Long before the famous 1969 uprising in New York, LGBTQ people in San Francisco were organizing, challenging discrimination, building institutions, and fighting back.

• 1951 — Black Cat Café: The California Supreme Court rules that a bar cannot lose its liquor license simply because homosexual people gather there—an important early victory for the right to occupy public space.

• 1955 — Daughters of Bilitis: Founded in San Francisco by Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon and others, it becomes the first enduring lesbian-rights organization in the United States.

• 1956 — The Ladder: The Daughters of Bilitis begins publishing a pioneering lesbian magazine, connecting women across the country.

• 1960 — National lesbian organizing: The Daughters of Bilitis holds its first national convention in San Francisco.

• 1961 — José Sarria runs for office: The legendary Black Cat performer runs for San Francisco supervisor, becoming the first known openly gay candidate for public office in the United States.

• 1962 — Tavern Guild: San Francisco gay-bar owners and employees organize to resist police harassment and discriminatory enforcement—an early example of LGBTQ economic and political solidarity.

• 1964 — Society for Individual Rights (SIR): A major new gay organization forms in San Francisco, combining political activism, community services, social activities and publishing.

• 1964 — Council on Religion and the Homosexual: Gay activists and progressive clergy form an unprecedented alliance to challenge discrimination.

• January 1965 — California Hall: Police attempt to intimidate and disrupt a legal gay-rights fundraising ball. Clergy and lawyers witness the harassment, arrests follow, and the resulting backlash becomes a major turning point in San Francisco gay politics.

• 1965–66 — Vanguard: Queer and transgender street youth organize in the Tenderloin around police harassment, poverty, discrimination and survival—anticipating the more radical politics soon associated with gay liberation.

• 1966 — Vanguard Street Sweep: Queer youth publicly sweep Tenderloin streets in a provocative demonstration challenging the treatment of LGBTQ street people as the neighborhood’s “undesirables.”

• August 1966 — Compton’s Cafeteria: Transgender women, drag queens and queer street youth fight back against police harassment at a Tenderloin cafeteria—three years before Stonewall.

Then came Stonewall in June 1969.

Stonewall was enormously consequential, but it wasn’t the beginning of LGBTQ resistance. By 1969, San Francisco already had nearly two decades of legal challenges, lesbian and gay organizations, political campaigns, publications, business associations, demonstrations, alliances with clergy and lawyers, and resistance to police harassment.

Black Cat → Daughters of Bilitis → José Sarria → Tavern Guild → California Hall → Vanguard → Compton’s → Stonewall.

The history of LGBTQ liberation is bigger—and began earlier—than one night in New York.