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Gay tours by theme, upcoming gay tours, tailor-made vacations, choose your date, choose your destination, tell us what you want to do, travel with us, some from our travellers, the inca trail was an incredible experience..

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Yankee Clipper Travel is a proud member of the Signature Travel Network. Yankee Clipper Travel is the only Signature Travel Network agency in San Francisco! In 2021 Yankee Clipper Travel was awarded the "Legacy Status" by the "San Francisco Small Business Commission", becoming the first travel agency to be honored! Yankee Clipper serves the LGBTQ community for all aspects of travel around the world. We pride ourselves on providing our clients with a superior and fulfilling travel experience. Yankee Clipper represents a number of LGBTQ cruise and tour providers and are the only LGBTQ travel agency in the Castro district in San Francisco. We work diligently to ensure our customers can visit safe and welcoming places. Yankee Clipper Travel is also a member of the Castro Merchant Association and the Castro/Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association, also participating in the annual Castro Street Fair. Yankee Clipper was the official travel agency for 2002 Gay Games Australia and 2003 Gay Days at Disneyland. Every year Yankee Clipper donates a vacation package to the AIDS Legal Referral Panel for their annual fundraising event. Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do, our travel consultants will create travel experiences that is yours alone, shaped by your needs, tastes and dreams. We are passionate about selling travel, especially to Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Give us the opportunity to serve you. We are committed to providing you, our valued client, with service, value, piece of mind & unforgettable experiences. Give us a try!

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An LGBTQ Traveler's Guide to San Francisco

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While there have been profound changes to San Francisco's landscape and identity since the turn of the century, it remains a haven for LGBTQ visitors and residents alike—especially its Castro District—and one of the most free-spirited, progressive, and dynamic cities in North America.

Statewide tourism entity Visit California boasts an LGBT-specific San Francisco destination page , while the local, member-based San Francisco Travel Association website is also rich with information and resources, plus interviews with locals (including Honey Mahogany from "RuPaul's Drag Race" ) about the city.

San Francisco LGBT Pride , one of the country's largest and most overwhelming, typically takes place during the final week of June, with the march held on a Sunday. Fall's Folsom Street Fair is the world's largest leather event. It takes place near the end of September, while the comparatively "vanilla" yet jubilant Castro Street Fair —founded in 1974 by Harvey Milk—features main stage entertainment and interactive games. Transgender and queer arts are celebrated at late spring's Fresh Meat Festival , founded in 2002 by transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey's Fresh Meat Productions. Cinephiles flock to San Francisco's Frameline —the Cannes of LGBT film festivals. The long-standing festival features more than 100 selections, including major premieres.

For other to-the-minute LGBTQ events and news, check San Francisco Bay Times and Bay Area Reporter.

Things To Do

Either upon arrival or departure from San Francisco International Airport, be sure to check out the brand new, permanent Harvey Milk installation—it opened to the public on March 24, 2020—located close to the American Airlines check-in area at the aptly named South Harvey Milk Terminal 1. Adorned with 43 photos from Milk's life and trailblazing political career, which was chronicled in two Oscar-winning films: a 1984 documentary, "The Times of Harvey Milk," and the 2009 drama starring Sean Penn, "Milk."

Smack dab in the Castro district, the GLBT Historical Society Museum is an ideal starting point for a stroll through this iconic district where so many pivotal people and moments in the movement took place. While measuring only 1,600 square feet, the Museum's permanent exhibition "Queer Past Becomes Present" includes artifacts and memorabilia from those, including city supervisor Harvey Milk's bullhorn (when it's not on loan to prestigious museums like D.C.'s Smithsonian Institute) and early LGBTQ activist literature.

Speaking of Museums, San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, SFMOMA , reopened in May 2016 after a three-year closure, during which it was expanded and completely renovated . This latest iteration includes 45,000 square feet of free ground floor galleries, and the collection consists of work by many LGBTQ artists.

Check what's playing at the Castro Theatre, programming for which includes special event screenings, film festivals, premieres, and performances, including riotous horror and cult movie parodies starring local underground drag personality Peaches Christ . And check out the boutique shops along Castro Street, including the Human Rights Campaign Store , which occupies Harvey Milk's former camera shop space.

The National AIDS Memorial Grove , located at the eastern end of Golden Gate Park, was federally designated a national memorial by Bill Clinton in 1996. On World AIDS Day in 2018, the Grove saw the addition of an Artists Portal, paying tribute to all the musicians and artists lost to the AIDS pandemic, which includes an 8-foot-tall Emperor Chime visitors can ring in memory of friends and family lost.

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus was the guiding force behind the Artists Portal, and their performances—ongoing for more than 40 years—are well worth checking out. If you love drag, check out one of the performances at Oasis , a gay bathhouse turned nightclub, and show venue, founded in 2015 by local drag stars Heklina and D'arcy Drollinger.

Meanwhile, fans of Armistead Maupin's beloved, iconically San Francisco "Tales of the City" books and TV adaptations (most recently revived on Netflix in 2019) can take one of the self-guided walking or driving tours on website Tours of the Tales. Alas, you also must provide your own Miss Madrigal.

The Best LGBTQ Bars and Clubs

These days, San Francisco's LGBTQ bars, clubs, and parties have spread beyond the Castro, but the iconic district is a natural place to at least start the drinking, mingling, and dancing fun . Opened in 1971, and one of the Castro's longest-running venues, today's Midnight Sun is a modern video bar with open windows, a street-facing lounge, and nightly events and entertainment, including drag queen Mondays and karaoke Wednesdays. Get literally in The Mix at this nearly all-day (early morning until 2 a.m. daily), all-types, 20-year-old neighborhood bar.

Suffering a fire in November 2019, and currently being repaired, Castro Street's QBar nevertheless persists with a series of monthly pop-up "QBar in Exile" parties at various venues listed on their Facebook page. 440 Castro , formerly called Daddy's, brings in some daddies, bears, and cubs, but also an increasingly diverse crowd of men who appreciate 440's underwear nights, cheap drinks (Tuesdays' offering is $2 beers), "Battle of the Bulges" contests, and a cruisy vibe. One of the country's first gay bars, Twin Peaks Tavern is a favorite of seasoned local gays, including S.F. Gay Mens' Chorus artistic director Tim Seelig, in part thanks to its large plate glass windows and people watching. (Fun fact: it was the first bar of its kind to not blackout its front as a privacy measure.)

The cozy Last Call Bar boasts the hood's longest daily happy hour, which runs from noon to 7 p.m.) and jukebox tunes, while the 25-year-old The Edge has been likened to a Bay Area "Cheers" and hosts the Castro's longest-running drag night, Thursday's Monster Show. Go-go boys do their thing here on Friday and Saturday nights. Just east of the Castro, along Market Street, Hi Tops is S.F.'s sole gay sports bar (it also has a sibling in West Hollywood) and features a tasty pub grub menu and, on Thursdays, go-go boys.

South of Market (also known as SoMa) is rife with bars, including the 31-year-old Lone Star Saloon , which is wildly popular with bears, cubs (especially during second Fridays' "Cubcake" party), daddies, and their admirers and allies. Things get downright naughty at Folsom Street's bear and leather Powerhouse Bar , where party themes can get incredibly niche—from nipple play to underwear to B.O.—while there's also some fun, alternative drag performances on Mondays and weekends. Although its name is oft associated with leather, the San Francisco Eagle brings in a diverse, eclectic crowd today with weekly events, performances, and dance parties (including the 10-year-old "Frolic" for furries). As for The Stud , first founded in 1965 in a different location, it hosts an incredible line-up of alternative drag, queer cabaret, and a first Saturday dance night inspired by the city's '70s and '80s disco scene.

Old school-style drag rules at the Tenderloin's dive-bar style Aunt Charlie's Lounge , while the Mission's 40-year-old Pilsner Inn is a conversation-friendly neighborhood bar offering 30 draft beers and a garden patio. And although Polk Street used to be a buzzing gay strip, its sole remaining watering hole is The Cinch Saloon , where you can take in a taste of a bygone era, plus an episode of "Drag Race" or sports game on the monitors.

Where to Eat

Among the world's best food cities, San Francisco is home to diverse international cuisine, plenty of vegetarian and vegan-friendly options, and incredible craft chocolate and confections ( Dandelion Chocolate , which expanded to Asia's most LGBTQ-friendly country, Taiwan, is a must!), coffee and ice cream ( Humphrey Slocombe !). Where to even start? If sticking to the Castro and indie venues, go crazy for Asian dumplings at Mama Ji's , get your oysters on at 43-year-old local institution Anchor Oyster Bar , savor French favorites at L'Ardois Bistro , amazing Vietnamese sandwiches (banh mi) at Dinosaurs, and decadent brekkies, brunches and lunches at Kitchen Story and Wooden Spoon .

Where to Stay

You'll find welcoming, LGBTQ-friendly properties throughout San Francisco, although most hotels are concentrated in the downtown and Union Square districts . Opened in May 2020, one of the latest additions, the 155-room Four Seasons San Francisco at Embarcadero (formerly the Loews Regency, and now renovated with fresh Four Seasons luxury and modern tech), occupies and sports sweeping views from the top 11 floors of the 48-story 345 California Center building.

Founded in San Francisco, and now part of the IHG portfolio, progressive and boutique chain Kimpton Hotels boasts three local properties. The newest, the 248-room Kimpton Alton at Fisherman's Wharf, just opened in summer 2020.

Union Square's 416-room Kimpton Sir Francis Drake is a gorgeous Gothic Revival and Renaissance architecture-inspired grande dame property first built in 1928, acquired by Kimpton in 1993, and updated with a comprehensive $11 million renovation in 2019. Straddling the intersection of Little Tokyo, the Fillmore, and Pacific Heights, the 131-room Kimpton Buchanan is more residential in style with a dash of contemporary zen styling. The Buchanan was formerly known as the Tomo, part of another SF-born LGBTQ-friendly boutique hotel brand, Joie De Vivre , which maintains six properties in the city, including the extensively renovated (in 2018) Hotel Kabuki by the Fillmore district.

As for staying smack dab in the Castro District, the 21-room Parker Guest House is the city's top-rated bed and breakfast.

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Out Adventures specializes in LGBTQ travel

THESE TOUR companies are designed TO provide support for and celebrate LGBTQ+ friendly TRAVEL AND are ready to help you see the world the way you want.

For travelers in the LGBTQ+ community one key aspect of a successful trip is an atmosphere of acceptance. The tour operators listed below specialize in lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender travel and will work with you and your group to assemble vacations to the best LGBT-friendly locations. Each of these companies pay close attention to the up-and-coming locations for LGBTQ+ travel as well as keeping an ear out for the safest destinations for anyone in the community. Feeling comfortable to be who you are while traveling is the top priority at each of these companies and they all have something unique to offer in the business of vacationing within your community.

OLIVIA TRAVEL

Leading lesbian tour operator, Olivia Travel, began as a record label in 1973 before transforming into an international tour outlet in 1990. Today the company, has planned trips for over 350,000 women and has a program designed for every kind of woman. There are programs for women over 40 and under 40, women of color, and even women in uniform. Whether you prefer to bring all your best gals on a trip or find adventure solo, there is a trip by Olivia that is a perfect fit for you. Their travel coordinators will work with you, or your entire group, to plan your next fantastic vacation.

Olivia Travel goes all out to deliver world-class travel experiences to women, their vacations span from full cruise trips to renting out hotels for a vacation full of girl power. The company even offers safari trips full of gorgeous landscapes and rare animal experiences. No matter which route you chose, all adventures through Olivia Travel are created to foster authenticity, a welcoming community of LGBTQ+ women, and a space that allows you to come exactly as you are. Groups, or solo travelers, may book online, visit the San Francisco office or call Olivia’s travel consultants. ( olivia.com )

OWLs: We celebrate our elders by creating special events so that you can connect, share stories, and forge new friendships. (photo courtesy of https://olivia.com/our-programs)

OWLs: We celebrate our elders by creating special events so that you can connect, share stories, and forge new friendships. (photo courtesy of https://olivia.com/our-programs)

ZOOM VACATIONS

Based in Chicago, this prestigious travel planner won the 2016 Travvy Award’s gold prize for Best Escorted Tour Operator in the LGBT category and the 2010 TripOut Gay Travel Awards, among many other accolades. From their start Zoom has been all about diversity, inclusion, and comradery. All their destinations have been vetted as being gay-friendly and welcoming to people in all walks of life.

Zoom Vacations believes that successful gay travel, and travel in general, relies on the close attention to detail. Travel coordinators at Zoom strive to personalize the trip to the traveler, getting to know you, your preferences, and the vision you have for your vacation. The company provides two ways to travel, with their pre-planned vacation itineraries or by helping you plan your own private trip catered to your ideas.

Zoom’s unique tours can take you anywhere from Morocco or Egypt, and even to the Maldives. Their planned get aways offered each year include luxury hotel stays, tour guides throughout all the trip’s outings, as well as incredible cuisine both at your hotel and at hand-picked locations around your destination. If you want to go the independent travel route, a travel expert will work with you throughout each step of the planning process. They will consider the destination you have in mind along with your budget and hand craft a vacation specific to you. Pricing for solo trips and the schedule for upcoming tours, as well as testimonial from several previous Zoom travelers can be found on their website ( zoomvacations.com ).

Based in Salt Lake City, Utah to serve as a beacon of hope to the large population of young LGBTQ+ individuals, HE Travel is one of the leading companies in inclusive travel. They have received the Editor’s Choice from Out & About, the popular gay travel newsletter, and was named Gay Tour Operator of the Year by OutTraveler Magazine.

HE Travel specializes in active outdoor travel with trips that feature hiking, rafting, and biking. While all their trips have a varying levels of outdoor activity, they do not all center around these activities. There are also trips that feature island hopping, safaris and even cultural tours.

If outdoor adventure amongst a welcoming and inclusive community sounds like the right kind of trip for you, you can visit HE Travel’s website to see their full calendar of trips. ( tototours.com )

OUT ADVENTURES

Based in Canada, Out Adventures takes LGBTQ+ groups interests into consideration when planning a variety of trips around the world. Since 2009 Out Adventures has been prioritizing the celebration of the LGBTQ+ community in their travel itineraries. Their crew has explored over a hundred countries, making them well versed about customs and feelings towards the community. This allows them to plan trip for you centered around places that you will feel safe and welcomed. Out Adventures are not only curated to make you feel welcomed wherever your travels may take you, but also to support the LGBTQ+ community in the countries their tours visit. Tours are organized on their site according to themes such as active, cruise, culture, and flex, making it easy to find a trip that feels right for your interests.

Out Adventures guided trips and tours lean more towards the small size hosting sixteen travelers for land excursions and not more than forty on a cruise. This allows you and your fellow vacationers to build a sense of comradery and foster an even greater community feel on your trip. If one of their tours does not stick out to you, they always have agents that are happy to help you plan something that is more your style or speed. ( outadventures.com )

(Photo courtesy of https://www.outadventures.com/)

(Photo courtesy of https://www.outadventures.com/)

(Photo courtesy of https://www.outadventures.com/ )

DETOURS GAY TRAVEL

Founded in 2012, Detours home base is also located in Canada. The company is run by a group of family and friends that pride themselves on putting together relaxing and unhurried vacations. Their travel initiative is to allow guests on their trips to be travelers, not tourists, immersing them in a locations culture rather than only seeing bug ticket attractions. Detours travel concept revolves around you the traveler, steering away from “cookie cutter” itineraries and following a plan as we go mindset. If you would rather lay on the beach while the rest of the group goes zip lining or want to try out a weaving class instead of snorkeling, Detours encourages you to choose your own adventure along the way.

They have a calendar full of trips that can take you and your friends to Europe, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, and Africa. Whatever you’re looking for, Detours can help book your group on a pre-scheduled trip or customize one based on your interests. ( detourstravel.com )

Pink VIbgyor

This travel agency in Sydney, Australia specializes in tailor made LGBTQ+ vacations with a heart for providing you with the most immersive and relaxing stays. While Pink Vibgyor also offers specific preplanned gay tours, their shining aspect is their attention to your preferences when helping you plan your dream vacation. They heavily research all their package trips as well as any trip they may be assisting you with, to bring you closer to the LGBTQ+ culture and lifestyle around your location.

One of their features that set them apart from other LGBTQ+ travel companies is their section on culinary tours. These special tours feature meals with local families, getting a front row seat to their coking styles and recipes, and experiencing the best traditional cuisine your destination has to offer.

You can see all their exciting featured planned tours or fill out a form to begin crafting your personal tailor-made tour with a staff member on their website. ( pinkvibgyor.com/ ).

Oscar Wilde Tours

Gay Pride is more and more important in the world today—and Oscar Wilde Tours lets you explore it more deeply than ever. As heirs to a tradition that is central to civilization, LGBTQ+ people can truly take pride in their forebears, who count among their number such greats as Sappho and Socrates, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky and Virginia Woolf, the genius dancer Nijinsky, the literary revolutionary Thomas Mann, and of course, the sublime Oscar Wilde himself.

Oscar Wilde Tours offers guided tours to destinations such as Europe and the United States, focusing on the cultural and historical significance of LGBTQ+ communities in each location. ( oscarwildetours.com/ )

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For nearly five decades, Olivia’s mission has been to provide safe and celebrating spaces for lesbians and LGBTQ+ women. And today, that mission continues. Olivia is THE leading travel company for lesbians and LGBTQ+ women having produced well over 300 trips for more than 350,000 women. From large cruises to resorts, intimate riverboats to adventure vacations, we always charter the entire ship or resort so that you can always feel free to be yourself. Exceptional entertainment, friendly personalized service from Team Olivia, bucket list destinations and friendships that last a lifetime are just some of the highlights you will find on an Olivia vacation. Experience the magic for yourself!

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"Olivia Travel is the ONLY way I can imagine vacationing! Judy and crew take every measure possible to ensure that our vacations with them will be a life-changing experience with all the fun, laughter, and excitement our hearts can handle! The entertainment is top-notch and the Entertainers are awesome, talented, engaging, and down-to-earth! You'll understand what I'm saying once you travel with u ... Read more

"Olivia Travel is the ONLY way I can imagine vacationing! Judy and crew take every measure possible to ensure that our vacations with them will be a life-changing experience with all the fun, laughter, and excitement our hearts can handle! The entertainment is top-notch and the Entertainers are awesome, talented, engaging, and down-to-earth! You'll understand what I'm saying once you travel with us!"

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"I was grateful for the opportunity to thank Judy personally last night because my story is like so many of yours. Olivia Records (back in the day) was my lifeline to a community of women like myself. I love that we’re all still connected through the music, comedy, and travel. See you again soon! ❤️" (Olivia's 50th Anniversary Hard Rock Cabo Resort)

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Explore Gay Rooms & Rentals in San Francisco

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When you think of gay cities worldwide,  San Francisco is one of the first places that comes to mind. From its iconic gayborhood, The Castro, to the robust LGBTQ rights movement led by the late Harvey Milk in the 1970s, San Francisco is both historically and ideologically an icon of LGBTQ culture in California , in the States, and if not in the world. Along with the Castro, the neighboring Mission district is also very gay-friendly and not quite as touristic. As well as San Francisco Pride, the city also welcomes the famous Folsom Street Fair each year in September. It is no surprise then that for gay accommodation in San Francisco, there are plenty of misterb&b apartments to settle into.  

Gay apartments in San Francisco

As far as gay accommodation in San Francisco goes, a misterb&b apartment is the perfect option. The city is spilling with well-appointed apartments that cater to different tastes. If you are traveling in numbers or like to holiday solo, opt for an entire apartment for your gay accommodation. Otherwise, plenty of misterb&b hosts delight in welcoming travelers to their homes and offer extremely comfortable private rooms for you to settle into. Or why not try our new service where you can search for gay and gay-friendly hotel rooms? Either way, your gay accommodation is sorted with a misterb&b apartment, leaving you more time to explore the city's enchanting facets. And if you feel naughty, you'll even find  BDSM rentals on misterb&b!

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With more than 1 million listings in 200 countries, misterb&b is the largest gay hotelier in the world. This makes it the natural choice for your next gay accommodation option. Whether you're planning a once-in-a-lifetime adventure riding one of the city's historic trams or you'reindulging in a spontaneous romantic weekend getaway with bae discovering The Castro, misterb&b is here to make gay travel a breeze. Explore San Francisco, experience your pride, and enjoy gay hospitality at its best.  

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Gay Geographer

Bob damron, the traveling man who mapped a queer underground .

Cover of Bob Damron's 1968 Address Book

By disseminating details about gay bars and social spaces in towns and cities across the United States, Bob Damron’s Address Books created a nationwide network out of once-isolated communities. 

―Courtesy of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, USC Libraries 

When leather-clad singer Rob Halford of the heavy metal band Judas Priest toured the United States in 1978, he picked up a piece of subversive literature in San Francisco to steer him safely as he sought companionship on the road. The slim, tiny volume with a monochromatic cover bore the nondescript title Bob Damron’s Address Book . As Halford later divulged in his 2020 memoir, not even bandmates on his tour bus could guess that this Damron guidebook provided their front man with a coded treasure map to America’s gay underworld, from Texas truck stops to Detroit bookstores, as they shuttled from gig to gig. 

Indeed, Halford, the famed “Metal God,” felt secure enough in the ruse to carry the booklet in his back jeans pocket. The words “gay” or “homosexual” didn’t appear in its pages; readers in the know were compelled to translate a bit of gay lingo to access its materials, which provided plausible deniability should the wrong sort of person go snooping. In the years when a closeted gay celebrity like Halford stood to lose his position in music if his sexuality became widely known, Damron , hailed as the “first name and last word” in gay travel, helped keep a secret life secret. 

Members of the band Judas Priest posing for the camera

While he was on tour, Judas Priest singer Rob Halford (center) was one of thousands of gay men who relied on the information provided by Damron’s travel guides. 

―Fin Costello / Staff / Getty Images

Similarly, but decades later, when the New York theater company Aquila went on a national tour of classic plays like Much Ado About Nothing , actor Louis Butelli counted on his Damron’s Address Book to find gay watering holes and combat loneliness. Butelli attested to the New York Times that it was a “life-saving device.” Both Halford and Butelli represented the guidebook’s traditional target reader: the discreet gay man seeking fellow travelers, as it were, in unfamiliar settings. For more than half a century, from 1965 to 2021, the annual Damron’s Address Book served as a mash-up between the gay Green Book and the gay yellow pages—a lightly cyphered compendium identifying queer havens in hundreds of American towns and cities. 

This publication was the masterwork of a real American entrepreneur named Bob Damron, a mustachioed San Francisco bar owner who decided to put a personal stamp on a niche offering and became a name of legend. “Compiler Bob Damron . . .  personally visited some 200 cities in 37 states and toured Canada to obtain data presented here,” explained the introductory notes to the 1965 guide. A savvy broker of information, in addition to being a savvy marketer according to oral historian Martin Meeker in the 2006 book Contacts Desired , Damron forged a countrywide network out of then-isolated gay cell communities through long-distance phone calls and letters as well as by personally stopping in. 

“There is a big desire for gay people to support gay businesses,” avowed Damron, a veritable Johnny Appleseed who cavorted his way across social boundaries, to scholar Wayne Sage in the 1979 anthology Gay Men: The Sociology of Male Homosexuality . Damron’s real name became a national gay calling card at a time when pseudonyms and aliases (such as Daughters of Bilitis president Helen Jane “Sandy” Sandoz going by Helen Sanders) were commonly used by queer authors and activists to avoid becoming criminal targets. The foregrounding (some would say flaunting) of his true identity reinforced Damron’s image as a traveler with derring-do who Jack-be-nimbled his way out of discrimination and police harassment.   

In an era without employment or housing protections for sexual and gender minorities, when most gay men risked losing jobs and homes if their legal names ever became associated with a “crime against nature” (as private same-sex acts were then categorized by states until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such prohibitions unconstitutional in the twenty-first century), Damron leveraged societal conventions and business acumen to carve out a perch of gay privilege. Robert Eugene Damron was born in Los Angeles in 1928 to a conservative Mormon household, his mother a housewife from Utah and his father a salesman whose parents were early Mormon settlers of eastern Arizona. According to U.S. Census records, young Damron grew up at 1130 S. Ridgeley Drive, a modest middle-class home in L.A.’s Mid-Wilshire neighborhood. A public school kid, he sprouted early and towered in the back row of his John Burroughs Middle School class yearbook photo, which stated in the caption that he planned to be a diplomat when he grew up—in other words, a traveling attaché, a man abroad. By age eighteen, Damron stood a confident six feet one inch tall and a svelte 165 pounds, or so stated his World War II draft card. Gray-eyed and dark-haired, he caught the eye as a strapping young buck. 

While attending Los Angeles High School, he lent his voice to a teen AM radio show called “Youth Interprets the News,” which received mention in the Los Angeles Times . After his parents divorced contentiously in the late 1940s, his father moved back to Arizona, where he served as a high priest within the L.D.S. Church. Young Damron stuck around after graduation to support his mother, who had married as a teen and could read and write but had no schooling or professional trade, through age fifty-five. Undoubtedly, his mother’s situation served as a lesson in dependency versus financial independence. (It’s significant that Damron’s father maintained his L.D.S. status despite the divorce, as it points to excommunication or disaffiliation factors for the ex-wife and children. Damron didn’t write or publicly speak about his Mormon upbringing, and he received only a brief mention in his father’s 1969 obituary.) 

Damron tried his hand at community college. To no avail. And he somehow avoided Selective Service commitments to the Korean War, though he was of draft age and peak physical fitness and did not maintain a student deferment. Slowly discovering himself, Damron dived headlong into the bar industry as he explored his sexuality throughout his twenties—first owning and operating straight bars, then mixed bars, then “guy bars” (as gay bars were often called) in Los Angeles. A born socialite, the man’s appetite for casual conversation, as well as the casual encounter, was famously voracious. “My favorite indoor (and occasionally outdoor) sport . . . SEX!” Damron later jested in the Los Angeles gay newspaper The Voice . Jumping from bar to bar as a fractional owner and never quite staying put, Damron went on to own the (appropriately titled) Gaiety off S. Western Avenue as well as the Red Raven gentlemen’s club by the close of the Eisenhower years. 

Damron transplanted to San Francisco’s Castro district in time for the acid craze and “free love” flourishing. As the city’s homosexual underground emerged streetside, he opened a gay bar ironically called the Hideaway on Market Street. On the scene in San Francisco, he crossed paths with Mattachine Society president Hal Call. “Bob Damron was smarter than I was,” said Call to historian James Sears in an oral history interview for the 2006 book Behind the Mask of the Mattachine . The Mattachine Society was an early gay rights organization that sought to decriminalize homosexuality by portraying gay men and women as responsible taxpayers and employable citizens. “When will the homosexual ever realize that social reform, to be effective, must be preceded by personal reform?” asked a writer in a 1956 issue of the Mattachine Review , a monthly newsletter for the group’s “homophile” (derived from the Greek words homo and phile , meaning “same love”) readership that Call edited. 

Three photographs of Bob Damron reading a magazine and jotting down notes

Damron poses for the camera in 1979. At a time when many queer writers used pseudonyms and aliases, Damron’s decision to publish the Address Books under his own name was an audacious choice. 

―Cruise magazine  

A multifaceted man of business, over and above his Mattachine crusades, San Franciscan Hal Call operated a gay press called Pan-Graphic and a national gay book distribution service called Dorian. At a time when homosexual literature often ran afoul of state and federal obscenity laws, Pan-Graphic printed the Mattachine Review as well as assorted gay literary fiction. Quite literally buying into gay culture as investors, Damron and Call stood among a generation of post-World War II gay entrepreneurs who gained a foothold in their communities as business proprietors. Previously, organized crime syndicates had largely dominated non-hetero spaces and services. “Ten years ago maybe 25 to 30 percent of the [gay] bars in San Francisco were gay owned,” Damron told scholar Wayne Sage. “Today, they’re probably 75 to 80 percent gay owned.” 

Although other gay compendiums, such as The Lavender Baedeker , preceded its publication, the original Address Book represented perhaps the first such work to emerge directly out of the homophile movement’s platform of gay agency. “I made up a mimeographed list of bars in 1955 when we had our annual Mattachine meeting,” Call recollected to James Sears. “It had thirty-five gay bars. We had people sign for it because we didn’t want it to fall into the hands of police. I put a number on each copy.” In 1964, Call and Damron decided to collaborate to create a more formalized and expansive accounting of the national gay circuit. Damron hopped into his car and went from coast to coast with an open notebook. Afterward, Call edited and typeset Damron’s scribblings onto thin, bible stock paper through the Pan-Graphic Press. Expecting a small readership, they printed a mere 3,000 copies of the first edition, which cataloged 785 locations across nearly 50 pages, according to the online database Mapping the Gay Guides (an NEH-sponsored digitization project of the Address Books from 1965 to 1989). Damron kept the exclusive copyright to the work. 

As sodomy remained illegal in all states but Illinois, author and editor shrewdly chose to present their contents, which encouraged the perpetration of sex crimes, in a visually tame manner. Each citation in their booklet included just a bar name, an address, and maybe one coded letter or symbol. Their sly “Explanation of Listings” was engineered to mislead straights, with labels ranging from “C” (defined as “Coffee,” but likely meaning cruising grounds) to “RT” (defined as “Rugged,” or “Raunchy Types,” but likely meaning rough trade) to “S-M” (defined as “Some Motorcycle,” but likely meaning sadomasochism). Listings encompassed the rural and the urban, blue- as well as white-collar tastes, ranging from “Mr. B’s*” (the asterisk signifying “Very Popular”) in Calumet City, Illinois, to New York City’s Everard Baths to the “Silver Dollar (S-M)” in Jackson, Wyoming. The last few pages were dedicated to Canada. 

A page from Bob Damron's Address Book with a key to the codes used to describe the guide's listings

Listings that appeared in the Address Books contained coded information for readers who wanted to be discreet about their sexual preferences. 

As this was a document drafted on the know-how of a hirsute white pleasure-seeker amid widespread misogyny and gay racial segregation, it should be no surprise that few “G” (Defined as “Girls,” but meaning lesbian) bars appeared in the first Address Book editions. Likewise, no “B” (“Blacks Frequent”) bars would be included until 1970, although Black gay spaces existed widely. Inclusivity concerns seemed a step beyond Damron’s enthusiasms. 

Nonetheless, when the Address Book first hit newsstands in 1965 at a cost of $3 per copy, readers gained access to one of the most complete censuses to date of an illegal subculture in hiding. Leveraging his publishing enterprises synergistically, Call advertised the 1965 Address Book through the Mattachine Review and distributed it via mail through his Dorian Book Service. Damron contacted bars featured in the guide and got owners and managers to commit to buying multiple copies, which made them customers and vendors of the product. “They were sold all over and caught on very fast,” said Call. Pioneers who frequently put their creased, thumbed-through guides to the test were known to personalize their pages by making additional notes about locations in pencil. “One of the things I found when using them from personal experience, they were generally a year out of date and some of the places might have changed,” recalled Bud Thomas, manager of ONE Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries, in a recent interview. “It was a good starting point to, like, hit place A, B, or C. You’d find one place that was definitely a queer bar, and then you’d find whatever the gay local rag was on top of the cigarette machine, and then you’d find out the truth.” 

By 1966, Damron and Call were feverishly printing a midyear edition with updates to meet demand. In March 1967, the two partnered separately to open a bookshop on Ellis Street called Adonis; with more than 800 queer titles, including the Address Book , the Adonis represented one of the first gay bookstores in the United States, as more fully explored in the book Buying Gay by David Johnson. Damron’s role with the guidebook, given his wanderlust, proved to be ever expanding. By 1968, he officially tied the publication to himself by branding it Bob Damron’s Address Book —the act both a status symbol and a source of aspiration for gay men who dreamed of someday living “out” to the same degree. The booklet blossomed in size until it eclipsed more than a hundred pages, which proved too much for Pan-Graphic Press to handle. So Damron spun off the travel book business into yet another one of his legal entities: Calafran Enterprises, an erotic publishing company that had heretofore specialized in magazines with full frontal male imagery. After 1968, only Damron-owned subsidiaries would print and distribute his namesake. “I should have owned half of it, but I didn’t—to my regret,” rued Call. 

All the while, Damron kept a foothold firmly in the San Francisco gay-bar scene. He hopscotched as owner of the Hideaway to Rendezvous to the reservation-only gay restaurant and piano bar P.S. “I didn’t know Bob Damron and Bob Trollop EVER went to the tubs!” teased a Bay Area Reporte r columnist who spotted Damron out at the local bathhouse with a fellow restaurateur. Damron’s last major bar opening was the San Francisco Eagle in 1981. A near-instant hit with the gay leather crowd, the Eagle raked in “an estimated gross of 1.5 million dollars” in its second year alone, according to Bay Area Reporter journalist Karl Stewart. 

By the Reagan era, the Address Book catered to an increasingly segmented set of gay archetypes and subcultures. New terminology such as (W) “Western or Cowboy Types” appeared in the “Explanation of Listings” legend. The booklet also began offering a handkerchief color code guide for gays out cruising with specific tastes. A green handkerchief positioned in the left back pocket, for example, would indicate “Hustler.” In 1980, Damron launched a syndicated human-interest column in gay newspapers and magazines called “Doing America with Bob Damron.” The tone was breezy. “On most late nights, there are more horny guys upright . . . than there are palm trees,” joked Damron in his review of Palm Springs, California, for The Voice . 

In the pages of Buffalo, New York’s, Mattachine newspaper, Fifth Freedom , Damron recommended Monterey Bay as a weekend getaway, though it might not be as gay-centric as Key West. “It is nonetheless a wonderful place to vacation,” he wrote. “If possible, take along a friend or lover, but if not, chances are you’ll be able to score someplace along the way.” With a self-promotional headshot often appended to each story, plus a requisite callout to buy the latest Address Book , Damron achieved the closest thing yet to gay ubiquity. The man embodied a brand, like gay Pepsi. Randoms could pick him out of a crowd. “What do you do in a city that Bob Damron hasn’t been to yet?” asked a Bay Area Reporter columnist rhetorically in 1982. 

Clipping of Bob Damron's obituary from the Bay Area Reporter

An obituary for Damron in the Bay Area Reporter noted his contributions as a successful publisher and entrepreneur.

—Bay Area Reporter, Courtesy of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society

It’s unknown when Bob Damron received the diagnosis that stopped him cold, but when he abruptly sold Bob Damron Enterprises to Dan Delbex in 1985, the business was booming. Nearly a hundred thousand copies of his guide circulated annually, estimated Mapping the Gay Guides, and he was only fifty-seven, a little early for a vigorous man to cash it in. “After witnessing Intl. Mr. Leather in Chicago last May, tis rumored Bob Damron will be throwing a huge Mr. Gay USA pageant here [in San Francisco],” speculated the Bay Area Reporter , clearly not in the loop that July. This would be virtually the last mention of the gay mogul out and about in the so-called Gay Mecca’s newspaper of record. Soon afterward, Damron sold his stake in the beloved San Francisco Eagle bar. 

Damron moved back to Los Angeles to live with his older brother Norrie, who became his caretaker. He told friends that he planned to spend his retirement writing historical biographies. Robert “Bob” Eugene Damron, geographer of several gay generations, died of AIDS complications on June 20, 1989. His family held a funeral on June 28 in Los Angeles, and his ashes were promptly scattered at sea. Friends in leather subsequently hosted a larger “celebration of life” service at the San Francisco Eagle, which is now a designated cultural landmark on 12th Street following 40-plus years serving the community. 

After Judas Priest front man Rob Halford declared his homosexuality on MTV News in 1998, the “Metal God” published a tell-all memoir entitled Confess , in which he credited Damron with shepherding him through America’s gay hunting grounds. “It felt like it was the best option I had open to me,” Halford wrote of his furtive lifestyle. “In fact, it was the only option.” The annual Damron guidebook persisted into the twenty-first century, when queer decriminalization set the stage for gay men to finally appear on its cover. By then, many of the code words and subculture phrases had outlived their original meanings, including the word “queer.” With more than twelve thousand travel listings at final printing, Damron marshalled a global gay citizenry until it surrendered to Google Maps and hookup apps and went the way of all things that glitter discreetly. 

Robert W. Fieseler is a National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association “Journalist of the Year” and the acclaimed nonfiction author of Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation —winner of the Edgar Award and the Louisiana Literary Award, shortlisted for the Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Fieseler is currently working on his second queer history book. He lives with his husband in New Orleans. 

Funding information

In 2021, NEH awarded a $324,418 Preservation and Access grant to California State University, Fullerton, to support Mapping the Gay Guides, a digital project featuring interactive maps and visualizations based on data from the historical gay travel guides published by Bob Damron. The database is one of several NEH-funded projects that explore LGBTQ history in the United States, including a 2020 Preservation and Access grant to the University of Houston ($333,251) to digitize nearly six thousand hours of radio and television programs documenting the LGBT community in Houston from the mid 1970s to the 2000s, and a $25,000 Research Programs grant in 2023 to Rebecca Kumar of Spelman College to support the research and writing of two essays examining the self-representation of ethnic and sexual minorities in American television since 9/11. Other recent NEH grants on the history of gender and sexuality include a summer stipend in the amount of $6,000 to Averill Earls of St. Olaf College for her work on a social biography examining the history of sexuality and state-building in twentieth-century Ireland, and a Preservation and Access grant ($349,759) to the University of Washington for the development of a multilingual data platform that will be used to describe LGBTQ+ resources held by libraries, archives, museums, and other heritage institutions.

Republication statement

The text of this article is available for unedited republication, free of charge, using the following credit: “Gay Geographer: Bob Damron, the Traveling Man Who Mapped a Queer Underground” in the Spring 2024 issue of  Humanities  magazine, a publication of the National Endowment for the Humanities.” Please notify us at  @email  if you are republishing it or have any questions.

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gay travel agency san francisco

City workers protest extra burdens of San Francisco Proposition F’s drug screenings

“Fix our city!” The chant was repeated by a crowd of about 50 workers from San Francisco’s Human Services Agency who deal with the city’s most visible open wounds — homelessness and addiction.

The workers are demanding that the city fill vacancies and provide training support ahead of the implementation of Proposition F on Jan. 1, 2025.

Prop F, approved by San Francisco voters in the March 5 election, will require HSA workers to screen applicants for substance abuse before clearing them to receive benefits in the County Adult Assistance Programs , or CAAP.

The burden is on the eligibility worker and whether they reasonably suspect an applicant is using illegal drugs. People who are recommended for drug treatment will be required to enter and stay in a treatment program in order to continue receiving the benefits.

“That puts us in a position of making a determination that we really don’t have any background or training or education in,” said HSA worker Jesse Stanton, who spoke at the protest in front of the HSA building.

Stanton says the city is good at hiring eligibility workers but fails to properly train and onboard them. He calculated that his job classification, eligibility worker, has a vacancy rate of 40 percent.  

In an email, the HSA said the current staff vacancy rate for the entire County Adult Assistance Programs is 6 percent, which the agency says is in line with expected staff attrition rates.

Stanton said his department is woefully overburdened, which only slows the processing time. He says CAAP applicants, some of the most vulnerable residents of the city, must wait 45 to 90 days to be interviewed before they even find out if they are eligible for benefits.

“It is just soul crushing when somebody makes that application and they’re not aware of how long it’s going to take. Despair sets in right at that moment. And that delay is strictly a function of our staffing,” Stanton said. 

The eligibility workers are also concerned that the new requirements will lead to potential harmful situations.  Currently, when benefits are declined, Stanton said, applicants can sometimes get upset. The additional questions and mandates could escalate such scenarios to a dangerous level.

“That’s an invitation right there to an argument about whether I’ve judged properly that you have a drug problem. There’s a lot of different ways that manifests — throwing paper, throwing, pens, attempting to strike the worker, spitting, just becoming verbally abusive, refusing to leave, insisting to see another worker, to see somebody who looks like them,” he said.

“The safety concern is that there is a large number of people who either use some sort of drug or have mental challenges that make them appear to be under the influence at times. I would say that is a larger percentage of the population,” Stanton said.

CAAP serves single adults under age 65 with no dependent children. Benefits include employment assistance, housing or shelter, utilities and food. In 2023, housed CAAP recipients received about $712 per month and a cash grant of up to $109 per month. 

The San Francisco city controller, in a statement associated with the ordinance, estimated that costs of Prop F will be offset by annual savings of between $100,000 and $2 million  from recipients who are no longer eligible to receive aid. But the workers said the ordinance provides no immediate funding or staffing.

The protesting workers are represented by Service Employees International Union Local 1021 , which represents about 1,500 agency workers. The union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the California Public Employment Relations Board. Their current collective bargaining agreement expires June 30.

The post City workers protest extra burdens of San Francisco Proposition F’s drug screenings appeared first on Local News Matters .

“Fix our city!” The chant was repeated by a crowd of about 50 workers from San Francisco’s Human Services Agency who deal with the city’s most visible open wounds — homelessness and addiction. The workers are demanding that the city fill vacancies and provide training support ahead of the implementation of Proposition F on Jan. […]

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