First Gay Museum in the USA Opens
The nation's first gay history museum opened Jan. 13, 2011 in San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Items on display include the kitchen table and pink-framed sunglasses that belonged to Harvey Milk, the first elected openly gay politician in California. The exhibit also features manuscripts and sex toys.
"Telling our stories transforms our lives and our society and takes us out of the margins," Don Romesburg, a curator and assistant professor of Sonoma State University's Department of Women's and Gender Studies, tells the Chronicle. "The museum is at the heart of that project."
The newspaper says the new museum is actually the world's second dedicated exclusively to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender materials. The first is in Germany.
The museum is located in the city's Castro district, which the newspaper says has long been recognized as "one of the great ground zeroes of queer liberation."
