A Trans* Intersection

The Tenderloin comprises thirty blocks in less than half a square mile and is characterized by a dearth of open space other than streets and sidewalks. The elements that made up most of the urban fabric in the mid-1960s were residential hotels, a few apartment buildings, and tightly packed storefronts. The newspaper articles shown here are among several news reports that already since the turn of the twentieth century created the public perception of the neighborhood as a vice district, characterized by poverty, sexual “deviance,” and the circulation of drugs. In the mid- and late-1960s, Glide Memorial Church and the associated charitable foundation established pioneering outreach programs for “street youth” in the Tenderloin, among other initiatives, which were, however, not without some controversy.  

Vanguard was a grassroots organization established in 1966 by young gender- and sexually-nonconforming people, many of whom were sex workers, and disbanded approximately two years later. Vanguard members shared a street culture predicated on class-based coalitions with other political organizations. As the excerpts of their magazine in this section, also called Vanguard, show, they opposed the exploitation of their social and economic vulnerability by landlords. They also rejected mainstream consumer and entertainment cultures that maintained marginalizing tropes and relationships of subservience.