Celebration of Gay Pride Masks Community in Transition

By SCOTT JAMES Published: June 25, 2011

Celebration of Gay Pride Masks Community in Transition

The rooftop deck of the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center offers a sweeping view of Market Street, and to bring in much-needed revenue, the area could soon be leased to Medjool, a nightclub that one Yelp review called “Frat boy meets Girls Gone Wild.”

That an essentially straight establishment could crown one of San Francisco’s most prominent gay landmarks might seem contradictory to some, but it is emblematic of the times.

When thousands converge on the city this weekend for the San Francisco Pride celebration and parade, they will find a community at a complex crossroads. Although experts estimate that 15 percent of adults here claim a sexual orientation other than straight — the highest percentage in the nation — longtime gay and lesbian institutions are struggling.

Examples are everywhere: Lyon-Martin Health Services, the women’s health clinic founded in 1979, has financial troubles; South of Market’s Eagle bar, a fixture for 30 years, closed last month. In the Castro neighborhood, turnover among merchants is so rampant that it has become difficult to keep track.

Interviews with more than a dozen experts, gay rights leaders and residents paint the picture of a multilayered transition. To some, the community is simply evolving, as it has in the past, to become less parochial. (The Medjool deal, for example, would include an innovative lesbian, gay and transgender job-training program at the site.)

Others, however, believe recent gay rights victories and greater societal acceptance have led to complacency.

“We’re at a tipping point as far as America’s embrace of L.G.B.T. issues,” said Fred Sainz, spokesman for Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group. “But tipping points can go both ways.”

Perhaps most significant, however, is change from within: a new generation of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders who see the world, and themselves, quite differently. Born during the AIDS pandemic, when sex was linked to death, and having matured in the more tolerant “Will and Grace” era, they are rewriting the old paradigms of sexual and gender identification.

Many have rejected being called “gay” or “lesbian,” and instead prefer “queer,” an all-encompassing word that was once considered offensive.

Jessica Fields, a researcher at the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality in San Francisco, is conducting a study of the generational trend by interviewing 18- to 24-year-olds from the city’s broad gay spectrum.

Although her study is not yet complete, Dr. Fields said many young people were finding traditional labels of sexual orientation too restrictive. “They felt that ‘queer’ had more possibilities — that things were more open,” she said.

And movable. “They rejected the idea that if they were with a woman now they would always be with women,” Dr. Fields said.

Notions of gender also seem fluid.

Rebecca Rolfe, executive director of the L.G.B.T. Community Center, which runs programs for youth, said, “We’ve got a lot of folks who don’t identify as male or female.” Instead, some use the ambiguous word “boi” to describe themselves.

When asked to describe herself, Alix P. Shedd, 28, a local artist who has taken hormones to transition from man to woman, said, “A word is a box — that’s the problem.”

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