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  1961 – The “gayola” scandal, in which police were found to be extorting gay bars in exchange for not raiding them, leads to the creation of the Tavern Guild in 1962.

• September 14, 1961 – The largest police raid in San Francisco history targets the Tay Bush Inn, an after-hours club on Taylor and Bush.
• November 7, 1961 – Jose Sarria runs for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. On election day, he gets 6,000 votes, finishing ninth out of 34 candidates for five open seats. Though he doesn’t win, his impressive finish demonstrates that the gay community is a political force to be reckoned with.
• 1962 – The Tool Box, a gay leather bar, opens at 4th and Harrison, becomes the first gay bar South of Market. The Tavern Guild is formed by gay bar owners and liquor wholesalers to help fight against the police harassment of gay bars and their patrons, becoming the first gay business association in the United States. It lasts until 1995.
• 1963 – The Missouri Mule on Market Street is revamped to become the first gay bar in the Castro.
• November 1963 – The Bureau of Alcohol Beverage Control suspends the Black Cat’s liquor license the night before the bar’s annual Halloween party. The bar defiantly holds the party anyway, serving only non-alcoholic beverages.
• 1964 – The Big Glass, the City’s first African American gay bar, opens. The Society for Individual Rights (SIR) is formed to provide both political support and a social outlet for the homophile movement, as it was then called. SIR lasted for 17 years. When the Tavern Guild proclaims Jose Sarria the Queen of the Beaux Arts Ball, Sarria declares that he was already a queen and proclaims himself Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, José I, The Widow Norton — the widow of Joshua Norton, a colorful San Franciscan in the 1800s who declared himself Emperor of Mexico.
• February 1964 – After 15 years of harassment by the police and the ABC, Sol Stoumen can no longer afford to fight, and closes the Black Cat for good.
• June 26, 1964 – Life magazine features the Tool Box and the Jumpin’ Frog in their “Homosexuality in America” article in which they proclaimed San Francisco to be the gayest city in America.
• 1965 – Jose Sarria’s proclamation of herself the year before as the Widow Norton, Empress of San Francisco, leads to the founding of the Imperial Court, an international drag philanthropic network.
• January 1, 1965 – A police raid on a drag ball at California Hall on Polk Street sponsored by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual is captured on film by television news crews, ultimately generating public sympathy for the gay victims.
• 1966 – FeBe’s opens on Folsom Street, helping establish the Miracle Mile, a strip of mostly-leather gay bars along and near Folsom Street. The Stud, appealing more to hippies than leathmen, also opens on Folsom, where it stays until 1987 when it moves to 9th and Harrison. Ricki Streicher opens Maud’s Study in the Haight. It eventually will become the City’s oldest lesbian bar.
• August 1966 – A police crackdown on raucous transgender and transsexual patrons of Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin triggers a riot. The next night, other members of the LGBT community join in a picket when the trans* patrons are not allowed back in.
• 1967 – I-Do-Know opens at 4146 18th Street, becoming the second or third gay bar in the Castro (Libra also opens that same year at 1884 Market Street). It later becomes the Honey Bucket and then the Pendulum, the first gay bar in the Castro catering to African American men.
• 1968 – Charlotte Coleman opens the Mint opens at 1942 Market Street. It’s the oldest gay bar continuously operating with the same name in the Castro.
• June 28, 1969 – Following Judy Garland’s funeral, a police raid of the Stonewall Inn in New York sparks a riot that is widely cited as the start of the modern gay rights movement.
• December 31, 1969 – The Cockettes perform for the first time at the Palace Theatre on Union and Columbus in the North Beach.

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