Notable July events in San Francisco’s LGBTQ history.

Note that most of these events are of specific local LGBTQ interest, though a few nationally significant events are also included along with a few other San Francisco events of more general interest. Please contact us if you know of any other milestones that we should add.

Date	Event
Jul 01, 1998	A mini-mural of Harvey Milk on the wall of the building where Harvey Milk lived and worked at 575 Castro Street is formally dedicated.
Jul 02, 1951	Sylvia Rivera, a Latina American gay liberation and transgender rights activist and an honoree on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, is born in New York City.
Jul 03, 1985	Victor Amburgy and Jack McCarty, a gay couple from San Francisco, walk arm-in-arm down the gangway as they are released from hijacked TWA Flight 847. Neither were out to their families at the time. Press reports continue to call them "friends and roommates" even when discussing how they hid their homosexuality from the hijackers.
Jul 05, 2011	Legendary trans performer Vicki Marlane dies at 76 in San Francisco.
Jul 06, 1907	Painter Frida Kahlo who is honored on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, is born in Mexico.
Jul 06, 1943	Leonard Matlovich, a military veteran and Castro resident who became the first openly-gay person to appear on the cover of Time magazine, is born in Savannah, Georgia.
Jul 07, 1974	The body of Klaus Christmann is found. He is believed to be the victim of a serial killer known as the Doodler who preyed on gay men in San Francisco.
Jul 07, 1979	Bisexual activist Robert Opel is tragically murdered in a robbery attempt at Fey Way Studios, his gallery of male erotica on Howard Street in San Francisco. Opel had shot to fame in 1974 when he streaked the stage of the Academy Awards.
Jul 09, 2020	U.S. District Court Judge William H. Orrick orders that videos made at the Prop. 8 case a decade before be unsealed by August 12.
Jul 10, 1965	Openly-gay actor/comedian Alec Mapa is born in San Francisco, graduating from George Washington High School.
Jul 10, 1972	The Democratic National Convention opens in Miami where Jim Foster of San Francisco becomes the first openly gay man to speak.
Jul 11, 1946	Film historian Vito Russo, an honoree on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, is born in New York City.
Jul 11, 1949	Under the headline "Homos Invade S.F.," a publication called The Truth warns that "San Francisco is rapidly becoming the gathering-point of lesbians and homo-sexuals in California."
Jul 11, 1960	Police Sergeant Waldo Reesink pleads guilty in the "gayola" scandal in which he and other officers extorted owners of gay bars to make payoffs in order to avoid police raids.
Jul 11, 1987	Tom Waddell, Olympic athlete and founder of the Gay Games, dies in San Francisco.
Jul 11, 2019	George Ridgely steps down as Executive Director of San Francisco Pride.
Jul 13, 1952	Marie Equi, an honoree on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, dies in Portland, Oregon.
Jul 13, 2011	Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 48, legislation by Mark Leno of San Francisco to ensure that LGBT and disabled people are included in social science history curriculum.
Jul 14, 1917	The Twin Peaks Tunnel completes construction, allowing above-ground Market Street light rail trains to pass from the Castro to the "Outside Lands" beyond West Portal. It will ultimately be replaced with an underground station that opens in 1980.
Jul 14, 1983	Gerry Studds, now honored on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, comes out in a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives after a scandal involving a House page. He is Congress' first openly-gay member.
Jul 15, 2020	Esquire magazine names piano/cabaret bar Martuni's one of the top 27 bars of any kind in the country -- the only SF bar (and possibly the only LGBTQ bar) to make the cut.
Jul 16, 1984	Jon Sims, founder of the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Marching Band and Twirling Corps as well as the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, dies of AIDS at Garden Sullivan Hospital in San Francisco.
Jul 20, 1950	Roberta Achtenberg is born. She is elected to the SF Board of Supervisors in 1990, resigning in 1993 when President Bill Clinton appointed her Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Jul 20, 2007	Terry D. Frazier of San Francisco is arrested on murder charges for the death Joe Konopka for what police believe to be a BDSM scene that went drastically wrong.
Jul 21, 2020	The SF Board of Supervisors votes to allow bathhouses to reopen once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Bathhouses, defined as a sex club with private rooms, had been banned since 1984 in response to the need for safe-sex monitoring during the AIDS crisis.
Jul 23, 1959	In Vallerga v. Munro, the California Supreme Court substantially weakens their 1951 decision in Stoumen v. Reilly that says a bar can't be closed simply for having gay patrons. It rules that while gay patrons are allowed, the ABC can shut down the bar for "illegal or immoral acts" due to gay behavior (like dancing together). Frequent police raids result in LGBTQ bars in SF having an average lifespan of only two years.
Jul 23, 2012	Astronaut Sally Ride, an honoree on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, dies in La Jolla, California.
Jul 25, 1966	Febe's opens on the corner of Folsom & 11th Streets, becoming the first gay leather bar on Folsom Street.
Jul 25, 1983	San Francisco General Hospital opens the first ward in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to treating people with AIDS.
Jul 27, 1946	Gertrude Stein, author and life partner of Alice B. Toklas, dies in Paris.
Jul 30, 2020	The Castro gay bar Badlands announces that it will be closing permanently. Their announcement reports that a new bar under new ownership will open in the spot in the fall. (It does not.)

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