The Swinging City By The Bay Bv KEVIN MCATEER e front cover of the Friday, N February 13, 2004 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle fea- tured the headline 180 Exchange Vows On Historic Day with a color photograph of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, lesbian activists, founders of the Daughters of Bilitis, and a couple for 51 years. In the weeks following this historic move by the city of San Francisco, there continue to be pages of news analysis offering reasons as to why the newly elected Democratic mayor of San Francisco would initiate such a historic act of civil disobedi- ence. Yet just as those outside of Vermont during the Civil Union debate may have asked why it is that Vermont was the first in the nation to legally recognize same-sex couples, now we want to know why San Francisco. While the short answer may be in the newspapers, the longer and more interesting answer is in l'Vtde Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to I 965 by Nan Alamilla Boyd. Boyd s work does not directly speak to the case for same-sex mar- riage. Instead Boyd s research address- es the question Why San Francisco? The answer can be found in Boyd s insightful and thought-provoking study of the social, economic, cultural, sexu- al, gender and geographic factors that created San Francisco as the gay capi- tal of the U.S. Wide Open Town dissects the layers of social, economic, and political forces taking place in this urban center under the influence of competing interests of business, mili- tary, and artistic communities. Boyd could have easily chosen to solely focus on homophile groups like the Daughters of Bilitis or the Mattachine Society, but instead she dedicates the bulk of her research to the role of working-class bar culture in San Francisco in creating the fiee spirit that San Franciscans and tourists asso- ciate with the city. As Boyd writes in her introduction: Communities forged inside bars and taverns functioned politically and, ultimately, offered practical and ideological response to policing that were distinct from those of San Francisco s homophile (or les- bian gay civil rights) organizations. Boyd could have simply described bar culture, focusing on the social interactions of the lesbians and gay men who gathered there, but instead she offers an interesting exami- nation of liquor laws and regulations in California in the post-Depression era. Her insight into the importance of liquor regulations proves to be a useful tool of reference for points she argues throughout the book. During Prohibition (1920- 1933), Boyd writes, San Francisco openly defied both federal and state efforts to enforce the prohibition of alcohol. With the repeal of Prohibition, the state of California placed the regulation of alcohol under the jurisdiction of the tax board, as opposed to the local municipalities. As a result, a whole new liquor—industry opened up smaller nightclubs and cabarets — many of them started by people associated with organized crime —— tapping into some of the business previously monopolized by the taverns and bars. Boyd points out, the inti- mate nature of the nightclubs also made the surveillance of activities inside the bar difficult, allowing gay bars to survive. Boyd leads the reader through a geographic history of San Francisco, with a particular focus on the North Beach area. During the early to mid-20th century, North Beach - not the Castro or the edgier South of Market areas now identified as the city s gay ghettos -— was the center of the less-public but still popularized gay community. The vaudeville culture of nightclub acts in the l930s and 19405, including female-impersonator shows, developed what Boyd describes as a public culture for homosexuals in San Francisco in the North Beach section. The exotic nature of the clubs fit nice- ly into other cultural and economic events — including the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge and the 1937 World s Fair in San Francisco. Where Boyd s research and writing begin to intersect with the cur- rent front-page civil rights issue of same-sex marriage is her careful exam- ination of how a compromised but more coherent community developed between the previously unheralded (before Stonewall, that is) working- class activists of San Francisco s bar and drag culture and the assimilation- ist-based homophile movements made up of primarily middle-class lesbians and gay men. l-lere Boyd suggests a combination of political movements including the 1961 bid by openly gay .los Sarria for city supervisor, the 1959 California Supreme Court deci- sion Vallerga v. Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and the 1961 repeal of California 5 vagrancy law, which had been exploited by police to entrap the unwary. Just as non-Verrnonters looked to David Moats recently pub- lished Civil Wars to offer a more sub- stantive explanation of why Civil Unions were created in a small rural state like Vermont and not in a place like New Jersey or even Califomia, Wide Open Town offers a valuable resource to readers interested in the queer history of San Francisco. Boyd s work not only helps to constitute the reasons why San Francisco is known as such a gay Mecca but it also pieces together the earlier movements influencing the creation of a political, cultural, and social environment that has led to the public marriage of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, two icons of queer history — along with some 4,000 other gay and lesbian cou- ples —- fifty years later. V Kevin McAteer works at Middlebury College and lives with his partner in Bristol. Funny Guy cont’d from previous page bursting through these walls, its dynamic, powerful stuff. Perry concludes: I propose a new slogan, not meant to be funny but to be investigated. It s one that speaks to our community as well as the dominant culture: We re here, we re queer, how bout we explore this together? Which is exactly what Perry does in these essays — explores his big gay life and those around him. You probably won t want to read this book at one sitting. The essays are short —two-to-four pages apiece —-and they re best enjoyed a few at a time. But keep this book by your bedside, and you 11 go to sleep every night with a smile on your face. And a little wiser, too. V Scot! Sherman smiles before sleep in Richmond. °<§>°<§‘>°<’£‘>°<§°<’£$>°K>°@>°K>°<’§I> Clifford D. 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