San Francisco will create an official gay leather district
The Board of Supervisors voted to make the space around The Eagle a protected "LGBTQ Cultural District"
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has created a new district to recognize the city’s LGBTQ leather community.
The board unanimously approved the creation of a protected “Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District” in the South Market area, which is home to many gay and kink bars.
The neighborhood is also the location of the annual Folsom Street Fair, a popular festival that celebrates “leather sexuality” and brings in thousands of visitors each year.
The board voted to “preserve, advance, and promote San Francisco’s Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District as a local, national, and international resource, and as a culturally and commercially enriched neighborhood and district,” as well as to “preserve and strengthen the Leather and LGBTQ communities of San Francisco by bringing together our diverse histories and cultures at and within the District for all persons to enjoy and share.”
The move protects the district against redevelopment and provides access to public money.
“With all the encroachments of gentrification in South of Market we don’t want to lose this important cultural history,” San Francisco Supervisor Jeff Sheehy told KTVU. He noted that the new district would also recognize the work the leather community has done over the years for other LGBTQ people.
“The service of the leather community during the AIDS crisis, the non-profits they founded, the amount of fund raising they did in the fight against AIDS is something that should not be forgotten,” Shehy said.
It comes two years after the San Francisco Planning Commission allocated $1.5 million for Eagle’s Plaza, a leather-themed plaza within the district, complete with a leather pride flag at its center.
Right next to popular local leather bar The Eagle, a statement said the park “will commemorate the area’s LGBTQ and leather heritage and provide a much needed public space for the neighbourhood.”
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