Shawn Sprockett has been in San Francisco for about ten years. He's originally from the East Coast, where "Don't Say Gay" laws in places like Florida reminded him of a time when queerness was "unspeakable," such as in the 19th century when being gay was often referred to as "the unspeakable vice of the Greeks."
Sprockett now hosts queer walking tours of the Tenderloin, Polk Street and North Beach, neighborhoods that are steeped in queer history. The fact that gays were once referred to as "unspeakable" resonated with Sprockett, so he named his company Unspeakable Vice as a nod to the past and as a warning about a future that anti-gay groups are currently trying to recreate.
The first walking tour launched in North Beach in 2022 and covers San Francisco from the 1700s to the 1960s. The tour was successful, with numerous walkers asking Sprockett what happened after the closure of North Beach's queer entertainment venues. To answer that question, he put together another walking tour that covers the Polk and Tenderloin area from the 1940s to the 1980s. The Polk/Tenderloin tour is called the Valley of the Queens tour.
"Both of these tours have been an opportunity to better highlight the role of women and people of color, who I think are often left out of Castro-centric narratives," Sprockett said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. "I'm very passionate about uncovering and highlighting the roles of marginalized identities within our rainbow."
The four As
Polk Street was once a center of queer life, but now there's hardly a sign that the community was ever there. Polk isn't alone, according to Sprockett. He points out that since 2007, fifty percent of all gay bars in the United States have closed. Sprockett explains this by referring to what he calls "the four As."
"AIDS was of course a devastating disease that really crippled many gayborhoods," he said. "Because both the Tenderloin and Polk scene had a longstanding connection to sex work, I think these communities were hit especially hard by an often sexually transmitted pandemic. Residents of Polk Street tell me it was like a mushroom cloud. It was an apocalyptic event that the street never fully recovered from."
Affluence is the second A, with many gay businesses unable to afford the sky-high rents in neighborhoods they helped popularize. The third A is assimilation, with many young queer people questioning if there's a need for gayborhoods like the Castro when they can meet other queer people at any bar in the city.
"Gay rights focused on a message of 'We're just like you' for so long that I'm worried we accidentally made an argument against the need for safe, distinctly queer spaces," said Sprockett.
The final A is apps, with many people feeling that they don't need to go to bars since they can now jump on a myriad of platforms to connect with others.
"There's a complexity to the queer community's connection to bars," Sprockett said. "We feel an ownership of them as common areas but they are also private businesses trying to turn a profit. When I talk to tour guests about this, the ideas raised on how to save bars are often at odds with what bar owners tell me is needed to be profitable. Queer people need a third place, but perhaps in the future it won't look like the bars of the twentieth century."
Seeing sites
The Valley of the Queens tour will last around 90 minutes and cover a little over a mile of the neighborhood. Highlights of the tour will include a visit to the site of the Compton's Cafeteria riot, a pre-Stonewall transgender uprising against police harassment, and the site of San Francisco's first Pride Parade. As the tour stops at important historical sites, Sprockett will share videos, photos and music over his iPad to help tour guests get a feel for the era and its people.
The North Beach tour will also cover important historical events, starting with details about the Ohlone tribe and their relationship with queerness. The tour will continue through to the 20th century and will recall the life of drag artist, and 1961 Board of Supervisors candidate Jose Sarria, who performed at the long-shuttered Black Cat Cafe. During the 1950s and '60s Sarria mentored many gay youths, telling them, often for the first time, that it was okay to be gay. Sarria was also the founder of the Imperial Court System.
"So few people on the tours have even heard of Jose, and yet his legacy is at least as important and as lasting as Harvey Milk's," said Sprockett, who also pointed out that between 1939 and 1949 Broadway was home to seven lesbian bars.
"There seemed to be an exceptional queer visibility for a time until McCarthyism and Hoover's FBI fanned the moral panic in the 1950s that set back a growing queer scene," he said.
Unspeakable Vice presents Fire and Ice: North Beach Walking Tour, Oct. 26, Nov. 23 & Dec. 21 at 11am. Begins outside the San Francisco Historical Society, 608 Commercial St.
Valley of the Queens, Tenderloin and Polk Street Walking Tour, Oct. 27, Nov. 23 & Dec. 21, 2pm. Begins at the Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy Street. $35. www.unspeakablevice.tours
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