Presentation: Unspeakable Vice

How San Francisco Became America's "Gay Capital"
Saturday, 12/7/2024
3:00 - 4:30
Virtual Library

United States

Register

Learn about the surprising and diverse "pre-history" of the LGBTQIA+ movement in San Francisco. Pride narratives often focus on 1970s Castro, but what happened and who came before the rainbow flag and Harvey Milk? This multimedia, virtual presentation shows how drag queens, sex workers and religious leaders gave a voice to the Victorians' "unspeakable vice" and made San Francisco a venerated "Sodom by the Sea."

Registration required. Click here to reserve your space. 

Closed Captioning will be available. For accommodations (such as ASL or language interpretation), call (415) 557-4557 or contact accessibility@sfpl.org. Requesting at least 3 days in advance will help ensure availability.

Connect: Unspeakable Tours - Website

Community & Neighborhood

Build connections with others in our local programs.

History

Learn more about local history.

LGBTQIA+ Interest

Gather, share knowledge and celebrate our unique identities at the queerest library ever. 

For more resources, the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center is the gateway to the Library’s broader collections documenting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual history and culture, with a special emphasis on the San Francisco Bay Area.

This program is sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Attending Programs

All programs are drop-in (no registration necessary) unless otherwise noted. All SFPL locations are wheelchair accessible. For accommodations (such as ASL), call (415) 557-4557 or contact accessibility@sfpl.org. Requesting at least 3 business days in advance will help ensure availability.

This program will be conducted in English unless otherwise noted.

Notice: This event may be filmed or photographed. By participating in this event, you consent to have your likeness used for the Library’s archival purposes and promotional materials. If you do not want to be photographed, please inform a staff person or the photographer. A sticker will be provided to help identify you so that we can avoid capturing your image.

Public Notice and Disclaimer

This program uses a third-party website link. By clicking on the third-party website link, you will leave SFPL's website and enter a website not operated by SFPL. This service may collect personally identifying information about you, such as name, username, email address, and password. This service will treat the information it collects about you pursuant to its own privacy policy. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of each third-party website or service that you visit or use, including those third parties with whom you interact through our Library services. For more information about these third-party links, please see the section of SFPL’s Privacy Policy describing Links to Other Sites.

The views and opinions expressed in programs presented by groups unaffiliated with SFPL do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SFPL or the City.