Location

GLBT Historical Society Museum, 4127 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94114

Admission

$5.00 | Free for members

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The 1954 police raid on Tommy’s Place, a lesbian bar in San Francisco’s North Beach, is the stuff of legend. Lurid headlines describing the seduction of teenage girls in a “vice academy” were followed by sensational stories teeming with swaggering butches, police graft and political intrigue. Lambda Award–winning author and visual artist Katie Gilmartin shares her research about this event, as well as excerpts from the draft of the fictional account inspired by the raid that she is currently writing. She will offer reflections on how archives and oral histories serve as the basis for historical fiction imagining the lives of LGBTQ ancestors. This program is offered in collaboration with Openhouse and is made possibly by grants from Queer Cultural Center and the Creative Work Fund.

Image credit: Photographer unknown, courtesy of Mary Kay Sicola; Grace Miller Papers, Hormel Center, San Francisco Public Library.