Guide to the San Francisco Street Patrol Records Collection
Christopher Disman
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society
657 Mission Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, California 94105
Phone: (415) 777-5455
Fax: (415) 777-5576
Email: info@glbthistory.org
URL: http://www.glbthistory.org/
© 2008
The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society. All rights reserved.
Guide to the San Francisco Street Patrol Records Collection
Collection number: 1998-17
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society
San Francisco, California
- Processed by:
- Christopher Disman
- Date Completed:
- 1999
- Encoded by:
- Heather Cummins
2008 The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: San Francisco Street Patrol Records Collection
Dates: 1991-1993
Bulk Dates: 1991-1993
Collection number: 1998-17
Collection Size:
1 manuscript box and 1 oversized box
10.3 linear feet
Repository:
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society
San Francisco, California 94105
Physical location: Stored at the Archives of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Historical Society in San Francisco, California.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Access
Collection open for research.
Publication Rights
Copyright to unpublished manuscript materials has been transferred to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society.
Preferred Citation
San Francisco Street Patrol Records Collection, 1998-17, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society.
Acquisition Information
Collection donate to the GLBT Historical Society in 1998
Biography / Administrative History
San Francisco Street Patrol (SFSP) began in August 1990, as a working group of Queer Nation San Francisco. Its original name
was DORIS SQUASH (Defend Our Rights In the Streets/Super Queers United Against Savage Heterosexism), and the group took the
name San Francisco Street Patrol in early 1991. The group was active from 1990 to 1994, and its mission was to promote GLBT
peoples safety by primarily discouraging queer bashing through organized and regular nighttime patrols of the Castro. Women
were among the founding members of the group, which always included roughly equal numbers of men and women. A founding patrol
member and group leader was transgender, and other members included lesbians, gay men, bisexual men and women, two heterosexual
men, and a heterosexual woman. SFSP members tried to verbally deescalate potential bashings when it seemed possible, and they
made citizens arrests when "bashers" persisted in homophobic violence. Members were unarmed but carried handcuffs and whistles,
and were trained in martial arts and self-defense. SFSP wasn't out to clean up the streets, and their patrols intervened only
in bashings and not in street drug use or sex work. The group's aim was simply to make the Castro a place where Queer people
can hang out without being targeted for violent attack.
SFSP also worked to increase awareness of self-defense and violence-avoidance methods. In addition to its patrols, the group
handed out whistles and fliers with tips on street safety and identifying "bashers". They also watched for cars circling slowly
through the Castro that might contain potential "bashers". They often volunteered in uniform for GLBT events, including the
Pride parade and the major street fairs, and were also sometimes hired and paid to do security, for instance at the first
International Mr. Leather competition.
The group began to drift apart by 1994 as members moved away from the Bay Area, or found new jobs, interests, or relationships.
SFSP members worked or went on to work with the Center for AIDS Prevention Sciences (CAPS), Homes Not Jails, the Intersex
Society of North America, San Francisco Sex Information (SFSI), New Leaf, the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center
(LYRIC), ACT UP/Golden Gate, and the B.A.R. For an expanded version of this historical sketch see the Fall, 2000 issue of
the GLBTHS newsletter Our Stories.
Scope and Content of Collection
Many of the materials in Box 1 are descriptions of San Francisco Street Patrol (SFSP) for people outside the group, or potential
and new members. The collection also contains a number of internal group documents and news updates for group members. SFSP
members wore a uniform on patrol and the collection includes drawings of the SFSP T-shirt designs.
Box 2 includes two SFSP berets, which were worn by Michael Botkin and Steve Finlay; the metal studs in them each represent
three months of working on patrol. One beret is covered with buttons (e.g. "I'm a Safe Sex Slut"), and the other is slightly
stained from being dropped in a wok by the donor. The metal file box/clipboard was carried by the Hostess or Mistress of each
night's patrol, who helped maintain a certain marching formation. Box 2 also includes two of the types of whistles SFSP members
passed out on the street.
Folder 1/15 contains information about an L.A./SF gay male patrol group called the Street Cats, whose members carried mace
and stun guns, and at least one of whom had an avowed interest in "beating people up." Some anti-bashing patrols only blew
whistles when they saw violence, feeling that physically stepping between "bashers" and people being battered was inconsistent
with pacifist or nonviolent principles. Both the Street Cats and SFSP followed a hands-on, interventionist philosophy, and
the contents of this file provide interesting contrasts between the two contemporary SF groups? tactics and principles. The
file contains an unsent open letter to the queer community that sets out SFSP's strong reservations about the Street Cats;
another letter in the file which was sent addresses an incident of verbal abuse of SFSP members by members of the Street Cats
driving by in their jeep. The letter was written by SFSP Director of Operations and Queen Suegee Tamar (later Tamar-Mattis)
to Street Cats leader Don Fass, and copies were also sent to the SFPD, the SF Hall of Justice, CUAV, and a San Francisco law
firm. Also see Folder1/2 for internal SFSP minutes in which the Street Cats are referred to as "the Street Sissies."
Folder 1/14 contains a flier "Overcoming Masculine Oppression in Mixed Groups" that was put out by QUEERS (Queers United to
Examine and Eliminate Racism and Sexism), a Queer Nation focus group.
Arrangement
The collection is divided into 2 series:
- 1. Documents
- 2. Artifacts
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Homophobia
Law enforcement
Other Finding Aids
Related Collections at GLBTHS:
Queer Nation San Francisco (1993-2)
Michael Botkin Papers (1998-23)
Frighten the Horses (Periodicals Collection, Box 26)[see issue 5, May 1991, pp. 12-14 for an article by Ellen Twiname on SFSP]
Box/ Folder 1/ 5
Fliers passed out by SFSP during patrols
Box/ Folder 1/ 7
News-sheet and newszines
1991-1993
Box/ Folder 1/ 9
Publicity-press release about SFSP
Box/ Folder 1/ 10
Publicity-publications with articles about SFSP
1993
Box/ Folder 1/ 11
Queer Youth at Risk program proposal
Box/ Folder 1/ 13
T-shirt design sheets
1991
Box/ Folder 1/ 14
Miscellaneous SFSP material
Box/ Folder 1/ 15
Street Cats in Los Angeles and San Francisco
1993
Box 2
One laminated map of neighborhoods that SFSP patrolled
Box 2
One metal clipboard/file box with "SFSP" in pink spraypaint
