Archives December 2010

“Make the Yuletide Gay”

To celebrate the season, we thought it would be fun to highlight a few of the Christmas items in the Hormel Center’s archives.

The first is a photograph of the Mattachine Society Christmas social from about 1953. This image is from a scrapbook in the J. Gruber Papers. He was a member of the Society.

William Dickey wrote and printed many poems. The library's collection of his Poems contains several of his annual Christmas poems which were sent to family and friends. "Ornament" is a lovely example of his poetry and printing.

The last item is a photograph of Harvey Milk, Galen McKinley, and their dog Trick in the early 1960s. The photo is from the Harvey Milk Archives/Scott Smith Collection.

We wish you all a happy new year!

Looking Beyond Marriage

The Ninth Circuit Court has now heard the arguments from attorneys on both sides of the proposition 8, same-sex marriage debate and we await their decision as to legal standing and constitutional scruting as to how broad the scope of those rights should be. Click here for a legal analysis of the current deliberations. While we are in legal limbo, these book choices look past the tired old system of monogamyand the nuclear family to the possibility of other options.

The first book, "Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law," by Nancy D. Polikoff, a law professor is a brief history of the legal transformations and paramutations marriage and family law has undergone. It also is an analysis of how far it still needs to go when it comes to broadening and expanding the definitions of marriage and family. She deals with the changes radical feminism has wrought from caring fatherhood to the death of the concept of the "illegitimacy" of children. Hospital visitation and lawsuits for wrongful death by queer partners are also explored. Click here for an interview with Nancy Polikoff and here for some of her more recent articles on LGBT community issues.

Once the legal issues are squared away, we can move on to "The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures," by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy. This, more social perspective is by a marriage and family therapist and a creative writer. In this updated reissue of an old classic, the authors embrace and expand on the term "slut," a derogatory, sexist term for a woman. They posit the male equivalent as "stud."

Anyone can be an ethical slut in thier view; the key to non-monogamy and polyamory in their view is honesty. Their chapters deal with flirting and cruising, overcoming jealousy, healty sex, childrearing, making an agreement and dealing with conflict. This book is not gay or straight but rather more fluid and permeable in its definitions of sexual identity. Click here for an interview with Dossie Easton about this book.

Archives November 2010: GLBT Veterans

On Veterans Day we celebrate and remember the military men and women who have served our country. The Hormel Center houses a few archival collections of GLBT servicemen and women: the Cliff Anchor Papers, the Leonard Matlovich Papers, and the Pat Bond Papers. The Matlovich and Bond papers are on deposit from the GLBT Historical Society of California.

Cliff Anchor was a gay rights activist, military man and radio broadcaster. He was romantically involved with Dr. Tom Dooley and, later, with Leonard Matlovich. Matlovich was a United States Air Force Sergeant who was expelled from the service with a general discharge after he disclosed his homosexuality. Pat Bond was an actress and comedienne; she served in the Women's Army Corps from 1945 to 1947.

In addition, the center has the Randy Shilts Papers. Shilts was a gay San Francisco journalist and author. His book Conduct Unbecoming is about gays in the military. The Shilts collection contains the drafts of the book as well as his collected research notes and interviews with these brave men and women.

In addition to the archival collections, there are books and videos on GLBT servicemen and women and on the issues surrounding gays in the military. You might choose to explore the library's holdings starting with these: Conduct Unbecoming by Randy Shilts, Coming Out Under Fire (also on video) by Allan Berube, and Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (also on video).

Archives October 2010: New Leaf

After 35 years of providing support services to the LGBT community, the doors to New Leaf closed on October 15, 2010. New Leaf was a nonprofit multi-purpose counseling center for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities of San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area.

Services included comprehensive mental health, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS and social support and were available to all income levels especially to middle and low-income individuals and families who could not afford private therapy or support services.
Staff members at New Leaf saved flyers, photographs, memoranda, promotional literature, and handbooks in order to document their work with the community. This material forms the New Leaf collection.

Of particular interest are some older materials from Operation Concern (which merged with 18th Street Services to form New Leaf), GLOE (Gay and Lesbian Outreach to Elders), and a draft of Peg Cruikshank's Fierce with Reality, an anthology of literature on aging. It is worth noting that the collection does not include any patient files.

Because the New Leaf collection is a very recent acquisition and not yet organized, it is not currently available for research. All Hormel Center archives are handled through the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library. For questions, please contact the San Francisco History Center reference desk at 415-557-4567.

Queer Politics and the Rise of the Religious Right

At election time informed decision making becomes a top priority. Library materials can provide a research resource for a myriad of issues. These two books both deal with the rise of the religious right and the role that homophobia, quite literally fear of homosexuals, has played in shaping shaping right-wing talking points and LGBT activism.

The first book,"How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism," by Tina Fetner takes a historical approach. From the Evangelicals of the fifties, through Anita Bryant and the rising of the "moral majority" to the AIDS crisis of the eighties and culminating in the "culture wars" that persist today, Fetner takes us on a chronological journey through the right-wing battle strategies of times gone by as well as how the Gay Movement moblilized around them.

In many ways the second book,"Kingdom Coming: the Rise of Christian Nationalism" by Michelle Goldberg takes up where Fetner leaves off. She chronicles the ascendancy of evangelical fundamentalism which she renames "Christian Nationalism" because of their emphasis on the construction of a theocratic state. Goldberg details how, under the George Bush administration they congealed as a movement. Now, a thriving minority, they comprise the right wing of the Republican Party and, in many races, are taking center stage in this mid-term election.

Archives September 2010: Odd Girl In!

We are thrilled to announce the donation of the Ann Bannon Papers. Bannon is well known and loved for her pulp novels from the 1950s and 1960s: Odd Girl Out, Beebo Brinker, and Journey to A Woman to name just a few.

The Bannon Papers contain the unedited (original) carbon copy typescripts of each of her novels. A few were significantly revised and edited prior to publication by Fawcett Publications.

The Bannon Papers also contain the original contracts with Fawcett, correspondence with Barbara Grier and Naiad Press, publicity photos, newspaper clippings, writings by others about Bannon's novels, adaptations based on Beebo Brinker, and audio- and videorecordings of Bannon's interviews and public addresses. We expect future additions to the collection.

Because the Ann Bannon Papers are a very recent acquisition and not yet organized, they are not currently available for research. All Hormel Center archives are handled through the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library. For questions, please contact the San Francisco History Center reference desk at 415-557-4567.

The Basics & the Lighter Side of Lesbian Pregnancy

As a result of the baby boom in LGBT circles, books pertaining to queer reproduction have been flying off the shelves. These two,"Queering Reproduction: Achieving Pregnancy in the Age of Technoscience," by Laura Mamo and "Beyond Expectation: Lesbian/Bi/Queer Women and Assisted Conception," by Jacquelyne Luce offer concrete advice encompassing and surpassing fertility treatments, conception techniques and support groups. Mamo's book concentrates more on the psychological obstacles and cultural perceptions that lesbians must overcome while Luce's work gives more concrete advice in the legal/contractual sphere. Both books cover the fundamentals such as donor selection, fertility and insemination and both utilize the interview style. However, it should be noted that with regard to legal information, Luce is from Canada and Mamo is from the United States.

After consulting the books above, if you're looking for some lighter reading, or possibly a cautionary tale, "my miserable, lonely, lesbian pregnancy," by Andrea Askowitz is for you. It is a diary-style account of her pregnancy, loaded with biographical digressions. Her sardonic wit makes it a book worth reading, even by people who have zero interest in the female reproductive process. Askowitz with her whiny tell-all style could be the long-lost love child of David Sedaris and Sarah Silverman. She examines the detours and speedbumps of her childbearing odyssey with glib, introspective humor, exposing the inherent contradictions between the way things are and the way they "should" be.

Here is a video of her reading a passage from the book. And another one of Askovitz reading her short story called "Bound for Greatness." To the right is a photo of Askovitz in the throes of her pregnancy.

Archives August 2010 Trannyshack

Heklina's Dragging Rights

The club Trannyshack was founded in February of 1996, by Steven Grygelko known by the professional moniker Heklina. Trannyshack was staged every Tuesday at midnight at the Stud, a South of Market gay bar in San Francisco, where it ran for over 12 years. The Tuesday night Trannyshack shows ended in August 2008.


A bartender at The Stud, Heklina was invited by the manager to create an event that would bring in patrons on Tuesdays, the slowest night of the week. As a participant in Klubstitute, a notorious traveling drag show in 1990, Heklina had witnessed the fun and possibilities of Drag without bounds. Trannyshack quickly gained an avid audience, who would wait sometimes until 1:30 in the morning for the show to begin. Many first time performers grew to fame on the tiny Trannyshack stage and some such as Peaches Christ and Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters went on to even greater fame.

With so many creative people in such close proximity, competition was natural and spurred the performers to heights of glamour and vulgarity which challenged long-held notions of what defines “Drag”. The inclusive atmosphere encouraged experimentation of all kinds, both on stage and off: costumes and acts ranged from the extreme, to the bizarre to the hysterical, edging out but never quite obliterating the traditional canons of drag. Transsexuals, drag queens, drag kings, faux queens, and even faux kings filled the Stud along with regular folks both gay and straight who came to watch the spectacle.

As Trannyshack gained renown, it attracted some of the biggest stars in the drag pantheon, and an assortment of stars from music and television made appearances as well. The club became something of a tourist attraction, and garnered inclusion on many “Best of” lists. In fact, Trannyshack’s popularity spawned a number of unlicensed copycat “Trannyshacks”, in the U.S. and even London.

Though the Tuesday night shows at The Stud have ended, Heklina has plans to continue the Trannyshack legacy with the Easter show, and other special events, and to keep the Heklina/Trannyshack brand alive indefinitely.

The Trannyshack Collection (GLC 58) is comprised of posters, press releases, photographs, DVDs, and a series of “Historical Bulletins” written by Bobby Barber which reveal background information on the performers and a history of each of the Tuesday night shows hosted in 2008, the club’s final year. The DVDs include two documentaries, Filthy Gorgeous and Blood, Sweat and Glitter, amateur footage taken from the final Trannyshack Kiss-Off show, and a video oral history from December 2008.

The Trannyshack Collection is available at the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library.