A fabulous montage of word and image, Gay by the Bay is the first book ever to chronicle the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history of the San Francisco Bay Area. Vividly illustrated and engagingly written, this meticulously compiled volume captures the undisputed capital of queer culture as never before. Gay by the Bay celebrates Northern California's gay history in all its fascinating diversity, beginning with the gender-bending berdache societies of eighteenth-century Native Americans through today's Digital Queers. From the founding of Daughters of Bilitis in the 1950s to the first tentative steps of the gay liberation movement in the '60s, from the election of Harvey Milk and the emergence of thriving community in the exuberant '70s to the creation of the NAMES Project Memorial Quilt and life-and-death realities in the era of AIDS, queer history in the Bay Area encompasses some of the most compelling political and social events of our time. Nearly 300 full-color and black-and-white photographs of historical memorabilia - including correspondence, posters, buttons, matchbook covers, and other artifacts culled from the Gay and Lesbian Center of the San Francisco Public Library, the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California, and other archives, both public and private - providing an intriguing look at the origins and evolution of contemporary queer life.