Castro (blog 3)

I’ve arrived at the Castro during one of the most coldest and damp days. As soon as I stepped out of the Muni I felt the showers on my hair, face and sweater. Luckily, I had an umbrella so I wasn’t completely soaked.

As I was walking down the block, across the street from the Castro Theatre I saw drag queens at every other corner. Most of them were holding rainbow umbrellas, which had letters hanging from them as if they were wind-chimes. One particular drag queen, who was wearing a purple dress and floppy purple wig with pink highlights, handed me a flyer which stated, “Vote Frankie for Emperor in 2011.” Unfortunately since I’m not a Castro resident I can’t vote.

Turning right on 18^th Street my eyes caught sight of the GLBT History Museum. One of the volunteers at the museum told it was the first GLBT museum to open in the United States, but the first in the world opened in Berlin. Feeling intrigued I paid the museum’s $5.00 admission fee and explored its exhibit.

Their exhibit consisted many photographs and documents from famous gays and lesbians from 1922 to 2008. Lyon-Martin was one of their better exhibits. The Lyon-Martin section had books written by Del Martin including, No Secret Anymore, Lesbian Woman, and Battered Wives. Their section also included photographs and brief overviews of their accomplishments during Lyon-Martin’s activist days.

The sex toy exhibit was one of GLBT’s bolder selections which had several dildos and vibrators from the 1960s. One of the vibrators belonged to World War II lesbian veteran Helen Harder, who was an elementary school teacher and lived in San Francisco during her final days. As strange as this might sound, but the sex toys were actually one of the important parts of gay and lesbian history.

Another exhibit that stood out to me was a pink velvet gown with gold floral trimmings. Right next to the gown was a thick diamond incrusted necklace and matching chandelier earrings. The following items belonged to Henry W. Dieckoff (a.k.a Bareness Eugenia Diekoff), who was a prominent figure in San Francisco’s Drag scene in the 1940s. Dieckoff was also famous for starting a worldwide fundraising organization called, “Imperial Court” in 1965.

I also noticed that the museum sells an assortment of GLBT t-shirts with art deco designs on them. I may consider buying one of their t-shirts the next time I’m at the GLBT museum.

Although the GLBT History museum was very small, their eclectic exhibits more then made up for its lack of size.

http://www.glbthistory.org/museum/