Jerry Berbiar, a gay man known widely in the San Francisco LGBTQ community as Jerry the Faerie, died August 5. Mr. Berbiar was long a fixture in the Radical Faeries, the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, and the Bound Together Bookstore. He was 69.
Joey Cain, Mr. Berbiar's longtime friend and a caregiver for him, in April had traveled with him to Buffalo and Rochester, New York for the solar eclipse. In late June, Mr. Berbiar had returned from a Radical Faerie Gathering at the Wolf Creek Sanctuary in Oregon.
But weeks later he had posted on his Facebook page that he was experiencing "chest pain and weakness." Cain told the Bay Area Reporter that on July 31, Mr. Berbiar had gone to CPMC Hospital in San Francisco for an angioplasty and stent insertion.
That evening, Mr. Berbiar had posted to his social media a note saying he was "alive!" and expected to only be in the hospital overnight and released in the morning. "I'm ok," his post had ended.
Unfortunately, despite being on many anticoagulants, Mr. Berbiar had a "massive heart attack" later that day following the procedures, Cain said.
Tom Ammiano, the gay longtime political leader who was once a city supervisor and state assemblymember, said Mr. Berbiar "had a big heart, a fighting spirit, and he was really very, very funny and he's really going to be missed. I posted about his passing on my Facebook and the responses are so warm and encouraging."
Mr. Berbiar was born April 23, 1955 and was initially from Chicago, Cain said in a phone interview.
"He had a rough childhood," Cain said. "His parents separated and his father let his mother take him."
The two went to Los Angeles, but Mr. Berbiar's mother died by suicide. After a "couple of years in Madison, Wisconsin," Mr. Berbiar moved to San Francisco in 1977, Cain said.
"Like many of us in the mid-1970s, he moved here because of the gay community and San Francisco's reputation for the counterculture, to live a better queer life," Cain said. "He certainly partook of San Francisco's thriving gay community life. He loved the bars, he loved the bathhouses. He became very involved in the Radical Faeries in the early 1980s."
The Radical Faeries is a non-assimilationist gay men's spirit/culture exploration group that started in 1979. The late Harry Hay, who also co-founded the Mattachine Society, another early gay rights group, helped start the Radical Faeries with his partner, the late John Burnside; Mitch Walker; and Don Kilhefner.
Mr. Berbiar also became engaged in the Bound Together Bookstore, an anarchist co-operative in the Haight where he volunteered; and in the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club.
Tom Alder at Bound Together Bookstore remembered Mr. Berbiar as "bigger than life."
"He had quite the presence," Alder said in a phone interview. "He volunteered at the bookstore for quite a number of years."
Alder said Mr. Berbiar was involved in a number of caretaker groups, including those who helped look after Hay and Burnside in their later years.
"We'll miss him," Alder said.
Steve Heilig, a customer at the bookstore and a Haight denizen for 40 years, got on the line to share his thoughts about Mr. Berbiar.
"I always knew Jerry as a positive presence on the street," Heilig said. "Everybody liked him and he did kind things for street people."
Ammiano told the B.A.R. that Mr. Berbiar was "a fighter."
"He's from that generation that knows the difference between gay Pride and gay liberation which, alas, some of our present queer leaders seem to have lost sight of," Ammiano said in a phone interview.
When asked about that difference, Ammiano said that while the visibility of gay Pride is important, it's gay liberation that allows people to thrive. He gave as an example of Mr. Berbiar's fighting spirit an incident in which the two were accosted by a woman while protesting the ongoing Castro Theatre renovation project.
"He dressed her down in a way that even shut her up, and trust me, she was on a tear," Ammiano said. "It's just who he was, and it's going to leave a hole in a lot of people's hearts that he's gone. With AIDS, we lost so many people near and dear and so many years have passed, and we're losing some of the original warriors. Jerry the Faerie — he was a real Viking in the best sense of every word."
The theater is in the midst of a renovation after Another Planet Entertainment took over as manager in 2022. After numerous hearings by local government bodies, APE was cleared to remove the fixed orchestra seating and replace it with modular elements. The proposal led to a spirited debate in the community, with preservationists and many film lovers arguing against the changes. APE said the new plans were necessary to keep the theater competitive and to be able to have concerts and other events besides movies.
Ammiano characterized it as a "desecration" of the space, a view that Mr. Berbiar shared.
Larry-bob Roberts, another longtime friend, recalled Mr. Berbiar had multifaceted interests.
"I first met Jerry the Faerie in 1988, when he accompanied Harry Hay and John Burnside to the first Northwoods Radical Faerie Gathering, held in Wisconsin, following a talk by Harry in Minneapolis," Roberts wrote in a Facebook message. "Jerry's enthusiasm and personality were magnetic, and I met up with him when I visited San Francisco in 1990 and moved here in 1992.
"A longtime resident of the Haight, Jerry was involved in the anarchist bookstore collective Bound Together, but also volunteered in district electoral politics," Roberts added, "After being evicted from the Haight, he moved to housing near the train station."
Cain noted that Mr. Berbiar also did stand-up comedy.
When asked what Mr. Berbiar was most well known for, Cain said, "his kindness. When people had problems, Jerry would help and take care of them."
To that effect, Mr. Berbiar was part of a group that moved Mattachine Society and Radical Faeries co-founders Hay and Burnside to San Francisco to care for the gay rights pioneers in their final years. Hay died in 2002; Burnside passed away in 2008.
Mr. Berbiar had been a computer operator but, after contracting HIV in the early 1990s, went on Social Security Disability Insurance, Cain said.
He had acquired a space in the San Francisco Columbarium, and Cain hopes to hold a large memorial there in September or October, he said. Details will be forthcoming.
Mr. Berbiar, an only child, was not in touch with any relatives, Cain said, except elderly aunts who have since died.
"We were in a circle of loving companions who chose non-hetero ways of having relationships," Cain said. "We had a close circle of gay men who took care of each other."
Roberts wrote that he will miss his friend.
"I will miss Jerry's spark and vigorous community involvement," he stated. "They aren't making characters like Jerry anymore, and with his loss goes an irreplaceable part of San Francisco."
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