Notable October 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
Oct 01, 1979	Lesbian film director Dorothy Arzner, who was born in San Francisco, dies in La Quinta, California.
Oct 01, 1985	Ruth Brinker opens Project Open Hand to deliver meals to people with AIDS after learning that a neighbor with AIDS had died of malnutrition.
Oct 01, 1986	Cleve Jones creates the first panel of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in memory of his friend Marvin Feldman.
Oct 02, 1999	California Governor Gray Davis signs AB 26, the state's first domestic partnership legislation. The bill was sponsored by Assembly Member Carole Migden of San Francisco.
Oct 05, 1943	Bisexual feminist writer Lani Ka'ahumanu, cofounder of the SF organizations BiPOL in 1983 and the Bay Area Bisexual Network in 1987, is born.
Oct 06, 1974	Harvey Milk and the Castro Village Association organize the first Castro Street Fair, San Francisco's first annual neighborhood street fair.
Oct 06, 1989	In the Castro Sweep, 200 officers declare martial law in the Castro in response to a peaceful ACT/UP protest.
Oct 07, 1936	Fereydoun Farrokhzad, an honoree on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, is born in Tehran, Iran.
Oct 07, 1982	The SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band is one of seven LGBTQ bands to come together and form the Lesbian and Gay Band Association.
Oct 07, 2003	The San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band becomes a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, beginning the process of becoming an independent legal entity separate from the San Francisco Band Foundation and the Jon Sims Center for the Arts.
Oct 08, 1933	Coit Tower opens.
Oct 08, 1978	The SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band performs in the Columbus Day Parade, their first non-gay parade.
Oct 08, 1983	The first AIDS Candlelight Vigil is held in San Francisco.
Oct 08, 2009	Marcus Hernandez, the Bay Area Reporter's first leather columnist (as Mr. Marcus), dies of complications from diabetes and arteriosclerosis at the age of 77.
Oct 09, 1984	Dr. Mervyn Silverman, SF's Public Health Director, closes 14 of SF's bathhouses in response to the AIDS crisis.
Oct 11, 1949	Susan Leal, a lesbian, is born in San Francisco. She later serves on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1993 to 1997, as San Francisco Treasurer from 1997 to 2004, and as General Manager of the SF Public Utilities Commission from 2004 to 2008.
Oct 11, 1954	Cleve Jones is born in Indiana. He moves to San Francisco in the 1970s, becoming one of Harvey Milk's political proteges and later cofounds the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. He is also the creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Oct 11, 1961	The ABC files charges against three SF gay bars (the Hideaway, the Jumping Frog, and Cal's Tavern) after sending in undercover cops instructed to look and act gay while seeking evidence of gay behavior in the bars (like "kissing between male patrons" and being "permitted to engage in lewd conversation").
Oct 11, 1972	Mary Ellen Cunha and Peggy Forster receive their liquor license for the Twin Peaks Tavern.
Oct 11, 1987	An estimated 200,000 LGBTs marched on Washington for LGBT rights.
Oct 11, 1988	The first National Coming Out Day is celebrated.
Oct 11, 2009	Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 572, Mark Leno's legislation proclaiming May 22nd to be a state holiday in honor of Harvey Milk.
Oct 14, 1979	An estimated 75,000 people march on Washington for LGBT rights.
Oct 14, 2006	Gerry Studds, the first openly-gay member of Congress and an honoree on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, dies in Boston, Massachusetts.
Oct 16, 1854	Writer Oscar Wilde, now honored on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, is born in Dublin, Ireland.
Oct 16, 2004	San Francisco-based PlanetOut, Inc. becomes the first gay-focused business to go public on a major stock exchange. It makes its initial public offering on the Nasdaq with the stock ticker "LGBT."
Oct 17, 1980	"Becoming Visible: The First Black Lesbian Conference" begins at the Women's Building in San Francisco. It is credited as the first conference ever for African-American lesbian women.
Oct 17, 1980	The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence holds their first fundraiser, a bingo and salsa dance party to benefit MCC's Cuban Refugee Program. The event raises $1,500.
Oct 17, 1989	The Loma Prieta Earthquake strikes at 5:04 p.m., registering 6.9. It causing significant structural damage, including the eventual demolition of the Embarcadero and Central Freeways in SF.
Oct 19, 1945	Harris Glenn Milstead, better known as his drag name Divine and an honoree on Castro's Rainbow Honor Walk, is born in Baltimore, Maryland.
Oct 21, 1948	Scott Smith, who had been Harvey Milk's lover for many years and was co-owner of Castro Camera with Milk, is born in Key West, Florida.
Oct 21, 1985	Dan White commits suicide less than two years after being released from prison for the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
Oct 21, 1990	Andrew Cunanan meets Gianni Versace at a San Francisco nightclub, Colossus. Seven years later, Cunanan murders Versace in Miami, the fifth and last victim of his murder spree.
Oct 21, 2007	The Bay Area Rainbow Symphony is formed by five Bay Area musicians. Their first rehearsal is on March 5, 2008 at the Old First Presbyterian Church, and their first concert is on June 8, 2008.
Oct 22, 2001	California Governor Gray Davis signs AB 25, which adds 18 new rights to the state's domestic partnership law. Assembly Member Carole Migden of San Francisco is the law's lead sponsor.
Oct 23, 1952	Danny Williams, who will go on to become a well-known San Francisco comedien, is born in New Orleans.
Oct 23, 2014	The Lexington Club, the City's last remaining dedicated lesbian bar, announces that it is closing.
Oct 24, 1944	Jean Harris, former Chief of Staff to Supervisor Harry Britt and a powerful force in San Francisco's Democratic and LGBTQ politics, is born in Southern California and raised in Long Beach.
Oct 24, 1960	Actor B.D. Wong is born in San Francisco. He attends Lincoln High School and San Francisco State before pursuing his acting career.
Oct 24, 1998	Horst Hans Grahlmann, owner of Uncle Bert’s in the Castro, is found murdered in his Russian River home.
Oct 24, 2002	Harry Hay, a founder of the Mattachine Society and the Radical Faeries, dies in San Francisco.
Oct 24, 2018	Billye Talmadge, an early lesbian activist in San Francisco and one of the founders of the Daughters of Bilitis, passes away in Portland, Oregon.
Oct 25, 2006	Elliott R. Blackstone, who in 1962 became the SFPD's first liaison to the "homophile community," dies of a stroke at the age of 81.
Oct 27, 1985	The ARC/AIDS vigil begins in UN Plaza to bring attention to the connection between poverty, homelessness, and HIV.
Oct 28, 2008	The film Milk, about the life of assassinated SF Supervisor Harvey Milk, premiers at the Castro Theatre. It goes on to win two of its eight Academy Award nominations.
Oct 28, 2009	President Obama signs the Matthew Shepard Act extending Hate Crimes protections to acts based on sexual orientation.
Oct 30, 1963	The ABC yanks the Black Cat's liquor license the day before their annual Halloween party. The bar defiantly holds the party anyway, serving nonalcoholic beverages.
Oct 30, 1978	The newly-formed San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus holds their first rehearsal. They make their unplanned debut less than a month later on Nov. 27th at a memorial for Harvey Milk and George Moscone the night of their murders.
Oct 30, 2014	Four months after marching in SF's Pride Parade, Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly comes out in an editorial for Bloomberg Business, becoming the first openly-gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Oct 31, 1969	In what becomes called "Friday of the Purple Hand," members of the Gay Liberation Front and the Society for Individual Rights protesting the San Francisco Examiner's editorial policies have purple printers ink poured on them. The protesters use the ink to leave "gay power" messages and purple hand prints, and the purple hand briefly becomes a symbol of gay liberation.
Oct 31, 2002	Four people are stabbed at the Castro's annual Halloween festivities.
Oct 31, 2006	Nine people are shot -- none fatally -- at the Castro's Halloween celebration, bringing an end to the annual street festivities.

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