San Francisco looks to name street after activist drag performer

Fifteen years before Harvey Milk became “mayor of Castro Street,” San Francisco drag performer Jose Sarria blazed a trail for openly gay politicians by mounting an audacious 1961 run for the board of supervisors during which he campaigned in both men’s and women’s attire.

Though he placed ninth out of 33 candidates, Sarria mobilized the gay voting bloc of San Francisco and symbolized the potential ascension of LGBT candidates, which would come to fruition with Harvey Milk’s election to city supervisor in the late '70s. “I wanted to prove that a gay person had the right to run for public office, that we all had that right,” Sarria told the Los Angeles Times.

To honor the accomplishments of the 82-year-old Sarria, gay San Francisco city supervisor Bevan Dufty wants to name a city block after him, reports the newspaper. If successful, the move would create the first street in the city named after an out man.

“My own little block, that’s nice—it’ll make my enemies jealous,” Sarria, who now lives outside Palm Springs, Calif., said to the newspaper. “It’s interesting they’re doing this while I’m alive. They usually do such things after you die. Maybe somebody figures I haven’t got much longer to live. I hope they’re not pushing me out the door.”

Jose Sarria Place would be part of San Francisco’s 16th Street and encompass an area containing a public library named after Milk. The hope is that the library will be expanded to include a museum featuring San Francisco’s LGBT history.

Some residents, though, don’t want the name change, and now two dozen neighbors have signed a petition to stop it. “Politicians dont rename the streets they live on,” resident Jimmy Buckley told the paper. “They always go to somebody else’s neighborhood.”

Similar street name changes that would have honored civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and César Chávez have failed in California.

Supporters of Sarria say his achievements, which include founding a successful charity organization called the Imperial Court System, warrant the honor. “Jose Sarria is our Rosa Parks,” drag activist Nicole Murray Ramirez told the newspaper. “This one little man has had a far-reaching impact.” (Advocate.com)

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