Take note, gay bars, The Abbey in West Hollywood has taken a stand against the scourge of bachelorette parties, as reported over at LAist. The bar has decided enough is enough, and despite being an enormous venue with room to spare most evenings for gays and straights alike, they're putting the kibosh on bachelorette fetes until marriage equality is gained across the country, and they're calling on other gay-owned establishment to take similar stands. more ›

Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban president Raul Castro and niece of Fidel Castro, was granted a visa by the U.S. government this week, causing a stir among Republicans who want to paint Obama as a commie or something. Castro, 50, is the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana and has has been a vociferous advocate for LGBT rights in Cuba. She came with a contingent of Cuban academics, and her first stop was in San Francisco on Wednesday where she spoke at a panel at SF General Hospital on health care for transgender patients. more ›

Someone posted this ad on Muni, and while we sort of chuckled at it we have to say it might offend the more PC and sensitive among us — not to mention those of you feel that fellatio is something never to be discussed or undertaken lightly. What is the meaning of this? Anyone? more ›

We imagine many of you were waiting to see how The Daily Show and The Colbert Report reacted to President Obama's historic endorsement of gay marriage yesterday. Well, in case you missed them, here they both are... more ›

It's been fourteen years since Terence McNally's play "Corpus Christi" debuted in New York, off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theater Club in 1998, and because this country of ours is really slow to grow up, conservatives are still bitching about it. A documentary about a touring production of the play called Corpus Christi: Playing With Redemption is having a preview screening at the Castro Theatre this weekend (2 p.m. on Sunday), and the film is now pissing off a religious group based in Pennsylvania called America Needs Fatima. more ›

This being San Francisco, we have a lot of gay bars — and clubs where go-go boys dance in tiny underwear, and drag shows that straight women like to go to, etc. Increasingly, gay bars have become a place that straight people accompany their gay friends to, and there are plenty of gay-owned establishments in and around the Castro (Blackbird, Qbar, Lime to name a few) that play host to a consistently mixed crowd of lesbigay and straight clientele. So, today, some important words of advice for both male and female heterosexuals who find themselves in gay bars, either by accident or on purpose. more ›

In honor of Harvey Milk Day on May 22, the Friends of Harvey Milk is doing a screening of Milk at the Castro Theatre to benefit the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy — the small public elementary school in the Castro. Longtime activist and Milk pal Cleve Jones will be doing the opening preamble. Also, Dustin Lance Black will speak, too. Cool! more ›

San Francisco couple Brian Willingham and Alfonso Garcia have been together over a decade, after meeting in the Castro on Halloween (remember when they had that?). Recently, Alfonso was detained and thrown in the county lockup after a routine traffic stop in which he was found to have an immigration hold on his file. Alfonso never got his green card despite his family having immigrated here in the 90s, and now that he is legally married to Brian, the couple is making this passionate plea to President Obama (via stopthedportations.com) to give them a reprieve. more ›

So, San Francisco is a regular hotbed of STDs, according to the Bay Area Reporter and the public health department, with cases of gonorrhea and chlamydia soaring in particular in 2011. The only good news is that chlamydia and syphilis didn't spread with quite the same wild abandon as they did in 2010. more ›

It's time once again for the egregious link bait known as The Advocate's list of the 'Gayest Cities in America.' Last year, they crowned Minneapolis the winner. And this year, who might it be? Salt Lake City! Yes, using an asinine formula that involves awarding points for the number of WNBA teams, International Mr. Leather semi-finalists, gay softball teams, elected gay officials, and Imperial Court chapters, they make the provocative and pointless gesture of ranking Mormon-and-gay-hating Salt Lake City, Little Rock, Knoxville, and Grand Rapids f**king Michigan higher than San Francisco on this list. Where do we rank in 2012? EIGHTEENTH! more ›

It's World AIDS Day everyone! Therefore you should be putting on a condom right now and/or trying to combat HIV in the streets or the laboratory! In lieu of that, you may watch this trailer for We Were Here, the very moving documentary released earlier this year about the early days of AIDS in San Francisco. And we should give three cheers for director David Weissman and co-director Bill Weber because this week the film was shortlisted for consideration in this year's Oscar category for Best Documentary. more ›

Sunday marked the 33rd anniversary of the slayings of Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone, and a group of 100 or so LGBT folk and their admirers gathered at the corner of Castro and Market (Harvey Milk Plaza) yesterday evening to commemorate the event with a candlelight vigil. Milk's nephew, Stuart Milk, issued a statement through the Harvey Milk Foundation saying, "Today the memory of both men stand as beacons of light not just in San Francisco, not just in California and not just in the US, but across the globe to all who are diminished for simply being authentic." more ›

Documentary filmmaker Michael Stabile, who chronicled San Francisco's birth as the Smut Capital of America in a short film last year — and who has brought us amazing archival footage of Dianne Feinstein railing against porn and took us on a tour of The Magazine on Polk Street — publishes a piece today in the Bold Italic about the often amazing things he's found while digging around in the dusty archives of our local GLBT Historical Society. He's working on a full-length feature, you see, about the life of Chuck Holmes — the founder of pioneering gay porn studio Falcon, and the namesake of S.F.'s LGBT Center Charles Holmes Campus. more ›

A charming gay couple, recently transplanted from New York City to San Rafael -- in part for economic reasons, in part because the gays have got to start to think about their golden years at some point -- have found it a little tough adjusting to the 'burbs after spending decades together amidst the buzzing streets and Broadway marquis of the Big Apple. Meet Douglass Christensen and Vincent Zappacosta, who are flying back to New York in September to get legally married at their favorite infused-vodka lounge on West 51st Street. more ›

This morning's grab bag of delights from Chuck Nevius includes the amusing story of a lesbian couple who were holding hands while browsing the Gertrude Stein exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum recently when a guard told them they had to cut it out. Allegedly he said they were not allowed to hold hands in the museum. more ›

We just got sent this video in connection with a party happening tonight at Public Works called SPKR: Evolution of the Queer Dancefloor -- it's a benefit for the GLBT Historical Society and will feature the music of five legendary gay clubs in San Francisco: the Trocadero Transfer, Townsend, the I-Beam, the EndUp, and the Box. Two legendary DJs from the late 70s and early 80s will be on hand to spin, Steve Fabus and Bobby Viteritti, and they'll provide a kind of audio history of dance music from the early 70s to modern house. more ›

Organizers of the annual Dyke March are putting out the (probably empty) threat that they might have to cancel the parade/rally this year unless someone coughs up $30,000. The march traditionally happens the Saturday evening before Pride Sunday, shortly before Pink Saturday festivities in the Castro, and it's the one occasion of the gay calendar when the ladies get to rule the roost and overtake Dolores Park, bared breasteses and all. It's been going on since the early 90s and draws a good 10,000 to 20,000 people. more ›

The Advocate, a gay magazine born of struggle for equality back in the day but which has seen better days itself, just published a list of the 'Gayest Cities in America,' and you know what? San Francisco came in at number 11. ELEVEN! How is that possible, you ask, when by some accounts one in five men in this town prefers the penis to the vagina, and where we basically invented gay marriage AND glory holes? Well, it's possible because the Sadvocate used some asinine formula involving Gay.com memberships (hint: no one uses that site anymore), yellow pages entries with the word 'gay' in them (no one uses those either), number of openly gay elected officials (we have lots), number of Tegan and Sara concerts in the last five years, and the number of gay wedding officiants, which they obviously got wrong. more ›

The GLBT Historical Society, whose home is in S.F., just opened the nations's first GLBT History Museum at 4127 18th Street, in what was formerly a retail and laundromat space. The Society previously had a temporary exhibit up last year in a space at the corner of 18th and Castro, featuring artifacts and documents from their archives ranging from costumes and campaign paraphernalia belonging to drag queen-turned-activist Jose Sarria, to a suit belonging to Harvey Milk, to naughty limited edition board games from the 70s. more ›

Three veterans who were all discharged under the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy have filed a new lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claiming that the policy violated their rights under the constitution. more ›

"Making $10,000 or $15,000 for porn isn't worth your life," says porn actor Derrick Burts to the LA Times, calling for mandatory condom use on porn shoots and saying, "Performers need to be educated." Burts, who goes by Cameron Reid in straight porn and Derek Chambers in gay porn, tested positive for HIV in October after contracting the virus on a gay porn shoot in Florida. Burts is straight, and says the only person he had had sex with privately was his girlfriend, who has tested negative. After Burts' positive test, half a dozen straight studios around LA halted production for a bit to "evaluate" the situation, but they have since returned to business as usual. more ›

Those rainbow flag banners that hang vertically off the tops of lampposts along Market Street in the Castro? They're apparently illegal according to historic preservationists, who say that nothing but temporary banners are allowed to be attached to the poles, which are themselves designated historic structures. The metal bands attaching these small banners tend to rust, and many of these banners — which have been hanging up there for about a decade and are not to be confused with the larger rainbow flags that are hung all the way down Market in honor of Pride Month in June — are looking kind of faded and tattered these days. As a Facebook Group devoted to the matter puts it, "They are now filthy and torn and no longer express the PRIDE that our community feels." UPDATE: It's looks like most of the banners, at least along Market between Castro and Sanchez, have already come down. more ›

Allow us to begin by informing you, in case you weren't sure, that Gold's Gym in the Castro is the gayest place on the planet. The second gayest place? That would be Gold's Gym in SoMa. And so it was with great shock and disgust that local Gold's Gym members found out that CEO Robert Rowling (whose company owns the Gold's brand) had donated $2 million to Karl Rove's political campaign group American Crossroads. They're so shocked and disgusted, in fact, that 4,800 have already signed this Change.org petition, and the director of operations for the local franchise, Don Dickerson, who runs the two SF gyms as well the Oakland and Corte Madera branches, is trying to break the contract with the parent corp. and get a divorce. Gold's Gym Los Angeles, meanwhile, quickly issued a statement to make sure its members knew it was locally owned and operated and was not owned by TRT Holdings, Rowling's company. more ›

San Francisco Pride Executive Director Amy Andre vacated her post this week after it came to light that multiple non-profit groups who ran booths at this year's Civic Center celebration were owed $46,000. The official word from the Chron is that Andre, who was only hired earlier this year, misunderstood what they were owed, and this indebtedness is now being added to a nearly six-figure operational deficit that the organization is already facing. more ›

Today's the day that Reverend Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church are standing before the Supreme Court in a First Amendment case relating to their military funeral protests. The justices appeared to be struggling with some of the complexities of the case, which include complaints from Albert Snyder, whose son died in Iraq in 2006, that the church posted an insulting poem on their website attacking Snyder and his wife. "To what extent can [a church] put that on the Internet?" Justice Stephen Breyer asked. "I don't know what the rules ought to be." more ›

And finally, here is part III of SFist's attempt to round up all the LGBT happenings going down about town this weekend, and this installment covers the big, hot, heaving climax of this year's festivities: the 40th Annual Gay Freedom Day march and celebration, also known as SF Pride. (There's some controversy among the LGBTQs about whether we really still need to associate ourselves with one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and maybe we should go back to emphasizing freedom over pride, but we digress. No comment about this year's theme: "40 and Fabulous.") more ›

San Francisco remains the beating heart of the international LGBT community, and though our gay nightlife scene might not be as crazy and full as other, bigger cities (especially in these Depression days), Pride season is our time to shine. New York and L.A. Pride are like sad backyard barbecues compared to the weekend-long gayapalooza here in the city by the Bay, and since among gays the weekend begins on Wednesday, the party's already started. more ›