About the Club:
"My name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you!"
The Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, one of San Francisco's largest Democratic Clubs, is respected for both its progressive history and political actions, empowering activists and members of marginalized backgrounds, and bolstering the resistance to status quo politics, changing rather than obeying power dynamics that leave members of our community out in the cold. Founded in 1976 as the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, it was the City's first Democratic Club with the word "gay" in its name, a controversial and radical move at the time. The Club was renamed for Supervisor Harvey Milk after his assassination in 1978. It is also a Club founded to keep the LGBT community free of anointed gatekeepers and machine politics. Our Club has supported solidly progressive issues in San Francisco. It was instrumental in electing progressive q***rs and pushing issues that have changed the world, from Harry Britt, Tom Ammiano, Carole Migden, Rafael Mandelman, and Tom Temprano, to early s*x education about HIV, domestic partnerships, and safe injection facilities. You do not have to be q***r to be part of this Club, and you certainly don't have to be a Democrat. It is a place for anyone who thinks there ought to be a place for q***rness in the progressive struggle and a place for progressive politics in the q***r community. We embody the same cultural radicals who joined the club forty years ago. This is a Club for q***rs, d***s, transgender people, people of color, s*x workers, the differently abled, older people, heavy-set people, leather people, and people who don't want to fit in. It's also a place for political radicals and progressives who want to see a different world for women, labor, tenants, orphans, the unhoused, the undocumented, working-class folks, and the non-rich. Radicals don't expect to engage in traditional politics throughout most of the country. In San Francisco, our Club is expected to interrogate city officials and to shape their agendas for an inclusive future. Our preamble says "we demand nothing less" than full support for q***r rights and nothing less than full support for progressive issues.
