Sexuality & Gender

Excerpts from Vanguard Magazine (1966-1971)

Mental Health

Excerpts From Vanguard Magazine (1966-1971)

Queer Theology

Featured Sermons and Writings from Pastors (1964-1971):

Sept. 1968 Letter from Rev. Keith to Bishop Ray Broshears on Being a Gay Pastor. Courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society, Ray Broshears Papers.

An Ecumenical Eucharist Liturgy to Celebrate the Presence of Homosexuals (pdf), April 1969. [Bishop Michael Itkin, Courtesy of the GLBT Historicial Society, Ray Broshears Papers]

Bishop Michael Itkin - Bishop of the Holy Catholic Synod of the Syro-Chaldean Rite doing missionary work in the Tenderloin who ordained several of the Vanguard youth as missionaries.
Sermon: Christ and the Homosexual [Christmas 1969]





Excerpts From Vanguard Magazine (1966-71):

Screaming Queen Meets Vanguard Youth

Today Felicia Flame, a screaming queen who was a part of the Compton Cafeteria Riots, meet with the youth who are gathering to create their own version of Vanguard in the Tenderloin. She shared about her story, her encounter with the Vanguard youth and her reflections about why preserving the history of the Tenderloin and the transgender activists is so important.

Felicia talked with the youth for two hours on topics ranging from surgeries and hormones to the problems with classism and politics.

Near the end of her visit, one of the youth remarked: "to hear what you've been through makes me feel satisfied because it means we're not invisible."

Felicia challenged the youth to preserve the history of the Tenderloin that, in her view, is in danger of being forgotten because the individuals whom it is important to are too poor to buy plaques or statues to remember it.

Her final words to the youth were: "You are all leaders, I expect much from you!"

This was the third gathering of the Larkin youth, who are working towards creating a contemporary volume of the Vanguard Magazine, creating their own group and hope to create some sort of political action to draw attention to the issues that are important to them.

If you are interested in submitting something to their magazine, click the submission tab above.

Location:Larkin Street Youth Center, Tenderloin, San Francisco

Call For Submissions

In an effort to offer hands-on, community-based engagement with this history, today’s Tenderloin residents will produce a free, screen-printed publication in the style of the original Vanguard Magazine, pairing new writings and artwork “in conversation” with originals.

We will print at least 1000 copies of a 60-80-page publication (8 1/2 X 14) with roughly 45 entries: about 15 pieces from the original magazine and 30 new pieces. We are looking for art, writing, poetry, etc. Youth can submit in any format they would like.

Mirroring the original Vanguard Magazine, the magazine will also include material from urban ministers, anti-poverty activists, and Tenderloin organizers; interviews and oral histories; short historical writings contextualizing Vanguard; and relevant snippets from the GLBTHS archives.

Possible themes include: faith and queer theology; loneliness and community; poverty and social stigma; drug use and sex work; sexuality and gender.

Send to: GLBT Historical Society, 657 Mission Street #300, San Francisco, CA 94105.

Questions? Call Joey Plaster at 415.777.5455 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 415.777.5455 end_of_the_skype_highlighting X2 or write at joey@glbthistory.org.

Introducing Joey Plaster

Joey Plaster is an independent public historian, radio producer, and freelance journalist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Joey is the recipient of the 2010 Allan Bérubé Prize for outstanding work in public GLBT history, awarded by the American Historical Association’s Committee on LGBT History. He was a 2009 fellow at the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Joey's public history projects have explored San Francisco's Polk Street, pre-gay liberation Oberlin College, and anti-poverty organizing in San Francisco's Tenderloin. He has worked with KALW radio, the Peabody award-winning transom.org, The Nation, and the SF Bay Guardian. He is Director of the GLBT Historical Society's Oral History Program and curator of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Committee's forthcoming fortieth anniversary exhibit. A graduate of Oberlin College, Joey has received funding from the California Council for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the San Francisco Foundation, the Rainbow Endowment, the Hermes Foundation, and the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion and Faith Program. You may contact Joey at joey@glbthistory.org. Download CV (PDF) Work samples: Polk Street Stories, hour-long radio documentary created for the Peabody-award winning transom.org and distributed nationally through NPR's Hearing Voices. Polk Street Oral History Project, recipient of the American Historical Association's 2010 Allan Bérubé Prize for outstanding work in public GLBT history. Behind the Masks, 90-page essay charting Oberlin College LGBT life from the 1920s to the early 1970s.