By KEN YEAGER |
PUBLISHED: June 26, 2021 at 5:15 a.m. | UPDATED: June 26, 2021 at 10:32 a.m.
Historians often turn to cultural centers such as the Castro and Greenwich Village to tell the story of the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement. That may explain why the progression of the queer community in Silicon Valley from political outcasts to integral members of society has never been widely chronicled.
This will change with the Saturday opening of “Coming Out: 50 Years of Queer Resistance to Resilience in Silicon Valley” at History San Jose.
For people of a certain generation, the exhibit will bring back memories long forgotten. You will see such names as Whiskey Gulch, Sisterspirit, ARIS, Measures A and B, ProLatino, Ms. Atlas Press and High Tech Gays, among others. All except three bars are gone, as are the newspapers, the bookstores, the baths and the leather stores
Memories of friends long dead from AIDS are fading. Where can people, especially suburban gay men, go to reflect on the loss we all feel? Or to feel the outrage over the deaths of Gwen Araujo, a murdered, transgender women, or Melvin Truss, a young gay black man shot by a San Jose police officer while in his patrol car?
All the heartache is displayed in the museum along with the pageantry that only queer people can create. Walk into the exhibit, and the first thing you will see are the outfits of a colorful folclorico dancer, a gown worn at an Imperial Court ball, and a leather outfit for a Mr. San Jose Leather contest.
A panel describes useful terms to help allies better understand the ever-growing definitions that queer people are using to describe themselves, such as transgender, gender nonconforming, nonbinary, intersex, bisexual, questioning, etc.
Learn how the low point of the LGBTQ movement in Santa Clara County occurred in 1980 when 70% of voters rejected ordinances that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, scaring off politicians to support LGBTQ rights for years to come.
It was in the aftermath of that brutal anti-gay campaign that groups such as Sisterspirit and Billy DeFrank Center were formed to counter the negative images that gays and lesbians were feeling about themselves.
Likewise, the AIDS crisis had just as profound an impact here as anywhere. Approximately 2,500 lives were lost in Santa Clara County since AIDS was first detected 40 years ago. A magnificent quilt honors the names of local people who died, and the section ends with a poster promoting Getting to Zero — zero infections, zero deaths, zero stigma — and the hope that AIDS will be finally eradicated.
Next in the exhibit is the story of how activists in local tech companies pushed for domestic-partner benefits and anti-discrimination ordinances long before they became industry standards. Their brilliant strategy was to change corporate America first, believing government would follow, a reverse tactic from the usual approach that was successful.
Turn the corner and you will see brighter days after much despair. Political organizations such as the Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee (BAYMEC) began to form and fight anti-discrimination measures. LGBTQ people started being elected for the first time, beginning with my election to the San Jose/Evergreen Valley College Community College Board in 1992.
You can see the framed rainbow flag that was the first to fly over San Jose City Hall — or any city hall in the county — when Mayor Ron Gonzales and I, a newly elected gay councilman, hoisted it up the flagpole in 2001
Walk across the lobby on the rainbow crosswalk to the community room where you can sit and talk with other visitors about the exhibit and share your thoughts. You can also record a story to be posted on NPR’s StoryCorps or write a memory or comment on the community bulletin board. We want to capture as many stories as possible.
The exhibit tells the history that younger LGBTQ people know little about and have had limited access to. The hope is that it allows them to see themselves in the continuum of an older queer generation that forged a path for them to walk.
It’s been a remarkable 50 years.
Ken Yeager is a former San Jose City Councilman and a former Santa Clara County supervisor.