LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District

If you have not participated in one of our Focus Groups yet, we want to hear from you. 

• Kinky Folks’ Focus Group: Tuesday, December 1, from 6 to 8 pm: Register/attend here. 

Details here.

Want to check out the latest bulletin from the Arts and Culture Committee?  Click here.

We still have slots open for artists and volunteers for our Kinky and Queer Art Shows in December!  Interested?  Click here for general info about the Shows, or click here for full information for artists and volunteers. 

Were you bothered by the way the Stud’s mural was painted over?   This will interest you:    

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/artists-sue-building-owner-whitewashing-stud-mural-15732095.php 

If you just learned about San Francisco’s LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District…. Welcome!

Please explore below for information about the Cultural District.  If you are not already receiving email from us, please click here to be kept informed about our meetings and activities.

Threats to our South of Market businesses and institutions can arise quickly, and may require a quick community response.  Sign up here to join our SOMA Action network.

Scroll down on this page for info on our upcoming Board and Committee meetings.  Or see them all on our Calendar.

Thanks to everyone who attended and helped produce the “Keep SOMA Kinky” Arcade at the 2020 virtual Folsom Street Fair.  For the results of our contests — including the winning videos of our Fetish Runway — please click here.

This is a great time to become a full Voting Member of the Cultural District!  Click here to get started!  And, during the current COVID-19 crisis, anyone whose income or living situation has been impacted by it is eligible to receive the low-income dues waiver, regardless of other circumstances.  Your free membership is good for one year.

We are actively seeking community input on ways to preserve and improve our special South of Market neighborhood.  We invite you to submit your own ideas, suggestions, and thoughts on a number of important topics: 

Give us your Input!

The city of San Francisco needs volunteers to help deliver meals, deliver medications, connect with elderly residents, and all sorts of help for our community. Info is at https://sf.gov/be-emergency-volunteer

Remember:  You can text “COVID19SF” to 888-777 to receive official updates on how San Franciscans can best cope with the COVID-19 crisis.

If you have not yet seen it, please read our Statement of Solidarity, and consider what you personally can do to fight racism, injustice, and abuse of police power.

SF Catalyst is expanding to better serve leather, queer, and kink organizations and individuals!  But it will need your help. Find more details and donate to ensure SF Catalyst remains a thriving community space here.

The next meeting of the LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District Board of Directors will be held on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 from  6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

As always, all are welcome to attend, and time is reserved for public comment.  ASL interpretation provided if requested ten days in advance. To participate, join Zoom Meeting here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84789060820?pwd=MWJibExLMEN3VGgzUGgrTm41WURRUT09, or call 1-408-638-0968 and use Meeting ID: 847 8906 0820 and Passcode: 972086.  Please note the meeting time, and contact manager@sflcd.org if you have questions.   The proposed agenda can be viewed here.  Minutes of past Board meetings can be reviewed here.

The next online meeting of the Arts and Culture Committee is set for Thursday, December 17, 2020, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. Info at Facebook post. Join with Zoom at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89554242702 or call 1 408 638 0968 and use Meeting ID: 895 5424 2702.

The LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District is pleased to be hosting a series of small, outdoor

Kinky and Queer Arts (and Crafts) Shows

 in the courtyard of 190 Russ Street near Folsom, from 11 am to 4 pm, on Sundays, November 15, and 22, and December 6, 13, and 20. 

Jeannie Llewellyn

Social distance and mask requirements will be enforced.  Otherwise, clothing is optional.  

These Art Shows coincide with the Sunday Streets SOMA event, being held simultaneously on Folsom Street.  

Shows may be cancelled due to inclement weather or other factors.

The shows are free for both artists and patrons.  

Scheduled Artists include:

November:
Garrett Sohnly
Jeannie Llewellyn
Rocky Angel
Jarrad Webster

December:
Tunan Pan
Daniel Cherry
Alex Prestia
Dot (Tom Schmidt)
Jonathan Arnowitz-Taylor

We still have openings for artists and volunteers!

Artists and Volunteers: Click here for full info

Sign Up Here to Show or Sell Your Work

Sign Up Here to Volunteer

The LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District has been gathering input from all corners of our community, to help us to create our District’s Cultural History, Housing and Economic Sustainability Strategies (CHHESS) report, which will guide our organization’s efforts — and help shape San Francisco city policy and priorities — for the next 3 to 5 years.

We are doing this through a variety of methodologies, including individual interviews, a major Town Hall event, and a series of  Zoom-based “Focus Groups”, each one targeting either a specific area of concern or a specific demographic group.  In this way we can get honest input from a diverse, varied and representative set of people, even if some individual focus groups are not, in themselves, socially or culturally diverse.

Here is a list of some of these events, past and upcoming:

• Arts and Culture Focus Group, 7/20/2020
• Economic Vitality Focus Group 11/30/2020
• Sex Workers’ Focus Group, 8/13/2020
• Town Hall, 8/25/2020
• BIPOC Focus Group, 9/17/2020
• Transgender Focus Group 10/6/2020
• Women’s Focus Group, 10/15/2020
  

  ---

  Upcoming

• Disabled Persons’ Focus Group:  Monday, November 9, from 6 to 8 pm: Register/attend here.
• Tenant / Land Use Focus Group: Tuesday, November 17, from 6 to 8 pm,  Register/attend here.
• Leather Folks’ Focus Group: Thursday, November 19, from 6 to 8 pm: Register/attend here.
  
• Kinky Folks’ Focus Group: Tuesday, December 1, from 6 to 8 pm: Register/attend here. 

If you have not participated in one of our Focus Groups yet, we want to hear from you. 

Please select a group and register or attend using the links above.   (If you register in advance, we’ll send you a confirmation email.  If you click on the link just before or during the meeting, registration will take you directly into the meeting.  Registration is needed to discourage “zoom-bombing” by intruders.)

Focus Groups are recorded for our internal use only:  you are encouraged to keep your camera off and/or use a different display name if you wish greater anonymity.

If you can’t attend any of these dates, there is a Google Form you can use to provide similar input, here.

The CHHESS Report we write will go to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for their approval; once approved, it will be used to guide and direct public policy for our neighborhood, in everything from art installations to zoning laws.  The Focus Group process will also help the LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District to set its own priorities for programming, spending, and public advocacy.

Please let us hear your voice.

We are pleased to let you know about an upcoming Next Generation Manufacturing training session which begins on January 18th, 2021.

This is a free 12-week program where participants get hard skills related to 3D printing or CNC, and get soft skills training and assistance with resumes, cover letters, and other job readiness. Additionally, participants get full access to the shop so there are plenty of other skills and machines to learn such as the laser cutter, vinyl cutter, wood shop, metal shop, 3D printers, industrial sewing and much more.

Priority will go to applicants who are low income, women and people of color, but our only eligibility requirements are that applicants be 18 years or older, have a high school diploma or GED, and fluent in English. The language requirement is flexible and is included because class instruction and the materials are only available in English.

More info is in the video below, and at https://www.humanmade.org/workforce-development.

If you or someone you know might be interested, fill out this interest form or reach out directly to Brenda Orellana, Humanmade Client Support and Outreach Coordinator, 510-227-4451, at brenda@humanmade.org.

Members of LGBTQ+ communities in the Bay Area have formed a Friends of the Lyon-Martin House group to preserve the longtime home of pioneering lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon on Duncan Street in San Francisco, which recently sold for $2.25M. Lyon and Martin purchased the property in 1955 and lived there together until Del Martin’s death; Phyllis Lyon lived on in the house until her passing earlier this year.

A “Friends of the Lyon-Martin House” team has been created, including Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the GLBT Historical Society, and San Francisco Heritage, to ensure that this property is designated a San Francisco Landmark and preserved as one of San Francisco’s most iconic cultural sites.

Check out the new website for the Friends of the Lyon-Martin House: https://www.friends-of-the-lyon-martin-house.com/.

While on the site, you can sign a letter to the Board of Supervisors and Historic Preservation Commission, which will be submitted to the Board of Supervisors in advance of their 10/19 hearing.

Please share the website and letter — created by Grete Miller — with your communities.  Thank you.

Thanks for attending our Town Hall!

If you missed it, OR if you did not get a chance to give input on all the topics you care about, please use our
Community Input form !

This meeting was a key step in the creation of our District’s Cultural History, Housing and Economic Sustainability Strategies (CHHESS) report, which will guide our organization’s efforts — and help shape San Francisco city policy and priorities — for the next 3 to 5 years.

The Town Hall included this presentation about our CHHESS report by Julia Sabory, from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD):

The meeting also included breakouts session, with focus groups on the following topics:

Historic Preservation
Preserve and develop cultural and historic buildings, businesses, organizations, traditions, arts, events, & district aesthetics.

Tenant Protections
Protect tenants from displacement and promote affordable housing & homeownership.

Arts & Culture
Attract and support artists and cultural enterprises.

Economic & Workforce Development
Promote jobs, tourism and economic opportunities that stabilize the district’s economy.

Land Use
Create City regulations, tools and programs that support businesses & industries that advance the cultural district.

Cultural Competency
Promote culturally and appropriate City Services, policies, and narratives.

The LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District’s leadership is deeply pained by the racist violence which continues in this country.

We stand in solidarity with Black and Brown people and their allies worldwide who are peacefully expressing their outrage at racism, injustice, and abuse of police power.

We stand in solidarity with the protesters engaged in powerful actions to demand justice, accountability, and systemic change.

Only by standing together will it be possible to put an end to the senseless brutality we have witnessed for too long.

The Leather and LGBTQ communities have a long history of collective strength in times of crisis and now we invoke that strength to call for freedom and fairness for all oppressed communities.

We call on the entire community to work together to dismantle ingrained systems of inequality wherever they are found.  It will be a long journey to the end of institutionalized racism, but our community will act with strength, purpose, and solidarity until we see that day.

Black Lives Matter.

Community members have encouraged contributions to some of the organizations listed below.  Although the Cultural District has not reviewed these suggestions, and cannot specifically endorse them, we do urge our community to support the hard work of achieving safety, freedom and fairness for all oppressed communities.

• • National Bail Fund Network
  • Bay Area Anti- Repression Committee Bail Fund
  • People’s Breakfast Oakland
  • San Francisco’s Transgender District Fund
  • Anti Police-Terror Project
  • The Bail Project™ National Revolving Bail Fund 
  • Protest & COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund for Community Bail & Bond Funds 
  • Minnesota Freedom Fund 
  • Reclaim The Block
  • Black Visions Collective
  • Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project
  • Center for Black Equity

Other Lists of Resources:

• • SF Queer Nightlife Fund
  • Northstar Health Collective

At our Diversity / Membership Committee meeeting on 4/2/2020, it was agreed that, during the current COVID-19 crisis, anyone whose income or living situation has been impacted by it is eligible to receive the low-income dues waiver, regardless of other circumstances.  Your free membership is good through December, 2020.

That makes this an excellent time for you to head to our Membership Signup Page.  Members get to vote on Directors at the annual elections in August, and vote on critical matters presented at Special Membership Meetings.  Of course, anyone is welcome to attend and speak at our monthly Directors meetings and Committee meetings.  (Meeting dates and time, and online meeting log-in information can be found on our Calendar.)

If you can afford to pay the full annual membership dues of $15 per year, we hope you will do so, to help cover our administrative costs and to show your support for the Cultural District’s work.  But the important thing is for you to be a member, to add your voice to ours when we discuss community needs and priorities with project developers and city leaders.  

So join today.  And if you do happen to be stuck at home with nothing to do, feel free to explore this Web site — there’s lots of interesting stuff here!

For over three years, SF Catalyst has provided a social and educational space to the SF bay area kink community. Now, SF Catalyst has taken a leap of faith and signed a lease, expanding Catalyst into the rest of the property located behind the existing play space.

This will allow easy wheelchair access to the main space, expand maximum capacity, create additional event space, and provide a secure outdoor area. Once permitted to reopen, SF Catalyst will be able to provide the community with options to hold two or more events simultaneously and to provide meeting space for more smaller groups than it can currently accommodate. They will also be able to host cigar socials and other outdoor community activities.

As an entirely volunteer-run venue, operating as part of the non-profit SF Bay Area Leather Alliance, Catalyst will need the community’s support to make it happen, and ijdeed to survive through the difficult times we are now in.

You can help make sure that SF Catalyst is there for us then, by making a monthly donation now, through their Patreon campaign.  For full info and to make your donations, please visit www.patreon.com/sfcatalyst.

For more info about SF Catalyst, visit www.sfcatalyst.org.

Hi.  Thanks for your interest in the “LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District”, created by the City of San Francisco to honor, support, and protect the unique and special culture that has flourished in the South of Market area.

We encourage anyone with an interest in the leather or kink community to learn about this project, and participate however they can.

There are lots of ways to get informed and involved:

• Read this brief introduction.
• View our brochure.
• Visit our “About us” page.
• Become a Member of the LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District – or at least get on our mailing list – to be notified of meetings and other events, join a committee, or volunteer your skills.
• Attend one of our semi-annual  Membership Meetings.
• Attend (as a guest) one of our monthly Board Meetings.
• Consider joining one of our important Committees, including the Arts and Culture Committee, the Communications Committee, The Governance Committee, the Land Use Committee, or the Diversity and Membership Committee.   
• Share your opinions about our community’s needs, and our organization’s priorities, either using one of our open surveys, or by participating in a Focus Group or personal interview. 
• Read the Resolution as approved by the Board of Supervisors, and signed by the Mayor on May 9, 2018, here.
• Read the Vision and Mission Statements for the Cultural District here.
• Read our full organizational Bylaws, here.
• See a list of our current Board of Directors, here.
• View a map of the Cultural District here.
• Check out our calendar of Cultural District meetings and events, here.
• Like and follow the SF LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District on Facebook.  
• Join our Group on Fetlife.
• Follow @sfleatherdist on Twitter or Instagram.  
• Write to our group’s elected President, Robert Goldfarb, using the email address president@SFLCD.org or more generally to info@SFLCD.org.  

Let’s see what we can do to make this happen, and make it happen right!

We are happy to invite you to become a full Voting Member of the LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District.

Become a Member
Please click here to become a full Voting Member of the Cultural District.

Why Become a Member?

Join the Mailing List 
Please click here if you just want to get on our mailing list.

View your information on file
If you are already on our mailing list, you may click here to view and edit the information we have about you (including Committee memberships).   We will send you an email with a link to your data.

To pay your annual membership dues with a credit card or e-check, click here.

If you wish to make a credit card or echeck donation to assist the Cultural District, click here.

NOTES:

• Anyone is welcome to attend and speak at our monthly Directors meetings.  Only Voting Members get to vote for Directors at the annual elections in August, or vote on critical matters presented at Special Membership Meetings.
• Membership dues are $15 per calendar year, and are intended only to cover our basic administrative costs.  Anyone who cannot afford the $15/year membership dues — or anyone whose income has been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis — can receive a Low-income Dues Waiver, but they must still agree with the Vision and Mission of the Cultural District, and meet other requirements.
• Our finances are handled by our fiscal sponsor, SOMArts.  When you make a dues payment or donation, they will ask for your address and billing information, but they do NOT share all of that with us.  Please provide your LCD name and email address (if different) as a comment with your payment, to make sure we know it is coming from you.
• We will send you an email confirming your official membership once we have verified your eligibility and confirmed receipt of your dues (or eligibility for dues waiver).  This is a manual process, so please be patient.  As always, if you have questions for us, use the contact phone number or email address shown on the right side of this page.
• Do you not use email?  Do you and your partner share an email address?  Do you have some other special situation?  Do you want to support us as a business or organization?  Please give us a call – our contact info is on the right side of this page.
• Thanks!