Wilson’s veto of AB 101 in 1991 and the limited protections for employment discrimination provided by AB 2601, advocates in Sacramento turned their attention for the remainder of the 1990s to other important issues facing the LGBTQ+ community. Among these were ways to recognize families headed by same-sex couples and high school students facing discrimination at school in an era when LGBTQ+ people were coming out at increasingly younger ages. In 1994, LIFE first introduced legislation to recognize domestic partners at the state level.

Building on local ordinances throughout California, including Sacramento, advocates recognized that only the state could extend strong family protections to same sex families. In robust debates occurring in Sacramento and across the state, many organizations debated how to approach legal recognition of same-sex couples more than a decade before the nation would ultimately recognize their right to marry. The right to marriage formed a background to this debate, as c ommunity members debated whether marriage was the right model for same-sex families and opponents consistently raised fears that any legal recognition would lead to “gay marriage.” In March 1994, Mom…Guess What…! reported “proponents say they’re not proposing ‘marriage’ … but some opponents see little difference in the effect such a split hair can have…” 551

As advocates debated what benefits to legalize for same-sex couples, many continued to focus on the public’s discomfort with same-sex marriages. Ultimately, advocates focused on addressing the denial of benefits which were most acutely felt during the AIDS epidemic: the right to visit a partner in the hospital, the right to inherit property, the right to oversee the affairs of a same-sex partner in crisis (conservatorship), and access to a partner’s employment-based health insurance. Of strong interest to many state employees living in Sacramento, legislation was introduced in 1996 to provide for domestic partner coverage under health care plans offered by the state’s Public Employees’ Retirement System. The legislation failed, but that same year Los Angeles Assembly Member Richard Katz finally succeeded in getting AB 2810, containing all of the benefits advocated by the community under LIFE’s aegis, to the governor’s desk. As with AB 101 before, Governor Wilson vetoed the legislation. Ultimately, with a new, Democratic governor, Gray Davis, elected in 1998, the decade culminated with the original contents of AB 101, protections against employment and housing

549 “Laurie McBride,” Sacramento Bee, 20 December 2020: C8. 550 “Scholarships,” Sacramento Stonewall Foundation, accessed July 19, 2024, https://www.sacstonewallfoundation.org/scholarships.
551 Marghe Covino, “Reviews Mixed on Partners’ Bill,” Mom…Guess What…!, 1 March 1994.

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discrimination for LGBTQ+ individuals, and the first domestic partners bill all finally signed into law in 1999.552

Advocacy Among Communities of Color
During the period of elevated fervent activism in the late 1960s and 1970s, addressing gay rights remained less of a priority for LGBTQ+ people of color than addressing racial issues that restricted their basic human needs. Already facing housing and employment discrimination due to their racial and/or ethnic backgrounds, they often chose to stay closeted, as adding “gay” to their identifies would make achieving these basic necessities nearly impossible. They received little support or acceptance from the white gay and lesbian communities, which were often overtly racist and exclusionary toward people of color. Hypocritically, white gay activists pushed gay people of color to confront homophobia in their racial and ethnic communities while refusing to address racism among the white gay and lesbian communities. This racism prevented many people of color from actively and openly joining gay liberation causes.

In spite of these obstacles, some LGBTQ+ people of color did become politically active and form political advocacy groups. In the 1980s, the number of advocacy groups organized by gay people of color grew across the country. In Sacramento, one such group was the Lesbians of Color (or Lesbianas de Color), who organized and visibly participated in marches on the State Capitol with

552 Alan LoFaso, comments on First Public Draft, emailed to Clare Flynn, September 19, 2024; Aurelio Rojas, “Davis Signs 3 Gay Rights Bills,” Sacramento Bee, 3 October 1999: A1.

Figure 110. Members of the Lesbians of Color at the 1981 March for Gay and Lesbian Rights. Notable New York lesbian attorney Florynce Kennedy is in the center of the photo on the right (1981). Source: Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Jonna Ramey Collection.

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colorful banners, proudly announcing their support.553 Pamela Garrett, a reporter for Mom Guess What…! and a woman of color, was part of the formation of what she described as a “local ethnic gay organization” around 1980. When the fledgling organization participated in Sacramento’s 1980 Gay Pride Parade, Garrett publicly urged all ethnic gay people to join them and participate in the parade. “Let’s join in solidarity with the rest of the gay community in our June parade, and at the same time affirm our unique and beautiful heritages,” she wrote. 554

La Raza de Ambiente was another early support group formed specifically by and for Latinx gay men and lesbians in 1983. The group celebrated its establishment with a “Don’t Forget the Salsa” potluck that was attended by 40 gay men and women. Some of its early events included an art auction, wine, and cheese party fundraiser, which raised $400; a Mexican Night at The Mercan tile Saloon with Mexican food and music provided by the Adrian Duo that was hosted by the bar’s Latino manager “Bobbette” Hoyos. In November 1983, the club held its first elections to select its first leaders, who included co-chairpersons Chica Rodriguez and Angel Arellano, Joey Hernandez (Secretary), Jose Pacheco (Treasurer), Jason Kindo and Frank Olives (Fundraising), and Robin Peters and Yolanda Alvares (Public Relations). Rodriguez hosted a Thanksgiving dinner and collected food baskets to distribute to gay families in need at her house at 1701 O Street, Apartment #110. The group’s early meetings were held at the First Sacramento Women’s Building on Tuesday events and were open to all gay men and women of color.555

In 1981, a Sacramento chapter of Black and White Men Together, a group originally founded in San Francisco, formed. The group’s mission was to improve interracial relations between white and Black gay men and women and other ethnic groups through participation in social gatherings, political rallies, Rap Groups, and other events. The group was organized by two men named Ric and Jim (last names unknown).556 In the 1990s, local gay Black and Latino men John Ortiz Hudson and Clarmundo Sullivan co-founded social political action groups called "Griot,” named after the word for a traditional West African community leader who preserves culture and traditions throug h storytelling, music, poetry, and art.557

GAY RIGHTS MARCHES & DEMONSTRATIONS
This direct engagement with politicians was supported by marches and demonstrations organized by local and statewide advocacy groups that demonstrated mass public support for equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community. In 1979, over 100,000 people gathered in Washington, DC for the March on

553 Peter Freiberg,” Gay Voices from The Third World,” The Advocate, 24 January 1984: 386. 554 Pamela Garrett, “Ethnic Gay People to March in Gay Pride Parade,” Mom Guess What…!, Issue 20, June 1980. 555 Robin Peters, “La Raza Del Ambiente” New Group Accomplishes Much, Plans More,” Sacramento Star, 30 November 1983. 556 “Black and White Men Together Forming Chapter in Sacramento,” Mom Guess What…! Issue 33, August 1981. 557 Clarmundo Sullivan, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments, June 9, 2024.

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Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights to show their support. That May, California Governor Jerry Brown, Jr. signed an executive order, prohibiting discrimination against State employees on the basis of sexual preference. Shortly afterward, a group of gay State employees called the Advocates for Gay State Employees (AGSE) formed to provide input to the State Personnel Board about the implementation of the executive order. The AGSE met monthly at the Incredible Edible, a gay-owned restaurant, at 1401 Alhambra Boulevard (extant) and formed a coalition with a similar group from Los Angeles and the state of Pennsylvania.558

Figure 111. Participants in the 1980 March on Sacramento for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Source: Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Jonna Ramey Collection.

The following year, in January 1980, the statewide gay rights organization the California Human Rights Advocates (HCRA) organized a march to the State Capitol, called the March on Sacramento for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Three-thousand people participated in the march, despite a large storm the day before that had threatened to dampen attendance. The march provided a model for future marches and increased Sacramento’s visibility as the hub of political action in California.559 Another march for Lesbian and Gay Rights occurred in 1988. Los Angeles gay rights icon, Morris Kight, was one of the organizers. Leonard Matlovich, Vietnam War veteran and Purple Heart and Bronze Star

558 "Gay State Employees Have a Voice," Mom…Guess What…!, 1 September 1979. 559 Burg, Sacramento Renaissance, 173.

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recipient, who became the first gay man to publicly come out to the military when he announced he was gay in 1975, made his last public speech at the march, shortly before his death of AIDs. Despite his deteriorating health, Matlovich tearfully stood before the crowd in front of the State Capitol to share a message of pride and love for his community. “I want you to look at the flag, our rainbow flag, and I want you to look at it with pride in your heart, because we too have a dream , ” Matlovich said. “And what is our dream? Ours is more than an American dream. It's a universal dream. Our mission is to reach out and teach people to love, and not to hate. […] In the AIDS crisis, if there is any one word that describes our community's reaction to AIDS, that word is love, love, love .”560

Figure 112. The rainbow flag flying over the Capitol
(1990). Source: Jerry Sloan, Special to the Sacramento
Bee.

Promoting the symbology associated with the LGBTQ+ community became an important strategy in raising support and awareness. In 1990, local gay rights leaders worked through the office of Senator Milton Marks of San Francisco to obtain permission from the S tate Legislature to fly the rainbow flag of the national gay rights movement over the State Capitol in recognition of National

560 Danny Ingram, “AVER Honors American Heroes on Memorial Day in Washington DC,” American Veterans for Equal Rights, accessed July 31, 2024, http://aver.us/aver-honors-american-heroes-on-memorial-day-in-washington-dc/aver-honors- american-heroes-on-memorial-day-in-washington-dc.htm.

Figure 113. Flyer for the 1992 March on
Sacramento. Source: San Francisco GLBT Historical
Museum Archives.

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Coming Out Day on October 11. Within hours, outcry from conservative lawmakers prompted Governor Deukmeijian to order the flag pulled down.561 Following its removal, the flag was raised at Plaza Park (Cesar Chavez Plaza) in front of City Hall. 562

In 1991, after what the LGBTQ+ press characterized as a “ferocious debate,” the California State Assembly passed AB 101, which aimed to ban employment discrimination because of one’s sexual orientation, by a one-vote margin.563 The Lobby for Individual Freedom and Equality (LIFE) was the key proponent of the bill, while Assemblyman David Knowles (R-Placerville) was one of its most vocal opponents. Knowles’ comments during the AB 101 debates were so offensive that almost every other member of the Assembly Republican Caucus left the Assembly floor to disassociate themselves from his remarks.564 The bill passed the State Senate but was vetoed by new Republican Governor Pete Wilson.

Governor Wilson’s veto sparked a statewide response from the LGBTQ+ community, which came to Sacramento on National Coming Out Day on October 11, 1991. In a tense stand -off between advocates from across the state and Capitol police, who barricaded the Capitol building to an extent not seen in over a decade, the demonstration unleashed the anger of a community disappointed once again seven years after the veto of AB 1. Commenting on the demonstration, Senate aide Ken Topper commented that “the veto seems to be changing the voting apathy that has plagued the gay community … [Wilson’s veto] has activated a sleeping community and charged them with a wake -up call.”565

The following year, a second march took place to rally support for new anti-discrimination legislation, AB 2601 and AB 3825, that was before the State Legislature.566 Governor Wilson signed AB 2601, which provided protections against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (though to a more limited degree than AB 101), in September 1992. Wilson vetoed AB 3825, which would have provided a broader slate of anti-discrimination protections.567

561 Thorne Gray, “Gay Flag Raises a Flap at State Capitol,” Sacramento Bee, 12 October 1990: A1. 562 Ricci Graham, “’Immorality’ Foes Raise ‘Christian Flag,’” Sacramento Bee, 14 November 1990: B1. 563 Chris Nealon, “Calif State Assembly Passes Gay/Lesbian Rights Bill,” Gay Community News [Boston], 14-20 July 1991, accessed through Gale Archives of Sexuality online.
564 Alan LoFaso, comments on First Public Draft, email to Clare Flynn, September 19, 2024. 565 “Gay Politics: A Veto Gone Wrong,” Sacramento News and Review, 24 October 1991. 566 SF LGBT Groups Ephemera Collection 1950-2010, Collection #GRP EPH, San Francisco GLBT Historical Society Museum Archives.
567 Amy Chance, “Governor Signs Gay Rights Bill,” Sacramento Bee, 26 September 1992: A1; Amy Chance, “Wilson Signs Some Civil Rights Measures,” Sacramento Bee, 25 September 1992: A5.

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The Sacramento community again participated in the March on Washington in 1993 with the goal of pressuring the newly installed Clinton Administration to meet its campaign promises to increase HIV/AIDS funding and lift the ban on gay people serving in the military. California’s contingent in Washington was lead by Sacramento’s LIFE AIDS Lobby and its director Laurie McBride. 568

Responses to Continuing Discrimination
Although the LGBTQ+ community in Sacramento was becoming increasingly visible, discrimination continued. In May 1978, the Sacramento Police Department conducted sting operations at adult bookstores that were known cruising spots. Undercover police officers visited the stores , pretending to be customers, and entrapped gay men for soliciting lewd acts in a public place.569 In April 1979, the Upstairs/Downstairs gay disco was raided on two consecutive nights. On the first night, police officers requested identification from all patrons and arrested one for an undisclosed offense. The next night, the officers returned and poured out all of the bar’s beer and wine, allegedly looking for hard alcohol, but destroying the bar’s entire stock in the process. 570 The harassment lessened after the Sacramento Human Rights Commission investigated and Mayor Phil Isenberg and then - Councilwoman Anne Rudin got involved and talked to the police department and officers involved.

In 1982, two separate lawsuits were filed
by local gay men to address
discrimination by their employers. While
working as a flight attendant for Frontier
Airlines in 1979, Allen Chamberlin
requested discounted airline ticket prices
for his partner of nine years, Joe Shields.

Although discounted tickets were a
benefit regularly awarded to spouses of
the airline’s employees and their
families, the airline denied Chamberlin’s
request. Chamberlin had filed for a
certificate of marriage with the City and
County of Denver, where he was
stationed at the time, but that, too, was rejected. In 1982, Chamberlin filed discrimination charges with the California State Department of Fair Employment and Housing, followed by a suit in the Sacramento Superior Court one year later. Chamberlin was represented by Carolyn Langenkamp the

568 Alan LoFaso, comments from October 2 public meeting, emailed to Clare Flynn, October 3, 2024. 569 "Entrapment by Sheriff's Dept.," Mom…Guess What…!, May 1978. 570 Bill Spiller, "Harassment in Disco Raid," Mom…Guess What…!, April 1979.

Figure 114. Allen Chamberlin and Carolyn Langenkamp in
court (1983). Source: Leilani Hu for the Sacramento Bee.

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pioneering LGBTQ+-led law firm Metrailer, Langenkamp, and Buscho. In his decision, Judge Roger K.

Warren ruled that Chamberlin’s complaint must be argued with the Association of Flight Attendants Union, not the courts and ruled that Chamberlin and Shields’ marriage was invalid. Chamberlin won the case on appeal in 1986.571

Also in 1982, Boyce Hinman, then a 14-year employee of the State Employment Development Department and later founder of the Lambda Letters Project, filed a similar discrimination lawsuit in the Sacramento County Superior Court against the State Department of Personnel Administration.

Hinman was joined in his lawsuit by the Advocates for Gay and Lesbian State Employees on behalf of other gay and lesbian State employees. Hinman charged that the State had refused him his full health benefits when it refused to extend dental benefits to his long-time partner, Larry Stephen Beatty, a standard benefit offered to the spouses of State employees. Hinman was represented by Roberta Achtenberg of the Lesbian Rights Project in San Francisco.572 In her arguments, Achtenberg stated that even though homosexual couples were untraditional, "they are families nonetheless."573 The Sacramento County Superior ruled against Hinman in 1983, and its decision was upheld by the 3rd District Cout of Appeal in 1985. The California Supreme Court refused to hear the case, and Hinman did not seek further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.574

Figure 115. Boyce Hinman (1985). Source: Sacramento Bee.

571 "Small collections from the Sacramento region," Online Archive of California, accessed February 9, 2024, https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8pz5hmj/.
572 Pam Slater, “Gays’ Suit Seeks Dental Benefits for Mates,” Sacramento Bee, 30 December 1982: 6. 573 Gracie Bonds, "No Benefits for Gay's Partner Called Indignity," Sacramento Bee, 20 February 1985: 19. 574 Bonds, "No Benefits for Gay's Partner Called Indignity;” Ricardo Pimentel, “Gay Couple Lose Case on Benefits,” Sacramento Bee, 1 May 1985: A1; “Gay Couple Denied Dental Care Appeal,” Sacramento Bee, 16 August 1986: B1.

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In 1991, 24-year-old gay man Vincent Blades, who had recently moved to Sacramento from Reno, was stabbed and killed by two men who had been shouting gay epithets at him in a parking lot near the Faces bar at 20th and K streets. The deadly event shocked the local LGBTQ+ community and spurred it into action. Within months, community members, including Midge Marino and Shaanon Lindauer, in collaboration with the Lambda Community Center and Sacramento Police Departmen t, created the Lavender Angels, a citizen-led security force that was modeled after the Guardian Angels in San Francisco. The goal of the Lavender Angels was to serve as the eyes and ears of the police and to report hate crimes and violence toward the LGBTQ community. Volunteers wore white t -shirts with “Lavender Angels” printed on them in neon pink and patrolled the epicenter of Lavender Heights between 19th and 20th streets and Capitol Avenue and K Street on Friday and Saturday nights. The program was supported by the local police department and set up a ho tline for people to anonymously report such crimes directly to the police. 575 Midge Marino provided training in self- defense to volunteers, similar to trainings she offered to students at Sacramento State University, state agencies, and organizations throughout California.576

Local resistance against discriminatory laws and policies extended beyond Sacramento’s borders to the federal government. In the late 1980s, a group of lesbian women with ties to Sacramento confronted the federal government’s discriminatory “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, which barred gay men and lesbians from openly serving in the military. In 1989, Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, then chief nurse of the Washington State National Guard and a closeted lesbian, applied for a promotion to serve as general of the Nurses Corps. Col. Cammermeyer was a top candidate for the generalship, who had received a Bronze Star for her service in the Vietnam War, held a PhD in nursing, and won the Veterans Administration’s award for Nurse of the Year. Believing the military would take care of her because of her years of dedicated and decorated service, Cammermeyer freely and truthfully admitted she was a lesbian during the required security clearance process. The Army immediately began discharge procedures against her.

Cammermeyer challenged the Army’s decision and enlisted the help of attorneys from the Los Angeles branch of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Col. Pat Thompson—who had served at Mather Air Force Base at the start of her military career in 1956 and risen through the ranks to become the first chief nurse of the Army National Guard, stationed in Washington, D.C.— was chosen to oversee Cammermeyer’s discharge proceedings. Thompson was herself a closeted lesbian who had met her partner, Barbara Brass, through a lesbian support group meeting advertised on a bulletin board at Lioness Books while she was stationed at McClellan Air Force Base

575 Steve Gibson, “Gays Will Patrol For Bashers,” Sacramento Bee, 19 April 1991: B3. 576 Pat Drouet and Rita Maningo, conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss, October 8, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

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and had her permanent residence in
Sacramento. Although Thompson could not
defend Cammermeyer without also outing
herself and ensuring she would also be
discharged, she delayed the proceedings long
enough to allow Cammermeyer’s legal team to
gather witnesses and evidence for the official
records of the proceedings. Although
Cammermeyer was ultimately discharged, she
was grateful to Thomson for the compassion
and sensitivity with which she handled the
proceedings, which enabled her to use the
official records of her discharge to challenge the
decision in federal court, have her discharge
deemed unconstitutional, and win reinstatement
to the military.

The same year, Cammermeyer wrote a book
about her experience titled Serving in Silence that
was adapted in 1995 into a film produced by
singer and actor Barbara Streisand with actor
Glenn Close starring as Cammermeyer.

Cammermeyer rejoined the military and
continued to serve as one of the only openly gay
servicemembers in the military while “Don’t Ask
Don’t Tell” was still in effect until her retirement
in 1997. Her case helped influence the eventual
repeal of the policy by President Barack Obama’s
administration in 2011. Thompson came out
publicly for the first time at a speaking event at
Sierra College in Rocklin in 2013. A documentary called Surviving the Silence that featured Cammermeyer, Thompson, and Brass, was released in 2021. 577

In 1999, a wave of hate crimes spread across the United States, prompting the media to dub it the “Summer of Hate.”578 In Northern California, two gay men were murdered in their home in Redding,

577 Surviving the Silence, directed by Cindy L. Abel (New York, NY: Virgil Films, 2021), Amazon Prime Video. 578 “In Tomorrow’s Bee,” Sacramento Bee, 10 June 2000: A22.

Figure 116. Col. Pat Thompson (left) and Barbara Brass
(right). Source: Still from Surviving the Silence (2021).

Figure 117. Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer (left) and
Glenn Close (right) (1995). Source: GLBT Historical
Society.

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while in Sacramento three Jewish synagogues—Congregation B’Nai Israel, Congregation Beth Shalom, and Kenesset Israel Torah Center—were firebombed. The attacks became a powerful rallying point for the LGBTQ+ community as well as other oppressed communities, who came together to resist hate and celebrate diversity. Nearly two decades of work by local leaders and advocates in response to the hate crimes culminated in the opening of the Unity Center, a permanent exhibit at the California Museum in downtown Sacramento in 2017. The exhibit “celebrates the state’s diverse people, customs and cultures.” 579

The experience and policy wins garnered through the
combination of LGBTQ+ political advocacy groups, individual lobbyists, community reporters and media, rallies, marches, and other grassroots efforts from the 1960s to the 1990s laid the foundation for monumental legislative, social, and
cultural changes in the 2000s. California, and specifically Sacramento, was at the forefront of the fight for marriage equality. In 1999, more than 80 United Methodist pastors from across the country publicly rejected their church’s official stance on gay marriage when they came to
Sacramento to bless the 15-year relationship of lesbians Jeanne Barnett and Ellie Charlton in front of more than 1,000 guests at the Sacramento Community Convention Center.

The event took place in the months before California
residents were set to vote on a ballot proposal, introduced by conservative State Senator William “Pete” Knight of Elk Grove, that would bar unions of any kind between same-sex couples, including those performed by church leaders, such as the union of Barnett and Charlton. Barnett and Charlton’s union attracted national attention and elevated discussions about gay marriage around the country. 580 Although the Knight Initiative passed, it provoked redoubled efforts and intensified collective organizing by LGBTQ+ activists and advocacy groups across California over the following decade that finally knocked down the last barriers to marriage equality.

On May 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court struck down Proposition 22, which banned recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages, under the grounds that it violated the state

579 "Remembering the 1999 Sacramento Synagogue Attacks," Capital Public Radio, June 20, 2019, accessed October 7, 2024, https://www.capradio.org/news/insight/2019/06/20/remembering-the-1999-sacramento-synagogue-attacks/. 580 “Love and Justice,” Sacramento Bee, 2 March 1999: 9.

Figure 118. Jeanne Barnett and Ellie
Charlton (1999). Source: The Advocate.

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Constitution. The campaign to defeat Proposition 22 was the first time many young members of the LGBTQ+ community gained practical campaign experience and brought together a diverse grassroots coalition of people of all ages, genders, races, and lifestyles. 581

Following this ruling, many LGBTQ+ couples married during a time that became known locally as the "Summer of Love."582 However, in November of the same year, California voters passed State Proposition 8, which again restricted marriage to members of opposite genders. In 2013, the U.S.

Supreme Court decisions in U.S. v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry effectively invalidated the National Defense Against Marriage Act and California Proposition 8. Same-sex marriages were finally legalized by the federal government in 2015 in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Obergefell v.

Hodges, which guaranteed the fundamental right to marry to same-sex couples under the Due Process Clause and Equal Protections Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S.

Constitution.583

581 Alan LoFaso, comments on October 2, 2024 public meeting, emailed to Clare Flynn, October 3, 2024. 582 Dr. Jon Marshack and the Reverend Rik Rasmussen, “First Draft LGBTQ+ Historic Context – Email Comments, July 3, 2024. 583 “LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History,” accessed May 1, 2024, https://lgbtqhistory.org/lgbt-rights-timeline-in- american-history/.

Conclusion
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Images on previous page (from left to right):

1. Terry Sidie (2015). Source: Paul Kitagaki for The Sacramento Bee.

2. Mr. Leather Sacramento 1991-1992 (1992). Source: PATLAR Gazette (July 1992)

3. Theresa Corrigan (1983). Courtesy of Theresa Corrigan.

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CONCLUSION
History happens in places but not without the people who came forward and forced change to happen. As stated by community member Michael Gorman, the story of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community is the story of the people who for decades risked their lives to build this community.

Although this historic context statement frequently highlights the work of individuals, the achievements that forged Sacramento’s “vibrant, creative, world-changing” community were the collective work of many, most of whom remain behind the curtain and underrecognized. None have remained more hidden than the generations of gender and sexually nonconforming people who called the Sacramento area home prior to the mid-20th century but were forced into the shadows by deep-seated and widespread discrimination from society at large, and whose stories will likely never be known. They existed and resisted in ways that were available to them, often at great personal risk.

The leaders and everyday people who came out of the closet starting in the 1960s worked tirelessly to create a true LGBTQ+ community in Sacramento—one that provided for all facets of social, political, spiritual, medical, professional, and cultural life for its members. The visible community that emerged by the early 1980s, with its geographic center in Lavender Heights, was driven, tight- knit, and diverse. What is referred to in this document as the “LGBTQ+” community was in reality comprised of a multiplicity of smaller, sometimes fractious, communities that formed to carve out safe spaces for those who shared the same gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, or other part of their personal identity. While the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s hit gay men the hardest, it had a profound impact on Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community as a whole, uniting its diverse factions in ways no other prior events had and unleashing a powerful new force onto the political stage.

Located in California’s capital city, Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ residents used their proximity—and in many cases, their personal experience with lawmaking, politics, and community organizing —to have an outsized role in advancing LGBTQ+ rights locally and across the state. Through their collective efforts, the LGBTQ+ community became an integrated part of the fabric of Sacramento’s broader populace around the year 2000 and entered a new phase of its history. While the prior decades of community building and political activism often focused on the gay and lesbian communities, like LGBTQ+ communities across the country, the definition and identity of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community has continued to expand since the start of the new millennium, broadening its umbrella to more consistently and outwardly embrace transgender, bisexual, and other sexually and gender diverse people. As these communities have become more visible and have come under increasing attack, Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community faces new challenges. Standing on the foundations laid by the generations before them, the current and future generations of LGBTQ+ leaders and community members are poised to write the next chapter of LGBTQ+ history in Sacramento. 07 Bibliography

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Images on previous page (from left to right):

1. Golden Rules Services founder Clarmundo Sullivan. Source: Sacramento Observer.

2. Cherie Gordon with Le Theatre Lesbien at the 1980 March on Sacramento for Gay and Lesbian Rights (1980). Source: Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Jonna Ramey Collection.

3. The River City Ruggers (undated). Source: Courtesy of Jude Grden.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Published Works & Reports
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Burg, William. Midtown Sacramento: Creative Soul of the City. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014.

Burg, William. Sacramento Renaissance: Art, Music & Activism in California’s Capital City. Charleston, SC:

The History Press, 2013.

Carlsen, Stan F. "Out on the Inside: A Case Study of the Political Transformation of the LGBTQ Community in California.” M.A. thesis, California State University, Sacramento, 2006.

Claussen, Michael Andrew. “Lavender Heights: The Emerging Gay Community in Downtown Sacramento, California.” M.A. thesis, California State University, Chico, 1998.

Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth -Century America.

New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

Ferentinos, Susan. Interpreting LGBTQ History at Museums and Historic Sites. Lanham, PA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2014.

Fisher, Cliff. “A (Not So Brief) History of the Schroth Mansion (2515 Capitol Avenue).” Undated.

Graves, Donna J., and Shayne E. Watson. “Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco.” 2016.

Hurtado, Albert. Intimate Frontiers: Sex, Gender and Culture in Old California. Albuquerque, NM:

University of New Mexico Press, 1999.

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Piona, Amber Elena. “How To Create Policy in an Epidemic: Aids in Sacramento, 1981-1989.” California State University, Sacramento, 2010.

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Reichard, David A. Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in California. Athens, CA:

University of Georgia Press, 2024.

Scher, Naomi. “Native Americans and the California Mission System, 1769 -1848.” National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form. 2023.

Selik, Richard M., Kenneth G. Castro, and Marguerite Pappaioanou. “Distribution of AIDS Cases, by Racial/Ethnic Group and Exposure Category, United States, June 1, 1981-July 4, 1988.” Center for Disease Control. July 1, 1988.

Slide, Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. Jackson, MS; University Press of Mississippi, 2012.

Smith, Michael J. Colorful People and Places. San Francisco: The Quarterly, 1983.

Stryker, Susan. Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution. Berkeley, California: Seal Press, 2017.

Thompson, Mark. Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement . New York City: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

Newspapers & Periodicals
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apRoberts, Alison. “First Women’s Building True Labor of Love.” Sacramento Bee. 18 August 1983: 29.

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Bathen, Sigrid. “Capital Rape Victim Helped Inspire New Legislation.” Sacramento Bee. 15 September 1974.
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---. "Women's Center Is for a Woman Alone Who Need Not Be." Sacramento Bee. 23 June 1974: 19. ---. “Women’s Center Raps Council Unit On Rape Crisis Funding.” Sacramento Bee. 2 July 1975: B3.

Bernstein, Dan. “City Extends Some Benefits to Domestic Partners.” Sacramento Bee, 14 October 1992.

“Bisexuality Panel at CSUS.” Mom Guess What…!. 1979.

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August 1981.

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Breton, Marcos. “Men Live, Sing in the Open.” Sacramento Bee. 10 May 2015.

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Chance, Amy. “Wilson Signs Some Civil Rights Measures.” Sacramento Bee. 25 September 1992.

"Chief Hallanan Would Go Further in Sterilization." Sacramento Bee. 6 January 1934.

Clark, Cheryl. "Lesbian Show Of 'Herstory' Is Gay Event." Sacramento Bee. 28 October 1976: B2.

---. "Women's Centers." Sacramento Bee. 12 April 1977: B4.

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Davila, Robert D. “Ailing Editor of Gay Paper Stops Presses for Good.” Sacramento Bee. 18 July 1995:

B4.

---. "Gay Rights Movement Now at Standstill in Capital, Many Say." Sacramento Bee. 23 November 1997.

---. “Noted AIDS Physician Dead at 44.” Sacramento Bee. 6 October 1993.

Deas, David. "Metropolitan Church Preaches, 'God Also Loves Homosexuals.'" Sacramento Bee. 12 February 1972.

DeFonso, Chet. “The Great War and Modern Homosexuality: Transatlantic Crossings .” Proceedings Of Armistice & Aftermath: A Michigan Tech Symposium On WWI. September 28-29, 2018. Northern Michigan University.

Delsohn, Gary. “For Love of Pretty Buildings.” Sacramento Bee. 1 January 1989.

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Drabble, Cody. “LGBTQ Civil Rights Pioneer George Raya Looks Back on 50 Years of Progress .” Capitol Public Radio. June 27, 2019. Accessed May 1, 2024, https://www.capradio.org/news/insight/2019/06/27/lgbtq-civil-rights-pioneer-george-raya- looks-back-on-50-years-of-progress/.

"Entrapment by Sheriff's Dept." Mom…Guess What…!. May 1978.

”Firebombing Suspected as Massage Parlor Burns.“ Sacramento Bee. 18 October 1976.

‘Fonda Benefit,” Sacramento Bee, 19 January 1989: 196.

“Free and Easy.” Sacramento Bee. 13 November 1880: 3.

Freiberg, Peter. “Gay Voices from The Third World.” The Advocate. 24 January 1984: 386.

Garrett, Pamela. “Ethnic Gay People to March in Gay Pride Parade.” Mom Guess What…! Issue 20. June 1980.

“Gay Art Co-Op Has Display Area,” Mom…Guess What…!, February 1979.

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“Gay Couple Denied Dental Care Appeal.” Sacramento Bee. 16 August 1986.

“Gay Group Forms.” Sacramento Bee. June 7, 1981.

"Gay Radio Returns." Mom…Guess What…!. 1 March 1979.

“’Gay Power’ Group Treks to Capitol.” Sacramento Bee. 25 June 1971.

"Gay State Employees Have a Voice." Mom…Guess What…!. 1 September 1979.

“Gay Studies Course Offerings.” The Hornet. California State University, Sacramento. Spring 1973.

Gay Voice Sacramento. No. 1. 1971.

Gay Voice Sacramento. No. 2. 1972.

“Genevieve Mary ‘Gen’ (Domich) Dallosta.” Sacramento Bee. 27 November 2018.

"George Sand Inc. Alive and Well." Mom, Guess What…?! 1 January 1979.

Gerard, Zenobia Jonell. “Feminist Music – Producers Encourage Non-Offensive Lyrics.” Sacramento Bee: B4.

”Getting Steamed Up at 3:45am.” Sacramento Bee. 27 December 1979.

Gilliam, Stanley. ”Stan’s Sacramento.” Sacramento Bee, 8 May 1979.

“Girl Masquerading as Man for Three Years.” Sacramento Bee. 24 April 1934: 13.

"Girl Who Poses as Man is Sentenced In Stockton." Sacramento Bee. 4 November 1939: 23.

Glover, Mark. "Home for AIDS Patients Opens." Sacramento Bee. 1 December 1987: B3.

Goldberger, Paul. “Jed Johnson: Grace Interrupted.” The New York Times. 25 July 1996.

Graham, James K. "In Memoriam." Mom…Guess What…!. December 1978.

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Gutierrez, Melody. "Region in Brief." Sacramento Bee. 22 June 2009: B2.

Hamilton, William L. “The Surviving Twin, Rearranging the Furniture.” The New York Times. 10 November 2005.

“Hiring Ban ‘Immature.’” Sacramento Bee. 31 July 1979.

“History.” Sacramento LGBT Community Center. Accessed April 11, 2024, https://saccenter.org/history.

Hoard, DeWitt. “People of Co-Lore.” PATLAR Gazette. 20 September 1982.

“Hoyos, ‘Bobbette’ Robert.” Sacramento Bee. 15 November 1996: B7.

“In the Police Court." Sacramento Bee. 9 June 1888.

“Interview.” River City Rambler II. No. 2. February 1982. Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE).

"It’s Harold, But The Copes Say ‘Gladys.’” Sacramento Star. 6 July 1923: 1.

Jackson III, Arturo. “Act-Up Sacramento Active Again.” The Latest Issue. March 1990.

Javor, Ronald. “Agencies Offer Affordable Housing to Residents with Special Needs.” Sacramento Bee. 3 August 1996: 2.

Jones, Pat. "Society for Homosexual Freedom Seeks Recognition on SSC Campus ." Sacramento Bee. 1 March 1970.

“Judge Orders College to Recognize Gay Club.” The Advocate. No. 55. March 17-30, 1971.

Kay, Alfred. “Strategically OK Lesbian Play Fails as Theater.” Sacramento Bee. 10 September 1979.

“Laurie McBride.” Sacramento Bee. 20 December 2020: C8.

“Lease is Signed for Cocktail Bar." Sacramento Bee. 24 February 1940.

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Lindelof, Bill. "Gay Bars Flourish in Downtown Area As Places to Relax, Find Partners ." Sacramento Bee. 12 September 1983.

"Local Brevities." Sacramento Star. 24 August 1911: 8.

“Love and Justice.” Sacramento Bee. 2 March 1999: 9.

Macias, Chris. "Celebrating Inclusion." Sacramento Bee. 5 September 2015: B1, B6.

"Male Impersonator, Girl Runaway Are Hunted." Sacramento Union. 25 July 1936: 12.

"Masqueraders." Sacramento Bee. 21 October 1876.

“Masquerading Girl Is Ordered from Oakland.” Sacramento Bee. 29 December 1933: 5.

MacLean, Judy. “June Millington.” The Advocate. 8 June 1982.

“McCollom, Carl Ray.” Sacramento Bee. 17 September 1992.

McGough, Michael. “Sacramento’s LGBTQ Film Festival Coming to Permanent End.” Sacramento Bee. 16 May 2022: 5A.

McManis, Sam. “Media Savvy: New Outlook.” Sacramento Bee. 24 April 2007: E1.

McQueen, Robert I. “Deadbolts for Doorknobs.” The Advocate. 4 October 1978: 17.

Merz, Paul. “Sacramento’s Tower Bridge: Gateway to Sin and Sex .” The Advocate. 14-27 October 1970:

16. "Metropolitan Theater." Sacramento Union. 21 December 1886: 3

Meyer, Carla. “Reflecting the Times.” Sacramento Bee. 9 October 2011: I1.

---. “Wedding Theme for Gay-Lesbian Film Fest.” Sacramento Bee. 5 October 2008

Miller, Max. "Sex Freedom March." Sacramento Bee. 24 June 1971.

Mom…Guess What…!. July 1979.

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Mom…Guess What…!. November 1979.

Mom…Guess What…!. October 1981.

“Nation’s First? Gay Studies Program Formed.” The Advocate. August 16, 1972: 9.

Nealon, Chris. “Calif State Assembly Passes Gay/Lesbian Rights Bill.” Gay Community News [Boston]. 14-20 July 1991. Accessed through Gale Archives of Sexuality online.

"Need of State Legislation Against a Horrible Vice." Sacramento Bee. 21 December 1914.

“New Club.” The Sacramento Bee, April 1, 1983, C7.

“New Gay Paper Rises After Closure of Old.” Sacramento Bee. 9 September 1995: B1.

“New Location for Gay Fair.” Sacramento Bee. 9 May 1998: B2.

“New Sacramento Chapter.” Phoenix Monthly International IV, No. 3.March 1984.

"No Inference." Sacramento Union. 10 July 1957.

Nolan, Rebecca. “Agency Strives to Open Doors for Ill Clients.” Sacramento Bee. 23 January 1997: 1,

11. “One Year Later…” Mom…Guess What…!. November 1979.

"Ordinance Would Stop Klan Disguises." Sacramento Bee. 14 April 1922: 16.

Ortiz, Jon. "No Longer a Sure Sell." Sacramento Bee,. 14 April 2005: A1.

Owens, Erin. “The Lavender Scare: How Fear and Prejudice Impacted a Nation in Crisis.” Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History 10, No. 2 (November 1, 2020):
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“Parole Is Denied to Earl Barnett.” Sacramento Bee. 15 December 1945.

Pimentel, Ricardo. “Gay Couple Lose Case on Benefits.” Sacramento Bee. 1 May 1985.

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Peer, Charles. "Remembering Joseph Migliaccio." Outword Magazine 22. No. 378 (February 2009).

Peters, Robin. “La Raza Del Ambient: New Group Accomplishes Much, Plans More.” Sacramento Star. 30 November 1983.

Peterson, Marguaret. “’Mom, Guess What?’ Gay Tells of Fear Overcome, Association Started.” Sacramento Bee. 10 July 1979.

Peterson, Robert W. “He’d Die First.” The Advocate. 20 June 1989: 13.

Raimundo, Jeff. “Women ‘Appalled.’” Sacramento Bee. 12 July 1974: 21.

Reed, Ann. “Gay Church.” Sacramento Bee. 22 September 1974.

River City Rambler 2. No. 1. January 1982.

“Ric Roletto.” The Advocate. 1 October 1981.

Rojas, Aurelio. “Davis Signs 3 Gay Rights Bills.” Sacramento Bee. 3 October 1999: A1.

“Run for the Camellias.” Sacramento Bee. 19 March 1984: A1.

Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press. “News from Those Who Print the News: Sacramento’s Lesbian and Gay Press, What It’s Been Like and Where They’re Going.” Undated. Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE).

Sacramento Star. 20 July 1921: 5.

Sacramento Star. 20 September 1924: 5.

Sanchez, Edgar. “Martial Artist at Work.” Sacramento Bee. 2 April 1996.

Sanders, Jim. “Gay Rights Ordinance Backed After Heated Council Session.” Sacramento Bee. 26 March 1986.

Shah, Nayan. Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexuality, and the Law in the North America West .

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 2012.

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“Shots Fired at Bar Crowd.” Sacramento Bee. 29 July 1979: A26.

“In Tomorrow’s Bee,” Sacramento Bee, 10 June 2000: A22.

Slater, Pam. “Gays’ Suit Seeks Dental Benefits for Mates.” Sacramento Bee. 30 December 1982.

Smith, Freda. “Gays Picket Catholic Church.” The Lesbian Tide. December 1972, 9-13.

---. “Lesbianism: ‘Personally Healthy, Politically Necessary.’” The Lesbian Tide. December 1972, 13.

Spiller, Bill. "Harassment in Disco Raid." Mom…Guess What…!. April 1979.

“Stan Hadden; Roberti Aide Influenced AIDS Policy.” Los Angeles Times. 26 December 1991.

Stanley, Don. “AIDS Nightmare: Puzzling, Deadly – And Spreading.” Sacramento Bee. 4 January 1983.

"State Suspends License of J Street Tavern." Sacramento Bee. 15 April 1957.

Strandberg, Pam. “Raya: ‘No Game for an Ostrich.’” The Advocate. 23 April 1975: 10.

Steve Wiegand. “Tree-Planting with a Twist.” The Sacramento Bee, March 16, 1992.

“There She Goes Again.” Sacramento Bee. 9 August 1866.

"Unpleasant Task.” Sacramento Union. 18 July 1957.

Vargas, Dale. “Timely Hand…A New Program Assists Women Battered By Stress.” Sacramento Bee. 31 December 1979: B2.
“’Wacky Science’ Man at UCD.” Sacramento Bee. 22 January 1999.

"Where Fault Lies." Sacramento Union. 4 July 1957.

Weinerth, David. C. "From the Inside Out." Mom…Guess What…!, 1 December 1978.

Williams, Norman D. “Off-the-Wall Postcards Etc Thrives in Growing Niche.” Sacramento Bee. 25 March 1996: E1.

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Wilson, Trista. "Changed Embraces, Changes Embraced? Renouncing the Heterosexist Majority in Favor of a Return to Traditional Two-Spirit Culture." American Indian Law Review 36, No. 1 (2011-2012), 161-188.

Witt, John Robin. “The Gospel According to Freda Smith.” Sacramento Bee. 17 May 1987.

Witt, Robin. "Gays Gain Acceptance, Visibility in Sacramento." Sacramento Bee. 12 September 1982.

Womack, Graham. “Community Gathers Issues of Sacramento LGBT Newspaper.” Sacramento Bee. 2 July 2023.

“Women Propose Marriage to Girl Posing as Man.” Sacramento Bee. 27 December 1933: 1.

“Women’s Studies.” Sacramento Bee. 5 February 1971: C1.

Wreck Room advertisement. PATLAR Gazette. June 1992: 4.

Yarm, Mark. “The All-Female Band Fanny Made History. A New Doc Illuminates It.” New York Times. 25 May 2022.

Yost, Walt. “Booksellers Provide Rare, Eclectic Works.” Sacramento Bee. 13 June 1996: 2A.

Archival Records
Allen, Connie. Email to George Raya. 13 December 1999. Personal collection of George Raya.

Ferris, Bernie. “Bernie Ferris History.” Undated. Courtesy of Christine Ferris.

"Flashback 1977." Personal collection of George Raya.

“Fred Reminisces About the Bars." Undated. Private collection of George Raya.

Gay Voice Sacramento collection, ONE Archives at USC Libraries, Los Angeles, California.

Private collection of George Raya.

Gordon, Cherie. ”A History of Lesbian Bars in Sacramento.“ Personal collection of George Raya.

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Holt, Tim. "Sacto's Gays.” Undated. Private collection of George Raya.

Laurie McBride Collection. Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE).

Materials and documents from the private collection of Denny Mangers.

“Publications Sacramento.” Personal collection of George Raya.

“S.A.C.W.N. Inc. Constitution, Policies and Committee Descriptions." 1989. Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Sacramento, California.

Sacramento Jail Registers, 1866-1940. Center for Sacramento. Accessed online May 9, 2024. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22Prisoners+-- +Sacramento+%28Calif.%29+--+Registers%22.

Sacramento Police Department Mug Books, 1860-1940, Center for Sacramento. Accessed online May 9, 2024. Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Sacramento+Police+Department%22&sort =-date&and%5B%5D=subject%3A%22mug+books%22.

SF LGBT Groups Ephemera Collection 1950-2010. Collection #GRP EPH. San Francisco GLBT Historical Society Museum Archives.

"Small collections from the Sacramento region." Online Archive of California. Accessed February 9, 2024, https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8pz5hmj/.

“Women’s Studies.” Course brochure. 1972. Personal collection of Theresa Corrigan.

Oral Histories & Community Communications
Bennett, John. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. August 26, 2024, Sacramento, CA.

Cameron, Jonathan/Taryn Thru-U. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. August 20, 2024.

Sacramento, CA.

Conversation between Liz [last name redacted] and Clare Flynn. April 26, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Corrigan, Theresa. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. July 25, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

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Corrigan, Theresa. Conversation with Clare Flynn. August 27, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Drouet, Pat and Rita Maningo. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. October 8, 2024.

Sacramento, CA.

Ferris, Christine. “1980’s History of Sacramento LGBTQ Community.” Email to Henry Feuss. July 10, 2024.

Franklin, Nurk. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. August 8, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Gaynor, Maureen. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. August 23, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Gordon, Cherie. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. August 8, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Gorman, Michael. Email to Clare Flynn. August 20, 2024.

Grden, Jude Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. August 23, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Hess, Jeanette. Conversation with Clare Flynn. August 13, 2024.

"Joey Claytor, DJ and Lesbian Social Organizer." Legends of Courage. Dir. Dawn D. Deason, February 14, 2024ccessed September 17, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRIi3NZIYRQ.)

“Laurie McBride.” Legends of Courage. Dir. Dawn Deason. 2017. Accessed July 19, 2024, https://vimeo.com/244891172.

LoFaso, Alan. Conversation with Clare Flynn. September 13, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

---. Comments on First Public Draft. Emails to Clare Flynn. September 19, 2024.

Mangers, Dennis. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. August 30, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Miller, Kimberly. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. July 22, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Reynolds, Tina. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. May 22, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

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“Sacramento Oral History Episode 2: Linda Birner and Dennis Mangers.” May 30, 2023. Center for Sacramento History. YouTube. Accessed April 18, 2024,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8t3BwNfUXk.

“Sacramento Oral History Episode 4: Linda Birner and Elizabeth Harrison.” May 31, 2023. Center for Sacramento History. YouTube. Accessed April 18, 2024,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nWsdfGrixw.

“Sacramento Oral History Episode 5: Linda Birner & Frank Lawler.” May 31, 2023. Center for Sacramento History. Accessed April 18, 2024,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56Y3lmxsLsU.

Salley, Asa. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. September 6, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

"Sam Catalano - Political Animal." Legends of Courage. Dir. Dawn D. Deason. 2023. Accessed July 19, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7KvRz6fBIs&t=232s.

Sullivan, Clarmundo. Conversation with Carson Anderson. August 9, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Tierney, Jolanne. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. August 2, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Tucker, Peter. “Notes on CSUS’s Gay Liberation Front Alterative Coffeehouse Becoming Damien House/Gay Men’s Collective.” Email to Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience team, October 24, 2024.

Walls, Judy. Conversation with Clare Flynn and Henry Feuss. September 6, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Williams, Jonathan. Conversation with Clare Flynn. August 7, 2024. Sacramento, CA.

Internet Sources
“About.” SacLegal. Accessed September 25, 2024, https://www.saclegal.org/about_saclegal.

“About.” Stonewall Foundation of Greater Sacramento. Accessed July 19, 2024, https://www.sacstonewallfoundation.org/about.

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Andrew, Scottie. “Welcome to the ‘Gay Games,’ An Alternative to the Olympics, Where Activism is Encouraged and Everyone’s an Athlete.” CNN. July 31, 2021. Accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/31/us/gay-games-lgbtq-olympics-trnd/index.html.

Ankeny, Jason. “Fanny Biography.” AllMusic. Accessed July 31, 2024, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/fanny-mn0001467262#biography.

BENT – LGBTQ Film Festival. Facebook page. October 11, 2023. Accessed August 31, 2024, https://www.facebook.com/bentfilmfest.

Blakemore, Erin. “From LGBT to LGBTQIA+: The Evolving Recognition of Identity .” National Geographic. October 19, 2021. Accessed May 15, 2024,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/from-lgbt-to-lgbtqia-the-evolving- recognition-of-identity.

Cassell, Heather. “Nia Collective Celebrates its Silver Anniversary.” Bay Area Reporter. November 14, 2024. Accessed September 12, 2024, https://www.ebar.com/story.php?ch=news&id=243075.

Center for Disease Control. “30 Years of HIV in African American Communities: A Timeline.” Accessed November 8, 2024, https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/26102.

Clarke, Gerald. “The World’s 20 Greatest Designers of All Time.” Architectural Digest. January 2010.

Accessed September 24, 2024, https://archive.architecturaldigest.com/article/2010/1/the- worlds-20-greatest-designers-of-all-time.

Ewing, Tia. “Sacramento HIV/AIDS Nonprofit Breaking Barriers Closing its Doors .” Fox 40 News. 3 November 2014. Accessed October 14, 2024, https://fox40.com/news/local- news/sacramento-hivaids-nonprofit-breaking-barriers-closing-its-doors/.

Furuya, Satoru. “Kuniko Takeuchi Sensei Interview.” Daiheigen Judo Yudanshakai. Accessed October 24, 2024, https://www.daiheigen.org/2023/05/kuniko-takeuchi-sensei-interview/.

“George Raya: A Sac State LGBT Pioneer.” April 26, 2023. Accessed April 25, 2024, https://hornethistories.com/2023/04/george-raya-a-sac-state-lgbt-pioneer/

Ghaziani, Amin. “The Reinvention of Heterosexuality.” Gay and Lesbian Review. May-June 2010.

Accessed May 7, 2024, https://glreview.org/article/the-reinvention-of-heterosexuality/.

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Giaimo, Carla. “The Queer Black Woman Who Reinvented The Blues.” Atlas Obscura. April 27, 2016.

Accessed September 6, 2024, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-queer-black- woman-who-reinvented-the-blues

“Glossary of Terms.” GLAAD. Accessed April 28, 2024, https://glaad.org/reference/terms.

Hale, Margaret. “Queer Leather Culture.” Subcultures and Sociology. Grinnell College. 2024.

Accessed August 24, 2024, https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/queer-leather-culture/.

“Highest Ranked Woman in the World.” Okubo Judo. Accessed October 24, 2024, https://www.okubojudo.com/highest-ranked-woman-in-the-world/.

HIV.gov, “A Timeline of HIV and AIDS.” Accessed May 3, 2024, https://www.hiv.gov/hiv- basics/overview/history/hiv-and-aids-timeline#year-1982.

“Imperial Court Emperors and Empresses.” The United Courts of CGNIE. Accessed August 24, 2024.

Ingram, Danny. “AVER Honors American Heroes on Memorial Day in Washington DC.” American Veterans for Equal Rights. Accessed July 31, 2024, http://aver.us/aver-honors-american- heroes-on-memorial-day-in-washington-dc/aver-honors-american-heroes-on-memorial-day- in-washington-dc.htm.

Rubenstein, Steve. “Jok Church, of Beakman and Jax Cartoon Strip for Kids, Dies at 67.” SF Gate, 5 May 2016. Accessed October 29, 2024, https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Jok-Church- Beakman-and-Jax-cartoon-strip-for-7396400.php.

“Jose Julio Sarria.” California Museum. Accessed August 24, 2024, https://californiamuseum.org/inductee/jose-julio-sarria/.

“LGBTQIA Resource Center Glossary.” UC Davis. Accessed May 11, 2024, https://lgbtqia.ucdavis.edu/educated/glossary#d.

Loe, Greg. “Under the Dome.” Mom…Guess What…!. December 1978.

Mapping the Gay Guides. Accessed April 4, 2024, https://mappingthegayguides.org/.

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“Margie Adam,” Women Arts, May 24, 2004, accessed September 24, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20100620211925/http://womenarts.org/network/profile_974.ht ml.

“Meet Steve.” Steve Hansen for Sacramento Mayor. Accessed May 1, 2024, https://www.steve4sacramento.com/meet-steve.

Melba. “Fifty Gay Years In The Greater Sacramento Area: 1950 – 2000.” 2007-2020. Accessed April 27, 2024, https://gayinsacramento.com/index.html.

Monroe, Irene. “Cleo Manago: The Most Dangerous Black Gay Man?” HuffPost. February 2, 2016.

Accessed September 12, 2024, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cleo-manago_b_1280272.

Morris, Bonnie J. “A Brief History of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Social Movements .” American Psychological Association. March 1, 2023. Accessed May 11, 2024, https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/history.

Nugent, Mithcell. “Meet Jed Johnson, the Man Who Stole Andy Warhol’s Heart.” Interview. March 21, 2022. Accessed September 24, 2024, https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/meet-jed- johnson-the-man-who-stole-andy-warhol-heart.

“Official Message from Queen Mother 1 of the America’s, Nicole the Great.” International Court System. August 26, 2019. Accessed August 24, 2024,
https://internationalcourtsystem.org/official-message-from-queen-mother-1-of-the- americas-nicole-the-great/.

Pruden, Harlan and Beverly Gorman. "LGBTQ2 Well-Being Education: Two-Spirit People: Then and Now." February 14, 2014. Accessed March 1, 2024,
https://www.ihs.gov/sites/lgbt/themes/responsive2017/display_objects/documents/lgbttwos pirithistory.pdf.

Sacramento Native American Health Center. “Land Acknowledgement.” Accessed March 1, 2024, https://snahc.org/land-acknowledgement/.

Schillace, Brandy. “The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic.” May 10, 2021. Scientific American. Accessed September 6, 2024, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the- forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/.

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“Scholarships.” Sacramento Stonewall Foundation. Accessed July 19, 2024, https://www.sacstonewallfoundation.org/scholarships.

“Teaching LGBTQ History: LGBTQ Rights Timeline in American History.” LGBTQHistory.org. Accessed April 4, 2024, https://lgbtqhistory.org/lgbt-rights-timeline-in-american-history/.

“WEAVE’s Journey.” WEAVE. Accessed August 14, 2024,
https://www.weaveinc.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/40-yr-timeline-

8.5x11_2.pdf?1518826703.

“What is BMX?” Black Men’s Xchange. Accessed September 12, 2024, http://www.bmxnational.org/what-is-bmx/.

“Who We Are.” The United Courts of CGNIE. Accessed August 24, 2024, https://www.cgnie.org/who- we-are/.

Film & TV
Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. Directed by Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman.

San Francisco: The Independent Television Service and KQED Public Television, 2016. KQED Arts, YouTube. Accessed November 4, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G- WASW9dRBU.

The Story of Rosemary Metrailer. Legends of Courage. Directed by Dawn Deason. Accessed September 25, 2024, https://vimeo.com/legendsofcourage.

Surviving the Silence. Directed by Cindy L. Abel. New York, NY: Virgil Films, 2021.

08 Appendices
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Images on previous page (from left to right):

1. The first Ms. Leather Sacramento, Kim Wallace (1987). Source: Private collection of George Raya.

2. Dowager Empress II and III Cary Christion (undated). Source: CGNIE pamphlet.

3. Robert “Bobbette” Hoyos (1979). Source: Mom…Guess What…! Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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APPENDICES
Preservation Goals & Policies
Based on the work to date, the following recommendations are offered to continue preservation efforts:

Recommendation: Complete Site-Specific Survey and Research on the Properties for Further Research
From the research conducted, addresses related to the themes and which appear to remain extant were collected in a spreadsheet as properties for further research. They may be candidates for designation as landmarks or historic districts in the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources. City staff or members of the public can conduct additional research to confirm their association with the LGBTQ+ community, the dates of association, and appearance during that association or alterations since then. Field surveys should also be conducted to determine if the properties retain integrity per the considerations in this context. As this HCS is not comprehensive, additional properties associated with Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community are likely to be discov ered over time. They should also be researched and surveyed following the same methods.

Recommendation: Designate Eligible Resources at Local and National Levels For properties that meet the eligibility standards and retain integrity, nominations for Sacramento Register designation should be prepared. The City of Sacramento may also consider preparing a National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Submission for Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ Community. The historic overview and themes in the historic context statement may be used as the content of the Multiple Property Documentation nomination form. At least one property with property-specific site history and significance under one of the themes will need to be submitted along with the form. Once the Multiple Property Submission is approved, future nomination of individual properties to the National Register under this topic will need to provide only property - specific information and a statement identifying the criteria and theme(s) the property is significant under and why.

Recommendation: Amend Existing Designations to Include Association with Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ Community
Existing designations of individual landmarks and historic districts that are listed on the Sacramento Register should be amended to reflect the stories and contributions of the LGBTQ+ community. As opportunities arise to update other designations or the Sacramento Register, the City should consider researching the properties to see if they are also associated with the LGBTQ+ community.

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Recommendation: Continue to Update and Expand the Historic Context Statement Historic context statements are living documents that can and should be updated regularly. The end period will extend as time passes and later decades become historic. Additional research materials may become available, such as digital scans of local LGBTQ+ newspapers and publications. Potential areas of expansion include, but are not limited to:
• History and contributions of the local transgender, bisexual, and other parts and subcultures of the LGBTQ+ community, which are not covered in detail in this Historic Context Statement due to the recency of many of the most significant events in the history and visibility of these communities.
• History and contributions of AAPI, Latinx, Native American, and LGBTQ+ people of other racial or ethnic groups, which are not covered in detail in this Historic Context Statement, due to limited available resources and public feedback to date. • Document the evolution of the LGBTQ+ community after the early 2000s in light of important legal and policy achievements after this period, including (but not limited to) the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in 2011 and the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015.

The schedule imposed by the grant for this historic context statement limited the amount of research that could be conducted. Not all important themes could be adequately studied, and for some themes, not enough associated important individuals, events, or properties were addressed.

As is typical with historic context statements, additional themes can be added as resources become available or more information is discovered.

Recommendation: Documentation and Recognition of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ Community Much more remains to be documented and shared about Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, including in the greater Sacramento region beyond the city. This may include publishing books and articles or creating exhibits from the research already conducted. Additional stories of long -term residents and significant individuals can be recorded as interviews and oral histories. The artifacts, photographs, and papers of significant individuals and organizations can be collected and donated to existing archives for public use, such as the Center for Sacramento History. The research and findings compiled by the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project may be used to support future grant and other funding opportunities to support efforts to recognize and celebrate important historic sites in local LGBTQ+ history, particularly those that have been lost over time.

Support from the City and the Sacramento community as a whole for these and other efforts to preserve the area’s LGBTQ+ legacy is encouraged.

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Recommendation: Collaboration Between the City of Sacramento and City of West Sacramento to Recognize Local LGBTQ+ History
Due to discrimination and strict policing of the LGBTQ+ community within the boundaries of the City of Sacramento through the 1970s and beyond, much of the earliest recorded history of the Sacramento area’s LGBTQ+ community took place in the separate City of West Sacramento. The Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Historic Context Statement contains an overview of the history of the community’s presence and early establishment in West Sacramento. This research should be shared with relevant City officials, organizations, groups, and members of the public in West Sacramento to encourage expanded efforts to preserve and recognize local LGBTQ+ history.

SACRAMENTO LGBTQ+ EXPERIENCE HISTORY PROJECT
Historic Designation Eligibility Standards and Criteria

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

PREPARED FOR

December 2024

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Cover image: The Depot, formerly the site of The Western gay bar, in Lavender Heights.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 238 HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT................................................................................................. 238 GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATION ................................................................................................ 239 ELIGIBILITY STANDARDS AND CRITERIA .................................................................................. 251 Overall Associated Property Types ................................................................................................. 251 Overall Eligibility Standards .............................................................................................................. 251 Overall Integrity Considerations ...................................................................................................... 252 Early Gender Transgressive Expression in the Sacramento Area, Pre-1940 ............................. 253 Finding One Another: World War II & Postwar-Era Sacramento, 1941-1968 ............................ 257 Out & Proud: Development of Visible Sacramento LGBTQ+ Community, 1969-2000 ............. 261 AIDS & the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Community, 1981-1996 ........................................................... 265 Political Activism & the Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights in California’s State Capital, 1969-2000 ...... 268 Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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INTRODUCTION
These Historic Designation Eligibility Standards and Criteria have been produced for the City of Sacramento in conjunction with the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project Historic Context Statement (LGBTQ+ HCS). The eligibility standards and criteria build upon the HCS and are intended to guide the identification and evaluation of properties associated with local LGBTQ+ history for historic significance for potential listing on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources (Sacramento Register).

HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT
The eligibility standards and criteria are intended to be used in conjunction with the Sacramento LGBTQ+ HCS when identifying and evaluating properties with a historic association to Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community. The standards and criteria reference the themes identified in the Sacramento LGBTQ+ HCS as the starting point for analyzing properties for potential eligibility. The themes included in the HCS include:

1. Early Gender Transgressive Expression in the Sacramento Area, Pre-1940

2. Finding One Another: World War II & Postwar-Era Sacramento, 1941-1968

3. Out & Proud: Development of A Visible Sacramento LGBTQ+ Community, 1969-20001

4. AIDS & The Sacramento LGBTQ+ Community’s Response, 1981-1996

5. Political Activism & The Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights in California’s State Capital, 1969-2000

It is important to note that while the HCS identifies key historical themes in the development of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community, it is not intended as a comprehensive history of the community, nor does it provide a definitive listing of the city’s significant historic resources.

Instead, it provides a general discussion of the overarching forces that shaped LGBTQ+ life in Sacramento over time, why properties associated with that history are important, and what characteristics they need to qualify as potential historic resources.

1The National Register considers 50 years to be “a general estimate of the time needed to develop historical perspective and evaluate significance.” This is not the case with the California Register. According to the California Office of Historic Preservation: In order to understand the historic importance of a resource, sufficient time must have passed to obtain a scholarly perspective on the events or individuals associated with the resource. Because so much of LGBTQ+ history, nationally as well as locally, has occurred within the last 50 years, the time periods addressed in the Sacramento LGBTQ+ HCS and associated eligibility standards and criteria extend well into the recent past, while aiming to provide adequate distance from the past to contextualize and understand their significance. In several cases, the end dates were chosen in collaboration with and based on feedback from members of Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ community.

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This document also identifies various property types associated with the themes and discusses historic significance and integrity considerations for each property type. Together, this provides a framework for identifying and evaluating individual historic properties and neighborhoods for designation on the National Register of Historical Resources, California Register of Historical Resources, and Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources (Municipal Code Chapter 17.604.210).

GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATION
The following discussion of significance and integrity guides the analysis of property types found in later chapters of this document and should be used to support future evaluation of historic resources in Sacramento. It is important to note that each property is unique; therefore, the evaluation of the significance and integrity of an individual property must be conducted on a case-by-case basis.

PREVIOUS HISTORIC DESIGNATIONS
Some properties associated with the history of Sacramento ’s LGBTQ+ community have already been designated on the Sacramento Register (SR) as Landmarks or Contributing Resources; the California Register (CRHR), and/or the National Register (NRHP). These properties include:

Address Historic LGBTQ+ Use/Association Designation
1107 9th Street California Human Rights Advocates
SR Landmark, Contributing
Resource (Plaza Park Historic
District)
619 12th Street Hope House SR Landmark
1215 19th Street New Helvetia SR Landmark
1112 26th Street Dignity SR Landmark, Contributing
Resource (Capitol Mansions)
3418 Broadway Metropolitan Community Church SR Contributing Resource (Oak Park Historic District)
1725 Capitol Avenue Metrailer, Langenkamp, and Buscho SR Contributing Resource (East End Historic District)
1329 H Street Metrailer, Langenkamp, and Buscho SR Landmark 910 I Street Plaza Park
SR Landmark, Contributing
Resource (Plaza Park Historic
District)
1403 I Street The Way Station SR Landmark
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902 J Street Ruhstaller Building
SR Landmark, Contributing
Resource (Plaza Park Historic
District); CRHR; NRHP
926 J Street Citizen Hotel - Older Women's
League (OWL)
SR Landmark, Contributing
Resource (Plaza Park Historic
District)
2100 J Street First United Methodist Church SR Landmark 1928 L Street The Mercantile Saloon SR Landmark
1931 L Street Lambda Community Center SR Landmark
2215 P Street Alternative Coffee Shop SR Contributing Resource (Winn Park Historic District)
1515 Q Street Fremont Park SR Contributing Resource (Fremont Park Historic District)

National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (National Register, or NRHP) is the nation’s most comprehensive inventory of historic resources. The National Register is administered by the National Park Service and includes buildings, structures, sites, objects, and districts that possess historic, architectural, engineering, archaeological, or cultural significance at the national, state, or local level. Typically, resources over fifty years of age are eligible for listing in the National Register if they meet any one of the four criteria of significance and if they sufficiently retain historic integrity. However, resources under fifty years of age can be determined eligible if it can be demonstrated that they are of “exceptional importance,” or if they are contributors to a potential historic district. National Register criteria are defined in depth in National Register Bulletin Number 15: How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation. There are four basic criteria under which a structure, site, building, district, or object can be considered eligible for listing in the National Register. These criteria are:

Criterion A (Event): Properties associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history;

Criterion B (Person): Properties associated with the lives of persons significant in our past;

Criterion C (Design/Construction): Properties that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction; and

Criterion D (Information Potential): Properties that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.

A property can be considered significant to American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, and culture on a national, state, or local level. Perhaps the most critical feature of applying the criteria for evaluation is establishing the relationship between a property and its historic context, which is defined as “those patterns or trends in history by which a specific occurrence, property, or site is understood and its meaning (and ultimately its significance) within history or prehistory is made clear.”2

An extended discussion of archeological resources and their registration requirements under Criterion D is not included in this report, which primarily focuses on extant buildings and structures.

CRITERIA CONSIDERATIONS
Certain types of properties are usually not considered for listing in the National Register.

However, these properties can be eligible for listing if they meet special requirements, known as Criteria Considerations. If working with one of these excluded property types, an evaluator must determine that a property meets the Criteria Considerations in addition to one of the four evaluation criteria described above in order to justify its inclusion in the National Register.

These considerations are defined as follows:

Criteria Consideration A: Religious Properties: A religious property is eligible if it derives its primary significance from architectural or artistic distinction or historical importance.

Criteria Consideration B: Moved Properties: A property removed from its original or historically significant location can be eligible if it is significant primarily for architectural value or it is the surviving property most importantly associated with a historic person or event.

2 National Park Service, National Register Bulletin Number 15: How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1997), 7.

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Criteria Consideration C: Birthplaces & Graves: A birthplace or grave of a historical figure is eligible if the person is of outstanding importance and if there is no other appropriate site or building directly associated with his or her productive life.

Criteria Consideration D: Cemeteries: A cemetery is eligible if it derives its primary significance from graves of persons of transcendent importance, from age, from distinctive design features, or from association with historic events.

Criteria Consideration E: Reconstructed Properties: A reconstructed property is eligible when it is accurately executed in a suitable environment and presented in a dignified manner as part of a restoration master plan and when no other building or structure with the same associations has survived. All three of these requirements must be met.

Criteria Consideration F: Commemorative Properties: A property primarily commemorative in intent can be eligible if design, age, tradition, or symbolic value has invested it with its own historical significance.

Criteria Consideration G: Properties that Have Achieved Significance within the Past Fifty Years: A property achieving significance within the past fifty years is eligible if it is of exceptional importance.3

California Register of Historical Resources
The California Register of Historical Resources (California Register, or CRHR) is an inventory of significant architectural, archaeological, and historical resources in the State of California.

Resources can be listed in the California Register through a number of methods. State Historical Landmarks and National Register-listed properties are automatically listed in the California Register. Properties can also be nominated to the California Register by local governments, private organizations, or citizens. The evaluative criteria used by the California Register for determining eligibility are closely based on those developed by the National Park Service for the National Register of Historic Places.

In order for a property to be eligible for listing in the California Register, it must be found significant under one or more of the following criteria:

3 National Park Service, National Register Bulletin Number 15: How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation, 7.

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Criterion 1 (Events): Resources that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of local or regional history, or the cultural heritage of California or the United States.

Criterion 2 (Persons): Resources that are associated with the lives of persons important to local, California, or national history.

Criterion 3 (Architecture): Resources that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, region, or method of construction, or represent the work of a master, or possess high artistic values.

Criterion 4 (Information Potential): Resources or sites that have yielded or have the potential to yield information important to the prehistory or history of the local area, California, or the nation.

Resources listed in the National Register are automatically listed in the California Register.

An extended discussion of archeological resources and their registration requirements under Criterion 4 is not included in this report, which primarily focuses on extant buildings and structures.

Sacramento Register of Historic & Cultural Resources
The Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources (Sacramento Register) is the City of Sacramento’s official inventory of historic and cultural resources. In order to be listed as a local landmark, historic district, or contributing resource to a historic district, a building, structure, site, or feature must meet the following criteria and requirements for listing on the Sacramento Register, as outlined in Chapter 17.604.210 of the City ’s municipal code:

A. Listing on the Sacramento Register—Landmarks. A nominated resource shall be listed on the Sacramento register as a landmark if the city council finds, after holding the hearing required by this chapter, that all of the requirements set forth below are satisfied:

1. Requirements.
a. The nominated resource meets one or more of the following criteria:

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i. It is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of the history of the city, the region, the state or the nation; ii. It is associated with the lives of persons significant in the city’s past; iii. It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction;
iv. It represents the work of an important creative individual or master; v. It possesses high artistic values; or
vi. It has yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in the prehistory or history of the city, the region, the state or the nation; b. The nominated resource has integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship and association. Integrity shall be judged with reference to the particular criterion or criteria specified in subsection A.1.a of this section; c. The nominated resource has significant historic or architectural worth, and its designation as a landmark is reasonable, appropriate and necessary to promote, protect and further the goals and purposes of this chapter.

2. Factors to be considered. In determining whether to list a nominated resource on the Sacramento register as a landmark, the factors below shall be considered. a. A structure removed from its original location is eligible if it is significant primarily for its architectural value or it is the most important surviving structure associated with a historic person or event.
b. A birthplace or grave is eligible if it is that of a historical figure of outstanding importance and there is no other appropriate site or structure directly associated with his or her productive life.
c. A reconstructed building is eligible if the reconstruction is historically accurate, if the structure is presented in a dignified manner as part of a restoration master plan, and if no other original structure survives that has the same association. d. Properties that are primarily commemorative in intent are eligible if design, age, tradition, or symbolic value invests such properties with their own historical significance. e. Properties achieving significance within the past 50 years are eligible if such properties are of exceptional importance.

B. Listing on the Sacramento Register—Historic districts. A geographic area nominated as a historic district shall be listed on the Sacramento register as a historic district if the city council finds, after holding the hearing required by this chapter, that all of the requirements set forth below are satisfied:

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1. Requirements.
• The area is a geographically definable area; or
• The area possesses either:
• A significant concentration or continuity of buildings unified by: (A) past events or (B) aesthetically by plan or physical development; or • The area is associated with an event, person, or period significant or important to city history; or
• The designation of the geographic area as a historic district is reasonable, appropriate and necessary to protect, promote and further the goals and purposes of this chapter and is not inconsistent with other goals and policies of the city.

2. Factors to be considered. In determining whether to list a geographic area on the Sacramento register as a historic district, the following factors shall be considered:
• A historic district should have integrity of design, setting, materials, workmanship and association;
• The collective historic value of the buildings and structures in a historic district taken together may be greater than the historic value of each individual building or structure.

C. Listing on the Sacramento Register—Contributing resources. A nominated resource shall be listed on the Sacramento Register as a contributing resource if the council finds, after holding the hearing required by this chapter, that all of the following requirements are satisfied:

1. The nominated resource is within a historic district;

2. The nominated resource either embodies the significant features and characteristics of the historic district or adds to the historical associations, historical architectural qualities or archaeological values identified for the historic district;

3. The nominated resource was present during the period of historical significance of the historic district and relates to the documented historical significance of the historic district;

4. The nominated resource either possesses historic integrity or is capable of yielding important information about the period of historical significance of the historic district; and
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5. The nominated resource has important historic or architectural worth, and its designation as a contributing resource is reasonable, appropriate and necessary to protect, promote and further the goals and purposes of this chapter.4

TABLE 1: SUMMARY OF HISTORIC DESIGNATION CRITERIA
National
Register/
California
Register
Sacramento
Municipal
Code

17.604.210
Significance Discussion
A/1 i Events,
Patterns &
Trends
Properties may be eligible if they are
associated with trends or development
patterns that have made a significant
contribution to the broad patterns of the city’s
history, or if they are the site of a significant
historic event.

B/2 ii Persons Properties may be eligible if they are
associated with the lives of persons or
organizations who contributed to the history
or culture of the city.

C/3 iii, iv, v Architecture/
Design
Properties may be eligible if they embody the
distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or
method of construction; if they represent the
work of a master architect or builder; or if they
possess high artistic values.

D/4 vi Information
Potential
Properties may be eligible if they have yielded,
or may be likely to yield, information important
in prehistory or history.

4 Sacramento, California City Code, 17.604.210 Criteria and requirements for listing on, and deletion from, the Sacramento register, accessed May 7, 2024, https://library.qcode.us/lib/sacramento_ca/pub/city_code/item/title_17-division_vi- chapter_17_604-article_ii-17_604_210.

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THE “FIFTY YEAR RULE”
In order to be determined eligible for listing in the National Register, resources less than fifty years of age must be shown to have “exceptional importance,” as the National Register considers fifty years to be “a general estimate of the time needed to develop historical perspective and evaluate significance.”5 This is not the case with the California Register.

According to the California Office of Historic Preservation, in order to understand the historic importance of a resource, sufficient time must have passed to obtain a scholarly perspective on the events or individuals associated with the resource. A resource less than fifty years old may be considered for listing in the California Register if it can be demonstrated that sufficient time has passed to understand its historical importance.6

Factor e. for consideration of properties for listing on the Sacramento Register states that properties that achieved their historic significance less than 50 years ago should be of exceptional significance. Due to the fact that discrimination and criminalization of LGBTQ+ people forced the community into hiding for much of its history and, locally, through at least the mid-1970s, nearly all of the history of the local LGBTQ+ community in Sacramento occurred less than 50 years ago at the time of this writing. Places that reflect the cultural and social history of underrecognized communities are of exceptional importance in part because of the societal forces that marginalized them and forced them into the shadows until the very recent past. As a result, the most historically significant people, events, places, and other developments to the local LGBTQ+ community occurred less than 50 years ago and are considered exceptionally significant and deserving of recognition.

INTEGRITY
In addition to qualifying for listing under at least one of the National Register/California Register/Sacramento Register criteria, a property must be shown to have sufficient historic integrity to convey its significance. The concept of integrity is essential to identifying the important physical characteristics of historic resources and in evaluating adverse changes to them. Integrity is defined as “the authenticity of an historic resource’s physical identity evidenced by the survival of characteristics that existed during the resource’s period of significance.”7 The same seven variables or aspects that define integrity—location, design,

5 National Park Service, National Register Bulletin Number 15: How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation, 41. 6 California Office of Historic Preservation, Technical Assistant Series No. 7, How to Nominate a Resource to the California Register of Historic Resources (Sacramento, CA: California Office of State Publishing, 2001), 11. 7 California Office of Historic Preservation, Technical Assistant Series No. 7, How to Nominate a Resource to the California Register of Historic Resources, 11.

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setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association—are used to evaluate a resource’s eligibility for listing in the National Register and California Register. According to the National Register Bulletin: How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation, these seven characteristics are defined as follows:

• Location is the place where the historic property was constructed or the place where the historic event occurred. The original location of a property, complemented by its setting, is required to express the property’s integrity of location.

• Design is the combination of elements that create the form, plans, space, structure and style of the property. Features which must be in place to express a property’s integrity of design are its form, massing, construction method, architectural style, and architectural details (including fenestration pattern).

• Setting addresses the physical environment of the historic property inclusive of the landscape and spatial relationships of the building(s). Features which must be in place to express a property’s integrity of setting are its location, relationship to the street, and intact surroundings (e.g., neighborhood or rural).

• Materials refer to the physical elements that were combined or deposited during a particular period of time and in a particular pattern of configuration to form the historic property. Features that must be in place to express a property’s integrity of materials are its construction method and architectural details.

• Workmanship is the physical evidence of the crafts of a particular culture or people during any given period in history. Features that must be in place to express a property’s integrity of workmanship are its construction method and architectural details.

• Feeling is the property ’s expression of the aesthetic or historic sense of a particular period of time. Features that must be in place to express a property’s integrity of feeling are its overall design quality, which may include form, massing, architectural style, architectural details, and surroundings.

• Association is the direct link between an important historic event or person and a historic property. Features that must be in place to express a property’s integrity of association are its use and its overall design quality.

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Evaluating Integrity
A historic property will possess several, and usually most, of the seven aspects of integrity.

While it is understood that nearly all properties undergo change over time—and thus some alterations or changes are not uncommon—the resource must possess enough of its essential physical features to convey its historic identity. The essential physical features are those features that define both why a property is significant, including applicable criteria and area(s) of significance, and when it was significant, also known as the period(s) of significance. Some properties may change during the period of significance, such as expansion through additions or material replacement as resources become available; these changes may gain significance over time.

Determining which aspects are most important to a particular property requires an understanding of the property's significance and its essential physical features. Evaluators of potential historic resources should weigh the combination of characteristics such as massing; roof forms; arrangement of spaces; fenestration patterns; cladding materials; type, amount, and style of ornamental detailing; and other aspects when evaluating a property’s integrity.

Changes to large-scale features, such as massing and roof form, will have a greater impact compared to smaller elements, such as ornamentation.

For a historic district to retain integrity as a whole, the majority of the components that make up the district's historic character must possess integrity even if they are individually undistinguished. Contributors to a district may have a greater degree of acceptable alterations than properties deemed individually eligible. For example, in a residential historic district, properties with reversible exterior alterations, such as enclosed porches and replaced windows, should not automatically be excluded from consideration. Overall, the relationships among the district's components must be substantially unchanged since the period of significance.

The necessary aspects of integrity also depend on the reason the property is significant – the why, where, and when. High priority is typically placed on integrity of design, materials, and workmanship for properties significant under National Register/California Register/Sacramento Register Criterion C/3/iii-v (Architecture/Design), while for properties significant under Criterion A/1/i (Events) or B/2/ii (Persons), these aspects are only necessary to the extent that they help the property convey integrity of feeling and/or association. Similarly, integrity of location, feeling, association, and sometimes setting may be more important for properties significant under Criterion A/1/i (Events) and Criterion B/2/ii (Persons) than for properties significant under Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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Criterion C/3/iii-v (Architecture/Design). For properties significant under any of these criteria, it is possible for some materials to be replaced without drastically affecting integrity of design, as long as these alterations are subordinate to the overall character of the building.

Evaluations of integrity should also include some basis of comparison. In other words, the evaluator should understand the relative levels of integrity associated with each property type.

For instance, increased age and rarity of the property type may lower the threshold required for sufficient integrity. Conversely, some properties may rate exceptionally high in all aspects of integrity. Such properties should be given greater priority in preservation planning efforts and are more likely to be eligible for listing in the National Register. Generally, a property with exceptional integrity will have undergone few or no alterations since its original construction and will not have been moved from its original location.

The legacy of exclusion and discrimination for historically marginalized communities should also be taken into consideration in evaluating integrity. Members of the LGBTQ+ community experienced discrimination in all sectors of their lives that prevented them from openly engaging with society as their true selves until the very recent past, and for much of that history, words to identify members of the community were limited or nonexistent. As such, there is very little historic record or documentation of places where people who today would identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community lived, worked, socialized, recreated, sought spiritual fulfillment, gathered, and generally participated in human life in Sacramento prior to the 1960s. For many important places to the LGBTQ+ community, the physical appearance of these places is secondary or insignificant compared to their intangible cultural and social significance to the community. Some places have continued to be in active use by the community for several decades and continue to be recognized as historically important locations by the community, even though their appearances have changed to meet the evolving needs and desires of their users over time. Properties may still be eligible under Criterion A/1/i or B/2/ii on the strength of their association with historic events or people. A basic integrity test for a property associated with an important event or person is whether someone from the period of significance would recognize the property as it exists at the time of nomination.

Finally, it should be stressed that historic integrity and condition are not the same. Buildings with evident signs of deterioration can still retain eligibility for historic listing as long as it can be demonstrated that they retain enough character-defining features—those essential physical features—to convey their significance.

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ELIGIBILITY STANDARDS AND CRITERIA
The following section provides guidance on the standards and criteria that properties associated with the history of the LGBTQ+ community in Sacramento should meet to be considered eligible historic resources. The information in this section is organized around the themes contained in the Sacramento LGBTQ+ HCS. The following information is provided for each theme: statements of significance that summarize the detailed history contained in the HCS, examples of property types associated with each theme, eligibility standards required for designating a property as a historic resource, additional eligibility and integrity considerations, and a sample of properties associated with each theme that merit further research.

OVERALL ASSOCIATED PROPERTY TYPES
The following list of associated property types applies to all properties associated with Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ history. As needed, additional property types that are specific to individual themes in local LGBTQ+ history are provided in the theme-specific sections that follow.

• Properties that are purpose-built for, purchased and re-used by, leased to, or used intermittently by an LGBTQ+ business, organization, group, club, or individual. • Commercial, residential, institutional, civic, recreational, cultural, religious, industrial, medical, or mixed-use properties, landscapes, or public spaces. • One of several properties associated with a specific business, person, organization, group, or club.
• Properties that are located throughout the City of Sacramento, though a higher concentration exists in the Midtown and Downtown areas

OVERALL ELIGIBILITY STANDARDS
The following eligibility standards apply to all properties associated with Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ history. Additional eligibility standards that are specific to individual themes in local LGBTQ+ history are provided in the theme-specific sections that follow. • Contributing resources to historic districts may have short periods of association (one year or less) and remain eligible. Additionally, more than one property may be associated with a specific business, organization, group, person, or event and be eligible as a contributing resource to a historic district. The brevity of use and frequent need to Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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relocate to a new location tell the story of the volatility of the early but pioneering periods of the LGBTQ+ community’s history.

OVERALL INTEGRITY CONSIDERATIONS
The following integrity considerations apply to all properties associated with Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ history. As needed, additional integrity considerations that are specific to individual themes in local LGBTQ+ history are provided in the theme-specific sections that follow.

• Retains integrity of Location, Feeling, and Association from the period of significance. • Retains most of the essential character-defining features from the period of significance. o At a minimum, retains the overall form and massing and general rhythm of window openings and entrances associated with the period of significance, o Very early individual examples and contributors to historic districts may have a greater degree of alterations/lower level of integrity and remain eligible. • Properties may be modest with some degree of altered or removed original materials. o Reversible alterations to the exterior, such as replaced doors or windows or new cladding applied over original cladding, should not automatically be excluded from consideration.
o Replacement cladding of a similar material or character (i.e., rough stucco for smooth stucco) should not automatically exclude the property from consideration.
o Replacement of storefronts is a common alteration and would not automatically exclude a commercial building from eligibility.
o Removal of historic signs should not automatically exclude a property from eligibility.
o In outdoor public spaces, the removal, replacement, or alteration of plantings, landscaping, outdoor furniture, and other features may not exclude a property from eligibility if the general spatial relationships and site organization of areas where significant events occurred remain legible.
• Primary interior spaces where gatherings occurred, such as assembly halls, large meeting rooms, or living rooms, should remain as readable spaces, though finishes may have changed.
• Adjacent setting may have changed.
• Under Criteria A/1/i or B/2/2, the basic integrity test is whether someone from the period of significance would recognize the property.

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• Under Criterion A/1/i, altered properties that are restored to be recognizable from the period of significance may be considered for eligibility. • Under Criterion B/2/2, integrity is based on the period during which the significant person or persons occupied or was associated with the property. • Those significant under Criterion C/3/3 must also retain the type of exterior cladding from the period of significance and enough features that illustrate the property’s architectural distinction to retain overall integrity of design, materials, and workmanship.

EARLY GENDER TRANSGRESSIVE EXPRESSION IN THE SACRAMENTO AREA, PRE-1940
Summary Statement of Significance
While people with nonnormative gender identities and sexual orientations have always existed in every place around the world, broad societal understandings and attitudes toward transgressive gender and sexual expression have continuously evolved throughout the course of history. Although many Native American tribes—including the Nisenan, Miwok, and Patwin who called the Sacramento region home—embraced an expansive and fluid understanding of gender and sexuality, the Spanish missionaries and European and American settlers who colonized California in the 18th and 19th centuries brought with them more restrictive views, influenced by religion and traditional societal power structures, that treated any gender expression outside cisgender heterosexuality as a voluntary personal vice that should be punished or treated.

In California, the Gold Rush in the mid-19th century fostered an environment with less rigid gender norms. The flood of people into the fledgling state, most of whom were men, created a severe gender imbalance that upended many of the gendered and racialized structures of Anglo-American society, as many men were forced to take on roles that had traditionally been assigned to women and a unique kindship developed between many men. Both men and women cross-dressed for a variety of reasons, including to engage in activities or behaviors that were not traditionally acceptable for their genders, as well as to express their true gender identities or act in popular minstrel shows and vaudeville performances on stage.

Attitudes toward gender transgressive expressions shifted toward the end of the 19th century.

As more people across the United States moved from rural communities into cities in the 19th century, the increasing urbanization of the United States gave gender and sexually Sacramento LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project
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transgressive individuals greater opportunities to express their true identities and meet similar people away from the eyes and ears of disapproving family and community members.

Meanwhile, the term “homosexuality” and concept of same-sex attraction as an innate part of a person’s being were first introduced by the medical communities in Europe and the United States in the mid- to late 19th century. These experiences laid the groundwork for the formation of the earliest nonnormative gender and sexuality communities and cultures in the United States. However, the increased visibility of people with nonnormative gender and sexual identities between World War I and the Great Depression led to greater suspicion among mainstream society. Relative tolerance of same-sex attraction during the comparatively more socially liberal Roaring Twenties declined during the Great Depression as people feared losing their jobs if they engaged in behaviors or activities outside the societal norms.

Increasing intolerance throughout the country in the early 20th century was also apparent in Sacramento. Anti-gay rhetoric was broadcast from positions of power to the general public, creating an atmosphere that was openly intolerant and sometimes outright violent toward anyone who did not fall within the strict lines of socially accepted sexuality and gender norms.

Although people with nonnormative gender identities and sexualities lived in Sacramento at every point in the city’s history, widespread discrimination and the real risk of arrest, imprisonment, or institutionalization forced them to hide their true selves. As such, very little is known about their existence in Sacramento prior to the gay liberation movement of the 1960s.

Sacramento City CouncilDecember 3, 2024

Sacramento City Council
December 3, 2024