THE FIGHT SF / BAY AREA LGBTQ MONTHY MAGAZINE JULY 2019

THEEDITOR
Hello Gentle Reader, and welcome
to THE FIGHT.
I trust you all spent the 50th
anniversary of Stonewall in riotous
celebration. I myself spent the lion’s
share of San Francisco Pride staffing
THE FIGHT booth at the Civic Center.
I haven’t been to the festival in years,
because I tend to share in the prevailing
SF prejudice that the official
Pride celebration at the Civic Center
being the providence of tourists and
straight looky-lous—a place true San
Franciscans avoid. But duty called,
and instead of dancing my Pride away
at Juanita MORE’s annual fundraiser,
I spent approximately 26 hours deep
in the thick of it.
And I’m glad I did, because most
of the folks I met fell into one of two
camps: older LGBTQ folks who once
called the city home, and have been
priced out and forced to move to the
suburbs; Or young Queers, mostly
from the Central Valley, who made the
long drive to San Francisco with stars
in their eyes to spend just a few hours
with a tacky rainbow flag tied around
their neck in a place where they
thought they could be themselves. I
spent two days hearing stories about
how the city used to be, or listening
>> IN THIS ISSUE