Flexability | Stand up and be counted – it’s important

Sometimes you just have to celebrate, and the Golden Gate Business Association’s 50th anniversary gala dinner at San Francisco’s splendid City Hall Rotunda was a real blast.

The Golden Gate Business Association (GGBA) is the San Francisco Bay Area’s LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce and the world’s first LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce. That’s something very real to celebrate – as we did the first week of June – especially in these times, when we’re witnessing the tide turn against the many LGBTQ+ rights gains we’ve made in the United States since the GGBA’s 1974 launch.

The 1970s was a very different time. One indicator is that it took five years for the GGBA to “come out” – it did not use the word “gay” publicly until 1979. The prejudices of the 1970s really do seem archaic now, and yet what made our gala dinner poignant is that over the past two years, a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ laws have been passed in the United States. These have clawed back some of the rights it took 50 years to claim.

According to sources, including the Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union, in the last 3 years 100s of anti-LGBTQ+ laws were passed in the US, including laws banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth; requiring or allowing misgendering of transgender students; targeting drag performances and censoring the school curriculum.

We’re still way ahead of the 1970s, though. In 1977, only 14% of Americans believed gay people should be allowed to adopt children, compared with 75% today. The percentage of Americans who think gay relations should be legal has grown to 83% today. As a lesbian college student, I had no inkling that one day I would be allowed to marry.

I have served on the GGBA board since 2019. It’s a proud place to be. Today the association has members who live and do business across San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Marin counties, and beyond. It proudly serves as the voice for the San Francisco Bay Area’s LGBTQ+ business community. Through the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (the NGLCC), the GGBA certifies businesses in the Bay area as run by LGBTQ+ community members.

The gala venue was emotional, too. San Francisco’s City Hall is where, on 27 November 1978, Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, was murdered. Milk, a member of the city’s board of supervisors, and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were shot by Dan White.

Harvey Milk was a vociferous campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights and helped pass a city ordinance that prohibited anti-gay discrimination in housing and employment. The San Francisco City Hall, for me, has resonance similar to the Stonewall Inn, here in New York City, where I live. The 1969 Stonewall riots, between police and gay rights activists outside the Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village gay bar, gave birth to an international gay rights movement. It was a moving moment to see the rainbow flag decorating City Hall’s grand staircase.

Milk stood up for gay rights at a time when it was not a widely accepted stance. He showed us why it is important to show up and speak up. Today, with the growing backlash against LGBTQ+ rights, it is again important (as it always was) to do the same.

I felt a deep sense of purpose as I boarded a plane, flew several hours across the country, and joined my GGBA friends and colleagues in a night of celebration. We must keep on shining a light on civil rights. Always.